Episode 38

Episode 38

We stayed in a jungle camp on the Kinabatangan River south of Sandakan. Here we had some trips up and down the river in the early mornings and late afternoons. Back at Sepilok we had met and English chap David, who is a keen bird watcher (twitcher), we had got off the bus from KK together and stayed at the same place in Sepilok and he had come here too at the same time. This was very handy as he had some books with the local birds illustrated so that we could put names to what we saw. Our guide too, just one guide for the 3 of us, was quite knowledgeable about the birds as well as other creatures we saw.

In our forays up and down the river we saw some brilliantly coloured kingfishers, lovely stately white egrets, grey herons, several different hornbills, and quite a variety of other birds. I got to see most of them fortunately. One morning we saw a group of river otters playing on a mud bank. There were several boat loads of tourists just like ourselves on the river and as we all neared the mud bank the otters ducked over the ridge and down behind it, but they were quite funny and very like Meercats in that they kept popping up for a look about. We watched them for quite some time. They are dark grey in colour and have lovely faces.

In the trees along the river we saw a colony of orang-utans, or I really should say everyone else saw them but I was damned if I could. Plenty of long tailed macaques about and one group of silver langurs and another of red langurs, these are both smaller types of monkey the latter having quite a red coloured fur. Proboscis monkeys live here too and we saw a couple of colonies of them. These are the same type as we saw in Brunei back last July at the start of our trip. Each colony of these monkeys has one male and his harem of females and their young. One big male we saw in a tree right at the rivers edge, it was the best view we have had of one and they are quite a large animal. The big males have an enormous hooked nose that is supposed to attract the females and this one was sitting there facing us with his bright red penis sticking straight up. It is thin and about 300mm (1ft long) and stood out very clearly against the yellow of his fur.

The river is very muddy and silting up because logging further upstream is leaving the land bare and erosion is becoming a big problem there whilst the silt is causing problems further downstream. Plenty of crocodiles on this river too, same species as the Australian estuarine crocks, and just as big.

Each evening we went for a torch light walk into the jungle to see whatever we could. Again the guide was quite good and we saw several frogs, some stick insects, spiders and scorpions and some sleeping birds. The thing that really surprised me is just how vulnerable the birds are at night. One, a red trogon, had his head tucked in and didn’t move a feather when the camera flashlight went off, and it did so several times each night. Another one was a tiny Taylor bird, he was awake and looking at us, but he didn’t move either, he just blinked, but another night he was flying about. Also saw a family of Bulbuls high up on a tree branch huddled together, mum, dad, and the kid in the middle. As we walked along the path with just torch light the guide would sometimes tell us to move along very fast whenever we came to an area where there are fire ants. The tracks were quite muddy and we wore wellington boots and long trousers to protect us from leeches and mosquitoes, not that there was a great many of the latter, very few really, some people did get leeches but I managed to avoid them. Poison ivy grows beside the track too and our legs needed protection from it too.

In the daytime we took a long walk through the jungle wading through mud over our ankles to an oxbow lake where we saw more birds but nothing different to what we’d seen on the river. Again we saw a great many leeches hanging on the leaves just waiting for someone to come by and brush them. David got one on him but I managed to avoid them completely. On our walk back from the lake we were joined by another group and with the track being very boggy our guide decided to take us over to the river bank and called back to the lodge for a boat to be sent for us. This idea worked well up to the point when we all got near the river bank and the boat came along. Then one of the other group, a chap from Singapore strode off towards the boat and sank up to his knees in the mud. He provided a great deal of entertainment for the rest of us as we watched while first he tried to move one foot then the other. Eventually with the help of the guides and others and some cut branches he was extradited and we all made our way very carefully over more cut branches across the mud and into the waiting boats. That mud was deadly:

In this area there is also the pygmy elephant, but at this time of year they are deeper into the forest and not easily found. They are called pygmy elephants because they are the smallest of all elephants but they are not small, just smaller than others. Our lodge has an electric fence around it to prevent them from wandering through and destroying the buildings.

From here we took a bus to Semporna on the east coast and from there we went out to the island of Mabul and stayed at a backpacker resort there. We did have intentions of doing some snorkelling on the reef but when we got there we found the sun so burning hot that we did little but take a few short swims in the early morning and late afternoon.

This island is a very popular base for divers wanting to dive on the reed off Sipidan Island. It is supposed to be one of the ten top dive spots in the world. I had thought to do snorkelling there but as I said it was just too burning hot and we had got very white from our time travelling in Europe. Still we spent quite a pleasant few days there keeping out of the sun. The island is very small and a village takes up most of it, then there are several resorts: Ours was built on stilts over the water right behind the main part of the village but there were several others spread around the island. Two of them were built on stilts over the water but much more upmarket than ours, and a couple were on the shore set among waving palm trees and with a swimming pool.

The village has rubbish spread everywhere, plastic bags, bottles, cans, God knows what, it was strewn about all over. One section of the village kept their area clean, each day it was swept clean and the sand raked but by late afternoon it was covered with litter again. There was piped water all around the village and we saw the water treatment plant, not sure about the sewerage though, just what happened with it, but there was some sort of system in place. In front of our resort was a reasonably clean area for swimming and a short walk past the end of the village was another area for swimming but even these places had a lot of rubbish in the water so it wasn’t all that nice. The temperature of the water was good though. An oil rig stood just offshore:

Just what all the people do for a living in this village I have no idea, but they certainly breed plenty of kids, never seen so many kids in one small village as I saw here:

The tide rose and fell several metres so this meant that there was quite a fast flowing current and a couple of girls who went snorkelling found themselves a long way from their starting point and called out for some one to come and collect them. A boat quickly went and picked them up. Some of the divers did comment that there was a great amount of rubbish on the reef though they all agreed that it was really good diving. Most came back quite sunburnt:

Next we spent a couple of days at Mount Kinabalu staying in one of the hostels in the park there. It was a Saturday afternoon when we arrived and I had been a bit concerned that we might have trouble getting accommodation there at the weekend but as it turned out there was no shortage of availability. Staying at the same hostel we met a lovely lady from Germany named Gisela with whom we made friends.

I would have liked to climb the mountain but I really wasn’t sure that I was up to it, David even less so, but as it turned out we didn’t find any group that had any spare places. With this walk you have to take a guide and stay overnight at a hostel about 500m below the summit. The agencies who organize walks to the summit book all the accommodation in advance so that it is very hard for independent travellers to get any. You must ask around the different groups of hikers and see if any have got some of their party that doesn’t want to do the climb, or not turned up, that way you can take their place.

The view of the mountain in the early morning from the veranda of the cafe is beautiful. The cafe is at an altitude of 1500m approx, and the jagged tops of the mountain are around the 4100m, and with the sun glistening off the sheets of steep, bare granite rock that has to be crossed by the hikers, it looks quite daunting. Each morning we would sit and eat breakfast on this veranda and think about those souls on the mountains who had left the hostel near the top that we could see, at 3am, to climb the last 500m to see the sunrise from the top. By 9am generally, the cloud is forming around the top and obscuring it from view.

Even without climbing the mountain there are a number of trails around through the forest that make quite good walks though the map the office hands out seems to bear little relationship to the actual trails and we seemed to go in circles somewhat. We joined a short nature walk and the young guide pointed out a number of plants and gave us a run down on their uses. One in particular is called the kerosene fruit. This yellow fruit produces an oil that the native people use to light their fires. It has quite a pleasant smell: The guide thinks the tree belongs to the leprospermum family: One of the tall forest trees is related to the Australian eucalypts:

Another guided walk was through the botanical garden section of the park. Here we saw the smallest orchid in the world; the flower is only about 2cm across, and the rarest orchid in the world. The flower on this one had died and another bud not yet out, but at least we saw the plant. Apart from this plant there are some seeds in the Kew Gardens seed bank in England. That’s how rare it is:

Many of the plants have been used by local tribes people for medicinal purposes and in this garden scientists are experimenting with them to see if they do indeed provide effective medicines. Others are being tested to see if they have any commercial uses that may in the future, provide income for the local village people.

We saw a few different birds and David saw a couple of squirrels but that was it as far as wild life went so we went off to Poring Hot Springs some 40k’s away to have a soak in the thermal bathes. That was pleasant enough and while here we also did another ‘canopy walk’. This one was much more natural. With a tower at each end the actual walkway was made of aluminium ladders bolted together and a plant laid over the top, so that it was quite narrow. From each side a mesh net stretched upward to the rope at the top that formed a hand rail so that should you fall over you would just bounce off the net and still be on the walkway. It is very bouncy to walk on especially when you have several other people on it at the same time.

It was in 4 sections of about 50 to 60m each section. From the tower to a large tree with a platform around it, then on to another tree and so on: At one point we were 40m above the ground but still way below the canopy of the tall forest trees. We saw a few flowers below us and looked down on many lower trees but we saw nothing in particular. The big trees used as anchors are called ‘concrete trees”. They got this name because they are extremely hard but when felled they shatter so that they have no commercial use. Because of this they have been left alone.

The thermal baths at Poring were developed by the Japanese during WW2, the only positive thing their occupation did, so the locals say. There is one very hot pool that is really too hot to jump into so everyone just dips there feet into it from time to time. Then there are a large number of small tubs in groups of 4 and these can be filled to a temperature to suit the individual. Each has a hot and cold tap over it but they only run slowly and so take ages to fill. Each tub comfortably takes two people sitting in it or a family of 6 sitting around the edge. Then there is a fairly large cold water pool to cool off in. It was nice there and as the hot tubs are under cover we didn’t have to worry about being sun burnt.

We were a little lucky in the fact that in the forest near the spring there was one Rafflesia flower out: This is the largest flower in the world and can have a diameter of around 1m, though the one we saw was a little smaller, about 600cm dia. They only last about 5 days and this is not the season for them, they usually flower August to October: This plant had a dead flower beside the open one and nearby there was another bud, but it may be months before the bud opens out. The flower is red with white spots and has a large ‘bowl’ in the middle with the stamen in it. It is said to give off the smell of rotting meat to attract the flies that pollinate it but we couldn’t smell anything. These flowers grow in the same area as the huge bamboos that grow up to 40m high and have stems as thick as 14cm diameter.

Back in KK we booked a flight to Kuching in Sarawak for the next day.

© Lynette Regan April 15^th 2008

Episode 37

Episode 37

Haynes Motor Museum was started by the same man who started the Haynes maintenance manuals for cars. It is in Somerset and we visited it on a fairly quiet afternoon.

I think they must have got a job lot of bright red paint, Ferrari red, according to David, because a great many cars in one room were painted in the same very bright colour with a few others in slightly different reds. The majority of cars in this museum are classics; there are some vintage and veteran cars and some that are quite modern like a new Ferrari and Jaguar. Most are British in manufacture but there are several big American cars from the 1950’s, a few cars from Europe too, and one or two Japanese. All are presented in immaculate condition, a handful are actually replicas of rare cars and some are kit cars. One of those replicas was of the first car ever built back in the 19^th century. I think it is the same one that we have seen on display in a shop window in Vienna. I found it quite interesting to look at cars that I was familiar with as a child back home; cars such as the Ford consul and zephyr, the Austin’s and Morris’s and a few others. A couple of rooms were devoted to old motorbikes and David spent a good while reminiscing over those.

Heading towards Newport Pagnell and a visit with our friend Ria we passed by the white horse near Westbury. This is a large drawing of a horse that is cut into the steep hill side of the downs. I don’t know its measurements but it is very large and can be seen from quite a long distance. It is white as that is the colour of the chalk downs once the grass has been removed. The present horse dates from the 18^th century though it is believed that it was drawn over a much older one that possibly dates from nearly 1000 years earlier. The origins are very unsure but it could have something to do with winning a battle against the Danes. Some way further on in Oxfordshire we saw another, this one is quite different being more of an outline and quite stylized at that; its origins are said to be much older possibly as much as 3000 years old. It is not possible to see this horse properly from the ground so ideally the best way is to take a hot air balloon trip over it, but that would be a summer time thing anyway. It was threatening to rain with a bitterly cold gusty wind on the day we visited still the view over Oxfordshire from this point was very extensive, it looked very pretty with all the green fields and small villages.

As we drove along I noticed that the huge stacks of silage appeared to be almost untouched after the winter so presumably the winter as a whole has been very mild and the animals have been able to graze in the fields most of the time so have not needed the silage. There seems to be some very young lambs about a week or two old and many that are 2 or 3 months old but not much in between.

Newport Pagnell is a village that is part of Milton Keynes and as we drove through the area we passed the concrete cows that have been a feature of the area for many years. A great number of these cows have been stolen over the years and are no doubt adorning the gardens of Mediterranean villas or Reindeer farms in Lapland or maybe someone is putting together a farm of concrete cows, they come is a variety of sizes and painted black and white. The stolen ones have been replaced again and again; someone is perhaps encouraging the thefts so that they are kept in a job replacing them.

Ria, as per usual made us very welcome at her home is this lovely village. Her gentleman friend Brian took all of us on an outing into the Cotswolds one day. The weather was none too accommodating but never-the-less we had a lovely day with a visit to Stow-on-the-Wold where I had once stayed in the youth hostel many years ago and a walk between the villages of Lower and Upper Slaughter then a visit to Bourton-on-the-Water all of which I visited during my stay at Stow. The houses in these Cotswold villages are built of a lovely light cream stone, a very similar colour to our golden sandy beaches at home. When the sun chooses to shine the new building seem to almost glow, they are very pretty. As the stone ages it goes darker to a rich caramel colour or discolours with lichen and mould to a dirty gray colour. All the new houses are built using the same type of stone and usually in a style that blends in well with the rest of the village. Bourton was one of the villages that were badly flooded back in July, the weekend we first arrived in England last year; some of the buildings are still being repaired.

With all sorts of dire weather predicted for Easter we quite pleasantly surprised when Good Friday turned out to be a lovely sunny day but with a chilly wind, still got a couple of light showers through the latter part of the afternoon. Here, in England most of the shops and services are open for business on Good Friday and Saturday, but Sunday will be more like Christmas Day with virtually everything closed.

The weather stayed very changeable right up until the day we left England. We sold the car during the last week and the new owners agreed to take us to Heathrow early on Saturday morning. It was a fairly clear morning and the sun, a glorious orange ball, rose slowly over the tree tops. Heathrow was its usual chaotic self, at least we were departing from terminal 3, not the new BA terminal 5 where nothing seemed to be going to plan.

Our flight left on time and we got a bit of view of the suburbs around the airport before becoming enveloped in cloud that stayed with us the rest of the day as we passed over Europe. We landed in Dubai in the evening and this time got a short while to have a bit of a look about: Several great imitation date palms decorate the hallways and sitting under them on wooden seats, not camels, were some Arabs in white jelabas, their belongings in plastic bags beside them and tapping away at a wifi connected laptop on their knees.

Brunei was hot and sultry when we stepped out of the airport and into the tropical heat that hits almost like a physical force as you emerge from the air-conditioned customs hall. We stayed a couple of nights here but really didn’t see anything new before heading off towards Sabah in Malaysia.

A half hour bus ride, a couple of hours wait, then we passed through immigration and climbed onto the enclosed, narrow and long speed boat that would take us to Pulau Labuan, an island just off the coast of Borneo that is part of Malaysia but a Federally run duty free island, not really a part of Sabah or Sarawak. We had another wait before finally leaving and an hour later arrived in Banda Labuan, the town and port on the island. Unlike most of the other passenger we decided to stay overnight here before continuing on towards Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.

It was on this island that the Japanese forces in Borneo finally surrendered to the allies at the end of WW2. A large war cemetery here is the final resting place for a large number of Australian and British servicemen. We also visited a large Chinese temple that is currently undergoing extensions and we watched some craftsmen at work doing the bas relief on the pillars. They were making the dragons and flowers that wind about the pillars using a fine mortar. The ceiling was moulded and decorated using a vast amount of gold leaf and most of the rest of the interior was tiled in bright lemon yellow shinny tiles.

Took a fast speed boat ferry to Kota Kinabalu: The crossing was smooth but the air-conditioning was freezing, I needed defrosting when we arrived but once outside in the humid heat I soon thawed: this is a fairly big city surrounded by jungle and to the north is the massive bulk of Mt Kinabalu but I haven’t seen it yet. The mountain is the highest in Borneo and the highest in Southeast Asia at around 4100m. Not sure if I’m going to try and climb it yet, I haven’t had much in the way of exercise for a long time so I think it might be a bit too much for me. David probably wouldn’t be able to cope with that altitude though he has been up to that height years ago.

KK is a typical Asian city with a mixture of markets and market stalls selling everything imaginable and many things that are unimaginable and certainly unidentifiable. The smell of dried fish hanging in the stalls is overwhelming and permeates everywhere just as it does in the supermarkets back in Portugal. Mix with that the odour of a vast variety of meats and vegetables cooking on the small street stalls, the smell of spices and the general foul smell of the city and you about have it. The streets have been swept and are fairly free from garbage but not from cats, there are cats of all colours, shapes and sizes everywhere, even less flies than cats. Spread around the city are a number of air-conditioned shopping malls where its possible to find all the top brand names that you find anywhere in the world.

We walked through the late afternoon fish market and saw the massive array of fresh fish and seafood on offer from fish of all sizes to large piles of squid, many rays, and very large prawns. One wonders for how much longer this sort of catch can be sustained.

It seems to rain most afternoons or evenings, that heavy tropical rain that dumps an enormous amount of water in a short space of time then clears away leaving the air fresh and clean. Listening to the traffic report on the radio at the hostel it sounds as if Kuala Lumpur is badly flooded today and the traffic is in chaos, glad we aren’t there.

While in the city we visited the museum that is situated in some quite modern buildings not far from the centre of the city. There are some interesting displays on natural history, the birds, animals, insects, butterflies, fish and sea mammals. Probably far more here than we will get to see in real life: Some archaeology too; pottery burial jars that have come to light on a river bank and probably date from about the 16^th century, and other bits and pieces of pottery that is of Chinese origin. Evidence in some caves of human habitation in this part of Borneo for at least the last 3000 years:

A large display is devoted to the Japanese occupation of the Island during WW2; there were some POW camps here and of course the famous death march from Sandakan on which all the prisoners perished except for 6 Australians who I believed escaped that is how they managed to survive. It is only through them that anything is known of this march; apparently the Japanese didn’t record the event at all.

In the grounds of the museum we looked into a number of native houses that have been constructed. They come from a number of different tribes but are all quite similar in layout. Built up off the ground they have bamboo flooring that allows for the breeze to circulate through the floor, and they all have a veranda on the front and a cooking and eating area at the rear. The walls are timber or bamboo and the roof is a thatch with the rattan vine used to tie things together. In another building we saw a display on the railway that was once constructed here; there is still a small section of line that is used from Kota Kinabalu to Beaufort. The display covered the development of railway in Britain too. Another display I found interesting was one on radio, it even had an old radio studio and TV studio set-up in the room showing equipment from the 1950’s and 1960’s. A large area is an art gallery devoted to local artists covering a range of painting styles and some of the work here is very good.

I mentioned the POW camp at Sandakand a few paragraphs back, there is also a large Australian War Memorial there and this coming ANZAC day there will be a big service there.

We left KK one Friday morning and caught the bus to Sepilok over near the east coast. Our route took us along the main road past Mount Kinabalu that at the time of day we passed was covered in cloud. Our ticket cost included a small bottle of water and a midday meal at a roadside restaurant. The big air conditioned bus was equipped with video that showed a movie for those that wanted to watch it, I preferred the passing scenery. Fortunately the video wasn’t too loud nor the aircon too cold.

We passed through many small villages; in fact the road side has houses or stalls nearly all the way. In the vicinity of the mountain there are some valleys that are intensely farmed and roadside stalls hereabouts sell fresh produce from these farms. Most of the land has been cleared of its native forest, just as in every other country in the world, and where it is not being farmed the land has been invaded by thick, green fast growing shrubs and vines that are really pests and strangle or prevent any native timber from regrowing.

As we got a bit further to the east we came into the large oil palm plantations and wherever you look all you can see are the lines of oil palms marching off in all directions. Thick vines cover the ground and grow into the trees so there must be quite a lot of work involved in clearing this vine out of the trees from time to time. The plantations we saw ranged from those with mature trees to those that have just been planted. In one place we saw that they are harvesting the palm nuts, these come in large bunches that weigh about 10kg and consist of a great many roundish shaped fruit the size of a large marble, generally black in colour but shading to a yellow colour near the base of the bunch. I cannot say if one tree produces one bunch or several or how long they take to mature but I can say that the margarine here is made using palm oil and it tastes ‘bloody awful’.

At Sepolik we visited the Orang-utan sanctuary: This is one of the rehabilitation centres where orphaned young ones are raised and then gradually weaned from being feed by humans until they can fend for themselves in the jungle. The process takes about 7 years and involves many stages. The babies have to be fed every few hours and they must be taught the skills that their mothers would normally teach them such as climbing and what food to eat.

We watched a video on all this training but the only thing we could see was a feeding session. There are two feeding sessions each day and they take place a few hundred metres from the visitors centre. All us visitors and there was a great many of us, could go out to a viewing area where, at one of the trees there is a feeding platform and long ropes leading to it from the large trees in this nature reserve. The ropes are for the orang-utan to come along to the feeding platform so that they don’t have to come over the muddy ground or do damage to the lower branches of the trees by using them too much. The ones that come here for some food have been released into the nearby forest and can find food for themselves and sleep in the trees but have the reassurance of getting food here if they want it. Some days many come along, on other days only one or two may come, it is unpredictable how many will turn up.

Six different ones turned up for us as well as several long tailed macaques, another type of monkey: Orang-utans are similar to the chimpanzees and gorillas in that they have no tail. They have longish fur of a reddish brown colour. At a guess I would say they would be about 1200 to 1500mm (4ft to 5ft) tall and their arms are very long and stretchy and flexible for climbing and swinging their way through the jungle. I liked the way they would just hang onto the rope with one hand, feed on some bananas they were holding in the other hand and cast their eye over all us tourists who were watching them. The chap who brought the food also had a bucket of milk and each one that came had a drink of this milk. The macaques know an easy meal is to be had and make sure they get some too even if it means stealing some from an orang-utan who is departing with a handful of bananas.

Here at Sepolik there is also a rainforest discovery centre. A brand new short section of very heavy rigid ‘canopy walk’ has just been built and wasn’t yet open. We had been told that we could climb the tower but not walk along the walkway as it hadn’t been officially opened. When we got there we did what everyone else was doing and walked along it, not that there was much to see really, just looking down on the trees instead of up into them. Several towers have been constructed but only one short section of walkway about 100m long between two towers is finished. It certainly is not ‘low impact’. Big areas have been cleared for each tower and the area under the walkway has been cleared to make way for the heavy steel supports, it would dam near carry a train it looks that strong.

At this centre there are some walks and a lovely botanical section that has a massive range of plants that is divided into sections for each species. Small signs gave information about the plant, its habitat and how it may be used. I found it really interesting and we spend ages here. The display of orchids was beautiful even though it isn’t the main flowering season for them; there was an area full of pitcher plants too. These are wonderful plants that can grow on very poor soils because they obtain their nutrients from catching insects in its ‘pitcher’. Many of these are very tiny but here in Borneo they also have a very large one that has a ‘pitcher’ that can hold 3.5lt of fluid. These large ones are found in the Poring Springs area and it has been know for these plants to catch the local rats. The insects, and the rats too, are attracted to the plant by a sweet smelling solution that it excretes. They eat this solution and fall into the pitcher and can’t climb out because downward facing spikes prevent their escape. They drown and are dissolved by the liquid and absorbed into the plant. Very clever I think: The pitcher is really an extension of the leaf:

©Lynette Regan 15^th April 2008

Episode 36

Episode 36

The high peaks of Montserrat are very aptly named for indeed the whole outline of the mountain does appear very serrated from all directions.

We drove up into the nation park where there are a number of hotels and a monastery at around the 750m level. From this point there are some paths upward and a funicular, a particularly steep one. Going down from this point there is a cable car and another funicular.

Being well into the afternoon when we arrived here we took the funicular up to its top station, a view point with great views over the city of Barcelona 50k’s away to the east, the Mediterranean, and the Pyrenees to the north. Unfortunately it was very hazy and we couldn’t even see Barcelona, let alone anywhere further away. We did a couple of short walks, all we had time for but because of the haze the views were not better at the higher points. There were a lot of people up on the mountain with backpacks and camping gear set for a couple of days of hiking I expect.

In some ways it resembled Torres del Paine in Chile except that the peaks here are more soft and rounded, but the whole place has a similar form. Here the rock is conglomerate and siltstone and sandstone, it was all once on the bottom of a sea. At some point in time it has been up-lifted and folded and the wind, rain, and ice have weathered it into what we see now. The high bare upper rock has formed into huge fat vertical columns. There are some that have been given names because of there odd shapes, the pregnant woman, and the elephant (that is a really good one), there are others that resemble faces and other forms.

On a warm sunny morning we drove into Barcelona. Parked the car in a parking station then we set off on foot to have a look around this city. Possibly founded as early as 230BC it has been occupied by the Romans, Visigoths, the Muslims before being retaken by the Christians in the 1140’s. Modern Barcelona with its population of around 1.5 million is a bustling city with some broad avenues, tree lined, and many narrow dark and dingy streets. In the oldest part of the city there are lots of narrow alleys too.

La Rambla is a long wide street with a pedestrian walkway down the centre that is lined with tourist stalls, open air cafes, buskers and very crowded, mostly tourists. Some of the buskers can be quiet entertaining. On either side there are shops that sell just about everything, hostels, hotels, a food market and a flower market. At the south-eastern end where it meets the water front stands a tall column as a monument to Christopher Columbus. Just across from that is the rather attractive looking Port building, possibly an old customs house but we couldn’t find out for sure. Then there is a very large and full marina and an aquarium amongst other things on the broad walks along the water front.

In a tent set up in this area we saw a display about the Barcelona ‘round the world’ yacht race that hasn’t quite finished yet. It started on the 11^th of November and the first yachts to finish arrived back here about the 9^th of February. They sailed down the west coast of Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, through the southern ocean south of Australia, through Cook Strait between the North and South Islands of NZ then around Cape Horne and back to here without making landfall along the way. Each yacht had only two crew:

We meandered through the old city and admired some of the lovely old buildings. Although most buildings are around 10 stories high there are very few really high buildings in the city, and none of them are in this area. Most of these are 19^th and early 20^th century, though there are some older ones. Some have a tower at a corner or some sculptures around them. One had several pictures embossed on one wall. It was hard to get a good look at them as the street was very narrow and they were up quite high.

The Cathedral was completely swathed in scaffolding and gauze with a painted rendition of what it might look like on the gauze. It was closed at the time we passed by and no-one seemed too certain at what time it might re-open. A small section of the old Roman wall was visible too.

A little further on we saw a very pretty building painted in soft pastel shades that highlighted the sculptures and mouldings all around the exterior so that they appeared like cameos above the plaster surface. It was 2 to 3 stories high and also had stained glass windows. It was locked up tight so we did what everyone else was doing and peered through the large windows to see some of the interior. The lobby ceiling was vaulted and corded with the cording highlighted in a dark paint and the pink marble stair case had amber uprights in the balustrade. It is called Palau del Baro de Quadras and used to house a museum of musical instruments but no longer does so.

Probably the most spectacular site is the still unfinished church known as ‘The Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia’. Sort of looks a bit like a medieval cathedral that lost the plot somehow. It’s not very old, it was begun in 1882 funded by a wealthy publisher and with one architect who had simple tastes but he was replaced two years later by Antoni Gaude who didn’t like straight lines so everything is curves in one form or another.

One each end are a number of conical shaped spires that appear to me to be honeycombed, they reach about 75m above the ground. In the design there is to be one that will be double that in height: On the north eastern end that appears to be the oldest there are three recessed archways full of carvings that depict Christs birth and childhood. To me when I looked up at them I got the impression I was looking into caves. Apparently Gaudi did much of this sculpture himself. There is much scaffolding on the outside where there is on going work and even more inside where only part of the recently built transept can be seen. The tall pillars here appear to branch out after 20m and soar another 10m or more to give the impression of trees branching into shell like mouldings that form the inside of the roof. The floor is cluttered with the form work that was used to make those mouldings. There is plenty of light to see here as there are no windows in place yet and the roof is not complete. The remainder of the interior is all scaffolding except for one small chapel that is used for services.

In the crypt is a display of old photos showing progress on construction from its earliest years as well as plaster models of various parts of the building and lots of other information about the place and the people who had a hand in its construction.

Looking at it from the outside there is a vast contrast between the stone used in the early part of the constructions and the concrete being used now, as I’m sure there is a vast difference in the equipment that was used to the great cranes that are now being used to finish off the high towers. Although in recent years there has been quite a lot of progress in the construction it is not in imminent danger of being finished though with the number of tourists who visited the place there should be ample funds to do so. It was quite crowded now, what it must be like in the summer I dread to think; for those that dearly desired to visit the tower the wait was at least 1 hours. A view this place their website is: www.sagradafamilia.org

In the late afternoon with a thundering headache we headed back to the car, our need to escape the city out-weighing our desire to see more of it so before the traffic got too bad we headed off out of the city and back into the wooded hill to camp the night in the pine forest. The smell of pine and rosemary, a much nicer combination than the odours of the city:

Now we are heading up into the Pyrenees and across the border into France again. On Friday the 29^th Feb we are booked on a ferry from Boulogne-sur-mer to Dover and then back to Arundel. Heather, our long suffering friend there will by then, have returned from her sojourn in the sun in Borneo.

Climbing up through the Pyrenees we crossed the border into France. Along the way we passed a few resort villages, they are probably ski resorts except that there isn’t any snow here for skiing. Just to the north is one of the highest mountains in the Pyrenees, Pic de Conigou at nearly 2900m. On the east-west axis of the ridge there is a little snow to be seen on the high tops, the south facing flank is free from snow, the north facing flank, we later saw, has just a smattering of snow on the high slopes, not near enough for skiing. There were a few people about in the villages but also many places closed up. Lower down in the wooded hills we passed through a forest of cork and holm oak trees and despite the repeated signs for deer all we saw were two alpaca and a field full of mole hills.

In many of the villages we saw wattles in full bloom, I think most were a black wattle, the one with a fern type leaf, but a few were Cootamundra wattles or something very similar. On a couple of hillsides there were plantations of wattles, each of about 5acres (2 hectares), they stood out like giant yellow flags. The fruit trees are also in blossom, we passed through a valley where most were either in full bloom or starting to bloom. They were all shades of bright pink. In household gardens the purple magnolias are flowering too. A few more days of this really warm weather and the trees will be in leaf. I can’t believe that it is only February as I have not needed my pullover to walk about and I’ve been wearing only sandals, despite the fact that we pass people wearing heavy coats and boot. Being the weekend the cyclists are all and about, thousands of them riding up and down the mountains, perhaps they are all training for the ‘tour de France’.

David spotted a sign to a gorge so we went and had a look. It was very pretty; gray rock with green shrubs growing in the crevices and sheltered spots. A narrow winding road clung to the edge of the narrow chasm about 35m above the stream with the high peaks towering another 80m or so above. This is Gorges de Galamus. After about 4k the valley suddenly opened out into farmland.

I did notice that it appears to be quite dry in the mountains. The streams are a mere trickle, possibly that is normal at this time of year but if they are depending on melting snow to boost them in the spring then they are going to be sorely disappointed unless one hell of a lot of snow falls soon. There is barely enough up there at present to fill a tea cup.

Near the town of Millau there is a massive viaduct on the motor way. We saw it from a distance and passed right underneath. It’s a type of suspension bridge and the pylons reach 370m high; about 100m of that is above the road level. It is very long too: We had been following the Tarn River upstream past as series of dams with small hydro stations in a narrow, steep, pine clad valley. These dams are nearly full unlike the Spanish ones.

Not far further on we came to the gorges of the Tarn River. The Tarn and Jonte Rivers almost encircle an area of limestone plateau .There is a gap of about 15 to 20k’s between the sources of both rivers then the Jonte flows due west while the Tarn flows north, then west, then south, to a point where they join and become the Tarn near the town of Le Rozier. There are a number of caves in the area and a large sink hole but they are all closed at this time of year. We could drive through the gorges and they are really pretty with the shallow sandy river at the bottom, sheer limestone cliffs above with trees and shrubs growing out of nooks and crannies. A few villages cling to the sides of the gorges too, they blend in really well with their surroundings as they are built of local stone and have slate roofs that are discoloured with mosses and mould. There was a chateau too on the bank of the river.

Although the plateau reaches up to around the 1000m mark there was no snow and it was quite warm, some distance further north past the town of Mende where we got up around 1300m we saw just a little snow left in the sheltered areas. Looking eastwards towards the Alps we saw a few snowy high mountain tops but it was so warm here that I wondered how the snow had managed to last this long.

I will try and tell you something of the difference between the Spanish and French villages. In Spain most of the housing is in unit or flats in two and three story buildings in small villages, much higher blocks in larger towns; in France, in the area that we have passed though so far over the last few days, although there are some units or flats mostly there are more separate houses with small gardens. In Spain in most places the buildings were nearly all whitewashed though in the north of the country we did encounter many that were built of stone or were painted in earthy colours. Nearly every building had an orange/terracotta roof. In France they don’t go in for the whitewash, they use the soft earthy colours when the places are painted or use local stone. Most of the roofs are gray slate. Some of the slate we have seen is really thick, 3 to 4cm so the roofs must be really heavy, no wonder they always seem to be sagging in the middle.

In this area too we have seen some little stone buildings with large wood fired ovens in one end. We have not yet been able to work out what they are used for but perhaps they use them to smoke ham. In Spain there were many villages that specialled in their own locally smoked hams. The pigs there are fed on the acorns of the holm and cork oaks and produce a ham of distinctive flavour. In this part of France the forest is mainly deciduous oak and pine so perhaps the pigs here too are fed on the acorns.

The days continued to be warm, especially so for this time of year and the willow trees are coming into leaf and the forsythia beginning to flower, (at least I think it is forsythia), it is bright yellow. Plenty of sheep and lambs in the fields along with cows and horses and the spring crops are growing well. All the garden centres seem to be quite busy so I think spring must be in the air.

We have driven along beside and crossed over several canals, France is crisscrossed by canals; there aren’t many boats on them at present but when summer comes they will be crowded with pleasure craft. These canals must be stocked with fish; we have noticed a few people sitting in the sunshine on grassy banks fishing.

Since we have a time limit we have not been above to spend much time looking about places. In a couple of towns we have seen Chateaux and castles but most places are still closed. Even the tourist information places are mostly closed, yet those that are open have told us that they are quite busy with people phoning and faxing for information.

Driving northward across France skirting around Paris to the east of the city we passed through one after another pleasant French village. These villages we found quite nice they didn’t appear bland as those we had passed through on the way south. Each seemed to have a little character with a bakers and butchers and a coffee shop along the main road though we saw very few people moving about. In an English village at 10am there would be heaps of activity around the streets with people shopping or workmen attending to things but in these French villages it was hard to spot anyone; didn’t even see kids going to or coming home from school; what do they all do? Farmers on tractors are a common sight, usually we see them when trying to negotiate a very narrow road, they are invariably coming towards us with a huge great trailer or combine behind and we have to pull off into a hedge or something to let them pass.

The country was mainly rolling farmland with plenty of pasture and crops; we did pass through an area where there were quite a lot of dairy farms and another valley that was full of grape vines but generally it was agricultural country. The last couple of days we had a lot of drizzle most of the time.

It was on a dreary and cold morning that we caught the ferry back to England. We were almost back in Dover before we could see the white cliffs; the sea wasn’t rough but very gray and daunting looking. Low cloud and drizzle accompanied us all the way back to Arundel. The daffodils were all in bloom along with the primroses and hyacinths, the forsythia was coming out and the snow drops had virtually finished. Big areas of golden daffodils everywhere!

Since we’ve been back we haven’t really done much. Went down to Cornwall again, saw Sharon, David’s cousin who had been out to Burnett Heads in our absence and caught up on her experiences whilst there. We also went back for another look around the Eden Project. Again the weather wasn’t very nice with overcast skies. Here too the spring flowers were out in force with great swathes of daffodils from the tiny miniature ones to great tall giant ones. Some have the very deep almost orange centres whilst others are almost white. We came upon an area where several Australian tree ferns are growing. A small notice here tells that they were planted last year and gives the story of how they came to get here; it seems that they arrived in England in a consignment that didn’t have all the proper documentation so they were confiscated by Customs and Quarantine (or the British equivalent) and distributed to parks, gardens and charitable projects such as this Eden Project right around the country. Being a plant it seems that you don’t get deported if you come without your proper paperwork:

The Eden Project will celebrate its birthday on 17^th March; it opened to the public on that date in 2001 apparently.

The night we stayed with Sharon near Launceston there was a very bad storm on the north coast of Cornwall although we did get rain and fairly strong winds we were sheltered from the worse of it. When we visited Port Isaacs the next day we found that the road to the next village had been washed away to a large extent so there was no longer vehicle access into that village. At least that will give the residents a traffic free Easter. Port Isaacs is the picturesque little village facing a tiny bay that was used as a setting for the television series ‘Doc Martin’. The houses are built of a light gray stone with slate roofs, mosses and lichens grow on the roofs making them appear almost like tiny gardens. One narrow road descends into the village separated from the cliffs either by a stone wall or by some small houses and shops that cling to the cliff edge with a pounding surf bashing itself against the rocks below. For the privilege of parking your car on the sandy beach at the bottom, only possible when the tide is out, you must pay the princely sum of £2.

From the fast flowing stream that flows into the bay the village spreads up the steep hills on both sides with the houses accessed by a number of steep narrow alleyways. One of these is Temple Bar said to be the narrowest thoroughfare in the world at only 18 inches (450mm) wide in one part. Not only is it very narrow by it is also very low as a house is built over the top so that people like David have to bend to pass through the passage.

It was almost deserted on this blustery, cold and wet afternoon, we tried to find a postcard but the only place we found to be open was the post office and that was limited to just post office business as the rest of the shop was is the process of being redecorated and had nothing else for sale. We were told that most places would be opening on the 17^th for the start of the school holidays and the Easter break but on this afternoon the place seemed pretty well deserted.

Travelling along the north coast of Devon we called in at Clovelly where we found a car park above the ‘traffic free’ town that charges £10 for parking whether it be for 5mins whilst you pop into the tourist information office or 10 hours whilst you walk around the coast. To us this seemed a bit over the odds so we drove back out and went along to the next and much more tourist friendly town.

At a small place called Westwardho we watched the surf breaking against the sea wall. The 3 to 4m waves were rolling in and crashing against the wall sending spray high into the air. It must have been unusual as many local people were out photographing these waves. Many holiday units and a park full of demountable caravans are positioned just a few feet above the sea level and no doubt being sprayed with sea water from time to time. If sea levels should rise then it won’t take much for these demountables to become ‘house boats’. The wild seas continued all along that north coast of Devon.

© Lynette Regan 17^th March 2008