A fairwell to Farmers

We said goodbye to the Lake District tonight. After our hike up Jack's Rake, we went down to the Farmer's Arms to say goodbye to Malcolm, Jane, Becky and Chris and Toby. It was emotional.

Wendy shows Jack's Rake who is boss

Today we took a great final hike up the Langdale Pikes (familiar territory), but added an extra leg up Jack's Rake. Rob has been eyeing this particular climb for quite awhile, but Wendy was a tad bit nervous that she wouldn't be able to step up to the task. It is a rather steep ascent up the side of a rocky crag, and you are pretty exposed to a drop most of the way. Although it looked rather intimidating, it proved to be easier than expected, and SO much fun!!! This was just the perfect final day of hiking in the Lake District. These past two months have been just magical, and we can't wait to come back and visit our mountains and lakes in the very near future.

THe red line up the side of the crag is the path of the actual climb.

Kirby Moor in a storm

I (Rob) recently bought a mountain bike. I go cycling up on Kirby Moor where the local wind farm is located. Last weekend I was up there when a storm hit, which made things quite exciting. Simply getting onto the moor was difficult as I had to push a gate open into the wind, which was pretty much impossible. I went up there to shoot some film of the wind turbines in strong wind but unfortunately almost all of them were shut off as the wind was just too strong. Eventually I got too cold and had to head home.

Scafell round to Crinkle Crags with Whitbread

We got up super early for an all day epic starting in Wasdale. We scrambled up Scafell, back down and over to Scafell Pike and then knocked off all the surrounding peaks including Great End, Ill Crag, Esk Pike, Bowfell and the Crinkle Crags. It was a long day and we were happy to all into the bar at the Old Dungeon Ghyll hotel at the end.

A trip down south

We visited the Kew Gardens in London to check out a Henry Moore outdoor sculpture exhibit. It was such a beautiful clear day, and the juxtaposition of the enormous bronzes against the delicate gardens was really incredible. The greenhouses that were dotted around the garden housed some of the most spectacular plants, water lilies, and even chilies!

Earlier that day we stopped in Stonhenge. This was Wendy's first time there so it was pretty cool. You can't really appreciate the size of those freaking stones until you are next to them.

Helm Crag with Joji and Tomome, and a sheep's bum

Rob's friend Joji and his wife Tomome came to stay with us for the weekend. We took them up Helm Crag, where Joji posed in his Matrix gear. It was pretty windy, and Tomome was a bit worried that a quick gust would claim Joji as he stood on the summit. Luckily we all got done in good shape, then off to the pub for a little lunch and drinks.

A quick hike up Coniston and an extended dinner fit for a king

Our friends Joji, Tomome, Gerald and Rebecca stayed with us for a few nights. Joji and Tomome cooked their magic one night and served up quite a spread! Starting with wild mushroom pasta, and then an amazing rib steak and a beetroot salad. Lots of wine and laughs and even some dancing at our local pub afterwards. The girls ripped it up! The sleepy pub never knew what hit it when we took over the jukebox and performed our own choreographed version of "Fame"... Definitely a night to remember.

A hike up Bowfell

Lizzie, Marianne and Daniel visit - and get their rock shoes on

Lizzie, Marianne and Daniel came to stay for a couple of days. Among other things they brought their climbing skills with them. CLICK HERE for a video of Daniel, and CLICK HERE for a video of the positively simian Marianne!











We took them up to Muncaster which has been mentioned before in a previous entry. Daniel was very excited to get on the steam train from Ravenglass up to Dalegarth. During the ride Marianne and Daniel had a face-pulling competition. CLICK HERE to view and adjudicate for yourselves. Marianne also has a message for her father - CLICK HERE. Following the ride Marianne and Wendy discovered their shared love of owls.

Fun with Steve and Jane

Friends come to visit and we take them up Helm Crag

A flying visit to London for Frieze

We raced down to London by train for one night on Thurs/Fri last week. The train is a great way to travel - from Lancaster station which is about 45 mins away we are in London's Euston station within three hours, and we avoid the ridiculously high parking and congestion charges in London. We went down for the Frieze contemporary art show which was quite impressive in some ways. There were about 110 galleries hawking there works but relatively little that was interesting or new. We picked up a painting The Field by Brian Calvin which is on this post. It is now Rob's favorite painting. It stands six and a half feet tall and is so stunning in person that it blew both of us away. We made a new connection with a small gallery in London that represents Brian's work named Corvi Mora. Another artist we loved that we had seen previously in NY is named Anthony Goicolea. He does these enormous decaying landscapes in black and white that are haunting. Check out his site, it is definitely worthwhile. We also visited Michael Hoppen Gallery to see his Eyes of an Island show of Japanese photography, where we picked up a photo Kamaitachi by Eikoh Hosoe. The photograph represents a Japanese villager acting out the sickle weasle myth. After these purchases we headed back to the Lake District while we could still afford a ticket looking forward to the next few months living on bread and water.

The sun finally shines on the Old Man of Coniston - and a dog pees on Wendy's bag

On the third attempt at climbing the Old Man of Coniston there was finally a view at the top! And the view is stunning. Wendy took the day off after a few heavy days of hiking so dropped me off in Coniston. She went off to Ambleside to get a massage and do some shopping. After racing up the Old Man I cruised along up to Swirl How and round to the Little Carrs and Hell Gill Pike (I imagine this sounds like utter gibberish but maybe some nerd out there has a map and a few hours to check it all out). I stopped there for a sandwich, and then - drama struck. An elderly couple were hiking a little further ahead of me and one of them fell and started screaming. He had cracked his lower face on a sharp rock, badly gashing his chin and knocking out all his lower teeth. He was bleeding badly so we called the emergency services and eventually they said they would need to send a helicopter out because of the remote location, although we had to get him down quite a bit lower to a place where the chopper could land. I helped them down to Three Shire Stone getting rather nervous every time he stumbled where they were picked up by the dedicated mountain rescue team. By now it was getting late in the day and I was some way from where I needed to be so I raced off back over the Little Carrs and Swirl How to Goat's Hause where I took the beautiful jagged ridgeline made up of Dow Crag, Buck Pike and Brown Pike before dropping down to the Walna Scar Road (a run down track) which took me down to the village of Torver, where I met Wendy in the Wilson Arms, a charming little pub. We had a drink there and watched two dogs scrap with each other. While Wendy was distracted one of the dogs ran up and peed on her shopping bag. Appalled, she started reprimanding the dog for its behaviour, during which the other dog also peed on her bag!

Helvellyn in the rain

Hellvellyn in the rain.... what more can i say. Definitely Wendy's most challenging hike yet, as you can see from her photo she was not the happiest camper. She can only find solace in her ham and cheese sandwich. It is the third highest peak in all of England and from what we could see, has some incredible views. When we reached the summit it was so foggy that we couldn't see 10 feet in front of us! And then on the way down it started raining quite hard and things became a bit slippery...BUT it was a very rewarding day and we look forward to finding a clear day to try it again.

A visit to Derbyshire and Devon

We went south for a few days last week. On the way we visited Derbyshire, a beautiful county. We had a busy time. We started out at a sculpture exhibition at Chatsworth (which Wendy suspects was Mr Darcy's home in the recent film of Pride and Prejudice). It was one of the most impressive outdoor sculpture gardens we have ever seen. Damien Hirst had his towering pregnant woman there, Manolo Valdes had his rotund metal female, Anish Kapoor with his round (i find boring) metal ball objects, and Lynn Cartwright with two beautiful metal sculptures, one a dog and one her typical square headed couples. The contrast of these modern sculptures against the soft English gardens was breathtaking! The following day went up into the Peak District for walks around the gritstone crag at Stanage Edge and at Mam Tor, an iron age fort overlooking Castleton and Hope Valley. Stanage Edge is where ROb used to rock climb, and is also where Robinhood reportedly hid out in one of it's caves many moons ago. We also descended 300 ft into the Blue John mine just outside Castleton. 244 steps down and 244 steps back up, and then Rob made Wendy climb to the top of another peak to check out the surrounding gorges... And then we drove south to Devon to surprise Robs brother, Angus, for his birthday. Fun and crazy night!