Category Great Britain
Towpaths, Tramways and Tall Things
This morning was the sunniest we’ve had for a while – time for Ian to hit the trail again, with another 20-ish km day planned. I dropped him off near Hayfield, and he found the Pennine Bridleway, a good path which took him straight to New Mills. In the meantime, I’d driven on to Whaley […]
A Walk to the Shops (Look Out for Humped Pelicans)
We like to plan “rest days” roughly once a week – a chance to sleep in, do the laundry, catch up on correspondence, and generally hit the Pause button. With more rain forecast, today seemed the right day. However, we needed to pick up a few odds and ends at the supermarket at the other […]
The Value of a Real Map
Every orienteer knows that map accuracy is vital. So of course that’s why Ian set off to walk across the Peak District National Park, with only a brochure that we picked up at Sheffield Station. This colour leaflet includes reasonable instructions, and a somewhat sketchy route map that is not to scale. Disclaimer: it does […]
Ian’s Blog for his Halifax Inside Tour
Regular readers will not doubt recall that we like to mix a little family history with our travels. So when we found ourselves planning to visit the Midlands part of England, it was clear that a lot of aviation history would be on our bucket list. Particularly after we discovered a museum that had one […]
Grindleford to Beyond Hope
Ian’s second walking day took him from where he left off in Grindleford, continuing west across the southern (Derbyshire) section of the Peak District National Park, for 15 km to a point west of Hope. Here are his pictures from today, including the Stepping Stones (which he didn’t venture onto). He’d seen some of this […]
How Hard Can It Be?
Walk the entirety of the York City Walls – that was my aim for the day. Almost 50 years ago, last time I was in York, I walked a small portion of them. Ever since then, a return to York and completion of the Wall Walk have been on my bucket list, but for one […]
Made In Sheffield
Today I learned a lot about steel, cutlery, and precision tools. While Ian walked 24 km from Sheffield Station to Grindleford, the first stage of the Steel Cotton Trail, I was exploring the city of Sheffield. We’d taken an unassuming train from Mexborough, to arrive in the centre of the city. Ian headed south through […]
The Roar of the Merlins
Our final day in Lincolnshire – definitely an aviation enthusiast’s dream! We had several hours to fill between checking out and checking in, so we detoured to East Kirkby, to pay a visit to the excellent Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre. LAHC is the proud owner of two very special heritage planes. The star attraction, “Just […]
Plane Spotting Part 2
Lincolnshire is full of RAF bases, some of them still active. The most well known is RAF Coningsby, home of the Typhoon, the RAF’s current combat aircraft. Coningsby is also home to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF). This was an opportunity to see almost 100 years of military aviation history, all in one […]
Here Be Dragons
This morning we completed the Lincoln City Race – an annual event that drew about 250 orienteers. Our maps covered the northern, flat end of the city, so we didn’t see the Castle or Cathedral on our courses. We began with a few very short legs in a university campus, then out into fairly standard […]
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