You guessed it – it was back to rain again. We walked to the Metro station, ending up with soaked luggage. A 20 minute ride to Wilhelminaplein, a brief discussion about the position of the ship relative to the position of the Erasmus Bridge (I was right, Google was wrong), and soon we had deposited […]
Our last day was spent back in central Rotterdam, this time in (mostly) lovely sunshine instead of pouring rain. Cities on weekends are very different to cities on weekdays – the vibe is relaxed, people are strolling instead of rushing, and there are lots of little things going on – a hurdy gurdy playing music […]
Den Haag (The Hague) is at the northern terminus of the Metro line that we use each day. It was time to head there. We waited out the morning rain, packed our sandwiches, donned our Hurtigruten rain jackets, and set off. A short 20 minute Metro ride later, we were in the city centre. Den […]
Update on local elevation: we discovered a larger summit than Mount 76. The local pancake café sits atop an actual hill. It took a number of steps to climb it. We have christened it Pancake Peak. We have not yet sampled the pancakes. However, we did take a bus to Amsterdam today (for a fraction […]
Did I mention our apartment at no 76 is right beside a canal? And that we have our very own canal bridge? Ours is the blue one and it is higher than the others in the immediate vicinity, so we have christened it “Mount 76”. We have seen squabbling swans and curmudgeonly coots on our […]
We had a relatively cruisy drive up to Newcastle, where Ian dropped me and the luggage at the ferry terminal, then took the car to the airport, and the train back to the ferry – a repeat of last year. It was all very familiar as we boarded, took up residence in our teeny tiny […]
For our last day in the Peak District, we decided to visit the Derwent Dams, driving via the spectacular Snake Pass. The dams are famous because they were used for the “Dam Busters” Squadron to practice low flying over water before dropping their bouncing bombs. Derwent Dam was chosen because of its similarity to its […]
It was Ian’s final day on the Steel Cotton Trail, meaning he would be finishing in the centre of Manchester. While Sheffield is the home of steel, Manchester is known as “Cottonopolis”. The city’s wealth came from the production of cotton cloth, shipped in as fluffy bales, and shipped out as skilfully woven textiles. I […]
Every second day seems to be wet, and this one more so than most. We spent the morning relaxing and catching up on things, then decided to brave the rain. We’d entered an orienteering event in Guiseley, outside Leeds, so we decided to make our way there via some other places. We headed north into […]
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 […]
