Castle in the Clouds - the Sting in the Tail

A rum run this was! This picture is of the Castle in the Clouds which was the venue for the Roaring Falls trail race in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Lots of up and down including a 2.5 mile climb to the summit of Mt Roberts (2600') and a fairly interesting finish up several long flights of steps to the castle itself. Mt Roberts was named for a settler family from about 200 years ago - presumably Welsh, and the girl who gave me my race number was called Williams so I''m glad I wore my Welsh Dragon Buff!
Trail race, of course, can mean any number of things and this was a 12 mile ramble (in sub zero temperatures) along clearly defined trails which were knee deep in leaves (so that's why they call this time of year The Fall!) - lots of sprained ankles then. In addition to these easy bits, we had to follow trails(!) through the woods that were not defined at all apart from faded paintmarks or blazes on trees every so often - this is where the term 'trailblazer' comes from, they could have moved some of the boulders to one side!

That's me on the first climb - the beautiful view behind me is of Lake Winnipesaukee which I saw little of. The usual rockhoppers and mountain goats had run past me on the rugged uphill, one wiry grey haired chappie even had the gall to ask how old I was as he skipped merrily by. He told me he was 77 so I hung on grimly thinking this is another Don Williams - if he can do it at that age...well! However I got him and plenty of others on the downhill. Going well at 7 miles I found the one and only drinks station which I foolishly bypassed thinking there's not long left - I got it wrong again, this wasn't a 12K race it was a 12 mile race! Still I dug in and cursed the last couple of very rough miles, losing positions to folk I'd overtaken further back in the race - I cursed even more when I found that we had to climb up those steps to the castle. I was glad Vicky only told me about the steps a couple of hundred yards from the finish before I commenced a Tony Benton-like charge. Recuperating in the castle lodge wrapped in several layers of warm clothing I was approached by the mountain goat whom I'd bust a gut to get past to find he looked remarkably young - this unsporting rogue who went by the name of John Martin had lied - he was he same age as me! - so a victory of sorts cos I beat him. Where are the results?

V for Victory

Currently enjoying a nice light pale ale from the Victory Brewing Company who are based in Pennsylvania. Not that we're in PA - we're in NH! (More of this PA, NH stuff below.) The V in the Victory logo recalled (for me) Victory V's, those deadly brown lozenges from years ago that gave you a kick like a mule. I bought a packet a few years ago to find they were weak and insipid, maybe another example of how the mind plays tricks. But no! I discovered that the Victory V's of my youth had contained ether and chloroform, no wonder they had that dramatic effect on the tongue. These 'dangerous' ingredients have, of course, been excluded in recent years - shame!

Last night's very well educated pint was at the John Harvard brewpub in Harvard Square. An unusual light coloured Rauchbier compared very favourably with the heavier darker Rauchbiers of Franconia in Germany - in other words I liked it very much with my meatloaf! The meatier Arrow IPA at 8% was not exactly a thirstquencher but was well worth trying! Vicky enjoyed her US take on a shepherd's pie but they spell it shepard's pie which I thought a bit odd in this academically correct part of America.

And off to the White Mountains for tomorrow's run. They're called white for the same reason Snowdon's called Snowdon but there are lots of them clustered together and I'm running up one of them in the morning. This afternoon the sun wasn't shining (unlike in the photo) and as we got closer the drizzle turned to sleet turned to snow - glad I've got my bumbag to run with. We'll let you know how it goes - the ski season isn't supposed to start for another month so our lodging is fairly quiet so we should sleep well.

Regarding PA, NH, NY, etc., these are the zipcode (postcode) abbreviations indicating which state you're in. These can be quite important to take notice of especially (as in North Wales until recently) there are dry counties. Nearly half the state of Arkansas (AR or Ark) is dry and in last week's mid term US elections Arkansas counties elected to stay dry! Goodness gracious they allow the sale of guns to anybody but the idea of selling some fine ale and they're all up in arms - I think I'll stop here as I'm mixing up my metaphors.

Blog Resumed!

Good times back home with a brief pitstop on the way to the US. Started with a mad dash at the Ceiriog Canter near Llangollen, apparently I won a nice bottle of Merlot for 1st V60 (I'll know for sure if I finally claim it from you Duncan!) We then joined the Denbigh Harriers crew a week later at the British fellrunning relays at Kirby Lonsdale. I managed to wangle first leg (get it over and done with) and watched the rest of the team come in on a blustery but dryish day. We'd all had a great night out in Warton on the Saturday night, half the team had raced that afternoon at the Llandudno XC, so we have to be pleased with yet another fine performance by our small town club up against the big guns of UK fellrunning.

And that's just the price of the breakfast!

This weekend was the big family wedding in Guildford - lots of news about this on other family facebooking bits and pieces so just to say that it was a wonderful event and our Annie has never looked so happy. The day started with a slight hiccup for me as I decided to get the day going in style with the Guildford Parkrun at 9 am. I set my mobile phone alarm and got up bright and early to set off down to the park, about a mile or so from our B & B. Arrived there to find nobody around and to find I was an hour early! I hadn't reset my phone from last week!! So I was well warmed up by the time it eventually started and in the end had a really good gallop. Today involved a train up to London and readying for a business meeting on Monday. Staying at a hotel in Islington, we thought we'd get an early night by having a pint and some grub at a pub round the corner. The name sounded familiar - I suspect the value of this very pleasant freehold property is now somewhat more than £100. The beef roast and Mexican burger filled us up nicely but we also managed some excellent ale from the Liverpool Organic Brewery, Thornbridge Brewery and the Wicked Weed Brewery. The latter is based in Asheville North Carolina where we hope to be in a few weeks time! We'll keep you posted.

Thought I'd add a photo of some birdboxes we saw this morning at Duncan Terrace Gardens in Islington. We then took a stroll up to Regent's Canal which is an oasis of peace and quiet in the middle of this nosy city.

In the Heat of the Night

And that's it folks - we've just headed back to Wales via Dubai with an undulating temperature gradient starting at 35°C in Brisbane a week ago, up to 40°C in Dubai on Monday and 10°C in Prestatyn when we arrived last night (not many tourists here then!)

Dubai is fairly nuts - looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Populated mostly by Indians, Pakistanis, Bengalis and Filipinos who form over 80% of the population and who drive the taxis, staff the bars and hotel desks and build the skyscrapers - all paid for by the tourists. What an excellent business model! The emirate folk just stand back and coin it. What I find difficult to follow is the fact that the people who really enjoy this are the same people who think that heaven is spending all day at the Trafford Centre. It's also rather hot and humid and expensive.

One of the really bizarre sights in Dubai is the skyscraper in the picture on the right - this is the Al Yacoub tower which looks like Big Ben but is even taller than the Shard which is the highest building in London. Trundling along in the taxi through central Dubai you look at all the futuristic towers reaching into the sky and all of a sudden there's a giant Big Ben. Oh dear some of these guys have a great sense of humour! It appears that Dubai is not quite at the top of the list of countries which have a per head consumption global resources footprint but they're not far behind Qatar which heads the list (must be something to do with the World Cup - why didn't they give it to San Marino!)  OK so the real gripes about Dubai are the temperature (too hot to run between March and November) and the ale which is verboten (although we found some illicit Heineken at £8 a pint - phew!) On the upside I encountered Arabic food which wasn't bad at all, meze is wonderful and my favourite was a chili lebnal (I think that was what it was called) which is a bit like cheesecake infused with herbs, garlic and chilli peppers!)

Thick Knees in Australia

Right in the middle of Brisbane we came across a couple of these fellows lurking in the undergrowth. In the city botanical gardens, which are quite small and surrounded by large office blocks we spotted them,  poised to do something, we’re not quite sure what. They are known as Bush Stone Curlews, also called Bush Thick Knees, about knee high (my knees!) and nobody else seemed to have spotted them so well were they camouflaged. They had a peculiar trick of dropping their heads to one side as if to listen for bombers overhead and a most interesting low buzzing sound which was their contribution to the wildlife sounds of the city.

 Nice selection of in house brewed beer at the Brewhouse Brisbane on Thursday night! The American Pale Ale went down well as did the Lady Marmalade Apricot Amber Ale but the surprise to us was the presence, among lots of Aussie beers, of bottles of Buxton Brewery ales - how did they get here??

Rigorous performance analysis of our latest parkrun at South Bank Brisbane has revealed that factors such as the high humidity, size of field (400+ runners), a viral affliction during previous week and lack of knowledge of the course, cannot alone account for the dismal time of 21.17 and the key overriding factor was eventually scientifically determined to be general malaise and shortage of energy due to a lack of beer the night before. Vicky suffered too and came in with a time of 34.42.

O'Reilly's - oh really!

Me 80 feet above the forest floor!

Picture the summit of Snowdon, North Wales on a chilly day in early spring. We were at a higher altitude in early spring in the middle of an Australian rain forest - this is O'Reilly's forest retreat founded by a bunch of Irish lads over 100 years ago (ancient history in Australian terms.) You could only get up there on a pony and trap via a precipitous trail - the winding road today is vertiginous to say the least and it required utmost concentration to keep on track especially when Vicky was saying 'Gosh look at that view!' every two minutes. Actually after a while she was telling me not to look (in a worried voice.)

One of the aforementioned Irish lads, Bernard O'Reilly, achieved heroic status in the 1930's by tramping several miles through the rainforest to pinpoint the crash site of a Stinson A airliner caught in a storm on the Brisbane-Sydney route. There were two survivors and the story made national headlines. The plane on the left sits outside the O'Reilly Guesthouse at the top of the mountain and the impression most people must get is that this is the plane that crashed - sadly it's only a replica which was made for an on location feature film about the disaster.

Plenty of unusual birdlife at O'Reilly's including a Regent Bowerbird - which is this cheeky chappie sitting above our picnic table waiting for a morsel - unfortunately for him we are law abiding citizens who took the 'No feeding the birds' sign literally.  Other Aussie birds that we saw were Logrunners, Rufous Fantails, Pied Currawongs, various scrubwrens and a Bush Turkey who pinched my sandwiches - Vicky chased after it and hunted it down and saved the day (she'd already eaten hers so I didn't have that to fall back on.) The Irish had a lot to do with this part of Australia and a family by the name of Lahey were also involved with pioneering round here - this photo below doesn't really do the scenery justice but we were at Romeo Lahey's viewpoint. In case you think that is a bit of an odd Irish first name Bernard O'Reilly's (see above) full name was Alfonso Bernard O'Reilly.

Don't step back!

Yarrabilba and Fruit Bats

Here she is hurtling up to the finish in her third Yarrabilba parkrun (I'm there in the background!) Still early in the morning as you can see by the long shadows. Yarrabilba has been a lovely low key event with friendly folk. Sarah Connor runs a well organised parkrun, it all seems to go smoothly and she exudes supreme self confidence and enthusiasm (although I noticed she grabbed Pat, her husband, as he crossed the line to carry on with the time keeping!)
Next week I think we're doing Southbank which is a city centre parkrun with lots of runners - and apparently has got some steps in it!!

So this is where the idea of hang gliding came from - we got a shock this afternoon at the sheer size of flying foxes at Mount Tamborine. We took a walk around the rain forest park and encountered a vast colony of these big blighters roosting in the gum trees - must have been hundreds of them and they were just beginning to wake up - eeek! They have a wingspan of up to a metre but fortunately do not have any vampiristic tendencies. Australians have a mixed attitude towards them partly because they carry diseases fatal to horses (and potentially to humans.) However flying foxes are a vulnerable species and under threat due to a variety of problems. The conservationists are on the case rest assured and when they come across abandoned youngsters they will look after them as can be seen in the photo below!