Simon Duringer's Blog, page 9
December 8, 2016
A winter day in the Howgills
December 7, 2016
Helm Crag circular hike
December 5, 2016
Green Bell circular hike
December 2, 2016
#BookRecommendation
Perry, a motor racing driver turned motivational speaker was the Original STIG on a BBC TV program Top Gear which airs across 188 countries worldwide.
But he was also Formula Ford Champion, raced Nascar in the USA, The Le Mans 24 hour endurance race, he was a Formula 3/3000 driver and eventually a Formula 1 race driver.... His journey through racing was a battle from day 1 and he relives his story for the reader with great humour which anybody and everybody can appreciate and relate to.
The book has become something of a life bible to me, a pick me up, a laugh and a method of reflection.
What more can you ask from the perfect Christmas gift? It sure beats another pair of socks!!
But don't take my word for it... It is already a global bestseller with around 300,000 copies sold to date. The new kindle edition has great pictures of Perry at home and includes original photo footage from his life changing accident..
An INCREDIBLE read!
https://www.amazon.com/Flat-Out-Broke...
December 1, 2016
Calfhow Pike Circular Hike
November 22, 2016
Fairfield Horseshoe
July 18, 2016
Hveravellir to Gullfoss
Enjoy!
http://simonduringer.com/on-my-travel...
Hveravellir to Gullfoss
Hveravellir to Gullfoss
It is the final trek of our trip. We’re lying on the flank of a volcano, confined to the inner of our tent following a day of hiking amidst persistent swarms of flies… possibly the worst day of hiking I’ve ever known. As we put up the tent at 9pm we actually saw the stunning views, perhaps for the first time all day. It has been one of those head down, plod on days and although we were surrounded by beauty we simply haven’t witnessed it.
In one of the few fly-free moments of the day, my attempt to take a photo of Jen on the bridge crossing an Arctic-blue river ended in disaster as we both were engulfed by yet another swarm.
One begins to realise how such small insects, in swarms, can take down large animals. When they work together with such persistence in their goal, any creature – man or beast – will tire and give up fighting eventually.
So, here we are. It is day three. We think we have covered around 60 of our planned 90 kilometres, which is good as it means we’re right on track to get the bus from Gullfoss back to Reykjavik in a couple of days’ time. It seems odd that Gullfoss, still 30 km away, is the nearest town. I say town… many places on the map are actually very small, so Gullfoss could just be a campsite with a cafe attached. One comes to expect such things, and after a while arriving at any kind of building becomes a luxury…
We have enough water to get to the next hut/camping facilities tomorrow, but we must ration ourselves. Thankfully there’s a patch of snow within a few hundred metres of our current spot, and as with day one of this trek, we may have to melt some to make morning coffee and breakfast. The coffee we’re carrying is dreadful, and those who know me best know that two things I enjoy most are coffee and a nice blend of pipe tobacco. The coffee we have is little more than milky water, and my tobacco, the first nice blend I have had in weeks, has been smoked several times today simply as a means of keeping the flies at bay – a trick I was taught when learning to fish! It has therefore been less-than-enjoyable and largely wasted… *Grrr*.
The trek so far has been wonderful on the whole. We arrived at the start point fairly late on the first night, but with the benefit of Iceland’s round-the-clock daylight at this time of year we managed to cover around 20 kilometres. The trek is fairly flat, which is something of a luxury for us! However, it is also around 45-50 kilometres further than we have ever walked in one go before… the entire trek is somewhere between 90 and 100 kilometres in length. We are essentially hiking southwards between two glaciers, imposing against the skyline on both sides. They are majestic, old and have a strange tint of blue to them.
As we so often do, Jen and I have decided to go against the flow. Most hikers seem to attempt this route heading from south to north, a 44-km stretch ending at Hveravellir. Now that we’re walking twice that distance in the opposite direction, Jen and I reckon people choose to head north because they’ll usually have the prevailing winds behind them! For us, trekking with our faces to the south, the southerly winds are a burden. There is also the luxury, for those who walk from south to north, of being greeted at the end with a natural geothermal bath. We have already enjoyed the pleasure of those piping hot waters, both at the Blue Lagoon (prior to this trek), and then at Hveravellir, our start point.
In the past few days we have witnessed stone and rock formations forged from lava flows. From ancient eruptions they have left their mark on the landscape as a reminder that nature does as it will. That said, back in Iceland’s capital Reykjavik, the power of magma is harnessed in order to produce hot water for the city, so much so that millions of tonnes of surplus hot water ends up being piped back into the sea, the heat wasted.
Interestingly, the hot water in Reykjavik is odorous, so using it, especially to wash! is not exactly pleasant for me anyway. The smell of sulphur can be quite overpowering here.
Our trek this week is concluded at Gullfoss, which is only a stone’s throw from Strokkur, the largest of Iceland’s spouting plumes of boiling water, at a place called Geysir. Altogether we will have been there three times before we leave Iceland: once on the Golden Circle Tour, again on our bus ride up to Hveravellir, and finally in a couple of days when we’ll return to Reykjavik at the end of our trek. Geysir draws an incredible number of tourists every day, and Strokkur spouts 25-30 metres high at very regular intervals, between 5 and 10 minutes.
Back to day one, and our bus journey took just over 5 hours. We hadn’t expected there to be stops at so many of the tourist spots, as we thought it was a regular bus ride from A to B. I guess all buses passing through these places stop there as a matter of course. After all, there’s an average of 1.67 cars per Icelandic driver in this country and therefore, aside from the drivers, one is unlikely to see an Icelandic citizen on a bus.
Our walking terrain consisted mainly of natural lava fields, and was hard going. The rocks are awkwardly sized and shaped. Solidified lava is abrasive and pointy, not something one would wish to fall on. The land was barren. We were walking between two glaciers: Langjokull, which is Iceland’s second-largest, and Hofsjokull. We could see for miles in all directions. Had we not been walking essentially between mountain ranges, it would have been easy to assume the area was simply grazing land, as it appeared endless.
We had allowed ample time for the hike, giving ourselves an extra day, to ensure we arrived in good time to catch our bus from Gullfoss back to Reykjavik. So for the first night, we stopped when we felt like it, and found a place to wild camp next to a blue/grey coloured river edged with snow. As with most wild camping one can pick any pitch within sight, and this one suited perfectly. We had seen no other hikers on that first day and were fairly visibly staying close to a cairn. It shouldn’t really have been a surprise, at 10am the next morning, to hear footsteps passing very close to the tent… the first hikers we had been aware of so far on this trek simply passed right by us. That was literally a wake-up call, and time for breakfast!
On the second day we followed the river all the way to Hvitarnes. A couple of hours into our walk that day, we came across a hut at Pverprekknamuli. It appeared deserted, so we headed in and found two noteworthy things… an Italian coffee maker (the on-the-hob kind) and coffee! In need of advice/reassurance, I stopped to wonder what my good Facebook friend Kim Whaley would do in such a situation… then did what I thought she might have! In my defence, we left the place tidy, put money in a box near the exit for use of the facilities, and having tasted REAL caffeine for the first time in a week, set off again at about three times the pace at which we’d arrived! It’s probably no surprise that we covered 30km that day, which meant that in a day and a half we had covered the distance that the guides suggest should take 2-3 days!
You gotta love coffee!
So, we stopped that second night at Hvitarnes campsite next to lake Hvitarvatn. At the very end, we had waded the river next to the hut to reach said building, having followed signposts straight to the water, which it turned out was the wrong ‘Garden Path’. Whilst paddling I managed to drop a hiking shoe in the river! And retrieved it a second later, thankfully. Well, they do say that most accidents happen in close proximity to home… and on that night that’s exactly what happened.
Day three is where this blog began, and it’s probably best to skip it. We had by now achieved our initial goal (to complete the “core” 44-km section) and were entering extra time. However, on that third day we probably managed 10 kilometres at best before ‘retreating’ to the tent. Words cannot describe how awful it was, slogging forward for five hours while swatting flies that relentlessly landed in eyes, in ears, up noses… but at least stopping when we did meant an early night, some writing and lots of sleep.
We were up and away fairly early on Day 4, but not before we had met some tour company guides who ran an outfit taking tourists snowmobiling on the glaciers. We had pitched fairly close to their hut, and that morning we were looking for water. On our arrival the previous evening there had been nobody around… however, we’d spotted a snow glacier (water source!) within a hundred metres, so we had decided to pitch there anyway. The guys who turned up the next morning were great. Our first hint that they would turn up came when we were awoken by the sound of a generator at around 9am. I mentioned to Jen, and she concurred, that it would be normal to set timers an hour ahead of arrival time to warm the place up, and, like clockwork, at a few minutes past ten they arrived! We were invited in to fill flasks and bottles with fresh water, and served a free coffee before eventually heading on our way… a great way to start the day after walking through hell the day before!
Day 4 was a hiker’s dream! There were lots of dramatic views as we headed towards the end of the glaciers, plus the sun stuck with us for much of the way and we left the swarms of flies behind us.
As if we needed any more encouragement, it seemed as we left the track and hit a mud road that every 4×4 that passed us would wave or smile.
I think we might even be the stars of several home movies, given the number of day-trippers who were recording videos through the passenger windows of passing vehicles…
Finally, we arrived at a green hut on a river junction that is off our paper map. Jen had also photographed a larger map to cover our “extra” section, but this hut had not been on that either. It wasn’t until we had checked the place out, claimed it for the night, spread our stuff all over the place and settled down that I remembered reading about an ‘unmarked’ hut on this trek. It is essentially a run-down shack which is no longer used by trekkers (although writing and signatures all over the interior walls suggest different). Why isn’t it used? Because it is believed to be haunted… At that point in time, we were far away from any Wi-Fi, and Jen asked me not to look in any of our guides to check whether this was THE one or not. At the time we didn’t want to be informed that it was! We spent a rather tense night in the silent, creepy hut…
The Final Day!
It was 0545hrs (5.45am) when things got eerie! Jen sat bolt upright in the sleeping bag as she was woken by the sound of ‘something’ rubbing against corrugated iron. We spent a rough few minutes listening to the noises and staring at the door… was someone coming in? Eventually we arrived at the conclusion that a clever ewe might have worked out how to use her behind to knock the door and loosen the latch so it would open. The hut itself was bare, and I doubt even the farmer would have discovered the intrusion until the winter months! Panic over – no ghosts there then – but by now we were two wide-awake trekkers with our end goal, at a guess, about 15 kilometres away. For me once I’m awake that’s it, no more chance of sleep… end of, so to speak. A brisk wander to the river later and I was back with water to make porridge and coffee. By 0715hrs (7.15am) we were on our way again…
For me, two odd things always happen on the last day of a trek. While I believe most people tend to have a brilliant last day, in my case the bergen always seems heavier (it never is!) and my muscles, for a short time anyway, seem to want to prevent me achieving the goal… Oh, and a third thing: the final day always seems to start AND end on an uphill stretch!
Half an hour or so later, I’d gotten over the trauma of muscle decay, was coping ok with the weariness probably caused by drinking “coffee” that had in fact been diluting the usually-high caffeine levels in my blood, and I had made it up that first darned hill. All seemed to be good, and I am delighted to say it was…
In fact, things were going so well that we thought we might even reach Gullfoss before the coffee shop opened, which clearly would have been a disaster! But the final few hours of hiking went well, and we passed the time counting how many drivers would wave to us on the way past. On the previous day it had been invigorating to receive waves, smiles and thumbs-up signs from drivers. On this morning we received 9 waves from 17 drivers… Not bad – more than a 50% success rate!
We had Gullfoss in our sights long before we had expected, and in the distance on the other side of the valley we could see Geysir, or as described previously the plumes from Strokkur. This geyser spouts boiling water and steam 30 metres into the air every 5-10 minutes and can be seen – trust us! – from more than 10 kilometres away. To be standing 10 kilometres away and see, on opposite sides of the Kjolur plateau, the hazy mist above Gullfoss waterfall on your left, and the steamy spray from Strokkur on your right, is quite remarkable. One might even equate it to visiting two natural wonders of the world simultaneously! What an end to our 90-kilometre adventure. Whilst we couldn’t have asked for more (other than decent coffee on some days!) as we sat sipping our second consecutive cups of authentic coffee we had a brainwave: rather than wait 7 hours for the bus, why not have some fun attempting to hitchhike, and potentially save ourselves some of the £60 bus fare…
Jen, being the articulate one, drew a ‘Reykjavik please’ sign in big black letters on a scrap of paper, and off we headed towards the wrong side of the road! For several minutes we received nothing but ‘pointing hands’ and soon realised our error. Sheepishly we moved back to the carpark and started again, and some minutes later a car stopped and the occupants (a very nice French couple) informed us they were heading to Geysir. This was one stop in the right direction on our bus route, and a busier place than Gullfoss, so we accepted gratefully and hopped aboard!
At Geysir we stuck out our thumbs again, both suspecting – from the looks we were getting from passing drivers – that we had actually beaten a number of people who had passed us previously without offering a lift. We must therefore have been quite a confusing sight to them… This raised our spirits and quite frankly our giggles… so perhaps this is what drew the attention of a passing Finnish house-builder on his day off. This delightful gent not only took us all the way to Reykjavik, but insisted on dropping us right at the campsite entrance, and would not accept any petrol money for his trouble… he even wanted to remember us in a photo 
July 11, 2016
Iceland Trekking
http://simonduringer.com/on-my-travel...
Landmannalaugar to Thorsmork
Landmannalaugar to Thorsmork, Iceland
Stepping the Trekking up a gear!
It is not until you reach Landmannalaugar that you realise you are an amateur in the midst of professionals. There are day trippers who have bussed it in order to see not only the scenery but also what resembles an Everest basecamp – and is equally desolate, cold and windy. These day trippers will have an exciting story to tell on their return. Some more than others, indeed… on the day we headed there, a bus full of tourists had turned on its side on the mountain road up ahead of us. Our bus sidled gently past it, on the very edge of the gravel road with a sheer drop on the other side… Many of those who had been on the stricken bus were traumatised and didn’t know how they could get back on board their transport to return to civilisation.
It was a problem we didn’t share. Ours was a different challenge and for the first time, on our arrival, it actually felt that we were being watched, viewed, perhaps weighed up in terms of what kind of participants we were amidst this motley crew of intrepid adventurers. The 5-star, hut-dwelling type walking with daysacks while transport crews carried warm clothes and equipment on ahead for them in a jeep to their night’s accommodation? Not us! We were the hardcore, everything to be carried on our backs type!
The three-day trek Jen and I had done on the Faroese island of Suduroy, and subsequent climb to the top of the Faroes’ highest peak, were about to look like mere training hikes… and we hadn’t yet managed to rest or recover fully from either of those.
Our morning also hadn’t been without event. We’d had to transfer buses at the start due to ours having a flat tyre (presumably developed on its previous trip back along the mountain route). I was the only passenger who saw that it was simply common sense to assist the bus driver in moving the dozens of backpacks onto our replacement transport, and in doing so I became slightly nervous that our two bergens were heavier than most… We were carrying food for up to 5 days, just in case. After all, shit happens on mountains, as the day trippers on that other bus had found out.
On our arrival at Landmannalaugar Jen and I quietly sat at a bench, had lunch, and watched the activity for a while. Neither of us wanted to hang around there as we felt like goldfish, but we had cross-communicated somewhere along the line and it transpired that Jen thought we were camping there with a view to starting the trek the following morning… Something she refrained from telling me until some 20km later… Talk about biting your lip! What a saint…
Two French girls came to sit by us; they had been on the ‘doomed’ bus and were discussing how they could get off the mountain without getting back on board. Quite frankly, having precariously passed said bus on our own trip I couldn’t blame them. If their bus had slipped in the other direction it might well have become world news… Since it wasn’t, I guess they got down again ok.
Now, for those who read my other blogs, you know I often have a little banter at our own expense about things occasionally going a tad askew… Let me reassure you that actually we are a pretty competent team, Jen and I, and experienced in trekking, but from the start point this trek seemed to elevate us into another league.
The trek itself takes one due south from Landmannalaugar over 55km of varied – at times fascinating! – terrain. People tend to allow 3-5 days to make the journey and some continue a further 18km to Skogar, which typically takes another 2 days. At the beginning we were undecided whether or not to do the additional distance, but by day 3, on reaching Thorsmork, incoming bad weather provided enough of a reason to call it a day! Bad weather is not always something to stop me dead in my tracks, but having met a couple who had been stranded for 40 hours in a dust storm slightly further north, one had to think twice about taking on nature at some of its most violent.
I am not going to give an hour-by-hour account of the trek; scenery-wise it was mind-blowing, but my description might appear repetitive as regards aching muscles and, by the end, a general desire just for the pain to go away. My Merrell shoes were already showing signs of decay after several weeks of treks, and whilst my bergen became lighter each day as we ate, the straps were beginning to shred my shoulders. That said, we hit a pretty good pace and were delighted to complete the 55km before the end of day 3.
In terms of the type of conditions we were facing, at times it seemed that we had to stop every twenty minutes or so in order to remove pieces of clothing (overheating!) or replace them (rain! cold!). Aside from the constantly-changing weather conditions, we had to contend with several river crossings, and one of these wades through glacial water required us to remove our trousers in order to remain dry.
There is something comical about the sight of a couple wading precariously hand in hand, half naked, through an Icelandic river with 20-kg bergens on their backs!
The first day was the most difficult, firstly since for Jen this was supposed to be “pre-walk” day zero, but also as we were met with disappointment on finally reaching our “goal”. The first mountain huts at around 1000m (in the snow!) not only seemed rather unfriendly, but also the stench in the washing areas was nothing less than putrid! Even though we’d slogged to get there, we really didn’t want to stay. A couple appeared as we were deciding what to do and remarked that their guide had informed them the following hut had much better facilities. Those words alone were enough to make us soldier on….another 13km! One good thing about Iceland in July is not having to worry about the light fading…
The landscape around that area of Iceland is fairly difficult to describe. Perhaps if one merged the seven wonders of the world, and sprinkled a dash of hell in for good measure, one might get close.
As with all mountain trekking, the landscape fools one into believing the next ridge must be the last and then dashes your hopes with something bigger and further away once you reach said ridge! But Icelandic mountains are different in some respects as they take your physical breath away on the way to the ridges and then practically make you gasp with hunger for more as you see new and untarnished views on your arrival.
Every ridge provides a new and perfect vantage point for the photographer, even while the wind, cold and rain often stop one from reaching for the camera.
Under foot we were dealing with everything from large snow fields, wet and slippery (blue?!) clay slopes, not to mention unpredictable stone riverbeds whilst wading rivers. There was the occasional respite where we saw mountain plants, heard birdsong and finally, nearing Thorsmork, we were blessed with some grass and greenery. One thing Iceland lacks is trees! In fact, our guide on a tour of the Golden Circle had a joke about just that:
Question: “What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest?”
Answer: “Stand up!”
So you may wonder about the benefits of doing such a trek, other than the company and general fitness? For me at least, the big plus points were seeing some truly spectacular scenery: the rivers and waterfalls created by a melting glacier, the steaming natural waters heated by underground magma chambers, the incredible canyons carved into the landscape, and the near and distant mountains which, at equal heights, were completely snow-covered in some cases whilst others stood as barren as deserts!
It is scenery that I have previously only ever witnessed in documentaries. Of course, finally, there is a certain amount of personal gratification which doesn’t land for a few days, when one realises the personal achievement. In less than two weeks, Jen and I had covered, on foot, over 150km in total on the Faroe Islands and in Iceland, carrying everything we needed in order to eat, sleep and fulfil the personal challenge. And then, at the very end of the Landmannalaugar – Thorsmork trek, less than a kilometre from the last hut, we saw two wild Arctic foxes! White and grey in colour they trotted calmly across our path, providing the perfect end to an incredible trek.
Would I do it all again? At Thorsmork there was only one train of thought running through my mind: I wanted a decent hot meal, a proper cup of coffee and at least 12 hours’ sleep followed by several days of unaffordable pampering! The reality did include the hot meal, but the coffee wasn’t too great and the sleep… well, we all know about my sleep patterns, but given the way my tongue was attached to the roof of my mouth the following morning I guess I got more sleep than usual. As for the unaffordable pampering, I had promised myself a souvenir of the trip, and at a refuelling/shopping stop on the bus journey back to Reykjavik I purchased said souvenir, an Icelandic woollen jumper bearing the insignia “Arctic Explorer”. It may be a touristy-type jumper, but it’s fabulously warm and will serve as a reminder, hopefully for years to come, of what we achieved.
What’s next? Funny old thing… once the aches and pains eased slightly, and in my case the memory (very) quickly fades, we have found ourselves with six days to fill before flying back to the UK. Now, call me foolhardy if you will, but Iceland is an extremely expensive place to visit. However, aside from purchasing supplies and the bus ticket to your start point, trekking and wild camping are both free! I think you know what is next… It’s time to stock up on the coffee!
Until next time… 
