Blog
Jordan: Greatest Hits
Over a decade ago, I began to pull together a collection of stories to be shared with family and friends as I took off on that big trip, an idea that had simmered away inside my brain for such a long time. With time in abundance, I found enjoyment in documenting and sharing these tales, and […]
The Afterlife – Life After a Big Trip
You have just seven seconds to make a first impression. Perhaps then it is not surprising that we instantly try to put people into boxes. To compartmentalise them, trying to make sense of who they are, sifting and sorting them to a mould that fits our own thinking. In recent years, I’ve been labelled a […]
2015: Recalibrating
Almost two weeks in to 2016 it seems a tad tardy to begin reflecting on the previous year. After all shouldn’t we now be filled with hope, expectation and excitement of what the new year will bring? The truth is that I sat down to pen my thoughts about 2015 midway through December amidst impending […]
The Peak District: Part of the Peak 200
Two weeks later, I once again find myself back in the Peak District National Park. Having previously carved my way north through the limestone valleys and barren moorland via the Pennine Bridleway. This time my gaze is fixed on the eastern Peak District, it’s oak woodlands, historic houses, and lofty gritstone crags. Joined by South […]
Peak District: The Southern Pennine Bridleway
Nestled between the northern cities of Manchester and Sheffield, the Peak District National Park provides a natural playground to its neighbouring urban settlements. One of the first national parks created in the UK, the park spans over five counties making it one of the UK’s most visited and indeed most accessible national parks in the […]
The Isle of Arran: Beaches, Midge Bites and Mountains
With the passing of weeks and then months back in England, the pace of life once again gathers momentum as I find myself juggling my time between work, a new business, friends and family and establishing a daily routine in a new part of the country. An adventure in its own right, my time back […]
A Weekend Away
Upon my return to England the first weeks pass in a blur spent with friends and family, the people I missed so dearly on my travels. Back to the place I call home, the valley I grew up in, amongst the people I am lucky to call my friends and family. Deep rooted friendships unaltered […]
Colombia: Coffee, Deserts and Journeys End
Whilst originally planning my journey through South America, the mere mention of Colombia induced plenty of air sucking, and well meaning (if ill informed) cautionary tales. Pablo Escobar, drugs cartels, armed guerillas seemingly the extent of many people’s knowledge of this beguilling country. There is no shaking the country’s dark and murky past. Thanks to […]
Ecuador: City Life, Amigos and Frailejones
As property investors and supermarkets continue to squeeze the life out of the British high street, each town and city is left with a bland, depressingly orderly and homogenised selection of the same high street retailers. Small independent retailers squeezed out by escalating rents, decreasing foot fall and the destablising effects of out of town […]
Ecuador: Trans Ecuador and rich dirt veins
Whilst Peru brazenly lays its wares out to bear, offering a dizzying array of dirt roads through high Andean country, by contrast Ecuador has a girl next door charm. Shy and difficult to get to know at first but scratch beneath the surface, dig a little deeper and you will find a country as equally […]
Ecuador: Mud, Coffee and Biodiversity
A lot can happen in two months…or not as the case may be. Despite a concerted effort to make it over the Ecuadorian border in time for Christmas, the intense riding of previous weeks takes a different pace as New Year comes and goes. Flo patiently waits for a delivery from France whilst I hop […]
Caraz to Ecuador
The Punta Olympica loop neatly deposits Flo and I in the town of Caraz, the starting point for one of Peru’s most famous treks; the Santa Cruz trek. Swapping dirt roads for trekking trails, we head in to the mountains by foot. Conscious of time and our apparent good fortune of continued blue skies we […]