We arrived in Cornwall and was greeted with an amazing sunset and a nice private parking spot! The next day we headed straight to Bosigran. Unfortunately you are not allowed to stay over night in the car park, and there are signs stating so. This is a common occurrence across the country atm. We set... Continue Reading →
It’s been a while since I’ve done a post, in fact it’s been a while since I’ve done anything... like most of the country/world, we’ve been locked down! To be honest I’ve worked throughout, but social activities and sports have been limited to say the least. It’s not like Sussex is a renowned location for... Continue Reading →
We parked next to Coniston Lake and had the most amazing view out of the van. Literally three steps out of the door and you'd be soaked! We couldn't climb the next day and decided to head up to Old Man Coniston via a couple of scrambles. The first problem was parking. We tried to... Continue Reading →
Our next big plan is pretty down to earth compared to living in the van, and climbing around in Europe for a year. This next plan still involves climbing, but is also a house hunting trip. Were not literally looking at houses yet, but we are looking at each area with a wider perspective. Hoping... Continue Reading →
So it's fair to say it's been a long time since I last put up a post. It's not that I've not been doing nothing, it's that I've done less and then not documented it. My bad! Maybe on the downtime afforded by the social lockdown, I will have time to post a few updates.... Continue Reading →
Jess and me have been climbing together for nearly ten years and although there has been ample opportunity to climb at the Wye Valley, we have avoided it. I know the main reason is that everyone we talk to about it is quite negative about things, a common phrase I've heard is that people 'don't... Continue Reading →
It's fair to say that working a five day week leaves you living for the weekend. More often than not I'm overly tired by the time I reach a day off, but I have to force myself to get out at the weekends, otherwise I would be tirelessly working to work, rather than working to... Continue Reading →
So after an amazing adventure in Egypt we were back in the UK and planned a climbing adventure in Snowdonia for the second week of our holidays. Unfortunately, a trip to Egypt is often followed by what's politely called an upset tummy (AKA the runs…). So we set off in the van, with the risk... Continue Reading →
It's fair to say that everytime we meet UK climbers, one of the first questions is have we climbed in the peaks? After seven years of owning the guidebook and ten years of climbing we have finally climbed in the Peak District! The first stop was the Roaches, simply because I read the name in... Continue Reading →
It is fair to say that it was going to be a busy weekend; a bank holiday in Snowdonia was always going to be busy! Even though we would not be able to take advantage of the whole bank holiday weekend, we would have to squeeze in as much into the two days we had!... Continue Reading →
Its been a while since we have got away in the van, its also been a while since I've been climbing! But it was a good change of pace to get away from the mundane! It was a break from the mundane work life, that just seems to roll through month after month. We drove... Continue Reading →
As the title says, I have recently been given a couple of days off scuba diving and as Jess was off climbing I thought I would join her! We headed to Hvar on the ferry, I managed to sleep throughout the whole journey, and on arrival we managed to find Olivia, who Jess had met... Continue Reading →
We were lucky enough to finally get Climbing again after a month off! We headed down to Weymouth to celebrate the wedding of George and Nicky, and lucky enough for both them and us, the weather gods were shining upon us! After the wedding we decided to stay in the area and climb as the... Continue Reading →
At our six month point in the trip I wrote a short review of that time to sum up what we had been up to. So I thought I’d do the same for the second! Each of the things on here have more in depth individual posts, that go into more detail, however this will... Continue Reading →
This is where we started the Climbing trip nearly a year ago, so it only seems fair that this would be where it ended. As ever when I arrive in Font I am immediately fond of the place, pulling down rugged roads, avoiding potholes and ending up at a car park surrounded by nothing but... Continue Reading →
The day after our ski touring adventure in Chamonix, we set off in the direction of home, and decided that we would pop into the Bourgogne region, as there was a bit of climbing there that we could get done before dropping Colin off at Paris Airport. We pulled into Saffres that has a basic... Continue Reading →
In my last post I described our trip to Montserrat, where we walked and climbed in the mountains above the Monastery. The views in this place were out of this world, towers of rock stood atop of a huge mound, and from a distance it looks like a hedgehog. We enjoyed our time there, although... Continue Reading →
I have not written a diary style blog post for a while now, mainly as there has been very little to write about, and rather than write a post for the sake of it, I thought it best to wait until something worthwhile happened! We headed north after Las Fallas, in the general direction of... Continue Reading →
This is the most common question we have been asked when we meet friends, each time it is asked, we mumble for a while between ourselves as we try to break down ten months of continuous travel, adventure and van life. It’s too difficult to pick one experience that has outdone the others, as... Continue Reading →
When we left Costa Blanca at the end of January, it was after a months solid climbing. We had climbed so much that I even got to the point that I'd had enough of climbing and needed some time off. The casualty of this was a route called El Dorado, one of the top fifty... Continue Reading →
Let's start with a little moan, the bloody weather! I mean what the hell? I'm in Spain, and it's starting to feel like I'm still in England! Anyway moan over! We left Portugal in horrendous rain, and in two days we made it to a small town just on the outskirts of Madrid, called El... Continue Reading →
When we arrived in Portugal, we had plans to spend a couple of weeks there following the coast up to Lisbon, climbing as we went. As things turned out we only managed a couple of days on rock and for the rest, rain stopped play. We had a long drive from a service stop just... Continue Reading →
After spending a couple of days parked up on the beach at Bolonia, I decided that I was rested enough to have another days climbing… this later proved to be wrong! We got up earlier than usual, as we knew we wanted to make the most of the day ahead. Luckily we had managed to... Continue Reading →
This area first arrived on my radar when looking for sports climbing in the area. One of the online forums mentioned this El Helechal and it's great bouldering potential. All I could find in the form of topo’s was higher graded routes, most of which were out of my grades, however I still thought a... Continue Reading →
We have had another week or so of play in El Chorro, and to be honest it's a week more than we expected when we first arrived. On our first week we only managed to climb a few single pitch routes due to a lack of a guidebook, and most of these were in poor... Continue Reading →
So it's the end of our first week in El Chorro, and the heavens have opened, leaving me with some time to write up a blog post of what we have been up to so far. In all honesty this first week has been a little up and down. First of all we drove close... Continue Reading →
We have continued our climbing tour through Costa Blanca, with a trip to a crag called Sax, again we were chasing top fifty and three stared routes from the Rockfax book. Sax had a lot of good routes, and looked like a great place to climb although the guidebook did say that the venue was... Continue Reading →
After what was a great day out on Toix the day before, we were to have a trying day on Mascarat. We woke up to an overcast day, and decided that a trip into Calpe for some supplies would give us time to gauge what the weather was doing. After this little jaunt the weather... Continue Reading →
The adventures in Costa Blanca just continue to come. Following on from our success on Parle, a sea cliff/cave climb, that tested our ability to the max, we thought we’d head north and take on another time and again recommended climb, Sonjannika at Morro Falgui. I initially found out about this route when searching for... Continue Reading →
We have been in Costa Blanca for the better part of two weeks and have so far had an absolute blast! My previous two posts have already highlighted some of the fantastic adventures that we have experienced here, such as the Bernia ridge, various quality single pitch crags, climbing on Toix on Christmas Day and... Continue Reading →
There have been some highlights on this trip for me and this day is another to go on that list. I'm not sure why, but this ridge has been on my wantlist for a while, I can't even remember where I first read about it, although at some point it crossed my path and ever... Continue Reading →
For near seven months we have been able to live in our van rent free, we have wild camped for this entire time! However we felt like we would treat ourselves to some normality over the Christmas period, and booked two nights at the orange house. We drove for just short of seven hours from... Continue Reading →
It feels like half the time, which can only be a good thing! When we set out we planned on a years trip and so far it is all going to plan. Of course there have been a few problems on the way ( no one mention getting stuck and wedging the van under a... Continue Reading →
So the last week or so has been both good and bad, mostly in terms of the weather. As an outdoor trip, we are constantly relying on the weather to show its hand and then we can get on with things or just chill out for the day. As it turns out, since we went... Continue Reading →
Another fine day, another fine climb, and another horrid descent. This is a simple way to sum up our second multipitch route in Croatia. We started later than planned, although we were pretty sure we could get up and down in the time left. This route was called Stargate and was further along the face... Continue Reading →
Finally the weather seems to be improving for a time and we are trying to make the most if it. The first afternoon of good ish weather we headed up to the crag near Split as we were parked in town. It's weird that for days all I have wanted to do is climb and... Continue Reading →
I have already reviewed my first week in Croatia, and although it has not gone to plan as far as the climbing/weather is concerned, we have still made the best of the time we have had here. The same has to be said of our second week we have been hampered by bad weather and... Continue Reading →
We drove into Croatia at night after a long day of freeloading wifi and power at the Bled tourist office, as jess has work, its only fair to say how good the office is and the information we received from the staff was above and beyond all other tourism offices we have use on this... Continue Reading →
In all honesty this second outing to the Dolomites has been one long hard week of fun! In eight days we have had seven of them out in the mountains, with one off in the middle, my body is feeling sore, but it has been worth it. Last time I left the area feeling disappointed... Continue Reading →
This is one of the classic Via Ferrata in the Dolomites, add to this fact that there is a bridge, we just had to have a go! Sometimes classic means ruined by the passage and polish of many climbers and although it did have lots of polish the route, it was still a really good... Continue Reading →
Or so my guidebook says, Magnifici Quattro (The magnificent Four) is a grade grade 6BVF, and is named in honour of four members of mountain rescue who tragically died whilst on a rescue mission. Jess and me both felt as though we had the ability to climb this route and so set our alarms early... Continue Reading →
This climb was our fourth day on the bounce and it's fair to say I am feeling a little bit fragile after it all, it's time for a day off, however before that I will write a short piece on this climb. It's fair to say that the great weather we are having is the... Continue Reading →
Finally we have made it back to the mountains, oh how much I have missed being here! It sounds weird to have been travelling, climbing and diving across Italy and Sardinia, and the whole time I felt like there was something missing, and I've not realised it was this, hills, mountains, towering rock faces, amazing... Continue Reading →
So far this trip we have climbed, a lot, however our stint up the west coast of Sardinia resulted in more sunbathing than climbing. In all honesty the most climbing that we did was at Masua, and that was three single pitches, so not exactly pushing ourselves… that said, this part of the trip has... Continue Reading →
Following on from the last post where we have finally been scuba diving on the Isola die Cavoli near Villasimius, we found some free parking just down the road from the port and proceeded to spend a couple of nights there. It was a lovely location, although we were always on edge, with the fear... Continue Reading →
As I said in my previous post we made an on the spot decision to head to Sardinia after watching a video on Facebook. It was was literally 24 hours from driving to the Slovenia border to turning around and being on a boat to Sardinia. This is one of the great things about being... Continue Reading →
Whilst climbing on the South Arête of Sass de Stria, we could see in the distance a skyline broken by a hedge hog effect of rock. Sticking out in all angles and all shapes and sizes was the Cinque Torri (the five towers). This was one of the places on my climbing hit list in... Continue Reading →
We knew on completing our climb on the Vajolet Towers that the weather was changing for the worse! As it turned out, we moved to a new location, Canazai, which had a parking bay on the other side of town that had running water, toilets and bins, all useful when stopping somewhere! As I said,... Continue Reading →
We have been planning on getting to the Dolomites for quite a few months now, and finally we are here. Another outdoor playground to set out on a bunch of adventures! First off we have started the trip in the Catinaccio area, also known as the Rosegarten area. Local legend say that Catinaccio was ruled... Continue Reading →
Now that we have left Chamonix we seem to be on the move a little more, once again this trip will be mobile and we will be travelling to various new places, although where exactly we don't know yet as we are making it up a little, rather than sticking to a rigid itinerary. That... Continue Reading →
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