Martin

Our annual golf tour is probably good training for Nepal (not). Its a bit of an endurance test due to the late nights, alcohol consumption and 4 x 5 mile walks in 3 days carrying about 10 kilos of golf clubs. Thankfully my bag got lighter over the weekend as balls were lost by the dozen. The courses in Cornwall were OK and helpfully they were quite hilly, giving my legs a good workout.

We stayed in a village called St.Just about 4 miles before Lands End. there’s a great pub there called The Wellington that tends to stay open til very very late, after which we had to walk (or sprint as the case may be) through fields and lanes to get back to the bunk barn we were staying in. Francis, the owner of the park we were staying at was a great guy who helped ferry us around and helped us get our wheel fixed when our minibus hit a big rock. What a star.

Here’s my mates at Lands End at the south-west tip of the UK. Back row from the left me, julian, darren, scott, larry, front row phil and paul. We all agreed it was the best trip we’ve had in the 9 years we’ve been going away together. The St.Andrews reference is cos that’s where Golf Tour 10 will be next year. The best tour memories are Darren providing an interesting new chorus to a Proclaimers song and Phil’s concern for a sick cow (which was in fact dead).

The Nepal trek is run by an English firm called Himalayan Kingdoms (www.himalayankingdoms.com) and on Saturday they had their pre-trek meet and walk. I arrived in an empty car park at 9.15am at Hawkesbury Upton near Stroud, and over the next half hour 50-60 people showed up. Well I’ll be damned if I wasn’t among the youngest 10% – turns out that most people who go on this type of trip with HK are in the 50-55 age group, either ex hippy travellers from the sixties or recent retirees with plenty of time on their hands. I met a lovely guy called Steve from Surrey who’s trekking to the Kingdom of Bhutan for 3 weeks, and since the Bhutan government charge US$ 200 a day for just being in the country his trip is costing over £3000 !! I also met a retired farmer in his late 60s, and this is his third month-long trip in the 8 months since he passed his farm on to his son. He’s determined to spend any inheritance before he snuffs it – what a star. Most of the people I spoke to have been to Nepal or a least to Asia before, some of them many times.

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Finally got into the Beacons last weekend - did the hike from the A470 up to Corn Dhuu peak in 52 mins then straight back down again. Coming down is tough on the thighs and I ached the day ... [Continue reading this entry]