Tag Archives: trip planning

Ethiopia: T Minus 20

With twenty days until I leave for Ethiopia, and it being my last chance before then to perform all the time consuming checks, the pace has picked up on the trip planning.

The most fundamental task was to ensure that I have all the clothing and equipment that I will need to take with me and to that end I have been purchasing bits over the past few weeks. This weekend’s task was to collect it all together and see what’s is missing – and if it is all going to fit!

Clothing

When I went to Antarctica I went through the pain of having to research, and then buy, a complete cold-weather wardrobe. Now I have had to do the same for the other end of the climate scale. As with the online advice for cold-weather gear, advice for hot-weather clothing is equally diverse. In the end though I have settled upon taking the following:

  • One pair hiking boots – Salomon Quest 4D GTX (plus spare laces)
  • One pair hiking shoes – Salomon Ultra X
  • Two Rohan “Core Silver T” base-layer T-shirts
  • Two Bspoke “Epping” Coolmax base-layer T-shirts
  • One Rab “MeCo 120” base-layer T-shirt
  • Four pairs Rohan “Cool Silver” Trunks
  • One pair Rab “MeCo 120” Trunks
  • Two pair Smartwool “PHD Outdoor Ultra Light” Socks
  • One Pair Icebreaker “Hike Light” Socks
  • Three Craghoppers Nosilife long sleeve shirts
  • Two pairs hiking trousers [TBC]
  • One Berghaus Polartec 100 fleece.
  • My trusty wide-brimmed hat

As you can see it is a bit of a mix: three different types of base-layer t-shirt for example. My reasoning for this is simply that when reading around the general consensus was that synthetic material doesn’t work well for some people: I didn’t want to stick to one brand or technology only to find that it didn’t work for me.

The hiking boots and shoes are both new. My trusty 18 year-old Scarpa BX boots failed in Iceland and despite being waxed began letting in water. My Merrell Moab hiking shoes finally fell apart in Israel – only just surviving due to a couple of tubes of superglue. So back in September I went in to the local GoOutdoors shop with the intent of trying them on and them buying online and went through several makes – Mendl, Scarpa, Mammut – but all slipped when I walked – a recipe for blisters. In the end the guy took one feel of the shape of my heel and ankle, disappeared and came back with the Salomon. They fit like a glove (well, a foot-glove). The whole process took 40 minutes and it was not service that should go unrewarded by then buying elsewhere. I was so impressed that I even emailed them to say how pleasantly surprised I was, and that rarely happens. The hiking shoes were bought yesterday, Salomon again due to the fit.

The other thing – which is a new experience for me – is that I’m taking only five days of clean clothes for a two week trip. For the experienced trekkers amongst you this may not seem particularly noteworthy, but for me is it a big departure from what I am used to. Well, almost. On my trips to Iceland and then Israel earlier this year, despite having sufficient clothes for a daily swap of underwear and t-shirt, I didn’t use half of them. So this is really just an extension of that although it will be much hotter than both Iceland and Israel in the Danakil Depression and so sweat will be more of an issue. As a backup I am taking a small tube of travel washing liquid although given the lack of running water and that the only bodies of water are either highly acidic, poisonous or have a higher salt concentration than the Dead Sea, I’m not altogether sure how I would get to use it.

The trousers are still to be bought as I am still stuck on the decision: I love the multiple pockets of cargo-style trousers, but I also like the idea of those which can be converted to shorts. This is a decision that needs to be finalised this week. I’ll also be buying two more pairs of lightweight hiking socks.

Equipment

For the majority of the expedition we’ll be away from civilisation and in the middle of nowhere. This means no electricity, gas, running water, mobile phone coverage and no sanitary facilities. With the exception of the first night in Awash and the last night in Mek’ele, accommodation is listed as being ‘under the stars’  – a euphemistic term for sleeping on the ground. Our comfort – and more importantly health – will be dependent upon whatever we take with us.

  • A Vango Sherpa 65 litre backpack
  • Snugpak “jungle” sleeping bag
  • Exped Ultralight inflatable pillow
  • Karrimor sleeping mat
  • Gas mask
  • Mountain Warehouse large travel towel
  • Lenser P7 LED torch
  • Petzl Tikka XP head torch
  • Medical kit
  • Voltaic Systems’ 18W solar charging kit
  • Swiss Army knife
  • A funnel
  • Several large plastic bags and some zip-loc bags

The pillow may seem like a luxury item but I’ve woken up with a stiff neck too many times to know that it can real pain (so to speak) to have a sore neck when you’re rushing around. And at 46g in weight, it is not exactly cumbersome.

The jungle bag – so called as it is a lightweight one season sleeping bag- is less to keep warm and more to provide protection from the little critters that will be roaming around – mosquitoes included. It has a thermal comfort rating of down to 7°C and includes a handy zip-up mosquito net over the head opening. The pillow fits in the hood nicely.

The gas mask is probably the oddest item on the list, but it is required for certain areas, especially around the crater of the volcano and the lava lake. The biggest risks here will be hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide gasses, both of which have a habit of killing you if left untreated. As we’ll be around 600km from any form of medical aid, prevention is definitely better than cure in this case.

The solar panel is the luxury item. As mentioned in a previous post it is there to charge the camera batteries and the battery on my trusty MacBook Air. I could survive without the laptop – although doing of would make checking image quality tricky – and five camera batteries may be enough for the trip. In a pinch I could charge the batteries off the cigarette lighter socket in the 4WD, but there is possibility that may not be an option. Any in any event, there is nothing wrong with a bit a tech geekery!

So, the big question is: Has this weekend been a success? The answer is both yes and no.

No in the sense that I have not performed a complete test pack and checked the weight. This is only a little annoying in that it would have been nice to do, but a quick educated guess would suggest that I should be OK.

Yes in the sense that I now have a final shopping list which can be summarised as:

  • Two more pairs lightweight hiking socks
  • Two pairs of hiking trousers
  • Medical supplies
  • Sanitary and personal care supplies
  • An inflatable globe
  • Glucose tablets, energy bars, dried nuts and fruit.

The biggest challenge of this is the trousers simply as I need to actually go somewhere that has what I am after and try them on – a struggle given my busy work schedule and hence why this weekend was so important. By contrast the other items are easy to come by.

Including the all important inflatable globe of the World…

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged , , , |

The Danakil Gamble 

It’s funny how time has a habit of passing by quicker than you would like, but the forthcoming expedition to the Danakil Depression in northeast Ethiopia has gone from being a comfortable 100 or so days distant to a more immediate 55 days with what I can only describe as alarming speed. So, it is time once again to start preparing for travel – assuming that I actually get there. After all, of all my trips, the expedition to northern Ethiopia represents the biggest gamble to date and there are many reasons why I might not be going.

The first of these is the kill date; the date before which I can cancel the trip without loosing the full cost of the whole adventure. Cancelling before this date means that I will lose the cost of the return flight to Addis Ababa and the deposit paid to Volcano Discovery. The kill date is really only a formality as I’m beginning to feel the excitement growing, but it does mark a symbolic milestone: Once the kill date has been passed, well, then I will really feel like I am going!

That being said, even once the kill date has been passed there are external issues that an cause the trip to be cancelled. The first of these is political or military unrest. As mentioned in a previous blog post the north of Ethiopia isn’t considered a particularly safe place to travel by many Western governments and the UK government’s advice is still “no travel for any reason”. The Danakil Depression, and the ghost town of Dallol is about as north as you can go before ending up in the middle of nowhere. It may still be a barren, desolate wilderness, but at least it is a barren, desolate wilderness with a name. The northern edge of Ethiopia borders Eritrea and it is this hotly contested border that causes foreign governments concern for those traveling to the area. We’ll be within 8km of the border and so, should anything flare up, we’ll be right in the hot seat. But, right now the situation appears to be calm and aside from an incident in 2012, no hostilities are being reported. In any event we’ll have a military escort.

The second issue that may arise is the ongoing spread of Ebola. What started as a surprising, but low-level outbreak a few months ago in Western Africa has been slowly spreading with cases arising internationally. A casual glance at a map show that Africa is a vast continent, but some would worry about going anywhere on the same continent during an outbreak. In this case however, I’m not really that concerned; Not only is there a large distance between the ‘hot-zones’ of Liberia and Sierra Leone in the far west and where I’ll be in East Africa, but Ebola is spread through human contact – specifically through coming into contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. As mentioned above, the Danakil Depression isn’t exactly a popular spot to go to – one person going so far as to describe it, somewhat un-euphemistically as the “arse end of nowhere” and so I’m very unlikely to meet anyone who would pose a risk. No, in many ways I would be more concerned about contracting Ebola in London than I would in Dallol or its surroundings.

Of course the sensible thing to do when booking any trip – let alone an expensive expedition – is to ensure that you have proper and adequate travel insurance. Many people have travel insurance as part of their financial package with their bank and this provides a sensible level of cover for the basics – limited illness cover, loss/theft of possessions, cancellation of the trip by either yourself (due to family emergency, for example) or cancellation by the trip operator. I’ve used this kind of policy many times.

For some destinations, such as Antarctica, I needed some additional insurance to cover the cost of repatriation should I have become so ill that I needed to be airlifted back to the UK, but again this type of insurance is readily available as so many people these days go on skiing or other ‘adventure’ holidays. In fact such travel is so commonplace that it is not even that expensive to buy this additional cover any more. No, travel insurance is easy and affordable.

We can all choose to see beyond the daily World in which we live and beyond into the unknown. But, as with any journey, there are risks...

As with Neo’s choice in The Matrix, we can all choose to see beyond the daily World in which we live and beyond into the unknown. But, as with any journey, there are risks…

So why is this all such a gamble?

Simply put, all travel insurance policies in the UK have one fundamental requirement: That the destination that you are travelling to is assessed by the UK government’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office to be safe to travel to. If the FCO recommends against travel and you go anyway, then the policy is null and void. So given the FCO’s ongoing recommendation for northern Ethiopia, no UK insurance policy will cover me.

Now, you would be insane to travel without medical insurance and I have been able to find a company the specialises in high-risk travel insurance – the kind of insurance used by military contractors and bodyguards – and so I have medical insurance should I become ill or the volcano gets a bit too playful, or I fall in one of the acid lakes. Perhaps reassuringly it covers me for kidnap and torture too.

But, there is no cancellation insurance. So if the political situation were to change, or the spread of Ebola moves east across the continent, or the local Afar tribe decide to deny passage through their region, or my international flight is delayed or cancelled, or I am ill then I’ll have no ability to regain any financial losses. And at just over £4000 that is a lot to lose for anyone. I am not a gambler and spend a lot of time on risk mitigation (through planning) or risk transference (through buying insurance). So this situation is definitely outside of my comfort zone – there is a very real risk of it all falling apart.

So, am I still risking it? Of course I am! I’d be crazy to pass up an opportunity to visit one of the most bizarre landscapes on Earth just because I’m worrying about what could happen. But, come December 22nd, if you see a sorry looking figure sobbing into a pint of beer in the Reading area here in the UK, you can come and tell me I should have taken the blue pill…

Posted in Destinations Also tagged , , , |

Time to Evolve…

There haven’t been many updates of late on the site simply because there hasn’t been much happening on the photographic front. But, as October draws to a close, that is about to change.

There have been changes, of course. The most obvious is that the web site has undergone a facelift and now sports a full page showcase gallery. I’ve long since wanted that but until the recent release of Photocrati – the plugin I use to set up and maintain the galleries – it simply wasn’t possible.

The second is that I’ve finally sorted out the veiledworld.com domain name. I have owned the domain name for some time now, but hadn’t got around to setting up the mechanism that allows people to type the name into their browser and get to my web site.

But, there have been struggles. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I’ve been having the same struggle that I’ve had for a couple of years now. When I first stared in photography I’d photograph anything that moved and then lament that fact that none of the photographs were any good. Over the years I’ve slowed down and become less ‘snap-happy’. I research a lot more, watch the scene a lot more and wait for the right moment a lot more. More than once I’ve even turned up at a site, watched the scene unfold before me and then leave a few hours later without raising the camera once, simply because I didn’t feel “it”. Whatever “it” is.

I’ve also drifted from architectural photography to landscape photography despite the insanely early mornings this can mean. But as I have become more confident in my handling of a location and as I have become more sure of the field of photography that interests me what was a nagging, but ill-defined, disquiet has also become clearer and in the past month, I have finally come to understand one thing: My photography will not improve until I stop taking photographs.

OK, that probably need some explanation! One of the photographers I follow on Twitter has been running an on-going series of posts about notable photographers, both past and present. In each post he recommends some books to highlight their work and, with a bit of spare money from sales on eBay, I decided to buy a few books. And, aside from some stunning images one fact was so obvious that I have no idea why I never thought of it: None of the photographers took just landscapes, or just portraits, or just wildlife. They specialised in one specific aspect of their chosen field. Mitch Dobrowner specialises in storm weather in the American Mid-West; Nick Brandt in endangered species in East Africa; Edward Burtynsky in how industry changes the natural world. And because of their specialisation they have built up an impressive body of work. And now I understand this, I can see why I’ll never improve beyond where I am: I have no focus.

Some people find their style easier than others...

Some people find their style easier than others…

Luckily for me, I have two possible options that of interest, both of which are fairly narrow in scope and – relatively speaking – not many photographers follow. My next trip should help clarify for me the path I will take although right now it just doesn’t feel right to have a self-imposed restriction.

But, the other thing I’ve learnt over the years, aside from patience, is that I’m not always right!

 

Posted in Travel Also tagged , |

Ethiopia: The Danakil Depression

With the Iceland gallery in its final stages of preparation meaning that I no longer have to worry about it, it does free up some much needed time to plan the next trip: The Danakil Depression in Northern Ethiopia. And this trip really does represent my biggest challenge to date.

Looking at some of my recent trips (Iceland, Antarctica and the Bolivian Andes being examples in point) and you probably come to the conclusion that I’m a cold weather kind of guy. And I am. So the thought of spending time in a place whose average daily temperature – in Winter – doesn’t drift much below 40 °C doesn’t really make me want to rush and pack my suitcase. To be fair, I’ve survived 40 °C plus temperatures before, in Egypt, but that was insanely low humidity and I spent much of the midday hours under cover. In the Danakil Depression, the lowest point in Africa and the second lowest land point on the planet, the humidity is to put it mildly, horrific.

 

The Danakil Depression - Dalol on the map - isn't exactly recommended.

The Danakil Depression – Dalol on the map – isn’t exactly recommended.

 

The second aspect that would raise an element of concern for most is its location about eight kilometres from the border with Eritrea. A hotly disputed border. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office (or FCO) – the UK’s governmental department responsible for issues travel guidelines and assisting UK nationals around the World via regional embassies – is the go-to site when assessing the safety of travelling to various countries. The travel advice for Danakil is “Advise against all travel”. Digging a little deeper however and, aside from an unfortunate episode in 2012, there have been no real problems in the past few years. That said, however, without FCO approval, no normal travel insurance policy will cover you. So I’ve had to look into specialist insurance.  I don’t know if I should be comforted or concerned that they all include kidnap and torture cover.

The third issue is that the area is the home to the Afar tribe, a nomadic people who live off the land by mining salt from the region’s salt flats and transporting it back to civilisation via  camel train. My experience of African people (in Africa) is that they are a proud race but apparently the Afar take that pride up a few notches. So, I’ve got to read up on Afar (and tribal) societies, lest I do something that offends. Not that I’ll come to any harm, but it could well mark the end of my being allowed in what is their homeland.

But despite all of this it is the fourth point that, for many, would be the most problematic. The Danakil Depression is regarded as one of the most remote and inhospitable places on the planet. It is a barren, unending desert scrubland. There is no running water here, surface lakes being either extremely poisonous or highly acidic. There is no gas or electricity supply, no medical facilities, in fact there are, well, no facilities at all. Including toilets. If you are the least bit conscious about bodily functions then this is not the place for you. It is not so much you go and squat behind a bush – there are no bushes. No, when you need to go it is a case of grab the paper, walk two hundred metres out on the flat expanse and hope no-one heads your way. And, given that, you can safely assume that there are no washing or bathing facilities at all – a highlight of day eight on the expedition I’m taking is that we get to have a makeshift shower in a river.

So, why on earth would anyone want to put themselves through all of this?

The first reason is that the Danakil Depression hosts the second of five known lava lakes on the planet – the first being up a mountain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and currently inaccessible after recent civil war. It may be deemed the second best, but it is the oldest lake and still hugely impressive.

The second is that the Danakil region itself hosts some of the most insanely coloured and textured landscapes ever. They look like they’re from another world, or a game designers imagination.

And, as a budding landscape photographer, what more could I ask?

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged , , , , , |

Time waits for no man…

Well, back from Iceland less than a week and by now I would be running through the first pick photographs. But I’ve spent five of seven nights working – or travelling for work – and I’m off to Israel in a week. So, as amazing as Iceland was, first pick has to wait as it is time to wrap up the trip plans for Israel.

First up is a pretty major change to the itinerary. Originally it was Tel Aviv (as the course that work has put me on is there), then straight out to Jerusalem for a couple of days before moving on to Ein Bokek at the Dead Sea. But, I have long had this nagging doubt about how wise the Jerusalem/Dead Sea time split was and so, when filling in the exit form that Isreali immigration requires I began to think about changing the plan. And so I have.

Essentially, after leaving Tel Aviv, I’m basing myself in Jerusalem, giving me five full days, plus bits on the arrival and departure days. The Dead Sea is easily reachable from Jerusalem being about an hour away, less if you hire a car. So I can still travel there pretty freely. But I feel the need to just spend a more leisurely time in the capital.

The main reason for this change is likely because of the leisurely pace of Iceland. It was just so useful to be able say “I can return tomorrow, or the next day” if the weather wasn’t giving me what I was after. Now I can. In Iceland, being able to return to sites meant that I got shots that otherwise would have been missed.

I have ideas on the shots that I want to take and I know my (photographic) limits. So the shots I want to achieve willl take time – and luck – to achieve. I’ve created the time, all I now need is the luck!

 

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged , , , , , |

The U-Boat Commander

It is a long weekend here in the UK but there’s no rest for the wicked and I’ve been working yesterday and today leaving just Monday for me to cram in all the usual household tasks and start wrapping up the preparation for the trip.

One of the monumental decisions is that I’m not going to be using satnav whilst driving around Iceland. That probably doesn’t seem like a life changing event, but given that I pretty much need satnav to get to the end of my street, the thought of driving across a foreign country for the first time without some reassuring “In two hundred yards turn left.” to guide me may likely end up in some kind of therapy being required.

 

Route 1 is the main 'getting form A to B' road. It is easy to see why there is no Icelandic translation for 'rush hour'.

Route 1 is the main ‘getting from A to B’ road. As Google Maps shows it is easy to see why there is no Icelandic translation for ‘rush hour’.

That being said, other than Reykjavik itself, you would struggle to call Iceland’s road network complex. Look at a map and you would be forgiven for thinking that the map designer had decided to include a couple of major roads and not bother with the rest. But no, that is pretty much the road network. Other than the ovoid route 1 that roughly travels the coastline of the island, there are two types of road you’ll find. The first type is similar to route 1 – a tarmac two-lane road – that usually acts as a spur off route 1 whilst the second type are the highland, or ‘F’ roads which are essentially gravel, or compacted crushed rock. As most of us travelling to Iceland will be hiring a car the rule is simple: Unless you have a 4WD it is best to view F roads with caution. Not only will they not be forgiving on the suspension, most hire companies have a hefty penalty for paintwork chips – a risk greatly increased by the loose surface of F roads. Their uneven surface will require higher clearance too, even more so as crossing fords is a common event on these roads. Ever since I killed a BMW 3 series when attempting to pass through a ford here in the UK – and subsequently earned the title ‘U-boat commander’ – I have always been wary of driving through anything deeper than a puddle.

As my trip is confined to the southwestern corner of Iceland, and I’ve no plans to venture significantly inland into the highlands, I only have to concern myself with a dozen or so roads and, where I do have to travel on F roads, it’s really only before they become ‘interesting’. No, as much as I would like to think of this journey as being worthy of Ranulph Fiennes, The driving won’t exactly be something legends are made of.

Still, I know myself and I know my sense of direction. So I am somewhat comforted by the purchase of the Ferdakort 1:250,000 touring maps. I’ve long had a thing about maps (even briefly referring to my study as the ‘Map Room’) and the maps from Ferdakort are really very nice – certainly as good as OS maps here in the UK. But, what I particularly like is that the Ferdakort maps include a few nice touches for those travelling the country.

 

Ferdakort touring maps have some handy extras for visitors to Iceland - the location of petrol stations for one thing.

Ferdakort touring maps have some handy extras for visitors to Iceland – the location of petrol stations for one thing.

For a start they include the location of petrol stations which, in a country consisting of sporadic population centres separated by vast tracts of wilderness, is a pretty handy feature. And, as petrol stations usually have a convenience store as well, you also know where to stock up on food. They also include the locations of many hotels and guesthouses – again a nice feature when trying to work out how to get to your accommodation. And F roads are clearly marked as broken lines and where crossing a ford will be required this is clearly shown with a nice big ‘V’.

So, my plan for tomorrow is to take all the points of interest that I have marked on Google Maps and transcribe them on to my lovely Ferdakort maps as accurately as possible. Then I can plan the routes I’ll need to follow and approximate times, which may sound a bit like overkill but remember a lot of the shots will be time-of-day dependent to get the right mood so minimising mistakes in directions will be useful.

But maybe I should take my satnav anyway. Not to use, you understand, but just in case I need to hear a reassuring “Turn left” every so often…

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged , , |

Iceland. T minus 21.

Things have been quiet around here the past week or so mainly due to the fact that the majority of the core decisions were made some time ago, leaving me with worryingly little to do. That said, with 21 days to go, it is now time for the customary mad rush to get all the last-minute tasks completed.

That’s not to say I haven’t been continuing to plan the trip. In fact, after my last post about how much planning is required and how it can sometimes seem too much effort, it would appear that I have spent yet more hours on Google. And it has been worth it, but more of that later on.

Months ago I mentioned that Evernote plays a key role in any trip planning I undertake. The browser plug-in that allows you to copy all or part of a web page with a single click, combined with what is likely Windows 7 best feature – the snipping tool – means that I can quickly gather all manner of information for later use. But, as much of a geek that I am, I’ve never been too keen on relying on electronics when out in the field – simply because I am usually quite literally a field. So one of the remaining tasks is to distil all 84 Evernote clippings into a printable document. For me this apparent duplication of effort is usually fairly handy as the process forces me to consider how to group shooting locations, the logistics of getting between them and, if nothing more accurate, then at least a vague idea of the time required at each location. It also allows me to remove some of the more impractical ideas that ended up in Evernote as I get a better idea of the final itinerary.

The other tool I’m relying on now is the Reminder app on my phone, tablet and iCloud. Not because it is a particularly wonderful app, but it is always with me on one device or another and synchronises seamlessly. I’ve had an ‘Iceland 2014’ list for some time, but with three weeks to go it is now that it will really get a beating. Right now there are over a dozen outstanding tasks and more are being added as I think of them – usually in the oddest of places.

One of the larger outstanding decisions – and one that has come about from the continued research – is whether to take an entire day out of my time when based in Vik and go on an organised hike. Usually I would much prefer to go exploring by myself but I had this notion of going to see Eyjafjallajökull, simply known to the rest of the World as E-15* and the volcano that erupted in 2010 causing all the havoc. Like most places in Iceland, you could go yourself, but I’m tight on time and so having someone do all the planning seems like a good option. Google, unsurprisingly, came back with countless options but the quirky humour of the Eskimos Iceland website piqued my interest. A few emails later and the notion of getting to the top of E-15 has been replaced by a more general hike, but one that passes across E-15 and includes some other photogenic landscapes. Of course I have checked and there will be lava fields still warm from the eruption and the requisite steaming ground too. It sounds like a great way to see some hard-to-get-to landscapes. The fact that it is described as ‘challenging’ and ‘requiring the use of ropes and cables’ in some places only makes it more appealing.

The decision really is whether I can afford the time. I only five days based in Vik before heading east along the coast but I’m happy that that gives me a bit of slack just in case Iceland’s notoriously unpredictable weather decides to be playful. Taking a day of that to go hiking leaves me no time to reshoot locations should I need to.

Still, last minute rushing about aside, I’m really very excited!

 

*E-15  – E with an unpronounceable combination of 15 letters after it!

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged , , |

The Personal Space Shuttle and Still Being Haunted By Lions on Drugs

I was watching an episode of the new version of Carl Sagan’s iconic Cosmos series the other day and they came up with the interesting fact that the space shuttle required as much thrust to escape Earth’s gravity as ten Airbus A380s. That pretty much feels like the amount of effort it takes me to go travelling sometimes.

Some people are born travellers but I’m not one of them. I have spent years investing in a nice, comfortable home not realising that that comfort comes with its own gravitational field and one that can be just as hard to escape as the one holding us to the Earth.

It sometimes just feels like it is all far too much hassle. Planning a trip is a time-consuming and complex process, especially if I’m moving around. What to fit in and leave out. Alternative plans for when the weather is poor. How long should I spend at each place on my list, even although I’ve never been there before. Photography adds its own challenges: when to go to each location to get the best light for a given shot. Of course the solution is simply to either take a package tour – and go on someone else’s idea of my dream trip – or pay an agency to tailor a trip for me – and suffer the financial consequences. But no, as comfortable as sitting back and letting someone else do the work sounds, it is important that I do it myself.

 

Four years later on, I still see this lion, apparently whacked out on Scooby snacks, as I believe the young people would say...

Four years later on, I still see this lion, apparently whacked out on Scooby snacks, as I believe the young people would say. Oh, it reads “abunai, haitteikemasen” or “Danger, you must not enter”.

 

For a start, it is part of the process and makes the sense of achievement so much greater. When I was in Kobe, Japan, I discovered a tour that took you up the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge – the World’s longest suspension bridge and one metre longer than originally designed due to the 1994 Kobe earthquake. The website was in Japanese, the application form was in Japanese, the tour was in Japanese and the requirement was that you understand it as the safety instructions were in, well, Japanese. So I spent weeks memorising Japanese vocabulary related to safety instructions. Weeks. But I booked the tour, was accepted and had a thoroughly brilliant, if geeky, time. But the feeling of all that hard work paying off is probably what made that tour so enjoyable – and rivals the actual experience of standing atop one of the suspension towers – an experience few will have.

 

Standing atop the nearest tower, 1 kilometre from shore, was made more special because of what I went through to get there...

Standing atop the nearest tower, 1 kilometre from shore, was made more special because of what I went through to get there…

Second, it’s amazing what you discover as you research – things that you’d never have thought of. For example, I photograph street art – graffiti especially – and as I was hunting around for graffiti in Jerusalem for the forthcoming trip to Israel, I had a bit of a Google. Now, as ephemeral as graffiti is, good examples tend to stick around. To my surprise I found some. Some of Banksy’s work. In Palestine – the West Bank to be precise. So a big detour in my planning this weekend has been to look into travel to the West Bank. Without the planning and research, I’d have missed the whole thing.

Many of you have a passion about something, so you know what I’m talking about when I say that having a passion can be far from easy. It demands time even when you don’t have the time to give. It demands energy, even when the ‘daily grind’ has drained you. And it will always throw you up against a brick wall with no apparent way of getting around. But, of course, it is that same passion that gets you through the day, the hard times, the long evenings away from home in faceless hotels (yes, that last bit is me).

At some point we will all become too old to do what we love. At that point we will all have to face the same demon: regret. We will all look back at all the opportunities that we didn’t take. For me it will be regret at not seeing as much as the World’s great wildernesses with my own two eyes as possible before it is too late. In twenty years time there may not be a Salar de Uyuni, or an ice-covered Arctic. If I want to see them it has to be ‘now’, not ‘tomorrow’. For you there will be other goals, but the feelings of regret will be the same.

Work is tiring, friends and family need attention and comfort’s gravity is a strong and powerful force, but passion is that personal space shuttle that allows us to break free of comfort’s gravity and escape the black hole of regret.

OK. That really was a bad attempt to get the space shuttle analogy back into the story, but hopefully you get the point…

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged |

Humble Pie at 40,000 Feet.

There’s a running joke in the office about my feelings over budget airline EasyJet. I’ll make no bones about the fact that I am most definitely a British Airways fanboy. I like their up-front costs, I like their liberal carry-on policy and have yet to have a bad experience with their cabin crew. So when I perhaps overstated my dislike of having to travel with EasyJet when flying back from Aberdeen on business, the reaction was duly noted and now comes up whenever the conversation turns to air travel.

In truth, there is no reason for me to dislike EasyJet at all. They are a budget airline like many others and certainly better than some I can mention. Indeed, since the aforementioned Aberdeen trip incident, I’ve used them a couple of times, both domestic and international. Whilst they don’t rank alongside British Airways, they are catering for a different market. And, to be perfectly frank, now that I think about it, the ‘paying for what you use’ model does have its attractions. Still, I would not go so far as to say that they are my preferred carrier.

So when I had to sit down today and book flights for the forthcoming trip to Israel, you can imagine that British Airways was first on my search list. I’m pretty liberal when spending my own money – it is my choice as to whether I pay extra for comfort – but when spending other people’s money I have to be more conservative and British Airway’s prices fell well outside ‘reasonable expenditure’, especially as there is no customer paying for this trip. It also struck me that they didn’t have much in the way of non-stop options with the majority of flights being via a stopover in Madrid, adding ten hours to the total time.

Israel’s own El Al was next. Whilst cheaper they did have some odd options for flight times. Given that the course I am attending starts Sunday morning, El Al only had two options: Fly Saturday evening at 10:40 PM – meaning arriving on the day of the course at 5:30 AM, or fly Friday morning at 9:40 AM – meaning a 4AM start. And then there was the added oddity that I had to fly out Luton, way out to the north of London, but fly back in to Gatwick, to the south, meaning that I couldn’t drive to the airport. The final nail in that particular coffin was the carry-on restrictions: Whilst they have the maximum of 55cm by 45cm by 25cm, they limit you to 8Kg – heavier than that it needs to go in the hold. My camera gear comes in nearer 12Kg – and they’d have to prise it out of my cold, dead hands before it goes anywhere near the hold of an aircraft.

So it was that I found myself on EasyJet’s web site entering the travel details when a curious thing happened. They had a direct flight on Saturday at a reasonable time – 12:25 PM. They had a reasonable price, even after adding the surcharges for hold luggage and seating and most bizarrely of all, their carry on weight limit is defined as “as much as you can safely lift above your head”. They do have a ‘guaranteed carry on size” of 50cm by 40cm by 20cm, but there are a couple of ways that you can increase this to the maximum – one of which is by simply booking extra-legroom seats. As, for a five hour flight,  that is a no-brainer in any event, it looks as if my precious carry-on will be safe.

So the flights to Tel Aviv are booked. With EasyJet.

I’ve never hear the end of it…

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged , , , , |

Hiking Iceland’s Solheimajokull Glacial Tongue

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of organised trips. I’ve been on some pretty poor ones in the past and have learnt to avoid them where possible. Tours succeed or fail depending upon the passion and knowledge of the guide and so finding a good one is essential. It is also very tricky when visiting somewhere for the first time.

That said, sometimes you simply cannot avoid them, either because the area is otherwise inaccessible or simply too dangerous without expert local knowledge. Whilst Iceland is ostensibly one of the  safest countries to visit there are things you probably don’t want to attempt as a solo activity: In my case its walking on Vatnajökull, Europe’s largest glacier and one that covers approximately eight percent of Iceland. Glaciers are unforgiving: You need specialist equipment to have any chance of traversing them successfully and the rugged terrain is full of hidden surprises, such as crevasses lurking a few centimetres under apparently solid ground. When I was walking the Great Wild Wall in China I was warned not to travel alone as a sprained ankle would render me immobile and it could be days before I saw someone else. On a glacier, you wouldn’t have days; a single night would likely be enough to be the end of you.

So, I’ve just signed up with ExtermeIceland’s full day glacial hike. They come with excellent credentials, if Internet reviews are to be believed. Of course, everyone who signs up for a tour has their own reasons for doing so and mine is photography. Just like yours, I suspect. Their tour is not explicitly billed as a photographic tour, although I’m guessing that it would be crazy to not assume that anyone taking the time to go on a glacial hike will want to spend some time taking photographs.

As I have always found blogs a great source of information for travel, I’ll be doing my bit to contribute by offering a review of their tour from the photographer’s point-of-view upon my return.

Assuming, of course, the crevasses don’t get me…

 

 

Posted in Travel, Trip Planning Also tagged , , , |