Asia Part 2

Okay lack of updates once again, simply too busy enjoying things :)

So I writing this update from Dublin so I made it back here safely.
Apologies in advance for the lack of photos here, I will do a number of posts when I fully finish my travels with photos, I simply haven't had time to sort through everything.

When I last left off the blog I was in Thailand, so I guess it is easiest to take it up from that point.
From Thailand I flew to Cambodia specifically Siem Reip which is the city nearest to the famous Angkor Wat. I decided to relatively splurge while I was there and stayed in a decent hotel and to take a private tour of the temple complexes.  I had an excellent tour guide a Mr Son who proved to be very knowledgeable and one aspect I enjoyed was the ability to avoid some of the big tours, most of them for example visited Angkor Wat in the morning so we were able to visit in the afternoon, this avoided the total tourist squash.
Even though Angkor Wat may be the most famous of the temples it is in fact on one of a very large number in the area, I think I visited over 12 different temple complexes in the 4 days along with a visit to the floating village, if you are going to Cambodia look up this tour guide he can be found with a quick google.

From Cambodia I headed to New Zealand, I flew into Auckland (via Kuala Lumpur and Sydney) from there I rented a car and started driving (If you read about the drives in America you may be surprised that Hertz hasn't banned me). From Auckland I first headed north to Cape Reinga which is the most northerly point of the North Island, from there I headed South to the Bay of Islands which I have to say is quite stunning, it is internationally famous (but the name may not be known) as the final resting place of the Rainbow Warrior (the Greenpeace flagship that was sunk by the French in Auckland harbour), The ship was sunk here after the police investigation and can now be dove by recreational divers, this was an excellent dive for me as I love wreck diving in general and especially if there is some known history attached to a wreck.
After my days diving I bounced around the North Island for another 4 days just seeing as much as I could, some of the other highlights included thermal springs which were lovely for relaxing in, I would have liked more time to visit more of them.  After the general tourist drives and such I headed to Wellington to drop of the rental car and to get the ferry over to the South Island.
Once I arrived in Picton on the South Island I picked up another car of my ten remaining days in New Zealand.
One difference I noticed very quickly between the two islands was the number of hitch hikers on the South Island compared to the North Island, the majority of these were tourists like myself but some were Kiwis, most days I picked up at least one set of hitch hikers and sometimes multiple sets, this was my way of paying back Karma for the hitches I got when I was hiking in the US and to be honest they were just some interesting people.
I really bounced around the South Island, I'll cover my approximate route and mention some of the highlights.
From Picton I headed towards Christchurch but didn't actually go down quite that far, I then headed across the mountain range and back up towards Golden Bay (I had originally decided to skip going up here but from talking to a hitch hiker it sounded nice and I detoured)
From Golden Bay I headed to the West Coast specifically Westport, I got very lucky when I visited the west coast as I saw very little rain, two weeks before I was there there was bridges and roads washed out form the rain, the average yearly rainfall is somewhere in the region of 3000mm in the area (according to one of the informaiton signs I read)
I then headed down the west coast to see Franz Josef Glacier, this is an impressive coastal drive and you start to see the Southern Alps. The Glaciers have retreated significantly in the last hundred years, it is interesting to pass signposts listing where the glacier was over different times, from the 1940s marker it is another 10 minutes drive and then a 30 minute walk to the current viewing point.
Then I headed uo into the mountains towards Queenstown then on to Te Anau and I drove up to Milford Sound which is an interesting drive on quite a small road in places at the bottom of quite small valleys, there is a significant tunnel to pass through as well to actually get down to Milford Sound, Milford Sound itself is a fjord, to be honest it is beautiful but the beauty would not justify the road and tunnel construction to, I asked a local and he explained it was a combination of a war project and a depression project that built the road and tunnel it was originally envisioned that that it would be a new port being one of the only deep water anchorages on the west coast of the South island (i.e. the nearest side to Australia) but with improved shipping and better ports on the south of the island it was easier to bring goods into other ports than transport them over a small road that would have been prone to being closed due to snow and other weather events.
From there I headed to Bluff which is the most southern point of the South island at this stage I realised I was ahea dof schedule so I decided to see some of the centre of the island so I headed back up towards Christchurch via the middle of the island and back down to Dunedin via the East coast.
In total I managed to drive 6000Km in New Zealand.

From Dunedin I flew direct to Sydney.
Once in Sydney I rented another car (Hertz still hadn't learned), From Sydney I headed north to Cairns I had to divert inland a couple of hundred kilometres due to sever flooding in the coastal areas I would have been passing through, the areas I passed through is one of the major farming areas of Australia especially growing crops and it was actually a lot greener than I was expecting.
I got one days diving in Cairns but I have to say I was very disappointed with the general conditions of the reef, the boat I was on was not the largest but there was still maybe 40 plus divers, there is a lot of signs and such dealing with rubbish i.e. don't near the reef, but as an example I collected 5 snorkels and a mask during my three dives alone, along with these dive specific pieces of rubbish I noticed additional pieces of rubbish, along with this there was significant amounts of broken coral, along with very significant bleaching.
I have heard that the health of the reef and the diving is a lot better if you can go to the more remote sections of the reef.

From Cairns I headed West to Darwin, this was my first real experience of driving in the more outback areas (the east coast is relatively densely populated, i.e. a town at least every 50Km or so), while driving to Darwin it was normal for it to be five or six hundred kilometres between towns for these larger stretches it was normal to find a roadhouse every two to three hundred kilometres, a roadhouse usually consisted of a petrol station with an attached restaurant and maybe a bar and usually a motel out back along with some accommodation for the staff and that is it!!

Once I hit Darwin my original plan had been to go directly south through the middle of Australia but I realised I had under estimated the distances I would cover each day (in the outback it was normal to cover between 700 and 1000Km if not more) so I decided to head for Perth, my one regret here was that I didn't stick to the coast road but swung inland at one stage, the coast road is meant to be a lot more scenic.
At this point I have to mention the Road trains and road kill (they both go hand in hand), the sizes of the road trains varied but were shorter than I had originally feared, the biggest ones allowed were I think 56m, still impressive, think of a big truck pulling 3 normal trailers and this is approximately what you get, these things cant stop too easily so you end up with road kill! One of the biggest road trains I saw was in the mining areas where I saw a number of trains with I think 7 trailers and I think 25 axles (98 wheels!) these were basically a string of dump trucks so were still only about the same length as the other trucks but due to the loads each trailer was smaller with more axles to take the weight.
On the front of road kill I probably say a couple of hundred dead kangaroos and another hundred plus dead cows, the biggest road kill I saw was a camel, I didn't have any issues myself with only one kangaroo getting within maybe two meters of being hit by me.
From Perth I headed along the south coast but took a little diversion up to see Uluru (~1200Km detour), from there I headed down to Melbourne then up back to Sydney with one stop on Parkes to visit the Observatory that was made famous by the file "The Dish" this 60+ meter radio dish was used to relay pictures of the first moon landing.

From Sydney I headed back to Dublin. Your probably wondering what I up to now, well I am flying to France tomorrow to start walking the Camino de Santiago walk in the north of Spain, the 780Km section I'm hoping to finish starts in St Jean Pied de Port just on the French side of the border.

I'm hoping to complete the walk in about six weeks but have almost 8 weeks available if needed, I won't give too many details of the walk for now but if you are interested in the trail a quick google will provide plenty of information.
I hope to get some updates posted but considering my recent update frequency please don't hold your breath between updates as I don't want to be responsible for people passing out :)

Sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors in this post but I am rushing it out a bit as I finish packing and getting ready for tomorrow.

Asia part 1

Okay firstly apologies for being so late with updates to this blog.
I just realized I was at the half way point for my Asia trip and I haven't posted any updates here.

Apologies for the lack of photos with this posting but I'm having trouble with uploading to blogger.

I guess I'll start with a summary and then go into some specific details on what I've been up to.

Firstly what countries have I been to so far Japan, Philippians, Hong Kong and Thailand have been on the list so far also with a day trip to Macau thrown in for good measure.
So far on the trip I've taken 8 separate flights, other transport options have included cars, buses, trains, scooters, tuktuks, ferries, jeepnies,cable cars, foot etc

What are my current plans, the current plans involve Cambodia next week followed by New Zealand for two weeks and then Australia for one month.

Okay so now for some details on the individual spots
Japan

I started my trip by flying into Tokyo, I was actually staying on the outskirts of Tokyo maybe a 30 minute train ride away, this was mainly to get a reasonably priced hotel, central Tokyo prices were just too expensive.
Before going to Japan a lot of people had advise me that a large number of people there spoke English, i have to say outside of the classical high tourist areas I found limited English, obviously anybody that did speak English was a lot more fluent with it than I was with Japanese, but I did feel that I was missing a lot by not being able to read signs and such, i know that I missed a lot of restaurants for example this way.
If you are visiting Japan and have the option of touring with a Japanese speaker this would be an excellent option.
For me I would summarize Tokyo as torture in one sense, imagine a geek in the middle of lots of electronic shops but with no space to bring anything home :-)
If you can imagine anything electronic you can probably find it and the components to build or repair it in Tokyo, and probably not in only a single shop but in multiple.
Now don't get me wrong the prices are retail prices i.e. you can find them cheaper online but if you are in the middle of an electronics project and suddenly find yourself short of that one critical component you can simply stop by the electronics market and pick it up.
There are also of course lots of temples and other cultural items to see as you wander around, one thing that did surprise me was that the trains were never quite as full as I expected, having said this maybe I missed the really bad rush hours.

After Tokyo I took the bullet train to Hiroshima, this visit was one of the most moving of the trip so far, i have of course visited other cities and areas in Europe that have been devastated by war but when you are in Hiroshima you realize destruction on a different scale. If you arrived in Hiroshima today having never heard the history of the city there is very little evidence of the destruction outside of a few specific monuments mostly in the peace park, however arriving with some knowledge of the city is a totally different experience, it is very hard not to dwell the destruction that occurred here, as i wandered around the city I was struck on one level by the lack of older buildings, with urban renewal this is being more common in major cities but usually there is still some level of older buildings nestled amongst the newer buildings, the few buildings that appear older have the hard to identify aspects that indicate they are in the large part reconstructions.
One thing I spotted was an old tree with a sign saying "A bomb tree" it's only with a second look that I realize that I had missed a crucial hyphen the sign read "A-bomb tree" which has wholly different meanings, this is a tree that survived the bomb, when this tree and others like it showed signs of life after the explosion they became symbols of hope for the survivors.
The real cost and devastation is really brought home by a visit to the peace memorial park and the museum, a few of the most memorable exhibits include the before and after models of the city and an overlay of the destruction on the modern city map, the hotel I was staying in was just on the edge of the almost total destruction zone ( with over 90% casualties) it had taken me about 30 minutes to walk to the memorial park with is adjacent to the epicenter of the blast.  A number of the exhibits speak to the individual impact on the day items including watches that are forever stopped at the time of the blast, peoples lunch boxes containing the cremated remains of a lunch they will never get to eat. A set of steps from an Hiroshima bank where you can still see a darkened area that is the only evidence that somebody was sitting there when the bomb exploded. 
From Hiroshima I took a day trip to Miyajima Island, this is a UNESCO site that near to Hiroshima and is best described as what I expected non urban Japan to be ( but probably doesn't exist anymore) there are a number of temples on the island and more shrines than you can count. There is a lovely cable car that goes most of the way to the summit of the island (~500m) but me being me I decided to walk it, not normally I hard walk but I didn't quite coming on the number of steps which I hate when walking, i much prefer a nice slope to steps.
Having reached the summit and enjoyed the view along with lots of shrines along the way I decided to stay hiking on the way down, there were even more steps on the route down :-(
The only downside to the walking was I tweaked something in my back but that didn't become an issue till the next day.
After Hiroshima I was again off on the bullet train this time to Osaka.
I mainly did some general sightseeing in Osaka and used it as a base to see Kyoto and Kobe.

From Osaka I flew to the Philippines with my first actual destination being the small island of Malapascua for a week of diving, the main attraction here is the chance of diving with Thresher sharks which come to a pinnacle near the island in the mornings for cleaning, these sharks are known for their extremely large tails as you can see in one  of the pictures below, there are also quite a lot of macro life here including nudibranches, seahorses and other small animals.

After Malapascua I was off to Coron which is on Bushanga island, still in the Philippians for a week of wreck diving. I don't have too many pictures from underwater of this week as we were doing a lot of wreck penetration and I didn't want a camera with me, as I didn't have suitable strobes with me so the camera would have been mostly useless inside the wrecks and I didn't want another item dangling off we as I tried to squeeze through a narrow opening.
The wrecks of Coron are all Japanese merchant ships that were so by the Americans in world war 2, the merchant first was moved to Coron for the precieved safely but they were discovered by American planes and subsequently sunk for more information check out www.coronwrecks.com which has information on the individual ships and the overall battle.

From the Philippians I flew to Hong Kong for a few days I was actually staying in Kowloon and not on Hong Kong island itself, prices are much cheaper in Kowloon than on Hong Kong island itself so a lot of tourists stay there, but it is only a short subway ride to Hong Kong proper.
Some of the highlights that stand out from my visit to Hong Kong include visiting the giant Buddha which has been featured in plenty of films, one of the best ways to get there is to take the subway from Hong Kong and then a cable car to the Buddha itself, this is one of the longest cable car rides I've been on with the trip each way taking 20 to 30 minutes, the actual trip is broken into three main parts with the gondola being handed off automatically between different cables at intermediate stations.
Other highlights included visiting Victoria peak at night and seeing the Hong Kong skyline lit up at night, this was actually my second trip to the peak but the first day I visited the peak was covered in low lying cloud so I could see very little.  I also took a day trip to Macau from Hong Kong, Macau is a strange place, it is a former Portuguese colony and retains a lot of the architectural influences from this period, it can also be called the Los Vegas of Asia, for a long time people from Hong Kong came to Macau to gamble, at one point there was only the one casino there but now it features a lot of the same names you would see in Vegas.
From Hong Kong I flew to Thailand specifically to Bangkok, to be honest not really my sort of city I found it too over crowded, one aspect that I found really annoying was trying to simply walk down the street and having tuktuk drivers constantly stopping and trying to convince you to take them.
From Bangkok I got a bus and ferry to Koh Tao for some more diving, i ended up spending Christmas here including a Christmas day dive, but the best days diving was the 26th where we had not one but two whale shark encounters.
The first was on the first dive but was very fleeting I didn't manage to get my camera up before it was gone.
The second dive was at a different site that was much closer to shore so we weren't expecting much on this basis and due to the relatively bad visibility I decided to leave my camera on the boat as did my dive buddy. The two of us and our dive guide decided to dive at a site that was maybe 150m from the site the rest of the boat was diving at so we jumped first and then the boat motored on to the site, we would swim over one we had seen the site we wanted.
Maybe 10 minutes into the dive I heard some excited noises from the guide and looked around to see him pointing above us, maybe 5 meters above us was cruising a 6m whale shark ( most of the whale sharks in this area are juveniles, the adults reach about 16m) it stayed near us for maybe 40 minutes swimming as close as one meter from us at times, all around us, the encounter lasted until a large group of drivers from another dive boat arrived and at this point the three of us were starting to run low on air so it was time to surface and finish a totally amazing dive.Unfortunately no pictures but the memories will last a life time.
I'm sure the divers and crew on the dive boats near us were sure something was wrong at first from the amount of shouting we were doing when we surfaced.
From Koh Tao which is on the east side of Thailand I headed to Khao Lak which is on the west side about an hour north of Phuket. The plan for here was a small bit more diving and some general relaxation. I managed to get in a one day dive trip but also a three day two night live aboard to the Similan islands, some of the highlights of the diving there included a massive manta ray, octopuses and some just massive schools of fish.
I'm writing this update from khao Lak now.

Well I'll try get a few more updates as I go along.
Apologies for any spelling mistakes above the gesture input on my tablet gets some wrong and I don't always spot the mistakes.

No I'm not dead

You may be forgiven for thinking I am dead or just being abducted by aliens.

No I've just been very lazy about posing any updates since I got back to Ireland.

Okay in my last post I was still in the USA, well from the above comment I did get back to Ireland.

So a quick summary of my last bit of America.
I finally drove the poor car into the ground!! It made it as far as Vegas but really needed to be swapped out 18,664 miles added to the poor car in under two months, not sure if Hertz has black listed me or not (guess I will see next time I go to rent a car)

In total I estimate I did ~ 23,000 miles in just over two months.

Car just before I returned it.

At the final tally I only missed Hawaii to visit all the US states, and since it was not a bond car driving to Hawaii was not a practical option (and yes I may have actually tried it if the option was available)

What have I been doing in Ireland for the last few months.

Well other than sleeping much more than I should have been :) some of the highlights include attending the EME 2012 conference in Cambridge (the original Cambridge in the UK not Massachusetts)

Some hiking in Ireland including sections of the Royal Canal in Ireland which is a lovely picturesque walk, also nice and level (just what my body needed to get over America)

Also I have just completed my PADI Open Water Scuba Instructors course in Ireland with Dive Inn Scuba I have to say this was a tiring experience both from the view of mental and physical, but the exams are now complete, jut waiting for the paperwork to be processed.

What Next...
Well I fly out of Ireland tomorrow for 3 and a half months, destination Asia.
Current planned destinations include Japan, Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Australia with maybe one or tow more stops included if they take my fancy.

I promise some more updates (Yea Yea I know you have heard that before but I will try)

Well to close some pictures from my the end of the America trip.

Ginnie Springs

Hoover Dam from the new Inter State bridge

Don't think I actually need to caption this!

 

 

 

Crater Lake in Yellow Stone National Park

 

Old Faithful letting go

Yellowstone buffalo with calf

Grand Canyon

And lastly a few pictures for the geeks out there from the computer history museum in Silicon Valley

Working Babbage Engine

Early Beowulf Cluster

 Believe it or not this last picture is actually the most poignant to me, this exhibit is almost hidden away at the computer history museum but it made me stop and look at it for maybe 10 minutes.  Yea Yea I can hear you saying WTF it is only a stack of computers (I won't go into details here of what a Beowulf cluster is, if you are interested google it!) But an article about this computer (this this actual one!) that I read just before going into second year of college was more responsible than anything else for setting the direction I have taken in my computer career. 

More updates

Okay I finally got a proper computer again to post an update from.

Well last time I was in Massachusetts heading south so how did that section of the trip go.

Well from Massachusetts I headed down the coast, firstly to Rhode Island where I met up with some old fiends for a lovely dinner which was a nice change.
From there I stayed heading southish through Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and into the District of Columbia and Washington DC.
I had a lovely day wandering around Washington, I could have spent multiple days just in the Smithsonian but I decided to head on after a single day as I had seen most of what I wanted to, getting back to the car I noticed a nice crack in the windscreen (I was parked maybe a hundred meters from an interstate so I think a stone flew from the road and got the windscreen, well the rental company said it was up to me if I swapped the car out or if it was safe to drive, I decide to stay going (it has now grown to maybe 3 foot but I couldn't be bothered to swap it out ))

From Washington I headed down through Virginia and into North Caroline where I met up with some of my friends from RenRe for a lovely lunch and some time catching up.

From there it was on down through South Caroline where the weather conspired to stop me from seeing some of the sights I had wanted to see, just one of those days where it was raining on and off a lot and I just wasn't bothered getting soaked through to see some of the sights.

Then down through Georgia and on down to Key West with a stop in Key Largo.

Key west was filled with tourists so after seeing the most southerly point (which was my main reason for going that far down) I got out of there.

I visited the museum of diving near Key Largo which was spectacular, I fully recommend it if you are in the area and even have a slight interest in diving. (I had to resist buying the Mark IV helmet they had for sale!!)
The plan in Key Largo had been for a few days of diving but unfortunately I seem to be suffering from some sort of sinus issues at the moment so that was out which is a pity as the one dive I did (well tried to do) was lovely and there was a number of dives I really wanted to do there (I'll just have to come back again)
I skipped Disney and such in Orlando and the Kennedy space centre as I had done these on a previous trip (but I would recommend them anyway)

From Florida it was west to Alabama, Mississippi and into Louisiana.
I had a lovely day in New Orleans especially in the French quarter.

From New Orleans I headed Northish to get a corner of Texas and Oklahoma and to get Arkansas.
From there it was back east again to Get Tennessee and up into Kentucky, I skipped Graceland as I was shocked with the price of visiting and I'm not a big enough Elvis fan to pay that price :)

From there I added in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and then  up to South Dakota (year I was already there) to take in Mt Rushmore, the faces are a little smaller than I was expecting (not sure why!) but well worth seeing anyway, fairly crowded but not too bad, admittedly I had to resist barging past some old people (Why is it when you have an old couple walking along a boardwalk that is wide enough for two people they insist on walking side by side so no body can pass )

From Mount Rushmore it was west into Wyoming and off to see Yellowstone National park, I could have spent a week there and still not seen a fraction of the park, I mainly took the time to take in the geysers and such (unfortunately I was having issues with the altitude again so only spend the one day)

From there it was on into Idaho and Utah where I am at the moment.

Only three states to go Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, also I want to get to San Francisco to spend a day and see a few things including some of a day in Las Vegas (to include a helicopter trip to the grand canyon)

I estimate I have about 3000 miles to go to hit all these spots and get back to San Diego by the morning of the 29th, so nine days really and a day or two of sight seeing along the way (just about practical!) The actual millage may be a little lower as I was basing it on getting to Roswell in New Mexico but I may not go quite that far!

After that what are my plans, I'm actually looking at coming back to Ireland for a month or so to do a number of things around Ireland and Europe, the plan is to base myself out of Dublin (thanks Mam), this may actually work out a cheaper way of getting to Australia! and give me a chance to do some stuff I want in Ireland and Europe.

Pictures will follow in a week or so (probably after I get back to Ireland!)


Okay a very quick update and I have to rush off to get checked out and to head on.

Minor rant and updates

Okay firstly a minor rant I need to get off my chest.

Lots of places I have stayed have offered "Continental Breakfast" I have yet to come across a single one that I would actually consider a continental breakfast at least by European standards, a couple of bagels and tea/coffee does not equal a continental breakfast.

Well enough ranting, what else have I been up to lately.

Well I'm currently sitting in Wellfleet which is on Cape Cod, Had a lovely time at the drive in last night http://www.wellfleetdrivein.com/ if you are ever on Cape Cod make sure you go and visit, it is one of the few left in existence (Okay that sounded a bit too like an advertisement, but I'm biased as I worked there for an excellent summer 13 or 14 years ago)

I also made a stop at the Dayton hamvention for a few days (geek heaven) www.hamvention.org

I have uploaded a few more photos to picasa https://picasaweb.google.com/104859470393475914260/MarksWalkAbout?authuser=0&feat=directlink

I have done a quick count of what states I have visited so far and this is the basic list (roughly in order)
California
Oregon
Washington
British Columbia (Canada)
Yukon (Canada)
Alaska
Alberta (Canada)
Saskatchewan (Canada)
Montana
North Dakota
South Dakota
Minnesota
Iowa
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Ohio
West Virgina
Pennsylvania
New York
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine
New Brunswick (Canada)
Nova Scotia (Canada)
Massachusetts

So 22 US states and 6 Canadian Provinces/Territories, so not quite have way on seeing visiting all 50 US states (not necessarily part of this trip, actually the number is higher as I have visited 7 others on previous trips.

So what is the plan for the coming few weeks.
Today is driving to Providence Rhode Island, then on to Philadelphia for a day then Washington DC for a couple of days to see the sights and visit some of the museums there. Then on to Raleigh North Carolina to catch up with a few of my ex-colleagues, then down to Florida. Of course likes lots of  other parts of this trip I'm not likely to take the direct routes so I can try to take in some extra spots.

Okay well I think that is a good summary of my adventures over the last week or so.

10000 km done

I could start by apologising for the lack of updates but I think I have started most posts with a similar comment :)

I had hoped to get some more photos uploaded but the computer in the hotel I'm using does not seem to be cooperating.

So what have I been up to since leaving the trail?

Basically driving and lots of it.

I have now covered four US states and three Canadian provinces, California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon and Alberta.
I have to say the drive over the Alaska highway was spectacular but I should probably have waited a few weeks longer as a lot of the attractions and even motels are not yet open for the season.

Some of the highlights along the way included Fairbanks, the Liard hot springs and all the animals along the way some of which included Grizzly bears, black bears (including cubs), Caribou, Moose, rain dear, elk,duck, geese and lots of different birds including some birds of prey, some of the small birds seem to like playing chicken with the car by seeing how close they can get to hitting it before veering off.

Other interesting points along the way included Crater lake (again not really open for another few weeks), unfortunately there was only one open road up to the lake with snow drifts of 10+ feet still in places.

I'll attempt to get photos posted in the next few days but please don't hold your breath :)

So what are my plans from here?
Well the next few weeks basically shape up like this.
From Edmonton I will head to Dayton Ohio to attend the Dayton Hamvention next weekend (4 days to cover 3000km) with some likely detours to take in some extra states along the way, basically there are places where I;m maybe 100Km from another state I haven't been in before so it would be a shame not to make a small detour :)
After Dayton I intend to wind my way towards Maine to take in the North West corner of my trip.
After that it will be down to Boston and along the east coast.

Well that is all for now.

Plan B is in operation

Firstly apologies for the lack of updates lately but I have had limited access.

So what had been going on with me.
Well firstly the issues I had been having seem to have been confirmed as being related to altitude, my symptoms cleared up very quickly once I returned down to San Diego but returned just as fast everytime I returned to altitude.
So I have decided to abandon the hike as I had planned it, if I had stayed on the trail I would have been heading into higher altitudes fairly quickly also I did not feel comfortable considering heading into the desert sections if I was not feeling 100% 

So what are my plans now, well I have rented a car for the next two months and I am heading out on an epic road trip instead, at a minimum I plan to visit the four corners of the US (Washington state, Maine, the Florida keys and back to San Diego) with a possible side trip up to Alaska (if I do I will basically go up far enough to be able to say I was there before turning back)  also along the way I want to visit as many different states as possible.
So any friends and ex colleagues on the east coast you may see me in the coming weeks.

So what else have I been up to in the last weeks.
Well I had a few days in San Diego so one thing I did was visit sea world which was a fun day out.
I also rented a car and tried out a little trail angeling, I provided some lifts from paradise valley cafe up to idyllwild, I also collected a few other hikers and provided them a lift back down to the kickoff which I was attending anyway.
Kickoff was interesting, I was good to meet some of the other hikers, but to be honest at the same time was a little sad for me, I'm quite happy with my decision to come off the trail but seeing a few presentations which included videos made me a little disappointed at the same time.
I couldn't actually camp up at the kickoff as I was starting to feel bad from the altitude (I did stay one night but that was enough)

Well after kickoff I dropped the same hikers back to where I had collected them, then back down to San Diego to swap out the rental car with the new one for the two months.

My plan was to get through California as fast as possible (I plan to spend some more time on my way back) that took a day and a half on its own, so I'm now in Oregon, I visited Crater Lake park today, unfortunately a lot of the roads there are still closed due to snow (12 foot plus in places)

Tomorrow I will probably see some.more of Oregon and head into Washington.

Section A finished

Well I reached Warner Springs which marks the end of section A at mile.marker 109.2

So what is next?
Well at the moment I am back in San Diego to try let my stomach issue clear up, so far it is looking good, in fact it seemed to clear up very quickly, this is both good and bad news, good in that I am feeling a lot better,  bad as it may indicate that I am reacting badly to the altitude (or at least exertion at altitude) this is bad in that later sections get higher still.
My current plan is to rent a car and do some angelling for a few days before attending the kickoff, I also.intend to spend some time at altitude to see how my body reacts, I will decide after kickoff if I am getting back on the trail or implementing plan B..

Plan B is an American road trip instead of the trail.

More details to follow.

Sucked into Julien, and some photos.

Okay so I have decided to spend an extra couple of days in Julien, mainly due to a couple of bad weather fronts that are passing through here today and Friday, to be honest the sort of weather is not that bad, I would consider it a reasonable day for hiking at home (for a day hike anyway) but it is the sort of weather that would likely leave you soaked through before the end of the day and when your only option is to pitch your tent then being overly damp is not nice.  Also you need to factor in the different equipment that I'm using here compared to at home, for example if the sleeping bag I'm using gets too damp it will lose a lot of its insulation so not leaving me in all that good a position.
A lot of through hikers may choose to hunker down in their tents on a rain day so as not to get their equipment too damp, so I decided instead of hunkering down in a tent why not hunker down in a nice comfortable hotel room within walking distance of some nice restaurants (how I love not being on a tight budget)
The other factor is along with the rain is some strong winds predicted, I can hear you saying so what.

Well here is an example of the trail in the last few days, that is the trail cutting across the middle of the photo, in was only a couple of feet wide in places with maybe a 200+ meter drop down a 75 degree+ slope (i.e. no stopping till you get to the bottom), now imagine walking along this in high winds and with mud underfoot!!

The plans for the coming weeks are roughly as follows.
Leave Julien Saturday (maybe midday depending on weather) and head north with the next planned full break being in Idyllwild in approximately 100 miles, I hope to cover this in 8-10 days, (possible partial resupply in Warner Springs and maybe a zero day somewhere on the trail) then plans call for a day or so break in Idyllwild before heading back to the kickoff event at Lake Morena, currently I'm considering getting down to a larger town and maybe renting a car for the few days and helping out other hikers, but we will see.

I have uploaded a few other photos as well, probably haven't been taking as many as I should!
https://picasaweb.google.com/104859470393475914260/MarksWalkAbout?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Oh one last clarification despite what Alan has been saying we were not actually picked up by the helicopter on the first night!

Mark

Lake Morena to Julien

Okay just a quick check in, I made it to Julien save and sound, lovely little town so far (I've mostly seen my bed at the hotel)

I had planned for at least three days of hiking to get here but made it in two with a 17 and then an 18 mile day which I have to say was a lot easier than I expected.
I'm planning on two days n Julien but may add an extra day to avoid a bit of a storm that may hit on Wednesday.
Most of my body is holding up well, my feet are reasonable with just a little heel pain bit, that is the good parts now for the bad, I'm just not managing to eat properly, on the trail I'm eating 1500-2000 calories (not the end of the world as I probably need to lose it anyway)  but even this ammount I have to force myself to eat. In trail towns it is actually worse, basically within 30 minutes of a proper meal I'm rushing for the bathroom.
I may see a doctor tomorrow if it does not clear up a bit, I expected to be off a bit for a week and it has only been a bit over a week since I started.
Well we will see in the next few days.

Lake Morena to Julien

Okay just a quick check in, I made it to Julien save and sound, lovely little town so far (I've mostly seen my bed at the hotel)

I had planned for at least three days of hiking to get here but made it in two with a 17 and then an 18 mile day which I have to say was a lot easier than I expected.
I'm planning on two days n Julien but may add an extra day to avoid a bit of a storm that may hit on Wednesday.
Most of my body is holding up well, my feet are reasonable with just a little heel pain bit, that is the good parts now for the bad, I'm just not managing to eat properly, on the trail I'm eating 1500-2000 calories (not the end of the world as I probably need to lose it anyway)  but even this ammount I have to force myself to eat. In trail towns it is actually worse, basically within 30 minutes of a proper meal I'm rushing for the bathroom.
I may see a doctor tomorrow if it does not clear up a bit, I expected to be off a bit for a week and it has only been a bit over a week since I started.
Well we will see in the next few days.

First few days

Updated to fix formatting that seems to have been lost when posting from my mobile!
Okay three days done and quite eventful already.
Day one
Bob Reiss put three of us up for the night and provided transport to the border for us. Only problem was waking up at five AM to be on the road for 5:30 as we wanted to make the border for as close to sunrise as we could.
At the border for 7AM and hiking by about 7:30.
The first few miles were relatively easy and I was feeling very comfortable but the the heat of the day started to make its presence know and my speed started to drop off severely, but a bit of rest in the shade and I was ready to go again.
Things took a turn in the afternoon, we encountered another hiker sitting at the side of the trail, at first he asked us did we have any spare water as he was low, we had a little bit so shared but on further talking to him we found out he had twisted his ankle and was waiting for some members of his family to come up and help him down, well at this point my first aid kicked in, after bandaging his ankle we decide to help him back to the nearest access "road", I decided to stay with him but Nico who I had been hiking with for some of the day decided to push on with the rest of his group after helping me with Tims pack.
After we had been back at the Jeep road for a while it was clear that Tim's family would not be able to get to where we were easily so they contacted border patrol, as there was evidence that they patrolled that road regurarly, anyway one person Tim talked to insisted that 911had to be called so they could confirm our position, this resulted in a chopper being scrambled (I won't mention what the border agents that did come for us said about this, other than to say that he said he knew where we were from the description). Eventually we were picked up about 9:30, my plan had been to get some water from them and hike the five miles into the next water source but based on the limited water and the time of day it was decided that it would be a lot safer for them to drop me at the next campsite, so I did end up skipping a small section of the trail but it was for a good cause.

Day two
The second day started slowly, I had stayed overnight in lake morena, I had originally considered taking a zero day but decided against that, this meant I was late leaving and did not hit the trail till almost eleven which is probably the worst time, anyway I slogged on for a few hours before hitting a wall, the first really good shade I found was under a highway bridge so I lay down for a good hour.
I was still about 4 miles from the next decent camp spot that also had water, but the rest had done me good so I managed to get to camp just as it was getting dark.

Day three
Awake at sunrise, the first few hours were very nice with me managing a comfortable 2mi/hour pace but as with other days once the sun got hot this dropped way down, I was flagging again by about 10 but I pushed on till about 1 when I found a really nicely shaded spot and took a long nap, got back on the trail a little before 4 and easily made the 3 miles to my planned camp site, unfortunately there was not the expected water so I needed to move on, well 4 mile furthur on was the town of MT Laguna which I knew had a motel/lodge, all I can say is it is amazing how much motivation a comfortable bed can be (along with the cool weather in the evening) well the final hour or so of hiking was by torch which was actually very nice to be out of they heat of the day.
I arrived to the lodge just as the owner was pulling away and thankfully there was a room available. Day four (five?) This is a day of rest, I plan on doing very little except resting. I have a package to pick up at the post office this afternoon and some planning to do.
Obviously I have gotten a connection to update the blog, afraid not many photos to upload but I will include this one of the store in town. It is what I always pictured a remote store to be, it basically has everything somewhere in it, the post office is attached, the motel/cabins are behind it and owned by the same people, the town has a population of 60 and during the week the store is almost the only thing in town, there is a cafe at the weekends.

The town is at 6000 feet so it is officially the highest I have hiked :) Oh also encounter my first snow this evening, there are still a few patches hers in the shade.

General info So that covers the basics of what I have been up to. I suppose the question is how have I been doing, well the hiking has been hard and at this stage I feel physically wrecked, hence taking a double zero, but I think I have the pattern I need to follow for the next days, I need to be hiking either before or right at sunrise so I can get a few hours in before it warms up properly them I need to take a long rest/nap around midday to avoid the worst of the temperatures and then hike up till or after dark, this may take some adjusting but I will try it for the next section.
Other than that the temperature/exercise is playing havock with my appetite, I am not eating enough, I estimate 2000 calories yesterday which is not enough to sustain me at this level of activity but hopefully this is something my body can sort out in the next few days or I will have to review it again at the next town stop.

Quick Update

Just a quick update.

I think my SPOT should be working now and shoud be accesable from the Wheres Mark Tab above or at this address Wheres Mark  It should update the next time I send a position update which I will do later.

The SPOT device is a small device that lets you sned short messages that include you GPS position via the satellite network so update scna be snet even when there is no access to a mobile network.

The SPOT can send two different types of messages either a limited number of predefined messages, these can be longer and are included in the price of the basic package, so if you think you are seeing the same messages repeated again and again you probably are.

The second type are type and send massages, these are limited to 41 characters but can be customised at time of sending, I will be using there periodically.

IF you want to be included in the email distribution list for these let me know and I will add you on when I get a proper internet connection.

Shopping and phones

Lets get the bad news out of the way first, as they say plans rarely survive contact with reality. Before getting here I had planned and promised regular (if not daily) blog updates from the trail, unfortunately this wont be happening now.
Don't worry I can hear you shouting why, well lets say I had my first taste of US mobile phone carries and I have to say I'm that I am surprised how bad the plans that are on offer are.
My requirements are
1. A SIM card (I already have a phone)
2. No contract (pay as you go, I'm only here for a few months)
3. Be able to make and receive calls
4. Be able to use internet/email
5. Reasonable coverage along the trail.

For anybody coming from Europe the first four items probably sound easy and if you browse some of the US sites like I did you might think it would be easy.

Well lets review the issues I had.

Firstly the question of coverage narrowed the realistic choices down to either Verizon or AT&T, no problem at least I have a choice :)

So Verizon seemed to have slightly better coverage from looking at the coverage reports on WWW.pctmaps.net

Unfortunalty Verizon do not offer any options to purchase a SIM only package, or at least not one that will allow voice calls, they do have SIMs but they are aimed at data only e.g. ipads and such, since I already have a very nice smart phone with me this is not much of an option for me.

So still not a big deal, I'm sure AT&T will want to take my money.

When I first start talking to the nice agent in the shop things are looking good, they have a nice package for $60 a month that seems to do everything I want, unlimited calls and unlimited internet including calls to Ireland, looks good doesn't it.....
That is what I was thinking as well until the bomb was dropped as they they say, the agent then mentioned that the unlimited internet part of the plan did not apply to smart phones,  that option is only available with a contract or on older non smart phones.

So instead of one of them getting at least 300 dollars off me over the next six months they will only get maybe 50 as I took the cheapest plan that simply lets me make calls and texts and pay for them as I go.

One item in the plan compares favourable to plans at home and that is 10c/minute national calls and 49c/minute calls to Ireland, this is well below the rate you pay at home on a basic pay as you go plan, but it's not all good, compared to home, you pay both to make and receive calls and texts here, so even if I only have incoming calls my credit is getting eaten up :(

So what does all this mean for the blog, well basically it means that I will only be posting updates when I can either get wifi coverage or get some other means of getting internet access. So please do not be surprised if it ends up being weeks between actual posts, to make up for this I have gotten a SPOT which I will use to provide basic updates, I'll post more about this in a day or so.

So other than my time battling phone companies, yesterday was a day filled with shopping and arranging some other final items.

I have to say that so far I am really enjoying San Diego, it feels very different to most other American cities I have been in (mostly east coast) it has an excellent public transport system so it is very easy to get around to the shops I need, so far I have only had to resort to taxis once or twice and that was more for convience than necessity.

At this point I probably have all the equipemnt I need to actually hit the trail (other than food, that's for today)
I will make a seperate post in the next few days with equipment details.

On the aggenda for today is food.shopping and looking at some of the gear that I got yesterday to make sure nothing is missing and to familiarize myself with some of it, as well as arranging to send my bounce box on ahead with unneeded items.

My current plans involve getting started on the trail on Monday (I have added and extra day in San Diego to see some more of the sights)

Well I think that will do for now, more posts to follow.

Good bye and thank you for all the fish

Okay so this post started out as my last posting from Ireland but I ran out of time in Dublin airport so it will just have to double as my first posting from America as well.

So arrived save and sound in America after an 11 hour flight and cleared customs and immigration sucessfully, I don't know if it is a good thing or not but I really don't mind long flights these days, well not as long as I have a decent book or two.

So what are the plans for the next couple of days?
Today and Friday should involve finalising some equipment and food so a visit to REI (large outdoors shop)  is in order as well as a large supermarket to see what food I want to try (remember coming from Ireland I know what types of food I want but not specific brands or anything, so the first week on the trail may involve different brands of the same thing just to see which I prefer for the rest of the trip)
Also I need to collect some equipment that was sent on ahead.
Today will be the first time I get to see some of my key equipment including tent, stove, backback and some others.

After (and probably during)  all that I also want to have a bit of time to see.San Diego as it is my first time here and I want to get some walking in to allow myself to acclimatize to the weather, while it will be different when I hit the hills it should ease me in a bit.

March 19th Update

Just a quick update since I posed in a while.

The count down is really on now 8 days till I leave Ireland (28th March) and 12 days till I hope to make my first steps on the PCT.

Its really hard to describe how I feeling at the moment about the trip, my emotions towards the hike are a real mixed bag, excited, nervous, excited, scared, excited, overwhelmed, you get the idea.

Before finishing up in work I had such good plans about getting in a lot of training hikes, unfortunately real life has intervened a bit, most of my time has been taken up with finishing up jobs around the house and getting it ready for my house sitters to move in next weekend.

One of the advantages of flying in from Ireland and planning on resupplying on the trial is that I don't have all the extra work of preparing shipping boxes of supplies.

Other things that have been going on in the last few weeks is some finalising of equipment, any mail order equipment that I needed is sitting in Boston (Thank you Dave) and should be getting sent to San Diego in the next day or so, this saved a lot of money on shipping but it means that the first time I will see some of my key equipment is when I get to San Diego and the first chance I will have to test some of it will be my first night on the trail (now you can see why the some of the nervous feelings are sneaking in)
It also means that my few days in San Diego are likely to be a bit hectic between equipment and food shopping, hopefully I'll still have some time to see a bit of San Diego as it is my first time there.

All required permits are now in.

• PCT permit, which covers access to the different wilderness areas and parks along the trail (otherwise you would need to get individual permits where required)
• California Fire permit, this is required to have any open flames in wilderness areas of California, which I will need for my alcohol stove.
• US visa, this is required because I will be in the US for longer than the normal 90 days that is normally available to Irish people, this was available from the Irish embassy in Dublin.
• Canadian entry permit, this is an additional permit that basically gives you permission to enter Canada via the PCT even though it is not a normal boarder crossing location, very simple to get, basically download a form on line, fill out and send off, I had it back in Ireland in less than 3 weeks and this included probably a week each way for postage.

So nothing really left except final get togethers with friends and family and getting on the plane.

I will try to get a few posts made form San Diego to update everybody on my progress and then regular updates from the trail.

Say what now

Okay in this post I want to try provide a glossary of terms I may use later in my posts.
Most of the information in there is from other sites including http://scottbryce.com/pct/glossary.html and  http://www.zaneritt.com/glossary/



Through Hiker - To me any hiker that is attempting to complete a complete trail or a significant portion of it.





Bear Can - A bear proof canister for holding food, required for certain areas, think giant child proof container.

Bounce box - a resupply box that you mail ahead to yourself for example to mail equipment that you don't currently need but will need at a later point, or for items that may be hard to get, I intend to use this for a number of items.



Cowboy camping- Basically camping outside without using a tent, I may cowboy camp a few times but currently plan on using the tent since I will be carrying it anyway.

Food Drop - A method of resupplying food by mailing it ahead to yourself using the US postal service, some people use this method for the majority of there supplies but it is less practical for me as it usually relies on families to periodically send the packages and make any changes that you need.  I will likely use it for one or two areas where resupplying is less convenient but will do the packages myself from earlier points on the trail.

The Herd (The Pack)- The main pack of hikers usually centered around the kick off weekend, this tends to be large in the early months but thins out as the trail continues. This occurs due to the limited weather window for completing a thru hike, I hope to be at the start of the pack at the start but due to low planned mileage at the start I'm sure I will end up in the middle of it.



Kick Off - An annual weekend event organized by former through hikers on the last weekend of April (27th - 29th April this year) at lake Morena which is about 20 miles from the start of the trail. I plan on attending mainly to meet the other participants but also as a good opportunity to replace any equipment I may not be happy with as a lot of different equipment is displayed there which I may not have an opportunity to get in Ireland.
To give it is official title Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off Party, ADZPCKKO or just ADZ

Hiker midnight - Usually sometime around 9pm or the time when most through hikers are usually asleep.

Zero (Zero Day) - A day where you cover Zero trail miles, usually in a town where you are resupplying or simply resting.

Nearo - A near zero or a day where you only cover a small amount of mileage, often just before coming to a town or just leaving.


Register - Logbooks that are maintained at different points along the trail which hikers sign to state where they have been and when, can also be used in emergencies for search and rescue purposes. some are maintained along the trail itself, others are hosted by businesses or trail angles along the way.

Trail Angel (Angel) - Anybody who goes out of their way to help a hiker, this could be as simple as providing a lift or spare food to somewhere to sleep for a night, right up to epic help like hosting and feeding hundreds of through hikers every year as some angels do.

Trail Magic - any nice and often unexpected event that befalls a hiker, this may be as simple as spare food being given to a through hiker by a weekend camper, up to coolers of food and drinks maintained along the trail, usually providing trail magic is enough to be classified as a trial angel.


Trail name - A nickname that is used by a hiker while on the trial or in discussions with other hikers, usually used to stop confusion because how many Johns will be on a trail at the one time or a description.
This is normally derived from some aspect of the hiker be it unusual funny or significant or some memorable event .Traditionally a hiker name can only be given by other hikers so currently I don't have one, it may also change due to significant events but usually sticks after a while.  Some people will try to pick their own name but may be renamed.

Yogi (Yogiing) - The art of convincing somebody to give you something for free, usually referring to a non hiker or a day tripper, it may be as simple as asking some leading questions such as how far is the town from here, do you know if there is a bus or such and letting the person decide if maybe they want to offer you help.
Also the trail name of a well know through hiker that publishes a handbook of useful trail information

Water cache - Caches of water maintained by trail angels especially helpful in sections that are normally waterless especially int he desert, very useful but can not always be counted on so should not be relied on to complete a section, this can be as simple as a few liters of water to caches such as this picture.
These are maintained by trail angels at their own expense and from reading other blogs they are often a very welcome sight in the desert.

Skipping - refers to skipping sections of the trail for different reasons, usually to skip particularly difficult sections, maybe due to snow, fires etc, People will often come back and hike skipped sections or maybe tackle the section from the other direction. 

Calorie loading - exactly as it sounds, loading up on calories especially during a town stop

Slack pack - Doing a section with little or no equipment, usually only food or water, usually where your equipment has been brought on ahead by car or some other means.

Camel up - drinking large volumes of water to save you carrying as much.

Flip Flop - Usually refers to skipping a section and then walking the missed section in the wrong direction, e.g. walking from the Mexican border to the Sierras then skipping up to the Canadian border and walking south bound to complete the missing sections.

Yo Yo - Something done by crazy people, which involves completing the whole trail first in one direction and then back again in the same year



Sun Cups - Refers to the uneven surface that is left when snow melts resembling a giant egg carton, these may be up to a couple of feet high

Post hole(ing) - Refers to breaking through a covering of snow, often into a cavity below, these may for around buried boulders or where water is flowing under the snow.

Hiker Trash - A general description of through hikers, may be due to the fact that through hikers are often confused for a homeless person especially away from common trail towns which may be less used to through hikers.


Base Weight - The weight of your pack and equipment excluding food and water and some other consumables.

Glissade - Sliding down a snow covered slope, more fun than walking, may require an ice ax to control your speed.

Heel stepping - A method of hiking down a snow covered slope that involves digging in your heels.


HYOH - Hike your own hike, basically hike your own way, just cos somebody else says you have to cover 30 miles a day but you only do 15 HYOH!

NOBO - Northbound starting at Mexican border and hiking north to Canadian border

SOBO - Southbound Starting at Canadian end and hiking south to Mexican border

What where when why how

Well it is the middle of a global recession (or whatever you want to call it), I have a nice secure well paying job with excellent benefits that I enjoy.





So I of course I do what anybody would do and hand in my notice.




I can probably hear lots of people at this point asking why, well I have a dream.., or maybe it is a plan (well it will be a plan with some more planning)

I intend to go for a little walk (well 2663 miles or as much as I can manage). The walk will be following the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) which starts in California at the Mexican border and winds it way up to the Canadian border.
Over the length of the trail it passes through 25 nation forests and 7 national parks.
The trail roughly parallels the pacific cost by about 100 to 150 miles, heights range from 140ft to 12,153ft.

For more information and some great pictures check out this Wikipedia article

I will be starting the trail in early April, flying from Dublin to San Diego on the 28th of March and starting hiking a few days later.

If I last the whole 6 or 7 months that I hope to be on the trail then I am planning on spending an additional 6 months traveling mostly around south east Asia and such, no specific plans for this portion of the trip exist yet but I hope to visit the following countries, New Zealand, Australia, India, China, Japan, Bali etc etc etc (South America?)


 What on earth would make me do something like this, well it all started with a little headache one evening in August 2010 when I was sitting at home.  Well to be honest the worst headache I have ever experienced along with almost passing out (anybody who has experienced migraines can probably understand)

Well this was a brain aneurysm bursting in my head, with in a week I had undergone brain surgery to correct this, followed by 5 months off work and an additional month or two of getting my energy back.

Well a near death experience like this can change your perspective on things (how near depends on the numbers you look at)

Two things that were always on my retirement bucket list were hiking the PCT and traveling around the world a bit more.
So I decided instead of waiting for retirement I might as well do it now while I had my health (or what passes for it), I had originally been thinking of 2013 or later but as anybody that knows me if I procrastinate about something or put it on the long finger it is unlikely to happen.  So taking the bull by the horns I started to plan for 2012.


My first plan had been to take a sabbatical from work for the year but this was not to be, so first obstacle in my way, I think it took all of 5 seconds to decide I was going anyway.  So my notice was handed in within 5 minutes of the news a sabbatical was not possible (Sorry for the shock guys)

I think that very roughly covers the What and some of the Why.

So I guess some more information about me for anybody that does not know me.
I'm in my early thirties from Dublin in Ireland, I have been involved with the outdoors for years firstly as a Scout then a Scout leader (taking a break from this for now due to the health reasons above, but as I see it once a scout always a scout)

My other main hobby is diving which probably does not have any bearing on the hike but will probably be important for the latter half of the trip.

Well that probably sounds too like a lonely singles advertisement but so be it.


Probably the only item left from the title is How, I will hopefully give some more information on this in later postings but at the moment the plan is one foot in front of the other.

Don't expect too many interesting updates between now and April, they will mostly be information around my plans and maybe equipment and such.
I hope to start daily posts once I start on the trail (probably posted in batches as I manager to get Internet access)

My next post will likely be a combined FAQ and explanation of some of the terms I might be using in the blogs.