Travel

When I think of going to the Roche Au Dade via ferrata I often think “but it’s far”. That’s when I am going by car. I think the same when I consider going to St George, Fort L’écluse and other places. The paradox is that when I think of going to these places, by bike, now, I don’t.

When you go somewhere by car, it costs money, and time. By bike it costs time, but that time is the experience. When you cycle from Nyon to the Col De La combe Blanche, before descending towards Mijoux, and then back up the other side, towards Morez, the ride is the experience. You can take quieter roads, in so far as possible. You can look at the landscape. You can hear the sounds, or the silences.

As a follow up to yesterday’s blog post the last thing that I searched for was the travel times between Nyon and Le Pont, the train time between Le Pont and Vallorbe and the driving time between Le Pont and Moléson-Sur-Gruyère and the time for a little détour to pick someone up near Vevey.

If I was to have a full day tomorrow I would set off at 08:50 or so and drive for one hour to be at the Le Pont Train station by 09:58 and in Vallorbe by 10:18. I would then walk with a group to the caves of Vallorbe and wait outside as they explore the cave, before then hiking to the Dent De Vaulion before heading down to Le Pont, where depending on time, I would set off for Moléson. That would be a 1hr20 drive. In theory at 22:00 or later I would drive home after a 15km hike, and hours spent in the sun, and climbing a VF.

When I was flying between England and Switzerland regularly I packed so that everything would fit into a bag that I could take on board. When I travel by car I pack less effectively. Today I have two tents, two different types of sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, a Bare Dry suit inner suit, a single set of via ferrata stuff, crocs, hiking shoes and trail glove 7s on my feet.

Recently someone said “I wonder why they would build the Abbey d’Oujon in the middle of nowhere and someone asked the same about Romainmôtier and the idea is an interesting one.

It’s interesting because until motorways and before an extra four to six billion peoples wewre born and survived infancy the world, as a whole was much quieter. Look at photos of villages that are now towns. Look at villages where they have old buildings, and how old villas are now turned into apartment blocks instead.

Almost every time I get into the car I wish I was going on a road trip. I wish I was driving from point A to point B and that the drive would take hours, rather than minutes. As much as I hate “commuting” between point A and point B on a daily basis I love travelling from A to B as a journey. I love sitting for many hours in a car, thinking, looking at the landscape, remembering things, thinking of the future and more.

Recently I started the Appalachian Trail Challenge on Garmin Connect and every sstep I take counts towards the goal. The goal is to walk 3,500km, which is around 4.9 million steps. I have walked 652 km out of 3,500 so I have completed about 18 percent of the challenge. I am almost a fifth done.

More Than A Year

According to the pacer app I have taken 4.6 million steps in the last year, 2.6 million in the last six months. My average steps per day is around 15,146. According to this data it will take me just over a year to complete the AT at the current pace. As I look at this data the effort and goal seem futile. It means a year of wearing a Garmin watch, rather than other brands. A year of loyalty.

Yesterday i drove through the rain for two hours at night and it was so demanding that i stopped the audiobook to focus on driving. It was harder to see the lines, and the rain was heavy enough to impact visibility.

I made it but i would think twice about driving through such rain at night on a 12hr drive for the last two hours.

In Spain I keep seeing the BKL Prolimp bikes and I like them. They’re tricycles rather than bikes but I think they could be useful. Instead of transporting a broadcast camera and tripod in a car or smart you could transport them on the back of this bike. Instead of a bin bag though I would have the tripod bag and find a way to fix the camera as well.

This walk takes you from the Port of Javea up to the lighthouse near San Antonio before continuing along the top towards Los Molinos. These are old grain mills. They used wind power to grind grain for several centuries before being taken out of action as modernisation arrived.

The walk takes you along the port before you start to climb. As you walk along the port you will see a number of cats, either being lazy, or playing. You will then start to climb. The first few metres require some bigger steps but after that you will find that it gets easier. There is a good view over the port at several moments. You also get a good view of the sea.

With global warming the idea that we would get white Christmas, with snow, freezing weather and more is outdated. In the 21st century the opposite is true. We will probably get grey and rainy weather instead. If we stay in Switzerland. I used to love the idea of snowy Christmas, snowboarding and skiing but I don’t like the modern global warming version, of a boring cold, with no snow.

That’s why it makes sense to migrate south, for a week or two and see the sun. It’s not that I miss the sun, after all I see it all the time in Switzerland due to the drought that has now lasted several years. I like rain. I would prefer to be in rainy Switzerland than in the sun. Pandemic solitude has made me long for bad weather and rain, because good weather, when you’re walking around in circles doesn’t matter.