Wednesday 28 December 2016

2016? What a Year It Has Been!


Ciao da Roma!

Looking back over the past twelve months, Dianne and I feel so lucky to have had such rich experiences. There has been sadness and struggle along with the delight and adventure we've enjoyed - but would life be so full without that?

January

Our first great adventure was taking our grandchildren away to the highlands of Tasmania for a camping and walking trip. One of us wasn't sure that this was a good idea: the other said, "Hey, let's do it!" Of course, it could have gone horribly wrong but as things turned out we had a fantastic time.
We packed up the car, piled the kids in, hitched up the camper-trailer and headed off to the Central Plateau, camping our first night at Penstock Lagoon. This is what our campsite looked like ...

At Penstock Lagoon

Yes it was a bit cool at times! We made our way from there to Cradle Mountain, and had a few days sharing one of Tasmania's iconic places with the little ones. Definitely one of the highlights of the year. Here are Asha and Zavier at the start of the Overland Track, Australia's premier bushwalk ... 

At the start of the Overland Track
No, we didn't do the full walk on this visit but played around the environs of Cradle Mountain. We were so impressed with the way the grandkids walked, as they don't get much practice at this sort of things in the tropics. Hopefully Di and I might get a chance to complete the through trip with the sprouts before we are too old and feeble - and they are still keen to do stuff with us.

February

Although we did a few day walks and bike rides, the highlight of February would have been our trip to Frenchmans Cap with our friend Peter Levitzke, with whom we cycled across Australia in the middle of last year. We set off in fine weather ...

Di, Pete & Doug setting off for Frenchmans Cap

... and walked through to the Lake Vera Hut, where Pete had a good afternoon's kip ...

Pete catches some zzzzz's


The forecast wasn't great, but we thought we might be able to sneak in a quick return trip to the summit the next day and did manage to summit, albeit it in drizzle and with very limited visibility ... 

On the summit of Frenchman's Cap


Also unfortunately, the ankle that I damaged in December of 2014 didn't like the long days hiking on rough rainforest tracks so much and I was pretty sore by the end, which didn't augur well for a major goal later in the year. 

March

After having the good fortune to be shepherded to Cape York and establishing very strong friendships on that and subsequent outback adventures, Di and I were "persuaded" to organise a get-together in Tasmania for Ultimate camper owners. This was certainly the focus of the month. Along with a large group of Ultimate owners, we spent four days en masse centred around the small town of Copping, where the Bream Creek Show was being held. From there we toured with our close friends down to the Tasman Peninsula and then up to Freycinet National Park. We had three great day hikes in this time, including a visit to Cape Pillar ...

At Cape Pillar, overlooking Tasman Island


... which we also visited by sea with our friends on the classic Tasman Island Cruise. The few days we spent camped at the beautiful Fortescue Bay ...

Fortescue Bay

... passed all too quickly, as did our few days together at Freycinet National Park. We managed to fit in a bit of cycling around this sociability (which we aren't brilliant at) so it was quite a well-rounded month for us, all things considered.

April

Last year, when we were training for our rain-sodden and rather spartan ride across Australia, Di started researching. She found a bike tour in Europe that really appealed to her, and persuaded me - without too much difficulty - that it would be a good thing to do. A company called Ride and Seek was going to be running its inaugural tour from London to Rome. With that trip fast approaching, it was time for us to get cracking with our training. Well we did get cracking, logging over 1700 kilometres on the road. The two best rides were our trips to National Park and Bothwell. Both long and absolutely superb days out on the bike. We also managed to squeeze in a few good day hikes - including this ramble on the slopes of Mt Wellington - to prepare for our other big adventure, but more on that later.

May

We were just starting to hit some form when, with just two weeks to the day until our departure for Europe, I received news that my Dad had died. Naturally, I hopped on a plane to Vancouver Island to be there for the funeral and to spend some time with my family. I'm probably not alone in realising that you don't fully appreciate all that your parents did for you when you were growing up. Despite the fact that we weren't a well-off family, I can say categorically that I had a wonderfully rich and rewarding childhood thanks to my parents. They must have liked spending time together, my Mom and Dad, and they must have liked kids, because they produced five of us over a period of six years and four months. Not sure why they stopped really, but it was probably a good thing. Anyway, Dad loved the outdoors, and loved sharing it with friends and family. Here is one of my favourite photos of my Dad, doing what he like doing best ...

Jack Bruce


So, home to Hobart and one week to get ready for our departure to Europe. To say I operated in a bit of a fog during this week would be an understatement. Before I knew it we were landed in London, and meeting the people that we would be spending the next month with. And what a fantastic bunch of folks they were. Here is a group photo taken in front of Buckingham Palace the day we set off ...

In front of Buckingham Palace

You can see shadows, right? Beautiful sunny day, right? Well the day deteriorated and it was raining by the time we reached Dover, 160 kilometres later. In fact, although we had the odd good day, our traverse through Belgium, northern France and even into Switzerland was largely rain-drenched. Some of you might remember that this was when they had record flooding in that part of Europe. Anyway, despite the rain, according to my record keeping, we cycled something like 930 kilometres in the week from the 23 to the 29th of May. To say we were all a bit tired would be an understatement. However, the visits to many historic sites, great company and occasional gem of a day amongst the rain meant that we would not have wanted to be anywhere else. We finished the first week of our cycle tour and the month of May in the beautiful medieval town of Troyes on the River Seine where we were very happy to have our first rest day.

June

The weather did gradually improve. and for most of our time riding through Italy we had sunny skies.  The first three weeks of the month saw us traverse through Borgogne, into Switzerland and the Alps, across into northern Italy and the Dolomites and then finally to Rome via Venice.




Over the month of our journey we cycled for 26 days with 3 rest days, covering about 3200 kilometres and ascending over 38, 000 metres, sharing great times with a fantastic group of people.  Here's another photo of our group, this time taken the morning we rode into Rome ...

One short ride left ...
If you want to read about our journey in detail, you can go to the blog I kept during the journey. Finally, in respect of the bike tour, we can't recommend more highly the folks that guided us through it all. Ride and Seek are a great company who really do put first the interests of their clients. They are so good that we are planning to ride with them again next year, along with some of our "fellow travellers".

The last week of June was a much more relaxed time. After enjoying a couple of days in Rome we made our way to Avignon to visit our friend Philippe, who we had met in 2014 while hiking in the Écrins National Park in the Southern French Alps. He delivered on a promise to show us the the fabulous Camargue region, which is the delta formed by the two outflows of the Rhone River, a place not so frequently visited by foreign tourists. Like many other regions in France, in the Camargue traditions are enthusiastically maintained. The following photo shows two aspects of those traditions: the Gardian houses and the Camargue horse ...

Camargue Gardian's house and Camargue horse

We had a fantastic time with him and his partner Veronique before heading north for another challenge. Di took this photo of the two of them back at Philippe's house outside Avignon, which he has rebuilt from a total ruin over the course of a couple of years ...

Veronique et Philippe à Le Petit Mas


July

From Avignon we made our way by train and bus to the tiny town of St Gingolph  on Lake Geneva at the northern end of the French Alps. Di had been wanting to walk from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea by traversing the French Alps since 2009, when we started planning adventures for our retirement. For some reason, I agreed that it would be a good idea to follow our cycle trip with this fairly extended hike. Di  did a massive amount of research and planning before we left home, plotting out the most scenic - and arduous - route that she could, and booking all of our accommodation in advance.  Here's a rough overview of the route we took and some figures of the amount of ground covered and metres ascended in our traverse ...

From St Gingolph to Menton by foot


This route combined sections of the GR's (Grande Randonnées) 5, 52 and 55 and travels through both the Vanoise and Mercantour National Parks. After we did the first five days alone, we were joined by Philippe and Veronique - and their friend Philippe, and then our friend Michel joined us a couple of days later. We had some great days walking together before each of them drifted off back to work and Di and I continued on our way. If you want to read about the trip you can do so here but be warned: it's a bit of an epic. Because of the length and variety of the traverse it's pretty well impossible to pick out a handful of favourite photos to share, but if you want to see 100 or so of my favourites you could look at these photos. In the meantime here are just a couple to add some colour to this narrative ...

Di in the magnificent Mercantour
Looking towards the Col de Chavière

We spent about the same amount of time traversing the Alps by foot as we did cycling from London to Rome, covering about 1/7th of the distance but ascending nearly as much as we had on the bike tour. Due to some bad weather, we skipped two of our scheduled days of walking but managed to cover pretty much all the rest of what Di had lined up for us. But by the time we reached Menton we both felt like we deserved - and needed - at least a few days of complete rest. 

August

Before leaving Europe for home we had arranged to visit our friends Michel and Brigitte in Toulouse and then travel on to Michel's homeland of Brittany to do some walking with them along the GR 34, which runs for something like 1800 kilometres along the entire coastline of Brittany. We thought this would be an easy cruise after the previous couple of months, but Michel set us a fairly strenuous schedule and it turned out that, rather having become fit as the summer wore on, we had just gotten worn out! This was the second section of the GR 34 that we'd done with the two of them, and we were just as delighted this time around as we were when we visited in 2012. Our previous trip had been to the west coast; this time we walked along the pink granite of the north coast, broken up in the middle with a wonderful few days pottering around the gorgeous Île-de-Bréhat. Here's the route we covered ...


Although it was a bit damp setting out on first day ...


by lunchtime it had cleared up and the rest of the trip was gorgeous. Here's a classic Breton coastal view ...


... and a picture of the four of us in one of the small coastal towns along our route ...



We also once again spent a few days in Michel's home town of Val d'Izé, visiting with his family, capping off another wonderful visit to this gorgeous part of France.

Finally, we were ready to head home. We sped back to Toulouse, got on the plane ... with one little hitch. After that mindless religious maniac had driven his truck through the Promenade des Anglais in Nice killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more, security had changed significantly since our arrival. The security guard at the airport manning the scanner would not allow us to take our hiking poles in our carry-on luggage so we had to leave them behind as we didn't have time to go back through security and check our bags. 

Once we recovered from the journey home it was straight into the garden as there was a lot to catch up on. About a week of hard yakka knocked it back into shape. I borrowed the green-waste bins from a number of our immediate neighbours to get rid of all the weeds, and we could finally see the garlic we'd planted and get some other things into the ground.

September ...

... proved to be another very full month. It was great to finally catch up with a number of friends back in Hobart. And having heard from our daughter just before departing for home that we would be allowed to have the grandkids for the last week of the month, we booked tickets to travel on the ferry across to the mainland. We had just started getting ready for that when Di's Mum suddenly got sick and passed away shortly before what would have been her 98th birthday. Thankfully, all of her children and grandchildren were either in the state or able to get to Hobart in time for the funeral, making for a fitting celebration of Beryl's life, one that was very much dedicated to supporting her family. This photo showing those family connections is one of Di's favourites ...

Beryl, Di, granddaughter Yolanda and great-granddaughter Asha
Before we knew it we were on the Spirit of Tasmania with our camper-trailer and the bikes on the back, headed for Brisbane to pick up our grandkids, pausing a few times along the way to do a bit of cycling. We had a great week camping, bushwalking and generally mucking about along the border of Queensland and New South Wales. Here are a few photos to illustrate ...









After dropping the kids back at the airport to fly home, we had a short visit in Brisbane with our good friends Max and Prue Borrows before we started our return journey to Hobart.

October

On the way home we got some good visits in with a number of friends in New South Wales - people we have met during various adventures both travelling around Australia and on our recent bike tour. We stopped in and said hello to Graham and Liz in Bonnells Bay, Chris in Port Hacking, Kay and John (who are a bit of a team but not "together") near Wollongong and, in Wagga Wagga,  Chris, Roberta, Emilie and Ian, aka as "Team Wagga". We had some great rides along the coast (especially in Royal National Park), in the Snowy Mountains, and in the flatter inland country. 

Here's a photo that Kay took for us outside the cafe along the waterfront in Wollongong ...


We were back in Hobart by the 22nd and, yes, it was time to get stuck into the garden yet again, this time for the spring planting. There wasn't too much weeding to do as Spring hadn't really sprung much. In fact I was a bit worried about the lemon tree that I'd planted but the nurseryman reassured me that all the citruses had been knocked about by the cold and windy weather that had transpired while we'd been away. The upside of everything being so slow was that the little amount of weeding I had to do!

November

It was great to finally be home and look forward to a more settled period. We managed to put the brakes on after a pretty busy six months and just appreciate being home, socialising, catching the odd movie and doing a bit of cycling and a couple of day walks. The only "away" time we had was to go up to Launceston for a charity cycling event called "Sally's Ride", which was a fun day out in the fabulous cycling terrain of the Tamar River and surrounding countryside.

December

Finally, with a bit of sunshine and warmer weather, the garden has started to blossom. The tomatoes are taking off, we've harvested more blueberries than ever before, the strawberries are producing nicely and other things look promising - apart from the cherry tree, which is decidedly sick. (Come winter time, once it has dropped its leaves, I'm going to get some serious help from the people down at Chandler's Nursery to get rid of the nasties that have got my precious tree in their thrall.) Although we love to travel, we really appreciate being back in Tasmania, where life is easy and we have such a beautiful, safe and relatively unspoilt environment. We do sometimes wish we didn't live so far away from people with whom we've become connected through our various adventures but modern communications mean that it is at least easier to keep in contact. We've been away to the east coast for a couple of rides, using a caravan park in Bicheno as our base camp ...


Another ride on a quiet road we hadn't even visited before by car took us through some lovely terrain east of the Midlands Highway, and delivered us this cute little surprise when we cruised past the old, decommissioned railway station in Parattah ...



It has been a thoroughly wet last Wednesday of the year. Di reckons that the rain is a good thing, because I need a day off the bike - which I probably wouldn't take if the sky was clear and the roads were dry. (It's actually not that bad out: do you think I should sneak out for a quick spin after dinner?) 

We feel incredibly lucky to have had such a full and rewarding year. The sadness for both of us losing a parent is tempered with the realisation that both Jack and Beryl had rich lives - and that their best days were behind them. We wish all of you with whom we've shared the year - either in person or via our wonderful modern connected world of the internet - a great 2017 and look forward to catching up with you, either here in Tasmania or on the road somewhere.