Cheers, Britain!

As predicted, I have seriously neglected the Detour blog. That said, there is no shortage of things to talk about.

I think the last post had me in London having just come from the Natural Beekeeping Conference and some serious shed-living in Forest Row, Sussex.

With Dr. Luke Dixon (you can check out his recently published book in the new Recommended Reading section of this blog) as my guide, I climbed to the rooftops of the London School of Economics and several law firms/businesses around Red Lion Square. I also made time to visit the Imperial War Museum and the Natural History Museum among other places, but the former two were definitely my favorites.

Beekeepers on law firm roof by Red Lion Square. Check out the cool WBC hive!

The loneliest corner of the Natural History Museum... my FAVORITE!!

 

A family came into the invertebrate collection and the mother actually said something like "well, it's kind of boring in here, isn't it. I thought there might be something moving or some flashing lights." They had barely rolled the stroller into the room before they did a 180 degree turn and left. I was thankful and figured they were probably going back to look at something lame like the dinosaur room again. The arthropod exhibit DID have plenty of 'flashing lights' which I found disconcerting.

Experimental British National made from particle board (not to be confused with ParticleMan)

Atypical dinner. I have to post pictures of food because Mom and Alicia think I'm starving to death. This was from Food for Thought, a great vegetarian cafe just outside of Covent Garden tube station. I became a regular for dinner while I was in London.

After a week I caught the train to the northern reaches of England in Cumbria where I learned how to build skeps in the shadow of Greystoke Castle (unrelated to the famous Edgar Rice Burroughs character, I think) and then carried my newly made bee hive to, quite appropriately, St. Bees, which is on the Irish Sea and is the western terminus of the Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk.

With my prized possession strapped to my backpack I commenced the 220 mile walk through a torrential rainstorm and officially entered the Lake District. After climbing the many high routes through the Lakes, I eventually descended to Grasmere (former home of William Wordsworth, who described it as "the loveliest place that man hath ever found") and mailed the skep off to Wales. I continued the trek across the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors to Robin Hood's Bay on the North Sea. Along the way I learned a lot about the natural habitat and floral resources for honey bees in Britain and even met a beekeeper nationally renowned for his heather honey- he had an entire wall of honey show ribbons from the past ten years to prove it! I bought a couple of jars of a floral/heather mix and he and his wife sent me away with a scrumptous dinner pack-up. I also learned a lot about British rural life (pretty much that there are a lot of sheep), attended an agriculture show in the Dales (complete with sheep herding and a fell race), and found a great railway station-turned-cinema in Richmond where I saw the new Bourne movie (rubbish) and Anna Karennina.

After arriving at the North Sea, I shouldered my kit and made my way back across the country to northern Wales, where I met with Dr. David Heaf, the champion of the Warre hive. I spent three days with Dr. Heaf and his wife, who showed me the greatest hospitality and hosted many great conversations concerning beekeeping, sustainability, and, seemingly, the mysteries of nature. I left North Wales completely rejuvanated from the long walk and with a lot of things to think about.

Next it was off to Aberystwyth, an exciting college town and home to the National Library of Wales - which is home to the International Bee Research Association's Eva Crane Collection. I repeat, THE EVA CRANE COLLECTION. I was welcomed as a reader - very little red tape at Wales's National Library - and carried out a handful of 9 to 5 days pouring through the amazing accumulation of work. It would take a lifetime to go through the entire collection, but there were a few particular books and articles I was interested in and I also picked up some other books published in Britain. The library is a non-lending library, which means you have to visit during business hours to read the books you want and you are not allowed to leave with them. Security is very tight and you have to put your bag in a locker, show your Reader Identification, pass through the security station, and carry whatever notebooks and pens you need to take with you in a plastic bag. When you leave the plastic bag is searched through to make sure you haven't stolen anything. Something else great was listening to so many people speak Welsh. I found some of the pronunciations to be very difficult, but it was fun trying anyway.

National Library of Wales

Typical lunch from The Tree House in Aber

Lunchtime view in Aber

This does not represent how I spend my time.

After my fun times on the coast of Wales, I left for Peterborough, England (which is a large city in the middle of England that is neglected from your standard Lonely Planet Guidebook). It certainly wasn't a tourist town, but it IS the location of Britain's Invertebrate Conservation Organization, BugLife. I spent a week with the brown field specialists learning a lot about threats to pollinators in general, like neonicotinoids, and met a few guys super-excited by flies! Dipterans need love too, I guess.



Finally, after a brief return to London to consolidate gear I made a spontaneous marathon journey back to South Wales to visit Bees for Development in Monmouth, and I am very glad I did. I had been a bit uneasy about leaving Britain as I had so greatly enjoyed my time there. Also, I knew the transtion to the Tanzania/Egypt/India leg of my journey was going to be a much bigger change than going from the States to Britain. Fortunately, the folks at Bees for Development were great to talk to and provided some much needed insight into my next step. There was so much experience in the office! Tom Seeley's, Honey Bee Democracy and Jurgen Tautz's The Buzz About Bees, were again highly recommended and I had a chance to go through some other research materials and make some new contacts in India and Tanzania. I attended their Strengthening Livelihoods Through Beekeeping course and then made my way back to London for the grand departure to Tanzania. Oh yes, I also shaved my head and my beard, for the most part.

Reasons why my backpack is so heavy...

Spending nearly three months in Britain (England and Wales only) was a very great experience. I made many friends that I will, without a doubt, keep in touch with for a long time. Moreover, I developed a great appreciation for the culture and history of Glorious Britain (like tea and empires), while gaining a clearer understanding of the origins of my own country. I knew Britain was THE place to begin my Watson year and it did not disappoint. There was such a diversity of knowledge to be had and perspectives to entertain concerning beekeping, as well as many topics beyond, but intimately related to, the discipline.

As Mr. John Muir has been tirelessly quoted "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

I hope my experiences continue to reflect this.

So with that, I say "Cheers, Britain" and "Habari, Tanzania."

PS I mailed most of my pictures home, so I have no way of posting anything from before visiting the National Library. Sorry.

Wainwright Coast to Coast (Part II)

Part II of the Coast to Coast posts shows some sheds, some pubs, the town of Richmond, the Vale of Mowbray, and miles of heather along the Lyke Wake Walk.

While I was in East Sussex I spent a week living in a very nice family's garden shed. In one great discussion, the man of the house and I confessed our mutual love of sheds to each other. There is a greatdiversity of garden buildings across the country, but my very few photos only represent the old rail car variety.

It turns out that, like drinking tea, the shed is a major part of the British experience.

Cue shed montage...

Shed shanty town at community garden on the edge of Richmond.

Welcome to Richmond! Most people doing the C2C on a budget miss Richmond. The closest camping is about five miles to either side and the few B&B's are overpriced, which means, at most, the ordinary walker has lunch in town and then carries on. Suspecting that the castle, the River Wye, and the cinema would necessitate more than just a lunch for me in Richmond, I hiked into town early, spent the whole day exploring, and then caught a few films at the small rail-station-turned-cinema. I also traded some books and cleaned up in the freezing cold river. The films ended around midnight and I had to headlamp out of town to get to a pub to camp. I saw a badger along the way.

Central Richmond

Honey Bee on the very invasive Himalayan Balsam. Bees love it and completely coat themselves in its white pollen.

It's like something out of the Patterson video.

The Station Cinema - I saw Anna Karenina and the Bourne Legacy.

Entering the Vale of Mowbray... A wise man once told me that there are only two places in the world you don't want to be - "one is hell and the other is Kansas." Having spent two days walking in unforgiveable heat through this valley of agriculture in North Yorkshire, I will tell him the Vale of Mowbray should be added to the list.

Despite the pain of passing through the Vale, Danby Wiske was a pretty nice town and I had a pleasant night camping behind the town's pub.

I ate a lot of cold pre-cooked Uncle Ben's rice with cheese.

After my rest at the White Swan it was back to the Vale.

The trail goes right through the middle of this hedge... Many of the crossings in the Vale were hazardous.

Things eventually got better as I joined the Cleveland Way, followed the Lyke Wake Walk and got to see a lot of heather.

C2C - "So easy a caveman can do it."

Beginning of the  Lyke Wake Walk (LWW) - 40 miles in 24 hours - I didn't do the whole thing, but did walk along it for quite a while.

The upside-down acorns reminded me of the Hendrix Flying Squirrels.

 

 

This concludes the C2C posts. The photos included accurately represent the middle of the trail, but fail to represent the amazing coastal scenery (St. Bees and Robin Hood's Bay) and the Lakes. Hopefully I can someday share those pictures as well.

Also, I carried a bee skep (which I built myself) strapped to my backpack through the majority of the Lake District (five days of hiking).

Wainwright Coast to Coast (Part I)

This post was written from Tanzania on December 20, but I have placed it in the blog to fit the timeline of when the events shown actually occurred. While running a recovery program on my SD Card to save some Tanzanian beekeeping pictures from a camera error a whole crop of random C2C photos re-appeared and I have decided to upload them.

From the end of August to the middle of September I hiked from the Irish Sea to the North Sea on the Wainwright Coast to Coast Trail (C2C), which is about 220 miles. I call it a trail, but the spirit of the hike is just to walk from one coast to the other. The large number of walkers and official guidebooks have created a definite path, but it is not an official trail and does not carry a National Trail designation.

The pictures included in the posts Coast to Coast Part I and Coast to Coast Part II are not in perfect order, but do show a little bit of the C2C from about Day Six to Day Fifteen of my cross-country trek of England. This post includes sights from the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors with some heather landscapes, a historic Lion Inn, Egton Bridge, Kirkby Stephen, the Muker Agriculture Show, a fell race, some campsites, and sheep.

I'll begin with Day Eleven to Day Fifteen

The face in the rock is a bit unsettling when you are alone on the infinite moor.

A historic Lion Inn. I say "a" because there are probably a hundred Lion Inn's in England (maybe more), and I suspect more than one of them is historic for one reason or another.

Camping completely exposed on the edge of the moor. There was an intense thunderstorm that night.

In Egton Bridge I met a national champion beekeeper - he had a ton of ribbons and certificates to prove it. He was very well known for heather honey.

Back in time to the stretch before Kirby Stephen (approximately Day Six and on)

Just when you think you are alone on the moor a sheep shows up.

Kirkby Stephen (pronounced without the second "k") - This is approximately the half way point (around mile 100) for the C2C and I took a few days off here to let my feet recover from the previous six days of rain and wet.

I'm sorry to say I never learned the conversion from furlongs to miles... or to anything.

Grey squirrels (introduced from North America) are a menace in Britain. They have mostly decimated the native red squirrel population (which iare a different species from the red squirrels in the States) through disease and competition. I saw a red squirrel while I was in Kirkby Stephen. It stopped to flick its tufted ears and waved to me before it dove into a bush.

Sometimes many sheep appear...

...and they don't yield to walkers.

I found a few posts with very nice tile art on them. I would be interested to know their history.

Nine Standards - big rock pillars made by aliens (of the extraterrestrial type).

The mud was deep enough to lose my trekking poles.

More than just getting mud in your boots, these bogs can be very dangerous. It is difficult to discern where the ground is solid and a misjudged step can easily land you in mud up to your chest. These, along with charging cows, windy ridge walks in the Lake District, and questionable pub food, are the biggest threats to hikers on the C2C. Flooding can be bad in some of the valleys too.

Pretty typical way to make it through the many dry stone walls.

These walls are everywhere and are made without mortar, yet they last for centuries. I learned the basics for how to build them in Muker, but building them is really work for  masters of the craft.

I think Swaledale Sheep were the most common along the trail, but every once in a while I saw other breeds, like this one.

A proper Cornish Pasty

I didn't always get a mini picnic table.

Relaxing in the Dales.

Sheep herding competition at the Muker Agriculture Show. I had only seen this before in the movie Babe. I am sad to report that nobody was using sheep-pigs in Muker.

Fell running has become quite popular in Britain. A "fell" is a hill and there is a race circuit with contests all around the country. This event in Muker was especially remarkable because the entire race could be viewed by a spectator with a keen eye or binoculars. The runners had to run across a river, up the hill, across the top of the hill, and then back down on a trail to traverse the river once more and then cross the finish line. I would have joined but I only had boots and sandals and had an additional eight miles to carry my pack that day.

I arrived at this caravan park very late in the evening after spending the whole day at the Muker Agriculture show. The owner told me I could have a caravan for the same price (£5 -US$8) as camping and put me in this beauty for the night.

Most common farm vehicle in Britain. Toyota Hilux pick-ups were also popular.

This is cold canned spaghetti with Wensleydale cheese (bought only because of Wallace and Gromit) and some bread.

For more pictures of the Coast to Coast check out PART II of this post.