MTB Switzerland

Due to a long weekend in Germany, I combined a quick MTB trip with the ALRS rocketry event in Switzerland.

On the Friday, I did one of the published MTB riding loops, in the Swiss Jura, starting and ending in Saignelégier, not too far from Neuchatel.

Although it was in the hills, it is pretty much up on a plateau, and reasonably easy ride. Mostly on road, track, and farm fields. Total distance was only about 43km, and a GPS track is on my Endomondo log.

More pics here...

MTB Scotland 2013

Following the usual trip to the International Rocket Week, 3 of us headed north to Aviemore for a week of mountain-biking in the Cairngorms.

Day 1
We drove up from Paisley on the Monday morning, to the Aviemore SYHA, and after checking in, went for a quite ride out round the Rothiemurcus estate. This was just a quick ride up and round Loch Morlich, and back down the old Logging Way to Aviemore.

Day 2
On the first full day we did the Burma Road loop again, but with a few small changes to last time. It starts with a steep landrover track ascent, then a fast descent in to a quiet valley.  Then a ride along the valley, where we saw only 2 people and 1 dog.  On the way back, instead of riding back along the main road in to Aviemore, we sussed out a track that lead to the Speyside path, alongside the steam railway line, which is much more pleasant!

Day 3
On the 3rd day, we rode via Loch Mor, Loch an Eilein, and Loch Gamhna, which then lead to some fantastic singletrack. When the path says "Unmaintained", we weren't sure if that meant it would be ace riding or lead to nowhere, or a bog. But it turned out to be ace! After that was some easy fire roads, and an unmissable stop at the Inshriach Nursery Potting Shed tea room for coffee and cake. Excellent cake it was too (as usual).

Day 4
We took a day out from riding, so drove up to the Ski carpark, and then walked up the Coire Cas "blue" path and then the Traverse up to the Cairn Gorm visitor centre. It would have been rude to turn around there, so we carried on up to the summit of Cairn Gorm. I'd like to say the views were stunning, but it was mostly in cloud by then! My first Munro! We took the funicular back down again to save walking.

Day 5
On the final day, we rode out to Loch Eaniach. This was a long mostly easy trail up a valley to the loch at the end, but with several fords to ford. Some were merely a watersplash, but others were quite substantial. Probably not the best route to take if it has rained a lot, but it was fine for us. Just overcast and cloudy.  The weather at the loch was quite a strong breeze, and rather bleak, but my understanding that is quite normal due to the geography. On the way back we repeated part of the first day's loop around Loch Morlich and back down to Aviemore.

All of the other photos can be found here.

IRW 2013

Once again the annual trip to Scotland for the International Rocket Week came round quicker than planned. Actually, due to a problem booking the venue, IRW actually was a week earlier than normal. 

Weather was a bit windy all week, but still plenty of flights were made. I flew just the Saucer about 3 times on a D12. Nearly flew the VB Extreme and Black Brant, but the wind was a bit too strong for my liking. Since we were combining IRW with a mountain-biking trip in Aviemore the following week, I'd not really brought many rockets along to fly. Next year IRW will be rockets only.

Rainer from Estonia turned up, built a rocket and flew it a couple of times there. Is now in my possession, and I may swap the ridiculously large parachute for a more sensible streamer.

Fastest flight of the week was probably Howard's Fat Boy on a Pro24.

A selection of photos from the week. The rest can be found here.

Slovakia and Austria

Been to Austria loads of times before, but never Slovakia. Since there was yet another long weekend in Germany this May, I thought I'd pay a flying visit to Bratislava. Stayed in Vienna, since there's a direct train there, and then there is an hourly train service between there and Bratislava.

Bratislava Castle


"UFO" Bridge (Novy Most)


St. Stephens

Unfortunately of the few days, only one day was nice weather. The rest was dreadful rain, enough to cause massive flooding of the Danube and Vltava rivers and various tributories of them. I was lucky though, with the return train journey not affected by floods at all, even though we saw plenty of rather destructive floods very close by.

The complete set of photos can be found here... https://picasaweb.google.com/104347553800437592244/SlovakiaAndAustria

Ireland

May is one of those months where we get lots and lots of public holidays in Germany (4, plus 2 extra days off where the holiday is a Thursday), so I made good use of it by catching a plane to Dublin.
Weather was forecast to be rather naff, but in the end it was generally sunny and windy, but with lots of short squally showers every so often. All in all, not too bad, but was glad I'd packed the Goretex jacket.

Day 1
Instead of doing the usual touristy things in the city, I took a couple of days out to do some walking in the hills. The first day was a walk from Shankhill through a few small forests to the Scalp, a remnant of glacial action. The walk was basically along the Dublin Mountain Way, with a few diversions on other waymarked trails. I found this walk on Everytrail.

Great Sugar Loaf

Barnaslingan Forest

The Scalp

Corrickgollogan Lead Mine

Day 2
The second day was forecast to be a bit sunnier, so I took a trip to the seaside, and did a longer walk round Howth. This started of easy, with lots of German tourists about, but the path gets a bit rockier further round. Then after most paths take a shortcut back to Howth village, the "purple" route I took carries on round further and gets a bit more technical still. Eventually it turns in land, over a golf course fairway and back to Howth.

Howth Harbour


Howth Cliffs


Nearly a Beach


Aideen's Dolmen

Day 3
On the last day I had a good nose around Dublin city centre and some of the parks. Weather was more squally showers so was handy to be able to go inside in a hurry. Plus the WiFi let me check in online for the return flight, and blag a decent seat :)

The Spire


Famine Memorial


Another Famine Memorial


James Joyce

The comlete set of photos can be seen here... https://picasaweb.google.com/104347553800437592244/Ireland