Nuwara Eliya is also known as ‘little England’ having been a hill station retreat for the British colonialists in the 19th century. Some traces of these times can still be found, most notably at ‘The Hill Club‘, a private gentlemen’s club turned hotel where we stayed for four nights. Set in several acres of grounds,…
Tag: hiking
Sunday 10th December – Tuesday 12th December: Ella
Having grown up in the golden age of Public Information Films, there is something vaguely disturbing about being in a place where almost all instructions for hikes start with the words “walk along the railway tracks…”. (Un)fortunately for us, on the days we were in Ella the Sri Lankan railways were actually on strike so…
Monday 4th December – Thursday 7th December: Galle
Galle is actually a fairly large city on the south coast of Sri Lanka, but the main reason to visit is for the UNESCO Heritage site of Galle Fort, an originally Portuguese, then Dutch fortification that was taken over by the British, and is now Sri Lankan, although apparently many of the properties are still…
Thursday 30th November – Sunday 3rd December: Colombo
When heading to a new country, it’s always advisable to check the weather. Turned out we arrived in Colombo at the tail end of an unseasonable and highly unusual cyclone, so we were greeted by monsoon-style rain. Luckily we’d already organised a driver to bring us to the delightful Taru Villas Lake Lodge, so by…
Vallvidrera to Molins de Rei on the GR92
This is around 10km of the GR92 and is mostly well way-marked. We started from the FGC station Baixador de Vallvidrera (S1 or S2 from Placa Catalunya). Instead of heading up towards Tibidabo which is our usual route (to Can Cortes etc) we headed down and across the road to find the start of the way-marked…
Monday 27th July – Wednesday 29th July: Tulum
On our way from Merida to Tulum we stopped off at the Mayan ruins at Coba, famous for the carved stelae depicting events or stories from the Mayan period. The ruins are still being excavated, and feel more ‘Indiana Jones’ than some of the other sites we visited, being surrounded and overgrown with jungle: Here you…
15th November – 18th November – San Carlos de Bariloche
Beautiful Bariloche – in the Argentinian lake district – seems to specialise in chocolate and beer. Oh, and hiking, cycling, fishing and general outdoor loveliness. But mostly, in our case, it was the home of the completely-disproportionately-large-for-our-hotel-room hot tub: As well as curious (greedy?) bird-life knocking on our patio windows every morning: Despite the hot tub,…
6th November – 10th November – El Chalten
El Chalten is a small town 3 hours drive from El Calafate, near to the border with Chile. It’s known as the ‘National Trekking Capital’: mainly because that’s the only reason the town is there – it’s inside the Glaciers National Park and has access to many one-day and multi- (up to 10!) day hikes as well…
3rd – 6th November – El Calafate: Glacier Hike, Perito Moreno Boat Trip, and more…
We arrived in El Calafate after a 5 hour but fairly uneventful journey that included the very straightforward Chile>Argentina border crossing. Apparently the other way is more complex and includes baggage scans and checks on boots etc because there is an issue with didymo. This is the view across the lake from our hotel, the…
31st October – 3rd November: Patagonia Camp, Torres del Paine, Chile
The 4 hour drive from Punta Arenas to the camp via Puerto Natales was rather ‘exciting’ because of the extreme high winds blowing across the plains, however our driver did a great job not only of preventing the minibus from rolling but also pointing out local fauna as we passed it. We saw the expected…
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