Exploring the Welsh coast: Aberaeron and New Quay


Yesterday I mentioned that Aberystwyth is a good base from which to explore western Wales. On our second day in Wales my wife, son, and I hopped on a local bus and went south down the Welsh coast to the ports of Aberaeron and New Quay. Aberaeron is about 40 minutes from Aberystwyth and New Quay is only about 20 minutes further south from Aberaeron.

While we didn’t have long in Aberaeron, we liked this tidy little Welsh town with its brightly painted houses and fine view of the sea. There are plenty of shops, restaurants, and pubs and we got the impression that it might be a better place to stay than Aberystwyth. Like in Aberystwyth, we heard a lot of people speaking Welsh. Most signs are in both languages. It’s nice to know that the language is surviving in the age of globalized English.

At New Quay we stopped for lunch at a pub on a cliff overlooking a sandy beach and broad harbor. The view was nice but service was slow and the food substandard. Sadly, this was the case with all too many of our meals in Wales, even though we usually followed local advice as to where to eat.

%Gallery-129265%The famous writer Dylan Thomas lived here for a time and New Quay was the inspiration for his fictional town of Llareggub (“bugger all” spelled backwards). Visitors interested in literary tourism can follow the Dylan Thomas Trail.

We’d come to take a boat trip instead. My five-year-old had never been out to sea so we decided to remedy that by going on one of New Quay’s many dolphin tours. Dolphins are abundant in these waters; we’d seen several from the window of the Seabrin Guest House in Aberystwyth. We chose a tour run by the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre, which uses its profits to fund research into the sea life on this part of the Welsh coast. The sea was calm and the sun shone fine so we weren’t worried as we stepped aboard an inflatable motorboat with a half dozen other people.

This good weather was our undoing. The calm conditions had made the fish move further out to sea, and the dolphins had followed them. As we made our way down the coast on our one-hour ride we saw exactly none. Oh well. It’s best to remember that nature isn’t there for our amusement.

This stretch of Welsh coastline is beautiful, with jagged rocks rising high out of the sea. The strata of the rocks is clearly visible, which allowed me to give the kid a lesson in geology, and the cliffs are dotted with numerous caves that smugglers (our boat captain called them “pirates”) used to elude the customs agents. My son was more disappointed about there being no pirates than he was about the lack of dolphins! All was made better when he got to sit in the captain’s chair.

One local told me that New Quay isn’t the most pleasant place to be at night in the summertime. A lot of rough people come into town to get drunk and start fights, and two of his friends got knifed in one incident. We saw a big fight in Aberystwyth too. This isn’t unusual in the UK. When I lived in London, I regularly saw fights on the street on Friday and Saturday nights. It’s just a sad fact of life in this part of the world.

Still, we had a nice day and the kid had a great time and got to experience something new, which is what really matters. Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about a steam train we took through some beautiful Welsh countryside. Unlike my last two posts on Wales, this one will be entirely positive!

African safari game drives – five things you must know


On my recent African safari in Zambia, I went on game drives every day, sometimes twice. I was hosted by guides from Abercrombie & Kent and Sanctuary Retreats, so I was well taken care of, but there was definitely a learning curve and I didn’t have the best practices nailed down until the third or fourth time out. African safari game drives are thrilling and rewarding, but they can also be wildly uncomfortable if you’re doing it wrong.

Here are five essential tips to take with you to Africa before you head out on a game drive of your own:

1. Wear light colored clothing.

It’s not just a fashion thing, and it’s not, as some ludicrously believe, all that functional as camouflage — most animals spot movement better than shapes anyhow. You should wear light colored clothing on a game drive because dark colors attract tsetse flies. They bite. A lot.

2. Go early.

I’m not a huge fan of a 5:00 AM wakeup call (or anything before 8, really), but I quickly learned that the crack of dawn is the best time to see game. The animals come out for breakfast and a drink of water before it gets hot. Furthermore, a morning game drive is a lot more comfortable than the sweltering hours of the afternoon or the buggy sunset.

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3. Bring a pen and paper.

You may have your amazing-lens camera at the ready, but remembering which animal or bird is which is virtually impossible without some help. It’s a shame to have endless pictures of things you can’t identify properly (What kind of monkey? Is that a hawk’s nest or an eagle’s nest?). Our camps provided us with checklists for the game we could spot, which certainly helps, but keeping a simple list in chronological order will be even more helpful for identification when you’re going through your photos later.

4. Ask to see what you want to see.

Your guide is not a mind-reader. If you don’t say what you want to see, you’ll get a general tour — when it could be directly focused on what’s important to you. Some people are birdwatchers, some want to catch a leopard in a tree, and some want to make sure they see every kind of monkey. Your guide probably knows the park, the animals in it, and where they hang out very well. If you want to see lions, for example, your guide will know a couple of places they’ve been spotted recently. You’ll still be doing plenty of birdwatching and see a vast array of other animals, but by letting your guide know you want lions, your chances of encountering them are greatly increased.

5. Listen to your guide.

This last tip may sound like a no-brainer, but when I asked my guide in South Luangwa National Park what the most important tip for new safari-ers is, he said that it’s listening. Apparently, his most common peeve is when he drives near to an animal and says “stay seated please,” and then the guests spot the animal and leap to their feet with their cameras, scaring it away. If you are good to your guide, your guide will be good to you and take you to the best spots — don’t take them or their advice for granted.

Also, check out what to do if your safari vehicle gets stuck: Safari vehicles – stuck in the river with you.

[Photos by Annie Scott.]

My trip to Zambia was sponsored by Abercrombie & Kent and Sanctuary Retreats, but the ideas and opinions expressed in this article are 100 percent my own.

Hiking the Yorkshire Moors


England is a wonderful place to hike. When the weather is fine the countryside is as beautiful as you’ll find anywhere, and it seems that every step is steeped in history. There’s variety too, from idyllic hikes along the Thames to challenging treks along the length of Hadrian’s Wall.

One of the more unique places for hiking in England is the Yorkshire Moors. Moorland is found in uplands that have acidic soils. There aren’t many trees and most of the vegetation is grass or heather. When a river cuts through it, like in the photo above, you’ll find trees and a richer variety of plant life. The moors in Yorkshire are some of the biggest in England and in the summertime are purple with blooming heather. Sheep graze on the slopes and a wide variety of birds can be seen. Parts of it reminded me of the Scottish Highlands but with gentler terrain and no lochs.

The Brontë sisters were inspired by this brooding yet subtly beautiful landscape and many of their stories are set on the moors. Local historian and hiking guide Steven Wood led me and my group out onto the moors to visit some of the Brontë’s favorite spots. In fine English tradition it started pouring as soon as we left the hotel. Waterproof gear is essential on any English hike. Even if it’s beautifully sunny, bring it anyway just in case. You won’t be sorry because the weather can change quickly. While it can go from bad to worse, it can also go from terrible to lovely. That’s what you get for being on an island between the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

Within half an hour the weather had cleared and we were walking through open fields. Yorkshire has been cultivated since Neolithic times and while there’s no shortage of civilization, it’s quite easy to walk away from it and into land that looks as it did centuries ago.

%Gallery-104950%Our first stop was Top Withens, an isolated stone farmhouse that may have been the inspiration for the location of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Located on a highpoint surrounded by low, undulating hills covered in heather, it’s a spot that could certainly inspire a novel. You can see for miles in all directions, the dull browns and greens of the land matching the slate gray of the arching sky. While this abandoned farm has been a pilgrimage site for Brontë fans for a century, today we had it for ourselves. With no other people about, no animals, and the jet contrails hidden by lowering clouds, it felt like we were the only people in all of Yorkshire.

We then headed to a waterfall that the Brontë sisters liked to visit. At least it’s said to be the waterfall. Like a lot of “George Washington slept here” kind of spots, the waterfall’s reputation is based on a slim bit of fact (they mention frequent visits to a waterfall) and a lot of local lore and wishful thinking. The main thing is that it’s beautiful. A little stream, stained brown by the moor’s soil, rushes through a narrow valley thick with greenery. Another stream cascades over a nearby hill, making a sparkling little waterfall before joining it to flow on towards Haworth, where the Brontës lived. A natural stone seat has “C. Bronte” carved on it, along with the mysterious initials “DWW”. A nearby bridge has a plaque talking about how this was probably where the Brontë’s like to spend their spare time.

It’s all a bit iffy, but who cares? If it wasn’t for its reputation, I wouldn’t have whiled away an enjoyable half hour watching the water flow between the heather. People from all over the world come to see this stream, and if they want to believe this was the place the Brontës visited, that’s fine. It may even be true. The crowds of Japanese Brontë fans who come here seem to think so. The Brontës are huge in Japan, and so many Japanese travelers show up that the signs marking the routes are in Japanese as well as English!

There are many different hikes in the Yorkshire Moors. Some are easy day hikes like the one we did. Others are long-distance paths that take days and pass by the rugged coastline. The Walking and Hiking website has a good listing of routes to get you started. The Welcome to Yorkshire website has free downloadable maps of several popular routes. The Walking Englishman has an amusing description of the walk we did (including a photo of a sheep stealing his lunch) and a map of the route.

Don’t miss the rest of my series on Exploring Yorkshire: ghosts, castles, and literature in England’s north.

Coming up next: Brimham Rocks: weird natural formations in Yorkshire

This trip was sponsored by
VisitEngland and Welcome to Yorkshire.

Travel company rediscovers seabird thought to be extinct

Seattle based travel company Zegrahm Expeditions specializes in eco-sensitive travel, organizing trips to all corners of the globe. The company promises to give clients the “ultimate expedition travel experience”, whether they’re taking part in one of Zegrahm’s trekking adventures or small-ship cruises. Zegrahm’s strives to give their customers a sense of discovery, no matter which trip they go on, but on one recent expedition that sense of discovery took a very real turn when team members sighed a rare seabird that hasn’t been recorded in the wild for more than 83 years.

The expedition, which was led by seabird expert Peter Harrison, took place this past February. The journey entailed a small-ship sailing adventure from Auckland, New Zealand to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. Along the way, the ship stopped at several remote, and seldom visited, islands on the Vanuatu archipelago. While there, Harrison, and a number of other members of the group, spotted and photographed, 21 individual Vanuatu Petrels, a seabird that hasn’t been seen in the wild since they were first discovered by ornithologist Rollo Beck back in 1927.

Zegrahm is already planning a return trip to the region in November of this year, and again in 2012. Both expeditions are expected to be very popular with bird watchers hoping to get a glimpse of this rare and unique seabird, that until now has only been seen in museums. Known as the Faces of Melanesia expedition, this cruise is generally noteworthy because it routinely visits remote South Pacific islands that few people ever see. But with this recent discovery, it will probably become well known in the bird watching community as an opportunity to add another species to their list.

India’s Kaziranga National Park has world’s highest tiger population

Zoologists studying at Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India, have declared that it has the greatest density of tigers in the world–32.64 per 100 square kilometers, in fact. By way of comparison, Corbett Tiger Reserve, which is in the number two slot, has “only” 19.6 per 100 square kilometers.

Park officials say there’s such a healthy population because of the large amount of tasty wildlife such as deer and buffalo for the tigers to eat, as can be seen in this amazing slide show from the BBC. Less edible for tigers but equally interesting to visitors are the rare Indian Rhinos, of which two-thirds of the world’s population live in the park.

Kaziranga is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular destination for safaris. Visitors can ride an elephant through forest and grassland in order to spot the diverse population of animals and birds.

It’s wise to remember that wildlife is truly wild. Back in April a Dutch tourist was trampled to death by a wild elephant at Kaziranga. The park also has large numbers of King Cobra, the longest venomous snake in the world. Acting with caution and listening to your guide will keep you safe from most dangers, however.