Backpacks and blisters - the walking thread

[Moonlight Shadow]

[Moonlight Shadow]

[Moonlight Shadow]

I was going to walk past the cows then I noticed a calf so I climbed over the wall, did not fancy an encounter with those horns...

[delicatemoth]

A Hielan coo!

[longeared]

Photos from yesterday:

Bleaklow Bomber



View from Higher Shelf Stones (look really closely for all the places I mentioned)



Emus



Woodhead line in the evening sunshine

[ad hoc]

Couple of photos from my hike yesterday. Rumour suggests lockdown starts again tomorrow so we needed to get out

[Sits]

Sensational photos everyone.

longeared I think those are female ostriches. Too pretty and flouncy for emus.

[Sits]

Or rheas.

[Sporting]

Went for a family stroll yesterday in the Portaceli area of the region. Quite hot.

[Sporting]

There's a big military base near where we went which is typically blurred on Google Maps, though even the base's own website has a photo of the buildings. What they also have is 57 square km of land rather like that in the tree photo above and I was asking myself why exactly they needed so much terrain. A buffer zone in case of some kind of attack?

[Third rate Leszno]

Do they do training exercises on the spare land? My village is next to a small training camp with a lot of land and they have rifle ranges dotted about as well as assault courses, and they do practice helicopter drops there too. I'm assuming as you're walking nearby that it's not like Otterburn in Northumberland where they test tank shelling capability. The Google earth image of the impact zone there is quite eye opening.

[ursus arctos]

US military bases tend to be absolutely massive for that reason.

The Marine Corps "camp" near SB's old place has an area of more than 500 square kilometres

[San Bernardhinault]

That "camp" is great - it's very pretty, and also acts as an effective buffer zone that stops the LA/Orange County sprawl creeping any further south.

[jameswba]

This is becoming my favourite thread. Some fine pics. I think I'd have been twitchy getting that close to the cows in MS's picture.

Yesterday I went for a hike on the Mala Fatra ridge, and covered around half of it. Maly Krivan (something like 'Little Crooked') was the highest point as I was too knackered to do the last 100 metres up its slightly bigger brother Velky Krivan. The cloud kept blowing in, but kept blowing away too, so the views were good. It was also fine not to be under a photo-shopped blue sky this time!

[jameswba]

Maly Krivan

[jameswba]

From Maly Krivan looking west.

[jameswba]

Velky Krivan (to the right)

[jameswba]

Maly Krivan looking from east

[ad hoc]

Agreed that this is a great thread. More great pictures of yours there James

Here's one that I took just after the start of Saturday's hike (other pictures above). this one is actually taken from the railway line which we walked along for about a kilometre, over a viaduct and before it went into a tunnel to get to the next valley

[jameswba]

I could never tire of this kind of view, across a valley, over rooftops, small church on a hill etc. It's quintessential central/eastern Europe.

Not a question for this thread really, but were the rumours about a new lockdown in Romania correct? Slovakia has had a spike in cases recently, but the health authorities seem fairly relaxed about it so our mountains and national parks will be remaining very much open for now.

[ad hoc]

Not yet. The spike is definitely on though, so it seems only a matter of time. I'm hoping that hiking and so on will still be possible (to be honest, it's pretty much unpoliceable, so we'll be able to get out in some way anyhow)

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

A short while ago, I was able to get away for a weekend to a friend's lodge, about 3 hours from where I live, and in one of the national parks. They organised a day's hiking, up into Mount Meru - a dormant volcano and the second-highest peak in Tanzania after Kilimanjaro - its about 4500 metres. We managed to get up through the trees into the crater and to about 2900m, and had great views across to the main peak when the cloud cleared. Here are some pictures from inside the crater, and looking across from Meru to Kili.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

[longeared]

Here's a Highland cow I photographed on a walk through Harthill (south side of Rotherham) at the beginning of May. Fortunately there was a fence between us.