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Where do ( did ) you walk locally in 2024?

Get a spanish phone number with Airalo. eSim, so no physical SIM card. Easy to use app to add more funds if needed.
For a number of years work has been ongoing to develop a walking/cycling path from the North side of Dublin Bay over to the other side. A beautiful new section has just been opened. Of course, when publicity advertised it, I knew there would be hordes of people... and today I joined the hordes!
It was delightful. I met colleagues from my working life I have not seen for over ten years! Here are some photos, starting at the ferryport...
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Train for your next Camino on California's Santa Catalina Island March 16-19
Having recently been to East Sussex and Kent here are a few photos from our time away.
arundel.jpg We stopped in Arundel for lunch on our way. Arundel Castle belongs to the Duke of Norfolk - the Earl Marshal of England, responsible for occasions such as the funeral of Queen Elizabeth 11 and the coronation of King Charles 111.
pett levels.jpgmilitary road.jpg Pett Levels - a walk along the beach path. Across the road and behind a bank are the old 'Military Road' and canal.


winchelsea-2.jpgWinchelsea - one of the old Cinque Ports. Near the church is this tree where Wesley preached his last open air sermon
rye.jpg The church is in the old town in Rye, another Cinque Port. Good coffee and lunches in the nearby cafe.

willesborough.jpg We were at Willesborough for a church meeting - with church members from as far afield as Walsall and Birmingham as well as Devon.
Waiting for the weather to improve here before we walk locally again!
 
3rd Edition. Vital content training & pack guides avoid common mistakes, bed bugs etc
I feel incredibly fortunate to live so close to the stunning Sierra de Guadarrama in Madrid. Recently, I had the chance to tackle a challenging but rewarding hike up to Pico de La Maliciosa, with breathtaking views 2,227m above sea level.
 

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Perfect memento/gift in a presentation box. Engraving available, 25 character max.
Well, I did not go myself, but a friend in the South of Poland went on a pilgrimage to this church: guess who is the patron? That is my excuse for sharing it, with her permission...
And I will add a link to a wiki entry...
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Join the Camino cleanup. Logroño to Burgos May 2025 & Astorga to OCebreiro in June
Holoholo automatically captures your footpaths, places, photos, and journals.
...and ship it to Santiago for storage. You pick it up once in Santiago. Service offered by Casa Ivar (we use DHL for transportation).
3rd Edition. Vital content training & pack guides avoid common mistakes, bed bugs etc
Interesting profile @SabsP. Did you have to climb over a fence? ;)

Assorted recent local walks:
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A group that cares for a nearby town's conservation areas a few years ago put up junction marker poles with copies of kids' drawings. They've just added QR codes to them. The markers even show up in apps that use Open Street Map base maps, see top left and bottom middle. The odd shaped house and garage has long intrigued me.
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A special treat for me this morning, dawn from our living room window. Actually the exposure is off, the clouds were the color of their reflection.
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We travelled to the Okanagan this past weekend for a family wedding. I had two glorious mornings at sunrise, walking along grassland trails in the hills of the Lake Country area. Sounds of Northern Harrier Hawks, Northern Flickers, Savannah and Vesper Sparrows and Red-winged Blackbirds. Black-billed Magpies screaming at a Red-tailed Hawk and a Douglas Squirrel and a Stellar's Jay screaming at each other :)

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Train for your next Camino on California's Santa Catalina Island March 16-19
We travelled to the Okanagan this past weekend for a family wedding. I had two glorious mornings at sunrise, walking along grassland trails in the hills of the Lake Country area. Sounds of Northern Harrier Hawks, Northern Flickers, Savannah and Vesper Sparrows and Red-winged Blackbirds. Black-billed Magpies screaming at a Red-tailed Hawk and a Douglas Squirrel and a Stellar's Jay screaming at each other :)

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Well, my first response: you are such an artist.
My second: in the goodness and beauty of created things, the Original Author, by analogy, can be seen....
 
Scenes from yesterday's walk around the pond.
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This is a mast year for oaks so there are zillions of ball bearings on the trails. Be extra careful on down slopes.
 
3rd Edition. Vital content training & pack guides avoid common mistakes, bed bugs etc
One of our White Mountain hikes made the news this week. There is a loop hike with a huge parking lot intended mainly for ski season. There are a couple of view points along it, one with the name Artists Bluff. Here is a photo from it I took on one of our walks.

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The foliage looks spectacular in autumn. There is a photo of it on this webpage that describes the trail.

You can imagine the usage the trail gets in leaf-peeping season but you don't have to; look at this:

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You can also watch this segment from a Boston news broadcast.
YouTube video id: LGMsYSsydew
 
Get a spanish phone number with Airalo. eSim, so no physical SIM card. Easy to use app to add more funds if needed.
Coming in to land at Glasgow airport, the first sight of the Clyde. Today, the trees were glorious as I went walking along by the Luggie...

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Hi Kirkie,
Reading your post reminded me of one of my favourite songs…
Chris Rea ..Windy Town
“Driving down from the highland line,
We done some gigs on the Clyde and the Tyne”

Unfortunately I’m not able to post a video of the song/words
Ill have to update my skills!
 
I received a request this morning to embed a video into a post. This is so easy I'm going to show how to drop in a video yourself instead. I'm posting this publicly instead of just replying to the DM in case anyone else is interested.

You just copy and paste the URL as text into your post and the forum software transforms it.

As an example here are two video URLs that are identical; I copied one and then pasted it twice, each on its own line. I edited the first one to remove the "h" so the software wouldn't recognize the text as a URL. You won't see the text of second; you will see an embedded video instead.

ttps://youtube.com/watch?v=jiDAea6l6sM

It is just slightly more complicated if you are viewing the video with the YouTube app. There you have to click the "Share" button and then the "Copy link" one. Then you paste that into your post. Here is a different video and the URL gotten for it using that method (again with the "h" removed so you can see the untransformed URL):

ttps://youtu.be/Npfl4cHJbCE?si=Ny2RzsxvzRct3eQQ

Note the "?si=Ny2RzsxvzRct3eQQ" at the end. That can be removed and I almost always do that but it is optional. I suspect it is some kind of tracking tag. Anyway, here are two app type URLs handled the same way as the browser ones above:

ttps://youtu.be/Npfl4cHJbCE
 
I received a request this morning to embed a video into a post. This is so easy I'm going to show how to drop in a video yourself instead. I'm posting this publicly instead of just replying to the DM in case anyone else is interested.

You just copy and paste the URL as text into your post and the forum software transforms it.

As an example here are two video URLs that are identical; I copied one and then pasted it twice, each on its own line. I edited the first one to remove the "h" so the software wouldn't recognize the text as a URL. You won't see the text of second; you will see an embedded video instead.

ttps://youtube.com/watch?v=jiDAea6l6sM

It is just slightly more complicated if you are viewing the video with the YouTube app. There you have to click the "Share" button and then the "Copy link" one. Then you paste that into your post. Here is a different video and the URL gotten for it using that method (again with the "h" removed so you can see the untransformed URL):

ttps://youtu.be/Npfl4cHJbCE?si=Ny2RzsxvzRct3eQQ

Note the "?si=Ny2RzsxvzRct3eQQ" at the end. That can be removed and I almost always do that but it is optional. I suspect it is some kind of tracking tag. Anyway, here are two app type URLs handled the same way as the browser ones above:

ttps://youtu.be/Npfl4cHJbCE
Thank you so much Rick
I will have a go at it although it might take some time!
Everything is done on my iPad as opposed to a smartphone so not sure if that makes any difference
Upwards and onwards then!
All the best
Annette
 
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
Walking a long distance path in the Netherlands. Beautifull season with changing treecolours, but we also seea lot of typical Dutch countryside of straight paths through grassland and along dikes.
 

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Join the Camino cleanup. Logroño to Burgos May 2025 & Astorga to OCebreiro in June
The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.
Tuesday afternoon I took a longer solo walk (this year they have otherwise all been morning ones). I decided that I finally had to go see the old cranberry bogs that I've heard of for years. It isn't much more than a kilometer further from a state park that we walk regularly. I even took one of our regular trails to get there.
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I was surprised at the openness; our walks are woodland.
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I went back to the parking lot along a newly discovered trail running along a creek. There were rakes hanging near bridges and boardwalks with a request to clean them. I did for a long one; the others didn't need it.
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Holoholo automatically captures your footpaths, places, photos, and journals.
Hi there @Peter Fransiscus
Is that a pair of white feet clambering on one of the hands of the clock? The screen on my mobile doesn't show it clearly enough. Looks like fun though... hope all's well your end.

Cheers
 
Hi there @Peter Fransiscus
Is that a pair of white feet clambering on one of the hands of the clock? The screen on my mobile doesn't show it clearly enough. Looks like fun though... hope all's well your end.

Cheers
Street sweepers! I love it. I noticed nothing before on my smartphone but you got me to zoom in.
 
...and ship it to Santiago for storage. You pick it up once in Santiago. Service offered by Casa Ivar (we use DHL for transportation).
Hi there @Peter Fransiscus
Is that a pair of white feet clambering on one of the hands of the clock? The screen on my mobile doesn't show it clearly enough. Looks like fun though... hope all's well your end.

Cheers
They are two people who sweep the clock further and further with a broom.
Everything is well over here. 🙏🏻
 
Ideal sleeping bag liner whether we want to add a thermal plus to our bag, or if we want to use it alone to sleep in shelters or hostels. Thanks to its mummy shape, it adapts perfectly to our body.

€46,-
Today the Philly Chapter of American Pilgrims paid homage to the Day of the Dead by strolling through Laurel Hill Cemetery. The oldest tombstones are from the revolutionary period, and the newest ones just a few days old.
 

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The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
I feel at home when I see again the hills of my growing up years.
I also feel at home when I see these images, which I take often.
I have known this locality for 55 years...
This was today, around 8am, before I sat into a meeting for some hours...
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...familiar things & places, Oui !!!!!

I feel at home when I am eating this:
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La Tarte Tatin...

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et le pain croustigraine...

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...and roaming the GR 652 which passes near friends...
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Bonjour @SabsP

Sorry about the fullsize photos in my last post. There seems to be a blip somewhere. I tried to insert the photos as 'thumbnail' but they kept coming up as full size. I had a go on both a mobile phone and on a computer... .

Cheers
 
Bonjour @SabsP

Sorry about the fullsize photos in my last post. There seems to be a blip somewhere. I tried to insert the photos as 'thumbnail' but they kept coming up as full size.

Cheers

That was addressed on another thread when I made a similar comment:
@ivar has changed some settings for uploaded photos. One was to increase the size of thumbnails. They don't really need to be clicked on to view the image well and they should load faster.
 
3rd Edition. Vital content training & pack guides avoid common mistakes, bed bugs etc
This morning at Chateau-Thierry, France, I attended la cérémonie de commémoration du 106e anniversaire de l'Armistice de 1918, a solemn service of remembrance.

American forces fought with the French along the Marne River during the summer of 1918. ...May we never forget.

This historic view

U.S. Field Artillery in Chateau-Thierry.webp

shows AEF forces assembling on the north side of the Marne; the island where I am now writing is on the far side of the river.
 
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The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
...a few weeks ago I went for a long walk from a village in Oxfordshire to Warwickshire then back again. Along the way I dragged my feet through a great deal of mud and took many drab photos.

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Day 1...heading to Lower Brailes

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Day 4...remains of an old St James Chapel, Alveston

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...where William Shakespeare lays buried, Stratford-upon-Avon

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...attending 'Othello' at the RSC, a ghastly plot brilliantly staged.

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...the King's swans on the River Avon

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Day 5 ...between fields, after Hampton Lucy

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The Lord Leycester Hospital, Warwick (12th century- ) which started life as the Chapel of St James the Great..

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Day 6...Thomas & Kathryn Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick, in the chancel of St Mary's, Warwick.

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Day 8....then back again


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..and now for the maps! They are a work of art.

For the first few nights I returned by bus to friends. After that I found places to sleep along the way.

OS Maps: following The Shakespeare Way and other trails from The Sibfords to Warwick then back again via The Dassetts and Hornton.

Oxfordshire public library has an almost complete set of Ordinance Survey Maps. I borrowed a laminated copy of OL45 (Cotswolds) and also a paper copy of OS 206 (Stratford-upon-Avon).

The rest I purchased along the way -
OS 191 (Banbury), OS 221 (Coventry & Warwick), and OS 206 (Edge Hill & Fanny Compton). These came with a mobile download map & and offline gps tracking.

Such fun!
 
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Ideal sleeping bag liner whether we want to add a thermal plus to our bag, or if we want to use it alone to sleep in shelters or hostels. Thanks to its mummy shape, it adapts perfectly to our body.

€46,-
Yep, no one does mud better than @SabsP. I've only come close once. That was a week's hike in NZ fifty years ago. Sand flies all the way too. That probably still doesn't get me up to the misery level of a day hike in Belgium.
Mud can suck the boots of your feet in NZ. Without hiking sticks to plumb the depth a tramper can just about drown in it...
 
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Ideal pocket guides for during & after your Camino. Each weighs only 1.4 oz (40g)!
Back for a few weeks in Lanzarote
No mud
It’s hot
First view of a volcano on our way to Teguise, the former capital of the island
A cross at the crossroads
Santa Barbara overlooking the town and out to sea
An abandoned house
Teguise in the distance
15 Km on our first day, maybe a bit too much
 

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A section of the GR 131 the long distance path that runs along all the Canary Islands
A fierce wind blew us up to the Ermita of the lady of the snow, passing the abandoned Ermita of St Juan
As luck would have it, we met the caretaker at the top who very kindly opened the little church for us, our first time seeing the inside despite our many visits there

Then down the long winding valley, passing once fertile, abandoned terraces and little houses built into the rocks
Almost at the coast, we travelled back by bus
 

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Not so local walk. Hour drive from home. Province of Antwerp with the nice woods of Wechelderzande.
First 9km snow, rain and sharp wind.
After our break with a delicious croque monsieur and a beer we walked another 7km. Dry and warmer.
Rehearsalplace of the local brassband, named after a local Saint.
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Ideal sleeping bag liner whether we want to add a thermal plus to our bag, or if we want to use it alone to sleep in shelters or hostels. Thanks to its mummy shape, it adapts perfectly to our body.

€46,-
Not so local walk. Hour drive from home. Province of Antwerp with the nice woods of Wechelderzande.
First 9km snow, rain and sharp wind.
After our break with a delicious croque monsieur and a beer we walked another 7km. Dry and warmer.
Rehearsalplace of the local brassband, named after a local Saint.
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Ah not so local then!
Beats me why the brassband chose that name. Maybe some members had pain in arms and shoulders? :)
Or another brassband already took the more common name of Saint Cecilia?
And, today, in a care home, the celebrant named Cecilia as the Saint of the Day!
 
Perfect memento/gift in a presentation box. Engraving available, 25 character max.

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