The 3 peaks Challenge in the UK

Whats it like to do the 3 peaks, well i've just completed the challenge and its great fun, hard work and more mental toughness than physical. Luckily we did lots of training beforehand in the Dorset hills. However nothing could have prepared us for the rains on Scafell Pike, 1 months worth in 1 day. watch this video to get a glimpse of the challenge.
We managed to raise over £12000 for a very good cause the round table Childrens Wish appeal which helps terminally ill children fulfill a wish. I also raised a further £700 for the National kidney Federation which is very close to my heart after my mother passed away last year.
Check out the website for further details. The donations were enhanced by an article in the Daily Mail so thank you for that.
www.fontmell3peaks.com

Msambweni - Samawati House

In 2010 we were lucky enough to go out to Kenya as a family of four. We chose Samawati House for obvious reasons, the photos sold it as well as the recommendations. It has a pool with a 12m infinity edge dropping into the surrounding jungle, Amazing! The BEach is only 3 minutes walk from the garden and stretches for miles. It really did do everything it said in the description with fantastic staff and luxury bedrooms.

The Ferry to Mudeford

Every twelve minutes there's a ferry across the little channel that takes only a few minutes.

Hengitsbury head beach huts

What to do for the day. I love these pics taken using hipstomatic they evoke a sixties beach scene. The huts here are so surreal. It's almost impossible to find an identical design. Today we caught the land train to the Bournemouth side of Hengitsbury. It's cheap and fun for the kids with a big iced cream at the end.
We thought we'd check out the beach and a gentle stroll turned into a full fossil hunt. Every stone became a dinosaur tooth which was fun until your hands dry out. It's quite a way round following the sea shore but a very rewarding hour as the IOW provides stunning views of the Needles.
Rounding off the day with dinner in the restaraunt did produce a £205 bill for burgers and chips. Quite a shocker really but then it was £25 a bottle of decent vino planco. Time for bed now what a great day in the wild.

Mudeford mornings

The sun has got his hat on and the children are out to play. This is what it's all about on the south coast of the uk.

Muddeford beach huts in April !!!

We've booked into a beachhut in mudeford south Dorset. This is great when we had 20degrees in march but mid April its 0degrees at night which is pretty chilly for a glorified garden shed. Add to that a little rain and the need to BBQ. More to come.

The Thames - a different point of view

Last year we decided to celebrate my fathers 70th Birthday in style. Luckily one brother owns a big rib so the 6 of us descended on central London at Tower Bridge. We then proceeded to copy Jeremy Clarkson's run up the Thames. It really brings out the fact that London has so much charachter. Having flown over the top in my capacity as an aerial photographer going down the river was just as beautiful. 

Does anyone else think the barriers look like the bad guys in Lord of The Rings. The Nazgull with their hoods on???

Our favorite view of the day.  + it if you like it don't forget.

Rock and Polzeath - a view to the sea

I've always loved this area of Cornwall, call me a snob whatever you like it still makes me smile. I started visiting as a teenager camping in someone's hedge behind the bakery when we were 15. We had one tent between five and had forgotten the poles. A friend had invited me and said we could bike from Bodmin Parkway station. Its not that far he said and no its not only about 20 miles which isn't too bad but if you take the route we took it does up and over the hills straight up and down (when I say up I mean vertical). We arrived at 11pm and luckily were put up by a friend of his. For the rest of the time we literally camped in a hedge off the main road, convenient for the Mariners when it accepted teenagers.  Mind you i'll never drink Martini straight again I tried to down a whole bottle and can still taste it now as it came back up. The best news was discovering the camel trail which is a disused railway line that runs straight and flat most of the way, well worth the extra ££ to cross the estuary. We now go with the kids and cycle for hours its fantastic.

Anyway back to Rock always fun and as I have got older the accommodation has got better. Believe it or not thanks largely to my wonderful mother-in-law. We now stay every year in a house between Rock and Polzeath just above Daymer Bay. It has great views as you can see each photo is taken from the balcony. You are within walking distance of both villages/towns (not sure which they are to be honest). The Mariners is still within stumbling distance and the ferry to Padstow is only 15 minutes walk. Great news if your a fan of Rick Stein who seems to have branded most of the shops and restaurants. 

I think this part of Cornwall has it all surfing in Polzeath, shopping and eating in Padstow and bars and restaurants in Rock (ok not that many but enough). Its hard not to understand why the prices of houses are so high because its so private in its own Cornish slightly backward way. 

One of my favorite spots overlooking the golf course which has the church of St.Enedoc where Sir John Betjamin is buried. I've played the course and I can honestly say it challenged me greatly, I probably lost about 15 balls but then thats me. If your not into round ball games they always show the Lions rugby at the clubhouse. Now that ladies and gentlemen is a really useful fact.

What's the best thing to come out of Rock over the years for me? Sadly its not the memories of my children learning to surf or of the first snog on the beach back in the early 90s its the beer that follows me around everywhere I go. One more pint of Doom please landlord.

Sunset, its about time I said goodnight. Looking forward to our visit this summer and just praying the rain stays away. Don't forget to + the page if you liked it. Or ask me any questions if you want!

Dorset in the Snow

You don't have to go far to enjoy the great outdoors. This is taken from Hambledon Hill on the edge of Child Okeford in North Dorset. Funnily enough this is where I live and it rarely ever snows here. We run a bed and breakfast on the edge of the village where we like to welcome people from all over the world. Its such a nice way of meeting people, entertaining them and ensuring they feel at home. I have to say the other reason is purely selfish, its the only chance I get to have a cooked breakfast. I always make sure I buy too many sausages and bacon so my wife cooks the extra. Of course that is all great if the children don't get there first, they become bottomless pits when it comes to greasy breakfasts. Most of our guests are either here for weddings or on a long walk that passes through these parts from Weymouth to Kings Lynn. The whole way you are never further than 10 miles from an ancient burial site. Should be renamed the Skeleton way if you ask me. Occasionally people stay to check out the iron age hill forts and the roman fort on Hod Hill another steep climb but well worth it for the views.
If you want to check out our website feel free to click this link.

Moroccan Beaches

This beach just below the cliffs of our hotel was at least 1 mile long with only 2/3 people on it. Big waves, no seaweed and loads and loads of pure white sand. What more could you wish for. Check out the hotel at one off places a website we use for all our holidays. If you don't want to stay in the usual hotel or villa try this for something a little "one off".

Video of the shops on the Trek to Toubkal

Shopping on Mt Toubkal, I thought I would share this with you all. There are a few little shops along the trek up towards the refuge. If you are short on liquids then have no fear they have the coolest sprinkler system to keep the bottles cold. Food is in short supply however there are endless packs of Pringles if thats your bag.

Kasbah Tabelkoukt south of Mirleft on the west coast of Morocco. Having climbed into the Atlas mountains for a couple of days we headed off to our final destination on the coast. After the noise and shopping of Marrakech and the beauty and snow of the mountians we didn't think it could get much better than that. After a 6 hour drive from Imlil to Mirleft we were just hoping for a good nights sleep and comfortable couple of days before we flew home to the UK from Agadir.

We arrived at the Kasbah Tabelkoukt at 11pm having descended from the refuge in the Atlas at 6am. We were warmly greeted by the staff and informed that the fire in our room had been lit and dinner was awaiting us. What a fantastic relief from the junk we had eaten at the side of the road service stations consisting mainly of Haribo. We had an impromptu 3 course meal of fish and then a lamb tagine, the standard of which topped everything we had come to expect. The room was huge with its own fireplace which glowed with the warmth from the recently lit fire.

We could only glimpse the swimming pool in the dark but looked forward to slaving to the sun in the morning. Above is a sample of the views available from the edge overlooking the Atlantic Ocean below.

Shopping in Marrakech

Slippers everywhere, the colours are amazing and if you have small children (especially girls) you could loose yourself forever.

Beautiful materials abound in the backstreets and bazaars. Layer upon layer of different colour, clothing and especially the odd pouff.

Enough to make any wife happy, scarves by the bucket load.

One of the busiest squares in the world let alone Africa. The Djemaa el Fna is in central Marakech and spreads quite far. It is surrounded by 3 storey building each of which have   restaurants  and bars on top from where you can survey the ogranised chaos below. In the distance on the left you can see the towering mosque Koutoubia one of the largest in the world. In the foreground are the orange sellers and beyond the alleyways that lead into the Medina.

Always carry a map or take a guide when you enter the labyrinth that is the Medina. Its quite simple to find your way as long as you keep an eye on the dierection you are going and just retrace your steps once you've seen enough. We took http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shopping-Marrakech-Susan-Simon/dp/1892145782 this amazing book has a series of walks in that will guide you to the best of the best as far as handbags and slippers goes. The maps are simple and very accurate although some of the shops have since disappeared.

Every Day is World Water Day

First published by Dipesh Pabari, Operations Manager at Camps International in Kenya. 22nd March 2012

Providing Water Security for local communities has always been a core objective for Camps International and there is always some project ongoing across our locations. It’s World Water Day today and we would like to use this day to highlight some of the work we are doing in Borneo,Cambodia and Kenya. As part of our long term objectives for the Camps International Foundation, we have decided to committ ourselves to increasing our water conservation and security program across our locations. And like everything else, the first commitment is to ensure we are doing as much as we can within our camps and that everyone who travels with us understands the importance of conserving water. Everyone of us needs to do our bit. So to everyone out there, we would like to ask two things:

1. Please use water in camps conservatively and remember in our parts of the world, a flushing toilet or a shower everyday is a luxury. We will continue to do our best to put recycling systems in place as we have done in many of our camps but every single drop counts.

2. If anyone is interested in helping towards our various water security projects, please do make a donation through the Camps International Foundation and specify it is for water projects. We guarantee 100% of any donations through the foundation will be earmarked for projects.

CAMP BORNEO

There are serious issues with water onMantanani due to the isolated and delicate nature of the island which has a unusually high water leading to both the benefit of close water access for the inhabitants but also the high than normal risk of the water table becoming contaminated by outside pollutants.

Our efforts at water conservation and protection on the island are twofold, and incorporate practical and educational elements.

At Camp Mantanani itself we already have a water catchment/rainwater harvesting system  which feeds our toilets and garden. We will soon be installing a grey water recycling system using a sand filter process that will both increase the available water storage and also limit the impact of gray water on the water table.

At our landmark project on the island, the Kindergarten next to the primary school, we will be installing a rain water harvesting system also and will be using this to help introduce water management and permaculture ideals to the local community alongside our other marine conservation and permaculture education programmes.

CAMP CAMBODIA

In Beng Mealea, our water management programme also encompasses bothour own camp, in an effort to limit our own impact and be more sustainable and also live by the standards we teach, as well as the projects we are working on.

At the camp we have limited our water usage by constructing waterless composting toilets. Alongside these all other water use in the camp is fed into our grey water leech field which, recycles the grey water and uses the run off to feed our Permaculture orchard feeding papaya and banana trees.

Of our water management projects in Beng Mealea, the most urgent is at the local high school which has very little water storage despite having four large classroom blocks available for water capture. At the moment only one out of eight available sloping roofs is used for water capture, which is fed to a 15k litre concrete tank that we refurbished in 2011. Before this tank was repaired the only available water source for the entire school of 600 children was a large pond which was empty during the dry season and barely drinkable during the rainy season.

Roofs like this can catch A LOT of water

We aim to install water catchment on the remaining 7 sloping roofs and build a new ablutions block to replace the one current toilet they have to help limit the natural waste polluting the current pond.

CAMP KENYA

This year, we have just undertaken a technical assessment and plan (thank you GreenWater!) to recycle all shower water at our main camp in Muhaka to the proposed Trust House vocational school we are building. Water from the showers will go through a natural cleaning system and this july, we will be constructing a large pond which will act as the main water source for the farm. Additionally, we are starting the graywater recylcing system which will be ready for the summer at Camp Kaya. Water from your showers, will be recycled back to the toilets for flushing and extra water will go through a natural filter and be a reservoir for the new tree nursery at the forest

Plan for graywater at Camp Muhaka

This year alone in Kenya we have been very fortunate to receive additional donations that have allowed us to completely overhaul the water catchment system at Muhaka Dispensary. I

can’t thank the 2011 Nurse team (a.k.a Kenya Gappers) who raised approximately £2500 which was enough funds to change all the roofs at the dispensary, paint them with a special protective paint, put in new gutters, and put in two new tanks at the dispensary. The dispensary now has over 15,000lts of water storage facilities. We also recieved a small donation from the Herbert family which used to buy additional gutters and install one more 1000lt tank at Imani Women’s Group.

That’s just a snippet of what is happening at the moment and we know we can do so much more. We just received a video made by Vineel who travelled to Kenya for three months last year. He raised an additional fund which was used to provide a water source to a local nursery school at Muhaka. The video below really sums up how every little drop counts and yes, every penny will save another drop…

Day 3 Marrakech - Imlil - Refuge Toubkal

After another cracking breakfast at Ksar Anika we boarded a rather spacious wagon for the 1.5 hour drive to Imlil . Imlil is the starting village for any treks into the Toubkal region and is perched on the edge of the hills at 1700 metres. Bizarely i recognised the second village where our guide lived. Making me feel old i realised i had been here 18 years before on my gap year. There are lots of hostels to stay at but the one that really screams magnificence is the kasbah Toubkhal. A Scholes like Berber hotel  standing out about 200ft above the rest of Imlil on its own precipice. This would be the ideal place to spend the night prior to climbing to adjust to the 1200 metre altitude difference between Imlil and Marrakech. 

We were greeted by our guide Abdullah and porter/chef/donkey driver who made us feel very welcome and answered all our queries. Being the organised people we are we hadn't packed any crampons so had to hire some from the village shop, according to Abdullah "not the wisest move, in Africa we don't make good crampons."

Perot the donkey porter

The Temperature was around 20 degrees in the sun and having packed several layers we ended up walking the whole day in just thermal top and bottoms with a t shirt on top. The route is blessed with sunshine for almost all of its 16kms. The first 2 hours are fairly basic footpaths climbing steadily towards sidi Charmouch a shrine to the mountain. This is where we stopped for the first of husseins fantastic fodder with mackerel, salad and bread. Along the way there are several little shops offering the last chance to buy and scarves or even jewellery. Just in case you hadn't had the chance in Marrakech. These all offer assorted soft drinks and of course endless bottled water. The refuge was another 3 hours up the mountain following a well beaten path with occasional snowy patches. The proper snow came at about 2900 metres but was not difficult to walk on without crampons and you can actually see the refuge for some time so have a good target to end the day on. Including stops it took us 6 hours to get to the refuge but then i walk very slowly. Abdullahs record is 2 hours and there are several annoying people who a Actualy run past you and back during your struggle. 

Finally someone tells Fran where to go

The refuge appears looking like a lift stop in the alps without any lift and sans frites and vino. It does however cater for lots of groups and we thinks there must have been 40/50 people in there that night. There is wood burner in the main room and several dining areas all clean cosy. There are 4 dormitories each with giant bunked layouts so you plonk your bag down and grab a thick blanket from The chef de refuge and bobs your uncle your home. It's pretty chilly outside once the sun has gone in at 5 ish so the door is kept shut. Once again hussein produced the goods, I foolishly had five bowls of soup only to discover the second course was a full blown lamb tagine and a bonus plate of spag Bol. I was in heaven! 

The refuge from below, you then head up the sharp face on the left of photo.

The bedroom was another thing altogether though with torches constantly shining this was and that and the archetypal Frenchman who opened the door and then walked off for half an hour. Needless to say the temperature was below freezing but bearable thanks to the bodyheat of others and the overpowering smell of the unwashed. Some of these guys were staying for four nights and I can tell you the showers were not well used.

The lovers embrace.
www.rjseven.com is the company we used to climb Toubkal.

Day 2 Marrakech, shopping! Builders Tea

Frazzle decides the best way to keep quiet and not wake me is to brush her teeth in bed with an electric toothbrush. I am soo happy we are on holiday and nothing changes, remind me to do the same. A quick chat with one of the staff through the door results in the following diplomatic behaviour from fraz.

"good morning"
"is there any chance of some tea please?"
"Moroccan tea?"
"No normal tea thanks!"

Don't know about you but Moroccan tea is kind a national institution and would be normal rather than pg tips

The cemetery

Shopping with fran was as usual all the fun of the fair. We had a guide book recommended by the Telegraph with 7 walks that cover the city. 1 walk a day would  be enough however we managed to cover no's 1,3,4 5 my legs are gone or a good warm up for tomorrow? We ended up buying several handbags, two poufs and a few bowls. No partridge in a pear tree.

We are now sunbathing on the roof or rather Aphrodite is and I'm being English.

Looking forward to the lamb tagine tonight followed by an early start to head off to the mountain which are suitably snowy looking from here.

Day 1 Morocco, Mararakech, Ksar Anika

Flight EA1411 was remarkable in many ways and everything you might expect from the worlds cheapest airline and more. The plane couldn't take off for half an hour because the staff had done a miscount and had to ask passengers to announce the missing names in Arabic (lutons finest aren't exactly linguists. We took off half an hour LATE but arrived half an hour EARLY, nuts i know!
Marrakech airport looked stunning and we prepared for the usual international hub queue's in immigration. The gods were smiling on us and after a brief wait at the back of the longest queue a plain clothes magician/official pointed us to the diplomatic passport queue with a grunt EMPTY!
To round of this magnificent display of efficiency our bags were already on the turntable and 12 minutes after the doors opened we were in the arrivals hall looking for our man from Marrakech. We can forgive him turning up a few minutes late as we weren't even meant to be in morocco yet. Our driver Mohammed then whisked us away in a brand new Toyota land cruiser with more space than business class on Emirates. All in all a welcome change to airline travel anywhere else in the world.

Our hotel ksar Anika proved its security on arrival, the security guard took 5 minutes to open the door. Made very welcome with Moroccan tea on arrival the porter wanted us to relax after such a stressful time at the airport. Alas we had to inform him that we were indeed early And the airport had been a breeze and that a gin and tonic would not go amiss. As with all things too good to be true the hotel has one minor flaw. There is no gin! I asked for a beer?There is no beer! We were then offered white wine! There was no white wine! At last a bottle of fine red wine appeared. It appears a group of 20 English have left this morning having drained this quarter any liquid with alcohol in.

Our room is huge and unfortunately we have destroyed it already. Fran has pulled part of the loo wall off ans our clothes make a nice Moroccan carpet feature. After a lovely dinner including my personal favourites a mezzo of stewed oboe rhinos and two other types of vegetable based goo and a bowl of olives. The chicken taggine however was delightful and much to my taste. Fran of course is in heaven.

We ventured out as all tired idiots do on their first night in a strange town. After 5 minutes casually strolling down dark alleys the lovely security guard from the hotel appeared on a bike to escort us to the square. He actually gave the wife a little bollocking for carrying an open bag at 11pm down dark streets at least that's what I understood. A quick check of handbag city and we decided to refresh the thirst and hailed a horse drawn cab to the la mamounia the old palace refurbed into one of the most opulent hotel in the world containing the Churchill rooms and amazing furniture bands and bars.after the largest vodka martini in the world we headed home to prepare for shopping day.aaaaargh.