Snapshots: Hadrian's Wall Path

My daily routine is pretty simple these days:

After a full English cooked breakfast, continue walking east across England, following the line of Hadrian's (Roman) Wall. If available, stop at a tearoom for a pot of tea and cake. At the end of the afternoon arrive at a comfortable bed and breakfast or inn for the night.

Two friends have joined the expedition for a few days. Our friendships total almost 100 years.

Snapshots: Hiking the Rota Vicentina, Southwest Portugal

The Rota Vicentina is a 450 km trail system in southwest Portugal. It includes the Fishermen's Trail along the rugged Atlantic coastline, the Historical Way that heads inland through rolling countryside, and loop trails that connect both worlds.

The system is good for point-to-point hiking where we moved to a different place each day, and hub-and-spoke hiking where we stayed in one place for a couple days.

Snapshots: Whanganui National Park

Today, a jet boat brought us back to a world with Internet and roads.

Three days earlier I maneuvered our rental car along a narrow, winding road, avoiding recent rockfalls. At Pipiriki, New Zealand, a jet boat came to take us up the Whanganui River, through a vertiginous gorge, to the Bridge to Nowhere Lodge.

Snapshots: Egmont National Park

New Zealand's North Island has three national parks: Egmont, Whanganui, and Tongariro. On this trip we selected Egmont and Whanganui, two of New Zealand's less-visited parks.

We've spent two days hiking Egmont's lovely trails, with two more days to go.

Snapshots: Queen Charlotte Track

Our descent into Marlborough, BHE, New Zealand, gave us a preview of our upcoming visit to the region. First we flew over the crenellated, sunken valleys of Queen Charlotte Sound, then we came in low over the vineyards of Marlborough wine country.

Our first priority was to hike the Queen Charlotte Track, a path people usually walk over four days.

Snapshots: A Night in a Bicycle Hotel

This week I spent a night in Hotel Cycle, in a converted warehouse in the port city of Onomichi, Japan. I used it as a base to cycle part of the Shimanami Kaido trail across the Seto Inland Sea.

Snapshots: Circling and Framing a Volcano

Sakurajima dominates the view across the bay from Kagoshima, southern Japan. It's one of the world's most active volcanoes, regularly raining ash on the city. Surfaces can feel gritty, accumulations of dust are a hazard to cyclists.

Hotel rooms with a view of Sakurajima fetch a premium. Directions are expressed relative to the volcano; e.g., "walk towards Sakurajima." It's a common element in public art.

Yesterday, I cycled around the volcano.

Now and Then: Key Largo Memorial Day Weekends

2013

Fearless