Changing face of Bristol

Bristol's so changed since I last visited, that even my map is out of date. It's clean, easy to walk around and by the station and harbour it is filled with huge spaces that are fun to linger in and easy to reach by bike too.
Dead ringer for Sydney?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how to enjoy a fab festival and get that Sydney-feel, just by taking a trip to Bristol (ideally between 9-17 June).  This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).   

Bristol hopes to copy Edinburgh festival's "must be there" status during its annual June biggreenweek. Running from 9-17 June, Bristol's Big Green Week 2012 boasts comedy, music, film, talks, poetry, art and family events. £8 seems to be the top price tickets and there are plenty of free events too.

"Bristol has a festival every week," explains my friend as we pass a large marquee being put up for the German Beer Festival. We're down at the harbourside - although still a long way from the sea - cycling around after a day at the typeface, and it's a lovely place to be. All that water, space and big venues make you think of the Australian lifestyle. On a warm day with blue skies you definitely could imagine yourself Sydney-side, maybe even Brisbane.

The point of the Big Green Week is that it inspires change. Wherever you are in the green spectrum this is the chance to get buzzed up by Dragons Den's Deborah Meaden, the amazing poet Matt Harvey (he calls himself a Wondermentalist on BBC Radio 4) plus old favourites such as Jonathon Porritt from Forum for the Future, Juliet Davenport from fab Good Energy, Tim Smit from the Eden Project and environmental lawyer Polly Higgins who is determined to sort out the UN.

Cash and conscience
Festivals may seem like a fun place to meet up with friends - but they can inject considerable sums into the economy, never mind spread ideas. The 2012 January Sydney festival is thought to have brought in A$56.8 million (more than £35 million!!!) to the New South Wales economy (13% up on last year).


It can be hard to make money from those greens who lack the super-consumer gene so I shall be looking carefully at how Bristol's Big Green Week balances its books. But if it was a success - not just drawing in lots of people, but getting people to be more inspired from a green perspective and adding a nice flash of cash to the city how impressive would that be? I reckon engineer Brunel (see pix above) who had a very up and down relationship to money, despite his impressively inventive and well-remembered career, would be well proud.

Is this a Dagger I see before me?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here's how you can take to the water in a kayak and transport yourself to any river in the world. This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs).  

"Is this a Dagger I see before me?" Admittedly Shakespeare dreamt this line up first - but that pesky "dagger" is the second thing I notice on this blustery April morning down by the reservoir. The first is an extremely tall, dripping man who has just tipped out of his Dagger kayak. I have a nasty feeling that I will be the second one in the water despite there being no current, or sizeable waves.

"It's my fault, I was racing," smirks the tall man. He doesn't seem to mind at all. Perhaps the reason you go out in a kayak is to have a dip-in-the-water adventure. That's certainly the impression I get from the promo videos of whitewater rafting featured on the Dagger manufacturer's website offering a nail-biting trip to Norway.

Water babies
Even if you aren't that keen on water it's still an absorbing pleasure to hang around by the river bank, or even take a trip down a river. I've got plans to do this with the Canoe Man in Norfolk - I want to be in the river with an otter - soon. But over the years have had fun joining an organised kayak trip (just me and a 6 and 8 year old) down the tidal River Tamar and also being expertly captained by my friend Hannah along the early, shallow part of the River Severn in Powys. My claim to fame remains an early morning paddle around Sydney harbour guided by the wonderful Patrick from Natural Wanders. (see pix above in ocean racing kayaks)

Every river is going to be different - and yet offer some of the same emotional release, adrenalin buzz, relaxation and the ability to creep up on the wildlife (or in Oz, real estate) - wherever you go in the world so it feels like a wise skill to be able to paddle (even if I still daren't try the capsize test). That's why I've joined a canoe club at my nearest big water, a lovely local reservoir that seems to attract the sun. Actually the whole family has joined - even though under 18s go out in boats on different days to the adults - and I hope it will provide plenty of anecdotes.

These may not be as glam as the stories from the whitewater crazies in Norway, but definitely will give us all a new skill plus the opportunity to tell tales of dunkings, dead dogs, herons fishing by the standpipe, baby-crazed swans, flats overlooking the reservoir being sunny Sunday polished (oh you can see a lot from the water!), trees coming into bud and cormorants drying their wings on the old oak tree.

What a result from travel that's less than 10 minutes from my own home.

Over to you
Which river trips in a kayak do you recommend? Especially if the trips include children...

Riddle: What's ancient but still growing?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. Here are three bits of wood that were felled when they were already 1000s of years old, have done one job and are now treasured gifts offering just a hint of colonial America and pioneer Australians. This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs).   


The answer to the riddle what's ancient, but still growing, is wood - wonderful wood. The picture is of my three most treasured cut pieces of wood. From left to right in the picture are pitch pine, red oak and huon pine. This post is their story.

RED OAK
This is my favourite. The plank of red oak was cut down by the first colonists from virgin American forests in the Appalachian mountains. The tree could have been about 1,000 years old when it was felled. The pioneers cut it down with a massive handsaw, and then made it into planks with a steam powered saw.

It became floorboards at a factory in North Carolina.

What's so exciting about red oak is that in some planks you can find Civil War bullets, and even native Indian arrow heads embedded inside and only revealed when the planks are de-nailed in modern sawmills. Lots more information about this at my friend Jason's brother's website www.thehistorictimbercompany.ie.

It's been with Jason for a while - he uses a similar plank piece to put behind his sink taps as a splashback. I gave him a bottle of whisky as a swap, and will be giving it to my godson who is about to be confirmed. George is 18, and is considering studying American history at university - no doubt because of summer 2010 which he spent visiting Amish communities as documented by Channel 4 in its documentary Living with the Amish. I'm sure he's expecting cash, I just think this is a richer gift (sorry George!). Pic shows George eating an Eton Mess pudding off his i-plank gift...

PITCH PINE
It smells so good and you can see beautiful knots in the grain. This is a piece of tongue and groove flooring from a cotton mill in North Carolina.

When the colonists first explored the new continent of America they met vast forests of pitch pine (also known as longleaf pine) - stretching 150 miles wide from the Atlantic Coast of south western Virgina down into Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico and into east Texas. The trees can live for 100s of years and grow up to 300ft high and 5ft wide. They are seriously big.

These virgin forests were used to source tar, pitch, turpentine and resin for the British navy. They are resitant to pest attack and survive well in water, even sea water.

According to www.thehistorictimbercompany.ie " Heavy exploitatiton of virgin longleaf pine beagn after the American Revolution and intensififed with the development of railroads in the late 1800s and on to England where the timbers were a key building material during the Industrial Revolution. By 1930 virtually all the old growth longleaf pine had been cut and used to build the factories, warehouses and terminals of industrial America and Europe.
"Today only 2 per cent of the orginal forest remains, with fewer than 1,000 acres of virgin timber still standing.
"A lot of the old structures the pine built are now being demolished which allows the painstaking process of re-salvaging a small piece of history. The Historic Timber Company rescues these timbers and ships them to our yard in Ireland where they are de-nailed, re-sawn and machined into historic pitch pine flooring."

My plan is to use it as a doorstop. I already have a box made from an old apple tree which works well as a doorstop - pity we tend to keep the doors shut all winter!

HUON PINE
This is scrap wood reclaimed from a dump in Tasmania, Australia. My friend Paula brought this Tardis style box back to us after we helped look after her daughter Izzy and their pet guinea pig. It's a much paler wood and was turned into a box by workers at Resource Work Cooperative, a not for profit which runs the Tip Shop  and Collectables - both sell items found on the South Hobart tip, mostly from McRobies Gully tip site. This is a real example of art for trash. Here's what Paula said about it when she gave it to us:

"Huon pine is one of the slowest-growing and longest living plants in the world. It can grow to an age of 3,000 years or more. Only the bristle-cone pine of North America lives longer.
Huon pine is found in western Tasmania, the central plateau and in the Huon Valley. Houon pine is a relic of Gondwana - the first pollen records date back 135 million years. 

"International headlines were made with  the discovery of a stand of Huon pines on the west coast that is more than 10,000 years old. [Wow!] All the trees are male and are genetically identical. No individual tree in the stand is 10,000 years old, rather the stand has been in existence for that long.

"Convicts on Sarah Island in the west of Tasmanai cosntructed ships from Huon pine. The wood contains an olil which retards the growth of fungi, hence its early popularity in ship bilding. later piners on the Franklin and Gordon rivers felled Huons and floated them downstream.
Today the tree is wholly protected and cannot be felled. However wood on the forest floor remains usable after hundreds of years and is still prized by modern woodworkers, not least because of its sweet aroma.

"Huon pine can be seen along the Huon pine walk at Tahune in the Huon Valley, the Teepookana Forest Reserve, West Coast, Heritage Landing on the Gordon River and near Newall Creek on the Mount Jukes road south of Queenstown. The working sawmill in Strahan will give samples of the timber to visitors and many craft outlets sell Huon pine woodcraft.

Over to you
Go admire the wood you are using - it's sure to have a fascinating story to tell. And if you do buy any new wood (or wood products) be sure to check that it has the FSC tick logo that assures you it has come from a woodland that is sustainably managed.

Is it ok to be nervous in boats?

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. Impossible? No. This time a quick look at reasons to be seasick This post is by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about books and blogs)   

As a child I would scream if you put me into a boat. Obviously I blame my parents for this - they'd taken me to Strangford Loch, in Northern Ireland and wanted me to play by the shore. In a bid to stop me wading into the water they put the fear of God (and a lifelong terror of water) into me by talking about the whirlpool that killed. You see,

Boats gets swallowed by whirlpools...

Even though I'm grown up and know all about life drills and the Plimsoll Line, I'm still a bit nervous of water. That's why I've made sure my daughters can swim, kayak and row. I know the difference between a life jacket and a life protector - and use them.

But the terrible stories of shipwrecks over the past few months - an oil tanker off New Zealand, the cruiser off Italy and now a ferry in Papua New Guinea (see story here) - freak me out.

Titanic fears
Last summer,on the way back to the UK after a three-month break in the Solomons and Australia, we saw a vast cruise liner squeezing under the huge Sydney Harbour Bridge. It must have been one of the ships that take 4,000 passengers. I probably never would consider going on a ship that big, but once you've seen a tower block floating past (see pic above & below) it is hard to imagine how you would cope in a crisis situation. Or indeed what it would be like with lights out in an overturned boat, a rough sea and all staircases turned into cliffs.

Boats seem to attract accidents, bad weather and poor seamanship. They also dump crap in the sea, not just sewage, but waste oil and loose cargo.

Consider this post a thumbs down to motor boats, however big.

Over to you?
Is boat travel still the way to go in the 21st century? What would you do to improve ship safety and sustainability?

Thoughts on time

When I lived in the South Pacific (and Oz) I loved the way I was half a day in front of my homeland - and friends in the UK. Years later I loved seeing Christmas Island in Micronesia meeting the Millennium so many hours before our new year's eve parties kicked off! This post is by Nicola Baird (pix, top of my friend Hannah with Lola and Nell on the meridian line at Greenwich, and below, irresistible to bestride a 0 degrees longitude line.. one foot in the west, one in the east.)

There are fantastic books about time. Pip Pip (a sideways look at time) by Jay Griffiths, is a favourite.

In hospital over the Easter weekend a nurse administering asthma medicine to my 10 year old at around 3am got me thinking about it again. Time goes so fast, sometimes. That night Nell was being made better but the two hour gaps between each dose of medicine seemed to go rather faster than the time it took Nell to breathe in the 10 puffs or reliever... And look, already quarter of the year has passed, the tax year is over and summer's upon us. Blink and time rushes along.

Je ne regret rien
Obviously no point wishing to turn back the clock, but it was fun to finally find t-i-m-e to visit the Greenwich Meridian line and muse about humans' attempts to make time less painful by measuring it into 24 hour bite-sized chunks. Go see what I mean (and use the side gate if you want to avoid a rather hefty ticket price).

Old Father Thames ain't wet

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell love to travel - but try not to rack up their carbon footprint as they go. Here's how...
If it wasn’t for the pile of dry pale rocks – and the engraved tombstone – by the corner of the wood you’d never guess this was the start of the River Thames. This September there’s no sign of water, although two fields away, at what’s known as the head of the Thames, you can clearly see the course of a river, even if that too is dry.

I’m used to the forceful, grey Thames of central London with its curves, boats and treasure-lined tidal shores, so it’s strange to see around 180 miles away that it starts off as a dry spring leading to a dry ditch. The track beside the outline river is well worn as many walkers enjoy tracking the Thames back to its Gloucestershire source, see how to do this at http://www.thames-path.org.uk/

We cheated the footslog by taking a detour from Kemble train station, following the well-signed Wysis Trail and then left on to the last stages of the Thames Path (about a mile and a half each way) to see our river’s birthplace, marked in marble with "The Conservators of the River Thames 1857 - 1974. This stone was placed here to mark the source of the River Thames". Unfortunately we are in such a hurry to catch our designated train back to London that we have to race the route, as if fleeing from the sort of floods that have recently hit Manila. We do not even have time to chat as we open gates/climb old steps, dodge cows or admire the heron flying by.

I’ve seen a volcano spring out of the sea, spitting red rocks into the Pacific waves. And the girls have seen chicks hatch, pecking and peeping and struggling through the shell. Dramatic enough births to oblige us all to puzzle how the UK’s greatest river (with apologies to the Tyne, Avon, Severn, Clyde and others) can have such a low-key start. Obviously deep waters can run to silt, although not if you’re here in a wet January (or so the potter-postcard seller by Kemble station would have us believe).

Crowded train

Pete, Nicola, Lola, 9, and Nell, 6, spent three months during the summer of 2007 traveling around Britain. Now we’re home but the travel bug is still there. Join us for occasional sightseeing plus tips on how to shrink your carbon footprint…

It’s a September Saturday and we’re off to our friends John and Ann’s wedding in Bristol. They’ve organized a BBQ and lazy afternoon at Bristol Zoo so we aim for the 10.05 out of Paddington Station. The Circle line seems suspiciously crowded but when we get to the main line station it is a sea of gold and green shirts worn by the crowds of one-time Sydney residents trying to get to Cardiff Millennium stadium for the World Cup rugby match between Wales and Australia. There are probably some Welsh fans in the melee, and less sporty travelers too but at Paddington’s glass-covered concourse it looks as if Australia has the most supporters.

The one charter train has already packed itself to capacity and left for Cardiff which means that we share our service with hundreds of fans desperate to get to the stadium on time. Our carriage is so crowded it would be wrong to sit in all our reserved seats, even if we could persuade people to shift, so we squeeze all four of us on to just two. Inevitably that means we have to earwig the surrounding conversations and that’s how we learn that Australians – when not talking about the rugby – are obsessed by European traveling, budget insurance (eg World Nomad), and have a check list of places to visit while in Britain which includes Brighton, Cornwall, the Regency circus at Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon and a pretty Cotswold village. Edinburgh Festival (in August) and the Munich beer fest (in October) are also obligatory.

Pete regularly travels on trains full of footie fans so he’s not phased by the over-crowding or surprised when our train is unable to pick up passengers at interim stations even ones as big as Reading and Swindon. Instead he enjoys the bonhomie, shared bottles of cider and sport talk.

In contrast I’m shocked that the train companies, like First Great Western, are so untogether that they don’t run longer or more trains to get fans to the ground. These big sporting dates aren’t a surprise so why do train operators let us all down by making zero effort to handle the demand? And why are trains allowed to be so over-crowded in an age when allegedly health and safety is a top priority?

As for the result: a 71,000 crowd see Australia beat Wales (20:32) in an allegedly good game. And because we were cheek by jowl with the Ozzies for most of the journey we can’t resist shouting a good on yerrrrr - even though we're now having a nice day at a white wedding.

Feeding seals in the harbour

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

Nothing beats the feeling of being in the right place at the right time. And today we did this: turning up just as the old boy who runs the fish stall on the harbour front was chalking up that he'd reopen when it stopped raining. We'd come to Eyemouth, the first Scottish town after border, after hearing that you could dangle bits of mackrel on a stick over the harbour wall and see them being eaten up by some seals.

Of course we didn't believe this. But we came anyway (it's just by the Contented Sole pub) and now our provider of fish seemed to be shutting up shop. At just that moment a sleek, grey seal head bobbed up in the harbour, and then another. Seals are enormous - far bigger than the children - and these ones had the most appealing faces, quite friendly and dog-like with mottled waistcoats and nostrils they can open and close with dramatic precision.

"They've all got names," said the man - practically frozen as though it's only 14C today it's cold enough and wet enough to make your fingers tingle and your nose run. We looked down at the four bobbing blubber bodies and ahhed enough to make the old salt melt. He handed us a packet of chopped up raw fish in a dripping plastic bag of blood which normally veggie-fanatic Lola wouldn't dream of touching. But given the chance to feed seals she latched the fish on to the clothes peg and dangled it over - soon finding new names for the four gorgeous seals below us. There was One Eye, Thin Face and TO COME.

We spent a long time dishing out our mackrel and then admiring the seals below us. It was magical - the best #2 I've ever spent. Of course if we'd been really canny we'd have arrived in dry weather (!) and watched someone else pay for the privilege. Meanwhile the seals of Eyemouth are on to a very good thing, not so long ago the fishermen used to shoot them - now you pay for a pot of sea food and get a free bag of fish bits to provide them with snacks. Result: seal satisfaction, plus (possibly) the best fed seals in Britain. If you can't see them bobbing around in the harbour then they'll be lying on the rocks trying to digest the quantities of fish they are gifted by the new generation of seal hunters.

As a way for fishermen to make money this is brilliant. Pete says he's seen something similar in Australia at Penguin Beach - there are so many tourists for the feeding parade that the locals have knocked up a stadium. Further north entrepeneurs are feeding chickens to salt-water crocodiles which makes for a dramatic animal-feeding highlight in a tourist itinterary. Unfortunately it's also causing fishermen - especially the occasional fisherman - to have the biggest scare of their lives when they dangle over a bit of bait and find it snapped up by a mega-sized crocodile. Then again that story might be a total fable, and Australian urban myth, told only to the raw prawns at the barbie.

But the seals were real. Get up here and see for yourself.

Take it to the bridge

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola

The kittiwakes of Newcastle famously nest on the struts of the Tyne Bridge (see pic). You know you're at the right spot because there's a strong smell of fish and then if you look up, or cross at the wrong point in the road, you are at serious risk of being hit in the eye by a squirty kittiwake poo full of digested sandeel. We put our hoods up to try and stop this happening but Pete still wanted us to look up and admire the bridge saying it reminded him of Sydney Harbour bridge in Australia.

Sandeels are doing very badly - partly over fishing and partly climate change - but clearly the waters of the River Tyne have enough good food to keep a kittiwake & its three chicks powered up.

A few metres along the quayside Nell spotted a cormorant (a big black bird) drying its wings on the Millennium Bridge (known locally as the blinking eye) ignoring all the pedestrians and cyclists crossing to the Gateshead side by the converted Baltic flour mill which is now an art gallery. As it says on the building's giant wall: "YOU CANNOT HELP LOOKING AT THIS".