Biking Birder I January 11th 2010 WWT LONDON

 

11^th January                                             Streets of London                                                                     Ralph McTell

                An easy cycle road along the streets of London soon had me reaching the Thames at Kew Bridge; no time to visit the famous Kew Gardens though. My last visit had been a treat when I was a science teacher in Wolverhampton in the 1980’s. Every year the science department teachers, all six of us and all of us men, used to take all of the Year Seven pupils to London for the day. Three fifty-seat coaches were required to take all of us. Our itinerary varied a little from year to year but it always started at the Natural History and Science Museums in South Kensington. The variety was in where we went for the afternoon, either Whipsnade or London Zoo, or Kew Gardens. One year I remember, Kew Gardens was alerted about the presence of one hundred and fifty Wolverhampton council estate teenagers. In fact I think we only visited Kew on one occasion. Perhaps there had been trouble, I do not remember, which prevented us from going again. Maybe it was the collection of rare cacti that appeared next day in my very tidy science laboratory. Joke! As for my classroom of eleven wonderful years at Coppice High School, was it tidy? The nickname the students gave me, one of many, Stig will give you a clue.

One science department school trip I do remember was when a young boy named Howard decided that he did not want to see the museums. What he wanted to see was Buckingham Palace. Fair enough you might think but at the age of eleven, sneaking off in the opposite direction to the rest of us. when in the Underground tunnel that runs parallel to the Science Museum, sneaking onto an Underground train in order to travel to see the Palace and causing two teachers to spend the night in the capital with the police before being found, should not have been on his itinerary that day. I have more cause to remember his brother though, Vincent, name Vinnie by his friends, than Howard. During a break-dancing session, taking place in one of my more creative biology lessons, I turned my back on Vinnie’s performance. On turning back around I was whacked in the chest by his foot during a fast head-spinning movement. One broken sternum was the result of the impact and this was to cause me pain for many years. Two brothers I remember well! Howard, I also remember, had a crush on my second wife Jane, who worked at that time at the same school as me. Howard used to send parcels and letters professing his true love to her!

Interestingly their sister, Paulette became an international hurdling athlete of some renown. A truly lovely family, one of many I had the privilege to get to know during my teaching time at Coppice High School, Wolverhampton.

Back to Kew Bridge, the Thames had a sizeable number of ducks on it, a couple of hundred or so Tufted Duck and Pochard mostly. A little way more and there I was cycling towards Barnes. What an evocative name for me now but more about that later, especially when I get to my Fair Isle days but that is a long way ahead. I was to reach Fair Isle in October in fact, so do not expect me to write about why Barnes is special to me anytime soon. I soon found the entrance to the amazing and wonderful London Wildfowl and Wetland Trust Reserve at Barnes. What a brilliant reserve to visit and in the centre of London too! Its bird list proudly boasts regular Bitterns. Indeed four of them had been seen the day before I arrived, so the large visitor’s centre’s noticeboard declared.

I was greeted at the desk by Brenda, Evey, a half French girl with no French language ability and John, who was to kindly show me around the reserve after taking me for coffee upstairs. It was a lovely welcome and very much appreciated. There was a present for me too, a lovely thick and warm WWT fleece. With such freezing weather, ice everywhere and still some snow on the ground, the extra clothing was very much appreciated.

The reserve itself was totally frozen with the large lakes mostly ice-bound, therefore bird life was down in numbers on the usual amount to be found at this superb reserve. Now some years ago I had a fantastic girlfriend named Diane, who back in 1990 lived in nearby Putney. This was a few years before I met my beautiful wife, Karen. Well, Diane and I used to come to a pub near to here for the occasional evening out. Back then Barnes was a huge concrete basin of a reservoir. What it had become now is little short of a miracle as well as outstanding. Instead of brick-lined walls and very deep water, there was now a professionally landscaped panorama of reedbeds and scrapes, lakes and hides and a fabulous visitors’ centre.     

John and I went into a hide which gave a view over the only piece of unfrozen water. This small area of ice-free water had a Little Grebe, Great Black Backed Gull on it and a Cetti’s Warbler did a Mozart phrase from deep in some bankside vegetation. [72-4] A couple of Ring-necked Parakeets [75] flew overhead. There was more of the reserve to see and enjoy. Then an interview with the local newspaper had been pre-arranged. The photographer arrived, found John and I and asked me to stand in one of the reedbeds and pretend I was looking at a bird! He even had me climb a tree at one point.

Once alone after the interview, with John having to go back to his office desk, it was time for me to explore the reserve. I went into some hides and had fabulous views of two Bitterns. One of them had a metre-wide piece of ice-free water next to a reedbed, from which to extract his meal, which he did, expertly catching what looked like small Rudd. On the way back to the centre to say goodbye and profuse thanks, a Chiff Chaff [76] was flitting around some bushes.

Into the cafe and a delightful meeting with a lovely lady who has been following my adventure, Yvone Simmonds. 

I left Barnes and went along beside Barnes Common before I reached the Thames again and crossed over Putney Bridge. Now twenty years ago, 1990, high as a kite after dancing all evening at a huge Rolling Stones concert at Wembley Stadium, the Urban Jungle Tour I believe, I had walked over this bridge carrying a number of large Rolling Stones concert posters, taken from off the roadside crash barriers. I was singing my head off despite the late hour; well, early morning hour and on my way to meet up with a nurse I had only met a few days before in Wolverhampton, that fabulous girlfriend to be, Diane. I had been walking to the main railway station there after a day at East Park Junior School, Wolverhampton; this being after a day of teaching a Year Six class. One of my pupil’s parents picked me up. She, Sylvia was sitting in the front passenger seat and she introduced me to the driver, Diane. Diane said that she was nurse in London and with time limited as they kindly took me to the station, I told Diane that I was coming to London that very weekend to see the Rolling Stones.

Diane insisted that I stayed at her flat in Putney after the show. So at 1:30 a.m. or thereabouts, sticky with sweat after leaping about in my usual manic way at a concert and carrying the afore-mentioned posters, I banged on Diane’s flat door. Unbelievably she actually let me in! The rest of the night was spent talking and boy, could Diane talk!

Diane was more than a nurse. Diane, one of the most fabulous women I have ever met, was a Senior Sister no less at the prestigious and expensive Portland Hospital in Central London. She had travelled a lot and her talk was of life in Saudi Arabia, where her passion was for PADI night diving in the Red Sea. Diane also talked about some horribly unpleasant incidents in Nigeria.

Come the morning, her car would not start so what could I do but try to fix it. By some miracle I actually got it going and as a reward, Diane took me for a meal at a restaurant in nearby Putney Centre. Two weeks later we were together again, at a Rolling Stones concert, this time at Maine Road; Manchester City’s old football ground. We were so close to the stage I swear we could have made out Keith Richard’s nose hairs! Brilliant!

              Sorry. I digress. Must be the Gemini in me, me being born on June the 18^th. 18, three sixes, the sign of the fallen one, yet now you know my birthday, you can all from now on be so kind as to send me a birthday card.

OK, I was once more on the bike and back in 2010. I had crossed the bridge in a better condition than on the evening of the Rolling Stones concert twenty years previous. I rode my bike over the River Thames, over Putney Bridge before I turned up the Fulham Road. An hour or so later, I had cycled past Buckingham Palace, past the Houses of Parliament, past an area where I could see the Millennium Wheel on the opposite side of the river and cycled along The Embankment to reach St Paul’s Cathedral. This was not for me to go into that famous landmark but to in order for me to get to the Youth Hostel across the road from there. I had stayed in this Youth Hostel before, back in 1981, the night before the wedding of Princess Diana to Charles. That had been when I was accompanied by my first wife, Joy. We had just been to Hyde Park to see the Royal Wedding firework display and Joy wanted to see the wedding itself. Well where could be closer (and cheaper!) than St Paul’s Youth Hostel? Answer came there none so there we were. Up early on the wedding day, we were just across the road from the steps and had a splendid view of the event. Now it may seem odd to some but my favourite memory was of Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan who arrived by a taxi that stopped just in front of us. Meeting them was far more of a highlight than seeing the Royal couple!

After the Royal Wedding, and once we had collected our heavily laden rucksacks, we went to Charing Cross Station and within a couple of days we were in Monte Carlo; an Interrail month was ahead of us both. Interrail was a wonderful cheap way for under twenty-six years olds to travel around Europe back then, 1980. For ninety pounds one could travel on any train in Western Europe. Joy and I went straight through France, explored the major sites of Italy and Greece before we headed back through what was then former Yugoslavia. Then we visited Venice before heading back north through Switzerland, Germany and Belgium.

The Youth Hostel on this cold January evening of 2010 did not seem to have changed much, though thirty-odd years had passed. (and my family know how odd those thirty-odd years have been for me!) It still had the extremely high ceilinged living rooms and a large dining area downstairs. What had changed though was the quality of the food. Yet that was not to be until the following morning.

                                        So how can you tell me you're lonely

                                             And say for you that the sun don't shine?

                                  Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
                                                                   I’ll show you something to make you change your mind

 Tonight it was time to for me to walk into town and explore the Leicester Square area after walking down The Strand. I ended up seeing a new 3D film, Avatar. Now how many times does one go to the cinema and have the audience on its feet clapping like mad at the end? Not often I would say but it everyone did just that at the end of Avatar. Simple story: boy meets girl after changing species, falls in love, saves girl’s species, everyone is happy. Nature against machines and technology, Socialism against Capitalism, cooperation and community against corruption and greed; take your pick of film analysis. Anyway it was a visual treat and really to me the 3D element did not add much to the cinematic experience. Oh, it did during the scenes with the Roger Dean-style floating mountains of Pandora. 

26.18 miles                                                                                                  592 feet elevation up   628 feet down

Biking Birder I - January 10th 2010 At Last! A RSPB Reserve visited in the Snow and Sledging!

10^th January               James Bond Theme from ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service                              John Barry  

              Out at 9.00 a.m. after breakfast in bed and morning TV news, I was two days behind my schedule and off to Church Wood RSPB Reserve in Hedgerley. I had had to take a long route to get there but it had had to be done. Weather today was not as bitterly cold as recently and the roads here were cyclable with care. Soon I was off the main road and I reached the famous Pinewood Studios, hence the music chosen for this day. It is still my favourite Bond movie.

              Not so long ago on a family holiday to Switzerland, Karen, my beautiful raven-haired, jade- eyed wife, our four children, Rebecca, Claire, Joshua and Sarah and I went up to the summit named Piz Gloria via a couple of cable cars. I can remember the children feeding Alpine Choughs from their hands with fruit cake and seeing Ptarmigan from the balcony. I hoped the Cairngorms' Ptarmigan would be so obliging later in the year. 

I also remember that it was on that holiday that I saw an ambition bird from the viewpoint of Meringen Waterfall. Beside a plaque stating that this was indeed the spot where Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty fell to their deaths. Don’t people realise that these are fictional characters? I waited for an hour or two, waiting and watching the water cascade down a huge waterfall. Suddenly a spot on the huge cliff moved. It then took off and was joined by another spot, both revealing that they had spectacularly pinkish coloured wings. Together they ascended just beyond the waterfalls’ spray, spinning around each other in a lovers’ display, until they were quite close. My first view of the fabulous bird, Wallcreepers and what a spectacular setting to see them in. 

What I especially loved about the James Bond movie was the theme music as Bond and his girl, Diana Rigg, my teenage heart throb, were skiing down a Swiss mountain side being pursued by the villains. I loved that music so much that as a naïve young teenager I went into a local record store in Redditch, where I lived at the time and asked if they had a single of it. Younger readers, you will have to ask an oldie like me what a single was. Snootily the shop attendant told me that I had no chance of that and that I would have to buy the whole James Bond album. I did not have enough money to buy a whole album, around thirty shillings, nowadays £1.50 and I had to wait thirty years before YouTube helped me out. Diana Rigg was fabulously gorgeous in that film. What a shame she ended up on the front seat of James Bond’s car with a bullet through her forehead just after their wedding! “
It's all right. It's quite all right, really, she's having a rest. We'll be going on soon. There's no hurry, you see. We have all the time in the world.”

Actually when one looks back at other Bond films it is such a disgrace that so many of them contain gratuitous violence towards women. How often does one see James slap a woman? I suggest far too many times and I hope that times have changed for the better.

The security man at the gate to the studios was an Afghan from Kabul, who had been in the UK for three years. He took my photograph as I stood in front of the entrance and on bidding him thanks and goodbye, I continued towards Fulmar. Strange that the name of a small village was also that of a favourite white and grey seabird. A type of albatross despite its small size, whose fame is due to showering anyone who comes too close to a nesting bird with foul smelling yellow oil; something that I was to experience when up on the very northeastern tip of Bonnie Scotland.

I saw a road sign for Slough, home of Ricky Gervais’ sitcom, The Office. I never could see what people liked about The Office but then again, I have never worked in an office. I will stick to Pete and Dud, Morecambe & Wise and Monty Python for my favourite TV comedic moments, with Stuart Lee for face-aching moments. As for sitcoms, you cannot beat Porridge and Blackadder in my book but the lesser well known Early Doors comes close. Films? Well it has to be Ghostbusters and Mel Brooks’ The Producers.

On reaching Hedgerley I had to find the house of a kind couple who had offered me accommodation on the night that I should have arrived in the village, Doug and Jean. I wanted to say thank you to them both and explain what had happened. The lane in which they lived was still ice and snow covered when I got there and so I left the bike at a corner house and walked briskly yet carefully along it. On seeing a man walking his dog I called out, “are you Doug?” Indeed it was Doug, out walking with his energetic dog named Sidney, a cross between a poodle and a spaniel; a spoodle no less! Sidney, what a fabulous name for a pet. Why am I so enthusiastic for the name you may ask? Well, every pet I have ever owned I have named Sid. It started as a tribute to Sid James of Carry On movie fame. Actually the only pet I still have, after a succession of goldfish, cats and various insects, is a rock. Sid is a large rock that called to me one day as I was sitting adjacent to the base of Europe's highest waterfall at Gavarnie in the French Pyrenees. «Aidez-moi », he cried out. " J’en ai marre de cette eau frapper ma tête tout le temps ! "

Luckily, I speak a little French and so I rescued Sid and I carried him the four miles back to the car. Sid came home with me after I had dried him out. He has been my companion ever since but was not on this journey with me on this occasion. He preferred to stay at home.

In 2009 I went back to Gavarnie in order to look for his wife and children. They are now with him at my little caravan in Worcestershire. And with these words your thought that I am a little eccentric is now confirmed.

Doug invited me inside their magnificent residence where I was given coffee and the use of their computer to catch up on emails and the blog. From their back-patio windows I watched as Red Kites, eighteen of them, flew along the ridge close by and a covey of five Red-legged Partridges shuffled around in the snow covered field. Then a year tick; a Stock Dove [71] flew over towards the ridge. It was then time for a meal at the local pub with them both. The public house was so popular that they had had a large marquee type area attached to the back of the old building to accommodate the extra people. A meal of chips and sandwiches was eaten with Doug, an IT person of some note and his wife, Jean and Sidney, their dog that is, not my rock.

               Thanks and goodbyes spoken to this lovely couple and Sid of course, I then enjoyed a session of sledging with a few families on the hills adjacent to the reserve before walking around the woodland footpath of the reserve itself. Not many people had done the same as the deep snow was still pristine and lacking human footprints. Yet a female Roe Deer showed herself and Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Green Woodpeckers, titmice and Red Kites were seen but no Lesser Redpolls Lee!

 The afternoon was getting on so I cycled back to the same Bed and Breakfast in Uxbridge as I had been in the night before. I first stopped though, to visit a chemist in the town centre because I had had severe toothache during the day; a crowned molar was causing me some gip.

18.95 miles                                                                                                                735 feet elevation up and down

Biking Birder I - January 9th 2010 Escape from Hemel Hempstead!

 

9^th January                                                              Escape                                                                    Craig Armstrong

               I ate porridge laden with bananas whilst planning the escape from Hemel Hempstead in the morning. The plan being to push the bike along the local canal's snow-covered tow path south to reach Uxbridge. Just get me out of here.

              At 9.30 a.m. Richie, Maddy and I set off. The roads were, as on previous days, very slushy with traffic moving very slowly along bumper to bumper. To cycle on such roads would have been extremely hazardous. One slip and I would be beneath the wheel of a car and there was also a less selfish consideration. My cycling on such roads would have caused the traffic to move even slower.

Despite the slushy roads it was a beautiful, sunny, calm day and the scenery along the canal tow path was lovely with the trees crusted with hoar frost and deep snow on the ground. Birds at last were seen as I pushed the bike along through the deep snow. There were ducks, swans and geese on the canal, with Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, titmice, Robins and thrushes; Redwing and Fieldfare in good numbers seen also. The occasional Cormorant and a number of gulls were using the canal as a flightpath, occasionally coming down to land at the gravel pits that we passed. On one a group of Common Gulls [69] were standing on the ice amongst other species of gulls.

Birds, particularly the listing of them, had been on my mind for the holder of the record I was trying to beat, the Green Year list record, Chris Mills, had started his own Green Year list on this day back in 2005. By the end of the ninth of January 2005 Chris had been on sixty-two, after he had spent a day cycling around his home county of Norfolk. I was ahead but not by that many. Chris had created a British Green Year List record, known in the USA as a BIGBY, a Big Green Big Year, whilst in competition with Simon Woolley from Hampshire. Both of these lads are very fit, athletic-even cyclists, unlike me an old doddering bike rider; both of them with a huge passion for birding.

In 2005 they competed against each other by Green Birding in their home counties, Norfolk for Chris and Hampshire for Simon, with Chris eventually coming out as the winner. Simon did his Big Green Big Year as a fund-raising exercise for the terrible tsunami that hit Sri Lanka and other nearby countries killing many thousands back in 2004. Simon and his girlfriend had been out there when the tsunami struck and had witnessed first-hand the devastation it caused. His Green Birding year is detailed in a book named Birding by Bike – The Hampshire Big Year 2005 and is available for £5, all of which is donated to charity. There is also a blog of his BIGBY at zootherapy.blogspot.com.

Chris has also authored a book although I will be honest and say I am not sure whether he ever published it officially, called Birder on a Bike. 

How many variations on a theme can one create with the words birding, birds, biking and bike?

Their books and lists were with me as I cycled on my own BIGBY, giving me constant motivation, inspirational texts.

Some parts of the towpath were easier to push the bike along than others. Those were parts that had been walked along the most by other people enjoying the day. The trampled impacted snow being easier to push through than the deep, hardly stepped upon areas.

Richie and Maddy took a route away from the canal after a few miles, so we said our goodbyes and promised to stay connected. To this day I have heard from Ritchie. I think he blames me for his incredible cycling journeys in so many parts of the world. On Facebook Ritchie is now known as Tash Rider. I have no idea why this name. I will have to ask time next time we meet up but his travels are far more extensive than mine. For the detail on these please visit his blog – Batman to Robben.

Looking up Ritchie/Tash's latest postings on the blog, the last post made back in 2015 details thoughts of him riding around Morocco on a donkey!

Take a look and see the list of countries visited. Amazing!

https://batmantorobben.wordpress.com/ 

I continued pushing along the towpath and by 1.00 p.m. had reached Rickmansworth. Here I met Tim, an Aqualung-looking (Jethro Tull album from the 1970s), grey-bearded older gentleman standing beside his iced-in barge. Inviting me onto this lovely old barge to warm me up, I was soon in the smoke-filled warm interior sitting on a chair being mobbed by his three affectionate dogs. The kind gentleman, Tim was of Irish origins, having come over here from Cork many years ago. He gave me a warming mug of Bovril and pieces of delicious wholemeal toast before insisting I take the Bovril jar with me. His wife, Amber, was on the mobile phone berating someone quite aggressively over some family matter as two parakeets squawked loudly from their cage. What a racket! Fabulous.

Onward, I then came across a group of teenage lads enjoying a rope swing. Filled with memories of enjoying such ropey swings as a child, I had to have a go and survived swinging over a frozen stream. Great fun!

               Once when I was a spotty young teenage kid, at my Nan and Grandad's house in Birmingham, there was a long-roped swing over a dried up and filled in derelict canal. From the bridge I put the stick on the end of the rope between my legs and leapt off only to find that the rope was indeed too long and I dragged my legs along the gravel canal floor, taking the skin off my knees and shins in doing so. The exposed legs, lads wore shorts in those days, were shredded. I can still remember having the grit removed from the bloody wounds.

People walking along the same towpath occasionally stopped me to ask why I was so mad as to be pushing such a heavily laden bike along. This led to some kind donations for the RSPB Robin collection box on the front of the bike and a few photographs. So thanks to Stuart and Rowan and to Iver, who later sent an email with a photo of me with his German girlfriend attached. To the other kind donors whose names I did not jot down, thanks and apologies.

Later I came across another barge with someone atop and hence another chat. This barge had a naughty sign offering the good advice, ‘slow down for duck’s sake’ painted on the back. The barge, or narrowboat as I was corrected to call it, was moored in an area of ice-free water and here a number of Tufted Duck were diving down to feed.

By now the Sun was setting and after coming across a long, straight length of snow free towpath, where I could actually cycle along for a bit, I saw a Barn Owl [70] quartering a field adjacent to the canal, just before the place where the canal goes beneath the M40. This large, white moth-like creature was the best bird seen so far on my trip and came close as I watched it searching for its evening meal. This bird had come at a suitable time as I was feeling quite exhausted having pushed and cycled along the canal side for around seven hours.

Dark now, I reached Uxbridge and found the Police Station. My thinking being that they would know the area and would know of a local Bed & Breakfast or offer me a night in the cells. By this time I was so tired I would not have minded being put up for the night under Her Majesty’s care. The officer at the desk heard my plea and gave me a photocopied, pre-prepared sheet of such accommodation and someone in the queue even put a fiver into the collection box.

17.47 miles                                                                                             181 feet elevation up   298 feet down

Biking Birder I - January 8th 2010 Disco Boy

 

8^th January                                                                      Rescue Me                                                               Diana Ross

               I had decided to try to get somewhere today, no matter how short a distance and so I set off after breakfast, saying a very genuine thank you to Mrs Peters. Her bed and breakfast may have been a small two-star B & B, 47 Crescent Road, yet I could not have been shown any more kindness. She was obviously not a well-off woman and relied on customers, yet her breakfast was always ample and although she may have been formal over names, she was always quick to laugh and eager to chat. A lovely old lady.

I pushed the bike down to the main road, through the deep snow, and continued doing so to the junction of the A41 for Berkhamsted. Before reaching here I met a super couple, who took my photograph on the canal bridge and chatted for a while. On the A41 cycling was impossible so I pushed the bike for a couple of miles but the snow started to fall again. 

On reaching a nearby road junction with a bridge overhead, I sheltered for about an hour, reading a book, before the snow stopped falling and I was able to leave the A41 in order to try the adjacent A road. Snow had started falling again when a familiar face came towards me. It was the man from the couple I had met back at the canal bridge. His name was Richie Finger and he could see the state I was in, snow-covered and dithering. I was lonely, I was blue!

At once he insisted that I came home with him and stay the night at his and his partner, Maddy's house. Once having accepted his kind offer, he turned around and it was then I realised that they lived back in Hemel Hempstead! No escape would be possible this day.

What a wonderful snowman greeted us on arrival at their home; a large, tall, sculpted French-looking waiter of a snowman holding a tray, which was being used as a bird table replete with bird food. So creative, maybe you will think of doing the same next time we have a snowfall and help our feathered friends.

The rest of the day was spent chatting with Richie, and with Maddy once she arrived home from work. Richie was fascinating and his collection of music was the largest I had ever seen. An enthusiastic collector of Disco music but not the Saturday Night Fever material of the Bee Gees, Donna Summer and the like but a broad eclectic mixture of thousands of hours of music and musicians all stored on his computer, file after file and folder after folder. Then there was the vinyl; four long and high shelves of it, taking up space of a whole long wall in the very contemporary apartment.

Maddy turned out to be a teaching assistant at a local school where she works on a one to one basis with a statemented Special Needs boy. Now twenty four, Maddy had been educated at two Rudolph Steiner schools, one being in South Wales. Rudolph Steiner schools are a little different to the mainstream experience and I would suggest that one takes a look at what they stand for. Indeed, look up the life of the Austrian founder, and consider the benefits of such places for children. I had always wanted to teach at one.

Back when I was a Primary School teacher at the amazing Merridale Primary School in Wolverhampton, one of the governors and parent of a child in my Year Six class, Peter, was also a teacher at a Steiner School. I remember at the interview for the teaching post at Merridale, a one term temporary position, Peter was on the interviewing panel and delighted in telling me that they wanted to make my position there a permanent full-time one instead of just for the one term and that their decision had nothing to do with the fact that I had egg on my chin, as the expression goes!

Eight years at Merridale Primary School included some of the most wonderful times I ever had during my teaching career. An open plan, very multicultural school with wonderful staff and a headteacher who upheld the creative and inclusive principles of the previous head. Brian may have left partly due to the initiation of the National Curriculum in 1989, the reason I left Secondary education but he left behind the most fantastic school. Caroline, the superb head whilst I was there, continued with Brian’s almost Steiner-like philosophy of education : creative, child-centred, imaginative and exploratory with investigations and lots of art, music and drama. Nature played a large part in creating the right environment for children to use all of their senses. The school had carried out some incredible habitat creation projects during Brian’s time and could boast two large peat bogs, a large hay meadow with masses of wildflowers, woodland areas and an avenue of interlocking trees that created a hundred yard archway for the children to promenade through. There were large fruit trees in various parts of the school grounds and I remember taking the children out on sunny summer afternoons for picnics and storytelling. A proper bird hide was erected near to a scrubby area of Blackthorn and a line of rope had both bird feeders and plastic pop bottles strung along it; the latter to stop the squirrels from getting to the bird food.

Children at break or lunchtime were allowed to go out in all weathers, each child had their own school provided wellingtons and waterproof coat, to explore all areas. They were encouraged to make their own dens, to climb trees and ask questions.

Everyone at the school was onboard with the school’s aims, be they the teaching staff, the dinner ladies, who included the sister of the Famous Wolverhampton Wanderers footballer from those times, Steve Bull and the amazing caretaker and his wife, Ray and Gill. It was Ray who with Brian and a now City councillor and a Senior Lecturer from Wolverhampton University, had drawn up the plans and executed them for the various habitats at the school. Half a mile from Wolverhampton Centre and an area with such a diversity of wildlife! At my job interview, when being shown around the grounds I remember shouting out, “you’ve got Royal Fern!”

Such happy days at the most wonderful of schools, Ray was my best man when being at Merridale coincided with marrying the most fabulous woman, Karen.

On a weekend of contact with my two beautiful children, Joshua and Rebecca, I was holding their hands as we walked back from a local shop, Biddle’s, to their grandparents when I spotted a fossil amongst the pebbles on a driveway. The drive had a parking area made of limestone chippings and the small brachiopod had caught my eye. I went onto the drive and picked it up. As I showed it to Josh and Rebecca, a beautiful black-haired gypsy-like woman came out of the door, her two small daughters hiding behind her long dark red skirt and asked, “what are you doing on my drive?” A reasonable question one would think, I showed her the fossil. We married three years later.

Whilst at Ritchie and Maddy’s, I used their computer to write the blog and sort out the emails, which included one from Leica offering me a fleece; an offer I gratefully accepted. There were quite a few good luck messages and two exceedingly kind offers of accommodation. The kindness of people, complete strangers, over the coming year would be a thing that always surprised and delighted me over the year.

 4 Miles

Biking Birder I - 2010 January 7th Still in Snowy Hemel Hempstead

 7^th January                                                                      South Side of the Sky                                               Yes

               I know what I will do. I will pack, go to Asda and then set off. So were my hopes when I awoke early, two hours before my B & B breakfast was due. Then I looked out of the window. Even more snow had fallen overnight and the bike out the back was covered in it. It was time to reassess my plans.

The 2010 itinerary needed to be changed, thought out carefully to alleviate the problems caused by the extreme weather. This would involve postponing the visit to the Essex RSPB reserve, Wallasea Island, until December when I would be close to the area whilst visiting Old Hall Marshes and the Stour Estuary RSPB reserves. That would give me an extra five days now to get through this harsh period of weather. I wrote down a list of all of the problems, away from the immediate weather ones. The bike was in desperate need of repairs, especially the gear changing lever. My clothes, especially a large yellow coat which was supposed able to let out moisture and prevent the same getting in; breathable, whatever that means, it said on the label, were causing problems through the build-up of sweat. Despite the weather I was sweating profusely when cycling. This made me feel very thirsty most of the time so down on the list of necessities went fruit juice and honey. Shame I forgot to buy the honey later on. Crows were cawing outside the window as I wrote. Birds! I had almost forgotten about them. 

At breakfast, taken as usual at a round table in the living room, the TV still switched onto a German channel, Mrs Peters started to talk of her life during World War II. Before the war, her father had been a well-known ballroom dancer. She, with her sister and abusive stepmother lived near the Polish-German border. After the war she came to live over here to work as a house housekeeper seven days a week. She told of how shocked she was with the animosity the girls she met displayed towards her.

Back in 1945, when the Russians arrived in her village, the soldiers were given leave to do whatever they wanted for two days; loot, kill. All the men in the village over the age of forty-five were taken away, transported to Siberia the rumour went, more likely shot. Anything of value, bicycles, radios and even sewing machines, were taken. A 6.00 p.m. curfew was put into place and all the food that the Russians could find was taken. Hidden away the family had a few potatoes, carrots and beetroot and a bottle of cod liver oil.

Soon rationing was started; two pounds of bread and five pounds of potatoes for the family for a week. If anyone complained, they were shot. A couple of old horses were shot and made into rissoles, tough but sweet meat. The family were made to live in the cellar with no heating despite the Polish winter cold. The rationing queues would take anything up to three hours to get a loaf of bread.

After three months of this, the Russians moved out to be replaced by Polish soldiers. Things did not improve for the family and villagers. There was still no food so the family sold their Dad’s ballroom dancing suit on the Black Market, which paid for a little butter and some potatoes. She then spoke of being forcibly removed from her village in cattle trucks. She spoke of Polish retribution yet admitted that there were atrocities committed by all sides. There was torrential rain when the transports came for them. They were searched by the Polish soldiers and anything of value was stolen. They even took her comb, her most precious thing. On the Russian border, near Breslau, they were all sprayed with DDT powder and given a little maize and a small piece of bread.

She told of being moved to the American sector where the American soldiers mistreated her and others. At this Mrs Peters broke down in tears in front of me. Moved yet again, her family came to be in the British sector and it was here that they were finally treated kindly and with some dignity.

Eleven O’clock in the morning and no chance of moving on as the snow was still thick on the ground and the roads were still very slushy with only car tracks to show where the roads actually were. I went shopping, riveting read this bit is it not? Then I took the bike to a local cycle shop to get repairs, Leisure Wheels of Hemel Hempstead. Now I will admit I had a wonderful time there for as they, Dave and Dan, worked on my bike, I was allowed to ‘watch’ the live text of the last day of the England versus South Africa cricket test match on the BBC website. The tension from the match was tremendous. Would England get the draw? In the last three overs I could not stand waiting for the statistics to come up on the screen so I phoned my Dad for him to give a running commentary from the TV. Even Dave and Dan heard my shouts as the last balls were bowled and we survived to get the deserved draw. The headline in the paper the next day read, ‘Onions reduces South Africa to tears.’ Chris Onions, the English fast bowler, had batted through the day.

On the way back to my digs, I enjoyed yet another snowball fight with a group of children on the way back to the B & B and gave the victorious kids a variety of RSPB stickers and badges. Do not worry health and safety fans, the snow was fluffy light.

On the news that evening was the fact that the temperature had been minus eighteen Celsius in Benson, Oxfordshire the night before. The rest of the news had articles about Sri Lankan executions, ASBO thugs smashing someone’s car, attacking the family and throwing a brick through their lounge window and the general chaos that the winter was causing. I felt tearful. What with Mrs Peter’s stories and the news, as well as being stuck in Hemel Hempstead, it was all a bit much. Twenty-two people dead because of the atrocious weather in the UK. Were we ever colder on that day!

Biking Birder I - 2010 January 6th Snow Prevents Progress so Bike Repairs and Newspaper Interview

 6^th January                                                                          Sunday Papers                                        Joe Jackson

              Hemel Hempstead was actually on the itinerary because of a stupid mistake on my part. One of the previously unstated aims of the tour was to visit schools around the country, spreading both the message that cycling was good for you and the environment-Climate Change message. As part of the Keep Britain Tidy group, there is a superb school-based project being carried out by hundreds of schools across the country called Eco Schools! Back when I had first drawn up the itinerary for the Biking Birder year, I had contacted Eco School's HQ and asked them to assist in contacting schools over the possibility of me visiting and taking lessons, giving assemblies or being shown what the various Eco Schools schools were doing. Now the stupid mistake had been because I had placed Hemel Hempstead on the list sent to Eco Schools instead of the town that was actually on the route, High Wycombe.

Eco Schools had contacted the many schools in Hemel Hempstead that engaged in the Eco Schools project. Before I noticed my error on the spreadsheet, three schools had responded by saying they would love to have me visit. I could not back out now from my mistake by saying “sorry but I meant High Wycombe,” not after such a positive response and so Hemel Hempstead was where I was. The problem was that there was now thick snow on the ground and all of the schools were shut due to the snow and I could not cycle anywhere.

Early in the morning one of the school’s head teachers, I do not know which, had contacted the local newspaper of my being in town and told them of my reasons for being here, you’ll be able to read about them in the Sunday papers!

So it was that I was phoned by the newspaper and asked whether I was willing to be photographed and interviewed and if so, could I bring the bicycle down to the nearby offices. Down the hill, trudging through fresh snow six inches or so deep, I soon found them and after the interview with yet another young, enthusiastic lady, I was outside on the bike shaking a bit, cycling past the photographer. 

Now without all the panniers, the bike had a different centre of balance, much higher up and I did not feel too safe wobbling precariously and holding onto the handlebars for dear life. The photographer’s request that I turn my head towards him when I passed did not go down too well with me but I did my best. I wonder if the published photo shows the craven fear in my eyes.

As there was no way I could escape from Hemel Hempstead because of the snow, I went into the town library next, where I met a keen birder who was behind the desk. His name was Roger Prue and he talked of his recent trip for a Smew at Grafham Water, stating that Rutland was as far as he would go for his birds.

One pint of water drunk given to me by Roger, as I was quite dehydrated by yesterday’s efforts and an hour was spent on the internet, after becoming a new member of the Hemel Hempstead library. I used the time to answer emails, write the blog and in trying to find out how I could say thank you to the incoming donations where the kind donors had used the website ‘JustGiving’ via links on my blog. I also sent an email to Dawes, the cycle manufacturers from my home city of Birmingham, requesting a new bike. They did reply but no help did they offer.

Back outside the snow was falling heavily again and after having great fun throwing snowballs with a gang of local kids, the rest of the day was spent either talking with Mrs Peters or sitting in my room watching news bulletins on the TV telling of the snow chaos across the country. The worst snow for thirty years was outside the news said, reminding me of the worst snow I had ever seen back in the infamous winter of 1963. The trouble was I really needed to get going again. Itineraries so carefully worked out would have to be changed, and routes altered. There was no way I could cycle on the slushy snow-covered roads. It would be lethal! Also, there was the need to get the bicycle's gear system and lights repaired. Another day would be required in Hemel Hempstead. I felt trapped but at least I was comfortably trapped.

In the evening I phoned Lee Evans, the famous birder, not the comedian. I wanted him to offer a settee for a night; my intention being to push the bike as far as his home and then continue the push to Hedgerley the next day. Hedgerley, near Slough had the next RSPB reserve on my list to visit, Church Wood. Well, Lee was immensely helpful with his advice over the state of the roads but he could not understand why I wanted to go to Church Wood. “You’ll only get Lesser Redpoll there and a Lesser Spot if you’re lucky.” He must have said this three times. “Yes, I realise that but it’s an RSPB reserve and I’m cycling to all of them,” I said more than once. Now I must say that I have only met Lee to talk to a couple of times, though I have seen him on more occasions than that at various twitches. So, I did not feel confident enough to ask the ultimate question, can you put me up for a night? He did not offer it so I said thanks for the advice and we left it at that. Now there is a diversity of opinions over Lee Evans. Throughout the phone call he was most helpful and very conversational.

I read the local newspaper, the Hemel Hempstead Gazette, that evening. The letters page had complaints about the standard of gritting in the town. Well I had not seen any but then again, any grit would be lost beneath fifteen centimetres of snow. There was also an article about a young girl who had devastatingly been found to have cancer of the kidney. This horror was only found out because she was donating one of hers to her ex-boyfriend, who now deciding he was gay, was dying and in need of a kidney. How incredibly sad.

An inspiring page told of an amputee receiving an MBE. He had lost both legs and a hand when aged eleven yet despite these afflictions had helped disabled people to access motor sports. There are some wonderful, brave people out there. Weather news gleaning from the box for tomorrow told of minus five Celsius tonight with still freezing weather tomorrow with a strengthening wind. The snow was not going anywhere fast and neither was I.

More details can be read on the original 2010 Biking Birder blog . . . 

https://bikingbirder2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/tuesday-5th-january-stuck-in-hemel.html 

Biking Birder I - January 5th 2010 - Otmoor RSPB Reserve, BBC and First Fall of Snow and Me!

 

5^th January                                                        Tragedy                                                                     The Bee Gees  

       Now I was really looking forward to visiting Otmoor RSPB Reserve. I had only ever been there once before and that was from a north entrance into the area. This time I was to enter from the south. Otmoor, I had heard said, was famous because the main drains, ditches and meadows had inspired Lewis Caroll's chessboard scene in Alice in Wonderland. Nowadays the scene may be different, as the RSPB have blocked the drains and created a wet grassland paradise for many birds. I wanted to see those birds. 

An early morning start with temperatures still well below zero. At least it was very sunny and almost windless. On leaving the house I saw a couple of Red Kites [61] quartering over some nearby trees. Thick ice covered the approach lanes and I sensibly decided to walk along Otmoor Lane, the entrance road to Otmoor RSPB reserve, pushing an unladen bike. I had left my stuff back at Lynn and Richard’s. I later found out that it had been minus sixteen degrees Celsius the night before. Hmmm chilly! I saw a covey of nineteen Red-legged Partridges [62] and a male Kestrel near to the RSPB car park.

I cycled along the reserve pathways and banks, past a feeding station, five more Red Kites could be seen distantly and a dozen or so Great and Blue Tits that regularly came to partake of the free seed offerings. A super bright yellow male Yellowhammer [63], Reed Buntings and Meadow Pipits [64] were all heard and seen.

At the first screen, which overlooked a large area of reed with frozen pools, I met a Scouse nature lover, Phil Roberts who was trying to get a photo of a Bittern. Phil asked what birds were around and he admitted that these were new hobbies for him: photography and birdwatching. Phil may not have been the best at either, but he was a lovely conversational sixty-year-old whose company I enjoyed as I explored the rest of the walkways. A Raven [65] was heard and then seen being mobbed by a couple of testy Carrion Crows. Then I met Richard, who had left Lynn back home to take part in some scrub removal with other brave volunteers. Over the year it would never cease to amaze me at how wonderfully resolute and enthusiastic the army of RSPB volunteers were. Here they were in such freezing weather, working away together, sharing that special camaraderie that makes arduous work a pleasure. On a small pool of ice-free water around three hundred duck milled around or slept: mostly Teal but also Mallard, Shovelor [66], Wigeon and Pochard. Then twelve Snipe flew over, two Moorhens skated over the ice and a group of four Ravens cronked as they flew overhead heading west.

At the second screen, four Cormorants rested on a tree’s branches close by, including one young bird from the previous year. By now I had started to have very cold fingers and I realised that the cycling gloves so kindly bought for me by the two deputy headteachers of Rigby Hall Special School [assistant heads!], Helen and Linda, were not going to keep my hands warm enough. Memories of reading Catherine Hartley’s amazing autobiography of her becoming the first British woman to walk to the South Pole. Catherine took the wrong sort of gloves and was badly frostbitten. Great read that book, with Catherine not what one would expect an Antarctic explorer to be like, as testified by the cigarettes that were found stowed away on the sledge she was pulling!

At the last reedy area that could be viewed from a screen, a Bittern [67] spent fifteen minutes walking along the reedbed edge before flying over the same reedbed. A superb, cryptically marked bird; its camouflage lost, it stood out against the white ice.

The day was going to be incredibly special. As I said before, the BBC was going to make a short film to present on the local news programme that evening. Right on cue, a small green car arrived and out stepped an extremely attractive young lady. She introduced herself and explained that before interviewing me over my future endeavours, she wanted me to cycle along the same icy lane, over a small rise, down to the five bar gate, dismount, negotiate the kissing gate, lift my binoculars and pretend to birdwatch. Now to do that once on the ice was tricky enough but to repeat the process three times would be, I thought, suicidal. Nevertheless, I managed to get through it unscathed, just. Obviously, my cycling balance skills were improving, or so I thought. The interview went fine. Well, I say fine; at least this time I was not in a radio studio with my son, Joshua, heckling behind me. “Don’t be so nervous, Dad,” was the advice given whilst on the Joanne Malin early morning radio show on BBC WM before Christmas 2009. Good advice as I was extremely nervous and not knowing the name of my favourite Cadbury’s Quality Street chocolate did not help.

You may remember that Cadbury’s, a proud Birmingham company, was being sold off in 2009 to new American owners, Kraft and the view at the time was “no thank you.” The BBC radio and TV programmes at that time carried news and discussion platforms on the topic of the sale and hence, on arriving within the studio, I was given a choice of chocolate.

This time though, I was in my element; outside with an extremely pretty interviewer, who had stunning green eyes, just like my wife, sugar to miss, Karen. I was at a superb RSPB nature reserve in cold, calm weather and quite a few birds were around, including Red kites, Ravens and two Bitterns.

Eventually happy with my efforts over the introductory cycling and posing, the interview took place at the entrance to the reserve once the interviewer had put me at my ease by chatting about her passion for cooking before recording.

“Why are you cycling to every RSPB and WWT reserve?”

A question I was to hear a number of times more over the year! Good question. Before leaving, during the planning stage I wrote myself a letter to remind me exactly why I was doing this. It is a bit pompous for which I apologise but here is the original: - 

So, the day which began with a walk in the rain, ended with a bus ride and an idea buzzing around in my head.

A bike ride? Warwick to Coventry and back had seemed far enough but what was I contemplating? A maths teacher at the school, Ernesford Comprehensive in Coventry, where I had just done a day’s supply after cycling there from my then home in Warwick, had talked over coffee of his cycling trip across both North and South America. “The Argentinians are wonderful people.” He had said. “Chile is so beautiful” I can still see him in the small teacher’s sanctuary, talking with such enthusiasm and humility about travels that seemed beyond my capabilities but not beyond my fantasies.

The bus moved on towards Kenilworth.

By the time I got off at the bus, for another evening at my brother Paul’s house, I had decided that I would cycle to each RSPB and WWT nature reserve in Britain, Cornwall to Shetland, Kent to Uists; see as many birds as I could and cycle the whole way, 4,500 miles so I thought at the time.

Right, the decision was made, now for the planning.

A notebook and road atlas of the UK accompanied me on the many train rides to supply teaching assignments and soon became the focus for jottings and thoughts. Equipment, costs, contacts, ideas. The large road atlas became a ‘must have with me’ companion. It took a few weeks before the first route was indelibly red inked onto the pages. (West coast of Scotland – get me there; those boat trips look relaxing!). Then, in the middle of March I thought,  Why? Why am I going to do this?

I had written equipment lists and costed the trip up. I had contacted the RSPB with the idea in order to start to think of sponsorship in order to raise funds for the charity, as I had the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust and Asthma Association. I had emailed Birdguides to ask about whether anyone had done anything similar. Surprisingly to me, no one had. I had discussed it with my children, Rebecca and Joshua, Mum and Dad, brother Paul and sister, Donna.

Birding friends had listened but were credulous. Why do it?

Why spend 365 days cycling with bins around the British Isles? Why not do the same in Greece or Spain. At least it would be warmer there and the bird species there would include my favourite - vultures!

No, it had to be done for charity. It had to be done to show that one did not need to travel by car to see 250 bird species. It had to be done to say thank you to the late Sir Peter Scott, my boyhood hero and it had to be done to show that an ‘old man’ could still dream. 

Well the poor girl, a beautiful jade-eyed interviewer, must have drawn the short straw to be out at this time in such extremely cold weather but she was genuinely interested.

Now it must have been that I was still lost in the, have I already said it, interviewer’s beautiful green eyes, for not ten minutes later after the conclusion to the interview, I had come off my bike, somersaulting over the right side, landing on the ice-covered verge. Along a section of the lane the ice was in hard ridges where previous car tyres had moulded the ice and it was one of these ridges that unbalanced me and over my shoulder I went.

Ouch! The bike was severely damaged and the gear changing mechanism on the handlebar was hanging down disconnected. Five days into the year and now the bike was broken.

 Tragedy! When the feelings gone (in my leg) and you cannot go on, its tragedy. I got up and tried to fix it, the bike's gear system but could only get it to give me a couple of gears. Still it was better than just one. My leg was painful but as I had a few layers on at the time I did not check it out too much.

I got on the bike, got back to Richard and Lynn‘s house to collect my things, seeing a Bank Vole under one of their bird seed feeders from their kitchen window. Whilst there, I was interviewed over the phone by the Hounslow, Brentford and Twickenham newspaper before setting off for Hemel Hempstead. I gave my most sincere thanks to this wonderful couple for their accommodation and company and set off.

Down the hill from Stanton St John I came around the corner to see a large group of forty-one deer in the field next to the road, which included a strangely coloured, coffee coated doe. A Green Woodpecker [68] flew over, another bird for the year list.

Onward I went along, thankfully, flat roads and soon I reached Prince’s Risborough and decided that a treat was in order. On finding a small café I ordered a meal of lasagne and salad washed down by a sugar laden, frothy hot chocolate. It was dark when I came outside again and there was a new problem to add to the bicycle woes. Snow! Light at first, it soon got heavier; the snow just made the next part of the journey a tad more difficult. I went south for a mile or so, cycling through the falling snow, and then took a left turn. This was the beginning of the Chiltern Hills. With a large, very steep hill to negotiate, I had no choice but to push the bike up the hill to Loosley Row and ride down the other side to Great Missenden, with the snow beginning to cling to me and the bike. An hour plus of snowy downhill thrills [terrors!] combined with hard uphill slogs before almost reaching Chesham, was not helped by the fact that the front light was not as bright as I would have liked. In fact, it was positively dull! Trying to be as ‘Green’ as possible I had seen a wind up, no battery required, cycling front light with cable attachment for a back light. 

Well the light it gave was poor at best and even then, it would only last for a few minutes. An ambulance pulled over in front of me and the driver flagged me down. “You’ve got no rear lights!” The fall on the ice earlier in the day must have broken more than the front gear lever; the cable to the back lights had snapped. I tried to twist the wires together but it was no good.

I cycled downhill with a passing motorist offering friendly advice over what I could do in my predicament. “Get some ****in' lights!” Thanks! Just the motivation I needed to peddle through the snow like the clappers.

I reached Chesham safely, after having to back track half a mile or so to search for and retrieve a lost skiing glove and found a Sainsbury’s store still open. No cycling gear for sale, I purchased a RAC torch, batteries and a box of ladies’ tights. With the torch strapped to the back of the bike, secured by the tights, I had more hills to negotiate and more snow to plough through before getting to the A41 near Berkhamsted. Whilst pushing the bicycle up a steep hill through the deepening snow, I received a phone call from my wife, Karen. It was great to hear from her. I love her voice over the phone and through my mind's eye I could see her beautiful jade green eyes. I miss her so much but a major reason for my doing a Biking Birder adventure is because of our distant love. That may sound crazy but it is complicated and too painful to discuss here. I adore my wife and always will.

After an hour or so the new back torch light had faded to almost nothing. So much for the efficiency of the torch and its batteries! The snow was falling heavily but I was booked into a small bed and breakfast in Hemel Hempstead and I was determined to get there. The fact that there was absolutely no traffic on the motorway-like three carriageway motorway-like road, the A41, did not stop me. Everyone else was sensibly tucked up somewhere warm as I either cycled or pushed through six inches of snow.

I cycled past a Premier Inn and although I was sorely tempted to stay there, I resisted and eventually got to my destination town. Still, I did not know where the B & B was. I had got the address written down on a small piece of paper but I had no detailed map and neither did I have a smartphone nor SATNAV. I did find the local police station and went in to ask for directions. The kind, friendly and gorgeous police ladies behind the desk joined in my laughter at the abominable snowman dripping before them and luckily my Bed and Breakfast was nearby.

Ten thirty, late evening, on the clock when I got into the warmth of a large, terraced house, greeted by a lovely German accented old lady. She immediately saw the condition I was in and got me a large, hot bowl of mushroom soup with toast, together with two warm mince pies and a chunk of fruit cake!

Nine hours to get from Otmoor to Hemel Hempstead, I felt exhilarated to have made it, despite finding that my left shin had a quite nastily cut and my thighs were both badly bruised from the fall. I bathed, made sure my bloody cut was thoroughly cleaned and a bandage applied. I was soon sleeping soundly in my small, cosy, warm room, despite the sound of a German-speaking TV channel coming from Mrs Peter’s bedroom next to mine.  

42 miles                                                                                                       1566 feet elevation up   1608 feet down