I'm So Proud of My Kids, My Daughters Now Cave for Fun
How my daughters went from horse-loving teens to Mountain Leaders and Cave Guides. A funny, heartfelt post about pride, change, and not understanding your kids' hobbies anymore
Tag: Expeditions
Note – 2026-05-31 05:52
I enjoy discovering new and interesting blogs. Michael Wood's (via Bluesky @michaelwood8.bsky.social) blog documents his travels around China by bike and foot, following in the footsteps of explorer J...
Note – 2026-04-24 09:43
The, not very imposing, immigration office in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, capital city of Kamchatka. Had to go here as I had lost my entry permit to the Russian Republic and without it I probably couldn...
Note – 2026-04-20 13:23
13 years ago to the day ... caught in a blizzard in deepest, darkest Kamchatka. Fortunately the relative safety of base camp wasn't far away
Climbing the Duna de Bolonia
A windy walk up the remarkable natural sand dune of the Duna de Bolonia, Spain
Note – 2026-03-25 16:48
No, its not the Namibian desert. It's the Duna de Bolonia. "Hundreds of thousands of small, stinging grains of sand travelling at warp factor 4 directly into the face for the next 45 minutes wasn’t wh...
Note – 2026-03-25 16:23
You might remember the conversation in the old Monty Python movie "The Life of Brian" that posed the question "What did the Romans ever do for us?". Well, I have the definitive answer... they built th...
What did the Romans ever do for us?
Well, for a start they constructed the city of Baelo Claudia. "Where's that?" you all ask!
Note – 2026-01-30 18:53
@mountainmindset haha the colours weren't my choice, they were given by the expedition sponsors. Having said that, they really did enhance the bleakness of the surrounding mountainsides
Note – 2026-01-30 14:31
Came across this wonderful image from Arctic photographer, Martin Hartley, which shows me skiing up from base camp on Klyutchevskoy Sopka. The mountain had started erupting before we arrived and the v...
Note – 2026-01-19 07:41
A powerful, prolonged snowstorm that began on January 12, 2026, has paralyzed the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, with snow depths reportedly reaching up to 500 cm (16 feet) in some areas. A municipal-...
Note – 2026-01-18 07:11
Blizzard conditions in a whiteout in Kamchatka. Our camp had been hastily erected in the gloom
Note – 2026-01-17 10:20
We had come to Kamchatka to make a ski descent of Klyuchevskaya Sopka, at 4750 metres in height, the highest volcano in the northern hemisphere. But the weather had not been kind. For two weeks we wer...
Note – 2026-01-12 13:50
Came across this photo memory today. November 2014 - for 9 days/14 hours a day, my life was the inside of a tent. Spent most of that watching the whole 5 seasons of Breaking Bad on a 1.8" display. Exp...
The Return Journey, A Patagonian Farewell
The journey home was a breeze, a stark, welcome contrast to the stress and queues of the outward leg. This was the easy part, a long exhale after over a month of wonders.
Down Memory Lane to the Refugio del Fraile
A return to a classic Patagonian refuge reveals how the landscape, and the experience of trekking through it, has transformed over nearly two decades. The Rio Electrico Valley felt familiar, but the s...
Expedition to the Bridge - A Tale of Patagonian "Toughness"
We fancied ourselves tough. I mean, genuinely hardy. Our resumes boasted five expeditions across the great Southern Patagonian Ice Cap, a place where the wind is less a weather phenomenon and more a p...
Note – 2025-11-01 12:09
I felt so enthused by my journey yesterday afternoon I decided to write about it. The Finest Journey of All (Or, How We Stopped Being Grumpy Gits) If you’ve been following this TravelLog, you’d be for...
The Finest Journey of All (How We Stopped Being Grumpy Gits)
If you’ve been following this TravelLog, you’d be forgiven for thinking we’re two joy-sucking vampires who hate fun, sunlight, and functional transportation. The journey had been a masterclass in frus...