After the US we flew to Ireland. Arrived into the usual grey sky. For the following 10 days everyone told us how beautiful the weather had been, right up until we arrived ;) Ahhh well.

It was lovely being back in Dublin and seeing family. Everyone was looking well and in good health. It can be quite jarring when you come back after a few years and especially parents have become older. Maaike and I went for a few walks, up to the lead chimney, and my first (I think) wander past the “rath” of “Rathmichael”. A rath was a Celtic fort.

Games of scrabble were played, we had a family party with cousins. I also had a most fun game of bridge with dad (partnering me) and an old (89 years old) friend Raine whom I used to play bridge with when I last lived in Ireland. I do miss playing that game. Dad and I even came out on top, quite satisfactory!

We also had a party to celebrate Helene (my brother Matt’s wife) getting her MD (a sort of PhD for doctors). The string of letters after her name goes on for quite a while! Congratulations to her, massive amount of hard work and effort! And yes, I did make some Dr. Dr. jokes. Oh, we also were at Matts when Ireland was having it’s “street party” day. Really good turn out on the street, what a wonderful idea. I think NZ does the same but I’m not quite sure. It’s certainly not countrywide on a specific day, not that I know of anyway.

Finally, a quick catch up with Domhnall who was in town for a conference. Funnily enough, Declan was also in town too – so Domhnall organised a reunion for climbers, and it was a really really lovely evening. So many friendly faces, it’s amazing how quickly the real conversations flow in Ireland.

Finally, it was time to pack up in Ireland and head to The Netherlands. My brother Chris very kindly offered us his tandem to bike back from NL to Ireland on. We had planned on buying second hand tour bikes, but the offer of the tandem was too good to pass up.

We butchered a couple of bike boxes into a frankenbox, brought it to Dublin airport and hoped that they’d accept it. They did. Technically a tandem is well outside the size limits, but we got through. Did seem somewhat chancy whether you would be accepted or not. Don’t forget the 60 Euro charge for sporting equipment either.

My overly generous sister & husband gave Maaike and I a 5 day trip to Boundary Waters National Park. Basically it’s a massive park filled to the brim with lakes and streams.

They only let a certain amount of people in the area at any one time, so you have to book ahead and get your permit. There are designated campsites that you have to stay at, and all have a fire grate and toilet. The first day we didn’t see anyone else, on subsequent days we saw a couple of canoes in the distance, so it really is quite remote, especially for a national park.

Our paddling skills increased a bit, I’m still not sure I’ve got the J-Stroke properly, but we mostly went in straight lines and didn’t have any catastrophes. Did come across beaver dams, which again renewed my absolute hatred of the creatures ;)

We did have to suspend the pack from the potential of bears being around. In the event we didn’t see any, and I’m not sure the bag was high enough / far enough out from the trunk anyway. Still, it was Maaike’s bag ;)

Mozzies were in plentiful supply, but if you don’t scratch them it didn’t seem to bother that much. Also “biting flies” were around. These guys look like flies, but damn they hurt.

We saw some wildlife, not heaps, but chipmunks and loons were about.

Carrying the boat was easy enough for one person. It weighs in at 20lbs ish, so about 9kg. There are pads for the shoulders at the centrepoint, so you can just carry it easily enough for the portages. Well, at least for the canoes we hired it was like that :). All the distances are given in rods, conveniently about the length of a canoe (16 1/2 feet). The longest portage we did was 150ish rods & yes, I took a break in the middle. Still, at least it wasn’t a metal boat like these other two had to carry…

I think if we were going to do it again we’d change a few things around.

1. We now know what distance we can paddle in a day. At least 8 miles or so. We’d have gone for longer days at the start of the trip to get “out there” a bit more
2. We would learn which fish are good to catch, and how to fillet, as most people go fishing while they’re here

There’s probably more, but that’d be the main things. All in all a great trip. It’s a nice spot up there, certainly one of the more remote areas you can get to in the States, at least easily anyway.

p.s we used the http://elyoutfittingcompany.com/ and were very happy with their service. They had great information and talked us through our route with plenty of tips for points we needed to watch out for, nice campsites etc.

Tim (my sisters husband)’s family has a log cabin, which they built themselves, up in the lakes area of Minnesota. I’ve long wanted to visit. Tim totally downplayed it, but damn it was amazing. Tim’s dad did a week long course, and then over the course of 2 summers, Tim’s eldest brothers built the cabin (as 20 year olds). I definitely didn’t take enough pictures of the place! But it was great to see the old picture book of how they built it. Seeing the clever tools you use. This isn’t about their cabin, but there’s quite a good blog about building a cabin here.

It was a wonderful little retreat. We headed up there on the Friday evening, and spent a lovely long (Memorial Day) weekend fishing, canoeing, eating, playing games and just having a really lovely time. Even got to see pelicans.

We flew up to Minneapolis from Bogota. There was some nasty weather in Houston (storms) and flights were delayed. We opted for a 15 minute delay and upgrade to 1st class. It was only a short hop, but still, good times.

We spent a lovely week in Minneapolis with family. We took in a quick trip to the “Mill City” museum, which was great. Minneapolis used to be a major centre of flour production. One interesting thing I learned was that flour can be more explosive than gunpowder.

We also had a trip out to the farm where my sisters family is growing grapes and making wine (with collaboration with their friends – as it’s their friends land the grapes are being grown on). The wine was even quite drinkable! Impressive. Also played this strange bolas type game. Well, we think we got it right. Threw the bolas around the struts. Apparently there were supposed to be different points for different levels. Maaike crushed me at the game ;)

We visited the local bookshop called the wild rumpus. It had the boat from Where the Wild things Are in the roof, and the most excellent front door.

We also happened across a Fernando Botero which was somewhat strange after seeing a lot of his art in Colombia.

Anyway, lovely to see family again, it has been a long while since I was last in Minneapolis, and great to be there in winter, when the lakes are water not ice!

Finally, a picture of my sister and I at the Minniehaha falls, last time I was there in 2006 it was winter, and I’ve put those pictures along side it. It’s a different place in the winter!

When Maaike strongarmed me into taking a year out & 6 months travel through South America, I was a little nervous to begin with. I thought there’d be robbers around every corner and that my limited abilities with languages would be painful. I never thought we’d go to Colombia, because I thought the only people who lived there were murderers, drug runners and thieves.

I was quite wrong. :)

Travelling in South America was great. You do want to have your wits about you, but no more than anywhere else really. Do learn at least rudimentary Spanish before going, it’ll stand you in good stead. You’d be surprised how far you can go without having any Spanish as now you can book hostels online in your own language.. and most receptionists will have at least a bit of English. Still, definitely learn a bit. I also strongly recommend downloading an Open Street Map program for your phone. I use (and love) OSMAND+ for Android, I believe Maps.me ? is also good. I’m not sure if that is for Apple only or not.

I also had a little lock that my friend Myra had lent me, quite handy for locking your bag just to stop simple opportunism. Always keep your little bag on you at all times, even on busses. Never put them up in the luggage racks, people come on board before the bus has left, and just casually walk down the bus and will take a bag if they can and just get off. So yes, keep it where you can see it and lock it if possible.

The rest of my travel tips are on my wiki and might even stay up to date.

Colombia

Like I said, I thought it was going to be super dangerous. However, every traveller we came across who had been through it recommended it very strongly. So off we went. Colombia was great. The people were lovely, still quite a bit cheaper than anywhere else we’d been. The fruits (and smoothies) where amazing. I can happily recommend visiting. Again, be sensible. We did hear stories of people having smart phones snatched out of their hands while using them in the street etc, but we were fine ;)