Heartbeat & Steam

I thought this would be a good opportunity to post, not having done so for some time!

As a birthday treat for this year Dee took me up to the North Yorkshire Moors for a nostalgic look back at the sixties.
For those who know the popular TV series Heartbeat, Goathland is the real name of the village where the series is filmed. We stayed in an excellent B&B which was actually used as the doctors surgery in the early series.
What was a bonus for me also was the LNER Festival 2008 taking place on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway over the same weekend. This was also the first ever line-up of all 3 working LNER -built, Gresley designed A4 Pacific's in preservation, Bittern, Sir Nigel Gresley and Union of South Africa. Among the other highlights was the unique Green Arrow in what is expected to be it's last working gala for the foreseeable future, as the loco's boiler certificate will expire at the end of April.
A further bonus, being Harry Potter fans, is the fact that Goathland Station was also used as Hogwarts Station in the Harry Potter movies. Pictured above is me standing outside Berny Scripps garage. Below are some of the scenes over the weekend.
We spent all of Sunday with the other anoraks travelling on the various services terminating at Pickering, Whitby and Battersby. On our final journey of the day back from Pickering the snow had really hit hard and coming up the final embankment as we neared Goathland the old loco was really struggling. I have to say that snow falling heavily over the moors and the sounds and sites of a steam engine as we approached our destination was an incredible experience. The village was actually snowed in for a short while later in the evening.
Despite the appalling weather over the entire weekend, around 3 to 4 inches of snow we had a great time and once again I find myself congratulating Dee on another one of her brilliant ideas!

News on Electra...

Hi again... For those of you who remember the post from our Isle of Mull camping expedition you'll remember that during our stay we discovered and rescued an injured Golden Eagle.

While out in the early evening on a search for Golden and Sea Eagles up at Glengorm Castle we watched in horror as a Golden Eagle, being stalked by a group of Crows and Raven, was unceremoniously blown by strong winds into high voltage power cables! Having rescued her around an hour later along with Dave Sexton the Islands RSPB warden she was delivered by Dave and the local police to the 'Wings over Mull' sanctuary where it was discovered that she had some serious eye injuries. Not good as you can imagine for a hunting Eagle! The sanctuary which is run by Sue & Richard Dewar looks after numerous raptors and Dee and I visited the following day and met up with Richard to check on her progress. Unfortunately we were unable to see Electra as Sue had taken her immediately to the mainland for assessment.
The Island takes her Eagle population very seriously and a few days after our return to Napton I was contacted and asked to provide my personal details to DEFRA. Any person handling an Eagle is required by law to have a licence which I naturally didn’t possess.
Having kept in close touch with Dave as to the welfare of our Eagle now called Electra we were given some excellent news yesterday as was reported on the BBC news last night. Although Electra will never be released back into the wild her quality of life at the sanctuary has been greatly improved by some ground breaking eye surgery. When we visited the sanctuary at the time we were introduced to another male resident Golden Eagle called Laggan who we are now informed has taken a strong liking to Electra and so what the future brings for her, who knows?
We also received an email from Dave last night informing us that by a coincidence today he watched what he believes to be her old mate with a new love! They were nest building at their old site - just in time for Valentines Day. Life goes on and both seem content with their new arrangements.
We look forward to visiting Electra ourselves in the near future.

Oh and by the way with reference to my previous post (Technically Stressed) my attempts to have my permanent weather station linked to this blog have been abandoned. Until microsoft sort out thier rubbish operating system Vista from all the bugs I've given up trying :)

Technically Stressed

Well it's been one of 'THOSE' weeks technically speaking!

Finally we've got the Mikuni Central Heating back on line after purchasing a new Electronics Box for a staggering £300. I could probably have made one for £10.
My advice to anyone thinking of buying diesel central heating is to steer well clear of Mikuni. The unit was only purchased in 2006 and although it worked perfectly well after I fitted it for the first year, it's been nothing but trouble ever since! Good job we have the Kabola to fall back on plus shoreline hook-up!
On another technical note my attempts to have our on-board weather station linked to this blog showing up to date weather information, similar to the picture above, have been somewhat thwarted by difficulties with Windows Vista. If you've read the previous post you will know that the station will only link to a computer by Serial Port. Our on-board system is brand new and only supports USB connection. So firstly I purchased a Serial Port/USB adaptor which when connected only crashed the computer. Secondly I installed a Serial Port PCI Card and have literally spent the first half of the week trying to configure it. Plug and Play my arse!! Still not to be defeated I continue my attemps to get the damn thing working.
Wish me luck....

Weather Aboard!

Ahoy everyone and a Happy New Year to you all! It's a good while since our last post, in fact we haven't done much on the blog since our return from France.

Hope your Christmas and New Year were as pleasant as ours. We spent our Christmas in a lovely wooden chalet in Wales as has become our routine now for the past few years, picking my lovely mum up from Liverpool enroute who spent the week with us.
Our New Year was spent for the 3rd year in a row with our dear friends Johnny and Pat, NB-Hoddydod, (now on the French canals). We took Quidditch along the Oxford Canal for the night mooring at bridge 100 a short distance from Braunston. Fireworks at midnight, champagne on the tow path and an excellent meal cooked by Dee, so a good night was had by all. I myself cooked a Full English Breakfast on New Years Day morning which is a tradition of ours, sending Johnny and Pat home deleriously happy!
It's always been a plan of mine to extend my hobbies of meteorology and astronomy and to have an external weather station aboard Quidditch and this Christmas I was granted my wish, thanks to Dee x
Having now set my new La Crosse WS3600 station up with Wind Meter etc via the excellent base station I then proceeded to install the software to my new vista desktop computer. One of the reasons I'd like a weather station aboard is to be able to show live data through this blog, thus having Wigram's Marina's very own weather station. That unfortunaley is when my problems began.
The station comes with a serial port lead for connection to your PC, the problem is that new computers now only use USB leads and not serial ports. No worries I thought so off I trot to Maplins in Banbury and pick up a Serial/USB adaptor. Upon my return I install the driver and reload the software for the station. Success!! But only for a matter of seconds as immediately the computer communicates with the base station I get the dreaded Blue Screen and my PC completely crashes!! Well having trolled the forums and the La Crosse website, which offered no advice whatsoever I eventually got answers to my quest from the excellent MidlandsWeather.Org. Turns out it's known issue as data is currupted when it passes through the USB adaptor. So the next option left now, as Dee bought the unit off eBay and as ever I've thrown the box etc away, is to install a serial port to my computer. So in conclusion I'm awaiting delivery of said item and hopefully we'll have weather aboard Quidditch come midweek!

Happy New Year.

Pictured above:- Tornado over West Midlands taken last year!

French Odyssey

Hi everyone, we’re now back
aboard Quidditch after our mini French Odyssey and we had a fantastic time.

Arriving by speed ferry, only 1 hour from Dover to Boulogne, we drove to our overnight destination at Reims.
The following morning we set off to pick up with John & Pat and their narrowboat Hoddydod, which was moored awaiting our arrival at Paray Le Monial on the Canal du Centre. We arrived mid afternoon (Sept 13th) in beautiful sunshine and temperatures in the mid 20C.
Hoddydod has been completely repainted and refurbished since we last saw her on the UK waterways in 2005 and she looked an absolute dream in her new blue and cream livery!
On the Friday morning (Sept 14th), with Monsieur Keithy at the helm we set off for our first destination of Palinges. Arriving at our first French lock immediately after the start was an interesting experience. Communication with the VNF (Voies Navigable de France), the French equivalent of BW, was one of the interesting aspects of the holiday. As Johhny will tell you 'Your never alone with the VNF'.
All locks (Ecluse) on the French system are either manned, and by manned I mean someone will drive out to meet you and complete the lock for you, or automatic, so you never get that feeling of being entirely alone and fending for yourself on the French system. Furthermore, your not permitted to work any lock unauthorised but they don't mind you lending a hand. You'll find that the VNF know exactly where you are at any time and indeed you are asked as to what day and time your likely to depart. The latter I suspect is for your convenience as much as theirs because if you approach an automatic lock which is against you, certainly on the Canal du Centre, you have to communicate with VNF via a telephone link at each lock for them to come and reset it to your favour. When this happens they appear to materialise out of thin air in their
unmistakable white Peugeot's within minutes. Once secured and inside the automatic locks are activated by a rope pulley within the chamber and you just sit back and take in the scenery. Another thing to bare in mind is that in France most things still stop for lunch between 12noon and 1pm. I have to say though that during our visit we found the VNF to be very efficient and flexible, albeit with the odd miserable Eclussier (lock-keeper).
On our second day we moved through to the town of Montceau-les-Mines. Unlike our canal system most canal and river towns in France supply mains hook up electricity and water on floating pontoons in what is known as Port-de-Plaisance and is under the local mayor's control. Prices vary from 6euro upwards, however, many are actually free.
We spent the evening at Montceau and had dinner in an excellent French Brassiere just next to our moorings.
On the Sunday morning we continued our navigation north east arriving at Montchanin, where we moored outside of the local VNF office in the early afternoon just in time for Johhny to tune in and catch his beloved F1 Grand Prix.
Monday afternoon (Sept 17th) we moved to Saint-Leger-sur-Dheune, a lovely little town which has excellent Port-de-Plaisance and is located in an area famous for its fine wines. Amazingly I spotted a Black Redstart singing from atop someones TV aerial, quite a rarity in the UK.
In the evening we were treated to an excellent thunderstorm which seemed to depict the arrival of Autumn as the weather, although still sunny, became decidedly chilly from here on.
Tuesday was our final navigation and by far our longest day continuing on past many vineyards to our destination of Chalon-sur-Saone on the beautiful river Saone. As we arrived at the junction of the canal and river we were greeted by a huge 10 meter plus lock, certainly the deepest we've ever been in! Turning onto the Saone you have to have your wits about you and be aware of the gigantic commercial barges which suddenly appear in your rear view mirror, fortunately our transition was un-eventful!
Upon our arrival in the early evening the Port moorings were totally full so we moored for the night precariously on the river edge just off the pontoons, we secured a port mooring the following day.
On the Wednesday we drove out to John and Pat's winter mooring at Saint-Jean-de-Losne located on the River Soane and later had a farewell dinner back in Chalon, where we sampled the escargot and some fine wine. We left Pattie, Johhny and NB-Hoddydod at Chalon on the Thursday afternoon after lunch and having stocked up fully on wines and cheeses made our way to Saint Quentin for an overnight stay before departing back on the speed ferry from Boulogne on the Friday morning.
During our fantastic week on the French system we probably only passed around 3 dozen boats on the move. The scenery was stunning and the people friendly. The majority of boats we encountered where in fact holiday boats but we passed many beautiful Dutch Barge's and the inevitable Monaco style Gin Palaces. During our stay we were never far from the Italian and Swiss borders and saw many different national flags flying from craft but the majority I have to say are British who seem to have taken the French Waterways to heart! We saw no other narrowboats during our stay and despite all the superb Barge's and leisure craft Hoddydod got ALL the attention and she certainly deserved it.
John and Pattie as ever were excellent hosts and we arrive back to the UK bowled over by there summer lifestyle, thoroughly enjoying our stay. The food, wine, weather and perfect company made it a visit to remember.

Summer 07 Tour Begins

It’s almost a feeling of Déjà vu but I seem to remember that last year when we set off it was also in wet and windy conditions!
However, this time we delayed our departure by 24Hrs until today Tuesday May 29th giving the low pressure system currently dominating the UK time to move on.
This year to begin our tour we’re heading straight for the Llangollen Canal. Over previous years we’ve planned to complete the Montgomery and Llangollen but have always left it too late in the season, (late July/August, too many hire boats on that stretch).
So that’s it! Our Summer 07 Tour is underway.
Our family, friends and anyone else for that matter can keep up to date with our travels by clicking the main link or HERE to access our Travel-Diary. We will be posting regularly on our Travel-Diary from aboard Quidditch using our new T-Mobile 3G so stay tuned!

Anyway, that's it for now, remember keep an eye on our 'Travel-Diary' and we'll see you all when we return in October........

Isle of Mull

Well having pitched on the Wednesday in pouring rain we awoke on Thursday morning to more downpours, the remainder of the holiday was certainly an adventure.

Securing the tent we set off for our first destination of Tobermory stopping en route to walk a local nature trail where we saw Otter and nesting Terns. Tobermory is the islands largest town and where the children's television series Balamory is filmed. It's true to life too! All the houses and shops in the town are painted in different colours of the rainbow. In the late evening we took a stroll along the coastline where the campsite is situated and looks across to the mainland and Oban. During our walk we encountered a huge Stag Deer which we estimated was at least a 10 pointer. We also spotted Shag, Red Breasted Merganser and had a great opportunity to see a Sea Otter at close range.
The one thing that was becoming noticeable was the increase of the wind speed. Having checked the web before bed it was apparent that we were in for some stormy weather and when we were woken at 7.30am by our tent wanting to become a kite and torrential rain, our fears were recognised! We immediately broke camp, fortunately during a break in the rain and set off for breakfast and in search of a decent B&B, our camping was over for the remaining 2 days.
We took the scenic route which took us through the centre of the Island and up towards the North-Western tip at Calgary where we had tea. We then arrived at Dervaig a small village next to Loch Cuin and were fortunate enough to find a an excellent B&B called Tigh-Na-Mara, our room had spectacular views over the Loch. After settling in we decided to drive the 8 miles to Tobermory where we planned to search for Golden & Sea Eagle at Glengorm Castle and then on into the town to enjoy some local fish & chips. Our search was to have an unexpected outcome! When we were a few miles from the castle we came across our Golden Eagle. Unfortunately while being stalked by a couple of Ravens she was blown by the extremely strong winds into a nearby power cable and hit the ground with a powerful crash. Stunned she sat on the roadside and although she flew around 20 yards it was quite clear she was injured. We managed to obtain the phone number for the Islands RSPB officer Dave Sexton who amazingly arrived within 30 minutes of our call. Fifteen minutes later we had managed to capture her and she was en route to the Islands Eagle hospital at Wings Over Mull. A fantastic yet sad experience. The following day Dave telephoned and we discovered that she had been taken over to Oban by ferry and operated on. As I post she is now back at the hospital and fortunately having no broken bones is making steady progress in her recovery although it is very early days. Having had our fish & chips later than expected we spent out penultimate night on the Island in our B&B haven listening to what turned out to be storm force winds.
On our last day on the Island we visited Wings Over Mull, had an afternoon walk around Loch Cuin and ended with a fantastic dinner in the The Bellachroy Inn, the oldest inn on Mull.
Almost 2000 miles later we arrived back at the marina having had a wonderful fortnight in Scotland and having seen some spectacular scenery, weather and most of all wildlife, this was certainly a holiday to remember.
I have posted a small selection of pictures taken during our visit into the side-bar....To see more go to our main Photo-Album..

Ben Nevis to Mull

We raised camp in dry conditions and left Glen Nevis camp site at Fort William at around 10.30am this morning bound for our 50 minute ferry trip over to the Isle of Mull via Oban.

Our four days in Fort William were fantastic. We awoke each morning to Cuckoo's calling, Woodpeckers drumming and the sounds of a Capercaillie from Glen Nevis beyond. The weather has been a mixture of sunshine and heavy showers with very cold nights, making our decision to book a pitch with electric hook up even more worthwhile. On the Monday evening the peaks of some of the range caught a dusting of snow. Yesterday (Tuesday) we were bathed in spring sunshine for the whole day and took full advantage by taking a five mile hike around Ben Nevis where we were lucky enough to see Red Squirrel. In the afternoon we watched a real life mountain rescue by a navy helicopter and watched in ore as RAF Tornado jets cut through the valley.
Being Harry Potter fans we took the opportunity to visit Glenfinnan where some of the movies where filmed. This included great views of the famous viaduct that the Hogwart's Express is seen steaming over and great views of Loch Sheil where other scenes were filmed.
On the Monday we drove through the highlands across to Glen Borrowdale RSPB reserve and took a 3 mile walk through the RSPB's most westerly site on the UK mainland. During the walk we spotted Ravens and Buzzards nesting plus Wood Warbler and Spotted Flycatcher to name a few.
As I write this entry at our new campsite on Mull which overlooks the sea to the East and across to where we can still see Ben Nevis in the distance the rain is literally teeming down and were both drying out. We pitched in heavy rain, one of the less enjoyable moments of the visit so far.

Week Ends

Friday evening and week 1 of our trip comes to an end. Tomorrow it's off back to Aberdeen to drop Dee's Gran and then we make our way Westward across to Fort William and our week camping.

Just in time for the weather to turn that little bit colder!

The last week we've spent our time taking days out with Dee's Gran visiting Stonehaven, Montrose, Banchory and Balmoral. Enjoyable but due to Gran's age we haven't been able to take time walking the wonderful countryside. Next week though that all changes.
Our first stop is 4 days at Glen Nevis camp site, 3 miles from Fort William near the base of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK. From there we move south down the coast and then take the ferry on Wednesday afternoon from Oban across to the Isle of Mull, around a 40 minute trip. We plan lots of walking and birding and have come well prepared.
I know that I keep posting pictures of the bird life around here but the picture on display above just had to be shown. While travelling on the lower coast road yesterday enroute to Montrose Dee suddenly spotted this Tawny Owl sitting proudly on a post right next to the road. Having made a u-turn, amazingly I snapped this picture from the drivers seat just before he took flight into the woods opposite. It turned out really well. Here's to more birdie pictures next week.

Scotland Week 1

Well we are now 5 days into our annual Scotland visit and so far the weather has held out nicely, although a bit chilly & showery.

After a stopover at mums in Liverpool on the Thursday night and a further stopover in Dunfermline on Friday to visit Dee's brother we arrived at our 1st weeks accommodation at 4.30pm Saturday. The first week we can relax here but next week we camp on the west coast which includes Fort William & the Isle of Mull, that should be interesting!
Our accommodation this year is situated on the east coast about 15 miles inland and approx. 30 miles south-west of Aberdeen in a village called Auchenblae. The house itself is the whole east wing of a large estate which is surrounded by a small forest. We're also in easy reach of Cairngorm National Park.
As has become custom, Dee's Gran stays for our first week and this is taken up by visits from Dee's other relations. Yesterday we visited Banchory and today was a treat for me as we visited the RSPB reserve at Fowlsheugh.
The spectacular cliffs of Fowlsheugh reserve are packed with 130,000 breeding seabirds in the spring and summer. Guillemots (pictured above), Razorbills and Kittiwakes breed in large numbers, with smaller numbers of Fulmars, Herring Gulls, Puffins and Shags. Although we spotted all of the above with the exception of Puffins we did see several Artic Skuas which made up for it.
Grey and Common Seals, bottlenose and common Dolphins can also be regularly seen offshore. Harbour Porpoises, white-beaked Dolphins and Minke whales are seen occasionally too. Unfortunately perhaps we are a little too early in the season to view a lot of these woderful creatures as we didn't spot any. On the subject of birds we are also in the company of a small group of Tree Sparrows which reside where we are staying. It's not commonly known that these birds have been on the decrease over recent years are not often seen in England (mostly mistaken for the common House Sparrow).
Tomorrow we visit Balmoral. Maybe we'll be invited in for tea!