Sudarshan

Pigs - hey what the hell, just an everyday sight in Rishikesh.

No more internet now, so updates via the Adventure Peaks news page :)

Adventure Peaks mini break

Delhi, it's like Kathmandu but not so smoggy and on steroids.  Feet haven't touch the ground in the last 2 days because we've been rather busy.

I could post some pictures of the beggars, the falling apart rickshaws, the dodgy electrics, or the kids playing in the dirt, but being a girl I'm going to post this one:

Yes, today we found the hypermarket.  It made the Eastgate Shopping Centre (sorry, non Invernessians that will make no sense to you) seem like a corner shop.   Absolutely ridiculous.  We have just loaded 50 kit bags into a bus for tomorrow so we are once again travelling nice and light.  In fact we bought so much food at said hypermarket we got 6 bottles of 2L Pepsi for free so for the next few days we will all be as high as kites.

Sudarshan Parbet

I am certainly not going high, fast and light.  I am weighing in at a hefty 23kg x 3.

I am armed with a map, 4 weeks of pants and an empty memory card in the camera.  The iPod is full of ridiculously tacky music, I have packed a book (a touchy feely one, none of that techy crap) and I have blown the cobwebs off my sharp things.  It's that time of year once again, when I fly the Adventure Peaks flag as I prepare to depart for India.

It's been many years since I've spent any time in India and have absolutely no idea what to expect now.  Looking forward massively to another adventure but certainly not looking forward to eating spicy food for the next 4 weeks.

Serious updates will be posted on the Adventure Peaks website when I'm not sitting on the loo laa howling in pain and have tinter web.

The mighty Liathach

No matter how good the photo's are, they are never as good as the day itself.

50 Lashings

Yes, that is a blue sky. Enough said.

Oh, 50 lashings?  Well, that's what it felt like when we whizzed through the over-the-head bracken constantly hoping that it was just bracken and not nettles or brambles.

Meteorologically Autumn

Meteorologically speaking, we are now in Autumn.  Thank God.  In my head, Autumn is the training season for winter and I am fully prepared for the first Autumnal storms, the shorter days and the Northerly winds.  Therefore, when I head to the hills now, if it's not all the above it's a bonus.

I normally don't hesitate what shoes to wear on the hill - it has to have a Scarpa logo - but because the hill was 80% track and 20% moor I opted (for the first time) to wear my mountain bike shoes.  What a stupid idea that was.  I had soaking wet feet within the first 2 seconds and having to teeter over slippy schist with a pair of protruding SPD's is not a great image for somebody who is supposed to be fairly proficient in the hills.  Don't get me started on any kind of incline.

On a very positive note, I did breath a very big sigh when I returned to the bike to find it still in it's place.  Losing the bike would be a complete disaster but having to miss out on the fastest descend off any hill would have been unthinkable.

Blowing in the wind

To say it was windy today would have been an understatement.  We couldn't even cycle side by side in fear of getting blown into each other.  Which is probably a good thing, because today we done probably the world's most boring hill and if we never had the fear of killing ourselves on the bikes, it would have been quite a boring day.  Well, actually that's not true but it sounds better than - cycled in, walked up a hill, cycled back.

I do think we found one of the countries biggest cairns today and we're not speaking about just a random pile of thrown-on-top-of-each-other-stones.  Which was probably a good thing since it did provide some kind of shelter from the blowy air.