Eco Holidays

posted by Catherine on Jan 16

Take a break in the countryside and leave the car at home - 4 legs is all you need!

There are thousands of places across the globe that specialise in horse riding holidays where you turn up and saddle up!

Some are only a few days long and others can last a week or two.  Others just keep coming back to the same place every night, and others trek across vast wildernesses like Patagonia, Canada and Mongolia.

You can do it for pleasure, to learn a new skill or to raise money for charity - but you can do it!

Eco Friendly Transport!
You can cover more distance on a horse when you want to explore and they don’t churn out dangerous emissions and use up valuable gas!

Once you have arrived at the farm or ranch, you can relax and slip into a different world for your vacation.

Instead of sight-seeing in a town or city where you have to drive around to get to anything, you can just walk outside of your lodge and meet your partner.

Even if you want to travel many miles, it will only cost you a few swigs of water to get you there and back!

Reach Those Difficult Places:
Also on horseback you will be able to travel to those places where 4 heels just can’t fit, like up a mountain pass to see a magnificent sunset, or down steep valley sides to get to the isolated waterfall.

And being high up offers you views you might not see on your own 2 feet!

Horse trails use up far less land than car trails - and no trees need to be pulled down to make a road, or habitats destroyed to cater for wider vehicles.

Riding through the landscape therefore has much less of an impact than other forms of transport and it gives you the opportunity to enjoy the whole experience more - as you don’t need to watch your step - the horse does that!

You can watch the landscape change colour in the sunlight, observe the colourful wildlife and birds pass you by - even if they are behind you.  Just hold on to the saddle and enjoy the ride!

Next Holiday?
So next time you are thinking of taking a short break close to home, or farther afield - why not consider a horseback one?

You don’t need to be an experienced rider either - unless you are hoping to ride up an active volcano - there are plenty of riding centers that take on complete beginners right up to regular riders.  Just make sure the school know your real level before you book.

I once went on a ride for the day and when we started galloping along the beach the chap behind me started making a lot of noise!  When we all stopped to find out what happened he said he had only ever walked on a horse before.  He put down that he was ‘experienced’ because he had ridden a horse that was walking loads of times!  He wasn’t experienced in the right sense - and it nearly lost him his saddle!

So, Tally-Ho I say!

posted by Catherine on Dec 28

There is a great way to see things thousands of miles away without flying - look into space!

You don’t need all that technical, astronomical and expensive equipment to see the stars - there is plenty you can see just with your own eyes.  And what great way to add to your camping experience than to watch distant planets and other-wordly stars pass by through the night.

Obviously the one thing you do need is a dark clear sky to start with, but there are many places even just on the outskirts of cities that will do just fine as well.  You need as little ambient light as possible - so steer clear of huge street lights, football stadiums, airports, late night shopping centers and motorways and you should be fine!

So, below I have listed some things that could enthrall not only your children, but even yourself.  And they are not difficult to identify even by a very beginner!

Venus:
The small gaseous planet next in towards the sun after earth (Sun-Mercury-Venus-Earth-Mars-Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune-Pluto (if it’s still in your books as a planet as otherwise it ruins the saying: My Very Energetic Mother Jumps Several Universes - No Problem!).

Venus is best seen right after sunset or just before sunrise due to the way it moves around the sun, but it is the brightest thing in the night sky after the moon - and like all planets: it doesn’t twinkle - it’s a solid light and will be quite low in the sky.  

Orion’s Belt:
These 3 bright stars are in a slight diagonal line and appear in the south if you are in the Northern Hemisphere (north of the equator).  They are part of a larger constellation and once you have identified the ‘belt’ part, you can look out from there to see the 4 other bright stars in each corner so to speak, the top left being Betelgeuse - a red supergiant star, nearing the end of it’s life and ready to explode!

The Big Dipper (part of Ursa Major):
This is a well known constellation of stars in the shape of a kitchen pan, and can be seen in the Northern Hemisphere as well but looking north.  It is basically a square to the right with a curved handle leading off to the left.  It makes up the rear end of the mythical bear (ursa is the latin name for bears).

It’s quite a large constellation to - as opposed to Ursa Minor - it’s smaller equivalent and sort of upside down!  However, Ursa Minor has the Pole Star at the very tip of it’s tail - so can be easy to find in the dark sky as well.

The Milky Way:
You really can see the Milky Way up there on a very clear night.  It takes a while to actually see it as it is a huge expanse of ‘cloud’ - really a multitude of stars all overlaid and twinkling away - some estimate it contains up to 400 billion stars!

All of these stars are actually Suns - just like ours.  They can be different sizes and different colours depending on what stage of life they are in (ranging from 1 billion to over 13 billions years old!) and what elements they are burning.

So, get out there, and have a look!

posted by Catherine on Dec 14

This is the story of an amazing 20-month journey around the world without flying!

Nick Tuppin and Holly Gee decided that they were going to travel the world together, but not by buying a round-the-world plane ticket and bouncing across the globe in 6 months!

They wanted adventure - and they wanted it to be an eco adventure.  Whether it’s walking, cycling, buses, trains, or freighters - they will use it!  Talk about inspiring!

And they wanted to give back to the communities they were visiting as well, so they volunteered and worked their way around as well. Working in a school and helping to set up a website are just some of the things that they became involved in along the way.

The Route:
Starting out in France in September 2008, they passed through Spain and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.  On from there to Columbia and up through Central America, the States and finally out the top through Canada and Alaska in September 2009 to Korea, China and ending up in Nepal for The New Year.

In 2010, the journey will continue across Mongolia and Russia, then down south to Turkey and up across eastern Europe on the Danube river, then hopefully home for May 2010.

So far they are right on track and their latest blog posts show them in Kathmandu.  The articles are certainly detailed and shows how they are getting by - including an impromptu job interview!  It also details about the attempts of locals to get into the British Gurkha Army and their participation in a house blessing ceremony!

They have included some great photos of their journey - every step of the way.  They include maps and historic images along the way too - making you feel like you are part of the journey with them.

Although they do have a history of travel - they are just two ordinary people who had normal jobs and just wanted to make a difference.  So they got up and did something about it!

That could be you!