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Vanuatu
Even though I spent most of my time in Vanuatu with scuba diving, there were some other notable activities.
Twice I visited the famous blue holes. Those are waterholes fed by natural springs and they appear crystal clear and dark blue in places. In some of them there were ropes installed from which we could swing into the water :).
On the last day on Espiritu Santo, I joined the Millenium Caves Tour. A tour organized by locals which consists of a 2 hour bush walk, a half hour crossing of Millenium Cave, some Bouldering/Canyoning after lunch, followed by floating down river. To end it all we had another bush walk to get back to the starting point.
Every one of those things were cool in itself, not to mention that there were just the two of us with our guides on this trail, and that combined to an unforgettable day! :)
I also had to spend a day in Port Vila, waiting for my connecting flight, and I used that to do a half day tour to the Secret Gardens, a kind of botanical garden with a couple of local animals and very detailed info about the country and the region, and Mele Cascading Waterfalls, a beautiful waterfall which flows over several levels. This one was much more touristy, especially since a cruise ship was in town that day. Nevertheless, it was a nice distraction and worth the entrance fee.
Pictures of these activities can also be found in my web album.Labels: pictures, round the world, trekking
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Backpacking in the Dolly Sods Wilderness
Day 1: The Wal Mart Experience
This three day backpacking trip to West Virginia was organized by the CMU Explorers Club's president, who had backpacked in Dolly Sods before. Highly motivated the six of us packed our gear and ourselves into a small Mazda. Four guys on the back seat was a tight fit, but it worked. We used Google Maps to direct us to the right spot. A couple of hours into the drive we were a) getting hungry and b) unsure if we missed a turnoff, so we were glad to see a Burger King next to a huge Wal Mart (it was huge in my eyes, according to the Americans it was actually pretty small ^^). After dinner and asking for directions at the Burger King we headed back, because we indeed had missed the turnoff. Unfortunately, the directions we printed out were not that clear and when the road we were on led into the woods and turned into a gravel road, we were pretty sure that this wasn't the road we wanted. So we went back and took the other possibility, which indeed led to a bigger road. Great was our dismay, when we saw the Wal Mart approaching in front of us… So we headed back once more and took another road, but this one turned also into a gravel road in the deep woods with huge puddles of water. Checking our maps, we saw that the road we originally traveled on would also lead to US50, so we headed back to Wal Mart, drove past it and took the next crossing to US50. From there on the trip was pretty straightforward. Until we reached the National Park, that is. There the fog was so thick that we couldn't see the campsite. Well, I was sure I saw the sign on the road, but the others were sure it had to be further down the road. Once we were about to leave the National Park, we finally realized our mistake and turned back. After all the trip took us 6 instead of 4.5 hours...
Day 2: Up and On We Go
Our first day of serious backpacking started at 7.30am, unfortunately the weather hadn't cleared over night and it was still foggy and wet. Nobody was really willing to start a stove in this weather and so we skipped breakfast and started hiking right away. The trail took us into the woods and across rivers before leading us to alpine tundra and through a mountain bike race. The ever-changing landscape was the highlight of the day, which could not be dampened by the miserable weather conditions (it was raining on and off throughout the day). Not only the landscape was very versatile, so was the track we walked on: Wooden planks, earth, rocks, grass, sand and water were all part of the track in one part or another. After covering 11 miles, we called it a day and looked for a good campsite near a river; fortunately we found one pretty quickly. Since the weather was dry for a change we quickly set up our tents and then started gathering some firewood, hoping to make a campfire later. We even built a stone oven which would allow us to dry some wood and cook a couple of things. However, the weather spirits were not on our side, and rain picked up again, featuring a harder downpour than we had all day. So we quickly packed out our stoves, prepared and ate our dinner near the stream and then fled into our tents at 7.20pm, hoping to keep warm in the sleeping bags.
Day 3: Meeting the Sods
Sometime during the night the rain stopped and so we could prepare breakfast and break camp without getting any wetter. Looking up we even saw small patches of blue sky, however, they were not meant to last and a couple of minutes after we started, the rain picked up again. All we had in mind was a fast and easy hike back to the car, but the trail had a couple of surprises in stock for us. The first was when we arrived at a river where the stepping stones to cross were completely submerged. After debating for a couple of minutes we took of our shoes and waded through the river. Next we learnt the hard way why the area was called Dolly Sods. The trail lead directly through the swamp and it took a lot of navigating to find dry places to step on and sooner or later everyone had a misstep and thus got to know the swamp a little bit better ^^. The Beaver Dam Trail then took us upwards towards the road and the end of our adventure, however, I saw neither beaver nor dam on the way ;). The last stretch took us two miles along the road back to the car, where we finally could put on some dry clothes (or at least, those of us who had some dry clothes left).
On our way out of the Park, we made a quick stop at Bear Rocks, which offered a nice view into the valley, but didn't feature any bears.
On the way back we managed not to get lost and so we were back in Pittsburgh at 5pm, where the weather was perfect.
Retrospective
- Looking at Google Maps again, I saw that we were on the right "road" the second time, but why the heck Google wanted us to drive along a gravel road for a "short cut" eludes me…
- The video footage we took on the way to the camp ground features the camp ground sign and how we passed it the first time…
- Despite the harsh conditions the trip was a fantastic experience and I don't regret going at all.
- We learned that there can be a lot of water on a mountain ;)
- All my pictures from this trip are available in my web album.Labels: cmu, hiking, pictures, trekking, usa
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Eschenz, Vulpera and Laufenburg
The last week has been marked by a lot of traveling. Last Saturday I visited a small party at the Untersee (part of Lake Constance). It felt like vacation: the weather was very nice, there were great people around and I even had the opportunity to do a dive, however, the 12 to 18 degrees water temperature were markedly colder than I am used to from my usual vacation ;). Another big difference was the visibility, which was only four meters; nevertheless it was a cool experience :) and I'm looking forward to more dives in Switzerland's lakes.
On Sunday I went from Eschenz straight to Vulpera in the Engadin (5 hours 39 minutes with train and bus). Vulpera was the location of the trainings camp of my team at Zühlke. Throughout the week we had time to study new and/or interesting topics such as Java 6, Java Enterprise Edition 5, Requirements Engineering and .Net (it's always good to know the enemy ;) ). Fortunately there we did find some spare time between all the learning and so we could do a golf taster course, some normal biking, some downhill biking, an excursion into the beautiful Clemgia Canyon and a guided tour of the fascinating Castle in Tarasp. We stayed at the Hotel Villa Post, which was a fantastic place. The food was extraordinary, every evening a 4 course meal and they even catered for individual requests. Our dining room was very special as well, the wooden panels all had a unique pattern and with a bit imagination animals and other things could be detected in them (see here and here). All pictures can be found in my gallery.
This Saturday I visited the 800 year celebrations in Laufenburg. One of the highlights this weekend was the medieval market, which was spaced over both the German as well as the Swiss side of Laufenburg. I even found some useful things for my next LARP such as a wooden basket and a traditional belt. A couple of pictures can be found in my gallery as well.Labels: biking, diving, pictures, trekking
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Trekking Mount Rinjani
Our trekking trip to Mount Rinjani (a volcano that erupted around 1700 for the last time) started last Saturday at 6am. We were brought to Sembalu Lawang which lies at 900 metres above sea level (masl). First it was a nice and easy walk through landscapes that reminded us of the Savannah in Africa. For lunch we were already at 1600 masl, staying just next to an empty riverbed. But then it suddenly started to pour and the formerly empty riverbed grew to a roaring stream! At this point we had our first doubts about this expedition. Fortunately the rain stopped and a strong bridge led over the river. Now we came into territory that reminded us of Scotland and Ireland. Lots of hills covered with grass. The grass soon gave way to trees and the path got ever steeper. I was in the form of my life ;), but Christian and Nina had underestimated the difficulty of the track, so we made many stops on the way. Nevertheless we made it to the crater rim at 2639 masl. Just before the sun set we glimpsed part of the huge lake inside the crater.
Alin, our guide, woke us up at 3am the next morning to start the climb to the very top. The idea was to reach the top before sunrise. Because of the difficulties that the first day brought, Nina and Christian decided to stay behind. So I started the trip, armed with a torch, alone with En, one of our two porters. The first bit was the toughest, still half asleep we had to follow a path that went from flat to extremely steep within a couple of metres. Fortunately we reached the first plateau after a while and we took our first break. Slowly the path started to become more challenging, first it got steeper and then ever the more gravel covered the way until the path completely disappeared. Slowly it was getting brighter and I could see the top close at hand, or so I thought at first, then after I climbed this hill I saw the top still far above me. On the other hand, looking back, I saw how much ground we had already covered, so turning around was no question. The last bit was the toughest, every step had to be well planed to keep the balance and not to start sliding back down the mountain. But then I finally made it! Sunrise had happened an hour ago but I couldn't care less, I stood at 3726 masl and could see the whole crater, including the smaller active volcano Mt. Baru and the lake. Past the crater rim I saw all of Lombok including the Gillis. The way back down was far easier than expected, at times I was running/sliding down the mountain, boosting my self-confidence with every step, and we were back down in 2 hours.
There I got my well-deserved breakfast. As a bonus, we spotted two gray macaa monkeys in a tree nearby. Because the weather was overcast and rain was looming, we started our climb down to the lake immediately. Even so we didn't quite make it all the way. We were walking in pouring rain for the last half hour. To our shock the shelter at the lack was already occupied by fishermen and the porters of a group of guys from Singapore. We decided to wait out the rain and then start to climb the other crater rim to guarantee a safe and dry return to Senaru the next day. The way was very steep, towards the end we even had to climb up some rocks to follow the path. However, the crater rim was not our final destination. We climbed back down again for another half an hour to reach a shelter. By that time I was almost dead, no wonder, I'd been trekking for 12 hours straight and covered approximately 3300 metres in altitude difference!
Next day we got another early start at 5am to outrun the rain. From here on it was all downhill, first we walked through grassy hills similar to the ones on the first day, then we came into the jungle. There we saw another gray macaa monkey close to one of the shelters. For some time I was walking all alone, Christian and Nina had gone ahead and Alin and the porters were somewhere behind me, that was a pretty strange feeling, especially because the way was very slippery and I lost my footing more than one time. Finally, at 11am we reached Senaru, the final destination of our trek.
The Rinjani Trekking is praised as one of the most beautiful treks in South-East Asia and I wholeheartedly agree, the changing scenery and the challenging way were an incredible experience that I don't want to forget. As for Christian and Nina? They plan to come back better prepared one day and will reach the top. Good luck!Labels: trekking, vacation
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