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Friday 31 August 2012

In Sight of Mont Blanc

The town and whole valley where I was staying in France was pretty busy with tourists as it was the school holidays and of course so lovely there, but we managed to make our escape up to a mountain pass in sight of the awesome Mont Blanc for a bit of camping. You can wild-camp practically anywhere in the Alps apparently which is pretty cool, will definitely be heading there again for a few days, as we just did one night this time. We arrived in the evening and picked the ideal spot with a brilliant view overlooking a lake, then barbequed and had a great evening of stargazing and satellite spotting. Then we attempted to sleep with the noise of cow-bells ringing on the mountain slopes...



We were up at dawn for sunrise over Mont Blanc, we headed up to a ridge to get a better view and watched the mountain flanks turn pinks and oranges as the sun came up. It was ridiculously warm for 6.30am, so we sat in the morning sunlight and ate pain au chocolat, bliss.

Our tents in the bottom left!









Taking a puppy was fun, here he is munching on the bonfire wood, monster!

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Wild Mountains

Not much to say today, I just wanted to show you that there are lots of pretty things to see in the mountains! Here is some mountain flora and fauna, making good use of the macro function on my little camera.


Jiminy!




I have no idea what most of these are, except this daft blonde thing below :) (Bungle the dog, not my sister!)
Everyone say awwwww

Sunday 26 August 2012

All Action Alpine Adventure

Well I can't say I spent my summer holiday laying by the pool, too much to do in the Alps! I had an excellent time and managed to pack a lot in to 9 days, standby for some pictures of me looking great in various safety equipment.

First up, a bit of rock climbing, there is a great cliff close to Morzine that as you can see by the top picture, definitely looks like an elephant head! I haven't really done any climbing before but my big sister and her boyfriend seem to know what they are doing, so my Mum and I tagged along for a go. I was a bit of a big scaredy cat but still had a good time, definitely want to have another go!



A slightly more relaxed activity was going to have a look around a spectacular gorge, Les gorges du pont du diable, which I'm pretty sure translates to something like the 'the gorges of the devil bridge'. It was pretty impressive anyway, a deep tunnel carved through the rocks by the river running below. I'd love to see it in winter with icicles hanging everywhere, but unfortunately it is shut then, too much ice and snow!










Possibly the best thing I got to do was white water rafting, seriously good fun! We went with Frogs rafting on the recommendation of my sister. Natalie and Jeremy that run the company sorted us a great day, we got suited and booted at their base, then headed down to the river in a minibus, where we got a crash-course in rafting technique from Jeremy, our guide. We then got let loose on the river, directed by Jeremy of course. It was a great trip, we got to do some pretty good rapids, as you can see from the pictures! We also got a bit of time to swim in the river as it was absolutely scorching weather. We also jumped off a couple of massive rocks, I think the biggest was 8m high, so a bit of an adrenaline rush, see below! Thanks to Natalie for the pictures; she followed us along the river bank taking lots of shots, it is so nice to have a record of me looking lovely in a wetsuit ;)







Thursday 23 August 2012

Orange, Wight, Green

Holiday time! Well I am back now, but I shall re-live it by posting an excessive number of photos, at least that way I don't have to bore any one person by sitting them down and making them look at every single one of my holiday snaps. I am a bit of a newbie when it comes to travelling; I'm yet to make it any further than western Europe, but I'm getting bitten by the travel bug, and am planning something big for when I finish my PhD, so these short trips are all good practice. Any way, as I haven't flown many times, the novelty has yet to wear off, so here are some nice clouds, can you guess the airline?!

Anybody recognise this bit of coastline (clue in the title!)? 
France!
I was heading to France again, back to the Alps where my big sister and now also my Mum, are living, it is totally different in the summer, I went out in January for a bit of snowboarding action. Many more pictures to follow!