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Do a wilderness first aid course

27/4/2015

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A couple of months ago, I did some things that I hope I’ll never, ever have to do again. Warning: this post contains simulated blood, gore and stressful situations.
Hypothermia first aid

I arrived on the scene of a road traffic collision to find a motorcyclist wedged beneath a car. I held his head and supported his neck. Another person removed his helmet and cleared his mouth of vomit so he could breathe.

I’ve done bits and pieces of first aid training before. I remember every year in PE classes throwing a life-belt or rope into the pool, bandaging snake bites, fiddling with triangular bandages and trying to memorise complex combinations of breaths and compressions to resuscitate a plastic dummy. I vaguely remember my mum doing a first aid course, too, when I was a kid: practicing a bandage-twisting thing (doughnut roll) and a slightly different but no less complex combination of breaths and compressions.

And then a couple of years ago I did a First Aid at Work course with Andy Sullivan from Emergency Life Support Team (ELST). We were tucked away in a small, boring meeting room, ready for a small, boring PowerPoint presentation. But Andy didn’t teach like that.

“If one of you collapsed right now and went into cardiac arrest, would you be alive or dead?” he asked. We shuffled our notebooks, waited for someone else to say something, mumbled a few things: we’d be alive; alive for a few minutes; alive until a doctor said otherwise; alive if our brain was still alive. Andy let us have our discussion and said, “Let me put it to you: if someone’s heart is not beating, that person is dead. They’re not going to get better without intervention. They are dead. So anything that you do now, as a first aider, is not going to make them worse.”

It was a lightbulb moment for me: what matters is not so much choosing the right sized bandage or perfecting the doughnut roll (not generally taught in first aid courses any more) but potentially keeping someone not-dead-enough until the emergency services arrive.
Embedded object first aid

I bandaged the profusely bleeding hand of a farm labourer who had hammered an enormous nail through the middle of it. I called 999 and watched a hypothermic teenager go into cardiac arrest, then debated whether to move them to a clear area for the ambulance crew or continue administering CPR in the current position.

Since doing the First Aid at Work qualification, I’d only had to put my training into practice once: cleaning, bandaging and elevating a person’s arm after a minor onion-slicing accident. But in the back of my mind I’d been thinking about consolidating and refreshing my first aid knowledge.

Sure, I knew how to perform a jaw thrust to open a partially blocked airway, but what was the the protocol with compressions - was it really to the rhythm of “Staying Alive”? Had Andy said that mouth-to-mouth was optional? Plus, I’d forgotten about embedded objects, what to do to protect a casualty’s spine and what all those different bandages in the first aid kit were actually for.
This is important stuff to know. There are so many accidents on the A21 between Hastings and John’s Cross, it’s probably only a matter of time until I’m first on the scene. Or what if we’re out walking and find a farmer who’s overturned her tractor and is pinned underneath? Even more likely, what if we’re having dinner with friends or family and someone has a heart attack?

I was a bit concerned that knowing something in theory wouldn’t help me in a crisis. After all, I’ve completely forgotten things before - like trying (twice!) to call the UK emergency services on 000 (the Australian number) instead of 999 (the UK number). So I jumped at the chance to do a two day Wilderness First Aid course with ELST. 

I discovered a mountain biker wedged in the fork of a tree after a nasty fall - his bone was sticking out through his thigh - and I found his Ventolin, tried to keep him calm and gathered his medical history as my companions did what they could for his leg.

The first day started with introductions. There were four other participants - two from Sussex Wildlife Trust, a school sports teacher and someone who is setting up a kayaking business. Andy was joined over the weekend by a number of other instructors, too. Andy himself has spent 17 years in the Fire Service as a firefighter and instructor and three years as an NHS Resuscitation Officer. Mark Pittock has spent 27 years in the Fire Service and has been on one tour of Afghanistan as an RAF Reserves Medic. Rob Wilkinson is a paramedic and nurse with 14 years service with the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance.
Motorcycle helmet first aid
The day was spent in conversation, learning through storytelling, props, questioning, talking and examining first aid equipment. Every now and then, we’d pop outside to put the theory into practice on the plastic dummies, then head back inside for a debrief.

I was really interested to hear about the emergency services system in East Sussex and surrounding counties: call centre protocol from who’s taking the call to who decides what to send (paramedic, ambulance, air ambulance), what each service is trained to do (e.g. who can and can’t administer drugs), which hospitals casualties can be sent to for what, and so on. There is so much going on behind the scenes every day that is so easy to take for granted.  When you call 999, an enormous, dedicated and hopelessly overstretched service snaps into action. While one of the messages I took from the course was, “Don’t hesitate to call 999 if you think it’s a real emergency,” the other was, “Don’t call 999 if it’s a problem you could just as easily take to your GP to solve.” (I hear stories of people drunk dialling 999 after a night out hoping to get a free lift home and I despair. Take a good hard look at yourselves, people!)
Traffic accident first aid

I ran through the woods in the direction of panicked yelling to find an arborist had cut his arm off with a chainsaw. I helped guide him down (put him on a jacket - don’t want him getting hypothermia) and watched my companions improvise a tourniquet out of rope.

On day two, Andy went through a few questions we had from the previous session, showed us some burns dressings and gave us a few more pointers and tips. Then the fun really began. The difference between this course and many other first aid courses is the real life scenarios, presented by actors in casualty make up.

First, there was a nasty fall. The kid had a huge bruise around one eye and was lying at the bottom of a cliff. Don’t fall over the edge yourself. Is he responding? No: he’s unconscious. Is he breathing? Can’t tell. Listen, feel, watch. Ten seconds feels like an age . . .

We went back to the tent to debrief. Only inside was a man complaining of intense pain in his chest and arm. He’s just eaten lunch. He’s very pale. The pain is getting worse. Call 999. Any allergies you know of? We stand around a bit helplessly watching this guy have his heart attack. And then he’s out. We pop him on the floor and begin CPR . . .
CPR first aid
We went through both scenarios afterwards. Who called 999? Did we get all the information we could have from the cardiac arrest patient while he was awake and conscious? We should use the SAMPLE mnemonic if it helps. Wasn’t it strange that we all felt something a bit like relief when the man in the tent finally passed out - relief that we could finally do something.

Then there was the motorcyclist under the car; the hypothermic teenager; the arborist with the severed arm; the cyclist with the extravagantly fractured femur. Each scenario presented a different set of problems and, despite being fully aware that these were staged scenarios, it was all too easy to feel the panic, adrenaline surge and queasiness as we dealt with each one.

But with each scenario I found I could remember more. Danger, response, airway, breathing. Call 999. Support the C-spine. Recovery position. SAMPLE. Continuous compressions. Pressure and elevation.
Road traffic collision first aid

I was in a car accident - I collided with a pedestrian who was sprawled unconscious and bleeding from his ear on my windscreen. My airbag didn’t deploy. I had a bloody nose, a suspected broken rib and - scarier still - I couldn’t feel my legs. Then the car caught fire. Let me tell you: I was extremely relieved at that point that all three passers-by happened to be trained first aiders.

It’s not often an instructor finishes a two day course by saying, “I hope I’ve just wasted your weekend.” But as we wiped the golden syrup and red food dye off our noses and legs, the bruises off our faces, and the mushed up digestive biscuits off our mouths and hands, we understood exactly what Andy meant.

I hope I never have to put this knowledge into practice, but at least now I know what to do and I’m pretty sure I could do it. Could you?

ELST is based in East Sussex, but Andy also runs courses in Kent, Surrey, West Sussex, Hampshire and beyond. Check their website for further information. Oh, I should also mention that if "Staying Alive" is too hard to remember for compressions, you could try an even less appropriate song, "Another One Bites the Dust".

Casualty makeup

I sometimes undertake freelance work for ELST. I was not paid to write a positive review of this course. All images courtesy of Andy Sullivan, ELST.

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Spend a night on the Cuckoo Trail

20/4/2015

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A microadventure combining our April sleep out and our railway theme challenge with delightful results!
Microadventure
I was glued to the Met Office website for a week before our date with the Cuckoo Trail. In the end, the day dawned warm and sunny. I was chomping at the bit to get started, but we couldn’t leave too early, or we’d walk the whole trail in a day. We wanted to stop off half way and sleep in a field!

We drove to Heathfield and did some last-minute shopping (a lighter for our stove, some antibacterial hand gel, a tasty coffee and tea at Cuculo - just the essentials!), then jumped on the bus to Polegate.

History of the Cuckoo Trail

The Cuckoo Trail was once a rail route known informally as the Cuckoo Line - named after the Heffle Cuckoo Fair held near Heathfield. The fair dates back to 1315 and was an annual event during which a cuckoo - the first of spring - was released by one Dame Heffle. I am not sure how this distinguished woman obtained her cuckoo ahead of migration season.

The rail line was built by the London Brighton and South Coast Railway in an attempt to snaffle some of the south coast traffic from its rival rail companies. Stretching from Eridge to Polegate, it was completed in 1880, recommended for closure by Beeching in 1963 and the section from Polegate to Hailsham shut in 1968.

Over a decade later, the district and county councils bought the route and, with input from Sustrans, the Cuckoo Trail was developed as a shared route for walkers and cyclists.

Polegate

Although the Cuckoo Trail extends to Hampden Park, we decided to start at Polegate, cutting an hour or so of unappealing roadside walking from our trip. We passed the Dinkum pub - named by Australian soldiers (surprise) in WWI, and newly painted in green and gold (to the consternation of some locals, apparently) - then strolled down a few suburban streets to the old line.

We noticed immediately that this was a busy the trail. It’s now part of the National Cycle Network (Route 21), and around 250,000 people use it every year, some for their daily dog walk, some as part of a long bike ride from London to Eastbourne.

The trail is lined with sculptures in wood and metal, and features a few interesting benches, too. I particularly enjoyed one metal arch near the start of our walk, which included a number of roughly hewn stones in a reference to more traditional archways. I think if I’d been travelling the other way I would have found it a suitably triumphal end to my journey.

Hailsham

We timed our walk to get to Hailsham in time for an early dinner. Being a bit ahead of schedule, we spent a few minutes relaxing in the afternoon sunshine beside Hailsham Common Pond. The pond has existed since at least 1263, when someone drowned in it, thus ensuring an entry in the records books. Being one of the first warm evenings of spring, several people had the same idea - of relaxing rather than drowning, I hasten to add!

After mooching for a while, we continued on to our date with deliciousness at Bebble’s Langos. We’d enjoyed the langos so much on our Cuckmere journey that we’d deliberately planned this microadventure around another visit. The service was friendly, the langos were super-tasty and we got a couple of plastic forks on the house (we’d forgotten to bring cutlery for breakfast).

Horsebridge

Full - too full to even consider dessert, which is a highly unusual state of affairs - we returned to the Cuckoo Trail for the walk through Hailsham and Horsebridge. First up, we discovered an underpass decorated with concrete reliefs of rope. Hailsham was once famous for its rope making industry. Rather gruesomely, the town once supplied Britain and its colonies with all (or most) of the rope needed for public hangings.

In Horsebridge, a cyclist rode past and told us with a big grin, “I used to be a hiker, but I got better!” We encountered him again where he’d stopped to pat a dog and a third time when he passed and told us that the trail would get prettier the other side of the main road. We didn’t think it was particularly unattractive at that point, just a bit suburban. It was, however, true that the rural scenery on the other side of Horsebridge was quite beautiful, especially washed in the gold of a near-setting sun. That section of the path was made all the more striking by our fourth encounter with the cyclist, who was by this time located (sans bike) several metres up a large tree.

Hellingly

We soon reached Hellingly, or at least the spot where Hellingly Station once stood. The old station is now a private residence, but retains the deep verandahs and details. It looked a little bit unkempt, but no less beguiling for that. A bit further on there was a very unpublike looking pub with an entrance straight off the trail. We decided to leave that for another time, because the sunset was building up to what promised to be a spectacular display and we wanted to (a) watch it and (b) find somewhere to bed down before dark.

It was our first overnight microadventure location that we hadn’t purposefully recced or at least been to before. I’d spent a bit of time looking at the OS map and Google Maps satellite view and had earmarked a few potential bivvy spots, but I didn’t know if they’d be suitable in reality. An apparently distant house might overlook them, a new house might have been built, the field might have been ploughed up for crops, it might be too steep, totally waterlogged or covered in nettles.

The sunset turned the sky blazing pink and orange. We watched through the silhouetted trees, then found a couple of “this would do” sleeping spots. We decided to walk on for another twenty minutes or so - if we found a better site we’d use that instead, if we didn’t we could come back. As it turned out, we discovered a perfect spot right at the end of our twenty minute limit: a flat grassy field with a semi-secluded corner tucked away near a stream a few minutes off the trail. After a quick cup of tea in the twilight, serenaded by the evening chorus, we set up our beds and crawled in.

Sleeping out

The sky was very clear and therefore very distracting. We stared up, not able to catch the slow dimming of light, only the sudden stars - as though someone had pricked a pin through the paper screen of night. An owl called nearby - a surprisingly sharp, clean sound. It was only then we noticed that all the other birds had fallen silent. Dan spotted a faint satellite and we traced its progress until it disappeared. A bat flittered around the branches. Another satellite, then another - and then the gleaming brightness of the International Space Station (check for UK pass times here). A single sheep appeared in our field and bleated at us a few times before trotting off into the darkness. We kept a look out for more satellites. Dan, with his better eyesight, spotted them all before me - except one, later on, when he was asleep. That one was all mine!

I woke several times during the night: to the sporadic barking of farm dogs; to the grumble of motorbikes on a distant road; to a fox barking; to a lamb and mother crying out to each other over and over again (I wondered if in the morning we’d find a lamb with its face eaten off by foxes - not an uncommon occurrence on our farm when I was growing up). In the quietness surrounding such outbursts, I could just make out the very soft trickle of the nearby stream. A mist settled in and at some point the moon rose, fuzzy and orange, like an apricot.

In the morning, the birds woke us up with the first hint of sunrise. I peeped out of my bivvy bag and saw the mist had risen a metre or so off the grass, giving a view across the field surface but leaving everything else unclear. I declared the need for more sleep and - joy of joys! - I managed another forty minutes. We sat up and discovered there was a frost on the grass… and on us. (Unfortunately, when I pulled the iPhone out to take a photo it was out of batteries. This despite us having been so careful to turn it off overnight. I was annoyed enough to utter a few expletives and wake up properly! All later photos were taken on the not-very-good iPod camera.)


We made quick work of packing up, trying not to freeze our fingers off. When we left, the only sign of our camp was a patch of frost-free grass in the corner of the field.

Horam

The mist didn’t lift, and the red sunrise looked spectacular over the hills and fields as we continued along the trail. We stopped in Horam for breakfast, having worked up an appetite. Sitting at a picnic bench, we lit the beer can stove and made ourselves a pot of chicken flavoured noodles (actually vegan) and said thank you to Bebble’s Langos for the forks. It was delightful to get something warm into us, and the sun began to defrost my aching back, too. After a cup of tea and a Tim Tam we got back on the road.

The trail between Horam and Heathfield is rural, but never far from houses. The rail line is built up higher than the roads at this point, so we got some nice views of farms and fields from the bridges. Even after years of living here, I still sometimes turn to Dan and exclaim, “It’s so English!”

Heathfield

Arriving in Heathfield, we struck up a conversation with an elderly local chap (local enough: he’d been living there for around 30 years). He asked us where we’d come from and if we'd camped. “We slept in a field in our bivvy bags,” we told him. “It was quite fun - great views of the stars!” He laughed. “If you say so. I went camping twice in my life and hated it!” We mentioned how busy the trail was the evening before and how well-used it was even this early in the morning. “Dog walkers,” he grumbled. He used to call the Heathfield section “dog turd alley”, but it seems dog owners are getting a little bit less disgusting and irresponsible these days. Our companion was just telling us that the people of Heathfield are a friendly bunch, unlike Mayfield (we've heard the opposite argument from Mayfield residents), when we arrived at the carpark and our car and had to part ways.

Satisfied, and a little sore, we counted our outing as another microadventure success.

This microadventure cost about £32 for two, including transport, food, drinks and a new inflatable pillow!

We also slept out in January, February and March. Join in the year of microadventure - you'll find all the info you need on Alastair Humphreys' website.

Cuckoo Trail
A long, straight stretch on the Cuckoo Trail.
Sculptured archway
An archway sculpture on the Cuckoo Trail.
White blossom
White spring blossoms - blackthorn (sloe).
Backpacks by the pond
Our bags resting at Hailsham Common Pond.
Railway Tavern sign
The Railway Tavern
Underpass and art
Rope artwork (and a brain?) in the underpass at Hailsham.
Small, light lilac flowers
Cuckoo flowers, also known as lady's smock or milkmaids.
Wood sculpture of two figures
One of many sculptures along the Cuckoo Trail.
Picture
Sunset and silhouetted trees
Sunset through the trees.
Bright sunset
Sunset from the Cuckoo Trail.
Setting up camp
Taking a rest in the corner of a field before setting up our bivvies.
Misty field
Morning mist, as seen from our camping spot.
Grass
Leave no trace: the frost-free footprint of our camp.
Mist, footpath, field
Footpath through the frost, into the mist, back to the Cuckoo Trail.
Saucepan on beer can stove
Cooking breakfast on a beer can stove in Horam.
Sunrise
Sunrise over the misty fields, seen from the Cuckoo Trail.
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Make rainbow salad, Thai style

13/4/2015

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Mmm, Thai food! I love the complex combinations of salty, sour, spicy, sweet and bitter flavours; I love the beautiful colours, crispy vegetables, aromatic herbs and exciting textures. You could say I find it... en-thai-cing. I won’t pretend that this salad is “authentic”, but it is delicious. It takes a while to prepare, so put on some music and get slicing. You won’t regret it!

Rainbow salad

Your salad ingredients should be sliced finely and evenly so that any given forkful will contain a unique combination of fresh, tasty goodness. You’ll need a good sharp knife (unless you own a mandoline - lucky you). Choose from the following ingredients, making sure to include a range of colours.
  • Green beans, lightly steamed, cooled and sliced lengthways
  • Green snow peas, finely sliced lengthways
  • Green cucumber, halved lengthways, seeds removed, finely sliced
  • White Chinese cabbage, finely shredded
  • White bean sprouts, any straggly bits removed
  • Yellow grapefruit, peeled and segmented, segments halved
  • Yellow mango (ripe or unripe), thinly sliced or grated
  • Yellow capsicum (pepper), finely sliced
  • Orange carrot, grated
  • Orange, peeled, segmented, segments halved
  • Red capsicum (pepper), finely sliced
  • Red onion, finely sliced
  • Purple cabbage, finely shredded

Herbs

Don’t be stingy with your herbs - they’re really a salad ingredient in their own right. Choose two or more of the following.
  • Handful of coriander, chopped roughly
  • Small handful of mint leaves, chopped
  • Small handful of Thai (or other) basil leaves, torn
  • Spring onions (4 or 5), both green and white parts, chopped finely

Textures

These ingredients are optional, but add depth and crunch to your salad. Choose one or more of the following and mix them through at the last minute so they don’t go soggy.
  • Toasted cashews
  • Crispy fried shallots
  • Crunchy noodles (don't use egg noodles if making this salad for vegans)

Dressing

This is the final, delicious touch. To create a perfect dressing, you need to balance the flavours both within the dressing and between the dressing and the salad. For example, if your salad has lots of orange and mango in it, you might want to add less sweetness to the dressing. Choose at least one ingredient from each of the following flavour groups, mix thoroughly and experiment to find your ideal combination.
  • Salty: light soy sauce (this has a different flavour to dark soy and is not, as I used to assume, some kind of horrible "diet" sauce) and/or fish sauce (which I never use it because I'm vegetarian)
  • Sour: fresh lime juice, rice wine vinegar, tamarind paste or pulp
  • Spicy: fresh chilli, fresh ginger, fresh garlic
  • Sweet: palm sugar, jaggery, soft brown sugar, agave syrup or honey (for non-vegans)

I made the following (fairly spicy and sour) dressing for the salad in the photos. Using a soup spoon as my unit of measure made enough dressing for one large serving bowl of salad.

  • Salty: 4 parts light soy
  • Sour: 2 parts fresh lime juice, 1 part rice wine vinegar, ½ part tamarind paste
  • Spicy: 1 part ginger (grated), 1 part mild red chilli (chopped finely)
  • Sweet: 1 part palm sugar (grated, dissolved)

This recipe first appeared in Hastings Independent, Issue 27, 3 April 2015, p12.

Layered salad in glass
For photo purposes only - this is not how you eat the salad!
Snow peas
Green: snow peas, finely sliced. You can slice several at once.
Bean sprouts
White: bean sprouts. Sorting these can take ages so get super-fresh ones.
Sliced mango
Yellow: mango, found on sale or it wouldn't have gone in!
Orange segments
Orange: well, orange. I halved these segments after taking the photo.
Rainbow salad
That's more like it! Mix it all up and add your delicious dressing!
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Walk from Hastings Pier to Eastbourne Pier

9/4/2015

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Beach huts
Since moving to East Sussex a few years ago, I’ve often looked out across the water from Hastings towards the distant twinkle of Eastbourne and thought, “I wonder if I could walk there in a day?”
Today, as a hazy blue sky blurs into the horizon behind Hastings Pier, I aim find out! We're going to walk as far as we can (or as far as we can be bothered), hopefully all the way to Eastbourne Pier.

It’s the kind of weather these old seaside towns are designed to be viewed in. Even the most run-down buildings with their peeling yellowed paint look happy and mediterranean. We pass the ocean liner inspired art deco Marine Court (which was the tallest block of flats in the country when it was built in 1937) and dip down onto the beach at just the right point to find Banksy’s “Tesco” stencil behind its plastic sheet. After Grosvenor Gardens, the houses give way to brightly coloured beach boxes. We weave between them, deciding which one we’d like to own.

Dog walkers are out in force, but the canine hordes haven’t deterred the birdlife: as well as the usual herring and black-headed gulls, we see dozens of busy little turnstones (more interested in turning the De La Warr’s lawn than the stones on the beach) and a small falcon riding the wind over Galley Hill. Our most unlikely sighting comes later in the day when we find a pheasant strutting up and down the beach around a ragged Martello tower at Sovereign Harbour.

At the tail end of Bexhill, we stick to the shingle. Everyone seems to ignore the various signs about this or that section being private beach. If it’s all private, I wonder where the all-England coastal path will run when it finally makes it to East Sussex?

We approach Cooden Beach, hopping over the sea-weathered wooden groynes, and notice an excavator and several trucks on the shore. This is part of our never-ending dialogue with nature: every year, the sea slowly moves tonnes of shingle and sand eastwards along the shore, and every year humans and our machines pick it up and move it back so the beach doesn’t disappear.

We follow the road for a time, curving inland through the levels around the sluice. Behind the sea defences, out of the wind, the air is still and quiet. Sheep and cows chew lazily at us over fences. It could almost be summer - it’s only wanting for ten degrees and some leaves on the trees.
Hastings Pier
Banksy
Wooden boat
Bexhill Sea Angling Club sign
On the levels
After a quick lunch at The Star Inn, we head back out to Normans Bay and the pebbly beach. It’s slow, noisy progress along the stones. My ankles start to feel like I’m being rattled by a jackhammer and it’s impossible to maintain a conversation over our crunching footsteps. We keep an eye out for Martello towers, instead. Seventy-four of these big, near-conical fortresses were built along the coast between Folkestone in Kent and Seaford in East Sussex in the 19th century (there were 140 built in Britain in total). Of these, only a third remain, with all of the 23 from Pett Level in the east to Normans Bay in the west having been demolished, destroyed or lost to the sea.

At Pevensey Bay, we pass little shingle gardens full of lobster pots and driftwood sculptures and, in contrast, a huge, gleaming, white-walled, locked-gated complex that juts arrogantly out into the beach. We disturb a bumblebee and see our first two butterflies of spring.

A long line of multi-story apartment blocks looms out of the haze. Being an out of season weekday, there’s hardly a soul to be seen in Sovereign Harbour (apart from that pheasant). The place feels eerily abandoned and the repetitive square lines and blank windows seem to hold echoes of Prora - the huge Nazi-built holiday camp. It’s not the most pleasant thought, and I take it as a sign that it’s time for afternoon tea. We laze around on a big bench at the marina, watching shags diving for food, and stay for a bit longer to see a boat coming in through the lock. There’s no rush - the sun is still out, and our destination is just around the corner.

Back on the shoreline once more, Eastbourne finally reveals itself through the thickening haze. The sunlight hangs in silver curtains, producing ever-fainter layers of rooftops, church spires, high-rises and, barely visible, the South Downs. Looking back, there’s no sign of Hastings and only the faintest of smudges to indicate Bexhill - but I know they’re there, and I now I know that yes, I could walk the bay in a day.
De La Warr
Martello tower
Picture
Eastbourne in haze
Eastbourne pier

A shorter version of this article first appeared as "How long does it take to walk from pier to pier?" in the Battle Observer, Friday 20 March 2015, p59. If you're interested, you can do this walk as part of an organised challenge event in July.

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Do the March microadventure round-up jig

4/4/2015

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The March microadventure challenge was to explore a waterway. Here’s who got splishing and splashing!

Dip in the bay

Steph from No Award got in early this month with a post about her actual, water-related, awesome, real life job - where she sometimes gets paid to jump into Port Philip Bay (Melbourne, Australia). Read her post!

I get it, why all those space movies are filmed under the water for the imagery. It was incredible!

Riverside ramble

Clare, the Muddy Mum from Mud and Nettles, went on a ramble and geocaching adventure - she's in training for the Shotley Peninsula 50 (UK). Read her post!

Truthfully I was meant to be doing the grocery shopping but let’s face it, sneaking out for a mini adventure is much more fun!

Maribyrnong marathon

OK, it wasn't actually a marathon, but Nikki went for a run along the Maribyrnong River (Melbourne, Australia).

On March 8th, it was an overcast but pretty Melbourne morning, so I strapped on my running shoes and headed out from my house towards the Maribyrnong River, just west of Melbourne. It's a good 10.5km there and back, and the trail there also takes me along Moonee Ponds Creek, so I spent time at not one but two waterways!  

It was a fairly quiet morning, but good weather for birds, so I saw plenty of ducks,  and a couple of swans along the way, and the rowing club were darting up and down the river training.

On the return I was rewarded with a stunning view of Melbourne skyline.

Sea to source

Dan and I spent a day exploring the River Cuckmere from sea to source (East Sussex, UK). Read our post!

Overhead, willow catkins mark the start of spring. We rub them between our fingers and they feel soft, like warm summer air.

Wild swim? Wild paddle, really!

I also paddled across the River Babingley (Norfolk, UK).

Inspired by Roger Deakin’s excellent book about wild swimming, “Waterlog”, I dreamed up a plan of jumping into a river and completely submerging myself. The ice-cold water soon put paid to that foolish idea. I made a brief return journey across the stream in my undies and big jacket (sorry for inflicting the photo on you), then leapt out and dried off as quickly as I could!

Ride to a festival

Danni and Steph biked to the Port Fairy Folk Festival along the rail trail from Warrnambool and explored the seaside town between listening to music and eating tasty food (Victoria, Australia). Read Danni's post!

I wasn’t convinced this was the trail either except for the tiny signs on the gates, which required unlatching and relatching on each side. Turns out while you can unlatch and open a gate while on a bike, you can’t close and relatch it. Finally this then opened up into a dry swamp with quite a nice bridge before returning to degrading gravel again.

All aboard for the April challenge

This month, Steph has set our microadventure theme: matters relating to railways.

Steph suggests: "Investigate railways past and future. Follow an old rail line or railway map. Go train spotting. Ride a historic train, or ride a train to the end of the line." You could visit a rail museum,  find your city's lost stations, go on an epic train trip across Canada, Australia, Europe and Asia or India (probably only an option if you're flush), race a train between stations, find disused tunnels (sleep in them?), walk the underground overground, pop up and down a funicular railway or ride a miniature train . . . whatever takes your fancy!

Let Steph (or me) know what you get up to so you can be added to the end-of-April round up.
Australian fur seals
Australian Fur Seals (Steph)
Water and clouds
Along the river (Clare)
Water and city
View over the Maribyrnong (Nikki)
Red water
Rust-red Flitterbrook, tributary of the Cuckmere
Paddling in a river
Paddling in the very cold River Babingley
Bikes
Danni and Steph's bikes (Danni)
Mini railway
"Into The Unknown - Butlins Minehead 1976" by Barry Lewis

If you’re interested in overnight and wild camping microadventures, Martin has been going to the trouble of collating people’s posts each month. Here's his March round-up!

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