Stormy weather ahead.
The last vestiges of light were visible in the opalescent sky. Shortly after this shot was taken, the heavens opened and the rain did not stop for the next two days.
Believe it or not, this was taken on a very popular beach in Devon, just at a very unpopular time (i.e. moments before a torrential rain storm). Definitely worth it!
This weekend, I went for a walk with my family in a place called Bukit Brown Cemetery. It is a secluded, overgrown graveyard in Singapore. It is unique in that you are in the middle of a metropolis that is Singapore but be standing in the solitude of a rainforest.
Bukit Brown Cemetery is also known to the local community as Kopi Sua or Coffee Hill. It is a Chinese cemetery, established in the early 20th Century and was the biggest Chinese graveyard outside China. The cemetery was named after its first owner, George Henry Brown, who was a ship owner and arrived in Singapore from Calcutta in the 1840s. He bought the area and named it Mount Pleasant.
As I wondered around this oasis of nature and calmness, it was very distressing to see all the construction work underway, something very common in Singapore. The issue here is that Bukit Brown Cemetery is slowly but sure being sacrificed to the god of progress. Large swathes of land have already been dug up and this beautify setting will soon be replaced by suburbia, concrete and glass.
In a place like Singapore, where such places are rare and revered, it is a shame that such a tranquil and spiritual place is being ruined to make way for apartments and the MRT (underground system).
If you are keen to see this wonderful place before it disappears forever, you can find it located between Lornie Road and Mount Pleasant Road, off Sime Road and Kheam Hock Road.
For further information about Bukit Brown Cemetery, here are some links, including a site to help save it from extinction:
1) Information about the cemetery: http://bukitbrown.com/main/
2) Save the cemetery site: https://sosbukitbrown.wordpress.com/
3) Preserving the history of Bukit Brown: http://www.bukitbrown.info/
In the mountains of Peru, on the road to nowhere, I stood with a friend, surveying the eerie landscape in solitude. We ended up trekking up to 5000m and walking on the glacier you can see in the distance a couple of hours later, when the clouds cleared and the sun bathed the landscape.
I have fond memories of walking up to the glacier above, undaunted by altitude sickness or concerned with the cold. My companion had to remind me that a T shirt at that altitude and level of cold was not in keeping with an efficient circulation.
I will always have fond recollections of the mountains o South America, with Peru, Bolivia and Chile in particular. All were familiar but unique in their own special way.
Bizarrely, both images above is about the size of my negative (6cm x 12cm).
I think I have decided upon where I am going to journey this summer. Although I love Iceland and would love to circumnavigate the island, my original desire to cycle to Nordkapp is captivating me more. I love the idea of travelling through Europe’s last true wilderness.
Due to the nature of where I intend to go, it will be necessary for me to wild camp on a regular basis. To this end, I have been looking further into what treats may lay ahead for me if I pursue this course. As I delve deeper into researching my route through Scandinavia, I have started to uncover something that I had not contemplated before, dangerous animals. It was actually in conversation with a Swedish friend last night that alerted me to the perils that I might encounter on the road. The list runs from nuisances, such as mosquitoes hordes, which are particularly prevalent in the north during the summer. Although they are most active around dawn and sunset, I will be north of the Arctic Circle for a couple of weeks, truly in the land of the Midnight Sun. So, this means that if I camp along the way, I am likely to be under attack most of the night.
Other insects that may provide me with issues are Gadflies, with painful but mercifully non-poisonous bites. In addition, Sweden is home to large plagues of wasps, so I will need to be careful with any foodstuffs that may attract them. A more serious issue will be ticks, widespread in southern Sweden and northern coastal regions. Ticks can transmit Lyme’s disease and more serious TBE (tick-borne encephalitis) through a bite. I have the choice of either staying inland with the mosquitoes or on the east coast with the ticks. Tough choice…
Sweden does have a venomous snake, the European adder. Fortunately, the snake is not very common, although ubiquitous throughout Sweden except for the north.
Then there are the top two mammals on the bloc; the brown bear and the wolf. This worried me considerably as I will be headed through the areas where both species are most commonly located. I did take solace in the fact that bears in Sweden have killed no more than a handful of people since 1900 and that wolves have not killed a human being since 1821. This information was marred by the accompanying caveat of how to deal with a bear encounter in the woods. Evidently, the done thing is to walk slowly away from it whilst talking loudly. This I could probably muster. The tough bit is what to do in the event of a bear attack; the answer, to play dead, protect your head and make yourself as small as possible. However, once could adopted the opposite approach and start screaming as loud as possible at the creature, jumping and making oneself as large as possible. Always a worry to be presented with such conflicting options.
I just read an article that brown bears mate between May and June. During this period bears are active both at night and during daylight hours. Young males are searching for females at this time and cover long distances in their search, while last year’s cubs are making their first independent forays into the world. I am likely to be on the road towards the end of this period, so I will be vigilant.
To round up then, I will have to be acutely aware of various animals including the brown bear, wolf, moose, wolverine, lynx, the very rare Arctic fox, reindeer and perhaps even the golden eagle. Don’t misunderstand me, I’d love to see all of these animals, just from a safe distance and not whilst trying to sleep in my tent, completely along in the absolute middle of nowhere. Then, I may take issue with such beasties dropping by for a snack, which could ultimately turn out to be me!
Putting all of this jeopardy to one side, one of the truly exciting parts of the expedition will be once I reach Lapland, or Sápmi, on the northern side of the Arctic Circle. Here lies the ancestral home of the Sámi, or Lapps, indigenous people of the region. The Sámi people are among the largest indigenous ethnic groups in Europe. They are renowned for tended their herds of hardy reindeer for millennia. I aim to visit an old Sámi settlement to find out more about their culture and way of life. I may even succumb to the touristy urge to stay in a traditional Sámi tepee. It should all make for some stunning photography.
All Terrain Photography 