Loading search...
At 4.30am I was slumped on a cold steel bench in Terminal 5 at Heathrow idly observing a fellow early bird drape his long form in corrugations across the intervening armrests. By mid-morning I was bowling along an open road in Sweden with a small, disparate group of other hopefuls on my way to Vargas Wilderness Centre. That’s how easy it was.
The summer days in Arctic Finland were certainly not without their pleasures. The hours passed swiftly by as we scanned the pristine lakes for birds, munched contentedly on reindeer stew, paddled in crystal clear waters and walked through pure forest to the Russian border, where a Golden Eagle swooped dramatically in front of our group.
'My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!'
(Quote taken from 'The Windhover' by Gerard Manley Hopkins)
They have a saying in Africa: ‘You come with rain, you are a lucky person’. After 31 hours of travelling from the North of Scotland to the depths of the Okavango Delta I had just sunk gratefully onto one of the camp chairs round the table in the open-sided mess tent, a glass of cool G&T in hand, happily slurping, when a sudden local storm whipped up in the clearing before us.
Back in December I suggested to my brother Ken that we take our annual 'winter break' on a cruise along the Norwegian coast. In recent years we have indulged in a little seasonal migration around February - to escape the English winter and pursue various interests. Noticing the temperatures in northern Norway in February, Ken did not seem terribly enthusiastic.
