QuoteWhat has been your most spectacular experience of physical geography?
The coast, the mountain, etc. that left you, as we say in the UK, "gobsmacked"?

This may stretch the definition of "geography" but I used to do a lot of rooftop stargazing with my then-best friend back in 2007-2008 right in between high school and college. I lived in the middle of a wooded forest at the time but there was a specific spot on the roof where the treetops were sparser that gave us a great view of the stars with very little artificial light to detract from the beauty. We would go up there just after sunset, throw on some Smashing Pumpkins and blaze up. I remember always being overwhelmed by the beauty of the night sky on those nights and it makes me miss being 18 and full of emotional wonder.

So I guess geographically it would just be on top of the house I was living in at the time. Just goes to show that seeing familiar places in different contexts can turn the mundane into the breathtakingly beautiful.

"stressed" is just "desserts" spelled backwards

Quote from: Guybrush on May 18, 2023, 10:29 AMHaving been to both England and Crete as well as other places in the Mediterranean, I concur 🙂

Driving up along the English south, I thought it would be the cliffs in the southeast that would make the biggest impression, but for us it was actually Cornwall, Dartmoor and New Forest that stood out the most.

I'm sure there's lots and lots more to see for us in England.

My cousins live down in Cornwall, I've been there once but I was too young to remember it. I remember I ate prawn crackers. I'd definitely like to go again, it's a unique place with real character and identity. Good if you like ice cream too.

Only God knows.

Quote from: jimmy jazz on May 17, 2023, 05:42 PMSometimes when I've been in the countryside in the Midlands I've thought some of you lot on here would really love to see it.

I used to speak to a Greek guy and he said when he came to England it was like entering heaven. He said it was so green and lush and cool it was nothing like where he was from (think it was Crete) he said it was pretty much scorching and dry and brown all the time.

I've never been to the Midlands, but I remember being struck by how green England was when I went to Castle Combe way down south.

This is what you want. This is what you get.

#78 May 21, 2023, 04:13 AM Last Edit: May 21, 2023, 04:18 AM by Lisnaholic
Yes, with some of the most attractive parts of Britain, it's easy to guess where Tolkien got his inspiration for The Shire from.

Thanks for the all interesting answers to the gobsmacking question; I like how they range from the genuinely spectacular to the acknowledgement that, in an appreciative mood, even modest achievements of geography are awe-inspiring.

My own experiences fall into the latter category: not the world's most fabulous, but very memorable to me:

i) Climbing to top of The Langdale Pikes: both of the knobbly tops in the middle of the pic. Height: 2,400 ft. (735m) in the Cumbria district of Northern England, I was there on a day very much like the photo, with clouds threatening from the exact same direction. They kept getting darker and closer, so we hurried down from the hills pretty fast. We got back to the valley, found a local bus, and were only in it about 3 mins when a torrential rain started up. Being inside and dry has never felt so good, before or since.



ii) My brush with the African Continent: during a sleepless night in Morocco, I climbed onto the roof of a hotel ; the only hotel in Amizmiz, a village in the Atlas Mountains. With no light pollution, it was rather like the sky that you describe, Mrs. Waffles, with a complete, clear and obvious Milky Way. About 4 a.m. the sound of insects was interupted by the hoofbeats of a donkey: a lone guy making his slow journey, because that day was market day in the village. Then I watched as the sun changed the sky and slowly painted these mountains pink: starting from the very top, and moving down their flanks until it was just ordinary daylight again:



On the topic of hills,

What is the highest altitude you have been at ? ( And, No, airplanes don't count!)


To get lost is to learn the way.



the annapurna base camp

me and an australian dude and his girlfriend actually went up a bit higher because he said it was safer to sleep at the high altitude if you were actually a little lower than your highest point

i used to think we reached 4500 meters which is higher than anything in the continental us but checking just now i don't think that's true but we were way the hell up there

all the honkeys had at least some sort of altitude sickness or at least some kind of mental weirdness- we were smoking weed on top of it - i remember this kid like 10-12 years old came up to us on the trek and was trying to make a buck - he said he could get batteries or new socks or gloves and someone asked him about weed - that someone ended up giving him a five dollar bill and the kid disappeared with it - we sat around resting and waited to see if he would come back and he did with like an ounce of decent buds with no baggie or anything he was just carrying it in his hands - the guy didn't even take all of it but it kept us all plenty high for the rest of the trek

but during the first night at the base camp this japanese dude - and he was plenty tough i had gotten to know him - he was traveling the world and told me about iran and how people hated americans there and he got arrested by the chinese government for going into some kind of forbidden zone in tibet but they kept in a nice hotel instead of a jail but he couldn't leave for 3 days - but he got altitude sickness during the night and really went into a panic and these nepali dudes were like listen dude we'll carry you to a lower elevation but it's not our favorite course of action in the dead of night so please try to get some deep breaths and calm down - he ended up managing to chill - listening to the interaction was a kind of unnerving

unlike the picture above the ground was covered in hard pack snow then - it was something to be in the snow that far south

it was also insane to be that high up and only half way to top of those mountains

the people there to actually climb to the top were a different breed for sure

they were loud and drinking like crazy, singing songs and spending lots of money buying rounds and dropping big tips - the nepali workers stayed at their beck and call



Probably in the Colorado Rockies past Denver on I-70. Something like 8000 feet at one point

The Word has spoken :D

Leadville, Colorado for me. It's the highest incorporated city in the United States.

This is what you want. This is what you get.

#82 May 21, 2023, 05:26 PM Last Edit: May 21, 2023, 05:30 PM by Lisnaholic
This question, more than most, cries out for a ranking, if that's ok with you guys: a not-serious competition which I'm sure TR will win:-

Annupurna base camp: 4, 130 m
Colorado Rockies: 2,438 m.
Leadville, Colorado: 1, 096 m

With repeat visits over about 7 winters, I got to know these villages in the Austrian Alps pretty well. Chairlift to the top of the main mountain took you to
1, 900 m. Sometimes very cold, very exposed on the last section, when you'd come into a zone of cross-winds that wasn't operating lower down the slopes.



I've also arrived in Mexico City by plane: it's technically higher, but because it had a warm, city environment, you don't get much sense of height. But the road south out of Mexico City rises to 2,400 m before going downhill for a long, long time. The descent is spectacular, especially for a Brit, I think. The bus goes downhill through huge hills: you reach what you think is the valley floor, and go horizontally for half an hour, before you realise that you've only arrived at the top of a new valley system, and down you go again. That repeats about 4 times, down and down and down in a way you just can't imagine in England.   

To get lost is to learn the way.

#83 May 21, 2023, 05:51 PM Last Edit: May 21, 2023, 05:59 PM by Lisnaholic
@ TR: That's very interesting to hear your first-hand account about the various strange people who end up at the base camp of a mountain. You bare out the impression I have gained from reading several mountaineering books: a kind of rough cameraderie between an international elite of cool people, but with some testosterone-fuelled rivalry not far below the surface. Is that how it felt to you?

Also, my interest in going to a height where you risk some possibly fatal health issues is about zero. I prefer to do serious mountaineering from an armchair. It's a lot more comfortable, though I once knocked over a cup of very hot tea and could've sustained a nasty burn. ;)

To get lost is to learn the way.

Highest mountain I've ever been to the top of is Mount Washington in New Hampshire...

Mount Washington



Highest elevation I've ever been is Westcliffe, Colorado...

Westcliffe, Colorado


Quote from: Lisnaholic on May 21, 2023, 05:51 PM@ TR: That's very interesting to hear your first-hand account about the various strange people who end up at the base camp of a mountain. You bare out the impression I have gained from reading several mountaineering books: a kind of rough cameraderie between an international elite of cool people, but with some testosterone-fuelled rivalry not far below the surface. Is that how it felt to you?

i met the people i was loosely hooked up with on the trek in pokhara, which is like a little resort town, i guess, in nepal

i mentioned before nepal was in a civil war so tourists were discouraged, but not forbidden, to do the trek alone

i was paying for the adventure with money i earned teaching english in korea and i was trying to latch on to these korean tourists who were making the trek because i wanted to practice my korean and i had hiked a lot in korea - so i was kind of into their hiking culture

but maybe they didn't trust me or i was harshing their mellow or whatever and i was in a bar talking with that australian dude telling him about it and he was like crikey just come with us mate - there were like ten loosely grouped people there - including the concert guitarist from seattle and a czech dude who spoke six languages and his swedish girlfriend

but i was the oldest and only like 28-29 but most of them were gap year kids whose parents were treating them to an around the world look at the world before paying for college

but even the difference between 18-19 and 28-29 was something physically but the swedish woman slowed them down a bit and that made it possible for me to keep up

they were kind of dicks to her letting her fall far enough behind to be completely out of sight so we kind of buddied-up

when i tried to talk to them about they needed to not leave her alone out there they said "slowing your pace is just as difficult as speeding up"

i was like ... ?

there were other females in our group but they were faster than me as well

the australian dude was the one who kind of decided we were a pack and he was super kind - honestly, i've always felt like australians are really good people in general

but to answer your question about the real climbers at the base camp  i actually didn't get to know any of them but i felt like comparatively they were rude to the nepali people but like i said they were dropping real bills which i'm sure meant more than my pleases and thankyous




#86 May 21, 2023, 08:25 PM Last Edit: May 21, 2023, 08:28 PM by jimmy jazz
Quote from: Lisnaholic on May 21, 2023, 04:13 AMYes, with some of the most attractive parts of Britain, it's easy to guess where Tolkien got his inspiration for The Shire from.

Was Birmingham (Lickey Hills, Moseley Bog and Sarehole Mill). Some of the places in the books exist in the city.

When I read The Hobbit I noticed things written in regional dialect. There are characters in it that are based on people from Birmingham as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampson_Gamgee

More info here - https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/nov/13/guided-walk-tolkien-original-shire-sarehole-birmingham-hobbiton

https://www.warm-welcome.co.uk/blog/tolkien-and-birmingham

There should be something to encourage tourists to come to these places, like a LOTR theme park or something but as far as I know we don't have anything like that but there is one in New Zealand. Seems a bit of a waste and a shame.

Only God knows.

#87 May 22, 2023, 01:47 AM Last Edit: May 22, 2023, 01:55 AM by Lisnaholic
^ That's all news to me, jimmy jazz ! I thought this link of yours was particularly interesting :-

https://www.warm-welcome.co.uk/blog/tolkien-and-birmingham

I'd always assumed that Tolkien's inspiration was just a more general rural Englishness, perhaps based on Oxfordshire. (I once drove past the house he lived in, on the outskirts of Oxford; actually, went past it several times as it was on the bus route into town.)

Quote from: Toy Revolver on May 21, 2023, 06:30 PMi met the people i was loosely hooked up with on the trek in pokhara, which is like a little resort town, i guess, in nepal

...and i was in a bar talking with that australian dude telling him about it and he was like crikey just come with us mate - there were like ten loosely grouped people there - including the concert guitarist from seattle and a czech dude who spoke six languages and his swedish girlfriend

but i was the oldest and only like 28-29 but most of them were gap year kids whose parents were treating them to an around the world look at the world before paying for college

but even the difference between 18-19 and 28-29 was something physically but the swedish woman slowed them down a bit and that made it possible for me to keep up

they were kind of dicks to her letting her fall far enough behind to be completely out of sight so we kind of buddied-up

when i tried to talk to them about they needed to not leave her alone out there they said "slowing your pace is just as difficult as speeding up"

i was like ... ?

there were other females in our group but they were faster than me as well

the australian dude was the one who kind of decided we were a pack and he was super kind - honestly, i've always felt like australians are really good people in general

but to answer your question about the real climbers at the base camp  i actually didn't get to know any of them but i felt like comparatively they were rude to the nepali people but like i said they were dropping real bills which i'm sure meant more than my pleases and thankyous

Yeah, it's funny how the social dynamics of a group of travellers work out then disintegrate as people go their separate ways again. A pair of characters I met by chance were examples of what A Koestler once described: "Some people in life are automatically led to the best table in the restaurant". They were two very cool Germans who acted like leaders and were accepted as such, as a few of us explored a city in Morocco, then all agreed to get a bus to the next city down the line. Hotel, street or restaurant, they would decide between themselves in German, then advise me and a few others in English that was clear, but shorn of nuance, "We go here": it could've been an order, a suggestion or an invitation, I never really worked out which. But they were nice guys and we hung around with them for a few days, impressed by the confidence with which one of them strode down the street brandishing an old-fashioned cane, and also by the quantity of cannabis that they once negotiated over. Only time in my life that I've seen slabs of the stuff the size of paperback books.

I also met Bill, an Australian who was quiet, carried a guitar with him, and played his own acoustic emo compositions, though that term was a long way from being coined. He was kind of on the edge of a group of more party-orientated Aussies who I think found him a bit of an embarrassment. About seven of us had met up at a Greek campsite when we were hired one day by the same farmer to pick oranges. So after a few days of working, we all rented a house together for about 6 weeks, getting up at dawn and piling into the back of a farmer's truck for a day in the orchards. Bill and I got on pretty well together, probably both thinking, "Here's another ineffectual whingey screw-up like me". :laughing: 

To get lost is to learn the way.

that all sounds really cool

i don't know if i'll ever travel abroad again but i have a fantasy of taking the bus all the way to mexico city and just see what happens




Quote from: Toy Revolver on May 22, 2023, 02:23 AMthat all sounds really cool

i don't know if i'll ever travel abroad again but i have a fantasy of taking the bus all the way to mexico city and just see what happens

Thanks, TR ! That bus trip would be a real adventure! The details in this song are a bit adrift for your circumstance, but you get the idea:

___________________________________________________

The Mechanics of Coming and Going

"There's a long-distance train, pulling through the rain.
Tears on the letter that I write."
Not all of us can write like Dylan, but many of us have had moments of travelling, arriving and departing that have stuck in our minds for one reason or another.

What have been your most memorable arrivals /departures?



To get lost is to learn the way.