Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Personal

Geoff’s travelling gadget bag!

I spent tonight shortening all my USB cables so that my electronics can pack away neatly.  In the past I have carried a rats nest of cables & Power Supplies with me.

The result of tonight’s endeavours is shown above. It’s now  below 2Kg including the Asus power supply, Garmin GPS, Olympus uTough camera, Eee 4G, rechargeable battery charger & iPhone.

Its always annoyed me that the Olympus cameras come with a separate power supply and cable rather than charging through their USB lead. Tonight, whilst shortening the camera lead I discovered that if I left the green & white wires disconnected then it would charge through the Eee USB port (OK you also need a complete cable to get the pics off).

On the Eee I have a nLite version of XP Pro (About 3GB in size) with GPS Trackmaker for downloading tracks of the Garmin, Picasa for downloading images of the camera and storing locally on a 16GB SD card. GPicSync ties the images to the gpx tracks. I also have MemoryMap with the whole of the UK at 50000:1 plus The Alps and Pyrenees 🙂 I run CCleaner very frequently to get rid of accumulated crap and keep about 600M free space. It also has iTunes so the iphone can charge and unlocked if anything goes wrong.

So the Thames Path will be the testing ground, at least I will be passing a lot ofelectronic stores if anything goes awry.

Following river courses to and from their sources!

Now the business & office is sold. The big house move is behind me
and my other house is renovated and let out it’s time to start
travelling!

Next week, after our weekend in The Cotswolds,  I’m rambling all 184 miles of The Thames Path from its source near Kemble to the Thames barrier, Sally will join me when she can.

In July I hope to cycle my bike back from Les Gets via the source of the Rhine in Reichenau, Switzerland to where it meets the North sea about 800miles!.

Then in October and November I hope to visit the source of The Yangtze  where it originates in a glacier lying on the west of Geladandong Mountain in the Dangla Mountain Range on the eastern part of the Tibetan plateau  although I don’t think I can cycle or walk its entire 3,915 miles!

Afterwards  after travelling by train overland to India. I intend to do the holy trail upto where The Ganges rises at the foot of Gangotri Glacier, at Gaumukh, at an elevation of 3,892 m (12,769 ft) Cathy thinks I should don all the traditional gear of the  Sannyasisi, since I’m over 50 vegetarian and bald 🙂

Should all be very interesting to see the major rivers of their respective countries, lets hope my stomach can take the strain.

Hunting Pingo’s in Norfolk

Today 10 of us set out, ably led by Ron & Margaret, on the Cambridge Rambling Club’s A team walk. It was a 40 mile trip from Cambridge to the start in Hockham Picnic site car park.

We were out to spot Pingo’s although according to Wikipedia they are actually collapsed Pingo’s although personally I kept thinking of Isla’s favourite cartoon pingu!

A very enjoyable walk with many April showers. Here is the walk on Everytrail:-

Hunting Pingo\’s in Norfolk

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Walking childhood memories around Creswell Crags

This weeks walk was a visit to my childhood adventure playground of The Welbeck and Clumber estates. After school in the 50’s when I was probably 8+, Stan and I would take off on our rickety bikes and charge around these grand country estates to be chased by gamekeepers and angry young lovers who we disturbed 🙂 We also explored the many tunnels on the Welbeck estate, later on I hung out with the guys who sailed Enterprises on the Welbeck lake plus we got to meet the grand old Duke himself once, a charming guy in his beat up Morris Minor!

This Sunday it was a far more sedate walk with Sally and Renata, I was pleased to see that Welbeck is as well fenced of as ever, although my guess is no kids now stray that far after school from Creswell! Creswell Crags is totally transformed, the sewage works installed in 1952 has disappeared to be replaced by an uber modern Cafe/museum/visitors centre that proudly proclaims folks have been visiting Creswell for 50,000 years 🙂  The only miners in Creswell now are young kids (minors) with all the safety kit on to explore the caves we once hung out in.

A very enjoyable day out traipsing on the newly laid red ash paths, ironically made from the ash created by the old pit tips burning with all the smoke/smell pollution we endured as kids. Renata did really well doing the 19 or so miles on her first ever long walk with no blisters or aches & pains. Sally had an enjoyable day out to, her first 15+ miles day of the year!

Here’s the walk with pictures of the many fine gate house lodges etc,

Clumber Park – Creswell Crags circular walk

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