A little bit of sunshine comes through the frosty fog
After a few clear days with frosty nights, the air was a little moister last night, so that the clear days are now. Moisture on frozen ground meant riding a bike would have been an unnecessary risk. Still, I was drawn outside. Even if it wasn’t snow, ice needles look good too.
Frosty side of the path with a frost-free layer in the grassA path into the nowhere. In Great Britain, paths sometimes run across fields. And since the trail isn’t used much, the crops on the trail are only slightly lower than next to it.Sloes and rosehips in the frost
After three hours I was in the warm again, which was especially nice for my feet. I haven’t worn my hiking boots on for a long time. Otherwise I had dressed warm enough, only the photo hand got a bit chilly from time to time.
A rainy, gray Sunday morning in the UK. Blue sky can be seen in the distance, but unfortunately that’s not my direction.
The last entry about England I complained about the drought. That has changed in the last few weeks, there is now often wet gray November weather. Although, even with some rain, for the ground we will still be in a drought for a few months (if average rainfall falls). But, thanks to southerly currents, it’s still quite warm, usually above 12°C. This makes cycling quite comfortable in the rain. My fellow cyclists didn’t see it that way, but I was in the mood to do something good for myself and so I set off on my own. After 30 minutes the worst of the rain was over and I was able to pack away my rain jacket 1.5 hours later. In the distance I even saw blue sky, but had no hope of reaching it. I found the variations in the clouds very nice to look at. It doesn’t come across so well in the panorama, but I uploaded it anyway.
360 degree panorama in the flat nowhere.A little later there was a gap in the clouds for me, the sun will come out in a few minutes.
There was one more downpour before I got home in glorious sunshine.
Light smog over Santa Cruz de La Palma (Canary Islands)
As part of a conference, I spent the afternoon on the Roque de Los Muchachos, visited at telescopes, waited for nightfall and only went back to the city after dark. We stopped again on the way down and had a good view over the west side of the island. Santa Cruz is brightly lit with the smaller villages in the background. The clouds were clearly visible due to the lights going upwards. While the lit town are beautiful to look at, they prevent us from seeing the beauty of the starry sky,negatively affect our sleep, and are also a big problem for wildlife (which in the end is a problem for humans too).
A few weeks ago I took the chance in more wooded areas than around my current residence to hike more through the forest again. And in autumn it’s also worth keeping your eyes open for food. There weren’t any blackberries, raspberries or blueberries, but there were plenty of mushrooms around. We didn’t want to take most of them with us, but in the end it was enough for a small meal.
Not so good, but nice looking mushroomsFairy ring, something I’ve never noticed before when looking for mushrooms. We didn’t touch these as well.Successful foragingAutumn view in the Ore Mountains. Strong colors are great.
I continue to do activities and take photos, but this means I have less time to write posts. And of course I work, which is nice but takes so much time :). This photo was recently taken on the way home, with fluffy and pastel clouds, lots of blue sky, pleasant temperatures and the smell of straw. The latter are difficult to capture in a photo, I hope you get an idea. In any case, I was happy and didn’t regret the bumpy path along the fields. The blackberries later were a nice bonus.
This was already the last overnight stay on our hike through northern Norway. Every day the hikes became easier, on the one hand because of the training and on the other hand we had less and less food to carry. We had planned well and still had enough left, so that we really feasted that evening.
A sun partially covered by the moon rises behind a sea of ​​clouds. View from Calar Alto, Spain
Nobody else in the group wanted to take over this observation run at Calar Alto, which started on January 2nd. I had to reschedule my New Year’s Eve a bit, but the partial solar eclipse that was taking place at the same time really interested me. And so I celebrated New Year’s Eve until 2 a.m., slept until 4 a.m. and then took the first train to the airport. I almost missed my transfer and was surprised how quickly the time in the warm waiting room had passed. At the check-in counter at the airport, they were thrilled that I was there, as the only other passenger had already checked in. And so I almost had a private flight from Frankfurt to Madrid. The next morning I went to Almeria in a normally occupied plane, so that I arrived at the observatory around noon. And at the end of the observation night I was able to enjoy an unusual sunrise. Or two, one left and one right. I think I slept really well afterwards.
A sun partially covered by the moon rises behind a sea of ​​clouds. Without a solar filter, the sun is very bright despite the partial coverage. View from Calar Alto, Spain
Looking back to Santa Cruz de La Palma, this bike tour started there a few hours ago.
After I had been able to adapt my fitness to the landscape of La Palma by cycling for a month, I dared the big challenge of cycling towards the summit. However relaxed, I just wanted to see how far I could get. At 2000 meters I made a short excursion on foot towards Las Nieves, which gave the other muscles some rest. I think it was good that you could also see the stretch on foot based on the low speed in the profile below, so I wasn’t that slow uphill on my bike. The hardest part was after the tree line. Psychologically it felt like I was almost there, but then it’s another 4 km uphill. It is also annoying that you have to go down a bit before you can reach the summit, although the rest is also pleasant. In any case, it was a great feeling to have arrived at the top. And of course the trip back to the sea was great. As a cyclist you can even overtake cars.
Later I rode my bicycle up the mountain twice more for work before too many visits from friends and family meant I couldn’t find the time to keep that level of cycle fitness up anymore. However, thanks to the visits, I was able to explore many other things and enjoyed the time with them.
Different layers of volcanic eruptions. Colored ash and layers of lava flows.Elevation profile (red) and speed profile (green) of my bicycle tour.Geographic map using the STRM data with my route, created with https://github.com/ronnyerrmann/cycle_logging. The white patches are areas where the landscape is so steep that no reasonable elevation information is available.
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