Lake District 2015

After the IRW rocket event, I went down to the Lake District for a couple of days walking in the hills.

On the first (half) day I did a quick trip to Aira Force, which is a bit touristy and famous, but it's somewhere I'd never been, despite going right past the car park several times on previous trips.

On day 2, I walked from the old sawmill almost by the edge of Bassenthwaite Lake (the only "lake" in the Lake District), up to the summit of Skiddaw.  The day started off beautifully, but then near the summit, rain showers would come and go. That meant that the last pitch up was basically in the rain cloud, and rather exposed.

Hmmm!  Shame there was no stunning view from the top of Skiddaw...

On day 3, I walked from Glenridding up past Greenside Mine (but on the other side of the river)...

Up to to Red Tarn, and from there took the side diversion to the summit of Catstycam...

Before tackling Swirral Edge (on the right) up to the summit of Helvellyn...

I had previously reached the summit of Helvellyn (from the YHA) by bike (OK, there was much carrying on the way up), via Raise, White Side, and Lower Man.

But this is looking back towards Catstycam and Ullswater from the top of Swirral Edge...

Did I really just climb up that?  It was more of a scramble than I had expected...

More pics on picasaweb/google+

Next time I shall try to reach the summit of Scafell Pike. I had pencilled that one in for this trip too, along with some other low level walks in case the weather was too bad, but there was not really enough time.

IRW 2015

For the first time in many many years I actually flew to the International Rocket Week, rather than catch the ferry. After the event I planned to visit the lake district for a few days walking.

Like last year, it appears that quadcopters were becoming more of a thing, this year with Phil trying to get a tri-copter with tilting yaw motor working. It crashed several times, broke many parts, but since the arms were 10mm x 10mm wood and the body just a couple of bits of ply, a trip to B+Q kept that running until the ESCs failed.

Up on the moor, the weather was fantastic, when we finally got there.

I didn't fly much, since I'd flown over and had no luggage space for rockets, so started to build an uprated Estes Big Daddy for higher power motors than intended. Since I had the original motor mount left over, I decided to make a spool rocket from it. It flies really well with a D12 motor (the original motor designed for the entire rocket!) despite looking totally unaerodynamic. Then I flew it with one of Phil's old Aerotech E30 motors. That seemed to warp in to another dimension, but was still found on landing and returned.

MTB Morzine 2015

This was mine and Phil's 2nd time mountain biking in Morzine, but Howard's first time. We returned to the same Chalet La Musardiere as before, and was happy to see that Carl and Sian were hosts again. Excellent hospitality, and ace food all week.

After a week mountainbiking before in Aviemore with a Harley Davidson festival at the same time, it was strange to be on our next trip in Morzine to also have another Harley festival! Nice bikes, and nice sound, but the noise does get a bit much after a while with several thousand Harleys seemingly just driving around for the purpose of making a noise!

Toto playing live in a free concert in town was the highlight of the week!


Phil's bike, Howard's bike and my bike getting a bit cosy at the top of Rochassons, probably while Howard checked out the Fantasticable death slide across the valley...

Long old ride up to Pointe des Mossettes... (the other end of the chairlift is in Switzerland)

That better not fall off...

After a long old slog uphill, in 35C heat, with no shade, no shelter, and only 1 spring/trough after the lunch stop, we finally made it to Col de Cou...

Mont Blanc...

RJD 2015

Another trip to Leipzig over one of several long weekends in May/June for the annual RJD rocket launch. I often do a couple of days cycling and then drop in on the RJD launch on the Saturday/Sunday. This year most of the flying was Saturday, with Sunday being a bit grey and breezy.

I didn't fly anything, but mostly took photos.

Frank and Ton racking up an impressive carbon fibre rocket...

On the pad (not quite) ready to fly... I'd do something with that igniter first...

Oooh nice! Redline motor...

I do believe that's not the proper way to land...

Looks like it's well buried, unfortunately...

Not sure that's going to polish out...

Cycling in Leipzig

Last year I did some MTBing not too far away in Poland and Czech Republic on the couple of days preceding the RJD rocket launch. This year I decided to do some road cycling instead. The ride was basically round one of the lakes just south of Leipzig, then back thru the city to the hotel.