The Desolation of Dawg.

As daylight fades in Le Vallée de Ger, haunted moans disturb the peace.

A tortured groan echoes across the valley, as if a great beast lies dying of terminal indigestion.

These sounds of dire distress last throughout the night, dispersed only by the late-coming morning sun.

What tortured soul makes these desolate cries? What foul misfortune has befallen some unfortunate beast?

As autumn falls each year, these sounds can be heard resonating around the Pyrénées. Surely no beast deserves such hell? All puny humans shelter in fear of what has befallen out in the lonely forests, bereft of all hope.

It is said by some that these forelorn sounds are actually those of rutting deer; their once yearly copulatory excesses leading them to vocalise their joy.

But we know better…

Faking it.

To fiddle or not to fiddle.

Coming to the end of an amazing holiday can be very sad. Loving photography changes that.

The week in Tanzania was awesome. Approaching the last day generated a mixture of longing for the holiday to never end, and anticipation for the first proper look at all those photos.

During the week I had looked at almost none of them. On return, it took some time to sort all 3,250 photos taken during that incredible week.

With some I was really pleased. Some of the scenery shots I love…

and the wildlife presented endless opportunities…

And so, feeling rather pleased with myself, I eagerly posted many of my favourites to Flickr, thinking that some would trigger a lot of feedback. My ego was not to be so easily pleased. Little interest was generated.

Somewhat disgruntled, I tried experimenting. ‘If they don’t like my normal photos, I’ll make one up’.

After spending a couple of minutes ‘gluing’ elephants to a scenery photo, I created something obviously faked. It instantly went viral.

My most popular photo ever; a complete fake. Ego withered, I tried a second attempt.

This one, too, went viral.

It’s a funny old world. I think I’ll try another one…

Fake? Nah….

And they say that the camera never lies.

Serengeti - the Endless Plain

Of Wallabies and Coconuts.

And so we flew east to the Serengeti (Swahili for ‘the endless plain’).

Our main aim here was to see the Mara crossing, where over two million wildebeest and zebra migrate to Kenya across the Mara river. Expectations were high. We chose the Serengeti Mobile Camp as it changed site depending on the migration.

When we were there, the migration was at its tail-end, having started early this year. Numbers crossing were low (although you wouldn’t think so looking at the photos). This disappointed the bloodthirsty French, as they were hoping to see the wildebeest decimated by crocodiles as we had done back in 2011 in the Massai Mara. As you will be aware, all Frenchmen are hunters, and get up early each morning to kill any local animal life. They then eat much of it raw for their breakfast.

French women also have their foibles. One of Annick’s is to blame me for everything, even when, occasionally, it is not my fault. One example of this is my hearing. When I do not hear what she says, she arranges a hearing test for me. When she cannot hear what I say, she says that it is because I mumble. Harrumph.

Well, this sorry state of affairs was exacerbated on this holiday by the presence of Caroline and Denis, who both speak English with an American/French accent. This, along with my (alleged) hearing problems, did, upon occasion, lead to some confusion.

On of their common mistakes was to pronounce ‘wildebeest’ as ‘wilder beast’. After repeated correction by myself, their pronunciation transmogrified into something that sounded to me like ‘wallabies’. Another tripping point was ‘crocodiles’ which often sounded like ‘coconuts’. Thus my confusion when they described their sadness at not seeing wallabies being killed by coconuts…

We saw a plethora of wildlife, from leopards sleeping and mating (not necessarily at the same time)…

Cheeta sleeping and not sleeping…

Lions sleeping…

Rhino hiding in bushes

Vultures doing…disgusting stuff…

And, well, so much that my camera nearly overheated.

Here' a link to my favourite photos from the Serengetti. (Flickr Album link)

Tarangire National Park

Tales of baby tigers and penguins.

We are on safari again, but this is no repeat journey, this is the real deal. Tanzania has more wildlife than you can shake a stick at, and I feel that we have seen most of it. in just one week.

This blog is somewhat delayed due to the complete lack of hi-tech communication suffered over the ten days abroad. I say ‘suffered’, but, in fact, it was bliss. No intruding phone calls, meals taken without everyone texting friends and playing angry birds. Peace in our time.

Tanzania; a first time visit for Annick and I, along with Caroline and Denis for whom it was a first ever safari. They are two lucky bustards! Ahem.

The safari trucks we used all week were the very latest Toyotas. Comfortable, spacious, designed for wildlife spotters and photographers in mind, with 240V charging points next to each seat.

From the airport pick-up at Kilimanjaro, we spent a couple of hours passing through the local towns, with instructions to keep our cameras out of sight to avoid the local down-and-outs. On reaching the Tarangire National Park, we were surrounded by all manner of timorous beasties. The density of wildlife here has to be seen to be believed.

Our guide in Tarangire was the endlessly ebullient Raymond. He was forever filling us with information (some good, some… not so good). When he started a sentence with 'latest research shows…’ we quickly learned that bull was soon to follow. Always the jocker.

He asked us what we wanted to see, and he would then attempt to comply. My quest, for instance, was to see leopard. On the very first evening he found one for us. Unfortunately, this was to prove all those months of eye surgery (to make my new bionic eyes) wasted.

“Ah, there’s a leopard!” He said.

“Where?” We cried.

“In that tree” he said.

“What tree?” I replied…

Even when we parked next to the aforementioned tree, we had real difficulty seeing the leopard, so effective was its camouflage. I took pictures and, on returning home, I enlarged, refined and photoshopped the images until, finally, I could see the bloody thing…

We were later to get much better, stunning sightings of leopards in the Serengeti, but for now, he had kept his promise.

You want Zebra? We got zebra (bums and all)

You want trees? Raymond could track 'em down…

Some of which contained a surprise…

You want romance? We got romance…

You want dental care? We got teeth…

We challenged him to find many different species. He succeeded with most, failing only at baby tigers and penguins (duh).

The sunsets kinda made up for it.

And so, after three incredible days in the Tarangire National Park, the great white hunters left for one of the most amazing places on this entire planet.

The Serengeti.


Here’s a link to all the best photos from the Tarangire National Park (link to a Fickr album)

Keep your eyes open for the next blog, 'The Serengeti - Tales of Wallabies and Coconuts’.

Invasion & the Weapon of Mass Destruction

A week in the Dordogne.

This week in the Dordogne was to be our first use of our motorhome in six years. You will discover the reason for this below…

Spending a week in the Dordogne has been something of an eye-opener. There are more foreigners than you can shake a stick at! Walking around the shops and markets, you can often here the sound of foreign tongues.

And the most common of them is…French.

Yes it is true, the French are attempting another invasion of that little part of Britain that is called the Dordogne.

Several times in history the French have tried, in vain, to enlarge their meagre lands. Richard the lion-heart went to great lengths to keep the Dordogne forever British. He built towers and castles all over the place.

The Frenchies also had a go at castle building, although they tended to be a little OTT.

After checking out several chateaux, we spent some time wandering around some local townships, content that, despite the influx of foreigners, the English language still reigns supreme…

In response to their lack of progress in conquering parts of mainland Europe that are forever British, they have unleashed their greatest weapon of mass destruction.

Bureaucracy.

This beast is a mighty one, and has had a deep affect on many Brits. Being faced with reams of paperwork for the most minor of transactions, can weaken ones resolve to live. Add to this that all such paperwork is in written French, a completely different language to spoken French, then it’s power becomes overwhelming.

Two examples.

A couple of weeks ago we had to sign for an appartment for Sophie. After half an hour of signing and initialling forms which were read out to us at incredible speed, my patience was wearing thin. At my fifth ‘is that all?’ request, our torturer looked up and grinned fiendishly. “Only one more Monsieur”. This 'one more’ involved hand copying 3 sheets of tightly typed French. This took me about forty minutes. The resulting mixture of squiggles and lines was totally incomprehensible, but has now been taken and filed away for posterity. My hand is still recovering.

Ludicrous maybe, but not a fraction on the ludicrous scale compared to the adventures with our motorhome. For its first four years in France, we kept up its MOT’s in the UK, thus keeping it insured. As this was way too much hassle, we decided to get it registered in France.

Simple?

Not.

After going through the process of assessing its conformity to French regulations (in itself a long and confusing process) we were told that the list of 20 odd problems would cost us at least €20,000 and then still may not conform?!?

We ditched the idea. Our treasured camping car was left to rust in front of our house.

After two years, we were close to dumping it, but decided to give it one more try. This time the garage in Toulouse that we had previously dealt with, suggested things would be easier this time as he was a drinking buddy of the guy running the local regulatory authority. We took the van too his mate for a 'once over’. This involved walking once around the van. He said that the tyres needed changing (they did not conform because they were measured in inches instead of centimetres. They were Michelin…) but nothing else was necessary! Dream on.

With some relief, we started the process. A process that took two years!

It did not stop with the tyres. After several 'just one more thing’ changes, the van was driven to Paris for its test for conformity. It failed. The hand brake was non-functional (it had just passed the equivalent of the MOT in France).

It returned to Toulouse in disgrace. It then went through a lot of work to try to get its handbrake up to requirements (the van is an automatic, thus rarely needs a handbrake). It then went to Bordeaux for the brakes to be tested. It failed. A bribe of €1,000 was given. It passed.

Having gone through all this, we then awaited the relevant paperwork. This took a further six months!!!

And so, after finally evading the behemoth of French bureaucracy, and at not inconsiderable cost, we finally set off for the Dordogne on its inaugural drive, a week in Little Britain.

Here are all the photos taken in the Dordogne:



and of the first day spent in Oradour-sur-glane (see previous post):

Doom and gloom

…and so, in an attempt to escape the low hovering over Montauban, we headed for the Dordogne. This cunning plan was designed to lift spirits, so in my quest for fulfilment I looked to my bucket list and saw with interest that one of the top items was a visit to a town nearby.

The town? Oradour-sur-Glane.

Those of you who know of this place may have realised that the only spirits likely to be raised there are those of the dead. On 10 June 1944 the German Waffen-SS encircled this town and killed everyone in it. 642 souls were massacred that day.

The men were herded into buildings and shot (190 died there), the women and 205 children were forced into the church where they were burned to death or shot.

A tram arrived in the town as the massacre was ending. Most on board were killed.

The town has been left exactly as it was found as a monument to those that died there that day.

Most of the nazis went onto be killed elsewhere in their retreat. Some did go to court for crimes against humanity. Many of them where French conscripted into the German army.

All were convicted. The French were later given pardons.

—

Next stop, somewhere more cheerful. Any bar will do…

Everything is awesome!

The last few months have been somewhat difficult, thus the refreshing lack of blogs recently. To try to shake off the ‘black dog’ we had a day out in a local amusement park called Walibi, where everything is awesome!

Awesome speeding cars…

Awesome gravity defying pirate ships…

Awesome spiral vomit machines…

Awesome flying firemen…

Awesome flying pee sprayers

and most awesome of all, the realisation of how relaxing home can be…

Sometimes…

Phil

Next week, the Dordogne!