Welcome!

When I was twelve, I decided to devote myself to being a Marine Zoologist. I wanted to travel on boats, and find myself looking at Earth from a different terrain. I researched all I could, I watched shows about marine life whilst making manic notes about algae and dolphins, and endlessly compiled lists of destinations I wanted to visit.

Now I am nineteen, and have recently moved across England to find adventure in Cornwall. I am studying English Literature and Geography at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus, endlessly compiling notes about place, landforms and literature, and see that all this time I have been an aspiring travel writer.

This is the story of my Universe day by day – where I go, how I see the world, and how each detail affects me. Maybe I’ll make you smile, maybe I’ll teach you something you never knew – or maybe I’ll teach you something you’ve known all along.

Travels through Time and Place: Sagada’s Hanging Coffins

The bustling town is hushed by the weight of today’s three hour trek to visit the hanging coffins. As small motors and bikes fly endlessly across the busy roads in a bizarre mishmash of colours, I am quiet and still, half-deafened by contemplation and knowing that I must think back to what Sagada was to understand what it has become. This is a town filled with stories, and not the usual ‘a dog pissed here and now we’re famous’ kind. Sagada seems ancient, wise and trembling with legends that reverberate through time and create schisms that silence the world of today.

Of course, the hanging coffins themselves are like a mask covering the real attraction they symbolise. Their rugged exterior is a portal that beckons immersion of oneself in the emotions and respect of a 2000 year old tradition suspended in time within the ageing wood nailed upon a cliff face. The noisy town of Sagada falls away behind you as you descend further into their past.

As we begin our trek, my group is led across a graveyard that shows no evidence of decay. The glaring white is a stark contrast against the dark green grass, and it sets a sombre, buzzing tone for our descent into Echo valley. I am immediately aware of the importance of death in this community, and it is unexpectedly refreshing. ‘Funerals are for the living’ is what I am told in England (though I have never been to one), and though this is a comforting thought, the traditions in Sagada show an understanding that though the funeral procession may be for the living, the respect and effort is for the dead.

After walking through a chill valley echoing with the morbid sounds of chopping wood, we reach the site of the hanging coffins. I am struck by the uncomfortable feeling of being almost too close to this culture’s past, and try to maintain a respectful distance from this scene that I am not entitled to reach out to fully. The tall, dead red-barked trees leaning on the cliff face, the resounding ‘CHUCK’ of an axe in the distance and the decorations that only family members and the people within the coffins can truly appreciate are all reminders that this is a truly interconnected process that bridges the gap between life and death, crumbling into one through a landscape that seems integrated within the culture itself. It belongs.

A common belief of this culture is that the bodies of the dead must be elevated to bring them closer to ancestral spirits, and this complements the fear of being buried beneath soil to become part of the rotting detritus, or worse – to be dug up again. The dead are placed on chairs, wrapped, covered with a blanket and smoked whilst left facing the main door of the home, and after paying respects the family carry them to the valley, smearing the dead’s blood on their faces in an age-old inheritance tradition that is said to give them the skills of the deceased. Within the coffins, the dead are in foetal positions, replicating the way that humans come into this world in a circular sign of life in death.

A woman tells me this story of ascent as we descend further into echo valley, knowing that our end goal is the furthest descent possible, within the dark karstic chambers of the Sumaguing Cave. This cycle of transition from exterior to interior, from light to dark, modern to ancient and life to death is the source of ancient cultural energy in Sagada.

Upon reaching the entrance of the cave at the Lumiang Burial Ground we are welcomed by more ancient coffins. Inside there is water flowing continuously across the slowly progressing limestone structures. The sound of it licking the rock surface is lit by our guide’s lamp in a motion that repeats its first illumination by firelight with the same fascination that I am experiencing, before Sagada’s culture had even begun.

Tracing The Scars of Glaciers

All photos courtesy of Tom Grant (apparently I was too in awe to take any…)

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about places I’ve visited in the past and which one had been my favourite. This was a question that – strangely enough – I hadn’t really considered before – I’m always focussing on where to go next, but after contemplating all the amazing places I’m lucky enough to have seen, Snowdonia seemed the right fit.

Snowdonia was – if you read the introduction to this blog – where I found my sense of adventure and my love for travel because it was here that I broke through boundaries I didn’t know I had set for myself. I found beauty in a landscape scarred by its own processes and was captivated by the idea that completely different ecosystems can coexist beside each other. I loved going from being on sunny dunes one day to being in the middle of a snowstorm climbing to the top of the Y Garn peak then staring up at the vast 1085m of Snowdon the next.

The Aberglaslyn Pass was one of the most interesting visits. This is a narrow, fast flowing gorge along the Afon Glaslyn river. It was the first real experience I’d had of a trek alongside a river channel, and following the course of water is something that I think teaches you a lot about Earth processes – they’re relentless.

The Afon Glaslyn has its source in Glaslyn – a tarn (lake) in the middle of a cirque formed by glacial erosion due to converging ice flows, and abrasion of bedrock due to rocks held within this ice. It terminates at Llyn Gwynant, which was a filming location for Lara Croft in 2003!

Walking along these rapids is one of the memories of this trip I cling to most – hearing nothing but the sound of rushing water in my ears was exhilarating, and I even found some rose quartz along the path! I had a lot of time on this walk to think about what I was doing in the middle of North Wales, and what I had achieved over the 5 days that I had been there, so the water really helped clear my rather dizzy 16 year old mind. It was the most purifying places I had ever had the pleasure to be and I wish I’d had the time to sit down and appreciate it for longer.

Another cirque we visited was Cwm Idwal, which is at the head of a glacially eroded hanging valley. The snow was lightly compacted but extremely thick, so we were waist-deep in snow for most of the journey around the beautiful and partially frozen Llyn Idwal. It was times like this on the trip that I would scream that I could not be a Geographer because nature was insane, yet I’ve found myself doing an English Literature and Geography degree a couple of years on because of these exact moments!

As I say in my video, it wasn’t just the natural environment that was so diverse – it was an age-old tradition of dedicated and proud local people that made this landscape so interesting. The farmers, council members and community action plan leaders we met were all particularly concerned about degradation of local environments, and expressed deep care about their culture and language. It was inspiring to hear of programmes like the Welsh Language Scheme in 2010, and to listen to the voices of people from a rather marginalised part of the UK raise awareness of the fact that this was an issue that they felt was of significant importance – and it is! Wales holds such beautiful folklore, stories and landscapes, and we should be doing everything we can to be aware of them and work with them to preserve their cultures.

The farm we visited was the epitome of this committed attitude to preservation – it had not only a beautifully preserved path to walk along with waterfalls and a link to The Watkin Path to Snowdon, but also showed amazing management techniques that made you appreciate the effort these people put in to protect not only their culture, but also the earth that they live on – a lesson that I think many of us should learn.

On one particular day we visited Llanberris, home of the Electric mountain – so called due to Dinorwig hydroelectric power station built within the Elidir Fawr on an abandoned quarry site. What made this town so interesting, however, was that this modern environmental technology was juxtaposed wonderfully against the tradition rack and pinion Snowdon Mountain Railway from 1896.

North Wales had so much to offer – a truly amazing landscape combined with idyllic settlements –  I saw so many amazing things and learnt so many new skills on this trip (I even learnt to ice climb!). It was exhausting but definitely one of the best experiences of my life. Everyone needs to find themselves at some point, and exposing yourself to the elements will push you to places within yourself that you wish you’d found sooner.

A Night of Adventure: The Doorstep Mile

What’s stopping you?

Within the past week I have come back from where I’ve been studying for around three months in a South Western cornish village university to home life back in a large, busy, brownish-grey South Eastern town. On Tuesday I went back to London and it was pretty disorienting. The tubes were packed, the museums were mostly empty and the streets were rainy and push-and-shove as always and you know what? I loved it. I love all of it. I love the hot air that circulates on tube lines even though it disturbs me more than a bit, I love spending hours reading the museum signs and pretending I work there, I love the feel of dashing through double doors before they slam shut and I love the count-downs on road crossings.

This city is another adventure for me – I’ve had a fair few but I want so much more.

That’s why I went to A Night of Adventure. This is a great annual event that’s been running for 5 years now. It was set up by a few ‘normal’ people and given first to a ‘rowdy’ South London pub to try to rouse wanderlust. Now it’s pretty huge, and this year worked with various companies including Wanderlust and Adventure Travel Film Festival. The charity underlying this event is the Hope and Homes For Children, and money raised funds their campaign to replace orphanages and institutes with more personal and caring family-oriented homes for children and help to get orphaned young adults started.

You should go. Even if you’re like Bilbo Baggins in his Hobbit-hole grumbling ‘No, no adventures today Gandalf’, you’ll find your rainboots and sense of adventure. Just like Bilbo you’ll come back and write all about it, tap into your memories and think how wonderful it all was, really. Bilbo Baggins was basically a travel writer is what I’m saying here.

TIPS FOR ASPIRING TRAVEL WRITERS

This is a shot in the dark, perhaps. Does anybody have any tips for aspiring travel writers? I’ve seen some lovely blogs and I would just like to gather some opinions on how to make travel writing innovative and ‘personalised’. I like the idea of really capturing the essence of a place and infusing writing about ‘normal’ places with a sense of discovery and adventure – how would you say this is achieved?

Comment below, even if you’re not a travel writer and you just have ideas!

Thank you!

A Brief Climb

The revolver clicks; turns once more and fires the only bullet.
I wait, expecting my mind to explode and something to end but it just
keeps
turning.

I’m falling down a yellow slide. I am five years old.
It would be fun to try to run down it instead but I fall
jump
grab hold of the arm of a tree above me
The wood cracks, the branch snaps and I fall further than I would have before I jumped.

I am eight years old. I slip on skates, hit ice harder than concrete and my arm snaps in two.

Breath in, feel the cogs come loose.
Breath out, surge forward
keep spinning.
Scream.

‘We will start our descent shortly after a brief climb. Please return to your seats.’

(I’m not usually morbid. I don’t know what happened. I’m studying Keats in English Lit at the moment and my lecturers become very morbid. I blame them. But I’m perfectly happy and content so it’s all good!)

Get Out

 

There was a day that left me wanting more. A day that gave my mind a new daydream. No – it was not purely down to the ‘pleasure’ of that day, it was not the rush of teenage rebellion. It was the brightest freedom. It was love of the best kinds. It was the prospect of living at least a few more days like this, of ridding myself of any negativity I didn’t know waited for me back in the town I’d spent my life in and taking with me a hope for tomorrow that I’d fallen so completely into – the perfect example of serendipity. 

That day I promised I would not settle for anything less than a life knowing him. That day I saw facets follow me across the water from where I stood. I found places alone, I travelled around a new land that I’d heard no stories of. I wasted no time, I got 4 hours sleep, stayed out until gone midnight, got the train to the beach to see the moon and returned on the last train ‘home’. It was easy to imagine returning to a real home – sometimes I wonder if that means anything.

No, life is not lived for money. A career is not what we strive for. When you stop thinking of such meaningless things you find what it is you seek. A life can be lived to love, to spend all day with someone you never want to lose and cherish every second – catching their eye every so often and each time seeing all you can do and all you have done in one feeling that rushes from the middle of your chest outwards, up to your crinkling eyes. You wonder if this is adrenaline, if this is the feeling you’re supposed to get on a roller-coaster, but that hormone also processes fear, and you realise that this is not fear – this is what The Lucky Ones get to feel.

You live to travel – to see a railway fall out from behind you, to see the ocean pass underneath you, to see clouds envelope your vessel, to see a road run out in front of you. To feel the air change and for your lungs to adapt to that foreign humidity. To see the sun burn through the sky and reach your dying skin.

You live to know what it is not to fear your emotions, to give them over to this one who will give you that day to shape all days upon. You live to admit how the world makes you feel, and scream to the ocean that you are in love with the way that thousand-piece puzzles of relentless hearts piece together to realise that they are one and the same. You are alive to feel the ocean breeze, to feel experience bubble up within you, and to know that this does not make you ‘intelligent’, ‘better’ than anybody or even ‘grown up’. This experience makes you more and more you, and is a constant reminder of your beautiful, fragile mortality.

Do not be afraid of the end. Do not fret the inevitability of time running out. Do not count the hours you have left, for there is no hourglass. Count the words you have spoken, count the faces and voices you have loved, the flowers you saw bloom, the clouds you saw traverse the globe. Somewhere there is a glass sphere and it contains all you have ever been – make it shine because you were made from stars.

I will not forget that day, when I was not once told ‘no’. It was the day I found many things, saw many worlds, pieced together a thousand-piece puzzle and promised to keep it safe. Not once have I recalled fearing what I was to become – in that day it couldn’t have mattered less. That is the feeling we live for and you don’t deserve to settle for anything less, my wonderful mortal – so full of wanderlust, so keen to seek sonder, so knowing of beauty in your eyes – you are always ready.

“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.”

 – Eleanor Roosevelt