Next Big Adventure...

On June 4, we said farewell to Ashlynn yet again. This time she was off to Namibia for six weeks. Normally we would have taken her to the airport, but she was travelling by train to Frankfurt to catch a direct flight to Namibia rather than having to take a connecting flight to avoid the risk of getting stuck in a RED country due to COVID. 

She spent two nights in a nice hostel in the capital city of Windhoek.

The first day she wandered into town to find some vegan food and happened upon a band, which she enjoyed listening to for hours. The following day, she had planned on going on an organized hike, but it was cancelled. Instead she went on a 11-mile hike on her own. 

The next day she caught a bus to Walvis Bay on the coast to start a five-week internship at Namibian Dolphin Project. Before she left for her trip, she’d declared that she was taking a break from social media (and somehow convinced herself that messaging her parents qualified as “social media”) and the universe delivered: her phone was stolen on the bus and her computer wouldn’t connect to WiFi. 

Luckily Antonia, her 40-year-old German roommate, hooked her up with a hotspot so she could update us weekly.

There was just one other intern, Eduardo from Spain. The three interns shared a very nice cottage with the staff members. They took turns helping to cook. 

Just eight days after arriving, Ashlynn experienced the most amazing moment of the trip: helping a stranded baby humpback whale.

Along with members of Ocean Conservation Namibia, the team spent four hours trying to coax the young whale back into Walvis Bay, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. 

Apparently these types of rescues are often unsuccessful...

…but this one worked! Here’s a video; don’t worry, it’s just four minutes rather than four hours.

 

Spring Days with Ashlynn...

The weather was incredible on June 2, so Ashlynn asked me to go with her to Vlietland. Clearly lots of others had the same idea...

...so we walked past the beach to find a quiet place for Ashlynn to go for a swim.

She was inspired by Veronica’s efforts to go wild swimming, but waited until the water was warmer to dive in.

That evening we went boating with Mish and Georgia.

Jimmy has done a great job of replacing the old moldy beanbag chairs with newer ones, which he covers in plastic to keep them dry.  

 

First Camping Trip of 2021...

Veronica and Brett’s first camping trip in 2021 began with a stop at Tunnel Beaches in Ilfracombe for some swimming in a natural tidal pool that has been a tourist attraction since the tunnels were carved into the cliffs in the 1820s.

I can’t stand cold water, but what an amazing location to go swimming. 

After swimming, they set off along on the South West Coast Path on a North Devon leg to find somewhere to camp. 

As much as Veronica loves cows, that night the cows truly scared her. These ones obviously came in peace, but later that night a group of around 40 cows stampeded. You can read more about the terrifying experience on their blog: Coves to Cliffs.

Sunset, before the cow incident... 

…and sunrise with the cows.

Veronica couldn’t resist swimming again the next day. 

Meanwhile in Devon...

Veronica and Brett were happy to finally get to go on their first long hike in 2021 on the South West Coast Path. It clearly was a beautiful day!

This was Veronica’s first wild swim in the beautiful blue waters of Devon after preparing herself for the cold water by swimming 19 times at Vlietland in Voorschoten. 

 

Back to Hashing...

At the end of May, Opee hared the first in-person trails in 2021 for both FILTH H3 and Amsterdam H3. We managed to talk Carlin and Kent into joining us for the FILTH in Leiden.

If you look closely, you can see that Opee actually took the time and effort to mark each stair up the steepest of Leiden’s new bridges. We had a small group that were willing to risk the weather, which held out for most of the trail. 

It was great that Strap Me Down was around to be able to join us for a great trail in Amsterdam Noord. 

There was quite a crowd of Hash Horrors, with Strap Me Down being the oldest and Just Dylan being the youngest. 

Along the trail, I spotted some interesting things, including anti-science messages on a minivan...

…a pro-broccoli poster (can you figure out the message without Google Translate?)...

…a random whale tail...

…a sweet mural...

…and some kids playing.

 

More Binnendieze...

I am finally home and all of our guests have left, so I hope to recommit my efforts in catching up on my blog...

…and so here are the final photos from our trip to Den Bosch in late May. This first set shows the Binnendieze (the inner Dieze River), consisting of the canals within the old city walls with some crazy low bridges.

While the train station looked modernish from the front...

...it was old and charming on the inside.