I should get a chance to blog in more detail in time, but for now I just wanted to share a couple of nice clues I found in the light snow and ice I walked amongst.

The first photo shows the first snow I encountered on a climb out of the Vale of Ewyas. We are looking east in this picture, the only snow to have survived the thawing warmth of the day are the thin strips hiding in the shade on the south side of the path. This technique is analogous to the one using puddles on the south side of west-east tracks.

The sunlight can be seen lighting the hillside in the background and unsurprisingly there is little snow to be found there. It is only in the shadows that it survives on the lower slopes.

On reaching the ridge and the Offa’s Dyke Path, the snow and ice were a little more abundant. In the photos below, notice how there are lines in the ice, sculpted by the wind. These lines proved consistent over the local area.

As so often seems to be the case, a short stroll from the mainstream channels uncovered rough diamonds.

In the programme, an aerial shot showed us clearly visible patterns in the earth, patterns that were partly concealed at ground level by dense undergrowth. The narrator explained that we were looking at ‘geoglyphs’ in the Amazon rainforest. Geoglyphs are shapes that have been deliberately formed in the land by the hand of man.

Like many pilots, I have come to love the way it is possible in the air to spot patterns in the earth that are hard to notice on the ground. Lines that are lost in their surroundings on terra firma, stand out luminously from 3000 feet. But my experience has been restricted to European Iron Age Hill Forts and the like. This was definitely new territory.

In the Amazon there are ‘negative’ geoglyphs, formed by digging ditches, often up to 4m deep – ‘negative’ only in the sense that something has been removed. In other parts to the world there are positive geoglyphs where shapes are formed by building up from the ground, using stones or similar.

You can imagine that my ears pricked more than a little when the anthropologist being interviewed, explained that the hundreds of shapes they had found in the Amazon were mostly aligned north-south. A little light digging of my own revealed this to be a far-from isolated example, many of the worlds geoglyphs are aligned with the cardinal points.

This is definitely not coincidental. The most likely explanation for geoglyphs, even when the exact explanation is elusive – as in the Amazon, is that there is a religious/spiritual explanation for these mammoth land sculptures. Once more there is the temptation to ask the question: “How did these old and technologically-basic civilisations manage to create architecture on near-perfect north-south lines.” This question is quite natural, but it is to misunderstand one important part of the ancient world: the sky.

Historically, most divine worship has looked upwards and outwards at least a little. The sky forms part of many ancient cultures’ creeds. From here it is simply a case of realising that the way the sky appears to behave and the directions we know as north, south, east and west and just two sides of the same coin. Anyone who spends time admiring the patterns in the day and night sky will come to know north, south, east and west, even if they use different words, because these are labels for the changes we see in the sky. East and west are the average directions of sunrise and sunset, wherever you are in the world, and north and south are the anchors of the night sky – the only two places where the stars cease their restlestness, the world over.

In the picture above we are looking at a geoglyph called the Paracas Candalabra in Chile. It is aligned almost perfectly north-south and can be seen from miles out to sea. There are a few more very good examples of geoglyphs here.

A False Temptation

I cover the idea above from a similar angle in my book, The Natural Navigator:

“There is sometimes a temptation to think that this is all a remarkable coincidence: how extraordinary that the sun should happen to sit neatly on certain lines, like north or south, at certain times, or that it should happen to rise exactly east or set west at others. It is, however, a false temptation, because the cardinal directions and the motion of celestial objects, including the sun, are just different ways of looking at the same thing…”

The astronomical explanations for all of the above can be found in the simple, and yet rich and revealing, revolution of the Earth on its axis and its orbit around the sun. Geoglpyhs are aligned with respect to the axis of the Earth’s rotation. Not because its architects were aware of such a motion, but because the sky betrays it.

I’m just back from a week’s holiday with my wife on the Greek island of Kefalonia. It was our first holiday without the kids for about seven years, which felt bizarre from start to finish. This is the only, admittedly weak, excuse for the navigational lapse that ensued.

In Fiskardo, at the northern end of Kefalonia, we hired a small day-boat and spent many mornings motoring up and down the east coast of Kefalonia. We pursued the not very stressful business of hunting quiet bays and seeking secluded beaches for a swim.

On the fifth morning we putt-putted all the way round the northern Kefalonian coast to a beach at the northern tip of the island called, Dafnoudi beach.

We had spent almost all of the week on the east coast of the Kefalonia looking across the water, to the east, and seeing the beautiful Ithacan coastline.

After a quick swim at Dafnoudi we decided to head across to Ithaca, the land of Odysseus, and explore the beaches there. It was a little over 3 miles to the northern promontory of Ithaca, but I only know this now because I have researched it and I only researched it because we nearly didn’t get there. Yes, I know, there is a better order to researching journeys and undertaking them, but Greek islands have such a wicked way of mixing our ideas concerning being careless and being carefree.

Almost all small boat journeys in hired boats are done by line-of-sight navigation in these waters, from one landmark to the next. No proper charts, no compasses, no GPS. The distances are small and the visibility is usually pretty good.

On the late morning in question, the visibility was actually quite poor, a languid mist hugged the sea and the lower land. The photo above should give a fair taste of how the sea, land and sky like to merge a little in these conditions.

About five minutes after setting off two things in quick succession made me realise my massive and embarrassing mistake. The first was that I became subconsciously (through a feeling of unease) and then consciously aware that the sun was not where I was expecting it. I had grown used to seeing and feeling it dominate the southern half of the landscape as we pottered south, east and west. The only time we ever headed north for any serious time was when motoring back home from a foray to a southern beach.

The problem was that we were supposed to be heading east to Ithaca and yet the sun was nowhere to be seen. It should have been peeking below the canopy to my right and roasting my right cheek. It was not. What’s more I suddenly realised that I could feel it on the back of my neck.

This sudden dawning – I should say ‘near-middaying’ – made me scour the mist soaked land ahead with much keener interest than I had before. Then I saw a lighthouse where I was not expecting to see one.

‘Oh my God!’ I said out loud.

‘What’s wrong?’ My wife asked, with a voice that suggested that she did not want to know too many details if we were in serious danger.

‘We’re heading for completely the wrong island. We’re heading towards Lefkada!’

Lefkada is another neighbour of Kefalonia, but it is north of the island, not east, and at least another mile further away.

I corrected our course by a mere 100 degrees and half an hour later we were swimming on a beautiful deserted Ithacan beach. It was a bonus that this beach was deserted as I needed time to let my blushes subside.

This is a photo of a monkey puzzle tree that I have been growing in our greenhouse since early this year. I have taken it out of the greenhouse for better light for this photo. Greenhouses are great places to study the effect of sunlight on plant growth because all the wind effects are cancelled.

Now see if you can tell in which direction this photo was taken. Are we looking north, south, east or west?

Answer time…

In this photo we are looking west. The monkey puzzle tree has grown towards the southern light to the left, an effect known as ‘phototropism’.

‘That’s easy!’ I hear some of you cry, but I did warn you that this was a test of your powers of observation. What I did not tell you is there were two marks on offer.

Now be honest, did you spot the way there is more moss growing on the southern side of the soil too? The sunlight cannot reach the left, southern side of the soil because it is being blocked by the rim of the flowerpot. (Those of you already familiar with natural navigation will be aware that this is the same shading effect that leads to more puddles on the southern side of east-west tracks).

And no, before you ask, there is no bonus point for spotting that the chicken is aligned east-west in the background.

Finding South Using the Stars

In the northern hemisphere Polaris, the North Star, tends to get all the attention when it comes to finding direction using the stars. There is a good reason for this: it is easy to find and is very accurate. In the southern hemisphere the Southern Cross is used to find south and Polaris is not visible. But what about finding south in the northern hemisphere? The easiest thing is still to find Polaris and then look in the opposite direction, but what if we want a method that actually shows us south itself. Here is a nice simple and very unusual method that I invented a few years ago, which you can try this evening.

First you need to find the constellation Leo. It is a nice, big and easy to identify constellation which, unlike some constellations I can think of, looks at least a little bit like how you would hope it does: ie. like a lion. If you are struggling then tonight it will be about three extended fist-widths to the left of the moon. Having found Leo, next you need to find two little-known but beautifully named stars, Chertan and Zosma, that form the rump of the lion.

In the first image, Chertan is the star that has been ringed, and Zosma is the one directly above it. When Zosma appears directly above Chertan, as in this picture, you must be looking due South. Have a look as soon as the stars come out tonight.

Getting Advanced…

That is a nice, quick and simple method for using Leo to find south, but it does have one big drawback: it only works at certain times. I have devised a more advanced method for using Leo to find south that will work at any time and from anywhere that you can see Leo, but be warned this is a bit beyond beginner’s level so only read on if you are an experienced stargazer already or if you are up for a challenge!

We need the same two stars as before, Chertan and Zosma. Next what we do is extend a line from Zosma down to Chertan and keep it going until it hits the ground. If this is a vertical line, then, as we saw earlier, this will be due south. But most of the time these stars won’t form a perfect vertical line (they will wheel across the sky like the hand of a clock) and so what we need to do is continue their line to a point underground. The point underground needs to be the same angle below the horizon as your latitude. On the south coast of England my latitude is 50 degrees north and so I am interested in a point that is 50 degrees, (five extended fist widths) underground.

Wherever the extended line from Chertan and Zosma gets to this depth will be due south. All you need to do is find the point on your horizon that is vertically above this underground point and that will be due south.

Since you can find direction using Polaris in many more straightforward ways, this method is really just for fun, unless you are very unlucky and Leo is the only constellation that has not been obscured by cloud.

Why this method works:

Whenever we are using the stars to find north or south, we are looking for ways to find the north or south celestial poles, the two points in the night sky that are directly above the Earth’s North and South poles. If we look towards a point in the night sky that is above the north pole we must be looking due north. The same logic applies to the south celestial pole, but because we are in the northern hemisphere the south celestial pole is invisible, it is underground. But we can imagine where it might be and actually work out where it must be using the stars. The point on the horizon that is directly below the north celestial pole, ie. below Polaris, is due north and the point directly above the (underground) south celestial pole must be due south.

I took some photos of the results of my moon shadow stick, together with a perfect north-south line, which I will be using on my Beginner’s Guide to Natural Navigation courses. Yes, that is a bit of a tease, but those who come on the courses part with £105 and I make sure that it includes plenty of exclusive material, not least dozens of images that cannot be seen anywhere else.

As compensation, I have posted these photos that I also took yesterday, of snow clinging in long thin strips to the southeast side of the tall beech trees.

This Santa Fe Grande Chilli has ripened more quickly on its warmer, southern side. Another instance where my chilli plants have done their best to turn themselves into a natural compass.

This morning I enjoyed a view of Orion, Sirius, Leo, which has just marched ahead of the dawn sun now, and a few other players. I took this photo of Orion’s Sword hanging down to the left (eastern) side of a large beech tree and dangling down towards the south, as it does. The ‘smudge’ in the middle is the Great Nebula in Orion, also known less romantically as ‘M42′. It is a ‘stellar nursery’ where new stars are born. Would a more appropriate term not be a ‘stellar maternity ward’?

On a different subject, my best wishes and good luck to Kevin Shannon who is attempting a zero-emissions circumnavigation of the globe. He asked me for my thoughts, and here they are (co-posted on his blog too):

“Emerging Expeditions

I met Kevin at the Outdoors Show in Birmingham in March and remember our encounter well, which, considering that I met at least two thousand people in three days, must say something about Kevin and his unusual project. I am lucky in that my work allows me to cross paths with a wonderfully varied crowd. Some of the paths are on the ridges of windswept mountains and others run through the Birmingham NEC, but even with the variety that comes from walking through wildernesses and urban jungles, there was something about Kevin’s expedition that resonated, something that kept it in my mind.

Modern expeditions tend to strive for a ‘noteworthy audaciousness’: the fastest, the youngest, the first all-female team to reach… This is often driven by a need for sponsorship, but also, if we are honest it is because nobody likes to risk their life, or livelihood or even just their time and effort for something that may go entirely unnoticed. We all like to leave a mark of some sort. From the boldest adventurers to timid individuals, everyone lives in fear of their short time on this planet going completely unnoticed. Increasing numbers are choosing to battle this fear by throwing fear at it and there is vast range in the methods people are choosing. From racing to the North Pole to queuing at X-Factor auditions.

What I like about Kevin’s expedition is that its noteworthiness comes from stripping something away. In his case emissions have been stripped away, but I think this may prove to be part of a significant trend and I am not referring to the climate here. The expeditions of the future may strive for noteworthiness by embracing minimalism, not by adding bells and whistles. In time I think the minimalism may come to include the scale of the expedition itself, but it is not quite time for that yet. This is something that a man who has set out to circumnavigate the globe will be most aware of.

Good Luck Kevin!”

My thanks to Kevan Hubberd for sending in the idea about using Orion’s Sword as a way of finding south.

Orion’s Sword can be seen in the image to the left as the short vertical line of ‘stars’ under Orion’s Belt.

The Sword does indeed point to a spot on the horizon that is close to due south when the Sword is near vertical (as in this image), but it is a less dependable guide when it is well off-vertical, ie. when it is lower in the sky.

Technical bit for natural navigation zealots only: The reason that the Sword is more accurate when vertical is that it makes a line in the sky that is parallel to the line towards the south celestial pole. When vertical this line intersects with the horizon at a point very close to due south, but at times when the sword is closer to the horizon, ie. closer to east or west, then the point of intersection will also mover closer to east or west respectively. The extreme would be the moment when the sword rises in the east or sets in the west.

Bonus trivia: The Orion Nebula, a region of massive star formation, can be seen as the bright orange ball that forms the middle of the three ‘stars’ of the sword. NB. It is not the huge bright orange star to the top left, that is Orion’s shoulder and is called Betelgeuse or ‘Beetlejuice’, from the Arabic words for ‘giant’s shoulder’.

The heat seems to have abated a little, but the sun has left its great big footprints all over the countryside. The baked earth is cracked and fissures run along paths and the edges of the fields, more on the northern side than the southern.

The grass of our garden lawn is doing its best to betray both the sun’s arc and the motion of the trees’ shadows during the course of the day. The lawn is a patchwork of varying shades of green and brown, but it is not random and tells a story of heat and shade that is rooted in the direction of the sun.