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.

It was a fun afternoon, especially as I got to watch Tim and Laura’s face expressions as they grappled with such fun concepts as ‘How to find the south celestial pole from a field in West Sussex.’ Well, they did ask!

My main reason for posting is to let you know about Tim’s work. He runs ‘The Next Challenge‘, which offers advice, research and logistical support for those who are planning their own expeditions. He’s currently helping Sarah Outen in this capacity, as she powers herself around the globe. Looks to me like Tim is the go-to-guy to help anyone get over that small mountain that always lies between the crazy idea that brings the first smile and the grin that goes with aching muscles.

For those who prefer to find reasons not to go on that adventure, avoid Tim’s website as it will make it that little bit harder to put it off!

In the picture above, Tim and Laura are getting to grips with ‘Toby’s Stone’ on Bignor Hill and sensing small temperature differences even on a cloudy, windy day like yesterday.

Congratulations Tim and Laura and may your other friends not stitch you up so generously!

The question is, is this a coincidence or the cause?

Please could anyone pass on any observations they have of leaning telegraph poles and together we may be able to forge a new technique.

Very often there is undergrowth on each side of a path, sheltering one side of them from the sun’s drying rays, but their exposure to and shelter from wind also sets them apart. This can be seen most clearly when snow or frost is thawing. The path will either thaw first, or, as in this picture which I took about ten days ago, they hold onto their snow for longer.

As I mention in the book, this is something that can be of value when walking at night. If the path is big, bold and broad like this one (an old Roman road) then no help is needed in following a path at night, but if you are following one of those less clearly defined snakes in the grass then all help will be welcome. It is possible to follow one of those shy, half-concealed paths – you know the ones that flirt with the idea of being an animal track and not a human path at all – more easily by enlisting the senses of touch and hearing at night. The difference between the crisp crunch of breaking frozen flattened grass is hard to mistake with that of the thawed longer grass on either side, even if the two may occasionally look similar.

Marcus is sculpting a series of ‘tidal bells’ that will ring out at high tide around the country. There is no mention of springs or neaps in the article, so I’m presuming the bells are being placed low enough to ring at a neap tide (the narrowest range between high and low).

In the book I touch on the fact that humans have become very adept at approximating tidal behaviour, but it is still impossible to predict tidal times or heights with absolute precision. The tides are influenced by the orbits of the Moon about the Earth of course, but also very significantly by the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, which fewer people realise. These are the factors that are relatively easy to predict. The effects of wind, air pressure, temperature and the motion of the previous tide’s water are harder to predict and this chain continues almost all the way down down to the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Australia.

Technical challenges of predicting tides aside – these bells are not being designed to replace Caesium clocks in laboratories – it is a beautiful concept and I can’t wait to hear a bell ring out. Regular blog readers will know that I get an intense pleasure whenever creative works embrace the natural world and this is accentuated when there is a navigational connection. My thanks to Angela Williams for bringing my attention to the story and best of luck to Marcus in his work.

The conditions were perfect, I could feel the summer heat rising up off the dust and sand and, had I been a snake myself, I would certainly have availed myself of the opportunity to do some serious basking. But sadly I met none and returned home without having dodged any venomous fangs, knowingly at least.

I did however come across a small stagnant pond that acted as a good compass. The water in its southwestern corner was clear, but in the northeastern end it was covered in a thick layer of dust, and fragments from broken twigs, leaves. The wind of the past week had marshalled all the particles floating on the surface into the leeward corner.

I landed back at Gatwick last night following an accidental visit to Tenerife.

The wind has been my friend on so many occasions recently, a dependable breeze helping me on my way through the woods or the clouds scudding overhead pointing the way home. It was probably time that it reminded me that it is not just in the business of helping me on my walks.

The plan was simple: I wanted to use a one week gap in the diary to get out to one of the wildest spots within five hours of home to do some natural navigation research. Days one to six went well as I walked, mainly without reference to map, compass or GPS (all were within reach), around the dramatic volcanic landscapes of La Palma in the Canary Islands. More details to follow here over the coming weeks, including photos of the incredible ‘Caldera de Taburiente‘.

Day 7 came and it was time to go home. Unfortunately the skies were in a real grump. I took this photo of a fearsome cumulonimbus cloud from La Palma airport about an hour before we were due to take off for Gatwick on Monday. The crosswinds reached 50 knots and our aircraft wasn’t able to get in to pick us up, it was forced to divert to Tenerife.

It felt like the air was trying to suck us all off the island and into a vortex. The sea near to the base of the cloud was being ripped at and whipped into whirls of spray and foam. (I thought it looked a bad place to go sailing and then remembered that I had sailed through that exact patch of water two years and two months earlier. I was fortunate that the weather was kinder on that occasion.)

A small delay became a big one. We all ended up waking at 3.30am on Wednesday morning to catch a ferry over to Tenerife to catch the same aircraft home from there.

I’ve got a letter apologising for the ’46 hour 17 minute’ delay. It was worth it, as the photos will show.

06:00 (Tue)

• Clear Sky
• Temp: 0°C 32°F
• Sunrise: 07:43

• Wind: N 7mph 11km/h
• Hum: 96%
• Press: 1012mB
• Vis: Moderate
• I have just copied this weather forecast for tomorrow morning from the BBC website. When I stepped outside this morning the low temperature made me instantly question the wind direction. Today it has been from the northeast and it is forecast to back to north overnight. When there is a dramatic drop in temperature in the UK it is often a clue that the wind is coming from the quarter between north and east.

We made our way out into the harbour and at times it was hard to hear each other speaking as the wind whistled past our ears. After an hour I decided that we ought to swallow our pride and return to the marina and postpone the trip to Cowes. The final straw was the fact that the engine was struggling to move the boat above 2 knots into wind, which did not bode well. The wind was from the west, the direction we wanted to head and it would have been a merciless and exhausting six hours of tacking at best, when the tide turned we would make no progress for our efforts either. None of my friends had ever sailed in those conditions before and I decided that it wasn’t the day to introduce them to such joys. It had the potential to go badly pear-shaped. Instead we moored up, swapped our soft-soled shoes for boots and headed off in the Land Rover for a very pleasant walk in the South Downs. We still got plenty of fresh air, just a little less brine in it than originally planned.