I’ve been following — and promoting — Ben’s walk through Spain this summer. Ben has given up work to concentrate on becoming a professional photographer. On his website now are a selection of photographs and the beginnings of a photo essay on the trip.

Well worth looking at these. I’m sure you’ll agree that Ben’s doing OK at matching up to his ambitions!

Ben Collins — Spain Adventures 2010

There are so many outdoor blogs now it’s difficult to keep up with them. Here’s a great one that I have missed out on for too long, Roman Dial’s blog — he’s the guy who did the Artic 100 trek/packraft a few years ago. Now planning a new trip. Worth checking out.

The Roaming Dials.

“TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, BASED IN ALASKA, BUT EXTENDING AROUND THE WORLD. ESSAYS, OCCASIONAL PHOTOS, AND SOMETIMES INFORMATION.”

Tomorrow morning — so long as Skype obliges — I shall be recording a chat with Colin Ibbotson about his recent trek along the Arizona Trail. I’ll be covering all the usual ground, but I wondered if any of you had any specific questions for Colin? Send them in and I’ll see if we have time to ask them.

Humph — don’t apologise for your obsessions

So who is this Farhad Assari who warrants a whole page of the Liberation summer section?

Assari is a street food vendor based in central Washington DC. He sells crepes. Last year it struck him that any food in the world could be stuck in the middle of a crepe! His business venture was born!

Each day Assari selects two sauces from around the world, one savoury and one sweet. The sauces are all home made and apparently stunningly good. You savoury might come from Europe, or India, the Middle East, or Vietnam or China — and so might your desert crepe.

At the beginning of the day Assari tweets that day’s selection so you can decide whether to stop by at lunchtime or not. Your lunchtime purchase includes both a savoury and sweet crepe.

The article featured mini interviews with many of those who are now stopping by at Farhad’s stand each day. Most agreed that this is a stunning idea and that they’d never eaten so well, and so fast, at lunchtime.

I’ve tried to find him on twitter and he’s there —but no tweets!

As for the breakfast. I was outside the Hotel Commercial in La Chåtre. A fine place for a gentle start to the day.

The Bingos are — of course — accompanied on their sing along tracks by a number of very enthusiastic Challengers.

So, here are Bingo Wings and the TGO Chorus !!!

The song is Dandy Warhol’s “Bohemian Like You’

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

Regular readers will no all about Bingo Wings — Bramear’s greatest Rock and Roll band. The Bingos were with us again on this year’s Challenge and — if it can be humanely possible — were even better.

Chatting to ‘Bingo Andy’ before the gig he told me that Braemar’s winter had lasted 6 months last year, much of which had seen the village buried in snow. How else to pass the long winter nights other than to practice your guitar solos!

Your intrepid reporter was there of course, recording machine in hand. I see from my site stats that people are still listening to last year’s sounds every day! So, for all you anonymous fans out there — here’s some of this year’s stuff.

 

First up —Bingo Wings and their version of The Strokes’ ‘Last Night’

 

 Bingo-1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dave Wood — or Red Yeti to his internet friends — has produced a book about his and Ulrika’s honeymoon, which helpfully for us took place on the GR5 long distance footpath through the Alps.

The book has been publicised through Lulu a service that I’m a little suspicious of and which regular remembers will remember I’ve had a brush with in the past.

The book retails through Lulu at £40.76. Apparently this price is fixed without Dave taking any markup! My Lulu suspicions are confirmed I think (try Cafepress as an alternative).

However, Dave has made the book available as a free download through Lulu. Well worth looking at. Be warned though, this is a big file and you’ll have to wait a while for it to download!

Dave and Ulrika have produced something that is a good read and which features lots of fantastic photos. And as befits a book about a French trail there’s also a lot about food and hospitality!

A great companion to Paddy Dillon’s Cicerone guide.

Well worth a read. You might just find yourself on this trail!

A GR5 honeymoon

Yet another good blog I’ve missed. This is from John the Shed Dweller — no I don’t know why!

Anyhow, this is an outdoor blog from the geeky gear stable.

John is a great guy and very funny. Worth following.

Shed Dweller’s Moments

Phil Turner’s blog has changed. There’s a new style (clean and simple) and a new name. Lightweight Outdoors. Phil’s is a blog to follow. As befits a young new-media-savy person there’’s multi media stuff here and some new projects.

I’m not sure what the Local Adventure Project is really about but Phil says:

“The aim of this project is to promote the experiences that don’t often get shown in the outdoors magazines, don’t necessarily feature a trig point, yet still provide a talking point at work on Monday.  Accounts of summiting Ben Nevis (or Scafell Pike, or  Snowdon etc etc) won’t feature – it’s a challenge, yes, but I intend to delve a little deeper, buy that dusty OS map of Basingstoke and experience the best of the outdoor challenges to be found on our doorsteps. This is the Local Adventure Project!”

It remains as enjoyably geeky as ever, if you like that kind of thing. I mean, there’s a video of him emptying his TGO pack. Riveting

Nice work Phil. Just hope this doesn’t fill up with all kinds of adverts!

lightweightoutdoors.com

I don’t know why I’ve missed Alastair’s site before but ti really is well worth looking at. I’m particularly fond of the winter walk across Scotland with a packraft!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alastairhumphreys/

Alastair also has some great video on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/alhumphreys