New Forest

I had booked a weekend away and Titch did not know where until she got in the car. She was delighted to learn that we were heading to the New Forest. After making good time we arrived at our bed and breakfast - the room was fantastic and it had the most comfortable bed in the world.

The forecast was for sun all weekend which was brilliant especially after all the rain the area had experienced lately.

Of course I had planned a few forest walks and one of them started down the road near Brockenhurst station. It led us towards a church with a large graveyard which had a huge memorial to NZ soldiers who died in WW1. Looking at the gravestones showed a lot of the soldiers were from Wellington. After a little bit of internet research it turns out the New Zealand World War 1 hospital was located in Brockenhurst - which I guess explains why the kiwi dead were buried here.

Soon after the church we had to leave the paved road as we headed down a bridle way. Mud Galore. My white trainers were shrieking in terror. After some nimble jumping and clinging to fences we managed to get past the worst of it. Throughout the day the mud posed various challenges and eventually we had to call of the walk due to a huge mud lake for about 100 meters just before the "Farm" on the map.

After retracing our steps and taking a few detours we managed to find a nice pub near Sandy Down and managed to have a quiet pint and sandwich in the glorious sunshine. After inspectecing my white trainers I decided that I had done miraculously well in keeping them clean. Good thing too as I had booked a surprise dinner for Titch at the Michelin starred Le Poussin restaurant at Whitley Ridge - I am sure the welcome would be anything but warm if we had mud caked shoes...

Whitley Ridge is quite grand and old, secluded in an isolated spot in the heart of the New Forest. The place oozes excellence and we would not be disappointed.

After being greeted we were escorted to the lounge where we enjoyed some fantastic canapés. After a short while we were led to one of the two small dinning areas.

I started with the Feuillete Of Roasted Scallop And Cep With Water Cress Salad and a Light Butter Sauce. While Titch went for the Winter Salad of Marinated Butternut Squash, wild Mushrooms & Baby Vegetables with a Truffle Dressing.

We treated ourselves to a bottle of the delightful Martinborough Pinot Noir "Te Tara" 2004 - Titch could only have a small glass and I limited myself to two small glasses as I had to drive. Shame.

I went for the MeadowBrook Sirloin raised in The Forest On Rich Clover And Rye, Water Meadow And Barley Soaked In Beer. Titch went for the Venison which was cooked to perfection.

Desert was delicious - Titch went for the Coffee & Chocolate option consisting of Valrhona Chocolate Fondant, Tiramisu, Sweet Potato Bark & Espresso Ice Cream. Whereas I made a move towards the Hot Passion Fruit Souffle With Passion Fruit Sorbet And Passion Fruit Curd.

Once desert was done we retired to the den where I then ordered a fine port - Churchill’s Vintage 1991. Fantastic drop to end the night with.

The next day we started a walk (Taken from the book entitled "Short walks from good pubs in the New Forest") at a small village called "Bank". As we pulled up we had the bizarre sensation that we had been here before - it turns out that this is the very pub that we stopped at for lunch many years ago; when a big group of us hired bikes and went cycling through the forest.

The walk was a short 3 miles and once finished we had a light lunch and a pint of beer (Ringswood Bitter) at the reminiscing pub...

We thought we would drive through the new forest and head up towards Stonehenge. I have driven past it so many times with barely a glance so I thought it deserved a visit (Especially as it might be one of the last opportunities I get before I leave the UK). The drive through the new forest was stunning - it really made a nice change from the sometimes drab views of London.

Arriving at Stonehenge we pulled into the carpark , as we approached the ticket booth I was under no illusion about the £12.60 that I was about to waste. As we walked through the tunnel under the road and came up next to Stonehenge I was not surprised to find that the view was just as good from the side of the road (cost £0.00).

You walk around a large circle with some rocks in the middle and then you leave - I guess all I can say is "Tick"...

Battersea Beer Festival

Would you believe it! No sooner have I sent two of the rarest beers in the world to New Zealand for Sam and Stu... I then attend the Battersea Beer Festival and there in the corner is one crate of Westveleteren 8 & 12 !!!!

At £8 each it would be rude not to! They did have a limit of one per person and they even managed to say "Do you realise how rare this is?" - No shit sherlock!

Will let my Westveleteren 12 settle for a few days and might just crack it open to celebrate my new flat in two weeks time....

Homeward Bound

I wish I was...

Well, I am. Titch and I have booked our one-way tickets to Wellington and we leave on the 10th December. It's still quite far away but with the baby born in July I am sure this year is going to fly.

No doubt we will find it hard to do everything that we want to before we finally leave Old Blighty!

Looking forward to Wellington - I love it.

Chamonix - Video

I have uploaded a "short" snowboarding mix of the recent trip to Chamonix... Check it

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=9806016905

Chamonix - Snow Report

I met Simon on the train at Clapham Junction and we made great time to the airport. We were the first people to check in and we then leisurely strolled through customs. Was disappointed to remember that there is no Starbucks at Gatwick South Terminal…

With the Youngs pub being refurnished we had no choice but to sit down for a quiet coffee. This was where we played our first hand of Euka. Simon lost and would continue to loose every time for the entire trip. I stopped counting after the score was 10-1.

Our Easy Jet flight was on time and we landed in Geneva – We tried to pick up our hire car but we were in the Switzerland part of the airport and we needed to be in the French part. Made our walk through some checkpoints and we eventually found our car.

Now in the past – I normally pickup and drive my car to Chamonix from Switzerland – when you pick the car up from France it’s a little bit tricky with the navigation… Long story short we took a motorway turn which pointed us towards Leon. If you look at a map Leon is in the direction of Chamonix from Geneva. Well, apparently you can go West or East to Leon! After about 30mins Hurtling down the motorway towards Paris we realised our mistake. We managed to turn around at a toll – the only consolation was it looked like we would not get charged a toll for the use of the magnificent French motorway. We were wrong here as well – its time based and we had to spend an unnecessary 19.10 euros.

We eventually arrived about 12:30am, found our minimalist apartment and bedded down for the night. The rental place opened at 8:15am and Simon would be there to greet them.

With all our gear sorted we made our way to “Brevent” – This ski resort sits on a plateau above Chamonix town. This resort is quite wide with rolling hills, fantastic resort to warm up on for the first day. We boarding from 9:30 – 4:00 with a short 30min lunch break. We were shattered at the end of the day but with La Tour beckoning the next day we set our alarms to 7:10 to ensure we hit the first lift at 8:30.

We drove the 15mins to the base of La Tour. We were in the parking lot getting our boots on when an attendant approached us and let us know that the gondola would not be running today. Not a problem for us as we had a car and were able to drive 15 mins around the mountain to a small town which also linked to La Tour (My Favorite in Europe). The good thing here is the Chamonix bus service would not come to this gondola – result being virtually the entire mountain to ourselves! Boooyyaaaa!

We were on the first lift of the day (Actually about 15 mins late – but not our fault). The runs in La Tour are so varied and the tree lined runs are truly spectacular to board on! The off-piste at the back of La Tour is truly incredible as you can basically go anywhere for what seems like miles and you always link up with a track further down. You have to see it to believe it. We found a nice area to practise our jumps and Simons first effort seemed to have him doing a double spin in the air before he hit the deck. We boarded from opening to closing and had no choice but to leave the mountain when they closed the lift on us.

At this point our bodies were in surprisingly good shape – although my back did start feeling the strain by the time we got back to our apartment. Out came the deep heat and I thankfully became blissfully ignorant of the pain.

The next day was the insanely hard Grand Montet (90% black runs) – we were there for (you guessed it) first lift. It is great feeling when pulling in to the empty carpark in the poor morning light – gazing up at this so imposing mountain! I love it.

We jumped on the Gondola and headed up – at the top we jumped on another Gondola and headed up again. When we reached a height of 3800 meters we strapped on our boards and attacked the mountain. We hurtled down, parallel to the gondola and quickly made our way to the mid station we then vered right and started our descent on the “Piera-Ric” – my favourite individual run in the Chamonix valley. This run hugs the cliff and descends all the way to the town of Argentiere. We then headed straight up the mountain again but this time taking a chair to the other side of the mountain.

After a few runs my back was starting to ache a lot and the pressure of holding the turns on the steep runs was starting to get me down. So we boarded down the Piera-Ric and headed over to La Tour for the afternoon. Once again – brilliant conditions and another long day.

On our final day we slept in and only made it to the mountain for a late 9:30am start – we headed to Brevent and for the first time on the trip we had clouds! By mid-afternoon you could barely see 5 feet in front of you! Not a problem though as our time was up and we had to return Simons gear and head back to Geneva.

This time we did not make a wrong turn in getting to the airport but we did try to check our car back in to the Swiss side of the airport instead of the French. After some bizarre directions we managed to find the correct location to return our car.

It was a brilliant short holiday and the boarding was fantastic! I have posted a few photos on Picassa Web Albums’.

http://picasaweb.google.com/richardgnz/Chamonix2008