http://mcgresty.com/index.html Wildlife as it happens en Sun, 05 Jan 2025 13:51:32 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/back-in-tangier-again.html While the sun was nice and hot, the rest of my time in Agadir was very poor electricity which finally blew out and would not work for more than about 20 minutes. Then the useless taxis messing me about so I could not get to the national park where the flamingos and other wildlife were. I walked out and headed back to Tangier. Tue, 31 Dec 2024 19:22:23 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/back-in-tangier-again.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/winter-on-the-edge-of-the-sahara.html January and February 2024 were spent in Tangier. I wrote two books, yet to be published, did a few wander abouts finding some interesting places and people. Winter in London was on the way with me being fed up and tired of the cold wet weather decided to spend winter in Agadir, Morocco, on the western edge of the Sahara Desert where it is a lot warmer. The sun is higher here, so all I wear when out is a t-shirt. A room was found to stay as a first step. It was in Charaff in the northeast of the city. Sat, 21 Dec 2024 11:30:15 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/winter-on-the-edge-of-the-sahara.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/5-reasons-for-traveling-light.html Some people travel light because they want to, I do so because I have to. Being hit by a van many years ago resulted in a serious spinal injury and my doctor said that what I carry on my back must be around ten pounds. After lugging an eighteen pound pack this year has taken it's toll, so set about losing the weight, you can too. Tue, 03 Dec 2024 11:12:14 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/5-reasons-for-traveling-light.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/thirteen-years.html I sat on my balcony, filled up my pipe and had a smoke. Some blog software for a Hewlett Packard data handling pitch had just been finished and was wondering what can I do with myself. The apartment I lived in was near the end of a street on a T-junction. The main road people used mainly to go into the center of London, many miles away. Hiking around in the countryside had become boring and with winter not far off something was needed to stop me going stir crazy. A couple of good puff's smoke cleared away just as this guy with a fair sized backpack crossed the end of my road, probably heading for the train station about a hundred yards further on. My thoughts were about his possible destination, maybe he was going to somewhere totally different, where it was not cold with snow forecast. Fri, 01 Nov 2024 02:06:20 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/thirteen-years.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/the-ruins.html The day was extremely windy as I went for a walk eastward from where I was staying while in Morocco earlier this year. A good two miles down the road I ran across this ruin and went over the very uneven ground battling thirty to fifty mph gusts of wind. Tue, 01 Oct 2024 13:32:35 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/the-ruins.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/macedonian-mess.html In May 2024 I spent a few days in the Isle of Man, where I was born. My trip to Pamplona had already been booked, via Madrid and train from there. Most of you know that booking flights well ahead can save you a lot of money, so I needed somewhere outside of Europe before my time there expired. It was one of those spur of the moment things and Skopje, North Macedonia looked the most likely. Trouble is most airlines websites kept breaking and a local travel agent did it all for me. Three months in Macedonia followed by winter in Agadir, Morocco were booked for a very decent price. Mon, 09 Sep 2024 09:27:11 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/macedonian-mess.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/a-reality-check.html Many people nowadays are used to backpacks and many do their traveling with one, but it wasn't always like that. When young, I didn't even know they existed, I used small suitcases. My first pack was a dirt cheap thing I bought in the Mission District of San Francisco back in 1968. I was twenty two years old, just finished four years in the US Air Force and took off. A lot has happened since then. Mon, 02 Sep 2024 18:44:47 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/a-reality-check.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/orkoien.html Summer of 2024 say me losing out on a lot of places because buses had been dropped to many small towns. Some I could get there from San Sebastian which meant train to the city, stay the night for 200-400 Euros per night so it was just not worth it. There are some towns I can go to from the intercity bus station and also Pamplona's local bus service. Here is one of them. Sun, 25 Aug 2024 11:30:13 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/orkoien.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/barasoain.html About 16 miles south of Pamplona is the small town of Barasoain. It was a fairly cool day and I set out from the main bus station to visit it. It's not very large, about 630 people and architecturally a bit of a mixture. i wasn't sure what to expect as I left the bus and took stock of what was around me. Sat, 17 Aug 2024 12:40:18 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/barasoain.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/beriain-old-town.html Not far from where I stayed for June in Pamplona, the number 16 bus stops. Eight years ago I visited a friend in the town of Beriain, so thought it a good idea to go back there. He lived in the old part of the town and the bus went to it (not all of them do). It was early on a Saturday morning, with a chilly North wind but not too bad in the sun. Fri, 09 Aug 2024 05:49:59 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/beriain-old-town.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/etxauri.html The morning was cool as I headed to the bus station in Pamplona with the intention of checking out the small town of Etxauri. I had to wait an hour so for a small blue bus to take me there for a very cheap fare, it's not far outside the city and hoped there was some countryside to walk in. A pleasant surprise awaited me. Thu, 01 Aug 2024 05:42:50 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/etxauri.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/eurasian-chaffinch.html A washed out trip to a nature reserve next to Oronoz-Maguire, about an hour's bus ride from Pamplona, saw me waiting a few hours for a bus. The one thing I had come for was lost with all the rain. No way was I going to try to go up a steep mountain with all that mud. That had been attempted a couple of years ago somewhere else and for every few steps up I would slide back down a pace or two and wrote the hike off. Thu, 25 Jul 2024 13:32:19 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/eurasian-chaffinch.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/pamplonas-parks.html Just about every city on earth has parks. Even smaller towns do, then there is London which is full of all kinds of parks. Pamplona, Spain (population 206,233) puts London to shame. For such a small city there must be scores of differents kinds of parks. One runs many miles along the main river. Plus all the open spaces, mainly made with concrete base and often playgrounds. Add to that the seats which must number thousands all over the place. Sun, 14 Jul 2024 18:49:49 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/pamplonas-parks.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/san-fermin-2024.html The San Fermin Festival in Pamplona, Spain is probably the biggest party on the planet, attended by people from all over the world. The central area of Pamplona gets very crowded and there are hundreds of events from the 6th to 14th of July every year. Some years ago they tried to do a head count and lost track around 6 million for the whole thing, I doubt no one will ever know for sure. This one will be my fourth, but I don't plan to do all that much because I want to head for the mountains and some of the small pueblos there. Sun, 07 Jul 2024 09:22:31 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/san-fermin-2024.html http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/charf.html When I did my morning walks In Tangier, sometimes the route taken had this scarp in the background. It wasn't that far from my location and probably the length of it is about a kilometer. The steep side was on the left as I stood there looking at it again and reckoned time had come to ascend it and see what is there. The name of the town is Charf and it is a kind of suburb of of the city. Tue, 02 Jul 2024 12:08:59 GMT http://mcgresty.com/mgrp/charf.html