Archive for the ‘Extreme Vacations’ Category

This is Cut Across Shorty a VS 4c climb, courtesy of The Jersey Rock Climbing Club:

I was going to tackle the British Isles as a group, but Jersey has so much to offer – great climbing, surfing and scuba diving to name just a few of the recommended activities, that I am going to go no further than this jewel of an island where a weekend full of action is waiting for anyone looking for a variety of extreme sports in one small area.

Climbing is a great way to get a body workout, while at the same time challenging your mind, and Jersey has a wide selection for you. The island has some of the best climbing areas in Europe and the variety of rock and unspoilt scenery make it a spectacular experience for beginners and experienced climbers alike.

It’s an ideal place to visit: perfect days, un-crowded cliffs and great climbing, regular dips in the sea to cool off and great pubs to retire to at the end of the day.

From the impressive 50m tower of The Pinnacle to the extensive and confusing buttresses of Grosnes, through the delightful ‘mini-cliffs’ at Corbiere and out to the north coast, there really is plenty here to keep you busy.  Homesick Angle on The Pinnacle is one the the best HVS (hard very severe) routes you could possibly hope for.

All the routes on the island (there are 1100 listed in the book) are trad and most of them are on high quality granite. The island has long been a bolt-free zone – the local climbing club originally had just two rules for the members – abide by the Country Code, and no fixed protection!

If you want to arm yourself in advance with some useful information, ‘Jersey Climbs’ is the first guidebook to be produced for Jersey in twelve years. It has 188 pages with lists, grades, advice and details of the 1100 routes  to be found there.

And then there’s the surfing…

Jersey’s shores are bombarded by waves and not only are they some of the best waves in the British Isles but they are also some of the warmest… always worth bearing in mind.

And there are great scuba diving opportunities here too, whether you want to investigate an old wreck or float amongst black faced pennies, corals and luminous jewel anemones in pinks, blues, greens and oranges. The summer months are even more interesting when the warm waters bring in  exotic marine wildlife  such as sea horses, dolphins and basking sharks. Jersey’s coastal seawater is of award-winning cleanliness and this is reflected in the abundance of sea life to be found there.

Other things you can do in Jersey besides rock climbing, abseiling and surfing are BloKarting on the beach, Sea Kayaking, Caving, Coasteering, Clay Pigeon Shooting, Cycling, Golf, Powerboat Trips, Fishing Excursions, Horse Riding and Zorbing. I’ve probably missed some out.

Not just a banking paradise then…

One has preconceived notions of countries, witness my surprise yesterday at finding a tropical beach in China. Similarly today I’ve discovered skiing in Greece. Greece, the land of sunshine and islands, blue skies and turquoise seas, antiquity and tourism. But skiing? I’d never heard of it!

I am going to warn you immediately that although there are many places to ski, the resorts are small. However, the fun side of skiing in Greece is that one moment you can be snorkelling or scuba diving in the islands, or enjoying grilled octupus and a view of the Acropolis and the next flying down  a mountain with the quiet swoosh of snow in your ears. How extreme is that?

There’s a fantastic video of telemark skiing in Greece (turningtelemark) which goes to show that there’s some quality snow in the area. Greece is, after all, a land of mountains jsut as much as it is a land of islands, so why shouldn’t it have snow?

Skiers are addicted to the better-known resorts of Switzerland, France, and Italy, but Greece offers low prices and a good variety of slopes and ski centers. In fact, you can ski for just a few dollars a day in Greece. Recent prices at Mt. Parnassos, the best-developed resort run by EOT, include a 7-day pass for about $90. Other prices are just as good.

Mt. Parnassos is just 3 hours away from Athens and has good skiable snow from December to March. With a dozen lifts and a wide selection of slopes it is the skiing mecca of Greece (metallinsam). and just as exotic, Delphi is just around the corner offering great apres-ski life!

Bookmark Friday, 26th February, 2 p.m. British time if you are considering taking part in the next great Mototaxi Junket in Peru – courtesy of your kind hosts, The Adventurists…

I always have to repeat at least some of their inimitable words as their author has such a fine turn of phrase that how could you NOT want to take part in at least one of their crazy extreme adventures… the following comment is a report on the 2009 event.

“Bones were broken, a mototaxi plumetted off a cliff into a river (without its drivers), adventurists founder Mr. Tom was run over by his team mate, £65,000 was raised for charity by the teams and to the disbelief of pretty much everyone it was nobly demonstrated that taking rubbish mototaxis across massive mountains, into sweaty jungles and across barren deserty plains really is a splendid idea.”

The Mototaxi Junket is a 3,000 km (or maybe 4,000) adventure starting in Cuzco, Peru on the 1st August 2010 and ending in Asuncion, Paraguay around two-weeks later.

The mototaxi itself is a cross between a moped and a sofa, but as The Adventurists warn: it “handles more like a sofa than a moped.”

Thank you to Team Causitas Perdidas who competed in last year’s events for these great photographs.

The race is enough to challenge the hardiest souls, let alone a poor little mototaxi, as another participator in last year’s event said: “It’s hilarious.I can only describe it as rallybiking on lawnmowers.”

However, the terrain is rugged. It’s mountainous. It’s desert. It’s jungle. It’s rainforest. And one of the roads is the most dangerous road in the world – a thousand metre abyss a few inches from your wheels! 

And as for the weather you can expect – matching the diversity of the extreme terrain, you will experience everything from freezing cold high altitude passes to sweaty rainforests – a stiff test for man and hugely under-powered machine.

As one competitor said:  “We’ve been over countless passes over the last few days each one colder than the last and each one followed by a scorching valley complete with cactus, heat ripples and awesome views.”

There is no set route and no back up of any kind…

It will certainly be an adventure.

Every team taking part has to raise at least £1,000 which will go towards  a charity that The Adventurists’ support. last year the money they raised  provided free re-constructive surgery to children suffering from facial deformities such as Clefts. Over 75% of cleft cases in the developing world go untreated, however they can be treated in as little as 45 minutes at a cost of only £150.  You can find out more about these on their website: http://mototaxijunket.theadventurists.com

Facts, stats and things that happened last time:

• A junketeer continued adventuring with a broken collarbone caused by ’smashing into a cliff’ and only reported into casualty on his return to Northern Ireland.
• One vehicle plumetted off the edge of a cliff and disappeared into a river (the occupants just about stayed on the road)
• The founder of the Junket Tom was run over by his team mate
• The vehicle supplier cancelled the mototaxi order just before the launch so replacements were rafted in from the jungle along the Amazon and other corners of Peru (several days late)
• One team member dressed as a lifesize pink rabbit for every encounter with police or border authorities and didn’t end up in jail
• A mototaxi was stolen in Cuzco but recovered by the police 24 hours later
• One team drove off a cliff and were only saved from rather dangerous freefall by some well placed vegetation and scrub
• £65,000 was raised for the official charities
• 62 teams left from the start point in Huancayo, in the Peruvian Andes
• 8 teams made it to the finish line in Asuncion

If you are wanting to do something unusual this Summer, then this might well be the thing for you…

Readers of our site will also be happy to know that you can skydive, whitewater raft and scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef  from this town…

It is one of only two areas in Australia where the Wet Tropics rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef meet and is a culmination of the best that Far North Queensland has to offer. Not only does the golden beach stretch for over 14 kilometres with tropical islands scattered close by, but the water is calm, crystal clear, and brimming with fish.

What’re you waiting for?!

Some awesome speeds and distances have been clocked up by kitebuggiers (is there such a word?) this year, 2009.

If you are a regular follower of our extreme sports blog you will have followed, avidly I hope,  the MadWaySouth team’s epic voyage across the Sahara on kitebuggies. They achieved a remarkable 2,160 kms in 26 days. They actually broke 2 world records – that of the longest distance for a kitebuggy and the second for the first wind-only form of transportation to cross the Sahara.

Speed records are of course something else and Arjen van der Tol of Holland holds the record for dry lake bed buggying with a maximum speed of 124kmh or 77.05mph.

The beach sand record is held by Windjammer of England who reached a documented speed of  109.59kmh / 68.10mph.

The fastest lady on a buggy at the moment is Karen Cutbush with a beach sand speed of  77.57kmh / 48.20mph. She was delighted to hear that she held the record adding, “By the end of the day I had covered close to 50 miles, but more importantly I reached a new personal best speed of 48.2mph….I am told that I am now the fastest recorded female pilot in a kite buggy in the world – Wow!”

And then there are the distance records.

We already know that the team MadWaySouth hold that one, but the solo record is held by Jose Maria Coca Rodriguez who managed a total of 441kms in 12 hours and 15 minutes moving at a maximum speed of 74.2km/h.

There is even a Backward Buggying Speed – what next! This record is proudly held by Paul Westlake, aka Pablow of Wales who achieved the remarkable speed of 58.42 kmh – 36.3 mph – backwards!!!

Of course, to be able to break records you need space, preferably with no sauntering sunset admirers and Romo Beach in Denmark is one place that definitely has that, as witnessed here with The Poland Buggykiting Team making the most of it (buggykitingpl):

The ideal space for buggying is hard-packed sand as it provides great traction and better control in a slide. Next best would be grassy lawns. Pavement and roads can be very fast, but a tight turn could flip the unwary buggier out.

Sand and grass require more power than hard-pack or pavement, but they are favoured because of the balance between grip and drag.

Buggies prefer large open spaces and smooth winds, but their small size and easy manoeuverability allows experienced buggy pilots access to areas that might have been deemed completely unsuitable – soccer grounds are frequently used in urban areas. Obviously, the more space you have the easier and safer it will be.

And if you are new to this sport, here’s an interesting video that dots the i’s and crosses a few t’s for you…with thanks to expertvillage for sharing it with us.

Some time ago, we did an article on the Borneo Eco-Challenge adventure race. This was in the early days when we were just discovering adventure racing as an extreme sport. The Borneo eco-challenge was obviously a popular event as we have subsequently received many requests for further information.

This event has not had a recent re-run. However,  ESPN STAR Sport Event Management and associates have come up with a new event:  the Perak Amanjaya Eco Race 2009.

This is rather a last minute alert, but the whole race is a little bit last-minute anyway, which is why this year it is invitation only. However, the organisers intend this to be an annual event so bookmark it now for next year…

The race is due to begin on the 2nd December, completing by the 6th December, 2009 and promises to be an adventure race classic. It will include such disciplines as Trail Running, Kayaking, Mountain Biking, In-line Skating, Abseiling, Canyoning, Rapelling and Swimming… and the state government of Parak, Malaysia, will be hosting the event.

Location, location, location. Don’t we hear that so often? Well, this event is definitely in a beautiful location. It begins in the Royal Belum State Park (rainforest) which is the largest continuous forest complex in Peninsular Malaysia and which crosses into Southern Thailand. It is estimated to be as old as 130 million years, making it older than the jungle of the Amazon or Congo – sorry, I can never resist a little history! Needless to say, some areas of this magnificent forest are being plundered by loggers… when will we ever learn?

This region receives about 2,200 cm of rain per annum – so expect it to be wet! It also has its fair share of big cats, venomous snakes, elephant, Sumatran rhino’s plus a whole host of other bird and wildlife.

Banding Island as seen from Tower House

The race starts at Banding Bridge which is the gateway to Royal Belum Rainforest. A quick run across the bridge and then an abseil down to the lake sets the event off to an exciting start. You then swim to a pontoon, get a kayak and paddle across to the lake shore where you will have to carry your kayak along a jungle trail to the next stretch of water where you will kayak back to the island, leave the kayak and run back to the bridge. An in-line skate across the bridge will bring the first day to a close.

Day 2 starts at the foot hill of Taiping Hill where there will be a trail run to a waterfall. After canyoning down the waterfall competitors will run to Taiping Lake Garden (the first public garden established during the British rule in Malaysia), and in-line skate under the Golden Raintrees. From here there will be a mountain bike ride to the Kampung river mouth for another kayak to Kuala Sepetang and final run on the boardwalk to finish at the jetty of Kuala Sepetang.

Day 3 will be a rest day but also a transfer from Taiping to Pasir Salak where the race will continue.

Pasir Salak is the place where modern Malaysia took shape. It is where the independence movement against the British began and where the first British  resident of Perak, James W.W. Birch, was murdered on 2nd November, 1875. The rebellion of 1875 in Pasir Salak sowed the seeds of nationalism, which manifested itself in the form of opposition to colonialism, and to the formation of a Malayan Union, which ignited the flame of independence.

Today Pasir Salak is an historical site whose purpose is to remind the younger generation of the events there and the fight against colonialism in Perak, and also to remember the struggle and the sacrifice of the warriors to uphold the dignity of the race and country.

So, after yet another history lesson from me, I shall continue with the matter at hand – the eco-challenge adventure race:

Day 4 kicks off with a mountain bike ride up to the beautiful Ulu Geruntum, which is the raft starting point. From here you white water raft down to Kampung Jahang…

run to the cave entrance to start the caving section…

and finish with a run to the finish line at Kampung Tengah.

Day 5, the final day, starts at Pasir Salak with a mountain bike ride to Teluk Batik, kayak to Teluk Segadas at Pangkor Island, rapel down the rock, run to Teluk Dalam beach, swim in the sea in front of Teluk Dalam and finally finish at the beach of Teluk Dalam.

For 2009 this event is open to teams of 2 persons only – male, female or co-ed; only 20 teams are invited and again, for this year, it is an ‘invitation only’ event. Teams are coming from Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, USA and Finland.

For those of you who would like to enter but wonder what on earth your better half (!) is going to do whilst you’re battling your way through the jungle (if your better half isn’t battling through it with you) … remember that glancing reference I made above to the type of fauna to be found in the Royal Belum National Park?  Well, I then came across this little list – and please bear in mind it is not a final list, of what sort of flora and fauna can be seen and enjoyed in the Royal Belum Rainforest:

247 species of birds
100 species of mammals
170 species of butterflies
251 species of moths
51 species of land snails
36 species of aquatic and semi aquatic bugs
25 species of cicadas
24 species of amphibians
21 species of lizards
23 species of snakes
23 speices of freshwater fish
7 species of freshwater and land turtles
62 species of moss
64 species of ferns
46 species of palms
30 species of gingers
3000 species of flower plants
3 species of freshwater decapod
44 species of wild fruit trees

Apart from that there is the Taiping Lake Garden which, at 222 acres, is the biggest urban parkland in Malaysia, designed and built about 130 years ago in the remains of an old tin mine. It has beautifully laid out ponds, lakes, and reputably, the best zoological gardens in the whole region. And then there’s the spectacular beach of Teluk Dalam and the beautiful island of Pangkor. Just a few of things one might see and do out there. No-one could possibly be bored…