The Port Run – Festival, Freeloading and Frazzling To visit the first post for The Port Run click here. The next to last night in Porto was their big annual festival  – celebrating the city’s patron saint, St John.  It seemed that the main i…

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The Other Mauritius – A visit to the ark When you take off for London you also get an amazing view – the plane almost always takes off north to south so shoots off the coast and across the reef before turning sharply to the left to …

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The Other Mauritius – Vignettes around the island Still it was a major adventure.  Over the weeks, and particularly the weekends, I realised I had traversed so many of the main roads of Mauritius, criss-crossing the island and overlapping routes I…

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The Port Run – Heading back to Porto The point has probably been overstressed, but from that visit to Taylors in the mountains, we had a wonderful time.  The bus ride back to Lamego, the next day where we did our individual projects,…

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The Port Run – Moulding of the family As for our lecturers, we felt at the start that we had been short changed.  Our original partnership was to have been Ian Simmons, an eminent biogeographer and ecologist, a wonderful and provoking…

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The Other Mauritius – Worth the climb We rested there for a while, both exhausted from the efforts.  We realised we were equally drained from the adrenalin and a kind of fear of what we had got ourselves into.  Then we both smiled at e…

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The Other Mauritius – Going off the trail Martin and I did a couple of these early morning walks; the Black River Gorges being by far the longest.  We enjoyed another one in the south east of the island.  This area always held special plac…

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The Port Run – Growing the grapes; Living with your colleagues But the finest part of the whole time in Portugal was the prequel to the port story.  This was the day that we went right up into the interior to the Quinta Vargelles, the jewel in the crown of th…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/t...

The Port Run – Staircase and life in the Mountains The staircase leads up to the lightly ornate pilgrimage church of Nosa Senhora de Remédios and you are supposed to walk up on your knees.  Preserving my joints for future adventures, I walked it a…

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The Other Mauritius – Dead as a national emblem This was not the first endemic animal I had seen in Mauritius.  When we had been on the grassy bank on the other side of the gorge, we had spotted a small bird of prey sitting on a dead tree trunk …

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The Other Mauritius – The Pink Pigeon From the gorges view point the whole vast bowl of the Black River Gorges opened up to us, including the narrow corridor where the river headed for the sea.  From here we could see almost the whole …

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The Port Run – Heading inland Our day out in the Minho was amongst the most enjoyable of those first few days.  One forgets that although Portugal is part of Iberia, it faces the Atlantic, and the north is subject to the very w…

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The Port Run – Settling into routine Feeling rather warm inside, we went off up in to the streets up the hill from the Rio Douro.  Villa Nova de Gaia had two main central areas, one was the port lodges and the rabbit warren of street…

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The Other Mauritius – Still lost in the forest We headed along the track further east, meeting up with the route I did from le Petrin.  But we decided we did not want to walk on the road, so again cut through the forest.  Forests often disorien…

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The Other Mauritius – A walk from Black River This whole massif, containing the highest point on the island, was gouged out in the middle by a series of short rivers that had created the gorges.  Most people visiting Black River Gorges will en…

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The Port Run – Introduction to the drink The gorge of the Douro was impressive enough with its steep sides and the granite houses almost growing from the bedrock, and with the huge metal bridges spanning the width, but Porto’s most famou…

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The Port Run – Exploring the Old Town A peculiar beauty existed in these narrow streets.  The repetitiveness of the doorways, mainly simple wooden slats with a number painted on, or with a small blue porcelain plaque nailed to the wall…

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The Other Mauritius – Lost in the forest There were two ways in to this forest.  I preferred this one coming up this back road to Le Petrin.  A car park sits in amongst the pines at the edge of the forest.  The air is always fresh and oft…

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The Other Mauritius – A sea on an island When I was working I would generally approach the south west from the coast road through Tamarin.  But if I were looking to hike, I would generally head this way through the towns of Plaines Wilhel…

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The Port Run – Stepping out Why some people in Britain call it Oporto I am never certain.  If you wanted to anglicise the name it should be, simply, Port.  The port on the River Douro is Portugal’s second city.  I fell in lov…

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The Port Run – Fear of Airports The half hour train journey to Gatwick, by comparison, was painless, apart from on our pockets, and the sight of the North Downs and eastern Surrey in full summer was magnificent.  However, my ner…

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The Other Mauritius – Finding the high point I’d wondered why Mauritius had these very steep mountainous areas that gave way to flat or at least uniformly sloping plains.  And why were the mountains so often topped by jagged peaks.  Now…

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The Other Mauritius – the view from Grand Bassin The crater lake is deep, and it quivers with activity.  The offerings which fall off the concrete slabs are gobbled up by monster sized eels.  Birds drop in and take what they can, and troops of mo…

alanpmills.wordpress.com/2016/09/29/t...

The Port Run – Fear of Airports The half hour train journey to Gatwick, by comparison, was painless, apart from on our pockets, and the sight of the North Downs and eastern Surrey in full summer was magnificent.  However, my ner…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/t...

The Port Run – Exploring Britain It seems strange now to think that I never left the shores of Britain until I was 20, unless you include the Isle of Wight and Mull.  In fact it was the day after I was 20.  The reason was quite si…

alanpmillsuk.wordpress.com/2014/06/07/t...

The Other Mauritius – A drop of Ganges As I mentioned, I had passed through the estate at Bois Cheri several times on previous visits; just the factory with its limited opening hours had never been open when I passed by.  The road was a…

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The Other Mauritius – on to the rum After some tea we went to St Aubin and observed a similar production line, but this time to make rum.  It was on a much less industrial scale; a single man fed the cane through a crusher.  A couple…

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Massawa and the Escarpment – Back up the hill Click here to go to the first part of this chapter. I headed back to Chris and Sheila’s where they laid on an early lunch.  I had another swim around the bay.  After a while, I realised that I was…

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Massawa and the Escarpment – Walk round the islands I woke when the day started.  The bright sun was up in a few minutes and the heat was already beginning to rise when I came off my perch (one last glance around the bay and across the causeway ont…

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The Other Mauritius – The making of the tea Tea plantations sprawl across these southern uplands.  It was several years before I finally got to visit the most touristic and famous, the Bois Cheri, but it was like going back to childhood.  I …

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