My Adventure A-Z

I am a dedicated dabbler and love to try new things. Mostly B.C (Before Canines), I had many adventures around the world and tried lots of different activities. Here is my Adventure A-Z, with links to blogs where appropriate.

Below that, you will find further details of,

– Airborne Adventures –

I love aircraft and flight, especially vintage planes. I have completed around 24 hours of flight training, including flying solo, but setting up my own business thwarted my attempts to get my pilot’s licence! Below is a list of my airborne experiences.

Powered Flight

• Solo Flight – I had flying lessons for a time and have flown a Cessna 150 solo
• Flying with the British Aerobatics Champion
• Helicopter Flying – I have had a helicopter lesson in a Robinson R-22 and have undertaken several helicopter flights, such as up to the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand and to ski the Marmolada Glacier in Italy
• Microlight flight over Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, known as The Flight of the Angels

Vintage Aircraft

• Stampe SV4 – I camped under the wing of G-BWEF, a 1942 biplane after flying into the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden Aerodrome, where they let me hangar a Hurricane! (Singer Gary Numan flies a Stampe.)
• Tiger Moth – I have flown G-ACDC the oldest Tiger Moth still flying
• Spartan Arrow – I have flown G-ABWP, the only remaining Spartan Arrow, a 1932 biplane with folding wings, built on the Isle of Wight

Unpowered Flight

• Gliding
• Tandem Skydive – joining the two-mile-high club with a view of the Flying Scotsman
• Tandem Parapente in the French Alps – Up Up and Hervé..!
• Hot Air Balloon over the Cascade Mountains, U.S.A.

– Backpacking – My ‘Maternity Leave’ –

Fed up of living life in thin slices, I asked my boss for maternity leave. That surprised him, since I didn’t have a boyfriend at the time. I put it to him that I wanted,”time off to travel and have my job back at the end, without all that messy business of childbirth.”

He said, “Yes” so I used the time wisely to backpack around Fiji, New Zealand and around the East and centre of Australia for four months.

– Road Trip Adventures A.D. (After Dog) –

Our road trip adventures After Dog are immortalised in print in my series of light-hearted travel memoirs, Adventure Caravanning with Dogs. They have all received five star reviews; Dog on the Rhine is an Amazon No. 1 Bestseller; and Dogs ‘n’ Dracula a finalist in the Romania Insider Awards.

• Fur Babies in France – France
• Dog on the Rhine – Germany, France, The Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy
• Dogs ‘n’ Dracula – Romania, France, Slovenia, Hungary
• It Never Rains But It Paws – France, Italy
• To Hel in a Hound Cart – France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland
• Pups on Piste – a ski season in Monte Rosa, Italy

– Adventures Afloat –

Whitewater Rafting & First Descents

I have taken part in multi-day trips down some of the biggest white water rivers in the world, including a couple of first descents. The International River Classification System deems them Grade 5; Grade 6 is unrunnable. We cooked on wood fires and camped on the river bank under the stars. The landscapes we saw can only be reached by river and are as remote as the moon to most people.

• Rafting the Zambezi – The River of the Gods, Zimbabwe & Zambia, Africa
  • 60 km / 6 Day white water rafting trip the Zambezi’s Grade 5 rapids are also infested with crocodiles, hippos and tropical diseases.
  • The Highest Bungi Jump in the World – 111m off the Victoria Falls Bridge, Zambia.
  • The Flight of the Angels – Microlight flight over Victoria Falls.
  • Safari – on-foot safaris in the bush, where I realised to my horror that I was no longer at the top of the food chain
• Rafting the ‘Gnarly’ Karnali, Nepal
  • 2-Day Trek with Sherpas through mountains and forest to reach the ‘The Peacock River’, also known as ‘The Gnarly Karnali’ in the far west of Nepal
  • 6-Days of Grade 5 white water in pristine remote wilderness
• Exploratory Rafting, Ecuador
  • First Descents of two remote rivers that had never before been rafted
  • Galapagos Cruise – a 5-Day trip aboard a tiny boat around the Galapagos Islands, where I swam with sea lions, watched whales, spotted giant tortoises, iguanas and Darwin’s tits. (Finches!)
• Tully River, Australia – just a day trip
• First Commercial Descent of Rockwood Canyon, Upper Animas River, Colorado, U.S.A.
  • Rockwood Canyon is known to film-lovers as where Butch and Sundance jumped in the film
  • After a few days rafting and camping in bear country, we rowed past a sign proclaiming ‘Danger of Death’ to shoot some Grade 5 rapids, including one called Mandatory Thrashing
  • We returned to base aboard the historic Durango-Silverton steam train, flower-pot funnel and all!

Read About My Trip Down The Zambezi

The Travel Stories Box Set – With 17 Bonus Chapters!

Itchy Feet is part of the Travel Stories series. The trilogy is available as a box set, with 17 bonus chapters! That’s nearly a whole extra book!

My bonus contribution is A Honeymoon Horror Story set in Costa Rica- don’t miss it!

To view the photo album for the bonus chapters, follow this link. My Honeymoon Horror is on page 20.

Windsurfing Adventures Around the World

• With Pro Coach Simon Bornhoft
  • Venezuela – El Yaque, Margarita
  • Egypt – Ras Sudr & Moon Beach
  • Turkey – Alaçatı
  • British Virgin Islands – windsurfing from aboard a catamaran
• With Pro Windsurfer Ant Baker
  • Maui, Hawai’i, introduction to wave sailing & spectating Aloha Classic World Championships
• With Pro Coach Jem Hall
  • Greece – Lefkada & Rhodes
• With Windsurfing Legend Peter Hart
  • Eire – Wave Sailing Masterclass in Brandon Bay, Kerry
• Mr & Mrs Windsurfing – Mark and I were featured as ‘Mr & Mrs Windsurfing’ in Boards magazine
• National Watersports Festival – I was Team Rider and blogger for the N.W.F., during which time I met and interviewed some of the big names in windsurfing, past and present. This included Karin Jaggi, 29 x World Champion & counting, Zara Davies, the fastest woman on a windsurfer in the world and Julian Anderson, 3x World Champion and 14 x British Champion.

Other Adventures Aboard

Countries We’ve Visited

We haven’t yet been everywhere, but it’s on our list!

Maps created on amcharts.