Saturday 30 June 2012
Woke up quite early this morning and got my hands on packing for tonight's departure for the Catalan Pyrenees. It always is a pain to pack for a mountain trip, you need to bring clothes for four seasons. Never forget waterproofs!!! For high mountain trekking you most likely need to bring crampons and ice axe, most high peaks are covered by snow, even in the summer months. And for me, the golden rule is to never forget knife, water bottle and flint, key ingredients for survival. It doesn't weight much extra, nor does it take up extra room in your backpack! But it does wonders when the shit hits the fan!!!
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| Nero's gear |
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| Crampons |
Packing almost done, all fitted into one large backpack and a suitcase. Now it's time to check up on my four legged buddy, a 3 year old Belgian Malinois Nero, who will accompany me on this trip. Found him rather busy raiding through a basket with toys. Hmmm...looks like someone is having hard time making decision...".take them all...take them all."...greedy belgians!!!! This is gonna take some time ... Oh well, in the meantime, I'll get his little luggage ready. Sure he won't mind, as long as I don't forget his food ...and hopefully by the time I finish, he will be done with choosing. Three hours later, he still not clear on what he should bring. My turn to make the pick. He's not going to like that! After a short arguement we've agreed on frisbee, ball and squeaky rubber chicken. He better not play with the chicken while we driving! AND HE DID!!!!!
Dinner, shower and time to leave! We've hit the road at 9.30pm heading down to Folkstone for the Eurotunnel that will take us across the channel from UK to France. Arriving earlier, we've got some spare time to hang around, so I took Nero into the fenced dog playground area. And guess who we made friends with. A lady from Holland and her 18 months old Dutch Shepherd Loika. What a cutie, he couldn't stop giving me kisses. Him and Nero were fine around each others, but knowing both males being trouble seekers, we've kept them on leads and about a metre apart. Just enough room to be in each others company, but not close enough to start on a challenge. Better safe than sorry!!!
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| Just give me my rubber chicken and we can go |
Once on the train, I've tried to settle in for a short sleep, but as soon as I closed my eyes someone knocked on the window. Sasha and Louika, they were parked right behind us in the same carriage! What a luck! We chatted for the duration of the journey, whilst our two nutters kept squeaking on their rubber chickens. It's strange, but Loika had exactly the same rubber chicken like Nero. Belgians and dutchies..they gotta love their chickens!!! The rest of the car drivers did not look so amused by our dogs late night concert. And due to a problem in the tunnel on the french side, the journey took an hour instead of usual 30 minutes. Sasha and I exchanged numbers and hopefully we get to meet one day, again! We arrived in Calais past midnight. From here the road trip began!
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