A Greener Ride

A few years ago when I cycled up and around Scotland from my home in Wales, UK I was (or certainly became) conscious of a few environmental issues, such as deforestation, which felt beyond my control, and recycling, which was within my control.

Cycling and camping each day meant I was constantly buying food and generally only for a meal at a time; no bulk-buying with potentially less packaging. With each purchase from a supermarket (or heaven forbid, a takeaway) there would be some packaging to dispose of, from a plastic milk carton for my daily doses of porridge, to “paper” sandwich cartons.  [Continue Reading...]

Happy Bank Holiday!

My previous Bank Holiday experience, and the Easter Weekend before it, were I think somewhat woeful. I was on my 1,000-mile cycling/camping trip and I learned, in the first day, that I had set off on the wrong day. It was Good Friday and the first leg of my trip took me from Anglesey, along the A5, to Betws-y-Coed. Being a hot weekend, likely the hottest of the year so far, tourists/walkers were out in force, parking wherever they could along that road that runs through the welsh mountains. One carpark for walkers I turned into, to refill my water bottle at the Cafe’s WC there, was heaving, vehicles coming and going, or at least attempting to since there were just too many of them for the space available. I’m glad I was only after water; the queue at the café was long and seemingly lined with people craving ice cream. [Click here to continue reading]