You may be thinking that spring is just round the corner, but for me, winter still reigns supreme. I'm off to Québec City this afternoon, where the current temperature is a brisk minus 19. While I'm there, I'll be researching hip and happening places to hang out for Condé Nast Traveller, as well as adding a few gems to my winter book for Bradt: I'll be ice-climbing on a frozen waterfall, visiting the Ice Hotel (which is a franchise of Sweden's Ice Hotel) and freezing myself silly on an ice-fishing escapade. Assuming I come back with all fingers intact, I'll tell you more about that jamboree in next month's installment. But for now...
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| And the winner is... |
Once again, I've cut up lots of tiny bits of paper with names on, put them in my gaucho hat and...drum roll...drawn out the name of Becky Blair. So a signed copy of one of my books will be winging its way to Becky very soon.
As for the travel-writing competition - nobody entered, you bunch of muppets! Just think, YOU could very easily have won the Bradt guide of your choice. But you didn't. Do make sure you enter March's competition - all you have to do is tell me about your most extraordinary travel experience in 500 words or less, and email your entry to me at polly@pollyevans.com.
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| In the press |
| Check out the current issue of Wanderlust (the March edition) for my feature on hiking the Chilkoot Trail in Alaska and Canada, which I did last summer. The Chilkoot was the most popular route of the Klondike gold stampeders in the 1890s. My journey wasn't as arduous as theirs: because there were fears of starvation in Dawson City, the town that had sprung up to house the gold rush, Canadian authorities dictated that prospectors had to carry with them a year's worth of supplies. They had to ferry their goods over the steep pass 20 or 30 times; most were on the trail for months. They called the trail 'the meanest 32 miles in history'. Even today, rusting picks, shovels and other paraphernalia, discarded by exhausted Klondikers, lie strewn by the side of the path. With just an ordinary rucksack, it's a fantastic walk though. You stay in designated camps and most people do it in three or four days. See the US National Parks Service website or the Parks Canada page for more information.
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| Scott Polar Research Institute |
A couple of weekends ago I went to the museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. I've been meaning to go there for ages - the Institute is a part of the university within the geography department, but its tiny museum is open to the public.
Most intriguing, I thought, were the handwritten letters from Scott's final expedition to the South Pole which the men wrote, in spidery pencil (ink would have frozen) with frostbitten hands, to their families when they realized they wouldn't be going home. They're remarkably cheerful letters given the circs, full of old-fashioned British stoicism and praise of each other's uncomplaining natures. Go to the museum's website at http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/ for more info.
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| Travel Photographer of the Year |
| Also this month, I went to the exhibition of the winners of 2007's Travel Photographer of the Year competition. TPOTY (teapoty to its friends) was set up a few years ago by a photographer, Chris Coe, and he's done amazing things with it. The level of photography is fantastic - the winning images from last year's competition were wonderful, and Cat Vinton's dogsledding photograph found a place particularly close to my heart. TPOTY also runs photography courses both in the UK and abroad. I've been on their weekend courses twice and they changed my life - well that little part of it, anyway. Go to www.tpoty.com to see the winning images from last year's competition and for course details. The 2008 competition will be launched in the spring, and details on how to enter will be posted on the site.
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| March 8th in Saffron Walden |
I know I mentioned this last month, but I'll say it again: I'll be in Saffron Walden on the evening of 8 March as a part of Harts Events' Sense of Place festival. I'll be talking about my adventures with fellow travel writers Christabelle Dilks and Lydia Itoi, and giving a slide show of some of my photographs. There's more information at the Harts Events website.
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| Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman |
OK, so I mentioned this last month as well (and maybe even the month before) but it's my new book so I'm going to plug it shamelessly. You can even buy it from Amazon.
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| This month at PollyEvans.com |
It's all still happening at PollyEvans.com. March's Books of the Month are all about China - there's my very favourite book about China, Peter Hessler's River Town, which tells of the author's two years living in a town on the River Yangtze. It's both insightful and, in places, very funny. Also reviewed are Zhisui Li's The Private Life of Chairman Mao - Li was Mao's personal doctor and has some pretty gruesome facts to reveal about the Chairman - and Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart, which is about Yunnan Province in the 1940s.
This month's Quirky Guides this month are all about my recent trip to Scotland: there's a piece on the ridiculously friendly reindeer at the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre, paddling the River Feshie with outdoors outfitter G2 (yes, it was early February and there was snow on the ground) and wildlife watching with Speyside Wildlife.
And, as usual, I'll be updating my members' room blog throughout the month and replying to posts there. Sign up for membership via my website to join in. Membership signup is separate from the newsletter signup - just click in the membership box on the left hand side of my home page.
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With best wishes for a merry month of March
Polly
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Smog to Bog
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At the beginning of this month, I went up to the Scottish Highlands. I could say that I decided to take the sleeper train rather than fly because I'm a fine environmentalist, but really I was just satifsying a childish urge to spend a night on the train. And it was brilliant. I've always found with travel that, while it's always great to go to different places, the actual business of getting there can be irksome. When I was a kid there was a programme on TV called Rentaghost, whose main character, Timothy Claypole, could hold his nose and twizzle round and transport himself anywhere he pleased. (The programme didn't have a particularly long run - you have to be a very specific age to remember it...) I've always wished I could do that rather than have to take my shoes of in the wretched airport security.
Anwyay, the Caledonian Sleeper is as near as I'm ever likely to get to Timothy Claypole's tricks. It leaves London's Euston station at 9.15 pm and arrives the next morning at roughly 7-something, depending on your destination. That gives just enough time for a quick trip to the lounge for a curry (remarkable value at £3.75) and a little nightcap before returning to your cabin for a full night's sleep. And when you wake up, hey presto, you're in the Highlands.
In first class, you have a room to yourself. I travelled in second class, where I had a room to myself anyway: sometimes you have to share with one other, but they only make passengers bunk up with others of the same sex.
I was happy to be alone as the room was small even for one. Sharing with a person with whom one was very intimate would have been cramped, and sharing with a complete stranger distinctly tricky. Still, it was a fantastic little room, with sheets and blankets on the bed, a basin with hot and cold running water, towels and soap. My goodness.
Most extraordinarily of all, when I boarded I was asked by my cabin attendant if I'd like tea or coffee in the morning, and she brought my drink with my breakfast (rather train-standard muffin and croissant plus something unidentifiable) to my cabin the next morning half an hour before we arrived in snow-covered Aviemore.
Now don't get me wrong - the sleeper is comfortable but it's not five-star luxury (this is a train after all) but it's definitely the best way of travelling that I've found yet. For more info go to First ScotRail's website.
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