Well, after a lot of racing around the country selecting the best regions for  cycling routes, not to mention the best possible hotel accommodation, we are thrilled to announce the launch of Headwater’s cycling Holidays in the UK!

Country church on the way to Hay on Wye

The basic fundamentals that everyone expects from a regular Headwater holiday remain unchanged. We have interest packed cycling routes full of great viewpoints, lovely pubs and picnic spots for lunch, and gorgeous hotels at the end of the day.   

On each of our new tours, our routes are packed with amazing castles, ruined abbeys, quirky museums, tasty farm shops, cosy tea rooms, panoramic hilltop viewpoints and shady arboretums and gardens.

Cycling in Shropshire

Our Wye Valley Cycling Tour introduces the pristine natural beauty of Shropshire, Herefordshire and Powys in the Welsh/English borderlands, where watermills and gypsy caravans lie below Iron Age hilltop fortresses.

On our Shropshire Castles Tour, you’ll explore a landscape of remote river valleys strewn with the ruins of 2000 years of conflict, where you can picnic on heather moors with views over to Snowdonia.

All the hotels have been especially selected to makes sure we are offering the very best accommodation possible, and the selection of coaching inns and ancient stone manor houses are a real treat!

Curious facts and quotes

In years gone by, yew trees were planted in church graveyards to ward off evil spirits in some part of the UK. In fact, some people took to planting elm trees by their outdoor privy so they could pay a visit during the night confident they were protected from any spirit mischief.

“The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.”

Bill Cosby

It must have been at least five years ago that we first mentioned the possibility of UK walking holidays at Headwater.

Since then we have concentrated on opening up new destinations for walking in the Caribbean and across South America, but we have always returned, at least in theory, to the possibility of creating the same blend of  interest packed walks and gorgeous accommodation on our holidays that we currently offer abroad right here at home.

A perfect English summer day

Well, this year has provided the perfect opportunity to do just that, and we can now offer two fantastic holidays in Southern England. The first is aleady loaded onto the website and available for sale right now, and the second will be up and running soon ready for a St George’s Day launch on the 23rd April!

Our new holidays are the Classic Cotswold Walk between Bourton on the Water, Winchcombe, Broadway and Moreton in the Marsh, and our Heart of England walk between Shakespeare’s Stratford-Upon-Avon, Chipping Norton, Woodstock and Oxford.

Both holidays take you on glorious walks through perfect English villages with country pubs for lunch, and both are extremely flexible with any day starts possible on the  Classic Cotswold Walk!

Curious facts and quotes

“Remember you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life”.
Cecil Rhodes

Headwater’s Bikes For Africa campaign has got off to a flying start.

‘Recycle’ is a charitable organisation that collects old and used bikes, or bits and pieces thereof, and sends them to places in Africa where they can be reconditioned, reassembled and used by the locals.
Not only are Headwater sending hundreds of spare parts taken from our used bikes to the Bike For Africa depot at the end of every summer season, we are also taking on to deliver any bikes you want to get rid of yourselves.
This is why we suddenly found ourselves nearly 100 bikes better off when we held a ‘bring your old bike day’ at one of our local schools, and you can see the results for yourself!

All of these bikes will be broken down into spare parts and shipped off to places in Africa that can really use them. We would just like to thank everyone who participated for taking part – it was a brilliant result and we are thrilled to be able to help such a worthy cause!

Curious facts and quotes

Everything you ever wanted to know about bikes and their various inventions over the ages has been studied and analysed by a gentleman called Jim Langley on his curious website.

“We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers”.
Seneca

Photographs are the perfect way to record and remember your travels, and taking the perfect shot takes the sort of dedication that most of us don’t have the time for. Lucky then, that some people who are brilliant at it are  happy to share their travels and expertise.

Finding the right travel shot to represent a holiday is a tricky business.
It is as hard to find photos that really tell a story, or which are genuinely striking as it is to take them in the first place.  Unsurprisingly the majority of really good shots you have to pay quite a lot for, but it is important to find them, as one picture can tell you more about a holiday destination than ten pages full of poetic description.
Taking trips abroad for work, it is easy to take 300 photos and end up with 2 or even none that are of publishable standard, so it is important to dig them up from tourist boards, individual hotels and increasingly, from clients who are happy to send in shots after they have returned home, and from internet sites that allow photo sharing.

10,000 words.net  is an online media site that has put together a list of 30 of their favourite photo blogs. It really is quite amazing how many varieties of photoblog there are! 
A different site with some fantastic shots purely dedicated to travel is Travelphoto, where other travel photographers can upload their own favourite shots into an online gallery. It really is worth having a look if you fancy being inspired, or even just looking for a new screensaver, and the site includes advice for taking your own perfect travel shots.

Curious facts and quotes

 Photography is derived from the Greek words ‘photos’ meaning light, and ‘graphein’, meaning to draw. It was first used by the scientist Sir John FW Herschel in 1839.

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are just good photographs”.
Ansel Adams

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul has to be one of the most stimulating shopping experiences around. There is something compelling about the smells, colour and noise that make it very difficult not to buy something. Vendors can be incredibly persuasive.

Bazaar Boots? (Photo:whatcouldpossiblygowrong/flickr)

Unless you are walking with purpose rather than browsing, you will more than likely end up chatting to the shop owners - there are so many of them! The competition for your cash really is ferocious, which all adds to the clamour, colour and excitement of the spectacle.

The Grand Bazaar (Photo:Paul Simpson/flickr)

The Grand Bazaar was constructed on the orders of Mehmed II in 1464, and comprises 64 streets and 4400 shops and enterprises that spill out into the narrow alleyways in a kaleidoscopic cacophony of colour and noise. Streets are given over to particular products, so the jewellery souk looks like the original Aladdin’s Cave, while a thousand carpets await their new owners safe from the elements under the domed ceilings and roofs that cover the entire complex.

You can arrange your own adventure on either of our holidays in Turkey,
on the Highlights of the Lycian Coast, and Ancient and Classical Turkey.

Curious facts and quotes

Noah’s Ark ended up on Mount Ararat in Eastern Turkey, and Santa Clause - yes that one - was born in Patara. He was St Nicholas, Bishop of Demre in western Turkey.

“If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul”.
Alphonse de Lamartine

Well it’s about time.

The watchdog organisation that looks after rail complaints is now to have its remit extended to look after air passengers as well.
Passenger Focus is a publicly funded body and will force airports and airlines to publish performance measures that will reveal how good a job they are doing, and also how good a job their passengers think they are doing.

Photo: dground/flickr

Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon said: “I want to put passengers at the heart of how our airports are run - the passenger must come first. Passengers have told us that although they are broadly happy with their experience of airports, they want things like more seating areas, more toilets, better flight information and more baggage carousels open at busy times. These are exactly the kind of issues that we will expect the CAA to address in discharging its new duty”.

This step in the right direction should help, we hope, in making travel less hassle and smooth the way to helping airports become more pleasant places to be, and airlines a more responsive industry to passenger demands.
Is it such a radical change of thinking that says we should try to make airports into places that people could actively enjoy? The big new terminal culture (T5 in London, T4 in Madrid) goes a long way towards making transiting an airport terminal as positive an experience as possible, but having Passenger Focus as a watchdog to turn to will make both airlines and airports up their game.

Curious facts and quotes

The shortest scheduled flight in the world is in Orkney, between the islands of Westray and Papa Westray. The flight time is 2 minutes.

“There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror”.
Orson Welles

“I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things”.
Antoine de Saint Exupery

Everyone loves a good festival. Being a spectator and even better – a participant – in a local festival is enthralling, exhilarating and completely unforgettable, even more so if you are lucky enough to happen upon them by accident.

In the next few days there will be some very colourful people wandering around in India. The Festival of Colours is currently underway, and nobody sensible will be dressing in their finery, as anything you wear will almost certainly be covered in spectacular sprays of red, blue, pink and yellow, as thousands of people devote the best part of the day to covering each other in a rainbow of vibrant paint powders.

Photo: Mahatma4711/flickr

Also known as the Indian festival of  Holi, there isn’t much that compares to it in terms of colour and squeals of excitement, as you actually end up wearing the festival at the end of the day. Holi is celebrated in early spring and celebrates the triumph of good over evil.
You can read all about the mysterious legend that gave rise to the Festival of Holi here.

Photo: Mahatma4711/flickr

Curious facts and quotes

Everest is named for Sir George Everest, Surveyor General of India in the early C19. More information on his achievements here. 

“What we get from this adventure is sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for”.
George Mallory

It’s that time again, when packs of dogs and intrepid adventurers pit their wits against the Alaskan wilderness.  The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race takes place every year in Alaska, and kicks off again on March 7th.

Pristine Alaska (Photo: Sugarwawa/Flickr

Settlers flooded into Alaska in the late C18 and early C19 following a series of gold strikes, the most famous of which was the Klondike gold rush. Prospectors travelled by boat to Seward and Knik and from there, along the Iditarod Trail into the gold fields. The only way to travel was by dog sled, and the Iditerod trail became the main route through Alaska - even priests, ministers and judges used it to move between villages.

One of the best known stories regarding the trail took place in 1925, when a diphtheria epidemic broke out in Nome. Nobody was available to fly a vaccine through terrible weather from Anchorage so it was rushed by dog team from village to village, arriving in time to save many lives – a man called Gunnar Kaasen drove the final 50 miles into Nome through a blizzard. His lead dog was called Balto, and the story so captivated the nation that a statue of Balto still stands in New York’s Central Park in recognition of the achievement.

The idea of having a race over the Iditarod Trail was conceived by the late Dorothy G. Page to celebrate the part dog teams played in Alaska’s development and history, and to celebrate Alaska’s Centennial Year in 1967.

The present course is over 1000 miles long, taking mushers into pristine wilderness on their way from the official start in Anchorage, to the finish line in Nome. Teams leave at two minute intervals and mushers are expected to take between 9 and 12 days to cover the distance. The first 30 finishers in the field of 100 claim a share of the $610,000 purse, and every other finisher receives just over $1000.

If you fancy a shot at mushing your own team of sled dogs, have a look at our snow holiday based in Saariselka in Finnish Lapland. The term winter wonderland doesn’t do it justice, and dog sledding is easy to arrange.  

Curious Facts and quotes

To promote Alaskan statehood, an Alaskan musher drove a team of wolves all the way to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.

“The distinguishing mark of true adventures, is that it is often no fun at all while they are actually happening”.
Kim Stanley Robinson

“Adventure is just bad planning”.
Roald Amundsen