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METHS 131 was distributed on 19 May 2025.

METHS 132 is due in November 2025. Please send anything you want included to Neil Lawford

Members’ movements

Dave Leishman is now back in the UK, marking time at Frome, in a sister's flat, whilst awaiting flat availability up in Barnard Castle, Teesdale.

Here are some of his impressions, beautifully written, entitled "THE JOYS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE HIKE".

 Not much to celebrate on my return from SA to the UK, the third time after long Africa spells, and each time I've felt a little more of an alien;  but that's doubtless with increasing age and feeling out of sync. with matters as they are now in this disaffected realm. One exception is the look if not the health of the rural areas, and tramping through it all still evokes in me a feeling of great release from cares and worries, as on the remoter parts of Table Mountain, or Mulanje.

 

I'm in deepest Somerset, struggling in understanding those who retain the thick local accent, so many words swallowed amidst 'aaarghs' and 'ois'. Nothing is so pleasurable as trekking out to ancient inns & pubs two to four miles from Frome, where I'm staying pro tem, by circuitous circular routes through field and wood, along rivers in deep gorges and across heathland, much now ploughed up or given to intensive pasture. There at destination that needful pint in all this fine, warm weather, with a snack thrown in. (Not up to the Axeman's feat of pints at 3 pubs on one hike though.)

Nunney, Mells, Buckland Dinham, Beckington, Chapmanslade, villages with names evocative of some distant past, evincing a curiosity as to derivation. On Mells's doorstep, but approaching from north or east, you wouldn't even know of it, sits something entirely different, and an extreme example of human extraction of natural capital - what must be one of the largest quarries in the country: limestone quarried with cement produced on site, and with its own rail line. A mile E-W, and a quarter-mile N-S, hundreds of feet deep at the centre, the firm still heavily involved in quarrying there is now creating viewing platforms on the rim: to become a tourist attraction, so that after that visit to Longleat, you take in Somerset's Kimberley Big Hole!

I won't be much longer here at Frome, a singular and quirky town on a hilly escarpment, Somerset-style, that is, right up against Wiltshire. I head for the north, to the dales where the rivers do not look like glorified drains - wouldn't want to swim in the Frome River - and the countryside opens out over the vast sweep of the moors

Sally Roschnik has this to say on a holiday in Southern Africa

In January I went to Joburg, Zimbabwe and Cape Town to see dear friends, and to revisit haunts and memories from times past. Our granddaughter Inès aged 23 had said "I would like to come to Zimbabwe with you, just you and me!" So we went!

We started off with buddies in Joburg, where I had never been before. We flew to Victoria Falls, and from there for two weeks we were driven and accompanied by Sisa in his Land Rover (Sisasenkosi Mthunzie, www.excellencetrails.com ). We went to Bulawayo (on the road through Botswana), then the Matopos, Great Zimbabwe (in tents), then north over Birchenough Bridge and the great Sabi River to Inyanga, plus all the Rusape area – so many wonderful people and places, the free spreading msasa and jacaranda trees, and lots of baboons. A real treasure finding flame lilies amongst the undergrowth in the forest, while looking for the white rhino. We loved it all.

Returned to Harare and then to our friends in Cape Town, where our ways parted. Inès went on to Malawi where her Mum was on a mission for Save the Children (they walked for 3 days on Mulanje, mostly in pouring rain) and I went home to Rupert. Lucky Inès and lucky me. Africa still very much pulls the strings!

Neil Lawford very recently came back from a holiday in Sulawesi, Indonesia:

I have been a warm water Scuba diver for 30+ years and have been steadily making my way around the tropical regions of the world accompanied by Carol, who does not dive. Last year we ventured to Indonesia for the first time and enjoyed its diving, charm and cost so much that we have just been to the same area again.

Sulawesi is the world’s 11th largest island and forms a significant part of the country of Indonesia. We flew into Manado on the far north tip of North Sulawesi and then went by boat to two islands on the edge of the Celebes Sea. This is part of the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ and just before our trip last year the volcano Ruang erupted, closing Manado airport. It soon settled down and there was no impact on either of our visits except for a few small earth tremors.

The water temperature was lovely, perhaps a bit too warm sometimes, as going into the sea to cool off did not work. Surface temp about 31C and still 29C at 30 metres down. The highlight of the diving was probably the presence of turtles in one area. Often I have seen the odd turtle but this time on a couple of dive sites they could be guaranteed and on one dive I counted 37 of them. Hard and soft corals always in colourful abundance.

Food and accommodation were both excellent but the location would not really suit a METHS meet. The first island I walked around at low tide and it took 45 minutes. I did a walk from the second island on a small path, up the hill behind the resort, hoping to get to the village on the far side of the island. After 25 minutes picking my way around the muddy bits with little opportunity to avoid them because of the jungle vegetation on both sides I stopped at what I judged to be the summit and made my way back. Arriving bathed in sweat.

For further mouth-watering pictures, see Neil's album - https://photos.app.goo.gl/gxdVJKtNQbmtz95u9

Members are welcome to send contributions of anything they think worth mentioning to Janet Woods, for possible inclusion on the web site.

© METHS, 2025