The Two Fit Birds Blog
15 October 2008
Photo update!
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Heathers family in New Zealand
Karen and her Mauri friends
H&K hats
Our Jucy Crib
Heathers 30th
Cathedral Cove New Zealand
The San Francisco gang
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03 October 2008
Onwards went the march through the USA. The top headlines include
Girls get stranded for 6 hours between Washington and Chicago in a scary small town as their sexy muscle car Ford Mustang encounters flat tyre.
During a Grand Canyon tour a morbidly obese American man complains that the tour bus is too small. More accurate reports state that actually it was him that was too big.
2 Fit Birds melt in 43 degrees Celsius heat in Las Vegas. To add insult to injury they could not locate a Subway that would serve them a five dollar foot long meatball marinara anywhere.
Hotel receptionist takes the mickey out of Karen's surname at the Stratosphere Hotel, Las Vegas. It's German for thimble.....get over it you dozy yank ;0).
Homeless man takes a dump on the floor at the cashiers till in Subway, downtown Los Angeles. When you've got to go, you've got to go!
High speed foot chase occurs as the 2 Fit Birds get stranded in yet another scary small town as they watch their transport bus pull away with all their luggage on board. The San Francisco to LA Asian Tour Bus Company confirms that they made an announcement prior to departure that the bus would refuel and pick up its passengers in 5 minutes. Shame the girls didn't understand Chinese.
Strange smell occur two nights in a row, at roughly the same time, at a friends apartment in Berkeley, San Francisco. The girls waste no time in contacting Most Haunted to inform them of the strange phenomenon they've affectionately named ' The Trumping Ghost'.
What crazy but lovely place America is. Nobody could quite understand our quality, northern, English accents. Whenever either of us encountered any communication problems ordering food, we recalled the advice of an age old northern seer, ' JUST SAY THE ITEM'.
After visiting two close friends and having just the best time, we found it hard to leave. We truly felt that we had been ripped from the mother womb. In fact the only thing that made us laugh that sad day was the road chase after our bus, when we thought it was leaving without us.
Thanks you to Jacki and Trisha for making us feel so welcome in your home, for making us laugh so hard we nearly wee'd (true), for making us realise just how special you both are and for how lucky we are to have you as friends. We miss you!!!
From San Francisco we arrived in LA. It was a hard few days topping up our tans whilst lazing on Santa Monica Beach and Venice Beach.
The flight from LA to Auckland, New Zealand, was our first time on a Jumbo. It was a long and bumpy flight but we arrived safe and sound at daybreak. Thanks to Clare and Pete, Finlay and Clodagh for letting us stay at your lovely home in Auckland. We were totally spoilt and it was here that we had the highest concentration of washing machine clothes washes of the trip to date. Even our sleeping bags got a machine was. Woo Hoo!
Four days after arriving in NZ, Heathers mum, Anne and her partner Mark, along with Heathers sister Nic and her best friend Jo flew in from back home. This was just in time for Heathers 30th birthday. We all hired campervans and took off on a mini adventure through the north island. It was fantastic. Anne, Mark, Nic and Jo had the plushest vans on wheels - toilet, shower, TV, microwave, fridge, cooker - The Dogs B's basically. Heather and Karen rented a travellers budget van called a Jucy Crib. It had four wheels, an engine and a bed. We had many a rendezvous in the plush vans for the odd G and T, champagne breakfast, salmon and eggs and of course there was the surprise birthday cake.
We promised Mark that we wouldn't tell the story about the apples and the New Zealand Immigration. Mum's the word Marcus but we bet Golden Delicious do not look as appetising as they used to.
Another highlight of being in New Zealand was the opportunity to meet up with some of Heathers family. It was sereal experience for Heather to meet with people she had never met before but to whom she felt such a strong connection and sense of belonging. Thanks to Heathers Aunty Alison, Cousing Lorraine and Cousing Dayna. It was great meeting you and having a gold old chin wag.
We were sad again to leave New Zealand but ended up getting a tad drunk with an Aussie bloke called Fred during our four hour flight to Melbourne. So much so that neither of us have a crystal clear memory of actually landing in Australia and also going through customs. Doh!
We will be uploading pictures next week. We just need to find a compatable computer to do it.
Make sure you check back in on the blog in a few weeks to read our Australian chronicles.
Till then......
Lots of love
2 Fit Birds.
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21 July 2008
The next chapter in the travels of Heather and Karen. There's so much to tell.
Before we arrived in to South America on the 13th June, we had a lovely few days in Madrid with Karen's parents. It was great to meet up with family from back home. During our stay in Madrid, we had a stressful experience involving a team of professional pickpockets on the Metro. They managed to swipe our passports, credit cards, driving licenses and spare currency. OH MY GOD. We were due to fly to Brazil the next day on a tight schedule to be in Peru a week later to start the Inca Trail. We can't describe to you the feelings of despair, helplessness and panic, as the realisation of what now lay ahead of us set in. Our plans, at least in the short term, were completely ruined. It was at this point that we had our 2nd and biggest stroke of luck on the holiday. After about 20 minutes of having our things stolen, on the floor of the Metro station, lay all our belongings minus only the cash. HOW LUCKY WERE WE! Later over a large Brandy, we worked out that the thieves had only stolen 20 Euros from us and a few Dollars. PHEW!
Thank you to mum and dad (Pam and Alan) for being there and supporting us during our terrible ordeal. Without you, the experience would have been so much worse. What a pair of stars, we love you both to bits.
We finished the Inca Trail in Peru on the 29th June and it was a truly amazing experience. Again, we met lots of lovely people from all corners of the world. The views from the Peruvian mountains were breathtaking. Unfortunately, just as breathtaking were the standing, hole in the floor toilets in the campsites!. Karen couldn't find a plug anywhere for her hair straightners..... On the 2nd night of the trail, the temperatures plummeted to minus 3 degrees Celsius. We were smuggling serious peanuts that night in our season 2 sleeping bags. The next day over breakfast, everyone informed Heather that they heard her, at 1am, tell Karen that she was 'BLOODY FREEZING' Nothing is sacred on a campsite.
Before we arrived in Lima, we'd heard lots about the effects of altitude sickness and after a few hours of arriving in the country, we were both feeling some of the symptoms. Nausea, headaches, breathlessness and muscle fatigue. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we might well be suffering from altitude sickness. As a result we decided that we should rest and take it easy climbing stairs and walking around. It wasn't until that night when we had our first meeting with our Inca Trail team, that someone mentioned that we were at sea level. We felt even more stupid for thinking we had altitude sickness when we had actually been to the beach that day. DOH!
South America is a truly amazing continent, full of beautiful scenery and friendly people. Rio De Janeiro is like no city we have ever visited and Sao Paulo is just vast. They say twice the size of New York. After what happened to us in Madrid, along with what we have read in books about South America, we entered the continent with a little apprehension and paranoia about safety. From our experiences, we have concluded that you shouldn't judge a country/continent based on your expectations and norms of what is home.
We've been in North America for nearly 3 weeks now. We've posed with the beautiful in the Florida Keys and Miami. We've consumed bagels, cheesecake and Cawffeeee in New York. We've had a word with George about his foreign policies in Washington and we've drunk Guinness and listened to Jazz and Blues in Chicago.
Thanks to Sarah and Becky for you excellent company in New York over our fun packed 3 days together. It's a good job we were in New York at the same time as you, otherwise whose hotel toilet would you have used during your stay!?
Over the next 6 weeks we plan to do a Thelma and Louise from the East to the West coast of North America. That's Thelma and Louise in the girls road trip sense, not the armed robbery, police chase and drive your car off a cliff sense.
Check back to the blog over the coming weeks for more crazy updates.
Until then this is the 2 Fit Birds over and out.
xx
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After one too many cocktails with S&B in NY
View from top of Rockerfella of Empire State Building
Drinking cocktails with S&B in NY
Our Inca Trail trek team
H&K in Rio De Janeiro
Mum and Dad (Pam and Alan) in Madrid
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13 June 2008
Karen with the Bimbo
Karen and her hair straigtners
Heather with her own sink
Heather and her manky camino feet and rash
Heather with Claude at the border of Gallicia and Leon
The view from O´Cebreiro at 7am
Only 22km to go
Karen on the stage from Ponferrada
A foggy start on our final days walk
We made it
Our Pilgrim friends celebrating in Santiago
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03 June 2008
Well we finally arrived in to Santiago. Wey hey! After setting off on the 27th April. It took us 36 days to reach our destination. We had many ups as well as the occasional downs.
After the blisters stopped us for 4 days in Pamplona, sickness and diarrhoea stopped us for 5 days in Pomferrada. We started to wonder whether we should just completely avoid all the towns beginning with a ´P´. Fortunately the hostel we checked in to in Pomferrada, whilst we were ill, had cable TV. We watched numerous films in dubbed Spanish, so many in fact that we should really be speaking fluent Spanish by now.
For several days all we could eat and keep down was bread, jam and bananas. The bread we were eating was called Bimbo which was quite a source of amusement. 5 days in a hostel watching films and eating Bimbo started to turn us slightly mad. At one point we go so bored we learnt as many rude words from our Spanish phrase book that we could find. If anyone needs to know what testicles, penis and breasts are in Spanish then just get in touch. When we were finally fit enough to get back on the Camino we had 9 stages to go to get to Santiago.
As we were now completely fluent in Spanish we caught on the news that May 2008 had been the wettest in Spain since 1999. Good job we had packed our waterproofs as we had rain on each of our last 9 stages. Karens hair straightners had never been so busy.
During one memorable stage from a village called Triacastella to a town called Sarria, we were up and walking as usual for 8am. At least an hour in to the walk, whilst tucking in to our fabulous breakfast of dried french stick and a banana, Heather realised that she had left both Pilgrims passports (essential pilgrim documents, in order to stay at certain places) all our route plans and our train tickets from Santiago to Madrid in our hostel. DOH! Walking back nearly 10km just wasn´t an option. At that moment a red transit van with several German pilgrims in it pulled up. They took Karen back to Triacastella whilst Heather sat by the road finishing breakfast. In 20 mins Karen was back with all the documents and on our merry way we went. How lucky was that.
That same day 2 hours later and against Karens better judgment we followed the camino signs off road. Well, it turned out to be the route from hell. Mud up to the top of our boots, puddles up to our knees and overgrown grass up to our chests. At one point, on a narrow ledge and on the verge of losing her balance, Karen decided to grab hold of the most substantial thing she could find to keep her balance. A nettle stalk, LOL. She received quite a nasty and smarting handful of stings. Her language was choice.
On the advice of Karen to just 'go through the middle' of a flooded area, Heather sunk several inches in to steaming swamp. It took more than 3 whole days foe her boots to dry out properly.
After finally arriving in to town of Sarria and chatting to several other pilgrims, we found out that nobody else had taken that route. We wondered why!
We fly in to Brazil from Madrid on the 15th June and a week later we fly in to Peru to climb the Inca Trail. We will update our blog after then. No doubt there will be plenty more shenanigans to report.
Until then this is the 2 fit birds signing off
K&H
xx
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14 May 2008
Hi everyone
Well, our first 2 and a half weeks have certainly been eventful. So far we have averaged 18 miles per day on the Camino De Santiago, starting from Saint Jean Pied De Port. We are currently in the Spanish city of Burgos.
To begin with the weather was fabulous. Unfortunately, for the last few days we have been walking in the rain. Some days for 8 hours without it stopping at all.
We have had several setbacks that have either stopped us walking completely or severely slowed us down. These setbacks include Tendonitis, Bursitis, Sciatica, having to go to the hospital to get blisters treated and having to dry out the entire contents of our rucksacks. Apart from that, the walking has been great, the scenery has been fabulous and we have met many marvellous people along the road from all over the world.
We can´t quite believe how well we have adapted to sleeping in dormitories with up to 100 other people who endlessly fart and snore all night. The changes in us are slight but on reflection over a cafe con leche has made us giggle. These slight changes include us both wearing our socks with our sandals (of which we swore we would never do) Karen not wearing any mascara, Heather wearing T-shirts tucked in to her trousers and us both being tucked up in bed for 9.30pm! Oh how we HAVE changed.
The Camino is much busier than usual with an estimated 10,000 more Germans alone than last year. As you can imagine the rush for the beds at the next pilgrims hostel on route is quite a scramble. This has sometimes been quite stressful.
Due to the rain certain parts of the Camino are flooded and un-walkable. Over these stretches we have walked along main roads. Unfortunately some roads were too dangerous to walk along so we forced to get a bus to the next village. There were many soggy pilgrims on that bus with long faces.
Tomorrow (14/5/08) we set off (hopefully with the sun shining.... but the words FAT and CHANCE spring to mind), to a village called Hontanas where dos grande vino tinto´s await us. :0).
Until next time, this is the 2 Fit Birds saying Adios and Buen Camino. XXX
Having a brew at 6.30am on the way Estella
Saint Jean Pied De Port
Sandals and socks!!!!!!
Just out of Pamplona
Karens blisters
On the road to Santiago
Karen looking sad due to blisters
Yummy again ..... another Omelette sandwich
Yummy ....... Omelette sandwich
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22 April 2008
Well, only 3 days to go until we fly into France to commence our 3rd challenge. The 500-mile walk from the French Pyrenees to Santiago in North West Spain should take us 6 weeks to complete. Bring it on!
We want to say a big thank you to all the people who took part in the Guinness World Record attempt at Woodbank Park Athletics Stadium on Sunday 13th April. There were 41 pairs in total and we managed to raise £547 for When You Wish Upon A Star. Check out the pics below for some great photos of the day.
There have been some delays with getting the relevant evidence to Guinness World Records for them to judge and hopefully award us with the official record. Watch this space for updates.
The mass participation 3-legged race was not only great fun but also a true success and we hope to turn the event into an annual occurrence. How great would it be if we could set a new world record every year while raising money for a good cause?
On Wednesday 16th April, Martin took us to Yorkshire for a final preparatory 18-mile walk and navigational test before the start of our walk to Spain. To say the walk was a bit of a disaster would be an understatement. We were doing fine until we thought we were so good that we didn’t need to check our compass bearings anymore and walked about 2 miles in completely the wrong direction. Doh! We did manage to navigate our way back to meet Martin but by that time we had lost the will to live and settled for a butty and a pint in the local pub. Oh well!
We are going to do a trial rucksack pack today to see how heavy our kit is. Like a typical pair of birds we have probably emptied about 50% of the stock from our local chemist. You know, just in case. We may actually need the sterile eye patch, surgical gloves and syringes….
We will be getting ourselves to internet cafes all around the world to update our blog and gallery page so please come back and take a look.
Until next time - This is the 2 Fit Birds, over and out. xx
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6 April 2008
What an adventure we had in London. We were both nursing hangovers during the train journey to the capital on Saturday but by the time we got there everything was hunky dory.
We checked into the hotel, which was just a short tube ride from Canary Wharf Tower. This enabled us to be up bright and breezy on the Sunday and get over to the tower for the pre climb brief at 9.30am.
Before we knew it, we were down in the basement of the tower with our timekeepers, Sarah and Becky, ready for the off. We all looked very bizarre in our protective clothing and fitness attire. Thank goodness the general public couldn’t see us…..
3, 2, 1 and were we off, leaving behind us the comforting voices of our witnesses and health and safety team as we scaled the first few steps of our ascent up the stair case of the UK’s tallest building. “Don’t forget,” the voice of Damien, our safety advisor, rang in our ears, “Once you are climbing the stairs, just carry on until we see you at the top.”
How hard could that be? Up the first flight we went, through a door. Ok, so where do we go now? There was a locked door to the left, a locked door to the right and an arrow pointing us down a corridor that read “This Way.” After a couple of seconds deliberation between the four of us we decided to follow the arrow. Through another door we went and into the shopping mall packed full of Sunday shoppers we found ourselves! Ooops!
After spending 5 minutes trying to locate our position and enduring the strange looks of local shoppers thinking “what on earth are these crazy northern birds doing,” we communicated our mishap to our climb team and found ourselves back in the basement for a take 2.
We were off again. This time going through the correct door to the rest of the stairs up the mammoth tower. All was a blur of excitement until the 20th floor. We were feeling good and we were eating the stairs up like nobodies business. 25th floor now, half way through and starting to feel the strain. Sarah and Becky were great shouting encouragement all the way up. Floor 30, floor 40. We were breathing through more than just our mouths at this point that’s for sure! Floor 50, only 4 more flights to go to the very top of the building. We stomped up to the finish at the cusp of anaerobic threshold in just 14 minutes and 34 seconds. We felt truly fabulous.
Check out the site for our pictures.
Until next time - This is the 2 Fit Birds, over and out. xx
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1 April 2008
We simply can’t believe that there are only 26 more days before we leave the country for our round the world fundraising trip. Woo hoo!
Our first challenge is in 5 days and the training is hotting up. For about 6 weeks now we have been doing an intense circuit-training programme to enhance our speed, agility and quickness to prepare for our Guinness World Record attempt climbing three legged up Canary Wharf Tower in London. The first time we did the proramme we were both walking around like John Wayne for about 7 days due to our muscle soreness. Not the most feminine way to walk around on a night out wearing a cocktail dress we can tell you!
For health and safety reasons, we have to wear helmets, knee, wrist and elbow pads during our climb up Canary Wharf Tower. We look like something out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when we are all kitted up! Watch this space for updated photos on the website. 2 of our best pals, Sarah and Becky, are coming to London with us to be our official timekeepers during our record attempt. They thought it was really funny when they saw us dressed up in our protective clothing. (We had to have a dress rehearsal of course). The laughing soon subsided though when we told them that they had to wear the protective kit too!
Pop back to the site next week to find out how our attempt went.
Don’t forget to get your entry forms in for the mass participation Guinness World Record attempt at Woodbank Park in Stockport on the 13th April, these can be found on our Help us Set a World Record Web Page. Alternatively you can enter on the day.
Until next time, this is the 2 Fit Birds over and out. xx
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27 February 2008
We couldn’t have wished for a nicer day to complete the Fairfield Horseshoe on Sunday 10th February. After having a brew in Ambleside and purchasing some Cornish Pasties for Scooby Snacks along our walk, we set off with a vengeance up Nab Scar. We can’t stress enough how gorgeous the day was for the whole of this walk. No wind creating bad hair, no soggy peat bogs for Heather to fall into and not a drop of rain to make our mascara run! It was a wee bit chilly and we did smuggle a few peanuts along the way but what a great day it was!
We were at the Lakes again with Martin on the 20th February, this time for a serious 3 solid days walking. Time to try out our new boots and rucksacks ready for our hike through France and Spain. We covered 43 miles over 3 days and walked some lovely routes that took us through Elterwater, Langdale, Borrowdale, Keswick and Grassmere. The weather was absolutely pants. Thank god for Gor-Tex.
We think it necessary to mention just a few of the bizarre conversations we all had those few days walking. What constitutes a good raspberry in terms of sound, length and pitch? (The ones you blow not the ones you eat…) If you could name a mountain in the Lake District in honour of yourself, what would you name it? (In the case of Martin, we decided on Camel Craggs, as he never drinks any water). Would a bag that was a cross between a bum bag and a rucksack be called a bum sack?
Obviously all this fresh air, rain, walking and Old Peculiar ale supping was effecting us.
Until next time, this is the 2 Fit Birds over and out. xx
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6 February 2008
After we were both struck down with “The Christmas Bug,” training is now back in full swing.
In preparation for our 500 mile trek in Europe, our training at the moment is very much focused on the walking aspect of our fitness. We have to be match fit to put in between 15-20 miles per day for 5 weeks.
With this in mind, on Sunday 27th January, our trusty walking trainer, Martin, took us on a short-ish 10 mile walk near Castleton to get our walking legs back. After he informed us it may be “a little windy,” we found ourselves in 75mph gusts along the ridge leading to Mam Tor. When we reached the Tor, we ended up rolling around on our hands and knees at the summit for a short while before we found our feet and managed to descend the stairs and return to the car. We decided it was great fun but it left us with very bad hair!
We are looking forward to walking the Fairfield Horseshoe on Sunday 10th February. We have asked Martin to order in a nice clear day with a refreshing light breeze. If no light breeze, then we have our emergency alice bands at the ready.
Until next week, this is the 2 Fit Birds over and out. x
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