Author: Justine

I was obviously a very good girl this year as Santa was very kind to me!

It all started a few weeks ago when Barry and I paddled out to Bardsey island and stayed overnight with the family who lives there year round. We had a great time, bought a few christmas presents ( homemade Bardsey island rugs & hats, and hand woven willow) & caught up with Steve, Jo, Rachel & Ben. Their daughter, Rachel, loves art and showed us her GCSE art projects which were really imaginative and beautiful. I particularly liked a charcoal painting she had drawn of a seal. 

We returned home and a week or so later, Barry told me that he would have to lie to me over the next week – but all in my best interests of course! I knew his lies involved making something out of wood, but I could never imagine that when he left home telling me he was going to work, he really drove down the Llyn Peninsula, paddled to Bardsey in a force 5 westerly & lumpy seas to pick up a charcoal painting that he’d commissioned Rachel to paint for me! When he got home that evening, I had no idea where he’d been!! He then disappeared off to make a lovely frame out of a big piece of elm and gave me the end result. The seal charcoal by Rachel is her first commission, but I don’t think it will be her last!!

RACHEL – CHICKEN & TURKEY FEEDER AND ARTIST!

Today was so beautiful with sunshine, blue sky and great snowy conditions on the mountains. How could I spend the day inside knowing that friends were out making the most of these pretty rare conditions in Wales? So I postponed starting work again and spent the day out in the hills with Clare & John D (they didn’t have to twist my arm very hard!). 

We did that classic Welsh walk – the Snowdon horeshoe, up the knife edge Crib Goch ridge, down, round and up to the highest peak in Wales, then down via the striking peak of Y Lliwedd. We were glad of our crampons and axes on some of the scrambly bits and the spikes stayed on our boots for most of the day. I’m home now and still smiling from a great day out on the hills. 

Time to start back on “This is Canoeing” now I’m energised from lots of fun playing outside!

CLARE ON CRIB GOCH, SNOWDON SUMMIT IS DIRECTLY BEHIND HER
ONE OF THE PINNACLES ON CRIB GOCH

A cold wintery spell has lingered over Wales for the last 2 weeks allowing us to get out and enjoy some great snowy walks and scrambles over the festive season.

Yesterday a group of us tried to climb up Snowdon up the Watkins path, but it’s not a well used footpath so once we started to climb more steeply we lost the path and were wading through knee to thigh deep snow making very slow progress. The short days and deteriorating weather persuaded us to head back down once we’d reached the ridge by Y Lliwedd. Today we walked the Nantle ridge – a lower but very beautiful walk with a few scrambly bits. What a gorgeous clear sunny day with great views to Snowdon behind us and the Llyn Peninsula with sea on both sides. 

Life is good!

2009 ended well for Cackle TV! We won a 5th major award for the film ‘South island circumnavigation’.
The film of my 3 month expedition has just won best sport and action film at the BOVEC Outdoor Film Festival in Slovenia on 30th December.

This is the 5th win for this warts-and-all film which documents the challenges and the joys of this treacherous 2,400km journey. Barry Shaw & I faced constant surf, strong winds and a helicopter evacuation due to illness. 

Other wins for “South island circumnavigation” are,

*best adventure film at Kendal MFF, 2008
*best adventure film at the Reel Paddling Film Festival 2009
*best adventure film at the Waterwalker Film Festival 2009
*Best water-based adventure film at the Montreal travel and Adventure Film festival 2009.

“South island circumnavigation” is just 1 of the award winning films featured on the DVD ‘This is the Sea 4’. The DVD double disc set contains over 2 and a half hours of exciting and entertaining seakayaking films from around the world. Didn’t get it for Christmas? It’s available in our on-line store, with free shipping worldwide!

I am currently working on a DVD about open boating called “This is Canoeing”. I’ve got so much great stuff that it will be another double DVD disc set with almost 3 hours worth of footage! It’s due to be released in March 2010.