I just had to go. More photos can be found in the photo gallery.

Find out more about the Rhino Mania! from their official website, facebook and twitter.

The giant pride of 100 individually decorated, life-size lion sculptures took up residence in Bath during the summer of 2010, I just had to go!

The Lions are due to be rounded up in October – when some of those that have escaped the city will hopefully be reunited with their friends. More photos can be found in the photo gallery.

Find out more about the Lions in Bath from their official website and Spot’s twitter feed.

Elephant Parade is a conservation campaign that shines a spotlight on the crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant. Brought to you by www.elephantfamily.org, the event sees over 250 brightly painted life-size elephants (each is decorated by a different artist or celebrity) located over central London – I think I have found 53 so far (31st May)!.

They are due to be rounded up and on parade later in June – might have to go and see some of the 200 I have yet to find. More photos can be found in the photo gallery.

While walking the Southern Upland Way, I came across a seemingly abandoned arch on the top of Benbrack (during day 4 of the walk so I feared I was hallucinating from the exertion of walking).

Quite a while later it all clicked into place – it was better signposted from a road than approaching by walking!

Striding Arches is an artist-led project ‘which celebrates and interprets a little known area of Dumfries & Galloway in south-west Scotland’. Andy Goldsworthy’s red sandstone arches ‘stride’ around a natural amphitheatre deep in the Southern Uplands.

The Arches are formed from 31 hand-dressed blocks of red sandstone from a nearby quarry, each arch stands just under four metres high, with a span of seven metres, weighing approximately 27 tons, and is totally self-supporting.

So that explains it!  Glad I didn’t have to carry a piece up there.

Spending a bit of time again in Scotland, and it allowed me to find another delicacy that would go well with a nice cup of tea – Ecclefechan Tart.

The tart was traditionally made right across the south of Scotland, and I am wondering where it was hiding while I was walking the Southern Upland Way, however it is named after the town of Ecclefechan situated midway between Lockerbie and Annan in Dumfries and Galloway.

Ecclefechan Tart gained national recognition in late 2007 when Sainsbury’s promoted it as an alternative to mince pies for Christmas. The tarts proved to be very popular with over 50,000 packs sold in November alone, and I can quite understand why.  The tart has a texture reminiscent of pecan pie but is spiced with cinnamon and lemon peel and studded with raisins.

Delicious!

Earlier in the month I got a postcard, it was a picture of a pig in Bath – and I just had to check it out.

King Bladud’s Pigs in Bath was a summer 2008 public art event to celebrate Bath, its origins and its artists. Over one hundred life-size pig sculptures turned into works of art are on display throughout the summer all around Bath and beyond. I managed to find 59 pigs – all of the photos are here.

All the pigs are due to be rounded up at the end of the month, and auctioned off in October.  I hope they will be herded into one area prior to the auction as I would certainly head back to Bath to check them out.

Was in the neighbourhood and visited Herstmonceux Castle and the Observatory Science Centre (the site of the former Royal Observatory at Herstmonceux).

Built originally as a country home in the 15th century, the moated red-brick Castle is most impressive. As is the avenue of sweet chestnut trees that date from the 1700′s, the walls of the Elizabethan walled garden, and a number of sundials in the formal gardens.

In 1946 the Admiralty bought the estate for the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and it became an important scientific institution for the next 40 years (until 1993 when it was acquired by Queen’s University of Canada, and is now an International Study Centre attracting students from around the world).

The Observatory Science Centre occupies the buildings that were the site of The Royal Observatory. The tour of some of the domes and telescopes highlighted how it was a world leading astronomical site for many years, though nowadays it is at the forefront of making science accessible with an excellent range of hands-on exhibits, activities and science shows. While children need to be accompanied by adults, thankfully as an adult I was able to play with the exhibits quite happily unaccompanied (it looked like all adults, parents and grandparents were having a great time too).

If you are wanting a more sociable time then either chose a different National Trail, or complete the Southern Upland Way going east to west – and you might well meet one or two people each day walking the other way.

While there is quite a bit of plantation forest walking, and some road walking (but on very quiet lanes), the Southern Upland Way takes in some wonderful scenery with magnificent views. There are some long challenging days of walking, which might well deter many people, though with vehicle support or using some of the bothies the route can easily be broken down into manageable chunks.

If I had been sensible I would have planned to use the numerous bothies (there are 5) to split up some of the longer days. Undertaking the whole route in 11 days was probably too little time, spending a couple more days completing it would have made it much more manageable.

The route is very well signposted, the best I have walked by far, and there are just enough people walking the route to define a reasonably clear line in the grass ahead (though thankfully not too many that the path gets churned up or any boggy bit become a quagmire).

The remnants of the Waymerks Project (warning spoilers) added another dimension to the long days of walking, and the various art installations along the route, while not all to my taste, did provide bold statements. The most challenging items however were the various standing stones, cairns and memorials to darker times in Scottish history, not only did these provide a haunting connection with the past they helped describe a very different landscape.

I would highly recommend the Southern Upland Way, and if you have already walked some of the more popular long distance walks/trails I suggest you add it to your list soonest.

Center of map

Route

More photos (from all the days of walking) can be found in the photo gallery.

Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer is a bar of pure deliciousness, consisting of 5 layers of wafer as a way of separating 4 good layers of caramel – and completely covered in chocolate. It is then wrapped in a classy foil-paper wrapper, instead of the terrible plastic coatings that are nowadays often used.

Both milk and plain chocolate version are available. The milk chocolate version is wrapped in red and gold coloured foil-paper, whilst the plain chocolate wrapping is coloured blue and gold.

The wrappers (of the milk chocolate version) bear the proud words: “more than 4,000,000 of these biscuits made and sold every week”. I dare say a comparable number are also eaten! Quite a few kept me going on the long days of walking the Southern Upland Way.

There is a closely related product: Tunnock’s Caramel Log, which is similar to the Caramel Wafer but with the addition of desecrated coconut* to the outside of the bar and with a plastic wrapper. Why anyone would want to do this to a perfectly delicious bar remains a mystery to me – it is almost sacrilege.

* often referred to as roasted or dessicated coconut; in my book any alterations made to delicious fresh coconut is effectively desecration.