Best UK Destinations for Outdoor Activities

When I was in Snowdonia National Park, I was impressed by the amount of outdoor activities available: hiking, abseiling, canoeing and so much more!  These activities are really popular in South Africa but I didn’t appreciate how popular they were here or how much there was to do.  Please welcome Joanne Wilkes from Red Seven as she tells us about the best UK destinations for outdoor activities.

The UK has many outdoor activities and adventures that are available all year round. From rock climbing to caving and mountain biking to surfing the UK has it all. Visitors can test their skills at paintballing or archery or experience the serenity on the lakes in a kayak or canoe. Outdoor adventure activities are a great beginning for a stag weekend and can accommodate many different levels of ability.

Snowdonia in Wales offers amazing gorges and waterfalls for gorge canoeing and scrambling. For anywhere from two to four hours, with the right kit of wetsuit, buoyancy aids, helmets, abseil harness and cagoules jackets you and your friends or family will walk, slip, slide, jump and laugh a lot. In Snowdonia, North Wales, there are beautiful and exciting waterfalls that will challenge you to the limit. Whether jumping over waterfalls or zip-lining into natural plunge pools, it is an experience of a lifetime.

Cornwall offers excellent water sports on the Atlantic Ocean. Kite surfing offers an exhilarating experience and is considered one of the best outdoor activities in Cornwall. A combination of the abundant wind power on the coast along with the Cornwall surf makes for a fabulous ride. There are schools to teach the novice windsurfer which are overseen by the British Kite Surfing Association that make sure the instructors are qualified and the schools meet the prescribed standards for safety.

Paintball is a hugely popular outdoor activity in the UK. Paintball is a lot of fun and completely safe if you use the right equipment and follow the rules. Basically, paintball is an elaborate game of tag and a great game that can be one activity planned for stag parties. There are many high quality paintball fields within the UK.

Mountain biking can be as easy or challenging as you want. In the Brecon Beacons National Park, you can hire 21 speed mountain bikes for a half a day or one week. They come with a helmet, pump, route map that is custom made for your trip, a puncture repair kit and a spare inner tube. It is an ideal way to see the countryside while getting the exercise you need. Routes will take you onto the Black Mountains and along the ridges with spectacular views to Talgarth or Hay. There are other routes throughout the UK for adventurous mountain biking.

You don’t have to be a mountain climber to enjoy abseiling even though it has its origin in mountaineering. It is used as a way to get down from a high cliff or mountain side. Today, abseiling is an outdoor sport in itself, and there is great fun to be had in the Lake District, Lancashire, Cumbria. You will be kitted out with the harness and helmet and attached to a safety rope. An instructor will hold your safety rope while you learn how to use the figure of eight and a karabiner. Abseiling is also known as rappelling, roping down and snappeling. This outdoor activity is safe and fun for any age.

You can have a fantastic outdoor adventure in the UK and contribute to a better environment at the same time. There are unique natural environments in the UK that are open to ecotourism. The Eden Project in Cornwall is the largest greenhouse in the world, the Peak District in Derbyshire, Dartmoor and Exmoor national parks in Devon, the New Forest in Hampshire are a few of the places open to ecotourism. There is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Dorset and Devon, the Jurassic Coast, that is 153 kilometres long and the whole length can be walked on the South West Coastal Path.

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An Afternoon in Kew Gardens

On Sunday we visited Kew Gardens.  Kew Gardens is located between Richmond and Kew in south-west London and is one of the leading botanical gardens in the world.  The site itself is massive at 132 hectares and it is the type of place that you need to visit several times as you can’t possibly see everything in one day. 

In order to plan your visit around the landscaped gardens and botanical glasshouses, Kew Gardens offer a free mobile app that you can access by searching for “Kew” in your app store.  They also have free Wi-fi hotspots throughout the site (with no tricky sign-up protocols either) so it really does make getting around the site easier.

All of this was important during this visit to Kew as it was absolutely belting it down with rain.  We’d already postponed our visit a month ago because of the rain so we decided to push ahead with the visit on Sunday.  It was the type of rain that leaves you drenched regardless of your raincoats and umbrellas so we were thankful of the ability to rush from one glasshouse to the next.

When we arrived, we headed straight for the White Peaks Cafe and Shop.  We had yummy tea and cake and I was impressed with how spacious and push chair-friendly the cafe is.  In fact, the whole of Kew Gardens is child-friendly and my little 13-month-old companion certainly enjoyed himself.

We visited the modern Princess of Wales Conservatory next.  The conservatory was opened by Diana, Princess of Wales on 28 July 1987 but it actually commemorates Princess Augusta who married Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1736 and who founded the Gardens. 

The conservatory has ten climatic zones and houses an aquatic display too.  My favourite part of the display was the lilies.

Next, we visited the beautiful Victorian buildings that house the Palm House.  On the way there, we stopped to feed the swans in the pond outside the Palm House and admired the parterre looking out over the pond towards the Plants & People Exhibition.  The parterre are a series of intricately patterned geometric beds that were created around the Palm House by William Andrews Nesfield when construction of the Palm House was completed in 1848.

It might surprise you to find out that The Palm House was full of palms.  It was really lovely in there and there were palms from Africa and Australasia in there so I felt quite at home.  I really loved the structure of the Palm House itself, with the intricate steel and glass details and the winding staircase up the middle. 

There is a really nice tropical marine display in the lower level which we enjoyed.

We certainly didn’t spend as much time as we would have liked to at Kew Gardens and it is a pity that the weather was so miserable.  We felt that we had only seen one corner of the site and would have loved to have seen the wildlife conservation area in the north-west corner, or the Japanese gateway and pagoda in the south-west corner. 

There is also a wide range of photography exhibitions, a contemporary art show, free guided tours and hands-on sessions going on and you can read more about that at the Kew Gardens website.  Kew Gardens opens at 9:30 am every day.  The cost is £13.90 for adults and £11.90 for students and senior citizens.  Children under 17 go free.

I’d like to thank Frida from 247social.co.uk and Kew Gardens for inviting the five of us to visit Kew Gardens.  It was fun and we’d certainly visit again.

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Roa’s Crane

This is street artist Roa’s Crane on Hanbury Street in London.  This is his biggest work yet and the story goes that he laid down the whitewash for a stork but that a restaurant owner remarked that it looked like a crane.  The crane is revered in Bangladeshi culture and thus the crane was born. 

Once he had painted the white background, he sketched in the detail.  I’d really recommend that you click on either of these photos to see the detail because this work really is exquisite.

I liked this story of the cranes for three reasons:

• The blue crane is the national bird of South Africa
• My favourite band for several years was Cranes
• My original online handle for nearly a decade was Crane

I saw this piece of street art on a recent Alternative London walking tour.  The tour was free of charge and fascinating and I’ll be sure to upload more of my photos in a future post.

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A Taste of Zizzi Ristorante

Last week I was invited to Zizzi’s new restaurant to sample their new summer menu.  We went along to the Zizzi Central St Giles branch which is located just of St Giles Street, next to the Shaftsbury Theatre and is just 5 minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road station.

We were treated to an endless array of food and wine but the highlights for me were the setting, the artwork, the Cichetti, the Calzon’Pizzas and the sorbet.

Zizzi Central St Giles is brand new and was only opened at the end of last year.  I loved the design and spacious feel to the restaurant and I liked that the food preparation takes place directly in front of the diners.

Zizzi has launched the  Fresh Talent initiative where they work closely with selected up-and-coming artists and provide a platform for them to develop their art.  The featured artists entered into the Deliciously Stylish competition to redesign the Zizzi menu but their art has also been commissioned and placed in Zizzi restaurants across the country.  Perhaps my favourite initiative was the Tela Vuota (Italian for ‘blank canvas’), where the artists had the chance to paint their art on the walls of the Glasgow West End restaurant.

I love initiatives like this because I feel that by getting involved with the local community, businesses can establish mutually beneficial relationships that will enable artists to thrive and also stimulate that part of the economy.  Even their photographer (pictured above) is part of the Fresh Talent initiative.

How stunning are these menus?

The Cichetti (pronounced chik-et-tee) are Venetian tapas, little Italian bite-sized snacks. The range includes Insalata Caprese (with fresh buffalo mozzarella and plum tomatoes), Ravioli Croccante (with crispy spinach and ricotta) and Arancini risotto balls but my personal favourite was the creamed mushrooms on toasted Italian loaf.

The Calzon’Pizzas is a fabulous idea and is the invention of head chef Angelo Garafolo. Calzone pizzas are folded over pizzas and because they are usually stuffed with extra cheese and fillings, they can be extremely filling.  The Calzon’Pizza combines a pizza and a calzone.  It is approximately one-third calzone and two-thirds pizza, meaning that you can finish the whole thing yourself and not have to share!  Brilliant result.

The absolutely highlight of the evening was Kitty Traver’s Blood Orange Sorbetto.  I am a fan of lemon sorbet anyway but this was so incredibly yummy.  They warned us that the sorbet was limited edition but that if we were vocal enough, they’d keep it on the menu as a permanent fixture.  Fingers crossed!

It is always lovely to go to events like this because you get to sample a restaurant’s food and learn about the ideas and creativity that go into designing their menus and recipes.  If you’d like to sample the Cichetti, you’ll need to go to the Banstead, Charlotte Street or Central St Giles branches.  Another good reason to go to the Central St Giles branch is that they have live music on a Thursday evening.

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Beaumaris, Anglesey

Beaumaris Castle is on the Isle of Anglesey, a little island which lies just off the coast of north-east Wales.  It is a thirteenth century castle built as part of King Edward I's campaign to conquer north Wales but it was never finished.  Beaumaris Castle was the first of three castles that we visited during our short break to Wales at the end of June.

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Perhaps in my last post on Time and Travel I should have mentioned what happens when you get back from holiday.  How time just seems to get sucked into a vacuum as you hit the ground running and try to catch up with your life.

I have been unbelievably busy since I returned from Wales and here are just some of the items I have squeezed into ten short days when I should have been blogging: The Wireless Festival at Hyde Park; a tasting of the new Zizzi summer menu; an Alternative London Walk with Melizza from Sifting Through…; and a Fourth of July Party at Melizza’s north London flat. 

It has been wonderful to be so busy but at the same time, I just didn’t feel like blogging at Emm in London (shhh, don’t tell my blog I said that!).  It is a pity too, because my blog turned three-years-old a week ago and I should have celebrated just a little.  I guess it is important to remember sometimes that if the purpose of your blog is to keep track of the life you are living, you are going to need to live your life sometimes!

I’m going to take it slowly and go back to posting just over once a week.  That enables me to stay sane and to keep up to date with my blog roll and comments too.

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