It was more Texas than Tinseltown. Our short procession of horses followed the dusty, cacti-dotted trail, with guide Lila up front, leading the way and looking every inch the cowgirl in a Stetson hat and matching boots.

But we weren’t in the Wild West, or anywhere near it. There was no disputing our true location upon reaching the crest of the approaching hill. There, looming large against a deep green mountainside, were nine letters known the world over. The Hollywood sign — big, bold and white — shimmered in the hazy Californian sunshine.

“Horse riding is a very unique way to experience Hollywood but not many people even know it’s possible,” says Lila, from Alabama, who, like countless others, came here in search of fame and fortune. For the moment, though, she leads riders through Griffith Park — one of the largest urban parks in the US; a wilderness of forests and canyons sandwiched between the Santa Monica Mountains and Los Angeles River.

Locals retreat to this rugged slice of LA, seeking solace along the 56-miles of quiet trails. Travellers, meanwhile, are lured by the citywide panoramas and up-close views of the world’s most iconic sign, which sits on the southern slopes of Mount Lee.

Now out of bounds and heavily patrolled, the Hollywood sign is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year. Erected in 1923 to advertise a new housing development, the sign originally read: ‘Hollywoodland’ and was only ever intended to stand for 18 months, but it remained in place as the US movie industry started to flourish.

In the decades that followed, the 45ft-tall sign has hit the headlines on a number of occasions, most notably in 1976 when a prankster reworded it ‘Hollyweed’ using ropes, stones and fabric on the day that strict new anti-marijuana laws came into force.

The park’s history dates back even further. Once home to the native Tongva tribe, the land fell into the hands of Colonel Griffith J Griffith in the 1880s. He later donated more than 3,000 acres to the city, thereby creating a lasting legacy that’s almost eclipsed the fact he was also an alcoholic who tried to murder his wife.

Our horses trot along slowly, passing the occasional jogger and dog walker. Lila scans the skies for hawks and some of the other 200 bird species that reside in Griffith Park, as my steed Marilyn — named after Ms Monroe, naturally — chews on clumps of shrubbery that cloak the steep embankments.

Dense forests consume the surrounding foothills: an impenetrable refuge for coyotes and rarely-seen mountain lions. Lila points towards a cluster of dark caves in the distance. “That’s the original Batcave,” she says. “The old series of Batman was filmed there.”

The pace is slow and we soon came to a stop at a viewpoint, from which Los Angeles spreads out like a toy town of long boulevards and lofty skyscrapers. Helicopters hover over Downtown and the Pacific Ocean sparkles all the way to the horizon, lapping against the mountainous silhouette of Catalina Island. The Hollywood Sign looms over my shoulder and, slightly to the east, stands the art deco domes of the Griffith Observatory — a place that plays host to a form of stargazing not normally associated with the extraordinary City of Angels.

www.sunsetranch.com

Image: By Scott Catron (Sunset on Hollywood. Uploaded by zaui) CC-BY-SA-2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

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We glide listlessly, aside for a gentle about-turn each time we approach the river’s banks. A smooth pirouette, and we catch the wind again, slowly zigzagging our way northward.

The Nile — and our meandering journey upstream towards Luxor in the traditional felucca — is peaceful, despite Egypt’s tumultuous recent history, and our whimsical journey on-deck proves as relaxing as any beach holiday. We’re all piled lazily upon cushions, a contented band of travellers in a heat-soaked daze.

At one point we’re joined by two local children, bobbing alongside us in an ageing canoe — one in charge of paddling, the other frantically scooping water out of their leaking vessel. They laugh gleefully as they go, the challenge of keeping up with us — of even keeping afloat in the middle of the great river — a playful game, a simple pleasure.

Our own journey is less active. We lie idly on deck, baking ourselves in the late afternoon sunshine and sipping chilled beers as we snake along the dark green water. When the heat becomes too much, we still the sails and dive into the river to cool off. Climbing back aboard is a challenge — notions of elegance are left dripping in the water along with our dignity — but it becomes increasingly hard to view any element of this journey as anything other than fun. When we can summon the energy, we challenge ourselves to perform the most elaborate dives possible.

As night begins to fall, we moor on the western bank and watch the sky grow dark; the opposite riverbank aglow with the distant city lights. Chatter from a nearby Nubian village is interspersed with prayer calls from surrounding mosques, and we fall asleep on the mattress-laden deck — all of us sprawled amicably side-by-side — to their melodic song. The air is cool, the water quite still apart from the slightest rocking motion lulling us to sleep.

We’re woken the next morning by the less harmonious cry of a donkey that a local has mischievously left to graze next to our boat. But it’s hard to stay grumpy for long when our waking view is of sunrise across the water, as the temperature gauge starts its daily ascent.

Our time on the Nile is fleeting — part of a bigger tour of this most historic country, racing from temple to temple and from pyramid to tomb. But it is undeniably worth taking a day or two to slow down and see Egypt from its famed watery highway. It offers an intriguing view of this ancient land at a steady pace in its ever-changing current.

www.encounterstravel.com

Image: Remi Jouan (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

The post Egypt: Smooth sailing appeared first on National Geographic Traveller (UK).

Try as I might, I just couldn’t stand-up on the narrow surfboard. Again and again, waves surged under me, then tipped me into the warm and glorious waters off the beach at Surfers Paradise.

This suburb of the Gold Coast, a city in Queensland on the east coast of Australia, is well named. With a reef break that offers consistently good waves, it’s a major draw for visitors from around the world, and me, a hopeless novice surfer filming a TV series about Australia.

I had tried to surf once before, on the world’s longest natural beach at Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh. The waves there undulated pleasantly and harmlessly. Not so at Surfers Paradise. As the hours ticked by, and my attempts to stand went well into double figures, the BBC crew hoping to capture the crucial moment had almost given up.

Finally the patient teaching of the instructors from the Cheyne Horan surf school paid off. “More to the front of the board,” they were hollering at me across the waves. “Leap up with one fluid movement.”

The advice paid off, and eventually I managed to get two feet planted firmly on the board for at least 10 seconds, before I crashed into the water yet again. By the end of the lesson I had a bruised bum from hitting the sand, and I had accepted the painful reality I might never become a professional surf-bum.

No matter, because even for those not blessed with natural ability to ride waves, Surfers Paradise has plenty of other distractions. With theme parks, long beaches, skyscrapers and busy nightlife, some Aussies from the more sophisticated southeastern cities look down their noses at the Ibiza-life of Surfers. The area is a much-denigrated Australian weekend destination for party-goers and foreign tourists wanting a quick taste of the Aussie lifestyle. But I loved it. It’s a bit like Blackpool crossed with Miami.

I was late getting back to my car after my surfing lesson, and to my amazement a couple of leggy young women, wearing little but gold bikinis, heels and Stetsons, were topping up the parking meter, which only had moments left on the clock.

The girls were the famous local meter maids, who put a few coins in meters to save motorists and also give out flyers for clubs and events. Their official job requirements are listed as: ‘Good attitude, pleasant manner and a hot body in a bikini’. Originally introduced in the 1960s they’re still going strong despite the advent of modern inventions such as ‘feminism’, ‘political correctness’ and ‘the 21st century’.

After the girls tottered down the road, I went off to meet other local institutions, including endangered koalas, and a motorcycle gang called The Finks, who the local police accuse of involvement in all manner of criminal activity. With around 40 ‘outlaw motorcycle clubs’ across the country and more than 4,000 official members, Australia has quite a problem with biker gangs.

Filming with the heavily tattooed Finks, one of the burliest groups of blokes I have ever met, was one of the most extreme encounters I’ve had anywhere in the world. But then like the rest of our filming trip, it was a great reminder that Australia’s not all just cricket and kangaroos.

Simon Reeve is the presenter of Australia, the recent BBC2 series, which is currently available on iPlayer. He has travelled to more than 110 countries, making television series for the BBC including Indian Ocean, Equator and Tropic of Cancer. www.simonreeve.co.uk

The post Queensland: The aptly-named Surfers Paradise appeared first on National Geographic Traveller (UK).

It’s day three of my electronic Rome experiment, and so far I haven’t strayed from the web. Foursquare kept me entertained and got me around the sights, but left me a little frustrated and chasing more depth and detail. Google showed me the way with insight and precision, but burned my phone battery and blew my data sky high. Today I’m treading familiar ground: the travel app. Because an app is just a guidebook with a fancy engine. Isn’t it?

In an article in March’s National Geographic Traveller, I quote a conversation with Derek Lamberton, founder of publisher Blue Crow Media. He says, “It’s not a question of digital and smartphones versus print.” And he is right: it’s all about the content, not the format.

First, I switch off the mobile data signal on my iPhone. The best travel apps work totally offline, even their maps — locating me via GPS and plotting me on a proper offline map uses no data, so there’s no chance of bill-shock when I get home. And apps have more key advantages. They are cheaper and lighter than books. Neither of those is trivial, because it means I can carry more guides. Apps are quicker and cheaper to update, too. (Be sure to check its ‘last updated’ date, though, because a travel app shouldn’t have been left untouched since, say, 2011. Unlike fine wine, travel information does not mature with age.)

Lonely Planet Rome (£2.49; iPhone) is the most comprehensive app I’m using. Its detailed descriptions are familiar and trustworthy. There’s a well-designed offline map that allows me scroll around to see what I fancy doing next — although I don’t need any help finding today’s first stop, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill. I find archaeological sites a bit confusing; it’s difficult to grasp what I am seeing without some help, but LP’s information helps me understand the ruins’ context and meaning. On the downside, I’m basically reading a book on a four-inch screen — it feels a bit ‘square peg, round hole’. But the content is great, and the app works well. Maps are accurate enough to compensate for today’s internet cold turkey, though the touch-powered jump from map view to listings info is a little irritating. But at under £3 — the paper guidebook is six times the price — it’s a steal.

For eating my way around town, I packed Katie Parla’s Rome (£1.99; iPhone/Android). Guidebook restaurant recommendations can be a bit vanilla; I prefer opinionated expertise, and have spent my £1.99 wisely — that’s a cover charge in one bad restaurant. The app finds me the best tiramisu I’ve ever tasted, at Flavio al Velavevodetto, a sublime gelateria I’d never otherwise have jumped off the bus for on Viale Aventino, and even a decent Chinese close to Roma Termini station (I know, I know…). I happily trade convenience for a 15-minute journey to one genuine taste experience, so this app fits. It’s not perfect — the design is a bit fussy, and the map-pin for the Monti branch of Fatamorgana is far enough from the right spot to delay my ice cream by a few minutes. But this app was the best use of my phone during the trip.

It also dovetails nicely with the other sightseeing app I downloaded: Hidden Rome (£2.99; iPhone). As I sit by Monte Testaccio, chomping through an oxtail stew, I browse the weird history of the hill (it’s made of stacked, broken terracotta pots). As with Lonely Planet’s app, the offline map is smooth, plus there’s an enjoyable quirkiness to the curation. It’s another Rome app that just works — so I’ll forgive it for not warning me that the Pyramid Tomb of Cestius is draped in scaffolding.

I quickly get used to the online drip-feed from Foursquare, Google and the mobile web. I use them incessantly and simultaneously when I travel. But switching to apps has cost me £8 — less than a DK Eyewitness or Time Out guide to Rome — for information compiled by experts. I’ve spent nothing on roaming, and had no need for my Italian SIM or data plan. My battery is still going at bedtime. You know what? These apps may catch on.

www.GowithOh.com
www.turismoroma.it

The post Rome, day three: Mobile and offline appeared first on National Geographic Traveller (UK).

I start day two with a plan. Well, not really a plan — more a destination. I make for the Capitoline Museums, as close to opening time as I can manage. My iPhone buzzes; an app called Field Trip (free; iPhone/Android) has a message for me. My screen gives a brief rundown of what’s inside the museum; it’s more background than I got from Foursquare yesterday, but much less than a decent guidebook would provide.

Field Trip is straightforward: the app tracks my location and vibrates whenever I’m near something interesting. Tap the screen and it brings up geotagged information from the likes of Spotted by Locals, Atlas Obscura and others. Compared with the often-thin content of user-generated web services, the detailed explanation of the Ludus Magnus by Historvius is right up my street. I’d wondered yesterday about that hole in the ground.

Field Trip is clever, and works well during a morning of serendipitous sightseeing. However, it isn’t the right app when I know what I want to do — for example, eat lunch — but need some help deciding where to do it. I open Google Maps.

The integration of content from acquisitions Zagat and Frommer’s — plus a modest number of user reviews — has made Google Maps into a tool that does way more than just direct me. On the iOS app, I tap the magnifying glass and then the knife-and-fork symbol — and restaurant recommendations appear on the map around me. I check several, to compare professional and user reviews. I type ‘pizza’ into the search box, and that selection of restaurants automatically narrows down to pizza places. Slick.

Accurate directions lead me to the door of Dar Poeta, though my mobile signal struggles a couple of times on Trastevere’s cobbled lanes. The Zagat rating of 22/30 is maybe a fraction generous, but, as with Foursquare yesterday, I’m happy with lunch. For dessert, I cheat: the waitress recommends Fior di Luna. I cross-check back to Google Maps, which has just one user review of the place (scandalous, because the gelato is stratospheric).

Travelling with Google isn’t a seamlessly smooth ride. When I search for nearby attractions from the shade of a fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, it fails to mention one of Rome’s oldest churches, 30 paces away. Its interior has 13th-century mosaics by Pietro Cavallini, but I only know this because I read a fading notice written in Italian. Field Trip describes Santa Maria’s frescoes as ‘colourful’ and ‘medieval’. I can see that for myself, and for the first time today I wish I’d brought a guidebook for extra illumination.

Worse: I set out around 9.30 this morning with a fully charged iPhone. My battery gives up at 4.35pm. I thought this might happen, so brought the Innergie Pocketcell Duo, a £99 portable power pack with 6,800mAh of capacity. Within an hour, it gets enough juice into my handset to last until bedtime; in fact, it could charge the phone three or four times over, and can charge two devices simultaneously. While I’m waiting, I try out Local Scout, a discovery app on the second phone I’m carrying this week, a Nokia Lumia 800 running the excellent Windows Phone system. Alas, it has no match for the rich travel content available on Google — at least, not yet.

Another handy feature of Google Maps is automatic public transport routing, so I type my apartment’s address and tap the right symbol. The app advises me to walk, although I know there’s a bus that will take me halfway. One of Google Maps’ key features doesn’t work too well in Rome.

Plus, I’ve just checked my data usage: 80 megabytes in under 24 hours. Ouch! Time to try a different tack.

www.GowithOh.com
www.turismoroma.it

Tomorrow: Rome, day three: Mobile and offline

The post Rome, day two: Through Google’s lens appeared first on National Geographic Traveller (UK).

It’s not a great start. I wake up, the first morning in my rented Celio apartment, with an appetite. Of course, I know about the Sistine Chapel and Bernini and Ancient Rome, but none of that is going to tell me where to get a good breakfast. I pick up my smartphone and launch Foursquare, an app I describe in March’s National Geographic Traveller as an ‘ingenious mobile and web guide created by a combination of user tips and clever curation technology’. In theory, it can tell me where to eat. In theory.

Because right now, Foursquare is recommending I walk almost two kilometres to find a highly-rated cafe. I settle on the bread shop down the street, and pay too much for something I don’t really want.

I’m in Rome for more than just Foursquare. I’m here for a few days to find out if just a smartphone and a data connection are enough for a satisfying trip. There’s no guide and no helpful local to offer advice. Nothing as archaic as a guidebook is in my bag, obviously. I’ve done not a shred of Rome research.

Today’s task is to make Foursquare be my mobile guide. The service originally launched in 2009 as a social check-in game, and the launch of its Explore function transformed the mobile app into a powerful ‘local discovery engine’. I’ve been an on-and-off user for three years, usually on home turf in London. In preparation for this trip, I’ve been checking in more than usual. Foursquare has lots of data on me; it should know what I like. I hit the Explore button, hoping for killer insight into something I can see right now. It suggests the Colosseum.

‘This place is busy right now,’ it advises. You don’t say.

I take a walk around the ancient amphitheatre and wonder about the triumphal arch on the far side. Foursquare’s map view helps out: it’s the Arch of Constantine. Why is it there? I browse the user tips: ‘near colosseo rome… nice place!’ reads the first I see. True. Others agree that it was built to commemorate Emperor Constantine’s victory over Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in AD 312. Also true.

I have a voracious appetite for information when I travel, and I get the sense that Foursquare is telling me only what I could work out for myself. But every now and then, it reveals a golden nugget. I learn that the Pantheon featured in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, for example.

Searching for a nearby lunch spot, the promise of ‘the best pasta restaurant in the world’ is too good to pass up. As it turns out, Maccheroni isn’t the world’s best pasta place — but is a solid recommendation. The cacio e pepe is good — perhaps a couple of euros pricier than I’ve seen, but then I am just a few streets from Piazza Navona. Foursquare’s nearby coffee recommendation, Sant’Eustachio Il Caffè is even better. There’s a three-deep queue for the brew — a mix of tourists and Romans who come for their own wood-roasted grind. I’m less impressed with an obvious dessert suggestion: nearby ice cream parlour Giolitti.

Foursquare claims its app tailors Explore recommendations to each user, based on previous check-ins. To test that out, I set up a new account using a phone and email address that’s never been connected to Foursquare. I hit Explore on both phones and, yes, the recommendations are different. Not by much — but then we’re in a tourist city, and the algorithm assumes (not unreasonably) there are things here everyone wants to see.

Foursquare has some great features. On both the iPhone and Windows Phone apps, it’s easy to find exclusive deals: 20% off a Segway tour here, two-for-one cocktails if I check-in there. I can browse the map and add places to a list I can refer to later. I get accurate directions with one press, from right inside the app. These are invaluable for sightseeing. It’s ingenious.

But has the app helped me to be a better tourist? I’m not sure. After a day in Rome, I feel I’ve missed more than I’ve seen. Tomorrow, it’s time for a change of smartphone strategy.

www.GowithOh.com
www.turismoroma.it

Tomorrow: Rome, day two: Through Google’s lens

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It could have been a scene from the British countryside. In the bank, two ladies chat about the agricultural show. In the supermarket, where a shop girl is moaning about the weather, Hobnobs and Marmite line the shelves. Outside in the car park, a battalion of Range Rovers all display Union Jacks. We count seven flags attached to one. Most carry at least three.

It’s the Union Jacks that give it away really. In truth, there are more flags to welcome you to Stanley than you’d see at a royal wedding and diamond jubilee combined. Yet we were thousands of miles away from Britain, on an island off the South Atlantic coast of South America, and the effect was slightly surreal.

“They’re more British than the Brits,” a crew member aboard our ship, Polar Pioneer, had insisted as we were discussing the Falklands Islands. I’d smiled, thinking he was joking. He wasn’t.

We’d come here on the final stop of our three-week Antarctic and Subantarctic Island cruise, which had departed from the Argentine port of Ushuaia. While we’d been at sea, the Falkland Islanders had had their historic referendum, with 99.7% of the population voting in favour of retaining their current political status as an overseas territory of the UK.

Despite the residual buzz of the referendum outcome, and the Falkland Island’s bigger role in modern British history, Stanley presents itself as an intriguing, yet slightly sleepy, little town.

We’re welcomed warmly by locals as we take in the main sites on a morning bus tour: the whalebone arch by the church, the peat fields that provided fuel for the early settlers, the pristine gardens of Government House, shipwrecks in the harbour, souvenir shops filled with stuffed penguins and the construction material being stockpiled for the ongoing oil exploration in the Falklands.

One local tells us commercial production will start in 2015, another casually mentions 2017. In the meantime, men in expensive suits with thick accents pore over papers at lunch in the town’s nicest restaurant while their plates of delicious food go largely untouched.

While we devour ours, it’s not rocket science to join the dots between the potential oil money and the renewed bickering over the sovereignty of the islands. Afterwards, we walk along the shore to see an art installation of the solar system. A passenger jet coming in to land catches our attention.

Flanking it on either side are RAF fighter jets. We’re unsure if it’s an exercise, or routine for all planes coming into land, but from afar, it’s a slightly jarring sight.

With the sun shining, most departures passengers are to be found drinking away their last hour in Stanley on picnic tables outside the Globe Tavern. Some declare they could never live here, describing it as being stuck in the 1950s. Some talk sovereignty and politics. Others look around and drink up the small town with their eyes, imagining a quiet life here. Me? I feel restless. There’s so much more to this place and its history. I’d simply love to have more time to get to know Stanley better.

www.auroraexpeditions.co.uk

Image: Chris van Hove

The post Falkland Islands: Local charm appeared first on National Geographic Traveller (UK).

They came in waves — their arms outstretched — offering coins, candles and purple flowers as they surged towards the altar of Saint Lazarus. As the human swell broke at the holy rail, bulbous bags of silver coins — some untied from necks — were poured into charity coffers, purple candles that had remained lit throughout the pilgrimage were snuffed out, and fine cigars were handed over to the aproned church staff. All the while, the gold-and-purple-robed statue of St Lazarus — the patron saint of the sick — silently surveyed the ebb and flow.

Every 16-17 December the church of El Rincón, close to Santiago de Las Vegas, some 12 miles south of Havana, is swollen with the faithful who come to honour St Lazarus in an annual procession. In Cuba, St Lazarus is the alter ego of Babalú Ayé, the earth saint of Santería, a West African-born religion syncretised with Roman Catholicism. In Santería, Babalú Ayé is depicted as an old man covered with sores that are licked by his faithful dog; he has the power to cure illnesses, too.

Cuban believers take these beliefs seriously. And so it was that I found myself ambling among pilgrims dressed in Hessian sacks, crawling on their knees or on their backs — some even dragging rocks behind them all the way from central Havana — to honour promises made to St Lazarus.

As the unfiltered December heat bore down on the prostrate pilgrims, they paused for breath and water, rum and cigarettes, offered to them by walking devotees. By the time they reached the steps of the white church, they were dishevelled, dirty and delirious — from the heat as much as religious fervour — and their final steps towards the church were assisted by Cuba’s Red Cross and well-wishers who swept the path ahead with palm fronds.

Inside El Rincón, it was holy chaos. The marble floors were aflicker with candles and between the rivulets of hardened wax, devotees, propped up by columns, sat snoozing, begging, watching. The soundtrack to this gathering of vulnerable souls, like the tidal wave that approaches the altar of St Lazarus, rises and falls: “Transform me, clean me, revive me, forgive me, Holy Mother pray for us, help us.”

A blind man emitted a plaintive cry: “Give me something I don’t see.”

And then, previously blinded by the roiling religious mass, I saw them everywhere —copper-coloured sausage dogs wrapped in cloth. Some were wobbly on their feet on the floor; another was fed lemonade from a can by a little kid.

Then I met Linda and Mochita, four-year-old twin mongrels who were born without front legs, and who bounced around, quite happily, like kangaroos. Next I spotted a canine opportunist: its owner had clambered out of his wheelchair on crutches to make his way to the altar and the dog, without wasting an instant, leapt into the recently vacated chair, surveying the pilgrims from his elevated position. He sat with a righteous air that said to the gathered, ‘This is rightfully mine.’ And I suppose he knew, in the consecrated confines of El Rincón, that it was…

Image: Courtesy of Walfrido Lopez Rodriguez under Creative Commons Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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I always enjoy hanging about outdoors and today I’m doing that, literally, 1,500ft up a Welsh mountainside. Wearing a red jump suit, a helmet and goggles, I’m strapped into a harness similar to those worn by hang-gliders and about to descend the world’s fastest zip-line.

Zip World opened in March and the Big Zipper, two steel wires running parallel for a mile, is the longest continual zip-line in the northern hemisphere. Waiting for the team at the bottom to radio up clearance that the line is clear and I’m “good to go” I’m surprised at my inner calm; I really don’t have a head for heights and had half-expected to be petrified.

Frankly though, I feel pretty snug. The harness is comfortable and, thanks to sunny conditions and clear blue skies, I’m enjoying a fine view of Anglesey and the Irish Sea. I’m about to ask whether the blob of land beyond the sea is Ireland or the Isle of Man when the message I’ve been anticipating for comes through.

“Tuck your arms down by your sides and you’ll fly like a rocket man in today’s conditions; they’re perfect,” says the employee who’s about to release me. He’s already explained that my weight, 17-and-a-half stone, means I’m likely to achieve a fast speed and may break 100mph.

Looking up at the wire that bears my weight, I recall the reassuring words of Sean Taylor, one of Zip World’s directors, who went down ahead of me. “It’s immensely strong, with a 28-tonne breaking strain… we could put a car down if we wanted,” he said.

“Safety is off,” announces a controlled voice behind me as I hear the safety line being unclipped.

The countdown begins from five and I look ahead into Penrhyn Quarry, which until the 1950s was the planet’s largest man-made hole. Top quality slate is still quarried here.

Another member of staff, Spud, provided a potted history of the area during the 10-minute drive up from the base. Before Penrhyn became the home of Britain’s longest zip-line it was known as the site of one of the country’s longest labour disputes, a strike that began in 1900 and lasted three bitter years.

“Go!” I hear and surge free of the launch platform, running rapidly above slate and snow just a few feet below. It makes me think of the footage you see filmed from low-flying helicopters.

After rushing past a slate-capped ledge I zoom out over the lake that now fills the bottom of the site. The road along the grey rim of the quarry spirals down to the surface. Based upon what I was told at the pre-run briefing, I must be about 500ft above the water.

Over the last quarter of a mile the line runs uphill, helping break my velocity. At the end Nick Moriarty, the line’s designer, reaches out and helps me onto the finishing platform. He tells me I reached a top speed of 115mph, smashing the previous record.

Elated, I’m also a tad relieved to arrive safely and that the speed record is all I’ve broken.

www.zipworld.co.uk

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Adventurous and intrepid doesn’t always extend to the palate. I realised this when I declined a handful of deep-fried silkworms, the garlicky aroma not quite persuasive enough.

Siem Reap’s biggest street food hang-out isn’t widely known to tourists, but this crowded nightly roadside market is where the locals go. And where anything goes — from fried chicken and whole catfish to blood cake wrapped in intestines and unfertilised duck embryos.

I’m with Deborah Saunders, an Australian who calls Cambodia home and runs The RiverGarden Hotel Siem Reap. Her latest venture is guided street food tours. “It can look daunting,” she says, as we hop into a tuk-tuk. “It’s hard to know what’s what, so I hope people will feel more confident.”

The tour begins at the smaller Psar Wat Po market, where we gorge on hot-off-the-griddle coconut waffles, freshly made from glutinous rice flour, coconut milk and shredded coconut. Washing them down with her neighbouring vendor’s iced sugarcane juice. I realise this is just the warm-up. Minutes later, we’re onto crispy shrimp cakes, sprinkled with lime, salt and Kampot pepper. From Kampot in the south, it’s one of the highest grades of pepper in the world.

We hotfoot it to Siem Reap’s largest wholesale market to try “the best nom kachay in Siem Reap,” according to Deborah. Certainly, these deep-fried chive patties are tasty enough to eat three in a row. Around us, the aroma of just-baked baguettes (a legacy from the days of French occupation) is intoxicating. The Khmer people still love bread, often filling baguettes with pork or terrine. The French also left them ice cream, crepes and coffee — an impressive gastronomic inheritance.

For sweet-toothed foodies, there are deep-fried crispy bananas, lurid pink-and-green rice cakes and sticky palm-sugar toffee cakes. The smiling roti man whips up banana and chocolate pancakes for under a dollar and the tinkle of the ice cream man and boombox of the peanut nougat seller signal more sugary wares. Apparently, diabetes is common, even among the slimmest Cambodians.

Most memorable is the locals’ roadside market. We walk past chickens split in half, stuffed frogs, snails on sticks and fried spiders. There are hearts, livers, gizzards, intestines, wing tips, duck embryos with lime, chilli and salt, and barbecued duck necks. If any body parts are discarded, it’s hard to work out which. “It’s a cuisine borne of starvation,” says Deborah. “They ate whatever they found — bugs, rats, snakes, dog…”

Meanwhile, the silkworm vendor’s friend gestures to her own bucket of water beetles and cicadas. Politely backing away, I join my group for sticky rice — smoked and served in bamboo — and just-grilled banana leaf parcels filled with prahok fish sauce, lemongrass, garlic, chilli and coriander.

It’s some feast. We share fresh lotus flower heads, chewy white sweetcorn and green mango with sugar, salt and chilli. We buy wacky-looking dragonfruit, spiky pink rambutan and infamously stinky durian, as if collecting pieces of surrealist art. The fruit is delicious, although the durian is passed around like a bomb. I try it. It tastes of leeks, blue cheese and a hint of feet. Maybe the silkworms wouldn’t have been so bad after all.

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