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Wednesday 23 June 2010

An announcement

When I tell people my plans for next year, I invariably get one of two reactions. People either remark that Forest Gump did something similar, or slowly back off, fixing me with confused and hostile gazes, wondering where the nearest straightjacket is and how to get me into it.

So which of Forest Gump's exploits am I so crazily going to replicate? Will I be joining the American army to fight a pointless war abroad? Perhaps I am going to run into a soon-to-be bombed forest to save the life of an ungrateful man. Or maybe I am going Shrimp fishing in a hurricane with a man with no legs?

Not quite. Even I am not quite that crazy.

Instead, I will be walking 5000 miles for charity, crossing 17 American states, leaving the Georgia's Atlantic coast on Valentine's Day 2011, and arriving nine and a half months later at the Pacific coast of Washington State.

Now I know what you are thinking; Forest Gump did not walk across America. True, but he did run across large amount of it. Lots of times. Close enough.

So how did this come about? Well one day, my old Keblite friend, and rather amusing blogger, Joe O'Connor called me, explaining his desire to pen a mammoth adventure book, preferably with someone capable of occasionally taking a professional quality image. I am not sure why he chose me, and am even less sure why I said yes, but for whatever reason I agreed and the planning began.

During that rather lengthy phone call, we hammered out a route, quickly dismissing the organised transamerican hiking trails, preferring instead to play a transcontinental game of join-the-dots. We will connect a series of points that especially interest us, spending time on parts of the Appalachian Trail, the American Discovery trail, and the Pacific Crest trail in between.


We will visit the Great Smokey Mountains, Gatlinburg Tennessee, the world's longest cave system, St Louis, Kansas City, Lake Oahe, the South Dakotan Badlands, the Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse monument, Yellowstone, The Grand Tetons, the Great Sandy Desert, Crater Lake, and Mount Hood to name but a few.

We be soaked by thunderstorms, endure freezing temperatures, relentless heat, gale force winds, snow, and ice. Our feet will blister, or legs will ache, and our minds may break. Nevertheless, somewhere along the way, we will meet amazing people and see hundreds of ordinary and extraordinary sights.

Neither of us have done anything like this before. It will not be easy, and we will probably never speak to each other again. But, when it is done, we will almost certainly look back at it as one of the defining and most rewarding achievements of our lives.

Right now I am living a brilliant life, spending my days in the countryside taking countless photographs, but to be perfectly honest, I simply cannot wait to get going.

One last very important point. There is a serious reason behind this. It is not just Joe and I waltzing across a continent avoiding the real world by walking across as much of it as possible. We both aim to raise seriously respectable wedges of cash, be it dollars or pounds, for our respective charities.

I have put a great deal of thought into the charity I will represent. My main passion is wildlife, but I recognise that a heartfelt wildlife only approach to conservation is simply not feasible in the modern world. Successful conservation initiatives almost always involve the local community and cutting edge ecological science.

Until recently, I have been at loss to find a charity that exclusively backs exactly this kind of modern conservation. That is until the BBC Wildlife Fund popped up with their Wild Night In.

The BBC Wildlife Fund funds exactly the kind of conservation I am passionate about. They seek out projects worldwide that draw upon cutting edge science and enterprising passionate individuals to protect flagship species, help the local community, and conserve the environment as a hole. They truly make a difference.

I have just donated a small amount via the fund's Justgiving page, and would urge you to do the same, whether spurred on by our walk or not.

Oh, and we have a name for our adventure. "The Great Walk West: Being British Across America." I shall keep you posted.

New Captioning Website!

Stop! Newsflash! The Exposing The Wild Captioning System website is up and running, complete with fancy slideshows like the one below!




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The Captioning System has also had a revamp, and the new final draft is more comprehensive and unambiguous than ever. If anyone has any comments on the system, it would be great to hear them.

If any photographers out there would like to use the system, please do. The more the merrier! If you could just link to the website, that would be great.

My website (www.moonlightimaging.com) has also been updated and takes into account the new changes.

Unfortunately, I will be unable to update my older blog posts, I am simply too busy and have spent too many hours in front of the computer in the last few days finalising the website, as my bloodshot eyes can testify.

Anyway, that is it! The system is out there! Lets see how far we can take it.

Monday 14 June 2010

A Complete Set

As some of you may have noticed, it is World Cup year. Not just that, it is an African World Cup year. There are few that will argue that Africa is an exceptionally diverse continent, but that it is also somewhat turbulent. The very word Africa summons up images of blood diamonds, genocide, famine, and war. But somehow this year Africans are bonding around South Africa, Cameroon, Ghana, Algeria, and the Ivory Coast. They are not just their country's teams, they are African teams.


Here though, in Scotland, the natives cannot even bring themselves to support those with whom they share their peaceful North Atlantic island. The clue to the fact that the World Cup is being played is the slightly-more-miserable-than-usual faces of the Scots and the cheers whenever an Englishman makes a howler.

Down in England we would be perfectly happy to cheer on the plucky Scots. In fact we do. Every year we unite behind Andy and Jamie Murray in a storm of patriotic pride. After all, we are all part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.


For now though, the English male is a little busy flying flags, drinking beer, and complaining about the referee. In the meantime, children are out on the streets fighting over who gets to be Messi and collecting stickers emblazed with names like Christos Patsatzouglou, names that they are inexplicably able to pronounce.

Virtually no one ever gets the set, but that is not really the point. The fun is in the chase. Unfortunately, I have been chasing a set which, to my complete surprise, I have just completed. For the past month mummy and daddy Great Spotted Woodpecker have been visiting one of my hides. Today, out of the blue, their chick appeared.


I suppose I must find another set to complete. Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi for Maximiliano Periera anyone?