Adventure

The build continues and we go to a wedding! - Habitat For Humanity (Part 3) / August 23, 2017 by Kevin Hatcher

Back to work.

After a great weekend visiting the sites of Yogjakarta and enjoying the local food it was time to go back to work.

We spent the next day building the walls up to as high as they needed, using scaffolding and some great teamwork. Once the walls were up, the neighbors took over and completed building the roof supports and joists. We could not do this work as it was pretty specialized and at a height that is probably not covered by Habitat for Humanity, so we spent the remaining few days throwing cement at the new walls.

The completed high walls

Jim coating the front with cement

My efforts inside the house

The cement layer was to cover the rough cement and brick work and give a smooth surface for the plaster, and it was not easy. I think at one point everyone tried their hand at throwing cement, and consequently got covered in the bounced off cement paste that did not stick.

Likan spent a lot of time doing this! What a trooper!

WWe spent the last few days of week two coating the walls, and would have to leave the house without a roof and a floor. This would be completed at a later date by the Habitat for Humanity Indonesia team and the amazingly community spirited neighbors.

Local wedding.

Over the course of the last week we had been working hard, we all wanted to get as much completed as possible. I think secretly we all wanted to actually finish the house in two weeks, but that is a lot of construction for such a short time period.

As the week came to a close both teams got invited to a local village wedding. This was amazing! The wedding was bright and colorful and there was so much going on it was hard to keep up.

The bride complete with traditional dress waiting to start the ceremony.

One of the two guys of the band. Great guys!

As we watched the wedding we had the honor and privilege to be asked to join in with the celebrations and to be in some of the photos with the bride and groom! It was great fun and we all had a lot of laughs. I will never forget this!

Bride, groom and Habitat for Humanity team. Great fun!

The last day at the build site.

All good things must come to an end, and sadly at the end of a great two weeks of building we had to leave. Before we left both teams autographed the houses that we had spent time building, and then as a final farewell we had a goodbye ceremony with a special lunch served in our family’s old home.

This was a very emotional good bye with speeches from the village chief, Jim and our Habitat team, and was truly heartwarming. I will never forget this last day; the smiles, the laughter of all of the people gathered around on the floor and the amazing food that we all shared..

MMM! Lunch! Looks great!

Jeremy cuts the top of to give to the chief

Well, that is about it from Yogyakarta, and this part of my Indonesia trip. All of the support, food from the local families, neighbors and the Habitat for Humanity Indonesia was amazing! A great group of people and a really good work ethic with some amazing fun. I would do a trip like this again anytime.

As for me, I was taking a short flight to Bali to do a few days exploring with Mandy, Jeremy, and Allisa from the trip. First stop was Uluwatu and then up to Ubud.

Come back for more!

Cheers,

Kev

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The build begins - Habitat For Humanity (Part 2) / August 16, 2017 by Kevin Hatcher

Everyone smile.

So, after a very busy and productive introduction to Yogjakarta, I suppose I had should settle in and do some actual work. Time to meet the crew and build a house. To be honest, I was really looking forward to this part, as I have never built anything from the ground up and meeting a whole bunch of new people is always fun!

This was our crew of 14 people!Back row top left to right: Corrine, Jon, Tanner, Bernie, Jeremy aka Jer-bear, Mackenzie,Middle row left to right: Mandy (HFH Group leader), Likan, Alissa, Me! Valerie and Jim (Love that T-shirt! Su… — This was our crew of 14 people!
Back row top left to right: Corrine, Jon, Tanner, Bernie, Jeremy aka Jer-bear, Mackenzie,
Middle row left to right: Mandy (HFH Group leader), Likan, Alissa, Me! Valerie and Jim (Love that T-shirt! Super jealous!)
Bottom row left to right: Kay and Joyce. The hardest working people on the team!

We were picked up by our Habitat for Humanity liaison team; Djingga Djiwa and Nofi Fuanda. Djingga worked tirelessly all day with us to help make our stay in Yogyakarta more enjoyable. He picked us up in the morning, drove us around, organized dinners during the week for all of 16 of us, and put up with all of our nonsense! No wonder he slept in the work vehicles so much. We also had the amazingly happy and friendly, Nofi Fuanda and her impressively large and colorful collection of hijabs. I don't think I ever saw two the same for the whole build project! Impressive!

After introductions and photos at HFH Indonesia HQ we were driven about 1 hour south to Selopamioro village in the Imogiri Sub District.

Puji Raharjo with the sharpest knife I have ever seen. We never got to do this in case we lost a finger...right Corrine.

We were split into two teams at the site and introduced to our site foreman who would look after the running of our house build.

Ladies and gentlemen...our foreman Puji Raharjo!

He would be in charge of us, instruct us on how to use tools, keep us safe (no mean feat) and helped us build our house. Oh, and he cut up and fed us fresh coconuts!

Awesome!

Some of the children and a few from the local village.

The family, mother and father. They have 3 children too.

We were then introduced to the family that would move into the new house. They were so friendly and accepting, it was amazing. In fact, the whole local village was, and it was all very humbling.

Our house was a 3 week build and we would be working on it for 2 weeks to get as much done as possible.

Right let's get started!

The build plan.

So, if like me, you have never built a house here is what you need to do:

Move all the material (boulders, bricks, grit/sand) to site.
Hand dig foundations.
Shovel through a large sift all of the grit/sand for concrete.
Make concrete.
Lay foundations.
Build walls.
Make and install reinforcing bar (Rebar) columns and layers whilst building walls.
Install windows.
Build joists and install roof.
Lay floor.
Move in.

Well that is a bit simplified, but you get the idea and all this is done by hand. There was no machinery involved during our build.

The first few days of the build.

Jim and Likan under instruction. How to dig foundations

Jim and Puju discuss the finer points of foundation digging.

Corrinne is happy to move rocks.

Yup, we moved all the foundation rocks with a wheel barrow.

Digging the last of the foundations.

Starting to move foundation material.

Now the first few days we dug foundations, moved material and laid the first foundation stones. We were also very lucky to have the neighbors help too. When we left for the day they would pick up where we left off and continue. That meant our build came together very quick. It was great!

One of the greatest things was how happy, friendly and inquisitive the local kids were. It made working in the baking sun all worth it.

Corinne with the local kid mafia

They did smile..honest, you had to catch them off guard

These guys made me laugh. They would run around roaring at us.

During the third day I met the one pictured below on the right. His name...Kevin...What a great name! But I never could get him to smile in photos.

Kev on the right....Kev on the left and Riza in the middle. Both not looking impressed.

The other major part of this particular build was reinforcement bar (Rebar). It is long pieces of metal that had to be hand cut to exact sizes, and then bent and then wired tied to the beam/column for the house. It was a long process but a great way to chat to the guys and get to know people.

During all of this rebar making our blue tarp/tent (it was just like being in a U.S. campground) that shielded us from the sun collapsed in the wind. So in true "get your hands" dirty fashion we helped to fix the tarp, and held up ladders and supports until the locals fixed it. Then it was straight back to making rebar.

No rest for the wicked!

In the first week the house made great progress, and we completed: digging the foundations, constructing foundation walls, started to build the house walls on the foundation and made some great friends with the locals and each other.

Mixing cement for the walls.

Building the walls.

Progress after 5 days build.

Crazy local kids.

Jim signs an autograph book.

The weekend arrives.

So after a very productive and busy few days it is the weekend and we all have time to relax, and do some site seeing around the wonderful Yogjakarta area. What better way to do this but to return to Borobudur to see if we could all see the sunrise!

After a really early start, and along bus drive we all arrived in the dark to climb the stairs of this amazingly peaceful temple to wait the sunrise. There was a slight sunrise which was cool, but I also got more time to explore the temple afterwards, which gave me a real appreciation of the intricacy and detail that went into building the world's largest Buddhist temple.

Borobudur Buddhist Temple just at sunrise.

After such an early cultural start it could only be topped off with thrashing around in a jeep around Merapi to see the remains of the last volcanic eruption. The jeeps where great fun, and we all had a blast!

The whole jeep crew.

Into the jungle we go.

Hanging with 4x4.

Race Ya?

Faster!

What a week! I took it easy on Sunday while others explored the city center. Next Indonesian blog update, we continue building the house, we get invited to a local wedding, we explore a cave and we have an emotional good bye ceremony with the family and all the HFH team.

Come back for more!

Cheers,

Kev

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The mighty Westfjords of Iceland. / June 3, 2017 by Kevin Hatcher

Wow! I mean like WOW!

If anyone I know wants to visit Iceland in the future and asks me for what I consider to be the real wild Iceland (without renting a 4x4) I will be telling them all about the Westfjords.

The Plan

We planned to drive a loop of the Westfjords (1,052km) over a long weekend. We would drive a few hours every day, and do some hiking along the way to break the driving up. The plan and route was as follows:

Friday: Pick Aimee up from work and drive up to Hólmavík (Population 375) and stay overnight at a hostel.

Saturday: Drive from Hólmavík to Ísafjörður (Population 2,559) with a stop somewhere to stretch our legs on a hike. We had booked into a self catering accommodation in the center of the town.

Sunday: Drive from Ísafjörður to Tálknafjörður (Population 306) with a stop planned at the amazing Dynjandi Foss. This time we would spend the night in our tent at the local camp site at Tálknafjörður.

Monday: Drive from Tálknafjörður to Reykhólar (Population 120) with another hike along the way. We would be spending our last night in the tent, but it would be right next to an outdoor swimming pool with hot pool. Not to bad really.

Tuesday: Drive from Reykhólar to Reykjavik (Population 123,246), so that Aimee could get back to work.

A lot of driving, but it was well worth it and we will be going back, it is just to good not too!

Friday and Saturday: Hiking in the rain and big waterfalls.

After a few hours drive from Reykjavik we arrived at Hólmavík late on Friday evening. It is a very small village in the Westfjords. It was wet and grey when we arrived, but it cleared up by on Saturday morning. We stayed in a hostel right on the seafront near an amazing harbour and church. It was so quiet and idyllic you almost forgot you were in Iceland.

We left Hólmavík and traveled onto Ísafjörður. It rained most of the way which was a shame because we really wanted to go for a hike. We could not find anything on the map that might be a hiking route, until we rounded the end of a fjord and discovered a hiking sign.

The rain was so bad that I didn't take my DSLR with me, but I wish I had, as after a small walk of 2km we found Valagil waterfall. It was tucked away and fell from the very top of the mountain to the valley floor. It was a great site to behold in the rain.

We arrived in Ísafjörður late that evening just as the weather cleared up and walked around the largest town in the Westfjords. The clouds and the light were amazing. We were lucky to get dinner at a seafood restaurant that serves an all you can eat seafood buffet. The food was outstanding and I would highly recommend going, but make sure you make a reservation, as it is only open for dinner from 7pm until 10pm and it is very busy. They don't have a website but you can find information on their Facebook page.

Clouds over the mountains near Ísafjörður.

Sunday: Hiking up a lonely mountain and the best outdoor swimming pool ever!

We woke an amzing day with sunshine, blue skies and fluffy clouds. So after breakfast, we packed the car and headed for Tálknafjörður from Ísafjörður. We had found an an area just south of Ísafjörður to go for a hike and hopefully get some nice views.

Morning reflections across Ísafjörður harbour.

We drove from Ísafjörður into a long tunnel that cut straight through the hillside to the next fjord.

Reflections in the water after the tunnel.

The scenery along the road was stunning. Great sharp mountains that rose almost vertically up from near sea level to way above our heads. The road guided us around these giants onto our destination of Þingeyri were we would start our hike up Arnarnupur (558m).

It was a short, sharp hike and we made the plateau very quickly and reached the top in time for lunch. My favorite time!

Looking back from the top of Arnarnupur to Þingeyri

The view from the top was spectacular and right on the edge of a massive cliff to the sea. What a great spot for lunch! But time waits for no man or woman...so we descended back along the same path and back to the car to have a cup of coffee, before setting off across the fjords to Tálknafjörður.

High roads in June, In Iceland! Awesome.

After the spectacular hike we drove onto our next overnight location. This was an interesting drive as a lot of the roads are dirt track, and there is still snow in places in May. We deseneded down into the next fjords and drove along the rough track to the head of the fjord. As we reached the end of the fjords we came across an amazing site...an outdoor swimming pool!

We shared this amazing experience with one other couple and left just as four other cars full of people arrived. It was so relaxing we almost camped there for the night, but we had one more place that I wanted to stop and visit.

Dynjandi waterfall is a site to behold. A massive waterfall of over 100m high and you can walk right up to it, and stand directly below it. The waterfall is magnificent and quite difficult to get a scaled photograph. I did try but it was late in the evening now, and it was very busy with other tourists like us.

Dynjandi waterfall. Notice the people near the top for scale.

We left this waterfall behind us to go to our camp site in Tálknafjörður and slept well after a very packed day of adventuring.

Monday: Waking up to go to the best hot pool ever and then a hike.

The last day of our trip and what is the best way to start the day...outdoor hot pool! We had it all to ourselves for the first half an hour and it was so tranquil. There are three pools; one hot and deep with benches to sit on, one shallow and cold, and one shallow and warm, so you can rotate around all three and be at the perfect temperature.

Once bathed and relaxed we headed back to the camp site, packed, had breakfast and got back on the road again to our final destination. Reykhólar . We did stop on the way for a quick hike to stretch our legs and got some great views.

After the hike we pushed onto our campsite at Reykhólar, where there was another outdoor swimming pool and hot pool. This one is run by the council so no pictures, but it was great to get another relaxing soak in at the end of the day.

In the kicthen making dinner...it was very windy.

Table for two...I was taking the picture.

Tuesday: Reykjavik - Early morning start and home.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. We woke up super early, packed the tent and left to get back to Reykjavik. But I will be back, as there is so much more to explore!

Thanks for reading this really long blog. I will try keeping it shorter in the future, but there was so much fun to be had over the weekend I just couldn't help writing about it!

Cheers,

Kev

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The secret blue river. / May 31, 2017 by Kevin Hatcher

What an amazing few weeks I have had! I am only just sitting down now to process all of the images and try and catch up on my blog.

Where to start...

This overnight stay happened at the end of May, and was a result of me getting itchy feet to go out on my own to take some images.

Now, the location I had in mind was a foss (Waterfall in Icelandic) called Brúarfoss and it is about 2hrs drive from Reykjavik. It is a great little place that seems to be causing a bit of a friction with the local Icelandic population. After visiting the area and adding to the issue I can totally understand why, so I am not going to locate the foss here, but if you are keen to see it there is enough information on line to locate it. The area is a "Private" summer house retreat for the locals and with the increase of tourists and lack of infrastructure the road and trails are over used.

I left mid afternoon from Reykjavik with the sun shining, clear beautiful blue skies, and great big white fluffy clouds in the sky. Perfect! After eventually finding the area, and a place to park I walked off along the very beaten up and muddy track to be rewarded with an amazing river scene. I spent the afternoon there to find a good composition in relation to the sunset. This would mean that when I returned later that evening I would have a picture already in my minds eye and could set up my camera quickly.

I drove down the road a few kilometers to a campsite next to the geysir field. This geysir field is on the golden circle route and is very popular with the bus tours, which makes it very popular during the mid morning and late afternoon.

Fortunately, I was spending the night there, so after dinner I went for a walk around the geysir field and almost had the place to myself in the evening sun. The Strokkur Geysir erupts every 5-10 minutes so you are bound to see it, and then you can walk around the area looking at the other less active hot pools. What a great place.

The Strokkur Geysir can reach as high as 70-80m

After my walk around the geothermal springs I headed back to the car to set off back to Brúarfoss for the sunset. I arrived and walked down to the river and had the place to myself. Unfortunately the clouds started to roll in and I maybe should have been there about an hour earlier to get some nice close up images of the waterfall. I will also need to bring wellington boots next time, as there is far too much water for my hiking boots to stand in the river.

I did manage to get a few shots that I am very happy about and they are on my website just before the sunset was completely obscured by the clouds and mountains.

After the last light disappeared I headed home at about midnight. I returned to the campsite and went to the car to get my sleeping equipment, but I could not find my sleeping bag! Oops! I made do with putting all my clothes on and got some sleep in the tent. Needless to say it was cold that night.

The next day it was grey, rainy and cold, so I decided to head back home and get ready for my next adventure...The amazing Westfjords. New blog coming soon!

Thanks

Kev

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Long drive, ice diamonds, and closing roads. / May 23, 2017 by Kevin Hatcher

What a great weekend at the Snæfellsnes peninsula, with some of the best weather I have experienced in Iceland. The only thing better than coming home from a great adventure is to repack and head out on the road again to go on another. So... I packed the car with a good friend of mine Mike Guarino from Mike Gaurino Photography to start the long drive south east to Skaftafell National park in Iceland and Jökulsárlón to do some backpacking, hiking and photography.

Reykjavik to Skaftafell National park (4 Hours 1 minutes) and then Jökulsárlón, glacier lagoon (40 minutes)

Now, the Icelandic tourist board does an amazing job of advertising the sites of Iceland, but what they don't tell you is:
1.   Iceland is bigger than it looks!
2.   All of the tourist spots are scattered all around the coast just off Route 1. The only "main" road around the country.
3.   The weather in Iceland can change in an instant from amazing too crazy very quickly. To be fair to the tourist board they do warn tourists and visitors about the weather and all the information is on the Vedur site and app (www.vedur.is) and road information site (www.road.is).
I checked the weather on Monday, the night before we had planned to leave, and it looked OK, cloudy and then changing to showers by the end of the week. I double checked the weather on Tuesday morning and it was very different, cloudy and overcast for the drive, then rain and gales for the day after we got there. Hmm, what to do? A long drive to see some cool Icelandic sites and hope the weather changes again or stay home?
Adventure waits for no-one! Into the car on Tuesday morning with all the backpacking and camera gear.
First stop on the way was Seljalandsfoss. A very impressive and big waterfall that is located just next to route 1, so it is a tourist hot spot.

Seljalandsfoss with a random tourist for scale...it's a big waterfall and you can walk behind it too!

A great place to stop, but it can be very busy, so pick your time. But the national park awaits so, back into the car and onward to Vík í Mýrdal for a quick lunch stop overlooking the black sands beach.

After a long drive across some amazingly barren and open lava fields we finally arrived at Skaftafell national park around 4pm.

As we crossed towards the campsite this is the view north to Skeiðarárjökull Glacier.

We had planned to stay in the park campsite on Tuesday night, but the weather up to this point had been pretty good, so we thought maybe we could backpack into the national park and stay at the base of Morsárjökull Glacier (shown below center top of the map). Unfortunately, it is not possible to wild camp in the national parks here in Iceland, so we set up camp in the campsite.

Once set up we walked to see the Skaftafellsjökull glacier, which was an amazing sight and my first up close look at a glacier. The light was pretty flat because it was late afternoon and cloudy, but still an impressive site.

Kevin Hatcher taking pictures of the glacier. Thanks Mike.

It was pretty busy with tourists because it is very accessible and about a 20min walk from the main entrance and campground.

We returned from the short walk to see the glacier, had some dinner and then decided to drive 40 minutes to Jökulsárlón to see the glacier lagoon. The weather was beginning to turn and the clouds were grey and dark. The drive there was difficult due to the heavy rain showers and side winds, but we made it and WOW! it was so worth it!

When you arrive there is a car park on the north side of the road that you can park at and then walk to the lagoon, and see the large junks of ice floating down to the sea. The lagoon has a wide river running from it, with a bridge, but we never went over the bridge. We did go to the BEACH! Now that is breath taking.

Imagine if you had the blackest sand and then scattered white and crystal clear diamonds all over it, then you get close to what this beach looks like.

It was amazing, and Mike and I spent the next 2-3 hours taking photographs and admiring the views. The only reason we stopped is because it got too dark, and it started to rain. But WOW! What a place.

Holding a ice diamond at the Jökulsárlón beach.

I have so many images from this beach and its prize jewels I could fill a book. It is difficult to pick only a few images to share, but needless to say I will go back, and hopefully the weather will be better. Talking about the weather we returned to this sign...

Weather report for the national park area. FYI 20m/s = 44mph and 45m/s = 100mph

The plan in the morning was to go for a short hike to see the Svartifoss but after a discussion with the one and only employee who had made it to work, we decided against it. Why you ask? Well, we were informed that the roads home are to be closed at 11:00am, it was 10:30am. They also didn't know if or when the roads would reopen. So with heavy hearts we packed up and got back in the car and drove back. As we did the wind speed increased and sections of roads did close, it was great fun!

We made it back to Reykjavik late that day after a very windy, wet and bluster drive, but what a drive. I will have to go back there as the scenery is spectacular, and one night is just not enough.

Getting far to dark for my selfie camera at Jökulsárlón beach.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you all. I have a few more things in the pipeline for the blog. I have last weekends adventure back to Snaefellsnes peninsula and I am going to get an RSS feed set up so if you want to keep up to date with the blog it will be delivered directly to your email box! How awesome is that.

Stay tuned folks and follow me on Instagram for regular updates and images.

Cheers

Kev

PS I hope this week will be double blog week!

Hiking in the snow in Iceland. / April 28, 2017 by Kevin Hatcher

Last weekend, Aimee and I went hiking up a mountain called Móskarðshnjúkar. It is a height of 807m (2647ft) and is a simply 9.2 kilometer (5.7 mile) there and back trip. It is only 20 minutes’ drive from Reykjavik, but it is well worth it as you feel like you are miles away from anybody.

Móskarðshnjúkar. It is the furthest right in this picture.

Móskarðshnjúkar is still very much covered in snow and we were the first people to hike it since the last snowfall. This meant that we post holed across the higher sections of the mountain, in our crampons and with our ice axes out. It was wild and very windy but what a great view!

Aimee on the last push to the top with Reykjavik in the background and Esja.

The view from top was spectacular, and we had not met anyone all day. This was until the summit where we bumped into a pair of hikers who had skis! They proceeded to pick a line down in the fresh snow and ski down. Very cool, and the best way to get down! I think I need a split board and bindings.

Unfortunately, we didn't stay on the summit for long due to the biting cold wind and the weather on the horizon looked like they it might close in from the north. Still we headed down very happy with our accomplishment and stopped further down for lunch overlooking Esja and Reykjavik.