Time to Say Goodbye (to England)

The last few days have passed so quickly - we've all had a great time at Greenbelt - that we can hardly believe our final night in England has come round so soon.

We're not sure if we'll be able to sleep much tonight as we're all very excited, but also feeling a tiny bit of trepidation, as it is a big step into the unknown.

We certainly look the part though, and thanks to the creativity of Midlands Branch minders, no-one will be in any doubt that we are true pilgrims.


Here you see us sporting our scallop shells which will tell everyone we meet that we are pilgrims walking the Camino to Santiago, and hopefully they will be nice to us in consequence.

Our minders have full size scallop shells to wear on leather shoelaces, but they were far too big for us little bears, so we are extremely grateful to the Midlands Branch for finding, drilling and threading some bear sized shells. We've had a lot of support and generosity from all the branches recently, and it has all been greatly appreciated, so thanks everyone.

We'll hopefully be blogging from France very soon, so keep reading.

Lots of love the Camino Bears xxx

Bears Overboard!

Somehow all those minder items of packing did manage to get shoe horned into the correct rucksack, and a packed rucksack meant that a test walk was in order. After all, if our minders couldn't manage 3 miles down the road with the packs, then their chances of completing nearly 1,000 miles wouldn't be too great.

We, camino bears, decided we had better go along for an authentic test, so we could test out the bear porter and its attachment to rucksack.

We didn't have to exercise too many of our persuasive powers to encourage them to plan a walk, where the half way point was one of our favourite local hostalries, where they serve a mean pint of Woodforde's Wherry - our favourite brew, as many of our readers know.


So here we are, little more than an hour later, enjoying a pint of Norfolk's finest and feeling glad that the rucksack alongside us is not going on our shoulders.

On the return leg of the walk, we hatched a plan. We decided that we should do a bear overboard drill, so we could travel in France and Spain, with the certainly that if we got parted from the rucksack, it would not be for long. And so, about half a mile form where the bearmobile was parked, we staged a parting of bear porter from rucksack, and dropped down into the road.

We fully expected to be parted from our minders for no more than the 10 minutes it would take them to reach the car and find us missing. We were rather surprised then, when over 3 hours later, we were still lying in the middle of the road in our bear porter. By this time it was pitch black and time for bed. We regretted not taking our mobiles with us. At 11.05 p.m. we started to plan for the eventuality that we might be spending the night camping. Gio was confident that a search would be launched for us, and sure enough, 5 minutes later, we saw headlights and a car stopped just short of where we were lying. Out came our minders who gathered us up and took us home to a warm bed.

As we'd managed not to get run over, no harm had been done, and everyone agreed that a valuable lesson had been learned. We're now looking forward to our big trip with a lot more confidence.

Not long to go now.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie & Gio xxx

Bears Travel Light

We have been looking on with bearish bemusement as our minders make quite a meal of their packing for 'the big trip'. Packing has been going on for weeks now, and there has been an endless cycle of weighing items, discarding and looking for a lighter alternatives or none at all. At least we haven't gone into the discard pile, but then, total weight for the 3 of us, is a mere 99g. At that weight we don't think we're going to be put on a diet.

When you look at the following picture you may begin to appreciate the simplicity of a bear's life ...


On the left you see the sum total of 3 bear's packing for 3 months, yes a waterproof bear porter for us to travel in. Don't get us wrong, we do intend to walk, but the porter is there for contingency - in case it gets really wet or we get really tired.

On the right are the items for, not two minders, but just one. They think they have pared everything down to the bare minimum, but it's not the way it looks to us.

It's just as well they will be carrying it all themselves.

Lots of love, George, Yorkie & Gio xxx

Payback Time

Yorkie and I might have missed one local training session, but we more than made up for it on a 3 day camping and endurance walking mini break in the Peak District (we're not sure that 'break' was quite the right word for it, although we did play as hard as we worked).


Here we are at Edale Cross enjoying a break in the sunshine after a strenuous climb up from Hayfield. What we didn't realise at the time, was that we were about to descend the same distance had already climbed into Edale, only to climb up the same distance again to return to the Cross, in order to descend again to our tent!

It certainly helped to get us into shape though and now we are simply raring to go and counting down the days.

We'll be back very soon to bring you right up to date on the final week's preparations.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

Introducing Our Big Adventure

The time has finally come to reveal this year's big adventure to you. We've dropped a few hints over recent months that something big was in the offing - for example, us practising our Spanish in Menorca - but we haven't given too much away so far.

We can't leave you in suspense any longer as departure day is only some 10 days away. So where are we going and who's going?

Bears Unlimited is proud to be sponsoring me (George), Yorkie and Gio to walk the Camino de Santiago from Le Puy in France to Santiago in Spain. As we have generously been given 12 weeks off work, us 3 lucky bears, along with 2 minders, get to walk 736km of the Le Puy route to the Pyrenees before crossing into Spain and walking the 778 km of the traditional route, the Camino Frances, between St Jean Pied de Port and Santiago.

What an adventure! We can hardly contain our excitement. Yorkie and I are naturally going as we are the travelling bears, and Gio, being a Franciscan, is coming as our pilgrimage leader. If you recall, he came to us from Hillfield Friary.

Training for this marathon walk has been going on for quite a few months.


Here you see Personal Trainer Chelmer and his brother Curly, putting Gio through his paces. Yorkie and I should have been there too but we'd overslept that morning and missed the session.

When we saw the pictures, we thought it looked as if they'd had a lot of fun as Chelmer had designed a great assault course and he had a lot of really unusual tree shapes to work with. See what we mean?


Believe us, we might have missed this session, but Chelmer ensured we made up for it later.

Lots of love George, Yorkie & Gio xxx

Last Nature Notes - for now

Other bears are eager to take over the blog again, so I'll just share one more nature note with you. It involves a delightful creature which is one of my favourite's, and also a favourite of gardening bear Tommy, because of the help this creature gives in the garden.

Can you guess who it is? Our first picture will give you only a small clue as you no doubt can't see what we're looking at and you'd need a soundtrack to hear the conversation we were having with our friend.


You should have picked up the clue that they are most commonly around at dusk.

It seemed a bit cruel to have to dazzle our friend with the camera flash so you could share in our wildlife encounter, but we did ask his permission first and he agreed, in return for a worm - not our new slow worm friend of course!


He was quite a small hedgehog at that time, but we're pleased to say we've seen him again strolling round the church yard and he's a lot bigger now.

We did make sure we gave him our safety briefing which mainly covered the need to keep away from roads.

We hope our nature notes have shown you that you don't need to go further than your own home to have some great wildlife encounters.

Lots of love Chelmer & Curly xxx

Chelmer's Nature Notes 3

Nature is simply wonderful and it comes in all sorts of shapes, colours and sizes.

Today's encounter was a first for me, it was with a moth that was almost as big as me. Because I'd never seen one before, I don't know what type of moth he was, so perhaps one of our readers can help me out. Here he is ...


He might not have been colourful but he certainly was striking. The concrete floor might give you a clue that this encounter didn't take place in the countryside. My encounter actually took place in our garage. This is normally Blue Bear's territory, as he is Chief Mechanic, but on this occasion I was in the garage drying out our tent which had been packed up in a Lake District downpour and come home wet.

The fact that it is a green tent must have confused Mr Moth and made him think he had found a green pasture or wood. No wonder he looked a bit dazed when it all disappeared as I packed up the now dry tent from which he emerged.

Still, at least his dazed state gave us plenty of photo opportunities, so here's a close up of this fine wee beastie ...


Lots of love Chelmer and all at B.U. xxx

Nature Notes 2: A Special Kind of Worm

My brother Curly thought I had short-changed you, our readers, by not including the picture he took of one of our bovine friends laughing at me when I fell off my perch into the snow. As we always like to give our readers good value I'll include it now ...


I like to think she was laughing with me, not at me, especially as she was kind enough to dry me off with a warm towel of a tongue.

One of my favourite wildlife encounters of the year happened quite by chance. I was just leaving our garden by a side gate, to go to a concert in the nearby church, when I nearly tripped over a perfect specimen of a slow worm lying right across the exit to the gate.


This slow worm was kind enough to let me admire her for ages, and also kind enough to pose with me for a photo. I thought she was truly beautiful and I could have watched her for hours. It was clearly a very thoughtful slow worm as, when I became in danger of becoming late for the concert, she slid away out of sight, giving me just enough time to make the start of the concert.

Lots of love Chelmer & all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Chelmer's Nature Notes 1

Hi readers, Chelmer Bear back again, to once again seize a window of blog opportunity, while George & Yorkie are having a break from their travels.

I enjoyed sharing my hippo experiences with you and hopefully you have begun to appreciate that I am a bit of a nature lover. This gentle side to my character can come as a suprise to people who don't know me too well, as I am known for being rather a dare-devil and wild bear.

I've had a few interesting wildlife encounters this year and I'd like to share some of them with you.

At the start of the year we had some real snow in Norfolk, by that I mean more than the usual sprinkle. I went on patrol round the village to check that all my animal friends were keeping warm and had enough to eat.


My first stop was to an unusual, but not completely rare sight. I'd come across the village alpacas. They looked a little incongruous in the snow, as I tend to associate them with warmer climates. However, I know from the times I've given them a good stroke, that they have incredibly warm fur and I was confident it would keep them warm.

Up the hill were my cattle friends.


Their hair was standing on end to keep them warm and their breath was steaming well. When I got close to them their breath was so warm that it was like being in a sauna. It told me they were handling the cold well, aided by a big pile of hay, and I very glad of the sauna when, seconds after this picture was taken, I fell off my perch into a big, cold and wet snowdrift.

Well satisfied that our village animals were fine I made my way home to help Tommy restock the bird feeders for my feathered friends.

Lots of love Chelmer and all at Bears Unlimited xxx

Meet the Family

With a name like Horatio, there could only be one finishing touch for Horatio's new outfit.


We all thought he looked very distinguished with his Nelson style eye patch. As it restricts his vision a bit, we told him he didn't have to wear it all the time, just when he was on display to the public.

Talking about being on display, no sooner had Horatio's outfit been completed, than it was the start of the North Walsham Hippo Hunt week. People came from near and far to track down and 'tick off' some, or all, of the 50 hippos who were hiding round the town.

Unfortunately, a busy week in the B.U. office, meant we didn't get to do the trail ourselves. However, we did turn up to the public hippo gathering at the end of the week, where many of the hippos were re-united for public viewing, prior to a charity auction, where they found new and permanent homes with generous bidders.

Here are a few of Horatio's friends who were there:

First there was the glamorous Priscilla, who Horatio secretly rather fancies,


Then there were Nobby and Tiny. Nobby was an artistic delight, displaying a wonderful Norfolk Broads scene, but his coat was clearly a professional, rather than a community production and, as a result, we felt something of the spirit of the event was missing.


Tiny, however, really epitomised the event. She was a eye catching shocking pink and all those tiny hand prints told us that some fairly tiny tots had been involved in the creation of her coat. We completely approved.

Our last picture shows you a selection of the others:


Gus in the foreground stood out with his 3-D coat and he was rightly very proud of it.

But of course, where was Horatio, and what happened to him at the auction?

Horatio wasn't there as he was being allowed to make his temporary housing association home, a permanent one. This was because some kind contractors who work for the association had stumped up the cash to buy Horatio, so avoiding the need for him to go into the auction.

We were delighted by this news as it means that every day when our minder arrives at work - and we frequently go with her - she/we can give Horatio a pat and say hello. It certainly gets the day off to a good start.

Lots of love Chelmer, Curly & Horatio xxx

Not Joseph's Amazing Coat but Horatio's

Since Horatio came to stay with a housing association, there are no prizes for guessing that the new coat chosen for him involved houses.

As the hippo event was very much a community project for the whole town, a special painting day was organised and lots of young people were invited to come along to help create Horatio's coat.

Horatio was transported to the North Walsham community centre - he wan't made to walk - and dozens of individuals set about painting house shapes which would be cut out and attached to him ... like so


We are particularly proud of the upside down one of a red rabbit and yellow daffodil (it was just after Easter at the time) and the white background abstract to the bottom left of the rabbit, as these were painted by one of our minders.

The variety of colours and designs was truly amazing and, as the designs were attached, Horatio started to look really good. By the time the outline of an Admiral's coat and white naval stockings had been added, we really felt that all the other hippos would be hard pressed to compete in splendour. We could tell that Horatio knew he looked good, as he really started to come out of his shell and got very talkative as his confidence increased.


Nearly all that remained to be done was to give his coat a good varnish. As you can see, we helped with this process, and it really did add the wow factor. Anyone with good eye sight might note that we used nothing but the best yacht varnish for Horatio.

More news of Horatio and his fellow hippos soon.

Lots of love

Chelmer, Curly and all at B.U. xxx