Climbing Bears

The next day, the first full day of our holiday, was a fine day (shorts and t-shirt weather for those who wear clothes), but there was a bit of cloud cover, so we decided if would be a good day for exploring the interior of the island, to see what Menorca is really like, outside of the resorts.

We'd only gone a short distance when we found a great climbing wall.


As you will know from earlier posts, bears love climbing and cannot simply walk past a climbing opportunity. It calls out to us and begs to be climbed. Bears are also quite competitive - in a friendly way - so Yorkie and I are always trying to arrive at the top before the other. On this occasion, as you can see, Yorkie was ahead of me (I blend in rather well with the rock), but he did start off a few seconds ahead (that's my excuse anyway). He did spend so long admiring the view at this half way point, that I thought I was going to be able to sneak past un-noticed ... but then I sneezed and gave the game away.

It was only about 10 minutes more walk, until we had a surprise find. We came to a row of huge monoliths (also suitable for climbing). As Menorca is an archaelogical treasure trove and contains lots of talayotic remains (prehistoric if that doesn't mean anything to you) we assumed that these megaliths dated from this period.


The ancient nature of these stones left us with a bit of a dilemma. Would it be disrespectful and anti conservation, to have a climb. We thought not, after all we are so light and soft pawed, that we couldn't possibly do any damage, so up we went. This time the tables were turned and I stole a march on Yorkie - on a much more difficult climb I might add. This time it is Yorkie who is the more camouflaged, but he is there if you look bottom left.

What a great start to the walk. We were less than half an hour into it, with 2 great climbs under our belt. We we really looking forward to the rest of the day.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx

In the Footsteps of Chris Bonnington

The next day Chelmer took Rocco and Patrick sailing. In true Swallows and Amazons style they sailed down to Wild Cat island and put ashore for a barbecue. Yorkie and I thought it was a bit windy for sailing, and we didn't fancy getting wet, so we thought we'd resume a sport we first tried out earlier this year in Ireland.


Do you remember us tackling a cliff face not far from the Giants Causeway? This time we went climbing in the Lake District's Duddon Valley. This climb might not have taken us quite so high, but it was a much more vertical ascent. There was no way we could do much leaning into the rock face on this climb.

Once again we were free climbing with no ropes. This might seem foolhardy (and we wouldn't advise anyone to try this at home) but you must remember that bears have special 'sure grip' paws and we alway follow the 3 points of contact at any one time rule.

Despite no ropes, we did have a secret weapon which gave us a helping paw. You might see what it was if you look very closely at our close up photo.


The stripey thing that is holding Yorkie safe and looks a bit like a tarantula leg, is actually our minder's gorilla pod flexible camera tripod. You've got to admit that bears never suffer from a lack of ingenuity. Who else would have thought of using a camera tripod as a climbing aid?

Lots of love the Bears Unlimited free climbers xxx

Causeway Coast by Paw Power

After exploring inland on the day we walked the Moyles Way, we thought our next walk should be along the Causeway Coast. We had already seen, on the day we arrived, that the Antrim coast is very spectacular, but you miss a lot from the car, so we were looking forward to exploring the coast on paw.

We thought it might also be a bit drier underfoot than our boggy walk, but there we were wrong. The coast path was almost as boggy and a lot muddier!


Still, at least when we wanted a rest there were some nice dry rocks to sit on and admire the view. The reason we're not looking at the sea in our picture, is not because we were posing for the camera, but because we were transfixed by a rather spectacular waterfall coming into this rocky bay.

In our next picture you can see it in the distance (or at least get the impression of white water) from the other side of the bay.


Being a rocky coastline there were some great opportunities for us to be action bears and do a spot of rock climbing. While our minders paused to ransack their rucksack for some chocolate raisins we tackled a serious climb up a craggy sea cliff.


I'd like to point out that Yorkie was only ahead of me because I'd lingered to see if I would get offered some of the chocolate raisins - I did! - and they were worth being beaten to the top by Yorkie.

This was quite an exciting day out so we'll continue our adventures next time.

Lots of love George & Yorkie xxx