Spring in Belgium and others ...

Wow, I just realised that it has been a really long time since I've posted anything on this blog!

What have we been up to ...

I still haven't published the desert part of our trip through California with Scott, Caroline and Rachel. We visited Red Rock State Canyon park, spent two amazing days in Death Valley, discovered a great date palm oasis where we had the best date milkshake (or rather ice cream) ever and where I bought a really cute painting of a date palm and then dragged everyone to Speleo-Ed where we attended some interesting talks and visited soil pipe caves.

May then, we spent in Europe. The first week we spent in Belgium catching up with family and friends: Colleen & Andre organised a nice bbq and we even managed to squeeze in two Belgian caves on our only free Sunday that month! ;-)

Then we went on to Scotland where Scott took pity on me since Will had to work and took me on a tour of the Borders and had me pose for him as the fairie queen of elves for his multimedia project on Thomas the Rhymer. We also spent a day in Dunbar visiting the grandparents and the rest of the family, went for an amazing walk in Rosslyn Glen and managed to catch up with a bunch of friends and attended David and Carrol's squeezing in some time with Ralph.

The third week of May, we went caving and canyoning in the Ardeche in France with our fellow Spekulozen. Check here for some pics. After a long night of driving we arrived in Vallons Pont d'Arc and after breakfast immediately took off to do our first canyon, La Haute Borne. The next day, we managed to squeeze in two caves, one rather unexpectedly - the Cote Patieres - and then the one we had actually planned to do, Peyrejal. The third day a small group went kayaking for the day while five of us did another really cool canyon that started off like an above ground meandering cave (Roujanel) and managed to find freshly picked cherries for dessert. Our last day, the whole group went to do the Canyon du Haute Chassezac, another great experience and another day of really amazing weather.

The last week of May then I spent with friends and family, enjoying the great weather, having some quality time with Colleen & Andre and their newborn Callum, almost trashed the car and therefore discovered a bit more of pretty Brabant by cycle and then sadly had to say goodbye to every one again.