Sunday 27th: rambling at Dovedale

[ all pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/110144623598348247797/20110227?authkey=Gv1sRgCJH7gpHVm_S_Vg#

(as I write this I am still on the same battery that I charged before going to Finland. I'm edging toward having taken 600 shots and 7 30 second movies all on the same charge. I'm very happy with the camera!) ]

The previous night I had unfortunately stayed up a bit late perplexed by a section of my maths assignment. How to prove the inductive step part of the gram-schmidt process, that all the e_i vectors are orthonormal for a possibly infinite dimensional Hilbert space? I think this proof should probably be easier than I'm finding it. There is probably an algebraic trick to conveniently get rid of all the terms, or maybe a theorem about orthogonality that makes it easy. But it was not coming to me and so I got to bed late. Consequently, in the morning I was a little tired. I skipped the shower and got out to the bus pickup place.

I forgot to buy food for this trip and I had no time for breakfast. I had only about 10 almonds and one orange. After the last rambling trip where I did the longest walk I decided I wanted to do something a bit more leisurely. So with these two things combined I did walk number two. It was still 12.5km though.

The walk was quite nice. It was a very leisurely pace. I probably could have done number 4 even without food. The path was mostly flat. I met a nice girl from Canada, Sarah. She lives a little out from Montreal. I told her of how I went to the arctic the previous weekend and she thought that she probably knows someone that I know, since she recently had a friend tell her of an australian she knew who was going to the arctic to see some snow. So it was likely that the australian person must be the same one. It was. They are both me. She knows Tania, who is the girl I walked around in Cardiff with, from Germany. Tania and Sarah are doing the same degree, theology. Sarah rides horses in Canada. I thought that was really cool.

I met some girls from Singapore. I saw a documentary about the economic structure of the country once so I asked them about it. It has a very unique government. They had some interesting first hand perspectives on that. I think they said that they believe they have been indoctrinated from early age to accept the slightly dictatorship government, but that it is a really nice place to live, so it's good.

There were two girls from Germany. They were quite friendly too. The guy 'leading' us for the walk was a third year mathematics/engineering student. Like me, minus the engineering! It turns out that he is in two of my classes.

Really nice flowing river. Water is nice and clear. I think they can catch fish in here. But fishing is restricted to the land owners.

This is after walking up to the cave shown in the next picture. We are walking through a little valley formed by the river i guess. Nice rocks around the place.

They have some little caves around here. They really are little. We climbed up there, where it was quite precariously slippery and found that the cave goes back 1-2 metres! Still, they look good.

We climbed a little hill. We're walking from left to right up this.

A little while before this photo, it started to rain a bit. Not lots, but enough to make us uncomfortably wet if exposed. I am pleased to find that this waterproof coat is waterproof!

The rain stopped and the sun came out! Lovely views.

This day, apart from the maths person, there was another person who was 'leading' us. She was new at it, and thought this would be a gentle downhill slope. It was quite steep and slippery! It was great fun.

 We romped back over a very wet field. The guides decided they'd save themselves some time by cutting straight across while the rest of us went around. They ended up ankle deep in water. They tested the theory that they would get less wet if they ran through it. Theory disproven. It was quite funny.

We got back to the town. They have a nice cheese shop and also a pub. I went in with some others. I got a half pint of Fosters. I also got some hot chips because I was starving. Very satisfying. Then I bought a chunk of cheddar cheese. I was originally not going to but it was only 2 pounds for a nice big slice. I will later get some crackers to put on the cheese.

It turns out that the girl guiding us who took us down the awesome slippery steep hill is also studying maths! She is interested in pure and applied but not statistics. She is in her second year. Her and another girl (studies chemistry) gave me some good tips on where I can get a very cheap thermos.

Taken from the bus on the way home.

We got back home and I was in time for the evening meal! Yay. I was still very hungry.

After that I did a little more homework since the linear analysis is due tomorrow.