Category: Outdoor naturist recreation

Naked Ramblers finally arrive

The news stories give the essential details, so I won’t add much.

Get ’em on. We’ve made it [Link still valid!]

If the certainty of having your collar felt, metaphorically of course, by the local police every few days is not enough to put you off walking the length of Britain naked, then the February wind blowing off the Pentland Firth should at least be a deterrent. So, as the Naked Rambler and his girlfriend finally arrived at the northernmost tip of Scotland yesterday, their first thoughts turned to clothes.

‘Naked Rambler’ gets dressed

A man trying to walk the length of Britain wearing nothing but a hat, boots and a rucksack completed his marathon trek on Monday and celebrated by putting his clothes back.

“It’s nice to get warmed up again,” self-styled “Naked Rambler” Stephen Gough (46) told the domestic Scottish Press Association news agency from a café in John O’Groats, on the tip of the north-east Scottish mainland.

Gough and his partner, 34-year-old hairdresser Melanie Roberts, completed the last 32km of their 1 363km walk from Land’s End, south-west England in temperatures of about five degrees Celsius.

“It has been pretty cold and the locals have been coming up to us offering us whisky and all sorts,” said Gough. “They’ve been very, very friendly. We passed a school and there were even parents coming out with video cameras.”


Naked rambler completes his trek [Link still valid!]

Mr Gough and his partner Melanie Roberts, 34, from Bournemouth, reached the north coast of Caithness on Monday.

The ex-marine, who began his 874-mile trek in June, has been arrested and jailed on several occasions.

Mr Gough, from Eastleigh in Hampshire, said he wanted to challenge public attitudes to nudity. He celebrated his success by putting his clothes on.

It was a nice touch that the Guardian ran, in addition to the story, a brief — but quite favorable — opinion piece:

In praise of… the naked rambler
[Link still valid!]

However often the police may have arrested the incorrigible nudist, including twice in his final week on the road, the general public always seemed hearteningly unfazed by his presence. The nearer he got to John O’Groats, a tired but happy Mr Gough reflected yesterday, the more that local people offered greetings and whisky to him and his partner Melanie Roberts.

Oh, and just in case you’ve been living most of the last year (or more) in the Amazonian rainforest (hopefully naked) and find this story interesting but lacking in background, just go to the Naked Rambler’s web site for more information and pictures…

Originally published February 27, 2006

Naked bungy jumping

Now that the Winter Solstice is past, Valentine’s day is rapidly approaching. Got plans yet?

How about naked bungy jumping in tandem with a really close friend? Or even on a first date….

It’s a Valentine’s weekend tradition at the Bungy Zone in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. This year, that’s February 11-12. So make your plans quickly… it’s only five weeks away. In years past, jumpers who go naked also go free (only on this weekend), so it can be a bargain, apart from travel costs.

As the company says,

You can bungee jump “classic style” or join the growing group of naked bungee jumpers that gather annually to “let it all hang out” as they bungee jump in the buff.

Think you’d be scared shitless to try this? Yeah, probably. But having this “ultimate adrenaline rush” appears to be the main point. And maybe the ultimate bonding experience as well. Of course, you could always just make the trip to Nanaimo to watch, and wait to see (and let lots of others see) whether you have the (ahem) balls to go through with it.

That’s what Seattle reporter Kristin Dizon did several years ago:

Free Falling! A stripped-down version of bungee jumping

Who knows what brought these jumpers to Nanaimo, a logging and fishing town of about 70,000 on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Overcoming fear, trying something new, exhibiting one’s body or perhaps some deeper existential search for meaning drew them to the Bungy Zone.

Kristin notes that not all couples who do the naked tandem thing are in a serious relationship:

Alison Behrner and Wade Anderson, both of Campbell River, B.C., are no exception. Fused together, chins nuzzled into shoulders, their arms tightly clasp each other for a tandem jump.

“Are we a couple?” Behrner, 28, ponders when asked. “I don’t know.”

“This is like our first date. We’re just getting to know each other,” Anderson, 25, chimes in.

But then, maybe the guy was just being flippant. Despite her reluctance, Kristin eventually allowed herself to be talked into stripping and jumping. Even so, it was anything but easy, and there was an audience:

Clad in nothing but hiking boots, I think of leaping feet first, but that seems so spineless. A minute ticks by, then another.

I don’t notice the people watching and wondering, will she or won’t she?

Clearly, Kristin (who jumped alone) lived to tell about it, with no injury other than the indignity of being fished out of the water and being released from the cord, where “Legs up in the air, I look like a baby during a diaper change.”

Here’s another report, from another year, by writer Kimberlee Jensen:

Naked tandem bungy jumping

For our first Valentine’s Day together, my partner and I wanted our celebration to truly reflect our relationship, so naked tandem bungy jumping sounded just right.

This is a popular event, so you may have to wait some time in line — about three hours Kimberlee reports. But the experience was romantic enough to make up for that:

As we spun upside-down we shared a thrilling kiss. While embraced he reached around and pinched my bottom. We were bare and it was there, so I hardly blame him. The jump was over within minutes, but we both wanted it to last longer.

Originally published January 7, 2006

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More info:

Video: here

Still pictures: here

Germans go naked into freezing lake for good health

Brrrrrr. I think I’ll pass on this. Do these folks have antifreeze in their veins?

Germans go naked into freezing lake for good health

BERLIN (Reuters) – Saying ice cold water is good for their health, a group of about 30 naked Germans jumped together into a Berlin lake for their annual Christmas swim on Sunday.

Wearing nothing but red Santa Claus caps, the naked men and women aged between 25 and 73 went cheerfully en masse into the Oranke Lake in northern Berlin, which had temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit).

“It feels great even if it’s not quite as cold this year as in the past,” said Kathrin Hornack after her five-minute swim. Last year the lake was colder and in previous years it was sometimes filled with chunks of ice.

“What more could we ask for?” she said. “The sun is shining and it’s a lovely day in the lake.”

Originally posted December 26, 2005

The bare truth about naked beaches

The bare truth about naked beaches

It seems like everyone has a list of their Top 10 nude beaches. Well except for Forbes, which opted for topless being more tasteful. So without further ado, here are the naked truths about where to go and bare it all:

This is a nice, useful article on nude beaches, with only a little bit of sophomoric humor, some good general links, and several “top 10” nude beach lists:

But why on Earth did the source (in Canada) decide to publish this in the very depths of the northern hemisphere’s Winter Solstice season — when most of the beaches listed are likewise north of the equator?

Cruel and unusual punishment. Or were they just looking out the window and wishing, up there in Tronna?

Originally published December 20, 2005

Southern California trip report

Jan C’s Netnude is one of the finest naturist sites on the Web. It’s a true community, and regularly promotes real-world gatherings for its members. Not only that, but among many other good things, it also hosts contributed trip reports on naturist places all over the world.

Here’s a very nice example of one such report, by “Nevada Naturist” on the occasion of a trip to Southern California for a gathering. The text and pictures describe and illustrate several outstanding naturist destinations: Deep Creek Hot Springs, San Onofre State Beach, Black’s Beach, and the De Anza Springs Resort in the Anza-Borego Desert.

Nevada Naturist’s Journey to the April 2005 Netnude Gathering

All/most links here are still valid.

Originally posted November 7, 2005