Posts tagged “travel”
-
Great holiday
We just arrived home from a fantastic holiday in Culburra just North of Jervis Bay. We had Aaron great time, in spite of the weather. Tomorrow I start my new job at Vodafone. Quite looking forward to…
-
MONA
Hobart is lucky to have the amazing Museum of Old and New Art. The collection is incredible and the building spectacular. Well worth a visit! [video width="500" height="300" mp4="https://media.contrac…
-
Back home
We're back home after our week in NZ. Great trip. Not looking forward to being back at work! Today's journey involved driving to Picton, catching the ferry across the Cook Strait and getting ourselves…
-
Babi Guling: Balinese suckling pig
We finally made it beyond the immediate surrounds of the hotel and out to Ubud where we visited the legendary Ibu Oka for Babi Guling, roast suckling pig. it was... sensational!
-
Flying to Bali
So the flight to Bali was relatively uneventful. Surprisingly Louis was fine on the flight. He'd developed a snotty nose the night before the flight, so we were expecting the worst, but in the event h…
-
Confusing pictograms
Jason Parker-Burlingham posted a confusing pictogram so I thought I'd add my own. This is from the path to the beach in Nida in Lithuania, which is at the Lithuanian end of the Curonian Spit. That's t…
-
Lunch in Coffs
Geo: -30.289268,153.122356 We've just arrived in Coffs Harbour after an early start. We're heading up the coast to Uki for a New Year do. We being Don, Christine, Eric, Holly and I. Rachel, Mikey, Leo…
-
The end
Geo: -36.982510,147.142761 All over unfortunately. A great last day. 18cm of snow overnight made for great runs. In the morning I rode the chutes in Heavenly Valley. The afternoon I did a bunch of slu…
-
Great morning
Geo: -36.976593,147.147796 Lovely morning today, though the weather looks set to deteriorate. Yesterday afternoon we discovered some lovely and quiet runs that tested our skills. Now happily working t…
-
Visibility: excellent
Geo: -36.984936,147.144996 This view from our apartment window is what the Hotham web site describes as excellent visibility. Fortunately it's a little better further down. The snow is getting a bit p…
-
White out
Geo: -36.978000,147.147763 This morning started out beautiful and sunny. When I got up to pee at dawn the view out the window was spectacular. I got some photos on my real camera. About 1000 clouds st…
-
On the piste
Geo: -36.988866,147.145640 Up early this morning to hit the slopes. It's a really interesting resort and we've covered a fair chunk of it. I'm quite happy with my boarding. First run and I nailed my t…
-
Eden
Geo: -37.054151,149.943536 View from Ben Boyd National Park near Eden. We had a fun night last night with an Elvis and Johnny Cash impersonator at the local pub. Driving up to Mt Hotham today and snow…
-
Orbost
Geo: -37.707143,148.454433 In retrospect an anti logging sticker in Orbost might not be a brilliant idea.
-
Don's chainsaw furniture
Geo: -35.650248,150.292883 In South Durras on our way to the snow. Don's been proving his manliness with the chainsaw. Beautiful weather! Off to Eden next.
-
Brogo dam
Geo: -36.489320,149.741006 We're back in my old stomping ground near Bega. This is the big dam that supplies the area. Seems smaller than back when I was a kid.
-
Testing my geo mobblog
Geo: -33.902166,151.163230 Before our big trip around Europe I set up this system to blog with added geographic tagging. Turned out that on the road I couldn't use gprs so it never happened. I'm off s…
-
Weekend in Hobart
We spent the weekend staying with Scott and Katie down in Hobart. Had a really fantastic time hanging out with them, seeing the sights, drinking, eating, meeting some of their friends and catching up…
-
A good week's snowboarding
Holly and I just got home from a week's snowboarding at Perisher with Holly's brother Ben and his mate Warren. It was a great week with brilliant weather, a deep base of snow and even a mid-week topup…
-
Made it to Australia
Well we made it to Sydney yesterday. The flight was uneventful and we spent the day with family. Was lovely to see everyone again. Mum and Dad are now on their way to London, we dropped them at the ai…
-
Leaving London
Well we're leaving London tonight at 22:30 local time. We've got mixed feelings about the move. After six years in London, it's a pretty big move to up stumps and head to the other side of the world,…
-
Homeward bound
So we've been in London since Tuesday, staying with Rachel. We've booked our flight back to Sydney for 3rd September, arriving the morning of 5th September. We'll probably spend the day with my parent…
-
Heading home
We're going home after five months on the road. Our flight to London leaves on Tuesday afternoon from Sofia. We'll organize our flight to Sydney when we get there, but should be in London 10-14 days o…
-
Cornflake breaded chicken?
The picture to the right shows a rather odd meal Holly ordered in Sofia. She was expecting some kind of schnitzel, but ended up with a cornflake-coated chicken thing instead of breadcrumbs. Weird! We'…
-
Welcome to the Balkans!
Well we had a very eventful journey to Skopje today. We turned up at the bus station to find the "bus" is in fact a minibus, and chock full, so there's even a passenger sitting shotgun between the dri…
-
Sofia, off to Skopje
We've been in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, the last two nights. It's a pretty scruffy place and there's not a whole lot to see. We stayed in a really lovely hostel, nice and quiet. Not a whole lot to s…
-
Veliko Tarnovo
We're in Veliko Tarnovo in Central Northern Bulgaria. Nice little town and we got an apartment in the centre for €15 a night which isn't bad. Even has a telly with English channels on it! Tomorrow we'…
-
Beach bumming in Varna
We've been in Varna a few days and we've had loads of fun. Staying in a very fun hostel with loads of people, including some Brits we met in Krakow. We've spent most of the days lazing on the beach. T…
-
Varna
So we made it to Varna after our mammoth train journey. It wasn't anything like we expected. The sleeper compartment was comfortable, though a little dated and old, but the carriage seemed to just get…
-
Leaving Krakow
So we've now spent seven days in Krakow. We found an awesome hostel with a really relaxed atmosphere and incredibly helpful staff, so we stuck around. The visa dash to Warsaw was successful, with the…
-
Doing the visa run
So it turns out I need a transit visa to get through Romania on our train to Varna. What a pain in the arse! So we're off to Warsaw again to get this stupid visa for a country I'm not even visiting. Y…
-
Euro beach bums
We're in Warsaw to meet my old colleague Robert and pick up our repaired camera. It's damn hot, with tomorrow forecast to hit 33. Phew! This morning we booked our mad dash to the coast. It's too hot t…
-
Trakai, photos and off to Warsaw
Today we went to the lovely town of Trakai with its beautiful castle. Really nice weather, though I think Lithuanian buses need to discover the joys of air conditioning or at least have windows that o…
-
Vilnius, trying to get to Varna
We're still in Vilnius. Switched to the youth hostel after Hannah and Des left. Quite a cheap place, which is good. We're trying to work out our next step. Ideally we'd fly straight to Varna in Bulgar…
-
Vilnius: not a food capital
Hi folks. We're currently in Vilnius after driving across from Nida on the Baltic coast with Hannah and Des. Staying here a few days before heading down to Poland. The Curonian Spit is this amazing fi…
-
Liepaja and Palanga
We're currently in Palanga on Lithuania's Baltic coast. It's a tourist resort kinda town and quite nice. After three sweltering days in Riga with temperatures above 35 degrees, we were in need of a be…
-
Riga
We've been in Riga for a few days now. It's been insanely hot around these parts the last week, so we've been spending quite a bit of time lazing as well as sightseeing. We've seen a few things includ…
-
Tallinn beer festival
We went out to the Tallinn Beer Festival last night. Lots of fun and we had some interesting beers. My favourite was the incredibly cloudy one from Saareema. It makes Coopers look clear! It's been rea…
-
Tallinn
We're currently in Tallinn, Estonia, staying in our friend Olga's flat about ten minutes' walk from the old city. It's a lovely city which retains its timbered old houses and towering church spires. H…
-
Great music, sun and pee
So Roskilde finished last Sunday and what a great festival! We saw some amazing bands and the weather was fantastic. Hot and sunny the whole weekend. It was great to catch up with Justine, Jenny and B…
-
Roskilde
So we're at Roskilde Festival in Denmark. There's some time before the first band I wanna see (Four Tet) and they have Internet, so... We spent a couple of days in Hamburg, staying in a hotel even. Ni…
-
Hamburg
Hey folks. Well wasn't that the most disappointing end to our World Cup campaign? Knocked out by a dodgy penalty when we'd been the better team on the pitch for the full 90 minutes! Well, we certainly…
-
Berchtesgaden and Munich
We're back in Munich. Our train trip down to Berchtesgaden passed through and I needed to get my glasses fixed, so we stopped off for a couple of hours on the way through. Berchtesgaden was fantastic.…
-
Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!
We won! Well the vibe wasn't exactly pumping here in Bamberg. I think we're the only Aussies in town, though the Poms in the Irish pub with us were celebrating with us. What a game. I felt like I'd ru…
-
Berlin
> > We arrived in Berlin on Friday night and have been loving it! It's such a buzzing town with so much on, particularly with the World Cup coming to town. So far we've wandered around the main sights…
-
Getting the boot in
We've spent the last three nights camping in Alberobello, home of all these cute little "Trulli" houses which are cone-shaped limestone roofs. Quite nice. This is down in South-East Italy, the heel of…
-
Rome then beach
Hi folks. We're currently down in Southern Italy, staying in a caravan park near Sorrento. We had a fantastic time in Rome, seeing all the major sights and staying in a pretty fun hostel (but for the…
-
Rome
We arrived in Rome yesterday and it's fantastic finally seeing the place. It's just completely jammed with Old Shit (and tourists), you can't wander around without running into something incredibly ol…
-
Florence and more photos
We've finally found a reasonably priced Internet cafe that lets us plug in our camera, so there's now photos from Granada, San Jose, Valencia, Peniscola, Como and the first pics from Florence. See the…
-
Como
We left Barcelona yesterday and flew into Milan in Italy. We're now in a hostel beside lovely Lake Como. We just got back from a boat ride up the lake to Bellagio. Great place! Tomorrow we're off to M…
-
Light Fingers in Barcelona
Well I guess it had to happen at some point. I got pickpocketed in Barcelona a couple of days ago. We had just arrived in town, with our huge backpacks on the metro. Classic tactics, they saw my walle…
-
Two player card games?
As you might imagine, we're spending a fair amount of time sitting around either waiting for transport or travelling. There's also the inevitable nights when it's raining or cold and we want to sit in…
-
Peniscola
Geo: 40.364661,000.403640 No, not a new drink marketed at the gay market but a beach town on the coast North of Valencia. We decided we needed some more beach time, after our time in San Jose was marr…
-
San Jose then Valencia
Geo: 39.472906,-000.371813 We arrived in Valencia last night after a mammoth 8.5 hour bus ride through every no-horse town between Almeria and the Costa Blanca. Certainly a long trip, but we're glad t…
-
Alhambra
Geo: 37.176901,-003.588436 The Alhambra in Granada. You've played the game, now see the real thing! We had to get up at 0630 this morning to get tickets, but it's well worth it.
-
Seville, Cordoba, Granada
I'm in the process of uploading some more photos from Seville and Cordoba. See here. Seville was a nice place, though the camping ground was right next to airport and freeway and it rained rained rain…
-
Camping in Seville
Geo: 37.417063,-005.917796 Here we are in Seville. If you look at the map you'll see the camping ground is handy for the freeway and airport. We could count the rivets on the planes. This will be our…
-
Loads of new photos
I'm in the middle of uploading lots of photos. You'll find: Donostia (San Sebastian), Bilbao and Segovia. Haven't taken any photos in Madrid yet, but will today. Photos here
-
Segovia
Geo: 40.948438,-004.118433 Segovia's 1st Century AD aquaduct.
-
Madrid
Geo: 40.414558,-003.700951 Sunny and warm in Madrid!
-
Bilbao and Tex Perkins
Arived in Bilbao on Sunday night pouring with rain. Discovered our hostel was well on the outskirts of town and so had our first night in. Easter Monday in Bilbao was a ghost town. Hardly anyone about…
-
Donostia or San Sebastian
We had a fantastic time in Donostia, a lovely town on the Basque coast. Arriving on a train in the early morning drizzle wasn't ideal, but things quickly got better. After a short rest, we headed into…
-
Catalan Food
Posting this from Bilbao but need to get it out before I forget it all. We had a fantastic food experience in Barcelona. Lots of tasty tapas stuff, but the place that really shined was off the beaten…
-
Finally uploaded some photos
We caught the overnight train from Barcelona to San Sebastian last night. Slept in our six-berth sleeper, which was quite pleasant. We've finally found an Internet cafe we can upload photos from. They…
-
Business at the back, party at the front
Geo: 41.38788,2.20392 We've been in Barcelona since Monday night and in our first twenty-four hours, we spotted at least forty Iberimullets. It's certainly a popular haircut around these parts. I have…
-
Our worldly possessions
Geo: 51.550703,-000.087496 This is our stuff for the next eight months! About to head to the airport. I can barely lift my pack. Eek!
-
Holly's birthday brunch
Geo: 51.557758,-000.080551 We're having a tasty breakfast for Holly's birthday.
-
Staying at Pyrland
Geo: 51.550611,-000.087570 We're spending the week at Scott and Katie's place in North London. This is my shiny new moblog thingy. You'll notice I've got a link at the top of the post where you can se…
-
Phone for travel
In case you don't know, Holly and I are heading off travelling around Europe in April. We're planning to be on the road up to eight months, so I've been doing some research into communications on the…
-
Back from Ireland
Got back from 9 days' holiday in Ireland spent with Holly and Mum. What a fantastic trip! Essentially we saw all of the northern half of Ireland. Loads of neolithic passage tombs: Ireland appears to h…
-
Back from Stockholm
Just got back from a week in Stockholm staying with Juz and Gav. Brilliant weather, we even got tans! Stockholm is a beautiful city, particularly the archipelago where we spent three days swimming and…
-
Weekend in Aisne
We got back from a long weekend in Aisne, Northern France. Nine of us went on the Eurostar on Friday afternoon, hiring a minibus in Lille. Great time had by all! Beautiful weather on Saturday and Sund…
-
Snowboardo!
Holly and I got back from snowboarding on Saturday night. Had a great time but snowboarding is a lot harder than skiing. Took us quite a while just to get the basics. With skiing you can be snowplowin…
-
Finally booked skiing
I've finally booked our ski trip. Staying at this apartment in Vallandry. Eurostar to get there. Can't wait! And there's already snow!
-
Snowboarding in Slovenia
I'm in the process of booking a week of skiing at Kranjska Gora in Slovenia for next February. Managed to convince Holly to come at last, so we're both going to learn to snowboard. There will be eight…
-
Snowdon
A couple of weeks ago, Andrew Allen took us up to Snowdonia to climb Mount Snowdon. Of course, being Andy, the nice easy tourist walk wasn't dangerous enough and he convinced us to climb the hardest c…
-
London Open House
On Saturday Holly and I went to see some buildings as part of the London Open House thing. For one weekend each year, buildings, or parts of buildings, that are normally closed are open to the public.…
-
Bunch of new photos
Got a bunch of new photos up. This new camera sure takes beautiful pics! Visit to Utrecht to visit Mani and Joachim. Bike ride to Eastbourne as part of training for our big ride up in the North of Eng…
-
Ljubljana again
Well I'm in Ljubljana again for work. It's been a bit less stressful than last time, and we're making progress on the work. Tonight I caught up with one of the girls I met with my colleage Jen last ti…
-
Photos from our trip
Photos from our trip to Sydney are now online. Loads of photos of friends and places. When we move into our new place and I get all set up, I'll scan in the photo of us on top of the Sydney Harbour Br…
-
Back in London
Well we just arrived back in London. I'm surfing the jetlag express. Oh what fun! Pretty soon, I'll be hallucinating, no doubt. Just as soon as I finish chatting to the purple numbat sitting on my mon…
-
Beds are Burning?
They say travel broadens the mind. Well I guess it does. Tonight I was reminded that the horrors of BBC Radio 1 are nothing compared to the pain of Eurotrash radio stations. Sitting in a pizza joint i…
-
Ljubuljana and cross-country skiing
I'm sitting in my hotel room nursing a beer (they stop selling take away beers at 9pm, so it's a minibar one that will have to be replaced before the maid gets here and counts them) and revelling in a…
-
Off to Slovenia
I'm off to Ljubljana on Sunday night for two weeks doing test support on a client site. I'm looking forward to seeing a new city and country. Spring is on its way here in London. Leaving work at 17:30…
-
Weekend in Glasgow
I had some frequent flyer points that were about to expire, so we went to Glasgow for the weekend. We had a very nice time in lovely weather, actually warmer than London. The Scottish Riviera? Anyway,…
-
Some new photos
My parents have been in town, though they're heading back to Sydney tonight. We've been out and about a lot, including a week in France and a weekend in Norfolk. This weekend we spent in London. Yeste…
-
Weekend in Norfolk
My folks are in town so we bundled into a hire car early on Saturday morning and headed to Norfolk for the weekend. We finally joined the National Trust and visited a couple of great historic houses,…
-
Hiking the Ridgeway
Holly and I went hiking along The Ridgeway over the long weekend. Looking at that map, we started at Avebury and climbed the ridge, then kept going for three days. We ended up at Wantage. A great thre…
-
Photos are up
I spent much of the weekend scanning photos. There's stack of new photos up here. A weekend away at an Anglo-Saxon burial site. This year's Glastonbury St Petersburg Moscow Rostov the Great, a town ou…
-
Back from Russia
Haven't had a chance to write about our experiences in Russia yet. Tomorrow night I'll be picking up our photos and will spend the night scanning them in and writing about it. We had a fabulous time a…
-
The little red button
I'm sitting in an Internet cafe in Moscow around the corner from Nate and Jen's flat. There's a little red button next to the monitor. If I press it, a waiter comes out and will refill my beer. Moscow…
-
A great weekend away
We got back last night from an excellent weekend away with Matt, Maz, John and Anne. We were staying in a National Trust property, Sutton Hoo, the site of many Anglo-Saxon burial mounds, including the…
-
The English could learn from the Russians
You've probably heard me moan about English beurocracy before. Well they're nothing compared to the Russians! I'm trying to get a tourist visa so I can go and spend money in their country, boosting th…
-
Booked for Russia
We just booked our flights to Moscow for July. We'll be spending two weeks with our friends Nathan and Jenny. They have a flat in Moscow and another in St Petersburg so we'll be dividing our time betw…
-
Cycling in Norfolk
Holly and I went cycling in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire this weekend. It looked like rain and my back had been sore on Friday so we didn't do the planned Colchester to The Wash ride. Instead we headed…
-
A week in Devon and Cornwall
Holly and I got back from a week in Devon and Cornwall on Saturday night. Very fun, though the weather was a bit crap. The week started with us hiring a car in London. Holly can only drive automatics…
-
Brummy land weekend
Holly and I went to Birmingham, the UK's second largest city. Largely underrated due to its Midlands location, this city was the heart of the Industrial Revolution which probably caused more social up…
-
Heading off to Devon and Cornwall
Tomorrow night we're heading South-West to a manor house from the Landmark Trust with about 16 others. Should be rather nice! After that we're heading further down into the SW corner of England to see…
-
A little bit of snow...
It snowed last night here in London, which is quite unusual. It was really more of a blizzard at work in NW London, with about three inches dumped in only a few hours. Of course this meant there were…
-
Raining in Hoi An
Well we're in Hoi An, the shopper's paradise. In this townm you can get a suit whipped up in a few hours for US$20, or anything you can find in a fashion magazine or photo. I've spent US$115 so far on…
-
Still raining -- time to bail
Well it's still pouring down with rain here in Nha Trangh. It's quite sad as our plan for here was to spend three or four days lying on the beach sipping cocktails. Instead we've been wandering around…
-
Raining raining raining
We're in Nha Trangh and it's been raining all yesterday and today. Looks like it might clear up by tomorrow, thank Bob. Not much to do in a beach town in the rain. Apparently there's a storm (typhoon…
-
We love Vietnam!
It's funny how bad experiences contrast so readily with good. Last night we arrived in Dalat, the internal tourist capital of Vietnam. All the Viets have their honeymoons here. It's strewn with tacky…
-
Dalat limerick
Initially quite dodgy Dalat We warmed to the people and all that Tourist Mafia is bad And poverty is sad But the motorbike tours are down pat
-
In Dalat
We're now in Dalat. Not much to report except seeing lots of beautiful countryside on the 8 hour bus ride here. Dalat is the main tourist destination for Vietnamese. It's much cooler than Saigon, whic…
-
Bad poetry
We've taken to writing limericks while sipping yummy Vietnamese beer about our travels. We'll do one or two poems a day about our travels. 2/10/2000 We jumped on a cyclo in Saigon And went "what the h…
-
Snow!
It snowed this morning. Must have been a couple of inches at least, judging from the amount piled up on cars in the street. Not quite a white Christmas but nice nonetheless. Rachel called us at 5:30am…
-
Holidays at last!
We're in Saigon and loving it. Apparently Saigon is the worst place in Vietnam, so it's only going to get better from here. Vietnam is an incredibly interesting place to travel. A communist country, i…
-
Update time
Well it's been almost a month since I last told you what we're up to. Been a bit slack, I guess. I never thought I'd appreciate evergreen trees so much as being in London in Winter. The trees were a g…
-
I'm an uncle!
Just got this email from my brother Anthony: At 11:15pm on Tuesday the 14th, Laura gave birth to a 4.175kg baby girl by C-Section Wahoo. Looks like I'm an uncle and Anthony and Laura are now parents.…
-
Welcome to Sunny London
Well here we are in London at last. Our week in Paris was, of course, fantastic. Had lots of yummy cheese, met some excellent people and did a small amount of sightseeing. I guess I should talk about…
-
Why do I love France?
I've been thinking about why I love France so much. It could be the food, the cheese, the wine, the peoplem the history. But really it's the lack of the anti-intellectual cultural cringe you see in Au…
-
Halong Bay and off to Paris
We're back in Hanoi after 3 days going to Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay. We timed it perfectly and got beautiful sunny weather. That meant we got some swimming in. First off the boat and then at the bea…
-
J'adore Paris
Spent the day today wandering around Paris. We have a weekly ticket on the Metro and travelled to the Arc de Triomphe and then wandered down the Champs-Elysee towards one of Paris' department stores.…
-
Paris wow
We're in Paris and loving it! Holly has been raving about how much she loves the place all afternoon. Of course, as with entry into any country, there were some hassles. We breezed through baggage cla…
-
Back in Hanoi
Well we got back to Hanoi tonight after six days travelling around the North West of Vietnam. We've seen a lot of minority hill tribe villages and had a hell of a lot of fun. We also have sore bums fr…
-
Hanoi and onwards to Sapa
We've been in Hanoi the last two days. Beautiful old city, although the traffic is more hectic than Saigon! We managed one sunny day today but I managed to spend most of the day in bed with the runs a…
-
Clothes!
We're still in Hoi An, it's still raining but we have some fantastic clothes. We've been hanging out with a couple of poms and Irish people which has been fun. Not much else to do in the rain. We trie…
-
Hue and on to Hanoi
Not much to report. We spent the day on the bus from Hoi An to Hue. It's still raining (sounding like a scratched record). Tomorrow we'll try and get onto a boat ride on the Perfume River to see the t…
-
Look here for updates
Keep watching this page for updates about where Holly, Michael and Simon are and to hear about their adventures.