The Knitting Geologist

30 January 2012 A month into the New Year

2012-01-30T15:56:00.002+08:00

Gosh how time is flying. The end of January tomorrow. I remember when I was young(er) that the end of January was always exciting and scary, with the start of the school year. It was always great to start a new book at school, a nice crisp clean page. I would always promise myself that I would do my homework that year and that I wouldn't leave things to the last minute. Of course, by the start of March my book looked like it had see the worse side of my lunch box, my writing was illegible and my first assignment was due the next week and I hadn't even been to the library to get the correct research books.

The end of January is also the beginning of the birthday season. My mum has a really BIG day tomorrow and how I wish I was there to celebrate with her. There may be the number 6 and a zero in there somewhere. Mum you don't look like you aged since you were a four and zero. Have a "Happy Birthday" and spoilt yourself rotten. Go for a nice pamper session and have some lovely blue cod for dinner with a pav to finish it off. Now I am making myself wish I was there just for dinner...

In other exciting news, Reece and I are in the process of purchasing our first home. I guess I am not so nervous as much as impatient, as I wish the process would go faster because I want to hurry up and move in, so we can play with our "new" toy. I want to see if I can master the art of a paint roller and sewing machine. I also want to try stencilling walls, though my artistic side favours stick figures and I failed colouring in 101 at uni (only my 'craft room' Reece, I promise to 'try' and make a mess of your 'office').

If any of you have been following the weather for my current location, you will have noticed that we reached beyond 40 degrees everyday last week. I can tell you that I am seriously a cold-climate person and that knitting is not really a hot climate pastime. I know that I haven't completed any knitting for a while but I am hoping to turn that around. No pictures just yet, but I can tell you that there will be knitting related pictures in the very near future.

12 January 2012 A New Year

2012-01-12T15:46:00.002+08:00

The start of a New Year. It always feels like it can contain a multitude of possibilities, so much potential. What will happen this year. Maybe this year will be the year of all years!! This year we are hoping to become home owners, and of course it would go without saying then that we would become owned by a cat or two too.

My New Year's resolution for 2012 is to learn how to fish and then clean and cook it. I am aiming for a bit of deep sea fishing but I am only hoping to catch fish that are eatable, I am not interested in the big game fishing. I think that is a fairly decent New Year's resolution.

Chloe looking contented

I guess I should cover what has been going on since Christmas. Reece and I saw in the New Year in Melbourne at a friends place, I think we were playing monopoly at the time and Reece was dominating. I appeared to be enjoying jail a lot but by that time of the game that was safer than landing on one of his hotel infested properties. It was the Australian edition and I didn't like it that much. I prefer the traditional. I didn't like paying in millions of dollars. And the property prices were fairly skewed to me.

We flew back to Perth only to fly to Adelaide the following weekend. I was catching up with Nola and Walter, who were over from London and my cousin Darren over there. The weather was cracker. The best thing would be to direct you to Nola's blog as she has already written up all the going's on. I really only thing to add to it is about our accommodation. We were staying in the McLaren Vale at Kidogo Cottage and it was lovely and private and everything you could need. I liked how we were overlooking the vineyards and how secluded it was.

We are back into work again and of course it feels like I could do with another holiday. We don't have much planned for the rest of the month. Catching up with friends after the holiday period and I am sure there will be plenty of organising for events coming up.

I will leave you with a couple of pics:

Overlooking the McLaren Vale.

Camels at Victor Harbour

Overlooking Aldinga Beach

29 December 2011 Post Christmas, Pre New Year

2011-12-29T10:43:00.001+08:00

This month has been busy busy. December usually is. After hosting my own Christmas lunch, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Uncle Erkel Chocolate Bars from my brother. They arrived on a stormy evening in Perth and I promptly opened them up and surrounded myself with chocolate.

I took some to work the next day and they demolished 6 boxes worth. I have handed them out to friends as Christmas gifts, and now after all the celebrations I have only 4 boxes of boxes so that is about 24 boxes left. I am sure that will keep me going for a while.

I survived my work's Christmas Party. We all went out for lunch to the Melbourne Hotel. It was nice enough but it seems that they go for the maximum meat and very little veg these days.

Before I forget, we went and watched 'Puss in Boots', and I thought it was great. Very cute, enough adult jokes to keep it going and some very cat like behaviour.

The following week after the work Christmas Party, I went for my first off-site training. I headed up to Paraburdoo for three days to teach mainly vac/grad students. It was my first time in Paraburdoo and my first time on an Iron Ore site too. Here I am all dressed up, it certainly felt normal putting my steal caps back on. This photo was taken at about 4:30am before I had to catch my flight up North.

Christmas Eve and we found ourselves heading back to Melbourne to spend the week with Reece's family. Christmas day was a nice lazy pace. I found myself being the recipient to many cooking related gifts, with cook books, timers, aprons, oven mitts and kitchen knives. Reece gave me a Zeke stuffed toy and some awesome Portal coasters.

We then found ourselves in the eye of the storm as Melbourne was hit by a freak Summer storm, with hail getting to the size of large marbles. Reece's parents suffered a broken skylight and some dints in the family cars. We were then subjected to 90mm of rain, luckily Grant had got up on the roof and covered the broken skylight with a tarp. Our flood damaged stuff under the house was again put upon by rain, but on closer inspection the following day, the boxes bore the brunt of it and only a couple of magazines had to be tossed and some things were damp. We need to replace quite a few boxes though. Yay to unpack and pack up again. Though I found my circular needles that I found I was missing, so I have put them in my suitcase to take back.

We didn't end up going to the cricket this year. We had meet up with Katie and Vic and their friends for a few drinks on Monday night at 'The Melbourne Supper Club', it was truly Melbourne experience and Katie and I did polish off quite a few glasses of red. Reece took me for a nice scenic trip on the way home, so we ended up at a park overlooking the city at 1am. It was very pretty.

Yesterday Reece, Amber and I headed to the Botanic Gardens. It was very popular as the day was a cracker. The cafe was busy when we stopped for lunch. Amber and I got our lunches fine but Reece waited for an hour and still no luck, so I demanded a refund for him and we moved on.

I will just finish the blog for the day with some photos from yesterday.

5 December 2011

2011-12-05T11:31:00.001+08:00

I am trying to remember what I last wrote. Anyway I know that I haven't blogged about the last couple of weeks. Last week was really busy. It started off with the Foo Fighter's concert on the Monday night. As always they are a great band to watch live. It was the first time I have been to the NIB stadium and I wasn't too impressed with the set-up. It would have been much better if the stage had been another metre higher. We were about half way from the stage in the general admission area. The other problem was with some of the songs the singing was over powered by the instruments, which seemed a little odd in more the ballad type songs. This may have been due to the stadium or the weather. Out door locations can be a bit hit or miss with the acoustics. The band has such energy though and I am always impressed by their stamina and that David Grohl can keep his voice for the 2 and half hours of straight singing. Tenacious D opened for them and they are pretty good. Not much to look at but the music is good and the lyrics clever.

On Friday we were at our first Christmas function of the year. This one was for the AIG (Australian Institute of Geoscientists) and it was a cruise on the Swan River. It was a brilliant day for it. Very sunny, hot and not much of a breeze. We left from Brunswick St pier and went all the way down to the Fremantle harbour and back. Very calm. The food was only ok. I thought that their hot food selection was a little odd though I enjoyed the salads and cold meat selection. Dessert was just fruit salad and cream and some danishes. There was a lot of alcohol though. We drank mid-strength beer mostly, I tried a glass of the white but found it a bit on the sweet side.

This weekend was my big Christmas lunch for my friends. Mostly for the kiwi's over here that don't have any family and a couple of randoms. Next time I am going to tell people to turn up earlier because I had said that Lunch was a one so they turned up then even though that was the time the food was ready. The food went ok. I was a little disappointed in the veggies, not my cooking but since last week has been extraordinary hot here in Perth the vegies that looked good at the shop the previous weekend weren't the best when I bought them on Saturday. My trifle was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. I used the jam that I made in September and it was great. I didn't really like the turkey roll that we got in the end and I am glad I decided to cook some chicken breast with it. I found the turkey to be really salty and dense. I don't think I would buy that again even though it was easier. Brad bought a really nice ham. Huge but really nice tasting, I think he bought the most expensive one but it was worth it.

Not much else happening. Trying not to die in the heat. I am hoping not to have much on next weekend. I need a bit of a break and some relaxing.

20 November 2011 This year's Christmas Decorations

2011-11-20T10:38:00.001+08:00

So the Christmas decorations are ready to be sent to my nephews. I know that they won't appreciate them now, but maybe one day they might.

All in the post bags now and I will send them this week sometime. As you can tell, it is beautiful and sunny here today. It is going to heat up this week with 37 on Wednesday. Thank goodness we have air conditioning at work.

Some Halloween Pics.

2011-11-17T14:43:00.001+08:00

Some pics from the evening for those who want a bit of a giggle. Sorry pic heavy post.

9 November 2011 I feel terrible

2011-11-09T11:35:00.003+08:00

I cannot believe it has been 5 weeks since my last blog, is that going to become a common tagline? Gosh I hope not. I am finding working a week-day job makes you really busy to fit everything into evenings and weekends. Still that is no excuse. I didn't even write about my Halloween party.

I don't have any photo's at the moment because my friend took them all and I she has only just flown back out on break. Hopefully I will get a copy this week.

The party was a bit different than I was expecting. Not as many people came that said they would but I think that we had fun with what people there were, though there was a distinct separation of the groups. It was fun dressing up and I think I did a good job of decorating the house. The highlight of the evening was trying to bob for apples. Crazily only Brad and I managed it, it did cause some hilarious moments though. And the apples were really good too.

Work has been a bit on the slow side. When it is busy it is great, but for the past week things have been a bit slow. But I am back training next week, which will definitely pick up the pace a bit.

I have been discussing my running with my co-worker Jen and wondering whether I should try for the 14Km run in the HBF run next May. Jen ran 21Km in the last race so she is a good inspiration and doesn't mind my slower/shorter runs, really pushes me. I think I might aim for it anyway, it helps to keep me motivated.

The weather has been all over the place lately here in Perth. It is beautiful and sunny but boy have we been getting some thunder showers in between. At least it is keeping the temperature down. We have had about 4 days so far this Summer season over 30 degrees and I wilted fast on them. I only wish for a couple more predictable days as I was hoping to get out for a picnic and I have organised to go for High Tea this Sunday. Always a good excuse to dress up.

All the Christmas decorations are up in Perth and it is just around the corner. Christmas parties are organised, so a busy 6 weeks to follow, of course I don't help myself by constantly organising other get togethers as well. But that is me.

Well back to work for me. I will post some pictures when I can.

2 October 2011 I'm tired

2011-10-02T16:37:00.001+08:00

Those of you that know me, will realise that I don't do late nights very well. I went to a hen's night last night and Reece was kind enough to drop me off and pick me up. Of course we didn't get home until midnight. The consequence of such a late night is that I get the 'I'm bored' feeling, like when you were a kid, and now you realise that usually the feeling is from tiredness more than anything. I can't concentrate on one thing, nothing keeps my attention and I don't know what I feel like doing though there are multiple options. Sometimes this results in me going to the movies, often an afternoon nap. I am trying to avoid the nap because then I will have trouble getting to sleep tonight and I have work tomorrow.

The hen's party was fun, it was 80's themed. The bridesmaids did a good job of keeping us entertained. Though it's the first hen's party that I have been to that has had a stripper, which is apparently very common over here in WA.

The wedding is in a couple of weeks, no doubt I will update the blog after that. In the mean time I should go and find something to do. Maybe I should do some knitting since I haven't picked up my needles for a couple of weeks.

19 September 2011 I really need to learn to stop talking

2011-09-19T17:11:00.000+08:00

I am not sure why but these days I cringe on the inside after I talk to people. I wish I could remember sayings like 'think before you speak', or 'some things are better left unsaid,' while I am in conversation. I have a feeling these days I seem to unconsciously dominate the conversation, like I like to be the centre of attention. I am kind of worried that I have become one of those people that always has a story and trying out story other people. In my mind I think I am trying to add to the conversation, finding similar stories to share, but afterwards when I self analyse, I think 'why', I don't think the conversation needed my input, but I just don't seem to have any self restraint/control. I wish some people would just tell me to shut up sometimes. May be I am being to self critical, people do still seem to invite me to things so I can't be too over the top??

Mind due I have no self control when it comes to a packet of chocolate biscuits, so why do I think I can control myself in other ways.

Today, I am suffering from OVER-THINKING. Not that I am sure any of you reading this, actually find my ramblings that interesting, but it is my blog. If you have made it this far, good on you. I give you extra points, the more points you get, the bigger tally. But you have to keep your own tally.

I haven't been doing a lot of knitting. I think my problem is, that I am not sure what to knit next and keep bouncing from idea to idea. I miss my stash. I don't have a lot of wool to choose from and working Monday to Friday means I haven't been to a proper wool store in ages.

It is now time to head off home. I hope I don't get into trouble for blogging at work!!!

18 September 2011 The comings and goings this month

2011-09-18T10:23:00.004+08:00

Earlier this month I reached the amazing milestone of 3-0, it is still quite surreal to think that I am now in my thirties. I sort of understand why some people are terrified of turning that age, as you start to think about things that you haven't accomplished by that age. Most of the time it is fine, I don't even think of my age, usually it hits me while I am out clothes shopping and I have to ask myself 'maybe I shouldn't be wearing that style of clothing, as I am not 17 any more'. I am not sure if that is what people fear, but I am scared that I am going to start looking like mutton dressed as lamb. I don't know why though. I think sometimes that maybe I have watched too many movies in my life. Nah... that can't be it :-)

So I had a lovely sort-of party, I still prefer to call them gatherings, which I stems from that nervousness of wondering if anyone is actually interested in coming to a party of mine, a gathering is fine if only 3 people turn up but if you have a 'Party' and only 3 people turn up, it's classified as a bit of a failure. I don't mind only hanging out with only 3 people especially if they are good friends, I can have a really good time with only 1 good friend too, but I wouldn't call them parties.

But after all this rambling, I have to say that more than 3 people turned up to my party. I underestimated how many wine glasses I needed, but there was plenty of alcohol and food. I think in the end I ended up with more wine than what I started with and we drank a fair amount too. I was pleasantly surprised that most of my work mates came, especially since I had only been there for 2 months, and I they all said that they had a great time. Only one wine glass was smashed, and I must admit that I was amused by Brad (the guy we live with), as I hadn't realised how much he had to drink until everyone had left and I noticed that he couldn't walk in a straight line. I haven't seen him that drunk in a long long time. He was feeling a little worse for wear the next day. I still have a scarf left behind that I am not sure whose it is.

Since then work has been hectic, I have been taking training classes by myself now, and too my constant amazement I seem to be getting good feedback, even though occasionally I lose myself in a menu or trip up over my own tongue. From comparing my class to ones I have sat in though, I think that maybe I try to get to know the people a bit better and get some humour going, maybe I will lose that after training a lot of them but I do like to connect with the people taking the course.

Jen and I (work mate) went to a full day 'Women in Mining Western Australia' (WIMWA) event over a week ago. It was nice to get away from the office and represent at the conference. It was a good day, we snared many a pen from the different stalls. No pen shortage in the house these days. The talks were quite diverse, some were better than others. There were a couple where I was left with a feeling of 'I have no idea what the whole point of that talk was'.

02 September 2011

2011-09-02T21:19:00.000+08:00

I know, I said I would update after my run, but better late than never. So last Sunday I completed the city to surf, 4Km in 29min. I was a bit frustrated with it as the 4Km start was a shambles, I think I spent half the run trying to dodge around walkers as they didn't let us start in the proper waves. Not impressed.

I then came home and made Strawberry Jam. Not sure what it is like, but it set and I ran out of jars (I put some in the freezer).

This weekend is my 30th Birthday. I am having a bit of a gathering tomorrow. I just finished cleaning the house. I am stewing rhubarb and I have yet to do my French homework for tomorrow morning.
I am a bit tired so this post probably won't make much sense. I should just stop now.

21 August 2011

2011-08-21T19:14:00.000+08:00

I am being very terrible at keeping my blog up to date at the moment. I have been busy with my new job. It is going really well. It is tiring being back working. I am slowly finding a routine with the shopping and cleaning with working a normal hours job. I am still not very good at getting to the supermarket once a week. I tend to just pick things up as I go past when I need them. I always seem to run out of milk and orange juice.

This time next week I would have run the 4km of the city-to-surf. I am a bit nervous about it. I am sure I will run it fine but I am wondering what I will use as motivation to go to the gym after I have finished it.

Reece is home this week. It seems that Reece's roster is how I dictate how much time has passed in a month. Hopefully next year he may look at getting a city job too. Then we really won't know how to juggle the house duties.

The weather has been turning Spring like with yesterday and today in the mid-twenties. We went down to Freo this morning and had fun going around the markets and bookstores.

That's about it for now. I will try and post a picture of me with my number for the run next week.

14 July 2011 My first week at work.

2011-07-14T20:15:00.000+08:00

I am no longer waiting. I have almost completed my first week at work. I am enjoying my work, I managed to get a city job and the pay is not too shabby too. I am starting to admire my mum a lot more. Really good time management.

After getting up early, going to work, you have to find time to go to the gym, make dinner, wash up, get ready for the next day, do some cleaning and hopefully find some time to just relax.

At the moment it is 8pm and I have just managed to sit down for dinner while I wait for a phone call from Reece. I don't know how anyone makes it to the bank, post office, getting a haircut or just getting their groceries done while working a city job. I have a parcel waiting at the post office for me, which I will only manage to get to on Saturday morning.

Enough moaning from me. I am actually enjoying trying to work it out, it's a challenge. I mean I did go to the gym after work today and have manage to do 3 loads of washing and cleaned the bathrooms and vacuumed. I didn't actually 'cook' dinner either, but I will have to do the dishes in a bit though.

Today I finally got around to registering myself for the 4km run in the city to surf in August. I can't back out of it now. I am looking forward to it though. I will let you know my times for it.

Last week Reece and I went down to Margaret River for two nights. We stopped in Bussellton on the way down and walked the longest Jetty.

We stayed at a B & B called the Heritage Trail Lodge, even though the room was a little cold as they don't leave a heater on, the bed was so cozy. I didn't want to get out of it. I want a bed like that next time we buy one.

We went on a wine tour with Bushtucker Tours. It was a lovely small group, just the right size I think, 8 of us. We visited four different wineries, the cheese factory, the chocolate factory and the Bootleg Brewery. It was quite a lot for one day, and we tried a lot of things, came home with our wallets emptier and wine case fuller.

We managed to get the best Autumn weather while we were there and the little car was excellent to drive.

28 June 2011 No longer a lady of leisure

2011-06-28T14:48:00.000+08:00

Well it was a busy week. My big news of the week is that I have a job!! Yay for me, now I have to stop sitting around home, knitting/cooking/playing computer. It is in the city, it's my first time having a Monday-Friday job. A wee bit scary, how will I cope with only 2 days off in a row???

I just finished knitting a scarf thing, it's Encompass, knit on 6mm circulars, using Moda Vera Cardellino (colour 16). It turned out ok, it is very cosy on this unexpected, torrential rain day.

I don't start my new job for 2 weeks, which is nice. No doubt things will be all go after that.

19 June 2011 All things knitting

2011-06-19T09:39:00.000+08:00

I just thought I would post a short blog, yes I am still here, no I don't have a job yet. Reece is back out on break, so it has been busy busy. Not much knitting happening this week, but I finished the baby jacket last week, so here is a picture for you all.

Mum e-mailed me some pictures of her finished knitting, from when I was visiting. I think they look pretty good.

I am now working on a scarf, Encompass. It's going ok, I just need to sit down and do some actual knitting.

4 June 2011 Still Waiting

2011-06-04T14:20:00.000+08:00

Well I am becoming use to being a 'Lady of Leisure', I am still waiting to get a job, it's a tiring process. I have been filling in my days ok. I joined the gym in Cannington and so far I have been every day. Yesterday I did a Body Pump class which I had never done before. I had to lift weights on one of those bars. Maybe one day I will get muscles like some of them girls in the class. They were all girls except for the instructor, maybe all the boys were working at that time of day, there were 20+ people there though, and the girl in front of me took pity on me and showed me the ropes, which was lovely. I was feeling a bit noobish. My thighs are not liking me so much and to compound it I went back to the gym today and did a one on one with an instructor using some of the weight machine. It was a Personal Trainer thank goodness otherwise I wouldn't be able to walk, but it was a class for 1-4 people but there was just me there today.

I am sort of considering training for the city to surf at the end of August, just doing the 12km run. I might need to start planning for that now to work myself up to it.

I have also been cooking some different things, testing out the kitchen, deciding I don't like Brad's oven very much. It doesn't have a top element, so I am finding things are not browning on the top or evenly cooking as the fan doesn't seem to be doing a good job. I don't think he uses it very much.

Today I am going to make myself a Shepherd's Pie for dinner. I hope it turns out, but how hard can it be. It might not be pretty but I am sure it will be edible.

I have started knitting a baby jacket in four ply. Just from the same book as the previous singlet top, it's the matching pattern. I have only knit one repeat so far as it takes a while to knit across the 241 stitches on one needle.

I dragged Brad out for lunch down in Freo yesterday. I am not sure if he appreciated it or not. I carried the conversation and continually pointed out interesting sites to see. We then went to the Freo markets where I picked up some fresh vege and then we stopped at Spotlight on the way home. He had never been to Spotlight before, he thought it was a lighting store. It was amusing.

I will leave you with a picture that Reece e-mailed me from his work. He took my camera to work this swing to see if he wants to buy one.

Not much else to talk about, hopefully will have some progress on the job front soon.

18 May 2011 Look Knitting!!

2011-05-18T16:48:00.000+08:00

Ok, so I have finished the baby singlet top, it's in Paton's 4ply Big Baby Wool and the pattern is from the Patons Heirloom 4 ply collection and the pattern is the Layette Singlet.

I really liked how it turned out, I might knit the matching Pilchers, the Jacket is cute too, might take some time though. I have a few other things to finish before I knit any of that anyway. I am hoping I might get a couple of hats done too.

I am happy to see that my friend Sue-ann has finally joined Ravelry and is really getting into knitting, she is doing some lovely things too. It's amazing how we can find completely different projects that I wouldn't even think about.

17 May 2011 Perth

2011-05-17T11:00:00.000+08:00

A little update since I am so lazy at the moment, really I just think that what I have been up to hasn't been all that exciting. We have moved to Perth, and it still feels like summer really. There has been a couple of drops of rain today and yesterday but we are still heading for the low twenties. I am still wearing shorts.

I am still job hunting, I am trying to shop around this time, not just in Geology, I dislike the waiting process, you hand your CV to someone, have a chat and then you just wait and wait. I have called people back today but everyone is busy or on the phone already, I always hate waiting for people to call back too, you never know if they will or when, and I have things I would prefer to be doing. I am doing a bit of knitting while waiting though.

I am working on a little baby singlet, I am on the finishing parts now. I have done the neckband and now I am doing a rib on the arm holes, one down and one to go. It's a cute thing. I will of course show a photo when it is finished. I have also been working on a little waistcoat that I am making up as I go along. It should be interesting when it is done too.

Well I am going to go for a walk soon and check out some cars, I hope I don't get rained on as it is fairly dark out there.

Reece is away at work, yesterday he saw a herd of wild camels, cool eh.

He has been taking some good photos, though he will soon be upgrading his camera, I can't wait to see his shots then.

Hopefully I will have some progress to report soon on the job front, until then I will keep happily knitting.

2 May 2011 Happy Birthday Steve

2011-05-02T11:43:00.000+08:00

It's my big brother's birthday, I hope that things are going well at his end. Oh dear I have the hiccups. Always so annoying.

I have had messages this morning, one from my brother Roger to tell me that his parcel has turned up but he is going to wait until he gets home for the boys to open it. The other was from Jo. She received the knitted set, and text mum to say that she likes it, which is great.

I finally finished cleaning all the stuff from the floods this morning, so I am meant to be going out to coffee to celebrate this afternoon.

I am flying to Perth on Wednesday, Reece finishes his first swing at work that day. I am looking forward to getting over there but I still have no idea what I am going to do for a job. I guess I will see what way the wind blows.

Last Thursday Reece's parents and I went to Bright for the night, it's about 3 hours towards the NSW border from here. We had beautiful blue skies and the trees were fabulous in their autumn colours. I bought a couple of cool things, it sort of reminds me a bit of Arrowtown.

It was nice to get out and have a break from the cleaning. Not much progress on the knitting here but I will try and get some done next week.

23 April 2011 And the cleaning goes on and on...

2011-04-23T10:49:00.000+08:00

The cleaning is slowly getting accomplished. I have perhaps two loads of kitchen stuff to clean and then another 50 DVD's to clean, and I haven't started on the CD's or computer games. Hopefully I will have it done fairly soon if I get the motivation. I wish it was a bit sunnier and then I would want to be outside.

I was hopeing to get it done my Monday but I think I am wishful thinking.

I knit up a baby hat yesterday, I am not sure about it as I made it up as I went, I hope that it will fit. I think what I am worried about is that the set won't fit the baby at the same time. I guess that is ok as people don't want their kids to look too matched. Now I just have to find where I put the address to send it to.

Reece has left for Perth now. He is flying out to site next Wednesday for the first time. I am going to head over when he gets back from there. By that time I should definitely be finished cleaning then.

Amber and I went and saw 'Thor' last night. We really enjoyed it, not only for the guy taking his shirt off but it was quite funny too. The characters really worked. I like Kenneth Branagh as a director.

I hope that everyone is having a lovely Easter. It's Grant's Birthday today but I think he is taking it easy.

7 April 2011 Back in Melbourne

2011-04-07T08:57:00.000+08:00

I can't believe how much a slacker I have become since returning from UK/Europe. I mean blog wise. Is it because I don't think it will interest people as much? I wonder since most of the people that read this are over here and I am now talking to regularly that I don't feel the need to update with the mundane stuff.
I left NZ on the 29th, I really enjoyed my time, I was quite busy and that is always good. Of course I wish I could have spent more time catching up with people but that is always the case.
Mum still hasn't finished sewing the pink top together and knitting the neck band, I am sure she will e-mail me a photo when she does. It looks really sweet. I finished the baby top I was knitting and have to sew up matching booties, I am considering doing a little hat too.
I am back to cleaning our flooded stuff. I was hoping I was about half way but cleaning DVD's takes a lot longer than expected. I am also cleaning dishes at the moment too. At least there is some lovely weather in Melbourne this week.
Last night we went to the movies with some friends. We saw 'Red Riding Hood'. It was definitely aimed at the 'Twilight' crowd, sort of a dark fantasy genre. I quite enjoyed it.
I am off to make the most of the beautiful weather now. Will have some pictures sometime.

18 March 2011 Invercargill, New Zealand

2011-03-18T09:16:00.000+08:00

I have been home for a week now. I don't think I have had too much of a break yet. I have been busy everyday. I have helped mum shop and visited my sister and kids, caught up with Sue-ann. I have been to Dunedin and seen Katrina, Astrid, Jim (Flo's dad) and visited the Geology Department. I got drunk with my brother while in Dunedin and bought him back to Invercargill for the weekend.

I have been to Shannon's Sport's Day. That was quite amusing. Such a look of concentration on his face. The weather was excellent, it was meant to be the previous day but was postponed due to the weather.

I have been knitting too. A little top, something that isn't socks, yay. I have almost finished the main part. It is Presto Chango in Shepherd Colour-4-Me.

I am currently blocking a jersey that my mum knitted for Ryan and Jo's daughter, we are going to sew it together this weekend hopefully. Mum is sewing little beading on it and it really makes it look fantastic. They really set it off.

I have no idea what will happen this weekend. I am not planning anything. I would like to catch up with Shannon and Atlas again as they are off to their dad's next week so I won't get to see them again this time really.

28 February 2010 Back in Australia

2011-02-28T07:14:00.000+08:00

I landed back in Melbourne to the news of the Christchurch Earthquake. Luckily Reece had given mum a call so he could tell me that my brother was at mum's place and all good. He has now made it back to Christchurch and has assessed his factory and other than the no power/water he only has a few cracks in the walls.

The weather has been good in Melbourne, other than a few rain showers this last weekend. I convinced Reece's parent's that picking blackberries out in the garden was a good idea, they said I could pick as many as I like as long as I cut them back. That took a few hours and I left a few bushes behind. Here's the fruit of my labour.

We have also given Reece's parents a hand with staining their deck. It didn't take too long with both of us working.

Not sure what else they may have in store for us this coming week.

18 February 2010 Edinburgh

2011-02-18T17:18:00.000+08:00

I cannot believe that my time overseas is almost up. This past year has been the best. I have seen so much. I think that if anyone asks whether it was worth quitting our jobs and spending all our savings, I would answer a really large 'YES'.

I fly out of Glasgow on Monday with Emirates, I have a stopover in Dubai for 2 hours before heading to Melbourne. I hope that the weather there isn't too hot for me. It is going to be a really large temperature change.

Last weekend I went to my cousin's 40th Birthday party. I had a great time. She played lots of 80's music, I think I knew almost every song which usually never happens when I go out.

I had to say farewell to all my family that I have meet in the last year, I am going to miss them all.

Hopefully I will catch up with them if they ever come down-under, and I also hope to come back and visit sometime. I will have to convince Reece that I need to come shopping every couple of years.

Not much knitting has been happening, I have almost finished a toe-up sock but I just can't seem to get the energy to finish it, and then I have to cast on for the next one. Maybe when I have stopped all the travelling.

I went to the movies yesterday and saw 'True Grit'. It's like an old style western but very little humour in it. I enjoyed it, it was quite intense and maybe a little slow in places but I do like watching Jeff Bridges.

30 January 2010 Life so far.

2011-01-30T02:40:00.000+08:00

Since we have found out that our stuff in storage back in Brisbane was completely underwater in the Queensland Floods and that the insurance won't cover it, we have being getting ready to go home.
Reece catches his flight back to Melbourne on Wednesday from Glasgow, stopping over in Dubai for a couple of hours. He will then fly up to Brisbane with his dad on the following Monday to see if we can salvage any of the stuff in storage.
I will stay in the UK until I can sell the Green Goblin. I am hoping to sell it by the end of February. It passed the MoT the other day and I have to sort out the VAT, but then it should be all up to date, which will help.
Not much else happening really, we have been relaxing, playing computer and going out to eat. We know we will have to find jobs when we get back so we are doing some last minute relaxing.

03 January 2011 A catch up for the New Year.

2011-01-03T19:19:00.001+08:00

Just a bit of a catch up on the blog. Sorry I got so far behind. From Dover we travelled to Portsmouth again, the reason being to use our tickets to the Maritime Museum. We spent most of the time in the Mary Rose Museum. It is a fascinating place and I would love to go back in a few years when she is fully preserved and open for the public to look at.

Reece had his birthday while we were in Portsmouth. For dinner we went out to a lovely seafood restaurant and they even put a candle in his dessert.

We headed towards London on the 16th December and stopped overnight at Sevenoaks. The hotel was lovely and while we were in the bar having a couple of drinks it started to snow. The roads were clear in the morning but once we got settled in our new accommodation in Barking it started to snow heavily. Luckily it stopped by 5pm and let the roads clear up.

On the Saturday we went to drop our vehicle off at Nola's as there wasn't anywhere to leave it at Barking. It started snowing again on the way and didn't let up all day. It was good that we dropped the car off when we did. We took the train back to town and stopped in London to take pretty pictures of town blanketed in snow.

Not a lot happened over the week. We caught up with Reece's friend Katie one night for dinner at Green Park. The next night we went out and saw the the show 'Wicked', which was fantastic. It was funny and clever and really joined with the Wizard of Oz well.

We changed accommodation to Dartford on the 22nd. The snow had caused some disruptions to the train lines over the week. We had trouble getting back to Dartford after going out for dinner with Tracey at Swiss Cottage that night. We caught the train fine but we were stopped for about an hour along the way due to signal failure.

Christmas day was spent at my cousin Donna's place. Nola has written about it here with some good pictures of the day. It was a lovely relaxing day and the meal was fantastic (with lots of roast parsnip).

We moved into Nola's on the 28th. Nola hasn't had a quiet house for a while, so we have just been relaxing and we had a lovely New Year's eve playing Mexican Train and Uno with Nola and Walter. Some pictures here on Nola's Blog.

Nola and Walter left early yesterday morning with Darren for the Netherlands to visit Aaron and Kylie, so we have commandeered their house for a week. We don't know what to do with so much space.

I am going to clean out the Goblin this week and will hopefully get the muffler replaced and we will try and find a car wash somewhere.

09 December 2010 Dover Castle

2011-01-03T18:44:00.000+08:00

The morning started bright and cheerful, therefore meaning very cold. We wandered down town for a start as the winter opening time was 10am and we were up early for breakfast. We stocked up on magazines that we had missed out on while in Europe.

When we made it up the hill to the castle we started with the hospital tunnels. They have been recreated for the public with sounds and lights flickering like it would have been during the war. It was very clever. The other WWII tunnels were closed as they are being renovated at the moment and won't open up until June 2011 at least.

We went from there to a talk about Admiral Ramsay. A very interesting fellow who was the head surgeon of the hospital and also quite heavily involved in the Project Overlord.

We then headed to the actual castle keep built by Henry II. The engineer involved was the same one as Rochester Castle which means this one is very similar in it's rectangular shape.

The castle caters for a lot of school groups with a lot of interactive things aimed for that age, but it gives a good understanding of that time.

We then went around the castle's defenses. I was feeling a little bit tired by this time so I probably didn't appreciate it to it's full potential. There was a long tunnel that ended in not much and we had to turn around and walk all the way out again.

8 December 2010 Back the UK.

2010-12-27T05:08:00.001+08:00

The road from Bruges to Calais was only an hour away. We arrived in plenty of time to get to the supermarket to buy some wine. And some chocolate. And some croissants. Ah I love France.
We arrived in Dover in good time and found our lovely B & B. It served a cracker cooked breakfast.
We will be heading to Dover Castle tomorrow.

6-8 December 2010 Bruges.

2010-12-27T04:55:00.001+08:00

The weather wasn't too good for driving and the road was really muddy to Bruges. We went through quite a bit of window screen fluid. We got to Bruges and the weather cleared up and became really cold.

We found that Bruges is quite touristy but of course that was due to it being really pretty.

Since it was sunny, it got a little foggy.

3-5 December 2010 Brussels.

2010-12-27T04:43:00.001+08:00

With Koln in the review mirror we headed back into Belgium. Destination Brussels. We were off fairly early so we were in Brussels just after lunch. The traffic was a bit nuts and there were a few issues where obviously roads use to connect and TomTom didn't realise it. Once we arrived at our accommodation we had to wait a few hours to be let into the room.

We went out and discovered Brussels, it has the most gorgeous old market square with old guild halls.

The Mannekin-Pis in a large chocolate form.

Reece is grooving his new hat.

02 December 2010 Aachen, Koln

2010-12-05T00:26:00.000+08:00

We woke up to more snow on top of the old snow. The snow is definitely not having a chance to melt. We left Maastricht with eagerness and decided to stop at Aachen on our way to Cologne (Koln). The snow was coming down fairly thickly on the way into Aachen and the trucks and cars were kicking up a lot of muck from the road onto the cars, the Green Goblin is not looking its prettiest.

Aachen is very pretty covered in snow with its Christmas market.

We parked in a covered car park and walked around the block to see one of the nicest looking Rathaus’ we have seen yet.

We then headed to the Dom behind it but we were a little early to look inside so we find a nice café/restaurant and had a nice hot chocolate and coffee.

The church is the final resting place of Charlemagne (814). It also acted as the coronation church of the German-Roman kings (936-1531). It is very pretty inside and free to see.

By the time we had wandered through the Christmas market stalls had all opened up so I dragged Reece around while heading back towards the car. We did pick up some mulled wine for later.

The snow had let up by the time we were off on the road again and there were even patches of blue sky.

We entered Cologne and found a park fairly close to our destination. We were going for a place called a Pension to stay at. The original one we tried was full but there was another in the same building and they had a room available for the night. A Pension in Germany is a bit like a bed and breakfast. Our room was huge with a nice double bed, sink, television and a couch, and it was less than the night before. We were also only a couple of blocks from the main inner city of Cologne.

We found the Christmas market easily. We decided to eat lunch there, I had a nice baked potato and Reece had some fried potato and sausages, downed with some hot mulled wine. Truly the Christmas market experience.

I only bought one Christmas decoration, and it’s not even a painted bauble.

We then headed for the Cologne Cathedral. This is an impressive site.

I think it is even more appealing as you know it wasn’t bombed in the war and they still have a lot of the original stained glass windows, the oldest being the Bible Window dated 1265.

The cathedral also holds the ‘Shrine of the Three Magi’.

After admiring the town and all the shops we headed back and had a few drinks at a café/bar across the road from our accommodation and then Reece took me out for dinner at a nicely convenient Thai restaurant. Yummy.

01 December 2010 Maastricht

2010-12-05T00:20:00.000+08:00

We bid Antwerp farewell, heading toward Maastricht, the southernmost point of the Netherlands. The road was a bit dodgy from the youth hostel to the main road but once there things were fine.

Maastricht is a smaller city with the old town pedestrian friendly. It is more for the shopping tourist with high end stores. There were a few people out Christmas shopping. Restaurants were a little overpriced but they do give big servings and we were still drinking

Belgium

beers, which improves any meal. I tried an apple donuty thing from the market, it was lovely and hot and the apple was yummy in the middle. A little messy though from the sugary outside, especially when I am wearing my mittens while eating.

We decided to try out the ‘Stay OK’, which is the Netherlands YHA. We came to the agreement that it’s not worth the money. We asked for a double room and they charged us 75 Euro, that would have been ok if it had been worth it (we only paid half that at the Antwerp YHA a night). The place was fairly new but they should have put some thought into it. Our ‘double room’ was two bunk beds, yes it had an ensuite but it was pokey and the shower still had a push button. The heater was way too small for a room of that size, we went to bed early because we were freezing our butts off. We paid 85 Euro for the hotel in Den Haag and that was 100 times better. I think they charged what they would get for 4 people staying in the room, and considering the place was barely occupied it was a bit of a rip. Definitely not worth the price they ask.

30 November 2010 Antwerp.

2010-12-05T00:18:00.001+08:00

We woke up to a blanket of white across the parkland. Since there was a lockout at the hostel from 10 until 3pm, we were up and out at a reasonable time. Karen was impressed with the cereal with chocolate in it.

We tramped our way across the snow, enjoying being one of the first to leave footprints. Reece scored a free tram ticket as there was one in the machine when we arrived. We didn’t have to wait too long for a tram either. The trams run under the city, plunging into a tunnel as the town approaches.

First stop was the Groenplaats with a statue of the painter Rubens in the centre, food places and the cathedral spire poking over the buildings behind. There didn’t seem to be many people around yet, there were a lot of delivery trucks.

Next stop was De Kathedraal, an impressive structure made prettier by the snow around. Inside were lots of works of art, four paintings by Rubens and many other religious paintings.

Workmen were setting up Christmas decorations on the town hall, the square had lots of old buildings with gilt statues on top.

There is the statue of a man throwing a hand, reputably where the name Antwerp came from.

We spent more time exploring the snowy streets, went to the river to see the castle on its banks.

We went to a café for a hot chocolate and lunch at an Italian restaurant. We then wandered towards the central station and the diamond district, 90 percent of the worlds uncut diamonds pass through Antwerp. We found the diamond museum. the first two levels had lots of stuff about Napoleon, with the last level explaining the diamond trade, the mining, trading, grading, cutting and polishing stages. No we did not get any souvenirs from this part. We then wandered back to the first part of town, had a beer at a bar, took some pictures in the twilight before heading back to the hostel for the night.

29 November 2010 Rotterdam and into Belgium.

2010-12-04T03:29:00.000+08:00

People in the Netherlands like chocolate milk, they even have it at breakfast. I had a sad departing look at the hotel room as we left, then we were off.

We decided to have only a quick look at Rotterdam as it is a very modern city and has mainly shops. We were a little early for lunch, so we wandered around the shopping area. I managed to find some cheap flat black boots, exactly what I have been looking for.

Lunch was amusing. I chose this huge burger while Reece ordered the club sandwich. The lady bringing us our food was completely bamboozled by the backwards order.

We didn’t linger after lunch but headed back on the road. Snow was predicted for today.

The drive to Antwerp was slower as there were a lot of trucks on the road. Also the ring road around Antwerp is nuts. Not clear at all. They need better on/off roads and exit numbers would really help on all the signs.

Accommodation for Antwerp is the YHA, it’s a little out of the city but the tram stop is close. It’s an old hostel in the middle of a park, a new one is currently being built in town and should open next April. We were amazed to see that our room didn’t have any electric plugs. Crazy. The hostel served good beer though.

28 November 2010 Den Haag

2010-12-04T03:28:00.000+08:00

It was the coldest night yet. The doors were almost frozen shut on the car. It took us 2 hours to defrost all the windows etc. After that we were off.

It’s only about 50km away to Den Haag. This is the seat of the Netherland’s Parliament, even though Amsterdam is the capitol.

We parked up and went in the search for an early lunch as we had been a bit busy that morning. We headed towards the Chinatown signs as we thought that we would find food there. We found a British tearoom there called ‘Scallywags’. The menu was interesting as it says it isn’t fast food, that you should expect your meal to take a bit of time. Reece had an all day breakfast called a Scallywitch and I took some yummy scrambled eggs. It was good and we were glad we got there a little early as it only got busier and busier.

We then had a leisurely stroll around the town centre, a lot of people Christmas shopping. The parliament building was nice and there is a Knight’s Hall in the centre.

We went to the coastal part for accommodation, it was a bit like the Gold Coast atmosphere, only freezing. We stayed in the Strand Hotel. Ahhhh, bliss. I love hotels. Warmth. Cozy bed. No push button showers. A television. Free wifi. Free breakfast.

We went for a walk around thinking we might go to the movies but the session times weren’t to our liking. There were a lot of restaurants in the area but they are on the sea side and it was freezing. Did I mention it was cold??

I even managed to watch an old NCIS episode on tv. Lovely and relaxing.

25-27 November 2010 Amsterdam

2010-12-04T03:26:00.000+08:00

Thursday

We had to use the ice scraper this morning. It took about 45min to drive from the campsite to Amsterdam. We didn’t have many choices for campsites as only one was open. It looked like a fairly dodgy area when we were driving there but the site was actually not too bad and convenient to the tram stop.

We went into the city for lunch. The tram took us straight to the Dam Square, heehee, that is always fun to say. We did a quick walk around before finding a nice pizza place for lunch. Amsterdam is a bit pricier compared to some other places for food, but the food was good. After satisfying ourselves we headed for the tourist shops. I found a giant clog.

I thought this Christmas tree was amusing.

We then wandered around looking for the red light district as we knew it was in the general vicinity but it isn’t exactly signposted. After walking a few blocks we knew where a lot of the ‘coffee houses’ are to be found. We finally spotted some unsubtle red neon signs and detoured to the road alongside the canal, finding the red light district. This is where the girls are all in the windows selling their wares. I thought it would be in bad taste to actually take pictures of them, so if you want to know what it looks like you will have to go there yourself.

After this amusing interlude we went back to the shopping street. I bought myself a nice skirt and then amused the staff by asking them what the name of the song playing was, because it was the French song we had been looking for since driving around France a few months ago.

I then dragged Reece into lots of shoe shops but didn’t buy anything.

We went to the winter wonderland where there is an ice skating rink set up. We didn’t skate but there was mulled wine sold there.

Friday

We woke up to more ice on the car this morning. We headed into town fairly early on and checked out the flea market. We were amused by all the t-shirt slogans, there were definitely some good ones. We wandered over a few bridges looking for somewhere for lunch. We were trying to find somewhere people weren’t smoking. We found a nifty little café that served excellent hot chocolates. Lunch was huge and I only had a club sandwich. It was by far the largest club sandwich I have ever had.

We then caught the tram to the Anne Frank house. We didn’t go in though, it was about 8 Euro for entry and there was quite a line.

We were going to go to an art gallery but reconsidered as it was 11 Euro each to go in and we didn’t really think we were that interested in art work so much.

Saturday

We woke up to a white ground and it still snowing. We decided to stay close to the vehicle.

I did some washing. We are off tomorrow and it has been decided that it is just too bloody cold now in the car overnight so we are no longer looking for camping grounds to stay in.

24 November 2010 Zwolle

2010-12-04T02:16:00.000+08:00

After yet again defogging the windows in the car (a very time consuming job) we were off again.

Zwolle was a nice town with a large church in its main square. We have found that lots of restaurants are not really open at lunch time and most people eat sandwiches for lunch, they are large and filling but when lunch is the main meal of the day and we have been eating sandwiches/toasties for dinner you don’t really want to eat them for lunch.

I have been dragging Reece into shoe stores in the hope of finding a nice pair of flat boots to wear. I feel like I am the odd one out on the street wearing walking shoes and they don’t really look good with a skirt. None to be had here. We did find a car/bike sort of accessories store and picked up an ice scrapper and some more anti-freeze.

We camped by the water and there were lots of ducks, I even saw a heron.

Reece took some nice cloud pictures at sunset.

I still haven’t finished the hat.

23 November 2010 Groningen City (The Netherlands)

2010-12-04T02:14:00.000+08:00

Reece managed to choose the dud shower with the annoying push button, my push button lasted almost a minute, he says his was more like 4 seconds.

We headed off with the destination of crossing into the Netherlands. The road west wasn’t all that exciting, the weather was fairly dismal, patches of rain and quite windy with dull grey clouds.

We passed into the

Netherlands

with the first vehicle spotted being a Heineken truck, we took that as a good omen. The roads are fantastic in the Netherlands. We spotted the difference immediately. As soon as you cross the border the canals begin, with bridges over that lift up. Not as many windmills as I thought that there would be though.

I managed to make it into the city, though finding a car park was a bit of a challenge as the roads often look like lanes, paved with brick so you are not sure if they are for cars. And there are people on bikes everywhere and they are nuts!!! Zooming around us because we were going slow while trying to work out where to go.

We looked around the main pedestrian area and found a lunch place. People here are great too. Everyone speaks English. It is very much like Denmark with their more modern cities and people. There was a market going on in the square and amazingly one that was selling a lot of Lana Grossa wool, so we picked up another ball of sock wool for Reece. Not that I am going to be knitting socks for a while, still working on Reece’s hat, even though it only took me 3 days to knit mine, his is taking a little longer.

The closest camping ground was about 30km south just outside of Assen. We found when we got there that it is in a town called Witten. We had to stop and take a picture of it.

We were the only ones in the campsite.

22 November 2010 Bremen

2010-12-04T02:12:00.000+08:00

We left Hamburg again this morning, heading to Bremen and found the traffic a lot better. They are widening the road to three lanes so only one lane was open on and off most of the way. We found a car park, I didn’t realize at the time that it was attached to the Hilton, you had to walk through the foyer to get in and out of the carpark. I felt very upperclass.

Bremen is very cute. We started off with finding lunch. I was sad to find again that the Christmas market was still being set up, 3 days off from starting. It was very cute.

We found a restaurant in the main square. When you go through the doors it is cut off by a big heavy curtain to stop the cold from breezing into the restaurant every time the door is opened. It made it feel very exclusive. I had a huge baked potato with lots of goodies and Reece had a very nice salmon pasta, both downed with a nice Franziskaner Weiss Beer.

After that we wandered over and checked out the old school Rathaus. Outside is a 13ft statue of the knight Roland. He is the protector of Bremen. I don’t know anything else about him.

We then went and had a look at the Dom, it had some statues of lions in precarious positions.

We then went down the alley and found the four animals on a fountain which is based on a story/ballard of the ‘Town Musicians of Bremen’, and then the house of Robinson Crusoe.

There is also a clock that played a pretty tune with bells.

Overall I really enjoyed Bremen, it was very quaint.

The camping ground had a lovely new bathroom, it was very modern.

20-21 November 2010 Traveling.

2010-12-04T02:08:00.000+08:00

Saturday

We left Copenhagen with the snow snapping at our heels and decided to leave

Denmark

as fast as possible. We didn’t quite make it out of the country today but at least made it back to Jutland. We stayed at a nice campsite on the coast. There was an internet computer in the foyer of the bathroom. I knitted myself a hat using Lana Grossa Cashmere Merino in a lovely shade of green. It came up really nice.

I have cast on for Reece’s already. His is in Lana Grossa Retro, a blue-brown.

Sunday

We knew we had a long day of traveling. We were headed for Bremen but sadly didn’t make it all the way there today. We were on the main ring road of Hamburg and traffic stopped. We were in the crawl for about 40min when we decided to rearrange our plans as it didn’t look like we were heading anywhere fast. Out with the camping books and we decided to change course and drove through the city to a campsite about 30min in the other direction. The traffic was nice through the city and we made it to the campsite and were pleasantly surprised to find their restaurant still open this late in the touring season. It was actually quite busy. They gave us really weird cocktail starters for free. I wonder if they have taste buds.

15-20 November 2010 Copenhagen

2010-11-29T02:56:00.000+08:00

We drove from Billund to Copenhagen today. There is a huge bridge (toll 220 Dkr), well two bridges actually, they meet on a little island that has a lighthouse on it. It’s a couple of kilometres long. Very impressive. That’s how one gets onto the island of Zealand.

We reached Copenhagen and found that the camping grounds decided to not cooperate with us. Instead we used the handy dandy Lonely Planet book to guide us to a YHA.

The reception staff were handy with maps, bus timetables, pointing us to the closest supermarket and where we could go for dinner.

After sussing out the room and getting lots of stuff out of the vehicle we headed out to check out the restaurants in the area. Monday isn’t a good day for restaurants, but we managed to get a decent feed at a Japanese/Chinese restaurant. Reece had a mixed dish of sushi and fish/rice cakes while I went for the chicken noodles. It was nice to get something so different from each other so we could sample each others dishes. We stopped via the servo on the way back to get an evening ice cream.

Tuesday we headed out to the bakery (yummy muffins) on the corner before heading to the bus stop. It was about a 20min journey on the bus to the city. We got off outside the Tivoli Gardens amusement park so we could peer through and see all the Christmas things set up, but I wasn’t paying to enter.

We easily found the Rathaus, it’s a large building dominating the square opposite the Tivoli Gardens. The inside was pretty, with snakes shaped in the columns and a lion fountain. It looks like it could easily be used for dance functions.

We then walked down the shopping street called ‘Stroget’, about 1.5km long, filled with mainly clothing shops, jewelers and a couple of Irish pubs. There was a shop with mink coats displayed, I gazed and I wondered whether you could actually get them into NZ.

After lunch (a burger at an Irish Pub) we had a quick wander around Christiansborg Palace, home to Parliament. You can walk through all the courtyards and carparks and enter into parts for a fee.

From here we headed to the National Museum. Well worth a visit and completely free, though you need a 10 Dkr coin to use the lockers, but you get that back. The museum covers a lot of the prehistory of Denmark. Lots of Viking related history and artifacts. I was impressed by the craftsmanship of their Stone Age tools.

There were also a lot of weapons from the Bronze Age as much of the artifacts have been preserved in bogs around Denmark. There was even a carriage and a Viking boat.

We skipped most of the second floor as it was more religious painting orientated, though there were some rooms showing how the museum building was once used.

It was dark when we left at about 4pm and getting colder so we headed back to the bus stopping via the supermarket on the way to the YHA.

Wednesday started similar to Tuesday, though the bus was very full of pensioners, I suggested that perhaps there was a mass breakout from the old folks home. It must have been pension day.

We headed towards the fort which still operates as a barracks for the army. Here we found the Gefion Fountain. It is the goddess Gefion in the act of plowing Zealand with her four sons as oxen.

We couldn’t see the Little Mermaid statue as it is currently in China. We then visited the Resistance Museum (also free) which has a good display of artifacts from WWII. Quite sobering and so many were young and didn’t make it pass 25.

It was freezing so we didn’t linger outside, we were going to look at the Rosenborg Slot (castle) but it was just too cold.

We headed to Nyhavn where some Christmas stalls are set up and there were restaurants. We found a nice pizza parlour down a side road that wasn’t too expensive (eating out is expensive here.)

We had a quick walk around the little harbour then looked in some shops on the main street while heading back to the hostel.

Thursday was the day to head to Christianshavn, apparently the bohemian part of the city. We had read it was the place for cafes so we skipped breakfast at the hostel hoping we would find somewhere decent. It took a little while to find somewhere but we found an excellent place for brunch called Café Luna. I had Eggs Benedict and a side of pancakes (I am such a glutton) and Reece had the breakfast burger. It was fantastic, huge servings and the waitress was really good. Lucky we were seated by 11:30am as within the next hour not only was it full of people but people were waiting for tables. A very popular place, I thought we chose well.

After stuffing ourselves we had a look at Vor Frelsers Kirke. A cool church with a spiraling tower.

The inside has been restored and someone was practicing on the organ while we were there. They have very old school pews. We had a last look around the town before heading off.

Friday was the day we were meant to leave but looking outside changed our minds fairly quickly as it was white and still snowing. The first snow of the winter. We stayed close to the hostel and had a nice relaxing day and did normal things like laundry. Lucky for us the snow was mostly gone by evening.

14 November 2010 Billund, Legoland

2010-11-29T02:20:00.000+08:00

We arrived at Legoland camping ground yesterday afternoon. There were a few other brave souls bearing the weather with us out there. Luckily the toilet block had a drying cupboard, so for a change we had toasty warm towels in the morning.

Today we walked to Legoland. The rain was intermittent all day. I love Legoland. We got to act like big kids, checking out the Lego village. Half of the park was closed for the winter, mainly the water rides, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. There was an airport made of Lego, with moving planes and trucks. Villages based on cities in Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands, all with moving buses, cars and boats. There was a bus that drove onto a ferry, sailed across the water, then drove off. Lots of trains joining the towns. Neuschwanstein castle, Los Angeles, the space shuttle, an oil rig, windmills, Loch Ness. We went on a few of the rides, a mining train, a little rollercoaster, a log ride, a scenic train. We went to Atlantis, an aquarium with tropical fish and sharks. Three were also models of monuments, the Capitol building, the Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty.

The Lego store was a bit of a disappointment, they only had their new lines on display (although plenty of boxes on the shelves, just not much variety) but there was a place to order other stuff. We picked up some keyrings. We left satisfied with our day.

12-13 November 2010 Aalborg

2010-11-29T02:13:00.000+08:00

Next morning we packed up in the pelting rain and bid farewell to the campsite. Without getting bogged, always a bonus. We tried getting fuel at the closest petrol station. That wasn’t successful, there was a pay-at-the-pump which didn’t like Reece’s debit card. They have 2 fuels available at the one nozzle, a 92 and 95 RON, with a button to select. Maybe they had run out of the one we wanted. We moved on unsuccessful, heading north. We found a Shell later on the motorway, no problems there.

We reached Aalborg in time for lunch. We found an Irish pub, so had a meal there. They had lots of different beers. There were some Christmas markets in the midst of setting up. Also a cool looking church, but it was closed.

While leaving we found a newsagent that sold some magazines in English, so I bought some movie ones and Reece got some gaming ones. We picked a campsite a short drive out of the centre of town along the river, still in the suburbs. It’s one of two next to each other, a family site and a ‘naturalist’ site next door. I’ll leave you to work out which one we chose. Still raining.

The next morning we headed for a Viking burial mound on the other side of the river to the north, called Lindholm Hoje. It was raining sideways due to the wind. We put our skipants on and dashed to the top of the exposed hill, took a quick pic, then headed back to the shelter of the car.

We headed on back south after defogging yet again, destination Billund, and the promised visit to Legoland.

10-11 November 2010 Fehmarn Island (D), Egtved, Arhus (DK)

2010-11-29T02:11:00.000+08:00

We woke to the glorious sound of rain on the roof again… Motivation was lacking this morning. I think we were packed up by noon. Almost a record for us. We headed to Berg, a town close to the camping ground. It was very tourist orientated, but nice. Quite a few bakeries and cafes. We wandered around and had coffee and cake before heading out in the vehicle to find the German/Danish border.

It was a long drive and the weather was wet so I can’t say it was too exciting. The highlight of the journey was finding BBC Europe on the radio, only to be informed their staff were on strike so nothing interesting was on.

We reached Egtved Camping in Denmark later in the afternoon. A very friendly owner greeted us, pointed us to a pitch and said to sort out the paperwork in the morning.

When we went to pay the next morning, his wife greeted us, and said because we were visiting from Australia we could have the night free. She also gave us the DK camping book listing most of Denmark’s campsites, and directed us to Legoland. Very nice and helpful.

We drive to Legoland in Billund, 20kms away. You’d never know it was there, only airport signs on the motorways leading towards it, and one legoland sign in town. Wasn’t too hard to find in the end. We soon discovered that it is only open on the weekends in November and part of December, and will be dressed up for Christmas. We decided to return on the weekend, heading north to visit Arhus.

Arhus is a modern city, has all the shops, restaurants and conveniences you need. Even had 7-11. Much like a city back home. Danish people are great, they all speak English and are very friendly. I had nachos and Reece had a burger at a restaurant called Viggo’s, both were large servings. There was a church with a model boat hanging inside, supposedly washed up onshore, a model destined for Russia from the Netherlands from a ship building company. The church was dedicated to sailors.

There was a cool candelabra.

There was a campsite 8km north of town. They had an electronic setup, a swipe card to get into the dedicated motorhome area. Unfortunately for us the swipe thing at the gate was put at motorhome window height, Reece had to get out to swipe us in. Did I mention the pelting rain? Swipe cards were also for the showers, had to take the card into the shower and swipe inside. The rain didn’t let up.

8-9 November 2010 Lubeck.

2010-11-29T02:07:00.001+08:00

Today had an unexpected ending. We headed out of Hamburg, with a sad farewell to Sarah, I had really enjoyed staying there, and we headed north. Lubeck was the destination and then we were aiming for the Island of Fehmarn.

Lubeck is a lovely town. I think their gate house has a bit of a lean though.

It was protected by some lazy lions.

We found a nice restaurant for lunch that even had New Zealand Lamb on the menu. After a leisurely lunch we headed out into the cold (it’s lucky to get above 5 degrees these days, but no snow yet) and found the main square. We quickly looked around and then headed towards St Mary’s. It was destroyed in 1942. There are some smashed bells inside that fell from the tower which have been left in place as a memorial. It was definitely a highlight for me. You can even see the impact on the ground.

After this we headed back to the car and started to drive north. This is where we our plan diverted. We knew we had a hole in the muffler but didn’t think it was too bad, planning to get it fixed back in the UK, but about 20km out of the city we heard a clunk-clunk and then the noise from the exhaust grew terrible. I pulled over at the next exit and Reece got out and looked at the damage. The muffler pipe at the join had come apart, completely rusted. We discussed and decided that we couldn’t be bothered waiting for a tow truck (it was cold) and that we would drive the back road back towards Lubeck as we knew that we would find accommodation and a mechanic there. We made it to the north side of Lubeck on the other side of the river where we found a nice town, stopping at the first mechanic we saw, around 4:30pm. We headed in and talked to the guy at the reception, luckily his English was pretty good. He came out had a look and then said that we would have to come back in the morning and the guys would lift the car up and assess the damage.

We found a lovely hotel, though it was a little on the expensive side. It was huge. We got a water side view for the price of a normal room. I think there weren’t many people staying. I must say I have stayed in more expensive hotels but they weren’t anywhere as nice as this. Lots of space. It was fun watching the big boats going up and down the river.

We were up early as the car had to be at the mechanic by 9:30am. The workshop was busy, we sat down at a table and waited with a few other people. After about an hour the guy came over (I managed a few rows on Reece’s sock) and told us that the car would be ready soon, they had repaired it and it would cost 50 Euros. We were very happy with that and soon enough we were on our way. We did end up going to Fehmarn Island, albeit a day later than planned. The campsite was very large but very quiet, looked to be quite bustling in the summer. From where we were parked the toilet block was about a 5 minute walk away. At least it was heated.

Finally, some knitting news, I finished Reece’s socks. The stripes mostly match up, at least to casual (non-knitter) observation.

5-7 November 2010 Hamburg

2010-11-19T01:07:00.000+08:00

We made a get away from Berlin fairly smartly as we knew the drive to Hamburg was going to be longish. Luckily for me Reece was the driver. It took just over 3 hours and we briefly stopped for lunch at a park off the motorway. The scenery was unexciting. The scenery in general in this part of Germany has been the same; fields, slightly rising and lowering of the ground, windmills and the occasional animal in the field.

We sort of invited ourselves to stay with an old school friend of mine and she (and her husband) were very accommodating. It was actually great to catch up and chat to people. I guess Reece and I have been a bit isolated on the trip and I am sure I have had the same conversation a few times over. I think the boys got a little sick of us talking about high school. It seems to come back quickly when you are reminiscing.

Sarah and Bevan took showed us the Hamburg sights on Saturday. The day dawned a beautiful blue, something we hadn’t seen for a week, but it was chilly.

The Rathaus was a worthwhile stop.

In the courtyard there seemed to be coats-of-arms for other shipping ports and we were delighted to find Melbourne.

Lions seem to be everywhere we go, this one didn’t mind me pulling its tail…

When then headed for the Dom, we had a quick peek inside but a wedding was about to happen so we couldn’t have a look around.

From here we walked down to the waterfront to have a look at the boats and new development of apartment buildings. It seems to be tidying itself up a lot. It looked good on a sunny day.

We relaxed in the afternoon and then we went to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner.

Sunday was a day of rest, I think we all enjoyed just hanging out with our feet up, after skyping everyone of course.

2-4 November 2010 Berlin

2010-11-18T03:36:00.000+08:00

Day 1

We arrived in Berlin yesterday. Amazingly for driving in for the second time, it wasn’t too bad and we even managed to find a carpark close to the hostel (BerlinBackpackers).

The hostel was alright, though the shower head seemed to be broken from the hinge in one of the showers so you had to hold it yourself, and my bed broke on me last night. No I wasn’t doing anything to break it. Reece discovered that it hadn’t been assembled very well as the slats had been placed at an angle and fallen through.

We found a decent bakery around the corner on the way to the train station, so we had breakfast while walking. The transport system was fairly easy to use, we only had to change to U-bahn in the city so we arrived at the Brandenburg Gate. We amused ourselves by looking at all the diplomat vehicles parked in the square as all the embassies are in the area.

Darth Vader was an unusual choice for a tourist attraction, but he was kinda cute.

The Brandenburg Gate was built between 1789 and 1791. It is the only surviving gate of fourteen from the former city wall. It is impressive standing at 11m high. There are some good photos of the gate after the bombing of Berlin.

From here we stepped through the gate and found the line in the footpath showing where the former Berlin Wall was. We followed the path a block to the parliament building (Reichstag). This building has a huge glass dome on the top where you can look down onto Parliament sitting, it is meant to symbolize that the government is transparent to the public.

We admired the architecture of the surrounding government buildings and the Hauptbahnhof.

After a late lunch we headed out past where we are staying and visited the East Side Gallery. This is where the remaining Berlin Wall still stands, and has became a gallery of paintings and graffiti. Some parts have been whitewashed now and others are badly tagged but there are still some iconic pictures to be seen.

Day 2

Today we exited the train station at our destination and was accosted by souvenir shops and Americanised stores like Starbucks and MacDonald’s. We were at Charlie Checkpoint.

We stood in the cold with everyone else reading the panels at the Death Strip, interesting, though I think you would find all the information in a book.

We then wandered down to the Berlin Wall Documentation where we again read lots of panels, so we exited after a bit and went to find some lunch but didn’t really find any to our liking there so went back towards the hostel as we seemed to be staying in the best area for restaurants.

Day 3

We crossed Fredrick’s Bridge into the museum/galleries area and the Berlin Dom. We admired the galleries from the outside. There are some nice statues and gardens. They look very Roman in style. The columns on the museum and galleries have heaps of patch marks where they tried to cover up all the bullet/shrapnel gouges from the war.

We then headed to the Dom, they haven’t patched these columns. We ..ahhh.. read the signs a bit wrong and kind of went into the Dom backwards and forgot to pay. It was 5 Euros each which is a bit steep anyway.

We headed back to Alexander Platz via the Neptune fountain. Of course they have turned off the water for winter but the statue was impressive.

We then took the train to Potsdamer Platz and found an Australian Restaurant where we had a snack and a beer while waiting to go to the movies.

We went and saw ‘Red’. A good action movie starring Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovitch. It didn’t have too much of a plot but it was fun to watch.

29-31 October 2010 Neubrandenburg, Stralsund.

2010-11-08T01:41:00.000+08:00

We headed out of Berlin early on and struck our way north, Neubrandenburg being the destination. It is an old town that is still surrounded by a wall and has four huge gates. There was a central church made out of bricks that has been converted into a concert hall. The restaurants were far between and quite pricey for the town so we found ourselves in another pizzeria for lunch.

We had to go to Burg Stargard for a hostel which we thought was in a random location, but it ended up being a nice town and we had a really nice dinner at a restaurant there.

Saturday dawned and we were up and off to Stralsund. It was fairly chilly but the town was great, it had some funky buildings, churches and a wool shop. We purchased some wool for me to knit new hats but I have to finish Reece's socks first.

We ended up on Rugen Island for the night at a campsite. It was a lot better than we were expecting as it looked close to the main road on TomTom but instead it was up the hill and sheltered.

The next day (Sunday) we drove to Sassnitz to have a look at the Baltic Sea. The town was a little tired but really cute. We think that this is the area that Germans go on holiday because there were very few people that spoke English up there. We were glad that we went when we did, because about half an hour down the road the fog came in and didn't lift all day. The scenic drive indicated on the map was shrouded in fog so it was all about the music playing in the car for the day.

After stopping at a nice fish restaurant in Ribnitz-Damgarten we headed towards a campsite outside Rostock. It took about half an hour to find the manager. I appreciated all those games of charades we played when we were young as he didn't speak English and I don't speak German. We got there in the end though.

Monday was just as foggy as the day before. We headed back to Berlin where we had booked four nights accommodation at BerlinBackpackers.

28 October 2010 Wittenberg

2010-11-08T01:04:00.000+08:00

Wittenberg was home to Martin Luther, who was first to translate the bible into German (first translation from any language besides latin and the original languages), founder of the Lutheran movement, start of the Protestant churches that moved away from Vatican rule. The town is quaint, cycle friendly, tidy streets. They are preparing very early for a significant Luther anniversary in 2017. The churches have been restored or are in the process of restoration.

The Castle Church has a very unique spire.

We left Wittenberg in the afternoon and headed to Berlin, aiming for another Lonely Planet hostel. We were slightly confused when we arrived as there was a hostel at that location, but had a different name. We assumed a buyout as Reece had seen the name of the one we were looking for on another street corner. Unfortunately they did not have any rooms free for over the weekend (after a long wait in the slow moving reception line in the very warm room), so we booked in for one night only, deciding to head north for the weekend and return to Berlin during weekdays.

27 October 2010 Dresden

2010-11-08T00:42:00.001+08:00

We arrived in Dresden in the late afternoon yesterday, driving past a campsite to see if it was open, but only disturbed an angry lady who thought we should know it was closed, even though there was no closed sign and the gate was open.
We then headed for the second option and one I knew was coming. HOSTELS. I am always a bit wary as I have stayed in a few in NZ and Australia and they haven't been great, and I have heard stories about some in Europe. We chose one out of the Lonely Planet book and hoped it wouldn't lead us too astray. We stayed in Louisenstrasse Hostel, situated in the new town surrounded by lots of little restaurants, always a bonus in my opinion. Surprisingly, the room was quite luxurious, we shared a bathroom with 3 other rooms. It was like an apartment that had been divided into single rooms.
This morning we were up and sussing out the tram system early on and easily made our way to town. It was a beautiful day, lovely blue skies. We found the closest bakery and had us some breakfast.

Dresden is a mash of the old and new as it was carpet bombed in WWII. We started with a couple of churches, moved onto a wall, then another church and then a palace. We finished with a late lunch at an Irish Pub.

25 October 2010 Plzen

2010-11-07T23:55:00.000+08:00

Yesterday we had a day of rest. We stayed at a different campsite outside of Prague and spent the day lazying around, beating Reece at Civ. We had an excellent dinner at a local restaurant, quite large meals and very tasty, and we got free vodka shots whilst lingering in the warm room after paying for our meal.

We set up Tom Tom this morning and he informed us of the trip time, but he didn't take in road works, so the trip was a little longer than expected.

Plzen (Pilsen) is the home of Pilsner Urquell Beer, so we promptly stopped at the Brewery for a tour. We were lucky that the English speaking tour was about to begin. The new packaging plant was well worth the tour. They can produce a lot of beer. We got a free sample at the end of the tour and somehow Reece was sneaky and managed to score two large glasses for free. Fortunately I was on driving duty for the day.

After a late lunch in the attached restaurant we discussed options for the evening and decided to drive back into Germany to a campsite that is open all year round. It is situated in the German Borderlands and is apparently the home to wellness clinics and spas.

23 October 2010 Kutna Hora

2010-11-07T20:18:00.001+08:00

An hours drive to the east of Prague is a town called Kutna Hora. Our main reason for visiting is the Kostnice, a church with an Ossuary (like a crypt) full of sculptures made from the bones of 30,000 plague victims.

We also looked at the cathedral of St Barbra, another gothic cathedral. Inside were chapels dedicated to miners and coin minters, part of the towns history.

The old town was quite nice with cobblestone streets, shops and cafe's, but not much open on a Saturday. We were also going to go to an old silver mine in the centre of town, but the exhibit was closed due to a technical error. The camping grounds in town were also closed, so we decided to return to Prague, this time staying at a camping ground on the east side of town to avoid evening traffic.

22 October 2010 Prague day two

2010-11-07T19:46:00.000+08:00

Today we explored Prague castle, on top of the hill on the other side of the river from the main town. From the train station we climbed up the path along the side of the hill against the flow of tour groups heading down from the castle. We stopped near the top for a coffee and the view. The caramel latte was excellent.

The castle complex contains the old palace, hall, churches, museums, galleries, eateries and other buildings. You can wander the streets for free, but pay to get into most things. For some reason there is a modern-day obelisk in front of St Vitus Cathedral. We took pictures from the outside before finding the ticket office to purchase entry tickets. The cathedral has newer stain glass windows, but looked great with the sun streaming in from behind, bating the inside with colour. We also looked at the Basilica of St. George before having some lunch in one of the restaurants.

Next stop was the restored hall, finding the window where the chancellor and an aide where thrown out during a revolution (they survived). Walked through the old palace, then headed out of the castle through the front entrance where the changing of the guard had just occurred, yet again fighting though the entering tour groups (we went thorough the castle backwards it appears.) Headed towards Loreta, a sanctuary with some strange looking cherubs in the main church, and a treasury with bejeweled reliquaries and chalices.

Finally we headed back down the hill, from the front this time, past shops and restaurants, back to the station.

21 October 2010 Prague day one

2010-11-07T19:24:00.005+08:00

The temperature dropped overnight and I didn’t tell Reece that when I first got up that there may have been a couple of snowflakes on the wind. We bundled up and headed off in search of an ATM near the railway station as we didn’t have any Czech Crowns. We found an ATM and were surprised and not really pleased that it dispensed the notes in 1000 or 2000 notes. The lady in the bakery wasn’t impressed with us either as we bought breakfast trying to get some change to purchase train tickets, which were only 26 crowns each (about one pound) from the coin only machines.

We worked out the train system, there was a bit of a discussion on where we validate our tickets (we eventually worked out that we had walked right past the machine), and had to get off the train at the next stop as there were no validating machines on the train.

We made it to the city centre and were overwhelmed by just how touristy it is. It’s not really a boutique store city, it has all the mainstream brand shops that you would find in the UK.

While trying to keep our fingers from freezing we found the tourist information office for a map and then walked around in another circle finding our way to a large gate. There was a guy dressed up in armor for tours to climb the tower. I thought that he must be very cold wearing a metal hat.

We then headed down the street to the old town square, passing a lot of crystal glassware shops. I am not sure on how much they actually sell, or how people get them home. I was admiring all the fur hats though.

We made it to the square in time to see the astronomical clock ding the hour. It’s mainly famous for the skeleton ringing the bell. There were certainly a lot of people staring up at it, but it was not like the glockenspiel in Munich. They did have some guys playing trumpets from the viewing platform on top of the tower.

We succumbed to eating lunch in a restaurant in the main square, choosing dishes from the area. I had lovely slices of beef with dumplings in delicious sweet mango creamy gravy. Of course all our meals were served with a side of Pilsner. There are choices to pay in Euros or the Czech Crown, with Crowns always the cheaper way to go.

After getting dessert from the Autumn Market in the square (a cinnamon wrap thing, kind of like a donut) we made our way to the Karluvmost (Charles Bridge). A lovely old bridge with a lot of artists and knick knack sellers, it even has a band of its very own. We wandered up and down, admiring the Palace on the opposite side. It’s a good place for people watching.

Our feet were kind of weary by now so we walked in the general direction of the train station, window shopping along the way.

20 October 2010 Czech Republic

2010-10-24T19:03:00.005+08:00

We left Austria for the last time and headed into the Czech Republic. Crossing the border was interesting, it always helps that we drive a left hand vehicle as they didn't pull us over but we stopped just across the border as we couldn't really believe what we were seeing. It was a huge casino park, really tacky, with dragon's and knights and even a jet plane restaurant. All in the middle of nowhere.

We then carried on straight to Prague. We can tell you that we paid road tax (about 6 Euros for 10 days) but I don't think that they spend the money on the motorway. The road seems to be pulling itself apart and whoever patched up some of the road made it bumpy and on parts of it there are groves from all the trucks wheels.

19 October 2010 Vienna Continued.

2010-10-24T18:44:00.006+08:00

Yesterday was a day of rest since the previous one had been such a big day and of course I think it almost takes a whole day to get washing done as you are always waiting.

The first stop of the day was the Zentralfriedhof, the main cemetery in Vienna. We found Strauss and Beethoven and many more.

There is also a monument here for Mozart though he isn't actually buried here. It was very cold as the wind picked up, we were glad we had hats, gloves and scarves. Austrian drivers are a bit nuts, actually the pedestrians are nuts too, constantly walking in front of trams, I am surprised there isn't more incidents. Anyway back to the drivers, we had to watch ourselves in the cemetery as the cars were going fast and I don't think they really see how many people are walking about.

After this we headed back into town and decided to have lunch at the Australian Bar as we felt like a good feed of a real burger, not those things they served us in the UK.

After this we went to Schloss Schonbrunn, the Habsburgs' 1440-room Summer Palace. We didn't go in but walked around the park.

It would certainly look impressive in Summer, as it was the trees were all pretty colours.

There was a guy feeding squirrels, they were running up his legs to take it out of his hands. He was very patient.

17 October 2010 Vienna

2010-10-24T17:47:00.010+08:00

Our advice to people that a wet Sunday is not really the most ideal time to visit this city. The constant rain does tend to wear you out and makes the day seem long, though since we were in the city from lunch to 10pm, maybe the day was long anyway. We easily navigated the public transport to the city and made our way towards the Dom (St Stephans).

There were plenty of people about though none of the retail shops were open other than the obligatory souvenir stores. We always find the first day in a city the hardest to orientate, to know where to find a good restaurant. We ended up going to an Italian restaurant again (they are everywhere.) In the centre of town there doesn't seem to be many options, either you go for fast food (McD's, Burger King etc.) or to a restaurant. After lunch we found the monument commemorating the end of the plague.

From there we headed back to the Dom to visit the interior. It was quite dark, darker stone than a lot of other European cathedrals, but it was quite atmospheric with much candlelight.

Upon leaving we were accosted outside by ticket sellers for performances that evening. Since I had been wanting to go to one we indulged, which made the seller very happy, and we got student prices.

The next church we visited was St Peter's. Though rather plain from the outside, the inside was highly decorated, guilt statues everywhere.

There was also a huge fresco on the ceiling. We caught the end of a choir group's performance, it sounded impressive.

After enjoying the warm church, we headed out into the rain down to the Hofberg (Imperial Palace), the Habsburgs' city-centre base. There were a lot of ticket seller's around and I don't think that they really believe you when you say that you have already got tickets.

There are lots of statues in alcoves around the Palace, and we had fun looking at all the different facial expressions.

From there we wandered over to the museum quarter. The buildings are very imposing but it was going to cost 10 Euros to go into the natural history one and we didn't think that there was anything we really wanted to see.

Still wandering around in the rain, we were trying to fill in time until our performance that evening at 7:30 and it was only on 4 so we kept going. We saw Parliament and the University, a couple more churches and then stopped at a shop for a hot chocolate and torte.

We caught the metro back to Karlsplatz and while wandering around found the Australian bar. We stayed there for a couple of hours having some beer and a good plate of wedges.

The performance we watched went for an hour and forty minutes, the first half Mozart and the second Strauss. The players were fantastic, it's amazing how many of the tunes you recognise. It was well worth it, though the seating wasn't the best and there are some rude people who don't turn off their phones or even put them on silent.

The trains and buses worked fine to get back to camp. No problems. Straight off the metro onto the waiting bus.

16 October 2010 Montrose

2010-10-24T17:33:00.003+08:00

We left Konigsee and headed back into Austria. Destination: Vienna. On the way we stopped at Montrose. This is the church from the wedding scene of Maria and Captain Von Trapp in the movie.

We were lucky enough to catch a wedding going on inside. I think the bride and groom may not have been appreciative of the tourists as some of them weren't very respectful, were loud and using the main door, even though there was a sign saying use the side entrance.

We reached the campsite outside of Vienna later on in the day. The site wasn't quite how described in the Lonely Planet guide, we are now taking their advice with a grain of salt. We wonder if the writers actually use the places they describe. However, it was the only one open as it's starting to get late in the touring season, our choices are dwindling. We shall persevere.

14-15 October 2010 Konigsee, Kehlstein (Eagle's Nest)

2010-10-24T01:48:00.009+08:00

We crossed back into Germany again last night, camping in Konigsee, a lovely spot in the Bavarian alps, as far south into Germany as you can go. On the first day we took the short stroll to the township, situated on an alpine lake, where you can take boat tours. We didn't partake, instead focused on consuming crepes.

We assume that this rock was left behind in this glacial valley. It's as tall as a house.

The following day we drove to the town of Obersalzberg, known as the second seat of government for the Third Reich. The land was either bought out or the farmers evicted to make it a private retreat primarily for Hitler and his upper echelon. From here, there are shuttle buses up the 6.5km single lane road cut into the mountainside that climbs 800m altitude leading to Kehlstein, otherwise known as the Eagles Nest. Constructed in 12 months in 1937/38, it was presented to Hitler as a 50th birthday present. After the war and occupation by American troops, it was saved from destruction and converted into a tourist attraction in 1952.

From the bus park at the top of the mountain there is a 124m high elevator shaft 300m into the mountain, leading to the building above.

The view speaks for itself.

We enjoyed a leisurely lunch at the mountaintop restaurant before descending back through the cloud.

13 October 2010 Eisriesenwelt

2010-10-24T01:29:00.005+08:00

Today we burned off a few Austrian beers by going to the ice caves, located about an hour South of Salzburg. That is only to the car park.

You then must purchase some tickets (19 Euros each), followed by a 20min hike up to the cable car, a 15min wait for the next ride, finally an extremely steep 20min climb to the start of the cave.

The cave tours are guided and in total you have to climb up and down 1400 steps. No photos are allowed inside, though I think it would be hard to get some decent shots anyway. There were about 8 English speaking people so we got to be up the front, which was good as the guide was burning magnesium that helped light up the way. People were distributed with paraffin lamps, so light was a bit sparse.

The caves were spectacular, I was glad we went even though there was a lot more effort involved than we imagined, but we were well prepared with what we were wearing/carrying. My knitted goods certainly come handy.

As we drove North after we came across this weather front.

11-12 October 2010 Salzburg.

2010-10-24T01:03:00.013+08:00

Salzburg is a tourist mecca. I love Austria, they all speak better English than I do. Fantastic. Austria has taught us that not everywhere in the world has not adopted Smoke-free policies in public buildings. We sat down in a restaurant and had to leave as a table beside us full of people all lit up, it was a bit overpowering.

So Salzburg....

has a Dom.

Cool fountains,

Lots of horses,

Some sort of Gateway...

A Fort,

Gardens,

Awesome Summer Palaces

With Trick Fountains,

The 'Sound of Music' Rotunda,

And a wall that has lot's of Confidence...

We stayed at the Nord Sam camping ground. The facilities were ok, though it seems like they converted a garage for the dishwashing/laundry area. We caught the bus just outside the gate to the train station where we got on another bus. Public transport is a lot easier to catch over here, and a lot cheaper. It is starting to get a lot cooler now, with the days shorter and a slight frost in the mornings. Reece is already getting cold over night.

10 October 2010 Innsbruck to Salzburg

2010-10-24T00:53:00.002+08:00

Today we made our way into Innsbruck for a quick look and some lunch before heading to Salzburg. We got ourselves a little turned around once we had parked in the underground car park, so when we got out on the street we turned right instead of left. If we had gone left we would have been near the centre of the old town in about 500m, instead we went down the wrong way and did a really big block, probably an extra 2km walking than we needed. Whoops....

We did find the Golden Roof in the end and the pretty buildings, some people were getting married at the Golden Roof place when we arrived, we then sat down for lunch (at another Italian restaurant) and while we were there another couple were married. I finally clicked that it was the 10-10-10.

After a toilet stop for Reece (one too many Steigl), we headed off to Salzburg. To get there via the motorway, we had to drive back into Germany and then into Salzburg from the North.

09 October 2010 Austria

2010-10-10T16:31:00.003+08:00

We finally made it to Austria, though the trip took an extra hour and a half due to one little bit of road works under a bridge. There was no alternative around it and we were backed up 15km, almost all the way into Germany. But once we were through that, the clouds parted, well more like the mist evaporated and it was towering mountains and blue skies.

The drive is nice, though due to the works the traffic was slow going. We went through the Fern Pass. We were glad we worked out the road tax, I just lined up and found out nearly everyone in front of me in the line was buying one too.

We are camped outside of Innsbruck, we will be going into the city for a look tomorrow before heading off again.

6 October 2010 Neuschwanstein Castle

2010-10-09T17:35:00.004+08:00

Our campsite at Brennan has a lovely view of two castles, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau but it's all about Neuschwanstein for me. This is the castle that inspired the Disney Castle, it has also featured in movies like 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' and in many other places.

We didn't realise that it is so recent though, it's shell seen here only completed in 1886 and never finished as King Ludwig was arrested for insanity and then found dead the next day. Only sixteen rooms are finished inside. The king's chambers are impressive and took wood-carvers 4 years to complete it all, when you see the bed you understand, a four-post with huge gothic cathedral spires featuring all on the top.

We are so lucky that the day was a beauty. After the rainy unpredictable days we have been having it was amazing to get such a cracker when I really wanted it. It was certainly worth coming all this way for and I could sit here admiring it for a long time.

5 October 2010 Shongau, Steingaden, Schwangau

2010-10-09T17:32:00.002+08:00

We completed the last leg of the Romantic Road today. We did skip a little bit, but not much. We just headed straight for Schongau. We found that school kids must finish at one, and that you shouldn't drive up a one-way street the wrong way with lots of school buses coming at you... I was driving of course.

When I finally navigated all the school mums parkes everywhere and actually found a park, we then followed the crowd of kids up the hill to the old town. It was nice but not like those other large walled towns. We found a nice place for lunch, that of course served lots of Italian food again.

When we got back to the car we found the car park deserted, all the mums had vacated it. We then headed to Steingaden. Our destination ended up being 5km outside of the town at a dead end. We went to find the 'Wieskirche', a UNESCO listed site. It is a large imposing white church in the middle of farm land. A very unusual place to have such an imposing building. The outside is nothing exicting but the inside makes up for it all. It truely is impressive.

After admiring the church we headed to Schwangau. This is where I could admire the number one thing on my 'to do' list while in Europe, the Neushwanswtein Castle.

4 October 2010 Augsburg, Landsberg am Lech

2010-10-09T17:30:00.001+08:00

Quite a bit of driving went on today. The romantic road sort of breaks and doesn't really establish itself until you are South of Augsburg again. We had lunch at Donauworth, a nice Italian place. There are plenty of Italian restaurants in Germany.

We then drove to Augsburg, to find it is really just another city and then drove out of it. We headed for our destination of Landsberg am Lech. We found the carpark alright, but then climbed up the hill instead of just going straight out of the carpark into the town. We didn't realise that there was another exit. So we got a little bit of exercie before finding the centre of town. We were amused by the Jeweller's named 'Schmuck'. We then went and found our campsite for the night.

I finally finished one sock. It's a shame they have to be done in pairs...

3 October 2010 Feuchtwangen, Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen.

2010-10-09T17:27:00.003+08:00

We started the morning off with a quick stop in Feuchtwangen, not a popular romantic road stop, the town is very small and most of the houses are modern, but we were happy with the quick walk and managed to find a cafe/backery open and procured some rolls for our lunch.

Dinkelsbuhl is another other walled old-town, with the close-knit houses and cobblestone roads. This one seems to have a more relaxed feeling to it, with plenty of cafes, and eateries open on a Sunday afternoon. Though the church bells ringing at noon lasted around 50 minutes, quite a feat. Less tourists about on a Sunday and the day was sunny and relaxing.

We headed on South, darting though many of the smaller villages but decided to stop at Nordlingen near the end of the day as we read that this down was established in a meteorite crater, not that the crater is visable these days. The town is walled and is dominated by a late Gothic church of St. George, with a 90m bell tower 'Daniel', which you can climb for a fee.

02 October 2010 Rottingen, Creglingen, Rothenburg o.d.t.

2010-10-08T20:24:00.005+08:00

Today has been most excellent, even though we woke up to more rain. We headed to Rottingen, a town that apparently has 25 sundials in a 2km stretch, though we weren't really looking for them, I am sure I only spotted 5.

We couldn't believe that it was so quiet in the town, most things were closed but it is Saturday, so we thought that there would be a few tourists around (we found them all a couple of towns down the road).

We then only briefly stopped at Creglingen, it only had a small older area, though there was a wool shop, but it was sadly closed.

We then aimed for Rothenburg o.d.t. This is where we found all the tourists. So far this has been THE Town to visit on the Romantic Road. It is inside a fortified wall, and it is so pretty. I just wanted to pick it up and put it in my pocket. It's like all the movies you see in this style, with the little narrow cobbled roads and the German houses.

The stores are all kind of Christmassy/Touristy. It was great. You can even walk around the outer town wall.

There was a bit of festival going on in the market square, so there were plenty of locals dressed up. I really do enjoy travelling. We have even bought some schneeballentraume. I haven't actually eaten mine yet, saving it for dessert, but they look so good. Will let you know what it's like.

01 October 2010 Wurzburg

2010-10-08T20:21:00.002+08:00

Yesterday we left Munich without incident, only with lighter wallets. We camped near Wurzburg.

Today we went to Wurzburg. This is the start of the Romantic Road.

We think that the University was having orientation week as there were lots of people that age out doing all sorts of 'interesting' things. We managed to do a decent loop walking around the town. Found the Palace, a cool bridge with statues, buildings, churches, a yummy lunch, more churches and the royal residence. All impressive. And the rain even held out until we were heading back to the car.

We then headed to Bad Mergentheim, a small town with a nice central older town. We looked at the schloss and walked around the buildings. But it started to rain quite heavily, so after a decent wander we headed back to the car then found a close camping ground for the evening.

I hope that my brother had a lovely birthday. Sorry we didn't have internet, so I couldn't skype.

27-30 September 2010 Oktoberfest and Munich.

2010-10-08T20:15:00.007+08:00

We arrived in Munich in time for lunch. I had a pleasure of navigating the way to the youth hostel where we were lucky enough to nab a spot in the car park (it didn't move for the next 3 days). We were informed our room wasn't going to be ready for another 2 hours, which was fine with us as we were a little hungry.

Our budget is ignoring our trip to Munich which is a good thing, as we spent a lot.

We found a nice restaurant down the road, and Reece had his first feed of Bavarian sausages, they boil them and serve them to you with a really sweet mustard sauce, very nice but you need to watch yourself with the sauce. We tried some really nice beers, getting a head start on our Oktoberfest drinking.

The youth hostel was large and fairly new, we had a double room that had bunks, and the ensuite was almost larger than the room. It was all clean and nice. We didn't do too much as we were recoving our strength for the next day.

We were up fairly early and checked out the train system. We jumped on and Went to the centre of town for a look. We found the large clock and watched/listened for it's chime on the hour for over ten minutes. Things go round and round. The building itself is a pretty gothic building (the town hall).

We found the palace, but it was under scaffolding. We went into a couple of nondescript churches from the outside but impressive on the inside.

Found the church where the current pope use to be a bishop.

We then went shopping and bought some snazy clothes. I don't really want to look at the bank account but we are impressed with ourselves. I think we looked great.

We went back to the youth hostel and got changed into our new clothes, dropped off our stuff. I didn't take my camera or anything as I didn't want to look after it.

We easily found our way to Oktoberfest. Just follow the crowd of people dressed in similar clothing. The festival is huge with carnival rides, and lots of beer tents. By the time we got there the tables inside were fairly full but outside there were plenty of seats and there are huge gas heaters overhead. We had our first couple of steins before the rain set in. We then scrambled inside.

We are surprised by the festival, we were lead to believe that it would be mostly people in their early 20's, and that they wouldn't be well behaved at all and mostly Aussies, so we were pleasently surprised about how old most of the people were and how most of them were German.

The next day we were there early getting a table inside nice and early, probably a little too early, but I had lots of fun people watching. The played mostly traditional brass band music during the day and then sort of switching to more modern music later on. We had fun trying to interpret the menu with what other people were eating. In the end I just pointed to someone else's meal and said I want that. It was really good chicken too.

We only manged to last eight hours there though. So we were back fairly early in the evening, but after all that beer, you are just really bloated. I don't think I could move anymore.

26 September 2010 Schiltach, Triberg

2010-10-08T20:12:00.002+08:00

This morning we continued our journey through the Black Forest. Our first stop for the day was probably the best town we visited in the region. It was Schiltach, our first wow kind of town, with all those cute buildings that you imagine Germany having, so picturesque, they like their flower boxes in the windows like France. I really do think that European tourist towns are kept so much tidier and cleaner than most places in New Zealand, we could really learn a few things from these places.

We are watching the pennies more now, going to supermarkets and making our meals. We just have to remember that things are mostly closed on a Sunday here.

We headed from Schiltach, going via Wolfach (though the rain started again so we didn't stop) towards Triberg. This area is known for it's cuckoo clocks. We stopped at the one with the world's largest cuckoo clock. They are certainly impressive and I can understand the novelty value of them, but they are a little on the expensive side and we have no real way to get it home, let alone wanting to listen to something that cuckoo's every hour, I can imagine it would get very annoying.

We then headed out of the forest and jumped on the autobahn for about 300km towards Munich. People drive really fast on the autobahn, it was amusing to watch what kind of cars are going fast. I also like to read all the different nationalities on the number plates.

25 September 2010 Baden-Baden, Black Forest.

2010-10-08T20:10:00.002+08:00

Today we entered Germany, and immediately hit road works, well really the road works were over the border area. It was fairly slow moving. Eventually we reached our destination of Baden-Baden. A really lovely town, a bit touristy since it is recommended in all the books and it is on the boarder of the Black Forest too. We enjoyed our first stroll around a German town and are pleasantly surprised about how many Germans speak excellent English. A big relief since my German is even rustier than my French was.

After eating the last of the French rolls for lunch with Walter's yummy green tomato chutney, camembert and chicken, we headed for the Black Forest (going along the A500) aiming for Freudenstadt. We know we the car climbed hills as we couldn't go any decent speeds and all the hairpin corners didn't help, but well really didn't see much of the forest. We think there might have been a view at some points as there were parking bays on the side of the road, but we were in the clouds/mist most of the way, lucky to see more than 20m infront of me at times. At least the road was quiet.

Freudenstadt is a lovely village, but we didn't really get out for a good look, as the rain hadn't really let up and the day was getting late. We did find the supermarket and bought ourselves some Schwarzwald Ham (thanks for that Walter, it goes excellent with your chutney). The camping ground was nice, the bathroom was heated even.

23-24 September 2010 Back to Europe

2010-10-08T20:08:00.001+08:00

A bit of a catch up really. Sorry we are without consistant internet. Well we caught the ferry to Calais, but had to wait an extra hour on the ferry due to a dock workers strike on the Calais side. Not much to do on the boat really, we played some Mario Kart and I managed to finish turning the heel on Reece's sock.

Once we exited the ferry, we got the hang of driving on the right hand side of the road, stopped at the first Supermarket from some bagette and crossiants and then headed for the camping ground which was about an hour and a half out of Calais. I long day but was glad to be well on the way to Germany.

The following day (Friday), Reece did a mamouth drive to almost Germany.

We took the toll road. With yesterday and today's toll charges we have already spent over €35. But they managed to get us over 500km in a relatively small amount of time. We can tell you our entry into Europe is on the wet side. We stayed in a little hamlet town that was more German than French though still had yummy French food.

17 September 2010 Ickworth House

2010-09-19T17:26:00.004+08:00

Ickworth House is a like an art gallery. It was built to display the families collection. One of the wings now is a fancy Hotel while the rest is open to the public. There is also a nice restaurant.

The gardens are nicely sculptured, since we are now going into autumn there weren't a lot of flowers in bloom. I did see a squirrel though.

Do you like the new blog lay out. Reece helped me with working out how to put my own unique twist on it. We are in London now for a couple of days, so there won't be much blogging to be had. We leave for Europe again on Thursday. Just in the process of sorting out the last few things, like buying a road map of Germany.

16 September 2010 Norwich

2010-09-19T17:21:00.005+08:00

Today we spent the day having a look at Norwich. The camping ground is within walking distance of the city centre which is nice. There are a lot of little pedestrian streets with funky shops. There is also a big permanent market, it even had a wool/craft stall.

Most of the churches in the centre are made with flint too. We sat down at the Belgium Monk and enjoyed a couple of brews before lunch.

We rounded off the relaxing day by going to the movies and watching 'Scott Pilgrim vs The World'. I must say I really enjoyed it. A lot of laughs, very quirky.

15 September 2010 Oxburgh Hall

2010-09-19T17:15:00.002+08:00

We travelled East towards Norwich, making a slight detour to look at Oxburgh Hall. A fabulous manor house with the most amazing set of chimney stacks we have see yet. I think each one had a different pattern on it.

No pictures allowed inside again. There is a tapestry here done with the help of Mary Queen of Scots while she was a prisoner and really cool priests hole that you can actually go into. Very ingenious.

14 September 2010 Nottingham

2010-09-16T00:17:00.004+08:00

Carrying on with the Robin Hood theme eh... Traffic lights in Nottingham are annoying, there are lots and I don't think they flow. A lot of pedestrian related traffic lights. It was good for parking, there are lots of buildings and relatively easy to find.

Our first stop was Nottingham Caves. There are over 700 known caves under the city. Some over a century old. Nottingham is built on limestone/sandstone so it is easy to dig into.

I do wonder how the streets and buildings on the upside don't fall through, I would think you would have to get a survey done when you want to build things. The caves we went to start in the mall and you can see their walls down there. There are cellars and basements of old houses that use to stand up there and even parts of an old tannery. Amongst it all are pubs and WWII bunkers.

It's absolutely fascinating and I am really glad we went and had a look. The audio guide was thorough but you have to stand in one place listening to all the information. I think a lot of people keep walking and catch up with it all sitting down up top.

We then went and had lunch at a nice pub called 'The Crossed Keys'. They did a good meal and the service was great. I didn't even have to call anyone to get another drink.

We then had a quick walk over to the Castle. This is a recent addition, the Castle that was besieged by Richard the Lionheart is long gone. It's now a museum and we didn't feel inclined to go in as the rain had started up by then.

13 September 2010 Tattershall Castle, Sherwood Forest

2010-09-15T23:53:00.007+08:00

The day was blustering, but not much rain. We travelled North again to visit Tattershall Castle. We were a little early for the opening (about 15min), so we wandered over to the church beside the castle and found Tom Thumb's Grave.

We unexpectedly find these things, they aren't usually documented in our travel books. Also in the church somewhere is buried Ralph Cornwall.

There are over a million bricks went into Tattershall Castle, which is really just a very comfortable manor house rather than a fortified structure, even with it's double moat for defense.

There was four floors plus the roof. Each floor has a huge fireplace.

There is a bit of story about the fireplaces, they were destined for America and had been ripped out but George Nathaniel, heard about it and rescued the Manor and the Fireplaces by buying it all back and then going on to restore the building.

After watching the planes taking off and landing at the nearby RAF base we headed off West. We were going to Robin Hood Country.

We made our way to Sherwood Forest, only a mere 450 acres these days, while Belton House is situated on 1,300 acres. Sherwood Forest is home to the Great Oak, an oak tree (which is really four joined) situated in the middle and is over 1,150 years old. It is now propped up with poles and rope, to try and stop the branches from breaking under it's own weight.

There is a large visitors centre and a dvd showing the history of the forest. I didn't know that there were oil fields here as well as coal fields. Lots of Robin Hood stuff.

12 September 2010 Belton House.

2010-09-15T23:38:00.006+08:00

We made the dash down to Belton House, a cool 90 miles away as this wasn't going to be open for the next two days. I am glad we made the effort.

It was busy though as there was an MG club there and kite flying and archery. Lots of families having picnics. We went to the restaurant.

The inside was very pretty, though they keep the lights low to stop deterioration.

In the breakfast room/parlour was the speech put together for Mrs Simpson speech and the family snuck her out of the country to France. Mrs Simpson was the love interest of King Edward, the only British Monarch to abdicate.

For those of you that recognise the exterior, this was used in the BBC Pride and Prejudice as Rosings Park.

10-11 September 2010 York.

2010-09-15T23:27:00.004+08:00

York is a really nice town. We camped close to the main centre on the rivers edge. There was a bit of loud music at night but it settled by 10pm. We had fun exploring the streets, it has a fairly decent mostly pedestrian zone.

York Minister Cathedral is stand out feature of the city, but sadly due to restoration is costs €8 each to go in, so we admired from afar. It's hard to take a good picture of the front as there is a large tree and buildings so you can't get a decent shot, it would be much better in Winter when the tree has lost it's leaves.

There is a statue of Emperor Constantine out the front, since he was the first Roman Emperor converted to Christianity and was proclaimed Emperor outside near here in 306.

Reece allowed me to purchase a really cool necklace and bracelet too, isn't he such a sweetie.

9 September 2010 Durham

2010-09-15T23:22:00.002+08:00

Today saw take a quick trip to Durham. Durham is a nice little centre with old style streets winding up to the Cathedral on the top. Durham Cathedral is home to St Cuthbert. We couldn't take pictures inside but there is this awesome door knocker on the entrance door.

After this we took the long trip down to York.

08 September 2010 Hadrian's Wall

2010-09-09T00:46:00.005+08:00

Today we went to 'The Wall'. We stopped at two places. The first was Chester's Roman Fort. We walked around the field, dodging mole hills and saw a lot of the outline of buildings. The gates, barracks, bath house and commander's residence. A lot of people came and went. They must get a lot of visitors. I tried giving my Scottish Heritage card instead of my English Heritage. I was a little confused.

The second stop was Cawfield. This was an excellent stop to actually see more of the wall in situ. I kept thinking I was going to see a 3m high wall not something knee to waist high. Perhaps I had watched too many movies. It is still impressive though for it's length and width.

Slowly making our way back down now towards London. Then off to Germany soon. YAY!!

07 September 2010 Melrose Abbey, Jedburgh Abbey

2010-09-09T00:28:00.006+08:00

Today we left good ole Edinburgh and headed back on the road. I don't think it wanted us to leave as it poured down with rain while we were on the road. We did two stops, Melrose and Jedburgh Abbey's. At least there was a bit of a break in the rain mostly at both of them. There are four Abbey's in the Scottish Borders from the Cistercian Monks. All periodically burnt down by the English.

Melrose was the first stop, very picturesque. Melrose is interesting as they built a new ceiling in the nave but I think they didn't know how to make it wide enough to sit on the old pillars, so it runs from one pillar and had to make new pillars on the other side.

Here is a nice picture of the impressive window at the front. The mason for the abbey was French and bought a lot of the ideas over with him.

Jedburgh Abbey is still a mainly intact shell. Due to after the reformation the towns people still used the abbey as the church.

There is a large Roman influence in this abbey.

Tonight we are back in England, staying at Hexham. Off to Hadrian's Wall tomorrow.

3-6 September 2010 Edinburgh

2010-09-07T16:36:00.002+08:00

We have just spent the last four days in Edinburgh, doing nothing much touristy. I had my birthday on Saturday. We went into Old Town and had a lovely lunch at a Thai restaurant. We then wandered around and had a beer at a pub before heading to where we stayed over winter, as we had been invited for dinner there. There were a few people there which always makes for a good evening and lots of wine was drunk and good laughs.

On Sunday after a sleep in we went back to town in the evening as there was a big fireworks display on at the castle. There were a lot of people and we didn't have the best view but it was very pretty. We tried leaving early to catch the bus but the buses were very delayed and we stood at the bus stop for nearly an hour waiting for it.

This lead to a lazy Monday, catching up on the previous days and had an early night.

2 September 2010 Lochleven Castle, St Andrews

2010-09-07T16:23:00.003+08:00

This morning another glorious day presented itself and we headed to Lochleven Castle. This castle is situated in the middle of the loch and you have to catch a wee boat over to it. It was very cool.

After this we headed across to St Andrews. This time I managed to go into the Abbey ruins and we climbed the Rule Tower.

It was a very nice view from the top but the stairs are not suited for people passing each other. I was puffed by the time I got to the top.

1 September 2010 Broughty Ferry, Scone.

2010-09-07T16:17:00.003+08:00

We didn't do a lot today we travelled to Scone. We stopped at Broughty Castle on the way. It's a defensive castle on the Firth of Tay, not far from Dundee.

We had a quick look around as it is now a museum.

We then bypassed Dundee and headed to Perth for lunch. We had a nice walk around, and lunch was ok. After lunch we checked out Scone Palace. We just drove up to it as we were informed it was going to cost just to park the car and €8 each to go in. We didn't think it was worth going in and paying that much since it was later in the afternoon by then. Maybe we will get back there. We then went for a walk around Woodland Park to see if we could see red squirrels, but we only saw grey ones.

31 August 2010 Arbroath Abbey

2010-09-07T16:10:00.003+08:00

Today we left the Campsite near Aberdeen and headed South down the coast. It was a glorious day for a coastal drive. There wasn't too much traffic on the road to make it stressful. Our Historic Scotland stop for the day was Arbroath Abbey, associated with the Kings of Scotland.

We then found a nice campsite for the night and headed down to a pub called the 19th Hole for a couple of drinks. We are now in the golfing district as there are a lot of courses along the coast.

29 August 2010 Castle Fraser.

2010-08-31T01:21:00.002+08:00

We visited Castle Fraser. It is a lovely Estate, with a nice walled garden. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside as this isn't a ruin. Previous owners had tried to restore a lot of the rooms to their original state, which is fascinating as they had pictures from before and after. It definitely made the rooms bigger and sparse as it had been previously decorated in the Victorian era. The room people were informative, which is always a bonus.

28 August 2010 Huntly Castle, Kildrummy Castle, Glenbuchat Castle

2010-08-31T00:47:00.007+08:00

Huntley Castle was the ancestral home of George Gordon, the Earl of Huntly, cousin of, Mary Queen of Scots, and her Lord Chancellor until 1562.

Kildrummy Castle was the most ambitious fortification to be constructed in Scotland. Begun in the mid 13th Century. The castle had associations the Robert Bruce, in the 13th Century and also some notoriety during the Jacobite uprising as John Erskine, Earl of Mar, was a known Jacobite who fled to France later.

Glenbuchat Castle was built in 1590 by John Gordon and his wife. It belonged to the Gordon family until 1738 when John Gordon, a known Jacobite, sold it to Lord Braco, later Earl of Fife.

27 August 2010 Glenlivet, Glenfiddich

2010-08-30T23:59:00.008+08:00

Today we left Inverness and headed East. Out of all the options, we chose two distilleries to visit. The first stop was Glenlivet. Sorry this is the only picture we took here as we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the plant, and we forgot when we were in the tasting room.

Since I didn't know anything about whisky, I really enjoyed the tour, the young lass was informative and seemed to really know her stuff. I think she must've grown up with it.I must say my first real drink of it was interesting. I am not sure if I would take it up as a drink, I can imagine cooking with it though (we are kind of obsessed with whisky sauce at the moment). It was fun seeing if we could tell the difference between a 12, 15 and 18 year old, and just how different it tastes neat compared to even a wee drop of water in it.

We headed out from here 12 miles down the road to Glenfiddich. We did have a quick look at Balvenie Castle beside it first, a nice Laird residence.

We were late in the day to Glenfiddich, but we jumped on to the one of the last tours of the day.

It was a bit more touristy here, there short film was more marketing rather than factual. We were glad we had been on the previous tour as the guide was very quick on this one. We were allowed to take pictures at some points though here.

And the final tasting was good, as we got to try all of them rather than the previous where we were only allowed one each.

26 August 2010 Culloden Battlefield

2010-08-30T23:18:00.005+08:00

Today the weather was just perfect for what we had planned. There was patchy clouds, no wind and no rain. Just great.

We headed out to Culloden after a bit of a sleep in and started with a coffee and cake to fill in time before the presentation. The presentation was about the weapons the Jacobites used in the battle. It was well done and interesting. There was an 8 minute film that was quite good and not for the faint of heart. There was a lot of explanations and displays, and a really good projection movie that showed the overall battle sequence.

We then headed outside with GPS palm pilots used as audioguides that start explaining things when you get to certain points instead of normal audioguides where you punch in the numbers to play. With the palm pilots you got to see some pictures and it had a map of where you were. Very cool.

For those that don't know what the Culloden Battlefield is about, the overall them was 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' (also known as the 'Young Pretender') was trying to start a rebellion in Britain as the rightful heir to the English throne, as his father (James VII and II) was the King but had to escape to France when the parliament and leading families didn't really want another Roman Catholic on the throne, as he was trying to impose some laws and this was soon after the reformation and civil war (within the last 100years), so his nephew William of Orange (nephew of James VII and II) came over and was crowned King. Well that is a brief version and there were a lot of other factors and probably not quite exact but I'm not sure how else to write it. Any way as King James VI (of Scotland) and I (England) was a Stuart and had united the crowns of Scotland and England, some of the Scots had thought that his descendants were the rightful royalty, so when Bonnie Prince Charlie came over they threw there support behind him and became known as Jacobites (mainly Highlanders).

The last Battle between the Jacobites and the Royalists was fought at Culloden on the 16 April 1746, where there was basically a slaughter. About 1500 Jacobites were killed at the Battleground, though the Highlanders suffered a lot after it. This was the start of the breaking up of clans, the Clan Chiefs had their power of ruling their clans removed, tartan was outlawed and Highlanders were no longer allowed arms.

I find this all interesting and I like to try to piece stuff together. Like this was in 1746, and must've been around the Regency era, where later in the century Jane Austen was writing, and the French Rebellion took place.

After all this a lot of Scots decided to leave for a better life elsewhere. A lot tried America and a as we know many went to New Zealand and Australia in the 1800's. I now have a better understanding as to why they decided to leave.

25 August 2010 Urquhart, Drumadrochit, Inverness

2010-08-26T01:20:00.002+08:00

After trying encourage Nessy to show himself, we left our wee campsite and headed North. The first stop was Urquhart Castle overlooking Loch Ness. It was teeming with German tourists, there were a couple of bus loads of them. We were glad this one was a Historic Scotland, otherwise we would have skipped it.

They showed a nice 8 minute film about some of the history in the last 1000 years. How St Columba came to visit and converted the Picts to Christianity to how the castle became to be given to the Grant Clan. It was quite good.

We pressed on, stopping briefly at Drumadrochit at the Nessy Centre. I convince Reece we didn't need to go into the Exhibition, though I am sure it would have been interesting, I didn't want to part with £6.50 each. I just went to the shop and bought me a Nessy instead.

We then realised it was after lunch and decided to just get to Inverness and find some lunch there. And there is where we find ourselves now. We are camped on the outskirts and will stay tomorrow night too. There are a couple of things to visit around here before we go and sample all the whiskies between here and Aberdeen.

22-24 August 2010 Eilaen Donan Castle, Skye, Loch Ness

2010-08-26T01:04:00.004+08:00

From Fort William we headed along the A82 pass Loch Lochy to Invergarry. From there we headed West on the A87 to Skye. The day was pleasant and the traffic seemed to be mainly going in the opposite direction.We stopped at Loch Duich to visit Eilean Donan Castle.

It was a trifle on the expensive side and I wished the tide was in so it looked more like it was on an island, but overall I was happy with the experience. There was a lovely room done up at the banquet hall, but you weren't allowed to take pictures.

We then enjoyed our trip over the Skye Bridge and headed North to Edinbane to the campsite.

We had a nice rest day on the Monday luckily as it didn't stop raining all day. It wasn't heavy rain, more just annoying and it didn't let up at all. I did manage to get all my washing done though.

We headed off on Tuesday and went via Dunvegan (expensive castle so we didn't go in) and followed the coast road until Drynoch before heading across to Sligachan.

There are many B&B's and holiday cottages on Skye. It is quite beautiful and isolated.

We stopped and had a feed of Indian before leaving Skye and ended our day at Invermoriston with our campsite on the edge of Loch Ness. Literally the Loch was about 3m from our door.

21 August 2010 Fort William

2010-08-26T00:58:00.002+08:00

Oban was in our rear vision mirrors and we were off to Fort William. I never did work out why it was called Fort William, I didn't see a fort, though there was probably one sometime.

We admired Ben Nevis from our campsite at the foot. Quite a nice view really, though you wouldn't catch me walking up any time soon.

Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles at 1,344m. A lot of people seem to be making the trek, though I think some people were less prepared than others.

19-20 August 2010 Rob Roy, Oban, Mull and Iona

2010-08-21T22:09:00.009+08:00

We had a pleasant drive to Oban. We stopped at Rob Roy's Grave on the way, though it was pouring with rain there, therefore it was very brief.

We also stopped at a power station that is built inside a hill. It was interesting though we didn't go on the tour as it was £6 each.We got into Oban and found a park and the tourist information. We sat and had a yummy lunch at the Waterfront Restaurant while browsing the brochures for tours over to Mull and Iona. We decided on one and went to the booking place after lunch and managed to get tickets.

We had to get up a little earlier than normal as the ferry left at 9:50am. It started off with fairly miserable weather, which wasn't a good sign. When we landed on Mull, Reece had an unfortunate encounter with the end of the railing which didn't help in keeping the good spirits up.

By the time we reached the ferry to Iona the weather had cleared to a beautiful blue sky but since this was due to the wind whipping it away, we couldn't venture to Staffa Island (a basalt column island), so we just went to Iona.

Iona is where St Columba landed from Ireland to convert people to Christianity. It's isolated and pretty. Quite a few cows and sheep. I was quite glad that we went out of the way to Iona, though it would've been nice to have the whole day there and get around it.

16-18 August 2010 Stirling, Doune Castle.

2010-08-21T21:47:00.004+08:00

So on Monday we tried to leave Stirling, but Stirling didn't want us to leave. In normal man's language that translates to 'Our car broke down in Stirling'. Well our temperature light came on in the car as we travelled a mile down the road. We exited the vehicle, looked under the hood, poured some water in. Travelled another mile and it still came on. We then then rang RAC, as that is one does and pays for. He had a look, and then told us to follow him to the garage a mile down the road. He was very helpful and the guys at the garage were great too. We had to spend two more nights in Stirling so they could replace the head gasket thingy and a new pump. Overall a lot cheaper and quicker than in Gloucester.So while we were in Stirling we went to the movies and saw 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice', I liked it, the actors were good choices and the story line was ok, though I felt it was lacking something. I think I imagined that the apprentice would have to fight more of the people before the last fight.

We then had a quick train ride into Edinburgh to have a look at the Fringe Festival and what the Castle looks like when it is all done up for the Tattoo, though sadly I couldn't go to the Tattoo. Maybe one day.

On Wednesday we picked up the car before lunch and headed off in the direction we should have been going on Monday.

We stopped off at Doune Castle. Doune Castle is mainly famous for being 'Swamp Castle' in Monty Python's 'The Holy Grail'.

15 August 2010 Stirling Castle, Wallace Monument.

2010-08-16T02:17:00.007+08:00

The Wallace Monument stands on Abbey Craig. Made from stone quarried at the base and at the top of the Craig. The tower is 220 feet tall, the walls 18ft thick at the base, there are 246 steps to the top.

We felt everyone of those steps, great as a morning pick me up. We even managed to be there in time for a good presentation of the Stirling Battle and William Wallace.

If you are not sure what I am talking about, you need to go out and watch 'Braveheart' again, though not entirely accurate it at least gives you the idea of what it's all about. He is now touted as a national hero and there are monuments all over Scotland for him.

From here we went for a look at Stirling Castle. There is a nice statue of Robert the Bruce at the front.

We were lucky enough to catch an Australian Pipe Band giving a concert on the bowling green. I imagine that they are sightseeing from their time at the Edinburgh Tattoo.

It was a beautiful day and I am a bit tired now, so not sure what else to write. Oh yeah they are making a copy of seven tapestries of 'The Hunt of the Unicorn' that use to originally hang in the Queen's Palace at Stirling Castle. The originals are in a museum in New York. Well they are working on site though you can't take pictures of them working, it is impressive. They have finished a half of them already.

14 August 2010 A ditch.

2010-08-16T02:13:00.004+08:00

We travelled up and across Scotland today to look at a ditch...

This is 'The Antionine Wall', a Roman wall (now a ditch). I was terribly disappointed, as the description said that some of the wall was intact, but really they meant that the ditch is of an impressive size.

We are camped near Stirling now, plan on going in tomorrow.

13 August 2010 Culzean Castle, Crossraguel Abbey.

2010-08-14T03:25:00.006+08:00

Today we hit the jackpot with the weather. A beautiful day for exploring the gardens of Culzean Castle. The are lovely and I reckon you could go a few times and not see it all.

The castle itself is very nice. Home of the Kennedy family. A prominent family, I think they owned a large portion of the South-west for a while. The upper floor was gifted to Eisenhower in the mid fifties and there is a large exhibition there for him.

After lunch we went to Crossraguel Abbey. These ruins are the best preserved abbey ruins in Scotland as so much was destroyed during the reformation. You can still climb the intact guard tower and look down at the rest of the ruin. It was very pretty.

Well it has taken a long time to update the blog for the last week as I have only been on dial up speed. What a way to spend the evening but at least it is all done now. I think that we are less likely to get 3G at these campsites than in England. Not sure when we will even be on skype next. I hope everyone is well. Hugs to all.

12 August 2010 Stewarton, Kirkinner, Ayr

2010-08-14T03:10:00.002+08:00

Not a lot to report today. This morning we went to see if we could find Reece's relatives in Stewarton. We successfully found Stewarton Cottage, where said relative lived. Though no one was home when I knocked on the door sadly, so we had to admire the old home from the exterior only.We then stopped at Kirkinner, as I had seen a church on the way in and thought that there might be a potential to find the relative. We were lucky, we found the headstone about 2/3 the way round and it was mostly legible. The church itself was locked but I climbed on a drainage thing and had a peer through the window.

After this we made our way through the middle of the Galloway Forest Park, looking at all the reservoirs and enjoying the mainly non-rainy day. We made it to Ary for a later lunch at a nice pub where I had a chicken and haggis dish with a yummy whisky sauce. It was excellent, though really filling, I am sad to report that I couldn't finish it all. Luckily I had Reece to do it for me.

Ary is the home town of Robert Burns (well Alloway is but it's basically part of the town now). We also found a Wallace tower, apparently there are a whole lot of them in Scotland. There was even a Wallacetown on the map...