Uncle Travelling Macs Blog

Top o' the World, Ma!

2008-11-06T13:31:00.001-08:00

Hi all Su here again.. Well after our adventurous few days in McGrath we flew back to Anchorage and the following morning boarded 'The Aurora Winter Train' to Fairbanks on the Alaskan Railway .

Known as one of the most beautiful railway journey in the world its just under 400km long and cruising along between 25 to 40km an hour it takes a lengthy 12 hours.

Sitting back and enjoying the view is the order of the day, as you meander thru 3 huge mountain ranges heading due north right through the center of Alaska.

This pic was taken as we travelled over a huge gorge and at 25km an hour the icy wind was unbearably cold hence the red noses.

As we pass hundreds of kilometres of breath taking scenery the sun sets and we arrive in Fairbanks ready to see the star attraction of Northern Alaska.... The Aurora Borealis also known as The Northern Lights..

So we check into our hotel where we plan to stay for 8 nights to give us a good chance to see the Aurora. They had an Aurora wake up call service, so we expected that as soon as the lights begin to dance in the sky (which is normally from 1am to 5am) they are on the phone to you telling you to put your woollies on and head outside to see the show. It takes a certain conditions for the Aurora to be visible, firstly you need a clear nights sky, ideally a half or smaller moon and of course good aurora activity which fluctuates nightly. Luckily there is an aurora forecast web site to give you an idea of the nights activity. Much to our dismay after 4 clear nights and lots of forecasted activity later we are still waiting on our wake up call... So the next night we take matters into our own hands and on went the thermals, fleeces, woollies, hats, scarf's, gloves, 2 pairs of socks, heavy boots, down jacket, water proof outer jacket and a few warming glasses of red wine in us, we braved the -15 Degree Celsius temperatures and stepped outside our hotel in the hope of seeing anything floating around the sky!! We trudge along in the snow freezing our bums off heading North for the best viewing possibility. So here we are standing in the middle of the garden at 1.30am in sub zero temperatures looking at what we think is long thin cloud, slightly illuminated by the city lights. "Is that it?", " No, I think it's a cloud!", " Is it moving?", "No", "Well Maybe", "No it's not", "Then again!".... So after a few minutes of, I'm sure you'll agree, a very intelligent discussion we both stood dumb struck staring at the sky as our 'cloud' snaked slowly, but surely diagonally over our heads and split into 2 long tubes of luminous green light that literally floated and danced above us for around 5 minutes..

I know the photos looks like a green spludges and very unexciting, I'm surprised anything came out at all, but we're happy to have some record of it.

We were so excited to see what we were seeing. It was truly amazing and was the very reason why we travelled so far north Alaska to the middle of nowhere. I was so awestruck that I forgot I even had a camera in my had, I didn't want to take my eyes off the sky in case I missed anything. We're very lucky to have seen what we did..

So for the next few nights we religiously donned our thermals and faced the cold only to see a big black sky above. It really made us appreciate what we saw that night and even though we only got to see it the once we were happy that luck was on our side that night...

During our stay in North Alaska we thought that a trip to the Arctic Circle would be in order. Mmm Apparently -15 Degree Celsius wasn't cold enough for us. So with all our woollies in hand we started on the 16 hour round trip to the Arctic Circle. First we passed the famed Alaskan Gas Pipeline which runs from the north to south of Alaska to be refined and shipped out to the rest of the world.

Half way there we stopped off at a Roadhouse for a toilet break. It consisted of a 'closed for the winter' Roadhouse and a few loghouse longdrop loos, similar to the one that Chris was on in McGrath. I was not looking forward the experience with all my layers on I was frozen solid so the thought to going to the loo al fresco Arctic style was not what I'd call a holiday,but you gotta do what you gotta do and you don't hang around!!!

As we drove along we clock the temperature gauge in the car getting lower and lower and the surrounding terrain getting less and less hospitable, the coldest temp we got to was -27C!!! This photo below was taken in an area where the temperature was about -20C with a wind chill factor that brought it much lower and even Pete who has a in built furnace was bitterly cold. We welcomed the warm chocolate our driver had for us when we got back to the van..

After 8 hours driving and travelling through many different terrains and weather fronts here we are, the Arctic Circle, sure it just looks like at plaque in the middle of nowhere but it felt pretty special, considering we would never willingly venture this far north again as long as we both shall live!!

We were lucky to have such a clear day and could see for miles of empty lands around us. It was very quiet and peaceful and we really felt like we were on top of the world..

Southbound again we were heading back to Fairbanks to cook up one of many wild Alaskan Salmon Dinners...

Joseph, the owner of the hostel where we stayed in Anchorage gave us a gift of this huge Wild Alaskan Salmon, it weighed a ton and fed us for nearly a week!!! Yum...We left Alaska with many happy and funny memories and if anyone out there is willing to brave the cold it is truly a holiday of a life time.

Next stop Vegas... We unexpectedly had to overnight in Vegas before flying to Toronto. On the flight we flew over the Grand Canyon and got some stunning views, which was a bonus. Vegas isn't what you would call a backpackers destination so we were pretty annoyed with the layover expecting high accommodation rates, but we hit the Internet and got the hotel deal of a lifetime. We stayed in the Tropicana Casino Resort which in on the main Vegas strip, for any one that's been there already it's just across the road from New York, New York and Luxor. Great location..

This photo was taken from our room, amazing, and all for just $40,unfortunately we didn't have time to enjoy the pool! To make up for it, we ate all around us at the hotel buffet for half nothing, great for the hungry backpacker. Both Pete and I had been to Vegas before so we were happy just to wander along the strip and soak up the atmosphere.

There's nothing like strolling past Paris on the way to New York...

We even caught the water show at the Belagio..

Before heading back to our room to enjoy a glass of wine and admire the colourful view...

Next morning we head back to the airport on the way to Toronto... Stay tuned for the final blog installation, We're nearly home....

Anchorage to McGrath

2008-10-26T19:36:00.001-07:00

After the heat of Hawaii things are starting to get a little chillier. Our travels are taking us to the wilds of Alaska! Su has been dreading this part of the trip for the best part of the year but I've managed to drag her (kicking and screaming) along. We arrived in Anchorage and literally chilled for a few days to acclimatise. To be honest we don't have too much to say about Anchorage except that the people are nice and the city has an amazing backdrop - here's a photo of the local Walmart for example:

The mountains in the background are stunning (when you can see them). My main reason for coming to Alaska (as silly as it sounds) was to visit a place I read about roughly 10 years ago called McGrath. It's a little village in the middle of Alaska that was named after a U.S. Marshall called Peter McGrath.

As good a reason as any to visit a place. This is nearly as remote as you get in Alaska (the population is less than 300 in the winter) so we weren't too sure what to expect. However, we booked our ticket....

...got to the airport...

...and boarded our 30 seater plane for 2 days of wilderness! If you think a 30 seater plane is small, just wait.

We had two goals for the trip: I wanted to find out some more information about the Peter McGrath that the town was named after, and Su wanted to see a moose. We didn't want to aim too high just in case. We landed in McGrath at around 9:30 in the morning and hit the main street:

We saw Hotel McGrath just by the airport:

but being poor backpackers we weren't staying there. A short walk down the road was the cafe which had a few rooms above it - not as fancy as the hotel but fine for us.

We were sort of at a loss for something to do at this stage so we went for a walk around the town and less than an hour later got back to the cafe having seen what we though was pretty much everything. How wrong we were. Not sure what else to do, we relied on instinct and had some pizza at the cafe (very good!) and hit one of the two pubs in the town: Joes Bar.

It serves the best (and only) draft beer in McGrath! Certainly good enough for the likes of us!

Things pretty much took off from there. We had been a bit worried that we had spent one of our two days in McGrath walking around, eating pizza, and going to the pub - which we could (and do) pretty much do anywhere but all that changed when we got talking to this guy:

Chris! Local jack-of-all-trades from lumber to whatever you need, he's your man. We told him what we were doing in his fine town and he got a great kick out of it. Soon all the bar knew about our great adventure in McGrath (there were about 5 people in the bar including us and Nick the barman). The other person in the bar was Camille and she headed off and came back a few minutes later with a bag of her finest homemade Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon strips and Moose jerky - both of which were delicious - these were bar snacks Alaskan style!

As the evening wore on we met more and more people - all of which were friendly and delighted that two Irish eejits went out of their way to visit their town. Chris, acting as our agent, rang the radio station and booked us in for an interview first thing in the morning (sounded like a great idea after a skinful of pints). He also promised us that he would pick us up afterwards and bring us around to a couple of the sights. We staggered home in the -10 degree cold to the cafe, happy with the way the night had gone and very unhappy after discovering that even with thermal underwear, 4 layers, and our beer-coats on, -10 degrees is COLD!!!

The next day was the busiest day we've had since our journey began. We awoke early to head over to the radio station: KSKO.

We had around a half hour interview with Mike Lane the local (and only) DJ where we told him about our travels and he told us a little about the area. It was a good laugh.

Su thought she'd be clever and stand by the doorway talking photographs but Mike wasn't having any of it and called her in, live on air, and grilled her as much as he had me. We found out that even though not a lot of tourists visit McGrath at this time of year, they expected the first heavy fall of snow soon which is basically the start of the severe winter so we might get a chance to experience that! As if -10 wasn't cold enough.

After having a cup of Irish tea with Mike and saying our goodbyes, we met Chris at the cafe and he was all set to take us on the grand tour of McGrath! First off was a bit of Moose hunting (well... Moose sighting..) and sure enough, Chris knew just the place. It's amazing how well an animal that big (think of a horse but ganglier) can camouflage itself. Su took quite a few photographs (with me hiding behind) and this is the clearest:

This was a female Moose, hence no antlers.

Next we took a trip to McGrath Air Terminal. Not to be confused with McGrath air strip where the commercial flights land (like the one we got to McGrath). This Air Terminal is a privately owned business which flies goods and post to even smaller, even more inaccessible nearby villages in ridiculously small one-engine planes. Anyway, Chris rocks up there and asks if myself and Su can hop on board on the runs for an eagle eye view of McGrath. We were told that if there was room, there'd be no problem. An hour later we were hopping into this:

and flying over this:

This is the Kuskokwim river on which McGrath resides. It meanders quite a bit, as you can see. This is the real Alaska folks! We landed on the side of a mountain in a place called Takotna, helped unload the airplane, and took off back to McGrath - all done in less than 30 minutes.

After the flight, we thought it was time to find out a big more about this McGrath fella so we took a walk to the museum. So, here he is: Peter H McGrath:

I don't know, Chris was beside himself when he saw the photo - he thought the resemblance was uncanny. I myself wasn't too sure. He IS a handsome guy though....

I'll leave it up to you to decide. Here's some info about him (if you can make it out):

Chris picked us up again to take us around the some the local sights. He introduced us to Donne - she is one of the native Alaskans who live in McGrath and she kindly allowed Chris to show us her homestead - a magnificent log cabin with surround forest and incredible view (it even had it's own outdoor wood-fired sauna folks!):

We also paid a visit to Donne's fathers house which had it's own airstrip! Incredible!

We took a trip to Mount McKinley lookout (Mount McKinley being the highest mountain in the U.S.and the second highest in the world!) but the weather was closing in. We just had time to stop by a friend of Chris's who was building his own log cabin. He and his (pregnant) wife were living in a wall tent while they built their house. A wall tent is a military-style canvas and plastic waterproof tent. It had a stove, so they were alright. Hardy people these Alaskans. The picture of Chris at the start of the blog was in their outhouse. This picture is of their cabin:

They've got quite a bit to go.

By the time we got back to the town the river looked like this:

It was getting down to -15 Celsius now - it seemed we got there for the heavy snow! Nothing for it but to hit the bar again where we met even more people and heard even more amazing stories! One guy we met who worked as a gold miner gave us a gold nugget as a souvenir! A gold nugget!!! We bought him a Budweiser but it didn't seem like enough compensation somehow...

The next day we awoke to this:

We were told that it was 50/50 if we'd get out of McGrath. There are certainly worse places to be but we had to catch a train to Fairbanks the next day. All of a sudden the incoming flight landed and we were boarded without delay. It was all too quick as we didn't get to say goodbye and thank everyone that we should. We had an amazing two days in McGrath and the people there should be proud of what they have. If your name is McGrath, or if you want to see a bit of real Alaska, I highly recommend it! You can't go wrong! They've done the name proud!

Hawaii 5-oh!

2008-10-15T13:36:00.001-07:00

Hi all, Daisy here, I'm afraid that I'm being inflicted upon you as I've joined the Pete and Su travelling circus in Hawaii. I came all the way from Ireland and Pete and Su came from Japan and we met smack bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on the island of Oahu. It really does feel like being in the centre of the world.

Hawaii lived up to my expectations from the moment I arrived, the night before Pete and Susan. The warm balmy air, that Hawaiin breeze (now I know why it's called that) - bit slow on the uptake sometimes - it's all exactly as you'd expect. Beautiful clear seas, gently waving palm trees, everyone saying 'Aloha!'

I met the guys off their flight from Japan and we went straight to our hotel/condo just two blocks from the beach in Waikiki.

The one thing we were all agreed on was that this was going to be a real holiday - no frantic activity. Just lying horizontal for as much as possible and soaking up the rays. And maybe a bit of reading.

Unfortunately for me, Pete and Su are currently the colour of the mahongany conkers falling out of the trees at home. And me, well let's just say that I'm, ahem, of a more pasty -haven't - seen - the - sun - in - two - years - complexion. Although I have gone a lovely shade of red by now. Just in time for home. If anyone asks me did I leave my tan behind they'll get a smack.

We did manage to unpeel ourselves from beside our gorgeous pool in the hotel intermittently to go out for beers, more beers, some food and yet more beers. And wine.

Our room has a kitchen and Susan has been happily chained to the kitchen sink cooking us breakfast every day, we've renamed her Mrs Mop. She and Pete are loving the novelty of home cooking and having the TV on tap. Backpackers eh?! They're such cheap dates.

Oh, and we did do some sightseeing. The last time Susan was here she was throwing herself out of airplanes and taking surf lessons. This time I'm glad to say that they were both sufficiently exhausted to be content to just check out the North Shore and Pearl Harbour.

The North Shore was amazing. I'm a total armchair surfer, more happy to watch it than actually try it. The North Shore of Oahu is the spiritual home of surfers and surfing everywhere. There are bays and stretches of beach that have seen some of the biggest waves ever surfed and it's where the triple crown competition take place every year in November and December.

One particular place is called the Banzai Pipeline, so called because of the way the waves break, forming a pipeline like structure. Around this time of year the sea is becoming more and more rough, the winter swells growing all the time. When we got to the beach it was practically empty, just a few surfers in the sea. Just acres and acres of gorgeous sandy beach stretching away either side. Paradise. We decided to take a dip to cool off. The sea looked choppy but we had no idea how strong the currents were.

I'll admit I had visions of finding myself in a compromising position with a surfer, but I ended up in a much more compromising position when I was all but hurled back onto the beach, spat out by a huge wave with my bikini almost gone and halfway to Japan. Needless to say Susan fell around the place laughing and it took a long, long time to get all the sand out of cracks and crevices that haven't seen such action in ages.

We survived the pipeline and had a delicious pizza and some beers in a little place called Hale'iwa. Just so you know, if you ever come here and visit the North Shore, Hale'iwa is the best place for getting food and drinks. Around the pipeline and Sunset Beach, it's surprisingly sparse in that there's not really any bars/restaurants. We figured it's because the community are determined to keep this whole part of Oahu strictly surfing, and not have the hordes of tourists thronging the beach at Waikiki.

We also went to Pearl Harbour and that was very interesting, just to see the area where such carnage happened in one day. There's a monument that sits right over the sunken wreck of the battleship Arizona and you can look down and see the ship beneath, rusting and still leaking small amounts of oil into the water.

It's a very moving experience as all of the men who were on the ship and died when it went down are still entombed within the wreck.

It's now our last day, I'm off back to the other side of the world, leaving here at 4.30am. Pete and Su will be off on their next leg to Alaska. I'd definitely come back, if only just to brave the North Shore waters again and this time try and arrange it so that I have my near drowning and unwitting bikini removal near a gorgeous surfer who can save me...

Big in Japan

2008-10-13T20:36:00.001-07:00

So after China, we had a few days to spend in Tokyo, Japan. We have heard some mad things about Tokyo and they are all true! This is the country where technology is king! Even the toilets have about 10 buttons to press which do various things (want a heated toilet seat? No problem.) And the toilet humour didn't end there, as you'll see.

The hostel we were staying at was near the Asahi brewery, which is a well known Japanese beer.

It is noted for the Asahi Flame, an enormous golden structure at the top, said to represent both the 'burning heart of Asahi beer' and a frothy head. It is better known by the locals as 'The Golden Turd'.

Our hostel itself was fine - if a little compact. But that's to be expected in Tokyo. Did I say a little compact?

Our room was like a broom closet with bunk beds. I must have banged my head 10 times while there.

Walking the streets of Tokyo is something completely different as well. There are rules you have to follow:

And the great thing is that everyone obeys the rules - which makes things more pleasant for everyone!

You smoke in the smoking area (even outside), you only cross the road when you have the green man, you don't talk on your phone on the train - really whatever it takes to make it easier on others.

Although English isn't spoken by many, it's still easy to get around and about. Also, heading out for food isn't a problem. A lot of restaurants will have English menus and if they don't, a lot of them will have a display case with a plastic version of what they serve presented outside:

One of things on our list of things to do in Tokyo was to head to the Shinjuku district at night and see the bright lights:

Shinjuku has department stores, specialist electronic and camera shops, cinemas, restaurants and bars. Many international hotels AND the busiest train station in the world is also located here.

Another thing on the list was to head to the Harajuku area of Tokyo which is known for it's gothic and cyber punk street style. Basically kids get dressed up in outrageous clothing and hang around - you could see everything from rockabilly's, goths, and teens dressed up as cartoon characters! Bizarre! Unfortunately for us, it was raining on the day we chose to go there and the kids were indoors in case their hair flopped. We did take a walk down one of the two main streets in Harajuku called Takeshita street where we saw a procession in the rain. Here's a photo to prove that we saw a procession and another photo to prove that there is street called Takeshita:

We have no idea what the procession was in aid of - everyone looked like they were wearing mini skirts though.

Next we took a walk to Shibuya which is famous for its scramble crossing. It is located in front of the Hachiko station exit and stops vehicles in all directions to allow pedestrians to inundate the entire intersection. Three large TV screens mounted on nearby buildings overlook the crossing. The Starbucks coffee shop overlooking the crossing is also one of the busiest in the world. This photo is taken from there:

So that's it really. It rained for a lot of our time in Tokyo so the photos don't really do it justice, but hopefully you'll get an idea of what it was like. We highly recommend Tokyo! There's hardly any crime, people are friendly, there are great restaurants, you can get cans of cold beer from vending machines, the metro goes everywhere you need to go, and believe it or not, it's probably cheaper than Dublin. You can't go wrong!

Tellific Tellacottas Walliols and Shanghai Surplise...

2008-10-02T01:31:00.001-07:00

Hi all, Su here again. Picking up where I left off, we were on an over night train to Xi'an to see the infamous Terracotta Warriors. We stayed in a comfortable 4 berth sleeper cabin that we shared with 2 others. We decided to give the dining car a miss and had a lovely dinner of Jelly's!!!

Once in Xi'an we explored the city which is the old ancient capital of China and was home to many emperors. The main centre of the town is surrounded by huge, old city walls, similar to the Great Wall. In the city there is a large Muslim Quarter which is full of hustle and bustle and is lined with a mix of halal food stalls and Chinese restaurants. We couldn't resist our usual Dumpling dinner.

Next day we took a bus out to the Terracotta warriors.

Over 2 million years ago Emperor Qin shi huang enslaved hundreds of thousands of people to construct this massive ever lasting army to guard his tomb which is less then 2km away. He either expected his rule to continue after his death or was hoping his new army would protect him from the vanquished spirits awaiting him in the afterlife, no one knows.

Whatever his reasons, the army discovered in 1974 by a local farmer digging for a well, is nothing short of spectacular. 4 pits have been excavated.

Pit 1, the largest, holds 6,000 life size solders placed in battle formation.

It's mind boggling knowing that no two faces are alike.

Once again China has come up trumps with it's awesome historic feits of construction and spectacular sights. With our minds and memories full of ancient wonders we board yet another overnight train to the more modern city of Shanghai. This train would take 21 hours to get to our destination and was slightly less comfortable then our last journey. Firstly we shared our cabin with two smokers who didn't seem to feel the need to open the cabin door or go to the smoking area to light up. Begrudgingly they did so once we made our feelings known. Also being such a long journey our usual bag of Jelly's just wouldn't do so we braved the jam packed smoke filled (almost as bad as our cabin) dinning car.

We sheepishly sat down and a waiter gave us a hand written menu (completely in Chinese Script) to consider, we remembered a warning from Pete's brother and sister in law, Martin and Catherine, who made a similar train journey in China a few years ago so we were quite apprehensive about our imminent meal!! But sure, in for a penny in for a pound, we scanned the food filled tables for something edible and settled on anything that did not look like dog!! Once we were somewhat happy with our choice our waiter came over and 'then' proceeded to translate the menu. He was a man of few English words, beef, pork, chicken, fish was pretty much it with no mention of cooking method or sauce etc. but we were grateful that 'dog' wasn't one of them so we went for the beef and decided to brave what the dish that the guy sharing our table was eating which looked like chicken and hot cucumber, strange choice I know but we needed a bit of veg!! We were delighted to discover that the beef was a beef stew with spuds 'almost' as good as you'd get at home, but the pre-mentioned 'chicken' dish was most probably 'tripe', neither of us could quite put our finger on the texture or taste but considering that we have never eaten anything of this nature, it must've been tripe!!! So one outta two aint bad.

At 06.30am next morning in true communist style, the speaker in our cabin came to life and blared out some sort of exercise program, (well that was the most logical explanation we could come up with) followed by piercingly deafening Chinese traditional and pop music which continued for the next 7 and half hours before we arrived in Shanghai.

With our ordeal over we were very pleased to be in a civilised city and felt like we were closer to the western world then we had been in many months.

With it's futuristic skylines that lit up like Disneyland at night it was yet again, a spectacular sight..

In contrast to the ultra modern structures of the current financial district, 'New Pudong Area' (above), the old hub 'The Bund' directly across the river would not look out of place along the banks of the Seine

Staying with the futuristic theme the ever entrpenurial Chinese constructed an under water 'Sightseeing Tunnel' taking you across the river from The Bund to the New Pudong Area.

Once again it's something similar to a ride in Disneyland and if full of swirling, sparkling, garish lights whizzing by as you go from A to B..

From ancient artifacts to futuristic skylines China has been amazing. We have loved every over-crowded minute of it and I highly recommend it to all.

However, as with anywhere in the world there is always a few downsides. China is full of smells... food, rotting rubbish and urine fill the air around you but sadly not in that order, the idea of 'fresh air' is nothing more then a memory of home. While the constant 'hocking', 'gullying' and 'snorting' noises of phlegm readying itself for the forever present 'spitting' charade that surrounds you as much as the smells can get to you after a very short while.

But on the bright side (despite the 'tripe' episode on the train) we were big fans of the food. Some days we would have Dumplings for breakfast, dinner and tea, and if I stayed there any longer I would be rolling myself onto the plane looking like a Dumpling myself. We tried and loved so many types of new and unusual food that we will never have the chance to try again... Another great thing about China and South East Asia is the constant mix up with the R's and the L's, the knock off 'Rolex' they try to sell you on the street is pronounced 'Lorex', 'Relax Resort' is 'Lerax Lesolt', an 'Umberella is an 'umbelerra'. We waited and waited for the anticipated 'Herro' (Hello) but it never came...

So as our short journey through China comes to an end I am so happy to have been here and seen what we've seen, be it only a fraction of the country, we defiantly leave with everlasting memories.....

And now for a little more toilet humour. I took this photo in a loo in Beijing, the nearest thing to a female urinal I've ever seen, I wont subject you to the actual loo itself (which was pretty unusual) but I thought the sign was bizarre enough....

Needless to say I obeyed it.... x

Beijing, Beijing they finally let us in...

2008-09-26T20:56:00.001-07:00

Hi all, well after the hairy few days Pete told you all about in Hanoi, we were finally on our way to China. It's a country that I've wanted to visit for years now and as we set down in Beijing Airport I was beside myself with excitement. The airport was filled with Olympic and Paralympic signage and scores of young volunteers practicing their English with the arriving visitors. There was a real welcoming buzz about the place. On leaving the airport we negotiated the subway and the streets with little difficulty and within an hour or two we found our hostel. We were quite amused at our rooms ensuite bathroom, which didn't leave much to the imagination. Instead of walls made of plaster or brick, it was made of glass, with a see thru curtain on both sides, slightly covering all angles except the actual loo. This photo was taken from the bed!!!

But none the less, we were happy enough due to the fact that the hostel had actually overbooked our cheaper room with no bathroom and upgraded us to this see thru loo room without cost...

The next day we headed to Tiananem Square, our hostel was less then 10 min walk away. As we passed through the Front Gate (Photo below), miles of Chinese history and culture lay directly ahead along this straight road...

Beyond The Front Gate is the infamous Tiananem Square. Tiananem Square does exactly what it say's on the tin!! It's a Square! A very large square at that, well actually the largest public square in the world as it happens,but a 'square' non the less. It's full of .... eh..... space... which is probably a good thing because 100's of millions of Chinese and Foreigners visit it every year....

We continued north passing Chairman Mao's Mausoleum and up ahead you see his imposing portrait in the distance of 'The Gate of Heavenly Peace'.

The Square is very well protected with police at each entrance scanning and frisking every visitor and plain clothed cops patrolling the square listening for any word of discontent, in other words you need to be on your best behaviour.

After walking through 'The Gate of Heavenly Peace' we entered the Forbidden City,

so called because it was off limits for 500 years. It is the largest and best preserved cluster of ancient buildings in China and was home to the Ming and Qing dynasties of emperors. They only left these grounds when absolutely necessary and the huge Moat kept everyone else out...

Here's a birds eye view to give you an idea the huge scale of 'The Forbidden City'

Our next biggy was the Great Wall, I couldn't wait to see it. But as with all tourist attractions around the world we expected to be one of hundreds of tourists visiting the wall and the idea of seeing it in solitude seemed to be nothing but a false hope. However on advice of one of our hostel hosts we went for the lesser touristy and more rugged routes in the hope of this. And after a 2 hour drive and a very steep and inaccessible climb up to reach the wall, our breaths were taken away.

Yes the STEEP climb attributed to this shortness of breath but the shear beauty and amazement of the view of the snaking wall before us was so out of this world that neither words nor photos could do it true justice and to make it a once in a life time feeling there was no one else there. Amazing....

It was an awesome sight and continued to be for over 12km of steep climbs, wobbly descents and unsecured surfaces. We passed through 30 watch towers to complete our hike. As you can see in the photo above there is 3 watch towers ahead.... so only 27 to go. Oh and it got steeper and steeper.

The last Watch Tower you can see in the distance behind us, was less then half way of our walk!!!

Over the 4 hour hike we met no more then 10 tourists and a healthy handful of Mongolian touts selling the usual T-shirts and hats thrown in. We also met a guy from London who was returning home from working in Japan on the Trans Siberian Railway and after a bit of chat we realised is surname was McGrath and his family was from Galway.. Well China may be big but it sure is a small world!!! This was an amazing day, I feel privileged to have been able climb just a fraction of it virtually tourist free and to soak in it's stunning views, this was one of the most memorable experiences of my life...

On our last day in Beijing we headed out to The Birdsnest Stadium.

It was the first day of the Paralympics and we had high hopes to get in and see some of the action, but unfortunately all tickets for the days events were sold out. Some of the tickets for the coming days were going for as little as €5, not bad value. As the games were happening they televised them live on these massive TV screens in the Olympic flame building adjacent to the Stadium. Here's Pete watching a spot of Bowls..

So we left Beijing with very fond memories and were impressed with the city itself, it was easy to get around, the people were so friendly and helpful, the streets were surprisingly clean, there was less people spitting then we expected and best of all the food was superb. However we're quite sure we would have seen a completely different city if the Olympics hadn't been hosted here. So we boarded our 12 hour sleeper train to X'ian to see another one of Chinas must see sights, 'The Army of the Terricotta Warriors'. Stay tuned for China Part 2 coming soon...

And now for a bit of toilet humour...

Hanoi-ing Chinese Torture.

2008-09-16T06:39:00.001-07:00

Hanoi! Pronounced Han OI! is the capital of Vietnam and with a population of over 3 million it's a bustling place full of street hawkers, motorbikes, cyclos, and all the sights and smells you could imagine. It also was home to one Chinese Embassy where we had to get our Chinese visa before our next leg of the journey - more on that later - put it this way, it was a major pain in the wotsits. Here's an example of what you can expect walking down a street in Hanoi:

You wouldn't want to be in a rush anywhere. One thing you learn early on in Vietnam is that the footpaths aren't used for walking - their used for selling goods, parking motorbikes, drinking beer, or even burning fake money (if business has been bad recently), but not walking. That's what the roads are for - so you weave in and out of trucks, cars, motorbikes, and cyclos (bicycle propelled carriages) to get to your destination.

You also share the streets with the street vendors (usually women) who carry around weighing-scale type baskets on their shoulder selling fruit, veg, and all types of assortments (from chestnuts to snails!). It's very handy - you could sit around all day and people would come up to you selling stuff. Anybody for a hat?

They didn't have my size.

Now I must mention the food. I wouldn't really be one for making a pig of myself but when you see the likes of this you can't help yourself...

Well done Pig. There's a few ducks there aswell. The food in Vietnam is absolutely fantastic. I quickly became addicted to a beef noodle soup called Pho Bo (Bo being the Vietnamese for beef - same as home!). It's so good!! Hot bowls of soupy noodles with tender beef, coriander, chopped chili, and bean sprouts. All for about a 2 dollars - needless to say, happy days. However, you do need an open mind some of the time. Check out the items you can find on a Vietnamese menu:

If you can't make it out you can find Fried Tortoise with Salt, along with Oyster roasted with grease and onion. I'm sure you'll have no problem figuring out what's wrong with this picture:

And we're not talking about the crab.

The only real downside to Hanoi was something that had been on our minds for a while. Namely getting in to China. We knew when we were organising our trip that the Olympics would be held in Beijing near the end of August so we purposely held off visiting China until the end of them. However, we didn't foresee the Chinese government changing the laws to make it extremely hard for people to get visas to visit their country from outside their own country. We did a lot of research about getting our visa all the way through Vietnam and basically it was all doom and gloom. Unless you were in your home country, there was no way a visa was being issued. The most you could do was get stamped confirmation from your hotel or hotels for every day you plan to stay in China, as well as your flight info and present it to the embassy. If they didn't like the look of you or you were improperly dressed, then tough luck. If you weren't at the embassy at least an hour before it opened, then there was no chance. People running businesses out of China were being refused visas so we were disheartened. Still, no guts no glory. We got to the embassy in Hanoi with every stamp and piece of documentation we could think of. We got there over an hour before it opened to see a queue of people waiting. Luckily an English couple at the top of the queue told us that we wouldn't be let in with flip flops so I left Su in the queue to hold our place while I grabbed the nearest motorbike taxi back to our hotel to get appropriate footwear. 20 minutes later we had our runners on an over three hours later (in stifling heat) we got in to make our application. All very nerve racking as we were supposed to be leaving on the Monday and the soonest we could find out about our visa was the Friday (the embassy being closed at the weekend). We got to the embassy even earlier on the Friday morning and....

Yayyyy! We got it! No surprise really as I'm sure most of ye know that we've been in China for a while. As you can see we celebrated with a bowl of Pho and a beer. Breakfast of champions!

Well, that's it - we checked out of our hotel on the Monday and splashed out on a cyclo to get our bus to the airport:

Gotta say, we'll miss Vietnam and will be back at some stage. Such a great place!!! Look at the poor fella having to push me and my bag along in the cyclo. That's all leg power as well. Well done that man!

Back in action!

2008-09-16T01:10:00.001-07:00

Hi everybody! Pete and Su here! Sorry for the delay in posting to the blog but we've been in China for the last few weeks and our blogs were being blocked! I'm not sure why - maybe in case we had something bad to say about the place (we don't really). Anyway, we've just posted a new blog about Vietnam. It's in three parts as we thought that the blogs weren't posting due to size restrictions. Enjoy! And keep checking for more updates!

Dressing up in Vietnam - Pt 1

2008-09-16T00:59:00.003-07:00

Hi all Su here again, so after we dragged ourselves away from the party city that is Saigon we decided a bit of peace and quiet was in order, so where better to head for a bit of R & R than the central highlands and wine making region of Vietnam: Dalat. No we didn't think Vietnam made wine either but surprisingly they do, I can't say it's the best we've ever had but a treat in South East Asia all the same.

During the French reign many would come to Dalat to escape the heat of the cities, resulting in a strong French presence. The town wouldn't look out of place high in the Alps, they even have their own Eiffel Tower.

It is one of the few towns in Vietnam that wasn't bombed during the American/Vietnam war. Reason being, like the French, the high ranking North Vietnamese (Northern Communists) holidayed in the North of the town while the high ranking South Vietnamese and Americans holidayed in the South of the town, so no surprises why no one chose to bomb it.

Dalat is a slice of heaven in hot and manic Vietnam. It's unusually quiet and the temperature feels like a cool Irish summers evening (in other words I had to wear a fleece and a rain jacket). Along with wine, it also produces fruit and veg more commonly seen in the western world, peas, carrots, spuds, avocados even strawberries.

We took a Cable Car ride over the farms, they have a very impressive set up. Unsurprisingly the towns markets are bursting with tasty treats

and awash with colour...

With our lungs filled with country air we headed back down the mountains to the coastal town of Na Trang. With it's endless beautiful beaches and good weather it's a hit with all visitors and Vietnamese alike. We stayed here for a couple days and were so lazy we didn't even take a photo. Sorry!

It was back on the bus for us and we braced ourselves for a gruelling 12hours over night journey to Hoi An (Where we planned to stay for a week). Much to our delight our bus was a state of the art sleeper bus and even Pete fit (snugly) in the seat as you can see from the pic (yep they're his legs!)

Unfortunately a few hours into the journey the ride was nothing short of a rollercoaster. The potholes on the road where bigger then the width of the bus! No joke, the road looked like the surface of the moon there was that many craters!! So needless to say not much sleep was had....

(continued in part 2)

Dressing up in Vietnam - Pt 2

2008-09-16T00:59:00.001-07:00

After a days rest we hit the streets of Hoi An, like Dalat, it wasn't bombed during the war. The old streets are full of beautiful ancient bridges

and Street Sumo!!?!!?

The food here is next to none with local delicacies like 'Cao Lao' noodles, greens and pork, 'white rose' shrimp dumplings and my favourite 'spring rolls', fresh or fried and all of the above for less then €1.50, we were in food heaven and with the local draught beer selling for less then 20 cents a pint who could complain! We ate and drank like kings.. Here's a pic of Pete just having a light snack in between lunch and dinner!!! :)

Vietnam is famous for it's inexpensive tailoring and Hoi An is the tailoring capital of Vietnam and our plan was to have some clothes made while we were here. A suit, 2 pairs of trousers, 3 pairs of shorts, 2 dresses and 2 shirts later we were all shopped out. Mr. Xe, Pete's tailor was hilarious.

As you can see he was half Pete's size and we think he 'batted for the other team' but he was great fun and a great tailor, he will even accept orders for the next 4 years and post them back home. Now that's good service.

Hoi An is also known for its Lantern making and the many lantern shops fill the streets with colour...

Every evening we'd have dinner at a riverside cafe and watch the hectic world go by. It makes for interesting watching as life by the river never sleeps or even stops for a cuppa tea!

Ferry after ferry transfers motorbike after motorbike from one side of the river to the other. We would watch in wonder at the speed and the sheer organised chaos of getting the bikes on and off the boats not to mention all the near misses with the boats themselves. But somehow they always seem to pull it off without a hitch or a safety net in sight!

(Continued in Part 3)

Dressing up in Vietnam - Pt 3

2008-09-16T00:58:00.001-07:00

And with all this madness going on just a few meters down the river we saw this!

Loved up newly weds going for a post wedding boat ride while the photographer snapped away from the safety of dry land. I cant quite see any Irish couple attempting this at home, I'm sure they'd be swimming in the Liffey before long! But our onlooking man in Pyjamas seemed to be enjoying the fuss...

So needless to say, we LOVED Hoi An, the sights, the food and of course the humour, check out our local laundrettes business card...

Good morning Vietnam!

2008-08-21T08:05:00.001-07:00

Hello again! Pete here - back after a break from blogging! I needed a rest - this travelling lark takes it out of you so thanks to Su and Jeanette for their contributions (which were much better than my usual ramblings!). Anyway, you're stuck with me again this time so on we go....

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh (when I say 'we' I mean Su, Jeanette and myself) by bus from Cambodia after around a 7 hour journey (which was relatively comfortable compared to some of our previous bus journeys!). Some may know Ho Chi Minh as Siagon and indeed, the locals call it Siagon more often than not. It was named Ho Chi Minh after the war with the U.S. - Ho Chi Minh being the founder of the communist party in Vietnam - he was a much revered guy in Vietnam.

First impressions of Ho Chi Minh were of complete bewilderment. It's a manic city with lots of people, lots of motorbikes, lots of tall narrow buildings, and best of all (in my view), lots of restaurants! It's a great place!The following photos will give you a small taste of what Ho Chi Minh is all about:

The photo above is the view from our hotel room. The next photo was also taken from our hotel room and shows two things: a) that some western people are nuts and will go to extreme lengths to look their best, and b) you can get anything in Ho Chi Minh:

They will shine your sandals and give you a manky looking flip flop to wear while you wait. I won't get out of bed in the morning anymore unless I get my flip flops shined first.

We thought that since we were staying a week in Ho Chi Minh that we might as well get a few tours in. We first went to the Cu Chi tunnels which is just a few hours outside Ho Chi Minh. These were tunnels used by the Viet Cong (the Vietnamese resistance during the war with the U.S.) that were used for planning, transport, living space, etc - right beside U.S. bases and a vital reason the Viet Cong were able to exist without capture. Here's a model of what the tunnel network looked like - there were three levels of tunnels, with the lowest level leading out to the Siagon river (in case escape was needed).

These tunnels were made by Vietnamese for Vietnamese and you must remember that the Vietnamese back then were even smaller than they are now so these tunnels are extremely small and narrow. Here's the entrance to one:

And these photos will give you an idea of the width and heights of the tunnels. Remember there are no lights so we were using the flash on the camera just to see where we were going!

Does my bum look big in this? My bum just about made it through and my shoulders were brushing against the sides of the tunnel. Hard going!

It was all very interesting but we were glad to see the light of day afterwards. The next day we went on a trip to the Mekong Delta! The weather wasn't great as it rained half way through. The Delta itself was pretty similar to the sights we saw in Cambodia - they had a floating market selling fruit and veg and we were brought to a coconut candy making factory, and a rice paper making factory.

I say 'factory' - it's all done by hand. We were even given a sample of the local snake wine. It's basically rice wine with a snake and scorpion added. Actually sounds a lot worse than it is.

I think the nephews will definitely find this photo interesting. We also had lunch and even a nice cup of tea! Very civilised! After lunch we were taken on a boat ride along the river - and we were even given some hats to try on!

All in all it was a good few days - even though myself and Su were feeling a bit ill due to taking our anti-Malaria tablets. We did manage to pull ourselves together for one night out with Jeanette in Ho Chi Minh and we even found a Guns N Roses pub!

Great night - great company - great city - great craic!

We waved a sad goodbye to Jeanette the next day - it was great to see her and she'll be missed! Some of the photos in this blog are hers (probably the good ones!). The plan is to travel up through Vietnam and make our way to Hanoi eventually. We're looking forward to it! So finally:

More to come!!

Happy Holidays...

2008-08-09T03:51:00.001-07:00

Hi there.I have been given the honour of being a guest writer on this amazing blog.(Perhaps they needed a break?) For those of you who don't know me I am Jeanette,a friend of Susan's and,well,Pete's now too whether he likes it or not!!

Anyhows,I joined the dynamic duo in Bangkok mid July.Susan greeted me at the airport with such joy but I was a bit suspicious if it was me or the Tayto she knew I was carrying for her that she was so happy to see.....

It was lovely to see both of them there in the airport though especially when they told me about their harrowing journey to find the cheapest route to the airport.We got a taxi back into the city.

Rainy Bangkok was really just a stop point to sort out visas for Cambodia and Vietnam so 2 days later we headed to the lovely island of Ko Samet.

Susan had her moment of nostalgia when she saw the Silver Sands.She had stayed there last time she was in Thailand.When she showed us where her hut had been there was a new one in its place.Photo is for the other girls Gillian and Suzy Mogs to feel the memory!

We stayed in lovely adjoining rooms in the Samed Villa Resort beside the SIlver Sands.5 days and nights of nothing but beach,eating,sleeping,watching movies and a bit of dicky tummies.

Susan and myself fell victims to the water.Pete felt left out so the next day he was not feeling so well but I think Chang Beer had more to do with that......

So back to Bangkok for one night to collect passports and visas.We walked around Koh San Road

but being the ageing ones we found it too loud and busy so we ate in a quieter area.Next morning we were up at 4.15am to catch the 6am bus to the Thai border to cross over the Cambodia border.We got lucky as we arrived before other tourist buses and in good time-only took about 4 hours to the Thai border!We got through the borders too in no time which was also a very pleasant surprise.

However,the best form of transport from the Cambodian border to Siem Reap was in a Toyota Camry on the worst road EVER.No bad road in Ireland even comes close.Pot holes galore.

After 3 hours of that we arrived in Siem Reap to the luxurious Angkor Star Hotel with swimming pool!Great find by Miss Drennan.Lovely rooms and Star Movies!!!Siem Reap was a bonus.

We did our day of culture going to the floating village which was fascinating and sad at the same time.

How little people need to survive yet had the whole thing figured out from floating shops to churchs

to schools

to farms...

Unfortunately our guide just wanted to tell us his political views and get us to buy copybooks and pens for the school.When we did he said "is that all?"

Next we went to Angkor Wat.

Fascinating place as you can see from the photos.It dates back to the 12th century and was passed down to quite a few leaders.We educated ourselves by reading a book on everything as we were guided out by now.We got lucky and were able to see why the pond is called the "Reflecting Pond".Can you see why?

After we went to the Bayon to see the myriad of faces

and then to see the roots of trees

growing into the ruins of Angkor Thom.

All beautiful but we were waning at this point.We finished off with the terrace of Elephants and the Leper Kings.Our tuk tuk driver must have thought us the worst tourists ever as we were not delaying in many places.He was surprised when we said we were done and to take us back to the hotel.

That night we went out for food and a few drinky poos.

It was a fun night and Susan and myself even got to boogie!!!!Next day though I spent most of it by the pool as some people were feeling a bit worst for wear!

Then onto Phnom Penh,the capital of Cambodia.We paid for an air-conditioned bus that was supposed to take 5 hours.We had NO A/C and it took 8 hours-nice!The driver was overly horn happy which became the most annoying thing!We arrived to a very busy city which seemed to have a free-for-all-rules-of-the-road.Madness!We stayed in a real hostel called OKAY run by a racist Chinese woman who only liked white people or Chinese to stay in her hostel.She carried a handbag of cash around with her at all times.It was cheap and cheerful.We went to the Tuol Sleng Muesum(Security Prison 21) before going to the Killing Fields.They were both equally horrific.The Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975 and just tortured their own people.The educated,wealthy,professional people were first to go.They stayed in control until 1979 when the Vietnamese beat them.To date the actual count for how many people they tortured and murdered is still not decided-some say hundreds,others say thousands but the majority are saying a few million!They are still finding the remains of bodies in the killing fields' area.We only took a couple of photos as it just did not seem right taking them.

That night we went to a hostel that shows the Killing Fields film.It did not effect us as much as we thought.I guess having seen the real thing was beyond any reasoning that we were still numb.

To change the mood,the next day it rained something rotten(yesterday)!We had planned to only go to the Russian Market which thankfully was enclosed.

It was nothing special really but we made a couple of purchases anyway.We treated ourselves to a pizza last night out by the river which was very tasty.

So this morning we got on a bus about 9 o'clock to head to Vietnam.That is where we are sitting as I type.So far it is air-conditioned and the road is good.The driver has not tooted his horn once yet!This journey is SUPPOSED to take 6 hours-time will tell.......

PS I leave the company of these 2 in 6 days but I thought I should let those mummies and daddies out there know that their children are doing well living the dream and still sickeningly loved up.They are looking forward to a good home cooked meal though......Dunshaughlin and Tuam watch out!

And finally................

Trains, Prawns and automobiles...

2008-08-01T03:06:00.001-07:00

We've been in Thailand nearly a month now and are due a visa run. This is a common practice with backpackers here who want to stay longer then the 30 day tourist visa issued on arrival. In order to get a new one for free you need to leave the country and re-enter where they stamp you back in again. The nearest country to us at this time is Myanmar (Burma) so we leave the party capital of Thailand and head west. Once in Ranong (Thai boarder town) we hop onto a noisy long tail boat and cross the border.

Thirty minutes later after a few military checkpoints we're in Myanmar immigration office. The military have full control here and are not the friendliest in the world. We were told to have US dollars in good condition to pay for our Myanmar visa which ours were. We handed our money to a grumpy looking soldier and after a close inspection (which took a good 2 to 3 minutes) of our 2 $10 bills, the soldier hands them back to us and says 'No' our notes are not up to the required standard, they need to be pristine. Ridiculous, luckily after a bit of searching Pete found a $20 which seemed to impress him more so all were happy. This border town is very poor it's more of a slum then a town but thankfully did not seem to have been affected by the recent cyclone. We had planned to have a wander around to see a bit more but our intentions were lost in translation and ended up on the boat back to Thailand a few minutes later.

For all its stunning beaches and scenic forests the majority of towns and villages of Thailand are not the prettiest. Overall Thailand could do with a good lick of paint. Layers of dust, dirt and peeling paint is a common look for all local shops and homes inside and out, but among these shabby buildings will be their eye blindingly bright shiny, beautifully decorated Buddhas and temples. It seems so contradictory the whole country lives in relative poverty while huge amounts of money are pumped into their religious temples and icons. I took this photo above on the way back to the Thai boarder.

Next stop Phuket. Phuket like Koh Samui is a busy over commercial tourist trap and is not on the backpacker circuit. However the one thing it does have going for it is cheap cheap luxury during the monsoon. (As I'm sure you can tell by now Thailand is our summer holiday of our trip). We decide to stay here for around 2 weeks in total and stay in a few great places and eat fabulous food.

The average Thai backpacking menu is vegetable fried rice for breakfast, vegetable fried rice for lunch and yep you've guessed it vegetable fried rice for dinner! I'm not joking, you can always judge the overall price and standard of any Thai restaurant by the price of the VFR. If it costs more then €1 it's too dear and you keep on looking, it costs less than €1, bingo, that's were you eat for the rest of your stay. This was the case when I backpacked with my cousins Gillian and Suzy a few years ago. Myself and Pete however have decided to splash out and treat ourselves by averaging the cost of our meals to around €2 but would normally only eat 2 meals a day. We often eat in roadside hawker stands which are a one stop shop of noodle soup or chicken and rice dishes for less then €1. You sit on small plastic stools on the footpath and slurp away along with all the locals.

One night we were feeling brave and decided to chance a bit of 'Chicken on a Stick'. There are lots of chicken satay stalls all over Thailand and the barbeque smells fill the air. After close inspection of all the different types of chicken (including the entrails!) we settled on the safest looking one. Alas after our first bite we quickly discovered that there was more cartilage/bone/fat than meat and at an even closer inspection we realised that what we had bought was 6 chicken arses on a stick!! In other words the little triangular tail on a roast Chicken.... Mmm... Nice! As you can see by Pete's expression below he was quite dubious about trying another piece..

Which brings me back to Phuket since we were on our 'holidays' we decided to splash out and eat like kings for a week, huge fresh tiger prawns, rock lobster even steak! Mmm! We were the envy of all backpackers and amazingly no dinner cost more then €8-12, needless to say we'd have 10p packet noodles for lunch so it's all relative!!!

This is a photo of one of the hotels we got for €13 a night...

it's such hard work being a champagne backpacker...

Well-fed and well-rested we leave Phuket for the backpacking capital Bangkok! We're meeting Jeanette a friend of ours from home there in a few days. We've decided to get the overnight sleeper train because the bus would take 14 hours which is bad enough for me but would be hell for Pete (being ever so slightly taller then the average Thai). So after a 4 hour bus journey to the nearest train station we settle into our cabin. We have once again splashed out and spent the extra 4 quid to get a private cabin with 2 bunk beds instead of sleeping with all of Thailand in one of the tiny bunks in one of the main cabins.

This is the first time we've travelled by train and its really comfy with our bunks converted into a couch during the day, a little table and even a sink and even more surprising it actually works! It's nothing short of a posh hotel, a waitress even comes around to take our order for our following day's breakfast.

Unfortunately at some stage that day I must have eaten something dodgy because by around midnight I'm sick and vomiting and have to make several dashes to the loo. Even more unfortunate our 1st class toilet blocks and floods (Nothing to do with me I can assure you!) so now our nearest loo is the mail carriage which is worse then the lowest class with a rusted non flushing bowl for a loo where you can actually see the tracks flying past below, a sink with no running water and a smell to match!! The window has no curtain so I'm sure the locals got an eye full as we passed thru the towns! After a 14 hour bumpy noisy ride I'm still making panicky dashes to our -3rd class mail carriage loo and when we pull into Bangkok station I want to kiss the ground, but no time because we now have a death defining local bus journey to our hostel, the noisy hot and sticky half hour journey only cost us 14c but after several stomach lurching jolts and hand brake turns we arrive in The Kao San Road, the main backpacker ghetto of Bangkok and it's straight to bed for me...

Transport in general in Thailand and South East Asia is quite a funny thing. Since we've been here our modes of transport round up something like this... A Motorbike taxi no bigger than a Honda 50 which carried Me, Pete and the driver together, we had been looking to get a motorbike taxi each but thought they were charging too much so one of the drivers instructed us both to get on the same bike with him. Neither of us thought it was possible, either we wont fit or we'll burst the tyres, but believe or not off we sped clutching on for dear lives laughing at the state of us. Luckily we didn't have to go around too many corners, I wouldn't have counted on us staying up right for too long if we had. The next step up are the motorbikes with side cars, it's basically a square metal frame with a floor stuck to the side of a small motorbike. These are great, free air con (wind) a seat with a bit of cushioning and a bar to hang on to. This was our main mode of transport in Koh Lanta. Another form of island transport is the 'Songthew' which translates as '2 benches'. It's a pick up truck with a bench at either sides, can be a pretty bumpy ride on the islands dirt roads but once again the air con is free,even if it's a bit dusty!! The busier towns all have tuk tuks aptly named for their loud tuk tuk engine chugging along. These are 3 wheeled motorbikes with a 3 seater bench just behind the driver, With a colourful canopy on top, they are famous in Bangkok.

The buses range from hot stuffy local buses where the horn is used to alert all of Thailand that we're on the move but strangely enough it's louder inside the bus then out, (so all the passengers know we're on the move!) as I'm writing now we are on one of these buses where the air con is on low and the horn is on high (Pete and I are directly behind the driver so we can enjoy it on full volume) and to top it all off we have video Karaoke playing with some of the passengers diligently reading the words on the screen and singing away to themselves.... Great! On the other end of the scale the VIP buses tend to have ice cold air con, frilly pink curtains, a hostess handing out cold water and sometimes a meal and seats larger then first class airline seats, some even come with your own plug for your laptop..

So as I daydream about the nice cool VIP buses as we chug along in our bone-rattling, sweat box I'll sign off and leave you with this very important note.....

Island Hopping...

2008-07-13T05:20:00.001-07:00

Hi all, Su here. Sorry for the long silence, we have adapted to 'Thai Time' very smoothly and have been on a go slow since we last wrote and have been enjoying every minute of it. After living it up for 2 fabulous weeks in Koh Lanta we travelled across the country to Koh Samui, a very popular holiday destination. It wasn't really our scene so we stayed only a few days. The weather broke and it rained for the duration here (much like the weather at home I believe) so the camera didn't come out much. However we did find one worth taking, this sign which was on our bathroom wall....

It made us laugh every time we saw it. Thailand is funny like that. They have their own version of the English language which they exhibit on many of their signs. Here's a few more

This was the sign for our guesthouse in Samui and yes it was very 'romantic on the beach'.

A 'genuine' old Irish Barrel top in the local Irish pub

This sign is outside a national bank in Phuket, we're not too sure why!

And finally...

Even Ronald McDonald gives you a Thai welcome..

So after a few wet and windy days in Samui we took a boat to the nearby island of Koh Phangan where they hold the monthly full moon party. This is basically a big beach party where thousands of people come to drink, dance and party the night away under the light of a full moon.

The main drink of choice is a 'Samsong bucket' which is basically a little bucket (as in a seaside bucket and spade) filled with Thai whiskey, redbull, coke and ice and is sold on every street corner, door step or passing motorbike.. Its an experience to say the least and comes with a not so fun throbbing headache the following day. Luckily we were staying a little out of town so we could recover away from the masses the following day.

Here's a few photo's taken from our balcony.

I can definitely think of worse places to relax.. We stayed here for around a week unfortunately it was still raining like an Irish summer but it was still a great place to be....

Flashpacking in Thailand...

2008-06-02T05:28:00.001-07:00

Hi all Su here. As Pete said Malaysia was great but was a bit of a flying visit. We are here in the wet season and along with the rain it brings the the heat. It hasn't rained that much so far and if it does it's normally just 1 or 2 very heavy showers and that's it for the day, it's a God send really because it cools the air down a bit. With the temps in the high 30's and humidity in high 80's we are in a constant sweat, it makes city living a bit sticky and the Thai beaches were calling, so what's one to do?

After a 10 hour journey of 3 buses and 2 ferry rides with a few manic but speedy transfers in between we arrived on beautiful Koh Lanta and after a bit of haggling with the local travel agent we were checking into Paradise. Nakara Resort to be more exact but paradise none the less..

don't you think?

More Flashpacking then backpacking....

So needless to say after being here for a week already we are still here and will be for another week to come. Its beautiful and at €12 a night who could complain?? Yes, that was €12 a night and it's €10 a night for our 2nd week! When we asked at reception if we could stay for another week they somehow picked it up that we wanted a further discount and gave us one. Much to our delight of course we're obviously getting good at this haggling thing without knowing it. Here's our home for 2 weeks....

On top of all this we have a beautiful bungalow with our own loo which is a welcome change, air con, fridge, WI FI and TV with movie channels. Great! Here's a picture of our room the mess in the corner is all mine....

Now if you're looking for party central this is not the place for you since we practically have the place to ourselves. At it's busiest there may have been 10 or so people about at any one time and the neighbouring resorts are the same. But if you want to sit back, relax, top up the tan, eat and drink to your hearts content this is the place for you! We even have our own resident dog lovingly named "Stinky" for obvious reasons. He hooked up with us, or should I say Pete, on the way to the shops on our first night and has been mans best friend ever since, he even sleeps at our door at night, he's Pete's biggest fan...

The beach is a bit rubbishy which is the norm for monsoon season but the view is beautiful. Here's the view from the restaurant you can just about see the Phi Phi islands on the horizon. So that's it for now, stay tuned for more.................

East coast Oz and onto Asia

2008-06-01T07:53:00.001-07:00

It's still VERY VERY warm where we are now but at least the air-con is cooling us down so we've managed to get a bit of life into us and it's time to update the blog again. We've a lot of catching up to do so without further ado...

We made our way further down the east coast of Australia to Surfers paradise, Byron Bay and back again to Sydney. Surfers was a really nice place to kick back and enjoy one of the better hostels we've stayed in. It was run by an Irish guy who couldn't do enough for us so (and this is becoming a habit) we pottered around and didn't do a lot. This is quickly becoming the lazy mans guide to a round the world trip. Su, being the energetic one, did take a few photos. Here's one to prove that we actually were there:

After a short stay in Byron Bay, which was great, we then hit Sydney again and met up with our good friend Niallo, and my friend Massey and his wife Bella who I knew from my days in Copenhagen. We stayed 5 nights in Manly to catch up with Niallo again and had a right good booze-up. We then went out to Balmain and stayed with Massey and Bella in their gorgeous house. Even though they had to work they gave us a key and let us wash our clothes, have a bath, and basically gave us the comforts of home. How good is that!? Niallo even treated us to a dinner one of the nights. Free food! We were on a roll!

So we flew out of Sydney to Singapore, looking forward to seeing what Asia had to offer. Not without one look back while in the plane and managed to snatch one last glimpse of the sky tower through the clouds - the photo is a bit fuzzy but you'll get the gist:

We soon found out what Singapore had to offer, and it was this: THE HILTON! Yes! Su's wonderful parents had booked us in for two nights of luxury as a birthday present to Su and boy, did we lap it up! This was our room:

I can't imagine it getting much better than this on our travels so we made the most of it and hardly left the room. I know I know, there's no point travelling the world and not seeing the sights but have you seen the room above? And we're backpackers - there's no way we could afford to actually do anything in Singapore except eat and enjoy the luxury. We did make it to the swimming pool at one stage and we wandered around the hawker stands to buy cheap but very nice local dishes. Many thanks again to Larry and Rose for a fantastic 2 days! Su, of course, was in her element...

It wasn't to last though as we flew on to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and stayed here:

Can you spot the difference? It's subtle I know. Here's the hallway outside our room:

Mountjoy eat you're heart out. Still, at 7 euros a night what can you expect? It was grand really. And Kuala Lumpur was a great place - we stayed in Chinatown and were right beside the China market where you could get everything from cheap knock-off Gucci bags to cheap knock-off Bolex (or is that Rolex?) watches. And of course then there's the Petronas towers - which used to be the tallest building on the planet. Tallest or not, they're still a sight to behold:

Really, photos don't do it justice. It's amazing!

We got a nice VIP bus to Georgetown in Penang. Su tells me that Penang is north-west of peninsular Malaysia. Our room here was 4 euros a day so as you can imagine, cats weren't being swung. We didn't even bother with photos. Our days in Georgetown were spent watching the European cup final, visiting Little India, drinking more beer, and chatting with the locals. It's really a melting pot of different cultures so we had a great time.

And that's it really! Malaysia was great and now it's on to Thailand and Koh Lanta. Su is going to do the next part of the blog so tune in!!

On holiday....

2008-05-20T07:07:00.001-07:00

We're here in Kuala Lumpur and it's too hot to post a good blog. We will update you all about the remainder of our Australia experience, our two great nights in the Hilton in Singapore (thanks to Su's parents), and our stay in Kuala Lumpur, when we stop sweating.

Sunny days on the East Coast

2008-05-02T22:50:00.001-07:00

Hey all Susan here again, so after our adventures on the Whitsunday Islands we headed south to Rockhamton, "The Beef Capital of Australia". A great, big steak dinner was our goal and a great, big steak dinner is what we got. After checking out the various steak restaurants in town each bearing slogans such as "Best Steak in Australia", "Worlds Best Steak", "Best Steak in Queensland" etc. we had our work cut out for us. We eventually settled on the restaurant below our hostel (handy) Which was "World renowned for it's unique Stone Grill 'Acton Super Beef' Steak". This meant that your steak (Acton Super Beef, no less) was served raw on a 400 degree Celsius, plate size volcanic basalt slab. Once the waiter delivers your steak to your table you turn it (as you would on the pan), slice off a few pieces and cook it to your liking on your slab, divine.. And that's coming from an ex-veggie!!

So with full bellies we continued south to Fraser Island, the worlds largest Sand Island. Fraser is beautiful and is filled with fresh water lakes, rainforests and amazing beaches. We took a drive down 75 Mile Beach - Actually only 72 miles long!

We passed by the Maheno Shipwreak, once a massive cruise ship, which was stranded on the shores of Fraser in 1935

But by far the highlight for us was swimming in the stunning Crystal clear Lake McKenzie which is surrounded by white silica sand just like Whitehaven Beach

As you can see from the different shades of blue the bottom of the lake drops all of a sudden and if you swim from light to the dark blue under the water with your eyes open it feels like you have vertigo!!

So next stop Noosa. Noosa is great, it has a fabulous beach, amazing restaurants, great shops, stunning hotels and everything that's outside the backpackers budget. So, if myself and Pete ever win the Lotto, we're going back...

Brisbane was next on our agenda where we enjoyed a few sunny days. It's a great city with a really chilled out feel to it. We stayed in a cool backpackers with an Irish Bar (how Australian!) and free Internet which was great for our South East Asia research..

Well that brings us up to date and also to Surfers Paradise where we are now. We arrived yesterday and will be here until the weekend so you'll hear all about it on the next blog............. stay tuned................

Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands

2008-04-18T21:03:00.001-07:00

Hello again! We've just returned from doing a three day and three night boat trip around the Whitsunday Islands and it was pretty darned good. Beforehand we stayed a night in Airlie beach to book our trip for the next day, and that is where we are again now.

We stepped aboard the 120 foot yacht the "Anaconda 3" at 7 in the evening and after a quick safety briefing and a glass of champagne we sailed off into the night. We picked this boat because we could get a private room and we were told that even though it's a bit more expensive, the food is excellent and although you can't bring your own drinks on board, they will be supplied at a cheap price. What more can you ask for??

Well, we got our private double room which was compact but you're on a boat so what are you going to do? It suited us down to the ground as we had our own bathroom and shower - luxury!!! As we were to find out, the food was indeed excellent - especially considering the size of the kitchen (or is that galley?). We even had roast chicken with mash, peas and gravy one night!! I went up for thirds! The drink situation was a little less satisfactory though - they had a fridge full of cans alright but were charging 4 dollars apiece - considering you can buy them in a bottle shop for a little over a dollar apiece it was very cheeky. As well as that we were told that each persons name was on a clipboard and we had to put a tick against our name when we took a beer and we settled up at the end. The crew would be doing the same thing. THEN we were told that if there were any discrepancies (i.e. some thieving git was taking beer without ticking off his or her name) it would be up to everyone to bear the cost of the missing beers. Alarm bells were ringing! As it turned out at the end, 20 or so drinks were taken without anyone ticking the sheet so we were all asked to compensate for this. When myself and Su asked were the crew expected to chip in for this, we were told that they weren't. When asked why it was explained to us that the crews names were on the sheet as well and they put a tick against their names when they took a beer.

Ah ok.... hang on... that's what we did!!! Total swizz I reckon. Luckily we had the good sense to sneak two bags of wine in with us so our tally of beers wasn't too high. Check-mate Mr. Bond.

Anyway, onto the trip itself. And some photographs! The plan was to visit Whitehaven beach on day 1, check out a few more beaches and reefs on day 2 for some snorkelling and diving (for those who wanted to) before heading out to the outer Great Barrier Reef that night so we could spend day 3 out there. We got to Whitehaven beach on the morning of day 1 after a bit of a bumpy ride (some pale looking faces around the boat after that trip). Whitehaven beach sand is comprised of over 80% silica so is pristinely white and squeaks when you walk on it.

We were lucky to get this photo as 5 minutes later the rain started and pretty much didn't stop for 24 hours. Disaster!!

So we got back to the boat in the rain, tried our best to dry off and spent the night and most of the next morning eating, reading our books, and watching a DVD (one of two on the boat). The dive people did go diving, and some people braved the driving rain to snorkel, while the rest of us were made feel guilty by the crew for our lack of enthusiasm. It looked like things were going down hill real fast when at last the weather got better and the sun came out again. Time for some more lounging - this time up on deck!!!

See, we're much happier now.

That evening we sailed over to another island and hit the beach to watch the sun go down:

That's our boat in the background. This was the night we got the roast chicken dinner. Did I mention that I had thirds! The food was so good.

So that was pretty much it! We spent the next day (which was a scorcher) up on deck getting some sun while the captain sailed us home. They got the sails out on the way back and it was all nice and relaxed. All in all it was a good trip - aside from a few points - the overcharging on the drinks, the attitude of some of the crew, and actually one of the girls in another cabin got eaten alive by bed-bugs and sadly wasn't given an apology or even any alternative.

We're off to Rockhampton tomorrow! I hear they have great steaks there! Hmmmmmmmmm...... steak.

Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef and Mission Beach

2008-04-18T21:01:00.001-07:00

Ok Ok - sorry for the lack of updates (says he hoping that people have been on the edge of their seats waiting..), but we've been had a very lazy weeks lately - well, it's hard work this backpacking business!! Not really. The truth is that after Su's amazing blog last time that I thought it would be a hard act to follow - but time is a great healer so you're stuck with me again. I will convince her to blog again but she's a busy woman so it's me this time...

So we're on the east coast of Australia now after flying from Perth of Cairns via Melbourne (Melbourne was cold!!). Cairns was lovely and tropical though and we booked a day on a boat called the Tusa 5 (sounded a bit Irish) where we did some diving on the Great Barrier Reef (the only living thing viewable from space so they say!). It was pretty cool but we don't have a lot of photos seeing as we were on our lazy period. Well listen, it's hard work finding Nemo but Su managed it:

Hair raising experience it was too. She told me where the little guy was hiding all this time was and I got in there aswell:

We were under water as this stage if nobody has realised which is why we are looking a bit strange.

We spent about a week in Carins and moved on to Mission Beach where we spent a few days by the pool - I'm sorry but the only photo we took was of an insect that looked like a leaf. Maybe it was a leaf - it didn't move too much and we had a few glasses of wine. We were convinced it was an insect though. It had legs (we think). I'm sure the people in Mission Beach won't be too upset that we didn't get too many photos - it's sold as a place to relax and unwind and that's what we did. I know I know, surely five months of unwinding is more than enough but we're going for a record.

So now we are in Airlie Beach, further south on the East coast - great place - the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands where we'll be hopping on a boat tomorrow for a 3 day and 3 night cruise. We will definitely take some more photos and break out of this slacker mentality that we fallen into. Bear with us - the blog will get better... I'll get Su on the case again!

Hot and Sticky in Western Australia

2008-03-31T03:26:00.001-07:00

G' day All, Susan here. Yep! Well I have finally gotten off my backside to make a contribution to Pete's fabulous blog. I can't guarantee it will be as funny or as informative as his, I may ramble on a bit or have a quick chat with the girls half way thru so bear with me...

So we picked up our campervan and headed North, happy to be on the road again. It's a 'Him' this time and is called 'Morris' (lovingly named after the first 'Box' of wine we had in him). Our first stop was The amazing Pinnacles Desert, This is made up of thousands of limestone pillars, up to 4 metres tall rising out of golden sand dunes

It's pretty spectacular, even more so considering the surrounding earth is a rich red colour and the neighbouring beaches are snow white...

At this stage I think I should point out that for the last few weeks the average temperature has been between 35 & 39 degrees which is pretty darn hot in the middle of a desert, oh and while I'm at it I may as well mention the Flies..... Oh yes 'THE FLIES' when people talk to you about Australia the mention the stunning landscape, the tropical turquoise seas, the great friendly people, they even mention the nasty, nasty, horrible, HUGE (as big as my hand HUGE) spiders!!! but no one warns you about the flies, while in the middle or western Oz, as soon as you step foot outside at least 40 flies land on you (it's like a race) luckily for me they get to Pete first due to a certain height factor-poor Pete) then the flies that haven't landed on you are flying AT you, mainly into your mouth, into your ears, up your nose and even trying to balance on your eyelashes... Not good! Ok that's my rant over for now... Well not quite just a quick word about the spiders.. I seem to have a special gift of seeing them everywhere and they seem to be getting bigger.. and they're always in the jacks, normally Pete would go in and inspect them for me (what would I do with out him he's the best) but the other day I ventured into one (unchecked by my main man) trying to be brave,there was huge spider in it, his body was the size of a meatball!! no kidding, I nearly passed out. Other than that I love Australia....

Next stop was 'Shell Beach', well when I say next stop I actually mean 3 days later after a very long drive, this is Australia you know. Shell Beach is one of the longest shell beaches in the world, it is made up of tiny, white cockleshells up to 10 meters deep in some places and the water is luke warm and crystal clear, a great spot for the daily bath...

The beach was almost deserted when we got there, it was beautiful...

From there we when to 'Monkey Mia resort' in Shark Bay to see (yep you've guessed it) Dolphins!!! Go figure? Every morning for the past 10 years wild Dolphins come right up to the shore line and interact with people, of course a few buckets of fish might have something to do with. It's a bit of a circus during the morning feeding session

but is a great opportunity to see wild Dolphins up close..

The resort itself was beautiful, fab beaches, a cool swimming pool where we spent most of the day working on our tans, which are coming along just nicely thanks to the searing heat and the scorching sun!! We even managed to fit in a romantic stroll along the beach for sunset..

The next day it was back on the road again heading north for our final destination Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef, home to Logger Head Turtles, huge Manta Rays and the amazing 18m long 15 tonne Whale Sharks. Our plan was to head out on a boat and go snorkelling for the day over the reef in the hope of spotting some of the above... however, this was not to be. Upon our arrival the clear blue skies quickly changed into dark black clouds, gale force winds, torrential rain which resulted in 'Cyclone Pancho' (No we didn't name it, that'd be the Aussie weather people, wonderful imaginations the Aussie's have).. The eye of the Cyclone was 200km off shore so no real damage was done but the roads were closed due to flooding and the winds were too strong to drive so we were van bound for a few very wet and very hot days, Morris let us down by leaking but then again maybe he was sweating as much as we were in the 80% humidity.. Sorry I've no Photos of the storm but if you saw it you wouldn't get out of the van to take a picture either.

So that brings us up to date, we are now on our way back to Perth to give leaky Morris back, he's served us well but it's time to move on... in a few days time we will fly to Cairns (pronounced 'Kens' with a high pitched voice) on the East Coast to begin the last leg of our Amazing Australian Adventure... Stay tuned... There are loads of really BIG SPIDERS there so I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about all that...

Now for the girlie bit... Happy Birthday Mam on the 1st April hope you have a great day, lots and lots of love.. Su+Pete. Dad hope your enjoying your well earned rest by rebuilding the house maybe? or just building another one or two for fun? Mmm very relaxing... Daisy Mae so sorry haven't written lately, promise to write soon, hope all's great with you and writing away like a mad thing.x Gillie Gorie thanks a mill for the great email, I'm lovin' all the goss promise to mail you back soon, Jeannette, likewise promise to mail soon, any more thoughts on an early hol??? Maevey Baby any wedding news for me?? Suzy Mogs, how's it going? any goss? Bar and Su, Neal and Gabreilla give Aaron, Zak, Ginavera, Lorenzo a big kiss for me, Pete and Patricia 'how's it goin' bud!, Mr +Mrs Owen+Ruth MaGee (to be) congratulations that is wonderful news, Eoin and Lucy, nice one on the job front!! Lavinia hope alls well with you,Marco and baby Lucca, Niallo, see ya in Sydney, Martin and Dee, howyanow! Thanks for the Grays Anatomy! A big hello to Pete's parents in Tuam, the Lyons' and Monica in Dunmow, Paul in Auckland (well done with the job), John, julie and kids in Glanmire, Martin and Catherine, hope you're well, how's lovely Sam? taller then his uncle Pete yet? ... Lots of Love Su+Pete. xx

Uluru and Kings Canyon

2008-03-19T05:44:00.001-07:00

Hello again! We're back from a three day bus tour to Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) and the Kings Canyon where we roughed it in swags (outdoor sleeping bags) and hiked like we never hiked before in sweltering heat. Actually, due to an arachnaphobic Su, we slept in a tent but we got the gist. We were the oldest people on the bus and got christened Mum and Dad by the tour leader (who was 25) but we didn't mind as what we lacked in youth we made up for in wisdom and experience (yeah right). The group was good old craic and we were able to fulfil our role as parents by given out worldly advice to all the kids about what to do when they got to New Zealand (as most of them seemed to be doing after Oz). We gave them Martin and Catherines address in Hastings so there should be about 20 or so hungry smelly backpackers looking for free food and lodgings in the next few weeks (not really).

Here's a photo of what the whole tour was in aid of:

It's a big rock in the middle of Australia! It's pretty awesome!

We also went to Kings Canyon another day - also pretty awesome! Awesome!!!

Notice our hats - we spent ages picking them out. Mine is made from Kangaroo leather! It's very springy and awesome.

After a bit of a climb down we came to a watering hole (maybe it was a billabong - I don't really know) called the Garden of Eden. Also awesome!

Notice how Su has her hat off in this photo.

So finally a photo of the whole tour group - we had a mix of Irish, Swiss, German, Japanese, Korean and a couple of Italians. For fun, see if you can figure out who is from where. A prize for whoever gets it right:

We has a couple of days in Alice Springs afterwards where I recovered from either a bout of flu or exhaustion from being on a tour where we had to sing songs on a bus for three days (probably the latter). We flew to Perth and what did we see from the plane? Uluru again! We would have been gutted if we paid for a helicopter trip over it just to see it for free from our plane. It was, again, AWESOME!

Off to collect another camper van tomorrow - Hyacinth Mark II. Up and down the West coast over the next couple of weeks.

Oh yeah, belated Happy Saint Paddys day!!!!

The Long Trip

2008-03-09T08:09:00.001-07:00

Driving over 1500 kilometres in three days is never easy but that's what we had to endure from Adelaide to Alice Springs. Fair enough, you get some of this:

which is always nice. But most of it is this:

and a lot of this:

with quite a lot of this:

and unfortunately, a lot of road-kill.

However, we endured. Mostly due to the likes of this:

It was windy that day.

And this:

as well as this:

after the days driving was done of course. And this!

The big camper made it a breeze. We highly recommend it! Here in Alice Springs now enjoying the 36 degree heat. We bought hats! Off to Uluru soon!

Melbourne, The Great Ocean Road, and Adelaide

2008-03-05T05:26:00.001-08:00

Well now! A busy few days for us! A lot of photos this time so downloading could take a while. We bummed around Melbourne for a few days, taking in the sights and generally chilling out. We are really terrible for not seeing more touristy things in the cities but by the time we get to them, all we want to do is wander around and get a feel for the city itself (and check out the shops). We did make it out to St. Kilda in Melbourne where we topped up our ever decreasing tan. Here's a photo of some kite surfers in St. Kilda:

Some of these guys were flying high into the air - extremely cool!

We got a relocation deal to bring a four wheel drive camper from Melbourne to Adelaide (5 dollars a day!) so we picked up and packed up and headed for the Great Ocean Road. See!

We stopped off at Anglesea golf course as we heard that they had resident kangaroos that lounge about near the fairway. Sure enough:

They say they have to hire a team of young lads to retrieve golf balls from the kangaroos pouches every evening. The kangaroos think that they are duck eggs and collect them for the winter.

Don't believe a word it.

We drove further along the Great Ocean Road stopping occasionally to see the sights and take photos. Here's one of The Twelve Apostles:

There's only six of them left - they're slowly being eroded by the sea. Ahhhhh.

You haven't seen a photo of the new van yet. It wasn't as roomy or comfortable as Hyacinth as you can see:

Cooking outdoors was a bit of a pain but the V8 engine was a lot of fun!

We just managed to eat in time for sundown. And what a sundown it was!

We continued on the next day and drove on towards Adelaide. Here's me in the morning with the van and an empty water bottle (just an excuse to show a profile of the van).

So, we're in Adelaide now where we've spent a few days. The temperature is in the mid thirties but we're not complaining. We getting a six berth behemoth of a camper van tomorrow and we're driving to Alice Springs. It's supposed to have three double beds, a shower, a toilet, an oven, a T.V., loads of stuff! All for 1 dollar a night! Hard to beat! Will update when we get to Alice! Oh yeah - Happy Mothers day to all the mothers out there!

Sydney Australia!

2008-03-03T20:08:00.001-08:00

We made it to Sydney! Again, and I know this is becoming a habit, sorry for the delay, but I'm lazy. We ended up staying nearly a week in Sydney as we were glad to be in a big impressive city and out of a camper van for a change. We stayed with the bould Niallo in Manly for two nights. Niallo is a good buddy of mine from Galway and he and his flatmate Ashlee were good enough to put us up for two nights in Manly, which is a swanky suburb of Sydney. Having a real bed to sleep in was bliss! We checked out Manly beach in the morning - a short walk from Niallos place - imagine being able to stroll down to this every morning!

We stayed in a cool hotel in Ultimo for two days afterwards (a belated birthday present from me to Su - we vegged out and ate junkfood... again). We did manage to make it out and wander around Sydney - the highlight for me was Darling Harbour (we went to the biggest IMAX cinema in the world - 8 stories high!). Then we tried the other end of the scale and stayed in Kings Cross - in a room the size of a closet with bunk beds. Couldn't get out of there fast enough really. Didn't bother taking any photos of the roaches or the dodgy television. For a change of pace we booked into a better place in Bondi Beach for two nights - one day of sunning ourselves on Bondi beach (topping up the tan!) and a night on the town with Niallo, starting at the Opera bar (near the Opera House) where we finally managed to take a few more photos:

Su and myself first:

Hmmmm... beer. And the three of us:

Then as night fell (and the fruit bats came out flying overhead - seriously), Su got this one of the Opera House:

There are better things to be doing than taking photos in Sydney - needless to say we had a long and boozey night. You can't beat it. Our plan was to leave Sydney by getting a relocation deal to Melbourne. Relocation deals are when you pay a camper van company a nominal amount of money to relocate their camper van back to it's home depot. You have only a set (small) amount of days to get it there but it's much cheaper than hiring a car and you get a nice camper van to stay in while you do it. The plan was to get one from Sydney to Melbourne, then one to Melbourne to Adelaide, and then from Adelaide to Alice Springs. However, after arriving at the depot in Sydney early in the morning, we were told that the camper van was involved in a crash and we couldn't have it. Bummer. As we still had to make our way to Melbourne and pick up the next camper van from Melbourne to Adelaide (in a few days), we ended up getting an overnight train to Melbourne (not a whole lot of fun trying to sleep with crying babies, not enough leg room etc). But we made it! We're here in Melbourne now but as we haven't even taken one photo, I'll get on the case and update in a day or two. Melbourne is great so far though! The landlady of the hostel we are in at the moment has friends from Tuam! Murphys apparently - had to pretend I had an idea who they were. Great fun!

Milford: Sound!

2008-02-15T18:17:00.001-08:00

Sorry in the delay in posting but we have been in the back of beyond without internet access and without sunshine. Yes, the rain seems to have finally caught up with us over the last few days so we've been holed up in the camper van staring out at puddles and reading books. We did manage to make it to Milford Sound before the rain though and it was pretty cool. We stayed in a place called Moke Lake which is near to Queenstown and Su took this nice photo :

The next day we drove to Milford Sound and got on a boat called "The Friend-Ship" for a two and a half hour journey around the Sound (actually not a Sound but a Fiord). I guess the "Good Ship Lollipop" was in for repairs. Here are some photos:

It was a bit cloudy that day but you get the general idea - lots of steep cliffs and mountains on both sides and lots of waterfalls.

We then got back to the camper van to find it dead - we left the lights on but a set of jumper cables soon had us back on the road to a place called Lake Gunn which is near to Milford Sound and I took this as the sun disappeared (little did we know that we wouldn't see it again for a while) :

Yep - so it's been raining pretty much ever since. We celebrated the lovely Su's birthday (she's 21!) with a bottle of bubbley and junk food and we even managed to buy a Mississippi Mud Pie for Valentines day. Believe it or not (especially after the last blog), we still have some left. This is our last evening in New Zealand - we fly out to Sydney, Australia tomorrow for 4 or 5 days of soaking (and I mean soaking) up the sun and getting the chill out of our bones. If the weather isn't good there then a letter to the Prime Minister will be written. A stern letter at that. New Zealand is such a fantastic place, that if you get a chance to visit, do. The people are extremely friendly and the scenery is so good that we have to stop yourself taking it for granted.

Australia here we come!

Extreme Queenstown and Extreme Eating

2008-02-04T19:20:00.001-08:00

We've spent the last few days knocking around Queenstown - "Extreme capital" of New Zealand, where you can do everything from Extreme Bungee (up to 134 metres high), Extreme Sky Diving, to Extreme Jet Boating. I had already Bungeed before, and Su had done both a Bungee and a Sky Dive, so after a day of Extreme partying, and a day of Extreme Hangover recovering, we decided to do the Shotover Jet Boating, and the Luge.

The Shotover Jet is a jet-powered boat (3 tons!) that rockets you down the Shotover river at speeds up to 80 kilometers per hour, narrowly avoiding canyon walls, and spinning 360 degrees in it's own boat length! Crazy stuff!

The boat only needs about 4 inches of water to operate on and is powered by twin V6 Buick engines. The twin Hamilton Jet units thrusts out 800 litres of water a second. We recommend it!

Afterwards we got the Queenstown Gondola to the top of Bob's Peak to do the Extreme Luge! Good craic, but tame after the Shotover Jet. The Luge is a three-wheeled cart that you plummet down a winding track on and then get a chair-lift up to for another few go's.

Here is me and Su on the chairlift:

All these activities pale in comparison to what came next. It was time to show these Queenstown folk what "Extreme" really means. Jumping off a 134 metre bridge with an elastic tied to your legs, or jumping 5000 meters out of a plane, or anything else like that doesn't even come close to Extreme Buffet eating. In our defence, we hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast - and they had a deal on. So - we went down the Gondola, changed into appropriate clothing for a dinner out, and went back up the Gondola to eat them out of house and home. It was supposed to be a six-course meal (I counted 7 courses but maybe one was a choice...). Making sure our trousers were nice and loose, we began:

The soup course was first: we had a choice between Mushroom soup and Cauliflower and Blue Cheese soup. Needless to say, I had both. With bread. I know what you are saying "Foolish to fill up with bread at a buffet" and normally you'd be right - but my jeans have been loose lately so I needed to sort it out. And I was only getting started.

Next came the Salad course: I had Green Salad, Pasta Salad, Sweet corn, Potato Salad, Olives, Cous cous, Beetroot, Egg and Rice Salad, Mediterranean Salad, Feta cheese, Jalapenos, and Lardons. It was all very nice. Su was tucking into her main course by this stage.

Next was the Seafood and Cold Meat platter course featuring: Salmon, Mussels, King Prawns (just the one big one for me), Prawn cocktail, Salami, Ham, Pastrami - all served with condiments. Just to clarify - I'm not naming what was available - I'm naming what I had (both the same up to now). Su was getting to the desserts at this stage - which I must admit is her specialty.

Then the Hot Entrees: The choice was Chicken in Capsicum sauce, Pork belly in Honey Sauce, Fish in coconut sauce, Venison curry, and creamed potatoes. So I had Chicken in Capsicum sauce, Pork belly in Honey Sauce, Fish in coconut sauce, Venison curry, and creamed potatoes. The staff were beginning to notice now. And they were beginning to look nervous.

Now for the Hot Carvery: Roast New Zealand Lamb served with boiled potatoes, noodles, broccoli, creamed pumpkin, carrots and peas. Again, very nice!

Don't worry - I had left room for dessert. Su, by this stage, had been through most of the dessert cart and I could see what was available. There was really way too much to mention here but she sampled the Chocolate Mousse (naturally), the Creme Brulee (sp?), the Vienisan Slice, Chocolate Truffle, and the Chocolate/Almond cake.

I went for the Creme Brulee, Pavlova, Choc Mousse, Fruit Salad (for the health), the Carrot Cake (also for the health), Tiramisu, followed by hot Fruit Crumble with Creme Anglais (I had to go up a second time). The plates were clean when I finished. The staff were diving for cover by this stage thinking I was going to explode at any second.

Su was looking a little bit green now so I only made one trip to the Cheese board. It was a little pathetic anyway as all the cheese was a bit mank looking, so I settled on one cracker and some blue cheese, which I crammed into my mouth as Su dragged me away.

There was tea and coffee aswell but at that time of night we thought it might keep us awake. I did manage to break away and grab a banana from the fruit bowl on the way out though.

Can I say to any of my family reading this: if you are ever in Queenstown and plan to have the buffet dinner at the top of the Gondola, don't use the name McGrath to book it as there's a very good chance our name is blacklisted up there. In my defence, we are backpacking and have to stretch every penny...

I do realise the similarities to Homer Simpson though so no need to mention it.

Glacier Country!

2008-01-29T19:12:00.001-08:00

We headed EVEN FURTHER south on the West Coast and entered Glacier Country - home to a number of New Zealand's glaciers - most famous of which are Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier. Both myself and Su weren't in the mood for any hiking (thanks to numerous sand fly bites to the ankles - Feckers!) so most of our photos are from a distance. You'll get the idea anyway - massive ice flows coming down mountains:

The photo above is of Franz Josef glacier. The next one is also a photo of Franz Josef glacier but taken from a place called Peter's Pool:

Despite the name, I didn't have any urge to swim in (no doubt) freezing Peter's Pool.

Then we went to Fox Glacier! No sign of any polar bear sitting on this Fox Glacier (sorry):

You get a sense of size of the glaciers from this photo - the little dots on the bottom right hand corner are people. Normal sized people at that - not little people!

Su reckoned that this glacier could do with a cleaning as it wasn't as white as Franz Josef.

Then we drove further south again and just as we thought we were leaving Glacier Country we rounded a bend and saw this:

This is Mount Hooker (hey, I didn't make up the name) and it also has a glacier on top. Hooker Glacier to be exact!

So that's it for the day - we're all glaciered out now and ready for our next stop: Queenstown! Backpacker central! We're looking forward to chilling out and maybe hitting the town for a night or two. Look out!!

Punakaiki and the Mystery of the Unsolved Pancakes

2008-01-29T19:08:00.001-08:00

The pizzeria outside Charleston turned out to be a little stranger than we had imagined. We went in to check it out and found it run by eccentric heavy metal loving Germans. After having a pizza each (which were very nice) and a glass of wine we found the bar attached (with a disco ball), full of local New Zealanders and the hosts (about 6 people in total). We got the impression that the night could be a late one so we had a drink or two each and chatted to the people at the bar (one guy had family from Inis Boffin!) and got out of there when the music turned from Motor Head to German techno. It was all a bit odd. We filled Hyacinth full of water and headed off to Punakaiki to solve the riddle of the Pancake Rocks.

Now for the science bit: Through a layering-weathering process called stylobedding, the Dolomite Point limestone of Punakaiki has formed into what looks like piles of thick pancakes.

No one knows why this happens here so that's the mystery. Satisfied that erosion was the answer we took more photos:

At certain times when the tide is right the sea surges into caverns and comes out of blowholes (didn't happen while we were there).

If the rocks aren't impressive enough for you, you can imagine them in shapes of animals and people! What fun!

The hours we spent there imagining different things! The craic we had! Finally exhausted we took off and have stopped off at Lake Mahinapua for the night. We are heading to the Glaciers soon so stay tuned!

Nelson Lakes to Golden Bay

2008-01-29T19:07:00.003-08:00

Quick update with a few nice photographs - we're currently on the West coast of the South Island after leaving Nelson Lakes (after our long hikes... yeah right) and drove up to the north of the South Island to Golden Bay. We took a nice photo of meself and the missus on the jetty at Lake Rotoiti - the other of the Nelson Lakes:

I felt like a bit of a spa sitting on the jetty by myself while Su set the auto-timer on her camera so excuse the grumpy face. Still a nice photo though!

We got to our chosen resting place in Golden Bay late enough in the evening. We saw a nice beach with a jacks nearby and made ourselves at home.

The beach is called Tata Beach (so Su tells me) and it seems to be a hotspot for motor boats, jet skis, and water skiers. Su showed me one of her hidden talents and rocked the water skis:

The seasoned water skiers on the beach were gob-smacked and in total awe of her abilities. Shortly after this photo was taken she did a triple back somersault and glided perfectly onto the beach and stepped out of the water skis to a rapturous round of applause. I've never seen anything like it (never).

After all that exertion, it was time to stop sunning ourselves and watch the sun go down. We stayed two nights at Tata Beach - no sand flies and lovely weather - you couldn't ask for more:

I think this is one of the better photographs I've taken. Anyway, we're just outside Charleston on the West Coast now - at a pizzeria that has a camp site attached! It's great! We might even splash out and go for a pizza being the crazy things that we are. Hope all are well!

Kiakoura to Nelson Lakes

2008-01-29T19:07:00.001-08:00

We left the sunny weather of Kaikoura to take a trip further north-west to Nelson Lakes. On the way out of Kaikoura we passed a Seal colony and Su took this wonderful photo (she's got a great eye! Two, in fact.)

Not sure if that's a Seal in the background. Pretend it is anyway.

Then, after a few hours driving, the weather took a turn for the worse but we arrived at the first of the Nelson Lakes: Lake Rotoroa. The light was fading but I managed to get this hastily-taken shot:

It was hastily-taken, not because of the fading light though, but because of the feckin' swarms of sand flies that feasted on me as soon as I left the van. The little feckers were everywhere and it was like something out of a horror movie with myself and Su huddled in the van for the night burning insect repellent incense. Our Lonely Planet book of New Zealand now has a nice join-the-dots puzzle on the cover where dozens of sand flies have met their demise. Did I mention that they are feckers?

We awoke the next morning to rain, rain and more rain. We went for a short walk and got rained on and that was about the highlight of the day. We had four games of "20 Questions" - the score is 2-all so it's close. I'll let you know if either of us edge ahead at any time. The weather is promised good for tomorrow so we're determined to go for a proper hike and take some decent photos of the place. I know, us hiking - WTF?? Stay tuned!!

The South Island and Whites Bay

2008-01-19T23:25:00.001-08:00

After two days of idling around Wellington (we did some shopping - Su bought prezzies and I bought a book - I've read Harry Potter in two days) we got the ferry over to Picton on the South Island of New Zealand. We hung around Picton for a while to stock up on the essentials (Shhhhpuds, Shhhhalad, and Shhhausages) and made out way down the south-east coast to the Whites Bay DOC Recreation Reserve where we were promised (according to the DOC Conservation Campsites booklet), hot showers, picnic areas, and bins for our increasing rubbish. The showers were cold unfortunately and were housed in "Blair Witch" style concrete loos which Su had a problem going in to after dark (not that I blame her) and there were no bins but don't get us wrong, we weren't complaining. The setting was, again, lovely:

Su rustled up yet another fantastic meal (10 points to those who can guess what it was? Spuds, Salad, and..... SAUSAGES!) I tell you - that woman can make the best meals out of the most basic of ingredients - she should make her mother proud) and then we settled down to a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy on the laptop (can you believe that McDreamy was already married!! We were shocked!! I think I need some male company soon...). Between episodes we had a peek out the curtain to see the moon rising. Very rose-mantic!

Getting the new battery for Hyacinth in Rotorua has been a Godsend - it has been 9 days now without plugging in and today has been the first time the 'electric' has run out. After spending another day in Whites Bay getting burned to a crisp (well - I did, Su had the good sense to put on sun screen early enough. I'm ok though - don't worry about me...), we headed further south along the east coast to Kaikoura to plug in to a campsite, recharge Hyacinth, and hit the town. Once we got to Kaikoura we stopped off at a seafood barbecue and had a lunch of Crayfish fritters, garlic Scallops, and garlic Mussels - TAS-TEE! We also met an Irish couple (Ken and Lorraine) who have been to a lot of the places we are planning to go to and updated us on the hip-hop-happening places to go in South-East Asia. So here we are now in the campsite - the fridge is up to full strength again, the beers are nice and cold, Su has had the hot shower she has been looking forward to since Wellington, I've got the blog up-to-date, we're both healthy and happy and life is good. We're treating ourselves to a meal tonight so fish and chips it is. Hope everyone is getting on well at home and you're enjoying the updates! Be sure to leave comments - it's always nice to hear from everyone!

Kaitoke Regional Park and Rivendell

2008-01-19T23:24:00.003-08:00

The plan was to go to a place called Paraparaumu today, which is the principal town of the Kapiti Coast, and spend some time on the beach but the weather was so miserable by the time we got there and after driving around for two hours trying to find a campsite we decided to cut our loses and have a look on the map for another campsite. We found one in a place called Kaitoke Regional Park which seemed about 40 kilometres away and after consulting our guidebook we discovered that it was where the Rivendell scenes from Lord of the Rings were shot (this won't mean a thing to a lot of you). Anyway, we headed off and perhaps three hours later, after driving through some of the most mountainous and winding roads I've ever been on, we got there. And just to reward us for our strenuous efforts, the weather cleared up just as we got there! The campsite was pretty reasonable aswell and had a power socket (so I could charge up the laptop) and an outdoor kitchen with barbecues. We had a quick drive around to find the part of the park where the Rivendell scenes were shot...

If's it's not recognisable it's because they built a big scaffold towards the right of the river where the set was - you might be able to see it on the photo of the notice board below...

... and then we found our campsite for the night and cooked dinner on the barbie provided. This evenings meal consisted of a starter of around 4 beers, followed by steak seasoned with salt and pepper, sliced barbecued potato slices, carrot sticks cooked in oil and balsamic, and barbecued corn on the cob cooked in butter. Dessert was the starriest sky we've ever seen and a glass of wine or two while watching the Lord of the Rings (part 1) on the laptop. Scene of the crime so to speak.

The next day was a scorcher aswell so I decided to have a dip in the morning.

The water was unbelievably cold but there were people watching so I forced a smile for the camera.

Off to Wellington now for a few days before heading to the South Island on the ferry. More to follow from the South Island and please keep leaving the comments - it's great to hear from all of you!

Ohakune, Waitonga Falls, and Gravity Canyon

2008-01-19T23:24:00.001-08:00

Su recently got a new camera so we were a bit snap-happy lately. As New Zealand is such a beautiful country and the area we are in is particularly beautiful, it is proving very difficult to sort through which photos to post up on the blog. I think this photo does the place justice though:

The reason Su is standing beside a massive carrot (by the side of the road incidentally) is because we have travelled through Ohakune which is the North Islands top ski location and also New Zealand's carrot capital. Don't be fooled though - the carrot in the photo isn't real - I have broken teeth to prove it.

We were feeling particularly energetic (must be the mountain air) so we decided we would trek to Waitonga Falls. The photos in the information centre we went to were spectacular so we decided it was worth the expended energy. After a stunning walk of a whole 40 minutes (well... it was uphill) we finally got to the Falls:

You might notice a distinct lack of water here - so did we. I might photo-shop this photo later to add in torrents of water. It was a nice walk nonetheless and besides, this is the view we had from our camper van the next day:

I also promised in the last blog that I would show a better photo of Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom to those film fans) and here it is - again partly obscured by cloud but that's as good as it got:

We passed by a bungy place on our travels called Gravity Canyon. As we were walking up to have a look before deciding whether to actually partake, we saw an old man and his son (in his 30's I'd say) come towards us deep in conversation. The son was saying "So the cable is faulty! Wow!" before looking up at us and saying "Oh hello there!" with a big smile on his face. Joking or not, that was enough to put us off and doubly so when we saw this:

The old guy seemed genuinely disappointed when we said we weren't doing it.

We stayed in a place called Hunterville that night - which had a free campsite. I think it also had a pub.

We are off further south tomorrow for some beach-side fun!

Waitomo Caves and Mount DOOM!!!

2008-01-19T23:22:00.003-08:00

Another busy day today - yesterday we hopped in Hyacinth and drove from Rotorua to Whakapapa village (and ski resort). We had a battery problem with Hyacinth so we had to go to a garage for an hour or two so our fridge would work for more than a day - it all worked out fine though and it seems to be functioning properly. Waitomo caves is the home of glow worms in New Zealand. To be honest I had reservation about how interested I would be about seeing Glow worms in their natural habitat but I must admit they were spectacular - like seeing the night sky right up close (that's about as lyrical as I wax I'm afraid). Su wasn't impressed with the post-larval stage of the glow worms which looked like big spiders but at least I got a good laugh at her being at the edge of the boat cringing at the sight of them. We couldn't take any photographs of them so no photos for this part unfortunately.

Next we drove to Tongariro National Park as I had a bee in my bonnet that we were in New Zealand and I still hadn't seen one Lord of the Rings site. We made our way to Whakapapa Village, which is a big skiing area, to see Mount Ngauruhoe which is Mount Doom for all you Lord Of the Rings fans. The clouds were pretty low so it's barely recognisable but if I get a better photo tomorrow I will update:

On our way to our campsite for the night (more steak and spuds!) we saw a sign for a trek - being the energetic sorts that we are we decided that after a lunch of noodles (25 cents!) we would hike out to Tawhai falls. It nearly killed us - I wouldn't advice mere mortals to take this walk but myself and Su managed it and it was well worth it in the end:

I tell you - 20 minutes hike is far too much. We were in need of a stiff drink afterwards.

Great!

Triple By-Pass and afterwards a big Fry-Up

2008-01-19T23:22:00.001-08:00

A lot of photos here folks so it could take a while to download! Today was a day of activities so we went to the Agrodome just outside of Rotorua and took a few years off our collective lives. First we went Zorbing - for those who don't know what Zorbing is - it's basically jumping into a rubber ball within another rubber ball and being fecked down a hill with a load of water thrown in. Both myself and Su decided to do our Zorbing separately - I though I'd kill Su with my weight and general bigness and Su thought her sharp elbows and knees would render me half the man I used to be. So after a long enough wait we Zorbed! Su's Zorb ball wasn't too transparent so you couldn't see here through it but here's a photo of her afterwards. She's so cute:

I should just mention that the title of this blog is called "Triple By-Pass" because we decided to do a 3 in 1 deal which got us a Zorb, a Swoop, and an Agrojet in one package - all will be explained. With Zorbing, there are three ways you can do it - one being strapped in with a harness (which we couldn't do that day), one going as a couple going straight down the hill (which we decided against for reasons explained above), and one which is a single Zorb on a zig-zag track down the hill. We waited for a lot of people doing it before us and not one had gone off the track. Then steps up McGrath:

I wasn't suppose to go over the hump. It turned out ok though - I was perfectly in control...

Zorbing is great!

Believe it or not, Zorbing was the least terrifying part of the TRIPLE BY-PASS!

Next we moved on to the Swoop. Sounds innocuous but it's not. You are put in a sleeping bag together (don't worry - we were fully clothed) and raised over 40 meters into the air by a cable and then swung at over 130 kilometres an hour over and back. I hope these photos do it justice - looking a Su's face in these crack me up every time.

Someone has to pull the cord to begin the Swoop - if Su had to do it we'd still be up there:

Terror!

Good craic!

We went on the Agrojet after that - which I think is a jet powered boat. The pictures don't really do it justice but it reached up to 100km per hour in 4 seconds. Here's a photo anyway. We are going to do it in Queenstown when we get there which is supposed to be even better (so we hear):

After all that we decided it was time to relax so we went to to Waikite thermal baths for some sun and relaxation. These springs come out of the ground at around boiling point and are cooled by being sprinkled up in the air and collecting in a pool before trickling down into baths at around 38 degrees. I knew it wasn't time for my 6 bi-annual bath but I went anyway. Here's a picture of the boiling stream and waterfall leading down to the baths:

Right - enough was enough. Time to get our grub on so we went back to the D.O.C site and after getting our lake-side camping site we cooked up a storm on the free-to-use public barbecue. We had steak - we had spuds - we had carrot wrapped in tinfoil cooked with balsamic.... heaven!

I mean, with a view like that out your kitchen, could you go wrong?

Cape Reinga and 90 Mile Beach

2008-01-19T23:19:00.001-08:00

We took a bus tour today to Cape Reinga, on the northern tip of the North Island, and what a trip it was! We started off way too early in the morning (7:30am for Gods sake!) and stopped off at Puketi Kauri Forest to view the giant kauri trees - not the tallest trees in the world but the biggest in terms of timber (according to the tour guide). The ones we saw weren't massive but back in the day they were bigger. Here's a photo of a tree!

We then hopped back on the bus and worked our way up to Cape Reinga with our tour guide giving us snippets of information about the region and New Zealand in general - most of which I can't remember. At Cape Reinga we took a short walk to the cliff top underneath a nice little lighthouse (automated - looks a bit like Valentia) and we saw where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific ocean.

The Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean are an hour out of sync (so I'm told) and cause the meeting place to churn up, as you will see in this photo at the top:

We then hopped on the tour bus again and drove along a quicksand stream at Te Paki to see the giant (and I mean giant) sand dunes. Everyone grabbed a toboggan and began the long climb up to the top of the nearest dune and pelted down on our stomachs. You can go up to 80 miles an hour if you don't put on the brakes (i.e. dragging your feet). I decided to give it one more go and I was so knackered afterwards that that was that. It was hard work. The shutter speed in my camera is so quick that the following photo of me and Su barreling down the sand dune makes it look like we are stationary.

Remember kids, speed kills.

Anyway, covered in sand we hopped on the bus again and took a short journey to 90 Mile beach. Funny story - 90 Mile beach is actually more like 60 miles in length - the person who named it often mixed up his 9's and 6's and hence 60 became 90.

Actually I don't know why it's called 90 Mile beach but it is in fact more like 60 miles in length. You can see another rock with a hole in it but it's a different hole in a different rock to the one we saw in the last report.

We then heading homewards and stopped off at Mangonui for something they call Fush n Chups in New Zealand. Not sure exactly what it was but it seemed like some type of small marine creature battered in... ehhh.. batter and serves with thinly sliced potato sticks fried in oil. Yum! Actually not a patch on Burdocks chipper in Dublin but it did the job!

We got home to our car park after a busy day and open a nice box of wine (so much better from a box) and chatted til the early hours (around 11pm). A day of driving ahead of us as we are leaving Paihia and the Bay of Islands and off to Rotorua, roughly 500 miles away! Woohoo!

DOC Holiday

2008-01-19T23:18:00.001-08:00

Woohoo! After roughly 500 miles of driving we arrived in Rotorua in the evening. Our initial plan was foolproof - we'd hit Rotorua in the evening, find a car park like we did in Paihia and camp out for the night and save some money. For those of you who don't know, the camper van has two batteries - one for the automotive part of the camper (like a car) and one for the fridge, indoor lights, water pump etc. This battery only lasts for about 2 or 3 days (or so we were told) so it needs to be recharged as a camper van site - which costs money - roughly 30 - 40 dollars a night. These sites have running water, showers, kitchens etc so even though our battery had run out while we were in Paihia, we thought there'd be no point in booking into a campsite in Rotorua in the evening as we wouldn't get the full benefit of the facilities unless we got there early. So, the plan was to find free parking. We stopped into the local i-Site which is the tourist information office in Rotorua and I asked the young girl behind the counter if there was anywhere we could park up for the night. She told me that it was illegal to park within the city overnight and that we'd have to find somewhere outside the city. Hmmm. "Well, ok, can you tell me where we can go outside the city then?" I asked hopefully. "No." she said. I then noticed a certain slackness of jaw on this young girl that I hadn't noticed before. "No?" I asked. "No." she said flatly again. I'm nearly sure I noticed a perceptible blob of drool seeping from the corner of her mouth as the blank look in her eyes got more and more unfocused. Right - so, you've been very informative Ms. Information Office worker. Thanks.

We were in a dilly of a pickle at this time as it was starting to get dark and we thought we might have to bite the bullet and pay for a camp site (can you imagine!). We had heard that the Department of Conservation in New Zealand had camping sites littered around New Zealand and we were under the assumption that these would be very basic and would cost money but would at least be cheaper than a powered campsite so we went to an internet cafe and got a list of them in the area (not sure why the i-Site didn't have this info???). The nearest one was around 40 kilometres away and the light was fading so we hightailed it out of there and went in search. We weren't expecting much. This place was on Brett Road outside of Rotorua - no offence to Brett but the name doesn't inspire visions of lake-side beauty!! We thought we would be in a car park in the middle of a forest with maybe a tap for water. After driving down back roads for about half an hour with the light fading extremely fast we pull in to the D.O.C site. For 6 dollars a night, this is what you wake up to:

New Zealand rocks!

Around Bay Of Islands and Dolphins

2008-01-05T21:41:00.001-08:00

We got up early today (well, 8am is early to backpackers) and took a tour on a catamaran around the Bay of Islands. First off we encountered a pod of Bottlenose dolphins which was pretty cool. Normally we could have swam with them but there was a new born dolphin there and it's illegal to swim with them if that's the case. Nevertheless, it was great to see them do their thing - although it was difficult to get a good photo with the digital camera with the delay. However, Su managed this one which was pretty good:

I then discovered the video option on my camera so ended up taking a good bit of video footage - once I get hooked up to a decent internet connection I will post it up.

We went around the different islands around the Bay of Islands - the day was a bit overcast so we didn't get too many good photos but the ones we took of the Hole in the Rock (which is a hole in a rock) came out ok. The first one is from outside and the second is from inside:

We off on another trip to Cape Reinga and 90 mile beach tomorrow so hopefully there'll be another update soon!

Hyacinth Bucket Goes to Takapuna Beach

2008-01-05T21:40:00.001-08:00

Well, we got our camper van two days ago - our home for the next 40 days or so while we tour around the rest of New Zealand. We said a sad goodbye to Hastings and our excellent hosts Martin, Catherine, Sam and Bodhi (the dog), aswell as my parents (hi guys!), and heading off to Auckland to pick up the cheapest camper van we could find. We decided to give the van a name as it's supposed to be good luck and seems to be the done thing these days (we need all the luck we can get with this van, that's for sure). Anyway, we decided on the name Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet), a) because it's a Toyota HIACE (hence HIACE-cinth) and Bucket because it's a heap of junk with something like 350,000 miles on the clock. It seems to work fairly well though so fingers crossed.

We drove northwards from Auckland to Takapuna beach for our first night. Takapuna beach is near lake Pupuke (I'm not making these names up) and Pupuke is not pronounced Poo Puke (as in crap and vomit) as we found out. The campsite was right by the beach and quite relaxing but not mad exciting really. The view was nice but the weather was a bit overcast. Anyway, here's a photo of Su sitting outside with Hyacinth:

We stayed two nights in Takapuna to get ourselves sorted with food and essentials for Hyacinth and then drove early this morning to Paihia which is on the Bay of Islands. Poor Hyacinth struggled with some of the hills on the way - scary stuff. We've booked two tours over the next couple of days (one that brings us around some of the islands and lets us go swimming with dolphins and one that brings us along 90 mile beach and we can go sand tobogganing). We plan to take loads of photos over the next few days so I'll update the blog as soon as I can. Cheers!!

New Years night and New Years day

2008-01-01T17:32:00.001-08:00

DRINK! It's a terrible thing. However, tradition is tradition so we thought we'd go out for New Years night and get hammered. We decided on a quaint little Irish pub in Havelock North called The Rose and Shamrock. They had a "Pimps 'n' Hoes" fancy dress night on and all the bar staff were dressed either as a Pimp or a Hoe naturally. I was asked by the manager to take my baseball cap off as they were not allowed on the premises - while the nice Playboy Bunny and S&M bar girls pulled beer. Seemingly dressing like a gimp is one thing but baseball caps are just a step too far. Anyway, undeterred we got down to the job in hand and drank Pilsner and wine like it was going out of fashion. As you see by the photos it was a good laugh (excuse the redness of the eyes in the photos - I think my camera is fecked...):

Thanks to Dad for coming to our aide at 3am when there wasn't a taxi to be found. We were gibbering messes by that stage so I can't imagine how we would have got home if he didn't give us a lift.

The next day the sun was splitting the stones and just in case we didn't have enough of beer, a decision was made to have a dinner of beer can chicken. Basically, you get a chicken and a can of beer. Drink half the beer and shove the can up the chickens arse, rub marinade on the outside of the chicken and cook in the barbecue on a lowish heat for 2 hours. Sounds mad (is mad) but tastes great!

You can see the can sticking out of the bottom of the chicken if you look closely.

We hope everyone has a great New Year!

Happy New Year!

2007-12-30T17:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everybody from myself and Su! It's raining here today in Hastings so it's going to be a day in front of the T.V, with myself and Su cooking everyone a beef and Guinness casserole later. Then it's off to a pub in Havelock to bring in the New Year! Hope ye all have a good one!

On a Mission to The Mission

2007-12-29T22:57:00.001-08:00

Martin and Catherine got us a voucher (100 dollars!!!!) for The Mission Winery for Christmas so we thought that today would be the perfect day for a nice lunch (well, it has been overcast and raining for the last few days). We've been visiting a few wineries over the last few days (it's free booze basically - all you have to do is pretend you're interested in how it's made and stick your nose in it before you drink) and The Mission winery also has a very nice restaurant overlooking the vineyards - lunch came to 106 dollars so 6 dollars for a nice lunch (it'll be the last time we go out for lunch in a while I reckon), was exceedingly good value :)

The winery used to be a really bonefide Mission in the late 1800's - I think - something like that. Anyway, we both had Ostrich - like little medallions of steak really - very tasty. Between the bottle of wine we had and the dessert wine (I had ice wine and Su had their Gold medal Semillon) we were nice and toasted. We still had room to share a dessert between us. Yum!

Chocccccclatttte!!!

Christmas in Hastings, New Zealand

2007-12-29T22:56:00.001-08:00

First of all we'd like to wish a belated Happy Christmas to everyone back home and abroad! The last few days have been been very busy and boozey so I've been a bit lazy with the blog - however here's a quick update of the last few days. We started Christmas with a lovely Christmas breakfast on the patio in the sun. It's was fantastic! Pumpkin fritters with bacon, poached egg, tomato, and hollandaise sauce - as Su says "To die for!".

Definitely the first time we've ever had Christmas dinner on a patio! We could get used it...

We exchanged gifts and we made out like bandits - woohoo!! We bought Baby Sam a Huge Hefner style silk dressing gown (smoking jacket really) from Thailand. He'll be the man about town next time he's at Mother and Baby group. I think Sam has eyes for Su - he keeps smiling at her - that won't do. Here's a photo of the Christmas tree with Sam's smoking jacket hanging up. I think his Dad was a bit jealous he didn't get a bigger one for himself. In fact, I might get one next time we're in Thailand.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the gifts we've received - both the Christmas gifts and the going-away gifts. We've made out like bandits and we appreciate it a lot. You're all too good. We'd also like to thank everyone who made it to our going-away bash - with people making it from as far as Athlone and even Spiddal! Fair play to all of ye - it really meant a lot. There is far too many people to thank individually but we must thank our parents, both Su's and mine for all they've done for us leading up to this - you've been outstanding!

A Whole lotta shakin going on

2007-12-22T23:23:00.001-08:00

We were sitting down to a nice dinner of nachos, chilli, guacamole and sour cream two evenings ago. It was Dads first time eating chilli in... well.. ever.. when the whole house started shaking. It lasted for about 30 seconds and it turns out that we had just experienced our first ever earthquake, and quite a large one at that - 6.8 on the richter scale - about a 10 on the sphincter scale. The epicentre was about 50 miles offshore of Gisborne, which is north of Hastings (where we are). There were no casualties in Gisborne although there was 30 million dollars worth of damage - but I've taken some before and after photos of the mayhem in Hastings.

Brace yourself now...

My mother commented that that was the last time that Dad was going to be allowed to eat chilli.

Napier

2007-12-22T23:22:00.003-08:00

We took a trip to Napier the day yesterday to have a quick look around. Napier is the nearest seaside resort to where we are staying in Hastings. It was devastated by an Earthquake in 1931 and was rebuilt in the Art Deco style that was popular around then.

Today was spent by the barbecue - eating burgers and drinking beer with some of Martins friends. We then played poker and I got my ass kicked. Rain is promised tomorrow so it could turn out to be an Irish Christmas after all!

Auckland

2007-12-22T23:22:00.001-08:00

After a 12 hour overnight flight we arrived in Auckland in the evening time. We were pretty wrecked so we didn't get to see much. We had a quick wander around, had a beer, bought some wine and went to bed. We did manage to snap a photo of the Sky Tower in Auckland before getting the Naked Bus to Hastings the next morning:

You don't actually have to be naked to take the Naked Bus - it's just a cheap way of getting around New Zealand. We had an 8 hour bus journey to get us to Hastings but with the scenery on the way, and the frequent breaks in every major town and city on the way, the time flew.

We arrived in Hastings to stay with my brother Martin and his lovely wife Catherine, along with their new baby Sam and Bodhi the dog.

After a lot of beer and even more sleep we woke today refreshed an raring to go. This didn't last long as the jetlag kicked in but we all managed to hop into Martins car and we took off to Te Mata Peak. We say Tomato, they say Te Mata. The view from there looks over Hawkes Bay (nice wine region) and was just spectacular. Here are some photos from Te Mata peak:

On the way home we stopped to have a beer (yes we drink a lot of beer) and also stopped off to a place called the Strawberry patch where you can pick strawberries if you feel energetic. We didn't, but they also do ice-cream cones with fresh berries mixed in which we indulged in. So sightseeing, beer, and ice-cream all in one day - pretty good.

East Railay and Tonsai

2007-12-22T23:19:00.001-08:00

Active morning today for myself and Su. We took at walk to East Railay today. East Railay isn't as idyllic as West Railay but it's a bit cheaper. It doesn't have a sandy beach but has a mangrove swamp - which makes chilling by the water a more difficult experience. It's still very picturesque though as can be seen by this lovely photo taken by the even more lovely Su:

After wandering around East Railay for a while I found what I had been looking for since getting to Krabi.You can't stay in Thailand for any length of time without seeing places like the place we found, but the prices vary from place to place. I think the photo explains nicely what I'm talking about:

2 Baht a minute is great value for Happy Special Time, although I reckon if you were to spend a lot more time looking you'd find it even cheaper. The only possible drawback is that the minimum time is 10 minute - not a problem for me. 10 minutes flies by for my Happy Special Time. All in all, that place was the cheapest internet cafe we found.

After getting back from East Railay we took a sea kayak and paddled our asses out to a nearby beach called Tonsai. A lot quieter that Railay, Tonsai attracts a lot of backpacker climbers. Very nice quiet beach and to prove there are climbers - here's a photo!

There! And you thought I was lying.

Nothing much else to report really - paddled back to West Railay, had something to eat and tried to lay on the beach before it started to rain again. Apart from our first evening here, it has rained to some degree every evening. We actually went to get dinner with an umbrella. In all fairness, if we wanted rain we could have stayed at home. I'll have to write a letter to the man in charge. On the upside we spent the rest of the evening watching movies and drinking cans of Chang so how bad?

Ao Nang

2007-12-22T23:18:00.001-08:00

We left the comfort of West Railay beach today and ventured out by longtail boat to the wilds of Ao Nang (about 10 minutes away) to do some shopping. Longtail boats are called longtail boats because of the long propeller at the back. They are very loud and bellow black smoke but they look really nice.

We got a photo leaving West Railay beach so you can get an idea of the size of the surrounding cliffs - the area is very popular with climbers - we saw some guy clinging half-way up one of the cliffs today - he didn't get too far before he saw sense.

Not much to say about Ao Nang - lots of shops selling t-shirts and souvenirs. It also rained A LOT! Heavy showers which didn't last too long but would drench you if you got caught out in one. The only sensible thing for us to do was to find a restaurant and have lunch - the cheapest one we've had yet! Lunch over, we hit the beer and sat there drinking, chatting, and making plans until the rained stopped (a few hours later!). It eventually stopped as the sun was setting so we hopped on the boat back to Railay.

Bangkok and Krabi, Thailand

2007-12-22T23:17:00.001-08:00

Our journey begins! Up at 4am after about 2 and a half hours sleep we got a lift to Dublin airport from Su's brother Pete (fair play to him for getting up!) and we boarded our flight to Heathrow and then to Bangkok. I don't know if it was the boring 10 hour flight but after a while you start to people watch (well I do anyway) and we couldn't help but point out the dodgy looking characters that looked like they were on their way to Bangkok for only one thing (and we're not talking about the cheap tailoring). There was the guy beside us who only started talking to Su as soon as I got up to go to the loo (after about three hours on the flight), there was the guy in front of me who looked like he was hooped up on goofballs, and then there was the guy across the aisle from me who stank of booze (nothing wrong with that) but had the blanket over his head for most of the flight. I assume he was trying to sleep but the inflight movie was Ratatouille and Dad pointed out that maybe he was afraid of rats. Made sense. Anyway, we finally got to Bangkok airport (the new one - it's amazing!) and after a big wait at immigration we got our shuttle bus to the Novotel airport hotel (2 minutes away). My parents who joined us on the first leg of our journey were staying there and flying out to New Zealand the next day so we thought we'd join them and fly out to Krabi the next day. The hotel was pretty impressive but also pretty expensive for Thailand. Still, after 10 hours on a flight with little sleep on the flight or the night before, it was great to get to the room, open a bottle of wine, drink it and crash for a few hours. That night we met up with the folks and went to the Oriental hotel for the River Terrace barbecue. I'd highly recommend visiting the Oriental hotel just to see how plush and impressive it is - I'm sure it must cost a fortune to stay there and the Riverside Terrace barbecue isn't cheap either (I think it was about 40 euros per person) but it's a fantastic experience. Make sure you go hungry though as the amount to food you can eat is astounding. I did make a pig of myself, having a starter, sushi, a fish dish, a plate of meat including duck, lamb, steak, and chicken. And about three desserts. I could have had more but I didn't want to embarrass myself...

Next day we hung around the pool back at the airport hotel for a while before checking out and heading to the airport for the next part of our trip. We got my folks checked in to their flight to New Zealand and boarded our flight to Krabi.

As you can see from the photo, I still have the paunch from the night before - normally my belly doesn't look like that - I swear!!!

It was dark by the time we arrived in Krabi (only and hour and a half flight from Bangkok) and we had a driver pick us up from the airport - just as well we organised that as it seemed pretty remote. He took us to a port and we hopped into a longtail boat which took us directly to West Railay beach and our hotel. It was such a shame it was dark as it would have been a fantastic photo coming in on the boat, and seeing the beachfront directly ahead surrounded by cliffs. Here's a photo of the beach during the day with the longtail boats waiting to talk people to the surrounding resorts:

and here's one of the cliffs on the other side of the beach:

We were welcomed to our hotel, The Sand Sea resort with a nice chilled glass of apple juice and shown our hut which has a lovely fan and a loo with a hose to clean yourself with after using it.

Here are a few more photos - one of the path to our hut and one of the pool (it's shaped like a foot!).

Well, that's it so far - got nicely burnt today by the pool so the bluey white glow from my skin should be gone in no time. I'm drinking about 3 or 4 litres of water a day (on top of the beer) just to replace the sweat that has been bucketing out of me since getting to Thailand. Chang beer which is the cheapest is about 6.4% alcohol and very drinkable, especially after the 3rd one. Our plan for this evening is to eat. The pressure is killing us. More later!

First Blog!

2007-11-07T14:43:00.001-08:00

Hello! And welcome to my blog. Myself (Pete) and my sidekick and better half Su are heading away on a year long backpacking adventure, starting December 5th. I hope to keep an account of our journey away as a way for friends and family to keep in touch with what we are at. I will be (hopefully) posting photos of where we go and of people we meet along the way. Over the next month we will be preparing to get our life packed away into a backpack each and off we go! This will involve leaving work (last day tomorrow! Woohoo!), selling our cars, renting out the house, and leaving our 3 month old son (Nigel) off at the orphanarium. Only kidding about that last part - we're leaving him with our neighbours Tracey and Anto. Again, only kidding, Nigel doesn't exist. So, feel free to drop in occasionally to see how we are getting on. Cheers!