Cycle touring - western Europe

We flew to Frankfurt Hahn and biked to Amsterdam through Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Here's a simplifed map of where we went:


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As you may notice, we chose the countries that are a) flat and b) well known for great cycle paths. Neither of these facts turned out to be strictly true! Therefore, add at least 50% to the distance...

After re-assembling our bikes, the first few days were cruisy (~50km/day) up the hot Mosel River valley. It's a well known wine growing area and has a brilliant cycle path, which was well frequented by wine-tasters.

Near the Germany border, at Trier, we met Claudia (one of Mark's climbing friends from Edinburgh) and Julian. We had a day off cycling to look around at old Roman ruins, including an amphitheatre, plus get caught in a thunderstorm (the first of many along the way). I was touched that the people next to us at the camping ground took in our washing when it started to rain.

Julian cycled with us through Luxembourg. While we'd got by on our limited Germany before, now it was super confusing because every person seemed to speak a different language. We now know how to say 'cycle path' in nearly every one of them.

Julian was trying to travel very lightly, and amused the other residents of camping grounds with his bivvy bag. He also had to completely dismantle his bike into his Tardis to take it onto the train.

We then progressed over the border to Belgium and entered Bastogne. This was the setting for Band of Brothers, the war drama series Mark and I watched recently. I don't see why they found keeping the Germans at bay so hard, as here I seem to be stopping this tank quite easily.

From Bastogne we headed north to La Roche, at the heart of the Ardennes. We had a day off and kayaked a 10km section of river. Here we are prepared to jump in our boats, dressed in all our safety equipment. Luckily it was about a grade 0.

The Belgians also had some pretty funny looking cycle paths compared to the cycle highways we had everywhere else. Mostly they were quiet roads, but for one ~20km section we ended up mostly pushing along a small muddy footpath along the river bank which ended at one point so we had to push up a hill and through a paddock of cows. Further along we also managed to bike through the middle of a cement factory following our 'cycle route'.

Shortly after entering the Netherlands Mark's camera card died, so we have no more photos. However, the last few days in Belgium and all the way up to Lelystad were pretty straightforward although possibly the hardest in the trip as it was 30+ degrees and we were trying to get in some serious kms. At Lelystad we were extremely grateful to be staying with our friend Mattijn, who generously showed us around and got us eating the local delicacies.

From here it was but a short hop to Amsterdam (actually Ijmuiden - just an unplanned extra 40km cycle, opps!) to catch the overnight ferry to Newcastle.

Cycle Touring - Northern Scotland

Following on from our Hebridian adventures we swiftly embarked on the next leg from Ullapool around the coast to Thurso.

Here's a handy map of where we went.

The geology in the northwest was amazing, with huge slabs and volcanic plugs. Unfortunately unlike the Hebrides this means we had plenty of hills to climb!

Here's an extra-curricular one we climbed on foot. It's called Stac Pollaidh and it's a popular day-scramble. We camped at the bottom the night before. We woke up to a light but consistent pitter-patter on the tent, which we soon discovered was not rain but midges. Uggh.

I'm sure a derailer isn't supposed to look like this. Mark managed to salvage the chain and Sylvia had to limp along the last two days on a single gear.

The decommissioned Dounrae nuclear power station, which was the subject of a facinating museum. It provided (and the decommissioning process still provides) the majority of local employment. Mark was very excited by the chance to touch a real reactor core. The wind turbines in the background provide an interesting comparison.

Fencing Caithness style using flagstones. The quarrying of flagstones is also huge part of the local industry. We went to an open-air flagstone museum.

Thuso, where we ended up for the last three days. We planned to go to Orkney but instead did a little day trip out to Dunnet Head (the most northerly point in Britain).

A video case in our Thurso Hostel.

Cycle Touring - Outer Hebrides

We're briefly back in Edinburgh after Phase 1 of the cycle touring - up through the Outer Hebrides and around the northwest coast of Scotland. This post only covers the Hebridean leg but there will be more to follow.

This was at our first night's campsite. Hopefully not an omen?

Peat cutting is quite widespread in the islands - people cut the peat, stack it to dry, and then use it as fuel to heat their homes during the winter.

There are beautiful white sand beaches all up the west coast of the islands. A bit cold for a swim though.

I enjoyed it more than this photo suggests! Perhaps this was on the day we biked straight into a headwind all day. We were pretty lucky with the weather. In 2 1/2 weeks we didn't get any major rainfall (a few showers) except on the last day and that was a rest day anyway. We did battle headwinds a lot though.

We had some wonderful campsites. The long daylight hours were particularly noticeable in the tent - we could be happily reading inside by daylight at 11 pm. I only saw darkness one time in the whole trip, when I woke up at 2.30 am, and even then the sunrise was beginning.

The slightly undulating, sandy "machair" pasture that tends to lie behind the dunes along the west coast

Welcome to Barra airport - you're looking at it. Apparently it's the only airport in the world with a scheduled service that varies with the tides.

There were other people cycling through the Hebrides at the same time as us. These guys were also travelling south to north at about the same pace as us so we bumped into them frequently.

We camped every night in the Hebrides, except the night we stayed in this hostel (the nearest building). It's a restored "blackhouse" (typical crofter's home until the 20th century).

Carloway Broch - well preserved stone age defensive tower

Callanish Standing Stones

Training wheels

A few weeks back, Sylv and I did a "Training run" for cycle touring in Perthshire. Check out the orange sheep! We saw some of these in Ireland as well. Explanations welcome.

MTB WKND and An Teallach

This week is the first 5-day week I've had in over a month. Frankly, it's Tuesday and I don't know how I'm going to cope. I think my coping strategy will include looking back fondly on good times I've had one some of my recent long weekends.

A couple of weeks back a bunch of us headed up to the Great Glen to stay in a hostel and do some mountainbiking/hillwalking. It was a great group, made of of climbing buddies, workmates and some old friends from home. We cycled at Laggan Wolftrax on the Saturday, and Nevis Range (Leanachan Forest) on the Sunday. Excellent quality Red routes all round! On the Sunday quite a few folks went hillwalking instead of riding. I don't have many photos, there are more on Facebook from other people, but hopefully these give you a flavour of the weekend.

Encouraged by the weather exceeding our expectations, Mhairi and I stayed on for the Monday to climb An Teallach, a classic scramble in Torridon (well up north).

There were interesting landscapes up there.

We soon climbed into the cloud, so never got to see much of what we were climbing. Some attention to navigation was required until we got onto the ridge proper. This is Lord Berkley's Seat.

As we began the descent, we dropped below the cloud and got some views (including being able to see what we'd climbed for the first time). The guys who took this photo were lost and only got un-lost when they heard our voices. They managed to get lost despite using a GPS, and then they lost the GPS. I don't think I would have owned up to that.

Cool rocks, aye!

What we climbed

The second wedding of Mr and Mrs Nix

One wedding is enough for some people, but Jo and Bill decided to have two - one in New Zealand and one in England. We were lucky enough to be able to make it to the second one in the village of Audley where they live.

The venue, along with a couple of local wedding crashers

A path of gravestones!

The weather was absolutely beautiful that day, and has been part of a spell of quite nice weather we've enjoyed over the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately conditions on the motorway weren't as good in the vicinity of Audley and we arrived at the wedding after the bride! Oops. Luckily we weren't the only ones.

The happy couple (Jo still managing to smile for the cameras, what a trooper :-)

I can't take any responsibility for the blurriness of this photo - at this point I disappeared for an hour and was later found at the bar drinking with one of Bill's mates.

The farmhouse B&B we stayed at had all sorts of animals, including a comical pack of dogs.

Ooh, lammy lamkins! (Imagine Sylvia's voice at this point)

It's a glitch in the Matrix. It means they've changed something.

Visitors

Hello again.

In the week up to and including Easter we had some friends come and stay with us. The first ones were gypsy travellers Em and Chris from New Zealand. They are currently living in Norway but were visiting Britain for an Easter orienteering event in Newcastle.

We had a nice day with them out at Glentress Forest near Edinburgh - not doing the usual touristy stuff, but instead a fun-filled activity day of mountain biking, orienteering and walking. Nice :-) Unfortunatly we didn't take any photos of that.

Kiwis galore - L-R, Mark, Chris, Steve, Em, Anitra, Abbie, Ed

Em and Chris were able to give us valuable advice on cycle touring based on their experiences. Eg. if you buy a secondhand old mountainbike, seriously overload it and then ride down really rough paths, you can expect important bits to break.

Mr and Mrs Steve George visited us at Easter. Ele and Steve live down near Wales (sounds awesome!) and came up for Tom's wedding, some hillwalking and of course to see us! A good time was had by all, doing some more traditional touristy stuff on what was actually quite a nice day for Edinburgh.

Edinburgh does get called the Rome of the north, but this piece of faux-classical architecture is actually a Victorian folly (never completed)

Standing on Calton Hill, looking out over Arthur's Seat and the Salisbury Crags

The recently renovated St Andrew's Square

This panarama came out slightly wonky! It's St Mary's Cathedral, and it's right across the road from my work. Despite biking past it twice a day, I had never actually been inside until now. I'm not sure if it's because we're spoilt for cool old buildings in Edinburgh, or because you tend to under-value the attractions of the place you live in, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it's really cool inside. It's quite a modern cathedral by UK standards (late 19th Century, similar age to the Chch cathedral I guess) so had fewer tombs, sarcophagi etc. But it did have soom cool contemporary stained glass. Thanks Ele, for making sure we went inside :-)


It was really great to catch up with some good friends we haven't seen for a while, especially since we're leaving soon and may not see them again before we go. On that note, Sylvia and I both gave our notice at work last week, to finish at the end of May. I guess our travel plans will be the topic of future blog posts/emails but the rough plan is to arrive back in NZ in early October after visiting northern Scotland, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Greece and maybe Turkey and Canada. Whew!

A week in England

A couple of weeks ago we crossed the border to go visit some of our friends 'doun south'. It was a bit of a join-the-dots exercise, and we still didn't get to see everyone we would have liked to.

First up was Cambridge to visit my aunt, uncle and cousin. Mark had only met them at Christmas 2007 when he was very sick so it was great to get to catch up without him trying to cough his lungs out.

From there we swifly moved on to our next university town, Oxford, where we had the privilege of staying at Christ Church College with Helen. Here we are with the grass that you're not allowed to walk on.

She also gave us the grand tour of the city, including the Bodlean library, and a cake that looks very like the Bodlean library (but presumably tastes better).

From here we moved to the illustrious Guildford, where we stayed with Pac, Kristyn and Stuart the rabbit in their lovely flat on the South Downs Way. We borrowed their mountain bikes and went for a little ride and then a little run. We also had yummy raclette. To say thank you we left Stuart a present.

From there we made a lightning quick visit to my uncle house in Devizes, before arriving at the the highlight and purpose of our visit: Swindon. And yes, we did go round and round the magic roundabout (6 roundabouts in one). And yes, we did have a competition to see how many roundabouts it took to get home from the park (26, I won). But that actually wasn't the reason for our visit: our good friend Lindsay was turning 30 and along with a load of other folk we'd made the trek for a wonderful weekend house party to celebrate. Unfortunately we don't have any photos of the event, but be assured it was loud, fun and messy... and that was just Yana.

Deerstalker '09

Well it's that time of year again - the Deerstalker! Saturday afternoon saw us driving down to Traquair House in the Scottish Borders for some running. This year Sylvia did it too, after deciding she could do it better than most of the people she saw doing it last year.

There were two events - the Deerstalker, a "5 km" (yeah right!) and the Mighty Deerstalker at "10 km". We had a few other friends doing it this year as well, including Mhairi.

If you're interested, there are more photos, our places etc at www.themightydeerstalker.com

The setting. The weather was much nicer than last year.

Doesn't she look nice! Let's see if she's still smiling at the end.

The start line for the Deerstalker. The race begins with all 500 entrants charging towards a wall of haybales. Oh, and did I mention that you're supposed to dress in tweed?

Nearly there, just the final bit of uphill finish to go! And still smiling.

The last obstacle. Now the final dash to the finish. The guy in the left of the photo doesn't look so great - do you think maybe Sylvia pulled out a cheeky Hopoate move under that net?

My turn. A head torch is required for the Mighty.

We had to run through this.

And that.

Nearly there... with an explosive exit from the net, I managed to overtake 3 people in the last 20 m.

Flatmate finishers.

Afternoon tea with Alexander McCall Smith

For something different than our usual outdoors adventures we signed up for an afternoon tea with Alexander McCall Smith - the Scottish author of a number of wonderful series of books, including the latest: 'Tea Time for the Traditionally Built' (http://www.alexandermccallsmith.co.uk/Pages/events.aspx).

We weren't quite sure what to expect when we turned up at the National Library of Scotland. It turned out to be a formal sit-down afternoon tea, complete with white linen, delicate tea-cups (with both traditional and red bush tea - which appears in his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series) and cake stands with cucumber sandwiches! It was the first time they'd allowed the drinking of tea in the reading room. Alexander came over and shook hands with both of us.

On leaving, we both got a goodie bag of red bush tea products and were grabbed for a short videoed interview on the event. It was for the history department rather than BBC though so don't look out for us on the news!

Sylvia's trip home to New Zealand

While Mark was enjoying le skiing, I was on four very long flights back to the land of NZ for a full month. It was an amazing whirlwind of family and friends and the best holiday I've had. It was a great combination of relaxing at my parents' house in Rangiora, outdoor activities and catching up with people.

I arrived late on Christmas Day, after joining up with Helen Bones for my last two flights from Hong Kong to Christchurch. My family kindly delayed Christmas dinner so at least I got to celebrate part of it.

I was very lucky and the weather was gorgeous and hot for pretty much the entire time of my stay. Therefore, I made the most of it, swimming at every beach, pool and river I could find. I also managed to get quite a tan.

Highlights included Ruth & Jerry's and Rebecca & Damian's weddings. I was really disappointed that Jo & Bill were to get married on the same day as the latter so I couldn't attend their ceremony but hope to get a second go in a few months here in Britain!

Another highlight was a much-anticipated Milford Track with my Mum & Dad. Although I've always thought great walks were for tourists rather than serious trampers the Milford really was amazing and I'd definitely recommend it. I was also surprised how physical it was - although I haven't carried a pack for about two years so maybe it was just me!

In saying that, clearly not energtic enough though, as right afterwards Andreas and I headed up to Picton to meet Julia and walk the Queen Charlotte Track. We did use the free pack transfers every day, which allowed us to 'carry' ridiculously heavy things.

Unfortunately part of the track was closed (due to some pigs) so we did the three longer days and came out a day early, camped out at Marfells beach and walked/ran into Sawcut Gorge instead.

I also spent a lot of time catching up with lots of my good friends in Christchurch at various cafes, for bruch, for BBQs or for dinner. I played a game of touch with my old team and went for a swim at Jelly Park Pool in the outdoor 50m pool. I organised a little gathering at the Dux as well, where I realised that a disproportionate number of my friends are redheads. Good taste, obviously.

Ski holiday

Hello everyone! After our Bath, we hopped on a bus to London. We had a bit of time to kill, so we lurked around Buckingham Palace for a while before it was time to leave on our coach. The less said about the journey the better - a 21 hour bus/ferry journey is never going to be a pleasant prospect. I did get to see the white cliffs of Dover.

But then we got to Tignes! Tignes in the in Savoie Alps and is quite a high resort (we were staying at 2,100 m) so snow is guaranteed at this time of year. They actually had the best December conditions in 10 years so we were quite lucky. It snowed a couple of days before we got there so everything was nicely coated.

The Eye of the Needle

Quite an interesting mountaintop! Very cool.

The weather was pretty much perfect for our whole trip. The only significant snowfall occurred on New Years Eve (mostly overnight) and I think 5 out of 7 days were like this picture above. It was chilly though (you get that up high in winter!), -10 deg C and below was quite common. I think it only got above zero once at lower levels. Combined with a bit of wind, it got quite cold on some of the longer chairlifts!

Mark and Steve in the Buff


You can daille, or you can diebold. What a choice...

This is as high as you can get without proceeding on foot. To get to the Glacier Grand Motte, we first had to take a funicular railway, then a telepherique (or telefreak), a kind of cable car.

Aww :-)

Jo, Steve and I were in the same instruction group. Here is most of the group. Conspicuously absent are the three Irish girls. They were part of a group of six, and were a real laugh - confirming my belief that the Irish are some of the best people on the planet. And I'm not just saying that because I know Patrick reads this blog.

Mhairi and Helen were in another (expert) group, while Silke was in a higher group again. She was practically worshipped by the other members of her group because she was so good.

A highlight of the trip was the food. Lots of it, lots of variety, and all of it good. Icecream anyone?

Or maybe you'd like to try some cheese.

Our instructor, Olivia, is second from the left.

New Year's Eve. Let's get down!

I said get DOWN!

Oh dear Steve, I guess it had to happen eventually.

There is one highlight of the return journey to London that is worth mentioning, and that was the look on the bus driver's face when confronted with this idiocy:

Driver to passenger who's getting off early: "What side of the bus is your bag on?"

P: "I'm not sure, because we're driving on the other side of the road now"

Thanks guys, for an awesome trip!

Christmas in Bath

I spent Christmas in Bath with Matt and his wife Jo. Steve and Jo Schaab were also there, as were Jo's mum Isabel and Matt's sister Helen. Kerstin, Lindsay and baby Yana joined us on Christmas Day so it was a full house!

On the "balcony" (scaffolding outside their flat to allow work to be done). At least it was warm enough to spend awhile outside with a beer!

Mine, all mine!

Of course, Yana was the centre of attention.

As was this wee guy!

How does the remote work?

Aha, that's got it!

Merry Christmas!

We've been up to heaps of things this year. The last few weekends have been a bit slack, and it's been a while since we went away on holiday so it feels like we haven't done much lately. But when I looked back through the photos it reminded me of just how many great things we've done since we came back to Scotland in January. Here is a selection of our favourite things we've done together this year (in no particular order).

Our trip to Wales. We had a lovely (almost) week in Wales. We also had a great time at Ele and Steve's wedding but unfortunately don't have any decent photos of that!

The Edinburgh Rugby Sevens

Our only overnight "tramping" trip this year, combined with a ride on the West Highland Railway.

Going hillwalking with our workmates

Going south for Easter. We spent time with Sylv's family and got to see the Roman Baths in Bath

Our trip to Germany for Jonno and Claudia's wedding, where we caught up with lots of friends and family

As well as lots of wee things a bit closer to home.

Cycling around the Isle of Arran

It started out with a bit of a public transport mission by taking our bikes on trains from Edinburgh - Glasgow - Adrossan Habour, followed by a 50 minute ferry ride. Then we were off on our bikes! We toured around the road that's in red on the map to the right, starting from Brodrick and going clockwise. With a total of 100km it only took about 2 hours cycling the first day and 3.5 the second. We also got incredible weather (including a fantastic tail wind up the west coast) and it was a fantastic trip.

We particuarly enjoyed our B&B in Blackwaterfoot, including a delicious pub meal and a beautiful sunset. We also did two walks: the first a coastal one to a cave that Robert the Bruce apparently hid in and the second to the Bronze Age standing stones on Machrie Moor. We thought these were just as impressive as Stonehedge, particularly since they are so remote and relatively unknown.

Since Mark was the only one with panniers he got to carry all our stuff. Holy Island in the background.

Beer from the Arran brewery and an Arran sunset

The highest point on the ride. We could hear (and see) stags roaring all around us as we biked up this road.

Some of the stones on Machrie Moor

Ireland

It's been a while since my last post, and in fact it's been a while since I visited Ireland with my folks. For that reason (and because two of our most avid readers were on the trip with me!) I'm going to keep the writing brief and just show a few of my favourite photos.

The Giant's Causeway, of course!

Glendalough, very pretty and home to religious sites dating back to the 6th Century

The round tower and monastery remains at Glendalough

Hore Abbey, the remains of a Benedictine Abbey viewed from the Cistercian Rock of Cashel. Apparently they didn't get on very well and the Cistercian Archbishop was always trying to get rid of them!

Traditional music in Doolin.

The folks as we went for a morning stroll at Monagh Mor, a wee fishing village.

A hill

Cool (random) graffitti in Derry

One of a series of murals depicting the Troubles in Derry, painted by the Bogside Artists

Some of the coastlines were rather spectacular.

Estonian & Lativan adventures

I arrived in Latvia at Riga airport late at night by myself, navigated my way to a hostel and awaited the arrival of Julian and Jana the next day. We hired a huge 9-seater van and made a bee-line straight for Estonia. We picked up a vocal Latvian hitch-hiker on the way.

The purpose of my trip was the World Rogaine Championships (http://8wrc2008.rogain.ee/) in Karula National Park, southern Estonian. For the uninitiated, this involved 24 hours of running/walking/navigating in a team of two (I was in a German team with Jana) to visit as many points as possible spread widely through Estonian bog across a 1:40,000 map. There were heaps of tracks, which mean the course was long trudges followed by brief and terrifying dives into the forest/bog to collect controls.

Jana and I were very pleased with our 70km mission throughout the 24 hours over what was for us pretty unusual conditions. Julian & Em went much further, but were still thoroughly beaten by many Eastern European teams that just seemed to excel in the terrain. Even Chris & Dennis struggled and came 2nd instead of retaining the title.

Following on from the rogaine Julian, Jana, Chris, Em and me had 10 days to explore Estonia and Latvia before I was due back in Riga. We hadn't quite predicted that it would never get above 10 degrees so we'd planned to camp, which we did for the first 5 nights before wimping out and staying in hostels or cabins from then on.

In terms of adventures, we had plenty, including my first attempt at mountain biking with clipless peddles, rowing around a lake, getting lost in Estonian bog (on a tourist track) and bush-bashing for an hour to find a road that was still 3km from our car, exploring Tartu, Tallin & Riga, going to a KGB museum, drinking Riga Balsam (the local poison) and summer bobsledding on a real bobsled track.

Above: our luxious cabin and enormous van

Right: boardwalk Estonian style

Right: Jana with a friendly local kitten

Below: Julian and Jana about to be pulled back up the hill in the bobsled Julian and I mountain biking

I was pleasantly surprised to find Estonia & Latvia are incredible modern and friendly countries. There was cellphone reception everywhere and free Wifi was available in the most obscure places. Things are still pretty cheap too - get in while it lasts!

Aonach Eagach

On Saturday, we (Ben Low, Mhairi and I) headed up to Glencoe for a scramble that Mhairi and I have wanted to do for some time. A scramble is a cross between walking and rock climbing but no ropes or hardware are required if you're confident enough. Basically a good day out! The weather forecast was a bit gloomy but the day ended up being pretty good really - the photos speak for themselves.

The Aonach Eagach traverse takes in four peaks, two of which are Munros, so I have added a couple to may tally. It is claimed to be the most exposed ridge traverse in Scotland outside of the Cuillin Ridge of Skye. Certainly there are some airy bits!

Ben and I met Mhairi at Glencoe, where she had already been on some crazy biking/hiking mission. Check our her blog (the link's on the right) to see what adventures she's been up to!

Italian summer

Last weekend was our girls' trip to Italy. The location was arbitary as the main purpose was to catch up with Julia van Luijk and Jo Drummond (soon to be Jo Nix). We all flew into Pisa, but unfortunately the cheap flights weren't as good to me as they were to the other two so I had an extra day at each end by myself.

I booked myself into a caravan at a campsite with a pool and as it was well over 30 degrees each day passing the time wasn't too miserable...

Julia had booked us into a great hotel in Florence and we had an amazing 4 days, especially since Julia and Jo hasn't seen each other for over a year.


We also attracted the attention of some romantically-minded Italian men (although not the one in the picture above, unfortunately), with whistles etc. Although I'm sure they do it to everyone female and under 40, it was still quite flattering and/or amusing, such as the one who clasped his chest theatrically and pretended to faint while saying oh my heart as we walked past.

One more sustained attempt was a man trying to convince me to go swimming with him. He didn't speak any English and I don't speak Italian so it was all charades and guesswork, although he said mare, mare so much I worked it out and said the sea, you mean the sea! which comically meant he thought I was agreeing (i.e. si si!). Luckily, eventually he gave up.

This is a photo of the Arno River, which runs through the centre of Florence. All the bridges but one were bombed by the Germans during the war.

On our last night we took Jo out to dinner for her birthday at a nicely authentic Italian restaurant and then as we were strolling through the sultry evening air we stumbled across this guy busking. He was doing excellent covers of Simon & Garfunkel. He had a girl singing with him too but they had an argument and she stomped off, much to the amusement of the crowd.

This is some tower I saw in Pisa. The only way to get a photo like this is to be walking to the airport at 7am in the morning before any of the lazy tourists are around. I couldn't believe I had it to myself!

Wales

Sylv and I recently spent a week down in Wales. We were camping, so we were particularly happy to have a week of pretty good weather! We started iwith a couple of nights in Conwy, North Wales, then headed down to Snowdonia for a couple of nights. We then spent two nights at Newport on the North Pembrokeshire coast before heading across South Wales to Ele and Steve's wedding in Gloucestershire (subject of a later post).

I'll let the photos do most of the talking.

The mighty Welsh dragon!

Caernarvon Castle

Beaumaris Castle (on the Isle of Anglesay)

I would pour boiling oil on this guy - the gate had a mechanism for doing just that!

Conwy Castle in the distance, from the (largely intact) town walls. It was great how the castle and walls were integrated with the modern town.

Allegedly the smallest house in Britain ,build up against the outside of the town wall.

A 4000-year old copper mine that you can go inside! It's amazing what was achieved digging with bones and antlers. We really enjoyed this. Sylvia enjoyed wearing the hard hats most of all.

A beautiful setting, our camp site in a field at the foot of Snowdon.

We didn't get snowed on on Snowdon, but didn't get much of a view either.

Sylvia's works' parent company is Carillion. Here they are making a mess on the summit of Snowdon. I think it's disgraceful - if you think so too, you should email Sylvia to complain.

At a hide in a nature reserve. We saw very few birds apart from swallows, ducks and a couple of tits but the walk around the salt marsh and forest was pleasant. Good way to break a long car journey.

The North Pembrokeshire coast is spectacular. We walked a day of the 10 or 12 day Pembrokeshire Coastal Path.

Sylvia just loves hard hats! Continuing our Hard Hat Tour of Wales, we went to Big Pit, a former colliery in Blaenavon. It closed in the 80's and is now the National Mining Museum of Wales. We went down the pit on a tour guided by a former miner who was a real laugh. It's not so deep (only 100 m or so underground I think) but is called Big Pit because the main shaft is so big. There are kilometres of underground workings. There are also good exhibitions and an excellent audio-visual display. It really gave a good impression of the society based on the mines, and the culture of the miners that still exists today.

Mark's birthday party

I don't usually make too much of a big deal about my birthday, but this time I decided to have a party. It was fun! Unfortunately Mhairi couldn't make it, but even without her friends we still managed to get a cozy party going with about 30 people crammed into our living room. There wasn't too much in the way of drunken frolics. I mean this literally, there wasn't too much, but of course there was some, including the most impressive wedgie I have ever seen. I can provide further details on request and I believe the ripped undies are still lurking in the rubbish bin somewhere...




Now some photos.

Sylvia made me a cake! This photo doesn't nearly do the decorating justice. Isn't she clever :-)

Mmm, yummy!

How clever are YOUR feet?

I don't know who invited these guys. I didn't, and Sylvia doesn't think she did either. At least they didn't steal anything.

Mt Blanc

Ahh, Chamonix. Mountain sport Mecca. Mountain biking, walking, rock climbing, mountaineering, paragliding - or just riding in a cable car from 1000 m in the vally floor up to 3000 m + peaks!

Normally you can ride a combination of cable car and funicular railway up to about 2,200 m but both were closed when we were there so we had to walk from the car park at 1,100 m to Tette Rousse hut at 3,200 m in an afternoon. This was actually Lindsay's preferred option - he called it "doing it properly", or something like that.

Heading off

The first 1,000 m or so was wooded and we had quite nice weather too.

The Chamonix Valley. By this stage it was getting quite showery and cloudy - quite common in the Alps, and particularly in June, and particularly June 2008. Apparently no-one had climbed in the 30 or 40 days before us because the weather and conditions had been so poor. That didn't bode well.

Partly because of the weather, I didn't take any more decent photos that day. This is taken from Tette Rousse hut looking up at the Grand Couloir. Gouter hut sits at the top skyline. This section of climb was actually the most technical of the trip - at times I felt that if I had been carrying a second tool, I would have used it. The route actually crosses the couloir then goes straight up the snowy line of rocks on the right. In normal conditions it is not nearly as snowy but there is a much higher risk of rockfall - the couloir has a somewhat fearsome reputation (undeserved when we were there).

This is a piss-sicle. Hmm, I think I'll choose a different flavour thank you. Facilities at the huts were more basic than I was expecting - perhaps because of the conditions, and being early season (Gouter hut wasn't even officially open), there was no water available. Not even for washing your hands. Drinking water had to be purchased at the astonishing rate of 5 euros for a 1.5 L bottle! And we each got through a few of those. We would have brought up a stove if we'd known. The crappers at Gouter hut were simply holes that dropped shit onto the rocks and snow below (I didn't take a photo). I assumed that the fragile mountain environment was the reason why camping is not permitted but this made me wonder!

We climbed from Tette Rousse up to Gouter hut (approx 3,200 to 3,800 m) the day after we arrived. We thought we'd be a bit pooped after our efforts the previous afternoon to attempt the summit, and the weather forecast was better for the next day besides, so we just had an easy day. As it turned out the weather was quite nice though apparently quite windy further up (no-one summited that day).

The rest of the pics are a mix between that day and our aborted summit attempt the next day. We got up at 2 am but it was snowing and blowing, again at 4 am. It had cleared by about 5.30 am but was a bit late by this stage to be making a summit attempt plugging steps in fresh snow (and possibly still quite windy further up). Everyone else (all guided groups I think) headed back down but we still went up a few hundred metres for a look.

That's Dan in the foreground. His alter ego, Dave, caused all sorts of trouble.

As it turned out, we got to 4,050 m, only marginally higher than on our recce the previous day! I discovered this sneaky crevasse in our path and we decided it wasn't really safe to continue. This was actually all we could see of it (just a little dimple from a few metres away) so I guess I was lucky to spot it. We had made a tactical decision to not take a rope, instead relying on following everyone else's footprints up the mountain over the glaciated terrain. Unfortunately, as the only ones up the mountain that day, we had no footsteps to follow!

It was a little disappointing not to make it up, but not altogether surprising, and we could take some comfort from the fact that noone else made it up while we were on the mountain. Most people who are serious about climbing Mt Blanc will plan to hang out in Chamonix for a week or more waiting for good conditions and weather, and the conditions and weather were pretty pooey, even for early in the season. Oh well, perhaps another time!

I had a great trip still, and I think the others did too - cheers to Lindsay, Dan and Matthijn for a cool experience.

I'll leave you with this photo posted to me by an anonymous Swiss security camera operator, that appears to show a man leaving a women's toilet. Any ideas who this might be?

Schweiz

This time last week, I was relaxing after decending 3,200 m down Mt Blanc in a day. But before we got to Mt Blanc, there was a boys' trip across Germany, Switzerland and a corner of Austria to get to Chamonix, France!



We travelled in style in Lindsay and Kerstin's Wohnmobile (campervan)

This photo was posed - actually there was complete harmony in the campervan, and definitely no finger pointing. Except, perhaps, when we supported a team other than Holland in the Euro Cup! As it turned out, taking pity on Matthijn and supporting his team turned out to be a good move as they've ended up top of their "pool of death", beating two recent champions in the process. So there you go.


I had heard that Switzerland was beautiful, but wasn't quite ready for just how green and mountainous it was in the South. Waterfalls galore!






They like to paint marks on rocks in these parts, or even directions! We climbed a mountain called Grassen, nearly 3,000 m.





Grassen is a bit further around to the left. In the saddle ahead, we met several groups, all roped (and presumably guided?) I think they were laughing at us for climbing without ropes, and in t-shirts, shorts and not the latest seasons' gear. We thought they were funny for using ropes.






The peak with the sun on it is called Titlis. It has a cable car going all the way to the top - like lots of European mountains. There is often an easy way but we always seemed to be walking...






On the way down.




We also based ourselves in Grindelwald (near the Jungfrau) for a couple of days and did two half-day walks. The scenery was stunning and we got our first close-up views of glaciers. Unfortunately we were quite early in the season and there had been lots of snowfall in the spring/early summer, so the mountain huts and routes weren't really open. This put the kibosh on our loose plans of climbing the Jungfrau.

The north face of the Eiger, a climbing route of tragedy and legend! Not really in condition when we were there.

Yes, the cows really do have bells. More amusingly, so do the sheep.

The next post will move on to France - in the mean time, Lindsay has done a post on our trip as well, check it out at this link (or by clicking on his blog on the right)

Edinburgh Rugby Sevens (a pictorial blog entry)

Adventure Race!

A couple of weekends ago Mark and I competed in our first adventure race down in glorious weather in the Lakes District. I was 5 hours long and set out like a rogaine: collect as many points as possible in the time. The tricks were:

- One side of the map was mountain biking, one running
- We had to collect controls from both in the time
- We could only transition once
- We didn't know how many points each control was until the start
- Some controls were worth 0

We ended up biking for 4.5 hours and then sprinting for 30 minutes to make sure we got some running controls. We thought we'd done okay, but obviously need to practise our tactics as we came 25 out of 35 teams in the mixed pairs. We made a couple of navigational errors (beacause our maps were duct-taped to our bikes rather than on fancy map boards) and I was a bit wimpy on the single-track sections. Also, Mark didn't have a bungy on his bike that I could grab on for a pull up the hill like the other mixed teams (and some of the girls had a harness for a tow in the running sections as well!).

For more details check out http://www.openadventure.com/open5/index.htm


Our results print-out

My car with our hired bikes (disc brakes!)

Hillwalking at Glen Lyon

Tramping has many different names in different parts of the world - in Britain it's called hillwalking (rambling in England, perhaps where there aren't any real hills involved?), in Australia it's bushwalking, in North America hiking.

Anyway, I organised a hillwalk with a bunch of my workmates (and a few of Sylvia's) at a place called Glen Lyon. It's a seldom visited part of Scotland, but it's hardly remote, lying in the southern highlands - I think it's the long, windy road that puts people off more than the remoteness. It was certainly worth the journey though!

I won't harp on about it but here's a few pictures. Photo credits for some go to Eric.

The famous five go hillwalking! It was quite a steep descent back to the car.

Sylvia's workmate Shehu shows us how it's done in style.

Rannoch Moor and Glencoe (scene of a previous blog post) in the background.

Loch Lyon

Sylvia demonstrate how to bum slide when there's no snow. The only spaniards they have in Scotland are the two-legged variety.

Mainz

Our last stop (as you'll know if you are still refering to the map several posts back) was Mainz, for no reason other than to visit my favourite ex-flatmate in the whoooole of Germany, Andreas. Unfortunately due to all our previous adventures we only had two days to catch up on a couple of years' worth of gossip, but Andy kindly took the days off work so we had plenty of time to reminise.

One of the highlights was visiting the Rhine Valley for the day, where we saw some truly cool medieval ruins and not-so-ruins (like the house below from 1323, which is still in good form, as long as you're not into straight lines). We also walked up a NZ-style path (with rocks! And narrow!) to a castle called the Schönberg, which was indeed very beautiful.

Following this, Andreas took us bouldering at his local wall, which had loads of great easy and easy-ish routes. We found a favourite climb and played 'who can climb this the fastest' - Mark won with 4.45 seconds.

To top it all over, Andy cooked one of my favourite German dishes - Spätzle - which I fondly remember from our flatting days at 7 Lyall Place, Bryndwr. Here's him showing how much energy goes into good German cooking:

Freiburg

Guten Tag, I hope you enjoyed the train ride from Konstanz (2 changes) to arrive in the pleasant university town of Freiburg.

Freiburg is very close to the French border and lies at the southern end of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest). If you look back a couple of posts, you'll see a map showing exactly where it is. This is what Freiburg looks like.

We stayed with Julian and Jana in their swish apartment with its comfy IKEA fold-out couch. Julian finds it a bit small by NZ standards (well, NZ not living in an apartment standards) but it is actually pretty cool, quite a bit of space for a one bedroom place and it has a BALCONY! Ah, if only...

One of the many outdoor activities you can enjoy on Freiburg's doorstep is mountain biking in the Schwarzwald. Here is Sylvia on Jana's new bike - before Jana even got to use it! Fortunately she didn't write it off.

We went out for dinner one night at the Kartoffelhaus (potato house), where pretty much all the items on the menu are based on the humble spud.

Sylvia also made a very yummy Schwarzwalden Kirchtorte (Black Forest Gateaux)!

We came across Stefan's Stuntman Supershow on the streets of Freiburg. We watched, unsure what was going on, as Stefan rode a bike through a (polystyrene) brick wall and other such feats of superhuman strength and bravery. Jana got to throw marshmallow chocolate eggs at him too, though had to pay a euro for the privledge. It turned out that it was Stefan's stag do (not a protest against something, though apparently it's often hard to tell the difference).

While we really enjoyed staying with Julian and Jana, we had planned to do a trip away somewhere for at least a night from Freiburg. Unfortunately the weather didn't really suit those plans so we limited ourselves to day trips. We visited Triberg (below) which claims to have the tallest waterfall in Germany. I guess it depends on your definition, but it seems to me to be cheating when it's in fact a long cascade! It was very nice though, and the train journey on the Black Forest Railway was worthwhile in itself.

Lake Constance

The next stage in our German adventures was Lake Constance, properly called Bodensee. To continue with the thoroughly organised trip reporting, here's a map of where we went around the lake:We decided to splash out and stay in hotels, which was great when it rained all throughout our first evening/morning in Friedrichshafen. Also, our shy 'Sprechen Sie Englisch?' was met with a firm 'nein' so we spent quite a while translating the hotel instructions on what we were and weren't allowed to do and most importantly, what time breakfast was. The breakfast buffet was great - cheese, meat, bread, nutella..

The following day we caught the ferry to Konstanz (see photo left), at the head of the Rhine and the border with Switzerland. Our next hotel had a fantastic with a view over the lake and even a wee kitchen (where we cooked white asparagus - no-one told us you were supposed to peel it first). The downside was the free food this time was another German speciality - McBreakfast! Yes, vouchers for the McDonalds. We were tempted not to use them but being the stingy kiwis we are we just couldn't resist the free-ness of it. Mmm lardy.

All the McFat made us decide we needed some exercise - so we decided to bike around an arm of Lake Constance. Actually, there's a great track that goes around the whole lake. It's mostly off-road on dedicated cycle paths or on quiet roads through amazingly picturesque towns. Also very well signposted, although we still managed to get lost at one point (see the squiqqly bit on the map above). It was a decent 75km ride on our hired bikes (8 Euro each for the day, what a score!) and certain parts were pretty sore by the end. Very sore, actually.

We also thought it was pretty cool that we spent half the day cycling in Switzerland, and half in Germany (there was no border control). The two photos here are us making a border crossing in Konstanz....

The next day was a bit more relaxing with a ferry across to Meersburg in the sunshine, a wander around the town there and a beer by the lakeside. We then decided to rough things up a bit by hiring a boat. I think we'd envisaged some speedy double kayak, but we got a peddle boat which took almost 20 minute at top Mark&Sylvia peddle speed to reach the Swiss border about 200m away. We tried chasing a swan but it lazily outswam us. The most fun was avoiding the ferries.

After two full days in the glaring sunshine we were actually starting to feel it, so Mark turned into the peddle boat Ninja by putting his polypro on his head. The swans weren't impressed.

Guten Tag!

We've just come back from two glorious weeks in Germany! We went to four main places, as illustrated in this nice simplified map:

We started out in Munich for Jonno and Claudia's wedding. It was a bit of a kiwi-fest, what with staying with Kerstin, Lindsay, baby Yana and Jo & Steve and hanging around with Julian & Jana as well. We spent a good deal of time getting well acquainted with the German traditional biergarten. Mark also liberated a mega 1L drinking stein from a particularly memorable biergarten under a pagoda during a thunderstorm.

The wedding itself was lovely - it wasn't the actual ceremony, more like a party but with German wedding games and songs and poems about the happy couple (mostly in German, but funny none the less). Claudia looked absolutely gorgeous in her dress and Jonno looked pretty hot too (sorry about the fuzzy photography, I blame the champage):

We did plenty of sight-seeing around Munich as well. Especially cool was the permanent wave in one of the rivers, which people surf on all the time. It was quite fascinating to watch.

After five days in Munich we already felt that we'd had enough wurst, cheese and good German beer to last the rest of the trip, so off the Lake Constance we went for some serious exercise ...(you'll have to wait for the next post to hear about this).

Old rocks and Easter eggs

For Easter we flew down and stayed with my Uncle and his family just out of a small town called Devizes. They were amazing hosts and we were really glad we went.

The Eastery bit came with spending some quality time with my family, and their two cats and four gerbils. We also got to do a bit of sightseeing, with some of the highlights including:

Avebury (old rocks #1):







Stonehenge (old rocks #2 - sorry no photo as we did a drive-by)

Salisbury Cathedral (old rocks #3):

















Roman Baths (with Ele & Steve) (old rocks #4):

















Nothing to do with rocks, but the cats 'watching gerbil TV':

More climbing

Steve and I went off climbing again on the weekend before Easter. It was a similar format as the last time - Saturday in Glencoe (Stob Coire nan Lochan) and Sunday on Ben Nevis, except it was a lot whiter this time so proper winter climbing all round.

Unfortunately we never really got a decent freeze so conditions weren't that great - made for quite tricky conditions but luckily Steve was there to lead the harder bits (thanks Steve!) and we had a good trip.

It was my turn to forget my camera so these are all Steve's photos. It was also my turn to hurt myself so I whacked myself on the finger while driving in a piton. Ow!

The Mighty Deerstalker

Mark entered in a 10km race. It wasn't just a boring, ordinary 10km race, oh no - this involved big hills, scree, obstacles, ponds, rivers, culverts, dark, rain, strange costumes, oh, and it wasn't really 10km, it was a bit longer. Welcome to the Mighty Deerstalker!

I was the support crew and so I enjoyed my book and cup of tea in the light drizzle at Traquair House (the oldest inhabitated house in Scotland, did you know, and visited by 28 kings!). Luckily it was a good book because when the 1st wet and muddy runner came in a long 1hr 24 had passed.

What was even more amazing, was that shortly after the first runner (22 minutes to be precise), Mark came in, finishing an incredible 31st out of 525 finishers (never mind those losers who didn't turn up or didn't finish), which was seriously spectacular. I was so proud he even got a congratulatory hug in his wet, muddy, cold and sweaty state. Mmm.

I've stolen some photos off the Deerstalker website so you can see what fun he had on the course (http://deerstalker.cmsdevsite.com/):

Climbing Scottish style

Steve and I headed off climbing for the weekend. Because it's been quite a mild, dry winter (generally), it's almost like late spring conditions in the mountains. Consequently we climbed a rock route (on cold rock) on Saturday and found some ice high up on Ben Nevis on Sunday.

Buachaille Etive Mor is the striking mountain that grabs your attention when you turn from Rannoch Moor westwards and enter Glencoe. Like a sentry in a way - a big fat one.

It has some classic rock (and some winter) lines in gullies and on ridges. We climbed one of these classic scrambles, Crowberry Ridge, but via a technical start up a classic rock climb called Agag's Groove.


Another pair of climbers on neighbouring Curved Ridge, another classic scramble. It's a great atmosphere, since you're already a long way up by the time you start climbing proper. Very airy.

It was this big! Actually, this photo was taken beforehand, but this was about the size of the rock that Steve pulled down on himself while seconding on Crowberry Tower. We estimate it weighed several hundred kilos, it didn't do much good for his hand or his shoulder. I was a bit worried at the top - no vocal communication, just a fall on the rope and then the sounds of a mammoth rock crashing down the gully! Steve, hard man that he is, was OK.

Interesting rock formation.

Sunday - we climbed Glover's Chimney, this is the final mixed pitch. 150 m climb my arse! My rope's 60 m and we climbed well over 3 rope lengths. It was quite a busy day on the relatively small number of climbs that were "in", so we saw lots of other teams.

The descent, Number 4 Gully. Took a bit of finding (asking) in the low visibility on the summit plateau.

Our route is the obvious line in the centre.

Schiehallion

Hilary and Andy visited us a few weeks back, during the last couple of weeks of their around-the-world trip. They did choose a fairly miserable few days (weather-wise) to visit us but at least it did mean that we had some snow to go walking in! We picked a nice day and headed up Schiehallion. It's quite a popular climb, and a Munro (ie. mountain over 3000')



We had a nice day for it, windy and cold, with the clouds coming and going, but at least we got some sunshine :-) The snow was shin deep with drifts up to knee deep. Fortunately it is a popular walk, and we started quite late, so 20 or 30 people had already plugged steps for us!

The ruins of a farmer's croft. Imagine what life must have been like living in a draughty old stone building like this, the winters used to be a lot snowier and colder in the Highlands too.

Unfortunately it clouded over by the time we got to the top so we didn't hang around too long. We got lots of nice views on the way up.

Hilary and Andy had ditched all their mountaineering gear once the left South America. Andy was able to borrow a pair of my boots but Hilary ended up looking like a bit of an amateur. Disappointing really. Actually, we all did - everyone else had at least walking poles and generally an ice-axe as well. I suppose when you throw away your old stuff and get the latest model of everything each year, you want to make sure you take it for a walk, otherwise you haven't had your money's worth!

It's said that cold weather significantly improves friction for bouldering, but I think Andy really struggled with the conditions.

He even fell into a crevasse!

Mmmmm! Beer.

I hope this blog post finds you well. More exciting mountain adventures in the next post.

Singapore

OK, so it's been a while coming - but here's Singapore! Sylvia and I stopped off for two nights in Singapore on the way home. It would have been good to stay a bit longer because it's a cool place and there's heaps to do there, but we wanted to spend the maximum time in NZ. So much world, so little time...
It would have also been good if we wanted to buy stuff! I got the impression that there were plenty of deals to be had. But we already have all the cheap consumer electronics we want/need, didn't need any more clothes after restocking our supplies in New Zealand. Sadly, we could have availed ourselves of the cheap alcohol but were only scraping through on our baggage allowances as it was.



Here is the view out our hostel window. Probably quite a familiar Asian alley scene to many travellers, though ours was quite quiet and pleasant since our hostel was out in the 'burbs. The windows normally stayed shuttered to keep out the heat of the day but I just had to fling them open to see what was out there!





Our hostel was a fair way out Serangoon Road. Maybe it was a bit cheaper being a bit further out, but it doesn't really matter. The hostel had a friendly, laid back vibe. I wouldn't rate it if you're after a party hostel, but if you're after somewhere pleasant and relaxing to base yourself then check out "The Hive". Being out in the 'burbs meant that it was a wee walk into town, but we soon figured out that we were only 10 mins walk from a MRT (subway) station. The subways and stations - in fact everything in Singapore - is remarkably clean, especially in comparison to British cities, which are a little, umm, dirty.

The hostel was on the edge of Little India and we took a walk through on the way into town. We walked past both of the temples above and one of them had a festival on - the street was absolutely crowded day and night from the evening after this photo was taken. I didn't take a photo, but part of the processions seemed to involve people walking inside huge jangly mini-floats that were suspended from their skin with hooks. They didn't look like they were enjoying it much and were walking very carefully.

No, thank you!

Singapore's skyline is quite modern and some of the architecture was impressive. These buildings were particularly cool. The Chinese New Year celebrations were approaching when we were there, hence the decorations.

They did seem to have a thing about putting holes in their buildings so they could squeeze in a garden. We saw a couple of buildings like this. Changi Airport also has lots of vegetation and water inside it. It was by far the nicest airport either of us had been in (although Schipol in Amsterdam is pretty cool too).

We saw these tortoises at the Botanic Gardens, our compulsory stop-off on the dirt-cheap (because we flew Singapore Airlines) bus trip around the city. I didn't have the heart to tell him he was 90 degrees out, I'm sure he can figure it out for himself.

One of the biggest tourist attractions in Singapore (apart, perhaps, from Orchard Road shopping and Sentosa Island themeparks) is the Singapore Zoo. It is very big, but it's also very sensitively designed. A lot of the time the animals wouldn't know you're there, and they have made good use of moats, low walls, and other more natural types of barrier. Not so much of the pacing, frustrated-looking animals which was nice. This is a spider monkey I think?

I also quite liked the ring-tailed lemurs and the flying foxes. I was also impressed at how bats can fly around you at such high speed almost - but never quite - flying into you all the time.

The white tigers are united in their disdain.

The award for "cutest animal" should probably go to the mouse deer. They're not actually deer but look close enough. They stand barely a foot high.

If I'm descended from apes, I hope it's not this one. My what a big red bum you have! All the better for...sitting on? His appearance actually reminds me of someone but I'm not going to say who.

Located adjacent to the zoo, and conveniently opening just when the zoo is closing, is the Singapore Night Safari. This is possibly the coolest thing we did in Singapore. We thought we might have been zooed out after three hours in the zoo but we weren't (though we did have sore feet after a day walking around!). Cool shows, a very well laid out network of paths through all the enclosures and clever lighting made for a fun evening. No wonder it's won heaps of awards.

Singapore is a very regulated nanny state in some regards. Littering? That'll be $500. Spitting? The same. Carrying a durian on public transport? No fine specified but just don't do it, OK?

It is a real melting pot of cultures and seems to have all the barely-controlled street chaos of an Asian city, but in a slightly more regulated way. For example, how many people can you carry in the back of a ute? 13 in this one apparently!

Keep your eye on this blog as more posts are likely to follow in quick succession. Upcoming features include:

- Hilary and Andy visit us, and just what exactly is a Schiehallion?

- Mark and Steve go climbing. Why won't Steve ever be allowed to go climbing with Mark again after last weekend, and is "thrutching up a dirty chimney" as rude as it sounds?

Stay tuned...

Visitors in our own country!

Actually, Sylvia was officially a visitor in NZ, since she was travelling on her British passport she only got a stamp for a six month stay. Not that that was a problem, we sadly only had 16 days in the country...

It was great to come home for a bit of summer and to catch up with so many friends and family. It would have been nice to have been able to spend more time and catch up with more people! Oh well, next time. We had a fantastic time back home, I can't be bothered writing any more right now so I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Thanks everyone, and enjoy the rest of your summer :-)

(Unfortunately I don't have any photos of Rachael and Richard's wedding, the main point of our return! Perhaps I'll add some later)

Walking in the cold

A lot of locals would consider it strange to go hill-walking (tramping) in the winter, particularly on a day that sat mostly at or below 0 deg C. However, while it provides some challenges and hardships to be endured, there are also some rewards!

Steve found a sausage in the car park. Apparently it has paedophile glasses.

Grave of Rob Roy. His epitaph, 'Macgregor Despite Them', refers to a royal edict banning the use of the clan name.

The remains of the chapel beside his grave.

It is also the traditional seat of the Maclarens, and the Boar's Rock (Creag an Tuirc), meeting place of the Maclarens and also their war cry!

Nice view from the Boar's Rock.

Once we got up a few hundred metres, we entered a world of mist and whiteness.

Christmas in the winter

A unique concept: Christmas when it's actually cold, there's a real possibility of snow, mince pies and mulled wine keep you warm and the Christmas lights illuminate your way home. Also, in Edinburgh, Christmas announces the arrival of the German market and ice-skating in Prince's Street Gardens.

I had a moment's reflection at the absolute beauty of the city when I was biking home (in the cold, wet and dark) and an explosion of fireworks began above the castle. It was the most amazing sight and I wish I'd had my camera. The celebration was St Andrew's Day (Scotland's patron saint) and so I went to a celebratory Ceilidh later on that night with Allie (one of my workmates) and Abbie (from NZ). There was blue and white everywhere and Abbie and I collected a little paper Saltire (Scottish flag) each to wave around.

Amsterdam: red light, anyone?

Last weekend we went to Amsterdam. The bus to the airport actually took longer than the flight, something that us kiwis still find amazing. After locating our hostel, we immediately caught up with the lovely Julia van Luijk (and her boyfriend Alex), who is studying there. It was handy having someone who spoke the lingo, although all the dutch spoke beautiful English and apparently are not insulted by rude tourists who don't learn dutch before they go.

The following day we explored some of the multitude of canals including the Grachtengordel - the ring of three around the city centre that were built in the 17th Century. The most amazing thing was the huge number of bikes parked just about everywhere. They were mostly what we'd consider old fashioned ladies bikes and none of them really looked new but they were all locked because apparently bike thievery is even more rampant there than in other parts of the world.

We caught up with Julia again in a real cafe (something that is lacking in Edinburgh) before braving the queue for Anne Frankhuis (Anne Frank's house - the one with the green doors in the photo to the right). It was surprisingly large inside and took up two stories; for some reason I'd alway imagined it would be small and poky. Still, it was pretty sad and thought provoking. To cheer ourselves up we went for a delicious home cooked dinner at Julia & Alex's apartment.

The following morning we checked out the Coster Diamond Workshop (Mark refused to by me a £5000 necklace, talk about stingy!) followed by the History Museum, which kindly had lots of signs in English. It was pretty cool to learn about the city, including that it's built on a giant bog, which kind of explains why some of the houses are a bit wonky. They have to put piles 13m down to sand and gravels (which aren't that stable either).

Following this we decided some more culture was in order so we went for a jaunt around the red light district. We'd be warned that the colours around the windows with the girls in them meant different things, and sure enough, the blue lights indicated that they weren't girls at all...

We're arranged to meet Pascal and Kristyn (recently arrived from NZ via the States) early that day but had missed them, so luckily managed to meet up in the evening for a spot of dinner. On our last day we went market shopping with them (and found some humorous shaped chocolates that Kristyn just couldn't resist taking photos of - check out their blog for those) followed by a 75 minute canal ride.

I also caught up with Julia for a last minute goodbye coffee. Hopefully not a goodbye for too long though!

Munt tea, anyone?

Homeward Bound

Hello, just a quick note for those who didn't already know, Sylvia and I will be back in New Zealand on January 4th. We'll be around for a couple of weeks, flying out again on the 20th. We're returning for my sister Rachael's wedding and will probably spend a lot of time in and around Christchurch (especially around the wedding on the 12th). We'll also be in the Takaka area at some stage to visit Sylvia's folks at their place up there. Apart from that, we're not sure what we'll be up to but we'd like to see as many of you who are in NZ as possible!

We'll be using our old cellphone numbers while we're in NZ and those, or email, will probably be the best way to get hold of us.

Personally, I'm quite keen to get out for a few days in the NZ outdoors and get my fix of sunshine and NZ landscapes before heading back to the depths of a Scottish winter, anyone else keen? I was wondering about doing something, perhaps a terrorist training camp, in the Kahurangi area to tie in with visiting Sylv's whanau.

Anyway, there is bound to be an email with more details closer to the time. See ya!

Limestone, Yorkshire Puds and Rugby

Three go for a stroll down a country lane

We drove down to Yorkshire to meet our friends Ele and Steve last weekend. The plan, since they live in Bristol, was to meet halfway. Unfortunately for them, it was half-term holidays in England with associated motorway chaos. So our 3 1/4 hr drive was a bit shorter than their 5 1/2 hr drive - unlucky, guys.

I used to work with Ele at PDP, and was pleased to find when I arrived at Dalesbridge that she is as mental as ever, despite having a chest infection. Her mum's family is from around that area so she knew the cool places to go.

The accomodation was bunkhouse-style (4 bunk beds) and reminded us of school camps! Lots of fun (if a little noisy from the neighbours and the plumbing - nothing the earplugs couldn't fix).

On Saturday we went for a bit of a stroll. The weather was beautiful for October and a great day for exploring some traditional English landscapes and local geological features.

Gordale Scar is a sharp gorge with a waterfall. Scrambling up through the gorge was more challenging than we'd expected (English hillwalking, anyone?) and particularly sterling efforts were made by Ele (breathing difficulties) and Sylvia (still only one serviceable arm).

Another characteristic of that area is limestone pavements. According to Steve, a great way of crossing boggy ground. It was disturbing how many of the big bits of rock actually moved though, and made quite a noise banging against one another. At one point we were making a bit of a racket - Sylvia pun - "We could start a rock band".

Cool drystone walls too - as you can see in the photo.

The rugby world cup final on Saturday night was great fun, Sylv and I were the only ones there supporting South Africa. Ele and Steve are quite into their rugby and I'm sure that if Steve had been the video match official then England would have got that try ;-)

Sylvia and I were constantly amused by place names like "Gayclops" (a gay guy with one eye?) and "Giggleswick". But on Sunday we had lunch with Ele's Mum and Gran at Giggleswick and had a great time (and great meal). Ele got a hard time from the staff for not liking carrots and swede ("Oh look, the girl who doesn't like carrots and swede finished them all. Or did you give them to someone else?") and her coughing ("Cough it up! It could be a gold watch"). But it was a yummy and traditional Yorkshire Sunday roast, with Yorkshire puds and all. I had to ask Neil why he had never cooked Yorkshire puds in all the time I lived with him, and he responded that maybe it was because we didn't have proper pud tins - apparently most of the flavour comes from never washing them.

I was feeling greedy so had a cheese selection for dessert, I hadn't expected so much though! Must have been several hundred grams of cheese, including some local varieties (Wensleydale, and Stilton from a bit further afield). Fortunately I had some help to eat it all so didn't suffer from cheese dreams.

A very narrow (historic) bridge in Yorkshire

The afternoon found us feeling lazy and sleepy, so we took it easy on the drive back to Edinburgh, stopping off for a couple of hours in the Lake District on the way home.

Thanks Ele and Steve for a great weekend :-)

Three Munroes in One Day

A Munro is a mountain over 3000', and the sport of climbing munros is called 'Munro Bagging'. While I wouldn't want to be known as a Munro Bagger (since there are lots of worthwhile hills less than 3000') I suppose if you're going to do one...

It was nearly four, but we didn't climb the Devil's Penis because we might have ended up quite shagged. The final list was Beinn Bhrotain, Monadh Mor and Cairn Toul. While three 3000' mountains in one day might sound impressive, of course there was only about 300 or 400 m of drop between each one, I think I worked out that we ended up doing about 1,500 m of climb in our day.

We climbed more than three peaks, but there are some complex rules about how much vertical drop, and horizontal distance, there must be between any two peaks for them to both be considered Munros. Our three are all in the Cairngorms, within striking distance of the Brown's house in Braemar - the strike in question being a 1 1/4 hr scenic bike ride up the Dee river.

As you can see from the photos, we had a bit of cloud about and compass navigation was required a couple of times. It's quite a barren landscape when you can't see much but the views certainly improve with a good opening in the clouds.

By the time we got to the bottom of the Devil's Penis, we knew we were already short on time - following our descent, we had a 6 km walk/run back down the Dee to where we'd stashed the bikes, so regrettably would have to leave the ascent of that protuberance for another day. As it was, we just got back in time to watch Scotland beat Italy in the World Cup, and for a yummy dinner cooked by Sylvia :-)

Mhairi gazes longingly at the Devil's Penis

Fortunately we stopped long enough on our slog back down the river to catch this view! This is the route followed by the Lairig Ghru, the route from Braemar to Aviemore throught the Cairngorms.

Go Black!

Well, actually silver, since the All Blacks played in their alternate strip against Scotland in Edinburgh. This blog entry is being written in the aftermath of New Zealand's early dismissal from the World Cup. In the interests of not rekindling anyone's pain, rugby will be mentioned no further in this post.

Lots of friends came to Edinburgh from all over the UK and beyond for the game, in fact the vast majority of kiwis that I know in the UK were here. Andrew Macklan and Mark Mayo stayed with us for the weekend, and we also caught up with (hope I haven't forgotten anyone): Tim and his mate Cocksy, Mike and Heather, Eyk and Tim, JP and Bernie, and Cynthia. Also Ed and Abbie, who have just moved to Edinburgh and happened to arrive that weekend! Some of these people are in the fuzzy photo below, taken at an Indian restaurant where we had a good discussion with the owner on the footpath outside the restaurant over the bill.

Here are some more photos of some other dodgy characters.

We all had a great weekend and it was fun to catch up with so many friends at once. Mark and Andrew particularly enjoyed spooning on our lounge floor.

(Photo credit Mark Mayo for the stadium photo)

It was raining heavily. Five hours later, it was still raining heavily, but the scenery had changed - I had finished my bike ride from Glasgow to Edinburgh.
I was doing it with 4 of my workmates for charity, although waiting for the bus to Glasgow at 6am on a Sunday, I was feeling less inclined to be charitable. A huge delay in our bikes arriving into Glasgow also dampened already sodden spirits. However, with over 3000 people participating, it was hard not to be infected by the enthusiam. There were children and not-so-fit types as well as the usual lycronauts, so we didn't feel outclassed. It was an 88 km route, following roads and cycle paths and minimal hills (except for the killer up from Queensferry), with 4 yummy food stops along the way, which I took full advantage of. By the end, I was completely soaked, but thankfully not sore or even particularly tired. I'm even thinking I might do it again sometime (maybe without the ridiculously early start).

The Rain in Spain...

...falls mainly on the plain. Or something like that. At least, it didn't fall anywhere near Andalucia anyway, and we enjoyed 8 days of fine weather :-)

We got cheap(ish) flights direct from Edinburgh to Malaga return, so this dictated our itinerary to some extent - not that we cared about that, since Malaga is on the coast and we were keen on some beach (in)action. Here are some highlights from our trip.

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Shadecloth over

shopping streets

Our Hostels

View from the hostel -

more mortar than brick?

Picasso's Corner in Malaga was quite a nice place - medium sized, as far as hostels go, and located in the best part of town for travellers. It had a wee bar, free internet, and the rooms didn't have too many beds in them. For a couple of nights we had an English girl called Lindsey in our room. She's going to Bristol - why does everyone either seem to be from, or going to, Bristol these days? Anyway, Lindsey took this nice photo of Sylvia and I on our way down from the Castilla on top of the hill above Malaga central.

Our hostel was located next to Plaza Mercad, and when we were there they were celebrating 20 years of sister city-ship between Malaga and Passau in Germany. So there was a stage, sound system, outside bar selling German beer, and heaps of guys walking around in Lederhosen drinking lots of beer before they played their horns. There was also a high school jazz band called (I'm not making this up) "wet and easy". I suspect that something got lost in the translation.


In Granada we stayed at the Funky Hostel. It was lots of fun - small, with facilities in proportion, but it had a great rooftop terrace with a bar that everyone hung out in for the earlier part of the evening.


The Gypsies of Sacramonto

Sacramonto caves

Here is a picture of Sacramonto in Granada. It is a small suburb of cave dwellers - you want another room in your house? Dig one! This is where the Gypsies live. You can see them in the touristy areas of town handing out sprigs of rosemary (quite forcefully - they seem to have trouble accepting that you don't want their crappy rosemary). If you accept one, you will find yourself getting your palm read before you know it. And of course you're then expected to pay them, and believe me, whatever you give them won't be enough, in fact it will be insulting to them and they'll get quite agitated. It was quite amusing to watch silly tourists falling for this scam.


Sylvia and Mark Get High - Again

Refugios on Mulhacen

We headed up into the Sierra Nevada (only an hour from Granada) for a day trip up Spain's highest mountain, Mulhacen (3,480 m). The bus only ran once a day in each direction so it was quite a short day trip and we had to run some of it, but it was worth it to get away from cities for a day and get some bracing mountain air. It was 30 deg C during the day in Granada, but would have been only about 15 deg C up Mulhacen.


It was surprising how much the thinner air affected us, both of us found ourselves breathing noticeably harder than we would expect for the moderate level of exertion, and I got a bit of a headache. Probably a bit of dehydration too, as you can see in the photos it's an incrediby dry place at this time of year. There is a big ski resort that runs up here in the winter though.

The old stone refugios were cool too, most were in better condition than the ones in the picture.








The Alhambra


The Alhambra of Granada is a large palace/fortress dating from about the 10th century. It was originally a castle (alcazaba) overlooking the town, and was developed later as a palace complex for the Moorish rulers of Al-Aldalus once they shifted camp there. Parts have been chopped and changed around a bit, and after the Catholic monarchs Fernando and Isabella captured Granada in 1494 during the Reconquista, Carlos V decided to demolish a bit to build his imposing palace.

It's a pretty cool place - said to be the only remaining example of a mediaeval Islamic palace anywhere - and a lot of people queue for hours in the morning to get tickets. A lot more miss out. We're smarter than that so we booked our tickets beforehand. We still would have had to wait 1/2 hour to pick them up, but we'd just booked the queue when some official came over, grabbed us out of the queue and told us to follow her, took us to the front of the queue and in we went. I still don't know what happened there!


The Alhambra has a good mix of history, gardens, extensive water features, views and impressive (yet impressively plain) architecture and art. We seemed to be the only people in Granada who though it was good but not mind-blowing. We think we've maybe been spoiled by some of the cool places we've been and things we've seen!



Hanging Out

Bullring in Malaga

The best thing about our wee holiday is that we managed to strike a good balance between relaxing and doing the touristy stuff, by only visiting two cities we avoided spending all our time on buses.


We spent quite a bit of time on the beach in Malaga but also enjoyed just hanging out in the cities, poking our noses into little streets and plazas, and sitting with a beer or an icecream and watching the world go by. Our modest level of Spanish was generally enough to get by and it was good fun practicing what we'd learnt!


Hasta pronto, Espana

The Queen in green

We dived into some real Scottish culture on the first weekend of September by attending the Braemar Highland Games and ceilidh, staying with Mhairi's parents again. It was an absolutely party, with 11 people in the house. They had a bit of a sing along on the last night and sang Pokarekare Ana to us, which made me cry a bit! It was so wonderful to feel so welcome so far from home.

For those of you who don't know what ceilidh dancing is, it's a bit of an extreme sport, involving jumping around and flinging your arms at other people a lot, all in a highly organised manner (to reduce the injuries I suppose). The Braemar one also had the distinction of being held in the local Laird's ballroom. It's main highlight was the several thousand deer skulls & antlers attached to the ceiling. I was glad there wasn't an earthquake while we were in there.

As it was a traditional event, all the men wore kilts. Mark borrowed one off Mhairi's parents, as well as an ancient (and very large) sporran. We also had an intermission of 'stovies', which is a local dish of mashed potatoes and meat, always referred to in the plural for some reason. We managed to paticipate in about half the dances, but it was approaching 1 am before we were finally allowed to call it a night.

The next day was the big event: the games, attended by Her Majesty herself. Apparently since Balmoral Castle is so close, the locals like the queen, but further afield 'she wouldna be so welcome'. She wore green, and we all sang God Save the Queen, which all seemed a bit funny with her sitting right there.

The weather was marginal, but over the loudspeaker boomed "arrr, 'tis but a spitte o' drrizzle, nae ta be worryin' yerselves aboout" so we meekly folded our umbrellas away. The highland events were first class of course, with the caber, heavies, tug-o-war, hill race, highland dancing, pipe bands...

There will still plenty of kilts to be seen but we had it explained that since now it was daytime it was acceptable to wear a t-shirt with your kilt. On the left is Gavin (Mhairi's brother), Mark and Ian (Mhairi's Dad), exhibiting this fashion.

Mark enjoyed wearing his kilt so much he became quite angsty at the idea of having to return it on the Sunday morning (see photo right). Once we confiscated the umbrella he calmed down though, and we returned uneventfully to Edinburgh.

Great Scot, it's a great Scot!

Time to introduce our favourite flatmate (and landlady), Mhairi Brown! Some of you may recognise her from her travels in NZ, but if not, she's Scottish and very good at tennis. The picture below we took of her playing in the Scottish Open at the semifinals (she won).

We were a bit worried when we first moved in that she'd be one of these athletes that live on a strict diet of carbohydrates and fresh air and we'd feel horribly guilty about the odd glass of wine, but luckily we were mistaken. In fact, she's an excellent barmaid and has on many occasions has greeted us at the door with a well prepared G&T.

Over the sea to Skye

We took our first proper holiday from our jobs and jaunted up to Skye. On the way we climbed a small hill called Ben Nevis, you can see Mark halfway up or so. There were quite a few small children and large tourists climbing too so we felt the challenge was somewhat dimished. The crazinest bit was meeting Kieth Agmen from Christchurch on the top (when we didn't even know he was in the UK).

Skye has a reputation for beautiful scenery, rain and midges. We only managed to see one of the these; luckily it was the first. There was also a heap of castles - the one to the left was a particular favourite with the swarm of camera wielding tourists (I don't really have the right to be scathing about this do I).

We roughed it the first two nights but our last night we splashed out on a hostel room which contained the usually early-to-bed snorer so I do wonder if the tent wasn't the better option. The free hot chocolate was a nice touch though.

The spectacular Cuillin mountains had Mark eagar to return with his climbing gear (and a decent climbing partner) but since he had neither we contented ourselves with a trek to some iron-age remains (that we never found - navigation by tourist map should be a new orienteering event).

It's painting, but I wouldn't call it art

Hello. I went paintballing at the weekend with some guys (and one girl) from work. To give you some scale, the red circle in the middle is about 20 mm across so it's a wicked bruise. But I had fun because we really kicked butt! And I'm sure I inflicted more pain than got inflicted on me so it's OK ;-)

Similar to back home, but with some different games and toys (they use smoke grenades, I thought they were a gimmick but actually quite effective when used appropriately). Not sure I'd pay 35 quid for it but fine when someone else is paying.

Big Jane's BBQ

We finally got around to visiting Jo and Bill down in Yorkshire for the weekend. To make it fair we met halfway, at the gloriously rural town of Clapham, where Jo and Bill spend heaps of their time.

Mark and Bill squirmed into some local caves, while us girls indulged in a long awaited gossip session.

The highlight of our stay was attending the Clapham town BBQ, held at Big Jane's place. It was hilarious as all the village characters were there - the vicar, his daughter, the local gossips, the head gameskeeper. The local policeman wasn't there because they don't like him. The local celebrity came along to - the guy who sang "You're Unbelievable".

It was great to see Jo and thoroughly entertaining to be exposed to small town English life in all its glory!

Hadrian's Wall

Back at the start of July we took a wee trip down to northern England to visit Hadrian's Wall. The weather wasn't great but we decided it would still be OK to visit on a rainy day, besides, we'd already spent quite a bit of time cooped up in Edinburgh and had to get out.

Armed with a book of British walks kindly given to me as a leaving gift by my colleagues at PDP, we set off for a couple of day's walking along the wall. It turns out that a little black and white map in a book is no substitute for a proper Ordnance Survey map so we had a few navigational issues. However, once we were on the wall it was easy enough to follow the track (most of the time).

Following the wall isn't as easy as it sounds. The wall was built by the emperor Hadrian nearly 2000 years ago to keep the Scots out. It must have been quite a formiddable sight and by all accounts seemed to work rather well. But time (and local farmers in need of stone) have taken their toll on the wall and in some places there is little trace of it, although you can often see the embankment/moat system called the Vallum.

The section we walked along was the best-preserved and also included a couple of Roman forts and the Roman Army Museum. I found it really interesting - these sites had the oldest ruins I'd ever been to (older than the temples of Angkor Wat) and it was fascinating learning more about how the Romans worked and lived, particularly as the ruins were intact enough that you could see what they were talking about. As an engineer, I found aspects of how they constructed the wall and their buildings (such as drainage and sanitation systems, and the raised floors of the granaries) particularly interesting. Sylvia had been before when she was fourteen but she indulged my geekiness with good humour considering the rain ;-)

After the initial construction of the wall by the three legions stationed in Britain at that time, it was largely garrisoned by units of auxillaries - troops recruited locally, or from as far away as Syria. As you can see in the photo, these forces still patrol the wall.

Paid to visit Ben Nevis!

Fieldwork has its plusses and minuses, but it's pretty cool getting paid to visit some cool places. This week I've been up to Fort William (at the foot of Ben Nevis) on Tuesday and then to Ballumbie, north of Dundee, on Wednesday for a spot of bush bashing. Apparently the upper slopes of Ben Nevis are shrouded in cloud for four days our of five but, as you can see, it was a nice day there.

And where else would you come upon a crumbling castle in the midst of a housing development?

Big Brother is in town

After an epic aiport hopping session, Julian arrived into a cold, rainy Edinburgh at 1am. He was with us for 5 days and Charles Jackson joined us for 2 of those. We did our best to show him all the cool points of Edinburgh despite a shocking bout of grey, rainy weather (completely unexpected in sunny Scotland).

Firstly, we (Anthony and girlfriend Michelle, Jo, Steve, Mark, Sylvia) took him up the Pentland hills to the dry ski slope and beyond. The ski slope is an intriguing idea - apparently it hurts a lot when you fall over though. Count me out! Julian reckons he's going to make his fortune putting one on the Port Hills.

As well as extreme mountain walks, we included the tourist thing in his itinerary - castle, double decker bus, museum - and of course, the free fudge on the Royal Mile... Julian calculated that the fudge being made on the table in this photo is worth NZ$700! If the ski slope doesn't work out this could be a good backup option.

We culminated the action-packed schedule of social appointments with a traditional Scottish dinner - Charles & Julian piled down haggis and black pudding with nae a complaint, and even asked for seconds.

Life in Edinburgh

Hi there! Well so far all our posts have been about places we've been, but it's time you all heard what we've been up to when we haven't been doing cool stuff. Yeah I'm talking about work ;-)

We've both got jobs and have been working for a few weeks. We've even both been paid now! Sylvia is working at Enviros, an environmental consultancy in Leith. I'm working at Scott Wilson, which is another international consultancy based in the UK. Both of them are quite large companies with offices all over the UK and a variety of work so we shouldn't be bored. I've found things a little slow to start off with (lots of reading semi-revelant documents and time put down to the "admin" code) but I have no doubt that I'll be busy soon enough.

Sylvia even gets a car with her job. We hadn't planned on getting a car (at least not straight away) but she'll need one lots for work so it's more convenient to have her own. It seems to be taking a while, at first I thought that maybe they had to make it once she placed her order, but now I think they are probably mining all the raw materials for it too. The funny thing is, the more senior you are, the more carbon emissions you are allowed to produce, and this is a restriction on the types of car you can get. Yep, the more senior you are in this environmental consultancy, the more you can pollute?!?

Edinburgh is still fun - we've caught up with a couple of friends from Christchurch lately. Isla was (is) in Scotland visiting her family (really trying to find a scotsman) and Chris was over here competing in (and winning) the world adventure racing champs!

The days are getting ever longer and it is weird coming out of a pub at 10 pm and it's still bright outside. There have been cool days but not much rain, and some real stunners too. We visited Glasgow during one of these and climbed our first munro - perhaps this will be a future blog with some photos.

A couple of weeks ago we took part in a one-day touch tournament with ad-hoc teams at Murrayfield Stadium, the home of Edinburgh Rugby. It was the same weekend as the Edinburgh Sevens, so we got to go along to that as well and see NZ kick some butt. Sylvia's touch team even came second so she got a medal presented to her by the Scottish rugby captain! Shame she wasn't paying attention and didn't realise this, and didn't get a kiss like some of the other girls...perhaps she didn't look star-struck enough.

A Day in the Fife of Scotland

Hello again!

Our tour guide extraordinaire, Mhairi, has been at it again. Last Sunday she took us day-tripping around the southern bit of the Fife coast. For those who don't know, that's across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh.

We visited Kirkcaldy first (Mhairi's home town, where her folks still live) and then on to Elie, where we met Mhairi's friends Fiona and Bernard and did the world famous (in Fife) Elie Chain Walk. It's a really fun coastal scramble with great views across the Firth, and it gets its name from the big stainless steel chains that have been placed in strategic locations so you don't fall off! We had made sure that we weren't too far after the low tide to avoid any unneccesary excitement - I think if I do it again I'll time it a bit later to get the added fun of the waves lapping at my feet.

Mhairi then took us around some of the small Fife fishing villages, where we met up with Fiona and Bernard again for an icecream. The villages were cool, they looked very Mediterranean with their pastel-coloured houses lined up along the waterfront. Most of the fisihing industry here has died so there's not too much happening these days.

Our final stop on the tour was St Andrews ("The Home of Golf"). We didn't have all that long but it was enough time to quickly check out the golf course (along with the most photographed footbridge in the world - we didn't take a photo), the castle and the abbey.

Braemar

We headed off to Braemar at the weekend. Braemar is a small town in the Cairngorm Mountains about two hours' drive from Edinburgh. There must be a few hundred people living there and it certainly doesn't have a touristy feel. Mhairi reckons that's because the train doesn't go there - Aviemore (a town on the other side of the Cairngorms) is apparently much bigger and more touristy for that very reason. I thought it looked cosy and peaceful and fitted my image of a Scottish highland town very nicely. If you would like to know more about it, check out http://www.braemarscotland.co.uk/

It took us a wee while to get there. Mhairi had been playing in a tennis tournament (where she got to the semis in the doubles, yay!) and I'd had a job interview out in the wops, so we didn't manage to leave until rush hour. Once we were over the Firth of Forth road bridge (an impressive structure) we were away laughing but just getting that far seemed to take half the journey.

Scotland/NZ difference no. 1: they have traffic lights to enter, and move around, multi-laned roundabouts. Hence it can take you 5 mins to actually pass through a roundabout. I'm no traffic engineer, but this seems to defeat the purpose of having a roundabout in the first place.

On arrival in Braemar, we were fed by Mhairi's parents (Heather is a fantastic cook) and we enjoyed their warm hospitality all weekend. Thank you! I should mention that although Sylvia described the place as a 'bach' in the previous post, it is in fact a modern and comfortable house and we spent the weekend in comfort even though the weather was less than perfect outside the double glazing and hot log fire of the house.

Scotland/NZ difference no. 2: Every house here (and in North America, and in fact the rest of the world) is well insulated and has double glazing. That it is legal to build a house in the cooler parts of NZ with only single glazing is criminal, no wonder our houses are always cold and we have to spend a fortune heating them.

It was mostly just overcast and raining lightly, not enough to deter two hardy Kiwis and a Scot from enjoying the outdoors. Mhairi was an excellent tour guide, and if she ever got bored taking us to places she'd been to heaps, she never showed it. When she didn't quite know the background of a place or place name she was quite happy to make something up, which could be corrected by her father once we got back to the house.

On the first day we explored a little locally on foot, climbing high enough to see over the village and its setting. We walked a bit of a loop and came back through the village, visiting a shop called Braemar Mountain Sports which I had to be dragged away from before I spent any of the money I didn't have. We couldn't see any of the munros (mountains over 3,000') due to the low cloud but there was enough scenery in the mist-clad lower slopes, patches of broadleaf woodland and caledonian pine forest, and the extensive heather to impress us. I caught the occasional tantalising glimpse through the cloud of snow on more distant peaks.

We also visited the Linns of Dee and Coich (a linn being a gorge, and the Dee and Coich being two local rivers). The linns were spectacular, with a substantial river flowing through a slot perhaps a metre wide. Partway through this drive we stopped off at Mar Lodge, a stately home that has been converted to flash holiday apartments, and the site of the ceilidh held after the annual Highland Games at Braemar.

On Sunday, after another lazy start, we took advantage of the marginally better weather to go on a bike ride to visit Balmoral estate. Some riding on the roads was necessary, but Mhairi used her local knowledge to take us on lots of 4WD tracks through forest and farmland. Partway through the journey we stopped at "Honka House", a log cabin next to a pond on the estate where the royal family picnics. For a royal building it was surprisingly basic and reminded me of a category 2 backcountry hut in NZ. We ended up coming into Balmoral the back way and biking right past the palace.

Scotland/NZ difference no. 3: we Kiwis consider ourselves a fairly egalitarian society, and tend to look down on the Brits with their upper class and lots of land locked up in "estates". I think it's because we're lucky to have so much land in crown ownership in New Zealand that we tend to ignore the fact that there is actually pretty dismal public access to private land. There is a historical tradition in Scotland (now enshrined in legislation) of the "right to roam" on private land, and you may be surprised to know that the owners of these highland estates are quite happy to have people walking, biking and riding horses all over them as long as they're sensible. Here we were, strolling all around the Queen's residence in Scotland, chatting away in her garden, and we were allowed to be here without paying a cent. It wouldn't happen in New Zealand. I kept looking over my shoulder in case someone was chasing us with a rake or something.


Scotland/NZ difference no. 4: our cows don't look like this. I wish they did. Some of the highland coos had such long fringes that it's a wonder they can see anything at all.

Scotland the brave

Now we've been in Edinburgh three weeks and we are loving it. The job hunt is continuing (although it looks like I'm sorted now) but the rest of the time we're lazing about and checking out Edinburgh. Mark has also taken to baking, although, unfortunately, ingredients are hard to find as it's obviously not a normal Scottish pastime.

We also went on a daytrip to the seaside resort of North Berwick, went to the Beltane fire festival, have been orienteering twice (and discovered more than we needed to know about Scottish stinging nettles), have watched Mhairi in a tournament, played soccer with the locals and have been on a Scottish pub crawl.

Apart from the cool old buildings, the endless double-decker buses and the funny accents, there are a number of other differences from NZ:

- The bike lanes are awesome. They dedicate whole pathways to cycling.
- Helmets are not compulsory, and it feels really weird to bike without one (so I got one anyway)
- Food comes in silly sizes (like tiny vegemite jars - what's the point?)
- Brown sauce.
- Cider. Yummy.
- Cobbled streets. Uncomfortable for biking.
- The severe lack of cafes and the huge number of pubs.
- The enormous white swans.

We're going on our first overnight trip away from Edinburgh this weekend, up to Mhairi's parents' bach at Braemar. Hopefully that will inspire some futher stories and photos!

Mission Impossible: the shopping episode

The girl walked under the sign, proclaiming 'Marks and Spencers' in oversized letters. She looked around cautiously but she couldn't detect any followers. Her mission was simple: locate, seize, purchase.

She quickly found her objective and manoeuvred to the fitting rooms. On this occasion, however, she was unsuccessful. Downhearted, she returned the offending item to the rack.

She looked up as a warted middle-aged women enquired where one would find hats and gloves. This was clearly a trap. She replied, denying any knowledge of such products, hoping that would act as enough of a decoy to put the women off her trail.

She knew something was wrong. The women drew herself up to full height and began a verbal barrage: why don't you know, what's wrong you with, don't they train you in this place?

A shocked silence covered the shop, during which the girl replied in muted tones - you do realise I don't work here?

The embarrassment was audible as the women marched out of the store. The girl shared a secret smile with the real retail staff. This would be a day they wouldn't easily forget.

Castles! Just like in the fairy tales

This weekend was a Historic Scotland free weekend at a number of sites around Scotland. These sites normally cost GBP 6 to 10 each so it was quite a good deal and we wanted to make the most of it. We joined Steve and Jo on a train trip to Stirling to visit Stirling Castle. It's smaller than Edinburgh Castle but has also had less recent use (and siege damage), and therefore hasn't been modified quite as much since its construction. The views over Stirling and across to the William Wallace Memorial were great. A highlight was a presentation by a couple of guys in period costume about medieval weaponry, including a demonstration about how difficult it is to hide with a 10 foot pike ("See, ye can't see haem, but ye can see the pike"). The partially restored palace dating from the 16th century was also interesting, and we saw the huge amount of work they are putting into producing tapestries to hang on the walls.

We stopped off at Linlithgow on the way back to see the Palace. It wasn't in such good condition as Stirling Castle, but was even more interesting because there were lots of secret passageways and dark corridors to explore! It also left more room for the imagination to try to envisage what it would have looked like five hundred years ago. The setting was beautiful too, there is even a lake. I felt sorry for the prisoners who were held beneath the guardhouse - the only entrance to their cell was the rubbish chute-like hole in the ceiling through which they were dropped!

On Sunday, even though we were a bit castled-out, we took the opportunity to have a look at Edinburgh Castle for free. We'd previously circumambulated the castle and it looks great from all sides. You can see why it's Scotland's no. 1 tourist attraction. It lived up to our expectations - we missed out a couple of regimental museums, but saw pretty much everything else. We didn't have long enough to appreciate the Scottish Crown Jewels and Stone of Destiny because it was so busy, but the crowds weren't a problem otherwise. Just like the views of the castle from below, the views over the city are superb. Sylvia had suggested that I climb the rock and into the castle but I wasn't so sure. I was impressed to hear that the castle has been taken by a group of soldiers who scaled the north buttress and overcame the defenders, I would not be keen.

Edinburgh

Home, sweet home! Mhairi kindly met us up at the train station so we didn't have to negiotiate an unfamiliar bus system to get to the flat, but that hasn't stopped us from having a run-in with the public transport system already. There is more than one company running bus routes around Edinburgh and apparently it DOES matter which one you jump on...

Anyway, the flat. Mhairi's place is really nice and located fairly centrally. It is close to the important things (2 pubs, dairy/newsagent, bakery, fish and chip shop) and within easy walking distance of a supermarket and the city centre. It's even on lots of good bus routes. Here's a photo out the lounge window.

We both have favourable first impressions of Edinburgh. It's very scenic, with good views of the imposing Edinburgh Castle from the centre of town. Terraced houses, old chimneys, cobbled streets and lots of pubs! We've seen the inside of a few already.

On Saturday night we went to Jo and Steve's place for dinner. Mmm, haggis! It's the second time we've had it and it was just as yummy this time (if you can't stand the thought of all
that offal, try vegie haggis as it's also delicious). They put together a great spread. We also began our education on different whiskies, something Jo and Steve seem to have learnt a lot about in ten short months.

The Queen and I

After arising at 3:15am in NY, it was nice to be picked up at the airport by Chris and Mette (Sylvia's rellies) and whisked away to a comfortable bed.

The next day we had set an ambitious 9am meeting with Andrew Macklan at the Stockwell station, where we were introduced to the comforts of the London Underground. They had padded seats and heaps of space - we were impressed.


We saw the sights - Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Picadilly Circus and whole heap of streets off the Monopoly board. Mark took a long time getting the flowers just right in the photo of Buckingham Palace. I'm sure the Queen would have been impressed.

We had lunch at a wonderful little Japanese restaurant in Chinatown, but the real food highlight of the day was FREE Ben & Jerry's ice-cream. We wore hats to celebrate.

We thought the day couldn't get any better, but our guide Andrew took us to Covent Garden and the New Zealand shop. That wasn't the highlight: it was when Mark said "hello Mike Carrigan". Yes, we bumped into Mark's ex-flatmate from New Zealand in the middle of London. We all went for beer to celebrate.

Chris and Mette cooked us a wonderful meal and plied us with whiskey and wine. The food continued the next day with a Italian lunch with Mike and Heather before jumping on a train to our final destination: Edinburgh.

The Big Apple

By the time our vagabond shoes had found their way from Chinatown to the appropriate subway station, our little town blues had well and truly melted away. Manhattan (let alone the rest of New York) is a very big place! We were struck immediately by the busyness, vibrancy, and the sheer size of it all. We made our way to our hostel near Central Park - like everything else, it was big. It claims to be the biggest hostel in the world and I wasn't going to argue that point.

We woke up in the city that never sleeps and spent the day exploring Central Park and upper-middle Manhattan. The NYers were certainly out in force, running, biking and walking their dogs. The size of the park (big, of course) means that different areas are able to have their own character, but the overall effect is of an area where people can feel closer to nature while being surrounded at a distance by tall buildings on all sides - quite interesting!

Further downtown, the library was a beautiful building and has been recently restored, the intricate patterns and paintings on the ceilings were particularly noteworthy. Not only did they have some interesting exhibitions inside, but they let us sign up for a libary card and use their computers for free.

People complain that NYers are unfriendly and that it's not a nice place. Some have even said they would sooner spit in your face than say hello to you. Of course it is never going to have the character of a town or small city, but I should start spreading the news that our experiences were positive. People do not say hello to you in the street or make unnecessary eye contact in the subway (the same as any other large city) but they were quick with a smile or to talk once some sort of contact was made.

The next day we explored Lower Manhattan. We got on the subway near the back of the train, but part-way through our journey I noticed that in order to get off at our station we needed to be in one of the first five cars! At each of the next few stations we would burst out of the car as soon as the train had stopped and run forward one or two cars before the doors closed again! It was quite funny because we weren't the only ones doing it. We took a boat ride past the Statue of Liberty, walked along Wall St and checked out the site of the World Trade Center, past City Hall, over the Brooklyn Bridge and finally arrived at the Empire State Building. Here followed a 2 1/2 hour wait so we got quite sore feet. It was a cool experience, and I'd say it's worth $US 16 OR a 2 1/2 hour wait, but not both.

The next day was torrential rain and high winds (I'm not exaggerating - hundreds of flights from NY were cancelled but fortunately not ours) so we avoided being outside as much as possible. We did manage to make it to the Museum of Sex but I won't explicitly describe the exhibits here ;-) We also celebrated our last night in the US with a dinner out. We picked the closest restaurant to our hostel due to the foul weather but it turned out to be a good choice. Yummy food and a mariacha band!
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York.

Boston Buns?

It may surprise you to hear that we didn't find any Boston buns in Boston. But we found lots of other cool stuff.

Our first task (again) was to master the local subway system (the 'T') and get to our hostel. The next day we did the Boston Freedom Trail, learning all about personalities such as Paul Revere and John Adams, and the American Revolution (at least those bits of it pertaining to Boston). I got to check out the oldest commissioned warship in the world (the USS Constitution, of wood and canvas) and walk all over and through a WWII destroyer.

We also got to go to the movie 'Hot Fuzz' for free! I would highly recommend it to those of you who have a sense of humour.

The next day we checked out the Boston Science Museum. We got our days wrong, since the previous day had been cold and windy and our "inside day" was going to be sunny and warm(er), so spent some time outside in the sunshine looking over the water from the Adams Dam into Back Bay before we went in. Good thing we did, too, because the Museum occupied the rest of the day! It was really interesting but we were both pretty museum-ed out after that.

We found the cheapest bus to New York, the Fung Wa (?) bus, which goes directly to Chinatown instead of to any sort of bus depot but it seemed to do the job. The ticket people were funny, calling us over to buy tickets and hustling us onto the bus, it felt more like a Bangkok tourist scam than a commercial transport operation.