Chilling in the Sun

Hi everyone! We hope you had a great Christmas.

We've had a fantastic time staying with the Steele's in Adelaide. It's been really special spending Christmas with such a lovely family, and we've felt totally at home here. In a way it feels like we've actually been home for Christmas - we've been able to totally relax and recharge our batteries ahead of the next leg of our travels. It hasn't been all relaxation though - we've kept ourselves busy playing table tennis, Boggle, poker and tennis, swimming in the pool and taking a couple of trips up Mount Lofty and into the centre of Adelaide (a really nice city). 

In true Aussie fashion we spent Christmas Day on the beach before coming back to the house for a lovely barbie. The weather has been amazing all week and has topped 40 degrees for the last few days - thank God for air conditioning! 

It's with a lot of sadness that we have to bid our farewells tomorrow and head off. We're spending the next week or so in the Outback, visiting Coober Pedy, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kings Canyon and Alice Springs before flying back to Sydney and then on to New Zealand. We're really looking forward to spending time in the Red Centre of Oz, although have been warned about the scorching temperatures and persistent flies!

Here's looking forward to a great 08!

Merry Christmas!

The Rainy Season

Just a quick note to let you know that we've arrived safely in Adelaide. We had a good three day trip from Melbourne, travelling along the Great Ocean Road and then up through the Grampian mountains. They were both really beautiful places, although unfortunately the weather has been pretty bad and we got soaked to the skin on more than one occasion! There were lots of highlights though, including coming across some wild koalas and some bracing walks along the coast!

 

We're staying with Keith, Sarah, Oli, Sophie and Emily for Christmas and are really enjoying being with another family. Sarah has set us a  task to decorate our Christmas dinner table name tags, so I'd better go off and do that now....

Moving On.....

Going for a spin
Originally uploaded by mark&june

Well, we've more or less reached the end of the Melbourne stage of our trip, and we'll be sad to move on. It's been great fun staying with Jo, Ole, Finn and Max and enjoying family life. I've been in my element, playing Star Wars video games, watching Star Wars movies, playing Star Wars Top Trumps and duelling with lightsabres. I feel like a 7 year old again!

We had a lovely weekend with June's cousin Tony. He lives in Abbotsford, which is a fairly central Melbourne suburb, and he introduced us to the real Melbourne - Vietnamese food, late night ice-creams, great architecture and walks by the Yarra River. He also took us to a lovely winery in the countryside and let us go for a spin in his very cool 1956 MG-TF open top car (above), which June was very relieved not to crash! June also really enjoyed taking Tony's beautiful dog Max for walks in the morning.

Although Melbourne isn't as spectacular a place as Sydney it feels more friendly and relaxed, and of all the places we've visited so far is the place we could most see ourselves living in. Fear not though, we've no plans to emigrate!

Tomorrow we head off on the Great Ocean Road towards the Steele's in Adelaide. If all goes well we should get there on Saturday, ready for Christmas barbies and ice cold beers. Put your foot down love.....

All Creatures Great And Small

Evening all. Apologies for not being in touch for a few days - we're just back from a wonderful 3 day trip to Wilsons Promontary and Phillip Island.

 

Wilsons Prom is a stunning area of beaches, forests and mountains. We really loved it - it was so beautiful and peaceful, and definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. There was also quite a bit of wildlife there - in fact after watching the sun set over the sea on Tuesday evening we very nearly crashed into a kangaroo! It was pretty dark and we only just spotted the 'roo on the side of the road before it bounced out in front of us - luckily we were going slow enough to avoid him, especially as we were in Jo & Ole's borrowed car!

 

A further encounter with Australian fauna occured at 6am the following morning, when a big white-tailed spider crawled across June's leg - needless to say it was the quickest June has sprung out of bed for quite a while!

 

The highlight of Phillip Island was the sunset arrival of hundreds of Little Penguins back to shore after a day's fishing at sea. They were very cute and waddled up pretty close to us. Despite the hundreds of Japanese tourists it was a lovely experience.

 

On the way back to Melbourne we spent the night with Vern and Shirley who are real characters and great fun. It was good to see them again after the funeral on Monday, which turned out to be a really special occasion.

 

OK, think thats it for now. We're heading off for a weekend in Melbourne tomorrow and staying with cousin Tony in the city.

 

PS I should warn you that a couple of the latest bunch of photos are a bit saucy - if you are easily offended or have a weak stomach it may be best to avoid them.....

Taking a holiday from our holiday

Hi all! Just a quick note to let you know that we've arrived safely in Melbourne.

 

We had a great time in the Snowy Mountains, although it was a bit strange being in a ski resort in the summer. We were staying in a place called Thredbo and were in a lovely ski chalet with a balcony overlooking the slopes - in fact all it needed was for Carl and Sandra to magically appear on the balcony beside us and we could have been in the Alps....

 

We really enjoyed the walk up to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko, Australia's highest point. The scenery was lovely and the 13km seemed to fly by. The only downer was the number of flies up there - as you can see from this photo there were quite a few of them! June managed to swallow a fly which she was none too happy about!

 

We've been in Melbourne since Friday night and are having a lovely time relaxing in Jo & Ole's amazing house on the beach. Its great to see them and the boys again, and we feel really at home here. Ole is a bit of a master chef so we are eating very well, although June whipped up a treacle tart that went down very well too.

 

We're also here to spend some time with June's family as well. Sadly her great-uncle Fred died last week at the grand old age of 98, and we're going to his funeral tomorrow. We popped in to see his son Vern last week, and will see more of the family tomorrow.

 

Bye for now......

 

 

Moutains, Beaches, Cities and Mountains

Hi everyone! Its been a few days since the last update as we've been on the road, so there's a lot to catch up on.....

 

We had a lovely couple of days in the Blue Mountains. The weather was pretty good - the last time June was there she couldn't see anything because of low cloud, but we were really lucky and had great views of the mountains and waterfalls. The clouds did descend on the last morning, so we decided to cut our losses and head off.

 

The plan was to go straight to Canberra, but we decided to go via the NSW coast on the Great Pacific Highway, and it turned into a 2 day diversion! The coast and countryside was really beautiful and we had great fun swimming in the sea and watching kangeroos on Pebby Beach (which of course was sandy not pebbly). The only hiccup on our journey was our inability to find anywhere to sleep on Saturday night. We wanted to stay in a pretty seaside town called Kiama, but couldn't find any vacancies. We decided to head south in search of somewhere else, and eventually found a room in the Australia Hotel in Nowra. The room was fine for $50, although when we moved the beds together we discovered a collection of dead cockroaches on the floor! Worse was to come though, as at 1am an almighty argument broke out between a girl staying at the hotel and her inebriated boyfriend on the street below. He turned the sky blue for well over an hour and ended up throwing beer bottles at the hotel! Makes June and my occasional disagreements seem fairly minor by comparison!

 

We finally got to Canberra on Sunday night, and were pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. We'd heard stories about it being a bit on the dull side, and although it certainly didn't have the buzz of Sydney it was in a pretty setting and had some fantastic museums. We visited the old and new Parliament buildings which were really interesting - especially the old one which has been turned into a museum and lets you look inside the old PM's offices etc. Yesterday we visited the War Memorial which also had a great museum attached. We could easily have spent another day in Canberra, but instead drove down last night to Cooma, which is a town just outside the Snowy Mountains, Australia's main ski resort. We're going to spend the next couple of days hiking up and around Mount Kosciuszko, before heading down to Melbourne on Friday to visit Jo and Ole.

 

OK, that's us caught up I think! We've loaded some more photos. Bye for now!

A Bolt from the Blue Mountains

Hello,  I've noticed Mark's blog entries are moving towards the first person singular so I thought I'd pay a visit to show I'm still here. Here, at the moment, is in a quiet little hotel in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains a couple of hours west of Sydney. Last time I came here in 1992 we couldn't see the mountains for the mist, but today was beautiful and we walked the undercliff pass to the lovely Wentworth Falls. They're called the Blue Mountains because the eucalyptus trees that cover the area give off an oil which makes the air look really blue.

 

Australia........ I can see the attraction, it really is a beautiful country and incredibly different from one State to the next.

 

I loved being in Perth and south WA, its so easy and comfortable, and spending time with family and friends was a wonderful welcome to the country.

 

Flying into Darwin and the NT, I felt like we'd entered a different country. The heat smacked you in the face the minute you stepped off the plane, and then the next thing to hit me was the Very Short Shorts that everyone was wearing - mainly the men - Kevin Keegin style shorts, not a great look. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed more casual - I guess when it's that hot nobody feels like rushing around - we certainly didn't see as many joggers and keep fit fanatics as we have in the other States.  I had some of my major holiday highlights up there - I just loved Lichfield national park with its natural spring pools, when we were boiling and sweaty after a walk through the trees or magical sandstone hillwalks we just plunged into these crystal clear waterfall pools to cool down.

 

Cairns felt different again  - still very hot - but very rainy because of the cyclone kicking about just off the coast in the Coral Sea. The town is very geared up for tourism and that was fine as we were being tourists and enjoying the beautiful rain forests and coral reefs, we really relaxed there and had 8 nights in the same bed for the first time in over 2 months - bliss.

 

One thing I'm really into out here is the birds, I bought a bird book early on and I'm marking off all the the new birds I see - they are so gorgeous and colourful and noisy - I think I may be a twitcher in the making.

 

Sydney, well we were absolutely blown away with how beatiful the place is - it seems to be surrounded by water and harbours on all sides, I know that would make it an island but when you go up the Sydney Tower it certainly gives that impression. We could have stayed there much longer there's so much to do but Christmas is a'coming and we're Adelaide bound to see the lovely ex-pats.

 

We're pretty excited about this next part of the trip too, heading down to Melbourne to see Jo and Ole and my family from my dad's side who welcomed me with open arms last time I visited - I'm hoping there arms are a bit longer this time as I seemed to have gotten a bit wider since then, the food out here is good!

 

I spoke to my mum yesterday and she asked - does it feel too long to be away from home and I can honestly say no, it feels fine, but there is so much to do and see that every so often I just have to say STOP!!! we need to chill and just 'be' for a bit.

 

So we're just being in the mountains for a couple of days and then heading slowly down to Victoria via Canberra and maybe the Snowy Mountains.

 

Hope you're all doing well, take care and lots of love,

 

June

Heading South

Hello all. Well, we've finally managed to drag ourselves away from Sydney and are about to head off on our road trip to Melbourne. We reckon it will take about a week, with stops at the Blue Mountains, Canberra and a couple of other National Parks on the way down.

 

We both really loved Sydney and are amazed how easy it was to fill 8 days here. I reckon that alongside Worthing it must rank as one of the top places to live in the world.....

Guess who it is.....

None other than Mr David Beckham!
Originally uploaded by mark&june

I've had a pretty cool day today! This afternoon I went on the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, which was amazing and not at all scary (apart for the price tag).

After the climb as I wandered back through the city I came across a large crowd gathering outside Customs House. It soon became apparent that the throng had assembled to see Becks and his LA Galaxy team-mates attend a pre-match reception. A few celeb's came and went (check out my photos to see who) before the main event arrived to the screams of thousands of fans. Getting a photo was pretty tricky - this was the best one I managed. I tried to get a bit closer by climbing over a barrier but was forcefully removed by security!

An Auspicious Weekend in Australia

Hi all. Fear not, I'm feeling much better today! We've had a good couple of days. Manly was really nice and we enjoyed the ferry trip over, and today we went to another art gallery (getting pretty cultured now), visited the trendy Paddington area and went up the Sydney Tower to get a bird's eye view of the city.

 

Today was election day in Oz and it looks like Labor (sic) have wrested power from John Howard's liberal / conservative coalition after 11 years. Its been interesting to watch the campaigning on TV over the last few weeks - its a bit more knock-about and fun than in the UK. Kevin Rudd (the new PM) comes across a lot better than Howard to me - it will be interesting to see if the economic boom continues with the country in new hands. One funny story about Kevin Rudd was that there was almost a scandal when it emerged he had visited a strip club in New York, but when he admitted he couldn't remember what had happened as he'd had a few beers it seems his popularity went up rather than down!

 

Another big event over here is the final of Australian Idol tomorrow night. The final is being held at the Opera House, and we happened to come across the dress rehearsal last night and watched the hopeful contenders run through a few numbers. We took a few photos and may stay in on Sunday night to see the real thing.

 

The final big event this weekend is the arrival of none other than David Beckham. He's over here for an exhibition match between LA Galaxy and Sydney on Tuesday night, and is causing quite a stir. 80,000 tickets for the game have been sold - Sydney normally only get 15,000 for a home game.

 

OK think that's it for now. Bye!

Sleepless in Sydney

Despite being in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I've felt a bit down in the dumps today. After a sleepless night I got up at the crack of dawn (6.45am!) to wander down to a local watering hole to watch England qualify for Euro 2008. Needless to say things went downhill from there pretty sharpish, and the rest of the day has been a bit of a struggle.

 

Anyway, as you can tell we've made it to Sydney, which has so far lived up to my very high expectations. Its a truly stunning place, and we spent a lovely day on Wednesday wandering through the Botanical Gardens down to the harbour. The Opera House and Harbour Bridge were as picturesque as I'd expected, and with the sun high in the sky life seemed pretty good.

 

Today, however, as the sun refused to emerge from behind the clouds and the temperature dropped, it seemed that Mother Nature was sharing my mood. We tried to make the best of the day though, and went on an Opera House tour as well as popping into the Museum of Contemporary Art (lots of photos of nude women, cheered me up a bit), Sydney Observatory and the NSW Parliament building.

 

Unfortunately the dodgy weather is expected to continue for a few more days (what's up with the Australian weather?!), so I may put off the Bridge Climb for a bit. We'll probably take the ferry to Manley Beach tomorrow instead.

 

Hope all's well with you all. Thanks for popping by!

Swimming with fishes

Under the Sea

Hi everyone!

 

As you can see from the video below we made it to the Great Barrier Reef!

 

It was an absolutely amazing experience. I'd never been diving before and am a land-lubber at heart, so was a bit nervous about taking the plunge. The tuition beforehand was good, but when we got below the surface I had a brief panic attack and thought "I can't do this!". Luckily the fear passed pretty quickly, and we headed down to the Reef, remembering to equalise the air in our ears as we went down. I was really surprised at how much we were allowed to do after such minimal training; we got down to about 12m and saw loads of fish and coral. We enjoyed it so much that we signed up to do a second dive at the next reef, and spent a total of an hour under water. Snorkeling at the third reef was a bit of an anti-climax after that!

 

The weather wasn't great and the seas were a bit rough but you didn't notice that underwater. Definitely one of the highlights of the holiday so far!

 

Yesterday we visited the Cairns Botancial Gardens which were lovely, and today we finally got some sunshine and happily lazed beside the pool at our hotel reading our books.

 

We've really enjoyed our time in Cairns - its a relaxing and beautiful place. Unfortunately we've only managed to scratch the surface of Queensland - hopefully we'll get a chance to come back again some time.

 

Tomorrow we fly down to Sydney. Will the adventures ever cease?!

June diving the Great Barrier Reef!

Birthday Blog

Well, the Rainforest certainly lived up to its name, although Queensland ("The Sunshine State") could be done under the Trade Descriptions Act.....

 

Despite the imminent arrival of Cyclone Guba and the slightly grey weather we're having a good time in Cairns, and I'm having a lovely 37th (I know, doesn't seem possible) birthday.

 

We had a nice couple of days visiting Kuranda and the Daintree Rainforest. Kuranda was reached by a 4.5km cable car on the way up (apparently the longest in the world) and a scenic train trip on the way down. The town itself was pretty, and we went for a nice walk through the forest. As you can see from our photos we came across a bush turkey, although it looks a bit scarier in the photo than it actually was in reality! The only threatening bird we've actually come across so far was a masked lapwing which almost took our heads off for wandering too close to its nest.....

 

 

We've been putting off a trip to the Great Barrier Reef until the weather improves, but as there is no sign of an change for the better in the next few days we've decided to go for it tomorrow. We're going on a day trip visiting three reefs, and are going snorkeling as well as doing a trial dive. We're really looking forward to it, and are packing some sea-sickness pills just in case.

 

OK, better go now and head out for our slap-up birthday dinner. Mustn't overdo it too much though, as we're getting picked up at 7.20 in the morning......

Chilling in Cairns

Hi everyone.

 

Leg 5 of our world tour has brought us to Cairns, which is in the north-east of Australia, handily located for the the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforests of Daintree. 

 

We're staying in the only accomodation we booked before leaving the UK. It's called The Lakes, and is a very posh apartment complex at the northern end of town. After spending a lot of time in backpacker hostels it feels really strange being in a plush apartment, with a separate kitchen, bathroom (with jacuzzi), lounge and balcony. Despite her protestations that she'd forgotten how, June cooked a lovely meal last night, which we enjoyed with a nice bottle of Chardonnay listening to the wildlife in the neighbouring forest.

 

Cairns itself is a very nice place, surrounded by forested hills and the coast. There's a lovely beachfront walkway complete with fitness-mad Australian joggers, and a good selection of shops and restaurants. As in Perth and Darwin there's a lot of building going on - the country seems to be in the middle of a boom, and there is a lot of wealth on show.

 

The weather is a lot cooler here than in Darwin (30 degrees instead of 40) which is very pleasant, although there's a bit of wind and rain as well. We've decided to put off a trip to the Reef until the weekend in the hope that the weather improves, but we are planning a scenic train trip to Karunda tommorow, followed by a visit to the Daintree forest and Cape Tribulation on Thursday. We'll let you know how they went when we get back.

 

We've been on the road for over 10 weeks now, and occasionally my thoughts turn to what will happen when we get back. I'm surprised to report that I am not entirely dreading the thought of going back to work any more. The question though is whether I want to go back into IT, or to try my hand at something different. Being off the nine-to-five treadmill for this length of time has made me think a bit about what my life is really all about, and what I want to achieve. Maybe I'm having a (very premature) mid-life crisis? Watch this space.......

 

 

 

Affairs of State

Morning all. Hope you are having / have a had a good weekend.

 

We've had a lovely few days in Darwin. When we were here last week we only managed to see the area near our hostel, which is quite touristy, but this time we've hopped on some buses and ventured a bit further afield. We went to an old Gaol, visited the excellent Museum & Art Gallery, and yesterday went on a very interesting tour of the NT Parliament building. For historical reasons I don't quite understand the Northern Territory isn't a State, whereas the other areas of Australia (New South Wales, Tasmania etc) are. They do have a fair degree of self-rule though, and the Parliament building is very impressive. The chamber itself was quite reminiscent of the British parliament, with a speaker's chair, copies of Hansard and a big mace.

 

Today is our last day here, and we're about to head off to have lunch down in the sunshine at Cullen Bay Marina. This evening we're going to the cinema to see a new film called 'Rogue', which is an Australian film about some tourists who visit the NT and are attacked by a rouge crocodile! It's probably a good thing that we're seeing it now rather than before we went down to Kakadu.

 

The weather is lovely at the moment. The intense humidity has died down a bit, and we've spent a few happy hours lying beside / in the pool at the hostel.

 

Hope you enjoyed June's video blog below. We've also added a few more photos to the NT set.

 

Bye!

 

 

A message from Kakadu

Back from the Outback

Hi everyone. We're safely back in Darwin after our week exploring the Top End. We've had a great time. Lichfield National Park was tranquil and we loved lazing in the water holes. Katherine Gorge was spectacular, and we really enjoyed a walk up to Edith Falls through beautiful scenery. Our last port of call was Kakadu, a huge National Park with lots of Aboriginal Rock Art dotted throughout it. We went on a great 4WD trip to Twin Falls and Jim Jim Falls. Even though the falls were not much more than trickles (as the Wet season hasn't quite started yet) they were really stunning places and we enjoyed the company of Wade and Jacqueline, a young couple from Adelaide on their honeymoon. Wade was great fun and spoke at 100mph - mostly about the various time he's been bitten / stung / set on fire by spiders / snakes / alcohol.

 

The following morning we got up at the ungodly hour of 6am to go on a boat trip through the Yellow Waters, which contained a huge variety of birds. June has bought a "Birds of Australia" book and is becoming quite an expert in spotting them. We also saw lots of crocodiles, and are glad to report that we've returned with a full complement of limbs. The tour guide warned us not to lean over the side of the boat - a few years ago a croc took a tourist's head clean off.....

 

On the way back from Kakadu we drove through an incredible thunderstorm. The rain was amazingly heavy and reduced visibility to a few feet, and there were lightning flashes every ten seconds right around us. It lasted for about 30 minutes, by the end of which June was ready to have kittens! She isn't the best passenger at the best of times.....

 

We've uploaded a few photos from the trip - link on the right.

 

OK then, I guess its time to go out and explore Darwin. It's a smallish place but there is lots of building going on, including a grand Convention Centre and marina village which looks really nice but locals warn could be underwater the next time a big Cyclone hits. Catch you all later. Watch this space for a video podcast from Mrs F.......

 

Top Enders

Hello all. Sorry for the lack of updates recently - the internet is a
bit harder to come by when you're off the beaten track!

We've spent the last few days exploring the Top End of the Northern
Territory. So far we've been to Lichfield and the Katherine Gorge
National Parks. They are both really beautiful, containing lots of
wildlife (although no crocodiles so far) and more greenery than we expected. The best bit has been swimming in the pools and creeks dotted throughout the parks, which given that the temperature has reached 39 degrees has been a life saver! We also loved canoeing up the Katherine Gorge - even though it was our second canoe trip during a torrential downpour of our holiday!

The NT has a very different feel than WA. The tropical climate is a
big change, and Darwin is a lot smaller than Perth. There are also a
lot more Aboriginals up here. Most of them live a traditional life on
the land, but unfortunately the ones we see the most of are in the
cities, and lots of them seem to live rough and / or have drink
problems. We're going on a trip guided by an Aboriginal in Kakadu
tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be able to find out more about their
culture then.

That's it for now. We'll upload some photos when we get back to Darwin
on Thursday. Bye!

Northern Exposure

Hi everyone. Just a quick note to let you know that we've arrived safely in Darwin. The journey was uneventful and we were greeted with a sweltering hot sunny day, which felt good after a couple of 'chilly' days down south. Our backpackers' hostel has a roof-top swimming pool, which is great, although we feel a bit past it what with all of the 20 year olds parading round in their bikinis or showing off their six-packs. Somehow we'll struggle through.

 

We've uploaded some more photos from our Western Australia trip including some of our visit to the Tree Top Walk, which is an elevated platform 40m above the forest floor. I found it a lot easier going than the tree climb, although June had a minor vertigo induced panic! We also visited a very good Whaling museum, caught up with the Woods and Walkers for another lovely barbie, and said fond farewells to the MacDonald clan.

 

We had a wonderful couple of weeks down in WA - the countryside and coast were really beautiful and it was lovely to see some friendly faces. We wish we'd allowed for a bit more time down there - WA is such a huge place and we only managed to see a tiny corner of it. We'll have to go back again some day...

 

We're going to spend the next couple of days relaxing in Darwin before we venture off to explore Kakadu National Park and Katherine Gorge. We're not sure how to get around - we could go on organised camping trips, or hire a car or a 4WD. We'll need to get our thinking caps on.

 

Hope all is well with you all. Thanks for your comments and emails. Its great to know you're keeping an eye on our progress.

 

Bye!

Gulp!

Mark makes his ascent
Originally uploaded by mark&june

Here I am a few steps into my ascent of the Bicentennial tree. I exagerated in my earlier post - its only 75 metres tall!

I planned to climb all the way to the top, but as I got higher and higher my hands got sweatier and sweatier and my life started to flash before my eyes. I managed to get to the platform half-way up, but alas couldn't summon up the courage to make it all the way.

The scariest thing about it was that there was nothing to stop you falling with a crunch to the bottom if you lost your grip. In the UK you'd have to be attached to a safety rope, but Health & Safety obvioulsy hasn't taken hold in Oz yet. The tree was un-manned and there was nothing to break your fall other than the ground.....

Down a Bit, Left a Bit

Hello all and greetings from Western Australia! Apologies that our updates have been few and far between recently - surprisingly net access is a lot harder to come by here that it was in Asia.

 

At the moment we're in Pemberton, which is a pretty little town in the middle of beautiful Karri forests. We've spent the day wandering through the forests, and attempting to climb the look-out trees which are used to spot forest fires. Unfortunately the only way up the trees is to climb up the spokes drilled into the side of the trees in a spiral pattern from the floor to the top (100+ meters in the air). There aren't any harnesses or ropes, and we were surprised not to spot anyone plumetting to the forest floor! I made it about halfway up before my nerve failed me -  maybe I'll have another go tomorrow (or maybe not).

 

We're really enjoying our drive round the south west of Australia. We started in Margaret River, which is famed for its vineyards. The town itself wasn't too exciting, but we enjoyed our wine-tasting tour (although not as much as the chocolate tasting one that followed!). We spent the next couple of days in the extreme southwest - staying in a tiny town called Augusta, which has beautiful views over the river and oceans. We went up a lighthouse on Leeuwin Cape, which is where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet. It's a stunning place, especially as we had a couple of really sunny days there. The wind sure does pick up though - we had a disturbed night's sleep in Augusta due to the wind whistling through our hotel room.....

 

Our first impressions of Australia are really positive. WA is a beautiful state and the people are very friendly and chatty. The weather isn't the wall to wall blazing sunshine we had expected, but its actually a nice change after the sweltering humidity of the last few weeks.

 

OK, I'll try to upload some photos but the connection is a bit slow here so probably won't be able to catch up with the last week.

 

We're staying in a nice hotel tonight with "solar heated" (ie cold) swimming pool and a nice collection of DVDs, so we're just heading back now to watch The Queen and dream of England (and Scotland). Bye!

Advance Australia Fair

Hi all. Just a quick note this time as we're about to be served lunch at Gil and Christine's house. Gil is June's mum's cousin, and he moved out to Perth after the war with his family. We're staying with his sister Jean, and are really enjoying having a holiday from our holiday! It's really great to be staying somewhere comfortable and welcoming, and we really feel at home here. We went to a barbie yesterday with some good friends of June's who have recently emigrated which was great fun.

We spent Tuesday exploring the centre of Perth - it's a really beautiful city beside a river, overlooked by the gorgeous Kings Park. The roads are a lot quieter than in Vietnam and Cambodia - so much so that we strolled across an empty road even though the lights were red. Unfortunately a car zoomed round the corner and the driver wound down his window and shouted "look at the lights you f**king idiot!" - we were warned that the Aussies were quite "direct"!

We're off to see some kangaroos and koala bears this arvo, then heading off for a week down to the south west in a hire car tomorrow.

OK better go now. Bye all!

A bumpy ride

Hi all, just a quick hello from Singapore airport. We've got 3 hours here before we fly off to Oz.

 

The bus trip yesterday wasn't 10 hours long - it was an excruciating 16 hours, most of which was on an extraordinarily bumpy road. Amazingly the road between Angkor (the biggest tourist resort in Cambodia) and Thailand is a dirt track, which we bounced up and down on for 10 hours at an average of about 10 mph. Agony! It's probably the first time on the trip that we've really felt that we've been in a Third World country. If any of you ever considering travelling from Cambodia to Bangkok by road, then don't! Whatever the cost of the flight, it's worth it....

 

Anyway, today seems to be going a lot more smoothly. In a few short hours we'll be touching down in Australia, which I'm really excited about. There is so much to do there I'm beginning to wonder if 3 months is long enough - I guess we'll have to save some things for another trip.

 

OK, better go now. Hope all's well with you. M&J x

Hello from Angkor Wat!

The orange glow is the sunset, not our tans!

Tomb Raiders

Hello again. We've had a great couple of days exploring the temples of Angkor, which was the ancient capital of Cambodia about 1000 years ago. There were a million people living here back then - to put it into perspective London had a population of 50,000 at that time. There are scores of sandstone temples scattered through the jungle, which we've been endeavouring to explore on bicycle. The weather has been really good for the last few days and we've worked up quite a sweat!

 

The highlights of Angkor have been Ta Phrom, which has been partially reclaimed by the jungle; Bayon, which contains hundreds of faces carved into the stone; and Angkor Wat itself, which is stunning. The first Tomb Raider film was made here a few years ago - I half hoped Angelina Jolie would turn up and adopt me, but alas there's been no sign of her.

 

We've uploaded a few photos and a video of us in front of Angkor Wat, which should hopefully appear here soon!

 

Saturday is our last day in Cambodia before we take a 10 hour bus to Bangkok on Sunday and then fly to Perth on Monday. We've really enjoyed the Asian leg of our holiday - both Vietnam and Cambodia have been beautiful and fascinating countries. If the rest of the trip goes as well as these first five weeks, we may never come home.......

Sky on Fire

Kampot sunset
Originally uploaded by mark&june

This is a shot we took of the river at Kampot on Sunday night after visiting the Wat. The sky was amazing - it seemed to be on fire. And to make it even better, when we turned the other way there was a big rainbow!

Talking of things being on fire, according to June her massage was "apart from breaking my ankle, the most pain I've ever been in". It was Japanese Shiatsu massage, which sounds more like a martial art than a form of relaxation. Glad I gave it a miss.

Head in the Clouds

Hi everyone, hope all is well with you all. We've had a lovely couple of days in Kampot. It's a beautiful town on the banks of a river in the south of Cambodia, surrounded by jungle-clad moutains. It's a really peaceful place - just what we needed. In a few years I'm sure this area will be a lot more touristy, but at the moment it is so quiet - we've only seen about 10 westerners in the last 48 hours.

 

Yesterday we took a VERY bumpy 2 hour ride in the back of a pick-up truck to the top of Bokor Hill, which used to be a resort in the French colonial times. The hill station was abandoned in the 70s, and is now a ghost-town straight out of Scooby Doo, complete with an old church and casino. When we got to the top the clouds descended, and it was really atmospheric (and a little bit spooky!).

 

Today we hired some bikes and cycled to a pretty waterfall and then on to a Wat, where all of the orange-robed monks were very happy to see us and to practice their English on us. It was a really lovely experience, topped off by a stunning sunset. The internet connection isn't very good here, but I'll post some photos when we get back to civilisation.

 

Right, better go and have some dinner in a minute. June's being massaged by a blind woman at the moment, to try and relieve the aches and pains picked up on the truck-ride and the bicycle. Tomorrow we head back to Phnom Penh for a day, and then on to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, which we're really looking forward to. The trip is getting a bit more difficult to plan now we are approaching a fixed end date, but if all goes well we should get back to Bangkok on the 14th and then fly to Oz on the 15th for the second leg of our journey.....

 

A Hard Day

Today was pretty hard going. We visited the Tuol Sleng Museum in the morning, which was used as a prison by the Khmer Rouge. It doubled as a torture chamber, where brutal punishment was inflicted on the captives (most of whom seemed to be Khmer Rouge members themselves) to extract fabricated confessions. In the afternoon we visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, which is where the prisoners were transported before being executed and buried in mass graves. About 50,000 corpses were found there, and thousands of skulls are on display. In total up to 3 million people were killed during the four year reign of terror of Pol Pot.

We both feel really down and drained after the day. We feel a mixture of horror, sadness, anger and confusion - how could these people have been so evil to their own countrymen? We need to do a bit more reading to try and get our heads around what went on....but at the same time we would like to put today behind us.

Cambodia is not what we expected. In some ways it seems better off than Vietnam - proportionally there are a lot more cars on the road, and the bars and restaurants for ex-pats are very westernised. At the same time there is more poverty here - lots of families sleeping on the streets, and quite a few beggars. It feels a bit like India in the way that there is such a gulf between the rich and the poor.


On Tuesday we saw the other side of Phnom Penh - beautiful palaces and interesting museums. Tomorrow morning we head off to Kampot, which is a sleepy town in the middle of a National Park.

Hello from Phnom Penh!

Hi all. We're made it to Cambodia, having spent the last 3 days cruising, cycling and walking through the Mekong Delta. It's a beautiful area of wide muddy rivers, floating houses, lush vegetation and very friendly people. It was lovely to see children running to the banks of the river as we went past to smile and wave at us. Sadly there are a lot of kids in both Vietnam and Cambodia who are used by their parents to sell to tourists, and it was refreshing to see lots of children who just wanted to say hello and didn't have anything to sell.

The locals use the Mekong for pretty much everything - for fishing, washing their clothes, cleaning their teeth.....and going to the toilet. They obviously have a far stronger constitution than we do.

The trip went pretty well - I've even got sunburnt shoulders from a morning reading on the deck of the boat. The last leg of the journey was interesting though. We got dropped off from the boat about an hour away from Phnom Penh. There were 13 of us on the trip, and waiting to take us into the city was a mini-bus with 12 seats. This would have have been fine except we all had large rucksacks, and there was nowhere to store them other than on our laps. June and I ended up in the front seat alongside the driver, with June sat on my lap and naturally no seatbelt. There was a minor revolt as a couple of Germans refused to get on the mini-bus, but after it was explained that the alternative was a 5 hour walk, they begrudgingly gave in.

OK, we're off to explore Phnom Penh now. We're going to visit the beautiful temples and palaces today, before heading to the Killing Fields and museums remembering the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge tomorrow....

A message from Ms. Saigon

Well here we are 3 weeks into our trip and I've managed to avoid blogging until now but Mark's insisting I add my two penneth. I'm not too sure where to start as he's doing such a good job of reporting the edited hightlights but here we go.......

 

I can't believe we've only been gone 3 weeks, Vietnam is such a varied country and we've managed to cover a good variety of what it has to offer. 

 

The two mains cities, Hanoi and Saigon have a very different feel - Hanoi is really gutsy and Asian, especially the old quarter which has narrow little streets, crammed with people making and selling their wares and transporting everything on the back of their motorbikes. I've seen a farmer with 3 fully grown pigs (each in a basket) balanced on his bike. Lots of people transporting panes of glass, front doors and even a family of 5 on a bike. Avoiding them while crossing the road is an art in itself - my current tactic is to close my eyes, hold Mark's hand and and hum 'Scotland the Brave'. 

 

Saigon has a more western feel - much wider streets, lots of fancy hotels with roof top terraces to look over the city drinking cocktails and  'Gloria Jean's' coffee shop which is Cafe Jigsaw in disguise.

 

The museums here are very moving, particularly the War Remnants museum previously called the War Crimes museum. It has an amazing exhibition called 'Requiem' of photographs taken by some of the photographers who were killed or went missing in the war. A damning one-sided picture of the American tactics. 

 

After visiting the museum we took a trip out to the jungle to Cu Chi where there was a 200km network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong to infiltrate the Amercain bases - they used to pop up in the night and shoot the GI's in their tents, and leave barbaric spear traps and land mines for them. Such atrocities on both sides, it's difficult to say who's side you would have been on....

 

Anyway, we've met some really nice people when we've been on our trips, it seems that most of Ireland are here at the moment but also a fair chunk Holland and Australia.

 

Hotels have been very good for the money - we're paying about $15 to $20 a night for nice double rooms with bath. I've been very glad of the hair dryer as most days there is monsoon type rain and I end up like a drowned rat - talking of which, a rat scurried out of its hole in the pavement when it was raining last night straight into my leg -ugh!

 

Highlights so far - the magical Full Moon Festival in Hoi An last week, kayaking in torrential rain in the beautiful Halong Bay - Mark says crawling around in pitch black in the Cu Chi tunnels was his!

 

All for now, jxxx  

Tunnel Rat

Mark emerging from the Cu Chi tunnel
Originally uploaded by mark&june

The photo above is of me after having crawled through 100m of the Cu Chi tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong during the war to hide from the Americans and launch surprise attacks.

The tunnels have been expanded a bit for tourists, but even so I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get through them. The best / worst bit about it was that it was pitch black inside, so you had to negotiate solely by touch. I really enjoyed it, but am glad I don't have to live and sleep down there for weeks on end as the VC did. Certainly one of the highlights of the trip so far.

What's in a name?

Hello from Saigon. The city was re-named Ho Chi Minh City after the war, but everyone still refers to it as Saigon. Its a busy, modern city - it feels a bit more like Singapore than Hanoi. There are lots of gleaming skyscrapers and tree lined avenues, which makes a change from the claustrophobic old quarter we stayed in in Hanoi. One thing that is the same though is the traffic. There are millions of motorbikes and a lot more cars than anywhere else in Vietnam, and as usual none of them seem to obey any rules of the road. Crossing the road is actually more difficult here than in Hanoi, due to the roads being a lot wider. The only rule is to walk slowly and steadily across the roads and trust that everyone swerves to avoid you. Although there are zebra crossings they are universally ignored! June was on the verge of a panic attack in the rush hour, and at one point it looked like we were going to have to spend the night on a traffic island.....

 

We went to the War Remnants Museum yesterday, which contains lots of photos, weapons and stories from the American War. It was pretty harrowing and moving, and some of the photos were incredible (both good and bad). The museum painted a pretty one-sided story (I'm sure the Viet Cong weren't entirely blameless in terms of war crimes) but it painted a damning picture of the US involvement in the war, and of war in general. Scary stuff.

 

In the afternoon we went to see the Reunification Palace, which is a beautiful place which used to be the residence of the South Vietnamese president. It was the place where the war ended, when the VC tanks crashed through the palace railings on 30th April 1975. It was interesting to be somewhere with such a recent history. Normally when we visit historic sights they remember things 200 / 500 / 100 years ago, so it was good to feel so "close" to history.

 

OK, we're about to head off into the city now. We'll post again soon - we may even have a blog from special guest star June.....

Here Be Dragons

Hello again. We're still in Hoi An, really enjoying the chilled out vibe here. Its a pretty town on the banks of a river with lots of old houses that are unchanged since the place was a port back in the 17th century. The town was undamaged in the war, and has a real charm about it.

 

At night time though its anything but chilled out. There's some kind of autumn festival going on, and every night all of the boys in town parade around in dragon costumes, banging their drums and clogging up the streets. Its a really amazing atmosphere, and some of the boys' exploits as they climb up 10 ft vertical poles supported by their friends are a little scary!

 

We're going to stay here until Tuesday, as on Monday night there is a full moon festival, when all the electricity is turned off and the town is lit solely by lanterns - its supposed to be beautiful.

 

OK, what else have we been up to? We went to Me Son this morning, which is a ruined 11th century temple in the jungle, which was really nice. Yesterday we attempted to have a day on the beach, but that was a bit thwarted by the weather - really strong winds off the South China Sea. We managed to get a bit of sunbathing in, but the tan still ends at the shoulders and knees....

 

The food and drink is still lovely and amazingly cheap. We've begun to mix in a Western meal now and then - there's only so many days in a row that you can eat rice and noodles. We really like the local speciality here though, which is a noodle and pork dish called Cao Lau.

 

We've decided to fly down to Saigon. The alternative was a 15 hour train ride departing at lunchtime and arriving at 4am in the morning - not nice! The flights were only 25 quid each, so it was a no-brainer really.

 

I think that's it for now. We're both well and enjoying ourselves. Only seven and a half months to go.....

On the road

Hi all. We're in Hue at the moment, which is in the middle of Vietnam. It used to be the capital, and has an old walled city which we visited yesterday - its a bit like a mini version of Beijing's Forbidden City, but a lot smaller and less impressive. The Hue version suffered a lot of damage in various wars and is being rebuilt in a number of places. Still an interesting place to visit though.

 

We're off to Hoi An this afternoon. We've been doing a bit too much moving around so far and hopefully will stay there for a few days - its supposed to be a lovely town close to a beach, so we should be able to have a nice relax. We haven't spent two nights in the same place for ages - in fact our last 9 nights have been spent in a hotel, boat, hotel, train, hotel, train, hotel, bus and hotel respectively! The night in the bus was probably the least comfortable, but at least it had beds in it. The only problem was that the roads were very bumpy so we spent the whole night bouncing up and down.

 

We're really enjoying Vietnam, and everything has gone pretty smoothly. The only hiccups have been Mark's camera breaking (was a few years old and have bought a better replacement) and leaving our Lonely Planet in Hanoi! The Lonely Planet is a bible to travellers, and we were a bit lost without it, but it was actually quite refreshing to have to explore Hue un-aided and to find somewhere to stay and eat by following our noses. Having said that we picked up a pirate version of the book last night though, so its back to normal from now on.

 

Bye.

 

 

 

 

A few photos from Sapa

OK then, as promised here are a few photos from our weekend in Sapa. This one is pretty typical of the rice fields cut into the mountainside :














This is us beside a river on one of our treks...














And this is June with a couple of the H'mong girls.



For more photos, check out our Flickr site (link on the right).

Minority Report

Hi everyone. Thanks for adding your comments to the messages below - we always enjoy hearing from you.

 

We've spent the last two days in Sapa, a beautiful mountain town in the north of Vietnam, not far from the Chinese border. The area is populated by ethnic minority hill tribes, dressed in their brightly coloured traditional clothes. The area is stunning - tiered rice fields cut into the side of steep mountains, the tops of which disappear in the mist. We've actually had 2 days of unbroken sunshine which has been great, but which has made the trekking very hot work!

 

The locals are very friendly but they are continually trying to sell tourists their embroidery, which gets a bit wearing after a while. We've made a few purchases (including a new bracelet you'll be glad to hear Keith), although we've tried to not load ourselves down too much so early in our journey!

 

We feel a bit sorry for the minorities here. Although they live in a beautiful place they seem to spend their whole time (from 6 to 60 years old) pestering tourists. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all competing with each other - they all sell exactly the same goods. Maybe a bit of diversification might help? Having said that, they are apparently a lot wealthier than they were just a few years ago, so they must be doing something right.

 

OK then, its back on the train to the hustle and bustle of Hanoi tonight. We'll try to upload some pictures of Sapa when we get back. Bye!

 

On our bikes

Hi everyone! We haven't posted in a couple of days as we've been on a boat, cruising round Ha Long Bay. Its an amazingly beautiful place - lots of limestone pinnacles, a bit like Yangshou in China or Krabi in Thailand but on a larger scale.

The weather has been interesting! Each morning it gets hotter and hotter until there is a monumental rain storm that lasts about 30 mins. We've been caught in it for the last 3 days, and are getting used to being drenched either with sweat or water.

Today we discovered yet another way of getting wet. On a bike ride on Cat Ba island our guide suggested we take the "low road" across the island. Little did we realise that because of the rain the low road was actually the "submerged road"! We cycled as best we could until the water started rising above knee level, and then had to resort to pushing our bikes through waist deep water (my waist, not June's!). It was a really funny experience, made even better by the fact that it started to p!ss down as soon as we came out of the water.....

What else to report? We're really enjoying the food and beer, although drinking snake wine today was an experience due to the presence of a (dead) snake at the bottom of the bottle. Tomorrow we head back to Hanoi and then on an overnight train to Sapa, which is a mountainous area inhabited by Hill Tribes.

June is coping admirably without hair-straighteners and we're both having a fantastic time, although had a brief home-sick moment yesterday.

We'll try to upload some more photos when we get the chance - the ones from the first 2 days in Hanoi are here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markfuhrmann/sets/72157601933580365/

bye

Hot in Hanoi

Another day, another country!

After a jet-lag interrupted night's sleep we flew up to Hanoi this morning, and have had a quick wander through the hot, busy and colourful streets. Everyone seems really friendly and apparently beer is 10p a glass, so we should have a great time here!

The weather is very hot and sticky - luckily our hotel has AC. There seems to be free internet / wi-fi everywhere, so there'll be no escaping us!

Off to have a wander round ho Hoan Kiem lake now.....

One night in Bangkok

June taking a dip in the rain!
Originally uploaded by mark&june

We're here! The flight went very smoothly and we've spent the evening relaxing in our hotel. A little taste of luxury before the hardships ahead!

Just off to have a Thai meal and then to bed before flying to Hanoi in the morning.

And they're off!

So this is it. In 30 minutes we get picked up by Sally and head for Heathrow.

Today has been a bit stressful - lots to do and to pack. Once we head off we can start relaxing and looking forward to the excitement ahead.

As you can see from the photo, June managed to get everything in a backpack with no problems!

Hopefully we'll be able to post from Bangkok or Hanoi to let you know we've arrived safely.

Bye!

The Last Day

Today was our last day at work.

Its hard to describe how I feel right now. There's a real mixture of emotions - sadness and loss, but also a real sense of excitement at what is to come.

The best thing about working at NU was definitely the people - we'll miss not seeing the good friends we've made every day. This video is a reminder of some of them....

Not long to go now!

Well, time has really flown over the last few months and we suddenly find ourselves with less than 3 weeks to go until we depart. Scary!

We are fairly well organised but still have a long "To Do" list which we are slowly working our way through. Its amazing how much there is to do before you can head off round the world for 8 months.

The itinerary is pretty well sorted out now. We have 5 weeks in SE Asia, starting in Hanoi and then working our way south through Vietnam and then crossing into Cambodia. The highlight of this leg of the trip will probably be Angkor Wat (above), but it looks like there will be so much to do and see there.

In the middle of October we fly to Perth where we'll spend a couple of weeks exploring Western Australia and visiting June's aunt Jean. Then its on to Darwin, Cairns and Sydney, before driving round the "bottom right" of Australia, through Melbourne and Adelaide and then up through the outback to Uluru and Alice Springs. We're really looking forward to visiting friends and family in Melbourne and Adelaide, and spending Christmas with the Steeles!

In mid-Jan we fly on to New Zealand, and have a couple of months to expore the islands. We will probably get a camper van for much of the time. We've both wanted to go to NZ for a really long time - June because of the scenery, Mark because of Lord of the Rings!

The final leg of the tour through South America starts in Chile and ends in Rio two months later. We're not too sure what we want to do yet, although Patagonia and the Iguassu Falls are definitely on the list. The Argentinian steaks might be worth a try too!

The current plan is to arrive back home in mid May......

The flights are booked!

After a few months of procrastinating we've finally got around to booking our flights!

We've gone for a Qantas / BA round the world ticket (surprisingly good value), and we're planning to visit Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, NZ, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. We'll probably be away for about 8 months all told.

We still have loads of planning to do. All we know is when we are flying where. Now the hard work begins in trying to work out what we want to see, where we want to stay, how we want to get around etc. Its pretty exciting, but at the same time it's difficult to find the time to really do the research. Despite being almost redundant work is still pretty busy, but hopefully things will begin to ease up soon.

Really beginning to look forward to it now.....