Life through the square window

The rest of 2011

2012-01-06T14:05:00.000-08:00

So I didn't have any more real holidays in 2011, after the middle of January when I got back from HK. But I still had time to do lots of other exciting things...

I did have one overseas trip, but it wasn't a real holiday as I didn't have any time to relax at all, or do any sightseeing, or see any cities. It was a great trip though - I went to Austria to watch my sister and her boyfriend undertake their first (and only so far...) Ironman (TM). The Ironman is a short triathlon event consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile cycle and a 26.2 mile (marathon) run. I arrived in Graz on Friday afternoon after a particularly enjoyable Ryanair flight and a coach had been provided to convey me to the holiday village where I was staying with Amanda and Matt. However, nobody mentioned to the coach driver that he should have done some research so that he would have at least some idea of where he was going. An hour journey turned into a three hour trek, which meant I missed the 'pasta party'. On the next day, I got to join another coach trip around the cycle course so that the participants could get a feel of the course. However, nobody mentioned to the coach driver that he should have done some research to give him at least some idea of where he was going. I don't think the athletes got much of a taster of what the terrain was going to be like. Later the participants had to drop their bikes off and set them up for the race. Then it was a fairly early night. Amanda and Matt left the village at 5:30am to get ready. I got to have a relative lie-in, my bus transfer left at 6:30am. The race started at 7am. It was a long old day, even for the spectators. The atmosphere was very special for the whole day. I managed to spot Amanda during the cycle part of the race - I had caught a bus out to another part of the course with two spouses of the other participants from Coventry. Then we saw all the Coventry Triathletes on the run. Matt finished in under 11 hours, Amanda in just under 16 hours. It was an amazing event. There were fireworks to celebrate the finish of the race at the 17 hour cut-off point. And then it was back to Graz and then another Ryanair flight on Monday morning, exhausted after my day of spectating in the sun.
I had undertaken my own significantly less impressive athletic feat a couple of months earlier - I completed my first marathon in Stratford-upon-Avon in 3hrs 35 minutes.

I had very few weddings in 2011. One in Wimbledon, and then a wedding party for another as I couldn't go to the actual event in Thailand, sadly. So not many weddings, but still time for a bit of cricket - went to Cardiff, Lords and the Oval for Test Matches this year. All three days I went to involved an element of rain for a sizeable portion of the day.
Vanessa returned to the UK in August after her year and a bit in Sydney. She stayed with me for a few weeks before she moved to Liverpool for two years, or maybe three. I made a few trips up there to visit in the last few months of the year.

Then there were weekends in Bristol and Southampton, a trip to Leeds Castle and a concert in the rain in Hyde Park.
So that was most of what happened in 2011. What does 2012 have in store? Lots of trips to Liverpool. I am planning on doing two full marathons this year. More weddings than 2011 - already got three in the diary. Hopefully some foreign holidays, but when and where? That is the question! Maybe a significant change to my life - watch this space ;-)

Hong Kong

2012-01-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

It's now the start of January 2012 and is nearly a year since my last real holiday. Let's see how much I can remember about my time in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong was my stop-off point on my way home from Sydney following my five weeks visiting Vanessa. I arrived in the evening with heavy bags and wandered aimlessly around the streets as is my wont trying to find my hotel, rather than asking someone. The hotel was on the Hong Kong island side of the city. After walking through a number of elevated covered walkways, I found my way down to some narrow streets with lots of cars and carts trying to squeeze through. I somehow made it to the hotel without being run down.

I went out for an evening walk in the pleasant evening temperature. That was when I first saw it - the escalator! The streets in that area of the city are so narrow that they built these covered walkways above the ground where there is much more space. Then a lot of the city is on the hill, so there is a massive escalator rising up the hill from the business district. I went part of the way before I left the city, but there was still a lot more of it - I could see it rising into the distance.

The other thing I noticed immediately was the massive skyscrapers which formed the famous Hong Kong skyline. On the following morning, I went up in the tram to Victoria Peak and could see the skyline from the car, through the mist and haze.
I caught the ferry across to Kowloon during the afternoon. The Hong Kong skyline was particularly impressive from the Kowloon side. Having been to Singapore a few times, I expected Hong Kong to be similar but dirtier. What I wasn't expecting was to be hassled pretty much everywhere I walked in Kowloon. Did I want a new suit? Did I want a fake rolex watch? Did I want some skunk? I was getting a bit fed-up of saying no to these questions. So, to avoid being pestered further, I went to the night time street market. It was actually very good, although I didn't buy anything. There were some interesting looking items for sale.
On the next day, I went to another famous street market - in Stanley. I caught the bus out there, and it really was a beautiful journey, over the hill and round the picturesque coastline. I didn't find the market itself as interesting as the Kowloon night market, but ended up buying a teapot and cups for Chinese tea.

I did some more wandering around, caught one of the very old and rickety trams across the island, and saw some of the more tacky areas with the bright neon lights. Didn't find any particularly outstanding food during my short stay, which was a disappointment (and another difference from Singapore).

All in all, it was a good trip, but after five weeks with Vanessa it was a bit lonely wandering round a strange city on my own. Couldn't really order dim sum on my own - maybe that was where I missed out on the good food! The light and show every evening seemed to be quite impressive too - various buildings on both sides of the water shone different colour lights in a choreographed pattern - although I didn't find a good place to watch the show in full on any of the nights I was there!

Sydney

2011-05-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

So I arrived in Australia on Wednesday 15th December, and left five weeks later, on Wednesday 19th January. Apart from a few days in Melbourne, I was in Sydney the whole time. So what did I find to do in a small and backward town so far from the UK...?!

Of course, Sydney isn't really small or backward. It is one of the world's great cities as I had discovered on previous trips there.

I had gone to Sydney primarily to visit Vanessa, but she was working for lots of the time, so I had to find my own things to do. I managed to do a bit of pottering around, wandering around Parramatta, going into the city, going on walks around the coastline, running around Parramatta Park, going to sporting events, meeting up with friends and watching terrible Australian TV (mainly US imports, but also a few old British programmes, hardly anything homemade).

Before going to Melbourne I had to do a bit of Christmas shopping - in the sunshine and warmth, which is very disconcerting. Where was the snow and ice? The only place I saw any was on the news, showing proper fair dinkum Aussies lying on the floor at Heathrow Airport as their flights were unable to take off. I did feel some sympathy for them as I sat watching these stories, sitting by the pool, sipping my pina colada. I found a few good shops for Christmas pressies, and yes, they were playing all the traditional Christmas songs - I Wish it Could Be Christmas Everyday, Merry Christmas Everyone etc. Just like being in a shopping centre back home. I took a bit of time too to wander through the Paddy's Markets. They were interesting, but I didn't find anything to buy there. That's fairly standard practice for me and markets.

When we came back from Melbourne, it was nearly Christmas. On Christmas Eve, I managed to get all my wrapping sorted out, then I went to the Christmas Eve Communion Service (Midnight Mass) at the local parish church in Parramatta. Christmas Day itself was fantastic - the sun came out especially! Vanessa and I went to the morning service at the same church, had a bit of time to open presents in the sunshine, then she had to go to work. I had been invited (or rather had hinted that I ought to be invited in order to gain myself an invitation) to a friend's (Naomi) house for Christmas Dinner. Surprisingly the trains run an almost normal service on Christmas Day around the Sydney suburbs, so I had no real problem in getting to hers. I arrived just after everyone had finished their starter, but they had saved me my portion - it was a seafood medley. So I did have some shrimps on Christmas Day - not barbequed though, but still almost Australian! The main course was a traditional British Christmas dinner - turkey and ham with all the trimmings. There was one major difference though - we sat outside to eat in the sunshine. I had to put on a baseball cap instead of the usual cracker hat! After that, there was some present opening, then some desserts. I had some of Naomi's homemade banoffee pie. Later on, we hit their swimming pool to cool down. It was great to finally have a warm and sunny Christmas Day after the disappointment of the hailstones four years ago in Melbourne.

After the lovely sunny Christmas Day, the weather changed over the next few days. I was forced (obviously completely against my will) by the heavy rain in Sydney to sit in front of the TV and watch the fourth test from the MCG (weird - nice weather in Melbourne?!). It's particularly enjoyable when England are on top as the commentary team in Australia are soooooo biased. It is great to hear them having to eat their words. I only briefly left the flat on the morning of the 27th, but that was enough time to see the local authority in Parramatta taking down the town's Christmas Tree. Whatever happened to the 12 days of Christmas? Clearly in Parramatta it is the 2 and a bit days.

The New Year's Eve Fireworks were amazing again. I had managed to see them four years ago - we watched from Kirribilli that time. This time Naomi had scouted out and reserved a fantastic spot on Cremorne Point, so still on the North shore, but a bit further out this time, to give a better overall view. Naomi and her family stayed for the 9 o'clock fireworks, for kids and oldies, and then they headed home. Only Vanessa and I remained (from our party) for the midnight fireworks. I got out my new iPod Nano (TM) which Vanessa had recently bought me for my birthday, tuned it to the local radio station, and we watched the fireworks to the accompaniment of the music the display was choreographed to. This added another layer of enjoyment to the display. It was a great evening, although the travelling back to Parramatta after the display was less enjoyable!

New Year's Day was spent in Manly, along with the rest of the population of New South Wales. A few days later, Vanessa and I went to Wollongong. We'd heard good things about it, but it was just a smaller city not far from Sydney. The weather was a bit miserable on that particular day, so a coastal city wasn't the best place to be. We also did the famous Bondi to Coogee coastal walk - very pleasant, not as hot as the last time I did it.

The day after the that was spent at the SCG, watching Cook and Bell batter the Australian bowling attack for most of the day. The weather was blazingly hot that day. After lunch, we had to leave our seats (Vanessa's very sage suggestion) and stand at the back of a covered stand. I think she slowly warmed to the idea of Test Cricket, although I still couldn't make her understand why Mitchell Johnson was getting so much stick from the English fans!

I went back there on my own two days later - as there was unlikely to be much play on the final day, the Australian authorities had said it would be free to enter. The ground was 2/3 full, all English fans of course. I saw the final three Australian wickets to fall, then was present for the presentation of the Ashes trophy to England! A great day! And it was only just lunchtime!

I went to the Olympic Park, site of the 2000 Olympics, on two occasions - to watch some State 20-20 cricket and the Sydney tennis tournament (a warm-up for the Australian Open). I did some more walks - Watson's Bay, the Spit to Manly, McMahon's Point to Milson's Point and the Great Staircase by the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains, along the side of the valley to the Furber Steps and back up.

I should also talk about food - I did some traditional (i.e. touristy) things, although no barbeque as such, like having a pie from Harry's Cafe Du Wheels and Fish and Chips from Doyle's at Watson's Bay. I had the hottest curry in the world ever - a Thai jungle curry from a takeaway in Parramatta. But the most interesting place was Green Gourmet. Vanessa had been really excited to go there. It is a vegan oriental restaurant. It does a lot of traditional-style Chinese dishes, like claypots (basically a big meaty Chinese stew), but without meat. Some of the dishes had tofu and some had meat substitutes. All of the dishes were surprisingly delicious. We went three times during my stay, as it is a type of food which Vanessa was comfortable to eat. Our task now is to find a similar type of restaurant in the UK. I have heard there are some in the Harrow area, so we'll have to investigate those!

All in all it was a sensational trip. Vanessa and I got to spend lots of time together. The rest of the time I wandered around and can see why she's so happy living there. The worst part of the trip was saying goodbye to her after so long together, as I walked through to the airport security. We were both a bit emotional. I'll see her again in a few months, and I can't wait!

Melbourne

2011-05-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

I have been somewhat harsh on Melbourne. I have spent the last four years convinced that Melbourne is a rubbish city just because it spoilt our Christmas BBQ with chilly, rainy and haily weather in the middle of its summer. Deep down I think I always knew that Melbourne is a great city. It just has terrible weather. Maybe that's only in mid- to late-December - I'll have to go one day at a different time to confirm.

Getting to Melbourne was an adventure in itself. Vanessa and I had booked on Tiger Airways, the least frilly of the no frills airlines which did the Sydney to Melbourne run. However, after we'd paid for all the hidden extras, like seats, it wasn't that cheap. To save some money, we only took one bag of hold luggage between us. This meant that I had to check in online, but Vanessa had to wait and check in in person, which meant that we couldn't sit together. Vanessa was jammed in next to a sizeable Indian couple, and I was across the aisle from her. We landed in the laughably named 'Terminal 4' at Melbourne Airport. The plane landed on the tarmac and the moveable stairs came over. We were in the back row on the plane so were the first out. We followed two men in orange tabards along a covered walkway into an aircraft hangar. The hold baggage was dumped on the floor in this hangar. We made our way out through a turnstile into the airport car park. We then had to walk to the proper terminals to catch a bus into town.

Despite the underdeveloped nature of its airport, the city was great. I found myself remembering all kinds of little things which I'd done the first time I was there, like the food court we often ate in, the animatronic Christmas story in the Casino, the Christmas window display in Myers, the bowling alley, the street of restaurants, the free city circle tram, Yum Cha in Chairman Mao's in Chinatown. Then there were the bigger things - Federation Square, the walk along the Yarra to the Botanic Gardens on one side, and to the MCG on the other side, the Southbank. I did find myself reminiscing a lot about the previous visit, like our BBQ across the Yarra from 'the G'.

We spent a lot of time wandering around the city, occasionally catching trams, popping into shops whenever it rained (quite often). As well as rainy, it was fairly cold. Vanessa didn't take her fleece off for five days. On the final full day we were there (as last time I'd been), the sun did come out and we went to St Kilda to see the beach there. I rather enjoyed the 'Solar System' model on the St Kilda foreshore too - I spotted Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter, but we didn't walk any further than that. Apparently Pluto was 5.9km from the sun. The day was, astonishingly, too hot for walking that far!

The other advantage of Melbourne is its proximity to some beautiful coastal areas. We weren't able to see the famous Great Ocean Road, but did make it down to Philip Island to see some wallabies, koalas and, most interestingly, thousands upon thousands of little Little Penguins as they ran from the sea to their burrows on land as the sun set. They were so cute! They were surprisingly quick too, as they zipped along. As the sun went down, the first intrepid penguins emerged from the sea, but were spooked by the noises of birds and humans so they rushed back into the sea. Eventually they plucked up courage to leave the safety of the sea and ran out onto the beach again. Looking around fearfully, they decided to run the gauntlet and zoom! they were off! A few minutes later, there were penguins everywhere, on the beach, in the bushes, under all the wooden walkways, in the car park, even in very rare cases in their burrows. The whole Penguin Parade was an amazing experience!

The time went so quickly and it was soon time to go back. On our way to the bus stop for the airport, we walked past a marketing event where some of the English and Aussie cricketers were signing autographs and playing cricket with the kids. We stopped for long enough to see Alistair Cook bowling a few of his trademark(!) right-(!) arm tweakers and Mitchell 'He bowls to the left, he bowls to the right' Johnson being hit out of the crowd by a ten-year old. We soon carried on to the bus stop at the Southern Cross station. So all that was left was to endure another Tiger Airways flight. I wasn't allowed to sit in the spare seat next to Vanessa as the plane had been 'carefully weighted'. So we were back in Sydney for Christmas and New Year.

Start of another big Australia trip

2011-04-30T09:23:00.001-07:00

I was lucky enough to be able to take six weeks off work to go to visit Vanessa in Sydney over Christmas and New Year. This was achieved by the simple trick of taking three weeks of the 2010 holiday allocation and three weeks of the 2011 holiday allocation. That means I've still got a reasonable number of 2011 days to take later in the year!

This trip occurred just over four years after my first visit to Australia, on my 'once in a lifetime' trip Down Under. I've now been three times...

As the main reason for my trip was to see Vanessa (and also because my normal stop-off point in Singapore was unavailable as the Evans family were in South Africa), I decided not to break my journey. Instead I was on the direct flight (although that did include a one-hour break in Changi Airport). It was a 22-hour flight. I left the UK at 10pm on the Monday night and arrived in Sydney at 7am on Wednesday (11 hours ahead of the UK). I'll never see that Tuesday again. The other bad news was that I had booked my flights with Qantas, but when I got to the airport, the flight was actually being run by BA.

In fact, the journey wasn't as bad in reality as it had sounded in advance. I managed to get an aisle seat. I had my evening meal and a mini bottle of the red wine, started off watching a film (The Expendables - mindless rubbish), and then tried to sleep for the rest of the journey. I was mainly successful in my task. I woke up in time for breakfast and the rest of the film, and then 13 hours had passed and we were in Singapore. The only major downside was the woman in the next seat but one coughing and sneezing and spluttering and wheezing and sniffing for the whole journey. I think I did catch a bit of a cold for the first few days of the holiday.

Then the next section of the journey was a mere 9 hours. I tried the same trick - meal, rubbish film (Dinner for Schmucks this time), then sleep. And it generally worked again - the sleep was a bit more fitful this time, but still got a few hours which helped the journey whizz by.

The exit from Sydney airport was relatively speedy too - even the Australian Customs weren't interested in scanning my bag so I wandered straight through with only a rabbit, a fox and a cane toad in my luggage.

I made my own way to Parramatta, where Vanessa was staying, and let myself into her flat. It was around 8:30am and she was still fast asleep so I went to the supermarket to get some milk for my cup of tea. When I got back, she was awake. The big trip had started! And jet lag had been avoided in the main. After staying awake for the rest of the day, I had a couple of beers in the city (the Lord Nelson pub in the Rocks area, where I saw David 'Bumble' Lloyd and Paul Allott last time I was there). I flagged at around 11pm, had a long sleep that night and felt almost normal (by which I mean as normal as usual) the following day. I had a few days of pottering around while Vanessa was at work, doing Christmas shopping, going for runs around Parramatta Park (see picture above) and watching the Test Match from Perth (the bad one, that England lost...). Then Vanessa had a few days off, so we went to Melbourne.

2010

2011-02-19T07:25:00.001-08:00

Again, it has been a long time since I've updated you on my life. Here's what happened to me in 2010:

January - New Year started in Arlesey. Quick trip to Rushden for a look round there.
February - Byron's stag do. Trip to Singapore for Chinese New Year - spending some quality time with Paul and Caillie playing Agricola, then spending time with Vanessa's relatives. It's the year of the Tiger. Vanessa and I then went to Sydney for a few days for a look round there.
March - probably something particularly exciting.
April - Easter. Playing cricket at Lord's for Supraj's stag do. Jed's birthday party. Peronelle's Christening. Chartered Tax Advisor graduation.
May - Oxford's victory in the playoffs. A fun day out at Wembley!
June - Janet and Ian's wedding.
July - Vanessa left to work in Sydney for a year :-( . Andrew's stag do. Supraj and Helen's wedding at River Cottage. Fun weekend in Devon following the wedding.
August - Andrew and Astrid's wedding in Brussels. A great weekend in Belgium had by all. Bruges is a very picturesque city - one might say it's like a fairytale. Great British Beer Festival.
September - PB in the Bristol Half Marathon: 1hr 35m 37s.
October - must have been something interesting.
November - Entertaining weekend in Sheffield with Pie, Matt and Jules. Jemima's dedication.
December - start of six week trip to visit lovely Vanessa in Sydney. Got to meet young Katie Pool before then. Trip for a few days to rainy, grey and miserable Melbourne. Christmas Day in the sunshine at Naomi's house. New Year's Eve in the sunshine at Cremorne Point overlooking the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Fireworks were great!

Wem-ber-lee again

2010-05-19T13:37:00.000-07:00

Further to my previous post...

We WON!!!!

Wem-ber-lee

2010-05-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee, we're Chris Wilder's Yellow Army and we're going to Wem-ber-lee. Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee!

Come on you Yellows...!

So, I'm going to Wembley on Sunday. And I am rather excited. Come on Oxford!

Sproglets and the rest

2009-12-12T09:09:00.000-08:00

It has again been a long time since I last blogged. There always seems to be too much else to do, especially now it's nearly Christmas. I have been out nearly every night over the last few weeks, at Christmas meals, birthday parties, meeting up with friends etc. I went to the O2 arena for the first time the other day, to see Eddie Izzard. He was very funny, but the O2 is not the best venue for watching comedy. It is too big for that kind of thing, and as a result the atmosphere wasn't great. It is a rather impressive arena though - one that London has been crying out for for a long time. Another reason I have been busy is that Vanessa just bought me a Wii for my birthday, so I've been playing on that in most of my spare moments!

Prior to November, I was studying for my final CTA paper. I passed the other two that I took in May. But only just! The second one I couldn't have possibly passed by a smaller margin! But the important thing is that I did pass! The result from the final paper is due in the middle of January - so please keep all your fingers and toes and arms and legs crossed for the next six weeks!

So what has happened over the last six months? I went on holiday with Vanessa to Chicago and Toronto. Chicago was an amazing city - it has lots of impressive skyscrapers, including the 'Willis Tower' (more famously known as the Sears Tower, its previous name). Vanessa and I went up to the viewing platform of this tower. Then there is the Frank Gehry inspired Millennium Park, which has the Bean designed by Anish Kapoor. The best part of the city though was that it is on the banks of Lake Michigan. Unlike most cities which are on the banks of rivers or lakes, the banks have been reserved for pedestrians, with wide paths and parks allowing views not spoiled by factories and council estates. There are also beaches just minutes ago from the shopping centres and the business districts.

Toronto was also a nice city, but it is quieter and more sedate than Chicago. It seemed like it would be a very pleasant city to live in, but not the most interesting place. The CN Tower is the icon of the city, and again Vanessa and I went up to the viewing platform - in this tower's case, there were two platforms, so we went up to the second higher platform. We coincidentally managed to select the only sunny day of the four days we were there to go up the tower, so we got some rather impressive views. However, every other tourist who was in Canada on that day also decided to go up, so we were stuck in a number of excessively long and slow-moving queues for the majority of the day.

We also took a day trip to Niagara Falls. I had been once before, in the middle of March when the river was covered in floes of ice, and the outside temperature was -18 degrees centigrade. It was more impressive and more pleasant in the summer. We went on the Maid of the Mist boat trip, which goes as close as is safe to the bottom of the falls. As you can see, we got to dress up in fetching blue plastic macs!

The major recurring theme since the end of October has been that lots of my friends, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances and people I've met have been either having babies or begetting them, depending on their sex. In the five week period from the end of October to the end of November, there were six babies born to the above-mentioned groups of people. Unfortunately, due to a mixture of having other commitments and being lazy and miserable, I have only met one of the six newborns so far. This is a situation which I am hoping to address in the next few weeks and months! Congratulations go to all six sets of parents. It sounds like all the babies are doing well, which is great news. The parents seem to be surviving too...!

This last six month period has been quite a remarkable one, in that I have only been to one wedding - Emma and Stuart's wedding in Oxfordshire. I have only been to a couple of cricket matches too after the end of June. One of these was the final day of the Ashes, when England regained the trophy that they so weakly gave away during my big tour of the world in 2006/7, so it was well worth going to!

So that's my news, speak to you again in six months - or will I be more inclined to update this blog next year?!

The Last Six Months

2009-06-29T14:08:00.000-07:00

It's well past time for another in the 'lazy man's bullet point' blog, so here it is:

Studying for exams. Two exams for the Chartered Tax Advisor qualification. One seemed to go ok, the other certainly did not, and that's an understatement. Results towards the end of July.
Pol's 30th. We went to the Tiroler Hut... and then walked past the door and into Ping Pong instead...
The 'Jedification'. My favourite two year-old, Jed, was dedicated. Which is similar to a Christening, but without water. And without the implications of having been Baptised either.
Seeing 'Mima'. My favourite two year-old, Jed, now has a new sister, Jemima. Which is pronounced 'Mima' if you're a two year-old boy.
Richmond Park. Saw two deer. They weren't inexpensive. Ho ho.
Big Church Day Out. Saw some good bands, including Delirious? Sat in the car park afterwards trying to leave for two hours.
Avoided the axe. 19 people at work received the 'Spanish Archer', but fortunately I still have a job.
Florence. Caught Easyjet to Pisa with Andrew Strauss. Does he not get free tickets on BA?! Went to a wedding (no major surprise - see previous post) in the Tuscan hills.
Twenty20 World Cup. Spent lots of money on tickets, very few of my friends wanted to go. Saw nine matches, mainly sitting next to people I didn't know. Eventually the tournament was won by a team that had already been beaten twice. South Africa should have won. Can I use the word 'choke', Mr Evans?
Hen Party. Yes, I went to a Hen Party. It was for a close female friend. There were more men than women there. Only just.
Saw hundreds of people cycling round central London in the nude. It looked like some kind of protest. Perhaps protesting for the right to be naked on bicycles. Very disturbing.

Coming up in next time's exciting update of 'Life through the square window': Chicago and Toronto with Vanessa; Emma's wedding; more CTA exams, including possible resits.

Weddings and cricket

2009-01-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

My 2008 could be summed up in two words, if you believe my work colleagues. See if you can guess what they are from the title of this blog post. I suppose maybeyou could say my 2008 could be summed up in three words if you include 'and' as a word which, in most people's book (including Dr. Johnson's book, for which I offer him my most enthusiastic contrafibularities), it probably is. Those two words are 'weddings' and 'cricket'.

In 2008 I attended a mere (magnificent) seven weddings, and missed out on another as it was on the same day as another of the seven.

And then I went to Test Cricket at Old Trafford,Lords and the Oval, Twenty20 cricket at the Oval, an international one-day match at... you've guessed it... the Oval. I didn't think that was that much cricket really. Especially given that at Lords I saw a total of 57 balls and 21 runs, lots of rain and the FA Cup Final on the cricket scoreboard. And then at the Oval Test I saw about 22 overs, lots of rain, the inside of the pavilion and the Surrey cricket club museum.

I'm sure though that, despite what my colleagues think, I did some other things over the course of last year, like... umm... errr.......

Like Stag Dos for some of the seven weddings, and a trip to Singapore, and lying in bed for two weeks with glandular fever, a handful of 30th birthday parties. I even managed to take some breaks from my busy social life and spend some time with Vanessa. Ahhh sweet.

The Time Traveller

2008-07-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

21 years ago, in February 1987, I wrote a letter to my future self. It detailed the people in my class, the subjects we took, my interests, films out at the time, drinks I could think of, sports and games, comics, countries and the latest news about Terry Waite.

10 years later my future self opened that letter, looked at what a strange, immature, unintelligent and scruffy boy my original self had been, and vowed to improve on his work. He decided to write a letter to my future future self, including in it the letter from my original self.

Mainly over the summer of 1997, my future self wrote long and detailed notes on what modules he was doing in his classics degree at university, what A-Levels he had done, which other people were doing his course at university, what teachers and tutors he had had at school and university, what the latest results were at Wimbledon, what the score was in the one-day match between Durham and Kent at Feethams, what the Oxford United squad at the time was, and the fact that he had voluntarily gone to watch 'Fierce Creatures' at the cinema, amongst other things. Unremarkable confessions from my future self were that he liked football and cricket, and liked an occasional curry. More remarkable were the startling revelations that he wasn't too fond of bitter, and never drank tea. My future self proved himself to be rather lazy by taking over a year to finalise the letter and put it in an envelope, finally completing his work in June 1998.

One day earlier this week my future future self realised that it must have been over 10 years since my future self had completed his letter, so he searched for the said letter, safely tucked away in a 'safe place', which meant he couldn't find it anywhere for a few days. He opened the letter earlier this very day, and had the excitement of being amazed again at the work of my original self back in 1987, and checking out for the first time the work of my future self back in 1997 and 1998. My future future self was not too surprised on reading the letter that my future self didn't have a girlfriend. What a loser!

So now my future future self is trying to decide if he'll have any time to write a letter to my future future future self to let him know what an intelligent, witty, smart and generally amazing person he is.

Regular-ish update

2008-06-26T15:03:00.001-07:00

Some people have complained that I don't update this blog often enough, and that they have nothing to do on the internet without my hilarious updates.

Well, tough. Find something better to do that doesn't involve the internet. It's sunny outside (although not now, admittedly, as it's dark).

The most important update over the last few months is that I can now eat cheese again.

More updates will follow after some undisclosed interval.

The Healing Properties of Cheese

2008-02-25T14:43:00.001-08:00

I eat a lot of cheese. So much so that I decided to give up eating cheese for Lent. I haven't had a single pizza for three weeks. (I haven't had a double pizza either, so that's definitely an innovative idea to bear in mind for Easter Monday!)

I have just been off work for the last two weeks with some kind of non-specific viral thing. Is this coincidence?! Pah, I think not.

Clearly cheese is good for you.

It turns out that cheese is far better for you than I ever imagined. The non-specific viral thing was actually rather specific. It was glandular fever (aka 'Epstein-Barr', aka 'Mono') and it wasn't very pleasant.

Birthdays

2008-02-14T07:56:00.002-08:00

For all you regular readers of my blog (you strange people!), I should probably introduce Vanessa to you. She's my lovely girlfriend. We've been seeing each other since the end of July. Before that point, we used to walk around with our eyes closed.

November and December is a busy time for me with birthdays - my sister, me, and my Dad all have birthdays around this time.

Amanda's - my sister - birthday is first, and we spent a fun day in London. In the morning, we went to Borough Market. I'd never been there before, but spent an enjoyable few hours wandering around. It sells all kinds of unusual (and some usual) foods. As I love my foods, I was happy. Especially as there are plenty of free samples to be picked up. I left with some ostrich sausages and some exotic mushrooms.

We then looked at a large crack in the Tate Modern. It's a big hole in the floor which is no doubt meant to represent something particularly deep. By which I mean profound.

Then we saw the First Emperor Exhibition in the British Museum, which included some small number of the Chinese Terracotta Army. I found it particularly interesting, as I know very little about ancient China. Vanessa has some Chinese heritage, so she was fascinated.

And then we finished off the day with some pancakes. Amanda loves pancakes and when she found there was a restaurant where she could manage to have one for a main course as well as for a dessert, she booked it immediately! Unfortunately, because the day was so long, and everyone was tired, and the main course pancake was quite big, she could not manage to follow through with the pre-meal plan. She had to miss out on the dessert pancake!

And then it was my birthday a few weeks later. I was celebrating a significant number and so I spent the day itself at home with family, then had a large party in an old man's pub on the Saturday. I like old men's pubs! It was a really good evening, and my friends had all signed embarrassing photos of me (sadly there aren't many other sorts of photos of me!) for a montage Pol had prepared. It was a very touching gift - and really professionally done too! Sadly, Vanessa was sick at this time, so I couldn't introduce her to all my friends. I think she's met most of them now though!

And then it was my Dad's birthday, which meant a mid-week trip home in December for some more family time.

And while I'm talking about birthdays - Matt, I'm sorry.

Hamster Jam

2008-02-14T07:34:00.000-08:00

Way way back in October, I went with some friends to Amsterdam. A lot of them had signed up to do a half marathon, but I had not got round to it. Which was lucky, because I was ill that weekend too - I spent the few days wandering around the city dressed in hat and gloves and thick coat.

This was the weekend of the Rugby World Cup Final, so we managed to find ourselves a good pub in the centre of Amsterdam to watch the match. Unfortunately, some of the friends who came with me on that trip were of the South African persuasion (in fact, I believe they still are), so they were rather happier than I was at the end of the night.

The following day was the day of the race, so while the four crazy people were preparing, Simon, Jolanda (who are both of the afore-mentioned South African persuasion) and I went on a boat trip around the canals of the city. Then we went to a cafe for some traditional uitsmijters , which is a healthy meal consisting of toast, with three fried eggs on top, then ham, cheese and tomatoes. It's a bit like an omelette that nobody bothered to mix, on some toast.

We then made our way to the Heineken Brewery, in order to undertake the tour of the Brewery. On our way there, our path crossed the route of the half marathon. During this short stretch, we actually saw one of our friends, but our plan to claim we had been waiting there all that time failed as he didn't see or hear us cheering him on as he went past.

The Heineken Brewery tour is pretty good. It is very similar to the Guinness Brewery tour, in that there are lots of interactive things to do, and it tries to be informative, but with one major drawback in comparison - you get Heineken at the end rather than Guinness. I think you might get more free drinks at the Heineken one though, so it depends on your preferences...

We met up later with the successful runners, who were tired and sore, but happy, and accidentally took them into an extraordinarily classy and expensive restaurant. It happened to have a name similar to a reasonably priced restaurant in the guide book, but turned out to be very different. We only found this out when they came round with the bread basket and the menus.

We managed to avoid, on the whole, 'coffee' shops and prostitutes. There's actually a lot more to Amsterdam than what it appears to be famous for!

Being Ill

2008-02-14T07:30:00.000-08:00

I've been off work all week so far. I appear to have some kind of virus which has made me very tired, and very achy, and hot, and headachy, and given me various other symptoms. I've been sleeping for most of the time, and then lying on the couch for another large proportion of the time. But now I fancy a change of scene, so I'm going to sit here by the computer for a while and try to catch up with some blogging....

Chypre douze points

2007-11-19T13:37:00.000-08:00

My friend from Durham, Stu, and I went on a week's holiday to Cyprus at the start of October. It seemed like a good idea to extend the summer that we didn't have by an extra week and get some autumn sunshine. This idea seemed even better when the fact that Stu's parents had recently purchased a villa in Pegeia, near Paphos, and so we wouldn't have any accommodation costs. The only costs would be the air fares and the food and drink we would consume, so we made sure that the air fare part of that was as cheap as possible by flying at ridiculous times. But more of that later...

The plan for the week we made in advance consisted of three main parts: seeing classical ruins; sitting in the sunshine; eating and drinking. And looking back on the trip, we did quite well on all three counts.

The classical sightseeing took in the mosaics and theatre of ancient Paphos, and the rather impressive agora and temples in Kourion, especially the temple of Apollo Hylates. Then we did some sightseeing of a more modern sort - we went to Nicosia, or is it actually called Lefkosia? We saw the Green Line separating the two halves of the world's only divided capital city (so it said on the sign next to it). The Green Line was less of a wall, and more of a pile of sandbags with some barbed wire on them. And we also saw the Tombs of the Kings, and saw the very important sight of a local crazy golf course.

Then we got our share of sun, sitting on the beach at Coral Bay, or relaxing in the pool near our villa.

Drinks - we had one or two pints of Keo during our week. Keo is the Cypriot local lager, and it's actually not bad. Very tasty.

Food, yes, we had some of that too. On our first night we went for traditional Cypriot mezedes, which basically means you get some of everything on the menu - the Greek salad came out, accompanied by tzatziki, humous, taramosalata, some couscous, some chips(?), some pitta bread etc. Then the meat started to arrive - the spicy sausage, the meatballs, the pork chops, the lamb chops, the beef stew. We were rather full, and could barely finish our dessert. On one night we went for an Indian, which was extremely good, and wasn't only there for the ex-pats, oh no. Stu and I however spent our time there laughing at the British retired gentlemen at the next table. They came over to us later and told us that they used to be in the RAF at Abingdon, as they'd overheard us talking about the town. The best thing they'd done during the course of the evening was to get the chef out so that they could congratulate him on his fine culinary performance. On another night, we barbequed some burgers on a proper non-Australian charcoal-style barbie.

So all in all it was a good week, until we got to Paphos airport just as England vs France in the Rugby World Cup semi-final was starting. The facilities in the airport didn't allow for two hundred Brits to watch the game live. This meant that three-quarters of the people waiting by the gate were texting someone at home to find out the score. Matt very kindly gave me occasional updates. And somehow apparently it emerged that we won!

The flight was due to leave at 0030 Cypriot time, but was delayed a bit, then it was a four hour flight. Eventually I got to bed at 0530, and Stu got into his bed at 0600 apparently. Was it worth the cheap fare? Actually, I don't think there were too many other options.

Hopefully, I'll get the chance to visit the villa again some day, as it was a cracking and cheap trip!

Wedding time

2007-11-14T11:05:00.000-08:00

Not long after Mum's birthday boat trip, I had another family event - my cousin's wedding. It was the first time I'd seen him for over ten years. There had been some, erm, unpleasantness and, erm, arguments.

Everything went fine as it turned out. We met another of our cousins on the train there, he was now married and his wife was 8 months pregnant. Then they were met at the station by our aunt, so we grabbed a lift. Which was rather handy.

The venue was a lovely country house in Stonehouse in Gloucestershire. The church was a small and pleasant building. And the vicar was a comedian, which always helps. A baby cried out just after he'd asked if anyone knew any reason why the two of them should not be married, and he responded with, "Yes, you at the back!" And then spent the next half-hour taking down the baby's reasons...

There was plenty of alcohol to go round, and I saw a number of my relatives I hadn't seen for a very long time. They'd all turned out to be almost normal...!

Boat trip!

2007-10-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

On 15th September 2007, an intrepid band of travellers arrived in Reading. Their task, should they choose to accept it, was to undertake a boat trip along the Thames to Henley. That's Henley-on-Thames, the clue's in the name. The intrepid group comprised me, my parents, ny sister and her boyfriend. The trip was a surprise for my Mum's birthday. I won't give away her age, but to allow you to make a guess, she is older than 21 and not as old as 100.

A very pleasant day followed - the weather was amazingly sunny and warm for the time of year. The journey took just over 2 and a half hours each way, with a bit of time spent at the four locks on the voyage, waiting for boats to come in the opposite direction and for the water levels to change. The scenery was pleasant enough, we saw some multi-million pound mansions and gardens along the banks, and there were some interesting birds. Like herons, grebes and swans - that kind of bird.

We stopped for a nice lunch in Henley town centre, then wandered around in the blazing sunshine, before catching our boat back clutching our Mr Whippy 99 flake ice creams as we embarked.

When back in Reading, we went to a lovely restaurant with river views - the theme of the day! The meal was fine, although I suddenly came up in blotchy spots, or were they spotty blotches?! Anyway, I won't be eating prawns for a while. Strange, as I've never had a problem with them before, in the limited number of times I've had them...!

All in all, it was a great day. Especially as the weather was so perfect!

Long Time No See

2007-09-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't said anything on here for quite a while, so be assured I am well and things are going ok!

Since my trip to Oireland, I have been to:

1. Nodge... by which I mean Norwich.

2. Exeter

3. Marlow and Henley

4. Work (the picture is from our office summer boat party - sadly not every day is quite like this!)

5. My lovely new flat, quite a lot. P.S. At least one of us is in all the time, and of course we have our own personal security guard, so don't even think about it..

Dublin

2007-06-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've just come back from a weekend in Oireland, my first foreign trip since the big tour of the world. You wouldn't have known it from leaving the airport though - I didn't have to show my passport at any stage at Heathrow.

All the flights to Ireland on Friday night were delayed, but fortunately the one we were on was less delayed than the rest. It was still delayed enough for me to complete a long anf tedious survey on the marketing of Ireland by the Irish Tourist Board. I managed to talk my way into filling out this questionnaire as i had somehow forgotten that I'd been to the country before. How could I forget that 3 hour drive around County Donegal in the pouring rain looking for Celtic crosses in the middle of fields?!

So we arrived quite late on Friday night, but still early enough to pop to Temple Bar to drink a pint of Guinness and see a man dressed in a suit and a cow's head sitting on a toilet while reading a paper.

On the Saturday, we got up bright and early to see all the sights of the city - the Guinness brewery, the Book of Kells, and err, umm, you know, well, the inside of some pubs. I'm being a bit harsh, Christchurch cathedral and Trinity College are impressive buildings, and the new spike of Dublin is hugely tall, but nobody goes to Dublin for the sights do they? As we spotted another hen party walking past, we remembered why people go to Dublin - for the atmosphere.

We spent a very pleasant evening in a pub, eating traditional Irish food, drinking traditional Irish beer (guess what that could be?!), and singing along to traditional Irish music - Irish Rover, Dirty Old Town and the rest. When we'd had enough of the that, we went back to the hotel to be kept awake most of the night by drunken hen parties.

Sunday was our day for seeing whatever sights we hadn't already seen. Our chosen mode of transport was, of course, a World War II amphibious vehicle painted to look like a Viking Longboat. Viking helmets were provided to complete the look. We were driven around the city and around the canal and given information about all the things to see. More importantly though we got to 'give Viking roars' to unsuspecting pedestrians at regular intervals, got to hear our guide shouting abuse at various people around the city, and got to look extremely fashionable in a plastic Viking helmet and bright orange lifejacket combination.

Little did we know when we chose which weekend we would go to the city that it was the World Championship of Street Performers, but that turned out to be something entertaining to do in the afternoon. We saw strange Japanese men with mohicans, a husband and wife acrobat team dressed in chicken costumes and a strange American female juggler. At the time of going to press I am unaware of who was crowned this year's World Champion Street Performer.

There was just time to squeeze in one final pint or two of the Black Stuff. All in all, it was a fun and entertaining weekend! The one disappointing aspect was that nobody during the weekend said 'To be sure, to be sure' or 'begorrah'. Apart from me, which doesn't really count.

I'm still travelling

2007-05-31T04:40:00.000-07:00

I may now be back from my round the world trip, but that doesn't mean an end to the travelling. I now have to undertake the worst commute I've ever had every day on my way to the office. Considering I used to travel from Oxfordshire to London on a journey of an hour and a half each way, which also included the Circle Line, that is a bold claim. Let me elaborate:

The first 12 minutes, walking from my new and very nice flat to Wansdworth Town station is fine. It is true that it is not the most picturesque route, taking in as it does the delights of the Wandsworth Borough Council Solid Waste Disposal Station (that's a rubbish dump to the layman), B&Q, Homebase, a BP petrol station and, of course, that bizarre metal atomic structure on the Wandsworth roundabout. It is only after this walk that the nightmare begins.

I have to take an overground train to Vauxhall. These are normally jam-packed, although on the positive side they are air-conditioned. Often I have to let one train go past as it's too busy, only to cram myself on the second equally busy train.

I then barge my way past huge queues of people on a relatively long stretch from Vauxhall overground to the underground. When I get on the platform, the queues are normally four or five people deep. I may have to wait for the second train again. This is on a good week. On a bad week, as the first two weeks were after I moved in, I had to wait for the fifth or sixth train. A tube train arrives, nobody gets off, two or three people squeeze onto the train and the queue on the platform edges slightly forward.

The tube journey takes about 15 minutes and then the next obstacle is Warren Street station. There appears to be an unwritten rule at Warren Street that a train coming in the opposite direction must arrive at the same time as mine does, meaning that approximately fifty thousand people (i'm not very good at estimating numbers) converge on the escalators at exactly the same time. At least all of the escalators have been in use now for the three months I've been back, which is a new record for Warren Street over the five years I've been going there. Normally at least one is out of service for six months at a time.

All this hassle just to get to the office. I must be crazy.

Addendum

2007-03-28T05:33:00.000-07:00

Bill Bryson, having just flown into Cairns during rainy season, writes this on a conversation with the rental car salesman:

"But we were going to drive up towards Cape York."

"Oh, you won't get there in the wet. Not even in a four-wheel drive. Not at this time of year. They had a hundred centimetres of rain at Cape Tribulation last week." I had no very clear idea what a hundred centimetres was, but it was evident from his tone that it was considerable. "You won't get beyond Daintree in anything less than a helicopter."

I sighed again.

"The road to Townsville's been cut off for three days," he added with yet more pride.

I looked at him again. Townsville is south of Cairns - in the opposite direction from Cape York. It appeared we were boxed in. "So where can we go?" I asked.

He spread his hands in cheerful irony. "Anywhere you like in greater Cairns."

(Bill Bryson, Down Under, Black Swan, 2000.)

Let's compare this verbal picture of the road between Townsville and Cairns in, probably, 1999 with this picture of the road between Townsville and Cairns in 2007:

That makes me feel slightly better, that a well-known travel writer encountered a similar problem to us...!

Planes trains and automobiles

2007-03-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm now back in the UK, so here are the end of tour stats:

15 flights taken
Best airline - Qantas
Worst airline - American
Worst postal service - New Zealand
Six different cars rented, plus one four wheel drive on Fraser Island
Just under 4000km driven from Sydney to Cairns
Just under 4500 km driven in New Zealand
Worst train line engineering work - bridge replacement in Wagga Wagga
Best city visited - Sydney
Best town visited - Townsville(!)
Best wine region based on our small wine tasting sample - Margaret River, Western Australia
Best large rock seen - Uluru
Best coral reef seen - Great Barrier Reef
My favourite day - walking on the Fox Glacier
Places to see next time - Great Ocean Road, Tasmania, Bay of Islands, Coromandel Peninsula
Best 'Big Thing' - the Big Pineapple
Hottest place - Uluru
Coldest place - Buffalo

So that's all from Gaz Man's Big Tour of the World. I'll blog again on my next big tour of the world.

New York, New York

2007-03-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

My big tour of the world concluded with three days in New York. That really wasn't enough to see the whole city, but I saw quite a lot by undertaking some speed sightseeing.

Sadly I lost quite a lot of time on Wednesday afternoon, as my flight from Buffalo was delayed by four hours due to snow. Nobody could have foreseen that, what with it still being winter on the East Coast of the States. Then when I did arrive at JFK airport, I had to wait nearly an hour for a subway train to take me to Manhattan. Then when the train did arrive, it took nearly an hour to get to Manhattan. Humph.

So, first thing on Thursday morning I caught the ferry to Liberty Island. I climbed up inside the statue as far as you can get (admittedly not very far, only to the top of the pedestal below the statue). Then I went to Ellis Island and got a quick flavour of what immigrating to the US would have been like. Back to Manahattan where I saw Wall Street, then made my way to 'Ground Zero' to see where the Twin Towers used to be. I took a walk over Brooklyn Bridge and then back again, then made my way to Little Italy for a very nice pizza at Lombardi's. Then I caught a show on Broadway - Avenue Q. It's very funny, and comes recommended if you like musicals and aren't easily offended!

On Friday, I went to the Rockefeller Center and saw the famous outdoor ice rink which is always in movies. Then I walked to Central Park and spent most of the day wandering around the park. Then I went back to town and went up the Empire State Building. I was hoping to catch it at dusk time, so I could see the city in the light and then in the dark. But the queues to get to the top were so long that I only saw the city in the dark. It was very impressive though. After that, I rushed across town to go to Chumley's, a bar which used to be a speakeasy during the prohibition days. As a result of this, the bar doesn't have any signs outside, so the fun comes in trying to find the right door. I'd already walked into five families' houses before I got the right one. They did proper beer inside though, so it was worth waiting for.

And then on Saturday I spent a very rushed four hours in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking at the Greek and Roman art, the Egyptian art, the Cypriot art, the Indian, Chinese and Sri Lankan art, some armour and guns, some Salvador Dali, and then some bizarre modern art. And then I inadvertently got involved in some black American hip hop dancing as I was in the way of two guys doing their act on the subway.

Phew, I'm exhausted. I need a holiday.

Niagara Falls

2007-03-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

Well, so much for my attempts to avoid winter this year. Boston was around freezing point, but that wasn't cold enough so I went further north to see what March can get like on the Niagara river.

It was -8 celsius when I arrived - that's 18 degrees fahrenheit for you oldies out there - and it got even colder. I invested in a fetching new woolly hat to help combat the cold.
But the falls were amazing - well worth the discomfort and the loss of feeling in my fingers.

I first went across the border into Canada to see the horseshoe falls (and to get another stamp in my passport!). I wandered along the walkway as close to the banks of the river as I could get, and the falls were an impressive sight. They were pretty noisy too, but maybe not as much as they would have been in the summer. The river at the bottom of the falls was frozen, with the torrents that were cascading down the falls flowing beneath the frozen part. The most impressive thing for me though was the amount of spray and mist coming up from the falls.

After spending less than three hours in Canada (just enough time for a shop to give me change from an item I'd purchased in US Dollars in Canadian Dollars - that came in useful...!), I went south of the border. On the American side, I had to pay for parking and the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls were not as impressive as the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. But the Americans have built an observatory bridge where you can go out and get a decent view of all three
falls.
The falls were great during the day. However, the authorities illuminate them at night, so I went back in the evening to get a sight of this. It was good, but not necessarily worth the return trip!
So I went back to Buffalo and had a traditional American meal - I went to an Indian for a curry. And surprisingly, it was pretty good!

Use of English

2007-03-18T03:56:00.000-07:00

Now we all know that Americans say 'elevator' when they mean 'lift', 'trunk' when they mean 'boot', 'truck' when they mean 'lorry', 'sidewalk' when they mean 'pavement' and 'pants' when they mean 'trousers', but I came across a new interpretation of the English language recently.

Imagine my concern while, on the air at Boston airport, the pilot came on the PA system and said that there was just a plane crossing the runway, but that we would 'be in the air momentarily'. Momentarily?! I was hoping that we would be in the air for the full hour and a half of the journey!

Fortunately the journey did last for the scheduled time, but it got me thinking about how strange it was that one country should interpret a word as 'for a moment', while another country should interpret it as 'in a moment'.

More than a Feeling

2007-03-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

After an unfortunate incident of having to fly with American Airlines (a terrible airline), then a night in the hotel at JFK airport, followed by an insane dash across New York, I made it to the train to Boston. I had a very pleasant journey along the East Coast despite the grey and miserable skies over Connecticut and Rhode Island.

I was met at Boston by my friend Kakia who very kindly had agreed to put me up (Greek philoxenia in action!).

Boston is a nice and interesting city. I spent some time wandering around Harvard which seems like a pleasant enough university. The sun was shining, but the temperatures there were around freezing. Cities look so much nicer when the sun is out.

I wandered round the city centre with Kakia, Peter and Carolyn. We went along the majority of the Freedom Trail, which takes in all the historic sites of the city. It is the oldest city in the US, and so there are quite a few such sites. I saw the old state house, where the Declaration of Independence was first read back in 1776, Paul Revere's house, the oldest standing house in Boston dating to 1680, Faneuil Hall, which had the old market place on the ground floor and the town hall on the first floor. Then there is the Granary Burying Ground, where Paul Revere and the founder of American beer, Hank Budweiser, I mean Samuel Adams, were buried.

I later made my way to see 'Old Ironsides'. This was not a very old TV detective in a wheelchair, but rather a warship that was involved in the War of Independence. The British called the ship, The USS Constitution, 'Old Ironsides' as none of the cannonballs they shot into its flanks penetrated the wood.

On the following day, we went to Concord just outside the city to see the site of the first battle of the War of Independence, Old North Bridge. We also had a look at Walden Pond, a pleasant site for walking round, which was frozen. The weather was bitterly cold, so we didn't walk round it.

I also had a chance to see Fenway Park, home of the Roston Bed Sox, the second most famous baseball team after the Yankees.

The best part of the weekend in Boston, though, was having the chance to catch up with some old friends. I particularly enjoyed my time at their house, playing with 2 and a half year-old Carolyn. That should help for my time back home, as a lot of my friends are expecting kids very soon... Watch out for Gaz's child-rearing skills coming your way...!

Los Angeles

2007-03-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

I have been to LA before to go to Brian and Catherine's wedding. The wedding was great and Santa Monica was a pleasant area, but I didn't have a lot of time for the rest of the city. The city is a huge sprawl and it didn't seem to have a centre.

On this trip, I have had more time to appreciate the city and have decided it's not that bad after all. It's still a big sprawl, and still doesn't really have a centre (there is a downtown area, but it doesn't seem to be that central to the city), but there are good parts to it.

Brian and I spent a fun morning hiking in the hills near his house. From there we could see some great views over the city. The city is famous for its beaches, and we could see some great beaches from the hills.

I really enjoyed the museum district of the city - I visited the La Brea Tar Pits. These are areas where tar seeps up from under the ground, and has done so for thousands of years. Lots of animals have wandered into this in the past and then the tar has hardened so they can't get out. I went round the museum, looking at the skeletons of woolly mammoths, sabre-tooth cats, American lions, dire wolves, vultures, and many more. Immediately next door was the LA County Modern Art museum, which looked great from the outside.

Then there was the Farmers' Market - which used to be a standard fruit, veg, fish and meat market, but now has some more interesting stalls. The French deli had some great produce, and there was a stall selling only hot chilli sauces from every feasible location. I even managed to buy some Scottish ales to remind Brian and me of our days in Edinburgh.

The Getty Center was another impressive location - on top of another hill in the city. I saw a fantastic sunset over the city from there. The center also had a great exhibition, about Byzantine Art from Mount Sinai.

Australia vs New Zealand

2007-03-05T18:21:00.000-08:00

Now I'm fully expecting everyone to ask the question, "Which is better, Australia or New Zealand?"

I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it's very silly, but here are a few things I have noticed whilst in the two countries:

Australians are very good at abbreviating, especially the double abbreviation of the Melbourne Cricket Ground via 'MCG' to 'The G'.
New Zealand has the craziest rule on the road ever invented - if you are approaching a crossroads and want to turn right, and there is a car coming towards you which wants to turn left, they have to let you go first. Providing, of course, there isn't another car coming towards you which is going straight on, and providing that the car turning left isn't another foreigner who doesn't know the rule.
New Zealand scenery is beautiful. Australia's isn't too bad either.
Townsville in Northern Queensland is not a very interesting place.
Public transport in cities in Australia is very good - buses in Brisbane and Perth, trams/buses in Melbourne, trains / underground/ ferries /buses in Sydney. New Zealand public transport is pretty much non-existent.
New Zealand likes to have large city boundaries for its cities. Dunedin is apparently the fifth biggest city in the world by area (Wikipedia has it down in 27th place, which is still fairly impressive), even though its city centre is far smaller than most cities I've ever been to. This is mainly because we passed a sign saying that we were entering the city about an hour before we got to the centre. And Auckland has the same area as Greater London.
Australia has a fine collection of big things - the Big Pineapple was the best. New Zealand also has big things scattered throughout the countryside, but it just doesn't advertise them as widely.
Australia is beginning to understand 'soccer', and the fans even sang a few songs (all of them taken from English chants). They rarely sang anything at the cricket. The Kiwis did not even get excited during the rugby match we saw.
Australian beer is generally terrible. They pride themselves on serving it 'ice cold', but this is mainly so they can't taste it. James Squire was nice enough, and the Lord Nelson in Sydney served some proper beers, but that was it. New Zealand on the other hand has some very good ales, some of which were served at almost the right temperature.
Aussies think that outdoor gas hotplates constitute barbeques. So do Kiwis.
We had some very good meals in Oz, especially in Sydney. New Zealand probably does have nice restaurants, we just didn't find many. That was mainly because we were in the pubs instead, sampling the decent beer. NZ does however serve proper curries, which Oz doesn't do. This could be because Australia doesn't have many Indians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis.
Kiwis invented rolling down a hill inside an inflatable ball with water in it.
I wish we'd been in Oz when they lost to England in the one-day internationals. I get the impression they're fairly bad losers!
Both Australia and New Zealand have very good wines. The Margaret River area in Western Australia was my favourite.
Australia has a number of animals which can kill you. Fortunately we didn't meet any of them - the crocodile, the snake or the redback spider, but we did meet all sorts of insects which wanted to bite us and cause us to come up with lumps and boils and spots. New Zealand doesn't have anything nasty at all.
Australia also has a large number of bizarre animals which couldn't have evolved anywhere else - the kangaroo, the koala, the quokka, the duck-billed platypus. New Zealand has the kiwi, which is pretty weird. Other than that, it's got lots of sheep.

Day one or day two?

2007-03-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

I managed to have two separate 26th Februaries this year, due to the very weird phenomenon of the International Date Line.

Day one started in Auckland. It was a quiet day - I slept in, I used the internet, I went to a food hall for lunch, I bought a new jumper, I went to catch a plane to LA. As Paul and I had to take the rental car back at a certain time, that meant we had 4 hours at the airport before the plane was due to leave. But even though we checked in so early, the only seats available were the middle two seats of a block of four. This meant misery for someone with fairly long legs, a dodgy knee and an equally dodgy bladder. Fortunately, I was fine though...! I discovered later that the reason there are no aisle seats is because some inconsiderate people like the man on my left book two aisle seats (for him and his wife), rather than them sitting together. However, I discovered this much later, as the plane was an hour late in leaving. An hour we spent standing up, as there weren't enough seats in the gate lounge for all the people. The day ended with me, rather surprisingly, falling asleep on public transport (with my knees somewhere around my ears). It must have been the delicious evening meal I had. The frequent turbulence hardly disturbed me at all.

So the second 26th February opened with me still on the plane. Sadly, the on-demand video system had given up the ghost much earlier in the flight, meaning a breakfast with no TV accompaniment. We touched down in Los Angeles at 1130 local time. The plane didn't pick up any time as we crossed the Pacific. Our bags were the last out of the carousel 45 minutes or so later, meaning that the last time I saw Paul, he was rushing to make his connecting flight to Denver, fifteen minutes before the flight was due to leave. Would he make it?

The delay also affected me, as I was due to be meeting my friend Brian at the airport - but he was supposed to be working at 1 on the other side of town. Thinking he'd already gone, I gave him a call, but his job had been cancelled and so he was waiting outside for me. After a lengthy wait in the car rental place, as the printer kept on chewing up paper, I eventually found myself in an unfamiliar vehicle. Unfamiliar firstly because the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the car, but unfamiliar also because the indicators were on the left-hand side on the steering wheel. This has become unfamiliar even though this is the same side as in the UK, because in Australia and New Zealand they have their indicators on the right-hand side. Which I'd just got used to. So as I pulled out of the rental place on the wrong side of the road (well, almost), I saluted Brian as he disappeared to work with an accidental wipe of the windscreen wipers. From that point, the day was similarly quiet to the morning in Auckland, apart from a trip to a Thai restaurant with Brian and his wife Catherine.

And no, Paul didn't make his flight.

Back to Auckland

2007-03-01T19:59:00.000-08:00

I may have been a bit harsh on Auckland last time - admittedly the public transport is still non-existent and it is a bit of a sprawl - but we have grown to like it. It's amazing what a difference sunny weather makes to the appeal of a city!
We met up with our friend Scott and he took us to Mount Rangitoto, a volcanic island 30 mins boat ride from the city. We hiked up to the summit of this mountain on a glorious day, before visiting some caves made out of the dried lava. The island is thought to be be extinct, as it haven't done anything since it suddenly popped up out of the ocean 600 years ago. The views of Auckland from the top were stunning, as were the Lava Caves. Scott then took us on a driving tour of the suburbs of the city, so we can now see how it all fits together, and where all the rich people of Auckland live - there appear to be quite a few judging by the expensive mansions he drove us past.

During our time in New Zealand, we haven't been eating out in the evening at many interesting places - mainly pubs. So it was a relief on our final night in the country to get the best meal - at a Belgian Bar, of course. I had the mussels, Pie had the metre-long sausage, and Paul had the mixed platter. All washed down with good quality Belgian Beer.

Buoyed by our successful meal, we went back to celebrate our final night in the country by... doing a jigsaw. Which we didn't have time to finish. What crazy people we are.

Mount Egmont

2007-03-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

On our super-quick sightseeing tour of New Zealand, we had to rush from Wellington to Auckland in just over one day. It's not that far, so we managed to squeeze in a huge detour via the Mount Egmont National Park. It was well worth it - the National Park contains one mountain, Mount Egmont (also known as Mount Taranaki). It is a bizarre sight to have one mountain on its own, miles away from any other, sitting there with its top shrouded in cloud and covered in snow. Mount Fuji in Japan was mentioned as another example of a lone mountain. When we come back here, we'll go hiking on the mountain. But for now, we had to be content with looking at it!

Wellington

2007-02-26T19:10:00.000-08:00

We've now passed through Wellington twice - once on our way to catch the ferry to the South Island, when we stayed with Matt and Sara, and once on the way back. Sadly the weather both times wasn't great (which was strangely pleasing to us, as we've had fantastic weather on all the days we've really needed it), which had meant that we didn't see the best side of the city.

As the rain fell, we made our way to the Te Papa National Museum, which had some great interactive displays with lots of buttons to press. On an rainy day earlier in the trip, we had visited Melbourne Museum and seen the stuffed hide of the 'famous' racehorse Phar Lap. Here in Wellington, we got to see his skeleton. The sign said that his heart was in Canberra, but it wasn't clear whether this was literal or metaphorical.

In the evening, we went to watch the national sport of New Zealand - rugby. The Hurricanes, from Wellington, were taking on the Brumbies, from Canberra in a Super 14 match. In a fairly quiet game, the 'canes scored a try just after the final hooter had gone, to mean they won the game 11-10. The atmosphere was completely different to a football match in the UK - there was no chanting, and nobody really got excited. If it had been a better game, maybe the crowd would have been more interested, or maybe they're always that reserved.

Abel Tasman National Park

2007-02-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

The next stop on our whistlestop tour of the South Island was the Abel Tasman National Park. It is the smallest of New Zealand's national parks, at 20 by 23 kms in area, and doesn't have any roads in it. To get anywhere in the park, you have to catch a water taxi along the coast and then hike back (or hike both ways if you've got more time than we had).

The scenery was again outstanding - New Zealand, and the South Island in particular, has far too much amazing scenery! We thoroughly enjoyed our 12km walk back to the car.

Being cheapskates on a budget, we took the cheapest possible water taxi to save ourselves approximately £1.20 each. This massive saving resulted in us having to wade part of the way along the beach to the boat which was driven by a crazy bloke with a 'tache who preferred to drive the boat by looking back at us, rather than any of the sea kayakers who lined his path. Still, we got there safely and we're not aware of any fatal accidents involving canoes as he continued his journey.

Cold as Ice

2007-02-26T17:24:00.000-08:00

After departing Te Anau, via Matt's parents' winery, we went to Fox Glacier.

The Fox Glacier was known as the Albert Glacier until William Lane Fox, the then Prime Minister, decided he'd quite like it to be named after himself.

And I can see why he'd quite like it - it was amazing. I have decided that the day we spent hiking on the top of the Glacier was my favourite day in New Zealand, and possibly of the whole trip. It was completely different to anything I've ever done before and it was beautiful - the ice was bright white in some places, bright blue in others. In other places the ice was grey and dirty from the rocks it has picked up and crushed over the years.

The Fox Glacier, along with the Franz Josef Glacier 20km further north, is quite rare among the world's glaciers - it is actually advancing. Global warming has had an unusual effect - there is now more precipitation falling as snow in the mountains, which flows down to the Glacier and pushes it forward. It can advance as much as 1m in a day.

We spent four hours hiking on the ice, and I think I enjoyed it particularly because, with crampons on my boots, it was almost impossible to fall over (which is what normally happens with me and ice). Also, as I have missed the UK winter this year, it could be the closest I come to ice for 18 months (other than in the fruit smoothies I've been drinking).

We saw crevasses - fortunately our guide was very good, cutting steps in the ice wherever there was no route apparent - and moulons, which are drainholes for the thawed ice.

A great day and a very unusual experience which I can't see myself repeating in the foreseeable future.

Milford Sound

2007-02-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

Milford Sound was described in the Rough Guide we've been relying on for our trip as 'obscenely beautiful'. And, once again, it wasn't wrong. We drove through woods and forest areas as we started our journey from Te Anau, but these soon fell away to reveal the high mountains with vertical drops, waterfalls, tarns, hanging valleys, cirques, arretes and other words you might recall being associated with glaciers from GCSE Geography. The last hour of the drive was breathtaking, and then we got to the Sound itself to take a cruise between the steep rocks the glaciers had formed all those years ago.

Milford Sound is incorrectly named, it turns out. It is actually a fiord (or should that be fjord (you'll have to imagine the o with a line through it, not sure where to find that particular symbol)?!). Fiords are formed by glacial erosion, sounds are formed by river erosion. It was discovered by a Welshman from Milford Haven who gave the name of his town to the area. It was fortunate then that he didn't come from Merthyr Tydfil. He got the opportunity to name it because Captain Cook didn't spot mile after mile of 90m high drops into the sea when he sailed past. The cruise took us out onto the open sea and it was amazing to see how easy the Sound was to miss from there.

After cruising round for a couple of hours, we went back to climb up the Key Summit a few kilometres down the road. From there the tarn called Lake Marian was more obvious, sitting proudly atop a hanging valley.

Dunedin

2007-02-23T02:12:00.000-08:00

After leaving Christchurch, a city based on Oxford and Cambridge, we made our way to Dunedin, a city directly based on Edinburgh. Halfway between the two cities at Moeraki, there are some rather bizarre large smooth boulders lying on the beach. They look like rather large snooker balls, except that they're all black, so wouldn't make for a very good game.

Dunedin is a pleasant enough city. At its centre there are two octagonal shaped roads, one inside the other. Inside the smaller octagon is a square with a statue of the greatest ever Scootsman (no, not Craig from the Proclaimers), by which I mean Rabbie Burns. This was our belated opportunity to pay homage to him, as we'd been on Fraser Island on Burns' Night this year, where there was a sad lack of haggis, neeps and tatties.

We wandered round the town, past the mini-version of the Scott Monument, along Princes Street and George Street and somehow found ourselves in a public house (that kind of thing never used to happen in Edinburgh). This was the venue of one of the funniest things to have happened so far on our trip - we were watching on the telly as New Zealand beat Australia by ten wickets in a one-day international for the first ever time. My, how we chuckled. Little did we know at that stage that we would be doing more chuckling in the following few days.

Dunedin is on the west end of the Otago Peninsula, so on the following day we drove around the peninsula. The scenery was gorgeous as we went right to the east end where we saw seals sunning themselves on the rocks. Then we went back westwards and stopped at Larnach Castle, New Zealand's only castle. Obviously we are a bit spoilt for good quality castles in the UK, so Larnach Castle was a bit of a disappointment. It was a decent enough 'country house' but couldn't compare to any of the castles back home. However, Mr Larnach had chosen a quite superb location for his castle - the views down to the coast were magnificent.

Lazy man's blog

2007-02-14T20:03:00.000-08:00

I'm sure all of you who read my blog have missed my regular updates. I have been busy over the last ten days or so; there's too much of interest going on, and we don't have enough time in New Zealand to see everything at the same relaxed speed we did in Australia.

New Zealand is known by the Maoris as the 'land of the long white cloud'. This could be why:Although 'land of the long black cloud' is almost as appropriate at some times.

Since I last wrote to you, I have:

Gone back to Sydney where I met up with my friend Mary for lunch.
Sat in a plane on the tarmac at Sydney airport for two and a half hours until thunderstorms in the area subsided and we could take off.
Arrived in Auckland at midnight for the above reason.
Spent four nights in Taupo, next to Lake Taupo.
Walked the 18km long Tongariro crossing. It is a spectacular walk, between volcanic rocks, mountains from the Lord of the Rings film, volcanic craters, woods and forests.
Seen steaming sulphurous streams, bubbling pools of mud and geysers in the volcanic area of Rotorua. One of the geysers is artificially set off by putting soap flakes into the ground. These affect the surface tension of the water in the ground and cause the geyser to erupt.
Thrown myself down a hill in an inflatable ball with a bucket of water in it. This peculiar 'sport' is called zorbing, and is great fun!
Watched England win two cricket matches on New Zealand TV. On the second night, there were about 15 English people watching at various points, with only the hardcore eight staying until it finished at 1:30am.
Been kayaking on Lake Taupo.
Seen the Huka Falls at Lake Taupo.
Visited my friends Sara and Matt in Wellington.
Caught the ferry to the South Island.
Seen some whales and dolphins just off Kaikoura. What an amazing trip! Saw some seals too.
Marvelled at some 'quirky signs' in Bulls. The toilets were 'reliev-a-Bull', and the town hall was 'soci-a-Bull'! Hilarious.
Tasted some wines in the Marlborough area. They do some very good pinots noirs.

And now I'm in Christchurch. It is a very pleasant town. The cathedral and the school are quite nice, but everything here is copied from the UK. All the street names have a UK reference, and the buildings are nice but not quite as nice as Oxford or Cambridge. You can't even punt your own vessel - there is a gondolier to do it for you...!

Nemo successfully located

2007-02-06T04:53:00.000-08:00

You can't really come to Cairns and not go to the Great Barrier Reef, so we did. And it was amazing. Maybe some of the impact was lost by the fact that we'd seen some coral reefs last week in the Whitsundays, but the view at the Hastings Reef was far more impressive. The water was clearer, the colours of the corals were brighter, and we saw Nemo, star of the Disney film 'Finding Nemo'. This fish is a clown fish. We saw two of them down there, hiding amongst the anemones.

Sadly, as you might expect from recent posts, it was raining, and also quite windy. This meant that the waters were a bit choppy where we were, and I felt seasick for most of the day. It also meant that we couldn't go to the Breaking Patches, another area of the Reef we were scheduled to visit as it was too dangerous. There were supposed to be lots of turtles in that area, so we missed out on those, but it was still a good trip and the Great Barrier Reef lived up to all the hype!

We are now at the end of the Australian leg of the tour, and we finished off in style, by seeing the Big Captain Cook and then having a barbeque (I mean an outdoor gas hotplate). New Zealand next.

Atherton Tablelands

2007-02-06T04:36:00.000-08:00

We went on a trip to the Atherton Tablelands, named after Mike Atherton. This is a really attractive area in the hills around Cairns. As you might expect from recent posts, it rained all day, very heavily for most of it. But we saw some amazing sights. The Barron Gorge was impressive, especially after the recent rain! Then there were two fig trees.

You might not expect fig trees to be interesting, but these ones definitely were. They are parasitic trees and had 'taken over' other trees, killing that tree off over time. The roots grow down from on high, so they form a kind of curtain. So much so, that one of the trees was called the Curtain Fig Tree. The other one was more impressive. This was called the Cathedral Fig Tree, because somebody had decided that its roots looked like a cathedral. There were some interesting lakes in the Tablelands too, among the tropical rainforests.

The Great Escape

2007-02-06T04:12:00.000-08:00

We looked into the viability of getting from Townsville to Cairns by plane, and it was good. Just as we were preparing to take the car to the local Hertz office and travel the rest of the way in the air, the radio came on and announced that the police had opened the road. We could not believe this - it was only Saturday and the initial reports had said it would be closed until Sunday at the earliest. So we tentatively made our way to Ingham where the flooding was the worst. It was only an hour's drive away, so if it was really bad we could still get back to the airport in time.

There were two bad patches - the first one just south of Ingham was deep, but the car had no problems with that one. So on we went. The patch just north of Ingham was far worse, and we stopped before it to assess the situation. Unfortunately this meant we got stuck behind an American tourist who was unaware of the old adage 'don't be gentle with the rental' and proceeded through the raging torrents at about 10kmph. We were far less inclined to gentleness and wanted to put our foot down a bit to get some momentum going. As the water lapped at the car above the wheels we weren't sure if we would make it. There were a few sticky moments but we made it, and from there it was plain sailing (not literally) to Cairns.

The road has now been closed again, so we were very lucky to get the window of opportunity that we did get!

Stuck in Townsville

2007-02-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

After leaving Airlie beach, we made our way up to Townsville in the pouring rain. We were just using the town as a stopping-off point for one night. We then had a decision to make - should we go to Mission Beach? Should we go to Magnetic Island? Should we go straight to Cairns and spend an extra night there?

As we woke, though, it became clear that the answer would be - none of the above. Due to the heavy rain, during which 300mm of rain had fallen in Townsville in the previous two days, the roads out of the town were flooded and we were going nowhere. This was Thursday morning, and we have told that this would be the case until Sunday at the earliest. This has been the worst weather in the area for ten or twelve years, and caught everyone unprepared.

Townsville is the biggest settlement in the Northern Queensland area, but it is still not very big, and there is certainly not enough there to keep us occupied for four days. We do now know everything there is to know about the shipwreck of the HMS Pandora, from the extensive displays at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Pie knows how to fire a cannon. We will look into the options to escape; possibly we will take a flight to Cairns if they are running. For now we have some relaxing time.

Every cloud does have a silver lining though… We had spotted that a lot of Australian pubs have a ‘trivia night’, their name for a ‘pub quiz’. So far we had not managed to be in any town on the night that the quiz was advertised. But as we were stuck in Townsville on the Thursday night, it meant that we could attend the Thursday night trivia night at Molly Malone’s. Sadly, it wasn’t a great quiz, and we didn’t win anything, but at least it satisfied my desire for a pub quiz for a few weeks!

The Whitsundays

2007-02-01T16:50:00.000-08:00

We went our a two day, two night cruise around the Whitsundays. There were 15 of us aboard, plus two members of crew. Most of the travellers were in a similar position to us, travelling along the East Coast, although most were going south from Cairns to Sydney, so we had a lot in common to talk about.
We went snorkelling in three different areas during our trip, which was amazing. It was my first sight of any reef, so I particularly loved it. There were all sorts of different corals, different shapes and colours. I saw corals like big brains, corals like large strawberries, corals like large corn on the cobs, corals like large sponge fingers, corals like big mushrooms, corals that flickered in the water, bright blue corals, browns, yellows, reds and greens. And then there were the fish. There were small silver fish which shimmered in the sunshine filtering through the water which always swam in huge shoals, large multi-coloured fish, black fish which hid in between the corals. All the fish were inquisitive and seemed to stare in bewilderment at the large unusual shaped ‘fish’ with its odd swimming style, rubbery skin (a stinger suit to protect against the jellyfish), beady eyes (goggles) and tube-shaped mouth. The people who had been to Cairns or Port Douglas already said that the snorkelling in the Whitsundays was relatively disappointing, and that the views were far better farther north, which is great as I’m now really looking forward to seeing some of the real Great Barrier Reef in a few days!

We did some proper sailing too - I volunteered to pull a few ropes and winch a few other ropes. We mainly put up the mainsail and headsail and had one attempt at tacking on each voyage.

We went to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island, which is apparently number six on the list of best beaches in Australia. The sands were white and the beach was uninhabited when we arrived there. However, we couldn’t swim without putting on our stinger suits again, and there were a few scary-looking hornets flying around the beach. Also, it didn’t take too long for other people to arrive, flying in by sea plane. So I sat down for a while reading a book, went for a walk, threw a Frisbee a few times, and then that exhausted my excitement of that particular beach.

On our next stop, we went for a long walk on the island, 650m each way. It was a nice walk through a rainforest-like area to a lookout point. From there we had a picturesque view across towards Whitehaven beach.

The cabins on the boat were pretty small. Our room was right at the front of the boat, next to the toilets. We had occasional people coming through during the night, and the flush was the noisiest you would have heard. It had to be flushed for at least 15 seconds to allow all the water to drain away. There were five of us in that room in a small area. On the first night, there was torrential rain for most of the night, so we had to shut the hatches to the top deck, which meant we were all boiling hot. The second night was slightly better, we were all exhausted from the first night, and many people decided to take the option of having a few glasses of wine to ensure a good night’s sleep.

We had a lot of time to chat to the other people on the boat, and they were all very nice. There were two English couples, two other English girls, one of whom had gone to St Helen’s school in Abingdon, a lovely French couple who lived in Adelaide, three Germans and two Canadians.

As mentioned above, it rained on the first night we were there, but also it rained on the second night, and didn’t stop the following morning. We had no option but to go straight back to the marina at Airlie beach. All of us were dressed in the fetching yellow raincoats they had on board, but all of us we still absolutely soaking wet.

All in all, it was a great fun trip!

Continuing our Journey

2007-02-01T16:40:00.000-08:00

‘Every step I take I make a new friend,
Can’t stay too long, just turn around I’m gone again.
Maybe tomorrow I’m gonna settle down,
Until tomorrow I’ll just keep moving on.’

‘The Littlest Hobo’ theme tune has been our theme over the last few weeks. We left Mackay to go to Eungulla National Park where the Rough Guide said we were almost guaranteed to see platypuses. Sadly this was one of the times that the guarantee didn’t cover. We stayed at the lookout point for about half an hour, then went for a walk through a tropical rainforest and came back later. But no sign of any platypuses, or platypi, or whatever the plural is (it should actually be platypodes, as I informed Pie - I can explain why some other time). There were plenty of turtles in the water, so maybe they’d eaten all the platypuses in an unexpected twist on the food chain. The closest we came to seeing one was a duck-billed…duck.

And then on to Airlie Beach. We spent a pleasant evening there, doing very little.

After a pleasant cruise round the Whitsundays, we stopped at the Big Multi-Coloured Easter Egg. Oh, apparently it's a Big Mango.

Fraser Island

2007-01-27T06:09:00.000-08:00

Fraser Island is a fantastic place. Pie and I spent two full days there. The island is 123km long, and is just one huge sandbank. Over the years, plants have grown there and the area is one of the most interesting environments you can go to. From west to east across the island, there are mangrove swamps, normal swamps, normal forest areas, tropical rainforests, crystal clear lakes, then white sandy beaches. Alongside the beach there are huge peaks of varying colours made out of hard dried sand. Then on the beach there are big black rocks, made out of sand.

The best thing about the island though is that you can hire 4 wheel drive vehicles and drive over the island. The inner tracks vary from hard sand roads which are very bumpy, to tracks made out of soft dry sand which it is very easy to get stuck in. And accordingly, about three seconds after I first tried driving on the island, I got stuck in some soft dry sand. Fortunately, there were some vehicles coming the other way containing large numbers of backpackers, mainly the scantily clad female variety, who were able to push the vehicle out of the hole, so it wasn't all bad. To give myself some credit for once, the area I got stuck in was one of the most difficult areas on the island, and I only got stuck because I saw the vehicles coming the other way and tried to pull in to a passing place.

Even better fun than the internal tracks though is driving along the eastern beach. It is called 75 mile beach, which should give you a clue that it's fairly long. You can pelt along the beach at 80kmph watching out for 'washouts', which is where the streams on the island empty into the sea, vehicles coming the other way, and the occasional plane landing on the beach.

We did of course check out the crystal clear lakes, and they were lovely and warm to swim in. The two negatives of the island were that it was extremely humid and the number of sandflies. Apparently sandflies don't bite, they just urinate on you, which causes a reaction.

More Small Towns and Big Things

2007-01-27T05:34:00.000-08:00

On leaving Brisbane, we stopped in the Glass Mountains. We climbed Mount Beerbirrum, which is close to the small town of Beerbirrum. This is just east of the small town of Glass Mountains. The mountain range is quite pretty. There are nine mountains in the range, of which three or four look very difficult to climb. They appear to go to a point at the top, so they are for experienced mountaineers only. Beerbirrum was one of the easier ones, just a short walk up a very steep track.

Noosa was a pleasant town, or rather collection of towns. This is the upmarket beach area, where the rich people go, a complete contrast to the Gold Coast. Pie and I saw a lot of the area, as we got lost on a walk around the town and it took us three hours to get back to our riverside suite.

Following our trip to Fraser Island, we stopped off at Bundaberg, which is the home of rum in Australia. Sadly we saw no sign of that, despite being there on Australia Day. The streets were almost deserted. So we headed to Rockhampton ('Rocky'), the home of beef in Australia, and saw no cows. Nor did we have a steak. Next stop was Mackay. The Thai meal we had was great, but again there was not much happening on a Saturday night. We were the last people to leave the restaurant. At 9pm.

Our big things count is now seven. We looked at the map of Big Things around Australia which was displayed at the Big Banana, to get some ideas of where to go. This map also displayed the rules for your sizeable object qualifying as a Big Thing - it needs to be bigger than the real thing, and it needs to be artificial. This would appear to allow many more things to qualify than were displayed on the map, but we thought we’d stick with the official ones. Following the Big Banana and the Big Prawn from last week, we have now added the Big Hard Rock Guitar from Surfers Paradise, here pictured deliberately with a tree directly in front, to give an idea of scale.

Then there was the Big Pineapple. It was so important that we saw this, that we drove around the area three times to make sure we didn’t miss out. And it was worth it - the biggest and most ridiculous big thing so far, and what’s more - you can climb to the top! And learn about pineapples at the same time!

At the same site was the relatively disappointing Big Macadamia Nut.

Just outside Noosa there is the Big Shell.

And number seven was the impressively big Big Ned Kelly. If you could have climbed up to the top of Ned Kelly, learnt some things about Ned Kelly, or had a delicious glass of Ned Kelly juice, he might have surpassed the Big Pineapple, or even the Big Banana. But no, so the fibreglass Big Pineapple takes the plaudits.

Gold Coast

2007-01-27T05:25:00.000-08:00

As we had rushed our journey to Brisbane to get to the cricket in time, we decided to make a day trip to the Gold Coast to see what we had missed on our way up.

The Gold Coast is the height of tackiness. For mile after mile, there are only cheap highrise holiday apartments, nightclubs, bars and casinos. The area is famous for having four theme parks. I’m not really a theme park person, but it didn’t take much persuading for me to agree to come to Sea World. You see, it’s not only a theme park, they also have some sea animals there. There would be shows involving intelligent tricks by dolphins and seals.

We started off by watching ‘The Quest for the Golden Seal’, an epic of a show of almost Shakespearean dialogue. The plot revolved around the main stars of the show trying to find a golden seal. The major star of the show was a sealion called Claude. He did a number of intelligent things, and never missed his cue.

Then we went on the rides. We opted first for the pirate ship. It simply went back and forth, like a big swing, and only went as far as 72 degrees from the vertical. From the bottom, it looked like a pretty tame ride. While I was on it, I remembered why I’m not a big theme park fan. When the ride had finished and I had managed to prise my hands from the safety rail, as well as returned my stomach to where it belonged, we went on the rollercoaster. No problems there.

Later, we did some more rides, saw some dolphins leaping out of the water, saw some sharks, some penguins and some polar bears, and had fully exhausted the park. Fortunately this happened five minutes before closing time.

We drove through Surfers Paradise to see if we were missing out on anything, and concluded that we weren’t so we headed back to Brisbane.

Brisbane

2007-01-27T05:16:00.000-08:00

When we had been planning our trip originally, Brisbane did not get a lot of coverage. We had to go to Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, as that was where the test matches were while we were in the country. Then we had to go to Adelaide, as I had some good friends there. But Brisbane seemed not to have anything going for it - it was merely going to be a stop off point between Sydney and Cairns.

But then we realised that there would be a one-day international at the Gabba which could be fitted into our schedule. A quick phone call to Ticketmaster to check that there were tickets available and we were going to be staying in Brisbane for four nights.

I’m glad we made that decision. I really liked Brisbane - it had more going on than Perth and Adelaide, and the South Bank is a fantastic area. Imagine London’s South Bank, with pedestrian areas, theatres and cinemas, and funny-shaped bridges. Then add an artificial beach, with sand, a lagoon-shaped swimming pool with palm trees growing at its edge, and BBQs all around (by which I mean gas powered outdoor hotplates), and you will get some idea of what Brisbane’s South Bank is like. Pie and I wandered along the bank of the river on a balmy evening, then crossed over the Goodwill Bridge, from where there were views of the city. As with the other four major Australian cities, the skyline is made up of tall office blocks, but still very pleasant in the darkness. The square in the centre of the city contains metal structures which look like large footballs, which appealed to us too.

It is strange to say, as I am a person who doesn’t like being pestered or approached in the street, but Brisbane felt like a proper city because of the existence of Big Issue sellers, charity collectors, beggars etc. We had not seen that elsewhere in Australia, although I’m sure we must have just missed them.

The cricket obviously went as badly as the other five days of England-watching we have seen live on this holiday (although I suppose Perth was good at the time), so we decided on the following night to cheer ourselves up by watching Aussies trying to play football (they call it soccer over here). It was a big match too. It was the final match of the regular season, and Queensland Roar FC needed to win to get into the play-offs. A draw or a defeat and their opponents that evening, Sydney FC, would get through in their stead.

The big crowd of just over 30,000 were in the main disappointed after 25 minutes as Sydney got a deserved goal. The goal was caused by Pie, who decided to go to the bar to get the beers in. Yes, in Australia you can watch the football and have a beer at the same time. Admittedly, only mid-strength Aussie beer, but beer nonetheless. So Sydney took advantage of Pie not watching the game to score their goal. The Roar equalised just before half-time, but Sydney were in control after the break and Queensland could not score the goal they needed, despite the ref letting them have an extra man for the last ten minutes, when he sent off a Sydney player for not fouling the Queensland player at all in any way. Then he opted to show a Queensland player only a yellow card minutes afterwards, when he scythed down the goalkeeper in the box approximately 2 minutes after the keeper had caught the ball.

It was interesting to see a football match in a different country, and the Aussies are definitely getting into their soccer now. The league has been going in its present format for only eight years, and while the players are quite skilful, there is not the tactical nous or competitiveness among the players which you will see in England, even at Conference level.

On our final night in Brisbane, we were in a Chinese restaurant. There was only one other couple in there, so the woman started up a conversation with us. It quickly emerged that she’d had rather too many that evening, as she kept repeating how much she loved Cambridge, and how weird it was to meet somebody who had studied there (Pie) in Brisbane of all places. Good fun though, and that is what makes Brisbane a more real city than Perth or Adelaide.

The Last of the Big Five…

2007-01-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

Our trip to the Gabba to see the one-day international between England and Australia at the best-named cricket ground in the world, now means that we have seen a match in all five main cricket grounds in Australia - the WACA in Perth, the 'G' in Melbourne, the SCG in Sydney, the Adelaide Oval and now the Gabba.

The Gabba was like a mini version of the MCG, which meant that again it didn’t feel like a cricket ground. There is no pavilion at the Gabba. The crowd spent most of the match throwing beach balls around and starting Mexican Waves, despite the fact that the match was finely poised for most of the time.

Obviously England lost again.

I think my favourite ground was the Adelaide Oval. The WACA had some charm too. Both the MCG and the Gabba are big, but fairly soulless, places.

Big Things

2007-01-19T21:17:00.000-08:00

Australia is aware of the fact that driving huge distances can get a bit boring, so they decided to make journeys more interesting by making ‘big things’ out of concrete and putting them in particularly uninteresting places beside the road, to give motorists something to do.

The first ‘big thing’ we saw was the Big Banana just outside Coffs Harbour. This was the first ‘big thing’ in Australia, and is still the best. It advertised itself as the most photographed object in Australia, which is a bold claim in a country which has Uluru in it. Still, both Pie and I added our names to the people who have photographed it. The Big Banana has an advantage over some of the ‘big things’, in that you are able to walk through it, as well as ogle it from afar. The banana advertises an actual banana plantation, and the owners did not miss a trick as a whole banana-themed theme park has grown up around the plantation. Pie and I stopped for banana smoothies, but did not go for the chocolate covered bananas on sticks. We had a look in the banana gift shop, but did not buy anything. However, the banana guards for protecting bananas from getting squashed in your bag sounded like a very good idea to me.

After the excitement of the Big Banana, the Big Prawn was a relative disappointment. You can’t walk through it, and it is only there advertising a seafood restaurant. Obviously, we still stopped for a photograph…

Road Trip!

2007-01-19T21:12:00.000-08:00

Pie and I have commenced our road from Sydney to Cairns. This has been good fun so far, with some fantastic views of coasts, seas, lakes and forests. We are now in Brisbane, where we are basing ourselves for a few days. Driving through the less well-inhabited areas of New South Wales and Queensland has meant we have seen even more one-horse towns than we saw in Western Australia.

Our stops so far have been:

Monday - lunch in Glenbrook; afternoon and evening in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. We took some good walks around the cliffs at Katoomba, with some fantastic views over the mountains, particularly of the Three Sisters rocks.

Tuesday - lunch in Windsor; evening in Forster. We stopped off at the Wyndham Estate winery on our way through the Hunter Valley to do some more wine tasting. Forster itself didn’t have a lot to do, but we met another English guy there and did our good deed by giving him a lift to Port Macqaurie.

Wednesday - lunch in Port Macquarie; night in Coffs Harbour. Port Macquarie was a pleasant town, with far more to do than Forster. Coffs was a fairly large town with a few things to do. Including the Big Banana!

Thursday - breakfast in Grafton; lunch in Byron Bay; evening in Brisbane. We have rushed the first part of our journey to get to Brisbane in time for the one-day international cricket at the Gabba. We will be visiting the Gold Coast on Sunday.

Everywhere you go, always take the weather with you…

2007-01-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

We had heard rumours that Australia and New Zealand had their summer when the UK had its winter. We were expecting then that both countries would be hot and dry during this trip. As we arrived, Australia had a number of drought warnings, and there was a large bush fire raging in Victoria, around Melbourne.

We therefore deserve some kind of knighthood for helping out the Australian climate by bringing our UK rain with us. I can report that as soon as we arrived in Melbourne, the bush fire was put out by nearly a week of heavy rain. There are rumours that Christmas Day in Liverpool in the UK was warmer than Melbourne and that it didn’t rain there, which means we chose the wrong year to be away for Christmas. It rained in Western Australia when we were there. It rained in Sydney. There was a large thunderstorm when we were in Uluru. This is partly understandable, as that is a desert area and does experience occasional heavy showers. What was less understandable though was the English-style light drizzle which fell when we were walking around the base of the rock.

Even Adelaide suffered a few minutes of drizzle as we were being driven to the airport. And Auckland had the most English-style weather yet, during the wedding weekend.

Our luck must change soon…!

David and Kathryn's wedding

2007-01-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

Despite the intermittent rain in Auckland, David and Kathryn’s wedding went without a hitch. The couple looked very happy during the whole day (as you’d hope they would!). The preparations had been extensively made, so much so that there was a list of the order that the group photographs would be made in. Thus the group from the UK knew that we were the last photograph…

There were eight of us who knew David and Kathryn from Holy Trinity Brompton church - me and Paul, Byron, Sean, Nathan, Kyra, Alison, and the special surprise guest, Leo. This did mean that we ended up with a cross-section broadly similar to that of HTB as a whole - two Englishmen, two Kiwis and four South Africans, to attend a wedding of two more Kiwis.

The food was fantastic - we all piled our plates up high with meat, seafood and some salad, and some of us went up for seconds. I’ll let David and Kathryn work out who that might have been (for once it wasn’t me…)!

The reception was in a great venue in One Tree Hill. We wandered outside during the drinks and canapés part of the evening to hear the melodious waft of bagpipes coming from the hills. On closer inspection, we saw a man playing his bagpipes to a large herd of cattle. Presumably his neighbours had complained about him practising at home, and he’d been forced to go out into the hills whenever he wanted to play.

The speeches were great, with Kathryn’s father in particular being good value. He undertook a merciless teasing campaign against David, but all seemed to be friends in the end…!

All in all, it was a great day. It was good to see a group of friends again after a couple of months, although it was slightly bizarre to have a whole group of us together in a completely different country.

Auckland

2007-01-19T21:02:00.000-08:00

Paul and I took a weekend trip over to New Zealand - for our friends David and Kathryn’s wedding. This provoked a few confused reactions at the immigration desks in both Australia and New Zealand. “So, you’re going to Auckland for two days…?”

Auckland showed us the best example of UK-style weather we have seen yet on this trip - the skies were grey and there was intermittent rain for the whole of the time we were there. Just before we arrived at the airport, the skies cleared and gave us just a glimpse of what to expect from New Zealand when we return in February. Auckland appeared to be in a lovely location, with bays, seas and islands all around.

Unfortunately, as we were on such a short trip, we did not get a chance to look around these nice areas, and only had time to visit the city centre. This was a bit disappointing - many areas of the city were run down and in need of regeneration. The shopping streets though were bustling and did give an impression of a lively city. We stayed in one of the suburbs just south of the city, and this was a pleasant area. Much like Perth and Adelaide, the majority of the population live in the suburbs and these had their own shops and personalities. Unlike Perth though, the public transport system was not that extensive, and it felt like you could not live in Auckland without a car. I’ll be able to add more analysis on Auckland later, as we will be there a further two times.

There are some lovely areas in Auckland - one of these was the venue for the wedding reception, One Tree Hill.

Twenty20 cricket

2007-01-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

As we had been unable to catch the Ashes test at the Adelaide Oval, we thought it would be nice to catch some kind of match whilst we were in Adelaide, and this turned out to be an inter-state Twenty20 match between the (South Australian) West End Redbacks and the Queensland (no sponsorship) Bulls.

One element the Australians have brought into the Twenty20 game this season is the use of nicknames on the backs of the players’ shirts instead of their actual names, presumably to make the whole experience a bit more trendy.

The Redbacks had tried very hard on their nicknames and had come up with some classics - Boof (Darren Lehman), Truck (Fred Kelly), Rhino (Ryan Harris) and Muss (Daniel Harris) to name a few, along with the more obvious Taity (Shaun Tait), Smithy (Mr Smith) and Cos (Mark Cosgrove). However, the Queenslanders had mainly gone for the more obvious choices with Rimmo and Simmo (Rimmington and Simpson) in their team. The notable exceptions were James ‘Catfish’ Hopes and Hannibal, whose actual name now escapes me.

The Redbacks’ victory in the nickname stakes was matched by their performance in the game, as they bowled out the Bulls to gain a fine victory.

Adelaide

2007-01-19T20:50:00.000-08:00

We went to Adelaide for a few days to spend time with my friends Nathan and Julie. They live in a nice suburb in the hills around the city.

Adelaide city itself is very small - only about a mile square. The shopping centre and the museums, libraries and galleries are contained in this square mile, surrounded by parkland on every side. This makes Adelaide an attractive city. Very few people live in the city part; most people live in the suburbs, in a similar style to Perth. Our first stop when we arrived was the lookout point from where a statue of Colonel Light who designed the city points down towards his creation. His finger appears to be pointing directly towards the Adelaide Oval, the cricket ground, obviously as that is the spiritual centre of the city.

Adelaide appears to be a lovely city to live in, but not the liveliest of cities. As most of the people live outside the city, each suburb has its own centre and so there is not much reason for the locals to come into the middle. There are a lot of good cheap restaurants in the city centre, but also in the suburbs. We went to eat in Glenelg, the main beach area of the city. There is one tram service in Adelaide, which runs from the city centre to Glenelg, as that is the happening place to be.

Near to Nathan and Julie’s house is the Belair National Park, which we took the opportunity to visit. We were glad we did, as we could tick off another few Australian animals - we saw our first koala, some emus, and a galah bird. We were trying to work out who is famous for saying , “You great galah!”, but couldn’t, so answers on a postcard please.

Nathan and Julie also took us to see another native bird of Adelaide, the penguin, which inhabits an island just off Victor Harbour in the south. It was a scorchingly hot day when we were there and sadly all the penguins were hiding. Or it was an elaborate hoax.

We also managed to find time in our busy schedules to do some more wine tasting in the Maclaren Vale region. Apparently, the verdelho was very good, but I was sticking to the reds.

Kata Tjuta

2007-01-19T20:38:00.000-08:00

Uluru is not the only large rock in the Northern Territories. A mere 50km away, there is a rock formation called Kata Tjuta (or the Olgas). This is another site which is sacred to the Anangu Aboriginal people and so there are few parts you can walk around, and like Uluru, they prefer it if you don’t climb them. We did a nice 8km walk around some of the rocks.

The highlight of the day, for me anyway, was our first confirmed sighting of a kangaroo. It stood still just long enough to be photographed before bounding into the bushes at a picturesque gorge between the rocks. I had seen some kangaroos in the Edwards winery in Margaret River, but they immediately jumped behind some trees before Paul and Pie saw them and so they didn’t seem to believe me… There was no denying this sighting!

During our time at the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, we had an all you can eat buffet. This involved eating as many Australian animals as we could. We had smoked emu, crocodile stir fry, kangaroo and barramundi. Sadly there was no quokka on the menu.

Uluru

2007-01-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

Ayers Rock (or Uluru to the Aboriginals) may just be a large rock, but what a rock!

We've seen it a sunset, sunrise, and walked all the way around the outside. We didn't climb up, because we're good boys. And the climb was shut.

Sydney

2007-01-07T00:33:00.000-08:00

Sydney is a fantastic city. It's definitely the best place we've been to so far - apologies to Singapore, KL, Perth and Melbourne. It just has the feel of a big city, which Perth and Melbourne don't have. Apparently Melburnians like to think their city is a rival to Sydney, but they're deluding themselves. Sydney is a city on a different level to Melbourne. And it has an amazing harbour front.
We spent a few days in the city - we got to look at the Botanic Gardens in the end, where we saw a possum, some cockatoos and some bats. We went to Manly, which was so named because Captain Cook saw some particularly muscular Aboriginals when he sailed past and declared them 'manly'. It's quite close to the suburb of 'Hunky'. Pie and went for a walk around the bay there. We went to Bondi Beach, which was very busy. We went on another nice walk from there to Coogee.

And we spent two days at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Unlike the MCG, the SCG feels like a proper stadium - Matt spent the first day sitting behind a pillar, and the queues for drinks or food were huge. Most importantly, it took about 20 minutes to exit the stadium at the close of play - nobody had thought that people might actually want to attend (and leave) the stadium when they built it. I far preferred it as a ground to the MCG - it even had two pavilions.

Obviously, the highlights of Sydney are the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge - and deservedly so. We went for drinks in the bar below the Opera House and walked over the bridge. I think I'm going to come back here one day!

New Year

2007-01-07T00:04:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all my readers!

I have had a number of great new year's parties in the past - we usually have a house party to see in the New Year. This year was very different - we were outside in the sunshine, we had set up our spot at 9:30am to ensure we had the best position, there was much less drinking and drunkenness than usual (with one exception! She knows who she is...), and we spent the party mainly with people we hardly knew, but it was probably the best New Year's party... ever!

This was because of the fantastic view we had looking across Sydney harbour. Naomi, whom we were staying with, and her friends had scouted out an excellent position a few weeks before on the north shore of the harbour in Kirribilli, very close to where she lived. Accordingly, seven of us made our way from Naomi's house at 9:30am armed with large eskies (the Aussie name for those big insulated cool boxes) full of food, picnic blankets and some champagne, only to find that the spot they had their eye on had already been taken, by a group of guys who had camped there from 5pm the previous night. There was however space for us to set up next to them - the only downside was that the Opera House was partially obscured behind a tree. The view to the Harbour Bridge was completely unobscured, and this was to prove important later on when the fireworks started.

After breakfast, the girls were happy to save the spot for us, so Paul, Pie and I went to explore Sydney city centre. I particularly wanted to look around the Botanic Gardens, but this was one of the official positions to watch the fireworks, and so there was approximately a three hour queue to get in (ha, fools!).

Matt and Jules turned up at 6pm and we cracked open the first beers (unfortunately they were Australian beers and therefore pretty much tasteless) and sat back waiting for the show. There was a firework display at 9pm, mainly for the kiddies and old people who couldn't make it until midnight. This show was pretty impressive, probably more impressive than the show we saw in London for New Year's two year's ago. Then we sat back again waiting for the next show, entertaining ourselves in between with some sparklers , party poppers and blowers.

Then the countdown began to the most impressive firework display I have ever seen! It was the 75th anniversary of the Harbour Bridge, so there were lights in a diamond shape. The bridge is known to the locals at the 'Coathanger', and there were also lights in a coathanger shape as a self-parody. The fireworks themselves must've gone on for about 10 or 15 minutes. We tried to sing 'Auld Lang Syne', but it didn't really take off.

What a fantastic way to see in the New Year! That is definitely the best view I have ever had at a new year (apologies to Ruari's place in Hinckley, or to my place in Pimlico), and we made a new group of friends (although I did of course miss the old ones!!)!

And on to Sydney…

2007-01-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

Pie and I decided to take the train from Melbourne to Sydney rather than fly. It seemed a good idea at the time. However, there was engineering work on the line that weekend (where have I heard that one before??!), bridge replacement at Wagga Wagga apparently, so we had to get a replacement bus for part of the journey. When I say part of the journey, I mean for six hours.

The bus journey was generally uneventful. The highlight was the bus driver’s CD collection. We particularly enjoyed (or do I mean ‘endured ’?) his album of cover versions of classic songs performed by a choir of young children. We looked on aghast as they murdered ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, ‘Singing in the Rain’, ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’ and even ‘Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey Goodbye’. Also, the bus driver preferred to drive on the rumble strip at the edge of the road rather than on the road itself, and then took us on a ‘short cut’ to Cootamundra (where we were to pick up the train), which added an extra hour and a half to the journey.

The train part of the journey was fine - we caught up the time we had lost and arrived at Sydney on time. Unfortunately, there was some engineering work on the line we wanted to travel on to our final destination, so we needed to catch a replacement bus. This gave me my first glimpse of the Opera House and it was more amazing in real life than the pictures.

St Kilda's

2007-01-06T23:48:00.000-08:00

Miserable Melbourne had one last surprise for us before we left - a rare pleasant day! We took the opportunity to head down to the beach at St Kilda’s. Unfortunately so had the 80,000 people who would have been at the MCG that day, which meant that the seldom seen Melburnian sunshine was reflecting off the pasty white English bodies of a number of cricket fans and dazzling us.

We wandered along the Esplanade and saw the tacky delights of Luna Park, before heading back to the city.

I’ve been a bit unfair on Melbourne in this blog - we did have some unusual weather for the time of year, but otherwise Melbourne was a perfectly nice, if unspectacular, city. And it probably still is…

Two days at the G

2007-01-06T23:37:00.000-08:00

Australians love shortening names for places and things. We have already been to Rotto (Rottnest Island) and Freo (Fremantle) and drunk SSB (Semillion Sauvignon Blanc) and VB (Victoria Bathwater, uh I mean Bitter). However our two days at the cricket in Melbourne highlighted a new trend - a double shortening.

The Melbourne Cricket Ground quickly (and understandably) became known as the MCG. But now the Melburnians have decided that that is too much of a mouthful, so they now refer to it as the ‘G’. It is only a short step until they refer to it as the ‘ ’, with just a sharp exhalation of breath.

The G is an impressive stadium - there were 90,000 people there on Boxing Day. We were there on the second and third days, and they only got 80 odd thousand there for those days.

However it does not feel like a cricket stadium - maybe this is controversial to say. The ground is completely enclosed, with the bars and food counters within the innards of the stadium. The merchandising stands and the people selling radios have to be outside the gates of the stadium. This seems wrong to me, cricket stadia should be made up of a motley collection of different sized stands, and you should be able to walk all the way round the outside of the stands, while still being within the confines of the ground. Most importantly, there should be a Pavilion. Or even two. The MCG does not have any of this.

It is however a splendid arena for watching sport. The view of the pitch is completely unobscured from all seats. We were right at the back of the top tier and we could see perfectly, and weren’t as far from the action as we expected we might be. However, we were under the roof, away from any sun there might have been, which meant that we were freezing. Paul sat there in his skiing jacket, while I sat with my hands in whatever pockets I could find.

The action on the field didn’t match up to the surroundings, at least not when England were batting, and we went home early on the third day, another test match lost.

My new chain of men's clothing stores

2006-12-29T04:06:00.000-08:00

As I am away from home for a few months and will not be earning for that time, I had to find a different way of getting income.

I spotted a gap in the market in Australia for designer men's clothing and so I started my own chain of stores and stands in department stores.

They have been doing quite well so far, as you may be able to tell from my delighted grin in this photo, taken from my stand in Melbourne's flagship Myers department store:

Christmas Day 2006

2006-12-26T03:01:00.000-08:00

Ever since I announced that I would be spending Christmas in Australia, people in the UK have been wondering what it would be like having Christmas day in the heat. Now I can confidently answer that question - I've got no idea, because Melbourne (hereafter to be referred to as 'Miserable Melbourne') was wet and pretty cold for most of the day.

Caillie had introduced me in the past to the idea of 'season lag', where the season does not tie in with one's expectation of the time of year, in particular where Christmas is concerned. By this I mean that Christmas has always been cold in our experience and it seems incongruous for it to be warm. I experienced this 'season lag' in the build up to the big day, in particular in the Cameron Highlands where I spotted an Indian woman wearing a santa hat behind the bar of the tea shop in the Bharat plantation. This 'season lag' did not prove to be a problem on the day itself though - it could easily have been an English autumn day.

This was my first Christmas away from home, and the first with a group of friends, so this made it interesting anyway. We decided to do some barbequing, by which I mean some outdoor cooking on the electric hotplate. We threw a number of shrimps onto the barbie, as well as some steaks and some kanga bangas (kangaroo sausages of course). And some normal sausages. And some chicken drumsticks. So we continued the normal Christmas tradition of eating too much.

The Eagle Vale shiraz was opened early on. Jules cracked open a four litre box of wine, which was more in the 'plum jam' bracket of wines. And there was beer, beer and more beer. Sadly it was Australian, but still beer. So that was another Christmas tradition successfully negotiated.

To be fair it didn't rain the whole day. There were breaks in the rain for some... hail! Plus there were also occasional glimpses of sunshine. During one of the long periods of rain interspersed with hail, a man set up a video camera a hundred yards away from us. We're convinced that if we'd watched local news that evening we would have seen the following story: "Today was the coldest and wettest Christmas day in Melbourne's history, breaking all the records, but there were still some people crazy enough to eat outside..." (pan across to the five of us cooking sausages).

We managed to find space in our busy outdoor electric hotplate-ing sessions to play some cricket in the park. Unfortunately Matt's sheer power broke the ball after two overs. Jules' hour-long search for a replacement proved fruitless, despite her offering a dog owner that she would buy the ball from his dog for ten dollars. So we played some cards and then made our way back to the hotplate.

The evening food session included some mulled wine and some mince pies, and there had also been some crackers, party hats, poor jokes and dancing, so all in all we did quite well on the Christmas traditions!

Business Man

2006-12-26T02:48:00.000-08:00

I am on a three month sabbatical from work, and am currently not doing any paid work. It is slightly unclear then why I was in the business class of my flight from Perth to Melbourne. Fisher's are normally too stingy to stump up for anything other than economy, so this was a very welcome surprise for me.

I turned up at the airport, printed out my boarding card and stood in the economy queue for ten minutes before spotting the 'business' printed on the card. After enlisting the help of an attendant, it emerged that I was (somehow) indeed in business class, so I got into a far shorter queue to check in my bag.

I actually had some leg room, the food was quite nice (in case you're interested, I went for the veal medallions in mushroom sauce served with mashed potato and vegetables du jour, followed by the cheese and biscuits). All in all, a pleasant flight even though it was an hour and a half late - well, you can't have everything.

Pemberton and southern Western Australia

2006-12-26T02:15:00.000-08:00

After Margaret River, we drove further south. We paid a short visit to Cape Leeuwin, which is the most south westerly point in Australia. That appears to mean it is not the most southerly point, nor is it the most westerly point, which is a pretty ropey claim to fame really. There was a lighthouse there, and it is the meeting point of the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean.

Next we went to the 62m tall Gloucester Tree, which has the tallest fire lookout tower on any tree in Australia. This meant that some brave soul had plonked a two ton tower at the top of the tree. The way to get to the top was to climb up some metal spikes spiralling round the tree which another brave soul (as the first one probably plunged to his death plonking a two ton tower at the top) had hammered into the trunk of the tree. Being a brave and manly soul myself, I made it as far as the tenth of the metal spikes before my knuckles went white and my hands had to be prised open, and I had to make my way shakily back to earth. Paul and Pie, however, were not willing to let the possibility of certain death get in the way of a good photo and clambered up to the tower.

We also did a treetop walk among the very impressive Karri trees in the 'Valley of the Giants'. My fear of heights meant that I could complete this walk, but only if I clung to both sides of the walkway with both hands.

Pemberton was our home for a couple of nights. It would be overgenerous to call it a 'one-horse town'. We eventually found the one pub in the town, and the food there was actually very good. We later found out that most towns in the area were a similar size, and all had to prove that they were better in some way than the surrounding towns. We passed through a town that was 'the best small town', which presumably meant that it was neither the best town nor the smallest town. Then there was the town with rather disturbing giant figurines made out of straw and metal standing along the highway. Then there was Northcliffe, with its large sign asking 'Where the Heck is Northcliffe?' But my personal favourite was Donnybrook, the 'home of the Granny Smith'. To emphasise this point, the streetlights had large fibreglass apples hanging from them.

Throw another egg on the outdoor cooker

2006-12-20T05:06:00.000-08:00

We spent a few days in Margaret River, in the South Western part of Western Australia. Similarly to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, it is a cooler area where all kinds of crops grow. Much as I enjoyed the tea from the Highlands, Margaret River’s produce got me even more excited - wine!

We visited a few wineries during our stay, and of course we tested the wines to make sure they reached our strict quality standards. The best one we went to, in my opinion, was the first one we went to - Eagle Vale. The winemaker there was a French man who had some very forthright opinions, but generally they seemed to be valid. We found out later that he is not very popular among the locals, but he was charming to us. His wine was good and he appeared to take a lot of care over it.

There are also a few breweries in the area. Unfortunately, I woke up one morning feeling a bit under the weather (not alcohol related I hasten to add), so I volunteered to be ‘Des’ that day (although they call it ‘the skipper’ over here). That means I missed out on the brewery’s sample set. While Pie and Paul were enjoying their beers, I was ‘enjoying’ a lemon, lime and angostura bitters.

Another highlight of Margaret River is the Jewel Cave. There are actually three caves around the area, but all the guidebooks say that the Jewel Cave is the biggest and most spectacular. We certainly weren’t disappointed by the impressive stalactite and stalagmite formations.

Now you may be wondering about the title to this blog entry. Everywhere in Australia has outdoor ‘barbeques’. We saw some in South Perth, and now our accommodation in Margaret River had one. However, to my mind, barbequing involves cooking on charcoals that you’ve spent ages trying to heat up, and then when you actually cook on them, they are far too hot and all the meat gets burnt. The outdoor barbeques are just gas or electric hotplates and grills. So I don’t think that counts as a barbeque. We had a few eggs left over from an earlier meal, so we simply cooked them on our hotplate. I somehow don’t think that would be possible on a charcoal barbeque.

A most bizarre thing

2006-12-20T05:05:00.001-08:00

If someone said to you that in a country half way around the world from your country, someone had made scale replicas of some of the buildings in the town you had been to school for seven years, would you believe it?

We hired a car for a few days away from Perth in the South Western part of Western Australia. An hour’s drive south of Perth we found the miniature Abingdon village, an attractive garden which contained scale replicas of four buildings from Abingdon, the town where I had been to school for seven years. It is not immediately clear why the landscapers had chosen Abingdon as their template, but chosen it they had, so the three of us had to take a look.

We actually spent far longer there than we had anticipated. Not only were the gardens the perfect place for a picnic, but they also had a mini golf course which we had to test out. (They also had a miniature golf course, but we couldn’t play on that one.)

Perth

2006-12-20T05:05:00.000-08:00

We finally got an opportunity to look around Perth. Perth is a nice city. Much like Singapore, it is a pleasant place to live, but there is not a lot for a tourist to do.

Michelle drove us to South Perth from where there is a beautiful view of the Perth skyline. We wandered along the south bank of the Swan River in sweltering temperatures (about 36 degrees Celsius), stopping only to investigate one group’s barbeque as they sat in the park.

Then we looked around the city itself. Even the week before Christmas in the centre of a major city, the shopping centre was not that busy. This is because most of the inhabitants live in suburbs around the city, all of which have their own parade of shops. There is no reason for the locals to come into the centre.

We had a quick look at the Perth Bell Tower, then the heat got too much, so it was back to Michelle’s for our first barbie of the trip!

Rotto

2006-12-20T04:59:00.000-08:00

We took a ferry trip across from Perth to Rottnest Island (known as ‘Rotto’ to the locals). Rotto has a lot of beautiful sandy beaches and clear blue sea. It is called Rottnest, which means ‘rat’s nest’ on account of the very strange animals called quokkas which live there. They are like oversized bouncing rats. When we saw the first one, we were very excited and had to take some long range photos with the zoom. Then we saw one that we could get fairly close to, and took some photos of that one. When we sat down for our picnic lunch, another one came right up to us - clearly not afraid of humans - begging us for food. And when we left the island, one was standing upright, half-cut, on the ferry boardwalk. So they are fairly numerous and very tame.

I managed to get awarded the first, and so far only, ‘muppet of the tour’ award. Just after I’d been trying my best to snorkel in the clear blue sea, I got out, got changed and was searching through my bag for my sunglasses. After about five minutes’ searching, Paul and Pie asked me what I was looking for. “Have you got two pairs of sunglasses?” Pie asked. “No, just the one,” I replied. “You’re wearing them,” came the retort. Oops.

After we’d exhausted ourselves with the sun, sea and sand, we caught the ferry back to Fremantle (‘Freo’ to the locals, who appear to like their abbreviations). Freo is an attractive small town just south of Perth, which underwent a renovation when the Aussies won the America’s Cup for sailing a few years ago. The fish and chips there come highly recommended, and the chilli mussels were good too.

A Great Day!

2006-12-16T02:47:00.000-08:00

We made our way to Perth on the next leg of our journey.

We spent a fantastic day at the WACA, watching the first day of the third Ashes Test. England played really well and bowled the Aussies out for 244. Unfortunately we then lost a couple of quick wickets (although Belly's should apparently have been a no ball). Monty took five wickets and was the hero of the day.

Off the pitch, things were highly enjoyable as well. We were in the Aussie Fanatics stand, as were quite a few other England supporters, so there was a lot of good banter going on. The Aussie fans were trying so hard to emulate the ‘Barmy Army’, and they nearly got there, poor mites.

I even avoided major sunburn, with some good use of the ‘slip, slap, slop’ formula used by the Aussies. I only got some sunburn on the top of my right foot, rather bizarrely. Paul and Caillie will no doubt relate the tale of how I've been sunburnt there before...

I will pretend that I wrote this entry at the time it happened, and that I don’t know about the horrors that happened at the WACA over the next few days of the Test, and that Duncan Fletcher has single-handedly ruined my holiday with some bewildering team selections.

Back to Singapore

2006-12-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

We had another couple of days in Singapore and did the more touristy sightseeing things as Pie had arrived to join us.

This meant the Long Bar in the Raffles Hotel, drinking Singapore Slings and throwing monkey nut shells on the floor.

We went to a bar at the top of the Swissotel building to get some good views of the skyline of Singapore at night (and drink some Tiger of course!).

And then there was Sentosa island. Singapore does everything in an organised and efficient manner, and that includes cheesy and tacky touristy resorts. There was even a tourist academy, presumably to teach the Singaporeans the best and most efficient way to take tourists’ money.

And finally we saw Boat and Clark Quay, very touristy areas, which were the only places in Singapore we were pestered and hassled during our stay. I finished off my evening drinking a sample set of beers from a microbrewery on the Clark Quay.

Driving all over the world

2006-12-16T02:38:00.000-08:00

A short spell of driving in Malaysia has given me another country to add to the list of countries I’ve driven in. I’ve now driven in the UK (England and Northern Ireland), South Africa, USA and Malaysia. Still a long way to go, but I should add Australia, New Zealand and Canada in this trip…

More tea Vicar?

2006-12-16T02:29:00.000-08:00

We spent a couple of days in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, about a three and a half hour drive north from KL. It has to be said that Malaysian drivers are not the best I have ever seen. They don’t normally bother with indicating. The road up to the Cameron Highlands is a long, winding, mountain road. The main rule for overtaking on one of these roads is to wait until you are on a steep, blind bend and then…go for it!

After Paul had avoided the occasional maniac on his side of the road, we made it to our plush hotel in the Highlands. The Highlands are an attractive area in the hills in Malaysia, which are a lot cooler than the bustling city of KL. This makes them a popular weekend break destination. Due to the climate, a lot of crops are grown there, including strawberries. My personal favourite crop though was tea!

We went to two tea plantations during our time in the Highlands. Firstly we went to the very touristy one on the main road, which was packed with bus tours. The following day we went to the Boh plantation, which was along a road so windy that the buses couldn’t make it. This meant that the plantation was a lot quieter and a lot more bearable. We were able to get proper cuppas, and wander through the patches of tea bushes.

On the night we were there, we decided to go for an ‘English’. We went to ‘Ye Olde Smokehouse Inn’, which did a very good approximation of an English gastropub. The roast beef was most delicious, although the Yorkshire Pudding was a little disturbing. I did feel the apple crumble was a bit too crumbly and not apple-y enough for my liking.

There are a lot of nice walks to be had in the Highlands. We did a nice short walk on the Saturday, to a little waterfall near the hotel. On the Sunday, Paul and I tried a longer walk which was marked on the map. However, it wasn’t marked in real life. After a few wrong turnings and arguments with men with menacing looking wild dogs, we decided to give up and walk down the hill along the main road. This was marginally more dangerous than the wild dogs, but we did make it down without having to dive over the crash barriers.

Haute Voltige

2006-12-16T02:16:00.000-08:00

A number of years ago I went to visit a friend, Strong John, in Grenoble. We had a typically French weekend there, playing darts, drinking in an Irish pub and then going for a curry. Our one concession to French-ness was watching a film in French. Obviously it was a Hollywood film in French, but a film in French nonetheless. The film was called ‘Haute Voltige’, but the English speaking audience may know it better as ‘Entrapment’, starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones. The only good part of the film is the two main stars doing stunts hanging off the Skybridge of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

The Towers were the first thing we made our way to as we started our day in KL. They are hugely impressive structures as you look up at them from the ground. There are trips up to the Skybridge but you need to get tickets in advance for a set time later in the day (they are free). Imagine my disappointment as we got there to find that all the tickets had gone for the whole day and that I wouldn’t be able to run along the bridge doing a poor Scottish accent.

KL is like a dirtier, less organised , even cheaper version of Singapore. It feels more like a normal city than Singapore does. There are a few more sights to see, but generally the Malaysians like to eat and go shopping as the Singaporeans do.

We spent a few hours looking at the sights, eating foods and wandering through the markets. Paul Evans set up his camera in an attractive position on the bank of the river to take a photo of the four of us. A woman wandered past carrying a baby and requested a photo of the two of them. Paul took a couple of photos and then asked if she had an e-mail address to forward the pictures to. She shook her head and walked away. A very strange incident.

We then headed back towards the Petronas Towers to get a drink. As we were in the area, Caillie popped downstairs to see if they had any space for the Skybridge trips. We were in luck! Having spent all day being grumpy, I suddenly cheered up for a few minutes. But fortunately didn’t try doing a Sean accent!

Pulau Ubin

2006-12-10T20:48:00.000-08:00

Pulau Ubin was the first of Singapore’s islands to be named after a variety of rice back in 1923. Basmati Ubin and Egg Fried Ubin soon followed.

Pulau Ubin gives a taste of what Singapore used to be like before becoming ‘developed’ and ‘Westernised’. The inhabitants of the island live in small huts called Kampongs. There are no supermarkets and very few motor vehicles are allowed on the island. Caillie and I rented some bicycles for the day for about £2, which seemed reasonable. We needed to save money after the trip from the main island on a bumboat, which had set us back about… err… 70p.

The cycle routes are mainly tarmacked roads, but there are a few dirt tracks. Towards the end of our two and a half hours of almost solid cycling, we managed to find a dirt track which was nearly flooded. It is monsoon season in Singapore. This means that most afternoons there is a fairly heavy downpour. I think calling it a ‘monsoon’ is a bit over the top though. On this particular day, the ‘monsoon’ had occurred in the morning, when we were cycling, and now we were forced to cycle through the mud and water. The man at the bicycle hire shop summed it up with his comment, “Ooh, bit dirty”.
We rushed back to the main island with its civilised developed Western ways and then on to Kuala Lumpur.

Good advice

2006-12-10T18:39:00.000-08:00

My piece of good advice for travellers is that the open-top bus tours of cities are a great way to see the sights. They are very informative, not too expensive, and allow you sit down (which is quite important in hot countries). I took one of these tours in Lisbon earlier this year which was amazing. The tour of Edinburgh also comes highly recommended.

The bus tours of Singapore are no different - they are well organised and informative. However, the main problem with Singapore is that there is very little for sightseers to see. I now know where there are a few more shopping centres of which I was not previously aware. I have also learnt how Singapore’s insecurity over being a small country leads it to build large things. However, none of its buildings can exceed 280m high, otherwise it blocks the airspace. Singapore is currently planning the world’s largest ferris wheel. It will be sponsored by Singapore Air and will be called the Singapore Flyer. That sounds a bit familiar to me - just think of the London Eye. The Singapore Flyer should be ready in 2010. Unfortunately for Singapore, China is also planning to build the world’s largest ferris wheel, which will be bigger than Singapore’s will ever be. This will be finished in 2008, in time for the Beijing Olympics. Singapore’s big wheel will never be the biggest - that’s a bit of poor planning.

Here's the Raffles Hotel - the main tourist attraction in Singapore:

Singapore - first thoughts

2006-12-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

Singapore has been described as ‘as mad as cheese’, but I’m not sure that’s the case. Especially as I’m not quite sure how mad cheese is.

Singapore is dirty, smelly, disorganised and unsafe. No, not really. All the stereotypes I’d heard about Singapore are true. I tested this out by chewing some gum and dropping some litter. I am writing this from Changi Prison. The country is very clean - so much so that the maintenance man in the block I am staying in sweeps the ground outside every morning at 7am.

It does feel safe. Nobody tries to pester you or rip you off in the street. Taxi drivers are so well regulated that you know you’re not being taken advantage of. And it is organised too, especially the very efficient public transport system.

Singapore is the perfect place for people who like to shop. Sadly, I’m not one of those people. There is a whole street of shopping malls on Orchard Road. Then just round the corner, there are a few more shopping centres. Every small community has its own series of malls, in case the ones in the centre weren’t enough.

Then there’s the food. I have been told that the language of Singapore is the universal language of food. Singaporeans like to eat! The first place Paul and I went to eat for lunch cost about £1 for a huge plate of noodles. That would explain why Singaporeans tend to eat out most of the time - it is just as cheap as eating something they’ve cooked themselves at home. I’ve been eating a lot of seafood, which is strange because I don’t really like seafood. I’ve even learnt how to use chopsticks. That is an important life skill which will stand me in good stead in the future.

I’ve spent a great few days at Paul and Caillie’s place (despite the early morning sweeper!). It’s been fantastic to catch up with them again after so long.

As well as visiting some of the malls, we went to look round the Botanic Gardens. The highlight was the evolution garden, where they tried to show how plants have evolved over the years. There were some examples of proto-trees, cunningly crafted from metal, and there was a steaming pit of lava surrounded by snow-tipped mountains.

It has been a good few days, but Singapore is made for shopping and eating. I enjoy one of those activities (I‘ll leave you to decide which one), so it has been fine for me!

My itinerary

2006-11-29T14:23:00.000-08:00

In case you weren't feeling jealous enough already, here's my planned itinerary:
Sunday 3rd December - fly to Singapore
Monday 4th December - arrive in Singapore. Stay there for a few days.
Thursday 7th December - to Kuala Lumpur.
Friday 8th December - to Cameron highlands, Malaysia.
Sunday 10th December - back to Singapore
Wednesday 13th December - fly to Perth
Thursday 14th December - Day one of Third Test.
Saturday 23rd December - fly to Melbourne
Monday 25th December - Christmas barbie on a beach in Melbourne
Wednesday 27th December - Day two of Fourth Test
Thursday 28th December - Day three of Fourth Test
Saturday 30th December - eleven hour train journey to Sydney
Sunday 31st December / Monday 1st January 2007 - stay up late. Have lots to drink. See in the New Year 12 hours too early...
Tuesday 2nd January - Day one of Fifth Test
Wednesday 3rd January - Day two of Fifth Test
Saturday 6th January - fly to Uluru. Look at big rock.
Tuesday 9th January - fly to Adelaide.
Wednesday10th January - South Australia vs Queensland in Twenty20 cricket at the Adelaide Oval
Friday 12th January - fly to Auckland
Saturday 13th January - David and Kathryn's wedding
Sunday 14th January - fly to Sydney
Monday 15th January to Wednesday 7th February - drive up East Coast to Cairns. See large coral reef. Hopefully some big fibreglass animals too.
Wednesday 7th February- fly to Auckland. Three weeks driving around New Zealand in a camper van, seeing all the best sights on both islands.
Monday 26th Feb - go back in time. End up in LA before I left New Zealand.
Thursday 1st March - fly to New York. Spend a few days there, then drive to Boston to see friends, then up to see Niagara and Toronto.
Saturday 10th March - leave New York.
Sunday 11th March - go home for a nice cup of tea.
Monday 12th March - go to the office. A day of chatting to colleagues, showing them my photos and generally not doing any work.

Bonzer, as they say.

So I had a leaving do...

2006-11-29T12:48:00.000-08:00

On Saturday 18th November, Paul and I had our leaving do in the Ship and Shovel (or was it Shovell?) near Charing Cross. A number of pints of various different varieties of Badger were drunk by all... well by me and Adrian anyway...

The leaving do did meet all the important elements of one of my parties:

It took place in an 'old man' pub.
Lots of my friends were there.
Real ale was served - and drunk.
There was some food - the Indian buffet was very nice! (Although you had to get there early to get some!)

So now I feel like I am actually ready to go away...!

New blog

2006-10-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

Hi.

Gary here. This is where I'm going to post all the news from my Big Tour of the World.

Watch this space