Good Bye UK Hello Adventure Town

Dear Readers

The time has come for this blog to turn a page and onto the next chapter. The writers will be leaving the UK and returning to their homeland. The travels will be slowing down but still happening and kebabs will still be eaten. Don’t get sad yet this will not happen until we have finished our EPIC 24 week adventure from London to Sydney in a big orange truck bus!

Stay tuned readers for we will have one mighty adventure left as we drive and camp our way through

UK - FRANCE - GERMANY - AUSTRIA - HUNGARY - ROMANIA - BULGARIA - TURKEY – GEORGIA –AZERBAIJAN – TURKMENISTAN – UZBEKISTAN – KAZAKHSTAN - KYRGYZSTAN - TIBET - CHINA – LAOS – VIETNAM - CAMBODIA -THAILAND - MALAYSIA - SINGAPORE – INDONESIA – AUSTRALIA

We will be trying to update you as best as possible and will continue writing about all the countries we visit and what we get up to. So please don’t leave, stay tuned. We will try to post weekly vlogs about what has happened and what we have seen. Also you can follow us on twitter @glenandkieran.

Let the Adventure begin.

Glen and Kieran

London Blitz Party

June 4th 2011

June 4^th 1940 the day that Winston Churchill gave his famous “We shall fight on the beaches”    speech. 71 years later we dress up in clothing of the era and go out for the night to drink cocktails and relive the period without the fear of bombs falling on us. This was the London blitz party (). Donning our clothes of the period after much searching to find an outfit within budget, we set off.

First we went to a cocktail bar called Callooh Callay getting the biggest cocktail they had which was served in a fishbowl supported by garden gnomes and drunk through super long straws. This got us in the party mood pretty quick. Following the cocktail with food and the most amazing bestest chips ever (they were tempura chips). We went to the party, it was surreal to see all these people dressed up and walking down the street. We certainly did get some looks.

Entering into the venue we walked down a bricked lane which was the smokers area with all people dressed up in the old clothes, it was amazing to see so many people dressed up. In fact everyone we saw was dressed up. Sure not all of them were exactly 100% 1940 but they were close enough and looked of that era in a rough kind of way. Some people went to good lengths and had full army uniforms. I am not sure this was a smart move. It was sooo hot in the venue by the end of the night, I have no idea how the men survived in their thick wool army jackets. The night was good, having some more delicious cocktails and drinking them out of metal mugs was a nice touch. After a while we went exploring as we found a map, there was a lot more to be explored. We headed over a wall via scaffolding stairs and found the mess tent and more dance areas along with bars.

The downside to the night was that the bands didn’t play much, there were DJ’s but we thought there would be more live music. In one hall there was a good band in the other the band was more of a folk band which was good for atmosphere but not so much for dancing. As the numbers grew it got harder to move around let alone dance. We left the night at that point before it was ruined with to many people running into us and the girls feet were getting sore from the heels.

We headed to get a taxi home as it would be a nightmare of busses and tubes from east London to our place at that time of night. For those interested I made sure to get a kebab while we waited for the taxi and I got it wrapped! ohh man it was good just like home but without the tabouli and way to much garlic sauce. While we waited I did get asked if I was actually in the RAF!

I had a fun night out as dressing up is always fun and brings back a little bit of the child in us all.

Jolly Good Night

Glen

Cornwall

Spring Bank holiday 2011

Having yet another bank (public) holiday in May we felt that we had to get away and out of the city. Getting our passports back in time to hire a car, we booked the weekend away to Cornwall which is the south west part of England.

We collected our hire car on the Saturday and it was an awesome car. I need to talk about the car for just a second. It was a 2011 VW Pasat. It had done 5000miles when we hired it. We both got excited when we booked a manual; it has been to long since we drove one. As luck would have it we got an auto. This was to be a good thing later on. So we get our Pasat and the car guy says have you had one of these before, we both say no, then he asks where do we think the hand break is? Turns out the handbrake was just a little button. The key had to be pushed into the dash near the steering column to start the car. It was very strange to us. Awesome side note we did 700 miles (about 1 126 KM) on 1 tank of fuel! Enough about the family wagon lets get back to talking about Cornwall.

It took us the whole day to reach our first nights accommodation in the village of Luxulyan. We were hoping to be there by 2pm in the afternoon instead we arrived around 6pm. We were staying in the area it was close to the Eden project. Not having time to visit it that day we thought we would visit it the next day. After a nana nap from a long days drive and with rough directions from the B&B owner we headed off to find some dinner in a town called Fowey. Travelling through 1 lane roads covered by hedges, it felt like we were driving down a very long driveway just for a long time. Every time we would come to an intersection we had to double check the map multiple times to see where we were. Lets just say we got lost a few times. Some times we had to stop and reverse so other cars could pass us because the roads were so small. It was interesting and fun as it was so different for us. There was no way I could live there as it would take so long to get anywhere.

Finally after an hour of driving (the B&B lady said it would be 20min) we made it to the village and parked up, went down to the water for a nice meal. The meals were rather large. There was so much food on my plate it was falling off. Somehow Kieran still had room and ordered a dessert. The dessert came and it was massive, it was a huge crumble that I had to help her eat, even then we still couldn’t finish it! We rolled our selves out of the pub and back in the car for the drive home in pain with full bellies. We made it back to the B&B in only 30mins and it was dark, don’t know why that worked better than when it was sunny.

The next day we headed to the Eden project, back along the same roads as the day before. We arrived and headed down into the old mining pit that is the Eden project. Not doing much research we got to the ticket counter and found that it was £20 each. It looked like a place you could spend the whole day. We didn’t have a whole day to look around and only wanted to spend a max 2hrs there. We decided it was not for us and left it. We were a little disappointed but we had other things to fit into the weekend.

Driving on some more we arrived in Penzance and went to St. Michael's Mount it is a castle on top of a hill which you can walk to in low tide very similar to Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France. Quick side note: One thing about Cornwall is, almost everywhere we parked cost us money. If you drive on a little further there will usually be something cheaper. If you are visiting a place on the tourist trail drive as close as you can to the place as they will probably have free parking there. Near by these places will be the pay parking…we always fell for the pay parking. Continuing on we walked over the tiny causeway.

We head on up to the castle, it’s a good steep climb but there are just to many old people or people with slow knees. Finally we make it to the top and admire the view. There’s not much to say about the inside. It was a standard castle really all the same stuff you see in all the others. What you go there for is to walk around on the outside and look at the ocean and the surrounding area. Having enough of the castle we head back to the main land. By this time the path was completely submerged under water and we had to wait in the queue to board the boats to take us back. It was a fun but very brief trip. Considering how long we were in the queue waiting. While heading back to the car we stopped and had a Cornish pasty for lunch as you should do in Cornwall.

The walking lunch finished we headed onto Lands end the most south western point of England. Only at lands end, could you pay £4 for parking just to see a cliff. To try and get more money out of the tourists they have built some rides, 4d amusements or something to try and fleece more money out of you. It was the most naffy takky thing we have seen. They even had a guy would you put letters on a sign post and take a picture of you for £10. what a joke seriously. This place just oozed tack. We had a walk around just to make the most of our parking price. Go see if for your self but really there isn’t much need unless you love the tackfactor 10,000 style. Ohh I almost forgot to mention the big burly blokes on tiny steam trains. These guys we built big but they were riding around on miniature steam engines and I still have no idea why. They were silly small steam engines. Imagine it like a 6foot 100kg plus man sitting on a 3yr olds tricycle. That is what these guys looked like, just so bizarre.

Getting out of tackvill we headed for Minack Theatre. This is a theatre which was built by a lady and it took most of her life to complete. She built the theatre in her back yard, except her back yard was a cliff! It was pretty good to see and would have been amazing to see a play performed here, we were too early in the season as they hadn’t started yet.

Getting lost again in the tiny roads of Cornwall we finally made it to our accommodation in Mousehole – Penzance.  Dropping our bags we went straight out for dinner. All we pretty much do when we travel is eat, I am sure of it. Find the local eateries we had a nice dinner overlooking the water.

Monday, the last day of the long weekend. Today we had a massive drive ahead of us we were going all the way back to London in 1 day. On the way we stopped in to Tintagel Castle (some say the home of King Arthur) had a look around and were bitterly disappointed when we found out there was not a shred of evidence to support such a claim to be King Arthurs castle. Still it was nice to climb another cliff. I wouldn’t recommend this place. On the drive home we stopped at a services to stop revive survive and all that. While I was in the queue to order a coffee I turned around to see our friends Steve and Em. It was such and amazing coincidence that out of all the services on that motor way we bumped into them at that exact time and place. Amazing.

Cornwall is a nice place with lots of one lane tiny roads. It is very British and has that wonderful postman pat feel about it. I would recommend the trip down there but maybe reconsider the need to see some of the sights as they can be a let down.

Glen

Warwick Castle

21^st May 2011

The UK has many castles some of which are in ruin; others have been turned into tourist destinations. We have been to many different types of both of these. This weekend we headed out to Warwick castle which is now for tourists. It is part of the Merlin group. This group owns most of the good theme parks in the UK, such as Alton Towers and Lego land just to name 2. We thought excellent let’s go to Warwick castle as it should be a good day out after all it’s run by the theme park experts. We had heard there are knights there and they also have jousting. This was going to be excellent…. it wasn’t. Turned out it was just alright with a big touch of let down.

We started the day by going to St Albans by train to get a car ride there with Craig (a lucky friend who has a car) and set off on the 1.5 hr journey to get there. We arrive around 11.30 am, to find a big queue for tickets. We have a 2-4-1 voucher, although there were 3 of us we had a plan. Find another odd group and ask them if they wanted in on the cheap ticket. The plan back fired as everyone else had the same 2-4-1 voucher or even better had a free ticket! Stuck now with a dilemma of asking almost everyone if they wanted a cheaper ticket or get some karma. We went with the karma, we got the 4^th discounted ticket and gave it away to someone who didn’t have a freebie for their group of 3 and were at the end of the queue. Know I can hear you asking “Glen if you found an odd group and gave them the ticket why didn’t you sell it to them?” that was because their 3^rd ticket was for an OAP (old age pensioner) so it was already discounted.

With our good karma deed done for the day we went inside. We notice there are a lot of kids around, I mean a lot! We quickly check the what’s on board to find out there is no jousting! The website doesn’t state when it will be on either just turn up and hope its on….gr8 plan. We see that the great trebuchet is on at 12. We walk very quickly and take our seat. 10mins later after hearing about how they wind it up and what happens with the firing they finally set it off. Sitting in anticipation as its about to fire………    then it goes, you hear nothing but see the weight drop and the arm go up and the rock or ball (not sure which) goes flying through the air, not a huge distance as the size of the trebuchet would suggest but a reasonable distance. They would have to be bloody close to a castle to cause any damage. All of this happened without any noise being heard by the crowd. That was it show was over.

Being disappointed as was most of the crowd (you can sense these things) we went on to watch the birds of prey flying around the castle. This was more interesting as the birds are pretty big and it’s cool to have them swooping over your head. We had to eat our lunch quickly and cover it so the birds would not attack us crazy seagull style for our food.

With the bird show over we headed in to the main section for a character tour of the main hall and private rooms of the castle. This was by far the best part and the actor who spoke to us was excellent. The crowd grew and grew at times it was hard to get into a room to hear him speak. It was good to hear about the history of the castle and more history of King Henry VIII.

Next on the list was the Mill where they produced electricity for castle. There was meant to be another character tour on here but we had to find the guy and ask him if it was happening. It was but it turned out to be a private tour. With him telling us the information about the mill and the power. Problem was he told us everything we already knew! While we were waiting for him to get there we read all the information boards. He just repeated what was on them.

I would suggest that the castle is fun for kids and it can be alright for adults. Just don’t go in with the mind that there will be knights with swords, jousting and all that cool medieval stuff you read about…it just isn’t there.

Survey

With the big 6month trip just around the corner. I will use this blog as a way to document our travels. I am looking for some feedback on what you the reader would like to see from this blog. Here is a simple 10 question survey I would love if you could take 5mins to complete it.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PGTSH9Q

Thanks Glen

A Royal Wedding

Friday 29^th April

WOW what an event! The chance to experience a royal wedding in London and for the future king of the commonwealth…how could you pass up the biggest party of 2011?

We couldn’t was the answer. With the royal wedding being a bank (public) holiday in the UK and with Easter just before you only had to take 3 days off work to have a nice 11 day break. Did we want to take this option..hell no! we wanted to stay and party with the other good English folk. I am sure you all saw it on the TV or at least saw some of it on news/newspaper. We were there in Hyde Park with the other 200,000 wedding guests

Here’s how the day went down for us. We woke nice an early around 4:45am, our plan to be at Marble Arch station and walk to Hyde park from there. We had heard they would open the gates to the park at 7am (this did sound strange as I didn’t think Hyde Park had gates) and we wanted to be early in case there was a queue as there surly would be. Got our selves ready, wedding clothes on, food packed, drinks packed, granny trolley with everything packed. We headed out and made our way. Arriving at Hyde park we were confronted with …..nothing! there was hardly anyone around at all. Rightly so it was 6am on a public holiday. Making our way through the non crowded park, we easily found the 3 giant TV screens. Found a nice spot near the wedding band for later. There were a few other people there but nothing of what we expected it was almost dead! We unrolled out mats organised our space and enjoyed the time. They had music pumping that early how to good so you could rock out at 6:30am. We ate our (freshly made that morning by the hands of glen) bacon and egg rolls a perfect accompaniment for any wedding breakfast.

After breakfast we had a bit of a look around and saw what food they had, even though we took loads, worked out how far the toilets would be from us, then we started wondering when the bar opened (it was 7am remember). Soon the others of our group joined us, I think it was time to have a drink so all started to get on the drink then. I will point out at this time, we were not the first to start drinking in the park, although I'm not sure the people who were drinking before us actually stopped the night before. Secondly you always have a drink on the morning of a wedding. Sure its normally your own wedding but this was a special day. First drink of the day 7.30am…check. btw we the men (3) had 45 beers to get through that day, I was not going to be carting any beers back home. I think the women had 6L of wine and a bottle of Pimms to finish, we had to start early.

A few beers later, we heard about some photo booths. Up we jumped and headed for the photo booths…there was no one around, score. We all crammed into the curtain and tried to position our heads so they could be seen. I think we did well for getting 7 people into 1 photo. Spending the next 10 mins here as they were free we got a few more. They were lots of fun.

Time continued, the music played and the crowd grew. Finally it was almost time for the wedding guests to start arriving. The 3 giant TV screens were in a reverse U shape and in front of the middle one they had a stage set to look like a civil ceremony with a signing table and a nice bunch of flowers. There was an MC for the day, who told us what was going to happen and to stick around after, for the “reception”. The BBC broadcast came up on the screens and that was it, us watching them for the next few hours. It was good fun to try and workout who people were. When the crowd would see someone famous there would be a cheer. It was an amazing sight. This continued for all the “celebrities” when the Prince came and the Queen there were cheers and roars all around. When the bride came out it was much the same. You can imaging what it was like when they kissed and were pronounced married. At times we had to stand to see what was going on the screens as people were jumping up and down with excitement.

The wedding over and they left to go to the palace we quickly sat down and had our lunch, chicken rolls with salad, coleslaw, and potato salad. A very yummy lunch indeed, even if we did bring too much food. Food in the bellies we sat back and continued to wait till there moment on the balcony.

The newly married couple emerged onto the balcony for the “kiss” and the fly over. It was surreal to see the bomber fly over the palace on the TV screen and 2 seconds later there it was over our heads. It was a strange feeling, I can’t explain why it felt weird other than you don’t normally see things on TV and then there they are. It just doesn’t happen. After the Kiss was over and the cheers had settled the band started up. They made us choose a song as the wedding song for us all to dance to. There was a bouquet tossing challenge where a woman to be married in 2011 had to go on stage and toss the bouquet. Kieran didn’t want to get up there even though she has a great throwing arm. After this we danced and then drank just like a normal wedding really.

It was a cracker of a day. I know we all had an excellent time it was such a fun day. We are sure everyone who was there had a good time including the newly weds.

Thanks for the day off and the party in the park.

Cheers William and Catherine.

 

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Richmond Park

Monday 25th April

What better to do than go a park when the British weather gets good. And that is exactly what we did we went to Richmond Park for a picnic lunch. We had heard the best way to see the park was to cycle. Being a cyclist in London this would be good as i ride most places. We borrowed a housemates bicycle for Kieran. To hire one at the park is over £20 for 3 hrs.

We packed our bags and set off, Kieran had to learn how to use gears on a bicycle and once we were over that lesson the first stop was the shops to get     a yummy lunch. We were both over sandwiches as we have had a few picnics lately what with the weather being amazing and all. The cycle there took around an hour which was not a bad time considering we were taking it easy and at times going on the foot path.

The main reason for wanting to go to Richmond park is that they have deer there roaming around freely. We weren't sure how many we would see. As soon as we entered the gate we saw a herd of deer. We worked out where a good spot to eat lunch might be and set off. Soon after we saw some more deer under some trees. Then we saw a herd further down. we quickly cycled off to have a look. You could tell we were tourist looking at the deer, with our cameras out snapping away. the locals and other cyclist who must ride through the park gave no 2nd look to the deer.

having our fill of looking at the deer we continued to ride on finding our picnic spot by a lake. It was a hot day in April, there were lots of people in their swimmers sun bathing even some people swimming in the pond (with the geese and ducks!). Lunch over and the sights had we headed home, after a cycle around the whole park of course. Leaving the park at one point due to being lost we had to cycle, rather walk our bikes up a very large hill.

Finally made our way home after cycling around for about 3-4hrs all day. we were very tired. It was a good day out and cycling around Richmond park is the only way to do it. to be able to be so close to animals almost in the wild without having to look through the glass of a car window or walk around for hrs was a wonderful way to experience it.

 

I have some video of the days outing that I will try and upload.

 

Glen

Hampton Court Palace – Home of Henry VIII

April 2011
Thinking about what we should do on a weekend we came across Hampton Court Palace. It’s in zone 6 of London and we could get there by oyster card. Why not take the day out to have a look at the home of a very famous king of England. We took an overland train from Waterloo to Hampton Court it was then just a short walk to the Palace. There is a 2-4-1 offer to enter the palace if you buy rail tickets. We worked it out to be cheaper using our oyster cards and paying a discount price online.
Once we were inside we headed for the audio guides. Usually the headsets are an extra cost, they were included here. We read what was on that day and found they were doing a talk on “wetting the head”. I immediately thought wow maybe they give us beer or mead to experience the times. Nope it was actors talking about the women given birth and what they must do in the chambers. It was really interesting and the man who played King Henry really did look the part. They made us get on our knees when the king entered.
Listening to this talk was very interesting with facts and humour. We found out that we could have followed these people around all day as they go to different rooms in the palace and talk to each other about what happened in there. It is done in the time of King Henry and the birth of his child.
After our infotainment session we headed out to the palace gardens for lunch. The gardens were amazing and you could actually smell them. We had a lovely walk around the garden and could almost understand why old people love them. There were lots of old people checking these out.
With lunch finished we headed into the palace and spent the next 2 hrs going through the rooms. The best part was right at the beginning when we went into the cooks area. They had a demonstration of how to cook a meal in king Henry’s time which was fascinating. This included a man roast chicken and beef in a giant fireplace. We ended our walk around the rooms exhausted and full of knowledge about king hennery VIII and his wives and the whole Tudor period for that matter.
After leaving the rooms we headed straight for the maze. The last maze we went to was at Blenheim palace. there must be a thing about palaces and mazes. I wonder if Buckingham palace has a maze. we made it to the centre of the maze with only 1 wrong way. We think we did very well and i didn’t have to cheat by peering over the hedges this time either.
To top of the days outing as we were heading out we saw they were serving up something from the fountain in the main court. We had heard in the audio guide that this fountain once ran with wine on special occasions. Upon closer inspection there were people giving out wine which was indeed coming from the fountain. We had to get us some of that, problem being we had to get past the coin man. In order to get our drink we had to tell a joke. Passing the test and telling a very humorous Australian joke I got my wine. I found it pretty delicious wine…I didn’t feel like ask    ing them what it was, I am sure the answer would have been “fountain wine, silly”.
Leaving via the gift shop I bought myself a beer mug made out of leather and have been told you can drink out of it. I am still yet to test this theory but have faith in it and I shall have a drink soon.
Thanks for the nice time looking around your house Henry.

Surviving the Zombies in London

Ok so zombies don’t exists…well not yet anyway. Think about a zombie infestation made me wonder what food is there in the supermarkets which would keep for a while and we cold survive off . This lead me to my canned food isle. There is certainly a lot of tinned food here in the UK. I know growing up and I think it still is there way there isn’t much choice of canned goods in Australia (I may be wrong).
I was surprised at all the food which was on offer from a can, if you had a way to heat it you would be fine. Here is a selection of just a single shelf I photographed. I will make it a mission now to try as many of these before leaving the UK. I had a chicken korma the other night and it wasn’t as bad as you would think. I made sure I didn’t read the label before consuming. The chicken wasn’t what I thought it would be…it was actually chicken. Well it tasted like chicken in piece form. I honestly thought the chicken would have been shredded or in dodgy cubes. It wasn’t it was actual pieces. The Korma sauce was the part where it went down, there was something not right about it.
I will get through some more and try to add them to the comments section of this post. I will not be trying the hot dogs in a can…..the invasion isn’t here yet.
Btw these would be great on a camping weekend in some ziplock bags!




Update:
Since posting this I have tried 2 more canned goods, one is Hines baked beans and sausages and the other is a Tesco brand chicken tikka. Both of which don't taste to bad at all. the Tikka was way better than the Korma by far. The beans and snags taste pretty good I have had them a few times for my breakfast on toast. Here are some pics of them...I'm sure you will be able to tell which is which.

 

Like a Tourist

16^th April 2011

There are many things we are yet to experience in the UK capital. These are things that we have missed out on for the simple reason we live here and never got the time to see them. These are things I like to call missing out on as you are ‘living like a local’. One of these events was to go see the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace. The other is go on a free walking tour. I always wonder how many people who were born in London or for that fact the UK have actually been to see the changing of the guard as a tourist does. The same thought crossed my mind for a free w    alking tour. Have you walked around your home town as a tourist would? Do you know all the history of your home town so well that you could run a walking tour?

This is what we did with our Saturday. We headed off with a bag of supplies and camera in hand we fell back in to the tourist crowd. I even wore my walking shoes to blend in. We battled with the crowds at the palace gates as we tried to get a good spot and have people weasel their way in front of me to get a good spot. Kieran had the pleasure previously seeing the changing of the guard and on a weekday when the crowds are less. We found the best place we could get and I had no heads in front of me but still had some nice bars in the photos.

What can you say about the changing of the guard?? Not much except that you should go do it if you are in London. Sure its there for the tourists and at times there are interesting parts although for the most of it, it’s a lot of standing around and waiting then at times getting angry at the people around. This does sound negative but if I didn’t go I know I would have felt odd when people were like “so when you were in the UK did you see the changing of the guard and do you recommend it?” I would have to be honest and then look like a fool who did nothing in 5 years!.

So there just go see it, enjoy the music, live in the moment of the crowd like your in a mosh pit!

The free walking tour is also recommend, we did it through http://www.newlondon-tours.com/ and it is totally recommend. Having used these guys before it is a really neat idea and think they would work everywhere. It was good to get some history and have a laugh along the way.

Totally a tops day our and I recommend to everyone who hasn’t see their city through the eyes of a tourist....your missing out!

Bodiam Castle

     Saturday 9^th April

Today we headed to a village called Bodiam. We met up with our friends Andrew and Emma who own a car and dove to a town called Tenterden. In this village there is a steam train which runs between Tenterden and Bodiam. It was lovely being on an old fashioned steam train travelling through the country side enjoying the trip to our destination. I am not a train spotter but we did get some lovely pictures of the train. On the way to Bodiam we were in a carriage which had an aisle down the middle for the inspector to come down. On the way back we were in a carriage which had its on door and no aisle. The ticket inspector had to check them before we left. Both carriages had windows so we could stick the camera out and get some nice pictures. Safer than our heads out there too, not that you’re allowed to do that.

The castle was amazing to see and having built a small scale version of it in year 10 History class it was wonderful to see it in real life. The history behind it was wonderful also. I think we all had a good time at the castle and got in some English history while there. Plus it was a cracking day so spending it in the sunshine outside is always a plus when living in the UK.

I can recommend this day out with the train ride and a visit to the castle was well worth the time, to have this on the side of a catch up with friends was a bonus. The only thing I would suggest is that if it is a wonderful day out like ours was, take a packed lunch and sit on the grounds. We had to go to a pub close by as we would have starved by the time we got back to the car in Tenterden.

Tunisia

26/03/2011 – 03/04/2011

Upon our return to the UK we started looking for honeymoon destinations. We had always wanted somewhere warm and with a beach. We began looking at the good deals we could get to the Caribbean, we started looking before we went home to get married. We decided to throw that idea out the window and go somewhere closer to home, somewhere still warm but did not involve a long haul flight. We went for Tunisia…..sure they had a revolution but that was sooo last month. After talking to a travel agent and getting a good deal we were sold 7 days all inclusive chilling by the Mediterranean on the Tunisian coast.

Having a wonderfully early flight time of 6am we flew direct to Monistir making good time and arriving early by 1 hr. This was to be a good thing. Not having the correct passport meant we needed a visa. I had read that we could obtain these at the immigration counter. This was true. I knew the currency was closed. What I thought would happen would be the same in Turkey and Egypt when you arrive you can go to the window, pay your fee in £GBP or $USD. Not here! What I had to do was leave immigration go to the exchange counter get money then go to another area to get the stamps (while they tried to rip me off £10) then take the stamps back to the immigration officer who handed over the tokens and passport to another person who made the visas. This whole process took almost an hr. Like most people we hate not having our passports in our control/possession and watched them every where they went.

Finally being let into the country we travel by bus to our hotel. Out of the hundreds of people in the terminal we were the only one on our bus/holiday operator which were going to our hotel…..must be fancy or really crap. It took about 1.5 hrs to get to the hotel. We checked in and went straight to our room to freshen up and get on with the honeymooning. First point of call was to get some lunch. Being all inclusive meant that all meals were provided and all drinks. Lunch was a buffet and we stuffed our selves. We had a waiter who looked after us for drinks and a friendly service. After the lunch we went exploring to see what the resort had to offer. We found the 2 pools the gym and the beach….the pools and beach had a bar on them! We took the rest of the afternoon to chill out.

The holiday went in all the same style with us being lazy fat pigs. We were by far the youngest couple and the skinniest. Most days were spent having buffet breakfast (usually a chocolate or jam crepe) then sunning ourselves till lunch time, going to lunch have 3 plates at buffett and a couple of beers, then going back to sunning ourselves before heading out to dinner for yet more food at the buffet and more alcohol. After dinner the hotel entertainment troop or “animation team” as they were called would have some entertainment with them on stage dancing. After dinner we would usually have some drinks. Of course there were times we would get smashed.

It wasn’t all sitting around in the sunshine. We would play some games with the animation team, we did Archery a few times and also played French bowls. These were fun. We went on two excursions out of the hotel. One day we went to visit the surrounding towns and the souks to buy some souvenirs and get ripped off. The other excursion was to a African zoo with the famous African animals ohh and an emu living in thistle and some wallabies. After the zoo we had dinner and a show of Zulu dancers and Tunisian belly dancing.

It was a good holiday and wonderful honeymoon. Now we can go back in 10 yrs to see what it’s still like. We enjoyed our time lazing around even if I had moments of boredom. It was good to have a chilled out time away from everything where we did not have to stress or worry. Unlike most of our trips…

 

 

 

 

Our Bed it was Giant   The Beach

  Meerkat at the zoo   Lion Cub  Sitting on Mum

  porcupine  Zulu drum and dancing during dinner

London Eye

March 2011

Today after living in the UK for over 4.5 years we finally made it into a London eye pod. It was everything we had thought it was going to be and nothing more. It was a cracking day for the weather and an excellent chance to test out our wedding present the Cannon 60D (thanks folks btw). We ended up going to London eye by rail so we got on for half the price using a 2-4-1 after getting the train tickets. It was a good time up there having a look over the city and seeing it from such a high advantage point. I do recommend it if you are coming to London, maybe don’t wait for people to go on it with you