Photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=244463&id=510568119&l=36cea28231
Next stop on our grand adventure was a trip to visit friends Chris and Charlie (and their adorable groodle puppy Georgie) in Melbourne. After an excellent but hectic couple of weeks at home, it was lucky we had the nice long 26 hour journey to Australia to use to catch up on lost sleep. It was less lucky that I have a hard time sleeping on planes and so arrived in Australia 26 hours after we set off, met Chris at the airport, managed to stay awake long enough to drink a cup of tea before passing out for the next several hours. Somewhere amongst the confusion of times and dates we were struggling to get our bodyclocks used to it was Rich's birthday when we woke up, so Chris and Charlie took us out to the Northcote Social Club to celebrate. I took the opportunity to sample the Parma - Melbourne's version of the ubiquitous Parmo. Needless to say the Parmo reigns supreme...
For the next few days we were treated to a trip down the Great Ocean Road courtesy of our hosts extraordinnaire. We saw the sights of Melbourne (including a trip up the extremely tall Eureka Tower), dragged ourselves out of bed in the middle of the night to watch the first England game of the World Cup (and to make sure our body clocks were completely bamboozled), visited the building site of Chris and Charlie's palatial new home, ate and drank like royalty and generally had an excellent time. After a few days of being looked after we were awake enough to be let out alone, so we bade farewell to Melbourne with a promise to return on our way home to help christen the new house.
Our destination was New Zealand, which was to be our home for the next 5 months. If all went to plan we hoped to buy a car, do some sightseeing, wwoof at a few of the more interesting farms we had found and earn some much needed cash working in Wellington. After just a couple of days we'd achieved the first item on the list, becoming the proud owners of a beautiful 1997 Mitsubishi Legnum with unnerving ease at one of the Auckland car markets where you can buy a car in much the same way as you'd buy a bag of carrots at a regular market. We named him Old Red (as he is a little old and very red), and after allaying our initial concerns about the functionality of the petrol gauge he was soon a trusty steed and part of the family.
Friday 15 October 2010
Wednesday 6 October 2010
The Great Whirlwind Trip Home
Photos, photos, photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=244422&id=510568119&l=38e21c53c2
After more than 12 months on the road, a couple of weeks back home for our friends' wedding sounded like an eminently relaxing way to break up the journey to Australia. It probably would have been too, had we just spent a couple of weeks at home and gone to the wedding. But travelling must have become more of a habit than we realised, as before we knew what we were doing we were traversing the country from London to Teesside, to Manchester, to Birmingham, to West Sussex, back to Teesside, then to Birmingham and down to London again just in time for our 26 hour journey to Melbourne.
Relaxing it may not always have been, but as the photos will attest it was a lot of fun. Whilst we didn't have time to catch up with everyone we would've liked to, we did manage to fit in some quality time with the family, day trips to Whitby (with the requisite fish and chips pit-stop), and York (with the requisite visit to the Yorvik Viking Centre), an introduction to Rich's new baby cousin, a quintessentially English BBQ in the rain (where we discovered the culinary delight that is barbecued jam donuts), my dad's birthday celebrations, a highly entertaining attempt at the fitness trail in Guisborough Woods, boozy shenanigans in the capital, an excellent wedding and a significant amount of reacquainting ourselves with such great British foodstuffs as the Sunday roast, the jaffa cake and the Greggs' cheese pasty. It's good to be home.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=244422&id=510568119&l=38e21c53c2
After more than 12 months on the road, a couple of weeks back home for our friends' wedding sounded like an eminently relaxing way to break up the journey to Australia. It probably would have been too, had we just spent a couple of weeks at home and gone to the wedding. But travelling must have become more of a habit than we realised, as before we knew what we were doing we were traversing the country from London to Teesside, to Manchester, to Birmingham, to West Sussex, back to Teesside, then to Birmingham and down to London again just in time for our 26 hour journey to Melbourne.
Relaxing it may not always have been, but as the photos will attest it was a lot of fun. Whilst we didn't have time to catch up with everyone we would've liked to, we did manage to fit in some quality time with the family, day trips to Whitby (with the requisite fish and chips pit-stop), and York (with the requisite visit to the Yorvik Viking Centre), an introduction to Rich's new baby cousin, a quintessentially English BBQ in the rain (where we discovered the culinary delight that is barbecued jam donuts), my dad's birthday celebrations, a highly entertaining attempt at the fitness trail in Guisborough Woods, boozy shenanigans in the capital, an excellent wedding and a significant amount of reacquainting ourselves with such great British foodstuffs as the Sunday roast, the jaffa cake and the Greggs' cheese pasty. It's good to be home.
Monday 4 October 2010
Restless in Rio
Photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=244417&id=510568119&l=66f8fa628b
And so we came to the final stop in phase one of our Grand Adventure. From Iguassu we flew to Rio, where we planned to spend a few days before heading back to the UK. We checked into an amazing guesthouse run by a young Brazilian couple, Juliana and Wesley, arriving late on a Friday evening to find a lively barbeque in full swing. After dropping our bags in our room we joined the party and were soon up to our elbows in barbequed meat, the best caipirinhas I've ever tasted and another Brazilian specialty - galinha do coracao or chicken hearts. After a couple of the caipirinhas and much encouragement from our hosts and fellow guests I gave one a go and can report that they are both chewy and extremely tasty.
After this excellent introduction, Rio itself was not such a resounding success. We visited Copacabana and Ipanema, taking in both of the neighbourhoods' famous beaches, but were somewhat underwhelmed by both. We checked out the city centre, including the enormous (and rather dark) conical cathedral and the bustling market, but sadly the Cristo Redentor statue was un-visitable due to recent landslides. We did, however, manage to fit in a football match at the Maracana stadium (watching, not playing, obviously) complete with a performance by the resident brass band.
Unfortunately, the most memorable part of our stay in Rio was the part where we tried to leave. Good old volcano Eyjafjallajokull had been causing problems for weeks before we were due to fly home, but just the day before our flight the UK airports were back to normal and things were looking good across Europe. Except in parts of Portugal, where on the morning of our flight several airports were closed. Of course, this wouldn't have been a problem unless we were flying home via Portugal. Which, of course, we were. So began a delightful 12 hours of being on hold to the airline, queuing at Rio International airport, cancelled flights, rescheduled flights, never-really-cancelled-in-the-first-place flights, delayed flights and, happily, a transfer onto a direct British Airways flight preceded by a complimentary 3 course meal. We arrived at Heathrow 11 hours later tired but happy (and extremely relieved).
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=244417&id=510568119&l=66f8fa628b
And so we came to the final stop in phase one of our Grand Adventure. From Iguassu we flew to Rio, where we planned to spend a few days before heading back to the UK. We checked into an amazing guesthouse run by a young Brazilian couple, Juliana and Wesley, arriving late on a Friday evening to find a lively barbeque in full swing. After dropping our bags in our room we joined the party and were soon up to our elbows in barbequed meat, the best caipirinhas I've ever tasted and another Brazilian specialty - galinha do coracao or chicken hearts. After a couple of the caipirinhas and much encouragement from our hosts and fellow guests I gave one a go and can report that they are both chewy and extremely tasty.
After this excellent introduction, Rio itself was not such a resounding success. We visited Copacabana and Ipanema, taking in both of the neighbourhoods' famous beaches, but were somewhat underwhelmed by both. We checked out the city centre, including the enormous (and rather dark) conical cathedral and the bustling market, but sadly the Cristo Redentor statue was un-visitable due to recent landslides. We did, however, manage to fit in a football match at the Maracana stadium (watching, not playing, obviously) complete with a performance by the resident brass band.
Unfortunately, the most memorable part of our stay in Rio was the part where we tried to leave. Good old volcano Eyjafjallajokull had been causing problems for weeks before we were due to fly home, but just the day before our flight the UK airports were back to normal and things were looking good across Europe. Except in parts of Portugal, where on the morning of our flight several airports were closed. Of course, this wouldn't have been a problem unless we were flying home via Portugal. Which, of course, we were. So began a delightful 12 hours of being on hold to the airline, queuing at Rio International airport, cancelled flights, rescheduled flights, never-really-cancelled-in-the-first-place flights, delayed flights and, happily, a transfer onto a direct British Airways flight preceded by a complimentary 3 course meal. We arrived at Heathrow 11 hours later tired but happy (and extremely relieved).
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