Four hours up from Las Vegas and into Utah is Zion National park, home to another one of the great canyons that scar the landscape of this past of the Southwest. But there were some pretty stark differences between this place and the grand canyon. Firstly when you look out on the grand canyon you’re looking down on vista from the flat mesa up top but in Zion you’re down on the canyon floor looking up at the crags.

Just like at the Grand Canyon we camped out in the van for 2 nights setting up on the first day, going for a massive hike up into the canyon on the second day and then pack up on the last.

The hikes that we did on the second day were right up there with the hikes we have done in the GC, Scotland, home in NZ and really giving our Alpine hike in Switzerland a run for it’s money. We did a quick 1 hour turnaround to some waterfalls just out from the park lodge, another thing which gives Zion a different look that the grand canyon... this place is wet. Then went to another trail head down the road and chose the Hidden Canyon trail over the Angel Landing trail as it sounded more mysterious.

It was about 1hour walk up the side of the main canyon until we got to the entrance to the ‘hidden canyon’ which you can then walk along the bottom of, and when I say walk I mean scramble.

The actual trail was about 3m under this ice drift which lead straight onto a 100m drop, slipping was not an option

The hidden canyon finished quite soon after this as I forgot to bring my ice climbing gear for the frozen waterfall climb which was around the bend.

150m drop directly behind Rach


On the way back to the campsite we saw 3-4 large eared deer foals so cutie cutie

The next day was a full on driving day heading from Zion in Utah to Holbrook one of the old route 66 town in Arizona. No Wal-Mart’s here so we had to deal with in a trailer park and the folk who occupy said trailer park were true redneck trailer trash. But there was wifi, say what you want about trailer trash they know there tech.


I made the mistake of sleeping in the van on the road, quick draw Rach was able to take a few snaps.


Route 66 marker

The reason for stopping in Holbrook was the proximity to the Petrified Forest, hundreds of petrified trees scattered across the Arizonan desert. It was ok, but nothing much to rave about.

From the Petrified Forest in Arizona we were planning on going to Gallup in New Mexico for some Mountain Biking, we got there at about lunch time and for reasons I now can’t remember we decided to carry on up to Durango in Colorado for some snow action.

One of the things I’ve noticed in the Southwest is subtle differences in the landscape between states. Texas was a big flat burnt grassland, New Mexico has huge tumble weeds blowing over flowing hills and rocks, Arizona is dominated by the Mesas and canyons of the north, Nevada in a super flat dust bowl and Utah was all weird red rock formations. The other thing was that you seemed to start noticing these changes as soon as you cross over state lines, this was most true for New Mexico into Colorado.

Chill-balls

Literally 2 miles past the state line and the flowing hills and rocks of New Mexico changed into forested mountains covered in deep powder snow. We stayed one night in Durango township at a standard roadside motel. Durango’s a small place but it’s got about 4 different microbreweries of which we planned to vist all but ended up liking the first too much so stayed there.
We’d heard of a deal where you stay 2 nights at one of the ski lodges up the mountain and get an extra one free plus 3 days of skiing. So in the morning we wrangled that deal, brushed a ½ metre of snow off the top of the van and rented some gear before heading up the mountain.
Stupidly we’d booked the cheapest room possible which happened to be half a mile up the private hotel road and then when they asked us if the van had 4 wheel drive we said yip in another fit of stupidity. It took us 5 attempts to get up the road and the park we chose wasn’t exactly the best choice, facing downhill the only way out being in reverse. The room on the other hand was an great choice, LCD TV’s, big cushy bed (anything cushy after the van mattress) and full kitchen.
So we got up the next morning ready for our first day-o-ski-fun and found our van fully snowed in, a full meter of powder and all iced up under the wheels. We ended up having to call the reception and get them to send up someone so we didn’t miss the shuttle up the mountain.
When we made it back after a full day of snow fun times, reception told us to pack up our things as they were upgrading us to a lodge room, a sneaky ploy so they didn’t have to send someone up to get us each morning. Which is fine by me because the lodge has the best access to the spa and bars and we were told the rooms were way better, score!


View out of the lodge room, icy.

Ok it wasn’t as easy as just packing up our stuff and driving down to the lodge. If you recall there was a full meter of snow around the van and thick ice under the wheels. So as Rach packed up I began to dig out the van with a plastic container lid, I did eventually get a shovel from some amused on-lookers. And of course after a full day of constant falls off my snowboard and an hour of digging ice I was quite disheartened when all we managed to do was get more stuck than before. Eventually we got a guy from reception to drive up and tow us onto the cleared road which is what we should have just done from the beginning.

But onto the skiing, Duragno Ski resort is way better than any of the ski fields back home. There was at least 8 lifts and 80 runs to choose from and the powder was so powdery that you could basically just point forward and go, but don’t fall off cause if you end up under a metre or 2 of powder is pretty hard to dig yourself out and start again.

On the first day we rocked up all ready for some fun times, went right to the counter to pick up our 3 day passes and got a small form to fill out before we got them. Both Rach and I got to the end of the form at the same time and had to ask the date, ‘10th of Feb’ the guy behind the counter replied. We just had to look at each other with a wry grin and silently say happy anniversary as in the excitement of getting up the mountain we’d both forgotten.

It was pretty cold and snowing, which is apparently just how the locals like it but they also seem to be oblivious to the sore red patches of skin on their faces. After a morning on the beginners slopes it was pretty obvious that Rach was a better skier than I was a snowboarder but it was time to progress to the main slopes. This was where the fact that the locals like it when it’s snowing made sense as even on the groomed trails you’d still have about half a foot of powder down and off the trail you can push through a metre of powder. Which was great for me as falling became as pleasant as falling onto a marshmallow.

The next day was bright a sunny if not a few degrees into the negatives and all the main slope trails were groomed, this was not so good for me as it was like boarding on glass and falling on concrete compared to the day before. I spent the day in frustrating pain wondering where all my skill from the previous day had gone to.

After a soak in the spa and a good nights rest we headed back up the mountain for our last day skiing. Rach went out the back with some cool oldies we’d met from Canada, I think she was a bit passed being amused at my falling antics and I forced myself to relearn on the beginners slopes. This Canadian couple was crazy, they must have been into there 70’s and they were killing the black runs and he was practising on the moguls so that his 10 year old grandson didn’t show him up. By lunch I was back on the main slopes feigning competency and Rach had made it back with the Canadians.

The last afternoon was easily the best, the weather was sunny and was even warming up a bit, Rach was happy about learning a trick or to off her Canadian friends and I was even hitting a few intermediate runs.

After 3 days of solid skiing and almost 3 weeks on the road we were getting pretty tired so the first morning after finishing up at the ski resort we decided to make a bee line right back to Texas. One thing we remember about that part of Northern New Mexico was the tumble weed, the wind had picked up something chronic and then tumble weeds it was blowing were massive. Because you could see for miles in any direction I’d pick put a 6ft weed rolling across the plains from a mile away and time it so I’d hit it as it went over the road. All seeds and stick flying everywhere... it gets boring on the road.

There was going to be some more stops in New Mexico like Santa Fe and Taos but we just blew right past them and kept on I40 until it got dark. There’s no Wal-Mart’s in the middle of nowhere interstate-land so we pulled up into a rest stop with a bunch of 18 wheelers and bunked in the van for one final night.
Alright then only 8 hours of straight road between us and a well deserved rest and only one last thing even remotely worth going to see. Cadillac Ranch is a barren dust bowl just west of Amarillo, Tx where some guy decided to plant 10 Cadillac’s in the ground. It’s about 50m off the interstate and you can just walk in and graffiti them or as we had no paint just jump around a bit.

4 ½ hours after Cadillac ranch and one last fight with the voice in the GPS on the best way back into DFW and we’d made it back to Andrew and Sarah’s. Ready to do it all again, pack up and California here we come.

The rest of the west remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Around 7 I woke up again when we were about ½ an hour from the Arizona Nevada border, Rach had stopped the van and was taking a picture. When you actually get to the border you’re not just crossing into another state your going over the Hoover Dam as well.

Hoover Dam


New bypass bridge, when it’s finished you wont be able to drive over the dam.

Also you may remember that Rach had started driving at about 5 in the morning which meant we got to the border at about 7:30, but there is one more thing you cross over when going into Nevada, a time line. So 7:30 became 6:30 way way to early, what happened to sleeping in on holidays.
It took another hour and a bit to get into Las Vegas and our hotel, the Stratosphere (Looks like the Auckland Sky city tower but made out of playdough, a recurring theme in Las Vegas). We were way to early for check in but luckily our room was ready and we had a bit of a nap until lunch time to get rid of the superbowl party the night before.

View of the Strip from the top of our hotel

I’m not exactly too sure what we were expecting of Vegas, maybe bright lights and superclassy everything with hot looking people all around and free offers everywhere. But unless you’re constantly on the tables spending up then they don’t really want to know you.


F650, Someone’s ‘day car’ parked in the too big for normal parking building carpark

We spent our three days wandering up and down the strip, popping into all of the casino hotels and generally soaking it up. By day everything looks so drab and old and even the brand new sparkling buildings just seem out of place. But at night when all the lights go on it starts to make a bit of sense as to why people come here

Fountain show outside the Bellagio.....nice

One thing we noticed was that for every themed hotel, Venice, Rome, Paris, New York, Egypt and more we’d actually been to the real thing. So when you’d see other touristy types staring at the buildings going wow, well we just weren’t that impressed with it. Don’t get me wrong it’s pretty in a flashing bright lights, everything all in the same place way, but the polystyrene nature of it all is a bit tacky.


Tower in San Marco Square, Venice...bin there


Eiffel tower...bin there

Pyramids...bin there


European Castle...bin there

One thing we were keen on doing was going to see a show of some kind, Circ de sole had 4 different shows playing while we were there so we just went to the one at the MGM grand that had the most amount of live fireballs (easily the best thing we did on the strip).


Lion statue outside the MGM grand, and New York skyline (bin there) hotel in the background

Our hotel, the stratosphere, was not exactly the flashest hotel on the strip. It’s better than the back of our van but was nowhere as slick as some of the other places we could have splashed out on. And the size of these places, they’re massive. With football field size gaming lounges as you enter and just the weirdest standing attractions on the inside, flamingos in the Flamingo, lions in the MGM grand, a canal running through the Venetian, Half hourly circus acts at Cricus Circus, A weird zen garden by the reception at the Bellagio and Rollercoaster rides on the top of our hotel and through the NYC skyline hotel.

Glass flowers in the Bellagio


The sad looking flamingos at the Flamingo

If you haven’t already guessed we weren’t big fans of the things on offer in Las Vegas, the fake polystyrene nature of the strip just put us off and we just couldn’t get ourselves into the gambling scene. We tried, even went to a craps lesson but the games and the odds just don’t make any sense, and the cheapest bye-in for a poker game I could find was $250 (do you know how many nights of ‘accommodation’ we could get a Wal-Mart for that). After three days and two nights on the strip we gave up trying to fit in and found another drive-in movie theatre instead.

Rachel just not able to give up her money to the slot machine monster


We ended up spending more money in the kids area on air hockey and dancing games.

So Las Vegas, we were so super excited about going there but it kinda bombed for us. If you’re on a budget that requires you to sleep in a van outside supermarkets every other night then maybe it wont be too great for you either.

Vegas Baby, remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Now if someone had asked me before we set out if I knew how far you could get on one tank of gas heading west from Fort Worth I would have had no idea...well now we know. We’d gotten of the interstates just before getting into New Mexico and were taking some back roads trying to cut some time getting to Carlsbad. Rach had noticed that we were getting a bit low on gas so we planned to stop in the next town. Of course this is America so the next town was way too far away (40 miles) and as the engine cut out we rolled up a crest and onto a nicely placed gravel patch.
It was a pretty deserted road but our only chance was to flag down the next car, when I say we I mean Rach (who’s not gonna stop for a damsel in distress). I jumped in the car with the 2 local oldies who just happened to be going in the right direction.


Where I left my wife


Locked in the van with some pepper spray

At least she had a nice sunset

Half way to the town the guy stopped at a middle of nowhere bar which the old guy knew to be an old petrol station. We both ambled in to an A-typical biker bar, leather and denim clad long grey bearded guys in a dingy room with motorcycle emblems spread all over the walls. So I put on my best Kiwi accent and yelled out “Hey mates, I don’t sapose ya know where I can get some petrol?” to which the bartender replied in a slow drawl “What’s petrol boy” (we must be well into the states, it’s all gas round here). We eventually got some directions to a mine a few miles along that might be able to help.
The mine entrance (a shack in front of a gate with a few trucks outside) was manned by a missing tooth stained singlet wearing guy (more reminders of where we are) who was really nice. He sent a boy out to a machine to drain us some gas and got one of his drivers who was heading back our way to wait so he could take me back to Rach. ‘Jed’ another missing tooth stained singlet wearing guy took me back the 20 miles in his fast food strewn 18 wheeler, although the conversation went a bit dead after he asked me what type of death metal I liked, who knew there were types?
So back on the road and we did get to Carlsbad for our first stay at what turned out to be one of the ‘major sponsors’ of the road trip, Walmart (number 1). No, Walmart has not introduced accommodation to their wide and wonderful range of products and services but they do have lovely car parks that have 24 hour security and happen to have toilets inside for when nature calls.
The reason for coming to Carlsbad is the close proximity to a cave network conveniently called Carlsbad Caverns. We weren’t there at peak season when 300,000 bats come out of the cave mouth at night but we did go down into the caves to have a nosey.

Descent into the caves

Our next stop was to be Roswell so we found a state park with camping 20 miles out of town and headed straight there, what followed was to be known as the freezer night. Apparently an ‘ice storm’ was blowing from the east and the previous night had gone through Texas and frozen our cousin pool. So that night after our camp dinner (nachos) we hunkered down in the van. And then the temperature dropped and as we snuggled to keep warm we were woken up by scratching under the van.


7 lakes state park

Before sleepy time I had put the chilly bin outside under the van to give us some more room. It took us a few minuets to figure out that it was probably a animal under the van and not a serial killer and because we were way to cold I opened the side door (which was in reach) and gave it a slam, that’ll scare it off.
Well it didn’t and we woke up to a centimetre of ice inside the roof of the van and an open chilly bin, dragged from under the van with the lid open, cheese and meat eaten and the basil pesto nowhere to be found. What fussy upper class raccoon takes basil pesto.
A quick note on Roswell as it was the reason for us venturing this way, don’t bother. We were hoping for tack and lots of it. But instead of tackiness we expected at all the diners and shops there was just a lame ‘museum’ about the ‘abductions’ and that’s it, just a town.

Roswell, not worth the time

So carrying on the journey east into Arizona and we made one more New Mexican stop at White Sands national monument where we jumped around a bit and the wind was whipping the sands up so much that well, just have a look at Rach’s ‘final solution’.

Climbing back up


The final solution to the sandy wind issue, also good camouflage


Arizona, hells yeah

Another few hours on the road and a nights rest in a trailer park and we were in the great state of Arizona, and Sugouo national park. A really awesome place as we had no idea what was there...at all. So when we rocked up and it was a cactus forest we were prickled tink.

owwwww

We spent ages just walking the trials wowing at the plants and the weird shapes they take.




Not sure what rach is doing?

After this we ended up at a Tucson Wal-Mart (number 2), so happy I’m jumping for joy.

North of Tucson is a wee place called Pheonix, all 4 story motorways and 3 million people small. We had a mission of a time getting into the place and not a few arguments with the voice in the GPS as to which exit we were supposed to take. We went straight to Scottsdale one of the suburbs, walked around, saw some Native American performances which were on in a park and just laxed out for the day. That night we found a drive in movie theatre, backed our van up to the screen and opened the doors.

Sweet setup.

Our first movie finished (Grand Torino, grrrrr Clint Eastwood), and we were on our way out when we noticed that the next screening was on and there wasn’t really anyone around. So we snuck in to another movie....awesome.

We found out later that the second screening is actually part of the payment, not so sneaky sneaky then. That had been such a big day that we decided to treat ourselves to a well deserved rest and so upgraded from a Wal-mart car park to a Safeway (number 3).

Arizona was shaping up pretty well but there was a big gaping chasm in our itinerary that we hadn’t ventured to yet.....the big GC (grand canyon)


Elk just chilling by the side of the road on the way into the national park

We spent two nights in the GC national park, camping out in the van. And don’t be fooled by the photos, this was winter. And even though it’s Arizona, we are 7000 odd feet up and there were ice drifts around the van. Handy though as we were able to fill up old water bottles and keep the chilly bin cold, also the hot water bottle and extra sleeping bags were by then well in use.
There’s not a lot you can say about the GC that hasn’t already be said..... huge hole at the top of Arizona, river at the bottom and literally breathtaking. You basically have to go and see it for yourself.


Pretty freaken beautiful but still so early and freezing


On the precipice

A great leap into the great canyon


The king of vistas

Hiking into the GC, chilly in the shade

Passing the donkey trains

Tired coming back up.

Half demolished ice cream sundae for 1, although me and Rach struggled to finish it between 2 (diner on the way to kingman).

From the GC we kept on course to Las Vegas. When we got to Kingman, a nothing much to write home about Arizonan town we decided to stop for the night and find a bar that was playing the super bowl. Now we didn’t mean to be in Arizona for the super bowl it just turned out that way, serendipitous as the Cardinals (Arizonan football team) had made the final for like the first time in ever.
After asking at a supermarket where a good place to watch the game would be we headed on down to the bowling alley which happened to have a sports bar inside. It was about 15 minuets into the first half so we played a couple of game of bowling to pass a bit of time but this is American football so only 20 minuets of game time had actually gone on.
It was a pretty standard American sports bar.... cheap beer in jugs ($2.50 and when they stuff up the size and give you a large you get that for the same price, score), free half time food (sloppy joe’s and hotdogs), free t-shirts thrown out at random times for correct score guesses and a big old moth eaten lazy boy parked right in front of one of the big screens which was raffled off for the locals.
After the game Rach drove us (I had a bit of a tiddle on) the 300m to what was to be the last Wal-Mart (number 4) before Vegas.

The way to Vegas, remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had a jam packed first week staying with cousin Rach and her family Victor (hubby) and wee bubs Ava. They wanted to fit in every single thing Fort Worth had to offer in 15 minuets, which was fine by us. So we went to the old stock yards area and had all you can eat ribs, the water gardens (more of a water sculpture), played some Frisbee golf and a game of Whirly Ball (bumper cars mixed with la cross mixed with awesomeness).

Weird horse that had some ugly teeth


Water gardens


Frisbee golf, I sooooo rocked it.

Whirly ball, not so much rocking on my part, very team I joined seemed to loose


Rachel pretty much addicted to the quarters game at whirly ball

In the middle of all that was my birthday where I basically sat on the couch and has some me time, until the family came over and long story short I goaded Uncle Les into smashing a cake in my face (there was still frosting up my nose in the morning).

So after our first week at Rach and Victors we had a week at Andrew and Sarah’s (NZ cousins who moved stateside a few years ago).


Della, Andrew and Sarah’s dog... many a walk was had, many a stick thrown, many a slide slid and many a Frisbee lost over a fence.

Now there are 4 things I wanted to do in the states

- Shoot a handgun
- See a college sports game
- Go to a batting cage
- And go to a rodeo

The first Monday at Andrew & Sarah’s was Martin Luther King day and for some reason Andrew had the day off. So we told him our list and he was keen as on the handgun idea. So we rocked around to Bass Pro, a huge sporting store that he thought might have a range. Well they didn’t and as we were asking if they knew anywhere where we could go I noticed a guy milling around behind us in an All Blacks top. “Cool top”, I commented in my best kiwi accent to which I got a drawly Texan reply “Yeah I really like rugby”. Turns out this guy (who’s name I forget and for future purposes will be called Bob) had overheard our conversation and told us directions to a shooting rage.
After about an hour of trying to find the place (GPS woes and calls to Sarah) we walked into the range only to find that same Rugby shirt wearing Bob was there, hands in the air “what took you guys so long?” It was kinda busy so he offered to take us onto his lane and we could borrow the guns he’d booked out and split the cost at the end...sweet.

So we’re on the range popping of shots while Bob is giving out gun advice and tid bits, showing us how to load them and explaining the differences between the guns. Then out of nowhere he tell us to go rapid fire gangster style on his cue. This had been expressly forbidden on sign in, but ehh it’s not like we were coming back.

Rachel style, gansta style....popping caps

We had a great time with Bob, even more so when we got out and found out he’d paid for the whole thing. Nice one Bob.

Later that week we knocked off another thing on the list a college basket ball game, TCU playing some Wyoming team. These teams weren’t even in the top tier of competition but they had all the bells and whistles, a super nice stadium with full brass band playing, cheerleaders and dancers, 2 mascots and a half time show.

Not to mention the big screen that showed a super produced video montage of each player pre match when introducing them and then whenever they did something awesome on the court (no wonder these kids have super egos). What we weren’t impressed with was sportsmanship of the supporters who were more than enthusiastic on the booing of the other team. So me and Mark (another cousin) took up their cause cheering and hollering (we are in texas) when they scored.

One bright and sunny day we hopped a train into Dallas, and we were pleasantly surprised. What we thought was just gonna be a city of 4 million with a bunch of skyscrapers around an x where JFK was shot, was actually a stylie manageable city with free transport up and down on a old school tram.

We ended spending way too much time at the running bulls sculpture, well it’s more that a sculpture more like a whole herd of steers cast in bronze, frozen in time.

This one got a bit techy and tossed me off

Driving range in the middle of the city, kinda felt like we were going to smash the windows on the surrounding buildings. Look and the muscles.

Batting cage, another list item.... the 70 mil and hour ball was scary, I only hit about 4 out of 20. Back to the 45 mph cage for me.

And last but not least the rodeo.

We just happened to be in town right when the big rodeo came for it’s Fort Worth leg. It was pretty cool in it’s own arena and lots of patriotism at the start and many a prayer for the men about to take to the ring.

There were heaps of events from bucking bronco’s (the first guy out got stuck and dragged around the arena a few times), speed hog tying cattle, kids chasing calf’s, wagon races and of course bull riding. Rachel finally got herself a toffee apple and I got a corn dog with mustard.

So an awesome few weeks in Texas with heaps of stuff to do and lots of time with family. Now we’ve hired a cargo van, slapped a mattress and chilly bin in the back and we’re going to vegas baby.

Big Texas sky

Teaxs T remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We did get out and about a bit by going on a ‘themed’ (guy wore pantaloons and spoke in ye olde english) walking tour of important American revolution spots in Boston. And after that we stopped at important sitcom spots eg the pub that cheers was based on.


No one knew my name




Attack of the giant squirrel, no real reason for this photo

So, Boston... didn’t do all that much besides lay about in our hotel room (upgrade form a hostel, private bathroom...oh what a treat) and recover from a manic time in New York. But all mediocre things must come to an end so we caught a train to Buffalo (yeah I didn’t know there were intercity trains in the states either).
This was the longest train we have ever been on ......literally. It was 12 hours and we didn’t even get a quarter of the way across the states (this place is huge). So while i bunkered down and darned socks, Rach had a series of naps and the speeding scenery faded into night while the temperature dropped. Some time after 8pm we noticed that as people went between carriages there was ice and snow building up in the walkways, and when we’d stop every other hour the conductor would shovel it off.

We had done the European when getting on the train and just put all our luggage above our heads instead of checking it onto the luggage carriage. Good thing too as at 1am when we got into buffalo and wandered past the luggage carriage there was about a meter of snow over everyone’s stuff, hahaha.
So New York was cold and Boston colder but nothing compared to this place, and I know that there are much more frigid place’s on earth but when you go outside and the wind instantly freezes the snot in your nose it’s time to fly south. In saying that, for a place I knew absolutely nothing about except for the close proximity to Niagara falls we had an alright time bunkering down for 4 days waiting for the smallest inkling of sunshine.

Having a nice hostel all to ourselves right in the middle of town helped, next to a cinema (please hold the butter) and by a tram stop so we could do the local stuff without having to freeze our knees solid when outside.

We did get that all elusive day of blue skies and sunshine so got a local bus up to the falls and walked over to Canada (tick another country off the list).

The closer you get to the falls themselves the more the mist freezes on the railings until it was just a big ice fence.


Watch out as I stab you with my ice dagger


Ahh pretty

So the north east is cool (figuratively and literally) much more European style cities than we thought it would be. But the permeating temperatures were taking their toll and it was time to fly south for the winter, onto the big Texas T.

Boston and Buffalo remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Straight off the plane, pick up the bags, onto public (easy to read the signs now there in english) transport and into the city. First we stayed in Harlem just above Central Park, not really the crazy palce the movies make it out to be. Sure you don’t see that many white face’s around but everyone was polite and helped us if we needed any directions or the like (loving the NZ acent….’oh man, do you know Flight of the Conchords).
Surprised with how wide the roads are here, we just kinda assumed that a big metroplex like New York would be all cramped up, but it really felt like you could spread your arms out here (not that hard after the tiny quarters of Cairo and Alexandria).

Lake at the top of Central Park

Because we were so close to the top of Central Park we went for a few walks around and in it. Absolutely stoked with the weather, nice and crisp bright blue skies, big up’s NYC winter.

Lake in the middle of Central Park

Ice rink at the bottom of Central Park

One of the places I wanted to see was Grand Central Station (actual name Grand Central Terminal). Awesome place all marble interior and well, just big. There was no flash party freeze frame (see link ) but was still cool just to sit down and watch the bustle.

So good to be back on working and efficient public transport

So the time of year we just happened to be in New York didn’t just happen. It was meticulously planned (translation = just happened) that the middle of our week was New Years. Cool right, we’re in on of the busy cities in the world right at the busiest time, where the biggest new years party in the world is gonna be taking place… oh yeah bring it on (and on it was brought).

Times square as it looks when your right in the middle of it. Sweet that’s the spot we want.

So on actual new years eve and we went to time square early at 2pm and there wasn’t really that much doing so we got some cheap tickets to a play 1 block away on Broadway. All My Son’s with John Lithgow and Katie Holms (nice dress Katie). The show finished at about 5pm and we thought we’d just go stand in the square for a bit until things started to get going.

Things were already in full swing as all streets had been blocked of for about 10 blocks in each direction, which we had to walk around just to walk back down a few blocks to the pen we eventually got put in.

Times square as we could see it from 10 blocks back

So it’s was about 6:30 and we were in position……… 10 blocks back. You couldn’t hear any of the music or anything and could just make out the big TV screens. But the atmosphere was cool, lots of people pressed together ready to hang around for 6 hours until midnight, or so we thought.

It was cold and not just a little, we later found out it was the coldest new years eve on record (very reputable sources, ha) about negative 7 with wind chill. We lasted one pre count down at 7pm and looked around to find the 1000 people that were in our area had been reduce to just a few hundred of us all crowded up the front.
Some locals told us they’d never seen people leave the party before let alone a mass exodus.

Not a happy chappy

So we left the streets and headed back to our hostel, which was a good move as we met up with some random young aussies who were going to crash a party of some guy they had just (or we now believe never) met. So we tag along and end up on the 33rd floor of an upper east side building in Larry’s flat with a fridge full of festiveness and a bunch of locals who were all having a good time. He even brought out bottles of champagne for the count down.

View from the crashed party

A few days later and we moved hostels downtown and ended up just hanging round the area, walking the city.

Give me that hotdog

We went on a food tour of Greenwich village and soho, which is a big recommendation as you get a walking tour and lunch at 8 different places that you wouldn’t think to go if you were only visiting.


‘Street art’

Before anyone asks, no we didn’t go up the Empire State Building cause then how would you get to look at the building itself. Instead we went up the Rockefeller centre so we could look out over downtown (Eempire State and Chrysler) as well as the best views over Central Park.

Top of the rock

View over central park

We didn’t get to do half the things that we wanted to do here so it’s going on the ‘if were ever back in the USA again’ list.

New York, new year remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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When staying in Egypt is wasn’t straight off the plane and onto a Nile cruise and trip to Jordan, we actually had a few weeks of downtime in Alexandria, staying with Mary (Rach’s mum). And boy did we need the relaxation after Europe.

Mary’s balcony

And while it was awesome to lax out at Mary’s, some of the things you do in Alexandria would be considered thrill rides in other countries.
The roads for example, hail a taxi (beaten up old lada) and go for a nice drive along the water front. This bing a high speed chase along a 7 lane motorway where apparently lanes are just a suggestion. Or the backstreets where an intersection is controlled by whoever beeps first gets right of way.
Or cross the road don't use the pedestrian crossings as local drivers will speed up for you, (tourist = 20 points) just find a local pedestrian also crossing and use them as a shield as you weave through speeding traffic.
Or walk along the sidewalk, but watch for loose concrete paves and steel reinforcement poking out.

Basically the roads aren't all that great.

Kafr Abdo (upmarket alex), view from the apartment.

One of the main experiences of actual life we experienced in Egypt was the Islamic festival of ede. We didn’t really know what was going in the week on leading up to the festival days but there seemed to be an excess of livestock tied to peoples shops and milling around the streets. Mary then filled us in that they were to be sacrificed on the main celebration day.

On Ede eve we went out to dinner with john (from the nile cruise) and then a café afterwards where mary mistook the ‘ede’ decorations for a childs party.

Cow tied to a street sign

So on the actually slaughter day Rach decide to have a indoors day (good move) while Mary and I were keen to see what all of the fuss was about. Well a walk down ‘crazy street’ and we were hit in the face with blood, killing, celebration and children using blown up stomachs/bladders as soccer balls. Blood literally covered the street.

Decorating the mosk (don’t think they’re xmas lights)

Although we may not find the animal sacrifice thing all that palatable one positive is that a lot of the meat and dried skins are donated to the orphanages and the poor.

Getting back to something we do know about, Zachariah (visa guy from kens work) invited us down to support his rugby team. They were surprisingly good and the Alex boys totally kicked Cairo’s butt. There’s no way that I’d want to play on the rock hard field.

At the catacombs, only real touristy thing to do in Alex.

Cairo

On the way back from the Sinai we had a couple of days stop to do all things Cairo. This includes Pyramids and Egyptian Museum.

Picture this, you’re on your way to the Pyramids in the back of a ‘1970 lada’ (read: taxi) and as you get close random guys on the street start waving and trying to hail your cab but you tell the driver to just carry on. One persistent fat man will not give up though and sprints about 200m before the cab has to pull over for traffic.
He then forces the drivers window down and starts yelling, ‘you going to pyramids, you like a camel or donkey?’ ‘you know the price, very good price.’ We then pretened to know Arabic and tell him to shove off and the taxi to keep going. He catches his breath gets his running shoes back on and sprints after the next car with a white face in it.

The pyramids themselves are a bit of a touristing conundrum for us. Sure they’re really impressive and old (understatement) and we should have just been slack jaw staring at them. But because you’ve seen pictures of them all your life you just know what to expect, and like everywhere else in Egypt you have to fend of the merchants and camel hawkers. As one travel writer said, ‘looking at the sphinx is like meeting a famous actor, you just thought they’d be bigger in real life.’

One positive is that if you’re willing to walk a few hundred meters (further that most tourists are) then you can look back at them in the peace and quiet.

Anyway we are totally over this part of the world and wanna go somewhere where the speak english and people don’t hassle at every corner.

America here we come.

[*]

Cairo and Alex remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Another hour in a taxi (good thing taxis are cheap huh) once in Jordan and we were at our first destination, Wadi rum. The reason for coming to the area is the desert and rock formations that are around. If you know Lawrence of Arabia this is his country.

Bedouin camp, wadi rum

We got to go on a 4 wheel drive ride around the place with one of the locals and he’d stop at the different formations, mountains and camel herds. It’s a really surreal place in how the mountains just rise out of the sand

Besides just driving around we went for a few hikes up into the mountains and I tried a few climbs, but you gotta be real careful cause some of the stone is soft as and will just crumble if you put too much weight on it.

Life in the desert

Back at the camp. Me and Rach did the real Bedouin experience and stayed in the tents and it was freezing. Mary and Ken in a room/ mud, hut the upgrade

So wadi rum was this tranquil awesome place that we’d never even hear of and so was a real surprise to be there. Our next stop was Petra another couple of hours north, and this I knew a little bit about. If you’ve ever seen Indian Jones and the last crusade this is the place where he goes at the end to get the holy grail, at the red city.

Canyon to the center Petra

Anyway I was super keen to get in and see this place which I thought would be all secluded and mystifying, well not anymore. It’s more of a tourist trap now, don’t get me wrong the ruins and temples themselves are amazing, more anti ruins really as they were cut, carved and sculpted out of the solid canyon walls. But when there are local ‘guides’ constantly berating you for a camel/donkey/horse ride it takes away from the whole thing.

Yip the main red temple, really awesome place. Had to wait forever for a shot with no crowds in front though.

Besides the tour groups and hawkers there is still the great moment after the 2km hike through the crack of the canyon where you are confronted with the main and best preserved temple and you just stare at it trying to comprehend how it was made.

Mary trying to mount said donkey

Kids outside our hotel window near petra, lining up every morning for exercises and what we guessed was the national or school pledge/anthem

Ok, so the Petra ruins were a bit of a let down but the real reason I wanted to go to Jordan was the Dead Sea. So we hired a car off some random we me outside a newsagent and got Ken to drive us 2 ½ hours north. When we asked for directions a local told us that we should go the main highway north but we could follow some signs and drive through the desert and we should end up at the dead sea highway, maybe.

Well we chose the less trodden path and went the desert way and don’t let the photo above fool you, it got down to some pretty knarly rocky roads but we got there in the end.

I was trying to put my feet under the water but they just kept popping out.

Besides the floating the best part was layering up with the mud and letting it dry before washing it off, oh skin so smooth.

The drive back was the best part of the day as we got totally lost in the dark middle of nowhere and our A5 map of the country wasn’t really helping. Mary and Rach were starting to freak out a little with me in the back try to comfort them ‘don’t worry, don’t worry I‘m sure if we just keep going we’ll hit a main road eventually’.

Still in Jordan we had one more day in Aqaba, right on the Israel border where we went for a snorkel and Rach got freaked by a plastic bag she thought was a massive jellyfish but other than that no really to much to tell.

So now done with Jordan we split from Mary and Ken who went back to Alexandria and me and Rach went into the heart of the Sinai peninsula. But we had to get there first and coming out of the Israeli border there was no public buses or anything. Just a group of 20 men all with vans who you had to batter like hell with to get the price to something reasonable. We ended up just saying la la la la la (no in Arabic) and waiting them out for an hour before they dropped the price to something worth paying.

So St Katharine, slap bang in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and home to Mt Sinai (mosses and the 10 commandments) and an Orthodox Monastery that surrounds what is meant to be the burning bush.

The cheapest of good dinners, basically in a locals dining room.

We stayed at a Bedouin style camp and ended up haning around the campfire most nights with Sheik Mousa and his mates talking about boduin life, eco tourism and playing cards.

The main drawcard for coming here is to climb Mt Sinai, which we did. It’s not the highest mountain ever but the so-called Steps of Repentence, 3000 of them in total really kick your butt on the way down

Apparently the burning bush

St Katharine’s Monastery

Our last stop on the Sinai peninsula was Sharm ek sheik , a resort town on the very southern tip. It is black when compared to St Kathrine's white, big fast roads are everywhere with strip malls and chain hotel resorts. The town centre could have come out of Bangkok, flashy fakeness and guys lining the street trying to get you into their shop.

Our hotel did however have access to a ‘private beach’ which they shuttle you to and from. So down we went expecting a nice lie down on the sand with a wee snorkel in the ocean. The words private and beach cannot be used to describe the place where they took us as there were another 5 hotels using the small strip of land and every available space had been systematically covered with deck chairs of which all had been claimed by leather skinned, cigar smoking, bikini clad, mostly overweight euro-trash. We were ushered to a free set of chairs and immediately took our snorkels and got into the water.

Not the ‘private beach’

The water is where Sharm finally makes sense, 100m past the beach and the reef just drops into black nothingness. Then you turn around and the fish and coral just pops out at you as you stare back and dive down to look at under cuts in the reef wall.

Back on land and we grabbed our stuff and ran from the disgustingness of the hotel beach. Good thing was we found a rock that had access to the water and may or may not have been on flash resort land.

So Jordan done, Sinai done. Now onto a 7hr bus back to Cairo

Jordan and Sinai remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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First view from our window

Straight after checking into our lush (well above our normal traveling standards, thanks again to Mary) room on the boat we headed off with the tour group to our first temple, Karnak temple. It had huge columned rooms, obelisk (plural) and statues galore.

Our group included us, John (aussie guy who was at our table for dinners), three Canadian couples, some other randoms and three young Aussie families with three kids each, that’s nine kids total!

Luxor temple

Two big statues outside the valley of the kings, Ramsess really did love himself

After the valley of the kings we went to another temple nearby (pronounced hot chicken soup). At one point Rach had to head off too the loo, when I found her again she was with the guy above. Apparently after a short conversation, with Rach, ‘Mohammed’ wanted to make her his forth wife. Jamie was almost swayed by his offer of; 2 million chickens, 1 million goats and 2 dogs. Pretty sure he was joking, but who knows.

This is the life.

Galabaya men swarming the boat

One of the highlights of the cruise had to be the innovative sales techniques employed by the Galabaya hawkers. Their process involves the following;
- without even waiting for the boat to slow down they row their dinghy’s besides the boats and grab onto whatever they can.
- They tether their dingy to our boat.
- While being dragged along they heave plastic bags full of there wears onto the top deck of the boat.
- If you want to buy you have to barter like hell with the men below.
- If you don’t want to but you toss they plastic bag back.

We were in the tossing back category, Rachel making a game of trying to land the bags perfectly back in the dinghy’s. Bags were flying everywhere, many fell in the water but were quickly fished out, wrung out and thrown back up to the next tourist that dared to poke there head up or make eye contact worth someone below.
One over zealous and under cautious hawker got his dinghy trapped between a concrete wall and our cruise ship. As the crack of timber rang out the hawkers jumped ship onto our boat, but fortunately there vessel popped out the back no worse for wear. Rach was horrified but watching crew members told her not to worry it happens almost every week.

Typical temple crowd, Asian tourist and suited teenage Egyptian guard with AK-47

This dude totally ripped us off when buying some scarf’s.

Edfu temple, I think??? They were all starting to look the same

Egyptian girl totally letting loose on the belly dancing floor

us at Egyptian party

Total vertical jump

Feluka ride

Dip your finger in the nile and you are destined to return

Abu Simbol

Our cruise actually finished in Aswan (where the big Nile dam is). But (thanks again Mary) we had an extra place to go. So a quick flight down over Lake Nasser and we were at Abu Simbol. We are so glad that we got to go here, there is only the two temples but what temples they are.

Ohhh Ramses is it a wee bit nippy outside

Total commitment to the photo…..after ‘landing’ Rach did an impromptu roll with added knee/elbow graze.

Cursing on the Nile remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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It was nice to be in a modern city again, especially one that has a history like Madrid’s (I know, it’s a bit of a contradiction ‘a modern historic city’).

We went on a walking tour of the city sights and a biking tour of the cities parks.

Modern art museum

Madrid as our last destination is essentially true but in the middle of the week we went and taught English to some Spanish people. As part of a 1 year course in the Madrid they had to complete 1 week of ‘Intensive English’. So about 20 Spanish people and 20 English people were herded into a bus and sent to a place (no cathedral) 3 hours from Madrid where only English specking was allowed.

It was a weird big brother type experience where everything was done for you eg the schedule for the whole week was laid out, breakfast, lunch, dinner, activities and you hardly went more than 1 km from the hotel (which was literally in the middle of nowhere). By the end of the week a few of the Spanish people were convinced that all the English speakers were paid actors and knew perfect spanish.

The basic schedule for every day was breakfast from 9-10 then 4 hours of speaking to the Spaniards (one on one), lunch for 2 hours and a wee break and then another 2-4 hours of speaking to the Spaniards followed by dinner at 9pm and drinking.

It all sounds very easy but constantly speaking for that long and all the free food and wine really started to take it’s toll and by then end of the week we were both totally stuffed and spent.

We were able to get a bit of time to ourselves and go for some walks in the countryside

We were pretty lucky with the group that we got, quite a lot of the Spaniards were our age and hopefully we keep in contact with them. Also the English (Anglos) speakers were cool to as well and the same goes for them.

After the week of constant broken English we had only one night back in Madrid and then a flight the next day to Rachel’s mum’s in Alexandria.

Bring on Egypt.

Madrid remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The Aqueduct is actually knida cool, no mortar or fixings and still standing after a few thousand years.

And yes the cathedral

the cathedral

the cathedral (at night)

the cathedral (at night)

Rach with her solid chocolate drink, mmmmm

Hey it’s not a cathedral, but a castle

Just for good measure another cathedral shot

And finally…… wow a cathedral

We were about to head to Avila, another small medieval town (more old streets and buildings) but unless you couldn’t guess the tone of this post we were a bit over it all so decided just to go straight to Madrid.

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3 hours, a bus and a 2km walk later and we got to our apartment we’d rented for the week in Barcelona. We went and got groceries, not knowing where we were. We could have walked another 2 blocks to see one of the cities main attractions, the Sagrada Familia.

The next day was supposed to be jam packed but ended up being a bit of a slow day, which was my fault. On our way to the first thing we were doing, a bike tour, we got totally lost. Not once or twice but more times than I can remember, all I can say is getting a map should be on the top of your list when you get to Barcelona. After missing out on the bike tour we just aimlessly wandered around the city staying away from the main tourist tracks. We found ourselves out on the edge of the city near the hills where a interactive museum that we’d been recommend to go to was. Another thing that old people and kids go to, seriously where are all the people our age?

Ahh well stuff people our age, we know what we like and children’s entertainment falls in that category. The museum was easily the best interactive science museum ever. It took me back to when I’d go to our local science museum in Palmy.

Rach using a jet of air to float the polystyrene ball onto the hoop

Our next day was a bit more organized, we did make it on time for the bike tour. The highlight of which was catching out tour guide out when he spiel some false story but ringing the bells on our bikes until the whole tour group was ringing.

Sagrada Familia

The cubist/angled side

Nice little bikes all lined up in a row

We were in Barcelona for 5 days and not all of it was getting lost and hassling tour guides

We walked ourselves around Antoni Gaudí's buildings, just so Dr Seuss

I can’t decide if I like the style, they all look like they are melting

Not Antoni Gaudí's but every city should have a giant smiling lobster sculpture


We bought an English newspaper and sat on the beach for an afternoon.

Walked up one of the surrounding hills to watch the sunset

Saw the fountain and lights show, set to classical music

And on our last day got in just a bit more weird Dr Suess architecture by Gaudí



We really liked our time in Barcelona and probably should have stayed longer, ah well travels must go on.

Barcelona, magic city remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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So not being in the best mood the next day we tried to be touristy and stuff, we even went to the big castle that was built by the popes when they lived here after fleeing Rome. But alas we were just not in the mood and retired to our room to read and watch stuff on our laptop.

Carnival!! Well one merry-go-round.

I’m starting to believe that there are a lot of cathedrals around in Europe.

We’d only had the two nights, one off the bus and one after a fairly apathetic day. So to prove that we had actually been to Avignon we went for a walk around the oldie part before picking up the rental car that we had for the next 5 days.

The bridge to nowhere

We’d had a few talks with the Fromont’s (Family we stayed with in Jura) as to where good place’s to go in the South of France would be. We weren’t to taken with the whole Monte Carlo, Nice, Mediterranean thing so they suggested some small towns that would take us inland on our way down to Spain.

Les Baux de Provnce, very very nice little town, old winding streets and stuff

danger

More danger

We didn’t stay in Les Baux but decided to just keep driving west until we found somewhere nice. This took us through Nimes which totally turned us around and ate up heaps of time as we were caught in the home rush traffic. We only lasted on more town after Nimes, Sommieres where we found a camping ground and chalet with our name on it.

The next few days the weather started to pack in a bit, but not to worry as one of the main attractions around the area is a network of caves. For some reason everything we do on trip seems to be either for old people, tour groups or kids, where are all the people our age?

After Sommieres, we headed onto Carcassone, well actually to Malvies, 30km away from Carcassone where we had booked an apartment style place attached to the main estate building of an English couple who live and work in the area. Nice as accommodation with full kitchen and open fire.

Driving in Languedoc-Roussillon

The things we did over the 3 days were,

- Driving back into Carcassone to have a walk around, (although after nearly 2 months of travel we were a bit sick of old towns).

Carcassone in the distance

- Hiring bikes from the English couple and going round the different small towns in the area

Hmmm, Rachel taking an interesting path

Rachel deciding against the interesting path

- But the best thing was definitely taking a quick walk from the estate to a local winery which the English people knew and getting a private tour of the facilities, we were shown round by the owner who was only a little bit older than us. He took us down to the vats where some of the virgin wine was still being made and aged and we drank straight from the tap, mmmm. We ended up buying 3 bottles from him of which we are gonna save 2 of for xmas.

Where's waldo, Rachel riding into the distance

The southie bit of France remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We had to go over the Grimselpass to get there, nice roads, winding switchbacks and the best scenery on any drive I’ve been on (so Rach tells me, I was a bit preoccupied with the next bend).

Winding roads of the Grimselpass

We got to Zermatt (which you can’t drive to, you have to train) only to find all of the hotels were closed for the slow season break. We ended up trudging round all the hotels that were open for about 2 hours, me holding the packs and Rach darting in to wrangle a room. Of course we did eventually find place, but the real reason we had come (Matterhorn) was still hidden in mist.

The next day was a corker, bright blue skies and crisp mountain air. We hired a few bikes and proceeded to ride up a trail below the mountain. Immediately after leaving the town we got lost and confused, finding what we thought was a trial up and following it.

Easy climb… right.

Rach, taking it easy

Jamie, not taking it easy

Not the best idea to follow the hiking trail as you would have had to be the best freestyle mountain biker to even make it up the rock steps slowly. As you can see from the above photo I ended up carrying the bikes for most of the way.

Eventually tiring from carrying something that was supposed to carry me we turned around to go back down only to find the right trial up (I still maintain it was not clearly marked). But as we had wasted all our energy we gave it a miss and bolted back down to the town.

Down is so much easier

So we’d seen the Matterhorn and expended a little too much energy so back to our car and off we went to Lukerbad, 1 ½ hours away. We were happily surprised to find that it was a thermal resort town and proceeded to soak it up in one of the hot pool complexes.

Lukerbad

Eventually we had to give up our wee beastie car and get back onto public transport. So after a night in Lukerbad we drove back to Lausanne (where we had picked up the car 5 days before) and got a train to Geneva.

Hanging out at the massive fountain in Geneva

We had pretty high hopes for Geneva, and it was ok but didn’t really blow our minds. We shared a hostel room with this paranoid American guy. It was like he didn’t have any bags as they were all in lockup downstairs, slept in his clothes with his day bag still on. Like we were going to steal his t-shirt or something.

Rach made me do this ‘artistic’ shot

We walked past the United Nations and went to the Red Cross Museum. There’s not really to much more to do in Geneva.

Red cross museum

Swiss part deux remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Well we didn’t go straight up but went through Gruyeres and to a cheese factory there (loving the free samples).


Can’t remember how heavy each one weighs but they are at least ½ meter in diameter and 15 cm thick.

We then went just down the road to the original Callier (Nestle) factory. It was ok, a bit of chocolate history and process and then out of nowhere just as you exit in an obscure corridor was a counter 10m long with all the different chocolates.

Note the excited look on Rach’s face


We didn’t need much dinner that night.

Just before tackling the Jaunpass, sugar high still in top gear.

On our first night, being the money scrapers that we are we just rocked up to a camping ground paid for tent sight and slept in the car. Not the best move, who knew Switzerland got so cold.

Hanging in the campground common room, as we didn’t have one ourselves.

Day two of our drive round Switzerland saw us go to the Interlaken / Jungfrau region. We stayed in Lauterbruten, a small low valley town below the Jungfrau mountains (Swiss Alps), which we couldn’t see as the mist was so thick.


We did go see a glacier waterfall network carved through the center of the mountains.

The next day and the mist was still hanging round and we decided it was better to just go for the alpine hike we wanted to do rather that hang around inside. So up the cable cars to the top valley towns (only accessible by cable cars, even for the locals) and off on the North Face hike.

Very eerie and very cold.

Instructions (click on video, pause and wait to load, press play)




We eventually started climbing higher and higher until we finally saw some blue sky.

Then a bit more blue sky and some close hills

And even more

And then suddenly the mist cleared and we were hit with the whole mountain range crystal clear in the bright blue sunshine. It was so awe inspiring and silent, easily the best thing we have done on trip so far.

Pretty hard to take a bad picture

After our walk we went up a series of cable cars to the Schittlehorn mountain station to get another view of the mountains. We ended up taking more pictures of the birds that circle the top than the mountains.

Hmmmm shall we walk down.

We really didn’t want to leave the area, that hike easily being the highlight of mine and Rach’s trip so far. But there was still more of Switzerland to see and not much time left to do it.

Part un la Swiss remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Mmmm food from the market

See told ya bout the mustard, (although the mustard museum had closed, sob. I was keen)

We only got a small slice

So when we were working back in Scotland I meet a student (Grégoire) from France working at my company on a holiday break. We got talking one day about our trip and he discovered we might be going to Dijon. “Oh,” he exclaimed “my parents live near there”. The next day he comes into work and says “I rang my mum last night and you can stay there when you pass through”……. Score

From Dijon we had a quick train to Dole and meet up with Grégoire and his mum, who took us to their awesome family house in Tavaux. It was so good staying with these guys, they had a real family atmosphere (6 kids tend to do that). Just seeing the day to day living of a real honest French family.

We did get some sights in when Grégoire (home from uni for the weekend) and his girlfriend took us out to the wee village of Beaume and Chateaux Chalon (again purchasing wine and cheese).

View from the Beaume abbey

Gotta love the way the French eat dinner, we were a bit concerned at the first dinner when everyone got only a small slice of a really nice quiche/flan dish. But they have this ‘weird’ concept of courses. Eg first up aperitifs (drink and snack), then main, then bread and cheese, then fruit, then desert and coffee (not to mention the wine). And this was for pretty much every meal, lunch and dinner. So we were more than quite full after our 3 days.

Family dinner


Me and the youngest (Pierre), who had a fascination with the haka.

Canals in Dole

So big ups to the Fromont family, you made our stay one to remember.
(See you in Corsica)

The Jura and the Fromont’s remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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As Luxembourg city is an expensive place it forced us to do something we’d only been thinking of doing, couch surfing. Really good experience, just send a request out to some people who live in the area and see if you get a reply. We got a call back from an Aussie couple who had just moved to Luxembourg a few months before.
The only downside to the whole couch surfing thing was having to be up and out of the house at 7 when the guys had to go to work, which was fine as it made us get out and do stuff. Like…………

A day trip out to viaden to see the châteaux on the hill side






Pictueresque, oh yes

Kinda the beauty of Luxembourg, you can take a quick bus ride out to a village and be on the opposite side of the country.

Other things Luxembourg offered up were the casemates, a network of tunnels and rooms under the old fort. We also did a walking tour, went to the modern art museum, natural history muse and I’m sure that we went to some other museum as well. We also needed a bit of normalcy so went to English speaking movie.

It was quite exciting underground


But all that jumping lead to a wee knock on the head

Back on couch surfing (if you have ever thought of doing it) the pro’s are, obviously you don’t have to pay any accommodation; there’s a kitchen to use, local knowledge (Dallas and Christen were a virtual information centre) and the company. Probably the best thing we did in Luxembourg was having dinner with like minded people over a bottle or two.

Oh so small, so cute. remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We went to a Japanese film festival where we saw a new spaghetti western with Quentin Tarentino (hilarious),


Magic changing lights building (should’ve had Tetris)

Walked round a few markets

Saw the birds nest like sculpture (soon to be replaced by a mall)


Had lunch

The little girl you can see on the fountain was doing laps around the perimeter. A few laps after this picture was taken she was getting a bit too confident and a tad to fast and took a slip and fell in (as Rachel had been secretly hoping). She was ok, some passer by hoisted her out, it was all just a bit of light entertainment.

After the fountain incident we were all tuckered out so we lay in the sun.

Lastly we went for a ride out to the big globe nucleus atomic building. It’s ok but we didn’t go in.

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We stayed in an out of the way place off the tourist trail, nice BnB with an old Belgian lady. There was a chocliatair just round the corner to whom we visited twice daily to just try that one that was next to the one we got last time, you know it had the swirls.

Long way up the belfry, you might wanna take the lift

To combat the extra intake of fats we were getting from the unnecessary (but oh so good) local ‘foods’ we got our walking shoes on and went round the standard churchy big building impressiveness that abounds in the old town. There was once a lot of money in the town which built all the churches and buildings but this dried up with the receding shoreline and hence the trade.

Contemplating the few hundred stair climb to the top of the belfry


Down is so much easier

If she wanna go ta da playground she get’s ta go ta da playground

More looking up at buildings into the blue sky

If you hadn’t caught on there is heaps of chocolate in Bruges, so much so that they have a museum dedicated to it. Which we diligently went round reading all the guff, slightly speeding through the end so we could get to the demonstration and tasting.

Another thing the Belgians have a handle on is beer. So many different types, flavors and varieties that it’s just plain rude not to try a few. Again they have a museum type deal which goes through the only working brewery in Bruges and the tour guide goes over the making and process …blah blah blah…. there was tasting at the end.

Sitting on the top of the brewery..happy

Still not happy that we were burning off the extra calories we went on a bike tour to an outlying town. Sweet for us as there was only one other guy on the tour so we pretty much had the guide to ourselves. The outlying town (Dam) has it own churches and niceness as it became the main port after the shoreline retreated from Bruges. It was easy as to get to, just get on a Napoleonic canal which directly links the two towns.

Look mum no teeth

The combination of indulging and trying in vain to burn it off lead to an afternoon of laxing in the sun at a local park. Reading books and consoling ourselves with more chocolate.

So Brugge, too much chocolate, too much beer and too much chips (they have a newly opened museum for this as well). But probably the most unexpectedly good place we have been so far.

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Note this is not like the ice cream tucks back home. They will not stop if you run beside them waving money.

We opted to do the ‘free’ walking tour on the 3rd day after we’d moved to our luxurious (compared to the plastic sheeted snore infested no door lock BYO TP camping ground) Hotel room closer to the city. Below are some photos of the walking tour, very informative and interesting, lead by an overenthusiastic American student.

Interesting facts (maybe fact or fiction, who knows what drivel come out of tour guides):

- Houses lean forward so that large furniture can be hoisted to upper floors without hitting the exterior.

- Houses get wider at the top due to the width tax being imposed on the first floor only. Bringing us to our next point…….


- Thinnest house in Amsterdam, short one in the middle, apparently someone just walled up a alleyway looking to get the lowest rate of width tax.

- Thoudsands of bikes get stolen in Amsterdam every year only to be thrown in the canals. They even have a bike extraction from canal barge.

- This guy is not Albert Einstien or Mark Twain, but some other guy who’s name escapes me but is important in some way and from Amsterdam.

One of our late night strolls through the red light district, hence the glow.

WWII monument

Bikes bikes bikes

We also went to the Anne Frank museum where you can actually walk around the rooms where the Frank family and friends hid from the Nazis. No pictures allowed which I think is a good thing as people treat it more as a memorial and less like a tourist attraction.

Amsterdam gets a bit of a bad rap from the red light districts, drugs and general freedom of choice (and yes it’s all here if you want to partake). But there’s so much more to the place than what you expect. It’s a beautiful clean canal city with loads of museums and cultural type things to do.

It’s not all drugs and rock and roll remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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We’d been lacking in any real planning for the next stage of the trip and being that no one in St Margen even knows that the internet exists we went back into Freiberg to find some wifi and book some accommodation for the next few weeks in Germany and the Netherlands.

We did get to have a look round the city which has the standard old town with big church and guild halls. I make it sound dull but it was very nice and good weather to boot.

The next day neither of us was feeling very good but damit we were in the Black Forest and we were goon go hiking flu or no flu, our excuse being “I’m sure it’s one of those ones you just have to blow out”.

Loving the German barn house. Family upstairs cows downstairs.


Half way and Rach is starting to feel it

Yes yes I know It’s a weird photo

The trail we took was only 15kms long so we thought 3 or 4 hours max. But 5 hours later and Rach was dreaming up ways to break her legs and get air lifted back home. We did eventually get back to the BnB but went straight to bed.

We were freezing but sweating, shivering but with high fevers. Who knew a 15k walk in cold weather was bad for a chest cold? Luckily we had the foresight to book an extra 2 nights in the room and proceeded to spend the next few days in bed.

St Margen in the distance, so close yet so far.

The next stop after the black forest was in Cochem. This place had a lot of potential for touristing, good wine area with nice castles and scenery. But we ended up in bed nursing lemon and honey drinks.

Bring on Amsterdam and some good health.

Getting down with the Sickness remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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From the first train we had another local one where a cute wee German boy had a hard time grasping the concept that another person didn’t speak the same language as him, he just kept speaking to Rach in German with a confused look on his face.

Ooo Rach nice photo.

While waiting for a ferry over to Dingelsdorf (where our campground was) Rach went for some food and I sat mesmerized by a humming bird for 15 min (signs of the sickness from Oktoberfest settling in).

Rach on fire with the camera right now

The next day we caught the bus into Constance, a border town with Switzerland and yes we walked over the border a few times (Hence the title I’m in Germany – I’m in Switzerland - I’m in Germany – I’m in Switzerland…. and so on)

Nice clean place on the lake, had a weird semi sexual statue out on the pier which I didn’t really get, probably something about fertility.

Now a quick promo (doesn’t happen very often) to the place we went for dinner. The Pelican, right near the Swiss border kind out of the main town area but really good food.
The chef cam out and talked us through the menu (we both ended up getting the specials) it was a wee bit hard to take him seriously as I thought he looked a bit to much like Manual from Faulty Towers. Any ways, food was awesome, cheapy cheap price and just a cool place.

Not one to be held down by a small chest infection, Rach and I hired bikes the next day and went for a ride around the lake. Not the whole lake mind (that’s 270 km are you crazy I’m sick here), just 40 odd km from Constance up to a small town where we got a ferry over to Ublinger and then biked to Meersburg.

Both of those 2 places over the lake are pretty cool and in hindsight we probably should have stayed there. Although Dingles (as it came to be known) had it’s charm too.

Self walking tours around Ublinger and Meersburg, a must.

So that was our Lake Constance / Bodeness experience. Now we are off to Freiberg and the Black Forest. I’m sure this cold will pass soon.

I’m in Germany – I’m in Switzerland - I’m in Germany........ remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Before the split we did get to spend a night in Munich, walking round the main squares and orientating ourselves, although you may notice a distinct lack of pictures. This was due to a lack of lens protrusion upon our first attempt to turn our camera on, a lens error message and general grinding from the camera. This led to many camera hitting, bashing and shaking attempts to ‘fix’ said camera culminating in me ripping the lens cover off. Luckily being from the technology savvy generation we were able use the powers of the internet (laptop check, free wifi at hostel check) to locate the Nikon repair centre in Munich and go there the next day. It was going to cost 80 euro to fix but Andreas at the repair centre ‘broke’ the main board whilst fixing it and gave it to us all on warranty (which we didn’t even have on us). “We have rules for everything in Germany” says Andreas “even a tax for coffee”

This also leads me to a wee story which if I left out Rach would never forgive me. Straight after landing and while trying to get a train ticket to central Munich, I misplaced my wallet on the airport floor (which contained a few hundred euro). But not to worry as helpful German information guy found it and handed it into lost property and two police officers guided us to it. No harm, no foul.

So finally we get onto the real action, euros in pocket and camera on the mend. I’ll leave you here for a bit and let Rach go over her beerfest experience.

RACH
The 1st day was a bit of a flop for me. We stood in a sea of smelly people for 3 hours and then sat outside in the freezing cold for 4 hours drinking beer. I don’t even like beer!

Anyway………. by the 2nd day we had it sussed and got up super early (alittle too early) and got a great table in a fun tent and the games had begun.

JAMIE
So back to me and my cold, cold tent. Which if I didn’t mention before was cold.
First night after leaving Rach and meeting up with the boys was a real hit in the face. Turning up to the campground (after running into / throwing my sleeping bag at Ruben Prier) with thousands of people all amping up for the opening day in the morning, there was not amount of earplugs able to drown out bad renditions of ‘wonder wall’ and ‘living on a prayer’ but ah well better have just gotten used to it as this was a recurring theme for the next 4 nights.

Again if I haven’t said it already, it was freezing. Which made the whole getting up at 7 for breakfast and an early bus to the opening day of the festival a bit harder. I’ve gotta give a big ups to the Top Deck staff who if sometime a bit enthusiastic for dawn, (I’m sure one guys job description was to stand in the middle of the breakfast tent and play air guitar) always made the mornings a bit more sunny.

Besides the whole waiting to get in on the first day all subsequent Oktoberfest stories follow a similar pattern,

a) get to the grounds,

b) get a table,

c) pay ridiculous amount of money for ludicrously sized beers,

d) eat sausage and

e) play on the dodgems.

There are a few deviations from this though ie, on the first night I chivalrously took a broken stein to the hand to save a frauline, resulting in a trip to the police tent to get stitched (super glued) up. On the second day me and the boys took a wee morning off to take in some munichy tourist stuff and one night me and McFly (random friend) got chanting to some old Bavarian dudes (kein anglish), but he was able to eek out that one of them trained homing pigeons.

Eventually I was finding it hard to keep up the lifestyle so dipped out one day to catch back up with Rach.

JAMIE AND RACH ALL TOGETHER

The 4th and 5th days of the fest me and rach took a leave of absence form the groups and did our own thing. Intentions on being tourists took a dive right away when we ended up laxing in a coffee shop and having lunch at a Maggi café (oh yes in Munich they have their own cafe).

The next day was a bit more productive as we went out to the dachau concentration camp, a massive place which was the first and model camp for the 3rd Reich. Very, very somber place especially the cremation ovens used to ‘clean up’ the dead and gas rooms (apparently not used in dachau).

Nice to see zero spin on the place, just the facts and loads of people paying respects those victims of an atrocity.

All of this was very educational but we did need a bit of cheering up so went back to the new and youthful face of Germany, Oktoberfest. We managed to find Rach’s group (mined had already ‘checked out’) surprising as everyone of them seemed to have lost either phones, money or their way home during the last few days. We spent our final night in a beer tent singing away to random German drinking songs (swim, swim, swim) and a few English ones, country road anyone.

And just so I didn’t get to comfortable I retreated that night to the coldest night so far at the campground. I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with something.

Beerfest done!

A tale of 2 Oktoberfest's remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Rewind 3 weeks and we went down to Horton-on-Ribblesdale to tackle the 3 Peaks of Yorkshire. We were there with Rach’s cousin Carrie who is doing the 3 peaks of Britain and wanted a training run and some company.

The hike was 26 miles including 3 peaks, all around 700 m high each.

There was fog


There was bog

The challenge is to complete the route in under 12 hours but being the finely tuned athletes (FTA’s) that we are we got it done in 10hr 40min, stoked.

There were a few hiccups along the way, not to metion the fact that we had no accommodation when we got back from the hike as the hostel ‘misplaced’ our 2nd nights booking. Ah well Carrie laid down the law and got us a tent from one of the bar staff (which was much preferable to the plastic sheeted, snore city of a 16 bed dorm).

Rachel (small bladder shots)

The weekend that followed the Yorkshire 3 peaks and we had booked in a weekend of mountain biking with Mark and Sylvia (kiwi FTA’s from Edinburgh). So we packed up there car and went to the Scottish Borders to tackle 2 of the 7 Stanes mountain bike parks.

The trip was pretty cool, no major injuries (surprising since mark took a wee detour off the track in the Forest of Ae).

Come on Rach, Sylvia can do it, so can you.

It’s not what it looks like.

Finally on our last weekend before our big trip we took a mini break down to London as our first trip was not nearly long enough.

We visited the Natural History Museum,

Got lost on our way to the Design Museum

Saw a boat go under Tower Bridge, (note the ‘gherkin’ on the right)

Caught the Lion King on stage, which was AWESOME!!! (sorry no photos of the performance allowed), and yes Pam I knew all the words

Took in a street act, which was also awesome (but not capital letters awesome)

The audience member holding his arms out was freaked. He also jumped over 5 kids standing in a row but was too quick for me to get a good shot.

Rachel being arty

Between all this Rachel turned 26, and we had a leaving (but maybe coming back) party.

Birthday girl

Who said we had no friends.

Ps. Yes Rachel only owns one party dress.

The end of the begining remains copyright of the author jamienrach, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Greeted straight away by the murals of loyalist’s

We needed some food and happened to stumble across St Georges market, really really nice food and produce

After picking up the car we headed around the Antrim coast stopping at the carrick-a-rede rope bridge and Giant’s Causeway.

A tad windy

The fist night was spent in the middle of nowhere (sorry Mary) 30 miles out of Sligo. After getting lost on some windy country lanes and asking some local farmers where our accommodation was we arrived at the best self catering hostel ever. Big ups Benwiskin Centre.

Went out to Mullaghmore, nice picturesque fishing village but alas we forgot the camera.

Next day was a drive down to Galway stopping at Carrick on Shannon for lunch and a vist to the Craft and Design Museum. We didn’t actually make it into Galway as our accommodation was about 20 miles further from the city than we thought, just past Spiddle. Still an ok hostel and more importantly just down the road from a proper pub and pint of Guinness.

A quick walk down to the coast and we were followed buy a very inquisitive pony, allo darling.

Still wondering what direction the prevailing wind blows?

Still don’t know if this is the correct way to operate this swing

Day 3 saw us up early and driving from Galway to Kilkenny via the Cliffs of Mohair. I wasn’t to sure if the Cliff’s were going to be worth the detour but they are pretty damn impressive.

It had become a trend that we stayed at least ½ hour out of the nearest city but at least we’d saved out best accommodation until last with a B&B 20 min out of Kilkenny. For a small place Kilkenny has more than it’s fair share of medieval buildings including the castle and grounds as well as numerous churches but more importantly another place where I could pick up a good Guinness.

Our last day started with an awesome breakfast at the B&B and the last 2hr drive to Dublin. Once in the city me and rach only had 8 hours before getting our flight back to Edinburgh. So to maximize the stay we got on the touist open top bus to get to all the sites we could.

Our pick of the bunch was easily the Kilmainham Gaol where the leaders of the Easter rising were kept and eventually executed. And not because it was only 5 euros to get in (althought it helped) but just a really interesting place.

Anyway that was our Ireland in 4 days, tons of driving and lots of looking.
Well recommended

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