What Are They Doing?

We headed out after breakfast to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (along with the rest of London’s tourists). We had a pretty good view apart from when the parents kept telling their children to go in front of us.
We then had some lunch in a park before heading to Royal Albert Hall and the Albery monument. We were very surprised that Hyde Park was totally brown from the drought. It had very little appeal. The only section that looked nice and green was in and around the Diana memorial. Here Em put her feet in the water of the water feature to cool down. After this we wlked around Kensington and saw the great houses. Here Tone found the London Lambourghini store - nice cars!
We came home to wash clothes and then had bangers and mash at the local pub for dinner.

Filed under: Travel, United Kingdom

Today we split up - Emma and Lou went off and did some sightseeing while Tony and I organised a train ticket from France. After this we all met up at Piccadilly Circus. We also all met up with Katrina Watt. She is looking great. She is still working in London and fitting in lots of travel. After this we walked down Regent Street - lots of shops.
Tone found the Apple Store and had a good look around. We then dropped Lou home for a rest and Tone, Emma and I went in to Tate Modern. This is a large modern art gallery which is located in an old power station on the Thames. We wandered around for ages. I really liked the striped room and a sculpture of men sitting on a park bench. I also liked an piece called “Incidental Music”. It looked like manuscript paper but it was actuall script of stories of bad incidents and there was music playing with it. Very effective. Tone really liked the Lithographs of a group of grotesque faces moulded out of Fimo. Em liked the famous sculpture of “The Little Dancer”. We came home, and at Benjy’s restaurant and then headed home for bed.

Filed under: Travel, United Kingdom

Up early for the road trip down to Reading. All went well but it was still very hot. We got to Reading at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Reading obviously doesn’t get many backpackers as we got many funny looks from the locals.
We caught the train to London and checked in to our accommodation. We were settled by about 6pm - it was a really big day! When walking down the street to our accommodation, Louise and Emma called out to Tony and I - they had spotted Pat Cash!
We found a nice Thai restaurant for dinner and then met cousin Lewis for a drink and catch up. It was a good night!

Filed under: Travel, United Kingdom

Woke up to very warm weather again! Very unusual for Scotland. We grabbed croissants for breakie from the shop up the road and then headed to the castle. We had a guided tour which was great. We then wandered around on our own. We saw the Royal Jewels, the prison cells and the royal apartments. After the castle we had lunch at Pizza Hut. We then moved on to the other end of the Royal Mile to the Palace of Holyroodhouse. This is where the Queen stays when in Edinburgh. We saw the royal dining room, bedrooms and great hall. Outside we walked through the abbey and the royal gardens. We then boughts some Edinburgh Castle Rock and had a drink in a pub on Rose St in the new town area. In the ladies toilet in the pub was “McCondom” - a Scotch Whisky flavoured condom! Later we had dinner at the pub across the road from our hostel again and then went home to rest our weary feet.

Filed under: Travel, United Kingdom

Today we emptied our flat in Northen Grove. At 9am the lady from the real estate came to check the flat and give us our bond back. It was nothing like Australia. She arrived while I was in the middle of mopping the floor. She walked in to the hall, said that everything was fine (she didn’t even check any rooms) and told me not to worry about finishing the mopping! We then had to rush as she was waiting on the keys and we still had stuff to empty out of the flat. Lou, Tone and I piled it up in to the hallway and we then locked up the flat and handed back the keys. Sandra turned up and we loaded her car and waited for Dhana and Emma. While we waited we sat out the front eating ice cream with raspberry coulis!
We then headed off to Edinburgh on our road trip - full car with four of us and our luggage. We arrived in the afternoon, unpacked at the Argyle hostel and headed off sighseeing. We walked through The Meadows (a nice park) and up to the Royal Mile. On the way we stopped at Grefriars Kirk, an old church. It was here that John Knox started the Scottish reformation. It is also here that the dog “Bobby” lived by hist masters grave from 1858 - 1872. Our walk along the Royal Mile took us to St Giles Cathedral. Here we saw the Thistle Chapple which was very small and quaint. We then moved on to Calton Hill. Here this is a half finished Pantheon and some great lookouts over Edinburgh.
We wandered back to the hostel and had dinner and a drink at the pub across the road. Em, Lou and I had a “Stovie” which was minced beef, mashed potato and onion with oat biscuits. YUM!

Filed under: Travel, United Kingdom

We got home from our travels of Ireland last night and today we have been packing up and cleaning our flat. How is it that we have accumulated so much stuff and we have not been here long at all? We are both excited as in the morning we go and pick up Louise and Emma from the Manchester airport. It will be great to see some familiar faces and hear some Aussie accents. Sandra came over this afternoon and dropped off a blow up mattress for Louise. I hope she doesn’t mind the floor of our little flat for a couple of nights. Tone and Sandra had great fun blowing up the mattress with the air pump. It sounded like someone screaming. I am sure our neighbours were wondering what was going on as at the same time I was vacuuming the floors (we are normally very quiet neighbours!) 3 more nights here and then we become officially homeless again!

Filed under: General

Had a great sleep and woke up refreshed. I went to hire a scooter so we could ride round the island. I went for the big one - 100cc. It was good fun but I had to concentrate really hard to stay on the wrong (right) side of the road.
Our first stop on the road trip was Fira, the island’s capital. We quickly decided that we were happy to be staying at Perissa as it was much smaller and quiter. We continued on the road calling at various beaches. We came back to Perissa for bakery lunch again and then headed to see the south of the island. We came across the airport and saw a couple of aircraft land. Carmen had a go on the scooter and did really well until she listened to me telling her to accellerate more, and ended up gunning it out of a u-turn and into a bush at the side of the road. She was ok apart from a scratch on her leg.
Our favourite beach was Red Beach. All of the beaches on Santorini have black sand aside from Red Beach and White Beach. Red Beach is red due to the red volcanic rock that makes up the cliffs that surround it. There were great coral reefs just metres from shore in crystal clear water. It was amazing. We didn’t have our swimming gear so couldn’t swim.
After the beach we headed to the bottom most tip of the island and saw the light house. We had been seeing people wearing hardly anything on the scooters all day, but in front of us was a woman who had just a string bikini and a G-String on while riding on the back of the bike. It was ridiculous but it didn’t really seem that out of place here. We made our way back to our hotel and had a rest. When we woke, we went down to the beach. As it was late afternoon, the sun was much milder and it was easy to lie back and take it in. We finally made our way to the water and after nearly chickening out (it was really cold) we dived in and swam over the volcanic reefs.
After our swim we got ready to go to Oia to see it’s famous sunset. It was a very popular place at this time of the day with hundreds of tourists on scooters and quad bikes pouring into the village. The sunset was worth the hype and looked magical over the Meditteranean sea.
We scooted back to Perissa for dinner on the beach front and were treated to a stunning moonrise.

Filed under: Travel, Greece

Up early for the ferry trip to Santorini. Took a while and much “asking of directions” before we found the correct ticket office. The ferry trip was good and we didn’t get sea sick. We tried to get some sleep to make up for our terrible night last night.
We arrived in Santorini to heaps of locals trying to offer us accommodation or lifts to hotels. When we told one of the people where we were staying, he said “Ahh, my cousin. I will take you there. 15 Euro”. We eventually found an tourist info desk and got some reliable information. They were able to get us a hotel transfer for 5 Euro each, so we went ahead with it. Soon after we arrived at our accommodation - a great little resort! We had a nice room and the complex had a lovely pool with a bar. The place was close to the beach and the shops as well. We checked out the town and had lunch at a little bakery. When we got back to our hotel we chilled out beside the pool for a while. After a while we decided to go and take a look at the beach. It was very picturesque with it’s black sand and crystal clear water.
When we returned again, we had showers and headed out for dinner in a great little restaurant we found on the way home from the beach. We had stuffed potatos, Mousaka and Beef in a Pot. It was all great food. When we got our bill we also got a place of fresh fruit on the house which was a really nice touch. We hadn’t eaten Watermelon in such a long time!

Filed under: Travel, Greece