Trip: Scotland to NZ + back
There are [44] stories from my trip: Scotland to NZ + back
MALAYSIA | Wednesday, 18 Mar 2009 | Views [730] | Comments [1]
I started off in Kuala Lumpur, and headed up to the Traders Skybar opposite the Petronas Towers, armed with camera and tripod, but I only managed to fire off a few snaps before a friendly waitress came over and told me that the use of a tripod ... Read more >
Tags: malaysia, taman negara, perhentian islands, kuala lumpur
NEW ZEALAND | Saturday, 28 Feb 2009 | Views [452] | Comments [2]
It's been a while since I updated this blog, but I've been back in New Zealand since I last updated it (just before Christmas)... Emily and Billy on boxing day, playing in a cardboard box! This is a fantail. They're very friendly, and confidently ... Read more >
Tags: new zealand, camping, on the road
HONG KONG | Monday, 22 Dec 2008 | Views [371] | Comments [3]
I'm only in Hong Kong for four days, and haven't got round to writing anything, so here's a bunch of pictures instead: Tough food choices Louis Vuitton was so busy in the run up to Christmas that they'd started a nightclub style one-in/one-... Read more >
Tags: hong kong, kowloon
TAIWAN | Wednesday, 17 Dec 2008 | Views [724]
Since the weather was still rubbish, I decided to stay in Hualien for a second night. While there, I used a couple of the city's massive, ultra-cheap and high speed web cafes. I felt old and square as I sat writing emails and booking flights while ... Read more >
Tags: taiwan, hualien, yuli, kaohsiung, ruelli, sun moon lake, taipei, goose
TAIWAN | Saturday, 6 Dec 2008 | Views [487]
From Fukuoka in Japan I flew to Taiwan with China Air, which is the national airline of The Republic of China (Taiwan). China Air is not to be confused with Air China, which is the national airline for The Peoples' Republic of China (China). Confused? ... Read more >
Tags: republic of china, taiwan, taipei, taroko gorge, hualien
JAPAN | Friday, 28 Nov 2008 | Views [836]
Arriving in Hiroshima by a super fast shinkansen, the first surprise was the size of the city. It's quite big - the population's over a million. Otherwise, on the surface it seems very much like any other city in Japan. You see this type ... Read more >
Tags: japan, hiroshima, fukuoka, beppu, aso-san
JAPAN | Tuesday, 18 Nov 2008 | Views [515] | Video
My robotic hopes in Nagoya were sadly dashed by the fact that the museum closed recently due to lack of interest. I can't believe that anyone would not be interested in a building full of walking and probably talking robots, but there we are. I ... Read more >
Tags: japan, toilet, takayama, kanazawa, kyoto, osaka
JAPAN | Saturday, 8 Nov 2008 | Views [903]
Konnichiwa! I foolishly arrived in
Japan knowing only one word in Japanese, and since that was
'sayonara' ('goodbye'), it wasn't exactly the most useful starting
point for a conversation! But though English isn't very confidently spoken ... Read more >
Tags: japan, rail pass, tokyo, nikko
FIJI | Tuesday, 28 Oct 2008 | Views [675] | Comments [3]
I hadn't planned to go to Fiji after Australia, but when Mum and Dad decided to go there with my sister Julia and family for a holiday, a 'free' week in the sun sounded like a great idea. I got there a week before them, and was quite pleased ... Read more >
Tags: fiji, new zealand, cruise, yasawas
AUSTRALIA | Saturday, 4 Oct 2008 | Views [333] | Comments [4]
After Nicole arrived in Brisbane, we went for a few adventures in the city. One involved heading to Mount Coot-tha, which we eventually found, then went for a walk to some waterfalls, which we either managed to miss completely, or they were dried up ... Read more >
Tags: sydney, australia, east coast
AUSTRALIA | Thursday, 18 Sep 2008 | Views [1437] | Comments [2]
'Banana Benders' sounds dodgy, but people from Queensland are just given the nickname because they grow (and apparently put the bends in) so many bananas. A few days after arriving up in Cairns, I picked up my hire car. Having booked the smallest ... Read more >
Tags: queensland, east coast, australia
AUSTRALIA | Sunday, 24 Aug 2008 | Views [470]
After Bali, arriving in the slick, ordered, affluent and surprisingly chilly world of Sydney's CBD was quite a contrast. I stayed in a rickety old pub/hotel right in the middle of the business district, just a few minutes from the Opera House and ... Read more >
Tags: sydney, canberra
INDONESIA | Thursday, 14 Aug 2008 | Views [1388] | Comments [3]
Kuta / Legian My first impressions of Bali weren't the best - on arriving at 10pm at the hotel, security guards used mirrors to check under the taxi for bombs. Then, after checking in I went for a walk to get something to eat, and in the ... Read more >
Tags: bali
NEW ZEALAND | Wednesday, 16 Jul 2008 | Views [404] | Comments [3]
I spent several days in Perth, mainly taking and uploading photos for iStock, sorting out tickets etc for my next travels, and going out with the guys from the 'Wicked' journey a couple of times. Then had a few days left to quickly see some ... Read more >
Tags: perth, trees, western australia
AUSTRALIA | Wednesday, 9 Jul 2008 | Views [1855]
After a few days in Broome, Caroline, Mandy, Becky, Steve and I rented a couple of 'Wicked' camper vans for the journey South towards Perth. Unfortunately, you don't get to choose your van. We were quite happy with ours - swirly patterns and ... Read more >
Tags: western australia, pinnacles, perth, dolphins, shark bay, monkey mia
AUSTRALIA | Wednesday, 9 Jul 2008 | Views [765] | Comments [1]
From Darwin, I joined another Landcruiser based outback tour, this time going to Broome, with an international cast of nine - Becky (England), Caroline (La France), Mandy (Australia), Ruby (Taiwan), Steve (England), Tanam (Switzerland) and Wouter (Holland).... Read more >
Tags: kimberly, western australia, road trip, gibb river road
AUSTRALIA | Tuesday, 3 Jun 2008 | Views [1096] | Comments [2]
I had five days in Alice, and apart from catching up on sleep, reading and putting pictures onto iStock, I joined Chris and Dave (from the tour up from Adelaide) for meals and a couple of cinema visits. Alice seemed a bit of a strange place. One ... Read more >
Tags: australia, darwin, alice springs, kakadu, litchfield, katherine gorge
AUSTRALIA | Saturday, 17 May 2008 | Views [1180] | Comments [10]
After a day and a half of rain, which was so unusual that it made the front page of the papers, Adelaide looked a lot better in the sunshine. The grid of the small city centre is surrounded on all sides by big parks - like a greenbelt right in the ... Read more >
Tags: outback, bush, desert, adelaide, uluru
AUSTRALIA | Sunday, 27 Apr 2008 | Views [1054] | Comments [2]
Arriving in Australia for the first time, things started well when the beach-babe immigration woman stamped my passport, smiled and said 'see you later' in an enthusiastic Australian voice. Getting from the airport to my city-centre hostel was cheap ... Read more >
Tags: melbourne, great ocean road, grampians, wilsons prom, phillip island
NEW ZEALAND | Saturday, 12 Apr 2008 | Views [1204] | Comments [1]
From Queenstown we headed East across the South Island to Dunedin. The city's name comes from Dùn Èideann, the Gaelic word for 'Edinburgh', and that's not the only thing linking Edinburgh and Dunedin... Dunedin's newspaper is called 'The Edinburgh ... Read more >
Tags: dunedin, kaikoura, napier, dolphins
NEW ZEALAND | Wednesday, 19 Mar 2008 | Views [803]
Kia ora! So after an entertaining day of card games in the backpackers in Marahau while it rained cats and dogs, the next day in Abel Tasman was a mixture of showers and sunshine, and I went for a 'tramp' along another section of coast. ... Read more >
Tags: new zealand, queenstown, fiordland
NEW ZEALAND | Saturday, 8 Mar 2008 | Views [2788] | Comments [3]
Hello!... It's been quite a while since my last blog entry, I've been in NZ since arriving from Singapore a couple of days before Christmas. Christmas with Steve, Jules (my big sister) and Emily was great - delicious steaks on the bbq while wild ... Read more >
Tags: on the road, new zealand, sweet as
SINGAPORE | Monday, 24 Dec 2007 | Views [1441] | Comments [7]
I knew I was coming to Singapore during
one of the rainy months, but with three out of the four days I was
there featuring monsoon style rainfall, I felt lucky to have one day
of glorious sunshine. Still, for me, going into the shopping
centres ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
MALAYSIA | Wednesday, 19 Dec 2007 | Views [1441] | Comments [2]
Langkawi
Arriving in the dark from the Koh Lipe
ferry, when I found a taxi I was a bit suspicious of the driver's
claims that almost every bed on the island was full. Lankawi is
right up in the north west of the peninsular part of Malaysia, ... Read more >
Tags: On the Road
THAILAND | Friday, 7 Dec 2007 | Views [899] | Comments [3]
Just before leaving Macau I decided to charge up my laptop - a bad decision since after about five minutes there was a short power cut. When the power came back a few seconds later, the laptop was kaput, and making a high pitched whining sound.... Read more >
Tags: Beaches & sunshine
MACAU | Wednesday, 21 Nov 2007 | Views [2250] | Comments [3]
Statue of Hong Kong hero Bruce Lee on the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong.
After a short and fast train journey from Guangzhou,
I arrived in Kowloon,
just across Victoria Harbour from Hong
Kong Island. So far since leaving Scotland, ... Read more >
Tags: Sightseeing
CHINA | Thursday, 15 Nov 2007 | Views [3168] | Comments [5]
This rabbit above had escaped from a cage outside the restaurant next door, causing much fuss in the mini supermarket! Guilin After arriving and dropping my stuff at the hostel, I went back to the train station to arrange onward tickets, ... Read more >
Tags: Mountains
CHINA | Tuesday, 6 Nov 2007 | Views [1552] | Comments [5]
After 12 hours in a constantly stopping, rickety old hard sleeper carriage from Emei to Panzhihua, I met Norwegian Marianne and Dutch Pieter an the start of an 8 hour bumpy bus journey across the mountainous Sichuan-Yunnan border. They were also heading ... Read more >
Tags: Mountains
CHINA | Saturday, 27 Oct 2007 | Views [1982] | Comments [3]
Thanks for all the very kind comments, but you'll be glad to know that I'm leaving soon for a mammoth journey to Lijiang (which isn't even very far away), so this one's going to be mainly pictures. Along with the Giant Buddha in Leshan (one of ... Read more >
Tags: On the Road
CHINA | Monday, 22 Oct 2007 | Views [1155] | Comments [7]
Telling me
all about China before I
left, Rosie McC said that Xian (Xi'an -
pronounced like Sheean - just a wee city compared to Beijing
and Shanghai,
with only 7 million people!) was a great place, and she wasn't lying! After a few days ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
CHINA | Tuesday, 16 Oct 2007 | Views [1200] | Comments [2]
Ni Hao! Arriving in Beijing, I was quite glad that - before leaving the UK - I'd used accumulated Airmiles to book a couple of nights in a hotel. It was well nice to indulge in some 'flashpacking' at the end of all the train journeys from Russia, ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
MONGOLIA | Friday, 5 Oct 2007 | Views [1560] | Comments [2]
We arrived
early doors in what is officially the coldest capital city in the world, Ulaanbaatar, and were met
at the station by what was - after plenty dour Russian receptions along the way
- a very welcome warm smile from our lovely Mongolian ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
RUSSIAN FEDERATION | Friday, 5 Oct 2007 | Views [956] | Comments [1]
Four of us
in a kupe cabin (two German guys, Holger and Thomas; one Swedish girl, Eva plus
me) we left Moscow
not long before midnight, with the temperature outside chilly, but swelteringly
hot inside the train - especially for Holger and me on ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
RUSSIAN FEDERATION | Sunday, 23 Sep 2007 | Views [1011] | Comments [3]
I'm иow on my last day in Moscow, heading off for the 5,500+ mile train jouяney towards Beijing late tonight. Should get to Beijing in just under two weeks, afteя three nights near Lake Baikal (Eastern Russia), three nights in Mongolia and the rest ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
RUSSIAN FEDERATION | Friday, 21 Sep 2007 | Views [1434] | Comments [5]
Arriving With me just slightly concerned about having all the right visas and documentation to satisfy the famously tricky on-train Russian immigration officers, the Finnish train Sibelius rolled gently out of Helsinki at 07.27, bound for St ... Read more >
Tags: Scams & Robberies
FINLAND | Monday, 17 Sep 2007 | Views [590] | Comments [5]
- The cities have lots of good buskers, using all sorts of instuments - trumpets, saxaphones, wine glasses, glockenspiels etc. - The food from kiosks on the street is surprisingly good, but not that cheap. - Coffee is taken quite seriously, and ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
FINLAND | Sunday, 16 Sep 2007 | Views [999] | Comments [2]
WTF
Magazine. Welcome to Finland indeed!
Helsinki seems like a great place, despite
the chilly Baltic wind that blows from time to time.
Having done
some tourist bits on Saturday, I headed out later ... Read more >
Tags: On the Rails
FINLAND | Saturday, 15 Sep 2007 | Views [1243] | Comments [3]
Eleven hours for the Viking Line ferry between Stockholm and
Turku seemed excessive, but the reason became clear soon enough - for most of
the way we had to go slowly as our huge ferry negotiated the way through the
huge Stockholm Archipelago ... Read more >
Tags: On the Road
SWEDEN | Wednesday, 12 Sep 2007 | Views [935] | Comments [1]
I arrived
in Stockholm on Monday 10th, and after three
nights here, I'll be leaving very early tomorrow morning to head for Finland on the
ferry. I've been staying in Fridhemsplan
(a few tube stops out), at a massive hostel with several hundred ... Read more >
Tags: On the Road
SWEDEN | Sunday, 9 Sep 2007 | Views [3048] | Comments [5]
Haj from Sweden! Actually for some reason they normally say it twice, quickly, sounding like 'Hai Hai'. 'Yu-te-bori' is about the same size as Edinburgh, and is the largest university city in Scandinavia with over 60,000 students. Like Edinburgh ... Read more >
Tags: On the Road
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