Our Travels

Liechtenstein

jamie_candice — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 16:17:00 GMT

Well it's been a long time and more than likely we won't get it up to date right now but it's best to give it a go.

We finished up in Germany at the end of the romantic road and decided to take a bee-line to Liechtenstein. We breezed through Austria, though we did go back later to take some more in, just stopping for a vignette (pre-paid motorway toll). We set up at a campsite that had the most gorgeous views of the apls around us and made the best of the light we had left and had a few beers and some spaghetti for dinner (once again).

The next day we headed to the high alps of Liechtenstein for a little look. When we got to the ski village, obviously no skiing now, we saw that there was a little pub on top of the mountain. Not wanting to pay for the gondola we thought it best to trek to the top, some of us in our pluggers. Of course with the prize being a nice cold beer we made it to the top of the mountain 90 minutes later. The real reward though was the glorious view of the alps surrounding us. Being able to see the Austrian and Swiss alps from the same point in Liechtenstein, with the sound of the cow bells down in the valley below us, was something that we stay in our minds for a long time to come.

So we had our beer and made our way back down the mountain to the car for the drive back to our little campsite. Later that afternoon we decided to take a little drive through some more of Liechtenstein. The drive went a little further than we though though and we ended up in Switzerland twice. After our nice little drive we went back to camp to get some much needed sleep for the drive to Austria.

On the road again in Germany

jamie_candice — Tue, 4 Aug 2009 14:09:00 GMT

It was a very exciting moment when Cidy arrived back in Kothen at our little campground at 2am with their new mode of transport. We decided that long enough had been spent sitting, drinking and admiring our stream, so we packed up and headed for a new destination.

Cindy had bought a friend with her to keep her company on her trip from London to Germany which we were very pleased about, as we didn't want her to drive on her own. So Dave roughed it with us for a few days before we took him to Wurzberg train station and said our goodbyes. We then continued on from Wurzberg and headed down the Romantic road to our first stop at Rothenburg. This town was so beautiful with it's typical old German buildings. We walked around the old town wall where we could see the town from above and all the narrow streets with horse and carriages through it.

The next day we drove to a new town on the Romantic Road route, called Dinkelsbuhl which was a very coulourful town and lovely to have a wonder around in. We then kept driving and found a maze in a corn crop along the way where from the sky it was a piture of a wasp, but from in the maze, was very difficult to find the tower in the middle. We all eventually got there after trying to beat one another running around like little kids. Now the difficult part of getting out...we ended up walking through the undesignated path and through the crop to the start, cheaters!

The following day we drove the rest of the Romantic Road where at the end there is a lovely suprise (if you aren't aware of it being there, as Candice wasn't due to eveyone not letting her see postcards to make it a great suprise) of Neuschwanstein Castle. You come around the corner and there it is purched in one of the mountains glistning in the sun...gorgeous. We then went to find some tickets to go to this Castle, however the lineup was huge and there where people eveywhere, they must have had the same reaction of wanting to explore it.
So we ended up walking up the mountain to get to it, as it's beauty was just drawing us towards it. We got to the top where we were pleasently suprised that you could get inside the castle gate and into the courtyard without a ticket! As we walked around to where the viewing bridge was the view is just amazing with the lake and another caslte in the background. We took some photos from the bridge however being summer, scaffolding seems to be VERY popular in Europe!

Slowing down in Germany

jamie_candice — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:50:00 GMT

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Normale Tabelle"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}

We left Holland and headed for Germany, steadily driving along at Bertha’s 90 km/hr pace. Once we reached the autobahns of Germany we really felt like we were just crawling along. Seeing as we had spent a little too much money over the last week and the huge fuel bill that Bertha the camper van was racking it up for the others, we decided to just find ourselves a spot where we could park up for the night. We found ourselves a nice little spot on the edge of some woods that did very nicely. The next day we had planned to head for Berlin, but Cindy still hadn’t heard back from her friend that lives there. So we thought it best to give Berlin a miss, as we figured it may not be too camper friendly. Instead we headed for the South of Germany, toward Wurzburg, where the Romantic Road begins. Only 400 kilometres, surely not too much of a stretch for us to drive in a day we thought. But as the roads began to ascend Bertha’s speed declined and it seemed the fuel gauge was travelling faster than our small convoy. We only made it 200 kilometres that day. We found ourselves a spot to pull up for the night out the front of a farmer’s paddock. The farmer came along a few minutes later and through some hand signalling gave us the okay to stay there. He then led us to his place so that we could fill up our water bottles. That night Brett, Rick and Cindy decided that Bertha had to go. The fuel bill was costing them their daily budget alone (about 220 klms from a tank of fuel that cost 50euros or $100 aus) and travelling along a German autobahn at 40km/hr up the inclines isn’t the safest way to travel. So the decision was made to try and trade Bertha in for a car and tent.

In the morning we took off for Wurzburg where we thought they might be able to find a place to trade Bertha in, being a larger city. We made it about 50klms along the road before we had to pull in for a toilet break at a service station. As we went to leave the car park Bertha made the chance of trade in a little more difficult. It seemed that Bertha was sick of being bad-mouthed and wasn’t going to take them any further. She did manage to cough her engine alive, in the smokey way that we had become used to, but Cindy found it impossible to get it into gear as the clutch had gone “kaput” as the road side assistance guy put it. So we pulled out Bertha’s awning and waited around the back of the servo for about 4 hours for the tow truck to arrive. Bertha was winched on the back of the truck and Brett and Cindy then had to climb into the campervan, as there was only enough room for Rick inside the tow truck. With us following in our car behind the truck, we made our way gingerly to the mechanics. The news got even worse once there, about 600 euros to fix the clutch and a lot of laughs from the mechanics as they took a peek under the van. It seemed that a turn of events had forced the Camper Trio into a dismal decision, Bertha had to be CRUSHED!

So Candice and I went and set our tent up at a nearby camping grounds, then made a trip back to the mechanics to pick up the homeless trio and some of their gear. The next day we went into town for Cindy to get a plane ticket back to London so that she could buy them a new car. They also got themselves a tent so that Brett and Rick had a place of their own to stay while we spent our time waiting by the little stream in the small town of Kothen, in a beautiful part of Germany.

And a week after we dropped Cindy off at Frankfurt Airport, here we find ourselves still at the little stream, enjoying the subtleties of getting to know a small foreign village and the locals and more importantly the beer.

Belgium, Netherlands

jamie_candice — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:01:00 GMT

We ended up in Belgium on the day that Cindy, Brett and Rick rang to say that they were finally ready to hit the road. We went to stay in a small town not far from the French border so that they could meet up with us the next day. We gave them some directions to where we were staying and waited for there arrival that night. Unfortunatly Jamie's instructions turned out to be too confusing for them. Not helped by the late hour they were arriving, so we decided to meet up in the morning.

Morning came and we packed up our tent and car. Then we tried to call them to work out where to meet but for some reason none of the calls went through. So we thought we might see if we could find them near the lighthouse that Brett said he saw while on the phone the night before. We found the light house but no sign of Bertha (the name of the campervan). We sent them a text to tell them that we would wait for them at the lighthouse. After about an hour of waiting we finally got a call from Brett to say that they found the campsite and had been looking for us for the last hour. So they turned back around and met up with us, finally the fellowship of the euro-campers was together.

First things first we decided to head towards Amsterdam. We knew that Bertha wouldn't make it in one trip so we just headed toward Holland for a while then pulled off the main road looking for u place to pull up for the night. We found a large grassed parking lot in what seemed like the middle of nowhere and seeing as how it was deserted thought we may just stay there for the night. After about 30 minutes two guys pulled into the parking lot to fill there tralier with rocks that were pilled up on one side of the parking lot. We approached them to see if it was fine for us to stay the night. One of the men turned out to be the caretaker of the tourist farm behind the parking lot. He used to be the owner of the farm that had been in his family since 1740's, his son didn't want to take it on so he sold it to the tourist department and now he looks after the farm for them. He was more than happy for us to stay the night and showed us around, he even gave us some shots of his homemade spirits.

The next morning, after drinking way too much, we packed up and headed to Amsterdam, where we set up at a camping grounds on the edge of the city. There was a metro station near the grounds, so it was a handy place to be able to head into the city and try some more of the local treats. We basically just spent the next two days over-indulging and walking around the same block (unintentionally) at one point. We also managed to find at random a free street party. After Amsterdam we headed to the north of Holland to a town called Groningen, to do a little more 'relaxing' before leaving The Netherlands. On the second day, while we were going for a drive to check out some of the country side, we came across a cow that was having trouble giving labour, with the calf half hanging out. Being the good citizens that we are we thought that we had better alert the farmer. That turned out be be a little difficult, the farmers wife was only at home and there was a major language barrier that took two trips to the farm house to explain the problem. But eventually the farmer came and the cow and calf were saved, HOORAY.

France

jamie_candice — Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:07:00 GMT

We spent 2 weeks travelling around the north of France with our little car and tent while we waited for Cindy, Brett and Rick to buy a camper and join us in Europe. After leaving Paris we went to the Loire Valley, home to some very beautiful chateaus. We found some lovely little medieval towns explore in particular Bloire and Amboise. Then we heading up to Normandy where we went to visit Mont St Michel an extraordinary old town set on a small rocky island only connected by a causeway to the mainland. It is such a beautiful place, needed to be seen to believe. We also went to the beaches where the D-day landings took place in the 2nd world war.

We then headed onto Bayeux where the Tapestry for the Battle of Hastings in 1066 had been made for the illiterate people of that era to understand what had happened at the time of the battle.
We got to know the supermarkets very well, as we would go and get food everyday because we couldn't cook anything and didn't have an esky.

We needed to kill a couple of days before Cindy, Brett and Rick arrived in Europe with their van.
So we stayed at a little campsite in a town called Jumieges along the Seine river that leads into Paris, where we took the opportunity to just relax a lot.

PARIS

jamie_candice — Fri, 3 Jul 2009 21:43:00 GMT

So our time is up in the UK and we are off to travel around Europe in our little car and a tent for accomadation. So we packed up said our good~byes to Brighton and off we went. Cindy, Brett and Rick will be joining us in a week or so, until then we are off to Paris and touring the north east of France.

We travelled to Calais from Dover via the ferry on Wednesday, we travelled on the motorways to Paris which was a huge cost of 20€ in tolls for being on the bloody road for only 2 hours!!
So it's non toll/motorways for us now. We then got caught up in the Paris traffic and where running low on fuel, so we where starting to get worried. Managed to get through the cars to an offside servo, phew.
Then to top it off we made a wrong turn which added another 15-20 mins to the trip cause there are WAY to many roads in the city. With first hand experience, we highly suggest you don't drive any where near Paris city Centre!!!

When we finally made our way to Mevs, it was an epic battle tring to find where we would be able to leave our car the following day. We thankfully managed to snag a closed down railway station that we just parked our car in and worried about it being towed or clamped while we where siteseeing the next day.

We jumped on the Metro and went to the Le Louve, which was an amazing place. It is just so beautiful round there. We where in there for about an hour looking for Lisa, when we found her in a totally non obvious place. There is SO many fantasic paintings and sculptures that your could be in there for HOURS! It suprised us that you could take photos in there and the 'non flash' policy isnt enforced.

We then walked down to Arc Du Triomphe from the Louve on a very hot day, it felt like we were back in Aus!
We went to see how much it was to go up the top, however our budget wouldnt allow us to touch it, so we just 'people watched' and got out of the sun.

We then met Mev at her place and headed to the Eifel Tower for a picnic. We got to meet some Frenchie friends of Mevs who were lovely, so we havent had the 'rude' French experience yet.
We had a very French picnic with everyone bringing along salami, fruit, cheese, baguettes and wine for all to share, very special sitting right near the Towel watching it light up. Very romantic!

The following day we slept in and made our way to Notre dame which is free to go inside and have a look at which we were suprised at!
It's just lovely inside and out. We then went to Sacre Coeur, a church high up on a hill with fantastic views over Paris. We wandered down the streets afterward to make our way to the see where the Moulin Rouge and all the strip clubs are. But at €80 for the cheapest seats I'm afraid we won't be seeing the show.

We found a supermarket so we bought some food and wine and had ourselves a lovely little picnic with views overlooking the river and the Eiffel Tower. After lunch and a lot of kissing, trying to get a photo with the tower well placed in the background, we walked along the river seine to the Statue of Liberty. Its almost the same as the one in NY, but alot smaller.

Feeling pretty knackered after all of our walking we headed back to Mev's place for some much needed rest before we head off to the Loire Valley tomorrow.

Candice's Birthday and St Patrick's Day

jamie_candice — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:51:00 GMT

First of all we had to make our way to Manchester. When we booked our flights to head out to Dublin we were still planning to live in Manchester again. Of course no plan goes to plan so we had a bit of a journey before the fun could begin. We decided to make a little trip out of it and we left Brighton 2 days before we had to fly to Dublin, so that we could spent a bit of time travelling around and checking out some castles and such so that we could make some use out of the English Heritage passes that we all bought a few weeks ago. We made our way to Oswestry, a little town near the Wales border, and stayed there for the first night. We checked out Witley Court and Gardens, a spectacular ruin of a 19^th century mansion. We also took in Stokesay Castle a 13^th century Manor house still very much intact. The next day on the way to Manchester we went to see the remains of an old Roman City and the ruins of an Abbey at Haughmond. The Abbey was closed for the season, but seeing that it was such a stunning place we simply climbed through the fence to check it out. Candice didn’t stay in very long though before the guilt got the better of her and she stepped back through. Spent the night in Manchester checking out a few of our favorite watering holes and a few new ones, then went out to the curry mile for dinner at an Indian Restaurant that we went to with Mum and Dad Stait when they where her for 07 Xmas.

The next day we took off from Manchester for Ireland. The line up at customs in Dublin was huge, lots of thirsty people lining up for their share of partying. We made our way into town to check into our apartment but we were told that our room wouldn’t be ready until 4pm. So with about 5 hours to spare we thought we’d better find out how Guinness is made before we made our major contribution to the Guinness family. After enjoying the tour and our pints at the end of it all (this is a clever technique) we found ourselves in the souvenir store, where of course we contributed a little more of our money in exchange for a few items. Afterward we made our way back to check into our rather cozy apartment. That night we went out to the pub for some Irish music and liquid treats. We met a group of Irish girls after Jamie got roused on by them for yawning before the music had even begun. One of the girls had had quite a bit to drink and chatted away to Candice for some time before we thought that we better save some of our well being and money ( a pint was costing us about Aus $ 11) for the real thing tomorrow.

Candice’s Birthday and St Patrick’s Day:

The streets started to get packed quite early in preparation for the parade, so after some chocolate muffin and chocolate filled pastry for breakfast (birthday girl breakfast not our staple diet) we donned our Irish party gear and we walked up and down the crowds a bit looking for a spot where we could check out the parade. Luckily we managed to snag a nice little spot right up against the barriers. The parade started to come our way after about 2 hours of waiting. The theme of the parade this year was the sky is the limit and was filled with lots of imaginative displays as well as the customary brass bands. It took about 2 hours for the full parade to pass us by. There was one couple that kept trying to squeeze into our space (quite to Candice’s annoyance) but after a telling off by Jamie they kept their distance.

After the parade we made our way back to apartment so that Candice could have a little rest before really partying it up that afternoon. Jamie and Brett had other ideas however and went out for a drink before returning to collect Candice. The streets of Dublin were absolutely packed with revelers. There were some streets that were near impossible to walk through. We were lucky enough to get a seat at the bar in the first pub we went to, some people left while we were drinking our first pint. The place was overflowing with people though, as was every pub that we went into. We didn’t want to be spending all our time at one pub though so after a few pints we moved on the next pub and the next pub and then the next pub, I think you get the idea. A good night was had by all; we met a few Irish people, drank our fair share of the town and thoroughly enjoyed celebrating Candice’s Birthday.

Of course the next day wasn’t so exciting. Candice got out of bed at 3:30pm, Brett and Jamie had a little stroll around town and we generally just felt a little sorry for ourselves. Also Jamie’s knees were feeling a little sore from where he skinned them tripping over the stairs that suddenly appeared out the front of our apartment. The next day we got up and headed back to the airport made our way back to Manchester and then drove back down to Brighton that afternoon.

Lets get you up to date!

jamie_candice — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:39:00 GMT

Sorry if you've been checking our journal only to be disappointed that there never seems to be a new entry about our exciting adventures. Well truth is there hasn't been that much going on to get excited about. That is until last week when we went to Dublin, but more of that on the next entry which I promise is coming up real soon.

Time to get you up to date first of all though. After spending a week or so travelling about the south west of England we decided to settle on the first place that we visited after leaving London, a seaside town by the name of Brighton. Before we chose our new town to live in though we managed to make it all the way down to the south-western tip of England, Lands End.

We stayed in a backpackers for the first week and a half before we found a place for the 3 of us to live. We were all quite happy to finally have a home where we can cook, relax and most importantly the three of us not having to be constantly in the same room as one another. So now it was time to get ourselves some jobs. Something that still hasn't proved fruitful. Brett has got himself a job working at a sandwhich bar, but unfortunatly nothing has come up for Candice or Jamie yet. But still looking and not giving up. Brighton seems to be starting to get very busy with the weather improving by the day there is a lot more tourists heading down this way. So with any luck we might be able to snag ourselves a bar job.

So that is pretty much all that has happened for us, like I said not the most exciting of times. Oh we've had a couple of little day trips out and about on nice days to check out old castles and soak in a bit of English Heritage, so I'll get some photos on the journal for you all to check out as well.

We're not living in London

jamie_candice — Tue, 3 Feb 2009 19:01:00 GMT

Well it's been a while since our last update so I'll try to fill you all in. We left King's Lynn and went down to London for a week to look for a place to rent. From the story heading you can probably work out that we didn't have too much success with that one. We found a couple of places, but of course without jobs it’s hard to commit to anything. So we basically abandoned all plans and decided to just wait until Brett arrived. Naturally, and true to previous form, picking Brett up from the airport was another failed mission. After giving up on finding a place to live in London we went to visit Kevin Kidd in Welwyn Garden City, about an hour north of London, for a couple of days. The night before Brett was to arrive the south of England received the most snow they have had for 20 years. Most of the roads were blocked off and nearly all the public transport services were also shut down. So with no way to get to the airport and no way to contact Brett to let him know that we wouldn't be there, thought it best just to wait for his call and go and build a snowman. The day after Brett arrived and made his own way to the backpackers, we left our car at Kevin's place and caught the train into London to meet Brett at the hostel. We were only one stop away from the station we had to get off and as we were readying our bags to leave a bloke came up and stood right in front of Jamie. Wondering why the man was standing so close him he looked up only to see it was Brett. He had just got on the underground to quickly get back to the hostel and happened to get on the same carriage as us. So we spent a couple of nights in London and found a place that we could rent on a short term basis for 3 to 6 months. It was in a large share house and we would have had to share the one room for the 3 of us. After spending the afternoon feeling particularly miserable about living in London, Candice especially, we changed our plans and took of the next day to travel the south west of England and see if we couldn't find ourselves a nice little town to live in.

So far in the UK...

jamie_candice — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:30:00 GMT

We stayed with Doug and Celia for three nights before we bought a car Vauxhall Corsa (Holden Barina - to Jamie's delight).
We left for Manchester the day we bought it and where a little disappointed in the purchase as it had a few things wrong with it:

Speedo and odometer weren't working, engine light kept coming on, cigarette lighter wasn't working so we couldn't get the SatNav working and had to find our own way through London without a map (except for a sneaky peek at a servo), muffler was making a horrid sound at idle. But it’s all working fine now thanks to some new fuses.

We got to Manchester and checked into a hotel and went to one of our favorite pubs for dinner (Mums and Dads- Athenaeum, the old bank with the nice ceiling). The next day we went to visit Jamie’s old boss so we could pick up our belongings they were kind enough to look after while we were back in the nice warm sunshine. After spending a couple of hours catching up with them we drove to Kings Lynn to stay with Carla and Anthony while we try to get ourselves sorted and find ourselves one of those job things. Not much to be found over here though.

So far we’ve been staying with Carla and Anthony for a whole week, which we thought we would have jobs and a place by now – but times are tough. We headed to London over Australia Day weekend for Carla’s Birthday and for us to view some houses.

We viewed two properties which were awful, amazing how photos can do a place justice. Considering the fact that the second house we viewed was above a shop and looked so old and run down, it looked a whole lot better than the first when we found out the next day that there had been a stabbing near the fist property we had viewed!

That night we showed Carla and Anthony around London by night and ended up at a few Walkabout bars seeing as though they haven’t been home for a year, it’s the closest thing.

On the way back to Kings Lynn, we decided to go over London Bridge for Carla's Birthday, which was very exciting!

HAPPY AUSTRALIA to everyone, hope you all had a great day in the sun. We head to London tomorrow to have a look at a few more places, fingers and toes crossed that we find a place!!!