Al's Travel Diary

From Southport, UK

agrant — Fri, 2 Aug 2013 02:50:00 GMT

When I decided to start blogging our travels I had such grand intentions of regular contributions. Alas, here we are, months later yet again.

And what a busy few months it has been...

To pick up where we left off, we arrived back from Prague only to find April a bit of lull as far as work in London went. We found ourselves here, there and everywhere piecing together weeks of work. It was really interesting and we saw all sorts of places within London - the cultural diversity between areas was really eye-opening. Throughout late March, April and May I worked in all sorts of socioeconomic environments - extremely poor area with a heavy Somalian and Portuguese population, a working class/poor area of Anglo-Saxon English, an area heavily populated by Jews and a very affluent (mixed race) area of London, just to name a few. Obviously financial limitations (or lack there of) changed the services able to be offered to some extent, but the most amazing thing was to see how people congregate around people of their own race. I spent a lot of time thinking about that and it was really intriguing to see the cultural separation, dare I say segregation, that happens fairly naturally within a city space. It's no different to hearing about all of the Aussies in Shepherd's Bush or Clapham Junction, or the South Africans in Wimbledon. So despite being so culturally diverse for so many cultures within its limits, London seemed far from a 'melting pot' where people from different races and cultures automatically mix and integrate. It definitely broadened my mind to the mentality of different people and cultures go about their daily lives and it was absolutely wonderful to meet people from those different backgrounds, which added an aspect to work which I hadn't forseen at all.

Because of the afore mentioned shortage in work available, we had a bit of time on our hands we hadn't expected. We had always said that we would use whatever spare time we ended up with in London to see the city and explore which worked out perfectly. We had a fantastic week or so with Joe and Meika including seeing Stonehenge and trooping around the city a bit. In addition to that, we booked a shotgun week to Portugal! We managed to jag some cheap flights so we headed over there, bought a tent and hired a car and spent the week driving from Porto in the north to Faro in the south, camping along the way. It was a great little trip! We had plenty of strange looks in the northern areas, particularly in the countryside, where apparently thongs have never been before - they couldn't take their eyes off our feet! We then headed down to Lisbon for a couple of nights. We had a great little campsite on the beach south of the city and spent a day in the city and a day in nearby Sintra. Sintra is like a little fairytale town with fantasy-like castle dominating the hillsides which we took a tour through and a drive around. From Lisbon we headed moreorless straight to Faro. It's no wonder Faro/Lagos is such a popular holiday area - nice big sandy beaches, lots of sun and water. We didn't like it as much as, not for the first time, we found ourselves surrounded by stag's and hen's nights but it was a nice little break from chilly London and topped off a great week camping.

We only had a couple of weeks back in London then, which we stayed in Notting Hill for with Tish's mate Dan. We had a great time catching up with him and the housemates and picked up a bit of work too. Tish got over to Amsterdam for a long weekend too which was good. We also got to day 3 of the Test Match between NZ and England at Lords, which wil probably go down as one of NZ's worst collapses. My cousin Anna had organised some awesome seats, we had a cracking day and were all set for a relaxing day... should've known the Kiwis would crumble. Of course, saying that now, mid-Ashes series, is a game move given Australia's form so far. Luckily Clarkey has just notched up a tonne at Old Trafford so I can maintain some confidence for now!

After a raucous day at Twickenham for the Rugby 7's we headed off on our much awaited week in Krakow and Berlin. Krakow was an absolutely beautiful city and one that I could've happily spent more time in. Having said that, it was an extremely intense tour given the time revolving around the Holocaust. We travelled out to Auschwitz/Birkenau for a day and also visited Oskar Schindler's factory which made for fascinating but appalling experiences. Whilst Auschwitz is amazing and breathtaking in it's history and tragedy, Birkenhau was just another level. To see such planned and deliberate organisation of destruction was overwhelming and whilst it would have to be one the most sombre places on Earth, it was well worth the visit to experience. The stories are told without judgement and with absolute dignity which is an absolute credit to the survivors and others who have worked on it.

Much to Tish's disgust, I organised a train from Krakow to Berlin (we now have an ongoing understanding that I love train rides and would book them just for the ride itself, whilst Tish would probably rather walk). We had a nice Spring afternoon to watch the Polish countryside go by and it was really enjoyable... for me. So onto Berlin...

Probably the, or one of my most favourite cities in Europe so far. You hear different people rant and rave about different places all the time - Berlin is a pretty consistently rated city and it's no wonder. There's a really enoyable feel about it which I really struggle to put into words. It's pretty hipster I guess, where wearing normal clothes makes you the odd one out, but it is just a cool place to be. And while the Holocaust survivors have done such a great job with telling their story, I was really impressed with the humility and respect with which Berlin - the hub of the Holocaust - remembered the tragedy of WWII and all that it meant, and continues to mean, for the people they oppressed. The memorials were elegant and moving but equally they have moved on and developed an entity for themselves which is absolutely addictive.

We stayed in a really funky hostel ('The Cat's Pajamas Hostel' if you're wondering) which I booked based purrrrely - pardon the pun - for Tish based on its name. It was in an awesome location and was really chilled and funky which was fun. We managed to troop around a lot of the city with the Holocaust museum, the Reichstag (German Parliament) a city walking tour (awesome) and the infamous Wall. If you're ever in Europe, I would put Berlin down as an absolute must! We also lucked upon an Festival of International Cultures which made for a couple of nights of awesome street food, music, markets and performances which topped off an amazing week!

Continuing on with our hectic month of May, we had just a day back in London before heading off to Aberdeen to see my Aunt Suse and Al. We had a very warm and welcoming week seeing family and some of the area around Turriff and Forres which was really nice, especially to show Tish. We visited Gran's old house which was unexpectedly moving and revisisted some of the places that I spent time in during our visit in 2006 as well as the year we spent in the UK in 1990. It was so nice to see family and spend time with Suse and Al - repeat trips are a must before we head home! One of the funniest days was Uncle Al taking us to the Glendronach Distillery for a tour and some sampling. Having taken the tour, we sat down to try a few drams. Uncle Al declined the 'warm up' shots on account of driving and thought he'd save his for the best drops at the end. So Tish and I worked our way through about 4 whiskeys before Al joined in. Tish wasn't all that much a fan so I was the beneficiary of some pretty good extras! By the time we arrived home to Suse at 11am, we had Uncle Al with a big smile on his face and Tish and I fairly well gone!

From Scotland we headed home to Australia for a fortnight - typing this all out makes me remember just how crazy it all was - to see Chloe and to go to Vicky and Matt's wedding (Brissy mates of Tish's). It was a great fortnight with catchups with friends, Tish's family and my own and best of all having some time with Chloe, who was in fine form in all her toothless glory! We had a day out at Narromine on the farm, a few swims and a great time all round seeing everyone.

So then, finally back to Southport, UK where I am writing from today. We've been in work about 6 weeks now and it's been great. We have had a fantastic month of weather so far and plenty going on around work. We are working together for a practice that has two clinics, both of which are generally extremely busy. There's a really good caseload and the staff are awesome so it's a pretty good gig, with a nice little town house for accommodation. On our weekends so far we've also been able to travel a bit. We've had a weekend in the Lakes District, which we are going to head to again this weekend coming. It's a beautiful area and lives up to all of its reputation. We're looking forward to some more hiking in a couple of days and I'm going to test out our new backpacking tent!

We also travelled to Snowdonia in north Wales for a weekend with my cousin Anna and her partner Ryan and we all climbed Snowden there together. We had a magnificent weekend of weather, drove around Anglesy as well and the climb to the top and the views were spectacular! We spent the next weekend at T in the Park, a music festival in south Scotland where I fulfilled by dream of the past 5 years of seeing Mumford and Sons, amongst a host of other great bands. We even watched Rhianna perform there but she was pretty ordinary so we left for another band. Massive surprise ;)

Tish's mum Jenny arrived a couple of weeks ago and will be spending a month with us in total. We dragged her straight up to York a day after she arrived and had a weekend up there. York is great! It had a completely different feel about it than any other British town/city I've been to and the history is amazing - it's seen Roman occupancy, Viking conquest and then, up until now, Anglo-Saxon occupation. There are footings from Roman Walls from 300AD - all these things that constantly remind us how young white occupation in Australia is.

So we've just had a weekend on call and for the next two weekends coming will be heading to the Lakes District and then to Edinburgh. The Lakes will be awesome as will Edinburgh - the Fringe Festival is on for all of August and we also got tickets to the Military Tattoo there so it's all very exciting at the moment. We only have two weekends after that - one to see off Jen and one on call - before we head off on our much-anticipated trip around Europe!

We haven't booked a whole lot at the moment but plan on spending most of our time backpacking through Italy, France and Spain. We have a slight detour through Munich for a few quiet steins at Oktoberfest but otherwise we have the luxury of 11 weeks of open planning which is overwhelmingly exciting!!!

Hasta la vista!

Back again - London, Austria, Hungary and Czech Republic!

agrant — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:03:00 GMT

There's been a lot happening in the past couple of months and I thought it was time I finally put some of it down. Tish and I arrived back to the UK in late January after a great few months in Australia. While at home, we spent two months working back in Dubbo and Narromine which was a heap of fun - we had a crowded calendar between weddings and catchups and also got to see Coldplay in Sydney which was an amazing show. We spent the majority of December and January between Brisbane and Mackay which was a welcome change in temperature after a cold and wet year in the UK!

Nonetheless, gluttons for punishment, we returned... It has been a great couple of months already and the schedule just keeps filling in. We have been lucky to pick up work pretty consistently for the whole time we've been back in London, where we're now staying in a friend's room in South Hampstead until the end of April. We've settled in well there and got off to a flying start with Tish treating me to seeing England vs Scotland at Twickenham in the 6 Nations which was an awesome experience - massive atmosphere when there's a healthy dose of 'friendly' rivalry.

Our first adventure away was with a group of mates to St Antons, Austria for a week's skiing. It was an absolutely fantastic week. As far as th e weather/snow went we had two cracker days, a couple of extremely snowy days and a couple in between. The snow was amazing for the whole week and the first experience of powder was awesome, despite having absolutely no idea how to negotiate it. The Austrian hills are also well known to host a proud culture of après (after-ski drinks) which we sampled fairly broadly and it lived up to expectations. A couple of bars in particular were hotspots for drinks and dancing which was not by any means confined to the floor - chairs and tables copped the good news for several hours a day from ski-boots all round... hilarious stuff. The daily temperature ranged from about -11 to -18 so it was pretty chilly but the skiing was pretty challenging as well as a lot of fun so there were no complaints!

We didn't initially have much planned after arriving back from Austria. We made it two weeks and then booked an impromptu three-day weekend to Budapest with one of Tish's college mates. It wasn't somewhere I had specifically planned to visit but I'm so glad we did. It is a beautiful city with loads of stuff to do and see. We had a great time between the sites and the food. We had a great day just walking around the city and having a look around the castle, the citadel, down across the river and up to the House of Horror and finally up the main boulevard to the Heroes Square. The House of Horror was a fascinating museum recounting Hungary's post WWII history, which I had no prior knowledge of. The tumultuous times between independence, German occupation, Soviet influence and finally democracy were fantastic to read about. Finally, we had an afternoon at the thermal baths which was nice and relaxing - the sky was blue but the weather was nippy, making it all the more enjoyable!

So again we headed back to London... we lasted two days until we booked the next weekend away in Prague. Prague definitely was somewhere I had wanted to go on previous accounts and recommendations from friends and it didn't disappoint. What was really interesting was comparing it to Budapest (and the Czech Republic to Hungary) in terms of recent history, as they have really suffered very similar post-WWII/Cold War fates. The only suffering we had were the -9°C days, this time with no physical acitivity like skiing to keep the body temperature up! We had two out of four mornings dusted with snow which was magnificent to look at. The Castle, the Charles Bridge and the Old Town lived up to recommendations - we easily spent a day all totalled at the Castle alone. As in Hungary, the food was very hearty, revolving around pork, goose and cabbage. Whilst I don't think I would describe it as exquisite as such, it was pretty tasty. We also braved the cold for a walking tour which was well worthwhile - it's always great to get a bit of local knowledge and history, even when it has a healthy serve of bias attached. Our #1 cultural outing was to the Opera at the State Theatre which was, among other things, hilarious! We saw Dvorak's Rusalka and the theatre was small but spectacular. The Opera was translated into English subtitles that ran across a small screen at the top of the stage. The singing was really impressive but the child in me just couldn't stop giggling at the fact that a solid two minutes of singing was translated to 'You're doomed!' or something of the like - it was a very dramatic story and the set was equally doom and gloom for poor old Rusalka the love-plagued water fairy.

The city itself was absolutely wonderful and I think given a little warmer weather later in the year, it would be very similar to Brugge in that it would be nice just to stroll about in and take it all in. The architecture was extremely intricate but equally as variable so there was no boredom in walking down any given street and checking out the buildings.

For the time being we are back in England again - Tish has headed up to Cheddleton for the week whilst I have stayed in London. Hopefully we'll both be in London full time as of Monday until mid May, travel aside. We don't have any international travel planned until then at this stage but we are heading down to the beach at Cornwall for an Easter camping trip. It is still absolutely absolutely freezing so we'll be crossing fingers for a heat wave at the end of next week to make our trip a bit more pleasant. We're heading down with one of the couples (Kate and Nev) who we also went skiing with which will be heaps of fun - the camping site is apparently a bit of a musical hippy ghetto so we'll hopefully get to sit around and sing Kumbaya at least once.

The schedule for the next 6 weeks contiues to be action-packed and is very exciting! We may end up sneaking over the continent again but otherwise it's full of catchups, London sight-seeing, music and sport as well as friends visiting London. The London sightseeing is very underdone at this stage but we're hoping to really get cracking! I got to Wembley Stadium this week for a tour which was pretty cool - a massive facility - and also got to West End for The Lion King which, as everyone constantly raves, was spectacular. Plenty more trips to West End I hope! The other thing high on the agenda other than the standards (Big Ben, London Bridge, Westminster etc) is an FA Premiership match which we'll hopefully jag late in the season. We are seeing England vs NZ at Lords in May, although the Kiwis will have to step it up a notch if our 4th-day tickets are to be of any more use than a bookmark. The Rugby 7's in May are also booked which is supposed to be a lot of fun.

In mid May we start moving around again for a while; we have a week planned in Krakow and Berlin and then a week (finally!) in Aberdeen with some of Dad's family. We then come back to Australia for a fortnight to see Chloe, both of our families and to go to one of Tish's friends' wedding. That will be another busy fortnight but then on returning to England in mid-June we are settling in for a few months work living in Ormskirk, which is just north of Liverpool. Ormskirk is about halfway between the Lakes District and Snowdonia (Wales) so we're hoping to get plenty of hiking in during time off.

All very busy!!! It's a very exciting time and it has been awesome just to fit so much in to the 8 weeks since we've come back already. I will be sure to write again - every time I seem to say 'soon' which inevitably turns out the opposite.

So until... sometime...

North, south and a few things in between

agrant — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 23:32:00 GMT

After arriving back from Holland, I headed up to Burnley in Lancashire for three weeks' work, while Tish stayed in Wisbech.

Burnley was a fantastic job. Unfortunately I didn't have a car for the trip and stayed at a B&B nearby the clinic. Staying at the B&B was nice, with good breakfasts every morning but I have to say as far as dinner goes, I'm pretty over tuna salads!

The Lancashire area has some really nice scenery about the place with plenty of greenery and hills. This was predominantly shrouded with a light-to-heavy curtain of rain but was still nice and particularly enjoyable given how good the job was.

Tish and I made it out for one weekend about the place. We visited Blackpool for a musical which was an experience in itself - there was us, about 100 50+ year olds that were there for the musical, and I think everyone else in the city centre was drunk and dressed up as a superhero or some other theme concept for a hens/bucks night. It was like walking through a sideshow! The same weekend we also got into Manchester and managed to see Brazil vs Belarus in their Olympic football fixture at Old Trafford which was a nice bonus. Old Trafford was a good viewing venue and the roof must get lifted off in the local derbies!

After the three weeks in Burnley we headed to Croatia with Mitch and Simone Brown (2 of Tish's mates from uni) and two of their friends. We had two weeks taking a trip moreorless from north to south of the country and it was fantastic. We started up in Zagreb, the capital, but left after one night for the Plitvice Lakes. They were amazing - they're a freshwater lake network inland from the Split which no-one is allowed to swim in so they were pristine and the scenery was awesome. We had a walk around the lake system and a couple of nights in the area which were great. We then headed to the Split which was also great. Split's a seaside town with an 'old town' area too. The seafood was great, plenty of sun and a daytrip out Trogir too. I did manage to nearly kill us all with a slip onto the wrong side of the road while driving but we narrowly escaped.

From Split we started our island hopping. We travelled between Brac, Hvar Island and Korcula which provided a good variety but always plenty of sun and water! Probably the highlight of the islands was card nights in our apartments on Hvar and Korcula islands after seafood dinners and local beers. The lowlight was definitely nearly getting Tish and I squashed on our scooter. Great stuff! I think I might be banned from driving...

From Korcula we headed to Dubrovnik at the south end of Croatia. Dubrovnik was a great city with the centrepiece being the old city itself. It was fascinating tripping around a city which featured so heavily in the Homeland War - which I can remember hearing so much about on the news as a kid. The tourist industry hasn't completely developed the history aspect of the war but there is a pretty good exhibition at the top of the hill where the city fort is. Dubrovnik has a really interesting history as a pivotal port between Venice and the Middle East which was great to read about. The old city was amazing to look around and luckily we had all but one day free of the notorious cruise ships which plonk thousands of tourists and yapping guides into the city which completely changes the feel from warm, cruisy days to frantic, raucous pushes through the streets and various attractions.

Sorry to see the sun, warmth and holiday go, but having had an ample fix of sun and water for the time being, we headed back to England. Even got to catch up with Ben Abell at the Gatwick Airport on the way back which was a bonus - he was en route to Africa and in fine form.

At this point Tish finally had a change from Wisbech and moved to Cheddleton near Stoke-on-Trent for two weeks. I had a further week at the Burnley clinic and then a run on night shifts in Manchester. The nightshifts were OK - they did allow sleep when we were quiet and the work was OK without being fantastic. Tish's job had an awesome flat though so we had a bit of R&R there between transiting!

We had another weekend away in Porthcawl, Wales for Mitch's birthday which was another lot of laughs. We had a hilarious day on Sunday walking through some of the Brecon Beacons which ended up with 13 hungover Aussies following Mitch's questionable orienteering before finding our way back.

We continued our mix-n-match month with a week of work in London for me, while Tish headed up to Wrexham in north Wales for the fortnight. I traveled up there for the second of those weeks - hours on the train being racked up constantly! The week in Wrexham was good - again we didn't have a car and this time not much time off work to do much out and about. We did stay at an extremely creepy B&B for one night before heading to a much better B&B where we were force-fed breakfast and very well looked-after!

That was Tish's last work for a little while - she has now embarked on a Turkish holiday with her mum and sister, whilst I have moved down to Poole, Dorset for the fortnight. I did manage to squeeze in my first trip to Lord's Cricket Ground on the weekend in between, which was great - saw the first innings of the CB40 but had to leave before the second. The game ended up in a tie so I was pretty devastated I missed it!

So it has been down to Dorset for the fortnight for me. Lovely corner of the country with lots of sights around apparently - I have a day off coming up which hopefully will allow me to see some of them - evidently Poole has the second biggest natural harbour in the world, behind our very own Sydney.

Just a couple more weeks in London after this week and then back to Australia for the Spring and Summer- plenty planned all round and lots to look forward to! It's amazing how quickly the 6 months in the UK has flown by, with work filling in the majority of the past couple of months. The working experience has been forever interesting - the way British describe different health issues is forever entertaining. I've never heard so many terms for animals urinating as I have here - 'spending a penny' is my favourite. The first time I heard it, however, not understanding what it meant, I was sorry to hear that Mrs Smith's dog was having trouble spending a penny, but I was pretty bewildered/impressed that it could spend one in the first place!

Plenty of stories and plenty of opportunities to tell more at a later date.

So goodbye for now,

I shall write more sometime!

Catchup Part 1 (Cambridgeshire/Holland)

agrant — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 23:29:00 GMT

Well it has been ages and ages since my last blog from abroad so an update is once again well overdue, nearly 3 months!

The remainder of June continued fairly well the same as it had been, living in Wisbech and working in Dereham. It was a great start to working in the UK and we did manage to see a good piece of Norfolk. One weekend we trooped up to Holt, a quaint little English village in the north of Norfolk, before heading down to have a night in Norwich and then a day on 'the broads'. Not to be interpreted as some kind of pimping weekend, the Norfolk Broads are a series of manmade waterways built for leisure and transport around the district. Tish compared it to the Noosa canals for any of you who have been there - so it was a system of canals about 20-40m across where people sailed, rowed and boated about. The hilarity of our vehicular adventures continued - two inexperienced boaters made for plenty of inexperienced advice from the passenger seat and driving from the steering wheel!

I finished up in Dereham in early July, before our first European trip.

We arranged a loop of Holland with a stop into Brugge, Belgium for the week. Our first stop in Holland was Amsterdam which was, unsurprisingly, good fun. We caught up with Tish's mates Vick and Matt and spent a few days exploring the Amsterdam sights. I was surprised to see how much the 'coffee shops' dominated the city centre. Some reviews of the current leniency toward pot are apparently due, but having seen the tourist culture there, tightening of the laws would have to put a massive dent on the city so it will be interesting to see what they do. We had a wander through the red light district for a bit of window shopping which was an eye opener - judging from the number of window-girls on the phone they may well have been operating some 1900 numbers as well... Impressive efficiency!

The Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House and Van Gogh museum provided some culture for the trip, as well as a trip to Voorschoten, where Matt lived a couple of his teenage years, mixing up the experience a little.

We trained down to Rotterdam for a night which was good fun - in stark contrast to Amsterdam, Rotterdam was a very modern city with very new age architecture. We had a great meal out where the ordering was all done from a touch menu which was projected onto the table from an overhead projector. While we waited we got to play battleships and change the table setting theme with our touch pads. Lots of fun!

From Rotterdam we spent a day out at Kinderdijk, which is the site of the postcard Watermills that Holland is famous for. Despite being a pretty tedious trip out there, it was a great experience and the history of water management along with the grandure of the old mills was fantastic. I was amazed that if it weren't for the water mills and management systems, up to 40% of the country would be underwater.

We scooted on to Brugge after our day at the Watermills. It was about then that we realized my planning had been a little ambitious, with the trains taking longer and distances further than I had really accounted for. We decided to cut our trip at Brugge and spend all of our last 3 days/nights there. It turned out to be a great move, with Brugge having plenty to offer. Booking accommodation over the Internet has proved a bit of a lottery this year but we did very well in Brugge with a B&B owned by a lady named Tine. We had a great room, close to the city and with bikes to use and she lacked us a hamper each day to spread between breakfast and lunch.

Brugge was beautiful. I have heard people talk about cities that are nice 'just to walk around' and never really understood what that meant or how that was possible. Brugge was exactly that though. We had one day of seeing the sights, climbing the Belfry, visiting museums and the inner city nunnery, but otherwise spent our time poking along the streets and enjoying the atmosphere. Unfortunately there was quite a lot of rain but we still managed to find some great food and things to enjoy - a harp concert being amongst them!

We headed straight back to Eindhoven, Holland from Brugge to fly back to England and some more work.

I've only covered up until halfway through July but I think that is ample reading for this blog so I will leave it there and start fresh for my first trip into the north of England.

The Wisbech Weekly - 1st Edition... Week 5

agrant — Sun, 3 Jun 2012 21:22:00 GMT

Yes... hasn't exactly been weekly, but here it is ;)

Things have been swell in England over the past few weeks. Things have settled in nicely at work and all is well. My clinic is very friendly and pretty cruisey - after hours has been once a week and I've had the past two weekends on call. They've been reasonably quiet with a few interesting cases but otherwise ample time hiding away in my little penthouse at the top of the clinic.

Wisbech, on the other hand, is all go. There are at least three sirens race by the apartment block each night, with plenty more loitering going on around the place. There was a police visit to the block last week as a result of some kind of hooligan banging on cars and yelling at midnight, but by far the best was my internet cafe experience. I had to print off some paperwork so I reluctantly visited the internet cafe just down the road which also happens to be in the middle of 'little Eastern Europe'. I was doing my thing on the computer when all of a sudden there seemed to be a drug deal negotiated to my immediate left. The shop was fairly narrow and unfortunately I was on the opposite side of the deal to the door, so I was pretty well stuck. Choosing to stay out of the discussion (I didn't feel they required my business skills) I just continued on doing what I was doing, albeit a little on edge. Things started getting heated in a hurry when there was a disagreement about the price, and I quickly became a lot more on edge and was starting to plan an exit strategy. When the raised voices and pushing started I was frozen looking at my screen but then realised that everyone else in the immediate vicinity were just casually continuing their web-surfing. Evidently public negotiations are fair game in Wisbech, even when the comments like 'I've got my cousins with me' start arising. I don't think I'll be visiting the internet cafe too much more though - not that I'd need to, you could pretty much just hang around our apartment block and get a contact high at any given hour!

We made it out to Sandringham (the Queen's winter retreat) yesterday for some lunch and a look around. It was a really nice area (obviously) and had some really nice surrounding forest. Unfortunately the weather was a little chilly but it was still worthwhile. We headed up to Wells-Next-The-Sea (yes, that's the town name!) for a look at the quay there - there's quite a bit of celebration around at the moment for the Queen's diamond jubilee so the mood is fairly jovial and the decorations are around everywhere.

Aside from that, things have been reasonably quiet day-to-day. Work has included some interesting stuff and some new stuff as well. I got a bait down to a local cricket team's training so I might check that out in the next few weeks. I've got about 4-5 more weeks at Dereham before a one week trip to Holland. Then it's back on the job hunt for a three week block before a two week jaunt through Croatia. Very exciting!

I think work will be pretty solid then until coming back to Australia in mid October so until then it'll be a case of checking out local sights wherever we end up - with everything being so close there's no shortage really of things to see and do, it's just a case of the weather being nice... kind of the opposite to Australia really! Hopefully we'll manage a trip to the Norfolk broads in the next couple of weekends which is a big open area of man made waterways that you just cruise around in between pubs/different areas on little boats for a day or so - everyone highly recommends it so should be good.

I'm back to terrorising neighbours with a new guitar - courtesy of my peeps at Don Crosby Vets. I will post some photos of the beautiful Laura sometime. I actually hadn't already named it, Laura just came to me so I'll run with it ;)

Mixed news from home - WAC sounds like they've started with a bang but Gorillas, what's going on boys?! Maybe now you've Harro back things will pick up, although I do attribute him sole responsibility for not winning last year's flag so hopefully he's picked up some sweet ice hockey or NFL moves in his travels.

For now it's off for lunch - another rainy day in Wisbech so I'll probably head all the way to the kitchen ;)

I'll be back!

Welcome to Wisbech

agrant — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:55:00 GMT

Well it has been a while since the final blog from Colombia and there has been a lot unfold since.

I started out in London, arriving on a chilly night in mid April and finding my way to a central backpackers in the city. There were a few immediate adjustments that had to be made - accepting that tap water was OK to drink and brush the teeth with, that loo paper went in the toilet and not in the bin, that one says 'thanks' after the cab ride and not 'gracias'... but all in all the transition was fairly smooth.

I had a day in London initially doing some odd jobs before heading out to see Dad's cousin Alastair and his wife Rosemary near Newmarket in Cambridgeshire. I had nearly a week of luxury there which, without a car or much to achieve, involved some relaxing sleep-ins, some catching up on world sport, cups of coffee and reading the paper. Despite what was apparently a beautiful March, April proved to be one of the wettest Aprils on record so there was no great inclination for exercise or tripping about. I did get in to Newmarket and had a look at Newmarket Equine Hospital, a quick squiz through the Grand National Stud and then a look at the Racing Museum in town but otherwise it was an extremely sedentary week!

I then headed back to London to meet up with Tish. We had a great time staying with one of Tish's classmates in South Hampstead and catching up with a few friends from around the place for a week or so. There were a few jobs in between, a fairly extensive time in shops and once again unfortunately the majority of the time was spent getting out of the miserable weather. The best blooper was going to see the changing of the guard - this time despite the rain and cold - as we thought we should at least see one tourist highlight while we were in the neighbourhood. We stood outside the palace for about 20 minutes in the rain whilst policemen moved people and traffic to and fro before everyone just kind of ambled off. We were a bit confused and thought (somehow) we had failed to see the event. Then we saw a very modest-sized sign in the front courtyard of the palace stating 'changing of the guard cancelled today'. What a let down that was then!

We also enjoyed another daytrip out to Cambridgeshire to catch up with the Tulloch connections (Gran's side of the family). It was nice to meet a few more faces - all were in good form, particularly Aunt Rosabel whom I have met a couple of times before.

Eventually we made our way out to what will be home for a couple of months now. Wisbech seems like a nice enough place - a smallish town but with plenty of supermarkets (the supermarkets here all have pretty good fresh produce and really cheap) and the flat is nice. There's a fair bit of riff-raff about, a lot of eastern Europeans - yesterday we saw a couple of cops chase a ruffian across the street outside our flat. It was just about perfect for a scene from 'The Bill' - the cops were... unathletic... and the youth managed to outjog them reasonably comfortably. I was pretty disappointed as we watched from our 2nd floor window, I was really hoping for a roadside tackle and the cop to yell out "Righ'! Your nicked!". With any sort of luck I'll see it happen within the next nine weeks.

We headed out to Norwich last weekend to have a bit of a wander. For all of you historians, Norwich is where William the Conquerer built his first castle after winning his invasion in 1066. So we had a look around the castle, which was a great museum, as well as a quick look at the Cathedral and some hidden gardens in the town.

There won't be all that much scope to travel about in the coming weeks - I've scored a roster of 4 out of the next 7 weekends on call so there will be some quality time spent at Dereham (the town I'm working in around 50 minutes drive away).

There's not too much else to report - the Sun has continued to be shy but is making small appearances each day now so I will wish it along and in the mean time it will be plenty of work and whatever we can fit in between!

Over and out.

The Final Week

agrant — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:18:00 GMT

Hello all again!

The trek from Quito to Bogota proved to be a long but enjoyable one with several highlights.

I didn't find Quito all that inspiring but spent a rainy day there getting affairs in order before my departure. I headed up to the 'Mitad del Mundo' - the small town located on the Equator. There were some pretty interesting museums there, a big monument and a big line... took me back to a primary school class where one of my teachers convinced one of my classmates that the equator was a physical line that ran the entire circumference of the globe, oceans and all.

I had intended to head straight to Otavalo from there which turned out to be a little bit of a trip - luckily a local woman took me under her wing and onto a couple of buses headed the right way. I would've been pretty annoyed if I had lugged my pack around for the first 2/3's of the day only to have to head back to Quito!

Otavalo turned out to be one of my favourite places during the trip. The town itself was really nice; tourism is abundant enough to have all one's needs but does not strangle the town like in other places. There's a great town square there with music played all day, plenty of seating space and free public wifi - not a bad service in a 3rd world country.

Whilst the town of Otavalo did not have a lot of attractions itself, it was right in the middle of a whole heap of walks and outdoor activities. My first afternoon I took a 2 hour walk to see some local falls which were quite small but very picturesque all the same. The following morning I headed out to a nearby town called Quiroga. From there I walked around Lake Cuicocha which is a lake formed in a dormant volcano just outside of town. The walk was at times extremely difficult but very rewarding with some spectacular views both in the foreground and into the distance. Toward the end of the walk I 'misplaced' the track and ended up walking through a local village, amongst which was a family who had just started butchering a cow. They were more than happy to have a chat and a photo - I hadn't seen their technique in tying the cow for dressing before.

I finally got into Quiroga and headed for Cotacachi which is a town well known for its leatherwork. If you're in the market for leather handbags, boots or jackets then Cotacachi is the place for you. The one main street of stores probably had close to 40 leather shops with craftmanship varying from poor to absolutely perfect. Unfortunately I had neither the bag space, funds or inclination to indulge in some of the latter so had to enjoy looking only.

Day three in Otavalo I had booked a guided hike up Fuyu Fuyu - another volcanic eminence, this time a little closer to Otavalo and in the Laguna Mojando district. As it turned out it was just the guide and I which was great fun. Claudio was a local with a sense of humour. Watching him start the walk in a jumper, two jackets, jeans and big heavy boots I thought the walk would be pretty simple. Wrong. The track was completely unpaved, being only a dirt pad carved out by previous walkers amongst speargrass. There had been ample rain in recent days ensuring that the trail was therefore also a quagmire at best and a small creek at worst. On top of this, it turns out our little 2km jaunt also climbed just over 700m in altitude which resulted in a pretty daunting angle at times!

After an hour or so of walking I had worked up a complete lather of sweat whilst Claudio casually removed his first jacket and announced he was warming up. An hour or so later we had reached the summit and enjoyed lunch there while the clouds blew past - the view varying in the meantime from nothing to a quite grand view of the lakes. We slipped and slid the entire 2km down, at the end of which I was covered in mud from head to toe. Then was the 18km bike ride into town, all downhill over cobblestone which was good fun and a good way to finish the walk.

That afternoon I headed up to the Parque del Condor (self explanatory name) to have a look at some birds. There were some awesome eagles, hawks, owls and, of course, condors there. I have to say the eagles were probably the most impressive for looks, but the condors were absolutely massive! It is little wonder that the Incans assumed they had some spiritual capacity, they must've stood nearly 1.5m - I didn't get to see one spread its wings though.

So very pleased with my stopover in Otavalo, I finally made tracks for Bogota. I took the initial 15 hours or so on the first day, crossing the border uneventfully and then finishing up in a town called Cali. I arrived in at around 2am and caught a bus out at 10am so I'm afraid I can't tell you much about Cali, other than two bus services it offers. En route there though I befriended an Ecuadorian who very patiently chatted to me in Spanish, explaining as much as I could understand about his dairy cows in coastal Ecuador. The people were so, so friendly there! After the very slow trip to Bogota (winding through the hills of banana and sugar crops) I had some locals help me out at the bus terminal there to find my way into town as well. Throughout the 9 weeks, and particularly in the last few, the hospitality of the locals was unlike anything I can imaging being commonplace in Australia.

The one disconcerting thing about the bus trip to Bogota was the onboard speedometer. For some reason they had a screen displaying our speed constantly running in LED next to the TV. Not only that, but at speeds up to 65, it was in green, then up to 75 was orange and then finally at 80 and above the display turned an extremely ominous red! I'm not sure what the point of all that fear-mongering was but we got there safe and sound all the same.

Bogota also had a limited chance to impress, with only 2 nights spent there, but it did not fail! I met up with Andy and Lizzy on the first day. First on the agenda was organising football tickets for the evening. We were again blessed with wonderful hospitality of the locals and, after much ado, finally got ourselves some tickets. We then had a look around the Gold Museum which was absolutely fantastic - one of the best museums of the trip. It is one of the world's biggest gold museums and has an absolutely incredible array of gold works of the pre-Incancs and Incans on show. Highly recommended!

By the time we had finished at the museum it was time to head to the football. We arrived bright and early, about 1.5hrs before the game, to find seats and get settled. The crowd gradually wound up, without packing out the stadium, and the noise built. By the time kickoff started the stadium was about half full with lots of noise particularly from the northern and southern ends. The soccer was good quality (in my humble opinion) with great skills, good organisation and a fairly open game only mildly hindered by the very wet field and a few slips.

After a few missed chances from the home team Millionarios (home team), Tolima scored against the run of play. We were then left with a very tense second half in which one Millionarios goal was disallowed, a couple more were missed before finally they were able to equalise. The crowd went beserk and the enthusiasm was absolutely infectious. Unfortunately they were unable to secure the win but it was an awesome game all the same!After a few beers at the Bogota Brewing Company (mandatory) we headed in for a quiet night.

The final day of the trip started out with reasonable weather - I headed up the Teleferico, a cable car up a hill on the outskirts of Bogota, to see the Fallen Christ statue and a view of Bogota. Being a Sunday there was a lot going on at the top of the hill (they run regular services there) but the Fallen Christ statue was less than amazing. The view was OK and it was worth the ride but Sugar Loaf, Rio de Janeiro was far more impressive.

I booked a bike tour of the city for the middle of the day. The tour started well aside from snapping a brake cable - the city has lots to see including the world's largest emerald trading centre, several areas of amazing history primarily revolving around Pablo Escobar and some awesome markets. My new juice mix, to be compared with the Especial con Malta of San Pedro market, Cusco, was a cocktail made out of a series of spirits, honey, fruits, and finally, live crabs, all blended up. I have absolutely no idea why, but it also had a banana-like taste to it... completely weird. The cocktail was supposed to do all kind of wonders, including being an aphrodisiac, but all I could think of was the miserable ending for those poor crabs!

Then... the rain came. And came, and came. It bucketed for an hour or so while we took shelter in a local fruit market. We finally decided to bite the bullet and make a dash for our next destination - the lunch restaurant. On arrival there we were all drenched and extremely cold. We finally finished up there and got to the bull fighting arena which also had some interesting history and was a cool piece of architecture. Interestingly, this year's mayor, much to the dismay of punters and politicians alike, has condemned bull fighting and is the first mayor in Bogota's history to refuse attendance to the bull fighting.

We finally got back to the shop, only a few metres from my hostel where they thankfully let me have a hot shower. I spent a lot of time and probably most of their hot water defrosting before packing up and heading to the airport!

Which is where I leave you for now. Next stop England. There is absolutely no way I can summarise the trip in total. I think the highlight, despite such amazing sights and places, remains the experiences in both culture and language. I would say my Spanish has bloomed to approximately 5% fluent and the cultural experiences were awesome - helped in no small part by having contacts like the Lanhams in Cusco and a great string of good luck in meeting wonderful people throughout the continent. This is particularly satisfying for me as although there remains so, so much to see, it was the culture and the language I had really hoped to experience and what we had was a fantastic taster for return trips to come.

I hope you've enjoyed the blog - like I've said on numerous occasions the story may have been better told with photos but even then I think the vast majority of times even that would have fallen short.

So until next time - possibly on some romp through Europe, in the words of the wonderful Tigger, I will say TTFN - ta ta for now!

The Galapagos!

agrant — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 06:03:00 GMT

Despite the trials of south American transit we did eventually make it to Baltra, Galapagos on time as scheduled. The adventure restarted immediately on arrival as we had forgotten the $100 entrance fee into the islands... Oops! We managed to scrape together the admission but only iust - we had to bum 25 cents to pay for the bus to the main centre at Puerto Ayora where we could get some money out!

With a night to kill before boarding our boat, we spent a cruisey afternoon checking out the port which is under some renovations currently - the potential is great but there is work to be done.

The following day we hopped on board our boat, ´Tip Top II´, at lunch for day one of the cruise and settled straight into wonderful service - a full 'almuerzo' style lunch (soup, a main and a dessert). Throughout the afternoon we me our companions for the week; three elderly Germans, two recently retired Japanese men and a lovely family of Americans - 8 in total spanning three generations.

The first afternoon was spent at the Charles Darwin Research Station where we got an introductory course in some of the islands' inhabitants. That night we set sail for our first leg.

You will have to forgive me as the exact itinerary escapes me at present. The rough schedule was a circumnavigation of Santa Cruz, followed by a trip westward to Isobella and then a loop of the southern islands including Floreana, Espanola and San Cristóbal before heading back to Baltra (the airport island immediately north of Santa Cruz).

The trip was spectacular! Each day consisted of three to four activities built around set meal times - as life should be! Snorkelling and walking were the main activities; some of the snorkelling was awesome, particularly 'Devil's Crown' where we swam with large schools of fish, manta rays, eagle rays, sea turtles, sea lions and white tip sharks. Having only snorkelled a couple of times before this was an absolute treat! We decided that if (/when!) we return, a diving expedition may be in order - there are places where you can dive with, amongst other things, schools of hammerhead sharks which would be nerve-racking no doubt but similarly spectacular.

The land trips were equally great - the actual landlife (as in, feet planted on the ground) was limited mainly to lava lizards and iguanas, but the birdlife was amazing. The variations both between and within species was ever-intriguing particularly with the sea birds which are highly evolved and provided endless fascination both on shore and from the boat´s upper decks.

Also, I should add for readers of the Bolivian post - we had to eat humble pie for criticizing the theory that flamingoes are only pink due to diet. This was repeated at the Galapagos, and surely the Bolivians and Ecuadorians couldn't be conspiring against us. Speaking of being tricked, I may or may not have fallen victim of a crew joke telling us that the (scrumptious) bird prepared for our final dinner was pelican. That's right. My poor recognition of roast turkey is definitely born out of too few in my upbringing, so that one's all on you mum!

It's hard to elaborate further, particularly without pictures, but suffice is to say it was an amazing week all totaled - very comfortable (minus a couple of rough swells and one afternoon of sea sickness), very interesting and supremely fun week which only seems to improve with hindsight!

Having arrived back to Quito, there is a week to spend making my way up to Bogota, Colombia to fly to the UK. I was understandably ecstatic to find that the distance covered will require me to spend another 30 hours on my derrière riding the bus, 23 of which are in one hit.

I had wanted to climb Cotopaxi Volcano but time is short so instead I will have a couple of days around Otavalo (into the northern hemisphere!) hiking and perusing the villages before making the trek to Bogota.

Hasta luego!

A Fortnight in Cusco

agrant — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:40:00 GMT

I have the pleasure of blogging from the Starbucks in the Lima airport today after a very stressful morning. We arose at 4am to make our 7am flight from Cusco to Lima, only to spend the next 6 hours sitting at cusco airport waiting for the weather to clear! We missed our flight to Quito and so have just had a frantic episode to book a different flight to Quito so as to make our flight tomorrow morning to the Galapagos islands- nerve wracking, expensive but sorted... For now at least!

The past two weeks in Peru have been absolutely fantastic. Our first week was spent primarily with Tish's family friends the Lanhams which was awesome- Judy and Lex's son Zac moved to Cusco about 7 years ago and so Judy and Lex have spent the last 7 months living there and exploring south America. We had several days walking the town and hills with them which was great as they have seen a lot of the sites multiple times and know some great local haunts!

Cusco was a fascinating city nestled in the Andean range. Although different in detail, the history of the city rivaled Buenos Aires and the range of activities ensured there was never a dull moment. The history revolves around pre-incan, Incan and colonial (post spanish invasion) eras which has resulted in a spectacular mix of architecture, culture and religion. The Incan masonry did not disappoint- it's true that many of the walls are so perfectly constructed you couldn't squeeze a knife blade between the mortar-less joins.

The morphed worship of animals, mother earth and finally the catholic god has resulted in an eclectic array of decorations in architecture as well as in art forms like textiles and ceramics.

I took a week of 2hr/day Spanish lessons which was extremely helpful and it has been lots of fun trying to put it to use - needless to say the blank looks and laughter have both continued to a large extent!

I managed to get a bait for a kick of soccer with my Spanish teacher and his mates one night which was a heap of fun but the combination of altitude and suboptimal fitness gave me some pretty sore legs! They play 5 or 6-a-side 'futsal' on modified basketball courts, and like any good soccer event the 2 hours was finished with a very verbal argument, this one with the police officer for turning off the lights 2 minutes before our time was up. Hooligans!

Amongst the time with the Lanhams were multiple market stops - the best of which were to San Pedro markets where we saw cheap seamstresses, all parts of all animals for sale and my personal favourite- the Especial con Malta. This was a... juice... composed of mango, papaya, banana, melon, black beer, egg, condensed milk, syrup and a variety of other condiments. I assure you it was delicious and I certainly returned for a few during our stay!

Also definitely worth a mention is Zac Lanham's brewing. Zac works as a travel agent but somehow manages to fit some very involved brewing into his schedule and is hoping to become a commercial microbrewer in the next month or so. And it is DELICIOUS! It was my privilege to not only enjoy several sampling sessions (his porter variety is an absolute cracker) but also spend one day brewing with Lex and Zac. My contribution was fairly well limited to drinking beer and talking nonsense, at which I am well adept, but the day was great and very interesting - much more involved than my own modest attempts at home brewing and the result was exponentially better.

Tish and I hired a cab for a full day out of town at the exorbitant price of $40 to see some of the Sacred Valley which was beautiful. The two main sites we saw amongst our tour was Maras and Moray. Maras was a fascinating formation of terraces used to leach salt out of the soil in a trickle system, whilst Moray was a terracing system used by the Incans to experiment with crops and develop new varieties to suit the various conditions of temperature, moisture, soil type and humidity throughout their empire. The Incans' agricultural exploits were very impressive and by no means did they rest on their laurels in depending on the Amazon and Andes for providing adequate food sources and reserves...

Which brings me to my next highlight! We had planned to spend 2 days in Nazca seeing the sand dunes and Nazca lines but unfortunately our bus was cancelled due to protests blocking the route. Subsequently, we ended up with a day or two up our sleeve before taking on the Inca Trail. With one more day to kill, we booked in for a cooking class with Judy, Andy and Lizzie. We were lucky to get the class as they are only offered occasionally - the majority of them have been done with journalists (the latest of which was with the BBC for a documentary on Perivian cuisine). The class started with a tour of a local market which was an experience in itself. Not only did we sample food we would have never dreamt of judging based on its proverbial 'cover', but Eric the chef gave us an absolutely astounding account of Peruvian agriculture and cuisine. Facts like 59% of the world's food varieties originating in the Andes and Amazon and Peru having over 4000 varieties of potato had us stunned and extremely impressed before the cooking even got started!

On return to the restaurant, we enjoyed a stab at making some Peruvian cocktails (chilcano and pisco sour), sampling some of Eric's infused pisco's and of course cooking up some food. Peruvian cooking is best described (in Eric's words) as 'fusion' as a product of the immense variety of available foods and a similar mix of influences from immigrants throughout the past 500 years. We spent around 6 hours at the restaurant and had an absolute ball. Eric's knowledge, tutoring and personality/life story were all inspiring and our spontaneous decision to do a cooking class thus turned into one of the best afternoons of the trip so far. We returned to the restaurant last night for a few drinks and dinner and Eric came and chatted for the entire evening. If I haven't made it clear enough, I can't recommend this experience highly enough so for any of you traveling to Cusco, be sure to look up Eric at Marcelo Batata Restaurant!

And then... drum roll... the Inca Trail! The first day was spent having a look around the Sacred Valley which was good - a little walking, a guided tour of some more ruins we hasn't seen and finally a night in a town named Ollyantatambo half way along the valley.

Our hiking group was a good mix - an Irish couple, four Norwegian girls, an American couple, the four of us and two swedish lads with the parents of one of them. We began the walk on day 2 which was fairly flat - along the river and into the valley. The porters carried the majority of the gear while we only had to carry day packs. Day three was extremely tough - climbing to a peak of 4200m up some very steep steps to 'Dead woman's pass' before a steep descent to camp. Dead woman's pass is so-named because of a boob-appearing formation at the pass, complete with nipple and all. The Incans didn't lack sexual-minded ness- many of the statues/ornamental figurines of man and woman put particular emphasis on the man being visibly proud of having a raging protrusion.

At the end of day 3 we were pretty wrecked. There were only cold showers available so Andy and I went for a swim in an Andean stream which was absolutely freezing but too good an opportunity to pass up. Hopefully the photo of Andy in the stream makes it to Facebook- it looks like he's been hit with an electroejaculator.

Day four was also challenging but a little easier than the day before. There was some rain and wind but by then the group had gotten to know each other a bit and we were all getting along very well. There weren't so many ruins through those two days so it was mostly hiking with whatever views were available between fairly cloudy periods.

Finally the fourth day of hiking came and time to see Machipicchu. After a 4.30am start hiking, the weather was kind and cleared up reasonably well. The ruins didn't disappoint with an incredible variety of building size and structure along with the compulsory Incan agricultural terracing. Our formal tour of the ruins was fairly brief but we managed to spend a bit of extra time and (I think) see most of the ruins. Funnily enough, the uncertainty about the city which makes it so fascinating was also a little frustrating as at times it sounded like historians might be drawing a bit of a long bow. Nevertheless the day was fantastic and the city did have a truly enchanted feel about it. Speculative or not, plenty of the stories about the Incans were very interesting and they were clearly a very intelligent and inquisitive people.

We made our way down the hill and caught the train/bus combination to be home by early evening. To top the week off the whole group went out for dinner and then some drinks as dancing which was heaps of fun.

So that pretty much brings us to now- yesterday was a quiet day saying goodbye to the Lanhams, visiting one last museum and then our dinner with Eric.

We now only have 2 hours (!) until boarding for Quito and that should hopefully have us in by midnight, only to be back at the airport by 8am to fly to Galapagos! All in all an absolute wow of a fortnight, not the least in which we avoided any illness at all. Seeing as though I'm running out of superlatives and probably developing mild RSI in my thumbs typing on my phone, I will call it quits and bid you all adieu - see you all after the Galapagos!

Bolivian Befuddlement

agrant — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:44:00 GMT

Time for a long overdue blog session!

I´m writing from Cuzco, Peru but feel that the 12 days spent in Bolivia deserve a story of their own!

We entered Bolivia through Villazon, north of Salta, Argentina and bussed through to Tupiza. It was clear straight away that Bolivia is a different ballgame to Argentina with dust roads and much more hustling on the street. The bus to Tupiza was 13 steps in quality down from the previous one in Argentina but we arrived safely all the same.

We organised our trip of the Bolivian south-west, including Salar de Uyuni, and hung out for a couple of days in Tupiza. Andy and Lizzie managed to track down the local vet school (which was fairly primitive) whilst we all enjoyed some market hunting, a little walking as well as a bit of down time. I tried beef heart in one of the almuerzo´s (set lunches)which was OK but not necessarily one you´d cook on a first date.

The 4wd trek was amazing. We began bright and early one morning with bags tied to the roof in a tarp, all 7 seats loaded and slicks on the Landcruiser. It became fairly evident fairly quickly that the slicks were on not to improve speed through the Bolivian countryside but more likely purely because new tyres would be overly indulgent. We bought a bag of coca on the way out of town and headed for the hills. The altitude at this point was around 3000m and we had escaped any ill-effects to that point. The first day of driving involved quite a bit of climbing though and it wasn´t long before there were a few headaches and shortness of breath on seemingly very simple walks at the different stops.

At the end of day one we had our first bogging experience - and because all the vehicles follow the same track, everyone gets held up by a bogging. There were Bolivians running everywhere digging, packing sticks and stones behind the tyres, people jumping on the sideboards to try and load up wheels with traction - it was an absolute circus! Eventually we managed to get them up and out and make it the remaining 5km to the first night´s camp. The camps along the way were very simple but we had warm enough rooms, light during the nights and the food was great the whole way. I´ll have to put some photos up at some stage because I´d be all day describing the kinds of views we had - primarily a mix of high flats (thus called the altiplano) incredible snow covered mountain peaks and desolate desert. The environment has just been ruthlessly created by the elements without human interference which makes for sometimes breathtaking and other-times fairly bland scenery.

Day two began with a bogging straight up. Fortunately we had begun in the dark and so to add to the previously described circus, there was no light this time! After much nonsense the vehicle was pulled out and we continued on. Day two contained some awesome mountaineering - we had snow through an abandoned mountain village which was spectacular and plenty of mud whilst we climbed upward of 5000m. We had the luxury of being about third in line so knew that the vehicles ahead had made it through, but our friends in the leading vehicle assured us they were absolutely terrified whilst their driver negotiated single lane mud tracks cut into the cliff edges. We saw a few lagoons of various colour and mineral deposits throughout the afternoon before settling in for an early night - it had taken around 14 hours to travel 350km!

Day three was made up of some more lagoons, notably the ´Red Lagoon´which was, surprisingly, red, and contained thousands of flamingoes. As demonstrated here, the Bolivian´s creativeness in naming things is similar in magnitude to their care for good tyres. We were told that flamingoes at the RL are born white but throughout life they turn pink as a result of the waters they inhabit. We weren´t totally convinced by this explanation but let it slide...

We also saw the geysers on day three which were fairly incredible - boiling mud and steaming vents along with a wonderful odour of rotting eggs. We then made tracks for Uyuni. Initially this seemed like a simple task but our wonderful driver Edgar decided that we should continue slowly despite hitting the main road - some kind of problem with one of our wheels (bearings?) had deteriorated and we were being serenaded by screeching metal for around 50% of the afternoon. This was OK, all in the name of safety, right? Well yeah, but then Edgar fell asleep at the wheel which undid all his good work! As we (nearly literally) crawled into Uyuni we came across the lead vehicle sitting at a precarious angle. Brief inspection revealed that the right rear wheel had shorn off the hub - no bolts left...nothing. Our friends later described it as ´feeling like we had a flat tyre, that then flew past our window´! We finally made it into Uyuni, a little frustrated but OK, checked out some abdandoned trains from days-gone-by and headed for bed again.

We finally saw the salt flats on day 4 (on schedule, I should add) which were stunning. The lake was entirely flooded with around 5cm water which was an amazing sight. Again - pictures would tell a much better story but you will have to wait... We took our token assortment of pictures doing funny things and then headed home. Again, this would have been much quicker if driver Edgar had managed to stay awake the whole time but we got there!

Tish and I left Andy and Lizzy at Uyuni that evening to make tracks for La Paz...bring on vehicular farce #1013. We left Uyuni at 8pm loaded up with some food and valium to ensure a sound sleep on the bus, which, true to form, was about as quiet and gentle as an elephant having an epileptic fit. Nevertheless, we drifted to sleep despite a couple of stops (on what should have been a direct bus) and saw the night out. We awoke in the 6am twilight to a stationary and switched-off bus and a growing amount of confusion - we had been due to arrive in La Paz at 8am. A brief chat to a Chilean friend and it seemed that we had made it approximately one hour into our voyage before coming to a flooded stream which a leading bus had become bogged in - we were stuck and still had 11 hours to go! Better still, the bus driver than demanded that we all jump out of the bus to lighten the load so he could cross. Whilst he ploughed/bounced through 100m of stream, he left us to find our own way wading and jumping and running after him whilst he took off down the road. We boarded again and restarted before we heard a ´my friend! my friend!´from one of the back rows. The Bolivians then decided a head count might not be such a bad idea after all and picked up the remaining passengers. The rest of the day was fairly tedious, given that we were supposed to be enjoying La Paz, but we finally made the city limits...which is as far as we got. The bus driver decided that peak hour was simply not worth the trouble so dropped us off in an outer suburb. That was tolerable, just, until all the taxi drivers refused us service on the grounds of central La Paz being too far! We then had to hitchhike into town which is where our good luck turned up - a full cama (1st class) bus that was empty pulled up and the driver gave us the 20 minute ride in for free.

Andy and Lizzie arrived the following morning (on time) so we went for a look around the witch´s markets. If you like preserved llama foetuses, then you´re gonna love La Paz. They are supposed to bring good luck if buried under the house, but they weren´t bringing me anything but nausea.

We signed up for the mountain biking down the World´s Most Dangerous Road the following day. It was cold and raining up the top but grew increasingly warm and dry toward the bottom of the 60km ride. Despite the rain and fog we still had some great views and the ride was hilarious - Tish and I both managed to find the dirt once in the ride. Thankfully we crashed in places where we did find the dirt and not thin air - there were some amazing drop offs. To give an idea, the road is a one way dirt road which at the narrowest is 3.2m wide. The ride was a heap of fun and we finished off with a visit through a bit of an animal sanctuary, some lunch and a few beers - most pleasant!

La Paz was an amazing city to look at and there seems like there´s a whole heap to do there, but we were starting to look to get to Cuzco so we left La Paz for another time and headed to Copacabana. On arrival there we headed straight for Isla de Sol (Island of the Sun) on Lake Titicaca for a bit of Incan culture. It´s around a 1.5 hour boat ride out to the island which was fairly scenic but extremely slow. The Island was beautiful with steep banks and panoramic views. The steep banks made for equally difficult hiking but after securing a hostel for the night we headed out for dinner with a view which was amazing, with a storm making its way across our view over the Lake.

We hiked up and back the island the following day. This was a fairly challenging 16km given the altitude and terrain but was awesome. The Puma Rock (the supposed birthplace of the Sun) was completely underwhelming and I think we probably would have walked straight past it had it not been pointed out to us but the ruins at the northern end of the island were really interesting and quite extensive. As opposed to the morning walk along the ridgeline of the island, the return walk was further toward the coast and went through a view villages which was pretty cool - I preferred the latter walk. After a brief argument with our hostel in Spanglish about accommodation we had reserved for that night we decided to head back to Copacabana rather than stay another night. Another boat ride later and we were back on the mainland and ready to book ways to Cuzco.

We had a heads up from a Yank that there was a strike at the Bolivian-Peru border preventing bus transport. We booked with a good company who assured us that they had a way around the strike (road block) so we were set and relaxed for the night.

After getting our exit stamps from Bolivia/entry stamps to Peru it was fairly clear that we had been tricked! We were told ´you can get a taxi or motorbike to the bus at the other side of the block, or you can walk but the locals might throw rocks at you´. Awesome. We decided to walk (naturally) which turned out to be a 6km trek - bags and all this time. Thankfully we had dry weather, a flat and good track and packs not roller-bags!

Following this debacle we decided to skip Puno (from which we had thought about doing a homestay on another island on the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca) and head straight for Cuzco. We jagged last minute tickets for Cuzco and made it by that night.

So that rounds up our Bolivian experience - at times tedious but funny on reflection, with plenty of straight-up enjoyment for the most part.

We´ve been in Cuzco for a week now but that, my friends, will have to wait for another time.

Greetings from Salta

agrant — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:52:00 GMT

Well...

It has been a long time since the first and last blog on the Latin American experience - a lot has happened in the interim.

Carnaval in Rio was a hectic experience - there is no exaggeration at all in the stories of partying all night-sleeping all day. We compromised on the partying to allow for daytime touring which proved a wonderful, albeit tiring, experience.

After catching up with Tish´s brother in law and his workmate, we spent the first day on the treddly up and down Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Both were a visual feast, both for their human and natural scenery. Turns out that the Brazilians seemed unabashed about their bodies no matter what form they took. That´s right, whether the swimmers were disappearing amongst cellulite or muscle, there was pride in letting it all hang loose. The beaches were beautiful, with Ipanema having a particularly spectacular setting.

Nights were spent enjoying the incredible street parties that began with multifocal drum parades and converged on various city blocks (central squares) with lots of drinking, music, food and general merriment. We caught up with Tish´s family friends the Lanhams for tea one night which was a delicious pay-per-kilo meal of a massive variety and enjoyed a couple of nights in Lapa, an area well known for its street parties.

Daytime highlights included going up Sugar Loaf, the Christ the Redeemer statue, the tiled staircase created by a Chilean artist, the central cathedral and my personal favourite, a tour of the Favelas. Favelas are the equivalent of a ghetto or slum, there are 930 or so in Rio and are generally controlled by drug lords, although the government is trying to stop this. The history behind the development, the management and the current abolition of favela areas was fascinating - the areas themeselves are an absolute maze of buildings created by poor people unable to occupy more affluent areas of the city.

The Sambodromo parade was every bit as spectacular as advertised - the intricacy and extravagance of the costumes and floats was amazing and the local crowd was unbelievable. We were spent by 3.30am or so, at which stage the locals were still well in the swing of things... our hostel receptionist greeted us with ¨it´s still going you know, what are you doing back?¨.

We left Rio on our first overnight bus trip. Though it wasn´t the full works with layout seats and meals it was absolutely fine for comfort and got us into Foy do Iguazu-Puerto Iguazu just fine. We had a very helpful hostel employee help us with planning our days first to the Brazilian side of the falls and then the Argentinian. The falls were amazing - we were all very taken aback at the sheer volume/size of them. We also toured a local wildlife park which had some cool creatures including some Tucans!

We arrived into the central/northern Argentinian city of Salta two days ago which has proved a little more laid back. Tish and I hired a car yesterday which we drove a total of 522km including a trip to around 3100m altitude through the mountains on the way to a city named Cachi. The road between Cachi and Cafayete was cut off so we backtracked and took a different route to Cafayete which was absolutely amazing. There have been big storms in recent months as part of the wet season and so we saw a river running brown, the road literally severed in two in around 4 spots and plenty of dicey areas in between. We had to rally-drive home to get the car back in time which was an adventure in itself... I´m going to have to admit I´m not sure I´ll ever make a particularly safe (or therefore successful) rally driver. The hairy roads were compounded by the fact we were driving a left hand steered, manual car!

We have enjoyed a quieter day today and head off to Bolivia tonight on the midnight bus. We´re hoping to tour the Salt flats on a trip between Tupiza and Uyuni over the next week before heading to La Paz for a look-see.

The people have been absolutely wonderful. It has been rare to come across anyone who is anything less than completely friendly and helpful and I think they might find our attempts at Spanish as enjoyable as we do which at least makes that aspect of the trip stress-free. We´re expecting a fairly dramatic change in environment both physically and economically heading into Bolivia and Peru but fellow travellers assure us there are equally amazing opportunities awaiting. On that note - we have all but secured a trip to the Galapagos which is extremely exciting news for the end of our trip!

Hope you´re all well - I was very amused to talk to Chloe today who is having her first bus trip to school today and only 7 sleeps off turning 5!

The City of Good Winds

agrant — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:38:00 GMT

Hola!

Well it's day 5 already and still no entries - time for an update!

Buenos Aires has been a good stay so far - we had a good flight over and have set up camp in a hostel named Milhouse which is heavily populated with Australians. The hostel is pretty good quality so we haven't had the pleasures of bed bugs, theft or having to wear thongs in the shower thus far.

Our adventures through the city have been great. Sunday was spent wandering the markets of San Telmo and La Boca, Monday on a general bus tour of the city and Tuesday exploring the more affluent district of Palermo. The city is steeped with history which makes for both plentiful and extremely interesting touring - the tour of the Evita Museum yesterday was a highlight. On the party front we have seen a few bars but the only big night so far has been Monday night. Having said that, bed time has not been before midnight thus far owing to the wonderful culture of the afternoon siesta and late dining. Monday night was absolutely awesome. We went to a concert of street percussionists called La Bomba del Tiempo which was amazing - 14 percussionists lead by a conductor, all with rotating roles on bongos, tympani, miracas with cameos from a couple of guitarist/vocalists. Two hours of booty-shaking later we headed to a steakhouse called La Brigada. It lived up to the multiple recommendations we had received with fantastic steak, wine and atmosphere.

To our collective relief, visas were secured for Brazil without drama so we are all set to head to Rio tomorrow night. We missed seeing what was apparently a spectacular clash between Argentinian marines and riot police yesterday on the main drag which was disappointing - perhaps you saw it on the news? Needless to say, however, there has been no shortage of action in general which has been regularly injected with hilarious moments of confusion where the language barrier has extended just a little too high!

Today will be another day of touring, this time to the Ricoleta district which is home of a very large and well-known cemetery amongst other things. My second guess is that there will also be numerous statues - it seems the Argies are incapable of constructing a roundabout without decorating it with some kind of profound and emphatic historical figure!

That is all for now though - hope all is well at home.

Home and Hosed

agrant — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:27:00 GMT

Obviously it was a while until I got the chance to complete the last story. This one comes from Australia, having arrived safely back this morning.

The remainder of the conference was good - like I said, plenty of socialising and managed to catch up with Scott Marx, who I spent a week with in Colorado last year, as well as several of my contacts (supervisors and peers) from the UC Davis externship. As opposed to doing things in halves, they tend to do everything in doubles over here. I spent Tuesday morning wandering around the River Walk at San Antone which was really nice - very quiet given the conference had all but finished and not many locals around.

I met an Andy Way, a fellow Aussie at the conference, who has been roadtripping around the US. He and I travelled up to Austin, Texas for Tuesday night. It was a bit of an adventure in itself as Andy is transporting a car FULL of belongings from a marriage separation up to New York. We had to repack the car just to fit my and my pack in, with the only spare space left being on my lap. We ended up in downtown Austin by nightfall and found a pretty good deal on a hotel room. Everyone had recommended a visit to 6th street, which is the live music and bar capital of Austin. It was an awesome experience - nearly every bar for around 3 blocks on either side of the street had live music, even on a Tuesday night. The favourites were another piano bar, similar to Howling at the Moon, called 'Duelling Pianos' and another bar where they had a guitarist and a harmonica cranking out some tunes. Another late night but well worth the trip.

Wednesday morning nearly turned into a disaster - I turned up to catch a 10.30 bus to Dallas which was evidently booked out. It was a scramble to then phone Amtrak (the train service), confirm there was a seat spare and rush down to the train station which was neither well known to the locals nor sign posted. Luckily we got down there in time and I found my way up to Dallas.

The trip home was OK, though weather conditions in Australia meant we had to stop to refuel in Noumea, French Polynesia which took the flight time out to around 18 hours - a pretty long haul without getting off - needless to say I was glad to arrive home!

All in all a fantastic trip with a pretty good array of adventure - far more variable than the selection on Texan radio anyway! Hope you've enjoyed the blog, I'll probably restart it in South America, so watch this space in February 2012!

The AAEP Convention

agrant — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:39:00 GMT

Keep on truckin'. That's classic Heather Grant.

The Convention has progressed well - today's talks were excellent. Socially I've had a great time (my liver has not) but it has been sometimes hard to dodge the assumption I'm a young vet/intern looking to network in order to pick up a residency. Generally though, everyone has been awesome.

Have to run, will continue later.

Downtown San Anton'

agrant — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 03:49:00 GMT

Texans choose to drop the 'io' off the end Antonio... I think it's for effect.

Well...! What an amazing few days it has been. To pick up where I left off - I continued to Dallas on Tuesday night as planned... but there's a kicker. On Tuesday I saw a quick facebook post from my friend Georgia Fryer saying she was leaving Florida and heading to Texas. Georgia is a radiographer that went to CSU at the same time as I did. She was heading to Dallas at the same time as I was, so we met up and started our trip together. Tuesday night we hit downtown Dallas and ended up at an average bar having a few drinks. By the end of the night we had befriended a group of yanks who took us to their downtown apartment where we had some red wine on their balcony - very cool view of the city and completely unexpected adventure!

Wednesday morning we headed off and tripped down to Houston. The trip was extremely enjoyable as the scenery was far more pretty than expected, particularly with the Autumn tree colours. I did manage to have my first driving dilemma by driving on the wrong side of the road but the crisis was averted before too long. We made it policy that we would not stop at any chain-stores so we ended up at a diner for lunch where there were more doors than teeth and yes, of course you could smoke cigars at the dinner table.

The trip to Houston was about 240 miles so took around 4 hours all totalled - we arrived on sunset and the city was beautiful. It is so flat and there are several glass front buildings so we got a few cool photos and just enjoyed the city falling into night. We had a debacle finding accommodation and ended up at a hotel not far from downtown. We booked in online (cheaper) but the booking didn't process so we had dinner at another local bar and then headed downtown, hoping that the processing would occur before we got home.

Downtown Houston was pretty cool - we started at a bar called the Mucky Duck which was a little live music bar away from the main strip. There was supposed to be a live gig there which wasn't the case but there was a cool group playing Irish folk song. Georgia insisted that I play a song because she hadn't heard me play for ages and asked the band, who were more than willing to let me have a bash. I started up with 'Peaches and Cream' by John Butler. This started solo but one by one, the guitarist, accordian, recorder and two violinists joined in so by the end of the song it was all built up. Despite the modest patronage and surrounds, it was an amazing experience and something that I will remember for a long time.

We finished up at a sports-bar, which are so big over here, and headed home. The booking had not processed so we slept in the vehicle overnight which luckily was relatively comfortable given the size of 'me truck'.

Galveston was the first stop for Thursday, which is the coastal port of Houston. On the way is the NASA space centre, so we stopped in for a tour of the centre. It was a great tour - they're so big on audio tours around the states which is excellent as you really do pick up a lot more, much more quickly than standing around reading everything. That took up most of the morning, and although Galveston is only 35 miles from Houston, by the time we arrived it was about 2pm. Galveston itself was extremely underwhelming but we enjoyed a couple of pina coladas and some shrimp whilst looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. What kind of shrimp? Scampa shrimp, fried shrimp, battered shrimp, shrimp and bacon...

Despite being warned by the locals at Houston to avoid traffice between 3-7pm we ended up travelling toward Houston at around 3pm to scoot around the city and out to San Antonio. We hit a bit of heavy traffic but generally had a good run onto the interstate. The length of the trip was yet again underestimated - this time around 180 miles so we ended up having another diner stop and eventually landing in San Anton' late-ish. We had a nice little hotel but then got picked up by the cab to head to town where the driver noted 'Why y'all staying out here...y'all are in Little Mexico out here'. The driver home confirmed these concerns - we were a block or two away from a crack-selling district apparently. The night out in San Anton' was amazing as we ended up at a bar called 'Howl at the Moon'. Apparently these are a small chain of bars, but basically there is a group of around 8 musicians who rotate between two baby grands, electric guitar, drums, bass, trumpet and sax playing pop songs. It was an absolute ball!

Yesterday in San Anton' was also plenty of fun - there is a really nice 'river walk' the city is known for. The river is more of a creek but the walk is really nice all the same, filled with cafes and small shops either side. We toured the Alamo which is a Texan history icon, again enjoying an audio tour and a little education. We headed back to the hotel (the Grand Hyatt this time) and sorted our stuff out before welcome drinks at the Convention Centre. There were around 1000 attend the drinks and then we headed into town - we went back to the piano bar which was a closed party. Turns out the closed party was hosted by Pfizer so we told the bouncers we were with the company and promptly got into some free drinks and more entertainment. Flippa finally turned up at about 10pm and we kicked on until 2, which is the universal closing time for bars in San Anton'.

I don't think I've really captured the fun in this blog, probably because I'm extremely hungover, but the past few days have been an absolute ball. We're now heading down to the first of the conference days to check out the scene.

Hope all's well at home.

Why I'm blessed thank you Sir!

agrant — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:21:00 GMT

Hello again.

I have a brief lunchtime break to jot down a few more notes - I've spent Tuesday out with Philippe and another of the vets here at Weatherford Equine Medical Centre (previously got the name wrong) travelling about. The Texan countryside west of Weatherford is fairly bleak and monotonous - not much change from flat country with shrubbage around 3m high. Some areas are nicer at the moment where the leaves are changing with the Fall, but otherwise there's a lot of brown grass and harsh terrain.

My favourite response so far has become this story's title - I asked a guy the other day how he was going, to which he replied 'Why I'm blessed thank you Sir'... geez mate, no need to brag to the rest of us heathens...

I had a great day with the Halls yesterday which included primarily visiting a well known painthorse stud and a very well known cutting trainer by the name of Tom McCutcheon. The setups were amazing! The money that goes into the facilities and horses is astounding - all involved seem to live a life of luxury, horses included. One of the extremely famous stallions there enjoys a life nearly entirely made up of eating, swimming and sex. Lucky bastard.

The day started, however, with the biggest accomplishment - I ventured out on the roads of the USA for the first time today. The experience was a good one... for me, anyway - I was driving a large RAM pickup which may have subsequently been reasonably intimidating for any drivers in the near vicinity. If I'd have been in a plane I think people would have suspected a terrorist threat. No incidents however, so that's a bonus ahead of my more extensive roadtrip which will begin tonight. We had catfish for lunch and even saw a coyote running across a field which apparently is extremely unusual, so along with seeing some exorbitant horse training facilities and passing the local NASCAR track and a couple of universities, I feel like it was a fairly wholesome Texan experience.

My ideas of practicing my modest array of Spanish haven't really come to fruition so far - I've made a couple of fairly bashful attempts of 'Que tal?', 'Como estas' and 'Si, claro' so far with some of the stable hands and waiters, but I'm really going to have to jump in the deep end. I've been deterred from entering any Mexican districts at the risk of coming out with one or two less kidneys should I attempt it.

The food has been a bit of a worry - after the abundance of fresh produce available in California during my trip last year, Texas had big shoes to fill. Unfortunately the only big things Texan food will be filling any time soon is pants - fast food is the main player, whether it be Italian, Mexican, burgers, grills, whatever... I may come back a couple of sizes bigger, even in a week or two. We did have a good brekky of French toast at an eatery on Sunday morning which was served with a disproportionate amount of whipped cream. Sunday morning was an adventure in itself - the eatery was filled with people either dressed in glad-rags or camo. Glad-rags for Church and camo for hunting. I can't imagine the camo having worked that well for the prospective hunters, they would have been more suitable dressed up as boulders than as trees... if one of the guys there had been a couple of inches taller he may just have made a perfect circle.

So the roadtrip is going ahead tonight - I'm dropping Flippa off at the airport around 6/7pm and then heading on to Dallas for the night. The roadtrip has been made even more ominous for the citizens of Texas now as Flippa is taking his GPS with him, thus leaving me navigationally unassisted. Probably watch out for me on the news.

Hope everyone's well! I'll be sure to post some more ramblings as soon as I can track down a computer in the next few days.

Hope everyone's well.

Welcome to Texas!

agrant — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 01:34:00 GMT

Arrived safe and sound in Dallas/Forth Worth Airport on Friday afternoon 2pm - an Aussie friend Philippe was due to pick me up around 4pm from the airport, so I thought I'd go down to the shops and sort out a SIM card and other odds and ends for the trip. This turned out to be an adventure in itself as the Mexican driver didn't understand my request so I somehow ended up at a resort named the Gaylord Texan. Aside from trying to stop my childish giggling at the resorts name, I was pretty impressed - the place was like a frickin castle. Eventually I established with the driver that I wanted to go shopping so I ended up at a big mall where I did find all the things I needed - lots of cheap brand name clothing and lots of food... all out American.

Philippe was able to pick me up at 6pm, so we headed into Fort Worth to check out some of the town, mainly the 'Stockyards' which is the cowboy district of town. We went to a few bars, which of course included 'Billy Bob's' (The World's Largest Honky Tonk for those of you who are uneducated in such matters). The night's entertainment was Uncle Kracker - unfortunately he had one chance to impress and a Kenny Rogers cover just wasn't going to cover it. We trooped down to 'The Colosseum' which is a western exhibition centre - saw a bit of barrel racing, roping and bull riding - frequented a few more bars and eventually got home at around 12pm. I've stayed at the Weatherford Equine Hospital(WEH)(Weatherford is a town not far from Fort Worth) with Philippe for the past couple of nights and will stay a couple more before heading off.

Saturday was a relaxed affair - a big sleep-in and then got picked up by Jeffrey and Lee Ann Hall who are clients from Dubbo (they have been working at the world Painthorse Show). The Halls took me out for a Mexican lunch which was delicious and then back to the Stockyards for a look at the daytime activities. Very touristy - the longhorns take a walk down the street and cowboys all dressed up with nowhere to go, mechanical bulls and petting zoos. A nice afternoon in the sun though, and then came home to the equine hospital and had pizza and beers watching the college football (second only to church in these parts).

The plan today is to visit a few of the cutting horse ranches serviced by WEH and then had back to watch the NFL this afternoon/this evening. Tomorrow the Halls are taking me out to do a similar thing with their Painthorse friends which will also include a trip to Justin, as in where the boots were originally made.

At present it looks like I'll drop Philippe off at the airport on Tuesday night and then borrow his pickup for Wednesday and Thursday and head down to Houston and Galveston on a mini-roadtrip, then head back to San Antonio on Friday to meet up with Philippe and the rest of the conference for a start on Friday afternoon/evening - very excited!

Not too much to report otherwise - Al vs. jetlag is not even a contest thus far though my beers Friday night/sleep-in Saturday probably put the odds unfairly in my favour ;) I'll try and put some photos up sometime soon.

The Airport Lounge

agrant — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:31:00 GMT

Welcome to my first venture into travel blogging! This is a trial run for my more extensive travels next year so it may be simple and a corny way of keeping a journal but part of being a sensitive,new-age guy is that I stay new-age.

I haven't really sussed out the process as yet but I thought I'd try a quick note with a few spare minutes at Brisbane airport. All looks for an on-time take-off and the variety of travellers in the airport is as interesting as ever. I did have a moment of anxiety when my check-in attendant was having obvious problems with spelling words like 'hospital' - let's hope I don't end up in New York instead of Dallas.

Off for a coffee and a wander - I will have another play when I arrive in LA or Dallas.