Random Traveller Hello and welcome to the long discourse on Rhiannon’s Adventures So Far, that I finally made myself sit down and write because of the impending DOOM that is called Manufacturer Default. My little baby is a lovely shiny white Macbook that I’ve decided to name Poodle. This is because its main function is to be pretty. However I will soon have to send it off to some unloving ruffians who will beat it and tell it not to keep randomly shutting down on me.

My parents and I headed down to Barcelona where we met up with my brother James. He’s been overseas since November last year and has only just made it home. For anyone travelling to Barcelona, which is a lovely city, the one thing you have to see is the Sagrada Familiar. It is a Cathedral under construction. The only one currently being built and on the inside it is magnificent. The columns branch as they reach for the ceiling, which is dotted with small skylights, creating the impression of a forest canopy. Designed by Gaudi (those bits of the design that were left after the Civil War) it really is something else. Personally my favourite façade is the one not built by him, but the latter more modernistic one.

After Barcelona we headed to a town on the Costa Brava called Llafranc. Nice typical seaside town, lots of whitewash and Spanish tourists. I got to go Kayaking on the Med! I also managed to get sunburned, but it was the strange kind that doesn’t show up until 3 hours later and then burns all night.

The next stop was some nice resorty place. All I did there was swim and work on my golf swing.

From here we headed inland. The Pyrenees are beautiful. We took the scenic routes up over the mountain passes and winding through tiny 5 house villages like the Village of Prat. Yes, we did giggle through the whole 100m stretch of it. The high altitude meadows were gorgeous. Unbelievably green, dotted with wild flowers and perpetually permeated by the clanking of cowbells. I feel the need to make obvious comments in relation to The Sound of Music. As for return visits I think motorcycles are the way to go. Firstly you’d be on a motorcycle, enough said, secondly the roads are really winding, views spectacular and there’s the fresh mountain air and thirdly you get to drive past all the poor souls who decided to go on a bicycle tour in the Mountains.

I am very ‘Activities’ orientated so the real highlight for me was James and I managing to talk our parents into letting us go canyoning. As I said in the summary it was Awesomeness. We had one of those new digital cameras that claim to be waterproof down to 1m. It was not. I even kept it all safe and warm tucked down by bikini top and it still broke. Thankfully the memory stick survived.

As for the last photo; yes, that is me and yes, I am extremely airborne. You can see my “Oh shit!” face. The little pool of water I was aiming for was about the same distance again below and to the right of the bottom of the photo. However once my brothers do something I usually feel obliged not to chicken out. This is generally how I get myself into situations like, for example, stuck on top of an icy chute narrower than my skis, lined by rocks, ending in rocks followed by more cliff and Henry standing below shouting “Just point your skis down, hop that bit and make a sharp left. It’s fine!”

We finished the circle back in Barcelona where parents flew to the Southern Hemisphere and siblings flew south to sunny Alicante.