So much stuff, so little internet.

Well the weekend just go was a crazy North Ireland experience, or as they would say here there ‘The craic was great’. We had driven from Scotland going via Stirling to see the castle, then we got the ferry across to Belfast from Stranraer. Pretty cool. It was quick so we got into Belfast at about 5:30pm then made our way to Jasons. We spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night staying at Jasons house, about 20 minutes drive from Belfast. Damn we drank some beer. The guy had 6 cases of Tennets in the garage which he had picked up for about 5 pound each, so we obliged and helped him get through most of it. The first day there we had some time off and decided to have a break from all the driving, electing not to go out and get some washing done and catch up on a few things. We went a bit crazy on Friday night and sat up late drinking and carrying on so the next day we where all a bit worse for wear, but we headed out to the Giants Causeway, a natural geological formation right at the northern part of the country. We got home late and had the best intentions to head out into Belfast but never quite made it. Then on out last day there, Sunday, we drove into Belfast and got a tour bus around the city. I got to see some places that I am sure I would have seen on the TV during the 80’s when they where bombed. We even saw Europe's most bombed hotel, The Europa. It had 70 bombs planted in it, of which 33 exploded. It was good to see that the Northern Irish don't have a problem taking the piss out of what they call the 'Troubles', heaps of jokes and craic about the subject.

Monday morning came and we packed up and said goodbye to Jason and made our way south into Ireland, where we now use Euros and suddenly have to pay for road tolls. Last night we spent the night in a hostel in Kilkenny and drank at a pub called ‘The Field’, there where some guys playing some traditional Irish tunes and it was all good craic ! This mornings drive was from Kilkenny to Cork, via a place call Cashel. To get from Kilkenny to Cashel we used a tiny little back road, It was rough and very uneven in some places, and we had to pass many tractors. While in Cashel we went to see a place called ‘The Rock of Cashel’ but the weather was so bad they had closed access to it because it was dangerous. There is a massive low pressure system over the southern part of the UK and Ireland at the moment, this is causing strong winds and unpredictable rain. So for now we are holed up in a hostel where I type this, we may venture out shortly and go to the pub… hmmm that seems to be what people do here….. There are some picture on my picasa page, but I cannot up load the latest ones from here since they seem to have some firewall blockages on may web pages.....

Arch… You can’t get more Scottish than that…

Blog entry for 4th March

Let me start by saying that the last two days have been nothing but a very genuinely Scottish experience. After spending 3 nights holed up in a Hotel in Onich (which I neglected to blog about due to me being so tired every night from our activities and the fact that the hotel did not seem to have any internet access…wtf!) we drove north, north, north, up to a little village called Ullapool (Pronounced with a hard ‘u’ like ‘allapool’) This place is a small fishing village with a population of 1600, everything is a 5 minute walk. We meet a friend of ours and we where pleased to find out that we where the only Australians in the whole place, not hard when you consider how remote this place is, infact I don’t think you can get any further from Sydney on the planet. We spent the night there at a B&B and got the local dirt from the lady that runs the place called, Linn. She said that a drive to a place called Plockton would be very nice and we could easily go to the Isle Of Skye after that, so we did. The drive into Plockton was interesting. To start with the road was very good, nice long straight wide bits where I could get the car humming along at 90mph, but then as we got closer to the village to road go more and more narrow and hilly. Eventually it was just like driving on a small goat track, under trees, dirt patches and cattle grids every few hundred yards or so. I was fine with it, but Karen in the passengers’ seat was not enjoying it at all. Eventually we made it to Plockton and I took some photos of the vista. From here we took a leisurely drive into Skye. As the name suggests, this part of Scotland is actually an Island, it was connected only by a Ferry until very recently when they completed a bridge. Surprisingly there seems to be a rather large population here. Now the best part of this story is that on the way into Skye, our friend Jen who we had picked up in Ullapool, suggested that we contact the father of one of her friends and see if we can stay the night. Andy and Morag live in a small village called Portee on the Isle of Skye, So sure enough that’s where I am now typing this up in the Kitchen. We had a few wines last night so everyone is slow to rise. I went to bed early as I was too tired from all the driving but just before going to bed I was asked if I wanted to go on a radio show in the morning, not so much asked but convinced. It didn’t help my cause when I told them that I have done some radio work in the past, so right no I am waiting for Andy to get up to take me to the radio station, I don’t think it is going to happen…… More photos of the Scotland experience.

We saw a castle....

yeah yeah, we went to Warwick castle today.... then we did some more drving..... I've uploaded some photos of the experience to my Picasa page..... too tired to say much more than that....

Why, oh why can we not fold space ?

Once again not having regular internet access means this is a post dated post for the 27/2/2008

This morning we arrived at London, Heathrow, after having spent the best part of the last two days travelling, tired worn out and both of us sick. Spending a long time cramped in a plane really did not help either of us to get over these colds that we both have. We managed though and after a bit of a problem trying to find Thrifty car rentals we realised that we would have to get a bus to the Sheraton hotel, where Thrifty are…! Once we got the car we where on the way. The trip to Strafford-Upon-Avon was relatively smooth, we did however encounter a traffic jam on the M40 that had been caused by a previous accident, this held us up for an hour longer than need be and was extremely frustrating. After all of that travelling we where glad to simply get into bed for and hour or two, then headed out for a bit to eat. We then got back to the B&B for and early night sleep……

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Damn you laptop battery...!!!!!

Well it was another rough night sleep I’m afraid, so we slept in a bit. The sulphur fumes where not irritating me as badly last night, but I was still stuffed up and felt extremely stiff and sore when I woke up, but after a few stretches a shower and a Berroca I was ready to hit the town. We drove to an area just outside of Rotorua called Blue Lake, it is right next to Green Lake….lol… from here we had a spectacular photo op. There are stacks of Pine tree forests around the lake and the combination of this and the colour of the water reminded of me of some of the photos that you see of Lake Louise in Canada during the summer. We continued on and soaked up the spectacular scenery that this part of the country has to offer. Five minuets further up the road we got to the ‘Buried Village’. The village was buried by an exploding volcano 150 years ago, during the explosion the ‘Pink Terraces’ where destroyed, they where considered the eighth wonder of the world at the time. From there we headed back to Auckland, we had heaps of time to kill so we took our time and stopped for lunch and played some Putt-Putt.

So there we are… now we find ourselves at the bar in the airport…. I need to get on with things because the laptop battery is dying and I realised that the power plug has been checked in with my luggage…Doh !! Next time I post I will be in the UK….

Post for 25th Feb...

Originally I did not write a blog entry for the 25^th Feb because I was sick as a dog! I am typing this now at the airport waiting for our plane to Heathrow….. I have come down with a cold, probably something that I picked up on the plane on the way over here. The first day in Rotorua was tough, the wind across the lake was blowing on shore, straight towards our hotel room and bringing the not-so-pleasant aroma of sulphur straight into our room. It was irritating my already sore throat and made it very difficult to sleep. Anyway enough of my complaints, what did we do ?? I hear you ask…well…. Here is what I would have written if I did not get sick….

Today was cool… After a bit of a sleep in to catch up on the serious lack of sleep that we both seem to have had over the last few days, we went to a place called ‘Te Puai’. Translated it means ‘The Geyser’. It is a very geologically active area of Rotorua where there are several active geysers, mud pools and mineral baths. It is basically set out like a nature reserve come garden where the main feature is a geyser that shoots boiling water about 10 meters into the air. We where luck and go to see it when it was active. Apparently there is not set rhyme or rhythm to when it blows, but there was a period about 5 years ago when this particular geyser went off for 360 days in a row. I did also learn a new bit of science, the team ‘soaping’. Soaping is the practice of putting soap into a geyser to intentionally set it off, apparently the soap breaks the surface tension of the water and causes it boil, thus the geyser goes off. Later in the evening we hit the bar in the hotel for happy hour the went to a ‘Hangi’ put on by the hotel. Think of it as an Hawaiian Lu-Al… same thing, but Moari version….. this went for about three hours and we ate some very delicious lamb. We did get speaking to some people at our table and we both decided that most people travelling around NZ are retired English couples, probably travelling around in Winnebago’s. Tomorrow is our last day here and we want to pack heaps in

Post for 24th Feb...

We are staying at the Sudima Hotel in Rotorua which unfortunately does not have any wireless internet so I am typing this into notpad on my laptop in the vain hope that we will get access to the net in the next few day... atleast at the airport I guess.... Today, after a hugh breakfast at the Ibis, we drove from Hamilton to Waitomo to see the Gloworm caves, it was very interesting. The caves are pitch black and the Gloworm lava produce light in their abdouman with a chemical reaction so as to attract bugs that fly into the caves. In 2005 there was a fire at the visitor center and surrounds, so for the moment the facilities there consist only of a few demountable buildings, none the less we had fun. The cave photos in Picasa are actualy of another cave that we went to see after the gloworm cave, we could not take photos in the gloworm cave but we could in the other cave.

This was the first time I really got to use the camera on my N95 in anger and there are a couple of things I should note. If you are using one of these phones as a camera I suggest you do two things, firstly spend the time to choose one of the auto profiles before taking the photos, it makes a huge difference to the final quality of the shots, and secondly you probably should get invest in a high speed SD card, because it is a little slow between shots. In addition I found that in low light the camera is not that great, I will have to be careful what I photograph in future.

Tomorrow we will spend the entire day in Rotorua, there is stacks to do here so I will report back tomorrow on what we have done.

And we have touchdown....

Well after only our first day on the road in New Zealand, I don't really have much to report I am afraid. The flight was uneventful and we arrived in Auckland to overcast sky's and rain. One thing we did notice on our trip down to Hamilton was that the landscape looked very dry despite the rain, I guess the Kiwi's have been having the same effects from the drought that we have back home.

The car we picked up from Thrifty is a nice little Suzuki swift small enough to be affordable yet still large enough to fit all our stuff in. Both of us are tired and exhausted, a late night last night combined with only a few hours sleep and traveling has taken it's toll.

Earlier we had stepped out to have a bite to eat at a nice little Italian restaurant and I had my first taste of Kiwi beer, Waikato Draught, I get the feeling that this is the common mans beer, it is rather sweet in flavour and has quite a dark colour, still, I didn't mind it.

Get ready for the ride.....

So finally the long awaited trip o/s has arrived, we leave on a jet plane tomorrow, and as you can imagine we are very excited and still need to pack everything. Make sure you come back here regularly to keep abreast of all the latest craziness and shenanigans from the land of the Long White cloud, UK & Ireland.

You can also check any photos of the trip from my picasa page HERE or, for the tech savvy, you can also get it via RSS but I imagine that I will put a few of the best photos here. Don't expect this blog to be updated at any regular interval, most of the B&B's have wireless lan access but I make no guarantees, lets just say that I have the best intentions.

Our first stop will be in Auckland, where we will pick up a car and drive to Hamilton. We will spend the night here and hopefully get out to see the gloworm caves the following morning, then drive up to Rotorua in the afternoon.


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Stay tuned for more......