Journey to Canberra

From Canon to Canberra to The Essence

2010-03-23T19:46:00.011+01:00

As of March 24th, this blog has come to an end.

Please go to my new blog called "David Beckett and The Essence" at www.david-beckett.blogspot.com

If you would like to have a bound book of the blog entries from my world trip, please email me at david.beckett@TheEssenceOnline.com.

When I started this site in November 2008, I chose the address “Canon To Canberra”.

This was because I wanted to take the opportunity - presented by the move of my job to London - of doing something completely different. I quickly decided I would go to Australia, a plan which over the last 5 months turned into an amazing Round-The-World trip.

This blog's journey is now complete. A new blog has been set up to catalogue the beginning of my new venture, a start-up publishing company called DJB Pubs. On 10th October 2010 (10.10.10), the first book will be launched, called “Amsterdam... The Essence.”

While travelling, Internet was hard to come by. In South Amearica, it was hard to get a fast connection, while in Tahiti, Australia and New Zealand, the cost was incredible (anything from 1 -12 Euros per hour!). This pushed me to write and post the blog pieces very quickly, with little editing. Some of the postings are probably quite rough, but that is the nature of a blog, isn't it? I think of it like a live concert, a single go at getting the best bits down but there will certainly be a few glitches along the way.

So now it's time to move on to the next stage and my new publishing company is DJB Pubs BV. The first book will be titled “Amsterdam... The Essence” and will be the first in a series of travel books under the brand “The Essence”. It's a development of my early plans to write a novel about Amsterdam, and I will explain more about this in the new blog.

The unique part about “Amsterdam... The Essence” is that YOU can be part of the development of the book. You will have the opportunity to give your opinion on many things along the way – Do you like the design of the book? Is there content you would like to see? Would you suggest something special, based on what you know about Amsterdam? Would you be willing to be interviewed and have your opinions published on my website? Do you have a great photograph you would like to offer for inclusion in the book or for the website?

All of this and much more will become apparent as “The Essence” brand builds up. A website, www.TheEssenceOnline.com, will be launched on April 19th.

In the meantime, you can follow The Essence on my new blog, www.david-beckett.blogspot.com. You can also become a Fan of the Facebook page, The Essence.

Thanks so much for reading this blog, and please do put my new one in your favourites.

The End Of The Journey

2010-03-19T06:25:00.002+01:00

In July 2009, Nicki and I sat in Windsor Great Park, eating scones and drinking tea, and talked for the first time about going travelling together, just weeks after we had met. 9 months on and that talk has resulted in so much. At the moment this blog appears, we will touch down in Heathrow at the end of a World Trip, made up like this.

We travelled 78000 Km in 154 days, covering 14 countries in 4 continents, with 19 flights.
This included our trip to Greece to enjoy my Dad's 70th Birthday party in Corfu – so the country list is Holland, UK, Greece, USA, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Easter Island, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and Thailand.

My favourite city was probably Buenos Aires – a buzzing place with so many facets to it, new and old, and a sense that as a tourist, you could feel the way the people live. We both loved New Zealand, but neither of us really want to pick a favourite country – everything has been great in its own way.

We stayed in 61 different accommodations.
Highlights include; a hostel in Peru where the ceiling fell down on us; a hotel in Tahiti where it was so expensive we couldn't afford breakfast; excellent self-catering units in New Zealand and Australia where Nicki cooked fantastic meals and I made us beans on toast; a tent on the Inca trail which filled with the smell of my feet (industrial strength after 12 hours hiking and no shower possible...); generous friends giving us a homely place to rest; the eco-resort on Fraser Island; and a boiling hot, screamingly noisy 6 nights in a hostel in Buenos Aires.

My favourite accommodation was the charmingly simple and cheap (16 Euros per night) place in Bangkok – unexpectedly lovely, run by sweet, gentle people.

We ran 49 times...
Both of us run regularly at home, and we did our best to keep this up. There were periods where it was just not possible – like in Peru, where the altitude made it too difficult. Or in Australia, where it was so incredibly hot at 8am that I had hyper-ventilation after losing litres of water in a 30-minute run.

Our favourite run was in Gorda Springs, a 7am start with the sun coming up over the Pacific Coastal Highway. It started a memorable day – after our run, we sat and ate our breakfast on a cliff looking over the ocean, saw huge seals on the beach, raced down the coast to the Stones and Michael Jackson, and finished the day among the Human Zoo that is Venice Beach near LA at sunset. Wonderful.

...walked 19 times...
These walks were as long as a 7 hour, 23km burn through the Abel Tasman country park in New Zealand; or a 6 hour tramp to the volcano crater on Easter Island; or a similar length hike up a beautiful mountain in Maine when the leaves were still an amazing colour. They were also as short as a boiling 35 degrees 1 hour meltdown up the lookout in Port Stephens, AUS; and a 1 hour walk up the hill in Cuzco, only to find ourselves lost as the rain poured down.

The most memorable was in Taupo, NZ – we started with the small cultural museum and along the way saw bungee jumping, Zorbing in the park, hot springs by the river and a dramatic waterfall at the end. The variety of scenery and the way the locals enjoyed it to the full totally helped us fall in love with New Zealand.

...and trekked 4 days along the Inca Trail.
It was hard! The first day was a gentle introduction, the second a rude awakening. The third was just hard work as the rain was relentless. And the fourth day was a gift, a repayment for what we put in as we came down to the site of Machu Picchu in the sunshine and saw it in every possible bit of its glory.

That third day afforded us one of the moments of the trip. We'd stopped keeping up with the other walkers in our group, tired and wet and wanting each other's company and nobody else's. Suddenly, a window of sunshine opened up between the clouds above and the mist below. We sat on an Inca stone step together and ate a mini-picnic of cereal bars and biscuits shaped like animals, bought from the old ladies along the way. It was a little blessing to be able to see the mountains after a day and a half of solid rain.

There were 19 boat trips.
These varied from an overnight cruise on Milford Sound in NZ, to a 30 minute tempestuous ferry journey from Sydney to Manly. One time it was a one-hour ferry journey from Buenos Aires to Colonia in Uruguay. Another time, it was a half day dolphin watching tour in the Bay of Islands, a trip up the river to see crocodiles, or a 20 minute trip from Hong Kong island to Kowloon.

Perhaps the most impactful was a tour to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York. Seeing the sunset with the statue in the background is an image I will never forget.

And we hired 5 cars, 4 bicycles, 2 scooters, a buggy and a 4x4.
Our favourite car was Dumpy, the Nissan Sunny with bags of character and no power for driving up hills.

All along we marvelled at the wildlife.
A Possum on our porch; Lorikeets eating Nicki's orange cake; Koalas wisely perched in Eucalyptus above; Kangaroos hopping in the fields; Alpaca in Peru; stray dogs in every city; elephants in Thailand; crocodiles cooling my blood with fear;crabs and jellyfish on the beach; an Iguana on the doorstep.

But the best of all has to be the Kookaburra, a bird with a mohican haircut that makes a noise like a monkey.

And so to “the real world”.
Our lives move on to new phases, having had an amazing set of experiences together and the unique opportunity and gift of time to step back and think about what we really want in our lives. We both have plans for what to do next, and we'll move on purposefully with those plans.

But for now, I look at the pictures, read a few stories and think back to the card that started it all, and a phrase that has never been truer.

It certainly was a glorious ride.

Elephants by Scooter in Thailand

2010-03-16T05:03:00.006+01:00

These days in Phuket have been very lazy. The temperature is so incredibly hot – around 37 degrees – that it's impossible to do anything energetic. Luckily it is incredibly cheap to rent a scooter, so we headed off around the coast on my birthday.

Riding in Thailand is a lottery. There are lots of scooters on the roads and the traffic rules seem to be, well, “loose” (and no wonder – when I showed my driving license to the company I rented from, they said “we don't need that”). The rule I stuck to (as taught by my Dad many years ago, and used in my work and personal life many times since) - “if in doubt, go with conviction”. Watching two young lads separate scooters, exchanging food while flying down a main road at 70km/h is something I will not forget easily. Neither is the feeling of the back wheel skidding underneath me after the slightest touch on the back brake, a couple of seconds after the realisation that the front brake was not really working.

I started the day in non-typical Thai fashion, having a coffee in a well-airco'd Starbucks and reading “The Time Traveler's Wife” - here was the first of our “Ladyboy” meetings, as an incredibly effeminate and small breasted person with lipstick and a 10am shadow took my order. Meanwhile Nicki braved the sweltering shops populated with over-zealous salespeople – at one point she could feel the body warmth of one seller, who was following her so closely around the shop.

Then as we moved on, we realised we needed to buy petrol, and this is hilarious too. You can buy gasoline in unmarked litre jars on the side of the road. Or you can go to the more “sophisticated” stands where a petrol-filled glass canister has a piece of paper with ball-point pen markings down the side with numbers “10, 20, 30” and so on written by each mark. You pay your money – in this case 100 Baht (2GBP/2.25 Euros - they put the tube into your petrol tank, the level of the petrol reduces to the 100 mark and they stop pouring. Pricing? Yesterday I paid 100 Baht for a full tank – the day before 130 Baht for half a tank. In short, the price seems to be “whatever you can get away with”.

The same goes for shopping. Bartering is ludicrous and Nicki is getting really good at it - she has bought things as low as 80% less than the first offer made. But at times you just give up and think to yourself “what value do I put on this thing I am buying? Is it a fair price?” Maybe we could save a Euro or two here and there, but probably the few Euros we could save with a bit of extra bargaining mean more to the locals than they do to us.

The scooter ride took us to the Elephant places, something Nicki had been really keen to see. Along the side of the road, there were half a dozen places where you could feed elephants or even have a ride on them. They are amazing and quite scarey creatures, being so huge and powerful. Yet they very gently plucked the pineapple from Nicki's hand with the end of their snouts (though I was glad one ele stuck her snout to the side when having a good snort – that was a lot of elephant snot!).

In one place we found a 1-month old baby. Amazingly, the mother seemed quite OK for us to pet the little thing. It was a lovely thing to be able to interact with these unusual, ancient beasts.

It also reminded me of a proverb I once heard - “Beware of Elephant Thinking”. Apparently, when very young they are chained to pole in the ground to prevent them from getting away. While still very small, the elephant stops trying to pull the chain and pole out of the ground, knowing that it's not possible after numerous attempts. As they get older, of course they are strong enough to break the chain but they don't even try because the memory of failure is so strong.

The day moved on to a café with an amazing view across the bay. But customer service, surprisingly, has been very patchy here. I stood waiting to pay and counted 8 people hanging around not doing much – I was almost embarrassed to interrupt our waiter from playing with his Nintendo DS Lite. The same went for the waiters in our evening restaurant, where they seemed to have perfected the art of avoiding the customer's eyes in case they might order something...

But back to the positives! This part of the trip has been a welcome breather to review the holiday and we have been lucky to have sun, sea, good cheap food and a few little surprises along the way here in Phuket. Luckily, the BA strike won't have any effect on our Qantas flight and we land in Heathrow early on Friday morning.

So just one more World Trip blog posting to come...

Footnote
In case you have heard about the protests in Bangkok, we are far away from them. But the cause of the protests is baffling to me and shows how politics in poorer countries seems to work.

The protesters are claiming that the current government and prime minister came into power by foul means (it was a military coup - then again, it was supported by mass demos then too) and should dissolve the government. To me, it is virtually impossible to govern a country like Thailand, with little infrastructure for gaining taxes, salaries at an incredibly low level and with very limited resources. How to please the public within one term of government? Impossible. So it's not a surprise that protesters are on the streets.

But who is the person they support? Thaksin, a previous Prime Minister. He was recently adjudged by the High Courts to have embezzled huge sums of money ($2.3BN) for himself and his family while in power, plus there are rumours that he bribed voters to support him – a very shady character indeed. And yet, 1000's of people mad their voices heard on his behalf. The message seems to be – “we prefer a brutal embezzler to the current mess of government”. It's so hard to see what the future holds for such a country and its lovely people.

Lazing in Phuket

2010-03-13T03:38:00.005+01:00

After our experiences in Bangkok, we moved on to Phuket island and an area called Karon Beach where we've been finishing off the trip in a typical tourist beach resort.

It's a good breather to look back on the trip and look forward to the next phase of going back into “real life”. In the meantime, we sit on the beach or by the pool, eat hot Thai food and marvel at the fact that neither of us have had a bad stomach on the whole trip – until now, as I am writing this after the 4th visit to the toilet before 10am... Still, 5 months of pretty sound stomachs considering all the changes of diet we've had has been pretty good going.

Our beach is jammed with umbrellas and full every day mainly with Russians and Finns, plus Swedes, Brits and Dutch. Beachsellers swarm over the place, but they have really touched us in the way they work. They are very non-aggressive and will only come to you if they catch your eye – a polite no and they move on (unlike the shopsellers who pounce and hold on to you like rotweilers). They even smile at you as they go on their way.

When we bought an ice cream from one, we realised they keep them cold with mounds of heavy ice in the cool box. When we and a couple of others around us paid, he gave us the ice cream and took the wrapper off as he hands it over. Why? Because they know the average tourist can't be bothered to take the rubbish with them, and they will get in trouble, not us. Embarrassing. As he left, he had the courtesy to give us a smiley “goodbye” and went off to try to sell for the rest of the day – in 35 degree heat, probably for commission worth a tiny fraction of what he sold.

It's hard not to think about the gap in life between us lazy tourists – being served on the beach for next to no money – and those doing the selling, weighed down with stuff and trying to earn a few pence. The possibilities of luxury for them are so incredibly tiny. Meanwhile, we go back to societies where possibilities are relatively endless and their idea of luxury is a basic standard for us. Watching the arrogance of one Russian woman wave away the guy who collects the 2 Euros price for the umbrella and beach-chair reminded how little most people care or are aware of their good fortune.

Yesterday we went on a “free” trip to the Phi-Phi islands. It was a day of heat, sweat and more heat and sweat! Despite two lovely boat trip for a couple of hours each way, the rest was a combination of sitting in sweltering mini-buses through the hair-raising streets of Phuket, waiting to get on or off boats in airless, diesel-fumed areas among crowds of 100's, or sitting and melting on the boat waiting for it to get going and bring some breeze. It was a forgettable experience - and I even bought a hat to keep the sun off me, funny though it made me look...

Now we have just 5 full days here, then we fly back to Bangkok on Thursday lunchtime and fly back to Heathrow a few hours later, just after midnight on Friday. Tomorrow I'll take my life into my hands and rent a scooter (it's just 4 GBP/5 Euros per day!) and brave the utter madness of the traffic here. The day after – my birthday – we will rent a Jeep and see the island a bit more widely.

One Night in Bangkok

2010-03-09T07:29:00.009+01:00

Every time we mentioned to anybody that we would go to Bangkok, they said “don't bother, leave as quickly as possible, nothing to see.” But we found the whole experience of being there fascinating.

The biggest surprise is that it's really modern. Thailand is a poor country but the capital is a well-kept, beautiful city. As we drove from the well-equipped airport, the highway took us past lovely monuments by the roadside. As you go deeper into the city, you see markets and rougher areas, but in better shape than we had seen in Lima and Buenos Aires. Our hostel was run by the gentlest people I have ever come across, and for 16 GBP we had a clean, airco'd room with a great bathroom (and three shower attachments, for some reason), firm bed and a free breakfast of fruit, cereal, eggs and toast.

Prices are incredibly low. You can buy s skewer of meat by the roadside for 20 pence/25 Euro cents, a bowl of Thai curry and rice for less than 2GBP/2.50 Euros, and the 40 minute taxi ride from the airport cost 8GBP/9Euros. In Amsterdam, the same journey would have cost around 8 times as much. Clothing and handicrafts are also incredibly cheap, with of course many fake brands. Nicki's fetish for Birkenstock sandals was fed by seeing a rack of them for 8 Euros, although when she tried them, the shape felt completely different to the real thing. The man at the stand looked down at her feet and said “you have originals. Sorry, These just lookey-likey.” Lovely.

The people are incredibly sweet and friendly, so even when you are getting ripped off as a tourist, you feel OK. Our personal rip-off started at the airport, where we were offered a 4-hour city tour for just 10 Euros, with a guide and a driver – apparently run by the Thailand government tourist board. This turned out to be hilarious, as we took a 45 visit to a temple and then a 3 hour tour around various Kashmir carpet, jewellery and clothing shops. From the moment we got in, our guide Nancy started selling their services to book us a hotel in Phuket.

Nancy did tell us a bit about the country too. They have some similarities with UK – 62 million people, they drive on the left and they have a monarchy. However, the level that the king's presence is in your face is something else. As you leave the airport, there is a gold-leaved arch over the road with a picture of the king and his birthday date. It was back in December so they keep the decorations for some time, and similar homage was paid all around the city, with golden images of the royals along the side of the streets and car stickers in back windows with “We love the King” written in large letters.

There is an amazing buzz about the city and there are a couple of main areas for the tourists – the shopping area (Khao san road) and the dodgy area (PatPhong). We started with shopping as the street was full of grizzled old hippies and young backpackers. Massage places – proper ones – offered half and hour for less than 3 Euros, and food stands, live music and street hawkers made it a great atmosphere.

But Bangkok is famous for its rough side too, and of course Nicki and I had to see it. I will try to put this as delicately as I can.

The taxi dropped us off in Patphong, and we wandered around the streets with various offers of “sexy show”. We finally followed one iffy-looking guy down a side-street and up some stairs, and sat in a dimly-lit bar in front of a stage as three girls immediately came and sat with us – then left in 30 seconds, leaving two half-drunk glasses on the table. A selection of girls appeared on stage and in the most matter-of-fact way possible, then proceeded to eject ping pong balls and smoke out of various orifices. One squatted down and wrote “I Love You” surrounded by a heart with a marker pen on sheet of paper. She wasn't holding the pen in her hand. It was an oddly impressive skill, but sexy it was not.

Then a bill was thrust under our faces – 80 quid! Without hesitation, both of us – inspired by Eric Cantona in “Looking for Eric” **(see below for reference) - said in stereo “NO!”. We'd drunk a beer each, and they wanted to charge us for the two cocktails, the girls talking to us, the show and our own drinks. Our negative vehemence paid off and we ended up paying 12 Euros for our two beers.

We scooted out and headed home soon after. One Night in Bangkok – all part of the experience.

**Eric Cantona has been one of my heroes for years. He won the English League in each of the 5 seasons that he completed, 4 with Manchester United. Yet he was a "flawed genius", who lost his temper for no apparent reason again and again on the football field, until the fateful night when he kung-fu kicked a racist abuse-hurling fan in 1995. He was banned for 8 months and yet came back, never lost his temper on the pitch again, won two more championships, and retired the exact right moment, at the age of 31. His transformation and his legendary status as a player was enigmatically wrapped up in a man who rarely spoke in English, so I have hardly ever heard him speak.

Imagine my joy when I heard about "Looking for Eric", a film by Ken Loach about a Manchester postman who finds his life running off the rails and starts smoking his son's pot. Cantona appears to him at these moments and gives him life-advice - its an utterly enthralling and tantalising insight into what Eric, my hero , was really like.

In one scene, he tells the postman that he has to stand up to his problems and say "Non". After some feeble attempts, Cantona shouts at him "Say it like you mean it! NON! NON! NON!" All through the trip, since we saw the film, Nicki and I have faced certain situations with a smiling "NON!" - but this time there was no smile and Eric inspired us to avoid a massive bill.

The trailer for the film has the fantastic line. "I am not a man. I am Cantoma." OUI!

Big Buddha - Hong Kong Day Two

2010-03-06T03:25:00.007+01:00

Hong Kong is relentless.

It has all kinds of smells, loads of traffic and people. Shops and markets are constantly open. The light-blocking high rises are all around you. Food is on sale everywhere. People smoke like hell and work long hours.

And yet, it works incredibly well. 7 million people, 95% of whom are Chinese, go about their daily business in an incredibly small area thanks to an efficient infrastructure. The transport systems are a good case in point. The Metro system is clean, fast, runs regularly and is cheap, with a 20-minute ride costing 1.50 GBP (you can't go anywhere for that money in London).

We took the metro to Tung Chung, where the Ngong Ping cable car runs up to the Tan Tian Buddha and Po Lin monastery (it's nice to feel the sound of the enigmatic language in the mouth, although the street called Wan Kee gave us a few laughs...). The cable ride stretched out into the distance and we settled into our seats as a local cheerfully informed us that a car fell off three years ago. Nicki spent the next 25 minutes of the ride trying to understand if the carriages were attached to the cables or just hanging from them, and as the wind got up, we both felt a touch nervous as we swayed from side to side up into the clouds.

When we reached the Buddha – a 216 step journey upward – it was swathed in fast-moving clouds These gave an eerie atmosphere to the huge Buddha statue, suited to the mystic sense that should surround it. The monastery was stunningly colourful, though again I felt strange to take pictures in a place of worship for the locals. Roger, the guide for our tour the day before, had described the Chinese as superstitious rather than religious – nevertheless, people were praying and carrying out their rituals as we tourists wandered around with our cameras.

In Australia we had met David and Alice, an English couple who had just graduated from University. They had told us about a bar called Cicada with Happy Hour cocktails for 3 GBP. “It's near the escalators, you'll see it”, they had said. So we headed for the only thing that seemed to match their description – the “travelator” which is the longest escalator in the world, leading up the hill to SoHo. Sure enough, we found it and left a few hours later, having solved the world poverty problem and paid a bill of 50GBP...

The trip came to an end as we nursed hangovers, but we both were happy that our travel agent gave us this option of stopping over in Hong Kong. It is a place neither of us could imagine living in, but it's a fascinating mix of new and old, an insanely intense place.

A day in Hong Kong

2010-03-05T17:01:00.010+01:00

We arrived in Hong Kong for a short 2-day/3-night stopover – my 3rd time there and Nicki's 1st. In these 2 days we've packed a lot in.

As we came in to land, the view from the city was incredible. The clouds were patchy, grey and swirling, like a disaster movie as the wrath of God gathers. The glow from the numerous tower blocks made it an amazing sight. As we drove into the city by bus, we saw thousands of containers at rest in or being moved around the huge harbour.

Our first surprise has been how cheap everything is. The journey to our hotel was just 11 GBP/13Euros each, a 40-minute trip, and our hotel itself was 30 GBP per night. Water has been 2 big bottles for 1 GBP, you can eat a big bowl of noodles and meat for less than 5 Euros and sending a postcard to the UK was cheaper than sending a first class letter within the UK. Even a hangover-cure McDonalds was half the price we paid in Australia.

We stayed in Kowloon, across the water from the main Hong Kong island, and while there are glassy high rise banks and buildings around, the area is more residential and down to earth. As we walked around the area of our hotel on our first morning, we stumbled into the midst of the markets, complete with live chickens being traded and powerful odours of fish (still flapping in trays, they were so fresh), livestock and sewage.

Other backstreet sights included tiny metal workshops and tool shops with piles of dead tools lying all over the place and spilling out onto the pavement. Looking up, 40-storey blocks of flats were commonplace, and you had to be aware to avoid the line made by drips of water coming down from the countless airco units

We took a day-tour around the city, starting at a temple in the very centre. There was an almost overwhelming smoke of incense as the locals paid homage and the tourists joined in with burning the free sticks. I felt strange taking pictures of this religious activity, but snapped away along with my fellow visitors. We headed onto the The Peak, a high point on the hill behind the main city with an amazing view across it.

Our guide, Roger, was a very knowledgeable but weird, unlikeable guy with a matter-of-fact manner and a lazy patter based on 20 years as a guide. He strangely had a plummy English accent peppered with Australian inflections on certain vowels. He explained that the tram line up to the Peak had been built because the British governors used to be carried up in a sedan chair – and given that they tended to be large people, the tram was constructed to give the sedan-carriers a break.

He also explained why 70% of Hong Kong is still countryside, and why little beyond the intense pocket of high-rise civilisation had been developed. In 1848, Britain was handed the 99-year lease to Hong Kong, and there was an understanding at the time that on the termination of the lease, all except Hong Kong's main island would be returned. Therefore the British focused on developing that main island and little else – why develop something that you couldn't keep? In the years leading up to 1997 and the lease's end, it was clear that this was not going to be the case and everything would be returned to China.

We took a Sampan ride (a small, traditional boat) at the harbour where Jumbo is moored, the biggest floating restaurant in the world. It was a big shock because when I came 5 years ago, the harbour was full of real working boats. Now the majority of it is taken by rich people's yachts and multi-million dollar boats, with a small section of the harbour still preserving the old ways. The times are changing fast in Hong Kong and cultural icons are at risk, according to Roger.

In the evening, we took the ferry back across to Kowloon and I spied the Canon logo - a reminder of how this all started - amongst the various neon signs. I smiled and thanked them wordlessly for being set free to make this amazing journey.

As night fell, the laser show that goes on at 8pm every night across the harbour was fantastic. We then headed on to the Night Markets at Temple Street which run until 11pm. As we walked back, we came across a backstreet open-air Karaoke area with various locals wailing into a microphone – an utterly terrible sound. This was side by side with a series of stalls housing fortune-tellers.

We landed in bed, tired and full of the city.

Footnote.

When we were up at The Peak, I felt a really strong sense of very positive nostalgia and well-being. The last time I had been there was in Spring 2005 on a Canon trip and I have a treasured photograph of myself, Morten and Andrea there. That time was a golden little period, as I had moved to Austria 18 months before. I'd settled down in my new city, got to grips with the work, business was going well, we had a great team and I was fit and healthy.
Being there again gave me a moment to look back and realise how lucky I was during that period. Vienna is a great city and I was working with some great people in an excellent company for a boss who gave me the freedom to develop things my way. That trip to Hong Kong (and then onto China) was one of the strong memories of that time. It was a lovely feeling to re-live that.

Crocs in Cairns

2010-03-02T09:14:00.002+01:00

Crocodiles scare the life out of me. There is something about the way they look that is deeply disturbing and it just triggers an incredible FEAR button in me when I am anywhere near them. So when we arrived in Cairns and we were recommended a trip to a croc farm, we had to go.

Before that, we had driven 700km from Airlie Beach through the lushest scenery I can remember anywhere, flanked by fields of sugar cane and bananas for miles on end. We also encountered the heaviest rainfall I have ever driven through, around 1 hour of almost solid torrential rain that saw us crawling along at 50km/h as the water flowed over the road. It was a relief to get to our destination just outside of Cairns, the perfectly named Yorkey's Knob, which was a recommendation from a fellow traveller back at the Whitsundays.

Cairns itself is much smaller than we expected – just 150K people, and it's beautiful. For the second time, we found an open air swimming pool open for all to swim in by the waterfront. Clearly with so many dangers in the sea, it makes sense to give people an alternative, and it creates a lovely atmosphere along the seafront.

But back to those crocs... After a calm and leisurely boat trip down the mangrove swamps, we moved into a bus with Kevin the guide telling us all about the fearsome creatures as we went. The tour was through a Crocodile farm, and as we entered, it was explained that they tend to stay underwater when the temperature is over 31 degrees (it was 33). So we spotted a couple lurking in the murky waters, just beneath the surface, but were wondering if anything exciting would happen. Maybe they would all be hidden underwater?

Then one huge great long thing, weighing 500 kilos and ageing around 70 years (apparently called Gummy) was the first to show his face (and his incredibly long tail) as we stood by the water in a lookout. Earlier on the trip, we were told that a crocodile that long had very little power to open its mouth – you can keep it closed with an elastic band (though I don't want to try it) – but once open, the strength to close its jaws is enough to crush a pig's skull. I assumed the name “Gummy” was ironic and kept back from the fence.

Kevin pointed out that the wire fencing had been re-enforced where some crocs had bashed or bitten through it. As he was saying this, a Japanese lady was standing where one was lurking just under the surface, a position he's had since we arrived. I was sure that he had been a few centimetres lower into the water a couple of minutes before. Kevin also told us that they can stay underwater for 3 hours without the need to breathe. They wait... and wait... and when something edible comes, they strike.

The Japanese lady decided now was a good moment to rattle the fence. Suddenly, the croc burst out of the water in a blur of jaws, teeth and ancient green skin, whamming into the fence with a crash and scaring the hell out of all of us. Oh my GOD! They are so incredibly frightening!

After this, two other female crocs were lined up side by side. One lifted its snout out of the water and started making a snorting noise. The other did the same. In a second, they started fighting and stopped again. Gummy came between them and kept order. The whole thing was absolutely enthralling.

The farm is a commercial enterprise, with over 17,000 crocs being bred for the fashion industry. They were quick to point out that only 1% of crocodiles survive in the wild and they are cannibals too. Kevin told us another story of how a tourist had seen a baby croc outside the fence, pushed it through a small hole and a mature female bit the baby's head off and ate it. Nature can be so very cruel.

As we went through the farm, we saw the pens with loads of younger creatures sitting in the sun and catching the spray that is sent over them to keep them cool. They eat chicken and apparently this lot get through 15 tonnes per week. We also heard about the process of gathering the eggs from their nests, which is all done by hand by 3 people. It was a blood-cooling description of people taking their lives into their hands (armed with nothing more than a long stick, it seemed, to keep the angry mother croc at bay) in the interests of preserving the eggs in a perfect environment, instead of leaving them to the odds of the natural world.

Apparently there are vacancies for the job of croc egg retriever. I didn't apply.

A Grey Day on the Water

2010-02-28T08:42:00.005+01:00

Burning sunshine and heavy humidity has been the weather for most of the last days, so we thought it a good idea to book a day trip on a boat. We were told Thursday would be bad weather but Friday would be great, so this was the day we chose. Little did we know...

Last night the rain came down in torrential quantities. I optimistically said “don't worry – the more it rains tonight, the less it will tomorrow”. After getting on board, the rain dropped off a bit, and the boat set off – and then the waves started. Nicki can be a bit seasick so she'd taken a tablet against it, but even with that, she felt bad as the boat lurched left and right and up and down. A German couple were sitting near us, wordless. I didn't see the guy say a thing for the whole trip and he looked miserable from start to finish.

After an hour, we were told there were just 10-15 mins to go until we stopped for a bushwalk up to a lookout on the coast - “so hold on to your stomachs, guys” announced the cheerfully unsympathetic Aussie skipper. Then the boat really bent into the waves and we were bouncing around. Neither of us had been in such rough water, and I got the feeling they were struggling a bit too much. Why on earth had they let the trip go ahead?

Finally it calmed down and they called for us to get ready for the bushwalk. I took a look at the pouring rain and decided to stay on the boat but to my amazement, every single one of the other day-trippers got on the small dinghy, a dozen at a time, and sped off towards the coast. As the last boat left, the rain hammered down in quantities I have rarely seen before and I sat inside with a coffee, thanking my lucky stars I had not given in to bravado and gone because the others did.

Half an hour later, they all returned looking like drowned rats. Clothes were rung out, towels were wrapped around shoulders and dismayed looks were exchanged. I was reminded of the phrase “are we having fun yet?” Clearly the answer was “No”.

Another 20 minutes of tumultuous journey took us onto Whitehaven beach, a 6-kilometre stretch of white sand and idyllic beauty. At least, that's what it should have looked like. Today, it looked grey and foreboding to us, with our minds still full of the info-board in Airlie Beach explaining the dangers of stinger jelly fish. They started to lay out the buffet lunch, saying “we'll have lunch then go snorkelling”. Well, we thought, this is the Barrier Reef and they have stinger suits to protect us, and that's an underwater activity – this won't be affected by the weather, right?

Wrong. After having to battle through the waves, something went wrong with the boat's generators. As we sat down to eat lunch, the boat sped away from Whitehaven - not great timing for those suffering from sea-sickness. A number of full plates and people with green faces lay on deck, facing the prospect of a 90 minute battle with the waves to get back home. Fortunately the sea was a little calmer on the way back, and tempers were calmed too by the news that a full refund would be given.

In short, the trip was quite a washout. Yet it was another kind of experience, and I have to admit that I found the rough sea very exciting. We've been lucky that very little on this trip has been seriously affected by the weather and if this is as bad as it gets, it's not so bad!

Onto the Whitsundays through the open space of Australia

2010-02-26T08:25:00.010+01:00

Fraser Island and the Eco-resort at Kingfisher Bay were absolutely beautiful on the morning we left, with sun shining as we packed up our stuff. But the humidity, heat and mosquitoes were there too and the journey back to the mainland with a fresh breeze was a relief.

Next planned highlight was the Whitsunday islands, an 860km drive which we intended to split up into two days. After driving for 5 hours in a blasting 35 degree heat, we passed a town called Rockhampton and decided we would stop at the next town. Little did we know that this was the last town for 250km! It reminded us how big a country Australia is, with incredible space in-between everything.

The journey was still enjoyable. It is unbelievable to think how dry and arid parts of the country are because it is incredibly lush and green on the East Coast at the moment. This is not always the case, it seems. As we drove, we listened to local radio on the way and heard a farmer explaining that usually the land behind his house is red dust and yet right now, after 10 times the normal rainfall in January, it is full of long, swaying green grass.

We also got to see some kangaroos in the fields, hopping across the grassland. What an amazing sight!

By the time the next town appeared, we'd driven 700 km, and stayed in the first motel we saw. The following morning at a bottle shop – the supermarkets often don't sell alcohol and there is often a drive-in booze shop next door – we met a lovely girl who gave us recommendations to head for Airlie Beach and a nice motel to stay at. We've had mixed experiences with people's recommendations (e.g. two people recommending a hostel where the ceiling fell in on us...) but this one was perfect. Sunlit Waters is a lovely little motel, with studio rooms next to a pool and a view across the bay and yacht harbour. It's also one of the cheapest places we've found and the view treated us to yet another lovely sunset.

In the last couple of days, we've hung around the pool and the town, and I rented a scooter to head out to Dingo Bay. It was such a nice feeling to ride a scooter for the first time in 4 months, and you can hear the sounds and feel the atmosphere so much better than in the car. The long, lush landscapes spread out before me, with the weird-looking cow-breed that populates the land staring at me as I took their picture.

The beach itself was deserted and gorgeous. Nevertheless, no matter how inviting it is to plunge in, the water is dangerous and unforgiving. I took a picture of the board at Airlie Beach with warnings and advice about the various jelly fish and similar dangers of swimming at this time of year. Under the symptoms of a Box-Jelly Fish sting, it mentions “Severe burning skin pain. Victim may stop breathing and rapidly lose consciousness.”

In that case, I prefer to have a good look from a safe distance!

A 4 x 4 Experience on Fraser Island

2010-02-22T03:19:00.011+01:00

Some years ago, I had the chance to be driven in a 4x4 through the desert in Dubai, but I've never driven one myself. Nicki's birthday on Sunday was a good trigger to hire one here on Fraser Island.

The day before, the weather had been humid and overcast, so we made a short bushwalk. It is truly amazing that this sand island is home to such greenery and wildlife, and we followed the advice of walking with heavy steps to ensure any snakes or spiders would be frightened and run/slither away. (We didn't see anything on the walk, but we did see a tiny black snake late last night.) To finish, we came back along the coast with its odd collection of worn dead wood on the beach. We puzzled over the weird patterns created by some animal or crab (yet to be identified) which digs holes in the sand and leaves small balls of it, resulting in random but fascinating shapes and swirls.

Mosquitoes have been a serious problem for us. We have been plastering mosquito repellent on us but it seems these ones have genetically adjusted to become immune. It's the only explanation we can find, as our bite-count is around 25 for Nicki and 15 for me. They itch like hell!

Sunday brought finer weather and as we took over the 4x4 we decided to head to Mackenzie lake. The drive was frightening to start off with, because coming out of the resort, there is a steep uphill and a testing amount of sand. The little Suzuki skated across the road and we bounced up and down in our seats as I got the hang of it. Once we got onto the flatter area, it turned out to be a great fun thing to do, but scary moments came every now and again when we met big empty spaces in the tracks – my face says it all (and so does Nicki's...)

Arriving at Mackenzie Lake, we willed the clouds to leave. The sand is incredibly fine and white, and as I mentioned before, this freshwater lake is 85m above sea level and settling inside a huge sand dune. There is an odd effect of the light, as the first few metres are quite shallow making the water appear very light due to the reflection from the sand. But it gets less shallow very quickly after that and the deeper water seems is a deep dark blue, almost as if there is coral beneath it. But as you go further out into the water, the water become light before your eyes.

It is truly like paradise – almost empty beach, white sand, blue sky, lovely warm water.

When we got back to the car-park there was a huge green lizard, over a metre long, wandering around happily among the people and cars. He looked like a baby crocodile, but nobody seemed too bothered with him and his slithery tongue made me realise it was just a lizard. I tried to get a picture of him, little realising that in the background there was a guy trying to get his swimsuit off with a towel round his waist. He saw the flash go off and sheepishly walked to the other side of his 4x4, avoiding the pervert in the Suzuki,,,

We rushed back to the resort, and had some fun on the way – hopefully you can see this movie of us hitting a serious bump!

The hurry was in hope of catching the sunset - and what a sunset it was. It's the only place on the East Coast that you can watch the sun drop over the ocean, so we were incredibly lucky to experience it. Nicki's pictures are fantastic, and really capture its calm beauty, as we sat in the bay bar and took it all in.

Following dreams with all you've got

2010-02-21T07:51:00.001+01:00

While on this trip, I was stunned and inspired by the story of Sean Willmore, an Australian Park Ranger, who mortgaged his house 3 times in pursuit of creating a documentary about his passion.

As a Park Ranger in countries like Australia and all over Africa, you are often subject to attacks from animals or poachers, since the wildlife you protect is either large and terrifyingly violent, or highly sought after for tusks or skin.

Sean had the idea to travel all over the world and film the work of this often dangerous profession, after meeting many of his colleagues at an International Park Rangers' Congress in 2003. He sold his car and put hgis house up as collateral to caoture what he felt was a fascinating subject.

In the process, he has travelled to 23 countries and captured footage of rangers being bulldozed by wild animals and threatened with guns by smugglers. In the Congo, one ranger was tortured, shot and murdered by poachers.

On his website, he lists the names of 11 rangers killed in Uganda in the last years. Thanks to his efforts, the government has given support to the widows, a one-year salary payment to help them through - it's just 1,000 dollars each.

Sean managed to keep the finances managed and finished his amazing documentary, The Thin Green Line, thanks to an amazing determination. He is restricted from travel for the coming months because he contracted Dengue Fever (transmitted by vicious mosquitos), so he continues to work on fund-raising for the widows of other fallen rangers around the world.

In the interview, he came across as an incredibly nice, ordinary person who had a vision sparked by seeing beyond the bounds of his own life. Eternal Respect to a man who truly followed his dreams and what he believes in.

Please do visit his website to find out more. http://www.thethingreenline.info/

The Wildlife of Fraser Island

2010-02-20T07:40:00.004+01:00

It's been a surprise to us to realise that Summer in Australia means tropical weather on the East Coast. Our friend in Brisbane left our ears ringing with warnings of what it's like to drive in such weather, so we were prepared for the worst. Luckily, our next destination Fraser Island is still south of the worst parts, a unique place 4 hours north of Brisbane, and we arrived safely with no storms along the way.

The island is completely made up of sand and is 100km long and 15km wide, with tropical forest and amazing wildlife all over it. We had heard that it's not possible to take your car over the water unless you have a 4x4 (our little Mitsubishi doesn't qualify...) and were unsure where to stay. A last-minute check on Internet took us by complete luck to a fantastic eco-resort called Kingfisher Bay.

Although it is a holiday location, there are many things Kingfisher have done to blend in with the environment. The whole place is built into the forest and we are surrounded by green and wildlife constantly. They raised all the rooms and blocks up on stilts to enable animals to be able to live underneath (apparently there are loads of spiders, snakes and lizards all over the place) and have used timber and natural materials wherever possible. There are messages everywhere encouraging you to take an interest in the environment around you, with a huge picture in the main lobby with the caption “We only preserve what we love, we only love what we understand, we only understand what we study.” They even made the swimming pool in the shape of Lake MacKenzie, a beautiful freshwater lake that somehow sits 85m above sea level in a sand dune.

It all goes to make up possibly the best accommodation we've had so far on the whole trip. Being surrounded by tropical green and the noises of it birds and wildlife is such a treat.

An Ecosystem like that on Fraser Island is a fragile thing and they explained that when wood chips were used to mark out some of the pathways here, they decided not to buy it from the mainland because even a small pest inside the wood could be something damaging to the wildlife on the secluded island. Much of the wildlife is indigenous to Fraser and small adjustments or additions could have disastrous consequences.

One example was given to us after a tour around the site with a Ranger. We saw a tiny, one-centimetre long frog jumping around. We excitedly pointed it out as the smallest frog we'd ever seen, but were corrected with the info that it was a Cane Toad. In 1935, 101 cane toads were brought onto the island to combat a pest that had developed in sugar cane. Even though they are poisonous, it was thought they would be a small price to pay to beat the pestilence, but 65 years on, there are 50 million of the little buggers! They reproduce at incredible rates, with females able to let loose thousands of toad spawn. Playing with nature can be a dangerous thing.

All over the island there are warnings about Dingoes. Sadly, a young child was mauled by a Dingo in 2001 and since then they have been culled and removed from inhabited areas. They are beautiful dog-like beasts and the ones here on Fraser Island are completely pure, having never bred with any dingoes from the mainland. Luckily, claims that there have been crocodiles have proven unfounded. We saw a few signs warning about them, but apparently this was sparked by a tourist saying they had spotted them. Due liability kicks in and there is an obligation for the resort to check such claims – luckily not a scrap of evidence was found. However, we hear that the downside of them being a protected species is that they are breeding fast and in 20-30 years could be a real threat to places like Fraser Island. Thank goodness I won't be there to see it...

On the softer side of life, we walked along the beach and were convinced parts of it were moving. Sure enough, there are armies of tiny crabs running around at low tide, and they bury themselves as soon as they're approached. It seems the earth and sand are constantly moving with something alive.

The News in Australia

2010-02-18T01:52:00.010+01:00

We just arrived in Brisbane and found it to be a fine city. It was the site of Expo 88 which gave the city an international standing and an upgrade from being a town to a significant city. Sadly, some terrible stories have dominated the headlines in the last days.

A friend of Nicki's father, Nigel, is living just outside of the main city, and it's a beautiful area with "Queenslander" houses dotted all along the beach front. The style is really distinctive, and apparently houses that were built as bungalows have been lifted in one piece and had a lower floor built underneath, giving extra space, cool verandas and a great view.

As we drove around the area, we came past St Patrick's College at Shorncliffe, where a 12-year old was stabbed and killed by another 13 year old pupil. It's caused a huge round of agonising and inward review as a country with questions being asked on the news to child psychologists and the like about how such a thing could happen. It's a horrific story, and it is coupled with a growing fear of bullying on social networking platforms like Facebook, which has also been in the news.

Hearing the debate, it seemed to me that phenomena like Facebook and YouTube have changed the way kids communicate at a much faster rate than authorities such as schools have been able to adapt - the people seemed completely out of touch with the world the kids are living in. The reality of the situation seems to be that this very real incident was an extension of an online, supposedly "virtual" bullying campaign. Tellingly, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said ''I think Australia's not the sort of place where this should be happening in a schoolyard". This is a frightening lack of connection with a shocking and real tragedy.

What's also shocking is some of the statistics that have been appearing in the news. One report suggested that more than one in six Australian boys have been involved in violence over a 12 month period. It seems there were also calls for metal detectors to be installed in schools, as a response to what is called the "growing knife culture", although this idea is being rejected as being an over-reaction.

Over the last months, we have been almost completely insulated from these kinds of incidents that are of course a part of everyday life. However, it did remind us that Nicki had seen one mad moment in Buenos Aires. She was strolling around a beautiful, Notting Hill-like area of the city, enjoying the relaxed buzz of the Palermo district, when a man seemingly running for his life burst down the street and shouted obscenities. He was chased by a man carrying a gun. They disappeared round the corner, leaving Nicki shaken and hardly able to believe what she had just seen.

On a less tragic note, Brisbane suffered flash floods the day before we arrived. Up to 120mm of rain fell in some areas and cars were literally floating down the street. As we saw this on TV, thinking about tomorrow's drive to that area, we were a little nervous, but on arrival we found nothing more than a hazy drizzle of rain and heavy humidity. Australia has been suffering from a drought for the past couple of years and despite the difficulties for home-owners and businesses, the main story is how much the dams in certain areas of the country have increased in recent years.

A third big story here in Australia is the decision to stop 20,000 people's applications to live in the country, setting new regulations and standards on what professions people should come from to qualify for citizenship. It seems there were desperate University PHD students taking hairdressing courses - previously in the list of needed professions - because that was the only way to get in.

This change has come at a time when a report suggests that population will explode from 20 million to as much as 36 million. That's in stark contrast to a country like Japan, where population growth is negative to the extent of -24%. Australia is a huge country - 32 times larger than the UK! - but big chunks are uninhabitable, and we have noticed that (for example) traffic is much heavier here as the infrastructure in major cities struggles to keep pace with the increases in population density.

It's a tricky subject, and India has raised claims that the new policy is targeted towards them. However, we have seen that people especially on the East Coast have a great life and plenty of space, so the desirability of moving here is huge. Managing that attractiveness is not a simple issue.

Not Surfing in Byron Bay

2010-02-16T06:31:00.010+01:00

If you're into surfing, then Byron Bay is the place to be. It's 150km south of Brisbane and the town sits in-between miles and miles of wide, sandy beaches with fantastic waves.

The town itself is small but has an amazing presence in Australia. It's been the most expensive place we've stayed and almost every kind of accommodation was booked at the weekend as Aussies from North and South flock into the town. The music scene is strong with live music most evenings, and there is a huge music festival here over the Easter weekend with an amazing the band-list – Jack Johnson, Crowded House, Rodger Hodgson (from Supertramp) and 10CC to name a few. The drawing power of Byron Bay seems bigger than the place itself.

Most of the people here are youngsters (remember, I am 42 so a “youngster” could be anybody under 30...) plus a few grungy dread-locked nutters who look like they came for a weekend years ago and never left. One guy on a street with a huge long beard holds a sign saying “Jokes, three for $1”. Youth Hostels, Backpacker places and cute handicraft and souvenir shops are the main basis of the centre of town.

We are not into surfing and decided simply to enjoy the beach life here. We have moments where we feel we should do more of the things on offer – skydiving, micro-lighting, etc – but feel like just being here and soaking up the atmosphere is enough for us. Weather has been scorchingly hot and our walk to the Lighthouse around the Byron peninsula yesterday left us dripping with sweat. But it was worth it as we walked through a coastal rainforest and passed Australia's most Easterly point, as well as being rewarded with a stunning view from the lighthouse itself. We finished off the walk by paddling for a mile along the coast.

The sun is incredibly strong when it shines, although we are told that New Zealand can even be stronger. Nicki noticed in one small town two skin-cancer clinics, so it's obviously an issue here, and we have been very careful to be plastered in sun cream.

Today the rain has come down for the first time in a week, so we've wandered round the town, read books in our cabin and I've gone back over a few pics. These are some signs we've seen along the way. The first is a standard icon of Australia – sadly we've seen two kangaroos by the roadside that have been hit by cars, a horrifying thought.
We love the informality of the Australians, and this message to give more thought to the environment gets the message across pretty directly...
And finally, this billboard has been quite a common sight along the roadside since Sydney – now that's informal!

Australian Wildlife

2010-02-14T01:51:00.007+01:00

In the last few days, we've been treated to a series of Aussie specialities, from lovely Koalas and a Possum through to creepy spiders and crawly Iguanas.

We sat watching a movie in the dark in our wood cabin in the forest and heard a scratching noise out on the deck. We had been told that Possums are common and were hoping for one as a visitor – and sure enough, here he was. We put a bit of banana on the fence and he came and took it, then we took a chance and put the deck light on. They have night vision so the ambient light didn't scare him away, and we were able to see it close up – they are such cute little creatures, almost like mini-kangaroos with a heavy back-end and sweet faces. But we had started a turf war, as one of the site owners explained when another possum started growling in the trees up above, a low and ominous sound that was telling our friend to get out of the other's space.

The following day we took a walk up the main lookout across Nelson Bay, a steep 20 minute climb that gave a fantastic view but was infested with huge spiders webs – and, of course, huge spiders... This one with yellow bits on his legs just scares the hell out of me. I know I am 1000 times his size, but nature obviously made him a bit more powerful than the average house-spider at home. This was just one of hundreds we saw, lying in wait for flies, wasps and frightened Englishmen.

Just before we had left the forest cabin, there was another wild Koala sitting in a tree. I just can't get enough of seeing these docile, fuzzy looking things. Their lack of motion is quite hypnotic and their faces seem to be wise, almost zen-like. What amazing luck to see it so near and out in the open.

We drove North along the gorgeous Pacific Coast Highway, the 3rd time we've driven up a road so-named – the first was in California and the second in New Zealand., Both of us have been really surprised at how lush the countryside is as we had expected a more arid landscape, but it has been green all the way. We imagine that the images we have in our minds of endless open dry land is more from the middle of Australia, and that the obvious reason the coast is so populated is the contrast with its inland life.

In the evening we stayed in Sawtell, a small village by the sea with a huge long beach. As we ran along it the following morning, the sand that was so fine it squeaked like closely packed snow. I saw somebody talking on a mobile phone and found it odd, because at home a seaside-trip on a sunny day is a rarity. We would think “ok, off to the beach, switch off the phone, it's a day out!” But for an Australian in Sawtell, a wander up an almost deserted stretch of sand is a daily occurrence and real life goes on comfortably alongside the beach life. No wonder the Aussies are so laid back.

Yesterday, we stopped at a strange little motorway stop, called the Little Italy services. Not only did they have a statue of David (clearly made in my image – though not in every respect...) but they also had an Italian museum and exhibition. As we had lunch sitting in front of a huge painting of Florence, Nicki said “I think if we wander around here, we'll see kangaroos in the fields”. I have to admit, I thought it was just a sign of her eternal optimism – 'roos in Litle Italy,? Then we wandered around the back of the building and found half a dozen kangaroos...

It is such a great feeling to see these unique animals close up. They look so different to anything I have seen in the wild before and to just chance upon them like this was incredibly good fortune.

We continued in scorching sunshine to Byron Bay and are staying in a cabin in a caravan park next to a creek. After Nicki's predictive powers were shown earlier, I got nervous when she said “maybe we'll see crocodiles”. Luckily, her vision of the future was impaired a little this time, as we stepped out of the front door and saw an 80cm long Iguana on the step. He took a look at us and scampered off down the side between the car and the cabin – no doubt that won't be the last we see of him...

Beaches on the East Coast of Oz

2010-02-11T05:40:00.009+01:00

We left Sydney on yet another rainy day – so NOT what we had expected there! On the way out, we dropped by Bondi beach, a place both of us have heard of all our lives. We expected a huge, endless stretch of sand but found in reality something resembling Broadstairs or Bloemendaal. It was just a typical seaside town with a half-mile of beach which happens to be close to Sydney. So much for the famous Australia beach life, thought.

120Km from the city there is a region called the Blue Mountains and we headed there, hoping it would change our luck. The area is so-called because of the blue haze created by the huge forests of Eucalypt trees (apparently there are over 100 types of them and they are all gum trees) but we weren't able to see much of that in the mist and clouds. However, after a night in a damp and 'yuk' motel - run by some North-England Brits who instantly told us about the location and quality of ladybars in Bangkok when we mentioned going to Thailand - we did manage to get a view of the amazing Three Sisters rock formations and a beautiful valley from a lovely lookout. The hazy sky gave us the urge to move on and get away from Sydney.

By luck rather than anything else, we ended up at Port Stephens after a day's driving. It's a beautiful area with a collection of little towns around the bay area, and we found a perfect spot to settle down for a couple of days – the Wanderer's Retreat in Boat Harbour. It's a place with a half-dozen wooden huts in a Eucalypt forest, so you're surrounded by greenery and shaded from the now-burning sunshine. The sounds all around are Kookaburras (which cackle almost like monkeys!), cicadas, cockateels and various other birds, and the sound of the ocean laps in the background, a 5-minute walk away.

Yesterday was an amazing experience as we headed for the unique sand-dunes along Stockton Beach, which run for 35 km and are around 1km wide. Neither of us have been walking in a desert before so this gave a tiny taste of it. The sand was incredibly white and we were taken in by the formations and shapes the wind carves across the dunes, and we tramped up and down the sudden steep slopes that trick your eyes. Of course, sea in the distance in one direction and the green forest in the other gave the assurance that the sand would come to an end soon – a bit different to a real desert...

The beach itself was incredible – this was what we were expecting at Bondi. It went on and on for miles, almost no people on it, clean and crisp sand with no coral or stones in the water. We rushed out to meet the crashing waves and felt like 7 year-olds as we thrashed around in the perfect sea. More people were surfing than swimming, and we wondered what these people do for jobs that enables them to surf at 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon.

That evening, we had another Koala experience. This one was perched in a tree above the Wanderer's Retreat office and we were advised to keep to one side – sure enough just as we arrived, he peed and pooed – a narrow escape... He was just about awake and looked us in the eye – it seemed to us he was saying “what are you rushing around for? Take it easy...” It was just lovely to see him in the wild and apparently there are plenty around this area. They have many warning signs on the road to beware of hitting the Koalas, and a tally of how many road fatalities there are. I can't imagine how awful it would be to crash into one, they are so defenceless and do no harm to anyone.

Today we wandered along One Mile Beach early in the morning and then on to Nelson's Bay and Dutchman's Bay, all of them beautiful, under-populated and white-sanded beaches. We're quickly realising that Australia's charms lie by the sea and not inland.

A Day At Sydney Zoo

2010-02-08T07:44:00.014+01:00

It has poured every day since we got here, with the most rain that Sydney has seen for years (apparently a month's rain has fallen in a week). So, what better thing to do than go to the Zoo?

Taronga zoo overlooks Sydney harbour and on a clear day, probably the views are breathtaking. We were just grateful for a let-up of the downpour and made our way to the Koalas and Wallabies as a first stop. Koalas are not bears but marsupials - a surprise to us - and they sleep for 20 hours per day (nice life, huh?). They live on Eucalypt plants, which is very difficult to digest, hence they sleep so long, and sure enough the two Koalas they took us to have our picture taken with were well-asleep. They are beautiful little things and you just want to give them a big hug, but it seems they get no comfort from being petted and it just disturbs them.

The wallabies were, amazingly, wandering around in an open part of the zoo. We asked about this and the staff explained that they are reared by humans so are very used to being around people. We also later got a real treat - one small mother kangaroo had its baby (called a Joey) in its pouch and I filmed what looked like the Joey grooming the mother. It was absolutely mesmerising.

The Seal show was great fun - I haven't seen something like that since being a child! - and when the well-trained seals launched themselves out of the water, the kids were roaring with joy - me among them...

After being terrorised by small multi-coloured parrots at lunch (one of which was so ballsy it waltzed up and took a bite out of Nicki's carrot cake as she was trying to get a pic of it), we watched a baby elephant and its mother playing in the water. More menacingly, we also saw the crocodiles and were re-assured by the statistic that they are not as quick as the stereotype. I've always believed that they are faster than a human but they can 'only' reach speeds of 12-14km. So if you're ever pursued by a croc, run like hell and you'll be fine... Then we found the fantastic Small Penguins swimming around (if you've seen the animated movie, Surf's Up, you'll recognise these cute little things swishing around in the water).

Nicki was moved by the Gorillas and Chimpanzees, so human-like in their interactions with each other - it almost seemed two chimpanzees were kissing... My worst part of the visit was the spiders - it makes my skin crawl to see these great big things that roam around this country. It didn't help when we got back to the hotel and Nicki said "I think that was a Redback crawling underneath our window". Just great, I'd rather not know it was there. We did read that in a year, spiders eat the weight of the whole world's human population in moths, flies and other insects, so at least they are good for something...

It was a big surprise to enjoy the zoo and with the animals so free and easy with the people, it made for a completely different experience compared to our childhood memories. Plus, seeing Koalas, Kangaroos and huge spiders certainly gave it a unique feel.

Footnote - we heard a fantastic radio advert today on Aussie radio. "imagine if you started eating a meat pie and after two bites, you were full! Imagine if the same thing happened in bed too! To improve your in-bed performance and ensure you make the final hooter, call now on..." Informal is the name of the game here in Australia...

Sydney - First Impressions

2010-02-06T04:05:00.001+01:00

It is a surreal thing to take a picture with the Sydney Opera House in the background. It's an icon I've seen hundreds of times in pictures and on TV, and I used it as a symbol of where I was headed in my farewell presentation at Canon. To be here after travelling round the world is a great feeling.

First impressions of Australia and Sydney are a bit mixed. Probably the “mixed” part came a lot from our choice of where we stayed for the first night, a backpacker hostel in the centre of the city. You paid for towels, took your sheets from reception to cover your battered pillow in your tiny room, went to the dirty showers and toilets with water (hopefully it was water...) all over the floor and slept with the airco thrumming away to keep the humid temperature under control. Not a great start...

The city itself has a nice vibe. It is more of a “real” city than we found anywhere in New Zealand, with older buildings and busy shopping areas rubbing shoulders with business and hotels, plus the whole Australian “no worries” attitude. People dress very casually despite the business going on (although seeing people in a suit is a real surprise – we are so often in traveller environments where shorts and sandals are the standard) and the conversations you have and overhear are peppered with “how ya goin, mate?”, “sweet as,”and the all-purpose “awesome”.

We headed for the harbour in The Rocks district where the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour bridge sit. It's amazing to be near these places so far away from home, the kind of things I thought I would never see. Later we headed to the park and were already introduced to some of the amazing birdlife they have here, as a few long-beaked birds wandered around the sleeping tourists and locals, pecking away at the bushes and grass. We spent a few minutes reading all about the spiders and snakes which are not uncommon in the countryside – I hope I never come face to face with a redback or huntsman spider – the one small and venomous, the other huge but mostly harmless (since watching “The Giant Spider Invasion” in my early teens, I admit to suffering from a bit of arachnophobia...)

We took the ferry across the harbour to Manly where Nicki's friends, Wayne and Nathalie live. All around the bays you see luxurious houses and plenty of yachts. I read this morning that one area close to the city is now the 9th most expensive in the world, and it's no surprise. The whole area is stunning – what a place to live.

Wayne and Nathalie had travelled for a year in a camper van and spent some months in Australia. They enjoyed it so much, they decided to come back here when they had the chance, and they live a two-minuet walk from an amazing beach with huge rollers bursting in (I loved the signs all over the beach saying “beach closed – dangerous surf”, ignored by the obsessive surfers we saw in the distance). We had barbecue on the balcony of their lovely apartment, and with a 7km journey to work plus the sun and sea, life seems good for both of them.

Equally, they have adapted to the less positive aspects of life here. They showed us a movie clip on their iPhone of a huge Huntsman spider – wider than the circumference of a pint glass – on their living room wall. As we went to bed, Nathalie noticed I had put my shoes outside (to protect Nicki from the smell...) and she said “I'll give you some newspaper for your shoes – you might get a shock tomorrow morning, you never know what might crawl into them”. As I stood on the balcony and stuffed the newspaper inside my smelly boots , cockroaches scuttled off into the grass, a standard annoyance here.

As we made our way back to the city, we met a woman from Los Angeles on the bus. She mentioned that her biggest worry about sleeping with the doors open is “waking up with a possum sitting at the end of the bed”. They are beautiful little things but the possum population has exploded and they are considered a pest here, apparently swarming over inhabited areas in search of food with no hesitation in going through people's kitchens if given half a chance.

Finding a place to stay has been a challenge as the city is booked to the gills, thanks to the Gay Mardi Gras starting this weekend. We spent an hour looking through every affordable hostel and hotel we could find and finally landed at a Formule 1 outside the city – positive luxury in comparison with our last place and a good base from which to launch this part of the journey.

From Canon to Canberra

2010-02-05T02:54:00.012+01:00

I called my blog “Journey to Canberra”. After 71,150 km and a 15 month journey, I post this blog from Canberra, NSW, Australia.

15 months ago today, I decided to turn my personal life upside down, in response to my professional world being turned upside down for me.

Instead of moving to London, I chose to stay in Amsterdam. Instead of following my previous self-chosen role of being “Mr Canon” I decided to work together with the Works Council and fight. Instead of going for another Canon-like job, I chose to write a book, travel and set up my own business.

Those decisions were personal – I never decried anyone who chose to go to London or stick with Canon and each had to make their own decision to suit their life at that moment. For me, the events co-incided with a time when I wanted to stir myself up. A few days after that decision to change on 5th November 2008, no matter what the consequences, I began writing a blog. I called it http://www.canontocanberra.blogspot.com/ to reflect my wish to turn my life upside down, shake out the bits and pieces of it, re-arrange them and see what pattern emerged as a result.

Somewhere in the depths of my confused and hurt subconscious mind 15 months ago, I knew I had to make a physical as well as mental journey. My whole life, at times when I've needed to change, movement has been the key – whether it's running half-marathons, doing a job which involves constant travel or making a world tour. All the attitude and mind-shifts I ever made have been together with the body getting on the move too. So the urge to move and travel has been strong. The phrase “you can't steer a ship that isn't moving” has repeated again and again in my mind, and I needed to get going to be able to make a serious change.

I started in early April last year with a visit to Texas, Louisiana and Tennessee – and since then I've been to Spain, Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, UK, USA again, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Easter Island, Tahiti and New Zealand.

And now Australia. Nicki and I arrived in Sydney two days ago and we head up the East Coast towards Brisbane and Cairns to cap off what has been an incredible trip so far. Canberra is 270km South of Sydney and we are heading North on Monday, plus everybody says “don't bother with Canberra – nothings special to see”. So no need to actually go there, right?

Wrong. I didn't call it Canon to Sydney. So I am taking the 5-hour train trip to complete the Journey to Canberra. It would seem like "unfinished business" not to.

(As I sit on the train at 7am, it reminds me of journeys I made in 2006, when working in Vienna and being head of the business in Hungary, Poland, Czech, and Slovakia. I regularly took 6am trains from Vienna to Prague or Budapest, frantically pumping the keyboard to catch up on emails and prepare for meetings and presentations in a desperate effort to manage the professional madness of being on the road 4 days per week. It is amazing to me that it is 3 years ago already. “Too funny for words, too close for comfort”...)

I am conscious of an incredibly priveleged life that enables such journeys to be made. The travelling has taught many lessons, but the biggest is the contrast between my own fortunes and those of others around the world as well as closer to home. It's been a huge advantage to have a platform of a stable society to grow up in – unworried by war or political constraints, such those growing up in Yugoslavia or the former “Eastern Bloc” faced. The benefit of being born in a part of the world where opportunity exists for most is inestimable – and in stark contrast to those I've seen in Peru and Albania. And growing up with caring parents who supported and encouraged education, ideas and wide thinking is of massive value. Any little achievements I ever made or will make are on the shoulders of this triple luck.

So my world, so safe and sure when I returned to Amsterdam in 2007, has literally turned upside down, as indeed have the lives of many of my friends, most of who were mostly working with Canon and living in Amsterdam. In the last year, so many of those friends have made hard decisions and big changes too. Babies have been born, companies have been set up, countries have been changed, new jobs have been started. It's a world in flux for all of us and we ride the changes and make them work for us – somehow, someway.

My plans for the future are becoming more firm every day – I'm so excited about what comes next. But today, I savour every moment of the end of the Journey to Canberra, and leave the journey back for another day.

Farewell to New Zealand – Welcome to Australia

2010-02-02T09:35:00.006+01:00

We sit at Auckland airport, sad at leaving NZ but ready to enjoy OZ. The last few days have been a wet send off, with two absolutely washed out days in Gisborne. But it hasn't changed our feeling about this lovely country.

We've driven 5000 km around the country and seen it North and South, snow-capped peaks and dry flat plains, lush greenery and almost-desert valleys, seas and lakes, hostels and motels. We've walked and boated through hills and fjords, national park and forest. New Zealand has the mountains of Austria, the coastline and beaches of France, the green countryside of England and the orderliness of the Nordics – the most beautiful country either of us have ever seen. And now it's time to move on.

It's a strangely normal thing to get up in the morning, pack up and casually think “we're flying to Australia today”. If we were flying from home, it would have been the source of days or even weeks of preparation. Instead, we have no real plan other than a first night booked in a Sydney hostel and a second night arranged with a friend of Nicki's who came to Australia two years ago. The trip so far has taught us to be flexible and prepared for whatever may come and whatever seems like a good idea, rather than having a rigid plan and desperately trying to stick to it. So we'll get a few recommendations and find our way as we go.

Finally, at the airport we found a person in NZ we didn't like – or rather, he found us. I am always wary of people who start talking to you in public places for no apparent reason, and often it results in them boring the hell out of you. The definition of a bore, I was once told, is “someone who tells you something you already know, or something you never wanted to know in the first place”. In this case, a guy asked us where we are from and quickly moved on to his main purpose of talking. He ranted on about how we must have wasted our time going to the mountains in the South Island (they were utterly stunning!) and how he went to Newcastle in the UK and refused to see anything. He dropped heavy hints about “travelling with the Rugby team to South Africa” and we ignored the bait, knowing this would lead to more stuff we never wanted to know in the first place. Nicki is polite enough to give such people the time of day – I, on the other hand, have no ability to be nice and do my best to ignore them. Oh well, we'd met so many nice people here, it far outweighed this irritating bugger.

We realise how spoiled we are to be able to leave New Zealand for a month in Australia. At the same time, the world tour is flying by and we are very conscious that on Friday, it will be just 6 weeks until we fly home. In a way, we are making our way home as of now, since New Zealand is the furthest point of the trip – Australia is closer to home than NZ.

“Real Life” has of course continued back at home for everyone else and we are thinking about the big “what's the next step?” questions. Three days in Hong Kong and two weeks in Thailand follow on from the Australia leg of the trip and our return date is March 19th - neither of us want it to end, but of course that real-life return is beckoning. A friend of mine recently came back from a very relaxing holiday in a remote part of South Africa and found the return to the busy life at home a shock. He warned me to make a good “re-entry” plan, and we are gradually doing that already.

But for now, we look at the trip that awaits ahead. We land in Sydney tonight and stay for a few days, then we start heading up the East Coast towards Brisbane and onto Cairns, 2600km up the coast from Sydney. The rest we'll work out as we go along.

From South to North

2010-01-30T02:41:00.010+01:00

Our experience of cities here in New Zealand has been very different to what we have found in the countryside. The towns are all very new and not much is happening in them, it seems. Maybe we are missing something but so far the impression is - new, functional, provides the basics, has some charm but no real history or substance.

Strangely, the capital (Wellington) is the 3rd largest city in the country - Auckland has 1.4M inhabitants, Christchurch 350K and Wellington a few thousand less. Still, we found the same in Auckland and came away untouched. This is such a contrast with the countryside, where we've been in awe most of the time. As I've said before, the countryside has so much more to offer than the urban life here.

For me, the word Christchurch has always had a special resonance. One of the first TV sports I remember watching was the Commonwealth Games, held in CHch (as the locals call it) in 1974 when I was 7. Later, in 1985, I applied to Oxford University to study Chinese at Christchurch college which, according to my Classics teacher Mr Watson-Wemyss, is the most distinguished. (I was accepted and yet turned down the much-sought after place, firmly believing that my success or otherwise should rely on my character rather than the University I went to...). Somehow I had hoped to have a memorable experience in CHch itself, but after cup of coffee, a wander round the shops and a few hours in the Internet cafe, Nicki and I looked at each other and said "let's hit the road".

Driving back up for the ferry to the North Island, we stayed at Kaikoura where we took a bed and breakfast room overlooking a beautiful bay and got frightened by a huge dog staying in the room opposite us. We also saw an angel on a spoon in the clouds (look carefully at the picture... we weren't on drugs, really...)

Then onto Picton the following morning, and on the ferry we met Peter again, the Belgian guy we had made friends with on the Milford Sound Ferry. He was suffering because he needed to find a place to stay in Wellington and everything was booked - due to an AC/DC concert that night! Every single place was booked and people were renting out their spare rooms to accommodate the 35,000 people coming (the ferry was full of Rock T-Shirts and leather). Once through to the other side, we drove Peter to a tiny village 40 km outside of the capital where he found a B&B in a back street.

The next destination has been Napier and Gisborne, where we have faced the first bad weather for weeks. We're conscious that the winter has been bitter back at home so no complaints to have an almost totally rained-out day today, the first we've had since Boston back in late October.

So the washing is being done, blogs are getting written, books being read and plans for the future being made. We've found some great ideas for future businesses and directions after we get back and realise it will be "back to the real world" before we know it, so we savour the time and the joy of the ride every day.

Two Footnotes.

Here is a New Zealand Wood Pidgeon, as captured by Nicki - beautiful, isn't it?

And we just read that the air-lift out of Macchu Picchu has been completed, after terrible floods have resulted in serious problems. Tourists were stranded at the nearest town, Aguas Calientes, and the the main site will be closed for weeks, while the trainline from Ag Cal to Cusco needs months of repairs. This is a disaster for the local people who rely massively on tourism for their income and livelihood (don't forget that the majority of the country live on less than $2 per day). To my shock, the BBC have posted a news clip in the main story on their website showing how excited a couple of tourists were to have a helicopter flight (1300 people have been airlifted out at huge cost to the Peruvian tourist board). The real story is the hardship those local people will face and how long it will take to bring a beautiful wonder of the world back to full accessibility - not the "excitement" of the disaster. We were so lucky to be able to see it in November.

The Waitaki Valley and Akaroa

2010-01-27T01:12:00.007+01:00

After leaving Milford Sound, we headed through the countryside towards the East of the island, in the direction of Christchurch. The landscape continued to be beautiful, with clouds hugging the edges of the mountains, and at one stage the mountain peak shining in blue sky, with the rest veiled in mist.

Suddenly the scenery transformed into the huge and almost moon/desert looking Waitaki valley. Nicki took a couple of stunning pictures of the more barren hills and rougher fields, as we realised we have seen more variation of countryside in New Zealand than anywhere in the world. You drive through endless greenery and without concentrating you find yourself in what feels like a different country. It's an amazing experience.

That evening we stayed at a holiday park in a pretty little painted shed - big enough for a double bed and a little desk, communal showers and toilets nearby, 45 NZ Dollars (22GBP/24Euros). We don't know anywhere at home to stay for that price.

We wonder if we are ever going to meet a miserable and unfriendly person here. We just haven't found any - people have been happy, always saying hello, always asking about your travels, where you've come from, how you've enjoyed your time in New Zealand and giving recommendations for places to go. Bus drivers, petrol pump attendants and hotel owners have stunned us with their positive attitude.

The following day we headed on to Akaroa on the Banks peninsula. We stopped a few km away at a place called Duvauchelle, and we had noticed a number of French-sounding hotels and villages along the way. It turns out that the town was settled in the mid 1800's by a Frenchman who advertised free passage back in France to people who would come and take land to develop it. All through the beautiful little place by the water, you see places like "La Rochelle" motel and the "Bon-e-mail" Internet cafe. Strange to see this so far away from France!

On Monday we took the Skyline Walk, described in the leaflet as a trek requiring "moderate fitness". We've been caught out like this before - a New Zealand "moderate" is our idea of "high level of". The walk was quite uphill for a while, then really uphill, then bushy with grass at head-height uphill. Listening to Nicki's curses and noises, plus her moment of telling herself "just get through the bloody thing!" helped me get through too... She is always the pathfinder and never more so than now - it was hard! But after a few sweary moments when attacked by cacti near the summit, we were rewarded by stunning views of the bay when we reached the top, after 2 hours of solid slog. The rest of the journey was along and back down to the town along "The Stony Bay Road", a road with a lot of stones, and, well, a view of the bay...

There's a few days to go in New Zealand and we are now in Christchurch for a small fix of "busy"- the first time we've been to a city since Auckland - before we head back to the North Island for the last part of this leg of the trip.

An Overnight Cruise on Milford Sound

2010-01-25T05:26:00.011+01:00

We ran 3 times, made two big walks and a long bikeride by the time we left Wanaka, the countryside was so beautiful and everything in New Zealand is focused on making it easy for people to enjoy it.

Simple things like toilets (with paper and sinks, such small mercies...) in any time and along walkways, plus free parking and clearly marked tracks to follow for walking and biking have made it a joy to be outside. Even the bike-seats were gentle on our rear ends.

We left Wanaka and spent a night in Queenstown, a busy backpacker town by a lake with mountains in the background. It seems to be the centre of adrenalin sports (bungy jumping, sky diving etc) and we've come to a theory about why these are so popular in New Zealand. Life is just calm and easy, with few bumps along the way. Nature is so incredible and great places to visit abound, so at a certain moment there is a need for more. That's when the adrenalin stuff comes up and people feel the urge to jump hundreds of metres out of a plain or attached to a long rubbery rope. It's not a 'normal' thing to do!

I have to say that places like Queenstown leave me a bit cold. They are created on the back of the backpacker tourism and as such are busy in the evenings. The surrounding area is generally absolutely beautiful, but the towns themselves are very new with little character. In this country, the interest in and value of Nature and the great outdoors far outweighs that of the cities and towns.

We drove the 4 hour stunning journey to take the Milford Sound ferry, a world-renowned tour. We had chosen the overnight cruise thanks to advice from friends who had said that the place is teeming with boats during the day. Milford Sound itself is actually a fjord, a huge inlet carved by a glacier leading out to the sea. It has very high mountains surrounding it, including a waterfall that is higher than Niagara Falls in Canada (we were surprised by this because it didn't look that big, but we were assured this was an optical illusion caused by the great height of the mountains surrounding it.)

We were extremely lucky - it was cloudy for the whole of the drive there, and then at the last minutes before boarding the sun came out. This gave the water an unbelievable blue and a great contrast with the mountains.

One nice story - apparently there is one point on the mountains which is 700 metres high and a woman daredevil jumped from the top with a parachute. TV stations were alerted and interest was high as it was the first time this had been attempted. She jumped it, the 'chute came out just in time and she survived - unfortunately the camera crew had hit a technical hitch at the wrong moment and didn't get the shot. They asked her to do it again (some nerve!) but she calmly suggested they get stuffed, and the jump has never been done before or since.

The evening on the boat was made perfect by spending time with Peter, Dirck and Marijn from Belgium. We swapped travelling stories and drank bottle after bottle of red wine until well after the stars came out. They knew a lot about the stars and explained that most of what we could see now was impossible normally - mainly because we are looking at a different part of the universe, as well as the fact that the lack of artificial light made many stars more clear. It was a perfect, clear night and we loved it all.

The morning was windy and crisp as we finished off the cruise and nursed our hangovers on the way over towards Akaroa.

Insight into "the most beautiful place in the world"

2010-01-20T06:18:00.012+01:00

When I was at school, Geography was by far my worst subject. A combination of a slightly mad teacher, my basic lack of interest in incise meanders and the Aswan Dam, and a final-nail-in-the-coffin class on Sheep Farming in Holland ("when will I EVER need this in my future life?!?" I shouted to myself, angrily...) ensured that I was heading for failure at my O Level in the subject at 16 years old. The last report card before the exam bore the damning comment "until recently, he has been quite idle, but he has started doing some work."

My brother mentioned at Easter before the test "getting a lot of A grades doesn't count if you fail one". This spurred me to cram and revise more for Geography than any other subject, mostly out of stubbornness and a desire not to be defeated, and somehow I scraped a C grade to pass. However, I don't remember studying anything about New Zealand. Over the years I never really needed to know anything about the country and if I am honest, I didn't even know there were two islands here before this trip... But now that I am here and loving every minute of our trip, I felt it was time to get a bit of background about it. These few bits are picked up from Wikipedia.

New Zealand was first discovered by a Dutch explorer called Abel Tasman (one of the National Parks is named after him) in 1642, and despite leaving very quickly after some of his crew were killed by natives, he nevertheless gave the country its name - Zeeland is a province in Holland, so New Zealand means New Zeeland. He was the last European to get to the remote location for over 120 years, until Captain James Cook came in 1769.

At at time when French, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese were all colonising like hell, the Brits signed a treaty with the indigenous Maori in 1840, giving them some kind of claim to ownership of land. The capital was originally in Auckland, based in the centre of the North Island, but moved to Wellington in 1863. The city is almost in the centre of the two islands, and at the time there was a fear that the South Island would break away as an independent state.

New Zealand was the first nation in the world to grant women the right to vote, a sign of social advances to come. Although a part of the long-past British Empire in 1947, the country became politically independent from England long before. Amazingly, a large part of its economy from the 1890's was based on export of Dairy and meat products to Britain, so far away, thanks to the development of refrigerated shipping. (Nicki and I agreed that our first recollection of the name of this country came from advertising on TV for New Zealand Lamb).

One basic issue is the balance between the Maori rights and the incoming settlers. It was in 1859 that the number of Pakeha (non-Maori) settlers reached the same number as Maori - 60,000 each (there are 4 million people here now). Various treaties and agreements led to battles and wars over land. No need to go into the details - eventually the Maori were outnumbered, and the movement to respect historical land rights in the last 35 years has only marginally redressed the balance of injustice which dates back to that 1840 treaty.

In the two World Wars, New Zealand had huge numbers (in relation to population) involved and America had 400,000 troops based on the islands to prepare for attacks into Japan. The alliance with USA grew after WWII as the UK focused on Europe and joined the EEC in 1973, and the ANZUS alliance (between NZ, Australia and USA) went so far as to have NZ troops fighting in the Korean and Vietnam wars. But this treaty was brought to an end when the government refused to allow Nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed warships onto its territories, a major stand against America.

Indeed, New Zealand declared itself a Nuclear-Free Zone in 1987, and this is a symbol of its focus on the environment. Unlike Australia, nature here is incredibly benevolent, with very few predators (eg no snakes) and a huge number of birds that are found only on the two islands. We have been amazed at how clean everything is, how little litter there is and the high level of re-cycling and environmental messaging around. Tourism contributes around 9% of Gross Domestic Product, and yet all tourists seem to catch the "awareness of environment" bug. The beauty of the place forces you to think about how to preserve it.

The country's economy was severely hit in the 70's. Seeing the prosperity and orderliness here on our visit makes me really surprised to read that in 1982 it had the lowest per capita income of all the world's developed nations. Dramatic shifts and a daring approach to a free economy by successive governments since have helped create a much healthier basis - an example is that New Zealand was the first developed country to sign a free-trade agreement with China in 2008.

Today, New Zealand ranks highly in comparison charts with other countries on "human development, quality of life, life expectancy, literacy, public education, peace, prosperity, economic freedom, ease of doing business, lack of corruption, press freedom, and the protection of civil liberties and political rights. Its cities also consistently rank among the world's most liveable." (Wikipedia).

Add to all of this the incredible scenery and the relaxed friendliness of the people and you have what Nicki and I feel is the most beautiful place in the world.

Stunning scenery on the way to Wanaka

2010-01-18T19:23:00.010+01:00

Our travels through New Zealand continued on to Fox Glacier. This was much larger than Franz Josef and the huge valley was awash with tiny flecks of gold, a link to the goldrush days which also touched this country.

We started the day at Lake Matheson and for the first time since we arrived, there was almost a busy air about this gorgeous spot. As I've mentioned, the tourist places seem so uncrowded and here the car park was almost full for the first time. If this beautiful lake - surrounded by trees with the only sounds being birds and trickling water and the view of the mountains in the distance - was anywhere in Europe, it would be overflowing with visitors.

Our next destination was Wanaka, and we drove the 260km through mountains, past streams and through valleys in awe of what we were seeing. As we neared the town itself we drove for miles along Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, mouth open at jaw-droppingly stunning landscape.

Wanaka itself is a calm little town of 10,000 people settled at the edge of the lake, surrounded by hills and dramatic scenery. It's simply the most beautiful place I have ever been. The view from the little cabin we are staying in says it all.

As we arrived, we found part of the town blocked off for the Challenge Wanaka event - a triathlon where crazy, fit people swim 3.8km, cycle 180km and run a full 42km marathon. The winner did this in just under 9 hours! It seems this event is world renowned and we were so lucky to be there as the athletes finished the last leg, the running. One guy of 80 years old came in - he and two other guys had done a leg each and the others in his team were youngsters - just 72 and 72 years old... The whole thing was very inspiring.

Yesterday, we set off for the Roy's Peak walk, not fully understanding that it was a track that went directly upwards from the beginning. We walked uphill solidly for 75 minutes, wondering how hard it would be to get to the peak, when we met a couple coming down. "How far from the top are we?" I asked. "About half way" they answered. At that moment it started raining. Cue quick descent back down...

But the views on the way were worth every hard step.

Today is 19th January and we've been away now for nearly three months, with exactly two months left. For the first time, we've started to trun our minds seriously towards the future when we get back. But we try to focus on being here, now, and on all there will be to see on our way through Australia and back home via Hong Kong and Thailand, in this unique and lucky time of our lives.

A Fast Moving Glacier

2010-01-15T19:53:00.010+01:00

After leaving Nelson, we drove on to Lake Rotoiti, perhaps the most beautiful and peaceful place we have been so far.

It amazes me how such a lovely location – a huge blue lake, surrounded by mountains and greenery – can be so quiet. There were a dozen cars there, a few people swimming, a couple of boats skimming across the water and a few ducks terrorising the visitors for food. The atmosphere and air was so fresh and clear.

That evening we drove through – again – endlessly gorgeous views. Our car is of course not the quickest, added to which we wanted to take in the views. But we knew we were driving slowly when a huge logger truck overtook us.

Strangely, the town where a long river meets the sea was really ugly. Greymouth lives up to its name, one of the least inspiring river towns I can remember. It was, well... grey. The hostel was a funny place too – 60 NZ dollars (28 GBP/30 Euros) bought us what looked like a converted horsebox sitting outside, with a bed and a fridge and nothing more. As the wind came up unexpectedly, the whole thing shook and we wondered if we would still be in the same location the following morning.

Yesterday we drove onto Franz Josef, a town at the base of a glacier which was named after the Austrian Emperor after some Austrian dignitaries had visited it in the late 19th century. In case you don't know... a glacier is old, unmelted snow which gets bigger and bigger each time snow falls again. The pressure of each fall compacts it down and, like water, this pressure causes it to move. But it travels 100,000 times slower than a river.

Franz Josef glacier's edge has moved an incredible amount over the years and still can advance or retreat by around 5 metres per day. We stood at Peter's Pond and took some pictures of it in the distance, knowing that 10 years before that spot was covered in ice. Although it has advanced over the last few years too, seeing the massive reduction of ice in the valley gives a very real of the effect of global warming.

The walk up to the Glacier was very hard – rocky, steep and lots of loose rocks. We'd been told “don't worry about the sign telling you to go to stop unless you're experienced” but after an hour we saw two people coming the opposite direction. “Was it worth it?” Nicki asked. They looked at each other, shrugged and said things like “wasn't as good as we expected... very slippery... still a long way to go...”. That was enough for us – we turned around and sped back to the lookout spot for long-distance pics.

On the way to FJ, we picked up a hitch-hiking Canadian girl called Jamie. She had a huge amount of stuff but she said this had been no problem as she had never had to wait more than a few minutes for rides, mostly with locals. We found it amazing that this young girl was so comfortable to hitch-hike, something we would both hesitate to do back at home., But it seems in tune with this country – the atmosphere is of sharing, taking care of the environment and it's difficult to imagine that any harm would come to her here.

That evening, the sky turned into an amazing sunset and Nicki caught the beauty of it on her new camera.

Half Marathon walking in Abel Tasman

2010-01-13T21:11:00.005+01:00

The ferry to the South Island is around 3 hours and it's clear on arrival that the climate and scenery are very different to the North. Apparenty it's been raining all “summer” (the Kiwi summer is the opposite to a European, straddling Christmas) and the clouds are heavy when we get there. We drove 2 hours through endless lush greenery in landscape now made familiar by the Lord of the Rings films, made in this area.

We walked through vineyards around Nelson (meeting Kenny the huge black pig on the way), which apparently is one of the main wine regions in the country. We were susprised to hear that most of the vineyards have been going only since the early 90's, and although the climate is warm enough to produce great wines, it was not a focus of attention at all in the past.

Yesterday we did a marathon walk at the Abel Tasman National Park. It runs along the coast so the standard thing is to take a boat as far North as you like, walk back to another point and take a boat back. Unfortunately we got our timings and location wrong, bought a ticket for a boat in 45 minutes which we had to catch 20 mins drive away and 3 km walk away. After parking the car, we ran the 3 km up and down the tracks in the forest to Coquille bay, in boots and carrying daypacks,hoping to catch the boat. Somehow we managed to get there in time, but we knew we then had a 20km walk ahead of us.

The boat took us past beautiful bays of golden sand and, as always, few people. In England, this whole area would have been swamped! The combination of sea, sand, greenery and mountainous countryside is unique, I don't remember seeing it anywhere else.

As we stepped off the boat at Bark Bay, we knew it was going to be a hard “tramp” (the Kiwis call trekking Tramping) and headed off at a fast pace. The pathways in the park followed the coastline and the tropical greenery was constantly enveloping. It made me remeber the walks we did when I was growing up and my grandparents were living in Devon, as strangely much of the countryside has seemed similar to that area of England. It is more tropical here, but as we have traveled around, it has made me try to remember to appreciate the English countryside more when I get back to Europe.

We met a young guy from England, Mike, who had just graduated a few months ago. “The recession has killed most graduate jobs” he told us, “so I thought I'd do a bit of travelling and work out what I want to do with my life”. The temptation to give him all sorts of advice from being 20 years further down the line was huge. But when I was his age, I didn't listen to much advice from people like me no, so I kept quiet and we wished him luck. We've met a few travellers with his approach – you ask them “how long are you away?” and their answer is often “until the money runs out”.

The walk was amazingly beautiful. How do you describe continuously lovely greenery and coastline? And we marvelled at the pathways that are carefully maintained by the National Park.

After around 20 km, our feet started to hurt, but we pressed on and enjoyed the whole walk. That morning we had read about a journalist who is walking across the Canterbury Plains for 360km, and after the first day of 30km, his feet were shredded with blisters. Our boots have held up much better than that as Nicki hasn't had a single blister for the whole trip and mine have been few. Nevertheless, after covering 24km in total, we were glad to air our feet (luckily for Nicki, my boots came off outside – they smelled bad...)

Parasailing at Lake Taupo

2010-01-11T18:20:00.007+01:00

Taupo is an adrenalin junkie's dream, with all kinds of activities. We decided to skip all the Bungy Jumping and Sky Diving for now and make a gentle start with Para-sailing.

We were taken out by two very cool guys operating the boat, blaring The White Stripes and Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendrix from the boat speakers. We went along with a New Zealander mother and daughter, and two sisters from Oxford whose family had moved here two years ago. It was interesting to hear from them about their experiences here.

The New Zealand mother said that certainly there was an element of taking the beauty of their home-country for granted. However, she and her husband had decided “right, let's hire a camper and get away for two weeks” and headed out into the countryside. It seemed typical of the Kiwi attitude, they seem very go-ahead people and if there is an opportunity to get to the water, up in the air or falling down from it, they take it.

“Friendliness and time for you, nothing is too much bother” was the main thing the Oxford girls said about the New Zealand people. They had been here two years and got a shock on a recent visit home – “people were so rude!” they said. They loved the countryside and the locals, but the biggest things they missed from home were “shops and friends – I miss my friends so much!”.

We've talked about the utopia of living here, because it really is a paradise. But the girls' experience highlights the paradox. One reason this is a fantastic place to live is the remoteness and the small number of people here. But that remoteness makes it impossible to keep contact with your established life back home. Unless there was ever a strong reason to start again and leave everything behind (which neither of us have now), we can't imagine living here, largely because of the disconnection with family and friends. Nicki can visualise coming back here at a later stage of life to travel for 6 months because she's absolutely captivated by the scenery, the people and the relaxed atmosphere. For me, I find the same – but there is a lack of “edge” to give it contrast and put things into different lights. I think I would get complacent living here and miss the darker side of life.

The para-sailing itself was just great. They attach us side-by-side in harnesses to the parachute at the back of the boat, speed up and gradually feed a line out as you lift into the air. Rising up, suddenly everything is calm and quieter, as the sound of the boat and the waves drifts off below you. The view across the lake was fantastic and we got a great view of the coast where we'd both been running the day before (and seen around 20 black swans.) It was a lovely thing to do together.

After coming down, we drove south through the countryside and passed by the Ruapehu mountain, which we'd seen so clearly from a distance while up in the sky at Taupo. Looking at the snow-capped mountain close up was beautiful.

The evening finished with a hostel stay just north of Wellington in a lovely little place that reminded us both of our grandmother's homes. The coastline looked just like Devon and Cornwall in the South West of England - weird to feel so familiar, so far away from home.

Dolphins and Lakes in NZ

2010-01-10T08:32:00.008+01:00

Before we came to New Zealand, anybody who ever went there gave absolutely rave comments on the country, and we can easily see why. It is the the place we love most so far on this trip.

It baffles us how the country has managed to create such a comfortable and high quality life and not be overwhelmed with people. Paihia in the Bay of Islands is a tourist centre, yet the front and beach are beautiful. There are no skyscrapers, just nicely designed and built motels. It seems New Zealanders are very self-sufficient when it comes to eating on holiday and there are lots of self-contained unit-type accommodation, including kitchenettes with all materials for cooking. As a result, restaurants are quite limited and don't dominate the bay area at all. Simple things like free parking are a surprise for us both.

What really surprises us is that it is peak holiday season here. New Zealand children are on holiday so we expected it to be busy. I think the concept of “busy” is just different here – we've felt completely relaxed, never hurried and not at all crowded.

The beauty of the scenery was extended into the island area when we went on a dolphin-viewing trip. The water is a lovely blue, and we quickly came upon a small family of dolphins (they had promised free return tickets if we didn't spy any at all.) The guide explained that over 50% of these clever mammals who are taken into captivity die within 4-6 weeks. The reason, apparently, is that swimming in a limited area gives no stimulation for their sizeable brains and results in them losing the will to live – heartbreaking.

Afterwards, we headed around various islands. We realised the special thing about the coastline and the islands is the combination of green grass and trees and absolutely blue water. We expect that kind of water colour in the Mediterranean, together with a more rough and arid coastline. To see lush greenery in direct contrast with such a water colour is a real treat.

Onward to “The Hole In The Rock”. We had picked up a New Zealand book in Auckland and after opening it on a random page. Nicki had pointed to a gorgeous place and said “I want to go there”. This was indeed the eroded space through a rock-island which we were now heading through.

The people we have met from New Zealand all seem incredibly nice. We are sure this is not the case for all 4 million people, but it is incredible that people smile, they will happily talk to you as soon as you start a random conversation, and in general people seem very content. I was running along a footpath yesterday and a guy happily said “g'd morning – bit too bloody fit for me, mate!” (if only he knew the real truth...)

We drove to Taupo on Friday, a 500km drive through the North Island, giving us views of endless beautiful countryside. Our car is funny. We hired for the cheapest price possible and we have nicknamed it Dumpy, as it struggles up hills but gets us there finally. We are in the hands of our navigation system which we nicknamed Libby (short for “Liberty” - because we felt she gives us freedom to enjoy the ride.) Every now and again she gets it wrong, but generally it works well and we can always shut her off if she gets too directive...

Lake Taupo is 600km square and the crater of a huge, extinct volcano – apparently there is documentary evidence that one of the eruptions in the 181AD was seen worldwide, as it was double the size of the eruption of Vesuvius. The town itself was remote until the early 20th century and now is a backpacker town with so much going on. You can walk, para-sail, bungy jump, skydive, and even Zorb – a great big inflatable ball which you strap yourself inside and get rolled down a hill while you try to hold your lunch down.

Our hostel is excellent and has all facilities (which now for us means good shower and bathroom, comfortable bed, laundry facilities and a kitchen.) However, it was hilarious as the bar across the road had an open air stage and the band started just as we settled down for bed, around 10pm. It went on til 3am – it was incredibly LOUD! We could almost not hear each other talk in our own room. Nicki resorted to ear-plugs at around 1:30am, which miraculously worked. The worst part was that the band was really good, playing great song after great song, but we were just too tired to go and join the party. We brace ourselves for tonight's onslaught. My age is getting to me...

The walk we did today was just fantastic. We saw another stunning river with the cleanest water, plus countryside all the way that mixes familiar trees with the palm-type trees that remind of the tropical nature of the climate. We also saw a lot of locals swimming in the Thermal streams that ran into the river – we felt the water and it was really hot, even hotter than I would ever run a bath! All the people we saw were cycling, swimming, bungy jumping – it's becoming so clear that the standard life here in New Zealand is outside and active.

At the end of it, an amazing rush of water burst through a narrow area in the rock, the Huka Falls. All along, new met friendly people and saw gorgeous countryside, which it seems is going to be how it is for the rest of our time in New Zealand.

A New Paradise Found - Pahia, Bay of Islands, NZ

2010-01-08T06:26:00.001+01:00

In the last two days we've had a crash course in the incredible beauty of New Zealand. Firstly a walk in the countryside, followed by a cruise around the islands.

We are staying in Pahia, in the Bay of Islands, and yesterday set out for a walk along the Waitangi river to the Haruru falls. As we set out, we saw a sign explaining that the Kiwi is a bird that lived for a 1,000 years here without predators. They have no defence mechanisms or tools to fight when attacked and as such are easy to be eaten or killed by dogs - "so keep dogs on a lead". It seems to me incredibly appropriate that the symbol of New Zealand is so incredibly peaceful and unspoiled, like the people and the countryside.

We walked in the forest, surrounded by familiar and new sounds - for me, cicadas grating away is the sound of holiday (usually heard in Greece), and this was added to by the "popping" of the crickets. They use their wings to make 2-3 pops at a time in a rhythm and it was almost like being surrounded by lots of mini fireworks.

After a while, we came to a Mangrove swamp. Nicki and I have known the word "Mangrove" most of our lives but admitted to each other we had absolutely no idea what it meant. The trees have little mini-mango-like fruits and they grow in streams of water that are tidal. The roots take hold at low tide and grow under the water, also giving a base for various other plants.

Gradually, the path became even more tropical and an amazing number of varied trees and plants came into view. It really gave the feeling of being in a tropical area, even though the climate is in theory very similar to England. Certainly the palm-like trees give the flavour of the tropics.

I enjoyed walking through to the unspectacular waterfalls, just a few metres high. I have followed Nicki through walks in Maine, to Macchu Picchu, up a volcano on Easter Island and now in New Zealand. She always leads and I follow, taking up the position I always took when I went cycling with my brother as a kid.

After a while of talking about the scenery, we both fall into a period of quiet contemplation. My head fills with ideas and plans for my new company. My book is evolving nicely as I am working on a piece every 2 days, but I got the very good advice that I need a range of products. So I am working on a brand which could apply to a series of Travel Books, and maybe lots of other things too. The walk in the natural noise and beauty of the forest and mangroves became the ideal place to come up with some new ideas. Who knows, maybe I will look back on this walk as the place where my future working life was formed?

We regularly come across people who have moved here from England, and clearly it's a major subject. Strangely, many New Zealanders go for long travels or live in UK for long periods of time. But almost always they come back. A friend of Nicki's is from New Zealand and she asked him if he will ever go back. His answer was "wait until you see it and you'll know the answer to that question..." Looking back on it, I have met a lot of Aussies and Kiwis living in other countries, but without exception, they were in their 20's or 30's.

The wish to see the world is strong but the lure of their own beautiful country is stronger. We are beginning to learn why.

First Impressions, New Zealand

2010-01-07T06:10:00.004+01:00

(The pic on the left is the Sky Tower in Auckland)

We landed in New Zealand after losing a day. It was the weirdest feeling to take off at 10am on Saturday morning, fly for 5 hours and arrive at 3pm on Sunday afternoon. I'm not sure I will ever get my head round that.

Starting in Auckland, we have one month in New Zealand, and we were welcomed with friendly attitude even from the bus driver. For 7 weeks, we have been grappling with communication in Spanish and a bit of French, so when the helpful driver explained where we needed to get off and even modified his route to reduce our walk to the hostel, we were absolutely amazed. Air New Zealand advertise themselves as “Service – its a Kiwi thing” and so far that seems to be true.

Walking round Auckland gives you an odd feeling of familiarity as brands and shops are often similar to those in UK and America. It reminds me of USA because of the “block” layout of straight streets at right angles to each other. It's a small city with amazingly peaceful streets and limited traffic – then again, we are here in peak holiday time for New Zealanders. It is odd to think of Christmas and January as “Summer”, but to the people here, it's time to enjoy their beautiful countryside and get out of the city.

There are just 4 million people in the country and 1.2 million of those live in or around Auckland, and Diversity here is just a way of life. The people are from all parts of the world, with many Asians and Indians among the faces we have seen around the city. Its history is one of co-operation with Americans and Europeans initially, and later Asians, and the country is home to over 100 nationalities.

Hwever, these days the country is very careful about immigration. Nicki met an Australian who spends every second month here on a tourist visa and has been for years. He is 74 and has a girlfriend here (there's hope for us all yet...) but can't get a visa. “What have I got to offer? I am too old” he said.

Our drive was to get out of the city and start to see some of the countryside. New Zealand is made up of 2 Islands, North and South, and distances are not huge like Australia. It's 500km/300 miles from Auckland to Wellington and end to end, the country is like two times England+Scotland put together, and because it is quite narrow, there is a huge amount of coastline. The volcanic origins of the islands mean that mountains dominate the skyline and the coastline is fascinating, with many deltas and 100's of islands.

Trying to make a plan to see the place is tricky. We have been suggested maybe 50 places to see via The Lonely Planet book, maps and notes in the hostel we stayed, recommendations from friends who have visited or people we have met. Obviously it's impossible to do and see everything so we have made a rough plan to spend one third of our time on the North Island, two thirds on the South. Yesterday we took our hire car and headed North to the Bay of Islands.

As we drove, our first impressions were – what amazing, stunning countryside, almost impossibly beautiful. Green coast, gorgeoussandy beaches and dramatic coastline. We're staying in a self-contained cabin in Paihia, in the Bay of Islands and getting ready for a day of walking in the countryside.

The cost of a Tahitian Paradise

2010-01-04T00:40:00.007+01:00

We leave Tahiti after discovering it truly is a paradise, and that paradise comes at a price.

Arriving at Papeete airport is an experience in itself, with a Polynesian band playing local songs and flowers being handed out, giving the whole place a lovely scent. Incredibly warm too, as we arrived at midnight and it was still 28 degrees, and during the days it was 30-35 degrees and humid.

Our hotel was the 4-star Meridien – a bit different to our hostel experiences in Peru and Argentina... It is a beautiful set up with big air-conditioned rooms, our first proper bath since we left home, plants and trees everywhere, direct access to a lovely beach, and a unique sandy swimming pool.

The downside was the prices. We were totally shocked to find that breakfast was 27 Euros/24GBP – if we both had it, it would have been half the cost of the room! Internet was equally crazy – 9 Euros for one hour, 60 Euros for 72 hours. As we had not been able to upload pics and blogs for a while, I gritted my teeth and paid it.

We headed to the supermarket, a great big Carrefour nearby. Further shocks awaited as the cheapest bottle of wine was around 10 Euros, as was a 6-pack of local beer. Without relaising, we paid 5 Euros per kilo for apples. We considered buying Champagne for New Year's eve and gave up when we found the cheapest was around 45 Euros... But we stocked up with breakfast cereal, bread, cheese and fruit and managed to avoid breaking the bank over the few days. New Year's Eve fizz was replaced in with a shaken up can of beer!

We spent our time mainly by the pool and in the sea, enjoying a break from sight-seeing for these days. Probably there was more to do, but prices certainly encouraged us to make use of what was free – a fantastic environment, beautiful sea to swim in plus free goggles for snorkelling and free use of kayaks to explore the bay. The goggles gave us the chance to see the coral life that was just beneath the surface, unknown to us. While here we both finished fantastic books – The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold and Train to Trieste by... – recommended reading for anybody.

On New Year's Day, the hotel arranged a cocktail and we made the best of some free champagne. We got talking to the Hotel Manager, Dominic, who had been here in Tahiti for 10 years. We asked him how the local people managed to live, considering the high prices of everything. He said “people have a different lifestyle. They live from day to day and don't accumulate so much materially. The South Pacific Islands are rich with fruit – if you need to eat, pick a mango or something else hanging from a tree.”

He also explained about the nature of friendship here on Tahiti, highly affected by the distance from everywhere (22 hours flight from France and England, 11 hours from Los Angeles, 6 hours from New Zealand). “The distances are so huge, so if a foreigner comes here to stay for some years, when he leaves it is almost certain that he will never come again. You get very close with people in a short time – the island is small so you meet people 2-3 times per week instead of in Europe maybe 2-3 times per month. But when you leave, that's it, almost certainly you will not meet again. When that happens for the locals a few times, they become a little cautious with the next foreigner – do I want to invest myself in a new but temporary friendship? It can make things hard for foreigners here. But if you stay for a longer time, the connection is very strong.”

Nicki asked him if he would be here forever. He waved his hand in the direction of the sea, a beautiful sunset developing in the distance, and said with a smile “what do you think?” We saw his point.

One beautiful little incident happened while we were here, a wedding on the beach. A small area was sectioned off with branches and leaves from the Palm Trees and traditionally dressed dancers gathered. A small boat brought the bride and groom ashore from one of the sea-huts and in the early evening heat, the heavily dressed couple were treated to a band (the same one from the airport, we noticed – it's a small world in Tahiti...) and traditional polynesian dance. They looked a bit confused when asked to dance, the groom gamely shaking it in his dark suit with 4 brightly attired Tahitian girls and the bride laughing with nervous embarrassment as 4 hunky men gyrated enticingly around her.

It was a lovely moment, but we also felt a little sad for them – it sounds a lovely thing to do to get married on a beach in Tahiti, but the reality is the group of unknown people gathering around and snapping you with the tack-tack sound of an ping pong match played by non-romantics in the background. The cost of going all that way meant that they had no more than half a dozen friends at the ceremony. Somehow it seemed a bit empty.

Language has been interesting, as French is the local lingo. Despite both of us having a good background in French, the last 6 weeks of concentrating on learning Spanish had us mixing up French and Spanish in the same sentence. As we head to New Zealand, we are both conscious that this is the first time we will have been in a native English-speaking country for 7 weeks. We'll miss the challenge but probably welcome the ease of communication.

And so we move on to the next leg of the trip, back to Hostel world in Auckland for a couple of nights and to some more travel experiences in 2010.

Blog 101

2009-12-30T19:38:00.008+01:00

Since November 18th 2008, I have posted 100 pieces on my blog. This is Blog 101.

These days, I am spending more time looking forward than back, but as a turbulent year of change comes to a close, it seems wrong not to think back over these 100 pieces.

At that moment, when I posted the first piece, it felt that many things were sliding underneath my feet, as the trigger for setting up my blog was losing my job. The first pieces were all about that experience, for myself and friends. Looking back on it, I feel a clarity that I had been allowing my job to be my life, a clarity which was definitely missing for a number of years. My friend Yvonne said to me in the Summer, “I don't want to be defined by my job”, and certainly I was in danger of that. When the job was removed I felt a part of me was removed too. Instead what has taken its place is a willingness to look at life in a different way and look at what my values are through different experiences.

It doesn't mean I have any regrets. My life in Canon gave me the chance to experience diversity in ways I could not dream of back in my teens when I tried to imagine my future working life. From the moment I started working with people from different countries, I felt at home and suited to the environment, personally and professionally. The job led me to live in different countries and experience new cultures, languages and people first-hand. Those opportunities more than anything have shaped my character.

Nevertheless, I needed a trigger for a new start, a new development. If I am honest, probably I would never have willingly left Canon without the push, so for that I am personally grateful. It is a rare case to have the will to make a change hand in hand with a push from your company and the resources to make the jump. Every day I remind myself how lucky I am to have been able to take time off and review where my life is headed.

Many of my pieces over the last 14 months have focused on the change of job. But increasingly things have shifted, as they have for all my former work colleagues in Canon. Instead of mourning the loss, I found new spirit in thinking about new plans for the future and writing about my travel. Trips to America in April, Spain in May, Greece and East Europe in June and July and the whole tour with Nicki since October have given so much inspiration and new input.

It has meant that my directions and dreams have shifted since I set out my plans in this blog in early 2009, yet somehow have stayed on track.

The first dream and direction was to write a book about Amsterdam. While the work I am now writing will be very different to my planned novel, the book “49 Things You Might Want To Know About Amsterdam” (working title) will be published in 2010 – of this, I am absolutely certain. My love for the city, the research I have done and my will to write and create something unique will come together in this book.

Where the book will be published remains to be seen. Amsterdam? London? Buenos Aires? Auckland? All are possible.

The second dream was to go to Australia, and that dream has transformed into the most memorable experience of my life, thanks to this world tour with Nicki. Seeing such extremes of country and culture has been amazing. The madness of Venice Beach and the calm of Sonoma's wine valley. Peru's poverty in the countryside and dramatic history at Macchu Picchu. The buzz and creativity of Buenos Aires' San Telmo district and the calm and quaintness of Colonia Del Sacramento in Uruguay. And the all-happening life in New York contrasted to the calm beauty of Easter Island and Tahiti. What incredible luck to have seen all this! And still to come are all that New Zealand and Australia have to offer, and so the dream has taken on totally new wings.

The final part of the dream was to start my own Business Coaching company. I still intend to start a company but it will be a very different one. The company – DJB Pubs BV – will publish the first “49 Things” book. There is a whole plan developing in my mind for what to do to make this successful – to make it so much more than “just” a book and rather a way of life for me in the future – but this is still in process, so more on this another time.

Through it all, friends and family have been so supportive and understanding of these decisions not to simply move to London or hunt a new job immediately.

At the end of 2008, Sonny and I came up with the slogan for the new year. “2009 – The Time for Radical Change”. At the end of 2009, I want to keep the spirit of that with my wish for this New Year. 2010 – The Time for MORE Radical Change.

And the motto for the year will be;

“If they give you lined paper, write sideways”. (Juan Ramon Jimenez)

All the best for the New Year, thanks for reading my blog, and be assured that there is plenty to come on this site in the coming months.

Blog 100 - Easter Island, "The Farrest Place in the World"

2009-12-27T19:17:00.010+01:00

(This is my 100th Blog Entry!)

Since flying from Santiago in Chile, we have been spending some idyllic days on Easter Island.

Where is Easter Island? About 1900km from anywhere... a 5 hour flight West of Santiago and 1900 km East of tiny Pitcairn, to be precise. This makes it the most remote place on earth - or as one car sticker said, "Easter Island, The Farrest Place in the World". There are around 5000 people on the island now, but they all stem from 111 survivors of a Smallpox outbreak after colonists came to take over. The name of the Island comes from the date of its discovery by the Dutchman Roggeveen on Easter Sunday in 1722 (the Chilean name "Isla da Pascua" comes from the old Dutch naming "Paasch-Eyland", direct translation being Easter Island.)

It is an incredibly relaxed place. Hanga Roa is the main town where most of the hotels and restaurants are plus a "high street" with a some little supermarkets and half a dozen trucks selling a few fruit, veg and complete pigs. There is tourism, but it's not at all in your face and we have managed to hire bikes, take the full-island tour and see a Polynesian dancing show in the last few days. The water is a beautiful blue (in contrast to Uruguay's brown waters) and very rough as we both found out when trying to swim in a small bay - currents pull you all over the place, so we have repaired to the pool for the rest of our swimming.

Our bike ride was funny. We got excellent mountain bikes with seats that were made for speed, not comfort and after a few kilometres, the road switched from tarmac to dirt-track. First we had to negotiate some pretty huge waterlogged parts of the road and then had to handle the difficulty of sore bums as the road got rougher and rougher! But it was a beautiful way to see the island's simple, green landscape and animal life. We had it explained that there are 4000 horses on the island but almost no trees as at some stage in history, every tree was used up. This is one of the reasons the island is so limited in population - it simply has no resources.

The Island tour took us to see the Moai - those strange heads which are dotted over the island. Over the years, there have been various theories about their origins, and the beauty of it is that nobody really knows. The people of the island have an ancient written language which no-one can decipher, and because of the smallpox epidemic, it left nobody with the knowledge to pass on about the roigin of the Moai.

They are huge heads and torsos, standing around 8-10 metres tall. They were carved at a quarry and manoeuvred across the land into position on platforms which formed locations of tombs in later years. When finished and in place - and considering that they weighed incredible amounts, it's amazing they ever got them in place - the eyes were then placed giving the Moai the spirit or holy Mana. In one location there are 15 of them, looking seriously out to the land with chin up high and dignity oozing from their stance. It is understandable why the islanders would be in awe of these huge, imposing stones.

After some tourists tried to chip off pieces of some of the Moai, the island has become extremely careful to warn tourists to minimise their impact on the land and the stones. They are carved from 80% volcanic lava, not the most enduring, and therefore preserving them is a constant battle. They are also trying to restore many of the fallen Moai, as over the years many have either been pushed over by local warring factions (there was acivil war at some stage) or the platform has been eroded by weather. When they fall, they smash into various pieces and it takes huge work to restore, and the island doesn't have the money or resources to cope. As a result, they warn you on the plane with leaflets and movies, plus with signs all over the island not to touch the stones or walk over the platforms. Despite this, we were amazed to find people wilfully ignoring these warnings in the interests of the perfect photograph - absolutely unbelievable.

Ironically, the biggest enemy of the Moai now is the horse population. They rub up against the stones, of course not knowing the significance, and this is causing erosion too.

On Christmas day, we sat by the pool in 30 degree heat, swimming, reading and eating our makeshift Christmas dinner of bread rolls and cheese (stolen at breakfast), crackers and avocado, cheap sparkling wine, chocolate liqueurs we had bought at the airport and some Isla De Pascua Pan, a kind of local Christmas Bread. In the distance, the church bells alternated between Silent Night and Oh Come All Ye Faithful in perfect harmony, giving us some real Christmas feeling. In the evening we sat and had dinner looking out onto the sea - a very different day to any christmas either of us had ever experienced.

Boxing day, and we walked the 20km round trip to the volcano which has been the source of Easter Island's existence. It is a stunning place, a huge crater with all kinds of greenery and plants growing in it now. We walked around Orongo, the tiny village that existed at the island's tip and marvelled at our luck to be able to see such places. In the evening, my luck ran out - we went to the Kari Kari dancing show (all drums and shaking muscled bodies) and when the section for bringing people from the audience to join in came, I was picked out for the last dance. My horror was complete as my top was whipped off and my t-shirt-tan (very brown arms, lily-white torso) was revealed to all. The glare caused some serious damage for those without sunglasses...

It's been a paradise-like stay and we are so incredibly lucky to be leaving here and flying on to 6 nights in Tahiti.

Colonia to Easter Island

2009-12-24T00:18:00.002+01:00

(sorry, web-connection here too slow to upload pics...)

After 2 weeks of sunshine we were surprised to get a muggy, rainy day in Colonia del Sacramento on our last day in Uruguay. We sheltered in our nice airco'd hotel room and checked the Facebook posts, describing a different surprise of the imminent White Christmas back home in Holland and England.

One last day in Argentina took us to San Telmo once more, our favourite part when we in Buenos Aires before, and I went to find the writer of the little book “Tango – The Truth” which I had bought a week ago. Since then, inspired by seeing somebody's ambition turning into reality in such a concrete way, I have been writing most days and feel much clearer about how my dream of having a book published may come true. I've got a plan and a subject which is much less unwieldy than my first idea and I can see to the end of the project now.

Sally Roddy, the writer, is Irish and it was an odd thing to stand there in a Buenos Aires street, an Irish woman and an English guy, talking about books written or to be written about Argentina and Amsterdam. Now “all” I have to do is get on and get the pieces written. For the first time, I truly know I can do it.

We went on to Santiago after a 4am wake up call – not great after a few buckets of white wine the night before. We loved Buenos Aires and celebrated that a little too much, and I got carried away with the street drum band's beat, ending up dancing along with the procession as well as having a few bangs on the bongos (which they kindly let me do when they had a rest...)

As we arrived in Chile, the Lonely Planet South America book told us that it was the first South American country to be considered “1st World”. It's economy and infrastructure is more developed than all others, it said and we could see as we arrived. Nice-looking housing estates, well-kept roads and a city centre that was bustling with people in endless shops made it clear that this is a different level of living standard than Peru (where a significant percentage of population are still living on just a few dollars a day), Argentina and Uruguay.

The shopping culture is incredible – it was a Monday afternoon and the places were heaving. Perfume counters were fortified with an army of presenters, ready to squirt any fragrance at will. Other staff manned microphones and yelled out promotions to the masses – shopping in Santiago is clearly an interactive process. Equally, it was odd to buy anything. You decide what you want, go to the end of the shop, pay for it, then go back to the counter and pick it up. It seems this is part of a drive which I've seen in Uruguay too, to force traders to present customers with a clearly itemised receipt, something we take for granted in the west.

We felt quite drained after the shopping experience and looked at the map for interesting places to go. Seeing a river on the map gave us the idea to head there – most capital cities have rivers and do something nice with them, so we thought it may be a relaxing place to have a drink and a rest. We were wrong. The river was brown and slushy, flowing through a channel carving through the city, untended and lined with rubbish. It was probably the most ugly river either of us had ever seen!

An early night followed a fruitless attempt to get Facebook to upload pictures (why do things work perfectly with computers and then suddenly just not?!?) and we started up at 6am again. We are on the way to Easter Island and are intrigued to find out what lies ahead for us. It's an incredible piece of luck to be able to do this trip and feels almost surreal that we are now on this leg of the trip after 3 weeks in USA and 5 weeks in South America.

Uruguay's coast

2009-12-19T16:41:00.005+01:00

We drove across country towards Montevideo on an amazing straight road.

Here we saw that people are living a simple life, but the basics are there. Small homes are surrounded by space, with plants and trees. The rickety TV aerials on houses even down side-streets suggest that electricity is widely available. The road conditions were great and the surroundings very calm and attractive.

Coming out of Colonia, we were in an amazing avenue of Palm Trees – we'd never seen a road like it and reminded ourselves how lucky we are to be able to do this.

We've been bitten like hell in the last days. Bizarrely, one night in Buenos Aires Nicki got around 20 bites overnight while I had got none. But the balance has been re-dressed in Colonia, where the mosquitoes have been rampant. A good strong spray called OFF (and the second word was “off” as we scratched in agony...) was bought a little too late and when on our way to Montevideo, we stopped off at a riverside spot to have lunch – big mistake! Those mossies had been on steroids, they attacked us immediately and each of us got an extra half dozen serious bites in seconds before we scooted back to the car.

The water has been odd in Uruguay so far. It seems that we are by the sea, but the River Del Plate between Argentina and Uruguay doesn't stop until Punta Del Este, 300 km round the coast. It means the water is brown instead of blue. The same was the case in Montevideo, which had miles of carefully pedestrianised walkways all round the coast and beach – so strange to see brown water by a seaside city.

Montevideo itself, Uruguay's capital, was quite uninspiring and our main task there was to get our clothes posted home to lighten the load of rucksacks. Then we drove onto Punta Del Este, which seems to be the Riviera of Uruguay. It is a fantastic peninsula with fancy apartments and high rise blocks without being a mess of shabby tourism. The beaches – sunny, sandy and very windy! – were immaculately kept, and the lack of “beach-business” was a big surprise. No food stands, no café's or hotels overlooking the beach directly, no amusement arcades or shops selling all kinds of beach stuff. Our guess is that it's the place where Uruguayans (and Portenos from Buenos Aires), buy holiday and weekend apartments. It's more like a “home from home” place than a tourist centre.

We were lucky to leave on 19th December – our hotel's prices went from 45 dollars per night to 110 Dollars on the 21st. The peak “summer” season goes on until February and then dies, a waiter told us. In general we have been surprised by the prices in Uruguay because they've been much higher than Argentina, but we have been only in tourist spots so it's hard to compare accurately.

After a couple of relaxed and happy days in Punta, sunbathing (maybe a little too much...) and enjoying the warm breeze, we're back in Colonia for one night. Our flight schedules changed so we have a night here, Sunday night in Buenos Aires, Monday night in Santiago (Chile) and reach Easter Island for our Christmas stay on Tuesday.

A Traveller's Experience - Posting Clothes Home from Uruguay

2009-12-18T18:04:00.001+01:00

This is a genuine description of what it has been like to try to send clothes home from Uruguay.

We are on to the warm-weather part of the trip now, so we decided it was time to post home some of our heavy load and make way for a few extras we might buy along the way. With two carrier bags of stuff ready, Nicki went to the Post Office.

The first post office said she could not send them from there, so she went to another one. There, she was informed that because we were sending used clothes, we had to get a certificate in Montevideo (the capital) to be able to send them.

So we went to the main post office at Montevideo the next day -unfortunately they were closing so yet another day later, we went to the address Nicki had been given.

When we arrived and explained in Nicki's best Spanish what we needed, a man explained that we had to get our clothes checked before we could send them. He took us to a back-office with a group of guys hanging around in blue work-clothes, clearly part of the Uruguayan civil-service (they seemed to be hanging around doing nothing most of the time). Eduardo was introduced to us, and he sullenly sorted through our clothes and noted each item as their friendly dog nibbled away at my toes. He weighed the clothes and took us to another part of the block.

There, he opened a door, laid the clothes out and explained that he was going to fumigate them. Nicki looked a little perturbed by this and asked if they would smell bad (her sense of smell is like Jip in Doctor Dolittle). He re-assured us not, sent us back to the first man, and he walked us to another office.

He explained that we needed to pay 65 Pesos (2 Euros) to have a document to be able to send the clothes. We paid it and returned to the office. Our friendly man sent us to Eduardo who met us with a smile as the dog took a couple of bites at my leg this time. I found it hilarious that a place that seemed to have been designated to sanitise clothing for export had a street-dog wandering around and spreading whatever germs he had on him.

Eduardo opened the fumigation room and then put on a gas-mask (really). He entered the room, bagged up our stuff and carried it back to his little office. He stamped each of our documents and said "nada mas" - nothing more to do. Wow! After a number of hours, many offices, various payments and forms and about a dozen people being involved, we were ready to send our clothes back! All we had to do was go to the post office and send them. We were assured we could send them from any post office with this important documentation

This morning, I went round the corner to the very helpful ladies in Punta Del Este. I explained that we had these documents and could we send the package from here. Amazingly, she said "why do you need those documents? I didn't know about that..."

I forced a smile, paid the 1000 pesos (35 Euros) to send them home, walked away and hoped like hell the damn things would get there!

From Argentina to Uruguay

2009-12-16T21:07:00.013+01:00

A change of plan saw us shift from flying Buenos Aires to Patagonia (crazy money) to getting a boat across the River del Plate to Colonia in Uruguay. On our last night before leaving, though, we went on our final quest for Tango and a new district in Buenos Aires.

Since arriving, we have read books, been told about and been in search of Tango, but in vain. In theory, there are lots of "tanguerias" (places where locals go to dance) in San Telmo where we were staying, but despite asking Taxi drivers, restaurant owners and the Hostel staff, nobody seemed to know where they were. Our Hostel staff (bear in mind the Hostel is called "Tango City"...) professed to know nothing about Tango, looked up a few things on the Internet and sent us to a place called El Arranque.

This was a faintly charming but mostly bad recommendation - like a working man's club for Tango. The place was very old-fashioned, with huge fans keeping the dancefloor cool and an audience which left us the youngest in the place by around 15 years. Watching the dancers propping each other up was not the hot smooch we had expected to see.

One last throw of the Tango dice - La Boca, an area that has a rough reputation except for a small pocket of colourful streets with dancing shows. And yes, we finally found it there! The first street show we saw was charming in its shabbiness as the dancers wore worn out dresses and shoes and skidded across the roughly carpeted little stage in front of the cafe tables. The loveliest part was the enthusiasm they showed when, at the end, some of the audience asked for photographs. A lady in her 50's, clearly enamoured by one 20-something beau, was whisked up to the stage in a gale of giggles. The dancer thrust her leg across his, put on his best macho-tango-look and the moment was captured perfectly to make her day.

A second show just down the road was far more professional and smart. A lead singer, immaculately dressed in suit, pocket handkerchief and cufflinks, crooned alluringly in front of a classic Shure microphone. The music was provided by a bass and a bandoneon, the classic accordion-like instrument known as "the heart of Tango". The dancers in stylish black suit for the man and ed dress for the woman gave us a taste of the passion that is behind the dance.

We also found La Boca a bit more tuned into getting their money's worth from tourists. One great aspect for travellers in Buenos Aires is that tourism is very low-key. In La Boca, they know how to get you - such as charging 3 Euros for a small pot of olives and 3-times the standard rate for glasses of wine. Fair enough - it's a poor area with a rough history and reputation and it was the only time we felt we had been exploited a little as tourists.

The following morning, we took the very swish BuqueBus, a boat that whizzed us across the water in an hour to Colonia Del Sacramento. This turned out to be perhaps our best stop yet.

Colonia is a small town surrounded by sea which has kept an incredible amount of charm from past days. Buildings are old, side-street roads and squares are cobbled haphazardly, ancient classic cars are dotted around the town (including one with a tree growing out of it) and most of all, the atmosphere is just charming. It's a bizarre feeling to be in a town in mid-December, sitting by the sea and looking along the beach at palm-trees.

Christmas is going to be a strange thing - we have no real sense of it being a week away, despite the small attempts by locals to have little christmas trees and flashing lights. It seems incongruous in 30 degrees of bright sunshine.

In the evening, the town suddenly transformed for a short period. A drum band was walking through the town with a small following, and this co-incided with a parade of cars hooting and full of shouting football fans in blue shirts, plus replica cups attached to the top of vans - surely the locally supported team had won the league or cup today?

The commotion lasted an hour or so - Uruguayans are like all South Americans and like to celebrate, but it seems in Colonia, it's done in a more sobre way...

We spent a couple of lovely days in the town, including perhaps the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life. Then on Tuesday, it was on to Montevideo, Uruguay's capital.

Football Argentina style

2009-12-13T18:22:00.003+01:00

(This whole piece is unashamedly about football - skip it if you don't like the game...:-)

One of my ambitions for coming to Argentina was to see a football match.

In the past, River Plate and Racing Club were two strong teams, but both have fallen on hard times. I got a ticket to see these two play a derby of basically fading giants, and the football itself was unremarkable. I was even surprised at the low quality – like the 2nd division in UK. But the atmosphere was amazing.

The stadium was less than two thirds full, but at each end there was a section of River and Racing fans who made incredible noise through the whole game. I have been to games in England and Holland where the crowd wait until the team does something before cheering or shouting in support. Not so in Argentina. From ages before the starting whistle to long after the final moment, there were drums, shouting, clapping and chanting. I took a couple of movies just to capture the amazing noise.

A man next to us summed it all up. He wore his River Plate shirt and as soon as the game, his poor girlfriend ceased to exist, just like the rest of the world apart from his immediate focus of the game, the players and most of all the referee. He chanted, shouted and swore at every single move made, for better or for worse. My Spanish is not great, but I have picked up a few words – the phrase “Tu Madre” can be used in various offensive ways and he shouted it in different forms at everything that moved. When the referee made a mistake, he and various other fans around shouted what I can only politely explain as “return to the womb of your mother!” (this is a heavily watered-down translation of the reality of his sentiment...)

I did feel sorry for his girlfriend as she seemed to utter a silent prayer when River scored their 2 goals. God only knows what happens when his team lose, as they frequently have done this year.

The game is very different to England in many ways. There were cheap food places all over the stadium, selling burgers, hot dogs and coke for a Euro each (forget being a vegetarian in an Argentinian football stadium - the aroma of frying cheap meat is all-pervasive). I felt that the average person could afford to go to a game here, with tickets at around 6-8 Euros for standing in the upper parts of the stadium. In England, it is an incredibly expensive experience – at least 30 pounds just to get in and a burger would be 6-7 times that of the place I went last night. Seats are probably much more comfortable in UK – these at River Plate's stadium felt like park benches – but for a 2-hour period it's enough. It felt like football is still very much the “common man's sport” here in Argentina.

All around the city, I have seen posters which look like those for a local election in politics. In fact, they were promoting Daniel Passarella as the new Presidente of River Plate football club, and he was voted in last Sunday. He is a familiar figure to me because in 1978, I watched my first World Cup in full. Argentina won and Passarella was a central defender who oozed class and authority and had an unhurried way of dealing with every situation, just the coolest player you could ever imagine. One poster said “Grandes Crises, Grandes Hombres” - for a big crisis you need a big man. I find it fascinating that Argentina trust personality so much.

In the English Premier League, a club needs an Arabic or Russian investor to come and throw 200m at the club to make a difference. Here, just having a man with Passarella's reputation and re-assuring presence is enough. I saw him at the stadium, a small thrill to be close to a World Cup Winning Captain.

Likewise for the National team. Maradona is the coach, and he is absolutely idolised here, to the extent that his image is on many posters with phrases like “Thank God for Diego”, "God Exists" and other similar deifying messages. Since all kinds of drug and personal problems, a resurgent Maradona became the coach of the National Team, despite the fact that his few attempts to coach clubs had failed dismally. It would be like putting Beckham in charge of England in 10 years time, assuming he had no coaching experience, had snorted various crazy amounts of cocaine, broken up with Posh and lost all his money, physique and charm. This is pretty much what Maradona has done, and yet he is such an icon of hope and past success in this country that the risk was taken to put him in place. In the last year, his team (featuring Lionel Messi, the world's best player) lost 6-1 to Bolivia, considered a national humiliation. Argentina qualified for the World Cup finals with a last minute winner in their last qualifier. The hand of God saved his reputation for now, let's see how his team fare in the summer.

I also once saw Maradona, 5 years ago at Lisbon airport on the way to the Euro 2004 final. He seemed small, petulant and lonely. Why on earth give such a character such a huge responsibility? Reality is that most football players come from a poor background where only their ability to kick a ball elevates them to media stars. Yet media is all about communication and these guys have no skills in this. Beckham has shone over the years because he has honed his ability in front of the microphone.

Personally, I find Beckham a magnetic person who has learned genuine humility and for all his superstardom, he never quite forgets that he is an East London lad from humble origins (just my opinion...) The difference is that Maradona has not lived his life like Becks. Our David's response to problems on the football pitch has always been to train harder, work harder at what he does best - run around and kick a ball.

When Beckham announced mid-season that he was moving to USA, he lost his place in the Real Madrid side. His coach at the time, Fabio Capello (now England Manager) said "you will never play for Real Madrid again", because he doubted his player's commitment. Instead of crying or complaining, Beckham said the manager had the last word, and he trained. Harder and harder. He forced his way into the team again and finally won the league with Real. When faced with losing his place in the England team, Becks came back from USA and trained - hard - with AC MIlan. Now as England coach, Capello, picks him regularly. It's all a case of attitude.

I read an article recently by an Italian defender, Franco Baresi, who played against Maradona many times. He was asked "how did you stop him? Just kick him?" Baresi answered "you simply had 2-3 players on him. 1-on-1, you always lost to him. He was unstoppable." Maradona had the talent that no-one else had, abilities Beckham could only dream of.

In 1994, overweight and out of form, Maradona went to the World Cup and out-performed himself. But true fans (including me) had their hearts broken when it turned out that his performances were amphetamine-fuelled and he was sent home in disgrace from the World Cup. He wasn't prepared to do the world that his talent deserved. And since then, his life has gone from disaster to disaster until a couple of years ago, when he seemed to get clean. The power of reputation and personality seems to have carried him through here in Argentina, and the hopes of many fans (and their girlfriends) rest on his shoulders.

The religion of Argentina is catholic, followed closely by football.

Buenos Aires and it's Districts

2009-12-11T18:47:00.010+01:00

Yesterday we walked through the main districts of Buenos Aires in boiling heat, and I finished it in the cauldron of a football Derby between two big BA clubs.

We left our local San Telmo district, where we've spent a lot of time hanging around the nice shops, bars and antique stores. It's a quite run-down area with broken paving stones, graffiti and charming roughness, but this is only one aspect of the city.

Taking the long walk through to the more fashionable Recoleta area gives a sense of the change in the city. For the first time, we see boutique shops, nail-polish parlours and more stylish eateries. The streets are smartly paved, the area is cleaner, more people are more smartly dressed (though suits are a rarity) and prices are definitely higher. Recoleta is the place where the cemetery housing Juan and Eva Peron is based and it's an altogether posher location. As we walked on, we found the embassies, and comparing San Telmo and Recoleta it was like comparing London's Lambeth and Notting Hill. An ambassador's life is clearly comfortable in leafy streets with plenty of security.

On to Old Palermo, which seems to be the mid-market – things are just nice, ordinary shops, standard restaurants and carefully kept cobbled streets. These three districts of Buenos Aires are so different and we realised we had walked around this city as much as we had ever taken such walks through London. Amazing how the desire to experience a city's gradations of difference is bigger when it's not your own.

One strange thing is to be in a hot city with sunshine and blue sky, with shops covered in Christmas decorations. The brain gets confused - our idea of a Christmas scene is of course cold, snow and indoor cosiness. When you see "Feliz Novidad" (happy christmas) while sweating away in the streets of a hot city, your mind does a constant double-take.

Once again, we have had mixed experiences with accommodation here. To be fair, it is incredibly cheap - we paid almost the same for 6 nights in this hostel as we did for a night in New York. But we are staying on the 6th floor in a tiny room with an OK bed, a window that doesn't close and an air-conditioning unit that infrequently chucks out cold air and a noise that makes you feel you are sleeping inside a fridge. At 6 am, the buses in the street start screeching around, and despite being so high up it sounds as if they are in the next room. So sleeping any length is a challenge, but it's amazing how a tired body can rise to such a challenge!

Next we decided to head over the water to Uruguay and see Montevideo, the capital, as well as the beach at Punte Del Este - and stay in a nicer place! A new country after a great time in Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires and Literary Inspiration

2009-12-10T01:48:00.005+01:00

We left Peru on Monday and landed in Buenos Aires – what a great city! Immediately we have felt at home and fascinated by the place.

So far we've wandered around and just taken in its charm. Buenos Aires has large, wide streets and busy shopping centres, like any large capital, and has lots of interesting suburbs too. We are staying near San Telmo, which we heard is the centre of the Tango culture in Buenos Aires, and found it is also a centre of art, antiques and music. The back-streets remind you of Paris and the whole area is quite untouched. It's dirty, messy and run-down, and oozing with charm.

At the little market around Dorrego square, we were drawn in by real local-made goods. Many of the market-people had a genuine story about what they were selling – I was given a full 5-minute explanation of the benefits of each of a stand full of wallets, not having realised before there could be so much difference – and Nicki was beguiled by a Ukrainian woman who had great bag-technology. Her story was impossible to ignore and she easily captured our 50 pesos (7 GBP/8 Euros) for her beautifully hand-made bag.

As for me, I was taken in by a writer. The book that caught my attention is called “Tango – The Truth” by Sally Roddy. She had been doing Latin American studies in England and came to Buenos Aires to finish her thesis, fell in love with the city and the story of Tango, and stayed.

Her book says that the history of Tango and the city are interlinked, and she tells something of the story of both in her self-published story, which I read over lunch sitting on the square and drinking Quilmes beer. My knowledge of Argentinian history is almost non-existent and the book helped fill in some important stuff.

We have been wondering why the locals look so incredibly different to Peruvians – much lighter, despite a similar climate. Sally explained that this is because there was huge immigration in the 1800's and early 1900's, as the Argentinian government looked to America as a leading light. Argentina was second only to USA in the levels of immigration in this period, and they had hoped to capture all types of people from across Europe, with offices set up in Wales and Ireland as well as on mainland Europe (which explains why there is a Welsh community in Patagonia.). However, the majority of immigrants were from Italy and Spain, and almost 90% were men. This led to a heightening of an already macho culture and a big development of brothels as well as much more competition for the attentions of women.

Tango is a form of music and dance which is much more structured and formal than Salsa. It's a cool, surly looking form of movement and incredibly macho. It seems to me to be designed for the man to show supremacy and the female to demonstrate submissiveness, an out of date concept at odds with Tango's increasing popularity. Surprisingly, there have been periods when it has been suppressed by governments or song-titles have had to be toned down during the 20th century, when Argentina went through a series of military coups, interrupted by Juan Peron in the middle of the century. Tango's origins in the brothels and bars gave it an edgy side in lyrics and sound, the sort of thing oppressive governments are always against.

What I hadn't realised was how recently there had been military rule here. From 1976-1983, there was the “Dirty War” when 1000's of people were killed or disappeared – of course, it was during this time that the Argentinian government decided in late 1981 to play the Nationalist card and claim the Falkland Islands back. Apparently support for the government lasted a week until it became clear that Maggie Thatcher was no wallflower and was ready to fight back. After the loss of that war (described by Marquez as “two bald men fighting over a comb”) the government fell within a year. Today I saw a poster claiming that veterans of the war 27 years ago had been forgotten with no recompense. That period is still something remembered by the people here, although I have felt not one second of animosity towards us as English people.

In the periods when Tango was repressed in Argentina, its reputation grew outside – in Paris in the early 1900's, it was the dance. Since 1983, it has experienced a re-resurgence in Argentina and beyond.

This book, with its evocative photos, solid silky cover and excellently researched text has been an inspiration for me. Sally found something about the city that helped her express her love for the city, its people and its history. I guess that's what I have been searching for regarding Amsterdam. She published the book herself and its presentation is so attractive (who wouldn't want to explore a little red book titled “Tango – the Truth” in Buenos Aires?) and has caught my imagination.

Who knows – maybe coming to Buenos Aires may be the ultimate inspiration to make my dream of a book become reality.

The Hellish Ride to Heavenly Arequipa

2009-12-04T21:46:00.011+01:00

Yesterday was what we could honestly call a "Traveller's Experience". We went through a rough ride to be rewarded with a real gem of a Peruvian town.

After paying $45 each for our tourist bus tickets to Puno, we took a local bus for $7 for a similar length journey to Arequipa. We paid the 1 sol (20 pence/25 Euro cents) tax we headed for our bus, and the first thing that struck me about it was the bullet hole in the windscreen. The second was the smell - it was heavy... Strangely, we were almost the only ones on when as it left the bus-station 15 minutes early - until it became clear that, to avoid the tax, the bus allowed people on round the corner. As we drove out of Puno, the door of the bus was open and one of the crew shouted “Arequipa!” to passers-by. A couple of people waved, the bus stopped, let them on and carried on down the road.

The bus half- filled up with locals, carrying anything from boxes of goods to a dead bird in a plastic bag. We settled down into seats at the front with the panoramic view - maybe that was why we had paid 20 soles and locals, I realised, were paying only 10... Fair enough, it was very cheap for us. Unfortunately the panoramic view was partly obscured by the big cracks in the glass on one side of the glass frontage of the bus.

We drove on for an hour and came to Juliaca - and I can only describe it as a hellish experience. The city is rife with illegal trading, due to proximity to the Bolivian border where goods are cheaper. As a result, the bus filled completely with people piling on boxes of cheap coffee and cooking oil. The roads were a complete chaos, and women kept coming onto the bus selling ice cream, bread and "Chucarron" in a plastic bag - a meat and vegetable mix which had been rustled up in a pan just outside the bus in the dusty street. At one stage while we were waiting, a smell of pure sewage filled the air and Nicki and I were left to breathe through her scarf to survive.

Thankfully, the most eventful aspects of the remaining 6 hours journey were incredibly fearless driving as our bus leaned over when careering round tight bends, and an engine that conked out a couple of times. A guy reached down into the bowels of the engine, visible from my seat, and seemed to wiggle some important piece of engineering. This seemed to restore the bus's ability to be put into gear, and all was well again.

As time went on, we were treated to stunning views across the mountains and lakes. There were no towns for over 200km from Juliaca to Arequipa, and we reached our highest altitude yet, 4800m above sea level. The landscape became almost desert-like at times and habitants were no more than a few farm workers and dogs chasing everything that moved. Finally as the trip came to an end, we descended fast for the last hour or so and came to the outskirts of Arequipa - I want to focus on the positive, but one comment about the outskirts - it was another shock to us to see what seemed like townships of tiny mud-houses being built in wave after wave across the hillside.

Then we came to the centre of Arequipa - what a beautiful place! It is known as the "White City" as many of the buildings are made from a very strong white stone. The main square is absolutely charming, food is great everywhere with juice bars, nice restaurants and attractive little alleyways all over. Our bed and breakfast room is pretty huge, just a few steps away from the main square. The city is overshadowed by the dormant volcano, “El Misti”, as well as some other beautiful mountains. Arriving here yesterday in warm sunshine was like finding an oasis.

Today we had a fantastic slow wander around the Monasterio de Santa Catalina and I can honestly say it was one of the best sight-seeing experiences I have ever had. The monastery has been preserved and restored since the 1970's and has endless little streets and hidden alcoves where the nuns used to live, pray and cook. Recent colouring of terra-cotta and light blue gave the whole place a real charm, and the peace and solitude of the place is a great contrast with the bustling verve of the city. The squares and plants dotted all around the place made it so attractive.

We are nearly at the end of our 3 weeks in Peru, and we can say we have had mixed experiences. But the beauty of Cuzco, and now Arequipa, are things we will never forget.

The Journey to Puno

2009-12-02T17:58:00.005+01:00

Unfortunately I couldn't upload any pics to this blog with the Internet connection we had - sorry!

After a couple of days recovery from the Inca Trail, we left Cuzco and took the bus to Puno on Tuesday. The last evening in Cuzco was lovely, as our favourite San Blas square looked beautiful in the evening light.

The journey to Puno was an experience of contradictions. We had a very comfortable bus for the 10 hour trip, which included a couple of stops at Inca sites and a lunch buffet on the way, and yet the main new thing we saw was how hard it is for the people in the countryside. There were beautiful long landscapes and mountains rising up, yet many settlements along the way had half-finished houses built of mud with no roof. There were middle-aged women chasing after cows and sheep in the fields, and in the small villages we came to, the main street was always quite decrepit and worn out. The sight of an ancient woman begging is something I won't forget quickly.

I didn't take many pictures - it seemed intrusive and rude to do so - but again we were surprised at how insensitive some people could be, snapping away at beggars or street sellers in traditional clothing. It seemed ghoulish and disrespectful to us.

Along the way, we had a scare when it was announced that the locals in one town had put on a strike and blocked the road because they wanted the government to complete a road from their town to another key city. The guide told us "the Peruvian government normally takes notice if such things happen." We were set for a 3-4 hour wait in the bus, but just as we arrived at the queue of trucks and tourist buses, the road was opened again. We drove past the poor crowd of people on the side of the road, again conscious of the contrast between our luxury and their relative poverty.

And yet, we see that the poverty is indeed relative. The street sellers are not malnutritioned - generally the opposite. The towns are brimming with Internet café's, print shops and places to add credit for mobile phones. Our impression is that the basics of food and shelter are relatively easily found but the lack is in terms of infrastructure. This became apparent as we arrived in Puno.

The reason we had come to Puno was because it is on the edge of Lake Titicaca. We had both known the name of that lake since we could remember, but were not sure why. In fact, it's one of the highest navigable lakes in the world, at 3800m above sea level. So we had expected a quite nice town ready to receive the inevitable tourists who would want the same as us. But we were quite shocked when the bus came into the city.

It seems a real mess, with roads in bad shape, houses simply thrown into place with no real plan, everything brown, almost no nice buildings at all. As we have walked around today, we tried to find some nice places in the city of 200,000 people, but almost completely failed. There are a couple of attractive squares, but the market is a total chaos, muddy and smelly (although the vegetables and other good looked very fresh) and the harbour area is the only saving grace. There has been some attempt to make the riverside a nice place to walk along, but unfortunately in places the smell from the dry bank with various rubbish gives a bad odour to the expensive walkway, leaving it almost deserted. The centre itself is really a non-place.

Altitude has continued to be a problem. 500 metres higher than Cuzco, I have often had to stop in the street and concentrate on breathing. After 2 weeks of similar experiences, we are looking forward to heading to Arequipa tomorrow, at a much lower level. Luckily, we didn't suffer as the two Aussie travellers we met last night. They explained how they both raced up one of the main mountains at Macchu Picchu and then simultaneously threw up as they reached the peak! Nevertheless, it is draining and we have felt lacking in energy ever since we came to such high altitude.

The saving grace is our hotel room. After our bad experiences in Cuzco, we have now decided to be a bit more careful with where we stay and a decent bed, non-smelling sheets and towels and hot water are our main requisites. Here in the Camino Real, we have all of these plus very friendly hotel staff, at a price of 22 Euros (20 GBP) per night.

We made the best of it and enjoyed the sunshine, drank wine and listened to music in a nice bar and sat in our hotel room watching freshly downloaded movies "Lost Boys" and "Dead Poets Society" on my little 9-inch screen laptop. On to Arequipa now, in hope of a more enjoyable time and more breath in what should be a nice city.

Rewards on Day 4 of the Inca Trail

2009-12-01T17:24:00.000+01:00

Finally, we were rewarded for our efforts in the first 3 days of regular rain. The sun came out on the crucial morning, when we went to see the sacred site of Macchu Picchu.

We awoke at 3:45, and after yet another fantastic breakfast, we set off on the last hike towards our destination. A clear day was all we had hoped for and we got it - thank goodness! The 2 hour trek from the camp to the site was slowed when we faced the eiger-like Inca stairs after an hour or so. This was as steep as anywhere on the whole 4 days - agony for our tired limbs, but we ploughed ever upwards. Certainly this was a continuous test of will to reach the goal. Once again, the group of people gave each other encouragement to keep going.

Suddenly we got our first view of Macchu Picchu in the distance and it was stunning. It made the whole trek, with all the trials of weather, altitude and long grinding uphill walking, absolutely worthwhile.

After the final descent down into the actual site, I realised how it was a masterpiece of preservation and openness. It is amazing how well-kept the walls, ruins and terraces are and an absolute privelege to be able to walk through the ruins.

The story is that this site was never discovered by the Spanish. When they came and conmquered in 1533, the Incas showed them many things but kept Macchu Picchu (meaning "Old Peak") hidden away. An American called Hiram Bingham discovered it in 1911. He had been told to look in this area by a local and found 3 farmers living on the land. He set off back to America to get sponsorship for excavation and renovation of the site, and got it from, among others, Yale University. National Geographic devoted an entire issue to the place in 1913, and its fame has been growing ever since.

Many treasures and artifacts were discovered by Bingham and his workers in the coming years. However, due to the sponsorship from Yale, all the artifacts were taken back to the USA and are on display there. Around 6-7 years ago, an agreement was made with George W Bush to return these items back to Peru, but Yale stepped in, claiming the investment they made in the first place was the reason Macchu Picchu is famous at all. It is a sad situation and is an ongoing discussion between Peru and USA.

We took group photos and had a 2 hour explanation from Percy about various aspects of the site. One thing that sticks in my mind is that probably there were a million people at work to build the site over a 30-year period. (To read more about Macchu Picchu, click here.) The strange thing about the Inca civilisation is that they developed no written language, so the knowledge about their times and especially Macchu Picchu are often assumptions and speculation. This makes it an even more fascinating time and people to explore further.

Finally, our bodies gave out. It is amazing how psychological physical capability is - as soon as we knew the trek was over, even walking up 20 steps became almost impossible. We were utterly exhasuted by the trials of the last few days, but we had all made it over the summits and down the descents. After a thorough view of the site, we headed into the nearby town, Aguas Calientes, for lunch. The afternoon was whiled away as the rain poured down with beer, jokes and card games and finally we took the train home, during which Nicki talked for an hour in Spanish to two Argentinian tourists - very impressive.

It was an amazing experience - great people, fantastic service from the porters and our guide, amazing hard work on the trek and a sunshine filled goal of the glorious Macchu Picchu.

Steep stairs, An Offering and Misty Mountains - Day Three on the Inca Trail

2009-12-01T16:41:00.000+01:00

Day 3 started with Percy describing once more the terrain. He said ¨it´s a bit steep to start off with, but the steps are small¨. What we found was that he is a master of understatement and adjustment of the truth.

We trekked up and up and up, over small steps – what Percy had forgotten to mention was the steps were small as in narrow – the height was definitely not small! I found it incredibly hard, struggling for breath due both to the gradient of the stairs and the high altitude. Despite our descent yesterday evening, we were now back up to 3,900 metres above sea level. The small compensation for the hard work of getting up the steps was knowing that these were original Inca stones, unlike the earlier days where they were restored by the government in the 1970's.

Percy had told us that at the top, we would make an offering of Coca Leaves and a stone each. Coca leaves are a special plant for Peru and are recommended in tea or to chew as a prevention of altitude sickness since they contain many different beneficial nutrients. As we gathered round a large rock, Percy explained that this was an offering in honour of the Inca Religion, and that we may have different religions, but ath this moment, we should have respect for the Inca beliefs. This trail, he went on, was created by the Inca´s as a sacred path towards Macchu Picchu, to be in touch with the elements and face the challenge that they brought with them. He said to us ¨you have left your limitations behind¨. I loved that phrase.

We each took three Coca leaves and quietly laid them under our stone, making a wish as Percy had advised. It was a great moment of the trek.

The next part was just bloody hard work. We walked on to our lunch-stop in mist and rain, and the day went on with frustration as we realised we were missing fantastic views due to the banks of cloud. We tried to concentrate on what we could see and after lunch, we walked through a jungle-like stretch, with heavy vegetation and moss surrounding the path, with a merciful respite of rain. But as we reached the 3rd and last major summit, cloudbanks obscuring the view, rain and wind pushed our patience as far as it could go. I remember thinking ¨is this meant to be fun?¨

The afternoon gave us some reward. After along descent, finally the sun shone a little. Nicki and I walked together behind the rest of the group and enjoyed the gradual revelation that there was a view to be seen behind the clouds. Suddenly, we were at an ideal height - clouds were above us and below us in the valley but there was a window of a view inbetween as the stunning Peru countryside opened out again for us. We sat and had a mini-picnic - water and cereal bars - and considered that at least we were lucky to see this.

An incentive to get to the final camp was the holy grail-like promise of a hot shower. The hygiene had been grim since we left Cuzco with the few toilet facilities being almost unusable and no showers at all. We smelt of trek, tent and dry rain, so we hurried down the last descent to get clean again.

That evening, a cake was brought in (where did they get it from?) congratulating us on completing the trek so far. All that was left now was the 3:45 start in the morning and the 2 hour stretch to our destination, Macchu Picchu.

Time for a challenge - Day 2 of the Inca Trail

2009-11-30T13:04:00.000+01:00

It´s one month since we left for our world tour. It feels like we have done so much already, but these 2 days have been like a definition of why we would do such a trip.

Last night we slept comfortably in our tent – warmer than sleeping in our hostel. At 5am, birds and cockerels awake us and after breakfast and packing up, we steeled ourselves for the ¨challenge day.¨

The walk started upwards in cool weather and a good feeling from the bond growing amongst the group. After our guide Percy had explained the day ahead of us – in short, hard and steep – we knew we would need each other´s support to get us through the day.

And what a day. We walked up steep mountains constantly for the first 4 hours. The terrain and valleys between the mountains was beautiful – but I have few pictures of the first part of the day because at times it was just a matter of getting one foot in front of the other.

We followed the porters who of course know the most efficient methods up the paths. The trail is quite wide in places with a lot of steps and the porters always took the smallest upward part of each step and walked on slopes at the side to minimise energy loss and impact on knees and ankles. We took their lead.

Nicki and I took a steady speed and as the others stopped for a rest after an hour, we pressed on feeling that we had hit our pace. The sticks we had bought proved extremely helpful, at times I was leaning heavily on them to get the next step up, and as the path came out of jungle-like surroundings after another hour we took a rest with the whole group. Resting places were populated with wise old women from the local area selling water and Gatorade, and they were shrewd business people. A large bottle of water in Cuzco costs 3 Soles (2 Euros/ 1.80 GBP) but on the first day, it reached 8 soles, here it was up to 10. The higher the walk, the higher the price...

We headed up for the last stretch towards the summit, on the exposed side of the mountain. That´s when the rain came in, and for the first time I started to feel the effects of the altitude. Breath was hard to catch and we struggled along in all-covering poncho´s. Percy had warned us that the last 20 minutes up to the summit would be heavy – he was not joking. As Nicki described it, ¨I knew all the way that I could make it to the top but there were moments when I wished I wasn´t doing it at all!¨.

Two of our group who were ahead of us waited at the summit, despite cold wind and rain. They shouted encouragement to us as we hit the last gruelling steps – incredibly steep, rain pouring hard – and Nicki and I made it to the top, together.

The only pity was the lack of a view – the clouds obscured all – but we consoled ourselves that we had done it, trekked 4200m high and didn´t need any sunny pics to prove it.

And then the descent – in some ways as hard as the ascent. The rock steps were slippery and steep, so we took our time to get to the bottom. 15 mins from camp, the rain came in hard again and didn´t stop for 3 hours as people arrived one by one. Despite the difference across the group in fitness and experience of hiking, everybody made it through the ¨challenge¨ day.

Embarrassingly, the porters clap each person as they reach the camp. These guys, who climb over the same terrain with back-breaking loads, arrive in advance to prepare our tents and food – they clap us. Clearly it should be the other way round. ¨Porter-lore¨ holds stories that the record for covering the Inca Trail´s 28 miles stands at 3 hours 45 mins. We take 4 days. Incredible! Apparently some professional runners tied the same some years ago and their best was 6 hours. The porters are just amazing.

As a group, we shared stories in the communal tent as each of us arrived - what was the hardest part, at what moment we might have wanted to give up, and what it was like to reach the summit. We get closer and closer as we share this experience.

And I´m so happy that Nicki and I reached the top together. We have different paces at different times (she´s usually quicker than me) but we got to that high point together and made the full descent together.

Now it´s 5pm and I write this with an incredible view. The campsite is cut off from the sun but in the distance we can see the mountains inbetween wispy clouds. Every now and again, the cloud comes up the vally and obscures the view, then it ebbs again to give a new aspect to the stunning view.

Macchu Picchu & The Inca Trail - Day One

2009-11-29T17:16:00.009+01:00

We have had enough of our hostel. Leaking roof, leaking sink flooding the bathroom, bits of roof falling on top of us, plus cold showers - yes, it´s ¨all part of the experience¨ but this is too much! We´re even looking forward to camping on the Inca Trail, it will be better than the Mirador Del Inca hostel...

The Inca Trail is a 4-day, 3-night hike of 28 miles, through valleys and over mountains to the sacred Inca site of Macchu Picchu. the Inca empire is fascinating. lasting just 330 years from around 1200 to 1533 when the Spanish conquered them. They developed unique technologies in building and even astronomy, and gained all kinds of knowledge from co-operation with other countries. (To read more about the Inca´s, click here.)

This is the major reason we came to Peru so we´ve been looking forward to it since we left. We´d been told that the first day is ¨easy¨, the second day a ¨challenge¨, the third day hard but easier than the 2nd, and the 4th day would be an easy saunter down to see Macchu Picchu. We spent a lot of time preparing and ensuring we had all the right gear and back-up clothes and medication.

They also warned us of the altitude - on the second day we would reach 4200m (13,000ft) above sea level. We´ve been struggling for breath at 3300m in Cuzco, so we´re prepared with a lot of water, snacks and altitude sickness tablets just in case.

Our day started with being picked up at 5:30am and we took the bus through the hills to Ollantaytambo where we bought sticks from the locals to make walking easier. On to the start of the trek where we gave part of our stuff to the porters. These guys carry 3 x 6kg of tourists´ belongings plus around 5kg of their own stuff and as the tour unfolded we all became utterly amazed at the abilities of these porters, some of whom looked no heavier than 50kg. Carrying at least half their body weight, they run across the stones in flip flops - making a mockery of our boots and tiny backpacks holding a few bits and pieces. More on the porters later.

We set off on the trail, stopping regularly to take in the scenery. It is true to call the first day ¨easy¨, because we walked on the flat or on gentle upward slopes. But what I realise is that the Inca Trail is not about the walk. Gradually, the 15 person geoup of tourists starts to interact and we learn that people came from New York, Chicago, Washington, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Belgium, England, Scotland and Brazil. This was anything from a 7-10 day trip to part of a larger world tour for different people. As we walked along at different paces, we got talking to different people and as the trek developed, we became a tight-knit group, supporting each other and enjoying the journey together.

Our guide is Percy, a wiry, happy guy who gives us great explanations of the Inca sites and draws diagrams to explain with his stick into the gravel. He spent 6 years studying to be a tour guide (¨it normaly takes 5 years,¨ he said with a smile, ¨but sometimes the professors go on strike...¨) I said that it seemed a great job to do and he waved his arms in the direction of the fantastic valley around us at that moment and said ¨welcome to my office¨.

The countryside, very simply, is stunning. I have never been anywhere like this. Huge, lush green mountains, rushing rivers and beautiful valleys with air that is so incredibly fresh (especially appreciated after the Cuzco smog!) The sheer size of some of the mountains is daunting, knowing that we will scale some of them. We catch a glimpse of a snow-capped mountain in the distance, but sadly these sights (which the Incas considered Gods) are rare nowadays, due to Global Warming. As the years go by, there is less and less of the sacred snow to be seen on the way to Macchu Picchu.

The Inca Trail and Macchu Picchu are in protected land - you have to sign up for the tour months in advance as only 200 tourists per day are allowed on the trek to minimise erosion to the paths. We are priveleged to be able to do this.

Amazingly, the Peruvian crew of 22 porters and 1 chef rustle up Avocado salad,pasta soup and fish and vegetable for lunch. Unbelievable that they do this in the middle of nowhere.

The trekking is indeed relatively easy but we prepare oursleves mentally for the second day. We sit together with the group, sharing travel stories and jokes, as the crew prepare our dinner.

A Journey Through The Sacred Valley

2009-11-26T20:09:00.003+01:00

We decided to get out of the city and take a tour through the Sacred Valley. These are parts of the historical sites of the Incas.

We piled into a comfortable minibus for around 30 people, and our enthusiastic guide Leo embarked on a great commentary on the sites we were to see. Clearly he is proud of the history as he told us passionately of the first principles of the Inca people – No Lazy People, No Liars, No Thieves. The Incas only lasted for 40 years and just 12 men led the people. It is seen by the people as a kind of “Golden Age” and Leo compared the most famous Inca leader, Pachacutec (“He who unites the world”) with Alexander the Great.

The journey took us through incredible mountains and valleys all day. The size of the landscape, and so high up, is amazing. Cuzco is 3,300 m above sea level and we travelled up to 3,700 m above during the tour. Incredibly, the land on the hills and mountains is often cultivated. One major impression of the life in the countryside was simply hard agricultural work – an old man pushing a bike-trolley with flat tyres, another old man carrying a bundle of materials on his back walking from what seemed nowhere to nowhere, many people coming back off the fields in the evenings. No wonder people come to the city offering cheap gifts and paintings to the tourists.

We also stopped regularly at toilet or tourist spots with stands and locals offering handmade gifts and woollen jumpers and hats. The most successful salespeople were the young kids in traditional costume, holding onto a Llama. They charged 2 sols per picture (around 60 Euro cents/50 english pence) and the tourists lapped it up. We also realised that we were one of literally 100's of similar tours, seeing bus after bus at different roadside spots.

The first real stop was to walk along the mountain-side and see the Inca ruins of Pizac. We have been surprised to find Guinea-Pig on the menu of many restaurants (around 3 times the price of a lamb or beef dish) and here we heard that many Guinea Pig remains had been found on the huge step-terraces of the Inca town, as it seems they were bred and used for fertilising the ground, as well as eaten as a delicacy. The Incas delighted in making their cities or sculpting their terraces in the shape of sacred animals and the whole area of Pisac is shaped like a Condor, a bird considered to be the messenger of the sun.

Walking for just some minutes at a time at such altitude was a good little practice for the Inca Trail. We both struggled with shortness of breath for the first few minutes but got into our stride and adapted to the reduced level of oxygen pretty well. We know the trail itself will be a test but we are looking forward to it.

The other major stop we made was to Ollantaytambo, again a hugely stepped town with a great terraced area overshadowing the city. This time the stepped areas and the town are made in the shape of a Llama, another odd delicacy often found on the menu in Cuzco. The myth here is that Ollantay was great fighter. In return for his efforts, the ruler Pachacutec said he could have anything. Ollantay, having fallen for the daughter of the ruler, asked for her hand in marriage. The ruler was incensed – no common man could marry his daughter, no matter how good a soldier he was! – and refused. Ollantay started a rebellion but was crushed easily and had to retreat to this city – hence the name of the town, Ollantaytambo, is translated as “Ollantay's refuge”.

Driving was an experience the whole day. The roads were often populated by tuctuc-like contraptions (Nicki described them as “a motorbike carrying a wendyhouse) as well as tourist buses and a few cars. Our fearless driver thought nothing of overtaking 50 metres before a blind bend. I closed my eyes and assumed he was still alive because he knew what he was doing.

Our day ended with an amazing drive across beautiful countryside to Chinceras, another beautiful town this time with a great church at its top. Clear messages said all over the church “no photos” – we were amazed at how brazen people were to ignore repeated requests not to break this rule. All around, locals offered goods again – a hand-made jumper for 10 soles, around 2.3 Euros/ 2 pounds, incredible.

Leo's emotional and excitedexplanation of the Inca history gave an image of a golden age of perfect people. On the other hand, we felt some contradictions, such as the sacrifice of humans – young girls, to be exact – to the Sun whenever phenomena such as famines or drought ocurred. He also claimed the Inca's were huge people, and there is apparently a picture of a 7' 2” (2.18m) tall descendent of the Inca's, taken in 1929. But all the real locals we have seen have been much smaller than average European heights... It seems Leo is a master of the romantic notion of all things past being better than now.

Our feeling about the day was mixed. We had enjoyed seeing the Inca sites, but observing the people and the way they live in the countryside feels almost voyeuristic. We both felt something a bit distasteful about “rich” people like us (at least in comparison to the locals) gawping from the comfort of minibuses at the struggles and toils of the country people. The tourism element is intrusive, but we are able to see these things because of tourism and development of the life in the countryside is possible thanks to the constant push of goods by the street-sellers. We have no right to complain and I follow Nicki's idea which is to look the people in the eye, smile and say politely “no gracias”. At least if we don't want to buy, we can be polite in our rejection.

Now we take a couple of days to prepare for the Inca Trail. It's 4 days and 3 nights of trekking across the mountains, camping in tents, taking the elements as they come and taking in some amazing scenery.

Life in Cuzco, Peru

2009-11-24T19:36:00.009+01:00

We finished our Spanish Classes and now can proudly (albeit a bit grammatically inaccurately) ask for most things and make ourselves understood in small conversations with the locals. 3 days, 6 hours per day study was intensive but worth it.

As we look around us in these few days in Cuzco, we see a life that seems to be several decades behind western countries in terms of material life and infrastructure. We see it in our hostel now. It's clear that furniture and fixtures were once good – cash was somehow cobbled together to buy them – but when something has broken, money hasn't been spent replace or fix it. Any available cash seems to have been spent on “luxuries” like a TV, fridge, computer or washing machine. These are ancient too – the fridge is at least 30 years old – there is a sticker on it for The Police album, “Ghost in the machine”, released in 1981... The TV is an old Philips thing with a dial to tune the channels and sliders for brightness and contrast controls. The result is a house that looks about 70 years out of date with a few modern items time-transported in around 20-30 years ago.

Our room has a few eccentricities. A bathroom with a leaking sink (we took a further step toward becoming real travellers, cutting a water bottle to catch the worst of it in a makeshift bucket.). The ceiling also leaked a little when the rain was heavy and a few crumbs of ceiling plaster came with the water.

Electricity is a luxury too. Our room has some sockets, none of which work. In our schoolroom, the electricity connection you see in the picture is not an uncommon site.

As I was writing the above sentences, the following happened – really. A large chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Nicki's head but scratching her side as she was sitting next to me on the bed as I wrote. Most of the plaster landed directly on the laptop which miraculously works fine after a good brush off. We showed the owners the plaster-covered bed and chunk of bare ceiling. They casually apologised, mentioned how hard the rain falls and that they had another room. We've just moved all our stuff there. We are both OK, but were quite shaken for a few minutes until we could laugh it off as “all part of the experience...”

After spending the whole week indoors, on Saturday we wanted to get out and took a walk up the hill directly behind our hostel. A breathless stagger up the steep steps gave up breathtaking views across the city as well as a glimpse of how the people are living – in a very simple way with very few amenities. It also confirmed that houses are being made of mud and plaster (maybe wattle and daub as we would know it?). Ceilings, as we saw clearly by recent experience, are made of reeds and plaster. It is a work-intensive, low cost way of building houses, and clearly the income from tourism is one of the ways that people in the hills are able to have some basics – electricity and a bit of warmth, plus a mostly-dry roof over their head.

Another interesting little insight into the way things are done was seen today. We have made friends with an Argentinian guy, Adrian – a very interesting guy who has played semi-professional Rugby and is a journalist. He's opened a small shop and café in our favourite square, San Blas, and he explained that the other morning a couple of Brits staying in a hostel above him had woken to find a drill coming through the wall – which is 1.2 metres thick. The owners of the next-door building are illegally building a hotel and are just going ahead with the work without any planning permission. When quizzed on this work, the contractors said it was a “mistake” (drilling 1.2 metres through a wall, a mistake...?) The next incident came when next-door's owner announced to our friend that he is knocking one wall down. As we sat drinking coffee, a posse of officials from the city and local law firms came to look at the wall and debate the rights and wrongs. It seems much bribing has been done to avoid planning permission, but still they have claims against them for all kinds of misdemeanours during the work. The outcome is not yet known, but Adrian seemed confident that right would prevail.

The city itself is beautiful in the main tourist centres, but with the major downside of traffic-pollution. We hadn't really noticed it too much until it had not rained for a whole day (it rains every day for 8-9 months in Cuzco and we are in that period...). We walked through the city centre and could barely breathe oxygen. There are not so many cars – mainly tiny Daewoo's – but the concept of a catylisator is clearly a thing of the distant future. I sit here now in a café on a balcony, and just the fumes from one minibus are very noticeable. We walked through the streets after dark and could see very visibly in the car headlights the ever-present fumes we had been breathing in.

I read this back and it sounds like a negative picture, but that's certainly not our experience. Cuzco and the surroundings are absolutely beautiful, food has been very good and inexpensive (a good meal for two with a couple of caipirinhas each costs around 15-20 Euros max.) and the atmosphere in the city is very much alive. The picture here shows the day we saw an incredible rainbow, arcing over the church in the main square.

The people have been incredibly friendly, hopefully helped by our enthusiastic attempts at speaking Spanish.

First impressions of Cuzco, Peru

2009-11-21T13:54:00.003+01:00

Flying from Los Angeles to Lima was an 8-hour journey on a great plane – loads of legroom, plenty of great movies with personal screen in economy class. I guess we will get to appreciate such things as time goes on.

One odd moment was when we realised we should have got money before going through security. Nicki went back through the exit and I sat at the gate hoping for no problems for her to exit, get the cash and go back through security. It was the first time we have been really separated for the last 3 weeks.

We arrived in Lima and went to the Airport hotel on clear roads. The following morning we returned for the flight to Cuzco in full roads – absolute chaos! No concept of “lanes”, every bit of traffic battled with everyone. And that's just at the airport...

Our first impressions of Cuzco on landing are like this. High altitude – short breath all the time (Lima was at sea level, Cuzco is 3300m above sea level!). Chaos – roads are a mess and clearly not made for cars, too narrow for a car and a person to walk down, maybe designed for people and Horse/carts? Cheap – we paid a max of $2.75 for a bottle of water in S.F., here it's 30c, and a full dinner is 15 euros, it was at least 40 in S.F.

It's also a beautiful, fantastic place, a city of 300,000 people based in a valley surrounded by mountains. The buildings are so old and full of character, relatively unspoilt, I have never been to a place like it. You see a number of sun-hardened, small Inca people offering various crafts and self-made goods, clearly having walked from the hills down to the city to make some money. The gap between the westerners and their lifestyle, and the original people of the area is incredible and a little disturbing.

In the city centre, every 50 metres you are offered “massage” (“are there so many people with tired limbs”, I naively ask myself...) and goods and tours are pushed on every corner. It is a pity because it is bothersome, but then, tourism is why we are here, and why shouldn't the locals get the most out of it?

We have tried to find small places with some locals to have dinner, and have found our small smattering of Spanish to be a big help in the little terracotta-walled “restaurants” a few steps down off the little side streets that we have eaten in. Cheap and well prepared food, friendly smiling service and cosy atmosphere is at a big contrast with the bigger places near the main square, with prices the same as in Europe and restaurant design to make you feel you could be anywhere.

We started our Spanish classes on Wednesday, in San Blas Spanish School. It is an experience to go to a school with cold, tiny little classrooms and creaking doors, a building site at the back and no real facilities, plus a non-flushing toilet with a vat of water and a bucket to compensate. I can remember some people at my last job complaining about work environment – I hope I remember how these teachers are working wherever I work in the future. And of course, this is the relatively rich side of education, classes paid for by foreigners. What on earth would state-run schools be like?

Small insights into the life here – like walls made of plaster covering earth-bricks, with strands of grass poking out – make you realise that life is simply hard work for the locals here.

We are incredibly privileged to be able to come here as a tourist for pure enjoyment. It's a fascinating place.

Wine Country Walking and Coastal Highway Driving

2009-11-18T01:42:00.007+01:00

(halfway through this blog, pictures stopped uploading. More pics on Facebook, email me if you are not a member of facebook and I can send you the link to the pics.)

With just 3 full days left in USA, we awoke again to stunning sunshine and set off for a walk through Sonoma valley in California's wine country (Napa is more famous, but our bible “Lonely Planet” book said “if you only have time to visit one, visit Sonoma”). Again, we found people so friendly – every time we have asked directions, people asked us where we are from, how we like California and what our next plans are. I don't remember that happening much in our own countries.

Walking in the valley, we headed towards the hills and found ourselves surrounded by vineyards turning a beautiful, unexpected auburn. I had no idea that vines would change colour in Autumn.
The strongest impression I've had of this part of the world is how pretty and ordered it is. The people are happy and calm, in no hurry, they live in a place where the weather is great (20 degrees plus in mid-November?), houses are lovely, and there's space and time. I can imagine it's a great place to live if you are a placid and even-tempered person (and rich). For me, what's missing is the contrast – there seems no “edge”, no rough side to make you appreciate living in such a place. I would become complacent living here. Only one thing gave us a different view – the sign warning “Absolutely NO Trespassing. Violators will be shot.”...

The following day, we headed out towards the Pacific Coastal Highway, driving along the coast from Santa Cruz towards Los Angeles. Blue sky all the way, easy open road, and we stopped at lovely villages by the sea. Especially Capitola was cute with multicoloured little cottages by the beach, and from its pier we saw a sea-otter floating on its back and chomping away at a starfish.

Heading South and stopping off in Monterey, we drove up a slope on the highway and viewed a different world ahead. The green hills and mountains of the Los Padres National Forest stretched out in front of us and we spent 3 hours driving with endless stunning views of cliffs and sea on one side and beautiful landscape on the other. It's a famous drive for good reason, and seeing the Autumn sun setting across the views was incredible.

As soon as it got dark, we stopped at the Gorda Springs motel, with a view over the ocean. No phone signal, let alone Internet connection – a remote spot indeed. The next morning started with a great run along the warm coast and we later sat on a picnic blanket on the cliff, looking out to the deep ocean, reflecting on how lucky we've been to enjoy this time in America.

As we carried along the coast, the scenery in bright sunlight was again incredible. We'd been advised to look out for the Elephant Seal viewing spot and it was amazing to see over a 100 hulking, content-looking animals wallowing and lazing around in the sand.

Another amazing sight was the birds of prey in the trees – sunbathing. Yes, they were really sunbathing, spreading their wings out and facing the sun.

We hammered on down the highway, windows open, Rolling Stones blaring, Nicki with a Thelma-and-Louise-like headscarf arrangement to keep her hair in place. Arriving at Santa Barbara, a quaint little place with a long beach and happy people wandering around, once again the orderliness and simple, happy lifestyle struck us. Even the parking charge was an “honor payment system” – you noted your lot-number and stuffed 3 folded dollar bills into a quaint old panel with numbered slots.

And then the contrast...

Finally we reached our hostel at Venice Beach, a few miles outside of Los Angeles. Wow! Lonely Planet says “If aliens landed on Venice Beach's board-walk, they would fit right into the Human Zoo that is Venice beach.” The place is just mad. Street performers, tattoo parlours, smoke shops, stalls selling way-out art, a beggar with a sign saying “beer $ wanted”, a skateboard park on the beach with hair-raising stunts being done by fearless kids. As we walked along wide-eyed, we heard a drum beat coming from a big crowd in the middle of the beach. We approached it and found around 100 people either banging bongos and drums or dancing to the beat. The aroma of pot was strong! It was an absolutely buzzing atmosphere. What a find.

We carried on to a restaurant and were assailed by a guy with dreadlocks explaining how “America is a 200 year old experiment” and telling tales of meditating on Acid opposite the Dakota building in Central Park (John Lennon's last home). As his stories became more convoluted and harder to follow, we realised that he was an unusual, drug-addled and unique character. We toasted with him to loving life and enjoying the moment, and headed back towards our hostel...

On the way back we met young drunks wielding bottles of tequila, shouting “this is our time, man” and passed an Asian girl playing a guitar and singing as we walked on. There was not a “normal” person on the board-walk. I loved every minute of it.

It was a welcome end to our 3-week stay in USA. It's been a fantastic way to start the journey, to learn more about America as a continent and not just as a country by seeing so many aspects. The calm of Maine, the bustle and sky-scrapers of Manhattan, the neighbourhood feel of Greenwich Village and San Francisco, the peace and beauty of the Wine country, and the ocean at Cape Cod and the West Coast – all brought into stark contrast again by the madness of Venice Beach.

And now we turn our thoughts on to Peru, our 2nd country and 2nd continent. We know it will be incredibly different to USA, but then we are feeding from the additional light that contrast brings to each new experience.

Prison and Freedom in California

2009-11-16T15:15:00.005+01:00

Obvious tourist sights are not normally top of our list, but the former prison on the Alcatraz island was an exception. It is such an iconic place and you see it from everywhere you look around the bay of San Francisco. It was a must-do.

Weather again was on our side, a glorious sunny day met our ferry trip across the bay, giving amazing views of the Golden Gate and the city. Alcatraz itself was fascinating. We learned what it was like to be an inmate – you lived a tantalising one and a half miles across the water from the hustle and bustle from the city, able to see it (and even to hear the city's sounds echo across the bay) but having forfeited the chance to be a part of it. Meanwhile your cell, a tiny, clanging metal space, provided almost nothing. But then they said that “if you break the rules, you go to prison. If you break the prison rules, you go to Alcatraz.” If you were there, it was generally for good reason.

It was opened in the 1930's when gangster crime was rife thanks to the last years of prohibition in the USA and the public were calling for a new kind of prison to make the country a safer place. Famous inmates included Al Capone, who was there from 1934-39. Nobody was known to have escaped, although there were numerous attempts. One famous try was captured in Escape from Alcatraz (we downloaded it from the net and watched it in our hotel room that evening), Clint Eastwood played Frank Morris masterminding a 3-man exit via the ventilation ducts. They swam into the deadly freezing currents of the sea between the Rock and San Francisco. Their bodies were never found and they were never caught. Who knows, maybe they're ending their days in Mexico...?

A fascinating incident which we had no idea about was a long occupation of the island by native Indians, 6 years after the prison was closed by JFK. There was much dissent among Indians because the government had reneged on agreements regarding Indian territories and in 1969, the lobbyists were looking to make a statement. 400 Indians floated across on various boats and set up a community on the island. Their idea was that by establishing their settlement in the heart of the bay, all ships arriving would know that the first land they saw was Indian. Despite being ejected from Alcatraz, their 19-month stay was one of the steps for new agreements with native American leaders. As one of the occupants said, “Quiet people who follow the rules don't create change in the world”.

We left Alcatraz, took one last drive North over the Golden Gate Bridge and headed towards the Wine Country. Most people think of Napa Valley as the main area but we had been advised advised that Sonoma Valley, close to Napa, was the place to be. We headed straight for Sonoma town, an incredibly calm, cute and laid-back place, and chose a couple of wineries to do some tastings. We set off in stunning light as the Autumn sunshine moved towards dusk and gave the hills amazing colour and shades.

Our motto for the trip is now “It's All About The Contrast”. The two wineries we visited couldn't have been more different.

We started at BR Cohn, who was the manager of Californian rock band The Doobie Brothers for 30 years. The tasting office was very plush and decked out with Silver and Gold records from the Doobies' career (in case you're not a fan like me, you would recognise “What a fool believes” and “Long Train Runnin'”). We were greeted with a 10-dollar price for tasting 4 wines (no fee if you buy a bottle), so we went ahead and went through the list. Great wines, but not that great. Nicki knows more than me and can tell the difference between a good'un and an average one, whereas I am happy if it says “wine” on the bottle... Our tasting guide was not much help as she seemed mostly interested in the sale rather than the experience – I felt we were “tourist-sneered”. It was a stunning winery in a great location with some good wines. But we left feeling it had been a nice place to go but it wasn't very personal – we were processed through the experience.

Thanks to Lonely Planet, we found the Loxton Vineyard – what a difference! We entered a very basic shed with racks of oak barrels full of the ageing wine which was the tasting place and met a young guy who introduced us – for free – to all of the wines from the tiny winery (3000 bottles per year production). We felt really welcome as he explained to us in words that we could understand what differences there were with the wines they made, what tastes and aromas to look out for, and some small details of the process of production. He brought us in and made us feel like we were meant to be there, not just another tourist.

He had been a business student and came five years ago to understand how the wine business worked. He stayed for a harvest and didn't leave. Understandable – Loxton's location was stunning, off the main road and with clear views across hills and hills of vines. We left it happy, knowing more and with a delicious wine under our arm.

We headed back to Sonoma and stayed at the lovely El Pueblo Inn – great bed, free coffee and toiletries, gym and heated outside pool! We sat with salad from the local supermarket and our bottle of Loxton wine, listened to music on the ipod and travel speakers and reflected on a really happy day.

"Think Global, Eat Local"

2009-11-13T16:44:00.008+01:00

The Golden Gate park in San Francisco is a beautiful, rolling piece of greenery almost solely enjoyed by the City's Chinese population. As we ran through it, we saw groups of elderly Tai Chi activists, and almost every couple walking through were Chinese.

San Francisco was a tiny place up until the mid-1800's, when gold was struck. The Gold Rush enticed Asian immigrants and 150,000 Chinese people made their home in the Bay area. No surprise, then, to find a strong asian, as well as a strong Hispanic influence on the city. In the area we stayed, the Mission district, almost everywhere had signs either in Spanish and English – or in Spanish only, the predominant language heard on the street. A big contrast to the Irish, Italian and Jewish (and everything else) influences on New York.

We took a trip to Bolinas Bay in the afternoon, 40 miles over the Golden Gate Bridge. Lonely Planet describes it as a “home to writers, musicians and fisherfolk and is deliberately hard to find”, because the locals take down the road-sign directing you to the town every time the authorities put one up. Totally understandable. The village is a real throwback to a time when town life was about being connected with your neighbours and not much else. There's the small Coastal Café (with the slogan “Think Global, Eat Local”) and a store selling almost everything, a surf shop and a book shop. We walked out to the sea and drenched ourselves in the afternoon light, watching the surfers, dogs and the odd seal enjoying the long beach at the bay.

In the evening we headed to the centre of San Francisco and sought out a dive bar where they play Blues music. Last time I was there, a guy called Johnny Nitro had played – great name for a musician and his band lived up to it as the female saxophonist in her mid-40's played while standing on the bar. This time it was rather more sedate as the band was just too Blues to be true. A lead singer with a walking stick and a bad limp. A lead guitarist who was blind. A bass player who looked like a conservative politician on his night off. And a drummer who looked, well.... cool. Their music was fantastic.

Back at Bolinas near the surfer's car-park, there was a long wall edging the beach with paintings and graffiti, and a section was dedicated to poetry. The one below sums it up.

Beautiful Sausalito and Relief from Recession – how about some good news?

2009-11-12T16:38:00.002+01:00

As we arrived in San Francisco, Immediately the contrast with New York and its surroundings hit us – Nicki said it looked like the Mediterranean more than a big city. The scenery is bay, hills, few skyscrapers and calmer streets. Of ocurse, we have flown 6 hours across America – same country, but incredibly different city.

We picked the car up and headed straight for the Golden Gate Bridge.It is such an iconic place as a piece of American history – a place we've both seen so many times in movies and on TV series – and we loved driving over it.

In February 2007, I was exhausted from working and travelling too much. I came away to San Francisco for relief and the first place I was lucky to find outside the city was called Sausalito, the first turning after the Golden Gate. I needed some calm and I found it there. The happy memory guided me and we headed there directly from the airport.

It's a beautiful little town that was once a hippy retreat but now seems like a carefully preserved village with a harbour full of small yachts, beautiful local shops and art galleries, and fantastic views across the bay to San Francisco. In case you're interested, Fleetwood Mac recorded their album “Rumours” there too...

The bay of Sausalito is full of Pelicans soaring across the sky and suddenly darting at an almost zero degree trajectory into the water after some fishy prey. Especially at dusk, the sky is full of them. As we sat and enjoyed the evening coming down, we also caught sight of seals poking their heads out of the water.

Accommodation has been a thing of contrasts even in these two weeks, and San Francisco is no exception. We are staying at Jimm's place, via a website called AirBNB.com. It's his apartment and we have a bedroom and a bathroom in it. After the milkcrate-bed in New York, we have a memory-mattress which seems to hug you to sleep – luxury. After a good sleep, I sit in Jimm's beautiful apartment at a classic wooden dining table, sipping Earl Grey and looking over one of San Francico's many hills, with space to move and feel comfortable in a real home.

San Francisco is a further 3 time-zones East (we are now 8 hours behind UK, 9 hours behind Amsterdam) so at 7pm we were tired and ready for bed. But as a jetlag buster, we headed to a Sky Lounge bar recommended to us by Jimm. We sat in an almost deserted bar with a peaceful view across the San Francisco skyline when a bunch of about 40 young Americans came in, excited and ordering champagne. Who celebrated on a Monday in this town?

On talking to the people, it turned out that they work for an Internet start-up called AdMob.com, and they were celebrating just being bought out by Google. The excitement was immediately understandable and it seemed we could almost feel relief as well as joy. It was like their own personal recession had come to an end. They popped the champagne, apologised to us for spoiling our quiet evening and pured glasses for us too. We loved being a part of their celebration, and to feel some good news around us.

Epilogue. The following morning I checked up on this Admob acquisition. It was a $750m buyout! One of the biggest in Google's history, amazing considering the company are 140 people and started just 3 years ago. It seems we were there at a real San Francisco success story.

Central Park in the Sun

2009-11-10T16:42:00.005+01:00

New York finished for us on a beautiful sunny day. After cold wind through the whole trip, we woke to temperatures in the mid-20's and headed to Central Park. We sat quietly and enjoyed being in such an iconic place on a Sunday afternoon in the sun.

That afternoon turned into a lovely feeling of New York. As we wandered through the park towards dusk, people were out in crowds enjoying the great big natural space in the heart of the city. A full jazz band played what would have been noise anywhere else but became “atmosphere” in the open air.

100 years ago, there were no high rise blocks around Central Park – it was seen as definitely not the place to be. Interesting how cities shift their centre of gravity over time, isn't it? It seems gradually the richer types moved from the southern tip of Manhatten to what is now Downtown and further North around the park. The first high-rise building was just off 72nd street, and this was the place John Lennon had found peace in the late 70's.

He and Yoko moved there as refuge from England and the pervasive fame of the Beatles legacy. In early 1980, I remember there was a series of interviews with them on the radio by a DJ named Andy Peebles, recorded in New York. John and Yoko seemed incredibly at ease, a happiness which prompted his song “Feels just like starting over”. It was a poignant set of transmissions, because just a few weeks later, he was shot dead outside his home.

A small part of the park is called Strawberry Fields, The understated, circular memorial to John Lennon that lies there is absolutely appropriate, and there are always fresh flowers laying upon it. It's a lovely site where people go every day and remember a man who was only really interested in peace and love – he talked and sang of little else. We stood in the gorgeous Autumn fading light and enjoyed our good fortune to be there together at that special place, at that moment.

We walked on through Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues, the streets abuzz with so many great restaurants, shops amazingly, still open at 6pm on Sunday evening. Americans have so much less holiday time than us, so we assume they make the most of every moment of their weekends, and the shops capitalise on that. We even found a street market just before closing up. We felt like we had seen how the people are living their normal lives.

New York has been great and we leave it with a lot of happy memories from our short stay. We learned a lot about the city and its people, and now we remind ourselves how lucky we are, and turn our minds towards California.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

2009-11-09T10:03:00.000+01:00

Friday morning began with a pure luxury as we ran through Central Park in clear blue sunshine. We feel incredibly lucky to have the freedom to do such things. And freedom was a theme of our day, as we headed to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Obviously I paid no attention to History at school, because I had no idea that the Statue was a gift from France in the late 1880's. The idea was both a tribute and a provocation, as certain French thinkers believed France had lost its concept of Liberte, while America increasingly stood for it. The gift was meant to give praise to America for its values and to push the leaders of France to embrace freedom as a fundamental value again. It was a great surprise to us that Gustave Eiffel was involved 5 years before he even started work on his tower in Paris, and funds were raised by Joseph Pulitzer (same guy who inaugurated the Pulitzer prizes for Literature, Peace etc).

There is something dramatic about the Statue of Liberty. We learned that it was built to a size 22 blocks high, at a time when most of New York was just 5 stories high. It must have been an amazing and imposing sight at the time. The statue's view to the “old world” was deliberate and it became the emblem of hope for the immigrants in the late 1800's and early 1900's – the first thing they saw as they came in their 1000's by ship. Today, it is probably the most familiar icon in the world.

We took the audio tour around the statue on Liberty island, and went on by ferry to Ellis Island – the place where 12 million immigrants were “processed” at the turn of the 19/20th century. The majority came from East and West Europe, as well as Mexico, Canada and Asia, as America at that time was a place of hope and opportunity. The exhibition at Ellis showed pictures of people arriving in droves having arrived by Steerage class (the lowest and cheapest way to travel), jammed into the lower decks with almost no air or sanitation and plenty of illness rife over a journey that could take between a week and a month.

It seemed amazing to us that people would take such a voyage – imagine leaving Poland, Italy or Ireland to a land which you had never seen a picture of. Probably they had only heard the vaguest stories of the possibility of a better life in America, and those people took their belongings in one case, got onboard, and hoped. It made us wonder what made them so desperate and it became clear from the exhibition that especially the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe, which was standard and legal, was a big factor. Italians seem to have left because of continual upheaval in the country causing increasing poverty and hardship.

The amazing thing about the immigration process is how many were passed to come into the country – 98% of people were accepted. There were all kinds of tests – physical, mental, legal – and yet there must have been an incredible leniency at the time. So many people made it through.

It was a fantastic trip for us to learn about this incredible history – the whole tour was around 5 hours - and it was a reminder that America stood for both a Country and a Concept. The concept of the country was all about freedom, as expressed by Roosevelt in 1941 – Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. As we have been around New York, we've been amazed at the diversity, there seems to be no typical New Yorker as there is every race and colour possible (although admittedly with the exception of an obvious Muslim group, at least not obvious to us). So the other concept was definitely an acceptance of diversity. Despite the Ellis Island immigrants being from numerous locations with almost no grasp of the English language, the country welcomed them as possible contributors to the its growth. The value of freedom and opportunity flourished as numerous immigrants over generations turned starvation and poverty at home into millionaire success in USA.

We wondered how that idea of Freedom and USA's image across the world as “Land of the Free” has been lost. The Vietnam war – played out on TV throughout the world – bombings of Libya, attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, an amazingly damaging 8 years of presidency from G.W.Bush (how on earth was he re-elected?) – all of these have played their part. The hope that America has in Obama is surely to change that image and restore the value of America which is certainly still there. Only yesterday, a health bill was passed that “aims to extend health insurance coverage to 36 million more Americans and provide affordable healthcare to 96% of Americans.” It seems his domestic changes are genuinely targeted towards improving the lives of average Americans, and his foreign policy to repairing the damage done since 9/11. You can feel the hope in Obama posters, car stickers and T-shirts all over the city.

My own feeling after the visit to Ellis Island and on seeing the Statue of Liberty against a beautiful sunset was that I had been reminded what a privileged position I've been in to have such freedom all my life. I was born in a country which has not been occupied in recent history, I grew up with loving parents in a peaceful democracy where education was available and basic freedom was a given. I've been able to choose to change country and take all my belongings with me, when I chose to do it – not due to starvation or escape from a repressive regime.

The immigrants to New York had not experienced any of those things and America afforded a place where the basics that we take for granted became precious opportunities.

2009-11-08T13:40:00.000+01:00

Our hotel room in New York is about as small as it could be, and about as big a contrast to our log cabin as possible! We sleep on what is described by Nicki as "a milkcrate with a sheet on pretending to be a bed". But the location is great, a 10 minute walk from Central Park and close to the Subway.

Our first morning was spent at Ground Zero as we caught a small glimpse of the enormity of impact of 9/11. 8 years on (is it really 8 years?) there is huge work going on to restore the whole area with hundreds of people active, and yet there is still foundation work going on. The devastation and amount of work to clean up and restore the area is hard to grasp, let alone to build again. It seems the plans are to establish a new icon as a statement of survival of America, as a country and concept.

Food has been a big surprise for us. New York is of course packed with MacDonald's, KFC and Burger King, but it's also jammed full of great deli's with such a wide selection of food and emphasis on fresh and healthy. Paying 8 dollars for a sandwich feels a lot, but when it's toasted and full of fresh roast beef and cheese, it feels fair enough (Ok, I didn't go for the healthy options... Nicki went for Seafood Bisque, also delicious).

We headed to Grand Central station and sat looking over the huge open, bustling atrium reading the New York Times. Then onto the Rockefeller Centre and an amazing view of the city from the 67th floor just as the sun set. Nicki's pictures captured everything.

Finally we set off to Greenwich Village, a beautiful part of the city which still keeps sense of New York's origins. It's hard to believe that 100 years ago, most of New York was just 5 stories high (similar to Amsterdam) and Greenwich is still devoid of skyscrapers. Friendly too – as we wandered around, a guy stopped in the street, asking if we were looking for the subway. We got talking and he recommended us a great restaurant called Jane's Tavern – fantastic food and a paper tablecloth perfect for playing hangman – what more could you want? And we've found that New York's reputation for unfriendliness has not proved true at all, we've only encountered kind help and smiling faces when we've asked tourist questions.

Great food and coffee, free Internet, bustling streets, a million yellow cabs and a beautiful sunset.

Meeting the past

2009-11-07T14:28:00.004+01:00

On day 9, we said goodbye to our lovely Log cabin. It hadn't been like travelling at all, but rather a holiday as preparation for the real thing. We absolutely loved it,

Then we set off for Sturbridge, Massachusetts to follow up on a contact I had made via Facebook – a school friend I had not met for 23 years called Nicholas White. Nick and I had been at school together from 11-18 years old, and especially had studied Latin and Greek together in a small little group of 4 kids. I wrote a piece on that experience before (click here to read it.)

Nick left England in 1989, thinking that his trip to America would be an apprenticeship lasting around a year. He ended up staying for these last 20 years and has lived in New York, Miami, Texas and New England.

I have lost contact with almost all of my old school friends, so meeting Nick was a unique chance to re-connect with a past I barely give a thought to these days. It is a bizarre feeling to meet someone 23 years older than the last time we met, and yet to have shared memories which came instantly about friends, teachers and parents. We shared stories about our eccentric Classics master, Mr Watson-Wemyss, our classmates like fellow Latin and Greek scholar Neil MacDonald (now a Grand Master at Chess), and caught up on what had happened over the years. As we talked, we realised how unusual and inspiring the pupils, parents and teachers we came across were in that formative period, and what an influence on our lives they had been.

Nick even miraculously remembered the school song, a terrible piece of dirge which was concluded with The School Shout, repeated by all 500 boys (“School. Cela. C'est a dire. Ooh, ah, ooh ah ah, zen zen zen, GRAVESEND”. What on earth was that all about?!?).

It was obvious even in those days that Nick is a very talented performer and musician, and he said that he knew he would be a musician, so the pains of going through learning Classics was definitely for the experience and not for the qualification or learning (“I think I did Latin and Greek to be around the Cool Geeks”...). I remember vividly that he was awarded the premier Organ Scholarship in the country at Clare College, Cambridge, and since then, his life has been a combination of playing, teaching and composing. It was fascinating to hear how his life in music has been up to now.

As I write this, I sit in their lovely home overlooking a lake and valley the morning after an incredibly hospitable evening, trying (unsuccessfully) to capture the joy of this meet up. It's one of the meanings of this trip, to do things we would not normally do on a standard holiday. And a moment or two ago, I saw a small plaque on the wall, and I love this sentiment. It's another reminder that we are doing the right thing by going for this trip.

“20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” (unknown).

Lighthouse at Portland Head

2009-11-06T03:40:00.000+01:00

The last few days have been spent in and around the cabin and the small towns around Boothbay. We ran in freezing temperatures at sunrise along empty roads lines with classic Maine houses, as well as caught the sunset across the bays. We kayaked across the lake, and sat in front of the log fire playing cards and arguing the rules of Scrabble.

On October 31st, we got a taste of what importance Halloween has here as an event. In the charming little bay town of Boothbay Harbour, children and parents gathered at the Memorial Hall in full fancy dress and paraded down the small main street. Shopkeepers stood on the side of the road with baskets of sweets to dish out to the cute “Trick or Treaters” - it seemed such a lovely, community thing to do. Neither of us had seen it before.

Some weeks ago, we sat in my front room in Amsterdam and Nicki pointed out that the painting print of a lighthouse which has been on my wall for 11 years was set in Portland Head, Maine. “We can go there!” she exclaimed.

My Dad had asked me in 1998 what I wanted for Christmas and had suggested a picture. At the time I was interested in Edward Hopper, who specialised in melancholic, inward-looking and atmospheric paintings. Dad looked at a site on the Internet and chose the Lighthouse pic because it was the most optimistic he could see in the collection. He was not going to buy his son a sad painting.

It was a strange but almost exhilarating feeling to be at the site of that picture, and it felt like one of the real meanings of this trip. Probably I would never have gone to that location, but thanks to this trip and Nicki's suggestion, we found ourselves able to take in the beautiful location. The optimism of the gift filled us.

An Autumn walk on Megunticook Mountain

2009-11-05T13:27:00.009+01:00

The first night in the cabin was...dark! A complete lack of unnatural lights makes for real darkness, helping us sleep solidly. The morning light revealed our view over the lake and we had to pinch ourselves to believe it was for real as the sun shone on the warm brown and auburn trees around the lake.

We'd been recommended a place to go for a hike so we drove to Camden where some mountains lay near the coast. We set off on the trail towards Megunticook Mountain and walked through carefully preserved and marked pathways up the hill. The colours were just incredible – one leaf could have brown, red and yellow in it.

After 90 minutes we reached a beautiful lookout with a fabulous view across the bay and met a couple of other hikers. People here are so friendly, they always want to know where you've come from and what you are doing, and when we tell them about this being the beginning of a 5-month adventure, they are so positive. We ask everybody for recommendations of what to do – it seems the best way to get an insight into the local area.

Gradually we are getting a sense of the size of this country, as I told Nicki that this was the 5th time I'd been to USA but still felt I was simply touching the surface. Europeans like to joke about Americans who never leave their own country or don't know that Holland is in Europe. But neither of us had realised that most of Maine is further North than Toronto. As we looked out at the countryside from our lookout on the mountain and thought back on the few days we have been here, driving 600 miles and that taking us through only a couple of states, we realised you could spend a few months just getting to know Maine. There is so very much to do and see.

We finished our 3-hour walk to the top of the 1385 feet mountain and back, talking about all kinds of memories, ideas and plans. It's a good feeling to be moving under our own steam after all the driving, and we are also conscious that our next major hike will be the Inca trail in Peru, a slightly daunting but very exciting prospect. Nicki has done much more walking than me in the past so I try to get as many suggestions from her as possible along the way to prepare myself for the big hike.

Our perfect day finished with dinner at “home” in our cabin. This area of Maine is so beautiful and calming.

Maine Log Cabin

2009-11-05T13:18:00.004+01:00

Once we got through Boston and headed North towards the state of Maine, everything changed as the sky cleared and the sun shone. We drove for 3 hours along 3 and 4-lane open roads and enjoyed the New England Fall colours coming back to us again. We were heading for our log cabin.

During our trip-planning, we'd trawled the Internet trying to meet Nicki's wish-list for the cabin After hours of looking at site after site, we finally we found The One 6 weeks ago. As we drove closer, I hoped the pictures on the website would reflect reality.

We left the Interstate and drove onto onto US-1, a lovely calm road lined by carefully tended houses and rough shack-like stores (“Ed's Stuff” was one of them, the frontage a mishmash of useless and incongruent stuff, like used tyres and birdcages). Seeing signposts to typical English places like Falmouth, Sandwich (East and West), Newcastle and Salisbury is something we should have expected, it being New England, but it still made us smile each time a new sign to a familiar town name in unfamiliar territory appeared.

30 miles from the cabin, we stopped at a supermarket and got our second shock about prices of food. We had done our first shopping in a supermarket on the edge of New York and put the higher-than-UK/NL cost down to the proximity to NY. Now in Maine, we saw standard wholemeal bread loaves for nearly 4 dollars, a can of soup was around 3 dollars, as was cauliflower and broccoli. Maybe we just went to the wrong supermarkets but it really shook our image of the cost of food here.

As we drove into Boothbay mid-afternoon, Nicki saw a lovely stretch of water and said, hopefully, “Is that our lake?”. The SatNav said 1 mile to go. We arrived at the cabin after a few twists and turns off the main road and sure enough, it turned out to be all the things we had hoped for – comfortable, cosy, secluded, surrounded by a non-pine forest and overlooking a lake. To see natural wood everywhere you look in the house is a warming feeling. We have a log fire stove, plenty of space, nature all around, and complete peace and quiet.

Isn't it strange how difficult it is to describe complete happiness? Describing flawed joy is so much easier. This cabin is about as close to complete happiness as I have ever known.

Boston in the rain

2009-11-05T04:14:00.002+01:00

After leaving Cape Cod, we headed to Boston in grim weather. It looked like a beautiful city on first glance, and we looked for somewhere to park. 1st Boston lesson – don't bother with parking in big cities – the car park we entered in the financial district was 12 dollars an hour!

We left quickly, and after realising accommodation was equally pricey, headed to the edge of the city and stayed in the Candlewood Suites. We were amazed to find a reasonably priced room with fridge/freezer, kitchenette, microwave, dishwasher and free laundry and gym facilities so close to the city. Unfortunately, that was almost the best part of our stay in Boston.

The train station was reached in a taxi with a leaking roof (the drips narrowly missing Nicki and soaking the seat beside her) and we exited into the city faced with heavy wind and rain. Game tourists that we are – can't call ourselves 'travellers' yet – we walked around for an hour but got completely soaked. We ended up in the Old State building, the scene of the Boston Massacre which helped spark final independence for America – a re-fresh of history which I had been bored to tears by 26 years ago at school but which comes to life when on location.

After drying out, we reached the Union Oyster House, recommended to us by my mum, and met a great barman. Nicki said “I'd like a whisky” and when he asked what kind, she said she had no special preference, just something warming. He brought a great tasting drink and when quizzed, he answered “it's Courvoisier. A brandy will warm you up more”. He gave us what we wanted, even if not what we asked for – great service.

We walked down the street and were lured into an Irish Bar by the sound of a solo acoustic guitar singer. His playing was so good, he made up for the terrible service, extortionate prices for prune-juice-like red wine and miserable service (complete with girl rushing out of the kitchen, staring up at the blank TV screens, moaning with tears in her eyes “I hate those screens” and turning tale back to the kitchen. Just weird.). We sat in large, comfy armchairs by the fire and listened to his beautiful voice and expert guitar playing, our favourite song being a cover of the James Taylor song, Fire and Rain.

We were happy to have seen the city – we felt it was a great place – even though we felt we'd missed something because of the weather. Tired, we made our way back to the hotel, the final cab ride in a taxi with a door that didn't open. It summed up our day in Boston.

Cape Cod and the man with the bendy guitars

2009-10-28T13:33:00.006+01:00

We left JFK airport and straight into the urban New York traffic. Thank the world for SatNav, we would never have found our way towards Boston without it.

As we headed North into Connecticut along Interstate 95, the colours immediately hit us. All kinds of Autumn including almost scarlet bushes lived up to all we had been told about New England in Fall. But it was noticeable how more advanced the Autumn was even an hour further North, as more bare trees appeared and the colours calmed. Let's see what we find when we reach Maine.

After getting used to the car, traffic and roads, we started wondering where to stay, and took a detour to Cape Cod. Both of us felt we knew the words Cape Cod since we could remember, but couldn't say exactly why. Later, theories like "scene of the film Cape Fear" were dispelled but at least we knew it was a place Bostonians went for vacations.

We ended up in Hyannis at the aptly named Cape Cod Inn. Standard USA Motel is the best description. As we walked around the town, Nicki said "I feel like I am in the TV" as we felt like this town was like 100 others we had seen in movies based in USA. All the buildings were old-style but new - it did resemble a film-set.

We walked along the cute Main Street and stopped at a music store, "Kelley's Guitars". Inside we saw some very odd shaped guitars, and the owner of the shop (strangely called Gene) came out and explained them to us. He talked at us for about 30 minutes about the guitars, real -estate buy-ups, the lost lease of his shop and his past history of being an architect and selling his business to pursue his love of music. Upstairs he had a studio where he taught autistic children music, apparently a unique way to get through the barriers of the condition.

But those guitars fascinated us. They were bendy! The builder is a guy called Leo Burrell, now 78 and retired. He came with a unique way of making guitars which twisted the shape without losing acoustic accuracy to mould to the player's body instead of the guitar player having to match the shape of the instrument. As he talked, a musician in the store was playing one of the models and it sounded fantastic (although the frontage of the shop reverberated as they played - no wonder the new owner wanted to knock it down!)

As we walked further on, we talked about what kind of place to sit and have a drink. Nicki's idea was to talk to local people and get suggestions about what to do and where to go - I said "no problem, as long as we don't go to Irish bars - they are all the same and you feel like you might as well be in Amsterdam or London in them". Then we see a nice place and go in - it's called the British Beer Company (BBC for short) No Irish pubs for us, then...

As we sat at the bar, we saw a guy eating what looked like a 2 foot wide pizza, it was just huge! OK, we know America is famous for large portions but this seemed ridiculous. It was explained that they had a 2 for 1 offer today and people took the leftovers home. We promptly ordered 2 smaller pizzas, 1 to eat and 1 to go - plenty enough for us.

We ended our day with a walk along the remaining part of Main Street. We saw a beggar and after walking past with our spare pizza underarm, felt a bit guilty and went back to offer it to her. She answered "Thanks, I already ate one". Obviously we weren't the first with such guilt pangs. It seems in Cape Cod, the beggars can be choosers...

Boundaries stretched and crossed

2009-10-28T02:30:00.003+01:00

When I was 6 years old, we lived on a housing estate in Kent, UK. 100 metres from my front door, there was a bridge over a rough little stream, and that was the boundary my parents put on me. I was allowed to play around the block of houses that we lived in, but I was not allowed to go up the street any further than The Bridge.

I needed no further motivation. One Saturday morning, my parents picked me up five miles up the road. Unbeknown to them, I had been stretching that 100 metres further and further over the past months. It felt perfectly natural to cycle away and lose track of time exploring.

As time went on, I pushed my boundaries further. The next shock for my parents was to find me secretly taking the train to London and wandering around bookshops when I had told them I was going for a cycle ride nearby. The best feeling for me then was to be somewhere I hadn't been before. It's a thrill that still lives with me.

This drive to be somewhere and do something new has followed me ever since. Moving country and living in Holland and Vienna was all about pushing the horizon as wide as possible, to see more and be more. Little wonder, then, that when I returned to Amsterdam and reigned in my horizon to the known big skies of Holland, I felt something was missing. Maybe my sense of adventure had been stifled by a perceived need for safety and familiarity. It simply did not suit me.

The blessing of the life-challenge last November – stay in Amsterdam or go one step even further back, home to UK with my job – caused an instinctive reflex not to go back or backwards just yet. And the year that has since passed feels like it has been leading to this moment.

Because today, Nicki and I take our boundaries and throw them to the winds. I write this sitting next to her on a plane to New York on Day 1 of our 145 day adventure. Our Round The World tour will take us to 9 countries across 4 continents, with every country new for Nicki, 90% of the trip new for me.

As we neared the date of leaving, we were asked again and again “are you excited?” We had to say “not yet” because the practical reality of preparing for such a trip has been all-consuming.

It has been a flurry of arrangements as Nicki put a hold on her life in UK for these 5 months. Renting her house, loaning her car, sorting the packing and setting up banking – all done against a back-drop of farewell dinners and cards, calls and texts from friends wishing her well. I left Amsterdam 11 days ago, so these days have been easier for me, supporting rather than having to manage and finalise the arrangements. But we finished everything together, just as we will do so much for the next 5 months together.

The excitement probably really started as we checked in at Heathrow. The counter-attendant asked us “is New York your final destination?” and I answered “Not exactly...”. As she looked through our schedule, she exclaimed with a broad smile about how great the trip looked. We assumed she sees people on such round the world trips every day, but if the woman from American Airlines was excited for us about our tour, we felt we should be too.

It still feels slightly unreal to be starting. It hasn't been that long in the planning – we first talked in early July about going travelling together – but I feel like this trip has been waiting for me for a long time. Perhaps the most unreal part is the feeling of “normality”, to be heading away for so long.

We landed at JFK airport and quickly got our bags and hire car, and within 90 minutes of landing we were checked in at our hotel by the airport. To get the blood moving after being sat down for 9 hours, we went for a quick run around the industrial surroundings of the hotel. As Nicki said, you can find beauty anywhere, and we saw a beautiful red and pink sunset over huge silver cylinder tanks of petrol (the pic here was not taken by us, but you get the gist...). An early night after gasping at airport hotel prices in the bar helped us minimise the jet lag of a 4 hour time difference.

On this trip, a past experience of breaking boundaries will come in handy for sure. But the unforeseen will throw itself at us and we are ready for it, together.

It's a small world...

2009-10-14T08:56:00.009+02:00

Almost 12 years ago, I came to live in Amsterdam. It was the single best decision I have made in my life until a few months ago.

I fell in love with the place. I was taken to bars and restaurants in the Jordaan and the Pijp, enjoyed Bokbier in the Autumn, partied on Queens Day in the Spring and drank in the melancholy of the long winter before the glimpses of sunshine Amsterdam calls summer returned. I was introduced to the small villages outside of the city, watching the sunset at Marken and enjoying pancakes in Monnickendam. Finally I fell for the charm of flat Dutch polder landscapes and big skies.

Great friends came into my life and stayed - Morten and Christine, Sonny and Peter, Helena, Rogier and Carmen, Bruce, Siobhan, the Li clan, Mieke, Chantal and Frank. Those friendships lasted through a 4-year absence while living in Vienna. Since returning, new friendships like those with Yvonne and the Angel Mafia have also come.

I didn't give one second's thought to moving to London when my job moved there. With all this joy and love for the city and the friendships here, why would you leave? It would have to be something quite dramatic, right?

And so, one day before I do indeed leave - for 5 months, or even longer? who knows? - I flick through printouts of some of the bookings Nicki and I have made for our Round The World trip. It is unreal to see my notes on each one - "car hire, New Zealand", "hostel, Cuzco", "log cabin, Maine", "visa Australia", "hotel, Tahiti". I feel like one paper should say "car hire, The Moon". Because I thought other people do these kinds of trips and make these kinds of decisions in life. It seemed impossible that I would do so, and on the eve of departure, it still feels incredible to think of visiting all of these places.

And not only that. To do this trip with a great person who has also committed a chunk of her life to our adventure together is the best possible way to take a next step in life.

One little surprise. The guy who is renting my apartment comes from the same town I went to school in. He is the first person from Gravesend I have met since leaving England. It's a small world...

First stop, Greece - to celebrate my father's 70th birthday with his Greek friends, an event that has been a mark on the calendar for the whole year. Then back to UK for a few days, and we fly to New York on 26th October. My own journey starts tomorrow when I fly to England and join up with Nicki. It's 4 months since we met and I can't wait to be together with her.

The full story of the trip will appear here and this blog will continue Round the World. From Canon to Canberra.

6th November 2008 - A Final Word

2009-10-01T08:14:00.007+02:00

This is the last time I will write about coming to the end of Canon life - time to move on.

On November 6th 2008, Canon announced the changes I and so many friends have experienced over the last 11 months, 234 jobs moving to London. That evening one of those people, Pascale de Rooij, went to an art class and painted the picture you see here.

People see different things in this painting (and that's a sign of how great a painter Pascale is). But for most, it seems to suggest a Shipwreck in the foreground with a positive and bright horizon behind it. That's how it has felt over the last months. Life as we knew it was de-constructed as we learned about how a big corporate deals with such situations - coldly, impersonally and practically.

As a member of the Works Council and a Director of the company, as well as an employee for Canon over 16 years, it was a hard and emotional journey to realise and accept this harsh truth.

It was not what we expected, because we thought Canon was a human company. But what we learned is that NO company is human. Finally, for the corporate and its highest management, it is only about the numbers. The human element is provided by the social connections we created together, made special by the rich diversity of culture in a building housing people from 50 nationalities.

For me, the social connections are the thing I miss most. I learned that my Amsterdam life is heavily associated with the experience of being in the daily influence of interaction with people from such incredibly different backgrounds. The deeper friendships which I made over the years have stayed and the bonds will be there for years to come. But the small kindnesses and simple contact from so many people in Canon - a smile on the way to the canteen, a chat at the coffee machine, a bit of moral support in a tough meeting - was something I fed from and didn't fully recognise.

The last months of being starved of that hour-by-hour warm contact with colleagues have made me see that I need to do a job which involves exactly that. Working on my own is not my thing. It doesn't mean there is no option to set up my own company - when I talk to my friend Mieke and her company, she is replacing the social interaction of a big organisation by being part of lots of groups and finding other ways to connect. What it does mean is that, whatever the next work step is, I will prioritise daily connection with people and development of a team I like working with over money and position.

Yesterday, a few of us met up in Amsterdam's Vondelpark. It's not insignificant that a different group of people met up in Amstelveen. We start to go our separate ways.

During the meet-up, we talked about the future. Jobs we're applying for, agencies we're discussing with or travelling we are going to do. The anger that was a constant feature of our talk about the company 4-5 months ago has faded. We all realise that Canon did not target any one of us as individuals. They just made a business decision. And in the end, "it was just a job".

But what a job. Morten and I sat together aftewards, drinking Bokbier in a cosy, dilapidated bar opposite the Rembrandt House. We talked a bit about some of our experiences in the early days, 1998 and 1999 when we first arrived in Amsterdam, and reflected on a few of the people we have met. We've come a long way from where he and I first met at Penrith in England's Lake District. We've travelled to amazing places with Canon (China, Japan, Brazil, USA, South Africa, Middle East and most of Europe) and we leave with CV's stuffed full of experience and characters developed by diversity. Our conclusion is often "we lived the dream" and its true.

And now it's time to create some new dreams, build new relationships and establish a new path. My own new path started when I met Nicki just over 3 months ago. It reaches the beginning of the biggest next step in 2 weeks, when I leave Amsterdam for 5 months to travel the world together with the girl I love.

How About Some GOOD News?

2009-09-14T10:04:00.009+02:00

I don't know about you, but I feel a general sense of change for the better around me. A number of positive things are happening which give me the feeling that the air of crisis and doom is lifting.

One ex-Canon friend of mine, who had gone through the summer feeling like the job market was dead, suddenly has one offer with a great organisation, and another offer in the pipeline. Another friend also had a very interesting job offer and meanwhile is getting 2 calls from Headhunters a week. My brother rode out a difficult re-organisation, coming out the other side with a new role.

My friend Sonny has made a breakthrough in his career recenly. Currently he's making the most of a posting with IBM in India, being trained as an SAP consultant. How cool is that! You can read his blog at http://sonnysindiaadventure.blogspot.com/.

Meanwhile, all the signs in the economy are that things are at least bottomed-out and ready for recovery, if not already so. That means that companies will plan their headcount budgets for next year a little more optimistically. Recruitment freezes will start to thaw in the last quarter of this year and especially in the first quarter of 2010.

Almost every day I hear some new change among my ex-Canon friends looking for a new role. The first months seem to have been difficult for all, but gradually people are having interviews and getting closer to new positions, or finding them already. Summer is over - the job-market is moving.

It's amazing how the sense of gloom is contagious. There was a period around April-early July when the news was bad, the atmosphere at my old company was naturally difficult and the general feeling among friends was not positive. It genuinely feels that atmosphere is lifting and the new catching disease is optimism. Even my running is improving (the pic is of me after a 10km dune run - the gray skies could not stop me running a minute faster than I hoped!)

As for me, I have a very odd sense right now that this might be my last month living permanently in Amsterdam. I don't have any firm plan about that - the experiences of the 5-month world trip from Mid-October will make clear what the next steps should be. And I will visit Amsterdam for the rest of my life no matter where I go. Living in this city transformed my life.

This morning especially I feel a creeping feeling of gradually leaving something great behind and moving onto a great next step, wherever and whatever that may be.

A Question of Identity

2009-09-05T18:24:00.020+02:00

I left England in 1998, coming to Holland without any serious thought beyond "that seems like a good chance - let's go". Instinctively, I knew I had to go beyond current boundaries.

Just 2 days before leaving, I had quit my job and apartment - no other preparation had been done. But then, the roots of my life in England were so loose - no wife and children, no owned home and my recent history of moving 13 times in 10 years had resulted in very few firm friendships. In 2 days, I shut down my English existence, packed my stuff, called the gas and electricity companies, put the keys through the door and left.

In the following 12 years, living in Holland and Austria, I have tried to learn the secret of being an International Englishman. This secret came to me thanks to working in the melting pot of my company, with its diverse group of nationalities, and especially through working with Japanese colleagues - such a different culture to my own. One of the first big realisations came quickly - that speaking "English English" was not going to help me communicate with people.

This meant a fundamental difference in my conversation with others. The English language is full of slang, strange sayings and little oddities, things that mean absolutely nothing to a foreigner. Naturally, as an island of 60 million people, English culture has a massive focus on all things English. TV, Radio, Newspapers & Politics fuel the native humour which is quick to find its target and push it over the edge.

I learned that "International English" is not like that at all. It is a simpler and more universal way of communication. That simplicity is so essential for a multi-cultural environment, where English cultural references mean precisely nothing. It proves that Language is Culture. And I realised that if I wanted to understand other nationalities' culture, I would have to learn International English, by mirroring the way that people from different countries communicated in the common language.

For 12 years, I have concentrated on this. If language is culture, then I believe I was constantly making an attempt to dilute my own cultural sense of Being English in the interests of understanding a wider set of cultures. By flattening my vocabulary and removing slang and typical home humour from my conversation, and by seeking the commonality among many languages and the way other nationalities communicate and laugh with people in English, I made a sub-conscious decision to to shut down (or at least suppress) a part of my English identity.

That decision has served me well and it seemed no price to pay. After all, I was living in a foreign country surrounded by people from all over the world speaking my language. The least I could do was to make an effort to be understandable.

Over the years, I have met people from so many different countries and increasingly been able to communicate with them in English on an equal level. Non-native speakers are often nervous about speaking English to a native speaker because they become more conscious of making mistakes, thinking perfection is required. But I always tried to put them at ease by saying "don't worry about accuracy of grammar - I can understand you, we can communicate, that's all that matters."

I never thought there would be a price to pay for that choice. But now that I am spending more time with groups of English-only people, I am reminded that there is always a price to pay for going for what you want, small or large.

Recently in the UK at a party of Nicki's friends, I had my first taste of culture shock - in my own country. I could understand the words of the conversation, but often I had no idea of the real meaning. I don't know what is on TV or what's going on in politics over there. I don't listen to English radio or read the newspapers. Suddenly, I felt like a stranger - it was hard to contribute as the quick-fire humour passed me by. My English language is outdated by 12 years, because I have not been immersed in the country's culture for 12 years. It was a genuine shock and it knocked me sideways.

And I will get through it. Come on, I tell myself, I learned to speak German in Austria and a good amount of Dutch in Holland. How difficult can it be for an Englishman (no matter how International) to learn English English?

And despite the discomfort and shock of this disconnection (the Dutch word is 'vervreemd' - it more accurately expresses what I felt), I don't regret one single thing. That decision, so lightly taken all those years ago, to leave my home country and seek something wider resulted in exposure to such an incredible diversity of people and cultures. Surely it has made me a better person.

It took me 12 years to learn how to be an International Englishman. It will take much less to learn to be English again. But it will take time.

Contrasting Squares

2009-09-01T07:47:00.006+02:00

A city of contrasts. I believe that's what we all love, the contrast to what we are used to. Maybe that is why we love Amsterdam.

The peace of the Hofje. The green, the calm, space, solitude, earnest learning of the university building, Minerva's wisdom.

The bustle of Nieuwmarkt. The market, terrace bar wisdom, tourists and locals mixed in this old place. De Waag dominates the square - the ancient castle-like building where merchants weighed their goods.

It's a mound of sounds. Car engines, bike bells tinging, voices, chains, squeaking breaks, coughs and splutters, high-heeled footsteps, a louder engine, English, Spanish and Dutch voices, a baby crying, a stool squeaking.

Nieuwmarkt - remarkably, the site of riots just 40 years ago, Most of the people here - mostly tourists - would be amazed to know of the riots. But I know and am always amazed too. To think this place, where we drink our tea and write our words, was the scene of police-truncheon violence and water cannon as the protesters against the demolition of old buildings to make way for the new Metro were herded away.

But much worse lies deeper, the war history. I feel it when I come here, ever since I learned that this was the Jewish quarter of a city known as Mokum (Yiddish for "Safe Haven"). Tens of thousands were removed from the area in the war. Of 80,000 Jews in Mokum before the war, just 5,000 survived. 5,000.

This deep sadness and shame of Amsterdam. We talked about it, Tine and I - she described it as "A Wounded City". Unspoken. Unspeakable. Not to be spoken of.The city recovered. Of course it did, life moves on and nearly 70 years have passed now since the war. 34 years have passed since the riots and the demolition of the rotting but beautiful buildings that stood in the way of the progress of the city.

And the Nieuwmarkt square goes about its life, serving up a beautiful atmosphere of the world moving, oblivious to the past and enjoying a present, peaceful and busy Amsterdam moment.