Signing off from London Town - Ready for a new Adventure!

So today was the day that we finally said "fare thee well" to London. It's been quite a hectic build-up to it, but we finally packed up our backpacks, finished off cleaning the flat and set off.

All was going very well, and we were pretty much ready to walk out the door with a gigantic bag of rubbish sitting at the top step (balancing precariously). Of course it was only a matter of time until it decided to go downstairs before us, and exploded all the way down 2 flights of stairs with the bag exploding and rubbish strewn everywhere. It was actually quite hilarious.

Our packs all packed up and ready to go (just before rubbish-gate)

Exploding rubbish bags put us a shade behind schedule, as we were planning to head over to London Bridge to go visit the site of our first place where we stayed in London all those years ago. So we briskly walked up to Hammersmith tube station (stopping only for a photo of our Street name...) and made our way over there.

When we first got here we would often eat a Bagel from a place called Bagel Street which used to be located near More London but sadly has closed down these days. However, quite fortuitously, we found a Bagel shop in the London Bridge train station (and obligatory coffee), and took it over to sit on the seats at More London looking out over Tower Bridge as this is one of our favourite London spots.

After this, time was running a bit short, but we had time to walk over to our friend's old house that we first stayed with on Tooley Street and got a photo out the front. All those years ago we got a photo of all our backpacks out the front of her house, and thought we'd do it on our way out of London also.

Hammersmith Tube Station (for the final time)

It was actually a very strange feeling to be leaving. London has been our lives for nearly 8 years, and we have so many amazing experiences, have met some truly fantastic people who will remain our friends for life, and visited some astonishing places. We were both kind of sad, and excited about our coming adventure at the same time. This coupled with an overwhelming numbness - leaving very much doesn't seem real, even though here I am sitting in Lisbon writing this blog from Rossio Hostel.

Nikki leaving our front door for the last time

As we were running a bit behind time, we decided it would be quite fitting to jump in a black taxi for a final time to get to Liverpool Street for our train to the Airport, and as the plane's wheels lifted off, it was slightly odd to realise it was actually going to be a long time before our feet would set foot on that ground again. Something that has been so familiar to us having flown out of London many times over the years strangely felt very unfamiliar.

However, we have finally bid ol' blighty farewell, and were welcomed into Lisbon with what seemed to be a cyclone. Our taxi driver told us that the winds were gusting up to 200kph, and our landing was definitely one of the more interesting ones we've had. So, here we sit in our "Hostel" room - and I use that term very loosely (it's beautiful) - with a sense of excitement of the adventure to come and looking forward to a few days of R&R in Lisbon to recharge the batteries after what was a hectic build up to it.

We've walked past this sign so many times it would be impossible to count up - this was our final time.

Damo's last tube ride (for now)

Lunch and coffee at More London

A replica of one of the first photos we took in London - this was the first place we lived in over here (See original below - unfortunately we didn't have the original for reference at the time...)

The original we took nearly 8 years ago!

York

Even though we've lived in the UK for 7 and a half years now, we've never managed to make it up to York - we decided that before we left for good, that we should remediate this serious flaw.

We jumped on a train from Kings Cross station (which has recently been renovated by the way, and it's incredible!), and caught the train up to York. Once we got off the train, we checked out the station quickly. We proceeded to make our way to our hotel, stopping briefly by the river to sit down on a pier to have our sandwiches. After this we decided to go for a wander and check out the Old Town. There is a tiny street in the centre of the town called "The Shambles" which we went and checked out, then went to the York Minster. What an amazing structure. I would suggest it is one of the most fantastic churches I have ever set foot in, perhaps only beaten by St. Peter's. It was amazingly impressive. The undercroft tells a great story of the foundations of the building back to Roman times, and the relatively recent refooting of the building to support the weight of it. We both managed to get a cheap and quick Arch-bishopship. :-)

I went for a walk to the top of the tower and climbed 275 steps up a VERY narrow winding staircase. It was a lovely walk, and actually didn't take as long as they suggested. The view from the top was absolutely stunning, but the weather was a bit average, so the pics didn't work out so great. But hey-ho - it was a great walk.

The rest of it was brilliant.

The following day, we got up in the morning and went to the National Railway Museum. So awesome. It is such a fantastic museum. If you ever get the chance to go, you really should - entry is a 3 pound suggested donation, considering this it's an absolute bargain. I reckon it must have taken us a few hours to get through - checking out all the old royal carriages, and the massive Steam train collection. So cool. In the museum they have a heap of trains including the Mallard - the world's Steam Train speed record holder to this day. Also they usually have The Flying Scotsman, and have a large display on it, but it's off being completely restored at another workshop, so they have The Green Arrow in it's place, which was another train of the same type that ran the same route - interestingly there is no real answer to the question as to why the Flying Scotsman is as famous as it is, other than it was the first to run the non-stop London to Edinburgh route. But apart from these particularly famous ones, there's a whole bunch of other cool stuff to check out too.

Following this we decided to stop in the park nearby for a bite to eat. We ended up having leftover egg and chip sandwiches which was awesome - and as an added bonus I found 4 pounds on the ground near our park bench! Jackpot.

We then went for a walk around the town walls, around to the other side of the city, and went to a place called Clifford Tower which was an old fortress and was nice too.

Following this we went to a pub for dinner - Thomas's of York - and finally got our Beef and Ale pie we'd both been craving and it was epic!

Krakow Christmas Markets

Very late November we decided to go to Krakow - the main reason for this was that neither of us had never been to Poland before, and we really wanted to check out Auschwitz prior to us leaving Europe. It also just happened to coincide with the Christmas Markets - what a shame... ;-)

One thing that we learnt was that Krakow is an absolutely beautiful city. Stunning, in fact. And with so much history how could you not love the place.

Nikki hadn't been feeling very well prior to us going, so we were always going to take Krakow at a slightly slower pace than we would otherwise, but it has potentially taught us a thing or two about the way we go travelling anyway - slow down and smell the roses a little.

We managed to see the Christmas Markets, go for a walking tour of the Old Town, and went out to Auschwitz on a day tour. 

Auschwitz - What a fascinating place. There's an old saying that goes something like "bad things happen when good people stand back and do nothing" that I think is one of the most pertinent things I could take away from visiting. The ridiculousness and horror of what went on in Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau is so staggering that it is often hard to fathom that this ACTUALLY happened. From seeing a room full of human hair (removed from the ladies), to another room that was full of children's shoes, it was incredibly sobering to be in the actual place that these atrocities took place.

I would have to say that visiting Auschwitz was something that must be done - we had previously visited Dachau, but even though that was quite a touching experience, the sheer magnitude of Auschwitz was hard to imagine. Visiting was also something of a bizarre contrast to the rest of our trip, though, as the remainder of the trip was one of enjoying the Christmas Markets and general sight-seeing.

The main square in Krakow is the largest square in continental Europe, and is very stunning. The history of Poland of a country is particularly interesting, and was very much brought to life by Alicjia, our incredibly fantastic free walking tour guide.

The Christmas Markets were not particularly large, but were definitely sufficient for a couple of nights of slow meandering and drinking glühwein, eating kielbasa, pierogi, funnel cake and the contents of the markets themselves were fantastic.

All in all, Krakow was a massive surprise - such an incredible, beautiful place. If anyone ever gets the opportunity to visit, I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Santorini Photo

Back in September this year we managed to go island hopping in the Greek Islands. We went to Mykonos, Naxos and Santorini, and had an amazing time.

Primarily I'm just testing my new technology setup to see how it is posting images from my Colorspace UDMA to the blog using my iPad.

I quite liked these images, so just thought I'd throw them up quickly. Look how hot Nikki is! The photo of her was taken in Oia one evening when we went down there for dinner. What an absolutely incredible place! Bringing back some phenomenal memories. So much food. I was a massive fan of halloumi, and it was so incredible.

Poland Christmas Markets

Well we're off to the Christmas Markets in Poland this weekend. Flying out on Thursday Night and coming back late on Sunday Night. We have the joy of flying with Ryanair this time - oh Joy!

During this weekend we're planning on going to Auschwitz while we're over in Krakow. We've been to Dachau near Munich before so we have a pretty good idea of the type of thing that's coming, but no doubt it will be something quite special and moving in a similar but different way.

To some extent we're going to have a little bit of a dry run with some of our equipment for our up-coming Nepal trip. We've got some interesting electronic gadgets that will hopefully make maintaining this blog easy while we're on the road. I've managed to get a hold of a like-new, 2nd-hand ClamCase Pro to pair with our iPad, and I've got a Colorspace UDMA2 with WiFi for photo back ups and for pairing to the iPad. I'm hoping that this will be a good technical solution to give us quite a versatile arrangement that doesn't have much weight and will enable us to do all we need while we're on the road during our travels over the next few months.

Krakow Christmas Markets

Anyway, as promised, I'm not going to go on too much about stuff. Will be back during the weekend or after with some more pics and info.

Big Announcement

It's been nearly a year and a half since our last blog post (and before that was a LONG time as well), and I've decided that's not good enough. So, the big announcement is that I'm going to start blogging again. :-)

Our next trip coming up soon is a trip to Krakow in Poland for our annual trip to the Christmas Markets in Europe. This year we have opted for Poland as we've never been there and we really want to go to Auschwitz.

The Christmas Markets we've been to in the past include (but are not limited to):

Frankfurt (Germany)
Bruges (Belgium)
Zurich (Switzerland)
Riga (Latvia)
Trier (Germany)
Koln (Germany)
Berlin (Germany)
Vienna (Austria)
Nuremburg (Germany)

Almost certainly there's been more than that, but I can't remember them.

As you can maybe tell, we're pretty big fans of going to the European Christmas Markets. There is nothing better than wandering around them absorbing the atmosphere, the smell of gluhwein (Hot Mulled Wine), and eating all of the delicious foods that go along with that!

I would say that the best ones we've probably been to so far were the Nuremburg ones - mostly because we had lots of lovely snow when we were there and the atmosphere within the old town was just amazing. We went to these ones in 2012 and had a fantastic time.

Welp - this is the first blog back in a long time and I promise that I'm going to try and keep the posts more concise in future.

Easter 2011 Spanish Pyrenees Trip (Mostly photos)

Earlier last year around Easter time, Nikki and I went on a trip from Portsmouth in the UK, over the Ferry to Santander, along the N240 through the Spanish side of the Pyrenees (also via Andorra), to Tossa de Mar on the Costa Brava, then up through the French countryside via the Loire Valley, through Arras, then onto some place I can't remember and back to Calais and home.

Here are a few random photos of the trip (not the best by far - a lot of the best images are on the other laptop), but just thought I would share this if for no other reason than to remind me how awesome it is to travel long distances on a motorbike!

Hope someone enjoys a couple of them - I know we enjoyed taking them and the trip in general... It'll also show my 'Cat, which is slightly unique (600 Sports-tourer - not many of them around...) - and I love it.

Early November Jaunt around Western Europe on the Motorbike

OK - So I know this blog hasn't been updated for a couple of years, but I thought the time had come to resurrect it.

So I ended up on an 'enforced' two weeks off work recently, and decided after sitting around the house for a week, that my time could be much better spent riding the Yamaha around Western Europe for 5 days.

After hatching a very rough idea of a plan on the Saturday, I decided to book the ferry from Dover to Calais on the Sunday night [£20 return - sweet!!!], and also some accommodation to lob into for the first night [International Youth Hostel in Kortrijk, Belgium].

So before I left for my trip, my plan looked like:
Day 1: Hammersmith to Kortrijk (Belgium)
Day 2: Kortrijk maybe to Maastricht (Netherlands)
Day 3: ???
Day 4: Profit
Day 5: Home

(Obviously a small homage to the South Park - Underpants Gnome episode...) :-)

I didn't really know what my route was shaping up to be, and before I headed off I only had a very vague idea of what my path was going to look like. I had a sketchy plan of trying to visit as many countries whilst staying off motorways as I could in 5 days, but without racking up stupid mileage and taking it all relatively easy.

I saddled up on Monday morning, said a fond farewell to Nikki, and headed off down to the ferry at Dover on a very foggy, dull and overcast morning. I must admit to stuffing around at the service station for a little too long, and turning up with only about 20 mins left to departure time and nearly missing the ferry - it ended up all good though, even if I wasn't exactly relishing the weather. Temps were nice enough, but the greyness was quite dull.

Departing Hammersmith

On board the ferry from Dover to Calais

After disembarking from Calais, I headed north-east up towards Dunkirk, with the intention of then turning right, and heading across the northern french countryside into Belgium. Riding off the ferry, the cloak of grey lifted, and revealed a beautiful, clear Autumn day that you would kill for.

After setting the Sat Nav to avoid motorways (I only set it back to include motorways on Friday morning, when I realised I was a bit of a way from home), I ended up riding along a number of beautiful, sweeping roads towards the Belgian border through spectacular countryside. I had a number of photo stops, and then spent a very enjoyable afternoon riding through the Belgian countryside. I arrived into Kortijk at about 5:30 local time, and then spent an enjoyable night checking out the main part of town, a decent dinner in the main Grote Markt, and then a few Belgian beers in a bar nearby. I retired back to the hostel at about 10pm, and then spent a couple of hours having excessively alcoholic beers with Johann the Hostel manager. It was a fantastic night.

Route de l'Europe

Oost Cappel, French/Belgian Border

Route de l'Europe

Church in Kortrijk

Grote Markt, Kortrijk

Enjoying a beer in Grote Markt

Broel Towers, Kortrijk

Broel Towers, Kortrijk

I saddled up in the morning, with a rough plan to head to Maastricht, and was planning on heading through a small town called Wavre, just so that I could avoid Brussels as much as possible. The route turned out to be fabulous, and on a couple of occasions I was the only vehicle that I could see on a road for hours! I ended up getting into Maastricht late afternoon, and started looking for accommodation. This wasn't quite as easy as I had hoped, but I managed to find a fantastic place right in the middle of town for a good price. It was very weird though - I had to enter it through a shop... Either way, I ended up absolutely knackered after a long day in the saddle. Riding like this was just awesome though, because I think on the Sat Nav the duration was something like 4 hours, and I ended up riding for about 7 hours.

Maastricht was a huge surprise to me - I had never heard of it before (even though I've subsequently been informed of the importance of this city to the EU...). It was a lovely place, with a lot of large squares, and many pretty buildings, a lovely old town and a nice river. I really really enjoyed being in Maastricht and have decided to go back there another time with Nikki.

I enjoyed Maastricht so much, that the following morning, I really wanted to have a wander around the city and take some photos, so once again I wasn't in the saddle particularly early, but I eventually saddled up around about 10:30 or so. My next destination was a place called Kalenborn in Germany (kinda near the Nurburgring - which was going to be my ultimate destination). I read a story in the MCN (Motorcycle News) which I had packed to take for some reading and one of the staff riders mentioned that they stayed in Kalenborn, so that was good enough for me - and also proved to be the inspiration to take me to the 'ring. My mate Ken had been banging onto me forever about us getting out to the 'Ring, so I decided to take the opportunity to go there while I was heading in the general neck of the woods – big sorry that it was without you mate – though with all that said, far be it from me to not go there again... ?

I got to Kalenborn about 15:30, and dumped all my luggage, and went out to fuel up with Super Unleaded and went for a ride. I ended up just pootling (or not so much pootling as far as the roads go...) around the area near where I was staying (well within about an hours radius), and ended up at a lookout looking over a place called Schloßhof which was absolutely amazing. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Schlo%C3%9Fhof-Baden-Wurttemberg-Germany/116405835039603... Absolutely loved the place, and will certainly be taking Nikki back there too. I could completely recommend this place to anyone looking for some fantastic twisty roads in Europe, coupled with a wine region and a beautiful valley.

That night, I was staying at quite a remote hotel, and as it was a public holiday in Germany, the hotel’s restaurant was not open – fortunately there was a Beer Garden about a 400m walk away, so I walked up there, ordered some food off the menu which I had no idea what I was ordering (turned out to be smoked salmon, which I don’t really like...), and had a couple of quiet beers. Strange beer garden, as it was in a horse-riding ring, and there were people training.





Up relatively early the next morning, I had a hearty breakfast, and then got all my stuff ready to head off to the Nurburgring which was about a half hour ride away. I headed off with a nervous trepidation – so far the weather had been clear blue skies, and mild days – perfect riding weather. Today, it was a bit more overcast, and the roads were a bit damp from an overnight downpour. I was quite nervous, as I was worried about being on-track with the high-powered sports cars, and, as I’ve only been riding for a couple of years, generally a little in my own ability. The ride to the Nurburging from Kalenborn was absolutely perfect – you couldn’t ask for more from roads, but even still I chose to take it relatively easy.

I ended up checking out the Nurburgring Information Centre (which is huge), and spent a bit of time there just nervously hanging out before going to do the Nordschleife. I rocked up to the booth at Nordschleife and spoke with the guy behind the counter and he was uber-helpful – I knew he could tell that I was nervous, and he was very reassuring and explained to me about how a lot of the powerful cars in Germany & Switzerland only get 6 months registration over the summer months, and that this usually ran out in September or October and as a consequence of this and the weather, the track was really quiet. I stayed watching cars go on track for about half an hour and decided to go for it. So I pays my money (€24 for one lap), get my Nurburgring card, and make my way very nervously out to the boom gates. I swipe my card, and I was off!

If I’m honest, I don’t remember a large amount about the lap, as it all happened so quickly. I do remember seeing a few of the kilometre markers as I was going around, and was very surprised at how quickly all 21 of them were going past. I also remember getting taken up the inside going into Karrusel (sp?) by a Porsche, but I was watching my mirrors like a hawk, and I knew he was coming behind me before he knew it... It had started to slightly drizzle just before I went out, and the track marshall also mentioned that there would likely be a lot of leaves on the track and to watch out for them. As it turned out, I think I only got overtaken by 3 cars in the entire distance, and not too long after I had finished it started raining properly! I was absolutely ecstatic at having completed it, and wanted to do it again, but also didn’t want to risk it again. So with the weather closing in, I decided to head back to the info centre, and found out that they had a go-karting track there, and some racing simulators – this could be my afternoon sorted then! ? Had a quick go on both of them, and then decided that I was going to go to Luxembourg (another country... ;-)) for the night – on a previous trip we went on with Ken & Kristina, we’d briefly stopped off at a town called Durbuy, and so I decided that this would be my destination for the night. (As it turns out, I understand that it is one of the smallest cities in the world – it claims to be the smallest, but I am unable to verify the veracity of that claim...)

The ride from the Nurburgring to Durbuy were definitely the best roads I’ve ever ridden, and I can thoroughly recommend them to anyone if you are ever in that neck of the woods. Also, I stayed in a hotel right on the main square of Durbuy as I decided to treat myself this night. I went to a place called Cafe Volcano for dinner for a Pizza, and a few local brews – they make one called Durboyse Blond which was bloody loverly.

So the next morning I woke up, saddled up, punched ‘Home’ in the Sat Nav, then crapped myself as I thought that I had 6 hours of riding to get to the ferry at Calais by 15:30, and the time was currently 11:00, however fortunately it dawned on me a few k’s down the road that it was calculating the time to ‘Home’ and not to ‘Calais’. After changing the Sat Nav, and getting the right amount of time I was able to cruise on the motorway for 2 hours, then ditch the motorway and spend the rest of the day riding on back roads all the way to the ferry.

After disembarking the ferry, I noticed that my speedo had stopped working, so it was just a case of cruising home at a reasonable speed. Having ridden around Europe for a week, and not having any problems with or even seeing Monsieur Plod or his mates, I was pulled over by the cops on the King St in Hammersmith (2 blocks away from where I live...). As it turned out, the guy rode bikes himself, and basically just had a go at me for accelerating a bit quick in a built up area. Then he proceeded to talk all things bike with me for about half an hour! Better than getting a ticket, and he turned out to be an ok fella.

After riding 1400 miles over 5 days, and using the motorway for only about 6 hours of riding in the entire time, I had a fantastic trip. I had been through 6 countries in 5 days, stayed in 4 different countries over 4 nights, and had ridden through 4 countries in one day. It had absolutely been a trip of a lifetime!

Here is a rough look at what my route looked like (though for all the days through Belgium, Netherlands, Germany I was riding for much longer than shown on the maps as I was trying to find the most obscure routes possible)...
http://tinyurl.com/cbw76p3

Hope this hasn't been too boring.

Blog Update

We've got 3 large entries with loads of pics in the pipeline at the moment. Be patient!

We miss everyone! 10 weeks til we come home for a while!!!!!

WOOHOO!

Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary to Mum and Dad!
Happy Birthday to Tara!

Munich Oktoberfest 2007

Time to get some updates done. (Pics to follow)

First night we did a little shopping in the main area of Munich and checked out Marienplatz, Glockenspiel and central Munich. We were both fairly impressed with how well organised Munich was, but I guess that's to be expected out of the Germans. For dinner on our first night, we went to a genuine small little beer hall for dinner and damo had bratwurst and sauerkraut and a couple of weißbier. After this we wandered back to our hostel accommodation (AO Hostels) which was brilliant - anyone heading to Munich - this is a GREAT cheap place to stay.



The next day we woke up and headed up to the Glockenspiel to meet up with Mike's Bike Tours to head off for our tour of Munich. There was a heap of people, and we were separated into 2 groups. Nik was clever enough to realise that there was a heap of raucous people all together and going into one group - we joined in with them. The people were a bunch of Texans that had flown over for Oktoberfest, and they were all top shelf people. We went cycling around Munich and were shown many cool things. We went and had lunch in a Chinese Beergarden in the middle of the Englisher Garten Steve-O tour guide getting in fight, checking out the Englisher Garten, Nudist Meadow, Stationary Wave, piss up afterwards with Texans at the Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall til laaaate.


Woke up late, moved accommodation from A&O Hostel to Jaegers. Did a bit of shopping for Lederhosen etc. Can't remember what we did that night. Probably not much as we wanted to get to bed early so we could get up early the next day. Didn't get much sleep at the new hostel, so woke up a bit late, and met up with Jason and Steph and the rest of the fighter pilots at the Hofbrauhaus beer tent at the Oktoberfest. Stayed there til about 10pm, and ran into the Texans again, and also Eion and Paul.



Woke up late. headed back to Oktoberfest later in the day (about 8pm) and met up with the fighter pilots again (less Jason and Steph, and much phone confusion involved). Ended up staying til closing time at the Paulaner tent, and met up with a local and got chatting to him and then headed into central munich to some nightclub that was at a hotel and stayed there until about 2.30am. Walked home, and met up with a bloke from Boston in the lobby of the hotel and we got chatting to him and we ended up making it to bed at about 5am.



Wrecked for all the next day. Woke up about 2pm and went and got food, and made our way back to the O-fest, but this time we were both fairly keen to give the grog a bit of a swerve. We went on a few rides (Ferris Wheel, Hession mat down a slippery slide, Wildemaus Rollercoaster), and bought a few souvenirs and generally just checked out the carnival. This was our last night, but we were both rocking a fairly bad hangover from the night before, so we gave the grog a miss, but still ended up meeting up with Eion and Paul at the Hofbrauhaus tent again. We stayed with them until closing time, made our way home and packed as we were to fly out the next day.

Slackness on Blog posting and Aussie musings

Okay - we've been particularly bad - worse than normal - at keeping the blog up to date.

This is the start of changing things around.

We've got a lot that we've got to catch up on, but this post isn't for that.

Since the last Monaco post, we've been to Belgium, Greek Islands and Spain (and perhaps another trip to Wales too...). There will be further posts with more detailed entries about them (and lots of piccies....)

This post is just to let everyone know that we're getting back in touch with our Aussie roots, and Damo is getting in touch with his for the first time.

We've just been sitting on the floor of our flat eating Milk Arrowroot biscuits with butter and Vegemite on them.

That's right - Damo has been eating Vegemite for the first time in his life, and HE LOVES IT!!!! We were just chatting about it, and he reckons that the last time he tried Vegemite was probably literally about 20 years ago!!!

Strange how your taste buds change.....

We're coming back to Oz for about 6 weeks at Christmas time this year, and we CAN'T WAIT to see everyone.

We miss you all heaps and can't wait to see you all!