The Dream is Over...

After nearly 300 days of travelling, Journey Boy and Destination Girl have arrived back in Sydney to much fanfare and joyous celebration (well, not really, but we were very happy to be home.) If you recall the last instalment of our adventure, we were leaving the bonnie hills and wee lochs of Scotland and heading south into England. After a 6 hour drive (who knew you could drive that far in England without lapping yourself?) we made it to a charming little spot called Bradford upon Stoke. The next few days were spent taking in the delights of the surrounding area. The first of these 'delights' was Stonehenge. It might have been fascinating from an archeological perspective, if only the archeologists could agree what the whole thing was for. Bottom line, 3,500 years ago some people hauled a few large stones a long way and left them sitting in a paddock. It was impressive, sure, but not so impressive when you consider that at roughly the same time in Egypt they were building the pyramids of Giza. A far superior taste of English culture and history was the town of Stratford upon Avon, where we got to visit the church where Shakespeare was buried, the house where he lived and the pubs were he got rolling drunk. Hard to imagine a genius like that, who had so much insight into the human condition, growing up in a little town like Stratford. Or maybe little towns give you more insight because everyone knows everyone else's business? Still pondering this question, we took a day to check out the town of Bath, famous naturally, for it's Roman baths, built there nearly 2000 years ago and still in pretty good shape.
It was also a very nice town to wander around with some very stylish Georgian architecture.

The next day we relocated ourselves to Richmond, an hour north of London and right next to the Thames. The weather was still holding for us so the next morning we got up and walked for a couple of hours along the river before jumping on a ferry and heading into the city. Another short stroll and we made it to the Tower of London. We'd both been there before but it was worth seeing again. In any case, Christine needed her jewel fix to make up for her disappointment with the Scottish crown jewels (I mean really: a 50kg 'stone of destiny' - you can't exactly wear it can you?) The English royal jewels certainly do not disappoint, with an extraordinary collection of rare gems pilfered from every corner of the earth so that tourists from those corners can come and look at what they used to own. Also fascinating was a tour of the Tower conducted by one of the Beefeaters, who gave us some of the more gruesome details of the towers history. Still not done with castles, the following day we drove to Windsor in our continuing quest to meet the Queen. Windsor was massive, far bigger than we expected, and it was fun taking another tour from another soldier (this time a Guardsman) who had no hesitation in telling us what he thought about the more 'radical and subversive' elements in our society, which seemed to include republicans, colonials, the non-English and, oh yes, republicans. We also got to visit parts of the inside of the castle, walking through the various staterooms where the Royal family actually entertain their guests. I was reminded of a 'Goodies' skit when I was a kid, where the Queen and Prince Phillip are having their cornflakes in their pyjamas, being constantly bothered by the tourists walking past. Weirdly, the tour was stopped short of one room by a guard who informed us that the Queen was in there having guests for tea! We said yes, yes we know, we're late - but that didn't fly.

Our last day in Richmond was spent looking at our final royal dwelling, Kensington Palace. We didn't go inside (you've seen one gold-plated, jewel-encrusted four poster bed, you've seen 'em all) but we did chill out in its very nice garden. From Richmond it was off to Beaconsfield to stay with our friends, the Padgett's, who had very kindly agreed to put us up again, despite the fact they were packing to move to Seattle! We used this as a base for the next few days and took the chance to catch up with our friend Marnie, in London, as well our friends Phil and Nicky, who we had met on the Canada leg of our travels. They lived not far from Beaconsfield so we drove on over and had a very, very lengthy lunch at one of the local taverns. Our friend back in Australia, Jules, had been doing some research for us (we were getting lazy by this stage) and suggested we should see the play "Much ado about nothing" at the West End. David Tennant and Catherine Tate were the leads (from the Doctor Who TV series) and it was brilliant.

After saying our goodbyes to the Padgett's, it was time to head home. The flight from Heathrow to Singapore was pretty uneventful (for a change) and in Singapore we stayed with an old friend and work colleague of Christine's, John Gordon and his partner, Peter. They had a fantastic place within striking distance of about a thousand interesting things to do. More importantly though, they had a pool and that's pretty much where we stayed. We did make a few short trips. On the night of our arrival we met up with 4 additional ex-pat mates of Pete and John’s about 9 bottles of wine later, great food and extra champaign celebrating how good life is for all of us we went to bed around 3am, a great reintroduction to the Australian tradition of drinking far more then necessary. We also caught up with an old friend of ours - Steve and his lovely girlfriend Yohanna - and another when John and Peter took us out for drinks and dinner and we got to see Singapore from the roof of one of it's tallest buildings. After four days of soaking up the heat (because we had seen precious little of it in the last 10 months) we departed for the airport and our final leg home to Sydney. Qantas had one little surprise left in store for us though, cancelling our flight (and not bothering to ring and tell us) and then putting us on the A380 via Melbourne. This got us into Sydney about 4 hours later than expected but, nonetheless, we were home.

Well, we were away for 296 days. We visited 20 countries and around 90 different cities. There were planes, trains, buses, ferries, taxis, cable cars, gondolas, jeeps... and one camel (not recommended). We realise that we love trains and we hate planes and everything else depended on where we were going. In the week or so since we got back we've been asked a dozen times what our favourite country was and every time I think we've answered differently. Every place had something to offer (even Naples with its perennial garbage strikes) and there wasn't a single day of the whole trip we regretted. Having said that, it was great to be home and back in our own bed. Christine was reunited with her beloved car, and we picked up one slightly disgruntled cat from his grandparents, for whom the last 10 months had been something of a dream as well, getting fed three times a day and constant attention. Back to reality, Hammond! Being away that long has definitely changed our perspective, and, having lived for 10 months out of two suitcases we are now madly throwing out things in our apartment that we realise we don't need. Hopefully our new 'minimalism' will last and our traveling will help us to lead simpler and even happier lives. If you've been reading this blog we hope you've enjoyed it. It you've been to some of the places we visited we hope it brought back memories and if you haven't then we hope you are inspired to go. Because, in the words of the great philosopher, Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Donald, Where’s Yer Troosers

Jules sent us this link, beware once you watch it you can’t get it out of your head, but it will put you in the right frame of mind to read this blog. In case it doesn't open automatically here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDJflQfNUE8

We have been absolutely blessed with the weather during our travels in Scotland. Nothing but sunshine and t-shirts since the 2nd day of our arrival. Even the locals think it has been a bit weird. We didn’t complain but used it to full advantage. We had two full days in Edinburgh so began by visiting Edinburgh Castle, which was a very impressive example of a Scottish castle and ironically the best preserved and largest that we saw on the whole trip! Less impressive was the Scottish crown jewels, which consisted of a crown, a sceptre and a big rock (called the ‘stone of destiny’). Mind you everything is hard to compare with the English crown jewels in London and the Ottoman Sultans baubles in the Topkapi Palace. We had a laugh at the explanation of the 1pm gun that resounds in echos over Edinburgh each day, apparently the Scottish are so tight that they only wanted to fire the gun once, hence 1pm. From the hotel to the city we walked through beautiful parks and walkways under cherry blossoms paths to the Royal Mile, at one end was the Holyrood Palace generally used by the queen and the new Parliament house designed by a Spaniard. We passed the commons area where Arthur Conon Doyle used to hang and then went on a Disney equivalent joy ride at The Scottish whisky experience, but with alcohol. Christine bought Tartan, Brad went to the Scottish Natural History Museum and we both enjoyed naughty chocolate slices at The Elephant Cafe, (a favourite haunt of JK Rowling’s when she was writing Harry Potter. This was to keep Brad inspired to continue writing).


We then picked up Dino the hire car, tuned the radio to classic BBC late 70’s music, the only radio station we could get that wasn’t talk back, and headed to Stirling Castle. On the way we stopped off at the site of the battle of Bannockburn where Robert the Bruce won his victory over the English army (celebrated in the final scene of Braveheart) and visited the memorial to Braveheart himself, Sir William Wallace, which had a great view over to Stirling Castle. Stirling Castle was the archetypical castle, sitting on top of a high hill with commanding views of the countryside and has been the centrepiece of Scottish history for about a thousand years. The next day we drove to St Andrews and walked around the Royal and Ancient Golf Course (Brad thinks he might have broken 100 on this course... but for nine holes). We also walked around the nearby university where Prince William and Cate met all those years ago. More exciting were the RAF Tornado fighter-bombers continually taking off from the nearby airfield. We then moved on to Dundee to see the sailing/steamship Discovery. This was Captain Scotts ship from his 1st expedition to the Antarctic in 1901. It was an enormously successful scientific voyage that lasted three years but was completely overshadowed by his tragic attempt to reach the pole a decade later. It was then on to Scone Palace, the ancient capital of Scotland and where the Stone of Destiny resided until pinched by the English in about 1300 (and returned to Edinburgh Castle in 1997). The palace is still inhabited by the Earls of Mansfield (you can see their baby photos all over the place during the tour, we're surprised we didn't interrupt them having breakfast). Christine also amused herself by having a philosophical debate with the local cafe staff about the origin of scones (apparently they're from Devonshire, not Scone).


After resting at Pitlochry for the night, we went hiking through the Linn of Dee, a beautiful (but rather boggy and smelly) trail through a national park. In the afternoon we went to Balmoral Castle, the Scottish home of the queen. Not really a castle but more of a very rich persons hunting lodge (which is what it still is today) - look out in Scotland if you are a deer and there is a crown prince present, he'll blow you away. Right next door was the Royal Lochnagar Distillery that bottles scotch for the royal family. If it's good enough for the Queen it's good enough for Brad (probably way too good, in fact) so he got a bottle. We obtained our Scotch Whisky Passport but couldn’t do a tour of this one as it was being painted for a potential visit by the queen. We have a suspicion that the Royal Family believe the whole world smells like fresh paint. Our B&B that night was at the Ballater School House where the son of the owners (a merchant marine) looked after us and did a pretty good job with breakfast. The B&B's we stayed in throughout our travels were all pretty good, in fact, usually better than most of the hotels!

Further north we toured the Glen Livet Distillery and learnt how they make bucket loads of the stuff. Actually a fascinating process, incredible how they get such different tastes following roughly the same procedure. We stopped in at the Aberlour Distillery and then went on to Elgin, the northern most point of our travels and visited Johnston's – famous for their cashmere and Australian wool products and where Bradford bought Christine a new mauve jumper. The next day was all about history. First it was a look at Cawdor Castle, the ancestral home of Macbeth. Then it was a wander about the anthropological site of the Clava Cairns, a thousand year old burial site consisting of large piles of rocks (actually more interesting than it sounds), before ending our day at the Culloden Battle field where we learnt about the Jacobite rebellion against the English in the 1740’s under Bonnie Prince Charlie, and how it all came to an end in less than an hour when the pride of the Scottish clans were massacred in this field. Bonnie Prince Charlie survived the battle and eventually left Scotland, never to return. Strangely, the Scots still seem to worship him though he brought them nothing but trouble.

We stayed the night at the Andersons Hotel at Fortrose which had over 250 whiskeys, 100 wines, great food and only 20 stairs to our room (fortunately). Slightly under the weather from our over-indulgence we drove south towards Loch Ness the following day. We went to the Loch Ness scientific research centre and established our best chance of a sighting was at Erqhart Castle. 10 minutes after arriving we caught sight of Nessy and have included a photo for verification in the blog.
Now wondering what all the fuss was about. I mean, pretty hard for one of these things to stay hidden, right? We stayed that night at the Kyle of Lochalsh in sight of the Eilean Donan castle, which was featured in the James Bond movie "the world is not enough" as the home of the bad guy. If you are an evil genius hell-bent on world domination, then a Scottish castle is obviously a 'must have'. Having informed Bradford that he is not an 'evil genius' but more a 'naughty smart-arse', Christine has determined we are not buying a castle. This was confirmed the next day when, whilst crossing the Skye Bridge, a magnificent and highly photographed spectacle, the evil genius couldn't get the lens cap off. Arguing, we drove to the Talisker distillery (but it was closed), we avoided the Serpetarium, as Scotland has only 1 snake, and then lunched at the award winning 3 Chimneys restaurant. We kept driving right out to Neist Point to look at the light house perched on Skye's fantastic west coast line. Looking down from the cliffs we saw what was either a really big shark, a very small whale or.... Nessy! Our accommodation that night was in the country on a 2 mile one lane dirt road outside Portree. Very, very quiet and beautiful.

The next day we decided on another walk and headed to the north of the island to the Quiraing, a 3.8 mile (a 3 boot graded walk) with tremendous crags and pinnacles named The Prison, The Needle and The Table. Apparently during occupation under the English the locals would hide their sheep on the Table which was impossible to see unless you climbed this mountain path. The day was gorgeous, the views were stunning and we got some of our best photos from the peak. We then made another trip to Taliskers where we went on our 3rd distillery tour (quite the experts now) and a nice arvo tea at The Old Inn at Carbost. We began our next day with a 200k drive to Oban via the local car ferry, spotted a few deliberately lit forest fires (criminal wankers are not confined to Australia it seems), looked at scenery used in the Harry Potter movies and marvelled at yet more statues erected to the disastrous Bonnie Prince Charles (who fled Scotland dressed in a skirt - not exactly El Cid was he!?) That night we settled in a nice B&B owned by a young family and sipped tea on the front lawn overlooking the quaint harbour of Oban.

I think we can be forgiven that it felt like we were in a different country when we arrived in Glasgow the next day as we couldn’t understand a bleeding soul. We actually thought some were speaking Gaelic rather than English but not so! We now also know what it would feel like to be David and Victoria Beckham as compared to most we were very very very good looking. God, their dress sense even challenged Bradley's taste! The politics/football was also a bit worrying. The day we got there the Glasgow Rangers coach got a letter bomb... from a Rangers fan! Because they lost a game!! And nobody thought it was weird!!! Anyway, a bit travelled out at this point and reluctant to attend any local sporting events without body armour, we decided to get our film fix. We watched Thor – a particularly nice scene for Christine where Chris Hemsworth had his shirt off and then Fast and Furious 5 where all the t-shirts in the movie were squeaking "help me, I can’t breathe". Seriously, it's was like they were painted on. We had hours of fun thinking about how many shirts The Rock and Vin Diesel must go through each day. “Excuse me Vin but could you tell me the time? Why certainly pretty lady” - flex of the pecs - “Shit” another shirt torn. Other then getting our movie fix, we had a few more pub lunches, strolled in the only public park vrs private rich peoples parks, jumped rain puddles, organised laundry and relaxed.

Did we mention all the scruffy sheep and cows everywhere?

Next wee post, England
Love Christine O’Toohey and Bradford McRolfe

Saludos desde España

You can sum up Barcelona with two words; art and architecture. After checking in at the hotel late in the afternoon following our flight from Austria, we went up to the roof to check out the panorama it offered of the city. All around us were examples of some of the strangest buildings I have seen, but we couldn't fully appreciate them in the half light. The following day we started the morning with a stroll down the la Rambla, the main corso of Barcelona, just taking in the morning sun, which was a real treat after the last few months. We then made our way down to the Arts hotel near the beach, so Christine could check out where she had stayed with her sister, Juliann, 15 years ago. After mistaking another freaky building for the Arts hotel, we eventually found it and fulfilled another of Christine's personal missions. After that we made our way to the Sagrada Familia, a church designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi in the late 19th century and is still being worked on today in accordance with his original vision. It's easy to use superlatives to describe all the things we've seen, but this one trumps everything. Words cannot do justice to this building. In fact, 'building' doesn't do it justice either. It is like the whole vast structure just grew out of the ground. The space inside is so natural it's like sitting in a park, and just as peaceful. Strangely, we then actually visited a park designed by the same man, and with the same incredible utilisation of organic shapes that made you feel like a particular structure simply had to be there the way it was and no way else. A true genius.

On our second day we visited a museum dedicated to one of Christine's favourite artists, Picasso. While it's hard not be familiar with his work now, this museum was interesting because it contained mostly his early pieces, from the time he was barely a teenager. He was a remarkable talent, even then, and it is amazing to see his early paintings in the classical style, and then watch his steady progression towards the cubism that made him famous. From this museum we caught the train out to another of Antoni Gaudi's creations, this time an apartment block. Generally such mundane, modern structures, this apartment building had no straight lines! It was like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Extraordinary now, let alone in the early 1900's.

Our last site in Barcelona was the National Art Museum. The building itself provided a magnificent view of the city and you could have spent days wandering the galleries inside. We stuck to the modern art section mainly, taking in the works of Picasso, Dali and Miro, but also took some time to look at early painters such as Goya and Velazquez. Velazquez painted the famous La Meninas, which Picasso later copied in about a dozen different ways in his cubist style. Worth looking at if you get the chance.

The following day we made our way further down the coast to Valencia. It's main claim to fame is an extraordinary park area in the middle of the city. It consists of four buildings, each of them utterly unique, set in amongst carefully constructed lakes. There is a distinct ocean theme (one of them does house their oceanographic institute) and the buildings reminded me of immense crustaceans of some kind. I can't imagine what Circular Quay might have looked like if an architect with this imagination had been commissioned to build apartments there instead of those god-awful toasters! The Sydney Opera house would not have looked out of place next to these buildings and, in fact, they made frequent comparisons to it in their tourist information. After that it was a trip to the beach and very, very long lunch at La Pecica, an old haunt of Ernest Hemingway's, (according to the pictures of him all over the walls).

After another pleasant high-speed train trip, we arrived at the inland town of Cuenca, about half-way to Madrid, and then checked in at the Parador Hotel, a converted catholic convent that looks directly across the canyon to the old town perched on the cliffs on the other side. We have visited and stayed in plenty of old churches and convents now, and the brothers and sisters of these various orders should have been in the real estate business. Are they in dimly lit back streets looking out towards the city garbage tip? No. They are always perched on a cliff, looking out over some of the most magnificent scenery you could imagine. But then, I guess that's the point. 'Nearer my God, to thee' and all that. Well, close to God or not, Cuenca was a beautiful town. Not a lot to do in the way of museums etc, but we spent a full day climbing up and down the hills surrounding the town and walking around the myriad little alleyways within it, as well as enjoying another very long lunch in a restaurant literally hanging over a cliff. We have now made a pact to calm down on the long lunches a bit, just to help with the adjustment when we get home and are living on peanut butter sandwiches!

Our trip to Madrid from Cuenca was marred a little bit by Christine coming down with a bit of Bali belly but, typical of her constitution, she bounced back pretty quickly. We had four days in Madrid and spent our mornings in the incredible art galleries and the afternoons wandering around the various plaza's or lying in the magnificent parks and soaking up the sun (this last activity seems like a national past-time and goes a long way to explaining their current economic crisis). The art collections in Madrid were spectacular and the equal of anything anywhere else in Europe. The Museum de Prado, in particular, had an enormous collection of classical paintings, my favourite being "Saturn devouring his young" by Goya, whilst Christine preferred Bosch “garden of earthly delights”. One thing that impressed us both was the number of 1st and 2nd year primary school kids in the galleries, receiving what looked like quite detailed lectures on various artworks from the museum staff. Just seems to be the norm in Spain (and Europe generally) Can you imagine? "Little Johnny, what are the major differences between Rubens early and late period in terms of brushwork, composition and use of light? Quickly now!". Really impressive. In my art classes I got a gold star if I didn't eat the paint.



Following Madrid we travelled on to Toledo, another beautiful old town famous for its winding alleyways, 15th century churches and magnificent surrounding countryside. It was a very small town so lovely to just wander around. After that it was Almagra, a place famous for its religious festival around Easter (the one where the priests are dressed in the gowns and hats that look like the Klu Klux Klan, though we're pretty sure the Spanish got there first). We were too early for the festival itself though we got too see them practicing one night as a brass band slow marched down the streets behind their icons. This festival has been going on for about three hundred years in it's current form. After two nights there it was on to Granada. We wanted to see the Alhambra palace, a Moorish castle from the 15th century completely restored after the Spanish Civil war, but did not realise you needed to book a couple of weeks in advance to get in. In any case, both Christine and I had been really struggling with getting rid of the stomach bug we had picked up in the middle east. Christine's had actually given her peptic ulcers (so clearly not stress related!). We took it easy instead and took a slow walk around the city taking in the gardens and reading in the park.

Our second last stop in Spain was Seville, way down in the south. I picked the hotel this time as a once off so naturally it was about 30 minutes out of town by bus. I have been officially relieved of hotel picking duties (again). Anyway, after a pleasant bus ride we arrived in downtown Seville and walked through the magnificent plaza espana. Although it was only built his century and is not highly regarded as an attraction (too 'gaudy' apparently) we really liked it because it reminded us of Venice. We then spent time in the cathedral which, though very large and impressive, is starting to blend a bit with all the other cathedrals. Extraordinary craftsmanship everywhere, but the architects just lacked a bit of imagination (with the exception of Gaudi and the Sagrada Familia, of course!). More interesting, architecturally, was the Alcazar, built in the 9th century and still used by the Spanish Royal family as their official palace. It was fairly tastefully adorned, it's marvellous wooden ceilings, elegant tapestries and mosaic tiled floors contrasting sharply with the sheer decadence of a palace like Versaille in France (which is why Spain still have a royal family, one imagines...).

The highlight of Seville though, was the Palm Sunday procession of the various brotherhoods through the streets to begin the celebrations for the holy week leading to Easter. Christine thought we had missed it, but I used my pull with the Catholic church to get them to throw together a parade for her. It was a fascinating site. Hundreds of 'penitents' dressed in white robes and hoods (the significance of which is: God knows who you are so why show your face?) The parades last for hours and they do it every day of the week and they get longer and longer. By the end of the week they are finishing about 4am. You can hear people shouting and yelling all night, it's like a soccer match. Our last stop in Spain was Malaga, Picasso's birthplace, right on the coast. Apart from the Picasso museum (which was brilliant) there is not much to do in Malaga except go to the beach - which was the plan but it has now rained after all our brilliant weather! Instead we have spent the time planning our final leg through Scotland and England, which starts tomorrow with our flight to Edinburgh. (we are praying to God that this time we don’t have any flight problems). Only one month to go before we head home.

“Best 9 days ever” . . .eventually

Picture this; missed connecting flight; all economy flights from Frankfurt to Salzburg booked out for 6 days! Only option, upgrade to a business class seat the next day for a measly 700 euro + hotel or we could catch an overnight train from Frankfurt to Salzburg via Munich. 12 of the longest and most frustrating hours later, we arrived at Theresia Gartenhotel, in Saalbach-Hinterglemm.

Theresia Gartenhotel was amazing. We are both psyched with the hotel, spa facilities, mountains and the weather. The owner of the hotel, Marianne Brettermeler, actually lent me her ski jacket for the duration, but as the temps range from 4 to 12 degrees up on the slopes Brad and I are very comfortable wearing long sleeve tops, thermals courtesy of Barrie from the Turkey tour and our spunky new ski pants.

We can’t believe that every day our culinary senses are tempted with magnificent food. We start the day with a fantastic (best yet) brekkie, from 3pm we are served fantastic cakes and/or ice cream Sundays and at night we sit down to a full al la carte “6 course meal” after sampling an extensive range of international wines and beers, all part of the “half board package” at the hotel. Naturally my diet was put on hold.

Now let me tell you about the spa, each day after a strenuous day of skiing we relaxed downstairs in “Sauna-world” where we indulged in whirl-pools, Finnish sauna both 60 & 100 degrees, salt-steam and aroma steam-baths, “event” showers (personally I feel like I am drowning but they are fun), Jacuzzi, meditation rooms, plunge pools and large heated pools both indoors and out (overlooking the mountains).

There is over 110 km of intermediate slopes for us to choose from, it is spring snow here (translation brilliant in the morning but by 12:00 really wet and sticky), only 85% of the lifts are working but considering there are 62 cable cars, chair lifts and T-bars from 1,050m to 2,363m and a free ski bus links us to our door we are not complaining.

Just some of the highlights include on a couple of mornings we were one of the 1st on the slopes, it was amazing creating your own tracks in fresh power. We even skied in white out for an hour until the clouds finally moved away below us. The plunge pool is saving our lives, 10 degree water after 100 degree sauna, I feel like a professional athlete without the whole yucky training stuff. Brad did a great job of skiing for the 8 days, even with very loose boots by the end, he is looking forward to showing off his new skills on our “tiny” hills in Australia and Brad also wanted me to tell you that with only a minutes head start he almost beat me down to the hot chocolate chalet – I was very impressed. I was really happy with my skiing even with the falls and by the end of the week I could match myself with any 12 year old Austrian.

On our last day I saw the most amazing sight, a Doe was caught between some racing fences and got spooked and took off down the hill until it escaped into the pines, I think it would have matched the speed of the Austrian downhill slalom ski team that we watched each day.

We did have a few doh moments, Brad broke his glasses on the 1st day on the way to the slopes, around day 4 Brad smacked himself in the eye with his stock when he pulled up too quickly, cut his eye, thankfully no stiches required, but it bled a lot and looked very painful, I had to put in some serious TLC, didn’t actually see the fall but due to the extent of the bruising and concussion Brad gets his first “9”. I did a whopper of a fall, lost both stocks and 1 ski, on a black run slid down 20 metres and had to walk back up the hill, hit myself in the face and lost some pride in the process, no black eye so I will quit winging now. Also fell and gave myself a nasty bruise on the knee but even with all the scrapes and scratches we still had a ball. Of course the best part was if either of us had had enough, we would call it quits early that day, giving us a great excuse to chill out in the lounge eating way too many cakes, chewing pain killers and drinking lots of Merlot.

Personally the highlight for me was Brad announcing that he can finally see what all the skiing fuss is about and I got the opportunity to tell a lovely German couple that I was sorry I didn’t recognise them from the Spa as they now had their clothes on. I still can’t deal very well with the naked spa thing but when in Rome . . . I am not even going to tell you about our bungled flight to Barcelona, but as I am typing this whilst on the last leg of the flight we are at least going to get there as planned. All I will say is we are a lot lot, lot, poorer as a result. We will post again in 3 weeks after we leave Spain. Nur acht und ein bisschen Wochen gehen, traurig und aufgeregt. Liebe auf alle Christine und Bradley.

Achilles and Anzacs

Of all the places we have seen so far, Turkey has been the one that has escaped categorisation the most. It simply has so many blends of so many cultures and people, primarily courtesy of its geography, that describing it as typically European, or Middle Eastern, or Asian, fails to do it any justice. As with Israel and Jordan we elected to do a tour to ensure we did not miss anything significant. We were initially worried how we would go with 15 other people for 14 days when it had just been Christine and I for the bulk of our travels, but we were more than pleasantly surprised with the quality of our companions (all Australians by the way, god we love to travel) and that made it a lot of fun. Our first few days were spent in Instanbul, prior to the tour starting, and we took in the Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar, as well as our usual trick of just wandering around somewhat aimlessly and taking it all in, including a magnificent stroll along the Bosphorous and a great meal at their fish markets. 20 million people in one city though is difficult to comprehend!

The tour proper began in Instanbul with a walking tour of the city, much of which we'd seen, but the weather unfortunately turned very nasty and the temperature plummeted until yours truly caught a 'man flu' which has been with me ever since. Christine has remained well, which makes me suspect her as a 'benign carrier' ;-) One thing that stuck from that day (apart from the illness) was seeing the Snake Pillar, made from the bronze shields left behind by the Persian army of Xerxes after their defeat by the Greeks in 480BC. Incredible piece of history! We also had a look inside a 2000 year old Roman cistern that was rediscovered in the 18th century after the locals were found to be catching fish through cracks in the floors of their homes.

Our tour of Turkey can basically be broken into three parts; the mountain region in the interior around Cappadocia, the Mediterranean coastal area, and the north coast area of the Aegean and the Dardanelles. After a horrid overnight train ride from Instanbul to Ankara (with the temperature continuing to plummet) we eventually arrived at Goreme in Cappadocia where we spent the next three days. The highlight of this area was the extraordinary geography which helped account for much of its unusual history. The whole area consists of soft, volcanic rock which can be literally carved into cities by the people that have lived there. And there have been many, many different people. Roman Emperors, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Timur Lane, Sultan Mehmet, are just some of the leaders who have conquered the area at one time or the other, and it is all well documented in the magnificent Anatolian Civilisation Museum in Ankara. In order to escape from these continual marauders, the locals built vast underground cities in the soft rock. There would be a single, hidden entrance in the middle of a vast featureless plain, and then once inside, a 10 story cave system big enough to house 20,000 people! There are estimated to be hundreds like the one we explored, and the majority of them are still undiscovered.

Other highlights included the mountain caves around Goreme, used by the early Christians when escaping Roman persecution, and a trip to the local Turkish bath for a Hammam, which is a complete scrub down with something like sandpaper to remove all the dead skin. This was a hoot, as the Turkish guys that do this love a laugh and a joke (as do most Turks apparently) and one of the larger guys in our group got what can only be described as a semi-erotic massage from his masseuse who had fallen in love with his tummy. Very funny! My own masseuse was built like an Olympic wrestler (they all were) and to turn me over he simply picked me up and spun me like a rag doll. It was like a shower scene from a prison movie without the really bad ending... On a more PG note, our tour guide, a great young guy called Bayram, took us all to his apartment for lunch, as well as to his cousins place the next day, where we got to experience a typical Turkish family meal. Probably the best meal we had for the whole two weeks. Perhaps the most poignant moment though, and the one that captured best the feel of the whole place, was a climb we made up a 150m pillar of rock carved into a castle that stood in the middle of the Cappadocian plain and was surrounded on all sides, in the great distance, by enormous, snow capped mountain ranges. Just as we made the summit the Muslim call to prayer began to sound from a nearby mosque and it echoed off the mountains all around us. Unforgettably alien and strange moment that you could not experience anywhere else.

After that, it was a bus trip across those same mountains to the, thankfully, relative warmth of the Mediterranean coast at Antalya. This whole section of coastline, stretching north from Antalya all the way up to Selcuk, is famous for its ancient Roman ruins. In fact, supposedly far superior to anything to be found in Italy! The reason for this appears to be that most of the sites we visited were essentially abandoned before being rediscovered several centuries ago, unlike Italy, where the sites were always inhabited and simply built upon. Again, there were far too many sites to describe in detail, but one of the better ones included Phaselis, which was a Lycian city established in the 7th century BC, and the incredible city of Ephusus, near the modern town of Selcuk. This is considered the best example of Greco-Roman architecture in the world and at its height had 300,000 people living there. Only 20% of the city is uncovered, but in that you can see the remains of libraries, temples, bathhouses, gymnasiums, townhouses and even the local brothel (which had an underground connecting tunnel to the library, sneaky Romans!) We also spent a glorious sunny day on a chartered boat cruising around the islands off the coast and looking upon ancient ruins that had sunk into the sea following one of the earthquakes the whole region is notorious for. A sadder visit was to the beautiful ghost town of Kayakoy, an old Greek city of 35,000 people that is now literally empty after its population was forcibly relocated during an enormous population exchange between Turkey and Greece following the war between their countries in 1923. All the Greek Orthodox people living in Turkey and all the Turkish muslims living in Greece were essentially 'swapped', about 1.5 million people in all. Difficult to imagine the hardship and sense of dislocation felt by people who had lived in a country all their lives, were citizens of it, and were then rejected by it.

The last part of the tour encompassed only two places a few hundred kilometres part near the Dardanelles but were, for me at least, the initial reason why we came to Turkey (this was before I realised how much more was there). The ancient site of Troy, subject of the Iliad, is on the southern side of the Dardanelles. It was rediscovered in the late 19th century after about 1500 years. Having read the Iliad and the Odyssey as a kid and then have the opportunity to stand beneath the remains of those 12 metre high, 4 metre thick walls was something special. If two guys called Achilles and Hector had ever actually existed, then that was the exact spot where they had fought, and the text that describes that battle is one of the foundations of western mythology. Christine was not as enamoured as I was with the (possible) site of two bronze age warriors bashing each other with swords, but she was happy for me and my silly interests all the same! Our last stop on our tour was the site of another foundation of our mythology, this time a specifically Australian one.

The first thing that strikes you about Anzac cove is how small the place is. It couldn't have been a kilometre from one point to the other. Standing on the beach and looking up at the ridge line that completely overshadows the cove, you didn't need to be a master strategist to realise just how completely screwed they were from the moment they landed. Even more horrifying was to visit the place they were supposed to land, about 500 metres further to the East. That landing would have put them behind the ridge line, on relatively flat terrain and in a perfect position to strike at the high point of Chunuk Bair from behind, their ultimate goal. Well, no need to bore everyone with details we all know, but they spent the next nine months dug in on those ridge lines and all to no avail. It was interesting, but intensely sad, to move along the top of the ridge and visit places whose names have been ingrained in you since you were a kid; Lone Pine, Quinn's Post, Steele's Post, The Nek, all leading up to the high point at Chunuk Bair. Again, I was struck by just how small all these little plateaus were. It seems inconceivable that so many Turks, Australians and New Zealanders could die over such small pieces of land. The Nek, if you recall, was the action depicted in Peter Weir's Gallipoli, and hundreds of light horseman died in minutes trying to get across a piece of ridge-line about 200 metres wide and 100 metres across. It's all covered in brush now, it would have been stripped bare back then, absolutely no cover, and it seems such an inconsequential place, impossible to imagine the carnage. We visited the various graves and payed our respects to to the fallen, and then headed back to Istanbul where we finished our tour.









A hectic two weeks and some of the busiest travelling we have done, but worth it to see some of the most magnificent historical and cultural sites in the world! Now it's off to Austria for Christine's idea of culture, and it rhymes with 'peeing'...

Jordan

Why again are we in Jordan? Shameful of me to say, I didn’t know a lot about Jordan before this trip. It was Brad's idea to come here and I guess with all the turmoil around this part of the world our alternatives were getting limited. In fact, due to the cancellations from Egypt our original group of 15 reduced down to 4, thankfully we all got along famously so it ended up being an enjoyable 12 days travelling through Jordan and Israel.

After a non-eventful entry into Amman, Jordan and a night at the hotel (no more 4* for us) we headed to Madaba, where we visited the 1st of many, many churches. The Greek Orthodox Church of St. George houses an ancient mosaic map that depicts Palestine and Lower Egypt around 550 AD, and gives you a small sense of how ancient this land is. From here we drove to Aqaba, which is the southern tip of Jordan and sits on the red sea facing Israel. It's basically a port town with some nice yachts and huge cargo ships. Valentine’s Day consisted of couples sitting on the beaches on rugs and the evening rang out with a cacophony of honking car horns. We both forgot, so no drama there!

Next day was into the desert at Wadi Rum. This is a UNESCO protected area which we explored in a rather rickety open old jeep, operated by the local Bedouin community. With the sand exfoliating every part of our exposed bits, we visited several interesting rock formations and enjoyed the spectacular desert landscapes for which Wadi Rum is deservedly renowned.

That night we made camp in Bedouin tents after a joy ride on camels and a great meal that the local boys cooked in the ground (like a lovo in Fiji). We drank a local brew, Brad tried the tobacco + apple smoking pipe and did his best to look like Lawrence of Arabia, and then the two of us went for a walk through the sand dunes under a full moon. The stars were magnificent and the mountain ranges never seemed to get any closer, somewhat like a mirage in the distance. None of our photos will do this landscape justice. We got back to camp and everyone was asleep. I guess without electricity you wake and sleep with the cycle of the sun. A nice simple life but a shower would have been nice as well.

Next stop was Petra. We didn’t know until we arrived that the famous Treasury is a regular and fully justified contender for the ‘8th Wonder of the World’ title, the Treasury’s glorious façade, glimpsed from the narrow cleft known as the Siq – is arguably the single most striking sight of the entire region.

The greatest surprise, however, is the size of this ancient city, built by the Nubitean people. We explored the old Roman road, amphitheatre and several old tombs. We then climbed the 800 steps up to the Monastery which provided a great view of the entire site. Debate is ongoing but it appears that Brad's photo of the Monastery may end up being one of the top 16 which we will frame when we return.

(photo on left) He is beginning a Facebook campaign to get his chosen over mine. Good luck. It was a memorable day and sure to be one of the main highlights of our trip. We finished the day with Brad, Leonie and Graham deciding to have a Turkish bath which included steam room, Jacuzzi, massage and rub down, 2 hours later and water logged Brad returned, whilst I nursed a headache and sore limbs from the trek.

The next morning we drove along the King’s Highway, a road that dates back to beyond the time of the Old Testament. We reached Shobak Castle, originally built to protect the eastern flank of the Latin Kingdom and its trade routes to the sea before it fell to Saladin in 1189. We then visited the highly anticipated Dead Sea, where Brad got to experience water from my perspective (floating) in this unusually high 30% saline water. He slapped magic mud on all exposed limbs and spent the afternoon soaking up the sun, warm waters and pools. Our tour finished in Jordan with a visit to the Roman city of Jerash which is in a fine state of preservation. Founded in the time of Alexander the Great, it had become a centre of considerable importance by the 3rd century AD. Today it is one of the grandest ancient cities in the world with an imposing collection of archways, theatres, baths, public buildings and colonnaded streets. Fact is, from our perspective Roman ruins are far better seen out of Rome.











Israel

There is a saying in Israel “if it’s not here, its near”, meaning there not exactly sure where all this history occurred, but they are dam sure it happened in Israel.

Can’t say I was looking forward to the crossing from Jordan to Israel via the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge, my experience 23 years previously still wakes me from deep sleep (Egypt to Israel crossing). My fears however were not grounded and we made record time being cleared through immigration and customs. In the afternoon we made the short journey south to Bethlehem, where we made our pilgrimage to Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity, built over the site that marks the traditionally-accepted birthplace of Jesus Christ and a sacred place for both Christians and Muslims.

There are impressive Constantine mosaics, a colonnaded ancient basilica and a small grotto that marks Jesus’ birthplace. Afterwards we drove to Beit Sahour to visit the Shepherds' Field, identified in the New Testament as the site where the Angel of the Lord visited the shepherds and informed them of Jesus' impending birth. Our hotel at Jerusalem was interesting, we ended up in a tower complete with turrets, whistling wind through the poorly glassed windows and a circular staircase and lofts. Kind of cool but would have been heaps better if Jerusalem did not experience its worst rain storm in, like, forever.

The best parts of Jerusalem are the serried buildings and ancient ramparts of the Old City, the Mount of Olives and the iconic gold of the Dome of the Rock. In the old city we walked to the 'Cardo' in the recently restored Jewish Quarter, which was the old north-south axis in Roman times. We visited the Western (Wailing) Wall (photo below), Via Dolorosa (Stations of the Cross) and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, we also visited the Yad Vashem (Israel's memorial to the Holocaust). Have I mentioned all the guns, missiles, military, tanks, police . . . ?

Next day we drove through the Jordan Valley, stopping en route at Beit Shean to view a well-preserved Roman theatre and a unique Byzantine mosaic floor. Passing through Tiberias, one of Judaism’s four holy cities, we stop at Yardenit - the new commemorative site of Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River.

Watched hundreds of believers in white robes getting baptised. Brad was tempted but it looked cold and there was no lifeguard present. At Nazareth we visit the Basilica of the Annunciation, which incorporates, according to Roman Catholic tradition, the cave in which Mary received the news from Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus, followed by an obviously awkward conversation between Mary and her husband Joseph, that we think went something like:
Mary: Darling, I have some difficult news.
Joseph: My love, what is it? Are you ill?
Mary: No, no, you see... I'm pregnant.
Joseph: But... we haven't slept together. You said you had a headache.
(extended awkward silence, maybe crickets chirping)
Mary: God did it.

Afterwards we returned to Tiberias to sail across the Sea of Galilee to Tabgha, where Jesus performed the Miracle of the Multiplication of the loaves and fishes, Brad’s favourite part of the bible. Unfortunately our smart arse Australian wit came back and slapped us when we protested that there was an American flag on the boat but not an Australian one. The skipper quickly amended this oversight and then proceeded to play both the American anthem, where 20 strong vibrant voices from some mid-west gospel choir rang out across the sacred sea, and then the Australian anthem, where the 4 of us at the stern of the boat did a shocking job representing our country with squeaky voices and forgotten words. (life lession 4236, need to go to more Rugby matches.)
That night we stayed in Tiberias at a kibbutz. We were thinking it would be like some kind of Hamish community, with no TV or even internet (which chilled Christine to the bone). If we had know kibbutzes were 4 star luxury accommodation then we may have spent our whole time there. Our room overlooked the Sea of Galilee, it was peaceful and quiet and the food was excellent.

By now it is safe to assume that we were churched out so we changed the remainder of our tour, skipping the Golan Heights (which are basically just hills forming a buffer with Syria at the northern end of Israel) and then travelled down the coast to the ancient crusader port of Acre. This is another World Heritage-listed site with an amazing history from the crusades, through the Napoleonic battles and on to the present day. We visit the massive complex of buildings occupied by the Knights of St John as well as the Knight Templars' secret tunnel. We then went to Haifa, one of the richer cities in Israel, and gazed in awe at the Baha’i temple and the magnificent views overlooking the port and Mediterranean Sea.

We couldn’t see the American destroyer, USS Cole, which had been despatched the previous day to keep an eye on some Iranian warships, but we did see a local Israel patrol boat coasting back and forth. The last night of the tour was spent in Tel Aviv, definitely Israel’s liveliest city, with a cafe culture and relaxed beach scene where we said goodbye to Leonie and Graham and made our way back to Jerusalem for another 3 nights and got to experience 1st hand the end of Shabbat.

For those of you that don’t know about this, basically after sundown on Friday until nightfall on Saturday the Torah emphasises restraint from physical work and labour. “Genesis 2:1” “On the seventh day, God completed his work that he did. He rested on the seventh day from the work that he did. He blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, for on it, he rested from all the work that God created to make” Seriously sounds like a Monty Python skit.

After a small psychotic breakdown and words to reception from Christine when we arrived at the Crown Plaza in Tel Aviv after a botched check in and a crappy room ... we were upgraded to the presidential suite, (twice the size of our Willoughby home) overlooks the Med, 7 rooms. where we are relaxing from the religious fervour and psyching ourselves for our 15 day tour in Turkey.

Will write after Turkey, be safe everyone, love Christine and Bradley