Where's Wallace?

Christmas in Spain

2009-01-04T07:44:00.005+10:30

Hola! We're just back from a fabulous week in Spain. We were very lucky to join our good friends Amy and Juande as they went back for Juande's family Christmas. We flew to Madrid, then navigated the Metro system there to get to the bus station (bit of a rush as our flight was a bit late) to get the bus to Merida where Juande picked us up to take us to Montijo, his home town. We had a great family Christmas eve dinner with them and his family, who were a little surprised by our not eating meat! But we managed fine and had what we think is the best Tortilla Patata ever! And cheese, wine, salad, lovely sponge roll with blue cheese and nuts, and dessert, a cake cooked by the local nuns! We even finished up before midnight, a real achievement by Spanish standards. We were put up in a flat owned by Juandes parents, we were the first people to stay in it. On Christmas day we went to Caceres, a small Medieval town which is really lovely. The storks that sit on the top of all the tall buildings are great! After lunch there (after 3pm!) we went to a small lake surrounded by beautiful rounded rocks. It was the perfect location to watch the sun set, really nice ;-) That evening we went to a cool bar with Juandes friends and drank lots of beer and wine and ate some yummy home made potato chips and fantastic Spanish cheese (queso) yummy. On boxing day we went to Merida for the day, saw a great Roman aqueduct and Roman ruins - an amphitheatre and Colosseum. We cooked lunch with Amy in the flat and ate way too much! That afternoon/evening we went bird watching and saw beautiful cranes and other birds flying right over head, it was really great. We went to some of Juande's friends place for pizza and beers (I think we ate about 11:30pm!), which was really nice. She is an English teacher so we could actually talk to them, most of his other friends have limited English (though better than our Spanish!). The next day we went to Juandes parents country house. Unfortunately it was raining, but we did go for two walks in the rain which was pretty nice, through their orchard of Cork trees, and through a bushland area also. We had a fabulous lunch made by one of his sisters, it was fabulous food. They have these heavy table cloths that go all the way to the floor, then underneath, a brasero, which you either put hot coals in (which is very very hot) or an electric heather. Its really pleasant being cool on top and having your legs tucked under the table all warm. Makes for an easy siesta!! They don't heat the houses otherwise, so it's pretty chilly inside, so you really rely on the table being warm! The last day we had lunch with Juandes friends in a pub and then caught the bus with them to Madrid, where they caught their flight home and we went to check out a new city!

Madrid is pretty cool; dirty grungy a bit rough, each area has its own character. It was fun to explore. The first evening we went to Cheuca, a gay district (we only realised that later, but they are hetero-friendly too!) for dinner, in a funky cafe. The next morning we went for a walk along Gran Via, one of the main streets, and then explored the old town area. We started in Plaza de Oriente, which is lovely, beautiful buildings all around, statues in the middle and a Palace (Palacio Real, pronounced like Royal) on one side. We popped into the Cathedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena, which took about 100 years to finish (in the 1990s!) and so has some interesting decorations, sort of pop-art style ceilings. We liked it, cos it didn't try to be an old style church, but had some character of its own. Huge ceilings tho, one of the biggest we've been in. We paused in Plaza de la Villa, which has some fantastic interesting buildings on it, went through busy touristy Plaza Mayor, stopped off for some amazingly sweet hot chocolate (that super thick stuff) and donuts to dip in it (so rich we didnt' finish our serving!!!!) before heading back to the hotel for a siesta! We had a quick lunch in a veggie restarant before going to our first art gallery, the Centro de arte Reina Sofia. This is a modern art gallery, a pretty big one, with some big name artists featured. We really enjoyed our visit, we spent about 6 hours there. Picassos Guernica is there, that's probably the best well-known painting there, but we also enjoyed seeing some smaller/less well-known works too. It's a great place. We went to a cool little tapas bar for dinner (ahh, it's a hard life!). The next day we knew we wanted to spend the day in the Prado, so we headed there early. The Museo del Prado is a pretty massive art gallery, but doable (not like the Lourve for example), so we planned to try to see most of it. As usual, we grabbed our Audio guides and headed off on our planned route. It was a pretty tiring day! The gallery is mostly Spanish artists, which made it quite a different experience to previous gallery visits. We really enjoyed Goyas 'Las Pinturas Negras' which he painted on the wall of his house (woah he must have been a dark bloke!), particularly the contrast with his formal portraits on the floor above and the light and floaty works painted to be copied to tapestry on the top floor. It was really interesting. We also really enjoyed the Velaquez paintings, another famous Spanish artist. We'd arrived at 10:30, but by 6pm I was shattered and couldn't see straight, so it was time to leave! We really enjoyed our day, and felt very spoilt to have spent an entire day looking at fabulous, interesting, not-straight-forward works or art! The next day we again headed to a gallery, the third of Madrids world-famous art galleries, the Museo Thyssen-Bournemisza, which I think was my favourite. It has a wide wide range of art, with examples from 14th century all the way through to the 21st. It has examples from all the periods, and is almost like an art lesson in a museum. Unfortunately as it was New Years Eve the gallery was only open 10-2, so we rushed through trying to see all the main bits, but realised that we want to come back!! Oh no! It was great, we both had a few favourites, from different periods, and bought a great Georgia O'Keefe print to put on the wall here ;-) In the afternoon (actually, after our late and indulgent lunch) we went for an interesting walk through some backstreets, marvelled at some fascinating buildings, and great graffiti/street art and then headed out in the early evening for our airport hotel. Wow, what a trip, we really enjoyed ourselves a lot! We feel very lucky to have spent Christmas and the days after with Amy and Juande, who looked after us _so_ well, and also to explore Madrid, a really interesting city that needs more than 3 days to properly explore!!

Happy New Year from Angus and Selina, hope 2009 is a good one for us all ;-)
xx

PS - sorry we're so behind on the blog, in the last few months we've been super busy:
we had a fabulous relaxing trip to Croatia in September, beach, water, sun, wine!
we both went away for work - me to London, Angus to Denmark,
we had more visitors! Suse and Liam came in October, we also went to beautiful southern Ireland for a few days with them.
Angus went away a second time to Denmark and I went to Cairo, and I did a week-long Yoga course with David Swensen here in Edinburgh (8 days in a row of yoga, I was a very tired girl at the end!!)
the days are getting shorter, actually now they're getting longer again! and winter has well and truly set in!
we went to Southhampton for a great weekend and saw Ronald and Yvonne, and visited the Isle of Wight, really nice ;-)
we went away for our wedding anniversary, to Aviemore, and walked in the snow, a really lovely trip.
we've been socialising, yoga-ing, walking, cycling, eating, drinking, guitaring, singing (Angus joined a choir and a band!), photographing, all the usual stuff really!!
missing Adelaide/Australia lots, and all you guys ;-)
good luck to our pregnant friends Danni & Jesse, and Hannah & Owen, thinking of you all lots xxx
love us :)

this is a big update!

2008-08-05T06:51:00.002+09:30

Well we've been talking about updating the blog for months now, but it's finally going to happen. Since we last wrote we've been busy busy busy! So here goes:

It's now early August. This weekend we spent visiting our friends Eric & Hilary who live in Dundee, about an hour north of Edinburgh. We caught the train up on Friday night and had a lovely evening with them – they have an amazing flat overlooking the firth of Tay, you can see the bridge and all the water and out to the North Sea – really lovely spot, and a nice new apartment with lots of big windows to take in the views. We went for a cycle on Saturday after a pretty lazy morning but unfortunately the rain came down – really heavy and big drops!! It was almost flooding some of the roads, which was a bit of a challenge! Lucky for us it was also pretty warm (around 20) so it was a bit muggy but we weren't too cold at least. Then on Sunday we didn't do much, Selina did some photography stuff and Angus played some music. Sunday night we went to a fantastic Jazz show – a Stephen Grappelli Centenary Concert, which was simply fabulous, really inventive and enthusiastic. It was part of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and we were glad to be able to get along to a show. Next year we'll go to more I think! Earlier in the week we visited Clare and Paul for dinner also. They live out a bit South of Edinburgh in a nice little cottage. We had a great evening with them – Angus just cycled there from Roslin, and really enjoyed riding along the little narrow roads. Selina caught the bus out after work and helped with the cooking and picking berries. It was a nice evening. The weekend before (last one in July) Angus did a music recording course (one-day only) on the Saturday and Selina went to see a great photographic exhibition at the Dean Gallery, it is called 'Foto: modernity in Central Europe', photos taken in the early 20th century, between the wars. It was very interesting and quite diverse, gave me lots of ideas! On the Sunday I had a nice chat to Michelle and in the afternoon we went to see 'Jazz on a Summers Day'. Given some scottish summer days we've had recently we rugged up warmly in jeans and took our umbrella. We were wrong – it was hot and sunny! We sat on the lawn in Princes St Gardens and listened to jazz while we had a picnic. We had some friends join us too. We even needed an ice cream to cool us down! Divine!! The weekend before that (19/20th July) we went to the Isle of Mull. We rented a car on the Friday night and drove to Oban. Then we got the last ferry and got to Mull about 11:30pm. We found the most soft and yummy piece of grass ever and put up our tent! The wind and rain gave us a small window and we managed to get in without getting wet, and slept very well! The rain disappeared again in the morning for our cooked breakfast ;-) We then had planned to go on a cruise to the Treshnish Islands to see the Puffins and other seabirds, but the wind was quite strong so we couldn't go. We went for a nice drive and a lovely walk along a loch, and enjoyed seeing the beautiful Mull scenery for the second time. We met with Amy & Juande and their Spanish friends who were also visiting Mull, and we spied a Sea Eagle young bird in it's nest, which was great to see! We stayed again at Sunart View (a lovely b&b) and once again they looked after us. We went for dinner in Tobermory overlooking the beautiful harbour with all the boats and pretty coloured buildings. Such a lovely spot! We caught the ferry home on Sunday afternoon and it was a beautiful day, sunny and mild. The previous Sunday (13th) we also went birdwatching with Amy & Juande. We caught the train to North Berwick (which is a lovely spot East of Edinburgh) and caught the boat out to Bass Rock, which is home to about 100,000 Gannets. They are large white and yellow seabirds who nest on the rock, and they cover it – literally the whole rock is white from them, and there are thousands hovering above it too – quite a spectacle! We also sat on the beach afterwards and dreamed that we were at Port Elliot Beach. Ahh.

Late in June we were lucky to have Martin & Ivanka come to visit us. We showed them around Edinburgh the day they arrived (they had lots of sleep on the plane!!), and Selina took them to Roslyn Chapel on the Monday afternoon, and we also went to a nice restaurant for dinner that night. On the Tuesday we all had the day off and we drove down to Melrose, a small town in the Borders, and went to see a great Abbey. It is very large and there is an excellent audio guide – we must have spent a few hours walking around it, Martin & I taking lots of photos along the way! We had lunch in a small cafe and went to see another Abbey in the afternoon before going back to Edinburgh. Then after Martin & Ivanka headed down South we followed, catching a plane to Bristol on the Thursday night. Angus and I got a city car on the Friday and went for a really nice drive around the countryside near Bristol. On the Friday night it was raining and we went for a walk from our Hotel – it was really warm which was nice. We found a great little restaurant and spent a lovely evening together there. Bristol is a pretty nice place. On the Saturday we caught a train to Bath where we met Martin & Ivanka and also Ronald. We explored the Roman Baths and had a nice walk around the town in the afternoon. We went to a great seafood restaurant for dinner. Yum. On Sunday we explored Bristol with Martin & Ivanka. It was wonderful to see them and spend some time with them both. We came back to Edinburgh on the Sunday night, and they were off to conferences and then a great tour of Italy.

Before that we had a lovely time with Carla & Brian visiting us. They arrived on Thursday evening (June 5th) with all their luggage! (they had a bit of excitement with delayed planes and missing luggage during their trip over to Germany). Angus & I both were very pleased to see them!! We drove on the Friday evening to Callendar, which is in the Southern Scottish highlands. We stayed at a nice place and had a lovely meal in the evening. On Saturday we went the scenic route to Oban - via Rannock Moor, the views were lovely and the snow had melted from when we were here a few months prior. We caught our ferry to the Isle of Mull in the early afternoon and then drove to Tobermory, which is a pretty town on Mull, the largest on the island. We went to a great restaurant for dinner - Cafe Fish, and it was excellent food. It was such a lovely day we sat outside in the sunshine for dinner and really enjoyed the views. On the Sunday we drove via the scenic (windy) route to get the ferry to Iona. There were lots of great views along the way. Iona is very pretty and the Abbey was interesting, and lucky for us the weather was very kind and the sun stayed out all day and we enjoyed blue skies and sunshine! On the Monday we did a wildlife tour which was really interesting. We all got acquainted with binoculars and the various types of birds we would see throughout the day. Unfortunately the weather was a bit bad, but that didn't stop us having a good time. We saw a golden eagle in a tree near it's nest, some Red deer, some Roe deer, lots of little birds, a Peregrine falcon, lots of oyster-catchers and herons, the list goes on! It was a fun day and certainly got us enthusiastic about all the fabulous wildlife to see here in Scotland. We didn't see otters which was a shame, but did see a few seals. Back in Edinburgh Brian & Carla did some sightseeing as Angus & Selina had to work a few days. On the weekend we all went on the bus to South Queensferry where we caught a boat out to Inchcombe Island, which is in the mouth of the Firth of Forth. There is an abbey there, and lots of seabirds nest on the island. We all got divebombed by angry nesting seagulls, which was certainly a different experience! We managed to see some puffins on the boat on the way back which was exciting - they are very small and fast! We had a wonderful time with our visitors and were sad to see them leave on the Sunday morning.

In May we had visitors too. Judy and Pete arrived in Scotland on the 8th of May. We picked up a rental car on the Friday and drove to Fort William, a pretty town right on a loch. Very nice. On the Saturday we drove the rest of the way to the Isle of Skye. We were lucky with the weather, a little overcast but dry. We stopped at the Eileen Donan castle and had a look around which was interesting. We couldn't see the tops of the Cuillin Mountains as there was a bit of low cloud, but the views were spectacular anyway! We stopped in for a short Whisky tasting at Tallisker. Then we drove on to the B&B on the Waternish Peninsula. Along the way the views were so stunning - we could see all the way out to the outer hebrides, misty islands everywhere! We went for dinner in an old pub which was in a pretty special spot right on the beach. The next day we went for a drive around Trotternish, which is really interesting, fabulous views around every corner, and lots of interesting rock formations too. Although we didn't fit a walk in, we really enjoyed our day very much. The next day we drove down to South of the Cuillin Hills, to Elgol. From there we caught a ferry to Loch Coruisk, which you can only access by water or walking. The views were amazing, really beautiful. We saw seals and terns, and the hills are stunning - sharp black peaks and rounded pink hills. We ate our picnic lunch by the loch and took in the views. Back at Elgol we debated a swim because it was so hot but when we put our feet in the water was amazingly cold so we decided against it and got an ice cream instead! We stayed at a nice little b'n'b that night and went for a fabulous seafood dinner in Broadford. The next day we drove off the Island and then up alongside Loch Ness to Inverness. Angus and Selina caught the train back to Edinburgh, and Judy and Pete drove up to explore more of Northern Scotland. Over the next few weeks they came back to Edinburgh and stayed with us on and off for the next few weeks. It was really lovely to have them around for a whole month!

During the time when Judy & Pete visited we also had some other visitors. Rachel came and had dinner one night, and Graham & Michaela & Karina also visited us, we had two lovely dinners with them. Selina and Angus also had a quick weekend in Paris. We visited all the main sites. The highlight for me was on Sunday traffic is closed on the road next to the Seine, so we picked up some bikes and went for a lovely relaxing cycle next to the river, right in the heart of Paris! I loved the Louvre, I could go back a few more times I think!! We did a tour which I would recommend to anyone visiting. We ate really well (no surprises there) and drank lots of coffee. We also visited the Musee Rodin which was excellent.

So thats the update from us for the last few months! It's festival season here in Edinburgh now, so it's all busy and go go go for us for a while (no changes there really). Summer is a joke and we're missing the Australian summer (we know you're all cold there at the moment ;-) We had a quick visit from Jasi too a few weeks ago when she was touring around. We took her to a great little vegetarian restaurant in the city. She managed to see a lot of Edinburgh while she was here! We like visitors and hope to have some more soon (hint hint!!)

Angus is officially a doctor now too. He got his PhD results a few months ago and got very positive comments from both markers. So I'm very proud of him ;-)

We have an Adelaide phone number now too. I'm not going to put it in the blog, but you all know where to email us to ask for the number. That means it's really cheap to talk to us, so hope we can chat to some of you soon!

Bye for now, Selina & Angus
xx

PS- some photos updated now, and will keep working on more ;-)

April '08

2008-05-23T00:10:00.000+09:30

A busy month ;-)

We had dinner with one of angus's colleagues, Chris and partner Katie at our flat. And the followign monday night we had a great dinner with other friends Clare & Paul - a very chilly evening at their cottage on a farm south of Edinburgh. Off to London for a long weekend. We caught the train down - it was great! Met up with Hannah &Owen & Dave on the Saturday - a big day of wandering museums, sights, sunshine and rain in London! Sunday we met up with Ronald and went for a walk in Hyde Park, after a morning coffee break in Notting Hill. We explored the fabulous Victoria & Albert Museum with Michal in the afternoon. A tasty meal all together in the evening. Great being able to meet up with two cousins!! We spent the Monday together going to the London Review Bookshop - what a fabulous place! And then we just wandered around London before catching our train back in the evening - a lovely relaxing way to travel and it all went smoothly.

The following weekend we had a visitor from Germany! Yvonne came to stay with us! We did the touristy thing in Edinburgh on the Saturday - a pretty windy day, and had a tasty meal at home in the evening. On Sunday Yvonne came to church with me, and we visited the modern Art museum nearby. The afternoon was sunny and we sat and soaked up the sunshine in our flat with a relaxing afternoon chatting ;-) The following weekend was beautiful weather. We did a yoga workshop on the saturday - acroyoga, which was great fun! On the Sunday we had a lovely walk through one of the nearby allotments (lovely little gardens) and sat in the sunshine on the hill in Inverleith park. I had lunch with Mandi in the sunshine and managed to get a mini-tan! Work is going great for both of us, and we're busy and happy ;-) Cheerio till next time!

March 08

2008-04-08T16:57:00.001+09:30

I thought i'd quickly write an update of what's been happening for us in March. We arrived home from our (fantastic) Chamonix holiday both with colds that proceeded to last the next 3 weeks! That meant we needed to have a few quiet weekends. The first weekend in March came and went, we didn't do much. Marigold visited us on the second weekend, which we were thrilled about. She arrived in at the Waverley train station in the early afternoon, where we met her. We took her on a slow walking tour of the old town, up to the Edinburgh castle and around the back side through the Princes St gardens and then down the hill to our flat in Stockbridge. We took most of the afternoon to do so, which was lovely and relaxing. The weather was ok, cold but bearable. We had visited the butchers in the morning so had a lovely piece of lamb prepared for a roast dinner which went down a treat! The evening was long and full of very enjoyable conversation. The next morning we shared breakfast before Marigold left for the next leg of her journey to visit Owen and Hannah in Cambridge, which by all accounts was lovely! We enjoyed a quiet Sunday together. On Wednesday night we picked Zoe up from the airport for her stay with us for Easter. Angus and I managed to get the Thursday off work too, so we had the whole time together. During the next four days we did some walking around the city, visited the Pentland hills (where we were hailed and snowed upon and almost got blown away), the Roslyn chapel (lovely and definatley worth a visit, it is amazingly filled with sculptures, on every single wall there is a different set of sculptures, all stunning!), North Berwick, on the coast with lovely views but a brisk cold wind, and we had Tony & Sue & Josh for a 'family-style' Easter lunch on the Saturday which was a great success. It was a lovely time and it was only the weather which tried to spoil our plans! Angus and I went to dinner on the Sunday evening to an organic restaurant which was very nice. The following weekend we were meant to visit some friends in Dundee but that got cancelled so we had another nice quiet weekend at home, visited a museum and did some shopping. Now April is upon us and we have a lot planned to keep us busy, and even more in May and June! Au Revoir for now from Edinburgh ;-)

Chamonix

2008-03-09T07:30:00.002+10:30

Well we decided it was time to go back to France, so on Friday a few weeks ago we got on a plane to Geneva (after almost being too late to check in!! Mental note: when you fly EasyJet, get there early, or you don't fly!!!). Geneva is of course in Switzerland, something I didn't actually remember until we landed and I thought - hmm, weren't we meant to be in France? Luckily I had booked our flight to the right destination and we caught a bus to Chamonix (France). We arrived, checked in to our (quite comfortable) 2 star hotel and then went for a wander around the town of Chamonix. There is a lot of money walking around that town! Lots of fur coats and people looking far too fancily dressed than necessary. Oh well, we looked like actual skiiers and that's all that mattered to us! We bought Angus some ski boots, picked up our lift passes, hired some skis (and poles) and got excited about spending the next 8 days on the slopes! Yay!

We decided to spend the first day skiing on Brevant/Les Plaz which is located right next to Chamonix. From our hotel we walked (up a big hill!) for about 20minutes to get to the cable car. We rode up and the views just got better and better! It was a good morning of warm up skiing, we saw some people gliding down the mountain with paragliders attached - a very cool way of getting down the mountain. It was really really warm - about 15degs on the slopes, at least 10degs warmer than Edinburgh!!! So the first few runs were nice and crispy but then it started to get a bit slushy. We didn't mind as Angus was getting his ski legs and I just enjoyed getting into it and the views that were so lovely! We had an unfortunate discovery mid morning... We had been organised and bought baguette, cheese and tomato to eat for lunch (our traditional French meal!) and had stopped to take the camera out when I realised that the bag smelt awfully cheesy (and my camera for that point!) Given that it was 15degs and that the cheese was quite soft to start with meant that it managed to get a bit spread over the bottom of the bag. Not very cool. We had lunch a bit later sitting on some rocks at the top of Les Praz looking over the very beautiful Chamonix valley, in the sunshine, with jackets off and feeling like we'd be getting sunburnt if we stayed too long! We later on saw some other young people sunbathing up on the rocks above the ski runs! Amazing!! We found some good bumps later in the day to keep me busy and it was fun.

We decided however that it was a good idea to search out some lessons for Angus and a group for me to ski with. We landed upon Ski Fun Tours which sounds a little tacky but was in fact great. On the Sunday morning we were picked up and driven to Grande Montet where Angus was in a group of 2 (which shrunk to 1 in the afternoon - private - lesson bring it on!) and I was in an advanced group of about 6. It was excellent. Angus learnt lots and I skiied some great slopes! We managed to skip the queues and ride all the way up to the top of Grande Montet and ski down the Glacier Argentiere which was simply stunning - good steep slopes with lovely lovely snow and some bumps and, oh it was just lovely! The thing about skiing in France (and possibly generally in the Alps) is that you really need a guide - because otherwise skiing off-piste means that you're not covered by insurance or the ski patrol won't come looking for you. And off-piste is actually anywhere that isn't a named run, even if it's within the general whole ski-area-boundary. And also when you're skiing on a glacier where there are crevasses (many people only ski on the glacier when wearing a climbing harness and carring survival gear) and big patches of blue ice to watch out for on the slopes, you basically can't ski on your own (unless you're a bit silly), so the guide was the way to go!

We skiied Grande Montet a second day, and we skiied the face which is under the cable car, and is very steep (about 40degs I think) and can only be skiied in certain conditions - it was great! Really excellent snow and nice and steep, I really enjoyed it! Angus had a private half-day lesson and skiied the morning on his own. On the Tuesday we were doing the adventure day. I'd heard a bit about skiing the Vallee Blanche, but I wasn't terribly excited. It involves a walk along a ridge that has basically sheer slope either side. Wearing all your ski gear of course. I was very nervous about the prospect of this. But I was convinced (damm peer pressure) by my friends in the group, and Angus was super keen too. He went with an intermediate group before me, and enjoyed himself but unfortunately was skiing in the cloud most of the time so didn't get to see the beautiful views. My group went up later - we all dressed ourselves in our climbing harnesses and taped our skis together so that we wouldn't drop them, and then loaded up into the cable car. At the top we put on crampons (on the bottom of our ski boots) and were all tied together in a long line by Pascal (our guide) and with hearts racing headed (or were herded) towards the ridge. EEK! I was pretty nervous but it wasn't too bad. But we couldn't see - i think if it was a clear day it would have been harder! The walk down the ridge was challenging at times, I was certainly glad to have the crampons on! It took about 30mins, and it was really really cold up there too, and because we were at the top of the ridge the wind was blowing a gale!! But we made it to the platform ok and could detach ourselves from each other and get ready for the ski down the glacier (about 20kms). It was pretty easy, just a few big bumps. Then we stopped and the clouds started to lift, and then they were lifted - the views were stunning! We were standing on a massive glacier surrounded by mountains covered in snow and ice and there were lots of little glaciers coming down onto the big one we were skiing on! It was really beautiful! We kept skiing on, taking a few breaks to pull out the camera (I bought a new bag so that I could carry my SLR up with me, boy was I glad I did that!!). The skiing was lovely, but the views were really why we were there! We had lunch in a refuge on the edge of the glacier. After lunch it was one big bumps run (right next to the glacier flow) before the long run out. It was really fantastic! At the bottom we walked up about a million steps (oh we looked in a hand-carved ice cave too!) with all these tourists coming down that didn't feel the need to give way to a skiier walking up carrying skis and trying not to trip over in ski boots. Hurrumph. It was a hell of an experience, and I would definately recommend it to anyone visiting Chamonix!!

The next day we went to Italy and skiied the resort called Courmayeur. It was nice and Angus & I skiied together and met the others for lunch. Then we skiied another French resort on the Thursday (big danger of avalanches because of the high temperatures so we only went off-piste on a couple of runs carefully chosen by Pascal!), and on Friday it was back to Grande Montet. The weather had changed a bit though, and there was fresh snow up on the glacier and more coming! After lunch the advanced and intermediate groups skiied a run together on the glacier and it was very challenging - visibility of about 30m and at times it wasn't obvious what the terrain was doing or even which way was down! I was at the front of the group after Pascal and it was really fun - lots and lots of fresh thick snow! Angus really enjoyed himself too! Falling in that sort of snow is just good fun!

There was a group change on the Saturday, and we were sad to see the group we'd skiied with change, but the new guys were good fun too - 3 Irish brothers who were particularly funny to ski with! It was raining heavily in the valley and we were not optimistic of a good day ahead, as the gondola and cable car were closed too. But we did a couple of good runs before lunch (Angus was in our group too, keeping up very well, but still falling over lots!) in good fresh snow which turned to wet concrete about half-way down the mountain! We had an early lunch and then - very luckily - the gondola was opened! Yay, that meant the top half of the mountain was now accessed, though not the glacier at the top (too windy). We did some really great runs - fresh snow, most people staying on the runs so the off-piste was all for us! Unfortunately there was a guy in our group who had no concept of control and tried, on seperate occasions through the day, to wipe all of us out! He was pretty amusing to watch, but not that great to ski with! The weather came and went all day, and one run was cloudy/sunny/blizzard/snowing all in one run! Like melbourne weather but a bit more extreme ;-)

So the week was a great success - we found two favourite restaurants in Chamonix, one Italian, one Japanese, and ended up going to them both 3 times! We went with the 3 brothers on the Saturday night and laughed so much we both thought we might die! They were so loud, raucus and funny it was incredible! We got asked at least 3 times to be quiet by other tables and I thought we might get asked to leave the restaurant! We haven't had such an amusing evening ever I think!!

I had a bit of a hangover on the way home by I deserved it and at least I wasn't skiing! The trip home was uneventful and we were back in our little flat here in Edinburgh by about 2:30pm. A great holiday ;-)

I've got a job! :-)

2008-02-15T13:01:00.003+10:30

Just a quick update - I had a second interview with IceRobotics this week, and they've offered me a job which I've accepted. They're making devices to help dairy farmers monitor their cattle. They also have ties with academia (animal scientists) and are doing a few other cool (and fun-sounding) things. I'm starting on March 3rd, and am pretty excited!

Also, the office is at Roslin, so I'll get a good cycle into the countryside each day ;-)

Scottish Weather Lessons #1

2008-01-25T19:54:00.000+10:30

So yesterday morning I thought, ‘oh it’s been warm this week, I’ll just wear my short jacket to work’. I always carry an umbrella, and I took the big super strong one yesterday. It’s got reinforced struts and is quite large, but the first time Angus put it up he managed to turn it inside out (???how I don’t know!) and it took us about 5 minutes (in the rain) to get it back around the right way! Anyway, I had the umbrella. I walked out our flat and up the hill and it was raining gently, but this didn’t bother me much. By the time I got to the bridge it was pretty windy and the rain was coming down. Normally when I cross the bridge with the umbrella up I’m a bit nervous that I might get picked up and blown off the bridge, so I hold the umbrella with both hands! This time it’s pretty bad, and I can’t really use the umbrella, so I’m getting a bit wet… By the time I’ve crossed over to the end of the bridge the rain has turned to horizontal-ish sleet. Hmm. Perhaps I should have worn my longer jacket today. The sleet continues as I walk through town to the office, and by now I’ve given up trying to keep dry, just hold on the umbrella and keep walking! It started snowing before I got to the office, which is a little kinder but still pretty wet! When I got up to my desk I realised I was soaking wet, so it wasn’t the happiest start to a working day I’ve had!

Lesson’s learned.
Watch the weather forecast.
If it’s forecast to rain sleet and snow on the way to work, wearing a) longer jacket and b) waterproof pants is sensible.
Weather here is amazing!! And apparently it get’s worse – it was warm yesterday but could have been 5 or 10degs colder!!!

Today I wore my waterproofs and looked a bit dorky but I’m over that anyway!

Today is Burns day (or Burns night tonight to be more exact) to celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns. Shame on you if you don’t know who Burns was (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns) if you are interested. (anyone heard of the song Auld Lang Syne?)Apparently the thing to do is read his poetry and eat haggis. So we’re going around the corner to our friend Amy’s place and apparently they are cooking haggis! Yay, home made haggis!

On the weekend we’re off to Aberdeen, the Granite City.

Cheerio,
Selina & Angus

Seagulls and Snow

2008-01-17T01:51:00.001+10:30

So the last few weeks we've had a bit wetter, colder weather here in Scotland (which I'm sure all of you enduring the heat-wave in Adelaide can really sympathise with!) We had heavy snow fall in Edinburgh about two weeks ago - it was great, I walked to work and it was snowing lightly, but the time lunch came around it was heavy and starting to stay on the ground and by the time I walked home in the dark at 5:30 it was thick and slushy on the ground. Yay! It was beautiful! The hills around Edinburgh were all covered and it was very pretty. Most of it disapeared in the city by the next day, and on Sunday (6th) when we walked up Arthurs Seat there wasn't much around. It was a great hike up - took only about an hour to get to the top (the long way round) and the views were stunning - really amazing, over the old town, new town, castle, the firth of forth, over to the other side of the forth, to the Pentlands and beyond! It was sunny and windy but a great day for a walk! We had a picnic at the top and headed down again before we got blown away!

Last weekend (Saturday 12th) we left about 7am in our borrowed car (city car club rocks!) for the Scottish ski-fields. We drove north out of Edinburgh (leaving suburbia in about 15mins, this city is great – it’s so small!) drove across the Forth of Firth towards the city of Perth. We kept going north to the town of Spittal of Glenshee, home of the Glenshee Ski Resort (resort being a bit of an exaggeration, more like collection of antiquated ski lifts and an expensive café and some hills that are sometimes surrounded by enough snow to ski on – no funky bars or nightclubs here!). The views as we were driving were fabulous – the sun rising and filling the beautiful clear sky with gorgeous soft pinks, contrasting against the snow/frost covered hills and then the sky gradually getting more blue and the sun coming up – it was going to be a gorgeous day – perfect for skiing!!!!

We arrived at the place where I had (sensibly) booked ski gear, unfortunately they only had one pair of skis for the two of us and no boots for Angus. Now we’re pretty clever but we need 2 skis each. Luckily for us there was one pair of skis left by the time we got to the counter (ski rental in a tiny shed!!) and a pair of boots with some other poor bugger’s name on them which were given to Angus! We were in such a rush to get up to the slopes (we had been watching all the cars filled with people go past for the past 45mins that it had taken to line up to get our gear!) that we forgot (actually it was my fault, me supposedly being the skier!) to pick up stocks. I realised about 10 minutes later by which time we were in the 2mile long queue for the carpark. No way were we going back! So we _eventually_ made it to the carpark where we quickly changed into our ski gear and headed for more queues. After accidentally both buying two day passes (we got our cash back!) we finally made it into a lift line (stockless!) about 10am. So it took us about an hour and a half drive and an hour and a half queueing to get onto the slopes! Anyway, we were here! We went up the poma first (in beautiful sunshine) and just headed down an easy run first to get the old ski legs back. My skis were awful. Like skiing on gravel – I don’t think they’d been tuned since bought about a decade ago! Eeek – this was going to challenge me! Angus managed pretty well for the first few runs given that he had no poles! We did two on the poma and then decided to head over to the other side of the valley, which was more in the shade but the snow was apparently better and queues smaller (actually this wasn’t the case, but the runs were steeper too which we wanted). So we then lined up for about half an hour to wait for the (get this….) one person chairlift! Very 80’s! While in the line we had a bit of a chat to a couple of guys and we also had morning tea (muesli bar – we were prepared!).

At the top of the chairlift the views were AMAZING! What I haven’t mentioned yet is the absolute lack of trees or any shrubbery here – simply bare hills for miles and miles – all you could see from the top was snow covered hills and valleys – it was fantastic! (no photos unfortunately as somebody (that being me) forgot the camera – oops!) Anyway, it was stunning! We did a great run down to the tbar (again the queue was about 30mins) so when we got to the top there, we sat down in the sunshine looking at the stunning views and ate our lunch (again I was prepared, no mediocre Cloud 9 chippies and greasy food for us!). We skied down in the sunshine but this had obviously melted the snow a little so we did find a few rocks unfortunately. We decided we liked the snow better in the shade, even if it was a little cooler, so we went back and did a few laps on the tbar (the other one, with the slightly shorter queue!). We found a fabulous steep pitch that had some great powdery snow on it which we kept going back to – good practice for both of us! We think we got about 10 runs in over the whole day, which is a reasonable effort! And having to ski without poles was actually really good for both of us – me because I rely on them a bit much in the steeps (not that this was a problem here!) and Angus because he needs to be pushed from the comfort zone. Both of us looked a little funny but we’re used to that!

We actually didn’t take too long getting out the carpark, we thought it was going to be hell! And we bumped into a collegue of mine too so we had a drink back at the hostel where we were staying. We had a pretty quiet night, cooked up some tasty food, had a good bottle of French Red and went to bed early! We had planned on skiing on the Sunday but it was raining when we got up, and the hoards of people driving past the hostel suggested it was going to be just as busy as the Saturday but without the good weather! We decided not to stay so headed back to Edinburgh where we had a nice quiet afternoon! A top weekend!

PS – the reason this blog is entitled ‘Seagulls and Snow) is because the day it snowed in Edinburgh there were seagulls wheeling around outside the office as it was snowing – quite surreal!

PPS – we have a new blog – we miss having good discussions with all our friends about the world, politics, good books & movies and just life in general, so we’ve started a blog that we’d like you all to join in on, share your ideas and thoughts and so forth! The address is: http://youareinvitedto.blogspot.com/ and is set up as an online dinner party (we’ve been missing having these!). So all you have to do is email me with your gmail account and I’ll add you on as an author, and then share your thoughts! If you just want to comment then you can do that too (anon if you like, but we’d like you to share who you are please!). Please email me or angus with any queries about how it will work, although we’re not totally sure yet!

Christmas

2008-01-10T03:30:00.000+10:30

We decided to go to Glasgow for a couple of days before we were to fly to Germany on Christmas Eve. We caught the train over on Saturday morning and then found our accommodation. We went for a nice wander around the city - it's quite different to Edinburgh - much more industrial and the city is not as pretty. It's situated on the river Clyde which is quite nice, but the city itself is hilly and the buildings and streets are not particularly pretty. We went for a walk down the mall (which was of course madly busy being the weekend before Christmas!)! We went to the cathedral which was spectacular! It overlooks a fantastic cemetary on a hill, which looked incredible in the evening light (it was the day after the shortest day of the year, so the sun set about 3:30pm). We only had a short time in the cathedral as it was closing for the day. Then we went to Mungo's museum of Religious Art. Might not sound too thrilling but it was really interesting - all different religions presented together in one museum, it was great! We stayed about an hour there. Oh... on our way out of the museum we saw the Tardis. Just sitting on the side of the road! We both looked at it, then each other and had a good laugh! It was so strange seeing it just there! Very funny!!! Of course we're not totally sure that its _the_ tardis, but surely there's only one....??? ;-) Then we found a cool little pizza bar where we had a pizza, drink and then wandered back through the city. It's not the nicest city on a saturday night - lots and lots of middle aged men out drunk on the streets, something we just don't see in Adelaide really ever. Here it seems to be more common...

Sunday we got up early and walked through town to grab breakfast before going on the bus out to the Burrel collection which is about 20mins on the bus out of Glasgow, situated on a big country estate typle place - a lovely stream running through it, and nice gardens. It was cold, and there was lots of ice and snow around - a bit slippery at times! It was a great gallery - the whole back of the building had floor to ceiling windows, looking out onto this forest - right there! With birds and squirrels playing right in front of you - we almost enjoyed looking at theview more than the (very impressive) collection of art! There was art from all over the world, including egyptian, tapestries, religious art, islamic art, paintings, lots of beautiful sculptures and statues, furniture and lots of other things - it was really nice to wander around for a few hours. There wern't too many people there either, so it was easy to look at all the works. Definately worth a visit. We then headed back to Glasgow for a quiet afternoon before going out for dinner to a very cool Russian restaurant. The food was influenced from all places around Russia, and it was pretty tasty! We finished the meal off with a really good dessert but the highlight was probably the vodka. Chilled perfectly to -18deg and served in a shot glass, it was exquisite! We had the herbal variety which was meant to be good for digestion, but no matter what they said it tasted amazing and certainly makes me look at vodka in a different way. We're currently planning a trip to Russia!!!!

The next morning we got up about 4am and walked to the bus station (luckily only about a 10minute walk) to catch our bus to the airport. We had breakfast at the airport (mmm...baked beans), caught our flight, then at the other end (Germany), caught a bus to the train station and took 3 trains to get to Bitburg eventually in the mid afternoon... a looooong way! We were very pleased to see Yvonne meeting us! Zoe arrived later in the afternoon (Ronald was there already) and we had a fantastic long dinner for Christmas Eve celebration in the evening. It was fantastic! A real feast! We then went to mass and after that came home for pudding.

On Christmas Day we slept in a loooong time, till about 11am, which was glorious! Then after brunch we went for a great walk, at Irrel Falls, close to the border with Luxembourg. It was really beautiful - there was snow on the ground and the trees were covered in frost which was needle-like and the air was filled with this frost. The trees were mostly white and there was ice on the rocks in the river. It was a lovely long walk! We also saw some deer and had a nice view to Luxembourg. The rest of the week was similar - lots and lots of fantstic food, walking, chatting, relaxing, playing games - it was a really lovely week ;-) Back in Edinburgh for New Years (I had to work New Years Eve) we had a quiet night as it was cold and raining!
Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-22T01:55:00.000+10:30

We hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Years!

A special congratulations to Mark and Vanessa, proud new parents of Mitchell Andreas on December 19th. We're thinking of you guys ;-)

Best wishes for safe and happy holidays for everyone.

Love Selina & Angus

xox

Wedding Anniversay Weekend Away & Cambridge Trip to visit Hannah & Owen

2007-12-18T03:39:00.000+10:30

We had our big weekend planned away for last weekend (8th/9th December). On Friday night it was my work christmas party. It was an interesting evening. It was a corporate party event really, we had two tables of people and there must have been about 40 tables there. It was nice to talk to some colleagues outside of work and Angus and I managed to have a bit of a boogie on the dance floor too which was nice ;-) We walked home afterwards in the cool air which was pretty nice.

On Saturday morning Angus made us great French Toast ;-) Then we packed up our stuff and got in our rental car. We headed North, towards the city of Perth. The forecast for Edinburgh for the weekend was a maximum of 2degs and sleet, so we were pretty ready for some cold wet weather! We drove through Perth and kep going north to the town of Pitlochry. We had lunch there and then drove out towards the lochs and mountains. We drove through some really lovely countryside. We went to Loch Tummel which was really spectacular, and then past Schiehallion, which is apparently the hill where the first contour map was made. The weather was getting a bit worse, and we actually had some snow fall while we were driving which was very cool ;-) We drove along a beautiful loch, along a really narrow road, with snow falling around us, it was quite magical. We got to the town of Callander about 4ish and checked into a nice little b&b which we had managed to find on the internet - we were pleased with it! We had a pretty quiet afternoon and had a great dinner in the restaurant. It was excellent food and we had a tasty bottle of spanish red wine with dinner. Afterwards we sat in the great little bar and angus had a whiskey! It was a really nice evening.

On Sunday morning we had an awesome breakfast - porridge, cereal, toast, hot breakfast - yum! Angus tried Haggis and Black Pudding too! We then drove a little way from the town to do a walk. We walked for about 2 or so hours, up towards Ben Ledi, we made it to a bit above the snow line, walking along a river for the first part, then up a beautiful valley with a waterfal running down it. It was a great walk. We were ready for a late lunch and lucked upon an incredible little cafe right on the edge of a loch. We both enjoyed a great lunch with views of the loch and mountains surrounding it. Then in the afternoon we had a great drive back and stopped in at Doune Castle which is one of the best preserved 14th century castles in Scotland. It's pretty spectacular, and we really enjoyed looking around the very impressive rooms and the view from the roof was amazing! It was a great weekend away ;-)

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We had a fabulous weekend in Cambridge with Hannah and Owen. It took us a while to get there - I left work about 20 past 4 on friday afternoon and walked to Haymarket train station and met Angus there. We caught the train to Glasgow, and then walked through the city (under 10mins) to the other train station in Glasgow, we bought some chocolate to take to Owen and Hannah (we can't take wine on the plane of course!) and Angus bought a beer for with dinner. We got on the train to Prestwick Airport, which is about an hour from Glasgow. We ate dinner on the train - Angus had cooked a fabulous quiche which was really really yummy! We got to the airport and had lots of time and grabbed a coffee (eeek, this starbucks stuff is aweful, i don't know why people would actually _choose_ to drink this stuff!!) before lining up to get on the plane. Ryanair don't do allocated seats, so you have to line up. You can pay extra to get priority lineup, but that seemed silly when it won't actually get you there faster or more comfortably or anything! We ended up being basically at the front of the plane anyway, so i'm not sure of the point of the paying extra! The flight was fine and at the other end (London Stanstead) there was a bus waiting to take us to Cambridge (although according to the bus timetable there was no bus, but we wern't arguing!). We met Owen and Hannah at the other end! It was so great to see them both! We went for a bit of a walk through Cambridge, through Clare college (Owen's college) which is really beautiful - just like in the movies (which sounds really corny, but it's a fantastic building, with a square in the middle, with grass you can't walk on so it's all green and lush, with cobbled paths, and maginficient buildings all around!, including a chapel with stained glass!). We also saw Kings College and walked on a bridge over the river Cam (Clare college is the second oldest college and has an old bridge over the river, it's actually sagging on one side! - very cool). Then we went back to Owen and Hannah's flat, which is very nice - cozy but not small, pretty similar in size to our place here in Edinburgh. We had mince pies and tea and the boys had whiskey and we had chocolates too. We talked and talked and talked. The way you can only do with old friends. It was fantastic! We actually stayed up until about 2:30am talking!

On Saturday morning after a great breakfast we went back to Clare College to go for a punt. The weather was perfect. Blue skies and sunshine, it was really beautiful. We got all our stuff into the punt and headed off, Owen being punter. It was fantastic. So wonderful just seeing all the fantastic colleges, bridges, gardens, views etc all from the peace and comfort of a punt! Angus had a go and appears to be a natural punter! Hannah managed to lose the pole which was very amusing and I stayed sitting in the boat the whole time (not being a big fan of slippery backs of punts and cold cold water!). We had the grand tour of the river Cam with Owen and Hannah telling lots of stories along the way. Photos will be loaded up soon, I promise!! We then went for a bit of a walk, visited the local markets, which are on every day (which we are very envious of, as we would love to have local markets in Edinburgh - apparently there is a market here once a week but a decent walk from us and on a Saturday morning so we havn't been yet!). Then we went back to Hannah & Owen's for lunch (fantastic walnut bread and garlic stuffed olives!). We had a cruisy afternoon too, going for a walk through some more beautiful colleges, Trinity & Kings. Unfortunately the evensong wasn't on, so we couldnt' go to that. All the more reason to come back next year! So we sat in a nice pub for a few hours before going to a cool restaurant for dinner, a bit reminiscent of the Jeruseleum in Adelaide (think the parachute ceilings!). It was a great night out, though very very cold!

On Sunday morning we had another tasty breakfast before walking to the bus stop to catch our bus to the airport. It all went smoothly and we were back in Edinburgh by mid-afternoon and then walked home from the city and did some food shopping on the way. We had pretty quiet evening in as it had been a big weekend!

I think it was minus 6 degrees this morning (Monday 17th) when I walked to work and it's meant to be a maximum of 1degree. So so cold! Before we came to Europe I don't think we actually thought about the cold that much, it was just not something we considered. Now that we're here and living in it, we're quite challenged as to how to keep warm enough. Ie, how do we keep our feet warm enough in our shoes? And I can understand why girls here wear stockings under their pants to keep warmer! I'm certainly very very glad I bought a big coat when we were in Germany, without that I'd be frozen!

Now for some news:

A massive congratulations to my super talented big brother Martin who has got his PhD!

And a big well done to Michaela and Graham who had their baby daughter Karina Jade Heinson on Friday December 14!! Very Exciting!!!

Merry Christmas to everyone, we'd love to hear some news from you all.
LoveSelina & Angus
xox

Edinburgh musings

2007-12-04T19:26:00.000+10:30

Edinburgh - our new home.

Well we've been here for about 3 weeks in Edinburgh, so I thought i'd better write another blog entry about our adventures thus far. After our boxes all arrived (yay), we decided it would be nice to go away for a night. So we booked a car and then walked up to town to pick it up. We needed a couple of bits and pieces for around the house - some kitcheny stuff, a table for the computer, some bedside tables and lamps. So off we went to ...IKEA... of course. Where else do people go when setting up house!! We managed to get through the maze and find most stuff we wanted. We got a great cheap table for the computer that is subtle and easy to ignore (not like the massive monitor sitting on top of the desk! - perfect for looking at photos and playing games on!) and we got some little wooden step ladders for bedside tables - very cute! After we got out of Ikea (it was totally dark by the time we got out at 4:30pm) we drove away from Edinburgh, through Stirling (great castle on a hill there too) and towards Loch Lomond, to the town to Drymen, where we checked into a b&b. We went for an ok pub dinner (nothing to write home about, so it's not really getting a mention here, except for the cool wallace tartan carpet - maybe something we can add in our house...) and then had a cup of tea and shortbread in the kitchen of the b&b. The next morning we were up pretty early and went to look at the Loch. It was really beautiful, the sun seemed to be just rising over the loch and there were lots of lovely trees and mist and great rocks. I got the camera out (and monopod - there's a little less light here than in France!!) and we went for a short meander along the side of the loch. It's quite spectacular, with massive hills rising up with little covering on them - that is low scrub that makes them look really bare. It was lovely. We then went for a bit of a drive through the countryside, just enjoying the lovely views. We stopped in at a distillary but just had a tasting and didn't buy any whiskey. We stopped at a couple of small towns - Killearn, Fintry and Kippen. At one we stopped for a coffee and great cake in a very sweet little cafe with a great shop of antiques and cool fake flowers and great cards. We bought a card with a painting of the area on it, to be framed at a later date. We had lunch in a funky cafe with lots of great produce, and we bought some herbs and spices and wine also. Then in the afternoon we went to see the Wallace Monument. It was great! We walked up the big hill and then climbed up lots of (narrow and steep) stairs to the exhibitions. They show his sword there - it's massive! And the story is pretty interesting. We made it up to the top and the view over the area was nice, but it was raining a bit so we didn't stay up there. We drove back via the Forth Bridge to Edinburgh. It was great to see some of the very spectacular, stark, desolate countryside. The hills here are really amazing and we're looking forward to doing some hiking on them (in summer perhaps!)

Since then we've been getting into the swing of work. Last weekend on Saturday we went round to the local cafe for breakfast and read the paper. Then in the afternoon we walked up to the city and went to a 'french market'. Now it was nice to see a bit of french culture in Edinburgh, but these people obviously haven't been to a real french market. We are starting to realise how spoilt we have been whilst traveling in France (and even in Holland we saw fabulous markets just near Zoe's place). We managed to buy a stem of garlic (that is about 12 heads) so that should last us about two weeks maybe, given the rate we consume it at! But we had a nice time wandering around the very busy city centre and then headed home for a quiet one. Oh, also on Tuesday night we met up with Kris and Geordie (some guys we've met!) and had a drink and a pub meal and then went to a stand-up comedy show - it was a pretty good gig actually. And last sunday I went to the local church which is really nice - one of only two totally wooden churches in Scotland! It's pretty convenient - about a 10 or 15minute walk from our flat. In the afternoon we walked along the Waters of Leith (a creek running through the area) and then went to the Botanic Gardens - really lovely. Lots of big trees with great colours and unusual leaf shapes (for us anyway!) and a couple of squirrals. It was nice. We went to the cafe and had a coffee overlooking a lovely view of the gardens and then with Edinburgh Castle in the background. The Gardens are also about a 15min walk from our place. We're very lucky to live so close to all these great places!

This weekend we again went out to breakfast, or tried to at least. We had seen a 'continental' cafe, which we thought would be good to check out, but the breakfasts looked pretty dismal, so we didn't stay there. Another place we tried only served coffee. So we ended up doing our grocery shopping and going home for breakfast! A little frustrating. We then took a packed lunch and walked to the centre of town and to the library (just off the royal mile). It's great- like a good bookshop! They have a massive range of lonely planet guides, and also had a lot of maps of the area - good topographic hiking maps of the whole of scotland! We borrowed a couple of books and then walked out towards Princes St Gardens - this is the main sort of shopping drag, but there are gardens all down one side and you can look up and see the castle and lovely old buildings etc. So we sat in the sunshine and at our lunch. It was pretty cold, about 6deg, and while we were enjoying our sunshine unfortunately the sun 'set' behind the buildings. Doh! The sun is setting about 3:40pm at the moment, which is a little surreal! In the mornings when I walk to work it's light but not bright. During the days it does get sunny some times but it's always dark when I come home. We're quite enjoying it actually, but we're looking forward to the long days next summer. For anyone interested we are planning a cycle trip along the Hebrides islands in September 2008. We plan to take a little over a week to ride the length of the islands, probably camping or perhaps YHA'ing along the way. We'd love to have some fellow riders if anyone is interested! Check out the website: www.cyclehebrides.com for more information! It looks simply stunning, and is mostly flat roads with some off-road riding on hills for the adventours.

Today (Sunday) I had a lovely long chat to Michelle before going to Church. There is a new priest there - he's from Woolongong, so we had a bit of a chat after, and Angus came and we had a cup of tea and chatted to a few people which was really nice. Afterwards we went to the National Gallery of Modern Art (across the road from Church!) and looked at part of the gallery. It's really great how the museums and art gallerys are all free to get in over here (in the UK that is), it means you can look for an hour one weekend and then go back in a month and look at a different section, whatever you like! So we're going to try to go to them all regularly, especially as the weather gets darker and colder! After lunch we read the paper a bit and booked our ski trip in February. We're off to Chamonix, France - we loved France so much we decided to go back, but this time to do some _serious_ skiing. Although our flights wern't too expensive we think we chose the busiest week of the season because all the accommodation seems to be booked out! At least that's what we thought initally, luckily we've managed to find some cheap accommdoation - in a hostel with a kitchen which is great.

So regarding work, it's all going well. I'm enjoying the challenges of working for a small company, it's certainly very different to working at Santos. But the people seem friendly and interesting and keen to try new things that I might suggest. I can see that I can actually have an influence on the way things are done and really make a contribution to the company which is really exciting. Angus is doing lots of searching for jobs and has made contact with some people in the university and there area a couple of good leads he's following up, but we don't expect anything until mid-january as this is a tricky time of year for job-searching. But luckily he's got something else to keep him busy... He's bought a guitar. A solid-body electric, very nice... so he's been rocking the house pretty constantly for the last few days!!

All else is going well, we're loving our yoga classes, even though it's very painful the next day! And our little flat is really starting to feel like home. This friday night is work's unofficial Christmas party, so we're both going along to that. Then we're off for a weekend away for our 1st wedding anniversary. It's so hard to believe it's a year! And a busy one at that!

Till next time,
All the best for Michaela, Graham, Vanessa & Mark, all expecting family additions soon!
Love Selina & Angus
xox

Amsterdam to Edinburgh

2007-11-24T00:26:00.000+10:30

Well it's been a long time since we've written the blog ;-) Since I last wrote...

We caught the train from Amsterdam to Groningen to visit Zoe and Pedro. We had a wonderful week with them. Pedro cooked us some fantastic Porteguese meals and we had many laughs all together in their little apartment. We were lucky to see them both performing in Camerata Ardesco at a lunchtime concert, and we met Jana, the lovely woman who has looked after Zoe over the last few years. We spent a great afternoon with her chatting ;-) It was a lovely time together and we are hoping to go back soon ;-) Groningen is a really pretty city and has a great feeling about it!

Back in Amsterdam we did some more wandering of the steets, walked around the beautiful Vondelpark which is a great park near the centre of the city which is used by lots and lots of people, walking, jogging, riding around, music and people sitting - we can imagine that in summer it's really busy! We did some yoga with Jose and Lee which was great and had some fun meals with David and Jose and Lee. We also went wandering the streets and found some great secondhand shops - i managed to pick up some clothes for work which are really nice (and wool, so are super warm also!). Amsterdam is a magical place - the trees were all dropping their leaves, and the canals are just really lovely. We tried to avoid the touristy areas and as a result had a lovely time there. And we were very pleased to be able to stay with David and Jose in their great apartment which is on the corner of two canals and on the top floor so has fabulous views!!

But of course the holiday had to come to an end eventually. We were due to catch the ferry on the Tuesday evening but in the morning it was really windy, so our ride to the coastline didn't sound so great. So we cycled down to behind the Amsterdam train station in the super strong wind (it almost blew me off my bike as we crossed over a couple of the really exposed bridges over the canals - because we had all our luggage with us!!). But i managed to hold on!! So we caught a high speed ferry from Amsterdam to the town where the big ferry was leaving. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us bring our bikes and gear into the ferry, it had to go on the roof, but it was a hydrofoil which travelled at about 60km/hr, so we spent the whole time (about 25mins) wondering if when we got there we would still have our two bikes, trailer and all our gear! A little stressful!!!! But we managed to keep our gear and it was an incident free trip. We then cycled around in circles around this town looking for somewhere to grab some lunch and sit out the afternoon, as we didn't need to be at the ferry till about 5ish. In retrospect, we should have spent the day in amsterdam and then headed out late afternoon, but we're a bit worrywartish so needed to be early!! We eventually found a cafe (after cycling round for about an hour in the rain and wind!!) and settled down for the lunch and afternoon. We enjoyed it actually, just sitting and writing some cards and reflecting a bit together on our fantastic journey ;-) Angus still being concerned about our ferry which was due to depart at 6pm suggested we leave at 4pm to make sure we got there on time. We did, and then spent the next 2 hours watching trucks load onto the ferry, standing in the freezing wind with our bikes. Not the greatest experience but luckily it was quite lovely with the sun starting to set and the birds flying around and all the big ships around ;-)

So we boarded the ferry and locked up our bikes and the trailer and carried our gear up to our room, which was actually pretty nice (but cozy!) We had a short wander around the ship and then freshened up for dinner. We went to the bar and sat and had a drink looking out at the lights waiting for the ship to depart, but it left over an hour late which was a bit unfortunate. We went for dinner which was not bad but very expensive! Then we were both pretty tired so went back to our little cabin. Unfortunatly when we got up in the morning there was some bad news - becasue of the fact we'd left late and that there was a strong headwind we were running late. very very late. like we were meant to arrive at 9am and we were due after 2pm. I had booked us train tickets to leave Newcastle at 1pm, thinking that would be _heaps_ of time, but it wasn't to be! Luckily we arrived about 1:30 and then we rode for about 1.5hours into Newcastle, getting a bit lost along the way. We got to the train station and had to rebuy tickets (eek - wow expensive!) but then didn't have to ait at all for the train as it arrived right away and we loaded all our gear on (the experts we are now with bikes and trailers on trains!!). It was a very chilled our train journey actually, and we arrived in at Edinburgh about 4:30pm. We then rode straight to our apartment (which work had organised for me) and checked in. It was great to arrive in Edinburgh after such a long journey.

We actually didn't do much sightseeing except wandering around the lovely city and trying to work out where we wanted to live. We got straight onto looking at flats. We must have looked at about 12 i think. The first few were really terrible. While waiting to look at one, we met a couple of guys in a bar- both had just finished theri architecture exams, and were keen for a game of pool and chat. They both seemed pretty nice ;-) We had some luck with flats on friday afternoon. We went to see 4 and thought 3 of them would be great to live in. The first was in a great location, but had no storage space. The second had no furniture but the owner offerred to 'ikea-ise' it, which we thought could be good. The third was fantastic - massive (as big as Sizer St in Adelaide) and painted great colours and seemed really cool and quirky, but was a looong walk from the office - about 45mins. I wanted to be able to walk to work easily and it also wasn't in a great are. So the next morning we looked at two flats in the area of town (Stockbridge) which we had really liked on the friday, and we found the flat we are now living in.

It's really cool. Not really big, just one bedroom, but lots of cupboard space, the kitchen is great - good appliances and nice and large, the bathroom is nice - a 19th century bath (but shower added recently!), and bright and airy. The lounge/dining is great - wooden floorboards, big bay windows, it's on the ground floor and we look out onto a quiet street. Around the corner in one direction is a supermarket, and one of our Yoga classes (2hours of full ashtanga primary series - really really hard work), the other way around the corner is a funky street with some cool shops and little supermarkets, bars, cafes and lots and lots of op-shops!! At the end of that road is the 'stock bridge' which the area is named after. And in another direction about 5mins walk is a lovely big open area with sports grounds that is annexxed on to the botanic gardens (we hope to go there this weekend). And it's about a 25min walk for me to work (which is also the distance to the city centre and shops and bars etc). The castle and royal mile would be about 35mins walk. Our other yoga class is about a 10min cycle (ashtanga dynamic, about 1hr 15mins - a fun class). We also have a massive sainsburys and other shops about a 10min ride in the other direction. So we basically have a great apartment. And we've been shopping and kitted ourselves out with tv, computer, nice plants and it's really feeling like home. We hope that we will have visitors soon to try out our fancy new blow up mattress ;-)

That's all for now folks. More about checking out the lowlands last weekend and my first week of work to come soon. Photos will be up soon too of our flat and the weekend away. Missing you all, keep emailing us!! ;-)

Selina & Angusxox

Amsterdam wanderings...

2007-10-29T06:35:00.001+10:30

Day 42. Amsterdam. Wednesday 24th.

Today we spent the day wandering around Amsterdam. We were trying to find Angus a new bike - his current one is not appropriate for off-road riding, so we went to a heap of second hand shops, but there are not many MTB's in Amsterdam! We spent the rest of the day moseying around and chilling out ;-)

Day 43. Amsterdam. Thursday 25th.

This morning we both called home and had a chat to the folks - nice to be able to so easily keep in touch ;-) Then we went for a walk into the city. We caught a train into the centre of town and then went for a walk around. We went into a lovely church where the organ was playing. It was really peaceful and lovely. We spent a while sitting in there ;-) We then kept wandering through the streets, had a great lunch of hot tasty soup before walking to the Resistance Museum. It was a really interesting museum with lots of information about how Holland was occupied during the war and what the resistance did to make the Germans life difficult. There were lots and lots of personal stories and quotes from individuals which made the museum really interesting. It made me feel really proud of my Oma, who worked in the underground during the war, and it really brought home the risks that she and many many other people made in order to help others. It was a great museum. We had a quiet evening in tonight ;-)

Day 44. Amsterdam (Delft). Friday 26th.

This morning we caught a tram and then a train down to Delft, which is about an hour south of the city. It's a really pretty city, lots of small canals and narrow streets, a lovely big square with a large church and town hall that is really beautiful. We went into the new church which was great - beaufitul and also there was lots of information about the history of Holland and particularly the relationship of the royal family and William of Orange and the church. They are all buried there! The old church was nice also ;-) We really enjoyed wandering around there. We had a great lunch together in a big warm cafe and then in the afternoon just wandered around the streets. We walked down to the main canal and Angus was really excited to see the bridge over the canal going up and down. Further along we saw part of the origional gate to the city of Delft which is now currently a house! Amazing! On the way back to Amsterdam Angus went and bought a bike ;-)

Day 45. Amsterdam (Apeldoorn). Saturday 27th.

Today we caught the train to Apeldoorn and met Jasper. We went for a coffee in the town (at a really cool bar - good coffee and a whole jar of cookies!!) and then went for a ride. We headed first through some beautiful suburbs of Apeldoorn - lovely houses. Then we went to see Het Loo, the Palace - stunning grounds and the palace looked great! We didn't go in. We rode out through an amazing road with massive trees all the same height and great canopy - really pretty. We then went for a long ride through the forest - on a fabulous bike path - it was really pretty and all the autumn colours are out at the moment. We stopped for a great pancake lunch at a small restaurant in the forest - yummy! In the afternoon we rode on - through the forest further and then through a type of swamp land - flat and marshy - views for a long way! It was lovely - really quiet and peaceful. Then it was back into the forest- riding through dense forest and riding along autumn leaves on the ground, it was great! We went back to Apeldoorn and popped in to visit Jaspers parents before a quick ride to the train station, almost missed our train and then managed to get on it (with some help from Jasper!) We got on the bike carriage and it was like a party - there were a group of about 20 young people who were heading to Amsterdam to go to a hip hop concert, so they were drinking and had a stereo going on the train - it really felt like being at the pub! It was a really good trip back into town, and then we rode back through the dark streets of Amsterdam.

Day 46. Amsterdam. Sunday 28th.

We went for a great bike ride today. We rode about 50km in 2.5 hours through the lovely countryside - flat and lovely open fields, canals, windmills. It was a bit windy, but overall a really nice ride ;-)

Messerich Wanderings

2007-10-27T05:14:00.000+09:30

Day 38. Messerich. Saturday 20th.

This morning after Yvonne had a rest we went again to Trier after lunch. Today we both bought a _serious_ pair of hiking boots each - made for Scotland I think! We both now feel much cosier and more comforatble. Then we went for a drive along the Mosel River, which is amazingly pretty countryside. The Mosel is quite sinuous and in places the valley walls are quite steep. But they grow grapes all along the valley, even on the realy steep slopes, which is truly amazing! We stopped at a small town with a castle ruins (Berncastle) and had a short wander around the town - some amazing looking houses - narrow at the bottom of the house and then wider up higher - quite amazing! We were there at a lovely time of the day, with the sun just setting, so the colours were really beautiful. We then drove back to Bitburg and went to a traditional German Pub for dinner. Angus managed to down two flagons of Bitburger Beer, and I had a little one, and we ate great food - Angus of course had a Schnitzel with sauerkrauet and potatoes and I had a Turkey steak which was really tasty!

Day 39. Messerich. Sunday 21st.

This morning we drove to Ectanarch, which is just over the border in Luxembourg. Yvonne and I went to a church service together and Angus had a coffee and found some free wifi. After church, we went and had a coffee and cake (yummy!) nearby. Then we went for a lovely drive to a forest where we had a picnic lunch. After lunch we went for a walk through the forest - it was really lovely. The area is filled with crater lakes, so the views over the lakes are lovely. The forest is full of large trees, with small leaves that are at the moment turning into autumn colours - golds, oranges, reds - really pretty against the dark and light greens and browns of the other trees. It was a lovely walk, and we also came upon a pear tree with pears that were really tasty! We then went back to Yvonnes. It's the apple harvest at the moment and today is festival day, so Angus and I walked up to the local pub, an underground cellar-pub which makes its own schnapps! So we decided to try an apple schnapps and a slice of appple cake! Yum. We also tried a couple of other schnapps, and had a chat to the guy behind the bar. It was really nice, and full of people with a good atmosphere. We then went back for a nice dinner with Yvonne ;-)

Day 40. Messerich. Monday 22nd. Happy Birthday Muma!

Today Angus and I rode into Bitburg. We had lunch in a small cafe overlooking the mall and had a short wander around. It was really pleasant, but a bit cold! We met up with Yvonne after she finished work and we went to the supermarket with her to stock up on supplies for chirstmas (beer and wine!!) We had a quiet afternoon at home chatting, and after dinner we played a game of 'tom rummy', which was fun!

Day 41. Messerich to Amsterdam. Tuesday 23rd.

Trains again all day! We rode to Bitburg this morning leaving Yvonnes about 8am when it was about 2 degrees! eek. Angus still wore his shorts, but put thermals on underneath! It was a nice ride - luckily it was a bit uphill so we kept warm. We stopped in bitburg for a warm up coffee and then rode on to Erdorf which is where the train left from. The sun was up now but it was still _freezing_ cold, so we froze as we rode down the hill to Erdorf! So once we were at the train station we stood in the sunshine until the train came (late) about 30minutes later. The rest of the trains went really smoothly, we had 3 connections and it went really easily even with the bikes. We got to Amsterdam Centraal about 6:30 and then eventually managed to find our way to David and Jose's apartment, which is great - on the corner of two canals, the top two floors of an apartment building. We had a great meal and then a chilled out evening.

Ancient Caves

2007-10-22T02:44:00.000+09:30

Day 34. Les Eyzies de Tayac to Perigeaux & Day trip to Lascaux. Mardi 16th.
Dedicated to David Crosbie, a great man, who died today in Adelaide.
It's a bit hard to write the blog at the moment, but I will continue along as well as I can for now.
We woke early to another misty foggy morning in Les Eyzies, had a quick breakfast and packed up our gear. It was another chilly ride through town, but shorter than yesterday as we were only headed to the train station. We caught the train to Perigeaux and arrived about 9am - the train ride was lovely through the mist we could see farms and valleys and trees! When we arrived we went straight to the information desk and inquired about trains to Luxembourg. Eventually we figured out that thursday was not the day to travel, as there was to be a nationwide train strike! So we bought tickets for wednesday. Then we found a hotel near the station and hired a car for the day. The car is tiny - a little smart car! We drove into the centre of Perigeaux, near the massive church, and found a chocolate shop (we've been wanting to stock up since our haighs supply finished!), bought supplies for lunch and had a quick morning tea. We then drove back down to the Vezere valley and went to the Magdeleine Cave, which is a site which has been occupied on two levels - the lower (which we actually couldn't see) was occupied in prehistoric times, and the upper which was used in Medieval times. It was interesting - there was no tour which was nice, just some information sheets and numbered sites. The site is on the banks of the Vezere river - and is quite high up. So it's a natural defensive position. The first site is a natural cave, and they built up walls in front, and some sort of an oven, and built steps into the ciff to get down to the river. Further along the cliff is the later site - more advanced, with watch sites (for defense), a system to take waste and water from the 'street' to the river below, rooms, shelter, walls, a sheep pen, a kitchen built into the cliff, a church. It was all built into the cliff and used the natural cave system for the main structural elements and then built walls around it. It was quite interesting and enjoyable to walk around. Up above is a castle - a later addition, and used during the 100 years war. It is in total ruin and we could only walk along part of the wall - but it was heavily fortified and would have been amazing to see standing!
We then drove to the town of Montignac, further up the Vezere valley. We had lunch in town (picnic, sitting on the side of the river, overlooking the town). Then we drove to the site of some of the most amazing cave paintings ever found, Lascaux. It was discovered in the 1940s by some teenage boys (their dog fell down into the caves and they followed!). The caves were opened to the public and masses of people went to see them, but they realised that it was damaging the paintings (lots of people breathing carbon dioxide and also bringing in algae on shoes which grew over the paintings) so the caves were closed in the 50's. Then they decided to make a copy of the caves - the main section which contains 90% of the paintings was copied. They first created a new cave - apparently the copy is the same to within 5mm, and then an artist spent 11 years painting the replicas, using the same style of paints and equipment. The cave is _incredible_. It makes everything else we've seen look dull. Not in a negative way, but simply beacuse the paintings at Lasceaux are _so_ vibrant, _so_ large and _so_ numerous. You enter the first 'chamber of the bulls' and it is incredible - i think there were 5 large bulls drawn around the walls, the largest of which is 16feet long - the biggest single animal cave painting ever found. They are drawn with incredible clarity and perfect proportions. And then around them and over them are more paintings - horses, deer, cows etc etc. There are 4 or 5 horses in a row, the first walking and so on through to the last one galloping - it really did look like they were moving! There was also a unicorn, or a creature which has characteristics from a few different animals. And some symbols which are unexplained - lines, dots, dashes etc. The second chamber is also very impressive - it contains a row of ponys, 5, prancing ponys! Very cute. Also there were another 3 bulls, drawn symmetrically almost and very obviously arranged in a logical manner. The last part was also impressive - including a horse which was drawn around a corner, but yet still in perfect proportion. These guys/gals really could draw! Lascaux is termed 'the sistine chapel of prehistory' and it really is. There are some who think it may have been used for worship, and it's easy to imagine, due to the shape and width of the cave and incredible paintings on the walls and ceilings it's easy to imagine this. Even though we were in awe of the paintings at Lasceaux we were really pleased we'd seen the other (fantastic) caves first. Lasceaux was great but it was a bit like a tourist park. If you're only going to see one cave we would still reccommend Pech Merle, which is near Figac and on the Lot Valley, and then probably Les Combarelles for the carvings - this cave we feel very privaliged to have seen, as the tours are limited to 6 people per tour and we feel that the tours cannot continue forever. But this region of France really has been very very beautiful and enjoyable and is definately worth a visit. The caves really challenged our thinking and have made us think about how much life for humans have changed, and how very lucky we are to be alive today.

Day 35. Perigeaux to Limoges to Paris to Luxembourg (on the train). Mercredi 17th.
Trains Trains Trains. Up early and onto the 7:37am train to Limoges. That went smoothly and then we changed for the Paris train. This was the TGV - and it rocks! We went from Limoges to Paris (about 350 km) in 2 1/2 hours! We were racing along - very cool. The trains are also very comfortable, but no wifi, unfortunately ;-).
We had to change stations in Paris, so we got to cycle for a few kms in Parisian traffic. Pretty easy though. We had a couple of hours in Paris, so we took it slow, had some lunch and a beer. The train to Luxembourg was similarly speedy to the other TGV train we took (Paris to Luxembourg in 2.5 hours).
We noiticed quite a change in weather during these travels (we came North about 700 kms). In Les Eyzies, it was cold and foggy in the morning, but warm and sunny (shorts, t-shirts) in the afternoon. In Luxembourg, it was cold, cloudy and rainy at 5pm (10 deg max). I was a little too determined to try and stay in the youth hostel, and so dragged Selina across town in the rain, but we ended up staying in a cheap hotel not far from the train station. We went to a great Indian restaurant for tea.

Day 36. Luxembourg to Messerich (Via Trier and Bitburg). Thursday 18th.
We had a couple of hours in the morning to wander around Luxembourg, which was great (awesome fortress), and then caught the trains to Bitburg (well, the station is 5 km outside Birburg) and cycled to Yvonnes, arriving about 3pm. It was a beautiful ride through the German countryside - quite different to France - dark forests with lots of trees which are starting to turn autumn. It was great to arrive here to a warm welcoming house, and hot meal in the evening. Yvonne worked tonight so we just sat around and had a quiet evening.

Sarlat and Les Eyzies de Tayac

2007-10-16T04:05:00.001+09:30

Day 31. Sarlat. Samedi 13th.

This morning we checked out the local market. At first we wern't too sure (thought it might be a bit touristy), but it was great! Masses of French food - all looking fresh & tasty & cheap! We were more restrained than the last market we went to, and only bought what we needed. But really enjoyed looking at the food and other produce. You can buy garlic by the dozen, and about 5 different varieties! Yum. But we didn't need that much garlic, so we justlooked. We're in Fois Gras territory now so there were heaps of places selling it, and all differnt types also, but we havn't tried it and don't feel the need to!! We had planned on riding back down to the Dordogne River today and seeing some chateaus, but my knee was hurting a bit (overworked from yesterdays ride!), so we decided just to go to one closer by. The ride was lovely - a long slow gentle uphill followed by a great view of the castle and then these fantastic steep switchbacks through a small town (not a town at all, more a collection of 3 houses!) and a farm, and then through thick, dark forest with some green light filtering through the leaves. It was cool!! We came out at the main road just opposite the castle, and rode up to the entrance. Unfortunately we couldn't get in until the guided tour at 2:30 so we sat in the forest and ate our picnic lunch. The castle, Puymartin, is known for it's 'lavishly decorated interior and the mysterious tale of the Dame Blanche, whose restless spirit is said to haunt the chateau corridors'. Now, the castle is certainly decorated in a pretty fancy way - _way_ over the top!! The guest room had paintings on all the walls, including some of women that used to be withouht clothes, but have since had them painted on, as it was a bit too rude before apparently! And a couple of them have been converted to young men - they have been given moustaches! And there is a room which is entirely painted - all walls and ceiling - but it's tiny and a bit claustrophobic. The ghost is of a woman who was caught in the arms of her lover when her husband was away at war - and was incarcerated in the top of the castle in a tiny room for 15 years until she died, and then was buried behind one of the stones in the wall. Nice. The same family has resided in this chateau (and still today) since the 14th century - wow! We spent the rest of the afternoon cycling back to Sarlat and wandering around the town - it's very pretty and interesting. But a bit overdone, with all of the buildings in the same medieval type and a little touristy. We went into the Cathedral, some of which is from 12th century, other parts from the 16th and 17th centurys. It has a beautiful large organ occupying one ond of the cathedral and is decorated in a lavish but not over-the-top manner. We then cooked up a great meal in the hotel and watched a bit of the England-France game in our room, but were too tired to go out! Ahh, aren't we sad ;-)

Day 32. Sarlat to Les Eyzies de Tayac, the Dordogne region. Dimanche 14th.

We had planned to catch a train part of the way today, but since my knee was feeling all better, we decided to cycle. We followed part of the route from yesterday, the long gentle uphill section (a bit longer and slower today because we were fully laden!)And our long downhill was great - down a small valley, all downhill to the main road. We had lunch (picnic again) just before we got onto the main road, as we found a pretty little 'place' in a tiny settlement. Then we were on the main road, but it was nice and wide and _very_ very easy riding - all downhill and just gentl enough that you need to pedal but with almost no effort at all! We saw another two chateaus on the way down to Les Eyzies and we arrived at the town in no time. We had a quick drink when we got here and checked into nice hotel (the first 3star for the trip!) with a great view out over the town square and up towards the cliffs that run along the town. Amazingly, built into the cliffs is the National Museum of Prehistory - it's literally built up to the cliff, and looks amazing. We then rode out to the cave we had decided to visit this afternoon. It's called the Grotte de Font de Gaume. We had a 4pm tour with a small group of people, and it was really fascinating. There are 230 figures in the cave of mammoths, bison, horses, fish, reindeer, bears and tectiform signs - a sort of stamp that is seen throughout this area (in lots of the caves) and seems to be a mark that they used. We saw maybe a dozen or 20 paintings - bison were the main theme, and they were very impressive. What is particularly remarkable about this cave is that the paintings are polychrome - that is they have been painted in both red (ocre) and black paint - only a few caves show artwork like this. In the later afternoon we realised we had forgotton about the old - all french towns close on a sunday afternoon - we had no food for dinner (because we had been sensible at the markets yesterday!) and nothing appropriate for breakfast! OOPS. So we went out for dinner - to a great little pizza place, fantastic food and lots of it!

Day 33. Les Eyzies de Tayac. Lundi 15th.

This morning we rode to the little shop to buy breakfast goodies. It was cold and misty. We then rode through the fog up the valley towards Les Combarelles, a grotte known for its engravings. It was _freezing_ riding. We were wearing shorts and my gloves are fingerless, so we were both frozen by the time we got there! But it was really lovely riding through the valley in the fog. We ate breakfast in a little rock shelter and then the tour started at 9:45. It was just 3 of us and the guide, and it was our first tour in English, which was great! The caves are long and very narrow - formed by an underground river cutting through the rock. Initially the cave was accessed by crawling but the floor has been lowered quite a bit to allow for tourist access (and researchers). The cave is amazing - it contains about 800 (with more being found regularly) engravings and paintings of reindeer, bison, horses and human figures. They are incredibly well drawn. The horses looked so realistic it was amazing. At the end of the cave - the climax if you like, there is an engraving of a cave lion which was almost scary to look at, and was so well drawn! And a few wooly rhinocerous's and wooly mammoths also, with massive curved tusks. And a young deer (a doe) which was so beautifully lifelike and such a fantastic expression on its face! And there was a tiny child's hand in negative also, hidden up on the ceiling. And on the way out the guide showed us the most recent discovery, a bears head - the rock had been used for the shape of the head and simply a mouth carved on, and eye carved out and the snout of the bear - the rock chipped off. It was great - and so simple! These people knew their anatomy - the drawings are almost sciencitific in nature - they show muscles, and posture and action - horses leaping for example. This cave contains some of the best carvings we've seen yet - really really fabulous, and it was obvious the guide was really keen also. There were also some carvings on women in this cave - interestingly very stylasied, compared to the highly detailed carvings of animals weve seen. They apparently are similar (very similar) to other stylaised carvings of womens shapes seen across europe - they think this is to believe that there was a true transcontinental culture across Europe during this time (about 14,000 years ago). Really amazing to think about.

This afternoon we spent about 3 hours wandering around the National Museum of Prehistory. It is truly a masterpiece of a museum. It starts with a timeline of the history of man - from austrolpithicus (and a replica of Lucy, the skeleton discovered in Africa) through to today. Then up the corridor is a bronze of footprints from Tanzania - apparently about 54 footprints were discovered fossilised there - it appeared to us to be a father and child walking arm in arm- the footprints are obviously of two upright walking beings, but the feet are quite different from our own. Amazing. The museum details tools from the first humans through to the bronze age, and also shows how they would have been made, and what they would have lived with (ie what animals) and how they hunted, and learnt to sew, and then burial rituals, and finally the lamps and carvings that they either carried with them or used in the caves. It is a really great museum and worth setting aside half a day for. We have a new understanding and appreciation for the sophisication of stone-age culture. The tools increased in complexity quite rapidly and we have both come to the realisation that these people were in so many ways just like us, and it blows us away to think about. We found it really interesting (but tiring at the same time).

Cahors to Sarlat - A Big Ride!

2007-10-15T02:08:00.001+09:30

Day 30. Cahors to Sarlat. Vendredi 12th.

This morning we packed up and set of (after the obligatary bread & cheese purchase from the markets!) leaving the very pretty town of Cahors and heading Northwards. We rode on the main road until we got through Mercules and then it was a big long hill (luckily there was an overtaking lane so cars and trucks wern't right next to us!) still on the main road. We got off it and headed towards the town of Catus, a more minor road with winding sections and a bit of up and down - beautiful riding through the fog. At Catus we were pleased with our progress (about 20km), so stopped for morning tea break - coffee and patissere (one of the best croissants we've had - made without butter apparently). And then looked at the map and noticed an even smaller road which appeared to mostly follow a creek. We decided to find this road (with the help of the guy behind the bar) and set off on the road towards Thedirac. It was uphill at first, but we had a lovely view of the valley in which the town of Catus sits, and there was no traffic to speak of. We cycled past old walls and lots of pretty trees. Then we came out into the valley which we would follow until lunchtime. Perfect riding - almost all flat, and beautiful green valley with some farms and just lots of trees - sometimes very dense and dark, others dappled all varieties of green, other times we could see down to the creek, and we saw farms with sheep and old buildings and new ones built right into the hillside. Really perfect riding - i think we sat mainly on about 25clicks, mostly just gently downhill. The mist had rising and it was sunny and cool. We got to the town of Salviac about 1pm and had our picnic lunch in the small town square, next to a memorial and church. We had a coffee to finish and then decided to keep on riding, to keep the legs moving.

We went on the main road to the next town, Domme, but it wasn't too main and was lovely riding - more valleys and hills this time, but great views most of the way and little traffic really. We got to the town of Cenac, which is right next to Domme, but Domme is up a _big_ hill. Now we'd done about 60km already today, so we were both feeling a bit tired. But we were right next to this town, which is an old bastide town, and still has most of it's 13th century ramparts and fortified gates, and a cave right under the town. So we eventually decided to attempt the climb - only 1.5km, but up quite a few metres! It was tough but worth it. The walls around the town are spectacular and we entered through one of the fortified gates. We parked just inside the town, as the roads were very steep! We went straight for the cave, and managed to get on a tour straight away. There were no paintings in this cave, just thousands of really beautiful stalactites. It was quite incredible. All shapes and sizes, room after room of delicate, chunky, strange shaped, some broken, some beautifully transluscent stalactites. And in all sorts of patterns, and some formed columns, the ceilings just covered with thousands of them, and in other areas, they just form along fractures in the rock. It was really beautiful. In the last room the guide turned off the lights and just shone his torch on a few different sectioons of the room - it was quite amazing and lovely to see them pointed out individually and when the lights came back on I was amazed again at how many there were, and all so different! At the end of the tour there is a lift which took us back up and to beautiful views over the Dordogne Valley. We soaked up the views for a while and then went back to the bikes for the ride - down the hill, across the valley, and then up a smaller valley to the town of Sarlat-La-Caneda. We got there quite buggered, after our 70km ride (my biggest yet on a bike, yet alone with luggage!!) and checked into a little hotel.

After freshening up we headed out to explore the town a bit and search for a dinner spot. Sarlat is a medieval town, and has been maintained and restored very well, so it's impeccable to look at, but doesn't have the same beauty that Cahors did. But it's still a pretty little town, and we managed to find a great restaurant (as advised by our trusty Lonely Planet!) - Alpine inspired with sliced meats, hot melted cheese & potatos, and I tired a traditional 'tartiflette' which was a cheesy potatoey dish, exactly what we nedeed after our big days' ride!!

Cahors and River Lot

2007-10-12T04:32:00.000+09:30

Day 28. Cahors day trip to St-Cirq Lapopie, Grotte de Pech Merle, Villefranche de Rouergue and Najac. Mercredi 10th.

We had planned a good cycle today, but unfortunately it rained all night and seemed to be very set in for the day - heavy, soaking rain too. So we went out to the markets to stock up on tasty fresh food (and possibly bought a bit much, as usual when we visit markets!) and tried to decide what to do. We decided eventually to rent a car for the day, blow our budget a bit, but still get to appreciate the beautiful countryside, from the comfort of a tiny rental car. We headed off out of town, with a minor wrong turn to start us off (Jasper, bring back the navman!). But then once on the right road we were driving up the Lot river East of Cahors with stunning scenery - steep cliffs on one side, the beautiful tree-lined (fairly wide) river on the other. We drove through tiny towns and churches and castles built into the cliffs with dramatic views along the river and over the valley. Fantastic. All in pouring rain. I made Angus stop driving regularly to let me poke my lens out the window, getting quite wet in the process!! We continued along the lovely river valley until we saw the town of St-Cirq Lapopie perched on the cliffs on the other side of the river, just emerging through the mist. We drove a bit further, crossed the river and headed up to the town. It is magic. Fairytale stuff. We parked and wandered through the mostly deserted town (tourist season finished a few weeks ago). Lovely little cottages with tiled pointed roofs, narrow little steep streets. And next to the quite impressive church are the remains of a 13th century chateau at the summit of the town. We walked up to the top of it (apparently dangerous and steep!!) and the views were _simply_ _fantastic_ _amazing_ WOW. Really really beautiful. It even stopped raining for us, but there was still a bit of low hanging cloud and the sky was grey and the view goes on for ages - the town is on a curve in the river, and there are steep cliffs to the West and open fields and forests for the entire rest of the valley. An old mill can be seen on the river and behind we could see the entire town laid out before us, cute little houses and a tiny cemetary, then behind is green forest with tinges of autumn colours, and a chapel up on the hillside with a cross out the front. This truly is fairytale country. So Angus went back to the car to grab lunch (since the rain had eased) and I soaked up the view.

We tore ourselves away from the view and then drove back over the river to go to see the Grotte de Pech-Merle. This cave is 1.2km long, and is _stunning_. Stalactites, stalagmites, caverns, pearl structures, calcite flat discs, and translucent rocks. And then there are the paintings. Between 16,000 and 25,000 years old. Drawn by people who would have walked into the cave with candles, careful not to go in when the 3m cave bears were resting, and drew on ceilings with their fingers, with charcoal and with red ochre. And these guys could draw. Really really well. Their animal drawings - horses, bison, wolf, mammoth, bear, fish, are really good! They drew women too; curvy and _very_ obviously women. There are lots of drawings and symbols in the cave. Highlights for us were the horses - two with spots and a fish overdrawn, the bison. And the hands. they put their hands on the wall and then blew paint around them - an inverse painting. But their hands are exactly like ours. And the footprints - perfectly preserved human footprints in mud. 20,000 years ago. It blows us away! Here is a link to the website.

We left the caves and continued driving up along the beautiful river Lot. We continued through some spectacular countryside south of the valley, towards Villefranche-de-Rouergue, and South to Najac, one of the most beaufitul bastide towns in the region. It is stunning - a small town perched high above the river valley, with a massive Medieval castle, again straight out of a fairytale! Unfortunately we couldn't go in as it's not tourist season, but we had a wander around the little town and enjoyed the beautiful views across the valley and a rainbow came out as we were walking back - the sky was a dark blue-grey and the sun was coming out - that perfect after rain freshness everywhere! Great!

We then drove on through the countryside. We could have taken the main roads back to Cahors, but decided to stick to the little narrow roads that actually go through the small towns, as opposed to bypassing them, and to enjoy the countryside. We actually saw a bit of snow on the road as we were driving back, which was pretty surprising! And in a field there was a really long, old stone wall which looked like it was a couple of hundred years old at least! We really enjoyed driving through all the pretty little towns and seeing the local churches and castles! We made it back to Cahors at about 8 and decided to go out to dinner to a really great fusion Asian-French restaurant (thanks lonely planet!) where we both had pretty amazing meals and Selina had her first glass of Champagne in France! A fabulous day!

Day 29. Cahors. Jeudi 11th.

It was really foggy all morning today. We decided to have a quieter day and not do too much. We returned the car and did a trip to the markets to stock up for lunch stuff. We didn't actually do much all morning, except for a bit of wandering around town, and working out our plans for the next week or so. We had lunch looking at the beautiful bridge we mentioned the other day (used for defense of the town) and the sun and blue sky decided to make an appearance! We enjoyed sitting for a while and then in the afternoon moseyed around this very pretty little town and sat in a cafe for a while reading. Tonight we had a tasty salad accompanied by cheese and bread (yum) and are having a quiet evening before planning our cycle day tomorrow - our biggest yet, but we have less gear so should be fabulous!

Toulouse to Cahors (Quercy Region)

2007-10-11T17:50:00.000+09:30

Day 27. Toulouse to Cahors. Mardi 9th.

Today we loaded up the bikes again to ride to the train station to go to Cahors, north from Toulouse on the Paris train (nice train but we had to pay 20euro for our bikes!). As soon as we arrived in Cahors we felt more relaxed. We were met at the train station by helpful friendly staff who walked us across the tracks (we had thought this unneccessary until we saw a freight train shooting through the station at over 100clicks! Then we moseyed into town and found the youth hostel no problem (a 2minute ride from the station, and it's in the centre of town!). We couldn't check in yet but were hungry (lunchtime) so we went into the canteen and had lunch - one of the best deals so far. Angus had the menu which was 8.50 (a 3 course meal!). It was pretty great! Then we checked into our room, which has 5 beds but is all ours for the next few days. Then we walked to the main street and had a wander around this very cute little town. It's surrounded on 3 sides by river, and on the other sides of the river are forests and cliffs. We saw some great buildings - including a great 15th century house with wood and brick all (seemingly) randomly placed. And all the stobie poles have flower baskets hanging from them, which just makes the town streets so pretty. There is a big covered market where we bought ingredients for dinner, and also we saw a fortified medieval bridge, Pont Valentre, built in the 14th century. We then went back to the hostel to cook dinner in our room (no shared kitchen unfortunately). It was probably the fanciest meal we've done this trip... Angus opened a dozen oysters for us to share (au natural of course) and they were some of the biggest, juciest, sweetest that we have ever tasted. Simply _amazing_! Yum. Then we made a vegetable boullibasse to go with our salamon steaks cooked in the trangia frypan (our new teflon version!). A sensational meal!!

Toulouse

2007-10-09T04:47:00.000+09:30

Day 25. Boule d'Amont to Toulouse. Dimanche 7th.

This morning we packed and cleaned up the Gite (after a chilled out breakfast outside enjoying the beautiful view!), then left for Ille sur tet. We caught the train from there to Perpignan - and it was _so_ much easier without so much luggage (Thanks to Jasper for taking our camping gear!)! We then had about 1.5hrs in Perpignan so we had lunch outside the train station and grabbed a take-away coffee to finish it off. Oh, and we had a massive revelation - there is a spot at the end of the platform where you can wheel across all the tracks (instead of carrying the bikes down a set of stairs, then back up on the other side of the tracks) so we saved ourselves a lot of carrying (well, I admit Angus does all the carrying and I just stand around with all the rest of the gear, trying to look useful). We had a fairly uneventful trip to Narbonne, where we had a quick ride around the city to have a quick drink break and check out the massive (and very impressive) cathedral. We then found our way back to the train station and boarded our train to Toulouse and it was our first experience with a really busy train with a massive bike area. We found a hotel in Toulouse (not the fanciest, but we found a free wifi network here, so not all bad!), had dinner, went for a stroll in the evening and had a drink in a pub on a lovely place with a fountain in the middle, surrounded by trees and all lit up. Very nice!

Day 26. Toulouse. Lundi 8th.

We set out early to explore Toulouse. It's quite large - about 390000 people, but about 130000 of them are students, so most of the people here are young, and there are heaps of cafes, cheap eateries and bars. We wandered down to the river which was nice but not particularly special, and then into the old quarter. After going to the tourist office (we could actually find this one, the one in Perpignan is still lost to us...) we visited the Capitole building and the Salle des Illustres which was _way_ too much for me... gold paint everywhere, frescoes on every wall, ceiling and column... it was just a bit much really. We checked out a pretty amazing church, the Eglise des Jacobins, which is the mother church of the Dominican friars. It was built in the 11th and 12th centuries (it took 170 years to build) and it's really really impressive. There are seven columns down the middle of the building, and they are 22m high, and surrounded by huge stained-glass windows. It's actually really bare inside, with few decorations or sculptures or paintings as you get in most churches over here. We went into the cloisters also which are really pretty gardens surrounded by ornate covered archways. We also visited the Basilique St-Sernin is apparently France's largest and most complete Romanesque structure. It didn't grab us particularly, though the organ was being tuned as we were in there, which was interesting! After our picnic lunch in the Place du Capitole (we got rained on... how rude!!!) we went to a bar for a chill out for a while (and escape the rain) and met a strange New Zealander who wanted to talk to us about everything under the sun (but particularly the rugby... - NZ just lost to France for those who don't know! And Australia lost to England!), so we left as soon as possible. Then we had a stroll through the old quarter towards the Musee des Augustins, which has a fantastic collection of statues (Roman age) and a lovely church, and some really pretty gardens in the 14th century cloisters. We didn't see the entire collection as we were feeling weary, so spent a bit of time enjoying the garden before moving on. We found a great place for our late afternoon snack - a turkish snack bar - that is Turkish sweets - everything you can imagine and more, all sweet & sugary accompanied by great coffee! Very cool! Then we've spent a bit of time this afternoon thinking about options for the next two weeks before we go to visit Yvonne in Germany. We are planning on going to the Dordogne region and trying to visit some wineries and caves with prehistoric artwork.

Around Boule d'Amont

2007-10-07T17:33:00.000+09:30

Day 22. Boule d'Amont - Barcelona - Boule d'Amont. Jeudi 4th.
Well as you can probably guess, today was a _big_ day! Zoe had an mid-afternoon flight to catch from Barcelona, so we packed up the car this morning with the cello in the front seat and the three of us cozy in the back, and headed off down the mountain, across the mountains, across the border along the expressway above lots of towns and villages and ended up in Barcelona (about 3 hours of driving I think). We stopped for lunch at a small town close to the airport and shared a picnic on the beach. It was a lovely day weather wise - not very hot but still mostly blue skies. We dropped Zoe off ok and then drove into Barcelona. The car had a minor issue that we wanted to sort out before we got back on the motorway but it ended up taking 2 hours before we even managed to try to leave Barcelona! We decided to drive along the coast to see a bit of scenery. The beaches are beautiful and the towns perched on little hills everywhere. Pretty, but nothing on the lovely French towns we've seen ;-) but we've been spoilt... The driving was nice, along the beach and then through winding hills and valleys. We got onto the motorway about 7pm and decided to drive about 40minutes before getting off and trying to grab dinner somewhere. We went to a small town right on the border between France and Spain and had a menu there, it was ok. Then we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way back to Boule d'Amont - about another hour or so. It was a looooong day!!

Day 23. Boule d'Amont. Vendredi 5th.
We had a pretty quiet morning again, shared some tasty food outside for lunch, with the wonderful valley view in front of us, and then the boys went off to Ille sur tet for a beer or two. I had a lovely quiet afternoon on my own - it was raining outside so i had a good excuse not to go out, and just sat inside, read a book that was here at the Gite, and made a pototo salad for dinner (pretty good considering we had no mayo!). Then we had a quiet evening in, and showed Jasper our wedding dvd ;-)

Day 24. Boule d'Amont. Samedi 6th.
Today Jasper departed and drove to Dijon, on the way back to Holland. We had a bit of a tidy up of the Gite and he kindly took our trailer, camping gear and some excess stuff we had floating around, so to lighten our load a bit. We then set off on a walk late morning. We walked to the Priory we had visited earlier in the week, and had a picnic lunch in the beautiful grounds - a small botanic garden! Then we walked up the hill (read small mountain!) behind the priory, to excellent views over the surrounding valleys, towns, and then as we got higher, to the Mediterranean, and the coastline, and mountains beyond what we had seen so far. It was really lovely. We got to the top and then wandered along the ridge, picking the odd blackberry as we went (afternoon tea, all we were missing were scones, cream and tea!) and really really enjoying the views! It's just starting to come into autumn weather over here, and the trees are just getting tinges of gold, orange and brown - when we were looking at a valley filled with trees, it's quite spectacular! We had a bit of difficulty finding the path to head down the next ridge, and accidentally climbed up a massive hill (but the views were worthwhile!), so had to do a bit of 'bush-bashing' to get down to the path. We did make it to the path eventually, and then walked back to the village - about 4.5 hours walk all up, so a good exercise day!! It was lovely. We then sat outside looking at the beautiful valley outside our gite just enjoying the serenity (and being on our own!!, lovely though the week has been!!). We had a small dinner (well, light anyway) and selina made her now famous bread n' butter pudding (on the stove, as we have no oven) with fig jam (home made by the gite owner) which was very tasty! Another great day!!

Collouire & Boule d'Amont

2007-10-04T01:59:00.000+09:30

Day 16 Cavillon to Perpignan. Vendredi 28th. (Continued)
We found the (small) camping ground in Perpignan. The lady at the 'front desk' was really friendly, and we were really hopeful about the campground, but it seems that we are the _only_ people who are not permenant residents, so it's a bit like moving in on someones front lawn and using their (dodgy) bathroom without really asking! No-one is particularly friendly and a few are downright weird! But anyway, that's ok! We went to a cool Tapas place in Perpignan tonight which was great - the sardines in particular were excellent!

Day 17. Perpignan to Collouire & back. Samedi 29th.
Today we are to have lunch with our Irish friends Gemma & Kevin. They live in a small town in the Pyrenees (at the base) not far from Perpignan. Or so we thought... We cycled around Perpignan city for about 30minutes trying to find the tourist office. No matter how many signs we followed, we just kept ending up in circles and lost! So we stopped that and decided we didn't need a map, we just had to look for the signs and hope we found the right way. We managed eventually to find the 'bike path' heading out of the city. Now when i say bike path, it's a bit of an exaggeration. The bike paths here in France vary dramatically. Some are just a verge on the side of the main road, others are wide enough for a car to drive down, and totally septerate from the main road. Others have gutters that you need to totally stop to get on and off, and you _always_ have to give way to cars coming from even the most minor road! We were totally spoiled in the Luberon too, with cycle signs at every corner and no need at all to think about which way to go. So when we had a bit of difficutly getting out of Perpignan and then finding the right way to the coast, it was a bit of a shock! We realised we were going to be late so called ahead to our hosts, and then got about riding along the (very beautiful) coastline (a beautiful lake, beaches, the rising mountains ahead of us, all in glorious sunshine!). We made it to Colloiure quite late (about 1:20) and luckily managed to find Kevin quite easily (he was waiting on the road for us!) and had the most fantastic lunch with them on their lovely little balcony apartment! Kevin had to go to play Boules mid afternoon, so we only had ashort time with him, but we enjoyed most of the afternoon chatting with Gemma before heading off to the train station about 4pm to check what times the train went back to Perpignan - if we had known that there was a train here we certainly wouldn't have cycled the 50km we did to get here! After that we wandered around Colloire - the most beautiful little town I think we've seen on our entire travels. Now we have been getting used to these pictaresque little french villages, but this one is _really_ gorgeous! It's on the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountain range that seperates France and Spain, and also lies on the Mediterranean - a sheltered little cove with a massive fortress and a little chapel right out next to the water built into the rocks. There is a fort up on the hill above and a windmill (like you would imagine fitting in in a dutch village!) also on the hill - apparently it is still used! We had a great wander around the town, and went to buy some anchovies, which the town is renowned for - apparently the fish have to be processed by hand as they are very delicate. We then headed back to Perpignan on the train, which only took about half an hour - much better than the > 3hrs it took to get there! All part of our great adventure though!!

Day 18. Perpignan to Boule d'Amont. Dimanche 30th.
We had a lazy morning today, stocking up on fruit & veg for the week in the Gite in the Pyrenees, and just having a few coffees in the local cafe. We had a train to catch at 12:11 so made it to the train station early in order to be ready on the platform. Although there was a great rush and stress to get over to the platform (down stairs, across, then up stairs again) with two bikes, trailer, guitar, bags, panniers, our lunch, etc etc, we made it onto the train, only for nothing to happen for the next 30minutes or so. Then they finally told us that there was no conductor - this meant the train couldn't go. Who knows if he had slept in or what, but it was a mystery to us! So eventually we decided to get off the train and have lunch on the platform - yummy but not exactly the best location ever!! Then we were told that we had to get on another train (this was just better than the - you'll have to catch a bus' alternative!!!. So sigh as we did, someone helped us and we got all our gear onto the other train. We eventually left the station an hour anda half after it was meant to depart! Luckily we had the phone number of the guy who owns the gite, so we sent him a text warning we would be late. As we were on the train we realised that we could easily have ridden to Ille Sur Tet, but as we hadn't been able to find a map of the area the day beofre, we didn't know this, but it didn't matter. Sam and Jamie met us at the train station and we headed off up the mountain to Boule d'Amont, where we will be staying for the next week. The gite is beautiful, and the town is amazing! We had a beer in Le Troubadour, the house that is part of the gite, and apparently it could be around 500 years old! Amazing!! We checked out our little gite, which is really nice - small kitchen, small bathroom, area for bed and dining table, somewhere on the floor for Jasper to put his matress. Pretty good really. We didn't do much, just chilled out, and then cooked dinner, leaving some leftovers for Jasper, and then played a bit of scrabble. We were expecting Jasper to arrive around 9pm, so about that time Angus went out to see if he could see him. To our aenourmous surprise, he had Zoe with him - we were extremely surprised and thrilled!!! She is staying with us until Thursday when she will fly back from Barcelona! What a great surprise for us. We sat up chatting for quite a while ;-)

Day 19. Boule d'Amont. Lundi 1st.
Our first full day in Boule d'Amont was sunny and pleasant. We didn't do much this morning (well Zoe practiced lots and we sat around trying to get the internet working and went and did the shopping at a nearby village - this one has no shops!!) and then after lunch we decided to go for a walk, as I had managed to find a map in town. We set of for Serrabonna, a location that used to be a village, but now just has the priory left, which was built in the 10th-11th Century. It was a good walk, mostly on narrow tracks, winding through valleys filled with beautiful green plants, trees, and lovely views of the valleys in this area. We walked for about 1.5hours to get to the Priory, which is on an elevated position on a valley ridge and has lovely views. The priory was restored in the 18th century and has been open to tourists since then. It is made of schist, which is similar to slate, and there are lots and lots of detailed sculptures and columns that are carved our of pinky marble - it is really lovely. We also enjoyed the small herb/veggie garden at the back of the priory. We stayed a little while and then decided to head back, as we knew it was a decent walk back. Unfortunately Jasper has a bad knee, so Angus & I went ahead to get the car and went back to pick up Jasper and Zoe. The fog had really come in, and it was a bit surreal. Zoe made a fantastic mexican meal tonight - very messy & yummy!!

Day 20. Boule d'Amont. Mardi 2nd.
Today we again had a bit of a lazy morning (although we did do yoga in the morning overlooking the beautiful valley), and a leisurely lunch together. It was a bit overcast today, so I thought it was perfect for photo taking. So in the afternoon when the boys went for a cycle I took a few photos on a walk (see photo album). We made a massive paella tonight - very tasty!

Day 21. Boule d'Amont. Mercredi 3rd.
A cool day again. Today we taught Jasper a bit of yoga with Zoe playing in the background - very nice! The boys then cooked up pancakes, dutch style - very yummy!! Then we decided to set off on a walk up towards the Trinity Church. It was pleasant walking but not on the small trails we had used the other day. We also walked up from the church to the remains of a castle on a hill, now in total ruin. After sitting and enjoying the view for a while we decided to head down. As we were leaving we noticed some blackberry bushes, and decided to eat a couple. Of course this turned into a full on gorge of berries and then we decided we should take some back with us, so we actually filled two small water bottles with berries, and we plan to cook something with them tonight! It was hard tearing away from the berries, but we guesstimated we had eaten a punnet at least each, so enough was enough!!! We had a late lunch of leftover paella (we think it had improved!) and then a quiet afternoon.

So, the gite here... www.letroubadour.info has all you will need - it is beautiful, simple, isolated. Really lovely get-away and worth checking out if you're in this part of the world!!

Cavaillon

2007-09-30T18:23:00.000+09:30

Day 14, part two:
We walked back to Loumarin, pretty tired, had a shower and headed into town for tea. We decided that we'd earned dinner in a restaurant, but went to a cafe and had a couple of espressos first (we love coffee). We were planning to head to a pizza place that we'd seen, but when we got there we were amazed to be told that the inside was full (though it'd only been open for about 20 mins - restaurants only open at 7:30 in France). We started to walk off, but decided that it really wasn't so cold outside, and that we couldn't be bothered wandering around town looking for somewhere else.
We were glad we stayed - the pizza was awesome! Some of the best pizza we've ever eaten! And we did sit outside, next a small fountain with flower pots on the edge and some goldfish swimming around. It was lovely. The food was great - really simple and quite generous. We had two fantastic entrees, one was fresh figs with proscuitto & bread sticks, the other simply salad with fresh tomato & aubergine with melted cheese... mmm... Pizzas were great- one with ham & lettuce on it (sounds weird but it really worked!) The ohter was salamon & cheese. YUM!

Day 15 Cycle to Cavillion. Jeudi 27th.
We left the camping ground fairly early, because we weren't sure what the weather was going to do. We started on the bike course, and as before struggled up a few hills. We got to ----- and had a couple of coffees with morning tea, and it started to rain (despite being told by several locals that it wouldn't). We decided to leave the bike path, go on the more main road, and just get to the next town for lunch - we knew there were some sizable hills on the path that we thought we could avoid. It was worthwhile - we got to the next town after only about 40 minutes of cycling in the rain and wind but beautiful views, which stopped approximately in time for us to sit down and eat some lunch - nice! We found a small picnic area surrounded by olive trees and looking up towards the spectacular mountain range next to us. After our (as usual) tasty lunch, we continued along the bike path which led us along small roads between orchards, lavendar fields, the aforementioned mountains, the train line, a few canals with rushing water, and lovely tree-lined pathways. We had a few small hills later in the afternoon but it wasn't too bad, and it meant we were closer to the magnificent pink rocky cliffs of the Petit Luberon Mountains. We came to Cheval Blanc about 3pm and were ready to stop for the day, having ridden 35km and both being very tired from the long walk the day before, but found that the campground shut about two weeks ago, so no-go there. We decided to ride on to Cavillion, our least-favourite town of the trip, but where our train was booked to leave from tomorrow! So we rode the 10km to Cavillion through spitting rain and wind (the Mistral had been with us all day again today - but luckily not as strong as yesterday). By the time we got there we were very ready to find somewhere to sleept, but the campground we knew was pretty crappy (we had checked it out last weekend when we were passing through), so that was no good. We went to one 'hotel' but the shower was in the corner of the quite-average looking room, and there was no toilet. Didn't rate too highly! We found another hotel which was a bit like a youth hostel, but we thought it seemed adequate so booked in for the evening. We both felt quitea bit better after a shower so we grabbed some ingredients for dinner from the local shop and cooked in our room. A pleasant evening after a challenging cycle day!

Day 16 Cavillon to Perpignan. Vendredi 28th.
Our first organised travel day today. We have train tickets from Cavillion to Avignon and then Avignon to Perpignan. We had breakfast in our room & un grasse matinee (that is, a lazy morning!). We went to the local cafe where again we had wireless, so did the banking and checked a few emails etc etc. We had a couple of coffees, our traditional second breakfast of Pain au Rasin (we may have a winner here!), Pain au Chocolat & Cafe Noisette (that's a short black and bit of milk - selina's normal ;-) we have about 2-3 of these a day here in France, might need a detox progam in Edinburgh, which should be easy until we buy a coffee machine!!). Then about 12ish we headed down to the train station to reorganise our gear for the 1:30pm train. Our little trailer is fabulous and packed up in only minutes, then we just shoved all our other gear into our big bags. Then we had a picnic lunch in the train station and with the leftover bread Angus made a bit of a pig of himself by finishing the fig jam we had bought the other day. Now when I say jam, it's a little untrue, it's more like a very watery jam with whole sugary figs in it - total sugar fix! Angus was mopping up the jam and eating the figs with his fingers - Judy, Pete, Zoe - i'm sure none of that will surprise you! He finished up with fig jam all over his face! (well not quite, but you can imagine!)... So we managed to catch the train ok - it was much easier given that we were a bit organised this time, but we still didn't have much time. We made it to avignon ok, had to change platforms (down in a lift with all the gear, then up lift/escalators! Bit of a logistical challenge, but nothing too hard for us seasoned travellers!! We are currently (as we type) sitting on the train to Perpignan, and we have just been through (perhaps our favourite city) Montpellier! We bought some fantastic strawberries in Cavillion, so have been nibbling them on the train ;-)

To be continued... :-)

Loumarin

2007-09-27T03:05:00.000+09:30

Day 13: Tuesday 25th September

We had a fairly challenging morning today, so we set off at an early hour. We went first to the markets to buy some lovely fresh produce straight from the farmers! Yum! We rode up out of Apt towards the hills. We had lovely riding (though up a gentle incline the whole way) with views over the town and valley and mountains beyond. We stopped a few times and didn't push ourselves. We made it to our big hill and pushed through it (it was steep enough that Selina had to stand up on her pedals just to get them around - her bike only has 10 gears and the low one is just not low enough!). We were very pleased to get to the crest of the hill, but even more so when we realised the absolutely fantstic long descent that we were to find on the other side of the hill. A beautiful gentle valley with lavender fields and gorgeous trees starting to turn autumn colours - wow, it was simply glorious riding - no effort involved, just had to restrain from taking the hands off the handlebars and leaning into it! It didn't take us long to arrive in the (very) small town of Bouux - there are only about 10 houses here! We sat on a stone wall overlooking the valley filled with orchards and Lavender and had morning tea - well deserved and enjoyed!! We topped up the water bottles and then cruised onwards down the hill. We rode downhill through this valley and then another for about 2km and then we joined into the main valley through the Luberon Ranges, which goes for about 6km - all downhill windy roads - sort of like Belair Road but surrounded by cliff faces on either side... not bad!! We stopped about 2/3 way down for lunch and then continued riding to the town of Loumarin, which has a lovely castle in the centre of town. We locked up the bikes and had a quick wander around the castle, then had a coffee in a small town square (which happenned to have wifi - we manage to find these places everywhere, and it's great - that's how we've been updating the blog so regularly, we've only paid for one internet cafe in the entire time we've been travelling). We have decided to stay in Loumarin as the other option was a 7km ride which would have been uphill. We set up in the campground and tried to get dinner (we'd had a big day and were hungry) but couldn't get in anywhere until 7:30!! But we managed ;-)

Day 14: Wednesday 26th September

Today we caught a taxi to the nearby town of Cuceron. This is the town where a walk starts which we thought sounded pretty good. The walk is detailed in a great book that Michelle gave us before we left - the Lonely Planet guide to walking in France. It's a great book! We got to Cuceron and had a quick coffee before walking up the hill. We walked up through the town, then through orchards for about 30minutes before reaching a small church on the hillside - a stunning view here! Then we continued up the valley another 1.5 hours (a small wrong turn but it didn't matter) to the summit - Mont Mourie Negre. The views were _absolutely stunning_. Not exaggerating, we could see to the sea, to the alps, to the massif central and all the valleys and mountains in between - it was just amazing! Unfortunately the Mistral was against us all day, making the walking pretty challenging. For those who haven't been to the South of France, the Mistral is the wind in this area that is wickedly strong and unforgiving. As we sit in a cafe this evening my face feels windblown and all day we have been hardly out of this very very strong wind (50km/hr gusty). Being on such a high peak the wind was rediculous, so we only stayed long enough to eat lunch (in a semi-sheltered position) and then fought our way back down, being force-fed air as we went! Pretty amazing. We then walked along the ridge-top for about 1.5hours before walking down another valley to the town of Vaugines. We then walked the 4km back to the campground, but were very tired by the time we got back!! We had a lie down for about an hour (to get out of the wind and cos we were both very tired and a bit sore! - the walk was about 21km). We are just now sitting in a small cafe and have had a coffee, about to head out for dinner. Another great few days!!

Apt, in the Luberon

2007-09-25T22:14:00.000+09:30

Day 11: Sunday 23rd Septmber
We had an enjoyable breakfast at the Gite (making the most of having a fridge again!) before heading off towards the next town along the route Louberon which is a cycle route through this region. We stopped at the first town, Rubion about 10 past 10, and Selina went into the church where mass had just started, so she stayed for most of the mass which was very enjoyable (and very similar, apart from the language, to the local Adelaide version!). Angus had a coffee and read his book in the sunshine. We then continued on to the next few towns, very much enjoying the riding along narrow (about one car's width), tree-lined roads which were unfortunately a bit hilly! We were doing ok until the leadup to d'ppende which was a very long, steepish hill. We were very puffed near the top but could hear people talking so thought we'd keep going a bit more. We arrived in this most gorgeous little square, with a few groups of people playing Petonc together, and these lovely little cafes and a spectacular walled village on the top of this (very steep) hillside - simply great! But we had very sore legs from the climb so we decided to break for a while. Due to some unfortunate lack of planning (that's the whole theme of this holiday!) we had no money left in our wallets, so we had to find someone that accepted our credit cards for lunch! No problem and we had a tasty 'fresh platter' and quiche - very french!! Plus a small glass of rose, to help with the afternoon of riding. Since we had found the morning quite challenging, and the map indicated that the afternoon was to be the same or worse (that is, hillier!), we decided to take a shortcut which meant we wouldn't see all the cute little towns scattered along the ranges we were cycling through, but we would ride along the valley and it would at least be a bit flatter. We managed to locate ourselves on the map and set off along the valley and by late afternoon we found ourselves in Apt, one of the larger towns in this part of the Luberon range. We had a quick coffee/beer and eventually found a map near the tourist office to find the campground. Ahh, it's good to set up the tent and have somewhere to sit down (that isn't attached to a bike!) We have had a challenging day, and were looking forward to dinner! Unfortunately the same lack of planning mentioned earlier forgot that today is sunday and everything is shut on a sunday! Luckily Angus managed to find a little deli (Perisan style?) and got enough to keep us going until the next meal! ( i think it was our first dinner that didn't include cheese!!). We met a lovely couple from Ireland in the camp spot next to ours and we joined them for a hot drink after dinner which was really nice. They have a holiday house near Perpignan (on the coast really close to Spain) and have invited us to share a meal with them should we be in the area. We are planning on heading that way next so will most likely take them up on their offer! It was a lovely evening after a hard day!!

Day 12: Monday 24th September
Today we had a lazy breakfast before heading out to the tourist office and then the train station to book some trains for friday to Perpignan. We then tried to find somewhere to buy stuff for lunch and discovered that mondays (sort of like sundays around here) - there is nothing open! doh! oh well, we found a supermarket out of town where we could get the essentials (bread, cheese, pate & tomatoes, our standard lunch!). We rode to a nearby town and sat in a small square with a fountain for lunch. Since our legs were pretty tired we didn't go on to any other towns (perhaps we'll make it back here one day with a car and we can see them all!) but the views riding back into Apt were just gorgeous - across the valley it was really beautiful! We had a quiet afternoon not doing much at all, just moseying around the little streets, looking at shops, lovely buildings et. We had a coffee/beer stop late in the afternoon and thought about our plans for the next few weeks, after Perpignan we are thinking of going to the dordogne region of France, but that may change of course!! We stopped off on the way back to the campground to have a freshly made crepe from a little stall on the side of one of the tiny roads in the old town - yum! We have just finished a lovely dinner and quiet evening in this really lovely campground - shady trees and quiet-ish area. Ready to move on again tomorrow!!

Avignon & Villeneuve

2007-09-24T18:16:00.000+09:30

Day 9: Friday 21st September
We had a wonderful lazy morning today, going to the markets again after breakfast for a couple of expressos & buying pate and cheese and bread for lunch. We then managed to pack up our room quickly, send a few final emails on the free wifi we had in the hotel room (Selina has accepted a job in Edinburgh so we are trying to plan the next few months around moving to the UK in mid-November). Then we packed up our bikes and rode across the river (actually, we rode and caught a ferry across the river!) and had lunch on the grass looking at the Pont d'Avignon (finally, we've seen it!!!) which was very peaceful. We then checked in to the campground, set up the tent & then rode across to Villeneuve-les-Avignon, which is further across the river which was established by the French crown to keep and eye on goings-on in the papal controlled city across the river. We rode around the (quite hilly) town for a bit and came across the incredible 14th-century Fort St-Andre - we had a good wander around here and enjoyed the views. Then after afternoon tea in the lovely small town square we went to the Chartreuse du Val de Benediction, which was once the largest and most important Carthusian monestary in France. It is massive and took us a long time to wander around, but was interesting and quite well preserved. For dinner we again sat on the banks of the Rhone looking at the beautiful view of the papal palace and the bridge until the sun set & the tourists left and it was just us and the evening view!

Day 10: Saturday 22nd September
We did some yoga on the banks of the Rhone this morning before breakfast, only disturbed by the pigeons and the street cleaners! We had an awesome view, overlooking Avignon bridge and an ancient Pope's palace-fortress. After breakfast we left the campground and rode through the countryside to a small town with a big hill where we had fantastic lunch - possibly the winner for the best baguette, but the lunch-dessert wasn't quite as good as the other day :-P. We rode on through small lanes and orchards, on narrow roads without many cars at all. Except for a few trucks and a police van. We actually had a good giggle as we saw the cops pulled over on the side of the road grabbing apples from a tree! We had thought about doing something similar but had decided it was unethical!
We ended up at Cavaillon, which was a bit skanky. Full of jumped-up little boys in noisy little cars. Even the woman in the Office du tourism was unfriendly. We went to the camping ground and did a full circle following the signs - it was pathetic. Then there was noone at the desk. We went in anyway, figuring we'd pay later, but decided to put that crappy town behind us and move on. We rode another 5km to Le Tailledes, and stayed in a Gîte (kind of an ad hoc room, rented out by the owner). The fella gave us home grown eggs, and fruit: golly - I swear they are the bestest grapes i have ever tasted!
We were sitting on this rather nice patch of grass, eating a helluva lot of cheese, a baguette, aforementioned grapes, and drinking beer and softie, when we started to hear a beeping of car horns. We wondered if it had something to do with the rugby, but figured we'd know soon enough, because it was getting louder and louder. It turned out to be a wedding, and the whole procession (more than 25 cars, beeping + alarms) turned into exactly the area that we were sitting - I made eye contact with the bride as she went by - very exciting. Anyway, after the mirth passed, we decided we'd better nick off, before a posse of angry young frenchmen came and kicked our butts.

FOOD

2007-09-21T18:26:00.000+09:30

So we've been meaning to tell everyone how _fantastic_ the food is here in France. Just now we've come back from the local markets where we leaned against a bar with a couple of expresso coffees and at a freshly baked croissant. Ahh. And then we had a wander around to buy our lunch for later on... this will consist of bread (of course - they eat it here at least 3 meals a day, and it's just wonderful!), pate (the real stuff, made in terrines, sometimes with a crusty bread outside - yum!), cheese - where do i start here - the cheese is simply amazing. The cheese aisle in the supermarket is loooong... and full of different types of cheeses - hundereds of them! We have eaten about 10 types so far and are working our way through the rest. Highlights include Rocquefort Cheese (only recently allowed to be imported into Australia - worth checking out!), Chervre (heaps and heaps of types, all amazing - some normal, some spreadable, some like brie, some with blue/green in it), I don't know the names of most of the ones we've eaten, but i think all have been different and very enjoyable. The Tomatos here too - all shapes and lots of different colours and so yummy and fresh and fantastic tasting! The wine is cheap - we've been buying bottles for less than 2euros mostly - and its been very very drinkable! They drink lots of rose here which is great! Also at the market this morning i noticed some purple broccoli and these green tomatoes (i think they were called zebra tomatoes!) - so we have more to try yet!!!

When we went for dinner the other night here in Avignon, I had a lamb rack (a very generous serving) and it was accompanied by (as well as some great veggies) 4 massive cloves of garlic, baked in the oven - yum! Angus had a thin steak (cooked medium, and it was about equivilent to med-rare in oz) with rocquefort cheese dressing...mmmmm....

So we've also been eating lots of pattiserie food - trying to find the absolute best Pain au Rasin, Pain au Chocolat & Croissants in France. We're on a mission! Angus also had the other day this layered pastry/custard/icing delicious thing! So we haven't managed to lose any weight, strangly enough...

Avignon

2007-09-21T01:52:00.000+09:30

Day 6: Tueday 18th

Ok, so we spent today in Arles. We wandered the beautiful streets and checked out lots of Roman ruins. It's a lovely city which was walled once and has lots of history - from Roman through Medieval and through to recent. Van Gogh spent some time here before he went mad & moved on to St Remy, so there are lots of locations which he painted - Starry night over the Rhone is a famous one for example - we walked by the location (and had lunch actually) from where they think he painted it. We also checked out the Les Arens - a Roman Ampitheatre built around the late 1st or early 2nd century. It's still used for events these days - mostly bullfighting! Also in the afternoon we went to some Roman Baths (Theres de Constantin) which were really interesting. Then later in the day we went to Les Alyscamps, which is a large necropolis with some lovely buildings and a walkway lined with coffin shaped concrete boxes!!

Day 7: Wednesday 19th Sept

We had an average night with lots of wind, and that probably should have put us off cycling today but it didn't. We rode north towards Avignon but had a pretty horrible journey, getting lost and ending up on the main road in horrendsly strong headwinds which almost blew us off the road!! We managed to get off the road after a few km, but it was pretty challenging still on the smaller roads. We ended up in Tarascon, and had lunch before catching the train the rest of the way to Avignon. Getting on the train with two fully laden bikes and a bike trailer was another big challenge! We were very lucky to have help from a french girl & her father who helped us lift them (and remove wheels from trailer) onto the train, and then she helped us off at the other end. It taught us that we'll need to be prepared for future train journeys a little better!!! Anyway, we made it to the beautiful walled city of Avignon where we checked into our first hotel of the trip (a pretty little place within the walls of the city and a few mintues stroll to all the major sites!). We had a short wander after cleaning the dust off us (from the wind!!) and found some fabulous churches (around every second corner practically!!). In the evening we discovered a great little restaurant on the Place de l'Horloge where Angus got a 'menu' and i just got a main, - the food was fabulous and generous!! The dessert was a provencial special i think - lavender infused mousse with honey cream - very yummy!!

Day 8: Thursday 20th

Ah, sleeping in a real bed! Fantastic!
Today we went to the local market for breakfast of Pain au rasin, Pain au chocolat, banana & 2 short coffees each, leaning on a bar... fantastic! Then we grabbed some lunch at the markets before going to do our washing & then wandering around the town. We went to the tourist office and had a chat to a fellow cyclist who recommended a route from a town about 30km SE from here - through a natural park area, so we will probably look into doing this... Then we had lunch looking at the grand but not beautiful Palais de Papes, built by about 9 popes when Avignon was more important to the Catholic Church - it was bulit during the 14th century and was intended as a fortified palace for the pontifical court, and is the largest Gothic palace in the world. We also went to the Musee Angladon which is a collection of art bought by a fashion designer, Jacques Doucet and also 18th century furniture and other objects. It was really interesting & enjoyable ;-) Then we found the local English language bookshop so Angus would have some reading material, and just enjoyed walking the small streets through Avignon. We havn't actually seen the bridge yet, but plan to do that tomorrow before we head out of town (or stay another night in the campground across the river - yet to be decided!

the Cycle adventure starts...

2007-09-18T00:19:00.000+09:30

Day 1: Thursday 13th
We left Montpellier yesterday, loaded to the gills. So much so that we decided to post some more stuff to Britain. We ended up sending two boxes - about 15 kg. bloody glad we don't have to carry that.
We didn't go particularly far, and found an utterly isolated campsite at Latte (cool name!). We decided that there was no way that we could continue to cycle with the amount of stuff we have (inc a laptop, camera, tripod, guitar...), so we cycled to a nearby bike shop and bought a bike trailer.

Day 2: Friday 14th
Today we headed South towards the beach. We stopped at Carnon, which is where Selina rode to from Montpellier last week) and had great morning tea of Pain au Raisin et Cafe, and had a swim at a very nice beach (the Mediterranean!) We had lunch at La Grande Motte, which had many awesome apartment buildings (styled like large luxury yachts - see photos). This place was weird - there was a long beach promenade that was like a cross between Burnside Village and the Royal Show. We had some lunch and visited a great bike shop, then headed on to Le Grau du Roi. We camped at 'Eden camp ground', which didn't meet our expectations, but we managed to cook up a nice dinner and had a quiet evening.

Day 3: Saturday 15th
Today we left the beach and headed into the Carmague towards the old walled city of Aigue-Mortes (translates to dead waters...) which looked pretty stunning from the outside. We only had a quick wander in the city, checked out the fabulous 13th century Church which is apparently where the 7th Crusade started some way back. We then rode on through the flat countryside amist vineyards and across a few canals towards the small town of Stes Maries de la Mer. This town is named because of the two Mary's who apparently brought Catholisism to mainland Europe. We arrived at our campground (no grass and has an odd smell...) and decided a swim was in order. As lunch had been small we were hungry early but discovered many restaurants were booked out. We got take-away (possibly the most expensive ever) - Calamari Rings, Chips & Paella + a bottle of Rose. YUM. We ate looking over the lovely beach and Mediterranean Sea - a lovely evening ;-)

Day 4: Sunday 16th
This morning we have decided not to cycle to far. We cycled about 4km north to the Parc Ornithologique. We had a pleasant morning, wandering around looking at hundreds of mostly pink Flamingos & some other birds. It is a large park but much of the area has few birds which was a little disappointing. This afternoon we came back & have been to a small 13th Century church where we walked on the roof and joined in with a Choir practice. We sat on the beach and cooked dinner together in the fading light. Quite peaceful ;-)

Day 5: Monday 17th
Today we packed up and had breakfast on the beach again. Then we rode NE to Arles (about 40km) where we are currently sitting in a Cafe looking at the cafe that Van Gogh painted in 'A Starry night'. not bad! And in the background are some 2AD columns from when the romans occupied this area of France. We're not sure what else we're going to do here, but probably check out some more Roman ruins and then head SE to Marseille & the coast in that area.

Montpellier & Edinburgh

2007-09-13T05:25:00.000+09:30

The weekend has come and gone in Montpellier. On Saturday morning Angus went to the course again (which has been very enjoyable so far). Then in the afternoon Selina & Angus tried to buy bikes. We went to Decathalon but unfortunately none of the bikes were any good so we decided not to buy them there. (expensive + average looking bikes = no sale!) Then we went the Musee Fabre in the afternoon for a tour. It is an excellent museum (Art Gallery) - we saw art from the 16th century to today! fabulous building too with a mix of old and new done beautifully!

Then Sunday morning we got up early and caught the tram out to Mosson Markets where there is a flea market on a sunday morning. we managed to buy two bikes, we're not sure how good they are but we'll soon see!! Then we went on a tour with the nerdy group to Pont du Gard which is a fabulous old aqueduct (from about 50AD) which the Romans built. We walked over the top and canoed under it - a fabulous day! Today is Monday and Selina has headed off to Edinburgh!

I just got back from Edinburgh this morning. It was a tiring trip but good. So it's looking quite likely that we'll be heading off to Edinburgh in November (fingers crossed!!). It is a nice city and seems like it will be a good place to live. My trip was eventful. My flight from London to Edinburgh was delayed 3 hours so i didn't get in till midnight. Then my bag didn't arrive. So on the morning of my interview I had to buy toiletries, some basic makeup and something decent to wear. A little stressful!!! But it went well, and I had a tour around in the afternoon (Edinburgh castle, Royal Mile, some fabulous old buildings, a school where Harry Potter was filmed - some of it anyway) and managed to buy a burner for our trangia (which was taken away at Adelaide airport!!!) (so now we can cook!) and so forth.

Then I came back to Montpellier this morning (I got here about 2pm). Angus and I rode our new (but very very old) bikes out to a bike shop to buy some bit's'n'pieces to put on the bikes but we got very lost and couldn't find the shop we were looking for and had to turn round lots! Anyway, mostly sorted now! We also then got lost coming back and what had been planned as a 2 hour excercise took more like 4... We just grabbed pizza and a salad and now Angus is busy fitting pannier racks and lights to the bikes. All is set for our big departure tomorrow!! Our vague plan is to head South along the coast to the East - there is a massive lagoon system and some fabulous beaches there so that is our first port of call! Then probably Arles which is an old town and then the coast near Marseille is apparently lovely.

More from us when we're next on email!
Au Revoir,
Selina & Angus ;-)

Map of Montpellier

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View Larger Map

Montpellier take 2

2007-09-07T15:40:00.000+09:30

Salut tout le monde,

I'm really enjoying the course - the lectures are really interesting, and everyone is very friendly. Greg would be very interested in the content of the course, as much of it is concerned with haptics, and computer modeling of organs and interactions with surgical devices. However there are lots of control theory aspects, which stretch my memory a bit! Every one is very nerdy, of course! ;-)

Selina is enjoying gallivanting around the place. She rode to the beach, and had a swim, which was apparently very nice. They have bicycles that the city hires out for 2 Euros per day, which is a pretty awesome deal. Yesterday she spent the day wandering around the city, discovering churches, squares, and a 2nd-hand English-language book-shop. She saw France's oldest botanical garden, the Jardin des Plantes (opened 1593), and the Cathedral St-Pierre (similar era). This cathedral is similar to Notre-Dame (Paris), but is more fortress-like, and has a massive 15th-Century porch, which is two towers (maybe 40m high?), and an arched dome between. The whole cathedral is annexed to a newer (but still old) medical school, which is famous across France. The whole thing was bloody impressive!

We saw this on a tour around Montpellier yesterday evening. The tour started at 6:30, and finished at 8:30, as the sun was setting (we were atop the Arc de Triomphe, 1692). Even at 5pm, the sun is still very high in the sky, and hot!

We also saw an ancient Jewish ritual bath which is supplied by a spring, constantly refreshing the water. It looked cold!

As we write this, we're thinking about Hannah and Owen, who are (hopefully!) at this moment being wed! It's all very exciting, and we wish we could be there to celebrate with them. Best of luck for the big move to Cambridge guys! See you soon!

Everyone else, keep in touch, hope all is well in your respective parts of the globe!! Photos are starting to go up on picasa, so check out link top right.
Cheers,
Selina & Angus ;-)

2007-09-05T00:16:00.000+09:30

Bonjour! :-)
We arrived in Paris safely, on an uneventful flight. We were both knackered, but put most of our luggage into storage for the day so that we could catch the train into town for the day (while we waited for our flight to Montpellier). We had a decent day wandering, and Selina saw (at least a glimpse of) every major tourist attraction there (well, she only saw the outside of the louvre, and not the base of the eiffel tower).
We then got the flight down to Montpellier, and arrived here about 36 hours after leaving adelaide, and fell into bed.
Had a great day wandering around the city today - it felt like being on a movie set! (think Chocolat). There are all these very narrow, gorgeous streets with shops, tons of people, and cobblestones, etc. There were basically no cars in town either.

we tried to buy bikes with no success today but there a few other thigns we can follow up on this. so all is good - tomorrow depending on the weather Selina may rent a bike and ride down to the beach (about 20km) which will help earn her appetite and some time relaxing on the beach with a book. we can rent bikes for 2euro/day which is very reasonable. stuff here is moderaly expensive - not as bad as paris though. the food is great - lunch the last two days has been lovely! and breakfast here at the hotel is adequate ;-)

Cool - hope all's well there. We're thinking of you.
love, Angus & Selina

ps. Please email!

And we're off

2007-07-27T08:24:00.000+09:30

Well it's now happenning. We are booked to fly to France on September 2nd. First stop Paris for a day, and then on to Montpellier for a couple of weeks - Angus studying 'Surgical Robotics' and Selina checking out the local sites!
Stay tuned for more details & photos!

Hens Night - Greedy Goose & The Lion

2006-12-06T09:00:00.000+10:30

After a full day of lunch & golf, the girls all headed out on the town... to the Greedy Goose Restaurant in North Adelaide for a fabulous 3 course dinner, and then on to the Lion Hotel for a cocktail.

2006-10-26T17:00:00.000+09:30