From minus 10 to plus 12

What a beautiful day’s drive we had today.  From freezing and very windy Carcassonne along the motorway all the way down to the Mediterranean (which was looking pretty but rather choppy) and along towards Spain.  Shortly before the border we turned off and took the coast road from France into Spain; a dizzying experience ( I don’t remember those drops from the roadside being quite that steep last time we were here), but the scenery was just stunning.  Mount Canigou, the highest this end of the Pyrennees only had it’s top 20% covered in snow which was a surprise after the snow we’ve had back home, but the rest of the range was looking beautiful steeped in sunshine.

As we hit the French coast the temperature finally crept over zero degrees and as we came into Spain it climbed and climbed.  Finally in Girona it made it up to 12 degrees.  We checked into our hotel, abandoned the car and spent the afternoon walking and walking through the city; the old city, the commercial district and back.

It’s certainly time now for a cuppa, a long shower and then off to supper in the hotel restaurant.

Tomorrow we’ll be heading down toward the Costa Blanca and we will lose internet access for a week.  Next update on our return, with photos I promise!

On the road again

One week of being snowed in, two weeks when the temperature has barely lifted it’s head over the minus five parapet (and that only once or twice in the middle of the day) and we’ve had enough, thank you.

Our bags are packed, we’re off to find something in the plus centigrades, hopefully in the teens too.

Tonight finds us in a little hotel in Carcassonne enjoying someone else’s heating bill and having our meal cooked by their electricity too.  Tomorrow we are heading over the Pyrénées towards Girona for another lucky hotel night and a bit of retail therapy (we love Girona) then south to the Costa Brava where I am assured they have recovered from their shock minus one degree the other day and are now basking in the teens and lovely sunshine once again.

¡Hasta mañana, amigos !

Quick trip to Germany and Holland

When the time came for us to plan a trip to visit friends we debated the best way to travel.

Plane?  Complicated, no direct flights from Toulouse.

Car?  Would entail a longer trip, overnight stays, hotels and meals out would add to the cost, maybe not.

Train?  Ah, now you’re talking.  Jon was sold on that one despite the 12 hour journey with a total of 6 trains on the way there and 5 on the way back.  Gourdon to Brive, Brive to Paris, metro across Paris, Paris to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Amersfoort, Amersfoort to Enschede where our friends would collect us by car for the 30 minute journey to their house in Germany.

The tickets were booked and delivered in July.

Meanwhile, SNCF (not a favourite of mine as some of you will recall from the fiasco of two planned trips to Paris in 2010) decided that they would do some engineering work and reschedule the arrival time of train no 2 – Brive to Paris.  Thus we arrived 20 minutes later than anticipated in Paris leaving us 20 minutes to cross the city by whatever means.  We chose taxi, and a very helpful driver did his best – until a broken down bus caused havoc not quite within running distance of the Gare du Nord.

An argument at the ticket booth ensued, with us winning.  The prize (?) was a ticket on the next train to Amsterdam, one hour after the original train.  What about our seats?  Oh, for that we would have to speak to the conductor of the train.  This man directed us to the bar where we soon realised that there were NO free seats on the train.  We stood all the way to Brussels, sat to Antwerp at which point Jon then had to stand all the way to Rotterdam.  Needless to say, this train was late arriving in Amsterdam, and the last train of the day was late arriving in Enschede.

No stress there.  9.45 pm (we left our local station at 8.45 am) and the local restaurants all closed at 10 sharp.  Luckily our friends had a friendly, tame pizza restaurant in their own village and they offered to stay open until we arrived so that they could feed us.  Not what we had planned but still a very pleasant meal.

On Friday, our hosts took us to Munster.  What a beautiful, peaceful little town in Northern Germany this is.  We spent a very happy few hours wandering around and peering into churches.

There was even an organ recital taking place which added to the atmosphere.

Later, we took a walk around the beautiful Aarsee lake just south of the town – there were even yachts on this lake.

On Saturday we went to a market in Holland and then spent the rest of the day just chatting with our friends and enjoying their company – was it really nearly 5 years since we were last together?  How did their daughter become 20 years old and their son 13?

Sadly we had to leave them on Sunday morning and we made our way back to Amsterdam where we had booked into a quirky hotel called The A Train, centrally placed, reasonably priced and very friendly – especially if you like train memorabilia!

We dodged the showers (showers? It had been 27 degrees when we left home, here we were wearing scarves and jackets!), and took a canal boat tour, wandered around the centre and later dined regally in an Indonesian restaurant.  We still had time on Monday morning to take in a few more sites before a far more relaxed journey home.

I hope you enjoy our photos of Amsterdam.

There is a cat sanctuary on a barge!!!

Wonky door!

Bikes are always getting in the way!

Homeward bound

Having been well looked after on Cathay Pacific, we spend a rather jet-lagged day yesterday doing our yearly Sainsbury’s shop (tea bags, Marmite) and our yearly Thai shopping (excellent Thai supermarket in Guildford) and then a brief visit to our see our lovely grandsons who were just a wee bit fractious after a long day at school.  Roll on summer so that our daughter can throw them outside in the evenings!

Today we start the final journey, just as far as Orleans tonight and home tomorrow.  We’re looking forward to picking up our cats, who have had a lovely time themselves being spoiled by our good friends Sue and John but I’m sure they will be pleased to get home and sort out the mouse population in our fields again.

I’m also looking forward to catching up with all those people we usually chat to, daughters, siblings and friends.  There’s an awful lot of catching up to do!!!

…and farewell from the mouse

 

We’ll miss this little companion, he’s been with us all the way quietly in the background.

We hope that his owner has enjoyed this trip – I believe he’s off to Egypt at the weekend too – so if you want to continue following the adventures of Twitchy the Mouse you can find him on Facebook – Twitchy Robins – ask to be a friend, I’m sure he will be happy to accept you!

I need some sleep - Hong Kong is too mad for me!

I thought the ferry was a bit bumpy!

That's better - this is our hotel on Lantau Island

This is the view from our hotel window

Hee hee! I can't read, I'm only a mouse!

This is a dragon boat - do you think they need a crew member?

And now the end is near …..

Go on, hum along, you know you want to!

We’ve left the bustle of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon behind and retreated to Lantau Island.  We’ve been coming here to the island for 8 years now and love the peacefulness and the mix of east and west.

The hinterland of the village of Mui Wu is traffic free – but you need to beware of cyclists sneaking up on you from behind and dinging their bells to get you to move to one side and let them pass.

Not up here, of course, we were very high up when we took this photo and the only people around were, well, shall we say ‘sleeping’?

The very steep hillside behind the village is literally full of these shrines,  Chinese people like their deceased to have a sea view when their lives are over and the higher and more inaccessible the shrine, the better!

We’re enjoying the peace here, the sea is just outside our bedroom window and laps at the shore quietly.

This is our last stop before our flight to the UK and onwards to France.  But there will be more to say about this trip, so don’t go away, folks.  We’ll be right back!

Hong Kong photocall

 

A shop in Kowloon - confusing, huh?

Crazy Kowloon

A little corner in Kowloon - lady tending the incense

Umm......

 

This madness was beginning to get to us today so we got on the Star Ferry ….

Iconic Star Ferry

… got ourselves another ferry …

Leaving Kowloon behind

… past all the container ships (these are just a very, very few – there are hundreds all around the islands of Hong Kong)

Containing what, we wondered...

… and over to Lamma Island where cars are prohibited

Welcome to Lamma

Fishing huts on Lamma

Lamma bicycle park

The streets are so narrow that even the one ambulance is tiny (the fire engine was the same size too!)

It still goes 'Nee-naw, nee-naw'

After a spot of lunch and a quiet walk we ferried back to Hong Kong Island

My friend used to live in the middle of the three round blocks!

HK Island - Western side

Ooops - a bit of swell made the boat lilt there!

We found this boat in residence:

Rainbow Warrier

Then we took the Ding-ding back to our hotel.

Loving Hong Kong trams

Return to Hong Kong

Well here we are again and I have to say we’re finding it very noisy.

You’d think that we would find Hong Kong noisy after the wilds of France and we do, but we’re used to it after many visits, this time it seems much noisier.  Is that because we’ve spent so long in amongst more people that we normally see in France?  It could be.

In Australia we looked mostly for the small towns, the countryside and the coast.  We stayed on quiet campsites which were full of very quiet people.  It seems to us that Australians end their day much earlier than Europeans.  It gets dark early, even in their summer it was dark by 7.30 so on campsites which in a French summer would be buzzing with people cooking and chatting until at least 10 pm,  everyone was cooked, washed up and tucked away in their caravan playing a quick game of Scrabble before bed at 9!

Sydney was bustling, sure, but nothing like this place.

Hong Kong never stops.  I can vouch for that having slept very little last night.  There are people everywhere. Market traders are just packing up at 8pm having started at 8am, street cleaners are hosing down the dozens of little market streets (noisily of course and it takes a team of about 8 of them).  Office workers (mostly Europeans) are spending the evening in the bars of SoHo, spilling out on to the streets and chatting noisily – the bars themselves are pumping out loud music.  The trams are packed with people going home from work, hundreds are still walking home.  It just seems so noisy!

The mornings are bustling in this district with the shop keepers stocking up with deliveries of yet more dried fish, vegetables and nuts – where does it all go?  We watched a tiny building opposite our hotel being filled with boxes and boxes of dried fish – who eats it all?  We’re completely amazed.

Well we have one more full day on Hong Kong Island before retreating to our favourite quiet island, Lantau for a few days – there the only noise will come from the bicycle bells ringing – no traffic allowed in that area at all.

Farewell to Sydney

Our last two days in Sydney have been busy with sightseeing.  Luckily for us the temperature plummeted from the weekend’s 32 to a more sightseeing-suitable 23.

Yesterday we went to Darling Harbour region and found a beautiful Chinese Garden here are a fantastic collection of bonsai – I know at least one of you will appreciate this one:

The garden is set around beautiful lakes with koi carp and waterlilies:

I was particularly taken with this beautiful statue of a sleeping boy Buddha:

We then walked around the harbour itself and stopped for lunch and a bit of people watching before following the harbour towards the Maritime Museum.

We continued across Pyrmont bridge which is the world’s oldest electrically operated swing bridge and used to be a toll bridge for people, cattle and pigs!

We then paid a visit to Hyde Park (yes, really) where we found some chaps having a game of chess:

Then my camera battery ran out along with my energy so we returned to base for the evening.

Today was a big day in Sydney.  The two greatest ocean liners were in town at the same time. The Queen Elizabeth looked bigger than both the Opera House and the bridge.

The Queen Mary 2 was way over the other side of Wooloomooloo (I still love that name) so we walked through the pouring rain in the Royal Botanical Gardens to get a couple of snaps (I do hope you all appreciate that it was pouring with rain and we only went there to take photos for you! )

And so we say farewell to Sydney, probably with a few tears tomorrow morning.  We’ve had a super time in Australia, many highlights and despite the van troubles, not so many lows.

Time to start planning the next one which we hope will include a trip to Port Douglas way up north in Queensland.

IF the weather is kind that year!

Cuddling koalas

I may have bored a few of you with my desire to cuddle a koala before we left home.  I’m very pleased to say that I achieved that yesterday.

We drove up to northern Sydney to collect the suitcase we had left with friends – it contained all our ‘medium warm’ clothes for Hong Kong which were surplus to requirements in the campervan.  While I was looking for directions on Googlemaps, I noticed that nearby was a koala sanctuary.  I persuaded (and it didn’t take much, to be honest) Jacqui to take us there after we’d collected the bag.

The sanctuary was set up in the 1920s and opened in the 1930s and has been a family run concern ever since.  It is a small sanctuary with animals other than koalas there too.

Wallabies

Wombat

Kangaroo

Cockatoo who kept saying 'Can I have a cracker?'

Emu

 

there were also beautiful flying foxes which, for the sensibility of my sister who is scared of bats, I won’t include here.  And finally….

 

Gorgeous koala

Another lovely koala

My new friend, Shaun the koala - he's very cuddly!

 

I surprised myself by getting quite emotional to be so close to one of these beautiful, gentle creatures, and so glad to have seen the others, even if they were in a sanctuary.  At least here the kangaroos were tame enough to be hand fed and the koalas cuddled.