days like these

The long way home - day 1

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Day 1 was a red-eye flight from London to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. We were actually on the plane over the dark continent for the new years count down - what a way to begin 2012! Anyway we supped champagne and whiskey in the BA lounge before we left so the flight was a good one!

Dr Livingstone I presume? We had a week to wind down in Victoria Falls before our overland journey began and we filled it pretty well with a few adventure activities. The obvious highlight is the falls themselves, they are impressive and the water level is only medium. There are various statistics about how much water flows over but they don't mean much until you stand on the edge of Devil's cataract and feel the vibration under your feet and the spray on your face. The sound of a gazillion litres of water succumbing to gravity is something to behold. I guess that's why they call it Mosi oa Tunya, smoke that thunders.

Second day in we took part in a lion walk through a local conservation outfit that looks after orphaned lion cubs with a view to release fully wild lions into a conservation park. I guess they only get the funds they need by letting tourists interact with the cubs for an hour or so - its a win win to me even though they have yet to complete the final stages. The cubs did turn out to be larger than expected!

To submit ourselves entirely to the wilderness we canoed ourselves for a day along a stretch of the upper Zambezi river and camped on the river banks (guided of course). The trip starts with a safety demonstration, mainly the guide warning of being snatched out of the canoe by a crocodile or hippos!

The local Zimbabweans are really really friendly and we often take much longer than expected to do anything due to invariably chatting with locals. Hopefully the next few months in Africa are as exciting as this week was, pictures and more stories will follow.

I'm leaving on a jet plane, I don't know when I'll be back again...

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Merry Christmas! So in a few hours we leave London, our home for the last 5 years. The day we arrived we never intended to stay as long as we did. The city took hold, persuading us with previously unimaginable experiences - we have new appreciation for the words history, oyster and party. We will also take with us new British passports and the ability to return!

With a quite a few items left on the leaving london bucket list, some itchy feet and our belief that time, not money, is the truest measure of wealth, we embark on our way home albeit via the very long and out of the way scenic route. Our plan? Our plan is to have no plan and rely more on our travel wits than our bad sense of direction. The goal is to do as much of the trip overland as is practically possible, and of course to follow the sun!

First up we have stocked up on anti-Malaria pills and the highest available, skin burning concentration of DEET for an overland trip through Africa starting in Zimbabwe and ending somewhere further north! Hopefully then (depending on visas and political unrest) we can make our way up to the Mediterranean for the spring and central Europe for the summer. The last few months will be spent travelling through Asia (including a visit to Suzi in South Korea!) and a final leg home in time for Christmas 2012.

This blog will follow our trip, if only for Kym and I to look back on when we are on the daily grind. I predict the writings are going to get pretty philosophical after about three months, so apologies in advance. Just look at the pictures!

Last of the UK road trips :(

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The last of the road trips was with Toni and Will to Wales with few stop-offs to places with cool and sometimes unpronounceable names like Hay-on-Wye and Pwllgaelod. Since it was Autumn the trees came different shades of orange, the pubs come with cosy log fires and we seemed to be the only tourists in all of Wales. We mainly village hopped with the odd 1000 year old castle, retro cafe, village pub or antique shop thrown in.

Most of the time was in Pembrokeshire where we discovered some local sights, and I mean discovered since the roads to these places were questionable. At one point we were trudging across a muddy farmer's field, in the blustery cold in search of the Welsh version of stonehenge. The Welsh generally seemed to get hammered by the English on one side and the vikings on the other, no wonder they have a load of castles, and they have all fallen down...

The best pub in Herefordshire I believe

Strategically positioned much?

Guardian of Carreg Cennen Castle

Arrow slits

Hay on Wye is pretty much all antique bookshops

What the? A dolmen

Another henge like dolmen, Pentre Ifan

Our ride

The Pembroke Coast

Bikes, dikes and red lights

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

What goes on in Amsterdam, stays in Amsterdam... except here is the photographic evidence for posterity sake. My thoughts on Amsterdam are this (warning contains adult themes) -

1. I have never ever seen so many bikes or bicyclists, watch where you step or you might get run over by a dutch chick on an old style bicycle!

2. It is freaking weird to walk into a coffee shop and be able to buy several different kinds of weed, but not a beer.

3. Anne Frank was pretty insightful for a 13 year old.

4. Tulips? really??

5. According to the price list in the tourist brochure, my haircuts in London are more expensive than 15 minutes with a girl in the window.

6. 3 levels up a typical dutch staircase is fairly difficult sober, let alone under the influence.

Needless to say Amsterdam is awesome and I don't know why it took so long for us to get there (you idiot stimpy!).

The civilised way to get high, Rudolph...

Ola Sevilla!

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:47:00 +0000

Last stop, and our favourite, was Seville, made even more special by our 5 estrella hotel complete with private jacuzzi and terrace, circular bed, rooftop pool/bar and turkish bathhouse - wedding anniversaries are fast becoming our favourite time of year!.

Rooftop pool at the EME, 3 seconds before we jumped in...

We day-tripped it out to Jerez which actually means "sherry" in Espanol. Now sherry is not really known as a drink for anyone under the age of 70 but we've tasted every other European specialty alcohol so we thought we may as well try this one. Seems that it comes in a range of flavours from super-dry to super-sweet, all of which we agreed were pretty bad. The sweet stuff is more like cheap port and the dry stuff may be alright when the necessary taste buds have matured in 40 years time.

So we visited a bodega from Fundador, a sherry brand. They got "famous" people to sign their casks, not that I recognised anyone but there were a lot of foreign ministers, presumably on a junket.

Enticing much?

Here's some more pictures from inside the Alhambra, because it is ridiculous....

More tea!

Spain part tres - Andalusia!!

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:39:00 +0000

We made it to Andalusia, home of kick-ass tapas, flamenco and some ridiculous moorish extravagance. We all agreed we could live there.

When we arrived in Granada we drove around the entire city (including the non-drivable bits) looking for our hotel - 10 minutes routing on a GPS was at least an hour driving thanks to roadworks (including newly dubbed "road of doom"), one way streets and our inability to do a blocky. We made it however, and rewarded ourselves with a relaxing turkish bath and massage - ahhh, serenity now!

The Alhambra was the main goal in Granada. It is basically a massive palace / castle / garden / extravagant abode where the most recent conquerer can put his feet up while waiting for the next guy to come along.

Sad to leave Granada but next was Ronda, a little town on a precipitous cliff face and home of the "corner of doom". Ronda was also the place where they pioneered bull fighting by foot, not that we condone that sort of thing but its interesting to see the history behind it.

The bullring

Last stop for Sevilla!

Spain part dos - tapas for the road

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:31:00 +0000

After a much needed recovery day we picked up our hire car together with Johnno and Steph and road tripped south to Andalusia - we stopped off at a few places with our end goal being Seville for Kym and I's 6th wedding anniversary. Both Johnno and I had the usual stress negotiating narrow cobbled lanes and one-way streets in "Pablo" the Citroen C5 Picasso.

The road trip went something like this...

View Spain 2011 in a larger map

Segovia - if there was one thing the Romans were good for, it was building aqueducts. This thing would still be an engineering feat if it was built yesterday - no concrete, no mortar, still standing.

Toledo - where we stayed in an old unloved mansion and explored the medieval town. The first one I have seen where you can get an escalator to the top of the city walls.

A gun, a sword, perhaps a suit of armour??

The Alcazar of Toledo

Further South again we stopped off at some nice sights. A bunch of Don Quixotesque windmills and some super green lakes for a picnic and swim.

Our sweet ride "Pablo"

Windmilly

We stayed the night in some caves in a town just outside of Granada.

Our 2 bedroom cave in Gaudix...

We climbed up on the roof

Next stop...Granada and the Alhambra!

Spain part uno - the wedding

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:22:00 +0000

We visited Madrid towards the end of summer to attend the wedding of Kev and Carolina. Summer was pretty non-existent in the UK but luckily Spain was upwards of 35 degrees. I remember looking at those clock/temperature signs they have everywhere and some days it read 37 degrees at 7pm! Anyway, it was hot enough such that only the English would go outside during siesta time (we can fit into this category with the celebration of Kym's union into Her Majesty's realm!). The wedding also coincided with a papal visit and world Christian youth day. It took an equally short amount of time for us to be fed up with 1000s of over-enthusiastic, hand-clapping, catholic youths as it did for us to get sweaty underwear from the heat. Of course this was nothing a cold cerveza and sangria couldn't remedy.

Driven to drink by christian youths

The wedding mass was held in an amazing basilica, mainly in Spanish, so luckily there was a helpful friar to tell us when to stand-up and when sit-down. Afterwards we (classily) embarrassed ourselves at the Ritz hotel, but not before the pope blessed the multitude of faithful not more than a few hundred metres away - we saw his grimace on the big screen.

La di da!

I seem to only have debauturous photos so you can check out more classy wedding shots here and I pilfered some from J&S.

Flamenco!

Not flamenco!

Not even close...

Walking home from the wedding we got lost in central Madrid, but we did stumble upon some kind of holy processions which consisted of a huge carved floats depicting various religious events, all carried by a bunch of die-hard believers. This is closely followed by a brass band belting out some sombre funeral music. Bear in mind this is probably 4am in the morning. It was actually pretty cool, but ridiculous all the same. I wish I had that much dedication to a cause.

Downtime in Madrid and in between tapas stops, we spent a few hours checking out the two main art gallery's - Museo del Prado and the Reina Sofia - to enjoy masterpieces by Goya (including the creepy black paintings), Velazquez (17th century court artist with a pension for painting dwarfs - google it!), Pablo Picasso (crazy eyeballs and sideways mouths) and the odd Dali. We also caught the cable car, there's a few hours of my life I'll never see again...

The cable car destination... still in shock from the voice over.

Tapas venue numero uno!

to the Cotswolds!

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:22:00 +0000

The city was driving us crazy (even before the riots!) so we (optimistically) packed the shorts and flip-flops, hired a car and braved the Friday night traffic to check out the Cotswolds in west England. We stayed in Tewkesbury (we never heard of it either) but they had plenty of ye olde village charm with a nice abbey and loads of the wooden frame Tudor buildings - great for that medieval atmosphere, not so great for not hitting your head on the low door frames.

Peak hour in downtown Tewkesbury

Chipping Campden

Well what else is there to do in Painswick?

In between tea and home-baked cake stops we managed to visit three or four Cotswold villages. Chipping Campden was the winner for cake and Painswick for the village fete. Kym found an antique shop specialising in tea cups - they were stacked so precariously it was one of the most nerve-racking experiences of my life.

"I'll have one of those and one of those"

No comment

On the way back to London we stopped in at the Uffington white horse - 3000 years old and who knows why it was made? I assume that no-one could fly back then to view it properly so I can imagine some ginger barbarians rocking up from Scotland asking "what is it"?

Bratislava

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Well we did the Czech bit earlier in the year and the other side of the Danube a couple of weeks ago, so we ought to also check out how the other half live while Wifey was putting the Slovakians in line with her smiling assassin trick. I on the other hand just go for the free accommodation, scenery and a passport stamp.

Slovakia reminded us of going back a decade - an army of bikini clad roller-bladers and 90s pop music pretty much everywhere (we ate breakfast to Inner Circle - Sweat A La La La Long).

Not being "in-liners", and on the advice of the locals, we hired bicycles one tremendously sunny summer Saturday. We ended up pedalling to the Hungarian border, then all the way back to the Austrian border - 68km and all in flip flops! Along the way we had the cheapest and best lunch with 70 cent Slovak beers (as good as Czech beers!) at the path-side cafes, found an enticing lake that had more naked Slovakians in it than clothed ones, and went for a swim in said lake followed by more cheap beers.

The Bratislava castle on our bike tour

Austerity cuts had gone out of hand in Slovakia

Part of Devin castle, gateway to Hungary and destroyed by Napoleon

We spent the rest of the weekend in the old town featuring spaceship bridges, views to the Soviet-era apartment blocks (to match our Soviet-era hotel) and eating ice-cream.

UFO bridge over the mighty Danube river

Yet another charming lane...

...and another grand palace!

Bratislava is cool - few tourists, quality beer and 90's flashbacks. Just like a younger quaint version of Vienna or Prague.

Wien, where's the snitzchel?

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0000

A bank holiday weekend snuck up on us and Vienna won the city break ballot for a last minute flights. Turns out it was a good choice and Vienna is a great city for relaxing coffees, wine and other mischief. Kym's luggage didn't make it out of South Africa from her latest work trip, but we did have a nice breakfast in the airport lounge and business class seats. South African Airways: 0 British Airways: 1.

Stephansdom from the top

Rathaus / Town hall

The old city of Vienna is as expected, fairly large and grandiose with wide roads and appropriately magnificent examples of architectural splendour / fountains / statues on every street. We couldn't begin to appreciate it given an Australian's general cultural deficit when it comes to the classical arts. This view was reinforced when we got some tickets to the famous Spanische Hofreitschule or Spanish riding school - they describe this as classical equitation and apparently the tradition is over 400 years old. Well there you go...

Spanische Hofreitschule on a bad day

splendour

more splendour

The museum quarter with lazy chairs in the sun

To try and remedy our apparent lack of culture and since Vienna is noted for its musical history - think Mozart and Beethoven - we checked out the Haus der Musik. The highlights were attempting to conduct the Viennese philharmonic orchestra, experimenting with some electronic music contraptions and reliving muffled sounds as heard from inside a womb.

Conductor chenko

Our trip also nicely coincided with the Vienna beer festival so obviously we partook in the essential schnitzel sandwhich and an afternoon tipple. The cafes in Vienna were also of note and given the decent weather we were fairly frequent customers.

Schnitzel!

...and it's mine!

Down the Spittelburg for more cafes...

and beer!

Unlucky for us (or lucky?) our flight home was delayed by a couple of hours, because our plane had no brakes! The delay was made more pleasant by being plyed with aged whisky and champagne, only to come slightly unstuck for the work hangover we have come to know and love after a weekend city break...

Coast to coast: east-side!

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Fri, 20 May 2011 23:00:00 +0000

So for what turned out to be the longest pub crawl in history, we rarely passed up a chance to avail ourselves of a local ale or a homemade cream tea. We needed the energy, since over the two weeks we climbed over 9000m in altitude - the equivalent of Mt Everest. We also saw a few thousand lambs, including a couple on dinner plates. This is the second-half of our Easter hike through the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, all to the best of British spring weather!

Apparently moles are not well liked by the farmers

The lads undergoing field repairs

Day 8 - Reeth - Went with the high level route again which goes through some abandoned mining settlements. Today was a day for spotting wild grouse. These things need to work on their survival strategy - being breaking cover for a flight distance of no more than twenty metres, as slow as physically possible, while making a ridiculous warbling sound.

Bear Grylls?

Day 9 - Richmond - This is the biggest town we came across. We were kind of freaked out by all the people after a week in the country!

Day 10 - Ingleby Arncliffe - 23 miles making this the longest day of the trip. We did it in a reasonable 8 hours and would have been quicker if we didn't get lost in the fields and the cows would let us through their paddock...

Mooooove!

Cow blocked

Day 11 - Blakey Ridge - 20.5 miles - after yesterday this was a long day with the last part being a frog-march along an old railway to a remote pub (aka sparkling oasis, aka our stop for the night). Today involved numerous stops for feet repairs and our first glimpses of the North Sea (albeit still two days away)!

The loneliest pub in England at Blakey Ridge!

Day 12 - Grosmont - Today = 14 miles of fairly easy walking followed by the usual Yorkshire tea & scones, and of course the local ale at the only village pub.

Day 13 - Robin Hood's Bay - 15 miles of numb feet to the The End! Luckily we finished at the same time as a bunch of other guys we met regularly over the last couple of weeks. It was a good morale booster to compare ailments and tales of misdirection.

Tea & cake time with some of our fellow hikers

Returning the pebble into the North Sea

The most well earned beers ever...

Day 14 - Our feet thanked us for no more hiking! We went out to Whitby, famous for Captain Cook, its fish & chips shops, and I believe the largest seagulls in the world (probably well fed due to the abundance of fish & chip shops).

Coast to coast: west-side!

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Fri, 13 May 2011 23:00:00 +0000

Over Easter, for no specific reason other than it might be interesting, we hiked 200 odd miles (320km) from one side of England to the the other! For two weeks we knew we had to walk further than we could see on the horizon and had already walked as far as we could see in the other direction. Some days this would do our heads in, especially when we are on top of a mountain and could see a long way! This is our account of the first week of the hike through the Lakes District stopping off at B&Bs, farmhouses and village pubs along the way.

A map of our trail following Alfred Wainwright's route. Wainwright is a well known British fell walker. If you don't know what a fell is, well neither did we before living here. In fact we have learnt all sorts of British hiking terminology, generally when we were actually looking at the thing and closely followed by the phrase "Oohhh, so that's what one of those is. Now we have to climb it / cross it / go around it".

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

Day 0 - St Bees: We spent a day at the beach which included dipping our feet in the Irish sea. Kym picked up a pebble to throw in the sea on the other-side. I didn't bother, but one hitchhiked in my boot for the most of the trip.

191 miles... 190 of them were without rain!

Day 1 - Ennerdale Bridge - A nice warm-up of 14 miles including a stint along the coast. We counted slugs and snails, the slugs won...

Day 2 - Stonethwaite - A choice of routes, we opted for the more difficult 18 mile high route up Red Pike. One of the toughest climbs but the views were worth it. We dubbed this the day of the obnoxious rocks and have the scuffed boots to prove it.

The neighbours hadn't mowed their backyard in a while...

Day 3 - Grasmere - Maybe we learned from the previous day and today took the low route through the valley to lovely scenes of waterfalls and some serenity now.

Day 4 - Patterdale - The weather looked good so we again went for the highest of the routes being only 8 miles, a climb up Helvellyn (England's third highest peak) and scrambling along Striding Edge... fun fun fun!

On Helvellyn, Bert Hinkler (of Bundaberg) landed a plane here in 1926!

Striding Edge being strided upon.

Day 5 - Shap - A longish 16 miles and considerable ascent for our last day in the Lakes District, though one of our favourites since we luckily spotted a large ancient herd of red deer on the fell.

One of my favourite places - Angle Tarn

Day 6 - Kirkby Stephen - A long day of 20 miles. We found some ancient stone circles. The B&B we stayed in was one of the best with a massive bath to soak the aching muscles.

Day 7 - Keld - half way! To get to there we had to cross a (not so) boggy moor which was pretty much what I remember as a home for British werewolves - "keep off the moors lad". We even finished in time to catch the Royal Wedding highlights.

The nine standards rig

One of many stops for homemade Cumbrian tea and scones

Royal knees up...

The second half of the trip in our next post...

The essential British hiking glossary: fell (hill), tarn (mountain lake), pike (mountain), stile (steps over a fence), kissing gate (sheep proof gate), cairn (marker), beck (stream), ghyll (ravine), scree (loose rocks on a slope).

Visits to the countryside!

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Over the last couple winter weekends we have been voluntarily subjecting ourselves to some long hikes in preparation for our 13-day trek across the England. The best thing about hiking through the English countryside is recovering in the local freehouse, by a raging fire with a home- brewed cider, most likely with someones dog running around.

Curious fluffy bovines in the South Downs

Helpful directions for local cider

Spent the weekend in Lulworth Cove, a pretty little seaside village. After this, we hiked 21km to Weymouth along the coast, up and down the cliffs and running the last 2km with a full pack to catch a train, phew!

Lulworth Cove

Through the firing range... eek!

With tanks and cows..

..and ninjas!

Durdle's Door but too cold for swim

Spring is here, this was winter..

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 10:54:00 +0000

Seems like an age I have written anything about London. We've been trying to keep warm mostly, had a few visitors, seen a few shows, eaten a few Sunday roasts. Here are the highlights...

There was a bit of snow over the winter, enough to close Heathrow for a week and build a snowman. We found out afterwards you're supposed to ROLL the snow. Who knew?!

Surprise!

Even the Regent's park giraffes stay indoors.

Squirrel!

Our local park

We also ticked off a few classic London sights...

After walking past it everyday for 2 years to get to work we actually went inside the Tower of London one sunny day. It's awesome - gory tales from the Beefeaters, diamonds the size of you fist, suits of armour for all the Kings of England and a solid gold punch bowl bigger than your bathtub!

Beefeater's home

The Queen's birthday is always regimentally loud and smoky...

Too far away, but by the receding hairline definitely a prince.

Boom!

We also went out to Windsor to check out the state rooms in the castle there. The British sure know how to plunder from far flung lands. And they definitely know how to live like kings.

Back in London, there seems to be a turf war between Banksy and King Robbo, described in the press (perhaps a little hyped up) as akin to a a rivalry between Matisse and Picasso?!

Graffiti wars on Regent's canal

Banksy vs King Robbo

Boheme New Year 2011!

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:24:00 +0000

One sunny day we caught a local train out to a nearby town, Kutna Hora. Emphasising the word local.

The girls trying to stay upright on icy cobblestones

Gothic church made interesting with snow and sun

Banjo playing gargoyles...

The town is famous for its heritage-listed bone chapel, the Sedlec Ossuary. In it were creepy bone wall decorations and a bone chandelier. The story is that it was created by a blind monk or an eccentric tradesman, or both. A goth's family dream home...

Chandelier - not found in Beacon lighting

New year's eve we spent down by the Charles Bridge where the local Czechs came down with there own fireworks. There was nothing like seeing the locals launch rockets into the river from less than the recommended safe distance...

After NYE we ventured out to the suburbs, found the John Lennon wall, the mausoleum for the deceased Czech communist party leader who they tried to embalm (it was closed and covered up but had nice views), and a Ruski tank.

John Lennon wall

Lovers padlocks

Ruski tank

View from the mausoleum

Bohemian Rhapsody I

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:03:00 +0000

This winter holidays we went east to Prague. But not after Kym, Suzi and I spent an almost white Christmas in London - there was snow on the ground and we still had a disproportionate snowman standing on our terrace. We were however, lucky to avoid the week long closure of Heathrow.

The old town of Prague is pretty nice... glad Hitler didn't bomb it.

The Christmas markets were still on so we could get some good old sausage & bread action, Czech donuts for dessert, and of course some hot wine.

The changing of the guard at the Prague castle, complete with brass band in the window. They looked as cold as we felt.

We spent three-quarters of our holiday budget on mulled wine and Czech beer to keep warm since temperatures barely got above -15 Celsius. Even then we could only stand an hour or two outside before the numbness began.

The Czechs like scary puppets.

Cairo excursion

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:37:00 +0000

So you all know the song Walk like an Egyptian, well after a few days in Egypt with my mum late last year, we pretty much established that in downtown Cairo nobody walks, everybody drives. In fact the only thing louder than the cacophony of car horns is the call to prayer, apparently so it can be heard over the cacophony of car horns.

The second time seeing the pyramids and they are no less impressive! We were also lucky to get our guide, Lili, from last time I visited - though she did test me on my forgotten knowledge of Egyptian history.

It wouldn't be a trip to Egypt without getting ripped off by a man and his camel but mum seemed to enjoy the experience!

Fish-eyed the sphinx

Our guide (Lili's husband) got into the action!

We took a a trip out to Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great. Pretty cool to see the fusion of Greeks, Romans and Egyptians cultures.

Pompey's pillar.

Egyptian cat.

I have been to some crazy places over the last few years but downtown Cairo is still the winner.

Baltics road trip - Estonia

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +0000

So the Baltic states were part of the USSR until 1991 when the three states declared their own independence, but not before the Russian tanks began to roll into town. We stayed in Tallinn, the capital, for our last 2 nights to enjoy a mattress and long showers after 5 days camping.

There isn't really any visible sign that Russians were ever there apart from a few giant boulders (now memorials) that the Estonians moved onto the street to block the tanks.

There also some of the old soviet statues, now conveniently placed near the basement toilets...

Some glacial boulders on the coast.

Mushroom collecting is a national hobby...

The Baltics - Latvia

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 16:33:00 +0000

From Lithuania to Latvia we drove straight through the middle of Riga to our next campsite. We didn't stop but just admired the old town from our car, and through gritted teeth.

We found a nice spot beside the Gauja river and were the only ones there so was pretty cool. We couldn't help but think this was setting the scene for a chainsaw massacre or getting eaten by mutant wild boars...

Post tent pitching beer...

I am man and I create fire!

We visited Cesis to check out the high street.

Low and behold they had a castle. This one was actually a bit more interesting than your average European castle. We carried ye olde lanterns, visited the dungeon and they had a boxed up soviet era statue in the courtyard...

Next drive was across the border to Estonia! This is the old disbanded checkpoint and our little hire car. Top speed 130km/hr (legally of course).

Baltic Road Trip - Lithuania

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:16:00 +0000

So it was our 5th (!) wedding anniversary and we figured what better way to celebrate this significant milestone then go on a road trip through Eastern Europe. We picked up the car at Vilnius airport in Lithuania and drove it north through Latvia and Estonia. Three countries in a week!

First stop in Vilnius was a walk around the old town and a potato dumpling or two with Kym's Lithuanian friend turned tour guide, Marius.

Vilnius has a self-governed bohemian section, The Republic of Uzupis. On April 1 the mayor reads the towns constitution with phrases like "a dog has the right to be a dog" and "people have the right to be happy or unhappy"... vote 1.

Just out of Vilnius is the Trekai castle where we pitched our tent by the lakeside for great views.

We picked up some picnic supplies and a bottle of wine.. turns out "sans alcohol" means non-alcoholic and all we had was expensive grape juice... idiots!

In Trekai, we hired a row boat and splashed around for an hour or so in front of the fairy tale castle, mostly in circles.

Back on the road and to the Curonian Spit where we camped for another couple of nights. The spit is a thin strip of land half owned by Lithuania and half Russia. The weather was pretty crap but we managed to visit the beach and dip our feet into the Baltic sea. Luckily we carry a survival kit... bottle of red wine and a frisbee... this time we made sure it was alcoholic!

Only 86 kilometers to Kaliningrad.

Some big sand dunes stretching all the way to Russia and wooded forests full of mushrooms and wild blueberries.

Vélo en Champagne II

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:10:00 +0000

The place we stayed in Troyes, perfect for a mid-afternoon bottle of champagne and cheese

Downtown Troyes

They call this cat alley - I don't know why but the only reason the building on the right is standing is because it is leaning on the building on the left.

I got the chef to make a chocolate cake for wifey, it was nice.

Our last night we spent in Paris and that day we lined up for an hour to see the Catacombs. Last entry is at 4pm and we were the very last two to get in from a line that had more people in it than Madame Toussads on a bank holiday Monday.

These were carvings some dude that was prisoned in the dungeons made of his homeland from memory.

The bone section was crazy. I don't really know how to explain it

Last stop was Notre Dame and a walk along the Siene

Vélo en Champagne I

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:42:00 +0000

To continue our alcohol heritage tour of Europe and with the aim of celebrating Kym's foray into the (dirty) 30s with a just a little bit of class, we decided to try Champagne touring in France. We Eurostarred it to Paris (love living 2 minutes from Kings Cross) and then another hour west to Reims.

The Notre Dame of Reims is the place where French kings were crowned, most notably one of the Charlies from Joan of Arc fame. Not a bad spot for a fresh baguette either...

Reims also has a bunch of Champagne houses, where our main goal of millions of bottles of Champagne are kept and aged in underground tunnels. We visited a few and sampled some of the product...

Mumm (the brand used in the F1).

Taittenger - the tunnels were made back in the 14th century by monks from chalk mines, a church abbey or some such.

In the next town, Epernay, we stayed in a B&B behind a vineyard. We hired bicycles for a couple of days and toured the grape vines and champagne villages. We picked up essential picninc supplies - cheese, champagne, bread, wine.

So the vines are generally owned by the big champagne houses, these ones are from the good people at Veuve Clicqout.

Hmmm... which way?

At the 20km point of day 1 (out of 55km) we came across a whisky distillery where the guy ages the whisky in used wine barrels. When he found out we were on bikes he plied us with about a dozen drams before he let us leave. We found out why when just down the road began a 4km "steady" climb up Montagne de Reims. Turns out "Montagne" is "Mountain" in French.

Day 2 of the ride, and surprisingly still able to sit comfortably, we ventured out to visit a couple of more Grand Cru champagne villages (i.e. where the good sh!t comes from).

Back in Epernay, and in between almond crossaints we found some time to have a couple more visits to Champagne houses.

Mercier - get driven by a laser guided train and spoken to by a Frenchman named something like Jeeves and who sounded like a Frenchman trying to sound like an English butler.

Figuring out if we could get it home...

Moet et Chandon, home of Dom Perignon

After Epernay we successfully negotiated a bus and a train to Troyes, a medieval town with some pretty interesting wood frame houses. In Troyes, we stayed in a fancy place and drunk 3 more bottles of Champagne.... woop woop woop! Champagne drinking fitness is at an all time high.

state of EXIT

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:35:00 +0000

Just partook in EXIT festival in Novi Sad, Serbia and pretty much entailed Rajikia, chain-smoking Serbians, self-induced jet lag and the most amazing dance arena in the world!

The festival started by a bunch of students 11 years ago as a f*ck you to Milosevic and is held in Petrovaradin fortress. There is either a festival going on in their fortress, or its extremely easy to find the way out...

Day 1 - from sunset to sunrise we danced in the arena to the likes of Zombie Disco Squad, Crookers, Erol Alkan & Boys Noize.

The dance arena is amazing, walk past the main stage, climb up a hill like your going to some random field rave and then down a set of extremely precarious stairs. At the end is bunch of levels (we like levels) in a natural amphitheatre within the fortress. Like a club but under the stars.

First rays of sun...

Day 2 - Placebo. Discovered a new section with 3 more stages, fire twirlers, free folding binoculars and a silent disco. The place was huge. At some points we wondered whether we were still in the festival, especially when we found the five star hotel.

On the way in the locals have set up mobile Rajikia vendors.

Some basic rules.

Day 3 - Royksopp then found a terrace where we can buy booze other than Serbian tetra-pak wine. Back to the dance arena for Laidback Luke. The arena was at crush capacity that night.

Day 4 - The last day was a bit of Pendulum, Faith No More and Chemical Brothers. Mike Patton is a crazy mofo.

During the days we slept, soaked up the sunshine at the river beach called the Strand complete with burgers, extremely fit locals and day time doof doof just in case you didn't get enough the night before.

Vienna Schnitzels!

Best festival yet.

N. Ireland

noreply@blogger.com (TheCoops) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 20:00:00 +0000

Went to Northern Ireland, dodging volcanic ash clouds and cabin-crew strikes along the way.

Got driven around by a slightly mad Ulster Scot to the Antrim coast and The Giant's Causeway. Depending on which story you believe the causeway was formed by either a volcano or the giant Finn McCool.

We also bounced across a rope bridge. Nice views.

More of Belfast.. where we drunk copious amounts of Guinness and whisky, learnt about the Troubles and generally had some good craic.

The murals of the loyalists and republicans