Well, The blog is finally finished, there were times when I thought I’d lose interest in writing it and then times when I thought I’d never catch up and I never really did catch up finishing it all off 7 weeks after I returned home but I got there!

One thing I wanted to do was compile a few facts and figures which i thought might interest you so here we go…..

Miles Traveled: 41,020 that’s 66,015 in Kilometers.

Total number of flights: 18

Total time spent flying: 83 hours 35 minutes or 3 1/2 days!

Best Flight: Honolulu to Nadi via Christmas Island with Fiji Airways – so comfortable and free drinks without having to ask!

Worst Flight: San Francisco to Honolulu – Bloody child sat next to me plus all the crew were miserable.

Best place visited: Well, a toughy – The whole of New Zealand was fantastic and I particularly liked Wellington and the same goes for South Africa, loved every minute of it there.

Worst place visited: I’m afraid Seattle wins hands down, bit of a dump, had a bit of a funny feel to it – Stayig in a crap hotel and ended up in Hospital didn’t help it’s case either!

Coaches taken: 3

Boats taken: 3

Trains taken: 7

Cars hired: 2

Number of Hotels stayed in: 34

Best Hotel: Hong Kong – anywhere with free beer wins hands down!

Worst Hotel: Seattle – Dreadful, just dreadful!

Total spent: £ To Much!

The total of trains and boats are just those used to travel between places I was staying.

Well, there you have it – I just need to add a few pictures to the posts where I haven’t yet done so and were done! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading, until the next time…….

Steve

Hello!

Well, another couple of weeks have flown by without me finishing this off! Well, here we are, the last leg of my travels.

After leaving Port Elizabeth I flew back to Cape Town for my last 2 nights before the long trip back to London – I arrived back into the City at around 17:30 and was expecting to be accosted by my old mate ‘Mr Aderley Street’ but he was nowhere to be seen! I checked into my hotel which was as rough as toast – Carpet and Plasterboard were obviously premium products at this establishment as were towels – A sign it was time to go home perhaps?

I checked in and immediately went out again for a few quiet drinks, I certainly wasn’t hungry after the two huge meals I had eaten earlier in the day that was for sure! The night ended with a little light reading back in my room – a TV was also on the missing list!

Tuesday now and my last full day on this truly amazing trip has arrived – Thought I had best make the most of it so headed off out for a reasonably early breakfast before finally checking out some items of transport interest which took me nicely up to Lunchtime. I spent the early part of the afternoon having a browse around the local shops and markets before popping back to the hotel to pack for the last time!

Nikita had put me in touch with her friend Tamsyn and I had arranged to meet up with her for a few drinks in the evening, We duly met up in a local bar – it’s always a bit of a task meeting somebody you’ve never met before but I was the only person in this bar so finding each other wasn’t to hard after all! Tamsyn had brought along a couple of friends as well, Alison and her husband Jordon who was an ex pat and Enid. The 5 of us then headed off for a little crawl of the bars along Long Street which is pretty much where it all goes on in Cape Town. The evening seemed to fly past and it was a superb night out and an ideal way to finish my travels and I now have 4 more amazing friends all of whom I’m still in touch with. I wished I had met Tamsyn on my first day in South Africa instead of my last as she was full of useful tips of how to survive life in The Cape!!

I must confess to being a little tipsy by the end of the evening, I have some vague recollections of some singing, hopefully nobody else does! This tipsyness probably accounted for my slight headache I awoke with on Wednesday morning – not the best of starts for a day including 18 hours flying! Thankfully I had packed yesterday so it was just a case of getting up and going which is exactly what I did!

My flight back to London wasn’t direct and I was flying via Doha courtesy of Qatar Airways, the first leg of this epic was a 10 hour slog and I must admit was all rather pleasant with some rather premium drinks all available for gratis and the in flight food was all pretty good. Leg room was superb as well although the German chap sat behind me begged to differ and was on of these people who like to push their knees into the seat and your back – I tolerated him for all of 5 minutes before politely asking him to pack it in. Knowing he was rumbled he went on the defensive and suggested I call the stewardess ‘ping’ went the call bell! he then started offering some rather dopey excuses all of which I rebuffed like a spitfire over the skies of Kent. With his knees not showing any signs of moving I decided to make the remaining 8 hours of his flight rather unpleasant and thrust my chair into it’s fully reclined position (they recline quite some way on Qatar Airways too) right into his knees, I heard a slight cry as 22 stones of Maskell must hurt as it cracks into your knees! He lasted 5 minutes before offering to sit normally in his chair. I’m a reasonable chap so offered to sit upright in return – That was the last I heard of him!

The in flight movie was Birdman – Had heard a lot about this film so had a butchers, 3 hours of the most boring crap I’ve endured for many a year I can tell you – bloody dreadful film!

I had a few hours to kill in Doha Airport upon arrival and wondered what I could possibly do at 11pm at night however the airport was alive with people and things to do – I was pleasantly surprised to see the familiar face of a WHSmith among the many shops and diners. 2.25am soon arrived and my last flight was ready for boarding, I don’t remember much about this flight whatsoever as I was asleep before we even took off!

I awoke just in time for one of my all time favorite airplane announcements ‘ Cabin Crew, Seats for Landing’! I looked out the window to see the green and pleasant lands of England below me and we were soon on the tarmac of London Heathrow – I was back home!

The trip back across London was all a little surreal as I felt like I was just at another destination for a week or so, it didn’t feel like it was all over. I must have looked rather odd on the Central Line when I got on at Ealing Broadway in my shorts and t-shirt, it was nice and sunny in London but it wasn’t the 90 degree nice and sunny that I had left 7000 miles away in Africa, it was about 45 outside! I eventually made it back indoor for about 9.30am Thursday morning where the cold soon began to kick in – the shorts and t-shirt soon gave way to jeans and jumper and the gas fire was soon on!

Well, there we go – It’s all done and dusted! I have truly had the time of my life these past 5 months and I would do it all again in a heartbeat and if you should ever be as fortunate as I have been to embark on the trip of a lifetime then you must grab it with both hands and go for it, you won’t regret it I can assure you!

I’ve another post or two to make, I quite fancy adding up the miles and putting together a few statistics plus I’ve a few more pictures to add in to one or two posts so we’re not quite done yet!

Until then, be cool!

Steve

Hi Everyone!

Where is time going to I wonder? I was hoping to finish this over Easter but failed miserably so, at long last, here we go with the last few days of my trip….

I left off last time in a service station to the north of Port Elizabeth which you might be thinking was an odd place to end a 5 day tour, rest assured, I can assure you there was a method to this madness!

I had arranged to spend the weekend with one of the coolest people on the planet, my friend Nikita! We hadn’t seen each other for bloody years so it seemed a bit of a no brainer to ‘swing by and say Hi’ whilst I was in the same country and so this petrol station is where we met up!

I left the guys here to continue their trip back to Cape Town and I headed off to Nikkis place in Salsoneville which would be home for the next few days. We’d had only been driving for a matter of minutes when some bizarre accident occurred, some bus ploughed into a dustcart and knocked it over leaving all manners of rubbish all over the road! Having seen some rather dubious driving in the past week and a bit I think I made history and became the first person to wear a seatbelt in South Africa!! Well, at least it seemed that way!

Back at Nikkis house I met her Mum, my new Auntie Aggie, who made me feel very welcome indeed and I can now see where Nikita gets her coolness from! After a quick visit to the shops for a few drinks we spent the rest of the afternoon catching up out in the stoop getting slowly drunk! The view from here is pretty cool out across the town and out to sea, the sort of stuff that would add fifty grand to your house value in England.

Afternoon had now become Evening so it was deemed a good time to head off out to continue the party, having run out of dop may have made that decision for us mind! I was duly whisked off down to Summerstrand to the south of PE as this is where the night life is. Before going anywhere though, a quick visit to the beach was in order – Mmmm! With it being dark, approaching midnight and my level of intoxication having gone off the top of the scale I thought nothing of going for a quick dip in the Indian Ocean having completely forgotten I can’t swim! Anyway, I obviously survived drowning but I can’t remember bugger all else from the evening!!

Saturday dawned somewhat hazy (can’t imagine why!) and I tried to piece together last night over a hearty breakfast cooked up by my host. There wasn’t much time for recovery however as my day had been planned out and it was off Zip lining!

We set off to Addo picking up Nikkis best friend Amy and her lad Noah from their castle as well as her cousin on the way. No day out is quite complete without some drink so a couple of ‘hair of the dogs’ were had on the way! Those of you that know me well will know that I don’t do heights so hanging off a wire miles up in the air wouldn’t be my first choice of Saturday afternoon activity but what the hell, I’m on Holiday right! I’m sure Nikita had told me it was just some tree top thing which didn’t sound to bad, there was no mention whatsoever of jumping off some bloody great mountain!!! If you Google ‘Adrenaline Addo’ you’ll see what I mean!

Arrival there saw us all kitted up with some serious looking harnesses and a hard hat, I was beginning to seriously crap myself now as the drink was wearing off! If you want to know what I look like when I’m scared the below picture shows you only to well – you can see the terror in my eyes and the nervous smile!!

The trek to the top was long and didn’t start to well when the raft thingy to get us across the river almost sank giving me flashbacks of the other near sinking earlier in the week! With that out of the way it was a pretty brutal uphill climb and then to a tower which we had to jump off of – I was seriously having second thoughts now and the the signing of the ‘if you die it’s your fault’ form was beginning to play on my mind bearing in mind I exceeded the upper weight limit but a few kilos!! Up at the top it was bloody windy and with Nikki and Amy having flown off the edge first I was left with a couple of youngsters who were well eager to get on with it – the pressure was now building at an alarming rate especially after the chap in charge pointed out that this was the only way down! I stepped up on to the table from where you jump, looked skywards, said a few words to some god I don’t believe in and jumped – I was immediately relieved that the wire hadn’t snapped and began to enjoy the 500m fly to the bottom, thankfully I had spun round and was going down backwards which was handy as I didn’t see the trees my legs ploughed into  at 40mph coming towards me! I had spun round again nearer the bottom and I must admit I was going rather fast before hitting the end of the line so hard I went halfway back up again before coming to a stop!

After the ladder was wheeled out to get me down I was back on land which I duly dropped to on my knees and kissed! I was still alive!! Back in the hut taking off all the gear the chap in charge said he was well impressed with the speed I flew past him at, it must have been bloody fast as I don’t recall seeing him!

Back home after a few more drinks it was time for….. a few more drinks! Auntie Aggie was throwing a big Brai tonight and preparations for that were well under way. It was a great evening and I met more Uncles and Aunties than I can possibly remember but Uncle Mark will stick in my mind, a one time Spurs fan who had defected to Liverpool!! This feast of meat, drink and the fact that I had only had a few hours kip in the past two days soon took it’s toll and I flaked out just before midnight  – getting old I know!

Sunday now and there was no let up in the activities in stall, after another breakfast worthy for a King it was off to another Game Reserve for some more wildlife – I love this stuff and was soon up close and personal with a few animals I hadn’t seen a few days ago including some native Springbok and a large number of Giraffes, Giraffes were on my list of animals I rally wanted to see and they really are a sight to behold, they are just so tall and walk so graciously looking at us like we’re a bit weird driving round in a minibus taxi!  Mixed in with a few Lions and Cheetahs this was a pretty cool morning.

The animals continued after lunch with a visit to the SAMREC Penguin Rehabilitation Centre in Summerstand – A pretty cool place manned by volunteers who look after African Penguins who have been injured until they are well enough to be released back to sea, an interesting set up and the chap here gave us all a good insight into what they do. I still want a pet Penguin!!

After this it was time for Dinner and Nikki informed me that I would be trying Bunnychow so I put my menu down! I had no idea what this was until it turned up, it’s basically a loaf of bread with the middle cut out and filled with Curry and bloody handsome it was too – loved every last bite!! With that having been washed down there was just time to check out the local market in Summerstrand before heading for home. Quickly popped into Amy’s castle to check my flight details for tomorrow, just as well as it was at 15:30 – I had 12:00 in my mind!! Back home and in need of a haircut I let Nikki loose with my clippers, nothing can possibly go wrong when your hair style of choice is a mark zero so I was safe!! With long days ahead of us tomorrow it was an early night much to the relief of my liver!

Monday now and I thought I was having the best of  dreams when I was awoken by a sexy nurse – I wasn’t dreaming, it was Nikita waking me up to say goodbye before heading off to work!! (She’s a Nurse) After a few more hours pushing up the Zs I spent the rest of the morning with my favourite Auntie Aggie who went to the trouble of cooking me not only a huge breakfast but a huge lunch as well before I left which was very sweet of her, I didn’t need to eat again until I got back back to England!!! Time had come to bid farewell to Port Elizabeth and I was sad to be going (not helped by England getting knocked out of the cricket world cup that morning!) I had really enjoyed myself here and it was so great to meet so many wonderful people and totally awesome to catch up Nikita again – If you’re reading I’ll miss you you know, lets not leave it so long till the next time!!

My ride to the Airport was courtesy of one of my many new Uncles, Uncle Aubrey, and he got me there in good time for my flight back to Cape Town.

That leaves me with just one more chapter to write on this epic journey of a lifetime and I’ll pick up there next time….

Steve

Happy Easter folks!

On with the final week and a bit of my trip…..

Another of the things I really wanted to do in South Africa was a tour along the Garden Route (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Route) I had a particularly rigid time frame as I wanted to be in Port Elizabeth on Friday, My luck was in as the first tour company I approached offered a 5 day tour starting in Cape Town on a Monday and ending on Friday afternoon at a location of my choice in Port Elizabeth – Bingo!

It was an early start on Monday morning, March 2nd, and I was picked up by the tour bus from my hotel at 07.30, I was greeted by the tour guide, Stephanie, and boarded the bus, We carried on around Cape Town for a while picking up the other travellers before commencing the tour. It was a small group of just 5 solo travellers, Nancy from the US, Susanne & Marc from Germany and Elkana from Holland, I had a image of being trapped on a bus with a load of strange people for a week but it was quite the opposite, I couldn’t have asked for 5 nicer people to spend a week with!

Our first port of call after a beautiful drive along the coast was Betties Bay, home to a colony of African Penguins. We had just over an hour here to wonder around the colony and despite being exceptionally windy it was great fun watching these birds go about the lives – If I was ever to get a pet I think I’d get myself a Penguin, they’re just so cool!

Back on the bus and off to the town of Hermanus for a break of around 2 1/2 hours where we were free to explore the town and grab some lunch – I don’t think anybody had eaten breakfast so we all piled into the nearest restaurant which was recommended to us by Stephanie, it was an excellent choice and the food was divine. After lunch had been washed down we set off for a quick wonder round town. It’s a lovely little place and had a bit of a Mediterranean feel to it with its white buildings, there’s a pretty little market place and a main street with all your usual sort of shops and not forgetting a gorgeous sea front.

Our next port of call was Cape Agulhas where we would spend the night. Before checking in we went off down to the sea front and to visit the most southern tip of Africa where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, stood here I was as far south as I was almost 2 months ago in Sydney! It’s only when you look at a map you realise just how far away South Africa is.

Back at the backpackers where we were staying there was plenty of time for a freshen up before dinner. Being a backpackers I wasn’t expecting too much but I was pleasantly surprised, the place was huge and offered a wide range of accommodation to suit all budgets and is set in lovely grounds. I joined the others back at the bar prior to dinner and was befriended by the Parrot who lived there, I can’t remember her name now although I’m sure somebody will remind me, but she was quite happy to sit on my shoulder for a large part of the evening – I had made yet another new friend!! Dinner was locally caught Yellowtail and it was just so yummy they haven’t invented a word to describe it yet! A few drinks were had after dinner before we all crashed out for the evening.

Tuesday was another early start, breakfast was at 7 and we were all ready to go just after half past, I bid farewell to my little Parrot friend who was most upset and we headed off for a lengthy drive via Route 62 to Outdshoorn where we would spend a large part of the day. Our first activity of the day was some wine tasting before tucking into lunch, I’m no great wine buff but it all tasted alright to me! Next up was a visit to the Cango Caves, there were two types of tour on offer, a basic 45 minute tour or a longer, more ambitious adventure – I wasn’t ever going to fit into some of the gaps so opted for the basic tour! The caves were spectacular with their stalagmites and stalactites dating back thousands of years, most are tastefully lit by modern lighting which allows you to get some pretty cool photos. They used to hold concerts down here many years ago but they were stopped after visitors kept breaking off the Stalagmites for souvenirs, they take hundreds of thousands of years to form only for some twat to ruin – unbelievable.

Our final activity of the day was a visit to an Ostrich Farm, thankfully it was mainly in the shade as the heat outside was over 40 degrees. After a brief introduction in to the many uses of Ostrich meat and their eggs and feathers it was out to see them in the flesh. We first had an opportunity to feed one, you get given some pellets and simply hold your hand out flat and they just peck away until it’s all gone, a handful of food makes you an instant friend! You next get to have a cuddle with an Ostrich – You go into the enclosure and put your arm round it whilst the guide has a bucket of feed which she tempts the Ostrich with in a way that it ends up with its long neck wrapped right around you! If a cuddle wasn’t enough you then get to try an Ostrich massage, in for a penny in for a pound right?! It’s not quite as odd as it sounds… honest! You are given a bucket of feed which you hold at waist level and walk backwards towards a waiting pack of Ostrich’s, when you get to the fence they all lean their necks right over your shoulders to get at the feed so you get a load of them all rubbing their necks right over the top half of your body, all pretty cool really! Last but not least you get to have a look at some eggs which are bloody huge and pretty durable, to test this out you can sit or stand on some, they took my weight which demonstrates their strength. We then got to see how they look after freshly laid eggs, they are kept in incubators which looked like your average family oven until they are ready to hatch. I loved it here, best bit of the day for me!

After bidding farewell to all our new friends it was off to our backpackers for the evening which was just a short drive away, again this was a lovely place to spend the evening, dinner that night was Ostrich would you believe!! It had been a long, busy, hot day so it was soon time to crash out for the evening – another early one in the morning.

Wednesday and another 7am breakfast to kick off with before setting off once again at half past. The day started with a long drive to the Wilderness National Park which took us through the spectacular Outeniqua Mountain Pass briefly stopping off in the outskirts of George to pick up a picnic lunch for later. The main activity of the day was some canoeing – I don’t swim so had my reservations about this but threw caution the wind and went for it anyway! My vision of a canoe was somewhat different to theirs and it was more of a small rowing boat to be honest so didn’t look to bad after all. We split into pairs, Susanne made the bad decision of coming with me and with British rowing’s reputation at stake we set off – move of Steve Redgrave!

Thankfully neither myself or Susanne had done this before so the pressure was off a little albeit not for long as the others set off at quite a pace and we were soon quite a way back, feeling the need to catch up we went for it but all went a little wrong after a very near miss with a bridge! It was pretty close and I’m sure a collision would have resulted in a watery grave for us both but we missed it, sadly that couldn’t be said for the embankment which we duly ploughed in to! The rest of the outward trip went without incident. Our destination was a small beach about 40 minutes down river where we left the canoes and set off by foot for a hike of about 2 kilometres to our picnic destination which was a lovely little waterfall and rock pool, My fear of heights got the better of me at the end so I didn’t make the final climb to the rock pool but my waterfall view was more than ample for a rest!

After lunch it was off back to the canoes for the row back up stream which is where the fun began! Getting back in the boat I was a little concerned to see that it had a considerable amount of water in it, bailed it all out with the cup provided and we set off, we were going well having cracked this rowing game until almost decapitating ourselves at the small rope bridge which you have to lift up before going under it, it was at this point I discovered a leak in the boat, water was coming in at a reasonable pace so I bailed a bit more of it out! The next problem came when the water in the boat prevented it from turning right particularly easily, this was a bit of an issue as the river mainly went to the right so the next encounter with the embankment wasn’t far away! I say embankment but they weren’t the sort you where you could easily get out and give up, they were covered with thick reeds and dense trees! With the boat slowly filling up with water and not wanting to turn right at all the encounters with the riverbanks became very frequent, one in particular we hit at quite a speed and disappeared a good few feet into the reeds which didn’t please the wildlife living within! After somehow getting out of the latest in a long line of accidents we continued the row back toward dry land. Of course had the two of us been able to stop laughing it might of aided our efforts to make dry land, a few more crashes and we had the end in sight although this wasn’t going to be as easy as it looked as it was on the right-hand side of the river! Things didn’t really go to plan as we went past where we were aiming for so did a sharp left, you’ve guessed it, right into some more riverside foliage! Somehow we made it back to the right side of the river much to the amusement of the other 4 who had been back for ages! Dry land at last but not without one last incident — Susanne, in her break for land, took a little tumble out of the boat which just about finished me off as I was laughing so hard!

With an uncontrollable bout of giggles we all piled back in the bus and headed off to our next port of call, the town of Knysna for an afternoon break. Kynsna is a lovely little town on the side of a lagoon with views to die for. It had become a little chilly so we all decided a warm drink was in order and took to a local coffee bar for a rest, Myself and Susanne had almost stopped laughing by now! Suitably refreshed we got back in the bus for the drive up to Knysna Heads which offers views back down over the town and across the lagoon to Leisure Island. After this is was onto out backpacker for the evening in a place called Wilderness. Had some time to kill before dinner so we all wandered off down to the beach where a pod of Dolphins were playing just out to sea. Dinner this evening was a Braai, that’s a Barbie to you and I, and it was pretty awesome, meat everywhere you looked! Washed that down with a few beers which only set me off laughing again as we recalled the day’s events!

Thursday was an even earlier start with a half 6 breakfast, I recall having a slight headache which I’m sure had nothing to do with sitting in the bar till god knows when! In the bus for 7 and off for another longish drive east for our first stop of the day, the Bloukrans Bridge bungee jumping! Fear not readers, there was no way I was throwing myself off the bridge! I did however have a wonder out to the edge with Marc & Susanne, Mark was going over and Susanne was thinking about it. The others stayed put at the top and watched on the big screens that show all the jumps. It was quite cool out on the bridge, they have a DJ spinning some tunes and it’s more like a night club than anything else. Marc got himself kitted up and before you knew it he had gone over the side with a blood curdling scream – I was like ‘Holy Shit’, watching somebody fly off a bridge makes you stand still and think I can tell you! The whole thing took about 2 minutes and before we knew it Marc was back. In those two minutes I had been trying to talk Susanne in to jumping and she decided to go for it – I felt a bit bad about that as I was like ‘yeah, do it, jump’ whilst having no intentions of doing it myself. Anyway, over the side she went in deadly silence! Both of them said it was a fantastic experience and were glad they did it. Back at the top they both bought videos and photos of the jump, something you have to do, after all, it is the highest bungee jump in the world!

After a quick drink it was off once again, I should mention that the Bloukrans Bridge marks the border between the Eastern and Western Capes and it was further into the Eastern Cape we went to Tsitsikamma and the National Park there for the afternoons activities. On the drive into the Park we encountered a number of Bush Bucks, the best way of describing them is Bambi! Rather sweet looking little Dears. In the Park we all decided to go on a bit of a hike down towards the Suspension Bridges which cross the mouth of the Storms River, Sadly the biggest one was closed for repairs but we got the other 2 in before a well-earned lunch.

The afternoon was another lengthy drive towards our digs for the evening with a brief stop in Uitenhage for some drinks for the evening and some provisions for the morning. Our accommodation was quite superb tonight being located on a Citrus Farm just outside Addo, it really was in the middle of nowhere but was just an idyllic place to stay. In the time before dinner most of us went off to explore the vast grounds. Dinner was in the main house and cooked by the owner and his family, we were treated to Bobotye served with rice and fresh vegetables – This was simply superb, up there with the tastiest meals ever! This was to be my last night with the guys so a few drinks were in order, Stephanie spoilt us all with some wonderful red wine to go with dinner and then a couple more beers before a few of us had a little camp fire to sit around and chat away the evening under the moonlight before crashing out

Friday was the earliest start ever, the alarm went off at 3.30am and we all packed up and ready to go by 4 – the reason for such an early start was that we had a dawn game tour at the Addo Elephant Park to be on and this was leaving at 5.30. We were there in good time and took our places on the open sided truck that was going to take us round. The tour round started quite tame with not much seen and I think the game driver was getting a bit desperate to show us all stuff as we stopped to see a Hare and a Spider! As sun rose we found ourselves a few Buffalo and a Warthog or two so things were on the up and it really got going as we parked up near a watering hole when just as we were about to drive off a ruddy great Lion appeared. He had himself a little drink before taking a stroll right past out truck this was a truly amazing sight to see, as he walked past he had that ‘I’m the King here’ aurora to him. This alone had been worth getting up at half 3 for.

It didn’t stop there, as we carried on to another watering hole a huge herd of Elephants arrived and they were soon joined by another large herd, there must have been around 50-60 here now, a truly amazing sight. The Elephants were soon joined by a couple of Hyenas and a few brave Warthogs who gave the Hyenas as good as they got! After this truly amazing couple of hours we were back at the main entrance and had some breakfast – We all agreed that this had been simply fantastic, I never let on at the time but I had a tear in my eye I was that happy, it was just so cool, seeing these wonderful animals in the natural surroundings had been something I had dreamed of for years. Anyway, the wildlife spotting was far from over and after breakfast we got back in our bus and went for another drive around the park in the safe hands of ‘Ranger Steph’! One thing we hadn’t seen earlier was Zebras and we duly found plenty down by another watering hole before getting up close to a few as we drove around, I’d never seen a Zebra before so that was another cool moment. We then went back to where we had seen the Elephants earlier on to find loads of them still there – it really is fascinating to watch them, I doubt you could ever tire of doing so.

Time was pressing on and my time with the guys had all but come to end as we drove to my drop off point on the Northern outskirts of Port Elizabeth at around lunchtime, I was the only one leaving here, the rest were all doing the full 6 days return to Cape Town and had a day’s skydiving ahead of them on Saturday! I had thoroughly enjoyed the last 5 days, we had seen and done some pretty amazing stuff but it was the people on the bus which made it unforgettable, you guys were just the coolest people and it was a pleasure to meet you all and were all still in touch which is fab! Steph you were the best guide I could ever have wished for and I really must recommend everybody books their Garden Route tour when she’s driving, you’ll have the best time!

Anyway, after lots of hugs and goodbyes the next part of my South African adventure began……..

I’ll continue from there next time!

Pics to follow

Cheers

Steve

Hi!

Yes, I know it’s been almost a month since I wrote something but it’s been a busy month and I just haven’t had much time to sit and write but I shall be aiming to finish off the tales of my travels this weekend.

Anyways, here’s a few pages on Cape Town….

I left Hong Kong late in the evening of February 25th for the longest flight of my trip, a nice 13 and a half hour slog to Johannesburg, Can’t say I had been looking forward to this flight but it wasn’t too bad to be fair. I flew with South African Airways and was most pleased to find I didn’t have anybody sat next me so had 2 seats to spread out. Not much to write home about on their inflight movies, nowt new but a few old classic including my favourite, The Shawshank Redemption. I’ve seen it a million times but it’s always good so that passed 3 hours away and with a few episodes of Person of Interest I had seen off half the flight. Managed a few hours’ kip to boot as well which was handy.

Arrival in Johannesburg coincided with a coughing fit so a full Ebola body scan ensued – nothing really, they just take a temperature scan and off you go. Collected my luggage and immediately dropped it off again for my connecting flight. I had 4 hours to kill here so went and got some brekkie and chilled out for a while.

Going through security again I was amused by the 3 lanes you could choose from, International Security, Domestic Security and Weapons Security – I was defiantly in South Africa! With my 4 Uzis, 2 Grenade Launchers and Pistol safely through I went to board my flight, another 2 hours in the sky for Cape Town. Boarding here is a little different, no planes are anywhere near the terminal so it’s a long bus ride to your plane – my plane was the same one that had brought me from Hong Kong and I had exactly the same seat! Looking around at my fellow passengers they were all fresh, bright eyed and bushy tailed, I on the other hand looked extremely rough with my creased clothes, unshaven face and black eyes! Nodded off before we had even started to taxi and woke up just in time for landing, if only I could have done that on the previous flight!

Anyway, with bags collected it was off to find a bus into the city, duly found one and enjoyed the 30 minute ride passing some very well to do places and some quite large townships which are at the total opposite end of the scale. Had to make a change of bus before reaching the hotel – I was fit to drop by this time having being travelling for pretty much 24 hours. I had a rest for a while before heading out for a quick nose around – I was staying on Greenmarket Square which is right in the thick of things and close to Adderley Street which is one of the main streets so headed for here, it wasn’t long before I encountered my first hassler, normally you can just tell them to bugger off but these boys are in a different league and they take a while to shrug off following you for ages! Popped into a few shops to get a bite to eat and a drink and noticed that they were all in darkness but still filled with shoppers, must be some sort of power cut I thought and got on with it. It takes an age to get served here, nobody is in a hurry and you soon have to adapt to ‘Africa Time’ otherwise you’ll go insane waiting! Turns out the power cuts are deliberate and are called ‘Load Sharing’ – They can’t make enough enregy to satisfy the countrys needs so the power goes off for 2 hours a day to conserve it.

I was out for about an hour before the tiredness really kicked in so I headed back for an early night crashing out around 8ish.

I didn’t wake up until just after 9 the following morning, can’t recall ever having 13 hours unbroken sleep ever before, I must have been tired! Feeling refreshed after my marathon sleep I headed off out deciding to head towards the V&A Waterfront which was about a 20 minute walk away – I was soon accosted by the same chap I had encountered yesterday on Adderley Street, I’ll give him 10 out of 10 for persistence as he followed me for a good ten minutes begging me to buy him some bread and a new pair of shoes (I kid you not) before attempting to sell me some clearly nicked electronics, I wasn’t going to give him piss all so he gave up on begging and started on the insults – bad move for him as that’s where I flourish! After trading a few verbal blows I accepted that I was a ‘Selfish British Imperialist Bastard’ and carried on my way!

The V&A Waterfront is clearly where they want all the tourists to go, there’s no way in unless you go through a security check point so at least you can walk about without being bothered. It’s all rather pleasant down here and is still undergoing its transformation from redundant dockyard to trendy part of town, I say redundant dockyard but there is still a bit of it that is alive and well  and they are rather proud of that.

I was rather peckish by now so popped into some food market to see what was on offer, I opted for a grilled tuna steak and salad which was cooked before me – it was bloody superb and only cost just under £4 – Things are cheap here and this was good as my budget was nearing empty! After my early lunch I continued to explore the waterfront area before stumbling across the ever trusty tour bus! After consulting the leaflet and seeing it was just ZAR270 for 2 days and they had 5 routes I handed over the reddies, amazing value as this worked out at about £16.

I set off on the Blue Tour which is a 2hr20m round trip if you decide to stay on – on the way out of the City you pass along Long Street which is where most of the nightlife is before going past the rather posh Mount Nelson Hotel and then out into the sticks with views of District Six and Newlands before arriving at Constantia. You can change here onto the Pink route which takes you down into the valleys and visits a number of Wine Farms. This sounded good to me so I got off and changed over. I decided to alight at Groot Constantia which was the largest on this route and have a look round. It was all free entry and you can go where  you please and have a few samples, well, it would be rude not to right?!

I left there after an hour or so and returned to where I could continue the Blue Tour – Having just missed one I noticed that there was a pub right behind me so with the hot African sun beating down on me I decided this would be an ideal place to take refuge and enjoy a refreshing beverage! The Cricket was on inside and The Proteas were giving the Windies a good beating so I watched that for a while. The people here were extremely friendly and before you could you could finish one pint another was on its way! 2 hours later I managed to finally board a bus!

The rest of this particular tour was simply great passing through some lovely countryside and the ‘World of Birds’ (the feathered variety!) before stopping at Imizamo Yethu which is a reasonably sized hillside Township where you can get off and have a tour round with a local guide. I stayed on and we continued to Hout Bay which is a lovely little seaside town. Ever onwards and the bus continued around the seafront passing Llandudno, Camps Bay and Clifton – these were all beautiful sea front towns with the most amazing white sandy beaches – Mental notes were made as I hadn’t had a beach day for a few weeks now! I carried on via Bantry Bay and Green Point where you get a look at the Cape Town Stadium built for the 2012 World Cup before eventually arriving back at the V&A Waterfront for around 5ish. I would have liked to have got off at one or two places along the way but wanted to get back and take the Sunset Tour which left at 6pm plus I was dying for the loo!!

Popped into the shopping centre quickly as I was in dire need of a plug adaptor for SA, picked up one yesterday but it was totally useless, managed to find one and got back with just enough time to board. The Sunset Tour goes back along the coast past Green Point before turning inland and winding its way up to the top of Signal Hill from where you have a quite stunning view of the sunset. It’s very popular up here at this time of day, the place was packed out not only with tourists but locals too. After watching the sun go down it was back on the bus and back to the V&A Waterfront arriving back there around 8.30. I was quite peckish by this time so had a meal in one of the many places to eat here before taking a taxi back to the hotel – this taxi was a rollercoaster ride I can tell you, foot to the floor all the way and taking little to no notice of any robots!

After another reasonable nights sleep Saturday saw me make the most of my tour bus ticket – After breakfast I walked around the corner to Long Street and picked up the Yellow Tour which takes you on an hours spin round the inner city passing by Museums, District Six and The Castle of Good Hope. There’s not a great deal to see in District Six, it’s still mainly derelict land where homes were knocked down to divide the races during the Apartheid years, it’s left like that now as a reminder of those years.

I didn’t get off anywhere as I wanted to get a start on the Red Tour which would enable me to tick off one of the aims of my trip, going to the top of Table Mountain. The bus heads straight to the Cable Car Station from the City and I was quite pleased to see nobody waiting to go up so I was straight in and on my way within minutes. The Cable Car upto the summit is pretty cool in itself as it’s open sided and rotates as you go up giving you some spectacular views back down across the City and Table Bay.

At the top you are free to wonder round and go where you like, there’s numerous walking routes to take you back down if you fancy a long stroll however I was quite content with just admiring the scenery which was simply breath taking and there’s plenty of Dussies and Lizzards to keep you company! From the City you are constantly drawn to looking up at Table Mountain as the clouds appear to pour over the side like an overflowing saucepan and my attention was drawn to some smoke flowing over the side and down the mountain side, I was beginning to think that the whole cloud effect was just a fake when some Park Ranger like chap came over and advised us not to go any nearer as it was in fact a rather large bush fire heading towards us! This sent a large number of people hurrying back to the cable car but the guy explained that there was no need to worry and within a minute or two a number of helicopters arrived dousing the fire with water and this went on for a good hour or so. Watching the news later on it was apparent that the other side of the mountain was well ablaze.

I must have spent a good 4 hours up here as it was getting on for 3 by the time I got the Cable Car back down again, the time I spent up here just taking it all in was probably one of the highlights of my entire trip so far. Back at the bottom and back on the bus to complete the full tour, the bus continues via Lions Head before re-joining the coast at Camps Bay and back into the City. Rather than look at the stunning coastline again I turned my attention inland this time to admire the Twelve Apostils which is the mountain formation on this side of the bay, pretty spectacular on a clear day like today.

Back i the City I had a few jars with my dinner before hitting the sack – this tourist malarkey really takes it out of you!

Sunday now and after a leisurely start I headed off to pick up a bus to Camps Bay for a day on the beach. The bus stop was on Adderley Street but given the hassle you get along there I went the back way! Arrived at Camps Bay for around 11ish to find the beach pretty much deserted and I soon found out why, with it being a bit windy today the light sand blows up a bit and believe me it stings when it hits you in the face! Plonked myself on the edge of the beach instead out of the wind and enjoyed a relaxing few hours soaking up some sun however it wasn’t hassle free as numerous people try and flog you all manner of things you simply don’t need, I was offered paintings, sun glasses, a wooden table and sex during the day! The guy with the table was most amusing though as he also had a whole holdall full of small wooden animals which he tried to flog me, not taking no for an answer he soon began to set them up around me, before I knew it there were about 30 of the things surrounding me ranging from Hippos to Giraffes, all quite impressive but still no sales!!

With the afternoon ticking by I packed up me towel and headed back into the City as I wanted to watch the Cup Final, Spurs were taking on Chelsea in a game I simply had to see – after finding the only place to have it on was the local Shisha Bar I had to convince the bloke there to switch the TV over which was only achieved after promising to eat there! Anyway, I needn’t of bothered as Spurs didn’t turn up and lost 2-0! This was my last day in Cape Town for just over a week as I was off to pastures new in the morning and I’ll pick up there in my next post which I promise won’t be in a months’ time!

I’ll leave you with a picture of me at the top of Table Mountain, Cheers for now

Steve

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for the long gap in a new post – I did actually write this two weeks ago but have literally been busy every minute of every day since I’ve been in South Africa.

Last day here today and last day of my whole trip, a bit sad but all good things come to an end don’t they. Had a truly awesome 2 weeks here and I can’t wait to type it all up for you!

Anyways, a bit about Hong Kong for you all……..

An early start from Osaka saw me on the bus to the airport at a quarter to seven on Thursday 26th February getting there just after 8 for my 10.00 flight to Hong Kong. Flew with Cathay Pacific today for the first time and I was quite impressed, the seats were rather comfortable with plenty of room and the on board service was pretty good to although I rate any airline who bring you a beer without being asked! Felt a bit wrong cracking open the first beer just after 10 but what the hell, I’m on holiday after all! The flight was made all the better with their only being 51 people on board so there was plenty of space to on this Boeing 777.

Arrived in Hong Kong 30 minutes late after a fair bit of circling around at 2pm, Our Pilot explained that as it was Chinese New Year they weren’t to bothered to land planes in a hurry. – Hong Kong was to be the only destination on my travels that I had been to before and I certainly don’t remember the airport being so bloody big, there were an endless number of corridors before reaching immigration and then quite a few more before baggage reclaim and then one last one before the arrival hall. I was most impressed with the immigration chap who took one look at my passport before literally throwing it back at me – Happy New Year to you too pal!

First thing I needed to do, as is the case everywhere, was to get some local currency, took HK$1000 out and was chuffed to get a $1000 note – very useful, buying anything now would be like buying a can of coke with a £50 note!

Headed off into the city on the train, located the hotel and checked in – The check in process here was all rather strange, a note on the front desk invited guests to go to the bar lounge and check in there, this took about half an hour! Anyway, I can’t really fault the place as everything was free including the mini bar – you can’t knock free beer!

Popped out for a walk about and made my way down to The Star Ferry, this is a rickety old ferry that crosses the harbour from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon and is one of the ‘must do’ things for any visit to Hong Kong. I had hoped to get a few shots of the skyline similar to what I had done on my previous visit but found most of the place coned off on the other side and the reason for this was soon revealed – There was a New Year’s parade consisting of lots of Chinese Dragons among numerous other floats, dance troops and entertainers. All pretty good to watch and it went on for a couple of hours so it was cracking on for midnight by the time I got back to the hotel after a fairly long old day.

Friday started with me making a total pratt of myself in the breakfast room, arrived just after 10 (or so I thought)  as was a bit miffed after being told I was too late, thrusting my voucher towards the waitress I pointed out that it said 10.30 close, she then said something about 11 only at weekends so I pointed at the calendar on the wall and highlighted the fact it was only Friday, She then pointed towards the clock and pointed out it was 11.10 – Looking at my phone I argued it was only 10.10 but after a second clock was pointed out I conceded defeat that I had got this terribly wrong – the moral of the story here is to never trust the bloody auto time zone bollocks on your phone! Suitably humiliated I felt like a bully as the waitress offered me a croissant and a bagel she had sourced from somewhere. I apologised to her so many times it was untrue but I got the feeling that she would hate me forever more now!

With it now nearing midday and not 11 it tuned out I had managed a quite impressive lay in and was a little late heading out for the day!

My main reason for visiting Hong Kong was purely in relation to my interest in transport – there’s plenty of it here to keep even the mildest of hairies busy so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to how busy I would be over the next 6 days! Don’t worry though, I’m not going to bore the underwear off of you with a blow by blow account of various buses and trams, I’ll keep it to the non-anorak matters here – fellow cranks can see all the hairy stuff on other forums!

Didn’t get to far on my wanderings on Friday spending the day largely around the Central area before having another trip on the Star Ferry and a trip along Nathan Road to Mong Kok – Nathan Road is Hong Kongs answer to Oxford Street although it’s about 10 times longer! It’s full of shops from one end to other and after dark it’s a sea of neon signs. I hadn’t planned on staying to late but found the place being cordoned off once again as I approached the ferry area and soon realised that there was a fireworks display taking place, as there often is on a Friday night. Couldn’t get anywhere near the harbourside and the new viewing platform they have built along a lengthy section of the front was closed off! Eventually found a spot and waited out the next  90 minutes before the display  only to find that it could hardly been seen from here leading to a bit of a stampede to somewhere you could – I was a bit miffed that the authorities had penned us all in to this area fully aware that we wouldn’t be able to see bugger all. From what I could see, as I walked back to the ferry, it looked like a spectacular display and it went on for nearly half an hour. I was further disappointed to find the Ferry had been suspended until 9.30pm so had an hour to wait before I could get back across, there is a metro station a few blocks away but this was closed as well so I just had to wait it out.

Saturday saw another few hours around the Central area before heading off by train to Tung Chung on Launtau Island which is where you can find Disneyland and the cable car up to Ngong Ping, I’m a bit old now for Disneyland and I had already been up to Ngong Ping the last time I was here so didn’t entertain either of those. The area has been heavily developed since I was last here, I recall it being a very quiet place but a huge shopping centre and entertainment complex has drawn in the hoards. Had a nice Japanese meal here before taking a lengthy bus ride back to the hotel.

Sunday now and I had planned to meet up with my friend Sam who lives over here – Sharing the same hobby we met up after chasing around some bus or other, failing miserably in my case, in some random residential estate. I was duly taken on a very comprehensive tour of most of Hong Kong after this visiting parts of the New Territories I never knew existed! We duly ended up back at Central and retired for a bite to eat, Japanese again (I’m getting into their cuisine now I’m not there!!) and a few beers jawing away well into the evening. Good to catch up with you on your home patch Sam and I look forward to catching up again in the summer when you’re in London.

Chasing around once again on Monday morning saw me unexpectedly in the Sha Tin area until mid afternoon before heading back to Mong Kok again in search of a rather cheap camera shop I had been to many years ago, another friend of mine had given me fool proof directions (Thanks Yoram) and I was soon at the shop only to find it closing for the day! Shops don’t close until very late in Hong Kong and the shop opening hours suggested 10.30pm on the door but the chap on the door said ‘New Year Dinner’ before pulling down the shutters! Popped off the train at Admiralty on the way back for a quick peak around before taking a short bus ride back to the hotel.

Tuesday saw me clock up some miles, I headed off deep into the New Territories  visiting the Yeun Long, Tin Shui Wai, Tuen Men and Tin Shui Wai again before a bus ride over to Sheung Shui. After daylight had disappeared I decided upon a crack at that camera shop again – success this time and a few rather cheap memory cards and other bits and bobs duly purchased – the former was desperately needed as I had used up all the memory I had taken with me having taken far too many pictures! I didn’t want to clear any cards despite having already copied everything on to my laptop until I return home and can copy them on to my PC and hardrive just to make sure everything is backed up several times!!

Last day was Wednesday and it was set to be a very long day as my flight wasn’t until 23:50 that evening. Headed off to Discovery Bay mid-morning, I hadn’t been here before and made the trip by Ferry which takes around 20 minutes. It’s actually rather nice over here and what was more noticeable than anything else was the fresh air – most of Hong Kong is so heavily built up that the air isn’t particularly clean to breathe in and you often find if you wipe your nose it’s black. It’s the holiday resort part of Hong Kong really and there’s a couple of beaches and numerous Hotels and resorts mixed in with some expensive looking apartments. II spent a pleasant few hours here before taking the Ferry back to Central.

My visit to Admiralty the other evening warranted a further visit and I spent the rest of the daylight hours here before returning to the hotel for a  freshen up and rest before heading off to the airport for the longest flight of my trip, a 13h30m slog to Johannesburg.

In my best Dixon of Dock Green accent….. Evening All!

My last full day in Hong Kong, well, I say that but my flight isn’t until 23:50 tomorrow evening, lets say last sleep in Hong Kong!

A run down of my time in Hiroshima & Osaka during my time in Japan…… Left Tokyo on Valentines Day morning by one of the country famous high speed trains. I forked out for the fastest of them all, the ‘Nozomi’ and this travels at speeds of up to 200mph getting me to Hiroshima in exactly 4 hours. I was most impressed with the railways here, an exceptionally efficient operation. The train arrived just 10 minutes before it was due out again and was immediately swarmed by a huge number of cleaners who swept through the train like a well drilled colony of ants and we were all able to board within 5 minutes and departed bang on 11:00. Inside the carriage has more of a plane feel to it with airline style seating and small windows. The ticket inspector and the lady with the refreshments, who were all dressed immaculately, all stop and bow when they enter and leave the carriage which I guesss is some sort of custom.

The journey itself was fairly plain in terms of what you can see other than passing right past Mount Fuji after leaving Yokohama of course! After getting off the train I opted for a cab to the hotel rather than trying to fathom out the Japanese map, gave the driver my reservation which had some Japanese writing on and hoped that was the address, a bit of pointing and nodding then went on before we set off for the short 10 minute drive. I was glad I took a cab as the hotel was tucked away down some little alleyway that I would never have found in a million years! Thankfully it wasn’t to far off the main drag so I was soon back out for a amble about to see what was around. Picked up an English language map and some details of the main attractions I wanted to see which I had a read through over dinner which was KFC – not quite the same as back home, firstly they don’t do fries here!

Back in the hotel there was no English speaking TV channels so forked out for the ‘movies on demand’ which I hoped would be in a more familiar tongue, thankfully they were  – watched Last Vegas which was quite amusing before crashing out ready for an early start in the morning.

Started off on Sunday by walking down the main drag back towards the station, plenty of shops and the like with lots of notices telling you what was there before August 1945 and giving you the history of what went before at this location. My reason for heading towars the station was to pick up the tourist bus service which gave you a full days ‘hop on, hop off’ service for just £3 – can’t argue with that can you? My first port of the call was the ‘Atomic Bob Dome’, this is a building just over 100 meters away from the hypercentre of the nuke the yanks dropped on them back on August 6th 1945 but miraculously wasn’t obliterated like 99% of the City – it was badly damaged but the main structure survives to this day in the same state it was after the explosion. It’s set on the edge of the Peace Park which is home to numerous memorials and the like to those 200,000 who were killed by the bomb. Sadly it was covered in scaffolding as it undergoes a three yearly inspection to make sure it isn’t about to collapse and the like, all understandable but I couldn’t help thinking that if it survived a nuclear bomb blast I would imagine it was safe from most things!

Had a wonder round the vicinity and it’s all rather interesting, there is some Buddha like statue that has some shadows on it and you can feel the difference on it’s surface from the bits that were exposed to the intense heat and those area that were protected by whatever, or whoever, was in front of it at them time. You can also visit the hypercentre, the exact location on the ground where the bomb exploded above (it detonated a few hundred meters up) Jut a small plaque marks this spot inn among the commercial and residential property that now occupies the land here – it looked a little familiar and indeed it was being just a few yards away from my hotel!

Back on the bus I went all the way round to the castle – this was a rather beautiful building to just stand outside and admire but you can indeed go in and look about for a few Yen so I did – naturally this isn’t the original Castle but a replica. Plenty of interesting artifacts inside including a whole floor dedicated to toilets!! You needed a good aim back then is all I’ll say! You can go right to the top and up onto the roof for views across the city and beyond. I spent a couple of hours here and went for one final spin round on the tour bus before retiring for the evening.

I was leaving for Osaka on Monday but with no particular train to be on I had as long as I wanted to finish off anything I wanted to do in Hiroshima first. Readers may have twigged by now that I do like an old tram and Hiroshima has a fine collection of the running around including a few pre war examples that also survived being incinerated 70 years ago and I particularly wanted to catch up with at least one of these. It took a while but after a couple of rides around the suburbs and coming across a depot I eventually found one although it wasn’t possible to have a good look at it, the chaps in the depot were most helpful and directed me to the city’s other depot where the others were much more accessible. Was made most welcome when I got here and despite being in for maintenance I was given a full tour round the premises  and able to have a good look at what I wanted to see. Anyway, that’s enough Anorak stuff! With old trams suitably seen I headed off back to the hotel, picked up my bags and headed for Osaka via Nozomi train once more.

The trip here was about 80 minutes and I once again took a taxi to the hotel, it was actually quite a drive from the high speed station, I hadn’t realised there were two different stations when I booked my hotel right next to other Osaka Station! It was gone 7 by the time I had arrived here so I opted for an early night and chilled out with the radio on – not even an English movie channel here!!

Headed out on Tuesday morning to see what was what, Osaka seemed a very busy place as I guess it would be being the second city of Japan. Plenty off alleyways full of odd shops and places to eat, got lost down one such lane and ended up wondering round some market or other – I found it all rather interesting just to wonder about and soak it all in, it really is a totally different place to anything else I had experienced and that goes for Japan as a whole not just Osaka. Found my way back to where I had started in a roundabout way and picked up a map to see what else was about – the map was the size of a small island nation so was rather cumbersome to open up and look at in public so as I was just a few minutes walk from my hotel I popped back in and opened it up on the bed which it covered quite easily! Anyway, looked like some interest further south so I headed out again towards a small island that sits in the main river flowing through the city and is home to a number of grand looking buildings including the old City Hall which had a rather European look to it and I’m pretty sure it was designed by an Italian architect in the early 1900s but I have packed away the details so can’t be 100%.

Wednesday was my last day here as I had an early-ish flight tomorrow morning – Decided to head for the Castle area  which looked to be a place worth visiting. Headed off on foot and retraced my steps of yesterday afternoon passing that small island and heading along the riverside until reaching the castle – took about an hour to walk there in the end, didn’t look like an hours walk on the map! The castle is again another replica of an original and it’s set in some rather lush grounds and still has its moat in tact. Around the front by the main entrance it had been adorned by a rather modern lift shaft up one side which rather spoils it’s appearance or perhaps the ancient Japanese were well ahead of their time in terms of upward elevation!

Wondered back into the City and came across an Australian themed Stakehouse which concluded where I’d be dining this evening! Got a seat at the bar next to some Japanese business man who was rather shocked by pint of beer I had ordered mentioning he wouldn’t be able to drink all of that, he was even more taken back when I ordered a second! My Steak & Chips also dwarfed his 3 bits of raw fish and rice which wasn’t very Australian I thought! We got chatting about or respective eating habits and he just couldn’t get his head around this was a fairly normal dish for your average Englishman. He later went on to tell me he did a fair bit of business in Chicago and visits there frequently, I suggested he might want to visit a Diner and check out the portion sizes there!!

Had to be on the bus to the airport at 06:45 do declined a further beer and headed back for the evening, set the alarm and conked out for the night.

I’ll add some pictures to the last couple of posts next time round, I have added pictures to most of the earlier posts now as eagle eyed readers may have noticed!

Blimey – 01:30 here now so time for some shut eye – more soon!

Steve

Hello again!

After almost 6 weeks in Australia it was time to move on, had gotten to rather like it here and more so in New Zealand, still time for something new so I left behind the hot weather, dusted off my jumper and coat and headed of for a dose of Winter in Japan on Sunday 8th February.

My flight was with Jetstar, I had flown with them 3 times previously on this trip and wasn’t dreading it but they do seem to have no consistency whatsoever in their policies, got done for some excess baggage on my first flight with them, flew with more but no extra charges on the 2nd and 3rd flights and this one seemed to be operating some form of apartheid with regards to its refreshments – for a 7 hour flight I was expecting the usual midair chicken curry and a drop of juice but no, having booked as part of a round the world trip ticket I got bugger all! Passengers booking wholly with Jetstar got a fizzy drink and some savory tosh whilst those booking through Air New Zealand (it was a code share jobby) got the works including some free booze. The trolley came round mid-flight offering some crisps but I was dammed if I was going to give them another cent!

Anyway, I arrived suitably peckish into Narita Airport at about 18.30 local time, bloody massive airport so took a while to get through all the usual immigration channels and to fill out all the ‘have you got Ebola’ forms. Got down to the train station and purchased my ticket for the express to Shinjuku where I was staying – It’s an all reserved service so I couldn’t get a ticket for the next 2 trains so it was after 8 before I got going. Narita Airport is miles away from Tokyo so it was an almost 90 minute trip to my destination, came out of the station there looking for a map, duly found one but in Japanese so that was of no use, asked the station guy for some directions, he didn’t know what I was on about so went for a walk in the direction I thought the hotel was – was doing quite well and ended up in the red light district and there was quite a bit more than some directions but got the latter from a friendly pimp and checked in around 10pm – Still a bit peckish but decided against trying to decipher the menu of the local take away, crashed out instead!

Started off on Monday with the novelty of a free hotel breakfast, hadn’t had one of those on my travels for a while! Had a look at the local breakfast which all seemed like anything but breakfast, Curry for brekkie? Mmm, me thinks not – headed for the Western Breakfast items instead, good old corn flakes and toast!

Set off out after a few rounds of toast and spent the day exploring the Shinjuku part of Tokyo, exceptionally busy here, millions of people everywhere – Found a map that was in some form of English so had a wonder down to the local park which was meant to have some form of temple within, got there only to find that it’s closed on Mondays! Headed back towards the station just so I knew where it was and had a wonder into some electronic store that had caught my eye just to see what the prices were like on boys toys and the like, came out of there and wondered where the hell I was, the place is like a maze and I had obviously come out somewhere totally different to where I had walked in, spent the next hour trying to get out! The place was myriad of little shops and all the shopping centres are seemingly linked together by underpasses and the like – eventually came out in the station which was even worse still, I later found out that Shinjuku Station is the busiest in the world with over 6.5 million people passing through every day – it’s certainly not for amateurs! Eventually got out and got my bearings back.

Whilst getting lost it was apparent that nothing is in English except the station signs, hadn’t come across anybody who spoke English either and ordering a coffee in Starbucks was more of an ordeal than I was expecting! Found some tour bus offering an trip of 60 minutes around town, gave this a whirl but it didn’t seem to pass anything to interesting and the reordered English commentary spent most of the trip going through all the health and safety nonsense! After being dropped off I continued walking around.

Had been wondering about for most of the day and as darkness fell I headed back to the hotel (not via the red light district!) and into the save haven, or so I thought, of the ‘English Pub’ a few doors down from the hotel – It looked English on the inside but that was as close as it got to be honest although they did have fish and chips on the menu, well, that’s what the picture looked like so ordered that and it wasn’t bad to be honest, no knives and forks so fingers it was!

On Tuesday I started off by heading round to the station to exchange my rail pass I had bought before leaving home, took an age to find the office and when I did I was most disappointed to be told it was no good – It has to be exchanged within 3 months of the date it was sold to you which was in September so expired before Crimbo, You would have thought STA Travel might have known I wasn’t going to be in Japan until mid-February as they arranged all my flights and would have postdated it wouldn’t you? I’ll be looking for a refund of my near two hundred sobs that’s for sure. Anyway, I then pre booked my trip to Hiroshima on Saturday thus saving a few Yen on the turn up and go fare.

After all that I headed for the train to Tokyo itself, bloody awkward ticketing system as you can only buy a ticket for a particular value, having no idea what the bloody fare was I went to find out and was directed to a map which had the fares upon it – with the fare now known I went back to the machine an purchased my ticket – why not just select your station like everywhere else in the world!! The journey only took 15 minutes which was half the time the ‘Express’ did the other night! Tokyo Station is another ruddy great maze with about 100 exits, picked one which turned out to be the one furthest from anywhere of interest! Walked back round the station and headed down toward the Imperial Palace. You can quite happily walk right around the edge but can’t see much of it as there are ruddy great trees all around it.

Had noted the obligatory open top bus tour so had a look to see what this was all about, there were about 4 tours all of which needed a separate ticket which could only be used the once – talk about mugging you off! Took a tour round at 3pm and found the English recording a little more useful than the one I had yesterday but it didn’t really go anywhere interesting again, the first part of it was 10 minutes on the ‘Expressway’ which is basically an elevated motorway – the commentary waffled on about how fantastic this was – WTF?!! We did however go past the Temple at Asakusa which did look pretty cool so made some hurried notes of its location with a view of coming back another day.

Back at Tokyo Station after the tour round I was bloody freezing so headed back for Shinjuku for something hot to eat – tried finding somewhere with an English menu but I think I would have more chance of finding MH370. My savior came when I walked past some odd looking van and some chap blurted out ’Hello Mate’ – I looked round and discovered this was a kebab van run by some Turkish chap, I was saved! Got chatting to him whilst he prepared my dinner, he has been here 3 years after leaving Istanbul. I asked how he was getting on speaking Japanese to which he replied he wasn’t!! This van seemed to be a gathering place for English speakers and we were soon joined by the Pimp who had given me directions the other night! his name was Chris and he had come from Johanesburg. So there we have it, my two new best mates were a Turkish Kebaby and a South African Pimp!

Wednesday and I thought I’d go for a bit of a ride around by train taking in a couple of items of transport interest on the way round. Started off in the ticket office again and enquired whether there was an all day ticket – had a calculator with 750 on the screen presented to me so assumed the answer was yes and that was the price! Handed over the cash and was told it was good for JR trains, JR being Japan Railways so all was good and off I went for my first stop of the day at Shin Kiba, went to go through the barrier and the big red light came on, tried again but no joy so went over to the chap who produced a calculator with 350 on it (The calculator in the face was to become a prominent part of this visit!) handed over some more cash and was then told it was only valid in a particular part of Tokyo and showed me a map – turns out the area it covered was about as big as a postage stamp so was rather useless to me! What was also becoming apparent is that folk are quite happy to talk English when they want more money!

Nowt here to visit really unless smelly industrial estates are your thing but there were 3 Routemaster buses down the road so after having a look at those it was back on the train a few stops to have a ride on the Tokyo Monorail, did a quick spin down to Hameda Airport and back before heading back to Asakusa for a look round at that Temple I saw yesterday. A very interesting place and looked typically Japanese in its appearance – on the approach to it is a large market area selling all manner of Japanese type stuff, this seemed a good place to do a bit of souvenir shopping! The Temple itself was pretty busy and you had to pay to pray so you couldn’t go all the way in without shelling out. Outside there was some chap with a Monkey doing all sorts of tricks including walking on stilts – the poor bugger had a ruddy great chain attached to him through his nose, that seemed a little cruel to me so I declined to chip in when the owner came round with his hat.

The day had flown past and I made my way back to the hotel – bit peeved at having to keep buying new tickets all the time I exposed a fare dodge loop hole and paid the cheapest fare possible in order to get through the barrier knowing my useless all day ticket would get me out at the other end, that made me feel a little better!! Ha! Last nights Kebab and rice was pretty good so I went back for another helping – not surprisingly it was just me and the pimp keeping him in business again!

Thursday was a bit of a lazy affair as I hadn’t been getting much kip – nothing wrong with the hotel but the bloody noise outside was a problem, Tuesday night I was awoken just after midnight by something that sounded like an air raid siren, looked out the window and saw umpteen fire engines attending something or other over the road – the bloody racket went on till 04:30! Wednesday night was just as bad as there was some flaming loud speaker going off until about 3am, it was the bloody police prattling on about something or other outside – god knows what about though!

Anyway, I digress, left the hotel around lunchtime after a well needed lay in and just had a look at a few transport bits the other side of the city in some place I can’t find on the map now! Just a bloody great shopping centre anyway although it did have a very western ‘Steakhouse’ although I couldn’t be arsed to hang around till 6pm for it to open. Back in Shinjuku I wondered down some alleyway and found a small place with the odd word in English on its Menu – in I went and sampled some Tuna Sashimi. The place was most odd being no bigger than your average hotel room and was full of smartly dressed Businessmen all smoking and drinking away. Before I’d even ordered a beer had landed on my small piece of the bar – can’t complain at that service! The Sashimi was alright but I’ll be sticking to cooked food!

No disturbances on Thursday night so was able to make a reasonably early start on Friday. I had a busy day planned and started off with a few old buses just outside the neighboring city of Yokahama before heading into the city itself – No difference here to your average town centre so after a quick ponder about for an hour or so I headed further to the South West to the town of Ofuna – Quirky little place with lots of very narrow streets making walking along them with the thousands of other people a bit awkward. I then took a ride on the Shonan Monorail down to the seaside town of Enoshima, this was actually quite a cool ride as the train is suspended from rails above the street so you’re effectively hanging above the ground all the way! Quite a nice little place and if you walk down the main street, which I did, you come to a causeway which takes you over onto a small Island, as you go across the causeway you get a cracking view of Mount Fuji. On the Island itself are a number of little shops heading up a short hill to a temple, had a butchers around these before walking back across the causeway.

On the other side was a small station where the tracks appeared to go off into people’s back gardens, took a closer look and this is the Enoshima Electric Railway – all looked very interesting so went for a ride! It’s a small train and it did indeed head off down this very narrow passage with back gardens on either side, after no more than 10 minutes we were at the terminus so I got off, wondered round to the other side of the train and got back on again (you couldn’t stay on) and duly nabbed the front seats where you could see out the front of the train (I know, I’m a big kid!) I opted to go back past where I had got on and went to the other end, this was even better as the train goes along the street for a short while before running along the sea front and eventually winding around a few more back gardens. Seems to serve manly tourists but there were a few locals.

Back at Enoshima I retraced my steps back to Ofuna then took a direct train back to Shinjuku – Not one train I had travelled on during the week did I get a seat so I was most surprised when the carriage I got on was full of vacant seats, it was different to the rest of the train and I sensed something was wrong, anyway, made it 3 stops before the ticket inspector came round and reached for her  little book which had a number of sentences translated into English and showed me a particular page – turns out this was the green car, or first class, so I had to pay up or move – the excess wasn’t that much but I was out of cash so had to do the walk of shame to standard class, as she opened the carriage door to standard class it was packed to the rafters and the rest of the journey was a bit of a letdown compared to the last 3 stops!

That brought to and end my time in Tokyo and it was off to Hiroshima in the morning

Hi,

Just arrived in Osaka this evening after spending a few days in Hiroshima which is a very interesting place indeed, I wish I had a few more days there to be honest but hey ho, onwards we go!

On with my never ending catch up of things I’ve done and places I’ve been and a few lines on a rather lazy week in Cairns.

Arrived here late afternoon on Monday 2nd February after the 2 and a half hour flight up the coast from Brisbane, I thought the heat in Brisbane was bad but that was nothing compared to here – to be expected really as this is the tropical part of Australia. Just got to the hotel in time for it to absolutely chuck it down with rain combined with another impressive thunder storm, rather than head straight out I sat on the balcony of my room watching the lightning until the rain gave way to the more usual baking hot sunshine.

Of course being another 800 miles further north it got dark rather early, around 7ish,  which confused me a little (I know, it doesn’t take much does it) as I had been more accustomed to dusk between 8 and 9. Dusk is actually quite an interesting time of day in Cairns as it’s large ‘Flying Fox’ Bat population comes to life – As I walked towards town the sky was a wash with these rather large creatures and boy do they make a noise! Quite fascinating to watch really. The town itself seemed rather lively for a Monday, plenty of bars and clubs open for business and there was no shortage of places to grab a meal – my eyes lit up when I came across the Bavarian Beer House and my exploring of the strip went no further! Much to my disappointment they didn’t have any Krombacher and this was shared by the German barman who suggested it was an outrage but he did point me in the direction of a nearby off licence which sold desired German beverage if the need arose! Germany has more than just the one beer to offer however so I sampled one or six before heading back for the evening.

Awoke a little late on Tuesday (can’t imagine why?!!) and popped back into town to have a better look around – It’s a rather pleasant place to be honest, a nice waterfront area minus a beach (they dug it up during the war to allow bigger ships into the harbour) more cafes than you could ever possibly need and the usual array of shops and the like. The waterside area also has a large swimming pool and fake beach, or lagoon as the Aussies prefer to call it, which was packed out as you might expect. What was noticeable however was the lack of people elsewhere in town, it was pretty much deserted  – I soon learned that the boats out to the Great Barrier Reef all leave around 7-8am and thus clearing out a large proportion of the tourists leaving it to just the locals.

Continued my walk around further inland and discovered another sort of town within the town if you see what I mean, this is where the locals go for their shopping and the like and I spent the rest of the afternoon musing around here mainly keeping out of the heat!

Wednesday and I decided a day at the beach was in order so after a now all to common late start I headed North up the coast by bus to the small dwelling of Trinity Beach. All very quiet here which made it rather idyllic really, just a cafe and miles of beach. Being Northern Queensland it’s not advisable to go for a dip in the sea as it’s full of Marine Stingers which you don’t really want to get in a scuff with and there are notices a plenty warning you of this, not being a swimmer that didn’t bother me however the warning sign next to it did – this warned of Salt Water Crocodiles which frequent the beaches here, that probably explained the lack of beach goers then! Decided to sit on a bench with my eyes firmly open and soak up the sun rather than lay on the beach, fall asleep and wake up with no legs!!

After an hour at gas mark 6 I was nicely cooked so opted for the bus back to Cairns, just missed the sodding thing so rather than wait in the sweltering heat (Heat is so much more bearable on the beach!) I got he bus going in the wrong direction on the assumption that it would be the next bus back to Cairns, the driver confirmed this and was quite happy for me to stay on for a bit of a tour round the coastal enclaves up to Palm Cove before coming back again – I was rather impressed with the houses we passed, all very swish and I could see why people come to live here, I must admit the Crocs would put me off a bit!

Got chatting to a Lady who once lived in Brighton who moved here many moons ago and a young girl from New York who was also doing a bit of travelling – The ex Brighton Belle was saying that she was becoming increasingly home sick and was contemplating a move back home after 30 odd years down under, she said she missed hustle and bustle of London and the cold winters, I was left scratching my head and told her I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of London, The New Yorker had the same sentiments about The Big Apple!! Much chatting about places around the planet we had all been to or about to go to saw the hours journey back to Cairns fly past. Dropped off me stuff and headed out for dinner –  the evenings entertainment got no further than the German place!

Thursday and I felt rather rough and that was nothing to do with the beers, that pesky cough I’d had for the past couple of weeks was developing in to every mans nemesis – Man Flu! Quite how I managed to develop a poxy cold in the tropics I’ll never know but the dependence on air conditioning to keep cool probably didn’t help and neither do all the folk who cough and splutter all over you without the slightest thought to maybe cover the mouth. Anyway, I digress – Decided to go and check out the boat tours to the Reef with the thought of maybe sampling one before I left, numerous operators and all roughly the same in their offering which comprised of all day on the boat with a couple of hours snorkeling/diving at a couple of reef locations – not being able to swim wouldn’t have been a problem as most of them provided some sort of flotation device for those of us who have yet to achieve our yellow width swimming certificate from school! However you wouldn’t be able to see the better bits as you’d be limited to the surface so I opted against it  –  would be great to see it all properly one day so will just have to learn to swim and come back!

Looking around at these trips gave me a better opportunity to see the rest of the harbour area which had a umber of boats selling extremely fresh sea food, I can never resist some nice prawns so indulged in a few although I had to wait for them to die first they were that fresh! Feeling all to crappy I had an early finish and conked out in the hotel by 5.

Felt even worse on Friday which turned out to be a bit of a non event, popped along to the pharmacy for some Man Flu pills and went back to bed! Thankfully daytime TV is equally as shite in Australia as it is in the UK, in fact, it’s actually the same – I enjoyed such delights as Homes Under The Hammer (Does anybody else fancy Lucy rotten??!), Bargain Hunt and 60 Minute Makeover, 2 hours of the latter and I ready for an overdose! Saturday was just as bad and the weather had taken a turn for the worse with heavy rain and thunder from the moment I woke up to the moment I went asleep again – with a long flight ahead on Sunday I wanted to feel at least a little human so had another indoors day other than a fleeting dash across the road to Domino’s for some feel better Pizza! It’s bloody cheap is Domino’s – just $4.95 for a 14″ Pizza – that’s just £2.48!

Had the Airport Bus Booked for 09:00 on Sunday, Wasn’t flying until 12:25 but the bus bloke said I would be the first of many pick ups so I wouldn’t be at the airport until 10:30, that suited me and he turned up bang on 9 – He said his next pick up wasn’t until 9.30 so could run me straight to the airport and just about make it back in time, I hate sitting round in Airports so said I didn’t mind hanging about but off to the airport we went and I was checked in by 9.15 with a nice 3 hours to kill in a very small airport with bugger all to do!

My flight was with Jetstar to Tokyo and I’ll pick up from there next time, which will probably be tomorrow evening as there’s no English language TV in this hotel!!!

Steve

Hi!

Just coming to the end of a week in Tokyo, a bit different to what I had become accustomed to for the past couple of months that’s for sure!

I understand the bookies have widened the odds of me getting this thing up to date before I get back, might be worth a punt, you never know!

Anyway, a few paragraphs on what I got up to in Brisbane……

After just about making check in at Sydney Airport I sauntered round to the gate to find not a lot of activity so opted to wait for the call to board at a nearby bar! Eventually on the plane all was well and we taxied to the runway, the engines made a bit of a roar then we taxied back around the airport for a while to some hanger or other where the Captain made an announcement that something had fallen off on preparation for take off so needed fixing! Half an hour passed before we shuttled back off to the runway and took off without a dicky bird – I assume the bit that had fallen off had been stuck back on!

On leaving the plane in Brisbane I was hit by the extreme humidity that I had been told about in Queensland, jees was it hot! Took the train into the city, checked in and retraced my steps back to a pub I had passed on the way, well, it was Australia Day after all! Bit quiet really compared to what I had left behind in Sydney. Suitably refreshed (hic!) I retired for the evening.

Woke up rather late on Tuesday and got going just before lunch time. I thought a wonder round the city would be a good start so set about seeing what was on offer, what was notable after about half an hour is that Brisbane is quite small really and I have covered most of it already, probably about the size of Croydon for comparisons sake. The heat was quite something and it didn’t help that dry cough I had so time for a break and a drink in the hope I might stop bloody coughing! The healing powers of beer are quite under estimated I must say, a swift half did the job and I was back on my way. Noted a free bus running about and the lure of it’s air conditioning was far to appealing so I jumped on having no real idea where it would take me – Nowhere was the answer as it was a round the city circular jobby so 15 minutes later I was back to square one!

After my whirlwind bus tour I opted to go and check out the riverside area, stumbled upon the Botanical Gardens on the way but having seen quite a few of those already I carried on towards the Brisbane River. Not a great deal to see upon arrival at the waters edge so walked along the towpath in the direction of the City Centre, The breeze was most welcome and it was a pleasant stroll. Had my first face to face encounter with a Lizard on the way, bit of a big fella but all very harmless and he wasn’t at all bothered by my presence and even posed for a snap or two! The waterfront is sadly consumed by an elevated motorway and the peace and quiet is shattered by roaring articulated lorries a foot or two above your head.

With my riverside walk at an end I came across a free boat service, this looked like a no brainer so hopped on for an impromptu cruise, hopefully this would last a little longer than the free bus and it did taking about 40 minutes to reach it’s terminal not far past where I had just come from, still, it’s a good way to see whats about as it crisscrosses the river  – The South Bank looked worthy of further exploration and I’ll come to that  a bit later on. The ride also gives you the best views of the sky line and also the number of elevated motorways they’ve built right in front of it all which takes the gloss of it all, quite what the planners were thinking when they approved that carbuncle I don’t know, probably how to spend their bung!

The heat had taken it’s toll on me for the day and I walked back to the hotel after getting of the boat for a further dose of air conditioning!

Wednesday and I was feeling rather rough with the old cough so didn’t rush out, found some cricket on the telly and got into that and before I knew it it was almost 3pm! Not wanting to write the whole day off I headed out for a spot of late lunch and a further look about some of the more interesting parts of the city – It was bloody sweltering (again) so after a couple of hours I thought it was my duty to check out the hotel pool where I duly remained until it closed at 9pm!

All that doing nothing yesterday was obviously very tiring as I slept for almost 12 hours! Must have needed it though and I felt a bit more with it on Thursday so went to check out what the South Bank area had to offer, visually a great chunk of it looks like London’s South Bank – Grim. Once you got past the concrete Armageddon it’s actually quite a pleasant part of town, plenty of trendy bars and eateries, some rather nice gardens, of which a large part was planted with vegetables (I forgot to mention Sydney had a lot of lettuces  planted throughout the City, so must be some sort of Aussies thing!) various entertainment & cultural venues as well as what I would call a Lido. I spent a good few hours strolling round before catching the free ferry I had used the other day to get back across to the ‘right side’ of the river. Energy sapped it was back to the hotel for another evening pool side!

Being in Australia I really ought to see some of the indigenous wildlife and with just a Wallaby seen so far Friday was the day to redress this lack of nature so set off for the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. This was located a 45 minute bus ride to the North of Brisbane and after managing to get going before 10 I was there around 11ish, Lumped out the entrance fee and set about finding some cool animals.

It wasn’t just Koalas here and before I had even got in I had seen quite a few more Lizards, seems they’re quite numerous in these parts. First up once inside was some rather large bats, they were called Flying Foxes and they did resemble foxes in their colour as their bodies were orange – being daytime they were sound asleep so I moved on to the mutant sized cockatoos in the next enclosure, one of the trio took an instant dislike to me, flew over and started squawking extremely loudly and probably would have had my eyes out if it could have – it looked very angry! I goaded it for a few minutes before making a break for the Platypus house! I had always assumed that Platypus were bloody great things but the two they had here were tiny, probably no longer than your forearm but they were extremely cute. One had a crab in it’s tank so I assumed that these creatures got along with each other but apparently not, the Platypus then went all nasty and took the crab out by picking it up in his beak, smashing its head into some rocks and having it for tea! With that barbaric murder forever etched into my memory I went off the main attraction, the Koalas!

The Sanctuary has loads of them and they are quite accessible with no cages or mesh to keep you and them apart, not that they are going to do you any harm. They are all extremely friendly and somewhat curious by all the crazy tourists and their cameras being pointed in their direction – I was already hooked and decided that I want one as a pet although quite how a Koala will get on with the bad lands of Essex compared with the lush surroundings of Queensland I don’t know! With about million pictures taken I joined the queue to be able to hold one – well worth the $18 they sting you for the privilege but money well spent I must say, they really are cool little creatures and you can’t help falling in love with the cute little faces.

With Koalas ticked off it was onto Kangaroos! They have a whole park here where you can simply mingle in with them, I had already purchased some ‘Roo food’ on the way in so was prepared for my close encounter. I had expected for them to be behind a fence or some sort of barrier but there isn’t anything, you simply share the space with them and it’s exceptionally cool to have one of these wonderful animals come bouncing over to you to check you out, one or two of them were a good 6ft tall on the hind legs and a number of people did a runner – whilst people were getting scared I was getting popular once I’d got the old roo food out! they simply eat it out of your hand giving you a good lick in the process and they love a good fuss, I was in here for hours, it’s just so cool to be up this close to these magical creatures.

Also mixed in with the Kangaroos were a number of Ostriches, these really are big once your up close but again you can feed them, and mingle in with the flock, There were people sitting down with them having a picnic – brilliant! Completing my Aussie wildlife ‘want to see’s’ was a Tasmanian Devil and thankfully the Sanctuary had a couple, no mixing with these bad boys as they will have a piece of you!  They also had some Dingoes but they we’re taking cover from the heat (most wise) and a couple of Crocodiles, one of which had his eye on a Turkey which had foolishly landed in its enclosure  – There were lots of Turkeys just freely wandering around, I assume they are part of the exhibits but who knows! 5pm soon came round and it was time to go – bus back to the city, bite to eat and back to the hotel – bloody brilliant day!

Saturday was yet another blisteringly hot day so decided to take a train down to Gold Coast for a beach day – I was pleasantly surprised with the area, despite being a bit of a tourist trap the place is very clean and smartly presented and I was starting to wish I had spent a few days here, I had certainly the time to do so and there certainly seemed enough to keep you occupied. After a quick rekkie round I headed for the beach at Surfers Paradise and found a nice spot to pitch up for a couple of hours – sadly my mid afternoon beach bum time was curtailed after half an hour by a thunder storm and a pretty viscous one at that. Didn’t get much warning and headed for cover underneath the life guard station with a number of others, the rain was relentless for a good 15 minutes and so heavy you couldn’t see the other side of the road – coupled with a strong wind that had whipped up the shelter was useless and a good drenching was had. What was amusing was that the seagulls appeared mesmerized by the lightning, they had all lined up in a perfectly straight line and were just dead still staring up at the sky!! The storm disappeared just as quickly as it had arrived and normal hot sunshine soon resumed drying me out pretty quickly. Headed off back to Brisbane at sunset, another good day.

Sunday and another visit to another Tramway Museum, it was only open for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon so worked out well – interesting little place with some rather enthusiastic volunteers who were keen to engage with their visitors and were equally as happy to use all 8 of their working trams which is more than most similar museums will ever do on a regular day. Anyway, I shan’t bore you anymore with the finer details of the day! Needless to say I enjoyed my visit and was allowed to stay beyond closing as they put everything away, Back to the City after that, time to pack once again and move on again on Monday morning to Cairns.

Still haven’t downloaded the pics of the camera yet, sorry! Will get round to adding some pictures, promise!

Cheers for now

Steve