10
Oct
2010

Edinburgh restaurants

No Comments

After living in Edinburgh for 2 years Theresa and I decided it was time for a change. It was sad to say goodbye to the place that we called home for so long. It was easy enough to say we were going to move but when it came down to the crunch – it was an actual nightmare. After being in our flat for only a year and three months, I could not believe the amount of crap we accumulated! It was ridiculous! We initially only wanted to send back one 30kg box along with my bike (Kate’s Cycle) in which we would also stuff more bags down the sides of … Well that idea was quickly shot down by the fact that our books and DVD’s alone took up nearly one box! What started off as a cheap idea ended up costing us £340 (including insurance) and that was on the cheap with ‘you pack it, we ship it’ (www.upakweship.com). Needless to say, we were a little shocked but hey, it’s all stuff we didn’t want to throw away or give to charity (including 14 pairs of high heals … Theresa!!).

Our time in Edinburgh has been great, we have made some amazing, life-long friends, seen some beautiful places and eaten at some of the best restaurants in Scotland! And it’s the food I am going to writing about (surprise surprise). Below are some of our favourite places to eat out at and that we highly recommend to anyone visiting or moving to Edinburgh:

1: First Coast

First Coast is located at 97-101 Dalry Road  EH11 2AB. They are a modern/seafood restaurant. The average main coarse meal goes for around £10-£12 (a steak is usually around £16+). The food here is exquisite. I can not even count the times that we have eaten there and been amazingly satisfied every time! The staff are so friendly – to the point that when you order a main you can ask what wine would suit best for that particular meal and it’s spot on! When Theresa and I wanted to treat ourselves or just wanted a reliable delicious meal for a very reasonable price, 9 times out of 10 we would choose First Coast!

Check out their website at www.first-coast.co.uk

2: Khushi’s

Khushi’s is without a doubt the best Indian we have ever had! And, if memory serves me correctly, they were awarded best Indian Restaurant in Scotland! We’ve been to places like Brick Lane in London, and loved it but Khushi’s takes the cake! Their Naan is absolutely huge! One can feed three people with ease! Our favourite curries (which were amazing every time we ordered) were the house special Lamb Punjabi Masala and Lamb Sabsi, a cauliflower and potato curry – both are delicious! And the great thing with Kushi’s is they deliver for penance!

Check out their website at www.khushis.com

3: La Partenope

La Partenope is a family owned Italian restaurant located at 96 Dalry Rd, Edinburgh, their dishes are influenced from Sicily. They have an amazing week day lunch offer of a 3 course meal for £7.95. This 3 course meal is not a crappy pub meal but an authentic delicious meal that will send your taste buds into overdrive! The service is brilliant with the native Italian waiters making this truly an awesome experience! Highly recommended!

Check out their website at www.lapartenope.co.uk

4: Treacle

Located at the top of Broughton Street (EH1 3JU ), Treacle is a modern and trendy bar and bistro. You will often find it very busy if not full so if you want to eat here it’s probably better to make a reservation rather than turn up and hope for the best. Not just serving your typical food, Treacle is often changing the menu with new and wonderful combinations. Not only is it a cool place to go and enjoy some drinks with friends but it also has excellent food! I can not think of a single time where we have been and not thoroughly enjoyed our meals. Food and drink are quite reasonably priced and for the quality you get, it’s well worth it!

Check out their website at www.treacleedinburgh.co.uk

5: Olive Branch

For the special occasions, we went to the Olive Branch. A bit more upmarket, the Olive Branch is more pricey than the other places on Broughton Street and you definitely have to book ahead. A two-course meal for two and a glass of wine each will easily set back £50+ (and that’s one of the cheaper things on the menu). If your wallet can take the hit, your taste buds thank you for ever! The Olive Branch has amazing food and excellent service. Located down the bottom of Broughton Street (EH1 3RX), it’s a short walk from Princes Street and the Omoni Centre.

Check out their website at www.theolivebranchscotland.co.uk

6: Haymarket Bar

The good old reliable Haymarket Bar. Located diagonal from the Haymarket train station (EH12 5DS) the Haymarket Bar serves ridiculously cheap food and drinks. Now, the food isn’t going to be gourmet but if you want a cheap, easy and pretty decent feed than definitely the Haymarket a go. Wednesday night would be their most popular night of the week with their £5.95 steak night. One thing we found was that it didn’t really matter how you order your steak – if it’s early in the evening the steak will generally be medium and if you order at the end of the night the steaks will be more on the well done side! Reef and Beef is definitely worth a shot! Other specials include Curry Thursdays and Roast Sundays.

See information here: http://maps.google.com.au/maps….

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Edinburgh, UK

read more
06
Sep
2010

Fethiye

No Comments

Fethiye was definitely a lot busier than Koycegiz. Fethiye was yet another port city. Plenty of shops, restaurants and things to do. Fethiye is apparently one of the better places to do hang-gliding (unfortunately we had a mate who chose to do it and waited a top of the mountain for 4 hours before his glide was called off due to ,unusual, bad weather).


Another excellent feature of Fethiye was mountain tombs. These were beautiful and at the same time spectacular! Beautiful tombs carved directly into the mountains edge. From the town, you can walk to the tombs within 30-40 minutes. To actually go up to the tombs themselves there is an entry fee of approx. 10-15TL. If you don’t feel like going up to the top, you can walk down a side road which borders on the edge of the mountain itself. You can also jump the concrete fence further down and climb up a few rocks to get into one of the tombs if you wish. You also get a great view of the city of Fethiye from the elevated view of the mountain road.


Just outside Fethiye there is a ghost town. It became a ghost town after the Turkish and Greek government agreed upon a ‘population exchange’ in which all the Turks that lived in Greece went back to Turkey and all the Greeks in Turkey went back to Greece. You can easily get to the ghost town by jumping on one of the local buses from the bus station costing 1.50TL each way. Be warned though … The bus drivers of these mini-vans are absolutely mental drivers! At one stage, I swear the driver was practising for formula one! I honestly thought the bus was going to topple! Anyway, we survived. The entrance fee for the ghost town was approx. 6-10TL. But, as you can imagine, the place was pretty dead (haha).

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Fethiye, Turkey

read more
01
Sep
2010

Koycegiz

No Comments

Koycegiz is a quaint town with not much happening (well there wasn’t much happening when we were there). In saying that, it’s a town that borders on a huge, and very impressive, lake. We found the locals to be very nice and helpful when we asked random questions – one of our fellow travellers was quite under the weather and the waitress where we were having a drink at suggested a ‘herbal’ tonic in which she guaranteed to work. As downing the full glass of tonic in one gulp (as she was told to do), her face immediately screwed up and then within a few minutes she was looking dazed and a lot more happy. Turned out the ‘herbal tonic’ was a combination of Gin, Tequila and Congnac. Quite a bit bizarre for a Muslim remedy. Needless to say, the herbal tonic worked a treat!

The walkway around the lake is scattered with vendors selling muscles, nuts or bbq’d corn. The corn is a definite winner – juicy and tasty as it was! Walking around the lake was quite beautiful in the late afternoon.

Fresh corn!!

As it has it, while we were there, the main part of town had an outdoor cinema set up. The outdoor cinema or stage had live plays being shown every night of the week. So there was a fair be of culture flying about in this tiny but traditional town.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Koycegiz, Turkey

read more
31
Aug
2010

Turkey

No Comments

As usual, every time Theresa and I travel we like to give some detailed information about where we went, what we saw, how we travelled, what we thought was good and bad and hopefully, at the end of it all, provide some useful information about the places we visited.

At the start of August, Theresa and I left our home in Edinburgh in search of a change. We’ve decided to move back to Australia for the summer until we figure out what we want to do and where we want to be. But, of course, we had to do some more travelling before returning to Australia. We decided to travel through Western Turkey – Bodrum, Koycegiz, Fethiye, A Gulet Cruise from Fethiye to Olympos, Olympos, Antalya, Cappadocia, Istanbul, Gallipioli, Troy, Kusadasi, Pumukkale and Ephesus. We used a hop-on hop-off bus service called Fez Travel (Turkey’s version of Bus-About). NB: Unfortunately Fez will no longer be doing the hop-on hop-off service and will instead opperate set time-tabled trips.

Over the next few weeks we will post a bit about our experiences in each of the places we visited, where we stayed, about the location, accommodation, the sites, food etc.

Bodrum

We were supposed to fly out of Glasgow with Thomas Cook for Bodrum at 8pm but as we are now starting to understand, not a lot goes to plan when flying with Thomas Cook.

  1. Firstly, our flight was delayed for three hours.
  2. Secondly, as soon as the check-in staff saw we had Australian passports and not British passports, the confusion set in and we were forced to wait 15 minutes while the staff had to contact senior advisor’s to see if Australians were allowed to fly to Turkey … Like we hadn’t thought to check that ourselves? Anyway, once that was sorted and we waited for the extra three-long delayed hours, we finally were able to board for our flight to Bodrum.
  3. Thirdly, when our meals in which we had paid for in advance online came, we were informed that the catering company had stocked the plane wrong and were fed kids meals. To add insult to injury, they were offering meals in which you could purchase on the spot for half the price in which we paid for online with our ‘pre-booking’.

Right, so after all the mix ups, delays and poor food we eventually arrived at Bodrum Airport (approx. 4 hour flight). Contrary to what we researched on the internet, a 3 month Turkish visa for Australian’s cost £14 (not £10 as most other websites say – it was £10 for British passport holders).

Only to find our pension which we had booked and organised a pick up with wasn’t at the arrival terminal. No real surprise considering our flight was delayed 3 hours (thanks again Thomas Cook!). So, at 3:30am, what’s the next logical thing to do? See if you can catch a bus. Well, no. We were informed that the buses did not start running again until 7 or 8am. Right. Next option – taxi. 90 Turkish Lirasi (£45) and an hour of driving later we arrive at our destination, only problem now is that the taxi driver isn’t sure where our pension is. Not a problem, the locals are extremely helpful (even if it is 5am in the morning) and there are plenty of them about! So we find our pension but now there is no reception! We are eventually informed that the reception guy is a sleep and that we should go up to the rooftop until 8am when he may or may not be awake. So, our first night in Turkey was spent sleeping on the rooftop of a hotel!

Our first nights accommodation - we had to sleep on the rooftop as there wasn't 24 reception (as advertised)

After all the craziness, we found the pension to be very helpful. We were made breakfast the morning we slept on the roof, not charged for the nights accommodation (haha) and found that we were in a really great location! The name of the place we stayed was called Otel Merhaba which literally translates to Hello Hotel. We were located a very short walk from the beach, restaurants, shopping strip and night life. We were also only a 5 minute drive from the Bus station (in one direction) and the Harbour where all the ferry’s that leave to Greece (in the other direction).

Bodrum is very much a happening town, packed with tourists and locals alike. The small shopping strip by the castle and beach almost becomes impossible to walk down after midnight! There were just so many people about and a good mix too – from families, young party animals and all the in-betweens. Bodrum even had their own special kebab – a sirloin steak kebab with tomatoes, potatoes and onions intertwined throughout the mix. Pretty decent price at 5TL.

We only had two days in Bodrum at the start of our journey until we returned 3 weeks later for a day before heading to Kos for our Greek Island section of our adventures. To get to Kos, we caught a reasonable size ferry from Bodrum harbour which only ran once every two days leaving at 9:30am. The ferry cost 28Euros. Once we arrived in Kos, we had to line up at the customs entrance for over an hour – it was a shambles at first with people pushing past, squeezing in – with literally no form of any sort of line. Once the custom officials eventually got control of things everything went reasonably smoothly.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Bodrum, Turkey

read more
24
Jun
2010

1000km’s surpased on charity cycle

No Comments

As we continue to cycle through the beautiful landscapes Europe has to offer, we reached a milestone in itself … yesterday we surpassed 1000km’s! Quite an achievement for us all, and something that came as a bit of relief! After cycling day in and day out – exhausting our bodies to breaking point, this goal has somewhat lifted our spirits! All of our hard has paid off.

We had a few days off in Timoleague, a small Irish town with not much of a population but the people we met were all great! We  originally stayed with James,originally from Sligo, who contacted Kate after he saw an article about her in the local paper. James put us up in rooms, took us around the town and introduced us to friends of his. He was an all round top guy who bent over backwards to make us feel at home!

We then spent a couple of nights with Eammon, whom we met on our first night out in Timoleague at Charie Maddens – which was holding a dress up 40th party (that we didn’t know at the time – quite a shock when we walked in to see everyone fully dressed up!). Good old Eammon was dressed as one of the 118 guys from the TV ads. The crew with the original Charlie Madden (middle bloke)

Eammon did much the same as James, set us up with beds and all the comforts of home! He even took us fishing in which I caught the monster fish of the day!

Here it is - the biggest fish of the day!!

We had a great time in Timoleague and it was quite hard to leave in the end – everyone was just so nice to us! We set off for Cork after a few well-earnt days off. We arrived in Cork excited to see a new place and at knowing that we were only a couple of days away from starting the next leg of our journey – France to Itlaly!

We ended up going out a bit to much in Cork – it was the first large city we had been in since Dublin and was a bit of a shock to the system to see all the shops that we are all so used to seeing but haven’t since being on this cycle! We all decided to treat ourselves to a new outfit for the rare times we get to go out in civilised company and lucky we did because that night we met John, one of the senior guys for GROW.

Sharing a pint with John from GROW

All round a good night =)

On our way from Cork we popped into town for one last minute shop and were lucky enough to pump into the Irish Red Bull team who supplied us with plenty of the good stuff to keep us going!

And so we made our way to the 17 hour Brittany Ferry from Ireland to France. Now this ferry totally surpassed any expectations that I had – this was no ferry … it was a flippin P&O cruiser!! It was huge and luxurious! It had an indoor pool, cinema, bar, comphy beds in the cabins and a huge range of food to choose from at a pretty reasonable price! Even though the price was quite steep, 130Euro, you could see why once you saw the beast!

About to board the Brittany Ferries on our way to France for leg 2

We arrived in France after the 17 hour journey that practically flew by to watch the sunrise at 5am! Since then, we have camped at beach front locations most times, had exceedingly good weather – piping hot even! And, of course, surpassed the 1000km mark!

Leg two has only just begun and there is much much more to see and do in France! So, ovvwarr for now and stay tuned!!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in France, Ireland, Kate's Cycle

read more
13
Jun
2010

Charity Cycle: Leg One

No Comments

So far we have traveled over 680km through Ireland! We started in Standhill, Sligo on Monday 31st May and have made our way through Dromore West, Ballina, Loch Cullin, Cong, Clonbur, Galway, Inishmore-Aran Islands, Doolin, Cliffs of Moher (felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest!), Lahinch, Spanish Point, Killimer, Tarbert, Listowel, Tralee, Castlegregory (where we rested up for a few days), over the Connor Pass – 1800ft ascent, Dingle, Killarny, Ladies View, Caha Pass (more grueling than Connor Pass – never ending up hill winding road, beautiful though!), Bantry, Clonakilty and Timoleague where we’re resting up for a few days.

Whilst resting in Castlegregory we went charter fishing where the Mackrel basically jump on your line without any effort what-so-ever! We enjoyed fresh BBQ’d fish that evening and then fishcakes the next day! Tasty as, and quite the feed!

Just a couple of the bad boys we caught

Castlegregory is also where we parted ways with Cam, a bloke who knows his bikes back to front. He was a good egg to have around when our bikes decided to go haywire! However, his bedside behavior was a little peculiar at times. He had a thing for sleeping naked … no matter where ever we were! Whether he be in his tent, in the same dorm as us or staying in one of Kates friends places under her clean sheets – he would, without a doubt, nude up! Scary when you wake during the night to see him in the nud walking to the bathroom! Good old Cam left with an impression when he bit off the head of one of the Mackrel we had caught while out at sea.

Video to come soon, please remember to revisit!

After our break in Castlegregory we were all pumped to get cycling again, and it was Connor Pass which was first on our list of feets to overcome. And what a feet it was – I swear I almost had a heart attack! I was panting like an out of breath dog! The Connor Pass is 1800ft above sea level and we had to cycle up it! When we reached the peak, it was cloudy, overcast and so unbelievably windy! The hard work was over and it was time to enjoy the cycle down the other side … However, with the wind being so strong cycling down proved to be more dangerous that the cycle up! On too many occasions we were nearly blown off the face of the cliff from the sheer force of the winds! Extremely dangerous and scary!

Low cloud over Connor Pass

We reached Dingle in time to enjoy a couple of local (and weird) pubs. One of which, Dick Macs, was a half shoe shop with boxes still on shelves and half bar! The other, Foxy John’s, which was a half hardware store half bar! Worth a look – odd but worth it.

After Dingle we headed to Killarny. Compared to the Connor Pass this was a breeze! After conquering the infamous Connor Pass we all thought no hill would be able to defeat us …

That was, of course, until we cycled from Killarny to Bantry via Caha Pass and Ladies View! This was easily one of the most scenic and beautiful cycles I have done since starting this trip but one of the hardest I hope I will ever encounter!
Our view after riding up Caha pass - 700km ascent!

That day’s cycle was only 65km but took us 8 hours! Since we’re averaging 20km – you can probably only just imagine the hills we cycled for it to triple our average cycle time! The Caha Pass was breathtaking, so beautiful! Throughout the route there were stone tunnels through the mountains – the last one at the top would have been a couple of kilometers long, pitch black and covered in potholes!

Then the major tunnel we had to cycle through once at the top of Caha Pass - long, dark and filled with potholes!

The cycle down the other side was just as beautiful and for about 10km I didn’t even have to pedal once!

By the time we reached Bantry we were wrecked, everyone was out on their feet that we couldn’t even muster the energy to cycle to the camping site (which we some how missed on the way into town) and ended up staying in a hosted by the water.

The next day we were all dreading the cycle to Clonakilty – hoping not to repeat the hills from the day before! We were lucky enough to have a reasonably easy 65km cycle. However, with every easy cycle there is always something that must go wrong and it was yet again my bike to suffer the problem. I had yet another puncture – my third for the trip so far along with my broken weld on my pannier rack! It’s only a slow leak and we were able to make it to Timoleague where James, a fellow from Sligo, contacted Kate and offered to put us up for a few days! James is a top bloke and has basically given us full run of his house, he even dropped us off in town last night and took us home at 2am! Unbelievable hospitality!

The pub he took us too was holding a 40th dress up party and when we walked in, it was like walking into some sort of time machine for all sorts of characters! Great night, even Kate and Erin got up on stage to sing Johnny Cash – foltson prison! We were even coaxed up on stage to sing waltzing matilda which unfortunately we didn’t know many of the words!

Great time so far, we still have to make our way to Cork and then France. Looking forward to the adventures to come!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ireland, Kate's Cycle

read more
07
Jun
2010

Kate’s Cycle: Week One

No Comments

Kate's Cycle

It’s been just over week since Kate’s Cycle began and so far, over 6 days, we have notched up over 420km! It’s been a mixture of highs and lows, hot and cold weather, annoying and awesome people and breath-taking scenery!

The cycle took off on Monday the 31st June leaving from Strand Hill in County Sligo. I’m a little hazy on the exact locations that we have been to and cycled through but will try to correct this as time goes on.

What I can do is tell you the most memorable places that I have see cycling through Ireland. The Aran Islands are such a beautiful sight to see, so pretty and scenic. There is a nice little beach in which you can relax on after a lazy cycle. The island is perfect for cyclist as the streets are small and slightly hilly and there is a place to hire bikes as soon as you get off the ferry. The ferry cost us 16Euros one way and that included us taking our bikes over on it. It really was quite a lovely ride.

Me and my bike on Aran islands

The other place, in which I will remember forever, is the Cliffs of Moher. The road up the look out was the hardest, most steep stretch of road I have ever cycled and not one of us could make it up without having to walk out bikes! But, the pain was worth it. The view of the cliffs was without a doubt nothing less than breathtaking! I would absolutely recommend seeing the cliffs of Moher to anyone who will be traveling through Ireland!

Cliffs of Moher

On Wednesday we met up with Paul from GROW (mental health) in Galway and helped raise over 200Euro on the high street by shaking tins. The good people of Galway were all very generous and didn’t shy way from donating some of their hard earned cash.

We are currently resting up for a couple of days in a small surfing town called Castlegregory. It’s a tiny but beautiful town on the beach and is still relatively yet to be commercialised! We’ve been lucky enough along the way to be able to stay with a few of Kate’s acquaintances which has saved us on a many occasions on finding a safe place to camp. We’ve met so many nice people and the Irish are definitely good folk!

There is so much more I really need to write about what we have experienced so far, such as Brad’s bags getting run over by a truck – lucky it wasn’t one us infront of it! Or how on our first night we only just got our tents up before it started pouring rain or even how one of the blokes that is currently cycling with us doesn’t really have any social skills and is determined to sleep naked where ever he can – even when we have been up in a bed by one of Kate’s friends – he still walks to the bathroom naked in the middle of the night!! WTF – I know!

Anyway, please stay tuned ad I will try to be more regular and detailed with my posts. If you haven’t already donated to the charities please do so. Simply go to www.katescycle.com/cycle/donate/ and select the charity you would like to support. All donations go direct to the charities, none of the funding goes to us in any way!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Ireland, Kate's Cycle

read more
30
May
2010

Tunisia

No Comments

Sunset in the desert

Dan and I headed off to Tunisia for a long deserved week away in April. We were walking past the travel agent and they had some great all inclusive deals, so that’s how we came about going to Tunisia, and we wanted to see the Sahara Desert. We went all inclusive because it was only a few pounds more and it saved us the hassle of food, alcohol, sports and games etc. This sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and alcohol including cocktails all included in the accommodation price. Well it was a really good deal, but we where misinformed as the resort didn’t do cocktails, the beach bar was closed and we still had to pay for the equipment to use the sporting facilities. It was a little disappointing for us as we had high expectations. Neither the less we were determined to have a great time.

The resort we stayed in had activities everyday that you could join in on, such as archery, stretching – yep you heard right stretching, volleyball and many more. Even though there wasn’t much to do in Sousse the resort did try to keep all the guests entertained. The resort reminded us of the movie Dirty Dancing, if you have seen the movie you will know what I mean, with all the activities. It was actually quite funny, the resort was also filled with old people as Dan would say we were staying in a retirement village.

View from our balcony towards the ocean in the early afternoon.

We went on a Sahara Desert trek, which was awesome fun. It was two days, which was not all in the desert, but seeing other places south of Tunisia. We left the resort at 7 in the morning and traveled south to El Jem where we saw one of the best preserved Colosseums in the world, very nice, and then headed to Matmata to see the rock-hewn caves which where starred in the first Star Wars film. I haven’t seen any of the first Star War films, so I’ll have to take their word for it. In Matmata we also had lunch, which was cous cous and brik (Brik being deep fried pastry envelope with a veggie or meat stuffing), traditional for Tunisian people, and did a little site seeing. After lunch and we got back on the bus and headed for Douz which is situated on the fringes of the Sahara Desert. Yay, finally after a packed filled day we made it to the Sahara at 4pm. We got off the bus and were put on camels and taken into the Sahara to watch the beautiful sunset. This was really a great experience.

In one of the rooms of a traditional Berber house - in underground caves.

After the desert trek we headed to our hotel in Douz for dinner and a swim in the hot springs. By this time it was 8pm and we were feeling a little tired and hungry, so heading to our hotel was bliss. The hot spring was so nice to relax and wind down in, however it was a little funky smelling which could be caused by the darkness of the water and not being able to spot the people urinating in it. Hehe, well that’s not true, that’s not why the water smells but I can’t vouch for what the others were doing in it. Anyway, after our relaxing swim we had dinner, which was the best meal we had had in Tunisia. After our fabulous meal we were off to bed for a 4am start.

A boat on the dried up salt lakes

The following day we made our way to Chott El Djerid the salt lake to watch the sun rise, and then jumped in 4×4 landcruiser to Om Jemal, to see where the film-set city was built for ‘Star Wars: The Phantom Menace’ . It was really bizarre to see that they had left the whole set in the desert and it had been preserved, i guess it was a money maker for them. It was such a blast driving through the desert, our driver went over as many sand dunes as he could to make it all the more exciting.

The real movie set to the the first Star Wars movies

After exploring Om Jemal, we continued to Chebika. Nestled at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, a palm-swathed oasis town which featured many scenes of ‘The English Patient’ and ‘Indiana Jones’. This was absolutely beautiful, you are driving through barren land and than this beautiful oasis is in front of you, was really an unforgettable site. I also forgot to mention we went into a Berbers home. Berbers are tribes that live in caves in the mountains, these people live very simple lives and don’t use electricity or cars. It was really interesting seeing what it would be like to live a world without material things like cars and phones. By the time we have seen all these things its time to head back to our hotel.

Me playing vollyball with the Russian national teamOur guided tour was by far the most exciting thing we did in Tunisia. We had 3 more nights at our resort after the tour and found ourselves relaxing a lot more. We managed to get into the whole Dirty Dancing scene and was more open mined to our new retirement home. Dan joined a Russian Volley ball team as I relaxed by the beach.

Now we're talking, get your gear off!Overall it was a relaxing holiday and that’s what we wanted, even though at times very boring, we were very relaxed. Well we were relaxed until we were leaving and realised we overstayed our visa and Dan had to sweet talk customs into just letting us through. It was an experience and cant wait for our new adventure in Turkey, I just have to wait for Dan to finish his adventure of cycling through europe first.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Africa, Tunisia

read more
28
May
2010

Kate’s Cycle begins!!

No Comments

The time has finally arrived for us to begin our charity cycle through Ireland and accross Europe!

Safety first

Our bikes been purchased, tested and boxed (for the journey to Ireland) and our camping gear sorted! Bradford and Erin (other fellow cyclists) arrived safely on the 26th, just in time to get fitted for their bikes.

But as with every trip (or mybe just ours??) there have been a couple of hick-ups and lucky breaks. We arrived at Edinburgh Bus station at 5am this morning with bikes all boxed, because we were told by an Edinbugh Bus info guy that’s what we had to do, ready to load it all on the bus. However, as soon as the driver saw us, he shook his head and said there’s no way the bikes would fit and whoever told us they would was very incorrect!! Luckily enough, the driver was a good bloke and after a little bit of sweet talking he managed to squeeze them in =D

So we’re on our way, 2 hours into the journey to Dublin via a ferry and Belfast (interestingly enough only cost £33.50) – 8 hours to go!  We then have a night in Dublin – enough time to try out some Guinness! Then a train from Connolly station to Sligo (only €10 each).

This, however, will be my first big journey without Theresa. Exciting but hard times!

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Dublin, Ireland, Kate's Cycle, UK

read more
12
May
2010

How to work out international phone numbers

No Comments

Ever had trouble working out what the international dialing code is for a foreign country?

I know both Theresa and myself, as well as many of our friends who have travelled overseas, have struggled with supplying a phone number to family and friends back home that is able to be dialed from a landline. It’s easy enough with a mobile – just add the + 44 and get rid of the 0 but then you risk running up a huge phone bill.

Well, now you no longer need to rack your brain for the specific numbers for each country. The good people at Time and Date have an extremely easy application where all you need to do is select the country/area in which you are calling from (or where your friends or family will be calling from), select the country/area in which you are calling to (or where you are located) and enter the number that is going to be dialed. The application does the rest. It really is as easy as 123!

Work out your international dialing code and number now!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Australia, UK

read more
« Older Entries