The adventure begins...

We’ve reached the end… of this adventure

2009-10-03T13:04:00.002+10:00

Our week at Lake Como seemed to last forever, yet was over too soon. We met some lovely locals including the butcher and the waitresses at the lakeside café. We attended a fundraising lunch organised by the local church with “traditional” menu items including tripe!

The view from our apartment

We spent a couple of days in Milan before our flight out. Our timing coincided with Fashion Week. No celebrity spotting, but plenty of tall skinny girls around! After some sightseeing and last-minute shopping, we had finished our European leg of our trip.

The duomo at Milan

Vancouver was the next stop and a chance to catch up with Jess and Liam in their new home. By a stroke of luck, Nicole was also in town for the first few days of our visit. The five of us went up to Grouse Mountain where we saw Grizzly Bears, watched a lumberjack show and ate beaver tails - yum! Please note, beaver tails are a deep-fried sweet snack, much like a flat donut.

Team Vancouver plus visitors - Nicole, Jess, Liam, Dain & Susan

Grizzly safely behind the fence

During the week we also rode around Stanley park where we spied raccoons, squirrels and some beluga whales - 2 adults and 2 young ones.

This was our last stop before winging our way southwest, across the dateline back to Sydney. We look forward to catching up with everyone - but be warned we have taken over 8000 photos.

Us at the Ice Hockey

Some more Italy

2009-09-18T17:58:00.004+10:00

From Turin we headed down to the Cinque Terre, a group of five small towns clinging to the cliffs along the Italian riviera. We based ourselves in a town called Rapallo, just north of the Cinque Terre.

Rapallo

We walked between all five towns over two days. We walked from Riomaggiore, the southern-most town to Corniglia, the middle town on the first day. This was an enjoyable walk with beautiful views of the coastline, particularly amazing with rough seas sending waves crashing into breakwaters.

Manarola

On the second day we walked from Corniglia to Monterosso, the northern-most town. This was a much tougher walk, 7km in total with lots and lots of steps. We were quite happy to reach Monterosso and enjoy a gelato and lots of water.

Vernazza

We headed back to Florence to catch up with our friend Teresa and retrieve the bags of our things that we had left behind. A large part of time was spent trying to get all of our belongings into our bags and within the airlines’ weight limits. It was a challenge, but we managed it… just!

Florence is one of our favourite cities. It has beautiful buildings and great shopping. We had to restrict ourselves due to the above mentioned space and weight issues, but Susan still managed to find some very nice shoes to buy.

While in Florence, we also took a daytrip to Panzano in Chianti to enjoy a fantastic Tuscan lunch with a nice local wine, finished by the usual homemade limoncello!

Us at the top of the cupola of the Duomo

We are currently staying on Lake Como at Menaggio in a little apartment overlooking the lake. We’ve had a couple of days of rain and it’s somewhat cooler here than the weather we’ve been having. However, today turned out beautifully so we caught the ferry across to Bellagio and had a walk around. No sightings of George just yet…

View from the ferry looking towards Menaggio

Trains, bikes and automobiles

2009-09-05T03:01:00.004+10:00

We were quite sad to leave Turkey as it was an amazing place and definitely one of the highlights of our trip. However, we were also happy to be in more familiar surroundings arriving in Frankfurt. Mind you, we still couldn’t understand what was on the menu without a bit of help!

Susan serving up some maultaschen (ravioli)

We visited the Porsche museum at Stuttgart. They have recently opened a new, purpose built building, which is stunning. The collection ranges from 100+ year old pieces designed by Dr Porsche through to some current model cars and race cars. Needless to say, Dain was a very happy man taking photos, peering into windows and dreaming….

Just a sample of the cars on display

We had a number of quick stopovers on our journey from Germany down to Italy. These included Geneva - highlight being our tour of the UN compound, quite an impressive facility; Les Gets - mountain biking heaven for Dain, peace & quiet for Susan and more than enough cheese and potatoes for both of us; Grenoble - our last chance for local French wine & cheese; and then Turin - where we were able to enjoy good coffee and pasta yet again.

Geneva - The Human Rights Commission meeting room

Les Gets - Dain returning from a ride

Grenoble - The cable cars up to the Bastille

Turin

We are well and truly nearing the end of our holiday. We have only another 3 weeks here in Italy before flying to Vancouver to spend a week with Jess & Liam and then heading home. Time for another coffee… ciao!!

Turkey

2009-08-27T17:16:00.004+10:00

We started our tour of Turkey in Çanakkale, which we used as a base to visit Troy and Gallipoli. Arriving in Turkey meant getting accustomed to yet another currency (our 8^th for the trip). We had a very funny incident with a shopkeeper who we thought was asking 61 Lira (about $50) for our little bundle of goodies. After some negotiations where neither side could understand the other we finally established it was 6 Lira (about $5)!!

Troy was a little underwhelming. Our tour guide showed us through the ruins of the different levels of cities that had been built there over the centuries, however, it was quite hard to imagine the cities as they were.

Susan in the Trojan horse at Troy

Our Gallipoli tour was great. Our guide was a young Turkish guy who was very enthusiastic about his job and Gallipoli. He told stories from both sides and helped us to imagine what occurred. We both had feelings of sadness as we walked through the numerous cemeteries, but we also experienced a sense of pride being Australian and to have some idea of what these soldiers experienced.

Bullets that hit each other across the trenches - this is apparently a very rare occurrence, and is indicative of the volume of bullets exchanged between trenches, that were at times only 8 metres apartDain walking through one of the cemeteriesLone Pine Cemetary

We headed back to Istanbul on another 6 hour bus trip. We stayed in Sultanahmet, the old part of the city, nice and close to some of the big attractions. During our stay we visited the Blue Mosque (a huge mosque tiled with blue mosaics inside), Topkapi Palace (where the Ottoman Sultans lived), Aya Sofya (a church that was converted to a mosque that was converted to a museum) and we went a bit nuts shopping at the Grand Bazaar, a huge covered complex with over 4,000 shops.

Us at the Blue MosqueDain checking out the different spices on offer at the Spice MarketBasilica Cistern - An underground water holding built in the 6^th century

Hot and cold

2009-08-14T00:56:00.003+10:00

The colder weather in Edinburgh was a bit of a shock but also quite a relief from the heat of summer. We busied ourselves with exploring the city to keep warm (and rediscovered our hot chocolate and amarula mix too). We visited Edinburgh Castle, the royal yacht Britannia and climbed up to Holyrood Park.

A view of Edinburgh from the castle

We booked ourselves onto a day tour which took us to Glencoe, Fort William and up to Loch Ness. No sightings of Nessie, but an amazing day.

Susan with Hamish the heilan’ coo, not sure which one’s which though.

Dain at Urquhart Castle

It was a huge change in scenery and temperature when we landed on the Greek island of Crete. We were swiftly taken to our hotel in a Mazda6 taxi :)

After a couple of days, we cruised over to Santorini where our time was monopolised by lounging around on the beach and eating. We managed to drag ourselves away from the beach for one day to explore the towns of Thira and Oia and watch an amazing sunset. I’ll let the photos tell the story.

Thira
Sunset at Oia
Susan at Perissa Beach

We now find ourselves in Turkey. It certainly is a fascinating place. We made our way to Çanakkale by bus from Istanbul, a six hour journey! We’re looking forward to our tours of Troy and Gallipoli before heading back to Istanbul.

Great European Cities.... and Barcelona

2009-07-31T00:09:00.004+10:00

Sadly, we were a little underwhelmed by Barcelona. Our visit didn’t start well as we didn’t arrive until 11pm after a long day of being sent in the wrong direction on trains. Our first couple of days were spent mostly catching Le Tour in the rain (see previous blog). The other couple of days we did some sightseeing including visiting the Picasso Museum, the Gaudi park and the Sagrada Familia church.

The food was a stand-out of our visit. We had some very delicious paella, several yummy tapas and churros served with thick hot chocolate.

A chameleon on sale at the markets along La Rambla

The lowlight of our visit was witnessing a bag-snatching and the ensuing fight as a guy tried to get the lady’s bag back off the thief. The worst bit was the way the thief casually walked off with the bag once he was free of the other guy.

Needless to say, we were quite happy when we got to Paris. We celebrated Bastille Day with thousands of Parisians on Champs des Mars watching the fireworks on the Eiffel Tower. It was an absolutely amazing sight!

Le Tour Eiffel

During our week, we visited museums including the Louvre and Musee D’Orsay, enjoyed a cruise along the Seine and attended a night at the cabaret (sadly no cameras were allowed). We absolutely loved walking through the gardens throughout the city.

At the Jardins du Luxembourg

Notre Dame

We were delighted to stay with Charlotte and George in London. Their gorgeous flat was the perfect base for us to explore the city. We discovered quite a few interesting museums - the design museum, the fashion museum (they had an underwear exhibition on) and the imperial war museum.

The Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square

We were treated to some typical British weather with some chilly and soggy days, including the day we decided to watch the changing of the guard. It was still great to watch, although a little crowded. Speaking of crowds, we also made it to Portobello Road markets along with what felt like half of London!

Changing of the Guard

Us on the London Eye

We’re now in Edinburgh enjoying the cooler weather. We’re staying in a lovely little apartment right near Edinburgh Castle, which we'll tell you all about next time.

Tour de France - Special Edition

2009-07-16T07:31:00.006+10:00

Apologies to those of you not interested in cycling as this blog is dedicated to our time following Le Tour.

We got our first taste of Le Tour in Marseille, the start of stage three. We positioned ourselves in front of the stage where each cyclist comes to sign-on at the start of each day’s riding. We saw all of the big names ride past right in front of us - Armstrong, Evans, Cancellara, and so on and watched as some of the riders stopped to collect some power bars before heading to the starting line.

Us at the start line at Marseille

Cadel in a pre-race interview

It was fascinating to watch the marketing caravan cruise through before the start of the race. The caravan consists of about 100 vehicles of all shapes and sizes brimming with promotional goodies that get handed out along the course to the waiting crowds. We managed to get quite a collection during our time with Le Tour.

We then headed to Montpellier to watch the Team Time Trial. In the morning, we saw a couple of the teams head out for a practice run and watched the Silence-Lotto mechanics get the bikes ready. We didn’t see Cadel, but we saw a couple of his bikes (and managed to knock one of his team mate’s bikes over… oops!).

The mechanics working on one of the bikes

We decided to head out towards the finish line. We were about 250m from the end, opposite where the support cars get diverted off. It was just incredible how quickly they whizzed past. The atmosphere was great, with everybody screaming and banging their hands on the barricades as each team rode through.

Team Saxo Bank head towards the finish line at the Time Trial

Cancellara retains the yellow jersey, presented today by Ben Stiller

Our travels then took us to Barcelona (via a very long and tiresome journey - full story in our next blog). We watched the finish of a very wet stage six and the start of stage seven the following day. For the finish we positioned ourselves on the inside of a roundabout which meant the riders rode within a metre of us at times. The strain of a tough stage was written on their faces, which we could see so clearly (along with all the dirt!). Dain saw Tom Boonen look straight at him!

Up close and personal with the passing bunch

It was a different looking bunch of cyclists the following morning with a good night’s sleep and clean jerseys. Unfortunately our view was obstructed by police motorcyclists who decided to position themselves right in front of us 10 minutes before the riders were due. We still managed to catch sight of Cadel and gave him a few words of encouragement to spur him on.

La dolce vita

2009-07-04T08:45:00.003+10:00

It was only when Susan’s brother Rob mentioned that we hadn’t updated our blog that we realised it had been two weeks. The time seems to fly by, but then it seems so long since we were in Sicily. Since then we have had a busy stay on the Amalfi Coast, wandered the piazzas of Rome and simply enjoyed the Tuscan countryside.

We based ourselves in Sorrento to discover the Amalfi Coast. We arrived early after catching another overnight ferry (lesson finally learnt - we got ourselves a cabin). We tried out the Sorrento beach but weren’t overly impressed with the free beach nor the prices to use the beach clubs. The city is otherwise absolutely breathtaking, although it was a bit of a shock to be back amongst the tourists. We had been away from the hoards (particularly the cruise crowds) since Croatia.

Pompeii was a fascinating place. We spent half a day wandering around the many buildings, imagining life as it was almost 2,000 years ago. It was quite confronting to see the plaster casts of the victims of the volcano eruption, some were praying while others were clearly trying to escape the noxious fumes.

Our first view of Pompeii

We started our day with a morning of sunbathing on the beach at Positano, before walking along a path and bumping into Andy Lee and a mate arguing with a paparazzo. We then spent the afternoon sipping wine and enjoying a very beautiful view :)

Positano
The inlet where we had lunch on Capri

Eternal Rome was as intriguing as ever. We took a guided tour through the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel, which was just incredible. Seeing Michelangelo’s works in person left us in awe. It was such a joy to just stroll past the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps (avoiding annoying hawkers along the way!).

St. Peters

Vittorio Emanuele Monument (aka The Wedding Cake)

We had a quick stop in Florence to wash clothes and shop before heading to Siena to stay with our friends, Mauro & Rosa and their daughter Emma. We attended Il Palio, a horse race held in the centre of Siena. The parade before the race was spectacular, including knights in full armour and soldiers holding crossbows and spears. Being part of the crowd was quite an experience, especially as it took over an hour for the race to start, due to delaying and intimidation tactics of the jockeys. The race itself lasted only 90 seconds!!

The gorgeous Tuscan countryside at MontalcinoIl Campo full to the brim during Il Palio

From here we are heading to France and Spain to follow Le Tour. Keep an eye out for us :)

Gastronomic heaven!!

2009-06-17T19:04:00.010+10:00

The past two weeks we’ve spent thoroughly enjoying being back in Italy, particularly the food.

We arrived in Bari after another uncomfortable overnight ferry ride where we picked up a little Seat Leon which has taken us down the heel of the boot (Puglia), over to the toe (Calabria) and across to Sicily.

We saw some very interesting sights in Puglia, such as Castel del Monte (an octagonal castle built for an unknown purpose), the Trulli of Alberabello (small round buildings with conical roofs made of stone but no mortar) and the Sassi at Matera (caves built into the hills where people lived up to 40 years ago with their livestock).

Castel del Monte
One of the Trulli (Dain's photography)

Susan attempting to be sassy at the Sassi

We had a lovely stay in the hills of Calabria with Raffaele and Franca. We had a wonderful time catching up and really appreciated them opening up their home to us (especially their kitchen!!). It was also great to catch up with Franco & Francesca and their two girls, who kept us thoroughly entertained.

Lara & Giulia perform for the adoring audience
Dain & Raffaele pick apricots for dessert

Sicily has been amazing. We spent a couple of days on the east coast in Taormina, soaking up the sun and walking amongst the lava flows of Etna (far from extinct). We found a magical agriturismo (B&B on a farm) down south near Agrigento with a nice big room and great views of the vines. We’ve managed to track down some of the locations where Inspector Montalbano was filmed down here, including the location of his house.

Dain at a gorge near Etna

Us in the lava flow
Montalbano's house

As mentioned, we’ve really been enjoying the food. Our highlights so far have been a marvellous antipasto consisting of seven entrée sized dishes, including octopus, stuffed calamari & sausage with peas; ALL of Franca’s cooking - tiramisu, apricot marmellata (served with ricotta made fresh that morning), capsicums & potatoes, eggplant and limoncello; and finally the cooking at our agriturismo - just superb.

The beautiful Adriatic

2009-06-01T18:52:00.002+10:00

Croatia was one of the countries on the itinerary that neither of us had been to and that we were both very excited about visiting... And we haven’t been disappointed!

We caught the overnight car ferry from Ancona (Italy) to Zadar (Croatia), which was quite an uncomfortable night’s sleep. Arriving at 7am, we stopped off for a coffee (naturally!) and headed to a travel agency to find some accommodation. While we waited for the place to open, a woman walking past asked if we needed a room. After a somewhat interesting conversation (her English was OK, but she kept throwing in German words) we found ourselves in a gorgeous studio apartment, right in the middle of the Old Town.

We spent a couple of days wandering around the marble-paved streets, looking at some beautiful buildings and Roman ruins which were uncovered during bombing in WWII . A rather unique sight (or sound) was the sea organ along the promenade. The waves create pressure that is pushed through the installed pipes producing a variety of different chords. Quite enjoyable to sit and listen while watching the sunset.

Sunset at Zadar (you can just see the openings of the sea organ on the promenade)

A bus trip along the coast brought us to Split where we walked around Diocletian’s Palace and managed to squeeze in a couple of swims. The highlight of our stay was a day trip out to a remote island off Hvar Island where we went to a restaurant and learnt how to cook the traditional meals we were served. On the menu was octopus salad, eggplant bake and fish gregada. A huge thanks to Shane & Julie from Lifejacket Adventures (www.lifejacketadventures.com) for showing us around. We highly recommend these guys if you find yourself in Split.

Lunch

The view from our table

In Hvar Town

After a day-long ferry ride down the coast, we found ourselves in Dubrovnik. It is easy to see why it is called the pearl of the Adriatic. It is a beautiful city, with the Old Town completely encircled by the city walls. We walked along the walls and were enchanted by the different views of the city and beyond.

The view of Dubrovnik from the walls

In all three cities we have really enjoyed having cooking facilities in our apartments as it has given us the opportunity, not only to enjoy our own cooking, but to be able to go to the fresh food markets and get involved with the community. It has been quite an experience trying to communicate with the vendors, but so rewarding. Everything is so fresh, either straight out of their veggie patches or straight out of the sea. Most of the stalls use old-style scales with small weights to weigh the produce.

We’ve still got a couple more days in Dubrovnik to enjoy and then we’re heading for the ‘heel of the boot’.

Ciao ciao!

2009-05-23T20:18:00.002+10:00

We spent four days in Munich where we did a bit of sightseeing and also took some time to recharge. First off, we went to the BMW museum which was very impressive. Dain particularly liked the motorbikes, even being able to sit on the bikes in the showroom section…. and hasn’t stopped talking about getting one since!

Dain on his new bike (he wishes!!!)

We went to Neuschwanstein castle at Fussen, which was a bit of a hike out of Munich. The castle is said to have been the inspiration for Walt Disney’s castle. . It is a very impressive building, up a very big hill and the surroundings there were just beautiful.

The castle

We also went out to Dachau which was the first concentration camp of the Nazi regime. It was initially used for political prisoners, but was expanded over time to include all prisoners. It was never used as an extermination camp, but still around 40,000 people died here. It was a sad and eerie place, fittingly cold and drizzly on the day we were there, but also very interesting looking at all that went on, the organisation that was involved - and even the fact that the SS who used to run the camp were then imprisoned there by the allies!

"Work brings freedom" - On the entrance gate

We descended down to Innsbruck in Austria where we went to the Swarovski Crystal ‘World’, which was not exactly what we expected. Expecting a wonderful, perhaps a little whimsical place which displayed creations made primarily out of crystals we were instead great by weird modern art things, many of which had little or even no presence or relevance to crystal.

On the day we left Innsbruck a stage of the Giro d’Italia (Italian version of Tour de France) was starting. We wandered around the start area, seeing the support vehicles and various motorbikes, as well as getting freebies. We watched the signing on of most riders (they have to sign on at each stage) and saw some interviews. We then took a position for the start, just around the corner, where we could see the riders approach and go around the corner.

Our view of the Giro

Off to Vienna then, where we again did some sightseeing and some recharging. We found an English speaking cinema around the corner from where we were staying so we went to see Angels & Demons. We were very happy with the place we stayed (so if anyone has plans to visit, we’ve got a recommendation) and thoroughly enjoyed the food (schnitzels, bratwurst, potato salad- all yum!).

Susan with a baby elephant at the front of a museum in Vienna

We’ve just spent four days in Italy - 2 days in Udine and 2 days in Bologna, where we’ve been enjoying the food and wine very much (we both tried the spaghetti bolognaise in Bologna!). It’s been quite a dramatic change to leave the order and cleanliness of Switzerland, Germany and Austria into the bustling, vibrant and passionate chaos of Italy. We are enjoying every minute of it!

Now we're in Europe!

2009-05-16T03:38:00.003+10:00

We arrived in Zurich very early in the morning, with the city covered in very thick fog. Even though we were quite tired, we spent most of the day wandering around Zurich. Being Sunday, most shops and restaurants were closed although local Zurichers like to walk around the lake on a Sunday afternoon, so there were people everywhere. We did manage to find an open Sprungli café (as in Lindt-Sprungli) for a hot chocolate.

After a couple of days in Zurich, we headed up the mountains to Interlaken. It’s a beautiful town completely surrounded by snow-capped alps. We decided not to go right up to the top of the mountains as the weather was quite patchy and by the time we got up there, we could've been surrounded by cloud.

Instead we headed to Kleine Scheidigg (about 2100m). On the train trip up, it was magical watching the trees which were quite dense & covered with icicles down the bottom disappear until a completely white landscape opened up. At the top, it looked like it had snowed in the past few days as everywhere off the main trails was undisturbed. To see the view, we needed to trudge through the snow which at times was knee-deep! Needless to say, wet socks and ankles were the result but it was well worth it.

Dain going for a stroll through the snow

Susan knee-deep but maintaining her balance... temporarily!!

Snow bunnies

After the mountains we travelled north east to Constance, a town on the border between Switzerland and Germany. It’s a gorgeous little lakeside town with a delicious custom of having great big bowls of ice cream with liqueur on the main pedestrian thoroughfare in the afternoon, which was very elegant indeed!

During our stay we chanced upon a little market selling fruit & veges, meat, cheese and bread. We stocked up with some produce for a picnic lunch and then we rented a couple of bikes. We rode around the edge of the lake for a few kilometres and found a nice point to enjoy our picnic lunch and feed the ducks. An absolutely glorious day!

We’ve just finished 4 days in Munich where we’ve visited the BMW museum, Neuwanstein castle and Dachau, the site of the first concentration camp. We’ll write about all of that in our next post!

Africa continued

2009-05-16T03:24:00.003+10:00

We finished our last blog post with our lion encounter…

The following day we went to see Victoria Falls which were simply incredible - well what we could see of them anyhow. There is so much water from the wet season upstream, that it was difficult to see the main part of the falls, even from the lookouts less than 100 metres away. We managed to get ourselves soaked just from the spray that rises up from the falls.

A small section of the falls (this was the best view!)

That night we went to The Boma - place of eating, which is a traditional African dinner with entertainment as well. We both had some face painting done, ate warthog, eland, ostrich, impala and a mopani worm which was like a chewy fat grub. They had some traditional dancers as well as an interactive drum show. We both had an absolute ball!

Us with our faces painted at The Boma

A beautiful sunset over the waterhole at our lodge

Our next stop was Zanzibar. We had an incredibly quick flight over to the island (15 minutes!) at the crack of dawn. Zanzibar was known as the spice island because of all the different spices produced there. On the way out to our hotel we stopped into a spice farm and saw cardamon, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, lipstick tree, lemongrass, coffee, pepper and about 10 more we can‘t recall. The rest of our time in Zanzibar was spent relaxing by the beach, working on our tans and drinking cocktails.

A dhow off the beach at our resort

We were a little sad to leave the 2nd leg of our trip behind, having seen some amazing things in a very interesting continent. Dain has since started reading a book about the problems in Africa and how the current situation has come about which is extremely interesting.

Africa!!

2009-04-27T04:32:00.004+10:00

Since our last post we have arrived in Africa and already completed our safari. We stayed at Ngala Safari Lodge which was just lovely, very luxurious. On arrival we were greeted with warm towels and a very welcome hot chocolate. The whole experience was just amazing. The staff were incredible, so friendly and willing to look after us. Our driver/guide, Barney and our tracker, Joe, ensured we found plenty to see. And the food was just glorious, so delicious and so much of it! It was quite nice to have something other than noodles for a change!

Us with Barney & Joe

We had two drives each day, one in the morning and one in the evening. Although the 5am wake-up knock on the door was a bit of a shock to the system, the animals were well worth it. Our highlights were seeing a herd of elephants walking along within 10 minutes of our first drive, a pride of 11 lions just lounging around on a dirt mound, tracking down a young female leopard (whom we followed down a creek bed, into a dry river bed and then watched from about 5 metres away) and watching a cheetah with her 3 very fluffy cubs.

The baby elephant charging usOne of the male lions (his mane has only started growing!)
The beautiful leopard we followed
Cheetah with her cubs

It was quite sad to leave Ngala. We had such a great time. We’ll definitely be back!

We arrived at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe yesterday and went on a sunset cruise on the Mighty Zambezi River. The guide on the boat was very sharp and located a few birds, a monitor lizard and some hippos. The highlight was seeing a hippo yawn, bringing the top of its body out of the water as well as its head.

This morning we went for our lion encounter. When they told us that they had lions of 13 months and 18 months we started thinking that these wouldn’t be little tiny cubs! We started with the 18 month old ones, and they came up to thigh height. We were told not to play with them because they would inflict some injury and seeing their 4cm claws and sizeable teeth, we were inclined to believe them. It was so amazing. They were just beautiful. It was simply incredible being able to walk next to them and crouch down with them. The operators of the encounters are part of a breeding program for lions which aims to put human-raised lions into 10,000 acre habitats where they no longer have human interaction. The cubs from these lions are then raised entirely without human contact and are released (once they are old enough) into truly open areas.

Hands on with our lion cub!

Tomorrow we’re going to see the falls. We haven’t seen the actual falls yet, just the mist which rises above the relatively flat landscape in a very eerie way.

The plan is put a couple of photo albums up but we’ll need to wait until we get a reliable internet connection.

Cheers

Dain & Susan

Our first stop... Vietnam

2009-04-18T21:14:00.007+10:00

Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City was quite an experience after a long couple of flights, so much traffic and so many motorbikes (even more amazing was peak hour in full swing!!) At traffic lights the motorbikes are 8 wide, and there's just a constant stream wherever you go.

Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City

Nha Trang was fantastic - the resort was such a lovely place to stay and the staff couldn’t do enough for us. We did a few tours, one into the countryside - where we saw how they make rice noodles, rice paper (for rice paper rolls) and a conical hat maker (the hats are conical, not the maker). We did a cyclo tour which involved being ridden around the city by 3 cyclos - one each for us and one for our guide. We were taken to the markets, that sell EVERYTHING!! Fresh food, dried food, clothes, shoes, souvenirs, fabric, household items etc.

This bridge is built by the locals after every rainy season

Chillies, ginger & garlic at the markets

The third ‘tour’ we did was a sunset cruise, where we had a 40-45 foot wooden boat all to ourselves, with a dedicated guide and 2 boat drivers. The boat nosed up to the beach and we climbed up a ladder over the bow which was about 2.5m high.

Sunrise over Nha Trang

At the resort we ate a lot, swam and went for a few walks, mostly in the cool of early morning. We were sad to leave Nha Trang, particularly when one of the staff members came out to wave us off especially.

However, we are back in the big city now. We took a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels yesterday which were once a network of 250km of tunnels. The actual tunnels were destroyed by bombing, but they have recreated various aspects. It was quite confronting seeing some of the tactics and techniques used in the war by the Vietnamese. We also had the opportunity to fire an AK-47 which was quite cool.

Dain going through an entrance to the tunnels

Susan taking aim!

We visited the Mekong Delta and the floating markets today. It was a long drive there and back, but well worth a visit. Tomorrow we're planning to see some more of the city’s museums. We fly out Monday night for South Africa. Next stop... SAFARI!!

PS We've amended the settings so you can now comment on our blog.

Just a quick update

2009-04-08T11:17:00.004+10:00

We're madly in the middle of last minute packing so we thought we'd put a couple of photos up and we'll do a full coverage of the day later.

Needless to say, we had an amazing day. The weather was perfect and from all accounts everyone had a good time.

love from Mr & Mrs Penman

Packing finished, now onto the wedding...

2009-03-27T12:40:00.003+11:00

We're now completely moved out and have almost finished sorting & storing all of our belongings.

The empty unit

Goodbye Glenmore St!

We were hoping for a bit of a rest before the wedding but we've been going non-stop for the past 3 weeks! It's come up so quickly... we're down to 8 days to the wedding and less than 2 weeks until we fly out. We can't bring ourselves to start packing just yet... maybe tomorrow.

The packing up stage

2009-03-17T12:34:00.008+11:00

First step of our adventure was packing up the unit at Naremburn, our first little home. It has been quite a process! It has surprised us both how much stuff we have accumulated over three years.

The lounge room mid-packing

Our bedroom dismantled

The crew

A bit of time-out

Getting there...

Almost done

We're almost all packed up. We've just got a bit of cleaning to go. We'll both be very happy to have a bit of a rest before the wedding planning gets back underway :)

A huge thank you to our parents, Paul, Trent and Rhys for their help during our move.