Wales

After a week and a bit in Scotland, on the go the whole time, we go to Cardiff and just collapsed! We are staying with Brandan, Christines brother, and Sarah. We had a nice dinner and a few drinks when we arrived, but the next morning Brandan had to leave for work a few hours away.

We spent the first few days relaxing and catching up on skype and emails and had a few short walks around town. They have a really nice apartment and its in a great location, 10 min walk from the waterfront and 15 min walk from the city. Unfortunately, for the second time in the UK we got caught out in the rain, big time. We were drenched when the drizzle suddenly turned to torrential rain, while we were walking home one day. Our plans of spending some time in the pub watching the cricket were also washed out.

We had a great time with Sarah, mainly just quiet nights in, but we did head down to the waterfront for burgers one night and a movie. Cardiff is a really nice city, but our time outdoors was cut short by rain every day and our laziness. We did go for a nice walk through some of the parks and past the big stadium one afternoon.

Brandan was home for the weekend and we spent a number of hours in the pub on Saturday. One pub we visited was the aussie pub, had a few Fosters and VBs, best beer in europe! Sadly this night was too awesome, and finished way too late given our 7am train the next morning! Lack of sleep and way too much beer meant we were both feeling very average.

We made it to the train, the first was to London. We then had 45minto take the tube to a different station where we caught a train to Brussels, we made it with 5 minutes to spare, whats the rush! We both had a bit of sleep on the train but still felt pretty terrible.

Scotland Highlands

Well thanks to Mum and Dad for buying us a tour for Damien’s birthday. We had been planning to take a 5-day highland tour of Scotland with MacBackpacker Tours, so when they suggested they pay for it we were stoked!
Neil our tour guide and bus driver was great, very entertaining with his stories of Scotland’s history and tales some of which might even be true! We were picked up from a hostel in Edinburgh, a short walk from where we were staying. The bus only held about 29 people, unfortunately the bus was full, meaning no spare seats, and a bit squished in. The good news is you were never on the bus for too long, as there were many stops along the way.

Leaving Edinburgh we headed for Inverness. Stops along the way were the Hermitage Trail a nice forest which was once privately owned by Clan leader who used it to woe women. There was also stories about fairies who like to abduct people from the forest to take them back to their fairylands for entertainment. We stopped at the ruins of an old English barracks, the site of the brutal Culloden battle where the English slayed the Scottish Clans and some old cairns, which are like tombs but made of piles of rocks and are centuries old. We also did a whisky tasting and stopped at Loch Ness in search of Nessie.
Inverness was a nice little town by a river. Once we had checked in we went for a walk along the river and found some nice islands with wood carved into odd shaped seats. We then had to visit the supermarket to get lunch for the following day as we were heading into the remote Highlands. We joined the rest of the tour in a local pub for dinner and a traditional ‘Keally’, traditional Scottish dancing to the bagpipes and accordion.

Back on the bus on Day 2, we headed off into the hills headed for the remote area’s of the Highlands. Our first stop was for a walk through some forest to a river and waterfall. This was a really nice waterfall, the only problem is a few of us followed the wrong person and ended up getting split from the rest of the group. Not knowing where they went, we returned to the bus but there was no one in sight. So we took ourselves on a bit more of a walk to a suspension bridge over the falls. Eventually we all met back up at the bus, turns out they had headed down stream, but I don’t think we missed out on too much. I think it was totally Sandra’s fault that we got lost (nah… not really), a friend from Austria.
Everything was sweet, everyone was back on the bus ready to go, only one problem, the bus wouldn’t start! After about 10 minutes of Scottish cursing the bus finally started, but it meant we had to drive back to Inverness to the garage to get it looked over.
About 2-3 hours later, after we had eaten our lunch near Inverness Castle, we got a call saying the bus was fine and we were off again, just a bit behind schedule. What Neil did next was awesome, he gave us the choice of what to do, either skip a few things and end up in Kyleakin on the Isle of Skye around the normal time or continue as planned but arrive pretty late. Unanimous decision was to continue as planned even if it got us in a bit late.
We had a brief stop at Clootie Well, which is supposed to have magical powers to heal people, so if you have an ailment you dunk a piece of clothing in the well 3 times and then tie it to one of the trees. Was kind of weird being in the middle of the forest with all these random clothes tied to trees. We then visited the magnificent Corrieshalloch Gorge. This was a short walk down to a suspension bridge, which supposedly can only hold 6 people at a time. Of course this was soon to be tested by a few people on our tour. We managed to get across safely and walk down to the viewing platform, which most people didn’t bother to go to, so we had it to ourselves, yay!
The afternoon we had to rush a but, obviously having the delays in the morning, but we still had a few quick photo opportunities including what Neil thought is one of the most beautiful Loch’s in Scotland, Loch Maree.
We finally got to the Isle of Skye at about 8.30pm, and rushed to the pub to order meals before the kitchen closed. We ate with the Spanish girls, Emma and Tanya who are lovely, at Saucy Mary’s, which is named after a Viking princes who would do strip shows on the roof for sailors who paid extra tolls.

We stayed two nights at Kyleakin, which meant that we spent Day 3 touring the Isle of Skye. We made a number of short stops throughout the day, the first to see a waterfall. We headed to Cullin River, which is at the base of the two Cullin Mountains (red and black). The water in this river runs off the two mountains and the water contains the goodness from the mountains. One mountain is said to be the old wise mountain whilst the other is the eternally young and attractive mountain. By dipping your face in the water for 8 seconds the water will make you look younger and also make you wiser.
After we had dunked our heads in the water it was off to Portree to grab some lunch and have a look around the old town. We stopped at McDonald Castle, another castle of ruins with a lot of history. This was not safe to enter, according to the guide and the fence, however of course, you know who decided to climb all over it! The rest of us just walked down to the water and had a look at the amazing cliffs.
In the afternoon we stopped at a cool, but random little museum, ‘Macurdies Exhibition’ which is the result of a guy living by himself and going a bit nuts, over the long cold winter. It was basically stories and ideas written on the walls of a house, as well as random objects being hung around the place.
The next stop was our favourite place in Scotland, the Fairy Glen (Glen Shie or Balnachock). This was what looked like a series of mini hills and cliffs. In the middle was a rock formation, which is known as the fairy castle. There were also the ruins of a cottage, the owner disappeared years ago, and it is thought the fairies took him and buried him under the castle. We got to spend a bit of time off the bus exploring and climbing which was really fun after being on and off the bus all day.

Dinner tonight was a group effort to celebrate Roberto’s birthday, an Italian guy from the bus. The girls cooked pasta and salads. While this was being prepared Damien went for a jog, along the waterfront and then over the Skye Bridge. It was the first time I had ran in months, but felt great, especially after being crammed in a bus for 3 days!

Day 4 started with a tour of Eilean Donan Castle, which would normally be done on the way to Skye except for the bus breaking down. The castle was on an island on a Loch, very beautiful. This was really nice on the inside and had some cool features like paintings, which the eyes follow you around the room and secret hearing holes into different rooms for spying on guests.
We saw a lot of amazing scenery on the bus, cliffs coastline and loch’s. We saw the Harry Potter bridge, which the Hogwart’s Express crosses in the movies. We also saw the platform 9 and ¾ a week ago in London.
We stayed in a nice little town called Oban. It has a castle, which we walked up to in the evening before dinner at a pub with some friends from the bus. It is a little fishing town that is now big on bed and breakfast’s. We splurged tonight and found a bed and breakfast instead of the hostel option.

Day 5 started with a massive breakfast, real coffee, coco pops, toast, bacon and eggs. Definitely the best breakfast since America, possibly the best since Australia! Back on the bus and it was off to Kilchurn Castle. This was another of our favourite places, this was a semi-ruined castle, but had platforms and wooden stairs built so that you could go inside. Again we were the only ones there, and were free to explore at our own pace. Was great fun looking out over the loch and mountains, imagining you lived there and owned the land as far as you could see…



Christine met Hamish, a hairy highland cow with massive horns. We had lunch in a nice little town on the rocks of a river. Visited the grave of Rob Roy and saw a little old church. Our last stop on the tour was at the William Wallace monument, which is a small castle, built on top of a big hill.We then returned to Edinburgh, checked into our new hostel and had dinner at a little Italian restaurant with a group of people who we liked from the tour!

Edinburgh

We spent 4 nights in Edinburgh, split over two weekends. Our first hostel was Argyle Place Backpackers which was about a 10min walk from the heart of Edinburgh. The hostel was great, big dorm rooms with only 6 beds, lots of (working) bathrooms, 2 kitchens and a lounge and sun room. Our first night we spent a couple of hours chatting to our roommates and drinking the nice coffee. We then headed to the supermarket, about a 10-minute walk. As we returned from the shops, a flash flood hit, we were drenched and the roads were flooding. After a shower and some new clothes we cooked a hearty stew in the oven (Damien has been craving oven cooked food) and drank French wine.

The next morning we walked from the hostel through the meadows to Holyrood Park and climbed up Arthur’s Seat. This had great 360 deg views of Edinburgh. We wandered down the opposite side of the hill and made our way to town up High St (the Royal Mile). The Royal Mile is basically a strip of shops, restaurants and bars. The city was amazing, so many nice old buildings but still parks around to make it feel a bit nicer. After walking all day we retired early with a bottle of red from a winery in California we actually visited, cheaper here! Australian wine is actually cheaper over here also, which is pretty disgraceful I reckon, too much tax back home! The following morning we headed off on a 5-day tour of the highlands.

When we returned from the tour we were staying at Castle Rock hostel, as the Argyle Place was booked out. This hostel was much bigger, still had some nice lounge area’s, more beds in the dorms. They also had a breakfast Nazi who tried to charge us for eating our own corn flakes in the hostel!

On the Saturday we had to choose between going to the Highland games, which were in town or visiting the Edinburgh Castle. Both were quite expensive, but we decided to go to the Castle. This was quite interesting we had an audio tour, which you probably don’t need. There was a war memorial, old church, crown jewels, museums, dog cemetery and old prison cells.

After a coffee in the hostel and packing our bags up a bit, we headed to the Castle Arms Pub, just down from the hostel. This had a nice balcony over the city out the back where we had a few beers and a haggis for dinner. The pub was good with discounts for backpackers and a girl we met in the hostel working in the bar. After dinner we headed out onto the street to watch the homecoming parade. This was clans of highlanders all parading in their tartan and kilts, like a big reunion happening in town. People had come from all over the world including an American couple from our tour, but we must have missed them, as we didn’t see them in the parade. Next morning we rushed down to the train station, running a bit late, we nearly missed our train. After finding out which platform we had to go to, we found the train with about 3 minutes to spare. This was luckily as we had to transfer trains on our way to Cardiff.

EUROPE

Our flight from New York to London was about 10hr with a couple of hours in Zurich on the way. We met a couple of girls from Brisbane at JFK who were also traveling to England for work, they were very nice and we may catch up with them later on. Again Christine watched too much TV on the plane and was very tired for our first day in London.
Our accommodation in Northumberland Hotel, just near Kings Cross Station, £50 per night, was bit of a dive. The toilets weren’t working on our floor and a leaking shower meant we had to move rooms, except the staff forgot to move us, so we had to stay in the same ‘musty’ room.
We spent 3 days organizing agencies, opening a bank account and setting up a mobile phone. We have also applied for a Chinese Visa, so we had to leave our passports in London when we left for Scotland. Our last night in London we went to see the new Harry Potter film, which we both really enjoyed.Next morning we left and headed for Edinburgh on the train, which was only going to take 4-5 hours.

U.S.A. Highlights

- Watching dolphins swim at Malibu Beach
- Seeing Juzzy and Kristy in Las Vegas and Seattle
- Catching a few baseball games
- Maid of the Mist tour in Niagra Falls

- National Parks
- 1 Yellowstone – animals everywhere!
- 2 Yosemite – amazing scenery!
- 3 Grand Teton – Our first bear!

- Cities
- 1 New York
- 2 Chicago
- 3 Las Vegas

- Galleries
- 1 The MET, NY
- 2 Guggenheim, NY
- 3 Institute of Art Museum, Chicago

New York City

We have just spent 10 days in the city of New York and absolutely loved it! In short we have done a number of the touristy sites, Empire State building, Times Square, Rockefeller Centre and the Statue of Liberty, we have done the arty-farty thing, The MET, MOMA, Guggenheim and a Broadway show. We have also seen a NY Mets baseball game (Damien's new team), spent a lot of time in Central Park and other parks around town and spent a day in Brooklyn. Finally, we also saw the fireworks over the Hudson River for the 4th of July celebrations and made a few new friends in our hostel. Surprisingly, after 10 days we still weren't 'ready' to leave and could have stayed longer!

New York - Part 2

Thursday morning we started out on a guided tour called ‘West Side Stories’. This was really interesting as it toured different parts of the park and also gave insight into the history and design of the park. We saw many bridges, lakes and gardens, as well as the line for the Shakespeare tickets, the people in the front of the line had arrived at 1am, a 12 hour wait for tickets!
After the tour we ate lunch in a very busy diner full of locals. The menu was huge, in the end we told the helpful waiter we wanted an authentic NY bagel experience, and he ordered for us. It was really nice, a bagel with smoked salmon and cream cheese and a pastrami sandwich.
After we had printed out the tickets, we jumped on a train and headed out to Flushing to see the New York Met’s play. After being told the prices of the tickets at the club shop, Damien looked on line and found some tickets for below face value! It was a great start to the game with lots of scoring. Unfortunately in the end the Met’s lost to the LA Dodgers, 2-11. We still enjoyed it, really glad we got to go to another game.

After bit of a sleep in on Friday we headed down to Times Square for a walking tour. This ended up being a bit long, but was still very interesting, we were taken into some of the nice old building and theaters that we otherwise wouldn’t have seen. Apparently buildings in the Times Square area all have to have a quota of billboard space.
We then continued with the tourist sites, Wall St and the Bronze Bull sculpture, lunch in Battery Park and a visit to the world trade center site. We then headed to MOMA, a modern art gallery. It is open until 8pm on Friday nights so we spent a bit of time looking at sculptures and paintings. When we returned to the hostel we cooked beef pinwheels (steaks with cheese and spinach rolled into them), for dinner… very nice!

Christine opted for a big sleep in instead of breakfast on Saturday, and once we did get moving, instead of joining another tour of Central Park, she had a nap by a lake. In the mean time Damien did the tour around the North end of the park. This was also very interesting being told about the features of the park. Most of the tour was in forest like areas of the park, with a man made creek, most of the tour you couldn’t hear any of the nearby city noise.
After the tour we headed to Union Square where there was a farmers market. We bought some nice cheese and had a lot of little samples. Luckily we found another market nearby for lunch as the farmers market didn’t have any ready to eat items. We had massive crepe’s for lunch, a rest in Union Square Park and then a coffee.
After a fairly cruisy day we headed to the Guggenheim, which like MOMA, was open late. This was a spiral building with a major display on Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect who designed the building and one of Christine’s (many) favorites. The Guggenheim is also the scene for a gunfight in a recent movie (The International), but unfortunately all the damage from that scene had been repaired!
While the MET was the biggest and best of the 3 galleries we went to, we were both really impressed with the Guggenheim, and didn’t make it right through the collection as we were kicked out at closing time.
The Guggenheim is right next to Central Park, so we walked through the park on our way home. We had been told that it was really nice at night. The main area we visited was the Belvedere Castle, which is all lit up at night. We found a little Italian restaurant a bit closer to the hostel for dinner, and then ate doughnuts on the way home because we were still hungry!

Sunday morning we were hoping to go to a church service in Harlem, but while we were having breakfast we were told by someone who had already been down there, that the line for the 11am mass was already way too long, at 7.30am! Instead we headed to 112th st to the ‘Seinfeld’ Café. Although the name is different than in the show, the outside of the building looks very similar, and the inside was a lot busier than in the show. We both had milkshakes, there were good but made us feel sick, they were huge, over a liter of milk!
We then picked up some nice bread and antipasto to go with our cheese and headed to Central Park where we sat on the lawn and watched a Latin music concert. We also grabbed some Samuel Adams to celebrate our great times in NY and the USA. After the concert we headed back to the hostel for our last night. We tidied our room and packed our bags, ready to check out, we didn’t feel like dinner after grazing all afternoon.

Our last day in the USA we checked out, stored our bags and headed for the Statue of Liberty. Our plan of heading over to the island was foiled by long queue’s and all the Monument Passes already being given out. Instead we took the (free) Staten Island ferry, which leaves every half hour and passes right by the statue. Being in a bit of a rush we took the ferry across and straight back to get some lunch, our final USA burgers, before returning to the hostel and taking the metro train to the airport.

New York - Part 1

The bus ride from Niagra was another uneventful greyhound trip! The highlight was the grumpy/ pessimistic bus driver who assured us a number of times we would be at least an hour late. Also when the bus left a passenger at the lunch stop, Burger King, was amusing, mainly because it wasn't us that got left behind! As it turns out the driver was wrong and we arrived in New York about 15 minutes early, around 5.30pm.
After being abused by the customer service guy for the metro, we transferred to the train and found our way to Harlem and the Wanderers Inn Hostel on 113th street. The hostel is clean and reasonably small (70 beds). We haven't seen any rats, which is a common problem in NY apparently, although the 3 cats living in the basement could also help with this. While the hostel doesn't help out as much as other places we have stayed with things like tours or giving info on events happening around the city, but we managed to do this ourselves. The only downside to the hostel is the small living and cooking areas, only two people can cook at a time and the free breakfast which starts at 8.30am seems to be under-catered for on some mornings.
After checking in we went for a short walk through Central Park and sat for a bit on the Great Hill lawns. On the way back to the hostel we half looked for somewhere to eat, but no surprise, couldn't find anything so we grabbed some groceries and had a veggie fix.

Our first day in New York just happened to be 4th July which was good timing. After having breakfast with our roommates who we met last night (Patrick, Anja, Martin & Johanna), we headed to Central Park. We just wandered around for a bit before finding a park info kiosk. They were very friendly and helped us out with events happening in the park for the week. We also got a few other tips on things to see and do. We then headed to Times Square to have a look around and also find out about Yankees and Broadway tickets. Times Square is chaotic in a fun kind of way. Big billboards and TV screens everywhere and so, so many people.
The Yankee’s were nice enough to offer us some cheap seats for $90 each, so we decided against these. We headed back to the hostel to meet up with Patrick and Anja, our new friends from Austria. We were going to go down to the Hudson River to watch the 4th July fireworks. We stopped for a burger on the way and then made it to within about 5 blocks from the river, this was as close as we could get, it was literally shoulder-to-shoulder, people everywhere. It was a really good illustration of how many people there are here in New York. Despite hearing a local complain that the fireworks only lasted for 30 minutes this year, we were very impressed with the show. After the fireworks we headed to Times Square for a beer with Patrick and Anja, a good way to escape the crowds on the street and in the subway.

Sunday (our second full day) we considered doing a hop on hop off city bus tour, to get a better feel for the city, taking the subway all the time means you miss a lot of the city sights. These turned out to be about $50pp for the cheapest one, so we skipped this idea and took a similar route on the public buses ($27 for a weekly ticket). After spending the morning in Central Park we rode down to the Rockefeller Center. By chance there was a large market in the area, taking up about 20 blocks along 5th avenue. We then did a bit of an architecture tour seeing the Trump, Sony, Chrysler buildings as well as the amazing Grand Central Station. Next we headed to the Flatiron district and had a coffee and a rest in Madison Sq Park next to the Flatiron Building.
Back on the bus we went through SOHO, Greenwich and Little Italy where we stopped and had a nice pasta for dinner. A spur of the moment idea saw us decide to go to the Empire State Building for the sunset. It was a bit rushed and the two big lines (one for tickets and one for the lift) took a long time. We did finally make it to the top, in time for sunset. There were way too many people up there on the narrow viewing platforms, was difficult to move or get a decent view. By coincidence Christine bumped (literally) into a friend from high school at the top, David Kemp. Finally we ended the day with a chocolate sundae at Times Square.

Next morning (Monday) we were a bit tired but still made it downstairs in time for bagels and coffee. We then had a pretty easy day in Central Park. We just love Central Park, it is amazing such a huge park could be so close to the center of one of the biggest cities in the world. We started around 81st street and quickly saw the line for the free Shakespeare in the park tickets. We had been told that the show was very good and also free. We joined the very long line at midday and waited for about an hour, which wasn’t so bad as the line was through Central Park, so it was a bit like sitting in the park anyway. Shortly after they started giving out the tickets at 1pm, they were sold out, and we were still a very long way back in the line. They told us that the last person to get a ticket joined the line at 6.30am, what a scam!

Christine was most upset at missing out on the tickets, but like any tantrum, an ice cream soon helped her forget about it! We ate them by a lake with rowboats on it and then explored the ramble, a forest like section of the park, designed to get people lost in the wilderness. We wandered over the great lawn and to a few monuments, sculptures and the Bethesda Fountain. The rest of the afternoon we spent a bit of time in the library on the internet (the library is an amazing building with marble floors and painted ceilings) and we checked the NY Mets for tickets, more helpful than the Yankees but still a bit expensive. We cooked chicken pesto pasta for dinner and did a bit of washing… woo hoo!

Tuesday we spent the day in Brooklyn. The morning started with a leisurely stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge. This didn’t take too long and gave nice views of Brooklyn and Manhattan. After crossing the bridge we continued along to the promenade, with a stop in a park along the way for a snack. The promenade is a nice little area with shops and café’s although we didn’t make it down to the waterfront. Instead we headed to Coney Island for Nathan’s famous hot dogs. They weren’t as big as we expected, not very healthy but very tasty! While we ate our lunch a huge thunderstorm rolled in, ending our plan of an afternoon on the beach or in the botanic gardens. Once the rain had stopped and we had finished our lunch we had a quick look at the beach, but the sand was still very wet.
On the way home we stopped off and walked along the Hudson River until sunset, we then headed back to the hostel and cooked some noodles.

Wednesday was the start of the cultural part of the week, we started the day with a visit to the Metropolitan Art Museum (MET). The ‘suggested’ admission fee for the two of us was $40, so we paid a fair compromise, $2. The first section of the MET was an Egyptian theme, which was totally amazing. It had an actual reconstructed tomb from Egypt as well as many sculptures, art works and coffins. We also saw American, Greek and Modern Art with a break for lunch in Central Park. Christine forgot her glasses this morning, so after lunch, Damien being such a noble Gentleman returned to the hostel to get them while Christine continued exploring the MET.
Once the MET closed we headed to Times Square and bought some half-price tickets to a Broadway show at the TKTS booth. Getting a bit peekish we thought we would grab a quick coffee and doughnut. Well, we walked so far, and asked so many people, but couldn’t find a Dunkin Doughnut anywhere in the middle of NY. Of course after we settled for a second rate French bakery we found about 3 doughnut shops!The show, Toxic Avenger, was a comedy/ rock musical. It was really good, it was based on a 60’s film where a guy is thrown into a toxic drum, only to become a mutant out to clean up the world. There were only five actors in it, playing about ten characters, it was really well done. After the show we went to Yum Yum Thai that we had been recommended. It was yum-yum!!!