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St. George’s, Grenada

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Willemstad, Netherlands Antilles

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Oranjestad, Aruba

Destination: Southern Caribbean (pronounced Krib-e-in)
Transportation: Cruise liner / floating retirement village
Number of ports visited: 8 over 14 days
Welcome in many of the native tongues: Bon Bini or Hi Mon
Random ship statistics – each day: 14,000 bottles of water sold, 15,000 plated meals served (excluding buffet), 60,000 sugar sachets used

Mum, Dad, Dave and I boarded the new sparkly Celebrity cruise liner where we were warmly greeted with a glass of champagne on arrival before being whisked away for the first of many three course lunches. That morning at the Fort Lauderdale Port, a mere 5 cruise liners with nearly 20,000 people disembarked then again embarked. It was the smoothest check in process we’ve ever had. To feel as if you’re the only ones checking in, when in fact there’s 2,800 beings on your ship, is quite something. After physically stuffing ourselves so much with tasty deliciousness we unpacked our clothes… in drawers. Those two things aren’t something we take for granted. We caught up on the lack of food over the last 6 months and made up for it by gorging on copious amounts of free food, cocktails, wine and beer for 14 glorious days – where the calories don’t count and tummies are sucked in for photos. If any cruise agent offers any type of upgrade, a drinks package is the one you want! As for our room; a whole room to ourselves for 14 days with our own toilet, shower, wardrobe, drawers, lounge and BALCONY! This room is something quite special even for people who haven’t lived out of a backpack for 6 months.
It’s been, rightly so, commented on how we were going to get away with fitting into the crusing scene with our backpacking attire. Thanks to my wonderful parents, who brought us over some ‘normal’ clothing, thankfully at tonight’s formal evening Dave can wear a suit not boardies and I can wear HEELS not my normal outing shoes.. hiking boots. Those damn heels required cracking open the first aid kit for the first time. I wasn’t expecting that to be for bandaids on the ankles though. Needless to stay we are easing into this lifestyle well, particularly the unlimited amount of free cocktails served under the sun on our private lounge chairs while passing by islands like the Bahamas and Cuba. I’ll have to learn not to stock up food for the NEXT 6 months though. I ate so much on the first night I was sick then fell asleep in the show. Which was embarrassing because with the exception of mum and dad, we would be the youngest people on this particular ship by about 50years: zimmer frames roll by, string quartets play all day and we won’t get used to being poolside next to 2,000 speedos filled with shrivelled peas and a droopy bean. Dave reckons there’s more wrinkles on the deck than in his backpacking clothes. But in all seriousness it’s not so much about the age as mum and dad know how to rock and roll like the youngest of them. It’s more about the atmosphere of this particular cruise ship. This ship was once awarded the most prestigious award of all cruise ships and that she is, a stunning new $800m ship. However this brand is about classy piano music aaalllllll day and not so much about the ‘Ya mon’ steel drum energy occasionally. It’s like somebody has forgotten to tell the cruise director that we aren’t at heaven’s door, we are in fact in the Caribbean. Not to worry, I arranged a meeting with the cruise director and the four of us put forward our request to liven this place up.. by putting some Caribbean swag into these old ***** before the morgue on Floor 2 swallows them whole. We are now on first name basis with the cruise director who has taken it on as her personal mission to “pump some life back into this place”. Later on she spotted us in the oldies ‘nightclub’ and suddenly Caribbean music started playing and the Titanic death quartet stopped.
At the end of the day, none of that really matters. We are here to enjoy quality time with Mum and Dad both in port days and sail days. Sail days involve a lot of food and alcohol. Here’s a snippet of life on board our floating retirement village: champagne breakfast on Mum and Dad’s balcony which takes us until lunch when we migrate to the extensive buffet restaurant on the deck. Then onto the pool deck for sunbathing and cocktails for me while Dave participates in Heston Bloomfield style cocktail making. If energy allows, Mum and I participate in 5 minutes of Zumba on the pool deck. No strain though as they’ve watered the moves down to cater for those with hip replacements. And for the boys, Dad and Dave’s spare energy is used in a short but highly competitive game of ping pong. That was of course until Dad broke his arm! Yes, he now has a broken arm in a cast 😦 We throughly enjoy the glass blowing activity (far better than that in Venice), and of course winning two separate raffles in 10 minutes can’t be bad either. That’s where my white hat comes from. The final exertion of energy is used to take the lift one floor to a four course dinner in the stunning dining room. The boys often have a double appetiser and double dessert so that’s 6 courses! Without fail our 4 waiters knew our order from the moment we sat down. They would never let us leave without a dessert cocktail in hand. The after dinner entertainment at the theatre is always a bit of a non event, so I manage to get in some shut eye…. Surprised? Following the theatre performance we often (the once) head to a party by the pool as our favourite band is playing. The theme: White Night. All guests are dressed in white and most even have hair to match. We left before it becomes a white 80year old’s wet teeshirt competition in the pool – no wet soggy peas and a droopy bean seen otherwise we may have to scratch our eyeballs out! (Remind me of this in 50years – karma’s a *****)

It’s not all about the shows, cocktails and food. It’s about the destinations – after all, this is the ‘Exotic Southern Caribbean Cruise’. First off the boat is ARUBA . I swear Dave only chose this cruise because of the Beach Boy’s song about “Aruba, Jamaica Ooh I Wana Take Ya….”
Our mode of transport for seeing our first Caribbean island was a hired Jeep convertible. It did the job too, although it needed band aids to hold it together. A whip around the island was easily achieved in a few hours. It’s very flat with more cacti than people. If it wasn’t for the beaches, I wouldn’t write home about this island. We had lunch in an ‘authentic shack’ on Baby Bay’s white sandy beach. It was our first swim in the pristine turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea. The outside temps are mid 30s, complemented by the warmest water we’d ever felt. It felt very much like swimming in an ocean size warm bath tub. Even mum said so, and that’s saying something.
I had a chuckle upon our arrival back on to the ship. Miraculously Caribbean music was ‘finally’ being played and upon our return to our room a bottle of vintage champagne awaited our arrival. It had a note from the cruise director attached saying that “we are listening to you”. Caribbean music playing in the Caribbean – who would have thUnk it! In all seriousness, it irks us something shocking why rich cruise companies can’t hire locals to perform on the ship on port days. They pay thousands for talentless yanks to fly over and perform just the once when they have talented locals on their doorstep who would shed a tear for $50 – one sees another chat to the cruise director is required. Then we’ll see if she’s ‘listening’.

Throughout the world you’ll see speckles of Dutch influenced architecture. Take Copenhagen Denmark as an example, one street of brightly painted buildings. Ninety percent of houses in the Dutch colony of CURAÇAO are painted in random bright or pastel colours. Reason being the Dutch king in the 1800s requested all buildings be painted this way to prevent him getting migraines as the standard white claimed to have done. It was later discovered that he owned a paint company! As the buildings are all made from coral shell, the paint requires reapplying once a year. The Curacao-ians aren’t overly rich but you woul
dn’t know it. Our dutch guide said it’s that way as they’re a very proud race which is why it’s an immaculately stunning country. You’ve probably never heard of Curacao but I bet you’ve heard of the liqueur Blue Curacao. It’s actually pronounced cura-so, not cura-kay-o. Unfortunately for this little island the Dutch, in Holland, have bought the rights to it and here in Curacao they can’t export it off the island. The liqueur has alway been made in orange, red and blue with no taste difference. The blue colour took off and the others didn’t.
The other thing I loved is their floating food markets. Every week the Venezuela-neese sail 12 hours from Venezuela to bring the Curacao-ians fruit and veges. The grower – come sailor, pulls up at the dock and sells his produce. If you’re driving by, just slow down and the floating produce market becomes a drive through. It just doesn’t rain here, so nothing grows. Like many Caribbean islands, ocean water is desalinated for an extortionate price, making the cost of living difficult.

Little GRENADA, but a big Caribbean feel. It’d be the last place I would have expected to first feel the Caribbean spirt. Steel pan drums, Rasta’s with dreadlocks and colourful beenies shone through in the tiny backstreets of the countryside. The local radio only streamed Bob Marley type music, proving it wasn’t ‘just put on for tourists’. It doesn’t feel as well kept, new and shiny as other places. It’s a place where 90% of the country was affected by back-to-back hurricanes 10years ago. A tiny country of 100,000 smiles rely on two sources of income; the cruise ships delivering 3,000 people every other day and its exportation of spices. We all hear about natural disasters affecting countries abroad. To be in Granda today, 10 years on, you can see and feel how much they rely on tourism and healthy vegetation. It’s survival for them. They are still living and breathing it, long after we hear about a natural disaster briefly on the TV headlines. Here’s an example of a country’s determination. After the rain, there will be sunshine.

BARBADOS! Here’s a place we’ve all heard of so expectations about its beauty were bound to be high. First impressions were she’s quite a run down old island but the stunning sandy beaches and turquoise waters compensate. Like many Caribbean islanders formally under British rule, their roots as slaves and it’s abolishment is remembered. Even after 150 odd years, the stigma still remains for some. There are government initiatives to rectify this including improving the literacy rate with free education. The country is now proud of it’s 98% literacy.
So what is it that makes THIS island well known over the hundreds of other islands? I asked that same question to our full of life local guide. His response was an interesting perspective. Last year a campaign hit Barbados through billboards: “what improvements have you made today – do 100 good things in 100 days”. The mission was to improve the overall standard such things as politeness, morals and manners. The 100 days have passed, yet the locals are still living in harmony and are genuinely warm people. The warmth from these well rounded locals is being felt by the thousands of tourists bringing money onto the island daily. It may not be the most beautiful of countries, but the people’s hearts sure are.

The cost of cruising can sometimes be the cheap part as it’s very nearly all inclusive. Cruise companies make their money through overpriced shore excursions, like $50 for a trip to the beach! We learnt that lesson on the first cruise we did in Australia. This time around we have mixed it up and organised our own tours or hired a car. With 8 ports on this cruise, its easy to get wrapped up in seeing each one of the islands extensively when our backpacking budget doesn’t allow for us to do everything. Arriving into the beautiful country of ST LUCIA we paid $55pp for a boat tour of the island and then realised our budget required us to ask for a refund and go on the $15 water taxi around to a neighbouring bay. This may sound like a very insignificant paragraph but this is our daily predicament: when to spend money and when not to. Otherwise you end up saying “we’re only here the once” followed by a contradicting statement “we’re only half way though this trip and so is our budget”. As Dad has his broken arm, beaches aren’t as enjoyable, so today they opted for a short island tour. I’m writing this paragraph lying on the sand under a palm tree at Marigot Bay. It’s where the first Dr Doolittle was filmed. I can see Mick Jager and George Forman’s houses. George’s actually looks like his famous round grill. Dave is out snorkelling. He just saw a gigantic barracuda and other tasty fish. I like snorkelling too but not when I’m hungry.

ANTIGUA and its 365 white sand beaches was the one Caribbean island we didn’t swim at. I was surprised Dave let me do an island tour by myself today, after yesterday’s experience. Yesterday our prepaid water taxi didn’t return for us from secluded Marigot Bay. Our only way back to the ship was a ride in a full on Rastafarian ya mon’s car. This colourful Rasta’s remedy for stressing was to just smoke some dope and “no problem mon”. Surprisingly, we opted for the car ride not The Ride.

SINT MAARTEN or SAINT MARTIN is dependent on which side of the island you’re on. This island has the smallest land mass in the world to be shared by two different nations. Each side has their own language, capital and airport.The Dutch on one side and French on the other, with a land size of only 58 square km. A treaty signed 350 years ago agreed that residents on either side can be commercially active on the other side without any red tape. This contract turns out to be the oldest, undisputed treaty in the world.
It’s so small it takes only 1.5hr to drive around it. We hired a car to really experience both sides and it’s as contrasting as day and night. My Mum always told me to say the positives, so I’ll mention the Dutch side only. Sint Maarten is beautiful, well kept and pristine and very Dutch. It’s one of the most popular destinations in the southern Caribbean for it’s uniqueness and tax free shopping. Dave got an early birthday present, a Swiss watch from here. (he didn’t want a pair of diamond earrings unfortunately). Maybe the French side is a sh*t hole (oops did I say that), because the cruise terminal and money is on the Dutch side. The French side does have a nudist beach though, where people in their late hundreds swim – not a place you want to be accidentally snorkelling at. Regardless of that, these two separate lives coexist in contrast but in perfect harmony.
Today alone, 6 cruise liners with 15,000 people and another 4,000 staff entered onto this island, home to only 112,281 Dutch, French and natives. The locals must look at the cruise ship parking lot and rub their hands together in glee. One of the biggest tourist attractions is swimming under planes arriving overhead at the Dutch side’s international airport. Due to its short runway, landing aeroplanes have to fly at unusually low altitudes, only 10-20 metres above the beach. Jet blasts from overhead aircraft create artificial waves. Cool place.
One of the biggest attractions for Dutch nationals living in Holland is flying over here to buy their driver’s licence for a few dollars rather than getting it in Holland where hundreds of hours with a driving instructor is required.

And last but not least, the US Virgin Islands – ST THOMAS. There were 6 super cruise ships in the port today, each with between 4-5000 passengers. Except for ours with a measly 2,800 so we had to take tenders for the first time this cruise. Its an odd place really. As its a US island they have right hand drive cars but drive on the left like us normal folk do. The place its self is beautiful, but not my favourite with the brash American inhabitants. It is however supposedly the best snorkelling in all Southern Caribbean islands. We snorkelled straight off Coki beach. Within 2 metres of the beach .It was like swimming in an aquarium
with warm turquoise water. Pretty cool beach to end our 2 week island hopping.

It’s probably come across as if we haven’t enjoyed our 14 night stay on the Love Boat, but in actual fact we have. Its been the ideal way to see so much while eating every 18 minutes. A great mix of relaxing sea time with the bustle of port days in between. It’s interesting you know, after 8 islands, 6 back to back, you become very blasé and many islands become same-same. It’s only after reviewing the photos and seeing how stunning these places really are that you appreciate it. We are so fortunate to have been able to see them, their people and culture. Of course the beaches just speak for themselves!
As for the cruise it’s self, I loved the ‘concept’ of an indoor lap pool or gym but found more joy in reading a book on the balcony. Celebrity Cruises also have a real grass lawn for sunbathing and for events such as golf or wine and cheese on picnic blankets with live acoustics. We were fortunate to be on the ship for the thanksgiving day celebrations: an American style buffet brunch with 15 full size ice sculptures, followed by televised American football (Dave now knows the rules to that weird game). In this blog the Celebrity brand was ‘slightly’ mocked, but in all seriousness their entertainment and activities cater for a much, much older demographic who love it. That aside, we still very much enjoyed the two weeks. This range of new 5 star ships is beautifully decked out with exceptional staff and impeccable food. We, of course, throughly valued the quality time we spent together without forking out much money… Which is why we’re going to do it all again next week!

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Miami, FL

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London, United Kingdom

In 55 days by train we visited: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Monte Carlo, Vatican City, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Italy.
In 33 days: Morocco in Africa, Greece, Scotland, Ireland and England.

Eighty eight days ago I ignorantly painted Europe with one ‘same same’ brush stroke – castles, churches and all things old. The thing that we have come to love about Europe, and that is hard to find in many other continents, is the ability to jump in an out of countries with different food, language and culture, just with an hours train ride. Europe is very diverse. From east to west and north to south we travelled with our 17kg home on our backs (Im not coming back as a turtle in my next life). Eighty eight days ago I hated travelling this way; as ‘real backpackers’ living everyday unplanned with a new home every night. Like anything, you have to work at it. It took a week or so but with determination and the support of my husband we found a way to enjoy the world’s most expensive continent – on a shoe string budget.

In the beginning we stuck to what we knew, renting a room in people’s houses through Air BnB. We met a lot of great locals this way, particularly beautiful Mouna from Bordeaux. Admitedly we stayed in hotels and riads for a few nights, which gave us our privacy. Overnight train accommodation with the drunks made for long nights but made the most of our precious time. In Southern and Western Europe it was cheaper to stay in hostels. A bit hesitant at first but we soon grew to appreciate their facilities such as a kitchen, washing machine and a good location, with were more valuable than the need for privacy, however I won’t be missing the cold showers and lack of sleep! Family members from across Europe had us to stay. They made us welcome into their homes, provided us with family comforts, revived the batteries and even organised a family reunion. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you: Margaret and Mike in Nuneaton, Anne for feeding us in Norway, Laurence and Francesca in Switzerland, Jenny and Uwe in Greece, Martin and Tricia in Lancashire and Ian and Becky in Milton Keynes – Thank you, you have made a huge difference to our European adventures. And of course thank you to our surrogate mums, Jenny, Margaret and Tricia and surrogate dad Ian for our packed lunches!

We whinged and moaned about Eurail and cursed it every time we paid reservation fees…. But… If we hadn’t we wouldn’t have been able to travel 10,942km in 55 days seeing a staggering 32 cities in 16 countries. With countries so close, it was awfully tempting to do 7 countries in 7 days. We worked out ways to see cities and countries within a few hours but still honoured our golden rule of not becoming click-click bingo tourists and always ensuring we tried the local cuisine. Having a routine, knowing the train connections and preloading offline maps were the most important things in getting to see the city in a few hours, stress free. We always left the accommodation early in the morning before a daily 3-6 hour train ride. Within half an hour of getting off the train, our bags were either in a hostel or in train station lockers and we were in a tourist information or on a walking tour. We repeated this on the go lifestyle everyday for two months before getting to the end and wondering what just happened?

Throughout Europe, we went on 17 Free Walking Tours which provided informative local information and gave an orientation to cities we had limited time in. We rarely used local public transport but walked everywhere as our legs are free and didn’t require working out tickets and timetables in foreign languages. We became confident in meeting likeminded travellers, formed instant relationships in hostels, trains, walking tours and being lost. More often than not we had dinner with people without knowing their name. Most of the time food just consisted of cornflakes for breakfast and bloody jam sandwiches for lunch. I tell you I never want to see a jam sandwich again! But that extra money saved meant the ability to eat the local cuisine with the national beer or wine for dinner. The best investment for this trip was the collapsible bowl, plate and cup. We had breakfast from that everyday. Even when I made a hole in my bowl, I still used it for my cornflakes – just with a slow milky leak on my hands. Locals who took the time to point us in the right direction were our biggest helpers. Just shows english or no english, a smile and the will to help a foreigner can make all the difference.

We will be back to Europe for sure. We have newly met family from both sides and a Mediterranean coastline that has to be explored. There is so much to see, there is so much to eat, there is so much to buy. But next time it’ll be, no jam sams it’ll be overpriced fancy restaurants and it’ll be no cheap flea markets, it’ll be expensive Italian clothing – who am I kidding, you couldn’t take the traveller out of us. Why see one country when you can stretch it to 10?

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Mawdesley, United Kingdom

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Kilkenny, Ireland

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Dublin, Ireland

I write this in front of a fireplace, with the cold English weather blowing a gale outside. Dave’s aunty Margaret and uncle Mike are giving us a relaxing weekend away in their home in Nuneaton Midlands. We were lucky enough to also spend Sunday afternoon with his other uncle, John and Glynis, and her hilarious mother Betty, before Dave’s cousin Helen and family joined us too. Dave’s other cousins Andy and Ian also popped over for a visit that weekend as well. Neither Dave and I are used to such a big family, yet Dave actually has a VERY large family in England as his Dad was 1 of 8. They all are so welcoming, so similar to Dave and it’s as if we’ve known them forever. This has been the good thing that has come out of our urgent last minute visa trip to London, plus it’s Margaret’s birthday so what better place to be.
The London visa interview went so well, the interviewer couldn’t see the need for us to even have a visa. In the two days we were in London before we headed to the Midlands, we braved the cold and did a 3hour free walking tour. There’s one story I have to share and its about the people who have broken into the Queen’s digs, Buckingham Palace. The first lot were innocent German campers who camped the night in Her Majesty’s front garden thinking it was Hyde Park, only to be awoken by the guards questioning their ignorance. The next fella, Michael Fagan, decided to climb through an open window in Buckingham Palace to fetch some food. Michael was hungry but the only food he found and ate was biscuits and half a bottle of wine. A month later he returned. Finding a closed window this time he broke in and set the alarm off. The Queen’s guards thought it must be a glitch in the system so ignored it. When the second alarm went off, the guard turned the whole system off, including the Queen’s bedside alarm. Michael harmlessly made it all the way to the Queen’s bedroom before the Queen awoke to find Michael sitting at the end of her bed. Thankfully the Queen is well practiced in small chit-chat, which developed trust before cleverly asking Michael if he’d like a cigarette. The Queen phoned for a cigarette “for the man at the end of my bed”. Then obviously he was taken away but only charged with stealing, the wine and biscuits, as at that time Buckingham Palace wasn’t a ‘designated site’ so he wasn’t trespassing as such…According to the Aussie guide who told me this story anyway.

Leaving the home comforts of Margaret and Mike’s house was hard. They looked after us just like we were at home – we even had a Sunday roast! But reality set in, we were on the road again. The 9 hour overnight bus delivered us into the cold climate of Edinburgh, Scotland where the daytime temperature is 2 degrees above and night time is 2 below. The haar, fog from the North sea, and 4:30pm darkness makes this old brick town feel very mysterious. It’s hardly surprising this is where Harry Potter was dreamed up. From the warmth of the Elephant House Cafe, each day a very poor J.K Rowling ordered 1 cup of coffee while nursing her baby and wrote the first Harry Potter book. The view from that cafe is of a private school with 4 towers (the four House Towers) and if you plonked that school on top of the view of Edinburgh castle you’d have Hogwarts. Just below the cafe window you can see Greyfriars Cemetery. In there lies the gravestones which inspired her characters names; Mad-eye Moody, Professor Mcgonagall and Tom Riddle – aka Voldemort. Fortunately J.K Rowling chose Tom Riddle’s name well. There are no living relatives left to get offended by the gifts and letters from deluded diehard fans and haters left on Tom Riddle’s (Voldemort) actual grave.
Apart from the Harry Potter fans visiting, this cemetery is also visited by fans of Bobby at his little grave. Throughout Edinburgh there is Bobby everything; Bobby cafe, Bobby art shop, Bobby statues etc. Bobby was the tiny guard dog belonging to the graveyard’s night guard but only for 2 years before the night guard died. The following 14 years Bobby guarded his master’s grave. As Bobby had no owner, he was considered a stray and could theoretically have been shot, even though the city folk loved Bobby. As this was well and truly before RSPCA, this predicament could only be resolved by awarding Bobby the keys of the city and giving him citizenship. This dog could vote before females…
These odd stories from Edinburgh are far more interesting than castles and churches – to me anyway. As I write this we are sitting in the Harry Potter / Elephant House cafe with a number of school kids who are in uniforms similar to that of the Gryffindor uniform. Dave doesn’t share the same Potter enthusiasm so after this we are off to visit the Edinburgh castle. Marriage is about compromise…for us it comes in the form of wizards and castles. Following the castle visit, Dave wanted to do a Scotch Whiskey tour in the world’s largest Scotch Whiskey collection, displaying over 3,000 varieties. For my outing, I chose to take a train north to see a little village in central Scotland called Stirling. We were in Stirling long enough to; buy a souvenir each (St. Andrew golf balls and a 2£ book on Princess Kate – I chose the golf balls..), witness the strongest accent of the English language we’d ever heard, eat Scottish shortbread &amp; Scottish fudge and get drenched in the cold Scottish rain.
The stay here wouldn’t be complete without some traditional Scottish music. What better place than at than the famous Maggie Dickson pub. In 1723 Maggie concealed her pregnancy before giving birth to a still born baby. Illegal under the Concealment of Pregnancy Act (yes, this was a real Act) she was sentenced by hanging. Pronounced dead, she was then taken to the gravesite but just before her burial, screams came from within the coffin. Taken back for a second hang, a man in the crowd shouted for her to be saved. As she was pronounced dead, any change in that was “an act of God”. She married that man and lived another 40years. Appropriately, that pub is next to the hanging post and the pub ‘The Last Drop’, where prisoners went for their last shot of whiskey before their hanging and where we went for hot Pimms with apple and hot port… Another takeaway idea for a cold Brisbane day (obviously the drinks).

We have eaten a number of things along our travels; crickets, tarantulas even silkworms but the only national dish I’ve struggled to eat is Scotland’s Haggis neeps and tatties. This is basically sheep’s pluck: heart, liver and lungs shoved into the lining of a sheep’s stomach (nowadays sausage wrap) and is served with turnips and potatoes. It looked and tasted similar to a beef pattie but I couldn’t ‘stomach’ more than a few mouthfuls. It’s not all bad cuisine though, their soft drink brand supercedes Coke sales here and with twice the sugar content its delicious. Irn Bru soft drink tastes like creaming soda on steroids and complements well a nip of vodka, Madori or both.
For a cold wet place we actually enjoyed Scotland; for its stories, beauty, serenity and hot port. The Queen has chosen her holiday bach location wisely, but will she still stay here if the Scottish vote to become independent in next year’s referendum? Without exception, every scotsman we’ve came across was welcoming and friendly but after two nights we have left for Dublin, Ireland – home of; Guinness, Kilkenny, the Irish jig, Irish pubs, bus lanes built too narrowly for buses, hurling, Gaelic football, leprechauns and all things green.

The London hostel kindly gave us mice. The Edinburgh hostel kindly gave us a room next to 50 American teenagers partying till 3. Thankfully the Dublin hostel gave us free airport transfers and a free 9 hour bus tour of Ireland (to accompany the no running water for 2 days)!
14 days in Ireland without rain is officially called a drought so you can imagine how green the countryside is and now in the autumn the deciduous trees are a mixture of reds, oranges and browns. With that we’re off to the land where two films (pronounced fil-lim) were filmed, Braveheart and P.S I Love You: Glend
aloch (translating to valley of two locks) and Kilkenny (translating to the church of St Canice – or home of beer).
If you’re going to have Irish stew with a pint of Kilkenny you may as well do it in one of Ireland’s oldest pubs in KILKENNY. It has a famous castle too but we opted for enjoying the warmth of the pub rather than visiting a castle that doesn’t serve beer. New-age travellers right there!

Only 5-7% of the locals can actually speak the national language – Irish Gaelic. I didn’t even know they had another language, I just thought their English sounded funny. That was until seeing a second language on sign posts. Although the Irish language isn’t spoken as adults, throughout schools its taught. The first phrase learnt as a 5year old on day one is: An bhfuil cead agam dul go dhi an leithreas? (phonetically: On will cead agum dull gut dee on lehraas?). This translates to the all important question for any little one, “May I go to the toilet?”, except they have to say it in a foreign language before being excused.
Quite often I’d break out into a little giggle hearing these people speak, particularly mixed with their sense of humour and use of everyday phrases…like who actually says “top of the morning to ya”.. Not the modern day Irish – they say “100,000 welcomes to ya” or phonetically pronounced in Irish “cead mile failte”!
The highlight of my day was when we went for a walk in the countryside. A little Irish man in a cheese cutter said ,in the thickest accent I’ve ever heard “wiell doont yoo sund fuunnie”. S’pose we do to him.

The best thing to do following a night out in Dublin’s Temple Bar is to visit the Guinness brewery house. The brewery is 7 levels, and is shaped like a glass of Guinness. If the world’s biggest glass was filled, it would hold 14.3million pints. As most will know, I’m not really a beer drinker. The Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam and at Guinness here in Dublin, both said to enjoy it is all in the way you drink it. The best way to drink Guinness is look up towards the horizon, arm up at 90 degrees, big breath in, take your swig then breath out. It works – I drank a whole half a pint of the wretched stuff. It made for a good breakfast before heading to our last European free walking tour – yippee. Thankfully it was a goodie. We learnt how to Irish dance, play the Irish pipes and I even volunteered for a game of hurling with the guide – their national sport. My last fact from these walking tours is why all the doors in Dublin are randomly painted bright colours. Well, most will know the north and the south of Ireland don’t really get along but more verbally they don’t seem too fond of the British down here. One of the previous Queens of England’s cousin died. This cousin loved Ireland but had never been. When the Queen requested the people of Dublin show their respect and mourn the loss of this cousin by painting all the doors in Dublin black, Dublin’s response was to paint them every colour but black. This war between the north and the south is primarily over religion…believe it or not…. These religions are indicated on the Irish flag with three stripes of colour. Green for celtic catholic, orange for protestant and white for an attempt at peace in the middle.

The next cultural experience was to actively participate in one of ten types of available Irish pub crawls. Feedback from an Irishman on ‘Irish pubs abroad’ was they are what the pubs in Dublin would have looked like in the 50s, also those abroad are often twee and gimmicky. After a paid experience of Dublin’s finest pubs, he’s kinda right. Pubs here are wooden but not bright green with leprechauns painted on the walls. I would never of thought of myself enjoying a pub crawl, but when run properly they’re such a good way for people from all walks of life to get to know one another. We met the coolest American couple, Jessica and Collin, working in the American military but placed separately in South Korea and England. I’ve never seen anyone chug a beer at the speed Collin could – but he won the Viking Pub crawl tee shirt shown in the photo.
On the last night in Dublin we were ridiculously tired, so tired we (Dave) made dinner at 4pm ready for an early night in in our trackiedacks. That was until a bunch of Kiwi girls walked into the hostel kitchen. By 8pm they were heading out and we spontaneously decided to join them for another night out in Irish town, trackiedacks and all. I’m so glad we did – that feeling of Irish dancing to Galway Girl sung by 4 old Irish codgers is something I’ll never forget. On the walk back to the hostel, we walked past many buskers. One particular band of 6 really got under my skin, like all good music does. The long haired, pasty white skin and long orange beards of these Irish fellows played instruments like I’ve never seen before. The energy and passion that went into that performance summed up the Irish. When we are listening to their CD back home, it’ll be with fond memories from one of Europe’s coolest cities, made that way because of the little orange haired, funny sounding local inhabitants.

With 4 leaf clovers not far from my mind, I couldn’t believe how lucky we were to catch up with my cousin Martin and his wife Tricia, just a 30 minute plane ride from Dublin to Lancashire, England. It was their granddaughter’s fourth birthday party so I met my other family members too; Ben, Cathy, Sophie and Jessica as well as John and his beautiful girlfriend Alex and Nathan who is Ben and Laurence’s youngest brother. Stopping over with family and feeling included in a normal homely environment, particularly with Tricia’s amazing cooking, is a backpacker’s dream. We felt particularly fortunate as family from both sides have always lived afar. It’s not often we get to spend quality time with them. Although for only a short time, it felt as if we’d know them ages. The following day we left the Trengoves just out of Manchester for the Morton side of the family just north of London. Dave’s cousin Ian and his lovely wife Becky had us to stay in their beautiful home for two nights. We love our English pubs so they took us out for dinner to their local on the first night. On the second night, for the first time in England we had true blue English fish and chips with mushy peas. Its just a shame Australia is so far away, we’re loving this dinner with family thing!

With our packed lunch in hand (thanks Ian) we headed to London for the final time. On our last full day out we went for a wander around the warren of Camden Town Market and visited Harrods. Harrods reminds me of Myer but on a much much grander and sparklier scale. Its complete with multiple restaurants, bars, an Egyptian elevator, overpriced artwork and sculptures including a 5ft tall set of glass jelly babies for a measly $760,000. When I was 12, mum and I visited an English op shop where they put our second hand clothes in an old Harrods bag and I thought I was the coolest kid out. At 27, I’m not much better. Dressed in flea market clothes I bought a royal family postcard from Harrods (cheapest item there) and got my green bag – just reliving sad moments in my life – as you do. We also picked up our all important but very stressful USA visa today. You begin to appreciate a good travel agent when sorting issues from afar (we couldn’t have done this or much else without you Danielle Adams – thank you for putting up with my daily email).
Much to Dave’s disgust and embarrassment, the final stop was to find ‘Platform 9 3/4’ at Kings Cross Station. I’m sure he thought I was the only one daft enough to run at the brick wall. They knew I was coming.. my wand, round Potter glasses and Gryffindor scarf awaited my arrival. You just can’t take life too seriously, you may not get out alive!

To celebrate getting to the half way mark of this trip and surviving 3 months of actual ‘hardcore backpacking’ we are off to laugh our socks off at the Book of Mormon theatre production in West End London before flying out to the USA the next day. What that really means to us is 2 weeks on a cruise boat with the same bed e
ach night, unlimited food and no bloody jam sams and a long awaited hug from my Mum and Dad 🙂

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Edinburgh, United Kingdom

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Stirling, United Kingdom

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