Snapshots: Stratford-upon-Avon

I've just spent a lovely weekend in Stratford-upon-Avon with my sister. In between seeing both Cymbeline and Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, we had a wander around the town and down the Avon. It's a pretty little place so I thought I'd share some photos.

A pleasant stroll down the river brought us along to the Holy Trinity Church, site of Shakespeare's grave. The church wasn't open but it looked pretty from the outside.

We also spent a lot of time sitting in the square outside the theatre, enjoying the sunshine.

The second day we were there, there was some lovely live music in the square as well. It reminded me of Paris for some reason.

You can get some really nice Thai food from Giggling Squid, which I checked out just because of the funny name. It's also in a really cool old building.

We also checked out a few cool little statues. Amy decided to sit with Falstaff.

And then we found the Fool in the town centre.

Lovely weekend. Possibly more on the trip later when Amy gets round to writing it.

Destination Daydreams: Tasmania

With departure rapidly approaching, I figure now is the time to get back to daydreaming about where I'm going to go rather than worrying whether everything I need is going to fit into my rucksack. In the New Year I'm hoping to revisit my former home of Tasmania. I lived out there for a year when I was 20 and despite that I barely scratched the surface of this beautiful island. So, I'd like to give myself 2 weeks as a minimum and 3 weeks if I can find the time so I can really explore.

Hobart

First up, the lovely little capital city - Hobart. This is where I lived and yet... I never really got to know it. I explored a couple of the museums and the Botanical Gardens but I missed out on Salamanca Market and the little places around the city. I also need to make an attempt on Mount Wellington. This is the view from my student house in the city.

That big mountain? Yeah. I saw that out of my window every day and yet never thought to go up to the top. Best get that fixed!

Hobart's such a beautiful little place as well - it doesn't feel like a capital city. It's very laid back and that might be why I loved it so much. I'd like to spend a week or so there, so I might see if I can get an AirBnB place - seen some lovely ones on the website!

The South East

I have no idea what's down here apart from the Huon Valley area. Basically walking, right? Lovely countryside, sleepy little towns. Sounds like my kind of place. The only problem will be how awkward Tassie is to get around. There's a good, regular bus service between Hobart and Launceston, the only other big place in the state, but aside from that buses are a bit less common. That said, Tassielink have a reasonable network and can probably get me to most of the places I want to go.

The West Coast

Temperate rainforest and a huge World Heritage area. What's not to like? Also, winding little hill railways, penal colonies and possibly kayaking. Always with the kayaking. The Tasmanian Wildnerness World Heritage area covers nearly a third of the state, so I figure it's worth making the trip over to the West Coast just to see that. And if I get the chance to go kayaking again, all the better.

The North

Devonport? Burnie? General pretties up on the north coast. Might attempt to make a return to Narawntapu NP if I can find a way to get there without a car.

I'm also considering getting the ferry back across from Devonport to Melbourne on the mainland. Similar price to the flights from Hobart so it might be a nice change.

Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair

Cradle Mountain should be easy enough to do from Launnie... Launceston. I did it when I lived in Hobart, but it rained the entire few hours I was there, so I'd like to see it in the dry, if not in the sun.

Lake St Clair... not so sure about that one, but I'd love to see it. Tassielink runs a bus from Hobart to the West Coast via the lake, so I might be able to do it that way. If not, it'll have to be an organised tour.

The East Coast

Wineglass Bay, Bay of Fires, Freycinet etc. Mostly revisiting places from my year out there. Oh, and not forgetting Maria Island, because lizards and Painted Cliffs.

Wow. That's actually quite a lot of stuff to do in Tas. Good job I've set aside 2-3 weeks for it.

Have you visited Tasmania? Where would you go? Do you have a favourite place? Please share!

100 Days, 100 Things: Days 61-80

Oh my. The start of my round-the-world Grand Tour is getting close, isn't it? Here's the next 20 of my record of silly, somewhat mundane things in my last 100 days before departure.

61. Wednesday 4th May - Staff Quiz
Which I won with my usual team. Hurrah.

62. Thursday 5th May - closed? Why are you closed?
Apparently my local pharmacy closes early on a Thursday. So having walked all the way down there, I had to walk all the way back without my anti-malarials. Did pick up some biscuits on the way though...

63. Friday 6th May - Doxy-whatnow?
Said pharmacy opens till a sensible time on Fridays so now I have enough Doxycycline to keep my protected from malaria for nearly 2 months in a malarial area. So that's South East Asia and Southern Africa covered.

64. Saturday 7th May - Fotherby & Utterby walking
Took an afternoon stroll around the pretty villages of Fotherby and Utterby with my dad. Shame it was so hazy because I imagine the view from this hill is amazing when it's clear.

65. Sunday 8th May - Cambridge
Spent the afternoon exploring museums in Cambridge. More on that here: Swords, fans & pounamu.

66. Monday 9th May - lookup lessons
Successfully got a colleague using lookups in Excel. Hurrah!

67. Tuesday 10th May - fish pie again
I'm getting good at fish pie. Can't imagine I'll be making much of it while I'm away though...

68. Wednesday 11th May - umm...
Apparently nothing happened on this day. At all. Not even something boring. Oh well.

69. Thursday 12th May - hair
First haircut in nearly 3 years. Got almost 6 inches taken off. Already missing the length, but it's so much easier to manage now!

70. Friday 13th May - Cook Islands daydreaming
I made the mistake of reading THIS ARTICLE on Never Ending Footsteps. And now I really want to go to the Cook Islands and I think I could probably afford to do it. Umm... do I need to add any more destinations to my plans?

71. Saturday 14th May - ballooning. Also, bún.
My mum finally got to take a balloon flight having missed out in India and the UK in recent months. We also paid another visit to Pho in Manchester and I tried bún. It was delicious.

72. Sunday 15th May - Wembley
Down to Wembley with my dad to see Grimsby Town win their playoff final and get promoted back into the Football League. Much fun.

73. Monday 16th May - frequent flyer ahoy!
Joined a frequent flyer scheme. I figure I'll be taking enough flights over the next year that I might as well see if I can get anything back from them.

74. Tuesday 17th May - pre-audit success
As ever, there is an audit going on at work. The pre-audit check went OK. Woo. That is all.

75. Wednesday 18th May - Mail Merge success!
Somehow I managed to get a Mail Merge to walk on a huge amount of data at work. Haven't used it in about 5 years, so I was pretty pleased with myself.

76. Thursday 19th May - budget spreadsheet
In addition to my pre-trip itinerary/budget spreadsheet, I now have a sheet to use during my trip to keep track of expenses. Happy times.

77. Friday 20th May - clickety clack
My mum has very kindly donated her old Nexus 7 tablet to me for my travels. Unfortunately, I hate the onscreen keyboard and I need to be able to type at a reasonable pace to keep up with the blogging and whatnot. So I've bought myself a Bluetooth keyboard and it is wonderful. Clickety keys are much better than that swiping crap.

78. Saturday 21st May - radars & railways
Took a walk on the Lincolnshire Wolds Walking Festival to see the old radar station at RAF Stenigot, coupled with a short walk down the old Bardney-Louth railway. More on that here: Radar & Railways.

[IMAGE]

79. Sunday 22nd May - Wembley take 2
A return to Wembley with my dad. Unfortunately there was to be no repeat of the previous visit's success and we went down 1-0 to Halifax in the FA Trophy final. Ah well. We're still going up!

80. Monday 23rd May - tablet tapping
Having got my keyboard to make blogging via the tablet easier, I decided to see how easy it would be to compose, format and post from said tablet. Turns out I can do it and it only takes a little bit longer than it does on my laptop. Bodes well for keeping up the blog while I'm on the road!

Less than 3 weeks to go now. How much more can I cram in before I leave?

Snapshots: Radar & Railways

Saturday marked the start of the annual Lincolnshire Wolds Walking Festival. My dad and I (Dad more so) are quite keen walkers and we always try to make it along to at least one of the Festival's walks each year. This year the launch day was at the lovely village of Donnington on Bain and we popped along to take part in a walk titled "Radars and Railways". A 7 mile stroll through the fields around Donnington and through the Stenigot Estate began with a trek up to the hill to see the old Ace High station.

This walk being run by the Society for Lincolnshire History & Archaeology, we were treated to some interesting talks about each place we stopped. So, those big dishes were Ace High and they were used for relaying information between stations in the Cold War. There was a network of them reaching from Turkey up through Europe and over the Atlantic to the USA. More info here: RAF Stenigot

Apparently when the base was decommissioned the dishes were left behind because the scrap merchant thought they were made of aluminium, not steel.

Next stop was the other side of the Ace High dishes to see the last surviving transmitter mast of the Stenigot Chain Home station. Chain Home was a rudimentary but remarkably effective radar system used during the Second World War to detect incoming aircraft.

From here, the walk took a turn across the Stenigot Estate, passing some very early concrete buildings (early 20th Century). I resisted the urge to mention the fact that the Romans were using concrete centuries before that...

And then on down the hill, stopping at the little church in Stenigot to see these old memorials to the Spanish family who owned the estate around the time of the Spanish Armada.

And finally into Donnington to have a quick walk along the trackbed of the old Louth-Bardney Railway. Not much left save the station building.

And the platform edge.

Oh, and this very old, battered gradient post.

In all, a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon and great to see so many people turn out for it!

Do you have any secret history nestled away nearby? What about a favourite afternoon stroll? Why not share in the comments below.

Cambridge: Swords, fans and pounamu

Last game of the footy season. Dad went to watch Grimsby Town play Braintree (and win, I might add). That meant a whole day to myself and without anything important to do, I asked Dad to drop me off in Cambridge on the way so I could spend the day exploring.

Cambridge is a lovely little city - big parks, a pretty town centre and packed full of museums courtesy of Cambridge University. I began the day (or rather, afternoon, by the time I got there) at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the arts and antiquities museum. First stop this wonderful piece from the palaces at Nimrud.

Especially interesting given the pounding that Nimrud has taken from the twats calling themselves ISIS. I doubt there's a whole lot left of the palace this particular chap came from.

The Fitzwilliam, unlike some of the big museums in London, is pretty easy to navigate, although I'd recommend picking up a floor plan on your way in. There's a couple of little galleries stuck out of the way that I would have missed without it. The first of these is the Rothschild Gallery, with its collection of beautiful medieval and Renaissance art. Among my favourite pieces were this piece of Anglo-Saxon metalwork. I love this style.

Also, this amazing book of music - it's huge so that all the members of a choir could read from it at once.

The second of the Fitzwilliam's little hidden galleries is the Sasakawa Fan Gallery. I've been meaning to visit the Fan Museum in Greenwich for a while, just because it seems like such a strange thing to have a museum of, so this gallery will have to do for now. Some really beautiful old fans from the Far East, plus some rather more flouncy ones from later European courts and high society.

I'm torn on my favourite items though. I fell rather in love with the Korean pottery gallery, having not seen this style in any museum I've visited before. The colour is beautiful and the little pots shaped like squashes are lovely.

The tomboy-ish part of my brain though loved the miniature Royal Armouries they've got going on near the cafe. Who doesn't love a good sword?

The aforementioned cafe does some good lunch options, although a bit expensive. That said, I wasn't going to turn down a falafel scotch egg. Two of my favourite things combined. Yum. From the Fitzwilliam, I headed back towards the town centre to check out the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology.

There's a wonderful selection of local artefacts on the ground floor, plus a small display of Inuit items, including this beautiful little bear's head carving.

The upper two floors follow a more traditional museum pattern - big cases with relatively little information about the objects within. There's an amazing totem pole, although I neglected to take note of where it came from. Oops. There's also some great displays about the people of the South Pacific, at which point I went on my now traditional hunt for something made of pounamu. This is the super tough jade found on New Zealand's South Island that's used to make both jewellery and weapons that are a match for iron. I succeeded. I present to you a beautiful pounamu club.

Bit more substantial than my little pounamu manaia pendant!

The museum closed at 4:30pm, so I had a while to kill before Dad came back to get me. Took myself off for a wander around the city. Kings College.

St Botolph's Church. Lovely building and its churchyard looked so quiet and tranquil.

That led me into one of the city's winding back streets with these beautiful old buildings, presumably part of the University.

 

And then I spent a while sitting on a bench near Darwin College, watching the world go by. A lovely day. I need to go back - there's a whole bunch of other museums still to check out.

Been to Cambridge? Got a favourite museum? Do share!

London: The Complete Walk

I was a bit slow about getting this one written. Oops.

I visited London on 23rd April to take part in the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. The Globe put on a big event to show off all 37 of the Bard's plays along the South Bank and my sister and I, both being fans of his work, decided to check it out. 37 plays, 37 films, 37 screens. Seems like a good way to spend a Saturday, right?

Each film was 10 minutes of new footage shot on the locations Shakespeare imagined, combined with archive footage from performances at the Globe and internationally and some even included some very old silent, black and white footage. 10 minutes per film... we reckoned even with walking time we could cover quite a few of the 37, especially since we'd gone through and made a shortlist of the ones we really wanted to see.

We arrived in London about half an hour before the event was due to start and managed to make it to the first of our planned viewings - The Taming of the Shrew in Jubilee Gardens - just after 10am, the published start time. So imagine our annoyance, having got the 6:30am train, when we found that the screen wasn't even set up, let alone showing the film. Slightly peeved but putting it down to technical issues, we moved on and caught Titus Andronicus under the Hungerford Bridge.

Brilliant. A great combination of clips, with Peter Capaldi as an excellently unhinged Titus and a great clip of the Globe production in which the Queen of the Goths, Tamora, played by Indira Varma unknowingly eats a pie containing the body parts of her murdered sons. A chorus of "ew" mingled with laughter from the audience. Just a shame we couldn't hear half of it because Hungerford Bridge is a railway bridge and every couple of minutes a train rumbled across overhead.

Anyway, seeing that the screen (Henry VI, part 2) next to Titus was also playing, we were a bit more hopeful that the following screens would also be working. Of the next 2 we passed, 1 was working and we had not interest in Romeo and Juliet. Then we caught Love's Labours Lost - pretty cool. Tempted to check out the next screen showing King John, only because the archive footage was from 1899 and is probably the earliest instance of a Shakespeare production on film.

After that though... well, it all started going wrong. We walked up as far as the Tate Modern where there were supposed to be another 4 screens. Every screen between King John at the National Theatre and the screens at the Tate Modern was out. No film. No audio. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

That's 12 screens that weren't working. Out of 37. So we decided to grab a cuppa and wile away half an hour, during which time I tweeted at the Globe in an attempt to get an explanation for the absolute shambles. They first told me it was because of the Presidential visit and later claimed technical difficulties. I'm more inclined to go with the latter - that many screens not working isn't anything to do with security issues or the like.

Anyway, refreshed and all ranted out, we decided to see if some of the early screens were working. Nope. Buggeration. Descending back into grumpiness, we marched off down the bank and finally found a functioning screen in Gabriel's Wharf showing the wonderful A Midsummer Night's Dream. One of the more straightforward of Shakespeare's works and one of the funniest. Much laughter from the many people crowding into the bandstand.

Unfortunately, from there the chaos returned. A Midsummer Night's Dream was screen 13. From there, the next functioning screen we came across was Measure for Measure at screen 24. On the plus side, screen 25 just around the corner was showing Twelfth Night and it was brilliant, if a little drowned out at times by the rail bridge overhead. Seem to be an awful lot of rail bridges over the Thames...

From there, we had a little more success and caught a run of working screens that included Troilus & Cressida, Timon of Athens, King Lear and Macbeth. All great, although Troilus & Cressida was rather ruined by being down in a hole which made it very hard to view. Did catch the snippet from the Maori production a few years ago. Genius, that, putting a haka in Shakespeare.

After Macbeth it all went downhill yet again. No working screens from there up until the very last screen which was showing The Tempest near Tower Bridge. Another wonderful little production and awesome to see so many people enjoying Shakespeare, but such a shame more of the screens weren't working.

A little bit cold and disappointed, we headed back along the bank, passing still non-functional screens, and decided to revisit some of the missing films from that morning. Some success was had - we caught a great Othello featuring David Harewood, an interesting take on Hamlet with several actors playing the Prince of Denmark and, much to my sister's delight, an excellent Much Ado About Nothing featuring Samuel West among others. Given that Much Ado is one of my sister's favourites, I'm glad we at least caught that one.

This was followed by the excellent Toby Jones playing Falstaff in Henry IV, pt 1 although he did rather drown out the also wonderful Johnathon Pryce playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice on the next screen. Glad to see so many screens now working and getting rather short on time, we made one last attempt on The Taming of the Shrew. We found it working, at last although as we left to catch the train back home there were still screens not playing.

In all, a lovely day, with a stroll along the Thames and a whole heap of culture thrown in for good measure. It's just such a shame that such a huge event could be so badly organised. As mentioned above, I actually Tweeted the Globe to try to find out why it was going so wrong and they produced the following response:

@ZoeDixon Hi, there's been a delay due to the presidential visit but we hope to have all screens playing as soon as possible. Thanks!

— Shakespeare's Globe (@The_Globe) April 23, 2016

They also told other users that there had been some technical issues. I'm more inclined to believe the latter, given that as I pointed out to the poor bugger manning the Globe Twitter account, they should have taken the presidential visit into account. Let's just hope that they learn from this and the next time they try anything on this scale they'll organise it better.

In the end, we managed to see 15 of the 37 films. Not bad given that when we left, around 11 screens still didn't seem to be working although I'm told all 37 were working by the end of the day.

Did you visit the complete walk? What was your favourite film? How many did you manage to see?

Solo Travel: Anxious Relatives

My nanna tried to guilt trip me...

I've been fortunate over the last 18 months that, while a few folks have been worried about me going travelling alone, no one has yet tried to stop me from going. Well, apart from my dad telling me I'm not allowed to go to Fairbanks, Alaska because of the crime rate and to be fair, I agreed.

Someone, though, has let slip to my nanna that I'm going travelling. Alone. For a year. My nanna worries about everything. So I hadn't planned on telling her until just before I left (if at all) to save on the inevitable worry. But hey, someone spilled the beans and so when I saw her a couple of weeks ago she started with: "Are you still going travelling?"

To which, of course, my answer was yes. This was followed by the classic: "I thought you might have changed your mind."

Yes, Nanna, I've booked flights and hostels and been stuck full of vaccinations, but of course, I'll just change my mind.

This is both adorable and frustrating, because I know that every time I go to see her up until I leave I'm going to get another attempt from her at talking me out of it. So far I've been proved right - every week since then I've been asked if I'm still going. This week it was "you won't change your mind? Not even for me?" No. But the best one was this little gem from the first week she asked me.

"I might not be here when you get back."

My nanna is in her 80s. And now she's trying to guilt trip me with it. This is precisely why I hadn't told her I was going. So I'm going to come up with a few reasons why she shouldn't be worrying. Not that I think it will work, but there's no harm in trying.

1. I am not going anywhere especially dangerous

My grandad wanted to know if I'm going to the Middle East (although the way he phrased it was rather more older-generation-racist). Don't worry, Grandad. I'm not going anywhere with terrorists as far as I can help it. I do have a bit of an urge to make a detour to Jordan though to see Petra. And maybe Istanbul...

Let's be honest, though. I'm much more concerned about crime in the States than anywhere else. And what with the elections coming up I have this awful feeling I'm going to get into an argument with someone over politics/gun control/how I think the USA is weird and end up getting shot...

2. I will keep in touch

That is, indeed, the main point of this blog. And I intend on sending postcards as often as I can. And emailing. And Skype, if I can get a stable enough WiFi connection.

3. I have done this before

Not entirely the same, but I went out to Australia on my own when I was 19. Lived out there a year. I'm not totally new to the whole "going off on your own thing".

4. I am planning on coming back

OK, so this might just change depending on how it goes, but at the present moment I do intend to come back. It's not like I'm leaving for ever. That said, I might be tempted to stay a bit longer than my current plan suggests. Another year in Australia and New Zealand sounds rather lovely...

5. If 18 year olds on their gap yahs can do this, then so can I

At any  given time there must be hundreds if not thousands of teenagers adventuring (and drinking) their way around the world. I'd like to think I've got a bit more common sense than some of them. If they can do it, I bloody well can too.

I'm not sure what else I can tell her to reassure her that I'll be fine. Any ideas, folks? Please do share in the comments if you do.

100 Days, 100 Things: Days 41-60

This is part 3 of my attempts to note down something interesting, new, weird or stupidly mundane each day in the countdown to finishing work before I set off on my round-the-world Grand Tour adventure. Things are getting both more mundane and more interesting. How this is even possible, I have no idea...

41. Thursday 14th April - made pho.
Having tried the Vietnamese noodle soup at Pho in Manchester, I decided to have a go at making it myself. My attempt at chicken pho turned out pretty nice, especially with the pile of beansprouts I dumped into it!

42. Friday 15th April - pasta bake?
Looks like nothing interesting happened on this day. First pasta bake in a couple of years was as exciting as it got.

43. Saturday 16th April - took a walk on Saddleworth.
My mum was supposed to be taking a balloon flight from Bakewell for her birthday but the weather turned against us. Instead, we took the dogs out for a walk on Saddleworth Moor, something we've been meaning to do since Mum moved to Manchester nearly 2 years ago.

44. Sunday 17th April - finally did some proper gardening.
I can't remember what I actually did. Possibly I dug over the veg patch? Or did I put the onions in? Nah... I think the onions went in the week after... Nope. It was this day. Onions, shallots, garlic and potatoes. All going in a bit too late for my liking and none of which I'll have the joy of eating because I'll be on the other side of the globe. All the more for the relatives.

45. Monday 18th April - blogged for the first time in ages.
Which, I do believe, was the last post in this series. You can read it here: 100 Days, 100 Things: Days 21-40.

46. Tuesday 19th April - created an overly detailed packing list.
I almost always use a packing list for holidays and short trips, so I figured I need a super-awesome one for the Grand Tour. After all, how on earth am I going to make it all the way round-the-world if I manage to forget something along the way?

47. Wednesday 20th April - started planning Australian adventures.
Claire got her flights booked to join me in Australia over the New Year, so we could finally start planning what we want to do in those 2 weeks. Too many things to do!

48. Thursday 21st April - overdosed on pretty AirBnB listings.
Falling a little bit in love with AirBnB, especially given how many awesome listings there are for Sydney at New Year.

49. Friday 22nd April - started laying out all the things on the aforementioned packing list.
And started worrying that a) I've forgotten some things and b) it won't all fit in my rucksack...

50. Saturday 23rd April - The Complete Walk.
Took a trip to London with my sister to see as many of the 37 films which made up The Complete Walk as possible. 15/37 - not bad going considering the technical difficulties. So much Shakespeare! And topped off with an evening of Shakespeare on the BBC when I got home.

51. Sunday 24th April - booked my first AirBnB.
Got the accommodation booked for my stay in Sydney over New Year with Claire. A lovely little studio apartment a little way out of the city centre for less than half the price it would have been to stay in a hostel, let alone a hotel.

52. Monday 25th April - fell off the blogging wagon.
Yeah... my attempts to keep blogging regularly are not going so well. Doesn't bode well for me keeping on top of it while I'm away, does it?

53. Tuesday 26th April - booked Australia flights. Poor bank balance.
Sorted out internal flights for the two weeks I'm spending with Claire in Australia, just to make sure we actually end up on the same flights. My bank account doesn't know what's hit it this month...

54. Wednesday 27th April - more jabs.
Back to the doctors to get yet another jab, this time for my Hep B booster. Also got my prescription for anti-malarials sorted, so that's another thing I can stop worrying about.

55. Thursday 28th April - played the bath game with the dogs.
We took the dogs out for quite a late walk because the weather had been foul all day. When we got back, we played the game where I chase them round the kitchen with the towel in an attempt to dry them off. They love it - they get like puppies again. Might not like getting wet, but they really like avoiding getting dry!

56. Friday 29th April - more jabs.
Yet another jab, but hopefully this one is the last one I'll need. Certainly the most expensive - anyone want to explain to me why the Yellow Fever vaccine is so very costly? At least I don't seem to have had any side effects from it yet.

57. Saturday 30th April - dogs on the beach.
Took the dogs down to the beach. They love the beach. Poppy invited herself to someone's picnic and Mum nearly had to pull her out of a bag of crisps. Sneaky sausage dog.

58. Sunday 1st May - "Not even for me?"
Someone let slip to my nanna that I'm going away for a year and now she's spending every time I see her trying to talk me out of it. We have now had such classics as "But I might not be here when you get back!" and "You won't change your mind? Not even for me?" This is exactly why I didn't tell her.

59. Monday 2nd May - fixed my "critical error".
No thanks to Microsoft. My Windows 10 threw up a glitch and basically broke my start menu. Microsoft's fixes didn't work, but the one I used last time this happened did. And Microsoft don't seem to know a thing about it. Thanks, guys.

60. Tuesday 3rd May - uh...
Not a lot happened. Other than a minor freak out when I realised that it's now less than 6 weeks until the Grand Tour kicks off. Yeep.

Excitement is setting in! Less than 6 weeks to go!

The Grand Tour: Whistlestop Australia

Claire, veteran of both the New Zealand and Ireland trips, is joining me for a couple of weeks in Australia over the New Year. This is going to be wonderful and will make a nice change from travelling alone for a while (although I am also hoping to spend Christmas with relatives).

Now that flights are booked, the fun bit of planning can start. I.e. what are we going to do with those 2 weeks? How much of Australia can you see in that time?

This is all rather bounded by the flights that Claire was able to get. It's worked out that we've got 5-6 days in Sydney over New Year, 2/3 days in Alice Springs, 2/3 days in Cairns and 4/5 days in Melbourne. The confusion over numbers of days is because I'm not certain how much time we'll lose because of flights and whatnot.

However, I can safely say that we've got plenty of time in Sydney and Melbourne. Alice Springs and Cairns we'll have to be a bit more organised with our time to make sure we get the most out of it.

I figure there's a fair number of folks who go to Australia for relatively short holidays - 2 or 3 weeks - since that's all a lot of companies let employees take off in one go, plus Oz is expensive. So, here's a very short list of must-do things in Oz which are very much doable in 2 weeks.

1. New Year in Sydney

OK, so this is clearly time dependent, but if you get the chance New Year in Sydney is amazing. Claire and I will be joining the festivities, even more so because New Year's Eve is also Claire's birthday. Someone remind me to find her something awesome... But just picture it: thousands of people thronging the harbour-side, fireworks going off every hour all the way down the river and at midnight that iconic display of fireworks going off over the famous Harbour Bridge. Yep. Pretty awesome.

2. Uluru-Kata-Tjuta National Park

Uluru, formerly more commonly known as Ayer's Rock, is perhaps Australia's most famous landmark, a hulking red monolith looming out of the desert. It is as stunning as the tourist boards make it out to be and the history and culture that surrounds it is fascinating. Nearby Kata-Tjuta, also known as the Olgas, is a similar site and also well worth visiting.

3. The Great Barrier Reef

Need I say more? The largest biological construction (not an organism. Many organisms) on the planet, the reef teems with life and, weather permitting, there's a good chance you'll see something interesting.

4. The Great Ocean Road

Lots of "greats" in this list! The Great Ocean Road does what it says on the tin - it's a road that follows the ocean between Melbourne and Adelaide and it's pretty great. Built after the Second World War to provide work for returned servicemen, it's a beautiful drive and there's a chance of spotting a whole assortment of Australia's quirky wildlife. I think I remember seeing koalas when I took a trip down part of it...

5. Daintree Rainforest

The Daintree is a fragment of one of the most ancient rainforests on the planet and is hugely biodiverse. As someone who studied ecology at university, this is enough to make it amazing even without the beautiful views and the equally awesome wildlife. It's also easily accessible from Cairns, so great for a day trip. Onto the list it goes!


For 2 weeks, I think that's enough highlights. Our only real problem so far has been finding accommodation in Sydney over New Year at a reasonable price. For this, I eventually turned to AirBnB and Claire managed to find a lovely little studio for us to stay in which has cost less than half what it would if we had settled for a hostel, let alone a hotel. So, yes, it's a bit out of the centre, but Sydney has reasonable public transport. In addition, the owner informs us that there's lots of Italian restaurants and some amazing gelato to be had nearby. Bring on the food!

If you had only 2 weeks to see Australia's highlights, where would you go and what would you do? Let me know in the comments!