My one regret from our 17 days in South Africa is that none of us properly filmed the experience of driving along the N2 - which has appeared on at least a few 'world's deadliest roads' lists - through KwaZulu-Natal. I rather enjoyed my time at the wheel - reminiscent as it was to my... Continue Reading →
South Africa, Chapter 2: Living For The City
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. - Mark Twain For 12 months now the words have failed to come.... Continue Reading →
South Africa, Chapter 1: Not The Trip Of A Lifetime
"Are you excited yet?" Steph - my loving, adoring, beautiful wife - always asks me this question before our pending adventures. Like, way, way before. Sometimes even before we know the where, what or when, and have only agreed a vague notion that we should indeed go somewhere, do something, maybe some time in the... Continue Reading →
2015 In 12 (+1)
The answer my friends is lunar cycles. But what's the question? Disconnected as we in the so called developed world are from such natural phenomena, the 12 months of a calendar year (see the question and answer above) do certainly provide a convenient way of compartmentalising and cataloguing our trips around the sun. That's especially... Continue Reading →
High Pressure Over The Highway: Scotland’s North Coast 500, Day 1
Aberdeen to Applecross Monday, 26th September, 2015 "That's it, I'm getting out to push. Look, we're slowing down those poor cyclists behind us." "Put your seatbelt back on right now Robert!" Getting the fancy-first-name treatment from Steph is a sure fire indication of seriousness, so I buckle back up and close the car door. I... Continue Reading →
Two Tourists In Edinburgh
DAY 1 "So, uh, what's the difference between the Megabus and Megabus Gold?" "I don't know. The toilet maybe?" "The toilet? What about the toilet? This bus has a toilet." "Yeah, but maybe it's better on the Megabus Gold." "What, like a golden toilet?" Our original plan vague idea was to spend 5 days road tripping,... Continue Reading →
The Bifurcated Dichotomous Bipolar Duality That Is Prague
To be completely honest Prague wasn't on my shortlist of places to visit any time soon. That's not to say I was opposed to seeing Prague - hell, I'll gladly go anywhere new - it's just that lately I'm yearning more and more towards exploring rural areas, specifically the hills, glens, villages and islands around... Continue Reading →
The Amsterdam Agenda: Sweet Land of Liberty
Amsterdam, like so many of the places I've traveled to, is slow to wake up on a Saturday morning. I've never understood the allure of sleeping in - especially while on holiday - but given the party scene we witnessed last night in the Red Light District it's really no surprise the streets are so... Continue Reading →
The Amsterdam Agenda: Day 1.5
"What are you doing?""Uh, having breakfast.""Did you just put chocolate sprinkles in your coffee?""Yep. And on this round toast thing, with butter. When in Amsterdam baby!"It's our first morning (Friday) in Amsterdam and Steph isn't feeling the breakfast at the Hotel van Onna. I've been up for a few hours, out wandering the streets to... Continue Reading →
Mayar & Driesh via Corrie Fee
"If we wait on the weather to be right we'll never do anything in Scotland." Steph is certainly right about that. We've been planning to hike up the Munros Mayar and Driesh for ages now. Every day we've set aside for the walk has been miserable, even by Scottish standards. Today is no different mind you, we've just decided to... Continue Reading →