Look out World, Here we Come

We are in Montreaux in Switzerland. I am using the Business Centre in this extremely palatial Hotel, the Montreaux Palace.

Matty arrives tonight from Germany and we have just had pizza for tea.

I have written quite a bit about driving in France but this computer doesn't have a USB port so I cannot upload at the moment.

We put the car back without any visible marks despite cruising on the Motorway today for about 300km at 130kph (the legal speed limit, in dry weather).

Any way, this is just to let you all know we are fine and still having a ball. Just like Santa, laughing all the way. Boy, am I glad I don't touch type, this Swiss keyboard is diabolical.

Hope to post more later. Cheers to all.

Quietly shower, breakfast, haul luggage downstairs and load car. We got away about 6:00AM which is what we wanted. Easy trip to Tulle, just before Tulle took the deviation road onto the A89 and picked up our toll ticket. And then down the Motorway at 130kph. Hardly any traffic so absolutely cruising - this is the way we meant to come when we first left Lyon and ended up on the wrong road(s). There were, however, about 1/2 dozen lots of roadworks and traffic deviations which slowed the flow quite significantly. With the tolls at around $20AUD and two lots of tolls to pay I personally think that they should only charge if you can reasonably get from one toll booth to the next with no delays from roadworks. After all, that is what you are paying for isn't it?

The other interesting thing about these motorways is the way you come out of the toll booths. Regardless of what type of booth, pick up ticket or pay, the stations are about 6 lanes wide. When you are clear to go there are 6 lanes of traffic all heading for a 2 lane road that begins about 200 metres away. This means that there is a full on drag race to the start of the main motorway and some "duck-and-weave racing". This also seems to be the French way of sorting traffic out, if they need to reduce the road width, allow multi directions on roundabouts etc. they leave out the lanes and let "those who drive decide". Makes for some interesting driving. This system actually seems to work with very little fuss, no honking of horns and no bingles that we saw. Probably only has problems with poor lost tourists who don't catch on to the Rafferty's Rules.

They keep changing the road designation from A89 to A710 to A72 and back but we kept on charging towards Claremont-Ferrand and St Etienne. Change onto the A7 after St Etienne to line up Lyon and the excitement builds again. The traffic is now heavy but they still all want to go at 130kph and get frustrated if you only go at 120kph, even flashing lights to hurry you along. Two lanes, heavy with trucks and vans but no, racing is the order of the day. All we have to do is find the Europecar return area at Gare de Lyon Part Dieu and we know where that is, it is on Rue Paul Bert, where we started so well.

I don't think I mentioned the street signs in France, they are usually blue with white writing and attached to the walls of buildings. They are also only about the size of my laptop screen (A4 sheet of paper) and often dirty or old and cracked. We have enough trouble finding them when we are walking, try doing that at 40kph in traffic. So we resorted to the technique which has worked so well for us so far, guessing which vehicles might be going where we want to go and following them. This brought us into the Part Dieu. While stationary at the traffic lights I managed to read the street name ahead, Rue Paul Bert. Guesswork beats a street map any day. Turned into Rue Paul Bert and drove straight past the turnoff into the hire car carpark. Across the lights, a quick left turn, back through the lights and into the car park like I meant to do it that way.

Parked, had the car checked and cleared of any obvious damage. Unpacked and into the Gard de Lyon Part Dieu before they change their minds. We decided that, since we were only about 2 hours early, we would get our tickets from the machine and then sit down for a coffee and some lunch. When we went to leave Paris we had some trouble with these machines so it was with some slight trepidation that we approached another. Fortunately there was a very nice young lady who was assisting poor innocent travellers like us to negotiate with these machines. Now I have since decided that these machines are the new video game that the French have developed to help fill in the time of travellers while they idle it away waiting for trains.

Unfortunately, even with the assistance of the young lady, we were still not able to get our automatic tickets from the automatic ticket machine even though we tried 3 times again. Then the young lady informed us that it only accepted French credit cards (with the chip i.e. smart cards) and we would have to go to the Ticket office to get our tickets. This, of course, takes a lot longer because there is a significant queue of other losers of the ticket machine game. Lucky we got to the railway station so much earlier than we thought we might need.

We now had time to have a leisurely coffee and our packed lunch while they decide which platform the train is going to leave from. Being unable to understand much of the sparse information on our tickets we really had little idea of which carriage we should get on but, in our usual style, we figured that, at worst, we could get in any carriage and then wander the train until we found the right seats.

While waiting we amused ourselves by watching other potential travellers play the automatic ticket machine game. It really is a great game and seems that there are some rules. If you select a language other than French it adds several extra, and unecessary, menu choices and windows as red herrings (they work really well). It also won't allow foreign speakers to win i.e. get a ticket. In part it is because they won't, or are unlikely to, have a smart card and it won't read anything else. This function could easily have been added to the machines but what fun would that be? Validating existing tickets worked well in all languages. Buying new ones worked about 50% of the time, collecting pre-paid tickets wasn't an option it seemed.
TRAVEL TIP:: Get a smart card for all your overseas travel and remember yout PIN.

Up to the correct platform in plenty of time and more hurry up and wait, there were a number of station announcements which caused a flurry of activity from other travellers but we were confident in our knowledge of being in the right place and waiting for the right time. And we could see the announcement board which told us that nothing had changed for our train. And, ontime, our train arrived. Which carriage? Don't know, no indications on the carriage to identify one from another. Resort the the backup and get on. Park the cases, find a couple of seats with what appear to be the correct numbers. A young man asked us what we were looking for, we told him and showed him the tickets. He informed us that this train had no reserved seats and the reservations were for the train from Geneva to Montreux. Just sit anywhere, and then he moved his bag and invited us to sit opposite him.

At the next station we relocated to seats nearer our suitcases after thanking him for his help. In general we have found that, even when they speak very little English, the French and other travellers try to be as friendly and helpful as they can . But don't abuse them by attempting to strike up a conversation unless they start it.

Changing trains at Geneva was fun. Everybody out, through passport check (where they didn't check the passports) and onto the next train. Standard procedure applies, what carriage is it? I have no idea, lets get in this one and then check. Climb in, notice on the door says 314, hey, that's our carriage, where's our seats? Wow, this one has compartments and we share with only one other person, a nice French lady who speaks quite good English.

Straight forward trip to Montreax, climb down and now we have to find the Hotel Matty chose. Stop at a local map to get some bearings. That doesn't look too hard, the street we want is only one block away from the station. Hit the hole in the wall for some Swiss Francs (they don't accept Euro's in most of Switzwerland) and then walk across the road, down the hill and...come out on the street we need to find alongside the Hotel we are looking for.

It is a reasonably humid day so we are both "glowing" (and dripping some of that glow) as we tow our suitcases into the foyer of the Hotel. The Maitre'd nearly had a fit running after us. I fully see his point though, most of their guests arrive in either a taxi, some type of luxury car or a limosine. "Bonjour, Mounsier, Madam, 'some more French stuff'". I replied with bonjour and then said in English, "we have a reservation".

Didn't his attitude change in a hurry. "Can I take your bags?", "reception is up stairs". I told him he certainly could take the bags and we headed to reception, booked in and were taken to our palatial room by a pleasant young man from Paris (who doesn't want to go back).

We kicked back, hiked around our room for a while trying to find the bed but gave up and called for a search party. Actually that last bit is a lie, but the room is huge and I keep having trouble finding the bed after I get up at night 'cause I don't turn any lights on.

We went out to find a cheap meal for dinner, not easy so we ended up with a pizza (each) and coke for only 35 Swiss Francs. There were some language barriers to getting what we actually wanted so we settled for what we could get.

Checked out the Business Centre after dinner and waited for Matty who was late, due to train problems etc.

We are all here and trying to plan something for tomorrow.

Decided on a relatively quiet day today as tomorrow is going to be another long one. Thought we might start with a little quick Internet access to check banking, emails etc. Won't have time to post anything yet.

Left Forges at around 11:00AM and went into Argentat to fill up with fuel, by some beer at the supermarket, get some cash out of the hole in the wall and a little shopping. After the supermarket and commenting at how busy it all seemed today we went into town and discovered a farmers market. But they were all packing up at 12:00. How unusual, a local market which shuts down at midday. Not only that but the wares on display were astonishing, a butchers shop on wheels, clothing (of course), beds, shoes, grandfather clocks, an almost complete hardware store including chainsaws. It was more like a country field day than our normal farmers market, and only for the morning. By 1:00PM they had all gone.

Ok, we hit the shops, after we went out to the Tour de Merle which is a ruined Medieval Castle. I know why they ruined it, it was falling down. The tourist shop and information centre were closed for lunch (really) so we left again. Margie had a drive this time. She figured that everyone would be at home having lunch so there would be less traffic on the road, she was right. She did pretty well though, I told her that it was because she had spent several days of terror looking at the wrong side of the road and knew all the mistakes to avoid 'cause I had already made them.

Now that Argentat was awake again we went back to do a bit more shopping and then go to see the Cascades de Murel. Remember what I said about signs? We never found the cascades, we did find a lookout with spectacular views of the whole area. Then back to Argentat where we topped the car up with fuel and went back to Forges to pack.

A relatively light dinner, said goodby to all the diners and toddled off to sleep to rise at 5:00AM.

Down for breakfast at 7:30AM and on the way by 8:00AM. Back through Argentat and out through the D12 to Beaulieu, then down the D940 to Bretenoux heading for the 140 and Figeac and Rodez, along the 88 to join the new A75 just after Severac-le-Chateau, ish. Actually, that is what happened and it all went as smoothly as can be expected. A quiet jaunt down the A75 turning off just before the Toll booths to go into Millau.
What an awesome bridge, I managed to get pretty close to it and got some excellent photos but I didn't have time to also drive across it. To do that would have taken another 1/2 - 3/4 hour and we had to be back in Forges for dinner at 7:00PM. Slightly disappointed but not majorly upset we joined the A75 and went for a flog to join the N122 and head for Aurillac since we had already been down that road once and knew we could make reasonably good time back to Forges. We did too, made it from Millau to Forges (approximately 200km) in just on 3 hours and were in time for pre-dinner drinks.

Dinner was cooked by Ian and Jackie and was excellent. Ian was a professional chef in a previous life but now only cooks occasionally for guests. It is an excellent way to get to know the hosts and the other guests even though you meet up with them all every morning at breakfast.

Another eventful and tiring day. Not much amusing to report though, obviously I am getting accustomed to the French way of doing things. Crash into bed, normal start to the day tomorrow.

Breakfast at 8:30AM with everyone else who were staying, just 2 other couples, both friends of Ian & Jacki, both English. Muesli, croissants, local jams (made by Ian), local honey and lots of plunger coffee. Today we are planning to fill the car with petrol, explore Argentat a little and not much more.

The petrol station is built into the supermarket carpark but in the French way. The entrance to the supermarket is a right turn just as you exit the roundabout, this is also the only exit from the supermarket. As you leave it is important to give way to the pedestrians, the traffic exiting the roundabout, the traffic entering the supermarket and the traffic entering the roundabout. There are only 2 lanes on the road and the supermarket entrance/exit. It gets interesting.

The petrol station has 4 pumps and 4 lanes. The lanes are designed for 4-wheeled motorbikes so it is a bit squeezy. Filling up is pretty standard, use the Sans Plomb 95 and then drive to the cash office. Yes, drive through payment. Ease your way back into the carpark and out onto the road. Now to brave the centre ville. Narrow streets so I parked in the very first parking spot I found and we went walking. Bought Strepsils in the chemist, told the girl that my throught was bad but my French was worse, she actually laughed and didn't think the Strepsils would help my French.

We were looking for the Tourist office for some local information, found it and actually got information. We decided that we would grab some maps from the newsagent, grab some lunch and go for a gentle stroll along one of their clearly marked walking trails. The maps bit wasn't so hard, we wanted to have lunch at one of the resturants Ian had suggested. We found it OK and the doors were open, it was just before 11:30 but we couldn't find anyone around nor could we find a bell of any sort so we left. We found a small local supermarket and decided to by the makings of lunch instead. After about 5 minutes of wandering around collecting bits an pieces the lights were turned off??? It seemed that they were wanting to close and we were holding them up. We took our collection through the checkout and sure enough they locked up behind us.

It is a feature of French life, particularly in country regions, that all the shops (except the cafes & resturants) close down at midday so everyone can go home for lunch. They don't reopen again until at least 2:00PM, some times 2:30PM. Now that is highly civilised. They do, however, then stay open until around 7:00PM.

OK, lunch in the park, French stick, stuffed with Roqufort cheese followed with yoghurt and a banana (1.35euro/kg). Dump all our stuff back in the car and, since all the shops are shut for another hour or so, lets go for a gentle walk around the river banks. The handout says there is a clearly marked trail and all we have to do is follow the yellow markers so down to the queys and away we go. Followed the yellow markers fine for a bit and then they stopped. The trail continued so we did as well until we got to the caravan park, couldn't see an exit so we climbed over the fence where others had reduced it's height a bit before us. Out onto the main road and heading in the same general direction we still couldn't see any markers until we came to the barrages where the hydro-electric plant was.

Some yellow markers, excellent, we are on the right track. Crossing over the barrage and we were greeted with more yellow markers indicating a turn to the left, so we did, even though we thought the little map we had indicated a right turn to be more appropriate. Up a shortish hill, up another not so shortish hill, up yet another not so shortish and getting steeper hill, then the foothills of the Alps and then the Alps themselves. By this time we were thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, the yellow markers were not meant for us. And we were also thinking that we should have brought water, ropes, pitons and proper climbing boots with rock climbing cleats and maybe oxygen.

Reconsulting the tiny map we decided that we were in fact lost, well perhaps not lost, but certainly not where we intended to be and that we should retrace our steps to the barrage. At the barrage again we found some more yellow markers which weren't there before and attempted to head back the way we wanted to go in the first place and immediately got geographically embarrassed again as the yellow markers dissapeared from view yet again. Talking this over with Ian later he informed me that the French think that, if you want to visit this place, there are signs but you shouldn't be coming from that direction because it is the wrong way (even though you got to here by following other signs).

I have decided that the French have determined that as you get closer to your destination you probably know where you are going now and don't need any more signs so they stop putting them up. They may, however, put up nice new signs to the next place you might like to visit. All a bit disconcerting if you ask me.

Any way, we knew how to get back into town by backtracking from where we were so we did that. This meant that we only completed about 1/3 of the walk we went on and about 1/3 of the Olympic Cross Country Horse trial training track. And we arrived back in Argentat feeling a little the worse for wear.

Did I tell you about French toilets? In Paris we saw a "gentleman" relieving himself in the street, this explained some of the odours. That and the little piles of doggie landmines on all the footpaths meant that you should not bother to look at the scenery, just watch for suspicious lumps and watery runnoffs.

Once you get into the provincial areas it get even more interesting. The gentlemens toilets are generally open air walls with the normal type individual urinal, handbasin, dryer etc. The seats aren't, they are more of your hole in the ground to squat over. They have very nice porcelain footrests and they flush but they are at ground level. This is fine if you don't have any type of flexibility handicap because there is generally no sign of a handrail. And you have to bring your own paper. They do flush very nicely. Margie found these to be a bit difficult to use for various reasons.

After out walk we decided to return to Forges. Once there we found no-one about so we thought perhaps some beers and an ice cream would be a nice treat and did a promenade through Forges. This took about 15 minutes but failed to produce any beers or ice creams. AHA Margie thought, why don't we drive into Tulle? It is a much larger town than Argentat and is sure to have ice cream and beer. OK, lets go.

Tulle has the distinction of being the most difficult town to drive in that I have ever visited. It has such narrow streets that the made the centre of town up one side of the river one way and the other side one way the opposite way. To get from one direction to the other you use the bridges. Now you might think that this is an excellent idea to ease traffic congestion, and it is, except that now everyone who owns a car within 50km thinks that they have to go into Tulle and drive up and down that main street. Consequently it is nearly as slow as the M25 in London (also known as the worlds largest car park). I had to park the car and go for a walk just so I could work out how to get back out again. After about 3/4 hour in Tulle we managed to get on the road to Forges but we didn't have beer or ice cream.

The real problem was that we were looking for signs and you know the French attitude to signs, as soon as you get close to where you want to be you don't need the signs anymore. I asked Jackie how to get beer and ice cream, she told me that beer came from the supermarket (supermarch) and ice cream from the baker (boulangerie). Now why didn't I think of that? So logical when you think of it.

Dinner was again at the local hotel where a most unusual sight was seen, a French couple having their dinner there as well. Everyone else we have met there so far have been English. We had the steak, the Limosin region is renown for the quality of their meat. And it was superb. Sytz was surprised at the speed with which the steaks disappeared. Sauces and vegetables on the side so the meat is allowed to be enjoyed properly. Again, stuffed and a little wobbly we made it to bed and slept like babies. An early start tomorrow, off to see the bridge at Millau.

The day begins as if it is a normal day (fools, you have no idea yet). Room service for breakfast because we need to get away by 8:00AM. Being really clever we have already scoped le Metro and know what train to take and where to change so we can get to Gare de Lyon (Gary Lyon as Matty calls it) in plenty of time (mwahahahaha he laughs evilly).

The Reception desk was full when we arrived to check out so, since Matty was still in the Hotel and was the one to do the booking, we didn't bother to book out. We thought that Matty would pick up any extras and we could cover it later. In any case, as I said to Margie as we were heading down the street, "If we hear running feet and people shouting angrily in French, we will know they aren't happy with that". At that point we heard running feet and people shouting in French. Stunned we turned around only to see a couple of lads running past and shouting to each other. You think we laughed? You bet we did.

All appears to go smoothly as we arrive at Gare de Lyon with 30 Minutes to spare and casually wander up to the billet (ticket) machine knowing full well that we have these sussed out. And then...the duck...

The French machines ask if you want English but the programmers have different ideas. If you select English that is the last instruction that actually works. Oh, sure, it appears to work but...everyting goes fine until the bit about validating your credit card. "Sorry, this machine cannot read your card". Three times on the first machine, three times on the second machine, three times on the third machine and then we go talk to the nice lady in the billet (ticket) office where, apparently they have different card reading equipment and it works first time. However we are now running a little behind time and have only 15 minutes to find our train.

Easy peasy, we are looking for the bleau (blue) platform and part M. Following the signs we managed to go down three flights of stairs when the signs changed and appeared to be for Metro trains, while looking slightly dazed and consulting the signs and our tickets we attracte the attention of a passerby who spoke reasonable English. He informed us that we needed to be up two flights of stairs and to the right. After one flight of stairs we saw an attendant who seemed to know what she was doing and asked her, she clearly was French and played the French game of "screw up the tourist" and redirected us back down the flight of stairs - we are now down to 5 minutes and beginning to wonder if we will need to catch the next train (they run every hour so no real problem).

Margie then spotted an M off to the right so we went there, up a flight of stairs (did I tell you they breed stairs in France in their train stations for export?) and lo and besudden we found the TGV. Who knew it would be where the stranger said and not the where the Information person said?

We hurried down the platform, found our carriage, boarded, found our seats and settled in just in time for the announcement that the train was leaving. Phew, wipe the perspiration from the brow and laugh about how close that one was, can't possibly get any worse now can it? Oh yes it can.

Easy trip (always is once you get on the right train) to Lyon Part Dieu, got off at the correct station (easy when you get the hang of it) and go looking for the car rental office.

Symbols are a wonderful thing aren't they? Pictures can direct you when nothing else can. We found the rental office and a young lady who spoke passable English. When she asked if I would like the "extra insurance option" I could hardly accept fast enough. She explained that the car was brand new and therfore had no marks on it (oh shit, couldn't they give me an old bomb with so many marks that a few more wouldn't be noticed?) but if I noticed any when I looked at it to please let her know (now, where was I most likely to put marks of my own?).

I signed all the documents, took the keys and promptly walked out the wrong door. I even had to unlatch it to manage that trick so I was surprised when they didn't immediately cancel my rental contract and refuse to unleash me on the French road system. I re-latched the door and wandered off in search of this poor unsuspecting little car.

It looked just like Noddy's car, a genuinely brand spanking new Lancia Ypsilon. The suitcases fitted easily into the back and we fitted uneasily into the front, not to say the seating wasn't comfortable or there wasn't enough room, it was just that the moment of truth had arrived, I now had to drive a Left Hand Drive car in a country which expected that most drivers would stay on the right hand side of the road.

Understand that, for me, the right hand side of the car was way too wide and the left hand side was very narrow. For Margie, there was no brake where there should have been one ( saw her stomp on it many times).

OK, a little familiarisation of the controls, indicator and window wiper controls like the BMW, pedals in same proximity despite being on the wrong side of the car, gear lever wrong location but standard H pattern etc. Adjust seats, mirrors (who put the centre mirror over there?) and then check out the map so we know where we are going (hahahahahahahah).

OK, so, out of the car park and turn right onto Rue Paul Bert, Follow that to the A7 and hang a left and stay on the A7 until Tulle. Yeah, right...

What I actually did was, drove too close to the side of the exit lane and scraped the right side of the car down some bushes, ran over the kerb when I went to put the ticket in the machine to get out, put the ticket in the machine the wrong way round, got confused by what appeared to be a traffic jam where my brain said was the way to go, pulled out of the car park and turned left, following another vehicle and discovered that I was, in fact, driving on the wrong side of the road (pointed out to me by a rather large truck turning into the lane I was in) and then forcing myself in front of the line of traffic waiting patiently at the traffic lights. Brilliant start, it actually took Margie 2 days to realise that I had screwed up so fast, she was still freaked out by me driving through the bushes.

Now I was going in the wrong direction in a city I had never seen before so now was the time to guess and guess big. Margie found she couldn't read the map fast enough to give me guidance, probably because it was in French or the street signs were or she was terrified by how close I managed to get her side to things like parked cars etc. At least the gears were going OK, mostly.

After following a number of cars through lights and turns (to keep me on the correct side of the road) and heading roughly where I thought we needed to be going I found that we were actually on the A7 (how did that happen?). At this point Margie determined that she now had the map under control and I needed to go down that off ramp. This I managed by changing across two lanes, cutting off a small red Citroen which was coming up fast and also wanted to exit there but not actually causing any accidents (I think).

At that point Margie decided that we shouldn't have left the A7 and I had to get back on it. After a litle excursion we managed to do just that, again by following various cars which appeared to be going in the correct general direction. So far So far. We followed the A7 for a while and then correctly changed to the A47 to St Etienne. All appeared to be going reasonably smoothly, the car was running well, I had it in 5th gear, I was cruising at around 100kph, every other vehicle was doing about 130kph, the speed limit signs said 110kph apparel which we decided was French for approximately. But it was all going resonably smoothly when Margies decided that it was all too boring and we needed to take the N16 exit.

Which I did smoothly and then decided I needed to consult the map, I should have consulted chicken entrails as they would have been more use. We found ourselves in a small town which really should have known better and got out of our way, by avoiding any direction which pointed to "centre village" we managed to drive up their main street - is this just a French thing, where the signs don't actually point to where things are? Any way we discovered the only sign in France which is any good for the traveller, "Tourts Directions". I have no idea what it means but we use it whenever we are lost and we always find out way again. If in doubt, go that way. (It actually means "all directions").

However, insted of finding our way onto the A89 (which we wanted) we found our way onto the A88 to Le Puy en-Velay which we decided was really where we wanted to go in any case. Everything settled down again to the rhthym of the road, the blood slowly came back to Margies knuckles and she lifted her foot from the brake. We needed to turn off just before Le Puy (shame really, I thought we could use a small break) and get ourselves onto the N102 to get onto the A75 for a short distance before leaving it for the N122 to Aurillac. Gee, I make it sound so easy.

The road that bypasses Le Puy isn't called the N102 at that point it is something like (don't quote me I forgot in the confusion) N243. However, there was a sign pointing to Cleremont Ferrand and we knew that was roughly the right directions so we went that way. Cleremont Ferrand is an old friend, when in doubt use Tourt Directions and/or Cleremont Ferrand. As we approached the A89 we passed an unusual sign with flashing lights, "be useful to be able to read French" I said to Margie, "that sign might have told us something".

It would have as well. What it would have told us is, turn here for the A89 because the access is closed for maintenance. Not controlled access, closed, blocked, access interdit. Around the roundabout and back the way we came to use the deviation for the next 20km. Never did get onto the A89. At the small village of Massian we found our way onto the N122 to Aurillac.

Now French drivers have the attitude that they can all drive better and faster than you. This means that they will, almost, always arrive on your rear bumper just when you are the most confused and least likely to be able to go faster. They won't honk at you, they will flash their headlights at you and they most certainly will attempt to overtake you at the very first streach of road which appears approximately straight for about 10 metres.

They indicate clearly that they will pull out but never cancel the indicators until they are about 200 metres in front and back on their correct side of the road. This appears to be normal. We saw similar behaviour in Paris and thought it was just a city thing, it seems that it is a French thing. Most of the cars we saw, particularly in the country, are small cars. The biggest would be what we would call medium cars. After a while we realised why, no it isn't price, it isn't fuel cost, it is simply that there isn't room at most houses for a big car and all the parking spaces in the streets assume you have a small car, they are really tight.

On to Aurilliac, relatively straight forward and mostly panic free. Some interesting moments when I attempted to read signs with traffic behind me and ran over kerbs, footpaths, almost sideswiped parked cars, caused a few pedestrians to rethink their road crossing attempts and entered roundabouts while looking for traffic the wrong way and cutting off the traffic I should have been giving way to. This Lancia is a very forgiving little car, you know they'll do 80kph in first gear? They do complain about that though. From Aurillac it is onward to Argentat and a new best friend sign "Autes Directions", they didn't have a "Tourtes Directions" but I figured it had 'Directions' in it so it couldn't be all bad, and it wasn't because it led us to the sign for Tulle. (This one actually means "Other Directions").

Now we were in the zone of the directions the Ian had put on the website and we figured we could finally follow some directions in English. Which we did, and they were excellent. We found Forges and turned off to the B&B up the wrong road, came back onto the main road and then promptly missed the correct turn off which meant I had to do a U-turn, across a narrow but reasonably busy main road. Oh, and I had to do it back to front. I managed that and we managed to get into the correct turn off this time.

We walked up the hill to the B&B and were greeted warmly by Ian & Jacqaline. I drove the car up to the door of the B&B, unloaded the cases and Ian kindly drove the car up to the parking area. We settled in for a cold drink and a chat, Ian bookd us into the local resturant for dinner and we walked down the hill for our first genuine country French meal. Michael and Styz are not French but Michaels cooking is excellent. A delightful local Rose to drink, soup du jour was piosson (fish, not poison), seafood main course, Margie had chicken, fromage du peys and icecream (coffee with chocolate covered coffee beans and coconut) Margie had chocolate mousse. Stuffed, ample to drink, wallet lighter by 65euro and back to bed where we slept soundly. Possibly nervous exhaustion helped. I had driven for 6.5 hours and covered approximately 365km.

Not an early start today as Matty doesn't arrive until 10AM at Heathrow. He then has to get to the flat to re-pack and whatever else he needs to do before we can catch the tube to Waterloo Station, only one change from West Kensington and not during rush hour so it sould be an easy (?) trip.

Apart from getting packed and ready there is nothing for us to do except wait but we are getting pretty good at that as we have done a fair bit of waiting, in train stations, airports, bus stops etc. Margie went back to her Sudoku and I went back to reading. I am currently reading the book Marissa gave me called "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell". This has been extra fun for me because it is based in part in York (in the years around 1800's) and part in London so the place names and the building descriptions are now familiar to me. There is even a section where they characters go into the York Minster for a meeting and I have also been in that room.

I have finished reading the book Michelle and Paul gave me, "The Google Story", and I found it fascinating. One of the more interesting, to me, realisations was that if the Google Guys had lived in Australia the company would never have got off the ground unless they went to the USA for the financing and they probably would have lost control of the company in so doing. This would have pretty much killed Google then.

For those from outside Australian business circles, Australia doesn't have a culture of financial speculation in "good ideas", the financiers want to see a company established with profitable trading fgures and then you might get financing to expand. Google lost $14million in the the first 2 years, in Australia they would have been shut down by their financiers after the first year.

To go outside of Australia would have meant giving up control of their company for the chance to make their idea work and then the business model could not have followed the business model the Google Guys used, which ultimately has proved so successful. There is a message there for all those in politics who think we should have a "level playing field" for business both national and international, untill all aspects are the same then the "level playing field" cannot exist.

Sorry, a bit of a rave there. See what happens when you have to wait? You start to think. Maybe we should make our Pollies wait around a bit more.

We were getting a little concerned with Matty's arrival time. And then, an sms, "Just arrived at Heathrow". So, he has arrived only 2 hours late. This of course has screwed up a number of plans not the least of which was the plan to take Adam out to breakfast for his birthday. Fortunately we had been for a walk and bought a 1/2 cake which we had stuck a bunch of candles into for Adams birthday surprise.

Poor Matty walked in the door, dropped one bag, and walked out the door again. We took a taxi to Waterloo because the tube would have taken too long. Went through a passport and security check and then got to wait on the platform for a while. The bane of travellers is having to arrive at least 30 minutes before departure for anything and then waiting. It is especially difficult at the moment because you don't know how long you will be delayed by the security checks and try to factor in some extra time for that as well.

The Eurostar is quite comfortable and glides through the English countryside at less than 1/2 pace, because the English rail system hasn't yet been upgraded to the required standard for full pace. Once through the chunnel we are away at full speed, around 300kph, and the Eurostar is still as comfortable. When other trains go past at the same speed there is a significant thump, a blur, and they are gone.

At the appointed time we arrived at Gare du Nord from where we took the Metro to Opera. The very first metro train we stepped inside had a large patch of extremely pugent spew (vomit) on the floor. Fortunately we didn't step in it nor were we highly affected by it, others were not so lucky.

Up stars, down stairs, up escalator, down escalator we worked our way to a station which may or may not be where we want to be. But no, Matty has this bit down pat and we are on the correct train going in the right direction.

At Opera Station we walked up the hill to find our Hotel and then some dinner. Dinner was in a street cafe and consisted of a large amount of confusion, wine, quite good food and some laughter.

After dinner Matty decided that we needed to tour Paris by night so off we went. Now Matty likes to go places and see things but he doesn't like to look at everything between those places. This means that I caused him quite a lot of frustration because I like to look at everything as we go. I take photographs of strange/unusual building constructions, doors, windows etc. So I am going slowly and Matty is rushing, see the problem?

We managed to keep up with Matty though and still got some unusual photos on the way. We walked past the Lourve, down the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, under the tower and back to the hotel. I caused some laughter when I stopped to take a photo of a tourist bus which had pulled up to take photos.

Around the Eiffel Tower at 11:30PM there was a huge crowd. People were having picnics on the grass everywhere, possibly hundreds of them, there were street hawkers harrassing you at every third step trying to sell Eiffel Tower keyrings, statues, and anything else they could hold. All junk and all very flexible in price (prices would fall as they talked at you from 2 Euro each to 5 for 1 Euro) but no matter how cheap, crap is still crap.
There was a band playing some kind of metal music, similar to but not the same as West Indies, very load and had a huge crowd around them. Took some photos and left for the Hotel and sleep. Tomorrow Matty heads for Munich and we head for Lyon.

G'Day Folks,

It has been a very busy couple of days so I don't have a full report for you yet (as soon as we get to France I hope to be able to catch up).

The days have been long and the starts have been early so not too much computer time available.

Today is Friday 15th, I need to write up Edinburgh to York, York, York to London, the bus tour to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. The bus trip today to Greenwich, Canterbury and Dover. And, by the time I get to it, the Eurostar trip to Paris.

Matty flies in from the USA tomorrow morning, gets to the flat, repacks and joins us on the train to Paris. This leg could be very interesting as Matty said he would arrange accomodation in Paris and as far as we know he hasn't yet.

Next post might just be to tell you how cold and wet it is sleeping on a park bench near the Louvre and getting trampled on by people following the Da Vinci Code trail.

Better start packing for tomorrow. Chat later. I have added some photos to old blogs, I don't know if you noticed that.

With some slight trepidation about the reliability of the tube we headed for the local station so we could get into Victoria Station in time to catch the bus to Geenwich etc. Now I had been looking forward to having a reasonably good look at Greenwich, for the time museum/history of the place etc.

Sometimes tour descriptions are misleading. We did visit Greenwich, at 30 miles per hour. We were told that we were passing over the 0 degree lattitude line (it didn't look like midnight) but we didn't stop. Nor did we stop when we "saw" the Cutty Sark. In fact if you had been looking the wrong way when we were told that the Cutty Sark was "on the left" you would have missed it. We had to peer down a lane to see the stern of the ship as we passed by, again not stopping. Very disappointing.

The remainder of the tour almost lived up to our expectations. Leeds Castle is the only castle we have seen with actual water in the actual moat. It was lived in until quite recently and has been preserved extremely well. As per normal there is a huge range in years of construction and therefore a huge range in quality and type of construction techniques used. Unlike most others though we were allowed to take photos inside the building (the Asians don't bother with silly rules like that though and take photos everywhere).

We arrived in Canterbury in time for lunch which we had in a Fish & Chippery, it was pretty good tucker and I washed it down with a local ale called Bishops Finger which has been brewed here for 200 years, not the one I had just the recipe. The Cathedral was pretty good, it would have been magnificent but we had already seen the York Minster and that one is better. However, Canterbury is the seat of the church in England and has been a center for religious practice since Roman times. This means that this means that it has some Roman construction included as part of the current structure.

Anyway, time is up and we must away. We always seem to run very short on time to look at these places when on tour with others. No, it's not that we are particularly slow, it's just that they give time for a superficial glance over everything because there is so much travelling and the traffic is so crap most of the tour is spent on the road.

A fairly long haul to Dover where we had a whole 10 minutes to get out of the bus, take some hurried pictures and get back on the bus. We then stopped for what was called "a cream tea" at a small village pub. Devonshire tea or scones with jam and cream is what we would normally call it. Nice but not homemade jam. I suspect the scones weren't cooked in the pub either but it did fill the very small gaps that were just beginning to appear after that large plate of fish and chips for lunch. Seemed to fill some gaps that I didn't realise were there.

Margie and I decided that there is always room for food because it can always go on the outside if there isn't any room inside and of course that is where it goes to make more room inside.

I stepped outside to take some photos and, when I was taking some pictures of the road to show how narrow it was, Margie dragged me away from the edge of the road as the traffic was getting quite close to me (apparently). I think I got some nice ones but we will see in a week or two if they still look good.

Boring long trip back to London parallel to the railway line we will be on tomorrow, on the Eurostar to Paris. Dropped off near the tube and a quick flick home again. Picked up two Pizza's for tea as we thought that Adam might be home for tea. That proved to be a mistake as he wasn't and we were unable to eat all the pizza. Doesn't matter, he'll clean it up later. No need for an early start tomorrow as we have to wait for Matty to get in from New York.

One thing you can guarantee with the tube is that no two trips are the same.

We had decided that we would do a bit of washing etc. and go into London in the afternoon to visit Westminster, poor thing was looking so run down, folorn and long in the tooth last time we visited that we thought a visit from us would cheer the old girl up considerably.

The first part of the plan went swimmingly, washing done and spread around to dry, pack up the back pack and head for the tube. This is where things took a decided turn for the worse. There was and official looking sort of man (he had a uniform and eveything) writing up an interesting looking note on the blackboard concerning our streach of track. The gist of the note was that there were serious delays to be expected due to some signal failure.

Margie and I made the same decision at almost the same time, we're not interested in spending hours in the tube only to have to almost immediately come back again. No value in that at all so we determined to have a nice quiet day at home.

This we managed to do without any serious foul ups. We went shopping for some household goodies, went the long way there and the shorter way back. Posted some postcards at the back of the supermarket where the post office is. Washed some clothing, did some reading and some Sudoku, Margie is getting pretty good at them. And I did some computer and internet stuff on Adam's computer.

Margie cooked a mornay for tea, delicious it was too. Early start for the bus tour tomorrow.

Another relatively early start to the day, not because we are rushing for a train but because we have the morning to do stuff in York before the train. Some of my York Minster photos are a bit blurry and out of focus due to the poor light and long exposure times. I am hoping to get another chance at some of them.

After the obligatory too much for breakfast we completed the packing and dragged out suitcases down the 4 flights of narrow stairs. Gravity assist down stairs is a marvellous thing. Put the suitcase on the step and follow it down, it's best to keep hold of it so you can negotiate the corners.

As we dragged our suitcases back up the cobbled footpaths of Bootham Gate to the city centre we discovered that, while it seemed to be a cool day, it certainly was humid. We decided to catch the Hop-on-Hop-off tourist bus for the lap of honour around the town but found that it wasn't due to start for another 1/2 hour or so. We trudged on to the railway station and parked the cases for a mere $10 STG ($25 AUD). Then we hopped on the bus with another Australian couple (we explained how we had been using the bus as public transport) and went back to Bootham Bar.

From there it was straight down High Petergate to The Minster where we discovered that we should have paid for an entrance fee last night ($8 STG each or about $15 AUD each). We decided that it was too expensive just for a few photos so I contented myself with retaking some of the outside shots. Back down Stonegate to the Shambles and a bit of tourist shopping before heading to the railway station. We have a problem with the tourist shopping everywhere we go. We don't want to fill the cases with bulky or heavy stuff. We don't like the usual "Someone I know went to 'name of town here' but all they brought me was this lousy T shirt", or anything that has the name of the town or location on it because most of it is cheap crap that is lost as soon as you get it back.

However, there is very little that is available outside of the general tourist rubbish. What there is is also generally way overpriced and those of you who know me know that I don't like wasting money (who said tight? Own up.). And of course there is Autralian Customs to get throught on the way back. No wooden or plant products, no foodstuffs particularly dairy etc, etc. Anyway, we have bought very little which is probably a good thing. We are planning some shopping in Hong Kong (apparently).

In a previous post I explained a little of the history of York. It really is a remarkable place to visit and must be quite strange to live in. One story we were told concerned a young man working in one of the Pubs near Stonegate. Apparently he went down to the cellar to tap a new keg and saw a small group of Roman soldiers marching through the cellar. He thought it particularly odd that they seemed to all be marching on their knees. They marched on through the wall and were gone. When he went back upstairs one of the barmaids looked at his ashen face and said "So you've seen the Romans then?" They explained that there was an ancient Roman road under the cellar floor but it was about 18" deep. The young man decided he needed to be in a safer career, so he joined the Police force.

All British towns of any size have a night tour of the the Ghosts and Ghoulies or Murder most foul. The place has nearly as many Ghosts as people. Mind you, the people, who take their shirts off at the first sight of sun, mostly look like ghosts so maybe there isn't any difference.

After a bit more of a wander we headed back to the railway station. Picked up our suitcases and, yet again, climbed up and down stairs for want of anything better to do. This time we were in plenty of time, got on the right carriage, found our seats and began the trip back to London.

It still is of serious concern to us that these poor people have not managed to get Summer down pat after all those hundreds of years of practice. When the fields still have green in them at the end of Summer you know that they just cannot get it right. After all, how do they know they have had a Summer at all? It is no wonder that they left the shores as soon as they managed to build any sort of boat and went in search of how to do Summer. They still didn't manage to learn the rules though.

We arrived in London at Kings Cross Station (built a couple of hotels and started charging exhorbitent rental...no, that's a lie) and had to change trains to catch the trains on the Regional line to get back to the Flat.

All went according to plan except we had managed to arrive back in London during rush hour. Suitcase wrangling up and down stairs with crowds of people helpfully getting in the way, standing still to talk on thier mobile 'phones, pushing their way through the crowd etc. isn't easy but we managed and worked our way through the stations, crowds and general mayhem managed to get us back to the flat where we were cheerfully greeted by a note from Adam (Matty's still in New York) telling us that he is off to the theatre and would be back same night.

So we arranged food etc and settled in for a quiet night.tonight.

Another full Scottish breakfast at 8:00am. Pretty much the same as in Edinburgh but with the addition of Black Pudding, hmm, no, only kidding, it was pretty good. We breakfasted with two of the other tour members, a lady from Russia and a gentleman from Germany. A rather entertaining breakfast was had by all in the general confusion of mix'n'match english and we all rushed off to pack and wait for our bus.

There was a fair bit of banter in the lobby with the proprietors just prior to leaving so we were all in pretty good spirits by the time Shelby arrived. She too, in what is possibly her normal state, was pretty chirpy. After instructions about this days travel we were off again. First stop was to visit a "hairy coo" well actually a "hairy bull" called Hamish. He is a 300lb Highland Bull with big horns and a love of bananas. Shelby called him by name and he came up to get his banana which he obviously enjoyed, including the peel. Shelby thinks the calfs are "soo cute, just like Ewoks". I don't think they look like Ewoks, they are much too big, but I can see her point.

Next stop was for something which is a rarity in Scotland, free whisky. Mind you their tasting cups were about the same size hospitals put your medicine in and the whiskey barely covered the bottom. It was free though and it did taste pretty good, there were about 7 bottles of whiskey sold to a bus load of about 20 so it was a pretty good return on the investment of free tasters.

We headed down the other side of Loch Ness (still no monster - perhaps it doesn't exisit after all) to Drumnadrochit and out to Glen Affric. This is one of the last preserves of the original Highlands vegetation and is amazingly beautiful, I am not sure that my photos did it justice.
   
Before arriving in Drumnadrochit there was the infamous Higland Fling episode. Video is available by clicking on the YouTube link. YouTube Here!
After arriving back on the main road we visited Urquhart Castle. They have a lot of broken stuff in this country (UK, not just Scotland) and this is no exception. (Urquhart Castle)

Onward ho to Fort Augustus (where there isn't a fort) and lunch at the Scottish Kitchen. I braved haggis with potatoes and nees (which we decide was an aneamic pumpkin) while Margie bravely tried the trout. Both were delicious, this place is a bit slow but the food was worth it and they were very busy. We had a bit of a touristy wander around and checked out the "water ladders", strange people here. Because they call lakes lochs, they have to call locks water ladders. It'd be just too confusing to tell someone to take the lock to the loch or to come through the loch to the lock.

Pretty much straight on back to Edinburgh now with a quick look throught the trees to Glen Bogle Castle of "Monarch of the Glen" fame with a short leg streach at Piltochary where we added shortbreads to our list of Scottish delicacies to try.

Now the last streach, we got some photos of the bridges coming into Edinburgh and all too soon we are back at the bus stop getting out our bags and climbing the hill to the bus stop for Portabello Road.

If you are interested in visiting the company who took us on this tour, here is the link to the tour we were on Click Me I trust you will enjoy it as much as we did. Tell'em "Brent Sent me".

We managed to get at least one stop closer to the correct bus stop this time so we had a shorter distance to walk back to the B&B and found we were in an upstairs room this time. No need for tea again as we were still stuffed from topping up our brekfast at lunch time.

Early start today. A full Scottish breakfast at 7:30AM. Eggs, sausage, baked beans, salty bacon, mushrooms and potato cake. Preceeded by juice and cereal and followed by coffee and toast. That set us up for the day all right.

Lunch wasn't until 2:00ish and we made it easily. So well in fact that we bought a salad roll to share plus two serves of soup which came with a bread roll each. We ate the soup and bread rolls but didn't touch the salad roll.

On with the real story.

We negotiated our way into the city via the bus, climbed the hill to the Royal Mile where we were being picked up and were only 3/4 hour early.

Across the road was a Games Shop, for Warhammer and stuff like that. There was a substantial line of young people outside this shop so we decided they must have something special on for this day. Sure enough, out of the shop strolls a knight (really just a young man in a suit of armour with a long sword) and starts chatting up the crowd.

A little later another young man steped outside and started requesting load roars from the crowd or "no-one comes inside". They obliged and were granted entry.

I did a little wander and took some photos of a piece of artwork I labelled the "dog poo" and some others of the very narrow lanes they have here called Closes. The one I took photos of is called Jacksons Close and came out alongside Jacksons, a bar.
 
Our tour bus arrived, driven by a lively young lady with a full-blown Scots accent. After loading the luggage we were entertained for a while as she gave us details of what we were going to be doing and seeing today. She introduced herself as Shelby and explained that she was born in the southern highlands but moved to a town close to Inverness early in life. She is a proud Scot and delights in sharing her love of her country with tourists.

Off out of Edinburgh and onto the M9 motorway to Stirling to see Stirling castle, site of many a battle, and the Wallace Monument. This is an extremely important bit of Scottish history so I'll give you a link (click here ) instead of just my fragmented memory stuff.

We called in to Castle Doune which is where the Monty Python crew filmed the scenes of the French castle and the wooden rabbit for In Search of the Holy Grail. The duck wanted to be allowed to attack or be a decoy duck, I let him have a little play at his fantasy but there were no French soldiers there that day, just some Indian tourists who were a little puzzled. Apparently there was a Monty Python Festival there only a few weeks ago with all types of strange folk dressed in even stranger outfits and a good time was had by all.

Some of the Scottish roads leave a bit to be desired though. Single lane with 100 foot drops one side, 300 foot mountains on the other and oncoming traffic. They have little sections about every 200 feet called Passing Places. These fit one vehicle and are just that, a place to pull over and let others pass in either direction. Only once did Shelby have to reverse the mini bus into a Passing Place and only once did someone have to do that for us, overall the system seems to work.

We were surprised at just how green the whole place was. Here we were at the end of what had been a pretty hot summer by their standards and the ground was still oozing water, there was green grass everywhere. Even in the paddocks where crops had been harvested there was green coming up through the stubble.

On we go into the beginnings of the Highlands to Loch Linnhe and Loch Lochy and begin touring up the "Great Glen" alongside all the Lochs. The Scots have put in a number of "Water Ladders" (locks) to create the Caledonian Canal so that ships could trade right through the Lochs here all the way to Inverness. Unfotunately it took so long to put all the locks and canals into place that the ships had grown too big to fit. Now it is the exclusive domain of the pleasure craft.

And so on to Glen Coe and the village of Glencoe for lunch where we topped up breakfast with soup and rolls and sampled the local soft drink, Irn Bru, which outsells Coke in Scotland. It's actually pretty good and we have had several since then as well.

After lunch and a good look around we cruised on to Fort William (where there isn't a fort) and Ben Nevis, highest mountain in Scotland (and Britain, much to Shelby's delight). Apparently it is very rare to see the top of Ben Nevis as it is usually in cloud, but not for us today.

Shelby informed us that there was more water in Loch Ness than in the whole rest of the UK. We didn't tell her that that probably meant that there was about 20 years supply for the whole of Australia in there. I suspect there are some very large creatures living in the Loch, it certainly wouldn't be very hard to hide without trying.

On to the Northern end of Loch Ness at Dorea where we were able to walk down the edge of the water and get our hands wet. It actually wasn't very cold but the weather was warm and we know from the ocean, it is often much warmer at the edges than where the water gets deeper. We haven't spotted anything resembling a monster.

Off to Inverness for the night. Shelby delivered us to our B&B doors and left us to our own devices while she went of to take her Mum out for her birthday, Happy Birthday Shelby's Mum. The B&B was The Winmar Guest House run by Kevin and Susan and was very comfortable. We went out for a little exploration and a small snack. The footbridge across the River Ness was most intersting, it bounced when people walked on it and it seemed that everyone who did walk on it insisted on making it bounce as much as possible.

After walking around a little we decided that a small snack was called for and went looking for a fish/seafood dinner.

There was a small Italian Ristorante on the corner of King Street and Young Street that appeared to have reasonable pricing and selection from the street menu. Once inside, apparently, the menu changed and the reasonable pricing disappeared. Attempting to make the best of the situation, we ordered a seafood salad (marked on the menu as for 2) and a couple of glasses of house wine. The glasses were small and the wine was passable but the seafood salad... Now it might be because we didn't know the local custom but I personally expect a seafood salad for two to have at least two of everything and a greater selection than calamari, baby calamari, baby octopus, tinned tuna, mussels and 1 prawn. I also would have expected the seafood to be cooked not pickled.

A dish description of "drizzled with olive oil" should have read "drowned in olive oil" which, combined with the vinegar from the pickles made it not the most exciting meal I have eaten - I finished it off though, at $8.75STG (approx $22.00AUD) I wasn't planning to leave any. I got the impression from the staff that we were the cheapest customers they had had there ever. Personally I thought it was one of the crappiest meals I have had anywhere ever. Lucky we weren't hungry. We went back to the B&B and had our lunchtime salad roll with a coffee and really enjoyed it.

I got internet access at the Winmar and was able to update some of our adventures, check some emails and generally tidy things up a bit.

I will update this with some photos later when I have worked them over on my computer.

Another early start. We wanted to catch the train at 7:30AM but we were a little behind schedule and caught it at 7:40AM instead only to have the dammned thing stop just out of the station for about 5-10 minutes, it seemed longer. After several other unsceduled delay amount ing to possibly 25-30 minutes. Anyway we arrived a Victoria Station in good shape dragging only one suitcase, my laptop and a small backpack. All projections catch on everything when there is a significant crowd around and we were under some pressure to get to Gatwick Airport. Up and down stairs, through the turnstiles and finally onto the platform for the Gatwick Express. Having missed the one we intended to catch which would have put us in Gatwick in plenty of time we dragged everything onboard and waited another 10 minutes for the "we are leaving" announcement and away we go.

At Gatwick Airport it is complete chaos, people going in all directions with almost none of them, it seemed, having any idea of what they are doing. And the passengers weren't any better. TRAVEL HINT:: Get to Gatwick Airport (perhaps any airport) at least an hour early, you'll need it. Now, our flight to Edinburgh was supposed to leave at 9:45AM, bookin time was to be by 9:00AM. We got to the checkin counter at 8:50AM, the boarding time was written on out ticket as 9:00AM and we still have to go throught security. What a shambles, that was the longest queue I have ever been in. One dark green gentleman and his lovely wife had a slight altercation with the Security Staff and were ushered to one side for a little one-to-one. I suspect they missed their flight.

Margie forgot to pack her cosmetics in the case and had to hand them over, she was a bit annoyed with losing $50 worth of feature enhancement equipment but didn't fuss. Belt and shoes off for the security check, all loose items (mobile phone, keys, change, etc) in the carry on luggage, all on the x-ray machine and through you go. I got frisked and asked if they would do it again but was told that once was free, the second would have to be paid for.

I didn't put my shoes or belt back on because we were already under the pump to get to the plane before thay closed the doors. A short 2km jog to the appropriate gate and arrived as they were boarding passengers. Put my belt on in that queue but still carried my shoes. TRAVEL HINT:: Wear slip on shoes of some type when flying, not lace-ups or belted types.

Having done all that rushing we then got to sit on the plane for about 15-20 minutes before the taxiing began. I gotta tell you, Easy Jet isn't.

As we flew over London I decided that the street layout looked like a head with all those small plaits that are popular at the moment. A brilliant day for flying, pretty clear all the way and could see how the land just kept getting lumpier as we got further north as if the land mass had been moving north happily and then crashed into something, crumpling up the front. After landing we decided that this International Airport that was clearly busier than Adelaide's is in about the same condition and functionality as the old Adelaide airport was.

Our case was the second last case onto the carosel. We still managed to catch the shuttle bus into the city centre, not that we were quite sure where that might be but we were near enough. Checked out the correct bus to take to Portobello. Went to the tour office to let them know we were in Edinburgh and to find out what time we needed to be there in the morning - another #$%^& early start.

On the bus to Portobello with only one problem to solve, where to get off. As it turned out I asked a local, who gave me the wrong information but it was close. I asked another local who steered us right and we found the Ardgarth B&B. Checking in was easy and we decided to go for a little walk along the beach and have fish & chips for lunch. Scotland has sand on their beaches, well this one has sand any way. I have photos to prove it. What a beautiful day (still is actually, sky still blue, sun still shining and it is only 7:00PM). I baulked a bit at $4.50STG for fish and chips (1 serve) but it actually turned out to be reasonable value. Margie and I shared them and we are still not hungry 4 hours later.

Had a little stroll along Main Road and then back to the B&B. Will have to find internet access in the next couple of days to post all this.

Bit of a free day today, went into London to check out the Tower of London and a couple of other things. Well, that was the plan. Got into town about 10AM and had a little cruise around the park and memorials before crossing the road to the Tower grounds. Saw thw place that Simon Fraser was beheaded in 1730'ish.

The pricing, as for all tourist things apparently, was pretty steep at $15STG per person. That equates to approximately $37.50AUD per person. We did take the guided tour with one of the Beefeater guides who called himself Dickie (Dyson?, I really should take notes). He was quite amusing and had a wealth of knowledge. It was a large group but his voice projection was more than equal to the task and he was a shameless ham. Played up the audience with excellent timing for his jokes.

After the tour we examined the crown jewels, Margie ordered a diamond "as big as that one" but she has no chance, that comes just after I buy out Microsoft. We moved on to the White Tower where the armoury display is. After an hour or so of wandering around looking at gruesome instruments designed to kill and maim other human beings we had had enough and left the gounds for some lunch.

Paul made lunch for us which was pretty good. We then walked along the Thames Path back to Blackfriers Station and headed home. We were a little concerned, Adam was supposed to ring us to let us know when he would be at home to let us in, we didn't have any spare keys today, but hadn't called. We decided that he must have decided not to go out but when we got back there was no response to our ringing.

Since we didn't have Adam's number we called Matty who must have been in a meeting. We left a message and headed to the Pub. Adam found us there accidentally as he was heading back to the flat after being at the Gym. All good.

Nina arrived shortly after and then Matty got back from work. All re-polished and we headed out to a posh resturant (the Sugar Hut) for dinner. We had a very nice meal and a very pleasant evening. Back home and Nina had to take off almost immediately, Matty crashed again, Margie attempted to do some reading but dozed instead, I got online to check the state of play on the credit cards and send some emails but couldn't stay long as we have an early start tomorrow.

Well, Matty decided that he should see if he could get us tiddly. Because he was paying and we didn't have to drive anywhere for at least a week I wasn't concerned. In the end we didn't get much over the limit as Matty had to work the next day and didn't want to go in suffering.

Early start today, Matty took us in to Victoria Station where we have to go to catch the shuttle to Gatwick on Friday and where we had to exit to head off the the Victoria Coach Station for our tour. Said good by to Matty and headed off to the Coach Station.

When we rang yesterday we were told to go to Gate 4 to catch our bus but when we were looking at the bus at Gate 4 it had the wrong message scrolling across it's display. At very close to the appointed time to leave we decided that we really should ask someone who looked partially official (they had a clipboard) if this was indeed the correct bus tour. Answer, No. We should be waiting at Gate 1 and they were about to leave. Can't blame the duck for that one, that was entirely good English organisation.

No major problem, we got on the correct bus and headed off with Mark, the leader and Frank, the driver. Mark was totally amazing, he gave the spiel about what was going to happen for the day, how the schedule panned out, cracked a few jokes and then smoothly did exactly the same in Japanese. Including the jokes and they laughed so he must have been pretty good. He did that all day, backwards and forwards between English and Japanese, holding conversations, answering questions and all with no apparent problem. Very impressive.

The tour headed out of London down the M40 to Oxford. Most impressive town, very old constructions all over the place, interesting history and impressive list of old scholars. I'll put more detail in the GlobalLinks blog section later.

After some lunch and a bit of a free wander around we piled back into the bus for the drive to Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Very picturesque village, not very big but overrun with tourists. Billies house was pretty interesting as is his history, unfortunately you are not allowed to take any photgraphs inside and they are real rip off merchants with their pricing for the "Official" photos.

Back on the bus for the short trip to Billies wife's birthplace and home, Ann Hathoway's Cottage. This too was very interesting, she was obviously from a more affluent family than Billy even though his father was doing OK. The other intersting thing about her home was the fact that the Hathoway family had lived in the same house from that time until the Shakespeare Trust were able to buy it. The got it with all the original furniture and fittings which were still in use. Those Poms, they don't throw anything away and they don't upgrade or modernise anything either.

Now to begin the final run home, 2 hours back down the M40 to London, trying to snooze but some #$%^& Americans were having a private conversation about the various merits of the different models of the Corvette. This private conversation woke up semi-trailer drivers whom we passed. Snoozing wasn't easy. However we did manage to arrive back in London on time and, being old hands at this game, caught the tube back to West Kensington, found the flat with no problems, buzzed Adam and headed in for a coffee.

Adam went out, Matty came home and we had Take-Away Curry from the Curry Guru. Wasn't as hot as I was expecting, washed it down with a nice red we picked up in the off-license (Jacobs Creek Merlot) and promptly began dozing off.

Happy Birthday Ian...

This has to be a short post as I haven't prepared yesterdays details, nor todays but I had better put something up for now. We are off again tomorrow morning early to fly to Edinburgh. I hope I have time tomorrow night to write up the last couple of days adventures but a quick overview.

Went to Oxford and the Cotswolds yesterday on a bus trip. All highly entertaining and enlightening. We went to William Shakespeare and Ann Hathaway's birthplace(s). Further details in the next post.

Today we toured the Tower of London, hours and hours and still ran out of time. Tonight Matty took us out to tea at a posh resturant, Nina came as well and fun was had by all.

Yes, the duck stuffed us up again. We got back to the flat and Adam was out, we didn't have a key and the duck had rearranged the keys on Adams mobile (which we have borrowed) so I couldn't make any calls. Ha! Fixed his little red waggon, I sorted it all out and communication has been established. For those who need to know, email me at brent at kentberry.com.au for the number. I can't call you but I might be able to sms you.

More 'ron.

Up and about at 7:30AM London time, I sat up in bed and typed up some notes while Margie showered. Matty laughed and made some rude comments about "geeks on the loose in the hoose" when Margie dobbed me in.

After getting all the usual stuff done, odd shower, exhausting thing, have to run about to get wet, we went with Matty to a local cafe for breakfast. Expensive place this breakfast with coffee ran out to about $20UKS.

From breakfast we trained into Westminster station and exited onto Bridge Street, directly opposite the Houses of Parliament. We walked with Matty down to Westminster Abbey to give us some bearings and then we went back to Westminster Station and tubed it to Canary Wharf so Matty could show us where he worked. He was going to work in any case so it was easier to do that. We had a coffee and then he went off to annoy his workmates and we headed off to explore. We didn't have the duck so we thought that we would have no misdirections from him.

We were right, we went back to Westminster station, took some photos of the Houses of Parliament from both sides of the Thames and some photos of the London Eye. Wandered down to the Abbey for another photo shoot and then around the corner to Buckingham Palace, thought about dropping into the Queens local, the Stag, but decided it was probably a little early in the day. Apparently she wasn't in when we knocked but she might just have been having a little nap and decided she didn't want any visitors.

We crossed over to the Green Park and strolled to Piccadilly Circus. I was expecting something much larger than that and there were hardly any pigeons. We did see Duck Tours several times, try to get a photo next time I'm in London. Having had enough of walking around and needing to confirm or change some of the tours we headed back to the flat. Everything went well until we got back to the correct street and then we realised the that #$%^ duck hadn't told us what number the flat was and guess what? All the houses look the same.

Fortunately we had taken a photo of the view out the bedroom window so we found the flat by finding the place across the road. And now we have sorted the tours, brought the blog up to date and are going to have a little nap before going out for dinner with the boys tonight.

Next day, didn't get internet access, breakfast was late. The duck was so excited at being in Hong Kong (something about "near the home of my hero, Peking Duck") he forgot to put the time we would like breakfast on the door tag. Hmmm... this duck is becoming unreliable.

After breakfast I picked up the camera and took a couple of photos and realised that the battery was pretty low, ::NOTE TO SELF:: 'Charge the camera battery overnight', an so went for a walk to have a quick look around. Went down to the ferry wharf, very interesting, a lot of harbour traffic. I was telling Margie about an associate in Mt Gambier who used to come to Hong Kong for holidays and to get a couple of suits when up comes a very polite young Indian(?) gentleman who cheefully guided us to an Indian tailor. Within 1/2 hour he had skillfully measured me and sold me a, hopefully, very nice tailored suit and shirt for only $2,180HK. I get a fitting when we come back and they have one day to make any adjustments. Now of course I need some reasons to wear it, weddings are best OK?

We took a bit long at the tailor and had to move a little faster to get back to the Hotel to catch the shuttle bus. Pack the bags up, arrange documents relocate to the Lobby. The instructions we have are to make ourselves known to the Concierge re catching the shuttle bus back to the airport. The duck didn't read the documents properly and told the Concierge that we were catching the 10:45 bus when he should have told him that it was the 11:15 bus. Last nights was the 10:45. Hmmm... Anyway, the duck decided that he would rather be at the airport early than late and so took a taxi ($285HK) to the airport.

Great driver, left foot on the console, constant changes in accelerator pressure and on the mobile phone all the way meant the drive was interesting. Funnily enough, the view from a taxi isn't as good as the view from the bus. It isn't a good day for photos anyway, it is a bit hazy and overcast.

On with the adventure. Got ourselves in the queue for economy and, when we finally made it to the front, realised the duck had led us astray again. This was the queue for Los Angeles not London. Change queues, start again. Way too early to book in, no gate allocated yet so have to go have a coffee and wait for 20 minutes to find out where we should be.

When I went to put the receipt for the coffee in my pocket I realised that the duck had failed to check-out of the Kowloon Hotel properly. I still had the door keys and hadn't confirmed that the breakfast bill had been paid. Since they already had an impression of the credit card it is probably not too bad. BUT...we are booked in to stay there again at the end of the month for two nights. The duck might be hauled in to explain his actions.

At last, after the duck insisted on having his photo taken sitting on a stainless steel egg and then complaining of a cold bottom, we managed to find gate 30. Now we hurry up and wait again.

.

Finally on the plane for the long haul to London. Should have tried for Exit seats, probably would have got them because we were there so early. Ended up with an aisle seat and the next one in in the centre block. When I realised that I thought we might have got far enough back to be in a 3 seat row, nup we got the last of the 4 seat rows.

The two young men in front of us were a little larger than most ot the rest of the passengers and immediately put their seats in the sleep position which severely restricted out space. TRAVEL HINT:: Have some consideration for your fellow travellers and only put your seat fully back for sleeping.

Pretty uneventful flight, some turbulence but no real problem just a long time with only movies to watch, a book to read and food and drink to deal with. At least the cabin crew on Cathay Pacific are cheerful and helpful. It is also Cathay Pacific Airlines 60th birthday so we were given Chinese Birthday cakes with lunch. Very tasty little morsels they were too.

Because we had a headwind for most of the trip we arrived in UK airspace later than we should have been. This meant that our position in the landing queue and parking spot had been lost and we had to wait for the reallocation. 10 to 15 minutes circling, landing 10 to 15 minutes parked on the tarmac and finally allowed to disembark.

Compared to the Hong Kong terminal the Heathrow terminal looks tired and rundown. The staff don't appear to be entirely enthusiastic about their jobs. In fact they look bored and annoyed. This probably has something to do with what looked like understaffing problems. We were in a queue of perhaps 200 people to get our passports checked. There were two Customs people for our class of passport. No real surprise that there was a sign warning the passengers that they were not permitted by law to assault the staff. Typical beauracrat solution to what appears to be a problem - put up a sign. Potential solution? Look for the cause of the problem (frustration and tiredness?) and try to eliminate the problem (more staff?).

Pick up the luggage and on to customs. Nothing to Declare? Pass straight on through to the free world. And then there was Matty, big grin and all.

We attempted to catch a taxi, interesting, no taxis at the rank to be managed but two people managing them, a bit different to the arrivals hall. After some delay a number of cabs arrived at once so we were away once again. Onto the W4, after some sububan touring, and in to West Kensington. Car parking seems to be at a premium. Cars in every legal position (and some not legal), tight parking and leaving only a single lane for the through traffic. Drag the suitcases up 2,000 flights of stairs, OK it was only 1 to the front door, 2 to the flat and only 4 more to the bedroom.

Nice flat though, pretty comfortable and about 4 times the size of our Hong Kong room (including the bathroom). Weather here has been very humid and around the mid 20's (that's Celcius). They don't seem to have any flies or mosquitos so the windows don't have any screens on them, the windows are the only ventilation which makes sense in a country which has more cold weather than warm/hot. We are now feeling pretty tired as it is now approximately 5:00AM Hong Kong time and we were up and about at approximately 6:30AM Hong Kong time with only short naps on the plane. So we crashed and slept with the fan on all night

We are now in Hong Kong, local time is 00:26. Margies and my body clocks say it is very late and the computer tells me it is 1:52.

We are in the Kowloon Hotel on the 8th floor room 844 for one night.

The flight...We didn't realise that the stopover in Melbourne was so important. Another "hurry up and wait". 2 hours to visit the dutyfree shops so we can buy things at inflated but GST free prices.

Unfortunately we both had headaches for most of the trip to Hong Kong, we suspect that we just didn't get enough coffee and plan to make sure that we have enough for the rest of our travelling ;-) .

If this is on the website on Monday 4th September then you will know that I managed to get access to the broadband available here. Cost is $120HK (approx $20AUD) but they haven't yet managed to fax me the access code, yes, each room has a fax machine. If I don't get it, I don't pay.

You should have seen us getting out of the plane here. We waited for most of the plane to clear as we couldn't see the point in rushing. Last out of the plane. Wander through the airport following the Arrivals signs and we caught up with the rest of the plane, easily.

Caught the automatic train to the Arrivals zone. Take a guess at which Arrival Hall to go through and guess at B because it appeared to be closer to luggage carosel 8 which is where our luggage is supposed to be. Go to the Passport check, through to pick up the luggage and out through Customs. Nothing to declare means nothing to check and just walk straight through.

Now we are lost. What to do next? Lets look at the itinerary to find out what hotel we are supposed to be staying at. While we are doing that a security guard starts calling out to us "Hello, hello". We look across and see another man who is holding up a placard with OUR NAMES on it. Off we go after this person in the orange coat and he takes us to a counter where we get tickets on the Shuttle bus (leaving in 10 minutes but not from here), information and directions for catching tomorrows flight, directions to catch the Shuttle Bus (hurry or you'll miss it) and sent on our way.

When we read the instructions from Harvey World Travel, they clearly state to go to Arrival Hall B and look for our Destination Asia Representative (Green Jackets). Gee, lucky we just guessed.

Across the concourse, down the escalator and we are met by another man in an orange coat. All very efficient except, the bus was late but not enought to be a problem.

Unfortunately both of us were feeling just a lot tired and jaded and completely neglected to take any photos of the airport, bridges, high-rise buildings, substations or even the extremely narrow streets the bus managed to squeeze down. We decided to take most of our Hong Kong photos on the next visit.

Amazing construction that freeway and bridge to Kowloon, very highrise buldings jammed together, mostly for accomodation it seems, multi story primary schools and high schools. A container terminal which seemed to go on forever.

And, finally, Kowloon. Drop off passengers at several different Hotels until we arrive at the Kowloon Hotel. Greeted and wisked to the checkin counter, easy checkin, off to the room luggage taken for us and put in our room. Should I have tipped him? I don't know, must find out so we aren't seen as rude.

The room is about the same size as our kitchen/dining room back home, that includes the bathroom, so is pretty cosy. Didn't have to go outside to change your mind but only one at a time. Turn on the TV and guess what? See the photo below.

Pretty snazzy huh?

I have had notification that the registration function isn't working. Sorry about that folks, I hadn't tried that function since putting this online. I have also decided that I will stop the nag re newsletter until the end of this holiday and that has been done.

I am unable to get to the appropriate section of the site for the registration function while at work so it will have to be done after hours.

Last day at work today - woo hoo - and, damn it, I am busy trying to get some critical stuff done before 17:00.

'Twill be done, and I can holiday with a clear conscience.

Look out world, here we come...