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Shukram! Ahhh the glitz, glamour and sand that is Dubai! Well, is it all it's talked up to be? Is our ever-increasing fuel price actually creating anything spectacular over there or is it all going straight into the bank accounts of the needy multi-billionaire Sheikh's of Arabia? Do 50c cones actually cost 1c in the UAE? And if so, how long does it take for such ice cream to melt, run down your arm, all the way to your elbow, into your brand new 100% cotton shirt of which you walked for 2 hours in the boiling hot heat to buy primarily to wear to the world's only 7 star restaurant because all the rest of your good shirts were covered in a mixture of wine stains and smelt like Amsterdam coffee shops? All will be ... read more

Wow. It's only been 2 weeks since I was there, and I can remember it like yesterday. The hype, the glitz, the unknown that is the Amsterdam Experience. The whole group had been looking forward to the Netherlands, for many reasons, but it was unfortunately our last city of the tour. 22/5/08 - St Goar to Amsterdam First up was a 3 hour drive to services, and our first taste of traffic in Europe, which wasn't too bad for the second last day of the tour. For some reason we were delayed, about 10 over-heated cars were piled along the side of the major motorway connecting Germany and Netherlands right on the border. Anyway, after Autogrill, we stopped off at a Cheese and Clog factory/shop. We were given a quick introduction into the Dutch Cheese production, ... read more

First and foremost, Switzerland is beautiful. If there is 1 country you ever visit, make it Switzerland. Don't go without a camera and don't leave without visiting a chocolate shop - they are everywhere and they are to die for. 19/5/08 - Munich to Lauterbrunnen, via Liechtenstein. Stumbling out of bed feeling bloody fantastic at 7am and quickly packing the bags, we made it just in time for our 7:30 departure to Liechtenstein. It was a 3hr drive from Munich to the border checks of Switzerland, just outside of Vaduz, capital of Liechtenstein. Unfortunately for us, it was a little overcast still and we could not see to the top of most of the hills around the area. We arrived in Vaduz for lunch, a quick currency exchange from Euros into Swiss Franc and it was ... read more

Seavas! This time we look at Austria. After leaving the tropical sea-levels of northern Italy, it was nice to have a change of scenery as we moved forwards towards the Germanic regions of central Europe. Possibly the most scenic of the countries we visited, Austria is 60% mountains, so we were bound to get some decent photos and sights. 16/5/08 - Venice to Austrian Tyrol We left early (again) from Venice, and headed 3hrs up the road to services for lunch and white-water rafting shortly after that. Rafting was just outside of Innsbruck on a river that was the fastest-flowing river I'd ever seen. Coming from Australia where it hadn't rained for roughly 13 years, it was quite a novelty and scared the crap out of me considering we were about to voluntarily throw ourselves in ... read more

Bonjour! Well here we go again, a few more photos and stories from the first few days of Contiki. Grab a coffee and a bikki - this one's huge. I don't think I mentioned that on our last day of London, we went to the British Museum, where we saw the Rosetta Stone - the actual one. It was amazing to see it in person - the rosetta stone was a block of stone archaeologists used to figure out heiroglyphics - the ancient egyptian writing. Fascinating piece of history indeed. Anyway, we met up that night 4/5/08 in London for a pre-departure tick and flick session with the tour manager - Dorian Beaver (who had nicknames like Dorito, Dora the Explorer, Dory from Finding Nemo but we all stuck with plain old Beaver) and driver Jimmy ... read more