A week staying in the pretty Les Allures just down the valley from the Meribel skiing area was just what I needed after working 6 straight 13h shifts! Food prepared by a good cook, friendly chalet owners and guests and a lovely, hot jacuzzi! Not the best of snow, but it didn't really matter, enjoyed skiing for the first time since I broke my knee in New Zealand, managed to ski over into Courcheval valley on the last day, did some nice walks, ate nice food, bought a new pair of fluffy boots and even managed not to injure ourselves! Hope to go back again next year if we can get the time.... read more

The smiling coast. And it was. Hot, so the tourists were smiling (well most of them!) and the locals are known for their friendlyness. A small sliver of land between north and south senegal with a river running through the middle of it, and bordered on the other side by the atlantic ocean - made a perfect destination for a week in November to escape the clutches of the winter snap that were hitting the UK. We were well looked after by Max, a guard at the hotel, who took us to see the local sights, and to the market in Banjul, the capital. And of course he took us to see Charlie......... if you've ever been to Gambia, you'll know who I mean! Well worth a visit for anyone who is considering going. We weren't ... read more

We headed back to Reykjavik via the geothermal area on the Reykjanes peninsular. It is one of the most volatile areas in iceland. The temperature of the water is 200 degrees at 2m below the surface. There are loads of bubbling pools and mud holes. There is also a lake in a volcanic fissure with black laval beaches surrounding it. We were supposed to be going to the Arctic in the evening - the island of Grimsey which is just to the north of Iceland is in the arctic circle. We had booked with the tour desk in the hotel in Reykjavik the week before, but when we turned up at the airport to catch the flight up there, they had no record of us. The poor airport information man made lots of phone calls for ... read more

Today was another amazing sight - the iceberg lagoon made by chunks of ice melting off of the Breidamerkurjokull glacier. It is called Jokulsarlon, though we went to a smaller, less tourist populated one called Breidalon first. The lagoon is famous for staring in James Bond, Die Another Day - where they bloked off the river that runs out into the sea, and froze over the lagoon. However they did lose 6 Aston Martin DB9s into the lagoon when trying to make the scenes! The lagoon itself is awesome. Loads of huge icebergs floating around, different shapes, sizes, colours. Only 10% of the iceberg can be seen above the water. There are lines on some of them, where the bottom has melted and the iceberg has lifted further out of the water - the line is ... read more

We headed further along the south coast today to stay in a place called Klaustur. Along the way we stopped at a good number of sites. After driving through some little towns and a floodplain we reached Seljalandsfoss waterfall. You can walk behind it (though you get quite wet!), and there are a couple of other waterfalls if you go for a short walk along towards the campsite near it. We scrambled up a mud hill to get to see one of them (My walking boots were in storage, so I was in my trainers with Al holding my hand so I didn't get too scared of falling down the hill...), worth it to get up to see it though. We then carried on in the car to another waterfall - Skogafoss, which is 60m tall. ... read more