Rochelle Ade

Chellebelle

Rochelle Ade

Some say that life is 95% work and drudgery and 5% fun.

If this is true then really what is the point.

I am therefore starting a new tour of the world and I've dedicated it to proving that life is 95% fun and only 5% work. I am a kiwi who has decided to up-sticks and move to Dubai so I'll keep all that are interested update on this quest.



Europe » Austria » Carinthia » Villach July 16th 2009

Well it was time to finally leave Munderfing and my good friends Rod and Jess....hic......sob.... I was especially going to miss all the lovely road signs of the area. However I was blessed with one last look at 'Pfaffing' as we drove to the train station. Jessie was a sweetheart and drove me to the train station in Salzburg where I caught the 12:12 train to Villach, where I had decided to spend the next couple of nights. There really was no rhyme nor reason to my decision to visit Villach, except for the fact that it happens to be on the main train route to LJubljana which was going to be my next stop on my travels. So this is the reason that I found myself hopping off a train at Villach Hauptbahnhof. And what ... read more
And again
Me by the river
Me by the seebach stream

Europe July 13th 2009

Today I caught the train to Munderfing. Yes that is right, I am now in Munderfing. This is where two very good friends of mine from Dubai are currently living and where I will be hanging my hat for a few days. For those of you that are not up on your rural Austrian geography, Munderfing is a little village that is just outside of the district of Salzburg. So to get there I caught a train from Munich to Salzburg. Rod and Jess were kind enough to come and collect me at the train station and then take me back to Munderfing in there lovely little red peugoet that I totally remember from Dubai. Rod and Jess have a lovely little apartment about the electrical hardware store here in Munderfing and their landlord is the ... read more
Fucking
Mattsee
Jess and I biking

Europe July 12th 2009

Well today I spent the day in Munich. Getting from the airport to Munich centre was a little bit of an adventure as the airport is quite a way out of town. A bit like Heathrow really. And I was trying to do this really quite late at night. However I made it into the centre of town and then had to walk through what appeared to be the red light district of town, at 10:00pm at night with all the drunk and drinking men to reach my hotel. My hotel is lovely and is called Litty's Hotel. A very pleasant little establishment. I only have one day in Munich before I head off to visit Rod and Jess down in Mudderfing so this morning I decided to do one of the free walking tours that ... read more
celebrations
Englisher Garten
Marienplatz, Mary's column and city hall

Europe July 8th 2009

We left Saranda in the morning and caught a ferry boat to Corfu, Greece! Finally out of Albania and back to the land of the Euro. It was actually quite a process getting out of Albania, involving many passport and ticket checks, in what were quite frankly the oddest of places. Although this was nothing compared to the passport control coming into Greece. One of our passengers is an Asian Australian who just happens to be living and working in Ireland. Well he got pulled off to one side and interogated for quite a while about what he was doing and whether or not he was illegally staying in the EU. The ferry ride itself across the straight to Corfu actually took quite a while as we were heading towards Corfu town which is in the ... read more
Athens sunset
Blue with Total yoghurt
Corfu Fortress

Europe July 7th 2009

This morning we left Gjirokastra and headed off in a private transport to the Adriatic Coast (well it is practically the Ionian Coast now) and the town of Saranda. The Saranda that we are staying in apparently mostly dates from the 1930s when people began to settle here during the communist times. Hence the large amount of ugly concrete buildings. The drive here from Gjirokastra was just lovely. It was a short drive only being 50kms, however the drive was over some pretty intense hills and they don't have 3 lane highways here. Instead you have very windy, narrow roads with suicidal drivers on them. However the scenery was just amazing. On the way to Saranda we stopped at a place called the Blue Eyed Spring. And this was just stunning (check out the photos). Apparently ... read more
The group
Blue eyed spring
Isn't it pretty

Europe July 5th 2009

We left Berat this morning on a private transport and headed off towards a town called Gijrokastra. This was approximately 4 hours drive away from Berat, but was probably only 3kms down the road. No not really but the roads in Albania are certainly not 6 land super highways so the distance between the two towns probably isn't all that large. The drive itself was relatively uneventful, but that could be because I spent a large portion of time with my eyes closed, dozing away quietly. The biggest excitement of the day came when we arrived at Gijrokastra and tried to check into our hotel. I am still not 100% certain what actually happened but we certainly didn't have any rooms in the hotel at the start. It was only after we had sat down and ... read more
castle ruins
inside the castle ruins
inside the castle

Europe July 2nd 2009

It's my birthday. It's my birthday. I'm sorry, this isn't the most conventional way to start off a blog entry but "it's my birthday and I can if I want to!!!" Anyway so today is my birthday and I started the day off most plesantly with some surprise presents from Kris and Susie that Stuie had carried all the way from Dubrovnik I was totally overwhelmed (even with a small tear in my eye) as I totally didn't expect to get any actual presents today, let alone two or three gifts from such lovely people. After breakfast, and the wee present opening, we headed off in a couple of taxis to the local bus station. Now I need to mention a word or two about this taxi ride as it was quite an interesting experience. There ... read more
berat streets
Stuie and a refreshing ale
Stuie and Peter

Europe July 1st 2009

We left Ulcinj yesterday morning and commenced our quest to enter Albania. We were very priviledged in that we had a private transport to take us from Ulcinj to Tirana. It was only a short jaunt from Ulcinj to the border, however it took sometime to actually get through the border. When we arrived at the border crossing there was a massive queue of cars waiting to enter Albania from Montenegro. However our bus driver was a crafty little bugger and slipped a wee bribe to the appropriate person and we managed to skip all of the queue. Even doing this it took us about an hour to get through the border. And we had to send our tour leader, Barbara, back to the border guard to actually get Albanian entry stamps in our passport. Once ... read more
Annaleise and Blue being eygptians in front of the pyramid
Annaleise, Blue, Stu and Andrew having drinks literally in the road
Et'hem Bey Mosque

Europe June 29th 2009

Today we finally left Dubrovnik and headed off towards Montenegro again, on our way to Albania. Unfortunately the first thing that I had to do today was to walk down the 155+ stairs to reach the departure point for the bus. This proved to be somewhat more tricky than I thought it was going to be. Of course I had to wear my funky yellow boots, as they don't fit into my backpack, and putting these high heeled boots together with cobblestoned, steep stairs was possibly not the best idea in the world. Somehow I managed to go over on my right ankle and went tumbling off to the side. I was rather lucky that I did fall over sideways as all that happened was that I fell into the wall, whereas if I had fallen ... read more
Andrew and Stu having drinks on the balcony
Faf just for Kris
Sunset from the restaurant

Europe June 26th 2009

On day 55 we were due to leave Kotor to drive to Dubronik. We were very lucky and Kris had arranged us private transportation to take us between the two cities. This meant that we were actually picked up at our door and delivered to the city centre of Dubrovnik. The drive between the two cities was spectacular. It was one of the most beautiful drives that I have done in a long time. The weather was playing nice with us and the water was just divine. A gorgeous sparkly bright blue. We had to drive around the coast and in the water there were some little islands with churches built on them. It was like something out of Lake Bled fairyland. The border crossing were rather interesting and actually took an awfully long time to ... read more
'Porky Pig' and the jumbo pizza
Dubrovnik City Walls
Susie and Chris on the city walls




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