Like thousands of others, we made the morning trip out to Gatwick airport so we could flee the rotten weather for the Bank Holiday weekend. After the most crappy flight ever (stuck at the back of the plane with a huge group of noisy high school kids, AND the most horrific take-off possible with the plane dropping and passengers screaming… but don’t even get me started about that!) we made it to Krakow. Krakow itself was a nice enough place, but it didn’t really knock our socks off. There were certainly some pretty buildings in the old town and it had [View Full Entry]

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Like everyone else, we made the most of the Bank Holiday weekend and headed out of London. We were really keen to re-visit Wales as we loved it so much last time. The Brecon Beacons is a National Park packed with miles and miles of walking. The terrain varies from beautiful farmland, steep mountains, woods, open moors, rivers and waterfalls. Our first stop was the quirky village of Hay-on-Wye. The ‘second hand book capital of the world’ - what a great place! A book lovers dream with about 40 bookshops. Even the green underneath the castle was covered in book shelves. [View Full Entry]

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Apparently our wine cupboard was getting a little low so we hooked up with a few fellow Kiwis to do something incredibly tacky... a booze cruise. For those not in the know, a booze cruise involves sailing over the channel to France, filling your car boot with cut price wine and coming home the same day. Hmm ... this of course wasn't how the trip was proposed to me a drink over the Poterhouse a few months ago. The boys threw in a few factors such as visiting the D-Day landing beaches and staying overnight in Normandy so the girls were [View Full Entry]

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After driving out of the desert, we could scarcely believe that we would be beach side after less than an hour on the road. Our destination was Aqaba, a town on the Red Sea, located somewhere between Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. This is where lots of Jordanian families and young people come to enjoy their holidays and weekends. It is also rapidly gaining popularity with Western visitors who come to check out the sights below water. Scuba diving and snorkelling is the big draw card with the Westerners here. I was determined not to like Aqaba but it ended up [View Full Entry]

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After a great drive out of Wadi Musa, (stopping to spend the morning at Little Petra on the way) we continued down South to Wadi Rum. Our accommodation for two nights was to be the Bait Ali Desert Camp. Despite the fact that we slept in tents, this wasn’t really ‘camping’ as most Kiwis know it. The camp is really well set up. There’s a huge round room where dinner is served and plenty of clean toilets and showers. The big bonus is a swimming pool in the desert, a guilty indulgence considering the country’s water shortages. The camp m [View Full Entry]

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Well here we are. Wadi Musa. Home to the famous ‘Lost City of Petra’ As mentioned, we found Wadi Musa to be a bit of a sad place. Compared to other parts of the country, people are pushy and not as friendly. There are two distinct parts. The lower part is where the big multinational resorts are, and the upper bit where we stayed (oh yes, we really went budget in Wadi Musa!) Tourist fatigue really seems to have set in here as the people try their hardest to get a bit of money from the thousands of tourists who make [View Full Entry]

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Hi guys! Well here we are in long awaited Jordan - we have been so busy, making the most of our 11 days in this amazing place. Our overnight flight was uneventful (thanks to those little pink pills) and we even managed to get a bit of sleep in our cramped bmi economy class seats. As promised, a taxi driver was waiting for us at the airport, holding up a sign for ‘Mr Hawkes’ After sorting our visitor visas and getting into the taxi, a strange thing happened. Our taxi driver actually charged us the pre-arranged amount! He was very kind [View Full Entry]

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I’m glad we got up early and managed to beat the hoards of fellow day trippers to Ronda. Obviously an incredibly popular place to visit and it’s not hard to see why. Ronda was everything I expected to see in Andalusia. The closer we got to Ronda, the more attractive the landscape became. The ranges of Serrania de Ronda were a welcome relief after miles and miles of sterile olive groves stretching as far as the eye could see. Ronda is a small town with an amazing location. It’s sits right on the edge of a 100m gorge called El Tajo. [View Full Entry]

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El Torcal was easily one of the highlights of our time in Andalusia. We first read about it in that book again ‘1001 Natural Wonders You Must See Before You Die’ and decided to drive there from Granada. The place is similar to the rock formations at Punakaiki on the West Coast of New Zealand but on a much bigger scale. It is situated on the top of a mountain range behind Antequera. The park covers 17 square km of the most amazing limestone rock formations we had ever seen. The rock formations are considered to be some of the most [View Full Entry]

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After Christmas and Boxing day came and went, we packed up our little rental car and headed out to the Sierra Nevada to enjoy a few days brushing up our (lack of) snow boarding skills. Sierra Nevada certainly was very different to the ski resorts in Austria. Definitely not as pretty, quite a different experience to be driving out to a ski resort, passing olive trees and cactus on the way! Unfortunately, the slopes were absolutely packed on our first day and not all the runs were operational so the learner slopes were covered in people in various stages of control! [View Full Entry]

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