Darren Armour and Charmaine Millar
We are a couple from the UK, Darren from the Wirral in England and Charmaine from Belfast in Northern Ireland.Darren and Charmaine
We met during our time in the Armed Forces and during our 5 1/2 years together we have travelled extensively.
On the 16th September we embarked on a once in a lifetime journey around the world; funded by our house sale, we are determined to have an awesome time!
Travel Blog Posts
Dambulla, Sigiriya, Anuradhapura and the Sacred City
Published: February 27th 2006Asia » Sri Lanka » North Central Province » Anuradhapura
December 28th 2005
We left Days Inn at 8am ready for our long guided journey to Anuradhapura via a Hindu temple, the cave temples of Dambulla and the rock fortress of Sigiriya. The intricately decorated Hindu temple was first; its tower adorned in Hindu deities was a sight to behold. After a couple of hours we reached Dambulla, and after paying our entry our guide left us to climb to the top of the hill and to the temple, after completing the 45 minute stair climb we were quite tired as you could imagine in such heat and humidity so we took a quick breather before exploring the numerous temples which were carved into solid rock over 2000 years ago! Reclining Buddha’s were in every chamber, hundreds of Buddha’s in different poses carved from solid rock were surrounded by ... read more
December 24th 2005
We arrived at the Days Inn, greeted by our host, Dan. A Sri Lankan who lives and works in Fort Worth, Texas, but has his home and small businesses in and around Kandy. A warmer welcome we couldn’t have wished for. The accommodation was perched high above the city on a hill, clad in rainforest, filled with monkeys and lots of bugs. Christmas Day!!!!!! Woohoo! We got up and had our breakfast then booked ourselves in for Christmas “Lunch” at the Earls Regency hotel in Kandy. We then gave each other our presents. Charmaine got a gorgeous pair of 18ct White gold and Semi Precious stone earrings and Darren got a piece of material about 4ft wide, and 10ft long, sewn together into a tube at the narrow ends, great! Just kidding, it was a traditional ... read more
Colombo and the pre-Christmas mayhem!
Published: February 27th 2006Asia » Sri Lanka » Western Province » Colombo
December 20th 2005
We were taken, first thing in the morning to the Tropic Inn proper. After a hearty breakfast of toast and Ceylon tea (well you’ve got to!) we were shown our room. The room was lovely with Aircon, cable TV and wireless internet; it was great, especially for the price. Our first day and we were jet lagged so just a stroll down the beach and up to the main road sufficed. We found a big shop, bought some snacks and two, very tasteful, flashing, Santa hats (for Christmas day of course). That evening we ate in our hotels restaurant, it was nice and very reasonable too. We spent the night calling our families using Skype (best invention since the interweb!). Next day was spent sleeping and being generally confused as our jet lag hit us like ... read more
December 19th 2005
We arrived after a long and tiring flight at around 4:30pm and were promptly picked up by one of the workers from the hotel, the Tropic Inn. Along with another guest, Dave, we screeched, beeped, swerved and veered our way the 50 or so kilometres from the airport to our accommodation. What’s this? We’re going to be staying in another hotel down the road? Does this remind anyone of our first day in Africa? Being moved from one hotel to another? Well, it’s true, from the hotel with cable TV, WiFi and restaurant to a bog standard one with no facilities. Its OK, it’s only temporary and we were to be moved the following morning, other than that it was a warm (and very humid) welcome to Sri Lanka. ... read more
November 17th 2005
Stay tuned 'coz there's more to come, like: 14th November to 16th - Penguins, Cape Point + good hope, amberley in muizenberg, Dion. 16th to 18th - Hermanus, whales, dassies 18th - 21st Swellendham, hiking, Daniella, Cape Aughulas, bontebok, bbq in rain. 21st to 23rd - Oudtshorn, klein karoo, karoo soul, cango caves, cango wildlife ranch 23rd to 24th - Knysna, bloukrans gorge bungie 24th to 25th - PE and ado 25th to 26th - Hogsback 26th to 28th - Cintsa, canoeing, gecko poo 28th to 30th - Mantis and moon, snake in room, bat poo, oribi gorge, leopard rock, echo valley coffee farm 30th to 3rd - blue sky mining, diving aliwal, Durban shopping 3rd to 4th - drakensberg, inkosaana lodge, expensive 4th to 6th - Dundee, rourkes drift, isandlwana, evan 6th to 10th - ... read more
Simonstown, former home of the Royal Navy and now the home of pengiuins
Published: February 27th 2006Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » Cape TownNovember 13th 2005
Arived here late, had a bite to eat in an Italian and stayed in Simonstown backpackers. Well, what a hole, nuff said on that! Glad we only stayed one night.... read more
Cape town stuff, diving, shopping, no mountain, museum, wine tour, sightseeing tour
Published: February 10th 2006Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » Cape TownOctober 31st 2005
Cape Town was cool, so much to do. We went on the most awesome tour of the surrounding wine areas on a wine tour and tasting session with Cape Wine Tours and a guy called Rob. We are now officially snobs as we have taken and passed Robs five minute lesson on wine snobbery. We took a tour bus around the city and after being told that there wasn’t much to do in the city by those at our Backpackers we discovered during the tour that there is! There is a load to do, more than we have time for. There’s even a castle! A week of shopping, museums, trying to go up Table Mountain (we could never get up it due to the weather, typical), restaurants etc we decided to start our diving course. ... read more
October 30th 2005
We arrived in Cape Town today. A beautiful city where Table Mountain sets the backdrop. Today was the end of our overland truck trip with Acacia. 43 days in total and many sights seen. But it also marks the beginning of our adventures to come, when we both set off together to see and experience the world without the aide of tour guides and a great big truck to help us get from place to place. We check out the accommodation that Acacia have dropped us off at and choke at the extortionate rates they quote us. After hailing a taxi we soon find a fabulous (apart from the unwelcome guests, cockroaches!) place to stay called Capetown Backpackers. We booked ourselves into a double room for the next few nights, lie back on our bed and ... read more
October 29th 2005
We made our way through South Africa to a town called Springbok where we stopped for lunch and some supplies. After a much welcomed KFC we made our way to the supermarket to buy some water. En route we witnessed a guy being bashed on the head by another guy with a rock as a Creole band played on in the background. We were later informed that it was payday and it’s really common for everyone to get drunk and fights are a regular result. We pitched our tents later at a campsite by a reservoir. The place was full of flies. We’ve never seen so many flies in one place. Tiny little black ones that get in everything. Not much was done today except some chilling out. That evening was spent around a campfire where ... read more
Arrival in South Africa and the Orange River
Published: February 10th 2006Africa » South Africa » Western Cape » Cape TownOctober 28th 2005
Today we crossed the border into South Africa. Charmaine was told to expect problems because she wished to switch back to travelling on her British passport from her Irish one. After crossing the Namibia/South Africa border with relative ease we arrived at a lovely campsite in time for the midday sun where we lay in the shade most of the day. Canoeing on the Orange River was an option that nobody except Darren was interested in so he didn’t go in the end. We spent our day sitting on the banks of the river and Darren did a bit of swimming. In the cooler hours we pitched our tent. (We still can’t grasp why everyone else on the truck rushes to put their tent up every day in 35C heat instead of waiting until later in ... read more
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