Lou Fitzgerald

The South Downs Way 28th-31st May, 2010 The South Downs Way is a long distance trail (160km) in southern England running between Winchester and Eastbourne. It is accessible to walkers, horse riders and cyclists. Much of the trail crosses the chalk hills that the Downs is well known for. London to Winchester Friday evening, bank holiday weekend and Rupesh and I took the train from Waterloo to Winchester which wasn't much more than an hour. After finding Panoramic Views B & B we walked in to town and had a really lovely dinner a The Old Vine. Winchester is a beautiful old town and well worth exploring a little more. Winchester to Buriton Stats: 46km, Av. speed 8.8km/h, 5.25 hours of cycling In true English style the rain started just after breakfast as we were getting ... read more

Cromer 12th-14th February, 2010 It was an incredibly cold winter in London even though I missed a good part of it by being in Australia. A weekend away in the Norfolk Broads wasn't any warmer than London but we stayed in a warm self-catering cottage in Cromer called The Grove. Cromer is a coastal town in Norfolk close to the Norfolk Broads. The Norfolk Broads are an area of rivers and lakes in Norfolk and Suffolk - a popular area for canal boating and other water activities. We spent some of Saturday driving around some of the nearby villages on the broads. A maze of waterways. It started to snow and it was very pretty. It was nice to get back to our warm cottage, cook dinner and enjoy a bottle of champagne that we'd been ... read more

Kosciuszko National Park Trip 5th - 9th January, 2010 Melbourne to Cathedral Range State Park This was going to be a great little road trip to see some parts of Australia that neither Rupesh or I had visited before. We drove along the Black Spur to Marysville. The amount of regrowth since the bushfires of Black Saturday almost 12 months earlier was incredible. It is still a very pretty area despite the devastation. But it wasn't the town I recognised visiting a few years earlier when going on a day trip up to Lake Mountain. Lots of temporary housing and beginnings of re-building. A new supermarket just recently opened. We drove in to the Cathedral Range State Park where bushfire damage signs warned of falling tree limbs. We stayed well clear of the trees and camped ... read more

Great Vic Bike Ride - 28th November - 6th December, 2009 I was very fortunate to be able to leave my job at the Wheelchair Service in London over December and some of January to come back to Australia. Rupesh would come over just before Christmas. I had a few things planned and among those things was doing the Great Victorian Bike Ride with Mandy, Jessica, Bern, Elizabeth and Bern & Elizabeth's brother Tim. This year the ride started in Portland and followed a big section of the Great Ocean Road before finishing in Geelong. Mum and Kathryn caught up with us in Apollo Bay and it was here that we had a rest day after tackling Lavers Hill. We really had all sorts of weather which I guess is to be expected particularly along the ... read more

Oktoberfest, Munich 24th-27th September, 2009 Prost! German for 'Cheers!' On Thursday evening Rupesh, Charis and I flew from London to Munich to spend some time at the biggest beer festival in the world - Oktoberfest. So it wasn't quite October but the festival starts at the end of September and runs for 16 days. We took a train out to Weis n' Camp - a camping area set up especially for Oktoberfest. The best part is that the tents are already set up for you! Rows and rows of tents. The camp even had its own beer hall/tent which was incredibly lively and noisy. We had our first stein in preparation for hitting the real festival tomorrow. Friday morning and breakfast consisted of a schnitzel at the camp before catching the train in to Oktoberfest. One ... read more