Ratings explained: 'Bad times' - self explanatory 'Don't bother' - self explanatory 1* - worth a look 2* - Good Times 3* - Unmissable + - emphasis on the rating NOTE: this entry has a LOT of photos, you'll need to click the link to page 2 to see them all. It seems I failed to upload photos of the beautiful fjord village of Seydisfjordur in my last blog and the excellent Gudufoss waterfall on the way out of town so I'm starting the photos in this post with those missed ones. To segue immediately; regarding a myth I'd heard about Iceland having countless extremely beautiful women ; this myth was completely debunked during our trip. There were rare extremely beautiful girls, but generally we found Iceland did NOT have disproportionate amounts of hot women; in ... read more

Iceland part 1 Ratings explained: 'Bad times' - self explanatory 'Don't bother' - self explanatory 1* - worth a look 2* - Good Times 3* - Unmissable + - emphasis on the rating I've spent a lot of time catching up travel diary writing after falling five days behind at one stage in Iceland; this possibly because we drove on average 400km a day over 9 days and saw sights until after midnight on more than one occasion. There's so many good times in Iceland I've broken it up into installments so if any of you are desirous to go there (which you should!) you can find the things you like. This installment covers our first night Reykjavik, the area north of Reyk, the Snaefells Peninsula and the north west coast. We arrived 14/7/10 and our ... read more

Ratings explained: 'Bad times' - self explanatory 'Don't bother' - self explanatory 1* - worth a look 2* - Good Times 3* - Unmissable I expect people to filter the rating through their own travel desires so if you know you hate picturesque Cliffs you can downgrade a 3* Cliff view to a 'Don't Bother'. Ireland is now behind this and we're posting this from what we presume will be a rare moment of internet connectivity whilst we're in Iceland. Ireland could be summed up as follows; fine scenery, awful weather, stout beer. I re-visited the age old tourist question: Does Guinness really taste better in Ireland? I researched the matter broadly in many pubs and over many pints and I conclude a decisive 'yes' with a plausible explanation. Before the reasons let me say it ... read more

Ratings explained: 'Bad times' - self explanatory 'Don't bother' - self explanatory 1* - worth a look 2* - Good Times 3* - Unmissable I expect people to filter the rating through their own travel desires so if you know you hate museums you can downgrade a 3* museum to a 'Don't Bother'. The England part of our trip is done, the content is a summary of my more detailed travel diary which is everything I can think to write about each day as we go. It's a bugger to keep a detailed diary as it takes at least one hour to update daily and when you fall behind it takes a lot of writing time to catchup. Our trip commences with our last days living in England, a fairly significant milestone for us since we've ... read more

Hello and welcome to the first post in our 2010 Travel Blog; Nick is the author and will be for all posts. ******* Ahhh planning and preparation; bad times! By June 28th we have to pack shipping boxes of anything we want to keep (but not carry with us for six months) and have them shipped back to Australia to wait for our return home. We have to sell or throw out everything we don't want to keep ( a very liberating experience). We have to do all of this whilst Alicia works up to June 16th and Nick works up to July 2nd; not to mention making time to watch the World Cup! We've got 500 rows of research already in our travel planning spreadsheet and a LOT more still to come. We have a ... read more