Just a very quick blog to let you all know I made it safely back to Kathmandu. I've got one more night here and then I'm heading back to Oz to my 2 beautiful girls!! Unfortunately I've run out of cash and my attempt to access more money from the ATM failed so I have about $4 left to keep me going till I leave in 24hrs...hopefully I don't have to resort to begging on the street. Last night was very scary - during the day I was feeling really tired and weak and was generally feeling quite dazed. As the [View Full Entry]

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We Summitted!!! Yesterday at 8am we reached the summit of Island Peak. I must apologise for the lack of updates to the blog - there hasn't been any internet access since Namche over a week ago. What a week it's been though. I'll write a proper blog entry when I get back to Kathmandu but we've climbed Gokyo Ri and Kala Pattar for magnificent views of Everest + many other mountains, we've crossed two quite difficult high passes around 5,500m and of course we climbed to the summit of Island Peak. We left Island Peak base camp at 2.45am and reached [View Full Entry]

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Well after a very long walk uphill we've made it to Namche at an altitude of 3445m. I still haven't seen any Himalayan peaks as it's been cloudy and rainy the last few days but the scenery at ground level is still really nice. We followed a raging river the first couple of days that originates at Mt Everest. Today we had a "rest" day at Namche which involved a walk 400m to the Everest View Hotel which unfortunately today was the white cloud view hotel. it's at 3880m so its now the highest I've ever been and thankfully so far [View Full Entry]

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I finally escaped the craziness of the city and am in the Himalaya's. The flight to Lukla was good but the clouds obscured the moutain views. It was pretty cool coming into land where we basically just flew into the airport on a horizontal flight level. The runway is so short but is sloped uphill to help stop the plane in time. The walk to Phakding was quite easy (only 2-3 hours) so a nice gentle introduction to what is to come. We had a nice lunch stop in a lodge overlooking a really steep valley with a raging river flowing [View Full Entry]

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I've made it to Kathmandu - the flight yesterday was good - it was funny at Sing airport when I got to the departure gate as pretty much everyone was wearing trekking pants, boots and had a fancy North Face day pack on their back!! I sat next to a nice older couple from Sydney who are going trekking the Annapurna circuit.I got a window seat on the right side of the plane to see the mountains but unfortunately it was bit cloudy and we could only see a few snow covered peaks, but not clear enough to identify them or [View Full Entry]

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Well it's been three long years since I've (Scott) left the country so it's soon time to head off on an adventure that I've been dreaming about for a long time. Unfortunately this means leaving Sara for a month which I think will be far harder than the climb itself! Firstly please feel free to unsubscribe from blog updates as most of you are still subscribed from Joy and my trip through the middle east in 2006. Others I've added your email address thinking you might care :-) So where am I going I hear you ask? I'm off to the [View Full Entry]

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We had an extremely brief stopover in Fiji...spending a grand total of 24 hours there!! The flight from LA to Fiji was memorable due to an extremely loud and annoying American guy sitting behind us who took a valium tablet and then proceded to down several beers to wash it down. He was sitting on the window seat but found the need to climb out every half hour or so to go get another beer (or in some cases 3) or go to the toilet, shaking our seats violently in the process and making heaps of noise. Then he just about [View Full Entry]

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New York, New York - back to civilization!!! Flew into JFK and arrived at Manhattan Island around 9pm. Settled into our wonderful guesthouse (Hotel 31 in case you're planning a trip there). Up bright and early to the sound of rain on the roof. The first wet day on our whole trip so one can't complain! We were both dying to see Times Square so that was the first port of call. Armed with coffee, doughnuts and bagels, we stood in awe of the lights, lights and more lights - what can we say, wow!! Wandered around the shops - including [View Full Entry]

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Our flight arrived into Amsterdam 5 hours before our Dutch friends', JW and Tefke, who had joined us in Istanbul, so we headed into the city for a few hours. Joy visited the Anne Frank house, seeing where her family hid from the Nazi's during WW2. Meanwhile, Scott wandered around the canals trying a local beer or two. We spent a further few hours just meandering round the old part of Amsterdam - dodging hundreds of cyclists - and viewing the "nightlife". As we were in Holland, we had to sample the local cuisine (fries with mayonnaise!) before catching the train [View Full Entry]

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Wow, what a week its been! We crossed the border from Syria into Turkey (eventually after a about a three hour wait!). Joy was EXTREMELY relieved to have survived the middle east and to have returned to a relatively "normal" country, where the toilets, food and shops are much more like at home. First stop in Turkey was Capadocia , the strange landscape that looks like another planet!! We spent 3 nights sleeping in a cave at a caravan park. The rock in the Capadocia area is so soft that caves can be created using just hand tools, and the locals [View Full Entry]

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