The last three weeks have been amazing. So much has happened in such a variety of landscapes that I'm putting them into seperate chapters for your enjoyment, rather than lobbing a huge and potentially mind-numbing blog at you all at once. Our journey begins with an(other) epic road trip. This time we travelled across the northern reaches of Gobi. Gobi simply means 'the desert' and encompasses a surprising variety of landscapes. I never expected to like the desert but I've fallen in love with Gobi. I wish I had more time to go further in. As it was, we barely brushed [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick update before leaving for Altai. I went out to Hustai Nuruu National Park to visit the Przwalski horses and was successful. Also saw some rare red deer a-calling (it's rutting season) and sillhouetted against a rising sun on a mountain ridge. Very intrepid did I feel. Still haven't seen any wolves... probably because it is a years good luck to see one but 7 years good luck if you shoot one. I have seen lots of marmots though. Funny wee things... they look like wombats with long tails. The Przwalski horses were great. It was a buzz to [View Full Entry]

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The first trip is sadly over. It was absolutely fantastic. What follows is a brief description of the last two weeks spent in the Wilds of Outer Mongolia. I'll start with a character summary, so you'll all be able to follow the plot with more ease. Our little group consisted of: John and Sam - a New Zealand couple leading our adventure. They're really lovely and it's been like travelling with old friends. Not like an organised tour at all. Otgo - 65, our head wrangler. Also an accomplished traditional Mongolian singer. Megan - 58, a breeder of Welsh Ponies, living [View Full Entry]

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Well... I was expecting to have exciting stories of wild horses to tell you all by now. But, plans change, and I'll tell you a slightly boring story instead.... My flight to Ulaanbaatar was short and the MIAT food was seriously dodgy so I just watched a kids movie and looked out the window at the Gobi desert for a couple of hours. There were some beautiful salt lakes and rock formations but it's very barren. John met me at the airport so getting to the guesthouse was no problem. To sum up Ulaanbaatar would be to say 2 days is [View Full Entry]

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A Day in the City Day two was a rainy one. I got up bright and early for a trip to a nearby gorge but it was cancelled due to heavy rain. So... I stuffed around at the hostel for a little while before heading out to explore the city. At least it wasn't hot. Before I left I chatted to an American guy who'd just been to Mongolia for three weeks. He gave me 1120 togrog that he had left over and told me to remember that you can't exchange them outside Mongolia. So I've got a bit of Mongolian [View Full Entry]

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Well, here I am in Beijing. This is more or less a test run for both my blog being live and my new memory card reader (thanks Griff) and my nifty photo resizer I downloaded before I left. I though, if it all goes to pot, I'll only lose a days worth of photos and that would be bearable. My first day in Beijing was about as eventful as it could be considering the heat and my jet laggedness. I was feeling a wee bit nervy about navigating the city on my own... it's not like Europe where you can understand [View Full Entry]

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In March I went south to walk the Milford Track, at last, with Brent, Shona, Scott and Kath. It was beautiful, of course, and very enjoyable, also of course. I've been wanting to do it for ages but it just kept getting put off. Luckily Kath is organisational supremo and took care of all our bookings, buses, huts and accommodation in Te Anau. All I had to do was buy a plane ticket. Easy. Fiordland is gorgeous, as most people on this planet already know. The walk is not too difficult; four days, the first one of them very short with [View Full Entry]

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Sweden and Norway: (very sorry, still no photos. will get them scanned and digitalised at some point, I promise!) For my birthday, my lovely mother gave me a week in a timeshare in Sweden. Very exciting. We picked it because it was easy to get to without a car, being within walking distance of a train line. I flew into Trondheim, in northern Norway, from London where I’d spent a week catching up with friends. Trondheim at a glance was very pretty, but I had to catch my train to Storlien, where I’d be staying. Storlien is a tiny town perched [View Full Entry]

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Drogheda I caught the train from Belfast, having sworn off buses for the remainder of my time in Ireland. One day they’ll invent inner ear transplants and I’ll never have to feel vomitorious in a car/bus/plane/boat/kayak again. Thank god for train travel in the meantime. Drogheda was a great town. I found the Green Door hostel really easily and it was very comfortable, as hostels go. The town was fairly typical of eastern Irish towns. Pretty buildings in a mixture of stone, slate and thatch. Some nice cathedrals and some older buildings crumbling at the edges. There was also the ever [View Full Entry]

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Dublin Dublin was great. There’s not much that was bad about Dublin, despite the river levels being low, making the Liffey a bit whiffy. I stayed in the International Youth hostel and given a choice I wouldn’t stay there again. Not because it was unpleasant, it was just a bit of hike into town and the neighbourhood wasn’t overly savoury after dark. Still, it was fine. The highlights of Dublin were: *Trinity College and the Book of Kells *The museums, where I finally saw the real items (in all the other towns and cities it’s usually just replicas that are displayed) [View Full Entry]

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