R: So this is our penultimate post about this summer's trip. We arrived about 6pm into Margaret River into a really amazing AirBnb right in the centre of town. It was two bedrooms, two bathrooms, is very smart and the host had thought of everything. We were planning on doing very little that evening, and our friends Gareth and Fi had already visited the large supermarket over the road and picked up ingredients for Fajitas. They had just come across from Sydney but had had a day in Fremantle to get used to Western Australia (WA). After a bit of a catch up, Dave had organised some impromptu drinks in the Settler's Tavern in town that evening, so we headed down and realised it was even colder in Margaret River than it was in Perth. It ... read more

R: This will be a fairly short post as we didn't do much here. With a long flight day to Australia to look forward to, we opted to have a few days of relaxation in a resort type place. We arrived about 4pm, and one of the quirks of this hotel was the boat transfer. When you arrive on the boat landing stage on the mainland you get whisked onto a small transfer boat which whisks you onto the hotel complex on a spit of sand isolated from the mainland. The hotel is fairly nice, 4* kind of resort. Large pool, quite a few families, three restaurants etc. But its location is quite special, directly on a spit which you can walk down a long sandy beach just outside the pool. We got upgraded to all ... read more

R: Next day was train day. We took one last opportunity to go up on the roof of our hotel to marvel at the impressive view that Hotel Topaz had to offer and then we were off. We headed to Peradeniya Junction, a pretty station in amongst a chaotic car park close to Kandy. We left so much time for the traffic chaos that is Kandy but sailed through, meaning we had extra time to experience the very small, but pretty station that was Peradeniya. Train travel is still very much a popular method of travel here, as we could see from the trains passing that were packed to the rafters with Sri Lankans heading in different directions, though this could have been increased by the impending religious festival about to start in Kandy. The station ... read more

R: Polonnaruwa was a 90 minutes drive from Kandalama. We started the day with another Sri Lankan breakfast - hoppers, dhal, curries and bread. Mmmm. Then we hit the road. Polonnaruwa is an ancient city that was used by one of the kings of Sri Lanka as a capital when Annurhadpura became indefensible against the South Indian attacks. When this happened, they also had to move the sacred tooth relic which a new temple being built to house the tooth of Buddha that has been revered in the country for centuries. First stop - the visitors centre. Now we have learned that Ranjan doesn't like museums - perhaps because he wants to tell us all of the information himself. Perhaps he is worried that what they will say will be different to his version, or maybe ... read more

R: We started this trip in a way we were not accustomed to - a sign board in the airport with our name on. For the next 8 days we are being chauffeured around Sri Lanka by our trusty guide, Ranjan. We had had an overnight flight from London with Srilankan Airlines - a perfect opportunity to start the day with a spicy breakfast, and this was a sign of things to come. After accidentally misunderstanding the use of a decimal point in the currency, and subsequently ordering £1 in cash from the cash machine, we left the airport (*another transaction was also made after holding up the line for about 10 minutes). It was a 4 hour ride up to Kandalama Lake, our first stop. The drive was eye opening - and made me consider ... read more