Kirstyn sat next to Captain Paranoid from Mumbasa and Jas had the reassuring lady off to visit family in Nairobi giving him sound travel advice: “Don’t worry they’ll just take your things here. They won’t kill you for it like they do in Johanessburg.” Great, we were due to land in Nairobi in four hours and we had $5000US strapped to our bodies! The que for our visa in Nairobi was horrendous but we met two northern English characters who, unaware to us at the time were booked on the same tour. These guys, Hannah and Steve would become the legends [View Full Entry]

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We could say that due to some technical error or trouble in cyberspace our travelblogs since last year have been lost but that would be a big lie. Truth is we have been slack and haven’t been keeping up with entries. Not much of an excuse we know but it works for us. So what have we been up to? Lots and it started on our re-entry into the UK: Clancy tells us she’s had enough….. We entered the UK via Calais and spent a few days at Canterbury seeing the sights, recovering and doing some repairs before storing Clancy for [View Full Entry]

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With the small size of both the Netherlands and Belgium it didn’t take too long to go from one capital to the next. We arrived at a camping ground on the outskirts of Brussels, out the back of a pub in the town of Beersel. We had arranged to catch up with our Kiwi friends here, we saw the infamous van there but had just missed them. Decided to chill out for the afternoon as the sun had come out, and after a walk to the shops to get provisions we settled in for the afternoon with some Belgian beers, a [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately with time running out, our Dutch experience was limited to a night out and a day in Amsterdam. We really are doing the Contiki tour now…no time to stop and smell the tulips for us! We arrived in Amsterdam early afternoon and checked into a camping ground on the outskirts of the city. The city of Amsterdam is very bike-friendly, actually bikes rule the roads really, and we found getting around town on our bikes very easy and quick. Went into town on the first night for a night out for two. Visited a coffee shop early in the evening [View Full Entry]

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After the morning was spent walking in the Bohemian Switzerland National Park we crossed over into Germany and arrived into Dresden in the late afternoon with the alarm buzzing lots! With only 200 kms till Berlin we were waiting to get it fixed then. Spent the next morning having a quick look around Dresden. Very cool little city which was pretty much annhilated at the end of WW2 and is still in the process of rebuilding. Despite being rebuilt it has kept it's old style with the impressive Frauen church rebuilt to it's former glory, completed only a few years ago. [View Full Entry]

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Jason crossed the border into Czech in the early morning on route to the Ardspach-Templice Rocks. Spent around 4 hours walking the trails here exploring the impressive rock formations. Arriving back at camp I was told by the very friendly car park attendant that I had left my lights on! Fortunately the car started however it decided to buzz immediately when I tried to leave. Hoping the diesel on the wires theory was correct (see previous blogs!) as the injector overflow cap was leaking a little, I tried wiping the contacts and wires clean again. It didn’t work of course and [View Full Entry]

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After an early departure from camp I drove the short distance through the mountains to the Polish border, crossing over along the foggy and somewhat dodgy roads. Descended back down arriving at the very touristy town of Zakopane by mid morning. The weather was still crap with the mountains draped in clouds, so I decided to forgo the somewhat expensive gondola trip to the top given the lack of views to be had. Not enticed by another day of wet and cold hiking I ventured into town to have a look around. Very commercialised ski-town in the centre with loads of [View Full Entry]

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After getting horribly lost trying to drop Kirstyn off at the airport in Vienna, I hit the road to Slovakia with renewed fear and doubt about travelling the lesser developed Eastern European countries on my own. Crossed the border uneventfully and managed to find a servo selling the motorway vignettes. First hurdle down, did a relatively big drive up into central Slovakia dropping in at the small village of Bojnice to admire its fairytale like castle. Things were looking pretty quiet at this stage having seen several closed campsites already so I decided to head to one that we knew would [View Full Entry]

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On the drive across from Slovenia we saw a significant difference between the two countries, the Hungarian landscape flattening out into broad farming lands and there seemed to be much less wealth in the villages. As the previous blog explained, the drive took a little longer than planned, so we arrived in the dark at the caravan park in Heviz. With the cute instructions of the old man guarding the front gate we managed to still find a place for the night. Heviz is home to one of Europe’s largest thermal lakes, with the surface temperature averaging 33 degrees, with [View Full Entry]

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We had an eventful last journey through Italy, from Venice to the border with the oil pressure lamp finding a new lease and going off like mad. Bit the bullet and pulled up to have a look, Jason had a new theory that the leaking diesel was the cause of the malfunction. Wiped down the wires and contacts and continued on without another word! Arrived in Bled, at the picturesque lake, late afternoon after a scenic drive over the mountains through numerous tiny farming villages. Set up camp amongst all the other British campers there whom we had a few good [View Full Entry]

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