jmgrieve
Mark Grieve Joined: December 20th 2006
Logged in: April 20th 2009
Logged in: April 20th 2009
Born in June 1982, growing up my family moved every couple years living all over SA including Swaziland! When I was 10(I think) we moved to the States to California and lived in a great little place up from Nevada city for 6 years, at which point we were forced back home for another 2 years, after failing to gain a green card the family decided to head to New Zealand in 2000 where I have been ever since
Now after an amazing OE, seeing and experiancing amazing things i am now on to experiancing my own home, bring on NZ travels=p
Travel Blog Posts
To all who are interested or are going on a van tour this year, here are a few hints that you may enjoy having a look at. I figure share the wealth, I would love for everyone to have as much of a great time as I did traveling around Europe. Getting a Van and touring Europe is by far the best option, Not only is it cheap (cost only 600 for gas and food for 7 weeks travel for 3 people) but you have a much better chance of seeing what a county and culture are really like. Hints: Use web sites like Couch surfing or Hostel club as they are invaluable for getting to know the locals. As well as for finding the best place to go out, eat, and shop. Not to mention ... read more
Blog by James Grieve My brother 12th June. Honolulu my first island of Huwaii was way cool! American though and through; big and flash. I stayed at a hostel on Waikiki beach. My hostel was one street back from the beach front and the beach was absolutely kraking! It went off from morning till late into the night! I arrived at the backpackers after lunch and had a well needed and fully deserved shower and a short nap, lugging that baggage around was no mean feet I tell you! I left for the beach that afternoon and spent the rest of the day on the sand or catching the sites; I think I’d been awake about 40 hours at that point but wasn’t feeling tired in the least. When darkness fell followings an amazing Hawaiian sunset ... read more
River
San Francisco Leaving Conors at 7.20 laden with a heavy backpack and my laptop backpack on the back other on the front I headed out the door to face the chaos that is London transport. After an hour an a half and amazingly on parting with 1.80 I was at the airport 2hours early!! Amazing in itself, so I tried to find a bank in the airport to deposit the 1800 pounds I was carrying on me from selling the van, no joy!!! So I have been carrying a ^&O( load of cash with me! All in pound notes on a money belt, oh so intelligent. Anyway was a rather quick flight only 10.5 hours so 3 movies and two meals no worries, I’m now in the fair City of San Francisco took the local ... read more
Amsterdam
Amsterdam Europe » Netherlands By jmgrieve May 14th 2007 Mark GrieveAmsterdam Parking, trying to meet CouchSurfers, red light district, coffee shops, park and ride, double decker train, tour, tour guide, 9% Netherlands 44% NZ, smokeing, miraculous finding of the car, breakfast, start of the long drive back to London, stoping by the ocean and seeing kits, more driving, Calais and the boy racers, chip diner, tunnel, rest stop overnight and doggy showers, Findin kerry’s place, dinner Proper details to come!... read more
Berlin
Germany Europe » Germany » Berlin By jmgrieve May 10th 2007 Mark Grieve Germany After our Boarder ordeal we were happy to get on the road and stopped at Dresden, So after finding a great parking right in the middle of things we went Drinks by the river, more drinks, Diner, Cards, Berlin - rain, ditching Daniela, happy night, art building, hookers, walking tour check point Charlie(3rd WW), pub crawl, apartment at checkpoint Charlie. Traffic jam on the motor way, bike, ball game, handstands, Hannover - cs, lake, proper diner cooked for us, drinking with cs locals, walking/bike tour, locked in after diner, good wine very cheep, drinks with colin, finishi... read more
Czech
Czech Europe » Czech Republic » Prague By jmgrieve May 4th 2007 Mark GrieveCzech Big casino’s, shopping tesco’s, gas. Dangerous drivers, truck two head on towards us. Prague crap, cathedral, medieval show, old town, bridge, boring CS, upset van crew, Big que getting out of the boarder, crappy markets to spend rest of the Crowns, long wait and search. Yay germany. ... read more
Austria
Austria Europe » Austria » Vienna By jmgrieve May 1st 2007 Mark Grieve Austria After a short drive(Slovenia isn’t that large) we were in Austria with a stamp, I kind asked for one lol, They are some really beautiful mountains! Nick and I weren’t able to find anywhere the whole time we were driving up to meet Daniela we weren’t able to find anywhere that wasn’t beautiful! We finally found our way to Daniela’s sisters place nad had a cup of coffee then we were off to her parents place 50km down the road. After a nice diner and some home made schnapps(really quite nice) we were off to bed for an early night as Nick and I were still trying to recover from t... read more
ljubljana
Slovenia After a good set of wrong roads and closed motorways we were on our way. We ended up taking a more “scenic” route but was very nice and got so see some really nice valleys and gorges. After a good drive we arrived in Slovenia and neither nick or I got a stamp in our passports what a rip!! But getting over that we arrived in Ljublijan an we txt Matejka the CouchSurfer we were going to be staying with. After receiving some rather incomprehensible directions we headed to the main train station to see if we could book a train for Mirja to get home the next day=( After a bit of a search of the Maptop we found the street and we were off, after about 1 min of driving we were ... read more
Croatia
After a hot night sleeping in the cargo hold in the van, we woke up at 630 as the boat started pulling into Split harbor. After staking in the beautiful view we jumped in the van and confronted passport control who though it would be a good idea to search the van lol, so after a 15min search of the van we got our passports stamped and we were off. After filling up with cheap gas(about 73 UK cents a liter) we found a great parking spot and went for our first swim in Croatia, it was refreshing but very nice once we were in:) And I have to comment that the Croatian girls are some of the hottest I have seen anywhere!! And so many of them, it put Paris to shame. After that ... read more
italy
italy - Milan, Bolonga, Assisi Europe » Italy » Assisi By jmgrieve April 15th 2007 Mark Grievemore about what happened later... read more
