An early wake up call was followed by a long day of driving. We left Waterton and the province of Alberta and headed into British Columbia, destination Lake Christina. Much reading, crosswords and listening to music was undertaken. We stopped at a few attractions, the first was to check out an enormous truck, I think one of the largest in the world. Second was Frank’s slide, around 100 years ago a landslide crushed a small mining town killing 70 people, it got up to speeds of 120 km’s per hour and some boulders travelled up to 3 kilometres away. After finding [View Full Entry]

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After a few days to recharge the batteries it was time for a road trip. Scott still had a few weeks before going back to the oil rig and wanted to spend it in style, he therefore hired a huge kick-arse campervan. So we rode in style towards Waterton, which is south of Calgary and is on the border with the USA. As we rode through the city and then into the prairies it became clear that we weren’t in London anymore. There weren’t pubs on every corner, houses weren’t crammed together and streets were wide enough to fit cars on [View Full Entry]

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Over the next few days, we combined resting to recharge the batteries with a bit of sightseeing to check out Calgary’s city centre. First of all I should tell you about Tina & Scott’s place - it is super nice. They live in the North West which is an area of the city which is basically brand new; houses are being built like wildfire. Like most of the houses in the area it is two storied but also has a basement which basically makes it three. The basement has a 42 inch TV in it so it should come as no [View Full Entry]

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When I left you last I’d just finished my Euro trip, flown back to London and then caught the train up to Barrow. Once in Barrow I had a few hours to pack all my stuff for our trip to Canada. It was difficult because I was exhausted, but more so due to Euro 2008 football being on TV downstairs. I finally finished around midnight, got four hours of sleep and awoke having not an idea in the world where I was. We biffed our stuff into Frank’s (Nicola’s Dad) car, picked up Jenn (Nicola’s Mum) and headed for Manchester airport. [View Full Entry]

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I had envisioned being exhausted and wanting to sleep all day but woke up feeling fine and energetic. It was to be our last full day of our trip so we wanted to make the most of it. One of our busabout guides had recommended doing a cable car up into the mountains so we decided that would be our first venture of the day. We strolled down to the station and as we walked through the door I saw two girls - Tammy and Nickola who had been on my Croatia sailing trip. Nickola couldn't believe it, so much so [View Full Entry]

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Jez and I were both shocked at our own incompetence of not realising the Euro 08 football championship would be on while we were in Switzerland. We deliberated and finally made the decision to head back to Bern for the day to check out the atmosphere for the Italy v Holland match. We would have loved to have gone to the actual match but found out scalpers were selling tickets for 800 Euros and above! On the train from Lauterbrunnen there were a few supporters on board from each side. But nothing had prepared us for when we hopped off the [View Full Entry]

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Another early start, we made the most of the hostel's free breakfast and pilfered a stack of food for the trip. The bus was the fullest we'd seen it and we worked out from the sign-up sheet that all on board were Aussies except us. We didn't hold it against them, especially when a group of them told us they loved Flight of the Concords, that show is huge, travellers all through Europe were singing its praises and rightly so. Can't wait for the second series. With the Euro 08 football championship being played in Switzerland we experienced strict border control. [View Full Entry]

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Jez and I were both exhausted from our Tour de France the day before but had planned to get up early to get to the French Tennis open. We both slept in. Once awake we found a supermarket and bought a veritable feast. We tried to get to Roland Garros (where the French Open is played) as fast as possible but managed to get lost. We saw what looked like a big stadium, but it turned out to be Paris Saint Germain football club. A local helpfully pointed us in the right direction and soon we were inside. We only had [View Full Entry]

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Despite knowing that we had to be back for the afternoon bike trip we still almost missed it. Our guide was not French but in fact a girl from Texas. She had a great knowledge of Paris so we were happy. It’s been a while so hopefully I get my facts correct. Our first lesson was about the Eiffel tower. We learnt that it was built in 1889 for the world trade fair. A competition was held to design a structure, the Eiffel was in first place, second was a 300 metre tall guillotine, imagine if that won! It took two [View Full Entry]

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I woke and wasn’t at all looking forward to the nine or so hours of traveling we had in store. We grabbed a few chocolate croissants for brekkie, what better way to start the day. The morning traveling was spent watching Ewen Macgregor and Charlie Boorman’s Long Way Round where they travel across Europe and Asia on motorbikes. It’s a great series and a good choice for a bus full of travelers. Our first port of call was Bordeaux were a few passengers jumped off, we went for a toilet stop and only found a weird dungeon toilet in a hostel, [View Full Entry]

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