whitemartin

Bat Cave and Bikes After a 5am start from a Glasgow hotel where we left the minibus, we had an easy check in with the boxed and bagged bikes, the guy at the desk only bothered weighing one and said we were well under weight. The easy jet flight was half empty and we picked up our hire car in Malaga with no problems. It came with roof rack as we asked so two boxed bikes went on that and the bagged bike and Ronan's wee bike went inside, and with that we were off to find Velez Malaga and our holiday cottage in Cutar, Cutar is a beautiful sleepy 'white village' and our cottage was comfortable. Being up in the hills it was quite cool at nights so we made use of the fireplace and ... read more

Why don't you hire them ??Planning a short trip to Andalucia The Whitemartins mini tour to Spain We started getting emails from the travel blog site saying 'they miss us' so have made the decision to use the site to continue writing aboutour adventures, perhaps retrospectively. Most exciting is our planned trip to Andalucia. This was meant to be a whole month away, missing a chunk of winter and having a good time to chill, but schoolplays and a curve balled work committment has reduced it to the lenght of a normal holiday. But since when has our holidays ever been normal It should be simple, easyjet as far south as possible, hire some accommodation perhaps a car, enjoy... but no John wants to take bicycles, and the problem is transporting the bikes by hire car ... read more

Before I begin, this is also a notification to everybody that I have now posted pictures on the last three journal entries for the Great Ocean Road in Australia, Fiji, including some passable underwater ones of Talitha diving and some reef life, and our adventures in California.... But now to now... Before we left there was a discusssion 'thread' on this website about 'Returning to reality' after travelling, and people had various comments about their experiences, well as usual ours is probably a little unique... We landed in Heathrow to be met by Anne's brother. We naturally had a few wines that evening to help celebrate/commiserate, also noting that it was Annes birthday the next day, when we flew (joined by Alistair and family) to Inverness. (This was our 14th flight....)Our friend Jo kindly picked ... read more

Just a quick blog, again with no photographs as we are in an internet cafe in down town Nadi. We are in Nadi just for a couple of hours before flying to Los Angeles, Nadi is a bit of a shock as it is a bustling not very pretty town, but as they say 'It is what it is'...We have been on Malalolo Island which is just like the brochures, palm trees, beach front bures (little houses) and perfect holidaying....except it rained and rained for a couple of days, real monsoon stuff, but our first few days was in a really laid back resrt where they welcomed us with gutar playing and song at the end of the peir after a 45 minute small boat ride from the main island. The food was good and ... read more

Ronan and I spent our last week in Launceston staying with Adam and Kylie trying to be helpful, which involved lifeguarding a lot while the wee kids swam in the pool every afternoon. It was fantastic for Ronan whose water confidence has grown significantly whilst being in Australia. It is handy that a lot of the places we have stayed at have either had pools or been walking distance of the sea... We also sent a package home by seamail so it will be interesting to see if we get home first. I also bought a new bag for Ronan as we have amassed a bit of extra stuff, so it should make carrying it all a bit easier. We flew to Sydney where we were met by 'the girls' who had been singing in Canberra ... read more

We have been based in Launceston, with our friends Adam and Kylie and their family who have been very kind, both in looking after us, and by enabling us to have a fantastic adventure travelling all over Tasmania as they lent us an estate car (much better than the lemon..!) and their big family tent and camping gear. Our adventures exploring Tasmania have probably been the highlight of our time in Australia so far... We have the 10 days of touring and camping to catch up on, but first our time in Launceston (or Lonnie to locals) and adventures with Adam (Kylie was in new Zealand when we first arrived) need writing about.... Launceston Launceston is a small town which has an amazing asset, that of the cateract gorge. Right in the middle of town, the ... read more