Homeward bound 8-10/01/06 We finally decided to get back on our bikes and head off; the object of the journey, meeting our niece, has been accomplished and so it's time to go home, very slowly. Incredibly I was the first person awake and managed to get a cup of tea and toast in complete peace before anybody else got up. We loaded up the bikes and set off towards Russell amid photos, loads of shouts of "Bye", "See you in Britain", "Don't fall off, again" and two rather confused toddlers who hadn't fully realised that Uncle Vernon, the "Muppint (muffin) Man", wasn't coming back. The road into Russell was much easier on the way back and we only had to get off and push once (near the Transfer Station for those who know the area). At ... read more

13th November 2005 Didn't exist! Don't you love the International Dateline? Auckland and beyond 14-26/11/05 So, we made it to New Zealand by 6.30 am on the 14th, only one hour late but a number of passengers had to make internal connections and were panicking over the delay, we sat back and let them all flap about, then wandered off the plane and into passport control where everybody got to queue for about 45 minutes anyway. By the time we got through our bags were happily going round and round on the carousel so we grabbed them and made our way over to the "stupidly big and just plain weird" baggage area where we found three baby buggies, two removals boxes, one bag of golf clubs, a shoe and a bloke waiting for his guitar. After ... read more

Hallowe'en in Castro After we got to San Francisco we parked the car and went into a cafe for liquid refreshment and to get our bearings before looking for a place to sleep. As we were drinking our coffees the other customer in the cafe suddenly asked "Where are you guys from?" "Britain" we told her, thinking we would then get something along the lines of "Oh, England, I went there, whereabouts are you from?" Instead she carried on with "Are you looking for somewhere to go this evening? Somewhere exotic, fun, whacky, stupendous, erotic, exciting, unusual and completely unique?" We both decided this was the start of a sales patter and said "whaaaaat?" in that slow, 'don't try and flog me anything lady' way. She told us to go to the Halloween celebrations in Castro, ... read more

Into Utah 24-25/10/05 We drove into Utah, heading towards Bryce Canyon. I don't know what I was expecting, but everybody is exceedingly friendly and children are incredibly quiet (is it Mogadon?). We ate in a pizzeria in Logan which was full of kids from the very small (a few weeks old) to late teenage and all that we could hear was quiet conversation - WIERD! Even the stroppy teenagers smile at strangers. Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park 26-27/10/05 The story is that Ebenezer Bryce looked into the canyon and said "That's one hell of a place to lose a cow" and it is! The canyon is full of spires of rock called Hoodoos, left after water erosion washed away the surrounding rock. It's best if you look at the photos, I can't explain it very ... read more

14-17/10/05 Mountain View, CA We travelled over the Sierra Nevada to Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay area to visit Tom and Julia. Vernon and Tom were flatmates when both were doing PhDs at Bangor University, but as with so many friendships we haven't seen each other for years. On Friday we went to Amici's for a pizza and were treated to free entertainment when a customer collapsed on the floor, he seemed to recover, stood up, left the building and promptly collapsed again. The staff called 911 and two fire tenders turned up with a paramedic on board. We spent Saturday searching for new bike helmets as ours, whilst they could be used as strange and interesting hanging baskets, are useless for head protection since the crash. The search took longer than expected as ... read more