Rousey

Panama City, David & Boquette, Panama (2nd April 2011 - 5th April 2011) The best thing to see in the capital of Panama is definitely the Panama Canal. While Nat took some convincing that it was worth a day trip, even she was glad she went in the end. It was stinking hot the day and we had to wrestle our way through crowds of tourists to get a view of the huge container ship working its way through the Miraflores Locks. What we didn’t realise was that the route from the Pacific Ocean to Atlantic Ocean involves the ships actually going uphill. The locks they pass through allow the ships to rise by over 50 metres, which is some feat for 1913 engineering. We jumped on a six-hour bus through to David, in the West ... read more

Auckland & Omamari Beach, New Zealand (8th January 2011 - 13th January 2011) We flew into Auckland from Sydney and picked up a hire car at the airport. After a couple of hours drive North we got to Dargaville and met Dawn and Ian, very good family friends who own a beach place, or bach as it’s known locally, up there. We stayed with them, along with their daughter Paulette, her husband Dave and kids Toby and Jaxon, for three nights and enjoyed the most amazing weather. The bach is amazing and such a relaxing place to be. It’s quite a quiet stretch of beach with only a handful of beach houses in this area. Ian and I fished one day but sadly had nothing to show for our efforts. The nearby Kai Iwi lakes were ... read more

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Heading South through Tanzania (16th – 19th September 2010) After 4 days chilling out on the beach in Zanzibar, we caught the ferry back to Dar es Salaam. As the previous boat unloaded and we waited to board, we wondered if the coffin, the fitting lady and what looked like a dead person being carried off the previous boat were a good omen. Luckily, apart from a slightly rough sea and some seasickness from fellow occupants, the journey was not too eventful. On arriving back in Dar, our plan had been to get the 24 hour train to Malawi. Unfortunately, this was sold out, so we looked around for other options. We had already planned to join an overland tour group later in our trip, from Victoria Falls to Cape Town, ... read more

Aleppo, Syria (16-17th July 2010) We got the overnight bus from Goreme through to the Syrian city of Aleppo. As useful as overnight buses can be, and as comfortable as they may appear at first glance, they never deliver a proper night’s sleep. Still, at least the buses didn’t look like they were about to fall apart like they did in Albania. First impressions of Aleppo were something of a culture shock after the laid back attitudes in Europe. Northern Syria is very conservative. However, despite initial impressions, we soon found that the Syrians were some of the friendliest and most welcoming people that we have come across, with so many people in the street stopping simply to welcome us to Syria or to ask us where we were from. Aleppo old town was very cool. ... read more

Departure (21st June 2010) We left St. Pancras at 8.02am on Monday 21st June, bound for Paris on the Eurostar, while still finishing off wedding thank you cards. Some of you may have noted the French or even Bosnian stamps! Lunching in Montmartre didn’t make us feel very much like we were embarking on a year-long backpacking trip which would take us around the world. A quick change of train in Munich left us to enjoy our first night away from home in the sleeping car, headed for Budapest. Not long after we had arrived we were on our way again, the destination this time would be Belgrade later in the evening. Belgrade, Serbia (22nd - 23rd June 2010) We were greeted by heavy rain in the Serbian capital and a quick taxi ride was in ... read more