claire n dave

Everywhere we looked there were wildflowers in the glory of full bloom. Not just here and there, but swathes of them, through all the pastures and thick along roadsides and paths. For Claire, who has dreamed of having a meadow instead of a lawn in her garden, this was heaven. Even having to swallow twice-daily doses of anti-histamines to combat unending hay fever couldn't dampen her joy at wandering through the grasses and flowers. It was almost as good as coming to life in the poppy field scene in A room with a view. And it was much, much better than our usual midsummer: trying to not move through Brisbane’s sweltering humidity. We were in the Peak District to visit Dave's family, and we’d congregated at a cottage in Eyam for a week of catching up. ... read more

The text message on Claire’s mobile phone read, “The eagle has landed.” It could be from only one person. And it was: Dave, in a boyish mood, had just arrived in Hobart. Claire had been in town for several days for work, and now, freed from a workshop, it was playtime for a weekend before climbing back onto the treadmill in Brisbane on Monday morning. Snow during the week had cut several roads, but workers had bulldozed it off and we putted across the plateau in the dinky hire car to Strahan, on the west coast. On the way, a few stops, including the Franklin River roaring its way south, Nelson Falls, looking primordial in the rain, and Queenstown, lying shuttered beneath its denuded hills. Queenstown was a mining town Australians learned about in primary school, ... read more

It took quite some time to come down to earth from the high of climbing Huayna Potosí, and almost no time to decide that the sapphire waters of Lake Titicaca were a more appealing place to spend our last days in South America than the grey streets of La Paz. Copacabana, on the southern shore of the lake, is only a few hours' drive north of La Paz, and we set off crammed among the locals in a small van, a common form of public transport in Bolivia. For part of the way the road ran parallel to the Cordillera Real (Royal Range), giving us good views of Huayna Potosí and two other 6,000m-plus mountains that stand high above the rest of the range. We could see clearly the western face of the mountain, which had, ... read more

Claire started dreaming of Machu Picchu after reading Tintin's adventures about hunting down Inca gold during her primary school years. So being in La Paz, only 12 hours by bus from Cusco, the launching point for visits to Machu Picchu, proved too great a temptation, and abandoned our bikes to head north on a bus. Not that it was that simple. It took three ticket changes to leave La Paz because of a strike (understandable) of drivers of inter-urban and regional micros, buses and trucks. The strike action included blocking the road to Perú; road blocks are a normal event in Bolivian life. Once we did get going, we had only to join the chaos of the rather casual border crossing at Desaguadero, on the shore of Lake Titicaca, and we could sit back and enjoy ... read more

url='/Videos/3128.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3128.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Drunken Bolivian Partyurl='/Videos/3268.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3268.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Riding the Salar "You should be carrying a gun..." was the friendly advice of the owner of a restaurant in Oruro where we were treating ourselves to a slap-up meal after spending 8 days cycling through a remote part of Bolivia. A journey involving a salt desert, bad roads, an adopted dog, witchcraft, a drunken party and surviving a violent sandstorm. It all started out in Uyuni, the last large town before we rode into the remote Altiplano. We rushed around the town buying last minute supplies, ending up with: * 10 litres of water each (our personal record!) * 1kg wholemeal rice * 1kg brown lentils * 500g oats * 500ml mayonnaise * ... read more