Category Archives: Travelogue

A collection of travelogues from my trips around the world, peppered with reviews and recommendations of accommodation, walking tours, restaurants and pubs.

Travelogue Cyprus 3: Troodos

TROODOS

08 – 09 April 2024

Heading into the Troodos mountains for the next couple of days, we were smart enough to learn from our excursion to Santa Irene winery the previous day and to wear jeans and have a jumper on hand.

Good thing too because as we climbed, it not only got chilly but clouds moved in and sucked away what little warmth the sun was bringing to the party.

By the time we arrived at our first stop, Everchou, it was drizzling. Fortunately, the excursion was indoors – the Train Museum. Completely unmanned (it was 13h15 so might have been lunchtime), it fuelled our ambitions to become Cypriot museum custodians. Best job in the world!

We let ourselves in and started our own self-guided tour. Fortunately the story told was largely graphic and there were English captions alongside the Greek ones. Details aside, the abridged version is a half century or so of lukewarm performance for the Cyprus Government Railway (CGR).

It ran from Famagusta on the East coast through Nicosia to Everchou at the base of the Troodos mountains. It was forecast to be a major mode of passenger transport, but locals preferred their camels and donkeys so it was only really the military that used it in any great numbers. The service was eventually discontinued on 31 December 1951 when it was deemed economically nonviable to continue maintaining.

Short on any other places of interest, we then concluded the day’s travel in the Troodos are with the short hop to Kakopetria.

KAKOPETRIA

Struggling to find our accommodation, Maritsa Lodge, we realised that Google Maps had gotten confused because our B&B was in the Old Town with its narrow cobbled pedestrian streets. We ditched the car and walked to the lodge on foot.

A charming 300+ year old house converted into flatlets, the landlady at Maritsa Lodge showed us to our suite at the edge of the property, overlooking the river gorge and the mountains rising opposite.

We also had a little wooden deck so made some hot bevvies to take advantage and admire the view while reviewing the circles and markings the hostess had made on the tourist map she’d given us.

We were ideally based at the end of the Nature trail that ran along the opposite side of the river into town. With a very grey sky, clouds billowing above the mountain tops and intermittent low rumbling of thunder, we decided that it would make the most sense to use this route to get to town while the weather still allowed. We then had the option of returning either up along the cobblestone street or the tarred road which we had driven in on.

We nimbly made our way down the wooden stairs and across the bridge. The trail was easy to follow and a wonderful piece of nature as we followed the river for some 1km.

Emerging at the far end, it started to rain. We took what we thought was the road into town, upping the pace as the drizzle turned into a full blown cloudburst.

Seeking shelter in a petrol station we consulted the map and realised we had taken the wrong split; we were supposed to turn right and cross the bridge into town!

With little choice we waited out the pelting rain until some 15 minutes later it had slowed to what we were prepared to walk in again.

Crossing the bridge immediately produced a couple of short streets of activity. It was still drizzling so we went into the first restaurant – the River Park, which was one our host had recommended – and waited out the last of the rain with a cold KEO.

As soon as the sun came out, so did we.

We reviewed the whole town as the sunshine dried our damp hoodies for us. Kakopetria was pretty while glistening in the remnants from the rain, but – based on the generous blossoms cascading from the trees and the grapevine veranda canopies starting to show hints of green – must be really pretty as Spring warms the town up.

With nothing but time on our hands, we also studied the menu outside each of the restaurants and decided on where to have our dinner, now only a couple of hours away.

A lot of the shops were closed, which could have been because it was Monday or because it was shoulder season, in between the ski activities on the mountains and the busy summer for Cyprus tourism. Still, it was nice to wander around and wonder.

We walked back to our hotel along the cobbled street, marvelling at how well-preserved the ancient buildings were – and how tiny some of the doorways were, barely our shoulder height!

After a short stop and grabbing another layer (presuming it would get quite cold along the river after dark), we made our way back to town on the road route that had seen our arrival. Much quicker (but less scenic) left us with 15 minutes to kill before our restaurant, Podji Poda, opened.

We visited the minimart (no fun Metallica stories this time) and got a takeaway Leon to have a makeshift sundowner at Couples Rock. This was an amusing landmark we had encountered on our walking tour; a large rock fabled to have rolled over a love struck couple.

Fortunately, no such similar fate befell us and we made it to dinner. A sumptuous meal of fresh whole Trout from the local river and a red wine bacon dish.

TUESDAY

It was cold and drizzly in the morning, so we took our time over the complimentary Mediterranean-style breakfast buffet, confirming our route for the day.

Once in the car, we made our way up Mount Olympus. We climbed for 28 minutes as the temperature plummeted. Even though we were cocooned in the car, I got a chill as the dashboard chimed with the snowflake icon as the outside temperature reached 4 degrees.

We carried on forward and upward into the misty cloud we had seen from our deck at Maritsa Lodge. A few minutes later we were at the top; a cul de sac at the entrance of the army base where we could go no further.

We were in light snowfall! We got out the car to fully appreciate the novelty of being engulfed by mist and to feel the snowflakes falling on us! Not great for photos, but a good story to tell about our foray in the Troodos Mountains.

Unnerved that our next feat was intended to be a short hike through the woods to Calendonian Waterfall, we were relieved to be greeted by a balmy 10 degrees when we parked at the Psilo Dentro restaurant and trout farm at the entrance to the trail.

It was an easy and enjoyable walk to the waterfall; a little slippery in places from the recent rains, but nothing serious enough to slow the pace or the conversation. We took a few minutes to appreciate the end goal… and then it was back to the car and on the road again.

Our Paphos host had recommended a stop at Vassiliades Winery on our way into Omodos, so we did just that.

An elegant building gave us viewpoint to the magnificent landscape. The hills opposite clearly showed us what the sommelier at Saint Irene Winery had told us about the uniqueness of the Cypriot grapes growing on the steep and arid hills, defying the usual conditions under which grapes usually prosper. Sure, the harvests could be more modest, but the quality of the grapes was next level and the smaller yields unique in flavour.

OMODOS

Omodos was less than a kilometre further down the road. We had booked to stay in Katoi Holiday Home in the old town so discovered on arrival that that meant parking across town (some 250 metres away) in the village free parking. Chris dropped me off as close as possible with the suitcases and went to drop off the car.

His traverse of the town had given him a good lay of the land and we were wine-tasting at the Zenon rooms ten minutes later. The lady in the store was the granddaughter of the original wine farmers so most of her narrative  was about their history and the family members who featured on the labels of each of the bottles.

Then it was a quick visit to the monastery and its very impressive golden fresco in the church. The monastery was at the base of the town square so we did some menu checks to narrow down dinner options.

Secure in our sort-of plan, we were back to wine-tasting. We absolutely had to visit Linos Winery to find out about their blue wine; literally a bright aqua blue colour. The hostess told us that it is essentially a dry white and that the blue colour comes from the grape skins. She gave us the non-coloured variant and it was like a trick on the sense that the two tasted the same yet looked so different.

We also sampled their commanderia (sweet wine only made in Cyprus), Zivania (jet fuel 50% proof clear spirit, sunk as a shot) and a Pistachio cream liqueur that was very easy on the palate after its two predecessors.

Back into town, we did the final wine-tasting of the day at the Gerolemo coffee shop and wine bar on the square. After sampling a varied range, Chris got a glass of his favourite white and me of my favourite red and we took to a table outside to enjoy the fresh evening.

The barkeep had warned us that they were closing for the day but encouraged us to take our time on their terrace. He asked that we just leave the glasses on the windowsill for him to collect in the morning (they would never still be there back home!)

A short while later, the owner arrived. Concerned that we’d been left unattended (despite our assurances that we were quite fine), he unlocked the main door and emerged a minute later with a bag of chips and a Zivania for each of us.

During the short exchange over the shot, we asked him for recommendation on dinner venue. He chuckled and said that if we were up for it, there was a locals pub across from the cemetery which was good for ‘a beer and a game of cards… and then we eat’. Sounded worth a look.

We finished our wine and located the pub. It was a smoky den with older men currently enjoying Greek classic movies on the small TV mounted on the wall in the corner.

Committed, we entered and Chris organised us a couple of cold beers and a table.

Soon after, the chap who invited us arrived, gave us a friendly wave and a smile, and disappeared into the adjacent room to get down to some serious cards.

We moved to the bar where we were almost instantly engaged in conversation by the man sitting next to us. He was keen to hear about where we were from, what brought us to Cyprus, Troodos and Omodos and any other tales of our travels. We already had so many to share from our short time in Larnaca and Nicosia!

Settled and comfortable we ordered a meal to be served to us at the bar. A light Mediterranean plate with big warm wedges of halloumi that we doused in lemon, feeling smugly authentic in our evening’s outcome.

Travelogue Cyprus 2: Nicosia

NICOSIA

06 – 07 April 2024

Having had our beach day in Ayia Napa cut short by a flat tyre, we rearranged our itinerary for Day 3 to include a couple of extra beachy things. Not hard to do by taking a jog down to Larnaca’s own blue flag Makenzy Beach and then adding a first stop in Pyla, 20 minutes down the coast, onto our road trip for a beachfront brunch.

As we entered the sleepy beachy town, we were drawn to a place called Gregory’s Coffee & Greek Bakery. We had high hopes there was a golden thread in the similarity of name to the brilliant Gregg’s experiences we had had in Newcastle and Belfast.

Grabbing the second-last available table, we soon had flaky Greek pastries in hand. A spinach and feta for authenticity and a bacon Stromboli (a pie that tasted like a pizza stuffed with bacon) for good measure. Basking in the moderate morning Mediterranean sun and peeping over flaky-pastry pies at the glistening sea was a worthy consolation for the circumstances that had led us there.

Back on the road, we set sights on Lympia; chosen for no particular reason other than a road trip necessitating stops and its position halfway along our short drive for the day.

Sadly there was little to see in the small suburban town so we followed the road sign to neighbouring Dali, which promised archeological ruins and an accompanying museum.

Two for two, we found both to be closed on Saturdays, much like we had missed the operating hours of the ruins and museum in Larnaca. Clearly Cyprus was for more fastidious travel planners than us in order to foresee such things.

With only 27km left to Nicosia, try as we might, there was not a place of interest to stop en route. We thought we might stop in “Lefkosia”… only to find that this was the alternate name for Nicosia – and seemed to be used interchangeably. A quick Google revealed that Nicosia was a Latin and English name used for the city post the medieval crusades. Lefkosia / Lefkosa were the traditional Greek and Turkish names respectively. Interesting.

We arrived at our destination a couple of hours ahead of schedule. The Kipros Accommodation hotel was, well, accommodating of our early arrival and showed us to our complimentary parking and then to our suite.

With a little extra time on our hands, we consolidated our map and Google searches to define a plan. We had the info on the stops on our intended walking tour the next morning, so mapped a route that would fill in the gaps of what else we could see and do in Nicosia.

This would be a short Nicosia walking tour of that would include the Liberty Monument, the UN buffer zone and the Famagusta Gate, as well as a smattering of religious buildings and museums.

We had chosen our hotel for its location, which paid off immediately. Hitting the streets, we were one road away from the famous Ledra pedestrian street, which took us right to the historical landmarks we wanted to see.

We were not really surprised to find that all the museums in Nicosia were already closed – some at midday and others not open on weekends at all – and again mused that dream job would be as a museum custodian in Cyprus. A 30-hour work week sounded like a winning plan!

Having fulfilled the possible cultural requirements, we were able to commit ourselves to a late lunch. Being so close to the Turkish border justified a donner kebab. We were quite smug sitting opposite the McDonald’s and the Starbucks with our legit authentic (massive!) meal at O Salonikios Gyros Stavros. Lovin’ every bite of fresh chicken and pork dripping with creamy garlic sauce and crunching from the salad garnish.

Finally finished and fully-fuelled, we were ready to approach the other side of Ledra. To our surprise, a couple of hundred metres down the road was the border crossing. And it was a free pass only requiring a flash of a passport. Which we happened to be carrying. So we went to Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

It wasn’t all it cracked up to be. Besides a lively market and handful of grill house restaurants, it didn’t have much of a vibe. We did a cursory wander around and then passed back across the border.

Back up the length of Ledra, we emerged at the far end to find a fabulous recreation area. The city of Nicosia had cleverly uplifted the centre of town at the base of the walls of the original medieval city.

Eleftheria (Liberty) Square now boasted ultra-modern chrome and glass bridge, ramps and walkways from the street level down to a streamlined and cultivated garden below with pretty water features and outsized surfboard-shaped benches for people to relax and enjoy the space. There were pop-up stalls under the bridge selling clothes and accessories, and music piped through the speakers. With the acoustics of the partially enclosed space, the energy was palpable.

Since we had been on our feet for hours and done more thousands of steps, we decided to take advantage of our hotel being so close to take a load off for bit before taking on the evening.

Googling What To Do in Nicosia revealed that there was a Blazin’ Vibes Street Festival at Eleftheria Square that night. What a win!

Emerging from the hotel, it was a quick trot down the road and round the corner. The Square was transformed after dark, with submerged lighting creating a literal glow around the whole area.

DJs had taken to the stage under the bridge so there was a bass beat drawing people in their droves down to the festival area.

There were more pop-up stalls, a big cocktail bar had been set up and there were people dancing and having a good time. Such fun.

We mingled and window-shopped, but not being cocktail folk, were not in for the long haul.

We were thirsty though, so headed into the kiosk opposite the festival area. The shopkeep was belting out classic Metallica so we lingered longer than necessary while buying our take-away drinks, amused that we were having more of a party in the mini-mart than at the mega-party!

SUNDAY

Chris had found a guided walking tour of the DMZ and UN Buffer Zone online and although it said tickets were no longer available – which we took to mean sold out – we thought we would take our chances and pitch up anyway. With tip-based tours, people often don’t arrive and we could make up for the shortfall.

We were at the UN Checkpoint at 10h00 as required…. But there was nobody there. We waited 15 minutes and then gave up.

Now we had the whole of Sunday to kill since we’d put all our eggs in the walking tour basket. It was supposed to be 3 hours, and stimulate the ‘what next’ activities for the afternoon based on areas of particular interest and/or guide recommendations.

No point crying over spilt milk though. We did a quick Google for alternatives and soon realised that it was Sunday – a big roast lunch day in many cultures – and we had not yet eaten.

We decided to find a nice wine warm for a leisurely lunch excursion.

Santa Irene Winery had rave reviews for its buffet and wine tastings, so the die was cast and we were soon off in the rental car.

It was wonderful to exit the city (even as tame as it was compared to our hometown and all its urban chaos) and enter the countryside, into the more mountainous region.

I will admit to being concerned as the digital thermometer on the dashboard dipped below 20 degrees. In our haste, we’d jumped in the car still in T-shirts and shorts, not packing any warmer layers.

Although quite chilly and now starting to drizzle, it was warmer in the winery building. We were the first to arrive for the lunch sitting, which was served in a large hall with floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, offering spectacular views of the surrounding area.

We were advised that we were too early and the buffet was not yet ready. We could, however, use the time to sample a few of the wines to decide what to have with lunch. Splendid use of time!

We were led to the large L-shaped stone counter. Our enthusiastic sommelier pulled bottle after bottle out of fridges, off shelves and from far reaches on the counter. He expertly screwed out corks and rubber re-sealed bottles as he seamlessly trickled tasters into glasses, shared wisdom about the variant and educated about the local grape, Mavra.

It was a lot on an empty belly! But we enjoyed it immensely and, as an added bonus, the owner came over to talk to us and was delighted that we were South African as he’d lived in Pietermaritzburg for many years, and his son still did. Small as the world is, Christian’s sister’s family was friendly with the son and his family!

Our sommelier endorsed our choice of red wine for the lunch and was so pleased that we ordered another 4 bottles to take with us that he spontaneously offered us a private viewing of the production cellar below the tasting room. There would be a group tour after lunch, but narrated in Greek and he wanted us to take the full story away with us and our collection. It was quite a bit colder downstairs so thankfully we could do the walk-through at pace in our ill-suited attire.

Quite giddy from the wine and the experience, it was finally time for lunch.

The buffet lived up to promise, with a wide range of Greek and Cypriot traditional food. We feasted on roasted lamb and pork souvlaki, a delicious pork and onion stew which I vowed to remember the name of (and have, of course, forgotten), light and tender calamari, cod and another white flaky fish of sorts, roast potato wedges and pasta dish that was similar to lasagne but with layers of macaroni, pork mince and a thick layer of béchamel on the top.

As full as we were, we still had the cheek to sample ALL of the desserts, which included two milk tart type things, cheesecake, chocolate cake, crème caramel, little doughnut/koeksuster crunchy syrupy balls and, our favourite, orange cake.

First to arrive and almost last to leave, we virtually rolled out of Saint Irene.

The 50 minute drive home was full of ideas about what to do with our evening – that would most certainly not include another meal!

Returning to our hotel, we allowed ourselves a couple of hours of feet-up to let the massive meal settle. But then it was back out into the Nicosia night for a nosey around.

Almost as busy as Saturday night, Ledra was swarming with people enjoying a meal, a drink or a coffee in any of the many restaurants.

MONDAY

Closing off the sightseeing checklist, we returned (on foot, now easily navigating the twists and turns of the unsignposted city) to the Struggle Museum that we had tried to see on the first day.

It revealed that the history of Cyprus began in 1500BC through the Venetian and Roman Empires. Cyprus was then absorbed into the Ottoman Empire in 1546 and then ceded to Britain in 1878.

The British tried in 1915 to force the union of Cyprus and Greece to bring Greece into the First World War; Greece refused and maintained its neutrality. Similarly the British offered once again at the start of the Second World War, but retracted the offer once Greece was overrun by the Axis Powers.

Post WWII, many territories were keen on independence from the Commonwealth, as was Cyprus. They made a couple of applications to Great Britain to allow them to join union with Greece; both refused. They then organised a paramilitary force called EOKA to start campaigning civil disobedience, as well as ambushes and attacks on the British occupationary forces in Cyprus. The fighting continued from 1955-1959, when Cyprus finally got its independence (and did not form the union with Greece).

It looks from the exhibits in the museum to have been quite bloody skirmishing. The displays include numerous graphic boards showing the dead and dying up close, complete with emotively labelled names, eg ‘Hero XYZ who died after being tortured in {date}’.

There was a primary school tour in the museum at the same time as us and interestingly the small children were not sheltered from viewing the boards with the close-ups of the bullet-ridden bodies, the glassy eyes staring lifelessly from the corpses or gruesome dismembered victims of bomb explosions. Hopefully the brutal honesty of the destruction of war encourages the children of Nicosia to create a more peaceful future for their beautiful homeland.

Travelogue Cyprus 5: Limassol

LIMASSOL

13 – 16 April 2024

We had the main event of our trip right at the end. Said event was a half marathon, so it was a touch counter-intuitive after all the feasting and festivities in the warm-up fortnight.

That said, Saturday’s tasks were to get from Paphos to Limassol (where the race would be held the next morning), get our race packs and try stay off our feet and as well rested as a holiday weekend would allow.

Luke and I did a morning jog along the Paphos promenade as a warm-up and to get a photo of the Castle at the end of the Port that had proved elusive in our sightseeing. Alex and Chris went on a different, but equally important, mission to Starbucks to sort out their caffeine fix and to the supermarket to get bread, cheese and ham to make toasties… which Alex was already busy doing when Luke and I arrived home.

Very sorry to say goodbye to our fantastic holiday house, we set off to explore new places.

Chris had planned our route to take us past Aphrodite’s Rock and through the town of Pissouri. Snaking and climbing through the narrow streets of the latter got us to a viewing point that offered a spectacular panoramic view of the coastline below.

It was a bit of a culture-shock pulling in to Limassol, which was by far the biggest city we’d seen on our travels. Cresting a hill on the outskirts revealed a sprawl of buildings hugging the coast as far as the eye could see. With a population of 154000 compared to Paphos’s 35000, it certainly felt like we’d arrived in the big smoke (although still nothing compared to Johannesburg’s 6 million!)

We had chosen our apartment for its location, an easy walking distance from the Limassol Marathon start line in Molos Park.

It took some doing to find the building in the narrow streets and one-way roads that satellited from the main road that ran alongside the promenade and that housed our entrance. Once we’d honed in on it, finding parking was another story!

We needed to go get our race numbers anyway, so did a very quick bag drop-off and kept moving.

Who should we bump into at the ticket office? The entire UK contingent (Alex and Luke’s Bootcamp buddies) who had also come to collect their tickets. We’d told Chusa and Lee we would wait for them (they had come from Paphos on the bus), so the whole extended group made ourselves comfy in the lounge area under the marquee to be the welcoming committee and got group photos to commemorate the occasion.

We decided on a late lunch at the marina, so dropped off Chusa and Lee at their apartment (about 800m from ours) and then succumbed to a paid parkade a couple of blocks inland from us so we knew our car would be safe – and accessible the next day if we needed it since our area would all be blocked off for the race.

Once our party was reunited, we walked along the promenade to the marina. Chusa and Lee had been to Limassol 6 years prior (also for the marathon) so had a traditional taverna in mind.

We were marginally waylaid as we encountered the Colchester Boot camp crew, who had established Drink Camp on the terraced steps at Ventuno Aperitivo on the Square at the Old Port. Katie had commandeered a hobby-horse of sorts and was cantering up and down in front of her jeering buddies. We checked in briefly, before making a concerted effort towards lunch.

Time had only done Kipriakon taverna proud and we all committed to the traditional menu, with Moussaka (aubergine bake), Pasticio (oven-baked pork and bechamel pasta), and Tsavas (lamb and onion stew) being the order of the day.

We had told the Boot Camp crowd that we would meet them after our meal, but since we had languished somewhat, they were already gone when we passed back through the square.

Either Limassol is a small world, we were predictable or fate intervened, but we still ended up passing them en route back to our neck of the woods… Where we had already set our sights on an Irish bar called Rums Pub, so we passed pleasantries as each headed in the opposite direction.

With a big race the next day, we took it very easy and nursed a Guinness to within an inch of its life while chatting with our mates. We also didn’t want a heavy meal or a long night in a restaurant to contend with, so Alex made the suggestion that we ‘carbo-load’ with 2-minute noodles at our apartment, which was pure genius!

So much for being ‘off our feet’; we had almost 20,000 steps clocked!

SUNDAY

And then it was Race Day!

We were up at the (relative) crack of dawn, each observing our own prep protocol. Then it was off to the Cafe Nero across the road to meet our race buddies and walk slowly and gently to the start line.

I took my place in Block 1, waiting for the starting gun… BANG! We were off.

Left, right, left, right, look at the scenery, grab a water bottle, left, right, left, right. It was a long 21km! With sea-level air and a flat there-and-back course on our side, both Chris and I set a Personal Best on the course. Hooray!

Since some of the Colchester Boot Camp squad had run the 10km and finished before us, it was fabulous to have a welcome committee at the finish line to cheer us in. They were a spirited crew, so even though we had only known each other for a matter of hours, they cheered like we were old friends.

Once our group had gathered, we took time to return to our apartment (since it was so conveniently across the road) for a toilet stop, shower and change, and then it was off to lunch.

Everywhere was busy. There were still Limassol Marathon runners on the field so the roads were still closed and the promenade blocked off for participants approaching the finish line. A band had struck up on the Old Port Square, and a crowd was starting to gather with jubilant finishers celebrating their achievements.

We scored because the Boot Camp crew had once again assumed the position on the same terraced steps we had met them on the day before. With the size of their group, we were easily able to pull up chairs, share war stories about our race and commiserate about the tricky bits on the course.

Hunger will out though, and we had to leave our thirsty friends behind in order to refuel our very-empty tanks.

Being Sunday and with all the extra race traffic, the lunch sitting was full to bursting along the whole marina. We were very lucky to catch the eye of the host at the same spot we had lunched the previous day and he made a plan to bring an extra table into play for us. It meant that we had half of us in the sun and half enjoying the shade at any point – and we tried to circulate so nobody got too fried.

With a second go at the all-round-tempting menu, we were able to sample the halloumi ravioli, calamari and the biggest pork chop you have ever seen! It reached from end-to-end on my rectangular plate, gently cupping my chips and sauce above its shiny smile shape.

The service wasn’t great because the restaurant was so busy so we were there much longer than planned. And really needed to get a bit of a walk-around in before our tired legs seized and said that they could not!

Moving inland, we did an explore of the Old Town. There was a medieval castle surrounded by cafes, bars and restaurants that we probably should have lunched in, had we had the energy for risk-taking on our earlier forage.

Always game, the troops found space for an ice-cream and we soaked up the atmosphere from a park bench in the middle of the action before retreating to our respective quarters for some downtime after a very long day.

Our regroup for dinner was at the Limassol Agora food court in the original market in the Old Town. With a broad selection of street food stalls and a variety of entertainment options, it sounded like ‘something for everyone’.

However, it was very noisy and we were beyond shouting at each other to be heard, so we swiftly moved on.

I had spotted a locals souvlaki take-away that scored off the charts on Google Maps. Since it had a dine-in area attached, we figured it was worth a shot. We ordered a broad selection off the menu at Souvlaki Livadeias and ate like kings at a fraction of the cost of a high street restaurant equivalent. We vowed to try copy the roasted feta parcel on the braai when we got home!

MONDAY

There was so much pressure on our last day to live up to all the antics and adventures of the rest of the trip.

Alex and Luke had requested some beach time, to make the most of the sunshine which was not as commonplace on their side of the pond as on ours. So Chris planned a bit of a road trip that would take us to some nearby beaches with a few stops along the way.

The first was The Cyprus Wine Museum in Erimi. We had sampled so much local wine over the course of our trip that it seemed prudent to add the theoretical education to our practical one.

The custodian seemed surprised to have customers and scurried from her feet-on-desk position to open the entrance doors for us.

She gave us a brief running order for the tour, where she would give us an intro and overview, then orientate us to the two rooms of exhibitions, then set away an 11 minute video for us to watch before taking us to the cellar where we could taste one wine for €5 or the range for €10.

The exhibits told the story of the value of wine to Cyprus, allegedly being the birthplace of wine in the form of its sweet Commanderia variant. The wine was so envied that it made Cyprus the target of invasions by the various global-domination empire-builders across history.

The video was awful. 11 long minutes of PowerPoint presentation with slides of artefacts like clay wine pots animating in and out to grossly mismatched ominous piano music. We giggled as we tortured ourselves to complete the show so as not to insult our hostess.

Sapped of the will to wine – and since we hadn’t yet eaten – we skipped the tasting and moved on to Kourion Beach.

By now starving, we settled at a deck table at the quite-swish Chris Blue Beach restaurant to enjoy the beach view over a lovely lunch, which we then settled with some downtime on the sand and frolicking in the sea.

We had discovered on the map that there still existed two British enclaves on the island, as agreed in 1960 when Cyprus got independence. We had missed the one in Famagusta when we’d visited Nicosia, but could still get bragging rights for a flit to the UK by visiting the peninsula near Limassol.

Taking the opportunity en route back from the beach, we drove through the sovereign area. From the swathe of pylons and telecoms lines, it was clear that this base was used for surveillance. With Cyprus being so close to the Middle East, there were a couple of likely suspects of whom that might be at any given time.

We would not be getting mixed up in all of that though; we would be crossing a Salt Pan to get to the Lady’s Mile beach.

With no actual road, Chris deftly navigated between the orange cones that – we presumed – indicated the preferred route on the golden sand. The water in the salt pan was twinkling on our right, bright cyan from the shallow highly salinated water. The sea was directly in front of us, with the Limassol shoreline on the horizon. We could clearly cross-reference the landmark highrise buildings to spot (more or less) our proverbial neck of the woods.

Last tourist stop on the agenda was a visit to the blue flag beach at the far end of the Limassol promenade. We hazarded a guess that we had run close to there the previous day… but there was no way we’d manage it on foot two days in a row!

We made the most of the warm late afternoon sun lazing on towels on the soft sand and then celebrated the sunset with a sundowner on the terrace restaurant.

Our last supper choice had been an obvious one. A fabulous restaurant called Meze that we had all noticed on our way into town and that scored very highly on Google. It was also conveniently two blocks from our apartment, so an easy walk on stiff legs.

We invited Chusa and Lee – who had gone on a day tour to Nicosia – to join us, so we could swap stories about our respective adventures.

Meze was, obviously, a specialist in meze-style meals which comprise of several small dishes that are shared by the table. We were served warm pita bread with little bowls of olives, peppers, hummus, tahini, tzatziki and so on… and then more dishes with grilled lamb souvlaki and chops… and then a selection of sausages… and then crumbed and deep-fried haloumi with buttery grilled mushrooms… the food just kept coming!

By the time the waiter finally announced that he was serving the last dish – a crunchy syrupy dessert course – we thought we would burst!

Fortunately the restaurant wasn’t in any rush to push us out the door, so we had time to sip it wine and let the enormous meal settle a little. While making the most of our last memory-making Limassol moments together, giggling and happily snapping last photos.

Travelogue RWC 2023 5: Perpignan

PERPIGNAN

02 – 04 October 2023

A 3 hour train ride south from Marseille – and right in the heart of Catalan country – we’d picked Perpignan to be our eye in the storm between the Rugby World Cup game in Marseille and our Blink 182 concert in Barcelona. Home to USA Perpignan rugby union and the Catalan Dragons rugby league teams held appeal for the chaps. The historical significance appealed to all of us.

Though settlement in the area goes back to Roman times, the medieval town of Perpignan seems to have been founded around the beginning of the 10th century. Shortly afterwards, Perpignan became the capital of the counts of Roussillon. It then became French in 1659, by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. Perpignan was a city of refuge in the 20th century – after 1936, for refugees from the Spanish Civil War.

Meanwhile, back in La Ciotat we were managing battles of our own. Having returned home in the early hours of the morning following the 9pm South Africa vs Tonga game in Marseille (and the ensuing traffic jam to get out of the city and back to La Ciotat) the previous night, it was less than optimal to be awoken by a message that our morning train connecting us back to Marseille for our connection to Perpignan was cancelled due to strike action.

We sprang – relatively speaking – into action and started reviewing other options. If we either caught the next train from La Ciotat or caught the bus from the Tourist Office at the end of our road straight into Marseille, we would be just too late for our connection. We tried calling the taxi from Saturday but struggled to get commitment on availability of a car. Our plans were up in the air and we were too tired to worry…

Distracting ourselves with making mega sandwiches with the last remaining groceries (a whole baguette, packet of bacon, thick country ham, sliced cheese, butter, sauce sachets), the plans made themselves when John the Taxi Man called and confirmed he could collect us from the Tourist Office in 5 minutes.

Timing was tight, but he was up for the challenge. Putting foot and swearing ‘Bloody Frogs’ (comically, as a local pure Frenchman in his thick French accent) out of the way, he got us to the Station in Marseille with 11 minutes to spare.

Relieved, we sank into our reserved seats on the train, ready for the next stage of our tour.

Our Airbnb host had advised that she would be dispatching her parents to meet us at the apartment since she’d be at work. Not wanting to keep them waiting, we emerged at the Perpignan Gare with Google Maps at the ready to guide us through the 10 minutes walk.

Our fantastic apartment was situated alongside a canal, which made for an unmissable landmark. Les Parents were waiting at the doorway to our building, ready to welcome us.

Trundling up 3 flights of stairs to our penthouse apartment, we were impressed by our spacious and tastefully decorated home for the next 2 nights. Besides the open plan living area that overlooked the canal, there was a bedroom with small outdoor terrace for Robbie and a massive loft room for Chris and I that ran the length of the apartment.

Les Parents gave us some very basic instructions (to suit our very basic French) and pointed us towards the Old Town.

Following the canal, we were only a few minutes from the historic centre. We would need to self-navigate because there were no walking tours on offer in Perpignan. We easily located the Tourist Office thanks to excellent signage, and procured a trusty city map.

A cursory review of the map told us that our tour would be a quick one. The centre ville is very small and majority of the sights are churches, which for us means a quick photo of the beautiful building and move on. Enough to entertain us for the remainder of the afternoon, but certainly not a two-day affair.

We chatted to the tourist office agent for suggestions for the next day. Of the recommendations, we liked the idea of a short bus ride to a nearby coastal town the most. Armed with info and the bus schedule, we began our city tour of Perpignan.

The agent had warned us that Monday in Catalan country is like a Sunday and not to expect too much to be open. Combined with siesta time, the town was very quiet. Consequently, our walking tour was concluded exceptionally quickly!

Never at a loss for things to do when a meal could be had, we followed directions to the central Place where we’d been told that restaurants serve all day everyday.

We’d worked up quite an appetite, so were sold on the first approach. The host at Hippopotamus only had to get eye contact to seal the deal thanks to the illustrated menu boards at the entrance that promised it to be an excellent grillhouse.

Being a ‘Sunday’ warranted a fantastic roast chicken and roast potatoes feast served in a hot skillet with a rich savoury gravy. And with fresh bread and butter, obviously.

After our leisurely late lunch, we headed in the other direction to explore the new town. Now toward the end of the working day, there was a lot of traffic and people on the move.

Once we’d visited places of cultural interest, we indulged in a visit to the local Irish pub, O’Flaherty’s. En route we noticed – Monday or no Monday – how the city had come back to life again.

Sign boards outside pubs showed operating hours to commonly be 5pm to midnight or beyond every night of the week, so Perpignan clearly has a vibrant and social nightlife culture. Nothing rowdy; mostly tables of 2 or 3 people, sipping drinks and nibbling tapas.

It was really pleasant to pass a couple of hours soaking in the atmosphere and planning our next steps. And it was always appreciated to be able to walk home, taking the long way around to walk along the canal.

Almost home, we walked past a Tibetan sidewalk cafe (of no more than 4 tables) that smelled so good, we had to stop.

The owner effortlessly convinced us to try his dumplings and sushi. Although the menu was a combination of traditional Tibetan fare and other Eastern crowd-pleasers, the owner  was completely authentic. He’d been a monk in his homeland, Tibet, before he made his way as a refugee to Perpignan in the late 90s.

He told the story quite casually and was more interested in us enjoying the dumplings and a good glass of rosé than being impressed by his life story.

TUESDAY

As advised, we would be spending the day in Colliore, some 30km away on the coast. Situated in the Roussillon province, the area had been of consequence as a medieval administrative court and been home to royals from 1659 to around the 1790s.

There was a bus every hour or so that could be caught at the Gare. We made our way up to the station in good time to catch the 11h15 bus. It was only when the wrong bus arrived at the bus stop that we realised we were at the wrong bus stop entirely. Fortunately I’d checked with the driver as we boarded the bus or who knows where we would have ended up!

The driver directed us to a bus terminus on the other side of the train station and we killed the remainder of the wait with a coffee in the station.

After a very scenic bus trip – a bargain at €1 each! – we alighted in a precious seaside town. With a selection of seaside eateries, we set about the now-urgent business of lunch.

Mussels and calamari and prawns were the order of the day to match the setting. Collioure being in the heart of Catalan country and very close to the Spanish border, the menu had influences from both countries. A great combo!

From our vantage point on the promenade we could see the bowl of mountains that cupped Collioure, just as the agent described. We could also see the impressive Royal Castle that stretched around the left side of the harbour and hid the old town behind its massive wall.

Finishing up our lunch, we took a stroll around the old town, down to the harbour and along the jetty to the entrance of the port. This allowed a wonderful view back on the charming hamlet and the mountain range backdrop.

Mission accomplished with our relaxing afternoon, we caught the bargain bus back to Perpignan. We disembarked in town to gather some supplies and allow for a stroll back to our apartment.

Having procured a bottle of wine and a bottle of cava, we enjoyed sundowners on the small terrace adjoined to Robbie’s room.

We would probably have been there for a lot longer had it not been for the neighbour cooking up a storm. The delicious wafts of onions and garlic teased us to the point of action and motivated us to find something cheap ‘n cheerful for dinner.

We’d seen signs for naan kebabs on our travels and were curious about the combo since we loved both but had never experienced them together.

Not hard to find, we finally solved the mystery at a place called Cheese Naan.  The result was a soft round naan rolled into a cone and piled high with delicious fillings ranging from tandoori to kebab to cordon bleu. A real mash of cultures!

It was still relatively early so there was time for a spot of Cava in the Catalan Dragons’ home bar and bistro. And, of course, making a little time to stop in for a final glass of rosé with our Tibetan friend.

Travelogue RWC 2023 4: Marseille / La Ciotat

MARSEILLE & LA CIOTAT

29 Sep – 02 Oct 2023

Our drive from Montpellier to Marseille was particularly festive because Chris had prepared a playlist of Blink 182 songs. This was intended to warm us up for the impending concert we would be attending on the last night of the trip. He’d based it on the set list of one of the previous concerts on the same tour, so it was a good indication of what we could expect!

We chatted and sang along, admired the countryside and the little towns dotted on either side of the motorway. Chris gave accolades to the sensible toll system that dispensed a ticket at origin and then tailored the charge for you when inserting the ticket again at your destination toll booth. All fully automated, super-efficient and a fair fee for just the value you’d enjoyed on the perfect roads.

Arriving in Marseille’s St Charles Station, we completed our Awesome Foursome group as we reunited with Michele, who had emigrated to London some 6 months prior.

We put the 30 minute train journey to La Ciotat to good use, catching up on what had been happening on our respective ends of the ocean.

Robbie had recommended our stay in the seaside town just outside of Marseille based on a previous visit he’d made to his friends who lived there. One of the friends, Ricky, was even at the train station waiting to greet us. He packed all our suitcases and selves into his station wagon with a smile.

He dropped us at our Airbnb apartment, in prime location one road in from the seafront, with the new town to the left and the old town to the right.

Our apartment was quite mysteriously architected, opening into an ample dining room / kitchen combo with 2 mismatched arches at the back leading to a twin room and lounge that in turn led to a slender bathroom at the back. Chris and I would be staying upstairs, accessed by narrow steep wooden steps on the right of the dining room into a loft that required us to crouch from the waist because the roof was so low. It was quite entertaining trying to figure out how this apartment had been constructed – or deconstructed from its neighbours.

Slip-slops on, we hit the beach. It was very pleasant to enjoy the warmth of the late afternoon sun while soaking in the glistening sea with all the yachts and sailboats bobbing along merrily. The beach was soft sand that you could see disappear into the clear waters.

We were easily able to walk the manageable couple of kilometres on the new town side, and rewarded ourselves with cocktails and cold beers in the tented shade of a sidewalk restaurant at the far end.

The return journey saw us overshoot our house to go onto the old port side. Also lined with bars and restaurants, we couldn’t resist going into O’Bullrock to gauge the price of a local Guinness. The usual €8 was marginally less shocking but no less frightening as we acclimated to life in Euros!

Hopelessly distracted from our French Seafood dinner mission by a few pints and a cheeky charcuterie board, we somehow ended up back at our house having a picnic and tucking into our supplies of sparkling and red wines instead.

Arrangements had been made to meet up for the 9pm Italy vs New Zealand game. We made our way back to O’Central in the Old Port (no more than a couple of hundred metres from our house) and arrived just before Ricky, his lovely wife Marjorie and their friend Marine. Clearly regulars, the owner moved people from the rockstar front tables to make space for our group.

The Kiwis easily took the game, so we decided on pizza for our midnight snack to commiserate Italy’s beating. The Crown Pub had an adjoined annex still serving fresh-from-the-oven pizza. A few minutes later we were happily munching on fresh crusty pizza with lavish portions of ham and pepperoni on top.

SATURDAY

Chris had booked us on a Marseille free Walking Tour with the same company as we’d had in Montpellier. Ricky arranged a black van taxi to come and collect us and drop us off in town to minimise the guesswork under pressure to meet for the excursion.

We met Angie (and about 50 of her guests) at the Metro Station at the fish market. It was very noisy next to the Rugby World Cup Fanpark, so we set off on our way as soon as Angie was happy the group was complete.

According to Angie, Marseille is the oldest city in France – some 2600 years old – and was founded by traders from Greece who pulled into the port to escape the infamous Le Mistral which brings up to 80kmph winds.

We properly started the tour at the Greek ruins. There are very few remains from its early history because, as a sought after trading point in the Mediterranean, it’s seen more than its fair share of conflict. Consequently, the city has been destroyed and rebuilt countless times by conquerers and settlers.

The point where we were standing had actually been part of the original port which the Greeks had built, with city wall and towers. Further, Grand Rue is the oldest street in France, which you can still walk down today. Authentic Starbucks ‘n all.

Moving along the road, Angie shared how Marseille was rebuilt into 1851 under Napoleon in order to insert a sewerage system, widen roads (for lifestyle and army access) and trees to line the roads. And, most importantly, connecting the old port with the new port, required to manage the volumes of traffic now coming to Marseille. Having struggled with epidemics like Black Plague and Cholera, the buildings were built with lots of long high windows to maximise light and ventilation.

Not all the stories were of glory and progress though.

During the Second World War, the Vichy Government collaborated with the Nazis in the form of an agreement that the south of France would remain free while the North was occupied. However, once the Allies collected in North Africa with intention to enter Europe via Marseille, the Germans broke the agreement and moved down to the city to defend the territory that they had gained.

Marseille was a cesspit and known as the Sty of Europe. In January 1943, by way of collaboration with the Nazis a large troop of French policeman cleared all the residents out of their houses – some 20 000 people – and gathered them on the port. The majority were trained to a transition camp for a week. A couple of thousand (mostly Jewish) people were taken to Poland and executed. The few that returned arrived back to rubble; the policeman had blown up 1500 buildings with dynamite as a radical solution to clean up the city. Only 7 buildings remained standing. This has been recognised quite recently as a Crime Against Humanity.

One of these surviving buildings, a beautiful old Renaissance structure built in 1535, was actually slowly (very slowly, over 3 months) moved 10 metres and pivoted 90 degrees in order to better fit the new city planning for Grand Rue!

Modern Marseille has been depicted as a dangerous place. While it has had a notorious criminal element from as far back at the 1950s (‘The French Connection’) there had been a concerted effort in the last decade to clean up the city and restore a more attractive connotation.

There are than 2000 Pétanque strips around the city – and even a nightclub that has 7 Pétanque strips inside where ravers can exercise their one arm with the boules and the other with Pastis.

Marseille is also famous for its olive oil soap, crafted since the Middle Ages. Constituting 72% olive oil, it is traditionally presented as an unscented cube in the natural olive green colour. The soap is supposed to be all you need to keep your skin clean, youthful and hydrated. Angie (who couldn’t be more than 30 years old) joked that it was all she, as a 72 year old, had been using for the last 50 years.

Concluding the tour at the majestic Byzantine Cathedrale de la Major, we broke from the group to grab some lunch. All 4 of us had earmarked the same place for different reasons as we’d walked past so it was an easy choice.

We had a veritable feast of local-flavoured goodness. Charcuterie boards to start, with salmon tartare and tuna steak for mains. Lots of fresh baguette and butter too, of course. We’d earned it, having done a good few kilometres in the baking Mediterranean sun on this perfect day.

Marseille was heaving with all the tourists and rugby fans in for the weekend, so we decided to head back to our neck of the woods for a slower pace. Public transport is easily accessible and inexpensive so catching the train back to La Ciotat and connecting with a bus to drop us off at our door was a lot simpler than expected and cost less than 5 Euros apiece.

Somewhere along the way we uncovered that Robbie had never had a Katemba; a refreshing mix of equal parts Coca-Cola and red wine. We popped into our local supermarket to get some Coke and the cheapest red wine available. Less than 20 minutes later, another First was chalked up on our adventure scorecard!

Keen to make the most of the sunshine, Michele and I grabbed our flops and went for a walk along the promenade to dip our toes in the sea. Such a beautiful stretch of coastline and the perfect time of day, with sun on our backs and clear cold water on our legs.

The chaps meantime were watching Fiji vs Georgia. We’d managed to miss most of the match by the time we got back at sundowner o’clock.

Tucking into a selection of cold meats, we sipped on some of the nicer red wines (sans Coke) that we’d brought from Beaujolais. Never short of conversation, we shared stories and laughs around the kitchen table for hours in our homely home.

Time, in fact, ran away with us and we were caught by surprise when Ricky and Mark arrived at our front door to ‘pick us up’ (on foot) to go watch the Scotland vs Romania game at the pub.

Resuming our positions in our now-local O’Central, our group delighted as their home nation team easily took the game from the Romanians. The Scots went on to celebrate into the early hours of the morning while the Saffas went home to get a good night’s sleep in prep for the big game the next day.

SUNDAY

It had been a long week of festivities and we were glad we’d left the Sunday open, as a free day with no arrangement.

Chris and I went out for a morning run and saw there was a market open all along both ports. The streets were buzzing with vendors and shoppers. Noting there were a lot of clothing and accessory stores, I encouraged Michele to do a return visit with me assuming it would be of little interest to the chaps.

We ambled along, browsing the silky cottons, light wools, fluffy angoras and soft leathers. The clothing stalls were punctuated with food vendors encouraging us – me with little resistance – to sample their meats, cheeses and Mediterranean accoutrements. Delicious!

Lured out by the taste for a coffee, Chris and Robbie had settled at the local Tabac and were sipping on espresso. Admiring the yachts and watching the day go by, we unfolded our plan for the afternoon.

Far from ambitious, we picked a seafront seafood restaurant and had spectacular salmon and cod fish ‘n chips. This left enough time to get dressed and take the patio furniture out onto our stoep to share the last of the wine while we waited to be collected at 5 to go to Marseille for the rugby game.

Marjorie collected us and as an avid rugby fan was very excited to be attending the game with our South African contingent for authenticity. She chatted animatedly as she drove, pointing out things of interest as we passed. She had grown up in La Ciotat so had lots of interesting information to share.

Marseille was pumping! There was a sensory-overload of activities; French pub anthems booming out of speakers, people everywhere, beer flowing, flags flying. It was strange (and awesome) to see so many Springbok shirts in the hordes of people streaming up and down the Main Street that led up to the Stadium.

We knew of a few people that were also attending the game, one such a friend from Joburg who had emigrated the year before and now lived in Manchester. We’d been messaging back and forth over the weekend in an attempt to catch up but our paths had not yet crossed. This was our time!

We found Justin and his friends outside the Stadium and spent the next couple of hours together, reminiscing with our old friend and making new memories with the new ones.

Stadium access was very well organised and it was a pleasure to share the South Africa vs Tonga experience with 59996 the other spectators the Stadium was designed to hold. Sitting next to a Frenchman who was wearing an old Boks jersey, I managed to practice a little of my French as we exchanged stories of how he’d come by his jersey on a trip to SA and what my friends and I were going in France.

Cherry on the cake was our team winning the match and getting the bonus point required to move us closer to being promoted from our group into the quarter finals.

Travelogue Australia 2: Sydney

SYDNEY

28-31 January 2016

It was a good thing our transfer from Port Douglas to Cairns Airport was booked for when it was (13h00) because our little last frolick on the beach had flash-fried a decent tanning, which continued to set over the course of the drive to the airport and through the flight. Any longer and we (well, I. But you knew that) would have been burnt to a crisp!

Coral was again our driver but was (this time being in a people carrier with four other people) considerably less chatty and, from our position at the back of the van, the trip was all scenery sans narrative. A coup for Christian who had snoozed on the way there – and would most often opt for the road less Attenboroughed.

We were well in time for our flight and had even scored the prized front row seats with extra legroom (obviously online check-in isn’t a “thing” with the mature audience with whom we’d shared our off-season mini-break). We hadn’t expected an onboard meal so had had Hungry Jack at the airport (an amazing feat with one girl manning the cashier, cook and delivery functions; easily a 5 man operation at home)… but, never afraid to be a meal ahead, ate the roast beef and the chicken stir fry – and relished the Lindt ball and strawberry ice-cream dessert – that was served to us anyway.

Arriving at Sydney Airport, we were again pleased by our bags arriving on the carousel within minutes. It had given us just enough time to gather data for the bus/shuttle/taxi/train options, and we were set on taking the train to St James Station.

The airport was within the city so a mere 15 minutes later we emerged from the station at Hyde Park in Sydney Central. Around a corner and up the road and we were at our hotel, Megaboom.

Post check in, we were pleased to be vindicated that the hotel we’d chosen for its fun name was perfectly appointed and our suite nicely decked with the requisite creature comforts.

Everything had been so quick and easy since arriving that we got ahead of the game and took a trot down to Circular Quay to get an advance night sighting of the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. It was all very exciting, bar the Bridge having had its thunder stolen somewhat by the miniature (original, predecessor) version of it that we saw in Newcastle Upon Tyne the previousyear.

FRIDAY

Friday morning’s first mission was to meet up with Christian’s cousin, Helena, who had kindly offered to take time off to tourguide us on our Sydney weekend – along with her family, travelling from Canberra (Grant and Kurt coming from home) and Woolongong (Gabriella coming from uni) to spend time with us.

Helena made it really easy for us, planning daily bundles of excursions in advance but giving us bitesize sets of instructions to follow. It was easy enough to catch the 373 bus to Coogee and head towards the steps… and there she was!

After enthusiastic reunioning and introductions, group consensus was to begin our planned beach walk, which would wind us along the coastline all morning and end up at Bondi where we would meet up with Grant and his cousins (out from Germany and on their last day in Sydney) for lunch.

Coogee was a lovely beachfront, really idyllic and picture-perfect and, had it to do again, we should probably have spent more time there. But you never know these things up front and it seemed more pragmatic to get some walking under the belt while fresh – and less than practical to start the journey of 10,000 steps (hopefully) with wet swimmers and sandy slops.

The conversation – catch-ups, introductory staples and general – flowed easily as we walked along the path and up a hill and round a bend and through a park and past a bowling green… and emerged at Gordon’s Bay, which was a bit rough for swimming. Around the next bend found us at Clovelly, an interesting set-up with concrete decks on either side of the bay turning the inlet into a sort of outsized open-ended swimming pool. This apparently had been a busy-work project initiated by the government during the depression to keep people employed and productive. What a great idea; would be good if the devils at home could manufacture a few decent projects like that to keep some idle hands working.

Walking machines that we were, we whipped past the bathers and baskers, around the bay, out the other side, up and around the bend to Bronte Beach, where we stopped at one of the pavement cafés for a wetty. It was a really beautiful day so the area was buzzing and the beach populated (attributed to uni not being in session for the year yet); great for people-watching in our downtime.

Back on the road, the coast next took us to Tamarama Beach, where we must have looked the part since a lady craned out of the passenger side of the car to “excuse me” us to ask for directions to the Tamarama Beach Club, which by dumb luck we were able to provide since we’d just walked past a building with that name emblazened all along one facade (but which was obscured from the lost lady’s view because of her direction of approach) and the path to that building ran alongside the pavement (which she also wouldn’t have been able to see from her car).

Clearly old hats at this beach walk lark, it was little surprise when we rounded the next bend and were faced with Bondi Beach.

We had to cross most of the beach itself to get to the narrow swimming zone, demarcated by lifeguard flags. It was tough, being South African, to leave our things in our bag unattended on the sand while we swam (which obviously for me meant mid-shin wading).

In the meantime, Grant and his German cousins had arrived in Sydney, so we navigated them to our spot on the water’s edge. They were keen for a swim but since angry grey clouds had pulled in, we moved off the beach to the undercover corridor at the pavilion. None too soon either as soon it was raining up a storm!

No mind though, it would take more than a few raindrops to dampen our spirits (especially since we were still damp from the seawater!) so we walked down the road to the Bondi Hotel and had a very tasty lunch, meaning a barramundi and chips for Christian and I.

Over lunch we got the back story on the Germans. It was Grant’s cousin, Barbara, and her son, Simon, who were on a 5 week holiday in Aus. Fortuitously, their stay had overlapped with ours as they flew out of Sydney the day after we flew in, giving us the serendipitous Friday sweetspot. From lunch we got in another swim at Bondi before Barbara and Simon were driven to the airport and we returned to our hotel.

We reconvened with Helena and Grant at our hotel in the evening and headed to a recommended dumpling restaurant, Din Tai Fung, in Chinatown for dinner. We were hungry again after our 25+ thousand step day and shared a combination of steamed and fried dumplings for starters and all sorts of exotic treats for mains. Although not particularly late, we were among the last to leave the restaurant.

SATURDAY

Saturday started with a panic. Somehow my phone – despite being on the powerbank – had died overnight and Christian’s alarm hadn’t gone off, so we woke up 45 minutes later than the planned meeting time!! Our gracious travel companions were very easy going, so had thought nothing of it and gone ahead with meeting their kids as planned. We threw on some clothes and chucked some swimgear in our togbag and hightailed down the road to meet them at the coffee shop they’d chosen for brekkie.

They were very chill about our faux pas (now diagnosed as a flat powerbank and a 5-day week alarm) and perfectly happy enjoying their own company. So nice to meet the 2 new faces to put to all the stories I’ve heard over the years – and who I so narrowly missed meeting on their last trip to South Africa.

Group communed, we were ready to walk down to the harbour to catch our ferry to Manly Beach, which is across the water and just past the heads that serve as the entrance to the harbour.

Manly was very cool. The landing point must have served for decades because it was all old buildings that look like they could easily be 100 years old. From there it was a legit beachtown with wide pedestrian streets, market stalls and buskers and entertainers swapping atmosphere-creation for cash.

We did a bit of ambling and browsing, but really only attempted direction when the subject of lunch came up. Grant had mentioned earlier, when we’d arrived, that there was an infamous spot called Hotel Steyne that always made tabloid headlines for brawling among liquored Manly Sea Eagles, so that was enough to pique our curiosity and secure it as lunch destination du jour.

The restaurant was a lovely airy sea-facing dining room with self-service counters at the back. The food was delicious and we had very tasty toasties and pizzas. The Hotel seemed too savoury to believe the stories… until I realised, on going to find the loo to change into swimwear, that there was a whole lot more to it. Passing through the big front bar, the bustling courtyard full of checkered characters and the stale-beer smelling pokie room at the back, the stories seemed a bit more plausible.

We hit the beach and all enjoyed frolicking in the cool Pacific Ocean water, at our various chosen depths. Christian, still not getting the rules and compliance thing, got into trouble with the lifeguards for a constant commitment to swimming beyond the demarcated flag zones. The guards were tooting away on their whistles and bleating requests on their megaphones as he carried on bobbing, blissfully unaware… much to our amusement, watching from ankle-depth in the safe zone.

A family after my own heart, the suggestion was tabled to go get ice-cream so that brought to a close our episode on yet another of Sydney’s glorious beaches.

The ferry ride back to the city is quite quick and pleasant, so it must be a pleasure to live somewhere as lovely as Manly and commute in and out of the city.

On our way back in, we happened to pass a Gallagher’s Irish pub so felt obliged to stop in to measure the Guinness Index. $10 a pint, putting Sydney into 2nd place (still behind Hong Kong). The Wellington 7s was on and our timing totally coincidentally coincided with the SA vs New Zealand, which we narrowly lost in the last plays after the final whistle. All was not lost though since we were still through to the next round and teed up to play Australia in the quarter final.

Having made the pitstop, we had to move to get back to the hotel and get showered and changed to meet the others for dinner.

We’d decided on another visit to Chinatown after the success of the previous evening – and on Gabriella’s recommendation of an authentic but modest dumpling place. It was an excellent suggestion and everything we ordered (to share between us) was amazing!\

SUNDAY

The big plan for Sunday was to meet up with old friends from SA, Carrie and Andre, who had emigrated in 2015. The arrangement was for us to go through to their house in the ‘burbs in the early arvo, so it left the morning for us to see The Rocks and Darling Harbour.

The Rocks is the old section of town which had been the first settlement when the original migrants had made Sydney their home. Helena and I had a lengthy discussion as we walked en route about the hows and whys of who went past this then-remote neck of the woods, thinking that it seemed very out of the way in a time when travel was, to be base, a bit of a schlep.

We rationalised that it perhaps was in perspective when you consider that those voyagers were traversing the globe for a few spices and whatnot and if that was enough to motivate, then maybe a little tropical pitstop was a treat after all. Gabriella picked up the tail end of our convo and piped up “Well, I’d come here for a packet of chips and a high five”, which is a winning tagline for the Sydney Tourism Board if I’ve ever heard one!

Not sure about the first settlers (“unlikely to have scored a bag of chips nor cared for a high five” as Gabriella put it), but the next few batches can’t be faulted for wanting to stay. The Rocks is a perfectly preserved slice of history, with the turn of the last century buildings and narrow cobbled streets now housing a generous helping of cafés and restaurants as well as a street market (possibly only a Sunday thing?)

It was easy enough to find space at a café to settle in for some brunch and an enormous toastie and milkshake hit the spot, as we soaked in the atmosphere in the shadow of the famous bridge.

Keeping up our steps, we walked from The Rocks to Darling Harbour. Part of the fun was taking in the foreignness of all the strange Aussie names of things:
Girra Girra Steps, Waranara Terrace, Nawi Cove. All very exotic.

We were given some background on and a basic run-through of Darling Harbour, which was sadly the end of the line for our tour courtesy of the Michls. The few days we’d had together had been so much fun that it was with a heavy heart that we parted ways at Town Hall station to embark on the next segment of our adventure.

Dab hands at the train system, we found the train to Hornsby effortlessly and were soon on our way – for the first time – over the bridge and into the ‘burbs.

Carrie was waiting for us at the station (for some time, I suspect, since our timings had been so sketchy) and we were delighted to reunite! She took us on a quick tour through her new home town and we were soon at their lovely new(ish) home.

It was awesome to catch up with the Boshoffs who, we couldn’t believe, had lived in Sydney for a year already! They were still amazing hosts and lavished us with a lamb shank feast in their charming lush green back yard to the soundtrack of the babbling creek that flowed in the bridged canal flowing between the house and garden.

With a bellyful of deliciousness on board, the plan was hatched to take a trot down to the Cole’s store to get some brownie mix and ice-cream for dessert. A good opportunity to see the neighbourhood on the ground. We also ended up buying a replacement case of beers, which was less than optimal for poor Christian who had to hump them all the way home!

The brownies more than made up for it though, teasing us with delicious aroma while we waited patiently for them to bake, amusing ourselves with trying to fathom the mystery that is Aussie Rules football.

Comfortable in the living room, we watched the first few episodes of The Last Man on Earth while we enjoyed our dessert and stretched the last section of our day together, before our hosts drove us to the train station for our return journey to the city.

MONDAY

Now very au fait with the lay of the land, we opted to go to Town Hall station… and logicked on our walk back to the hotel that this would also be the better station in the morning because, even though a little further on the train, it’d be an easier station to get to in the morning throng since it was a flat walk with fewer traffic crossings than the shorter, downhill, weaving walk to St James. And, with a 09h45 flight requiring us to be at the airport around 07h30, prudence  would be of the essence.

We could not be more wrong. We emerged from the hotel at 07h00 to an empty street and only encountered the first other lone sole at the first intersection! There were progressively more people as we approached the station, with a few mini-bursts of life as our flightpath happened to cross-section a bus stop… but certainly nothing you’d call a “rush hour”. Maybe Central wakes up later because it’s retail driven? Maybe there’s a business district bustling elsewhere?

We were at the station in minutes, convinced that we’d be faced with a flood of people coming in on the train we’d need for the airport journey, as has been common on our previous experiences with metropolitan primetime public transport travel. We stood back on the platform, prepared for the influx to disembark before we tried to enter the train.

The train arrived.

We waited for the rush – both people – to exit before making ourselves comfortable in the caboose we had all to ourselves.

The hard part done, Sydney Airport International Terminal was only 5 stops for us, so we were at our destination before 07h30. What a win!

Sweet sorrow to conclude our Aussie Adventure. And really sad news that they’re all first world and automated so there’s no stamp in the passport to commemorate a truly excellent vaycay.

Travelogue Australia 1: Port Douglas

PORT DOUGLAS | GREAT BARRIER REEF

22-28 January 2016

For the first time ever, our beloved Emirates didn’t run like clockwork. We were informed as we neared Dubai that our landing would be delayed because of thick mist over the airport. The delay was only an hour… but an hour was enough to jeopardise our connecting flight to Brisbane!

On (eventually) landing, we were relieved to see that we hadn’t missed our flight because, like many others, it had been delayed for 2 hours in the domino effect the mist had caused. The relief was short-lived as we realised that this salvation was at the very real risk of missing our next flight, the connection from Brisbane to Cairns, which had only 2 hours transit time.

Never ones to have our spirits dampened by logistics, we drowned our concerns in the buffet in the Business Lounge. Scottish salmon, prawns, Champagne, a hotdog and mini doughnut (for good measure) later and we were truly in a “what will be, will be” headspace when we boarded the plane for our 16 hour flight.

Sadly, the Bourbon-fuelled old worry-wart next to us in the window seat of our 3-seater row, reminded us several times of the implications of the delay since – sorry for him – his connection was an hour after the original landing time so he had a snowball’s hope in hell of catching it. And had us in hell living and re-living the prospect.

But, the travel gods (or rather, the Aussie work ethic since it was all thanks to our luggage coming out on the carousel quicksticks) were on our side, and we whipped through the controls, which deposited us neatly in front of the Virgin Australia check-in desk to hand over our luggage for the short hop to Cairns. What simple genius to have a Domestic check-in counter in the International Arrivals so you don’t have to hump everything across the airport between terminals!

And a good thing too because Christian got into trouble as it was for jumping on the terminal transfer bus through the back door, which was right in front of him when the bus stopped. Despite no signage to that effect, the driver was insistent that it was Exit Only and made Christian get off the bus and come through the front door… only to walk down the length of the bus to take the exact same seat. Christian might have been less compliant if he’d already humped our 2 big suitcases in with him!

The 2-hour Cairns flight was an excellent time to nap, with lots of legroom and nobody sharing our 3-seater, and we were soon in sunny Cairns with our private transfer driver ready and waiting for us. Her name was Coral, not a word of a lie! She joked that the only thing that contested with her for most things named after it, is Cook this-that-and-the-other, after Captain James Cook, who had the first contact with this part of the world.

Coral (The Driver) was very knowledgeable and shared snippets of interest on what we were passing as we took the scenic hour-long drive along the Cook Highway (a bit of a misnomer, being a delightful meandering mostly single lane road). It was mostly tropical forest creeping up the mountain (the same range that runs all the way down to Sydney) on the left and the Coral Sea on the right, with intermittent traffic circles which allow access to the artery that runs to the coastal towns dotted along the tropical North East Queensland coastline. The Australian Government had strictly regulated big chain access into this part of their country, so everything was still quaint and countrified.

The road into Port Douglas – our final destination, EVENTUALLY, having left home on Friday night and arriving Sunday afternoon! – was lined with hundred of huge palm trees, a disproportionately grandiose entrance to the charming boutique seaside town.

We had booked into By The Sea luxury apartments because of its high rating for location, but its reviews had understated completely. Placed on the corner of Macrossan Street (home to all the retail and entertainment action) and The Esplanade (running along our end of 4 Mile Beach), we could not have asked for better. And we didn’t have to ask. For anything. The hotel included EVERYTHING in their package. We could get (free) beach chairs, loungers, towels, beach games, bicycles, cooler boxes, ice, DVDs, books, gym equipment, laptops, tablets, boardgames etc etc etc from reception. No charge, no rush to return. How very awesome; what a nice touch!

After our long haul to get to Port Douglas, we were amped to see the place! A quick shower and some clean clothes later and we were on our way out and into town to get some supplies. Being walking distance from anywhere to anywhere, Port Douglas managed to cram everything you need for a perfect holiday – beach, restaurants, pubs, excursions suppliers and essential holidays goods shops – in a handful of roads and we had placed ourselves perfectly to access everything.

Starting with a gander of the famous (well, to us anyway, having read all the travel info in the onflight magazine) 4 Mile Beach, we slipped off our slops and hit the sand. It was a strange beach; not the soft white sand you’d think, the sand was compacted and solid underfoot, like the tide permanently only just went out. There were also “stingers” rife, so you couldn’t swim anywhere but in a small demarcated area, fenced by tight mesh nets and manned by lifeguards. It was really unusual to see so many people walking along the beach, but not breaking the waterline.

I delighted in walking on the little balls of sand that (presumably) crabs spit out when making their tunnels. It was sort of like sandy bubble wrap or crashing through piles of crunchy leaves; weirdly addictive.

Beach seen, we tried the other direction. A short trot down Macrossan Street (well, the full length) and we were at the bayfront, which Coral had said was a popular sundowner spot. We agreed, so we double-backed and got the groceries (the usual bread, bacon, cheese, eggs), as well as a selection of local beers – tinnies singles so we could sample a selection.

We returned to By The Sea to drop off our spoils and take advantage of the cooler box and ice on offer. Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we headed for the park to enjoy our first Aussie sunset.

There were several people who had the same idea – a mixed bag of young and old, families and couples – so we had plenty to keep us entertained with the sea in front of us and (amongst other things) the heated family cricket game right behind us.

It was a simple pleasure to see people enjoying public space. And even more so to see them respecting what they have been given. The park was spotless and well maintained – even the public ablution block which was unmanned, but clean was and in perfect working order, which would sadly never be the case at home.

On our way home we made the traditional stop in the Irish bar (uncreatively named Paddy’s) for a Guinness to log it against our growing Guinness Index. At R96 a pint, it comes in 5th behind Hong Kong, Toledo, Reykjavic and UK. It was an expensive way to comfort us against the extortionate price our local at home, the Baron, charges (R36 a pint), which prompted the global research!

While at Paddy’s we were recommended pizzas at Rattle & Hum Pizza bar and, never ones to turn down a pizza, it made the perfect dinner plan. Needless to say, the whole experience was different to home… but the most disturbing was when we asked for the condiments (expecting chopped garlic and chilli) and we given little sealed tubs of prepacked “garlic aoli”, a sort of creamed garlic sauce. Really not the same.

Exhausted from the travel, we were home and in bed by 9!

… and only woke up at midday on Monday! 15 hours sleep to get over the travel!

MONDAY

It was overcast which had no doubt contributed to our lie-in, but it was still 27 degrees with 90% humidity so the beach was the natural choice for the afternoon.

But, before that, we had important business. Lunch. And booking our Great Barrier Reef Tour.

We walked down to the Bay since that seemed the most logical place for boat companies and we hit paydirt. We got megawraps at Hog’s Breath Diner from their lunchtime bargain $9.90 menu AND we got a chance to review the literature on the various company and tour options. We narrowed down our choices and crossed off the shortlist by visiting the respective companies until we settled on the Calypso full day tour to the Outer Reef, with 2 snorkels and a dive (Christian’s first!) between Agincourt and Opal Reefs.

Very pleased with our accomplishments, we walked back to our sanctum to commence our afternoon’s beachtime.

Arming ourselves with loungers, towels and books from the resort library, we took the left turn onto The Esplanade and hit the 4 Mile Beach. Knowing what to expect this time, we handled ourselves like locals, dropping off our loungers and our bag near the lifeguard tower and taking a long walk along the beach to see if the 4 Mile bit was literal.

We can’t be empirically sure, but it seemed credible enough. The beach was on a shallow concave bay so even though it felt like you were walking in a straight line toward a corner, you never reached the corner because you were on a constant gradual curve. We gave the curve a half hour and then turned around and retraced our footsteps.

The burst of activity having made up for our slothly start to the day, we felt justified in spending the rest of the afternoon lounging about and soaking in the view, until it started to get dark so we retreated to the heated pool at our resort.

Impossible to resurrect ourselves for public consumption, we decided to get DVDs from the resort library and make nachos for dinner (we had all the supplies already and our unit had a convection microwave, so it couldn’t be simpler). Again we were grateful for our choice of digs – literally everything we could ask for!

By the time we’d cooked, eaten (in a very civilised fashion at the table on our private patio) and watched our movies, it was (again) the early hours of the morning. It was clear that acclimatising wasn’t going to be an overnight game!

TUESDAY

Tuesday started a little later than planned, but still in the a.m., which was a good start. As it turned out it was a public holiday, Australia Day, so there were festivities planned in town. We prepared with a bacon sarmie, using one slice of bacon each… although Aussie bacon packs the same size as home consist of only 3 humongous rashers per pack! Each rasher being easily as long as my forearm, elbow to fingertip!

In keeping with the patriotism, we decided to tick off all the hotspots on the tourist map we’d been provided by our reception on arrival. On closer inspection, we were tickled to see that few of the landmarks were of actual historical significance and we’d incidentally already seen/been to most of the places on the map.

Still, we needed to take a turn past the festival being held at the park and that was the start of Murphy street which ran parallel between Macrossan and the sea and would loop us neatly back to our beach, where we could complete the afternoon.

Getting to the park was easy. Lots of the restaurants and shops in town were closed for the public holiday… and EVERYONE was at the park. The organisers had picket-fenced off most of the park for a big marquee that housed 4 eating stations (obviously the 4 top restaurants in town) and they’d even set up 2 smaller marquees on either end, one with a generous band line-up and the other with entertainment like pie judging and tug ‘o war contests. Very festive.

We circled the event and then realigned with our original plan to head up Murphy Street to the lookout point. The map did not show how steep the road was though and – in the stuffy humid heat – we were puffing, panting and sopping by the time we got to the top of the short hill. The view was pretty though, so glad we did it, all considered.

At least we were able to go down the other side of the hill and end up at our corner, grab the usual collection of beach paraphernalia and call it a day.

Having to be at (and that means walking to) our dive shop at 8am for boarding our dive trip, we needed an early night. We hit the Cole’s supermarket (the only chain allowed in town – and fast becoming our favourite place thanks to their range, prices and unwavering commitment to airconditioning!) and picked up a tray of lasagne. We complemented our glamorous dinner fittingly by picking up a bottle of wine from the hole-in-the-wall bottleshop; literally a booth counter in the wall, with a glass window where you could browse the merchandise, which you ask the cashier to fetch for you.

Despite our best attempt at responsible behaviour, we both still nearly didn’t sleep a wink, both worried we’d sleep through our 3 alarms (all set to different times in line with their respective SA / Dubai / Aus settings) and miss our dive trip.

WEDNESDAY

Of course we (Christian) didn’t and soon enough it was 07h00 and we were fuelling up with scrambles on toast, heading out the door, traversing town like seasoned pro’s and at the dock with time to spare.

There were about 30 people in all on our trip; 7 diving, with all but me on an intro dive. This meant that the best course of action was for us to snorkel the first site and then dive separately at the second (Chris with the intro group and me with a dedicated dive master who could take me a few metres deeper than the intro group) and then the option existed for us to either snorkel or dive the last site.

The boat took us out to the farthest point and we had a brilliant first experience with the world-famous (!) bucketlist (!) Great. Barrier. Reef! The visibility was spectacular. being able to see 30-40 metres in the crystal clear water… not that you needed to when the action is all so close to the surface. With the coral growing best in the sunlight, there was a great deal to see within a few metres under the surface. Even so, at the edge of the coral shelf, where the depths plunge, the water looks bright royal blue and was translucent so you could still see quite a distance below, to see the likes of the turtle and small shark we saw within the first few minutes of the excursion!

It seemed like a tall order to beat, but the scuba diving was truly spectacular. Christian had an incredible opportunity to have his first dive in such a magnificent place – and he was amped to do it again (although we’ll have to carefully consider where if we’re going to meet his expectations with the bar set this high!).

My dive was naturally excellent too, being lucky enough to have a private dive at my pace and duration. The highlight was seeing sharks up close. Even though these local sharks are too small to eat people (and have no interest in us), it was still electrifying to be so close to something in the wild. At one point I was nothing short of mesmerised by a shark a few metres from me that was swimming in a loose figure of 8 through a shoal of silvery fish that shimmered and sheened around it giving it an ethereal glow. Of course the dive instructor took all the magic out of it later when he explained that this was likely part of the shark’s ecosystem / hygiene routine… drat.

We opted to snorkel the last site since it was a high reef with lots to see on the surface and worked on our free-diving with the snorkels instead to add to our rapidly-increasing range of aqua skills.

What a day. Really truly awesome.

We rounded off with a seafood dinner (of course) of the local speciality, barramundi, a white flaky fish that was done beautifully in a thick, fluffy and crunchy batter and served with a mountain of chips. It started to drizzle during dinner and our timing could not have been better because soon after we got back to our spot, it started coming down in sheets! So hard it took out the town’s electricity and the whole of Port Douglas was in blackout.

The rain in Port Douglas was something else. It came down hard and for long periods. It rained through almost every night, incessant throughout the night. Presumably it was typical of tropical climates (and this wasn’t even anywhere near monsoon season!). And they do say that the rain in Port Douglas is measured in metres, not centimetres. And it was kind enough to rain at night rather than dampening the daytimes. But surely all this rain should ease up the humidity somewhat?!?

The rain was probably why the beach sand is so odd. It was always like some rogue wave has washed up the shoreline and flattened what should be soft white sand. No doubt it was a combination of the punishing rain all night and the inability for anything to dry because of the humidity. It had taken Christian’s shirt 2 day to dry after our traipse up to lookout point – and that was on our covered patio under the ceiling fan!

THURSDAY

Our last morning was a bright and sunny one so we ditched our original plan to use resort bicycles to take a ride down the beachfront to Wilderness Village (a zoo habitat thingie) in favour of taking advantage of our beach a last time. The sun was bright, the sky blue and the sea (well, our little demarcated swimming section) warm as a bath. Paradise!

Travelogue Newcastle 2

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE 2

08-11 October 2015

Our walk to the bus station in Reykjavic at 5.30am (!) was easier than both our arrival walk and our expectation. Apparently bloody cold doesn’t feel any bloody colder bloody early! As if by way of an approving farewell after our awesome adventure, the Northern Lights blinked green flashes on the few clear patches of the otherwise cloudy sky, by way of farewell.

We made good time and immediately boarded the bus (with 15 minutes to spare) to nap on the 40 minute commute to the airport which, as usual, was a waiting game with little but foraging for breakfast to keep us entertained until departure.

It makes good sense to be knackered for an Easyjet flight though. The seats are wide and comfortable enough but with no reclining and no entertainment, it’s best to be tired enough to sleep away the journey. Fortunately, my niggling cold and antihistamines from the airport rendered me unconscious, so I’m sure it was a lovely enough flight for those that were “there” to enjoy it.

Manchester Airport is another thing entirely. The car hire is at an off-site ‘village’ so we were guided to a shuttle bus stop that would lead us to the chariot that would get us back home to The Toon. It took forever to come…

And then – horror of horrors! – I found out that Alex had booked with Europcar… which anyone who lived through our Spain Great Car Hire Saga of 2013 would know was questionable territory for us. But, when we made Christian co-driver on the rental agreement our agent, Yakov, said he was already loaded on the system and upgraded us to a large Skoda stationwagon “for all our luggage”, which totalled 2 small carry-on cases and 2 togbags. Still, it was very roomy and comfortable so small mercies from the karmic wheel turning.

The English countryside is prettier than its given credit for and we all wondered why we never road trip the journey rather than mapping the destination.

We made it back to Tynemouth in one piece, largely thanks to Alex’s tireless driving and navigating (with a small special mention to the Burger King at the truckstop), in time to refresh and jump on the Metro to Newcastle Central for our concert.

The concert venue, the O2 Newcastle, has the feel of a converted theatre in size and layout, but must’ve been a concert hall for a fair amount of time based on the lived-in wooden flooring and the smell of stale beer.

The tickets had advertised starting time as 7pm – which seemed fitting with Bad Manners‘ frontman (Buster Bloodvessel) well into his sixties – so we were relieved on arrival to see it was still a supporting act on stage. There was, in fact, still another supporting act to follow – a tribute band called The Extra Specials, who specialise in covering The Specials’ songs – and soon the fatter aging fans were huffing and puffing from their pogo’ing and carrying on.

Most of the audience had made efforts to dress the part for the evening and there were more Oxblood Doc Martens in one place than I can remember ever seeing, even in our heyday. Braces, brogues, monochromatic outfits – the uniform for the non-conformist!

Bad Manners gave an excellent (and lengthy) performance and the crowd gave an equally enthusiastic response, with some of the older fellas taking survival breaks along the way.

We shouldn’t point fingers too much though since after the concert, early hours of Christian’s birthday ‘n all, our after-party of choice was not to party all night in Newcastle, but to go home and midnight snack on toasted cheese sarmies!

FRIDAY

The weekend’s arrangements in general were much looser since we’d done all our sightseeing the previous weekend. We’d already made plans to meet Natalia and Uncle Bill at Lui’s for a coffee at 11 and Lucy, Mick and the kids at the new fish shack on King Edward Bay for lunch, so had the luxury of a lie-in and breakfast of choice for Christian’s birthday, bacon sandwiches. Alex and Robbie had been nice enough to sneak out and drop off the car (in Newcastle Central) so met up with us at Lui’s.

It’s always nice to meet in person people who you’ve heard so much about or sort-of know from Facebook. Feels like you’ve got so much catching up to do with people you’ve never even met before!

Our coffee date went all too quickly so we convinced Natalia to come to lunch with us. Uncle Bill was having none of that (“in my day fish ‘n chips were for poor people!”) but was easily talked into a lunch date for noon the following day for a carvery at The Gibraltar Rock, so there was no need for long goodbyes and we all had something to look forward to.

That said, we were off to lunch. The Riley’s Fish Shack was quite a surprise – far off the usual greasy chippie, the choices were mackerel, red mullet or monkfish all served in a paper basket lined with a wood-fired oven bread akin to a naan, with the fish and 3 scoops of 3 different salads nestled around the edges and an artistic swirl of 2 different sauces to top it off. Everything was fresh and crunchy and between the naan-like bread, the sambal-like salad and the curry-like sauce swirl, Christian was pleased as punch with his birthday lunch!

We’d been very lucky with the weather (enough so that there had been half-naked swimmers at the fish shack! Not that it was anywhere near warm enough to warrant that, mind!) so decided to make the most of the clear day and enjoy a beer at a pavement table in the sunshine on Front Street. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea and the only available table was at the Working Man’s Club, which was good enough for us.

As soon as the sun started setting behind the church it started to get chilly, which was perfect impetus to get us moving to get home and into warmer evening gear for the trip to Newcastle for the New Zealand vs Tonga game.

It was the last game of the day so, at a19h45, allowed us opportunity for a civilised dinner in Tynemouth, rather than competing with the crowds in town.

The pie, mash and gravy at the Turks Head was so good it felt like it was MY birthday! The menu format is very simple and effective, guiding you through choice of pie flavour (chicken & mushroom, steak & ale, venison or potato & leek), choice of mash variant (plain, cheesy, horseradish or mustard), choice of side (peas, mint peas, mushy peas or beans) and then sauce (gravy or red wine sauce) so you get the exact combination you want. And for a fiver it was a quality bargain meal! It was so filling that we were all a bit sluggish on the journey and the boys didn’t even have a drink in the first half of the game!

There had only been 2 rugby tickets for this game so Alex and I had a wander around the town and the fan park then cut through the China Town to get to Harry’s, where we’d planned to meet the boys later. Even with our walking, we were still a bit full so nursed a drink while we people-watched.

The boys joined us soon after and showed us a video of the stand-off between the Kiwi’s Haka and the Tongan equivalent. The stadium was pin-drop silent during the performance but roared in appreciation when the players were done. I zoned out on the rest of the feedback from the game since NZ always win, don’t they?

We caught a cab back to Front Street, where it looked like things were winding down… but we still managed to get in last rounds with Mick at a spot we hadn’t yet tried, called Lola’s.

SATURDAY

Our last day allowed us a very leisurely start, only needing to be at the carvery for noon. Of course, this also meant we were *ravenous* when we got there and dished up *way* too much food… and finished *all* of it. Three roasts, four veg, two (types of) potatoes, Yorkshire pud; all swimming in gravy and all gone very quickly!

The Cain contingent across the table (Uncle Bill, Natalia and Aunty Mary) had dished more conservatively, but seemed to enjoy their meal just as much so we can conclude that it’s a winner even when the meal isn’t as much of an emergency life/death situation. (And a bargain at 2 people for 10 Pounds!)

Even with the frenzied feeding upfront, we still enjoyed a leisurely lunch date and a lengthy chat. We bid farewell to Uncle Bill and Aunty Mary from there, but Natalie caught the Metro into Newcastle with us because she had a shopping date planned with her friend, James. She also tipped us to visit the Grainger Street Market if time allowed after the game.

We made it to the stadium in the nick of time, hearing the Samoan anthem as we were walking in and getting to our seats just in time for the opening bars of “Flower of Scotland”. Our seats were near the front of the section behind and just to the right of the posts that saw all the action in both halves – the Samoan offensive in the first half and Scotland’s in the second. To my mind, we could not have asked to be better placed for a game that seemed to have more than the usual tryline action.

After the game we made our way back to Grey Street so the boys could watch the Australia game while we went to investigate the market. It was relatively late for the market so most of it was shut already, but there were still a few shops worth investigating.

Intent on (another) curry dinner, we made our way back from Newcastle to Tynemouth to have a sit-down at Gate of India. It had other ideas however and we were put off by the long queue for both in-dining and take-away so cut our losses and headed for home for sausage sandwiches instead.

SUNDAY

Our quiet night had us up and fresh early on Sunday for our final packing and cleaning before meeting Mick and Lucy at Lui’s for breakfast at 9, so that Alex and Robbie could be off for their 10h30 train back to London, Mick could get to work and Lucy and the girls could get Christian and I to the airport for 11.

Another brilliant holiday all wrapped up; thanks to all the people that made it possible and special! And thanks to Newcastle Upon Tyne; we will be back!

Travelogue Iceland

ICELAND

04-07 October 2015

I’d wanted to go to Iceland since about the time I first encountered the Chappies fact “Did you know? Reykjavic is the world’s most northerly capital”. It sounded so far. So remote. So exotic. Very alluring.

I’m not sure I ever really seriously thought I’d get to Iceland though because it’s so far. So remote. Very expensive.

But opportunity presented itself when the Rugby World Cup 2015 placed us in Newcastle Upon Tyne in Northern England with games a week apart… leaving the week in between as the perfect chance to sandwich the bucketlist trip. And we do love a good sandwich, so it was an easy sell to Christian, and our trusty travelmates from London.

The hardest part was coordinating the planes, trains and automobiles (or, more literally, the taxi, plane and bus) to get us from Newcastle to Reykjavic quickly and economically. Fortunately, Alex can Google a travelplan like nobody’s business so with her masterplanning and my negotiating on Airbnb, we soon enough had the method and the destination sorted.

Opting for a private taxi to get us to Edinburgh was genius, door-to-door with no worries and no mucking about. The bus on the Iceland side was simple enough since the locals are very smart in coordinating shuttles to coincide with flight arrivals. Sounds obvious, but I’d bet OR Tambo International Airport would never come up with something so practical.

Iceland had a tiny population of approximately 330,000 people, most of whom live in the capital. This has always been the case, with the founding population burgeoning in the first 25 years (from establishment in 874) to about 10,000 people, and then rising to 30,000 by 930. Interestingly, Iceland’s tourism is growing so rapidly that they’re now seeing multiple times their population in people from all over the world (mostly in summer, I suspect).

Reykjavic was discovered in 874 AD by a Norseman emigrating from Norway at a time when high taxes were being imposed and land becoming scarce. He named it “Smokey Cove” because of the smokey haze created in the bay by geothermal steam. This natural warm water has longsince been piped into the cities and used for heating houses, but is so abundant that they have now even laid plastic tubing below the pavements in town and run natural heated water through it to defrost them in winter. Iceland is very proud to create all of its power from renewable energy sources, with 25% coming from thermal and 75% from hydro.

Our welcome to Reykjavic was bittersweet since it was drizzling and we had a very sketchy tourist map to get us to our quarters…. which we knew was supposed to be an easy walk from the BSI (central bus station). Alas, we took a wrong turn, took the long way around and were very grateful when we found our road and our wonderful house.

We’d managed another Airbnb win with this booking – a large Victorian looking home, with spacious unkempt front garden and welcoming driveway. Knocking at the (wrong) door revealed an old lady who was nice enough to let us in anyways, even though we were supposed to have gone around to the entrance at the back of the house. We were led along her hallway to a door that opened onto a landing. Her son was actually our host and he lived upstairs and our apartment was downstairs in the basement.

The whole house was warm and our flat had big rooms and soft lighting, so was very inviting after the long journey.

Nonetheless, we didn’t get to enjoy it for long as it was edging on 10pm and we were long past dinnertime, so we kitted up again and headed into the night to find somewhere to feed us.

Fortunately that turned out to be no more than a block away and we were soon settled in a bustling and lively kebab shop, devouring very tasty lamb schwarmas and washing them down with Viking beer.

It was a short and functional dinner because we had to get to the supermarket before it closed at 11pm. Our host, Sigurjon, had been nice enough to stock us a loaf of bread, a big block of cheese and some basic breakfast items like coffee, bread and milk, but we needed supplies for our planned tour the next day.

The shop was an education in itself. Everything is SO expensive in Iceland! Our picnic pack ended up being very modest – hotdog rolls (that come in packs of 5, oddly), some ham (to partner with Sigurjon’s cheese, which looked to be something in the lines of Emmenthal), a small pot of mayo and a dozen eggs – and it was over R220!

Still, not enough to lose sleep over. And our house proved to be very comfortable and warm, thanks to the thermal heating, and we slept the sleep of cocooned babies.

MONDAY: GOLDEN CIRCLE TOUR

Monday was an early start with our tour company collecting us from our house at 08h30.  Nonetheless, we were up early enough to boil some eggs and toast some bread to ensure we were heading into the Golden Circle on the best footing.

Our driver/guide was an excellent storyteller and kept us updated and entertained as we picked up the last passengers and headed out of town.

He gave us a crash-course in geology, explaining how tectonic plates float on the Earth’s mantle and how shifting plates lead to eruptions, which cause lava to flow onto the surface and create new crust. Iceland is positioned above very active plates with volcanic eruptions on average every 5 years. That said, there have been 3 eruptions in the last year illustrating that the island is actually – in cosmic universe time – still very much in formation phase.

Our first destination was Thingvellir (Parliament Planes) National Park rift valley lake, which is about 84 square kilometres in size (about the size of the island of Manhattan). Thingvellir lies on the junction of the plates which is more clearly visible here than anywhere else in the world because the two plates are constantly diverging, causing fissures and gullies throughout the zone.

We alighted at Logberg where we followed a walking trail that illustrated the areas claim to fame via a series of info boards. Apparently back in the day, when Iceland was little more than a series of fledgling settlements, this was the area where chieftains from all around the island met up annually to discuss things and stuff, deal with matters affecting everyone (in a seemingly very civilised democratic manner) and dole out justice on criminal enquiries. As per legacy of Viking violence and vengeance, the legal council would decide on crime and punishment but it was up to the aggrieved party to enforce – mostly beheading for men, drowning for women and hanging for thieves who were seen to be the lowest of the low, even behind those found guilty of incest and infanticide, which were both rife.

The location is breathtaking and the council meetings must have been something to look forward to, especially for the people representing the Northern parts with their long relentless dark and freezing winters.

The guide pointed out the spots where the TV show Game of Thrones was filmed, most recognisable being where Briana battled The Hound and where the Wildlings fought off the Cannibals. He told us other references of arthouse films that were shot there, but none rang any bells.

Back on the bus, we headed to Gullfoss (“Gold Falls”); a wild waterfall that falls a combined 31m between a 11m fall narrowed from a wide river with an abrupt 90 degree right turn and immediate secondary 20m fall. The water rages and torrents and it was obvious that all the signs warning not to cross weren’t being dramatic in the slightest.

Of course, one of the storyboards tell the legend of how a fella from the side of the river we were on was enamoured by a farmgirl on the other side of the river and thus braved the river to swim across to her. Comically, the story concludes with saying that they’re unsure of the girl’s response to the boy’s arrival… but they “had many well-respected children”. Sounds like they know exactly what the girl’s response was!

On our drive from the falls to the geysers, our driver pointed out that there are no reptiles or insects, no cockroaches, no ants, no rodents in Iceland, just an abundance of birds. *No Spiders* has to be big tourism (immigration even?) booster!

There are also no trees, per se. The biggest “trees” are no more than thigh high. This is because Iceland used to be mostly under the sea, back in the Ice Age where hundreds of metres of ice was so heavy that it weighed down Iceland, which essentially floats on magma, such that the lowlands were submerged (forming the sea bed) and the highlands would have been a collection of small islands.

The soil is consequently still rich with seaweed composites and minerals, making it very fertile… but not enough so to counterbalance the conditions above ground. Consequently, the majority of ground cover is mosses and grasses. And the Icelandic, with their offbeat sense of humour, enjoy the often-told joke: What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up!

The stop at the geysers was scheduled as 90 minutes so, despite having scoffed our cheese and ham sarmies, we opted to try the traditional kjotsupa (lamb soup) in the restaurant to kill some time. Over R1000 for 4 soups and 4 beers – eeek! Luckily the soup was really excellent – a broth full of flavour with chunky potatoes and veg and a generous portion of lamb – which took the sting out a bit.

Warmed from the inside by the soup, we were ready to watch the geyser. The main geyser, Stokkur, erupts every few minutes so we’d been advised to be poised finger-on-the-button to snap photos as the hot water gushed from the crater into a plume several metres in the air. We were lucky and got it first time!

We’d also been warned to stay on the path since the geysers obviously emanate from underground and there’s no guarantee how deep the crust is closer to the craters (but the paths have been reinforced). Apparently every year there’s *someone* who falls through the crust and gets scalded by the hot water below. We didn’t venture off the path but had to marvel at the fools that did, and at the curious who’d remove a glove to test the rivulets streaming away from the geysers… and then, everytime, flick their hands in disbelief when the water burned them.

On the way to the last stop, the driver made an unplanned diversion when he saw a paddock with horses. He stopped the bus and had us line up at the fence even though the horses were far away at the other side of the field. Sure enough they all came over to visit with us and the guide told us that Icelandic horses, while descended from Norwegian horses, have been bred to be quite unique, specifically in terms of size and sociability. The horses are distinctly middle-sized, are very friendly and have a lovely thick coats creating duskier colouring than other horses.

The impromptu horse experience stole the thunder of the last sight, a waterfall not particularly high but wide.

We were dropped off back at our house at around 5pm. We confirmed our return with our South African friend who had recently moved to Iceland on work contract, so that she could make her way over to our house.

We were smart enough to have acquired vodka at duty free (having been warned about the extortionate prices in Iceland) which we combined with orange cordial and genuine, fresh, icy-cold, straight-out-of-the-tap Icelandic water for not-so-fancy but will-do-nicely-thanks sundowners.

Jean-Leigh had only been in Reykjavic for 6 weeks but had much to tell about the life, logistics and must-see of the city. She also told us that her arrival brought the South African contingent living in Iceland to 94 people, which is way more that we’d have thought.

There was some conjecture about what to do for dinner since Icelandic specialities stretch beyond the food of bygone eras to include very accessible categories from the Western world, no doubt largely owing to the large American base in Reykjavik that was maintained from World War II until relatively recently. This in mind, we bowed to the highly recommended (by Jean-Leigh, the internet and the selection of travel guides we’d browsed along the way) Lebowski’s, named after the cult classic movie, “The Big Lebowsky” and famed for amazing burgers in a highly stylised setting.

The call was a good one and we all ordered different things and all the food looked amazing. Using this as the benchmark and making a pointed effort to observe burgers wherever we went, it was easy to see why Western food was becoming an Icelandic speciality – they just do it better than we do.

The burgers (standard 150g) are perfectly proportioned to generous amounts of topping, that include sweet streaky bacon, melt-in-your mouth cheese and bearnaise sauce popping up frequently and when you’d least expect it. We also later found out that all their meat is organic, still farmed the old way where animals are left to graze in the hills and the mountains all summer and then herded (with horses) at the end of the season.

Now based in the centre of Reykjavic’s happening bit, Laugevegur, it was easy to pub crawl around town since everything was one road up or a few doors down.

Coming home we realised that town was much smaller than we had thought and already the city grid was forming in our heads. It certainly helped that our lovely house was in the road that ran along the pond, but on the side closest to town – the perfect address for anything you want to do in Reykjavik!

TUESDAY: REYKJAVIC

Tuesday was a late start after our welcome to Reykjavic-by-night, because we had no formal tour arrangement and because our wanderings around the city had shown us that it was compact and easy to navigate so we wouldn’t need a full day to see what it was we wanted to see. It was great to have a sleep-in and lounge about in our cosy lair all morning.

Lunch became the motivator to venture out and we made it our mission to find a hotdog which, bizarrely, is something Iceland has become known for.

We tried a hotdog stand at the waterfront, encouraged by the queue of people surely meaning it must be good. And it was good, if not a bit plain. Soft roll, meaty vienna, crunchy diced shoestring onions. R40 for a “nice” hotdog the length of my wrist to fingertip.

We had to have a second hotdog from somewhere else to yardstick. We opted for one from the 24-7 supermarket since I’d seen the earlier and been drawn by the viennas wrapped in bacon. It didn’t feel very authentic… but we did it anyway… and it was great! Another delighful coup de gras presented itself in the condiments with a mayo-like “hotdog sauce” (that’s all the bottle said in English) and potato salad with bacon bits, as well as the usual onions (fried or raw), ketchup and mustard. Same price as the hotdog from the stand; we’d found a winner.

We took a walk to the Harpa events complex, a very noticeable modern glass building on the harbour. And, by contrast, the very modest Prime Minister’s office which, built in the 1700s, looks like a farmhouse and acted as a prison in the 1800s before it became the official government building in the 1900s.

From there it was very easy to find our way up Laugevegur, browsing and stopping in at a few shops of interest along the way, as we wound our way up the hill to the famous church that looks like a rocketship.

Quite pleased with our outing so far we took some time out in Reykjavic’s oldest café, Prikid, on our way back down the hill.

Amazed at how easy it was to navigate through Reykjavic now that we had our bearings, we made our way past the duckpond on our way home to pick up our things and go sample one of the outdoor thermal baths.

The boys decided not to go, but Alex and I braved the unknown and were soon neck deep in hot water.

We started with the smaller pools, which seated about 12 people in a circle, sort of like a jacuzzi, but deeper and still. We did the 3 warm pools, each rising a few degrees until we were in the hottest, being early to mid 40 degrees. We only managed a quick toe dunk in the cold pool that was signposted as 8-12 degrees!

Then we moved onto a bigger pool which had sections marked as warmer but you could wade from one area to another rather than having to get in and out like in the small ones. Our favourite was a shallow section where you could lie in the warm water with the nape of your next resting on the boundary wall.

We ended off with the steam room, which was so hot you couldn’t stand in one place for too long without burning the soles of your feet.

All this in the outdoor 6 degrees temperature while we were willing it to get dark so we could see if the Northern Lights would present themselves.

In keeping with our chill day, we took a wander into town to look for a traditional Icelandic meal. We ended up at Loki Cafe opposite the spaceship church with lamb soup with smoked lamb on flatbread, lamb paté on rye and tasting bits of Christian’s very experimental platter that had dry fish, fermented shark and trout on rye.

With another early tour in the morning, we were soon heading toward home and were lucky enough to be treated to a Northern Lights show in the clear nightsky right above us, then and there. Green ethereal and smoky stripes that made the skyline look eerie, like aliens had landed!

WEDNESDAY: SOUTH COAST AND WATERFALLS TOUR

It was coming down in sheets in Reykjavic on Wednesday morning, which must’ve been lousy for the driver but, combined with the steady motion of the bus and monotony of long-distance travel, made for a good naptime on the first bit of our tour – the hour-long drive To Get There.

The journey was punctuated by a refreshment/comfort stop and a few photo opps, including a waterfall that appeared to flow upwards since the wind was so strong against the mountain that the water didn’t get to complete its fall. Our guide told us that the name ‘Iceland’ is a bit of a misnomer because they island is far more windy than it is icy… but obviously Windyland didn’t offer the same allure.

The first main stop was at Myrdalsjokull in Katla Geopark, which is a glacier mounted atop a volcano. The glacier gains and loses ground depending on weather conditions, for example it melted by almost a kilometre between 1930 and 1969, then grew by almost half a kilometre until 1995 and has been ebbing ever since with the prognosis being that if global warning continues then the glacier may have as little as a century left before it’s gone completely.

Katla, the volcano, is part of a much larger (110km) volcanic system that erupts on average every 80 years and is overdue an eruption since its last episode was in 1918. It’s quite a thing too since the glacier sitting on the volcano compounds the effects of the eruption itself (lava, ash etc) with the gush of water from the melting ice, which can accumulate as much as 300,000 cubic metres of water in a few hours – not a lot of warning to evacuate the affected areas, especially when the thick toxic volcanic ash and fumes make visibility little more than arm’s length!

Fortunately today was not Katla’s day to make up for lost time eruption-wise and we enjoyed a short hike to the edge of the glacier and admired its enormous face… me from the cosy comfort of today’s “outfit” consisting of thermal vest, long sleeved shirt, jersey, hoodie, jacket, scarf, tights, jeans, ski socks and gloves. Basically, everything I’d been able to pack in the silly togbag that had been allowed on our Easyjet flight! Can’t complain though, when you bear in mind this is fishing territory and the fisherman have for centuries been pushing the boats out into the water, waist-deep in these icy seas.

As beautiful as the Black Beach, Reynisfjara, is to stop at, I draw the line at emerging hand from glove to take a few snappies; no chance of toe out of sock for a swim!

The scenery is very dramatic with the shiny black sand against a backdrop of volatile crashing sea with whiter-than-white foam in front of you, and behind you sky-high cliff face with jagged rocks and jutty sections from a lifetime of extreme conditions and every force majeure imaginable.

Just around the cove, we visited Vic (named after one of the many Icelandic words that cover English’s simplistic bay/fjord spectrum), which was made a settlement because the lay of the land allowed equally for farming and fishing. Rolling green mountain, black beach and (marginally) calmer sea, smattering of brightly coloured tin houses and a Little House On The Prairie church up the hill surveying it all. While we ate our packed lunch chicken sandwiches and surveyed it back.

The sun had come out and so, since we were at the seaside after all, I unzipped my jacket and took off my gloves. We took some snappies of seaside and rainbows and then were on our way again.

The last 2 stops were both waterfalls:
Skogarfoss (“forest falls”) and Seljalandsfoss. The first being a very high and majestic waterfall and the latter positioned in such a way that you can walk on a ledge behind it and see through the waterfall’s curtain.

The drive home to Reykjavic was an anticlimax, mostly spent deciding where to have dinner. We had the driver let us out at Laugevegur and walked to the Dubliner Irish Pub which had been perpetually closed on the several times we’d checked in on it. Success! It was open!

Traditional Guinness In A Strange Land down (and logged on our Guinness Index), we were released from the shackles of having to do anything conventional so we went to Chuck Norris diner and ate baskets of burger goodness, Reykjavic-style.

Travelogue Newcastle 1

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE 1

01-04 October 2015

Having sworn I’d never holiday in the UK again (because of the dreadful state of the Rand and a worldful of as-yet unexplored destinations), the last thing I’d imagined was breaking the pledge to attend a sporting event, of all things.

But Christian was very excited to have been (a bit too) successful (if you ask me) in the IRB lottery and had secured tickets to all 3 Rugby World Cup 2015 matches being played in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Since I’d never been to Newcastle, wanted to see his birthplace, would get to see his favourite cousin and had our trusty travelmates joining us from London, it all seemed like a swimming idea!

Better yet Christian’s aunt and uncle offered to house swap for us and (favourite) cousin Lucy volunteered to fetch us from the airport. So, since it was homeground and there was no “what to do” research to be done, there was little else to do but book flights and wait impatiently for what promised to be a cracking holiday.

The wait was well worth it and we were greeted with warm welcome – by the Newcombe ladies: Lucy and her daughters, Nell and Effie – and warm weather, which I’m told is a rarity.

The airport was close to town and it was a pretty scenic drive through the countryside and winding village roads, so it was more of an experience than the chore it is back home. We were soon at our holiday digs, a charming home in the very lovely Tyneside; parallel and one road in from the Whitley Bay beach and a short trot into the action on Front Street.

Keen to take advantage of the perfect blue-sky day, we were out the door a quick shower-and-change later, and headed on foot to see some of what our locale had to offer.

Tynemouth is beautiful and quaint, like a slice of history untouched by time. Some effort and dedication must have been put in to maintain the turn-of-the-last-century-and-before buildings and retain the elegant facade of the much-prettier architecture from a time where form surpassed function.

We took a turn down Front Street, which was a buzz of activity with patrons from generous helping of coffee shops, pubs and restaurants spilling outside to pavement tables, enjoying the sunshine. Lucy pointed out the highlights as we listened intently and mentally mealmapped feeding times for our short stay.

The end of Front Street brought us out at at The Priory, where we turned left and walked along the coastline to Longsands for a nibble at Crusoe’s on the beachfront – delicious steak pie and sausage roll (made with real pork sausage).

Little Nell had a lovely runaround in the sand but – lacking the necessary play paraphernalia since our excursion had been spontaneous and on foot – had to settle for the promise of a return visit the following day for a proper beach playtime in the “sandysandsand”, as she called it.

It was only a short walk back to the house, to my surprise still moving in the same direction as we’d come from; revealing we’d walked in a big loop and reinforcing my shocking sense of direction.

Wanting to make the most of our time together, we tagged along with the Newcombes to their house, where we had a leisurely mooch-about until Mick got home from work. Nell insisted on a “walk around the block”, so we went to the shops. Another lovely neighbourhood, we enjoyed the stroll around Whitley Lodge, appreciating how different everything was to home and feeling quite content with clean and open suburbanness of it all.

With the girls fed and off to bed, we called in for a curry and settled in at the diningroom table for a yummy dinner and quality time with quality company.

On Friday morning Lucy called in for us just after 9 and we took an amble to Front Street for breakfast at Lui’s.

And what a breakfast it was! Cumberland sausages, Lorne sausage, black pudding, white pudding, doorstop toast, eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomato… spoilt for choice! We vowed a return over the weekend with the London contingent.

… who were due to arrive imminently, so we made our way back to the house…

… with 20 minutes to spare.

The usual joyous reunion, our friends were as delighted as we had been to see how lush our accommodation was and just as eager to see what Tynemouth had to offer based on our enthusiastic reviews of what we’d seen and done so far.

We took then down the now-familiar route to Front Street, where they oooed and aaahed as we had about the prettiness of it all.

We started the walking tour with a stop-in at “The Land of Green Ginger“, an old very traditional-looking church that had suffered waning parishioners and thus had been converted into a shopping arcade in 1980, despite religious influences wanting the church to be demolished rather. It’s quite comical to see an old school church with a giant plastic ice-cream cone model at its door, beneath a banner pronouncing the church to be the home of an ice-cream parlour.

As you walk into the church, there’s a big brass plaque with a list of names of parishoners who volunteered to fight in the second Anglo-Boer War (the one that the British won), counting among them Christian’s great-grandfather, Peter Slater.

We then walked the length of Front Street – pinpointing establishments we intended to sample – and walked up to the Priory. We decided to forego the tour, opting rather to walk the length of the pier to the lighthouse at the end. The pier is quite a length and has a twin eminating from the opposite bank of the river, together guiding ships safely into the mouth of the Tyne.

From there our next stop was the Collingwood Statue – a monument to the Admiral who led the first British ship into the Battle of Trafalgar. The statue of Collingwood himself is set high atop a stone column, with wide stone steps below flanked by four of the actual canons from his ship, The Sovereign. The view from the monument’s park looks out to sea and was particularly spectacular with the sunny clear day contrasting the bright green grass with the backdrop of blue skies and seas.

From there it was a stone’s throw to our ultimate destination, Northshields Fish Quay, for lunch. A bit hot under the collar though, we stopped in for a Magners cider in The Quay Taphouse before making our way to have fresh and plentiful fish and chips at The Waterfront restaurant.

A bit overspent on time, we hightailed back, deftly navigating a shortcut through town, to Longsands to meet Lucy and the kids.

The beach was quite busy, with people clearly making a plan to come and enjoy the quite unseasonal summer’s day in Autumn. While warm and sunny, it certainly wasn’t swimming weather by home standards and we didn’t want for swimwear nor regret being in jeans.

On the beach Lucy had spotted people she knows and on our way out we all bumped into some people Christian had met when he’d been out a few years ago so. Combined with our confidence at navigating around the town, the welcome was as warm as the weather to feel like a local on our first full day of holiday!

We celebrated our good spirits with a stop in at Copperfields, a traditional pub located behind the – one would guess aptly named – Grand Hotel, and then were back on the road for a sunset walk along the waterfront.

Not really sure of where we were or where we were going, but knowing we couldn’t go far wrong as long as the sea was on our right, it took encountering a tourist sign to realise we’d walked from Longsands, through Cullercoats and almost missed Whitley Bay!

We turned inland and had a pint at the King George pub, momentarily homesick from other patrons who had their dogs with them. That said, none of our lot would behave well enough to socialise in this manner, so we’d miss them just as much even if we had brought them with us!

We decided our next stop would be the Avalon biker bar that Christian had visited and enjoyed on previous visits… but were disappointed when we found the venue and the bar had been closed down. The entire street was largely boarded up pubs and clubs though, so we surmised we’d stumbled into the graveyard of what had previously been the thumping heart of The Best Stag Do Destination of not so long ago.

Never known for dwelling on disappointment for too long, we went into Fitzgeralds instead – a large pub, oddly empty, especially bearing in mind there were 2 burly bouncers manning the entrance. That said, they spent the entire duration of our pint denying a girl access to the pub despite her heatedly and stubbornly negotiating at them.

Turning the corner and going into the Fire Station, we got a taste of what the Stag Do phenomenon was all about, thanks to a large and rowdy group of lads circling their victim – a poor chap in a fullbody penis costume – goading, issuing dares and plying shots and beers at a rate of knots (no doubt enabled by the crazy “buy in bulk” drinks specials).

We escaped to the pub next door, The Victoria, only to be exposed to more of the same. Literally. Penis Man and Friends had trailed in behind us.

Christian, in a well-timed display of voice-of-reason, bundled us into a taxi back to the far more civilised Front Street, where we ticked Cumberland Arms and The Priory off our list with quick nightcaps before walking home.

SATURDAY

Saturday was grey and overcast, but fortunately still dry. Christian and I were up early so we wandered up to the shops to source orange juice and such, and were rewarded for our efforts by a magnificent find: Heinz tinned pork sausages and beans! Which made an excellent pre-breakfast, in advance of the brilliant bacon butties that would ensue when the others rose.

Fed and feeling far better than we ought to, we headed out to see what Newcastle Upon Tyne had in store for us.

The Metro station hosted a market on weekends which, with a random mix of bric-a-brack new and old, looked like it warranted some time to be earmarked for a proper look the next weekend.

The Metro was quick and easy – but quite pricey at 3 Pounds some change for one way – and we were soon in Newcastle.

Right in front of us was the first sight of relevance – the Earl Grey Statue. We stopped to take a group photo and a kind passerby offered to take the pic for us so we could all be in it. Sadly, she was more enthusiasm than talent so, while she was painstaking about getting the 4 of us all into the pic, she cut off poor Earl Grey. Since she was so nice about being part of the whole moment, we were too polite to reset for the pic… and I was going to have to settle for including a Google pic into the photo album for the holiday!

Grey Street was a very elegant road of serious buildings, unfettered by modern glass skyrises, that leads down to the river at the Tyne Bridge (which Christian revealed is an exact replica of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, built for practice at exactly a third of the size).

Walking along the river took us to Millennium Bridge, where we were highly amused by a busker passionately singing (clearly a song penned with his own ink judging by his emotional and animated delivery) about how London is full of “aliens, paedophiles and Tory twats!”

We were still laughing when we got to the other side of the bridge… and were still humming his tune as we walked around the Baltic Art Gallery on the Gateshead side of the river.

All our walking necessitated a whistle wetting, so we popped into the Pitcher & Piano back on the Newcastle side of the bridge, near to our busker who unfortunately seemed to have run out of steam and apparently had no more eccentric episodes to share. No mind. His one hit wonder was unexpected and unforgettable.

Next I was treated to a first-but-no-chance-last experience at Gregg’s Bakery, a chain of pie shops. I had a baked bean, cheese and banger pie. What an epic combo!

Our return journey up Grey Street was quite different since everywhere was heaving with rugby supporters – lots confusingly in Bok jerseys and kilts – and the Samoa vs Japan game was being projected on a big screen at the base of the Earl Grey Statue.

We paused to enjoy this new atmosphere, taking in a pint at Harry’s and grabbing a pulled pork roll from one of the food stalls (who were coining it, churning out rolls at no less than 5 Pounds a pop).

The St James Park Stadium was conveniently located just up the road and we’d timed it perfectly, arriving minutes before the opening ceremonials.

The atmosphere was electric, with quite an even representation of South African and Scottish fans fuelling the friendly rivalry of warcries and chanting. Even I, not one for sport at the best of times, couldn’t help getting swept up in the moment and yelling at the field, mostly encouraging but with intermittent exasperation when the Boks hinted at lagging performance. Either way, we won the game with a convincing 34-16 and all of us but Robby were thrilled with the outcome.

The roads were carnage after the game so we quit while we were ahead and jumped into a cab back to Tynemouth.

… which was also heaving when we got back, thanks to (what felt like) the entire town’s contingent in the pub to watch the England vs Australia game.

We had a quick drink in Barca and then moved over to The Turk’s Head pub across the way because it was conveniently situated next to the Gate of India restaurant, where we planned to source dinner from.

Our thinking was solid and our order placed at halftime was ready just as the game concluded, meaning we could escape the air of disappointment in the pub following England’s loss (and consequent ejection from this World Cup) and retreat to our very lovely holiday house with (another) curry feast.

SUNDAY

Sunday was slated to be a late-start morning, with nothing to do except be ready for our cab, which was booked to collect us at 13h30 to drive us to Edinburgh to fly to Iceland.

We’d scheduled a brunch with Lucy at our now-favourite Lui’s and were well-rested and spring-stepped when we left home at 09h45 for the short walk to the breakfast heaven that awaited us.

It was just what the doctor ordered and we thoroughly enjoyed the blur of eggs and pork products that constituted what can only be described as a “generous” breakfast.

Bursting from our feasting, we volunteered to walk the long way home, up toward the local Sainsbury’s, overshooting past the soccer fields and emerging opposite the far end of our road and were still home with an hour to spare to pack, relax and have a laugh with some Friends reruns on telly before our cab driver arrived bang on time.

There’s something to be said for the comfort and convenience of door-to-door cab service… especially if you’ve got 4 people to share the 120 Pounds fixed fare. We were delivered to Edinburgh airport in perfect time with nothing to worry about except being excited for the next episode of our adventure.