123 - thu aug 31 - paris

paris! after a morning coffee we took in the tuilleries (sp?), the great gardens out the front of the louvre. we had a quick peek at the outside of the louvre, and then we sought out the notre dame cathedral. we picked up lunch at a supermarket and also got supplies for a picnic dinner at the base of the eiffel tower. we spent the whole evening there while the sun slowly went down taking in the impossible skyline dominated by that crazy tower, our lazy bliss only occasionally interrupted.

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122 - wed aug 30 - st malo / mont st michel / paris

we packed up and set off towards mont st michel, surely one of the most photogenic places in the whole damn world. its basically a mini mountain located in the middle of large tidal flats, and atop the hill sits a picturesque abbey. you can see it on the horizon from 30 kilometres away, its an eerie sight getting bigger as you approach it. one road leads in, and apparently it never gets flooded but depending on the tides the mont can sometimes be completely surrounded by water.

at the base of the abbey is a small village, or should i say was a small village because it was long converted into simply a crammed street full of tacky tourist shops and overpriced snack bars and restaurants. honestly it was pretty disheartening, packed in with all these tourists, after approaching the mighty mont with such awe. we pushed our way through the alley, ascending towards the abbey, and the packs of tourists thinned as we walked. up some stairs and we made it into the abbey, signing up for a guided tour.

our guide was great, a marvellous grey-haired french guy with the air of a history professor and the knowledge to match. he told us that he had spent ten years teaching in england and had only in the last few years returned to france to take this more relaxed position at the abbey showing tourists around, and he told many jokes at french peoples expense that obviously went down well with his english-speaking audience. he was casually eccentric and really funny. the abbey itself was pretty stunning and worth battling the tourist crowds for.

back on the road we headed for paris. the sun went down by the time we had made it to the city limits. suz did her best driving through the scary strange roads of the city while i did my best to navigate us around the worst bits. a wrong turn down into an unintended tunnel found us spat out unexpectedly into one of the dodgiest parts of town to drive around in, the financial district called 'la defense'. i don't know if maybe some power grid had gone down, or if they just turn all the street lights off when everyone goes home, but it was a pretty scary experience weaving in and out of slip lanes, motorways, back roads, no idea which way the roads are going, avoiding head-on collisions with hoons making the most of the eerie dark tunnels, weaving in and out. basically it sucked. eventually we found the campsite at around 10pm - paris is one of the only cities in europe if not the world to actually have a campground within 5 k's or so to the central part of town. we pitched our tent in the dark and went to bed exhausted.

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121 - tue aug 29 - st malo

st malo is a great town that we probably wouldn't have known about it if it hadn't turned out to be our ferry destination. its an old medieval town right on the coast, with largely intact ramparts, and a great beach dotted with old fortified buildings. in town we went to a creperie for breakfast and had delicious crepes. we found the town's cathedral and then wandered up onto the ramparts to wander around. there was wandering, and we wandered. wander. it was great to see the beach, the sand, and the sun came out to just as we got up onto the ramparts. it felt good. we got down onto the sand. eventually we made it to a cafe for free wifi and a bottle of wine. we settled into the place and ended up staying for dinner. it was delicious fish, followed up with a yummy tart.

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120 - mon aug 28 - devon/poole/st malo

we were up early, saying fond farewells, and then we hit the road on our long drive to the coast. we eventually made it to the ferry in poole. it was a much longer trip this time than the calais-dover trip, and the ferry was smaller and the waves were bigger. by the time we made it to france i was pretty green. so then - france. it was at 8 pm that we found the campsite in st malo. there was no one at reception, just a lot of signs in french so we just set up our camp and figured we could sought it out in the morning. we cooked ourselves some dinner and went to bed.

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119 - sun aug 27 - devon

it was a blurry nauseous sunday (for some). we made it back to home base in time to see the annual mini rally drive past the front of the house - hundreds of little minis, old and new, driving past with flags waving, horns honking and occupants smiling and cheering. there was a revelrous gathering in sarah's mums driveway, with drinks and snacks, and it was great. we then had sunday lunch at a nearby farm/restaurant where there were delicious roasts awaiting us. back home there was coffee and tea, but i went to bed for a nap because i was not feeling the best. everyone else went to hartland to take the dog for another walk, stopping at a kiosk for ice creams. before dinner we played scrabble and suz won! (thats her exclamation mark, not mine). after a delicious big dinner we played some more board games and then went to bed.

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118 - sat aug 26 - devon

sarah's mum cooked us up an amazing english breakfast. we took the dog for a walk along the coast and then down into england's steepest town clovelly. down at the bottom the dog took a swim while we had beers at the pub. then we suffered the long walk back up to the top of the hill. we then went to a pool party being put on by one of sarah's friends, where we spent the rest of the saturday night. it was a big sprawling suburban mansion, with pool spa sauna tennis et cetera et cetera. we met a lot of people including a hungarian film student and a drunk hairy man who i chatted with at 4 am about his crazy nautical schemes. eventually we crashed in a 70s-print tent that they had put up in the backyard for us, because somehow they had run out of room in their enormous lottery-winner-style house-mansion.

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117 - fri aug 25 - bath/devon

we said goodbye to bath and took our time heading south to devon to rendezvous with sarah's mum at her lovely cottage home. on the way we stopped at the village of glastonbury, where there were really far too many hippie and new age type shops. we had coffee, and sausage rolls for lunch. the drive along the north coast of devon was really scenic, and then we stopped again at the town of lynton, built onto the side (or on top really) of marvellous steep hills by the water. we had some wine at the pub and then sought out the local fish & chip shop for a cheap but wholly appropriate feed. then, driving through exmoor national park we were treated to some amazing high plateaus filled with heather, so lovely and exotic that we had to get out and run around in them, taking photos and stuff, until we thought we had whiplash from all the wind. there were a lot of sheep around, but we had a favourite. we got lost trying to find sarah's mum's place - mostly because we didn't actually know where it was - but after a phone call we were sorted out.

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116 - thu aug 24 - bath

pancakes again for breakfast! and then back in bath we sought out what we thought would be the city's thriving and bustling market, only to find it to simply be a collection of souvenir shops and sad old kitsch stalls, less a market and more some kind of time warp local shopping mall from the 60s, except without the cool retro-ness or kitschy fun that you might be tempted to envisage. it was a dud, so of course we headed to the pub for beers. we also had enormous stuffed jacket potatoes.

we went and found nearby pulteney bridge, which is basically a bridge (yup) but it has shops and stuff on top of it. yup. then we sought out the museum of costume, which sounded interesting (and admission was cheap when bought together with the ticket to the baths). and it did turn out to be interesting, perhaps the highlight was the temporary exhbition which showed off heaps of dresses from an iconic 60s british designer (i forget the name - john lodge? something like that). it was great, in a big grand hall with a swinging 60s soundtrack. the museum's proper collection was a chronological walk through formal and informal wear over the centuries, starting i think somewhere in the 15th or 16th century. the collection seemed very weighted towards the ye olde stuff, and was frustratingly selective when it came to 20th century fashion - the whole 1990s were summed up by two dresses, and the 00s were represented by one dress, 'that' backless j-lo thing - but hey i guess you can't do it all. it was interesting. afterwards we, of course, had coffee. if its not beer, its coffee - if its not coffee, its beer. and then we wandered some.

we had dinner at a cute looking corner cafe called the walrus and the carpenter, which served up some no nonsense fare. actually we struggled to get through it because we were so full from our enormous stuffed potatoes at lunch. but we had to cram dinner in early in order to make it in time to the 'bizarre bath comedy walk' - an amble around the city after dark, led by a stand-up comedian (or at least a guy with a funny cape and an arsenal of premade gags guaranteed to make us chuckle). the best part about the tour was that suz volunteered herself for some audience interaction early in the night, and then became part of the show for the rest of the night, including at the final set piece which involved her being put in the stocks complete with mock guillotine. yes, there are photos.

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115 - wed aug 23 - bath

we got up early and caught the bus into bath. we grabbed some pasties and wandered around the old town with its shops, had coffee et cetera. we cancelled our earlier plans to check out the old roman baths when we saw how busy it was, and instead spent an hour or so in the marvellous bath abbey and its catacombs. it was grey and drizzly - we abandoned an attempt to find the city's 'assembly rooms' when the rain started to really pour down and ended up huddling under an enormous tree until the rain passed. by this time the crowds at the roman baths had died down so we checked it out. then, after a late lunch (5 pm) we headed back to camp by bus, this time taking the scenic route because we didn't recognise where our bus stop was the first time we passed it.

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114 - tue aug 22 - shrewsbury/bath

after spending the morning wandering around shrewsbury we drove down towards bath, finally making it to a lovely lush green campsite despite being confused by some inconvenient road closings. after setting up, we had time for a couple of beers down at the campsite's own pub, before returning to our pitch to cook up dinner sitting next to a very pretty little stream. a relaxed day.

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113 - mon aug 21 - lake district / shrewsbury

suz cooked up a great campsite breakfast before we packed up all our gear and spent the morning back at that cafe in ambleside with the free wifi drinking coffees. then we pressed southward towards the town of shrewsbury. suz spent some time in shrewsbury on her first trip to the uk a couple of years ago, when she worked in a couple of hospitals in england and ireland for two months as part of her course. i wanted her to show me the town and it was luckily kind of on our way. the town was cute, more winding little cobblestone streets and quaint overhanging brown and white upper floors.

we found our way to a camping ground a short drive out of town, a modest affair run by a rather odd but very friendly old man who i think may have been wearing mascara. after setting up the glow in the dark tent along the bank of the severn river - a nice countryside view and only £6 a night, bargain - we drove back into town to eat dinner at the coolest pub in shrewsbury, a grand affair overlooking the river with tall walls lined with old books, charming polished wood tables and bar. it was great.

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112 - sun aug 20 - the lake district

we drove to another corner of the lake district this morning, to the township of coniston where we found a lake. the weather was holding itself together so we hired a rowboat and headed out onto the lake, which became more successful after i remembered which way you row a boat and we stopped going backwards. we rowed around for about an hour. then we headed to nearby 'holker house' which is a marvellously ugly name for a grand aristocratic mansion. this big old house belonged, or still belongs?, to the duke of cavendish. from the tone of our tour guide, we really out to have known who that was, and also who all these other dukes were, and what about the prince of so and so, and did you know that lady such-and-such stayed here? oh yes. our tour guides supplied us with a few hilarious pearls of wisdom and comments, our favourite being the lady who said, wandering around this rather lavish mansion, 'yes it is a grand house but its very liveable'. for some, perhaps. one of the weird things about the mansion, and this we were informed by the ticket lady when we arrived, is that the cavendishes (or whoever) actually still live there. so you wander around one wing of the mansion, while behind those doors there is actually still an aristocratic family wandering around doing whatever the hell it is they do. except that they weren't in this day, they were probably off keeping one of their other hundred houses warm. oh how jaded and cynical i am. but yes, it was rather liveable, and i suppose i could live there if i had to, if for no other reason than to have the chance to go to the toilet on the same bowl as used by mary, queen of scots.

we had some lunch at the adjoining cafe, investigated the adjoining food hall (a rather incongruous but not unwelcome adjunct to the mansion) and wandered the gardens. back in ambleside we bought groceries, and went to the local cinema's cafe for coffee and free wireless internet access. back at the campside we had wine with our homemade hamburgers.

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111 - sat aug 19 - glasgow/lake district

we left glasgow and our hotel, and drove our newly serviced car back over the border and into england's lake district, which is a district in england's far north that is known for.. lakes. its a very pretty area with 'really pretty little towns' (thats suz there). we stopped at keswick for cornish pastries. we wandered around the saturday market. we found a tourist office and directions to a campground. we got a parking ticket because we forgot to put money in the meter at the keswick car park. crap.

by the time we navigated the frighteningly narrow local roads - lined with stone walls just to make sure you've got no room for error - and made it to our campsite it was pouring with rain. we waited it out, and when there was a break in the pouring and it had downgraded to merely raining, we set up our tent.

back in ambleside, the nearest town, we found gorgeous slate buildings and quaint slate fences. and we also found about half the population of london, who had also decided that this weekend would be a good one to spend getting rained on in the lake district. but we found ourselves somewhere to escape the gloom if not the tourists, and settled in for afternoon tea at a cottage. and we had fruit cake topped with crumbly cheese, which was new, and not altogether wonderful, but definitely it felt british. back at the campsite we grabbed an umbrella and sought out the nearby lake. then we spent the rest of the evening huddled in our glow in the dark tent.

110 - fri 18 aug - glasgow

as part of our deal with leasing this car from citroen, we had to get it serviced after 1000 kms, which unsurprisingly we had reached pretty quickly. glasgow seemed as good a place as any to book the car in for a service so we had arranged it for today. we made our way to citroen glasgow, dropped the car off and made our way back into the city centre courtesy of a bus and a helpful glaswegian pointing us in the right direction. why glaswegian? i never worked this out.

we spent the morning walking around town. glasgow, at least the parts of it we saw, is not a glamorous town. it has the wide streets and tall buildings of melbourne, not the narrow passageways and cobbled paths of edinburgh or york. its historical buildings are stately without being particularly interesting, and its main architectural claim to fame is an art nouveau dude named mackintosh who everyone in glasgow seems frankly completely obsessed with, despite the fact that perhaps outside of the world of architecture you may not have heard of the man. the days we were there were gloomy and wet as well, which didn't put the city in its best light. but despite not looking the part, the city seemed to have a pretty vibrant arts and culture scene and a groovy nightlife, it seemed like you probably just had to get under its skin to really get it.

we found breakfast at a cafe and shop selling organic produce - we had breakfast 'despite language difficulties' suz has written here, but i have predictably forgotten what hilarity we had in that particular cultural exchange that morning. after breakfast we found the glasgow museum of modern art which was really great. it was a pretty small collection but uniformly interesting. nothing too abstract and a lot of provocative things without things being stupid. yeah. after goma we went to glasgow's other cultural heavy-hitter, a centre called 'the lighthouse' which is a museum dedicated to architecture and the city. despite sounding interesting it was kind of disappointing, perhaps due to a slightly labyrinthine floor structure that made it seem like there was more to see than there was. i dunno. some bits were closed. there was an exhibition on some dude who made ugly giant concrete buildings in the 70s. woo hoo! and there was another exhibition that was all about a bauhaus dude who totally reinvented the chair, man! i mean, aluminium! in the chair! freaking amazing! but seriously, why are designers obsessed with chairs anyway.

we pressed onwards to the next glaswegian hotspot. having seen the lighthouse's inevitable charles mackintosh exhibit - i mean, even mcdonalds had a charles mackintosh exhibit (ok i may be exaggerating) - we continued on the mackintosh theme by visiting one of his buildings, the willow tea rooms. it was a building with an art nouveau facade and an art nouveau interior, with art nouveau this and also some art nouveau that. we had some art nouveau tea and scones. actually i had coffee. then we walked all the way back to pick up the car from citroen glasgow.

that night we attempted, kind of unsuccessfully, to find the glasgow food and wine festival which according to large banners and pamphlets seemed to be on that night. we did in the end find it, but it wasn't what we expected. rather than some grand expanse of stalls and wine tastings, filled with eager amateur gastronomers yabbering and sampling regional produce, like some grand night-time market, it turned out to just be a series of cooking demonstrations by well-known (unfortunately not to us) local chefs, and perhaps a stall or two. i say perhaps because it was all being held inside this grand old building, so you couldn't actually see what was going on before you bought your tickets. the ticket people had trouble explaining to us what we'd find if we went in there, and one of them even suggested we come back the next day because it was the better of the days. we waited to see if anyone came in or out of the grand hall they were supposedly holding their festival in. not too many, just some other slightly bewildered tourists like ourselves. we saved our money and after hopping through a few bars - including one really great one nearby called cafe gandolfi, you know, if you're ever in glasgow... - we made our way back to an asian joint that we had spied near the lighthouse. it was really good stuff.

109 - thu 17 aug - fort william/glasgow

after a few days of drizzle today we had some sunshine in the morning, allowing our tent to thoroughly dry out. we packed up everything, went into town for coffee and to make some calls to home. then we headed to glasgow.

after some killer peak hour traffic in the city we eventually got to the tourist office quite late in the day and asked them for help finding a campsite. they directed us to a camp ground in a suburb called stepps, about 10 minutes out of town. we had some trouble finding it and then when we did find it we felt like we had found trouble. the place seemed dodgy. people leered at us. our bright red number plate, our shiny citroen, and our big fat 'F' on the back of the car that denoted us as frenchies through and through. we felt conspicuous; and this campsite felt like a scary rundown trailerpark. we couldn't find reception. suddenly feeling all middle class we abandoned stepps and scampered back to the tourist office, booking ourselves in to a hotel right in the middle of town. we ate pasta at a nearby italian restaurant.

108 - wed 16 aug - fort william

we decided to take a day to catch up on some things, so it was a relatively uneventful stay in fort william if truth be told. we did washing, we went to an internet cafe, we stocked up on supplies in the supermarket. the highlights of the day included suz's camp-cooked pancake breakfast, scrumptious venison burger from a local burger joint for lunch, and for dinner we had something which suz could only recall as being 'yummy with plenty of whisky.' yes we are completely obsessed with food and booze. today we also had a short walk in the valley around ben nevis.

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107 - tue 15 aug - dunvegan/fort william

we left dunvegan and headed back inland to fort william. it was a long drive that took most of the day, and we again saw lots of amazing scenery. scotland turned out to be a great country to just drive around in.

just out of the town of fort william we found a campsite called glen nevis, situated right at the base of ben nevis, which is actually one of scotland's most famous mountains, and not a former left arm orthodox spinner for tasmania as you might have guessed. we found a great pub in town called the grog & gruel where we had a good meal and more beer of course. fort william was buzzing, completely awash with tourists, just as everywhere else so far on our trip had been. we'd hit scotland in peak season and it showed - at our pub i think we were lucky to get a seat because as we ate there was a steady stream of people coming in and putting their names down for tables. in fact it got to the point where the staff were just sending them away, no chance tonight of getting a meal. i imagine it would have been happening up and down the main street of fort william in different pubs and restaurants.

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106 - mon 14 aug - isle of skye (dunvegan)

there are no supermarkets in dunvegan. just so you know. but small corner shops can do the trick. we finally managed to buy some food this morning. after our adventures at numerous corner shops, we got some coffees at the only place in town that was open and serving coffees, a place that was nominally a bakery and cafe, but was in truth more just like your grandma's holiday home that someone had accidentally baked too many loaves in and had started to sell them to disgruntled and dirty workmen. it wasn't as quaint as even that sounds. but hey, country towns. we squeezed in between two other tables to sit down - at one table sat two italian couples, and a gurgling baby. their 'cappuccinos' sat ominously untouched as they idly chatted; at the other table, the scared frenchies again! and they looked even more scared today than yesterday! she, with her eyes darting around nervously, with her hands in his, them both sitting in silence. classic. when our cappuccinos eventually came (after a twelve year old boy took our order, looking as though he'd much rather be watching cartoons - or whatever it is kids do these days on sunday mornings, update their myspaces i guess).. when our cappuccinos came, they sat similarly untouched until we decided that we'd sat there long enough, and we left. there are no good cafes in dunvegan on sunday morning. just so you know.

we drove a short distance to coral beach, where we took a long walk over green hills and ruined old stone walls to get to a patch of bright white sand. it was great though you had to dodge a lot of poo. afterwards, back in town, we visited dunvegan's answer to drumnadrochit's formidable loch ness attractions - do all country towns have to have at least one really lame, weird exhibit that can be loosely termed a 'tourist attraction'? it was the angus macaskill centre, devoted to the world's tallest true giant. angus was a guy that was just really freaking big, and it didn't have anything to do with overgrown glands or hormones, like the guys you see in the guinness book of records. though angus himself is in the guinness book of records anyway, kind of as a footnote to the other taller freakish dudes. all of this was explained to us by the man who runs the modest angus macaskill museum. angus had been his obsession for many decades, he said to us in a vaguely disinterested tone that struck me as not particularly obsessed at all. perhaps not too obsessed any more, now that his obsession has amounted to a small converted barn in the middle of a quiet town, a rarely-visited tourist attraction. there was a life-size paper mache model. there were some giant sized clothes - suz asked if they were his, and he replied, again with a sigh, that they were reproductions. on panels the story of his life were told, from humble beginnings impressing local townsfolk with helpful feats of strength, to years of touring the world impressing out of town folk with amazing feats of strength, to the strange incident that happened soon after his early retirement, where he attempted to prove something to someone by throwing a giant anchor from a dock, only to have it snag his shoulder as he was throwing it. after the severe injury he was never the same, although still very strong. he then died, too young like most people in those times, of meningitis or something unfortunate. so that was the angus macaskill museum.

back at our campsite we busted out the aluminium pans and the gas stove and treated ourselves to our first camp-cooked meal! snags and beans.

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105 - sun 13 aug - loch ness / isle of skye

now there is really only one reason to go to loch ness and thats to go to the 'official loch ness 2000 exhibition' or whatever its called. oh, and to get naked and jump in the lake. we didn't do that, but we did go to the 'loch ness 2000 official museum' or whatever it was called. the multimedia extravaganza - ok, newsflash to tourist attractions, that term is vastly overused - was interesting enough despite being just way overpriced. the surprising thing was how completely the loch ness centre actually disspelled the myth of nessie. we figured that it would probably be a vanguard for crazy pro-nessie supporters, trying to stick up for the existence of the loch ness monster against overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. but no, rather it just kind of completely disspelled the myth, explained away every sighting ever made. and then, just right at the end, it basically says "so we've shown you all of the reasons why there 99% isn't a loch ness monster and everyone who has ever seen it was probably drunk or was just seeing boat wakes and there really isn't a loch ness monster.... or IS THERE? its a mystery." ok guys its not really a mystery when you've just spent 30 minutes debunking the nessie myth. but hey.

that was enough of ness for us. we were now officially able to say we had been to loch ness, and had thus ticked a box in scotland, and could move on. we headed for the west coast, specifically to the isle of skye right over in the west. on our way there we passed through the township of shiel bridge, where, needless to say, there was much merry photo taking. though to call shiel bridge a township is probably being a little generous, although perhaps there was more to it than what we saw. all we saw was a couple of signs, a bridge (duh) and a service station that was quaintly named the 'shiel shop'.

soon after shiel bridge, having driven through the long green valley of glen shiel (which he put up very little resistance to, i might add, a fine chap), we had lunch at eileen donan castle, which could be described both as romantic and pictureesque. there was a dude with bagpipes at the entrance! but of course. it was a nice castle. our lunch was at the adjacent cafe, which some might call a diner, where we sat at a plastic table near a window overlooking the castle and the lake, and at the next table along was a french couple who struggled with their english when ordering their coffees, and looked frankly shit-scared. of the castle, of scotland, don't know. but i imagined i might be feeling the exact same way in a little over 2 weeks, when i would be trembling in a trendy french cafe, trying to remember my pleases and thankyous in french.

it was best not to think to much on that. we headed on to the isle of skye, driving through yet more stunning scottish highland terrain. arriving at the small town of portree we discovered that we were again too late for the supermarket, our timing was terrible. we headed further west, to the western most part of the isle, the small town of dunvegan, where we found a really pretty campsite right on the edge of a little bay, manned by a very amenable scottish chap who was good for a chat. down at the pub for tea we had fish and chips. similar to in drumnadrochit, there were not very many 'gigs in town' (ok that phrase only really works when you say 'the only gig in town') and the pub was overflowing with people waiting for tables. it was weirdly understaffed, the whole bistro and bar being handled by one dude, the owner, a large scottish man with perhaps a broken ankle, who was perhaps not surprisingly gruff and aloof given that it was such a busy night. the food was good though, and there was of course beer. here in suzanne's notes i can see that she has scrawled 'lots of vinegar!'

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104 - sat 12 aug - inverness / loch ness

we packed up our stuff and set off further north. it was slow going, but we made it to a town called pitlochry where we grabbed some cornish pastries for lunch that were delicious. the town was really cute so we had a wander around before setting off for inverness.

'stupid inverness and stupid closing shops' is what i have written here in my black book, thanks suz. the translation for that is, we got into inverness in the late afternoon and needed to find somewhere to buy groceries but everywhere was closed. i mean, it is saturday, but inverness isn't exactly a country town is it? anyway, completely uninterested in inverness (sorry inverness) we moved on to drumnadrochit, which is 'the' town on the bank of loch ness, home to not one but two different 'loch ness attractions'. we found a campsite, a paddock out the front of a horse riding and equestrian club, where the club smartly runs a mini camping ground during peak seasons. it was a cute location with some great rolling scottish hills around us.

in drumnadrochit there is basically 'one gig in town' when it comes to eating out, which is a pub called fiddlers. we did a brief wander around but found not one other place to eat, and when we got to fiddlers, our suspicion that it was 'the only gig in town' was borne out by the fact that the place was jammed, and that we could hardly get in for the crowd of people waiting for tables. when i say crowd i mean like 7 or 8 people, but this is the highlands, thats a crowd! no, it was crowded. i should also mention that i then spent the following few days using the term 'only gig in town' as often as possible.

fiddlers, despite being the only gig in town and therefore being in a position where it could sell really crap food and really inflated prices, was actually ace. the owner slash bartender was a really friendly guy who poured our beers while we waited for a table; for entree we had haggis which came with a dram of whisky. it was a good meal and a nice place. drumnadrochit.

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103 - fri 11 aug - edinburgh

day three in edinburgh began with a visit to the mighty edinburgh castle. to get to the entrance of the castle we actually had to walk through the part of town where they have the edinburgh military tattoo, directly out front of the castle. everything was geared up and ready for the tattoo to take place, so we had to walk between the grandstands to get to the castle. the castle itself was interesting, with lots of nooks and crannies to explore. we chanced upon a demonstration by these two highlanders, dressed up in highland gear, showing off their swords and kilts.

after having lunch we went to see another show, this time a japanese mime duo whose name i'm afraid i'm not going to try and remember for fear of getting it embarrassingly wrong. they were two great guys, really charismatic and cheeky guys, who did a mixture of old-fashioned mime and magic tricks - some of which were so daggy and bordered on dad's jokes but were all pulled off with just the right amount of charm - and also some mime narrative about people falling in love, getting in to funny situations, et cetera. really great feelgood stuff.

in need of a coffee, we actually ended up at the internet cafe having dodgy lattes because in the part of town we were in, we could find plenty of pubs but not a decent cafe. then we went to see our last show for the festival, the bubbly and scottish danny bhoy. he is funny and handsome, kind of disarming and inoffensive in the same way as a wil anderson or something. his show was well-oiled but also felt spontaneous and kind of intimate despite the giant theatre setting. we've seen comedy shows in big theatres before that make you feel like you'd be better off watching it on dvd, in terms of intimacy, but not this one, it was good. a solid ending for our festival exploits, and we were happy with 4 shows in 3 days.

dinner tonight was at an industrial sized multi level indian place, because it was one of the only places still open at midnight! we headed back to camp.

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102 - thu 10 aug - edinburgh

breakfast was included with our accommodation, and we rarely miss the chance for a free meal. we were glad we made the effort this time because we had an entertaining little chat. limited seats forced us onto a table with a quiet young korean guy - who had drawn the short straw with all of his mates when they'd found out they wouldn't all get beds at their previously booked hotel, and was staying at this place on his own - a german guy whose expression seemed permanently set to 'bemused', and an old scottish lady who was very dissatisfied with the standard of her accommodation and wanted to let us all know about it. she was great value. actually, the german guy i think had been sitting with her for a while before we came down, which might have explained his permanently bemused expression. our waiter, who was surely also the owner of the guesthouse, basically couldn't do anything right by this woman, and she huffed and rolled her eyes. it was great, particularly because it was all done in scottish accents. no offense to scotland, but that definitely heightened the slightly comic mood. the owner was kind of weird though, and had a dodgy old sense of humour that simply bordered on racist - for example when he, after incorrectly guessing that the korean guy was chinese, insisted on calling him 'mr chung' for the remainder of the breakfast. 'ahhh mr chung! more coffee?' terrible.

we got into a good chat with our grumpy scottish lady about where to go and what to see. i mentioned that we were heading for glen shiel because my name was shiel, and she said 'oh, and are you going to find out about your clan history? about your heritage?' and i basically said no, we're just going to take some photos of signs that say shiel and then keep going. she didn't seem overly impressed.

back in town we exchanged our tent successfully. we upgraded to a bigger tent, a bright yellow one, flourescent yellow in fact. and it was covered in fishes of different varities, and also one eel. it was one of the ugliest and most beautiful tents ever. but most importantly, it was big enough for us. with our new tent we headed for edinburgh's excellently set-up and so professionally run campsite, called mortonhall. perfect festival accommodation, because its cheap, frequent buses run to town all through the night, and the facilities are really clean and well maintained. it was a great place to stay.

back in town (again) we wandered the shops, finding heaps of cool little clothes and knick knack places that you would expect from a town as cool as edinburgh. we had lunch at a french restaurant. we scored ourselves some half-price tickets for a comedy show that night, choosing the show based solely on its name, a reference to a doctor who scarf. we had time to grab some wine at a little cafe before the show started.

the show kind of sucked but it was ok because we hadn't paid full price. suz and i spent the better part of the next few days completely deconstructing this poor guy's poor show, why it wasn't funny, where did he go wrong, how could he improve. et cetera. i won't bore you with all of that now. the venue however was very cool, we entered through a normal enough looking bar, only to go through some back door that led into... caves?.. and then some steps in and around and then into the show, which was in a .. cave. love these old cities and their caves just all over the place.

for dinner we went to an american pizza place that was kind of average but was cheap. then home to our brand new glow in the dark tent.

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101 - wed 9 aug - york/edinburgh

we got up and packed up the tent. we cleaned it off pretty good, and decided that we would try and take it back to the store (the edinburgh branch of the store) and exchange it. it was just too tiny.

it was a long drive to edinburgh. we got there at around 4 pm. the streets were busy, streets lined with posters, lots of signs and flags and banners et cetera. edinburgh festival. at the tourist centre we booked accommodation in a guesthouse for the night, deciding not to spend another night in our tent. we also bought some tickets for a show later in the evening.

after dropping the car at the guesthouse we caught the bus back into town and wandered around the old city, which is a great place just to wander around, especially during festival time. we braved high street, with its incessant waves of amateur thespians and comedians shoving flyers into your hands, club promoters trying to give you vouchers for things, buskers, street performance. some people playing on a giant scrabble board. that kind of thing. we found dinner at a pub in edinburgh's newer half, and then killed some time at an internet cafe before going to our show.

david o'doherty was who we saw and he was piss funny. his 'low-energy musical whimsy' was perfect. it was a good start to our edinburgh festival fun.

100 - tue 08 aug - york

day 100 overseas, but definitely the first real day of this particular part of our trip. we made it to york.

it took some driving around in circles - and nearly everything does involve some driving around in circles, we have found - but eventually we sought out a camping ground only to find that it was full, which came as a bit of a surprise. undeterred, we were directed to a campsite further out of town where we found a place to set up our tent.

the tent was much smaller than we expected. in fact, our air mattress - double size - only just squeezed into the tent. no room for anything else, and no room for my feet which hang over the air mattress. we had bought this tent from the store without seeing it set up; we later found out that the size of the tent we had bought had been misprinted in the store's catalogue. so that sucked.

we drove to the bus stop and took the bus into town. york is a lovely town, very much wearing its medievalness on its sleeve. can you even say that? does it make sense? well i said it. we found a really cute old pub on the riverside to have some beers and lunch. suz had yorkshire pudding and sausage - it looked like a large hollowed out tart, filled with brown sauce covering a turd. suz said it was delicious and that the turdish similarities were merely visual, although she said it in a way that was obviously less wanky than that. (though the word turd was involved). the beers were good and the pub was just simply cool, it also having medieval sleeves. (?) or partaking in the medieval sleeve-wearing, at least (?)

we headed then for one of the town's leading tourist attractions, a centre devoted to the city's viking past. the centre is named jorvik, which is the name of the old viking city that once inhabited the spot where york is, and is also the name from which york derives. the viking centre was a little bit lame but kind of cool. the journey starts with a dorky trip in a time machine, and then you get on a like a motorised car that slowly zig zags you through an underground recreation of the viking town, complete with creepy mannequins, thatch buildings, animatronics, stuffed animals. and also - authentic smells! we didn't hear the whoosh as the smells were let off into the air, but we definitely knew when we'd hit a smell, because we'd smell it. and they were printed on the informative map that we'd been given upon entering - without the map we never would have known that it was 'fish market' we were smelling. we would have just thought it was the kid in front of us had let one rip, or that the jorvik centre itself was just simply rundown and perhaps suffering from poor ventilation. the best smell though, was related to the highlight of the lame animatronic journey through the viking town, and was accompanied by a great sound - as our excruciatingly slow ride turned a corner we saw an animatronic man sitting on a viking toilet behind a little fence, in a delightfully unnecessary re-enactment of what paleontologists might call 'taking a viking dump.' there was a smell accompanying the display as we went past, but the most unsettling part was the sound - this guy was having serious trouble clearing his bowels and was letting everyone know with his grunts and agonised moans. as we thought about it, we realised that this poor animatronic man was destined for a lifetime of constipation, and that he had probably been here already for many many years, from opening time until closing, constantly moaning and trying to get this one almighty turd out of his system. of course we all know that it will never come. it was touchingly poignant, and it definitely gave me a finer appreciation for what viking life must have been like.

after some more lame viking hijinks, we wandered around town. we found york's impressive gothic cathedral and soaked in its pretty amazing interiors. then we got ourselves up onto the city walls that encircle most of the old town, and went for a walk around to get some good views.

with the sun going down we headed for a quaint old cobbled street known as 'the shambles' to find somewhere to eat. our gastronomic radar, now becoming finely tuned, led us to a nice italian place. we had to wait a while for a table, which simply gave us an excuse to find another pub to have another beer in. then back at the italian place, we were ushered to our table upstairs to find that the place was cosy, friendly and that it made easily the best pasta in yorkshire. i don't even need to taste any other pasta to know this! i just know it. delicious giant filled tortellini with sage butter sauce. a food highlight of our whole trip.

we caught the bus back to our car, and went for a frustrating long drive trying to find our camping ground in the dark. after doing basically an entire circle around york, we got back home to our incredibly tiny tent and squeezed ourselves into it.

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099 - mon 07 aug - calais/dover/london... travelodg

we caught a taxi from our dodgy hotel to the ferry terminal very early in the morning. maybe its because there are two of us, or maybe its because we don't take taxis very much, but every time we get in one it feels like an amazing race moment.

we picked up our car from the citroen office. it was shiny and pretty (that didn't last long). we mentally prepared ourselves to drive a car for the first time in three months, sitting on what is for us the wrong side of the car. left hand drive. it was a wobbly but mercifully short drive to get the car onto the ferry, and we were soon back on our way to the uk.

then we drove from dover up to london. driving in to and out of london was not a fun experience, though it probably wasn't as bad as i might have thought. we made it to our old house, where someone had already moved in to our recently vacated room (! - cheap accommodation turnover is very high in london). we picked up all of our accumulated camping stuff, said goodbye to our friendly hosts and the dog bella and the cat pinky and the other cat whose name we never found out because they kind of hate that one.. then we dropped some other stuff off with ej and daniel before buggering the hell off out of london.

we got on the motorway and drove drove drove. after some unsuccessful attempts to find somewhere to stay in sheffield for the night, and being truly exhausted from our first day on the road, we ended up crashing (as in sleep, not a car crash) at a motorway travelodge for the night where we had a bottle of wine and dodgy motorway salads for dinner. we watched some dodgy english tv (as if we hadn't done that enough in the last six weeks) - and resolved to find a camping ground tomorrow night in york.

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098 - sun 06 aug - london/dover/calais

we left london early in the morning, and took a lot of photos as we walked to the tube station, through highbury park, which was a walk we'd done at least every day for the last six weeks so we felt like we needed to take some snaps to remember it by. from victoria station we caught the bus to dover. at this point we were lightly packed - the plan was to catch the ferry across to calais, where our french car was to be picked up the following day. and then tomorrow we would ferry back and drive into london to pick up the rest of our camping gear from our former (up until today) housemates before moving on.

after a quick wander around dover we boarded the ferry. i didn't really know what to expect, and definitely was surprised to feel a little bit wobbly on the boat. but some wines quickly steadied (or further unsteadied, to good effect) my innards.

it didn't take long to reach calais. it was genuinely cool arriving on a big boat, its the first time i've ever done that. in calais we headed for a hotel that our housemates had recommended, a very no frills place just outside of the town's central district. it was certainly no frills, but suited us just fine.

in fact, as we headed back out to spend the evening in calais we found ourselves thinking that it was the whole town, not just the 'bansai' hotel, that was kind of cheap. the touristy dodginess of the dover-calais ferry (my friend wally once described the spirit of tasmania as a 'floating tabaret') was to be expected, but i don't think i expected that the dodginess would carry over onto the shore. maybe i didn't expect my first impression of france to be a dodgy, rundown tourist trap, but calais definitely stank. my apologies to our calais readers. yes i am forming an impression of a whole town based on staying there less than 24 hours. i'm a tourist! thats what i do!

we found ourselves somewhere to eat, a place that sold itself as selling authentic cous cous dishes... suz was mainly interested in getting mussels and fries, which is what she got, and i ordered some authentic cous cous, which turned out to be something i could have whacked together myself. it was the 2-minute noodles of cous cous. but hey whatever. suz's mussels were exciting.

we went back to bansai and to our hotel room which was lit up by the street light directly outside our window.

click here for photos

056 to 097 - six weeks in london

so the original plan for these six weeks in london was pretty simple - find somewhere to live, find somewhere to work, and find time to do some sightseeing. we did good on the first and the third - frankly, we sucked at getting ourselves jobs. i was at one point doing some really weird data entry work from home, and suz got very close to lining up work only to be thwarted by proof of residence difficulties. but we weren't exactly unhappy to not be working...

obviously a day-by-day description of our time in london would not make for wonderfully exciting reading (as if any of this actually does make for particularly exciting reading..) so here is a quick summary, with accompanying photos:

a few days after arriving in london, i had a birthday. suz bought me a copy of travel scrabble and made me a little cake. we ended up spending much of the day looking at prospective accommodations, but managed also to spend some time drinking and eating. the day after my birthday, suz and i went to wimbledon! we got to see roger federer on centre court, taken to five sets by an american unknown dude. we also saw andy murray, and we saw sam stosur lose to amelie mauresmo. it was a cool day. i had a glass of pimms that cost £8! woo hoo wimbledon! and when we arrived, on the walk from the train station to the grounds, people kept giving us free stuff.

we spent an afternoon at the tate modern. we met up with our tour group buddies, who to protect the innocent i am continuing to call 'rodrigo and ferdinand', who were ending their europe trip in london. we spent a day checking out the tower of london (where we saw henry viii's giant codpiece), borough market and we hit some pubs too. we did a walking tour of an odd little part of london called little venice, walking the canal and also checking out superstar houses owned by j k rowling and michael flatley et cetera. we checked out spitalfields market, and camden, brick lane. we went to hampstead heath. we went to a movie premiere thanks to some free tickets we got, and it turned out to be the worst movie i´ve ever had to sit through. basically we did a lot of stuff.

however the highlights of the trip were, undoubtedly, the times spent with our good friends in london. some of them can be seen here and here (i hope its ok with them!). we also spent the majority of the six weeks living in a flat in a part of london called highbury, living with a really friendly italian couple, their cats, their dog named bella. photos of them can be found here - these are the best ones out of the millions that suz took of them.

so thanks to our friends in london, old and new, for showing us a good time. piece by piece, in camping stores across london, we bought a tent, sleeping bags, a gas stove, cups, plates, et cetera, et cetera. the camping adventure across england, scotland, france and spain would soon begin.