Look who I met!!!

Found him in London...

Work in Kent

Well I still haven't got around to posting about our contiki trip, and I ended up posting my travel journal home so I don't have all the details with me anymore! All the photos are on Facebook though :)

We managed to get our jobs at the Garden Centre in northern Kent (in fact it's only 25 miles out of London) and we start in 2 days. Here it is here; Polhill Garden Centre (apparently it's the biggest in the south of England?)

Back in London, Europe was a BLAST

We made it! Had a blast on our tour, we did so many great things that its all a bit jumbled right now, but I kept a bit of a journal so will start blogging soon. I am starting to upload photos to Facebook so they can be found there soon!

Favourite places?? CROATIA, SWITZERLAND, THE NETHERLANDS :)

And we even drove on the highway outside Gent, I could see my student residence building where I lived!!!

We're off to Cornwall today, fingers crossed it doesnt keep raining (we're camping!!) and also that we can find jobs!

xxx R

In Italy!!!!!!

Hello from Venice!! We have just had a great day in the sun and on the canals.

Just a quick note to let you know that we are still alive, just unfortunately I can't get much access to the net or upload photos. I've got some good-uns though!!!

Hope you are all well and not too cold (mwhahahahahah).
Much love,
xxxx Renelle

Happy Mother's Day!!!

To our lovely mums and also to Lamb and nan;
Hope you have a fab day!!!

lots of love,
Renelle and Hamish

Contiki Plan

Helloooooooo!
In the very likely event that I don't get to use the internet much once we start our tour, here's a list of the places we'll be! Cant' wait! If anyone needs to contact us, Mum has a list of the contact phone numbers etc for the campsites we'll be staying at, or we can be reached by email or Hamish's cell +44 7896471609 it should roam in all the countries we're going to.

12th May – London to Paris
13th – Paris
14th – Paris
15th – Paris to Lyon
16th – Lyon to Barcelona
17th – Barcelona
18th – Barcelona to French Riviera
19th – French Riviera
20th - French Riviera to Venice
21st – Venice
22nd – Venice to Florence
23rd – Florence
24th – Florence to Rome
25th – Rome
26th – Rome to Sorrento
27th – Sorrento to Corfu
28th – Corfu
29th – Corfu
30th – Corfu
31st – Corfu to Athens
1st June – Athens
2nd – Athens to Kavala
3rd – Kavala to Cannakale
4th – Cannakale to Istanbul
5th – Istanbul
6th – Istanbul to Sofia
7th – Sofia to Ohrid
8th – Ohrid to Durres
9th – Durres to Dubrovnik
10th – Dubrovnik
11th – Dubrovnik
12th – Dubrovnik to Zadar
13th – Zadar to Budapest
14th – Budapest
15th – Budapest to Vienna
16th – Vienna
17th – Vienna to Prague
18th – Prague
19th – Prague
20th – Prague to Munich
21st – Munich to Swiss Alps
22nd – Swiss Alps
23rd – Swiss Alps to Heidelberg
24th - Heidelberg to Amsterdam
25th – Amsterdam
26th – Amsterdam to London

Bring it on!!

Dublin, Guiness and on to Belfast

First order of the day was a trip to the Guinness Storehouse in central Dublin, near the site of the St James’ Brewery. It’s a modern exhibition about Guinness, and I really enjoyed it. It went through the whole history and process of brewing, as well as other things I’d never think of like the logistics of such a global brand, and advertising through the ages. Best thing about it though was the free pint of Guinness we got to enjoy at the top of the complex, in a glass-walled bar overlooking Dublin. Magic. I really do think the stuff over here tastes better than back home…
Hamish 'drowning' in a vat of 272,000 pints

My pint at 10:30am in the Gravity bar; 7 stories up. Mmm delish.

Slainte! (cheers in Gaelic - It's supposed to have an accent over it too but I can't seem to be able to get that to publish on here lol).

We missed our free walking tour of Dublin so checked out a few things ourselves, like Trinity College. The library there is amazing and it houses many ancient manuscripts and the Book of Kells (an ancient and beautifully illustrated hand-written Gaelic translation of the Bible written by monks). Unfortunately we couldn’t shell out to see it but I got a postcard!!
You can get a little idea of it from the type of picture on this sign

We then bussed to Belfast (from the window I saw a FOX!!!) and we’ll spend the next 2 days here. More to come on that…

Hope you are all well!! Lots of love, R

Shamrocker Day Three; Day Three – Doolin back to Dublin

Our day started out with a visit to the faeries, as we stopped at a faerie ring. These are where faeries can travel between their plane and ours, through tree roots exposed above the soil. At this point we were in the County Clare, which is apparently the most superstitious part of Ireland. We had to walk clockwise around the ring, and say thankyou in Gaelic once we exited it. I never knew when Murf was being serious or pulling our legs, but everyone did it anyway. There are many types of faeries, including the Pooka who cut and scratch you when you’re out at night, another type who jump on your shoulders and make you stagger from side to side (ie the faerie who makes you get drunk!), leprechauns, banshees, heaps of others that I have no idea how to write as they are Gaelic words. The drinking culture is pretty scary though, bit of an eye opener.

We drove through the Barren, a limestone plateau which was apparently left when Ireland was back at the equator under that shallow sea. It’s pretty ‘barren’ and rocky but this was where Oliver Cromwell sent a bunch of people who he didn’t kill, to eek out a meagre existence amongst the rocks. There are lots of tombs there dating back 7000 years (that’s right, WAY older than the pyramids), with massive slabs of rock hoisted somehow onto their roofs. Human bones were placed inside with the idea that this portal would transport that soul into the next realm or existence.

We journeyed on to Clonmacnoise which is a site of foundation of Christianity in Ireland. It is now a site of pilgrimage and even Pope John Paul II journeyed to pray there. There are some amazingly carved Celtic crosses in the graveyard dating back to 900AD, and in attempting to preserve and restore them it was discovered that even with lasers and all the modern technologies we have, the skills of these ancient stonemasons can’t be replicated. They had to take casts of them instead.


Last stop was the Locke Whisky distillery, where Hamish took on the female species in a taste-testing game and won himself a lil bottle of whisky. I still like scotch more 

Shamrocker Day Two; Killarney to Doolin

This day was my favourite, the scenery was amazing as we drove up the south western coast of Ireland. We stopped off first in a town called Dingle which is known for a friendly dolphin called Fungi who hangs out in their harbour. I reckon he’s a relative of Opo. We had amazing coastal views along the Dingle peninsula.

We also stopped at the ‘end of the world’, the most westerly point of Europe and where the flat world ended before the Americas were discovered. This is Cloargh rock, and in good Shamrocker tradition tour members are incouraged to remove their shirts.

We caught a ferry across the river Shannon (the longest in Ireland) which took all of 10 minutes but saved a couple of hours driving apparently. We discovered that the Irish really do like to take the piss as Murf had directed us to a passenger lounge and glass-bottom viewing area on the ferry. The passenger lounge turned out to be a bench at the side of the car holding bay, and the glass-bottom area was a small dirty window.

I had been waiting to see the Cliffs of Moher most of all, and was delighted that the weather was really clear so we got a great view. Check this out!


Dinner that evening at a local Pub was a treat; delicious Irish stew with the most amazing Irish soda bread, a pint of Guinness and traditional Irish music. Celtic music is fantastic and there was a great band with guitars, a banjo, fiddle, squeeze-box (kinda like a piano-accordian but with buttons instead of piano keys), a bodhrain (special type of drum), and a tin whistle. Magical!

Delicious Irish stew, extra-delicious soda bread, washed down with a pint of Guinness - yum!

Shamrocker tour of Southern Ireland 1st - 3rd May

After really enjoying our Haggis tour of Scotland back in August last year, we decided to do a wee tour of Southern Ireland with their sister company, Shamrocker.

Day One; Dublin to Killarney
Our tour guide was Murf, (Murphy, classic awesome Irish accent too!) and unlike Haggis tours the Shamrockers also have a bus driver so the tour guide doesn’t have to navigate and talk/guide at the same time. It rained leprechauns for a while but then thankfully the weather was amazing for the rest of the trip. First stop was the Rock of Cashel, a castle built on an ancient Viking holding fort, and was the seat of the King of Munster.

Next were the Mitchelstown caves, owned and run by the family who discovered them so was quite an un-commercialised and different experience. Massive caverns underground have great acoustics so they run underground choir concerts, wine and cheese evenings and the like. There are even fossils in the caves of equatorial coral from 350 million years ago, proof they reckon that Ireland used to be near the equator under a shallow sea. We weren't allowed to take photos though.

Highlight of the day was visiting Blarney Castle and the Blarney Stone. This was special for Hamish as his mum has been there and done the same thing! Kissing the Blarney stone supposedly gives ‘the gift of the gab’ or the gift of eloquent speech. There are a few theories as to where it came from;
1)Faeries made it magical (this can be an answer to anything).
2)Queen Elizabeth I coined the phrase ‘load of Blarney’ after trying to take over Blarney Castle but being frustrated by the cunning language of the owners in their refusal to hand it over
3)The stone is said to be half of the stone of destiny, upon which Scottish Kings were crowned, as a token of comeraderie towards the Irish who had found alongside the Scots.
Me kissing the Blarney Stone. It's actually scarily exposed and there's enough gap to fall through to your death for sure!

Hamish's turn... he went after me so he got my goobies mwhahaha

The queue to kiss the Blarney Stone.

We stopped for the night in the town of Killarney which was buzzing with young hooligans in town for a rally. We all went out for a proper pint of Guinness, and then a pub theatre session with a local storyteller. His message involved stories of pubs and a song about syphilis, and various other ‘interesting’ topics. After that it was on to a ‘dishco’ where the dance floor lights were ragin’.

Our tour group in Killarney

Landing in Ireland!!

Well it's official - we have arrived in the Emerald Isle, land of Guinness and leprechauns. We came in to Dun Laoghaire port on an earlier swift ferry so had an extra few hours to play with in Dublin! Perfect sunshine greeted us after a rainy start, so we managed to see the Dublin castle and gardens, 2 famous cathedrals and do a bit of noseying through the shops.

St Patrick's Cathedral

At Dublin Castle

Dublin at night - over the river Liffey

The Lakes District, England and Wales!!

On the way down to Wales we decided to drive through a bit of the Lakes District in Cumbria, England.

We visited Lake Windermere which is the largest of the English lakes, and it was a lovely sunny day there. Hamish tried some Kendal Mint cake, which is like a bar of solid sugar (with extra glucose syrup!) that tastes like mint oil. You can even get chocolate covered ones! Good for endurance sport and the like, apparently some went up Mt Everest with the Hillary crew!


Then we moved down and crossed the border into WALES!!!


First stop in Wales was Conwy, where there is an awesome castle with city walls still pretty well intact.

This is Hamish at the top of one of the turrets; check out the one top left!


From there we moved on to Llandudno, a victorian seaside town where we stayed the night. Has a really different atmosphere!
Here's Hamish skimmin' his stones

The Last of Scotland

We have now farewelled Scotland :( On the way down to England and Wales we did check out 2 highlights though - Rosslyn Chapel and Hadrian's Wall.

You can't take photos of Rosslyn Chapel but most of you would have seen (a replica of) it in the Da Vinci Code. It was built in 1446 and has a fascinating history involving Knights Templar, Freemasons, murder, treasure; all the good stuff. We were able to get into a guided tour of the place and learned a lot about the carvings inside. Some of the really kool features were;
- A copy of the death mask of Robert the Bruce (that guy from Braveheart)/ a famous Scottish King.
- Over 100 'Green men'; these weird little faces of men with plants coming out of their mouths, supposedly a Pagan symbol of the bond/link between man and earth.
- 2 famous pillars at the front of the chapel; the Mason and the Apprentice pillar. The Mason carved his pillar, and then set off to a nearby town for inspiration for the 2nd one. Meanwhile the apprentice had a dream and beautifully carved the second pillar. When the Mason returned and saw the work, he flew into a jealous rage and killed his apprentice with a mallet. At the back of the chapel is a carving of the Mason's face, nearby is the Apprentice with a bump on his head, and then the Apprentice's crying mother.
- There is a carving of an angel carrying a heart. This is supposedly because the chap who had the chapel built (William St Clair) and his brother were chosen to escort the heart of Robert the Bruce (King of Scotland) to Jerusalem. Robert the Bruce had wanted his heart to be returned to the Holy place when he fell. If you read the Da Vinci code, there were certain other ties of the St Clairs to Jerusalem!
- The Crypt was where limited filming took place for the movie. Apparently Tom Hanks walked down an aisle and down into the Crypt, but the rest of the church was shot from a model, as the real chapel is currently under restoration and is covered in scaffolding. Apparently the film crew put up a sticker of a pentagram over the entrance of the crypt, which was removed after filming to leave a white mark where it had taken off the surface of the 600year old stone!!!! So now there is a nice white circle above the entrance to the crypt, lol.

After that, we left Scotland and passed over the English border.


Hadrian's Wall was built in ~130AD by Roman Emperor Hadrian as the frontier of the Roman Empire, and to keep the Picts at bay haha, the ancient inhabitants of Northern Scotland proved a bit much for the Romans to handle. The wall is now broken in places but originally stretched the whole way across the country. We visited it in several places, the most memorable being the Sycamore Gap. Here the is a beautiful Sycamore tree in the place where the opening scene of Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves was filmed. Lol.

This is me at the Sycamore Gap.

Here's Hamish with his bow n arrow :)

Almost there

Only 10 days to go before we start off on our travels, so we're busy with packing and organising!! We also moved back to the highland resort staff accomodation so that's kept us busy over the last few days.

This morning we were a bit homeless (between moving out of our house and into the resort later on) so we drove to Carrbridge nearby and ate our cereal (with all our cutlery and dishes and entire belongings haha) at this nice bridge amongst the squirrels.
Apprently this bridge was built in 1717 so that people could reach the burial place across the other side of the Dulnain river, bodies in tow :S

Our European Adventure Begins SOOOON!!

Hi Everyone,
Mish and I are really excited to be embarking on our travels in just a few weeks (1 month and 1 day to go!!!).

First we will be driving from Aviemore to Edinburgh, seeing the Rosslyn Chapel and Hadrian's wall on the way down to the Lake District. From there we drive to Wales and stay a while in the north (check out Llandudno on your google-de-google, it looks soooo nice!) and then catching the ferry to Dublin, leaving the car behind til we get back. We have a day to check out the Guinness factory and then we are on a 3 day tour of the Republic / 'Emerald Isle'; http://www.shamrockeradventures.com/SouthernRocker3Day.html


From there we catch a bus to Belfast and spend a couple of days there checking out Northern Ireland (like the Giant's causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge) before heading back to Dublin and then Wales on the ferry. We've got 1 day to drive through Wales and see it's National Parks (staying in an old school house in the middle of a forest), before checking out Cardiff. Next stop from there is Bath where we will soak our travelling selves in the Roman Baths, on the way to Stonehenge!! Then we're off to London, to start our Contiki tour of EUROPE!!!!

Here it is folks;
http://contiki.co.uk/tours/106-europe-camping-46-days. This tour is really great because camping saves so much money on accomodation. We'll be rocking through; France, Spain, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands and Belgium!!

Some highlights of the tour;
Moulin Rouge, Eiffel Tower, The Louvre, Wine tasting in France, Monaco's Casinos, Punting in Venice, Juliet's balcony in Verona, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Vatican City, watersports in Capri and Corfu, Greek Island cruising, Athens Acropolis and Parthenon, Troy, Istanbul's Mosques, Croatia's coastline, Budapest, Opera in Vienna, Prague, Liechtenstein, and a visit to the Swiss Alps!! We'll even get to visit Gallipoli which I am stoked about.

We leave Aviemore on the 27th April, and start our Contiki on the 12th May. Wohoooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

Nelle takes on Snowboarding

Check out my board!!! I got up early on my day off and headed up the mountain for a snowboarding lesson, which turned out to be fantastic. I'm now feeling muscles that I didn't know existed, but it was great fun. I had the PERFECT day for it - enough snow, no wind, clear sunny skies, GORGEOUS!

This is the view from the Ptarmigan restaurant where I work (that buidling in the picture). On a good day, you can see the sea from here (the Moray firth at Inverness). It's stunning!

This is the summit of Cairn Gorm mountain, right above the Ptarmigan restaurant. It's the 6th highest mountain in the UK apparently!!

My jump shot; the look of pain/worry on my face is the fact that I'm standing on a ski run and there are skiiers bearing down on me!! Only got one chance to take a shot and wasn't gonna risk my neck again!

A new (cheaper) flat

As most of you know we moved out of the resort staff accomodation as it was a bit pricey, so we're now down the road a bit. The photo above is the area we live in - it has colourful houses and funny speed signs; "twenty's plenty" lol.

Here's our new place;


It's on a little avenue off ROBERTS ROAD!!!

Ski Hire Geeks

Hamish and his fellow loonies had a 'geek' themed day in ski hire, so they all dressed up appropriately.


I never stopped laughing. But secretly I was jealous.

They also had a battery-operated dog chained to a poll that does naughty things...