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...

Birthday in the snow

Hello to all :)
Well, I had my second birthday in the northern hemisphere which means I've been away for a year now, and also that my birthday has been wintery!

We had a great day skiing up at Cairn Gorm, our staff passes getting us free access on the train, up the mountain, ski gear and even lessons!!

Mish shows us how its done

The only photo I got of me in my ski gear and Im not even looking at the camera! Munter!

Aviemore - CairnGorm Mountain

Well here we are in Aviemore - have had 3 days work so far and all is going pretty well. There has been a ridiculous amount of snow over the last few days (apparently we brought the awesome snow with us) and so the mountain staff have been battling to keep the roads and mountain open so that the millions of people who have heard about the fresh powder can get at it.

Here's Mish in his new home, the Ski Hire dept.

Our staff accomodation at Aviemore Highland Resort - nice!

The road we drive to work on - snowy but GORGEOUS


RED SQUIRRELS!!! These were at the Glenmore Cafe :)