Northumberland Coast Path - All Photos
Thumbs Up ...
What a rarity - a photo of me on my blog AND a photo by someone else on my blog - 2 treats in 1. Anyway .... taken standing on the shore near the start of the Lindisfarne (Holy Island) causeway. There is just something about this photo that cracks me up ... good times.
Northumberland Coast Photos ....
Well ... I had hoped to do them over the Bank Holiday weekend (i.e. this weekend) - but have been out most of Saturday/Sunday and then spent today cleaning the house in preparation for finding another flatmate :(
Anyway ... here is one for now. It is a photo of the ruins of Dustanburgh Castle off in the distance taken from the north.
Off to the Northumberland Coast
After uhmming and aaahing for ages about where to go on holidays, I have decided to stay in - wait for it - England. The initial plan was to do some walking in the Lakes District but due to my sheer lack of organisation and the fact that it is summer school holidays - that didnt look like it was going to be very easy to get sorted.
So have settled on the Northumberland Coast - home of Lindisfarne - which is somewhere I've always wanted to check out. Unfortunately the weather is not looking too good - we could be in for a few days of rain - "atmospheric" I guess :)
Anyway I head off tomorrow (Thu) after work up to Newcastle and am going to spend 5 days up there. Hopefully come back with some photos of some of the coast and castles from the trip.
This is the plan for day 1 : http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3112512. It also happens to be the shortest day ....
Folkestone Overnight
Caught the train down to Folkestone last weekend for an overnight camping trip by the sea with the ex-Nix crew. Stayed in the The Warren campground and did some walks along the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover. Was great to get out of London for the weekend ... definitely have to get out camping more often.
It is an aerobie on my head - don't ask ....
Glastonbury
Well I am back from Glastonbury now and almost recovered. What an awesome time !!
A mate picked me up in his car on Wednesday morning (5am!) and we headed off. Turns out we werent the only campers off to an early start - there was no shortage of cars on the motorway packed to the roof with camping equipment. We arrived near the site at around 730 in the morning, only to be caught in a long queue of cars waiting to get into the carpark that opened at 8. Expecting the worst, I was happily surprised when we were parked in the carpark by 9. We unpacked the car, loaded up the sack truck with tents, camping chairs, rucksacks etc and headed off towards the gate. The queues were mercifully small and we got in pretty quickly.
Unfortunately we had made a bad call on the car park. Where we were planning to camp, the Dairy Ground, was exactly opposite to the festival entrance that our car park was near. For those who've been to Glastonbury before, you will know that it is a long walk from one side of the festival grounds to the other. We eventually got to where we wanted to camp and started setting up the tents. After the most of the tents were up we realised that we werent actually where we thought we were ... i.e. not in the Dairy Ground camping area, but the Park Home Ground area. They are neighbouring camp grounds but it just goes to show how disorienting the huge festival grounds can be (especially when you have been up since 4 in the morning !!) We decided to stay put as I was already sick of putting up tents by that stage - we had 3 tents and half a gazebo already put up. 2 tents and the rest of the gazebo left to go.
We finally got all the tents set up but unfortunately our work wasnt over, we had to make a trip back to the car to get more camping essentials, most important of which was beer (its a lot cheaper to bring beer in than buy it onsite - the only downside being that it gets a bit warm !!) Half way back to the car we stopped off a for a cider - thankfully just the one otherwise we would have never made it back to the car. Eventually we dragged ourselves back up the hill to the car, loaded up our backs and the sack truck again and headed back to the campsite via, surprise surprise, the Brothers Pear Cider tent. It was a great feeling once the campsite was sorted out - time to relax.
It was surprising how many people had already arrived first thing on Wednesday morning. The festival proper doesnt kick off until Friday so there is not much live music on for Wednesday / Thursday. I wont bore you with the rest of Wednesday and Thursdays escapades apart from the fact that they were filled with cider and sunshine (i.e. NOT filled with rain or mud!).
Friday morning we woke up to rain. Fortunately it didnt last long and by the time I struck out from camp to go see some bands it had stopped and the mud wasnt too serious. First up was Metronomy on the John Peel Stage. Cool gig. Followed by Friendly Fires on the Other Stage. They were absolutely awesome. Then off to Dance East to see Layo and Bushwacka. Final gig for the day was Neil Young on the Pyramid Stage. Brilliant. What a legend. Did I mention it had been sunny all afternoon .... After Neil had finished I headed up to Trash City and thats where I found myself (or maybe that was lost myself - the place was pretty crazy) until early hours of Saturday morning.
Saturday. More sun. More cider. More bands ? Hmmm. Now that I think about it the only live "band" I saw on Saturday was Rolf Harris. He pulled a massive crowd which was good to see.
Rest of the day was spent wandering around at random and ducking into the dance tents to see Deadmau5 and Erol Alkan. That night we headed up into Arcadia / ShangriLa which was amazing - so much strange stuff going on. Managed to catch a brief 3 song set from Billy Bragg by a campfire. That was amazing - singing along to A New England by a campfire with only about 50 other people - totally random !!
Sunday. More sun. But some very sore heads. A large part of Sunday was spent lazing back at the campsite under the gazebo. Finally made it down to see Tom Jones and Madness before ducking up to my tent for a brief kip before going back down to see Blur on the Pyramid Stage at 10pm. The Blur set was incredible - they were in fine form - Damon looked like he was loving being back on stage. After Blur I headed back to the campsite and had an "early" night (i.e. the sun wasnt coming up yet ....). It was a bit sad crawling back into the tent for the last time - although I was more than ready for real toilets and a shower.
During the night there was a thunderstorm and it absolutely chucked it down. I thought my worst fears had been realised - we were going to have to pack our tents up and make our way back to the car in the rain. That is what happened last time I came to Glastonbury which was definitely a lowlight. Fortunately by the time we got up the rain had cleared. Some of our friends had got up at 4am in the morning to head back to London - they had to work - not pretty. We got away at around 10. There are tales of massive queues, hours long, getting out of the car parks but we were lucky and managed to drive straight out. Unfortunately our luck didnt last the whole way home - we got stuck in a massive traffic jam for about an hour just before Stonehenge. Once we had passed that it was smooth sailing back into London. Got back home around half 3 - put my tent out to dry, jumped in the shower and collapsed in front of the tele.
Its funny reading back what I just wrote - it doesnt sound like all that - but there is just something about Glastonbury. Hanging out with good mates. Drinking cider in the sun. Wandering around at random exploring. People watching. There is just something special about the atmosphere - such a diverse range of people all there to have fun. Good times.
Glasto Take II
Off to Glastonbury tomorrow at some ungodly hour in the morning. 5 days camping down on Worthy Farm. Please let the rain stay away .....
Anyway ... I might even come back with some pictures to post. Wouldnt that be a turn up for the books :)
As for what else is going on - not much. Still working @ the same place. Still living @ the same place. Have nearly been here four years now (end of July I think). Scary huh ...
About Bloody Time :)
Its soooo hard not to get by obsessed by the weather over here - especially if you are as foolish as me to have to have the weather from Adelaide, Perth & London on your google homepage for daily comparison !!
3 Years, 11 Months Ago ...
... I was sitting in Singapore Airport starting a new adventure - waiting for a flight to Beijing that would take me to the start of the Trans Mongolian Express before travelling across to Europe and then finally to London. 3 years 11 months later I am waiting in Singapore Airport waiting for a flight to London to take me to, well, work. How times change :(
Sadly my 3 weeks of holiday are over in Oz are over. Has been a great trip. The highlight of the trip was definitely managing to catch up with a lot of people - family and friends - some of which I havent seen for years. Unfortunately with only three weeks on my hands I didnt get to catch up with everyone I would have liked too - next time - I promise.
Feels strange going back to London this time. Little less sure its really where I want to be right now ... but we'll see.
Half Way
In keeping up with tradition , I am posting from Singapore Changi Airport. Got to fly on the new A380, that thing is huge. Sadly I didnt splurge out on one of the suites, instead settling for the character building cattle class. The inflight entertainment has had a bit of a revamp - you can now take your own usb stick on board, plug it into the seat in front of you and watch your own movies, or even more exciting, read your very own pdfs. Unfortunately I didnt know this ahead of time so instead got to choose from the selection of TV/movies they already had which, luckily, is pretty decent. I settled for a various episodes of House, Inbetweeners (missing the new series back in the UK :( ), Peep Show and Flight of the Conchords in between random bouts of sleep.
I think the reason I go home to Oz every year and a half or so is that it is just long enough to forget how painful the flight is. 12 hours sitting still is a lot more tiring than it sounds. And I am saying that with half the flight left !! Luckily I have managed to score an emergency exit seat on the way to Melbourne so that should make things a bit less painful.
Below is a picture of my faithful chariot - courtesy of the wonders of digital cameras, laptops and free wifi. Aint modern life grand.
Airport Bound
Just about to head to the airport to catch my flight to Oz.
Stopping off in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth so I'll hopefully be catching up with a few you.
:)
Berlin
A couple of weeks ago I took a long weekend and spent 4 days in Berlin. I stayed in Penzlauer Berg, a suburb in former Eastern Germany. It was a really interesting area - lots of cool little bars and places to eat. It was a pain not being able to speak German - I really hate trying to order things in English :( All I really mastered in the way of German was "zvei becks" - but hey, it went a long way !!! Anyway, the trip is old news now, but I had an awesome time and I definitely want to go back there some time soon (at least not leave it for another 12 years). I only took my point&shoot camera but I still managed to get some shots to pad out the blog ....
Sibiu, Romania
After my previous foiled attempt to fly to Romania for work a month ago, I succeeded getting there last week for three days. It was a fair hike getting there - about 7 hours airport (Heathrow) to airport (Sibiu), via Munich - so I was pretty tired by the time I got back home Friday night. It almost snowed the whole time I was there. Fortunately it was only light snow or I would have been snowed in !! I didn't get much of a chance to explore as I was either working or out drinking (£1 pints!)/eating with the guys I was working with! Looking at the photos now I wish I had made a bit more of an effort to make the most of some of the Old Town scenery.
More information about Sibiu here.
And a map for those wondering where exactly this place is ....
View Larger Map
More information about Sibiu here.
And a map for those wondering where exactly this place is ....
View Larger Map
Snow Snow and More Snow
What an awesome day. My commute was largely unaffected - managed to catch a train in after about 1/2 hour delay - nothing too serious. I really wanted to go in to work so I could take some photos on the way rather than work from home !!
Here is a selection of photos from today. For the rest check out my snow set on flickr here.
Here is a selection of photos from today. For the rest check out my snow set on flickr here.
Here is a selection of photos from today. For the rest check out my snow set on flickr here.
Here is a selection of photos from today. For the rest check out my snow set on flickr here.
More Snow
The snow kept on falling during the night. All the buses have been cancelled and quite a few of the trains too ! Its going to be an interesting day. More snow forecast too ... will have to get some more photos. Shame I have to work, although I might end up having to work from home.
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