22 December 2019 We left Kandy at a lazy 10am and started down the winding mountain roads to Ella. It turns out to be an almost five hour drive, excluding breaks. This is quite different to driving in the UK or, for example, the USA because you have to keep your concentration on the road » » »
Posts Tagged ‘driving’
24 April 2017
Rampaging badgers
3 April 2017 Today was a classic car touring day, and the weather remained warm and sunny for it. It’s worth noting that we’re being ridiculously lucky. The normal average temperature in Slovakia at the end of March is 9 degrees, and the spring weather is as wet and changeable as it is in England. » » »
Tags: driving
16 March 2015
Driving and walking and chestnuts
13th February 2015 More whacky weather. It was astonishingly clear this morning, so we deviated from our plan and drove back up to Pico do Arieiro, where we got magnificent vistas of the whole island in all directions, scarcely a cloud in the sky. Contrast with the soupy whiteness behind Maureen in the photo a » » »
16 March 2015
Mountains in the Atlantic
8th February 2015 We’ve got a first taste of Madeira’s changeable weather. Hopping in the car after breakfast, it was sunglasses and warmth, better turn the fan on cool ‘cos the car will be baking! Stopping at a viewpoint to gaze into thick, impenetrable mist in the afternoon it was back down to 7C and » » »
24 December 2013
What price silky anteater?
18th December 2013 In fact about $140. That was the price of our trip in a boat through the mangroves of Isla Damas to find a small bundle of tawny fur curled around a thin branch asleep. To be fair, any wildlife tour is reliant on luck, and on a different day we might also » » »
24 July 2011
Variable conditions
23rd July 2011 Today was a strange mixture. Up hideously early in the morning birdwatching; a long, weary and immensely frustrating drive all over the middle of Ecuador; and this evening finds us relaxing in our own hot spring pool in the rain and mist. The birdwatching happened by accident, we were asking Julia some » » »
28 June 2011
Defying expectations
26th June 2011 Please be careful when you set expectations for people, in whatever you do. I’ve probably rattled on about this a few times, but one of the surest ways to cause disappointment is by setting the wrong expectation. If we had known that the alternative route back to Arica took seven hours, we » » »
28 June 2011
Salty
25th June 2011 Today we dared to brave the road to the Salar de Surire. The guidebook suggests you only try this with a high-clearance vehicle. The lady at the car hire place shook her head vigorously when we asked if it was sensible to do. But Flavio said that if we took it carefully, » » »
3 June 2011
Otter or not?
30th May 2011 Wow I’m tired. We were ready for breakfast at 7:30, just before dawn. The whole world was sparkling with frost and despite wearing almost every item of clothing we had, it was freezing. Breakfast at least was in the warm, porridge and hot rolls to store up some energy. At 8am down » » »
16 May 2011
Red Centre
15th May 2011 Today was awesome, and I try to use that word sparingly. We’ve already been on some dirt roads in our Toyota Landcruiser already in the red centre, but then again we drove down lots of dirt roads in our tiny Hyundai Getz. Today we drove the bone-shaking Mereenie Loop track which cuts » » »
15 May 2011
Flinders hop
7th May 2011 What should you do if you’re driving at 100kph along a dirt road into the sunset in your little red rental Hyundai and you suddenly come upon a herd of emus crossing the road? What you should not do is slam on the brakes, fishtail out of control on the loose gravel, » » »
15 May 2011
Drive
6th May 2011 Today I worked out that by the time we’ve finished we’ll have probably had a hire car for about half of our year travelling. That’s assuming we get one for a few weeks in Chile. This figure surprised me. I’d really thought that we’d spent much less time with a car. It » » »
26 February 2011
And back again
23rd February 2011 So now we’re driving back down the 900km road to Perth, the same route we drove two days ago but in reverse. It must be said that our trip up the west coast of Australia feels a little anticlimactic. This west coast is difficult to visit and enjoy. You can gawp for » » »
Tags: disappointment, driving
26 February 2011
New travel companions
20th February 2011 My parents picked us up from the hotel this morning. I paid the bill before they arrived, and got the first cold wake-up to the fact that Australia is going to be expensive to travel in. The room was about £100. For a characterless no-frills hotel in an uninteresting part of town, » » »
9 February 2011
Wandering by car
6th February 2011 We left our hotel by 9am this morning, and didn’t get back until 6:30pm. I reckon we probably spent a total of 3.5 hours exploring a temple, having lunch and visiting a lake which means I spent about six hours driving. Given that I used less than half a tank of fuel » » »
12 January 2011
Ready to explode
12th January 2011 Even as it happened I thought “well, at least it’ll be something to blog about”. Blogs seem to be a useful way of putting events into perspective; if your response to a mishap is “this will make today’s blog” rather than “oh noooooooo!” then it probably isn’t such a great disaster. We » » »
1 September 2010
Dragon’s teeth
Bloody roadworks. They’re doing a lot of work on the roads in South Africa right now, which is great (though personally I find the potholes fun and challenging at 80mph) but they’ve got an annoying habit of working on 5km of road at a time, which means the traffic lights for the roadworks are typically » » »
24 August 2010
Hello Robbie and Carmen!
Today we drove and drove across the old Transkei region – one of the former black homelands – and stopped in the town of Matatiele. More vast, dry geography peppered with the odd ramshackle town. And truly excellent roads; you can’t cover 300+ miles in 6 hours on bad roads. There’s not much to do » » »
19 August 2010
Rain, cold and whales
Last night it absolutely tipped down with rain, and this morning it is cold. Our B&B room is large and well furnished, but shares with all other South African accommodation a complete disdain for anything as wussy as heating. “It’s only cold for five or six weeks of the year” as our host pointed out. » » »
30 July 2010
We begin!
I’m sitting in the shade of a tree at Marrick Safari in the middle of the Karoo, which means we must have started our travels. It feels strangely like any other holiday right now – I’m sure that will change as two days stretches towards a month. Air whinge. We selected two great seats (window » » »