The Scottish Highlands - Glencoe and Loch Ness

Glencoe is dew with the all-pervading scent of pine intermingled with smokey peat from all the chimneys warming up cosy stone cottages. An Tor is the most awesome place to go for a walk, an endless pine forest covered in moss, permanently very cold and slightly damp. I loved it! Far apart from the bush of Australia, everything was more verdant than the colour green on a pastel chart, and there is no colour bleaching as the light is dimmed in the forest, making everything shine its most radiant colours.

Loch Ness was less impressive. The mountains around the lake are nice, although the walks are much longer than at Glencoe and have less to offer. I think around now would be the perfect time of year to visit Scotland, as everything is nice and green and it's possible to go outside without losing body parts when they solidify and break off from your cold, cold body. In winter, there would be nothing to do but sit inside with a good book and stoke the fireplace. Which is tempting, anyway, and what I did in Glencoe every evening I was there.

Welsh Dragons and Scottish Dragoons

We were in London from a grand total of 1 hour before we headed off to Cardiff, Wales. Lucky we did, because the Glastonbury festival was on in England, which meant for some reason that hostels in London were incredibly expensive – the first dorm bed was 66 pounds, and the second dorm bed option was 133 pounds! Hostels were still expensive, although just the usual type of expensive – 20 pounds for a dorm bed. We booked in to Cardiff, and checked out the gardens and surrounds of the Cardiff castle. We also walked up to Blackmoor Weir, which has been operating since the middle ages. There wasn't a great deal to see in Cardiff, and everything was incredibly expensive, so after two nights in Cardiff, we skipped out on the rest of Wales and caught two buses up to Edinburgh, Scotland. Edinburgh is beautiful, and the countryside once we hit Scotland was much improved to England. I love Scotland! Edinburgh castle is quite interesting – we saw a demonstration of an old rifle shooting, and also a cannon being shot! I think the old powder and ball rifle actually made more noise than the cannon, it was ridiculously loud. Now we're headed to Glencoe, at the base of Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in Scotland!

Wicked Road tripping – never enough! Take two: Malaga to London in 8 days

 Such a good Wicked road trip, but after seven days travelling around Holland, Belgium, France, and England, it had to end. Or so I thought...

My flight to Madrid, Spain was relatively straightforward – easyJet is so easy to catch that it feels more like taking a bus than a plane, and all customs in the EU don't involve much hassle (except for England, which makes it a bother to get into!). I met Bec at our hostel – we were psyched up for a roadtrip around Spain, and I was rapt to see her again. The plan was three weeks with a little Barina sized car, exploring Spain's nooks and crannies. Bec had put a deposit down on the rental and we just had to rock up and pay. Or so we thought...

Both of these assumptions turned out wrong. When we arrived at the car rental company, they wouldn't accept any of our Travelex Visa cards for payment... and would have had to pay triple deposit with Bec's Australian Credit/Debit Card – they wouldn't accept cash, either. In short, they were snobs – we had four different ways to pay them for the rental, but they didn't like any of them. We would lose the deposit because we couldn't pay them, even though we could pay them in four different fashions. Bastards. Trying to think it through, I delayed the hire until the next day while we worked out our options.

Never one to like snobs, I proposed we ditch the rental company and go with something a little more casual, where there's no pickiness about payment – a Wicked rental. I thought I remembered that there was another 1 pound special from Spain to London. I checked it out – indeed there was! Wasting no time, we planned out a quick route and shot an email through. The next day, we were at the beginning of my second, and Bec's first Wicked! Road trip.

Spain hadn't been high on my to-see list, and from the few days I was there, I don't see much in it. We had an awesome backpackers in Malaga with Oasis Hostel, but outside the hostels there is little to see or do.

In direct contrast to this, when we arrived in Portugal late on the first day of our road tripping, I was VERY impressed. Beautiful white washed villages introduced us to the country, and things only improved from there. By noon on the second day, we were in Sintra, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen – a lush green city, with palacial grounds all over it and small winding alleys, in which cafes and restaurants nestle. A visit to the Quinta de Regaleira, one of three palaces with extensive palace grounds, had me the most excited – beautiful gardens overgrown with pine trees, wells with winding staircases and undergrown tunnels, ponds and marble statues, all with a healthy dusting of moss and tree ferns. The icing on the cake was the secret doorway at the top of one of the well staircases – I almost imploded with mirth.

After spending a good four hours exploring the palace, we set off in search of Alcazar do Mer, a seaside town set atop cliffs over the sea that I'd seen in a postcard whilst purging the alleyways of Sintra of their secrets. It wasn't far, so I thought it would be worth seeing. The drive there through rainforest and narrow winding roads was lovely, as was the beautiful view of the town from my eyrie on a seaside cliff. After a day of exploring the wonders of southern Portugal, I was as tired as a ten year old after a day at Movie World, and slept hard.

The next morning, we set off to head through northern Spain to France. On the way, we passed through some of the most beautiful little Portugese towns, with cobblestoned ways as their main streets, and old men sitting in groups in benches, watching the days go by and staring at us strangely. I had the most ridiculous conversation with a gentleman when I stopped to ask for directions – we had been driving through mountainous pine forests for about an hour and I was worried that we were lost. He only seemed to speak Portugese, of which I speak none (It sounds more Russian than Spanish to me – although I don't speak any Spanish, either). In the end, it turned out he didn't speak any English, although he had some French. While he tried to tell me where to go, he would speak six out of ten words in French, and then the rest in Portugese. The directions that I understood were solid, however, and we got through the pine forests in Portugal to Spain soon thereafter. Reaching the border to France by late that day, we were tired and slept well – a long day of driving. We stayed in a forest on top of a hill in Erentera, a little Spanish village. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday, so we had to scrounge food from petrol stations and corner stores. A streetside market stall along the drive supplied us with fresh peaches, tomatoes and garlic for a ridiculously meagre price, and we amassed enough random supplies to make a nice spaghetti bolognese with spicy chorizo sausage – luckily we found a petrol station that sold chorizo, or we would have had to eat plain pancakes.

The next morning, I was in the mood for pancakes anyway. Without any topping for them, I made dutch style pancakes with apple cooked into them, and then made a peach coulis from some of the peaches we bought at the market. It turned out delicious! With such a good start to the day, we were ready to tackle France. Avoiding the toll roads was the hardest part, although we had good practise in this from driving through Portugal. As it turned out, the non-toll roads are nicer and show much more natural beauty anyway.

The highlights of france were having to turn around after 100 kms because a marked bridge didn't exist and the ferry cost 50 Euros. Luckily, it turned out that the way back was filled with French chateaus perched above endless fields of grapes – stunning. The next day, we arrived in Fougeres, which is an ancient French town with a castle dating back to the days when Brittany was a separate country. It's the biggest fortress in Europe, and the most well preserved castle I've ever seen – even the slate roofs were still intact. It looked to me exactly like someone had pulled it out of a fairytale, and turns out, I wasn't far wrong – the Melusine tower was reputedly built by a fairy mason in two weeks for her husband. When he saw her true form (a dragon), Melusine flew away. The castle was beset by invasions thereafter, although it is said that Melusine has been seen from the high towers – and a sighting of her forebodes ill for the castle and its inhabitants. These rumours are probably true, as the Melusine tower is the best preserved, and has the most exact architecture, more amazing than I would have believed possible back then.

After Fougeres, a short hour's drive took us to Mont-St-Michel, the most wondrous town in France. It's built on a rock in the ocean, with a great abbey garnishing the town and providing the spectacular sight that makes it so renowned. The winding alleys and huge abbey were spectacular. We had to leave before high tide at 6.15pm – the tides at Mont St Michel have the largest difference between low tide and high tide in the world. When we arrived, the water was kilometres out on the flats, while when we returned, it was surrounding the island. The flats have so many pools of quicksand, and the changing tides so dangerous, that it used to be a prison for France's criminals.

Arriving in London, we immediately took a bus to Cardiff, Wales – I had seen enough of London last time I was there, and the Glastonbury festival is on, making the cheapest dorm bed 66 pounds per night, while the second cheapest was 133 pounds. I don't really understand, as the Glastonbury festival isn't even in London! Wales isn't much better – our hostel is 25 pounds a night. Tomorrow, it's off to Scotland – Woohoo!

Lecherous London

Blatantly wrongly advertised, Baker street in Paddington, London has not a single bakery to be found. As I scurried for the 10.18 bus to Luton Airport (I'd forgotten that miles were a lot longer than kilometres), I was committed to starve because of their poor signing. No orchards on Orchard street, either – the one that leads onto Baker street. I bet that people don't walk that much faster on Fleet street, either. At least there's a Buckingham Palace on Buckingham Palace street – although quite a boring looking building for the interest it garners in the average tourist amateur paparazzis.

Once I had parked up my beautiful and very comfortable petrol-drainhole of a Wicked Van, I got my bearings on London. Basically, walk across Victoria Bridge and everything's quite close – I saw Big Ben as soon as I had stepped onto the bridge, and the adjoining palace, which is quite an amazing and awe-striking building. Perhaps the royal family should move in there instead of their unimaginative abode. Westminster abbey was constructed with similar architecture as the palace attached to the Big Ben, although I didn't bother entering, as the queue was as ridiculously long as a beefeater's hat is.

After seeing most of the London landmarks (I missed the tower bridge, which looks quite wonderful – and King's cross station, I wonder how many people have run into the wall between platform 9 and 10 and become concussed – next time for both of these, I suppose). Back somewhat sore from carrying my progressively heavier backpack, I finally alighted upon Victoria Coach station, in anticipation of the free pick-up for pre-booked guests of Hostel 63. Giving them a call from a payphone, a gruff man answered and informed me that the number was wrong. So was the rest of the web page – no breakfast was provided, either, and none of the showers lock. The web page didn't say anything about noisy Spanish people either, although I guess everyone expects that in most dorms.

Finding myself at a loss for what to see next, I went for a wander in Hyde Park and the adjoining Kensington Gardens. There I found the greatest treasure one could hope for – a statue of Peter Pan, commissioned by JM Barrie in 1912! Apparently it appeared by magic over night in the gardens. I spent the evening reading a book, accompanied by Peter blowing his flute. By the end, Peter and I were best mates – sharing some things in common, like a vivid imagination, and never wanting to grow up.

Wicked Road Trip - Amsterdam to London in 7 days

A lucky check online while I was at Laura's place found a Wicked van relocation special - 1 British Pound for 7 days rental of a Wicked van. For those who haven't seen one driving around, Wicked vans are big Toyota vans converted into campervans, with a bed and cooking gear. 

I had a whole day in Amsterdam to plan my trip from Amsterdam to London. By 6pm, I had a whole trip planned, including Paris and Mont St Michel, an awesome town built on a tiny island with a massive church on top. Also included in the trip were castles and wineries... in short, it was the perfect road trip. Unfortunately, I only had 3 days in Europe, total. That meant 8 hours driving a day... and when was I supposed to see things! I had to scrap the plan, and settle for something a little more modest. The first day, I was to do most of the driving – having seen enough of Holland for now, I was going to drive all the way south, drop by in Antwerp and Gent in Brussels, and then stop near Lille (France!) for the night. Then I would spend the next day checking out Lille, after which I would drive down country roads to Boulogne-sur-Mer, a little French town on the seaside. I would then spend the day snaking up the little coast-side roads to Dunkerque, and jump on the ferry. The second half of the trip (the part in England) I left to speculation for now, hoping that my cousin Craig, who I had arranged to meet in Dover, would provide a muse's inspiration for the onward journey.

The first part of the trip went slowly – new to understanding highway directions in Holland, I first went to wrong way when I saw a sign for Europoort – which I thought was maybe dutch for Eurotunnel. Turns out there's also a Europort, although I didn't go all the way there, only fifteen minutes off the main southern route to Belgium. I gradually worked out the way that highway signage works, although had one more mishap when the sign towards rosenthal indicated a turnoff – I continued straight, and for some strange reason the highway turned full circle around, and signs started to say Amsterdam again – surely a bad sign! Finally I found my way to Antwerp – driving through, I didn't see much to impress me overmuch, so I continued on to Gent. Although I didn't see much in Gent, I got out of the car for a break, and to purchase some supplies for the night. Everyone in Belgium speaks French, which is alright, although mostly they speak some weird Flemish language that sounds very strange. As it was late, I didn't bother getting out the warm cooking supplies, and just had a cold salad and baguette for dinner.

Late at night, when it was starting to get dark (around 11pm in Belgium!) I found a truckstop and stove in for the night. I was tired from lots of driving, but excited to see what sort of sleeping machine the van could turn into. Fixing a few wooden boards in to place, laying mattresses out, and voila – I had the perfect double bed arrangement – extremely comfortable, too! It took me another night to realise that I could push the front seats forward to get extra room, but my little fort, with curtains pulled across all windows, was very exciting! I bought a coffee from the petrol station and snuggled into the mattress in the van. It felt strange and exciting, sleeping in a truck stop/parking lot, but I allayed my nerves by reading the Girl with the Pearl Earring (a book about a Delft painter, you might have seen the movie) until I was tired enough, and then fell asleep.

Wicked Vans have everything – gas cooker, pots, pans, plates, mugs and cutlery, matresses, a dinner table, a lunch table inside the van, and esky, even a kitchen sink! The one thing they lack, however is bedding. Halfway through the night, I woke up with frost on the car and breathing steam and realised that I would need more than just a light jumper to sleep in as I shivered in the car – I had no idea cars got this cold at night, during the day they're always warm! Bit like a desert, I suppose.

After a glacial half-nap, I woke up in the morning, partially recharged and ready to at least warm up by being in the sunlight. I had the rest of the baguette and jam for breakfast on a warm sunny park bench, then set off for Lille. Reverse parking into a small free spot on the outside of town, I felt like I was getting the hang of this Wicked van thing. I walked in to town and checked out Lille, my first French city. Expensive shops abound in Lille, with everything from Gucci to Burberry stores lining the main street. Unimpressed, I headed off for some more cultural icons. A lovely church sits in the middle of town, but apart from that there's not a great deal to see or do in Lille. I stopped into a cafe that promised Wifi for a coffee – which was quite bad, and the Wifi didn't even work. Then I stopped in Maccas to get some reliable Wifi. Online, I searched for nice places to see around Lille, and a place to buy a cheap blanket. Having no luck finding second hand stores, I tried a supermarket. Unfortunately, they only had light cotton sheets. I bought one for 6 Euros anyway, and balled up the pillow cover that came with it to use as a pillow. Grabbing some dinner supplies, too – fish roe dip and baguette, I jumped back in the car and started the journey towards Boulogne-sur-mer. On a little country road, I found a sign for a campsite. I stopped in there for the night, meeting a lovely English couple who shared their English cider as well as a corned beef and chutney supper with me, and helped mould a plan for where to go in England. I noted down to check out somewhere in Hereford or Sommerset, where they told me that the best ciders come from. They even tipped that it's possible to get scrumpy – farmer's cider – from some farms.

The last day in France, I skipped Boulogne-sur-mer, and headed for Callais. It's a really lovely seaside town, that has had more than its fair share of disruption from the English, as a tactical strongpoint for invasion, which is also the reason for the fortifications built near the seaside. Squinting, I still couldn't see the English coastline from the jetty on the Callais beach, so I jumped in the car and got to Dunkerque, stopping in the ferry carpark for the night. The facilities were great – I managed to score a free hot shower, and there were toilets and running water there too. I finally tried out the gas cooker (I was very dubious of butane cookers), and after a bit of fiddling I realised that it would never cook anything. Taking it in out of the wind, the flame started to actually produce heat, and the sausages were cooked properly in no time. My faith was restored in butane burners, they just need an absolutely still environment to work! Finally a warm dinner was had, with coleslaw, sausages, tabouli, and hot tea – yum!

My phone started singing to me at 6.30 in the morning – time to catch the ferry! Once I received a severe grilling over coals by the English customs lady, who with one look at the awesome van thought I was a drug addict who would stay in England forever to be a burden on society, I finally got through and parked the van up. Heading to the top deck, I found a powerpoint to charge my laptop, and booted it up to watch a movie – turned out there was wifi on the ferry! I spent the two hour ferry trip frantically arranging a meeting point with Craig, and his father, who luckily turned out to be going across the Eurotunnel for a bicycle race on the same day!

After a bit of a time-zone recalculation, the poor buggers were left waiting in the Dover ferry parking lot for an hour (they had to wake up early for it and everything!). We went to near the Eurotunnel port for a coffee and cake, which Uncle Russel kindly shouted, and then after showing me his own campervan (very cool!) Craig and I headed off into the wild unknown of England.

We started off well enough, deciding to head for Oxford, a quaint university town just north-west of London. Unfortunately, England's logistical system is a nightmare. Their highways are planned so that every highway funnels onto the M25, the ring-road around London. Everyone who wants to go into London, or go around London, or drive anywhere in England, has to drive on the M25. Thus, it is permanently in full standstill traffic-jam, the likes of which aren't seen in Australia, the sort of traffic jam where you go round the back of the Wicked Van and open it up and start cooking sausages and setting up the bed without any fear of moving. Luckily, we got off at the first exit we found, 100 metres and ten painful minutes from our entrance onto the M25. Our only option left was to drive through the outskirts of London. Although central London has something to offer in the way of sights, the outskirts of London are just a massive slummy circumference of dingy houses and tiny roads. There are a few nice villages, though – although they're windy and difficult to get out of! I nearly lost the left mirror off the van when we drove between some very narrow roads – luckily, we were going slow enough that it just folded in. London drivers are also quite insane, jumping in all over the place at intersections, forcing you to slam on the breaks, and the roads veer off in all sorts of wrong direction with no warning.

After 4 hours of trying to circumvent the worst of London, we got to the opposite side, and back onto a highway that moved at proper speeds. Freedom! We were in Oxford in no time, and found the perfect spot to sleep in a park-and-ride parking spot, which are free! We had a sausages, potato salad, and pear cider dinner, then headed out to check out Oxford, and the pubs of Oxford. Either Oxford is an extremely nerdy town all the time, or no-one was out because of exams, because the pubs were extremely quiet. After three pints of cider, we headed back on the bus to sleep.

The next day, we headed to Bath. Getting there in only an hour or two, we had plenty of time to check out the city. Craig introduced me to one of his friends from Bath, and she offered us a parking spot outside her share house. We saw the Roman baths and some other lovely buildings, and I got a good feel from this town – the only town in England that I've liked thus far. The next day, Craig had a powerful hangover (I hadn't gone out). We headed to Stonehenge. I was quite excited about seeing this druidic relic, although the wind was blowing rain fiercely, which made it difficult to take a good photo. Remembering that Stonehenge was built to observe the sun on solstices and equinoxes, I asked Craig what he thought the Druids did on Solstices and Equinoxes when the sun wasn't out (which, frankly, was probably most of them in England). My hypothesis is that after painstakingly constructing an outstanding druidic monument to observe the sun, and finding no sun where they built it, they got angry. Without any sun to look at and a massive monument, this may have been the time that they started to sacrifice animals and virgins to gods.

Craig then showed me around the town where he lived, Basingstoke. Old Basing is really interesting, a battle was fought there during the English civil war (I didn't even know there was an English civil war!), and Craig's house is lovely. The next day was the end of my Wicked Road trip – after a clean drive through to the Wicked drop off point in central London.

All over Holland!

Aptly named, the day I left Laura's extremely hospitable company, I had a day pass which enabled me to catch any train in Holland for the whole of Sunday. Not wanting it to go to waste, I planned out a hectic itinerary... Haarlem, Leiden, Delft, and Utrecht, all in one day. That gave me only a few hours in each, although I didn't bother planning out a time scale because it was all too depressing. Haarlem was a great introduction to old Holland – a beautiful canal town with similar gorgeous old apartments as could be found in Amsterdam. Then was Leiden, which is without doubt the most beautiful old town in Holland.... the Leiden Leger was especially good for showing you around the city – probably the best tourist walk of a city I've found. I stood in a square where hundreds of years ago, executions were common, and looked up at great churches and castle-like buildings. Delft had many shops with the famous Delft-ware, and looking back having read The Girl with the Pearl Earring, it was an extraordinary place. Utrecht was great – it differed from the rest of the canal towns, as the canal is a level below the rest of the city. As such, restaurants and cafes line the canal down a flight of stairs – it looks really beautiful.

Staying with Laura

Having seen all I could see in Amsterdam for the time being, I arranged to stay with Laura, a friend I had met on the ferry back from the Gilli Islands near Bali last year when I was travelling south east Asia. She lives in Arnhem, which is an hour train ride from Amsterdam. After a teary goodbye to Bec, I jumped on the train to Arnhem (15.2 Euros).

Arnhem is a lovely place – I thought canal houses were a singular oddity of Amsterdam, but Arnhem also possesses its fair share of beautiful old apartments, although no canals to speak of. Just walking through the central shopping district is beautiful, while the other areas hold monolithic churches and lovely parks. Arnhem is the greenest city in Amsterdam, and it shows – apartments in Holland hold a charm unto themselves. I have never felt any desire to live in an apartment in Australia – they are usually flavourless, cramped spaces, but the apartments here are spacious, and beautifully designed, inside and out. Laura's apartment has been expertly decorated to suit her tastes, with a hammock, tasteful wallpaper, bare wooden floorboards and the most comfortable couch in the world (my bed, and the only couch that I have fit full length on and still had plenty of room).

The first night with Laura, we went for a picnic in the park with some of her friends – I was now a member of that utopian society I spoke about last post, that has picnics in parks and enjoys every moment of warmth and sunshine. As an Australian, warmth and sunshine aren't duly appreciated by me, but I've learnt their benefits. Some of Laura's friends brought along some cask wine as well as a couple of bottles, so we stayed in the park happily for about six hours, soaking in sunshine, red wine and friendship. Once the wine had almost run out, we sojourned to a theatre fair that was going on atop a hill (yes, Arnhem is the only non-flat place in the Netherlands). The real purpose of the fair, however, was to provide a place for most of the town of Arnhem to drink beer.

Meeting more of Laura's friends, the beer, capirinhas and mojitos flowing, we had an awesome night – I tried out my extensive knowledge of the Dutch language (saying 'I love you) on many people, mostly men as it turned out, and made many friends myself. While I was unsuccessful at learning any of the names of Laura's friends, I did remember one person's 'name' – Wally, who's real name was so difficult that no-one bothers to pronounce it.

Waking up on the couch the next morning, I remembered how bad headaches cask wine gives, so slept it off until about noon, when I felt ready to move again. I bought a massive breakfast of ham, eggs and bread from the shop, and finished off the rest of my delicious dutch cheese. Fully recovered, I spent the rest of the day researching where to go next, and how to get there. After a few hours of uncertain searching, I happened upon the Wicked Campervan website, who are currently holding a special for a journey from Amsterdam to London – the price of the rental for a week is one pound total. I quickly sent off an email and received a reply about two hours later. It looks like my next journey will be to London, as I was successful in booking the special! Much more research is needed – I intend to drive around France for a few days before making a ferry crossing to Dover and then exploring England before handing back the van on the 13^th of June. If anyone knows anyone in Amsterdam or France who wants a ride to London, do tell! I think I have four seats left. I might put a notice up in the hostel tonight to see if I can find any willing companions.

Today I am travelling around Amsterdam, as Laura gave me a go-anywhere-in-Holland-in-one-day pass (the dutch name for the card is just as long!), before checking back into the hostel in Amsterdam for two days to plan my road trip. Thankyou, Laura, for a great stay, and a great chance to appreciate Holland! I felt very welcome in her apartment, so much so that it made me feel a bit home sick.