Scotland - 30th April to 6th May 2010

Making the most of a bank holiday Monday, we took the entire week off for a trip to Scotland and Ireland. So we flew up to Edinburgh on Friday after work and got stuck into the touristing first thing Saturday morning. First up Edinburgh Castle, the very reason for Edinburgh's existence, perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking town.

Having ticked off the main sight, we wandered the streets, past Holyrood Palace, up and over Carlton Hill, through the main shopping streets, making sure we left plenty of time for a few beers at the end of a great day.

Awoke to a beautiful Sunday morning in Edinburgh, time for a quick snap of Edinburgh Castle in the Sunlight before picking up our rental car and leaving Edinburgh behind us.

So north we went in our little Ford Focus, to the surprisingly impressive St Andrews, home to a ruined abbey and castle, and a million golf shops, being home of one the most famous courses in the world.

Still we continued north around the coast to Aberdeen, a nice enough city, but nothing really to trouble the old memory card.

Another early start for a trip inland through the valley of the River Dee, serious castle country. Our two favourites being Crathes Castle and the very pink fairytale castle, Craigievar Castle.

By now we were hitting some serious highlands, still with the odd sprinkling of snow

We hit the coast again at the lovely little fishing village of Portsoy, before heading round to Inverness. Inverness is a stark contrast to Aberdeen, i.e. small, nestled along a little river and overlooked by a pretty castle. We had a great few hours walking alongside the river and having a great curry overlooking town.

Tuesday was a big driving day so we took off early and headed east, out to picturesque Plockton and then Portree on the Isle of Skye, all the while driving along some of the most spectacular roads invented.

We ended up in Fort Augustus, on the southern tip of Loch Ness, for a wander around the very little town and a quick Nessie hunt.

More Nessie hunting the following morning as we took the road north along the edge of the Loch to Drimnadrochit, home of the The Loch Ness Centre, passing the beautiful Urquhart Castle on the way.

But the main event on Wednesday was a bit of time out of the car, up to a spectacular meadow and 90m waterfall just out of Fort William, well worth the hour and half trek.

After a quick walk through Fort William we hit the hay for an early night as we had an very early start to see a couple of things before our flight to Ireland. We had a quick a wander through Stirling, home of a Edinburgh-like castle, and out to the harbour north of Edinburgh for a walk through the Royal Yacht Brittania.

Dropping our car off back in Edinburgh we made it back out to Edinburgh airport for our flight to Galway...

Sydney - 1st to 5th of April 2010

The main reason for my trip to the southern hemisphere was Deirdre and Nick's wedding in the Blue Mountains. It was so special to be there and look at the beautiful couple:

I got to spend a couple of lovely days with Warren's sister Angie. We had a night in the Blue Mountains and a night at her house in Coogee Beach.

NZ trip home 2 - March 2010

13 months after the last trip home, I (Angela) made the solo trip to NZ, while leaving Warren in London working.

I had the best time hanging out with friends and family and of course 19 month old Tiana! I spent most of the time in Auckland:

I had a trip to Hamilton to meet Michelle and Baden's beautiful daughter Katherine Maree when she was just 10 hours old.

I had a quick trip to Wellington to hang out with Sarah and Nat and a day down in Invercargill hanging out with my grandparents.

Isle of Wight - 5th to 7th of March 2010

Anniversary number 2, and so off for a romantic getaway to the Isle of Wight, just off Englands south coast. Jumped on a quick train down to Portsmouth Friday after work, and picked up our ferry tickets to Ryde, Isle of Wight. After annoying all the locals by singing "We've got a ticket to Ryde" for the 45 minute ferry we jumped on a train down the coast to the village of Shanklin and the friendliest B&B ever.

Saturday we jumped on a bus into Cowes. the main town on the Island for a quick spot of shopping followed by a walk out to Carisbrooke Castle.Another bus ride, this time quite long, right out to the southwest corner of the island for a glimpse at the Needles.
Sunday, after another set of pancakes for breakfast at our B&B we set off for walk from Shanklin to Sandown along the beach. The sun was out, but so was the wind, so we were wrapped up good and warm.
From Sandown, another bus ride, this time down to Ventnor to another nice beach. On the south coast it was slightly out of the wind so we had a bit of a nap in the sun.

All in all a very nice relaxing weekend. We picked up our bags from the B&B and headed back to Ryde for the ferry and train back to London. The train service on the Isle of Wight turned out to be 60 year old tubes from London, retired from ploughing the Piccadilly Line to the sunny Isle of Wight.

Argentiere (Chamonix Valley, France) - 23rd to 30th of January 2010

A little over a year since our last snowboarding trip, I (Warren) was keen to give it another go so I jumped on a plane with my cousin and two of her mates over to Geneva for a van ride into the French Alps, more specifically Argentiere. Argentiere is one of the villages in the Chamonix Valley, all connected by an excellent bus network, meaning plenty of different ski areas to try. If you're keen, you can find a good map of the area (including piste map) by clicking here:

Sunday morning we went up the closest lifts to Argentiere, Grand Montets, about a 5 minute walk from our hostel. Little did we know that that was to be one of the only clear days, so I probably should've taken the camera, but I was a little worried that without boarding for a year, it might not survive my bails!

We were signed up to have daily lessons, so each morning we went our seperate ways (me to an intermediate snowboard group, the others to various expert ski groups) to do our thing. My group only had 3 members, and we were actually split up, so I got to have lots of one on one time with my instructor (who was very impressed with my knowledge of left and right in French, the only thing I remember from 4th form french classes!). Its amazing how quickly you improve when you have someone watching your every turn, so I managed to make some good strides during the week.

Everyone meeting their groups at 9am each morning outside our UCPA hostel:

After a few days skiing with our groups in Le Tour, we ditched our groups on Wednesday for a days skiing together at La Brevant and La Flegere. It was the best day weather wise all week, hence lots of photos from Wednesday!

From the very top of La Brevant, where we had our picnic. Our hostel provided all the goodies to make a sammie to eat up on the mountain - very handy given the prices on the slopes!Looking back up the Valley from La Flegere.

Cuzzie Kristal who organised the trip overlooking a run through the trees at La Flegere.
This is probably the only photo I took that is even close to demonstrating the intense fog and cloud we had on a few of our days. The red sign is one of the piste markers at La Flegere - hard to spot, but you wouldn't want to miss it!

With the skiing over for the week, we had our big night out on Friday night. From about midday Friday it had been snowing pretty hard, and it continued right through the night. Note the icicles dripping off the Kronenbourg sign.

In fact, it snowed so hard on Friday night that we quickly threw our things in our bags and headed over to the chairlift at Grand Montets for one last run on Saturday morning. But after getting all suited up, there was too much snow to let us up the mountain! So it was simply back to Geneva airport and through a rediculous easyjet queue only for a 2 and a half hour delay to our flight back to London and the wife!