Ata Tanka Village Villasimius

... not at all as we had been assured in e-mails etc., and without further ado, we left the boat in the morning. Well we are old enough and sensible enough not to have to put up with discomfort and hardships for eight to ten weeks!

We discovered this was not the first time that Mike and Lola had experienced crew jumping ship. Mike asked us not to panic the others as he had found; 'once one leaves, they all leave'.

... Bangkok and Sydney. I also thought about going to Bangkok for a few days to get a tailored suit made for cheap (would have been funny to come home in a suit) and buy some new clothes as I seem to have shrunken all mine again. Currently have a pain in the balls and a stomach ache from my tight jeans. However, I piked that idea as I suspected that knowing myself I would go there and maybe buy a shirt and thats it.
It is amazing how flight amounts change in ...

... the monastery. They were totally unaware that everything shuts here between 1pm and 4pm, so they’d spent the morning looking round the town thinking that they’d hire a car in the afternoon and if all else failed catch the bus back at 4pm, but then found themselves in a complete ghost town for 3 hours with nothing to do – oh dear!

We read for an hour, then drove to see the sun set. Afterwards we found somewhere to have dinner and made our way back.

The place we are going to today is Pula and more specifically the ruins of the ancient city of Nora. This city enjoyed the status of being the main city on Sardinia, being utilised by the Phoenicians and the Romans – it was thought to be abandoned around the 7th Century. The sea has, over time, claimed parts of the old city, so some of the ruins lay under the sea today. The ruins that can be seen are fairly substantial ...

Before we came here I had read on the internet that the monastery was very hard to find, so I Google mapped it to see where it was – in doing so I saw how close we were to a beach and also noticed several other coves along the stretch of coastline – if we could get around a large piece of headland jutting out into the sea. We decided that we'd go walking today, so we packed up the remainder of our picnic from yesterday, wandered off and found our way to ...

... somewhere – as we often do – but just as I voice this we came to another river – there was absolutely no way we could pass this one, you actually had to drive down the bank – into the river and turn right, drive up the river a short way and then turn left up onto the bank – impossible, and John instantly agreed, which spoke a thousand words considering what he is prepared to drive on/across/through in a small car. A large range rover type vehicle came ...

As we're starting our descent into Cagliari airport, there is one word to describe the view - Bella! It's beautiful. Sometimes you picture a place in your mind and it doesn't turn out to be what you expected, well this was everything I'd pictured and perhaps more.

Have you ever heard the saying 'all roads lead to Rome'? Well on Sardinia all roads lead to Sestu!

We picked the hire car up at the airport and then spent the next couple of hours driving ...

... languages because there is no need.

The afternoon was spent with alas, another birthday surprise from the family, and a trip out to the rocky coast where we dived off of sharp rocks into the Sea. Diving in feet first, of course wearing appropriate protective foot gear, I took a taste of the super salty Mediterranean, and slipped on the algae covered rocks! Nothing big, “just a flesh wound”, nothing a little disinfectant couldn’t clean ...

... we had passed through called San Onarico as it seemed to be a bit livelier. Once there Granville spotted a gellarteria on the waterfront and so we headed in. Up on the hill above the port we found a hotel next to an old church. After sorting our gear out we went out in search of some food. Town was rammed full of people parading up and down the streets. We found a takeaway pizzeria and enjoyed massive bits of pizza folded together and presented in paper wrapping ...

... more mature than my peer group. I never regretted having older friends, they are like windows to what is coming your way. We spent that summer playing tennis, biking around, spending time with the rest of the gang. The gang...not exactly your typical group of childhood friends, but we had good moments. I think the point in time I am talking about was one of those. It was before I left that town forever, when we still all really liked each other. It was before M ...