Empress Hotel Douglas

Apologies. We won't be counting this as part of our total mileage but I just wanted to see what the red line looked like on the tour map. Back to the UK and the Isle of Man for the goldfish handover to Malcolm and Isobel and my interview. Castletown reminds me of Scottish northeast towns (buildings, links, seagulls). However, there are a lot more South Africans here than ...

After staying up until about 11:30 last night packing it was time for bed...but not for long, as I was catching the ferry which left at the slighty-too-early 3:30am. Desperate to not repeat my late ferry check in antics, I had to get a taxi at 2:15am, meaning that my nights sleep came to not much more than 2 hours. Excellent.<br><br>I was happy to arrive at the terminal on time, and once on the boat I attempted to get more sleep, but didn't have much luck. I did ...

... lots of places to get yourself killed...such as on the stone walls, trees and hedges that the riders shoot past at over 200mph...<br><br>My lap of the track was really cool, but the best part of all was the Mountain Road section. When it is open to the public during the two week TT period, it operates as a one way road, meaning you can take some fast lines...whilst obeying the speed limit of course!<br>The views from Snaefell mountain out over Douglas towards ...

... and I couldn't believe how fast they were flying past! At this part of the track, the riders were hitting around 160mph (~260kph) then accelerating up the hill, where I could see them lifting the front wheel in the distance! It certainly made for some good viewing.<br>I made my way up to the area where the podium place getters arrive after the race, and saw a few famous faces around, including Murray Walker (ex F1 commentator), then went and watched the podium presentation from the ...

This morning I caught the bus to Ramsey, to watch the racing. The double decker went along a scenic drive, with some great views out over the coast, and through Laxey; home of the worlds largest functioning water wheel.<br><br>In Ramsey I made my way to Parliament Square...who's name was a tad confusing as I didn't see anything resembling parliament or a square...<br>The corner I watched the ...

Today it was over to the Isle of Man for the Tourist Trophy races, something which I've wanted to go to for a long time.<br><br>I began with an early-ish morning, then beginning the drive up to Heysham, a bit north of Liverpool, where I was to catch the Ferry. Mum and Nan were off to spend a few nights up north somewhere (which ended up being at Morecambe) and dropped me off at Heysham on ...

... a company based in Portugal which organise trips specifically for warm weather training for athletics, who said for information on 2010 bookings, check back in April. I have also e-mailed the Kenyan National Park in Nairobi inquiring about volunteer work, but I'm yet to hear back from them. Well thats all I've got so far, I'll update whenever something new happens, probably not much likely to be happening over the next few months though

... we decided to indulge in a lazy day and watched BBC's 'Pride and Prejudice', which we had started the night before (after talking about my trip to Bath and our mutual love of Jane Austen and Mr. Darcy!). On Saturday evening, we were invited to join five of Katie's friends for a sushi party. As it turned out, I was the only one who knew how to roll sushi (thanks to Fiona!) and taught the others how it was done. We had a wonderful night filled with good ...

L'ile du Man, mon troisieme voyage dans cette petite place! Comme j'ai pratiquement tout vu ce qu'il y a a voir a l'ile du Man, nous avons profite de notre sejour chez les parents de Hamish pour surtout marcher. Une journee nous avons pris l'autobus pour aller visiter un village pittoresque (Gregneash a la genre village d'antan de Drummonville). Sinon, temps de rattraper le temps perdu avec les amis de H, passer du temps avec sa mere... et ouf ...

God what a mission to get to this rock. Who would have expected crossing the Irish sea to be vastly more complicated than anything I'd encountered crossing the deserts of Sinai. The wind and rain was as prevalent in Liverpool as it was in Manchester, although as it's more common than not you'd expect the ferry companies to have organized alternative arangements other than sending you to the other side of the country to get a ferry 7 horus later hey? No! Pah. However I ...