Savoy 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 ...

... the island! It must bring a massive amount of money into the economy each year, and there are also other similar events such as the Manx Grand Prix, which is also very popular with the bikers around Europe.<br><br>I walked up to the pits around lunchtime for a bit of a look around, then it was back down to the waterfront to walk across to the main bus station where I hopped on a bus to Port Erin. It was another scenic bus ride which went along the south-east ...

... 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 ...

... race from was a tight right hander into a more open left as they built up speed. I saw one near collision between two of the bikes midway through the right hander, in an overtaking manoeuvre gone bad, and another rider nearly came off after hitting the curb on the fast exit of the left hander. Unfortunately, a Kiwi rider, Bruce Anstey, who was leading the race by a decent margin, bowed out with ...

... left 30 minutes later, I was now going to be boarded on the slow boat, meaning I'd arrive at Douglas a couple of hours later.<br><br>Lesson learned (the hard way) : It's better to be an hour early, than one minute late.<br><br>I met Sam (who I was staying with) at the terminal, and she took me back to her house on the outskirts of Douglas where I met her husband Chris and two of their ...

... check out http://www.ballaafrica.org.uk/ for more details) and we're going to Danville for two weeks, working with an orphanage and a primary school. After this period, I plan to take up work full time, raise as much money as I can until Christmas time, when I plan to take my girlfriend to Greece for a week. Then over the following months, I hope to travel, return to work and repeat as much as possible. So far I have; e ...

... stopped talking and stared at me in shock! Ooops!! Another thing about the Manx, which might have even shocked me more, is that they share one of our 'ever-so-unique' Quebec signature dishes....the poutine!! I couldn't believe it, I thought it was ours, and only ours! Although they call their dish 'chips, cheese and gravy' (how original...haha), it's pretty much exactly the same, minus the curds. Unbelievable! I actually tasted it for lunch, and it wasn't half bad!

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 ...

... to Heathrow and flying to Delhi, arriving on the 18th. We hope that you enjoy our blog, we will try to keep it up to date as much as we can, but there may be times when we struggle to get internet access. We hope you have a very happy New Year! Lots of love, Laurie and Jilly