TravelStream™ news feed for member anslwithers on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/anslwithers en-us Copyright ©2010 TravelPod.com Sun, 31 May 2009 21:07:07 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/3/1243818360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/3/1243818360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/3/1243818360/tpod.html Sun, 31 May 2009 21:07:07 -0400 Careering round Korea

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Seoul, Korea Rep.

Arrived.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1201244040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1201244040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1201244040/tpod.html Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:41:57 -0500 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Penneshaw, Australia

Well what a lot of wildlife. Kangaroo Island is said to be like a massive wildlife park without the fences and so it proved. It's a big island - 7 times the size of Singapore but what it lacks in GDP (and sealed roads!) it more than makes up for with bouncy, furry and sometimes spikey little animals. We had a wonderful time with the crepuscular* animals.


We started with the West Coast most of which is Flinders National Park staying at a campsite that had dozens of wallabies, koalas and the old kanga thrown in for good measure and this was just our campsite. Sadly most of the national park was out of bounds as they were recovering from terrible bushfires but we still made it to the picture perfect Remarkable Rocks (see photos!) and Admiral's Arch which has a colony of 500 New Zealand fur seals.

We took in some beaches (it's the Aussie way) the next day including one that was voted the best in Australia a few years ago and another, Stokes Bay, which you reach by crawling through some rocky crevasses from a rather average stoney beach. Very nice although not much surf to frolic in. We also ran up and down some dunes at Little Sahara and then took a sunset tour of a nearby estate that had more koalas, kangas, wallabies and possums. We also met Amy who is the cutest kanga you'll ever meet. Hand-reared, she literally eats out of your hand and bounced along beside the group as we walked around in the darkness.


The island is mostly about wildlife that has survived while those on the mainland haven't so we went to another wildlife preserve and hand-fed a load more lazy kangas - they could barely be bothered to get up so we could give them their grain, although to be fair it was the middle of the day and rather hot. Anyway we saw more of the same plus some lovely wombats, huge ones, and some other odds and sods including some more golden kangas that are from the centre of the mainland.


The next day we went to Paul's Place. It was one of those tours where you're a bit on edge - Paul is clearly a bit loopy and you really didn't know what was going to happen next. It started with a big parrot plonked on my shoulder with no warning and boy did Joe have sharp claws as he walked down my arm. There were some echidnas there too with their crazy long pink tongues and other parrots etc. Next we walked up to the sheep shearing pen where Paul grabbed the nearest Merino, dragged her out and sheared away. And then we had a bit of trouble: I was bullied by the animals. There I said it. We were in another pen that had a llama, some sheep, kangas, geese and a few chicken. It was all going swimmingly, Sarah even fed a kanga a bottle of milk (see photo!), but then Paul gave me a big bucket of seed and chaos ensued as the llama, kangas and sheep all went for me (or rather the bucket). The scars are mostly mental but being hounded by a hungry llama is an experience I won't forget in a hurry. Luckily as I distributed the seed they calmed down a bit and ate out of everyones' hands. The geese were funny, whilst a kanga just nibbles away and sometimes slobbers on your palm, a goose goes for the more staccato or "drill" technique. After this we wandered to another pen of animals which included the same animals plus a gorgeous deer and some emu. The emu were slightly softer in their technique but still not as nice as the kangas.

Next we went to see their koalas and one poor fella had so many hands on him and photos taken, but he didn't seem to mind. I also held a huge carpet snake and then the bullying started again - this time an emu. See photo! We have little videos of this and lots of other stuff along the trip but you'll probably have to wait for the home-coming party to see those (have you started organising it yet?!). All in all a great time with Paul.


Finally on Kangaroo Island we saw some pelicans being fed which was informative and fun - their beaks are huge but you can really annoy them by giving them the fish the wrong way round! We also went on a penguin watch one evening but most of the little pengies were "on holiday", how rude. We also chalked up the first thousand kilometres in the van.


*look it up!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214480220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214480220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214480220/tpod.html Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:44:45 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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London, England, United Kingdom

Well we're home. We'd loved to have continued (forever?) but all good things must apparently come to an end. It's been a fabulous trip, the trip of a lifetime a lot of people have said and who are we to argue? It's certainly the best thing we've ever done and we'd love to go back to the very start and do it all again with no changes. Alas we can't but I'm sure we'll be back to visit a few of the places, the elephant camp in Thailand, the surfing beaches of Victoria and NSW in Australia, the plethora of places we didn't get time for in China and good old crazy old Japan being high on the list. This entry includes a very small selection of our favourite photos from our favourite places.

Meanwhile, the scores are in and the count is 6,700+ photos, 74 videos and 1 DVD of some ellies (amounting to nearly 11GB for your techno-geeks). So assuming a meagre 5 seconds per photo I calculate the grand screenshow at 10 hours... plus breaks... plus videos... plus the DVD. We're ready when you are!

Yours intrepidly, and, until next time...
Sarah and Andy x
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1201985280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1201985280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1201985280/tpod.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:32:50 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Torquay, Australia

Surf and sun is up and we're loving it, even if we have got mullered by a few choice waves a few times. Torquay is somewhat different to its UK rival (replace retirees with surf-dudes and chicks) and has a lot going for it including lots of surfwear outlets which we have dabbled in. We've been on the beach every day for the last couple of weeks though so now we're off to the bright lights of Melbourne.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214393760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214393760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214393760/tpod.html Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:56:53 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Tokyo, Kanto, Japan

We're back in the big smoke (or perhaps enormous neon?) to catch our flight home (boo hoo) but first grab some souvenirs. We've ditched a few tired* clothes etc to make extra space in the bags and have the luxury of a whopping 23kgs each to fill up so it should be no problem...as long as the luggage stays in one piece all the way to Heathrow. Let's hope the gaffer tape holds eh?


For the record, beers drank in Japan: Asahi, Ebisu, Kirin, Orion, Sapporo, Suntory and some weird local stuff in Beppu and Ishigaki!



* in estate agent speak
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213710420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213710420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213710420/tpod.html Wed, 25 Jun 2008 05:09:43 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Ishigaki, Kyushu-Okinawa, Japan

Ishigaki is a much bigger island than Zamami and we've managed to find ourselves a nice big room with kitchen facilities on the quieter northern side of the island near some beaches. The sun has also had its hat on today which is nice but it's stinking hot. We've decided to stay a few days with a day trip to the next island along, Iriomote.


Today I went diving while Sarah (not properly qualified) got lost and found a beach. The diving here is rather good as there is a reef within easy reach but the main drawcard is the manta rays. On the first dive though I saw an octopus (well the dive master sort of grabbed it out of a hole), a square spotted fairy basslet (basically a medium sized fish with blue fins and tips to its body but with a large square red spot in the middle - quite cool) and a sting ray as big as my out-stretched arms - it zoomed up on me and scared me a bit too before floating off into the deep. On the second dive we dropped down and before I knew it I could see dozens of people hugging smalls mounds of coral with bubbles of air floating up. Clearly there was some action up ahead and sure enough huge mantas were soon floating around above us. They were so majestic with a wing span of about 3m just gliding around enjoying themselves. Very cool and good to be so close to them: I must have been no more than 2 metres away from their huge white under-bellies.

The next few days we went snorkelling and laid on some beaches. Apart from the beautiful coral and fishes the main highlight, if you can call it that, was me getting bitten twice on the legs by a fish. We stopped snorkelling (very) shortly after!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214220840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214220840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214220840/tpod.html Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:55:28 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Ishigaki, Kyushu-Okinawa, Japan

We're back in Ishigaki and this time in the "city" side of the island where we had hoped to do some surfing. It turns out that the waves are off-shore where the reef is and that you need a guide to help you get there and sadly today they are expecting some fall-out from the typhoon so not running the tours. Hey ho. Instead we chilled out at the ANA resort, making use of their private beach and private pool. Well we did have lunch there so can't feel too bad about not being real guests. Stinking hot again but nice to catch some rays before heading back to Tokyo.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214047920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214047920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1214047920/tpod.html Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:50:48 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Iriomote-Jima, Japan

We caught a very high speed boat to the jungle island of Iriomote. Most of island is uninhabitated, there are only villages around the edges were the ports and beaches are. We spent the first day just lazing in the shade but we went crab spotting at night. The guesthouse we stayed at ran short tours to the beach and armed with torches and one of the owner's dogs (he was just there for the ride) we searched for crabs in amongst the volcanic rocks on the beach. We soon found some, bright blue legs they had and bigger than your fist and just as nasty.

Today we went on the guesthouse's guided kayak trip. It actually involved a bit of hiking and walking too as well as rowing, climbed to the top of a 55m waterfall and then to the bottom and then rowed out, having stopped to look at the mangroves and curious crabs they have here - they have one large claw as big as the rest of their body. We only saw some tiddlers but still quite interesting and a nice lunch at the top of the waterfall.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213537440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213537440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213537440/tpod.html Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:43:19 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Zamami-jima, Japan

We spent 2 days at this popular little island, mostly lounging on a bright sandy beach. We did some good snorkelling too at the nearby reef and saw loads of Western Clownfish, Nemo's, a couple of very venomous sea snakes and lots of other fish. It's very hot and humid but mostly cloudly. This didn't stop us burning ourselves a bit though so we're even more noticeable to the locals.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213442760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213442760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/anslwithers/bighols/1213442760/tpod.html Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:42:52 -0400 Andy and Sarah's Grand Tour of the Eastern Hemisphere

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Yokohama, Kanto, Japan

Just a brief stop here in Japan's 2nd city as there's not much to do here bar the nightlife. They do have the biggest Chinatown in the world though - 500 shops and restaurants. I was going to say it's almost as big as a China town but that would be far from the truth, the whole of Yokohama has 3.6M people and that's barely a village in China.

Anyway we had a minor earthquake this morning. The hotel lobby wobbled a bit, people looked round on guard and a few pictures on the walls flapped and then it was over. Most people barely seemed to notice but it made us feel a bit weird/ill. They do have 3 "noticeable" quakes a day on average in Japan apparently but this was our first. Click here for the BBC story on it. Looks like it was 200 miles away up north, for reference we're about 20 miles south of Tokyo.
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