The Journey Home

The time has come for me to board the long journey home. I am currently on the plane with 6 hours to go until landing in Abu Dhabi. I have had a great few days with the northern hemisphere family, it's always nice catching up when you don't get to see each other often. I went into Bath and saw the Roman baths which were great! 

Today is the 20th and we scattered granddad's ashes and then had a nice lunch. It was nice for me to be there for that because I wasn't there for the funeral. I said bye to uncle Steve and Carolyn and then got on the train to Heathrow, it was quite an easy journey. I made it through checkin (even got upgraded to the exit row- going to try for business when I get to Abu Dhabi!) even with all my bags and through to the gate. I met some nice guys from Melbourne at the gate so chatting to them about our trips made the time to quicker. 

As I said, I'm currently in the plane with 6 hours to go and thought this would be the best time to ponder what I've learnt. 

What I've learnt travelling abroad alone

1. People don't suck that much 

2. The most important thing you can remember is your passport 

3. Most people are nice 

4. That it's nice to visit but I never want to live here 

5. Home is pretty great 

6. Doing things on your own isn't so bad 

7. Being on your own is sometimes necessary for your wellbeing

8. Sometimes people just want to tell you about their lives and you have to suck it up and listen 

9. That we have it very lucky in Aus 

10. To get to checkin the early 

11. To buy the dress (or 5th bottle of foundation in my case)  

12. To never take for granted travelling with people you know

13. To ALWAYS check the hotel room 

14. To just say hello 

15. Europe doesn't do Coke Zero 

16. To moisturise on the plane 

17. Most of these have nothing to do with travelling alone

18. That the best way to overcome a fear is to just say yes and do it 

I've had a great time away, but I am definitely ready to get home. See you in 15 hours Sydney! The best place in the world! 

-E

The beginning of the end

There's a fair bit to catch up so here goes! 

11/1/16 - Cliffs of Moher, Ireland. 

As I left off, I was on my way to the cliffs of Moher which are giant cliffs that have been featured in lots of different films. It was about a 2 hour drive to the cliffs through some beautiful Irish countryside. It was a beautiful day as well, the sun was shining and there was blue sky! The cliffs were spectacular! Definitely one of the highlights of the trip! 

We made our way back through more of the Irish countryside and even encountered some regular road users! 

We made our way back to Galway and had a look at the shops before heading back to the hotel and resting before the trip to Dublin! 

12/1/16 - Galway to Dublin 

We left quite early today as we were going to Dublin via a place called Newgrange. Newgrange is a Neolithic tomb that is over 5000 years old! It was quite impressive the way it was built with no cement only rocks that were strategically placed. There were lots of carvings inside the tomb and it was quite impressive. It was also freezing cold! 

Up on the left is the tomb.

We then proceeded to make our way into Dublin. We arrived and had a quick walking tour of the town then it was time to get ready for the night. At the hotel we were staying at they put on an Irish night where Irish singers and dancers perform. It was great! Listening to all the Irish music like I'll tell me Ma and Molly Malone and of course Galway girl! I loved it! It was also one of the girls birthdays so we head out afterwards. 

Molloy Malone statue - Dublin 

13/1/16 - Dublin

The next day was quite a slow day for some. The last couple of days had been so busy that everyone needed sleep! Today we were booked in to go to the Guinness factory. It was quite interesting and I even got to pour my own Guinness at the end.. And drink it which I didn't! 

Topdeck tour group 

After that we headed back to the hotel and got some dinner and went to bed because the next day was to be the biggest travel day of the trip. 

14/1/16 - Dublin to Cardiff 

We were up at 6:30 to leave for Cardiff it was going to be a huge day of travelling! We got on the ferry at around 9 and sailed for 4 hours. It was much choppier this time than the last but most of us just slept! We then had a 5 hour drive to Cardiff which sucked! We stopped for lunch in a town that has the longest name in the world! 

Have a go! 

Then we were back on the bus! We put a few movies on and slept to pass the time and got to Cardiff at 7:00pm. A massive day of travel! We dropped our bags in our rooms then headed out to an all you can eat buffet. The buffet was amazing! So many different foods and chefs that would cook you different meals on the spot! It was a nice change after eating way too much fried food! After that we headed back to the room and had some much needed sleep! 

15/1/16 - Cardiff 

My plan today was to just wander around. I had no intentions of going to Cardiff castle! I had breakfast and then wandered down to the shops and had some lunch. Then I came back and went to the movies and saw daddies home in the arvo. I've been to Cardiff lots before so I didn't feel the need to have to sightsee too much! This was to be our last night so we all went out for a nice dinner and then headed to a place afterwards. It had 2 for 1 cocktails and we all just sat about chatting and wishing that the tour wasn't ending the next day. I had a great night with some really great people who I hope k can stay in contact! 

16/1/16 - Cardiff to Abergavenny 

That leads me to today. I had breakfast with the group and then said my goodbyes - some were much easier than others! There are definitely a few people I'll miss! I'm currently waiting for Carys to come and pick me up so that we can head off and I can see some family! I'm looking forward to being with people I know! And of course looking forward to getting home and seeing everyone - especially little Dudley! The trip so far has gone so fast and I can't believe I'm heading home in 4 days! It's been lots of fun meeting new people and making friends. Would I do another topdeck or trip like this? Probably not. Am I glad I did it, yes, absolutely! I have definitely improved my social skills and made loads of friends! 

Til next time! 

- E

  

Crossing over!

9/1/16 - Glasgow, Scotland to Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

We were up quite early for our trip across to Ireland. It was about a 2 hour drive to the ferry. I was a bit worried about the ferry because the one from Dover to Calais was horrendous! It was so rocky and left everyone feeling a little worse for wear! This ferry was really smooth and you couldn't feel a thing! It took about 2 hours and then we were in Belfast! 

Our tour manager had mentioned that we were going to be doing a black cab tour around Belfast to learn all about the history of the city. I knew nothing about the atrocities that happened here between the Catholics and the Protestants. We had a great driver and he explained to us about what had happened between the two religions which had ultimately led to there being gates all over the city that are closed every night and opened each morning. The reason for this was back when there was lots of angst between the two they would close the gates to ensure no violence occurred between the two. Nowadays there isn't really any violence it's just the norm that the gates get opened and closed each day. We started off in the Protestant side where they told us lots about what happened. The Protestant people of Northern Ireland identify as British, not Irish which I found really interesting. On the Protestant side, there is a big mural of the head of the 'royalist army'. This man killed 10 Catholics - women by shooting them 5 times in the face to disfigure them and once in the stomach to ensure they couldn't have children. But this man on the Protestant side is deemed a hero yet if you drive 5 minutes down the road he's seen as a murderer. We also learnt that Irish people can tell what religion you are based on your name. The only name that is common amongst both is William. If you are a Protestant you shorten it to 'Billy' and if you are a catholic you shorten it to 'Liam'. I found it really fascinating! After visiting the Protestant side, we went to see the 'peace walls'. Basically, a wall dividing the city - one side is Protestant the other is Catholic. Unlike the Berlin Wall that was constructed to forcibly keep people in against their will, the peace walls of Belfast were constructed to keep others out. Basically it kept the peace between both religions. We did get to write on the wall! As I said, every road that joins the two sides has a gate that is locked at 6pm and reopened at 6am. Obviously, you can get around this but you would have to drive all the way around the city to be able to get to the other side. You might be thinking well back when there was all the fighting wouldn't they just do that? If say a Protestant went all the way around the city to get into the catholic area just to kill someone, they would most definitely get caught on the long journey back to their side. What did happen however was corrupt guards that back when all the fighting occurred used to keep the gates opened for an extra hour to allow Protestants to go into the Catholic side and kill people and then quickly pass back through so no one would know  who did it. Obviously nowadays there are no guards and no fighting, both sides just keep to themselves and don't go into each other's area. Back in the day, the split between both was around 80% Protestant and 20% Catholic now it's 45% Catholic and 48% Protestant - a 3% difference. When there is a catholic Majority and a referendum, it's safe to say that Northern Ireland and the republic will join back together as one. Fun fact! The Orange on the Irish flag represents the Protestants, the green the Catholics and the white represents peace! 

After we visited the peace walls we made our way through to the Catholic side. A very famous street called Bombay street where lots of killings occurred on this side they had plaques of people who had been killed both volunteers and civilians. This tour was the highlight of the trip for me so far. I had no idea that Belfast had so much history and was a city still divided by religion. I think it's important to know that when people go to work, their hatred and angst is left at the door and collected back at the end of the day. The city of Belfast is know as the peace ground. Where Catholics and Protestants can walk together. Another thing is that children do not mix until they are 18. They attend school on their side and don't get to interact with anyone from the opposing religion. There days the children are indifferent. They have not experienced any negativity by the opposing religion, they only hear about it from older generations. 

After our tour our driver took us all around to look at some of the murals around the city. It really is an amazing city with lots of history. I had a nice dinner of steak and Guinness pie and then headed back to the hotel as the next day was a big day of travelling. 

Peace wall 

Writing on the wall 

The wall 

Names of those killed both volunteers and civilians - Catholic area 

Bombay street 

Murals 

10/1/16 - Belfast, Northern Ireland to Galway, Ireland. 

Today was a huge day of travelling! We left at 7:45 and we're heading to the giants causeway- this is a natural wonder if hexagonal rocks. It was an hours drive and when we got there the views were stunning. It was on the coast of Northern Ireland which meant it was windy. We walked down to the rocks and then once we got there we were able to walk around for a bit. It was really really beautiful - cold but beautiful! 

After the Giants causeway, we were on our way to a place called Derry or Londonderry depending on your religion. If you're Protestant it's Londonderry, if you're Catholic it's Derry- if you want to keep the peace just call it legenderry! People who live here actually get to choose what to call it on their passport! We had lunch here and then it was about a 4hr drive to Galway. We had one more quick toilet stop before arriving in Galway. We decided to have dinner at the hotel because it was such a big day of travelling! We had a nice dinner and then headed to bed! 

Right now I'm on my way to a place called the cliffs of Moher. Which is another natural landform and a lot more interesting than visiting more castles! 

I will do another post showing photos! 

Until next time! 

Adios! 

- E 

Glasgow

8/1/16 - Edinburgh to Glasgow 

We left Edinburgh at about 9am and arrived in Glasgow after a short drive at about 10:30. After a short walk into town we were left to have the day on our own. We had the choice of going to a whisky distillery which in hindsight I probably should have done. We wandered around and ended up finding a museum. Not just any museum, it was a religion museum. It was actually very interesting and covered all the religions. The museum was actually set up in response to 9/11 to promote unity amongst all religions.

After the museum we went back into town. We had a few hours to kill before checking in so we wandered around a few shops and got some lunch. It was supposedly a 20 minute walk to the hotel

So we set off with over 30 minutes to walk it. It was not a 20 or 30 minute walk it was close to 45! Which is a damn long walk in the cold! 

We finally got to the hotel which was quite average given the one in Edinburgh. Had a shower and then went out for dinner. After dinner we were going to see some stand up comedy which was hilarious. It was another late night and early morning before our trip to Belfast. 

I'm currently on the ferry to Belfast and so far it's not as choppy as the last one from Dover to Calais - that was horrible! 

We have one night in Belfast and that's going to be spent doing a black cab tour around the city. It is apparently going to explain to us about the history of the city which will be insteresting. Tomorrow will be another big travel day, we had heading to Galway via the giants causeway. 

Until then!

-E 

For Lucas 

Liverpool, York, Edinburgh

3/1/16 - Liverpool

So we arrived in Liverpool at around 3. For some reason driving 2 hours seems to take all day over here. The hotel in Liverpool was really nice and overlooked the port which was a beautiful view. Once I got settled in I went straight out to walk down the waterfront. It starts to get dark at about 4pm so daylight was slowly disappearing. I walked down the waterfront and got some really nice photos

Liverpool was a lot prettier than I expected. A walk down the waterfront led me to Albert Dock. This is where the Beatles Museum is. I'm not a huge fan or anything but I know the music and I do like John Lennon. There was loads of info and real and replica items to looks at. It was interesting to see how adored they were by the fans. 

The above picture of the Ferris wheel was taken at about 5pm. So yes very dark very early! After the museum I decided to head back to the hotel. I was still pretty exhausted from the Amsterdam trip! We were having a traditional Sunday roast for dinner which was at about 7pm. I made the wonderful choice of roast beef because I knew it would come with a Yorkshire pudding! Yum! After dinner some people were planning on heading to the famous 'Cavern' but ended up just going back to the bar at the hotel. I stayed there for a bit and then headed up to get some much needed beauty sleep. 

4/1/16 - Liverpool to York 

We had another driving day today, again only around 2 hours but managed to take the whole day. We left Liverpool at 11am and arrived in York at about 2pm. It's crazy how many stops we take! York was very pretty and flooded. Driving in there were whole fields under water and you had to ask if that water was supposed to be there - 99% of the time it wasn't. The city wasn't too bad but the river was still very high with lots of places still closed. 

Driving in - a field that wasn't meant to be a lake 

The Kings Arms is the most flooded pub in York - it is currently flooded! 

Diagon Alley - Harry Potter

York Minster. 

We had a nice dinner in York which was followed by a ghost hunt. The ghost hunt was absolutely hilarious. The old man who ran it was so funny and it really wasn't scary or believable at all! After the ghost hunt we headed back to the hotel because the next day was quite a long drive. 

5/1/16 York to Edinburgh, Scotland 

The drive to Edinburgh was a long one, about 3.5 hours... This meant even more stops! We left York at 8am and with a few stops arrived in Edinburgh at 3pm.

Crossing the England, Scotland border. 

As I said, we arrived in Edinburgh at 3pm. Which meant it was already quite dark. After a muddle up with our room - the door wouldn't open. We went in a walking tour with our topdeck guide, Rogan. It was freezing cold, dark and raining quite heavily so I wasn't impressed that we were doing the tour especially because I didn't have an umbrella and my coat isn't waterproof. Our walking tour went for longer than an hour so by the time we got back I was saturated. We got back to our room and walked into basically the penthouse. It's got 3 Bunks, with each bottom in being a double bed, 2 showers, 2 toilets and ping pong table, TVs at the end of our bunks, a fridge and an abundance of games. It is very cool! 

So we arrived back at our room at about 5pm and that night we were scheduled to do a pub crawl. I was pretty annoyed because I didn't have time to have a rest - typical Em... But anyway jumped in the shower and got ready. We had dinner first and it consisted of haggis. Basically haggis is all the innards and leftover pieces of meat. Which sounds disgusting but in reality it tastes like the inside of a meat pie. It was okay, I've tried it but I wouldn't go out of my way to order it again! After dinner we had the pub crawl. We started at one pub and all up there were about 6 pubs. I was hanging out with some friends I'd met from Tasmania and Auckland. We just found a nice corner to sit at and talked until we had to move in. At about the 5th pub I think it was close to midnight and we had decided that we were hungry and ready to go home. We were just around the corner from the hotel so we grabbed some pizza and shivered our way back.

6/1/16 Edinburgh 

As you can imagine, it was a late start today. Luckily breakfast is served until 12 so we got ready and headed down to breakfast at about 11. My goal today was to get my washing done. I had a lot to do and really needed it done. I found a laundromat that was. 5 minute drive so me and a few others hopped in a cab and drove there. It did take about 2hrs all up to wash and dry everything but we managed to get it done which was good. We came back to the hotel and dumped our washing then headed back into town. We had a look at some of the shops before heading back to the hotel at about 4:30. We had a little rest and then met people down at the hotel restaurant. Everyone was pretty exhausted because of the pub crawl so it was an early night for all. 

7/1/16 (today) - Edinburgh 

Today was the day to see the sights. I started by re-packing my bag and then heading down to breakfast at about 9. We decided to head to Holyrood Palace first. This is Queen Lizzie's offical residence in Scotland. I wasn't too fussed about going inside but everyone else want to so in we went. Like all castles/palaces it just had a whole lot of old stuff, which if you're into that is probably cool but I couldn't really care less.. I did see a photo of John Howard though which was cool. Anyway after the palace I decided that I wanted to head off on my own. There was a few things I wanted to do and it's nice to just pop into a shop if you want to and not have to worry about anyone else. I was talking to mum last night and saying that I wanted to get a tartan scarf, she told me that I should look for her dads clan scarf and showed me which one is was. I found a scarf for her - which is very nice... Cashmere and cost a lot so you better like it!! 😉 and a nice one for me too. Got some more magnets of course and made my way to the castle. Before I got there I got some lunch. There is a place called Oink and it serves pork rolls basically they get a pig in each day and pull the pork to make the rolls. I got cracking as well which was delicious! I then walked up to Edinburgh castle. I wasn't too interested into going inside because once you've seen one castle you've seen them all really. But I wandered around and took some photos. After the castle it was raining pretty heavily and I didn't really have anywhere else I wanted to go so I headed back to the hotel which is where I am now. Tonight we will go somewhere for dinner and then it's off to Glasgow tomorrow for the night! 

Holyrood Palace

Edinburgh Castle

Til next time

- E