Kersti's Corner

Howth Cliff Walk

On Saturday morning I was feeling a bit daft, and actually agreed to go on the Howth Cliff Walk. Of course, the fact that there are 6 caches along the way was a major draw for me and 4 hours didn't sound too bad when the sun was shining outside.

We started with a quick virtual cache, of course it was never going to be quick in Ireland and took the best part of an hour thanks to a lack of entry points for the cemetary, but nonetheless we found Lynott's grave which looked like a rather large and old cache had thrown up on it, it was so covered with knick knacks.

From this point the cliff walk is best done backwards, so we went to the nearest Martello Tower to start - so far so good! Very quickly, however, I discovered just why it's called a cliff walk and by about 2/3 of the way around I was totally knackered. There were 6 caches in the series named after this walk and we managed to find 5 of them - the unfound one is naturally half way and only unfound because of the couple who looked like they had settled in for the weekend right on the cache location!

By the time the light started to fade I would have eaten a horse was very very happy to see the pub at the end. Some lovely views, some very sore limbs!

We headed home early, which is just as well as I was almost unable to walk and even Sunday morning I hurt all over! Today my back is still sore, but at least my legs have recovered, but no I'm not going to do that again in a hurry.

Durham

Friday night saw Christian and I hopping onto a Ryanair flight to Newcastle in England. We got to the airport and picked up a hire car (Audi A4) and I drove us down to Durham.

I've always wanted to see Durham, ever since I found out that Melbourne's St Patrick's organ was restored there because it's the best place in the world at doing organs. The Cathedral is supposed to be beautiful too. And I wasn't disappointed at all. The Cathedral itself is just across a small bit of grass from Durham Castle. The town too is gorgeous, little streets and the fabulous river...

We stayed in a twin dorm room at the university as Christian will be there for a few days after I go home to attend a conference.

I introduced Christian to caching, and in doing so saw the Angel of the North.

On Sunday we went to Evensong in the Cathedral - it was lovely, and we sat up in the quoir which was cool. Never thought I'd ever see myself doing that!

Pictures will be here shortly...

Manchester

I began organising this weekend in Manchester way back in December, but despite the best layed plans it didn't work out as I'd thought, but I decided to make the most of it.

I arrived on Friday night and had a bit of a walk around to scope out the place - find the good shopping and see if I can spot a place where I might get a decent drink and a decent breakfast for tomorrow. Seemed like a nice enough place.

Saturday I headed out determined to do some hard core shopping, after all I had a date with Dior to pick up some shoes. Didn't take me long to find my favourite store and I was upstairs looking at the clothes in Burberry in no time at all. Got chatting to the wonderful assistant, Alex and lamenting the demise of my dream of a red Burberry trench coat when he pulled out an alternative - a gorgeous red rain coat. I tried it on and it looked lovely. The price was hideous, but hell - Ilze spent more than that on a pair of shoes last month... I asked Alex to put it away for me so I could at least think about it.

So I left Burberry and headed for Arndale - Europe's largest city centre shopping centre and site of the 1996 IRA bombing (no one was killed, lots of damage but all sorted now). Picked up my Dior's which are just gorgeous. Spent most of the day looking around Arndale but thinking about that coat, so I headed back to the store. Alex had gone home early but his colleague put the sale in his name.

Dinner was in a French style place and then I popped into a local pub for a drink before heading home to bed.

Sunday I decided to leave my cards in the safe in my room - if I wanted anything I would have to go back and get funds. This I've decided is a good general plan. Wore my new Diors out for the day - something which my feet were not too happy about after a few hours. It was far too hot for my new coat, was wearing a singlet!

Sunday night was the reason for the trip, went to see James Taylor playing at the Apollo. Think "Something in the Way She Moves", "Country Road", "How Sweet It Is"... The show was really good, the guy is a hoot. At one point he brings out a drum machine - a huge wooden contraption with a spinning drum and huge arms that bash on cymbols and actual drums... woodworking was clearly a passion. Anyway, amazing voice, three encores and a thoroughly good show.

< The drum machine, totally crazy!

So Monday was my last day in Manchester. I slept in and took the morning very relaxed before heading out to Bury to see the "Famous Market". I was most disappointed! It's tiny and mainly made up of cheap clothing stalls, but since those are popping up in shopping centres all over the place it was a waste! If you lived there the butchers might be worthwhile, but it certainly wasn't worth the trip out for me. What I miss is the Queen Vic. Not that I ever really went there that often but it was so nice to know it was there!

Easter Saturday

Ugg! What a horrible time of day to get up, 5:30am sould be banned! And to think that my parents *forced* me to do that every morning for 6 years as a child... and then I had to walk to school in the rain with no shoes... wait, maybe not that last bit!

Anyway, I digress... Ilze and I got up at stupid o'clock and headed out to the train station - of course I'd based my timings on us going to Heuston station, but thankfully I remembered that we only needed to get to Connolly which is a fair bit closer.

We had a lovely trip in first class on the train up to Belfast and arrived just before 10am. First stop was the market, not a lot going on but still I do miss covered markets so it was pretty cool to have a poke about. I got some flowering tea and some Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans.

We spent most of the day shopping, just for something different :)  and then went to Oscar's Champagne Cafe for lunch. It's really not what you'd expect from the name, sure they serve some champagne but the name conjours up images of total decadance and strawberries etc, not a standard little cafe on a main road! I wanted some scones but they were out so I asked for toast with honey but they didn't have any honey... however, they were happy to pop next door and buy some for me :) Now that's what I call service!

Afterwards we decided to go and take a peek at Belfast castle. You can't really go inside  cos it's a conference centre and I think they were organising for a wedding, but we got to have a look around. The outside looks lovely.

We then headed back to town and found our way to the Merchant Hotel and the lovely bar there. We had a few cocktails, but we stayed well away from their 750 pound sterling Mai Tai - aside from not liking Mai Tais, that buys a lot of shoe! We spent a lovely couple of hours and got rather tipsy before heading back home on the train!

Belfast Castle at Wikipedia
Merchant Hotel in Belfast

A walk in the country

Woke up today to the sound of hail on the slate roof at Brendan and Lorraine's place in West County Cork. It was dire! The hail was interspersed with the odd bit of snow and I figured that chances are today's hike would be cancelled.

How wrong was I! I guess that if the Irish waited for fine weather they'd never go anywhere (except a pub)... so off we went to join some of B&L's friends for a 6km hike.

By the time we headed out it was stunning blue skies, maybe things were looking up! But then sure enough, a half k into it and the hail started! The entire walk was sunshine followed by hail followed by snow and then back to sunshine and start over again!

Gorgeous countryside, and I got to see some sheep - they have sheep with black faces, sheep with white faces and sheep with speckled legs here. The sheep also have long wool rather than the fluffy curly wool of the sheep back home.

After the walk we stopped in a lovely pub in Macroom for a drink. Macroom is dominated by castle walls and grounds with old stone arches and guns providing an elegant centre for the town. It is thought that the castle was built in the reign of King John, on the site of an earlier stronghold. I think I may have to head back this way at some stage and have a good look at the place.

Back home tomorrow, this has so far been a lovely weekend.

St Patrick's Day 2007

My second St Patrick's Day in Ireland, can't believe that I've been here so long! It's certainly been an eventful year.

So, this time I left work early on Friday and headed down via train to Cork. I was staying with Brendan and Lorraine (who is pregnant - how exciting!) and Honey, their lovely dog. They live on a gorgeous rural property miles from anywhere - there's not one single pub within 5 minutes walk...

Anyway, Saturday was the day of the parade and also the day for the 6 nations rugby final matches, with Ireland in with a good chance to win. So, I met up with Lorraine and Ger and we headed to one of the pubs to get a good spot to watch the games from - I saw most of the parade from where they were lining up waiting to start - the condensed version!

The games were exciting - Ireland had to win by 5 points more than France won their game by. In the end it came down to the France game, and they managed to win the series by 1 point - talk about nail biting!

Antwerp and Bergen op Zoom

 Bonus! Off site planned for Antwerp :)  The only bummer is that Alan was leaving on Sunday for 2 weeks in the States, still got to spend some time with him even if he was unfortunately not well.

After Alan had left on Sunday Nuno arrived from Portugal and we went to find the hotel. Once checked in we then went for a walk around town so I could show Nuno the sights. We took in the Castle Steen (older than the Tower of London), the Grote Markt, the Meir, Groenplaats, Cathedral of Our Lady and Rubens' House.

We had an early dinner at Vapiano and later headed on to De Vagant to sample some of the flavoured gins and have some cheese and salami with mustard (something I had not tried before this place). Nuno got a little tipsy :)

Monday Jan joined us for breakfast in the hotel and then we started our off-site. I won't bore you with the details of that, but it was a good couple of days and extremely valuable. We should do them more often, we get so much more done that way.

Monday night was bucketing down, but we all headed out for a little tour - Geert used to live in Antwerp and took us to some of the sights. He told us all the story of how Antwerp got it's name and took us through the Vlaaikensgang, a 16th century alley which used to be the home of shoemakers who had the task of ringing the cathedral bells if there was an emergency. It's a lovely little place and worth seeking out.

We headed to one of the pubs on the Grote Markt for a drink (too bright for my liking) and then to the Zuideterras restaurant which is right on the river - we were soaked through by the time we arrived and rather hungry! I admit that I tried the paardefillet for my main course - it was a very rich meat, not as rich as reindeer but certainly more so than beef.

Afterwards we headed to Cafe Beveren. It's an odd little place with an incredibly bizarre organ reminiscent of a one-man-band type of setup. Frans got it going and then afterwards hit the jukebox.

After a while a group of older men walked in wearing the most bizarre outfits - old fishermen style blue dress-coats, red neckerchiefs and white curtains around their necks. Turns out they were preparing for their town's carnival - a big deal in this part of the world. One of the men told us all about the town they were from and the carnival. And they seemed pretty intrigued by their being an Australian in their midst.

The people of Bergen op Zoom wear no new clothes during Carnival (which centres around Shrove Tuesday). This tradition dates back to just after the second world war. The people had no money for proper winter clothes, so they used their old curtains to protect themselves from the cold. Their neckerchief is knotted at the front to distinguish them from other villages and they were a brooch of a crab with three crosses - their city emblem.

During canival the town is renamed Krabbegat, which means the place where you can catch crabs. The town's river used to be tidal and there were crabs on the beach that these men remember catching as children. They would catch the crabs and sell them for 10 cents a bucket - every so often they would be able to earn as much as 50cents in a day - a decent amount back then.

Every year the carnival days have a theme - this year is Shrove Tuesday - quite a Fairy Tale! I was presented with a figurine of Kleine Duimpje (Le petit Poucet - Tom Thumb). It was certainly an interesting night!

Wikipedia entry for Castle Steen
Antwerp Tourism Site
Vapiano Home Page
Zuiderterras Restaurant

Cafe Beveren

 

London for weddings and shopping

Had a lovely 4 day weekend in London with Kamal and Ilze. Diana (who I went to school with) and Nick were over to celebrate their recent wedding and since the last time I saw Diana was at Paula's wedding, I figured I'd make the effort to see her again - probably won't get another chance for years. Was a lovely party held in a great bar called Just St James.

While in London I simply *had* to do a bit of shopping. So Ilze and I toured a few particular shops. I found a pair of black suede mary jane Jimmy Choos going for half price in Harvey Nichols - huge bonus! And they only had my size... so clearly they were meant for me!

We later on stopped by the Manolo Blahniks shop, which is hidden away somewhat, and where Ilze got a gorgeous pair of shoes for herself.

Also finally tried the "traditional" pasty from the West Cornwall Pasty Co - and I must say that it was a fair approximation of the one that my family makes. Tasted lovely and brought back lots of memories - although it could have done with more filling.

Sunday saw us head to Bicester Village (pronounced Bister) and boy what a great place that was! My haul included a lovely orange knitted top from Burberry and a Mulberry belt that matches the bag I'd gotten in Oslo last year.

Monday we headed off to see Leadenhall Market - just because I'd seen something on a travel show and so wanted to have a peek. It's absolutely gorgeous yet not really pushed through most of the guide books, probably because it contains fairly standard shops and isn't really in a high tourist spot. Still, if you're in the area it's worth a look.

We stopped at a lovely bar on the way back for a glass of bubbly with a view (oh my, that was a very expensive glass!)

My way home I encountered one of the stupid aspects of air travel at the moment. Aer Lingus lets me take on board a carry on bag, a laptop and a handbag. I had to pay extra to check another bag when I booked my ticket (it costs a lot more if you forget and have to do it when you check in). However, the Heathrow security people wanted me to take my laptop out of it's case and then I could only take one other item through with me. This meant that my laptop bag and my handbag had to go into my carry on bag. This was just to walk into the security room. Ridiculous! It took me a while to sort out and shuffle enough to do that - the alternative was to check my carry on bag, but that would cost big time. Naturally there was NO signage to say this.

When I'd finally sorted that out and got through I was so jammed in that I realised I didn't know where my keys were - and with Steve in Cork and Emma in the States, I really needed to find them! Luckily the x-rays were empty, so I asked the guys there to see if they could find them - they had a good look and then told me which corner of my bag they were sitting in - that was brilliant! They seemed rather chuffed to have been able to help too.

http://www.juststjames.com/

http://www.westcornwallpasty.co.uk

http://www.bicestervillage.com

http://www.leadenhallmarket.co.uk/

New Years in Paris

I always love going to Paris - it's just so... Parisien! The fabulous monuments and buildings always look gorgeous and the atmosphere is just great. There's a reason people have been coming here for 6000 years.

I love too how they change things every so subtley - look at the fancy green space-lights on the Eiffel Tower, it's still the tower we know and love, but the "Christmas" decorations make this visit different to the last.

So anyway, we were in Paris for New Years' and since it's been a big item on my to do list for many many years, I was quite excited by it. On Sunday night at about 11:30 we made our way down to the Champs Elysee and found a good position right in the middle of the road. We then got ready for the anticipated spectacular. As midnight approached, the crowd grew expectant and we were all looking at the Arc then, suddenly the lights in the trees all dim and.... nothing.

Yep, absolutely nothing! People looked confused, a few were asking if that was it and trying to work out what went wrong. Some people in the crowd started letting off their own smuggled in fireworks. After a while we wondered around to see if the light show was at the Tower instead - and aside from the standard twinkle, nothing there either. It was absolutely bizarre!

We headed back to the hotel, passing by the Gallery Lafayette buildings on the way - much more light there! Guess all those who we saw in cafes on our way in to the city had the right idea after all.

The next day after a leaisurely breakfast (which I ordered in French) we headed back to Antwerp.

Found out later on that the French only bother with fireworks on "special" new years. That's a shame, all those people there pumping cash into their economy and they can't even be bothered with a few sparklers! Well, guess it'll be somewhere else next year.

At least I've been, and I've experienced a Parisien New Year and nothing, not even tight French people, can change that!

Saving Colleen

Poor Colleen. She's my travel bug and she's been trapped by the evil Dutch. I let her go in Dublin and on her first trip out she went to the Netherlands where she's been ever since. Just bouncing around all over the place. She'll never escape and make it to Australia.

So, Alan and I launched a rescue mission - the plan to rescue Colleen from her Dutch prison and take her somewhere more friendly, like Belgium or France.

We had received word that Colleen was located up near an old bunker used by some Jewish families to hide out during the War. We had to answer 6 questions to get the final coordinates - and naturally all the questions were in Dutch. So we spent some considerable time translating and printing out Google Earth photos of the area. It was a 3 hour drive to the north of the Netherlands, so off we went.

Lovely spot when we arrived, a small woodland. We got most of our clues fairly quickly, but the cache where she was hiding was elusive. We ended up making a quick call to get a final clue translated for us and finally found the cache.

We were excited - our mission was proving successful but then, she wasn't there. A review of the logs showed she'd been taken two days before we arrived - if only she'd been logged, at least we wouldn't have made that trip! Disappointed we made the trip back to Antwerp. We'll have to rescue Colleen another day.