BootsnAll Travel Network



what the heck is this blog about?

This blog is for me to share with you all about the exciting adventures I am having while spending all my money on travel. When not sleeping in train stations and lugging a pack around you'll find me wishing I was, in the garden city of Christchurch, New Zealand. I'm an 20-something, wishing-I-still-was-one student, worth around 100 camels according to that guy in Morocco. Lucky enough to have already been on lots of global adventures but still looking for more countries to go to with unpronounceable names. On the right you can see my progress around the world. Blogs posts are grouped in countries and in different trips. The first block is from my 2006/2007 RTW trip, below that is my 2008 'overland trip', then lay travels since then. There is also links to all my photos, video's and trip expenses. Have a look around and please leave me a comment if you like what you read! *update* I am now living in London with a job that I love and taking a break from the travelling life, one day I will return but till then...

the 2010 plan

February 21st, 2010

A new year, a new life plan

Back in Christchurch for the summer. Albeit a terrible summer, still today it is nice and on the nice days I wonder why I would want to live anywhere else. However time to move on and after Easter I will be heading to Iran on route to the UK for another season putting up tents.

So in the process of planning my short (2-3 weeks at this stage) trip to Iran, which like Russia comes with a whole new set of visa rules and restrictions, and for the first time, a dress code.  Will post more info as things develop. Problems can always be solved so it will work and and really looking forward to it.

From Iran I will train to Istanbul and fly in London and the in August will hopefully be starting my masters (yes finally) once I confirm all this application stuff which takes up far too much of my time. But Holland is looking hopeful. I will have to give in and suffer through a winter finally but looking forward to 2010 and new fun adventures!

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A weekend in London and a side trip to France

February 21st, 2010

The beauty of Europe is being able to travel around the continent easily and cheaply, something which is lost on most Europeans but never fails to impress back home.

So to finish up my time in the northern hemisphere I headed over to London for the weekend to catch up with some friends and get very little sleep.

Then it was on a cheap and nasty Ryan Air flight down to Bergerac which is close to where my cousin is living. Out in the french countryside with his French girl friend. In a cave.

 

(My cousins house)

So from Bergerac I taxied into town to get a train to another town where Sam and Francesca picked me up and drove me further out to a little village (hardly a village, more like a collection of about 20 houses) to their house in a cave. Yes really. The area around the Dordogne is all important due to people living there 20, 000 years ago who lived in caves and evidently drew things in them as well. This is all very important obviously so Sam and Francesca live in a house built around one of these caves and in the summertime give tours to the hundreds of french tourists that turn up to see them. Sam can now even speak fluent french!

The next day we drove to Bordeaux to pick my Aunty Linda who had just flown in from NZ and my cousin Joe who was finishing a year in Edinburgh and on his way home. We spent 4 days hanging out in the french country side eating an amazing amount of cheese and drinking a lot of red wine. The weather was getting colder, now winter was arriving and while Sam and Francesca worked me, Joe and Linda took the car (left hand drive, so confusing) and cruised around the villages checking out some more ancient caves, giant chateaux (castles) and occasionally getting lost. It was all very French and to catch up with the family before I was back on a plane.

(Sam with the cheese and Linda and Joe keeping warm)

Back into London where I of course got caught in some tube breakdown meaning I was stuck on buses in rush hour trying to meet someone one the other side of town who would give me a ride back to Oxford.Eventually I made it to the car, headed to Oxford and partied all night, most of the next day at our end of year crew party which a huge crew had built over the week. Very impressive.

Dazed and a bit confused I managed to stumble onto the plane in Gatwick to spend the next 40 hours making my way home. Christchurch. Home again from another wee adventure

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Spain!

February 7th, 2010

Going to Spain for the last 2 months of work was a sweet way to finish off the season. Warm, cheap and awesome.

5 of us headed down to Spain, driving to Portsmouth then a painful 35 hour ferry to Bilbao and another long drive down to our first job.

We did two festivals, one in a town called Vic as hour north of Barcelona. Only a small tent but hard work in ridiculous heat. The festival itself was a city wide music thing with our tent being one of the main stages. Full of crazy world music, nothing I had heard of before but really interesting stuff. It was a cute little town with cobblestones and little cafe’s. While we were waiting to take the tent down 3 of us headed to Barcelona for a couple of days, only 5 euros on the train. I love Barcelona, its such a cool city. Wandered around the gothic areas, went to the beach and then went on this crazy pub crawl with a backpacking bar. Loads of Americans and trashy bars. A bit painful but fun.

(Our local bar across from the tent, which is in the background)

(Town square during festival)

After Vic we had a weekend free before our next job so passed through Mount Serrat, an amazing mountain of strange shaped rocks and a whole town built on top, based around this incredible monastery. We caught a train to the town and then walked 2 hours up to a view point. The whole place was incredible and we were camping in the nearby town which had a swimming pool. Perfect.

Our last job was in Zaragoza, for their huge 9 day Pilar festival. A bigger town, and bigger tents. We had another crew come an join us. After putting up the tent it was 9 intense days of music that went till 6am every day. We did have some very good nights out with some girls the guys had met before in previous years. Some great bars and clubs and all very cheap, our favourite place did beer for 80 cents!

(Lacing up the tent)

(Main cathedral in Zaragoza)

(Team Kiwi in Madrid)

(Typical Sunday afternoon)

I had my 24th birthday during the festival, another excuse for a very late night. One of the kiwi guys, Sam, I worked with was now living in Madrid with his girlfriend so me and Blair went along with him for a few days to check it out. Stayed at the awesome flat right in the middle of town with great coffee across the road. More cheap bars, which gave free food with every drink, loads of cool old buildings. Spain is pretty much amazing. Loved the food, people, culture, language. Sweet. back in Zaragoza we finally packed up, one last very last night and then with those of us who hadn’t gone off chasing girls (3 of them) or flying to London for another job, we began the long journey back to cold England. We had a night in Bilbao before the ferry and got a change to see the Guggenheim museum, possibly the coolest building ever.Full of amazing modern art and well worth the 12 euros. But the building itself is incredible. However about the only thing Bilbao has going for it. So it was back on the long painful ferry which involved a lot of movie watching.

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UK circuit

February 7th, 2010

After a month in the beautiful Denmark at Roskilde in the sun coming back to England was a bit average. After the 2 days drive/ferry we rocked back to our base and spent the week cleaning tents in the rain. Cold rain. Goodbye summer.

(Our crew tent, our lounge and kitchen)

Over the following month we worked putting up a BIG tent (like almost the biggest tent in the world), close to Bristol and spent a few nights out there which was very cool. Also checked out Bath and Glastonbury, just the town, not the festival unfortunately. And we drive over to Wales to a forest one night to sneak into the last night of a small festival there. Random, but cool. Spent far too many nights sleeping in the back of our van.

(the big tent)

After that it was up to northern V festival to meet up with 3 other crews to put up two tents. The festival itself was pretty average, some good bands though, including MGMT and Oasis, and then some commercial stuff…although I did go watch Katy Perry…fun though because there were so many of us.

Then it was up north Lincoln to put up a tent, back down the country down the big tent, then back to Lincoln to take down the other one…whew, little time off but good hours to save up a bit of cash as were were about to head down to Spain for a couple of months, while being awesome cause its Spain, not so good for the hours and guaranteed to spend far more money on Cerveza than what we were making.

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Roskilde: Best. Festival. Ever

February 7th, 2010

Roskilde is one of Europe’s biggest festivals, a whole week of fun. We spent around 2 weeks putting up two of the main stages. it was was hot, and hard work, but got through it. After we were done we had a week to enjoy the festival, with ultimate access all areas passes, no queues for bathrooms, special parties, a lot of beer, saw loads of cool bands, lay in the sun, partied all nigh, drunk cocktails by lake, basically it was awesome. Far too much to write about.

As staff we camped behind the Arena stage, one of our tents in a nice secluded shady area, which was perfect to escape the heat dust and people. The whole stage crew were great and had loads of parties and an annual football match against the other stage teams. Really amazing festival, well organised, run by thousands of cool volunteers. Awesome

After we took the tent down we had a weekend in Copenhagen. Somehow Denmark is able to just be uber cool without trying. All Danish people are friendly, attractive, speak several languages. Copenhagen of course is super cool and very expensive, a bad time to travel on the pound as its losing value consistently, but managed to survive.We hung out a bit in Christiania, the hippy commune that has managed to survive from the 70’s. Truly amazing, as you would imagine a hippy commune to be. Managing to hold on despite influx of dodgy drug stuff and a getting a bit over commercialised, but mostly pretty cool and quirky. We were lucky enough to hang out with some cool Danish people who live in Copenhagen and showed us round. A very cool city. So a great Danish experience, the people are cool, festival was amazing and generally a good time. It was sad to leave and drive back to England to the rain and for tent washing after the tents got filthy at the festival

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Best job in the world

February 1st, 2010

Having little to no idea what I was getting myself into when I signed up to work for a UK company putting up giant tents across Europe at music festivals, I was slightly nervous about how it would turn out. Luckily of course things seem to always turn out for the best and I ended up having an amazing summer. I worked for almost 5 months and didn’t keep up to date with this blog so I will just sum up quickly over the next couple of posts.Basically though I travelled around with a group of people to festivals to put up the big stage tents, then got to hang out at the festival with back stage passes. Awesome. Everyone I worked with were totally awesome and had a lot of fun. The tents we put up were amazing, it was hard work but kind of cool. A pretty awesome summer job. I will just sum a little bit of what we did over a couple of posts, far too many things and stories to write about….

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Bournmouth to Oxford

December 7th, 2009

Leaving Cambridge I learned there was a tube strike in London, excellent…lucky I had a few hours to make my way across town to catch my bus to Bournemouth so joined in with another couple of million angry people on the bus system but managed to get there on time and jump on my uber cheap mega bus down to Bournemouth to stay with Vikki who I had done an exchange type thing with when I was at high school. 6 years on Vikki owns a house with her boyfriend Martin and has a real job, sometimes I feel a bit irresponsible! But lovely to spend a few quite days chilling around Bournemouth in a nice house with a big double bed. Bliss.

We went strawberry picking, cooked yummy food, went to the pub, watched DVD’s, ate fish and chips at the seaside and had dinner with her family who I had stayed with last time. We even manged to track down a pair of steelcap boots I needed for my upcoming job I was feeling a little bit nervous about.I was due in Oxford on the Sunday and caught a train up on Saturday to stay a night with my friend Kate’s mum and step-dad, Marianne and John, who are doing a belated O.E living in Oxford. I managed to navigate my way to their place and spend the afternoon and evening with them. Nice to see some kiwi’s again and was very welcomed into their nice house. Oxford is a cool city, while dominated by the university its really busy, lots going on, beautiful buildings of course and only an hour away from London! Not having any student guides this time I couldn’t get into any of the colleges but still nice wandering around the streets all the same.

I got in touch with my boss for my upcoming job I was still very vague about, all I had heard that we were going to Denmark on Tuesday. He said someone could come pick me up the next day which was great. I walked around a few college parks the next day and lay around in the sun waiting till I would get picked up, unfortunately though an extra lock had been put on the door of the house which I didn’t have the key for so couldn’t actually get inside to get my stuff. Luckily Marianne and John eventually came back and I got in touch with the guys from work who turned up later on that evening to pick me up and drive me back out to the base, about 20mins drive from center of Oxford. Time to start my crazy job for the summer…

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just another day at the best uni in the world; Cambridge

December 7th, 2009

My trip around England began to feel like a bit of a university tour as I left York uni for Cambridge to meet up with Pete, a guy I meet in Romania last year who had somehow convinced the university to give him a grant to travel in Romania and write his dissertation on backpackers. Pretty sweet. So again great to have someone on the inside to check out Cambridge. Uni was winding up for the year and everyone was finishing exams so good time to be around with everyone out and about. Cambridge is set up in colleges, Pete being in one of them where you live and do everything through, very different system than home. Pete’s college wasn’t one of the old original ones, but impressive nonetheless, beautiful grounds with ponds and fountains, he lived in an old house with about 30 other people, all with their own rooms and a cleaner…very cool. I was lucky enough to stay in Pete’s room while he crashed with his girlfriend on the floor below us. I arrived pretty early in the morning and walked the half and hour or so with my massively heavy pack over to meet Pete who had just made it out of bed, there was some serious end of year partying going on. After getting my stuff together we headed out to check out the town.

Basically the whole town is the university with the different colleges spread out around the place. The main colleges are amazing, set in beautiful grounds with incredible buildings. I can’t beleive people study here! One of the colleges dining halls looks like a museum with portraits on the wall and carved wood detailing around the walls. The colleges are closed to visitors so was pretty cool having Pete to be able to get into them all. There is a river running through with everyone punting along it, it beautiful, I loved Cambridge. It would be an amazing place to study, if only I was smart enough!

After wandering through several of the colleges and getting a bit of history from Pete we did what all good students do and headed to the pub where we proceeded to drink a lot of very very highly alcoholic cider despite warnings from a guy at the bar that “Old Rosies cider will fuck you up.” The rest of the afternoon/evening passed in a bit of a blur, something about dinner, a trip to the college bar, then very early bed as we had started the drinking session far too early.

In the morning it was time to move on again, this time to Bournemouth via London, so me and Pete got a much needed coffee before it was on another train into London to find my bus onwards. Cambridge was a cool place to visit, amazing history and would be so interesting to study there, very very different than our 1970’s Canterbury uni, Pete seems to take it all in his stride and is in no way a snobby Cambridge academic, he’s off to London in the new academic year to study at UCL, which will need another university visit.

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York, just lovely!

July 17th, 2009

Last year in Egypt I had travelled for about a week with the wonderful Hugh and Brian from the UK and American respectively. Hugh was now studying in York so thought it would be a good chance to stop by for a brief visit and say hello while I was up that end of the country. I was off buses after the long ride to Scotland and more willing to to pay a bit extra for an uber comfy train. I do love trains. So only 3 hours later I pulled into the York station where I wandered into town to meet Hugh. Even the short walk into town I could tell York was a beautiful city.

Full of old cobblestoned streets, remains of old city wall and a huge cathedral dominating the city. After around a year since our Egypt trip it was great to see Hugh again who came to meet me, we bused out to the university to his halls to get rid of my ever growing pack. Hugh is ever the gentleman and had arranged for me to stay in one of his friends room while she was away for the night-perfect! He cooked me some lunch in their communal kitchen and told me a bit more about the student life of York university, it seems like a pretty sweet deal staying in the halls everyone having nice rooms with bathrooms and big shared kitchens.

We spent the afternoon wandering around the town, down some back streets, into some cute little shops and eventually made it into the big cathedral, or Minister I think its called. We finished off the tour with coffee and cake from a cafe before walking home via the supermarket and heading back to uni where Hugh cooked me dinner! It really makes a difference wandering round with someone who knows the place and where to look, and York is really just very nice, small and quaint but busy and vibrant. The uni is a bit more modern and not exactly Cambridge but the whole place seems like a good location for a few years to study. After dinner we headed down to the pub with a few other people to meet up with Hugh’s girlfriend and sit around being students, drinking too much on a weekday night. Somehow I ended up booking  7.30am train to Cambridge the next day so it was a difficult early morning start off down to the train station for the 2 hour ride south to my next university experience with another travelling buddy

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Scotland: the far north

June 13th, 2009

With my packed lunch from Tesco’s I jumped on a bus to take me to Glasgow, the furtherest north of London I’d been. My previous trips to the UK had been somewhat limited to a bit of the south then getting stuck in London which takes forever to explore, however this trip I was determined to see some more of the country I am actually a citizen of, and a good chance to cash in on the fact I know a lot of people all over the place. So first stop Glasgow to stay with my friend Jess who I had worked at the London pub with a few years earlier. Originally from London she studied and now lives in Glasgow.

The 8 hour bus ride was suitably horrific with very little interesting scenery and the occasional downpour as we ventured further north. Luckily though the sun was shining at 5pm when we finally rolled into Glasgow. In fact the sun just continues to shine right through to 10pm with the summer daylight making it hard for me to adjust to the time difference. Jess was ready waiting for me at the station and we wandered back to the house, a short 20min walk from town. She lives with 2 other girls in a beautiful and massive flat, I now see why people don’t want to like in London where for half the price you can live in a room that’s larger than a cupboard!

I had the whole weekend in Glasgow which was great to see the city, catch up with Jess and even make it over to Edinburgh for the day. We spent the evening cooking dinner then wandered over to a street with fairy lights for dessert and somewhere for a drink. Glasgow is a nice city, not bursting with tourist sites and amazing architecture but seems like a nice place to live. We walked around most of the city the next day, hiding from the sudden and torrential rain in a cafe, then sweating in the sun over lunch before walking up to the necropolis, a big hill with a cemetery around it and the big cathedral down the bottom. After walking for most of the afternoon we headed back to the flat to relax and Jess headed out to work. Jess works as a part time photographer/part time bar staff at local stand-up comedy venue. Saturday night was comedy night. So about 9pm I wandered down with her flatmate Sarah where we were hooked up with free tickets and a few free drinks in the underground, cozy and very full comedy venue called “the Stand.” We saw about 4 comedians and the lineup was mostly good but with a lot of the jokes about Scotland going over my head, ironically there was a couple from Christchurch NZ who came up in the ‘anyone from out of town here’ bit, they coped a bit of flack while I stayed quiet…can just never get away from home!!

After the place was cleared out and cleaned up we headed out with 5 or so of Jess’ workmates to a club with a sticky floor and people actually hooking up on the dance floor- I didn’t know people actually still did that!? But mostly good music and a bit of fun dancing heading back home about 3am so we would be up and going for our following day trip to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is only an hour away by train but a very different city, not that I want to be negative about Glasgow but Edinburgh is just amazing! The buildings are incredible and the whole place is just gorgeous! We had fish and chips in a pub for lunch before wandering up to see the castle then down the Royal Mile before heading all the way up ‘Arthurs Seat’ a big rocky hill that overlooks the city with beautiful views. Wandering back into town through vintage shops and food markets I could definitely see myself living here for a bit. We finished the day off with smoothies from a cute wee cafe where we picked up goats cheese for dinner that night. Back home on the train by 7pm! Lovely day and awesome city!

It was my last night with Jess and we made an amazing pizza for dinner and polished off a couple of bottles of Rose wine before watching a DVD which I feel asleep several times before calling it a night after too much wine and walking! My train the next day was nice and early at 9am so loading up my bag I headed down the road to the train to my next destination: York! Only a short trip to Scotland but enough to make me want to come back and get further into the countryside…another time though!

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