Tag: travel

Thursday 20th – Saturday 22nd February 2025

After another not great nights sleep, due to a big birthday party going on in the restaurant next door we left after breakfast to our next stop. We are driving to a small place called Dhulla Village. 

This is a nice relaxing stay in the countryside to recuperate after the madness of Delhi & Jaipur. 

It was a pretty long drive with a stop along the way for some lunch then we arrived at the place we were staying, and it’s gorgeous. A beautiful tented camp in the grounds of an old Palace. It’s so tranquil and calm, the tents are great and there is also a swimming pool, not quite full but still fab for a cooling dip! We got settled in and had a relaxing afternoon. I chose to have a dip and then relax in the shade and read my book, and watch all the birds, peacocks and even a Jackel! 

Later in the afternoon we all went for a bike ride through the local village, led by a lovely local guy. The ride was on bikes with no gears and tiny saddles 😬 but it was brilliant, just seeing all the fields and the village and villagers going about their business was amazing. The kids all get so excited and wave and want to high 5! Not the easiest manoeuvre when on a bicycle! 😀

Our guide then took us to his home in the village, where we met his son, wife and mother and all had a refreshing cup of Masala Chai. 

Village life is still pretty simple and traditional, but also peaceful and calm. I loved this activity. 

We all had dinner in camp and then sat around a fire pit chatting and enjoying the fireworks and music from a wedding taking place very nearby. 

Unfortunately the music became slightly less enjoyable  from 11 – 3am! It finished just before a whole pack of jackets began howling, they then stopped just in time for the birds to start! 🥱😴🥱😴 So another night of very little sleep, India definitely likes a party! 🥳🎉

We left Dhulla after breakfast, next stop Agra.

We stopped on route to visit a magnificent Step Well, Chand Baori. It is stunning. It was built in the 8 & 9th centuries by King Chanda of the Nikumbha dynasty. It was the idea of the queen and the women to build it to save the long, hot walk to fetch fresh water. It has appeared in several Bollywood films and also in The Dark Knight Rises. 

I found it amazing, if a little hairy, it’s deep and steep! 

When we arrived in Agra our first stop was Itmad-ud-Daula or Baby Taj. It is referred to as a Jewel Box and is possibly a draft of the Taj Mahal. It is a Mughal Mausoleum. It was built around 1625. It is impressive and very pretty. It is the tomb of Mirzā Ghiyās Beg, the grandfather of Arjumand Banu Begum, the wife of Emperor Shah Japan, who was responsible for building the Taj Mahal. 

Vik is so good at explaining all the history and giving plenty of information, not all of which I can remember! Suffice to say it’s fascinating.

We arrived at the hotel, a more modern place, which is fine, I had a slight issue with mouldy and dirty pillows, and some peoples rooms are pretty damp smelling! But overall it’s ok. It does have a roof terrace with a small pool and a great view of the sunset. 🌆 

We had a pleasant dinner out and got to try a local delicacy, Petha, sweet. It’s is made from Winter Melon, or white pumpkin. It’s was interesting. To be fair we tried another the next day and that was yummy! 

It was an early night as we were leaving to visit the Taj Mahal at 5am. 😳

It was the first quiet night I’ve had, such a shame I had to get up so bloody early.

We set off in our bus to the entrance which wasn’t very far, luckily for us the early start payed off as we were pretty much first in line. It’s obviously very busy but even more so on Saturdays. 

We entered while the sun was starting to rise, so not completely light. You walk along past some red sandstone buildings then through the huge entrance gate and there it is! 

It is overwhelming, huge and absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. 

I got very emotional. I just felt very privileged to be there and be able to see one of the 7 wonders of the world. 

The story of the Taj Mahal is also very beautiful and moving. (Although I feel it might be embellished somewhat!) 

The Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal (Arjumand Banu Begum). Mumtaz had 14 children with the Emperor, she also accompanied him on missions and to battles and acted as an advisor. She was very beautiful. When she was giving birth to her 14th child there were complications and she became very ill, the Emperor was called back from battle and arrived in time to see and speak to his wife before she died. 

Mumtaz made Shah Jahan make 3 promises, 1. Look after her family. 2. Never marry again. 3. Build a monument to tell the world how much he loved her.  

Shah Jahan was inconsolable after her death and plunged the royal court into 2 years of mourning, but he kept his promises to his favourite wife. 

He summoned Muslim artists and architects from all over the world to help design and build a mausoleum worthy of Mumtaz. 

It took 20,000 artisans, 1,000s of elephants, 10s of thousands of workers and over 22 years to build. 

Incredibly it is also earthquake proof! It is built on a raised platform, with deep foundations. The foundation’s consist of a series of wells, the materials used including clay, stone and wood help to distribute the load evenly and provide stability. The use of Sandstone and marble reduces the overall weight. The four Minerets are built angled outwards, so that if they fall they fall away from the main structure. The overall height, and design, using Domes and arches also helps with the stability. This is a hugely impressive feat for a building over 400 years old! 

The White Marble used to build the Taj Mahal is from Rajasthan, it is a very special marble, hard, non porous and with quartz in it. This is why after 400 years it still looks pristine. 

The design of the whole place is stunning. The gardens, the water, the mosque’s. Everything is to reflect the Mughal ideas of symmetry, balance and harmony. 

I found the whole place to be quite spectacular, incredibly beautiful and very peaceful. I can’t quite believe that I was able to see this wonderful monument. 

We spent around 3 hours here. I could easily have spent much longer, just soaking in the beauty. But it was beginning to get very, very busy so we left and went for a much needed big breakfast buffet! 

After this we went back to the hotel for a short rest and time to freshen up before we headed to the Agra Fort, also known as the Red Fort. Again this stunning place was built by the Mughals. Emperor Humayun was crowned here in 1530.  It is also another fantastic building, very complex and intricate. Emperor Shah Jahan was imprisoned here by his son, this fate was awful for him as his prison, to be fair it was quite a fancy series of rooms! But it looked across the river to the Taj Mahal and his wife but he wasn’t able to visit. 

Agra Fort was also the site where the emperor’s signed a trade agreement with the British East India Trading Company in the 1800s and heralded the end of the Mughal empire. 

It really has been a full on few days, so much to see and absorb. I’m so behind on my blog, as I just don’t have time to write it or sometimes no wifi to post or both! 

That’s it for now, so much more to tell you! 😍🧡💚🇮🇳

Books Read.

I’ve nearly finished another book! 

Have a great week. 

🧡❤️🩵🩷💙

Tuesday 18th  – Thursday 20th February 2025

Today we headed out of Delhi to Jaipur. I’m happy to be leaving Delhi, I’ve been here for 5 days and I feel it’s time to see somewhere else!

We left at 6.30am to ensure we missed the traffic. 

It’s amazing to be driving on almost empty streets! 😁

We are in a nice comfy coach.

Delhi is enormous, you leave the central area which is massive then all the surrounding areas are vast. Leaving the city centre you start to see the huge cloud of smog hanging over everything, and the pollution isn’t even that bad at the moment. 

Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world. The pollution comes from the millions of cars, coal burning power plants, massive landfills of waste, which are burnt and the huge amount of non stop construction of roads, flyovers, apartments etc and then in the winter (now) there is the added problem of vast areas of agricultural land burning crop stubble. 

The drive is fascinating, trying to guess what you might see next by the side of the road! Cows, lots of cows! Goats, dogs, people, children, temples, piles of rubbish, monkeys and airplanes! 😳 The cows are both by the side of the highway and also ambling across busy carriageways. Vik explained that the reason the cows don’t stay in the fields is because they don’t get bothered by flies near the roads! Clever. 

We had a stop for breakfast and another toilet break, then we made our way to our next visit. A place called ‘Anoothi’  This is a project that helps to support women from violent or difficult backgrounds. They women learn how to do block printing and sewing then they work with the project producing goods, giving the woman I

some independence and financial security. The project also provides schooling for the family’s. G Adventures are one of the supporters, not just with visits like ours but through their sister company, Planeterra Foundation, a leading non-profit organisation using tourism to bring positive impacts to local communities. 

It was great to be in the outdoors and away from the city. The first resident we met was a cow who had given birth to her calf that morning! It’s inspiring to meet and listen to the women’s stories. The work they produce is amazing. In the sewing room they were busy making a large number of Buddhist Robes for somewhere in America. 

We all got to try our hand at block printing, it’s harder than it looks!

We also had a chance to buy some stuff, all of which was beautiful, but lack of space for me is a problem, but I did buy a small item. 🥰

From Anoothi we made our way to Jaipur and The Amber Fort. 

OMG! Wow! It is huge and absolutely stunning. Our guide, Abear, was brilliant, a little like a Sargent Major, bossy, stern but extremely funny & Informative. 

The current Palace was constructed in the 16th Century, it’s built of red sandstone and white marble and decorated with precious stones, paint, mirrors and carvings. Inside some of the walls look and feel like marble but are in fact made of a weird mix of materials, Crushed sea shells, lemon juice, sea salt, marble dust, sugar and yogurt, this is mixed and applied the mixture is then oiled to make it feel smooth! Brilliant. 😍❤️

Some of the design features are ingenious, the ways of keeping cool and keeping flies out using water, scented oils and materials. The use of convex and concave mirrors in the large hall is stunning. 

The area reserved for the Queens or Maharanis was beautiful, with a gorgeous garden that would have been stunning. However it needed to be, as once the women entered the palace they were not allowed to leave or mix with anyone else or show their faces apart from to each other. They were looked after and serviced by a large group of Transgender people, not eunuchs. The Maharaja had 12 wives and over 350 mistresses! 

I really loved learning the history of the Fort, and how ingenious they were. 

Such a fantastic introduction to Jaipur. We then drove into the city, known as The Pink City due to the colour of the buildings. The buildings were painted pink in 1876 by Maharaja Sakai Ram Singh 11 to welcome Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The colour pink is the colour of hospitality. 

Again another mad city, very busy roads, lots of honking, lots of people but not quite as bad as Delhi.

Our hotel is fine, perfectly adequate. We got checked in had time to freshen up then it was off out for dinner. We had dinner in quite a fancy place called, House of Binder & Café Auberge. The food was lovely I had a Vegetarian Thali, a perfectly sized platter of yummyness! Then home for an early night! 😴

I opted not to do the early morning cycle ride, mainly because it started at 5.45! 

I had a bit of a lie in, lush, then a light breakfast in the restaurant, wrote my blog and chatted to Barb, one of the group. 

After breakfast it was time to head into Jaipur to start our day. First stop pictures of the Wind Palace in Jaipur the second most photographed monument in India apparently. The Palace has 953 small windows decorated with intricate lattice work, known as Jharokhas, these allow air to flow through keeping the palace cool. This natural ventilation system is the reason for the name. 

It is really beautiful, my pictures don’t really do it justice. 

From here we walked to the Jantar Mantar. This is a collection of 19 large astronomical instruments built in 1734 by the founder of Jaipur, Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh 11. It has the largest sundial in the world. It was incredibly impressive and fascinating learning how important astronomical readings are within the Hindu faith. 

From here we went across to the Jaipur city palace. The current Maharaja and the family still live in part of the palace. The rest is open to the public and has museums. It was a beautiful, intricately decorated palace. With stunning gateways. 

After a yummy buffet lunch we visited another block printing place and were offered the chance to buy more gorgeous things! It’s is so, so tempting to buy something, gorgeous throws, quilts, clothes, bags…etc. but I just can’t, I don’t have the room in my case or even a bloody home to put them in! 😂😂

Unfortunately I did succumb to temptation in our next stop the gem place! Jaipur is renowned for its gemstones and their cutting. I ended up buying a small and not expensive moonstone pendant, to go with my New Zealand Pounamu & World necklace. 

We all decided to head to our dinner restaurant a little early rather than battle traffic to go back to the hotel first. 

Vik had chosen a fabulous rooftop (my favourite!) restaurant 😍 and we were also going to be doing some Bollywood dancing on the rooftop in front of everyone. 

OMG! It was brilliant! 😍❤️🧡💚 We had costumes and it was so much fun, I’m not sure I want to see the video 🤦‍♀️😬😂 but it was fabulous. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, it was a pretty OK sunset despite the cloud, however the clouds hailed the onset of a bloody massive thunderstorm! So much lightning then the wind whipped up and everyone was running inside, the staff desperately trying to save the crockery, plants, plates etc that were flying about and amongst it all were Barb (a fellow storm lover) & myself loving the drama and the incredible storm! Simply fantastic. The perfect end to an awesome day. 

Tomorrow we are heading to a village and a tented camp, no wifi but it does have a pool 🩵💙 Vik tells us that it’s a wonderful place to stay.

I’m hoping to post this blog before I leave tomorrow morning. 

I’m on day 5 of my tour and I am loving it! I’m enjoying being with all of the other people who are great company and great fun. It is such a pleasure to have the days planned for me, just turn up and join in! 

Vik is fabulous and all the other guides have been fantastic. 

Happy Days. 😍❤️❤️

Happy Thursday guys. 

Books Read.

Still reading one. Not much reading time at the moment. 

🧡💚🇮🇳🧡💚🇮🇳🧡💚🇮🇳🧡💚🇮🇳

Thursday 6th – Wednesday 12th February 2025

It was very strange going to sleep knowing Tracey was on her way home and equally strange waking up in the morning without her here! 

I have another full day and a night in Kandy before going to Colombo.

These last 5 or so days have been tricky to organise. I didn’t really want to go back to where I’d already been, Ella, for example, which is gorgeous! Or head too far down the coast just to come back for my flight. 

Unfortunately due to the dates for all of my visas starting in Australia where I left on the last possible day! 😬 Then my dates for Sri Lanka, which I’d already messed up and had to change my outgoing flight! And my dates for India, where I didn’t want to spend too long on my own before my Tour starts, all means that I am kind of marking time for the last few days in Sri Lanka. 

With all this in mind I have opted to stay in Kandy one more night then spend 4 nights in Colombo at a nice hotel, chilling before India. 

I decided to do a short tour of Kandy in a Tuk Tuk, it took rather less time than I’d anticipated! This in part was because Tracey & I had visited a few places already. 

We went up to the Kandy Viewpoint, which was exactly that, then made our way across Kandy to a large Buddhist Temple and Monk School. 

This was a beautiful building with lovely views across Kandy. My driver then took me to a Herbal Garden, which had I been thinking clearly I would have realised exactly what this was. I visited one in Hikkaduwa, it’s essentially an Ayurvedic business that also has a herb garden. 

It is really interesting hearing what all the different plants are used for but the main purpose is to sell their products, which are not cheap, I’m sure they are amazing, I just don’t have space in my case for anymore stuff! From here the driver wanted to take me to a Gemstone factory, but I declined. He dropped me back into the centre of town and I had a little mooch around, stopped for cold drink then walked back around the lake to the hotel. 

My new room has a lovely calm, quiet private patio area so I sat there and read my book! I also had to sort out my nails, I had managed to tear a nail very low down, which I’ve been trying to allow to grow up before cutting but it keeps catching and I’m scared it’s going to rip off!! Ouch! 😩 

I’m traveling to Colombo by train, it’s so cheap and I’d loved the Train journey from Ella. 

The hotel staff said that traffic would be bad, so organised a Tuk Tuk to collect me at 15.15 for a 16.20 train, I felt this was a little early but hey Ho. Needless to say the traffic was fine, I arrived at the train Station by 15.25 to be told my train was delayed by 30 minutes! 🤦‍♀️ Normally a 90 minute wait would be a nightmare but I’ve kind of got used to waiting and sitting around, so it wasn’t too bad. 

The train arrived and I found my seat, I was sitting next to a lovely young Japanese guy he was trying to take photos out through the window, I explained that he could go the the end of the carriage and open the doors to get clear pics and video. He then spent the next hour doing exactly that and was so pleased and grateful. The journey was nice, not quite as spectacular as the Ella to Kandy one, but pleasant. 

I arrived in Colombo 30 minutes earlier than I’d thought, grabbed a Tuk Tuk and came to my hotel. 

I’m staying at the Marino Beach Hotel, it wasn’t cheap but it looked fab. 

It’s big, beige but clean and comfy. The rooftop pool is gorgeous and they offer a free City Tour and have a Beach Lounge further down the road, with a free shuttle. 🥰 

As it was late I just grabbed a beer and some food and headed to bed. 

I’m quite happy to be in a big hotel, being a little anonymous and just relaxing. 

The pool is amazing, a really good size for swimming, with lovely views and lots of Sun loungers! 

I’ve visited the Beach Lounge, nice. 👌 I have also been into the city, which was OK. 

I visited a large Shopping Mall, which was interesting. Quite a few of the high end shops selling Imported goods  only had a few items in. 

I’ll talk about the reasons for this a little later. 

I took a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel and the driver was trying to sell me a city tour, which I explained I was doing with the hotel, he then tried to convince me to go to a Gem shop, I explained that I’d already visited Gem shops and factories, but thank you. This conversation happened twice. He still drove me to an area of the city which is full of Gem stores and tried quite aggressively to convince me to go. I told him loudly & assertively to take me back to my hotel immediately or I would get out and he wouldn’t get paid. This did the trick. Whilst I understand that the drivers make commission on people that they take to these places it is frustrating and concerning when you are traveling alone, especially as I was already paying him double the going rate! 

I took advantage of the free city tour, which was great. We visited The Colombo National Museum. Which was really interesting, and on the way I spotted 2 elephants being transported on the back of a truck! One of the exhibits had artefacts that had been returned to Sri Lanka by the Dutch, I wonder if The British Museum will ever do the same!? 

From the museum we visited the Independence Square. Built in 1948 to celebrate Sri Lanka’s independence from British Rule. I visited a few of these on my travels. 

We then headed to Gangaramaya Temple, the largest Buddhist Temple in Colombo. It was fabulous, as they were gearing up for a huge procession & Celebration, Nawam Maha Perahera. Which is why there were elephants being transported to take part in the parade and lots of people in beautiful costumes and traditional dress. 

The temple is a treasure trove, literally. Full of an eclectic mix of items gifted to the temple. Including some huge and very old Tusks. 🥺

The temple also houses the smallest gold Buddha, encased in a moonstone jar. It’s tiny! 

I managed to get a photo of the Colombo Lotus Tower, the tallest structure in South East Asia. It’s very pretty and even more so at night. 

Then a quick stop at Galle Face Green and back to the hotel. 

A very pleasant tour. 

I grabbed a cocktail and watched my final Sri Lankan sunset, very pretty.  And that’s almost the end of my time here in Sri Lanka. 

I last visited Sri Lanka in 2018 since then the country suffered a devastating terror attack in Colombo and nearby Negombo in April 2019 which killed 269 people. A change of Government in 2019 which many believe were corrupt and inept and COVID! 

The country began a swift decline towards economic crisis which peaked in 2022, when Sri Lanka defaulted on their sovereign debt. This resulted in blackouts, fuel and food shortages. A terrible time for the Sri Lankans. 

Things are now starting to stabilise, a new President was elected in 2024, the left wing politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake. 

I feel these things have resulted in an increased level of pricing particularly for tourists, which I understand completely, because when I’m moaning that the Tuk tuk should only be 1000 rupees not 2000 that’s still only a difference between £2.70 or £5.40, which I obviously wouldn’t quibble about if I was at home. 

Sri Lankans are still struggling out of the economic and political mess they found themselves in, but manage in the main, to be helpful, kind and friendly. Has it changed over the years, most certainly, some areas like Hikkaduwa have changed a great deal, with the massive influx of Russian Tourists & money. However It is a beautiful country with wonderful people that is definitely worth a visit.

Thank you Sri Lanka for a wonderful visit. 

I’m off to the airport soon on my way to India! 🇮🇳 I’m excited and a little nervous. I think it will be different to anywhere I’ve been before. 

I will let you know how it goes! 
Have a great week.

🩷💚🩵💙❤️

Books read.

The Village. Caroline Mitchell. It was OK. 

Her Last Walk Home. Patricia Gibney. No 7 in the Lottie Parker series. Not my favourite one. 

Sunday 2nd February – Thursday 6th February 2025

Once again I appear to have totally messed up the dates in my blog!

I was obviously going to write more, but figured Yala deserved a post all on its own!

Tracey and I left Tissamaharama and drove the 2 hours up into the hill country and our next stop, Ella. 

It’s great to be visiting places in Sri Lanka that I haven’t been to before and to be doing it with Tracey is fabulous. 

The drive was great, very picturesque. 

Our hotel, ‘Ella’s Edge’ was exactly as described, on the edge of Ella with a magnificent view. 

Once we had figured out the slight issue with the rooms, we settled in and then went by Tuk Tuk to a café overlooking the fabulous 9 Arch Bridge, also known as The Sky Bridge. 

The viaduct was designed to connect 2 mountains on the Badulla to Colombo railway. It was envisaged by the British shortly before the outbreak of WW1 however but when it came to construction all the steel needed was diverted back for the war effort. It was then constructed and built with stone and cement largely by Sri Lankan engineers and workers, it was completed in 1921. It is a stunning piece of architecture and design. It is an iconic & popular landmark in Ella. 

The Tuk Tuk, with our driver, Kumarah took us up quite steep, bumpy and somewhat scary dirt roads to the spot where he could leave the Tuk Tuk then walk down the steep steps to the café, Café Soul. 

This route down was a little steep, which I didn’t love. But it was worth it as the views of the bridge were spectacular. We were also lucky enough to be there when not one but two trains crossed the bridge! 

Most of the trains stop on the bridge to allow passengers to take photos. 

It’s quite scary seeing people sitting on the edge of the bridge, with a long sheer drop to the valley below! 😳

We were there on a Sunday which meant it was very busy, lots of Sri Lankans visiting Ella for day trips. 

We climbed back up the hill, and stopped in Ella for a bit, had a refreshing cocktail 🍹then went back to our hotel, chilled, got changed and back into Ella for dinner. We chose a place recommended by The Lonely Planet, The White Rabbit, it was busy, but great vibes, live music and delicious food. I had a Sri Lankan Jackfruit curry, so good. 

Then back for a good nights sleep! 

I set my alarm for 6am so I could see the sunrise. It was wonderful!  

I looked, enjoyed, photographed then went back to sleep! 😴😍

For our second day we had asked Kumarah to take us to a little place outside of Ella, called Demodara. From here you can get the calypso train the short distance to Ella, crossing the 9 arch bridge! All for the princely sum of £3! 

The train was fabulous, we snagged a couple of stools in the open carriage, sat back and enjoyed the odd and vaguely mariachi band playing music and the fantastic views! 

It was so much fun! 🤩🎉 Being on the bridge was amazing. Fun seeing it from a different angle.

The whole thing only took around 35 minutes, but it’s definitely worth doing.

Kumarah picked us up at Ella train station and we drove to Halpewatte Tea Factory for a tour. 

Again, stunning views, and an interesting and informative tour of the tea factory, who knew how much work goes into your daily cuppa! 🫖 ☕️ 😮 Fascinating.

We went back into Ella for dinner and ended up leaving one quite fancy place which couldn’t seem to get our food order correct after numerous attempts we cancelled the food and found a much less fancy but fabulous place that served good, tasty Sri Lankan food! Winner. 🏆 

As a special treat Tracey & I had booked an afternoon at Ravana Pool Spa, handily this was on the route to climb ‘Little Adam’s Peak’ which Tracey wanted to do, I had said I’d do as much as I fancied, which turned out not to be very much tbh! 😳 There are a lot of very steep steps, and lots of people. Going up is hard work, but coming down for me is a nightmare, both for my knees and my worsening fear of heights and falling! 

So Tracey did the last (steepest bit) on her own, and whipped up there like a mountain goat!! Impressive 😍 

I waited for her and spent the time enjoying watching people doing the ZipWire and a little 6 year old boy doing the climbing wall! 

Once Tracey had returned we walked back to the Rana Pool Spa. We were a little early for our booking so we had a Cocktail, obviously 😁 I had a really tasty Bloody Mary.

Our VIP pool experience was fantastic. We had a nice big bed area and a wonderful infinity pool! 

We went a little mad and ordered a bottle of French Rosé Wine, which was great, it appeared to start a trend though as then everyone around us started ordering it, which meant when we wanted a second bottle they’d run out!! 😮😁 We compromised on a nice bottle of dry white! 

It was a brilliant afternoon, and towards the end we got chatting to the 2 couples next to us. They were in Sri Lanka on holiday from India, New Delhi, they were great fun and super friendly (the wine might have helped!) we exchanged numbers and they have told me I must contact them when I arrive in New Delhi! Which I most certainly will! We are also also invited to Anupam’s sisters wedding in November! 😂 

All in all a fantastic day!! Finished off with more delicious curry at the same restaurant as the previous night and finishing Tracey’s Gin back at the hotel! 🤣

Getting up for our train to Kandy the next morning was a little challenging 😜 But we made it to the station for 8.30ish! 

It’s a little chaotic on the platform but once the train arrives it all gets sorted. We had reservations in 1st class, comfy seats, air con, they also came around and asked for our food order, result! We both ordered Veggie rice. When it arrived it turned out not to be part of the ticket price! But still enjoyable.

The train journey from Ella to Kandy is another ‘Must Do’ in Sri Lanka.

The train takes around 7 hours to wind its way through miles and miles of lush green hills and tea plantations. The views are truly spectacular. I was even brave enough to do the obligatory leaning out of the open train door!! In fact I think I spent most of the journey at the doorway as the views were so incredible. 

Up there as one of my favourite experiences in Sri Lanka. 

We arrived in Kandy at around 4pm and made our way to the hotel. 

We had opted to change our hotel in Kandy for one with a pool. The one we chose was quite fancy, and very gorgeous, the pool however was tiny! 😂 It really didn’t matter because everything else was perfect. 😍 The comfiest bed on the whole trip! 😴😴😴

We opted to go out for dinner to a place again recommended by The Lonely Planet. Another hit! Great live music, good grub and the most delicious cocktails! 🍸 

Sadly Thursday was Tracey’s last day with me! She was heading to Colombo at 10 pm that night for a 4am flight! 

We spent the best part of the day at The Royal Botanical Gardens, which were simply gorgeous. A really large area of lush planting, stunning native trees, flowers, wildlife, completely glorious. 💚🩷❤️

We saw loads of Fruit Bats or Flying Foxes roosting in the trees, they are huge. A strange little man offered to sell us one for £1! random, we declined. A decision I somewhat regret! 🦇🤔🤣

We then went back into Kandy to visit the Temple of the Tooth. A very holy Buddhist Temple that holds part of Buddhas a tooth.  It also has a museum dedicated to Raja the Tusker, a very beloved Elephant used for important processions. He died and was then preserved and kept in the museum. 

For our last nights dinner we managed to persuade the hotel to make us a Sri Lankan curry, which wasn’t on the menu. It was fabulous.

Then it was time for my beautiful friend to leave! 🥺

It was a tad emotional saying goodbye and just felt all kinds of weird to be saying goodbye in Sri Lanka and not going to the airport together! 

It has been unbelievably fantastic to share our time together in Sri Lanka, seeing and doing things that will stay in my heart and mind forever.

Thank you my darling Tracey for everything. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

I will try and catch everything up tomorrow. 

No new books yet! 

Happy Sunday lovelies.

💚💙🩵🦇🩷

Friday 31st January – Wednesday 5th February 2025

So, a couple of amendments, I put the wrong dates on my last blog and also forgot to post pictures from the Whale watching. I think I was just so concerned trying to post anything at all with the dodgy wifi!

The hotel in Mirissa had organised a driver to take us to Yala at a really good price. The lovely driver was called Mahesh. 

We are staying just outside of Yala in a  place called, Tissamaharama.

The drive was around 3 hours and we were on the highway most of the way which had some very interesting “Beware of the Peococks” signs! 😁

We arrived at our hotel, “My Village” which was absolutely gorgeous, possibly the best place we have stayed in so far. Small but beautiful, the pool area was fabulous and we had a cute little patio area outside our room overlooking the pool. As we were quite far from anywhere we had opted to just chill and eat and the hotel. We had a quick jaunt into town to get cash, as everything has to be paid in £££.

Then a wonderful swim and an early dinner as we have to be up at 4.15 to leave for our Safari at 5am!! 😳😴

We managed to get up on time and we met our driver, Chumara, got given our very substantial packed breakfast, climbed in to our vehicle and off we went into the darkness.

It’s around a 30 minute drive to Yala, we had a quick wee stop then joined 100s of other jeeps waiting to enter that park at 6am. The wait was lovely, as the sun was rising and the colour changes were stunning.

Our driver was in the queue but decided to overtake Everyone to get to the front, he did this at around 25/30 mph. 

I was busy taking a picture so was oblivious to the water buffalo that ran out in front of us, until we hit it! It was an almighty crash! 💥 

It was a huge shock, especially as I hadn’t seen it coming, Tracey had spotted the buffalo running. Thank goodness everyone was OK, even the water buffalo seemed OK, it got up and ran off. I bashed my knee a bit, but nothing too bad. 

We sat in the vehicle a little bemused and entertained by every single jeep that went past, all the shocked expressions on people’s faces. When we saw the damage to the front of the vehicle it made sense! Wow! 😮 Poor Chumara had to explain what had happened to every single driver who went past, poor guy! 

The vehicle was no longer drivable, so we waited around 45 minutes for a new vehicle to arrive. 

We opted to go back for another wee, even though Tracey had been behind a bush already! Brave. 😂

So it was around 8.15 when we finally entered the park. The benefit of this was that we were alone, and not in a massive queue of jeeps! 

Our new driver, Mudrah, was great and our new vehicle had seat belts….handy! 

The park is stunning, full of beautiful wildlife. We had seen a troupe of very cute black faced langurs on the way in. So many Peacocks! 🦚 and lots of these gorgeous little green Bee Eaters, which seemed quite inquisitive and were so pretty. 

We spotted a few Mongoose, which are very cute! We also saw deer and land monitor lizards. 

Then after about 45 minutes we ended up in an area that was very busy with vehicles, but apparently there were Leopards around!! 

Mudrah managed to manoeuvre the vehicle into a spot next to the edge of the road and then magically a leopard appeared from the bushes into the open space right next to our vehicle!! 😮😍 She was literally a few feet away from us! It was truly breathtaking. 

I took a couple of pics, then put the video function and then just tried to be in the moment. Watching this magnificent creature saunter past all the vehicles with her tail in the air was amazing. We watched her until she disappeared back into the forest. As soon as she disappeared I cried! 

Due to the number of vehicles we couldn’t go backwards to follow her. Mudrah then said she was a young female and that there was another older female, possibly the mother in the area. We inched our way forwards and I just caught a glimpse of her through the trees, they are so well camouflaged, before she also disappeared into the forest. 

We hung around for ages and then as we moved forward we came to a break in the trees and you could see the older female lying on a rock! (I took a pic, but she was too far away) 

It was honestly such a beautiful experience, one I’d wished for but realistically didn’t expect to have. Magical. 

Unfortunately, what should have been a very good video, was in fact completely rubbish, several minutes of footage of my legs, Tracey’s hair, the vehicle but not a single bit of Leopard! But I’m glad I just focused on being in the moment. Luckily Tracey got some great footage. 

The safari vehicles can only access certain parts of the park, and have to leave for 2 hours in the middle of the day. I think this is a great idea, giving the animals some space and peace. 

After the Leopard excitement, we headed off in search of Elephants. Once again Mudrah came through and we found a fabulous group which had several young elephants with them. Once again we were very close. They are such magnificent creatures and It’s incredible how easily they can disappear! If they are behind a tree you simply wouldn’t see them, especially as they are very quiet even when they are moving. 

Absolutely stunning. 

We were very close to a mother and 2 young ones, when the mother started making a deep rumbling noise and all three headed towards us and then passed by and walked up the road to join the others. Wonderful. Mudrah stayed as long as he could, but still allowing others to see these amazing animals. 

We enjoyed a leisurely lunch, which is provided by the driver/safari company. Yummy rice & Dahl and a ginormous fruit platter. 

The lunch spot is down by the beach which was great, with a very welcome breeze. 

After lunch Mudrah took us to see Crocodiles. He pulled off the road down by a water spillway and pointed to our right and said ‘Crocodile’ Both Tracey and I looked and were like, nope can’t see it, so he pointed again, again we couldn’t see anything, on the third attempt we saw a huge Crocodile lying out of the water sunning himself. How we didn’t spot it is a mystery! 😁 

There was also a smaller one half in half out of the water. They were surrounded by painted storks, Herons, and Ibis. It was stunning. 

I got a little twitchy when I thought Mudrah was going to take us and the vehicle down a very steep muddy slope, right near the huge Crocodile, luckily he was just repositioning to back up! Phew!😮‍💨 

After this we drove around for a while without spotting any more of the bigger animals, sadly no more elephants or Leopards. 

I think mornings are obviously the best time to see anything. 

At around 4.30 we said we were ok to head back to the hotel.

Miraculously after we left the park we saw another very large elephant by the road! 😍

We arrived back at the hotel, hot, dusty and a little sore after being bumped around for 12 hours! But super happy and thrilled with what turned out to be a very adventurous day!! 

A nice long & refreshing swim and dinner and it was time for bed! 

We left Tissamaharama the next morning after a lovely breakfast. Our driver from Mirissa, Mahesh organised a driver for us at a really good rate.

We were headed to Ella, up in the hills. 

Our time in Tissamaharama and Yala have been exceptional.

So, so happy to have shared this wonderful experience with Tracey. 

That’s it for now guys.

I know I’m a bit behind with the blogs, but I will catch you all up very soon! 

Books read.

The Bee Sting. Paul Murray. This was recommended by Michelle from The Bookclub, I really enjoyed the book itself, just not the ending! 😟😳

That’s all I’ve read in the last week! 

Have a great weekend everyone.

💚🩷💙🩵🌟🐆🐘

Friday 24th January – Monday 27th January 2025

Thankfully the weather cleared up on Saturday and I was able to go for a lovely long walk around the fort.

The fort was originally built in the 1520s by the Portuguese In 1640 the Dutch East India Company captured the fort and built more fortifications and also developed the fort area with hospitals, factories, warehouses etc. In 1796 the Dutch handed it over to the British who set it up as a major administrative centre. (Colonialism at its finest! 🙁)

When the Suez Canal opened in 1869 it led to Galle became renowned internationally and it began to develop as a major tourist destination. In the 1960s the port activity moved over to Colombo Port. 

It’s a very interesting place to visit, the houses and streets are full of interesting architecture and beautiful houses with inner courtyards. 

My walk around the Fort resulted in spotting a Peacock in flight, it was escaping from a little dog! I also,saw another fabulous green turtle in the sea. The turtle was swimming just by the fort wall and was pointed out to me by a nice Sri Lankan gentleman, he pointed it out and gestured for me to step forward to the edge, which was then a shear drop, I declined! I gradually worked my way to near the edge just as he came up behind me and spoke to me and nearly scared me to death!! 

When I had made my way almost to the end of the fort walls, I was approached by another man, who,asked where I was from and started telling me his daughter was at school and showing me what was supposed Tao be her lunch bag, which appeared to have nothing in except a leaflet about he dangers of Denge Fever in Sri Lanka from mosquito bites. He then told me I could buy ayuvadic red oil from a local market that would stop this, much cheaper than the shops. I assumed the market was by the entrance to the fort, which is where I was walking anyway, he continued to walk with me and to be honest I didn’t get a good vibe, when I got to the place I was heading I asked where this market was and he pointed vaguely off somewhere, at which point I said, thank you but no, I’m going the other way. He wasn’t very happy, but I felt safer and comfortable with my decision. I think sometimes we have to go with our gut feeling, even if it means appearing rude of offending someone. 

I really enjoyed my final day in Galle Fort. The weather changed again in the late afternoon and we had more rain, but an umbrella sorts that problem out! 

I left Galle early on Sunday morning to head to my next destination, Mirissa, a small place down the coast, this coast is very popular with surfers.

I got a ‘PickMe’ which was a reasonable price and arrived at my new hotel around mid morning. 

The hotel seems ok, a little run down and tired looking. The room was big and clean. I asked for a fridge for the room, as Tracey said she was bringing some bubbles! 🍾🍾!

Once I’d dropped my bags I set off to have a look around, as with Hikkaduwa places are set off from one main road. I found a couple of nice places looking over the beach and enjoyed a pot of tea watching the ocean. 

Then back to the hotel for a swim, the pool is nice and not many mosquitoes!! 👍 There are a fabulous troupe of Macaque Monkeys that came past and kept me entertained. ❤️❤️

Mirissa is really nice, the beaches look great, it seems less busy than Hikkaduwa and I guess if you love surfing it’s perfect! A couple of places along the coast, Weligama and Midigama were very popular with the younger surfers. 

Tracey was due to arrive early Tuesday morning, around 7am, having landed in Colombo and been picked up by Buddi, the chap who had collected me. 

I set my alarm for 6am, to be ready for the much anticipated and exciting arrival and reunion! 🎉😍

I didn’t sleep well and was then woken at 5.45 by a call from Tracey saying she was here! 😍

The reunion was therefore fabulous but somewhat bleary eyed on both our parts! Tracey went straight to bed as she hadn’t really slept on the flight. I slept then had breakfast and woke Tracey at 11am, when out proper, awake reunion occurred! 

It’s so fabulous to see Tracey, whom I haven’t seen since April 2024, but it also feels so odd to be together in Sri Lanka! 

We spent a couple of days just mooching, resting and catching up, which is wonderful. 

We also spent a lovely half day back in Galle Fort, wandering, looking at art and exploring the shops, then chilled in a beautiful hotel with a beer! Joy. 🤩 

Then on the Thursday we had booked a Whale watching trip. This meant another early start as pick up was at 5.45 am. We made it, with time to spare! We were picked up in a Tuk Tuk and taken to the harbour. Where we joined the others on the trip. We went with a company called Rajah & the Whales, who are very ethical and are also a small family run company. 

We boarded our boat and set off by 6.15. The harbour was still busy with fishing boats coming back in and lots of whale watching boats heading out. 

I was very hopeful that we would see a whale, a Blue Whale, Sperm Whale, Fin Whale I really don’t mind which, just a whale! 

My previous whale watching trips have not been successful. One in Australia in Cairns wasn’t great as I took a sea sickness tablet and it made me feel completely out of it! So apparently we saw a whale but I don’t remember 😟 Then when I was in New Zealand in Kaikora the 2 days I was there the weather was so bad we couldn’t even go out! 

So I’ve got everything crossed for today. 

We met a lovely lady called Christine, who was traveling with friends, Rebecca & Adrian, who were from Falmouth. She has done a huge amount to traveling to places that are certainly on my bucket list, like an Antarctic Cruise! 💙🩵 She was fabulous company on the boat. 

We were out at sea for around 6 hours, we saw a large pod of spinner dolphins, which was fantastic, we also saw some turtles and got up close and personal with a huge container 🚢 What we didn’t see were any Whales 🐳. I guess it’s never guaranteed, I was a little disappointed but at the same time we had a fabulous day out so all good in the end. I would definitely recommend Rajah & the Whales if you’re In Mirissa. 

We headed back to the hotel, had a lovely swim and were once again entertained by the Monkeys. 

Then an aperitif of Bubbles and crisps on the balcony before a meal in a fab little place called ‘La Mer’ we both had the delicious cauliflower curry, yummy. 😋 

This was then the end of our time in Mirissa, on Friday we are heading down to Yala National Park, staying in a place called Tissamaharama. 

We are doing a Safari! 

It’s now Sunday and we are leaving Yala, but it’s going to need its own post. Watch this space. 

That’s is for now. It’s been so brilliant being together with Tracey. 

Have a great week.

Books Read.

The Bookseller. Tim Sullivan. The latest in the DS Cross series. I enjoyed this. I like the series. 

I am still trying to finish my next book, it’s taking a while, too much nattering to Tracey!! 😂❤️

Sunday 12th -Sunday 19th January 2025.

After a very stressful,start to my travel day, Rebecca, Chris & I made our way up to Perth Airport. It was a an uneventful drive and we arrived in plenty of time for my flight! I was not flying until 00.25 but needed to be there early enough that the guys were not driving back in the dead of night! Also, me being me, I like to be at the airport in plenty of time. To be fair being over 5 hours early is a tab over the top! 😂

It was incredibly sad saying goodbye to my beautiful Rebecca, and to Chris especially as we don’t know when we’ll see each other again, probably not until sometime in 2026! Which is forever away. 

They have looked after me very well, and for me to stay with them for 3 months has been amazing. It’s not easy sharing your home for a long time and so I am extremely grateful. 🙏 

I will miss them & Curly the cat very much. 

Once they left and I stopped crying I made my way to the only bar in the airport and had a large JD & Coke and a portion of chips, very comforting. 😊

I was able to check in with 3 hours to go. My case was exactly 20kg, which is still heavier than I wanted. This is after sending a large 6kg parcel back to England (not cheap especially after DHL then charged me another £65 on top of the £60 I’d already paid! ) and sending clothes to the op shop! The lovely Tracey is going to take a few more bits back with her after Sri Lanka. 

I had booked a lounge, it’s not very expensive and offers somewhere quieter to sit, it’s also right next to my gate, Handy! 

I kept check the flight status and it started saying “Relax” (never seen this before) so I Relaxed and ordered another drink, checked again in just over 10 mins and suddenly it’s changed to “Final Call” WTF! 😳 

I grabbed my stuff and legged it downstairs to find a completely empty gate, and the staff asking if I was Miss Claire! Oh dear. The only people behind me were those needing assistance! 😂 luckily for me there was still a short queue to actually board, so I didn’t look to conspicuous.

It was a 5.5 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia, so no screens for films! I read for most of the flight and tried to rest my eyes, but couldn’t sleep. We arrived in KL in the morning and had a short 2 hour wait then another no screens for films 3.5 hour flight to Colombo, again no sleep. I arrived in Colombo again first thing in the morning, and sailed through customs, no visa issues, thank god. I also managed to get a SIM card sorted in the airport, grabbed my case and then met the lovely Buddhi when I came through customs. Buddhi is the guy who organised my tour last time I was in Sri Lanka in 2018, I stayed with him and his wife, Sriyani, then and again this time. 

They have a little B & B in Negombo. 

I was absolutely knackered, having missed a whole nights sleep but managed to go for a walk and have some dinner, delicious homemade Sri Lankan Curry before crashing in bed at 7.30pm. 😴😴

I had a great nights sleep and spend the following day having a massage, interesting, 🤔 not a bad massage but the oil they used smelt weird, vinegary and not that pleasant tbh. The spa organise a Tuk Tuk to pick up and drop off, so as soon as I’d been dropped off I tried to shower away the oil, but it’s oil, so it took a while to get rid of the smell.

Then I spent the rest of the afternoon by the beach, sitting in a fancy hotel, it’s great you get to use their facilities but not have the expense of staying there! 

Another early night then time to leave and head to Hikkaduwa.

Buddhi was driving me down to Hikkaduwa and asked if it was ok to take another guy, who was heading to Galle, I said that was fine. Puta was a great guy. He was currently hanging around in Negombo waiting to head out to his job as Chief Engineer in a massive Oil container ship! He had some pretty scary stories, one in particular about being in a huge oil tanker, which was empty, just holding ballast somewhere in the Ocean near South Africa and their rudder sheared off!! (Apparently very rare) This meant they had no control of the ship in extremely high seas, everyone was sick as dogs for over a week until they could be towed to safety!😳😱 He showed me pictures of the engines in these massive containers, they are beyond huge! Very interesting chap. 

Buddhi was also telling me about changes here in Sri Lanka with Palm Oil. 

When I was here last, in 2018, there were Palm Oil plantations everywhere. The government are now encouraging farmers to not grow them, and helping them financially to switch to other crops, mainly rubber trees. You can actually see the impact, with far fewer palm oil trees. The reason behind this change is that harvesting Palm Oil is very toxic, to both the people harvesting it and to the wildlife and surrounding flora and fauna. The toxicity comes from the pulp left after the oil is extracted. Together with the issues of deforestation due to Palm Oil Plantations, it’s really positive to see these changes. 

It was a very interesting and informative drive! Everyday’s a school day! 😂

Hikkaduwa. I was last here 6 years ago and during the low season, it was very quiet and relatively peaceful. I was looking forward to seeing it in high seas on and a little bit more lively. Mmmm, be careful what you wish for! 

My hotel is pretty nice, I’d booked a ‘budget’ room, no idea why I did that! 😳 The room itself is OK, tiny with no window, but doable, just, the issue I have is that it’s a “dead zone” so I can’t get wifi on either my phone or tablet, even though I have data on my phone. This is a tad frustrating. WiFi has been an ongoing issue for the last few months. (Anita! You know!) 

When I’m on my own, I need to plan things, book things, access news, social media etc etc. not being able to do this is frustrating and irritating. The lovely people at the hotel tried putting a router outside the room, this made no difference. Eventually they have agreed to move me to another room, which is much better and has some WiFi signal. 

So, Hikkaduwa, well it is very different to when I was here before. First of all it’s very busy, which is a positive, especially for the Sri Lankan people who have had a rough few years. 90% of the tourists are Russian. This means that pretty much everything is geared towards the Russian tourists. I tried at least 4 different places to book a group Mangrove Tour, all the tours they offer were in Russian with a Russian speaking guide. A group tour costs £10 I have now had to book a solo tour for £30! ☹️

There is a beautiful beach here called Turtle Beach. It’s shallow with reefs and good snorkelling. It gets pretty busy. I was having a little wander along the beach and was thrilled to see 2 beautiful giants Turtles 😍. They were both right near the shore line just mooching about. It was a wonderful site. The less wonderful site was all the stupid people touching them, trying to move the and generally not respecting their space. It was heartbreaking. When people touch them with lotions or creams on their hands this can cause the turtles problems. 

There was a Sri Lankan guy shouting from the beach to leave them alone, but one particular woman just totally ignored him, she was too busy stroking the poor turtles head whilst posing for a fucking photograph! Absolutely disgraceful behaviour and also very upsetting to see. 

It’s a difficult dilemma for then Sri Lankans, because the Turtles come to the beach if their own free will, so how do you police it? 

Personally I’d have armed guards and if you touch them you die!! 💀😆

On a lighter and much happier note I met up with some fabulous Newquay friends. Lovely Alex & Leah. I’ve know Alex since opening Coffee on the Corner, a lot of you will remember his amazing and delicious Biscoff Brownies!! 

We realised we were in Sri Lanka at the same time and organised a meet up in Galle, where they were staying. I got a Tuk Tuk from Hikkaduwa and we met at a beautiful restaurant in Galle called Church Street Social. 

It’s very surreal seeing people in a totally different place, but also felt really comfortable. We enjoyed a few beers some yummy food and lots of fun. A fantastic evening. Thank you so much guys. 😘❤️

I then made my way back with the Tuk Tuk driver, who had waited for me. I feel he might have waited in the nearest pub, because the drive back was a little scary, he was watching a program on his phone, trying to chat to me, slowing down for no reason and at times it looked like he was falling asleep!! 🫣 Hey Ho, we made it back! 

I have decided to cut short my stay in Hikkaduwa and spend a couple of days down in Galle Fort, which is a great place. So I’ll be here until Thursday. 

I have met some really wonderful Sri Lankan people here, who are very kind and helpful and I’m determined to enjoy my experience even if it’s a little different to what I was expecting. 

I’m loving the food, back to my favourite Veggie Rice! The Sri Lankan curry’s are yummy and I tried a local favourite, Kottu! OMG, so good. 

I’m also super excited about potentially meeting up with another friend this week and then Tracey arrives in 9 days!! 😍❤️😍

That’s all for now.

Love and miss you all. 

💙🩵💚🧡

I’m going to limit the number of pics, as I don’t think the WiFi can cope with lots! 

Books Read.

The Seven. Robyn Delvey. Interesting, a pretty good read.

Bricking it. Nick Spalding. Fun, light hearted and an easy read.

There’s something about Mira. Sonali Dev. An enjoyable read, something a little different. 

Friday December 27th – Sunday 12th January 2025! 

Apologies for the lackof posts! 

We’ve been out and about doing stuff, whilst Anita has been here.

After a lovely Christmas we had a few days just relaxing and enjoying the weather and the pool. 💙

Anita got to enjoy the fabulous Cinema in Busselton when her & Chris went to see the new Robbie Williams Film, good feedback.

Rebecca had organised a trip to a beautiful Winery, about an hours drive inland, near a place called Pemberton. 

The drive there was lovely, we took the scenic route which was beautiful. We got to see Emu’s wandering about and even one casually crossing the road in front of us! 

The Winery was called “Ampersands” and it was fantastic. We had booked a delicious picnic lunch which came with both sparkling wine and a yummy Chardonnay. The food and the winery, were gorgeous. It was such a lovely relaxing

Rebecca was only off work for the Christmas period, so,sadly went back on the Monday, Chris had a further week off and was busy trying to get jobs done. 

Anita and I did lots of relaxing, reading, pool dipping and going out for coffee! 

We even managed to get ourselves a Baileys Latte from a great little Café down by the beach 🏝️😍

Our New Year’s Eve was wonderful. 

We all went down to the beach and watched the last sunset of 2024 with some Champagne. 

As the sun was setting, exactly where the light was shining across the ocean a Dolphin jumped out of the water! Honestly, it was amazing! We were then joined by the cutest little dog, called Frank! 

Back home and a great few games of dice (6 dice and first to 10,000) it’s a really good game, that Rebecca & Chris taught myself, Georgia & Grantley. As usual Chris won!! 😂 Then we watched the totally insanely impressive Sydney Fireworks (although we watched online as we missed them live! 🤦‍♀️)

2024 had been an interesting year and for me definitely a year of change. Selling the fabulous Coffee on the Corner, selling my home and going off on an adventure has been exciting and also a tad scary! 

I didn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions, I’ll just try to live my best life and not be a dick! 😂

On New Years Day we went on a trip to visit a place called Penguin Island. 

There are actual Penguins on the Island, sadly a lot fewer than there used to be. The population is fall is mainly down to the changes in Ocean temperature following an extreme marine heatwave in 2010. This forced the penguins food to migrate further east to cooler waters. 

The Island is just off the coast an hour away from  Perth in the Shoalwater Islands Marine Park. 

When we arrived in Shoalwater we were told that due to the temperature being above 35 degrees the Island was closed to visitors. Apparently the Penguins are shedding their feathers and they need to be undisturbed so they can go in and out of the water to cool down. 

We were disappointed until we were told that they had changed our booking to an hour long boat trip around the various islands and a free lunch! 😍👍 Result! 

The boat trip was brilliant, we got to see lots of different sea birds, and a particular Tern that migrates from Borneo, it flies non stop! It also has the ability to convert sea water into drinking water! Impressive.

There were also 2 pairs of nesting Ospreys on a couple of the small islands, which was exciting to see.

On one of the larger islands there was a biggish colony of massive Sea Lions and the even bigger Pelicans, in fact the Pelicans were so big they looked prehistoric! 😳

All in all it was a fabulous day, which I really enjoyed. 

The whole coastline along the WA coast is stunning and diverse. 

This was re enforced when we had another visit down to Busselton and a walk out along the nearly 2k long jetty! We then had a viewing in the underwater aquarium, so stunning! The colourful coral and sea life that grows on the pylons was absolutely gorgeous. 

The Busselton foreshore is so well maintained and offers so many family safe areas to swim and play, all free! It really is a beautiful spot. 

I’m pleased to say that following on from the disastrous end to our Esperance trip and the vehicle breakdown. The Ute is fixed and up and running! Thankfully the Head Gasket didn’t blow it was just the alternator and fan belt. This is a huge relief for Rebecca & Chris as they don’t have to worry about the cost of replacing the truck. 👍

Anita has her birthday on 3rd of January, which means we get to celebrate and do more nice things! 

In this case it was a lovely lunch down by the bay for Anita & I and then a few drinks and a meal out all together in the evening, which were lush. 

The. On Saturday 4th we visited the most amazing pizza place, called Ferguson Falls, I’ve been there every time I visit Bunbury and it never fails to deliver! The pizzas are delicious. They make their own pork & fennel sausage and that’s what I have on my pizza, it’s the best! 😋

Anita and I also planned a little trip to Perth, as Anita has never visited the city. We planned it to coincide with Anita’s flight home. 

We took the bus from Bunbury on Wednesday morning, arriving in Oerth at midday. Our hotel was a short walk from the bus station, handily through some indoor walkways. 

We didn’t have much planned just a mooch about and for Anita to see and experience the city. 

As Cities go, Perth CBD is quite small and it’s also beautifully calm. Very little traffic, not many people, nobody rushing around (possibly due to the heat) It is actually a very pleasant place to be. 

We spent our time walking around, doing a little bit of shopping, admiring the beautiful views, eating nice things, the nicest of which was a wonderful, comforting Risotto at the hotel. 

We visited the Art Gallery of WA and saw some fantastic exhibitions, a ceramics one by an artist called Sandra Black, which I loved. 

There were also some very thought provoking indigenous art, which offers a powerful visual representation of their stories, history & subjugation. 

It was a great trip and I feel that I get to experience and appreciate Perth more with each visit. 

Anita and I went to the airport together, after some convoluted shenanigans trying to download a bloody Uber App! The difficulty was the result of the bloody ridiculous WiFi situation in the hotel (a Hilton, so very bad form) and Australian WiFi in general and us not being teenage technology experts! But, once downloaded (by a 18 year old member of staff! ) we saved ourselves $40 so worth it 😂😂

It has been so lovely spending time with Anita over the last month, we’ve had some laughs and really enjoyed our time together. So it was sad to see her leave. Thank you for your company darling. It was fabulous.😘❤️

I got my bus back to Bunbury to spend my last weekend in Australia and with Rebecca & Chris oh and Curly of course! 😻

My time here in Australia has been fantastic, we have seen and done so many amazing things. It’s also been amazing just spending time with Rebecca & Chris in their home, seeing how their lives are. 

They have been wonderful but I’m sure after 3 months they will be pleased to get their home back and have some normality! 😍😘

Thank you my beautiful best big girl for looking after me. ❤️❤️

So my last day in Bunbury on Monday 13th Jan. the plan was to have a love,y chilled day with Rebecca, who,took the day off, get some lunch before driving to Perth. 

Unfortunately that’s not the way the day has gone!

I really needed to get my Indian e Visa application in before I left and today was the first chance I’ve had. I have tried numerous times before but it was too early. I assume you can only apply 1 month before arrival.

So, having gathered all the relevant information, including my parents names and dates of birth, Thank you, Kathleen, Ruth & Paul! As well as all the addresses of hotels, all the countries I have visited in the last 10 years!! 😳  I settled down to get it done at 9am. 

OMFG!! 🤬 It was an absolute nightmare. I had to upload a picture of myself against a white background, I’d done this a few weeks ago and saved them, but No! They were not the right size, or too big a file!! I tried everything I could think of and eventually Rebecca had to download an app to compress the picture!! So, that was 4 hours in! Then it needed my passport details, but they have to be in a pdf format, I have a pdf of my old passport (thank you Cory!) but unfortunately not my new one. Again Rebecca managed to download an app to convert and compress the picture to the right size and format. Then the session timed out and we had to go back in and try again. My first payment attempt failed! Then we had to wait 15 excruciating minutes to try again! 

Finally after 5 horrible hours my application was submitted!! I was so stressed, and very agitated and there is absolutely no way I could have done this on my own! 

Now I have to hope and pray that the visa is granted or I’m pretty F..ked! 🤞

I now feel very hot, bothered and anxious so lunch is a no go! 

I will now be limiting my travel plans to countries that don’t require a sodding visa!! 🙄🥰

So, that’s it for now. 

I will update you when I get to Sri Lanka (fingers crossed that visa is OK! )

Have a great week. Love & Miss you. 

💙🩵❤️💚🧡

Books Read.

Twisted. Steve Cavanagh. My brain is fried, but I think it was OK! 

From the Ashes. Damien Boyd. Did Nick Dixon series book 14. Good. 

Thursday 12th to Friday 27th December 2024. Part 2!

Part 2! 

The weather for our week away hadn’t been perfect, some cloud and rain, a fair amount of wind but Wednesday was supposed to be bright and sunny so this is the day we chose to go to Cape Le Grande National Park and explore the beaches there. Some of which have been voted the most beautiful beaches in the world! 🌎 

Well I can completely understand why! Totally gorgeous. 

We visited Hellfire Bay first, which I thought was very pretty, small but lovely.

Then onto Lucky Bay. Lucky Bay was much bigger and again vehicles can drive onto the beach. It is fantastic and so pretty. Quite often Kangaroos come on the beach! Cory & Charlotte, my friends saw them when they visited. You can see this on their travel blog: ‘CJ explores’. 

Sadly we didn’t see any, but it was a busy day, quite a few people and vehicles and it wasn’t dawn or dusk. 

We set up our little awning, chairs, Eski and preceded to have a fabulous beach day, we swam in the gorgeous water, saw fish. 🐠 No Sharks despite the signs! 

It was glorious. ❤️

I took lots of photos of all the beaches but I don’t think they do them justice. 

I would have to say that my favourite beach in Esperence was Wharton Beach. 

We had a lovely relaxed final day on Thursday despite the drizzle and wind! 

Then it was time to start packing up for our return home on Friday. 

You can simply run out of superlatives to describe the beaches in this part of the world. Suffice to say they are the cleanest most pristine beaches I have ever seen in my life. 🤍🩵💙🌎 simply breathtaking. 

Esperence will always have a special place in my heart. 

The drive home is always less fun than the drive to your holiday. 

I offered to do the first couple of hours, get it out of the way. 

Everything was going great guns, the roads were virtually empty, no road trains. We were about 15 mins away from our first stop when we drove past a large truck, we heard a bang, but we all assumed it was something to do with the lorry. I continued to drive, then the battery Light came on on the dashboard and just as we came into the little town the Ute started to lose power. I pulled into the first garage I came to in the small town of Ravensthorpe. 

Chris had a look and it looked like the coolant had all gone, so possibly a leak 🤔🤷‍♀️

Chris asked in the garage and they said there was a mechanics place just further up the road. We managed to drive the Ute there. The mechanics looked at it and declared it a little bit fucked! 😳 

It seems that the bang we heard was the alternator breaking, this then took out the fan, disconnecting stuff and causing overheating. The vehicle was no longer drivable. 

This was Friday @10am the last weekend before Christmas, the garage and mechanics were just about to close for their Christmas trip to Perth. 

Chris called to RAC, paid to have roadside assistance. They said they would try to organise a tow. 

They called back and said that as there were 4 people the earliest they could get a tow with a large enough cab would be Tuesday, 4 days away! WTAF! 😱 

As we were in the middle of nowhere we ended up having to organise a tow truck from Bunbury, a 6 hour drive away,  to come and get us. They couldn’t get to us till the following day and it wasn’t cheap! 

At this point we were all being pretty calm and philosophical about the whole thing. We managed to find rooms at the local Motel. We walked there then the very nice owner, Rama, drove us back to the vehicle to collect all of our stuff. 

Now to entertain ourselves in the tiny little town of Ravensthorpe. 

A few of the cafés were closed, or just a bit weird! 

But as luck would have it the local Tavern was open for business at Midday! Hooray 🎉 

So that’s where we settled for the afternoon, we had some food, played pool. Then we played darts, which I was absolutely shocking at! 😂😜 Although after a few hours I did actually win 1 game….more luck than anything else. 

Then in the evening as we were sitting outside of our motel rooms we spotted Kangaroos over the road! 🦘 Result. ❤️

The next morning reality hit a little, costs, the inconvenience of not having the Ute, a 7 hour drive home in the back of a tow truck!! Everyone was a little subdued. 

‘Wingers’ the tow truck driver arrived like a knight in Shining Armour at 10.30, which was a lot earlier than I’d anticipated. He was so helpful and friendly. He made the journey back much more pleasant than I thought it would be, bumpy in the back but again, he made great time and it took us under 7 hours to get back, helped by the lack of vehicles and road trains. 

The Ute is now in the garage, we are hoping it’s fixable and that the head gasket hasn’t gone 🙏🙏

it’s fair to say the Esperence Holiday was one we won’t forget for a while for lots of reasons!  

We made it back with enough time to organise for Christmas. 

It still feels very strange celebrating Christmas in the sun! Not getting wrapped up and drinking mulled wine. 

On Monday evening Chris asked if we wanted to go for a drive to look at the Christmas lights. Anita and I said, absolutely 💯. We had no idea what we were in for! 

There were some stunning displays around the streets nearby, but this was nothing compared to the spectacle that is Dunstan Street! A whole long curved street with every single house lit up in the most fabulous way. It was so mad! They even had traffic management in place. We walked the whole thing and it was incredible. Apparently if you buy a house on this street you have to agree to do Christmas lights! Bonkers, but amazing and really got us in the Christmas mood. 🎄🎉

On Christmas Eve friends of Rebecca & Chris, Mick & Debs, came over. Mick had very kindly looked after Curly while we were away. 

We had a lovely evening, BBQ, nice food, some Aperol Spritz, sitting outside and playing board games! 

Christmas Day was very Australian 🇦🇺. We started with breakfast on the beach 🏖️  Making use of the public BBQs by the bay, with some Mimosas, a little stroll, then back to the house for presents and relaxing by the pool! Bloody lush.

I will admit to feeling homesick and certainly missing seeing my beautiful Twinkles, Georgia & Grantley. We face timed which was wonderful, but not the same as seeing them in the flesh. But it is the first Christmas I’ve spent with my Rebecca in 11 years, so that is wonderful. 😍

We had a lovely walk around the inlet on Boxing Day and then Chris managed to find a way for us to watch Gavin & Stacy on the outside TV, so we sat outside eating cheese and watched the end of an era, a fantastic end to a great series. We cried. 😭😭❤️

One of the most exciting and amazing things that has happened since my last blog post is that I’m now going to have some company when I visit Sri Lanka. 

The bloody fabulous  and amazing Tracey Whelan is going to come over and we’ll get to spend 10 days together! I’m so thrilled and happy! ❤️😍🎉

Apologies in advance for the number of stunning beach pictures that will accompany this post! 💙🩵

Enjoy the weekend, it’s that strange time between Christmas & New year when nobody really knows what day of the week it is, everyone is living on leftovers, cheese and chocolate and wondering if not fitting into your clothes is a legitimate reason to call in sick to work! 😂😂😂

That’s all for now you fabulous bunch. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, it’s not always the easiest of times. I know it’s been a particularly difficult one for some of my wonderful friends. Please know that I’m thinking of you and sending all my love. ❤️❤️

Books Read.

The Echo of Old Books. Barbara Davis. 

Really enjoyable. 

Tall Oaks. Chris Whitaker. 

I loved this book, it managed to be thrilling, sad, poignant and very funny. The author is British and I shall be reading more of his stuff. 

Wild. Kristin Hannah.

Another sensational book by this author. I really loved this one. If you haven’t read any of her books, start now! 

36 Hours. Angela Marsons. Book 21 in the DI Stone Series. 

Very good. 

Thursday 12th to Friday 27th December 2024.

As I said in my last blog post we were heading to Esperance for a weeks holiday.

Esperence is nearly 700 kilometres away from Bunbury so we prepared for a long 8 hour drive.

So on Friday 13th, we got up early, loaded up the Ute, packed an Eski full of rolls and snacks and we were on the road by 6.15! Excellent.

The route to Esperence goes through the grain producing area known as the Wheatbelt or Goldbelt, its approx fifteen million hectares of arable land! 

There is one road, which is used by everyone, including the huge lorries transporting the grain, these can be up to 60 meters in length and for that reason they are called ‘Road Trains’ 

We were quite lucky that the grain harvest had already been completed so there weren’t many ‘Road Trains’ to try and overtake! 😳 I did some of the driving and had to negotiate overtaking 2 together, I opted to do them 1 at a time, it’s a a little scary! 😧 

There are a few large lakes on route but pretty much all of them were completely dry. 

The road trip there was actually really good, we stopped a few times in little towns and arrived in Esperence earlier than we thought, around 1.30pm. 

The town itself is quite small but very lovely. We were staying in town in a house, which was large and comfy and a short walk to the foreshore. 

We were a little early to check in so we had lunch at a lovely restaurant, The Quarters, down by the beach. Had a little mooch about, grabbed some essentials from the supermarket then chilled back at the house. 

Saturday morning our plan was to do a nice nature walk around one of the lakes nearby in a place called Monjingup. The weather was not ideal, a little grey and some drizzle. Unfortunately when we arrived at the lake it was closed for an event, some sort of light show. 

We decided to drive and check out the Pink Lake, sadly it wasn’t pink or anything at all as it was dried up! Apparently the lake has been dry for over 11 years.  It’s still very pretty as the lake bed is completely white. 

We then decided to do the Ocean Drive, which I have to say was nothing short of spectacular! 

Esperence is on the Southern Ocean.

Our first stop was 11 mile Beach, wild and gorgeous, it was quite windy and still cloudy but this didn’t detract from how stunning it was. 

There are lots of beaches, 10 mile, 9 mile, (I wanted a pic of me at 8 mile, sadly it was called something else! ) 

Most of the beaches are accessible, with boardwalks and some of them have toilets which are clean and well maintained! 😍

At Observatory Point (or 8 mile!) there was a lookout and a rocky outcrop, Rebecca & Chris climbed up to the lookout and Anita and I stayed down watching the view. The water was a beautiful turquoise colour and then I spotted something in the water, I wasn’t sure at first what I was seeing but then realised it was dolphins!! It ended being a pod of around 15 Dolphins in the shallows! It was so fabulous, I was very excited. I think that the most I’ve seen together. 🐬🐬💙🐬 

From here we drove to Twilight Beach, very accessible, a large sandy beach and amazing rocks in the bay. We went down onto the beach and had a paddle, Chris braved it and went in for a swim! 

Again, the colour of the ocean is beautiful. 

From here we headed back into town, the weather brightened up so we had some time on the beach. 

The beach area in town is fantastic, it has Shark netting, always good to see. It had jetty’s for jumping from, swimming lanes and also a shady area on the foreshore with toilets and showers, pretty impressive! 

After our beach time we went to visit the local Gin Distillery, did a very pleasant tasting for $5 

From there we headed to the pub for some much needed Holiday Cocktails!! The pub was great, nice views, great drinks, fab staff. It’s called 33 degrees, if you’re ever in Esperence and fancy a drink! 

We had a really lovely first full day.

Sunday saw us going to visit the local market. We had decided to go there earlyish and grab breakfast from some of the food stalls. 

The market was lovely, smallish but lots of locals selling their wares. 

It was held down amongst some little old buildings that had craft shops and galleries in. 

It was fairly busy, but I do need to clarify at this point, what I mean by Busy, I mean Busy by Western Australian standards, this bears no resemblance to Busy by UK standards! There were a few people around, and you may have to queue behind one other person to get a coffee! 😂

I opted for some Sri Lankan veggie roties! Yummy 😋 Rebecca, Chris & Anita got full breakfast wraps. We then found a little stall selling freshly made doughnuts in cinnamon sugar. I don’t really like doughnuts, but these were delicious.

Interestingly, a lady at the stall next door, who was from Devon heard me talking and said she recognised my accent as being either Devon or Cornwall! I didn’t think I had an accent at all! 😂

We had a lovely walk along the foreshore up to the Jetty, grabbed a coffee from a really cute little Coffee Caravan. Then Rebecca had a brilliant idea for us to drive out to a place called Wharton Beach, located in the Duke of Orleans Bay, around a 40 minute drive out of town. 

Well, I don’t know what to say, if I thought the beaches we had seen yesterday were beautiful, this was on another level. 

Absolutely stunning. It’s a beach that you can drive on, so lots of Australians take their 4 x 4 vehicles down onto the sand and set up camp. We opted to walk down.

I’m wasn’t far from the car to the beach with our stuff, chairs, awning, Eski. 

We were tucked away towards the end of the beach and it was simply glorious. 

White sandy beach, turquoise crystal clear water, sunshine and a breeze! 🏖️🤍🩵💙 although there were people on the beach it wasn’t crowded or noisy, not a scrap of littler in site. 

We all went into the Ocean, it was cold but gorgeous. 

We spent all afternoon chilling on the beach watching the dogs and kids playing in the water, reading and relaxing.

We had decided to stop in the nearby pub on the way home, called Condingup Tavern, Mmm, well we stopped, walked in, got weird vibes, a little bit odd, not many people, apart from a wall of locals propping up the bar, no one spoke to us, there was no staff around. We opted to find another pub!! 

We drove back to Esperence and went to the local Brewery, Lucky Bay Brewery, who just happened to be celebrating their 9th anniversary! So it was a big old party going on, Live Music, dancing, water slide, pizzas! It was a perfect way to end a beautiful day. 🎉❤️

On Monday, Rebecca & Chris went to do a coastal hike. Anita I I stayed in Esperence and went on a walk to find a cafe with WiFi. 

The reason we needed to do this is because WiFi is a little tricky to get in Australia. The house we were renting didn’t have internet, very strange. 😳 Very few cafes, restaurants or bars have WiFi and with Rebecca and Chris off on their walk we couldn’t Hot Spot, which isn’t always possible anyway. 

So with this in mind we went into town, had a little look around then drove to The Quarters for a coffee, it was closed. 

We walked to the pub, 33 degrees, they had  WiFi but no coffee. 

We went back into town, to a little Cafe near where the Market had been, that was closed. 

We asked someone, they said that a place called Cloud 11 was good. That was also closed. 🥺

We eventually found somewhere with coffee & WiFi on our 4th attempt!! 😂 

The positive outcome of this was we stumbled on a fantastic Deli, called Deli King, that does the most amazing sandwiches and coffee! 

Rebecca and Chris got back from their walk and we all chilled out for the day. 😎

On Tuesday morning Rebecca and Chris went back to Monjingup Lake for a walk, Anita and I walked into town to get some bits and bobs, books, gifts etc. we managed to get a coffee in Cloud 11, and admire their wonderful Christening tree made of succulents! 💚🎄

We grabbed delicious lunch sandwiches from Deli King and all of us spent the afternoon at Twighlight beach. It was beautiful but very windy, so we ended up doing that very British thing of sitting on the beach wrapped up in jumpers!! 😂

Despite the cold we still had an ice cream in the way home. 

We saw a very pretty sunset at West Beach. 

Due to the number of photos I want to post, I’m going to split this blog into 2! 

This is part 1.