Tag: travel

A travel day

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I’m away for a few days.
Traveling all day today – well, the daytime hours, at least – for a few relaxing days away with Mrs 6000.

Actually, she’s already there, so there are plans for a romantic rendezvous on the west coast of a tropical island this evening.

As for the blog, well this is a holiday dedicated to slowing down (almost to a full stop), relaxing and enjoying the sunshine. So there is not much likelihood of any blog posts while I’m out there.

[audience gasps]

Which is why I am writing and scheduling (have written and scheduled by now, I suppose) a few before I go.

[audience sighs with relief]

But, you know, if the need and/or opportunity arises…. You know where to look.

(It’s here.)

See you on the other side. 🙂

Give me a minute, please…

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Bit of catching up still to do after an amazing few days away.
Lots of great experiences. Lots of animals. Lots of birds. Lots of photos to share.

But…

A 20 hour day – which included a 4 o’clock start, a 4 hour game drive through Kruger Park, a 6 hour road drive through Mpumalanga and numerous encounters with its utterly mad drivers, and then a 2 hour flight back down to our little corner of Africa before we could get home – is still taking its toll.

A foolishly fast run this morning seemed like a good idea at the time, but probably wasn’t.

This hyena is me right now.

More tomorrow.

Locals and Tourists

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I’m a bit of both this week, and that’s my rather tenuous link to this project which compares the location of images shared on social media by… well… locals and tourists.

The blue dots represent local people’s images and the red dots are pictures taken by tourists.

Here – for example – is Oxford:

Down at half past six is Abingdon and up at 11o’clock is Blenheim Palace. Off to to west is Witney, but no-one really goes there. It’s no surprise (especially if you’re familiar with Oxford) that all the tourist stuff is happening up the High Street and down Broad Street:

Pretty University buildings, innit? That sidearm heading off to east is the road out to Headington, with a nice bit of red around Oxford Brookes.

Oxford is a good example of how divided a city can be, both in real life and on these maps. London is bright red around Westminster, the West End, the river and its bridges.

But perhaps unsurprisingly, no-one goes to Croydon.

It’s worth looking through any cities you know. It’s amazing how many bridges are key tourist spots: see London above, Budapest and San Francisco, for examples.

My only gripe with this project is that it only makes it into Africa as for as the Pyramids, while places like Minsk still get a map. And no-one’s being Belarus-hing there lately.

I would love to see Cape Town’s version.

How many times have you woken up and prayed for the rain?

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Many of you will recognise that line from The Stranglers’ 1986 hit Always The Sun. That also contains one of the most ridiculous lines ever written:

And who gets the job of pushing the knob?
That’s the sort of responsibility you draw straws for if you’re mad enough.

But that’s not relevant right now.

Yesterday was too hot for me. But today was meant to be cooler. And there was meant to be some rain. I was looking forward to a nice, cool run. And then we were going to go to the Bush Pub up the road. We popped in there yesterday to get some ice and it was rude not to try their Soup of the Day.

But:

How many times have the weathermen told you stories
That made you laugh?

It hasn’t started that way. It’s already rather warm and it’s only early morning. There is a bit of cloud, but there’s nothing even vaguely threatening at the moment.

I’m not sure I can face another stinkingly hot, humid day. I’ll have to resort to having some more of my matching beer.

Oh well.

Get the balance right

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Quite a few decisions are still to be made about the trip up North. And many of those decisions rest upon the quandary of balancing spending money and having fun. It seems pointless to spend a huge amount on flights and accommodation going overseas on a break and then have a crap time not doing stuff because you’re forever just watching the pennies. But then equally, it’s dangerous to overspend: something made far easier thanks to our weird government stance on Putin and Russia, and the scary amount of inflation in Europe.

And so we’ll do our best to have all our ducks lined up in advance, and then maybe adapt our decisions once we’re actually there on the ground and can see what things are really like.

One big decision is around the last Saturday of the trip, which was all organised in London, but now maybe a trip further North might be required. That would require sorting some accommodation, changing flights and making several (or more) train trips, none of which would likely be cheap, but then do you just choose to splash the cash and enjoy the experience on this one thing? I’m leaning towards a yes, but a final costing of that 24ish hour diversion might point me the other way.

Lots of calculations to do. Lots of decisions to make.
Must get the balance right.