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Alexandria is a Love Wave on the Egyptian Land

At least that’s what the sign said. I have no idea what it means, perhaps something was lost in the translation. I would upload the photo of it, but I can’t be bothered transferring my photos onto this computer.

I’m currently in Alexandria, killing time before my train leaves for Cairo. After getting to Cairo, I transfer to a sleeper train, to take me to Aswan by tomorrow morning.

I arrived in Cairo on Sunday, and spent a couple of days there before coming up to Alexandria for a couple of nights, mainly to see El Alamein. I went out there yesterday, to visit the war graves. Just rows and rows of the silver fern on gravestones. Very few other people around – there was no-one else at the German memorial, and a couple of other people were leaving the Commonwealth one as I arrived.

Egypt has been interesting, but I am starting to get very annoyed with people endlessly trying to rip you off, and not answering simple questions without trying to sell you something first. The baksheesh is pretty bad too – tipping someone for providing a useful service is one thing, but having to bribe uniformed police just to visit war graves is basically corruption. I was speaking to an Egyptian the other day who told me that corruption in Egypt is not some remote thing, it is something that walks beside you all the time.

That’s a large part of what the recent bombings were about – it’s not religion, it’s money and corruption. I hadn’t really planned on spending much time in the Sinai area, and I can’t see those plans changing. I’ll probably have to be there one or two nights though, while I am in transit on my way to Jordan.

Libya was an interesting place, but I think I’d had enough by the time we left. I could stay longer in the desert, but the small towns were just truly depressing. The towns had so much rubbish everywhere, and so many half-finished buildings, with people just sitting around, nothing to do. I guess some places didn’t get reached by the Revolution. Or perhaps the Great Leader never sees those places.

The desert was more than worth the ticket price, and I’m glad I didn’t just go on a tour of the coastline. It’s quite crazy when you’re driving through sand seas, where all you can see is sand dunes, in every direction, and no tracks, no sign of human habitation. The desert is not just all sand though – I was surprised at the large rocky areas, and the clumps of trees scattered through the desert. A tough environment though, one that you need to be tough to survive in. A peaceful place though – intense stillness and quiet in the early morning, while it’s still cool, before the sun rises and pushes the temperature up to 40.

The Gadhafi culture is quite disturbing. Everywhere you go there are billboards with pictures of the Great Leader, looking like the elder statesman of Africa, with some pithy slogan “Partners not Wage Workers.” I bought the Green Book, but after reading it I am not really any closer to understanding what it all means for Libya. Things have been loosening up for the last few years, maybe Gadhafi will move on, and they can get a proper government. There is no reason for the poverty there, with the huge amount of oil they are sitting on.

I met an interesting man last night, who was a connoisseur of fake watches. His supplier came in with many watches, which he pored over for an hour or two, before selecting one to add to his collection. Apparently the Italian-sourced fake Rolexes are better than the China-sourced ones. The best seem to be the ones in the Philippines – they are even waterproof. We were having a few drinks at the Spitfire bar, an Alexandria institution, and I’m feeling a bit fragile this morning. Not sure if it’s just a hangover, or a reaction to something I’ve eaten or drunk. Probably a bit of both.

Not sure when I’ll get around to uploading photos. Maybe if I’ve got some downtime in Nuweiba or Sharm El Sheikh. I’ll try and write another post before I leave Egypt too.

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Keep your eyes on the road

Just a quick update from the road – I have now been travelling around NZ for over two weeks, and I’m having a great time.

Unfortunately I brought a bit of cold weather with me at the start, and our plans to make the Tongariro Crossing were foiled, but the weather has been fine and warm since then. I’ve spent time in Whangarei – I don’t know who’s done the work on the Glenbervie MTB trails, but thanks – then I’ve been moving south. Quick trip around the East Cape before my brother’s wedding in Tauranga, and now I’ve moved to the South Island.

I’m riding the Queen Charlotte track tomorrow. Should be a couple of hard days riding, then further south for a bit, before shooting up the country, and back to the northern hemisphere.

Hope everyone’s OK out there. When I get some more down time, I’ll make more of an effort to post some photos and more details on my travels. I’m just moving around too much at the moment to get it sorted. Watch this space.

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Say you’re leavin’ on the 7:30 train and that you’re headin’ out to Hollywood

Well, actually it’s the 11:00 train to Kings Cross, but anyway…the time has come for me to ship out of Edinburgh. My gear is mostly packed up, and I’m heading out tomorrow, to spend the next few months on the road.

Edinburgh is a fabulous city, both to live in and to visit. Even when you’ve been here a while, you still find that it will suprise you when you go into a new area, and find more amazing views, or beautiful architecture. Last week I went on a bike tour of the city, and even though I knew the general area, I still found myself suprised by different views on the city. If you are in the city, the bike tour is well worth doing – it’s much more interactive than a bus tour, and you find yourself getting much more involved. For the less fit out there, don’t worry, it’s not too difficult, as there are lots of stops, and you don’t have to go straight up any of the steeper parts.

The other thing I did was go along part of the Waters of Leith Walkway, from Stockbridge up to Roseburn. This is a really nice walk, well worth the effort. It’s not especially widely-known or utilised, but it is well worth the effort. It gives you a much different view of the city to walking along the roads.

Last night I went out to the England/Scotland game with Craig – fantastic evening, great atmosphere at the game, 67,000 people all screaming for Scotland. The crowd went crazy at the end, with Scotland pulling off a great upset win. Town was packed later on, with plenty of happy fans, and a few Englishmen drowning their sorrows. I was fully looking the part, with a kilt and Scotland jersey on. Apart from risking hypothermia, it was good too. Women seem to go a bit crazy over a man in a kilt though…

I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be able to post updates over the next few months, but I’ll try and put some on content every now and then, even if it’s just a short note on whatever country I’m currently in.

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Where I’m at, where I’m going, and LOTS OF PHOTOS!

Thought it was about time for a bit of an update on what’s happening in my life, and where I’m planning on traveling.

I’ve only got three weeks to go at work here, and it can’t come soon enough – I’ve got very itchy feet, and I’m looking forward to being on the road again. End of February I’m on the road, heading to NZ for a month. I’ve got a few things planned – Tongariro Crossing, Queen Charlotte track (by bike), the Otago Rail Trail, plus a fair bit of driving around. And perhaps more importantly, catching up with friends and family.

After that, I’m going to San Francisco for a few days, before carrying on to London. I’ve wanted to go to San Fran for a while, and this is a good chance. Plus I get to fly Air NZ, presumably on the fancy revamped planes. Plan is to catch up with Bruce and Blair in London, before flying to Libya for a couple of weeks. Due to visa hassles, I then fly back to London, stay overnight, then on to Cairo. From there, I’ll work my way around Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. Depending on timing, I’ll then either go overland back to the UK, or fly. The only set date I have is to get back to see The Eagles at Twickenham on June 17th. Should be a good trip through the Middle East, hopefully the political situation isn’t too bad along the way. I’m sure things are often different on the ground anyway. After that, I’ll probably need to find another contract, to get some more cash.

I’ve told some people about this, but not everyone’s aware of it yet – I’ve got my own complete website up and running now. It works out a bit better for me in terms of uploading photos, and formatting things just the way I want to. Problem is that I don’t really know how to do the formatting I want, or for that matter, what formatting I actually do want. So it’s still a work in progress, but I’ve got quite a few photos uploaded now – everything from 2005 onwards. I still want to upload some photos from my 2004 travels, but for that can wait for now. I’ll keep fiddling around with the formatting until I get something I like a bit more, but it’s passable for now. Suggestions are welcome. I would like to integrate my blog stuff more with it, but that could be a bit of a hassle, so for now I’ll keep my blog here. So check out Northland Boy. Dig around in the photo sections, see what you think.

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Don’t eat the yellow snow

… and there was a lot of it. After not travelling much at the start of December, since I was studying for my CISSP certification, I’ve had a nice week in Austria, snowboarding. I guess we just got lucky, but right now Austria is probably the best country for snow. Other places are just starting to get decent falls, Austria has had snow for weeks. There was over 75cm in town, and probably 100cm on the slopes. We stayed in Kirchberg, which is very close to Kitzbuhel, and they share the same slopes, with free buses between the various lifts and cable cars.

There are over 160km of groomed slopes available, with something like 6 cable cars, and countless chairlifts. Some very long lifts up (e.g. Fleckalmbahn rises from 800m to 1800m), meaning some very, very long runs down. It tended to be suited more to skiing than snowboarding (e.g. narrow runs), with even some “blue” slopes pretty steep, and could be busy, but there was that much available that you could pretty easily find some more or less empty slopes. On the last day, we got up early, and were the first ones up Hornbahn, so we had a huge expanse in front of us with just no-one there.

The first couple of days I wasn’t too flash, but by the end of the week I was getting the hang of it, and was doing OK, hardly falling at all. Not sure that I’ll become a committed snowboarder, but it was good to give it a go for a few days. It was pretty damn cold though – as low as minus 18°C on our last day.

Austria was great – the food was perfectly suited to the cold, and they have fabulous weissbier (made with wheat). We had about 7 different varieties, all of them good. My German, while needing a lot more work, seems to be improving. I was feeling much more comfortable about asking for things, and usually understanding the response. It was a good thing too, since Kirchberg is not a large town, and English is not understood by everyone. Still, with my bits of German, and their bits of English, we could usually understand each other.

If you ever pass through Kirchberg, call in at Schaki bar, and have a weißbier. There is a nice Turkish guy there, who makes you feel right at home. Wear a Che Guavera T-shirt for bonus marks, it’ll go down a treat.

Happy New Year to everyone, hope you don’t have to go back to work as soon as I do.

PS Dragoman has cancelled the trip I was booked in for from Cairo to the UK, so it looks like my travel through the Middle East is going to be independent the whole way – probably a good thing for me anyway.

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Four Rugby Games and a Funeral

Or something like that. Thought it was about time I had a bit of a roundup of the last few weeks, more or less coinciding with the All Black’s Grand Slam tour.

For the weekend that NZ was playing Wales, I went down to Cambridge, to visit Paul and Kate. I had been meaning to go their for some time, and especially now that they are moving, it seemed opportune. Cambridge is a nice place, even if you can’t walk on the grass. Not my usual cup of tea to go and listen to the Kings’ College choir on Sunday morning, but something different, and distinctive for there. A most impressive church, amazing attention to detail. Probably the most interesting thing that happened there was seeing Mike, Corin and James – 3 guys I probably haven’t seen for 5 years. Not planned, or expected, just happened that we all ended up in the same town at the same time. Pretty cool.

Following weekend, it was off to Dublin. I was going to try and get tickets to the game, but when the north terraces had a fire, resulting in 7,500 people unable to get into the game, touts went up in price quickly. Around €250 at midday, apparently later getting up to €600. I suppose if you’d been one of the Kiwis who had ticket problems at Cardiff, then couldn’t get into Lansdowne Road, you would have been feeling a bit tetchy. I ended up watching the game at a pub in Temple Bar, with some other New Zealanders, including some who had tickets for the north terrace. Lots of fun, Dublin is a pretty good place. Beautiful weather, but very cold. I was surprised at how many Kiwis were there – at some bars later in the evening, probably half the people were wearing black. I guess I didn’t realise just how many New Zealanders are in this part of the world, and are prepared to follow the All Blacks around. The other thing I didn’t realise about Dublin, was just how popular a place it is for groups of women (of various ages) to get together, get custom T-shirts with crude slogans written on them, drink a lot of cheap bubbly, and make fools of themselves. There seemed to be many hens nights, 21sts, etc going on. The next day, as I was walking around, I saw a lot of posters stuck up, offering a reward for the finder of an engagement ring. I guess if you’re having a big hen’s night out in Dublin, it might be best to leave the expensive engagement ring at home…

I stayed in town the following weekend, as I had been planning on doing a small job at work on the Saturday morning. That got cancelled a bit too close to the weekend to make other plans, so I just kicked around town. Watched the NZ/England game at the Globe, with a huge number of Kiwis, and about 3 Englishmen. Unfortunately the Old Firm were playing just beforehand, so the place was absolutely packed. I’m not sure if I wanted to watch Celtic/Rangers that I would head out to a pub with Antipodean flags in the window though. But anyway, fabulous game, huge amount of tension, but the right result in the end. Ended up having a really nice night with a few friends, just sitting around, having a few drinks, people playing the guitar. Really nice, in that unplanned, do whatever, take it easy kind of way.

Then at last the rugby roadshow came to Scotland. I donned a kilt and a Scotland jersey, and went with Craig, also in Scotland jersey and kilt. Loads of fun. Women wanted their photo taken with the lovely wee Scotsmen. And then at half time, I pulled off the Scotland jersey to real the black jersey underneath. There were a few that didn’t understand, but plenty that did. A good day out really, complemented by watching NZ thrash Australia in the league. Only problem was that I’ve had a throat infection for a few days, and that, combined with a bit of shouting on Saturday, meant I ended up losing my voice. It’s still pretty weak today, hopefully by tomorrow it will be getting better. Frustrating, more than anything.

And finally, the funeral. While in Dublin, I received word that my grandmother had passed away. Nina Barton was a good woman, who did a lot for many other people. I’ve mentioned elsewhere how one of my fondest memories of her and my Granddad was how you could turn up at their place at any time, and they would always take you in, feed you up, chat about whatever was on your mind, and just generally make you feel right at home. I decided not to return to NZ for the funeral, which was not the easiest of decisions, but I think/hope I have made the right one.

3 more months working and then I’ll be off traveling again! The weather has been pretty cold for a few weeks (as low as minus 7), and it shows no signs of improving soon – it may not get into double digits for weeks. I’ve just got to keep March in mind I guess – back to NZ for a month, followed by 2.5 months around Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey. Time to get back to reading my guidebooks.

Hope everyone is well out there.