Climbing Table Mountain (Nov. 15, 2008 - Cape Town, South Africa)

At home, we think doing something like the Grouse Grind is fun, and it makes a great workout. So it seemed only fitting that when we found out you can hike to the top of Table Mountain instead of taking the cable car, we didn't think twice.

It was a hot day and I managed to get very sunburned yesterday, so the walk to the base of Table Mountain was a feat in itself. Twinges of heat stroke made the uphill haul seem never-ending. At the base of the mountain is a parking lot for tour buses and a lower cable car station, much like Grouse Mountain. We walked past the masses along the road that traverses the base of the mountain until we came to the trailhead 2km away. From there, it was a 2 hour, 620 metre elevation gain to the top. This is actually less vertical than the Grind (I think?), but with a lot of switchbacks and intense sun, it takes a lot longer.

The first half hour of the trail meandered up the talus cone of the Platteklip Gorge above, and a pretty little waterfall cascaded over the rocks beside the trail. There is a variety of flowers in bloom everywhere right now that is bright pink and adds a splash of colour to the landscape. Flat rocks form a staircase-like trail, but some steps, much like the Grind, were obviously not designed for short people. The views as we climbed became increasingly beautiful, and near the top of the gorge, the view out to the city and the turquoise sea was only a sliver between the two cliff walls on either side of us.

Exactly at the two hour mark, we finally broke out onto the flat top of Table Mountain and joined the throngs of tourists milling around the paved paths with baby strollers and wheelchairs. Their experience of Table Mountain will surely be different than ours!

The vistas in all directions from the top were breathtaking. To the north and east, Cape Town and the far off bay sprawled into the distance, with the hills of wine country fading into the horizon. To the northwest lay Robben Island. Camps Bay and its many beaches lay below us to the west and stretched out as far as the eye could see. To the south was the Cape peninsula. We could see most of the route we drove yesterday, including the lighthouse at Cape Point. It was quite a sight!

Our noses caught a whiff of burgers on the BBQ, so once we had taken in the view, we refueled at the mountaintop restaurant before hopping in the cable car for the quick ride down. The floor of the cable car actually rotates 360 degrees during the descent, which we thought was brilliant! Not so brilliant were the guys at the top offering to take people rapelling down the west face of Table Mountain. Seriously - you would have to be crazy to sign up for that deal!

Back on solid ground and with tired legs, we walked all the way back to home sweet home at zebra crossing for a well deserved shower and a nap. I have no idea how far we walked today, but it feels great to know that we can add "climbed Table Mountain" to our lifetime achievements list.

Penguins and baboons (Nov. 14, 2008 - Cape Town, South Africa)

Never thought we would ever see penguins and baboons together in their natural habitats on the same day! But today we did. Our first stop on this beautiful cloudless day was Boulders Beach near Simon's Town on the east side of the Cape peninsula. There, African Penguins (formerly known as Jackass Penguins) live and breed on a select few beaches in southwestern South Africa year round, and this beach is home base. Boardwalks and viewing platforms let visitors get right up close with these cute little guys, who have a beautiful white sand beach bordered by large rounded boulders and backed by bush-covered sand dunes, all to themselves. Our first encounter with them, though, was when we spotted a pair of them peeking out from under the stairs on the boardwalk. This breed is only about 12 to 18 inches tall, and are one of the smallest penguin species. Since it's early summer now, it is molting season and they are confined to land for about 3 weeks until their new layer of waterproofing grows in. About 100 penguins were hanging around - some dozing in the sand, others huddled on the rocks, and a few out swimming in the ocean. We weren't too sure who was watching who, though, as camera lenses were within a few feet of their cute little faces.

The coastal drive is beautiful, as the turquoise water crashed into the big round rocks and white sand beaches. At some times of the year, Southern Right Whales and Great White Sharks can be spotted from the road. When we entered the Cape of Good Hope portion of Table Mountain National Park, the landscape gradually became barren and moon-like, with only short, hardy vegetation (including some pretty species of purple flower) able to withstand the constant and often violent winds that blow across the cape. We had seen a few signs that warned you to stay away from baboons, but we didn't actually see any until we were walking through the parking lot to follow the trail out to the cape lighthouse. Walking nonechalently amongst the visitors was a female baboon, grey and the size of a medium dog. She wasted no time in climbing up the back of someone's car and perching herself on top, holding the roof rack and scratching herself while people gathered to take pictures. She was actually pretty cute except for the gross baboon ass and the droopy monkey nipples! A few more baboons were climbing around on the rocks above the outdoor restaurant at the far end of the parking lot, and one of the waiters spent half his time chasing them away by throwing rocks at them, as apparently they're not too shy to steal food right out of your hand and bite you while they're at it.

The vista out at the windswept cape was incredible - barren cliffs of horizontally bedded siltstones and sandstones worn away into sharp peaks with teal ocean and white beaches fringing their base... sea birds hovered in the wind and wave after wave of intermixed Indian and Atlantic waters crashed on the rocks far below. It was quite a sight! Although the Cape of Good Hope is not technically the southernmost point of Africa, it is considered by most to be the end of the continent and the division between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. While gazing at the view, we met a couple from Victoria who were just finishing up a six month trip from Morrocco to South Africa. They looked well traveled, happy, tanned, and apparently a lot skinnier than when they left home.

Northbound, we passed ostrich farms and quiet little towns perched overlooking the sea as we made our way back to the town of Fish Hoek (!) in the north. Vineyards grew up the hillsides in Constantia, and vendors sold wood carvings at wide spots in the road where drivers were pulling over to take in the magnificent view south over the towns clinging to the hillside with smooth blue waves below. The lee side of the cape is definitely the west side, and we soon realized that people have capitalized on this in the areas of Camps Bay and Bantry Bay. These communities are suburbs of Cape Town, really, located on the southwest side of Table Mountain. This is more like what I had pictured Cape Town to be - seaside condos and resorts on every available piece of land, stores and restaurants lining the beach drive along white beaches bordered by palm trees and busy with sunlovers. We basically could've been driving through South Beach in Miami.

The road hooked right in with the main drag in Cape Town and we were able to drop off the car and get home in time to crack open our bottle of Lanzerac red from the vineyard yesterday. We shared a glass or three with a nice 66 year old British woman who has been traveling for years alone and is taking the train to Mozambique tomorrow with no plans and only 70 British Pounds in her pocket and a blanket just in case she can't find a place to sleep. Just because she can. Oh, and she was sure to tell us that she just became a great grandmother last week. We were humbled - what stories she has to tell, and all because she loves to travel. Funny how no matter who you meet while on the road, we will all have that in common :)

The wrong side of the road (Nov. 13, 2008 - Cape Town, South Africa)

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!! So, we rented a car and have discovered that the steering wheel is on the wrong side. We had kind of overlooked this fact until Ken opened the right side door of the car to let me in (such a gentleman) only to realize that it was the driver's side. Oops. Such began the day that was a long sequence of newbie-left-handed-driver mistakes. We quickly determined that my job was to navigate and that each time we turned, I was to holler 'Left! Left! Left!" so Ken didn't turn into oncoming traffic. We are happy to report that this system only failed us once.

Driving in South Africa, incidently, is only marginally safer than being a pedestrian. Jay walking seems to be the national sport, and yet drivers are quick to stop for people crossing at crosswalks.

We headed east out of Cape Town toward wine country and a town called Stellenbosch. The hills around here produce all of the wine exported from South Africa, and there are something like 50 of them - they were everywhere! The landscape is green and rolling, with jagged mountains similar to Cape Town's famous backdrop, blocking most of the rain coming in from the ocean. Between the climate and the sandy soil, the conditions for growing grapes are ideal.

We stopped for a cellar tour at one of the oldest wineries in the area, which was established in 1692 and is now known as Lanzerac. Among the many highlights, we learned that:

• Their 55 acres produces 250,000 bottles of world class wine (half of which is consumed in South Africa) - everything from chardonnay to merlot.
• Oak barrels are imported from France for about 8000 Rand (about $1000 Canadian), used for four bottlings and then resold to port distillers for less than 10% of their original cost.
• Red wines are coloured by the skins and seeds of the grapes, and in pale wines (like rose), the skins and seeds are left in for only 8 hours. Dark wines (like merlot) have them for up to 3 weeks before they are filtered out.
• The tannins in wine come from the skins.
• This winery doesn't use pesticides unless necessary, so they rely on rose bushes planted at each row of vines to show signs of early infestation.

We joined a nice couple from Scotland to sample five of the wines, and we were told which flavours and aromas to look for while tasting. It was all very interesting, but Ken had to decide which variety to buy at the end because Pamela ended up drunk. He decided on a bottle of their Classic, which was a combination of several types of red grapes and had won several awards.

We kept going past Stellenbosch and through another pretty town called Franschhoek that was surrounded by mountains to the east. The road climbed up and afforded a pretty vista of the valley down below - and the dozens of vineyards stretching into the distance. As soon as we hit the top, the rain started as if on command. Down, down, down we drove, past a large lake, eventually meeting up with the highway that we left Cape Town on earlier. The scenery from there was coastal, as the road followed the head of False Bay past wide white sandy beaches and seaside apartments. Apparently, this area is popular when it gets hot, as the beaches are awesome but the water is cold, so people don't swim much. P.S. False Bay also has an unusually high population of Great White Sharks!

Before turning north to head away from the water, we drove a section of highway that told us where the sewage treatment plant was, closely followed by a shantytown slum that spanned both sides of the highway, as far as you could see. It was a very depressing and desperate looking scene. Oddly enough, the giant shantytown was right beside a nature preserve that was basically a stretch of grassy sand dunes along the beach. In places, the sea threatened to consume the road, as the waves crashed within feet of the pavement, and sand was spread across most of the road. A pull-out area on the ocean side had tracks going through it that looked as though a snow plough had to push a path through a foot of sand. Proof that you can't mess with nature!

Kiteboarders were zooming back and forth across the beach at Muizenberg, where we turned north to head back to Cape Town. The clouds had lifted a bit as the harbouir came into view, and we were quite pleased with ourselves that we had successfully done a self-guided tour without becoming roadkill.

Into Africa (Nov. 11 & 12, 2008 - London, England to Cape Town, South Africa)

Finally, a sunny day in London! The weather picked a good day to cooperate since we hoped to visit the last of the nearby sights this morning. We packed our bags before breakfast and headed out to meet a bright but blustery day. I guess for it to be clear here, it has to be windy. No mountains to slow down the gusts off the ocean... It wasn't until our bus ride back last night that we realized how close we were staying to Buckingham Palace - about a 5 minute walk. A few keeners had already gathered for the Changing of the Guards in an hour, but we weren't that desperate to get a good seat. The palace was just as I had remembered it - big and majestic. The Queen was home today somewhere within its walls according to the flag on top. The sunshine made for some nice photos of the palace, the statue of Queen Victoria out front, and the golden gates surrounding the palace. We walked against the steady flow of traffic heading to the show along the path bordering the lake in St. James Park. which was busy with all sorts of birds (ducks, geese, white and black swans, gulls, pigeons, and even a few pelicans) and extra pretty with all the fall colours in the trees. We spotted no less than a dozen separate people excited by seeing a squirrel.

At the far end of St. James Park is the Horse Guards, where the dudes with the gold mops on their heads sit around with stern faces on unnaturally clean black horses. Two rows of seven were lined up ready for the parade, so we spent a few minutes drooling over their immaculately groomed coats, perfectly polished hooves, and ridiculously clean white girth sheaths. I've never seen such clean horses, and they've probably never rolled in the dirt their whole life! Yet as perfect as they looked, they still shook their heads and stuck out their tounges like normal horses do. Too cute.

The marching band was just approaching Buckingham Palace when we got back, but pretty much all we could see was a sea of synchronized black fur hats. The Changing of the Guard occurs every other day and is based on the idea of switching out the guards who man the stations surrounding the palace.

With a couple hours left to spare, we walked down to Parliament Square to see Big Ben in nicer conditions than from the back of the bus in the rain yesterday. Bocce got in on the action too, climbing a pole to get a better view.

Westminster Abbey was surrounded by a large selection of flowers, wreaths, and thousands of tiny wooden crosses personalized by friends and relatives with the names of people who have died for their country in wars past. As today is Rembrance Day (and it was almost exactly 11am when we were there), the area was busy with people walking around solemnly. Some held their hands over their heart, some wiped away tears, and some simply knelt in front of the fields of crosses in silence. It was an odd but moving scene.

With a schedule for the day, though, we walked back to our pub for a sandwich before leaving for the airport. Just when we thought we had the tube system all figured out, we took two wrong turns and got on one wrong train before eventually getting on one bound for Heathrow. Thankfully, it wasn't busy, so it was stress free and fast. We ended up arriving at the airport before we could even check in.

Terminal 5, dedicated wholly to British Airways, just opened in the last year or so and is designed quite well. The entire arched span is open such that you can see the ceiling area over the gates and security from the moment you walk in the door. All the massive beams and cables are exposed and everything sparkles in stark white. We spent the last of our pounds on snacks and magazines, killing some time in an appropriately African themed restaurant called Giraffe, where we shared a blueberry smoothy and a decadent pile of ice cream, chocolate, and roasted bananas over a belgian waffle. Whoever invented that seriously deserves a Nobel Prize!

The 747 to Cape Town was pretty much packed, and we ended up with the two crappy seats in the middle of the centre block of four seats. It made for an uncomfortable eleven hour flight, as the guy beside me was about seven feet tall and pretty much needed the shared arm rest and much of the legroom. The great thing about British Airways is that each seat gets an entertainment system with tons of movies and tv shows, so that kept us entertained until dinner was done and the desperation for sleep set in. Between London and Cape Town, I managed to watch The Love Guru, Get Smart, and an episode each of 30 Rock, Friends, Two and a Half Men, a travel guide to Australia, and some random show about three British girls trying to become tree fallers at a logging camp in BC. Somewhere in there we also managed a few hours of sleep. It was a long flight.

For some reason, I expected Cape Town to be warm-ish (20 degrees or so?) but apparently some unseasonably cold weather and high winds had moved in and it was about 14 degrees and pouring rain. Better than London, but barely.

The cab ride was about half an hour into Cape Town, and once I could make out the rough edges of the cloud-shrouded Table Mountain, I had my bearings. Construction projects seemed to be frequent on both sides of the highway, clustered in patches producing new five or six-storey concrete apartment complexes that looked simple but sturdy. Our driver explained that the government and other agencies have successfully started relocating people from the pitiful tin-walled shantytowns to real housing. The amazing part is that the system is working. Build an apartment, move the people in, demolish their shantytown, and build another apartment in its place. People are getting a better shot at life. I hope that while we're here, we can learn more about this.

The lower slopes of Table Mountain, we're told, are protected by a wildlife reserve that includes many species of grazing animals, including zebras and wildebeest. My eyes started to scan the hillside at the sound of my favourite "Z" word. (I love zebras, always have, and can't wait to see them in the wild!)

Our cabbie talked about all kinds of stuff... the population of Cape Town is about 4 million, 500,000 of which are foreigners... the 2010 World Cup soccer games are coming to the city... and the names of various landmarks that became visible as we drove into down.

Our hostel is called Zebra Crossing (unintentional, I swear!), and it seemed to be located right at the base of Lions Head (a landmark hill in Cape Town) and within walking distance of town. After dumping our bags, we decided to walk down to the waterfront to check out the town and get something to eat. It took about half an hour to reach the ocean end of town and a large and newly developed waterfront area comprising of lots of stores, restaurants, marinas, tour kiosks, and an aquarium. Unfortunately, the wind and crazy wind gusts (we guessed up to about 80 km/hr) coming from all directions was keeping people away. We dragged out our lunch as long as we could before making a bee line for the visitors' info centre. We had a vague idea of what we wanted to see and do over the next couple days, so we spent some time mulling over various brochures before deciding to go it alone and rent a car. Our plan is to drive out to the wine region of Stellenbosch tomorrow and then drive down to the Cape of Good Hope the following day. That will leave a day to hike up Table Mountain and whatever else the following day before meeting up with our GAP group on Sunday evening.

So we wandered back to the hostel via the local supermarket to get some fruit and yogurt for breakfast tomorrow, showered, and called it a night.

Seeing London's sights (Nov. 10, 2008 - London, England)

Everything in London is expensive. We came to realize this very quickly. If you changed the '£' symbol to a Canadian '$', things would be pretty much at par with prices at home. Lunch is £5, a Starbucks caramel macchiato is £3.50, gas is $1/litre, and a decent hotel room is £100 a night. Believe it or not, that is pretty much the cheapest place we could find in any of our pre-trip research, and now we're realizing that this is pretty much the bottom of the barrel as far as rooms go in London. Every time you sit up in bed, you smash your forehead into the lampshade that is permanently mounted on the headboard (stupidest design ever!). And when sitting on the "loo", your knees touch the opposite wall. It's quite amusing, but we're really just happy to have a room for a few days that's comfy and safe. Oh yeah, and we came back last night to find the door to our room left open by the cleaning staff. Right - safe!

Today was part two of our early Christmas present - day passes for the "hop on/hop off" double decker busses that run varioud loops around the city, shuttling visitors between sites and even providing an informative recorded narration. It happened to be pouring rain today, so we decided to set about exploring the city by the driest means possible - by bus and at indoor attractions. Hyde Park did look lovely in the misty morning rain as people were running and riding horses along the paths, but we really didn't feel like starting out wet. Our first stop was Trafalgar Square, where the famous monument is normally surrounded by mobs of pigeous. I'm guessing they're not water birds, so they were nowhere to be seen today. We decided to pay a quick visit to the National Gallery, admittedly, more to get warm and dry than to take in the art! It was a total flashback to my visit to The Louvre in Paris several years ago - large, sparse, echoey rooms displaying oversized paintings from numerous time periods, places, and supposedly famous artists. A few did catch my eye as being familiar - Leonardo da Vinci's "The Virgin on the Rocks", Monet's "Water Lillies", Henri Rousseault's painting of a tiger in a windy jungle, and Van Gough's "Sunflowers". But that's about it. Ken diligently read the descriptions of each piece, stepped back to take it in, and do the little head tilt of comprehension before moving on to the next one to repeat this process. My strategy was a little different: scan the room for anything I might recognize. Nothing? Damn. Now I have to pretend I'm interested. Pick on that has something interesting going on (those old painter dudes were big on nudity!), walk up to it, read the description. Read it again and try to understand. Look at the painting and - yeah, ok, that's the extent of my efforts. Walk away from the painting and into the next room and consider repeating this and hope for the best. First, shoulder-check to see where Ken is. Crap, he's still on the first painting. I notice I'm the only person in the room walking at a normal walking speed through each room, bee-lining it between doors. Sorry, but I really don't care about art!

But I did give the National Gallery a chance. The British Museum would be another story, as we remembered from our trip to Egypt that many of the best Egyptian specimens were on display here. We walked through Leicester Square, which is where the big theatres are that house many of the British movie premiers (red carpet stuff happend here). Movie stars' hand prints are fixed into the sidewalk in gold plates, like in Hollywood. The rain pretty much soaked us wheil we made our way to the museum, so it was nice to get inside again. The Egyptian display did not disappoint - they had some key specimens such as a chunk of the Sphinx's beard, the facial mask from the sarcophagus of Ramses II (whose lid-less sarcophagus and mummified body we saw in Egypt) and even the cloth-wrapped and painted mummy of Cleopatra. Fantastic! A large chunk of the Rosetta Stone was featured in a large glass case, which reminded us of how poorly everything was displayed in the Egyptian Museum. There, crucial specimens were left unlabelled and out of view, like the other large piece of the Rosetta Stone. It was only spotted in the Egyptian Museum because a school group had tracked it down and were huddling around it. We also checked out the African exhibit before carrying on with our bus tour. We learned a few bits and pieces about African textiles, pottery, weapons,and metalworks that intruigued us for what we might see when we get there.

The bus took us next past Scotland Yard, Whitehall Road (and the cenotaph where the Queen laid Remembrance Day wreaths yesterday), the House of Parliament, and Big Ben. If it weren't for the pouring rain, we would have walked around to take some pictures, but it was just too nasty out. We zig-zagged back and forth across the Thames a few times, past St. Paul's Cathedral and the London and Tower Bridges before hopping off at the Tower of London. I had been there before on a previous visit to London, but it was definitely a must-see for Ken.

The Tower of London is basically the original castle that housed and protected royalty for hundreds of years and still remains as the actual City of London. The rest of what we call London is actually the City of Westminster. Built on the Thames, it is surrounded by a moat and comprised of multiple towers, walls, turrets, and vaults, and yet is surrounded by modern London. Walking through kings' becrooms and prisoners' cells that still bear their eerie inscriptions in the walls is quite a trip for the imagination! The highlight, though, is the vault that houses the royal collection of valuables - maces, scepters, gold cloaks, goblets, and best of all, the crowns. Everything is in pristine condition, and even the Queen's Imperial State Crown - the one she wears on special occasions - is on display. The size and quantity of the diamonds, rubies, and emeralds laid into the crowns is unbelievable! Cha CHING!!!

A quick trip through the White Tower is all that we could manage since it was about to close, but to see the weapons and armour that were used in battle way back when was interesting. Really, the interesting part was that they were even able to move in all that metal!



It was getting dark and we were tired, so we grabbed our bus and headed back to where we started. We found a great little pub that we passed while taking the scenic route to our hotel last night (i.e. we were lost) and had some steak pie and the best mashed potatoes ever before heading for the hills.

Tomorrow we head back to Heathrow and fly to South Africa, so we just have one last morning to enjoy London before carrying on to the next leg of our trip.

Castles and old stuff (Nov. 9, 2008 - London, England)

Christmas came early this year, as the weekend before we left, my family surprised us with tickets for two different bus tours around London that would enable us to see the sights efficiently in the few days we have here. This morning, we went downstairs in our hotel for the supposed included breakfast, only to find a stack of dishes, bins of cereal, and an empty coffee pot. Hmmm. We waited a few minutes before deciding to snoop around in the adjoining storage room for some milk or bread or something. Success! We downed some Rice Krispies with whole milk (gag!!) just in time for the lazy Indian guy behind the counter to come in (20 minutes late) to see that we had helped ourselves. Gotta do what you've gotta do!

The bus picked us up at 8:30am as scheduled, and zig-zagged across town to pick up more people before heading out into the countryside. Windsor is a quaint little town about 30 minutes west of London where the royal families have called home for centuries. The current Queen still spends her weekends here, and we agreed that we would too if we were here - quiet, private, scenic, and an enormous castle perched on top of a hill full of anything that Her Majesty could possibly want. There was even a Pizza Hut right beside it in case the Queen get the late night munchies.

Windsor Castle is the largest inhabited castle in the world, and its countless towers and turrets supposedly house hundreds of rooms, a cathedral, and its own village within its walls. If it weren't for the £15 ($35 Canadian!) admission charge, we would have gone inside to check out the royal digs. Instead, we watched soldiers, guards, and little kids in matching breeches, jackets, and riding boots assemble for the Remembrance Day procession, which is celebrated on the Sunday before November 11th in England. One of the draws for former and present royalty is the adjacent Windsor Great Park, which is a rolling grassy and forested area that gave them a place to hunt and ride. The Long Walk is a 3 mile long path lined with large trees that leads from a statue on the horizon all the way up to Windsor Casle up on the hill. With the sunshine illuminating the fall leaves, it made for a very pretty spot.

Following a walk down the cobblestone streets of Windsor and then along the River Thames, we reboarded the bug and transited across the country to Hampton Court Palace, in the county of Surrey.

Hampton Court Palace was built by a rich priest named Thomas Wolsey in 1520 just as an elaborate place to live. It was eventually handed over to the Royal Family of the time when Wolsey's popularity faded, and it has housed royalty ever since. The architecture was very different from Windsor Castle, partly due to its era, but more because of its purpose. This palace served as a residence and a place to entertain guests rather than as a fortress.
We took the audio-guided tours through some of the royal quarters, which were designed and redesigned each time a new king or queen moved in. Large tapestries, paintings, and elaborate golden arched ceilings adorned each room, and wide corridors and courtyards made the palace quit the navigational challenge. The most interesting part in our eyes was the Tudor kitchens, which shed light on the great lengths these people went to to feed hundreds of people at a time. Large oad barrels filled the wine cellar, 12-foot long wrought iron spears served as massive rotisseries for meat over a big fireplace, and charcoal bread ovens, boilers, and barbecues lined the massive kitchen wing. I found it interesting to know that royalty went to great lengths and expenses to cook the most "rich" food possible (i.e., 75% of their diet was meat) by the most inconvenient means possible (i.e., roasting instead of boiling) just to prove how rich they were. Did you know that pies were invented as a way to bake meat in the oven before the invention of cookware? The simple flour and water dough was not eaten, but just served as an individually-sized crockpot.

Outside the palace, some 60 acres of gardens surrounded the Hampton Court Palace and bordered the Thames to the east. Large fountains, long reflection ponds, manicured trees, a hedge maze, and even the world's oldest grape vine (more than 300 years old!) made up some of the attractions. But the air and wind were so cold that we opted to spend some quality time at the Tiltyard Cafe for some tea and a snack. The cafe is housed in one of the old viewing towers that kings used to watch jousting matches from in the walled arena below.

The rain really began to fall as we made a run for the bus, and if it weren't for driving on the wrong side of the road, we could've easily been in Vancouver! Our last stop of the day was a pub near Victoria Station, where we filled up on nice warm comfort food before calling it a day.

The first of 191 Saturdays (Nov. 8, 2008 - London, England)

Well, we found a hole in the fence. Like a zoo animal escaping its cage, we're free! Only one days into our trip, and the powerful feeling that we are on our own to explore the world is hard to ignore. As people who are accustomed to and normally fond of routines, the sudden shift in responsibilities has taken us by surprise. And so far, we love it. But, we have already decided that our backpacks are too heavy. Oops.

The last 24 hours have been quite a blur, as Friday evening we were saying a tearful goodbye to family at the Vancouver airport, and Saturday afternoon we were waking up out of a surprisingly deep but leg-cramped sleep to the sound of the captain announcing that we would be landing in London in 40 minutes. We even slept through breakfast! The ground soon came into view, and the green mosaic of country fields quickly gave way to winding rows of old brown brick houses. It's really sinking in that our trip is happening - we're in London!

With our internal clocks completely thrown off, we found ourselves downing overpriced muffins and coffee at the Heathrow entrance at what was somewhere between 4pm local time and 10am Vancouver time. Without any trouble, we were able to navigate the Underground (subway) system into central London - about a one hour trip. It didn't take long as we wandered the dark streets around Victoria Station attempting to find our way to the hotel with a crappy map, that we decided our packs were too heavy. The scales at home said 40lbs, but either the extra carry-on stuff added up too fast, or we're really damn tired. Maybe both? Eventually, we did find the Hanover Hotel, and after dumping our bags, we made our way to a nearby pub for a fantastic fish & chips dinner. From our hotel room, you could spot the tops of Big Ben and the London Eye, just begging to be explored in the next few days.

Departure day is here!

Well after the months of planning and reading and scheming, the day is finally here! The packing process was an iterative one, as it took a few tries to get everything to fit in our bags comfortably, plus I had to take a second look at everything I'm bringing to try and keep my bag under 40lbs. Mission accomplished! Considering that every item we bring will have to be hauled on our backs for most of the trip, we were pretty brutal. Case in point: Ken hacking the India guidebook to pieces with an exacto knife, removing the pages for parts of the country we won't be visiting:

The final outcome is our two big packs (Ken's is 80L, mine is 65L), 40lbs each, plus a 'belly bag' for carry on stuff and a small daypack that will be rolled up and stuffed in the big packs.

So our bags are packed, chores are done, and boarding passes are in hand. We'll be heading for the airport in a few hours and officially leave home behind as we mark the official start of our journey. Stay tuned for London!

Meet Bocce!

Now that we're just barely a week away from departure day, we should introduce you to someone you will be seeing a lot of during our trip - Bocce!

While we were planning our trip, we wanted to find a little mascot to travel around with us, and one day a few weeks ago a coworker of Ken's introduced us to Bocce. Her 4 year old daughter was excited to hear of all the amazing places we're planning to visit, and we thought it would be fun to take pictures of something she would recognize everywhere we go. And then came Bocce! He's cute, compact, and last I heard he was ready for a visit home to see his tiger peeps in India. So he will go everywhere we do and you'll probably see a lot of him in the next 6 months!

Our packing list is almost completely crossed off, and Bocce is getting excited as the pile grows!

He's been doing a lot of reading from our guidebook stash too.

So the last of the 'to do' list is being tackled over the next few days, getting ready for departure day NEXT WEEK! Woooo hooooooooo!!!

What do you pack for a trip around the world?

We've had a packing list underway for a while now, but I'm still baffled at the thought of trying to fit all this stuff in a backpack without it bulging at the seams. Granted, most of the things on the list are quite small and light, but it does look like a huge list! A number of things will likely inevitably be cut when it comes down to crunch time the night before we leave... but this is the list we have at this point. Do you think we forgot anything? (Maybe just the kitchen sink!)

CLOTHES:

• swimsuits
• shorts
• tank tops
• long pants
• long sleeved wicking shirt
• pj's
• undies
• socks
• warmish shirt
• shoes
• flip-flops
• rain jacket
• fleece jacket
• sarong (might not bring but just buy later)
• t-shirts
• light button-up shirt
• skirt
• ball cap
• sun hat
• touque
• gloves

OTHER STUFF:

• camera + lenses
• video camera + cords + tapes
• sunglasses
• guidebooks/photocopies
• itinerary
• cash & cards
• copies of tickets
• passport + copies
• PADI + DAN cards
• insurance info
• photobank
• sleep sheet
• pillow case
• daypack
• notebook + pens + sharpie
• ziploc + garbage bags
• laundry bag?
• sewing kit
• mosquito net
• USB drive
• watch
• money belt
• blank cd's
• addresses & calendar written into notebook
• bandana
• towel
• waist pack
• vaccination paperwork
• camera batteries + cords + charger
• tripod
• zap straps + elastics + safety pins etc.
• ear plugs
• sink plug + clothes line
• knife + fork + spoon
• dive computer + batteries
• mask + snorkel
• little dive light + batteries (will double as flashlight)
• headlamp + batteries
• empty water bottle
• vitamins
• calling card
• laundry soap
• little calculator
• pack cable locks
• camera housing
• silicon grease for housing
• door wedge
• photos from home
• stickers for little kids we meet along the way!

TOILETRIES:

• shampoo + conditioner
• body wash + small pouf
• sunscreen
• face wash + lotion
• deoderant
• razor + blades + shaving cream
• bug dope
• toothbrush + tooth paste
• dental floss
• hand lotion
• tp
• aloe gel
• lip balm
• hair elastics + clips
• comb
• eye drops
• mirror
• kleenex
• vaseline + tiger balm
• nail clippers
• hand sanitizer + wipes

FIRST AID KIT:

• Cipro + Gravol + immodium + T3's + pepto
• bandaids + misc. bandages + gauze
• malaria medication
• tweezers + scissors + knife

Whew! That's a lot of stuff.

Well we are approaching the one month countdown mark, and the reality of actually leaving on our trip is starting to sink in! But we're almost ready to go, so it's all good! Normally at this time of the year, I'm a bit sad that summer is over and winter is looming, but this year it has been exciting to see the leaves change and the temperature drop because it means that departure day is coming. Our passports are making their way to Ottawa to get outfitted with Kenyan visas, and then we're pretty much ready to go! BRING IT ON!!!