Akumal, Mexico

Craig Writes;

Tuesday 30 December

Today was just one of those days where you grind out the miles and just get to where you're going. We left New Orleans and flew to Houston for a two hour layover before hopping on a flight to Cancun.  We had prearranged transport so once we were out of the airport it was into our mini-van for the one hour trip to Akumal.  Check-in was easy - everyone seems so friendly here - we dumped our bags in the tiny room and went straight down to the beach for some of that restorative energy that only the ocean can provide.  

Lol Ha in daylight hours.

We walked the shoreline for a short distance but the sun had set and apart from the well lit restaurants on the beach and the star spangled sky above there wasn't a lot to see.   The twinkling lights and salsa tunes of Lol Ha lured us in and we grabbed a table for four under the large thatched alfresco area.

There was laughter from the happy hour crowd, waves lapping lazily on the white sand, salsa beats supplying the groove and the smell of delicious food teasing us from nearby tables.  There was a collective sigh as our bodies dropped into their chairs.  It was as if with one united breath we exhaled the last of the mountain chill and the niggling snotty noses and welcomed the Caribbean heat into our bodies.  Christina and I made it official with the first of many margaritas and mojitas.

Mojitas and margaritas.

Dinner was always going to be easy, we went straight for the standards, guacamole, quesadilla and a tasting plate of different Mexican morsels.

Wednesday 31 December

Christina and I awoke early this morning to walk along the deserted beach and catch our first Caribbean sunrise.  

Sunrise over the Caribbean.

This is a beautiful place.  Imagine the tropical beauty of Bali without the humidity, the fug and the funky smells of the open street sewers, the toot toot and the beep beep of countless taxis and tin pot motorbikes.  This is paradise found where the sun tends to kiss rather than bite and hawkers aren't popping out from behind every bush trying to sell you a T-shirt or a sarong.

After a light breakfast of fruit, toast and coffee we took to the lounge chairs of the pool.  The boys splashed around and made underwater movies and we watched the pods of tourists bob around enjoying their organised snorkel in the warm water of the bay.  A light breeze is softly blowing across the water forming the tiniest of whitecaps, the palm trees are swaying and the air is sweet and clear. Life is bliss!

The view from our pool chairs.

Grumbling bellies eventually prised us from our deck chairs and we headed to the Turtle Bakery for lunch.  Callums spicy shrimp burrito smelt amazing and Christina's fish and black bean tortilla left me feeling wilted. I chose badly and went with the Mexican lamb burger. I'm not sure what Charlie had but it would have had grilled cheese and some sort of meat on it.

Food, food, food!!!

and behold, there was food.

There were more hours by the pool reading and watching coconuts fall at our feet from the nearby trees.  

As the afternoon wore on we decided we best go see what all the schools of snorkelers were staring at and swam out to investigate.  One Japanese guy was going crazy yelling,'fish fish' to his pod of nearby snorkers.  I'm not sure what he was so excited about, maybe it was the first fish he'd seen in a while that wasn't on a small bed of rice.

The water is pleasantly warm, not oily or polluted just sun baked and very pleasant to swim in. The  bottom of the ocean floor is odd though, it looks like a giant mini golf course.  No sand or rocks or coral, just this pervasive light green carpet of what feels like moss.  There really was nothing to see.  I can only assume that these groups of intrepid snorkeli that bob around in their hi-viz buoyancy vests are in search of the turtles that are supposed to frequent this area.  We didn't see any but at the risk of name dropping, after our experience of swimming with the giant sea turtles at the Galapagos we didn't feel compelled to look too hard.

New Years Eve is fast approaching but for us there is little chance of laying on a big one. We are off to the Cenotes early tomorrow so the most damage will be a few margaritas at Lol Ha.  Must go, don't want to miss happy hour.

Three hours later.  Yum, mango margaritas, crayfish and rice, chilli chocolate and rum and raisin icecream, what a great way to say goodbye 2014 and hello 2015.

Mango margaritas.

Thursday 1 January 2015

If there were throngs of revellers bringing in the New Year last night they must have kept the volume very low. Not that that is a surprise.  The clientele here are definitely more Brady bunch than frat pack. It suited us because we wanted to be up early and get to the Cenotes before the crowds did.

After an early breakfast we walked down to the highway and caught the first Colectivo, one of hundreds of small white vans that cruise the highways as a taxi service picking up locals and tourists and depositing them wherever they need to be.

Our destination was the Ecopark Kantun-Chi Cenotes, a system of five large sinkholes that are formed when the limestone bedrock collapses and exposes the groundwater underneath.  The water is crystal clear and although fresh it has a slight alkaline taste to it due to the layers of limestone it has leached through. We chose the package that gave us the five Cenotes plus the underground river tour.

We started with the river tour and for fourty minutes we swam on our bellies through the narrow passages, our life jackets dragging along the bottom and our heads continually testing the helmets we had been given.  At other times we would stoop low through caves being careful not to touch the ancient stalagmites and stalactites that dominated the cavern. Our first Cenote was where the river pooled into a small quarry of water so clear it could just as well have been a pool of shimmering light we were wadding into.

Our first cenote. 

Not much of a fashion statement but those helmets were gold.

Once we had surfaced from the river our guide took us down a series of small pathways through the dense Riviera Maya jungle to find the remaining Cenotes.  To make our way to number three Cenote we sat on a small homemade wooden buggy and were pulled along narrow train tracks by an old donkey.  The bones of his skinny rump were protruding through his thin hide, his head was lowered and his lazy hoofs clopped along in a hollow rhythm as he pulled us all slowly forward. I felt sorry for the poor bugger, I wanted to get out and give him a push.

Just trying to put a bright spark in the donkeys dull day.

The standout Cenote was the last one, number five.  After the tour you were free to return to the other Cenotes and remain there as long as you wanted but you could only visit number five with a guide. It was an open air Cenote while the others were all subterranean. Needing the guide probably had something to do with the ledges.  Yes, there were ledges to jump off.

We all made the first one - even Christina, with a little bit of coaxing- which was only about four metres high.  There was lots of yelping and whoo whoing and splashing.  It was a lot of fun.

Look closely and you'll see Christina about to take the big leap.

The next jump was more challenging, it was closer to eight metres and required you to jump through some bushes before you sailed over the side of the cliff.  This one was just high enough to make the bottom of your feet tingle and your heart  jump a little in your chest. Callum, Charlie and me all yelled our way to the bottom of that one. It was a great way to spend New Year's Day.

The big leap.

Cenote number three, stunning.

Unfortunately our hope of ending our stay with one more lovely meal in our regular restaurant, Lol Ha, didn't quite eventuate.  It would seem that the restaurant gave their A, B and C teams New Years Day off because the service and the food went from noteworthy and delicious to Fawlty Towers and roadside truck stop. I don't normally complain but here I made an exception.  Food aside, it was good start to the year.  Tomorrow we're packing up and heading off to Cuba.

New Orleans, Louisianna

Craig Writes;

Sunday 28 December

We sat on the tarmac for what seemed like an eternity waiting for other passengers arriving on a connecting flight.  With the delay and the one hour time difference it was just after midnight by the time we landed in New Orleans.  After the arid freezing temperatures of the Rocky Mountains the atmosphere here seemed almost tropical.  It was foggy, humid and a threat of rain hung in the air.  Thankfully our demur Indian taxi driver drove like she was Daniel Riccardo after one too many Red Bulls.  Before we knew it we found ourselves pulling up at the Maison on St Charles.  We checked in and were all tucked up in bed by 1am.  We decided to sleep without an alarm and chance the 10am breakfast cutoff.

History lesson. It was the French who first claimed Louisiana in 1690.  The French Quarter was born in 1718 when they founded the city of New Orleans as a means of controlling the traffic on the strategically important Mississippi River.  The streets were all branded with the names of French Royalty, aristocrats and Catholic saints so Bourbon st is not named after a barrel of Kentucky's finest but after the ruling House of Bourbon. Disappointing to hear I know.

In one of the deals of the millennium the Americans bought the entire State of Louisiana off the French in 1803 for the equivalent in today's money of .43 cents per acre.  It was called The Louisiana Purchase and will go down in history, along with the purchase of the Island of Manhattan, as one of the greatest real estate deals in history.

We're only here for a couple of days so we have booked the standard guided city tour for tomorrow.  Today though we caught the tram down to the French Quarter to do some exploring of our own.  First stop, Bourbon Street of course.

It's apparently not the Bourbon street of old, the brothels, the burlesque shows, the striptease clubs and the seedy bars are still there but they are a lot less prominent. Although I don't think you have to scratch to far below the surface to find it, particularly if you decide to do your scratching after the witching hour.

You can feel it just simmering, waiting for the sun to set.

During daylight hours you can see it is still a melting pot of bums and bar flies, jazz buskers and tap dancers, cafes, pubs and bars, voodoo shops and art galleries.  It has a vibe about it, no doubt and that vibe changes the moment you turn off Bourbon st, the sleaze factor seems to fade like a fart in a breeze.

Who wouldn't want a huge ass?

We turned into St Anne's st and headed towards Cafe Du Monde. We were hungry for their famous beignets and coffee. The cafe is an institution and has been around forever. Christina knew of it but the first I had come to hear of it was in that great little movie of 2013, Chef. Unfortunately we weren't the only ones to have seen that movie.  The line was a hundred metres long, and that was just for the takeaways. 

Some expensive fried dough here.

Screw that, I offered a waitress a $20 bribe to bring us two serves of Beignets and a couple of coffees. She jumped at it, I should have started at $10. Total cost for six doughnuts and two coffees, $31. But hey, we were sitting in Jackson Park licking the icing sugar of our fingers while others were still shuffling on the spot to keep warm against the cold wind blowing off the Mississippi. Totally worth it.

Who would have thought a lump of fried dough could taste so damn good.

We took a short walk along the boardwalk before turning back into the French Markets where we found a corner cafe with an old time jazz quartet and a sidewalk of people to watch. We went totally local and ordered shrimp and oyster Po Boys, Gumbo and Muffaletta. Delicious.

We walked back along Royal st to a much different vibe than Bourbon st.  Art galleries, busking magicians and guitarists, antique shops, stately hotels and restaurants line both sides of the street.  There are sections that are cordoned off just for pedestrians and this is where you'll find the buskers and the magicians. 

These guys were incredible.

The day turned brisk as the wind picked up so we were glad to climb aboard the next tram and head back to Maison on Charles.

Monday 29 December

It appears that the avenue our apartment is on, Saint Charles, is one of the major avenues that the famous, New Orleans Mardi Gras travels down. You can plainly see the remnants of past Mardi Gras's on trees and the power lines that are strewn with countless strings of shiny beads and colourful baubles.

A Mardi Gras tree.

That was just one of the many illuminating facts that our tour guide, Jarrad, bought to our attention on our two hour ride through New Orleans.

We saw the point where the levee broke in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina smashed through with winds of 200klm/hr. She killed over 1800 people and caused over US108 billion in damage. When the levees broke it didn't come through as a trickle, it was a terrifying tsunami of destruction that none could have predicted.  Those poor souls that stayed to protect their homes were washed away like twigs.

The point where it came pouring in..

We saw the area where jazz was born and heard the story of how a fusion of European classical horns and pulsating African drums gave birth to the syncopated rhythms of early Ragtime.  The negroes would gather after church on Sundays and celebrate life the best way they knew how, by making music and dancing.  It didn't take long before ragtime led to blues and blues led to jazz and by the early 1900's jazz and the blues had become an indomitable part of the soul of New Orleans.

Probably the most interesting stop we had was at the St. Louis Cemetery.  Because the city is a couple of metres below sea level, people are not buried in the ground but in crypts. Now land is scarce and people just keep dying so they have a very interesting way off cramming maximum numbers in. The dead are semi-embalmed, just enough to get them through the burial, then are placed in a wooden coffin inside the crypt which acts like a hot house. One year and one day after the burial the remains are removed from the box, placed in a bag and then beaten to dust by a man with a big mallet. The remains are then put back into the crypt and using a ten foot pole they are pushed to the back and down a shaft at the rear and bingo, the crypt is ready for the next member of the family. Apparently they can accommodate up to five hundred guests in the one crypt.

New Orleans creepy crypts.

We had a drive through the Garden District and stopped to have a peek at author Anne Rices house before being dropped back in at The French Quarter.  We were very keen to see the Katrina exhibition but wouldn't you know it, they're closed on Mondays.  We decided on a walk through the flea market and then doubled back down Royal st listening to the busking jazz bands and the touting magicians before catching the tram back for lunch at The Voodoo BBQ. 

The Voodoo BBQ

Christina and I ate there last night and liked it that much we thought we better take the boys. Gumbo, jumbalia, slow cooked brisket and pulled pork, fried shrimp and oyster Po-Boys, Muffalettas and of course bags of sugar dusted, deep fried beignets, we have tried them all.

Just a small sample of the simple but tasty offerings of The Voodoo BBQ.

The Garden District is very close to our apartment so Christina and I put on our runners and decided to walk off lunch by going for a stroll and having a look at some of the beautiful houses.  We thought we'd try and find Sandra Bullocks house, which we did, and also happen to stumble across the house where Brad Pitt lived in that Benjamin Button movie.

Well it's time to pack again.  Tomorrow we head to sunny old Mexico via Houston, arribba.

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Craig Writes;

Monday 22 December

The plan was to leave Denver at 9am, get to Golden to pick up our snow gear at 10am, have lunch at Silverthorne at 12pm and arrive at Steamboat around 3pm. Well that didn't quite work out.  Posh, our aristocratically voiced English GPS, got us lost and cost us an hour before we got anywhere then a snow storm came in and literally pulled all the traffic going in our direction to a halt.

This was not a pleasant driving experience.

It took three hours to go the 70km from Golden to Silverthorne. Tired, tense and very hungry we pulled into the first place we could find, a Wendy's burger joint. We ordered four Glob burgers and a side of congealed fries and hit the road.

Finally, around 5.30pm, under the cover of darkness and a lightly falling blanket of snow we rolled into The Steamboat Grand.  It's a massive complex of apartments and hotel rooms that back right onto the ski fields. The fields were lit up for the hardcore nighttime skiers, the ones who just didn't know when to stop. The runs looked impressive, long, wide and a lot of them. We've got our ski gear, we've got our skis and boots and tomorrow we hit the slopes.

Tuesday 23 December

I always feel that a little bit of history makes for a more interesting read.

A trapper called John Crawford first came to Steamboat Springs back in 1874, he liked it that much that he settled in with the local Ute Indians and decided to stay.  It didn't take long before it was decided there wasn't enough room for both of them so the US Army came through in 1879 and just drove the Utes off to a reservation. 

Steamboat Springs got it's name when these 'first settlers' heard what they thought was a steamboat making it's way up the river.  The familiar chug chug sound they heard was in fact the local hot springs doing it's thing.  The first impression stuck though and the place was from that point on known as Steamboat Springs.

It didn't take long before 'civilised man' got around to doing what he does best, cutting things down and digging things up. They started to cut down the local forests of Evergreens and Aspens so that meant they needed a timber mill.  Soon after the timber mill there was a railroad and then after that, just for good measure they started digging the ground up for copper and other minerals and hey presto, now you have some mining. 

Then in 1913 a Norwegian called Carl Howlesson happened to be passing through and was so enthralled with the quality of the snow and the hum of this burgeoning little town he decided to stay.  He shared his knowledge and passion of skiing with the locals, eventually introducing the sport of ski jumping.  Soon there were skiing competitions, skiing clubs and the word began to spread. The rest as they say, is history.

We're staying in a one bedroom condo at the beautiful Steamboat Grand. We have the private room and the boys are sleeping in the massive living area on two large single day beds.  Our lounge windows overlook the pool area and a gentle slope of snow covered hillocks.

Best of all we are literally a one hundred metre walk to Gondola Square where all the shops, bars and ski equipment places are. The ski lifts are just another fifty metres on.

It's a chilly minus 8 degrees C today, we're well fed, well rugged up and ready to met our ski instructor Kayla and hit the slopes. 

Bring it on.

With the lessons of our Austrian instructor, Margoose, still fresh in our minds from earlier this year we bypassed the basics and went straight onto a chair lift up to a very wide very forgiving green run. We went through some brief basics, how to snow plough, i.e how to stop, how to turn, how to get up when you fall down - very useful that one - then it was up and down the half way point of Christies Peak to show Kayla we had some idea of what we were doing.  We finished by going to the top of Christies Peak for a nice easy long run home.

We followed the green run section but we'll have a crack at the more difficult blue runs over the next day or so. It was tremendous fun but we were all glad to be pulling the boots off after five hours.

Our first look at a blue slope.

Tomorrow we have a different instructor, Allie, and we'll be looking to go further afield again, maybe even take on Little Rodeo, a sealed section of small jumps, obstacles and a half pipe that could be fun.  Callum is very keen.

The views from the top of Christies were spectacular but that is still not the very top, there is another run that takes you several hundred metres further up again. We're hoping to get there tomorrow.

Wednesday 24 December

It's the end of our second day skiing and I feel like I have just ridden the Three Dams on two flat tyres. I think I speak for all us when I say I'm bone tired and exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time.

We had Allie with us today. We were back on Christies Peak reviewing some of the lessons from yesterday in preparation for our next step forward.

After lunch we caught the lift further up Mt Werner. We were at 9000 feet with a long and winding three mile run home. Even at this elevation the mountain still had more to give. There were other lifts that could take you further up to where the mountain disappeared into the clouds.  We could see skiers sliding down the slopes like tiny tumbling raisins.

Then whammy, the effects of too much altitude and not enough hydrating struck like an avalanche.  Christina did not feel well.  With the hardest run of the day ahead we decided to take the gondola back down and take a run through Little Rodeo and the half pipe.  We'll tackle the big run first thing tomorrow when we're fresh and well hydrated. For now it's home for some relaxing, a nice cuppa and then out to dinner at La Montana, the local  Mexican Restaurant.  Unfortunately Callum wasn't feeling great so it ended up just being mum, dad and the Charlie.  The food was great,  I ended up having the glazed barbecued Atlantic Salmon and Christina had the fish Tacos.  The standout though was probably the fried ice cream for desert. Not very Mexican but very delicious.

Truly the most amazing fried ice cream.

Thursday 25 December

YES!! Finally we have our first white Christmas. We started the morning with the traditional Xmas stockings for the boys before heading down to a tasty breakfast of fluffy omelettes and thin crispy strips of fatty bacon.  I do like the American bacon.

Nothing says Xmas like a stocking and a big eared hat.

It would have been enough to just wake up to the sight of the mountains, rooftops and trees covered in a fresh layer of Christmas snow but to be snowed on while we were making our way down the mountain was more than we could have asked for.  The falls were consistent through the day but they were light and playful.

We all picked up the pace a bit today, our paralleling had improved which meant we were turning better and were more in control.  It  also meant we could stop without using a tree, a snow bank or each other.  Allie was impressed enough with Callum to take him down his very first blue slope. He handled it exceptionally well.  I on the other hand was less impressive.  I zigged when I should have zagged and was off into the bush again, deciding to go through a snow bank as opposed to around it. While Callum is 'impressive' I apparently am 'interesting.'

But it wasn't just me, with the exception of Callum we all took a few tumbles today but it was the price we had to pay for progress.

Charlie having an unscheduled rest.

We started off from where we left yesterday, the almost top of Mount Werner. From here we cruised about half way down the mountain then took the gondola back up top for a quick lunch before cruising the gentle green slopes the three miles back down.  We said goodbye to our instructor Allie who has been fantastic and tomorrow we welcome back Kayla.

Christmas dinner was not what we had expected. Tonight it was Charlies turn to be the crook one.  We had to cancel the reservations that we had made two months in advance and settled for room service instead. But you look for the silver lining don't you.  We found ours sitting around the dinner table in our trackie pants eating ribs and pizza and laughing at Charlie, who had miraculously recovered and was pretending to be a piece of meat on a rotisserie.  You had to be there.  We opened a card game out of Charlies stocking called Pit and had a ball carrying on like pork chops.  It was a perfect Christmas evening.

Friday 26 December

What a day to finish on.  A continual shower of fresh powder fell from the skies for most of the morning, nothing too Arctic but just gentle and soft flourishes.  It was awesome. It was a day of memorable stacks - who knew snow could taste so good - death defying downhill runs and shooting the banks for some serious air.  Callum was again the standout almost wiping himself out before spinning in a 360 and sailing on like a pro.

We saw many things today, a family of three moose lying amongst the Evergreens on the other side of the valley, we saw guys skiing with one leg and a kid skiing with no legs, we saw conga lines of four year olds tearing down the mountain with loud giggles and rosy red cheeks.  I saw a guy skiing with a young kid wedged in his backpack.

It was an amazing day and considering we all started the day that tired we weren't sure we would make it past lunch we all finished with ease.  Towards the end Kayla convinced us we were ready for a gentle blue run and we all fell for it, but you know what, we did it.  We had lunch at Hazies, a lovely little restaurant towards the top of Mount Werner where once again Callum excelled by choosing the dish of the day, the lobster mac n cheese. I've never seen such large hunks of lobster meat thrown into one bowl before.  It was ridiculous. I for one had extreme food envy.

To finish what had been an exceptional day Callum, Charlie and me took the last run through Little Rodeo for one last crack at the jumps and another run down the half pipe. It was a fitting way to finish what has been an amazing few days.

The half pipe.

Both the instructors, Allie and Kayla, were terrific. Having them there to guide, correct and push us was invaluable. We celebrated our final run down the mountain with some apres-ski in the Sheraton lounge overlooking the ski fields drinking hot chocolate with Peppermint Schnapps before heading back for some feet up.

Heavenly peppermint schnapps. 

We took the shuttle into the small town of Steamboat around 6pm to have a wander before ending up at Aurum restaurant for our 7.30pm reservation.  We had plans to walk the whole five blocks and do some window shopping but it felt every bit the minus nine degrees that the big Wells Fargo sign on Main st was displaying.  We made it two blocks before saying stuff this, let's get to the restaurant. And wow what a meal that was, not that my memory was all that clear after the pre-dinner cocktails.

Tomorrow we pack our bags, take delivery of our new hire car and drive back to Denver for a 7.45pm flight to New Orleans.  This has been a fabulous way to kick start our holiday and although it can be cold bordering on freezing and tiring to the point of exhaustion, skiing is brilliant fun.  We'll definitely be back for more.

Saturday 27 December

The Jeep is packed and we're leaving just in time, the weekend crowds are pouring in. The road back is clear and the weather is fine. We'll cut our travel time in half from when we drove up a few days ago.  In fact there will be enough time to drop into the museum and the grave site of that legend of the Wild West, the famous scout, Indian hunter and showman, William F Cody or aka, Buffalo Bill.

Over 25,000 people came to pay their respects when he was laid to rest in 1917.  His grave lies high up on Lookout Mountain overlooking the Great Plains and the far off Rockies. After leaving his life as a scout and buffalo hunter for the army and later the railroads he became a showman and traveled the world for thirty five years with his pioneering Wild West Show. He entertained hundreds of thousands of people both abroad and through the United States with his authentic display of a slice of what the untamed west was really like. His original outfits and guns and his beloved Bowie knife are all on display.  

Buffalo Bills well used Bowie Knife.

One of the most impressive pieces to me though was Sitting Bulls head gear, his moccasins and his bow and arrows that he used at the Battle of Little Big Horn. He was to join Buffalo Bill in his later years as apart of his show using the fame and notoriety to try to help his peoples cause for a just claim to recognition of their rights as original landowners - sound familiar - and cultural independence.  It was an impressive visit.

Sitting Bulls headdress and bow and arrow from The Battle of Little Big Horn. 

Now onto Denver Airport and the next stop, New Orleans.

Denver, Colorado. The Mile High City.

Craig writes;

Denver, Colorado.

17 December 2014

Once I had exorcised the travel packing nazi in me I found myself surprisingly relaxed and ready to go. Thankfully our dear friend Ben T was kind enough to drag himself away from his daughter Chloe's graduation ceremony to take us out to the airport. An effort that was really appreciated.

The journey continues.

The initial flight to Hong Kong was a pleasant seven hours. We all managed a couple of hours sleep, pushed down a tray or two of 'food', caught a movie and now have a two hour stopover while waiting for the next fourteen hours to L.A.

Nineteen hours later we're in L.A with another five hour stopover before for the final two hour flight to Denver.

Aargh, thirty hours of flying and stopovers and crap food and crap movies and reruns of Game of Thrones and finally, here we sit in our spacious apartment in downtown Denver. We are literally over the road from the famous Coors Field baseball stadium, close enough to smell the hot dogs and French fries - but unfortunately it's the off season and that smell is coming from a deli next door.

As expected our body clocks are in complete disarray after going backwards sixteen hours but thankfully, courtesy of some A grade pharmaceuticals, we seem to have short circuited the worst of any jet lag.

Interesting fact.  At 5280 feet above sea level, Denver is the official capital of the Mile High Club. There's no need for a circus act in a shoe box here. You can join just by sitting in the purple seats at Coors Field or taking the thirteen steps up to the Capital Building.

It's as easy as that.

Friday 19 December

It's 7.30am and the temperature outside is a very cool negative six degrees. The sun is shining, the sky is baby blue and we're all feeling fine after a great nights sleep. We hung out around the apartment watching old You Tube clips - Flock of Seagulls anyone -  waiting for the temp to reach anything over zero before we went to explore Denvers magical mile long mall. It was great. It was urban and pedestrian friendly and full of shops you actually felt you could afford to walk into. We found lunch at the Cheesecake factory and were quickly reminded just how massive the servings are here. All thoughts of a cheesecake chaser were quickly dismissed, at least till we walked that mile.

We walked past the Federal Reserve Bank and decided to take the tour. It's one of twelve regional branches of the Federal Reserve that are scattered around the US.  Their purpose is to make sure that banks never run out of cash. We saw a $100,000 dollar note, a stack of $30,000,000 in $100 notes and walked over a vault holding over $74,000,000,000, that's 74 billion.

Obviously counterfeits.

We passed the Cheesecake Factory on the way back and in the hope of finding room later we decided to get a couple of slices for the road.

Saturday 20 December

The day started a little overcast but the clouds were quickly moved on to leave that soft blue sky of yesterday and the crisp chill of a December Denver day.  Today we were walking up to 1340 Pennsylvania Av to visit Molly Browns house. She was quite a remarkable woman, much more than just the most famous survivor of the Titanic. She was never called Molly while she was alive, her name was Margaret Brown, sometimes called Maggie, but never Molly, at least not till a posthumous book, The Unsinkable Molly Brown was written.  A doyen of the woman's suffragette movement and an outspoken advocate for the rights of the downtrodden and the suppressed she was a woman ahead of her time. She ran for the Senate three times in an era when women hadn't even gotten the vote.

Molly Browns house.

It was a beautiful house and although there were very few original pieces it had been loving restored in the style  of the times. On our way to Mollies house we made to sure to stop in at the Capital Building and stand on those famous mile high steps.

We have picked up our Jeep for the drive up to Steamboat on Monday and were delighted to hear that a huge snowstorm will be blowing the day we're driving up. Should be interesting.

Dinner tonight was coal-fired pizza from Marcos, only one block away on Larimar st.  We had the most amazing Limoncello chicken wings with spice rub before what was arguably the best pizza we've had outside of Florence although Callum still votes Bottoms Up in Richmond as his number one.

Sunday 21 December

Interesting fact. At 53sq miles, Denver's airport is the largest airport in the USA.

There wasn't much more for us to see in Denver so we hopped in the car and drove the twenty seven miles to Boulder. It's a quaint little town - founded in 1858 it has a population today of a little under 100,000 - but has a colourful western history and today is frequently mentioned among the most liveable towns in the US. I spied an interesting picture in a shop displaying historical photos of the area. Standing along the length of a long porch were Wyatt Earp, his brother James, Theodore Roosevelt, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Doc Holiday, Judge Roy Bean and some guy called Liver Eating Johnson, it was dated 1883.  That's quite a collection of personalities.

One of the reasons - in fact the main reason - we made the drive was that Christina wanted to do the tour of the Celestial Seasonings tea factory. This is where it all began back in 1968 when a bunch of hippies went up into the mountains to collect herbs, berries and bark to make some home brew.  Well things went well and it's probably fair to say there aren't too many households today that don't have a box of Celestial Seasonings somewhere in the back of their cupboard. It went so well in fact that today this ultra modern factory pumps out an astounding 10,000,000 tea bags a day.

The Celestial Seasonings factory.

I've had the very occasional Sleepytime herbal but I'm not a rabid fan so I wasn't that interested to see where it came from, but, I must say it was up there with the Puduka National Quilt Museum as one of those surprising visits that was well worth the effort.

Today is the winter solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere so by the time we had a bite to eat in the Pearl st. mall and drove back to Denver it was 5pm and pitch dark.   Tomorrow we say goodbye to Denver and head to the snow.  Yippee!!

Bangkok, With Extra Bang

Craig Writes;

13th January 2014

Our time here in Iceland has now come to an end and it is with a tear in our eye and a tugging at our heartstrings that we now say goodbye to our newest friends, Nora, Anastas and Ana. 

Aarrhh, fun times

We love them very much and cannot thank them enough for asking us into their lives and sharing their home with us.  We can't wait to repay the favour by having them come stay with us.  I know that distance will not weary out friendship or lessen our resolve to meet again. Till then, you crazy wonderful Bulgarians.  xx 

14th January 2014
We arrive late for a quick whistle stop tour of Copenhagen, Denmark. The home of that doyen of wonderful kiddies literature, Hans Christian Andersen, and of course our very own Princess Mary, formerly of Tasmanian and current resident of the Danish Royal Palace.

We are still embracing our inner polar bears. Even though we have moved a couple of hours closer to the equator it is still astoundingly cold. Cars that have been stationary in the street for too long get quickly covered in snow.

We are staying in the posh sounding Copenhagen Crown. It isn't. It's central, so close to a lot of cool things, but it's really just a Best Western with a fancy name. We were all crammed in the one room with the boys on a fold out bed built for one.  Thankfully it was only for one night.

15th January 2014

Our plane to Vienna was not till 8pm so we had the full day to explore the city.  From Vienna we would be catching a connecting flight to our final destination, Bangkok.

We started by catching the number 26 bus across town which dropped us off at the famous statue to one of Hans Christian Andersen's most beloved characters, The Little Mermaid. 

It lies perched on a giant boulder on the shore of the Langelinnie Inlet, waves lapping gently around it. The wind beating a path across the waters of the port was bitterly cold. 

Decapitated, twice, painted, and dressed up, yet there she still sits.

Sooooo cold

With collars up, beanies pulled down and scarfs tied tight, we would wind our way back along the Langelinnie promenade up towards Nyhavn, a 17th century waterfront, canal and entertainment district full of colourful narrow townhouses, cafes, restaurants and pubs. 
There are several beautiful old wooden ships from the bygone era that are still moored either side of the canal.  

Lovely area, very Amsterdamish

On our way to Nyhavn we stumble across the Royal Cast Collection.  An extraordinary museum brimming with copies of famous statues through the ages. There is a massive two story masterpiece of a Danish King on horseback and a copy of the Rosetta Stone. 

Hello sailor

Very imposing

Further down we pass the Amalienborg Royal Palace, the winter home for the Danish Royals.

After a coffee and a couple of Danish pastries we headed into the older part of the city where a lot of the shopping district is located.

You had to have a Danish or two, it would be un-Australian not to.

We spent time in a monster Lego shop and then decide to kill an hour in the Guinness World Records museum. This was a museum we had no problem getting the boys into. Lots of interactive things to punch, beat and play with. 

The Winter Retreat for the Danish Royals

Next they'll be cloning people using Lego, incredible stuff

Wadlow is a slightly ironic name for the tallest man in the universe

Despite losing our map of the city we made it back to the hotel and called a cab for the airport. After three weeks reveling in the cold winter of the Northern Hemisphere, we're heading back below the equator where the thermals and the gloves will make way for the shorts and the sunscreen. I'm a little divided about how I feel about that.  It is fair to say I have been converted from a coldaphobe to a coldafan. Summer will always be my favourite season but the Northern Winters now have a special place in my heart.

16th January 

Hello Bangkok. 

The smell and the humidity here can hit you like a brick. It is a unique assault on your senses that's like a slap across the face with a dead mullet. It announces with a trumpeting fanfare that you have arrived somewhere very 'special', very different. Love it or hate it, that smell will linger in your sensory memory bank forever. It defines this city like the smell of pastries and baguettes can define Paris or a freshly popped beer and a serve of salty vinegary fish and chips by the beach might define Perth.

The street garbage doesn't help

These vents are every ten metres and what they're venting isn't pretty

The smell here is both offensive and alluring all at the same time. When mixed with the noxious exhaust fumes of a thousand tuk tuks, motor bikes and taxis it can become just plain nauseating.  It is a complex concoction of sweetly rotting garbage, exhaust fumes, the burning hotplates of road side barbecues, a hundred different spices and the promise of rain that doesn't come.  

We are staying at the same hotel that we did back in February, The Bandara Suites.  They're spacious, well located and just enough off the main drag to be quiet. 

Looking out from the gym over the spa to the pool...nice

Sunday is the day to go exploring because come Monday...

...it's time for pedestrian skittles.  Same street same time.

This is another concern in busy traffic

We had reservations about keeping our booking when we heard of the news about the Anti Government protests.  The protesters seemed to be gathering momentum and out hotel was right in amongst it. The protests were peaceful at this stage but the rhetoric was ramping up and various governments around the world were starting to issue mild travel warnings.  It was really too late for us to change our bookings without losing hundreds of dollars in deposits so we sucked it up and off we went.

There's obviously big problems here.  Lets hope it remains a peaceful revolt

20th January

Well I'm still writing my blog so none of us have got caught up in anything nasty.  Some idiot did throw a bomb into a crowd of protesters yesterday injuring 11 people.  Thankfully no one was killed. There have also been some drive by shootings into the crowds. To be in any danger you would really need to be in amongst the thick of things and we are just loitering on the periphery.

Your much less likely to get shot or blown up this side of the bridge

On the bright side, the protesters have blocked off several main streets and turned them into street markets.  The same street we walked in February which was choked to a crawl with cars and bikes, is currently a bustling market area selling everything from corn on the cob and deep fried prawn balls to fake Rolexs and Shut Down Bangkok T-shirts.

I much prefer the bustle of people than the bustle of traffic

The message was loud and clear

This is one of the reasons you come to Asia

The street food is amazing

So cheap and soooo tasty

Just ask this fella

We really haven't done a great deal these last few days.  Bangkok was all about defrosting and readjusting our body clocks, oh, and doing our best to support the local economy by having daily massages. One hour for $8, an hour and a half for $15, thank you very much. We have decided to go into super spoiler mode today as it is our second last day.  Two and a half hours of body scrub and hot oil massage for $135, for two of us. I don't have the words to describe how amazing it was.

Best place in Bangkok for a massage, thoroughly professional and still very cheap

21 January 2014

Today is day 370, officially the last day of our around the world adventure.  We are waiting at Bangkok International for the midnight flight home and eating one last serving of freshly sliced mango with sticky rice and coconut cream.  No more hotels, motels, hobbit holes, apartments, castles or Air BNB homes. The next stop is our place. While travelling is definitely still on the menu it will be much shorter and sharper from here on in. Sigh.

We are very excited about the prospect of hosting some of the amazing people we have met and who have taken such good care of us.  So, Kate, Alice and Sally, Nora and Anastas and Ana, get your act together and get your butts over to sunny old Perth Western Australia so we can show you some good old West Coast hospitality.