We've had a great day today,Anna's auntie & uncle took us to Dover where we walked around a huge castle and had a stroll along the beach. On the way we stopped by Womenswold and easily found Anna's Dad's old house and school. It was really great to see it. Yesterday we also went to a bizarre little musum which was in someones back shed, was all about Morgan cars. Well that is it for now!

Well not really, we are heading to Guernsey Island, but we are leaving the mainland and will only be back for a night at the end of our trip. Yesterday we went to Bath for the day. We just about didn't make it after heading passed The Salisbury Cathedral (which is very impressive!) we finally found the bus station as the bus was supposed to leave. The ticket man wasn't too helpful but the bus driver was & he waited for us. So arriving in Bath on a wet gloomy day and the city is amazing with all the buildings made from Bath stone making it look like a city of castles. We took a tour & went through the Roman Pump rooms museum which was interesting and by time we got back on the skyline city tour bus the sun was out. The bus ride back to Salisbury was lovely with the sun going down and then it was back to the Voller's place. It has been great staying with the Vollers, they've shown us around, looked after us, and been our own personal taxi service - thanks so much! After an early trip to the airport this morning we said goodbye to them and are heading to Guernsey.

We arrived in Guernsey & it was great to catch up with Jordan after five years. We had 3 days of lovely sunshine which made the water sparkle and the flowers bloom. Jordan showed us all around the island, which included a visit to the smallest chapel in the world which was beautifully made out of pieces of china plates. The first day included a drive around the entire island, and an amazing meal of pork ribs. The second day was a trip to Herm Island, population 50, and a walk around the entire island. We saw lots of birds (but no puffins), rocks, a few cows and people walking giant goats. The day finished up with a fanastic Jordan Barber bbq special. A perfect end to a perfect day. Today we took the ferry to France and are sleeping beside the motorway with lorrys on either side of us. Goodnight.

Foix is the town we stayed in at the foot of the Pyrenees. It was beautiful, nestled between mountains on either side. Lucky for us "camping" is the same in French so it's easy to find campgrounds. We chose this town because of the chateau des Foix, which stands smack in the middle of town on the top of it's own little mountain. The next morning we drove around & round before we found the entrance!

We got in to France and decided to head straight for the city of Nimes as it looked like it had some interesting places to see. It was founded by Caesar Augustus so as you can imagine it was jam packed full of history. We haved based ourselves at a camp ground for a couple of days so spent Saturday looking around the old part of town.
These are the things we did.
1. (Anna) had a coffee in the catherdral square, looking like the typical French person, after which we had a quick look at the cathedral

2. We went to the les Halles market which had all kinds of stores. Meat, cheese, veges, flowers, sea food, olives, bread & pasteries. Anna greatly admired the variety of unnameable sea creatures available for eating
3. We stopped in at a number of museums which all seemed to be free today
4. We went to the Roman gladiator arena. It was in the top 20 of the 400 arenas with Rome's Colosseum being the biggest, but these days the Nimes Arena is the best preserved, so it was a real treat to walk around. As well as all the history, the arena is now one of the few places authorised for bull fighting outside of Spain

5. The next thing was the Roman temple built by Caesar Augustus, which was remarkably well preserved and we had lunch right outside, sitting beside some youths with extraordinary mohawkes

6. We went to the park and discovered a huge festival/fair with street performers, rides etc. After a while we escaped to the shade of some trees for a rest

7. On our way to find crepes, we stumbled upon an ear splitting parade of drummers, giant puppet people & paper mache masks. It was impressive to say the least

8. We negotiated the bus system to get back to the van
9. We had a very French dinner of French bread and cheese

The end of a great day. Now it is Dimanche (Sunday) and we've had a relaxing day in the van on our first real wet day. Tomorrow we will head to the French Riviera.

We have well and truely settled into Versailles now, am staying right in the heart of the city, 20min to Paris and maybe a 5 min bike ride into Versailles. We came here because Sara recommended it but really had no idea what to look for! So on the first day we completely missed the chateau and focused instead on having a delicious french lunch. Lucky for us, this time our waiter spoke a little english and combined with sign language we were able to order knowlegably from the menu. The second day, yesterday, we had a good look around. Took the bikes down for the first time and went for a mammoth ride from 10.30 till nearly 4. Versailles is where the french kings (Louis etc...) had their court. It is huge, totally grand and spectactular. We stayed in the gardens because of our bikes, but they were so vast that there was plently to look at. Beautiful anvenues of trees and hedges, water features etc... We took a simple pique-nique and sat by the banks of the grand cannel. Today we are heading back for a look into Marie Antoinettes Estate which is in the chateau grounds. She built herself another palace to escape the strict rules of the french court and get up to all the frivellous things history tells us about. I (anna) am really excited to be here, the actual place mentioned in so many books and movies. Just before we left home i started reading Scaramuche which is all about the french revolution. Thanks Sara.

The rain of Sunday had passed and we boarded the train for Paris. We couldn't find a ticket booth anywhere so just jumped on (much to Anna's horror) and bought the tickets at the next station with help from some very friendly French people. Most people here are happy to accommodate our lack of French. We got off the train 20mins later at the Eiffel tower and took many photos before heading off to the Arc de Triumph to take photos of that as well, in fact, the day consisted of walking to one great monument/building after another, each so grand that many photos were required. Anna even took photos of bakery windows. We did a walking tour of Paris going to Notre Dame, we went up Centre Pompidou to look at the amazing view, and wandered around The Lourve castle buildings before heading back to the camp ground. This morning we were sad to leave the camp ground we had grown to love so much, it was a bit of a find, being right in the middle of Versailles, and far better than any of the other campgrounds we had been to. All the staff spoke English a little and our main contact, Emmanuelle, had just been to New Zealand so took extra special care of us. For anyone else travelling in the area, we highly recommend "Huttopia". It took us a long time to get through the urban area of Paris, and we headed east towards Luxembourg. We spent the day on back roads which were as straight as pins (thanks to the Romans we assume), driving through rolling lush agricultural areas and stopping in sleepy little villages. Once again we are at a rest area for the night, having had tinned lentils for dinner!!!

We left Brugge the next morning, and travelled south along the coast. It is a hugely populated coastline with numerous cities with multi storey hotels and appartments right next to the beaches. We drove in, out and around towns large and small which took a long time to cover a small distance. We found a couple of great spots to relax in the van, one in particlular where we spent a couple of hours at the end of the day, with an amazing view out over the ocean. We saw a crowd gathering at "Cap Gris-Nez" so followed them expecting something remarkable and found it was just a few lookouts over the ocean - rather dull for kiwis! We waited around till 8pm for the "dinner hour" and found a lovely restaurant in a quaint sea side village. We had thought we were doing quite well with French - until we looked at their menu. The phrase book helped a little and we managed to avoid the shell fish we saw our neighbours eating, and Anna's desert came out on fire (literally) and she had to wait for it to go out before eating it. Today we have spent in a similar fashion, driving along the coast, stopping in at some war monuments which are scattered along this area, especially around Dunkirk. The Germans left a lot of concrete behind! Today we found out what happens when you are in a supermarket when it closes for lunch. Especially when you don't understand (and so ignore) any closing announcements, oops! Tomorrow we are going to Monet's Garden.

We headed out to the coast coming to Honfleur, a scenic and tourist town with a lovely square "anchorage". While there seemed to be plenty of history, almost every "history" board we saw, basically said the same thing - that at one point the anchorage was made bigger & more protected. That was it! The streets were particularly stunning with houses lined up side by side along narrow streets. Monet features Honfleur streets in some of his paintings. Around the harbour were dozens of coffee shops and restaurants, with their outdoor tables adding to the atmosphere. Looking across the little (!) harbour were stunning reflections whether day or the lights at night. The brick work on the houses was interesting because each century used a different brick and houses that were patched up over the centuries became a mish mash of materials, and made the buildings look very quaint and textile. We stayed at more of a car park than a camp ground, and there were many campervans - probably slightly better equipped than we were - because the "car park" didnt have any toilets. That didn't bother us so much as there were public toilets near by. Except that at some point in the early evening those ones were locked up. We were reduced to driving off to find McDonald's for a late night snack and email download - luckily we got there 5 mins before they closed!

Today we headed south through Villerville and Deauville, finally the leaving the coast for quicker roads. Tomorrow we will complete our loop of Europe when we cross the road we took at the start near Le Mont St Michel. We are looking forward to some quiet days in Guernsey Island before heading to Ireland.

So before we leave for Ireland we have to say something else about our Guernsey hosts, Jordan and Hannah. They were amazing, sorting things out for us, loaning the van, giving up work, convincing their friends to take us places, showing us around, lending us everything we needed for Europe, arranging ferries (& then rearranging!), amazing bbq's, giving us something amazing to do every single day we were there, and providing perfect sunshine days. Thanks is not enough. So after one more bbq Monday night we got up early Tuesday morning on yet another perfect blue sky island day and flew to Ireland with half a day stop off at Gatwick airport.

We picked up our rental car and quicckly found our B&B which is very nice. Total luxury compared to our lovely but little van. We are right now sitting down to our huge Irish breakfast, while chatting with our friendly hosts about where we should drive today. Yesterday was "Anna's" day and we spent the day looking around historic family locations. We headed north through Cork to Blarney castle, where we walked around the gardens and kissed the Blarney Stone. For those of you who don't know the stone is built into the top of the castle wall, many stories high. You have to lean out in order to reach it..

We also got to crawl through some under ground caves that doubled as dungeons, kennels, water storage and escape routes. Mallow was our next stop to go grave hunting however all graves beyond about 1890 were washed away & impossible to read. But the hunt was fun anyway.

Then it was down to the coast at Clonakilty when Anna's granny spent some time growing up. The people there paint their buildings different colours which makes the town look very beautiful.

We ended the day with a drive around the coast and found a surf beach, had a wonderful roast dinner at a local pub which was especially tasty because we were late and they reopened the kitchen just for us.

On the way home we had a long stop over in Brunei, from 8 in the morning to 10 at night.

We took the opportunity to take a tour of Brunei, when we arrived in the airport, there was a free one hour tour which we were advised to take before deciding on a longer tour. We did that and had a good trip around the city, then we headed back into the airport to book our next tour. Only to be told we were only allowed out of the airport once! So with twelve hours still to wait, we were a little dissapointed! Thankfully, the airport seems to be run by a group of very young, eager, twenty-something year olds, who spoke nicely to the customs people and we found ourselves back outside again!

The tours were definitely worth while with some amazing sights and a little propoganda. The Sultan is not only very wealthy but also very generous to his native Bruneians. Gold is everywhere, petrol cheap as chips (50c/L), healthcare is only $1 - regardless of what needs to be done. The Sultan has 7,000 cars and employs people to start them every day. Back in 1972 Queen Elizabeth visted, so the Sultan built her a palace and gifted it to her. So she used it for the visit and to this day there are staff to keep the palace clean & tidy, although it has never been used since. We heard many such stories like this - it was truly a facinating place to visit.

That was the end of our trip. The whole trip was amazing, from one exciting place to the next. We look forward to talking about for the next 20 years of our lives!