Packing up in Hong Kong

Today our holiday comes to an end. We are packing up after a magnificent Dim Sum breakfast and a quick look at the Jade Market. While we have had a great time, I will be and I think Silver will be pleased to see Ozstrayleya.
 These are just a couple of images of a beautiful city which has changed a great deal in 20 years [the last time I was here]. The only downside was the biting things which attacked me [and only me] on the beach at Discovery Bay which seems to be the Vaucluse, Toorak or Beaumont of Hong Kong Island. The other downer was a young man who was sticking a needle in his arm and staggering around.

See you all soon.

Cheers

Ahola and farewell Spain

Denise and Amir from New York at Hotel de la Abalos

Today we left Barcelona and are currently in Heathrow waiting for out flight to Hong Kong in the morning. We spent Sunday in Barcelona after a long drive from Abalos on Saturday. It was hectic drive; we left about 12:30pm rather than the planned 11am as Abalos had a wine festival with 16 family Bodegas [wineries] open to the public! Behind these doors were all sorts of treasures.

We also spent time with Denise and Armir fro New York. Amir was on a search for the best bottle of Tempranillo... he was still looking when they has to go home! I have promised him some Two Dragons to prove there is such a thing.

inside this door....

..vats which must have
been built inside the house!
 The Vat had a label with
Cuba and a date [unreadable]

...and then in the room next door another!

Getting into the swing of things.

The trip to Barcelona was relatively uneventful; left hand drive wasn't so hard after all. We spent Sunday travelling around on a tourist bus; getting off at different places to see different things.  Will load photos as soon as I can. Off to bed now. Last night of our 'Tahini Moon'!

Driving!!

Weell it has been very exciting, turning you brain around and doing things backwards on very narrow roads.

We picked up the car from Barcellona Airport and initially the GPS wouldn't work in the car park. Just go outside the bloke said it work out there! 'Out there was a network of freeways where the speed was 80 to 100km per hour!

Too scared to go any further without the GPS we stopped and tried to get it going. Did the usual, push reset, pushed again,..and again. Still nothing. No phones working. Travel tip 378 - don't use you Australian phone by a prepaid in country of destination but don't do 'Orange'. Their coverage and service is abit like Telstras!

So Silver decide we could use the downloaded directions from Google to get us the 500km to the Hotel......hhhhmmmm.

Well she was mostly right but everything is new and the names didn't line up too well. It was terrifying!

Next thing 'Roger' the GPS speaks to us! So I pulled off the road..legally I don't care and we set Roger up to give us directions. I was very relieved as reversing your brain from 40 years of conditioning when tired is very difficult.

Needless to say we got to the hotel with only one other major incident of nearly telling Silver to drive in front of a truck as oncoming traffic is in the left lane when turning left as you are crossing the stream of traffic. That adrenalin rush lasted us to our destination.

We have discovered roger isn't very good at small villages so he will take us to the centre or plaza and thats it. Then it is up to us! People are very good in spite of the fact very few have any English.

Thats it for now. There are more driving stories particularly the drive around the roundabout the wrong way, getting too close to right side of the narrow roads etc

Abalos, La Rioja, Spain.

We are now using the Hotel villa de Abolos as our base for seeing wineries [Bodega] and vineyards. [?].www.hotelvilladeabalos.com.

As you can see our Spanish isn't very extensive but we manged to have a long conversation yesterday with Rodrigo Fernandez Gomez on his wines, wine making and vineyards. He also took us through the caves which make up the winery.

It is on 3 levels, street for fruit entry, sales and formal stuff; 'basement' c

rushing, barrel storage, then there was further steps down to concrete/limestone vats and who knows what. At one stage the entire staff was trying to interpret for us but some how with actions, common words and listening with all my faculties the message gets across!

It is a beautiful country! So much more like our home. It is arid and desert like in places and rich and lush in other places. It was also nice to leave behind the greeness of Enland. It was getting too much; it is almost unnatural to my Aussie eyes.

photos update!

here a couple of snaps from London, Avebury and Greenham!

Leaving England

The much discussed and thought about trip to the land of Tempranillo is about to begin

Working backwards from my last entry Silver and I have spent a day in London with Sue Ridgways brother, visiting the Tower of London, walking across London Bridge, travelling on the Thames and visiting Davids ‘Mine’. “We are not far from ‘Mine’ now” he would say as we walked along the cobbled paths beside the river towards his flat.

It was good to catch up in another space as we last saw him in Oz for Sue's funeral.

The 2 days before that we spent in and around Greenham Common. This is where Silver spent nearly 6 years of her life, protesting about the installation of USA Nuclear Missiles on an English Common. The activity of essentially women is acknowledged at the site and commemorated in a number of ways; through a memorial peace garden [see photo of spiral fountain] which particularly acknowledges a woman who was killed during one of the actions, maps of the common which includes a timeline of events and describes the women’s actions including the 30,000 women who circled the base holding hands and singing! Bridget our friend who also was at Greenham and Silver had a camp fire with roasted potatoes and sleepover for old times sake on Saturday night. Caro, Bridget's partner and I had a quite night in Reading Travelodge in front of the TV. It was great to spend time with both of them. They had been doing the family bit too but theirs was the living variety!

Meanwhile Silver and I had been visiting family in the graveyards of Basingstoke, Belstone and Appledore. The Smiths in Basingstoke may not be my great, great, great forebears so we have to follow them up through the birth and death certificate processes. Belstone is worth a google and doing a street level walk. It is beautiful and quirky. We found some of Silvers Reddaways there and found East Lake Farm where they lived. Appledore is where Betsy Beare, my paternal great, great grandmother came from. It is a small fishing village where Betsy's father came across from the other side of the estuary and began the market and several other commercial enterprises. None of them went to sea. There is so much to see when you wander through a town like Appledore thinking about what it might have been like a century and a half ago.

Prior to these few days we spent time in Galloway with Erica another of Silver's Greenham friends. She made us very welcome and she is great cook!

I have now done my full share of barrows [ancient burial grounds], stone circles, castles and ruins. The overwhelming greenness and short vistas, except when on the moors, is now fully updated and imprinted on my mind. Doing those jigsaws of thatched houses will be so much easier now!

Resting up in Galloway near Dumfries with Silvers friend Erica. She is great and its nice to be in the one place for a day or 2 and enjoy great cooking, conversation and the country side. I check with the breakfast politics website to see if anything has changed. Some of the footage of the Independents is interesting when they talk about the 2 party system failing and we need to have more smaller parties who form coalitions and consensus arrangements.

Photo 1 Road to Ericas; #2 Style at Hadrian's Wall [Silver and I got over and settled in for a wee and next thing some hikers popped up and started walking towards us...oppps! but the question is will we see these people again!]; #3 Hadrian Wall in paddock; # Cottage at Craig Fechen in Wales; # 4 public art in Chester. Not sure what is was about but painted Rhinos sponsored by different groups. Very colourful