howie’s halfpipe

We spent the last few days on the Isle of Eigg. It’s a little Island off the west coast of Scotland below Skye. We went there casue thats where my dad and his family went for holidays when he was a little boy.

We got to go on a big ferry, it was a pretty nice place, but no internet, tv or even phone reception. Glad we only spent 2 nights there.

here are some pics.

the wee house we stayed in.

this is the isle of Rhum, looking across from our house on eigg.

I tell you what they love hot chips in scortland. I think i have had hot chips at least once a day since arriving. mmm chips.

Now it’s time to go catch a plane to dubai and hopefuly find some cheapo souvenirs that we can palm off to people when we get home and give the impression that we looked long and hard for the perfect gift for them.

time for some chips.

Today we went to Loch Ness, unfortunately the nessie was nowhere to be seen.

Then it was off to Fort William where we are sleeping. Oh and me Dad and Wife went to have a look at Ben Nevis aswell, the highest mountain in the UK. we took a gondala ride up some mountain.

Loch Ness

how patriotic of me.

Ben Nevis and surrounds

Ben Nevis from our gondala.

bonny

The water in this stream was bloody freezing. Can’t imagine why.

baaaaa

Today was train day.

It was off to Avimore for the great strathspey steam railway, whcih i have been looking forward to for months. I love steam trains. When we arrived there was big signs saying ’steam train operating today’ then when it turned up it was a diesel loco…So to help lift my spirits of no steam we travelled first class which meant for only $6.50 more we would get a free cup of tea and a bit of shortbread.

Actually it was a lot of fun, i love trains even if they are diesel. And the tea and short bread was lovely.

After the non steam, steam railway we headed to an un-pronounceable mountain range for another train adventure.  This time it was for a funicular which is also known as an inclinator.

It was super cool, my mum almost left a puddle in the carige by the time we got to the top but i loved it.

a good day all round.

 The diesel steam train

me hanging out the window a bit to get a glimpse of the loco.

The funicular

Halfway up the mountain passing the other train.

near the top

the top

coming back down.

I took a lot of photos today, you can invite me over for a slide night if you want to see them all.

On Monday afternoon i had the worst experience in my whole life. At the time i thought it was only the second worst.

My Uncle offered me a coke and then returned with a glass of what i thought was coke. I took a sip and quikly realised this was not coke. I thought it was probably diet coke. I drank it very slowly indeed, dreading each sip.

Yesterday i went for a wander around town to pick up some real coke for myself. I bought a 6 pack of cans and returnede to the house to stock the fridge. Then i nearly fainted and had a heart attack, stroke, aneurysm and severe case of nausea. IT WAS BLOODY DIET PEPSI!!!!!!

How can someone offer you a coke and then proceed to fill a glass with that watery dishcarge.

I’m now booking myself into an expensive detox centre in the hollywood hills to get that crap out of my system.

While I’m on the whinging trail cans of cke are only 330ml and buddies 500mls.

McFlurreys only come in 2 flavours and neither are oreo. The spoon only just fits through the hole in the top of the lid too. And the just mix it up with the spoon, no machine!

Once i’ve been discharged from the detox centre i’m off to a farming equiptment specialist to find a machine that will remove the springe from my back that have embeded themselves from several nights sleeping on sofa beds. Stupiud damn sofa beds, they arnt beds they are paper thin matresses stretched across a frame of barbed wire.

I would complain about the weather too but its been warm and sunny ever day since we have been here. Bloody weather, this isnt real Scotlant.

On a more serious note it’s been good haning with the fmaily, immediate and extended.

Yesterday we drove from Aberdeen to Elgin, where one of my dad’s brothers lives.

There is a RAF base just out of Elgin, we went for a wander along the beach with jets flying above. Very cool.

And just in case you are scared of the lack of space on a beach there is this warning sign.

today more of the family are arriving, and tomorrow we are off to sprinkle my grandma around some harbour .

Today we began with a little trip to a beach just north of Aberdeen where my hippy parents used to frolic in the sand dunes before i was born.

Then we dropped mother off at the hotel and the 3 of us headed somewhere or other. We got some lunch and stopped at a little railway to pick up some railway merchandise. Then it was off to a castle in the mist. It was a pretty cool castle, it was on a cliff and only accessible by a windy steep path.

Beach

Captain Wife

Wife doing some interpretative dance on edge of the north sea

Castle

Castle in the mist (not it’s official name)

wife on a bridge

another amazing photo by Robert Howie

boys toilet at the castle

more castle.

Happy Mothers Day all of my mothers out there. known and unknown.

today we left Perth in a nice fog and headed towards Aberdeen, with a quick detour back to the hotel.

We stopped at Scone Palace, which was a pretty cool place. Old things arnt really my cup of tea. In my opinion once you have seen one antique table you have seen them all.

So i wasnt all that interested in the insides of the palace, but the outsides kept me entertained for quite a while, oh and the gift shop!

Scone Palace 

The Peacock that took the nappy san challenge.

The Palace and it’s guard.

you havent been to Scotland if you havent seen a highland cow, pronounced highland cooo.

Can you help wifie escape the maze?????

We have been without internet for 2 whole days now. In the last 2 days i have also felt quite nausious…..I have internet tonight and i feel fine.

We went to York and visited the NRM, for those of you who arent down with the NRM it’s the National Railway Museum.

I love trains.

NRM 

The NRM recentlly aquired the flying Scotsman, my favourite steam train in the whole world. Here it is below.

After York we headed to the lakes district to stay with some of my family. It was fun, my cousins sure do have a lot of energy, we played the worlds longest game of rounders in the back field and chatted away.

Today we went and had a look at some lakes.

Lakes

This afternoon we crossed the border and are staying in Perth.

Sign of the day (yesterday)

DLR

This morning wife and I made a dash across London to go on the DLR (Docklands Light Railway). It’s cool, super frequent trains to a range of places, and best of all the trains are fully automated. No driver!

Then it was back to the Hotel to meet the olds. We drove to Oxford where we spent some time sorting out hire cars, for some reason we ended up with 2 cars instead of one. But we are hopefuly changing back to just one in the next couple of days.

Here is the one that my parents got for me and jenny.

It has a sun roof, in case you thought we must have got out my pocket knife and made a hole in th roof for a good photo op.

Village

Now we are in some village, it’s small and english like. I had steak for dinner, cows taste different in England, must be the mad cow disease.

Signs of the day

Today wife and I caught about 5 thousand buses and 3,238 trains.

I can’t remember where we went exactly, just the main attractions.

I know thumbnails can be anoying but i figure you may not want to actually look at my photos so now you get a choice.

Big Ben

London Eye

I really enjoyed the eye, I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks.

Madam Tussauds

Madan Tussauds was no way near as good as i expected. It was packed full of rude french people whou would physically push you out of the way so they could push in or get in front for some reason. I was getting pushed around a lot and sometimes with a lot of force.

you may have noticed that Mr Speiilberg and myself don’t look very impressed, well i can tell you why. I just showed him an episode of ‘wisdom with tabitha’

London Bridge - complete with their ‘package deal’ photo opportunity.

We also went to St Pauls, and i drank a bottle of coke that was from Germany.

We went for a walk with my parentals into hyde park. we didnt get very far casue everyone was so exhausted.

Our hotel is just down the road from a big strip of cafes and food joints. A lovely part of town to have dinner. But why do that when you can have a real dinner.

I’m eating a frozen lasagne and drinking a bottle of coke. there was only 2 problems, the first being our micriwave doesnt work, the second there is no utensils.

being the handyman that i am i fixed both problems. I took my frozen lasagne into my parents room and used their microwave. The cooked plastic container was too hot to carry so i wrapped it in an old newspaper. Now i’m in our room eating lasagne with a tea spoon.

them my friends it is sleep time, i miss sleeping.

I am in London, Notting hill to be exact.

24 hours of sitting on a plane, 4 airports, 3 trains and now all i want to do is sleep but its only 3pm in the afternoon.

that is all.

I packed my bag tonight for our UK trip. I know i broke my own ‘day of departure packing’ policy. but for some reason i did.

Anyway I have packed socks, undies, boxers, shirts, shorts, pants, hats, drink bottle, shoes, thongs, cables, towel and other bits and pieces and my suitcase is only just over half full.

I’m pretty much the best.

one more sleep then i get to go on a plane, i love planes.

I’ve now sent out my resource kit that i made at work. It’s gone, posted, and emailed. So now thats done i’m ready to escape for 3 weeks to the kingdom that is united.

don’t really have a heap to do now so maybe it’s home time…..

there is no internet at work casue telstra are dumb, and now we have gone over our limit at home so its super slow thanks to dumb optus.  looking forward to the 5 mins of free internet at sydney airport on Saturday. Unmetered, internet kiosk bliss.

In other news Paul Mcdermott still hasn’t called me asking me to be a guest on GNW, must be waiting for the season finale.

I joined the TEAR footy tipping comp today.

This could be the thing that makes or breaks my career with TEAR, i think it’s going to be fierce comp.

If i do crap my career is safe, if i kick but its off to centrelink

Today was day 2 of meetings in melbourne. I awoke to the rudeness of my alarm at 7:23am and had a shower and a vegemite sandwich (not at the same time). Then began my walk to Richmond train station so i could grab a train out to blackburn. I really enjoy exploring transport in other cities.

I got to the station as the train was pulling in so i had to make a dash for the platform, I just made it!

Meeting today was good. Although i was pretty stuffed so didnt say much compared with yesterday.

at 4pm 6 of us filed into a maxi taxi to head to melb airport.

we parted ways at the airport and 3 of us boarded straight onto out flight back to sydney. The plane landed at 7:20pm and at 8:25pm i was in hornsby ordering a pizza. lovely.

It was good to go down and meet my colleagues and see the national office. Met some lovely people and had some good conversations, was also tops to hang out with david and sleep in his pad and talking over a beer in a richmond pub.

Well what a long day it has been.

My 7am flight to melbourne didn’t leave until 7:30am and then due to crap weather we had to circle melbourne 3 or 4 times so it ended up being almost a 2 hour flight.

got to melb and met the other buddies then we got us a taxi out to the TEAR office. $76 cab fare.

then all of today was in a meeting, twas pretty good and good to meet other tear peoples. Tomorrow is another day of meetings.

Tonight David and I went to a pub in richmond for dinner. I had a tops chicken parma.  and when we got back to his sisters apartment I did the biggest poo i have ever done in my life…Melbourne’s pipes will be working that baby through for a while.

it’s not even 5am and i’ve already had my shower.

friggin melbourne meeting, friggen early flight, friggen frigg frig