…I log into the Facebook event page. Top of the wall I see a message from the organiser: don’t come to the party! “The police have come and thrown everyone out of the forest. I have been hit with a big fine. I spent last night in jail. Sorry everyone, party’s off…” I rock up…
…the town has become a bit of a pilgrimage for pot heads in the last ten years, because the hill country is full of huge marijuana crops… I ride into Chefchaouen with a sporty gent in his elegant ’70s Merc’ coupe. The steady climb up the mountain roads makes me alternately sleepy and dizzy, but…
..I head out to the edge of town, and walk up a scrub covered hillside. I see a small stand of trees and think I’ve found my home for the night. unfortunately, a band of stray dogs has beaten me to it. They seem less than thrilled to see me, so I change…
…The area formerly housing the Roman circus was turned into a slaughterhouse, and the catacombs of the amphitheatre were gradually filled with rubbish by the city’s inhabitants, who used them as a convenient refuse dump… We wait a while for a ride out of Callafel, Spain. Finally Nick offers to take us to Lleida. On…
Small, sleepy, sunsoaked, Calafell feels as if it hasn’t changed since the first paper-white Pom’s stumbled out of their tour busses in the 1960s. The town is anything but inspiring, but the beach is spectacular, gigantic, and seriously underpopulated (at time of writing, which is late September). It’s hard to imagine the Calafell beach crowded…
The madness begins with the “Festa Major” day parade, a.k.a. the “almost blowing small children’s heads off parade…”
Thanks to Pierre’s massive generosity, we are spending 3 amazing days in his beautiful house on the river at Saint-Antoine. Pierre is a sailor, hitchhiker and vagabond himself, and fortunately a very good English speaker, so we have some great chats! (Top: the view from the front yard of Pierre’s house) Saint-Antoine is the…
I feel like a pilgrim to a palace from Lord of the Rings. The island is completely covered in medieval stone structures, walled around with soaring battlements, and topped with a sky piercing spire adorned with a gilt statue like an angel. Sea birds circle the island, and here and there men are walking across the sand flats barefoot, with baskets, collecting shellfish…
ok… is this hotdog disturbing or what? Looks like he is playing russian roulette or something… (its a beachside hotdog stand in Mers-Les-Baines, France)
On the road north of Abbeville, Arnould picks us up, and decides to show us Mers-Les-Baines.The beach front is a short stretch of sand, in front of a massively steep shore of smooth, glassy stones. They are uncomfortable to walk on, but heated by the sun, excellent to lie on. No sand in your…
Highlights of the Netherlands: swimming in the north sea and sleeping in the beautiful gardens in Den Haag; the street museum with giant medieval fairground robots; realising that queuing 2 hours to see the tiny box Anne Frank lived in is probably a silly idea; meeting Carel, the nano-technologist who gave us a…
Been working hard for the last few months so it was time for a bit of R+R. Putty Beach, on the New South Wales Central Coast, is the perfect place. I’ve camped here before, and it is a trampers paradise. Beautiful beach, friendly locals, easy hitchhiking, convenient general store for re-supplying, and most importantly,…