Egypt adventure

Early morning this morning- 3am for the drive to Abu Simbel in Aswan. I couldn't sleep on the coach but wasn't as tired as I had expected. We ha a police convoy escort us a major leg of the journey. We arrived and Micky, our tour guide told us all to watch the Nile river as we climbed down to view the temple. We did as he requested and at the bottom turned our heads to see the giant statues that made up the entrance to the impressive temple. Inside were two rows of massive statues forming a passage way to the back of the temple where four statues sat with one, the god of darkness, being hidden in shadows with the other three being illuminated by sunlight. There were little wings in the temple filled with pictures of gods and offerings and slaves and kings, sometimes feasting. There were hieroglyphics on the big walls inside the main base sections and two separate rooms which looked they would have been filled with treasure at one point. It was quite impressive. Next to this temple was another temple, created for his most important wife which was similar but smaller than than the temple of Abu Simbel. 

After this journey the weather had begun to pick up and we headed to the high dam which makes the electricity for Egypt. It was massive and quite impressive. After this short stop we made our way on the coach (where brett enjoyed holding a gun) to Philae temple which was on an island so we had to catch a boat to see it. It was fun having the Nubian men transport us on wooden boats to a temple made in the honour of the God Isis who turned into a bird God to procreate with her partner who had been killed then bought back to life for a few moments to make a baby: Horus II. The temple had been converted into a Christian church do had imprints of crosses and an alter which was a bit bizarre. The temple had a sanctuary which in ancient Egypt held a maximum of two people in it. It was awesome to be able to explore this temple and I appreciated the intention and meaning behind some of the artwork.

Magical Egypt

Arrived in Luxor 36 hours ago. People on the plane ride over here were amazing. I had sinus issues from the week long cold I've had and a few people banded together to give me sinus medication and chewing gum. We were escorted to our hotel by travel talk, out tour company, and met our tour group who had all started their tour in Cairo two days before. We didn't realise we were joining a group that had already started but it didn't matter as we arrived on boxing day and had wanted to spend Christmas with Brett's brother, Sean in England. We got the boring intro and payment stuff over and done with and met a couple of our fellow tour travellers in a local 'Irish' pub. We got a shish kebab each and headed off to bed for some sleep after our 3am start!

We awoke and got onto our mini bus which drove us to Amenhotep III statues. It was pretty amazing to see as they were soo tall and so old! Next up we were off to the Valley of the Kings which I absolutely loved. I paid extra to go and see King Tutankhamen's tomb and boy was it worth it! It was the first time I had ever seen an unwrapped mummy! His head and feet were not covered by cloth and the man in the tomb gave us a lot of information (for a fee of course) and gave us his torch to shine on the body. Tut's body was in a glass, thermoregulated coffin and on the other side was his sarcophagus which he was buried in for thousands of years. Although it was the smallest tomb it was really awesome and by far the highlight of my day. The tombs were pretty awesome with hieroglyphics and paintings on the walls that were beautifully preserved through time buried beneath the earth.

We continued on for Queen Hatshepsut's temple where we saw more Egyptian statues and wall art. There was a tour of Egyptian school boys who took photos of us, the girls, and constantly stared at our boobs. 'So beautiful shakira, shakira' was a common phrase heard from school boys to grown men alike. We then made our way to Aswan on a minibus and arrived on our cruise boat on the Nile river. The place was nice and after a mix up of rooms we got settled in and chatted to some newly made friends. Dinner was served from 8-9pm which was late and we had to be up at 3am this morning so we headed to bed straight after! I am currently sitting on a bus taking us to Abu Simbel which I am quite excited about going to see!

Where were you Nessy!!??

Brett and I completed a trip to Loch Ness in the midlines of Scotland to complete some Nessy watching. We stayed at Loch Ness backpackers and went on a cruise on the Loch searching for Nessie- ok so I was searching, Brett the non believer was just taking in the amazing scenery. Basically the Loch's depth is shaped like a bath at the bottom and the edges have mountains rising either side. This means that even very close to the edge of the loch is extremely deep. The Loch is extremely murky as it contains a lot of Peet from the mountains. This makes the visibility in the lake extremely poor. Divers can't use lights underwater as the Peet particles reflect the light back making it near impossible to see anything underwater. It is much like using high beams on an extremely foggy night when the light is simply reflected back and you still can't see very far in front. There have been over a thousand recorded eye witness sitings of Nessie and our captain had a couple of photos that he had taken of her. In Scotland the locals call her the water horse, not Nessie, apparently this name was given by the media to the hype around the mysterious creature. The captain had said that  many other people have seen the water horse but haven't come forward because the media are ruthless and harass the witnesses... So maybe I did see Nessie, maybe I didn't... He said that sonar isn't sophisticated enough yet to confirm or deny the water horses existence as it can only tell you if there is something down there, not how big it is, nor the shape of it- and everyone knows there are plenty of animals living below the surface. 

Anniversary catch up blogg

So I forgot to post this back when we were in England....Brett's sister in law Zoe helped us organise a celebration for our 3 year anniversary (31-07-12) by booking a hotel room where she works and making a reservation in a well-to do restaurant. Zoe is the manager at the Royal Berkshire and she gave us one of the best rooms- a lovely big suite. Our room overlooked the 15 acres the property was set on. Brett and I went for a little stroll, had a bit of a snoop around the hotel and tried out the pool. Dinner was amazing and although Brett's main left much to be desired, we had a brilliant night. I am so lucky to have Brett in my life. He supports my dreams, wants the best for me and loves me for who I am. With only one year until our wedding I hope I make him as happy as he makes me... Well most of the time anyway :)

Get some York on your Fork

York is an amazing place full of history and wonderfully old buildings. Brett and I stayed in a youth hostel and participated in a night time walking ghost tour. It was quite interesting as the director recounted real facts and stories from times gone by and narrated eye witness accounts of spooky events that have occurred since. The last being around 18 months ago at the excavated Viking site. This morning we headed to the site and learnt about the viking people and saw some of the archeological finds from that spot in the middle of town. It was pretty surreal to be under the city in the exact spot where the artefacts were found. They have shoes from the Viking times as well combs to get live out of their hair, weapons and other cool stuff- randomly they even had some preserved human faeces; amazing I know lol. It is such an amazing city, I have fallen in love with it; quaint buildings all once contained within castle walls, some of the walls are still standing today! Amazing place! 

Hadrians wall

Brett and I are currently chilling in a guest house room after a busy few days. Last night we spent the night in a barn camp. It was created for walkers and backpackers who were on an adventure across hadrians wall. We had the bunk barn to ourselves and we were literally in the roof of a barn in bunk beds. It was cosy, cheap, quaint and served us well. Brett and I had been driving along the road searching for Hadrian's wall and had only come across a small section on our own. It was incredibly impressive, but i really wanted to see more. We followed signs to a roman fort and some extremely helpful people at the counter directed us to greencart farm which provided b&b's, backpacker and camper accommodation. This property was about a 10 minute walk from much more of hadrians wall. It was amazing. The wall was built around 122AD and was the northern most boundary of the Roman Empire. The section we saw was actually the most northern piece that still remained. It was supposed to be built around three meters wide, but in parts was only around 2, which was still bloody impressive, given how long it had survived and that it spanned around 120km. Brett and I spent around 2 hours walking along the wall, with beautiful countryside views and so close to cows we could touch them. It was the most surreal mix of old and new. There was a misty fog over the land and it was around sunset so there was crisp fresh air surrounding us. It was such an experience which really made me feel alive.

This morning we drove along some of Hadrians wall as throughout time they had actually used some of the wall to create the existing roads... This helped to explain why we couldn't always find it when we were driving around. Brett and I continued our adventure and drive to Edinburgh, Scotland. We got out to take touristy photos of the boarder as we crossed from England. We then got caught in a bit of a storm and the rain came bucketing down. Brett was great at driving through the storm and got us here safe and sound. We chilled in the room for a while, grabbed some dinner then set out on an underground ghost Tour. We saw some arches that had been buried over time and heard about how the undesirable people were put here. They were made of stones and housed between 10,000-20,000 people. Originally they were built as the substructures of the south bridge and to make money they created them into vaults to store people's goods such as whiskey. The only problem was that they leaked liquid lime into the vaults which ruined the food, drink and supplies. They then decided housing people would be a better idea... We heard about people snatchers and other awful things that happened to people. People who had the plague or women who were pregnant out of wedlock were put here. The tour was kinda lame but at least we got to see something interesting.

London- St Paul's cathedral

We spent the day in the city at st Paul's cathedral. We climbed the 571 steps to the very top. It was an extremely impressive looking building and was designed as such. Three domes were built to create the illusion of one spectacular dome. Looking up at the ceiling I was incredibly impressed by the design and the ability of the people at the time to build such a structure without modern technology.