Homeward bound

After leaving St Junien we headed to Paris for our last night in France, we stayed at the airport, made it easier to catch our flight the next day.

Once on board our flight to Hong Kong we tried to get some sleep, not very successfully, we arrived in Hong Kong at 7.00am on Tuesday we headed to our hotel to drop off our bags and then did the bus trip down to Stanley, for those of you who have never been to Hong Kong, this trip is an experience, narrow winding road in a double decker bus, just the thing after an 11 hour flight.

Four days in Hong Kong, to break that 24 hour flight home, and do to the "essential" last minute shopping and we once again headed to the airport to catch our last flight for this trip, we arrived in Melbourne on Saturday from a very pleasant 26 - 27 degrees, it was a bit of a shock to the system to return to 15 degrees and rain, the last time we saw any decent rain was in Amsterdam at the end of October.

So we are all now home, still trying to sort out our "stuff" and looking forward to our next trip to ..... somewhere.

Travels from Bordeaux

Having left Bordeaux we travelled by TGV to Angouleme then onto St Junien by a "regional express" train it was a diesel rail car, it was quite an interesting trip, but it was on time, something the Oz rail systems could learn.

Ross took us for a road trip on Friday to Sarlet, a medieval village, the Chateau de Casterlnaud, a real medieval castle (complete with real medievil weapons; pikes, sword, chain mail, suits of armour, clubs with big spikes for poking holes in peoples heads, hammers with a pointy end for making just one hole and a hammer at the other end to cave in skulls, knives, all sorts of crossbows and cannons etc), Le Roque-Gageac, prehistoric cave dwelling later used in medieval times, they just bricked in wall etc, then onto Domme, another medieval village.  The area is also know as the home of Foie Gras, so needles to say there are lots of shops selling Foie Gras, as well as all the associated paraphernalia.

Sarlat

Chateau de Casterlnaud

Some Weaponry

Prehistoric/Ancient Cave Dwellings

Saturday was spent doing "normal" thing, going to the market, looking around Limoges, picking up a couch that Cathy had bought, it seems they don't deliver in France, will try to add the video of Ross & Mark taking one section of the couch up to the 3rd floor of the house, it was challenging.

Why Did They Build the Great Wall of China?

To keep the rabbits out is it not. Not here. They have moles, they don't seem to be fussy about where they go . They are protected and even with all our encouragement we couldn't get them to pop up. I am pleased that we don't have them at home as they seem to make a right mess of your lawns and paddocks

Air Raid siren testing

A few photos of Bordeaux

Updated map of our travels

Click HERE for an update of where we have been the last few days. We are currently at location M, but have visited locations N through R.

You will need to drag the map around and zoom in/out for a better overall view.

We will put up some more photos and video today, probably when we get back to Paris tonight (current time is 10am).

Last Knight in the Castle

Our friend Samantha had a right royal hissy fit trying to find this place. There was a slight detour set up and no easy to read signs. Our french phrase book didn't quite give us the french/english translation. Some single lane roads,bridges and a few aussie words later we came upon our bed for the night .We still haven't found out where we actually stayed it will take some google mapping. Another French food lesson, this time it was wild pig casserole, it was very tasty. There are about 200 acres of land that surround the castle and we heard a few pops around. Maybe they were supplying our chief with the fresh meat.

The Chapel In The Sky

After some consideration or was that shear madness Geoff and I asendeded the 300 plus steps to the top of this volcanic out crop. Great idea wasn't it? Not. The steps go up in about a some times vertical rise. For those who have been lucky enough to climb the Great Wall of China in some spotsit is hands and knees stuff well that is what this was like.

If you suffer from the fear of hieghts its this is not the thing to do. Well Catherine and Pauline I got to the top. Freaked out a couple of times lost the ability to talk(Yes I know what some of you are saying)but my goodness it was well worth it. Mind you we had just walked up a 10 degree hill and 250 steps to see the Black Madona.

This is the clip that goes with our day out in Brussells wish we were as warm as the guy. We could have done with a few more layers this day it was brass monkey weather.

We have finally been able to post our little bits of video. We are at a working Windmill town and the day was perfect to drive the mills. One was cutting logs for the renovating of homes and the other crushing nuts for cooking oil.