More beaches than you can shake a stick at

There were three things we wanted to have out of a holiday...  sun, sea and sand. Now there are a lot of places in the world with those three things, but close to the UK and with great food took some investigating!

Bosa

After much thought, we decided on Sardinia - I think the 100s of beaches, it being an Italian island and close to the UK sold it to us. We only had a week, but still wanted to travel a little bit, so narrowed the best beaches down to four areas - the north west, south west, south east and north east. Sardinia is known for its beaches and clear waters making them appear like emeralds.

Chris and Jules

Julia loves beaches and Chris is... well the backpack... we have been together since uni (and are now engaged eeek!). We have always had a plan to see the world together.

Home is the UK, one of the most beautiful and culturally diverse countries in the world, but sometimes you just need to see what else is out there, how other people live and what natural wonders there are.

Chris has done a fair amount of travelling in the past with friends, family and solo including; Asia, Australasia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America. Julia on the other hand is a bit of a newbie having only been to North America, Europe and South Africa. But we have never really travelled together until 2013 when we went to New Zealand for 6 weeks and started this blog.

Ever since we have tried to capture our travelling memories from home and abroad. This is not just for our own record, and allow our family and friends to keep up with us (saves a lot of emails!) but to also pass on our experiences and tips to others who may travel the same or similar routes.

Reading fellow travel bloggers has helped us a lot. They allow you to learn so much more about places than any guide book and so we want to contribute as well.

We hope you enjoy reading about our travels, maybe they will also help you with your own and inspire you to make the jump and quit the 9 - 5.

Get in touch if you like or sign up for emails alerting you to new posts.

Happy travels

Scotland is a long way from Reading!

We didn't find any reasonable accommodation around the border so decided to just grit our teeth and head home... all 650 miles or 12 hours of driving.  We decided to head to Loch Ness via Eilean Donan Castle, one of the most photographed and beautiful castles in Scotland.

After a good breakfast at our B&B having a chat with some Americans, we traveled south over the infamous Skye Bridge. The route, as many in Scotland was spectacular.  The road snaking its way along the Loch Alsh. After about 30 mins or so we came across Eilean Donan Castle.  From first impressions it wasn't as grand as I had expected as it has been used in several movies and promotional videos and images, but if there was one castle you would associate with Scotland - this was it!  We decided to stop and have a look and we were tempted to go in - limiting ourselves to an hour as the clock was ticking to get home - and we were rewarded.

Eilean Donan

Skye

Skye is somewhere we have wanted to visit for some time - drawn by its remoteness, landscapes and recommendations from friends, so it was here that we decided to spend the majority of our Scottish adventure.

We jumped on a ferry from Mallig on the main land - a nice little fishing village and the main jumping off point for many of the Hebridean islands - towards to southern end of the island.

Ferry crossing

The journey to the Isle

The Isle of Skye was our target destination, but we didn't just want to drive like crazy to get there, we wanted to see a bit more of Scotland, so we got off the main road and went for a coastal route, recommended by friends Rhys and Nicole, who had done a similar trip earlier on the year.

On the bonny bonny banks of Loch Lomond

The land of the deep fried pizza

It has been about 12 months since we have posted. The original idea of this blog was to capture our travels... but as we came back early we ever quite got out of NZ. Anyway, as it is about travels we thought why not continue... so here it is... only this time its a bit more closer to home.

We missed out on the Olympics so we decided to try and get tickets for the next international event to hit our shores... the Glasgow commonwealth games. So about a year ago and a half ago, there we were on the phone and internet to our good friends Tom and Hannah booking tickets.  Surprisingly it was fairly easy and we got the tickets we wanted - cycling, gymnastics and hockey (that was a bonus one as tickets were cheap and we needed to fill a day).

Off to the games

Sydney in 48 hours

Who needs a sightseeing tour bus when you have cousins that live in Sydney! With 48 hours in this iconic city, we managed to cram in all the major sights in 33 degree heat thanks to our excellent tour guides 'Chris & Alice Ltd' (I highly recommend them!)

Sight's of Sydney

Photo of the week (w/c 23rd December 2013)

    We had arrived in Sydney!

Setting sail

After a night's stay with cousins Justin and Jenny in Auckland we headed up north to The Bay of Islands.

We stayed in Russell (the old capital of NZ), which was one of the first European settlements and back then known as "the hell hole of NZ". Nowadays its a quiet sailing town where all the inhabitants knew each other and the only bars were the local fishing, yacht or sailing clubs.

Our campsite owner knew just the best way to experience the area and after a quick phone call we were booked onto The Phantom - 50ft yacht with Rick and Robin for a full day sailing.

Chris heading up The Phantom (Xth Dec 2013)

Auckland's Top 10!

1. You can't visit Auckland without seeing the iconic Sky Tower (but to be fair it's hard to miss it!)

Photo of the week (w/c 16th December)

"Scary faces!" (17th December 2013)

Is it really the fault of the English?

Having almost reached the end of our NZ tour and read/heard much along the way regarding the Maori and European settlers, we headed to the home of the Waitangi Treaty itself to see if we could put the disagreements to bed.

Copy of the signed Waitangi agreement (17th December 2013)