Chamonix & Dusseldorf/Colonge

Hi all,
The past few weeks have been a pretty cool time. At the start of march I went on another ski trip with work people (20 of us) for 5 days. It was back at Chamonix again so I got to revisit the area with a lot more snow this time. The weather was actually a bit too warm and it rained a lot crating a lot of avalanches in the area. I went out skiing every day but the third day was definitely the best. That day the weather cleared and the sun was out, most runs were open and covered with fresh snow. It was definitely the best day of skiing in my life.



The final ruin I did that day had a vertical height differfence of about 1500m! The greatest in Australia is just over 600m.
A few of us have always been talking about travelling around Europe by motorbike which was why I got my bike licence just before leaving Aus. 2 weeks ago I bought one! it’s a big sports-tourer which means it’s a bit sporty but is comfortable to ride for long periods.







The model is a 2001 Suzuki bandit 1200S which is known as a very reliable bike with plenty of grunt. I have taken it out a few times with one long ride on a Sunday and it was awesome. Michael bought his the same time as mine (yelloe one behind) and now Dan has just got his. The bike itself was pretty cheap (£2200) but the gear (£700) and insurance (£765) were not. Ultimately, in September we plan to tour for a month through western Europe, staying at campsites mostly and will make sure we’re in Munich for the Oktoberfest before heading home. Can’t wait!
Two weekends ags was spent in Dusseldorf Germany, another cheap Ryan air flight. There was supposed to be four of us but dan forgot to take his passport to work on Friday and didn’t realize until it was too late. So Kirsten, Michael and myself arrived late on Friday. We had a hire car for the duration and on sat we drove to cologne (only 30 mins) to check out the tallest cathedral in the world.



It took 600 years to build and magnificent to look at up close, particularly inside.

We climbed one of the towers for €2 and proceeded up the 580 odd steps. The view was pretty good though the visibility was not.



That night back in dusseldorf after a meal of pig knuckles we began a pub crawl at about 430 and finished up after midnight. We muct have drank at about 8 drinking halls/pubs/clubs sampling each places’ own brew of beer or local spirit (the beer halls sold only one type of beer and water). Opposite to munich, the drinking glasses are only 250ml (compared to a litre) and most of the beers were great and relatively cheap. As the wather was pretty crap on Sunday, we didn’t do much (we were gonna go on a cruise on the Rhein river) and arrived in London very late and very tired.
Trips Coming up include:
Portugal over Easter with Kirsten
A weekend in Belfast to visit my Irish relatives (just me)
Nine days in southern Spain, morocco and Gibraltar with Lucy
A long weekend bike trip to the Isle of Man
And about 10 of us have just booked Pamplona in July for the running with the bulls!