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Contact us today, give us a call, or an email, and we will make sure to come up with the best deals suitable for your budget.

Students Flights – A Great Opportunity To Go Places is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

While some countries like India want to stay traditional, others like Australia are opened to an array of choices. If you are a gourmet traveller and you want to find amazing destinations with incredible food, we are your best choice. Starting from the delicious pasta to the famous pizza, you name the food and we will recommend the best location with the greatest recipes. In addition to the food, we also provide the best national and international restaurants. Starting from 5 star bistros to cheap and delicious eateries, all you need is information.

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The Gourmet Traveller – Exploring The World’s Best Food is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi there,

Since my last email, we went to Rustenburg for our match against Ghana. As soon as we heard we had an Italian ref, we knew we were going to get screwed. Yet again, the Italians screwed our world cup hopes by cheating Oh well, at least we got to sleep past 7am for the first time (only time on our whole trip).

The next morning we left before sunlight (as usual) to drive up to Kruger National Park. Unbelievably, elephant was the first animal we saw once we entered the park within a minute or two. The grass is so high at the moment so it’s not that easy to see the animals, but we did see warthog, heaps of impalas, zebras, buffalo, kudus, and many other antelopes on the first day. Surprisingly, we saw 11 white rhinos on the first day alone. This is such a hard find find usually, but I think Chris is a Rhino magnet. Saw 3 lots of pairs, 1 solo, and on a night drive, came across 4 at a watering hole. Also saw 2 lionesses on the side of the road on the night drive too. We stayed in a camp called Bergendal that night. Known for leopards in the area, but no luck.

The following morning we did a guided walk. Came across another rhino. Count – 12. That day we came across elephants, wilderbeest, zebras, giraffes, kudus, impalas, baboons, Vervet monkeys, duikers, klipspringers, warthog, waterbuck, bushbuck, many birds, hippos, crocs, and another rhino. Count 13. That night we arrived into Skukuza camp for 2 nights.

The next day we started off with another morning walk. Came across 2 Rhinos on the drive out to the walking point, then another 3 on the walk. Count 18! We actually got sandwiched on our walk between a lone bull elephant and the 3 rhinos. The rest of the day was filled with more game viewing. In addition to all the other animals already mentioned, we also saw a spotted hyena walk right past the car on the way back to the camp. Totally awesome and very unusual.

Yesterday, we started the day with a game drive which didn’t produce much more than giraffe, elephant, impalas, wilderbeest and kudus. Our drive out the park saw another 2 rhinos (20 now), along with many other previously mentioned animals. No cheetahs, leopards, wild dogs, but otherwise, most of your major animals found on our 4 days in the park, so we did pretty well considering the visibility wasn’t terrific. Drove to White River to stay with family for the night, as it is just outside Kruger and only 20 minutes from Nelspruit – the city where our last Aussie match was to be that night. For the first time of this Cup, we actually had no issue with traffic or parking for this game, as we used the local Wimpy restaurant’s car park which was in walking distance. Just had to give them our business for the convenience

The game was fantastic. Filled with so much excitement and joy. Sadly our 2-1 win wasn’t enough to get us to the next round, but we went out well, and that made us very happy.

This morning we left early for Kirkmans Private Game Lodge in the Sabi Sands area of Kruger. Utter luxury. We have our own butler and are waited on hand and foot. The place is spectacular. Went out for a game drive this afternoon, and came across 3 more rhinos (23 in total – a record I think for such a short trip). Also saw a male lion and 2 leopards. The beauty of the private lodges, is that they don’t have to worry about roads. They drive you straight through the bush directly to the animals. It was incredible. Got back for dinner, and the amazing news that Italy had come last in their group and even finished below NZ. Hilarious!!!!!

Tomorrow we start off with a game drive, then will have to drive down to Pretoria for our last World Cup match (Spain v Chile), before we fly home the next day

We have had a fantastic time, and Kirkmans has been a great way to finish it off. We have felt completely safe the whole time we have been here, and people are lovely, and the atmosphere has been so wonderful everywhere. Almost every car has flags of varying countries all over them, every shop, restaurant (even KFC’s) has a TV with people glued to them watching matches and people from all countries getting together to talk about the Cup. It’s been amazing. All I can say to everyone is South Africa is the greatest place in the world to come visit.

Love Leigh-Ann.

***

We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients.

Contact Pure Travel for honest travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries – South Africa 2010 almost done is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi there,

Here I am in freezing cold Joburg in South Africa for the World Cup. We arrived on the 10th and visited family in Joburg that day. It was 6 degrees.

The next day we headed down to Durban. The weather was so much better there. Mid 20′s. As it’s on the beach, the atmosphere was fantastic. Everyone is in party mode, all dressed in their countries colours and singing and just in great moods. It is very safe except for our ears which are constantly filled with the bee swarm sound of the vuvuzelas. Now I hardly hear them as I have become used to them. Our time in Durban was spent strolling the beach front with the festivals, dancers, sand art, music, bars, and free activities such as zorbing, flying foxes, etc. We watched every game for the first 2 days of the Cup either in bars filled with South African fanatics (for the 1st game), or at the FIFA fan fest site on the beach. Chris & I met up with Phil and we all did a mass Aussie walk en masse (over 1000 green and gold clad supporters, wearing as much Aussie paraphernalia as we could – flags, huge inflatable boxing kangaroos on shoulders, wigs, etc. One guy was dressed as an emu. Others had koalas on their heads. It was a sight to behold. A major street was closed off to allow for the 1000+ supporters to walk to the stadium for Aussie’s first match against Germany. As you are probably all aware, our night of fun ended pretty quickly with a poor result, and then getting out of the stadium and back to where we were staying took forever. We only got home closer to 1am, then had to hit the road again at 5am the next morning so we could drive back to Joburg (6-7 hours) to make it to our Denmark v Netherlands at Soccer City in Joburg.

The stadium in Durban was fantastic, but Soccer City was mind blowing. So enormous and fantastic views from everywhere. Most of the stadium was full of Orange Dutch fans. Very good game. Joburg temperatures are incredibly cold. It is like ice all day every day.

On Tuesday we drove down to Kimberley to see the biggest man made hole in the world for Diamond Mining. At the Big Hole, there is a beautifully set up gold rush town, and you also get to go underground to see the mines set-up. Fascinating place.

Yesterday we went to De Wildt Cheetah Park where we got to see a number of Cheetahs, Wild Dogs, Honeybadgers and a few other animals that are in the farm because they would be killed in the wild. It is a conservation educational place. Got to watch a cheetah run at full speed too. couldn’t get decent photos though as it moved far too quickly.

Today we went to the Rhino & Lion Park. That was fantastic as it is a small private reserve where you drive around seeing animals such as rhinos, lions, cheetahs, and all your antelopes. They also had a creche for baby animals and other animals that had to be kept in cages. Saw leopards, tigers (not African animals but still impressive animals), hyenas, hippos, meerkats, and a black leopard and many birds. The best bit was getting to play with 3 white lion cubs that were only 9 weeks old. So playful and cute. Also went into a Reptile Centre to see snakes, scorpions, crocs, spiders, and just outside mongooses, maribou storks, cervets, civits….. Had a Bengal tiger try to get through the fence to get to me taking a close up photo. He even stood up on his hind legs at one stage and stood almost double my height.

Tomorrow we are heading to Rustenburg for our 2nd match against Ghana. We need to win no matter what, but with the team we have I don’t like our chances. After that we head to Kruger NP for 3 nights, then to our last Aussie game v Serbia in Nelspruit on the 23rd. We will most likely be going to a private game park in Kruger for the following night then to the Chile v Spain game in Pretoria on our last night and then back home

Anyhow better go. See you all soon.

Leigh-Ann xxx

***

We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients.

Please contact our experienced team of travel advisers for great travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries – Hello from the World Cup is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi from grey, cold Germany.

How are you all? I apologise in advance if my typing is a bit off, as a German keyboard is rather different to an English one, with keys in different spots and many extra letters, so I can’t just type the way I’m used to and have to constantly check what has come up.

Anyhow, since last email, we took a day trip up to Sigulda in Latvia. It was a lovely little city, and looked stunning with snow everywhere and iced over ponds/lakes. There was a nice castle that we got to via a cable car over a forest. Unfortunately it wasn’t a weekend, so the bobsleighing track was not in operation for tourists – the main reason we went there They did let us in though and we got to go to view the track from the very top. It was soo awesome. They had the luge and bobsled iced up tracks ready for racing, right next to each other and it was so tempting to just go down on our butts. It goes for 1.2km and in a professionally manned bobsleigh, you get down in under 1 minute at speeds of over 100km/hour. One day we will be back for this. This track was used in a winter Olympics once back when Latvia was still under Russian rule.

We finished off with Riga (or so we thought – see later note) and got the bus to Vilnius in Lithuania. Although Riga and Vilnius were both beautiful old cities, Tallinn was probably my favourite, as it was so small and still inside the old medieval walls. We spent one day checking out Vilnius on our own, and then were very lucky enough to meet up with a Lithuanian local who is a friend of a friend, and her and her boyfriend took such great care of us for the next 2 days. We went to some great Lithuanian restaurants, and saw sights at night we wouldn’t have known to go to. The following day, they came to pick us up from our hostel (that felt like a concentration camp – more of that later) and drove us over 2 hours to the Hill of Crosses in the North West of Lithuania. It is in the middle of nowhere, and is a hill where in 1959, people started planting crosses everywhere on this hill. There are now literally millions of crosses there, some huge ones, some tiny ones hung on bigger ones. It is mind blowing the sheer size of this place. Anyone can come place a cross here, so it is ever growing in size. We even came across a few from Australia there. We then went to Trakai Castle in the South East of Lithuania. This is a rebuilt old castle in the middle of a lake. Since it is so freezing here though, the massive lake was completely frozen over, so instead of using the bridges to get over to the castle, we walked straight across the ice. A very strange a new experience for us.

Back to the hostel. The place was run by little old ladies that were more like prison wardens in their approach and rules. The hostel was underground, and the dorm room looked like a train sleeper carriage, with the bunks all lined up on one wall with walls separating each one. For those who haven’t been on an Indian sleeper train, think of a morgue, with rows of body drawers. The bathroom looked like it was in a cellar, with the drab coloured bricked walls and domed roof.

We went to leave Vilnius on Saturday morning on our Lithuanian Airlines flight I had booked and paid for on the internet back in December, but when we got to the airport, we found out the airline had gone bust a month ago, and we had lost our money and had no way to get to Bucharest as planned that day without paying almost $3000 each for the last 2 seats on the only connecting service left that day. With no internet in the airport, and insurance not covering us in any way, we cut our losses and went back to our hostel (right next to the bus and train stations) to try to work out a way to get to Romania. After plenty of time wasted on the internet and running to bus and train stations, we finally found a way for under $1000 to get where we were meant to be going, just 1 day later. Unfortunately that meant heading back on a bus to Riga again, going back to spend a night in the same hostel we had bid farewell to 3 days earlier, and then jumping on a flight from Riga to Vienna early the next morning. We had about 3 hours to kill in transit, so decided to get the bus into the city and do a quick fly through of this stunning city. I had been there before in 2006 and loved it in summer, but Chris had never been and I wanted to see it in winter, so we briskly flew by all the most beautiful buildings in the time we had. It blew Chris away at its beauty, and reminded me of why I believe this is one of the most gorgeous capital cities in the world. Finally we arrived in Bucharest in Romania later that evening, then had to catch a bus, then train, then 2 more buses to finally arrive at the ski resort in Poiana Brasov where we were meant to arrive 24 hours earlier.

We spent the next 3 days skiing. Views were amazing when it was clear enough to see from the top. They only have 2 cable cars, 1 gondola and a couple of J-Bars for the whole mountain, but with only a few runs, that was plenty. There wasn’t a huge area to ski on, and on the 2nd and 3rd days it was so thin cover, that we were having a hard time not to ski on the uncovered rocks and ice everywhere. Was good in that the runs were very long (one over 5km), just a shame about the conditions.

Yesterday we went to get the 2 buses, train and bus to our Bucharest hostel, but had a problem on one of our buses. We had all our luggage and couldn’t get through the crowded bus to buy our tickets from the driver, and then got done by ticket inspectors. No-one spoke any English, so we had a hard time trying to explain that we had tried to get tickets but couldn’t get to the front to buy off the driver (you enter from back doors and usually have a ticket from a kiosk in advance that you validate onboard, but we couldn’t find a kiosk). They wanted to fine us, but we didn’t have enough money on us, and asked if we could go to an ATM to get it. That didn’t get through either. We asked to go to the police to hopefully get someone who could speak English to explain it all to, but again no comprehende. After the end of the line, 3 ticket inspectors had barricaded us in our seats after they had been yelling at us for about 15 minutes in front of a crowded bus with all eyes on us. Finally we were driven to a policeman randomly on the side of the road (despite having passed a police station we asked to go to) who could speak English. He thought the whole thing was ridiculous and basically just acted as a translator to the psycho ticket inspector women. Finally we managed to get the money out of an ATM to pay the fine, so they could leave us alone, and then make the cold, snowy, long walk back to the train station where we had already come from.

Finally got to our hostel in Bucharest late last night (Despite it moving and us having to search for its new location) and then this morning, Chris and I split up to go our separate ways for a few days. I flew to Dortmund in Germany this morning (the cheapest and fastest way for me to get to Ukraine that actually borders Romania – go figure). Got picked up by my “couchsurfing” host at the airport and she took me all around Dortmund for the day and even cooked me dinner. Very nice person. Dortmund was basically demolished in WW2, so there isn’t a lot as far as sights are concerned, but shopping looks good and there is the big Karnaval fair going on this weekend, so will go check that out more tomorrow morning. After that, I head to Lviv and Kiev in Ukraine before heading back to England to meet back up with Chris (who was checking out Bucharest today, then going back to England tomorrow to go to a Liverpool match) for a day in London catching up with a friend, then meeting up with my mum again for our flight home together on Tuesday night. Then it is straight back to work on Thursday after our 6am arrival after 24 hours travelling

Sorry if I have bored you. This is my last travelling email for more than a year, I promise.

Love Leigh-Ann

***

We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients.

Please contact our experienced team of travel advisers for honest travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries – Europe Update 2 is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi all,

Sitting in my hostel in Riga, Latvia and it is below zero degrees outside. Everywhere we have been is covered in snow and it is very beautiful.

Chris, my mum and I flew into London on Friday morning and hired a car to drive up to Birmingham for my cousin’s wedding that night. The drive up was interesting, as only a few lanes on the motorways were open at all, and there was so much snow falling and on the roads and pretty slippery. Anyhow, we got up to Birmingham in good time and had a fantastic time at the wedding.

We spent the next day in the Cotswolds, and then spent the night in London with family (unfortunately too briefly), before having to get up at 3am to get to our next flight to Tallinn in Estonia. Again it was freezing cold and covered in snow and pretty icy to walk on the cobblestoned streets that make up the gorgeous old town. It was a really beautiful medieval walled city.

Today we got the bus down to Riga, and had the afternoon to look around a little. Not as beautiful as Tallin, and much bigger, but still very nice buildings.

Anyhow, better go. Hope you are all well. Keep in touch.

Love Leigh-Ann

***

We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients.

Please contact our experienced team of travel advisers for the best travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries – Europe Update 1 is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi again,

Since my last email, I continued my journey in Africa until now, where I am killing time in Singapore airport in transit on my way home. Arrive into Sydney at 8pm tonight, then have to rush off for a 10pm indoor soccer game. So excited to get back to it, as I haven’t played any sport since I tore the ligaments in my ankle 9 weeks ago. Am rough and ready for it now though and won’t be playing barefoot again, so my toes should be right. Have to go back to work tomorrow, so no rest for me as usual. I am not sure how my sleep will go actually, as I got less than 1 hour sleep on the flight from Joburg to Singapore last night (was in the front row with a baby playing next to me most of the night). My body clock is totally out too, as the whole time I was on tour, I was having to get up between 4.30 and 6am everyday (6am was a sleep in) and going to bed after midnight most nights too.

Went out on a dolphin/seal cruise out of Walvis Bay in Namibia the day after my quadbiking. That was very cool as the dolphins were jumping out of the water in front of our boat for most of the way, and some seals even jumped up on board the boat, as they have been habituated to know that the will get fed fish when they do. I was sitting on a seat that one seal got on, and the captain put a fish up above my head to coax him to jump up on my back. It was so funny and he was so adorable, and we made out a bit. Well not really, but I did give him a kiss and we did have a bit of a cuddle together for a bit. I wanted to take him home. Some of the others that got on board would definitely not have been getting on my back, as they would have squashed me, since they were enormous. They also served a really nice lunch on board and kept filling our glasses with complimentary sherry, so by the time the 2 hour journey was over, I was a bit drunk and spent the next 3 hours that afternoon sleeping it off.

After leaving Swakupmond, we went down to Soussesvlei. There are just dunes everywhere and we climbed one of them for a great view over them at sunset. Tough walk up it, but very quick to get down. Went on a guided desert walk and learnt a lot about the dunes, its flora and fauna and the Bushmen. Would you believe that until 1920′s, it was actually legal to hunt Bushmen, as they were seen as animals due to their unusual ways of life. The Dutch even used to keep Bushmen children as ‘Pets’.

We then spent a night in Fish River Canyon. It is the 2nd largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon. We walked along the rim at sunset and I have to say, it definitely looked a lot like the Grand Canyon. Following that day, we crossed the Namib/South African border on the Orange River (2nd longest river in South Africa) to spend a night camped out on the river banks. We then travelled for about 10 hours (normal) down to Trawal in the Western Capes wine region. Spent the afternoon doing wine tasting and getting a bit tipsy. Camped in the grounds of one of the wineries and played darts and table tennis all night.

We finally arrived into Cape Town to end the tour on Friday arvo and we all cheered and bid a very glad farewell to tents and the truck we had all gotten very sick of. Spent a night in a hostel with a comfy bed and pillow and great showers. Since I had been to Cape Town before, I didn’t do much sightseeing, but did go for a walk around the city. It is such a beautiful city and I am definitely going back there in 2010 during the World Cup, when I plan to finally do the shark cage diving and a trip out to Mandela’s Robben Island which I have not had the opportunity to do either time I have been in Cape Town.

I spent Saturday catching up with my family in Joburg, and ate constantly from 1pm to 11pm. It was a great day and I wished it had been for longer, but unfortunately didn’t have enough time off work. I have eaten so much on this trip, and had so many sedentary days on the truck, that I have put on a bit of weight, which I will have to rip in and lose when I get back (after I have demolished the stacks of South African lollies I have massively stocked up on though).

Anyhow, better get heading off to my next flight, so I can get home, and hopefully get some much needed sleep in a comfy bed tonight.

This will be my last travelling email this year, so you can have a breather from me for a little while.

Cheers,

Leigh-Ann

***

We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients.

Please contact our experienced team of travel advisers for honest travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries: Out of Africa is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi all,

Have been in Africa for the last 2 weeks and only have about 9 days till I get home again. Having a great time, albeit having someone I know to share it with. On an Overland truck with 27 other people. There are 14 guys and 14 girls aged between 24 and about 65,but average age is only about 28. I am 7th oldest. Nationalities are Aussies, Kiwis, Poms, Yanks, Irish, Zimbabweans and Dutch. Most are pretty cool, but there are some not so nice people, especially the girl I was originally assigned to as my tent buddy. She is a miserable, whinging, stuck-up cow, and we only lasted in the same tent for a week before we couldn’t stand each other anymore and found out there was a spare tent, so now we both get to have a tent to ourselves – YAY!!  Unfortunately I still have to sit next to her on the truck everyday, but we don’t talk at all, so no more fighting

I have been getting a lot of soccer practice in with some of the boys, but have come away with my usual bout of injuries in the process. Split both my big toenails down the middle and half off while playing barefoot ‘Keep it up’, and got punched in the face by an old guy who doesn’t know how to header, so he punched at the ball when I went to header it one day when we were playing headers in the pool, only my head got to the ball first, and his fist got to my nose and lip, so I came away with a bleeding nose and fat, bleeding lip.

Started my tour in Vic Falls. Having already been there twice before, I didn’t bother doing anything to do with the falls again. Instead I went on a morning ‘Walk with Lions’. It is a program, where they rehabilitate orphaned lions to return to the wild. They are pretty tame though, so we got to walk right up along side them and even pat them heaps. They are full size, so it was a pretty amazing experience. They seemed just like giant pussy cats, so I had to remember not to try to get as friendly with the lions I was going to later see in the game reserves.

Next stop was Chobe National Park in Botswana. Saw sooooo many elephants as well as lions and many antelopes and other animals. Camped out in the park on one night and had dinner under the stars. There was no power, toilets or water, just complete bush camping. The next night we did a cruise on the Chobe River, and got up very close and personal to many animals, including a number of hippos and very large crocs.

We then did a 2 night bush camp trip in the Okavango Delta, where again we had no power, toilets or anything. We had to bathe in the Delta with the crocs and hippos in amongst the reeds, but were not allowed any soaps as they need to preserve the Delta waters, so we all went pretty feral for a few days. Did morning and afternoon walks and Mokoro (dugout tree canoes) trips each day, to see a number of animals. We were all a pretty permanent shade of brown when we returned from camp 3 days later and couldn’t wait to get to showers.

After leaving Botswana, we headed into the North of Namibia and into Etosha Game Reserve. Never seen so many giraffes in my life. Saw so many animals, including Rhinos, lions, elephants and many antelopes.

After that, we spent a night inside a Cheetah Park. There are 3 tame cheetahs on this farm, and we got to pat them, although it was still pretty scary, as they have been known to turn on their owners before. We also went out on the back of a Bukkie (ute) into the park to watch them feed the 15 cheetahs in the park. These are wild cheetahs that have been brought to this park by local farmers to stop them killing their livestock, instead of shooting them. They don’t have any other animals in the park, so rely on their daily feeds by the owners of the park, so they don’t see humans as a needed food source, unless you fell out the back of the bukkie, then they would pounce. They have once taken a bite out of one of the feeders, but luckily he stayed on his feet, otherwise he would have been dinner.

Had a walk around Spitzkoppe – a beautiful area surrounded by huge rock formations that look a little like Monument Valley in Utah. Also got to see a number of Bushmen paintings on the walls, some dating back over 3000 years. Talking about Bushmen, it has been really funny hearing the clicking noises when the locals talk over here. Think ‘Gods Must Be Crazy’ or ‘Starvin Marvin’.

Now I am in Swakopmund, otherwise known as little Germany. It’s a very pretty town on the Atlantic Coast and on the edge of the dunes desert. The water is extremely rough and freezing cold all year round, so now swimming. In fact, it is pretty cold out of the water here too, which is a big change from what we experienced in the first 2 weeks where it was a very hot, dry heat in the days (although cold at nights). Swakopmund is known as the adrenalin capital of Africa. You can do so many things, such as Skydiving, quadbiking, sandboarding, land yachting, kyaking, aerobatic flying, flying foxes, etc. Since I have already done Skydiving and sandboarding in the last 2 years, I passed on them, but I did go quadbiking this morning. Totally awesome. Most people go on fully automatic bikes, but since I have a bike licence, I got to go on one of the few fully manual bikes, which have a lot more power and speed. When riding the dune walls, you soon find out that what they say is true -’Speed is your friend’. If you go too slow, you don’t quite make it up the wall, so it is not as fun, and also you face the chance of either rolling it down the hill or bogging yourself on the flat. If you get alot of speed up, you get to ride right up the huge dune walls right up to the peaks, until you have to turn down it and fly down like a big dipper on a roller coaster. Also did some big jumps off the top of some dunes. Brilliant. We got about 30km from town in the dunes, and you see nothing but dunes as far as you can see. Got to a point on the dunes overlooking the sea though, and saw a cool shipwreck. These are very common on the Nambian coast, due to the extremely strong seas here. Tomorrow morning, I will be going off on a Seal/Dolphin cruise out of Walvis Bay, before leaving Swakopmund for Sousselvlei (more dunes).

After that, I’ll go through Naukluft National Park, Fish River Canyon, Orange River Canyon, and then get into Cape Town on Friday, where my tour will end. Will get one night with family in Joburg on Saturday, and then it’s back to work for me on Tuesday.

Anyhow, enough of my essay to bore you all. Look forward to hearing from you all and catching up again soon.

Love Lxx

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We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients.

Please contact our experienced team of travel advisers for honest travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries – Hello from Africa is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi there,

Since last email, Sarah and I left the frozen Boston to the warmth of Miami Beach. Met up with Nestor (a friend we made on Contiki tour in 06) and he took us to a goth nightclub, which was kind of interesting. The next day we started what I had been longing for for so long and the sole purpose of this trip – The Motley Cruise. Bearing in mind that Skid Row and Motley Crue are my 2 favourite bands of all time and having them both on the same trip was mind blowing for me. The whole cruise was pretty much all Yanks who were all blown away that we had made the epic journey from Australia especially for this cruise. We did meet 3 other Aussies on board, and heard there were a few Canadians, South Americans, Norwegians, Scots, Japanese and Italians on there too, but basically it was just full of Yanks who gave 2 little Aussie Girls plenty of attention and questions.

It ended up being the most surreal 5 days of my life. Before we even left port in Miami, I was sitting 2 tables away from Vince Neil (Motley Crue’s lead singer) for lunch so went up to chat to him and get a photo with him. Couldn’t stop jumping around with excitement for hours after that. The first night we then had the Slaughter and Ratt concerts, which were both absolutely awesome to see some of my favourite 80′s/90′s big hair metal bands in such a small venue. While waiting in line to get into the theatre, Scotty Hill and Dave ‘Snake’ Sabo both of Skid Row walked past, so I stopped them to have a chat and photo with them.

The next day we were in Key West for the morning. Quite a quaint town full of touristy shops where I went a little crazy. All the clothes shops had mannequins in the windows with huge fake hooters. So funny, but then again, I have never seen so many tattoos and fake boobs in one place than I have on this cruise. That night we saw another concert by a young band called Lynam who have that same 80′s metal sound.

The following morning I went in an 80′s music trivia comp and won – go the Aussie!!!! We then got to meet Vince Neil again and the whole Skid Row band where I got photos with them and was so happy. We even got interviewed by ‘Harp Magazine’ (similar to Rolling Stone mag) and photographed in our Aussie gear since it was Australia Day. That afternoon, we got off in Cozumel in Mexico, and I desperately wanted to go over to the Mayan ruins of Tulum, but couldn’t get anyone to come with me, so I left Sarah behind to go snorkelling with some Canadian guys and I caught a ferry over to Playa Del Carmen, then hired a taxi driver for 3 hours (pretty expensive day trip, but the only way I could fit it in on the time I had) to take me to the ruins and back. They are stunning. Right on the cliff edge overlooking the most beautiful blue sea. Mayan castles and buildings all still standing in great condition. The water was so warm too, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to swim.

The last day on the cruise was at sea, and we got to meet the guys from Ratt & 3 of the guys from Slaughter. Ratt were rats and wouldn’t allow any photos of them at all even from a distance, but I didn’t care too much as the only one I really liked from the band, I had already had a big conversation and photos with was Bobby the drummer 2 nights earlier at the Lynam gig and he gave me his personal email address so I can keep in touch with him and he will give me backstage passes to their next gig in Australia probably next year. The guys from Slaughter were all really cool though. That afternoon we went to the Skid Row and Vince Neil concerts which were incredible and up there as my most amazing gig experiences since I knew every song for over 3 hours word for word.

The cruise was incredible and we met so many cool people and ate sooooo much food and got about 16 hours sleep total over 5 days/4 nights, which would explain why I now have a terrible cold. Although the A/C on the ship was set to ‘Bl**dy Freezing’, so really it was probably a combo of the cold A/C, to warm outside and lack of sleep that has made me sick.

Spent last night at our friend Nestor’s house about 40 minutes outside Miami, and had a shocking fever and was shaking uncontrollably. Have been heavily drugged up since and am slowly coming right. Hope it last though. Arrived in grey, rainy Toronto tonight, where it is 5 degrees, but have been told tomorrow is due for 20cm of snow and -10 degrees. Yay!!!!

Well, only have 1 week left before getting back home again – seeing Toronto tomorrow, then heading down to Niagara Falls for 2 days, then back to Toronto to fly off to Seattle for 1 day and then to Taipei for a day and then home.

Take care and keep in touch. I will have access to emails for the next 5 days.

Cheers,

Leigh-Ann xx

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We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients

Please contact our experienced team of travel advisers for great travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries – Hi From Canada is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel

Hi,

Well I’m sitting here trying to keep my eyes open at 4pm on Monday 21st January Boston time (8am on Tuesday morning Sydney time), as I have had so little and messed up sleep since Saturday night Sydney time. After leaving Sydney at about 1pm Sydney time on Saturday, flying just under 10 hours to Taipei, we then spent just over 4 hours in the airport to get on our flight at about 3am Sydney time and passed out very quickly for our almost 11 hour flight. Only managed to get about 6 hours sleep, and could’ve had longer, but knew we were then on about 3pm San Francisco time, so didn’t want to keep sleeping and then not be able to sleep that night.

Finally after 30 hours from leaving Chris’s house on Saturday morning Sydney time, and catching the train then taxi to our friend Nethers house in San Francisco on Saturday night (San Fran time), we were ready to take on America. Luckily Sarah and I got an upgrade to business class on the Sydney to Taipei leg which was awesome, however we had to sit in cattle class like sardines on the longer leg so that was tough, but I guess where we belong. It was great to catch up with our Contiki friend Nethers and all her friends. Did such an American thing and went and partied at an Irish Pub and ate pizza. Ended up getting to bed at 3am San Fran time, then up at 9am and spent the whole of Sunday showing Sarah around since I’ve been there so much before. Had another very American experience for dinner on Sunday night of Indian, and then got the train to the airport to catch our 2 hour delayed overnight 5 hour flight to Boston last night. Hardly got any sleep on that flight, so now after about 70 hours since leaving Sydney, I have probably only had about 12 hours sleep, so I’m really struggling. Going to have a quiet one tonight though, so hopefully I will be all back to normal tomorrow and ready for a lot of partying over the next week when we hit Miami and the Motley Cruise.

Had my luggage break on the first leg of our trip, so that has been a pain. On arrival in Boston this morning, we were told it was -9 degrees C and boy did we feel it today when we went walking around the city. Our Egypt tour friend, Sanjay, picked us up from the airport and like our friend Nethers, has been sooo wonderful and hospitable. Boston was nice and sunny, but not even standing in the sun took the extreme chill off the air that cut through you worse than I have ever experienced. Luckily I had all the coats, scarves, beanies and gloves, but my jeans and socks were not warm enough and despite stopping at a shop to buy another pair of thick woolen socks to wear on top of my other socks, I still lost all feeling in my feet, legs and fingers and had to keep going into shops, etc to thaw out a little. It was soooooo icey – thank god there was no wind!!!!!!!!!! Boston and San Fran are both very beautiful cities and so far having a good time. Really looking forward to getting on the Motley Cruise on Thursday. Have tomorrow relaxing in Boston then get into Miami on Wednesday night. Will try to talk again in the next week.

Hope you are all well. Talk soon,

Lxx

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We hope you are enjoying Leigh-Ann’s travel adventures. Leigh-Ann is one of Pure Travel’s senior travel advisers and part of a team of experienced travel consultants who not only share a passion for travel, but are also committed to delivering the best value in personal and business travel services to all of our clients.

Please contact our experienced team of travel advisers for honest travel advice, or to help you book your next holiday or adventure travel.

Leigh Ann’s Travel Diaries – Hi from America is a post from: Pure Travel - Specialists In Travel