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Storm Ciarán & Friends
By Tuesday the TV news is full of it. Never mind the wars raging in both Europe and the Middle East, there is, it seems, a storm heading towards Britain which is akin to the four horsemen of the apocalypse powering across the Atlantic to wreak devastation on our forlorn shores. Storm Ciarán, somebody somewhere has decided. With Ciarán due to enter the fray Wednesday night into Thursday, we bring our plans forward by 24 hours and make the 350-mile 6-hour drive to Cornwall ahead of those “essential travel only” messages which will no doubt soon boom across the nation. We hole up, batten down, listen to the wind as…
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Buried Ships & Blessed Fish
There I was, all poised to do a post about how miserable it is to return to England, heading home from Heathrow through the rain, checking the dates of the next rail strikes, reading depressing news items, waking up to dull grey skies and drizzle, when from nowhere England unexpectedly throws open its arms and says, welcome home you guys….this is what’s great about where you live… The history of Sutton Hoo is so rich that they made a film about it, but really, the absorbing part of the story is all condensed into the last 85 years or so. Edith Pretty and her son, recently bereaved of husband and…
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The Lefkosa Half Of Nicosia
A small sign saying “Pacific Car Rental return point” is all there is to guide us at Ercan/Lefkosa airport, and with no office presence, it’s soon clear that we have to phone Pacific for them to come and collect the car. “I have no drivers just now”, she says when we call, “send me photographs of the car and leave the key under the driver’s mat, we will pick up the car later”. This means that we leave an unmanned rental car parked on double yellow lines immediately outside the airport terminal where it will probably stay untouched for at least a couple of hours – just imagine the consequences…
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Escaping Cyprusgrad: The Better Parts Of The East Coast
There’s a palpable air of relief in the car as we drive past the little harbour at Bogaz, knowing now that the horrors of Cyprusgrad are behind us, at least for a few hours. The land opens up to olive groves, fruit trees and even vineyards, then ploughed fields and vegetable crops, and at last there isn’t a high rise or a construction site to be seen. Turning east into the start of the island’s guitar neck, we are, somewhat ominously, suddenly on a brand new roadway of pristine black tarmac. Ominous because, why build a new road to nowhere unless you have development plans? We decide not to dwell…
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Cyprus: The East Coast And Its Unexpected Horrors
Rather than take the bigger roads via Lefkosa we opt for what should be a more scenic route along the northern shores, then turn south to head over the mountains to Iskele on the east facing coast. The stretch along the north coast is remarkable for one giant, unmissable feature: construction works. It’s been well documented that President Erdogan is keen for North Cyprus to become a tourist hotspot, but the sheer scale of development is unimaginable. Soon, at this rate, the flatlands between the mountains and the sea will be full, there will be nothing to see but concrete, steel and high rise, such is the breathtaking expanse of…
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Dubious Saints, Mutant Sheep & Castles In The Air: Cyprus Unfolds
The downpour is so intense that we don’t really want to leave the boat, but we have to get back to the apartment somehow so it’s heads down and off into the onslaught. “Goodbye”, shouts Captain Bayram as we head off, adding, “remember, tomorrow there is worse rain, very bad”. He isn’t kidding either. By the time we return next day from a rather fruitless trip on the dolmus out to Lapta village, the streets of Girne are rivers, floodwater several inches deep racing down every slope and finding every shortcut through town. It’s an outrageous deluge which lasts for hours and has locals laughing and scurrying for cover in…
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Into The Northern Half Of Cyprus
So here we are in the northern half of this partitioned country, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a self-declared independent nation recognised as such only by Turkey itself. The region is accepted by the UN as not being under the control of the Cypriot Government; Cyprus is the only EU country with a section not governed by that organisation’s laws. Despite loosening of controls on the partition line, there are still restrictions in place, which is how we come to be in our current situation. You see, we had the very good idea that it would be interesting to travel through the two separate halves of Cyprus, to…
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Back North To Fes, Then West To Casablanca
Our farewells with Mohammed and the other guys at Merzouga are heartfelt; we feel like we’re leaving friends behind while Mohammed says they will miss us and implores us to return some day. We say we may do, but of course inside we know it’s not going to happen, there’s still a whole world out there. The need to take the Duster back to Fes means retracing our steps through the Ziz valley, past and over the Middle Atlas mountains, but with an overnight call in a different town – not Errachidia this time, but the unassuming town of Midelt. This is basically a dormitory stop for food and sleep,…
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Merzouga: Three Days In The Desert Sun
Sometimes it’s when you look back at a particular time or place that you realise just how good it was. And then sometimes, now and again, when you get really lucky, it’s as the time itself is unfolding that you know something very special is happening, your senses are alive and you are absolutely living in the moment, knowing that this is a time you will never forget. Such was our three days in Merzouga…. As we eat brochettes by the roadside on our first night in the desert town we don’t really want to have to sleep, we’re willing it to be morning, so eager are we to experience…
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Desert Road Trip: From Fes To The Sahara
This is such an amazing, auspicious feeling, as we drive away from Fes and head off towards a little bit of the unknown, the hired Dacia Duster our companion for the next seven days, one of the most exciting parts of this entire Mediterranean journey opening up ahead of us. Also ahead of us are the Middle Atlas Mountains, looming in the haze like Earth-shackled storm clouds, goading us to take them on and make it to the desert beyond. We are soon into the scrub style of desert where grey rock meets red earth, where nomadic shepherds tend sheep and goats beside their temporary tented villages, where dust devils…
