KWSC News Articles

Sail in Stunning Northumberland

It would seem that your browser has Javascript disabled or does not suport Javascript. Without Javascript you will not see changes of images here as you move around the site. In future versions of this site it will also prevent you taking advantage of some of the features to change the way you view this site.

KWSC News Articles

News Article Archive.............

All news articles, including our archive of articles, submitted by our members are retained on the site. You can access the full list of articles from here.

PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT FOR OLDER ARTICLES THE INFORMATION MAY NO LONGER BE ACCURATE OR FULLY RELEVANT.

(Article from September 2004)

Travels Round the World

Caroline Robson (Daughter of club member Shirley Passmore) has just embarked on a gap year and a very adventurous journey round the globe. She is e-mailing several people with her travel diary - including the newsletter. Here we relay the first diary entry - starting at Kielder. [Editor]

Dear Everyone, Well, I'm off on my travels again. I would first of all like to apoloigise to everyone that I didn't manage to get to see before I left. I somehow managed to be a bit disorganised and didn't get to see everyone. I was working up until the last minute in the Dull Summer Job then went Oop North to spend the weekend camping with family at Kielder in the direct path of gale force winds (note: the family were in a caravan). I froze my buns off on the lakeside due to my unintelligent selection of a pitching location. While worried at the time that I might wake up in the morning suspended from a tree, I now feel more confident about my little tent's ability to hold on to the ground, even if it was my weight that was stopping it from moving.

For everyone who is in the dark about just what excuse I have for rejecting the world of proper work for another year, the plan was originally to spend some time teaching English in China. I had a few offers but they were all for year-long contracts and I wanted to work for six months then travel for four, before coming back to the UK in mid July for a wedding. One school offered me a six month contract and were prepared to let me start a week later than the official start of term over there because I had to attend my graduation ceremony in London before I went. So I had a firm job offer back in April, to start in September. They could not process my visas, however, until I showed them proof that I had a degree and my degree result did not come out until 24th June. So they said to just email them the result when it came and they would go from there. A week before the results came out I had an email from them asking if I had my result yet as they had two other teachers interested in the post if I didn't want it. I wrote back to them reminding them of my results date and assuring them that the result would be sent to them as soon as I had it. The email bounced back as Hotmail couldn't connect to their server. This went on for the next couple of weeks, with me sending my result and every successive email failing to get through to their address which had worked OK in the past. In the end I tried phoning them and faxing them but the line was constantly engaged no matter what time of the day or night. At the beginning of July I wrote a letter to them as a last resort, telling them that I couldn't connect to their email, phone or fax and that I was still interested in the post. For the rest of the summer I heard nothing and had to just assume that because they had not heard from me, they had given the job to someone else and had just ignored my letter. So I made other plans. Then, on the 2nd September, a day after their term started, I received an email from them using a different email address, apologising for the problem with the email and saying that they had also lost the other two teachers because of it. They had just received my letter and was I still interested? Two months after I send an airmail letter that should have arrived within a week they receive it just by coincidence when they realise they've got no other option? I emailed back to tell them that I had made other plans and had already paid for my tickets so no, I would not be bailing them out.

So that leads me to where I am now. Vienna. I started out from London on Saturday 18th September on the overnight bus to Paris. The plan for the first three months of the trip is to go overland all the way to Beijing. From Paris I went to Prague and from here I will be travelling this afternoon to Budapest. From there to Bucharest, Sofia and Istanbul, across Turkey and into Georgia and Azerbaijan before crossing the Caspian Sea to western Kazakhstan. Then I will go through Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan before entering China through the tradesman's entrance to Kashgar and going east to Beijing, following the Great Wall from one of its ends to one of its other ends. From Beijing I'm flyng to Japan for a fortnight before returning to China for Christmas and to meet Him Indoors (the very tolerant J) who is meeting me out there for ten days. I'll then be going to Mongolia for a month before coming back to Beijing for Chinese New Year, then going south west to Tibet (permits erm, permitting) then Nepal and India. From India it's on to Cairns, from where I'll spend three weeks travelling down to Sydney before flying to Tahiti. From Tahiti I'm flying to Easter Island (the 'navel of the world' as its a couple of thousand kilometres away from anywhere) and then finally I'll be spending six weeks in Peru and Bolivia before flying home to arrive back in London on the 13th July.

I nearly didn't get away at all. I originally had a ticket for the Paris bus on Friday morning and on Thursday I busied myself with the last minute preparations. Every year since the summer of 2000 I have been known to buy travellers cheques. The bank has records of these transactions with the likes of Thomas Cook and so on, not to mention things like plane tickets, always paid for by card and hence always on my bank statements as being spent in travel agencies. This year, however, the bank's Fraud Squad decided that I was trying to steal money from myself (yes, when you buy currency and travellers cheques you usually have to give one or two forms of photo ID) and put a stop on my card. My card was rejected in Thomas Cook and the cashier could only suggest ringing the bank, as I showed her a statement from that very morning proving that the money was in the account. I called the bank as was put through to a call centre in India, where I was passed from one clueless person to another until my phone credit ran out. Meanwhile, Fraud had rung my mum at home to tell her that someone was trying to steal money on my card. After they realised their mistake and took the stop off my card, the shops were shut and people were going home. With no chance of getting travellers cheques that evening, I had no choice but to abandon my plans of travelling on the early bus and hence lost my non-transferable ticket. I could have bought the cheques in Paris but on top of the usual commissions, I would lose out on the exchange rates and also the 2.75% charge that the bank levies on overseas debit card transactions. Thus I had to buy another ticket for the bus and finally got away on Saturday night. I shall be writing a very sternly worded letter to the CEO.

Anyway, I had a very enjoyable day in Gay Pareee on Sunday, visiting the Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, the Latin Quarter, Notre Dame and the Champs Elysees, where the MacDonalds has a white 'M' as all of the lights have to be white. I also used the loo without buying anything. On Sundays entry to most things is free which was just as well considering the price of food. They call it a 'croque monsieur' and charge people €7 for what is basically cheese on toast. A 500ml bottle of water in the centre of Paris can cost up to €4, or just under three quid.

A long overnight train jouney via Frankfurt took me to Prague, where I finally found the hostel after walking round for hours with my behemoth of a backpack on my shoulders, pulling a different muscle at a rate of approximately one every half an hour. I spent the rest of the morning sitting up very straight in a coffee shop on the main square, reading and trying to put my back right. By Christmas I'm going to look like a bodybuilder. I was determined to eat Czech food so after an afternoon wandering the streets and looking at all of the pretty churches and the nice architeture, the swarms of tourists and the 600 shops all selling Swarovski Crystal, I slunk into a small cafe to try the traditional local meal of goulash and draught Budvar (yes, it was 50p per pint). Goulash, although it sounds like something you would only be served in prison, is actually a tasty beef stew, which they serve with big doughy dumplings. Mmmm. The next morning I went to see the Astronomical Clock, which is in the main square on the side of the town hall. A crowd of around 200 tourists gathers under it every hour to see a procession of 12 tiny apostles, followed by a skeleton parade round in a circle. Having waited for around 15 minutes in the freezng cold rainy morning with a horde of shivering Americans, we all stood there a little underwhelmed. The look on everone's face said "is that it?". While all very cute and quaint etc, the crowd looked a bit disappointed not to have seen an 80-piece orchestra and the Virgin Mary.

I had planned to camp in Vienna, as there is a campsite about eight kilometres out of town. However by the time my train got in it was dark and I didn't fancy a wild goose chase around ome dodgy area on the offchance that the reception would even be open by the time I got there, then have to attempt to erect a dark green tent in pitch darkness. So I found a hostel, although not after a couple of hours carrying my pack around with neither a map or a clue.

Vienna is a really beautiful city, though it has rained for the most part. I have walked all over, seen St Stephen's Cathedral which has the bones of 11,000 plague victims in its catacombs, and last night I went to the Opera for two quid as they sell standing tickets to the peasants an hour before the performance. The one I saw was a French one called 'La Favorite', which I had never heard of but then I don't really know a lot about opera. Fortunately there were English and German translations on little screens so that the story could be followed.

Well, I am off to Budapest on the train this afternoon. I am having fun with my new digital camera and will eventully work out how to get the pictures off the memory card and into my emails.

Got to go so take care

Lots of love from Caroline xx

Caroline Robson

Return to Article Index