Memorable journeys I've made
From Worldtraveller
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This map shows some places around the world where I have made my most memorable journeys. It's one of the oldest travel cliches, but sometimes it is better to travel than to actually arrive, and in each of this places, for varying reasons, I've had a journey that was much much more than merely getting from A to B.
Taxi from Catania to Zafferana, February 1998
I had travelled to Sicily to try and see eruptions at Mount Etna. After a day spent high on the mountainside buried deep in cloud, we'd got a pretty spectacular bus back down the mountain to the city of Catania. During that journey a torrential downpour had begun, and at the end of it we still had to find our way from Catania to Zafferana, where we were staying. We didn't fancy waiting in the pouring rain for the bus, so we got a taxi, and the driver seemed to be offering a very good price. So we set off out of Catania, and soon were travelling at terrifying speeds, avoiding heavy traffic by swinging onto the wrong side of the road and facing down the oncoming traffic. Pretty soon I was gripping the dashboard fiercely and fearing for my life. Our worries weren't over once we were out of the city - far from it, for then we had winding country roads to contend with. I was certainly relieved to reach Zafferana in one piece, but the fun wasn't over. Language problems meant we hadn't properly understood that for some reason our driver wanted payment in US dollars. So, finding that we both spoke some german, the taxi driver and I began arguing passionately in german over what the price should be, standing under his umbrella in a downpour 800m above sea level on Mount Etna. After much gesticulation and haggling, we managed to come to an agreement, and with astonishing rapidity the argument was over. We shook hands and off he went back to Catania.
Across the Nullarbor plain on the Indian Pacific, July 1998
Australia is a huge country, and one way to really appreciate this is to see it at ground level. I'm not sure me or my family really knew what we were getting ourselves in for when we decided to travel from Perth to Adelaide on the train, the famed Indian Pacific which crosses the continent in three days. Standing on Perth Station I was struggling to get my head around the concept of spending 40 hours on a train. The journey started and we rumbled out of the Perth suburbs, into some lush green countryside, and over a few hours the lush green countryside turned into arid brown desert. Early in the journey, an announcement warned that although the train would often stop in the middle of nowhere, getting off on these occasions would be a really bad idea because getting left behind would be fatal. It was hard to believe that the train was our life support system in this wilderness.
Late on the first day we stopped at Kalgoorlie, and when the sun rose the next morning we were really in the desert, on the extraordinarily inhospitable Nullarbor plain. Early on that day we started along the longest stretch of straight railway in the world, and we stayed on it for 12 hours. Along that straight stretch is the surreal town of Cook, which used to be a positively bustling metropolis of 40 people but now has a population of just two. On we went, and although the scenery stayed pretty much the same, a never-ending expanse of blank desert, I couldn't do anything but look out the window.
During the second night we left the fearsome deserts, and slowly entered more hospitable parts of Australia. Stopping at Port Augusta during the night, I stepped off the train to find clear skies and a stunningly bright Milky Way overhead. To complete the moment, a shooting star streaked past. A few hours later we were in Adelaide, some 1700 miles from Perth, having completed the trip at the startling average speed of 43 miles an hour.
TGV from Lille to Avignon, OHP field trip, February 1999
I was on my way to an observatory in Haute-Provence, and having left my preparations for the trip to the last minute, had had very little sleep the night before. On the journey from Lille to Avignon, my co-observers and I headed for the restaurant car, from where we had great views of the snow-covered French countryside racing by, and where we also got very pleasantly drunk on cheap cans of beer.
Bus from Reykjavík to Akureyri, August 1999
Iceland's volcanic, arctic scenery is amazing pretty much throughout the country. This journey was my first long distance journey in the country, and it was because it was the first that it was so amazing. Around every corner there seemed to be another jagged mountain, or towering waterfall, or some other scenic wonder. I kept on taking photographs throughout the six hour journey, and finished it feeling slightly bewildered by the non-stop extraordinary beauty.
Boat from þórlakshöfn to Heimaey, September 1999
The ferry Herjolfur makes the daily run between mainland Iceland and the island of Heimaey, off the south coast. It's got a reputation as a vomit run, but on the day I sailed, the North Atlantic was calm and the skies were blue. The ferry travels along the coast of Iceland, and you get a spectacular view of the Eyjafjallajökull and Myrdalsjökull glaciers towering above the coastline. The final approach to Heimaey involves the ferry passing through a 20m wide gap between towering cliffs on one side and a lava flow on the other, before you dock in the harbour, surrounded by cliffs and volcanoes.
Train from Paris to Munich, May 2000
This journey was nothing really spectacular in itself, but it was memorable for me because I had just taken my final exams and finished four years of study at UCL. I had a huge urge to go abroad and decided to head for Paris and then take whatever train took my fancy. I was fairly broke, and decided I could only afford to go if I was less than 150 pounds overdrawn. Happily when I checked my bank balance I was £149.12 overdrawn, and so I left London for Paris that day. At Gare d'Est in Paris, the next train leaving was the overnight train to Munich, and so to Munich I headed, not really knowing anything about the place. Rolling out of Paris not long after sunset, I felt like I was leaving behind my student days and felt very nostalgic. As it turned out I was back at UCL just a few months later starting a PhD, but I didn't know that then!
Bus from Moyogalpa to Altagracia, Nicaragua, September 2000
This fantastic bus ride was the final triumph of a successful day's travelling. From northern Costa Rica I was heading for Isla Ometepe, in Lago Nicaragua, and got there by a journey of many stages, involving a bus ride, a short walk, another bus, a taxi, a boat and then finally this bus ride from the port of Moyogalpa to the town of Altagracia. The journey was fabulous for many reasons - first, Nicaragua really sounded quite daunting but in the event was already proving to be a friendly and safe place. Second, we were travelling just after the sun had set, and as we jolted along the dirt track all the fireflies in the bushes were lighting up. And third, the atmosphere on the bus was just brilliant - all the people getting on and off would say hello and ask us what we were doing, as they hauled bags of produce and the occasional live animal on and off the bus, and the bus driver was playing some excellent music on the stereo. All in all a great start to my travels in Nicaragua.
Ferry from Santiago Atitlan to Panajachel, October 2000
Lago Atitlán is an extraordinarily beautiful lake in the Guatemalan highlands, and the villages around the shore are well-known for their retention of many Mayan customs. In Santiago Atitlán one of the main attractions is the famous Mayan saint Maximón, and after a stay in Santiago in which I visited Maximón's shrine and also felt a small earthquake, I headed back to Panajachel, the lake's transport hub. Most lake transport is by small private boats, but there is the occasional large public ferry, and I got one of these. It was a hot, sunny day, and I climbed up onto the roof of the ferry and lay back in the sunshine, watching the awesome surroundings of the lake drift slowly by as I listened to uplifting music.
Bus from Solwezi to Zambezi, June 2001
I had no expectation at all of what a journey this would be. A fairly uneventful but lengthy bus journey had taken me from Lusaka, Zambia's capital, to Solwezi, in the north not too far from the border with the Congo, where I'd spent a pleasant couple of days. I wanted to move on to Zambezi, on the banks of the famous river, to watch the Solar Eclipse of June 2001, and got the direct bus, which left Solwezi at 9am on a sunny Monday morning, and was scheduled to arrive at 6pm. The first couple of hours were on tarmac, which was relatively painless, but after the end of the tarmac we were on potholed gravel. Hard seats, very little suspension and a very crowded bus soon made it a bit of an endurance test.
The bus bounced around on the uneven road surface, and the memerically monotonous Zambian landscape slowly bounced past, a red sandy road, deep blue sky, and constant scrubby forest. At about 3pm we had a break when the bus broke down. An hour's worth of bush mechanics got us going again and on we went. I didn't expect us to arrive on time, but was beginning to get the impression that this journey might transcend any normal concept of lateness. The sun got lower in the sky, and late in the evening we stopped at a town which I could find on my map. It was called Mfumbwe, and it turned out to be about half way.
So now I knew we would be extraordinarily late. Luckily, sunset was spectacular, and rumbling through the bush in the middle of nowhere, in darkness except for the bright milky way overhead was pretty amazing. Every couple of hours we'd stop at a village on the way, and everyone would pile off the bus to stretch aching limbs. Chatting to my fellow passengers, I found some like me who were first-timers on the route, and some who were grizzled veterans.
As midnight passed, I found a way of getting some sleep. By wrapping my head in two jumpers I could rest it on the seat in front without getting concussion. In this way I dozed a bit. By 2am I was wondering if we would ever get there, and was thinking we would see sunrise over desolate bush from the bus. But suddenly at 4am we were in Zambezi, and I could hardly believe it. We were dropped off at the Zambezi Motel, and crashed out to sleep, bruised and battered and aching, and stunned at how hard the journey had been. But the sight the next morning of the broad Zambezi river snaking across the plains in the bright sunshine certainly made me think it was worth it!
Lift from Sioma to Livingstone, June 2001
Having seen the not very famous but nonetheless impressive Ngonye Falls at Sioma, I wanted to get to the town of Livingstone, for the much more famous Victoria Falls. Having packed up and left our campsite on a beach by the Zambezi, three other travellers and I headed out to the 'main' road to hitch a lift. All was quiet, and we began playing cards. After about an hour we heard a car in the distance. Thankfully it stopped, and marvellously they turned out to be driving all the way to Livingstone. It was a 4WD truck, and the cab was already fully occupied so the four of us had to sit in the back, along with several sacks of maize and about 15 pumpkins. Three sat against the cab, but I had to sit on the back of the truck, and hold on. As we drove along the dusty bumpy road at a fair old pace, I held tightly onto the truck to stop myself being flung out the back, rapidly becoming caked in dust which heated up in the sunshine.
After about four hours we reached the Zambezi river crossing at Sesheke, and one passenger from the cab left us there. I moved to a spot leaning against the cab, giving my aching arms some relief. The other side of the river gave us smoother roads, but our fast progress was interrupted after an hour or so by an unexpected pothole, which saw the truck leap several feet off the road surface and everyone in the back miss several heartbeats. After about six hours on dusty tracks we reached tarmac again, and completed the last hour to Livingstone at speed. Utterly filthy by the time we arrived, we'd nonetheless had a spectacularly successful day's hitchhiking!
Ferry from Nkhata Bay to Chizumulu Island, July 2001
Chizumulu island belongs to Malawi but is just off Mozambique's coast in Lake Malawi. I sailed there from Nkhata Bay, on the MV Nkhwazi, which completes the distance in about 5 hours. It was scheduled to leave at 8pm, and although I was on board at 7.30pm I didn't expect it to leave for some hours. To my surprise, the horn blew at 8pm sharp, and off we went. Strung out across the lake were the bright lights of fishing boats, and another clear night revealed bright stars and the Milky Way, bright from horizon to horizon. The lake was as smooth as glass, and I lay back on the top deck listening to music and looking at the stars for the whole way until we arrived at Chizumulu at 1am.
Bus from Adelaide to Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road, November 2001
Hitherto a die-hard independent traveller, I took a tour along the Great Ocean Road, because the only other possibility was hiring a car. I was a bit wary of the tour at first, but thankfully it was not a huge bus, and I had 13 fellow travellers for company as we left Adelaide. Over the next three days the scenery became ever more spectacular: ferry across the Murray River, pink lakes, sand dunes and 90 Mile Beach on the Coorong, Loch Ard Gorge, and the famed 12 Apostles. On top of that the group was, despite my wariness, great fun, and at our stops for the night proceedings got ever more crazy, culminating in a huge meal/party/piss-up at Apollo Bay. The tour ended all too soon on the fourth day, with our arrival in the fabulous city of Melbourne.
Train, Bus and Boat from Bergen to Oslo, April 2002
This journey started with me feeling fairly battered, with a 7am start following a crazy night out in Bergen. The skies were overcast as we got a train heading for Voss, but they soon cleared up, and the scenery was too impressive for me to be catching up on sleep. From Voss we got a bus to Gudvangen, and from Gudvangen the fun really started, with a boat ride from there to Flåm. In warm sunshine, the sheer cliffs plunging into the deep green fjord were breathtaking. Fjords may be a Norwegian cliché but that doesn't make them any less impressive!
From Flåm, we took the extraordinarily steep Flåmbanen railway to Myrdal. Myrdal is on the main line between Oslo and Bergen, and so we kind of expected it to be town of some sort, but in fact it consists of only a few random buildings in a valley, surrounded by towering mountains. So there was absolutely nothing to do while we waited three hours for the train to Oslo, except wait in the dead silence and appreciate the location. The weather was fabulous, so that wasn't a hardship. When the train finally came we left Myrdal for the final leg of our journey to Oslo. The amazing Bergenbanen crosses the Hardangervidda plateau, so bleak that it starred as the Ice Planet Hoth in 'The Empire Strikes Back'. The train took us at speed across some phenomenal high-altitude scenery, which consumed several rolls of film, before we finally arrived in Oslo at about 10pm.
Train #3 from Beijing to Moscow, August 2002
How could any Trans-Siberian journey not count as a Great Journey? I was travelling from Beijing to London by train, and this was the first leg of it. The feeling of anticipation was amazing as I waited for the train to leave from Beijing Station on its six-day journey across northern China, through Mongolia, past Lake Baikal, across the phenomenal wilderness of Siberia, over the Ural mountains and into European Russia, and finally into Moscow. It's impossible to summarize it in a few paragraphs, but those six days seemed like a lifetime. I spent quite a good chunk of my time looking out the window, as endless fantastic places passed by. The border crossings were no mere formality - at the border between Mongolia and Russia, the Chinese in my carriage had no way of understanding the customs and immigration forms, and as the only English-speaker in the carriage, I spent about an hour filling in everyone's forms for them. Reports from other carriages were of Mongolian traders spreading their wares around as many compartments as they could, to evade customs limits. Both border crossings were lengthy affairs, about seven hours each.
The progress of our 8,000km journey was marked by posts every kilometre which counted us down towards Moscow. Once or twice a day we'd pass a '1,000' post, which would mark another phenomenal distance covered. On the fifth day we passed the obelisk marking the border between Europe and Asia, but so many people were crowded at every window that I couldn't see it. By the sixth day, the kilometre posts were down to three figures, and the journey was coming to an end. Having caused outrageous offence to the restaurant car staff by not tipping sufficiently during the journey, I was refused service on the final morning, and arrived at Moscow pretty hungry, 15 minutes early after a journey covering two continents, three countries, five time zones, 142 hours and 5000 miles.
Train from Zagreb to Ljubljana, February 2003
In the middle of the Balkan winter, everywhere was covered in thick snow. The train only takes about three hours to travel between Zagreb and Ljubljana, but it winds its way through some stunning scenery. I chatted to a Croatian journalist on his way to Slovenia to interview a politician, as we would our way out of the Zagreb suburbs and into the valley of the Sava river, where snow-covered forested hills towered over the train. We rumbled slowly upstream to Zidani Most, where the valley was at its narrowest and most spectacular. After that the scenery flattened out a bit and the snow got heavier. In the late afternoon we reached the Slovenian capital.
Boat from Hvannasund to Fugloy, July 2005
I had the astonishing luck of doing this boat journey on a sunny day. Such things don't happen very often in the Faroe Islands - a couple of days earlier, as the temperature pushed 15°C, I chatted to an old man who was finding the summer heat almost unbearable. If it had been raining I probably wouldn't have thought the journey was that great, but under blue skies it was amazing, chugging through the straits among the north eastern islands on the tiny wooden steamer M/S Másin. Hundreds of puffins dotted the surface of the sea, and those in the way of the boat flapped away clumsily, looking as if a boat passing by was the last thing they'd have expected. The sun shone, throwing the jagged cliffs of the islands into sharp relief. We docked briefly on the tiny but incredibly rugged island of Fugloy, before turning around and heading back towards Hvannasund.
Buses and boats from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas, November 2005
Having reached the very bottom of South America, my first step on the 4000-mile journey north to Quito was a fine start. It began before dawn as I walked through the chilly streets of Ushuaia for a 5am bus to Río Grande. As the mountains began to reflect the glow of dawn, numerous figures with heavy backpacks emerged from hostels and headed the same way. Under stunning blue skies we headed north to Lago Fagnano and the tiny town of Tolhuín, where I bought some empanadas and a coffee. A couple of hours after Tolhuín we reached Río Grande, and I got another bus from there to the Straits of Magellan. Here a half hour boat journey took us back to the mainland, and all the way across, small black and white dolphins leapt from the boat's wake, making me feel my journey had good vibes about it. The sky remained totally cloudless as we re-boarded the bus and drove on towards Punta Arenas, through mountainous Patagonian landscapes.
Truck to Parque Nacional Podocarpus, Ecuador, January 2006
My friend Dave and I were quite near the start of a 12km hike up into the hills of the beautiful Parque Nacional Podocarpus in southern Ecuador. We'd been hoping to hitch a lift up, but had only seen a couple of cars, both coming down. Just as we were resigning ourselves to a long walk uphill, a truck appeared, driven by a park ranger on his way up to check on things. We gleefully leapt into the back, and had a spectacular journey up the winding road, with thickly forested Andean peaks rendered forbidding by low clouds. The wind whistled by, we had to duck to avoid low branches, and the truck slid about on the muddy road. By the time we reached the top we were grinning like fools.
