Stuart's Travel

Woken by my alarm I hunt down coffee, filling my cup to a surreal backdrop of a city at night, drifting past the windows. We’re in Mexico. I was off the ship and on a bus while it was still dark. The bus was old, rattling constantly even before we reached the cobbled streets, the […]

Timezone changes are great for assuring a lie-in. I got up at what a week in New Zealand had taught my body was 3am, had a shower and found coffee, which I took to the Crow’s Nest bar just in time for the 10am event. It was titled ‘Paper Flowers’ so I half suspected it’d […]

As predicted and hoped I slept well, a solid seven hours sleep then another hour or two drifting. I started the day with an unpleasant task: Telling Guest Services to reverse the service charge they’d added to my bill. She told me that she couldn’t do that on a per day basis, that I’d have […]

The day’s plan was simple, elegant, a good day. None of it went right. I was awake too early, got up, checked out of the hotel. I stopped for coffee on the way to the pier, found a good mix of options. At the pier there was nowhere to drop my bag. That left me […]

Likely to be offline for a few days, depending how connected the countries in Central America are. Will update when possible.

It took me three hours to get to lunch today. Three hours of mainly beaches, the place names a litany of movie locations or home towns of West Coast Swing dancers. The car needed filling again, another 6 gallons, another $20. US gallons are smaller than normal ones, 3.81 litres rather than 4.44. That makes […]

Elephant seals are surprisingly small. Not dissimilar in size to grey seals, only the biggest males are larger. Not as pretty as grey seals, and the pups can’t compete when it comes to being cute. I’d stopped to see some in the Año Nuevo State Park but the lady at the entrance told me I’d […]

Getting four hours sleep by 9pm was great. Getting only two more for the rest of the night was definitely not. I gave up in the end, got up, packed for the flight and headed out. When I left the motel I didn’t set the satnav. Instead I vaguely headed towards where I knew the […]

After bidding the possums goodnight I slept well, the best I have in New Zealand. A solid 7 hours, maybe a little more. The walk to the shower in sandals and a towel was fortunately unwitnessed and I had what was a good shower between the trees, under the open sky. Back in my cabin […]

I started the day in a bad mood. Something to do with 3 hours sleep, 3 hours trying to sleep then getting up before 7am because of the noise from other guests. They weren’t making much noise at all, but every weight change made the floor creak, I knew precisely when they had a shower […]