Escape

This area, as well as having an amazing beach, is where the Turkish Army landed in 1974. Here's Pinar with a tank.

Belly dancer

Pinar's dad shows me how it's done.

I couldn't get the money to stay in - but that's another story.

The way of the gun

Here I am all tooled up and ready to get into action.

I went shooting with Pinar's dad and all the kit, including the gun is borrowed.

What you can't see is the extreme heat and the panic behind my eyes as I slowly realized that the person showing what to do doesn't speak English.

Probably the most dangerous thing you can do is give me 50 bullets, a gun and no instructions. Luckily all went well and although none of the other blokes spoke English they kept me right and were very keen on my England cricket sunhat.

sunset in kyrenia

was nice to see Pinar's home land, but I'm sure you'll agree the beaches don't really have much on Blyth beach.

Northern Cyprus

Pretty unspoilt and very, very hot.

next destination

Cyprus. Looking forward to a week in the sun. Probably no updates as I'm not sure the web is quite up to it in the Turkish repubilc of Northern Cyprus, but we'll see

A half-gun salute

Good job this castle was never invaded - the guns were so small even Pinar would struggle to fire one!

Plaza de Toros

Bullfighting almost came to the North East in spectaular fashion on our Bank Holiday jaunt to Durham.

These bad boys just seemed to be loose and started to run at some of the walkers and tourists.

Luckily they were only interested in fighting each other and Pinar wasn't forced to use her matador skills while I made a run for the fence.

Raby Castle

Not quite from the world trip, but I suppose County Durham would count as a foreign excursion in most quarters.

Definatly worth a visit if you have a bank holiday free.

The Fell's British tour

Angel of the North - close up

Mauri house

This was a show inside a traditional house.

It was the same place the British Lions went on their tour.

The japanese people were going crazy for this, I honestly don't know what they do with all the photos they take.

We even saw some getting their photo taken next to a photo someone else had posted up in the gift shop.

By the end I got sick of being asked to take pictures of other tourists and finally lost my rag and just refused. We were in the middle of nowhere after a 4 hour drive enjoying the view over a lake, when out of nowhere a Japanese couple pulled up and asked me to take a picture.

In the sticks

At Te Puia or Te Whakarewarewa to use its full Maori name. Here I am in a old mauri village doing an improvised Haka and Pinar is just posing next to a tree and river for some reason. If you look really closely you can see something strange lurking in the trees behind!

Clarts

As well as the hot springs and geyzers there was loads and loads of boiling hot mud. It looks pretty bad and smells even worse - a bit like dead eggs and a damp dog.

Apparently you can cook eggs in there, and they are a delicacy in Japan. You can also have a bath in it, which we did, although you need specailly adapted ones as these ones would just melt your skin off.

Hot water

One of the biggest geyzers we saw in New Zealand. It was pretty amazing and sent boiling hot water about 30 foot up in the air. This is what it looks like close up, and from a distance.

Hilton Dinner

This was just a little celebration for us getting married, which now feels like a long time ago, but it was hard getting all our immediate family together at the same time....

We had a lovely meal, and it turned out to be a really nice night...everyone got on famously.

Cheery opener

It was more like November than August for the first game of the season.

the opening game is usually watched through sunglassess but it got so dark they even had to put the floodlights on.

It poured down with rain pretty much from start to finish.

Still, they won.

Lake in NZ

Lake in Rotorua and it's famous black swans. We went Kyaking here later on, and this is where our sea plane took off from.

Colonial house in New Zealand

Newcastle

From the top of the eponymous Newcastle.

Went to the top the other day.