Search results for: node/Saudi Arabia

Welcome back all. I’m sorry if you’re all reading these one after the other, as I know that the text of my narrative can sometimes drag on. Just remember that for every 5 paragraphs you read, there’s probably another 15 paragraphs of memories and thoughts that I’m sparing you. I kid you not when I say that it takes me at least an hour for each of these posts. And that’s only if I sit and write them straight through… This tale revolves around another magnificent adventure that we had in Saudi Arabia. Namely, the visit to the Kingdom’s first, and so far only, Unesco World Heritage site, Mada’in Saleh. Many of you may have heard of a little place called Petra in Jordan, right? Well, Mada’in Saleh, is the 2nd city of the Nebateans, this one carved in to the rock hills very close to Al Ula. The stone in this area is actually harder than in Jordan, and as a result, some of these tombs are even better preserved. However, for reasons beyond the scope of this post, many Muslims have a beef with this site, and so they have tried to deface and damage it, and in many cases have succeeded. Read on for more great information about this place, and what we did there. As usual, make sure you check out all the pictures on flickr before you read on!

Greetings, and Happy New Year to one and all. This blog post of course is a little after the new year, but what can I say, I’m still playing catch up. Believe me when I say that everyone near and dear to me was in my thoughts as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s eve, in spite of the fact that I couldn’t be with everyone to celebrate. However, this did mark yet another year where I would be ringing in the new year in another far off land. Last year saw me turning the calendar over in one of the earliest areas to change years, New Zealand, and this year, I was spending that time with family in another part of the globe, Saudi Arabia, and specifically, Jeddah. How cool is that? I think I should make this a new tradition if at all possible. Although I do like to be close to friends on this most auspicious of days, it’s also pretty cool to be able to experience a new place. However, I’ll have to admit that Saudi Arabia may not be the most ideal of places for New Years. For starters, they don’t follow the Gregorian calendar, which means that they don’t consider that date New Years. Secondly, as a very strict Muslim country, There is absolutely no alcohol to be found or consumed. Besides those minor details though, it’s a great place to be 🙂 Read on if you’d like to hear a little more about how we celebrated.

Well, here I am sitting at a rather high altitude over our great nation. We’ve been airborne for about an hour now, and far below me is no doubt the roiling waters of the great Atlantic Ocean. It always amazes me what clever creatures we humans are. Conquering the skies with our mighty flying birds. I hadn’t intended to actually spend much time blogging on this first leg of our journey to Saudi Arabia, but what can I say? Circumstances have lead to this outcome. What circumstances? Well, mainly the fact that the onboard entertainment system is kaput. Yup, no fun movies to pass the time. Too bad. I was looking forward to watching Tropic Thunder, and probably Hellboy II or Christmas Vacation, that all-time classic holiday movie. I guess I can’t complain though. I’ve got my iPod and I’m rockin’ the Pink Floyd with my sound isolating earphones, so that I don’t have to listen to the myriad of crying babies on this red-eye flight to London. Jody seems rather oblivious beside me, having dozed off even before we left the ground! Good for her, she’ll be well refreshed when we touch down in the great city of London for our 24 hour layover. What? A layover? Weren’t we supposed to fly out Sunday and just stop for an hour and a half? Well, read on to find out what happened. Click here for pictures.

A few months ago, Ms. ActiveSteve and I signed up to take our PADI Open Water course, with the hope that when and if we visited Saudi Arabia, we may get a chance to do some scuba diving in the red sea while visiting Jeddah. Well, I’m extremely happy to report that we did indeed get that chance, and it was phenomenal. Of course, we have very little real world experience to compare it to, but that’s besides the point. After all, how many other people got the chance to dive the coral reefs of the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia this New Year’s eve? Well, by my count, maybe 8 other people. That’s it. In the whole world! So, understandably, we were pretty stoked about it. So leads to this blog post, which will shed a little light on this most excellent adventure that Jody and I got to share together 🙂 For maximal enjoyment, I should also recommend that you check out the pictures that I’ve posted from the day on flickr. Ironically, the camera screen conked out early in the day, and without a viewfinder some of the framing may have been off, but it still took pictures thankfully. Looks like it’s time to take ‘er in to the shop again!

Howdy my friends! Time for another quick tale of fun and excitement from the pages of my travel journal. Right off the bat, I’m going to admit something to all of you. Jody and I simply haven’t had the chance to get away just the two of us for quite some time. As it turns out, between our various international trips last year, due mainly to my own selfish NZ ambitions, we just didn’t travel together. While this was admittedly not a conscious decision, we certainly do plan to rectify that in the coming years by having some more excellent international adventures! In order to get back on that track, we decided it best to start small by a weekend getaway in the beautiful area around Picton known as Prince Edward county. There are a bunch of new wineries springing up, and we decided to do some cycle wine touring and stay in a B and B. Of course, another major reason for this getaway was to meet up with my sister Andrea, as well as Patrick and Helena. More on that later on if you read the full post, but in the meantime, you can have a gander at a little custom map that I put together of our wine touring, as well as the pictures that Jody posted on flickr.