Where’s Wally: Australia

26 Nov 2010 1 Comment

by Robin in Australia, Where's Wally Tags: , , , , , ,

doing time

Today poor Wally is in an 1800s style prison cell inside the infamous Fremantle Prison – one of the places that the British convicts were sent in the 19th Century.

Wally actually has something in common with the prison though. The most famous escape, known as the Catalpa Escape, involved 6 Irish political prisoners.

John Boyle O’Reilly, the original escapist befriended a priest who smuggled him out of the prison on an American whaling boat. O’Reilly went on to become the editor of the Boston Pilot. After making his fortune he never forgot his friends. He disguised the Catalpa as a whaling ship and sailed to Australia where he rescued his fellow prisoners.

On there escape the Australian authorities caught up with them while still in Australian waters, however, the Catalpa raised the American flag and claimed that to fire on them would be to declare war is America. (how very American of him).

So the men sailed off safely to Boston…hopefully to become some of the first Red Sox fans.

Advertisement

Watching the Wheels

08 Nov 2010 5 Comments

by Robin in Cook Islands Tags: , , , , , ,

In Rarotonga, Cook Islands

We knew roughly three things about Rarotonga before the plain touched down. It was sunny. It was small. It was in the middle of nowhere.

What we didn’t know was how lush and green it would really be. Tim turned to me and said, “um, I think we’re on the island from Lost.” It looked absolutely wild. And in a way, to a couple of Americans it is. This is a place where to walk 30 feet to the beach we pass goats and chickens.

Rarotonga is a friendly place as well, with only 8,000 locals and about the same number in tourists. It’s so friendly in fact that we couldn’t seem to use up our bus pass because people kept offering to drive us where we were going. More

This Time Tomorrow

31 Oct 2010 6 Comments

by Robin in Pre-Departure Tags: , , , , ,

The last week has been one of the hardest weeks of our life. We walked away from our jobs on Wednesday, moved out of our home on Thursday, and said good-bye to Tim’s family and our dog, Noosa, on Friday and drove down to PA. On the ride down it was surreal to realize we were really leaving so many people, places, and memories behind. In the planning process of a trip like this, it’s easy to spend time preparing for what life on the road will be like. But preparing yourself for what you are saying goodbye to is impossible to prepare for, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. More

The Way

18 Oct 2010 6 Comments

by Robin in Pre-Departure Tags: , , , ,

[Audio https://dl.dropbox.com/u/9901364/23_Fastball_The_Way_May_1998.mp3%5D

The Where and How

There are countless people taking trips like ours right now. A lot of them are blogging, tweeting, and sitting in hostels right now giving advice based on their experiences. In fact there is so much advice out there on “the right way to travel” that fights tend to break out in travel communities about things such as: how much to pack, how long to stay in places, how to travel in between them, and so on. Just like everything else in life, we take the advice we want to take and ignore the rest.

One of the things we hear over and over again is: don’t plan ahead. For people traveling long-term it makes sense to leave a lot of room for improvisation. But I’m also not necessarily the type of person who is okay sleeping in a train station if there are no rooms available in a town that we arrive in late at night. We’ve already run into issues trying to book rooms for New Years and at the top of a mountain, even when planning those two things months in advance. Of course, these were the two things I knew needed to be done early – I wasn’t early enough. So for this trip we are trying to keep a balance between preparedness and spontaneity.

The “Way” is roughly this: More

Disclaimer

Views expressed on this blog are solely the opinions of the blogger. Media found on this blog is for preview use only. If any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!