I’ve been in London for a bit over 3 weeks now and I really enjoy it. These past days the weather has been so-so but otherwise it’s been remarkable good weather.

Two weekends ago we went on a walking tour organized by Walk London where we joined a route close to our place. The route we were walking was the 10th segment of a walking path called the Capital Ring which goes through the green belt all around London. It was a really nice walk and nice to see that there is lots of green patches around us.
At Welsh Harp we met up with the chairman from Welsh Harp Conservation Group who told us about the area that sees a lot of migrating birds. The conservation group had two hides from where they can sit and look at the birds. Below is a picture of how it looks inside the hide and here is the view you can see looking out from the hide.

This past weekend my parents came to visit us. And as I am still very new to London I got the chance to explore a lot of new places myself. Friday we took a tour in open doubledecker buses around London to see the famous landmarks in central London.

In the evening we went to my first West End performance to see a musical called Jersey Boys about a band from the 60s. I really enjoyed the music and the production with the way the stage kept changing into so many different sets throughout the show. This is definitely something to do in London and I hope to see more shows while I’m here.

Saturday we went to Notting Hill for the Portobello market to look the stalls, stuff they were selling and the atmosphere. Later we went to the Science Museum.

Sunday we went to Little Venice which doesn’t really look like Venice but is a very nice place none the less. From here we took a canal boat to Camden Lock where we ran into another market with great food stalls and loads of people.

It was nice with a visit from home and now that I have come closer to Denmark it will be easier to travel back and forth to visit friends and family and get people to visit me

Saturday 9 of us started out at 8am from the bus station in Prague. Our goal was a small town called Mseno where the hike would begin. Throughout the week leading up to the trip we had watch the forecast go from good to decent to sketchy. But most people were still psyched for a hike so we set out anyways. 

As we got in the bus and set out for the hour and a half bus ride it started to rain. It hadn’t stopped when we got out of the bus and as we started out for the walk everyone was in an overly cheerful mood as if the sun would come out if we just kept smiling.

We started out down the path through a small alley in Mseno and soon we found ourselves walking in splashing mud across fields. Luckily we later got on to paved road for parts of the trip.

The rain finally stopped as we made it to the first lookout point on our route. Further along we came to a part leading through something out of Lord Of The Rings with narrow passageways through the sandstones covered in bright green moss. 

Staying in fairytale world we later came to the castle of the day Kokorin Castle where we took a break.

After a late lunch we realized we still had 10km to go before we would get to Melnik so we tried to pick up the pace. At the same time the sun came out and we were walking along a beautiful path up and down hills past lakes on a river.

Leigh Anthony Dehaney one of the other guys on trip (and an artist and wizard with film) made two really cool films of our trip. The creepy flick below and the one with people here (you need a facebook login).

 

We made it to Melnik at the other end of our route in time to catch the 18.40 bus back to Prague. It ended up being a trip of somewhere around 20km and the first time this year I experienced two digit temperatures, saw flowers, deers and heard bird song Finally spring is here.

Thanks a bunch to Grace for organizing.

The weather was really nice and the trees were slowly starting to change into autumn costumes.

The last week we have also been hosting Ryan and Marisol, two American CouchSurfers who are travelling Europe on their 8th months now. It is amazing how many places they have been and it makes me tick to go on big trip. See Ryans great pictures at Flickr.

The highlight of the three weeks was without a doubt the four days we spend in the island of Kauai. Kauai is the oldest islands of Hawaii and also known as the Garden Isle because of the flourishing nature found here. Its one of the wettest spots in the world and the massive amounts of water has shaped the rock into what is called pali in Hawaiian. On this picture you can see the palis:

Fernando had gotten hold of permits for us to hike the Kalalau Trail. The trail follows the the massive windswept Na Pali coastline overlooking lush green valleys and towering rocky cliffs that rises almost 1200 meters to the deep blue pacific below. The trail is 11 miles (18km) long and winds it way along the cliffs in a very varied landscape with rain forest, desert and rocky cliffs. The trail is almost never straight but moves up and down, in and out. The view is spectacular and around each corner awaits new wonders.

It was hot and humid to do the hike so we drank a lot of water. Luckily there are plenty of streams and creeks on the trail so we could refill our bottles.

Also there were plenty of guava trees and a few mango trees so we could get some fresh fruit as we walked.

It took us 8 and a half hour to walk in and the reward was amazing. I was very busted and enjoyed just chilling on the beach for the rest of the day.

We had our camp in shade of trees close to the waterfall were we got fresh water and showers when it got to hot to sit in the sun.

And the beach was of course beautiful.

We spend a day on the beach and the hiked back the next day. Here was what we looked like after having walked back to civilization.

A truly amazing trip.

While some of the weekend was spend with a bunch of IAESTE people at the Karltejn Castle, my hung-over Sunday was spend at the computer.

Ive changed the look of my blog for a cleaner one. There are usually plenty of pictures in my post so I decided to go for a simple design with Depo Clean theme. Here is a few more shots from the castle.

I had four different rides, all of them was with interesting people. The trip took 5 hours which is pretty good. The only lag I had was in the beginning where it took about 40 minutes to get the first ride from the entrance of Holbækmotorvejen.