Camel Riding in Tunisia

On trying to find a suitable holiday destination with my boyfriend I had one request: I wanted to ride a camel in the desert.

Tunisia was a great choice because it ticked all of our boxes:

* All inclusive (blame the British boyfriend for this one)
* Cheap
* Somewhere I/we hadn't been before
* Somewhere we could ride a camel


On our first full day we booked our half day Camel Caravan with our Thomas Cook representative for the following Monday.

Monday dawned bright and hot! After an early breakfast we awaited our first steed - the bus. 

After a rocky start - thank you bus sickness! - we were in amongst the olive groves in the Tunisian desert. 

Our camel

                           
These camels didn't know how to sit down, so I had to place my left leg in the hands of the guide who basically just threw me over. It's a bit hard considering the camel is over 6 foot high! But, I got up there and then Dan had to get thrown up behind me.
Unfortunately I'm not all that good with heights either and with Dan wriggling around I was not feeling the safest! Finally he settled down and we were on our way!

                              


After about 10 minutes trying not to fall off we stopped to feed the steeds. 
Getting off the camel was worse than getting off! It was sooo high! Once I was back on the ground I felt much safer. 

Camels eat cactus due to the amount of water the plant can hold. We all lined up with a piece in between our teeth. 

  

After my experience on the camel I wasn't getting back on it! Luckily they had some horse drawn carriages that took us to our second stop of lunch. 

After our 45 minute rest we were back on our steeds heading home. This time I got to ride the donkey. Much more comfortable and a lot closer to the ground the donkey was a wee bit slow, but that lead to a nice relaxing amble through the olive groves. 




All in all, I'm glad that I got to fulfill something that was on my Bucket List, even if I didn't enjoy it.

Brighton Up Your Day

On Tuesday, a friend and I headed down to the English coastal town of Brighton.
Brighton has got to be one of the most visited tourist beach destinations in the Summer - luckily we went at the beginning of March so it wasn't all that busy. 

The seaside resort town became more popular during the 1700s as some bloke decided to push the idea of drinking and bathing in seawater as a general remedy to illness. 

King George IV liked this idea so much he built a royal residence in Brighton - the Royal Pavilion.  Unfortunately i didn't have time to check out George's digs, although it is constructed in the Indo-Saracenic style that is popular in India. Bit of a contrast to the traditional English buildings Brighton sports!

One attraction we did get down to is Brighton Pier.

We headed down around dusk - an ideal time to snap some great sunset shots!

The pier has an amusement arcade full of different games - car racing, Dance, Dance Revolution, 'shoot the bad guys' - as well as 2p games. 
The 2p game was something new to me as we don't have anything like it in Australia.
 You put your 2 pence in a slot up the top and it slides down and tries to push the other coins out of the way. if you're lucky the coins fall over the edge and you get an influx of 2p coins to continue playing!



No arcade visit is complete without trying some of the rides. Here are the two I got on:

After our Pier fun, we checked out another side of Brighton.

Kelly's Brighton Murder and Mayhem Tour was all about the murders and mysteries of Brighton's dark past.

There was even a possible link between a Brighton man and Jack the Ripper! Kelly was very enthusiastic about the subject and was great to talk to. 

It's £8 per person and the walk goes for around 2 hours.

A train from London Bridge or London Victoria stations will take anywhere from 1 hour to 90 minutes, and will set you back around £16.

Or you can do what I did and invest in a personal chaffeur (make friends with locals with cars). Parking in Brighton can get quite expensive - 3 quid for 1 hour on the foreshore or £10 for a 24 hour parking permit from a hotel if you're staying down. 

It was a lovely day out with much to see and enjoy. 

Skydiving in the Swiss Alps

Last year, my cousin, her fiancee and another friend decided to travel across the European continent.

After hours of research and debate, we decided to go with the travel company Topdeck, as we thought they might have been a bit more 'mature' compared to other tour companies.

From the moment the I saw the optional activities for Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, I knew I had to do skydiving! I mean, what better place to throw yourself out of a perfectly working helicopter!!??

On one of the last days of June 2013, a group of us from the tour (Summer Fun & Sailing, June 28, 2013) got on a bus and were driven down to the skydiving office in town, where we signed our lives away and where most of us signed up for the photos and video package.

From there it was back up the hill to the landing site. There were 11 of us all up - 10 jumpers and 1 observer: unfortunately Daniel (the bloke on the left end) was too tall to jump.

I was in the pair to go last up, so as everybody else was taking their turns, I was doing my utmost to not freak out. This plan worked well until it was my turn to get into the helicopter! 

pumped up for a jump out!

It was fine for about the first 5 minutes, the helicopter pilot took us on a nice scenic tour - Daniel was on our jump up front with the pilot, so he got some good shots of the Swiss Alps - and then the nerves set in! Why the hell did I decide to do this??

When we reached the jump point, I was the first one out. I think this was the best way, I don't know if I would have been able to do it after watching Danilo. 

My instructor opened the side door and I just got a faceful of forceful wind. Then he tells me to stand on the helicopter leg thingys! So I was standing on them and he was crouched in the doorway, 'Now just fall' he says calmly. 

A faceful of strong wind and nothing between me and the ground 12000 feet away??? No! I wanted to get back in that helicopter on the ASAP!

he screams 'fall' I scream 'NOOO!'

Finally, I screwed up my courage and leaned forward like a banana off of the skid and plunge toward the green grass of the valley. 

The freefall of a skydive has got to be one of the scariest things you can ever do. 

Me, clearly not enjoying the freefall, and the valley I was plummeting towards at high speed. 

The instructor finally pulled on the parachute, and (thankfully) there was no problem in the deployment! I had survived the first leg of the drop! The deployment of the parachute can be quite a shock to your joints though, one second your horizontal, a microsecond later, and you're suddenly vertical! The straps certainly give your groin something to think about - lads watch out! 

My instructor did try and move about by pulling on either side of the chute (left to go left, etc) but I was having none of that! Just a leisurely glide down to earth was what I wanted! 

Before you land, you practice landing. This is using your hands to pull your legs perpendicular to your body. It's really hard to do when your dropping through gravity. Luckily, I managed the landing without any twisted ankles or broken bones!

phew! It's over and I survived!

All in all, the drop itself was about 2-3 minutes (pretty sure mine went on the longer end because I refused to let him 'sway' the chute).

Although I will always treasure this experience, there is no way in hell that I would ever put myself through it again!

The dive itself cost CHF 390 (approx $500 AUD) through Skydive XDream.

The company have a great team of experienced divers, many of who have passed there 1000th jump mark. 

If you happen to find yourself in the vicinity and are up for a bit of an adventure, I would definitely recommend them. We even got a free drink bottle!