Ooh, excellent, £5 fares with GNER (Great North Eastern Railways, for those of you not up to speed with UK rail company acronyms). Given that I am trying to minimise my carbon footprint and avoid flights within the UK (though oh, Easyjet, your 6.20am flight from Gatwick to Glasgow is so tempting), any fares that are cheaper than flights can only be a good thing, though they’re bound to all be at times that don’t work with my work schedule. Still, theoretically, it’s good.

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Continued from yesterday: Australia. I have very little to say about that portion of the trip, given that most of it was spent seeing friends, attending (and participating in) weddings, and visiting my aging grandmother, which suited me fine. I flew with Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, which was - well, fine, I suppose. The only thing I care about on those sorts of long-haul flights is legroom, and while Cathay Pacific was not outstanding in that department, at least they were no worse than most. Also, they were cheap. (I went on to fly Korean Air to Beijing via Seoul, and was very impressed with them, legroom-wise - would use again.)

On the subject of flights, I flew with Virgin Blue from Sydney to Launceston, Tasmania, and it was dead cheap, and perfectly serviceable - they have a habit of making their prices much, much cheaper if booked from within Australia, which was useful for me back when my parents were living out there and I could ask them to book my flights for me. (Incidentally, check out Pacific Blue for cheap NZ domestic flights, as well as flights from Australia and NZ to Fiji, the Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa, which is very useful indeed.) (And incidentally again, the competition on Australian domestic fares between Virgin Blue and Qantas’s Jetstar is already fierce enough, but with Tiger Airlines starting domestic Australian flights late this year, it is a very good time indeed to book internal flights in Australia. If only I was going back, or, indeed, if only I ever got to travel internally while I was there, rather than spending all my time in places I already know.)

Tasmania was lovely. My uncle and aunt live in the heart of Tasmanian wine country, and I spent a lot of time looking longingly at various pieces of promotional literature from nearby vineyards and wishing I was staying longer. They are currently in the process of selling up their gorgeous B&B on the Tamar River at Dilston, just north of Launceston, but I’m going to link to it anyway in case they change their minds. Here.

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China tomorrow, but in the meantime: latest travel obsession: Soqotra, off the coast of Yemen. Yes please.

Back!

So I am back from my most recent travels and it is long past time for an update, though I have been putting it off until all my photos were uploaded. However, uploading to flickr is taking an age (unexpectedly - I’ve never had problems with them before, and incidentally, you may not want to click on that link unless you’re prepared to wade through literally thousands of untitled and uncaptioned photos - it’s in progress, honest), and so I may as well get on with things.

I left Glasgow on September 22nd for the first, and least glamorous, destination on my journey: Knutsford, Cheshire, for the wedding of a friend. I’d never been to Cheshire before and to be honest was not enormously excited (though I was excited about the wedding), as the image in my head was of untrammelled suburbia, punctuated with footballers’ mansions and tedious commuter monstrosities. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Knutsford itself, which, in addition to being your typical slightly-posh Middle English small town, has a rather bizarre collection of Art Nouveau architecture, including the freakishly opulent Belle Epoque restaurant and hotel, where the wedding was - excellent food, and good just to look at. Too pricey for us in terms of accommodation, though, and we stayed at the Angel Inn down the road (scroll down), which was perfectly serviceable, despite giving Tom the Small Town Fear. Man Zen for decent Chinese food, too.

Perhaps most usefully, Knutsford is also only 20 minutes by car from Manchester Airport, from whence I was flying to Sydney the morning out of the wedding, and therefore made an infinitely preferable alternative to a grim airport hotel. Would visit again. Probably.