An Old French Mill

Parts of rural France have some really old bits of industry lying around. One of the more common types of surviving building still in use today are the old mills that were used to create both flour and oil.

Of course, not all the mills that once dotted the landscape have survived intact. Many, whilst still technically classed as mills, no longer operate as such, having been turned into guest houses, or restaurants, or terribly good looking private accommodation. A water wheel stuck on the outside of your house being the ultimate water feature for the discerning property buyer.

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7 Super Shots

There is a lovely blog meme running around the web at the moment, started by hostelbookers, with the idea being that travel bloggers share seven photos from their travels. Not just any old photos though, these photos have to match the following seven categories:

• A photo that…takes my breath away
• A photo that…makes me laugh or smile
• A photo that…makes me dream
• A photo that…makes me think
• A photo that…makes my mouth water
• A photo that…tells a story
• A photo that…I am most proud of (aka my worthy of National Geographic shot)

I was nominated to take part in this by the lovely Erin of De La Pura Vida (and if you’re heading to Costa Rica, you should definitely check her site out!). Photography being one of my main passions, I’m obviously very excited to be able to take part.. the only tough thing was picking the photos!

A photo that…takes my breath away

This is one of my favourite HDR photos I’ve done, a combination of three different shots blended together to produce this one. I absolutely love the clouds and the sky, presided over by the absolutely spectacular Mount Taranaki in New Zealand.

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Travel blogging tips from the experts: Nomadic Samuel

In today’s travel blogging tips article, I’m delighted to be featuring Samuel Jeffrey, better known as the man behind Nomadic Samuel, as well as the happy smiling faces of Smiling Faces Travel Photos.

Samuel burst onto the travel blogging scene with a tremendous bang last July, getting the sort of positive start that most folk dream of. Today he talks about how he got to where he is today, what drives him to blog, and his aspirations for his sites. Take it away Samuel!

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Perigueux: what have the Romans ever done for us?

If the title of this blog post makes little sense to you, then you should pause your whole life for a couple of hours and go watch Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Done that? Good.

Perigueux is a town with a remarkably hard to spell name in the heart of France’s Dordogne. It is the administrative capital of the region, and has held the title of capital for some time, ever since 200BC in fact, back when the Gauls ran France.

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Tips for buying and selling a travellers vehicle in New Zealand

If you’re heading to New Zealand for any length of time longer than a month, buying a vehicle is likely to be one of the most cost effective ways to see the country.

For example, renting a decent camper van for around a month is likely to cost you something in the region of $3000 - $4000 NZD. You can pick up a second hand camper van, depending on the time of year, for $2000 and up.

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In photos: Kings Canyon, Australia

For today’s photo theme post I’m sharing with you the quite marvellous Kings Canyon in Australia’s Northern Territory.

There is a big rock not too far from here that gets a lot of attention (and deservedly so!), but if you have some time in your trip, then I cannot recommend a visit to Kings Canyon enough.

The main highlight are the incredibly weird “beehive domes”, also referred to as the “Lost City”, which are pictured above. These are the remains of incredibly ancient (up to a billion years!) sand dunes, which were compacted into sandstone and then revealed by weathering.

The best way to explore this area is on foot, via the 6km Canyon Rim walk. This takes you right up and around the canyon, offering spectacular views and seriously dizzying drops, some as high as 270m. The walk isn’t too strenuous, although there is a steep section at the start. Now, on to some more photos!

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A tale of many cakes

I have recently had the pleasure of celebrating my birthday, achieving the milestone age of 32. Excitingly, this is the only time in my life that my age is exactly half that of my Dads. I’m not sure if there is a word for that phenomenon, but there should be. A demi-père perhaps.

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My travel ABCs

A travel meme has been sweeping the travel blogging world recently, where travel bloggers are posed 26 (!) questions about their travelling life.

I was nominated to take part by Sophie of Sophie’s World. It’s a bit of fun, and you might learn some things about me you didn’t know already. Without further ado:

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Face off: five European cities duel to the death

I was going to write a nice post about my five favourite cities in Europe, but then I figured that wasn’t quite as exciting as putting them to the test in a knockout and seeing which came up trumps. Naturally, this will be an entirely objective post, based solely on fact.

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