Dubai Ferry trip

There are several routes available, travel along the coast  or take a look at The Palm from the sea, or just pop to one of the fabulous beaches in Jumeriah away from the tourists.

For up to date information on times, locations and costs visit the RTA website

Catching the ferry from either Dubai Marina or Al Ghubaiba, Deira Creek is a must do if visiting Dubai. The trip costs AED 50 and lasts for 90 minutes. After a brief safety demo, the ferry sets off out the harbour.

We started our trip from the Creek, catching the bus from our house on the Al Wasl Road, on our arrival at the Marina, we travelled home on the tram, train and bus. 

Food and snacks were served on the ferry and you were free to walk around talking as many photos as you wanted, which of course my son and I did in abundance.

The ferry travels approximately 1km from the shore line and the views are simply stunning. On this day I had a headache so stayed mainly indoors, so please excuse the reflection in the windows. To be able to see all of Dubai in one go is astounding.

We can see the Burj Al Arab from the beach near our house, but when approaching from the Mairina area by road you can only see the top half of the building and despite the sail looking very close to the Al Arab there is now such much building going on around the area you can only see this iconic view now from the air or sea.

The last part of the journey is entering Dubai Marina, again the shore line is simply stunning.

Dubai Marina Mall, final destination from where you can get the tram, tube or a taxi back to your hotel or home. After a spot of lunch and shopping of course.

Olympic Games - Barcelona 1992 #TimeTraveller

This is me aged 21 with my 2 month old first born child, who has never forgiven me for abandoning him at such a young age to leave him for a week and travel to Barcelona to watch the Games of the 25th Olympiad.

I won a trip for 2 to the Olympic Games, all travel, accommodation, tickets and luggage in The Daily Express newspaper. All I had to do was identify 5 athletes over the week and send my answer 'on the back of a postcard'

I am a huge athletics fan and this was a dream come true for me. I'd given up my dream of competing around the age of 12 and now with a new baby and only a few weeks before the games started I assumed that this was another dream that was over.....until I got the phone call.

Arriving at Heathrow there was a little bit of publicity, interview and photo's before boarding the flight and arriving at our hotel in Sitges.

Flowers and champagne awaited us and that evening we got to meet the other competition winners. Everyone else had won via various other methods, including one man who opened a mars bar to see on the wrapper 'you've won tickets for 2 to the Olympic games'

We travelled round the venues in a group, we had dinner together and transport laid on into Barcelona in the evenings so we could explore the city.

For me these Olympics were the greatest games ever and although the stadiums and ceremonies have got bigger and better, nothing will ever take away from me seeing Germany compete as one country after the Berlin Wall came down. Hearing all the new country names after the Iron Curtain and wondering how these names were pronounced. Recognising international athletes who I knew as coming from the USSR yet not existing as an entity anymore. Supporting South Africa compete in International sport for the first time during Apartheid, if a spectator didn't have a countryman in that event you can guarantee if South Africa were represented they supported them.

We took part in the then largest and longest Mexican wave at the swimming events, boo'd Ben Johnson on his return to the sport after his drug's ban. Screamed ourselves hoarse at Linford Christie in the 100m's and travelled to the hockey and the rowing events and stood in silence when medals were given and national anthems played.

I had the most amazing holiday of a lifetime, one I talk about often and I would love to revisit Barcelona one day. Some of the world's greatest athletes competed at those games and went on to be some of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen and i am proud to have been there.

My Gran on Holiday 1940's with #timetraveller

It's 10 years ago next month that my Gran died. We finally got round to unpacking the last few boxes after our move in December which contained photo albums and childhood books of mine.

I'm off to the UK next week and will be visiting the crematorium in Newport.

My Gran is never far from my thoughts and every time we move I think about how proud she would be of us living abroad and although if she was still alive, she'd be 102, she'd not have made the trip to South Africa or Dubai, but she would have loved every photo and every letter and I can guarantee every member of the WI and the church would know about our travels.

So as my Gran is no longer here, I thought I'd show you some of her travels.

On the ferry from Torquay to Brixham 1940's

Gran 2nd from right

Bournemouth 1964

Gran and Granddad
Sadly I never met my Granddad, he died a few years before I was born.

Drusilla Zoo 1975
Me and my Gran, I have many fond memories of holidays with or at my Grans, just sadly not too many photo's from back then.

Porthcawl 1980

L-R back to front

Mum, Uncle, Me, Gran, Aunt, Cousin, Sister

Regardless of the weather, we always got on the beach, there's no month on the back of the photo, but it would've been the school holidays as we lived in York in 1980.

Teignmouth 1987

Uncle Joe and Gran

 Not a lot has changed over the years, apart from maybe the stripy deck chairs on the beach. I've seen numerous photo's this summer of people on the beach with their families in their wet weather gear, being 'typically British' and many photo's of families visiting Drusilla Zoo.

Family Holiday to Tunisia 2010

Little did we know that this would be our last family holiday for a long time. It was after we returned from this trip that we were asked to move to South Africa and we’d be gone from the UK within 4 months.

Our last major vacation had been to the West Coast of America in 2007 where our eldest turned 18 and left home the following month to join the army.

We’re not ones for booking resort style holidays and in fact have always shied away from them, but we managed to convince hubby that now the boys were older that a resort with pools and on the beach would make for a more relaxing holiday all round. So we booked 2 weeks in Yasmin Hammamet at Villa Noria, full board.

Of course travelling as a family of 5 this meant with hiring a 2 bed villa that one child would end up sleeping on the sofa and of course there were the inevitable arguments. 

Our villa opened up on to the pool side with a little court yard garden out front, we had one set of very loud neighbours whose holiday crossed over with ours for a few days and although they were loud, the kids were actually quite nice and after a few days of constantly returning them to mum and dad we decided it was better to have their kids play with ours at the pool than have them unsupervised, fighting and screaming their heads off near by.

We met another family with 2 boys similar ages to ours and although we don’t see them much due to the distance we do keep in touch on face book and there have been a couple of visits when we’ve travelled back to the UK.

Unfortunatley it turned out that the beach was a short walk from the complex so our idea of letting the 3 boys on the beach alone were cut short as although they were competent swimmers it was hardly fair to ask the 18 year old to supervise his competitive 15 year old brother his ‘stroppy’ 11 year old brother. 

But with the other family and their kids we did end up making sure there was at least one adult present on the beach when the kids were there.

The 18 and 15 year olds were able to use the local taxis into the town and the 18yo often returned to the villa after evenings out in Hammamet.

We did book a couple of local trips and went out on the pirate boat, the kids were able to jump off the side and we all swam and snorkeled and food was served. The kids and I climbed into the rigging to join in with the pirate show which was very entertaining.

Hubby persuaded us to join him on a trip further a field and the kids and I gave in to pressure and agreed to a day out in Tunis. It was the hottest day of the holiday at 37c and on the morning at 7am hubby announced he wasn’t well enough to go, so the kids and I reluctantly set off on a 3 hour coach trip.

We stopped at the town of Sidi Bou Said which is painted blue and white, there was a museum and plenty of stops for a cold drink. 

Next we headed off to Carthage for a self guided tour and we did actually enjoy ourselves.

On into Tunis and the souks which was also enjoyed by all and we returned later that evening. Hubby did manage to get on the tour the following weekend with the friends we’d made and the boys and I stayed poolside for the day and chilled out.

We spent most evenings in Hammamet, a short taxi ride away. 

One evening the youngest and I were in a taxi and set off first. By the time we arrived everyone else had been waiting for nearly half an hour for us and were getting worried. The taxi driver misheard me and set off down the dual carriage way, he tried explaining it was a 20km trip before the next turning to return to the Hammamet, for a moment I was actually quite scared we were being abducted.

We visited a water park, fun fair and found plenty of play areas.

There was a lot of chilling out on the beach in the day and the evenings.

And the most amazing sunsets

A lot has gone on in Tunisia since we were there and we hope one day we can return for another holiday, as it really is a beautiful country and there is so much more to see.

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