Our Europe Cavalcade

There's something special about experiencing something for the first time.  No expectations are floating around in your mind, just a blank canvas of possibilities.  So we found ourselves  tired and dazed in London after about twenty four hours of travel to start a seventeen day tour of Europe.


There were forty nine of us booked on the trip, about two thirds of the group starting from London and the rest joining us in Amsterdam our first night stop.  Those first few days were pretty quiet.  Most couples and family groups sticking together with just perfunctory politeness but as the week progressed people would start to chat with the people sitting near them on the bus and then most made an effort to sit with different people at breakfasts and dinners. By the second week some great friendships were starting to form and we were becoming a family of forty nine. I think we were pretty lucky in having a really great group with easy going personalities most of which were Aussies, a few NZer's, a few South African's, two Philippino families and two sisters from Bahrain. The majority of the group enjoyed a few drinks and we had some brilliant nights out with plenty of alcohol and lots of laughs.

All of us

Every day was full on with wake up calls generally at 6am, breakfast at 6.30am then on the bus by 7.30am. I think we were covering on average about 400kms per day.  Days were broken up into sections of travelling on our tour bus with stops on the motorway for snacks and bathroom breaks, lunches and of course various designated sightseeing locations. We all got pretty good at trouping on and off the bus in a fairly orderly fashion but my knees didn't always enjoy going from being bent for two hours to functioning well. But I loved it. I also got really good at sleeping while sitting upright something I've never been able to do.  But somehow that bus would just lull me to sleep.
Our Travel Directer Jon was pretty amazing.  While we whinged and moaned about how long we'd been on the bus for the day he worked non stop, checking luggage on and off the bus making it seem like magic as bags went from the bus to our rooms and back again with not a glitch.  He spoke the language of every country we went to, gave us a thorough education on how to navigate each city and what to expect, gave us directions to every even vaguely interesting spot to check out, took us to fantastic restaurants, made sure we all made it on and off the bus at every stop and knew more about the history of pretty much everything we went past than I could ever hope to remember. He even took in good humour many of us nodding off in the middle of it. 


Our bus driver Enzo was nicknamed Enzo Ferrari. This was because he drove the bus like he was Schumaker driving at a Formula One Grand Prix. Each day we had to move two seats forward on the bus and I think most looked forward to hitting those front seats and having the best view.  That was of course until you'd sat up the front and got to experience first hand just how close Enzo would sit behind the car in front and how fast he drove. In saying that I felt totally safe and I still marvel at some of the places he maneuvered that bus.

Home sweet home

Our travel route

At the end of the tour we were all asking each other what our favourite place was or what our own personal highlight was.  Most were hard pressed to pick just one place because we just saw and experienced so much.  When I look back at the photo's I have multiple great memories of each place we went to and what we did while we were there. For some places it felt like we needed a lot more time but the tour gave us a great snapshot of what was there and whether we'll make an effort to get back there one day.

Yep it was cold

My fav photo of Amsterdam

The first day of our tour took us through southern England, France, Belgium and onto Amsterdam.  We only had one night there so we went straight into the city and onto a glass window boat to do a tour of the canals.  Not sure I loved Amsterdam but of course hard to tell in that short period.  My main memory was that is was ridiculously cold, very wet and there were bikes everywhere.  Why have a fence when you can have a body of water between your paddocks.  Our Travel Director thought a wander through the red light district was in order. It was an eye opener that's for sure. Amsterdam kind of struck me as a bit of a dodgy place.  Lots of dark alley ways and dodgy characters around every corner.
From Amsterdam we headed east and into Germany stopping in Cologne on our way to Rhineland. We spent the afternoon on a river cruise down the Rhine River. Hard work but someones gotta do it...
From Rhineland we continued south through Freiburg and the Black Forrest ending the day in Lucerne Switzerland.

Rhine Valley

Lucerne was amazing. One of the most picturesque places I've ever been. Hard to beat a city on a stunningly blue lake that has a back drop of the Swiss Alps. We did a lake cruise and a trip up to the top of snow covered Mount Pilatus. Lucerne had a real energy and vibrance to it and definitely a place I would like to try and get back to one day.

Black Forrest

Lucerne

We spent two nights in Lucerne and then continued on to Innsbruck Austria. The drive was incredible as we wound our way through the Swiss Alps and then the Austrian Alps via Liechtenstein. 


Innsbruck was beautiful. We stayed in a winter ski resort nestled in the mountains. We were in the front seat of the bus on our way there and I had to close my eyes on several occasions as Enzo screamed down narrow winding streets in the tour bus. Actually that's how he drove the bus all the time but it's not quite as scary when your on a big motorway. While in Innsbruck we also got to visit the Swarovski Outlet. Apparently it's where it originated. So I had no choice but to buy some crystal jewellery to celebrate. 

Innsbruck

Venice

From Innsbruck we crossed over the Italian border with a quick stop in Verona and then onto magical Venice. Jon warned us about the chaos that is Italy before we hit our first motorway shop once we'd crossed the border. 


I wasn't sure what to expect as we headed to Venice. I'd heard different things about it. It was actually pretty amazing. We did all the touristy things, a taxi ride down the Grand Canal, a ride in a gondola and standing in St Mark's Square. It was absolutely packed with tourists which wasn't surprising but it makes it so much harder to get in to see things. 

St Peter's Basilica

Colosseum

To get away from the beaten track a bit Jon took us to another island Burano which is one of the many islands that are in the lagoon where the locals still live like they used to (before tourism took over and made Venice too expensive for them to live).  It was gorgeous and we went to an amazing seafood restaurant where they gave us more food and booze than we could ever hope to consume. Although we gave it our best shot. 


After a couple of nights in Venice we jumped back in the bus and made our way to Rome through the rolling hills of Tuscany. It's hard to say what my favourite part of Rome was in a city with so much history and so much to see. I think it's hard to go past the Sistine Chapel for sheer jaw dropping ability. I'm one of those people who has about a two hour limit on museums before I need to escape but the Sistine Chapel was spectacular. We did all the big stuff, Trevy Fountain, the Forum, Colosseum, Pantheon, St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican and of course the Sistine Chapel.

On the last night we all went to dinner at an Italian Restaurant where the waiters put on quite a show. With more unlimited booze we were all feeling pretty happy by the time we left. The bus was looking a bit like a disco on the way home. Kind of embarrassing when I think back on it now but at the time we all thought it was hilarious.

Pompei

From Rome we headed south to Naples and Sorrento with a stop at Pompei. Pompei was way cool and a place I've always wanted to go to. It's hard to describe the awe of standing in the middle of the ruins with Mount Vesuvius quietly looming in the distance. Sorrento was beautiful but unfortunately as close to the Amalfi Coast as we could get with a landslide the previous day knocking out the road. This was somewhere I could have spent a lot more time.

After a night in Naples with the best view we'd had yet overlooking the bay and in the distance Mount Vesuvius we hit the road again to head north, this time to the city of Florence.

Florence was magic but we only had a few hours in the main part of the city. I did however manage to find the time to purchase a lovely leather handbag from one of the many leather shops. I was also aiming for some gold from one of the many gold shops but after how much I spent on the bag it was time to put the credit card away.

Sorrento

Lamborghini in Monaco

Nice

After our night in Florence we stopped in to see the Leaning Tower of Piza (way better than I expected), then it was time to bid Italy good bye and say hello to France.  We did it in style as we traveled along the Italian Riviera and onto the French Riviera through the one hundred and sixty something mountain tunnels.  It was breathtaking.

We stopped for an hour or so to check out Monaco. I'm a bit of a petrol head so I spent most of that time drooling at the expensive cars that were showing off as they did a lap of honour down the main city drag. When I wasn't drooling over the cars I was dreaming about the multi million dollar boats moored in the harbour.  People who live in Monaco have way too much money.

Saint Paul de Vence

Lyon, France

Then it was off to Nice which I think was probably my most favourite place that we went to. For some reason when I was younger Nice was somewhere that I wanted to go. I hadn't given it much thought for a long time but after going there I know why. It's just a special place. We had a great night out with some of the other couples that we had made friends with on the tour and then the second night was a dinner with the group. More unlimited booze and a fine time was had by all. We also had our first free morning for the whole tour so a very rare sleep in was had so perhaps that made it seem even shinier! While we were there we also visited the steeped village of Saint Paul de Vence once of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera and bought some truffle vinegar which was divine. We went for a drive along the southern coast just outside of Nice which was nothing less than stunning.  Apparently one of the properties along that stretch of coast was sold for $136 million. Just slightly out of my league...

On our way out of Nice we popped in at Cannes and checked out the preparations for the Cannes Film Festival which was on the week after. Cannes was a bit plain and not a patch on Nice but it was nice to check it out. Then we continued on our way to the city of Lyon via Avignon another picturesque spot.

Versailles

We only had one night in Lyon before continuing up to Paris. On our way we stopped at the Palace of Versailles somewhere we hadn't made it to last year when we were in Paris. Our tour guide marched us through the entire place in an hour and a half. I'm lucky if I can remember even half of what she told us. Too many kings and too many wives and children. The place is magnificent though and I'm really glad we checked it out. The gardens alone are sensational.

Paris at night

From Versailles we headed up to Paris.  This time we were staying west of the city. The first night we went out for dinner and then we went on a night river cruise on the Seine which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. Then we hung around to watch the sparkly lights on the Eiffel Tower which I also enjoyed more than I thought. The evening was finished off with a couple of drinks back at the hotel. We had chosen not to do the listed tour of the city with the rest of the group as we'd done all the major sites the previous year. Instead we set ourselves the challenge of catching the Metro rail into the Champs-Elysees for lunch, then a wander around the shops and back to the hotel.  That night we were off to see the Cabaret. I can't say I really enjoyed the topless ladies doing the singing and dancing thing. Perhaps if the men were similarly attired would have seemed more fair but the couple of comedy routines that they had on were hilarious and I was in stitches. Tears streaming down my face laughter. 

Last day of the tour with Jon and Enzo

And so we came to the end of our tour.  The bus dropped some of us off at our London hotel that afternoon. After travelling with forty nine other people for two and a half weeks there was a real sense of aloneness once the bus had driven off. Six of us went out for dinner that night which helped a little. It  seriously didn't seem right being by ourselves. The following day it was time to head to Scotland to finally meet Laura and Cody and get ready for the World Agility Open our next adventure! 

Will I or Won't I?

Take one very handsome boy



and one very pretty girl



and what do you get?

this little cutie...



Probably a good thing I'm going away. Less time to agonize over whether she will be mine!

Laughter and tears

The last couple of weeks were slightly more eventful than I'd hoped with the old girl taking a turn for the worse. It began with Soda being a lot quieter than normal and the ultimate sign of her not being well, her not wanting to eat. All in all she was sick for a good ten days and was in and out of the vets a couple of times most of which was spent on IV fluids and antibiotics. The scariest part was taking her to Perth Veterinary Specialists for an ultrasound. You tell yourself that they are old and can't live forever and I thought I was OK with that. But when I was sitting in the waiting room I realised that I'll never be ready to lose her and all these emotions just hit me. The poor vet is no doubt used to teary owners but I just couldn't stop myself and the tears flowed.

The good news is that after lots of love and care she is now right as rain and back to her normal self, barking at me for her dinner and pushing the boys out the way to get the cat's left overs. The vets did an amazing job and did everything they could to help her and make her well again. We certainly couldn't be happier to have our beautiful old girl back to normal!


Love my girl :)

Last week I couldn't resist and bought Cassie the cutest little jacket for winter when it's gets freezing cold down at the Dogs West grounds. Cassie however didn't share my enthusiasm for wearing it had other ideas on what it could be used for...



This little girl never ceases to have us in stitches!

Happy times

I can't believe it's just under four weeks till our big trip. Soooo excited for both the tour of Europe we are doing beforehand and of course WAO itself. Our Aussie jackets arrived last week and the shirts are being collected tomorrow. It is all getting very real as we finalise our preparations.

Obviously I love my dogs and I'm going to miss them a great deal while we're away but given how many additional commitments I seem to have these days with full time work, teaching, Better Pets & Gardens and organising our team for WAO there is something especially appealing about our 17 day tour of Europe prior to WAO. Getting up everyday with the only commitment being to enjoy the next city/country we are going to will be nothing short of awesome. Our tour map looks like this.



March saw young Soda turn 15 years old! I truly can't believe she is 15. She's still going pretty well considering her age but then she always was a very stoic lady. You just never know when they get to this age how long you'll have them with you so I continue to treat each day I have with her as a blessing. Except when she's being a difficult old tart! But lets face it, at her age she can pretty much do what she wants.



March has been a pretty good trialling month for Sonic. The Western Classic was awesome with Q's in Masters Agility and Jumping plus fourth place in both, a first in Masters Gamblers, second in Excellent Snooker and first in Excellent Strat Pairs with our trusty partner Deb Baile and Maggie then to top it off a win in the Agility Teams, third in Jumping Teams and overall top team. He really didn't put a foot wrong all weekend.

I've mostly been doing skill work with Sonic of late. In particular lots of work on reinforcement zone and jump skills. It seems to be working well for us as he's qualified in every masters agility run he's done so far this year. Now to try and hold form for the upcoming State Agility Trial and Nationals!


Bugger!

Cassie is now just shy of nine months old. She's coming along in leaps and bounds and does the cutest sit pretty ever. I love how she tries to press her front paws together which looks like she's praying, a by product of a behaviour she was offering me when I was doing some shaping with her a while back. Her core strength is really coming on and finally I've got her offering me a back up. Her recalls are pretty good and I'm trusting her more and more at training. In fact her focus is pretty good. I'm still not game enough to take that lead off but I don't think that's too far away. We've managed to trim that tubby little middle down a bit too thank to carrot sticks instead of Smacko's and also by me feeding her like a little dog and not a border collie.


Pretty girl

Medication madness

So nice to have some cool weather in Perth. Although it's a double edged sword really. At least when it's hot I can justify procrastinating inside in the air conditioning. Today I had no such excuse and spent the day planting lawn and gardening. More lawn is a good thing. It means additional space in which to use my awesome new fully adjustable dog walk (thanks Steve :)).

Last week was the week of the vet. Soda's blood results are showing high urea with no discernible reason. Cassie managed to get an ulcer under her third eyelid probably from a trauma to her eye (no surprises there). Then Kenny was having trouble in the water works department so I spent four hours at Murdoch with him last Monday night. My kitchen bench currently looks like a pharmacy and it takes me an extra ten minutes to get out the door in the morning as I medicate everyone with their drug of choice before I leave for work. Not to mention it's been costing me a fortune! Good news is that they are all OK. But I'm pretty sure Cassie would like me to go and stick the eye drops somewhere else.

Lots of dog training happening at home. I'm starting to think that Cassie will be about five before I've finished teaching her all the foundation skills I think she needs. I've just realised that I need to add verbal directional's to the already long list. Haven't taught those in a while, but if I want running contacts I'm going to need them. We've been doing lots of core strengthening work lately because Cassie has none. If I tried to get her to "sit pretty" she'd just fall over in a heap. So the fit ball has come out and she's starting to get much better. The last couple of weeks she's been a good girl (i.e. slightly more compliant than usual) which may mean we're about to have a bad fortnight. She does like to push me and seems to think that "It's Your Choice" is only for suck hole border collies. Let's face it, if your favourite toy or food is right in front of you why would you not just dive straight in? Her latest joy is jumping up and trying to grab my shorts with her teeth. Strangely enough Riot has become her favourite of my dogs. She will spend much of her time giving him kisses and trying to get him to play with her. He is remarkably patient with her I have to say.

The Western Classic is on this weekend. Three nights of trialling which will test my agility stamina no end. Sonic's training at the moment is pretty stripped down. I rarely do any sequences or courses with him at all. It's all about getting him to drive to reinforcement zone and simple grid work. Now I've got the dog walk at home I can get his contact work done whenever I get a chance. If my memory serves me correctly Sonic wasn't great at the Classic last year but that was after three months off following the paralysis tick incident. Hopefully this year will rather more successful!

On our way

Where oh where does the time go. I think this is the longest I've had between posts since I started this blog. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I need to learn to say NO...lol.

,
Post wash - too cute!

Sonic and I had our very first trial of the year last weekend. We didn't get a lot of preparation in because it's been too hot to do a lot of training and of course I've been pretty busy. We just had the two runs that night with our first being Masters Jumping. He started off really fresh, driving hard and it was all going OK until I pushed ahead to get in front so I could do a front cross. When I came out of the cross and tried to run on I had my weight too far forward and couldn't get my legs going. So I fell right on over! Poor Sonic didn't know what was going on poor bugger. I tried to finish the run off as best as we could after I'd picked myself up off the ground. Mainly because I didn't want to stop Sonic from having some fun. It made me realise that it's not only Sonic who needs to get fit! We had Masters Agility next and I wasn't real sure how we'd go plus I was pretty sore from stacking it. But thankfully we had a lovely clear run (with our first competition WEEEEE Saw) coming in with third place from quite a few quallies. Not bad for a dog who is nowhere near competition condition (and a very unfit handler holding him back). I tell you what I was sore for days after falling over!



Cassie and I are having heaps of fun and we love her to bits. Training her is a very interesting experience and she challenges me all the time. She is certainly one determined little cookie. Although I don't know if that's to do with me being a lot pickier in what I want behaviour wise these days. Even with Cassie being only 7 months old there is already things that I notice are better/stronger behaviours than what Sonic does. We seem to go in "blocks" of success. For a couple of weeks everything will be awesome and its success after success. Then we hit a tough couple of weeks where she'll go back to bunking off with toys instead of bringing them back and losing focus during the sessions. Last week was the first week of term at ACWA for 2012 and I could not get her brain in the game no matter what I did whereas the week before she was totally into it. Each time we go right back to basics and try to strengthen the behaviours so we can get to the good stuff again!


Well if it's good enough for a border collie...

All those food rewards hasn't helped Cassie's waistline. She turned into quite the little "pudding" so it's no more Smacko's for her and onto the carrot sticks! I may have to follow suit...



Over the last few weeks everything for the World Agility Open has been falling into place. I have secured my team dog in little Cody who is a 4 year old Jack Russell x. Cody belongs to Laura who is on the Scottish Team for WAO with her border collie Kadyn. Cody is one cool little dude and is currently only one win away from his championship. Laura has kindly offered for me to run Cody at a trial in Perth Scotland the weekend before WAO as part of getting to know him. It will be so exciting actually competing in another country and a way of getting over some of the nerves I will have before the big event. Our trip is becoming pretty big with a 17 day tour of Europe to get us started following by a trip to Aberdeen to meet Laura and Cody with some getting to know you time, then on to Belgium for WAO. Pretty awesome!

Happy New 2012

Here we are again. Another year gone by, a new year commenced. I have a good feeling about 2012. 2011 definitely had it's fair share of dodgy moments.


A very wet and bedraggled papillon!

Cassie is six months old today. She's had a fun Christmas and was spoiled rotten. Clean Run certainly did very well out of me. Cassie is now slightly over 25cms at the shoulder and weighs in at a hefty 3.5kgs! I haven't done a lot with her over Christmas. We've really just been hanging out and doing stuff around the house. Cassie doesn't seem to mind as long as she's involved and particularly likes helping with gardening activities especially helping to pull weeds out. Immediate 2012 plans are continuing with jump bump grids, recallers course, rear end awareness and starting some running contact work. My running contact goals are pretty small right now. All I want is to get Cassie "running". Sounds easy doesn't it? However when your puppy's stride going flat out involves air "skips" it adds a bit of a challenge. With a bit of luck she may grow out of the skipping as I'm hoping it's a puppy thing.


Cassie on magpie patrol. Maggies are definitely NOT allowed in our backyard...

We did manage to get down the beach last week so being a special occasion with Cassie's very first trip I had to video it. We left her on lead to be safe which was a good decision seeing as she would have been off after every new dog that came past. She was a little concerned about the "wet stuff". She really wanted to go in and get the toy with the big dogs but once she realised she was wet she was less than impressed. I have no doubt that after a few more visits she'll be jumping in with the others.



At the end of every year I really enjoy taking the time to sit down and look at video footage of some of Sonic's runs from over the course of the year. I found some of my favourite ones and compiled them together for a "Highlights 2011". This time I've put in heaps of clips in slow motion just for a different perspective (even if it did highlight just how many late front crosses I managed to do...). Both Sonic and I have improved so much over the course of 2011. By the last couple of months we really started working as a team and it showed in the results with Sonic placing even in what I would consider being conservative runs. I have a feeling that 2012 will be our best year yet and I can't wait for the Nationals in NSW's in June.

My last bit of good news is I've accepted a spot on the Australian Team for the World Agility Open to be held in Belgium in May 2012. Colin and I are going to head to Europe early and do a bit of touring first but the main reason for the trip will be so I can take up my spot on the team, Competing internationally against people who I've been watching via live streams or DVD's for the last ten years is an opportunity too good to pass up. Just to be a part of it will be amazing. As I'll be competing in the 300 height Mel & Maureen have been kind enough to offer me some practice on their gorgeous little sheltie Cricket who is competing in the 300 height here. The biggest challenge for us now is fundraising and trying to get sponsors. We did make it into the local community newspapers in Perth so hopefully that will give us a little bit more visibility.