If you are into surfing, not the web kind, there are some reasonably good waves which had a few people riding on, I haven’t seen anyone windsurfing there yet but looks pretty good conditions for it, how I am now thinking back to being in Lancelin and wishing i had learned to windsurf… long story cut short, one of the best places in the world to windsurf, but it was too windy for me to learn. There were a few people testing their kites for kiteboarding/kitesurfing which judging by the waves would have been awesome.

I never set foot unto the peir, it didn’t look particularly that interesting, apart from you can bungy jump off the top. A pretty small bungy jump too compared to my AJ Hacket bungy, but it would have been fun i’m sure. I tried to get Dorota to do a tandem one with me, but she wasn’t feeling the excitement.

If i had gone here a couple of hundred years ago, in fact in 1654, i would have probably been killed. As the Battle of Scheveningen was fought here between the English and the Dutch. The amusing thing is that in Britain anyone not in the actual battle would have ran off, but in the Netherlands the dutch stood on the beach to watch! I was curious as to which side won, and to my estonishment from reading the wiki both sides did

“Oddly both sides claimed a victory: the English because of their tactical superiority, the Dutch because the strategic goal of their attack, the lifting of the blockade, had been achieved”

Whilst on the wiki i noticed this interesting piece of trivia:

“There is anecdotal evidence of the name Scheveningen being used shibboleth during WWII to identify German spies: they would pronounce the initial “Sch” differently from Dutch native speakers”

There is an amazing hotel in Scheveningen called the Kurhaus Scheveningen, it was built by ze germans in 1884, and has recently been completely renovated and now is a high class hotel and casino.

So to sum it up, if you’re ever near Amsterdam it is most definitely worth a drive to the beach here, it’s about a 45 minute drive away and so worth it for a nice chilled relaxing day, and dare I say it… almost as nice as Brighton

The remarkable stone columns are known as the Pinnacles, some are several feet tall others only come up to your ankles. These Pinnacles were formed from tree roots that once penetrated deep into limestone. Due to water being active in the limestone, calcite was deposited around the roots. Then the softer limestone was eroded away over time and left the Pinnacles remaining.

If your looking for someone nice to stay which is reasonably priced, we stayed in Lancelin Lodge which was a rather nice 4 star hostel which cost from $23-$55 a night.

I also recommend taking the Big Foot American school bus for a ride over the sand dunes… awesome!

My Lancelin travel photos

Even though the island was now clean and safe there was very few tourists here, I would have said that there was about 50 of us. Which for an island which has around 2000 rooms was of great concerns for the locals. It was heartbreaking to be watching CNN and BBC news on the island which was reasonably immaculate considering what had recently happened, yet rather than the news channels broadcast how well the locals and tourists had cleaned up and got pretty much all of the coastal towns, villages and islands up and running again. The news channels were still telling people to stay away and were showing video clips from weeks previous. No wonder people didn’t want to go! I suppose do you show bad footage to get people to donate and help get relief work undertaken quicker or do you say that Koh Phi Phi etc is back up and running fine and people then don’t donate? Well personally I would have done the second and at least allow the locals to get their pride back and line their pockets themselves.

Around this time my girlfriend and family were extremely worried around me as the island had no connections with the outside world, well ones I could use. No telephones and of course no internet, this was still an issue even after I left the island and arrived in Krabi about 42km away by boat and of course for around the 3 weeks I had no contact with anyone. In hindsight I now realise for the sake of £30-40 I should have gone on a day trip to the mainland and contacted home and explained the situation rather than going AWOL.

Anyway Koh Phi Phi is just under 50km south east of Phuket and about a 2 hour boat journey to Krabi, with boats leaving on a daily basis. The islands are extremely rugged and have steep barely vegetated cliffs, which is great as it are these which make the secret little hidden bays which are hiding the amazing pristine beaches. Scuba diving in Koh Phi Phi was amazing with visibility of around 30 meters whilst I was here, unfortunately the marine life here was pretty scarce from the majority of the coral being destroyed.

The Phi Phi islands are situated in the province of Krabi which is one of the furthest south which sits next to the Andaman Sea, Eastern Indian Ocean. The biggest island is Phi Phi Don which is about 8 x 2.5 km and is in the shape of an H. The smaller island is Phi Phi Ley which is about 3.5 x 1 km and in uninhabited of course except for the Viking Cave bird nests which are guarded by 2-3 people to protect the caves. This island is made entirely of limestone cliffs and has two of the world’s most famous beaches Loh Samah and of course Maya Bay. This was where “The Beach” was filmed, there was a lot of bad publicity over the film being shot here. But if you speak to any of the locals the actually film company left the beach in better condition than when they arrived. Typically lots of tourists had left rubbish all over the island which was all cleaned up by the film company. They even went as far as to plant a few extra trees and bushes which were native to the island. The other islands are Bamboo island and Mosquito Island which are both tiny.

Thailand Travel Photos

The way this works is that firstly there are two speed boats. One to tow you high up into the air above Cairns tremendous beaches and of course above the great barrier reef. The second is to catch you whilst your hanging 150m underneath a parasail doing about 20 knots.

So both boats get up to a steady speed and then what happens is that they strap your harness on, sit you on a platform with a bungy operator sat behind you and when everything is ready they throw out the canopy or parasail and let it fill with air. The platform you are both sat on is winch controlled and once the canopy is fully inflated and it is creating enough lift to pick you up then start to winch you out, at the same time the boat gets faster to create enough lift to get you at the correct altitude.

Your altitude is measured with a wrist alitmeter, due to the seas waves and the changes in wind and air pressure your altitude does vary quite a bit. Once at the correct altitude, 150m you are notified that its time to jump bungyyyy!

If your passing Cairns and want to seek some fun you can’t miss this out, get jumping.

You can find AJ Hacketts Para Bungy Headquarters on the Corner of Aplin Street & Esplanade at “Barrier Reef Photos” Cairns, Queensland, Australia PO Box 700, Smithfield Qld 4878

Cairns Travel Photos

Cairns is where I completed my PADI Advanced Open water dive course. I went with Downunder Dive on their Atlantic Clipper for a 4 day live aboard dive course which was absolutely fantastic. I originally looked at diving with a company called Pro Dive but they seemed very up themselves and I had heard many a good thing about the PADI dive courses that Down under Dive offered. Also after some further research I found out they had probably one of the best boats. The SV Atlantic Clipper.

It’s an old 140ft tall ship but has been fully refurbished and has on the modern technology installed. It has very nice air conditioned cabins which cater for 2-4 people, has a large saloon, lounge and even its own bar. Of course it even has a hot tub on the front deck to sit in and relax, chill out and have a beer. The food was fantastic and served from a rather well built kitchen… one of the best things they prepared was probably the most basic of all and that was potato wedges with sweet chili sauce which was often sat waiting for us on deck for when we came out from night dives. Hmm hmm.

The Atlantic Clipper is permanently based at the Great Barrier Reef which would move every day to other parts of the reef, which would either be done over night if a long way or early in the morning if a short distance. This was excellent as you get to see a variety of reefs and have a truly unique diving experience. Downunder Dive had a fast transfer boat which takes you there and back which also allows you to spend as many days and nights aboard as you want.

I truly couldn’t recommend anyone else to dive with in Cairns but if you decide to look elsewhere please be very careful when selecting a dive operator in Cairns as many dive schools use fixed platforms at sea which you stay on and then commute by boat for the diving, not quite the live aboard you expected!

View more of my scuba diving travel photos in Cairns.

Cairns Travel Photos

Well actually the whole island is a sand dune so to speak. It’s the biggest sand island in the world about 260m high. Being made completely from sand Fraser Island actually moves 1-2m a year!

Fraser Island if I remember correctly is known by the Aboriginals as K’Gari which means paradise and was inscripted by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1992.

Fraser Island is easy to get to and is only a couple of hours drive from Brisbane you can hire out 4x4s out there, but heard many horror stories about cars getting stuck and arguments from hell. Hence decided to take a Fraser Island tour with Dingos which was excellent, no sleeping bags, no cooking, no tents and no driving, just relaxing and downing some VB and the best part of this you dont get your food eaten by dingos!

Lake McKenzie, Fraser Island – Travel Photos