megslogs :)

the blog isn’t dead, I’ve just been dying !!!! :)

I’ve honestly been excited and just waiting for a moment of calm to sit down and write a new post, but then time kept passing, and more things kept happening, and then there became this overwhelming amount of things to write about. also honestly, it’s been a bit of a nightmare few months, but also incredible and I really shouldn’t complain too much… so I swear this blog is not neglected, it’s just taken a backseat while trying to find a second of calm in sometimes genuinely pure chaos. anyway, If you know you know!! this isn’t a diary people!! or maybe it is, it’s whatever I want it to be.

ok ok, I want to get this out of my system now, so here are the latest and greatest updates – likely in short form because I just can’t fathom writing about it all in detail!!

current new biome: the pyrenees

previously un-blogged trip moments: kenya, south africa, lesotho, grezels (small town in the south of france).

kenya:

i consider myself a fairly type A person, so it was a surprise to me when I tried to board my plane to kenya and the ticket person stopped me and asked me where my visa was, to which I embarrassingly responded ‘visa?? as an australian?’. anyway, my lesson wasn’t learned because I applied for the visa sitting on the plane, minutes before I had to turn on flight mode, and it was approved 4 minutes before I landed. successful. never pre-apply for your visas people!! it’ll all work out.
finally got to see amelia in her beautiful home + tour her work and stare at her in adoration in the flesh
had to pay my first ever bribe !! kind of sucked, but they wanted 50 USD and I only paid them 40 AUD so I think I won
very cute cafes and good food, beautiful beautiful forests.
that’s all I can recall in this moment, only a short trip, will be back doing a proper kenya tour in august!

south africa

why didn’t anyone tell me south africa was so beautiful. I’ve never seen landscapes like these. the drakensberg mountain region was unreal. good.
kruger park -> very good. saw lots of animals. elephants were scariest. jumping out of a bush in front of your car and then they’re mad at you for getting in their way. honestly kind of fair.
slept in my hire car for 4 nights in kruger. actually not terrible! but probably wouldn’t do again. 4/10.
first on land border crossing ticked – uneventful and boring.
whole road trip with no carjacking attempts – happy.
sunsets were too unreal 😦

lesotho

possibly the entire trip highlight. 2 days horseback riding through the mountains in lesotho. kind of unreal. can’t really describe it.
kind of insanely painful to horse ride – my first time !! literally had to keep riding the horse because it hurt too much to walk when getting off.
did 2x full horse gallops, really fun and really scary
guided our horses down a mountain that I swear was essentially vertical. couldn’t even film it or take pictures, too scary.
ate lots of lovely homemade meals provided by the gorgeous locals, stayed in villages you can only access by horse.
did have to pee in buckets at one point + no showers.
all driving took so much longer than planned due to severe pothole issues. caused terrifying night driving on incredibly rocky roads on mountain tops.
unexpected late night drive meant meeting out horse riding host – only known to us at this point as ‘pony man’ – at a random building in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the mountains in the middle of the night. he was lovely. very good news.
popped a tyre 3 hours from the border on the way home. some local shepherds came to watch our demise. lug nuts on so tight, shepherd had to assist.
had to miss out on the tugela falls hike due to popped tyre situation, sad – but will return.

grezels

lovely small french town, really beautiful and peaceful
was meant to stay a month, but left early – wasn’t the right fit for what I was kind of needing at the time
met some lovely people, but not much more to say! only spent 2 weeks here.

pyrenees

where I am now!
here for the next two months if all goes well. working at a cycling retreat where guests come and stay for ~5 days or so, and the host takes them out on amazing pyrenees cycles. I’m to cook a 3-course dinner each night. kind of stressful, but I’m excited. it’s a paid workaway, so it’s nice to get some $$. I get full creative freedom and no budget, so i’m super excited to play pretend chef for a few months and see what happens.

ok!!!! some digital cam photos + I’ll fill out the sections on the normal site with even more regular/phone photos.

the latest hike I did here in the pyrenees (the dogs are owned by the other workawayer here, suuuuper cute and lovely dogs!)