Cash versus Credit Card

Have you ever wondered why some banks offer double points for overseas purchases? It's not because they love you. It's because they get to ream you more than usual on the exchange rate when you make overseas transactions.

So, this trip to the UK, I was wondering which way of spending money would be less of a reaming: credit card or cash withdrawl. Quick check online and it appears both methods charge about 2% over the exchange rate. It looks like the cash withdrawl method is slightly better though.

Like the annoying Tesco add on the radio says, "every little helps".

My Best Of Manchester Jan 2012

The best wine bar I found in my two week stay was definitely Hanging Ditch wine merchants. Eclectic range of wines for sale and well chosen wines by-the-glass. I went along to two of their Wednesday night wine masterclasses. Well run, interesting wines and lots of fun. You can select a bottle off the shelf and pay an extra GBP6 to drink it on premises. It's in an amazing location, next to the cathedral, and fills up quickly on Friday and Saturday nights.

The two guided walks I did with New Manchester Walks, Anthony Burgess's Manchester and The IRA 1996 Bomb,  were both very good. Lot's of detailed background information and great stories. The tour leader, Ed Glinert, has a published book to Manchester called The Manchester Compendium. Get a copy of this if you want a detailed guide to Manchester. You won't find this depth of detail in a regular tourist guidebook.

Manchester Jan 2012: Staying Connected

My first priority is to get connected to the Internet. I just refuse to pay my phone companies excessive data roaming charges and the idea of paying daily hotel rates doesn't do much for me either. Much smarter to pick up a local prepaid SIM: you get a local number to use and access to the Internet at a very reasonable price.

These prepaid (pay as you go / PAYG) plans are constantly evolving. Better to seek out some local help rather than wasting hours researching on the Internet. This trip I just went to the nearest Carphone Warehouse shop and asked the guy behind the counter for his suggestion. He sold me the Three Pay As You Go micro-SIM. GBP15 for 30 days of unlimited data (all-you-can-eat data in local UK lingo), 300 minutes of call time and 3000 text messages. Perfect. It worked instantly. And, by using the Personal Hotspot feature in my iPhone, I don't need to fool around with another SIM card and USB dongle/modem to get my laptop hooked up to the web.

www.Three.co.uk/payghelp

www.Three.co.uk/paygint  International Dialing Codes

Telstra Elite Pre-Paid Mobile Wi-Fi Modem

It's hard to give advice regarding mobile broadband: plans and devices are constantly evolving. But, I'll note down this info just in case you get something useful out of it.

This trip I was planning to stay in Australia for 3 to 4 weeks and I'd be travelling with a laptop and an iPhone4. I'd be in urban and country areas and I wanted to stay connected. Past experience suggested that only Telstra works in remote corners of Australia so I was going to stick with them. Telstra: great network clunky website.

I chose the mobile broadband Wi-Fi router that Telstra call Telstra Elite Pre-Paid Mobile Wi-Fï. It's about the size of a small bar of soap. Price was A$129 with 5G of data to use in 90 days. It hooks up to the phone network using 3G and then shares this with multiple devices using 5 Wi-Fi. This device is based on the ZTE MF60 device and all the details are well covered here on the Whirpool forums.

I bought the more expensive "Elite" model hoping it would be lighting fast but was disappointed as soon as I first connected. In downtown Melbourne (Flinders Lane) the thing was really slow with pages from the US taking up to 10 seconds to load. I struggled on with it because my only other choice was paying the hotel A$27.50 per day.

On the next leg of my trip, travelling in a motor home in Tasmania, the speed was dramatically faster. What a relief. Perhaps it's a bandwidth sharing issue? I'm guessing there must be thousands of people connecting at any one time in Melbourne but a whole lot less (maybe just me) connecting in rural Tasmania. Connection speed in South West WA (Dunsborough) was also very good.

Anyway, if you or your family are travelling with multiple Wi-Fi enabled devices,and travelling to different parts of Australia, then this might be a good option for you too.

http://www.telstra.com.au/bigpond-internet/mobile-broadband/prepaid/get-started/

http://www.zte.com.au/telstra/MF60.htm

Busselton Jetty Storm

I bet the Busselton jetty has seen some pretty amazing storms over the years. I was watching a big one develop early morning Friday 16th July, 2011.  I love the drama in this photo: the storm attacking the jetty.

There was plenty of action brewing on the foreshore as well.

"There's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," goes the over used phrase. Down here that gold is probably the gold medals found on quite a few local wines and craft beers. 

I watched the storm develop over breakfast at The Goose. I couldn't fault the free range eggs and Margaret river bacon on multi grain toast. Coffee was good too. Nice buzzy atmosphere and the open fire was a nice touch. Mens toilet could do with an upgrade, though. 

It's A Wrap - Cape To Cape Trail

(I always pack a few Mountain Bread wraps just in case there's no winery or brewery nearby)

My six days on the Cape to Cape track have come to an end and I've only made it south as far as Ellensbrook Beach. A cumulative total of 53KM so still have 82KM to walk in the future. With all the doubling back and losing the trail numerous time, I reckon I've walked at least 120KM this week. Not bad. 20KM a day is good training for the looming Hong Kong hiking season. 

( an English style beach? Just north of Cowaramup Bay)

Highlight of the track so far has been the amazing ocean views. Lots of big wave action to watch. Closer to the shore the water becomes a lovely shade of light blue and is so clean you can see right to the bottom. Beautiful, uncrowded beaches all the way as well. 

 (Whaleback Rock - looks more like a croc(k) to me)

Quite a bit of the track is overgrown in places so some bush bashing is necessary. Lots of sandy sections and quite a bit of beach walking. Looks like the markers haven't had much maintenance for a while. Some falling on the ground. Some propped up by piles of stones. But, I guess most of the track upkeep is done by volunteers so I better not complain to much. Surprised that none of the local businesses seem to be embracing the track like they do on the Bibbulmun. No signs to local shops. No signs for accommodation or for pick-ups and drop-offs along the route. Maybe the locals want to keep it a quiet secret?

(not quite the sign of Zorro but at least I'll know where to begin next time)

Must also mention the the public transport near the track is pretty sparse. It would be nice if they had a public bus running along Caves Road from Dunsborough to Augusta with stops every 10KM or so. I used a hire car to get to different points along the track but this meant doubling back each day and effectively walking twice as far. Criss crossed the Cape all week and got to see a lot of the area. There are tons of food and drinking options close to the trail. Great track and great area. To be continued...

Wilyabrup & Wildflower Wednesday

It was boots off first thing this morning to cross the massive (not) Wilyabrup Brook. A pretty little fresh water stream running into the ocean, it was just deep enough to fill your boots for a soggy days walking. After I crossed, and stopped to put my boots back on, I watched as an older couple tried to cross without taking their boots off. Dad skipped across a few wet slippery rocks and only got one boot full of water. Mum wasn't quite as agile. She stopped midway on a big rock. As she tried to make the last big step I watched as she, and her huge backpack, slipped and crumpled into the water. Ouch! I hope she was OK. It was too painful to watch so I turned around and kept walking.

The wildflowers were out in full force enjoying the spring sunshine. Speaking of older couples, nearly everyone I saw on the trail these last few days were couples in their fifties and sixties. What's going on? Have the grey nomads traded in their Winnebagos for walking? Sure looks like it. They've all been kitted out in expensive looking gear and all carrying huge backpacks. I admire their stamina and cross fingers no more fall into rivers or ravines.

Wilyabrup Cliffs broke up the constant impossibly pretty beachscapes. Saw a bunch of school kids abseiling down the other side of the cliffs. What a cool school - abseiling for sport.

After a good four hours of walking, I was getting pretty thirsty. Popped into the nearby Bootleg Brewery for a refreshment or two and a late lunch. The beer, the Black Market (black IPA 5.6%) seasonal special was amazing. Best beer I've had this trip by far. Venison sausage curry lunch was just OK. Grabbed some Bootleg Brewery Raging Bull for the room. Should go nicely with the Scotch Fillet steak I'm planning to BBQ after I finish this post. Cheers!

Getting Your Wine Back to Hong Kong

The guy on the counter over at the Clairault cellar door mentioned that they could rebate both the goods and services tax (GST) and the wine equalisation tax (WET) if I shipped a case of wine back to Hong Kong using the Australia Post door-to-door delivery service. He reckons it would work out to about 29% off the retail price of the wine. I know GST is 10% so that must make WET 19% ?

Then, when I mentioned this to the guy at the Saracen cellar door and he reckons that only the GST can be taken off wine that is exported. He was "pretty sure" the WET is not rebated.

So, if you want to ship a case of wine back to Hong Kong, it looks like you're going to have to ask at each individual cellar door to see exactly what taxes you don't have to pay.

I've used the Australia Post service before. It cost about A$140 for the case and it got back to Hong Kong in about 3 days. Surprisingly fast. I had a quick scan on the Australia Post website but couldn't find any specific details?

With the high Australian dollar, it's probably better to buy your Australian wine back in Hong Kong using Hong Kong dollars. But, if you find something special that's not available in Hong Kong, you might want to consider this option.

While we're on the subject of WET, there was an excellent piece on the DRINKSTER website recently about the scam middlemen are using to get WET back from the government. Might be worth a look if you're interested.

Lastly, if you want to carry a single bottle of wine in your luggage, and it would be quite dumb as you'd have to pay both the GST and WET, then there's a product available for helping to protect the bottle and your clothes if the bottle breaks: Wine Diaper. They were on sale at the Saracen cellar door for A$5.95 each and I saw them on the website www.TheJetBag.com for US$4.00 if you buy 10.