Arrived in Clermont late yesterday afternoon amid pouring rain. As we got off the freeway to go through the toll exit there was a huge back up of cars at the gates. As we got through the reason became apparent - there were police and army personnel aplenty, and they were pulling cars off to the Side to search them. Part of the ongoing security measures. We weren't pulled over though so we were soon on our way into the city. Seems like an interesting place, a lot ...

Made our way across Paris to pick up the car about 10am. Wouldn't you know it, its raining. Not the best conditions to try and drive in Paris. But as long as our route back to the hotel (where we left our bags) keeps us clear of the Arc de Triomphe we should be OK. Took us ages to get out of Paris, about 1 hour. Traffic was awful, and that was on the freeway, not suburban streets, weather was awful, BBC weather says a number of unstable weather fronts are moving...

Today is our last day in Paris before we pick up our hire car and head off to parts unknown, well not quite unknown but you get my drift. This morning was the first time when the news was not only about what happened in Paris on the weekend or it's aftermath. It appears that the place is returning to some sort of normalcy. Although we haven't noticed any apprehension or fear amongst the people here. No one is walking around looking over their shoulder, or lookin...

Finally made it to Paris. Arrived last evening on the Eurostar. First task was to negotiate the crowd of taxi touters outside the train station. We even had one gentleman who looked like an official information officer (he even had an official looking tag hanging around his neck) try to convince us that we should take a private mini cab because a taxi would cost us about 85 euro. Rule number one in these situations is to keep moving. Rule number two is avoid eye ...

Well, we made it to London. Finally. We thought we were being clever this year by leaving from Cairns rather than Sydney. But this has turned into a bit of an odyssey. First there was the 2 hour delay in Cairns, then the 7 hour trip to Singapore, 9 hour wait there, then 14 hours to London. And we still have a 4 hour wait here then a 2 hour train trip to Paris. Somehow I think we'll crash and burn in Paris tonight. At the moment we are sitting in a really nice ca...