Alex's Travel Blog » hostel

Pinnacles Desert, Lancelin

Alex — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:33:16 +0000

Lancelin is around an hour and a halfs drive north of Perth, Western Australia and is home to the Nambung National Park, Pinnacles Desert and Cervantes beach. Cervantes beach is famous for its world class windsurfing. (Noted on the International Windsurfing Circuit.) If you don’t like the water you can always go sand boarding on the giant sand dunes if you don’t mind cleaning sand out of your ears for the next few days.

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

Beijing, China

Alex — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 13:01:52 +0000

Well my travel blog has to have a post about Beijingâ€¦ and where do I start?

Beijing is without a doubt the busiest place I have been to, including Hong Kong. It is situated in the Scandinavian part of China. Beijing city has an area of about 17²km with a population of 14 million people. Now that is big! A quarter of the UK in one city!!!

Beijing is the capital of China and is the centre of their political, economic and cultural world. Beijing plays a very important part to the education of the Chinese with the best universities in Beijing.

My flight to Beijing was pretty good, I flew with British Airways and received excellent service, but as usual still became uncomfortable after a while if only I could have flown to Beijing first class. Just reminded myself I have travelled first class with Emirates to the Maldives which was amazing. But this was a cheap flight, as had many others to pay for. Arriving at Beijing airport I was immediately hassled for money from the toilet cleaners, needless to say I didn’t give them anything I had just paid a fortune for the ticket.

Anyway I stayed in the Beijing Far East International Youth Hostel which was really nice, I also got to stay in their Beijing hotel opposite! I Couldn’t stay in youth hostels the whole time.

Now my lunch is over so I had better get back to work and finish this later.

Beijing Travel Photos

The Great Wall of China, Simatai

Alex — Sun, 28 May 2006 20:21:52 +0000

Simatai is most definatly the best location to travel to, to see the Great Wall of China. It is just east to the Janshanlang part of the Great Wall. Simatai is also very quiet compared to the other parts of the wall, especially Badaling. There is an excellent hostel near the Simatai section of the Great Wall callled the Simatai Great Wall International Youth Hostel which can be booked online.

A popular travel trek along the Great Wall of China is from Janshanlang to Simatai, its about six miles and is quite a walk to the top! The views over Simatai are spectacularly awesome, and of course you don’t have to walk the entire way back down, you can ride a flying fox to the bottom

The stretch is within a days travel from Beijing. It is around 80 miles north east of Beijing, and due to this there are not enormous crowds of tourists and backpackers. The natural damage to this part of the wall helps proclaim its authenticity earning it the reputation of being the most beautiful stretch of the Great Wall. So if your off travelling to China, make sure you pay Simatai a visit!

The Great Wall of China, Simatai – Travel Photos