Big travel bear meeting

Big travel bear meeting

Sharm El Sheikh and about

Here I go again, sun, sea and sand, here I come. Vacation time again and the chance to catch some sun before the winter rolls into Europe.

I arrived with a nice flight at noon, just couldn't find the camera that afternoon. As you can see, I am having my first breakfast, looking out to sea and the beach from the seabreeze restaurant.

After a few of basing in the sun, I decided it was time to do something and I joined the red sea pirates for a spin around the coast. Captain Ahab was there himself and I had a relaxing time. We managed to coax stupid tourists onto the boat and we sold them in across the sea in Saudi Arabia for a good price.

Still, that wasn't enough sightseeing.

After a little check of where I am exactly, I decided to go and see some sights. So what else is there in Sinai, of cource, mount sinai! So off I went, tagging along secretly with a bus full of unsuspecting people who paid a good price and I got to go for naught. Off I went to the St.Katherine Monastry, you know the one where they have them secret books and so on.

The path to enlightment, I guess. Passing the garden full of old olive trees and the orthodox priests tending them, but look there, they have a cute tractor to drive around on. (Shucks, can't find that picture anymore.)

Now guess what this is!?

Yes, the burning bush, as you can see from the fire extinguisher, standing beside it! (You can't, aw, well sorry but takin' pictures is hard for me.) And them russians like it a lot too.

I say, the desert is sure a strange place, everything is more a bit like at sea, they have seadunes and desertships, like this strange donkey here, and such stuff.

On my way back I passed by Dahab which was a bit hippie town like in some parts but still nice.

And they seem to be a bit looney too, but the desert is hot for sure so I guess it's a bit of a tradition too.

Apart from not being allowed to bring your horse to the bar, like in the old west.

See how pretey they made the bed?

During the last days the sun must have gotten to me a bit as I did some silly stuff ...

... taking pictures of the desert garden and it was pricley for sure. I'll be much more carefull the next time.

Just so you know, I met a few good friends of mine, them clown fishes, and we had a good ride around the place.

At the airport I did look surprised when I met "them" about to go snorkeling.

See, I was in Asia, as the Sinai is part of it and not part of Africa. If you look closely when at the airport, across the runway, you can see Saudia Arabia. across the Gulf of Aqaba, that's true!

That's all this time.

Here is a greeting card for U ...

.... from Innsbruck with a greeting from my bear friends.

jepp, Austria (Österreich)

"sea bear" on the adriatic ocean

At last I had the chance to be a sea bear and travel the high seas. I have to admit, the adriatic sea close to shore is quite calm, which was great to relax.

It all started with a train ride to the huge Frankfurt / Main Airport, I never understood why we had to go there instead of flying from Munich, but it wass first class there and back and was a relaxed start into the vacation, even though I had to get up at 2:30 AM, which definetly was a ghastly hour of night.

Here I am sitting on the magnificently restored city wall of Dubrovnik in Croatia at the Adriatic Sea, waiting for the church bells to ring and glancing into the old towns harbor, which you can see on the left.

Here I am obviously lending a helping hand to our captain on our the boat Leonardo, every time he needed some time off the wheel.

On the island of Hvar I took a rest on the very old castle at the top of town. The oldest parts of this castle are from 1000 BC, the newer ones from 1400 AC

I hope you can see me on this picture, I am sitting on the wall, above the sign. It really was so scary down there that I didn't manage to take a picture, I ran back out as fast as my paws would take me. It was huge for me but for humans it must have been awfully cramped in there.

Here I found a friend (of my yellow ruberducky bathtub friend at home), waiting for new customers to arrive. The rooms where always very pretty and cozy.

Seeing food and eating sea food is quite the same here, as it is so fresh, that one feels, that the fish just maybe has to be killed a second time, after it was grilled and flopped on the plate, cause it is so fresh and juicy.

Sitting by the sea and enjoying the sundowners dinner, watching boats return to the harbour from a day out at sea.

As you can see, the nears here have respectable jobs, working for the local croatiian ice food company. Each bear has it's own picture, one for frozen fish, holding a fish, the one for bakeries seen here, aso.

This vacation was excellent and I wouldn't mind to return to this country for another boating week anytime.

Steel for coal

I joined another outing to a special place I did not understand.

When we arrived, I saw this and didn't understand anything. Why did we come here to go and look at an oversized, strange and rickety looking ironing board?

Well, I did understand this thingamagiggy after my visit to the museum. This was a huge coal excarvator transport system, rather like the baggage conveyor belts from the airport.

So you can understand this a bit better, here is a cross cut through the open surface mining pit.

The big thingy in the middle is the F60 conveyor, only here the pit was filled with water, to become a camping with lake park. Lots of steel to move the dug out coal to be moved away.

Up and Up

Here you can see the future lake.

Here are the engines to move the huge beast, quite unbelievable.

Looking down from the very top, back down the conveyor belt.

A view from the side and top, looking at the track laying train at the very bottom on the right.

Here I am at the very end and right at the top, which is at the very right on the first picture.

And here I'm back at the bottom, having a look from the other end. If you want to see more, you can visit the website: F60

And this is my new friend, Lona. She was waiting for me to go outside, as you can obviously see from the look on her face.