James and I left Vancouver at 6:10 pm on October 1. We spent the next night outside of Gatwick at Gable End Guest House, which is run by Mary and Joseph, who are quite lovely. We wandered around the village, had dinner at the Six Bells Pub and then retired for the evening after a couple of pints. On October 3 we made our way back to the airport and on to the Air Malta flight to Malta to visit Darren and Julie.

Julie kindly organized a driver to take us from the airport to the ferry terminal and then they met us on the other side, which is Gozo.

Malta comprises three islands: Malta, Gozo and Comino. Darren and Julie live on Gozo, which has about 30,000 people. The big island of Malta is 400,000.

Today was our first full day here and it’s been marvellous. We got up early and left the house around 8:30 am so that we could make our way to San Blas Bay, which is a great swimming hole.

Gwendolyn, who is visiting Darren and Julie, was our driver. She is a demon at the wheel–a safe, confidence-inspiring demon. She drove for 6 months in Japan, which means she can drive left, stick shift and curse in English and Japanese.

San Blas is accessible by foot along a very steep cliff. We navigated our way down hill, had a lovely swim and then trudged back uphill. We had a short stop in Victoria (or Rabat in Malti), where we bought almond cookies, had a coffee, and collected some fruit for our meal.

I did spend most of the afternoon working at the computer, but it was damn hot out so it was nice to tap about inside.

Here’s a random selection of photos.

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So Misguided's Malta 2007 photoset So Misguided’s Malta 2007 photoset