Kiwi Land

We’ve now been in New Zealand’s North Island for one week and we are loving it.

New Zealand is treating us very well, we seem to be going at a slower pace and with much nicer roads we are seeing more when we are driving rather than the highroads in Oz. The only downers are the number of flies and they don’t get ‘Gluten Free’ the same way as Oz did so I won’t be eating as exotically over the next few weeks.

We had a fabulous day in Auckland shopping in the day time and then had a big night out in the evening, exploring Ponsenby’s nightlife offerings-fyi, very very good! I sampled a multitude of NZ wines and got Ed on the case soon after. Ooh and some very yummy tapas.
With sore heads the following day we grabbed brekkie on the harbour and went off to pick up camper number two. A short drive took us to Waipu Cove for the first night. It was fun to have a night out on the town and live the city life again but it was lovely to be back in our little bubble again, cooking whatever we wanted and moving whenever we wanted.

The next couple of days we drove up around the very north of North Island, stopping in at the house where the treaty was signed in 1840 between the Maoris and the British before doing some AMAZING sandboarding courtesy of Jess and Ben Slater and Wedding Gift number 9!
Somewhat coincidently (?) we ended up in a town on a Saturday night that had a local Rugby team playing so we caught the Chiefs play against the Melbourne Rebels and win a very decent 33-10. It was a good laugh and I was chuffed to see the Haka but it rained the entire time and so it was a very very wet evening!

Currently we are camping in the best campsite we’ve stayed on at the top of a hill overlooking a beautiful beach, there are cows right outside the back of the camper and those without vans get to stay in renovated train carriages, very cool indeed. Hopefully we’ll get up in time tomorrow for some surfing before heading down the road to check out the local cave full of glow worms......

We are finally in New Zealand

Sandboarding, awesome videos to come.....

A rather rainy rugby game

Waves were too choppy for a surf so we just messed about instead!

'Tropical' Queensland

Queensland passed by in a week or so of rain and exotic daytrips. We squeezed in some surfing and beach spotting along the way too.

Fraser Island (Wedding gift no. 6) was great fun, Ed enjoyed racing around on the sand and the interior of the island in a huge 4 wheel drive. Next up was the gorgeous Whitsundays trip which unfortunately most of the images from that trip are on cameras we cant hook up to the computer. But suffice to say the sand was brilliant white and the sea beautiful shades of blue. Massive thanks to brother Nick and Godfather Ian Morrison for the very generous wedding gift (No.7)

We then headed up to Cairns for Wedding Gift No. 8, thanks to Lindsay and David, Toby, Ginia and the boys, Rowie and the Bridesmaids, - Barrier Reef trip. The journey to Cairns (7+hours drive) was mostly a wet one, with nearly constant rain and this pretty much was our weather for the following 5 days.
We saw some of the affects of the Cyclone, mostly trees and forests flattened but there was one village we passed where houses had been particularly wrecked by Yasi it was pretty heart breaking but amazing that no one got hurt from it.

Rainy season in Northern Tropical Queensland is really bloody wet! We took ourselves off to the cinema one day just to escape the noise of the rain on the camper roof!
We nearly didn’t do the reef what with the weather being so awful and for fear of bad ferry trips but we are so glad we did, it was the most amazing snorkelling we have both seen from the gazillion fish we saw to the amazing corals-absolutely fantastic and one of the best things I have ever done.

Next stop is New Zealand, starting with Auckland before heading up to the Bay of Islands...
We are excited to visit a new country.

Probably Ed's highight- a visit to the Bundaberg Rum Factory, needless to say I drove for the rest of the afternoon!

Fraser Island


Yey, some awesome fishes!

Roadtrip week two

Melbourne was the next place on our route and we spent a busy couple of days there, taking in the sights. I loved all the quirky independent boutiques in the suburbs. Australians are very good at supporting their locals so in Melbourne you’ll find shops that sell only Melbourne made and designed stuff and the same in Sydney. It’s cool. We spent most of our time in Melbourne checking out the amazing shops and we were lucky enough to catch up with our friends Tai and Mim and had a really amazing dinner out with them.
Luckily we managed to get out of Melbourne just before the serious storms and floods came but we saw heavy rainfall and storms in the Mornington Peninsular. It’s a shame really as Mornington and Lakes Entrance where we spent the following days are beautiful spots near the beach but with the constant raining we ended up just eating lots in the van! We even found a fish and chip shop that did gluten free batter-there was no way I was going to pass that up, so we spent a stormy Saturday night eating fish and chips looking out to the lakes just by Ninety Mile beach. Brill.

Yey for friendly faces!

I’m writing this as we drive up to Cooma near the Snowy River to visit family friend of Ed’s –Trisha. While driving we have gone through about 5km of burnt woods in the Gippsland area. It was really something. We had a huge truck behind us so couldn’t really stop but every tree was black and there were still trunks smoking. Signs on the road warned of smoke on the road but i guess the heavy rains this weekend have helped stop that. This really is an amazing country. In the two weeks we’ve been here they’ve had floods, two cyclones, huge fires and storms and further flooding and in the most part this is there dry season?!




We spent an amazing couple of days with Trisha, talking about everything under the sun and it was great to see some proper farm land.
Tuesday was my birthday and we headed off from the farm towards the coast again, stopping for BBQ’d bacon sarnies for lunch and a beautiful restaurant dinner as a special treat for me- Amazing tea flavoured meringues with awesome white chocolate sauce for dessert!


The last few days we’ve been lapping up the camper lifestyle, we drive for a few hours in the morning, make sure we find a campsite as close to the beach as physically possible, park up, make lunch take to the beach, spend the afternoon sunbathing and reading, then take a dip in the amazingly powerful surf they have on this stretch of coast (between Sydney and Brisbane) to wake us up then showers, bbq and a chilled evening with a beer (or three) and the maps to plan the next days adventure.

It is pure bliss and we are in heaven!

Roadtrip!

After a night with Ed’s godfather and his family in Adelaide it was campertime!
Aside from a couple of incidents- loading up with a big shop and then forgetting to lock the cupboards and losing half the shopping out all over the place and almost scraping the top half of the camper off while driving into a multi storey car park, we got right into the campervan lifestyle.

We just drove a couple of hours the first day and stopped in the McLaren Vale wine region. We had a great time visiting the ‘cellar doors’ for tastings and managed to pick up a handful of bottles for the nights to come. Next day saw us hit the road and make tracks and then it was Great Ocean Road.

A beautiful drive, we just stopped at every picnic/view point, Ed was surprised by how touristy and commercial the 12 (now 8) apostles had become since his last trip but I guess that’s the way most things are going. With nothing to compare it to I loved it. Fabulous rock formations on day one and day two was all about the beaches, beautiful white sand and awesome views.

Gorgeous UVY in the evening light at our first ever campsite

Local cider



First Ozzie BBQ, Rossi style

A sneaky lunch time stop at one of the McLaren Vale Vineyards

Wine tasting, Rossi style

Average lunch time stop off, beats Embankment gardens

'12' Apostles

Ozzie Adventure

Our last night in Bangkok we took ourselves off to the very fancy Banyan Tree Restaurant for a cocktail. Up on the 49th floor it offered amazing views over Bangkok, amidst the hi-rises and smog!



The following morning saw us a jump on a plane to Oz. I’ll get Ed to guest post on the Oz trip as there is a bit of a story to tell there!
Arriving into Sydney rather than jump straight in a cab, we took a train to Circular Quay and then jumped on the wonderful Manly Ferry. What a way to arrive! We got a full view of the Opera House and harbour bridge from the train station and then enjoyed amazing views from the ferry to Manly Wharf.
A quick stop in Manly for brekkie –gluten free bread, smoked salmon and the inevitable vegemite! A world away from the six weeks of phad thai!
Then it was on a bus to see friends Marcus and Liv and their gorgeous kids; Jessica and Olly.

YUM!




Gorgeous Jessica, clearly knows how to pose already

Baby Olly at Dee Why Beach.


Next day we checked into our hostel in Potts Point in central Syders and this was our base for the next six days. Sydney flew by in catching up with friends and family, amazing food, awesome sights and a lot of fun. It was really nice to be somewhere that felt familiar. It was funny the trains reminded me of mainland European trains, with their double deckers, underground signage was similar to London and then you’d see a bar or area in central Sydney that could have been straight out of New York.

Delicious dinner thanks to Jaume at Jordans, three tiers of fish cooked every way you could imagine!

Sydney zoo



Pie anyone? Average brekkie when travelling

Australia Day 2011, Bronte Beach

aussie rules!

Having a fabulous time in Australia. As soon as we get chance to load up some images we will get to an internet cafe and post.
Had a brilliant week in Sydney ending in a celebration of Australia Day with some friends on Bronte Beach. Flew to Adelaide for a night with Eds wonderful Godafather and family and now bombing around the country in a campervan- vineyards and BBQs galore. We are in our element. Pics and details to follow.

A MASSSIVE thank you to the Ozzie Smiths for an amazing BBQ and showing us the non-touristy side to Sydney, to JOD for two fantastic meals and great company, Liane, Simon and the kids and cats for a wicked Oz Day and to Jim Barnard and family for showing us Adelaide and scaring us with spiders and snakes stories ; )

Honeymoon proper

We had a pick up organised from the pier in Phuket and the driver drove us through the island to our hotel on the south east coast.

We’ll let the pictures do the talking! xx

Outdoor shower

View from sun*deck of pool and into bedroom

* lack of sun on actual 'sundeck' meant we actually asked to move villas on day two, we now are far too busy soaking up sun outside the villa to take new pics of the new villa, I will endeavour to do so, when I can be bothered to stop enjoying my Honeymoon. NB. new villa is similar but is now one long building instead of two separate bungalows, the bedroom is simply a glass room seemingly floating on our aqua tiled pool, huge lounge, smaller bathroom but an outside sunken bath to enjoy starlit skies, oh and we now have sunset views....not too shabby x

Edge of pool and out to the Andaman sea, we would be greeted by dragonflies, butterflies and eagles

Dinner and bubbles (South African sparkling wine) -menu is bit steeper than we've been used to, but no sign of Rattie here.

Sunset from our new villa