Francy
Francine Joined: May 24th 2007
Logged in: February 6th 2012
Logged in: February 6th 2012
We're making this blog as a personal record so our daughters will always have a reminder of their adventure, to let our family and friends at home in Australia see what we are up to (so they don't forget us) and also to help anyone who may want to relocate to London with their children . We are happy to help!
Travel Blog Posts
River punting in Christchurch
Last day in New Zealand. Arrived in Christchurch After a night in a great little place camping ground near Lake Tepoka we spent the morning out on the Banks Peninsula in a town called Aratoa. It was a French settlement and still has all the hallmarks of a small French village with cafes and restaurants. Very nice cakes and coffees. The view in and out was spectacular. Dinner at the Groyne opposite our caravan park in Christchurch and a visit to the International Antarctic Centre in the morning before flying back to Sydney. A fanstasic holiday and one of my all time favourite countries to visit. Want to go back again to see the North Island and maybe return to see more of the Fjordland. ... read more
Mount Cook National Park Mountain Ranges
One of the biggest surprises of the trip. We arrived late in the afternoon to the DOC campsite and strolled around thinking how beautiful everything was. In the morning we woke up and went hiking along the Hooker Valley trail and suddenly realised that we were completely surrounded by enormous snow-capped mountains. They had been covered in low clouds before and we hadn't seen them. The views take your breath away and you need to just stop in your tracks and look and feel awe. ... read more
JUMP
Queenstown is a pretty little harbour town. It is the adventure capital of New Zealand. It is a ski resort which remains an attraction in the summer months due to all the exciting things you can do here. It is the birthplace of the bungy jump and not far (Central Otaga) form the birthplace of the jetboat. We tried both. ... read more
Milford Sound
Took a coach tour down to Milford Sound rather than driving as we heard the road was quite challenging. In fact it was only tricky right at the end but it was nice for Herve to have a day of sitting back and relaxing. It also saved us some time which we made good use of later. Milford Sound is the smaller of the two fjords in the south of the the South Island. It is breathtakingly awesome to float around on our cruise ship. Athough we were there in mid summer it felt uncrowded. ... read more
Enjoying the morning at Kidds Bush
From Frans Josef we drove down to the twin lakes of Wanaka and Hawea. The blue must be seen to be believed. Stayed in a DOC campsite called Kidds Bush Reserve. Our van backed on to Lake Hawea beach. From here we went to wanaka for an aftrenoon of canoeing and walking around. ... read more
Lauren hiking on the Franz Josef Glacier
Day 3 saw us hiking on a 12 kilometre long glacier on the Southern Alps. The only glacier in the world that descends in to a lush temperate rainforest! Due to strong snowfall it is one of the few glaciers in New Zealand which is still growing. Amazing to be walking on it. ... read more
Driving to Arthurs Pass
Our next OS trip: New Zealand. Flew into Christchurch 10ish and went straight to pick up our new home for the next 12 days: a six berth Backpacker campervan. First surprise was the amazing scenery of Arthurs Pass, just a two hour drive from the capital of the South Island.... read more
The Palmer's Resort
Two week trip to central NSW. From to Sydney to Geurie (20 km south of Dubbo) to visit friends . Stopped off half way at Kelso Pub (Just at beginning of Bathurst ) for a nice break and lunch. Spent a week with friends at their "resort" home called Possum Ridge. Guerie is a cute town with great houses and cottages, all with those beautiful wide verandahs wrapped around the properties. We climbed Bald Hill in 15 mins or so and enjoyed an amazing view from the top. Many people in Geurie grow their own produce and had chickens, etc. You don;t want to be driving in to Wellington or Dubbo every time you need something so preparing a shopping list is vital. Dubbo has all the usual stores but they are enormous. A few malls ... read more
Birthday Girl
Lauren turned 10 yesterday and celebrated with dinner at home and some presents. Her favourite is a marionette. Today we took her to The Rainforest Cafe for lunch and to the open air ice skating rink at Somerset House (the ice skating season just started yesterday. The weather is good for it...this morning it was minus 2 and the highest temperature of the day was 3. Both great but photos are best for description. She was very happy with the day and both girls are now playing happily sorting her new stamp album and playing with a marionette. Congratulations to Australia for our new government. Thank goodness! We can now return home. I voted on Tuesday and it was so nice to see friendly Australian people again at the embassy. So funny the way Australians always ... read more
Lauren, Tine and The Roman Imperial soldiers
Today we spent visiting Imperial Rome. We began with the Colosseum which was Herve's best part of the trip Mine was St Clement's church and the Pantheon (for Lauren it was St Peters and the gelato, for Christine it was the Trevi Fountain and the pizza). We took the audio guide for the girls but they thought it was pretty dry and boring so we just wandered around and imagined the days of gladiators, hungry lions and the poor slaves, criminals and Christians who had to face both in these enormous grounds. Since Herve and I last visited Rome (we are talking 15 years here) they have used the tourist money they now collect (it used to be free to visit) and have started to re-create certain parts. Now, you can see part of what the ... read more
