This 'summer' we had a stay-cation to attend the 2012 Olympics here in London. The games kicked off with an unexpected ticket to the final dress rehearsal from Adam. It was an amazing night and I managed to save the surprise until Friday. We had a wee gathering to mark the opening occasion that included union jack everything, Team GB support and lots of bubbles. The opening ceremony was brilliant and lots of fun. It was great to experience this with the family and also Adam who has worked on the games for the last 5yrs, so even more special. The next morning, getting up to go to out first event, was a bit of a struggle. However we made it in plenty of time as the tubes were running smoothly and there were no queues. ... read more

Just back from a lovely weekend in Ghent, Belgium. We headed out on the Eurostar sipping bubbles as we arrived in France. It has been such a dreadful day in London, it was great to see the sun! Only has we departed Brussels did the sun start to go down around 10.30pm. It was the longest day of the year so evenings have been long, however it has been hard to tell given all the rain. And rain was predicted most of the weekend in Belgium as well, not ideal. After convincing Adam it was too far to walk from the train station to our hotel we jumped in a cab and were soon racing towards the canal lined old city. After settling in we headed across the canal to one of the oldest pubs, the ... read more

We were feeling a little apprehensive about leaving London as the excitement levels in the UK were growing with the impending Jubilee weekend. Arrival in Florence wasn’t too flash with a bit of a run in with the Europcar rental staff charging us a late fee when their pick bus was conveniently not waiting. Our hotel near the Florence airport was pretty good for the 1970’s. However with Friday night behind us and no wrong turns getting onto the motorway, we were soon on our way racing towards the country side. Tuscany lived up to all the hype, the countryside is picture postcard perfect. Rolling mountains, I think they were a little bigger than hills, that stretched for miles around with vineyards, olive trees and whispering wheat fields both golden and green dotted with red poppies. ... read more

It was an early start Saturday morning to get out to heathrow for our flight to Vienna, but a quick journey with quiet roads and no security queues. Although we didn't know at the time, there was a large Aids charity ball on called Life Ball, and on our flight were the Scissor Sisters. They were travelling very light on the entourage front. An exciting brush with celebrity. It was a beautiful weekend in Vienna, bright blue skies and nice and warm. We caught the airport train directly into the heart of the old city and after a short stroll arrived at the central square and church, Stephansdom. After a stroll down the main shopping street we came to the Opera House the meeting point for our afternoon bike ride. We had some time to kill ... read more

We took a late night flight to Bologna, Italy for a burn around the country side and some fine eating. We woke in our reasonably priced, but very clean hotel room to bright blue skies. Which was a nice change from a gloomy April in London. Scott and I headed into the main square to wait for a flying pick up by Adam and Myles who had been driving around Tuscany leading up to the long weekend. We had a poke around the square and found an excellent little foodie alley with amazing hams, cheeses, fish and fresh fruit and vegetables which was a buzz with locals picking up their groceries. We enjoyed one of many espressos watching the world go by, including a pensioner enjoying an early morning dirty martini. Why not on a beautiful ... read more

Not the greatest idea to get the tube to Heathrow on a Friday night at 5pm, pretty much standing the entire way there. However our fortunes changed when our upgrade to Hong Kong came through, sweeeeet! The flight was rather painless, well apart from the shock of moving back into economy from Hong Kong to Auckland. On arrival we went straight to Nic & Quentin’s new place in Onehanga to meet our new niece Tui and catch-up with Hugo – whom we had not seen since he was around Tui’s age. It was great to hang with the whole Reade clan. While in Auckland we had a lot of park, cafe and zoo time with the kids and Nic which was excellent fun. The trip back to NZ really was focused on catching up with family ... read more

We struck it lucky with a bright blue skied weekend for our 3 castles walk in Wales. Our train departed from Paddington at 7.45am so we were up and out the door by 6.30am. The journey was just over 4hrs with a fast change in Newport. By fast I mean we had 2mins, so we have to run up and over to get to the platform sliding into the carriage before it pulled out. Our host for the weekend Paul was waiting for us on arrival to drive us to the start point. The days hike was around 11 miles and took us up and over a few hills, so it was not a stroll in the park. The country side looked glorious under the blue skies, the patch work of green fields were picture perfect! ... read more

On Saturday Scott and I zipped up to Oxford for a day trip. It was a cold fresh day with a few flashes of blue sky. We arrived to a town still waking up at 9.45am. Our first stop was the Covered Market and we wandered around looking at all the local produce, cheese and meats. Apparently the oldest ham in England was in the market, however we didn’t see it. We did see a lot of game pheasants, rabbits, pigeons etc. We then had a coffee at one of the oldest building in Oxford, one of those buildings that looks like it’s half falling down. After that we strolled down to the Modern Art Museum and visited a few shops. At noon we met up with our guide for the next 90mins. The tour guide ... read more

Right, let me get all the negative things out of the way first. Our trip to the Arctic Circle, Hetta in northern Finland was a package holiday with Transun. It was the first for all of us (Adam, Myles, Scott and I) and the last. The flight was on ‘Strategic Air’, the service was hap-hazard and the inside a little old. Just before arriving and during some terrible weather the kids were allowed to sing/scream Christmas carols over the speaker system. Because we were a small party of adults we did manage to secure the exit seats, however they split us over two rows so Scott ended up sitting behind us. Then the most stupid thing happened. There were other people waiting in the hotel we were due to check in to so they had us ... read more

The start to our south India adventure wasn’t the best. The flight was good and we landed on time in Mumbai, this is when the trouble started. New Zealand plus a handful of other countries like Finland, Japan and Luxemburg are now able to get Indian Visa’s on arrival. We thought this would make the entry nice and simple plus potentially avoid the long customs queue. I mean if it wasn’t going to be easier than getting a visa in the London embassy why give you the ‘benefit’ of obtaining a visa on arrival. This assumption proved to be horribly wrong. Initially we saw a small counter saying visa’s on arrival, however we were taken around to this little waiting area with a weary Japanese man and small family from Vietnam. We were instructed to sit, ... read more