Shivers Timbers

Our consolation prize... a week in The Cook Islands and some sun before heading back to "yet another winter". It's taken me 7 months to be able to complete this blog. I want to make the whole Travel Blog into a book so I can't leave out the brilliant week we had in the CI with the Houghtons!... read more

Oct 26-29 - Labour Weekend continues... (Monday-Thursday) After saying goodbye to the Woods and Sydney, who had to return to Timaru and to school, we headed to Nelson. Wow, were we lucky with the weather. It was sunny all morning, became overcast late morning, and basically rained the rest of the day and night. We drove through Nelson, which looks like a lovely sailing community, and to the World of Wearable Arts (WOW) and Collectible Car Museum. How cool is that to have something for the men and the women:) They were both great museums and wonderful displays of talent. I am very glad we made the effort to get there! Arrived in Kaiteriteri around 6pm. We went for a quick walk on the beach before the rain started again. We also checked up on our ... read more

Australia - Part II - Melbourne, Phillip Island, and St. Kilda Oct 6-13, 2009 Oct 7 - First day in Melbourne, and Gregg doesn't have to go to his meeting until 1pm so it was his choice of what to do in the morning. He chose the Old Melbourne Gaol. I thought it would be boring, but it was everything but that. We hooked up with a Middle School tour and learned all about Ned Kelly and other Melbourne villians. Graham locked Avery in a cell for 10 minutes before I found him, so he really got a "locked" up feeling. We all toured the newer jail and got locked up as a group and learned even more history. After a tram ride to the Hyatt where Gregg's conference was to be held - Gregg checked ... read more

July 6-12 The long awaited beach vacation! Phuket, ah, the beautiful beaches of Phuket that I had heard so much about nearly 30 years ago in Germany. This was may dream to one day get to Phuket - and here we were! Albeit ALOT more built up and touristy than I expected. Luckily our hotel was in Karon Beach, and not the oh so touristy and infamous Patong Beach. Our hotel was nice, very family oriented. In fact, during our time there we met 2 Timaru families staying at the same hotel! Tan and Dia opted for the more luxurious Hilton which was around the corner. This was great because it gave us access to pools and amenities at both hotels. On Monday night when we arrived we made a quick stop at a local restaurant ... read more

This was a day trip from Bangkok. July 3, 2009 Up and out the door early, a big day of sight seeing in store for us! For Tan, Pui, and Greg, this was especially difficult as they did not get back from the airport until around 2 am. Ayuthaya was the Siamese royal capital from 1350 to 1767. Our first stop of the day was just south of Ayuthaya at the Summer Palace, Bang Pa-In. In addition to beautiful buildings, the grounds were lovely and vast. We let the kids hire a golf cart to tool around in while we adults walked and enjoyed the buildings. Part of the gounds included a wonderful topiary garden with lots of animal shapes. We took lots of photos here. One may show up on a Christmas card... There were ... read more