Simon and Heather

After a busy few months a well earned break in the quiet little town of Loreto, Mexico - enjoyed 6 days of relaxing and reading at the pool and 1 day of diving (oh and lots of eating too!)... read more

Gday possums! Picking up where the last blog finished we’ve had a hectic few months working hard mixed with some prolonged apartment hunting and a fair bit of eager anticipation waiting for our holidays and visitors to arrive. We finally moved into our new pad with a week to spare before our guests hit town - we’re now happily residing on the 45th floor of Aurora Towers (www.auroraapartments.com.au) in the heart of Brisbane with great views of the river, Storey Bridge and across the city and beyond to Moreton Island and the Glasshouse Mountains. Mum and Dad arrived safely (via Singapore) and had a few days to acclimatise and explore Brissy before we finished work (highlight of those 2 days for them was finding the main Post Office which was amazing apparently!?). First day of our ... read more

Well as promised we’re back in blogging mode and have put together a whistle-stop synopsis of events since January to bring you all up to date (in case you were wondering what we’ve been up to!) Having sworn never to do the journey in one go again we board our flight (direct flight!) at Heathrow and 24 hours later (after brief stops in Dubai and Brunei) we arrive back to a balmy evening in Brisbane! (knackered). Despite the journey it’s nice to be back and we head for our temporary accommodation in the heart of the city - the very nice Oaks on Felix with views of the river/Story bridge. Having booked in here for a week our main priority was to find an apartment in the city asap and so we get down to ... read more

Day 20 - Auckland - Tutukaka (210kms) Having charged through the North Island and reached Auckland ahead of schedule (with ulterior motives!) we continue north to the little hamlet of Tutukaka for access to the diving mecca that is the Poor Knights Islands. Put on the map by Jacques Cousteau (who named the islands in his top ten dive sites in the world) this cluster of islands has been a marine reserve for the last 20 odd years resulting in a pristine marine environment and a reputation for the best sub - tropical diving on the planet! We book ourselves in for the following days trip and retire to our lovely little campsite to enjoy the summer sun (which has emerged at last) and continue our attempts to wash the smell of Rotorua (sulphur) out of ... read more

Day 11 - Franz Josef We awake the next morning to a beautiful blue sky - perfect conditions for our glacier adventure - today we’re getting into our warmest gear (layers), strapping on some crampons (that’s where the spikes come into it!) and taking a scenic helicopter flight in the mountains before landing on the otherwise inaccessible upper reaches of Franz Josef glacier for our 2 hour glacier hike. Franz Josef is one of only 3 glaciers of it’s kind in the world (thermal glacier, at relatively low altitude and so close to coast) the other being Fox (right next door to FJ) and one in Chile somewhere. Our chopper pilot is from Cuper in Fife and treats us to stunning views and a few heart stopping moments as her heads straight for the mountain before ... read more