Stu Kez

The last short flight of our trip saw us landing at Vancouver then standing in line for a whole 2 hours just to get through immigration!!! Almost as long as the flight itself!! We were kept amused though by a couple of rather loud and well off "Oh my GOD!" American families - you know, the ones who take the nannies with them even if they're only going skiing in Whistler for a few days... We eventually made our way through immigration and into our cab to our hotel, right in the middle of downtown Vancouver, the first thing we noticed was how flipping freezing cold it was compared to EVERYWHERE!!!!! We both shivered as we got out of taxi and couldn't wait to get indoors to warm up again - Stu was wearing shorts ... read more

After a long flight to LA we arrived at LAX to find the biggest queues to get through immigration we had ever seen. It took us over an hour just to get our passport stamped. it was great when we flew past LA though as we saw the Hollywood sign greeting us from a far. Anyone who knows Kerry will be aware of the obsession of gossip magazines so you can imagine her excitement at coming to Hollywood. Stu even saw an old colleague - Colin (Major Magee Robinson) who was on his honeymoon. We finally got through customs and caught a shuttle bus to pick up our rental car. We paid a little extra to get a bigger car and also rent a sat nav - god knows we will need it with what ... read more

13th March We had an approximate date when we wanted to cross over to the North island (which was about the 16th March). This would give us the same amount of time to do both islands. We left Nelson and decided to head West up to what the Lonely Planet book described as beautiful beaches - maybe we went to the wrong place (see pic). We spent a good two hours driving up the coast to Collingwood where we stopped to have a look at the amazing beaches which we had seen published in the book. It was awful - seriously, Skeggy beach was better than this one!! The weather really didnt help matters either - everything seems so much more murky when its peeing it down constantly. Apparently NZ has had some really bizarre ... read more

Our last few days in Australia were spent in Gosford. Stuart’s relations whom we had met up with one night were very kind and gave us the opportunity to stay in their beautiful beach house at McMasters Beach. Stu had never even spoken to Paul and Fiona before so the gesture was extremely generous and greatly appreciated. We eventually found Paul and Fiona’s house and rolled in with the traditional bottle of vino. They were both very nice and their daughter Gina was very cute. Kerry got special dispensation to look at her princess room. We had decided anyway to leave Sydney and head back up the coast as Sydney was just so expensive and our camper park was a dive! So as you can imagine it was amazing when Fiona and Paul hatched a plan ... read more

We didn’t get up the next day until 10am - our longest lay in yet! We made our way into Melbourne about midday in time for the cricket which started at 2.15pm. We thought we had to get a couple of things to wear just to prove who we were supporting so Stu bought an England cap and a flag and Kerry bought a Barmy Army t-shirt. The MCG is huge and there was a crowd of over 38,000. Although this was apparently quite empty compared to previous matches as there is a capacity of nearly 80,000! (see pics). It was so easy to just walk in and find a seat, we made sure we were fairly close to a few English fans and the majority of the Barmy Army! The weather was perfect, full sun ... read more