Well, considering we are all back in New Zealand now, I thought I would wrap up the Travel Blog with some of what we got up to from Bosnia onwards. I left the last blog with us exiting Sarajevo (and Bosnia) on route to Belgrade, Serbia. The train ride to Belgrade was one of the least enjoyable of the trip … it was long, hot, and even broke down at one stage. As Air Conditioning, I had our water bottle holding the window open, which at one of the stations I managed to knock out the window so we went most of the journey with no water whatsoever! Did I mention the train ride was long and hot … and slow too. We ended up going back up into Croatia before coming down into Serbia and ... read more

Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole…… Hola, Buenos dias, un café con leche (me) y un café solo (Jeff) and dos cervezas por favor (both of us) have become apart of our every day language and under the hot Spanish sun, dos cervezas por favor, has made its way to the very top of our list!!! It has been a while since our last blog, my apologies…. I’ve decided to do it a little differently this time, breaking it down into a statistical summary of our travels so far and then a summary of our Spain adventures. Here goes: Number of flights: · 10 (including one flight from Mallorca to what we thought was a Barcelona Airport, which turned out to be 100 kms outside of Barcelona, so an hour and a half bus ride to the city ... read more

Long live the Queen of England, ay Jeff….. I tend to procrastinate when it comes to writing blogs, which is why the Scottish one took so long to come out and why Jeff had to write the Irish one too… so I’ve promised Jeff that our English blog will be completed before we touch down on Spanish soil… so here we are on our Ferry from Portsmouth, England to Santander Spain. A 24 hour sailing, so you’d think I have ample time to accomplish this – I have 5 hours left and the clock is ticking… Ireland to England – 24th May - We had a beautiful day for sailing the Irish Sea, leaving Dun Laoghaire for Holyhead and then Manchester. Luckily for us, all our transportation from Ireland to Manchester was ... read more

Firstly, I must confess, I’ve been quite the slacker in writing this installment of our travel blog, we have been so busy in Scotland and Ireland and now we are enjoying some chill time in Marple, Stockport, just outside of Manchester, and the weather is bliss! So, Scotland….We arrived in Edinburgh at approximately 9.30pm on 9th May. Welcomed by the cool crisp Scottish air. Jeff was very much correct in that rain features quite heavily in this part of the trip, though there was none to speak of on that very first evening. Luckily for us, our accommodation host had provided us with exceptional walking directions to get to her place, so even though it was 9.30pm, given that it was a lovely evening and Niamhie was already asleep in her pushchair, we decided to walk. ... read more

Bonjour, Taryn here and I’ll be your host for this blog…. Firstly, I must address the issue of being trained like a monkey….ain’t gonna happen!! EVER!! Well, I believe Jeff left off somewhere over the Indian Ocean on our way to Paris via Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Flying over Saudi Arabia was amazing, seeing the sand stretch out before us, quite different from the country we just left behind with its lush green vegetation. We stepped off the plane into the hazy heat of an early Riyadh evening on to a bus headed for the airport terminal, where we were to wait it out for the next 6.5 hours. Our flight to Paris wasn’t due to leave till after midnight, so our mission was to try and get Niamhie to sleep in the departure lounge and keep ... read more