Thursday 14 May 2015 The planning for this wonderful holiday probably started while driving through the Loire four years ago. Today it was underway. The journey really started in Alexandra, Central Otago, New Zealand two days ago when we turned everything off, locked the doors and drove to Christchurch for our flight to Paris. Long haul flights are something to be endured, especially when you live so far from the places you want to visit on the other side of the world. With thirty one hours of travel behind us we landed at Charles de Galle Airport, bleary eyed but full of excitement. Ten out of ten to French Immigration. Our passports were stamped and returned in about thirty seconds. It's that honest Kiwi look, you know. Bags collected, phone call to Eurolease for a pick ... read more

With a strong tail wind we zipped across the skies above South East Asia, Australia and the Tasman Sea to be forty minutes ahead of schedule and arrived in Auckland to a gloomy morning. The welcome from Immigration and Customs was very friendly. The Smart Gate that is available to us was great. We were through Immigration in no time at all. We had decided to declare some food items to avoid featuring on the TV programme, Border Patrol. When we fronted up to the customs officer his reaction to mention of our food items was, “Suppose you’ve got some Smarties” “No, Worthers Originals”. “You can buy those in New Zealand you know”. “Yes, but these are left overs from our travels”. So we arrived back in our own country. As we emerged into the Arrivals ... read more

We survived our first full day in Hong Kong with Typhoon Nesat giving us a taste of what a tropical storm is like in this part of the world. Fortunately the worst of the typhoon missed Hong Kong but it did mean the city was on a Level 8 alert for the first time since 2009. Schools were closed, public transport above ground was cancelled and most businesses were closed. This morning we woke to much calmer conditions and even a hint of blue sky. It was a perfect day for catching up with a friend living and working in the New Territories. To get to our meeting place we needed to take two MTR trains and then transfer to the East Line train heading towards the border with China. We had a detailed set of ... read more

Our last day in Manchester before flying out later in the evening ended on a note of drinking and gluttony. Doesn’t that sound awful. For those who really know us that sort of behaviour doesn’t really happen but we did have fun. Manchester was going through a late summer flush with dry warm weather, a great farewell gift. With such great conditions we were able to continue our wanderings in the very tourist friendly city. Our local tour guide had gone to a lot of trouble to create a list of “must see” places while we have been in this great city and it was a just the right day to visit two of them. One of our tour group is a Coronation Street viewer so what a better place to visit on a very warm ... read more

It was quite an exciting day today because we completed our tour of the UK with a very short drive to Manchester. Our first stop in Manchester was at the house where our daughter, who is enjoying her two year OE, is living. With careful forward planning and help from Google Maps we arrived outside the flat in just over an hour. But before we got there we had to experience the foibles of the Midlands weather patterns. Driving south from Kendal the weather looked really good to the west with blue sky somewhere near Morecambe. All thoughts were of what we were going to do on such a beautiful day. As we got closer to Manchester we could see an enormous black mass descending from above. It was so thick it instantly turned day into ... read more