Browsed by
Author: Claire

Road trip – Hungary

Road trip – Hungary

After recovering from our travel day we enjoyed the farm stay so much we stayed another day. Achieved nothing. But with the cute dogs, the frogs in the pond, the ping pong table, the trampoline, the swing ball set, the good wifi, the comfy memory foam mattresses…absolutely nobody in our family wanted to move. 

It was the oasis we needed. The rest. The calm. The peace.

The following day we packed up and headed for IKEA. Love their lunch specials, a walk round the show room, bought a few things then went into central Budapest to find our next Airbnb.
We were only in Budapest 2 days. BK and I have been before but it was 15 years ago and it was in winter!! It was a different experience this time. Nothing seemed familiar to me? 

The first day we were there we thought we’d go to yet another island in the middle of  a river. This time we successfully hired a 4 person 4 wheel bike, we all piled in and had a turn at peddling, that was pretty fun! We walked through flower gardens, the boys played catch with a ball, little R practiced cart wheels. I stood and watched! We walked by the Danube, BK and I decided once we’ve offloaded our kids to adulthood we’d come back and do a river cruise of the Rhine and Danube rivers.
As we returned our bike we heard music beside a big water fountain….turns out the fountain was synced to the music! It was the fanciest fountain we’d ever seen as it shot water high then low, then swirled round. 15 minutes later it finished. Good timing!

The next day we were up and off to Buda castle, Buda as in Budapest not the god. The river separates the city in half. One side called Buda, one side called pest…except they pronounce pech. Got some great views of the Danube while we were at the castle….which isn’t a castle at all! Had a ride on a tram to get to the other side of the river and after a top up of chips and a thick shake at KFC, CK and I went on an afternoon walking tour. Lots of info, lots of history, lots of sights. Tick tick tick. Budapest done! 

The following day we packed up our gear and headed north to our next country. It was an uneventful day and we were thankful for that! 

Till next time,

Claire

Road trip – Denied entry to Romania

Road trip – Denied entry to Romania

We got going from Belgrade about 9am, it was to be a short 2.5 hours over the border to Timisoara.  I wasn’t sure what the city had in store for us but I was keen to see Romania anyway. We’d decided against Bucharest as it was just too much driving to the east to then have to double back.
We drove through back road after back road. Lots of agriculture. Lots of tractors. We knew we were in the middle of no where and weren’t surprised when we approached a very non descript border control. We were stamped out of Serbia and drove up to the Romania border control to be stamped in. We gave the border guard all our stuff, 4 passports, car registration and insurance documents. That’s all any country has ever asked for so we were pretty surprised when he asked for BK’s license! But he had his kiwi one so we handed it over. 

And this is where it started to go pear shaped!!

The guard then asks if we have an international drivers license.
Oh. Dear.
We then explain BK did get one before he left NZ but we’d misplaced the physical copy.
The guard checked something and comes back to inform us he could not let us in to Romania without it. He was so apologetic, he could see he’d just turned a kiwi family’s plans upside down. His english started to fail him so he wrote a heartfelt sorry message into google translate for us to read.

We turned around and parked up in ‘no mans land’ …and I pulled apart all our gear! Nope it really wasn’t with us. I knew I’d packed it as soon as it has arrived before we left NZ. I knew I’d put it with our travel insurance documents. All I can think of is that it has fallen out without me seeing earlier in our trip. We hadn’t used it or shown it for the car rental in Amsterdam or Barcelona or to pick up our Peugeot in Italy. 

So back through Serbia border control, they looked at us weirdly and off we went.

Then it was time for logistics, and while I just wanted to fall apart and cry I slowly and methodically worked through each problem.
I found a busy looking border to Hungary – my logic, if we could just be a car in a big long line they wouldn’t have time to trawl our passports and look at our weird stamp collection of out of Serbia then back in with no other country stamp between which screams ‘PROBLEM CHILD!’ 

So we set the nav and BK drove. 

Next was Airbnb, a big sorry we’re not coming to stay today because we can’t get into your country! She was the most lovely host and told me quickly to cancel so I’d get some money back. Which I did. She was so apologetic and so was I!
Next was accommodation for that night, I had a quick looking on booking.com and Airbnb, heaps around but was too nervous about the border crossing back into the EU so decided once we’d cleared the border I’d book.

And then I decided I’d write to the New Zealand embassy in Romania to complain!
Yes I probably could have worded it better or stronger or something but I was doing everything on the fly!

This is what I wrote :

Hi there,

We were denied entry to Romania at a road border crossing from Serbia today. The reason given : we weren’t carrying an international drivers licence to accompany our NZ drivers license. We did get one before we left New Zealand but have since misplaced it, only being here another (X) weeks it’s pointless ordering a new one from NZ and having it shipped over. We rung the AA in Belgrade but they could only do Serbian drivers licenses.
Please could you tell me if this was the correct measure taken by the border guard or were we unfairly treated?
Claire

This is their very unhelpful reply : 

Kia ora Claire,
Thank you for your email. I’m sorry to hear you were unable to enter Romania. Please note that the Romanian immigration authorities, like any country, have the right to refuse entry to their country to anyone that does not meet the criteria they set, in the same way that for example Immigration New Zealand can refuse people entry into New Zealand if they don’t meet our criteria. Entry into any country is never guaranteed, and is always up to the immigration authorities at the border. We cannot interfere in another country’s immigration policies, in the same way that other countries cannot interfere in New Zealand’s immigration policies.
Ngā mihi,


The one positive, that reply email did come back within 70 minutes of me sending mine so I was pretty pleased with their promptness!
The negative, not at all helpful! Didn’t at all answer my question!!

Fortunately we had food in the car so fed the crew and sat feeling extremely anxious as we closed in on our next border crossing, praying we’d get through back into the EU with internal borders and it would be simple. We sat in the queue, I was happy to be ‘yet another vehicle’
We checked out of Serbia very simply – I had all the passports open to the photo page and stacked together, she didn’t even look at the passports just blindly found a page to stamp!
There was 2 guards checking everyone’s luggage so I opened our boot to show ours. They asked if we had anything to declare, I said no, they asked if I was a diplomat, I said no. She took our passports, stamped them and said “goodbye!”  As we drove out, we realised there wasn’t another building to drive up to, that was the EU entry in the same building as the Serbia exit…we’d just very simply got back into the EU and not even realised it! 

Praise God, what a relief! Internal borders from now till we are stamped out to come home. 

Back to the logistics, found a farm stay on Airbnb, messaged them to see if they could receive us in an hour, they came back quickly that they could! So it was a top up of food at our favourite supermarket and we were on our way to a bed for the night. We arrived to a beautiful Airbnb and wonderfully friendly host. We got chatting and found out he’d done 5 caminos! We just finished one we exclaimed!
BK cooked spag bol for dinner and then the kids went to bed. I video called Mum and woke her up “you’ll never believe my day! I’m not where I’m meant to be!”

Yep 40 years old and still worth worrying about Mum! 🤪

So now we have 48 hours to fill before we rejoin the pre made plans. We lost about $100 NZD on Airbnb cancellation, few extra hours of driving and diesel, but in the big picture, that’s nothing at all really. I’m just glad that sago is over!  I’m happy to be back in the EU, I’m very thankful for data on my phone!

Till next time,

Claire

Road trip – Serbia

Road trip – Serbia

We lined up at border control and it took ages! Fortunately, BK had popped into the supermarket before we left and bought pastries so at least we weren’t hungry…one of us needed the toilet though….

The Bulgarian border control lady saw our French number plated car and asked if we were going to France.
Us : uhh? Serbia?
The Serbian border control man smiled as our passports were handed over “New Zealand huh?”
Us : yep 😁😁😁😁

Such weird comments, just stamp our passports and let us through! Country number 50 for BK and I!

Our EU SIM cards stopped roaming, again. This game is getting a wee bit old!!! The used SIM card collection is growing! I’m very careful to keep my kiwi one safe, I’ll need that one! I think this is our final non EU country, so hopefully that’s the end of it! The EU roaming has been great when it’s worked. A great rule the EU put on phone companies in my opinion!

Then it was 4 hours drive up to Belgrade.

The highways, oh the highways. The speed limit is 130km and you sit at that speed undisturbed for hours. Our Peugeot purrs along beautifully and it’s such a wonderful smooth ride. Time just passes by. I let CK sit in the front beside his Daddy. I was surviving on a rough night of 5 hours sleep so was happy to be cocooned in the back.

The Airbnb host had told me the street number was 187, there wasn’t a 187!! Agh!!! That does NOT bode well with attention to detail me. With no data on our phones it was a mad dash back to a supermarket to use the free wifi, got better instructions and found out it was number 1 (??!!)
Back to the house, checked in and was very happy with my Airbnb choice that within a couple of hours I was extending our stay!

The following day we headed out to Ada ciganlija, it’s a manmade island in the middle of a river. We thought we’d hire bikes and cycle round. We stood in line, in the hot sun, for 30 minutes, only to get to the front of the queue and find out you need Serbian ID to hire. We were so shocked (to put it very politely!!) Why on earth you wouldn’t want foreigners’ money is beyond us! So we went for a walk to see what we could see. Little R had a swim. We had ice creams, we had hot chips. It was a lovely summers day with many families out enjoying the area and weather.

The next day we went into the city centre. I had booked a city tour on segways for me and CK as his reward for walking the Camino without a single word of complaint.
BK dropped us off and after a bit of practice off we went with only one other tour mate to see the central city sights. It was a fabulous way to get around. Zooming here and there, pausing for some history. We had great guide who could see Master teenager just wanted to be let loose!
BK stayed with R and they met us afterward, we saw more city sights then it was time to cruise back to our apartment, we’d been standing way toooooo long! It’s tiring being a tourist!

BK found himself, what he calls, the best co working space he’s ever stumbled upon!  If you’re new around here, BK has worked in co working spaces through lots of the 50 countries he’s visited so that’s really saying something! Along with the very cheap price tag of $54 NZD for two days! He was stoked!

One thing that has stood out to me the whole time we’ve been here in Serbia is the piles and piles of people waiting at bus/tram stops. Public transport is very very very heavily used. So I thought we should give it a try as much as it’s lovely being privately chauffeured round in our brand-new Peugeot.
To finish off our Belgrade stay I took the kids to the zoo. We used the bus to get to the zoo and the bus and a very old soviet looking tram (which was just awesome!!) to get back to the apartment we were staying in.
The zoo was fantastic, obviously not Singapore or London Zoo style but for a small city zoo it punched well above expectations! They had a fantastic variety of animals, some with only netting keeping dangerous animals from the public. We got very close to the tigers. OSH in New Zealand would have been absolutely horrified!!! We had mum on a video call and even through the phone she was surprised!
It was a great morning out with our animal crazed wee girl totally in her element…and fiercely judging every single enclosure and state of each animals’ welfare!! She then wrote her opinions in a Google review for her Daddy to post on her behalf!

I finished booking Airbnb’s for the rest of our trip while we were here, that was such a relief! Decision fatigue is real!!
So that’s all accommodation / transport / flights booked and paid for. Just need to glide through it now and find bits n pieces to do in each place.

Serbia, you surprised me! What a lovely time we’ve had. Belgrade is a great city and most definitely worth visiting! BK wants to stay another week – probably that co working space calling his name and the back log of work he’s pushing to get through, but he’s only meant to be working 2 days a week!

Onward we must go!

Till next time,

Claire

Road trip – Bulgaria

Road trip – Bulgaria

We crossed successfully into Bulgaria and drove straight for Sofia. Our friends were following us, somewhere. Our first mission was to find someone who sold vignettes- an alternative to paying tolls. Once we found that we felt much better about the cameras on the highways!! Please no fines for us! 

We arrived at our Airbnb. Realised we were back in the EU so our SIM cards should be roaming and waited for our friends who’d got distracted at a monastery along the way.

Sofia was a weird one, I trawled through the internet looking for stuff to do and it just didn’t come up with much apart from churches. So we visited one then walked around aimlessly! The best thing about the church was the many massive art works painted on its walls of bible stories. It became a bible knowledge quiz…One example: So that’s Jesus and he’s with a dude who is wrapped up like he’s been dead, but isn’t anymore….
Answer : _______

The next day I had another go looking for something to do and still couldn’t find anything. So Sofia was all about connection. It was chatting, it was drinking Colada flavoured baileys, it was resting. The men did a bit of work, the ladies half entertained the children. The men cooked, the ladies ate…haha.

Then our friends flew back to London, that’s the last time we’ll see them for this trip but 3 times in 9 weeks has been wonderful. See ya down-under next time Nix!

And…. that was Sofia. That was Bulgaria. 

Barely worth visiting and I’m 100% sure we’ve been short changed but we only had 2 full days to explore. The annoying thing is, I think Bulgaria makes rose oil and I really would have liked to have seen that but I think its in the south which we didn’t have time to get to.

Ahh well. Off we go.

Till next time, 

Claire

Road trip – Macedonia

Road trip – Macedonia

We packed our car, went to a baby shop and I bought what seems like our thousandth (and hopefully final) car seat in the past 14 years of parenting so little R could see out the window easier, then we cruised out of Greece. 

We are embarking on a 3000km road trip. 2/3rds of the way through we’ll need to drop our car off and bus the rest of the way through the final countries before flying home!

We’ve been churning through countries for the past 7 weeks, in and out of the EU but never have we been interrogated like the Greek border control! They were particularly interested in where we lived in NZ – ?? if the children went to school  – ?? and if they were on vacation – ?? Why they wanted to know this on the way out of their country I have no idea!! We said yes our kids were on vacation – kinda true, ish. 😁 Please don’t call Mr Jarrett, he might have other ideas!

We drove up to the entry gate of Macedonia and as we waited our turn Brendan spots a doppelganger of someone at home “Found Shelley Barnard!” he announces. All 4 of us sat there gazing at this lady. ♥️ The hair style and even colour, the body shape – it was uncanny actually!  If I wasn’t in such a high security area I would have taken a photo.

The border control man was NZ’s biggest fan. He was so happy to see our beautiful black passports from “kiwi land” – it made us smile. Everyone loves kiwis! Everyone will yack your ear off about how beautiful NZ is. If they’ve been there or if they want to go there! Then they’ll start on “so what exactly happened to your prime minister – she’s tired?”
Mmmhmm, yep she got tired, who knows what she’s doing now! Yep Doctor Ashley Bloomfield got tired and quit too, Covid aye.  I have lost count on how many times I’ve had that conversation in the past 7 weeks!! 

After successfully entering the country, we cruised the lovely big and new-ish highways with Lauren Daigle tunes playing. We found our Airbnb, unpacked and then went to find local SIM cards as our EU ones weren’t roaming, again! 20 gigs for $8.50 NZD – yes please x 2 phones! Then it was the ever pesky trip to top up on food.

After such a busy schedule for the past month this week had been pegged to slow us down and I’d purposely booked a big Airbnb for the kids to have their own rooms and space away from each other, and me!! BK hoped to catch up on work. I needed to do a bit of life and business admin. The kids need to rest and do any school related tasks they can pick up. So with BK disappearing to a co working space, the kids and I spent a few days resting before our friends flew out from London to see us. 

Once they arrived it was off to see the sights. We saw the square and as we walked towards their old town/market I saw a lovely fountain of 4 mothers. It was large and in such a prominent place. It was beautiful. I did research, it’s meant to be ‘Alexander the greats’ Mum! But it looks more like a celebration of motherhood to me. BK took little R on a horse trek in the mountains, she loved it and was totally in her element. The Camino had pushed her to her limit and that was her reward for pushing through.

Our last full day we ventured out to see Matka Canyon – it’s worth a Google image search, so pretty. We went on a boat ride to a cave. Was lovely to be out on the water. I put DJI up for a fly, then BK had a turn. I was on catching it as BK landed it but I put my finger a centimetre too high and it chopped off my nail and took a tiny bit of my skin off before I could grab it and tip it upside down to turn it off. Ouch! Always a drama with that thing!!!! Of course I took a photo and sent it home to the mothership who replied with the obvious: be more careful and don’t get an infection! 😁

Then it was back to the apartment to pack, and after a week in one place, we’d unpacked quite a lot!! It had been a wonderful pause. Both kids commented they’d enjoyed the ‘home days’.

But it was off to our next destination,

Till next time,

Claire

London

London

We landed in Stanstead, one of those annoying remote airports, made our way into the city on an airport express train, transferred onto the tube, then once further enough toward our Airbnb, ubered the rest of the way! Lugging gear in a huge city is not fun but oh the English language! Oh the British accents! It was a welcome relief after 6.5 weeks to be able to fully understand everything! 

We arrived in an exhausted heap but our hosts kindly let us in and showed us round. The lady was a head teacher and we some how got onto the subject of exams….coulda talked for hours!

After a good solid sleep we walked over to where my Nana used to live, saw her old street and house. I was a bit hesitant and nervous! That was my first home in London when we lived here in 2007 for 5 or so months. It was getting renovated so they had the front door open. We stood and watched for a while, reminiscing lovely memories. After that we popped into her favourite supermarket and then took the bus to Richmond park where we saw deer just wandering around, it was lovely to see all the green wide space in such a big busy city. We ate our lunch and walked back to the Airbnb to rest. 

That evening I missioned into the city to meet up for dinner and a show with my best friend from high school days. It was lovely to be together sans family’s. We enjoyed Asian fusion then went to ‘Hamilton’.
I had seen that show was coming to NZ and expressed to Mum my disappointment to miss it while I was away, so captain obvious announced I should just go see it while I was in London. Ahh the mothership, always there to say it how it is.
You need a pretty good understanding of American politics history…particularly round presidents, to grasp it. I had just enough. There was a lot of rapping and quick talking in rhyme that you had to concentrate on. No singalong songs. Worth going to – yes. Would I go see it again – no.
It finished at 10.30pm so a late night for me tubing back to our Airbnb at 11pm on a Wednesday night! If you know anything about London you’ll know the tube was not empty, there was plenty of people around, i did quick footed it the 12 or so minutes between the station and the house though!! 

The following day we moved up to my friends house. Dumped our stuff and I took the kids out to Greenwich, where time begins! It was a mammoth 70 minute train journey from west to east London then 70 minutes back! They’ll be doing a project on time soon to make sure they learnt something!! We also visited the maritime museum, they had a ship simulator- that was pretty fun!!!! 

After that it was days of museums and shopping!
The boys did the imperial war museum, us girls happily skipped that in favour of Hamleys – a 5 story toy shop, we walked along Oxford Circus popping into different shops for this and that. Little R totally owned the pavement and was not at all fazed by the busyness of thousands of people. I was so proud of her. We found Hyde park which had several sets of people horse riding – that just made our wee girl’s day!  We walked up to Paddington station and caught the train home! For dinner we went ‘down pub’ (you need to say that in a British accent in your head) and had a stroll along the canals. 

The next morning we took my friends wee boy to music class then to swimming class, after that we trained into Covent Garden for the London transport museum. I had wanted to go when it opened in 2007 but missed it, tried again in 2018 but was too exhausted after visiting Buckingham palace so this time it was third time lucky!! It was different to what I imagined but great all the same, I didn’t get a turn on the tube driving simulator! It was home via the massive Lego store and equally as large, the m&m store! 

A pretty packed week after 5 days of walking the Camino!

After a night of packing up all our stuff BK was taking little R to Italy to pick up a lease car as it turns out you can’t just hire a car and drive it country to country then pay a relocate fee. A loop hole is to get a lease which means you own it with guaranteed buy back – this was all organised via a NZ company and paid for in NZD before we left, we used the same company in 2018. BK and R ferried it over to Greece and CK and I flew out from London and met them there. 

We’ve now left Greece and moving onto the second half of our trip with our own wheels!! A brand new Peugeot 3008 SUV that got handed over to BK with 1.5 kilometres on the clock….I’ll be sure to ask what it is when we hand it back!!! 

Onward we go! 

Till next time,

Claire

22nd May – Half way!

22nd May – Half way!

This is a bit out of order and more ‘real time’ Thought I’d put some thoughts down as we have got to the half way point.

Mums are all the same, no matter where you live in the world. Mums are forever dragging kids places, down the street, across the road, into a toilet. Not knowing their language I have been smiling that I feel ya smile at them. 

We have heard or seen the English language way more widely this trip. Which is convenient for us but a little sad to see it taking over.
It’s on the radio playing in a bus in Barcelona – yes I sung along, yes my kids were shocked I knew the song then horrified I’d sing it!
It’s on signs in Morocco. It’s the default language of tours. If it’s not the native language of the country then it’s English.
Though it was wonderful to be in London and know the language, that was the only 6 days of 15 weeks we’ll get that! 

Educating our children via experiences is awesome. The freedom I’ve given myself of not feeling the weight of the children’s education on my shoulders is wonderful! Their history and geography are great.
Their fitness outstanding!
Their maths is being done through books we brought with us and bolstered by converting currency to NZD.
And just as importantly, the life lessons. They’ve always been great at speaking to adults – Thank you Montessori – but this trip they’ve done more speaking to your guides and paying for stuff. We’ve given them (in a safe and well thought out environment MUM) little jobs to go find recycling bins for the Airbnb we’ve stayed at or money to pop down to a mini mart (dairy). It’s been great to see them take up the challenge.

London feels like home, so comfortable there, too comfortable maybe as I was walking the streets by myself at 11pm! (Still worrying about me Mum? 🤪)

Some stats.

So far we’ve had 

Flights : 8! Lots of flying round the first half, slowing that down now! 

Countries : 11 for me and CK. 

12 for BK and RK as they popped into Italy.

Beds : 19! 

So now we’ve got our own wheels, it will be great not to have to pack tightly and to weight restrictions for a while.
3000km road trip here we come!! 

But first, let me catch you up on London!

CAMINO DE SANTIAGO!

CAMINO DE SANTIAGO!

Here’s a few snippets of each day.

Day 1 – Doned with our backpacks, the kids having NZ flags attached to theirs. We left the cathedral in Vigo at 9.30am with the first stamp in our pilgrim passports, not another pilgrim in sight.  With Mum on a video call we wound out of the city, she ‘walked’ with us for about 20 minutes a day enjoying the views and commenting on similarities or differences to the one we did together in 2018. If you’d woken me up and told me I was home in Wellington I would have believed you as I looked outside. Walking out of Vigo was unbelievably similar to walking along Custom House quay and Jervois quay! 

We saw a cafe with a sign in its window saying they had pilgrim stamps. Coffee for BK and hot chocolate for the rest of us were ordered….except we were back in Spain so hot chocolate ISNT hot chocolate as we learnt in Barcelona, hot chocolate is thick churro dipping sauce! So yep fell into that one again x 3 ‘drinks’ this time!!!! Whoops! Sugared up we kept walking! 

A lot of the first hour was steep roads to get up and behind the city. We met a German girl and walked with her a while, we paused for a break when we found a waterfall, a proper nice one! So pretty!
When I finally saw our first bunch of pilgrims sitting enjoying view. I yelled  “Buen Camino” (as is the phrase you say it means good walk) They saw the kids flags and said New Zealand???? We said yes! They did well not to say Australia!!!

Stopped in a town called Redondela for a yummy lunch then finished the rest of the walking day.

The pilgrim hostels are called Albergues, we found ours, checked in, found our gear had been delivered successfully (though we have AirTags in them so we could track if we needed too), everyone went through the showers before falling into bed for some quiet screen time.

Km – 22.79
Steps 37.000

 

Day 2 – After yesterdays mammoth effort we had a short day planned today. We got our gear packed and back in the designated spot to be picked up, then went a block down the road for a leisurely breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and hot chocolates…by now we’d worked out they’re called ‘cocoa’ 

The boys went to the supermarket for some snacks so I took the opportunity to fly DJI over a lovely river and old bridge, which was great till it refused to fly any further than about 50m away from me. Ahh well. So I landed it safely and packed it away.

We joined up again as a family, rung Mum for her 20 minutes virtual Camino walk and carried on walking. Today our ‘coastal’ part we’d started on had joined up with the ‘central’ Camino so there were a lot of pilgrims. We paused to get RK a shell for her bag – as is the done thing. CK found some Australians so he walked with them for a while and chatted their ears off!

We found a church, got a stamp – always a highlight, it rained enough for me to put my jacket on with the hood up but only for 5 or so minutes but long enough for me to take a photo and send it home to Mum asking for her to take her rain back thanks! Poor Tauranga, I’ve heard you’re all getting rather wet! We walked with a Dutch lady for a while.

We arrived in to Pontevetra nice and early. A supermarket trip and a lie down, then into the city a bit more to look around and to get another stamp in our pilgrim passports….and some ice cream!

Km – 13
Steps – 19,500

 

Day 3

We set off early this morning, winding out of the city with Mum on video call – she was burning through my cell phone battery and my cell data!! It was chilly today, I was wearing a te-shirt plus a merino long sleeve and my jacket. I didn’t take the jacket off till lunch time, the long sleeve merino came off for about 30 minutes in total. It was cold! I was happy to have packed the correct gear though!

We walked roads, gravel, and bush track. Little R bringing much joy to the pilgrims who passed us. Lots of thumbs up, lots of ‘you’re doing so well!’. Some times she’d smile at them, some times she’d give them a look of ‘does it look like I had a choice here?!’ Poor wee dot. She definitely was working hard to keep up a pace with her little legs but she had a special person at home praying for her and for restorative sleep each night – which we are so thankful for. When we stopped you could very quickly tell how she was feeling, if the sleep toys came out of her backpack to cuddle, she was wasted! They each had a turn at ‘looking out’ from her backpack zip which was so very very cute!

We finally came across a cafe, yay food, yay a sit down! A Taiwanese man gave R a round of applause as she walked in then in broken english said he had something for her. His hobby was making bugs out of packing ties. One was attacked to her hat and he quickly made one for CK while we ate. I love moments like this to add to the kids Camino experience. So lovely, and it was wonderful we could tell him we’d been to Taiwan 5 years ago! 

We carried on walking, saw some lovely wood carvings of Saint Santiago, and owl, shells and boots. A sign that made us laugh was a stop sign that some smart person had written ‘complaining’ under the stop! Hilarious. 

We walked with a lady who had done 6 Caminos, a man who’s done two but his first was 90 days from Germany!!!

We also met an American who’d started in Porto, got a day in and had bad tummy pain at 4am…he happened to be staying across the road from a hospital so walked himself over and went into surgery to get his gall bladder out! Rested a few days then taxied up to where he should have been and kept walking! Crazy! 

Through some vineyards we went then into Caldas de reis, found our albergue and we were done for the day.

Km – 22.8
Steps – 36,500

 

Day 4

Today was Mother’s Day so as we packed our gear I was given cards and chocolate. With no available space in my backpack I gave it back for them to carry!
Once we started walking we were quickly out of the city and into rural Spain. Mum enjoyed her daily views. We found a couple from Boston, can’t mistake those Boston accents aye!
After a while little R needed a break so we stopped for a while by a river to refuel on snacks and liquid. 

Throughout our travels I have seen doublegangers of people at home. Today it was Rosemary Edmeades. Made me smile.

Put DJI up to get some footage of a pretty valley with pilgrims walking along. But thanks to trees and we think the power lines, it lost signal!!! So it flew itself back, at speed, to ‘home’ (where its controller is) missing said trees and power lines thank goodness!! Always a drama with that thing!!

Just before we stopped for lunch some kiwis noticed our flags and in a loud kiwi accent we hear “Morena!!!!!!” Gosh it was wonderful to hear that!! Absolutely made my day! They were a brother and sister from Wellington.

I’d booked a nice hotel for this night, the pool was very cold so BK and RK got in but CK and me, did not!! 

Dinner was an utter fail tonight but we were exhausted so nobody cared.

Km – 23.2
Steps – 32,500

 

Day 5

Our final day! One MASSIVE day!

Today was CK’s birthday. I’d had his gift in my carry on luggage all the way from NZ then I’d been packing it through the Camino, I wasn’t trusting airlines or our Camino luggage transfer service with it! He happily received it!
Next up was a buffet breakfast- his favourite!

Then it was out the door, with mum on video call …who was trying to organise with me a weekend away to a conference in the South Island in September!

Today was the biggest day but the excitement of finishing was pushing everyone through! Little R was powering but was all smiles.
We saw the Boston crew, they wished CK a happy birthday. We saw the Wellingtonians, they wished CK a happy birthday. It was a fabulous start…

Till some random Spanish man came up to me and started telling me very insistently – via Google translate – I needed to watch out for police as children weren’t allowed on the Camino during the Spanish school term.
What random Spanish man didn’t know was this was my 2nd time I’d been on a Camino and I had a ‘secret weapon’ in my phone!
Last time, with Mum, we’d been on a guided tour and I had stayed in contact with our guide. I involved her in my planning, I text her every day with our progress. At no time did she say “mind your mini pilgrim!”
So after random Spanish man walked off, I text her to ask if I had anything to worry about as we were closing in on Santiago….this was her reply :
Dont worry about that…spanish men love to feel they know everything…and with a beautiful girl like you…they grow themselves and start making up stories…just to keep walking🤘🏼

So with her instruction, we kept walking and of course had no problem at all with our kids.
At 2.20pm we made it to the finishing point. The square in front of the cathedral.
It was glorious! A quick selfie family photo then little R saw others lying down so she joined them pulling out her special sleep toys she’d carried the whole way to cuddle and enjoy the moment. 

Camino complete.

Km – 22.6
Steps – 39,500

 

We found our Airbnb, fell into our beds and rested the afternoon away, stumbled out to get dinner then slept all night long! 9.5 hours for me which is unheard of! Exhaustion is real! 

The next morning, we went into the old town for a bit of souvenir shopping. Rung mum to show her the square. Then it was out to the airport.
Love that airport, laid back, no lines, no noise and no booming voice over the speaker system! You just had to know when to progress through security and customs. We filed quietly onto the plane and onto our next destination.

Till next time,

Claire

Porto + Vigo

Porto + Vigo

An uneventful flight into Porto, we got collected by an Uber. The driver was so engaging, we got a lovely lesson on Port wine. His family has a vineyard that goes back several generations so we were more than interested to hear his point of view on the industry. I’d chosen a compact Airbnb which is right in the city centre, as soon as we arrived we dumped our gear and went out to explore, I mean we explored as we found our way to a supermarket to top up on food! Ha!

What a cute as little city and hello Portuguese tarts! Glad to be back with you! 

Paid €1.20 per tart at an expensive bakery with the best google reviews, then bought more at the supermarket for 50 cents and to our untrained taste buds…couldn’t tell the difference! Supermarket ones it is kids! 

We’re only in Porto for a couple of days so it was out the door mid morning to explore. There’s one thing I needed to achieve here in this city. Pilgrim passports!!!
So as we explored we headed past the Porto cathedral. Some friends are coming later in the year to do the Portuguese Camino so along with my 4 pilgrim passports I needed I picked up another 8. The lady selling them at the cathedral thought I was absolutely crazy asking for 12! What she didn’t know HOW crazy it really is that I now have to pack those 8 passports through the Camino and into Santiago de compostela, then fly them home to New Zealand JUST for them to fly back over here to Portugal again and be packed along the Camino again….I left that bit out, I just asked for 12! 🤪

We walked along a bridge called Luis, some times it’s really odd what becomes a well known thing to do in a city and that was one of those moments! Never mind there’s another 5 bridges in Porto. The view FROM the bridge is significantly better than the view OF the bridge.

It’s such a compact city that after a couple of hours wandering we’d covered Google’s top 6 things to do in the city.

The rest of the time was spent milling around. Saw a beautiful bookshop, had an ice cream that looked like a flower, saw a nice park with great views of the river.

BK popped out to do a port wine cellar tour and tasting, the kids and I rested, we needed as much rest as we could get!

We then caught a bus to Vigo in Spain, only knowing we’d crossed the border when my phone stopped working, a quick flick of flight mode on and off again got it reconnected to a new cell tower and I was back on the grid. I love the whole EU roaming thing. Handy! 

Vigo, we achieved no sight seeing. It was all logistics so the following 5 days would be as smooth as possible!  4 loads of washing done – and I got it all dry in an afternoon, GO ME!

I organised the daily transfers of our luggage for when we walked the Camino, not at all interested in carrying it!

Found our favourite supermarket chain, Lidl, round the corner. Stocked up on lollies, I mean chocolate….ok ok, so it was actually biscuits and fruit/nut mixes! 

And with that we taxied to the cathedral in town to start walking our Camino, 103km to Santiago de Compostela…let’s go! 

Till next time,

Claire

Morocco

Morocco

As I was lead into an office by a police officer, it was clear I was not getting into the country with my drone!
Yep it was DJI’s fault I was in that predicament! There were big signs everywhere :
DECLARE YOUR DRONE!
So I did.
The most annoying thing is : I was sure I’d researched each country’s drone laws! 😫
I was texting Mum to keep her in the loop but turns out she wasn’t getting my texts or the ones from BK’s phone!
So I handed over DJI, got a document and told to come back to ‘the door’ when I fly out. Who knows what would have happened if I was flying out of somewhere else! …and who knows how I was ever going to find my way back to that office in the arrivals part of the airport.

After getting our bags scanned – successfully because there was no drone, I did hold onto the controller and propeller guards though – we found a taxi to our Airbnb and met up with our host. I rung Mum to download my experience onto her….turns out at 40 years old I’m still worth worrying about, aye Mum! 🤪

The following day was pretty much a write-off, we taxi’d out to a big supermarket to stock up on food, got new SIM cards because our euro ones don’t roam here, and generally lazed about. The pool was closed because “it’s Friday – the religious day”.
Our beautiful riad kept out the 40 degree heat effectively but we did turn on our air con units in the bedrooms to sleep. I don’t normally take photos of our accommodation but this one is so unique that I did and have done a quick edit of it which will post to Facebook in the coming days.

After another quiet start, BK and CK ventured into town for bits n pieces. That evening we went to the Medina. It was sensory overload! I’m not sure how to explain it!!! We’d done markets similar to this “souk” in south east Asia so it wasn’t a new experience but woah I’d forgotten the intensity it! The people, the lights, the stuff everywhere, the haggling, the motorbikes zooming through narrow streets, the uneven paths then adding in 40 degree heat, it was quite the experience but oh the thrill, oh the buzz, one not to be missed!
If you know me well you’ll know I’m not a fan of people or noise! So I was completely done after an hour but who knows where we were and how to get out…ahh yes, my trusty Google maps for the win. I bought a few gifts, got a magnet for my collection, had a French crepe for dinner, inhaled a fresh fruit smoothie ($1.60NZD – a vast difference in price to what I pay at tank at home!) and then we called it a night at 8pm before it got too crazy being a Saturday night!

After a rest day of swimming, Bk doing a little work, and that ever pesky washing – turns out washing dries fast in 40 degree heat! Ha! Monday we went on a tour into the Atlas Mountains. 

We were picked up first at 8.30am then after a couple of other stops we’d got our tour group family and we were off. We drove out of Marrakech, little R looks at the mountains “snow!!” I wasn’t so sure, coulda been sand for all I could make out with my eyesight, so I took a photo and text it to the mothership knowledge base back in New Zealand for confirmation….her reply : surely not?
Helpful 😐
Turns out it actually was! I knew the mountains wouldn’t be the 38-40 degrees we had been experiencing in the city but I wasn’t prepared for snow 90 minutes away! We wound our way past Berber villages. Stopped on the side of the highway several times as we all bailed out to take photos. Then we stopped to have a morning tea of Moroccan mint tea, warm Moroccan pita bread and dips – yum! We learnt how argan oil was made too.
Back in the van and up the mountains we went, next stop was a walk to a waterfall – being from New Zealand, I did NOT have high hopes for a glorious waterfall and thankfully I didn’t because we almost walked past it! A local family was there having the time of their lives in the water at the bottom….which was actually more interesting to watch than the waterfall. Spoilt kiwi much?
I really wished I had DJI – it would have been spectacular footage of the mountains, Berber villages, waterfall. Sigh.
A tagine lunch filled us up then the van came and swooped us all up and we drove down the mountain and into the desert to ride camels.🐫🏜️
They made us dress up and put head scarfs on us all. We all looked the part! ‘For Instagram!’ they said.
The boys got their own camels, little R however could not or would not (I can’t remember which!) go by herself so she came with me. It was a rough ride, really hard on my hips. I think it was only 15 minutes but by the time I got off it felt like I’d been riding all day! More mint tea than it was back to Marrakech.
A full day but wonderful to get out of the city and into rural Morocco.
I took a bunch of photos and video on this day and have edited it into a 2 minute video which I’ll post up to Facebook. 

Soon it was time to pack up our riad. We were off to the coast for a couple of days – to a place called Essaouira. A new bus, definitely aimed at tourists, took us the 3 hours west. Local life is always fascinating to drive past, Africa local life even more so.
We found Morocco has a toll road! I was so surprised!! No idea how much it was but probably not the ridiculous prices they are in Europe!
The temperature dropped from 38 degrees to 24! The sea breeze we felt when we got off the bus was glorious!!!!!!! Definitely reminding us of home when the gulls started squawking!
Our apartment was right in the medina but this one was significantly more manageable than Marrakech so we could move around ok with our gear and thankfully the general noise of people in the market didn’t keep us up at night. 

After a couple of nights we bussed back to Marrakech for a night, then taxied back to the airport – it was time to acquire DJI back and I was nervous! Mum was cheering me on from New Zealand. Surely this was a simple process, surely I wasn’t the first or going to be the last in this predicament!! 

I walked round the airport with my drone document showing any official I could find to direct me to get DJI. I finally found ‘the door’ and was escorted round to the correct office. “Checked in?” They asked me, “no” I replied.
So that was a fail, so close, yet so far!
I was shoo’d through the arrival doors to gather up my family and gear. We checked into our flight and then I went back to ‘the door’ for round two of project acquire DJI. The security guard looked at me strangely and says “again?”  Let’s just say I wasn’t very talkative this time round! 🤨
Back to the office, which I got to enter this time, I saw my drone case, I was so close!
Paid my storage fee and expected him to give me DJI but no! That was not the end of it! I was then given a police escort!
“My family” I pointed at my crew as I again went through those arrival doors!
We gathered up our stuff and proceeded through the normal departure’s security. Mr police officer finally handed me DJI then he went to the scanner operator hopefully to say I was a special case 😇and to expect a drone to come through even though there were signs everywhere saying ‘DECLARE YOUR DRONE!’ 

Once through that, then through customs, we’d made it. I gave DJI a good look over then BK took a very happy photo of me….you’ll indeed see that on Facebook! 

Drone in Morocco saga, complete.

 

Onward to the next part of our adventure! 

Till next time,

Claire

Side note – I notice I’ve used ‘who knows’ a lot in this blog. Welcome to Africa.