After a great flight into Lisbon, I had a transfer waiting for us – which is not something I do often but this one I had scored for free! It’s wonderful to walk along a bunch of people holding names, see your own name and know you just have to follow from then onwards. He put us in the back of a black van and we drove through the dark streets of Lisbon… Sounds dodgy I know but it was…
A wonderful bus ride along the coast to Barcelona, I thought the driver was just fantastic! Young Spanish dude but he knew the route, the vehicle and he did not mess about. We ran perfectly to time! Dumped unceremoniously at a bus station, we grabbed our gear and took an Uber to a hostel. 2 sets of bunk beds in a private room with en-suite is costing us upwards of $200 NZD per night! Ouch! Big city problems! Once we’d…
Nîmes – pronounced Neam. A bit of background on why we are here. Our cat is called Nimes. We acquired our cat in 2018 from a family member who had been to Nîmes on a work trip in 2017. Once he got home, the family got a kitten and Nîmes had left such an impression it was decided the kitten would be called Nimes. After a late arrival into the city – good ol’ intercity bus links – our wonderful Airbnb hosts rescued…
Nice + Monaco Flying to the French Riviera was wonderful. Oh the sun. Oh the warmth. Oh the beauty. We’ve seen a lot of France but never the south. We bailed on it last time and went to Disney instead! It was just too far to drive in our little Peugeot 208 with a 6 and 8 year old in the back seat. So we made it a priority this time and here we are. After a quick Uber ride from…
We spent 8 days here and it was COLD but we had a lovely social time with familiar faces. It was fantastic to have wheels to get out about. We based ourselves in the area of Putten for the first 4 days. The day after we arrived BK made a beeline for an aquarium shop! I know! Who on earth does that? That afternoon we were invited by some friends to a pancake house. It was Hansel and Gretel themed….
We started our first travel day with a walk round Mount Maunganui with Mum then it was up to Auckland to fly out. Fortunately I’d looked at my airline app a week prior and realised our flight had been pulled forward an entire 90 minutes! A smooth swap of our car to SK. I’d managed to check in online so an efficient bag drop. Little R is STILL little even all these years later, as we approached security she was…
Well here we are again. Heading out on the road. Covid you kinda held us up a bit, but better late than never! This adventure was planned about 6 months after I got home from our last trip. I was hopeful for 2022, but by the time Prime Minister Jacinda said no more MIQ, it was 6 weeks till I wanted to be leaving…and even with my epic planning and logistic skills, I just couldn’t pull that off!! This time…
Days- 261 days Countries- 34 countries (35 for me because of going to Spain with Mum – my total country count is now 43) including NZ. Beds- 60 beds for the fam, (67 for me as they didn’t come to Spain). Sickness- C had a rash early on in Asia, I had a head cold in Thailand. BK had a quick tummy bug or something in Sri Lanka. Both kids got colds in London when I was in Spain. I…
Hello Spain – Camino de Santiago We had a few days in the midlands of England after we left Ireland. Then it was to one of London’s many airports so Mum and I could fly to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. BK and the kids went to an Airbnb in London. Mum and I flew to Spain to go on a walking holiday with an organised group. We were going to walk the last 115km of the Camino de…
It was going to be a long day to get from England to where we were staying in Ireland so we left our Airbnb early and glided down to the airport. We checked in and attempted to progress through security…Mum and R failed the person scan but once patted down and swabbed were fine. BK and C’s carry on bags failed. BK had coffee in his bag but got to keep it, C had a pocket knife in his bag,…