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After blitzing East Coast Australia in nine days it was on to the next stage of the adventure. Another slightly silly indirect flight via Melbourne (flight 3/9) and mad dash through the airport to find the international terminal and make the bag drop for us onto our first long flight (flight 4/9) to Honolulu. I’dContinue reading “Aloha Maui and Kaua’i! “

After much deliberation on which way to fly home from NZ we had decided to start our trip in Australia, somewhere I’d lived way back in 2003 (an amazing 19 years earlier, I am getting old!!) and I was keen to show the kids a few highlights, they were predictably excited to look for koalasContinue reading “Tie me kangaroo down sport….”

Sad times indeed reaching the final few months in lovely New Zealand but we weren’t going to go down without a fight rest assured viewers! Kids were all a bit exhausted after the fun South Island road trip in the last holidays, and they found the return to school a bit tiring, so we startedContinue reading “Adventurers Endgame…”

We finally reached week 11 of a very long term with for once zero plans for the two week Easter holiday ahead – we had optimistically hoped Zach’s first passport would show up in time for a trip to Australia. Instead we checked the long-range forecast to see if a New Zealand road trip wasContinue reading “Final Flourish – Lastminute.com!”

Having gambled successfully with two brilliant road trips round South Island with a heavily pregnant Emily it was time to be a bit more sensible and stay closer to home! We gradually reduced our distance from home (and hospital!) starting with an old favourite Tumbledown Bay for some great surfing and Bottle Lake for someContinue reading “New arrivals – babies and Covid-19!”

First we had to get through Term 4 which as always has a habit of grinding to a halt and taking way longer than a 9 week term with most students on study leave should. Sara reached the impressive age of seven (and the impressive height of 29 pizza boxes!) and we celebrated in styleContinue reading “Walk on the Wild Side aka Summer Holiday Shenanigans!”

We’re all still big fans of the Goldilocks climate in Springtime in New Zealand, not too hot, not too cold and just perfect for spring snow skiing and warm sun on the beach for the start of the surfing season. We bought the kids longer wetsuits for the cooler water temps and the girls especiallyContinue reading “Springtime Sunshine & Smiles…”

So after the world’s longest summer, we seemed to skip Autumn and move straight into winter with cold temps and frequent heavy rain, though being Christchurch still plenty of sunshine in between! We’ve never been big fans of busy indoor activities so persevered with a quick walk to Taylor’s Mistake between showers and probably theContinue reading “Surf or Ski Soul Searching…”

Tēnā koutou katoa. After a long eleven week term it was great to finally reach the school holidays but with a road trip to North Island rolling ever closer, a “quiet” weekend was needed first which we filled in usual fashion with some indoor bouldering (plenty of dyno practice!) and a walk to Taylor’s MistakeContinue reading “Winds of Winter?”

After a great summer South Island road trip it was back to Christchurch for the final week of the summer holiday and some fun local adventures at all the usual places. Plenty of time spent in the water as summer doesn’t seem to want to go away, the temperature remains firmly in the upper 20sContinue reading “Endless Summer?”