The last stop for this trip was a few days in Sydney before heading home to California for a quick pit stop and three weeks of sleeping in our own beds and reveling in unmetered internet. Ironically, because of our internet diet in Coolangatta, we watched the Food Network out of Sydney some evenings and enjoyed many commercials for Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi...
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On that fateful hike over a year ago when Scott and I decided to dust off our dream of a year of travel with our kids and actually attempt to make it a reality, our conversation went in many directions with a lot of interrupting and laughing and excitement about the adventure that might be waiting for us. One of things we really laughed about was...
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My running partner was the first to mention Australia Zoo to me when I started asking her about the “not to be missed” places around her husband’s home town, Caloundra. Her advice was the Australia Zoo, you know the zoo that Steve Irwin founded and his family operates? Actually, I had no idea that Steve Irwin founded a zoo (his dad started it with a few crocodiles),...
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Scott and I spent almost three months in Australia on our honeymoon over seventeen years ago. We had just graduated from college, we were madly in love and had both thrown caution to the wind, surprised a few folks, and tied the knot. It’s a great story and some of you know it, as do our kids, so it’s not too shocking. Here we are, finally...
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We spent five nights in Christchurch and it was a bit of a fugue. We were all tired and because of the devastating earthquakes in the area in 2010 and 2011, holiday apartments are few and far between. Scott found us a great place though, it was just a bit out in the middle of the suburbs. The Christchurch experience turned out fine though, the internet...
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We left Hokitika for Christchurch, our final destination on the South Island of New Zealand, as well as our last five days in New Zealand. We drove over Arthur’s Pass and planned to stop at Castle Hill, a place Scott had discovered looking through a New Zealand coffee table book in our apartment in Queenstown. Castle Hill is one of those “places in between.” It is a limestone...
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There is a lot to see in New Zealand, so much to see in fact that you just have to accept that you won’t see a fraction of it, even at a hectic pace. You can hit the highlights of course, but even the highlights are vast. There is also a lot of driving to be done on the two island country that is a...
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Oberammergau, Germany, has forever spoiled us in the cute little village department and we continuously seek its charm in small towns on our travels. We decided to spend four nights in Hokitika, a tiny beach enclave on the West Coast of New Zealand, and a name I cannot seem to spell, no matter how many times I type it and maybe that is because I cannot pronounce it correctly either....
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I am definitely growing this year. Of course, you think, but to me it is not always evident. I spend a lot of time either catching up, scrambling up, holding on, looking away or biting my tongue and I sometimes resort to cursing or crying (alone of course because they are far ahead, re-climbing the hard part for fun and waiting for me). Don’t misunderstand,...
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One of the lessons that we are learning on our adventure is that as much as one can research on the internet, there are still the “locals’ favorites” or the things that are so buried in the web that you never notice them, or you read about something, but don’t realize what you have found; that it is fun and great and not to be missed. ...
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