Adventuriety
We planned one week on the North Island of New Zealand. We wanted to show the kids some of the places we visited on our honeymoon and then see something new. Looking around on the internet, Scott found a very interesting beach called Hot Beach (more on that later) but it looked intriguing enough to plan a few days around it since there were plenty of...
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Adventuriety / Inspirietry
We left the magical Bay of Islands and drove towards Waipoua State Forest, another place that we had visited years ago. The kids have seen our giant California trees, but we wanted them to see New Zealand’s behemoths, the Kauri trees. photo by Grant A major threat to the Kauri, identified in 2008, is kauri dieback, a disease caused by a fungus-like water mold that attacks...
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Adventuriety
Scott and I spent a night in Bay of Islands on our honeymoon and have three vivid memories from our visit which is amazing to me because we have no pictures to jog these memories. The first memory involves a one man catamaran and some uncooperative wind. You have to remember that Bay of Islands is absolutely beautiful and pristine and it’s mostly about the water. The...
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Adventuriety
Scott and I have been married a few years. We went to Australia and New Zealand on our honeymoon and overheard a couple at one of the places we stayed talking about how they couldn’t believe that they were already celebrating their 10th Anniversary by returning to the place that they had honeymooned. We thought that sounded like a good idea and now all of...
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Adventuriety
Hernio is an iconic summit and the highest peak of the mountain range located right in the heart of Basque Country and very popular with the Gipuzkoans . In case you are wondering, Gipuzkoa is the name of the province and it is the most Basque of the whole area, with half of the population speaking Basque. San Sebastian is the capital of this province....
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Adventuriety
San Sebastian is very close to the border of France, about thirty minutes. We really wanted to spend a few days wandering around the Pyrenees Mountains and little villages in south western France, but we were so content in San Sebastian and the surrounding hikes that we only went to France one afternoon (but we made it count). Our sweet apartment manager, Ane (who had jokingly...
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Adventuriety
The Basque Country is a delicious smorgasbord of hiking adventure for all levels. Our third hike was short (only 3.5 hours!) and easy in comparison to the other adventures we experienced while based in San Sebastian. I think Scott picked this hike for it name, “XOXO(te).” Check out the trail map first. We found happily grazing ponies among the picnic tables at the parking lot...
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Adventuriety
We spent two weeks in beautiful San Sebastian, Spain, the perfect mix of mountains, city and sea. This is La Concha beach, minutes from our apartment and very cold, but Ashley couldn’t stay out of the water. She actually swam twice in the Bay of La Concha and the first time came out of the water before her allotted half hour was up (I was...
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Adventuriety / Inspirietry
We landed in Amsterdam yesterday morning after ten days on safari in Tanzania. I can’t believe our time in Tanzania is over. The trip was not my idea, and would never have been my idea. I didn’t even want to go, but I came back learning more than I could have ever imagined. There are many parts to this story so I will just start at...
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Adventuriety
We are having a great time on our adventure. Yes, there has been some stress and learning and even some tears but so far, this adventure is what we had been hoping for. We wanted to experience more of the world and more of each other and we wanted to be able to plan a little and then be in the moment and see what...
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