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Si and Cathy

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Victoria, Australia

On a whim Si and I decided to take a holiday to Australia. This was helped by Air New Zealand offering very cheap flights. We had a great time, caught up with some friends and saw parts of Victoria that we hadn't been to before.

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Cyclic Saga

The Cyclic Saga - 2 days orienteering on bikes.

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Karapoti

What can I say.... I should have guessed that the majority of women have more sense than men when I discovered that only 73 entrants out of 1000 were women. I am clearly not one of those women. The Karapoti is considered one of the toughest mountain

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, March 07, 2009

Napier

Simon and I headed to Napier for the Autumn Harvest Festival. We had a day around the vineyards then headed to Cape Kidnappers to visit the gannet colony. Well worth it if you're ever up that way.

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, February 07, 2009

New Plymouth

Wellington anniversary weekend means a 3 day weekend, so we headed to New Plymouth. We stayed in a fantastic hotel which was the good bit. The less than good bit was the mountain bike ride through Moki Ruakapa. We should have known when it started o

Most Recent Entry: Friday, January 16, 2009

A reason to get dressed up

Most Recent Entry: Monday, December 22, 2008

Mountain Biking in Wellington

Had a stunning weekend here in Wellington. It's very unusual to get a weekend without a stiff breeze (or gale). However, Si and I are a little embarrassed about getting sun burnt (need to restock the cupboard with all the potions that you only need i

Most Recent Entry: Sunday, October 12, 2008

Queenstown

Had to pop down to Queenstown to attend a Liquor Licensing Authority hearing where ALAC were presenting a submission in support for the local Council down there. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the country.

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, August 28, 2008

Otaki

Our first weekend away since arriving in Wellington was to Otaki on the Kapiti Coast. Not far out of Wellington (only about an hour) but the little cottage was in a small town and was right opposite the beach. It was just what we needed after the cha

Most Recent Entry: Friday, May 30, 2008

Our new home

We've got a great flat in Mt Victoria. Very close to town so we can walk everywhere and leave the car in the garage (a good thing at the moment with current petrol prices)

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, April 17, 2008

Wellington

Wellington is very different to London... for starters there's hills and water. It's fantastic for running and biking though, so we're looking forward to next summer a lot!!!

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, March 22, 2008

Egypt and Jordan

I will try and make this brief, difficult given we were there for 15 days and there were so many highlights. Anyway, here goes…. We arrived in Cairo at night, got checked into our hotel just in time for a power cut, (‘now where did we put those t

Most Recent Entry: Friday, February 01, 2008

Sydenham/Crystal Palace, London

We were incredibly pleased to get out of the Kelly house of horrors in June 07 and get our own place. The stress lifted the moment we arrived. We were very lucky to find it, as compared to Hereford Road it only cost us an extra 20 pounds a month. We ha

Most Recent Entry: Sunday, January 20, 2008

Paris 07

We organised to go to Paris to catch up with Pete who was meant to be there to photograph the All Blacks but of course with the All Blacks being knocked out, Pete wasn't there, the All Blacks weren't there but all the kiwi supporters were!!!! We saw t

Most Recent Entry: Friday, October 12, 2007

An English summer holiday

Simon's Mum has been over in Turkey and came to visit us for 4 days at the end of her trip. To make the most of the time, we decided to head straight out of London and take her on an English seaside summer holiday to Cornwall and Devon. What a wonder...

Most Recent Entry: Friday, August 10, 2007

Czech Republic

We went to Prague for a long weekend and fried. Although it had some lovely sights and beautiful architecture we were disappointed with the social problems that were apparent everywhere we went - throughout the central city we saw and smelt groups of

Most Recent Entry: Friday, July 13, 2007

Krakow

As the heading alludes to, Krakow was an amazing city. We were surprised as my only experience of Pols was the Polish street drinkers that we're trying to deal with where I work. As it turns out, my image was so wrong - the people are friendly and th

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, June 14, 2007

Home to NZ again

The house post a quick paint job, a few new lights and some new curtains...

Most Recent Entry: Sunday, April 22, 2007

Berlin

We went to Berlin with a fairly open mind and really enjoyed the opportunity to learn some history. History wasn't on either of our favourite subject lists. Berlin is an amazing city which is changing rapidly. We stayed in the East and you can jus...

Most Recent Entry: Friday, March 16, 2007

Snow in London

Winter.... we really didn't have any apart from this little storm. I came to this country expecting wet, grey, pea soup kind of weather. This has not been the case. We've either been really lucky or Christchurch winters are much worse than I thought...

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, February 08, 2007

Waitangi Day London style

We're too slack to have done it ourselves and probably couldn't have got out of bed in time. Nevertheless, we headed in to see the haka performed in Parliament Square. We caught up with Kelly, Julie and Shaun who had managed to get out of bed and do i...

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, February 03, 2007

Morroco

We arrived into Marrakesh knowing that our first hurdle would be getting to the hotel without being fleeced. The haggling for a taxi started at Dh120 (8 pounds) and ended with us getting one for Dh50 (under 4 pounds). It did require getting in and th...

Most Recent Entry: Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Christmas 06 - North Yorkshire Moors

As we did last year, we decided to stay within England rather than trying to deal with airports and expensive hotels in Europe. As it turned out it was a good decision as most people flying out of Heathrow didn’t get anywhere because of the fog.

Most Recent Entry: Friday, December 22, 2006

Cologne at Christmas

We headed to Cologne from Gatwick which is very close to work at London Bridge – it turned out to be a great idea as it saved a lot of the stress of getting to an airport in a hurry. We flew into Cologne and assumed that the trains would be as reliabl

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, December 14, 2006

Venice

We made a couple of discoveries on this trip. Firstly, that's it's not a good idea to go when sick and secondly it's physically impossible to get from Acton to Gatwick on public transport by 7.05. We left Thursday morning which required getting up ...

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, November 02, 2006

A week in the life

I guess I could write about any week, but this one really took the cake of how much London can be a pain in the a…… It was just one of those weeks where you had to say “only in London”. It started off with Monday, always a bad day whatever way yo...

Most Recent Entry: Monday, October 16, 2006

Mountain Biking in France

Having lived in London for a year without a mountain bike, it was the first thing to get packed when I returned to NZ for a holiday in April. Having managed five rides in 5 months since returning to London we decided it was time for some punishment in...

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, September 16, 2006

Switzerland

Arrived in Geneva, late Tuesday, crashed and then got up early, picked up the car and drove to Bern via Rolle and Morges (small towns on Lac Leman/Lake Geneva). We had a look around Bern and then headed for Interlarken. After dull weather on the fi

Most Recent Entry: Tuesday, August 29, 2006

V Festival 2006

Simon said I had to go to a multiday music festival. I was hoping like anything that it wouldn't be wet but that wasn't to be. It rained for most of Saturday but improved somewhat for Sunday. We saw... on Saturday little bit of Lilly Allen - she ...

Most Recent Entry: Friday, August 18, 2006

Fresh Air and Country Smells - Peak District

As part of the attempt to get fit campaign we headed up to Hathersage for a weekend. We stayed at a fabulous B and B called The Winnats. We had a fantastic room with our own ensuite, we got fed glorious organic menued breakfasts - it was just what we...

Most Recent Entry: Friday, July 14, 2006

Rome with Darel and Louise

Well, what can I say, Rome was amazing. It turned out to be the perfect time of the year to go as it was hot but not unbearable. We arrived on Friday night (late) to discover that the tube drivers were striking.... what luck.... not!! Darel and Lo

Most Recent Entry: Friday, May 19, 2006

Si and Ruth in Barcelona and Paris

Most Recent Entry: Sunday, April 23, 2006

Ruth's Birthday

Simon's Mum, Aunt and Uncle came to stay with us at the end of March. It was Ruth's birthday the day after they arrived, so as her present we took her on a tour of London. We started off by showing her the fantastic transport system we have in Lond

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, April 22, 2006

Back Home

Great to see those that I managed to catch up with while at home. It really was a whirlwind visit. Those of you who I didn't manage to catch up with, I'm so sorry but I didn't stop from the moment I landed until I got back on the plane. It was great...

Most Recent Entry: Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Amsterdam

Everyone has to go to Amsterdam. Next time I would choose a slightly warmer time of the year to do it. It was ok though as it gave us the excuse to go from hot coffee, to hot coffee (or hot chocolate for that matter) - they were all great. We we...

Most Recent Entry: Friday, February 24, 2006

Mid winter weekend away - Bristol

I liked Bristol so much that I thought Si should go at some stage as well. We headed over for a weekend to catch up with someone we knew. We stayed at our trusty backpackers, but it was a slightly different experience to last time. A whole group o

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, January 28, 2006

Christmas 05 - Devon

We went to Devon for the week over Christmas and had a fantastic time - it was just what the doctor ordered. Peace, quiet, good company and lots of fresh air. The place we stayed at was in the middle of nowhere - we were lucky to see more than a coup...

Most Recent Entry: Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Eastern Europe in Winter????

Budapest was very cold, it didn't matter what we wore, it was hard to stay warm. Although there were certain things we liked about it, such as being able to get a good coffee finally, generally we found Budapest hard to get really excited about. We f

Most Recent Entry: Thursday, December 08, 2005

Moving rooms

On Ant and Rachelle's departure back to NZ, we moved up into their loft room. It's amazing how much junk you can accumulate in such a short time. We started to wish that we didn't have so much wine!!!...

Most Recent Entry: Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Barcelona - what can I say

We had a fantastic time in Barcelona - we loved every minute of it, and managed not to get mugged. We ate well, tried some good red wine, saw all the sites in Barcelona plus spent a day in the mountains at Monserrat Monestary. That was the highlight

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, November 05, 2005

Mountain Biking World Cup

We had a great time in Scotland. Had a day in Glasgow and then drove up to Fort William. Whenever we rent a car we always ask for an upgrade and nearly always get it. This time we went from one of those horrid Ford Ka's to a VW Pssat. Very nice ca

Most Recent Entry: Friday, September 09, 2005

An Unexpected Weekend Away - Hastings

Originally Andrew and Jane were going to come and stay with us for a few days but we had a last minute change of plans. Instead their poor friend Holly got all of us, Andrew, Jane, Simon and myself. It was great to catch up with Andrew and Jane bef...

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, September 03, 2005

Another weekend away - Manchester

Another dash away. Interesting place, very mixed but we liked the city centre. Happened to be there during Manchester Pride which we hadn't realised, trapsed out to Salford Lads Club (where the Smiths played) and attempted to take our own photo, and

Most Recent Entry: Sunday, August 28, 2005

Out and About in Oxford

Caught a trusty Megabus and headed to Oxford for the day. It poured with rain most of the day so it wasn't the most pleasant but still the views were lovely....

Most Recent Entry: Sunday, August 14, 2005

Iceland - the first of many

We had a great time in Iceland but boy it's expensive. We went as cheap as possible and yet it cost us a bucket load. We arrived in Reykjavik at some awful hour of the night (plane running a bit late) to find that our rental car company was not act

Most Recent Entry: Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Cathy in Bristol

Since Si and Andrew were off at Glastonbury, Jane and I decided to go and explore a city as well. We headed for Bristol and had a lovely weekend looking around the city. Jane drove from Wales and I caught the trusty megabus. We stayed at the YHA whic...

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, June 25, 2005

Andrew and Si go to Glastonbury

I don't know if they showed Glastonbury on the news over there, but it was definitely newsworthy. In a word.....MUD! I've attached some pics so you can see the damage, but for even more, go to http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/ and check out t...

Most Recent Entry: Friday, June 24, 2005

In and around London

Following photos are of some day trips here in London to some of the sights London Eye - just down the road from work Kelly and Si chilling along the Thames Greenwich - beautiful views and oh so relaxing Kath and Kim at Australia Toast.... don't as...

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, June 04, 2005

Long weekend in a rental car

We had a long weekend and thought we would head off and have a look at a part of south England. We rented a car from Heathrow (our flatmate said that would be easiest from where we live) and ended up on the M25 going in the wrong direction. It was da

Most Recent Entry: Friday, May 27, 2005

Back to London

After arriving back in London the plan was to get our lives sorted out as fast as possible. Simon started at the IWC wine and sprit challenge and although the money was terrible, part of the payment was free wine so that was a good start. Even thou

Most Recent Entry: Sunday, April 10, 2005

Wales to chill out

After 3 days in London staying at a grotty hotel in Bayswater we jumped on a megabus and headed for Jane and Andrew's in South Wales. It was amazing how much we had achieved in such a short time. We'd managed to get to the bank and sort out our bank ac...

Most Recent Entry: Saturday, April 02, 2005

The start of our adventure - Singapore, Dubai, London

Welcome to the record of our adventures overseas. Stupidly, we didn't start this record immediately after we left home so the first few entries of this are being done on memory. Getting to the plane was an achievement in itself - we had been manic