Sep 20
With eggs left stabbed and oozing on my plate after two attempts to get them properly cooked, we checked out and caught a cab back to the airport. The YVR South Terminal is located away from the main airport and among other things, services coastal routes such as the one that would be depositing us in bear country for the next few days. Read more
It’s September, seemingly our month of choice for offshore excursions and that would be true again this year with Mike and I currently in Canada. After a gnarly build-up juggling work and health issues we nevertheless arrived in Vancouver (bless those 13 hour flights) to kick off our almost three week adventure. Read more
Playing a spot of catch-up: Back in summer we went to Queenstown for a long weekend. As I recall the reason may have been that Mike wanted to go mountain biking but my memory is a bit shite to be honest and in any case, you would never have to twist my arm to go to my favourite part of NZ. Read more
Back in March we shot up to New Plymouth for a family thing. With fairly low expectations for getting out and about outside of that, the weekend delivered way more than I thought it would. For one thing, I had no idea this unassuming coastal city contains a treasure trove of street art. Read more
Something a little more real time… this weekend is the CubaDupa street festival in Wellington, centered around (and inspired by) the lively and diverse Cuba Street. The festival debuted last year to replace the Cuba Street Carnival which had been absent for a few years due to lack of funding. We popped along for a couple of hours yesterday to join the rest of Wellington in soaking up the occasion.
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Given Australia’s reputation of weather extremes, what were we going to find? Would we be struggling in the seven fires of hell? Would we drown in thunderstorms? Nope, it was pretty similar to a Wellington summer. Even though one of us was operating at half-pace we managed lots of expeditions and celebrated the arrival of 2016 determined to see the mighty Sydney Harbour fireworks display. Unfortunately that part bombed a bit! Read more
We went to Sydney with Mike’s children to see out the old year and welcome in the new one. It was an excellent week though plans had to be revised when Mike’s back crapped out and I’m amazed that we were still able to do what we did. This post, the first of two, is a mishmash of our central city explorations and bridge fascination across the week. Read more
Final trip post! For my last day in Hamburg I supplemented foot explorations with a hop-on hop-off bus to partial success, before beginning my 40 hour journey to get home. I was lucky that a disappointing discovery on the way didn’t have a greater impact in what had been a fairly epic adventure. Read more
Hamburg is 110km away from the open sea but it is a port city, the second busiest in Europe no less. Its waterways are its lifeblood and on my first day there – the penultimate day of my trip – I went on a maritime tour to get a feel for the modern version of the place my great-great grandfather sailed from in 1876. Read more
Poland Day 26. In 1876, members of the Fabich family embarked on the long and hellish journey from their home to start a new life in New Zealand. While it’s not possible to emulate the sea voyage (thankfully), I could at least mimic the train journey beforehand that got them to the port city of Hamburg. Read more
tall tales 