good night out

my brain full of useless crap has finally paid off. Came 3rd in the local bar's trivia quiz last week so got 2 free steaks (and wine) for this evening, and came second tonight so won a case of beer. Cheap night out, but I only have 3 days to drink it while we still have a fridge....

Christmas in July...

... appears to be a tradition here in the southern hemisphere. It makes sense when you think about it. We are now in the middle of winter (apparently) so roast dinners and the usual winter treats that we take for granted in the UK (e.g. mulled wine) can be enjoyed without feeling the need for air-con and a dip in the pool. It's also easier for families to get together across the distances and air fares are more reasonable than during the silly season. Given that it is winter, here in Sydney we have a lovely, sunny 20C  today although it has been going down into single figures at night. So, who am I to scoff at antipodean tradition? Pass me another mince pie please :-)

Year two...

Said farewell to Yvonne & Tony yesterday - they fly back to Shanghai this morning - so now we focus on what next - New Zealand and North America.

We have flights booked to Auckland on Tuesday 6th August, so another 2 weeks in Sydney and a chance to catch up with Sam and Gav when they get back from their NA tour. Turns out that whilst brits don't need visas to enter NZ, you do need a return or onward ticket, so we have also booked onward flights to LA for October 21st as a nominal date - we can move them if we need to, but that would give us 11 weeks to explore the country and given the rate at which we have seen Oz we think that is sufficient.

We will stay in Auckland for the first week, get banking sorted and have an appointment for US tourist visas on August 8th. If we get US visas the hope is that we can stay longer on each visit than if we rely on the visa waiver program which only allows you in for 90 days at a time, and also we can re-enter from Canada or Mexico, for which the VWP does not work the same way. We thought about getting these in Sydney before flying on, but the wait for an appointment and subsequent processing time was too variable to be sure we would get our passports back in time for our NZ flights. In theory in Auckland we should get passports back within a couple of days, but processing can take up to 3 months, so hedge our bets by doing it as early as possible in the visit.

Then after seeing Auckland from the comfort of a hotel, we will hire a camper van and head off around the rest of the place. Given the length of time and the need to fix a departure date we have decided it will be easier and probably as cheap to rent rather than buy again and sell on. Even though we sold tigger quite quickly in the scheme of things, NZ is a much smaller population and its too big a chance to take to mess up the onward arrangements.

So, another 2 weeks of kicking back and enjoying Manly - blue skies and sunshine again today. I would have gone for a ride but I sold my bike yesterday, so may be a walk up to North Heads...

Year one - Done

This time last year Yvonne & Tony were taking us to Heathrow (with a flat tyre). This evening we were having dinner with them in Darling Harbour. Neither of us had planned on being back in Sydney for any time, let alone at the same time, so its funny how things work out.

Bye Bye Queensland...

... bye bye sunshine, suntan, warm winter days, bbqs and salads, shorts and flip flops. Hello Sydney, grey and wet weather, comfort food, jeans and boots. Yes, we're back in NSW and after driving the 2,600kms in a campervan packed to the rafters, we're relaxing in Sam and Gav's lovely apartment, enjoying the comforts of home such as a fast internet connection, dishwasher and king size bed :-) There are lots of bags in the hallway and tomorrow we start whittling it all down to 120kgs! I think the charity shop across the road is going to be getting a lot of my clothes. I'm also looking forward to seeing Yvonne again before her and Tony fly home next week.

Farewell Tigger

And so we leave Tigger in the safe hands of Alton and Liz, funnily enough just moved over from New Zealand to see their grandkids grow up.

We have 4 days driving now to get to Sydney, then are staying at Sam and Gav's place again until we fly to Auckland on August 6th and start all over again....

Trading down....

So here is the jucy people carrier we have to go dowm to sydney in. It is not quite small enough to go in tigger's lounge, but close. And its about as packed as my sheds at home. Maria still hasn't grasped that we can only take 6 bags on the plane to NZ and that extra carrier bags and bits and pieces won't go on the plane....

Last night with tigger

Picked up a jucy people carrier this morning and headed down towards Townsville again, me driving the rig and Maria following in the rental. Stopped near balgal beach again for one last night free camping, then the buyers are coming to meet us here tomorrow morning so they can practice hitching up and reversing before they tow it in to Townsville and we continue on to sydney. I suspect its going to be emotional....

Double celebration

As well as Maria passing her major milestone, we can also celebrate selling the rig this afternoon. Alton and Liz are moving over from New Zealand to live here and shuttle between their daughters and grandkids in Townsville and Brisbane, and have decided to give Tigger and the ute a good home. We are staying in it in Cairns for the next week and will then deliver it down to Townsville next friday.

From there we are hoping to make our way down to Sydney for a couple of weeks - Sam and Gav Stow are off on another holiday and offered that if we wanted to house sit for them again we were welcome, so we are going to take them up on their kind offer and have a couple of weeks down there while we sort out our last oz details and arrange flights to NZ. Not sure how we will get down there yet, maybe a 1 way car hire or try for a vehicle relocation if one of the rental companies wants to get something back from Cairns to Sydney

More details to follow, but I think we are now off for a deserved beer....

Starting as she means to go on

Maria entering her 6th decade with a glass of Veuve in bed - courtesy of Knees and Clive.

Jenny, Harry and Timothy flew into Cairns at stupid o'clock this morning, and we are all getting together with Yvonne, Tony and Tina for cocktails and Brazilian BBQ this evening. I suspect it is going to get very messy indeed....

Winter in Northern Queensland...

… is definitely the place to be if you hate the cold weather. We spent two weeks in Townsville, saw the sights

(Townsville from the ferry)

and visited Magnetic Island too.

(Arthur Bay)

(Horseshoe Bay)

(at Horseshoe bay)

We had a couple of days at our favourite free camping spot, Balgal Beach (60kms north of Townsville) then headed to Paronella Park. It was Spaniard, Jose Paronella’s, dream to build a castle and he found a virgin forest alongside the spectacular Mena Creek Falls. It’s based on his childhood memories of Catalonian castles and included picnic areas by the lake, tennis courts, tunnels and bridges and a movie theatre which transformed into a ballroom at weekends, all surrounded by 7,000 tropical plants and trees. It also included the first hydro-electric plant in North Queensland which was build to power the 13 acre park and the grounds opened to the public in 1935. A huge fire swept through the castle in 1979, leaving only the walls and turret and a number of cyclones and floods over the next 25 years took their toll. It’s now heritage listed and ongoing restoration work means the park will be around for many years to come.

We’re now back in Cairns and my best friend from London, Yvonne (aka ‘twin’) and her husband are here – yay! We took them up to the Atherton Tablelands and here we are at Millaa Millaa Falls yesterday, showing off our new watches (Yvonne got hers for Christmas), and neither of us knew the other had got exactly the same make, Skagen, which again, neither of us had heard of before!

My oldest school friend, Jenny and her husband and son fly in from Perth tomorrow. So, there’s going to be a bit of celebrating going on this week (can’t think why!)  :-)