a family is moving down under…
We just booked four Virgin Australia return flights to New Zealand and paid nothing at all! We will be visiting the closest neighboring country and that is almost a four hour flight from Melbourne. That is comparable to a flight from Amsterdam to Morocco. Yes, that is how remote Australia is. Continue reading “Free flights to New Zealand”
We do not live very far from the Yara Valley wine region, and although we drove through it a couple of times and had many ‘almost go that winery’ opportunities, we never actually stopped at any one. And it is number 21 on our Australia bucketlist and we still did not write a blog post about it. So when one of Oliver’s colleagues asked if there was interest to go to a food and wine festival there it did not take us long to reply.
The shortest lunch is organized to celebrate the shortest weekend of the year to ward off the winter chills. Twenty six of the small wineries open their doors and this is what happens. Continue reading “The shortest lunch”
My Dutch parents have been here for six weeks and time has flown by. It was their first visit, but it is safe to say that they have been infected with the Australia virus. They were already talking about coming back before they even left.
Can I put six weeks in one blog post? Probably not, but here’s a short impression of what we did with them. Continue reading “Visitors from Europe”
Of course the best way to see Australian wildlife is to go on a road trip. But if you would like to see more animals in one day a zoo or a sanctuary are a good alternative.
We started with the three Melbourne zoo’s, the general Melbourne Zoo in the city, Healesville Sanctuary for the Australian animals and the African Weribbee Zoo, but recently we discovered that the sanctuaries can be a great place to visit as well. Moonlite Sanctuary is one of those places. It is about an hours drive South of Melbourne CBD, towards the Mornington Peninsula. A great way to encounter the unique Australian wildlife in just one day. Continue reading “The best way to see Australian Wildlife”
The Peninsula Hot Springs have been on our wish list since we heard about them and last weekend we had the opportunity to go there.
Oliver and I met each other on a campsite in Sweden that had a sauna. Although I politely rejected an invitation to go there back then, sauna’s have played an important part in our lives together. Continue reading “Peninsula Hot Springs”
Wherever you go to in Australia, you are guaranteed to see a hot plate barbecue. They are in almost every park, playground, campsite or close to rivers and beaches. You can even find them in the middle of Melbourne, along the Yara river. And, they are heavily used. Some are coin operated, many are completely free. Continue reading “How to use an Australian hot plate?”
Having only one weekend in New Zealand and wanting to get the most out of it, I was on the lookout for things to do that are “the thing to do” here. One of which was my visit to Hobbiton.
But I was also looking to do some hiking in this largely empty country. Some research on the internet revealed that, apparently, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing falls into the above mentioned category. It’s a day hike between two of the highest volcanoes on the North Island and is quite famous for Kiwi’s and tourists alike.
So I booked a hotel in the area for the night and prepared for a day of mountain hiking. Continue reading “Doing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing”
If you didn’t live under a rock in the early 2000s, you will have seen and experienced the big hype around the Lord of the Rings movies made by Peter Jackson. The are, of course, the adaptation of the even more famous books by JRR Tolkien of the same name. And if you haven’t read them yet, I strongly recommend that you do.
Most movie buffs will know that the films were shot in New Zealand. And since I am here on business for a couple of weeks, I thought I’d take the weekend and go and visit the most famous site of film’s shooting: the town of Hobbiton. Continue reading “Welcome to Hobbiton”
If you get the opportunity to go and watch a world cup game, why not take it?
After the summer holidays, school has started again this week. Yesterday Kai came home with eight official looking tickets in his hands for this weekend. I thought it would be for a random game, but it said Davis Cup. Even for a tennis new-bee (that is me) that sounded familiar.
During our Carnival Christmas Cruise on the Pacific, after visiting New Caledonia, the second country we visited was Vanuatu. We anchored near Mystery Island, a small tropical Island that does not have any residents. What sounded very idyllic in the description, I was a bit skeptic to visit this island while on a cruise. Why?
Can you imagine a small tropical paradise that gets invaded by 2.000 people at once? No wonder the comedian on the ship left out the ‘t’ and called it Mysery Island.
Continue reading “Solving mysteries on Mystery Island, Vanuatu”
