South of most places

New Zealand = awesome. We're still enjoying our travels, although time is running out. We've got one more week here, a few days in Hong Kong, and then we'll be winging our way back to the frozen arctic wastes known as East Anglia.

Since last post, we came down the north island via Paekakariki and Wellington, took the ferry across to the south. Stayed at the top of the south island for a while as it was so beautiful, then came across to the east coast via Kaikora and Christchurch. Currently in the Wanaka area - next Dunedin, a flight back to Auckland for a last few beachy days and to collect our stuff from Ian and Sarah...

Highlights so far (to go into too much detail would I am sure bore you stiff): hanging out with our dear Melbourne friends the Mills family at the beach, picking mussels, filtering them and then cooking them in white wine and garlic - yum, all for free; staying on another Melb friend Andrew Tripe's dad's farm during the shearing season, chasing sheep round on quad bikes and watching Will attempt to shear a wriggly lamb (and later eating lovely lamb!); visiting Abel Tasman national park to do some sea kayaking and seeing some seals swim by; swimming with dolphins and seals in Kaikora; passing various Lord of the Rings filming sites (now desperate to see the films again to make the connections); sampling cool city life in Wellington and Christchurch where we bumped into the international busking festival; ... am I making you green with envy yet??

In the last few days both Will and I have been 'canyoning' which involved abseiling, sliding and jumping down a river gorge in a wetsuit for a day. Enormous fun.

Homeward bound...kinda

Just a quick update for all those loyal followers of the blog. Normal service will return soon.

We left Australia on Dec 29th, the day after V's 39th birthday, and we were very, very sad to go. We landed in Auckland and had a few happy days with friends Ian and Sarah Wroe (see Sarah's blog, la petite irlandaise for details). Now we are touring down the north island of new zealand and having a good time. We've been to the Coromandel Peninsula, which was stunning in a beachy way, through Rotorua and Taupo which were stunning in a geothermal kind of way, and now are in Tongariro national park, home of Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies, which is stunning in a mountainous kind of way.

Photos and more details when we get to a reliable and cheap internet place!

Adelaide

We made it! We hopped on the plane to see David Fairweather and Sian in Adelaide after almost two years of promising. It was great staying with old friends and it was good to get to explore Adelaide. Highlights were an early morning bike ride up Norton summit, Thea and Dulcie's face painting in the market, the beach at Glenelg, long lazy evening meals and a visit to SA's answer to Bavaria, Hahndorf. The low point was getting Dulcie up from her lunchtime nap in a borrowed porta cot to find her and her immediate surroundings liberally smeared in poo. But even that couldn't put a dampner on a good weekend.
 
 
 
 

Odd shaped balls

It's probably disrespectful to Aussie Rules Football to make light with their monuments, but then maybe it's just showing your appreciation. Dulcie might not quite get it though.
 
 
 
 

Sydney side

Well you can't go to Australia without visiting Sydney can you? Sydney's great, you gotta love the harbour, opera house, bridge, Manly, Taronga Zoo, Watson's bay fish and ships, Mossman, Circular Quay and well, the Rocks rock don't they. Thea brought her mate Alec and his brother Bas and Ma and Pa Emma and Steve along for the laughs. Great place great time ..... but it aint Melbourne and Melbourne can't be beat. Nuff said.
 
 
 
 

Skenes Creek Take II

Seeing as we had such a great time over New Year last year we went back to the Blackbery Hill house in Skenes Creek to enjoy the sea, the views, and the company of good friends Richard, Raechel and Abigail with recent arrivals Archie and Lydia. The weather came up trumps, the barbeque was cranked up and the vino flowed (after 7:30). Sensational.
 
 
 
 

Dulcie is 2

Dear Dulcie has chalked up two very fine years and celebrated in style in Eglington Park with her wonderful friends. There was a train cake, games, copious quantities of processed sugar, pressies and lots of really good fun. Dulcie was particulary pleased with her new tutu skirt, so much so she spontaeneously started dancin'. Bless her bum.
 
 
 
 

Round the bend (err Bay)

Armed with a champagne and company lycra the 100 kms from Sorrento to Melbourne simply flew by. Mr Williamson looked quite stylish I think you'll agree!

The Mighty Fighting Hawks

Fielding a young team widely expected to reach a competitive level in a few years time, the Hawks weren't expcted to do too well this season. Seems like the Hawks had forgotten to read the form book because the Mighty Fighting Hawks (Hawthorn Australian Rules Footbal Club to give their full name) made it to the Grand Final and the Williamsons made it down to their old ground to watch along with 20,000 others.

Pre-match excitement

They've only gone and won

Crazy scenes on Glenferrie Road.

The street party goes on.

Life and things

Some of the cool stuff the girls have been up to includes a tennis lesson for Thea (unfortunately she wasn't imediately selected for the Australian youth team) and a visit to see Dorothy the Dinosaur with good friend Rosie.

Frasering

Because it's still wintry in Melbourne September is the time to go up to Queensland and enjoy some of their year round sun. So we got on a plane and joined the annual Victorian migration to the warmth. We headed to Hervey Bay and swapped our soft roader car and the comfort of our little house for an enormous V8 land cruiser with a tent in the back. The thing to do at Hervey Bay is to ferry across to explore Fraser Island, an enormous sand island and national park famous for sand, dingoes, lakes and having the world's only beach highway. Thankfully the girls found the roar of a meaty V8 quite soothing and combined with gently bouncing over the island tracks were blissfully asleep for much of the driving. Which was more than could be said for us when we settled down for our first night's sleep in the painfully thin thermarests and frankly useless sleeping bags. But saved by some very kind people who lent us spare bags and after we'd made a shop keeper very happy by buying Vics one of his outrageously expensive air beds, things looked up and we were regularly sleeping in till 6:30 am - when the family alarm clock woke up and clambered over us going, 'Da da wha's dis'. Despite certain discomforts, Fraser Island won us over with spectacular blue lakes, crystal clear streams, amazing sand formations (sand blows), the stunning scale of 75 mile beach, more hump back whales than you could shake a stick at and pleasing lack of dingoes wanting to eat our children. We soon settled into a comfortable evening routine of boiling the billy for some tea, cooking up some pasta, cracking open the wine box and turning in to bed incredibly early. Thea's major disappointment was that we had forgotten to buy tomato ketchup so she started tripping round to the neighboring campsites for sauce. She was very effective and neither the young nor old could resist her charms - so the little lady got her sauce every night. Buoyed by a singular lack of dingoes we even camped at the back of the beach on our last night on the island and went to sleep to the stars and crashing waves. Fantastic. Then for good measure we returned home via Tin Can Bay where a pod of wild dolphins come in to feed every morning - which nicely capped off a great holiday in a very special place.

Sounds from a land down under

Gold Digging

We headed east in the footsteps of gold prospector Ned Stringer in search of the remnants of Victoria's richest gold mine and a nice weekend in the hills. Walhalla's population is a little down on the gold rush days, there were over 5,000 then now it's about 8. Still a few of the buildings remain and we stayed in one of them. The old Mill cottage. Once we had got over the initial shock of discovering very little had been done to Mill Cottage since the gold ran out in 1911 and survived the first night's sleep we revived our spirits with a nice morning in the sun on the balcony feeding the parrots. It's a good thing we were blessed with bright winter sun because it made the trip to the dunny in the garden more pleasant and took the edge off the unheated outside bathroom (yes, it was another trip booked by Will). Walhalla proved entertaing with an informative tour of the long tunnel extended gold mine, a great railway trip down the stringer's creek gorge and Ron's 4WD tour, which was particularly enjoyed by Will and largely tolerated by Thea - after driving through the Thomson River Thea was quite persistent in making sure Ron had specifically confirmed there would be no further river crossings. After all that there was nothing for it but to take a walk to the Wally Lodge Hotel (pub) for a pie, pint and a bit of mixing with the locals. Although with its plus points by day the accommodation revealed its most serious drawbacks at night. There was something about every creak, groan and bump of a 150 year cottage in a village that prides itself on its ghost tours that was just a little unsettling. It's amazing how you can hold onto a wee when faced with a night hike to the dunny!