Yesterday was our first ‘free’ day where we could get out in the little jeep and catch up with people we know in Queensland.  It was very much an  “ol’ Navy’ day as two of our catch ups were with ex Navy friends.

In the morning we set off to Michelle’s Mum and Dad who live south of Brisbane in a place called Tallebudgera.  It was great seeing them again. The visit was just in time as they are heading over to Queenstown next Thursday to attend their son Mathews wedding. We hope the day goes well – you have certainly picked a great spot for the occasion.

Brian (PIls) and Rod

Our next visit was to Brian and Christine Edwards. They departed New Zealand some fourteen years ago and settled on a small block of land at Stokers Siding in just over the border in NSW. While Brian was in the Navy with Rod, he also resided next door to Dearne when they were living in New Zealand. As it turns out, Dearne’s Mum bought their house in Auckland when they shifted to Australia.  Small world eh! We spent a great couple of hours with them before heading back to Brisbane. Great to see you guys – you are in a beautiful area of Australia.

Paddy, Rod and Dearne

Our next port of call was to the Geebung-Zillmere RSL Club in Brisbane itself to catch up with our old friend Paddy Long from Christchurch.  Paddy had made contact earlier in the day as he was in Brisbane to attend the Brisbane Steel Guitar Club’s 2013 Festival.  We spend a great few hours at the Festival and had the opportunity to listen to some brilliant musicians. Many thanks for the invite Paddy – it was great to catch up in Australia.

More photo’s of our day out can be found HERE .

Someone asked us yesterday ‘so far what is the best thing we have bought with us to Australia’.  Discounting the motorhome as we have yet to get that back, the best thing has got to be the GPS.   We would have been totally lost without it in some of the places we have been.

We are staying the night tonight back at Donna and John’s place closer to Brisbane as we have to have the jeep into the workshop at 7.30am tomorrow morning to have the A frame fitted. One more job off our plate before we get on the road.

Dearne and the new Jimny

Our second day at Brisbane and much has been achieved.  We spent our second night in the ‘lucky land’ with friends John and Donna in a suburb north of Brisbane called Warner.  A great little area and great hospitality.  It was at John and Donna’s that we picked up our little Suzuki jeep. Again John many thanks again for all your help with this – she’s a great little vehicle.

Gee they love the ‘paper work’ in Australia. On Wednesday afternoon we went down to the local government Transport office to formally register the jeep in our name. Our first error was fronting to the counter ‘without a number’. Crime of the century!!!  It was very much like ordering fish and chips in NZ  – “number 72 your order is ready”!.  We were dispatched from the office with four separate forms to complete to make ownership change.  The process could not be completed on line as in New Zealand. We returned this morning with the forms completed and after 30 or so minutes, the vehicle was in our name. The change of ownership cost $170. In a missionary sort of way there are still a few things ‘they’ can learn from us!.

We have had a minor set back in our travel plans in that the ship from NZ to Brisbane with our motorhome has been delayed by four days.  Luckily, and with the help of our friend Dale Gaskin in Tauranga, we have managed to score a house minding role in an area north of Brisbane called Narangba. The house belongs to Dale’s brother and sister-in-law Wayne and Deb Gaskin and comes with very affectionate cats. Thanks guys – your offer is greatly appreciated and the cats love us already.

Where to from here? We intend to spend the time until our motorhome can be collected from the port exploring the Brisbane/Sunshine Coast/Gold Coast area. We have no plan and will go where the little jeep takes us.

In watching the News tonight I can see that the weather over here is somewhat better than you are experiencing in New Zealand. Take care back home and you are all in our thoughts daily.

All the planning of the past 18 months has finally come to fruition. We are in Australia and ready to start our journey.

It was a ‘crack of dawn’ start this morning with a 4am get up and a 6.30am flight to Brisbane. We had set “two” alarms this morning just to ensure we did not start our adventure by missing the flight!!

We arrived in Brisbane at about 9.30am this morning to a brilliantly fine day and a temperature of about 22 degrees.  We made our way into Brisbane City and our hotel for the night.  We are staying at the Ibis as it is centrally located and convenient for us to get the ‘first day’ things done.

We now have a month by month contract with Telstra so we have a mobile phone and a data connection.  Telecommunications companies have great deals over here – our lot at home could certainly do with a bit of ‘real’ competition. Our new telephone number can be found on the “Contact” page of the blog.  Our email address is unchanged.

The motorhome arrives in Brisbane on the 22 June and we are hoping we will not have to wait too long before it gets a Customs clearance and we can get on the road. In the meantime, we have a few spare days to do all the grocery shopping etc in our preparation for our departure from Brisbane. Our plan is to head north for the rest of the winter and start heading back into New South Wales and Victoria for the summer. We will be keeping you informed of our progress.

It has been a long day so we are relaxing with a vino and a duty free rum and coke.

Our Bland Bay Campsite

Our time in Bland Bay over Queens Birthday Weekend was brilliant. The Bay is approximately one hour south of Russell on the eastern coast.  While night time temperatures were quite chilly, the day weather and temperatures were almost summer.

We had a good run up to Bland Bay last Thursday albeit Rod missed the turnoff from Highway One to Bland Bay and we ended up in Kawakawa. It was fortuitous really as by then we were down to quarter of a tank of diesel and we needed more than that to run the diesel heating at night. So it was a ‘top up’ in Kawakawa then retrace our steps (28KM) back to the turn off.

Steve, Dearne and Sahara heading out for a fish

It was a weekend of mostly ‘social activity’ with three motorhomes parked up on Renee and Michelle’s front lawn.  Both Steve and Claire and Normy and Fleur in their respective motorhomes joined us in Bland Bay for the weekend. The girls and grandies were gracious hosts and we were all made to feel very welcome. We were even lucky enough to score a fresh fish dinner one night – good effort Michelle.

Everyone returned back home on Monday to start work except for Rod and myself who are ‘work neutral’ of course. We decided to stay an extra day so we could avoid that ‘return from long weekend traffic’ situation.  While watching the News on Monday night we saw that a weather bomb was going to hit the region overnight. Luckily we had packed up the awning and outside gear early that evening as at about 1pm we had 60 knot winds and torrential rain.  This continued throughout the night and all the way back to Whangamata on Tuesday.

Dearne Heading away to Fish

We have a busy week ahead with the final arrangements for our Australian adventure. The motorhome goes in 7 days time and we follow 5 days later. We also have a couple of milestones to celebrate this week – tomorrow is our wedding anniversary and Friday is a very important birthday for Rod.  He has recently received in the post ‘Winnie’s Goldcard’ and all he requires now is for everyone to continue working as hard as they can so as his soon to be new superannuation entitlement will continue.

For more shots of our weekend, click HERE

Take care everyone.

Bland Bay, Bay of Islands

It is Queens Birthday weekend in New Zealand this weekend and because everyone has a holiday on Monday, we are heading north tomorrow to join some of the family at Bland Bay in the Bay of Islands.  Not that the days matter too much any more – every day is Saturday!! Renee and Michelle have recently bought a bach , crib, holiday home or whatever you would like to call it, at Bland Bay so we accepted an invitation to go up and have a look.

The weekend is going to be very social as our friends Steve and Claire plus Normy and Fleur in their respective motorhomes are also going to make the journey with us.  We only hope the children and grandchildren can put up with the old farts questionable behavior (at times).

If I recall that on our last visit up there in January we were unable to access the blog (no reception) so we may have to update the blog on our weekend activities when we get out of the Bay.

A number of viewers have asked me ‘why we are advertising a new Gin” on the blog (top right hand side of the home page).  There is a wee bit of history to this. In my business days with EAP Services Limited I worked with a guy called Lawrence Barker. Early this year Lawrence resigned from his role in the company and invested in a new business venture – Vaione Premium Pacific Gin. We have sampled the new product and it’s a stunner.  Good luck with the venture Lawrence – we wish you every success and we hope our bit of marketing on the blog helps you grow. If you are struggling to find a bottle of the ‘new brew’ please email Lawrence at lawrenceb@vaione.com and I am sure he will be able to direct you to a local stockist.

Have a great long weekend everyone and take care if you are driving.

While it has been a couple of weeks since we last updated the blog, we have been quite busy with the final preparations for our Australian adventure.  It is now only 22 days before we fly out to Brisbane but have to have the motorhome in Auckland on the 13 June to be loaded aboard the ship for its journey to Brisbane.

All the documentation in terms of the motorhome and ourselves has been completed on both sides of the Tasman so it is now just a matter of deciding what to take with us to last the two years. Everyone who has done a similar trip before us is saying just ‘shorts and t shirts’ will do the trick but we are well aware that nighttime in some parts of Australia gets quite cold even in summer.

After much debate we have decided not to take the bikes with us. The feedback we got from people who had taken theirs was that they only rode them a couple of times a month. The bikes spent most of the time on the back of the motorhome or the caravan.  To that, we have recently purchased in second hand Suzuki Jimny jeep in Brisbane which we will tow behind the motorhome to access those ‘hard to get to places’. Many thanks John and Donna in Brisbane who helped to make this happen.

Dearne at Waikite Valley Thermal Pools
Rotorua

The weekend weather in Whangamata has been atrocious so we packed up the motorhome on Saturday and headed off to the Waikite Valley Thermal Pools. The park is on the Rotorua – Taupo highway (about 24km from Rotorua) and 6km inland from the main road. It is a brilliant complex comprising 6 pools of natural geothermal water each at a different temperature.  There is a licensed café on site (we had venison burgers for dinner) and a campsite that takes about 12 motorhomes and a few tents. The camp is dog friendly and bookings are essential. We arrived at about 3.30pm on Saturday and they were turning motorhomes away from 5pm as the site was full.  We will definitely return in the future.

Take care all and we will update the blog again later in the week.

Cousins Rob and Dearne

We are now in the last few days of our Bali adventure. Unfortunately a couple of the family had to return to their homes for work.  Josh flew back to Perth on Thursday morning as he was due back at the mine site today, Friday. Nicky flew out this morning as she had recently purchased another property in Perth and it was moving day this weekend.  Those left are making the most of the next 48 hours.

Rod and I had a lovely time with cousin Rob and his wife Karen on Tuesday and Wednesday.  They hale from Sydney and had rented a privately owned villa complex (Villa Banga Wangi) from a friend just north of Kuta in Badung. It was stunning. There were three self contained villas on the site with a separate central open air dining room and kitchen. The complex had its own swimming pool, cook, domestic staff, gardener and security.  We had a wonderful 24 hours with them.

When we returned to Kuta on Wednesday Rob and Karen came with us and joined the family for dinner at Jimbaran Bay.  It is a fantastic beach south of Denpasar Airport and about 5 kilometres long on powder white sand.  The restaurant tables are on the beach itself and as you can imagine most of the menu is seafood.  Once you have decided what you are going to have from the menu, you then go inside the restaurant and select your ‘live’ meal from huge water tanks.  Again very educational for the ‘grandies’ but we did not let them hang around for the gruesome bit.

Everyone is out and about at the moment picking up those last important purchases. While there is a lot of cheap stuff in the markets, for two dollars more you can buy good quality. What’s the old saying –   ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ is so true here.

We fly out tomorrow (Saturday) at 4pm to Kuala Lumpur then catch a connecting flight and arriving in Auckland on Sunday morning. We will update the blog with more pictures when we get home. It would be fair to say we have had a few ‘technical’ issues up here.

Take care everyone.

First night dinner minus the children

Our flight from Auckland to Bali was perfect.  Because we left at midnight on Thursday the kids (and most of the adults) slept most of the way to Kuala Lumpur. The service on Malaysian Air was fantastic. When we arrived in Kuala Lumpur we had an hour and a half to wait for the connecting flight to Bali. It really only gave us just enough time to let the kids have a run around and feed them (again).

We landed in Bali at 11.30am. By the time we had cleared customs and got to the Bali Dynasty Resort (our hotel) it was about 1pm. We had no programme for the rest of the day so everyone did their own thing.  The adults spent the rest of the day around pool drinking cocktails while the kids played on the water slides and in the pool. Like most hotels up here they have a ‘swim up bar’, so being able to be with the kids in the pool while the adults can relax is perfect.

For those of you who love cocktails you may be interested to know that they can be bought by the ‘bucket’ (1.5L) for NZ$9.00 in Bali.

Dearne and Tiffany getting the foot treatment from tiny fish

Saturday was a ‘please yourself’ day so most were out in the markets looking for those special bargains. If you have never been to Bali before, they sell anything and everything up here (and I mean everything).  If you have ever wanted to own your own little monkey, you can pick one up for about US$50. If you are good at bartering, you would probably get it for US$40. Getting it back into New Zealand would be your only problem.

On Sunday we all went to Bali’s Waterbom Park. Click HERE to see more of the Park. The park has everything that is available in water sports and/or water fun rides. The adults and kids all had a ball. It was very easy to spend the whole day there and super hard to drag the kids away at the end of the day.

Yesterday (Monday) we all had a burst of ‘we need some exercise’ and spent the day on the Bali Eco Cycling Tour. Youngest grandson #5 was on the back of a bike but all the other adults and grandchildren had their own two wheelers.   We started the day at Penelokan which is nestled on a volcanic crater rim of Mt Batur and finished 25 kilometres later in the little village called Ubud.

Jayden helping to roast coffee beans at a Balinese plantation

There were quite a few ‘point of interest’ stops on the way. Stops included a visit to a Balinese family compound (all the kids now appreciate their own homes!!), a visit to a local Balinese coffee plantation where we all tasted our first ever Luwak coffee,  a walk through a family rice paddy where the kids learned all about planting and harvesting rice and a couple of stops at local family industries so the kids could learn how some people earned their income here.  At one rest stop the grandkids ended up playing soccer with the local kids on a ‘very hard ground with concrete edging. The family mothers were showing mild concern for their children’s safety but the kids had a ball. When it was time to leave, the local kids did not want them to go.

While it was a fun day for everyone it was also educational for the kids. They needed no rocking to sleep last night. The adults finished with a few ‘quieties’ before heading back to the rooms.

We are leaving the family today for 24 hours and heading up the coast to spend the night with Dearne’s cousin who had come up to Bali from Sydney. We are expecting another very social night this evening.

This is our fifth visit to Bali and our love affair with country continues.

Getting a photo shot was like herding whitebait!!

The time has come (according to the grandkids) that they can start enjoying our Christmas present to them. As part of Christmas we shouted our children and grandchildren on trip to Bali during the first midyear school holidays in 2013.

We are flying Malaysian Airlines through to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Bali in Indonesia.  Our time of arrival in Bali is about 10.30am tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will all be able to sleep most of the way.

A number of other family members have decided to join us on the trip so we are a mixed bunch of travellers. Coordinating the travel arrangements has been a bit of a challenge at times (well done Nana).  We have ten of us leaving from Auckland, four from Perth, two from Sydney and Josh is flying from Japan into Denpasar.  Haven’t holidays changed over the years?. When I was a kid my big trip of the year was to travel from New Plymouth to Stratford to play rugby!!

The New Zealand contingent is currently at Auckland International Airport awaiting our flight. It does not leave until just after midnight so we are expecting a few weary grandchildren over the next couple of hours.

Will update the blog again from Bali.

Lunch at Poachers Pantry, Hall, NSW
Rod, Dearne, Chuck, Ali

It is our last day in Canberra today before we head up to Sydney tomorrow and back home over the weekend.  Our visit to Canberra has been most productive in terms of finalising many of the arrangements required to take the motorhome to Australia in June. It was certainly an advantage being in the Capital to have these discussions.

The clarification of the Carnet guidelines (the motorhome passport) with Australian Customs has been sorted and we are both happy with the outcome.  We can now import the motorhome to Australia without having to pay any import duty, taxes or register the vehicle in Australia.  We also have the ability to fly out of Australia for whatever reason and leave the motorhome here should there be need to during the Carnet period.

We had already set up bank accounts, tax numbers and a cell phone number so it was just arranging the final little things like an E-Tag for the Australia’s motorways and tunnel systems, data cards, membership of the Australian Motorhome and Caravan Association for cost effective vehicle insurance, membership of the Big 4 Holiday Park system and a process for fuel discount.  All done!

We need now just to complete the actual shipping arrangements to Australia when we get home. Roll on the 14th June and the start of our Australian journey.

If anyone needs to talk about shipping a motorhome to Australia, give me a bell. Believe me, it can be a torturous path without the knowledge.

Dearne with Clyde, Chuck and Ali’s American Bulldog. A giant (55kg) but gentle animal

It has been a great few days with Chuck and Ali. The last time we caught up was in April 2012 at the Communicators Reunion so it’s been a few months between drinks.  We have to say that without their assistance in Canberra it may have been a little more tiresome in finalising some of our travel arrangements. Having ‘inside’ knowledge always helps. Cheers guys.

Just before we left home Dearne had a ‘minor’ altercation with another vehicle. I am more than happy to tell you it was not her fault and no injuries so insurance (via the perpetrator) is picking up the tab for repair. The down side is that because we are now a one car family getting around is a little more difficult. The immediate plan when we get home is to get the car sorted.

To those of you who are attending Claire Bears birthday party, see you all next Saturday night in Auckland.