After 1 year exactly of travel, we are filled with emotion. Maybe one of the biggest
With Kristi’s permission here are her reflections when we came out of Asia and almost through Europe.
She had so many so I told her to write them down. She did so and now what a great time to publish them, exactly 12 months from taking off in Auckland.
Including The Vatican
We were excited about coming to Rome. Kristi and I had booked a holiday here that we had to cancel about five years ago. In reality, it is a couples vacation, when you ask most non-Europeans where would they like to go when visiting Europe, Rome always seems to be on the list.
We had five days to see the sights, take it all in and we were very excited. Kristi had done an awesome job of pre-booking some tours. The Sistine Chapel was on her bucket list, which meant booking our Vatican tour weeks ahead. Just figure on turning up? Forget it, at best you will be literally hours in line.
Dedicated to our best mate: Corgi, now in New Zealand.
So when Kristi said to me when we were planning this trip, she wanted to go to Wales I immediately thought, why? Again, in a previous career, I looked after South Wales and probably because I was driving around it every week doing business I never saw it for what it was……. Simply stunning.
Why did she want to go? One of my best friends moved to New Zealand in 2015, stayed with us for six months and is now firmly settled in Auckland. He is family to us, has been there since day 1 of the boys and Kristi wanted to go and see where he often talked about, his homeland.
Including stops in Staffordshire, Cornwall (Doc Martin town), Bath, Oxford, Windsor and the beautiful Henley on
My home, my childhood, I was dying to show Kristi the England I knew so well and meet friends old and new, some as far back as my primary school.
Her reflection of this beautiful country was 7 days in Worcestershire nearly 10 years ago was not so great. The weather was not good, she found herself car sick at being on narrow roads sitting on the wrong side of the car and the 7 days were far from relaxing. It was time to make it up to her. Did this happen? Well she said a few times to her relatives and friends “I loved England” and to us “I could live here”. So I think the answer is a resounding YES ; )
Written by Lara Walker
Finally, we arrived in Heathrow Airport after a long 12 hours in the sky. Finally, we were going to the place I have been waiting to go to forever since we planned this trip. The Making of Harry Potter Film Studios. Dad had booked the tickets over 6 months ahead, and, like a perfect dad, he stayed behind to look after the boys while my mom and I went to the Studios. He drove us (a screaming me and a laughing mother) up to the entrance and dropped us off. I was so excited that I literally couldn’t keep still. We waited in line to get the tickets and it took roughly 5 minutes but at the time, it seemed to take an hour.
Cut short by illness………
Final destination in Asia for us, we were feeling all sorts of emotions. Wow! that came quick, we are going miss Asia, some of us were thinking thank goodness China is nearly at an end and one of us was thinking Yipee, next stop Harry Potter Studios (wonder who that was). Two years of planning Asia that seemed to have gone in a heartbeat. One
Now if you’re going to China to see the “little men” you have to go across the country to see some of the best bits of the Great Wall. However, like America, China is vast. The distance between Xi’an and Beijing is over 600 miles (1078K’s) so how is this easiest traveled we thought? Fly? Nah we decided let’s go by via high-speed train. The boys would enjoy it, the parents would enjoy the relaxation over navigating through and waiting at airports and Lara would love it, because fewer interruptions meant more reading time.
My chance to see “The Little Men“
OK, if you are not interested in knowing anything about the Terracotta Warriors press the little X at the top of your screen or swipe up on your phone now. A life long dream of mine to see these guys in all of their glory made possible by the dream matching awesome Wife of mine for letting me fulfill this moment that I will never forget, thanks baby x.
Probably my one and only “I want to go to…” on this trip
Written By Kristi
We’ve had numerous potential itineraries for this trip since we started planning it and for the most part, Vietnam was always on them. However, around month 2 we hit a bit of an adjustment period and thought “have we bitten off more than we can chew with 6 months in SE Asia? Do we really want to go to China? Should we bother with going to Vietnam?” I really wanted to go to Halong Bay in northern Vietnam and do a cruise, but as we continued traveling with 3 children the idea of being on a boat with them for days started to wear on me. Would they be safe? Will they drive the other passengers crazy? Will we even enjoy it? Not to mention the cost… Ian asked whether it was worth going to Vietnam for just 12 days – there were flights to book, visas to apply for, etc. Long story short, in the end, we decided on 12 days in Hoi An and it was one of the best decisions of the entire trip! Hoi An has surpassed all of the other amazing SE Asia locales to become our new favorite place.
Having met a lot of traveling families on our trip thus far we were excited to visit Chiang Mai. Many had said to us what a fabulous place it was and right up there on their favorite places of all. I knew it was ancient, had a city wall and therefore an inner city. Lots of history, good food, night markets and back to an occasional Thai massage and Massaman curry was right up our street. We were all looking forward to getting out and exploring Thailands second largest city.
What we didn’t realize is that we could not have picked a worse time of year. The rice field burning was in full throttle and we were in the middle of it all.
The main driver to stay on Panglao island accessed only via it’s bigger brother Bohol Island was to carry out our work at the orphanage. We then heard that it was the next Boracay and we loved Boracay so we became excited. Checking it out we decided the only place to stay was Alona beach.
As Nana was with us we had a few boxes to tick and as we have already found out traveling to unknown places this is always a gamble. However, Good Coffee shop “tick”, Good Beach “tick”, Good cake and treat cafes “tick”, Good seafood restaurants on the beach “tick”, Cold Beer “tick” (well that was really for me but Nana did join me a couple of times. Or did the family dynamics sometimes drive her to a cold one? I hope not. The biggest tick to cover of all, especially after the five