Category: trips

Holiday Reading List

jord | 12/3/102 Comments

We’re off on holidays, and I have more books to read than I will be able to fit in.

I’ve narrowed it down to the following list (in no particular order, except dimension.…)

That should keep me busy…

Hunter (with his very smart cat and his mouse)

jord | 5/1/100 Comments

Our Christmas tradition for the last few years has been to share a bottle of wine and some nice cheeses.

This year we had to forego our usual tradition, sharing lovely meals with both of our families. In leu of our usual plans, Chan arranged for us to spend a day up in the hunter visiting some wineries and cheese shop.

Glass

We hopped on a bus from Central along with a few others and were driven up to Cessnock by our friendly driver Shane. We stopped of at the first winery and tried a few nice (and a few not as nice) glasses before heading off to the second winery. We were met at the Iron Gate Estate winery by the owner, a kindly older british gentleman. He came from a chemisty background and was explaining to us how it impacted his work. We had a great an interesting time there, and tasted some lovely and unique wines.

We had a brief stop for lunch before moving on to the Smelly Cheese Shop. Mmmmmm cheese. Needless to say, this was one of the highlights, trying some nice fettas and buying some other lovely cheeses.

Our final winery was a jovial affair, with many bad jokes, and more wine. Once we were done it was time to load back into the minibus and have a snooze on the way home.

It may be that we were spoilt by Waipara and Malborough, or the fact that neither of us are great red wine drinkers - but on the whole we weren’t that impressed by the wines. We tasted a few nice ones, but on the whole were a little disappointed.

That being said, we had a good fun day - I would thoroughly recommend it. (You can see some photos here if you want).

(bris)vegas baby vegas!

chan | 7/12/090 Comments

i spent the weekend in qld and all i got was this lousy sunburn

thats not true - we actually had quite a good time despite only having a couple of days away.

our flight saw us leave sydney at 10.05pm on Friday and we flew in last night (Sunday) at 9.20pm so it was a very quick and whirlwind trip… but it was great to see family and old friends and spend time celebrating Renee’s birthday. Everyone dressed up which made it even better.

we’re glad to be home though and looking forward to picking up the cat tonight after work…

an enchanted evening

chan | 24/11/091 Comment

Tilted Luna Landscape
back to place we got engaged - almost the same carriage - the ferris wheel at luna park - an enchanted evening…

on saturday night jordan treated me to a very special night out - after a gorgeous picnic with friends we headed off on the train to a secret location (well a secret to me), a quick change of transport and trying to not get recognised from people of my past - we made it to luna park. Keep reading…

A Quick Update

jord | 28/12/080 Comments

Just to let you know where we are and how we are going…

We’re spending tonight up at Tauranga (towards the middle top of the North Island) in the Bay of Plenty. We’ve had some fabulous weather in the past few days but sadly today has been miserable, pouring with rain and blowing a gale.

We brought our wireless internet on the trip with us, but sadly their coverage doesn’t include much of the North Island, so we have been disconnected the last couple of days. I managed to get some more photos uploaded today. I won’t get a chance to name or label them, but feel free to have a look.

We’re on the road again tomorrow and working our way to Gisborne for New Years where we hope to be some of the first people in the world to see in 2009. Then working our way back towards Wellington to fly back to Christchurch.

Exhibitionist

jord | 0 Comments

Its been a while since we went to see it (on the 23rd actually), but we finally got to see my photographs in the exhibition at Te Papa (the National Museum of New Zealand).
IMG_8017

We went into the Ourspace exhibition and the first thing we were met with was a map of New Zealand on the floor.

Keep reading…

The Holiday Starts

jord | 23/12/080 Comments

Well here we are in Wellington. We had a lovely beautiful day for our trip North on the train and ferry, and another gorgeous day yesterday. Sadly today has been miserable, but a lovely day to bunker down and relax in the hotel room.

Kaikoura

We’re here tomorrow, and then hitting the road on Boxing day and heading North. We’re going round the North Island in a clockwise direction before returning to wellington then flying back to Christchurch.

Wellington from our Room

Homeless

jord | 21/12/081 Comment

That’s right, as of 2pm yesterday afternoon we are now the above. The upside of which is that we don’t have to pay rent anymore, the downside being we no longer have somewhere to keep all of our stuff.

We’re writing from our hotel in Christchurch. It feels kind of weird to be in a hotel when everything is so familiar, but kinda cool. We’re up at 6 tomorrow morning to begin our holiday. A train North to Picton, and then the InterIslander Ferry across to Wellington where we will be spending the next couple of days.

To Catch a Thief

We’ll taking LOTS of photos and trying to get some of them posted here as well as some information about what we have been up to. So stay tuned…

New Years

chan | 20/10/080 Comments

i know - its a little early to be talking about the New Year but this year we are doing something quite exciting to see in the beginning of 2009.

Singin’ in the Rain movie download living here in New Zealand affords us to one of the most amazing things - being the first country (other than a few small pacific islands) to receive the FIRST SUN of the day IN THE WORLD… and even better - we are going to be on the most eastern tip of the country to see it happen. im getting goosebumps just thinking about it… its going to be pretty special.

the only downside of course is that there is a music festival on that week and we have to stay an hour and a half away but thats what travel mugs of coffee are for…

Who knows what 2009 will hold for all of us - but its going to start pretty spectacularly…

Culinary Journey

chan | 17/9/081 Comment

As there are so many varied food items we miss while living in NZ, we made a little bit of an effort while we were home to enjoy all of the things that we haven’t been able to have in a while.

 

From the simple snack to dinner out – we enjoyed and indulged ourselves a little. I will write what we had but please remember we were in Sydney for 2 weeks so it sounds worse that it actually was.

 

Donut from Donut King at Hurstville Westfield

Oporto (missed those chips)

Oatley Pie

Happy Chef – wonton noodle soup and laksa

Emperor Custard Puffs from China Town

Ice cream at Cronulla Ice Creamery

Pub Lunch and Australian Beer!

Dinner at Big Johns - Sans Souci

Pauls Hamburgers

Smiths Fish and Chips

Dinner at Hogs Breath – St Marys

Danish from the Penshurst Bakery

Cold Rock at Cronulla

 

And a bunch of lovely meals at home with family and friends…