Next on our New Zealand hit list was visiting the Coromandel Peninsula. It’s a pretty long drive down from Paihia, and there were several road closures following on from the cyclone causing further delays, so we decided to split the journey in half and spend a night in Orewa just north of Auckland.…

That’s two in Māori by the way – not that I can count in Māori, I just looked it up.  Today we were having a day off from school – woohoo. We were slightly ahead of where we should be, so as a reward we were off on a boat trip around the…

Our next stop in New Zealand was Paihia in the Northland region of New Zealand. Having picked up our fairly knackered (and consequently fairly cheap) hire car, we set out on the 4 hour journey to the north. It’s only 150 miles, but the roads here are less motorway, and more B road.…

Not the luminous ultra-sugary kids fruit cordial drink from the 80s – you remember, the one with the suspiciously racist advertising campaign! Kia Ora is actually a Māori greeting literally meaning “be healthy”. We have made it (almost exactly) to the other side of the world, New Zealand. I have been here once…

I can’t believe we’ve been in Australia for over a month now, it has practically disappeared in the blink of an eye. We had one more stop to make in the capital of Queensland for a few days before flying out to the next country on our list, New Zealand. We managed to…

Well, as it turns out, a lot! I apologise in advance for a long and rambling post, but it made sense to put it all in one… Week 2 on The Gold Coast, and it’s gearing up to be a solid week of fun, fun, fun. For the kids at least. Ah who…

Just south of Brisbane lies a sprawling metropolitan area known for its world class surfing beaches, high-rise dominated beach skylines and party style nightlife. The Gold Coast reaches all the way from South Brisbane to the NSW border and with a population of 600,000 is actually the sixth largest city in Australia. Surfers…

When the late, great Steve Irwin burst onto our screens back in the nineties, I was immediately hooked to his khaki-clad, uber-enthusiastic antics, flirting with insanely dangerous animals around the world. “Crikey!” Was his inimitable battle cry as he fearlessly tangled with deadly creatures, all while expertly imparting his profound depth of knowledge…

Next stop for us was Coffs Harbour. On the way we thought we’d dive into the alternative bohemian hideaway of Bellingen. Despite the distinctly Wild West style of the town with the beautiful covered verandahs adorning the shop fronts (a very common theme in Australian towns to shelter customers from the relentless sun),…

Having picked up our hire car from Sydney, we managed to shoe-horn all our luggage (and kids) in the back and set off over Sydney Harbour Bridge towards our next stop, Newcastle. We thought it would be best to head straight to our Airbnb and get through two days worth of lessons so…