It has just occurred to me that exactly 3 years ago (13 June 2014), I waved goodbye to Sydney and James and headed into the great unknown for a six week solo trip around Scandinavia and the start of our international housesitting adventure. Thankfully the six months apart 'flew' by (not). Now look at us. Down in the southern hemisphere for around four and a half months and then we will hit the road to Belgium (week), France (week), Ireland (3 months) and, in news just in, Portugal (also for 3 months) - which sees our current bookings out to mid March 2018. We've had a great time here in Queenstown and the scenery as always has blown our minds on a daily basis. We've had generally excellent weather and enjoyed snow on the mountains around us for our time in Kingston - and we'll be sad to see it end. But end it must. In the last couple of weeks we've taken it easy... yet another visit to Erik's Fish & Chips - tucked into on the lake shore at a scenic picnic spot. We also took a long drive to Glenorchy - almost two hours in the end as we stopped for a roast chicken and salad for lunch along the way - really getting our use out of the lake! We've done a tiny bit of gift-shopping, certainly nothing for us as 23kg+7kg is alway a bit of a challenge. We've packed (and that took the best part of 2 days), we've done our final menu plan for cleaning up our pantry, polished the house, walked the dog, made the fire to welcome the owners home and tootled to the airport. We're incredibly fortunate to be starting another housesit immediately (in fact the owner in Runaway Bay leaves tomorrow), so there was no wiggle room on flights - the direct flights leave either yesterday or tomorrow - so today was quite a long travel day all told. Up at 6 am (that would be 4 am Australian time), off to the airport eventually, quick 1 hour hop to Christchurch, a bit of duty free shopping which we rarely indulge in due to lugging it about, then at 4.15 pm onto the flight to the Gold Coast. Really enjoy the Air New Zealand service and always worth paying that bit extra for the food/booze/movies option on the Trans-Tasman jaunt. Almost 4 hours is still short-haul in this part of the world funnily enough. It was great to land at the Gold Coast around 6 pm, get the bags off the conveyor (always a good thing!) and meet our lovely new owner - into the car and off to meet our new charges - Coco & Lily, the mini-schnauzers. Runaway Bay, Gold Coast, canal front living - here we come!

iPad. iTypos. iSorry.