Truly, the (blogging) force has been weak of late... Being in Queensland may have had something to do with it. That and, to be honest, we've simply not been doing anything frightfully exciting - no waterfalls, no hot air balloons, no castles, operas, galleries or symphonies. It's not that the Gold Coast is the land that culture forgot... not entirely anyway - they're performing Aida on Main Beach next week which will doubtlessly be stunning. What we've really bee...

Gold Coast / Surfers Paradise, Queensland. The names are to conjure with. We are spending a month in a canal enclave called Runaway Bay - and, a bit like Queenstown, it's the first time I've actually lived in Queensland for any length of time. Live? Well, living it up. We are housesitting a beautiful canal side home with two adorable mini-schnauzers called Coco & Lily. Their mama is off on a cruise in Europe and it's a joy to care for the girls. Though it...

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...

We visited Queenstown for the first time almost 12 years ago for our wedding in a stone chapel on the shores of Lake Hayes. We fell in love with the place as we flew in that very first time and the pilot gave us the scenic tour as we came in to land. Back in the day (actually around 12 years ago), we still booked travel the old fashioned way - a brochure with nice pictures. If you arrived in the place and reality was half as good as the pictures in the brochure -...

Sydney - Back and gone again...Well here we are and there we go (tomorrow - off to Queenstown, New Zealand). Our flights from Europe to Sydney involved Helsinki to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Brisbane for an overnight visit then down to Sydney the next day. Even on points, even in business class... it was a long, long way. We eventually arrived into Sydney on Good Friday morning and it was a stunning, sunny, blue sky Sydney day - and we were running early - so the ...