travel blog

We got back to Wellington yesterday after a 10-day Christmas/New Year holiday in Tauranga and Auckland (with a day trip to the Coromandel). Generally the weather was very good and I had time to finish reading Prey, The Google Story and Agile Web Development with Rails. All in all a good holiday but now there is a lot of work piled up for January and February.

Today we went out to the wine and food festival in Martinborough. It just happened to coincide with my birthday so the trip served a dual purpose (what better way to celebrates ones birthday than walking around in the sun drinking wine). Below is a few photos and a movie snapped during the wandering. Anyone who has not been before it is well worth the time (and expense). Lots of good bands, plenty of nice food and wine everywhere. The weather tried to play nice but what the photos do not show is that it was very windy at times. The girls got to see Goldenhorse up close (Goldenhorse is a very good apparently) whilst Mike and I got to sit back, sip wine and admire the views.

This afternoon the decomissioned frigate Wellington was sunk off the southern coast of Wellington (just off Island Bay) to create a cool place for divers to visit. For the last five months the frigate has been tied up next to Te Papa and has been a floating night club and events venue (perhaps the best use for the New Zealand navy). Half of Wellington turned up to watch the explosion and the subsequent sinking. The actual sinking was a little late and when it did occur it was all over in a few minutes. It was worth the wait as it is not every day that you get to watch a ship of any kind sink.

After four months on the road we finally made our way back into Wellington last night.

Asian elephants (small ears) on display	The 'Big Budda'

 This is our last day in London, our plane for Thailand leaves at 10pm tonight. Fortunately we are flying Qantas for the rest of the trip and the inflight movies look very promising for a change. We will be in Thailand for a week before flying back to Auckland.

In Thailand we will be staying on Ko Samui at Le Royal Meridien. Ko Samui is a small resort island off the eastern coast of mainland Thailand and was unaffected by the tsunami of Boxing Day 2004. The resort sounds really great and is something we have been looking forward to during the snow and rain of the last few months. Weather wise it looks like its going to be warm and wet but we are hoping to get a bit of a tan when there is a break in the clouds. The island has a lot of tourist orientated activities such as elephant treks which look like fun.

On Friday there was no rain and temperature wise it was not too cold so we headed into London city for the evening. Initially we went to Leicester Square to see what shows were selling cheap tickets. Unfortunately the shows on offer were nothing too special and the half-price ticket prices were still fairly expensive. Rather than go to an overpriced, unknown production we headed across the Thames to Shakespeares Globe Theatre. It was the opening night of Pericles and there were still some cheap seats (13 each) available. There were plenty of standing tickets available but the thought of standing for almost three hours watching anything (let alone a Shakespeare comedy) was a little hard to stomach. Thankfully we hired a couple of cushions and a rug because in the restored open air theatre it was not too warm and the wooden seats made a British Airways seat look comfortable.

This week has been pretty busy as we get everything checked off our to-do list before heading to Thailand on Sunday. On Wednesday we headed to the Natural History Museum as it had been recommended by lots of people. The building itself is very impressive, it is old but in very good condition with some very nice interior spaces.

Today there was a big Star Wars spectacular at Leicsester Square to celebrate the immanent release of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. One of the cinemas was screening all six Star Wars films in a row and ticket prices were reported as high as 250 for the day. As Emma and I were heading into the city to do some shopping we headed along to take a look. After getting off the Underground finding the Square was not hard as all we had to do was follow the kids dressed as Jedi and Storm Troopers.

Emma and I have returned to London after a four day visit to Paris. I have not had time to write anything yet but in the meantime I have posted a few of the photographs we took whilst touring the famous (and not so famous) sites.

Photographs from our trip to Paris...

Of late Emma has been addicted to the Harry Potter website and all of its games. To give her something a little more exciting I dropped by the Apple Store on Friday to see what they had on offer. Fortunately they had the Harry Potter Deluxe Edition on sale (a fancy name for Harry Potter 1 & 2 in the same box). 72 hours after purchasing the games I have struggled to get near the laptop. Emma has been glued to the screen, cursing and bouncing around as she tries to avoid objects on her broom. It looks like I will need another computer in the near future just so I do not have to compete with Harry Potter.