The Adventures of Cat, Adam, Eddie + Baby Sam
Next stop- family chaos in Luxembourg! We started the day driving and managed to get enough driving in early in the day to stop at another excellent German water park (to Eddie's great excitement) for a good swim and many many goes on the slides! We rocked up in Luxembourg in time to see the … Continue reading Luxembourg
We continued up north with a stop on the south end of Lake Lugano, in Switzerland just near the Italian border. Here we met Antonia, who recommended us a nice little town with a lido and playground where we met her for a quick swim in the now rather chilly lake! Surprisingly enough there was … Continue reading Switzerland
Time to (slowly) start heading home! We decided to break the journey in Florence so reluctantly left Palazzola to head north. We found en route something we'd tagged from the start of our trip, having seen it in miniatur wunderland and thought it looked fun- Sacro Bosco or 'Park of Monsters'. We picniced on the … Continue reading Northern Italy
After all this hardcore tourisitng we decided we needed a holiday from all this holidaying- having found some last minute rooms available at Villa Palazzola in the Castelli hills outside of Rome this was the perfect treat. Full board with hearty Italian meals and wine included we felt very little need to leave in the … Continue reading Italy- Villa Palazzola
Adam had done some swatting and found out something pretty awesome: it's actually really easy to walk up to the crater of the most active volcano in Europe! Being very alert for any warning tremors or suspicious belching of smoke (it does feel a bit risqué after seeing the remains of Ancient Pompeii) we'd booked … Continue reading Italy- Vesuvius
Having seen enough of Italian driving outside of the cities we camped well outside Naples in a suburb on a train line ready to explore the city. We got an exciting breakfast from a bakery of something like a pizza dough rolled up with sausage and potatoes inside (it was just as excellent as it … Continue reading Italy- Naples
We woke up and had breakfast in our campsite with views of the Amalfi coast then drove down from the mountainous peninsula to Pompeii. We started off trying to explore every building but soon realised this was far too ambitious! I hadn't quite grasped the scale of the place, there's currently about 500 buildings open … Continue reading Italy- Pompeii
We arrived back to Italy, this time to actually spend some time here, early morning after a nighttime Igoumentisa-Brindisi crossing. After reconciling ourselves to the fact that we were now slowly heading home, we had a last minute change if plan and decided to start our Italy adventure by going South! Lecce tempted us in … Continue reading Italy- Lecce & Matera
Next, to the Peloponnese! We reluctantly left our beautiful campsite outside Delphi for a pre-breakfast sprint past Athens and break for shopping and pastries before stopping at the Corinthian canal. Ooo Canal. Currently closed to boats, so just bungee jumpers in it for now We rapidly worked out that the less off route section to … Continue reading Greece- Corinthian canal & Acrocorinth
Now for some culture! Ancient Delphi was, we decided, a must see. We started with the archaeological museum- filled with the more precious or delicate of the finds, including an ancient bronze life-size statue of a charioteer and incredibly well preserved sculptures from 4-600BC- it really is incredible how well some of it has been … Continue reading Greece- Delphi
After a sleepy drive we woke up in a carefully chosen lay-by just outside the village of Portaria with stunning views over the port town of Volos. We started off by heading for the village of Makritsa, 'the balcony of the Pelion'. The van did the rest of the climbing up the steep hill to … Continue reading Greece- Pelion Peninsula
Adam told us not to change the schedule for his birthday (he would have been perfectly happy with a nice mountain day, it was only the lack of sun and cake that put any kind of damper on it!) But given the choice he would have a beach day. So a beach party was planned! … Continue reading Greece- Adam’s Birthday party & Mount Olympus
Having seen enough of Greek driving so far, we decided against parking in the city and went back to our old habit of finding a train station to camp in, with added bonus of Eddie entertainment in the morning as he watches the trains! Yay trains!! In an unusually faff-free manner, we were up and … Continue reading Greece- Thessaloniki
We arrived at Kastoria with an afternoon to spare, and what with it being a little bit cloudy and rain in the air a show cave seemed like a good idea. We took all of 30mins to explore dragon cave, then emerged into sunshine- winning! Parked for the night at a nice spot on the … Continue reading Greece- Kastoria & Edessa
We had one final morning in Northern Pindos National Park after waking up in the Portitsa gorge- once it got light we couldn't resist another wander to the bridge, where the valley suddenly turns into a deep gorge so we wandered through me and Adam having a wash in some of the deeper pools en … Continue reading Greece- Portitsa Gorge & Meteora
Like the Queen (or maybe now the king?) We decided Adam would get two birthdays- actual one and a big party later once we've been to the shops, having accidentally found ourselves in the middle of a national park with no cake to be found and very minimal van supplies of birthday treats! Traffic in … Continue reading Adam’s birthday- Northern Pindos National Park, Greece
After Montenegro, we decided not to risk driving through Albania so many hours on ferries later, we arrived in Greece at the port town of Igoumenitsa. Sunset on the Brindisi-Igoumenitsa ferry We slept by the coast watching the ferries, then in the morning headed to the town of Ioannina. This was a nice little walled … Continue reading Greece- Ioannina & Northern Pindos National park
We arrived in Trogir for Cats birthday, but spent 3 nights there we had such a nice campsite and we found so much to do! Happy boys on their van shelf The day after Cats birthday mooch around Trogir, we started the day with a quick swim at our campsite beach then walked/cycled back into … Continue reading Croatia – Trogir continued…
Post Zadar and Nin, we decided we needed some out-of-town wandering. Krka National Park is between Zadar and our next planned city stop, Split, so seemed perfect. Boat ride and beer 🙂 We camped in a nearby lay-by ready to head to the Skradin entrance first thing in the morning. We got our tickets and … Continue reading Croatia- Krka national park
Seeing how much Eddie loved the cave with a boat trip in Czechia made us keen to go to another that would blow his mind- Postonja Jama, a show cave with a train inside. We decided it was too far off route very much not being on the way from Vienna to our next destination, … Continue reading A brief jaunt to Slovenia
Getting keen on this cycling idea, we decided both of us would quite like a cycle along the Danube. We were less bothered about seeing the city of Vienna than Bratislava too- so Adam hopped on his bike in the morning and off he went! Eddie cycled the first 10k along an island between old … Continue reading Vienna to Bratislava- and back again!
So, we're told not to talk about Brno but actually it's an area we couldn't miss because of the caves! Only knowing about it as a place where the European spaeleology Congress was one year, we decided to look for a nice show cave for us to traipse around as a family. Punkva cave hit … Continue reading Czechia- Moravian Karst & cycle to Austria
Keeping up the theme of making up for the lack of hill so far, we decided to skip Prague as both of us have been there before and head straight for more mountains. We started with a day of castles: We camped under Frýdštejn Castle and wandered up in the morning to be fortunately let … Continue reading Czechia- Bohemian Paradise
Seeing as how over the border was fun, we thought this side would be worth visiting too. We weren't wrong! The Czechs seems to specialise in putting massive stairways to make the tops of rocks accessible to all, ideal for step-loving small people such as Eddie. Give him a level path and he's asking for … Continue reading Czechia- Bohemian Switzerland
Of course, time to move on meant heading to a lake! We found a great camping spot 2mins walk from a lakeside beach. Whilst checking out the beach for a swim, it was way too inviting to not get the paddle board out! A quick morning swim soon turned into a morning as Cat caught … Continue reading Germany 3- Saxon Switzerland & Dresden
We got the ferry back over after our exciting safari day, and after a couple of failed attempts at finding a free spot to park finally chanced upon a walkers car park at 10pm for a bit of kip. In the morning Adam and Eddie went for a lakeside bike ride while Cat and Sam … Continue reading Germany 2- Puttgarden to Berlin
Escaping Copenhagen we woke up to another stunning day and started it with a bike ride around a Fort and a paddle in the sea, before driving off to a forest park to find some monsters. After spending a long time reassuring Eddie that they were friendly monsters that did not eat children (or at … Continue reading Denmark- Zealand & Lolland
We left miniatur wunderland to get the Puttgarden-Rødby ferry and arrived in Denmark! Found a cracking camping spot by the sea on the island of Faro and Eddie immediately made friends with some random German kids at the playpark so we decided to call it a day. Next stop: Copenhagen to see Emilie, Kris & … Continue reading Denmark- Copenhagen & Helsingør
It was still over 4 hours from Hoge Veluwe National Park to our next planned stop, Hamburg, so we found somewhere to stop on the way just outside Osnabruck and a swimming pool seemed like a good call as none of us had really had a proper wash since Brighton. It turned out to be … Continue reading Germany- part 1
First (proper, excluding Eddie's wee break) stop after crossing the Channel... Bruges! We found a place to kip just outside town on a park and ride stop by a canal. It was such a gorgeous spot with such an epic sunset that we couldn't resist a quick evening wander. We set off to explore town … Continue reading Belgium
After a suitable amount of time faffing with the van and missing all the holiday traffic we finally said goodbye to the house for 3 months and got on the road. Ready, Steady, Go! First stop: Bristol! We stopped with Hellie, Rob and Daisy for a day of toddler chaos before Hellie and Daisy left … Continue reading South Coast Tour
We started horribly early in Auckland and only transited through Fiji this time, Eddie taking every opportunity to get massive Fijian smiles as we went through. We arrived in Singapore just in time for an evening jaunt back to marina sands to see more pretty lights, after which we stopped off for a very orange … Continue reading Singapore: Take 2
From Waitomo we headed to Raglan, a laid back surf town further north on the west coast. We spent a lovely evening on a campsite by the sea getting into the hippy vibe with a bit of baby yoga (Eddie is now a pro at downwards dog, as well as happy baby). Me having absolutely … Continue reading Raglan & back to Auckland
We left Taranaki once we could see that the clouds underneath us were breaking up (the views of the cloud inversion from our campsite were awesome!), After a brief and fruitless search for an accessible river with a swimming hole in the national park headed to the lowlands to get clean. We stopped at meeting … Continue reading Three Sisters & Waitomo
We arrived from the South - North island ferry to a cloudy car park at the base of Mt. Taranaki to camp for the duration of our stay in Egmont National park. This is another example of the conflict between Maori names (Taranaki) and the European name (Egmont). By morning, we were sitting above the … Continue reading Egmont National Park (Taranaki)
After our salmon feast (thanks Sammy) we decided to stay at the seaside Totaranui DOC campsite ready to start walking a section of the Abel Tasman Coast track. We went for a brief swim on arrival, the sea is actually starting to feel like there's less risk of hypothermia now! The beach was massive, golden … Continue reading Abel Tasman National Park
Lake Hawea We camped by the shores of lake Hawea then headed for our next destination: The West Coast. En route we stopped at many a viewpoint and waterfall, for fleeting glances of snow capped mountains amidst the cloud. Haast Pass lookout No prizes for spotting the wild Adam... Fantail Falls Thunder Creek Falls We … Continue reading Haast Pass & the West Coast
We legged it from Wanaka towards the park and watched the sky go pink over lake Pukaki where we camped for the night. We woke to torrential rain. We had a leisurely breakfast then headed out to the DOC office to see what might be doable despite the weather! We found it to be excellent … Continue reading Mount Cook National Park
Having been promised by Jen and Paul that this town was basically the best place in NZ, we met them as arranged at a vary rainy lakeside campsite. However against all odds we woke up to beautiful views over the lake to snow capped mountains and soon realised what all the hype had been about. … Continue reading #Wanaka
We camped by lake wakatipu (with waves like the sea!), and in the morning headed into Queenstown for an adventure tourism packed day! We kicked off with taking turns to do jet boat rides, while the other played with Eddie (more swings, yay!) And ate pie. The jet boat rides were awesome, 360 degree spins … Continue reading Queenstown
A momentous occasion to start the morning: Eddie's first go on a swing! After this and a paddle we figured we'd better get back on the road. First stop: Oamaru, town of steampunks and penguins. We weren't hanging around long enough to see the penguins at dusk, so we popped into 'Steampunk HQ' to try … Continue reading Oamaru & Moeraki
We had another 2 days before we were due in Dunedin so got cracking along the inland scenic route towards Rakaia gorge. We went for a pootle down there to a lookout for lunch and Eddie wiggles then escaped, devastated by the lack of ice cream. We arrived in Timaru where all of our sunny … Continue reading Rakaia gorge & Timaru
We drove into Christchurch via the famous Sheffield Pie Shop, where the pies were so good we used it as an excuse to have double pie breakfast. (2 pies is ok right???) There we did some van faff (the stove is finally fixed!) Then drove through Christchurch, as we were both a tad curious to … Continue reading Christchurch & Akaroa
We had a good faff in Nelson (shopping, swimming with all important showers) then headed out to Nelson lakes, arriving at the DOC office mid afternoon. It was a tad late to do the whole mount Robert circuit, but we had a plan: the Bushline hut half way round. We packed our gear and headed … Continue reading Nelson lakes
Before leaving Wellington, we got it into our heads that we'd like to do a multiday trek and that this would be a good place to do it. Boat drop off at the start and collection from the end, with free bag transfers along the way- perfect! And because it's not one of the classic … Continue reading Queen Charlotte Track
We finally left Taupo after some van faff (Highly inconveniently the stove had broken. They bought us a new one and we were off!). By lunchtime we were half way to Tongariro national park, admiring the snow capped volcanoes from over the lake. We arrived in time to go to the visitor centre for a … Continue reading There and back again- a Tongariro tale by Cat, Adam & Eddie
We took advantage of our camping at Waikite valley pools again and revisited the hot baths this morning, Eddie happily splashing about in the family pool he had 2 hours of it last night and another hour this morning and could have stayed longer! After a quick walk to look at he spring, we grown … Continue reading Taupo
The Pinnacle the Miracle! (Ok, no one outside if Mulu actually says that....) The day started grey, very grey, wet and in a cloud, and then we started walking uphill. Through the forests, past the landslides, over the wobbly bridges. Everything was still in cloud when we got to the pinnacles hut 2.5hrs later.... so … Continue reading The Pinnacles- Coromandel
As predicted, we woke up to the sound of rain. Heavy, constant rain. But you don't fly halfway around the world to be put off by a bit of water.... so we donned our waterproofs and sandals, wrapped up Eddie in his big fluffy waterproof jacket and set off on the hour walk to Cathedral … Continue reading Cathedral Cove & Hot Water Beach- Coromandel
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