2017
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We arrived in Wellington on Friday just in time for lunch. We parked – based on the recommendations on CamperMate, as ever – at the Barnett Street car park. Parking a motorhome for 24 hours down by the wharf in Wellington costs just $30 NZD. I left my family for an hour to meet up […]
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It's been an exciting week, here in New Zealand. Not only does the country have a new coalition government (which – somewhat controversially – doesn't include the party who finished in first place in the recent election), but the polls have just closed on the Bird of the Year contest (my vote goes to the […]
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If my calculations are correct, I'll be in Singapore during this year's Autodesk University in Las Vegas. It's the first I'll have missed for many years – and it's going to feel more than a little strange, when that week comes along – but this trip (and my family) will be taking precedence, for once. […]
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A big thanks to Mike Burke from Aurecon for pointing us at Hobbiton (among other places). I suspect we'd have made it there anyway – it seems somehow inevitable – but it was certainly from Mike that I first heard about this place. It would be a shame to visit New Zealand and not experience […]
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After a fantastic weekend catching up with The Joneses (Sean, Sharon & their kids) in Auckland, we headed out on our own in the motorhome. We drove south to Waitomo, with the aim of visiting its famous glowworm caves. (We'd seen them featured in the first series of the BBC's excellent Planet Earth.) It took […]
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On Thursday night we had an fantastic evening with our Tahitian friends (I feel like saying "family" now, we had such a warm welcome and have grown so close). They prepared a lovely, traditional Tahitian dinner. We prepared some of our own Swiss contributions (une tresse – ein Butterzopf in German – and a chocolate […]
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On Tuesday and Wednesday we went scuba diving. Our son, Kalan, went both days: I accompanied him on Tuesday and my wife went on Wednesday. (Kalan is really passionate about diving, which goes along with his desire to become a marine biologist when he's older.) Kalan has cut his teeth diving in Lake Neuchatel – […]
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After a slightly crazy week spent exploring the intricacies of the medical system in French Polynesia, we finally managed to relax and kick back for the weekend. On Saturday – after Anokhi was discharged from hospital, albeit with a minor, post-operative fever – we were taken on a drive around the island of Tahiti by […]
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We arrived in Tahiti late on Monday night after a very strange flight that left after midnight and arrived at 1:30am (and yet took 6 hours… timezones can be funny things). The kids slept through it all, give or take, which was one good thing. Our hosts – the family of Narii, a good friend […]
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We flew from Santiago as planned on Saturday morning at 9:30am, arriving at lunchtime (with a couple of hours saving thanks to the timezone change) on Easter Island. Along with Machu Picchu and Iguassu Falls, this was another destination for which we'd prearranged a tour with the travel agency from whom we bought our round-the-world […]