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POUGHKEEPSIE
Thursday 11/09/2014 Andie writing. Our host on the farm cooked us a hot breakfast of eggs fried inside circular holes in slices of bread. I think he was trying to be fancy but it was just like eggy breadreally.
EARTHQUAKE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Monday 10/03/2014. We had to wake up around 09:00, which was hard given when we’d fallen asleep the night before. Waking up and going in to the cold bathroom was a bit of a shock to the system, as it felt so cold compared to the tropics we’d been in for several weeks! NOUMEA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Friday 25/04/2014 Andie writing. I got up at about 6:30 so I could get the 07:05 bus down to town. Anne had said that the buses aren’t so reliable so it’s always best to get the one before the one you need just in case the first one doesn’t turn up.NATIONAL PARK
Posts about National Park written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. HOT POOLS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Hot Pools written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. SPLIT ROCK | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Split Rock written by aebigtrip. 26/03/2014 Andie writing. As this was our last full day in Nelson, we decided we really had to get to Abel Tasman National Park, given that so many people rave about it’s beauty so much. AHIPARA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 10/04/2014 Em writing. I got up at 7:30am ready for an early departure knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us back to Auckland. However, it was just before 10am before we 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES Sunday 08/06/2014 Em writing (some photos by Emmi and Kathleen) Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing TAG ARCHIVES: NORTHLAND Thursday 10/04/2014 Em writing. I got up at 7:30am ready for an early departure knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us back to Auckland. However, it was just before 10am before we left, as is usual with the Burkimshers! ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing. Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before!POUGHKEEPSIE
Thursday 11/09/2014 Andie writing. Our host on the farm cooked us a hot breakfast of eggs fried inside circular holes in slices of bread. I think he was trying to be fancy but it was just like eggy breadreally.
EARTHQUAKE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Monday 10/03/2014. We had to wake up around 09:00, which was hard given when we’d fallen asleep the night before. Waking up and going in to the cold bathroom was a bit of a shock to the system, as it felt so cold compared to the tropics we’d been in for several weeks! NOUMEA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Friday 25/04/2014 Andie writing. I got up at about 6:30 so I could get the 07:05 bus down to town. Anne had said that the buses aren’t so reliable so it’s always best to get the one before the one you need just in case the first one doesn’t turn up.NATIONAL PARK
Posts about National Park written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. HOT POOLS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Hot Pools written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. SPLIT ROCK | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Split Rock written by aebigtrip. 26/03/2014 Andie writing. As this was our last full day in Nelson, we decided we really had to get to Abel Tasman National Park, given that so many people rave about it’s beauty so much. AHIPARA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 10/04/2014 Em writing. I got up at 7:30am ready for an early departure knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us back to Auckland. However, it was just before 10am before we 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES Sunday 08/06/2014 Em writing (some photos by Emmi and Kathleen) Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing TAG ARCHIVES: NORTHLAND Thursday 10/04/2014 Em writing. I got up at 7:30am ready for an early departure knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us back to Auckland. However, it was just before 10am before we left, as is usual with the Burkimshers! JUNE | 2014 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Monday 23/06/2014 Em writing. We landed in Auckland at 4:50am after not really having had any sleep yet. There was a really long queue in customs again where we were told to stand on a wet sponge to clean off all the Aussie dust from our hiking boots. OCTOBER | 2014 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 10/09/2014 Em writing. Before our journey began, our AirBnB cooked breakfast for us that was a nice for a change. Mark and I had fried egg on toast and Andie enjoyed some pancakes. MARCH | 2014 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Sunday 23/03/2014 Andie writing. We started the day with fruit and yoghurt for breakfast, after our bush expeditions to the dunny! We decided to make a packed lunch and take it to the Punakaiki Pancake Rocks for lunch.. I found that now we were further north, the vegetation in the bush had changed somewhat, with some real palm trees and lots of flax bushes. NOVEMBER | 2014 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Saturday 13/09/2014 Em writing. Staten Island was our destination today and it was a grey and busy drive to get there. I was grateful for Andie’s help as well as the satnav to navigate between many spaghetti junctions and be in the right lane! SEPTEMBER | 2014 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Tuesday 02/09/2014 Em writing. It was a bit of a rush to get to the airport even though we thought we’d allowed lots of extra time. The freeway was very busy and quite slow in sections where a build up of cars was either trying to get on or off. APRIL | 2015 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 7 posts published by aebigtrip during April 2015. Sunday 05/10/2014 Em writing. As we had arrived back quite late after our visit to Niagara Falls, we were up late and then it was time to pack again. EARTHQUAKE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Monday 10/03/2014. We had to wake up around 09:00, which was hard given when we’d fallen asleep the night before. Waking up and going in to the cold bathroom was a bit of a shock to the system, as it felt so cold compared to the tropics we’d been in for several weeks! 18TH AUGUST: ZAGREB TO LAKE BLED Tuesday 18/08/2015 Andie writing I had to be up fairly early this morning as I’d arranged a Skype chat (informal interview really) with a startup company in Melbourne. They seem to do very interesting work that’s a nice continuation and development of what I was doing for my doctorate. I thought the chat went very 31ST JULY: PRISMATIC POOLS AND STEAMING GEYSERS IN Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. This meant we actually had to be up and off soon after 8am to meet our 9am breakfast deadline! It also meant that we would have plenty of time to explore Teton and Yellowstone National 7TH SEPTEMBER: LIGHTHOUSES, LIGHTNING AND DELUGES Sunday 07/09/2014 Em writing We had the whole day to enjoy the Outer Banks which we were looking forward to. Andie finds them a fascinating place as they are so tiny and exposed and far out to sea, yet towns have been built on them! Manteo, the town we were staying in, is thesite
ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
KONA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 26/06/2014 (Second time round due to crossing the date line the previous day) Em writing. I slept well in Honolulu although Andie didn’t. In the end it was around 12pm before we’d left our AirBnB and we were repeating the 26th June again because of the time zonechange!
ANGEL OF THE NORTH
Posts about Angel of the North written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am. PINNACLES | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Pinnacles written by aebigtrip. Saturday 14/06/2014 Andie writing. This was the last day of the tour, which meant the main activity would be a really long drive back to Perth and saying bye to many of the friends we’d made.MUSICK POINT
Posts about Musick Point written by aebigtrip. Sunday 13/04/2014 Andie writing. Today started as another relaxing morning with a long lie infor Em and I.
TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. BAD AIRBNB | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 10/09/2014 Em writing. Before our journey began, our AirBnB cooked breakfast for us that was a nice for a change. Mark and I had fried egg on toast and Andie enjoyed some pancakes. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
KONA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 26/06/2014 (Second time round due to crossing the date line the previous day) Em writing. I slept well in Honolulu although Andie didn’t. In the end it was around 12pm before we’d left our AirBnB and we were repeating the 26th June again because of the time zonechange!
ANGEL OF THE NORTH
Posts about Angel of the North written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am. PINNACLES | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Pinnacles written by aebigtrip. Saturday 14/06/2014 Andie writing. This was the last day of the tour, which meant the main activity would be a really long drive back to Perth and saying bye to many of the friends we’d made.MUSICK POINT
Posts about Musick Point written by aebigtrip. Sunday 13/04/2014 Andie writing. Today started as another relaxing morning with a long lie infor Em and I.
TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. BAD AIRBNB | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 10/09/2014 Em writing. Before our journey began, our AirBnB cooked breakfast for us that was a nice for a change. Mark and I had fried egg on toast and Andie enjoyed some pancakes. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow.WHOLE FOODS
18/09/2014 Andie writing. We didn’t see Rachel in the morning as she slipped out to work very quietly without waking us! As I’d enjoyed doing in a few other cities, I wanted to go and explore the famous universities in Boston.OPERA HOUSE
Tuesday 06/05/2014 Andie writing. I hadn’t slept well at all during the night. When I saw that it was 6:10am on my phone and I was wide awake, I thought I might as well go and try and take pictures of the sunrise over Bondi Beach. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. HUKA FALLS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Huka Falls written by aebigtrip. Sunday 30/03/2014 Andie writing. The previous two church services we’d been to were quite traditional Anglican in style. 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES 8th June: Spider Walking through Scenic Gorges. Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing up waterfalls and sliding down rivers indinghies!
VIRGINA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 6th September: On to the Outer Banks. Saturday 06/09/2014. Em writing. The day began with pain au chocolats for breakfast, always a good start! Then we went for a morning swim, this time to warm up after the freezing temperature of the air con! All was well until a fierce and cross woman appeared who told us off for being in the pool as, ‘theCHURCH STREET
Posts about Church Street written by aebigtrip. Sunday 21/09/2014 Em writing. Today we enjoyed a gentle wake up in the morning. DAN BROWN | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Tuesday 11/08/2015 Andie writing. We managed to get up early and off to the airport in plenty of time. Mum kindly took us down and waved us off. There wasn’t much traffic or queue for check in so we had a bit of time in the airport. 22ND JULY: HOT HOT HOT AT HOOVER DAM Tuesday 22/07/2014 Em writing We packed up and were out of our AirBnB by 11:30am. Then we drove back to the MGM Grand as Andie thought he had seen a sharps bin for my used diabetes supplies there. However, we couldn't find one when we got there so it could have been in any other ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
KONA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 26/06/2014 (Second time round due to crossing the date line the previous day) Em writing. I slept well in Honolulu although Andie didn’t. In the end it was around 12pm before we’d left our AirBnB and we were repeating the 26th June again because of the time zonechange!
ANGEL OF THE NORTH
Posts about Angel of the North written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am. PINNACLES | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Pinnacles written by aebigtrip. Saturday 14/06/2014 Andie writing. This was the last day of the tour, which meant the main activity would be a really long drive back to Perth and saying bye to many of the friends we’d made.MUSICK POINT
Posts about Musick Point written by aebigtrip. Sunday 13/04/2014 Andie writing. Today started as another relaxing morning with a long lie infor Em and I.
TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. BAD AIRBNB | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 10/09/2014 Em writing. Before our journey began, our AirBnB cooked breakfast for us that was a nice for a change. Mark and I had fried egg on toast and Andie enjoyed some pancakes. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
KONA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 26/06/2014 (Second time round due to crossing the date line the previous day) Em writing. I slept well in Honolulu although Andie didn’t. In the end it was around 12pm before we’d left our AirBnB and we were repeating the 26th June again because of the time zonechange!
ANGEL OF THE NORTH
Posts about Angel of the North written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am. PINNACLES | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Pinnacles written by aebigtrip. Saturday 14/06/2014 Andie writing. This was the last day of the tour, which meant the main activity would be a really long drive back to Perth and saying bye to many of the friends we’d made.MUSICK POINT
Posts about Musick Point written by aebigtrip. Sunday 13/04/2014 Andie writing. Today started as another relaxing morning with a long lie infor Em and I.
TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. BAD AIRBNB | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 10/09/2014 Em writing. Before our journey began, our AirBnB cooked breakfast for us that was a nice for a change. Mark and I had fried egg on toast and Andie enjoyed some pancakes. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow.WHOLE FOODS
18/09/2014 Andie writing. We didn’t see Rachel in the morning as she slipped out to work very quietly without waking us! As I’d enjoyed doing in a few other cities, I wanted to go and explore the famous universities in Boston.OPERA HOUSE
Tuesday 06/05/2014 Andie writing. I hadn’t slept well at all during the night. When I saw that it was 6:10am on my phone and I was wide awake, I thought I might as well go and try and take pictures of the sunrise over Bondi Beach. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. HUKA FALLS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Huka Falls written by aebigtrip. Sunday 30/03/2014 Andie writing. The previous two church services we’d been to were quite traditional Anglican in style. 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES 8th June: Spider Walking through Scenic Gorges. Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing up waterfalls and sliding down rivers indinghies!
VIRGINA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 6th September: On to the Outer Banks. Saturday 06/09/2014. Em writing. The day began with pain au chocolats for breakfast, always a good start! Then we went for a morning swim, this time to warm up after the freezing temperature of the air con! All was well until a fierce and cross woman appeared who told us off for being in the pool as, ‘theCHURCH STREET
Posts about Church Street written by aebigtrip. Sunday 21/09/2014 Em writing. Today we enjoyed a gentle wake up in the morning. DAN BROWN | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Tuesday 11/08/2015 Andie writing. We managed to get up early and off to the airport in plenty of time. Mum kindly took us down and waved us off. There wasn’t much traffic or queue for check in so we had a bit of time in the airport. 22ND JULY: HOT HOT HOT AT HOOVER DAM Tuesday 22/07/2014 Em writing We packed up and were out of our AirBnB by 11:30am. Then we drove back to the MGM Grand as Andie thought he had seen a sharps bin for my used diabetes supplies there. However, we couldn't find one when we got there so it could have been in any other ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
ANGEL OF THE NORTH
Posts about Angel of the North written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am.MUSICK POINT
Posts about Musick Point written by aebigtrip. Sunday 13/04/2014 Andie writing. Today started as another relaxing morning with a long lie infor Em and I.
TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow. PINNACLES | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Pinnacles written by aebigtrip. Saturday 14/06/2014 Andie writing. This was the last day of the tour, which meant the main activity would be a really long drive back to Perth and saying bye to many of the friends we’d made. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. VIRGINA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 6th September: On to the Outer Banks. Saturday 06/09/2014. Em writing. The day began with pain au chocolats for breakfast, always a good start! Then we went for a morning swim, this time to warm up after the freezing temperature of the air con! All was well until a fierce and cross woman appeared who told us off for being in the pool as, ‘the BAD AIRBNB | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 10/09/2014 Em writing. Before our journey began, our AirBnB cooked breakfast for us that was a nice for a change. Mark and I had fried egg on toast and Andie enjoyed some pancakes. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
ANGEL OF THE NORTH
Posts about Angel of the North written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am.MUSICK POINT
Posts about Musick Point written by aebigtrip. Sunday 13/04/2014 Andie writing. Today started as another relaxing morning with a long lie infor Em and I.
TRAMS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 17/09/2014 Em writing. Our plan for the day was to walk around a historical trail around Boston. It seemed like such a good idea to have a trail marked out for tourists to follow. PINNACLES | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Pinnacles written by aebigtrip. Saturday 14/06/2014 Andie writing. This was the last day of the tour, which meant the main activity would be a really long drive back to Perth and saying bye to many of the friends we’d made. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. VIRGINA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 6th September: On to the Outer Banks. Saturday 06/09/2014. Em writing. The day began with pain au chocolats for breakfast, always a good start! Then we went for a morning swim, this time to warm up after the freezing temperature of the air con! All was well until a fierce and cross woman appeared who told us off for being in the pool as, ‘the BAD AIRBNB | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Wednesday 10/09/2014 Em writing. Before our journey began, our AirBnB cooked breakfast for us that was a nice for a change. Mark and I had fried egg on toast and Andie enjoyed some pancakes. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! NOUMEA - ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Monday 21/04/2014. Em writing. I had a much better night’s sleep in our tent camped in the grounds of Pascale and Guy’s home. For some reason, Andie had slept better on our desert island although he still had to get up at 4:30am to pump up our inflatable mattress again! This was a running joke throughout the day due to the squeakiness of 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES 8th June: Spider Walking through Scenic Gorges. Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing up waterfalls and sliding down rivers indinghies!
HAIGHT-ASHBURY
Monday 01/09/2014 Em writing. It was back to our usual routine of having a relaxed morning today. It began with a yummy combination of yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, which included fresh grapes from the vines in our host’s garden.OPERA HOUSE
Tuesday 06/05/2014 Andie writing. I hadn’t slept well at all during the night. When I saw that it was 6:10am on my phone and I was wide awake, I thought I might as well go and try and take pictures of the sunrise over Bondi Beach. HUKA FALLS | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Huka Falls written by aebigtrip. Sunday 30/03/2014 Andie writing. The previous two church services we’d been to were quite traditional Anglican in style. VIRGINA | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 6th September: On to the Outer Banks. Saturday 06/09/2014. Em writing. The day began with pain au chocolats for breakfast, always a good start! Then we went for a morning swim, this time to warm up after the freezing temperature of the air con! All was well until a fierce and cross woman appeared who told us off for being in the pool as, ‘the 22ND JULY: HOT HOT HOT AT HOOVER DAM Tuesday 22/07/2014 Em writing We packed up and were out of our AirBnB by 11:30am. Then we drove back to the MGM Grand as Andie thought he had seen a sharps bin for my used diabetes supplies there. However, we couldn't find one when we got there so it could have been in any other A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. MASSAGE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Massage written by aebigtrip. 10/06/2014 Em writing. It was a rainy, windy, grey day today and quite a few of the group were disappointed that the whale shark tour had been cancelled. DAN BROWN | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Tuesday 11/08/2015 Andie writing. We managed to get up early and off to the airport in plenty of time. Mum kindly took us down and waved us off. There wasn’t much traffic or queue for check in so we had a bit of time in the airport. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
MALL | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 04/09/2014 Andie writing. We got up around 10, as it was nice to have a good sleep in after the rather stressful previous two days. Yet we didn’t want to get up too late as today was the only day we now had to see Washington. TAG ARCHIVES: POUGHKEEPSIE 11th September: Historical New York State. Thursday 11/09/2014. Andie writing. Our host on the farm cooked us a hot breakfast of eggs fried inside circular holes in slices of bread. I think he was trying to be fancy but it was just like eggy bread really. It was a pity thatNATIONAL LIBRARY
Posts about National Library written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am. SEINE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Seine written by aebigtrip. Sunday 26/07/2015 Andie writing. All the tiredness of the previous weeks and the walking of the day before had really caught upGRAND TETON
Posts about Grand Teton written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD Monday 04/08/2014 Andie writing. Today started fairly early for us as we knew we had a long drive touring Glacier National Park. Once we’d had our breakfast and made a A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES 8th June: Spider Walking through Scenic Gorges. Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing up waterfalls and sliding down rivers indinghies!
ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished myEngD
MALL | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 04/09/2014 Andie writing. We got up around 10, as it was nice to have a good sleep in after the rather stressful previous two days. Yet we didn’t want to get up too late as today was the only day we now had to see Washington. TAG ARCHIVES: POUGHKEEPSIE 11th September: Historical New York State. Thursday 11/09/2014. Andie writing. Our host on the farm cooked us a hot breakfast of eggs fried inside circular holes in slices of bread. I think he was trying to be fancy but it was just like eggy bread really. It was a pity thatNATIONAL LIBRARY
Posts about National Library written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am. SEINE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Seine written by aebigtrip. Sunday 26/07/2015 Andie writing. All the tiredness of the previous weeks and the walking of the day before had really caught upGRAND TETON
Posts about Grand Teton written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD Monday 04/08/2014 Andie writing. Today started fairly early for us as we knew we had a long drive touring Glacier National Park. Once we’d had our breakfast and made a A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. CHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD Wednesday 12/03/2014. After having breakfast at our AirBnb we packed up and went to the Westfield Mall. Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in South Island and is probably the hub of economic activity in Christchurch now the centre is out of action. 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES 8th June: Spider Walking through Scenic Gorges. Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing up waterfalls and sliding down rivers indinghies!
ROMAN RUINS
Today we got up earlyish to catch the 11am taxi boat to Trogir so that we could pick up a hire car from the airport. Our journey time to Trogir was a bit longer this time as there were more people to pick up from different stops along the way. EMPIRE STATE BUILDING Interestingly, these prices were different between different bikes, ranging from $2.50 to $5 per minute. We thought that was a bit steep so declined their repeated offers. Even more luxurious were the white horse-drawn carriages pulled by white horses. They started from $30 per minute, with a minimum of 10 minutes per ride, so we definitely TAG ARCHIVES: NORTHLAND Thursday 10/04/2014 Em writing. I got up at 7:30am ready for an early departure knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us back to Auckland. However, it was just before 10am before we left, as is usual with the Burkimshers! SPLIT ROCK | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Split Rock written by aebigtrip. 26/03/2014 Andie writing. As this was our last full day in Nelson, we decided we really had to get to Abel Tasman National Park, given that so many people rave about it’s beauty so much. NOVEMBER | 2014 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Saturday 13/09/2014 Em writing. Staten Island was our destination today and it was a grey and busy drive to get there. I was grateful for Andie’s help as well as the satnav to navigate between many spaghetti junctions and be in the right lane!GIBB RIVER ROAD
Thursday 29/05/2014. Andie writing. It was up at dawn again as usual before having our breakfast. Our first activity of the day was to go on a short bus ride to Zebedee Springs. These are some natural thermal springs that are 28-32 degrees all year round, just like a bath! Although the morning was cool, it was nice to jump into the warm water EARTHQUAKE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Monday 10/03/2014. We had to wake up around 09:00, which was hard given when we’d fallen asleep the night before. Waking up and going in to the cold bathroom was a bit of a shock to the system, as it felt so cold compared to the tropics we’d been in for several weeks! 31ST JULY: PRISMATIC POOLS AND STEAMING GEYSERS IN Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. This meant we actually had to be up and off soon after 8am to meet our 9am breakfast deadline! It also meant that we would have plenty of time to explore Teton and Yellowstone NationalGOLDEN GATE BRIDGE
Monday 01/09/2014 Em writing. It was back to our usual routine of having a relaxed morning today. It began with a yummy combination of yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, which included fresh grapes from the vines in our host’s garden.SPENCER SMITH PARK
When we got back, Lauren was out so Em and I had a little date night in just us together. We ate the leftover bread and dips and watched some streaming TV episodes. When Lauren came back we ended up talking until the early morning again! 43.325520 -79.799032. ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing. Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! MALL | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 04/09/2014 Andie writing. We got up around 10, as it was nice to have a good sleep in after the rather stressful previous two days. Yet we didn’t want to get up too late as today was the only day we now had to see Washington. SEINE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Seine written by aebigtrip. Sunday 26/07/2015 Andie writing. All the tiredness of the previous weeks and the walking of the day before had really caught upNATIONAL LIBRARY
Posts about National Library written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am.GRAND TETON
Posts about Grand Teton written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. TAG ARCHIVES: POUGHKEEPSIE Thursday 11/09/2014 Andie writing. Our host on the farm cooked us a hot breakfast of eggs fried inside circular holes in slices of bread. I think he was trying to be fancy but it was just like eggy breadreally.
LAKE CAVE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Friday 20/06/2014 Andie writing. After a leisurely breakfast we set off in the car. We decided to head down towards the extreme south-western point of Australia called Cape Leeuwin. GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD Monday 04/08/2014 Andie writing. Today started fairly early for us as we knew we had a long drive touring Glacier National Park. Once we’d had our breakfast and made a A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES Sunday 08/06/2014 Em writing (some photos by Emmi and Kathleen) Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbing ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP 19/08/2015 Em writing. Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! MALL | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Thursday 04/09/2014 Andie writing. We got up around 10, as it was nice to have a good sleep in after the rather stressful previous two days. Yet we didn’t want to get up too late as today was the only day we now had to see Washington. SEINE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Seine written by aebigtrip. Sunday 26/07/2015 Andie writing. All the tiredness of the previous weeks and the walking of the day before had really caught upNATIONAL LIBRARY
Posts about National Library written by aebigtrip. Saturday 10/05/2014 Em writing. We got up in a flurry today as Naomi and Patrick had said they wanted to set off around 9.30am.GRAND TETON
Posts about Grand Teton written by aebigtrip. Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing. Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. TAG ARCHIVES: POUGHKEEPSIE Thursday 11/09/2014 Andie writing. Our host on the farm cooked us a hot breakfast of eggs fried inside circular holes in slices of bread. I think he was trying to be fancy but it was just like eggy breadreally.
LAKE CAVE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Friday 20/06/2014 Andie writing. After a leisurely breakfast we set off in the car. We decided to head down towards the extreme south-western point of Australia called Cape Leeuwin. GOING-TO-THE-SUN ROAD Monday 04/08/2014 Andie writing. Today started fairly early for us as we knew we had a long drive touring Glacier National Park. Once we’d had our breakfast and made a A&W BURGER | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about A&W Burger written by aebigtrip. Monday 22/09/2014 Em writing (aka Crossing the border in French) Today we were up earlier than usual as we had another coach to catch to Montreal. 8TH JUNE: SPIDER WALKING THROUGH SCENIC GORGES Sunday 08/06/2014 Em writing (some photos by Emmi and Kathleen) Today was an action packed day which included 3 hikes for most of us. Six of the group (Hannah, Victor, Almut, Robin, Ben and Andrew (not Andie!)) went on a canyonning tour with 3 other guides. This was even more action packed with abseiling, climbingROMAN RUINS
Today we got up earlyish to catch the 11am taxi boat to Trogir so that we could pick up a hire car from the airport. Our journey time to Trogir was a bit longer this time as there were more people to pick up from different stops along the way. TAG ARCHIVES: NORTHLAND Thursday 10/04/2014 Em writing. I got up at 7:30am ready for an early departure knowing that we had a long drive ahead of us back to Auckland. However, it was just before 10am before we left, as is usual with the Burkimshers!SUMMIT LAKE
Saturday 23/08/2014 Andie writing. We were actually up promptly to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park! I’d remembered it as being a highlight of my previous California trip and didn’t want to missout!
GIBB RIVER ROAD
Wednesday 28/05/2014 Andie writing. After one of our usual sunrise starts, we packed up camp onto the bus. Just before we left, a blue-winged kookaburra came and settled on a tree nearby our bus! This species isn’t especially common on the East Coast, so even SPLIT ROCK | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Posts about Split Rock written by aebigtrip. 26/03/2014 Andie writing. As this was our last full day in Nelson, we decided we really had to get to Abel Tasman National Park, given that so many people rave about it’s beauty so much. NOVEMBER | 2014 | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Saturday 13/09/2014 Em writing. Staten Island was our destination today and it was a grey and busy drive to get there. I was grateful for Andie’s help as well as the satnav to navigate between many spaghetti junctions and be in the right lane! EARTHQUAKE | ANDIE & EM'S BIG TRIP Monday 10/03/2014. We had to wake up around 09:00, which was hard given when we’d fallen asleep the night before. Waking up and going in to the cold bathroom was a bit of a shock to the system, as it felt so cold compared to the tropics we’d been in for several weeks! 31ST JULY: PRISMATIC POOLS AND STEAMING GEYSERS IN Thursday 31/07/2014 Em writing Today we’d made a smart decision to meet one of Andie’s friends for breakfast in Jackson. This meant we actually had to be up and off soon after 8am to meet our 9am breakfast deadline! It also meant that we would have plenty of time to explore Teton and Yellowstone NationalGOLDEN GATE BRIDGE
Monday 01/09/2014 Em writing. It was back to our usual routine of having a relaxed morning today. It began with a yummy combination of yoghurt and fruit for breakfast, which included fresh grapes from the vines in our host’s garden. EMPIRE STATE BUILDING Monday 15/09/2014 Andie writing. There was still lots we wanted to see in Manhattan after yesterday, so we headed back there again. We knew what to do this time, so it was easy to get the metro, Staten Island ferry and then another metro to get to Midtown Manhattan and CentralPark.
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CHRISTMAS/NEW YEAR LETTER 2015 It’s been quite a year. In fact, it’s been quite a couple of years. Just over two years ago, Emily and I moved out of our flat in York to embark on a pretty incredible adventure. It had been our dream since we got married in 2008 to go and travel around the world together for a year before we settled down and had kids. After 5 years of saving up, I finished my EngD thesis and Em finished a teaching contract at the same time, and we realised the time had come to set off. At that point, we had been in York since late 2004, over 9 years. We loved York, and still love it. But it felt like we had had our time there, that there was still more for us to see, somewhere else to live and experience. It definitely wasn’t that there was anything wrong with York, it was just that that chapter of our lives was coming to an end, and we were ready for a new chapter to begin. Before we went off travelling, we really prayed that God would give us direction in where to settle after our trip: either He would make it clear where we should go and live, or He would make it clear that Europe was home and we should go back home. My fantasy at the time was to work for Google, who have their main offices in Sydney (Australia), Zürich (Switzerland) and Mountain View (USA). We saw a lot of places while travelling between February and October in 2014. There are a lot of very nice cities and towns throughout the world, many of which we liked very much. But God answered our prayer, because we fell in love with Melbourne, Australia. It actually took a good couple of months for it to really sink in that Melbourne felt that much more ‘right’ than other places we’d visited. Although we only had two visits to Melbourne, one of 3 days and one of 5, and saw it in the sun and the rain, it was just clear to us that it felt like home. I think the greatest answer to prayer was that Emily and I fell in love with it independently – we both got the same answer to our prayer. It would have been very awkward had we both fallen in love with different places!! But God is good and it was becoming clear to us that He had big plans for us over there! After having provided the means to go travelling for a year, God provided again when we returned to York after our return. The tenants in my Gran’s old house were moving out just before we got back, and after a little coordination with the Yorkshire Landlady (my Mum), we were able to have somewhere to live straight away. God even provided lots of supply teaching work for Em, a short-term contract for me back at university working for my supervisor again, and a spare room in the house that we could use to be AirBnb hosts. This meant we could save up quickly enough to make the move to Australia happen in the summer. A further grace was that when Em’s grandfather passed away, we were already back from the Big Trip so we could be there with the family. He had a heart attack and despite a Do Not Resuscitate order, was revived anyway. He only lived another day or two, but during that time returned to consciousness sufficiently to lucidly say goodbye to the family, and hear their expressions of love too. Originally we had thought we would just get a working holiday visa for Australia so we could get back out here as quickly as we could. Working holiday visas have some disadvantages, however, as they are basically limited to unskilled work, and you can’t work for any employer for longer than 6 months. This really puts employers off hiring you. Amazingly, we discovered the 476 skilled temporary visa, which seemed tailor-made for me (another amazing answer to prayer!). It’s an 18 month unrestricted working visa and it covers both of us. It’s available to people under 31 who have recently got a masters or doctorate in a short list of desirable fields. Most amazingly, my doctoral subject was on their list! I knew I then needed to wait until I had actually passed my doctorate to apply for this visa. That meant passing my Viva, the examination you do at the end of a doctorate where you defend your thesis in front of examiners, which I did at the very end of November 2014. I then needed to do minor corrections and have them accepted, which I managed to do by the end of February 2015. By this time I had a contract until mid-May back at the university. Our Plan A was to work until the end of the academic year, then I would go to my graduation in mid-July, and then we’d set off to Australia. So we applied for the visa, and waited. I’d originally thought that the processing time was about 2 months. However, shortly after we applied towards the end of March, we found out that the average processing time had risen to 7-8 months. This meant we’d probably only be hearing an answer around Christmas-time 2015. This also meant I would need another job to keep me going, and if I did, it would probably be at least a 12 month contract – pushing back our plans to get to Australia for another year. While it was truly great to have a place to live in my Gran’s old house, it never really felt like home. I was thrown into even more confusion when the flat we had lived in before we went off travelling came up for rent again. For almost 2 months, it felt like we were going to have to be in York for a bit longer, and we had options inviting us to stay (including a lead of a possible job for me). I found this spell very disquieting. Em and I both knew we were meant to be in Melbourne, yet there seemed to be signs pointing us to stay in York too, at least for a little bitlonger.
Again, God answered our prayers. We went to the pub with our friends Graham and Gill. They had faced similar circumstances and feelings before they moved to Seattle almost 2 decades earlier. They reassured us to keep trusting in God, and encouraged us that if we were really meant to go, the signs pointing us to stay may be illusory. They were right – the lead for a job for me fizzled out, and our flat was letout again.
And then, God showed His power in even more wonderful ways. After only 7 weeks, we were assigned a case officer for our Australian visa. They asked for a few more documents, but let us know that once we provided them, we would be granted our visas straight away. I actually read that email on my phone when it came in in the middle of the night, and I remember just lying there trembling with joy, trying (and failing) not to wake Emily. We weren’t going to have to wait another year!! Plan A could go ahead! This was swiftly followed by one of the busiest yet most exciting 2-month periods of our lives: I wrote up a journal paper at work. We planned all the practicalities of a move to the other side of the world. We planned a holiday seeing the sights of Europe we’d not yet seen (to take place while our stuff was on the 3-month ship journey). We made the most of our time still in Europe to see lots of friends. We ran our AirBnb which was full virtually every night. We sold lots of our stuff and packed the rest to go into a 6 cubic metre MoveCube. We finished the decorating of Gran’s house that we’d started when we first arrived and the Yorkshire Landlady (rightfully) insisted we finished before we moved out. And finally, I graduated. All of this happened so quickly that we didn’t even look into jobs in Australia (we wanted to – we just didn’t have time!). On our last weekend in the UK, we went down to London to catch up with a lot of old friends. Jen, a dear friend from high school, was actually away for the weekend so wasn’t able to meet up. On the Sunday, however, she said that she would be getting back into London, with just enough time for us to have a half-hour overlap to catch up in a burger joint at Kings Cross station. How little did I know how hard God was pulling the strings for that meeting to happen… At that meeting, Jen’s husband came along too and I asked him what he was doing for work at the moment. He said he was working for a startup company doing scheduling. He pricked his ears up when I said I’d just finished my doctorate in exactly that field. I pricked my ears up even more when he said that his company (RotaGeek) were opening an office in Melbourne, and were hiring! We exchanged our email addresses, and Em and I ran for our train! The summer holiday itself was marvellous too. Once all our stuff was packed up, we were free to explore some more corners of Europe, knowing that doing so wouldn’t be so easy if we were going to be living on the other side of the world. We did Paris, the Loire Valley, Provence, and the Côte d’Azur in France, even managing to meet up with my best man James and Kate his then girlfriend, now fiancée in Provence, and Em’s parents in the Côte d’Azur. We saw my parents in Geneva and then flew over to Split and worked our way up on the train Zagreb via the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia, Lake Bled in Slovenia, and Bad Gastein, Salzburg, Zell am See, Hallstättersee and Vienna inAustria.
On a quiet morning in Zagreb, I had a Skype chat with the RotaGeek company founders, and what they were offering seemed perfect. After Vienna, we flew back to Geneva for a few more nights with my parents before we flew off to Singapore and then on to Melbourne. On the night before we left Europe, I had a Skype interview with the RotaGeek founders, and they offered me a job!! How amazing God is!! My job was to start 7 weeks after we arrived in Melbourne. Perfect timing – time to explore the city a bit, find a place to live and get unpacked and settled. It was also an enormous relief to know that I’d have a job to go to. Up until that point I kept having little and not so little moments of doubt, thinking we were crazy to leave everything and move to the other side of the world, with only the conviction that God wanted us there, but without being sure what for! One afternoon, sometime during the Big Trip, while daydreaming and indulging our fantasies, I described to Em what I thought a perfect life might look like. A job that mostly involved coding, solving really interesting problems, yet somehow also being meaningful in a way that helped people including those less fortunate. It was too much to ask that it would be in scheduling (I supposed), my research felt too niche for that. A job with a small team where I could have a real impact, and where I was accepted for who I am, including being able to dress as I feel comfortable with, representing my gender identity authentically. I dreamed that we’d live in a well-designed modern flat. We laughed with incredulity when I said it would be just perfect if we lived above a French bakery too. Em added that she’d like a sea view from the place we lived, a pool and jacuzzi, and be able to work in a job that made the most of her expertise in teaching French. I may have added something about being able to walk to work and having a fibre-optic internet connection. We laughed at the ludicrousness of wanting so many things at once, but thought we could spend the rest of our careers working towards some pieces of a dream like this. Oh we of little faith: God is GOOD. Every single part of that impossibly amazing fantasy has come true. There have been some pretty dark places and moments this year where our faith wavered and the burden of uncertainties felt crushing. Em in particular struggled for many weeks after we got here before she’d found any meaningful work and when there were but a couple of weeks left of the academic year and she still hadn’t found anything. Yet God is good: Em got the job at the first place she was invited for interview, for her perfect job too (French teacher for a whole primary school, working for someone who also went to York St. John university! Some people have said to us that these answers are ‘rewards’ for our faith, for giving up ‘everything’ to follow Him without knowing what would be waiting. But I don’t think that God is a genie or that it’s that simple. Some people have more faith than we do, by far, and yet deal with pain, heartbreak and suffering all the time. What I do know is that none of what has happened this year would have been possible without God. He set up “coincidences” that have changed our lives. He knew what He was doing when he pointed us to come to Melbourne. We are here in Melbourne for a reason, that much is clear from all the doors that have flung wide. We are in two amazing Bible study groups (both so different and yet both so good we can’t decide between them!), and an amazing local church who are so warm and welcoming. everyone there all knew our names the second Sunday we went! We have already made great friends, many who feel like they’ve been friends for years. My gender identity and expression of it are celebrated as diversity (in church, work and society in general), rather than being barely tolerated or outright disdained in Europe. I don’t believe I deserve this in any way, and I strongly believe I have a duty to be a good steward of what has been given to us. I am constantly reminded of Luke 12:48, “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.” What I feel right now is an overwhelming sense of gratitude, of thanksgiving, for a wonderful, exciting yet crazy year, and for GOD seeing us through the dark moments. I also rejoice for having good health and that Em’s Continuous Glucose Monitoring System helps her keep her levels undertight control.
I believe 2016 will be somewhat less dramatic than 2015, as our current Australian visa extends until early 2017. We’d appreciate prayer for direction as to what the future holds after that. God has plans that work to His glory. True Christianity isn’t about following a set of mediaeval rules and traditions. It’s about following a living, caring, Great God. Being a part of His plan is both more exciting than you could possibly imagine and also more satisfying, because we get to live out who we were truly created to be. I hope and pray that 2016 will fill you with faith and you’ll see more of God’s hand than ever before – even those of you who might never have appreciated His presence before. God bless you all for a wonderful 2016, and I pray that when the difficult moments come, you will know His presence with you there too.Andie
January 2, 2016
aebigtrip
Androgyny
, Australia
, Europe
, God
, Grace
, Melbourne
, Provision
, UK
, Year Summary
, York
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20TH AUGUST: LAKE BLED TO BAD GASTEIN Thursday 20/08/2015Em writing
We’d been studying the forecast ever since we arrived in Bled, hoping for a sunny day to really appreciate the true beauty of the scenery. Luckily, it was forecast to be blue sky first thing in the morning before we had to catch our train to Bad Gastein. However, this meant getting up at 5:30am for sunrise at 6:10am. It was a bit of an effort to get Andie out of bed but I persuaded them that it was our last opportunity to get sunny pictures of the lake, like they’d seen online. It was a bit of a walk to the best viewing spots of the church on the island in the lake but Andie got some beautiful shots as I admired the view next to them. I saw a sign for a viewpoint from one of the hotel grounds and the gate up to it was open so I convinced Andie that it was worth a try to see if we could get in! We walked up some very steep steps to the café on columns we’d seen the previous day. Luckily there was no-one around so we didn’t get escorted off hotel property! The views were amazing so it would have been worth it evenif we had been!
We were out taking photos until 7:20am. Back at the AirBnB, Andie had a rest as they weren’t feeling great, then we packed up and had a quick breakfast. There was still no hot water so we didn’t have a shower. We felt sorry for the people who would be sharing a compartment with us on the train later! Just after 8am, we walked back down to the lake edge. Andie took lots more photos as the sun was now shining on the church itself. I left them there while I went to guard the bus stop as our bus for the station was due in at 8:24am. Luckily Andie arrived before then as the bus came 4 minutes early and departed as soon as we were aboard! We’d allowed extra time to get to the station as the buses only went hourly and when we’d arrived the bus had been 20 minutes late. As it happened, the bus was on time so we had a little while to wait in the station for our train. Once again, we availed ourselves of the fast, free wifi to sort a lot of the AirBnB reviews and let our next hosts know when we’d be arriving. The friendly man in the station office recognised us and said hello and hoped we’d enjoyed our stay. He also asked us to remind him where our next stop was. Then an elderly man from the UK chatted to the station man and said he’d found the lady in the tourist office in Bled really helpful and friendly. The station man said that was his wife so the elderly man told him to pass on his thanks! It was a very sweet conversation to overhear! We went out to the platform a few minutes before our train was due to arrive and saw it was one again full of UK backpackers! When the train came, it was really busy so we were glad we had reserved our seats. Andie told me that the train with some through carriages had come from Belgrade and it was going all the way to Frankfurt via Zagreb, Ljubljana, Villach, Salzburg, Munich and Stuttgart. We were ‘only’ on it for 2 hours: from Lesce Bled to Bad Gastein. Finding our train compartment, we settled into our reserved seats. This meant that the compartment of 6 was then full with us, 2 girls from Melbourne, 1 girl from London/Essex and 1 Slovenian lady. When we got on the girls were animatedly talking about Harry Potter as the carriage was set out in compartments like the books. The girls were having fun imagining what would happen if the train stopped and dementors flew past and everything went cold! The Australians asked us to all introduce ourselves and then we got talking about travel and moving to Australia. We felt old when we found out they’d just finished school! They were amazed that we’d been together 12 years and married 7 already (still in our twenties though!!) We asked the Australians for tips of what scenic things to see around Melbourne and they suggested 1000 steps, some mountains near the steps, Philip Island with penguins, the 12 apostles and a huge rocksomewhere!
While the Australians had a snooze, we chatted to the English girl who explained she had made a bucket list with her friend. They had then compared lists, seen what they had in common and were trying to do that this summer. They both wanted to do paragliding and had decided to do it over Lake Bled but unfortunately the weather had meant they’d had to cancel. They were heading to Munich before flying home so they hadn’t yet ticked paragliding off their list. Then the English girl told us about her work back in the UK in ‘Kidzania’. She described it as a city for children where they could be whatever they wanted to be for the day e.g. fireman, astronaut, actor, etc. Her job was to make all the outfits for the professions which sounded like a really cool thing to do! We also passed an amusingly named town! As we came through the tunnel the weather changed a lot, from sunny and warmish to cold and raining. It was only 12°C when we stepped onto the platform in Bad Gastein – brr!! We arrived at 12:45pm but couldn’t check into our youth hostel until 2pm so we went across the road from the station to a little restaurant. There a very friendly couple served us with an intriguing menu! Andie had venison stew with wild mushrooms and bread dumpling. I had gulasch soup with dark bread. The dishes were so deeply rich in flavour, they were absolutely delicious. Once again, we were so happy to be back in gastronomic land! It was only 1:30pm after our main courses so we just had to have puddings as well! Andie only had a hot chocolate but he helped me out with the chocolate cake I ordered that came with cream, ice cream and chocolate sauce. The cake was really moist and nutty probably because it had almond flour in it like one I sometimes make. There were yummy Austrian spices in the bread and in the cake. We weren’t sure what they were but we’d had them before here and they’re so yummy! Just after 2pm, we checked in at our youth hostel which was inside a grand old hotel building. We found out later that Bad Gastein had been a tourist boom town from the arrival of the railways (1906) until the 1960s, but it fell out of fashion after that. The railway had been designed as double-track, and the huge tunnel through the mountain built in 1906 was double track. It wasn’t until 2007 though that the route up and down the mountain was completed using double tracking. It was a shame to learn that many hotel buildings were no longer used. At least having a youth hostel meant that this building was still servingthe same purpose.
There is a spa right opposite the station and those that have followed our blog for a while will know that we love our spa pools! Andie thought we’d been to this one before when driving up the valley with his Mum and Dad in 2009. However, when we googled it we realised it was a much smaller development with only saunas and a lane pool. The one we had been to before was in Bad Hofgastein down the valley. A quick search on Googlemaps told us there was a bus going that way from the station in only 5 minutes’ time! It was a bit of a mad rush to grab our swimming things and run down there but we made it! We were glad as the next one would have been an hour’s wait! The bus was driven by a bit of a crazy bus driver who seemed to enjoy speeding down the steep and winding alpine roads! It was a relief when we got there! The youth hostel had given us a discount card for local attractions so we were glad to get money off our 4 hour ticket in the spa. That time went by very quickly! We enjoyed the warm indoor and outdoor pool and spas, saunas and steam rooms. Andie even nodded off for a while in the ‘warm’ room which was about 35°c! I guess it had been an early start to the day! The timing worked well as we were able to get the last bus back to Bad Gastein. There weren’t many options for places to eat so we ending up eating in the youth hostel restaurant. I had a club sandwich and a huge mountain of chips. Andie had a local dish made of spaetzle and melted cheese (a bit like macaroni cheese but with spaetzli (chunky fried pasta) and mountain cheese). Andie was a bit naughty and told me the tartare sauce that came with my club sandwich was actually ‘herby mayo’. I really don’t like tartare sauce especially the chopped gherkins that can sometimes be added. This one must have been a mild version as it wasn’t too bad! After dinner, we looked around the games room. We would have had a table football game but we didn’t have the right change. There were lots of old mountaineering photos on the wall, as well as old photos of Bad Gastein. Looking at these we realised that a huge waterfall cascades right through the middle of the town! We decided to try and see it in the morning. I was interested to discover an Austrian talent dance show was on TV when we went into our room. Andie chatted to his Mum on Facebook whilst I watched it. As talent shows go it was pretty good and featured a range of dance acts from contemporary to ballet. Most of the dancers performing were really talented.47.114089 13.132661
September 4, 2015
aebigtrip
Austria
, Bad Gastein
, Early
, Lake Bled
, Photogtaphy
, Slovenia
, Spa
, Tauern Tunnel
, Travel
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19TH AUGUST: WALK AROUND LAKE BLED19/08/2015
Em writing
Unusually it was Andie who had a nice sleep in rather than me! He got up about 9:30 after having been in bed about 10pm the day before! We tried to have showers but there was no hot water so we only had very quick ones! We hadn’t brought any breakfast with us so we went out to a mini supermarket by the lake. I got a chocolate croissant and Andie bought a cheese pastry. It was savoury not sweet (unlike lunchtime the day before) but it was made with a very similar mild/cottage cheese. We enjoyed sitting on a bench by the lake as weate them.
After breakfast, we set off to walk around Lake Bled. Even though it was cloudy it was still so scenic! Lake Bled has a small island in the middle of it with a pretty church on. The church standing there was from the 1740s after an earthquake destroyed the previous one. There were so many scenic viewpoints of the church that surprise surprise Andie stopped to take a lot of pictures! There seemed to be some kind of fishing event going on as there were very pro fishermen all set up around the lake. I watched a very excited crowd of people watching one of the men catch a whopper – 20kg!! He was throwing balls of something into the lake but we didn’t know what for. He was throwing maybe some sort of fish food to attract them using a hollow pipe thing. At one end of the lake was a swimming area that had been roped off. We were surprised to see some people were swimming as the air was pretty cool. Andie dipped his fingers in the water and told me it actually felt warm – 24°C or so. There is a warm spring at the lakeshore at one part, though ‘warm’ is just 23°C and it is like this all yearround.
A little further along the lake we were able to look across at a very modern meeting/conference room centre. It was all glass with posts actually supporting it in the lake. It looked like a cool place to have a conference! Further up the hillside, we could also see a hotel café building on huge columns that would have provided a good view ofthe lake.
We stopped for a drink overlooking the scenic view and then walked past a cafe. What was cool about the cafe was that there was a barrel outside with cans in it that rotated as it was cooled with mountain stream water flowing into it. Further along we noticed some springs that came up right by the lakeshore. There was also a large beach area and of course many posh-looking chalet hotels. We passed a lake pool though there were not many in as the air was quite cold. There was also a café above. We wandered along a bit but went back to the café as I needed some food! Andie had tortellini in paprika, tomato, bacon and cream sauce which was delicious. I had a really rich and flavoursome mushroom soup with soft bread which was also really good. It seems that Slovenian chefs have discovered herbs and seasonings! It was so, so nice to be back to gastronomic food :D! As we were eating there was reggae music playing on the sound system, the same that we’d listened to on the bus heading into Split. It seems like the Slovenians are into reggae music over here! We also listened to a conversation from a group of Aussies next to us talking about an art museum in Tasmania. We’d heard how good it was from our friends Matt and Laura who’d just been there recently so we added it to our ‘To see’ list at some point in the future! The Aussies were also encouraging their friend to visit Melbourne describing it as the best city in Aus! That may have something to do with why we’re goingthere too!
After lunch, we wandered into Bled town looking for a pharmacy for some paracetamol for Andie. Unfortunately he was feeling quite ill again. We found some just as it started raining. We decided to walk slowly back to our AirBnB getting some breakfast for the day after from a supermarket. Once we were back we uploaded more blogs while it rained. We thought about having a warm shower to warm up but there wasstill no hot water.
Because of the weather and how Andie was feeling we wandered back to the lake for tea and chose the other close by restaurant. Andie had beef broth to start with, then sausage n veg. I chose a ‘small’ pizza but when it arrived a really sweet German family having their dinner opposite us exclaimed “Is that the small one!?” We laughed about it together because, you guessed it, it was enormous! The German family told us to have a good meal and a good evening in English and Andie replied in German to them. We had no room for pudding even with Andie helping me out with my ‘small’ pizza! 46.363598 14.093805 September 4, 2015aebigtrip
Bled
, Church
, Island
, Lake Bled
, Photography
, Pizza
, Scenic
, Slovenia
, Travel
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18TH AUGUST: ZAGREB TO LAKE BLEDTuesday 18/08/2015
Andie writing
I had to be up fairly early this morning as I’d arranged a Skype chat (informal interview really) with a startup company in Melbourne. They seem to do very interesting work that’s a nice continuation and development of what I was doing for my doctorate. I thought the chat went very well, it seemed like both them and I came away thinking it would be good to work together. Nothing’s formalised yet, but it feels very exciting that I have this very promising lead :). After my Skype chat I wrote a few notes down about it, then we finished packing up. I was still feeling pretty ill and exhausted, so it took rather a while to get packed. In the end there was just time to wander over to the station, buy some lunch and a large box of tissues, and get on our train. We stopped for a full 45 minutes to cross the border into Slovenia. A new country for both Em and I, exciting! We had to show our passports to both the Croatian and Slovenian border guards. The guards also did a very thorough search of the train to check that there were no stowaways. I was surprised we had to show our passports as Croatia is in the EU, though I’ve just checked and realised that it’s not in Schengen. We hadn’t had to show our passports on arrival in Croatia, though, even coming from a Schengen country. The differences out of the window were striking as the train continued into Slovenia. The train ride got a lot smoother as the track became continuous-welded on concrete sleepers instead of sectioned track on wooden sleepers. The architecture changed immediately too, from what I think of as looking very French on the Croatian side, to looking very Austrian on the Slovenian side. The houses changed from being crépi walls with a darker stripe around the base with red rooves, to concrete/white/stone bases with wooden chalet top floors with balconies, and grey/slate rooves. What was also striking was the difference in apparent prosperity. Many parts of Croatia had looked quite dilapidated, whereas as a first impression, Slovenia looked just like Austria. Considering that they’d both been part of Yugoslavia, I wonder if the difference in prosperity has been due to Slovenia being part of the Euro currency area while Croatia is not? [later note on upload: It’s probably even more to do with the fact that Slovenia’s war of independence lasted 10 days, while Croatia’slasted 5 years).
On the train we were joined in our compartment by an Australian couple from Sydney. They were really chatty so we struck up a conversation. We found out that they were doing the opposite to us: emigrating from Australia to the UK. He’d taken redundancy and so they were travelling the world for a year until that money ran out. They were headed to London, where he’d left 28 years before! We shared lots of our travel experiences. They were recent converts to the AirBnb way of travelling, and wanted to know more. As we’re now experienced as guests and as hosts, they enjoyed picking our brains! They wanted to know how far in advance to book places. In our experience, especially as hosts, most bookings are made between one and three weeks away from the stay. Making bookings over a month in advance pretty much gives you free choice. Booking less than a week away many places will be booked up. In our experience, it’s not usually possible to book AirBnbs to stay at the same day. This is because they’re usually run by people who are also working, and so need some notice to be able to set rooms up. As hosts, we usually did the rooms in the evening after work while one of us was cooking. Unsurprisingly, the affordable, well-located and well-reviewed AirBnbs tend to get booked up first, so if you’re trying to stay in nice places but keep to a budget, it’s important to book more in advance. The Aussie couple got off in Ljubljana. They would be staying there for a full week to have a break from constant movement. They’d found, as we had in last year’s Big Trip, that when travelling for a long time, it’s important to build in breaks. This is partly to rest, both physically and mentally from constant novelty, and partly to be able to catch up on a lot of the more mundane but essential things of long voyages: washing, transport/accommodation bookings, blogging/journalling/catching up with family. The things our NZ travelling companion Gordon delightfully termed ‘lifemin’ (lifeadmin).
From looking at the timetable in advance, we thought we had to change at Jesenice and get the mountain train up to the Bled Jezero station. Earlier than anticipated, we pulled into the Lesce Bled station. As this was what was printed on our ticket, we jumped off in a panic, not wanting to be on a train without a valid ticket. It was pouring with rain in a big thunderstorm so we went into the little station building for cover. I said to the very helpful guy in the ticket office that we seemed to have come to the wrong place, we thought we were going to Bled Jezero but have got a ticket to Lesce Bled. He assured us we weren’t really in the wrong place, and that actually Lesce and Jezero are a similar distance away from the city centre of Bled. There would be a bus outside in about 40 minutes to go up to Bled town. Much relieved, we sat down in the waiting area and discovered there was free, open, fast WiFi. This enabled us to find out that the bus that we could get from the station would drop us almost outside our AirBnb if we stayed on one stop longer than Bled centre. This was a big improvement, as we had thought we’d need to walk 40 minutes from Bled Jezero station. For other travellers’ future reference: the 37 bus to Bled goes every hour at :07 from the bus stop on the other side of the road from Lesce Bled station. It costs €1.80 per person to get to Bled city centre or one stop after up the lake where we were going, which wascalled Mlino.
We also realised we could make good use of our time there by buying our next lot of tickets from the ticket guy for our journey on from Lake Bled to Bad Gastein. In Slovenia, as in Croatia, it’s not possible to get train tickets online in advance. There were quite a lot of others in the waiting room. It soon dawned on us that they were all lost-sounding English backpackers like us. There must have been 12 of us, all English, all with big backpacks. It did make us feel rather old, though, as most of them looked like they’d just finished school or were in their early years at university. Our seasoned travelling experience showed too when a stressed-sounding English girl squeaked at the ticket guy that there wasn’t any loo roll in the loo. He didn’t have any more, but I saved the day by whipping a roll out from my bag and handing it to her. I’ve been taught well, haven’t I, Dad? All 14 of us backpackers squeezed into the bus shelter as it was a torrential downpour with some quite dramatic thunderclaps. We got the bus up to our stop. Thanks, God, that we had just the right amount of change to pay for our tickets, as it was exact change only! We wandered up the hill to our AirBnb. We knocked on the door and a lady let us in. She was a bit confused as to who we were. She said she was the grandmother of our host. We hadn’t actually yet heard anything from our host (not even a booking confirmation, though it had gone through), so we hoped there was a room for us! There were 6 rooms in the place we were staying, and it wasn’t really clear which was ours. We went upstairs to the one with the key in the door, which we’d established from the grandma should be ours. When Em went looking for the bathroom, she realised we were in the wrong room as the one that looked like the photos online was through another door! The WiFi didn’t reach to our room but we discovered a wired Ethernet cable in the corner. Amazingly, internet came out of it and it was going at fibre optic speed :D. I plugged my laptop in and set Em uploading some blog posts while I had another nap as I was still feeling pretty poorly. About 7:30pm I woke up again and we went out looking for some food. We looked at the two close by restaurants. We thought about heading into Bled town but Em wanted some food, so we went to the Pension Mlino. It was quite posh, but we thought we should celebrate after the promising developments of the morning. I ordered fillet of venison in mushroom sauce, while Em had rump steak in green peppercorn sauce. Both came with gnocchi, a nice change from potatoes. The best part, though, was that they were swimming in rich gravy and sauce. The meals we’d had in Croatia hadn’t any any sauce on: just bare meat and potatoes, often without even any herbs or salt. My venison was so tender, and the gravy was full of flavour (I could tell even through my blocked up nose). To finish, how could I refuse an apple strudel with whipped cream? It was dark when we went back outside so I took a few pictures of the church on the island in the lake and looking back towards the castle over the town of Bled itself. The sky had cleared so I kept looking up at the sky. I could just make out where the Milky Way was, but I was too tired to stay up any longer waiting for it to be dark enough to photograph. It would also have been a long walk round the lake to get the Milky Way behind the island. As much as I would have loved to have taken such a picture, I was just feeling too ill so needed to get back to bed. Back in the room, the bed was below a skylight so I looked up at the stars there for a bit. It wasn’t long before I was fast asleep. Once I’d gone, Em uploaded some more blog posts from about 22:00 until midnight. 46.368327 14.114580 September 4, 2015aebigtrip
AirBnB
, Croatia
, Good Food
, Lake Bled
, Lesce Bled
, Mlino
, Night Photography
, Photography
, Slovenia
, Travel
, Venison
6 Comments
17TH AUGUST: DRIVING TO ZAGREBMonday 17/08/2015
Andie writing
We packed up our bags and loaded the car before having our breakfast in the kitchen across the courtyard. We enjoyed more fruit and yoghurt for our breakfast yum yum! I really wasn’t feeling well this morning, though: getting up was very hard and my brain hadn’t really yet woken up. I was rudely reminded of this as I left the kitchen. I swung upwards a 2 litre water bottle to take a swig as I moved through the doorway. In a moment of slapstick comedy that kept Em tittering for days, the bottle hit the top of the doorway and hit me in the face. Even I thought it was funny, though I was in a lot of pain as I’d split my lip and banged my teeth in the collision. As I was then feeling tired, poorly and in pain, Em kindly drove to Zagreb. I dozed for quite a bit of the way. When I did watch the scenery going past, it kept striking me just how French it all looked, with a similar landscape and architecture to the high Jura. France, especially the mountain villages, has got a lot more prosperous in my lifetime. This part of Croatia was like driving through the more dilapidated France I remember from my youth. Even so, the sheer number of abandoned buildings meant it must be Croatia. I wonder how much of stylistic similarities to the Jura are due to the same underlying limestone rock, and how much is due to the fact that Croatia was ruled by Napoleon for a while (and was even a French Département) in theearly 1800s.
The main road down the valley, which used to be one of Croatia’s main arterial roads until the motorway was built (to a different route) with EU funding in 2007, was really pretty tiny and winding! Not so easy for Em driving a funny car on the wrong side of the road. We finally arrived at the motorway (a paying one, also like in France), but even that was hard going as there was then a huge thunderstorm and it poured with rain. Although the speed limit was 130 km/h like in France, the Croatians didn’t seem to believe that was fast enough, with many sailing past at well over 160. When we came to the péage/toll booth as we reached the outskirts of Zagreb, there seemed to be two queues through two separate sections. We thought the card-only queue looked shorter, so went with that one. We were delighted to find that it was a great deal shorter, as the card booths were 4km before the cash ones. There had been a queue all the way up from the cash ones (on a separated carriageway) to the split. If we’d had been stuck in there it could have taken well over an hour to get through! Fortunately we weren’t stuck so we could fill up with petrol and drop our bags at the AirBnb in plenty of time before taking the rental car back by the allotted time. The AirBnb didn’t look like much from the outside, as the building had all its finish crépi crumbling off (like most we saw in Zagreb) and was covered in graffiti. However, inside was completely different. The flat had been very tastefully renovated and had really funky décor. I especially liked the lights in the kitchen. The duvet cover was decorated with lots of snuggly/romantic words, which made Em just want to snuggle in it! First, we had to find some lunch as it was getting towards 3pm and Em was really needing food. We found a little bakery in the station and Em had a sandwich. I had a sausage roll and tried a local thing: it looked like a pain au chocolat, but was filled with jam and cheese where the chocolate would otherwise go. You read that right: jam and cheese! It was mild cheese, sort of like cottage cheese. It actually worked quite well! We also bought our train tickets for the following day as it’s not possible to buy Croatian train tickets online inadvance.
I was feeling really quite ill and exhausted now, so we just wandered back to the AirBnb. I lay down and slept until about 7pm. After I woke up again, we went out for tea in a chinese restaurant. As we’d been having bare meat and potatoes every days for a while, we fancied something different! Our AirBnb host seemed very surprised we were looking for Chinese food in Zagreb, but we’d found somewhere close by on TripAdvisor. I had chicken skewers in peanut sauce and em had peking duck pancakes. While they weren’t the best we’ve ever had, they were still very yummy and a big upgrade on some previous meals!! We both had lychees for dessert, though mine were off (tasted all sour). We failed to communicate to the waitress what the problem was. In the end, after waiting for over half an hour for the bill, we paid on the way out and paid for them anyway as I just wanted to get back to bed. We quickly passed through the station to get some milk for breakfast. Breakfast was included, but the host only had soya milk, not quite to our taste! 45.815011 15.981919 September 4, 2015aebigtrip
Croatia
, France
, Poorly
, Stormy
, Travel
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16TH AUGUST: THE DEEP, DEEP BLUE OF THE PLITVIČE LAKESSunday 16/08/15
Em writing
Today started early for us as we knew that we weren’t going to be alone at the famous tourist hotspot and world heritage site of the Plitvice Lakes. We got up at 7:20am and managed to be in the queue at entrance 1 to the national park by 9am. A long queue had already built up so I left Andie in it whilst I went to buy sandwiches and a map of the park. We had the rest of a packed lunch with us as we’d been forewarned that there weren’t many places to eat actually in the park and it would be pricey. As we got nearer to the front of the queue we found out why it was taking a long time. There were only 2 ticket booths open which would have probably been fine during a normal day but this system wasn’t really coping in the peak season of August. As soon as we’d bought our tickets though and were inside the park it was really quiet. This was probably because it took such a long time for people to get through the ticket booths! We really appreciated this as we had beautiful views of the lakes and we weren’t competing with many other people for the best photo spots! The forecast for the day was very cloudy with rain in the afternoon so I had wondered how the lakes would look in these conditions. However I needn’t have worried as the lakes were still delightful shades of blues and greens caused by the minerals (mostly dissolved limestone but coloured by others) in the water. After enjoying the view from above the lower lakes we walked to bus stop 1 so we could catch the bus train up to the upper lakes and walk back down from there. It wasn’t long before the bus train came along and then we were off to pick up loads of people from entrance 2. Here a French family of four got on that we found amazing to observe. The Mum spoke in an almost constant monologue whilst the long-suffering husband nodded at some appropriate points and the two teenage daughters seemed to be trying hard not to roll their eyes! Just to help you visualise the scenario, the lady was thin and wiry with black hair and glasses whilst her husband was slightly rounder with a goatee and he had little remaining hair. We must have been waiting 20 minutes at entrance 2 even though we’d picked up passengers as soon as we got there. It wasn’t clear what we were waiting for but eventually we moved slightly before the doors opened again. A guy waiting at the back of the bus queue tried to get on but was told quite forcefully by a Croatian lady, “Don’t eventhink about it!”
Then we were finally on the move again complete with French monologue about some ‘hilarious’ incident that had happened with so-and-so’s dog. Cue more eye rolling from the teenage daughters. It was a relief to escape the French lady when we got to the top of the lakes. However we realised we weren’t going to be alone up there! We followed the hoards to the start of the boardwalk around the lakes and soon found ourselves squished like sardines at the entrance to it. I was concerned we were going to have to move like this all the way along the boardwalk but luckily it was only because a guy was stamping our tickets on the way in. As we waited in the squish who should be behind us but monologue French lady! I exchanged a worried look with Andie but he assured me that we would lose them as we’d be stopping to take a lot of photos along the way! Once we were on the boardwalks we were amazed with just how many fish we could see in the crystal clear waters surrounding us. The waters were so clear because you are not allowed to swim in them. In a way, I was glad that it was such a grey day because if it had been any hotter I would have found it really hard not to dip my toes in the water! Each lake was stunning and so varied in colour. The waterfalls cascading down into each section of lake also added another level of beauty. I was quite happy to appreciate the views whilst Andie took a whole lot of photos as he’d promised he would! As we’d had breakfast quite early we also stopped for an earlier lunch around 12pm. We chose a bench overlooking one of the larger lakes sheltered by a tree. This was convenient as the rain began shortly as forecast after we’d just started eating. Some interested looking ducks waddled over and stared at our sandwiches longingly but soon waddled away again when they realised we weren’t going to feedthem.
We continued around the lakes admiring many impressive waterfalls as we made our way towards the main boat stop. There was another large queue building up here and quite a few people pushing forwards to get onto the next boat that arrived. I was very British I know as I told an English couple pushing in that ‘in the UK we would normally queue’! We managed to get onto the second boat that arrived and I really enjoyed the boat ride across especially when we overtook the first boat that had arrived before ours! The people on board looked a little surprised! Once we were off the boat we bought some ice creams and then had to put on our waterproof trousers as we weren’t so covered by the trees anymore. The rain was heavier now so we mainly just made our way back to entrance 1 although we did make a detour to see the largest waterfall Veliki Slap (literal translation: big waterfall). We enjoyed a welcome hot chocolate and tea from the cafe where I’d bought sandwiches earlier then drove back to our Airbnb to find somedry clothes.
After this we drove to find a nice restaurant for tea. We found one but we didn’t have much cash left and they didn’t accept credit cards. As we drove further we soon found ourselves in a huge traffic jam that was only inching along the road. As it was a Sunday we realised it must have been everyone from either the coast or the Plitvice Lakes making their way back to Zagreb. After an hour stuck in traffic we pulled in at the next restaurant we saw called ‘Feniks’ where they did accept cards. Unfortunately whilst the bread was quite yummy the rest of the meal was pretty mediocre. Andie ordered a stew which was more like watery vegetables and I ordered a schnitzel which didn’t come with any sauce or herbs so was quite dry. We hoped that there would be more options for flavoursome food in the capital city of Zagreb, our next stop. 44.865397 15.582012 September 4, 2015aebigtrip
Bad Food
, Croatia
, Photography
, Plitvice Lakes
, Rain
, Scenic
, Travel
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9TH AUGUST: CHURCH AND YUMMY CAKESunday 09/08/15
Em writing
Despite being sleepy from the fireworks the night before, amazingly we were all up in time to set off for church. We were one of the first families there! It was nice to recognise a few friends from Paul and Marion’s bible study group that we had visited in January 2014. The guy leading the worship with a guitar was from the USA and he led a song that most of the congregation didn’t know. The song ‘From the Inside Out’ by Hillsong is a favourite of Andie’s and mine so we sang it confidently at the front whilst everyone else picked up thetune.
The sermon was based around a member of the congregation who was moving on from Geneva after spending many years there. It was interesting to hear her journey of faith and to understand how she was feeling as she didn’t know what work was coming up but she was trusting that God would provide. This is definitely how Andie and I feel with nothing concrete yet worked out for Australia. After the service, we got talking to a lady from the UK who is really interested in moving to Canada. She wanted to know about our visa experience as she was wondering what options would be available to her in Canada. She was hoping to move to Toronto but when Andie and I described our experiences of Toronto, especially how the temperature gets down to -40°C in Winter she may have changed her mind! On the way back to Paul and Marion’s we picked up some fresh bread and a chocolatey chocolate cake. I describe it as this because when we asked what was inside the chocolate cake the lady replied ‘chocolate’ and this confirmed our choice that this was the cakefor us!
For lunch, Marion made us a tasty soup and then we finished with the chocolatey chocolate cake. It was very rich but delicious! We then all flaked out in the afternoon until we walked up the gorge, next to Paul and Marion’s house. There had been a few rain showers but luckily it was dry whilst we were out walking. When we came back, we had some yummy barbecued skewers and pasta salad for tea and then a good chat before bed. 46.243748 6.025130 August 25, 2015aebigtrip
Church
, Family
, France
, Travel
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1000 LIKES
WordPress just let us know we have 1000 likes on the blog! Wow, thank you wonderful readers!August 25, 2015
aebigtrip
Wow!
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AUGUST 15TH: OFF TO PLITVIČESaturday 15/08/15
Em writing
Our Airbnb check out time was 10am which we made complete with bags. However in our haste we’d forgotten two ice cream lollies that we’d left in the freezer so we had to get back into our apartmentthrough the garage!
We walked to the boat taxi stop and had a cool drink in the bar next door whilst we waited for the boat to arrive. Then we were off back to the airport to try and pick up a hire car again! It was a shame we hadn’t been able to have a morning swim but with no shower facilities on the beach we decided against it. We didn’t want to feel salty on our long drive to the Plitvice Lakes. Arriving in Trogir, we bought a cute little anklet from one of the tourist stalls. Then we found somewhere nice for lunch that had a slightly cooling breeze. Salads again were just what we fancied so Andie had a chicken variation and I had tomato and mozzarella. We were both feeling in need of some fruit after lunch and luckily Andie had remembered seeing a fruit stall a previous time we were in Trogir. He remembered well and I happily tucked into a fruit salad whilst Andie went for the watermelon option. At the bus station, a taxi driver tried to offer us a ‘good deal’ of 30 kuna each to the airport even though it was only 26 kuna on the local bus for both of us! Glad we had done our research! There was success in the car hire department this time as we chose a well known company who actually had a desk in the airport! Andie asked the car hire man if the car would have air con and he reassured us that all new cars in Croatia had to have air con as standard. Our car was only a couple of months’ old so there would be no problems there. Phew! It was quite a relief putting the air con on as the car thermometer said 40.5°c! After leaving the airport, we stocked up on drink and breakfast at a nearby German supermarket. Then began our drive to the Plitvice Lakes. We had a pre-loaded Google Map but it was up to me to navigate as the data had run out on my phone. I took us a scenic way so we could say goodbye to Trogir before joining the motorway. This was quite a wiggly way to drive and we soon found out that our car didn’t have much power! We got there in the end though! It was striking to notice the difference between the coastal landscape and inland as we drove through a huge tunnel through a mountain range. Suddenly everything became lush and green and so like the French Jura with houses of a really similar architecture that Andie has been used to growing up with. Sadly, though, a great many of these houses seemed totally abandoned and in quite a bad state. It was clear that Croatia was still recovering from its civil war. We soon found out why the landscape around us was lush and green as a fierce thunderstorm soon began after coming out of the tunnel! It was hard to see the road at times and Andie did a very good job at driving us through some extremely heavy rain. We were glad to exit the motorway and continue on a country road that the storm had alreadypassed.
We stopped at an Italian pizza place serving enormous pizzas that were pretty tasty. Then we arrived at our Airbnb around 9pm. 44.865397 15.582012 August 25, 2015aebigtrip
Croatia
, Plitvice Lakes
, Seget Vranjica
, Travel
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14TH AUGUST: SWIMMING IN BEAUTIFUL WATERSFriday 14/08/15
Em writing
Another relaxing morning began with Andie going out to buy some fresh bread for breakfast. We weren’t really sure what all the different breads were in the little supermarket but Andie chose well as he brought back a sweetened one that was a bit like doughnut and and abit like brioche.
We caught up with emails and then went to a beach bar for lunch. We knew that they served burgers there but we hadn’t appreciated how ginormous they were! While we were eating, we think we saw Bill Bryson arrive and start chatting to two local girls which was quite exciting. I’m not 100% sure it was him but he had an American accent, ordered a beer and he looked very similar to some recent photos of him that we hurriedly googled on my phone! Andie was excited as he’s just been reading one of his books! After lunch, we went back to our Airbnb to get ready for the beach. Our friendly Airbnb host caught us on the way out again and gave us a bottle of wine that was from his own vineyard. He explained that he didn’t have very much but he had just enough to share with his guests. What a sweet gesture! Unfortunately neither of us are really red wine drinkers but we took it with us the following day as it would have been rude to leave it there. We then walked to a beach we’d seen from the taxi boat that looked ideal for swimming from. The water was so unbelievably clear! You could see all the way to the sea floor even though it was 3 times as deep as we were tall. There were a few fish that swam by and a couple of small crabs that hid on the pontoons. The sea was so refreshing even though the water was still warm. After enjoying a couple of hours in the sea, we read our books as we dried off in the heat. We then watched the most beautiful sunset together which was pretty romantic! Time was passing so we went back to our Airbnb to pack. Then we went for tea at a restaurant at the bottom of the hill up to where we were staying. We shared a Greek salad that came with pizza like strips of bread that were delicious. Then I enjoyed beef in green pepper sauce and Andie had Mediterranean chicken. We both ordered the same cocktails as a previous night: a mojito and piña colada. Drinking these, accompanied by the retro sounding music, made us quite giggly! We reminisced about how long we’ve known each other (it’s 12 years since we met!) and how that love has grown over time. 43.509994 16.187035 August 25, 2015aebigtrip
Beach
, Bill Bryson
, Croatia
, Seget Vranjica
, Travel
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