Come on Hrvatska! A Photo A Day Week 7

Monday 9th July

We got to the island of Pag today, this is the view from the top on our way to the much greener area of Šimuni.

Tuesday 10th July

We visited the Pag Lace Gallery today, as fabulous lace making is part of Pag’s cultural heritage.

Wednesday 11th July

 Semi final against England, this time watched from the ruins of the Roman Forum in Zadar. We were definitely a little more conflicted with this game! But it has been so much fun being around the celebrations when Croatia win so we were happy. Plus, we weren’t so keen driving around with a Great Britain numberplate if England had won...!!

Thursday 12th July

 We relaxed by this lovely lake today and, after deciding to sign up for an ocean swim in Feb, we went for our first ‘training swim’ out to that little island. Such fun ♡

Friday 13th July

We unknowingly stumbled upon the town where Nikola Tesla grew up, so found the memorial museum and spent a couple hours learning more about his rather eccentric life, his discoveries and patents. Definitely a quirky dude...

Saturday 14th July

 And today was the day that our first van-life stomach bug hit. Lovely. AirBnB was booked, Netflix was watched, and colouring was done. Oh, and a small washing-machine-induced flood was taken care of quickly and discreetly. Odd day :)

Sunday 15th July

Still not feeling fabulous, we checked into our second, much nicer AirBnB and enjoyed the aircon for as long as we could before heading out to watch the final of the World Cup. Not sure if it was the food-deprived vulnerable state I was in or what, but I really was so very sad that Croatia didn’t win!
I loved how proud everyone in Zadar was at the end of the game though - super disappointed but just so proud of their team for getting so far.  Definitely a major highlight of our trip!

Old towns and city walls - APAD Week 6

Monday 2nd July

Down some very old, steep stairs we found our bit of paradise for the day with lovely clear water and plenty of sun.
Upside to rocky beaches: you don’t end up with sand everywhere.
Downside: it really hurts walking in and out of the water! Lucky I have Chris - with his snorkel on he cleared me a path ♡

Tuesday 3rd July

In the old town of Ston, we saw one of the longest city defense walls in Europe, more than 5km long. It’s possible to walk up and around them, but arriving in the midday heat of 30 degrees made that idea a little unappealing...

Wednesday 4th July

We had a fab day getting really lost in Dubrovnik on Tuesday, and today we drove up to the cable cars to get this incredible view. Poor Chris...GoT theme song sung to him for two days...!

Thursday 5th July

Our first proper campsite of this trip - finally! It’a been great getting by without really needing campsites but this one was definitely needed! So great to be able to open the van up and get some air in. Showers were a bonus too!

Friday 6th July

The ocean at the bottom of our campsite was perfect to just float in on bright pink lilos ♡

Saturday 7th July

World Cup quarter final against Russia, watched in the Split Fan Zone. We took this outside the city wall entrance to the old town.

Sunday 8th July

This is the statue of Grgur Ninski, a 10th century Croatian bishop. Apparently it’s good luck to rub his toe which is now very well buffed!

Croatian Coasts - APAD Week 5

Monday 25th June

Chris found this gem of a cliff jumping spot in Pula. These two were brave enough  - me, not so much. Maybe another cliff :)

Tuesday 26th June

After a morning at the beach, Chris dropped Billy at the airport and we went back up the coast a little to Rovinj. It was a little like Cinque Terre with all the pretty colours on the buildings. We watched the last group game for Croatia - not quite the same atmosphere as last week but another win!

Wednesday 27th June

This is the gorgeous road we are driving on our way down Croatia ♡

Thursday 28th June

This almost-deserted beach was our campsite for the night - I wish we could have stayed the week! The water was crystal clear and the sunset was perfect.

Friday 29th June

Those beautiful stone tiles they used in European cities? Turns out, slippery when dry and even more so when wet! Chris slid down some steps, falling hard on his elbow. The camera strap made a great temporary sling to rest it!! He no longer owns the shitty €3 jandals...

Saturday 30th June

We found a Croatian paradise today - Krka National Park. The walk to the waterfalls is like being in another world - small waterfalls, sparkling pools, bright blue dragonflies, all so very magical ♡
This waterfall is Skradinski Buk, the longest waterfall in Krka. The part of the pool sectioned of for swimming looks calm but the current underneath is surprisingly strong!

Sunday 1st July

Another World Cup match! This time Croatia vs Denmark, watched in the Split Fan Zone. After a veeery long 120 minutes - strange game... :) - it came to a much-more-exciting penalty shootout with Croatia winning.
Might have to stay in Croatia a little longer at this rate...!

Yay for fabulous friends! APAD Week 4

Monday 18th June

We spent the day getting lost in Venice — oh how fabulous. We loved this view from the top of T Fondaco dei Tedeschi looking out on the rooftops and canals that we had wandered all day ♡

Tuesday 19th June

We moved on to Trieste, Italy today. After watching our first World Cup game (Japan vs Colombia) during a pizza lunch, Anna and I wandered the town. Strangest find: a beach split into women/men, divided by a concrete wall...um??

Wednesday 20th June

The view from Castello Di Miramare - really cannot get enough of all the shades of blue!

Thursday 21st June

Billy joined us today in Pula, Croatia. After a fab swim at one of Pula’s best beaches, we went into the main square to watch the Croatia vs Argentina game. The most amazing atmosphere! It was like they had won the World Cup - we might have to stick around in case they do!

Friday 22nd June

Woke up to a stormy day so we kept occupied in the apartment with way too many snacks, vodka and card games.

Saturday 23rd June

We got out of the apartment and found the sun :) This is Pula Arena, built in the 1st century and one of the most whole amphitheater’s in Europe. It looked almost Iike a painting against the blue sky ♡

Sunday 24th June

Not the best of photos but we were too busy doing nothing to remember to take a photo :) most of the day was spent here (half of it spent blowing up the new lilo’s at snail speed...!) flating, swimming, destroying Chris’ rock towers :)
Anna’s last day with us today :(

Italian Wanderings - ADAP Week 3

Monday 11th June

A very necessary admin day today! After starting our multiple loads of laundry, we set the otherwise empty laundromat up as our makeshift offfice :) blog writing, whatever Chris was doing...not the most exciting couple of hours but definitely productive! 

Tuesday 12th June

We have had some delicious meals out in the last couple of weeks but we haven’t had great opportunity to cook ourselves, meaning any meal that has not been out has been sandwiches. 

Nothing wrong with a good sandwich - and I do make great sandwiches :) - but tonight we finally got to cook something different. The always delicious donburi, recipe courtesy of the wonderful Sarah and Mark, was exactly what we felt like and was made as we watched the sunset over the hills in Cinque Terre ♡

Wednesday 13th June

We explored the last three villages in Cinque Terre today - Riogimmere, Monterosso and Vernazza. Will miss the beautiful bright colours!

And happy birthday to the loveliest of mothers ♡♡♡

Thursday 14th June

We joined so very many tourists enjoying the Leaning Tower of Pisa at sunset ♡

Cue far too many ‘typical tourist’ photos trying to hold it up, I think these are my favourite ones :) 

Friday 15th June

Diane had shared with us some of the places she explored when she was travelling this area in 2014 And one of them was Ponte della Maddalena, or the Devils bridge, a medieval bridge built around 1000BC. 

The super calm river made for amazing reflection photos!

Saturday 16th June

We wandered around Modena today, checking out the also leaning bell tower at the church and the markets full of produce, cured meats and pizza!

Sunday 17th June

Another admin day today - a McDonald’s office session :) waiting for Anna to arrive in Venice tonight!

Journey through Switzerland, with a little Italy - APAD Week 2

Monday 4th June

A day of animals! We visited Bern, a Swiss city named after a bear. It has a large zoo-like enclosure in the middle of the city with three brown bears in it - definitely a different kind of attraction!

We then found our parking spot for the night up a mountain outside Interlaken and made friends with the local bell-wearing cows that tried eating our windscreen wipers :) 

Tuesday 5th June

This is us just before we got strapped to Nick and Miki, a couple of parachutes, and ran off a cliff! It was so beautifully peaceful floating over the city and the sun managed to break through the storm clouds for us ♡

Wednesday 6th June

A big day of exploring various Swiss cities including Lucerne, Zurich and Zug - this was our favourite sight. This is the Kapellbrücke or Chapel Bridge, built in 1333 and is now the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe.

Thursday 7th June

Ciao, Bella! We got to fabulous Portofino and became so very aware of how ‘van-like’ we were compared to the fabulously dressed (and showered!!) people that are around :) But I love just how picuresque the bay is and we enjoyed our first Italian gelato in Italy - yay!

Friday 7th June

I love our beach days! We spent the day sunning and swimming in the Baia del Silenzio (Bay of Silence), then watched the sunset from the Baia delle Favole (Bay of Fairytales) ♡♡

Saturday 8th June

We caught up with some familiar faces today, gatecrashing their European holiday! We met Rob and Jules in Manarola, one of the five towns in Cinque Terre, and enjoyed wine, antipasto, pizza and pasta in their AirBnB. 

Love the new Roman apron, Rob! 

Sunday 9th June

The stunning view of Manarola before sunset ♡ Everything looks like a painting here, I cannot get enough of it!

This was the end of a big day walking to the next town over, enjoying gelato, pizza and beer, then swimming and jumping of rocks back in Manarola. 

Our first week back in the van - APAD Week 1

Monday 28th May

We found ourselves in Lille on our first day back in the van and decided to go to our first zoo in Europe. Some cool animals - couple of snakes, owls, very loud monkeys - but this was my favourite moment...a very tired, slightly derpy meerkat!

Tuesday 29th May

Started the day in Reims where we had our first French pâtisserie treats - croque monsieur & éclair chocolat - delicious. We then realised we were in the Champagne region...

So we drove past many a vineyard - Moët included :) - and got to Champagne Château de Boursault for a champagne tasting - yum! 

Also, feeling a little like Dorothy with all these poppies! 

Wednesday 30th May

Thanks to a lot of help from Dad, we got to surprise Mum in France! We had the loveliest of lunches, then got to spend time on their river-cruise boat meeting all the oldies :)

So very glad we got to spend their last holiday day with them - in France!! 

Thursday 31st May

Thanks to Chris dragging me up a ridiculous hill, we got to see the fabulous view of Lyon. So beautiful with the rivers and trees running through it ♥

Friday 1st June  

Our first lake swim, in France just outside of Switzerland. Very chilly! But super refreshing. Chris swam a lot more than me of course :)

Saturday 2nd June

Lazy Saturdays! We spent a couple hours enjoying the sunshine and cooling off in Lac Léman. The water is so stunningly clear and pretty! Was great to relax for the day.

Sunday 3rd June

Fabulous day exploring Geneva. Spent so much time admiring the Jet D’Eau, taking way too many photos from whichever angles we could...none quite did it justice. Such a random thing but so very mesmerising.

We loved all the fountains around the city - mostly we loved that you could drink the wonderfully cold water that came out of them!

And, of course, a selfie with Ghandi was a must after being outside the United Nations :)

That Language Barrier...

Oh, how lucky we've been that English seems so be spoken reasonably well across Europe! We would have been so very stuck otherwise!!

Every time we enter a new country with a different language, we make an effort to learn those phrases one will likely need - hello, please, thank you, excuse me, where are the toilets, I don't speak ___, do you speak English?

Even with this effort, every time someone speaks to me in their language I become a deer in the headlights! Often I cannot for the life of me remember any of the simple phrases we have tried to memorise - I become a stuttering idiot, feeling very uneducated.

Luckily, a smile seems to get you through most of these situations, along with sign language and Google Translate. Oh, and their "little bit" of English, that is so significantly more than our "little bit" of their language!

#vanlife

A few adjustments have had to be made to be able to call Dink our home. Most of these we managed to make quite quickly, others have taken some time, but I think so far we have been pleasantly surprised by our ability to live in a reasonably small van.

When we are driving, everything is packed strategically in the back, or the living room/kitchen/bedroom :) Most of our possessions are covered either inside the compartments or by towels/clothes to make them harder to see but also to stop them reaching 1000° during the day. Everything is pretty tightly packed in, especially in the back compartment (thanks for the packing cubes, Beachlands ladies! Lifesavers!) and we seem to accumulate more as we go...we really should stop! :)

Our day is fairly routined...we make breakfast, usually yoghurt & muesli, then go about sorting ourselves out to go out or drive - dressing, finding a bathroom, kind of washing (!!), doing dishes, packing everything away.

We find somewhere to park, hopefully in shade and free, but often in the sun and paid, and go about our touristing. Most days recently we have been near a beach, so swimming, reading and relaxing has been part of routine (fabulous!!).

At night we've been using the Park4Night app to find safe places to set up for the night. Most nights this looks like setting up our table, chairs, cooker, rubbish bag and dishes bucket. We are oh-so-organised :) It has been fun setting up a mini kitchen wherever we go, attempting to cook my staples in interesting conditions.

When we've eaten and packed away the 'kitchen', most things get moved from the living room/kitchen/bedroom to the front seats. Everything gets shuffled around and we make up the bed for the night. 

The mornings are - unsurprisingly - the biggest battle. I am never in a hurry to get up, but with the bed made up, nothing else can get done! We cannot access clothes, food, anything. So up I must get, before Chris get's too hangry :)

Everything get's shuffled again from front to back, and we rinse and repeat! So very different from our norm but most days it's just fun. All part of the adventure!

Odd musings on the White Cliffs of Dover

Whilst talking to Mum about our decision to take the ferry instead of the train to France, she got super excited about the White Cliffs of Dover - apparently there is a song :)

When we finally got a glimpse of this view, we understood the excitement - stunning!

There are odd characters in the world, though, aren't there? As we were admiring the view and Chris was getting a good run of the drone for the first time, an American man greeted us, also commenting on the beauty. His next words: "Apparently many people come up here to kill themselves!"

Um....ok?? Thanks for that....

"Yes! And a brother and sister came to spread their parents ashes - they both loved it here - and the cliff gave way underneath them."

(Backing away from the edge..) So very cheerful. Thanks Mr. America...

Still, not enough words for just how beautiful and breathtaking those cliffs are. Thanks Mum :)

Our New Home!

We would like you to meet Dink. She is our new home that we decided to keep after spending a week in a teeny tent. Dink seemed like luxury in comparison. Not sure we still necessarily felt that way after a week back in a house...nevertheless, insurance has been bought and it cost a bloody fortune, so she shall stay.

Dink as in Dink the Little Dinosaur - small and very very old.

She is only small, with no standing room unless you count standing up through the sun roof (I think we will certainly be counting that in on many occasions). There is a bed that kind of folds up during the day, with two compartments for storage underneath the bed - one at the back that we will use mostly for luggage and 'cleaning' water, and one in the front that we will use as our kitchen. This has our drinking water, a fridge (so far, very effective!) and a portable gas cooker. It's not quite the 'easy access, low stress' set up we ideally imagined, but I think we will get by just fine.

We've made a couple changes since getting her, including a couple of IKEA trips and many Amazon Prime packages. We have a storage system for our 'kitchen', some extra storage boxes near the bed, pretty bedding (have to brighten it up somehow!) and some snazzy looking seat covers to try hide the brown. Can't seem to do anything about the smell...very musty. Hopefully we get used to it.

We've definitely come across a few challenges along the way; getting insurance was particularly painful and expensive, partly because of our NZ licenses and partly because no one knew what category of car Dink fell under. So much time wasted sorting that out. Also, navigating through websites to figure out what exactly is required of us to drive through Europe was no easy task. We think we have it figured out, but who knows?? Watch this space.

Dink is currently sitting in the local mechanic shop, awaiting a refreshing service and a few enhancements - power plug, immobiliser, solar panel - and hopefully we will get her back in time to drive away from London Town on Monday 10th July. Potentially wishful thinking but we have high hopes!

Not many photos yet, will put more up when we are all packed up to leave!

Our Royal Regatta Evening

After a week of being very dull travellers - semi recovering from Glastonbury and getting boring van stuff organised - we finally did something quintessentially English. We spent an evening at the Henley Royal Regatta.

The lovely Kelsey and her Black Eights rowing crew competed in (and won!) the Remenham Cup Challenge, giving us a great excuse to go and see the madness that is the Regatta. Very similar to going to the Boxing Day Races, but with less hats and many more bizarre blazers. Also less horses, I suppose...

We tripped down with Sonia, Kapish, Tony and Vic, meeting Kelsey for a drink, dinner, race- and people-watching. Kelsey was definitely the only one dressed for the occasion - we had way underestimated the dress code! - but it was fun soaking up the atmosphere and catching up with everyone.

So great to top it off by live-streaming the race the next day to watch the girls win against Great Britain. Go girls!!

Our First Encounter With London Hooligans

Chris has been feeling pretty unwell since we arrived in London, jetlag perhaps, and it has been pretty difficult to get him genuinely smiling.

Today, he finally genuinely smiled and laughed. All because of London Hooligans.

We'd just had an IKEA 'experience', and were driving back home, windows down, about the time school gets out. We were about to pass two boys - 11ish?? - dressed all prep-ish in their shirt and tie school uniform. I was just about to comment to Chris on how cute they looked, when one of the little shits threw a water balloon at me!! What?!?!

As previously said, it had Chris laughing :) and me too after I got over the "WHAT THE HELL???" surprise of it. And the balloon didn't actually break, so I stayed dry, but oh my God haha. 

Our first encounter with London hooligans! :)

Welcome to London!

Here at last! We are staying at Sonia and Kapish's gorgeous little flat that looks so very English. The town they live in is so very cute, I just love the houses; they are all exactly what you'd expect in an English village, roses and all.

We picked up 'Flap', our new, already-named home-on-wheels and have been to IKEA, Primark and Homebase to kit it out with the essentials. She's definitely done a few miles, and is very brown on the inside but she'll be great for the next little while at least.

Sonia and Kapish took us on their tour of London on Saturday, seeing Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Westminster Church, the London Eye and more. Was a little surreal thinking about the history that all these amazing places have. Unfortunately the London Bridge attack happened that night, I think we may have been lucky that Chris wasn't feeling well and that we went home fairly early. We didn't find out about it til the next morning. Definitely a little terrifying, but we are thankfully safe and will do all we can to stay that way :)

Oh, and food tastes normal here! Such a relief :) :)

The Dream That You Wish Will Come True...!

What is the best way to end our time in LA? 30+ hours of Disney, of course! 

We started on Monday by checking out Downtown Disney to get ourselves in the "Disney" mood - best idea ever. I think that was the most breathlessly excited I was the entire time; there was so much to see and do, and the music is so uplifting and Disney-ish... just all so much to take in.

The next two days we were there from opening til closing, about 15 hours a day, doing everything we could do. It was so much busier than I had expected it to be (but not as busy as it could have been, I'm told) and that made it a little stressful sometimes, especially from about noon.

For the most part, though, it was absolutely fabulous.

Our highlights: the California Screamin' ride was amazing, the best thrill ride there; feeling like children again for most of the time, especially when we met the characters; making the most of the fast passes on day 1 to do most of the rides we wanted; the hour between 11pm and midnight, finishing the nights with the classics - Peter Pan ride on day 1, the Teacups on day 2; many, many more :)

Also, the parades. I originally had no intention of watching any of the parades, only the fireworks. In the end, we had watched every parade/show and I think they were my favourite part of the few days. They were gorgeous; the music, the lights, the dancing, the characters, the super cute tiny humans loving it around us, everything.

I think I can confidently say we reached our Disney saturation point before leaving, in the best way possible :)

Calfornia

We landed in LA after a pretty rough flight, a bit of turbulence but we got some sleep. We then rented the car which turned out to be a great idea (thanks Michael and Kristie) as we were able to drive to a mall and buy some supplies and a local sim card. 

The distraction of going to the mall meant we got stuck in the LA traffic rush hour traffic but it wasn't too bad as I was still getting use to driving. We stopped for a quick bite to each at a pancake house for dinner and then continued on our 2 hour drive to Santa Barbara. 

Mark and Allison have a great apartment on the hills overlooking the town. As we got in so late, we pretty much went straight to bed. The next day we got up late but still got a full day of sight seeing around Santa Barbara. M & A got the day off which was a surprise to us so it was nice getting a guided tour. We walked from the city center down to the beach which took about an hour and stopped in for lunch at one of their favourites. Allison had a social soccer game so we went along to support and then got takeaway Mexican dinner which I enjoyed. Today we are hoping to go for a drive into the hills opposite their apartment and go for an explore, maybe even fly my drone :) Tomorrow we plan to drive down to Allison's parents place who live in Ventura (40mins south of Santa Barbara).

After that we will be at Disneyland Tuesday and Wednesday then fly out Thursday!

Excited? Of course...

It is definitely the question of the moment, with our lovely friends realising how soon it is until we leave - 18 sleeps, by the way - and getting excited for us, asking the question of us too.

The answer - of course! Definitely excited. Up until about 2 weeks ago, at least :)

Anxiety and nervousness have unfortunately become the overriding emotion at the moment, and probably will stay that way until we are halfway to LA. Scared to leave what is known and comfortable, nervous to say 'see ya later' to an awful lot of very special people, anxious to tick off what seems to be a never ending to-do list before we leave. 

I know once we are there, experiencing the amazing adventures that we are so lucky to be able to experience, that anxiety will disappear and the fear of missing out on home happenings will be overtaken with - here's the word again - excitement. Genuine, overwhelming, privileged excitement.

Until then, I am going to try my best to remember that I only feel this scared to leave because I know the amazingness that I am leaving behind for a while.

Jenna 

We bought a van!

In less than 4 weeks, our newest adventure begins. We will hop of the plane at LAX with a dream and a cardigan...only to get on another plane in a week’s time and end up in London.

The dream is now at least 18 months old, with the saving and half-pie planning that comes with, but we are finally getting some concrete things in place, starting with our new little home.

Little being the operative word, but hopefully home being just as important.

We bought a van!

Thanks to Sonia linking us to a post on the Kiwis in London Facebook page, we were led to the ex-rentals at Spaceship Rentals. It all seemed a little too-good-to-be-true, but we looked into it and it all seems to be legit and a good start for us to at least start getting around the UK in June.

We took a trip to the rental company in Auckland to have a look at a similar van, and it is going to be a tight squeeze. I can sit up fairly straight on the bed but Chris doesn’t have a chance. He may be in for a reasonably cramped few weeks.

After much umm-ing and ahh-ing and some insurance confusing, we bit the bullet and bought one. The last one, as it turns out. Available to be picked up the end of May, painted black, new MOT, and all ours.

Might not be the perfect van, but it’s definitely a good start!

Jenna