[{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Event","url":"/categories/event/"}],"content":"As of October, 2024, I've decided I can't keep up with the blog. After a pause, I've been trying to backfill content while adding new content and it's just not working. Melissa is not happy with the process (Facebook is easier, and I don't/won't do the Facebook) and she does much of the sightseeing planning, so without her help it is hard to fill in the details. It's just too much.\nSo, instead, I'm going to attempt to keep up with a timeline - where we are on what dates. I'll try to add a few highlight pics and maybe some unintelligible fodder about what we did, but I'll make no promises. At least it may document where we've been and what we've seen. Maybe I'll even get motivated to nerd out on some widgets to make the site slightly less boring?\nAt any rate, if anyone is trying to lurk, I'll try to be better about adding some minor content so that your lurking effort is not in vain.\n-Chuck\n","date":"October 1, 2024","img":"","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"","permalink":"/docs/disclaimer/","series":[{"title":"World","url":"/series/world/"}],"smallImg":"","tags":[{"title":"Quitter","url":"/tags/quitter/"}],"timestamp":1727740800,"title":"Disclaimer"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Event","url":"/categories/event/"}],"content":"Chester happens to be less than 15 miles from Wrexham, so...road trip! We're fans of the show - not fanatics or even football (soccer) fans, just like the show. Being so close...why not. Tickets for home games are competitive (and somewhat convoluted) to obtain so they were sold out. Fortunately for us, Wrexham was playing Salford City in an English Football League (EFL) Trophy game, which are less attended than regular home games, so we were able to buy tickets.\nWe hopped on the train and went down for the day as we wanted to check out the city while we were there. We started by visiting the Turf, the pub next to the Racecourse stadium and featured in the TV series. That gave us the tourist experience while letting us know exactly where the stadium is located. Entering through the side door brings you into the game room with a pool table and show memorabilia.\nAs you enter the sitting area, the show memorabilia dies down a bit, although there are a few lingering items for the fans. Fun fact: the pub itself doesn't serve food; the trailer in the parking lot makes the food and you're allowed to bring it in with you.\nAfter a short visit, we set off to explore Wrexham...cuz exploring is at the heart of our nomadic life. Below are some of the highlights we saw (Wrexham isn't exactly a traditional tourist destination). The downtown area has a bit of walkable (no car) area with lots of shops and eateries.\nOk, game time. We headed back to the stadium and got to our seats. Being early, we got to see the teams warm up routines. I enjoy gaining deeper insight into just about anything, so it was fun for me. We also saw the team mascot, Wrex the dragon, engage the crowd and punk the broadcaster with a crab walk move. I've read Rob McElhenney sometimes dresses as Wrex when he's in town. We also got to see the temporary seats in the Kop area, although it wasn't open for public seating yet. The old Kop, once the largest standing-only terrace in the EFL, was deemed unsafe for use in 2008. Rob and Ryan got approval to replace it with a 5,500 seated stand in 2022 and tore the old stand down in 2023, but red tape with the local council has delayed construction of the permanent structure.\nThe teams were announced and the game got underway. Rain was a bit sporadic, but were in Wales. It wasn't long before Super Paul Mullin scored the first goal for Wrexham. Yes, we got to hear his song, plus a couple of additional ones. Salford City was able to even the score in the second half, but in the 83rd minute, Wrexham took the lead back for good. Yay, we got to see a Wrexham win!\nYour browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. ","date":"September 10, 2024","img":"/blog/welcome-to-wrexham/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/welcome-to-wrexham/featured_hud20eb1b3182c815204c331021020b432_2379405_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/welcome-to-wrexham/","series":[{"title":"Wales","url":"/series/wales/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/welcome-to-wrexham/featured_hud20eb1b3182c815204c331021020b432_2379405_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Wrexham","url":"/tags/wrexham/"},{"title":"Sports","url":"/tags/sports/"},{"title":"Road Trip","url":"/tags/road-trip/"}],"timestamp":1725926400,"title":"Welcome to Wrexham"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"The Chester city center is surrounded by ancient defensive walls. The walls were originally built during the Roman occupation around 70-80 AD (it took over 100 years). The walls were later (700 AD?) extended and strengthened by the Angles (Germanic people) to protect against the Danes (Vikings). The walls are some of the best preserved in England and are accessible to the public, so of course we walked the nearly 3k loop.\nWe stayed near the south gate, so that's where we entered. The south wall parallels the river Dee.\nThere were some cool sites to see along the way, like roman ruins, churches, and other landmarks, like the Eastgate Clock. We'll investigate further at a later date.\nEastgate Clock Up close Spoiler Alert: ground view The north wall runs along the Shropshire Union Canal.\nAnd crosses the Watergate bridge that leads to the ancient water tower.\nOf course, no city wall would be complete without a few defensive towers along the way.\nAnd finally, along the southwest side, the castle itself.\nWhat a nice walk. Hats off to Chester for maintaining and allowing access to such a cool historic structure.\n","date":"September 3, 2024","img":"/blog/chester-city-wall/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/chester-city-wall/featured_huea43764abd8fc582ddb2c90a632e125e_2321191_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/chester-city-wall/","series":[{"title":"England","url":"/series/england/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/chester-city-wall/featured_huea43764abd8fc582ddb2c90a632e125e_2321191_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Chester","url":"/tags/chester/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"}],"timestamp":1725321600,"title":"Chester City Wall"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"We visited Chorlton (Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, to be exact), a suburb south of Manchester, to try our hand at a dog sit to see how we'd like it. We found Chorlton a charming place and the dog we cared for, Floki (any Vikings watchers out there?), absolutely adorable. The accommodations were a great change from the typical uncomfortable apartments in which we generally stay.\nLet's start with Floki, since he's our main reason for being in Chorlton. Yes, he has one brown eye and one blue (heterochromia). He's very well behaved and quick to pick up on habits (i.e., training humans). Needless to say, Melissa was smitten.\nThe furniture included a low ottoman, which Floki would back up on to sit. He also used it to his advantage to guilt you into giving him something.\nBut most of all, Floki loves being outside. His most favorite thing is playing ball. He's quite good at catching; line drives, high arches, long bombs - he rarely drops it. If he could hit, I'd sign him up for cricket. He brings the ball back, drops it, and takes off in anticipation of the next throw. The only problem is getting him to stop. He takes short breaks when he's tired, but immediately drops the ball and takes off again as soon as he catches his breath. I believe he'd do this all day if we let him. There is a small park a couple of short blocks away and a large nature reserve around a half mile from our stay - the latter of which Floki would occasionally take off from us to jump in the river. We went to a park every day.\nOn to Chorlton. It has a population of only ~15,000, so a small-town feel while being part of the larger metropolitan borough of Manchester. The River Mersey runs along Chorlton's southern border and it has a tram that takes you directly to Victoria station in Manchester. Chorlton has a number of great eateries without the high costs we experienced in London (and Switzerland!). Everything we needed was in convenient walking distance (a block or two). People visit Chorlton from other areas for the shopping and food. The people are quite friendly and we've found England in general to be very dog friendly, especially the many pubs.\nFun fact: Manchester has adopted the worker bee as a symbol of the city being built by the people, for the people rather than being grown from royalty. The emblem shows up in various places.\nMelissa captured examples of street art (and other stuff) we encountered.\nAnd the southern cemetery. Some graves are quite old and others rather new. The North Chapel in the middle is really cool.\nFloki also enjoyed the visit, as it's outdoor time.\nWe really enjoyed Chorlton. It is a quaint suburb and a great place for us to relax from our usual on-the-go tourist travel. We'll work some additional pet sits (no cats, Chuck is mildly allergic) into our near future to become more familiar with it and decide whether or not it becomes part of our longer-term plans. It's definitely a cost saver at the expense of some flexibility. With Floki it wasn't much of a problem as he was ready to go anywhere we went but able to be left for hours at a time.\n","date":"August 14, 2024","img":"/blog/chorlton/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/chorlton/featured_hu6e58962f184244967e3c3f053f447c54_3992091_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/chorlton/","series":[{"title":"England","url":"/series/england/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/chorlton/featured_hu6e58962f184244967e3c3f053f447c54_3992091_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Chorlton","url":"/tags/chorlton/"},{"title":"Manchester","url":"/tags/manchester/"},{"title":"Pet Sit","url":"/tags/pet-sit/"}],"timestamp":1723593600,"title":"Chorlton"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"One day we decided to go walk a portion of the Appian Way to see what the ancient roman roads were like. Once there, we realized there were ruins in various states still preserved along the trail. Needless to say, we did a lot of walking that day, but we enjoyed it much more than we'd thought we would. I consider that a win.\nSo we plotted a course to the Appia Antica Park, where we saw a few cool things.\nTurns out, that park isn't where the Appian Way starts. In fact, it is a couple of miles from it. sigh. Sometimes being dumb bites you in the arse. So we walked a while, hoping we were going the right way toward our destination and eventually found where we should have gotten off the bus to avoid unnecessary wandering.\nAh, yes, this is starting to look right.\nCrypts along the Appian Way seem to be popular, often containing multiple family members together for eternity.\nAnd, of course, no walk would be complete without Melissa taking some pictures of the local flora and fauna.\n","date":"May 19, 2024","img":"/blog/appian-way/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/appian-way/featured_hud970342ee33bad78ccb9ffe0bdb61fde_3804138_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/appian-way/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/appian-way/featured_hud970342ee33bad78ccb9ffe0bdb61fde_3804138_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"}],"timestamp":1716076800,"title":"Appian Way Walk"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City Park","url":"/categories/city-park/"}],"content":"We generally visit a city's botanic garden when we're there and Rome was no exception. Late spring seemed like an ideal time for seeing new blooms. While it was nice and definitely worth the trip, I think we were a bit spoiled by what we experienced in New Zealand and Australia; admittedly hard to live up to. Below are some highlights and, yes, they include some fauna.\n","date":"May 17, 2024","img":"/blog/rome-botanic-garden/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/rome-botanic-garden/featured_hu78ac7783a9e1d6303c512f6b21b95775_8275852_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/rome-botanic-garden/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/rome-botanic-garden/featured_hu78ac7783a9e1d6303c512f6b21b95775_8275852_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"},{"title":"Gardens","url":"/tags/gardens/"}],"timestamp":1715904000,"title":"Botanic Garden of Rome"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Church","url":"/categories/church/"}],"content":"When in Vatican City, one is somewhat obligated to visit Saint Peter's Basilica (the largest church in the world by interior area). The plans for the basilica were ordered by Pope Nicholas V in the 15th century and construction initiated by Pope Julius II in 1506. Work on the basilica completed over a century later in 1626. Michelangelo was one of the principle designers, along with Donato Bramante and Carlo Maderno.\nStanding in St. Peter's Square was pretty cool. But the basilica itself was just amazing. We chose to pay for the dome tour and it was well worth it. This visit was one of the highlights of our Rome experience. Pictures don't really do it justice, but I've captured some highlights below (apologies for the quantity).\n","date":"May 16, 2024","img":"/blog/saint-peters-basilica/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/saint-peters-basilica/featured_hu35178a43376854e4133d05b61bb7176a_3335923_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/saint-peters-basilica/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/saint-peters-basilica/featured_hu35178a43376854e4133d05b61bb7176a_3335923_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"},{"title":"Vatican City","url":"/tags/vatican-city/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"}],"timestamp":1715817600,"title":"Saint Peter's Basilica"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"With so much time in Rome, Melissa was getting a little stir crazy. So we hopped a train out to Tivoli (east) to explore Villa Gregoriana. The main draw is a fairly long waterfall in the midst of a park. A path takes you from road level down into the gorge and then back out on the other side. While the waterfall was good to see, the rest of the park was fun to explore and gave us a bit more workout than our city walks. it was worth the trip.\n","date":"May 15, 2024","img":"/blog/villa-gregoriana/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/villa-gregoriana/featured_hu4160a3fa9011dbcd015ddc2e6e85f349_4420693_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/villa-gregoriana/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/villa-gregoriana/featured_hu4160a3fa9011dbcd015ddc2e6e85f349_4420693_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"},{"title":"Road Trip","url":"/tags/road-trip/"}],"timestamp":1715731200,"title":"Villa Gregoriana"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"The Quartiere Coppedè is a small section of Rome whose architecture was created by Gino Coppedè. The structures were built between 1915 and 1927. This page captures some of the highlights we visited.\nEntrance Arch\nThe entrance arch welcomes you to the area with a glimpse of what awaits you within the quarter.\nFairy House and Fountain of the Frog\nLocated in Piazza Mincio, the casina delle fate (fairy house) and fontana delle rane (fountain of the frog) are great examples of the charming architecture.\nSpider Building\nAlso in Piazza Mincio, the palazzo del ragno (spider building) sports some interesting architecture.\nArt Decco Building\nFinally, there's an art decco building in Palazza Muncio whose overall architecture is somewhat similar (roof overhangs, columns on balconies, etc.) to the spider building. It doesn't really show up as an attraction, although it does find it's way into photos. We thought it interesting.\nOther stuff\nMany of the buildings now serve as administrative offices or apartments rather than homes. Here are a few.\nEmbassy of the Republic of Congo Savoia Apartment House Villa Albani Torlonia Fun time! It's a short walk with a lot to explore. If you have some extra time in Rome, it's a nice break from the often crowded main attractions.\n","date":"May 13, 2024","img":"/blog/quartiere-copped%C3%A8/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/quartiere-copped%C3%A8/featured_hu7d0e87dee7c9c3de942f4c51ac776b06_4560317_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/quartiere-copped%C3%A8/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/quartiere-copped%C3%A8/featured_hu7d0e87dee7c9c3de942f4c51ac776b06_4560317_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"}],"timestamp":1715558400,"title":"Quartiere Coppedè"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"Walking around Rome, we visited a number of interesting landmarks that attract tourists due to their uniqueness and beauty. This page captures a few of them that don't really need their own page, but provide a quick reminder of some things we experienced along the way that might fall into the shadows of the grander, well-known attractions.\nTrevi Fountain\nFontana delle Tatarughe (Turtle Fountain)\nPalazza del Governatorato\nKnights of Malta keyhole\nIf you enlarge the picture through the keyhole, you can see the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.\n","date":"May 13, 2024","img":"/blog/rome-structures/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/rome-structures/featured_hu4381a1d4e78062dc141cfae0328b8e06_1231670_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/rome-structures/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/rome-structures/featured_hu4381a1d4e78062dc141cfae0328b8e06_1231670_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"}],"timestamp":1715558400,"title":"Rome Structures"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"We checked out the Roman Pantheon ('temple of all gods'), which turns out to be a big, round room with a dome and a foyer. It's really well preserved and pretty darn cool to see. It also has a large obelisk out front.\nFun fact: the diameter of the room and the height of the dome (oculus) are both 43m (142 ft).\nThe Pantheon was originally constructed during the reign of Augustus (27 BC - AD 14), but burned down and was ordered rebuilt by Hadrian around 126 AD. In year 609, the Catholics turned it into a church dedicated to St. Mary and the Martyrs (sounds like a band name). I'll let the pics speak for themselves.\n","date":"May 11, 2024","img":"/blog/rome-pantheon/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/rome-pantheon/featured_hu552035671cbf5a4df9b3c24845de8d73_1740282_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/rome-pantheon/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/rome-pantheon/featured_hu552035671cbf5a4df9b3c24845de8d73_1740282_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"}],"timestamp":1715385600,"title":"Rome Pantheon"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"The Castel Sant'Angelo was the mausoleum of emperor Hadrian, built in AD 135-139 along the Tiber river. In the 5th century, it was converted to a fortress with a cylindrical center (living area) inside a square fortification. Below are some of the highlights of the structure and its contents. And, of course, some wildlife.\n","date":"May 9, 2024","img":"/blog/castel-san-angelo/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/castel-san-angelo/featured_hu5aa3bba23ae9ef4d356a20246a6621ee_3042476_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/castel-san-angelo/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/castel-san-angelo/featured_hu5aa3bba23ae9ef4d356a20246a6621ee_3042476_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"}],"timestamp":1715212800,"title":"Castel Sant'Angelo"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Museum","url":"/categories/museum/"}],"content":"We went to Vatican City to visit the museums. How could you not if you're spending any significant time in Rome? There are many museums, galleries, chapels, and other collections to visit. I recommend getting there early, as it gets crowded; so much so that it takes away from the experience and leaves me in no hurry to go back. I constantly felt rushed as we were herded along like cattle down crowded corridors. I like being able to take my time through areas that interest me, but the constant flow makes it difficult to see items, much less examine them from multiple perspectives. The tour groups were particularly annoying; they stop wherever, the group surrounds the item to which the guide is speaking, and thus create both a chokepoint and an obstructed view for everyone else. But I'm not bitter. Maybe it's nicer in winter?\nSince there's just so much (overwhelming), I'm just dumping a bunch of highlights. Maybe someday I'll be motivated to come back and add more detailed descriptions...\nPhotos within the Sistine Chapel are forbidden, hence the pic from the website. We're good tourists...we generally obey the rules.\n","date":"May 9, 2024","img":"/blog/vatican/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/vatican/featured_hua9da15a94ad10cab5107fda62adc2018_2881452_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/vatican/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/vatican/featured_hua9da15a94ad10cab5107fda62adc2018_2881452_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Vatican City","url":"/tags/vatican-city/"},{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"}],"timestamp":1715212800,"title":"Vatican Museums"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"Of the seven hills of Rome, Palantine Hill is in the middle, surrounded by the others. Archeologists have unearthed items dating back to 1000 BC. Many of the rich and powerful Romans of the Republic (509-44 BC) resided in Pallantium before it was merged into Rome. Augustus built his palace here at the start of the empire, setting a precedence for subsequent emperors who also built palaces here (including Nero's palace that burnt to the ground). In the 4th century BC, the Servian Wall was erected as a defensive barrier encompassing the seven hills. The Servian Wall was 11 Km (6.8 miles) long and up to 10 m (33 ft) high. When Rome's population outgrew the area in the 3rd century AD, Emperor Aurelian erected the Aurelian Walls to widen Rome's defense (see Ancient Roman Structures).\n","date":"May 8, 2024","img":"/blog/palatine-hill/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/palatine-hill/featured_hu1d04f55a06c19cc31c2c0a225fb4a374_4075322_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/palatine-hill/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/palatine-hill/featured_hu1d04f55a06c19cc31c2c0a225fb4a374_4075322_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"}],"timestamp":1715126400,"title":"Palatine Hill"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"When walking around Rome, we would occasionally come upon ancient structures. Many were behind fences and off limits; others were just cool to see but not enough to warrant their own page. This page keeps track of some memories for future reverie.\nAurelian Walls - Emperor Aurelian expanded the earlier Servian Wall to enclose all of the seven hills of Rome (and then some) between 271-275 AD\nAqueducts - bringing fresh water to Rome in ancient times\nCircus Maximus - chariot racing venue, they had just had an event and, although the display tents had been taken down, some remnants still occupied the field\nPyramid of Cestius - ancient pyramid, tomb of Gaius Cestius, built in 18-12 BC, 100x100x125 Roman ft. (a Roman foot is slightly smaller, 0.971, than an English foot), incorporated into the Aurelian Walls\nTemples - Hercules Victor, Portunis, and Minerva Medica. Those first two temples are ancient, dating back to over 100 BC. I threw in a pic of The Mouth of Truth, since it's believed to have come from the Temple of Hercules Victor (manhole cover?). Supposedly, liars who put their hand in the mouth will get it bitten off...\n[ ","date":"May 5, 2024","img":"/blog/ancient-roman-structures/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/ancient-roman-structures/featured_hu21186eb9908fd69584cce2d5ba056ca0_2535597_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/ancient-roman-structures/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/ancient-roman-structures/featured_hu21186eb9908fd69584cce2d5ba056ca0_2535597_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"}],"timestamp":1714867200,"title":"Ancient Roman Structures"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"It'd be hard to visit Rome without going to the Colosseum. Little did we know that getting in would be a challenge. Tickets are sold months in advance and tend to be booked up for weeks, if not months, in advance. Lesson learned. We were thinking of showing up early and waiting in the hopes of being let in, but Melissa was able to find some early morning tickets - persistence pays. We had heard the Colosseum gets pretty crowded as the day progresses, so getting their early was a goal. As it turns out, that advice was spot on.\nTime for a few fun facts: the Colosseum is 187 (57m) feet high, 616 (188) feet long, and 511 (156 m) feet wide, and was completed in just 8 years (72-80 AD), and held over 50,000 spectators. It remained active for over 500 years (more than twice America's age).\nWe started with a walk around the outside. It's fascinating to see the size of this thing built over 2,000 years ago.\nI'm gonna take a second to insert the Arch of Constantine while we're still outside the Colosseum. The arch was built in 315 AD to commemorate Constantine's triumph over the Dacians in the Battle of Milvian Bridge. The structure is 21 meters wide and 25 meters high. It stands just outside the Colosseum toward Palatine Hill.\nWe were a bit disappointed we couldn't get special tickets that would allow us to go deeper into the depths of the Colosseum - the arena floor and/or the underground. As it turns out, I'm not sure we'd have gotten much more out of it. You'll see what I mean from the pictures. Let's go inside.\nYour browser does not support the video tag. So you can see how the arena floor would get you closer to where the \u0026quot;action\u0026quot; took place and a decent view of the underground area. But as we wound our way through the Colosseum, we found we got a pretty good view without paying the extra money.\nFirst, you can see the enormity of the place. In my opinion, seeing the Colosseum in person is well worth the cost. It's really amazing to realize just how advanced (and barbaric) civilization was two millennia ago. It boggles my mind. I can't wait to travel to more ancient civilizations and be just as amazed. We really did lose a lot of knowledge and progress through the dark ages.\nSecond, you can see that we get down to the level of the arena floor and can see where the underground tour gets you down into the structure. It's subjective, but we felt we got what we came here for and that getting a little closer would not have added much to the experience for the added cost.\nOn the way out, they have a lot of remnants on display. It's neat to see stuff up close, plus it give you a better sense of the scale of the pieces and the effort that went into building it (albeit, largely slave labor).\n","date":"May 3, 2024","img":"/blog/colosseum/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/colosseum/featured_hu62bf28e4ccc0ad6ad0c2a56766c4dd7b_3244687_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/colosseum/","series":[{"title":"Italy","url":"/series/italy/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/colosseum/featured_hu62bf28e4ccc0ad6ad0c2a56766c4dd7b_3244687_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rome","url":"/tags/rome/"}],"timestamp":1714694400,"title":"Colosseum"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"Our time in the US wouldn't be complete without a visit to Amarillo to see our female offspring unit. The timing was good as she was moving to her new apartment and could use some help. I had planned to hire someone to move her stuff from point A to point B, but as usual, we decided it wasn't that much and we could do it ourselves without too much effort. Another round of learning a lesson...again. I'm tired of learning the lesson that I'm not as young and fit as I once was. sigh. But, we got 'er done without too much hassle. And Brenna got some nice, new tats while we were there, courtesy of her boss.\nNote the pizza blanket and ketchup pillows Hi, Kai, good to see you again Black widow and false widow We did a lot of hanging out with Brenna. We caught up on life, met her workmates, shopped, dined, and explored the city. Melissa got to reinforce her distaste of the cattle raising \u0026quot;atmosphere\u0026quot; that can get ripe when the wind shifts the right direction. We also did a day trip to New Mexico's Oasis State Park to \u0026quot;hike\u0026quot; and explore some of the local desert flora and fauna.\nyes, there is some water in the desert kangaroo rat tracks ","date":"April 9, 2024","img":"/blog/amarillo-2024/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/amarillo-2024/featured_hu4fbca3e7782d8578c20d42b3a3244baf_3766443_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/amarillo-2024/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/amarillo-2024/featured_hu4fbca3e7782d8578c20d42b3a3244baf_3766443_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Amarillo","url":"/tags/amarillo/"},{"title":"Family","url":"/tags/family/"}],"timestamp":1712620800,"title":"Amarillo 2024"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Event","url":"/categories/event/"}],"content":"We imposed on family for an extra week to experience a total eclipse. Brenna wasn't quite ready for us to come to Amarillo to help move her to a new apartment, so we figured why not stick around for the eclipse? Total eclipses don't happen that often and we happened to be in the band that would experience it.\nYep, we\u0026#39;re in there Good to know So we got family together at my uncle's house for some prime viewing (and crowd avoidance since Evansville/Newburgh experienced an influx of people). We packed some drinks and sandwiches. Yes, we had snacks.\nA fine looking group (there were more) Molassass cookies and white chocolate pretzels Our cool (and free) T-Moblie sun shades It was pretty spectacular. Day turned to dusk, if only for a few minutes. Melissa managed to take some pretty good pictures with her phone.\nGoing... going... there it is Yup, it\u0026#39;s darker A fine looking group All good things must come to an end And, of course, we have to share a few favorite gimmicks we saw.\nThis made us smile Why not? Looks yummy Overall good day. We're glad we hung around for it.\n","date":"April 8, 2024","img":"/blog/total-eclipse/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/total-eclipse/featured_hu37b132ffcc48ab88e1825a627e9567ae_2266410_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/total-eclipse/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/total-eclipse/featured_hu37b132ffcc48ab88e1825a627e9567ae_2266410_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Evansville","url":"/tags/evansville/"},{"title":"Newburgh","url":"/tags/newburgh/"},{"title":"Eclipse","url":"/tags/eclipse/"},{"title":"Family","url":"/tags/family/"}],"timestamp":1712534400,"title":"Total Eclipse"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"We spent way too much time eating out (weight gain), but had a great time catching up with everyone. We even managed a side trip down to see my aunt in Tennessee. Here are some highlights.\nSpending time with family (also see the total eclipse page)\nMelissa and our nephew ...and niece ...and sister with new shirts My family can't seem to get enough of Mexican Train. And we played some Clue (poorly, in my case)\nMelissa accosting Bucky at the Tennessee Bucky's\nYup, that\u0026#39;s my wife He never knew what hit him My niece and her boyfriend took us to the arcade for pinball, video games, and others (skeeball, beers, etc.). High school friend Jeff came with.\nPinball is my favorite Jeff\u0026#39;s tearin\u0026#39; it up! And getting the high school crew back together. Several times.\nThe gang And with significant others And finally, spent some time helping my brother with his downsizing. To be fair, he's also renovating, so everything's out until he can finish repairs and get things organized away.\nObviously, I'm leaving out some things, like my brother-in-law playing guitar in his church on easter and spending time with other extended family members, but this is a pretty good representation of how we spent our time.\n","date":"March 16, 2024","img":"/blog/evansville-2024/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/evansville-2024/featured_hu53aca64d27a6849c82001c888c8cc56d_844150_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/evansville-2024/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/evansville-2024/featured_hu53aca64d27a6849c82001c888c8cc56d_844150_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Evansville","url":"/tags/evansville/"},{"title":"Newburgh","url":"/tags/newburgh/"},{"title":"Family","url":"/tags/family/"},{"title":"Friends","url":"/tags/friends/"}],"timestamp":1710547200,"title":"Evansville 2024"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Event","url":"/categories/event/"}],"content":"We attended our friends', Gene and Danielle, wedding (Congratulations!). I've known Gene for over 30 years and we've gotten to know Danielle really well over the years, so we wouldn't have missed their big day.\nThe bachelor party Rehearsal dinner The Dr. Phillips house lovely venue ...inside and out The wedding party The newlyweds First dance as a married couple Winding down Gene is Colin\u0026#39;s godfather, so he and Kate came, too ","date":"March 9, 2024","img":"/blog/gene-and-danielle-got-married/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/gene-and-danielle-got-married/featured_hue65ba8e8b99f5935f9b7579a003e3ae1_366621_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/gene-and-danielle-got-married/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/gene-and-danielle-got-married/featured_hue65ba8e8b99f5935f9b7579a003e3ae1_366621_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Orlando","url":"/tags/orlando/"},{"title":"Friends","url":"/tags/friends/"},{"title":"Marriage","url":"/tags/marriage/"}],"timestamp":1709942400,"title":"Gene and Danielle Got Married"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City Park","url":"/categories/city-park/"}],"content":"We went to Leu Gardens (Orlando) with the kids. We always enjoy walking the gardens and viewing the wide variety of plants. This time, we were fortunate to experience the \u0026quot;28 works of art with Dalle de Verre glass and steel\u0026quot; created by sculptor, Alex Heveri. Here are some of our favorites.\n","date":"March 4, 2024","img":"/blog/leu-gardens/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/leu-gardens/featured_hu574addbfbfc90f1ca32697db6210d2eb_1266133_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/leu-gardens/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/leu-gardens/featured_hu574addbfbfc90f1ca32697db6210d2eb_1266133_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Orlando","url":"/tags/orlando/"},{"title":"Gardens","url":"/tags/gardens/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Sculpture","url":"/tags/sculpture/"}],"timestamp":1709510400,"title":"Leu Gardens"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Rant","url":"/categories/rant/"}],"content":"(disclaimer: Chuck likes to rant and tends to embellish events to make them seem far worse than they are. We take all travel tongue-in-cheek - stuff happens. First world problems, am I right? PMS - Poor Me Syndrome :p )\nWe came back to the USA to visit friends and family. We stayed longer than expected (until May 2), but had a lot of fun. This page is a rant regarding our experience. For the fun stuff with pictures, see our posts about Orlando, Indiana (and Tennessee), and Amarillo.\nWe flew out of Auckland (AKL) to Orlando (MCO) via Dallas (DFW). Of course our DFW-\u0026gt;MCO flight was delayed (yay, back in America - more on this later). Once in Orlando, we were notified only 1 of 4 bags also made the trip (thank American Airlines!). Thankfully the rest of our bags were delivered by 2am.\nWe rented a car after some consternation; it turns out since we don't own cars (and hence auto insurance), we are required to purchase liability insurance through the car rental agency at $15.88/day. For the 26 days we had the car, that came to $412.88! Just for the insurance! I used to pay ~$450 for 6 months of full coverage on my Porsche (granted, it was older and we had multi-policy discounts). Color me irritated. I'm not typically one to get angry with customer service people, they're only doing their job and have nothing to do with setting policies, but I had a rare moment of letting my temperament get away from me. Our agent was calm and polite, but my outburst did get us Melissa added as a second driver for free (instead of the ~$14/day they were going to charge!). I'm not a fan of renting cars. And, less than 48 hours of being back in the states, I received several f-bombs from a driver who didn't like Melissa's driving, even though she had done nothing wrong or out of the ordinary. Yeah.\nFrom there, we were off to Evansville (EVV) to visit friends and family. We tried a new airline, Breeze, that flies non-stop MCO-\u0026gt;EVV (convenient). Only the flight was delayed...again and again until it was finally cancelled. So we spent an extra night in Orlando. We were reimbursed $300 plus each got a $100 credit for a future flight that's good for 24 months, so I guess it's ok, especially since we're not on a rigid flight schedule.\nWe extended our trip an extra week to experience a rare total solar eclipse - Evansville happened to be a prime location for the total eclipse. It was pretty cool. Special thanks to my sister and brother-in-law for letting us extend our imposing on their hospitality - 3 weeks is a bit long.\nThen we were off to Amarillo (AMA) to visit our daughter, Brenna, and help her move into a new apartment. And our EVV-\u0026gt;DFW flight was delayed a few hours. Then our DFW-\u0026gt;AMA flight was delayed (only 15 min). But we made it. We got to spend a couple of weeks catching up with our girl, meeting her new roommate, experiencing all that Amarillo has to offer.\nAs it turns out, we can book business class flights out of Orlando for about half the price of Dallas. So, guess what? Back to Orlando, but only for a few days. And, yes, our flight from Amarillo to Dallas was delayed about an hour, and our flight from Dallas to Orlando was delayed about 4 hours. Sheesh.\nAfter a short return visit, we were off to Rome. We booked through CapitalOne to maximize reward points (I may do a small rant about that in the future). We thought we were booking a JetBlue flight - that's who appeared in the flights listing. It turns out that JetBlue is partnered with Condor and Lufthansa. Trying to get our itinerary and pick seats was problematic - our confirmation code wouldn't work. After a couple of calls we learned that the confirmation code was with Condor and we needed separate codes for JetBlue and Lufthansa.\nWith that straightened out, we headed to the airport on the morning of our flight. When checking our bags, Melissa noticed our bags were not following us from Frankfurt to Rome. What?!? The JetBlue employee went off to check why and returned with the explanation that JetBlue has Condor as a partner but not Lufthansa, so the could not transfer the bags through; we'd have to retrieve them and check them with Lufthansa. I call bullshit (more below), but dealing with leaf nodes is futile and we had a plane to catch, so we went on our way.\nThe flight to Boston and subsequent flight out were both delayed. You guessed it, we arrived in Frankfurt with ~1/2 hour to get our bag, check it in, and make it from the arrival terminal to the departure terminal. Have I mentioned how unhelpful Frankfurt airport personnel are? No good signage to tell you the only way to get between terminals is to find an area at which to catch the shuttle and wait 15 min for it to come pick up a group of penned cattle. Needless to say, there was no way we were retrieving our luggage. Sigh.\nSo we got to the gate and spoke to a Lufthansa employee to see what our options are. The response? 1. Why didn't they transfer the luggage through to Rome? That's odd...they should have done that. 2. Lufthansa can't send the luggage on. We have to get to Rome and speak to their Lufthansa people so the Rome folks request the luggage from the Frankfurt folks. I'm sure there's a good bureaucratic reason why it works this way, but I'm about 98.72% certain the reason is illogical and total nonsense. But that's just me.\nNeedless to say, we were without our luggage for about a day. Not a big deal, just another head-scratcher. If only the organizations would hire me to consult on how to increase efficiency, but that's a topic for another day.\n","date":"February 18, 2024","img":"","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"","permalink":"/docs/timeout/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"","tags":[{"title":"Life","url":"/tags/life/"}],"timestamp":1708214400,"title":"Back in the USA (Rant)"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"Back in our old stomping grounds - Orlando, Florida. We're gonna miss Oceania, we really liked it down under, but we got to see our son, Colin, and meet his new (to us) girlfriend, Kate. She's wonderful and we adore her. They're good together. We even spent a day at Leu Gardens with them.\nOf course, Melissa's first stop was to get nuts in the hopes of making squirrel friends at the place we were staying. She had squirrel withdrawal from our time in Oceania.\nSuccess! \u0026#39;They love me!\u0026#39; And we got to catch up with old friends and celebrate a marriage!\nLong-term bestie Debbie Making out with Deb\u0026#39;s new dog Cici Another long-time bestie Mary Jane The neighborhood crew Bookclub crew Bookclub crew hugs Can\u0026#39;t get enough of these girls Debra came down from Tennessee Yay Kim! Hi Courteney ...and Luke! (Apologies to my friends...Chuck don't take pics, but I like hanging out with you)\nAnd I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize some of our old Lake Eola pals (did a lot of laps around that \u0026quot;lake\u0026quot;).\nSquirrels always come first -Melissa This nutter found a treat Black Swans Harmony in the park These clowns have been together for years Pile on! Guess what? ","date":"February 15, 2024","img":"/blog/orlando2024/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/orlando2024/featured_huab07d8282eabac317c4b9a182c38d8e8_3299829_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/orlando2024/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/orlando2024/featured_huab07d8282eabac317c4b9a182c38d8e8_3299829_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Family","url":"/tags/family/"},{"title":"Friends","url":"/tags/friends/"}],"timestamp":1707955200,"title":"Orlando 2024"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"We finally made it to Hobbiton! What a great place. Of course it rained pretty hard while we were there. But we had some breaks in the weather and it was totally worth it.\nYou have to go by tour - no free range roaming. You meet up at the Shire Rest Cafe and take the tour bus to Hobbiton. The cafe has some LOTR/Hobbit gifts, food, and sculptures. Overall, we found it distracting...we want Hobbiton!\nWe walked around the dell to view the hobbit dwellings. The attention to detail is fantastic.\nTo finally arrive at Bag End! Fun fact, the tree above Bag End (last pic) is an artificial recreation of the tree in the movies. If memory serves, it has over 200k hand painted and placed leaves (requiring maintenance) and is intentionally smaller than the one in LOTR to reflect it's size in the earlier Hobbit book. Or, for the cynical, smaller = less cost.\nWe then headed toward the Millhouse and the Green Dragon Inn for some drinks, passing through Bagshot Row and the Party Fields.\nThat's a lot for one page. Be sure to check out the Hobbit Home and Green Dragon Inn pages for more fun.\n","date":"February 3, 2024","img":"/blog/hobbiton/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/hobbiton/featured_hu96c563d206c452c644e9e35ea15fb102_6246894_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/hobbiton/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/hobbiton/featured_hu96c563d206c452c644e9e35ea15fb102_6246894_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"Hobbits","url":"/tags/hobbits/"}],"timestamp":1706918400,"title":"Hobbiton! Yay!"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"We got to go inside a hobbit house! This is a new thing. Hobbiton was high on our must-do list, but the house interiors weren't scheduled for completion until December 2023 (and were already booking up). As this is summer break time for kids down under, we decided to wait until February to visit Hobbiton. As you can see below, they spent a lot of time making the new addition look authentic. It's incredible!\nDue to the crowds, we couldn't get a good shot of the entrances. We thought we'd get them on the way out, but they take you out the back door, so this is as good as we got. We were also in the back of the pack, which meant we needed to rush through some parts to get uncrowded pictures and experience everything before being ushered out. Still worth it!\nOnce inside, the spaces open up and the real fun begins.\nWe started in the living room.\nI spent some time looking through Bilbo's writings.\nAnd we continued moving through the house to the important stuff.\nAnd on to the bedrooms.\nThe kitchen! Now we're talking.\nI thought I should take a moment to write Bilbo a thank you note for letting us visit.\nIt was finally time to exit through the rear.\nFrom here, you get a good view of our next stop, the Green Dragon Inn.\n","date":"February 3, 2024","img":"/blog/hobbit-house/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/hobbit-house/featured_hu98914048636e96cb59ef2325b944116f_2270095_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/hobbit-house/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/hobbit-house/featured_hu98914048636e96cb59ef2325b944116f_2270095_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"Hobbits","url":"/tags/hobbits/"}],"timestamp":1706918400,"title":"Inside a Hobbit House"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"Last stop in our Hobbiton tour, the Green Dragon Inn. I'll bore you with a few scenic pics along the trail because New Zealand is just so beautiful.\nSoon enough we arrived at the Millhouse.\nCross the bridge and arrive at our destination. The roof was being rethatched.\nYes, Melissa managed to capture the one 4-legged mammal on premises.\n","date":"February 3, 2024","img":"/blog/green-dragon-inn/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/green-dragon-inn/featured_hue4760bb274c3a06dd8865434ec8ef252_6557986_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/green-dragon-inn/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/green-dragon-inn/featured_hue4760bb274c3a06dd8865434ec8ef252_6557986_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"Hobbits","url":"/tags/hobbits/"}],"timestamp":1706918400,"title":"The Green Dragon Inn"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Victoria","url":"/categories/victoria/"},{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"see the disclaimer\nOur stay in Melbourne happened to overlap the 2024 Australian Open, so we decided to grab some tickets to the Men's Semi-Finals and the Women's Final. We found out that the cheap daily entry tickets allow one to see any matches not played in the main venues, including practice sessions. The AO also set up giant monitors outside the stadium where you could watch the main matches on live feed, just as you would from home. There was a lot going on and it was well worth the experience. Highlights below.\nFun stuff...\nChanging sign\nOutdoor viewing of live matches\nSome of the stadiums\nWatching \u0026quot;free\u0026quot; matches in smaller venues\nMixed Doubles Finals\nMen's singles semis\nWomen's singles finals\n","date":"January 3, 2024","img":"/blog/australian-open-2024/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/australian-open-2024/featured_hu2a390ca2814d5bd88c2dddd0022b058a_3077650_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/australian-open-2024/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/australian-open-2024/featured_hu2a390ca2814d5bd88c2dddd0022b058a_3077650_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Melbourne","url":"/tags/melbourne/"},{"title":"Sports","url":"/tags/sports/"}],"timestamp":1704240000,"title":"Australian Open 2024"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"National Park","url":"/categories/national-park/"},{"title":"South Australia","url":"/categories/south-australia/"}],"content":"Admirals Arch \u0026amp; Long Nosed Fur Seal Colony\nDecember 5, 2023\nFlinders Chase National Park, Kangaroo Island, Australia\nAdmirals Arch is one of Kangaroo Island’s most impressive and unusual natural landmarks. It took thousands of years of erosion to create this distinctive rock bridge near the Cape du Couedic Lighthouse on the island’s southwest coast.\nThere is a boardwalk leading to the arch which passes by a long nosed fur seal colony. You can watch the seals frolic, play fight, laze and swim on the rocks and pools below.\nCan you spot the seals out on the rocks?\nContinuing to make your way down the boardwalk to the Admirals Arch viewing platform, you can again observe the New Zealand fur seal colony that has established itself below the landmark. These dark brown seals rest and breed on land, but find food in the water. If you’re lucky, it’ll be the baby season and you can watch the cute little pups nursing.\nThe arch itself is quite stunning, huge stalactites dangle from the rocky ceiling of this former cave. I would imagine at high tides the waves crashing in would be quite exciting. We visited at a lower tide time. The floor of the arch looked very smooth so you’d have to imagine the rush of water eroding it that way.\nThe view was absolutely breathtaking!\n","date":"December 5, 2023","img":"/blog/admirals-arch-flinders-national-park/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/admirals-arch-flinders-national-park/featured_hu67bbedcbc4897e9eb4daefbf05d59d50_2565750_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/admirals-arch-flinders-national-park/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/admirals-arch-flinders-national-park/featured_hu67bbedcbc4897e9eb4daefbf05d59d50_2565750_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Kangaroo Island","url":"/tags/kangaroo-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1701734400,"title":"Admirals Arch in Flinders Chase National Park, Kangaroo Island, South Australia"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"National Park","url":"/categories/national-park/"},{"title":"South Australia","url":"/categories/south-australia/"}],"content":"Cape du Couedic Lighthouse \u0026amp; Trail\nFlinders Chase National Park\nKangaroo Island, Australia\nDecember 5, 2023\nAccording to Lighthouses of Australia, the history of this lighthouse goes something like this….the first Europeans to arrive on Kangaroo Island in 1802 was a group led by Matthew Flinders looking for water and fresh meat (they’d been without for 4 months while on their journey). When they arrived to the island, they hunted the small kangaroos and that’s how the island was named.\nA year later, a French explorer, Nicholas Baudin passed on the opposite side of the island naming the southwestern point Cape de Couedic after his friend and famous sea captain Charles Louis Chevalier du Couedic de Kergoualer (1740-1780). The need for a lighthouse in that area had been great for many years. In fact, there had already been three shipwrecks and 79 lives lost. But it wasn’t until 1902 that plans began to formulate for the construction of the lighthouse that stands today.\nIt's hard to imagine it took that long given that earlier lights had already been constructed to guide ships passing on the north side of Kangaroo Island, Cape Borda Lighthouse (1858) in the Investigator Strait and Cape Willoughby (1852) in the Back Stairs Passage. Cape du Couedic was built between 1906-1909 from over 2000 pieces of local stone.\nThe coastline off Flinders Chase shoreline has become the final resting place to 14 ships who had come in contact with the rocky shores.\nThe lighthouse became automated and officially demanned in 1957.\nThe trail leading away from the lighthouse and out to the rocky cliff line.\nEven though regeneration is occurring in the park from the destructive bush fires in 2019/2020, you can still see the lingering damage to the tree lines in the distance.\n","date":"December 5, 2023","img":"/blog/cape-de-couedic-lighthouse-flinders-chase-national-park/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/cape-de-couedic-lighthouse-flinders-chase-national-park/featured_hue96f092fe993ea51a763e1f05d2b7928_3749748_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/cape-de-couedic-lighthouse-flinders-chase-national-park/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/cape-de-couedic-lighthouse-flinders-chase-national-park/featured_hue96f092fe993ea51a763e1f05d2b7928_3749748_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Kangaroo Island","url":"/tags/kangaroo-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"},{"title":"National Park","url":"/tags/national-park/"}],"timestamp":1701734400,"title":"Cape Du Couedic Lighthouse in Flinders Chase National Park, Kangaroo Island, South Australia"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"National Park","url":"/categories/national-park/"},{"title":"South Australia","url":"/categories/south-australia/"}],"content":"Remarkable Rocks...really are Remarkable, Admirals Arch is Amazing and the Lighthouse is Lovely!\nFlinders Chase National Park\nKangaroo Island, South Australia\nDecember 5, 2023\nWe drove a little over an hour and a half to get out to the national park on the west coast of Kangaroo Island...Flinders Chase National Park. It was devasted by the 2019/2020 bushfires dubbed the \u0026quot;Black Summer\u0026quot; with nearly 96% of the park and adjoining Ravine des Cosoars WPA and Kelly Hill Conservation Park being gravely impacted, largest recorded devastation on the island.\nAll of Kangaroo Island was impacted, with nearly 50% being burned. It has started to bounce back with new vegetation growth, but it is clear the devasting impact the fires had on the beautiful forests that once stood. It's estimated that 41,000 koala alone perished during that fire on Kangaroo Island. Heartbreaking to think about that loss aside from the losses of sheep, cattle and kangaroos.\nThe burnt out trees now serve as refuges for birds, lizards and insects.\nEven with the devastation, we could see past the burnt forests and into the new growth and had an excellent time at the Cape de Coudedic Lighthouse \u0026amp; hiking trails, Admirals Arch and sea lion pools and finishing out our day at Remarkable Rocks, which truly blew our minds!\nClick on the highlighted links to see our fun adventures in Flinders Chase National Park.\n","date":"December 5, 2023","img":"/blog/flinders-chase-national-park-ki/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/flinders-chase-national-park-ki/featured_hu9130d26bf81379808c574624b7ec9318_5276227_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/flinders-chase-national-park-ki/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/flinders-chase-national-park-ki/featured_hu9130d26bf81379808c574624b7ec9318_5276227_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Kangaroo Island","url":"/tags/kangaroo-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1701734400,"title":"Flinders Chase National Park, Kangaroo Island, South Australia"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"National Park","url":"/categories/national-park/"},{"title":"South Australia","url":"/categories/south-australia/"}],"content":"Prospect Hill\nKangaroo Island, Australia\nDecember 6, 2023\nWe had been driving all around Kangaroo Island, passing the sign for Prospect Hill, multiple times. We finally decided to go ahead and make the stop and see what it was all about. As it turns out, it’s the highest point on Kangaroo Island which surprised me given the cliff drops at both the lighthouses we visited. It also had the MOST stairs I have had to climb…602 up and 602 back down. Phew!\nThe hill was named Prospect Hill when Matthew Flinders was exploring southern Australia in 1802, he rowed to the end of Pelican Lagoon and walked to the top of the hill to view more of the island. The view was pretty nice and we even saw a rather large Western Grey Kangaroo munching on the field below us.\n","date":"December 5, 2023","img":"/blog/prospect-hill-kangaroo-island/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/prospect-hill-kangaroo-island/featured_hu1f5508bbec604332d06431f079793149_4043466_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/prospect-hill-kangaroo-island/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/prospect-hill-kangaroo-island/featured_hu1f5508bbec604332d06431f079793149_4043466_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Kangaroo Island","url":"/tags/kangaroo-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1701734400,"title":"Prospect Hill, Kangaroo Island, South Australia"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"National Park","url":"/categories/national-park/"},{"title":"South Australia","url":"/categories/south-australia/"}],"content":"Remarkable Rocks\nFlinders Chase National Park\nKangaroo Island, Australia\nDecember 5, 2023\nWhat’s so significant about Remarkable Rocks? Easy answer...they are a geological wonder!\nOver 500 million years and 33,000 feet below the Earth's surface an elemental assault of wind, rain, sea salt erosion created the magical sculpting and moulding of the giant granite slabs of rock we can currently see.\nThey now tower 200 feet above the sea level and create a remarkably unique experience for visitors. As intimidating as they are, looming above you, you can’t help but immediately be drawn into climbing and exploring them.\nAt certain times of the day, the rust colored lichen turns the rocks orange and no matter which way you look, you see something new.\nWhat do you see in these formations?\nWe thought this one looked like an eagle or vulture with a big beak and wing.\nThis one reminded us of bat wings!\nPig? or Dog?\nChuck thought dragon and Melissa thought alligator or snapping turtle?\nDo you see a profile and Melissa picking the nose? LOL!\nChuck aka Fred Flintstone getting his vroom vroom on in a Flindersmobile!\nSome of the rocks just look like HUGE vertebrae from ancient dinosaurs.\nThey really are that massive, Melissa looks so tiny!\n","date":"December 5, 2023","img":"/blog/remarkable-rocks-flinders-chase-np/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/remarkable-rocks-flinders-chase-np/featured_hu16237898ec6db8f2e5daa123361441b5_2689163_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/remarkable-rocks-flinders-chase-np/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/remarkable-rocks-flinders-chase-np/featured_hu16237898ec6db8f2e5daa123361441b5_2689163_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Kangaroo Island","url":"/tags/kangaroo-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1701734400,"title":"Remarkable Rocks in Flinders Chase National Park, Kangaroo Island, South Australia"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"South Australia","url":"/categories/south-australia/"},{"title":"Zoo","url":"/categories/zoo/"}],"content":"Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park\nParndana, Kangaroo Island, Australia\nDecember 3, 2023\nToday was the day I dreamed of my whole life….\n….to hold a koala \u0026amp; bottle feed a baby joey!\nBoth of which I was lucky enough to experience at this amazing little sanctuary on Kangaroo Island called KI Wildlife Park. It’s been in business since the early 1990’s and focuses on providing a safe place for non-releasable native wildlife. There is a special focus on educating the public to becoming good stewards for the animals that call Kangaroo Island home.\nWhen the bush fires of 2019/2020 came roaring through the island, the refuge established the Kangaroo Island Koala and Wildlife Rescue Centre. During those first weeks/months after the fires they had over 600 koalas, kangaroos, echidnas, goannas, birds and possums come through the centre in need of critical care for burns, dehydration and starvation. Those saved \u0026amp; treated were released back into the wild. Some of the joeys that were orphaned due to the fire became non-releasable due to imprinting during handraising process and now live the sweet life at the refuge.\nWe opted for a private tour, which meant Chuck and I got one on one time with Steve, an animal care specialist, for a special 3 hour adventure! Our 1st stop was meeting Pearl, the koala. She is the sweetest, most loving little koala and actually LOVES to be held! I got to hold her first and seriously I just nuzzled right into her little head, I may have teared up a little bit with emotion. She was so gentle and seemed to be smiling as she moved between me and Chuck for snuggles. Steve tried to put her away to grab a baby koala for us to see, but Pearl would have nothing to do with that and insisted she be held again. It was precious.\nWe continued on our tour to the hospital and nursery where there just happened to be 1 baby joey still in care for this season, a Western Grey Kangaroo. Here’s where dream #2 came true….bottle feeding that little joey as he snuggled in his pillowcase pouch! He was a greedy little eater and gobbled up his special marsupial milk quickly. Again, I’ll spare you the ugly crying pictures, but happy doesn’t even begin to express how much that experience meant to me.\nWe moved along and visited some creepy crawly reptiles and large crocodiles, a pack of dingoes (who howled for us), and a sleeping little wombat. Then we were surprised with a quick stop to feed the Meerkats. They were crazy wild and clamoring for their treat of fresh peas! Who knew Meerkats were so feisty?!\nOur next surprise was one on one time with the marmosets named Link (father) and Navi (daughter). Navi was a cheeky little monkey who actually bullies her father. So Chuck and I tagged team them to make sure they both got equal treats of watermelon and apple. Navi made herself at home on Chucks head, probably asserting her dominance even though she literally weighs 300grams (10 oz or less).\nWe swung by the long nosed echidna’s enclosure for a quick pet. I think we learned the most here, did you know that echidnas as well as platypuses are the ONLY mammals to lay eggs? The females lay one egg a year, which is the size of a grape \u0026amp; leathery. The momma rolls the egg up to a “fake” pouch, really a deep fold of skin, on her belly to keep it safe. About 10 days later the puggle (how cute is that name?) hatches and snuggles in, lapping up the “milky goo” secreted from moms skin folds. The baby echidna stays with mom, in a den for about a year. Their spikes are made of keratin and are quite hard, basically long, hollow hair follicles. They can break off like a fingernail. The thick spines are used for defense. They can quickly roll into a ball or burrow enough to allow the spikes to protrude and deter any predators. They are actually toothless and have a long, sticky tongue like an anteater to snag small insects for dinner. We have a newfound respect for these adorable little nocturnal critters.\nNext stop….Quokkas! Oh yes we did, we got right inside their enclosure and handfed the cute little buggers. Quokkas are herbivores eating a variety of things like leaves, stems, bark and grasses. Think of them as big kangaroo-like rats! They can survive long periods of time without food and water by living off fat stores in their tails. They were super friendly and eager to snack.\nAs if our tour wasn’t already perfect and exciting…we were taken to the Servals next, Sabor and Cali. My first thought was WHAT? We can actually go INSIDE the enclosure with a big cat, two at that? I thought there is no way this is really happening; I know how our bobcats, Jaggar and Oliver, are at Back To Nature and there is NO WAY I would go inside their enclosures! But….as it turns out, Sabor and Cali are the sweetest, purry little kitties ever. Fun fact: thanks to their long legs, servals can run up to 45mph and jump 9 feet! I’m just glad they were sweet, because there was no way I could outrun them! We got to feed them dinner which consisted of raw chicken and fish. Chuck fed Sabor and he quickly ate everything while I fed Cali, who was quite particular in that she did not want her fish, only chicken! Sabor got a little extra fish that day! We were allowed a quick little rub down on Sabor while he enjoyed a cracked egg treat.\nI think by this point our cup runneth over but we weren’t finished! We headed into the kangaroo and wallaby enclosures with a bucket full of roo food! Steve left us to have as much time as we wanted hanging out and feeding the roos. Most of these guys were orphaned at a young age and hand raised, making them super sweet and ready for a selfie! We encountered red tammar wallabies, western grey kangaroos, and even an albino roo. They could get a little greedy with the roo food but we had plenty to go around!\nI still can’t believe what all we experienced on this tour, it was a DREAM COME TRUE for sure! If you are given the opportunity to visit, you won’t be disappointed!\nAfter our tour, we were able to just wander back around to see what we missed on the actual tour...birds! So many birds! Here are a few of our favorites:\nYour browser does not support the video tag. ","date":"December 3, 2023","img":"/blog/kangaroo-island-wildlife-park/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/kangaroo-island-wildlife-park/featured_hu2a2becace6fd5f1a11dfcb071462d220_7386927_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/kangaroo-island-wildlife-park/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/kangaroo-island-wildlife-park/featured_hu2a2becace6fd5f1a11dfcb071462d220_7386927_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Kangaroo Island","url":"/tags/kangaroo-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1701561600,"title":"Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"},{"title":"South Australia","url":"/categories/south-australia/"}],"content":"Cape Willoughby Conservation Park \u0026amp; Lighthouse\nKangaroo Island, South Australia\nDecember 2, 2023\nWe drove out to the far east side of Kangaroo Island on the Dudley Peninsula to Cape Willoughby Conservation Park \u0026amp; Lighthouse. The lighthouse is remarkable in that it was the 1st lighthouse in South Australia and a major breakthrough for protecting coastal shipping in the waters of the Backstairs Passage (incredibly rocky with sandbars) between Kangaroo Island and the mainland of Australia.\nThe lighthouse was built in 1852, formerly called the Sturt Light after Captain Charles Sturt, and is completely built out of solid granite blocks and limestone both which were quarried from the cliff on which it sits. Once manned 24 hours a day by 3 keepers, it became fully automated in the 1970’s and is currently unmanned, operating dusk to dawn.\nWe lucked out getting a tour with the park guide on a very windy \u0026amp; chilly day….the views were incredible. We chatted about the sheer number of bird species on the island and how hard it was identifying them all, she gave me a 75 page bird guide JUST for Kangaroo Island!\nOnly 102 stairs to the top, not so bad!\nThe modern lantern housing with LED lighting now, more efficient and cost effective. Allowing the lighthouse to be unmanned.\nOur incredible view from the balcony area...\nOn property was a little museum cataloging the history of the lighthouse, including a history of the over 60 shipwrecks that have occurred on Kangaroo Island. We were also greeted by a special visitor…Western Grey Kangaroo, just happily taking a drink from the water pipe on property.\nKangaroos spend much of the day lazing around.\nConservation park views....beautiful lands.\nThankfully we didn't see any of these slithering little friends that call the park home.\n","date":"December 2, 2023","img":"/blog/cape-willoughby-lighthouse/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/cape-willoughby-lighthouse/featured_huc8e996c7140293e2b90efb0fcc541d50_3546150_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/cape-willoughby-lighthouse/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/cape-willoughby-lighthouse/featured_huc8e996c7140293e2b90efb0fcc541d50_3546150_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Kangaroo Island","url":"/tags/kangaroo-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1701475200,"title":"Cape Willoughby Conservation Park \u0026 Lighthouse"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"},{"title":"Queensland","url":"/categories/queensland/"}],"content":"Point Cartwright Lighthouse \u0026amp; Reserve, Kawana Beach\nBuddina, Queensland, Australia\nNovember 26, 2023\nToday was a day to explore and discover! We took the bus out as far as we could and then hiked the rest of the way to the Point Cartwright Lighthouse and Reserve/Beach areas. The lighthouse is a sleek, pentagonal shape that was established in 1979, stands at 105ft tall, is self-sufficient/unmanned and only needs serviced every 4 months! The water tower next to the lighthouse has beautiful murals of sea life painted on it. You can’t tour the lighthouse but it was still a stunning site to see.\nWe took the rest of the afternoon to hit the rock pools at Kawana Beach….often called “fairy pools”. They are pretty magical. We were able to spot some zebrafish, zebra snails, purple shore crabs, oak chiton and other mollusks, lots of barnacles and even a sea anemone.\nWe finished up the day with a very “squeaky” walk on the sandy beach! I had to look it up and see why…apparently it has to do with the frequency and amplitude related to grain size and surface texture of the sand particles. As you walk or slide on the sand and press the particles together, air escapes creating the squeak! Who knew? I’m learning so many things on our journeys!\nYour browser does not support the video tag. ","date":"November 26, 2023","img":"/blog/point-cartwright-lighthouse-and-tide-pools-sunshine-coast-aus/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/point-cartwright-lighthouse-and-tide-pools-sunshine-coast-aus/featured_hu84ceaea315d2f5408465e8d854d821f8_3681567_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/point-cartwright-lighthouse-and-tide-pools-sunshine-coast-aus/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/point-cartwright-lighthouse-and-tide-pools-sunshine-coast-aus/featured_hu84ceaea315d2f5408465e8d854d821f8_3681567_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Sunshine Coast","url":"/tags/sunshine-coast/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1700956800,"title":"Point Cartwright Lighthouse \u0026 Reserve, Kawana Beach"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Queensland","url":"/categories/queensland/"},{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"The Ginger Factory \u0026amp; The Big Pineapple\nYandina \u0026amp; Woombye, Queensland, Australia\nNovember 24, 2023\nMaybe you can catch the Gingerbread Man!\nWe took a side trip out to Yandina to visit the iconic Buderim Ginger Factory, the worlds largest factory. We learned how the ginger is grown, harvested and turned into delicious products. We concluded our factory tour in The Ginger Tasting Room where we sampled various ginger delights.\nFUN FACTS:\n· There are over 100 varieties of ginger but only 4 are edible. They include: ginger (sweet but spicy), turmeric (peppery, musky), cardamon (sweet, peppery, pungent with hints of floral) and galangal (peppery like mustard). The other gingers are often referred to as ornamental and used in landscape due to their beautiful flowers and scents.\n· Ginger root is called a rhizome and it is the “seed” used for future crops. A small golf ball piece planted in the soil, growing like a potato, is the next gens crop.\n· Every part of the ginger root is used in some sort of product at the factory, nothing is wasted.\nGinger tasting included:\nPineapple \u0026amp; Ginger Cordial Zinger Drink, Sweet Ginger BBQ Meatball, Ginger Marmalade Onion Jam on a Rice Cracker, Gingernut Biscuit with Cream Cheese/Ginger \u0026amp; Lime Marmalade. Candied Ginger Pineapple Chunk and a Naked Ginger Nugget. It was ALL yummy!\nSugarbag Bee…What’s All The Buzz About?\nWe also got a special bee tour at the factory. Obviously, bees are the lifelines to many crops. Australia is home to over 2000 species of bees, some of them are stingless like the Sugarbag Bees. These guys are SO tiny they are often mistaken for small flies or mosquitos (and accidentally killed as a nuisance). Lets talk honey with these guys…the queen lays 300 eggs a day with the average worker bee making about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime (which is admittedly short at 21 days). It takes 1100 bees to make 1kg of this golden honey. These busy bees need to visit 4 million flowers to accomplish this goal! Think about that…….maybe that’s why it is THE most expensive honey around, clocking in at $250-300 per kg! It has been found to hold super high levels of antimicrobial properties putting its competitor, Manuka Honey, to shame with its worthiness. You are definitely not stirring this honey in your morning tea or spreading it on toast to snack! Good news….you can easily start a colony by purchasing a queen for $30 and having her shipped to you overnight!\nThe European Honeybee is really the SuperBee!\nWe got a behind the scenes tour of the bees that call the Ginger Factory home. From our beekeeper we learned about the hive hierarchy, how honey is made, how the hive thrives and finished off our tour with a honey tasting.\nFun facts:\n· Drones (male) don’t do anything but try to mate with a Virgin Queen. If they fail to do so, the worker bees (female) will literally pull the drone wings off and kick them out of the nest! The drones are lazy, rely on the workers to bring them food and don’t help with hive cleaning. Sound like any men in your life?\n· Bees have 5 eyes\n· Worker bees carry the pollen they’ve collected in a “bag or basket” located behind their hind legs\n· They produce about 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of honey in their lifetime. They need to visit over 2 million flowers in their lifetime to achieve this goal. Think about that!\n· Queens can live up to 5 years (average is 2), workers live for 6 weeks and thankfully the drone dies after mating or has his wings pinched off sooner.\n· Bees sleep 5-8 hours a day\n· If a queen dies unexpectedly, the worker bees identify a larva and begin to condition it to become the Queen, otherwise the hive would die.\n· The queen stores up to 6 million sperm after her “bee flight mating dance” and selectively decides gender as she lays up to 2000 eggs a day\nThe most exciting part of our tour was getting to see inside a hive! The staff at the Ginger Factory have built hives in the walls separated by a glass window pane and roll top garage door. If you search long and hard, you may be lucky to spot a Queen….we did! It’s also neat that you can put your hand on different places within the hive and feel the warmth generated by the bees flapping their wings, seeing baby bees emerge and watching the hive work as a collective whole. Now I understand the phrase “Busy as a Bee!”\nThe honey tasting was delicious….we tried the following varieties, all from the surrounding flower/tree populations in Australia: Floral Blend, Tasmanian Leatherwood, Rainforest, Yellowbox, Iron Bark and Eucalyptus. Our least favorite was: Tasmanian Leatherwood (spicy, musky, earthy). Our favorite hands down was: Eucalyptus, with upwards of 900 “gum tree” types here in Australia, it’s no wonder it tastes the best, a smooth, butterscotch flavor! A close second for me was a tie between the Floral Blend, it depends on the seasonal flowers as to the actual taste and the Yellow Box which is a light amber, fresh \u0026amp; fruity flavor.\nFound our new place to stay....Air Bee \u0026amp; Bee!\nThe Rainbrella Project....so colorful!\nSpongeBob doesn’t live under the sea…he lives in Oz!\nThe gigantic, 52 ft tall, fiberglass pineapple was erected in 1971 and is set atop a 400 acre old pineapple plantation, once called The Sunshine Planation in Woombye, Queensland. What started out in the early 1800’s over time has faded to nothing. Once a vibrant tourist attraction with a nutmobile, train, shops and planation tour showcasing the pineapples, avocados, macademia nuts, ginger, sugar cane, bananas and passionfruit they once grew, it is currently used only as a special events location for music festivals. It really is a shame as it is a Queensland icon/Heritage listed attraction…even Princess Diana and Prince Charles had visited the planation in 1983. It has so much potential, I hope it gets revived.\n","date":"November 24, 2023","img":"/blog/ginger-factory-big-pineapple-budina-sunshine-coast-aus/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/ginger-factory-big-pineapple-budina-sunshine-coast-aus/featured_hu6317b0d9f4e3c3c2de877090731dc433_4502437_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/ginger-factory-big-pineapple-budina-sunshine-coast-aus/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/ginger-factory-big-pineapple-budina-sunshine-coast-aus/featured_hu6317b0d9f4e3c3c2de877090731dc433_4502437_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1700784000,"title":"The Ginger Factory \u0026 the Big Pineapple"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"},{"title":"Queensland","url":"/categories/queensland/"}],"content":"Noosa National Park\nNoosa, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia\nNovember 22, 2023\nNoosa National Park Coastal Hike\nNoosa is born from the aboriginal word \u0026quot;Noothera\u0026quot; or \u0026quot;Gnuthuru\u0026quot;, in the Kabi Kabi language meaning shadow.\nHike Details:\nApprox 9km, roundtrip\nApprox 3-4 hours\nGrade 4\nWe did the Coastal Walk hike in Noosa National Park out to Hells Gate in Alexandria Bay. We stopped and admired the sweeping ocean views from Boiling Pot, Tea Tree Bay, Dolphin Point, Granite Bay, Fairy Pools and finally Hells Gate near Alexandria Bay. When we started out the sands on the beach were abundant, on return with the tide coming in…it all but disappeared. It was pretty cool to watch and hear the waves crashing against the cliffs and rocky areas.\nBoiling Pot…aka Witches Cauldron\nAccording to the park sign, when the conditions are right, a powerful surge of water from the surf enters the rocks and creates a whoosh of water much like a boiling pot on the stove. It was formed when joints within the sandstone were worn down, creating blocks that were eventually swept away, and leaving an opening for the surf to surge through.\nTea Tree Bay....forest of eucalyptus/gum trees.\nWe didn't see any koala milling about, although they are supposed to be around. The \u0026quot;tea tree\u0026quot; or melaleuca trees are really cool, the bark layers peel off like paper.\nDolphin Point...gave us spectacular views, just no dolphins!\nFairy Pools are Magical!\nThe coast of Noosa National Park is characterized by a very rocky shoreline. It’s in these rocky areas that the “fairy pools” form. They are natural tidal rock pools, with a fun and fancy name.\nOver millions of years the basalt/volcanic rocks have been eroded by the sea and wind to form big pool-shaped cavities. Ocean waves regularly wash into the rock pools, creating a natural seawater pool in which you can swim without the fear of being pulled back into the ocean by the strength of the waves. If I were younger, I would have loved getting in.\nHike to Hells Gate…The Road is Paved!\nFun facts:\nFormed over 190 million years ago\n10 meter vertical drop, no barriers\n270 degree view on top\nThe hike up on the high bluff gave us spectacular views of the coastline north to Double Island Point and south over Alexandria Bay. This spot is truly a place to take in the power and beauty of what water can do. By sheer force, the ocean has eroded and carved out the sandstone to create “Hells Gate”. I would venture to call this a little slice of Heaven instead.\nIf you’re lucky enough you will catch glimpses of whales and dolphins playing as well as view nesting Osprey. We didn’t see any of those but did have a cheeky little Australian Black Raven (Torresian Crow) squawking about.\nMassimo’s Gelateria was Delizioso!\nAfter a long hike out and back, we deserved a treat! Chuck got the Black Cherry Swirl and I got the watermelon \u0026amp; strawberry sorbet! Do you know the difference between gelato and ice cream? We didn’t at first but now that we do…there’s no going back! Gelato is Italian ice cream made with more milk and churned slower resulting in a less air, creamier and richer flavored ice cream. Benefit, it also has less fat, so we can enjoy it more often, right?\n","date":"November 22, 2023","img":"/blog/noosa-national-park-sunshine-coast-aus/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/noosa-national-park-sunshine-coast-aus/featured_hu942f5b31df58c1b69be99bdc599a568a_2319478_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/noosa-national-park-sunshine-coast-aus/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/noosa-national-park-sunshine-coast-aus/featured_hu942f5b31df58c1b69be99bdc599a568a_2319478_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Sunshine Coast","url":"/tags/sunshine-coast/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1700611200,"title":"Noosa National Park"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Queensland","url":"/categories/queensland/"},{"title":"Zoo","url":"/categories/zoo/"}],"content":"Crikey! It Was Amazing!\nOn November 18, 2023 we ticked off a Bucket List item and a dream came true…we visited the Australian Zoo, the legacy and heritage of the one and only, Steve Irwin: The Crocodile Hunter!\nSome fun facts we learned:\n#1: The wildlife park was not as it is today, it originally was founded as a reptile park by Steve’s parents, Bob and Lyn Irwin in 1970. Originally named Beerwah Reptile and Fauna Park. They are the true “wildlife warriors” that began the idea of wildlife conservation and rehabilitation at the park.\n#2: The 1990’s brought about the biggest benefit to the park: filming. This is where we all came to LOVE and ADORE our energetic Croc Hunter! By 2004, the biggest impact of our adoration is what ultimately enabled them to create the largest Australian Animal Hospital in the world. The facility was originally built in an old avocado packing shed and was dedicated to his Mom, Lyn. Today’s hospital is 14,000sqft and takes in 10,000 animals per year for care…to say we were in awe, is an understatement, it is truly spectacular! I actually cried as we watched a tiny koala getting a breathing treatment for pneumonia….that wittle face.\nState of the art facilities.\nBaby koala getting a breathing treatment for pneumonia.\n#3: The Crocoseum can seat 5000 guests! Robert Irwin still carries on the tradition and occasionally hosts the croc show! He did while we were there! I was a little bit fangirling! He's adorable.\nThis is Graham, a male saltwater crocodile at Australia Zoo. He measures at 3.7m (11.84 ft) and weighs 350kg (770 lbs). he's been with the zoo since 1988.\n#4: The oldest crocodile, named Freshie, resided at the zoo to the ripe old age of 140. He was originally caught in 1970 by Steve and his Dad as it had been injured (shot twice in the tail and eye). Harriet, the Galapagos Tortoise, was determined to be 175 years old, she died in 2006.\n#5: The park is now over 700 acres and employs over 500 folks.\n#6: Steve died in 2006, freak accident while snorkeling off The Great barrier Reef, he is buried on zoo property but it is inaccessible to visitors.\n#7: With over 1200 animals residing at the zoo, I never expected to get close enough to scratch a kangaroo on the head, pat a koala on the bum, have lemurs freely walk by me or have exotic birds buzz us overhead…but you do! Allowing guests to get up so close and personal with these animals is what makes this AZA: Association of Zoos and Aquariums (highest certification possible) so amazing!\n#8: If we lived in Australia…I’d be a volunteer!!\nI did enjoy the park as it was divided into themed sections like:\nRobert's Reptile House\nGrace's Bird Garden\nand Bindi's Island...where we got up close to some lemurs! Did you know that lemurs are VERY social and will call out for their friends? It's a haunting little cry.\nAll in all....we had an AMAZING day at The Australia Zoo, I know Steve looks down from Heaven with pride and love for what his family has managed to carryon on without him there.\nKoala Nursery....yes they really ARE that cute!\n","date":"November 18, 2023","img":"/blog/crikey-australia-zoo/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/crikey-australia-zoo/featured_hufeb7d9f7b3a394f338738042a11d14b1_3258121_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/crikey-australia-zoo/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/crikey-australia-zoo/featured_hufeb7d9f7b3a394f338738042a11d14b1_3258121_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1700265600,"title":"Australia Zoo"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"New South Wales","url":"/categories/new-south-wales/"},{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"Sculpture by the Sea\nBondi to Tanarama Beach, Australia\nNovember 1, 2023\nIndia Collins, *Journey* An appropriate place for our photo! From a melted ice cream truck to a sleek shell with human legs, a spectacular collection of public artworks populated the coastal walk from Bondi to Tanarama beaches on Australia’s coast in late October-early November of 2023.\nWe happened to be in the area at the time the exhibit was happening, so we hopped on a bus and made the journey out to the coastline. Celebrating its 25th year in this location, the annual Sculpture by the Sea festival showcased more than 100 pieces of creative art in various mediums, styles, and sizes, all bordering the Pacific Ocean.\nIt was a relatively easy stroll along the outer cliffs and provided a day of humor and fantastic photos! If you happen to be in Australia during the event, do not miss it!\nEnjoy the photos this is just a few of the many sculptures we saw!\nKathy Allam, *Green Dream 3* Plastic bottle clouds Tarisse King,*Palaarn* Deanne Neilson, *Do You Realize* Made from bottle caps The Glue Society \u0026#43; James Dive, *Hot With the Chance of a Late Storm* Gleb Dusavitskiy, *I Believe I Can Fly* Leda Alexopoulou, *Keep Walking* Paul Bacon, *TV EYE* Mond Qu with Sonny Do \u0026amp; Edward Yee, *Chasing the Sun* Emryn Ingram-Shute, *No Colour in War* Ayad Alqaragholli, *Welcome Habibi to My Life* Keld Moseholm, *Square Root* Tsukasa Nakahara, *Water Blocks* Sharyn Egan, *Maar [Balga* James Voller, *Housing [Crash* Zero Higashida, *Cherub* Andre Braun, *Addiction – The Rise Of Social Media* Naja Utzon Popov, *Momentum* Lubo Mikle, *A.I.B*, bringing attention to the waste crisis of our world Juan Pablo Pinto and Cristian Rojas, *The Hermitage*, a humorous take on the housing affordability crisis in Sydney George Tobolowsky, *Staring At The Ocean* Jimmy Rix, *A Bridge Too Far* Akiho Tata, *Love Bomb-Birth* Yoshio Nitta, *I Put a Moon on the Table – Someone is Living on It* Dr Ilan Avshalom, *Florb* Jonas Aničas, *Untitled* Keizo Ushio, *Oushi Zokei* Anton Forde, *Papare-Protection* Chen Wenling, *The Top of the Balance* Eiji Hayakawa, *Giant in the Forest* Anthony Xerri, *Machine Aesthetic – The Grind* COADY, *Dave* Markus Hofer, *Serum* Kannitha Ly, *Cascade* Yuko Takahashi, *Dignity* Norton Flavel, *Monument* Mimi Dennett, *My Father’s Boots* Morgan Jones, *Starstruck* ","date":"November 2, 2023","img":"/blog/sculptures-by-the-sea-on-bondi-beach/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/sculptures-by-the-sea-on-bondi-beach/featured_hu49c205a966c32be8083fd6cb48a891ac_2651871_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/sculptures-by-the-sea-on-bondi-beach/","series":[{"title":"Australia","url":"/series/australia/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/sculptures-by-the-sea-on-bondi-beach/featured_hu49c205a966c32be8083fd6cb48a891ac_2651871_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Sydney","url":"/tags/sydney/"},{"title":"Art","url":"/tags/art/"},{"title":"Beach","url":"/tags/beach/"},{"title":"Sculpture","url":"/tags/sculpture/"}],"timestamp":1698883200,"title":"Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi Beach"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"We visited the WETA Workshop in Auckland on our return since we enjoyed the one in Wellington so much. The Auckland Workshop is much more \u0026quot;experience-oriented\u0026quot; with more hands-on interaction and a wider breadth than LOTR/Hobbit themes. We were a bit worried it would be geared towards children, but it's fun for all ages. The tour takes you through horror, fantasy, and science fiction genres to give a feel for the behind-the-scenes creativity that goes into film development. Spoiler alert - descriptions of each ahead.\nBut, first, we'll start with the entrance murals, WETA Cave (merch), and the \u0026quot;escape room\u0026quot; leading into the Workshop.\nThe trophies and figurines are pretty impressive.\nThe tour started with a walk down some graffitied hallways with the group gathering in a staging area to go over details of the tour.\nThe receptionist desk behind me opened up to reveal our animatronic host. It is well done, but his jokes (by design) were pretty awful.\nHorror\nThe horror film, Fauna, is all about special effects, prosthetics, and monsters; nothing too scary. It gives you a sense of the volume of work that occurs when making a motion picture.\nWe got to \u0026quot;dissect\u0026quot; an alien.\nMelissa got to play with a couple of the special effects stations, but we quickly ran out of time before we could experience them all or let Chuck have a turn. That was a little disappointing because it was kinda fun.\nYour browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. Fantasy\nThe fantasy part of the tour involves the concept art and design for a world of herbivore vs. carnivore dinosaurs for the movie Age of the Ever-Clan. The film explores the concept of what might have happened if dinosaurs had not gone extinct.\nThe journey starts in the Artists' Shed, where the creative team explores different concepts and ideas to bring the stories to life. There were lots of props and some groundwork for a guinea pig based tale.\nAnd on to the movie and the miniature world created to portray the dinosaur world in amazing detail.\nAnd a photo op.\nScience Fiction\nThe final stop is a studio for the sci-fi film Origins. It's a set with some large-scale models of a robot and spacecraft. While the set was very cool to see, the show itself was a bit of a letdown in that not a lot happened over a fair amount of time. Still, neat concept and props.\nTo support my comments, I'll add some video here (sorry for the size).\nYour browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. Overall, I'd say the Auckland experience was less enjoyable for me. I felt somewhat rushed through the Fauna film interactive parts and somewhat bored through the Origins film robot/spaceship encounter. Perhaps I was biased by the Wellington experience and would have thought the reverse had we visited WETA Auckland first (doubt it!). My personal favorite was the fantasy setting for Age of the Ever-Clan; the attention to detail is fantastic.\n","date":"October 27, 2023","img":"/blog/weta-auckland/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/weta-auckland/featured_huaee0f072b0009b844b2c65e2a7f1afa3_2017404_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/weta-auckland/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/weta-auckland/featured_huaee0f072b0009b844b2c65e2a7f1afa3_2017404_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Auckland","url":"/tags/auckland/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"Technology","url":"/tags/technology/"},{"title":"Hobbits","url":"/tags/hobbits/"}],"timestamp":1698364800,"title":"WETA Workshop - Auckland"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Zoo","url":"/categories/zoo/"}],"content":"Auckland Zoo…We Met Kiwi \u0026amp; Taz!\nGrey Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand\nOctober 25, 2023\nMission \u0026amp; Values:\nWe share our love for wild places and wild life.\nKa aroha nui ki ngā wāhi puihi, ki ngā kararehe puihi hoki.\nWe are conservation optimists.\nWhakanuia te taiao.\nWe are all kaitiaki (guardians) of the Zoo and the environment.\nHe kaitiaki tātou katoa.\nWe stand together.\nKa tū kotahi tātou.\nWe welcome visitors as friends.\nHe kaha nō mātou ki te manaaki i ngā manuhiri.\nThis zoo 1st opened it doors in 1922 and sits on 40 acres near the CBD of Auckland, New Zealand. It is home to 130 species and over 2800 animals. Auckland Zoo is focused on conservation and one of those areas is with the native Kiwi bird. The kiwi is a nocturnal, flightless bird that would be hard to find during the day. Therefore, the zoo built a special Kiwi enclosure that mimics night during the day, completely open aired…when you walk in it’s dark, very dark and quiet! You need to let your eyes adjust and then just sit still and listen for the “snuffling” sound the kiwi makes while out and about. I tell you…it is the CUTEST thing you’ll hear!\nAs if the Kiwi wasn’t the highlight of our visit, then seeing a Tasmanian Devil was!\nMy favorite bird, the Tui, first encountered in New Zealand. They literally make sounds like Star Wars movies and have some of the most beautiful colors.\nThe Glossy Black-Cockatoo, one of the smallest cockatoos and a threatened/vulnerable species in Australia. They can get to 50cm in length and usually quieter than their other family members.\nRhino Zebra Finch Look at this sweet Momma Orangutan and baby Look at this sweet Momma Orangutan and her little baby. I watched for her for several minutes snuggling and nursing before the Momma pushed her off to go forage for a treat.\nCotton Top Tamarin Tinfoil Barb Fish....it literally looked like they were glowing underwater Giraffes Red Panda...this little guy was climbing all over his treehouse. We got lucky to see him when he was awake.\n","date":"October 25, 2023","img":"/blog/auckland-zoo-nz/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/auckland-zoo-nz/featured_hu4ecd2cafdf0525af2b9a4692caabd29c_116796_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/auckland-zoo-nz/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/auckland-zoo-nz/featured_hu4ecd2cafdf0525af2b9a4692caabd29c_116796_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Auckland","url":"/tags/auckland/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1698192000,"title":"Auckland Zoo…We Met Kiwi \u0026 Taz!"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"We took the bus out to Cornwall Park, mainly to walk up to One Tree Hill (Maungakiekie), a high point (yes, another old volcano) south of Auckland city center. It's a paved path, so the walk is fairly easy. A large obelisk sits atop the hill - a memorial to Maori.\nThe walk up is kinda cool because the lower trail traverses land through fields with free range sheep. Melissa was quite happy.\nThe views from the hill are pretty spectacular.\nCornwall Park was given for public use by Sir John Logan Campbell, who also donated $5000 for the obelisk and is buried on the hill beside it. There is a bit of family resemblance, so who knows...\nThe park itself is quite nice. We saw a lot of native tree varieties as well as eucalyptus, olive, cherry, horse chestnut, and costal redwood trees. A large fountain dedicated to Sir Campbell is at the opposite end of the park from the One Tree Hill.\n","date":"October 20, 2023","img":"/blog/onetree/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/onetree/featured_hu3dab16c315c4c952944c75bd243eaafd_3243954_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/onetree/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/onetree/featured_hu3dab16c315c4c952944c75bd243eaafd_3243954_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Auckland","url":"/tags/auckland/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1697760000,"title":"Cornwall Park/One Tree Hill"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"The International Antarctic Center\n38 Orchard Road\nChristchurch, 8052 NZ\nOctober 9, 2023\n'See it. Love it. Save it.'\nQuoting directly from the International Antarctic Centre website:\nChristchurch is one of five cities in the world known as a ‘gateway to Antarctica.’ This is far more than an empty title. The garden city acts as a conduit to the icy continent, sharing and championing Antarctic geography, history and culture.\nIn 1990 Christchurch International Airport saw the need for a visitor centre to Antarctica. The airport wanted a complex that could show people why the airport was so important to the Antarctic scientific programmes, and why these programmes and the continent was so important to the world.\nThe airport commissioned Tim Hobson (a regular Antarctic visitor himself) to shape and manage the development of the centre. Renowned local architects Warren and Mahoney were contracted to design the building.\nThe airport campus proved the perfect site for the new building. Home to a number of other Antarctic programmes and organisations, the campus provided an important focal point for the many endeavours happening further south.\nSince opening in 1992, the International Antarctic Centre has welcomed millions of visitors, steadily introduced exciting new exhibits and experiences and won plenty of awards and much recognition for work in tourism.\nYou can link direct to them here:\nhttps://www.iceberg.co.nz/\nFor about $30 each, we got a chance to experience a Hagglunds Field Trip, the Storm Dome, see the Penguin Rescue and watch a feeding, pet some adorable huskies and watch a 4D movie of life on the Antarctica! It was a FUN day out and very informative as well. Enjoy the pictures!\nAround the centre, waiting for our Hagglund Tour\nThe Hagglund Experience\nWe boarded the Pink Hagg for our experience, it was thrilling, loud and incredibly bumpy! Designed to make you 'feel' what it is like for scientists in the Antarctic as they make their way across the icy fields, up and down hills, through the water and deep crevasses...it's not for the faint of heart as we were strapped in and bounced around for about a 15-20 minute journey! I definitely have a newfound respect for that mode of transport. Our driver was awesome and navigated the obstacles in a very fun \u0026amp; safe environment!\nThe Storm Dome\nSo the only way to experience an Antarctic Storm is to take a grueling expedition to the continent or walk into the storm dome at the centre and have an equaling teeth chattering and chilling experience. The room itself is chilled to minus 8 degrees Celsius, about 17 degrees Fahrenheit. But when the wind chill machine ramps up, it quickly cools you to minus 18C, which is about zero degrees Fahrenheit. I kid you not, it was COLD! A few minutes of that nonsense and you are ready to get out!\nThe Penguins!\nThe kororā (or Little Blue Penguin) is New Zealand’s smallest penguin and certainly the cutest as well! Humans, dogs and other pests have had a negative impact on the survival rates of these adorable little guys. Currently at an 'at risk' status, their numbers have been steadily declining and that's why it's so important to provide a place of healing and educating at the Penguin Rescue Centre. We were lucky to visit at feeding time so we got to know more about each of the 'education ambassadors' that reside at the IAC.\nYour browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Antarctic Gallery and Husky Zone\nAntarctica is probably one of the world's most beautiful places with its untouched wildernesses, glaciers, icebergs and wildlife. Someday I hope we get a chance to see it in person, but until then, you can experience it IAC! The gallery provided more education and hands on experiences with a final stop The Husky Zone. Who wouldn't want to pet the sweet pups in training!\n","date":"October 9, 2023","img":"/blog/international-antarctic-center-christchurch-nz/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/international-antarctic-center-christchurch-nz/featured_huc48fd8c2402d9a37d65cd4ef3b3f853d_3908039_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/international-antarctic-center-christchurch-nz/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"},{"title":"Antarctica","url":"/series/antarctica/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/international-antarctic-center-christchurch-nz/featured_huc48fd8c2402d9a37d65cd4ef3b3f853d_3908039_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Christchurch","url":"/tags/christchurch/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Science","url":"/tags/science/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1696809600,"title":"International Antarctic Center NZ"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City Park","url":"/categories/city-park/"}],"content":"Christchurch Botanic Gardens\nRolleston Avenue, Christchurch Central City\nChristchurch 8013, New Zealand\nOctober 2, 2023\nIn the middle of the city is a beautiful park and gardens. Hagley Park encompasses 2.5 acres with 10 carefully cultivated gardens. Our other post, Cherry Blossoms in Christchurch, NZ, shows the park in more detail.\nThe park and gardens were founded in 1863 with the planting of a single English Oak Tree to commemorate marriage of Prince Albert and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Since then, the Christchurch Botanic Gardens has grown from a small community park to becoming a much-loved destination for it's citizens and tourists.\nIt is pretty well all contained within the loop of the Avon River. You can take a walk, have a picnic, feed the ducks and observe the ever changing garden landscape with the change of seasons and blooms they bring. We hit it PERFECTLY at Springtime with the daffodils, cherry blossoms and tulips!\nI hope you enjoy the photos!\n","date":"October 2, 2023","img":"/blog/christchurch-botanic-gardens/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/christchurch-botanic-gardens/featured_hud512092aa43735d2275606a8ea09fa48_7364782_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/christchurch-botanic-gardens/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/christchurch-botanic-gardens/featured_hud512092aa43735d2275606a8ea09fa48_7364782_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Christchurch","url":"/tags/christchurch/"},{"title":"Gardens","url":"/tags/gardens/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"}],"timestamp":1696204800,"title":"Christchurch Botanic Gardens"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"Christchurch Street Art\nChristchurch, New Zealand\nSeptember-October 2023\n“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls” ~Pablo Picasso\nThe earthquakes of September 4, 2010 (7.1 magnitude) and February 22, 2011 (6.3 magnitude) left the city of Christchurch (ChCh) in near complete devastation. The 2011 earthquake was technically an “after shock” of the 2010 one and “less severe” on the Richter Scale, however, it was more powerful due to it occurring on a fault line closest to the city center at a shallow depth. The shaking was so intense and destructive that it produced ground vibrations 3-4 times greater than the 2010 earthquake. Many heritage buildings were heavily damaged and over a quarter of the Central Business District buildings had to be demolished. Residents fled the city in a massive number after the quake, leaving many residential areas in a derelict state. Even now, over a decade later, the city still has not fully recovered or rebuilt.\nIn fact, we also “experienced” an earthquake tremor while we were in town. Thankfully it was many miles away but was still unnerving knowing it was a possibility at any time.\nWhat makes ChCh special is what has emerged from this devastation…AMAZING murals ALL over the city!! What were once fractured facades are now beautiful pieces of art. There are literally hundreds of these across ChCh, every day we would find new ones. Here are some of the more interesting ones and a few of my favorites:\nOlive the Cat by Swiftmantis to bring awareness about the stray cat population in the city Celebrating the city and it\u0026#39;s ties to The Antarctic this mural was created over several weeks by Dcypher and Jacob Yikes A Hum (The Beginning and The End) by Koryu88 Peach Temptations by Wongi \u0026#39;Freak\u0026#39; Wilson Riverside by Jacob Yikes, Dcypher, Ikarus, Wongi \u0026#39;Freak\u0026#39; Wilson is actually a 3D illusion across many buildings Rollickin Gelato by Wongi \u0026#39;Freak\u0026#39; Wilson. Note the details in the arm tattoos! The Ocean in Our Hands by Richard \u0026#39;Pops\u0026#39; Baker, OK Creates Elephants by Owen Dippie Rise From the Rubble by Brandon Warrell This mural was inspired by the silvereye or wax-eye bird and kowhai tree, both native to New Zealand. The cycle of life and death is shown here on the side of the Canterbury Museum. Native birds like the moa and kiwi are featured in the mural by Roa SALT Mural is another illusion mural by Dcypher \u0026amp; Paul Walters. The words \u0026#39;SALT\u0026#39; and \u0026#39;Ōtautahi\u0026#39; (the te reo Māori name for the region) are depicted as three-dimensional. Bubble Girl by Wongi \u0026#39;Freak\u0026#39; Wilson is a massive wall depicting a female figure blowing a big balloon of bubble gum, exploding into a cacophony of references to urban and youth culture (a roller, a spray can nozzle, a baseball cap, a sneaker, a Nintendo Gameboy) Christ-Church Restoration City by Jacob Root and Distranged Design Poppies by Swiftmantis Big Blue by Jacob Yikes Hide and Seek by Wongi \u0026#39;Freak\u0026#39; Wilson Rising Tide by Richard \u0026#39;Pops\u0026#39; Baker is a character from a childrens book painted alongside an Alice in Wonderland mural Shine So Bright/Audrey Hepburn by Distracted Design Kiwi Icon Sir Edmund Hillary painted by Cole Ferrand \u0026amp; Jacob Root The Hector Dive is inspired by New Zealand\u0026#39;s playful and tiny hector dolphins. Created by Telmo and Miel Post Cadmium Aesthetics by Dcypher is a study of nature\u0026#39;s ability to both lure and repel through the use of colour NZ Green Gecko NZ Falcon This mural by Chimp is HUGE...it\u0026#39;s on the side of the Justice and Emergency Services Precinct building and depicts some of the much beloved birds of NZ, including my favorite...the Tui! A local depiction of the buildings shaking during the earthquake. Cassandra\u0026#39;s Dream by Paul Walters, Yoobee School of Design Students. The bright, graphic image presents the new and exciting features and activities found in the city\u0026#39;s southern area; combining elements of food, innovation, creativity, heritage, and transport. Christchurch residents were asked to submit a phrase expressing how they feel about Christchurch, and this is the winning one by artist Numskull Penguin by Hitnes Message In A Bottle by Jacob Yikes, Dcypher, Ikarus Lips by Tilt Music Is My Friend by Kophie Hulsbosch (Meep One) Wicked Monarch by Joel Hart and Flora \u0026amp; Fauna by Jacob Yikes Alice in Wonderland by Jacob Yikes, on the Alice Cinema building There\u0026#39;s a place were local artists and taggers can spray on GIANT Spray Paint Cans as a revolving but permanent art exhibit in the city. It was kind of neat to see it change throughout our stay in Christchurch. I didn't know some of the artists or names of the murals, but you can find all of these and MANY more on the website Watch This Space, it's an ongoing collaborative place where you can add new murals and tag which ones you've seen.\nhttps://watchthisspace.org.nz/\n","date":"October 1, 2023","img":"/blog/christchurch-street-art/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/christchurch-street-art/featured_hu5c1242b5cae8b966c77ecda72d6bd245_206114_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/christchurch-street-art/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/christchurch-street-art/featured_hu5c1242b5cae8b966c77ecda72d6bd245_206114_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Christchurch","url":"/tags/christchurch/"},{"title":"Art","url":"/tags/art/"}],"timestamp":1696118400,"title":"Christchurch Street Art"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"We stopped in Timaru for the evening on our way back from Dunedin to Christchurch. After dinner, we walked through a small park to the harbor, where little blue penguins were rumored to nest. After having no luck in Omaru and Dunedin, our expectations were kinda low. It didn't help that the temperatures were in the 40's (single digit for you Celsius folk) and dropping. That's pretty chilly for Floridian thin-bloods.\nWe met some official wildlife conservation volunteers at the harbor and they told us they had been seeing several penguins come in after dark (9pm). Yay! So we stood around (in the cold!) for at least a two hours and were considering whether or not to continue this torture for the chance to see a penguin from some unknown distance. Then one was spotted in the rocks nearby - possibly a female waiting for her partner to return.\nNow Melissa is hooked and there's no turning back. Yep, I'm standing in the cold for an additional undetermined (non-short) amount of time. (Night shot pics on the Pixel phones is pretty awesome even if my camera skills suck, although transformation to webp/webm for posting is lossy...all of these shots were after dusk)\nYour browser does not support the video tag. It was worth it.\nYour browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. I heard sounds I never knew a penguin could make.\nYour browser does not support the video tag. Your browser does not support the video tag. ","date":"September 27, 2023","img":"/blog/timaru/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/timaru/featured_hu6e4b58291850b52716b7b43d26f23ee9_2912290_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/timaru/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/timaru/featured_hu6e4b58291850b52716b7b43d26f23ee9_2912290_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Timaru","url":"/tags/timaru/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1695772800,"title":"Penguins! (Timaru)"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"Dunedin Railway Station\nDunedin, South Island, New Zealand\nSeptember 26, 2023\nWe hopped on a bus and made our way out to the pride of the city, The Dunedin Railway Station, a predominant architectural wonder. It dates back to 1906, touted as being a ‘Flemish Renaissance-style’ structure featuring white Oamaru limestone facings on black basalt rock, its dramatic character also makes it known as the ‘Gingerbread House’. One thing I am is a gingerbread house lover!\nThe outside is spectacular enough, but inside is also fitted out in the lavish style of the times, the ticket hall alone features a mosaic floor of nearly 750,000 tiles of Royal Doulton porcelain.\nThere are stained glass windows (another obsession of mine) in the upper level of the station depicting a steam locomotive with the letters N, Z, R intertwined for New Zealand Railways.\nWe stopped to appreciate some the locals artwork housed in the museum, even got to vote for our favorites. Here's a sampling of what we saw.\n","date":"September 26, 2023","img":"/blog/dunedin-railway-station/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/dunedin-railway-station/featured_hu2c5d3750a8e02adeb21ac9bc3d5b99d2_4490371_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/dunedin-railway-station/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/dunedin-railway-station/featured_hu2c5d3750a8e02adeb21ac9bc3d5b99d2_4490371_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Dunedin","url":"/tags/dunedin/"},{"title":"Architecture","url":"/tags/architecture/"}],"timestamp":1695686400,"title":"Dunedin Railway Station"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"Baldwin Street in Dunedin, NZ has the distinction of being the steepest street in the world (look it up). They're pretty proud of it. The street is a bit over 1000 feet long and rises around 230 feet. It starts out gradually, but at it's steepest point achieves 19 degrees or a 35% grade. The reason it's so steep is that Dunedin roads were laid out in a grid in London without taking elevation into account. Oops.\nI know what you're thinking. Yes, of course we had to walk it! It takes a minute, but some of the views along the way are kinda funny.\nSome parts had stairs, which helped a bit (what are my feet doing?).\nMelissa was pretty happy once we got to the top. There's a bench for the weary and some artwork to try to cheer you up a bit.\nBut...what goes up must come down. Who knew there were many more stairs on the other side of the street?\nNothing too exciting, but we had fun and got some exercise. If you're ever in Dunedin and want to kill a couple of hours torturing yourself, this is the place to be.\n","date":"September 23, 2023","img":"/blog/baldwin-street/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/baldwin-street/featured_huf7b8b35d5c2241bb71b25afe5c07dbfd_2055423_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/baldwin-street/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/baldwin-street/featured_huf7b8b35d5c2241bb71b25afe5c07dbfd_2055423_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Dunedin","url":"/tags/dunedin/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"}],"timestamp":1695427200,"title":"Steepest Street in the World"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City Park","url":"/categories/city-park/"}],"content":"Willowbank Wildlife Reserve\n60 Hussey Road, Harewood Christchurch 8051, New Zealand\nSeptember 17, 2023\nWhat an awesome adventure we had exploring this wildlife reserve in Christchurch. It was founded by the Willis Family over 40 years ago and remains in the family today. They have maintained 3 goals while in operation:\nTo be part of the conservation of species To educate customers and advocate for wildlife To provide entertainment to families and visitors Willowbank is considered a themed wildlife park by allowing visitors to have an up close, interactive and natural environment in which to see New Zealand's native species of animals and birds.\nKiwi!\nThey are best known for their unique open, glass-free nocturnal house for observing and listening to NZ's kiwi snuffle about! It's so dark inside you have to allow your eyes several minutes to adjust. If you are lucky you will catch a glimpse of the free roaming kiwi. We definitely could hear them snuffling about way before we caught a glimpse of them. The temptation to reach down and pet one was great, but I resisted!\nLongfin Eels!\nThe kiwi were our main goal to see, however, I got another equally fun and unique experience...feeding eels! The longfin eels are the largest freshwater eel in the world and only found in New Zealand! They can live for 100 years and way more than 20kg (44 pounds!)\nYou got a little cup of meat, walked down to the boardwalk where they had attached spoons and just began to feed them directly into their mouths! It was awesome. I was having so much fun I forgot to share with Chuck!\nYour browser does not support webm video Galah!!\nWe had the BEST interaction with a sweet little galah cockatoo while we were visiting. These rose-breasted, grey birds can live for 40 years! It was clear to us that this sweetie must have been someone's pet at one time, she absolutely took a liking to Chuck and just wanted to snuggle with him. We spent a lot time with her and even went back before we left for an extra snuggle.\nYour browser does not support webm video Goose!!\nOne of the funniest looking geese resides at the reserve, the Sebastopol. He always looks like he's having a really rough day!\nGorgeous Birds!!\nOtters!\nYour browser does not support webm video Torts!\nGoats!\nCool Reptiles \u0026amp; Amphibians\n","date":"September 17, 2023","img":"/blog/willowbank-wildlife-reserve-nz/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/willowbank-wildlife-reserve-nz/featured_hu8a4ece4957fca83b29c01169c4f81908_5895930_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/willowbank-wildlife-reserve-nz/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/willowbank-wildlife-reserve-nz/featured_hu8a4ece4957fca83b29c01169c4f81908_5895930_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Christchurch","url":"/tags/christchurch/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"}],"timestamp":1694908800,"title":"Willowbank Wildlife Reserve NZ"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne….Takahe to Me Baby!\nKarori, Wellington, New Zealand\nSeptember 8, 2023\nDid you know…\nPrior to the arrival of humans, Aotearoa (New Zealand) was isolated and unique. Without any mammalian predators, this ecosystem was home to some of the most remarkable flora and fauna that had ever evolved. Many of which could be found nowhere else in the world. Sadly, over the last 700 years, that paradise was almost destroyed by humans and the mammals they introduced with them. Hooray, humans!\nThis is where Zealandia comes into play. This 500+ acre, fully fenced ecosanctuary was established with an extraordinary 500-year vision to restore a Wellington valley’s forest and freshwater ecosystems as closely as possible to their pre-human state. Say what? You can do that? Oh yes, you can and the following pictures show just how well it is thriving!!\nTakahe to me baby….the rarest bird, only found in New Zealand!\nThis was our 1st introduction to this incredible bird species. Once thought to be extinct, their population has grown to about 500 thanks to conservation efforts throughout New Zealand. They are completely flightless and a close relative to the Pukeko and the now extinct Moho. They have iridescent coloring of blues to greens. Their beak/bill and legs are bright red in color. They use that sharp bill to cut, tear and shred into the surrounding vegetation. Takahe are quite chatty and “talk” to each other with a series of slow, deep coo-eet sounds. If startled they let out a deep, vibrating oomf. We felt pretty special catching a glimpse of the two, Nia and Orbell, wandering happily around Zealandia.\nOh Kaka!\nEffectively extinct until breeding pairs were brought to Zealandia in early 2000…the Kaka, (a close relative to its cheeky cousin, the Kea) is now a thriving and boisterous large parrot found flying freely throughout the ecosanctuary. They are highly intelligent, social and literally scare the kaka out of you when they shriek! Their coloring varies but mainly a beautiful olive green…we had a few that were pretty inquisitive when we approached.\nYour browser does not support webm video Whooshing Windmills\nSo one of us thought it would be GREAT fun to hike along Zealandia’s property edge up to the windmills. I’ll let ya guess whose brainy idea that was! 😊 The hike up was NOT easy, virtually straight up! It was hot out and I might have complained a little too much. But, getting that close to the magnificence of the windmills, was admittedly, pretty cool. Would I do the hike again…heck no!\nOnce a Tree Hugger...always a Tree Hugger!\nZealandia is a reminder of how we CAN protect Mother Nature for a thriving population of flora, fauna and birds!\nHere's a sampling of the many birds we encountered at Zealandia...\nThe Fence....and Chuck giving me the detailed explanation of how it works!\nThe fence not only keeps things from getting in, but also out! At 2.2m (7 feet) tall and 8.6km (just over 5 miles) long fence and is what keeps rare Taonga species safe. Its unique design, involving tightly woven wire mesh, a rounded top hat, and an underground mesh skirt, all work together to prevent anything from jumping, climbing, and burrowing into the sanctuary.\nNative Wildflowers....\nWe encountered many different, naturally growing wildflowers native to New Zealand along our hike to the windmills.\n","date":"September 8, 2023","img":"/blog/zealandia-wellington-nz/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/zealandia-wellington-nz/featured_hu566e66a39df4e9e43c39cb8cbc14c333_3411846_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/zealandia-wellington-nz/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/zealandia-wellington-nz/featured_hu566e66a39df4e9e43c39cb8cbc14c333_3411846_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Wellington","url":"/tags/wellington/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1694131200,"title":"Zealandia in Wellington, NZ"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"We took the bus out to the Weta Workshop, the folks that helped bring Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit to life (among tons of other entertainment you've seen). The Weta Cave is the merch shop where you can own copies of the original props.\nEntrance to shop Lots of swords One Ring was a bit much for me Cool stuff - far too much to show We hung out with some of the characters before the tour. We got along fine at first, but the trolls began to get a bit unruly. Lucky for me, Melissa was nearby to keep them in line.\nBuds! Wha...? OW! Whew! Gollum was a little hesitant, but at least he wasn't violent.\n...all the way from the US... He\u0026#39;s so cute! We took the tour and learned a lot about their history, what they do, and the particulars for various projects. They can't show too much as the folks that commission the work own the items. Some owners retain their items in storage while others have them destroyed (such a waste). Still, the tour is quite interesting and you get to play with some of the props.\nWeta folks are also very clever with tinfoil. It's cheap, quick, and easy to work with.\nOur guide giving a demo He made the King Kong skull (previously, not while we watched) Some examples A more detailed example Using a clay-like product called Pal Tiya, they can cover the tinfoil to mold and shape hard, durable, weatherproof end products - just give it a few days to harden.\nFinal products Overall, a great experience if you're ever in the area. Weta also has a more interactive workshop in Auckland. It covers a wider range of their work and is more interactive; we may check it out if we wonder back up that way.\n","date":"September 7, 2023","img":"/blog/weta/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/weta/featured_hu9fbffc05228f8f7feb039fcc3a356adf_2442911_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/weta/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/weta/featured_hu9fbffc05228f8f7feb039fcc3a356adf_2442911_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Wellington","url":"/tags/wellington/"},{"title":"Technology","url":"/tags/technology/"},{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"Hobbits","url":"/tags/hobbits/"}],"timestamp":1694044800,"title":"Weta Workshop"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Place","url":"/categories/place/"}],"content":"New Zealand: Owhiro Bay/Pariwhero Red Rocks \u0026amp; Fur Seals\nWe walked one of the wildest parts of Wellington's southern coast at the Te Kopahou Reserve in Owhiro Bay out to Pariwhero/Red Rocks, passing through Devils Gate and ending at Sinclair Head to see the fur seals. This coastal walk is breathtaking, taking us over sand, rocks and lava fields. Mostly a flat, but rugged, 6 miles roundtrip.\nLegend of the Red Rocks...\nMaori folklore believe the red color comes from one of two sources: Kupe, famous Polynesian explorer, was gathering shellfish when one clamped onto his hand, causing him to bleed onto the rocks and stain them red. The other is believed the Kupe's daughters feared for their fathers safety on his long journey and slashed themselves in grief over his absence.\nIn actuality, the 200 million year old rock formation is from the volcanic pillow lava that embedded in greywacke (sandstone) with red and green siltstone.\nContinuing past Red Rocks to Devils Gate...where insane bikers and 4x4's make the attempt to cross through, often getting stuck and damaging their vehicles for the thrill. We walked/climbed through!\nMeeting the seals...\nIt didn't take long to locate the majestic seals basking on the rocks, catching some sun rays!\nCan you I spy the seals in this photo, there are several perfectly camouflaged among the rocks.\nAll in all, it was a tough hike but worth every minute for the beautiful backdrop and seeing wildlife in nature.\n","date":"September 3, 2023","img":"/blog/pariwhero-red-rocks-seals/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/pariwhero-red-rocks-seals/featured_huc6fb1921051fd41ae235b3e68f2b3026_4015850_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/pariwhero-red-rocks-seals/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/pariwhero-red-rocks-seals/featured_huc6fb1921051fd41ae235b3e68f2b3026_4015850_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Wellington","url":"/tags/wellington/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1693798926,"title":"New Zealand: Owhiro Bay/Pariwhero Red Rocks \u0026 Fur Seals"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"Springtime\nChristchurch, New Zealand\nSeptember 2023\nCherry Blossoms and Daffodils in Hagley Park North\nWe just happened to hit the peak season for the beautiful cherry blossoms that line Hagley Park in Christchurch. The trees are the very popular hybrid, Yoshino Cherry, from Japan. Some of the 1st trees were planted in 1905 at this park. The flowers are nearly all white but are tinged with a very pale pink. Sadly, the trees bloom and the flowers fall all within a 3-week period. We just lucked out. It’s been a bucket list item to see them in full bloom in Japan, so I was pretty excited that we hit it just right.\nThe daffodils are one of the 1st signs that Spring has sprung in New Zealand. They are everywhere, think like our daylilies in the USA. The daffodils are prolific growers that brighten the landscape.\n","date":"September 1, 2023","img":"/blog/cherry-blossoms-hagley-park-christchurch-nz/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/cherry-blossoms-hagley-park-christchurch-nz/featured_hu9ee7e85d055b83f1ef46de9748c12413_3041194_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/cherry-blossoms-hagley-park-christchurch-nz/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/cherry-blossoms-hagley-park-christchurch-nz/featured_hu9ee7e85d055b83f1ef46de9748c12413_3041194_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Christchurch","url":"/tags/christchurch/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1693526400,"title":"Cherry Blossoms in Christchurch, NZ"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":"Rangitoto Island, Rugged and Riveting!\nAugust 25, 2023\nNew Zealand\nOn August 25, 2023 we took a ferry from Auckland, Australia over to Rangitoto Island in the Hauraki Gulf. Rangitoto happens to be the youngest and largest of Auckland's 48 dormant volcanic cones and is home to the world's largest pohutukawa forest aka New Zealand’s Christmas tree or Iron Tree. The island emerged unexpectedly just over 600 years ago, still a baby!\nFun Facts:\nThe Auckland Volcanic Field is monogenetic, meaning each volcano “usually” only erupts once.\nRangitoto is the most recent, largest and least altered volcano in the Auckland Volcanic Field which is made up of around 50 small volcanoes.\nIt was formed by at least 2 eruptions. These eruptions occurred in two stages that were 10-50 years apart, 600-700 years ago.\nThe highest part is 853ft, and the whole island is only 6 yards wide.\nMaori Name:\nRangitoto’s full name is Te Rangi I totongia te ihu Tama-te-kapua. Yeah, that’s a mouth full! It means ‘the day the nose blood flowed’ and is thought to refer to the serious injury of a Maori chief during a battle on the island.\nFeatures\nHiking tracks allow visitors to walk over lava fields and through lava caves (tubes left behind by the passage of liquid lava). Vegetation varies from ‘raw’ lava fields to scrub and sparse forests, including the largest pohutukawa forest in NZ. A moat like ring around the summit is due to underlying lava flows that cooled and shrank. Hiking it\nIt is about a 2 hour climb to the lava caves and summit, over rocky lava fields and steep steps. The lava tubes are pitch black and uneven, you need a flashlight. Summit views are spectacular and you get the whole view of the Auckland skyline and surrounding ocean. We packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed the view. Wildlife\nYou can’t help but notice the chorus of birdsong as you walk quietly through the forest. Native birds like kaka, saddleback, bellbird, kiwi, fantail, tui and takahe have either returned naturally or have been reintroduced to the island. It is considered “pest free” meaning no small mammals reside on the island. That includes humans! As for people, the only people you’ll see here are visitors as there is no permanent population. However, you can still see the remains of baches (holiday homes) along the shoreline, from when the island was populated in the 20th century.\nIt's breathtaking to see how nature adapts to it's surroundings...the harshness of the lava rock has not prevented beautiful wildflowers from taking root and blooming.\n","date":"August 25, 2023","img":"/blog/rangitoto-island-auckland-nz/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/rangitoto-island-auckland-nz/featured_hu908f45b77f880c42124dbba86c45a29e_2848991_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/rangitoto-island-auckland-nz/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/rangitoto-island-auckland-nz/featured_hu908f45b77f880c42124dbba86c45a29e_2848991_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Rangitoto Island","url":"/tags/rangitoto-island/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1692921600,"title":"Rangitoto Island, NZ"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Historic Landmark","url":"/categories/historic-landmark/"}],"content":" Mount Eden \u0026amp; Eden Garden: Massive \u0026amp; Mesmerizing!\nAuckland, New Zealand\nAugust 21, 2023\nAt 643 feet tall, Maungawhau or Mount Eden is the highest volcano in Auckland.\nMaungawhau is a large, elongated scoria (dark-colored igneous rock with abundant round bubble-like cavities known as vesicles) cone consisting of two overlapping cones which erupted in close succession about 28,000 years ago. The older, lower cone had its crater filled with scoria with the second eruption. The southern cone is the youngest and tallest, an impressive crater 590 feet in diameter and 164 feet deep!\nThe hike took about 1.5 hours round trip, relatively easy except for all the stairs! But once you ascend to the summit you are met with a beautiful boardwalk to walk around the crater you can enjoy spectacular views of the city and its harbours.\nYou can see One Tree Hill from Mt. Eden!\nThe summit point on Mt. Eden.\nThe cone craters.....\nThe Eden Gardens\nThis 5.5 acre garden situated on the eastern slopes of Mt. Eden. It is a charming little spot within the city. This is where I was first introduced to the Tui bird and instantly fell in love. These quirky little birds have a distinct call, similar to sounds from a Star Wars movie. They are known for the distinctive tuft of white feathers at its throat, like pom pom balls. Maori legend says that this tuft signifies the mark of a coward. The Maori god Tanemahuta asked one of the birds to go to live on the forest floor to take care of the pests. The bird that volunteered would lose his colorful plumage and his ability to fly. The tui and the other birds who declined all received a punishment. The tui received the white feathers. And the bird that volunteered to live on the forest floor – that was the kiwi, of course.\nTui, New Zealand native bird, in a Kowhai Tree. They LOVE these trees that are usually seen lining the neighborhood streets. Their \u0026quot;singing call\u0026quot; is very distinctive, almost like Star Wars ping-pings and R2D2 chirps! I LOVE THEM!\nMarigolds\nNature adapting and finding a path no matter what.\nJaponica Pink Camellia....we hit the camellia season just perfectly.\nBeautiful mosaic chair in the garden.\nFungi floor\nThe bromeliads are so vibrant green with beautiful purples, pinks.\nYoshino Cherry Blossoms...in full pink color.\nCandy Stripe Camellia...one of my favorites!\nTui, my love!\n","date":"August 21, 2023","img":"/blog/mt.-eden-auckland-nz/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/mt.-eden-auckland-nz/featured_hua9bb869a09e3a7d00728661d9afda8de_6977171_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/mt.-eden-auckland-nz/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/mt.-eden-auckland-nz/featured_hua9bb869a09e3a7d00728661d9afda8de_6977171_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Auckland","url":"/tags/auckland/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Hike","url":"/tags/hike/"}],"timestamp":1692576000,"title":"Mount Eden \u0026 Eden Garden, Auckland"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City Park","url":"/categories/city-park/"}],"content":"Silo Park, it’s Sensational!\nWynward Quarter, Auckland, New Zealand\nAugust 14, 2023\nAs most of you know we walk the streets…no…we are NOT street walkers! We just enjoy getting out and about and exploring the places we are calling home. During that time, we often find quirky and unique parks, neighborhoods, restaurants, architecture, etc. Silo Park is one of those unique things in the Auckland suburb of Wynward Quarter.\nHistory\nSilo Park is home to a unique group of silo cylinders turned art exhibition space called Silo 6. The history of the silos is they were used to hold cement for transport by the old railway. Today they are home to pop up art exhibition spaces for local artists within the community.\nInside peek...\nWind Tree, by artist Michio Ihara, is one of five artworks produced as a result of the Auckland International Sculpture Symposium held in September 1971. It was first installed in Queen Elizabeth II Square in 1977 and was subsequently moved to its new home at Wynyard Quarter in 2011. The trusses swing in the wind and the pool below reflects light up through the sculpture. It claims and transforms the space through water, movement and light. It’s made from stainless steel, is 72 feet long, 16 feet wide and 18 feet high. It's the perfect bird bath for the locals!\nThere is also a lovely playground on the property for children to climb and play.\n","date":"August 14, 2023","img":"/blog/silo-park/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/silo-park/featured_hu461d6d141231e08c9e2a077eeb2d912b_2125502_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/silo-park/","series":[{"title":"New Zealand","url":"/series/new-zealand/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/silo-park/featured_hu461d6d141231e08c9e2a077eeb2d912b_2125502_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Auckland","url":"/tags/auckland/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1691971200,"title":"Silo Park, Auckland, NZ"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"Our first stop out of the states included a brief stop in Vancouver, Canada. We love Canada and this gave us a chance to help Melissa calm her travel jitters before putting too much distance between her safe spaces and the great unknown. The Capilano Suspension Bridge Park and Sea Wall walk deserve their own pages, but here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of our brief visit.\nOf course, visiting Canada with Melissa cannot be complete without visiting her black squirrel friends.\nWe walked along the seawall down by the Convention Center to take in the sights. Very cool place to hang out.\nThe Drop Digital Orca We also walked to Gastown to experience the old steam clock.\nYour browser does not support the video tag. We saw some cool buildings...\nand some seedier parts of town\nBut, all in all, a great place to visit.\n","date":"July 30, 2023","img":"/blog/vancouver-bc/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/vancouver-bc/featured_hua83faa77ddd230bdc1eec3e25063292f_1641637_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/vancouver-bc/","series":[{"title":"Canada","url":"/series/canada/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/vancouver-bc/featured_hua83faa77ddd230bdc1eec3e25063292f_1641637_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Vancouver","url":"/tags/vancouver/"},{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"}],"timestamp":1690675200,"title":"Oh, Canada!"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City","url":"/categories/city/"}],"content":"We said goodbye to St. Louis and headed off to Amarillo, TX to see our \u0026quot;peanut\u0026quot; (Brenna). We drove south from Missouri through Oklahoma to get to Texas. This page captures some of the interesting things we encountered along the way.\nWe stopped at Redmon's Candy Factory because Melissa was jonesing for some popcorn, and popcorn they have.\nWe ended up with this:\nWe stopped in Tulsa for lunch (forgot to capture the name of the restaurant, but it was yummy).\nIce cream? Yes, please.\nWe're off again and...you've got to be kidding me:\nAnd, in case you're not sure where you are...\nIt's not well maintained, but it may be worth a stop, especially if you have kids - Melissa will say she's married to one.\nOnward and awkward to our ultimate goal. Yay!\n","date":"July 6, 2023","img":"/blog/road-trip-to-amarillo/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/road-trip-to-amarillo/featured_hue06e9e6d76d46518cb285224dcbc144b_3518152_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/road-trip-to-amarillo/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/road-trip-to-amarillo/featured_hue06e9e6d76d46518cb285224dcbc144b_3518152_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Amarillo","url":"/tags/amarillo/"},{"title":"Family","url":"/tags/family/"}],"timestamp":1688601600,"title":"Road Trip to Amarillo"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"National Park","url":"/categories/national-park/"}],"content":"While in St. Louis, we visited the Missouri Botanical Garden. This pages is a dump of the Chihuly glass on exhibit at the park.\n","date":"July 5, 2023","img":"/blog/st.-louis-chiluly-exhibit/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/st.-louis-chiluly-exhibit/featured_hu9f0bbbf06f345c7f710aee25494b3a49_6472685_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/st.-louis-chiluly-exhibit/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/st.-louis-chiluly-exhibit/featured_hu9f0bbbf06f345c7f710aee25494b3a49_6472685_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Exhibit","url":"/tags/exhibit/"},{"title":"Chihuly Glass","url":"/tags/chihuly-glass/"},{"title":"St. Louis","url":"/tags/st.-louis/"}],"timestamp":1688515200,"title":"St. Louis Botanical Chihuly Exhibit"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City Park","url":"/categories/city-park/"}],"content":"St. Louis has a sculpture park near the downtown/arch area, so what better way to waste time on Independence Day waiting for the sun to go down.\n","date":"July 4, 2023","img":"/blog/st.-louis-city-garden-sculpture-park/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/st.-louis-city-garden-sculpture-park/featured_hu5cc9e2d2997044e171b36f209ec85ef9_3232070_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/st.-louis-city-garden-sculpture-park/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/st.-louis-city-garden-sculpture-park/featured_hu5cc9e2d2997044e171b36f209ec85ef9_3232070_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Sculpture","url":"/tags/sculpture/"},{"title":"St. Louis","url":"/tags/st.-louis/"}],"timestamp":1688428800,"title":"City Garden Sculpture Park"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Event","url":"/categories/event/"}],"content":"Our timing put us in St. Louis over Independence Day so we walked to the Gateway Arch National Park to watch the fireworks over the river. We had a great time - I'll just let the pics and videos speak for themselves.\nYour browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video Your browser does not support webm video ","date":"July 4, 2023","img":"/blog/st.-louis-fireworks/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/st.-louis-fireworks/featured_huc260822e1a2e50f1dbafa24d87a1d02c_317813_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/st.-louis-fireworks/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/st.-louis-fireworks/featured_huc260822e1a2e50f1dbafa24d87a1d02c_317813_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Fireworks","url":"/tags/fireworks/"},{"title":"St. Louis","url":"/tags/st.-louis/"}],"timestamp":1688428800,"title":"St. Louis Fireworks"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"National Park","url":"/categories/national-park/"}],"content":"A first time visit to St. Louis isn't complete without a visit to the Gateway Arch National Park, so Melissa had to go up into the arch to get a birds eye view of the city.\nSo we grabbed some tickets and headed up.\nIt's a long way down but the views are spectacular.\n","date":"July 3, 2023","img":"/blog/st.-louis-arch/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/st.-louis-arch/featured_hu4ded0cf0478497a65b671b710c6c723a_353736_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/st.-louis-arch/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/st.-louis-arch/featured_hu4ded0cf0478497a65b671b710c6c723a_353736_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Attraction","url":"/tags/attraction/"},{"title":"St. Louis","url":"/tags/st.-louis/"}],"timestamp":1688342400,"title":"St. Louis Arch"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"City Park","url":"/categories/city-park/"}],"content":"Location:\nOrlando Wetlands Park\n25155 Wheeler Rd\nChristmas, FL 32709\nThis man made wetland park boasts 1650 acres and a 2200 foot boardwalk. It's purpose is treating reclaimed water in the city of Orlando and providing a safe haven for Florida wildlife to flourish without threat of man. We encountered over a hundred alligators, otters and a multitude of birds including Roseate Spoonbills, Sandhill Cranes, Herons, and songbirds. Many miles of hiking and biking trails.\n","date":"January 29, 2023","img":"/blog/orlandowetlandspark/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/orlandowetlandspark/featured_hu443657ee94e70972eb87055d35f4faba_4020522_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/orlandowetlandspark/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/orlandowetlandspark/featured_hu443657ee94e70972eb87055d35f4faba_4020522_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Wildlife","url":"/tags/wildlife/"},{"title":"Orlando","url":"/tags/orlando/"},{"title":"Nature","url":"/tags/nature/"},{"title":"Refuge","url":"/tags/refuge/"}],"timestamp":1674950400,"title":"Orlando Wetlands Park"},{"authors":[],"categories":[{"title":"Event","url":"/categories/event/"}],"content":"Those who know me are aware of my long-standing passion for Roger Waters era Pink Floyd. So it should come as no surprise that I snatched up tickets as soon as they came on sale for Roger's 2020 tour. Then covid hit and the tour was delayed until 2021, then 2022. sigh.\nWell, the wait was worth it. Roger, as always, delivered. He spread his song list across the body of work, sprinkling in his solo work here and there (mostly his newest album). I enjoyed it immensely. I think he has understandably slowed a bit since I last saw him in Chicago with Chris Manger (organizer) and Dennis Fisher, but his passion is still as strong as ever - you can see the joy in his face.\n","date":"August 25, 2022","img":"/blog/rogerwaters/featured.jpg","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"/blog/rogerwaters/featured_hu30f00861b15861c0e0b9e78c2a1ab229_1777150_500x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","permalink":"/blog/rogerwaters/","series":[{"title":"USA","url":"/series/usa/"}],"smallImg":"/blog/rogerwaters/featured_hu30f00861b15861c0e0b9e78c2a1ab229_1777150_180x0_resize_q75_box.jpg","tags":[{"title":"Concert","url":"/tags/concert/"},{"title":"Chicago","url":"/tags/chicago/"}],"timestamp":1661385600,"title":"Roger Waters Concert Orlando"},{"authors":[],"categories":[],"content":"Maybe someday we'll use this for news updates\n","date":"July 8, 2022","img":"","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"","permalink":"/news/2022/07/placeholder-for-news/","series":[{"title":"News","url":"/series/news/"}],"smallImg":"","tags":[],"timestamp":1657251287,"title":"Placeholder for News"},{"authors":[],"categories":[],"content":"","date":"May 28, 2019","img":"","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"","permalink":"/archives/","series":[],"smallImg":"","tags":[],"timestamp":1559001600,"title":""},{"authors":[],"categories":[],"content":"Hello and welcome to our website!\nInitially set up so family and friends could follow us around the world, it's become a placeholder for our memories, adventures and friends we've met along the way.\nWe are a married couple in our 50's, empty nesters for the most part (we did have to drop kick one baby bird out of the nest), sold our home \u0026amp; cars, stored our precious belongings and began the adventure of a lifetime!\nWe have no set goals, just to enjoy life and travel while we are healthy and can.\nWe hope you enjoy going on the journey with us and maybe even find bits of useful information, places to travel and new friends along the way.\n","date":"January 1, 1","img":"","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"","permalink":"/about/","series":[],"smallImg":"","tags":[],"timestamp":-62135596800,"title":"About"},{"authors":[],"categories":[],"content":"","date":"January 1, 1","img":"","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"","permalink":"/contact/","series":[],"smallImg":"","tags":[],"timestamp":-62135596800,"title":"Contact Us"},{"authors":[],"categories":[],"content":"","date":"January 1, 1","img":"","lang":"en","langName":"English","largeImg":"","permalink":"/offline/","series":[],"smallImg":"","tags":[],"timestamp":-62135596800,"title":"Offline"}]