The church

We finally managed to purchase the lovely little country church on the block of land immediately adjacent to our farm. Having originally been approached in 2007 to see if we were interested, the church was then taken off the market after a tornado in late 2007 knocked down the local Anglican church and "our" Uniting Church was rented to them. So they have kindly looked after it until we were ready to buy it! God acts in mysterious ways indeed (given that the Anglican church had also been knocked down in the 50s you have to wonder if it was just a coincidence that the weather requires the church to update their building every 50 years or so with a bit of help from the insurance companies!)
With a list of problems as long as your arm (contaminated soil, noise issues, heritage listing etc) it may be a little while before we can actually get permission from council to live in the church but the recently opened up view has me very enthused to get the process moving along! We took out a bunch of weed species including some quite large trees and now have a magnificent view across the macadamia plantations to the hills beyond.
Have a little more headspace to think about new house designs now after finishing up an incredibly hectic year of projects which culminated in winning an international award for the most impactful use of technology worldwide in support of learning - the Platinum award in the New and Research category of the IMS Global Consortium Learning Impact Awards in Long Beach California. This was for the simulator Rob and I were working on for the last 18 mths.
I have had a bit of time off, but Rob continues to be busy and is in Tasmania this week, Melbourne on the weekend, France and Norway in September, New Orleans and Norway in November, speaking about the simulator built for training dive supervisors.

Christmas 2010

Had a lovely Christmas in NNSW, with Paul, Anitra, Josh,Kay, Emily and Abbey, with Miranda, Bridget and Judy joining us later in the day. Rob and Anitra did a brilliant job of cooking Christmas lunch, and my pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris went down very well. The day was surprisingly cool - in fact the whole summer has been cry cool, with lots of rain.

Kind of felt strange not spending it with the extended family, but we managed to call Rob's family in Melbourne, and mine in NZ and England.

Chris and James took a few presents down for the family when they flew down on 6 January to get ready for their trip to NZ on 10 Jan. They are backpacking for three weeks with James's girlfriend. Should be a great experience. I'm going over to NZ with Breanna and Liam, together with Anitra on 22 January for a week of sightseeing before going on a cruise from Auckland to Sydney with Rob, Anitra and Jan (kids are flying back to start school).

Northern Rivers update

I can't believe it has already been 6 months. We are in a lovely rented house overlooking our farm. The new phone number is 02 6689 5902. We've had a few visitors - and looking forward to having my Mum over for a month in August and my Aunt in September.

We've had some interesting times settling in, and are extremely thankful for the wonderful friends we already had up here who have been a tremendous help in dealing with some of the issues - we've already tested out the local ambulance service, the local hospital (twice!), the vet, and the ability to get flights quickly for emergency dashes back to Melbourne. All services have passed with flying colours, and in every case our friends have been there ready to step up and help out with looking after kids, driving us to the airport, diagnosing the dog's illness etc etc. My heart goes out to people who have to deal with those things without the support of friends and family. Despite the ominous sound of all of that, we are all happy and healthy, albeit a little overworked right now.

We are so lucky though that our biggest problem is too much work after a move to rural Australia. That work has seen us in Melbourne for a reasonable amount of time, with the only frustration the lack of time to catch up with friends and family while we are there. Rob has done a brilliant job of managing the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme simulator project - take a look at some of the photos at http://simulator.adas.org.au/ , while I get to spend much of this month down here in Melbourne finalising the training scenarios and software configuration to make it ready to train offshore dive supervisors. So this will be my office for a few weeks (that's James in the picture on the right, trying out the saturation diving supervisor panel):

Again, it's really interesting work, and the team of people we have worked with have made it a real pleasure to be part of this project.

On the side, I've been kicking off an e-learning project and am presenting at an e-learning conference this week. While it is hard to fit it all in, it is great to be doing the type of work I really enjoy.

On that note, I'd better sign out - we're off to visit Rob's family today followed by dinner with friends, so it should be an enjoyable break from the work.

Decision finally made (sort of!)

Well, looks like a permanent move for the Gatt family to Northern rivers.

And you can see why we love the area - just look at the view we should have when we build our new house on the farm.

We have loved being back in Melbourne, and it was a very tough decision. It's been made easier in a way by the decision to keep Chris here in Melbourne, so psychologically it feels as though we aren't really leaving, as we will initially keep the house, and we'll do a little bit of single parenting with a parent in each State for at least some of 2010. Chris is quite confident that he can manage on his own, and I am quite confident that he is right for at least some of the time - perhaps not all of the time yet, given the importance of year 12, and the amount of study he should be doing.

Rob and I have a major project being constructed in Melbourne until June 2010, so we will have work reasons for being here for a lot of the time. So just need to manage the needs of the Northern Rivers part of the family as well, since we felt it was best for James and Liam to start in their new school at the start of the year. Breanna is more flexible since she is only just starting Grade 5, but we'll probably start her up there as well.

Still looking for a house - "our house" in Donaghue St came up for sale, but we missed out on that one. So we'll see, and keep you posted with a new address and phone number. In terms of post Gatt family C/- Dunoon Post Office will definitely find us, and our mobile phones will work up on the ridge in Dunoon itself.

Wishing everyone a pleasant and safe Christmas and New Year season. And please come and visit us once we find a house!

Settling back in

Sitting here with multiple layers of clothing, a blanket over my knees (thanks Kay), and the heater on. Have survived the return to the cold, and enjoying catching up with Melbourne friends and family. The older boys are loving being back at school amongst their friends, even with the 6 am starts some mornings when James has to go in for gymwork / rowing training.

We're still not unpacked properly having been a little unwell when we first got back (not swine flu, but nasty bugs all the same). Only just managed to see Paul (Rob's Dad) a couple of days ago, as we'd been keeping away to make sure we didn't give him any nasty colds, since he is recovering from an operation. He's looking great, so I'm sure it won't be long before he's up and about properly.

Need to make a decision about schools by end July - ADAS is headhunting Rob vigorously, so the pressure is on to move back up to Dunoon. Would like to be in both places at once, although Rob would probably prefer to be doing only one job, rather than the current situation where weekends and evenings go to ADAS and the day job has a little less energy brought to it than he would like. We'll keep you posted on any decisions!

Back to Melbourne 30th June

Well, we were very tempted to stay - I was even trying to concoct plans to keep the house here and alternate between the two - after all, I still have full time work up here for another 6 months. The younger two kids were quite happy to stay up for another term and keep me company with the weather warm enough to still be swimming in the sea! They love their school - that's them in the photo on the right getting an award, with the marimbas showing in the bacground.

However, the landlord made the decision for us by not renewing the lease on the house. So with only 14 days notice, the kids have learned another valuable lesson - the vulnerability of tenants. We couldn't believe it, coming from Victoria where tenants are well protected under the tenancy laws, but sure enough, at the end of a fixed term lease in NSW, the landlord can give tenants only 14 days.

We are so fortunate to have somewhere to go, as our own tenants moved out just last week. It must be so tough for families that are purely reliant on rented accommodation. We had already been approached by three families who knew we were supposed to be going back to Melbourne and who wanted to ask if the house was available.

I was very pleased though to see that Breanna has some compassion, as her first question was, "but we're not going to throw our tenants out are we?" I assured her that they had made the decision to go themselves and that we didn't need to do that at all. We were also very lucky to have friends offer to have us stay, but since we were due to go back to Melbourne in a few weeks anyway, we decided to just pack up and go. Another very good friend has offered to store all our things so that we will have a full household of furniture ready to go whenever we find a house to live in.

Yes, we do love it up here and yes we would very much like to stay, but of course, there are also many reasons for staying in Melbourne, so it will be interesting to see how we go with making a decision.

We are really looking forward to seeing all our friends and family in Melbourne, but not looking forward to the cold!

Rob in NZ and only 8 weeks to go - in theory

Rob's away in New Zealand at the moment - no climbing this time - doing an audit on a couple of diving schools. He gets back tomorrow - looking forward to having him home again.

After a tough start to the week doing our tax returns for last year, I'm feeling a lot better now that I've got them all done - and looks like we'll get a tax refund, so that's good news!

Still in denial over our return date - can't face the thought of trying to move out in only 8 more weeks, especially as I have more work than I can cope with at the moment (very fortunate given that the country is in recession). I'm really enjoying the work especially having just been formally awarded an e-learning grant so I can look forward to focussing on the area I enjoy most over the next 6 months.

April/May - And the visitors are rolling in...!

Well, we said we wanted visitors and some of you have managed to oblige. April/May have been the time for visitors, with June looking good too. Starting with Martin and Ivana and kids from Melbourne, followed by Claire (my sister) and Darryl and kids from NZ, plus Tamsin from Melbourne, then a week with a local friend of the kids, and now Rob's Mum Pauline is visiting from Melbourne.

We've had a really lovely time, with the need to continue producing some sort of output at work giving our visitors a little of their own space and time as well. We've successfully managed to have 11 people staying at once, and even managed to not run out of hot water (after learning with the first round of visitors that a little forward planning is needed to manage the hot water inventory!)

Our only bad news for that period was that we have lost 2 more chickens to local dogs, but still have three lovely chickens supplying us with fresh eggs and the enjoyment of watching them peck about in the back yard.

Weather has been much improved, with little rain and lots of sunshine. Slightly cooler now, but calmer, more settled weather. I really am feeling concerned about going back to the cold in Melbourne - I love the weather up here. Kids went fishing yesterday - one small fish to share between quite a few, but a great morning nonetheless. Lots of time with friends over for shared dinners and movies with our fabulous "home theatre" - the house has the perfect blank white wall for using my data projector as a very good facsimile of going to the movies.

Feeling very settled in the house here and the time for leaving is coming up much too quickly. Will keep you posted with next steps.

Update on Melbourne Trip and our wet weather!

We had visitors over last night who told us that Easter is traditionally the time for flood warnings in this area. Looks like they were right. I'm sitting at my desk looking out at the effects of the continuous rain we are currently having. The level of water in the dog enclosure is at least 2 inches, and rising. While I am reasonably confident that it will drain away, I think I will continue to monitor the rise as we have rather a lot of computer equipment on the floor next to the window where the dog enclosure has turned into a backyard paddling pool.

James is revelling in the return to cool weather and rain - says it's the best he has felt since he got here. He has been out dancing in the rain, and walked to the school to get the kids just for the pleasure of becoming completely soaked. I'm just hoping we get a bit of warmth and sunshine in time for our visitors and for the farm to dry out for the first harvest run.

For all those who were concerned about my comment about hospitals, turns out it was not James I should have been worried about, but Josh, my godson, who claims to have caught the nasty cold from James, but has been much worse with it. He not only ended up in Lismore Base Hospital, but even got to enjoy (?!) a helicopter ride to Brisbane hospital to go into intensive care for respiratory distress! This all happened while we were in Melbourne, and was very concerning, but we were pleased to see that he is looking almost as good as new, and enjoyed the company of our kids over the weekend.

We had a very enjoyable, but hectic trip to Melbourne. Dealing with traffic and the long distances from one side of the city to the other meant we were both exhausted when we got back. It was great to see the family, and especially our nieces and nephews who have grown a lot in the intervening 3 months.

James got to go to Wonthaggi to join his schoolmates at the Human Powered Vehicle race over the weekend and then stayed on with friends to attend Caulfield Grammar School, even managing to be there for an excursion to Yarra Junction campus. Chris caught up with one of his friends over the weekend and then enjoyed catching up with the others at school.
Breanna and Liam were thrilled to be back at school - Liam received his school captain's badge, made a speech and handed out certificates at assembly. They also got to catch up with their respective friends after school.

Rob managed to fit in some work with an audit at one of the diver training establishments and got to catch up with his work colleagues by going to a birthday party which was very nicely timed. I played taxi for the most part, and fitted in cups of tea with friends in between picking up and dropping off other members of the family. I did manage to set up the online learning system for one of the classrooms at Highvale Primary, and also saw our tenants who are keeping the house in beautiful condition. Was amused that they had not had to cut the lawn once in the three months, as opposed to our lawn up here which provides work for some of the local lads every couple of weeks by growing at an amazing rate (like everything here).

The christening for Charlotte was a lovely event, followed by a very pleasant lunch back at Steve and Lisa's. We managed to make it last all afternoon and evening, and the time we spent there gave Abigail and Charlotte time to really get used to their cousins and Auntie and Uncle again. Charlotte is the most delightfully friendly and happy little baby.

Abigail has developed into a real personality and is even starting to talk. Initially a little hesitant with us, Abby was giving cuddles and kisses aplenty by the time we left. Her little magic show, complete with a bow to the audience at the end, was incredibly cute.

Back to Melbourne for a week

We're looking forward to a week back in Melbourne for Charlotte's christening.

We've added some time either side of the weekend, and the kids are booked in to go to their old schools for 2 days on Monday and Tuesday - testimony to how much they loved their schools to be going back voluntarily when they didn't need to! They are missing their friends, so it's a great way to catch up with them and also to let the teacher's know how they are going.

The focus is on visiting family and school friends, so sorry to all our other friends who we may not have time to catch up with! Luckily some are visiting us, as April heralds the start of our visitors. We're looking forward to it, and last week I went out and bought some extra sheets, pillows and covers and today I borrowed an extra doona (duvet) for when they come. I'm hoping we will get to go out and do a few "touristy" things, as we have spent most weekends catching up on schoolwork or work.

Last weekend was busy with helping out the Dunoon Public School with their annual stall at the Channon Craft Market. The kids played Marimba with the school Marimba Ensemble to a very appreciative crowd. (See Liam in yellow on the right)

It was a lovely day, marred slightly by a very nasty ant bite that Breanna sustained at the end of the day. It swelled up and was a very angry red colour for several days, with a red line extending up her vein. She's decided that bitey/venomous things clearly like her, since she was also the lucky recipient of a bluebottle jellyfish sting - VERY painful and quite concerning, but fortunately the lifeguards helped us with the appropriate treatment and reassurance that it would get better, with the caveat that if she had trouble breathing to get her to hospital!

Hospital is almost looking like an option for James at the moment who has worsening asthma and hayfever and more than three weeks with a persistent chest cough. So we'll see how he goes tonight and get him to the doctor first thing in the morning. Hope he is well enough for the Melbourne trip as he is the one who most needs to have a break and to catch up with his friends.

Till next time...

Bronwen

And then there were 5....chooks (not people!)

Yes, the inevitable happened and one of our chooks (middle one below) has not survived the attentions of a dog. Fortunately for our dogs, it was not one of them, so they are still in the good books.


Luckily the other chooks seem to still be okay in our backyard - the tragedy occurred because the chooks had been scared over into the neighbours yard and were then in view of the street and the puppy down the road just couldn't resist the temptation. Our neighbours who owned the puppy were of course very upset that it had happened and delivered a lovely cake which Breanna adopted immediately for her birthday cake.

She had a lovely birthday with Paul dropping in with a lovely Black Forest Cherry Cake on her actual birthday.

This was followed up with a party on the following Sunday with many little girls invited over, and of course we had the opportunity to get to know a few parents a little better. Breanna is showing her adaptability and her gregarious nature with a firm group of friends at her new school. She also regularly calls her friends in Melbourne using the Skype account and headset she got for her birthday.

Australia Day Celebrations at the Dunoon Sports Club

26th January 2009

Yes I know that it's been a while since Australia Day (26th January), but that's about as up to date as I am managing at the moment!
We had a really lovely day with Rob's cousin Mario visiting us, and despite some really heavy rain in the morning, it cleared up to a gorgeous afternoon just in time for the celebrations down at the local Sports and Recreation Club.
Take a look at the photos from that day at the website http://www.dunoongazette.org/australia-day-celebrations-dunoon-sports-club-0 and see if you recognise anyone (okay, I'll give you a clue - Breanna and Liam are in the three-legged race and Anitra is our friend who has made our many past visits and our current move to Dunoon so easy and enjoyable.)

First eggs from our chooks!

Yes, the exciting news for this week is that our chooks have started laying eggs. Of course, quite a lot of other things have happened such as kids starting school etc. Just heading out to a birthday party for one of Breanna's new friends, so will add pictures later!

First two weeks in our new home

Our six chooks (hens for international readers) arrived today making us start to feel truly part of the village. Hopefully after a week or two in their coop, our chooks can wander round like the other free-ranging chooks in the street. Hopefully they will survive the attentions of our two dogs, who seem very keen to investigate the new occupants further. I doubt they would, so we will have to keep the dogs under firm control.

We've also joined the local canoe club - or at least Chris and James are members and we go along with our own kayaks and just have a "play" and swim in the river while the boys do a more a serious paddle several kilometres down the river.

I (Bronwen) have even managed to get myself out of bed by 5:45 am three times a week to get down to the local sports oval for a fairly rigorous exercise session with a group of people from the local area. It's been fun and hopefully will be having positive effect on my general health.

Work has started again for both Rob and me, so we are getting used to working in the same office and on some of the same projects.

Weather has been really warm, but cools down in the evenings so is quite comfortable at night. Today was our first rainy day and was pleasantly cool - made it easier for Rob to work down at the farm, although it was getting a bit slippery on some of those steeper slopes while he was slashing grass.

Photos to follow...

On the move again

January 2009

Just in case you haven't caught up with the news, we are up in Dunoon, NSW for a 6 month work contract with the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme. Rob will be project manager for ADAS, while I continue to work in my consulting role to ADAS - means we might be working together some of the time!

We arrived in Dunoon late on 3rd January. We moved out of our house in Glen Waverley on 1st January and drove up in 2 cars to Dunoon after spending a really pleasant New Year's Day with wonderful friends in Castlemaine, and with family in Gisborne. Left on 2nd January for the two day drive - nearly 1700 km - the length of New Zealand - roads are straighter though! Except when you take a wrong turn - ask Rob about that one. Furniture trailers on dirt roads are not a good mix - glad I had the computers in my car after seeing the dust on some of the boxes!

We are nearly settled in and now have internet and phone working. New phone number is 02 66895659 (international +61 2 6689 5659).

Much hotter than Melbourne here - first purchase was a portable air conditioning unit and 4 fans.

We're settling in fast and will be ready for visitors very soon, so start booking in! House is not huge, so can only accommodate one set of visitors at a time, so we'll have to set up a booking calendar! Look forward to seeing you here!

Regards to all,
Bronwen

New Zealand x 2

Two separate NZ trips this year - Bronwen and kids at Easter and Rob in December

December 2008

Hi all, well it’s happening again, the travel bug has hit, actually I’m not sure that it ever really left. It didn’t take long after we got back from Europe (in fact the concept was hatched while in Singapore on the way home). The plan was to go to New Zealand and finish a climb that I had tried many years ago, Mt Aspiring, but had been unable to complete because of bad weather.

The team was put together the week after we got home and a picture of the mountain has sat on my screen saver at work since February this year. (Helped me get through that which I do between holidays)

This NZ trip has been split into three sections, climbing, fishing and family, basically a week of each.

The first week kicked off with catching up with my sister and brother in-law Claire and Darryl and nephew Allan and niece Rhianna (who I had yet to meet). They helped me get my gear together with Allan trying out everything including ice axe and crampons, looking quite the part!

Once Colin and Martin arrive from Singapore and Melbourne respectively we were off to Wanaka with the objective of getting into the mountains as quickly as we could to make the most of the weather for the coming week. With a major front moving across the mountains in a couple of days we knew that that could mean another week of no climbing and no summit! Fortunately our travel day was fantastic and we were not only able to get to Wanaka (6hrs drive) but jump on a helicopter up to and walk across the Bonar glacier and make ourselves at home in Colin Todd Hut by 9pm that night, quite an effort. Well to cut what could be a very long story short we reached the summit of Mt Aspiring after three attempts, two of which were cut short by weather or snow conditions. Our summit day was absolutely magnificent and all three of us enjoyed the magnificent pyramid summit of Mt Aspiring with its sheer drops to the glaciers below. A long but beautiful two day walk down from the glacier saw us safely back in the Matukituki valley.

The next day saw us at the Christchurch airport with me waving goodbye to Martin and Colin and at the same time welcoming my fishing partner Graeme from Melbourne. Off we set to the rivers and lakes of Arthurs Pass for those monster NZ trout. Fly fishing is one of my other passions and has also taken me to some magnificent places. This trip was no different. While the weather wasn’t very kind to us (lot of rain and muddy rivers) we still got some great fishing in. The highlight for me was no doubt landing this brown trout in the Matiri River near Murchison. This area offered a heap of rivers for us to fish and we ended up setting up camp for several days.

On the way out we treated ourselves to a night at the resort at Maruia Springs. Quite a Japanese experience complete with kimonos and Japanese bathhouse. This was topped off by the chef preparing the trout I had caught for us. Three courses for two out of one fish, all delicious!!!

The last week saw me spend some time with Bronwen’s family in Nelson in the lead up to Christmas. Again a fantastic opportunity to catch up with my nieces who I don’t make the opportunity to see anywhere near enough, something to change in the future…

All in all a rather action packed 20 days and all emerging from a brief, non committal discussion on the verandah of Colin and Cathy's place in Singapore,. What a wonderful thing dreams are, especially when you make them happen!!!

March 2008
Bronwen, Chris, James, Liam and Breanna all headed back to NZ for a family reunion at Easter. Fantastic to see the whole family together, even the UK branch!

Australia - Back Home

27th January 2008

A welcoming committee of family and food in the fridge from generous friends made the homecoming much easier despite no sleep on the flight - too busy watching movies. Aside from the car breaking down on the way home, and the overwhelming quantity of bags to unpack (made worse by all the extra bags we had to collect from friends and family who had looked after the boys before we left), it was certainly nice to be back to the comforts of home and even more importantly, back among friends and family.

We had an incredibly hectic first month back with multiple family birthday celebrations, many catch-ups with friends and straight back into the school year. Our little niece who was only a couple of days old when we left enjoyed investigating the new growth on Rob's chin - he looks quite different - I like it, some don't!

Life is so much more complicated and hectic that I feel constantly tired. Start to wonder what's wrong with me, but think that it is simply the pace we set ourselves and the amount of "stuff" we own that needs to be constantly accessed, searched for, put away, cleaned, sorted, dusted, cleaned, and moved from place to place. And then the information overload of mail, bills, e-mail, magazines that need to be dealt with in a timely fashion or the world will come to an end....

Rob and I set to with a vengeance to de-clutter and simplify and spent the first couple of weeks pulling every item out of the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, scrubbing all surfaces to within an inch of their lives and trying to determine what we could give away, sell, or discard. Have to say that although it took a lot of work (amazing how much stuff is in a kitchen!), it has been great being able to easily see and access all our things, and is certainly a great incentive to keep up the process throughout the house. Energy is waning though, and everyday life is taking over again.

People have asked about the highlights of the trip. It is a tough question to answer, as every country had its highlights and some of the tougher times become the most memorable. All in all, it was so worthwhile, and I think will be something we will always remember. I actually miss Rob now that he is back at work, and I think that consolidating our own relationship with each other was an added bonus that we hadn't really thought about - it had been more about giving the kids a family experience to remember. And it is the intangibles that really count - the fact that our kids are willing to try new foods and new experiences, and that they are so capable of putting up with difficult situations. James left for China with school a few days ago, and I am absolutely certain that his past experiences of travelling will help him to make the most of this trip. So these are the bits that are priceless, and mean so much more to us than having a big house and the latest plasma TV.

My Aunt said it all with a card with a picture of a kid in a cardboard box aeroplane and a caption that said - Give them roots and wings to fly.

Well Gatt kids, I hope that you feel that you have both!

Singapore

18th-26th January 2008


Normally we don't like to impose ourselves on other people for too long - visitors are like fish, they go off after 3 days! But Colin and Cathy and family made us very welcome and we stayed for the whole 8 days with them, and had a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing time. Even though we weren't quite home in Australia, being with such good friends make it feel like coming home and being looked after. Being able to celebrate Australia Day at the Australian International School made it even more like being home.


It was also great to catch up with Andrew and Rebecca, who I know from my university days.

We all loved Singapore, especially the food - Asian food remains our favourite cuisine, although we love trying all new foods and have some great memories of good European food. The advantage of Melbourne is that if you like a particular type of food, you can almost guarantee that you can find either a restaurant or a stall at the market that sells it.


We can thoroughly recommend a walk around the reservoir where we saw monkeys in the wild and did a treetop walk, as well as Jurong Bird Park and the Night Safari. We saw a most unusual religious festival involving strange and painful looking body piercings (click on photo for a close-up), and went for a boat ride on a "bum boat", and of course did the inevitable shopping - Mp3 players were the popular purchases.


The kids loved the hotel-like feel of the condo where Colin and Cathy live, and Rob wants me to find a job in Singapore so that he can be house-husband and relax around the condo pool!


A great finale to a great holiday. Thanks again to Colin and Cathy and family.

Germany-Rust, Moehrendorf, Bad Kissingen, Duelmen, Gescher

4 January - 14th January 2008

Visiting Germany is a little bit like coming home - speaking the language and visiting friends and my host families from my time here as an exchange student. It was so good to see everyone again, and of course I have grand plans to be better at staying in touch than I have been in the past - and I'm always thrilled to have visitors and e-mails, so please visit or write.....

We started our (second) Germany leg with a drive towards Europa Park in Rust (near the French bordertown of Strasbourg. On the way we stopped at Titisee (Rob likes the name) - a ski town with big frozen lake, which we took a very pleasant stroll on. The kids found it fascinating (and so did we!) to be walking on water, and took great pleasure in running and sliding along on the surface, and found it amusing to see an apple frozen just under the surface of the water. Black Forest Cake was a must, and of course we visited the local cuckoo clock shop as well, but no purchases.

Arrived at Europa Park campground late afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed the luxuries of real showers (although they never seem to have them hot enough with the push button versions!). The campground is part of Europa Park, so next morning was just a stroll to the gates, and the fun began. Europa Park is set up with themes around various countries or regions, so it was a good chance to see whether the stereotype version matched the real version we had seen, or to visit the countries we hadn't managed to get to in real life! Of course the rides tended to dominate, but we did enjoy the "typical" buildings and food - Greek souvlaki for dinner, and not too far off the real thing. Despite poor weather, we had a great time on the rides, our only problem being that we did not have enough time to do everything. Did fit in some gluehwein and some delicious sour cherry liqueur tasting (and buying) at the German Christmas market, and it was great to see a Christmas market (even if it was staged) since we had missed out on doing this pre-Christmas in Germany.

A quick visit to Strasbourg next morning meant the kids could tick off France on their list of visited countries, and it was well worth the visit - really pretty town, and I bought the obligatory baguettes and croissants to make myself feel that I was really in France. Signposts were often in both French and German, making things a bit easier, as my schoolgirl french was somewhat lacking.


Headed towards Moehrendorf, (near Nurnberg) in the afternoon on the kind invitation of the people we met at the Grossglocknerstrasse - see the earlier blog post describing how one entertains and copes with 10 people in a tiny campervan. Seemed to take forever to get there, but we were rewarded after the long drive with a delicious dinner of typical Nurnberg fare - our hosts Till and Anke had gone out of their way to make us incredibly welcome. Their house is absolutely gorgeous - an old "Forsthaus" which means it was originally lived in by the person who looked after the kings forests (I think - correct me if I am wrong Till!). Till and Anke had done an enormous amount of work on the house and it was so interesting to see the photos and to hear how they had made an effort to work with all natural and original materials in the renovations. Their children seemed to enjoy having us as guests, and played well with our kids despite language differences. Our kids didn't want to leave the wonderful comforts that they had been looking forward to after Till made his invitation particularly enticing with promises of wonderful facilities of sauna, hot showers, bath, washing machine and internet access (all the things that are very much missed in the campervan) - not to mention good company and great food.

We spent a few nights there and visited the town of Nurnberg - I had very good memories of Nurnberg from my teenage years and it is still as pretty and pleasant as I remember it. We watched a multi-media show of the history of Nurnberg at the museum - I certainly hadn't realised what a central role it had played in much of recent history. We also went walking in the Frankische Schweiz area and had both a delicious afternoon tea and dinner in the local eateries - again focused on sampling the local delicacies.

Went through Bamberg after leaving their home (and being told that croissants are known in the region as Bambergers). The significance of this town to me is that this is where I bought the bottle of wine that Rob and I drank at our wedding. Anyone who was there may remember me making a bit of a big deal of that in my wedding speech, and it tasted great in spite of having been rather poorly cellared and frequently moved in the 9 years since I had bought it.

After that was a brief stop in Bad Kissingen (after some serious navigational errors making us very late), where we had lunch with people we had met in Salzburg. Lovely to see them again and of course Breanna and their girls thought that the visit was far too short (although it was Liam that really didn't want to leave their Nintendo DS!!)

And then on towards Duelmen where I had spent much of my year as an exchange student. Got to experience a serious traffic jam and diversion on the way, so ended up spending the night somewhere on the side of the road, and then got to Duelmen next day. Lovely to see my host family (von Luettichau family) with the added benefit of catching up with my host sister and brother who happened to be visiting - they were only 3 and 2 years old when I lived with them - we looked back on the photos and the original entries in the guestbook. I was the first of quite a number of exchange students they had hosted over the years, so it was interesting to read the guestbook comments of the other students (and good to know that I didn't put them off hosting exchange students, with being the first!)

Also had a lovely afternoon with another host family, the Eing family in Gescher - this time managed to catch up with 2 of my 4 host brothers and sisters, and it was so great to see them and to meet their kids (or some of them anyway!)

Then back to Holland and into the packing up time - so sad to be saying goodbye to the campervan ready to head home - can certainly recommend campervan travel, and also BW Campers, Netherlands as a great company to rent a van from.

Austria-Innsbruck

1 Jan - 4 Jan 2008

Loved Austria (again!) in spite of it being so cold that our waste-water tank outlet froze so we couldn't let the dishwater out (becomes a real exercise in low water usage dish-washing when you know you can't empty the tank!)

Innsbruck was an ideal place for the kids to try skiing and ice-skating, so we took advantage of the low-cost baby-lift to have a day of practising skiing, which Chris and James hadn't done since they were 6 and 4 years old and the others had never tried. Everyone enjoyed themselves in gorgeous weather and really short lift queues. The boys focused on speed, Breanna on technique and by the end of the day all were doing really well and were keen to go again next day.

However, the weather was slightly worse next day and very windy on the more advanced slopes, so in the end opted for a half day skiing for Breanna on the kiddy slope and the rest of us went ice-skating at the open-air rink right next to the ski slope. Breanna joined us in the afternoon for ice-skating, so got the best of both worlds. Don't know how she managed to find the energy to do both, but she certainly did and loved every minute of it, until the time when James' knee connected with her head trying to dodge her when gravity got the best of her. So this was a great excuse to get back to the van for a hot chocolate and get going to get down the mountain before it got too cold.

Spent the next day travelling towards Germany crossing the border at Lake Constance (Bodensee), with fantastic scenery all the way. Have to say that Austria is definitely one of my favourite countries in the all-round scorecard of scenery, cleanliness, friendliness and liveability. Maybe being able to speak the language makes a difference to one's impression of a country, but Austria has always been such a pleasure to visit and things seem so easy there compared to travelling in other countries.