I am currently sitting on a ferry on the way to the island of Naxos in Greece. I am reflecting on how tough the kids have become as travellers over this trip. Our ferry departed the Athens port at 7am. This meant we were fully packed, sleeping in our travel clothes, awake at 4.45 to walk the 2km to the metro station with our packs on. Then at the port depart the metro staton to walk and find where our boat was. This was on the back of 8 hours walking around the sites of Athens the day before in 33 degrees. Watching all three kids, particularly Chloe do all this in good spirts and without complaint. I really marvel at their stamina.

It has been nearly 7 weeks since my last post which is not great, however between planning our adventures and preparing (proofing content, compressing images and videos etc) the kids blogs I have found little down time. So what have we been up to since we arrived in Europe – the short version – 11 countries and 6700km! The trip has worked out to be a wonderful taster of a wide variety of what Europe has to offer for the kids, while allowing Shem and I to duplicate very little of our past visits to the continent.

The trip evolved in such wonderful and unexpected ways due to the flexibility of our car – affectionately named Fugly, as we all believe it is quite possibly the ugliest looking car we have ever seen. It was however, a special and rare experience for a Fitzgerald to be driving away in a brand new car! The car was fully equipped with a satellite navigation system that we named Brenda. Brenda was ‘trip enriching’ to say the least, as her ‘shortest route possible approach’ to navigation allowed us to really get to know the ‘real’ streets of each town and city and gave us great opportunities to hone our driving accuracy down some of the narrowest streets imaginable. We did learn to say no to Brenda sometimes – like when she asked us to go down this road in Sarajevo!!! Anyway, over 5 weeks we proudly clocked up 6700km on that baby!

Cities are definitely not our thing, not for long anyway! The kids have inherited our loathing for large crowds. With the exception of Paris, where we spent 3 nights, most of the major centres have been visited in a single day while staying in the outskirts. One thing that surprised Shem and I was how cheep parking was in major centres, where we were able to park right in the centre (e.g out on the island in Venice for 21 Euro for the day and in the heart of Sans Sebastian for 6 Euro.) When you divide that by 5 of us, it just did not make sense to use public transport. Our other strategy for surviving the mass tourism industry was to take advantage of all these years of early mornings for swimming. Cities at 7am are fantastic places to walk around and we would often find ourselves done by lunch time, or going later in the evening – like to the Louvre at 7pm when it closes at 9pm and having it almost to ourselves.

Now I know that cities like Barcelona, Budapest, Venice, Munich, Athens and Vienna have days worth of cultural experiences to offer and I do sometimes wish my children and husband had more interest in museums and art galleries, but the truth is that this is not the case and one needs to choose our battles. I also try to weigh up how much I believe the children can remember and what will be the most meaningful and thus hopefully memorable. For me, it often comes down to providing opportunities for them to see and experience things that will come up again in the books they read, their studies at school and of course on TV. That way they may not fully remember being at these sites, but when the see or study them, they can think – “hey I went there”. This is happening through the children’s books at the moment. Jemima and Chloe are reading 39 Clues by Rick Riodan and so far the main characters have visited the catacombs of Paris, the birth place of Mozart in Salzburg, the canals of Venice etc. Dibs on the other hand in reading the Di Vinci Code and is busy telling me why the Mona Lisa’s face has one side slightly bigger than the other and he cant wait to see the Last Supper painting!

So where have we been over the last 7 weeks in Europe?

Our adventures started in Paris, which is truly a special place and it was wonderful to share such famous sites and artworks with the kids, particularly Chloe who has such an affinity with art and was mesmerised by seeing Monet’s paintings up close and loved the Eiffel Tower – I think her French name has caused a deeper sense of connection.

We hit the pavement with typical Fitzgerald ferocity- covering 13-18km on foot each day of our visit. Highlights were defiantly the Muse D’Orsy which staggeringly neither Shem or I had been to before. Click here to see a 360 degree image

The variety of period defining art work in the museum is simply staggering and the location itself – a converted train station is all class. The Catacombs where a gruesome highlight for the kids who found it out of this worldly to see the bones of 6 million people lining the limestone tunnels under the city in macabrely decorative ways. While it was extremely sad to not be able to see Notre Dame, except from a distance, I did say to the kids that they will be back and when they are they can say they saw it when it was in ruins from the 2019 fire.

We hit the road in Fugly and headed south on a Dib- led quest to surf the waves of southern France. This took us through the beautiful Louir Valley, with its amazing Châteaus, beautiful green farm land and quaint little villages. Air B&B did not disappoint with a great little farm stay that was seriously in the middle of nowhere – like in a ‘if we die here no one will find our bodies’ kind of way! Even though I had travelled through this area previously, it still blew my mind with its stunning beauty. The children were blown away with the age and grandeur of the Palace of Versailles and Château Chenonceau, as well as, the multitude of stunning buildings in Bordeaux.

However, the urgency that surrounded Dibs to get to the coast was driving us forward. We arrived in Biarritz and went straight to the beach, but alas there was very little surf. Even so, it was lovely to be on the coast again and I had no idea how beautiful the Basque coast was.

We walked, we ran and we took advantage of the French markets with enough bread, wine, cheese and cured meats to sink a ship.

We decided to spend a few more days along the coast and chose a little village called Lekeitio because of its proximity to both San Sebastián and Bilbao. It was absolutely magical, the apartment was the nicest we have had our whole trip, with amazing views of the hills and the sea.

We used this spot to decompress for 4 days, with a little day trip to Bilbao and San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (don’t get me to pronounce this!) The latter being something we stumbled across by accident only to find it was a key tourist spot and also the site of Dragon Stone in the 7th Series of Game of Thrones (with a bit of CGI).

We also took advantage of the fact Lekeitio is still a working fishing port and Jemima’s new found interest in cooking. She ended up learning to cook salt and pepper calamari, garlic muscles pasta and salmon.

We were also still close enough to the boarder to allow my cheese binge fest to continue. Sadly, despite 5 days and an extensive search of every key surf spot along the Basque coast, including Zarauitz (home to the Spanish Ripcurl Pro 2 days before we arrived!) and Mundaka (home to the longest left barrel in Europe) there was not even a ripple. The kicker was that it was forecast to be 5” the day after we left to drive across the country to Barcelona.

We stayed on the coast outside Barcelona, where much to Dib’s and our shock, there were waves. We had in no uncertain terms told him to now forget about surf, that it was something for when he got home as there was NO surf in the Mediterranean.

However, as we headed for Barcelona on the train the following morning we saw surfers on break after break! Barcelona was as I remember it except for the crazy volume of tourists – more than any other city we have visited the whole trip. Also, being early May and the fact that we were able to walk right in to the Louvre and Muse D’Orsay, it did not occur to us to pre-book tickets to see the Familiar Sangria Temple and unfortunately it was booked out. I was heart broken with this as there had been so many changes to the façade since Shem and I were last there, I was dying to see inside. Anyway, we had to settle for viewing it from afar and some YouTube clips of the interior on my phone! The rest of the day was taken up falling in love with Gaudi and the kids visit to the Gaudi Hotel (while we had a coffee down La Rambla!) cemented their opinion that he is a seriously cool architect.

On we drove to Nice, with a visit to Fragonaud perfumery in Grass on the way. Staying again outside the city centre up in the hills at a lovely French family’s house. It had magnificent views of the countryside.

We shared our love of the Nice promenade with the kids with a run along it followed by a swim in the still chilly Mediterranean. The pebbles were definitely not to their liking, but the Gelato and beautiful streets and buildings were. Gelato was earnt by indulging me by going on a 5km run along the promonard and up the fortification stairs and the end.

Our next destination was the Lakes District in Italy where again we chose to stop for a few days to relax. On our way there I wanted to do a walk I had read about up to the town of EZE just outside Nice. It was meant to be a 3 hour round trip with great views, but I was not expecting over an hour of scrambling straight up hill to reach the town.

The town of EZE was stunning, with narrow winding cobbled laneways with amazing little artisan shops. Given we were only ½ way up the walks total assent we decided to call it quits and come back down the way we came.

Staying in a little town of Porlezza at the very top of Lake Lugano we were treated to an apartment with a magnificent view of the imposing mountains and lake.

We spend the days hiking and we hired kayaks to explore some of the crazy big homes on Lake Como, including Richard Branson’s and the one used in the Bond movie Casino Royal.

We worked with the children at this point to see what they wanted to do next. It was decided that Salzburg was a must for Sound of Music reasons, and thus we headed up through Switzerland – still the most amazing drive of the trip, given the stunning beauty of the snow covered alps contrasted with the green fields – and into Germany. We stopped by the Neuschwanstein Castle that inspired the Disney Sleeping Beauty castle you see at the start of all Disney movies and stayed outside Munich at an equestrian centre (thanks again Air B&B) that had beautiful accommodation where all the furniture had been made by hand from local timbers by the owner.

swimming

The purpose of our visit to Munich was to take the kids to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. We had been listening to Morris Gliezman’s book series Once in the car and the memorial was a very confronting and powerful addition to the children’s understanding of human nature (particularly after learning about the Kumar Rouge in Cambodia).

Each child took a different approach to engaging with the memorial, Dibs read every single piece of information, Jemima fired a million questions at us in response to the visual imagery on display and Chloe, understandably, took a very cautious approach guided by us to ensure it was not too overwhelming. We then spent the afternoon in Munich, Bratwurst, the Glockenspiel and we also surprised Dibs with Eisbach standing wave (he was suitably impressed!)

Salzburg did not disappoint and the Children were subjected to reliving sound of music for my amusement as we followed the sound of music tour route on hired bicycles!

Then on through Vienna, which we toured in the pouring rain, but managed to have the reportedly best strudel in town!

Click here for a 360 image of the Museums Quartier with multiple appearances from the family!!

Again, recognising our own limitations as a family and the prevailing weather conditions we chopped out early and headed for Budapest. Over 2 days the children led us on a guided tour of the city – Dibs responsible for researching and guiding the Pest side of the river and the girls the Buda side. The city was spectacular, even if the weather did not really help our cause. The buildings were stunning, very like Paris, but much more run down. We walked around taking in the beauty of the city, but perhaps our favourite experience was the Thermal Baths, which were made even more memorable by a massive thunder storm that descended. The skies turned black, the thunder rumbled and the rain poured down. Unfortunately, when the lightening struck we were evacuated from the pool for the duration of the storm. We hung out in the sauna and then enjoyed the stunning beauty of the pool complex.

After I forced Dibs to do an illegal lap of the lap pool (no swimming cap) note life guards in top right of screen in action to stop him and then convinced Chloe I would catch her at the bottom of a super slippery slide – I was definitely in contention for Mother of the Year!!

Even more so when we cracked it over Jemima’s crossing of roads without looking – thus she was penalised with 10 push ups for each intersection she failed to look…..it was a long day!!

After Budapest we made a impromptu decision to head into Bosnia Herzegovina and we are so grateful we did. It is a simply beautiful country that is, despite the fact that 25 years has elapsed, still wears the scars of the Balkan’s war.

I must say that after seeing abandoned destroyed buildings littered throughout the country, buildings with bullet holes peppered across the facades and then visiting the Crimes Against Humanities museum, the children were very depressed about human kind (remembering that they had recently learnt about the Holocaust and the Cambodian Kumar Rouge genocide.)

The Bosnian conflict particularly confronting as it is so recent. The most incredible ruminant of this time that we explored was the abandoned bob sled track from the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics. Hidden in the mountains overlooking the city the track was left to ruin and used as a sniper post during the 3 year siege of the city in the early 90s. It is now being reclaimed by the Forrest and used by street artists. The post-apocalyptic feel of the place was intensified by the rain, low hanging mist and complete absence of any other people.

Two of Dib’s best photos from the trackWe explored Sarajevo’s old town which is a surreal meeting of east meets west, feeling like a cross between a Turkish bizarre and central Paris. We indulged in Bosnian culinary fair, enjoying Cevapi, arrays of meet platters, chocolate and pistachio cakes and Bosnian coffee – which we are now addicted to (think dark black molasses like coffee soup!) We enjoyed these treats while watching the world go by in the stunning old town streets.

We also stumbled across this little bakery when walking home one evening. There was a cue of about 15 local lining up at a little window in the wall. Shem thought that if that many people were lining up – it must be good. Because we are good parents we sent Dibs over and he started chatting with the locals who said it was the best bread in Sarajevo- who were we to argue. I could not help but notice the bullet holes in the wall next to the bakery.

Moving on we headed to Mostar (made famous by the RedBull cliff diving competition held there each year.) Dibs was keen to jump of the bridge and have a RedBull for the first time (we chose to concede the second of these rather than the first!)

A stunning town also steeped in history, including its own stories from the recent war, where the famous Stari Most Bridge was blown up in order to separate the Muslim Bosniacs from the Serbs and also because it was seen to be symbolic of Islam. It was rebuilt with the help of UNESCO in 2004. It spans the emerald green Neretva river and forms the centre piece of a truly beautiful old town. The drive to and from Mostar was also quite beautiful following the Neretva river.

Dib’s best Mostar photo

We visited the Blagaj monestary which is in a valley built into a cliff at the point were the river bursts forth from a sheer cliff. Even though it is now surrounded by resteraunts and tourist vendors you can still sense how the tranquility of the place could have been quite sacred to the monks.

From there we hit the road for Croatia and we were pretty keen to get there, as such, when we accidentally drove past the semi abandoned and UNESCO listed town of Pocitelj and we almost decided to just keep on going. However, guilt set in and we did a U-turn. Thank god we did, the town was amazing and the kids were fascinated by the old abandoned towers and the access we had to just climb and explore the town. It was simply stunning. The highlight was the tower in the old town wall that had been used by snipers during the war

Click here to see our cool 360 image from inside the tower

For our costal experience in croatia we chose Omis about 30 minutes out of split. We chose it because it is meant to be the adventure capital of Croatia and we heard how busy Split was. Anyway, by this time the kids were in charge of where we went and where we stayed so I just sat back and relaxed (and drunk!) Chloe totally nailed the accommodation, it was right up at the top of the town, as far up as you could be.

Yes this may mean a fairly tough walk if we wanted to go into town, but sitting up of the deck was simply beautiful – not to mention the spa and sauna, which the kids loved. Especially while eating sugar and watching Netflix!

As a physical family that definitely cements physical memories over cerebral ones I thought an extreme canyoning adventure might be perfect for us. Unfortunately the minimum age was 13, luckily we could pass Chloe off as 13!!! The experience was such fun and is definitely the type of activity that suits our family – Shem and my knees did beg to differ, and I certainly felt my age as we scrambled over the rocks. The canyon was beyond beautiful and because of the time of the year we were fortunate to have it almost to ourselves. I marvel at Chloe’s ability and bravery sometimes as she mixes it up with the older two. After 5 hours we were delivered exhausted back to Omis only to have to hike the challenging rocky steep 20 minute ascent back to our appartment – I can tell you the beers tasted extra good on the balcony that evening. What impressed us greatly during our travels was Dib’s commitment to his photography. He would regularly get up before sunrise and hike to the top of mountains to capture the sunrise, or head off for hours around towns to take photos.

Canyoning montage:

We traveled up the coast to explore Split and unfortunately arrived at the same time as the cruise boats. It was a beautiful city but the crowds were a bit much for us.

We jumped back in the car and drove to the world renowned UNESCO listed Plitvice Lakes National Park (we had never heard of them!) Driving up from the coast into the mountains was enlightening as the terrain was so different, it felt a little like the Canadian Rockies. While the park was swarming with people, the shimmering blue water cascading of over waterfalls surrounded by dramatic greenery was beautiful and unique. The water was clearer than I have every seen and the colour perfect.

Onto Slovenia we went keeping up our punishing pace. I had heard that it was a beautiful, but the travel fatigue had well and truly set in and I was not expecting anything much different to what we had seen in Bosnia and Croatia. We had spent the morning at a beach in Croatia after teaching the kids how to change a flat tyre on a remote small country road with no phone reception and remain married!

So when we arrived mid afternoon at Predjama Castle and Sockjan Caves, with still an hours driving afterwards to get to our accommodation I was feeling less that enthusiastic about looking around.

This feeling was magnified when when discovered that the only way to see the caves was on a 2hour guided tour and that the tour departed at 5pm. If I had my way we would have skipped the Caves altogether- thank goodness we didn’t – they were one of the most magnificent things I have ever seen. The sheer size of the caverns with stalactites and stalagmites over 200,000 years old blew our minds.

Not to mention the river that runs through one of the largest caves – It made its way straight into our top ten! Then on to Ljubljana – learning how to pronounce it on the way. The smallest of Europe’s capital cites, a beautiful and lively city we explored on a Saturday morning.

Lake Beld was said to be a ‘must visit’, however again I was skeptical that it was going to be better that anything we had seen recently. Again how wrong could I be. It is simply the most stunning blue lake – it doesn’t seem real and we enjoyed days swimming in the lake, running around it and even swimming to the island in the middle, much to the entertainment of a group of Japanese tourists.

We were so sad that we had to leave after only two days, but with a flight to Greece beckoning our flexibility to change plans had come to an end. We headed to Milan to drop off our trusty Fugly, via Venice of course!

Click here to see our 360 degree image of Piazza San Marco gloriously empty

It was with mixed feelings we headed to the airport with car safely dispatched. One month of our travels to go, but all of it planned and booked. I was looking forward to the reduction in logistical pressures, but sad that there was now little room to plan as we go.

…… It has taken me so long to write this that I can now add Greece! We smashed Athens in a single 8 hour day on foot planned and researchers by the kids, who were our tour guides for the day and did a brilliant job.

We then hopped a ferry to Naxos – chosen because of its beaches and it did not disappoint. Our accommodation was up on a hill with a beautiful view of the town and across to Paros. A great place to spend 5 days.

Finally we spent two nights on Santorini, the first fulfilling a dream of mine to stay on the coldera in Fira. Last time I visited nearly 20 years ago I was staying in budget accommodation on the other side of the island and was very envious of the view. Thanks to two years worth of saved up birthday presents for Shem and I from Mum and Dad we were treated to night living above our means! We did not move for nearly 24 hours just admiring the view! Except Dibs who thought it was sacrilegious that no one was using their pools to watch the sunset and the next thing you know we see him sitting in a pool belonging to a different apartments!

What have we gotten out of this part of our adventure?

The time we have spent together as a family has been just so powerful, the good bits and the challenges. The children are getting along so well (mostly!) and I am hopeful that at these pivotal ages this will help cement life long connections with each other. Two months 24/7 (and one to go!) is full on, but they have truly done it in style.

The learning has been so intense for them: continents; countries; cites; cultures; currencies and conversions; cuisine; (I’m seriously not trying to make all these C words!); War and Genocide; periods of history (Ancient, gothic, medieval, renaissance). They have helped plan what we do, book our accommodation, research and be our tour guides (#cheapskatesRUs!) around major sights, maintain a earnings and expenditure ledger (complete with currency conversions). Physically they have been extended, walking, running, enduring 30 days above 38. They have hiked ladened with packs in the heat, in the dark, in the rain, through a Thai new year water festival. They have climbed more stairs than some people will in a lifetime. They have demonstrated great resilience when required to get up for a flight at 1am, walk 6km in 40 degrees with packs to get to the airport due to the kings coronation, to go with the flow and maintain a positive outlook when we are lost, hungry, tired. They have been brave, pushing themselves to take on every experience be it physical, cerebral, or culinary. I am so proud of them. I’m proud of Shem and I too – we haven’t killed each other or the kids yet!

Shem and I have been so pleased that it has turned out that approximately 70% of what we have done is new for us too. We went into this thinking that we would be retracing past travels, but it simply has not been the case except for major cities. We are off to meet Shem’s mother, sister and our nephews in Italy for 3 weeks. This again will be a different style of travel for us and the kids. We will be revisiting most things in Italy for a second or third time, but sharing experiences with loved ones connects you on a very different level and we are really looking forward to that.

I’m sitting on an aeroplane flying over Prague on route to Paris in the final hour of our 12 hour flight that departed Bangkok at midnight. It has been a big 36 hours as we left Siem Reap by bus at 8am two days ago and made the 10 hour bus trip, which involved hopping off at the Cambodian side of the boarder, putting our packs on and walking through the boarder in 41 degree heat to our bus waiting on the other side. This was made somewhat more difficult by the fact that I had thrown out our second copies of our visa that I thought we no longer needed. Thanks to some quick thinking and a generous French man I was able to hot spot his phone, access my emails and screen shot a photo of each visa. However, the incident certainly had the cortisol and Adrenalin levels sky high! We then had to walk about 500 meters in the crazy heat with our packs to the Thai side, stand in line for over an hour and then wait in the heat for another hour for our bus to make it through boarder control. The kids were amazing, however our adventures were not quite over…. 4 hours later when we arrived into Bangkok our bus stopped on a random road and told us our drop off point was not accessible. Again, thanks to some very friendly Polish guys with data, we established where we were and grabbed a taxi to Kohsan Road. It turned out that we had arrived during the weekend coronation of the Thai King – the first in 70 years – the place was humming. Thai nationals were all wearing Yellow, roads were closed and a huge security presents. The following day was going to be the Kings parade, where he was carried on a throne around a parade route to greet the people and we and situated ourselves unknowing right in the middle. This meant the next day we could not leave our street if we wished to return to our hotel, and that we would need to walk out to get to our flight. So after a very quite day, we set off with packs on for our last trek in 38 degrees – 5km to the train to the airport. Surprisingly, one benefit to the craziness that we landed into the middle of – the streets were closed to traffic and empty of people – very different to our experience one month ago. Our walk took us down some amazing boulevards which were all immaculately clean for the correlation. We got to the station, plied the kids full of green Fanta to keep them going and discovered that thanks to the King all trains were free saving us $50 – thanks King for the empty roads and free transport – a great way to finish our time in SE Asia and very different from the frantic congested spaces we have come to associate with this part of the world.

Two weeks earlier

Our experiences since my last post have been so varied, except for the heat – it did not drop below 38 the entire time we were in Asia. We are excited about the prospect of no longer sweating buckets each day – which is defiantly going to be the case as the pilot just informed us that it will be 2 degrees in Paris when we land!!. Our slow boat to Laos was a lovely experience of the less touristy areas of Laos, villages where there were no visible signs of power or modern conveniences and the towns only accessible by the water. The rubbish on the river was extremely confronting, plastic bags full thrown in to the river, just as we would throw them into the garbage bin. For locals I guess they float away and thus are disposed of, but one can only think of what the impact is down stream.

Plastic is everywhere, the water industry is massive and locals prefer the smallest single use bottles rather than purchasing larger containers. Plastic is put in plastic bags, coffee and cold drinks are put in single plastic bags so you can have ‘carry handles’. Once when we returned to a street vender with our plastic containers to reuse tham for another meal, he smiled took them, threw them in his bin and got new ones – reusing was not a concept understood – and why would it be when plastic is so cheap. Anyway, I digress.

Arriving in Luang Prabang was another cultural shift, the French colonial influence makes the centre of the city a beautiful fusion of east and west. It is clear that the town was not bombed during the wars which saw more bombs dropped on the region that the whole of world war 2 (thanks Chloe for sharing this with me from when you visited the war museum and Jemima and I went to cooking school!). We found a little hostel with the delightful name of Friendly Freedom Place. Chosen because it had a little pool and it was also $20 a night. We only booked one night because at that price we believed it had to be too good to be true, however it turned out to be fantastic, with an amazing breakfast included. This breakfast included baguettes (thanks French influence) which to a carb addicted family was a welcome site and the first bread we had had since leaving home.

Luang Prabang had been raved about by several friends and it did not disappoint. The Kuang Si waterfalls would be in the top 5 waterfalls in the world that I have seen (and there has been a few) the water, infused with limestone was the most amazing blue and had that smooth almost creamy feeling to it. It was also thankfully freezing cold and lovely to swim around in.

The food and markets provided lovely nighttime experiences, dining on the banks of the Mekong river watching the boats going past and eating food that explodes with flavour, the curries, spring rolls and noodle soups will be amongst our fondest memories from this time.

The other will most definitely be our day at the Elephant Rescue Sanctuary – I am not sure if watching the kids interacting with the elephants or my own experience was better. The sanctuary has been set up with the ethos that responsible and ethical tourist experiences is the best way to protect and rescue abused elephants.

The money they make from visits like ours goes to purchasing land and recovering the jungle for the elephants to live in and buying elephants from the logging industry where they are still used heavily. The elephants come from the forest each morning and are never tied up or restrained in any way. Each elephant has a full time carer who lives in a hut in the forest – they are called a Mahout. They instruct the elephants with voice commands only and we spent the day trying to learn the commands, taking the elephants to the jungle and the highlight was definitely swimming with the elephants and giving them a bath. We also had a lovely lunch and access to the pool when we were not with the elephants. What beautiful and intelligent creatures – also packed full of personality.

Finally, before we left Laos Jemima used one of her vouchers she got for her birthday in Bangkok (not the punch Dibs one, or the ‘not sitting in the middle seat of the car’ one) but the cooking school. Jemima and I spent a wonderful day choosing our menu, attending the local market to buy the ingredients, preparing and then consuming our creations. It was such a special day and we are looking forward to cooking these things (especially spring rolls) when we get home.

Cambodia – 10 days of service.

The week before arriving in Cambodia, Shem, Dibs and I read a book called “how not to start an Orphanage by a woman who did’ by Tara Winkler, an Australian who has been on Australian Story. The book was recommended by Growing Cambodia, the Australian Charity who we would be volunteering with. I am so glad they did. The book looks at ways in which aid, foreign charities and volunteering can have both positive and negative effects in developing countries. It provides a fairly confronting look at the effects of well meaning, but misplaced giving. Issues such as voluntourism (such as us) leading to exploitation of misfortune. The increase in orphanages in Cambodia is alarming, and up to 80% of kids living in orphanages are not actually orphans, however orphanages attract funding at much higher rates that money to support families to stay together, it also leads to widespread exploitation of children by unscrupulous managers who set up orphanages to make money and who sell donations of goods for profit. Lesson – do not visit orphanages it encourages the trade of child misfortune. Schools unfortunately can be very similar and aid agencies should be carefully vetted before getting involved with. Another one I found interesting was issues caused by having westerners come in to carry out unskilled labour such as helping to build something that they are not skilled to do and which takes jobs away from local families. So it was with this knowledge that we as a family embarked on our volunteering (not a great feeling!)

However, I still believe there is good in what we did and these are the reasons. The schools we did visit do not hear English speaking people very often and both students and teachers were very keen on hearing the way we pronounced things – it is a shame it is not a regular occurrence as the spasmodic appearance of volunteers is unsettling. At one school we visited, we were the first westerners that had ever visited the school and they were over the moon.

There were 3 classes going at once with students between 10-18 years old. They split us into the three classes and this meant Dibs went into one class on his own. He was pretty shocked when the teacher gave him the text book and said – you teach!!! This happened to all of us, and while I was hesitant to take over and offend the teacher (they did not know we were coming) the teacher was right – it was such a unique opportunity for the students to listen to us. At the end of the night the students all wanted photos with the kids as they just don’t see ‘white people’!!

We taught for 5 days, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon and evening. The last day we went to 3 schools over 8 hours in 40 degrees – it was a huge day and the kids did so unbelievably well, not only teaching, but also making the most of this unique experience – where they found verbal language is not the only way to communicate.

On one of our days off we went to the Touch of Life soup kitchen and helped from 8am until 1pm preparing and serving over 200 meals. Mavis, who has been running A Touch of Life for 11 years, believes in supporting local families living in poverty in a respectful way that preserves the dignity of the people. Local children can drop in at any point in the morning and share snacks with the volunteers preparing the food, make use of the toys and colouring materials and help out. Children can also do jobs to earn school supplies and things they might want or need. Mavis explained to us how important it is for the children not to be reduced into begging and expecting handouts as if will lead to cycles of dependency.

As a family we worked with 6 others to prepare omelettes, soup and stir fry. Chopping, packing and then finally serving and washing up. The local people are free to come and have a meal, no questions asked and also take another meal for dinner. I loved the fact that people were free to serve themselves and return for additional helpings – even the littlest and that there was almost no waste – not like when my 3 go to a buffet! Mavis does this 4 times a week and there are many regulars (expats) who help. She says she was looking for meaning in her life and this gives it to her. Jemima, Chloe and Dibs were very impressed (as were Shem and I) and donated a great deal of the money they had saved to this cause.

We of course spent a day at the Angkor ruins and Shem and I marvelled at how much things had changed since we were here 17 years ago, when Siem Reap was almost all dirt roads and there were still land mine warning sings in the fields. The number of tourists was staggering and I can not event begin to think what it must be like in the busy period. The massive hotels that line the streets reminds me of Las Vargas. The heat prevented us from exploring in too much detail, but we did enjoy recreating some of the photos taken last time!

Asia reflection

Coming to this part of the world was not part of our original plan and if I had been organised to look up the expected weather it might not have been, however I am very grateful we did. The variety of experiences that captured all our senses will leave a lasting impact on us all. The kids are certainty much more culturally aware, physically tougher and have a more worldly idea about wealth, poverty and education. Also the food was awesome!!!

We crossed over the Friendship Bridge into Laos at Huay Xai and the kids had to get their heads around a new language and currency. Lao Kip is 6000 to the Australian dollar. Our ride to the boarder on the public bus was another first for the kids. It was a pimped up old bus with wooden floors and plenty of bling. The kids were not so sure about the safety standards when the driver left the doors open as a form of air conditioning.

It is still amazingly hot with temperatures over 40 most days. The kids have embraced the local foods and are now happily having noodles and rice for every meal and eating in some interesting places. We felt very proud the other day when Dibs had the option of toast, egg and sausages and afterwards proclaimed that he now ‘gets’ the noodles for breakfast. I must say – I may have told them on one occasion that the dark brown object in their breakfast rice soup was mushroom not liver!!! Their favourite new sensation is the lazy Suzan – they cant believe we don’t have one at home.

Our purpose of travelling to Huay Xai was to do the Gibbon Experience. It was something I agonised over for many months back home, wonder if it was ‘responsible’ to take the kids zip lining in a developing country. I am so glad I did. It is advertised as making childhood fantasies come true and it most certainly does that. Essentially we were taken by Tuk Tuk into a national park reserve. This took over an hour in the back of a ute on very bumpy roads and in 41 degree heat. We then met our guides, put on our harnesses. We then had to walk 2 hours up hill (still 41 degrees) this was a serious challenge that had Mima questioning our parenting choices!

We finally got to the first zip line and the kids were beside themselves with excitement. There was no ‘gently introducing the zip lining’ the first one was over 500 meters and 100meters off the ground. Chloe was jumping out of her skin to go first and my heart was in my mouth. She thankfully had to go with one of the guides as she is not heavy enough to guarantee she would make it all the way across. The screams of delight as she took off and disappeared into the distance (you could not see the end of the zip line it was so far away.) The other two followed suit – except on their own. I must say I never quite loss that little skip of the heart every time they took off – which was literally 100s of times.

Our Guide X-Man took some great footage of her as he expertly held his phone while zip lining!

Click here to see Chloe’s flight through the jungle

Officially we had 11 zip lines on the first day with the final one being to our tree house accommodation. This was truely stuff that dreams are made of.

We arrived at the treehouse at about 3.30 and were treated to afternoon tea while taking in the amazing view of the jungle. Much to the kids delight – especially Dibs the kids were allowed to spend the afternoon zip lining to and from the tree house their hearts content. For Dibs that for 3 hours straight!! Adults relaxed, read books and took in the view. At sunset I donned my harness and took the above footage. I stopped halfway to take a photo and monkey climbed my way back to the tree house – but it was worth it, i think this photo will hold a special place in my heart.

Dinner was brought to us by one of the cooks, she ziplined in with it on her back!! It was the most beautiful selection of food and we were sharing our tree house with two Swiss and two Dutch travellers. It was still over 40 degrees but the bathroom (on the lower level with complete privacy – except for jungle animals!) had an wonderful cold shower with the water dropping away below you to the Jungle floor 40 meters below.

It was terribly hard to get to sleep because of the heat – dibs taught the boys how to play Exploding Kittens, which wasn’t easy when the two Lao Guides did not speak much English.

The guides had been awesome and had run us through the safety procedure should we need to evacuate, but we did not think we would need to – boy was I wrong. At about 1am the build up of heat and humidity during the day was released in a suggest storm with almighty wind gusts, thunder and lightening. We were instructed by our guides to get into our harnesses and prepare to evacuate. Trying to focus when Being woken suddenly is not easy, and the stakes were pretty high when trying to ensure the kids and my harnesses were all on safely. The kids went first – onto the zip line – into the dark, wind and rain. When it was my turn my heart was again in my mouth as a took a step off into the darkens – there is something about zipping along a wire cable with lightening all around you in the middle of a Laos Jungle that makes you feel slightly vulnerable! We evacuated to the cooks hut and waited out the storm which raged for a good 20min then disappeared as quickly as it started. Taking with it most of the heat and dropping the temperature to a lovely 20 degrees (ish). Back to the tree house we went, off to sleep and woken in the morning to a myriad of jungle noises.

https://soundcloud.com/fionaf1976/morning-jungle-sounds

The morning brought us a pre-breakfast zipline excursion, another delicious meal and then off for 8 more zip lines, a pretty hot hike and bumpy car ride back out of the jungle. The beers tasted pretty good that night and the air conditioning was a treat.

Today we have set off again, this time on a slow long boat up the Mekong to Luang Prabang. It is a long two day trip (about 7 hours each day) and I sit writing this in a little town called PakBeng, our accommodation is right on the river with beautiful views. I’m sitting on the deck and again a storm has blown in and thunder and lightening are lighting up the hillsides as rain pounds the tin roof above me. This place (two rooms) is costing us a total of $30 for the night!!

Wh at an adjustment the last 6 days have been – it feels like over a week. It never occurred to me to look at what the temperature in South East Asia would be at this time of the year – but I am pretty sure high 30s was not what I was expecting!! We arrived into Bangkok at 10pm on Wednesday night at it was still 34 degrees. We were very thankful of our surprise going away gift from our friend Naant – a transfer to our hotel. It is the first time Shem and I have ever had someone standing at arrivals with our name on a card!!

Bangkok was unsurprisingly big, busy and in your face. We explored the Khaosan road district which was a flood of sensory experiences or the children who have never been to Asia before. We organised the next leg of our trip and then decided to walk back to our accommodation. It was a 7.5km trek in 38 degrees, but the kids cant complain that they have not been acclimatised and see the real bangkok!

The next day we did the touristy things – the royal palace and reclining Buddha which were amazing but the heat and sheer number of people took the edge off.

I can feel a grass slide show coming on!!!

The afternoon Shem and I went to buy me some new sunglasses in one of the massive bangkok malls. It was an interesting experience as the lovely glasses I purchased for what I thought was 60 Australian dollars, tuned out to be worth 600 Australian dollars when I returned to my hotel to check my bank statements – you have never seen me move so fast back to return the glasses!!! I am now the proud owner of at 5 dollar street pair!!

It turned out that it was the Thai New Year festival – the biggest celebration of the year. The new year festival is a festival of water and it traditionally involved sprinkling water on passes by to cleanse them of their sins, but is now a full blown national water fight with super soakers, barrels of water and people driving around in the back of utes soaking anyone and everyone – not ideal when you are on the move – and we were about to be.

That evening we made our way on foot, then subway to the main train station to catch an overnight bus down south to the island of Ko Phi Phi. Overnight bus being good as you get a nights accommodation as well!

All was good until our connection to the ferry was missed and meant a 3 hour wait in the heat for the next one. 17 hours after leaving Bangkok we reached Ko Phi Phi which was in full blown festival mode. We had to walk with our bags through the entire town and were completely soaked with water, orange food dye and a white plaster paste they put on your face. Now I love a view and I love a bit of incidental exercise – so I took the bad reviews about the steep steps you needed to climb to get to our accommodation as a challenge and great pre-season nipper training!!! It is only about 500, which in 37 degrees, with packs on and after 17 hours was pretty challenging and there was not a lot of love for me or my choices at this point! I tell you our kids are tough!

It is worth it though as we are now sitting here watching the sun go down and it is amazing.

We spent our first day on the island out on kayaks getting away from the masses of people.

Armed with Dibs’ new GoPro we had a sensation time – except for the fact that we are now all burnt to a crisp and feel very much like British tourists!!!

The kids are doing well embracing Shem and my love of street food and are slowly coming to terms with rice and pad Thai for breakfast!

After a day sheepishly hiding from the sun we were back out on the water. This time a 6.30 start to avoid day trippers, we hired a boat an went out to Phi Phi Lea which is a marine sanctuary that was used to film the movie the beach. The first two stops there was no one but us and it was truely magical.

We even got some swimming training in!

https://youtu.be/47IrdmI1384

We leave here in a few days and are off to the Jungles of Laos – now a little worried about hiking in the heat – but we will definitely have prepared ourselves well with our stair training!!

We are so excited to be off travelling again. Shem is taking some well deserved long service leave and the rest of the family is tagging along for the ride. Three whole months exploring two vastly different parts of the world. The first part is fairly well planned. South East Asia for one month, taking advantage of every type of transport to get around. We are spending the bulk of the time in Laos and Cambodia.

In Cambodia we are volunteering with Growing Cambodia in Seim Reap for a week which we are really excited about. The kids have been raising money and collecting clothing and women’s hygiene kits from Day for Girls.

We then fly to Europe for 2 months. After a couple of days in Paris the next 5 weeks are up to the kids – we have a car and no particular plans. We then jump to the Greek Islands for 10 days and then finally to Rome for three weeks with Shem’s family touring around Italy.

We can not wait to share our love of travel with the kids who at 11, 13 & 14 are the perfect age for an adventure. How lucky we are to have the time to do it, loving GGS right now.

Well it is time to post my last blog for this chapter in our lives. I can not believe we are coming up to the 12 month anniversary of our departure from Australia. It has been a monumental year as this video will attest too:

There has not been a single second during this year that we have not felt so extraordinarily lucky that this opportunity was afforded to us. Now while I know we need to thank the two schools involved profusely, more than anything, it is the Wismer family we would like to acknowledge. Here they are:

We knew we wanted to go on exchange, we knew it was the right time for our family, so going was easy. I still can not believe the Wismers said YES!!!!

I mean think about it, some complete strangers contact you from the other side of the world asking to take your job, live in your house, drive your car, use your stuff and kill all your plants (oh yes…. sorry about that!) and Mark and Ulrika said… YES. It had not been done at their school before, they were not copying someone else, they had no barometer for how it would turn out and still the said YES!

And so, for the last 12 months we have slept in their beds, worn some of their clothes, driven their car, assumed their phone numbers and phones, and made our own bum dents in their couch!

I’m typing on Ulrkia’s computer now, as Shem works on Mark’s computer. The kids are asleep downstairs with beds full of Cormack and Stella’s Soft toys (not Dibs of course he is far too cool for that!) It is quite surreal if you think about it too much, and yet they said YES. These are people we hardly know, yet we feel like we not better than anyone else. So our biggest thank you goes out to them, their kindness, sense of adventure and willingness to see the value of experience over possessions.

Shem, the kids and I have experienced so much, not only in terms of exploring a snippet of this amazing country (My God it is big!) but also in the relationships we have forged over this time. How have we grown?

Kids Sport.

Well firstly, I was pretty arrogant when we first arrived, believing that Australian kids were more physically fit and tough and did more sport than anywhere else in the world – boy was I wrong. So much more is expected of kids here at a young age. Here is our boy pre-Canada.

Here he is now!!!!

The difference makes me feel like Aussie kids are wrapped up in cotton wool – it was quite a shock to begin with. Junior swimming in Australia involves swimming 50m in each stroke. In Canada it involves all distances in all strokes and this last weekend Dibs just broke the 200m Fly record for the club – WHO SWIMS 200 fly at 10 years old!!. The school was the same – they host a  monthly school wide run where all students K-7 run 3km. Grade 4s are training for a 10km race and regularly running 8km at lunch time and no one here finds this remarkable. I do however, and I am certainly bringing tougher children back home.

Pro D.

Professionally, Shem and I have grown beyond our wildest expectations. Shem’s understanding and use of 21st Century learning techniques, problem based learning approaches, social media and Canadian History have exploded this year. A new school means new subjects,new students, new colleagues, new computer, new operating systems, new classrooms, new content, new organisational quirks. It was true to say I thought Shem was going to implode with the overwhelming newness of it all when we first arrived – especially after 10 years at GGS becoming very comfortable. Check out one of his 21st Century students awareness campaign -its amazing:

For me it was teaching k-12, a new school each day, new classes, new subjects. It was classroom management skills refresher on steroids. It was coming to terms with not knowing what you will be doing day to day and waiting for a call each morning. It was learning to make the most of the opportunity to see so many different teaching environments and styles – quite a unique insight really. Would l like to do it for more than 12 months – absolutely not, some young teachers here do it for 7 years waiting to get a permanent position.

Globally, Shem and I have increased our understanding of the world around us and the people in it. The children have got to understand that the world is filled with people different from us. They flew on a plane for the first time, and ventured into a non-English speaking Provence. They learnt about First Nations People and embraced cultural experiences that were different from home. They saw some amazing natural and man made wonders and met some incredible people.

George Bonner Elementary.

I think I have spoken about the kids school George Bonner Elementary before, but it is worth a mention again. Dibs, Jemima and Chloe for the first time arrived at a place where they knew no one and were fully embraced by the school community.

The school has been a really special place for me also as a large proportion of my teaching this year was done there. The value of the school came down largely to the get up and go of the staff. Dibs, Jemima and Chloe were able to experience so much more than a classroom education. A school musical production, Drama Challenges, TC10km running challenge, Kilometer running challenges, multiple field trips into the amazing local environment, chess club and Hul’qumi’num club. There was not a day that went by when I was in the staff room that one of the teachers wasn’t talking about the next activity, event or club they were going to run. The students don’t know how lucky they are. So as the Canadians say a ‘Shout Out’ to George Bonner Elementary where our children have truly flourished.

Duncan Stingrays Swimming Club.

I also want to reflect on the Duncan Stingrays Swimming Club who willingly took us on for a year. It has been a fantastic experience for us in seeing a very different approach to junior swimming and the kids have been challenged beyond what I would have ever thought they were capable. The have grown in skill and confidence which is awesome. To top it off Dibs now has his name up on the Club Records Board at the local swimming pool – a bit of Oz left behind!

Vancouver Island and Mill Bay.

What a beautiful and special place. Physically breathtaking, spending a year in this environment has been good for the soul. The campus itself is simply stunning, nestled in a protected bay overlooking the Saanich Peninsula and the snow capped top of Mt Baker in USA.

Vancouver Island reminds me a great deal of Tasmania, with its overwhelming volume of natural beauty. Hikes, lakes, Islands, skiing, beaches (not the Australian type) and the locals are really good at getting out and making the most of it. I think we can happily say we made the most of this too.

We have been taken back by how friendly people have been in Canada, nothing is too much trouble and we found ourselves constantly surprised by how nice people are. For example I asked at a swimming pool if there was a microwave anywhere I could heat up some pasta for my kids dinner – thinking it was a completed long shot given the pool has its own cafeteria and the lady behind the desk said, “no, but give it to me and I’ll heat it up in our staff room.” This type of helpfulness was experienced time and time again in many different situations.

Friendliness however can lead to some frustrations, for instance, dropping into the local supermarket Thrifty’s to pick up a few things quickly is out of the question  because at the checkout the lovely staff have a wonderful conversation with every customer as they casually and without any hurry ring up your items. Shem was driven to distraction on many occasions – not quite ever adapting to ‘Island Time’! But overall it has been a refreshing insight into the benefits to a happy to help, can do community attitude.

Brentwood College School.

 A school so similar yet so different to Geelong Grammar School. We have had such a wonderful time getting to know staff and students here and will take away some amazing memories, experiences and lessons. We have really enjoyed the amazing group of kind, friendly and happy students who truly love their school. We have loved the all encompassing nature of the school which sees day students integrated into boarding houses and regularly sleeping over.  We have loved being a part of Ellis house, where the students are so proud and happy to be part of what is a sensational community. The sense of community that is fostered through frequent social, competitive and community based events that bring the students together and make campus a thriving place to be during the week and on weekends.

Ok, time to stop ranting I guess. This blog is about bedding down memories, so we have been busy taking photos to make sure we have with us lots of images to draw us back to what will be a once in a lifetime opportunity. I have put it together into a video because it is more fun!

What a summer – and still a week until school goes back. Ten weeks is an amazing amount of time to have off and it is also about 3 weeks longer than anyone should ever spend non stop with their own children!!!

Today happens to be the first day since June 25th that I have spent more than 2 hours without my beautiful, wonderful, loud, exceptionally talkative, inquisitive, messy and mischievous children.

They have finally been reunited with their campus friends – I now take my hat off to Jack, Tom, Charlie, Seb, Isaac, Harrison and Ethan who listen endlessly and patiently to the never ending dialogue of one John Charles Dibdin Fitzgerald. His thirst for discussion about all things movies and questions about world is never ending!

The other thing I have learnt is that one should not wait until the end of 9 weeks travel to write a blog about it. While I have diligently sat with the children periodically over the trip and made them write reflections before they forget things, I have not been so disciplined.  So what did we get up to you ask – well here goes.

Summer Odyssey Part One 

National Lampoon’s Vacation – Fitzgerald Style!

(Only kidding - but we got a kick out of seeing this car in Toronto!)

John and Andrée joined us on Vancouver Island in the last week of school to see where we have been hanging out and what the kids have been up to and school and around campus. It was so nice to see them and the kids even wagged a day to visit Butchart Gardens with them!

We flew to meet up with the Poulter family in Los Angeles the day after Shem finished up the year and began our whirlwind 10 day family tour of California and surrounds.

As the kids have blogged extensively about this I will let a few pictures to most of the talking.

Overall it was a magnificent trip which allowed the whole family to really spend some time together – something that has never happened before despite (or maybe because) we live so close. The Cousins had a sensational time together – Dibs absolutely loved having Paddy and Hamish to do all the brotherly stuff he misses out on and the girls very much enjoyed showing the boys what it was like to have sisters – with their often publicly loud and somewhat embarrassing nonsense!

There were many times when the girls behaviour was simply beyond them and questions such as – “but why is Jemima wearing glasses?” being answered with “Why Not” and others such as “why has Jemima got a bandage around her leg?” being answered with “not sure, but aren’t you glad the glasses are gone!”

Los Angeles – Adjustment time – big city, big roads, big billboards, lots of people

Disneyland – Simply magical – better than expected and children had a ball individually, with their cousins, with their parents and best of all with their grandparents (note photo of John on Space Mountain ride!

Las Vegas – Overwhelming hot, crazy, busy and larger than life. Most of all it had the statue of liberty (the one stolen in ‘Despicable Me’ movie!!!)

Grand Canyon – Shem and Freya got Hoover Dam – the rest of us got the HELICOPTER!!!! What a way to see the canyon. It was about 45 degrees the day we went, but nothing could take away from taking in this incredible natural wonder by air. Although Jemima might say the horse ride along the Canyon edge that she, Chloe and I did was better, and Dibs may say his ride on a mechanical bull was the highlight of the day!

Death Valley – Going to Death Valley during a heat wave ensured we received the true Death Valley experience with the temperature topping out on our car temperature gauge at 121 degrees Fahrenheit (49.4 Celsius). The photos say it all really about the kids reaction – (Jemima’s absence is because she is pretending to vomit behind a bush to get out of walking to the lookout) Paddy wishes he had thought of that!

Yosemite and Sequoia Valley– Amazing and two very different but equally enjoyable accommodation.

Also the site of the official family dinner where everyone scrubbed up well for one night.

San Francisco and Highway One – we said our tearful farewells to the Grandparents and Cousins and took a trip up Highway One to San Fransisco – the road was stunning – better than the great ocean road we thought and a stop over at Pismo Beach reminded us how much we love and miss waves – with a family body surf being a real highlight.

A baseball game was an unexpected highlight after securing scalped tickets to see the San Francisco Giants  the evening before on “Free Hat Day” no less so we are now 5 Giants Hats better off!

Summer Odyssey – Part 2

Ontario

A flight across the continent put us into the Provence of Ontario where we would spend 3.5 weeks. The main aim of this leg of our trip was some relaxation time in between Part 1 and 3 of our Odyssey. We spent 4 days in Toronto taking advantage of a little two bedroom apartment (yay separate rooms!) in the up and coming inner city suburb of Parksville. It had great coffee, lots of fresh produce stores and a free 50m outdoor pool in walking distance – Fitzgerald heaven. We walked, swam and walked some more. We were lucky enough to be there at the same time as the PanAm games and took advantage of the free events that were on as a result.

We headed on a day trip to check out Niagra Falls and were lucky enough to catch up with the Beattys (friends from campus) who gave us a tour of Ridley College where they used to work – it reminded us a great deal of Geelong Grammar.

Weeks two and three saw us situate ourselves in lakeside cabins in the lakes district of Muskoka – the first was in a cross between a trailor park and a resort just outside Gravenhurst- sporting prefab cabins and facilities like tennis court, pool, kids club etc.

We took advantage of the facilities and enjoyed our lake front cottage. The kids were able to fish, paddle, swim to their hearts desire and Shem and I took advantage of the Gym due to the terrible bug problem that made running outside impossible.

The next place was much more our style, a ramshackle cottage on a smallish lake called Walker Lake were motorized craft were not permitted. This allowed us to swim and paddle etc free from worry about being taken out by a jet ski or boat. It was unbelievably relaxing and we decided if and when we win the Lotto we will buy a place just like it and come to Canada for the three week break in July each year. (I must start buying tickets!)

With 3 days up our sleeves before heading to Alberta we decided to swing by the Nations Capital – step into Quebec for a taste of French and meet our exchange partner Ulrika’s family. It was well worth the drive – staying on the Quebec side of the city blew the kids and our minds as quite literally everything suddenly becomes french and there is not a word of English to be seen – since the children have never been to a country that does not speak English they found this all very different.

Ulrika’s family had us for dinner one evening and made us feel incredibly welcome. Her mum Colleen and dad Peter had rallied the troops and put on a lovely dinner. Two of Ulrika’s 5 siblings came over and were instant hits with the kids and we were over the moon to have had a chance to meet them and better get to know our exchange family.

Summer Odyssey – Part 3

Canadian Rockies

Five weeks in and going strong. We headed to the Provence of Alberta where we met up with our great friends – Team Marshall-Hume. It was so great to see them and we were looking forward to some company after three weeks on our own. With much trepidation at the thought of 5 of us spending two weeks living in a camper van  we headed off to pick up our vehicle.

As it turned out – we loved the camper van. The concept of having your house with you where ever you go was great. No planning food and clothing for the day its great. The camping grounds were fantastic with lots of trees and fireplaces at most.

The Rockies and in particular the Ice Fields parkway was one of the most spectacular things we have ever seen. With Naant and Sam spurring us on we ran, rode and swam our way around Jasper, Banff and Kootney national parks.

A few views during runs:

Hiking action:

Swimming was a highlight with the water being crystal clear, ice blue and very chilly! We managed to tough it out and even get some training in.

We also did some great hikes including a difficult 9km hike to a glacial lake that surprised us it its unexpected beauty, made even more spectacular by the fact that no one else was there (unlike Lake Louise)

The Colombian Ice fields were spectacular and it was a bit of a buzz heading out onto the Athabasca Glacier.

The girls loved having Jazzie to play with

Dibs and Zoe developed a pretty cool little friendship with Zoe digging Dib’s muscle top and Dibs digging Zoe’s passionate commitment to potato chips!!!

At each campsite the kids spent hours building Cafes and Cabins in the woods and eating their body wight in Marshmallows

Summer Odyssey Part 4

Vancouver Island

Well it was so nice to be back even if it was just for two weeks before we headed off again. The weather on the island was simply stunning and I was so unbelievably happy to be back sleeping in a good bed with a good pillow.

We took the opportunity to embrace the local surrounds – doing lots of paddle boarding and swimming at the local lake and also an old Quarry. The quarry is absolutely magnificent – it was abandoned after they struck an aquifer and it is now a kind of ‘lawless’ swimming hole. You have to walk in to in about a km from the road on what is still the logging company’s land, but it is a bit of a local institution and well worth the effort.

We enjoyed showing this place to Naant and Sam – however Jasmine was not as impressed by the hike in!

Mum and Dad arrived the day after and after two days showing them the local highlights we headed up to the north of the island to Strathcona Provincial Park and then on to the tip of the Island and Port Hardy.

Mum and Dad could not believe the beauty and the shear scale of the natural environment of the island – Dad being surprised that so much of it is forested.

We did several fantastic hikes including attempting to reach the summit of Crest Mountian – a seemingly nice 5km hike with potential views of many of the other peaks in the park from the top.

What we found however was a fairly insane series of switch backs enabling us to rise up 1200m in 3 km, we slogged away at this for over an hour with Nanna and Pa putting in an amazing performance.

We stopped for lunch and Nanna, Pa and the Girls decided to abandon the attempt and the trail just continued to get steeper. Dibs, Shem and I decided to continue on at an increased pace (set by Dibs with us hardly keeping up!) and slogged on for another 40 minutes. We were rewarded with this amazing view of …… fog!!!!!

And also we were rewarded with stiffness in our legs similar to that of post marathon soreness – with our legs actually giving way from under us at unexpected times for the next week.

We loved seeing Nanna and Pa, and Dibs, who has become a keen photographer was so excited to have Pa passing on some of skills to him.

Port Hardy was amazingly beautiful and very rugged and remote. It was a quick visit to drop Mum and Dad at the ferry to continue their journey north on the ferry to Prince Rupert. We are now home and on the count down to school returning. What an amazing amazing ten weeks – we are indeed feeling like the most fortunate teachers in  the world right now.

It is strange to say the least to be wrapping up school and extra curricular activities at this time of the year, but there is only 3 weeks for Shem and 4 weeks for the rest of us left in this academic year. That and seeing Cherries appear in stores feels most peculiar!! While to us it feels like the year has only just begun, to the locals the end of the school year couldn’t come more quickly. After 6 short months Dibs, Jemima and Chloe are done with grade 4, 3, and 1 respectively and will have an amazing 10 weeks off before starting a new school year.

I have unofficially become an elementary school teacher! Because my certification over hear allows me to teach from K-12 I have been working in both secondary and primary schools and finding filling in at the senior secondary level so boring as you really are just supervising. I am loving working in middle years particularly and am now getting quite a bit of work at the kids school and have started to be asked back to teach the same grades at a few other schools which is nice as you start to get to know the kids.

Dibs and Jemima were involved in the school musical Sussical at the end of April and this was an amazing experience for them both. Dibs had a lead role as Mr Mayor and in his “now fairly legendary way” his performance on stage was 100% pure Dibs! We were so proud. Jemima was very lucky as a grade three to be allowed to be involved as one of the citizens of WhoVille and for her – it was a sensational opportunity to get to know some of the girls in her class in a different setting. She volunteered me to do the who’s hair and along with another mother we made sure the Whos were the best looking kids on stage (not competitive at all!!) The production a tribute to a very hard working and brave Music teacher and an absolutely wonderful experience for our older two.

The kids have been going on lots of field trips with school and most are designed to embrace the amazing environment around the school. They have been on hikes up mountains, into the local parks and wildlife reserves. Chloe now has an impressive knowledge of forest ecosystems which she is more than happy to share with anyone who will listen. I was invited by her to attend an excursion to a beautiful provincial park a few weeks back and it was great to see a park we would not have discovered otherwise.

  The kids have just finished up their Dance classes culminating in an amazing performance which included three shows over two days. The dance school is located on campus and as such I signed all three kids up – so happy to have an activity we didn’t have to drive to. The school is a very accomplished and professional outfit and the concert was incredibly well done and enjoyable to go to! Mind you the lead up for the children included a 4hr technical rehearsal on Tuesday, a 5hr dress rehearsal Thursday, Friday evening performance ending at 10.30, Saturday Matinee 2-5.30 and Saturday evening performance till 10.30 – they were completely and utterly stuffed! (they also performed for a grand total of 2min and 30 seconds each show!!!! Most telling was finding Dibs on the couch Sunday morning still in his bright blue outfit – he had slept in it!

Since my last post we had an amazing May Day long weekend away in Port Renfrew with the Beatty Family. We  – well mainly Jemima- looked after little Lauren for the night while Ashley and Simon went to Graduation in Vancouver living it up as a for child family for 24hrs before heading to Port Renfrew. 

   
   Port Renferw is only 2hrs from Mill Bay on the rugged west coast of the Island. It is reportedly quite similar the famous Tofino which is on the same ocean side of the Island but a bit further away. We hired a cottage right on the cliff overlooking the river mouth. 

    The weather over that side of the island can be quite unpredictable, but we were incredibly lucky with beautiful calm sunny days. We went for a walk to a place called Botanical Beach which famous for its tidal rock pools. What we loved it for was the sound of crashing waves – which we did not realize we had missed until we heard it and the beach smells that are not present on the mainland-facing side of the island where we live. The kids loved the mountains of drift wood – which to their surprise was very light and easy to build with.

   
   The west coast of the island is also home to some of the counties oldest intact forests with massive Douglas Fur and Ceder trees, and we enjoyed wondering through these and allowing the kids to find their own paths through the forests without the fear of snakes (and we are too naive to worry about bears!)

   
   On our way home we stopped in at a famous west side beach called China beach. The experience of walking through massive old growth forest for a km and then arriving at a stunning black sand beach was simply stunning. The weather was great and the kids got a little bit wet – the water was absolutely freezing!

Back on campus the children have been swimming in the bay almost every day – bugging Shem or I to take them down to the Rowing docks after school even on days when they have swimming training later in the afternoons. It is about 100m from our house and a beautiful place to relax in the sun, so not such a chore. We normally round up a gaggle of campus kids and they play very happily jumping off the docks, wrestling and swimming from dock to dock. The water is, according to the school’s boatman 8 degrees – however I am sure it is warmer than that – it feels kind of like Novemeber in Anglesea.

We have also been taking the stand up paddle boards out which has been a major hit. Today the water was like glass and we all had such fun exploring the local coast line with about 6 seals watching within a 20 meter radius – their heads popping out of the water to watch and following us around.   
     

We are truely loving the amazing and apparently unseasonably warm weather this spring has provided us with. The nights are warm and light till 9ish already. This is a photo of us eating dinner on our deck and if you look really hard you can see the water!

  
Anyway – only 3 weeks to shems parents get here and then we are travelling for 7 weeks around USA and mainland Canada. A great deal to look forward to as our year zips by – flights home booked – the kids and I will be back on the 8th of Dec with Shem following on the 21st! How time flies when your having fun.

Spring Break has been fantastic. We ventured off the island for the first time since we arrived and headed inland about 500km to the okanagan district of British Columbia. The drive there was simply stunning and so diverse that you could be mistaken for thinking we have traveled through 5 different countries. The drive was really easy and like Mt Washington we were pleasantly surprised by the short 20min drive up to the ski village from the main highway.

We went to a ski resort called Silver Star for 7 days of skiing (which is alot for an aging body!) Silver Star Resort sells itself  on being very family orientated and we would have to agree. Our lift tickets gave us access to the tube park and ice skating. The apartments we stayed in had movie nights and games nights for the kids. The village itself is beautiful and so very colorful.

Shem and I enjoyed some lovely time while the kids had lessons – making the most of the great weather and well located coffee shops

While it would have been nice to have more snow this ski season, the warm days were really nice to ski in and if Mt Washington had not closed we would probably never have come to SilverStar which would have been a great shame – so it has work out well really.

While the temps were warm and the snow between icy and slushy – it just felt like home. The benefit was that there was not many people up on the mountain and we had many runs to ourselves. Of course the kids had no idea that this was not normal as they have nothing to compare it to. While the kids are each posting on their own blogs about this holiday, we wanted to post their videos here too as we are so proud of how much they have embraced skiing and made the most of our short time with snow.