“Live long and prosper” !

So to all our dear and loyal readers, our friends and family, our Voyage Home and now met its Final Frontier having visited, to us, previously Undiscovered Countries.  Anyway, enough of the Star Trek references (mum ask Peter for help here!).     Time then to wish you you the reply to the above quote: 

                                                              “Peace and Long Life”

So now all the legs are now done and dusted!  And moisurised!  The last being HKG-LHR !  Having spent a great 10days playing catch-up with Damian and Keiko in Honkers, the final voyage was a 13hour trip with Air New Zealand, with a 3seater to ourselves: woah, the comfort!!

So now back in Blighty and relishing the approaching spring then summer!  Also means being back with Mike’s mum (& Peter) while we ‘get our shit together’ ; aka Fall Back and Regroup!! aka Look for a job.  aka Catch Up with F+F!!  aka Drive tyhe Mini again!!  aka Eat Roast Lamb cooked by mum!!  So here we go…….

…….. and we’ll probably now cache this website, although you should still be able to access it!!  Who knows, we may UN-Cache it sometime!

The Big Buddha is one of THE sights to see on Hong Kong – not to be missed.  However, even standing right under it we could barely see it!  Sods Law dictates that the day we go is a day shrouded in mist (see pics!).  A 5km cable car ride follwed by 238 steps up, then down, to the Big Man himself normally provides stunning views we were told.  But not today.  Not for us.  Oh No!  But hey, these are minor inconveniences compared to what Siddhartha Gautama – the man who became Buddha – encountered on his path to enlightenment.  So there!

Great fun strolling round the lanes looking at all the genuine fakes on sale…eg. football shirts for the equivalent of 5 Pounds!!  And handbags galore, so long as you like Diesel or Prada!!  And not only quality high-end fashion items, but some good Chinese food stalls/holes-in-walls!!

Managed to buy a few things, inc 4pairs of Converse, Liverpool kit, a handbag and a watch to bring back!!

2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, and to celebrate it we went to a traditional Dragon Dance, at the Happy Valley football club!  Okay there was also the incentive of a 10quid roast buffet, but the Dragon Dance was impressive.  The two guys in the Dragon outfit jumped massive heights and gaps from pole to pole, which hopefully the pictures show.

This was followed by said buffet, which Mike had to go easy on as he was playing 7-a-side footy a couple of hours later: but we both did our best!

Having spent the last couple of nights in the hippie camper getting munched on by mozzies, we then suffered a follow-up buffet style attack whilst on the plane to Hong Kong.  So having got on the flight with several bites, we left with dozens of bites.  Off to the pharmacy for triple strength anti-hissies!!

But this upside is it means we are safely in Hong Kong…staying with Damian and Keiko and 3kids for the next ten days-ish.  That means 2 weekends of catching up, inc checking out where we both lived back in the summer of ‘94, inc the bars we used to work at!

So we worked out a minute ago whilst musing over a white wine and a cider, that we are about to depart (Sydney and..) Australia exactly Five Months and One Day after we landed here!  …  at times that time has felt not enough and that we were going to run short; at others it felt like we may have to kill ime before heading to Honkers to spend a long, long, long overdue stay with Damian and Keiko & ankle-biters!!

And the journey to Sydney was taken in our last (ever??!) campervan

Let there be light(house)!

 relocation: from Brisbane to Sydney via a wet, misty and drizzley Byron Bay.  The van was also a new one on us – a “Hippie Camper” which we liked for name alone if nothing else!  A very basic van (that means no aircon in the back, no bog/dunny, no high roof and a parafin stove!!).  But we actually liked for all these things… on reflection it makes sense bearing in mind how much we love our Mini, and the Lotus wasnt exactly full of gadgets!!    AND SO, we bid the southern hemisphere an affectionate and reluctant farewell (bit of a M*A*S*H quote there!).  Maybe one day…?!

So the main irony is that today ( Weds Feb 9th ) we have used our last coffee card for our last free coffee so that we could get to use their free wifi to check-in online for our flight out of OZ!