You could tell we were further south – it had got decidedly more chilly. Only four of us (Tom, me, Margaret and Molly) were brave enough when we reached Arthurs Pass to go for a walk to see the Devils Punchbowl waterfall.

It was a cold and windy, steep walk, but after half an hour or so we made it.

The afternoon grew sunnier as we descended to Lake Pearson and eventually arrived in gentle Geraldine, possibly our favourite campsite of the trip.

The playground equipment was made of tyres and wood and the girls soon made friends.

Even Grandad had a go down the slide!

I had a glorious run through the Talbot Valley, laughing when I found a recipe for elderflower cordial tacked to an elderflower tree – perhaps the ultimate sign of a civilised society.

The next morning, we visited a pleasant Farmers market at St Mary’s Church (very popular Charlie and Chocolate Factory and new Hairy Maclary books were purchased as early Christmas presents from Grandma and Grandad).

It didn’t seem possible, but the scenery through the Mackenzie region was even more mesmerising that what we had witnessed further north.

Arriving at the startling blue waters of Lake Tekapo was astonishing, with snow-capped Mount Cook in the distance and various shades of purple lupins around the shore.

The Church of the Good Shepherd is perfectly situated, the quotation: “The land and the people are woven together as one” most fitting.

It was slightly odd to see hoards of Asian tourists eating salmon sashimi however! MoJo also had a badly timed meltdown. We went onto quieter Lake Pukaki for our lunch stop, but we were definitely back on the tourist trail.

We had three nights in Queenstown, our campsite located out of town near the Shotover River, a dramatic landscape where quarrying and mining had been a vital part of the first settlers experience. It was the first time we were completely hit by rain.

It gave us an excuse for a lazy morning, getting out mid-afternoon to walk through Queenstown Gardens on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, watching frisbee golf, eating mince pies, admiring oak trees and even finding a patch of ice to play with.

We ate an early steak dinner and watched a bizarre Swedish street performer, juggling lamps with spinning meatballs on his helmet, standing on a microwave balanced on upturned tables.

The next day goes down for Molly as her best day ever on our travels. We kicked off at the Skyline Gondola, scaling 450m up Bob’s Peak.

Tom, MoJo and I went on up a chairlift to the Skyline luge, hurtling down two courses running over 800m, great fun.

We stopped off at Ferg Burger on the high street which was constantly busy – which it is pretty consistently for 21 hours a day, seven days a week. Alex, a friend of Toms from Westminster Kingsway College runs it. They had a good catch up.

The main reason for us to make sure we included Queentown on our tour, the adventure capital that it is – is because friends Danny, Amanda, Shane and Corina had given us as a leaving Dubai gift tickets for a ride on the famous Shotover Jet riverboat.

Joanna was too small so it was lucky we had Peter and Margaret with us to join her in watching Tom, Molly and I gripping on and being flung through 360-degree spins, whizzing through the Shotover canyons at speeds of up to 90kmh, skimming around boulders and coming to sudden, surprising stops. It was fantastic.

What we didn’t know was that our fun-loving friends had purchased a second ride, but unfortunately it was all booked up the rest of the day and the next morning, our last, it was closed due to bad weather. Shucks.

Due to the rain we had to cancel plans to visit Wanaka, instead enjoying some time in Arrowtown. With one foot in the past, its Avenue of Trees and high street is full of period cottages and shops. We had a good morning coffee stop at quaint Provisions Café and enjoyed quite some time in the Lakes District Museum & Gallery. The girls were given an odd one out and reindeer trail to keep them busy, a highlight probably being the recreations of a bakery, blacksmith’s forge, schoolroom and even a man on the dunny! It gave a comprehensive history of gold mining and the region.

We enjoyed a temporary exhibition of fantastical, highly-detailed drawings by collaborative couple Luigi and Kate Angnelli, artists-in-residence at the museum. Some were depictions of Italian citadels, others New Zealand bush scenes.

For our night in Omarama – really the only stop which felt like it was just a place-in-between others – we ate at the Heritage Hotel buffet, served by a lovely Scottish waitress getting ready to fly home for Christmas for the first time in five years. The girls paid their age, so had a slap up meal for 4 and 6 $ so good value! We sadly failed to find any sheepshearing demonstrations but did feed some salmon.

A highlight of our camper times was playing family games – our favourites being Uno of course which has been played in every country on our tour, but also Quirkle, happy familes and bananagram. Often after the kids had gone to bed….

After a return to Geraldine it was time to get the camper back to Christchurch, fly to Wellington and say goodbye to Peter and Margaret who were taking a flight a similar time back to Melbourne. What a great, exhausting adventure we had had together.

We had been a little slow in planning our route around the South Island in the campervan. We knew we had a fortnight to make a circular loop to and from Christchurch, but it was only when Peter and Margaret confirmed they would be joining us that we really started booking campsites to stay in. We had room for them to travel with us from a to b during the day, but not to sleep so needed to have cabins booked close to our powered site for each night. We had thought we might do some freedom camping, but in fact being plugged into power so we could turn the heating on was needed at times! We purchased Top 10 membership, staying in Top 10 campsites throughout and they were really great.

Natural disasters and weather however made us have to alter our initial plans, having to skip the glaciers on the west coast as it had suffered serious flooding, but in general we were lucky, our new route didn’t cause us any problems. We did an anti-clockwise loop, sadly deciding to reduce traveling time by not going to Milford Sound or Te Anau.

Having a six-berth Mighty came into its own, as there were enough seats for us all to travel together. MoJo really loved having Grandma and Grandad there with us, enjoying singalongs and games as we wound through the New Zealand countryside with Tom expertly managing the twists and turns.

Not surprisingly, Tom excelled in the kitchen as well as behind the wheel, getting into the swing of cooking for six. His best meal was probably the fresh monkfish in Greymouth but most nights we dined like kings – feeling rather smug at campsite barbeque sites as we had roasted vegetables, risotto or homemade burgers instead of standard camping food.

My job was making sandwiches at lunchtime, Peter cooked a delicious spaghetti bolognese and Margaret was always there to help with the washing up! We did eat out a few times too, a memorable evening was at Harbour Light Bistro in Nelson with stunning views of the bay and local fish and affogato.

Our first two nights were spent in Kiakoura where we felt we were lucky with the weather, swimming in the pool and really making the most of the long warm evenings. It was however too windy for our initial whale watch booking, which we had anticipated, luckily having the flexibility to rearrange the trip for the following morning. Our first day was therefore quite relaxed, the girls loving the jumping pillows (a Top 10 signature feature) and playing with a Swedish family considering relocating to New Zealand.

We had a great walk to a fur seal colony round the coast, amazed at how many were just there lying on the beach. I took the opportunity to have a run round the headland.

The whale watching tour was really very rocky, Joanna and I were terrified most of the time and lots of others (mainly adult men!) were using the sick bags…. but it was well organised and worthwhile. When you look on the map you realise there is no land between us and Antarctica beyond the Southern Ocean.

Nathan the narrator was very knowledgeable, keeping a running commentary going the whole three hours we were out on the water. The captain was in contact with other boats and we soon realised we were onto a winner being the second boat out that morning – the captain of the first boat told us exactly where to go.

We soon came up to a giant sperm whale who we watched breathing air through it’s blowhole before it made its signature tail wave and disappeared for a long dive down into the deep. Soon after we were informed by the captain that a family of three orcas had been spotted and within 10 minutes we caught a glimpse of the family which included a large male with a huge dorsal fin. To end the trip we were treated by a huge pod of over 200 Dusky Dolphins, jumping, spinning and flipping around the boat which we enjoyed watching for some time. We were all utterly entranced. Of course the photos we managed to capture do not fully reflect how amazing the experience was!

Our drive up the coast was timed perfectly to stop at Nins Bin for lunch, a little shack right on the rocks made famous by the local Crayfish. Ours was served with parsley butter, fresh lemon and of course a plate of chips – all of it delicious.

Our route took us through Blenheim to Marlborough Wine Country, where it started raining so the perfect activity was to spend time indoors at various vineyard tasting rooms. Result. The rise of the Marlborough wine industry has been incredible – only beginning in the 1970s and yet today it is a market leader, especially in Sauvignon Blanc.

Our first stop was Cloudy Bay, founded in 1985, one of the first five wineries to be established in the Wairau Valley and I’ve been a fan for years. As we hadn’t booked in for a tour, we just spent time in the tasting room, sampling a range of their best wines. In 2010 they produced their first Central Otago Pinot Noir, opening a vineyard in Northburn in Otago in 2014 – but the whites are definitely superior.

Second stop was to Allen Scott Family Winemakers, who were involved with planting the first vineyard in 1973. We decided to accompany the wine with some food here and surprised ourselves by liking the merlot paired with some cheese and quince.

Lastly, we visited Hunter’s Wines cellar door. Jane Hunter is the widow of the founder, Ernie Hunter and a leading female wine producer. MoJo were remarkably patient during these visits, but our Picton campsite made up for it with a playground and giant chess board. We had a kids size picnic table alongside an adult one in our plot which caught the sun at breakfast time.

Tom and I got the best look at Queen Charlotte Sound on a run out to the ‘snout’ (although sadly it was here that my phone slipped out of my hands into the marina water). We all enjoyed a morning coffee looking at logs being prepared for shipment on the docks below.

We were concerned about taking the scenic route along Queen Charlotte’s Drive to Nelson past the green-lipped mussel capital of Havelock overlooking Pelorus Sound, but we managed it surprisingly quickly despite numerous hairpin bends. Clearly due to Tom’s faultless driving. Cullen Point was a nice moment to stretch our legs.

Once again, the rain started as we reached our destination. Perfect timing for an art gallery or café stop: Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū in the Queens Gardens in Nelson complied. We enjoyed the contemporary ceramics and cake.

Next day our route included more hairpin bends and jaw-dropping views past the Abel Tasman National Park. We stopped for a picnic lunch at Motueka by an old abandoned quay, with a ghostly pier and rusty boat.

Hawkes Lookout was a highlight of the Kahurangi National Park.

We were amazed when we arrived at Pohara Beach campsite – we were right on the sand, the bay stretching further than the eye could see in both directions. We had been a little spoilt in Australia with their sandy beaches, in New Zealand beaches so far had been grey and stony – Pohara was a sandy exception and gave us a memorable beach run.

We took the time in the morning to stop at nearby Clifton Grove lookout, billed as being like Jurassic Park, a split rock, quite eye-catching. It was here the girls learnt about the fern being the national symbol of New Zealand (they had already seen it on Michele’s nails supporting the All Blacks).

The drive over Takaka Hill took us along the path of the Buller River and Lake Brunner before going through Charleston where we picked up some Bosenberries (an incredible discovery for us: a hybrid of blackberries, raspberries and other berry yumminess – totally delicious but not exported for some reason) and arrived at Carters Beach.

Cape Foulwind lived up to its name – it was seriously blowy on the beach here and at our next stop, Greymouth.

It was telling to read that Greymouth and Westport had the same founder, the two places had a very similar layout and we found ourselves doing similar runs in each along a beach and around an airfield. Tom found an 11-legged starfish.

The drive down the Great Coast Road to Paparoa National Park took us to Punakaiki and its famous Pancake rocks, with blasting blowholes best seen during high tide.

We were just in time to witness the powerful waves slapping the sides of the rocks relentlessly. Nature at its most compelling.

Getting to Christchurch from Melbourne was more of a mission than we anticipated. Our Jetstar flights were changed, forcing us to have a stopover in Sydney. Not a long one mind you, indeed initially worryingly short, considering we had to collect our bags and take a bus to another terminal!

The mad dash was made all the more fun by a bunch of teenage school-kids embarking on a camping trip in New Zealand, many of them using their passports for the first time. In the end our second flight had been shifted a little later, probably because the airline realised the impossibility of making the connection as it was. And joy of joys it was with Qantas, so we had TVs and food to enjoy after so many flights on budget airlines. I could catch up on ‘Big Little Lies’ in anticipation of visiting California later in our trip…

The entertainment system was a welcome distraction from the screams of terror and exhilaration in equal measures from the schoolkids as our plane bumped through some of the worst turbulence we had ever experienced.

It wasn’t a surprise therefore that it was close to midnight by the time we arrived at where we were staying: a former jail turned into a hostel, Jailhouse Accommodation. Luckily we called ahead to warn them, but it still felt like we were breaking into jail!

It was a quirky, fun place to stay. Victorian Gothic in style, the original features had been kept intact with rather grim stories of famous prisoners and some of their prized possessions on display. It operated from 1974-1999, starting out as a women’s jail. Located in the suburb of Addington, there was a convenient bus-stop across the road that took you into town.

We realised that lots of the buildings used in the city today had different functions before the 2011 earthquake. Our first morning we had a great brunch at Addington Coffee Co-op in a former mechanics workshop that had withstood the quakes. The brilliant gluten-free menu and variety of children’s books to read were echoed throughout restaurants in New Zealand.

We dined that evening at C1 Espresso in the former High Street post office, choosing it mainly for the burgers which were delivered by pneumatic tube. It also had some fun retro video games to try out.

Our best evening was spent watching a fantastic performance of the Wind in the Willows at the Court Theatre which has relocated indefinitely to a warehouse space in Addington near the train tracks. By then Peter and Margaret had joined us, amused to also be staying in the jail!

Making the most of the sunshine on our first day, we took a bus to Heathcote to go on the 945m-long Christchurch Gondola up Mount Cavendish to get a bird’s eye view of the Canterbury Plains and the Banks Peninsula.

When we arrived the cable car was closed due to windy conditions but after ten minutes or so it reopened. Created by two drowned volcanic craters, Banks Peninsula is truly a dramatic landscape. Taking a stroll along to the Cavendish bluff lookout was breathtaking, as was the view from the red rock café. A time tunnel ride told the story of the first settlers in New Zealand and had a model of the enormous Moa bird now extinct that used to roam free on the island.

We spotted Diamond Harbour in Lyttelton where the water really sparkles. We chatted to an American scientist waiting for a boat to take him to Antarctica for research, bringing home the fact that despite the English country town feel of much of central Christchurch, especially around the river and Botanical Gardens, we really were the other side of the world to home.

Back down in the city, we walked down Manchester Street to the Margaret Mahy Family Playground (built after the 2011 quake), which gave Australia some hearty competition with innovative public play facilities which are fun for kids and adults alike.

Next was the ‘Cardboard Cathedral’, the girls transfixed by choristers rehearsing for a Christmas concert. Known as the Transitional Cathedral, it was designed by the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, constructed of 98 industrial-strength cardboard tubes and shipping containers. The effect is far more harmonious and satisfying than it sounds.

The next block on Cashel Street is a very moving space, Peter Majendie’s ‘185 empty chairs’, a memorial on the site of the Canterbury Television (CTV building) where 115 people were killed during the earthquake (including 71 foreign Asian students).

In total 185 people died and more than seven thousand were injured in the earthquake on 22 February 2011– but perhaps even more devastating was the total destruction of the city centre. Given the poor foundations of buildings prone to liquefaction, vast areas are still cordoned off. It does still feel eerily empty: street art and pop-ups in containers help to breathe life and colour into vacant spaces.

The Friday Street Food Market takes place in Cathedral Square across from the half-ruined original cathedral – this area has always been the heart of Christchurch and remains a focus today. We enjoyed some Asian food at the market.

Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetū survived the quake and was taken over by Civil Defence immediately afterwards, with artworks going into storage. It has an active programme of exhibitions and is excellently laid out.

We had a great tour by Bridget, I enjoyed learning about some artists I hadn’t heard of before. Brent Harris’s prints of swamplands, Bill Hammond‘s detailed depictions of birds and islands. Two exhibitions were especially fascinating – ‘Māori Moving Image: An open archive’ and ‘Wheriko – Brilliant!’ including Anila Quayyum Agha’s stunning Shimmering Mirage (2016).

It was reassuring to see public art installations scattered across the city thanks to the SCAPE public art project, with new installations under the theme of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’.

Older works by Anthony Gormley and others remain in situ. We spotted plenty of installations on a run around Hagley Park, which also took us past the mosque subject to terrorist shootings in March 2019.

It feels so unfair that such a genteel, beautiful city such as Christchurch should have had such devastating incidents in its recent history, but it seems to be recovering well.

New Zealand was a country we were really looking forward to visiting on our world tour and it lived up to our expectations. We have known many kiwi’s, characteristically pretty chilled out with a quirky sense of humour but level headed – people we very much enjoy spending time with.

We kept on seeing this brown bird, naturally assuming it was the indigenous Kiwi only to find out that actually it was a waka – kiwis are far rarer and nocturnal and look totally different!

We found New Zealand to be quite possibly the most civilised country on earth. Everyone was polite, everything ran smoothly, the scenery stunning, the food healthy and delicious.

We were surprised to discover we would be learning a few words from a new language in New Zealand. Most signage across the country was bi-lingual and the Māori presence, especially in the North Island was very strong.

Most major tourist companies such as the Shotover Jet in Queenstown and Whale Watch Kiakoura are Māori owned. Learning about Māori culture was a real highlight of our time in New Zealand.

What blew us away round almost every corner was the stunning scenery and incredible natural wonders. The landscapes were just out of this world – well, and part of J.R. Tolkien’s I suppose.

We did enjoy time spent in the cities and got a lot out of the brilliant art venues and other tourist attractions in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland.

The real highlight of our time was spending time in the more remote places, which is what being in New Zealand is all about.

Everyone told us that New Zealand deserves the same if not more time than Australia, and that once in New Zealand, the South Island deserves the same if not more time than the North Island. I’m not sure we fully comply with the first statement – the distances in Australia are so much larger in 5 weeks we only tackled one coastline whereas in New Zealand we pretty much circumnavigated both islands, despite the roads being considerably slower. We gave North Island slightly longer than South Island purely due to when Christmas fell and our plans to spend the festive period with friends in Mount Maunganui. Our spread of time was pretty spot on, although we were rushed in the camper van, only spending one night in most campsites and had possibly a bit long in Northland at the end.

We really valued our time in New Zealand. The fresh, local produce available, the friendliness of the people, ease of traveling around and the weather always keeping us on our toes!

We had slightly underestimated the drive from Canberra down to the Mornington Peninsula, which is the other side of Melbourne. We arrived to stay with Adam, a chef Tom had worked with in Rhodes 24 in London – as it was getting dark! It didn’t seem to matter, his girls Liva and Anna getting on immediately with MoJo. The four of them played together for hours all being fans of frozen princesses!

It was lucky we were there on a night off for the two chefs. They both work at ’10 by tractor’ a local restaurant set in a vineyard. We had a selection of amazing vegetables and steak cooked by Adam, Marie treated us to a beautiful berry tart.

We enjoyed time at the peninsula the following morning, me running along the coast to a pier and lighthouse and all of us driving up to Arthur’s Seat viewpoint.

We realised the best way to get to the Great Ocean Road from there was to avoid central Melbourne and take a ferry from Sorrento to Queenscliff. It was a fun journey with pretty views. We had a nice lunch in a pie and sandwich place in Queenscliff (gluten-free bread, yey!) and bought some more nit treatment!

It was then a short drive on to Bells Beach where we admired the surfers, then to Aireys Inlet split point lighthouse and onto the Great Ocean Road. The drive is seriously breath-taking, every turn warrants an Instagram post.

We stopped for the night at Apollo Bay, sampling Kangaroo steak at the Apollo Bay Brewhouse and enjoyed a lovely breakfast at Bayleaf cafe.

The next morning we went first to Cape Otway Lightstation, Australia’s most significant lighthouse.

We spent most of our time on the headland at a Bush Tucker Talk in the Aboriginal Talking Hut led by Brad, learning about how to fend for yourself in the bush with only natural resources.

The road down and back from the lighthouse was prime Koala spotting territory – we saw some up in the trees driving in both directions.

After Princeton and Port Campbell National Park you reach the Twelve Apostles, London Bridge and the Bay of Islands – all stunning, ever-evolving feats of nature. It was much more of a tourist destination than Tom remembered from twenty years ago, with scenic helicopter flights taking off over the Twelve Apostles every five minutes.

The colossal rocks at the quieter locations were almost more spectacular than the over-popular Twelve Apostles. It was then that we suddenly noticed hundreds of cyclists coming in the other direction – there was a big ride between Adelaide and Melbourne, we were thankful we were traveling the other way!

Our second night’s stay and final stop on the Great Ocean Road was at Port Fairy, another place we really warmed to. The scenery was beautiful, an idyllic marina, wavy beach and Griffiths Island where a kangaroo hopped across my path on a run.

We found an unusual but great pizza dinner at Coffin Sally’s, formerly a coffin maker – who not only had gluten free pizza but also gluten free beer!

Tower Hill was on route back to Melbourne, a crater of a dormant volcano that is home to all sorts of wildlife. We enjoyed finding several emus on a walk through the reserve round a lake.

It was to be our final rural idyll in Australia, as we had a rude arrival in Melbourne finding the traffic a nightmare (understandable on a Friday evening) and having a very difficult time accessing our apartment and struggling to get our hire car back in time. We had booked to stay very centrally in Victoria One close to Queen Victoria Market. What the reservation didn’t say was that we were on the 39^th floor of a 70 plus floor building – a bit too high for me but the views were great.

For our first night we made the most of the Juicy car rental drop-off spot being near St Kilda to explore that part of town, where Tom had lived twenty years ago. Unlike in Sydney, the place where he lived here had been redeveloped.

We headed to the pier and had a delicious dinner there, before braving it outside to see the penguin colony that have called it home for decades. It was incredible watching the small blue penguins swim home and come in off the beach after a day out feeding.

We spotted others bedding down under the wooden jetty. We had to get the girls a hot chocolate as it was so cold and windy!

We hit up the usual tourist spots in Melbourne, taking a ride on the tram, having lunch in Queen Victoria Market, going into St Philips Cathedral, admiring the layer upon layer of graffiti in Hosier Lane and enjoying the Birrarung Marr Playground and rowers on the river.

We had a good contemporary Asian meal at Chin Chin and I met up with a Dubai friend Mehnaz for a drink along the river. We both had runs through Fitzroy Gardens, Yarra Park, round the Tan and along the riverside to Docklands.

We took Sunday as our weekend, going to meet another chef buddy of Toms Andy, along with his wife Lauren and their baby Penelope for a brewery brunch at Stomping Ground, walking through trendy Fitzroy to reach up-and-coming Collingwood. After that we surprised the girls with a cinema outing to see Frozen II.

Then suddenly it was December and we saw three of the girls favourite old people all together: Grandma, Grandad and Santa!

Yes it was incredible that pretty last minute, Tom’s parents booked to fly to Melbourne and onto Christchurch to join us for part of our world tour. Peter’s friend from university, Hywell is based in Melbourne and had been inviting them to stay for years. With us in that part of the world, it seemed the perfect opportunity. We met outside bustling Flinders Street station.

There was a Christmas market on in Federation Square, hence the Santa meet and greet, which was perfect as we could deliver the girls Christmas letters to his elves directly.

Family Egerton (plus Grandparents) managed to tackle the two branches of the National Gallery of Victoria, the Ian Potter Centre, Gallery of Australian Art and then the Museum of Art, Gallery of Melbourne across the river. At the Ian Potter Centre we spent most time in the permanent collections, enjoying looking at paintings of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane pre-cars, when horses and boats were the primary means of transport.

We were wowed by the waterwall entrance to the National Gallery of Victoria. It had been covered in a reimagined artwork by Keith Haring, similar to one painted by him there in 1984.

The girls were rather taken with the giant pop-sculpture by KAWS (Brian Donnelly) in the lobby: both Haring and KAWS were subject to major temporary exhibitions in the museum.

It was nice to see Nadim Karam’s sculptures over the river on the walk back to our apartment.

Peter and Margaret had another couple of days in Melbourne, but we were due to fly to Christchurch to begin our New Zealand adventures.

We were shocked to see how bad the bushfires had become when we flew in and out of Sydney on route to Christchurch, we were able to smell the smoke from inside the plane and could see the devastation below us.

It was in the glorious world of facebook that Kimmy, a friend from Dubai had said – oi aren’t you coming to our nation’s capital??! So we really felt we should and are very glad we did! It was fantastic staying with Kimmy, Canner and meeting their daughter Rose.

Kimmy took the time to tour us around the major sights, a highlight being the National Gallery of Art and a viewpoint to see the whole city below us. It was easy to be quickly out of the city and into the countryside. The girls enjoyed picking Rose up from nursery and taking their dogs Molly (!) and Mia for a walk to the park.

Tom did the Canberra run in the morning catching a great sunrise and enjoying a peaceful explore of the wildlife reserve that skirted the city.

The drive to Canberra from Sydney and then onto Melbourne is long and boring (despite a bizarre Dog on a Tucker Box statue, Gundagai) so it was important to break it up and even more so to catch up with friends.

Our time in Sydney this trip was split into so many different parts it is hard to digest it as a whole. Tom and I stayed in three totally different places over our five nights! All were fantastic in different ways.

We decided to spend our first two nights in Coogee Beach, where Tom had stayed when he first landed in Australia in 1999. As we were there on the eve of my birthday it was a great decision.

We found an ideal dinner spot next door to where we were staying: the Coogee Beach Pavilion, with giant games and a great vibe. I enjoyed the perfect morning run from Coogee to Bondi and back on my birthday morning, rounding it off by a takeaway breakfast from Morning Glory café.

The graffiti wall at Bondi was initiated as a memorial to those lives lost during the Bali bombings of 2002 and has some startling images.

We had a great final morning in Coogee when I managed to get my hair cut at ‘Salt’, Tom and the girls enjoyed the beach (although it had got a bit chilly) and we all sampled some Vietnamese spring rolls.

For my birthday itself I had requested we went on a guided tour of the Sydney Opera House, a building and programme I had always immensely admired. It was wonderful to experience it in person and learn about the troubled history of its construction and variety of programming. We were very lucky to get a sneak peek and listen to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in rehearsal.

We went on to the Cornelia Parker retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), again an artist whose practice I have always been interested in, with both familiar older works and more recent responses to the General Election and war memorials.

The afternoon and evening were made all the more special by meeting up with former Admirable Crichton chefs Andrew and Jade and their son Oliver. First strolling Circular Quay for ice cream at Gelato Messina, we took a ferry across to Darling Harbour, the kids stripping off in the fountains and all of us enjoying dinner and drinks at Fratelli Fresh. Jade even surprised me with a delicious gluten-free cake.

On leaving Coogee we passed through Leichardt where Tom had spent four months sharing a flat with numerous backpackers. Amazingly the first-floor flat was still there.

Our next port of call was Springwood in the Blue Mountains, to stay with friends Rupert, Katherine and their son Edward. It was terrific to catch up with them and for the kids to meet.

We had spent a few days in the Blue Mountains back in 2012 so didn’t feel we needed to visit the tourist spots. I had a slightly scary bush run around the Birdwood Gully reserve where the paths seemed to disappear at times!

We had a fun morning at an artisan’s market in the grounds of the Norman Lindsay Gallery, enjoying some hula hooping and juggling fun, listening to a very talented young singer/guitar player as well as sampling excellent hot dogs and corn fritters. An explore of the gallery and museum later amused us, remembering that Norman Lindsay gained fame through the film Sirens – his artworks pretty scandalous and mainly of nudes.

After settling the kids down to a dose of afternoon movie time, Tom and I took the train back to the city. We stayed a night in Surrey Hills to go to the U2 concert, an extra birthday treat. And wow did we have a good time.

We had some tapas at Trinity Bar on route to the concert and after drinks at Bar Cleveland. The concert was incredible – support act by Noel Gallagher and the entire Joshua Tree set by U2. The animations and backing visuals were stunning with lots of thought-provoking images set to some of U2’s most classic hits. As you would expect there were some strong politically minded statements especially regarding women’s rights and US foreign policy.

There was a point when we thought we might be watching it alone as we couldn’t find one another but eventually we were reunited!

The morning after warranted a fancy adulty brunch at 3 Williams, where I sampled a ‘Dirty Sunrise’ – cold batch coffee over fresh orange juice on ice. A rather good double hit of caffeine and vitamin C. Back in Springwood the kids enjoyed a swim in the pool and making a gingerbread train.

So Sydney had been a mad few days of friends, incredibly generous babysitting, date night extraordinaire, art, opera, boats, bush and birthdays. Phew.

Port Macquarie goes down as probably our top Airbnb experience of the trip. This was due to the combined friendliness of the hosts and the vast array of girl/age appropriate toys available to play with, including a trampoline in the garden. Smoke in the air was very noticeable however, the fires were not far away. We drove along roads that had recently seen fire activity and later heard of more occurring on our route.

We did manage a bit of time on the beach, spurred on by our Airbnb hosts Ben and Laura leaving out boogie boards for the girls – Joanna even enjoyed it for a while.

A visit to the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital was an eye-opening experience and the best way to learn about these incredibly vulnerable creatures. I am sure we caught the place just before their busiest ever time, as the bush fires got stronger and stronger and helpless Koala’s became a major victim.

As we arrived a woman rushed in with a Koala under her arms, she had found it on the side of the road after suffering bad burns. We learnt that a Koala’s name in the centre was made up of the location it was found and the name of the person who rescued it. This was Barrington Xavier.

The first ever and only hospital for Koala’s in the world, since opening in 1973 it has grown due to the help of countless volunteers and donations. We went on a tour at 3pm, meeting several of their longer stay Koala’s and learning a lot about their eating, feeding and characteristics.

We also enjoyed spotting sculptures which are part of the ‘hello koala’ initiative, dotted across the neighbouring park and town.

Upon a recommendation of our friends we met in Airlie Beach we had a dinner in Burger Rebellion, very surprised that owner Matt had worked at the Admirable Crichton with Tom and I back in 2004-5. As his wife was a celiac, we all managed to enjoy quite possibly our best burgers of all time in his small casual restaurant and took home a hot sauce to try (still our go-to pizza topping in 2022!).

Lunch the next day was also courtesy of a chef friend, Sergei who had worked at Royal Meridien and had been a paddler in Marina Monsters, now heading up ‘Oysters on the Bay’ in Nelson Bay.

After a delicious meal of oysters and roasted snapper we had the energy to climb nearby Tomaree Mountain. It was a bit of a spontaneous long walk, done in flip flops with no water, but we survived and it was worth it for the spectacular views of the entire peninsula.

After that, it was time to hit Sydney in time for sunset!

It was time to continue our journey south, this time in a hire car (from Juicy Lucy) rather than a camper van. Both had their pros and cons. Realising we really couldn’t transport much food (we learnt that the hard way with some melted butter) you end up eating out more in a car but it’s a lot easier to find a parking space.

We only gave Gold Coast a day, meeting up with another one of Molly’s friends from Horizon English School who had moved back home.

The girls loved seeing Jennayah and her younger sister Nikisha again, we found a play area and picnic spot despite a busy Saturday at Burleigh Heads with national surf ski competitions to watch.

That night we stayed at Palm Beach, a great expanse of sand. We enjoyed listening to Brett Gannon on the guitar all evening in the restaurant downstairs from our motel – he seemed to be able to play any request and even tempted the girls away from the play area to dance!

Byron Bay is a spot we knew we wanted to visit, but quite sensibly decided not to stay given its trendy (i.e. expensive) status. We had a great lunch at Three Blue Ducks at The Farm on route, with onsite horses, chickens and macadamia and pecan nuts in the orchard that you could collect, crack open and enjoy.

In the afternoon we drove on up to the lighthouse lookout for an ice cream and amazing windy views of ten-mile beach.

After photographing the giant prawn at Ballina, we drove on to Iluka, straight to Bluff Beach where we spotted dolphins and at least one shark from the beach.

To keep up our ‘run everywhere we sleep’ mission, I jumped straight out for a run before we had even checked in to our motel, exploring the headland and rainforest (which a few days later would be cut off completely due to a bush fire).

A short walk along the river took us to Sedgers Reef Hotel for a hearty meal of seafood and burgers, rounded off by a blast of hail on the way back to our motel.

We spent a few hours the next day at Coffs Harbour, picking up some picnic bits – Tom finding probably his best pie in Australia – and sharing crumbs with the birds on park beach. Little did we realise our love for Australian beaches would soon be coming to an end as temperatures were dropping the further south we drove.

Brisbane was quite possibly our favourite city in Australia. We were lucky with the weather, not breezy in fact – with beautiful sunny days (I hear they have a lot of them) and our accommodation – a truly enormous apartment with a balcony well situated in the West End part of town.

It was so nice in fact we decided to host dragon boating friend Amy for dinner (with leftover steak from Mort & Co!). She kindly brought us very tasty red wine from 19 Crimes with interactive labels which you could click via an app and hear about convicts’ personal stories, now one of our favourite wines from Australia.

From what we could see, the city had the right balance of edgy and straight. We could walk one way from our apartment down Boundary Street to see great street art and hippie cafes and bookshops ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, the other had more business orientated high rise buildings. Down Fish Lane we found more street art and some hip bars and restaurants, leading to the river and museums.

GoMA (Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art) was so great we actually went twice, and I returned a third time at night to experience James Turrell’s ‘Night Life’ – a subtlety shifting light piece on the building’s façade. Sadly of course all those photos are lost (on my phone that fell into the Picton marina in New Zealand) so you will have to make do with some of Tom’s pictures of graffiti / cool street art instead.

The girls enjoyed designing some paper jewellery in the Island Fashion kids zone and we all appreciated the curated thematic contemporary displays including standout pieces by Daniel Crooks, Martin Creed and others.

We also visited neighbouring Queensland Museum of Art, glad to find Dale Harding’s wall piece, and encouraging the girls to sketch what they see.

With the sun out we couldn’t stay indoors for long, so had a picnic lunch by the river, followed by some playground time (and as usual a nap for Tom and a coffee for me!) and a swim at the South Bank beach and series of outdoor swimming pools. You could easily forget you were in the middle of a major metropolis.

From there it was easy to jump on the City Cat ferry down the river, getting out first at New Farm to look around the Brisbane Powerhouse arts space and then to Hamilton to visit the Eat Streets Market for dinner.

The river banks on both sides are stunning – I had been on an incredible run that morning over Story Bridge, round Kangaroo Point and Cliffs Park and back over Goodwill Bridge through the Botanical Gardens.

We saw the sunset listening to live music and eating delicious street food, thinking this city gets things right.