Monday 4 July 2016

Back home to beautiful Blighty

Well we arrived home on 5th May after leaving NZ on 2nd April, and now we have the real joy of spending 6 weeks visiting friends, family and the caravan until we get back into our Knutsford home on 17th June. Roll on that date!

It has been fabulous seeing the kids again, Rhian picked us up from the bus station in Cardiff and treated Callum and us to a lovely meal with prosecco and strawberries. A lovely homecoming.

From there we picked up my old car from Barbara's, then went to Mold, Knutsford, Edinburgh, Gatehouse, Manchester, Rugby, Cambridge, Oxford, Dorset, Bristol and Treforest, before arriving back in Knutsford to take possession of no 58.

We had glorious weather, especially at the caravan, so have fallen in love with the British springtime again. (Just as well as it has been raining a lot since then!)

Here are a few shots of our welcome back to blighty.



 
 




 









 



 
 

 

 


 
 
Home at last!
Cal and Rhian both came up to sort out!
 
 Then some very welcome Kiwi visitors - tasting Laverbread for the first time!
Malcolm has started work already - ever seen the film Kenny??
 
 So back home - it is sometimes quite sunny, and there are raspberries in the garden - awesome on porridge!

 And so we say farewell to the blog - thanks for watching.

A rest in southern Thailand?

Phew so hot out here. Arrived in the town of Krabi in Southern Thailand, which is on a river where the local taxis are long tailed canoe type boats.
 
 And some rather different tuktuks for on land!

 
 We visited the village and the resort across the river through the mangroves on a tuktuk taxi
 

 

Everything goes by long tail boat here
 
 
The Buddhist temple here was the most interesting building for sight seeing, but Krabi had a down to earth welcoming feel to it as well!
 
 


 Next we made the very big mistake of going to PhiPhi Island - Don't go is the advice we would give!! Even the cats were too hot and had to escape the crowds! (they could get in and out easily!)
 

 We did eventually find a quieter place and the scenery was pretty but just spoilt by crowds and shanty town development. We did go on a snorkelling trip around the sheer cliffs of the which was fun but the coral and fish were not spectacular.

 


We left after one night and moved on to a much quieter and prettier island called Ko Lanta.
 Malcolm trying to get away on a tuktuk taxi!

 We stayed in a lovely hotel that we had been told about by someone we met in Krabi. Narima Lodge
 Malcolm photo-bombing my cocktails at sunset photo! - great cocktails but not much sunset, it goes down very fast! (the cocktails too!)
 This is more like it!
 

We hired a moped and went exploring around the island, being very careful of other drivers etc.


Fuel came in pop bottles for 30 bhat!


 The hotel was right on the beach and Malcolm had his first ever Thai massage! I had checked it out first! We also practiced a bit of yoga! before jumping in the pool. Sweet as!


 
 Some local delicacies - black rice pudding and mango, washed down with fresh coconut smoothie - yum

We visited beaches, bars, bat caves and rubber trees 


 


 Before going on another snorkelling and island hopping day. the highlight was a visit to the Emerald Cave - you have to swim through this hole in the rock in the dark to get to the cove inside the island on the other side. All a bit scary but AWESOME at the same time!

 


 
 This is the beach inside the island!
 
 


After a lovely relaxing few days we moved back to the mainland to what turned out to be the prettiest part of the trip - Railey resort near Krabi and Phuket. We were on a slightly bigger boat for this section!
 
 The karst scenery is really dramatic in this area - just like the 007 island!
 

 
 Again MVT found us a superb hotel, with two lovely pools!



  Some of the rocks looked like melted wax!
 Fancy lunch anyone??
 We climbed the hill behind the resort t look down at both bays - very nice!
 
 
 
 
 It was a bit of a climb though!
All in all a beautiful place but after a week of relaxing by the pool we were ready for our homeward journey.

So farewell to the Far East and Down Under - for now!