Aussie Rules

We currently find ourselves in Australia - NZ's wealthy cousin just across the ditch.

We arrived via two flights, the first a domestic Chinese flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong and then our last long haul flight (for some time, probably) to Sydney.

In each of these airports, the proportion of Kiwis seemed to increase, from a few in Shanghai, to quite a few in Hong Kong (mostly transiting from somewhere to home, or vice versa) and finally heaps in Sydney - for obvious reasons.

The flight from Hong Kong to Sydney was all but empty, so we snagged a whole row to ourselves and in theory should have had a comfortable flight as there were two seats for Milly to lie flat on, and the flight was through the night time.

Unfortunately for us, we hadn't been particularly good with adjusting to the time zone change in Shanghai (+7 hours) and had mostly just stuck to European time - staying up until the small hours and sleeping in till past midday.

This had seemed like a good idea at the time, as we'd been able to go out in the evening with Milly and not have to worry about her bedtime, but halfway to Sydney and at about midnight China time - with a fully awake toddler, we started to wonder if we shouldn't have been a bit stricter on trying to adjust?

Milly did finally fall asleep, in my arms approximately 15 minutes before we touched down at 6am local time - oh dear.

We were collected from the airport by Claire's brother, and then made our way to his house, where we were staying for the next few days. It was only about 7:30am and Claire, Milly and I were all suffering due to having no sleep for over 24 hours.

We decided that rather than sleep (which we desperately wanted to), we would all stay up as long as possible in an attempt to beat the jet lag and acclimatise to local time as soon as possible.

For Claire and I it wasn't really a problem, but poor little Milly didn't understand why Mummy and Daddy wouldn't let her have a proper sleep? We let her have a couple of naps - but kept waking her after a few hours to ensure she'd have a proper sleep in the evening.

I'm not sure what poor Steve and Elaine (Claire's brother and sister-in-law) thought of us that first day, a couple of zombies and their weepy daughter - but the trick seemed to work and after a good 14 hour sleep all three of us felt refreshed and ready for to get out and make the most of our time in Sydney.

Steve and Elaine have a daughter called Zara, who is about three months younger than Milly - which meant a couple of things; the house was filled with toys - Milly couldn't believe her luck; and our desocialised daughter was forced to spend time with someone her own age - shock horror!

As it turned out, Milly and Zara got on famously - having sized each other for a couple of hours they started to play with each other, shared snacks and read stories together - all very cute and reassuring to see that Milly could actually spend time with other children - phew.

Whilst in Sydney, we took the girls to Taronga zoo - which you reach by ferry from Circular Quay. The zoo itself is situated on a hill, so you catch a cable car to the top of the hill, and then walk down it checking out the animals whilst you descend.

The girls had a great time, running around and squealing in delight at the animals - highlights of the visit included elephants kicking about a ball, and being splashed at the seal show - all in all an excellent zoo which I would highly recommend if you're ever in Sydney.

That night I went out to meet an old friend from London at a pub in Newtown to watch the AFL (Aussie rules football) final between the Swans, a local team and Hawthorne - a team from Melbourne.

I'd never watched any AFL before, but had a quick run through of the rules and then we were away. It's quite a frentic game, where it seems fortunes can change quite quickly, for example your team can be attacking and then 5 second later concede a goal. I found it all quite confusing, which only got worse as the beer intake increased.

Also on the screens at the pub was the All Blacks V Japan in the rugby union world cup - we hadn't seen much evidence of the world cup being on whilst in Sydney, but as was explained to me - union is probably the 4th sport in Australia, after AFL, league and cricket.

Unfortunately the Swans lost the final, it wasn't really a final anyway - it was a quarter final, but the Australians have bucked tradition and call the games between the last 8 the final, the last 4, the super final, and the last two the extreme ultimate final - or something like that. The more time we spend in Australia the more I see evidence of the locals doing or calling things differently to the rest of the world - not for any particular reason, just to be different it seems.

After a couple of days, it was time to say goodbye to friends and family in Sydney (apologies to all those we didn't get a chance to catch up with, it was a flying visit - next time!) it was back on a plane for a three hour flight to Cairns, where my Dad and Step-mum live.

Cairns is an interesting city, it's technically in the tropics, so doesn't have the traditional 4 seasons and instead has two, the wet and dry seasons. We've arrived at the end of the dry (cooler) season, and the temperature here has been a lovely balmy 30 degrees - would hate to be here if it was any hoter!

Milly has had a great time hanging out with her Grandad, who is just a big kid at heart and has no problems throwing himself on the ground, or making silly faces, or singing silly songs to get her attention - a match made in heaven it seems, it's been nice to see them get to know each other a bit more.

Whilst in Cairns we've been all action, we've been here before but as it is quite a touristy city - we hadn't even scratched the surface of what the city and surrounding area have to offer.

On our first day, we headed up into the tablelands and a safari park, where we had breakfast with the lions - an area where you can have a full english in a cage surrounded by dozing lions - who they then feed in an attempt to make them do something other than sleep - a tactic that worked.

Milly loved being up close to the Lions, pointing and squealing with delight - much better than reading about them i books, mummy and daddy!

The next day we took a drive down to Innisfail and Tully - the areas hardest hit by tropical cyclone Yasi earlier in the year. Despite the cyclone being eight months ago, there were still numerous buildings without roofs, or with obvious damage from the cyclone. There was also lots of businesses for sale - with people having had enough. All very sobering, especially considering we're now about to enter the next cyclone season, and as the locals say - it's not if, it's when…

The following weekend, we took a trip up to Cooktown, a town situated where Captain James Cook beached the Endeavour in 1770 and stayed for two months as they repaired the hull, which had been damaged whilst coming in over the reef.

The road to Cooktown was an adventure itself, it wasn't sealed and we had to ford three rivers - proper crocodile dundee stuff.

Cooktown itself was a fascinating place, very quiet with a couple of hotels and pubs and a single supermarket.

There was also a small museum, where you could learn about Captain Cook's visit, as well as learn a bit about the history of the town - which had been a gold town in the 1800's and had once had a population of 18,000 - before the gold dried up and the people moved away.

Another interesting fact was that a good portion of the 18,000 inhabitants were Chinese, with boats arriving from Hong Kong each week - whilst immigrants from that part of the world seem the norm to both NZ and Australia these days, I'd never really considered that it had been going on in great volumes as early as this - as I say, very interesting.

Having returned back to Cairns, we studied the weather, and then having selected a suitable day - we booked ourselves onto a boat trip out to the great barrier reef. We're told that the main weather factor that will effect your trip is wind, and that a lot of wind will limit visibility underwater.

It seemed we were in luck, and the day that we ended up going out there was very low wind. Having left Milly to be looked after by Grandad (our first day apart from her in four months!), we jumped on our boat and made the two-hour trip out to the outer reef.

On arrival at the reef, we disembarked onto the floating pontoon that the company that we travelled with have permanently parked just off one of the reefs.

Claire and I were pretty quick off the mark, quickly getting our snorkels, masks and fins - and were first into the water.

Snorkelling took a little bit of getting used to, it felt really unnatural to breath whilst having your head in the water, but after about 5 minutes - I got used to it.

We spent about 45 minutes snorkelling around the reef the first time, which was absolutely amazing - the pontoon was moored at approximately 10 meters depth, with lots of larger fish swimming around underneath - possibly taking cover from the sun?

About 20 meters swim from the pontoon, you arrived at the reef proper, with all sorts of hard and soft coral and literally thousands of tropical fish swimming around. The colours were amazing, luminous greens, bright yellows, and deep blues. The depth of the coral changed as you swam over it - from 50cm at parts, then descending down to 5 or 10 meters depth only a few meters away - forming large underwater caverns and trenches to explore.

In all we spent 3 hours on the reef, went for 2 snorkels and one semi-submersible boat ride, had lunch and a couple of cold australian beers on the sun deck, before jumping back on the boat and heading back to Cairns to meet up with Grandad and Milly - who had also had a lovely day, no tears or grumbles to report - which was good news.

The trip to the reef wasn't cheap, but it we felt it was definitely money well spent - as we were snorkelling around we looked enviously at the people scuba diving below us - and we both agreed that next time we'd have to have a go at that as well.

So, that about brings you up to date on our travels, tomorrow we jump on a plane destined from Auckland and the end of our long summer holiday. Back to the real world of trying to find work and buying a house.

On that note, I have a couple of interviews lined up for next week, but I suspect my high salary expectation might become something of a stumbling block to getting into work - you've got to try and not undersell yourself though, right?

Trip in numbers:

Days since I last did a days work: 116

Money left over in our summer holiday travel fund: £80 - great budgeting there then!

Hasta Luego, Europe

Now then, first off - apologies for the length of time between updates - I've been too busy enjoying myself to post - sorry! ;-)

Since last blogging, we've spent time exploring our surroundings in Galacia; the towns of Vigo and Pontevedra; as well as looking up and down the Rias - a Spanish word which describes something like what I would call a fjord - large cuts into the coastline of north east Spain - which the area is famous for.

Another thing that the area is famous for is seafood - something which I enjoyed immensely - being a pescatarian (someone who eats fish, but not meat) - I sometime struggle in restaurants around Europe - but not here. The food highlight for me was a festival of the sea in Combarro - where I feasted on razor clams, mussels, and octopus - all washed down with a glass of abarino - the local white wine which was very good.

Having said goodbye to our little cottage in Soutemayer - we made our way up to A Coruna where we had lunch with friends, who then showed us around the city - culminating in a walk up to a 2000 year old roman light house.

After A Coruna we spent a night in Bilbao and then Bordeaux - both of which I would highly recommend for a visit - the first because of the Guggenheim museum, a Frank Gerry building which is worth seeing from the outside even if you don't bother going in (I didn't, Claire did) and the second because it's a beautiful old French city with all the charms of Paris without the millions of tourists.

Next stop was Disneyland - where we'd booked a table at a restaurant that specialised in character meet and greets - so Milly could spend some time with her best mate Mickey.

Before dinner, we spent about 6 hours in the Park, originally I wasn't sure if we'd be able to fill the time - but it wasn't a problem, there were plenty of rides that Milly could go on, and she seemed to eventually like them - even if she was a bit cautious to begin with.

At dinner, it's fair to say that Milly wasn't overjoyed to see her TV heroes close up - she refused to hug any of the characters, but did just about touch Donalds hand when he offered it to her. It was a different story when they were off interacting with the other children though - she'd watch them excitedly from the other side of the room - and as a result ate next to nothing of her €18(!!!) set menu.

The next day we packed up our car one last time and jumped on a ferry back to Blighty - it was a journey of mixed emotions, as the last time we'd been on a calais to dover crossing was about three weeks after we arrived in the UK the first time - so lots of memories of then came rushing back into our minds.

Once back in England we set about selling our car, which we did with not too much hassle, selling to a Romanian couple - which is a bit of a coincidence as one of the people we sold our house to was Romanian also.

The next few days were spent meeting up with and saying goodbye to our friends - and whilst it was nice to be back in London (which still feels like home), it was quite sad to be saying our goodbyes - as this time it felt pretty real.

Next thing you know, we were headed to Heathrow and jumping on a plane to Shanghai - where we are now.

Despite all our fretting, the flight was relatively uneventful. The flight was full, but we managed to nab a spare seat which meant that we took turns watching movies whilst the other one sat with Milly whilst she watched TV/coloured in/slept.

We've been in Shanghai for two days and we're really enjoying our time here. The locals are treating Milly like she's some sort of rock star - pointing and occasionally coming up and asking to take pictures - it must be the blue eyes and blond hair.

The town itself is quite interesting, situated on a river it has a past history of being an important trading outpost with the west. Because of this the architecture on one bank of the river is reminiscent of some of the grand old buildings in Europe, whilst the other side is more recent - almost futuristic - with it's multitude of neon skyscrapers, ten lane roads, and elevated walkways for the literally tens of thousands of people who seem to be coming and going (see above).

Trip in numbers:

Total miles driven: 8,506.9 (or 13,611.04 km)Length of Beard: 1mm - I shaved it pretty promptly upon arrival back in the UK - but not before Milly and I recreated the photo on the Ferry from three months ago, which you may have seen previously in this blog:

Spain's Best Kept Secret

Since my last blog post, we've left France and continued our journey through Spain to the region of Galicia - where we've been for the last week.

Highlights of that journey included the walled city of Carcassonne, which Milly took great delight in walking around and shouting "Castle!" whilst pointing at anything that looked vaguely stone wall or turret-like.

We also enjoyed our time in San Sebastian - one of Spain's trendy holiday spots on it's north coast, and a bit of a foodie paradise as it's best known for it pintxos bars - similar to the tapas bars your find around the rest of Spain (and the world) - I'll leave the detailed description of them to Claire.

Having left the castles and exotic bar snacks behind us we then travelled inland towards out final long term destination.

As we travelled we started to notice the odd person walking along the roadside. Curious as to why they might be doing this, we consulted our trusty lonely planet to find that we were driving the route of the Camino de Santiago - a 40 day(!) pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela - where the apostle James (look him up) is said to be buried.

Can't say that I'm particularly interested on walking anywhere that is going to take 40 days, but fair play to the literally 100's of people we've seen walking the roads - some in small groups, but many by themselves - I suppose a pilgram has to do what a pilgram has to do?

Nearing the end of our third long drive, we were fast approaching our final long term stop destination. With each stop, we've tried to make sure that they've all been a little different - the first was a beach holiday, the second a city break, and now the third - an old stone cottage in the countryside about 20 minutes from the nearest major city.

On arrival, about 30 minutes later than planned (stupid GPS took us to the wrong side of a river, and then suggested we swam - I hate TOMTOM!), we were greeted by the owner, who didn't speak any English - which combined with our lack of understanding of the Spanish language (I'm limited to being able to order drinks in bars) - meant that the introductions where somewhat awkward.

Once we were settled, we took the time to explore our surroundings. The cottage is on 25,000 square meters of land bordered by a river on one side.

The grounds are planted with various fruit trees, of which I think the owner said we could help ourselves to - we have been anyway - so far we've sampled apples, pears, peaches and grapes - all of which Milly loves.

The owners live down near the river, and there are swings and a trampoline near their house which we are free to use - Milly can't believe her luck being constantly near such fun things as these.

Finally, the owners have a boat and several kayaks - which they have made available for us to use - see above for photographic evidence of Milly and I out on the river.

It's funny, before arriving I was a little apprehensive about coming here for two weeks - the thought of being isolated out in a countryside cottage filled me with a little bit of dread - how was I going to fill my time? But now that we're here, I'm really enjoying the space and sense of privacy - it feels like we've got the whole place to ourselves and we're loving it.

We've now been here just under a week, and having no trouble filling our days by exploring the surrounding towns and villages.

We've been into our nearest town, Pontevedra - where there is a week long festival going on - complete with fun fair rides and side shows - it seems that every other attraction has a Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald or Pluto painted on it - so this has proven to be hours of fun for Milly - who walks around shouting "Look Daddy, Mickey!" or similar.

We've also been up to Santiago de Compostela to see what all the fuss is about - it appears that there is quite an impressive church there, which was full of Brazilians when we visited - complete with Brazil flags and drums - you would be forgiven for thinking you were at a football match, expect for all the dudes in robes at the front reading from what was presumably the Bible in Spanish?

We also met up with some friends, who took us down to a walled town called Valença in Portugal for lunch - a lovely fish stew which I'm sure Claire will describe better than I can in her blog.

We'd expected the weather to be terrible when we got here, mostly because people we know from the area had warned us that it wouldn't be good - referring to it as the "Spanish Ireland" - but so far it's been great - the first day it rained, but ever since it starts foggy in the morning but then it clears and temperatures have been around the low 30s every day.

There don't appear to be many other English (or any other nationality) tourists around, in fact we've gone days without encountering anyone else who speaks English.

This hasn't been a problem though - the locals almost seem apologetic that they don't speak our language, and we've had some people go to great lengths to accomodate our monolinguistic ways - including a shop keeper who dragged his sister down from her flat above the shop to help interpret our requests - all very humbling - mental note: must try harder to learn at least one other language.

There do seem to be a lot of local Spanish tourists though, making me wonder if Galicia isn't Spain's best kept secret? What with all the great food, good beaches, excellent weather and interesting towns - perhaps our espanyol amigos don't want us to know how good it is, so they can keep it for themselves? just a thought ;-)

Trip in numbers:

Miles since N15: 6702.5

Length of beard: 3.5cm - I've been looking at some recent pictures of myself with the beard, and I'm starting to think I suit it - perhaps I should persevere.

Beers drunk since starting this blog entry: 3 (burp!)

On the Road Again

It's now been four days since leaving Ostuni. We've made our way north, along the east coast of Italy.

We spent the nights in Chieti and Ravenna before arriving in Milan - a city I know quite well, as Disney Italy is based here, and I've been backward and forward to the Italian office a few times in my time at Disney.

Whilst driving north, it quickly became apparent that we were heading the wrong direction. The traffic heading south was three lanes bumper to bumper and often at a standstill, the great summer exodus from northern to southern Italy was well underway. As we were travelling north, we fared quite well traffic wise - with only the odd car bothering to make the journey north alongside us.

As we approached Milan, the trip odometer rolled over 5000 miles. To put that into context, that's almost half way to NZ from the UK - had we driven in a straight line we'd probably be somewhere in China about now.

The stop in Milan was very pleasant, we took the opportunity to stray into central Milan (our hotel was in the outskirts) and catch up with some of my ex-colleagues. It was lovely to see everyone and Claire and I both enjoyed having adult conversations with people other than each other.

Milly was also in good form, and took the opportunity to perform her latest party trick - which is to force her hand as far down her throat as it will go until she wretches, whilst grinning wildly. All fun and games, except this time she pushed it a little two far and a little bit of sick came back up all over Daddy - the fashionable Milanese sat around us were less than impressed - but luckily Milly seems to have learnt her lesson and hasn't tried a repeat performance.

Having said our goodbyes in Milan, we then proceeded west towards the French Riviera.

Crossing the border from Italy to France was a bittersweet moment - in our decade in the northern hemisphere, Italy is probably the country we've visited the most and it was sad to think that it's probably some time until we'll be back - we will be back though, mark my words.

That pretty much brings you up to date with our travels, we are currently in Provence in France. A cute little home in a tiny village called Pierrefeu du Var (thanks Julie!) - deep in what appears to be Rosé country - my all time favourite summertime drink (see above for the before picture, rest assured this bottle didn't last long).

We've got a couple of days here, to give Milly (and myself) a break from the driving. Filling our days hasn't been too difficult, today we took a walk through the vast wine vineyards that surround the village - as it's summer all the vines are green and heavy with ripe grapes - Milly in particular has enjoyed counting grapes as we go along... "one grape, two grapes, three grapes" and so on, you get the picture ;-)

Tomorrow we hit the road again, Carcassonne first, than across the border to Spain and San Sebastian, Leon and then our next long term stop in Galicia - where I'm told the white wine is excellent - oh dear!

Trip in numbers:

Miles since N15 5345.6

Bear Lengthy 3cm - but I think it's days are numbered

Heel of the Boot

We are now fast approaching the end of our stay here in Ostuni (pictured right). Again, we've had a lovely time - three weeks is an excellent length of stay to ensure that you really get a feel for the place that you're staying in.

Unlike Crete, Ostuni has been much more of a city break, albeit a quaint medieval city - we've had shops and services all within walking distance - so in theory have been less reliant on our car.

The town has been particularly lively, but this is because it's August and bang smack in the middle of the peak summer holiday period - meaning lots of people, wether it be in the town proper, or at any of the surrounding beaches - more on them later.

As it is peak holiday season, the central square in town has been transformed into a temporary stage - and every night bands or staged performances take place to entertain the crowds - all very interesting and not something we've witnessed in Italy before.

I suspect the reason we've not seen it before, is because we've always taken the advice of all the travel guides, and avoided travelling to Italy in August - now I'm starting to wonder if that was the best idea? Sure, it's very busy and I can only imagine the places that are more pure beach resort are heaving, but the atmosphere around town is excellent, and there is entertainment every night - it's a bit of a trade off, but it's certainly not been unbearable.

We have been making our way down to the local beach at least every other day. Milly is a proper little beach bunny now and loves to spend time playing in the sand or the shallow water.

The beach that we tend to go to the most has a car park near the road, and then a little train service that runs people backward and forward to the beach. The rides on the train are a real highlight for Milly, to the point that when she's asked if she'd like to go to the beach, she responds: "Come on mum, dad. Train!"

The weather when we first arrived was blisteringly hot, much like when we were travelling through mainland Greece - but it cooled a little the second week and now it's settled into a pleasant 30ish degrees every day.

The second week even brought a little rain, which we'd not seen for a while - we took the opportunity to go on day trips whilst the weather wasn't as nice, and have explored much of Puglia, or the "Heel of the Boot" as it's sometimes known - due to it's appearance on the map.

Our travels have taken us to Lecce, Monopoli, Albarobello, Gallipoli (not the one in Turkey) and Matera.

Milly particularly enjoyed Matera, an ancient city where the dwellings are carved into the rock along two ravines. What was it that she enjoyed you ask? Was it the awesome outlook, or the ancient history, or the good food? No, it was the thousands of steps winding their way up and down the place, which she happily stamped up and down for hours whilst mummy and daddy were looking around.

Speaking of food, the eating here as been excellent - unlike in Greece, we've predominantly eaten at home - this is because all the local cheese, bread, fish and produce stores stock all weird and wacky italian food that you'd either not find in a UK supermarket, or it would be prohibitively expensive.

The problem now is that we only have four meals remaining until we go, and we still have a list of things we'd like to make as long as your arm. We're considering inserting another meal into the day - perhaps between lunch and tea (I do like to eat lunch early, so there is a large gap) to ensure we can squeeze in another couple of dishes?

The good food is also having a somewhat adverse affect on my waistline, if we continue eating as we have been - I'm going to have to consider purchasing new trousers.... oh dear, diet in Galicia? My understanding is that the food is excellent there as well - whatever will I do!

We've been going down to the play area in the nearby park, and Milly is starting to socialise with the other children a little - but her best friends are still Mickey and Minnie. We have a couple of small Mickey and Minnie toys, and she plays with them for hours on end.

Also, this being Italy, Mickey and Minnie are everywhere - either on peoples shirts, or ballons, or on comic books in stores - you can't get away from them.

The other day, we were going out to get a gelato from the local store - we coaxed Milly out of the apartment by asking her if she'd like an ice cream - the response was pretty emphatic and moments later we were on the street walking towards the local gelateria.

As we walked along the road, Milly noticed an inflatable Mickey and Minnie in a shop window: "Look dad, Mickey and Minnie" she said.

"Oh Yeah" I said, "We'd better go get that ice cream though, ay?"

"Bye Mickey, Bye Minnie - ice cream!" she said, very cute :-)

On Saturday, we need to pack the car once more, and then we're off on our next road trip - having spent three weeks here, we're all looking forward to getting out on the road again.

Our travels will take us North through Italy to Milan, then west through the Cote d'Azur in France and then along the north coast of Spain to our next long term stop in Galicia - lots of adventures to had along the way, we can't wait.

Finally, for those that are interested in some of the places we've been visiting, or some of the food we've been eating - I suggest checking out Claire's blog and also taking a look at her flickr photostream.

Trip in numbers:

Miles since N15: 4308.2

Length of beard: 2.5cm

La Dolce Vita

Ah yes, here we are - now over half way through out stay in Ostuni, Italy - as well as half way through our European trip - and I can happily report that life is in fact good.

Since my last blog post, we've left Greece and made our way to Italy via another overnight ferry from Igoumenista to Bari.

Unlike previous overnight ferry journeys this trip wasn't as comfortable, as approximately three months ago when looking to book our ferry journeys I was tempted by an "airplane style seat" sale which meant that we'd all be transported for less than £100.

Three months ago, that sounded like a pretty good idea - but sitting on a dock at 11:30pm with a screaming toddler waiting for our boat to arrive (three overnight ferries, three delayed departures - I think I've spotted a pattern) and I was beginning to wonder if it had been a prudent purchase or not.

Once on the boat, we were lucky enough to secure two seats near the front of the cabin, which meant we could setup our travel cot and put Milly down - which sorted out our screaming toddler problem.

Unfortunately the lights on all night/blaring TV showing Greek soap operas/large Greek man snoring problems were tougher to sort out, and as such I suspect I only had about half an hour sleep between 3 and 4 in the morning - ouch.

The next morning we disembarked onto the port at Bari - the sun was shining and the Italian coffee and pastries were tasty - despite our lack of sleep life was good once again.

An hours drive later, we arrived at our next long term destination, Ostuni - an ancient walled city set at the top a hill approximately 6 miles from the coast.

Having collected the keys to our apartment, I then proceeded to lump all our bags out of the car and then collapsed - exhausted with my days efforts even though it wasn't yet midday.

Over the course of the next few days Claire, Milly and I took our time to acclimatise ourselves to our surroundings. Our apartment is right next to the communal park - which has a children's play area - much to Milly's delight.

Within a block there are some excellent local food shops - a bakery, a green grocer, a cheese shop and a fish store - all of which offer fresh, cheap, local produce and whose services we have been making the most of to ensure that we've eaten like Italian kings since we arrived.

Once we were comfortable with our immediate surroundings, I also attempted to purchase a prepaid mobile phone sim which would allow us to connect to the internet - something that we'd done in Greece and had been really useful - both for keeping in touch with friends and family and researching places we'd like to go.

Whilst the initial purchase was quite straight forward, unfortunately the actual connecting to the internet proved problematic - and without going into specific details - it eventually took seven days of daily visits to the mobile phone store and €60 before we were finally connected - like David Cameron, had I known at the start what a hassle it would have been I think I would have happily not bothered - oh well, you live and you learn?

Ostuni is a lovely city - like Crete it closes down from about 2pm till 5pm - but once it opens back up again it is extremely busy - it seems that the locals like nothing better than to go out walking the central streets after dark - to help facilitate this the main streets are blocked off to traffic, enabling you to walk around freely.

With having Milly, we haven't been able to go out later than about 9:30, but from what we've seen - it only gets busier later on - the picture above is an example of the main square at about this time - with the cathedral in the background.

Our friend Kristyn has joined us for this second week, which has been nice - it's allowed us to take turns looking after Milly whilst the others go out and do adult things - like shopping or going to a bar for a drink - tonight Kristyn has kindly offered to babysit whilst Claire and I go out for dinner - just the two of us - a rare treat indeed.

With just over a week remaining in Ostuni, it's sad to think that our time here will soon come to an end - I know that the swift passage of time has been a recurring theme in my posts - but it really doesn't feel like 7 weeks since we left our lives in London.

Despite the fact that it's all going a bit too quickly for my liking, we are having an amazing time - and as the Italians would say... la dolce vita - life is good.

Trip in numbers:

Miles since N15: 3751.6

Beard Length: 2cm - although I did trim the moustache and daggy bits this morning, turns out that having a beard isn't nearly as much fun as I thought? Let's just say gelato and moustaches don't really mix - although I am determined to preserver with it....

Glasses broken since leaving London: 10+ - for whatever reason no glass seems to be safe since departing London for Europe - it's not that Milly is particularly responsible for all breakages either - both Claire and I have contributed - hopefully breaking a glass isn't the same as breaking a mirror?

Goodbye Crete, Hello Ancient Greece

Since last posting we've left Crete and made our way back to mainland Greece.

We were sad to leave our little beach home at Almyrida - it's funny how quickly you can get attached to a place and I suppose also a way of life, which has been fairly relaxed for the past month or so.

We had a lovely time in Crete and would highly recommend a visit - highlights included Francois - the cafe downstairs which was extremely good value and the staff treated us like family, lovely seafood - always fresh and cooked on the grill with a squeze of lemon and herbs - yum, and finally swimming in the Sea of Crete - which was always warm unlike the Tasman sea back in NZ.

You'll be pleased to hear that Milly did eventually start to enjoy swimming in the Ocean, and was even going in unprompted and unaccompanied by the end of our visit - shame it took over 2 weeks for her to come around, she can be quite stubborn at times if she wants to be.

Having said our goodbyes, we packed all our worldly possessions (at least those that aren't on a boat making their way back to NZ at the moment) back into our car and got the overnight ferry to Athens.

Our plan for the next week was to do some of the sightseeing that we'd never gotten around to, namely all the ancient wonders that Greece has to offer - which meant that Athens was our first stop.

Our ferry arrived into Athens at 5:30am - so we went and parked the car up and made our way to the Acropolis - having done our research we'd read that it was best to go first thing in the morning or last thing at night to both miss the crowds and the searing heat of the midday sun.

When we arrived at just a little after 8 - it seemed we weren't the only one who had arrived early intent on beating the crowds - whole bus loads of "crowd beaters" appeared to be in the queue for tickets in front of us... to make matters worse, it wasn't particularly cool either - with temperatures already in the low 30s - trust us to arrive just at the start of a heatwave.

Despite the crowds and the heat, Claire Milly and I made our way up the Acropolis to marvel at the Parthenon and other assorted buildings at the top - and marvel we did, when we weren't chasing Milly around - who had decided that the roped off areas were obviously THE place to be, and would make a beeline for them whenever mummy or daddy weren't looking.

Having had a look around, we descended back to central Athens and went to Syntagma Square, where all the riots have been taking place, to watch the changing of the guards.

Again, everyone and their tour bus seemed to have gotten there before us, so we got a few sneaky pictures and departed - walking past the protest camp as we made our way back to the hotel.

The next day we wanted to go to the ancient agora - where the normal folk would have hung out back in the day rather than the posh fellers that would have been swanning around up at the Acropolis.

This time, rather than setting off early, we spent the day in the hotel making the most of the aircon before heading out in the late afternoon.

We arrived at the ancient agora at about 6pm - and this time there was barely a soul to be seen. The place didn't close for another two hours so we could walk around at our liesure taking in the sights.

Again, Milly did her best to evade her parents and get into those places that only little folk can. The staff/security people were particularly watchful of her, and there was one woman who had a lovely habit of blowing a whistle anytime Milly went near anything - charming.

Suffice to say, Claire and I didn't spend as much time as we probably would have liked - but the thought of our child doing some sort of damage to a 3000 year old temple (the one in the picture, for example) made us cut our losses and head into the old town looking for somewhere to dine.

The next day we set off in our car on our way to the site of ancient Olympia. Another thing that Milly seems to come to terms with is the long car journeys - this one was 4 hours and we didn't hear a peep out of her the entire time - result! She does spend most of her time in the back watching Mickey Mouse - which probably isn't terribly good for her, but at least she isn't screaming?

Having arrived at modern Olympia, we checked into our hotel, and walked down the road to the archaeological site. Next to the site there was a museum, with all the artifacts that have been recovered - so decided to head into there first to discover some of the history before checking out the actual site.

Again - we arrived in the afternoon - and again, the site was more or less empty - with most people having departed on their tour buses back to the cruise ships earlier in the day.

Milly again was running around causing mayhem - wanting to touch the statues and things like that - so Claire and I struck up a deal whereby we took turns looking after Milly whilst the other one looked at the Museum - which worked out well.

Whilst Claire was in the Museum, Milly and I were outside playing in the water sprinklers, and when I went into the site, Claire and Milly stopped and had an icecream at the cafe - all very civilised and very low risk for any ancient relics that just happened to be lying around.

Having looked through the museum (which was fascinating), I then made my way down to the actual site - which was stunning.

As I walked through the ruins, with the late afternoon sun setting over the hills and the sound of cicadas singing in my ears, it didn't take much imagination to envisage what the place would have been like 3 millennia ago.

Whilst none of the buildings are complete, the foundations, some of the floors, and even some of the pilars are still standing - and you really get a sense of what it would have been like all those years ago when you walk around.

Once I'd been around once, I dragged myself away - back to the cafe to pick up Milly and take her back to the hotel so Claire could take her turn to marvel at the sights.

Today we left the hotel in Olympia, and made our way to Delphi - the third ancient site that we wanted to visit - we arrived in the early afternoon again, and as we're here for two days - Claire went to the site this afternoon, and I'll go and take a look tomorrow.

The day after tomorrow, it's a five hour drive to Igoumenitsa and one last ferry to Italy.

We've had an amazing time here in Greece, and it will be sad to leave, but we look forward to our time in Italy next and all the adventures that await us there.

Trip in numbers so far:

Miles since N15: 2962.4 - although 600 of those were driving around Crete

Beard length: 15mm - a frightening amount of my whiskers are grey - not a good look, I'm contemplating shaving the lot off in an act of denial....