Gillian Scott Creative

Backpacking – a blessing or a curse?

Day 5 – I think… I’ve gone into holiday mode where I’m never exactly sure of the time or day of the week, let alone how long ago we left NZ.

When deciding how we were going to travel we opted to each take a backpack. The method to this madness was that it would be easier to fit the four of us into a taxi if we each had a soft bag. If we all had suitcases, or even probably if just one of us had a rigid suitcase, it might not work. It was also a chance for the older Scotts to relive the glory of their backpacking days.

This morning we decided was the time we were going to do some actual backpacking by walking to and using public transport to get from our hotel to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar to London. By 7am we each had our trusty backpacks on and gathered in the hallway outside our shoebox rooms. While I’ve been disparaging about the size of the hotel, the rooms worked well for our needs. Each room had a double bed with a single bunk over it. A toilet and a shower cubicle were the only separate spaces in the room which had a sink next to the bed, and a small desk with a TV over it (which we couldn’t get to work).

As should be the case with travel luggage, each of our chosen totes had a back story of their own. Murrays, in a charming shade of karitane yellow (an informal name for a (baby-excrement-coloured) unpleasant shade of yellow) hails from the 1980s. It’s seen more of the globe than a lot of people having been Murray’s trusty side-kick from the USA, to Europe, to Russia and more. My Macpac in a faded lilac hue was purchased in 1989 by my good friend Luanne at the same time I purchased a replica in green. The green and purple backpacks travelled together from London for 3 months through Europe in a 1969 VW Combi van called Barry during the summer of 1990. In each country, we purchased a patch which we meticulously sewed onto the detachable day pack. While I loaned my backpack out for it to never be seen again, Luanne kindly offered me her lilac sack when we were travelling on our big family trip in 2011/12. Along with Murray’s karitane yellow bag they went through Southeast Asia, the U.K. and Europe to Iceland, the USA, Canada and Fiji over 8 months carrying clothing for the four of us.

This time the kids’ clothes a bigger, as are they, so they each have their own backpacks which are beginning to accumulate their own travel history. Kennedy has a new model Macpac, which we gave her for Christmas. Purchased 33 years after her mother’s one it has the same great function and was strangely way cheaper than the $400 I spent all those years ago. It has already seen her safely on her first solo trip that she planned and organised with a group of friends earlier this year. Christmas was a time of gifting bags to our children, Christian also got a bag, a cricket gear backpack which he has repurposed for travel.

Backpacks in place we manoeuvered ourselves into the hotel lift like the Rush Hour car game, exited the hotel and were on our way. We were 200 metres down the road when I remembered that backpacking is actually shit, and it’s quite hard work when you clocked up over 22km walking the day before. Add to that having to squeeze yourself through narrow Paris subway gates hell-bent on sabotage and trying not to piss off local commuters as you take up large amounts of space on the underground and I was vowing to never do it again as we trudged for miles through Gare du Nord from the underground station to the Eurostar check-in 90 minutes before our train was due to depart.

We were lined up and funneled through the system with efficiency and with about 45 minutes to spare we had safely exited France and entered the U.K. with still not a single person asking us how long we planned to stay.

I love a good train ride so eased back in my seat as the train eased out of the station and then picked up pace as we watched the scenery whiz by at 220km per hour. To distract ourselves from any submarine chat as we plunged into the darkness of the Chunnel the kids and I played a few rounds of cards (Scum) and before long the train was pulling to a stop at Paddington Station. You’d think that now being in an English-speaking country this would be the easy part of our holiday but today proved to be a day of muck ups (I’d usually use a word starting with ‘F’, but am keeping it clean). I visited the information booth at Paddington Station thinking I was going to buy four Oyster Cards to use for our London travel however I was informed that this wasn’t possible as far out as Slough where our hotel was located. Without giving enough thought to our plans for the rest of the day we decided to buy one-way tickets from Paddington to Slough which cost about £14 each.

We shoved ourselves and our backpacks through London turnstiles and boarded an express service to Slough. You may be wondering why we chose to stay in Slough as it’s not necessarily known as a tourist hotspot, maybe, we’re about to change that. Slough has a long history dating back as far as 1086 when William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book listed some of the landowners in ‘Upton’ in this area. The first recorded mention of Slough itself was in 1196 when it was spelt ‘Slo’. It is now one of the most ethnically diverse towns in the UK where over 150 languages are spoken and it has the highest concentration of UK HQs of global companies outside London. Perhaps most famously it was the home of the brilliant comedy creation of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, The Office UK, set in a large paper company called Wernham Hogg, where ‘life is stationery’.

This fascinating backstory had nothing to do with why we chose to stay here. The cost of booking one hotel room for the four of us to cram into anywhere near central London was enough to buy a small country. We spent hours and hours pouring over AirBnB and managed to find a handful that worked but they all cancelled on us. As the time of our trip drew near we opted to book two spacious rooms in a Holiday Inn hotel out of London and balance out spending a bit more time and money on transport with hopefully enjoying being a little more rural and having a different London experience.

Part of our London plan also was that Christian was going to play a game of cricket for a club in Ickenham which is not too far from Slough. Alas, Christian broke his hand 4 days before we left so the cricket game was out the window anyway but by this stage, we were locked in.

We had some entertainment on the train ride from Paddington to Slough. Sitting in front of us was a man, perhaps in his late 20’s/early 30’s. A woman of a similar age, accompanied by an older man asked him if the seats opposite him were free, and when he indicated yes, they sat down. Their conversation (between the young man and woman, the old man never said a word) started off slow, and a bit boring. Murray commented after a few minutes that the guy was a dick and expressed his wish that he’d shut up, but the more we tuned in, the better it got. After he stopped chirping on about himself, how much rugby he’d played, his time in the military and how far he’d had to travel for a meeting that day, the young woman got a chance to speak. Turns out she was travelling with her Dad for his 70th birthday, she got picked for the trip ahead of her three brothers (favourite child) and is some kind of Argentinian pop star. She had been the opening act for Niall Horan and was a judge on an Argentinian TV talent show. She showed him her Instagram video of the Niall Horan concert, he followed her, she followed him back and we may have been witness to the start of a beautiful romance.

As we pulled into Slough station I excitedly pointed out the Holiday Inn Express, easily identifiable with the huge sign high on its side, right next to the station, ‘See how close you are to the station kids?’ They rolled their eyes as I extolled the virtues of the location and the large supermarket and town centre nearby. Weary from our early start and carrying our life on our backs we trudged toward the entry of the hotel looking forward to a rest and refresh.

On the way, I found a group of people I detest more than those who stop in entranceways to take photos or look for lost items in handbags. A lot of people have small suitcases on wheels, traditionally these have two wheels and are dragged behind, or pushed in front of their owners. The scourge on society is people with small suitcases with four wheels. These subhumans don’t pull them behind OR push in front, no they hold them out to their side, as far as their arm will reach and push them along beside them, tripling, if not quadrupling the amount of space they take up in public space. Get a backpack for fucks sake.

We were ‘greeted’ at the hotel door by a burly security guard asking us what we wanted.

Unusual I thought but I responded cheerily, ‘We have a reservation.’

‘Not here you don’t,’ he replied. ‘This hotel has been closed for years’.

Tant de marche à Paris

Travel tips. Who doesn’t love them? I’m going to chuck in the odd thing I’ve learned along the way … I’d love to hear your favourite travel tips.

Travel tip #1 – Flying – My advice is to reserve your seats early, but the day before your flight review your booking and look for sections of the plane that may be emptier than others – change seats if there is a better option. When reserving your seats spread out your group. For example, for the four of us, we reserved the window and aisle seat of a window row and the same in the row behind leaving the middle seat up for grabs. If the plane is full you might get a single stranger stuck in the middle of two of you, but if you’re lucky they’ll be left free and you’ll have some room to spread out. None of us like sitting in the middle seat so this works for us. Apologies to the lovely young men from Italy and Saudi Arabia who were sandwiched between Scott’s for 17 hours.

Day 3 was in many regards a waste of a day. With a 2.40pm flight and needing to be at the airport at 11.40am there wasn’t really enough time (or energy to be honest) to do anything in the morning other than pack, chill and try to drink through the 12 enormous bottles of water Murray had purchased the day before. A bargain 19 AED taxi ride saw us back at the very modern, sleek and functional Dubai airport, the only glitch was again the smart gates did not like my face and I needed to go through the ‘open your eyes’ debacle of our arrival. Before long we were buckled in on our 7-ish-hour flight to Paris. While we were seated within touching distance of the pilots alas we were still in the economy section, with all the luxury parts of the plane agonisingly close, but out of reach upstairs. Our seat booking strategy worked and with the kids taking a window seat each, Murray and I on an aisle each pair had a spare seat in between to spread out a bit.

While the flight was uneventful we all agreed that this flight dragged more than the 17-hour flight of the other day. We decided it was due to the fact this flight was all in broad daylight, with no darkness to put your body into a go-slow mode. Between meals, breaking my enforced two-day Dubai Dry July with a G&T, half-heartedly starting and abandoning about nine different movies, Christian and I played a heated Yahtzee challenge which saw me come out on top with a win rate of 11-5, better luck next time Champ. Great to see all my time spent rolling dice in the 80s has not gone to waste.

Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport was a 30-year backward timewarp. After disembarking the plane we walked for miles before joining a queue where there was a grand total of two immigration officers. Thankfully an actual human could tell that I looked enough like my passport to not have to take off my glasses and hold my eyes apart. Another long walk, this time on undulating travelators, and through a perspex tunnel across an atrium where we could see many other of the same tunnels cutting through the open space at random angles in a very Jetson-like formation. The tunnel spat us out at the baggage claim where we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. When finally our luggage arrived at about 9pm we tried to interpret the instructions that our transfer driver had sent by text chain that went as follows:

8.09pm ‘Hello, I’m your driver.’

8.18pm ‘You see terminal 1 is located in Ardygul. Yes, come in, it’s the elevators, when the luggage gets it, press this number three button and get off 24d, text me, I’ll be there soon.

8.29pm *Murray lets him know we are at the baggage carousel.

8.48pm ‘My name is kivo, Georgy Zhorzh. Where are you know? Did you receive your luggage?

8.53pm ‘Where are you? I’m more private, I have to wait for you like a cheese plane. I When the hour has passed I must wait no longer for you. Please tell me where are you?

At 9pm when we had our luggage, we worked out we needed to exit and go down to level 3 and walk about another mile to find door 24. All’s well that ends well, but it was a bit fraught for a while as four tired Scotts tried to follow the instructions of a Ukrainian French immigrant. Georgy Zhorzh got us safely to our dodgy, Paris fringe hotel, the Hôtel Ibis Budget Paris Porte de Montmartre in a heavy rainstorm. Check-in was smooth, the most frustrating part was tired and grumpy me having to explain to tired and grumpy Murray that the hotel has ‘Porte de Montmartre’ in its name which doesn’t mean we are staying ON Montmartre. Given the dark and rain, we couldn’t even see Montmartre, just traffic whizzing along the Peripherique.

We were soon checked into our two shoe box rooms which together cost more than our Dubai palace. This morning as the sun shines we have a lovely view across the Peripherique and past some industrial-type buildings at the back end of Sacre Coeur.

Day 4 – with another change in time zone we were all awake reasonably early so had breakfast and were out the door by 9am. Our plan today was pretty simple – walk. Even though it’s been 27 years since I trained as a tour manager and 28 years since Jude Cathcart and I spent a few days walking around Paris backwards practising to be tour managers, I still know my way around Paris better than I do Auckland.

We headed to one of the nearby metros and bought le carnet, a stack of 10 paper tickets which cost 1.90 Euro each. Although if you Google it says that these old school tickets are being phased out before now there was no sign of them not being accepted anywhere. One ticket gets you on a metro or bus journey within Paris. Tickets in hand we boarded the underground and headed to Île de la Cité. After viewing the back side of Sainte-Chapelle we ambled to the front side of Notre Dame. I’ve always loved this grand gothic building which was constructed between 1163 and 1260, its elegant flying buttresses have held the walls steady for nearly 800 years but they couldn’t protect it from a devastating fire that took hold in 2019. This was my first visit back since the blaze destroyed the wooden roof and central spire. The place is smothered in scaffolding and repairs are underway, which I can only imagine will take a very, very long time.

I couldn’t help but switch into tour manager mode and started regaling my offspring with some of my retained interesting facts, like how Charlemagne’s, whose statue we were admiring, foot gave us the current measurement of a foot, 12 inches. Kennedy said, ‘Mum, I love your enthusiasm, but please shut up.’

People used to pay good money for my insights, but now I can’t even give them away to my own family. After being humbled by my child we continued walking on the Left Bank along the side of the Seine following it all the way along until we were nearly at the Eiffel Tower. Proving that the world is indeed a small place as we were waiting at a crossing to traverse the road away from the river the family sound of a coach horn rang out. Looking up to make sure we weren’t about to be run over, who do we see but Julie Hanham waving madly from the front seat of a bus as it whizzed by.

(The backside of Saint Chapelle – I love the Art Nouveau style of the metro signs – Notre Dame – me being appreciated for my vast knowledge and experience)

We ducked and dived in a couple of blocks before passing a boulangerie that was Christian’s dream stop. He purchased a croissant and a huge macaron that he desired to eat while looking at the Eiffel Tower.

(Just a boy and a croissant enjoying a big building and other shots of the tower and offspring).

We had thought we might try to get tickets to up the giant mecano set but we couldn’t even be bothered working out how to try and get in to ask when we saw the entire area of the structure surrounded by a high glass wall. Quite different from when we used to rock up to the base of the tower in a Contiki coach and park for a few hours. Crossing the river we climbed to Place du Trocadéro for a photo back to the tower before ambling down Avenue Kléber and finding another boulangerie to stop for lunch and a desperately needed café au lait.

Fuelled by caffeine we made it to the Charles de Gaulle – Étoile, found the subway to get to the middle and joined the queue for tickets to climb to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Murray, with his problematic hips, opted out of the climb, I foolishly didn’t. Less than halfway up I was regretting my decision as the never-ending spiral staircase loomed tauntingly ahead of me. Gasping I made it to the top and it was all worth it to see the magnificent view of Paris again.

After finding Murray we headed downhill on the Champs-Élysées, sheltering for a time under a line of trees to escape a random rainfall. As we circumnavigated Place de la Concorde Kennedy spotted the logo for the Fédération Internationale de l’automobile (FIA) and as a F1 fan was drawn in. There was a hall of fame with F1 memorabilia and a chart with all the winners which both Kennedy and Christian enjoyed.

While we had planned to keep walking to Montmartre and back to our hotel we were by now all feeling a little weary. Our pace slowed as we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries until we reached the final thing we really wanted to see, the Louvre and its famous entry pyramid.

Once ticked off, after avoiding scammers and pickpockets, we headed to the nearest metro and returned to our shoe boxes for a bit of a rest.

After giving some time for the fluid to drain from our cankles we headed back to the metro. After a photo stop at the Moulin Rouge, we made our way up to Sacre Coeur before finding a restaurant to sit, watch the world go by and eat. Kennedy was the bravest ordering escargot, the rest of us stuck to the tried and true. A lovely evening for a promenade we decided to walk the half-hour (ish) back to our shoe boxes before tucking up for the night.

After covering 22.35km à pied (on foot) today, I don’t think sleep will be hard to come by. Tomorrow we are off early in the morning to catch a train to London. À bientôt.

Time for inspiration

It’s been a long time between trips to the Northern Hemisphere. With work having stalled my writing, I’m excited to be heading north for a few weeks and hoping to find the inspiration to get me going on my new standalone novel, the first part of which takes place in London and Paris, two of the cities we will be visiting.

With three of the family’s work/school and university holidays falling at the same time in the middle of 2023, it seemed a great time to book an overseas trip. This excursion, as well as hopefully providing inspiration, may be our last big holiday as a family of four as the little Scotts are nearly 21 and 18 and will be heading off on their own adventures. It’s nice we can spend some holiday time with them and that they both wanted to come, but given the chance of a free holiday, why wouldn’t they!

Travel can out the worst in people, or maybe, it just brings out the worst in me. We hadn’t even got to the departure gate for our first flight when I’d been annoyed. Why do people choose entrance to departures to gather and take sad family photos impeding the progress of every other traveller? Move your weeping selves to the side, please. Not much further along our journey, a family had stopped to look for something lost in a handbag, blocking the only pathway to the e-gates and oblivious to all other passengers including the four Scotts who were inbound and on a mission. I’d like to say it’s my fear of flying that puts me on edge at airports but maybe I’m just getting grumpier in my old age.

Before these blockages, our trip started off well. Usually, we use some kind of park-and-ride affair for Auckland Airport to have our car on hand for our return. The cost of this usually works out about the same for a couple of weeks as getting a taxi, or shuttle, to and from home. This time I suggested to Murray that we book a carpark at the airport as our last experience with the park-and-ride we usually use was a bit painful. My dutiful husband took the task on and booked parking at Auckland Airport which only worked out about $30 more expensive than the off-airport park and ride. What he didn’t realise, until we were reading the directions on the way to the airport, was that he had booked valet parking. What a treat it was on a cold, stormy July evening to rock up to the side of the International terminal, stop the car only metres from the side entrance and hand the keys over. We are now converts, it’ll be valet parking all the way from now on! Aside from the annoying people getting in our way the rest of the airport experience was smooth and by 8.30pm we were buckled into our 17-hour Emirates flight to Dubai.

The bad thing about this flight is that it’s 17 hours. The good things were pretty much everything else. The plane was big (two-story) with plenty of bathrooms. The meals were pretty good, and you could get snacks throughout the night. Leaving at 8.30pm NZ time and arriving at 5am Dubai time meant the entire 17-hour flight was spent in darkness. I wonder how flat-earthers explain that? Being dark for the entire time makes it really easy to nap as much as your body will let you without having some annoying kid on the opposite side of the plane blinding you every 30 seconds by whipping up a window shade while you’re trying to get your sleep in. I managed to fit in a couple of movies, a documentary, three episodes of a crime podcast, three visits to the bathroom, two meals and five games of Yahtzee against Christian in between naps. And while the flight didn’t ‘fly by’ it didn’t drag either and before long we were landing in Dubai just as the sun turned the sky red over the desert.

I saw a flying hack on TikTok so decided to give it a go as it seemed like a good idea for those of us with not very long legs. I took a scarf, knotted it and put it behind my tray table. I could then have my feet comfortably raised off the floor. It was also handy for storing my water bottle when my feet weren’t in it as the seat back pocket was tight.

(Always handy to know how long until prayer time – travel hack – sunrise from the tail camera).

Dubai airport could not have been easier, we didn’t get asked any questions about our intentions for our stay or have to fill in any arrival documentation whatsoever. The hardest part was getting my face to scan to match my passport at arrivals as I had to ‘open my eyes wider’. My eyes are naturally not very wide at the best of times and even less so after 17 hours on a plane. We were approached and offered a taxi as we approached the official line. 150 AED ($67 NZ) to our hotel the seemingly nice man offered. We declined and joined the official queue which moved quickly. We were soon ushered into a taxi and the 10-minute drive cost just under 40 AED (under $18 NZ). Official taxis in Dubai are a great way to get around. While the city does have buses and a metro even walking 20 minutes to or from a station is pretty hard work in the heat. Taxis though are everywhere, easy to flag down and relatively cheap. They operate via a taximeter which is government-regulated and based on the distance travelled with a small base fare. During the day the base fare is 8 AED and the KM rate is always 1.82 AED, getting stuck in traffic isn’t stressful as the meter doesn’t move if you aren’t.

(Our hotel is the two buildings in the middle joined with a sky bridge – rooftop pool – sky bridge – daytime and dusk views from our room).

We were at our hotel, the Marriot Executive Apartments Dubai Creek, by about 6.30am, a wee bit before the 3pm check-in time. Let the longest day in the world commence. We were prepared to have to store our bags and find something to do for 8 or so hours but when we were offered early check-in to our two-bedroom apartment for 250 AED (about $111 NZD) we jumped at the chance and were pleasantly surprised with our digs for the next two nights. For less than $300 NZ per night, we have two bedrooms (one king, one twin), and an open-plan kitchen/lounge that is bigger than our own at home. A toilet is located off this area then down the hall, there is a bathroom, the first bedroom and at the end the master which has more wardrobe space than all my clothes at home could fill, my 11kgs of luggage looks positively lost, and finally there’s an ensuite with a bath.

After unpacking a little and showering we were keen to keep moving so headed out for a walk. Even at 7.30am, the temperature was around 30 degrees and climbing as we meandered to the Dubai Creek checking out the traditional wooden dhow boats tied along the creek. After 40 very sweaty minutes, we arrived at the spice souk. We wandered down the darkened alleys enjoying aromas including dried rosebuds, lavender, sulphur soap and burning incense while fending off the requests from all the stallholders to venture into their small airconditioned shops.

Travelling like locals we forked out a dirham each and boarded an abra. Meaning ‘to cross’ in Arabic these small boats carry around 20 passengers on each trip across Dubai Creek. The middle section of the boat serves as a seating platform with each passenger having a water view for the 5-minute trip. Locals disembark before the boat has even come to a stop alongside the small wharf. The fact the four of us were sitting at the easiest disembarking point did not matter, they scuttled past us as we waited for the perfect moment to make the short leap from the boat to dry land. Once on the other side, we entered another souk which was lined with stalls of clothing and souvenirs. The stall holders tried to engage with us as we walked, one telling Kennedy she looked like Shakira, another calling out Jack Sparrow, we weren’t sure who that was too, the best shout of the day was the call that Christian looked like Jeffrey Dahmer, not sure why he thought that would inspire us to spend money with him. After we each made small purchases, with the temperature now charging over 35 degrees and the time only just 11am we wearily waved down a taxi, returned to the hotel and we all succumbed to a nap.

The rest of day one included a few trips to the supermarket to buy lunch and snacks, a swim, watching F1 and trying to stay awake for the rest of the day to get into the time zone.

Day 2 – Dubai

My leaden eyelids had given up at 8pm and I embraced sleep, sadly just not for long enough. At 2am I was wide awake and I spent the next 6 hours trying to get a bit more shut-eye. We opted for easing into the day and headed out just before midday, catching a taxi to the Burj Khalifa. Christian’s love for tall buildings sparked when he first laid eyes on the Petronas Twin Towers when he was six. For a good couple of years, he studied the heights of all the tall buildings in the world and collected miniatures of the ones he visited. His face lit up again today when he saw the 829.8m structure. While he and Kennedy went to the view area on the 124th floor, me and Murray waited in the food hall. Murray because he’s been up before, me because I’m terrified of heights and I’m too old to pay $80 for something that will scare the shit out of me.

(Christian (with me and Kennedy) at 6 years old in front of his first building crush – and at 18 checking out for the first time the tallest building in the world)

After the offspring had descended we spent a couple of hours wandering around Dubai Mall enjoying some of its cool features like a massive waterfall and a two-story aquarium, but mostly enjoying the airconditioning.

Mid-afternoon we took a taxi to The Walk at Jumeirah Beach Residence (JBR), billed as a ‘buzzing beachside boulevard’, it was a little underwhelming given that it’s the height of summer and apparently when everyone leaves Dubai. Can’t blame them, within 5 minutes of being out of the taxi sweat was running down my back and I was slipping about in my plastic Birkenstock knock-offs. After a bit of a wander about we hunted out air conditioning again for a drink before returning to the hotel for a refreshing swim.

(Jumeirah Beach deserted – I think I’ll change how I spell my name. I like this better)

Tomorrow we return to the airport for our onward flight to Paris. Overall I’d rate our Dubai stopover 8 camels out of 10. On the upside, it is nice to break up the journey, it’s easy, feels safe, and isn’t ‘break the bank’ expensive. The downside is the oppressive heat (although could be an upside to shedding a few kilos) and the forced start to dry July, although, that could also have its upsides.

Paris, here we come.

A Brief Tale

After 2019 and 2020 were years with plenty of time for creativity thanks to Covid, 2022 was a year of life admin. For me, this life admin included starting a new full-time job. While this was good for the bank account, it wasn’t so good for my writing. And by not so good I mean that my writing ground to a halt.

The great thing about my new job is that I don’t work during school holidays. I was very much looking forward to a long southern hemisphere summer, where I could spend many dreamy days at the beach, letting the creative side of my brain take over while I got a tan. Alas, Mother Nature had other ideas. While the break from work did provide lots of time for creativity it’s mainly been while stuck inside watching the rain fall.

Rain or shine, the break had the desired effect and my creative juices started flowing. I’ve started on a new standalone novel, which who knows, may turn into a series. I’ve mapped out another series and I’ve published a prequel novella to What Goes On Tour. If you’ve always wanted to know how Shaz and Roger ended up inside a coach locker, you need to read, A Brief Tour.

A Brief Tour is free for subscribers to my newsletter now or you can order for 0.99c from Amazon (pre-orders open now). Click HERE and you can join Shaz at the château.

‘Shaz, a lively 25-year-old, combines her passions for guiding tourists and seeking love as she journeys through Europe. After a wild night, she wakes up in a 500-year-old château with a hangover, only to discover that the man she’s been dreaming of, Roger, a handsome yet mysterious first-year tour manager, will be arriving later that day. Will Shaz’s attempts at romance win him over or will they end in failure? Join Shaz at the château to find out.’

Find out more

A kind of Kiwi New Year

Remember the days when New Year’s Eve was the most important night of the year? The days when there would be months of planning going into one night? Trying to be at the perfect party, at the perfect location, and with the perfect outfit?

Yeah, me neither. It’s been too long.

I’m the parent of a 19-year-old and a 16-year-old. My New Year largely revolves around making sure they are getting to where they are partying, and home again, safely. It is this parental duty that resulted in me and my other half making a spontaneous trip further down New Zealand’s east coast to the Coromandel Peninsula.

While our ’baby’ stayed with friends in ‘teenage party central‘ Whangamata, hubby, and I headed slightly further north óf there to the quieter town of Pauanui for a couple of nights. Pauanui sits on the mouth of the Tairua River opposite the larger town that shares the river’s name. Pauanui has a permanent population of about 1200 which swells to around 15000 over the holiday period.

We stayed with friends who own a bach in the town. A bach is a traditional Kiwi word for a holiday home, usually modest and often located near a beach. Our two-night stay consisted of walking, swimming in the surf, drinking wine, barbequing, drinking wine, playing Bananagrams (my new favourite game), drinking wine, reading, and sleeping.

On December 31st we headed back over the hills of the Coromandel Forest Park to the town of Thames situated at the southwestern end of the Coromandel Peninsula. From here hubby caught a bus home to Auckland as he had to work the following day and I checked into a campsite just outside the town for two nights.

And this dear friend is where I spent New Year’s Eve. After a dip in the river, a snacky dinner, and a couple of glasses of wine I fell asleep in front of the TV at about 9pm in the dinky caravan with a fixed awning I had rented at $85 per night. After a three-hour nap, I woke up at midnight, checked with the kids that they were both alive and well, wished them a Happy New Year, and fell back to sleep. It was the polar opposite of a wild night. The upside was I woke refreshed and ready for adventure on the first day of 2022.

After reviewing the compendium folder in the caravan I opted for a short road trip to Rapaura Watergardens. After paying the $15 entry fee I set about exploring the 64-acre private estate. After I’d reached the furthest point at a lookout over a waterfall I found a spot beside a waterlily pond and did some art. It was well worth the trip.

The remainder of my time at the campsite was spent trying to stay cool, sitting or lying in the river, while reading or resting.

On my way back to Auckland I stopped briefly at the Shortland Cemetery. Set high on a hill on the outskirts of Thames it has been in use since the late 1860s and is the final resting place of four infant siblings of my hubby’s grandmother, Helena Scott (nee Papa). Once I made the climb to the cemetery I realised it would be nigh on impossible for me to locate Flora who died in 1872 aged 11 months, Annie who died in 1878 aged 7 months, Laurence who also died in 1878 aged 9 weeks, or Rosetta who died in 1885 aged 3 months. The section they were likely to be in was both hilly and overgrown and I had on some very unsafe fake Birkenstock sandals. It was a recipe for a broken ankle or worse. Grandma Helena and another five siblings seem to all have made it to adulthood, while losing 4 out of 10 children would be horrific now I’m sure at the time it was fairly common odds.

Back to Auckland for a rest!

On a completely unrelated matter my second book, What Goes On Tour too is on sale on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk for a limited time. It’s always free to read if you belong to Kindle Unlimited.

Happy New Year!

The end of 2011 & the beginning of 2021

Two days past December 25th and I’m still full of Christmas food. While I’m fighting off this food coma I’ve cast my mind back again to 10 years ago and our very different holiday period.

27th December 2011

A Laos sandwich is a great way to start a day. Today’s was scrambled egg, tomato, and cucumber and encased in baguette heaven. After fueling our bodies we set off to see Wat Phu.

Wat Phu was built 1500 years ago to worship the goddess of love, Shiva. There are lots of phallic shapes around and also a crocodile stone where they used to make human sacrifices usually of young girls, so we sacrificed Kenny, just kidding.

Thank goodness it was only a couple of hours’ drive to our next destination as I seem to have lost the ability to remain conscious while onboard the bus. The engine starting has some kind of magic hypnotic effect and immediately I start nodding off. We arrived at the endpoint of our journey with the Stray bus, it had served us well on this trip from Thailand through the length of Laos. We farewelled it and the driver before boarding a longboat to get to Don Det. Don Det is the second largest island in an area known as the 4000 Islands and it is possibly the most chillaxed place ever. The remainder of the afternoon was spent dozing in a hammock on a balcony overlooking the river before moving to our guesthouse room to doze some more.

28th December

More hammock time this morning. As I catch up on some Internet time, Kenny is lying in a sunny spot on the balcony and the boys have gone off to kick Christian’s Takraw ball around. After a lazy breakfast, we hired two bikes ($1.50 for the day) and headed off with one child on the back of each. We cycled to the other end of Don Det crossing a bridge to enter a national park. We checked out the local Wat then the local waterfall and had a swim. Lunch followed then the race was on to get back for a cold shower and back into the hammock, the circle of the day complete.

Tomorrow we head off in the morning to Cambodia.

29th December

Today was one of those days when you’re travelling that are really no fun at all. We checked out of Mr. Mo’s guest house which aside from the cockroaches and the lumpy mattresses had been great. Under the guidance of the aforementioned Mr. Mo, we started our journey to Cambodia. All was smooth sailing to start with crossing the Mekong by longboat and getting a minivan to the border. Mr. Mo left us then and we had to look after ourselves for the first time in weeks.

The Laos/Cambodia border was so corrupt it was actually comical. First, we had to get our passports stamped to leave Laos. This cost $2USD each. Then we went to ‘quarantine’, which may be a leftover from the bird flu epidemic but has proved too profitable to get rid of (it would be fascinating to find out how they are dealing with covid!). We had health forms to fill out, had our temperature taken, and were charged $1USD each. We then walked about 500m through no man’s land to start the rort on the other side.

$23USD each for the actual Visa and then another $2USD each for the same trio of wee men issuing the visa to stamp it. Grand border buildings are being constructed on both sides but for now, business is conducted in a series of tin sheds, at the rate they get money out of you they should have the new ones finished in no time.

There were a whole bunch of travellers sitting in any shady spot they could find waiting for a bus. When the bus arrived and the locker doors opened it was like the backpacker Olympics to get to the bus first, get your luggage stored, and get inside to get a seat. This is where travelling in numbers has its advantages. Murray was able to take care of getting our two backpacks under the bus while the kids and I got on board and secured seats. This proved crucial as the number of seats was heavily outnumbered by the number of people who had paid for tickets for the 8-hour trip, which actually ended up taking 9 hours. Never fear, out came plastic stools which were put in the aisle for the unlucky folk who missed out on the padded seats. When one disillusioned soul asked, ‘Is this a sleeper bus,’ the attendant cackled and replied, ‘Yes, sure, you sleep on da floor’. Cue evil laugh. Hilarious.

What the bus lacked in seats it made up for in hideous decor and disorganization. The bus windows were lined with purple patterned curtains that gathered with tassels along the front windscreen. Entertainment was in the form of comedy shows which were played at ear-piercing volume. They may well have been hilarious for the 1 person who spoke the language. Eventually, a South African man begged the driver to turn it off.

Occasionally the bus would stop and passengers who were connecting to other destinations would be ushered off. Often they’d return a few minutes later after discovering this wasn’t where they actually wanted to be or where their connection was only to discover their seat was now taken. A foursome dropped off at the wrong spot pulled up alongside the bus a few minutes after it had left on the back of a flotilla of scooters, their suitcases wedged between them and the locals helping them.

We were fortunate that the young couple who sat in the aisle between us were both from my hometown, Tauranga. We had a nice time chatting to them and the male of the pair enjoyed playing on the iPad with the kids. We eventually arrived at Phnom Penh after 9pm tired and hungry, not at a bus station as we had expected, but at a row of tuk-tuks with which we had to haggle with to get to where we wanted to go. Our tuk-tuk driver, Mr Tommy, wants to be our driver for the day tomorrow and has promised us he’ll be waiting for us at 10am.

Friday 30th December

As promised Mr Tommy was waiting for us, not at 10am as we had agreed, but at 8.30. Full marks for promptness, keenness, and making sure we didn’t get lured in by another driver. We negotiated a fee of $15 USD for him to take us where we wanted to go for the day and our family of 5 set off. Yes, our family has expanded. We have been adopted by a French Canadian dude who is lovesick as his recent travel love has gone back to Korea.

Our first stop was at Former office S.21, the genocide museum. This used to be a school until April 1975, when it was changed to a detention, interrogation, torture, and murder facility on the order of Pol Pot, the nutcase leader of the Khmer Rouge. Only 7 people came out alive of the approximately 20,000 that were imprisoned.

It was a deeply sobering and creepy place to be and Kenny particularly was moved by the exhibits and photos.

From there we went to the Choeung Ek killing fields, one of 300 such places throughout Cambodia. We had an excellent audio tour that described in horrific detail how the Khmer Rouge murdered innocent people. Still visible today in the ground are fragments of bone and teeth and victims’ clothing rising up through the dry earth. The memorial Stupa holds hundreds of skulls many of which are visibly damaged from their death.

While I continue my Christmas food coma recovery it’s sobering to revisit this horrific time in the history of Cambodia. I long to be travelling again and be able to have the experiences that go along with it, both the good and the bad. Here’s hoping 2022 will be a year of travel!

A different kind of Christmas

As I rush around like a mad thing, worrying that I haven’t bought the right gifts, or enough gifts while spending hours trying to juggle work and traffic to buy these gifts I’ve cast my mind back 10 years and a simpler Christmas.

24th December 2011

It’s Christmas Eve. It doesn’t feel very Christmassy. Laos being a Communist and Buddhist country doesn’t do Christmas. There have been a few Christmas trees in places where more Westerner’s hang out, but off the beaten track not a pine tree or a piece of tinsel to be seen. Today we are heading to the Xe Champhone Wetlands to Ban Don Ling, Village Forrest Monkey, or Monkey Forrest Village of you put it in English order, for a home stay. After learning from a previous night spent in close quarters with our tour group, we have come prepared and have earplugs to combat the German snoring champs!

On the way to Ban Don Ling we stop to pick up some supplies. Six year old Christian had an up close encounter with a Laos lady. A group of women were pointing to him asking me, I think, if he was a boy or girl. While I was trying to work out how to communicate that he is a boy one of the women took the situation into her own hands, literally, and grabbed a shocked Christian in the groin to find out for herself!

After our lunch stop we ditched our Stray bus and took to a tuk tuk as the roads were so bad.

We made 2 other stops on the way to our night stop, one to see soft shell turtles and feed them popcorn?! They are very unattractive creatures, but don’t say that to their face as the locals believe they are spirits or something and it’s very very bad to speak ill of them. The next stop was at a 200 year old temple that was bombed during the ‘Secret War’, or as the Laos call it the ‘American War’.

The tuk tuk dropped us beside a wide river. The village we were heading to was on the other side. To get there we needed to traverse a treacherous bamboo ‘bridge’. Entertaining I’m sure for the locals to watch us ‘Falang’ (westerners) tottering over while the locals skip across with ease.

Our accommodation for the night was in a village which is home to 810 people and far too many roosters. We stayed in the Chiefs sisters house, a fascinating experience but not at all conducive for a good nights sleep.

The houses in the village are built high on stilts to stop them getting flooded in the rainy season when the river rises. The inside of the house is reached via steep, rickety stairs. There are no toilets inside the houses. There are communal toilet blocks centrally located for the village to share. What with the stairs, the lack of any lighting and the roaming roosters I took my life in my hands getting down to get to the community loo’s in the middle of the night.

25th December 2011

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanucha and Happy Hmong New Year, so many ways to celebrate today!

We started the day early, i.e. 4 (insert swear word) am when the roosters and the locals get up for the day. As expected Santa did not get a Visa to get into Laos, the cover story we’d made up for what was going to be a Christmas with very few gifts for our offspring. The German snoring champs gave our children a lovely Christmas decoration each and the trainee Tour Manager also gave them a gift. When we got back to the Stray bus after visiting a library that houses ancient Laos texts and that Kennedy and I had to wear a Laos outfit to get in to, the kids found some pressies from Murray and I. Christian’s favorite gift a Takraw ball, the sport he’s enjoyed watching in Laos. Kennedy’s, a Laos bag.

A long driving day for Christmas day, the kids constantly amaze us with how well they chill out and get through each journey, each strange meal and each toilet situation. We’ve arrived at our night stop and watched an elephant have a bath. Christmas dinner was a steak ordered from the guesthouse…

10 years on it’s nearly the Christmas of 2021. Both our children have lost all their baby teeth and had braces on their adult ones. They both now drive and I’m the now the shortest member of the family. We still hang the Christmas decorations from the German snoring champs on our tree every year and remember our Christmas in Laos with fond memories.

While gifts are great, driving yourself crazy to get them isn’t. The most important thing during the festive season isn’t a thing at all, it’s the people you’re with.

Have a safe and happy festive season whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah or Hmong New Year.

Still trippin’… down memory lane

After getting over our jet-lag in Kuala Lumpur our first, of many, overland journeys was to Penang. The day started with a taxi ride to the bus station. Mobile internet usage wasn’t as easy then as it is now so we had with us a Lonely Planet for southeast Asia. We’d read in it that you should insist that taxi drivers in Kuala Lumpur turn their meters on. We approached the first taxi in the line and requested they do this. Not only was he not keen on that idea but he yelled to every other driver leaning on their car in line while waiting for a fare that we were (and I’m assuming based on his volume and vigorous hand motions) that we were trying to rip them off. This resulted in the entire line of taxis boycotting taking us anywhere. We changed tack and switched to haggling, which is illegal according to the signs on the sides of the very taxis we were trying to employ. To keep it in perspective the 20-minute trip to the bus station cost less than $7NZ, regardless, we felt ripped off by the process! Lesson number #2 when travelling, don’t try to control what you can’t.

The 5-hour bus ride to Penang was very comfy and we were sat up top of a double-decker type bus. It was smooth motorways all the way, for nearly the entire trip the road was lined with very pretty trimmed bushes. We crossed what is supposed to be the longest road bridge in the world, over 13 km which led the bus to Penang, although not to Georgetown where our digs are, whoops!

We made it to the Old Penang Guesthouse located on Love Lane (chuckle) after finding a local bus. The guesthouse is in a beautiful old building in the heart of the Unesco heritage area. After having a couple of food fails in KL we opted for authentic Malaysian cuisine in an outdoor food hall type thing with a plethora of options, something for everyone in the family. We decided to skip the fish head curry and the claypot frog porridge and opted for a simple pork and rice number.

Alas before it could arrive, Christian (6), who had been complaining on and off of a sore tummy all day announced loudly, “I’m going to vomit.” I scooped him up and tried to run, as fast as I could while carrying a 6-year-old, to the nearest exit. We nearly made it. We got as far as a stall next to the exit where Chrisitan proved to be a man of his word into what, I hope, was a rubbish bin and not a bin holding mise-en-place for the frog porridge. We didn’t hang around to find out. While Kennedy and Murray ate I took Christian back to the guesthouse. It wasn’t until the next day we found out why his tummy was sore.

The next day…

With the wee man still not feeling the best we had a lazy start to the day after a rookie, travellers cock-up by me. On leaving the bedroom the four of us were sleeping in, to use the shared facilities, I strained my bleary eyes to read my 15-year-old swatch. I love a good Swatch watch and this one is no exception. I bought it in Switzerland years ago and it’s served me well including a jaunt through the continent of Africa in the summer of 95/96. Its face is however crowded with dials that I have no use for or idea what they do. I noted the time was 6.10 am. Excellent, I thought to myself. We’d had a couple of 4 am-ish wakeups the last couple of days as our body clocks adjusted, this was progress. When I arrived back our the room I thought I’d check emails on my iPad while the rest of the family slept. To my dismay, the time on the iPad showed 2.13 am… Fuck! Not long after the kids stirred. Determined to get them sleeping longer I sushed them for about an hour encouraging them to close their eyes and go back to sleep. During the shushing I spent time being really irritated by the sun rising so damn early in Penang. I was also irked at the bird’s tweet-tweet bloody tweeting so early and was annoyed by how long this day was going to be! After shushing and being annoyed as it was lighter in the room I rechecked my watch. It showed 7.50 am. The sodding iPad was way off due to no wifi signal or some other technical reason.

After what had now turned into a lie in we had breakfast then headed off on a public bus intending to go to Batu Ferringhi beach. When we got there it
looked like Corfu in March, not very appealing, so we stayed on the bus and went to Teluk Bahang a gorgeous fishing village and entrance to a national park. We coaxed a reluctant Christian who was still suffering from a sore tummy to walk a bit into the park. A few minutes in we came across a family fishing and 3 kids playing on some cool rope swings onto the beach.

The highlight of the trip so far was seeing the kids laughing and playing with the 3 local kids.

The beach itself had beautiful white sand but was littered with dead fish and rubbish, not inviting for a swim. Malaysia is mainly Muslim and quite conservative, even if I’d wanted to swim my nana togs would’ve been too racy. As we walked back towards the entrance of the park we stopped at the public conveniences the reason for Christian’s sore tummy was revealed. Constipation! Not something I’d thought would be an issue in Asia. If anything I was way more concerned about the opposite. Now that we had a diagnosis making sure his fluid intake was upped was top priority.

For dinner, we ventured to Little India and ordered a selection of yummy meals, which for the four of us cost 22 RM, just under $10!

The following day…

We started to settle into some kind of routine. We’d have a leisurely start to the day and make the most of the free toast for breakfast. We’d decide what we are going to do for the day and head off around 10 am. C is usually tired by mid-afternoon and so am I so we head back to our digs and play cards or he does writing or drawing and we have a rest (and drink lots of water). After M and K come back we head out to dinner around 6.30 pm. Before bed, the kids write in their diary, while we try to keep a semblance of school work up. Murray will often go off exploring while we have downtime, he is excellent at scouting the area and finding spots for us to head too.

Today’s adventure was to Penang Hill, 833m above sea level by funicular railway. The 45-minute bus ride to Penang Hill cost $2 NZ for all of us. The bus weaves through fascinating suburbs. Most streets in Penang are lined with small shops where you can buy anything from fruit to lawnmowers. Most of the drainage is with open which gives the place a certain special aroma.

The view from the top of Penang hill was spectacular looking over the straights to the Mainland. We had a nice lunch there, Christian has discovered a love of the prawn so every meal must have at least one, we wandered around then repeated the trip in reverse back to Georgetown.

As every traveller knows toilets are quite a central focus of every day. Where will I find one? What will it be like? Will there be paper or a door that locks?There are two main types of loo the world over, the squat or the sit, also called starting blocks or a throne. It will be my job on the blog to give you a ‘view of the loo’. Malaysia has a fairly high ratio of thrones which should be good news at least for K and I. What is standardly absent is paper of any description. Instead, there is a hose for cleaning yourself with. As the toilets are always soaked the squat toilet is usually a dryer option. I haven’t worked out what the next step is after the hose.

It’s hard to believe 10 years have passed since then… stay tuned for more throwback travel adventures. If you’d like to follow my fictional travel adventures What Goes On Tour – Camping is on sale during its pre-order period. You can order it HERE

10 years on

I’ve just realised that December the 1st, the launch date of my third book, What Goes On Tour Camping, is also the 10 year anniversary of the date we left New Zealand on our epic, around the world, family O.E. It’s time to take a trip down memory lane.

This time 10 years ago we were frantically finishing up our day jobs, packing up our home, trying to book hostels in far-flung corners of South East Asia, as well as easing our 9 and 6-year-old kids into what life on the road would be like. To be honest, we were making most of it up as although the grown-ups had travelled a lot, we had no idea what it would be like to travel for eight months with two small humans.

As our small humans weren’t able to carry any substantial luggage we decided that between the four of us we would take only two backpacks. This gave each of us a supermarket-sized bag space for clothes. The rest of the husband’s backpack was stuffed with sleeping bags and towels, the rest of mine with every kind of medication and first aid supply in existence. The kids each had school bags they could carry on their backs for a couple of toys, some paper and coloured pencils etc…

This arrangement also allowed the adults to have hands free to hold onto a child each while we were walking between transport and accommodation. For extra security, each child had a whistle on a lanyard that they could blow if they got lost and on the lanyard was an emergency phone number in New Zealand. It seems crazy now when mobile phones are permanently glued to everyone’s hands, but we travelled without any form of telephone. We had an iPad (1) for blogging and keeping up with emails.

Our first stop, an overnight at the Sudima Airport Hotel, Auckland.

We sent the kids to school on their final day in the country, to give us time to finish off last-minute tasks. We picked them up straight from there and got a ride to the airport where we’d booked to stay at the Sudima so we were nearby for departure the next day. There had been a market day at their primary school recently and one of our offspring had purchased a stress ball. This was a kids version of a stress ball, a balloon filled with flour. We got our first taste of how different travelling life would be with kids when after flying on a domestic flight to Christchurch we checked into our international flight to Kuala Lumpur. As we were at check-in said child was playing with the stress ball. That is until the balloon ruptured spewing white power all over themselves and the check-in counter. I was sure at that point we’d be denied entry to the flight for appearing to be smuggling anthrax or cocaine.

Thankfully we made it safely onto the plane and to our first stop, Malaysia.

I didn’t really have any expectations of KL but overall I quite enjoyed it. We landed late and it was well after midnight before we arrived, weary, at our guesthouse, Paradiso, where we were greeted in our rooms ensuite by an enormous tropical cockroach. Murray dispatched it in a very un-Buddist way with his jandal. Paradiso was located in Bukit Bintang which is a great area and very central. Our first full day was all about survival and getting through until bedtime by visiting the nearest playground and the KL Gallery.

The next day we ventured further afield to the Batu caves. The kids had their first experience of free-range monkeys much to their delight. We scaled the 200+ steps with me bringing up the rear. It was a fantastic view at the top and well worth the hike.

Getting to Batu caves, we weren’t used to being separated by our gender and in front of the Petronas Towers.

In the afternoon we taught the kids some traveller survival skills. While our B&B is totally adequate for our needs it could never be described as flash and the closest you get to a swimming pool is the breakfast area after one of the regular tropical downpours… So… Traveller lesson number one, how to walk into a flash hotel like you own the place and lounge by the pool for an hour or so. The kids mastered it in one go, quick learners, and we had a refreshing dip before returning to our budget digs.

A new book cometh

While I vowed and declared not even 12 months ago that my first book, What Goes On Tour would be my one and only, the universe had other ideas.

My main job is working for a cricket club, it’s busy in the summer, not so much in the winter. Usually, during winter I’d travel overseas for a while, this gives me something to research, plan for, look forward to, bog about, and keeps my brain busy.

Overseas travel is 50% possible at the moment from New Zealand. You can get out but it’s nearly impossible to get back in. Spots in the compulsory managed isolation system are as rare as hen’s teeth so leisure travel is still (heavy sigh) a no go. While I’m tempted to go somewhere one-way, my husband and offspring demanded that I stay put and cook for them.

So… winter stretched ahead forebodingly. To keep my brain occupied I started writing a sequel to What Goes On Tour and before long What Goes On Tour Too was completed. Or so I thought.

When I gave it to a couple of people to read and give me feedback, the common theme was that the ending should be happy, rather than the dramatic one I had created for the protagonist, Shaz.

To achieve the happy ending I wound back the books ending and finished it a chapter earlier.

Mission complete.

I had a great ending, but… I now also had what was an awesome next chapter in the lives of my main characters. There was only one thing to do! Write another book!

What Goes On Tour – Camping follows Shaz on another tour around Europe in the summer of 1996. It introduces some colourful new characters and sees Shaz in more chaotic situations while she leads a new group of tourists around Europe.

The official release date for What Goes On Tour Camping is December 1st, but it is available now for pre-order on Amazon. AND it’s on SALE for just 1.99 in most currencies.

Pre-order

Read the first chapter

What Goes On Tour Camping e-book is on sale until December 1st.

Believe it or not, book number four is also underway. This won’t be completed at the same frenetic pace. Summer is coming and I’m very much hoping covid restrictions lift soon so that cricket can get underway!

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