Category: Renovations

Renovations to the house – kitchen is up first!

Posted on

Day 2 – Alice Springs to Kings Canyon

John, Matt and myself jogged the 6km to Britz to pick up the camper vans. After a reasonably lengthy induction, we were driving our new homes for the next 2 weeks! Very easy to drive, bit rattly but there’s also no shortage of cupboards & other items that vibrate, particularly at speed.

We head to the hotel, pick up the girls and do some shopping then it’s on the open road!

Matt & Mandy were leading us out of Alice, and after our briefing that if we roll the camper vans, we’re not covered by insurance, Matt decides to take a last minute right-hand turn and tests out just how nimble the vans are. Turns out they’re pretty good!

Kings Canyon was our destination which is about half way to Uluru, but off the highway. After 5-ish hours, we made it to our accommodation which was the Kings Canyon Resort – a nice caravan park right in the gorge. We became acquainted with how to use our vans a bit more & set up for the night. Dinner was in the restaurant (which was essentially a big, open shed) where we enjoyed some rather good food and then watched Australia go down to France in the World Cup opener, 2-1.

After a lengthy day, we trudged back to our vans, climbed our ladder to get to the top bed and for new surroundings, slept pretty bloody well.

Posted on

Alice Springs to Darwin (via Uluru)

As I approach 40, I was keen to visit more of Australia. Seen plenty of the rest of the world, but I’ve never been to the heart of Australia – the Northern Territory.

So what better time than now. Friends Matt & Mandy and Biddy & John were keen so we booked our camper vans from Britz and on June 15th 2018, we flew to Alice Springs to pick them up.

Day 1 – Alice Springs

Getting to Adelaide Airport, I was very surprised (and touched) that the team had organised personalised t-shirts for the trip! A silver fox on the front with a big “40” on the back along with our traveling hashtag, #thisonetimeatvancamp. Was awesome stuff!

The flight to Alice was pretty easy and as we arrived – the uniqueness of the NT was upon us as we had to use an old-school phone to call for a taxi. Quaint and cute at the same time.

We got a taxi into our hotel at Alice (the Mercure) which was very clean and nice and then on into Alice Springs town centre. Bit of a culture shock! It’s just not like anywhere I’ve been before and super interesting. We went past the world famous Sybil’s cafe in the Woolworths group; checked out a pub for lunch and then spent the afternoon drinking at a very cool bar called Monty’s. Highly recommended for the Pimms and lemonade.

We bought some, well, a lot of booze where we had to hand over our ID to get scanned. Lots of locals are banned from buying alcohol so they check everyone’s ID. A little worried we needed to carry cartons of beer back when it was dark for a kilometre back to our hotel. John enquired with the cop who was on duty @ the bottle shop to see how we’d go (can’t say we’re locals just yet!), and said we should be fine as it was still early. And this is for all races – there’s a lot of unsavoury characters around!

Ready for our first day on the road tomorrow where we hit the road!

Posted on

USA – Day 3

After a much better sleep, we thought we’d celebrate with more time around the pool! Glen went for a jog to check out the suburb and see how people lived & took photos along the way.

In the afternoon, Soph was keen on doing a whole lot of nothing so Glen took the car out for a self-drive tour of some of Palm Springs’ best architecture. Much of it was from the 1950s & 60s including where Elvis & Priscilla Presley lived for a couple of years after they got married in the early 60s. 180 of their closest friends could stay with them if required, so as you can imagine, it’s a reasonably large house! Interestingly, it’s up for sale – asking price: as they say, if you have to ask…

For our last night in Palm Springs, we headed into town for a very nice meal followed by a walk down the Main Street which is blocked off for night markets. Plenty of trinkets on offer that local artisans hand make.

Posted on

Day 2 – Palm Springs

After a pretty interrupted sleep due to the time differences, we had a bit of a slow start to the day. But really, who cares?

Our main aim for this part of the holiday is to relax, enjoy ourselves and get primed for the sight-seeing & adventures that are to come.

As such, we started off by the pool; got some drinks delivered by our new friends (the barmen) and lazed around. At around (a late) lunch time, we decided we’d check out Palm Springs itself, so our valet brought us our Mustang, put the roof down & drove around the town finding a nice lunch spot. The constantly refilled drinks is a nice touch over here as is them filling it for you to take away with you, not to mention a doggy bag for the enormous food portions.

We checked out some of the super impressive architecture; took some photos and then back to the hotel for some much needed rest. Funnily enough, by the pool again.

Dinner seemed to come around pretty quickly so we walked up to Aces Hotel, a well known option which has their restaurant (named Kingsman) in amazing mid-century building. As we walk in; there’s a film crew with a sign on the door saying you may be filmed. Interesting!

We order our food & watch on with interest as the restaurant is filmed with a huge crew. We counted 12 or so guys and girls doing their thing. As it turns out, they recognise our talent as being a beautiful backdrop so we are asked to sign waivers; get a photo etc as we’ll be in the backdrop of the footage.

Turns out it’s for a Travel Channel show called Food Paradise. I’m sure we’ll help it be a ratings bonanza!

Posted on

USA – Day 1

Day 1 was always going to be a bit ordinary – it’s “travel day”.

We booked “cheap” flights with AirNZ and thought we’d treat ourselves to Premium Economy. It was about $1k each more; but we told ourselves it’d be worth it as we’d be driving as soon as we got off the plane; then at the other end; we’d be back at work the next day.

However we convinced ourselves, the result was very favourable – it’s a big step up from cattle class (aka economy). There’s lots of little benefits which we enjoyed; from a bottle of water waiting for you to the much nicer meals to the very good level of service. Plus the seats, which are far better & with loads more leg room and only 2 seats per column.

My major gripe – they don’t recline that much further. Whilst I had no expectation of it being a flat business-like bed; it didn’t go back that much further and even though there was some tilt; you’re still sitting pretty upright. I think I got 2hrs sleep; Soph may have got 3. But plenty of others seemed to sleep well, so maybe it’s just us.

After 4h15 from Adelaide to Auckland, an hour of waiting then the boarding of the “proper” plane – we had about 12hrs to kill on our way to LAX. The flight was without incident; as enjoyable as long-haul pretty much can be for non-sleepers, and then we had to tackle LAX’s infamous arrivals area.

Surprisingly, it was actually fairly straight forward. Perhaps we scored a lucky time slot, but we were processed & on our way within 45mins or so. We caught a shuttle bus to Alamo to pick up our hire car (a nice black Mustang convertible) and called past AT&T to get 2 SIM cards for our phones. We were then finally on the road to Palm Springs!

What was supposed to be 2hrs turned into 3.5hrs with traffic congestion & various other things. All I can say is, it would have been 4+hrs if it weren’t for the “carpool” lane which kicks in with 2 or more passengers. How 4 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic is only 1-person cars just amazed us. We took full advantage of that and finally made it to Palm Springs.

A valet met us to park our car who then showed us to our room in what can only be described as one of the most elegant; mid-century boutique hotels going around, L’Horizion. It may have taken us 25hrs of transit to get here, but it was so worth it!

We had a dip in the pool; freshened up with a drink at the poolside bar & then dined at their very impressive restaurant.

Great afternoon/evening to start what’s going to be an epic trip!