Cruising in Cambodia and Vietnam

Another cousin has also just taken off for a cruise - Nal and Ross flew out of Sydney to Siem Reap Angkor in Cambodia to start a tour, which includes a 7 night cruise on the machine below down the mighty Mekong River, they are there now and board this Indochina Pandaw vessel tomorrow.

They cruise to Kampong Chnang, Phnom Penh into Vietnam and disembark in Saigon, they then spend 3 days in Danang/Hoi An, and then home - 17 days away.

You know this guy above reminds me of what Ross will be doing and looking like over the next couple of weeks when on land!!!! A few stories to be told on their return me thinks. The decision was made only a few weeks ago, they saw a good deal advertised and went with it.

The Big Grey

A couple of weeks ago on Immy's birthday, the kids went for a morning ride on a rather large grey mare.

The "Birthday" girl

Ethan is looking quite confident,

we took him to the same place for a ride last time we were there.

And the little man also climbed up very high for a ride on this big Grey.

A pleasant day - yesterday

We started off the morning early with a cuppa and a very long phone call from the Brig's sister and brother in law in Sheffield - catching up on all kinds of things. Then we did some motoring around, over to Gail and Steve's and then onto Auntie Beryl's for a long chat there. Then as the sun was shining the lawn was mowed, looks so much tidier, then early evening, a little voice from Auckland called, Ethan can really carry on with a great conversation now, and after that Bren called, and we spent about another great hour on the phone. Just a pleasant day with barbequed moroccan chicken with mango and mint for lunch.

******

Today Auntie (86) and her 3 kids, Gail, Wayne and Ash, and their better halves, Sue, Ann and Steve fly out to Hong Kong this evening to start the wonderful trip she has "shouted" them. It start's with 2 days in Hong Kong at a lovely hotel, then they board their Cruise Ship, Azamara Quest (photo below) for a 14 day cruise to Singapore.

The route below - They have loads of plans for their time in Vietnam and Bangkok.

And after cruising into Singapore, they will spend another 3 days there, visiting the night zoo, and the girls have already booked "High Tea" at Raffles. It is Sue's birthday while they are away, and Wayne has just had his 65th, so they will be celebrating these while at sea - cabins are also rather nice with balcony and the like. We will miss them while they are away.

A delightful breakfast at Broadbeach

This morning another early rise, and again the sun was shining on the Gold Coast. We drove over to Broadbeach to meet up with Ails and Rod at the Koi Cafe, and had a delightful breakfast along with a good couple of hours of natter, a lovely start to the day. We had some business to do at the Pacific Fair Mall, however arrived just before a movie that Frank has been wanting to see commenced at P.C's Cinema, so sent the Brig off to the Cinema, and I completed the things that needed to be done, and then enjoyed a quiet wander around the many shops at the mall till the movie was finished. Frank had read John Le Carre's book and enjoyed it a lot, I had not - and really didn't care to see the movie, so we both did what we wanted this morning.

Frank loved the movie, but he said there were some that did not catch the whole theme of the story, guess your concentration level had to be extremely high, he said reading the book prior was near necessary, or maybe some knowledge of the KGB and MI6 during the Cold War, would've been handy as well. Anyway it definitely was not for me, BUT the Brig really enjoyed it.

Long weekend at Whananaki

Last weekend was a long one in New Zealand, and the Kiwi crew drove 3 hours north from Auckland to camp at Whanakaki beach in the northland - not far south of the Bay of Islands.

Whananaki Beach

The campground sat above the beach - how nice is that

View of the beach from their campsite

A pair of young snorkellers

The big "snorkeller"

Looks like they had the beach to themselves

and Ethan heads for a board ride.

A really great long weekend

The Sun does shine

Ah, on Tuesday morning the sky was blue and there was some sun up there, we grabbed the chance to take an early morning walk before organising some things to do "out of the house". We spent some time up in Southport catching up on some odds and ends and on the way home we were feeling a tad hungry, so decided to call into a local restaurant up the road to try out their Yum Cha. It is literally within walking distance from home. We had heard good reports, so decided to give it a "taste". First observation at 12 noon was that the tables were packed with Asians - very good sign. The wait staff were so courteous and the Yum Cha dishes came out very hot direct from the kitchen, they also whisked away the dirty dishes very quickly, and continually refilled the tea pot and water. It was an excellent Yum Cha at Dim Sum Delights.

This restaurant is tucked away from the busy coastal precincts in a small, but most unattractive "bitty" shopping complex - a little bit of something here and a little bit of something there - absolutely no flow to it what so ever, however it has some outstanding little restaurants - including a wonderful french cafe - La Porte Verte, a great Thai al fresco, a Tavern, a couple of italian and so it goes on.

We were so pleased with this Yum Cha we mentioned it to one of our neighbours, and low and behold he told us it was owned and run by the chinese couple we bought this house from - they opened the Dim Sum Delights just one year ago - small small world again!