Entry Archive

August ski weekend

The weather up on Mt Ruapehu was just coming to the end of a 3 week epic storm with a 2.4m base to show for it. We hoped we would get a ...

Weekend in Wairarapa

A surprise 70th Birthday weekend away for the Peck Grandparents - Granny and Poppa.

Sunny Nelson Camping

It sure was sunny...  There was a clown.  Waterslide. Berry picking.  Bumper boats.  Drive to a nearby beach.  Fancy lunches.  4 families. Hill sliding.

Turere Tramp

Olive is Five

The day has finally come. Our baby is five. She has seen a lot of ‘happy last days’ at kindy so she knew what to expect but the concept of not going back to kindy was still a ...

Camping Greytown

Three nights camping in Greytown with six families (12 adults and 12 kids), what could go wrong?! Well nothing! it was a success! the weather played ball with it only getting ...

Sunshine Brisbane

It was an early start arriving in Brisbane to visit the Turners and their new addition baby Archie! The kids did really well on the plane, Olive enjoyed the iPad and Iris ...

Childless in Queenstown

A childless weekend in Queenstown with friends, enough said.

Queen Elizabeth Park Camping

We made it camping! After delaying it a day due to rubbish weather, we had two beautiful days of sunshine. 12 adults and 11.5 children and everyone keen to make it an annual ...

Olive & Iris's Ohakune Ice Experience

We finally got around to going up to Ohakune to catch the last of the spring snow and hang with the oldies. With only two bedrooms we braved sleeping all in the same room which ...

Olive Turns Three

With the new year done and dusted and the summer months upon us, we decided to plan Olives birthday party. This year, we teamed up with Lana and Nige to create a special joint ...

Mt Maunganui Beach & Sun

It was the Turners year for Christmas so the Mt Maunganui timeshares were booked. This time there would be five cousins and eight adults with four bedrooms. A recipe for a ...

Ohakune Snow Getaway

We decided to head up to Ohakune for a long weekend - our yearly pilgrimage to the snow gods. This time it was just us and Myah who was still staying with us. It was our ...

Iris our new flower

We had gone past the due date of the 16th of June 2014, 4 days to be exact. On the evening of the 19th we had dinner and I started to have mild contractions, we popped Olive ...

Camping Kaitoke

In a flash of inspiration, both Jen, Dave and us decided we needed to get a tent for Christmas. Alan and Trish helped out, and on Christmas day, both families were now proud ...

Turner Melbourne Wedding

After 14 years or so, my brother Paul and Lauren finally decided to tie the knot! With a lovely inner city apartment booked, we left the day after boxing day for a week in ...

A Week in Wanaka

After laying low for a few months (except for Gini and Olive venturing to Melbourne), we decided it was time for another family holiday. Robin and Helen were keen on Wanaka ...

Family Fijian Resort Getaway

Back in March an email went round to see who was keen on an island getaway. We decided to put house renovations on hold for a bit and take the plunge into family resort style ...

Wine, Sun and an IronDan

That time again - holiday time! This time we decided to head up north to spend 3 nights in Havelock North with Andy, Nicky and their two little ones, Ben and Liam. Then the ...

Olive's First Birthday Bash

We've made it! Olive turned the big o-n-e on Friday the 15th so on Saturday we held a bit of a birthday bash for her. All of her family and friends were there except for ...

Christmas 2012 Holiday

After several months of spending every available spare minute in the backyard busying ourselves with one thing or another, it was about time we had a holiday. Even only to ...

Sunshine Backyard Transformation

When we first saw 78 Sunshine Ave at the open home, upon seeing the back yard, we instantly knew there was massive potential here for vast improvement. The French doors ...

7 Month old Olive gets a new room

Wow Olive is seven months old. Where did the time go? Isn't it funny how the memories of her arrival into this world have faded? I think we can thank the hormones for that ...

Sunshine and Busyness

It took a year of searching, three failed tenders and a bitterly cold winter at a cold, damp flat to finally find a house that ticked most boxes and within our budget! ...

Four Months of Olive

After the Taupo holiday we had a breakthrough with Olive's day sleeps. She started to settle and sleep for 45 mins, three times a day! There was no real uncontrolled ...

Taupo Family Holiday and a Marathon

A number of firsts. First road trip with Olive. First holiday with Olive. First marathon for Tom. First time sleeping in a big baby cot for Olive. First time changing an ...

Two Months of Olive

Has it only been two months? It feels a lot longer! We are discovering Olive's personality and that sometimes it just doesn't make sense so just accept it. Olive so far ...

Two Weeks of Olive

Two weeks ago, Olive was born. It's hard to imagine that we've only had her with us for such a short amount of time. She is definitely ruling the roost already, with our lives ...

The birth of Olive Eliza

Olive Eliza Peck was born at 2.30am on 15th February, 2012. Her due date! She may be the only one in our family to arrive to something on time. She weighed in at 3.61kg or ...

Sunny Hot Brisbane Escape

Having not been overseas for 9 months we booked a trip. We thought it was high time we visited my brother Graham and wife Lisa for a spot of sun in Brisbane for a long ...

Skiing the South

With a burning desire to get away on a holiday, but with not wanting to spend a lot of money in doing so, Jo and Shane mentioned the idea of heading down to Queenstown and ...

A Month of Lyon in Karori

After our fantastic wedding, and the after-wedding-comedown, there were two things left on the agenda for our Wellington return. Buying a house, and getting a dog! ...

Tang Wedding Part Deux!

This is a selection of photos taken by our wedding day photographer (and her assistant) Penny Towns. She did a remarkable job covering the day through her various lenses. We ...

Tang Wedding Part Un!

After two and a half years of being engaged abroad, tang has tied the knot in Wellington. This is the unofficial photo collection through the eyes of our family and ...

Down South

After travelling for over 6 months we thought it was only right to keep on going in our own country! So the Turner clan boarded the ferry with two cars with fairly plain ...

Two Christmases, 2010

After spending a number of years over in London I had longed for a family Christmas dinner of yester years. Christmases in London were great - usually either away at some ...

South America: Argentina & Santiago

After completing the three day Bolivian Salt Flats tour (which was probably my top highlight of the whole trip), we were left at a small town inside the Chilean border by the ...

South America: Bolivia

We boarded another bus, which looked a little worst for wear and no toilet to speak off which did immediately make me need to go! The water bottle went away for the rest ...

South America: Peru

After an exhausting last day in Buenos Aires, Argentina, we were looking forward to a nice relaxing, comfortable, £400, 5 hour flight to Lima, Peru. Did I mention it was £400 ...

South America: Argentina & Uruguay

After getting yet another stamp in the passport and crossing our first border, we waited for another bus to pick us up on the Argentinean side, as it would seem buses just ...

South America: Brazil

Our flight left Heathrow Terminal 5 without delay around 1pm. Four and a half movies and 12 hours later we arrived to a new unknown - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil! South America - ...

Smurfy Semaine Quatorze: Germany, Luxembourg & Belguim

Biers in Germany, Frost in Luxemburg & Hilly Belguim As we had extended our trip and our old flatties were a month behind our van tour we were able to cross paths ...

Smurfy Woche Dreizehn: Austria

Getting the Hell out of Croatia & Austria After a few false starts we were finally on our way and hopefully out of Croatia. Don't get us wrong, we loved it. Just not ...

Smurfy Tjedan Dvanaest: Coastal week of Hell, Croatia

After leaving Slovenia and heading back over the border with a few suspicious looks and searches of the smoking van we were back in Croatia! We made our way very slowly ...

Smurfy Woche Elf: Austria & Croatia

Smurfy Breakdown 2 & Tom's Austrian Birthday After the work had been done on Smurfy and he was sounding healthy again it was time to pay. We asked for the ...

Smurfy Tjedan Deset: Northern Croatia

Northern Croatia After a few hours drive north with a look a like Smurfy which was a few years younger tailing us until we both pulled up at Kamp Korana, a few ...

Smurfy Tjedan Devet: Central Dalmatia Croatia

Central Dalmatia Croatia After leaving the lovely town of Dubrovnik, we headed up the coast and had a brief stop in Bosnia, so Tom could have his Bosnian sandwich ...

Smurfy Tjedan Osam: Dubrovnik, Montenegro

Dubrovnik & Detour to Montenegro After a sleepless night aboard the Jadrolinija ferry in our separate sex cabins (no love boat here!) we arrived in Dubrovnik ...

Smurfy Settimana Sette: France, Italy

Crossing the South of France & submerging in Italy's Lakes With a large south coast of France ahead and limited time to cross it we pushed Smurfy to the limit ...

Smurfy Semana Seis: Spain

Valencia and Catalonia, Spain The next stop on our East coast of Spain whirlwind tour was to Valencia. We knew very little about Valencia except for the fact that it ...

Smurfy Semana Cinco: Spain

Central Spain With Portugal in our rear-view mirror and beautiful planes of cork trees, olive groves and orange plantations we arrive in Toledo, just south of Madrid for ...

Smurfy Semana Quatro: Portugal

Portugal We reached the border between Spain and Portugal with a recognisable border sign - an EU blue circle of stars with a large PORTUGAL in the middle. We were in ...

Smurfy Semana Tres: Spain

North Coast of Spain It felt like toll after toll, euro after euro and then the tolls became really cheap as the booth guy greeted us with an hola! We were in Spain. ...

Smurfy Semaine Deux: France

Loire Valley, Atlantic Coast and the French Basque Country Day 8 of the Smurfy trip was upon us, and our first with guests - Anna and Perry all the way from London. The ...

Smurfy Semaine Une: France

Normandy & Brittany in France We set off with London in the rear view mirror and Dover in sight for the start of our Smurfy European tour.  We lined up little ...

Leaving London Life

Just over three years ago we left everything we knew in New Zealand for an adventure of the unknown! Now we are once again leaving, London this time, for more adventures ...

The Norway Express

We had one final overseas trip left in us before we left London bound for Europe in Smurfy, our VW van. With much anticipation we were finally on our way to Gatwick flying to ...

The Walled City of Chester

On our return journey from Ireland, we decided to pop into Chester for one Smurfy night and a lunch with Uncle Peter before the drive back to London. We had heard a number of ...

Green, Raw, Untamable Land of Ire

The England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales - inside outside puppies dog tail (elastics anyone?) Journey continues... Tuesday : After a mad 2am ferry crossing from ...

Snowdon - Top of Wales

The first point of call on our first major Smurfy excursion was a fleeting visit to Wales to climb it's highest peak - Mt Snowdon. We set out from London on a hot and sunny ...

Conflicted Belfast & Northern Ireland

While Iceland's ash cloud spreading volcano was having a breather from covering Europe and causing flight troubles, we flew unaffected to Northern Ireland to see what their ...

Bonnie Scotland, aye.

We had a few days up our sleeve for the Easter holiday break so what better an idea than to tick another country off the list of "been there, done that". What we ...

Folkstone on the Sea

With our new found freedom, owning a van we took to the roads once more for round two of testing to the south east coast, near Dover. Folkstone to be exact. We managed to see ...

Skiing the Snow of Austria

As we flew into Innsbruck it felt like we were gliding around in a snow globe, everything was covered in beautiful fresh snow, just what the ski doctor ordered! And so we ...

Drayton Past, Around the Corner to Mountgrove Present

After a year in North West London in 2008, we thought it was time for a change from Kilburn. So we looked at too many flats to count or want to remember!, booked a van and ...

Delights of Turkey

After a fun-filled Christmas dinner at Paul+Laurens, our winter holiday was finally upon us. On a sleepy, hungover felt Boxing Day, a mini cab took Gini along with Marcus, Jess ...

Christmas Special 2009

2009 started with friends Jo & Shane from New Zealand traveling through London, who we then caught up with for a weekend in Paris. It never stops being wonderful and ...

Croatian Catamaran Escapade

Sailing the seas of cheese. Tom has yet to write this entry.

Deliciously Hot Cinque Terre Walk

With Andy & Nicky and Dave & Sonia travelling Europe on a shoe string, we couldn't resist putting on our mini packs once again and joined them for walk in Italy. ...

Lakes, Walks and Full Tummies

With the August bank holiday looming, we just had to take advantage of it! So we booked a lovely B&B in the lake district with Marcus & Jess for a spot of walking in ...

Busy Bees in Manchester

We finally managed to organise a time to head up north to visit Uncle Peter and Auntie Pat. Long overdue - but worth the wait. The Virgin train from Euston to Stockport went ...

My Big Fat Greek Lindos

With a sad Tom just a blur in our back windscreen we headed for Gatwick airport for a summer holiday. We joined forces with the barbers and butlers of the northern hemisphere ...

The English Wood Wedding

After two and half years of being engaged, Jo and Woody finally tied the knot, in true English style. Here are the photos from the day. G

New Zealand Celebrations

A smooth but restless flight from Tokyo via Auckland landed us back to our home of all homes, Wellington. You know you're home when people are there to meet you at the ...

Our Spring Blossom Japan

First stop when we hit Japan's shore was the sweet shop for some Wasabi peas, something to snack on while booking our accommodation for the week, clearly we were prepared! ...

Une Nuit a Paris

With Jo and Shane from the motherland over for their Europe taster we thought why not rendezvous in Paris?! When we can! Don't you just love Europe?! They took the Eurostar ...

Marrakesh Christmas Muslim Style

With snow as early as October in London, one starts to doubt there is a sun at all in England. It was just another excuse to head to another country. With family heading to ...

Christmas Special, 2008

To think that a little under 12 months ago, in late December 2007, we were here in London, packing up our travel bags for the last time and flying home to the southern ...

New York, New York

We hopped off the flight in JFK expecting people to pop out dancing and singing the musical, New York! It seems New York isn't like Scrubs. Instead we arrived late at night ...

The Old Engagement Crowned

With Tom's parents passing through the UK on their travels we thought there was no better time to have our UK engagement party! The Old Crown was recommended and booked for ...

Gaudi's Barcelona

What a surprise it was that on the morning of my 29th birthday, Gini gave me the gift of new travels! A beautifully crafted birthday card outlining a long weekend away and ...

Bruges Beer Bikes & A Ring

With the August long weekend looming, Tom booked us a trip to the land of chocolate, beer and mussels! Bruges in Belgium.  We traveled Eurostar style which now to Europe for ...

Viva Las Vegas

The second port of call on our USA excursion was to none other than Las Vegas - the city of a thousand vices. Or something like that. We were relatively vice free, however, ...

The Streets of San Francisco

By pure coincidence we touched down on US soil on no other day than the fourth of July! Independence day. What luck! It turns out they like to celebrate this day over all ...

A Taste of Tuscany

Many moons ago, when Helen and Robin first booked their European getaway, they invited us Londoners (Paul, Lauren, Gini and I) to join them for a long weekend in Tuscany. ...

Dad's Devon

With the oldies over from New Zealand we took the opportunity to take a wee trip down the coast an old tramping ground for some. With Mum off with old teacher friends we had ...

Our Fort in Fordwych

After a month on Dunsters' couch we thought it was high time we moved on out. Plus a landlord was willing to take three unemployed tenants and one super generous and ...

Easter in Penzance

After all the hard work finding a flat, job and new life and some free train tickets going spare, Lauren booked our first trip in England. So we started with the bottom and ...

Best Wellington Summer Ever!

We heard what a great summer New Zealand was having, got FOMO (fear of missing out) syndrome and popped home to have some fun in the sun. A trip to Wellington isn't complete ...

Josh & Kate's Wellie Wedding

Two weddings were more than enough of an excuse to end our travels in frozen Eastern Europe and to return home to sunny Wellington. The second of which, was the Josh Harris and ...

Crossing Tongariro

The sun was shining, the birds singing, a great day to cross Tongariro. The bus picked us up from our door step and we stepped on as tourists for the day. By the time we had ...

Trio Coast Celebrations

The plane arrived in the morning and by mid day I was loaded onto a trolley bus and off to Mt Tamborine for a wine trial. Tom had the easier route by just hanging at the ...

Christmas in Crane Singapore

We changed our flights to stay in Singapore over Christmas and indulged ourselves with a nice Hotel for a 'relaxation' holiday before heading for the chaos in Australia. We ...

Snow Flakes on Poland

Poland hadn't been on our list for this year but with Nick staying in Warsaw we took the opportunity to pay him a visit. The minute we stepped off of the train it was a least ...

Germany: Battered and Bustling Berlin

After a comfortable and relaxing six hour train ride from Prague we arrived in Berlin. An S-bahn followed by the U-bahn and we had reached our hostel. I had very few ...

Dazzling Prague, Czech Republic

After a cheap train ride from Munich and great directions from the Clown & Bard Hostel we arrived at our Hostel in Prague at night. Who did we meet at reception? No other ...

Germany: Munchkins & Beer in Munich

We had a painless train ride from Zurich to Munich but arrived thirty minutes late. tut tut Germany. Paul on the other hand had two flight delays and arrived two hours late. ...

Uber Bon Switzerland

It was obvious as soon as we crossed the border leaving Italy that things had changed. Everything seemed perfect and in place. Trains were on time to the second. Rubbish was ...

Italy: Rain in Verona, splash of Milan

Ahhh Verona. We only had a fleeting visit to the town Shakespeare used as his romantic setting for Romeo and Juliet. As we walked to our Hostel, which of course was on hill ...

Italy: Canal Maze of Venice

We stepped outside the train station into another world. A world where water is your road and boats are your transport, so unique and magical. I have to admit I was giggling ...

Italy: Spaghetti Bologna

Curious as to the origins of the famous "Spaghetti Bolognese", we took a quick stop in Bologna on our way north to Venice. Bologna, a university town was worth ...

Italy: Firenze Florence in Marble

We left wet Rome for another day and headed north for Firenze as the Italians call it - Florence (makes life interesting when we are searching for train destinations!) The ...

Italy: Roaming in Roma

After spending the past week down the south of Italy, it was a nice change to return to where it was a little more "civilised". Less rubbish, less bustle and less ...

Italy: Roughing it in Sicily

We woke to the rocking and swaying of the train carriage we were sleeping in. We could only assume that we had somehow been transported onto the train ferry and had left the ...

Italy: Rosso Pomodori Napoli

After a successful rendezvous with Nige in Roma and our first Italian caffé later we caught the next train heading straight for Naples or better known as Napoli (by the ...

France: Sun & Sea is Nice

My third visit to Nice - and without a doubt the most thorough. The first - a fly through with the family in '94 only to knock the skylight off the camper van we were driving ...

France: Arty in Arles

To break our journey to Nice we settled on Arles for some fine art culture and a slice of Roman history to taste. We arrived with a carnival in full swing at the train ...

France: Trio around Toulouse

We arrived in Toulouse with one main goal. Relaxation AKA chilled out sightseeing. After arming ourselves with the right map from the Tourist Office - which I have say are ...

France: Full Bodied Bold Bordeaux

There was a major train strike throughout France which affected our travel plans to Bordeaux. Instead of a comfy train for two & half hours it was a five hour bus trip ...

France: Medieval Sarlat

One of the main reasons for breaking our Lyon to Bordeaux journey into two was to explore a few of the castles the Limousin region had to offer. Unfortunately, what we ...

France: Fragile Limoges

We arrived in one of France's most architecturally elegant train stations on time. It happened to be the semi finals for the Rugby World Cup which New Zealand didn't happen ...

France: Lyon Part Dieu

Thanks to a client of mine back in New Zealand, we were able to kick back and relax in Lyon for four weeks. Perfect for recovering from the grape picking excursion. Our ...

France: Cold Chamonix

Memo to self: Autocar is a bus - not a different kind of train. So silly. We discovered this after purchasing our tickets that our 'train' didn't have a platform number - how ...

France: Dijon moutarde

When looking over the map of France, we spotted Dijon. Now could that be the same Dijon as in Dijon mustard? hmmm It set the cogs in motion and before we knew it we were on ...

France: Grape Picking

Bonjour! By day two of the grape picking, this was the word we despised the most. For 13 mornings at 6:50am it was that word, followed by the systematic switch of the ...

France: Lyon Partie Une

We arrived into Paris and decided to head south to Lyon (which is the third largest city in France) before grape picking. Without any currency in hand we managed to use the ...

Lazy in London

We were picked up in style by Paul in a VW in a bit of a tired blur. We were lucky enough to commandeer Trudy's room for the first few days while we slept for 12 hour ...

Tropical Thailand

What an amazing cultural experience. Our four week journey started in Bangkok - after a late night flight from Sydney, we cleared customs and managed to take a Taxi to what ...

Sunny Sydney Stopover

And so it begins... The BIG OE. It all started a bit dazed and confused on the morning of the thirtieth. We had spent the whole night before madly packing and didn't ...

Leaving Shenanigans

Leaving is always hard.  During my childhood, I've had to leave a number of places, and each time, say goodbye to good friends.  This time, however, has been the ...

Newtown - a Touch of Paradise

Newtown was everything we wanted on our flat list. A close walk to the shops, a 20-30 min walk to work, a dishwasher, huge sunny deck for summer all rolled into a warm compact ...

Taupo Relay 2007

A record breaking performance by the hardened Random B@stards! We came in the top 30 of all running teams. I would like to think that this wasn't entirely due to the fact ...

TK Day

A perfect day of sun, fantastic food, great company and not the mention the wine ... Oh the wine! Jo and Shane took us out to Martinborough for a day long session of wine ...

Abel Tasman

We flew into Nelson early afternoon, which marked the beginning of our Abel Tasman experience. After waiting a wee while for the bus we were on our way to Motueka, south of ...

Martinborough

We set off to Martinborough with one mission in mind. Wine. Since Wellington wasn’t producing any stunners and we had limited days to show off to Lisa (token Australian ...

Happy Helenoween

It was dark and stormy night. Which invited the worst of the underworld to come out and play. So we pulled out finest scary faces and headed to the gathering on Mt Vic. ...

Kooky Old Thorndon

Grant Road marked the beginning of a new era. Living with the opposite sex! (oh gosh). The flat was transformed… we hung photos, bought new furniture and even cleaned once or ...

Tom's New Desk

A while after I received an excellent assortment of tools for Christmas from my family, Gini suggested to me that I should put them to good use and make myself a desk - as ...

Cateye Moonride

Pain. Suffering. Exhaustion. Dirt. These are a few words I initially used to describe our latest adventure. Of course, in hindsight, these were probably the only ...

Waitewaewae Tramp

Why oh why did we go to Waitewaewae? Well it wasn't that bad but when one thinks a tramp is only going to take at the most five hours and it ends up being closer to seven! ...

Great Lake Relay

The Random B@stards were just shy (by mere seconds) of our record, with an amazing time of 13 hours, 49 minutes and 53 seconds. We were placed 103'rd out of 186 teams. The ...

Thompson Wedding!

Andy and Nicky's wedding was an incredible day of great food, tasty wine and more elegance than you can shake several sticks at! Tom was privileged enough to be ...

Mt Holdsworth Tramp

In January of 2006, four people decided to undertake an epic quest of conquering Mount Holdsworth - one of the highest peaks in the Tararua Ranges. What follows is a photo ...

Christmas

Leading up to Christmas we took a few days off and missioned it up to the mount (Mt Manuganui) to join the Turner parents for some sun, surf and timeshare comfort. Since the ...

Gold Coast

On Tom's return home from an extended Contiki vacation in 2004, a letter awaited him to explain that he had won a trip for two for a week on the Gold Coast! He couldn't ...

Ohakune Ski Trip

We set off as early as Peck & Turner possible to beat the crowd to the top carpark (a Turner tradition - thanks Dad). 10am just didn't cut it! - So strange. We ...