Thawing out in Jamaica.

Have you ever had an airline bring your flight 20mins forward, while you're at the airport?? After an extremely early wakeup and train to JFK we waited 40 mins to check in and another hour to get through security. Getting anxious I checked the flight details and between when we checked in and when we were at security the flight time had moved forward by 20mins! Doug and I sprinted and were the last ones on the plane! 

A 4hr flight and 1.5hr drive and I was handed a glass of champagne and finally in paradise. The rest of the afternoon was filled with relaxing reading in the sun (me) and Piña Coladas (Doug).

No rest for the wicked as we were up early the next morning for Scuba Diving! The resort we were staying at actually has complimentary Scuba - or as I like to call it, kids club for husbands. I fully expected to have to wriggle into a wetsuit as per usual, but was advised that the water was 29 degrees and a tshirt would be more than enough! To my surprise he was right! We jumped in and I would have passed out if I was in a suit. We descended and started seeing the usual sights, gorgeous coral, some fish and.... wait, what's that... a plane wreck! Yes at our dive sight was a small plane that had crashed 15 years ago, covered in coral and teeming with fish who had made it their home. We kept swimming and our guide started hunting lion fish which are pests in the area. After drying off, we ran over to our next activity, a corn hole competition! Doug and I played, and lost two games ... hmm probably not the sport for us. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing by the pool, finally an activity I excel at! 

Doug started Wednesday off with a dive while I enjoyed a sleep in. We then met at our first activity of the day which was a quiz on "how well do you know your partner". Unsurprisingly Doug and I were excellent at this and won! We then hung out at the pool bar and made some friends, a young couple who were actually eloping the next day. We spent a few hours chatting and playing cards with them before deciding we should teach them how to sail! We grabbed a Hobie Cat from the beach and were off! 

The next morning marked my second dive, and probably my favourite. The first ten minutes were fairly uneventful but then something amazing happened... I made a new best friend. I'd heard of the Remora fish before from Doug, they're little fish that stick to whales and sharks to help clean them and are totally harmless and quite friendly. I'm very glad I knew this information as a Remora decided I was it's best friend and kept sticking to me and followed me wherever I went. This fish, I'm not joking, followed me for 20 minutes playing and swimming around, sticking to my legs and nibbling on my pigtails. After our dive, and saying good bye to the Remora, it was time for me to do some reading. Not wanting to miss out on any activities, Doug jumped in the pool, piña colada in hand, to do water aerobics! He bopped along with the enthusiasm of a man 30 years too young to do water aerobics! Our final activity of the day was a 4pm sail, just the two of us which was lovely. 

On our final day, I decided that Doug simply had too much fun at water aerobics alone so I'd join him. Drinks in hand we set off for the pool ready to do some ridiculous moves. Well, I think the only work out I got was my abs from laughing so hard! A spot of reading was then on the cards before the final sail of our trip. The last activity for Jamaica was then a game of pool on the way to dinner. It was the perfect week spent in the sun, relaxing but with enough activities to keep Doug happy as well! We are already trying to figure out when we can go back!

Distance travelled: 49,758km

Map:

K x

Winter in New York

When Frank Sinatra sang “I want to be a part of it, New York, New York” it was for good reason.

There is just something magical in the air in New York isn’t there? 

After an uneventful 8hr flight and a very unglamorous train from Newark we checked into our hotel then walked across Bryant Park, past the glittering Christmas Tree and Ice Skating Rink. Our first stop was dinner at STK for their famous date night menu, consisting of Entree, Main, Dessert and a Bottle of Bubbles- the perfect way to toast to our first night in the city. 

Our second day in New York was a tale of two mornings, after 4 weeks spending 24/7 with each other I think we both needed some time apart. 

A girl from work was coincidentally in the city so I decided to spend the morning with her. 

I met her uptown for a true New York diner breakfast of pancakes! We then went to M&Ms World Times Square where we shopped up a storm and sampled all of the new flavours of course! 

Doug's morning went a little differently, he went to a bakery in Brooklyn, wanderd to Brooklyn Park then walked across the bridge. 

Upon stepping off the bridge he then saw his favourite calling card .... "China Town" where he had to indulge in a few dumplings. He then strided his way across town to a bar which was a favourite of Anthony Bourdain where you are offered a free hot dog with EVERY single purchase no matter what.

The three of us then met up for a very late lunch uptown at Tao, a little gem Doug and I discovered last time we were here. They have an amazing $25 lunch special and a $29 Three Martini flight (three Lychee Martinis for me!).

Doug's only request for New York was one show... a magic show! 

I begrudgingly agreed thinking oh this will be lame, but just go along with it. Words cannot explain how blown my mind was, magic is real and nothing will make me believe otherwise again. To get an understanding of what it was like, WATCH THIS LINK it was essentially 2hrs of stuff like this including intense audience participation from both Doug and I. 

Why do I think it’s real? Well, I was who he brought on stage in an act, which involved a card clenched in my fist disappearing. I still have the very card that I signed in my bag to show everyone! 

Our third day in New York was dedicated to a self guided food and walking tour. Stop 1 was Levain Bakery in Noho for one of their famous Two Chocolate Chip Cookies ... let's just say I was not disappointed - I was in warm, gooey, chocolatey cookie heaven. 

Next stop was Doug's dumpling tour of China Town, first stop was Tasty Dumpling where you can get 8 dumplings for $4, then onto Super Taste, which do little fried dumplings that look like tacos! We needed to work off all that food, so we decided to rug up and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to our next stop. 

Voted the Best Pizza in New York we arrived at Luigis where we actually met the owner Giovanni, who's family have been making pizza there since the 70s. We ordered two slices and it was insane. Super crispy base but super gooey cheese topping, the perfect pizza. As we stepped out, we realised it had started to snow - it was actually the first snow the city had seen in 700 days. Not wanting to get caught in a snowstorm we sought refuge in a nearby bar, the Skylark. We found their games corner and got stuck into Monopoly Deal (I won 2/3) and Scrabble (Doug won 2/3) only to realise we had been there 5hrs and it was 9pm! 

Our final full day saw more snow, we had tickets to Liberty Island so jumped on the ferry early. Doug had organised special tickets which meant we actually got to climb up into the crown of the Statue of Liberty! We climbed all 550 stairs up to the very top, it was very narrow and windy so my anxiety was a little high! Outside was still freezing and snowing so we decided to head to the West Village for the best cacio pepe pasta in New York (Via Carotta which coincidentally is Taylor Swifts favourite restaurant). Warm and fueled up, we jumped on the train to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to watch the Eagles play the Giants. I fell in love with the spectacle of the game, somehow cheering on both teams and loving the music and entertainment during each break (there was a corgi race). Every giants touchdown was met with fireworks and the crowd going wild. 

In a further stroke of luck both Doug & I both caught T-shirts from the cannon! I gave mine to a young kid, Doug kept his!

The Giants had an easy win so it was a very lively train ride back to the city. A very early night as we need to get up at 4.30am to catch our 8am flight to Jamaica!!

Distance Travelled: 47,245km

Map:

VIDEO HERE

K x

New Year in London

For the first time ever, I saw sun in London. We touched down on a glorious morning, to see sun and have it be 13 degrees in the middle of winter is unheard of for London! We checked into the Clermont in Victoria- only a quick walk away from Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park.

We knew that London would be expensive, but given we are the definition of "living above our means" we had found a hack to counteract the cost of living. There is a restraunt booking platform that gives you dollars for everytime you book, and sometimes there are bonus points etc. In melbourne you can cash these in for $50 off a meal...but in the UK it's £50 - so almost double. We saved up ALOT of these so you'll see them peppered through our trip. Anyway, our first booking was a late lunch at the Londoner in Piccadilly Circus, where we managed to get away with 6 dishes for only £20 after our discount! 

We then went on a little bit of a pub crawl through Belgravia (I professed to Doug I loved the area and wouldn't it be a good place for Nala and I to move to, he just laughed in my face and asked when I was marrying Bill Gates). We had booked tickets to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland, a massive Christmas Themed Fair that was bigger than the Melbourne Show! We wandered into a Circus style show where we saw daring acrobats spinning 15m above ground from hanging fabric and 4 motocross riders dodging each other in the circle of doom. After all that death-defying craziness, I decided that you only live once so we were skipping dinner and heading straight for dessert at a little pub on the way home. A Sticky Date Pudding and Apple Crumble was just what the doctor ordered. 

Day 2 in London started with a voyage to Borough Market. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it was madness! People everywhere and stalls selling everything from Soaps to Oysters! We had a wander around before settling on sharing "England's best Sasuage Roll". Looking for another budget friendly activity we decided to jump on a train out of town and head to the RAF museum where we saw planes from every war including a Spitfire and even got to try our hand at designing our own plane (mine was pink, great for speed and terrible at everything else unfortunately haha).

Keeping in with our budget theme that evening we found a Caribbean themed 2 for 1 cocktails, because we all know that Mango Mojitos are the perfect drink for a 10 degree night. We then went to a nice vibey restaurant in Mayfair for another £50 off! Finally we finished the night off at a local pub and met some puppies seeking refuge from the cold. 

New Years Eve had arrived and that meant our soccer game. We caught the regional train to Tottenham and weaved through the town houses enroute to White Heart Lane, I couldn't believe there was a 60,000 seat stadium literally next to houses in a residential area. We had no real plans to ring in the new year as we didn't want to spend a fortune on a planned event so just decided to do our own little pub crawl starting at "The Bear" in Paddington and ending at 1am at the "Queens Arms" in Victoria. It was lovely just sitting in a pub, watching the fireworks on TV with all the locals, we really felt like we were Londoners at this point.

New Years Day was understandably very slow, we visited China Town as I was told only Sweet and Sour would fix Doug's sore head. We caught some of the NYD parade on Oxford St and stopped in to explore all 7 of Hamleys toy filled levels before heading home for an early night. 

The 2nd of Jan was back to our regular jam packed schedule. We started the day commuting 3 suitcases across town to Covent Garden where our hotel was for the night (we extended our time in London and couldn't stay at the same hotel). We then ran across town to the F1 arcade, an activity we booked for boxing day but had to cancel in the flight delay madness. We did three tracks Bahrain, Zanvoort and Suzuka - unfortunately for Doug I was far too good and won every race! We then had lunch at an Argentinean restaurant and had the biggest cookie in the world for dessert! Doug had a surprise activity afterwards for me, a special exhibition at the Natural History Museum about the Titanosaur which was the largest creature to ever walk the earth, they had a full skeleton of it and this thing was MASSIVE! We also saw Hope, the skeleton of the Blue Whale which is the largest animal to ever to live on earth (including the dinosaurs). After seeing alot of really big things it was time to walk across Hyde Park as we had Curling to get to! Unfortunately due to super windy weather it was cancelled, however to our luck on our way back to the tube we found a pub running Trivia! With no other plans for the night- how could we not! We actually somehow ended up winning (team name Quizard of Aus) and lucked into a £50 free bar tab as our prize! Another budget friendly night for the Hutchinsons! 

Jan 3rd was a day I won’t forget but I’m very confident it will be forever etched into Doug's memory as we took a train to Milton Keynes. An unremarkable town in every way about an hour north of London. However it is the base for the Red Bull Formula 1 team.

Through a chance meeting in Easter back in 2022 Doug had gained a contact who was able to arrange an exceedingly rare behind the scenes tour of the entire factory.

Our phones had their cameras taped up and in we went. Doug's jaw on the floor almost the entire time, we saw the machining of clutch parts, the painting of the new car’s colour scheme four massive autoclaves as well as the engines being tested on Dyno’s.

We then were treated to lunch with the workers in the team and got to learn much more about the business of F1!

Rounding a very Doug friendly day we ended the day at an airport hotel which had a runway view, flight tracker app on hand Doug narrated 3 hours of flights for me until the Heathrow curfew mercifully started and 11pm and we hit the hay!

Distance Travelled: 41,642km

K x

Pilgrimage to Paris

Months ago when we were finishing the itinerary we were looking at ways to get to Paris from Salzburg, we both aren't the biggest fans of Paris but there was a burlesque show that I really wanted to see, so Doug was along for the ride.

Issue is, even back then there really wasn’t any flight options between the 2 cities despite only being 790kms apart. 

In the meantime we were also offed, tickets to the Arsenal match on Boxing Day which of course we say yes to.

There was a flight on Christmas Day at 3.25pm which meant we would get Christmas Day in Salzburg, Christmas night in London then Soccer on Boxing Day perfect, we lock it in, then book the 7.30 Eurostar to Paris that night.

Fast forward 3 months to September and the airline changed the departure time to 9.50pm, bit of a nightmare but at least we get there in time for the soccer, whatever, is what it is.

Then in November they completely cancel the flight and offer us the initial 3.25pm flight but on Boxing Day, blowing the soccer out of the water and the whole point of the pre-paris London trip.

After an hour on the phone they finally offered us a flight to London first thing on Boxing Day but departing from Munich at 7.50am arriving 9am London. We booked a Christmas arvo train to Munich and an airport hotel. Phew, sorted. 

Then the EPL, sell their broadcast rights in part to Amazon who then insist on moving the Boxing Day clash to the 28th…

But we are now flying to London at 9am only to get a 7.30pm Eurostar to Paris for no reason!!

Is what it is, better a day in London then Paris anyway...

Anyway we get on the plane and the pilot informs us of a delay, had a minor engine issue, engineers had fixed it - just signing it off wouldn’t be long. Sure enough, 20 mins later the tug for the pushback arrives and we start rolling.

To the crews credit they had been amazing at communicating, captain and FO both came into the cabin to give updates- told us it was engine 2 with the issue which we were sat right over.

As we rolled back they spooled it up and Doug could immediately hear it was no good. Sure enough they shut it straight down.

2 more hours on the tarmac later they finally pull the pin back to the gate.

Doug & I weren't too fussed, there’s plenty of planes in Munich headed to London, plus we really only need to be in Paris so surely they could just route us there.

We head back in through passport control, get our bags go the to British Air counter….

Who couldn't do anything and gave us a number to call.

Sure enough the number is a call centre in Bangalore and the fun begins...

For some unknown bureaucratic reason they can’t route us direct to Paris, and there’s no flights at all to London until the next day.

Doug ... well... wasn't impressed and miraculously after asking to speak to the manager they find 1 option:

LH0111 from Munich to Frankfurt

50 minute layover 

LH916

Frankfurt to Heathrow…

Issue is this plane gets in at 5.45pm and the Eurostar to Paris closes it’s gates at 7.15

To add to the fun the Heathrow express is down meaning the only option is the stopping all stations tube which takes exactly an hour!

With literally no options, our relaxed day had gotten incredibly tight.

Sure enough first leg delayed by 30 mins, we sprint across 2 terminals but somehow make the connection by a minute.

But that’s just out of the coalface into the fire,

To get away with it we’d have to land at LHR, Taxi, disembark, clear passport, collect baggage, clear customs and get to the tube in 28 minutes.

Incredibly though we made it, by 1 minute at both ends.

So in summary our journey to Paris was:

Salzburg -> Munich -> Frankfurt -> London -> Paris. To travel what is 790kms as the crow flies.

In 14hrs ALONE we passed passport control & international customs 6 times:

-Leaving Munich

-Re-entering Munich when plane broke

- Leaving Frankfurt 

- Entering London

- Exiting London

- Entering France

The guy at the Eurostar genuinely thought we must have been pranking him couldn’t understand all the stamps on the 26th!!

All to exit in a city that neither of us love, and only wanted to be in for a 2hr show!

After a sleep and a reset we walked the streets of Paris, passing the Louvre and the Seine before settling into a restaurant and a few bars in Le Marais. In typical French fashion there was a strike on so many attractions such as the Eiffel Tower were closed - thankfully we have been before and had already done all the touristy stuff we wanted to. Our Burlesque show was well worth the trip to Paris and we both loved it. 

Next stop -London!

Distance travelled: 41,297km (around 1,800 of them completely unnecessary!!)

K x

Christmas in Salzburg

As a self professed lover of all things Christmas, when planning our trip we faced a very real conundrum as to where to spend my favourite time of the year with many appealing options…

Doug however was quite insistent, to get the most magical Christmas experience We MUST be in Austria for... so to Salzburg we went. 

We arrived a little earlier than expected due to poor weather in Kitzbühel meaning we had some time to wander around. First stop was of course Chinese food for Poor Doug, who had gone the longest he ever had without the Asian cuisine (about 8 days). We the decided to walk up to the fort that overlooks the city, which was a good idea in theory but ended up being a very steep 2km hike! 

Once we reached the top the views over Salzburg were breathtaking - it is such a beautiful city. 

We visited the museum on the history of the fort, and learnt that first settlement there was in 870 with construction starting in 1077! After an hour or so we started to wander back through the Christmas Markets and found ourselves a tiny little Christmas Tree to make our hotel room feel more festive. 

Stiftskeller St. Peter is a restraunt within an Abbey (yes, Maria Von Trapp's Abbey) that opened around 803AD, making it the oldest restaurant in the world! 

So of course it meant we had to go there for dinner! There was a tiny Christmas Market out front then we walked into the tiny pokey little rooms all the diners were in.They were out of the pasta I had ordered so swapped it with a €50 Truffle Pasta free of charge instead- no complaints over here!

The next day was Christmas Eve, meaning not alot was open. We set each other a budget of €10 and split up to buy presents to pop under the tree for the next morning. We met up at lunch for a VERY large schnitzel- you know it's going to be good when they ask you if you want it cooked in butter, lard or oil! As everything after 2pm is closed on Christmas Eve in Austria we decided to spend the afternoon doing the Sound of Music tour. We got to see the house and lake in Salzburg then ventured into the Alps further to a little town, Mondsee, where the wedding scene was filmed. The movie sights were great to see (and I loved the sing-a-long), but visiting a church in tiny little Austrian town, on Christmas was pretty magical as well. As we ventured back we realised we hadn't adequately prepared for dinner, as everything including supermarkets were closed, so it was some 2 minute noodle style pasta from the service station for our Christmas Dinner! We ate in bed while watching The Sound of Music and Love Actually. 

Our last day in Salzburg was Christmas Day - which meant opening our small gifts from each other! We popped a bottle of service station champagne and made some Mimosas while exchanging gifts. We both bought each other a small ornament for our tree next year. Again, as not much was open we had a cooking class booked in. We learnt how to make the perfect Apple Strudel (ours was soooo tasty) and Vanille Kipferl which is what my Oma makes every Christmas. Then it was time to make our pilgrimage to Munich airport for an early flight to London in the morning. The airport oddly had an outdoor Christmas Market within it -which served as our last dinner - Currywurst for me and 1/2 metre! Bratwurst for Doug!

Distance travelled: 39,892km

K x