Winter update (2)

After a lovely stay in New Zealand we resumed or trip. We had intended to spend the best part of three days in Sydney, Australia however we had overrun our stay in New Zealand and in the end just spent one night there.
We did make the most of it though as we were up and walking down to the waterfront by 7am on a lovely sunny morning. We walked down to an area known as The Rocks and along the quay. It is every bit as spectacular as you think of it with the Sydney Harbour bridge on one side and the Opera house on the other.

 

Sydney certainly appears to be a busy prosperous City with a lot of energy about it.

 

Time to move on, so back on the plane and onto Bangkok, we landed at the massive, new airport outside of Bangkok and picked up a taxi to take us to our Hotel in the Chinese district of Bangkok. It never ceases to amaze me how cheap taxies are in Bangkok. Considering it is a major City where you would expect taxi prices to be high, providing that you insist on the driver putting on the meter rather than trying to negotiate a fixed price you can get around pretty much anywhere for the equivalent of £2-£3.

For anyone who hasn't been, Bangkok is a mixture of very modern buildings and infrastructure mixed with an older more traditional way of life and as such is very interesting.

 

 

We spent five days in Bangkok and will almost certainly be back again sometime in the future, probably staying in a different part of the City next time.

Back on the plane once more for yet another 13hr trip to Heathrow where we picked up our car from Purple Parking ( very reasonable at about £60 for the best part of a Month ) and we headed off to Devon.
We met up with our friends, Nigel and Linda, for a very nice roast Sunday carvery lunch and catch up at the Exeter Arms and then went to my brother, Roger and sister in law Margaret's house to spend the evening and stay overnight. It was really good catching up with them both again and good to hear that they would be visiting us in the Summer for a couple of weeks.
The next morning after a visit to Crediton to deal with some banking business etc we drove down to Exmouth to visit Avril's sister and her husband, Denise and Ken.
Later in the afternoon we drove down to Ivybridge to visit our other son, John and daughter-in-law Claire and the grandkids, we were able to catch up for a few hours and have a nice dinner before heading off to the port for the overnight ferry home.
At just over a Month away this had been the longest we had be away but everything was fine and as it should be when we gt back.