Author: awaywiththebirds
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Sara and Robyn say “Bonjour”
June 22: Montolieu The little village of Aragon where we are staying has a population of 433, and its community is served by one general store and a weekly visit from a mobile market. You know the market has arrived because it beeps its horn. We utilised the services of the mobile market! About 20…
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Sara and Robyn say “Bonjour”
June 21: Minerve A P.S. from yesterdays comment from Dina…..firstly temperatures are around 25-27 deg, and re applying the Karcher gurney to the castle, it seems they thought of this before you did, Dina. Look at their precision gurneying effort. The day started with craftwork in the kitchen with Eva and Tahlia. It’s been a…
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Sara and Robyn say “Bonjour”
June 20: Carcassonne Sammy, I will try and address my grammar issues! Dina (and Sammy), my little friend is Tahlia, she turns 6 tomorrow, and yes, her parents would be very happy for me to bring her home and I don’t even have to kidnap her. She and her twin sister, Eva, and their parents,…
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Sara and Robyn say “Bonjour”
June 19: Aragon Today I walked to the village of Pennautier to buy the compulsory french baguettes to go with the mountains of cheese we have in the fridge. Along the way I could look back at the village of Aragon, perched on the hill. One of those blue windows (which are modern mullion windows)…
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Sara and Robyn say “Bonjour”
Day 1: Travelling to Carcassonne A good start to the holiday. Flight is on time and Sara’s Qantas gold membership secured her access to the Emirates lounge (even though Sara is flying Emirates cattle class). Flights from sydney and then from Dubai both packed. Arrived Nice around 2pm and after a refreshing shower, walked along…
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Hitting the trail with Queen Charlotte
Day Last: Magnificent views and mud Todays walk was 20km or 6 hours. For reference, our 10 minute bite size walking chunks have transformed to 10 tango mates, so we are doing 40 TM s today!) There is an excellent brochure about the Queen Charlotte Track which outlines the walk in detail. The brochure only…
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Hitting the trail with Queen Charlotte
Day 4-5: the big day and the subsequent reward Ok, so todays walk ( the third day of the walk) is affectionately known as “the big day”. You walk for about 8 hours and cover a distance of around 23 kms. It’s exhilarating because most of the walk is along the ridge line between Queen…
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Hitting the trail with Queen Charlotte
Day 1-2: Picton Compared with my last flight to NZ, the flight from Sydney to Picton was positively uneventful – boring really! No cyclones to prevent landings, no “did not depart” stamps in the passport, no alternative flight plans……. When I asked Microsoft Bing AI ( similar to chat GPT) to find some information on…
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Hitting the trail with Queen Charlotte
Day 2-3: the walk begins Early start with a 7.30 am pickup, briefing and a ferry ride from Picton to Motuara Island where there are some unique species of birds and penguins. They have a series of breeding boxes along the track and you can see if there’s anything inside. There was a blue penguin…
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James’ and Sara’s Excellent Atacama Adventure
Day 5: Clouds and more colours Ok Sammy, I consulted dr Google ( as the guide clearly didn’t know) and the “some place in Russia” is on Kamchatka Peninsula and has the second largest concentration of geysers in the world!!!! James and I have been wowed by the magnificent cloud formations we see over the…