Huasquila, Ecuador

Photo Blog of our trip to Huasquila Amazon Lodge, Ecuador. 

Duration: 2 nights

Private transfer from Quito to Huasquila. Our driver picked us up in the morning for a 3.5hr drive to the lodge situated at the edge of the Amazon. The roads were very winding and in were damaged in some parts due to floods and rock debris falling from the side of the mountain.

Quito, Ecuador 2016

Photo Blog of our trip to Ecuador

Duration: 4 nights

Places visited: 

- Quito city 

- Quito Old town 

Orlando, Florida USA

That iconic song and lyrics from the Book of Mormon: "Orlando...I love you, Orlando" inspired us to visit the home of the theme park: Orlando, Florida. Planning this trip was difficult - which theme park? How long are we willing to queue? How much are we willing to spend? All important questions when we gave ourselves just one and half days to enjoy everything on offer. In the end the big kid inside of Olie directed us to choose the Universal Orlando Resort that included the twin theme parks of Universal Studios Florida and Universal's Islands of Adventure. This blog recaps an exciting day of roller coasters and fun.

Puerto Rico and Grand Turk, Caribbean Cruise - Part 2

This blog post covers Day 5 and 6 of the cruise and perhaps it is more of a picture gallery of the pretty buildings in the San Juan, Puerto Rico and the diving photos from Olie's trip in Grand Turk. Puerto Rico is officially a US territory with its own flag and governor. Grand Turk is part of the Turks and Caicos Islands, an overseas UK territory. For our purposes of country counting, we have designated both territories as separate countries and therefore our visit to each increased our total country count by two.

Bahamas and St Thomas, Caribbean Cruise - Part 1

As cruise-ship newbies, we relied heavily on online forums and anecdotes from colleagues to help us select a cruise. Endless options exist on the market at different price points, target markets and on-board experiences. The Caribbean was our overall destination, but more decisions were required to pick the islands we wanted to visit. Luckily, our criteria involved incorporating a Christmas Day sailing so that limited the choices. In the end, we booked a 7 day Carnival Conquest Eastern Caribbean cruise and this blog post outlines part one of that trip.

Miami and New Years, USA

Every year since leaving Melbourne, we have celebrated New Year's Eve in a different city.
It was London in 2011 under the shadow (and firework ash) of the Eye; 2012 was huddled under an umbrella in Brussels; 2013 on the island of Madeira watching one of the largest pyrotechnic displays in the world. So for 2014, we were inspired to go beyond Europe and Miami came up on the list. And whilst we were in the area, we cruised the Caribbean for Christmas. A great way to bring in 2015.

Victoria, Canada

Vancouver Island is a 460km stretch of land in the Pacific Ocean, along the south-west coast of Canada. We spent two nights in Victoria, a city on the southern tip of the island, easily accessible from Downtown Vancouver via a coach-ferry combination ticket. This side trip had been booked based on a recommendation from a Canadian couple that we met during a tour of the Loire Valley. They convinced us to check out the area's scenic beauty as an escape from the 'city' atmosphere of central Vancouver. This turned out to be a great tip as we loved the place. Our timing was also perfect with booking a whale watching tour - spending four hours at sea with a super-pod of killer whales.

Vancouver, Canada

When the annual 'World's Most Liveable City' rankings are published, the city of Vancouver is predictably near the top end of the scale along with our hometown of Melbourne. Vancouver, part of British Columbia, Canada is well known for its urban green spaces, culture, food and proximity to the port and snow-capped peaks.
Our three days in Vancouver included a mixture of tourist attractions, culinary experiences (including Richmond night market) and getting in touch with animals and nature at the Vancouver Aquarium and Capilano Suspension Bridge.

Las Vegas, USA - Part 2

The modern adage of "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" rings true for this heavily edited blog post featuring mostly Mei's adventures exploring this desert city whilst Olie was "occupied" at his work conference. Any indication of the amount of 'work' vs 'play' has been carefully omitted from this post. As both of us had visited Las Vegas on separate occasions and independently of each other, this trip was not the place for any wild partying or innuendo - well that is the official line anyway.

Las Vegas, USA

Olie travels to the USA twice each year as part of his work obligations. On this trip he visited Las Vegas for a company conference. Vegas is a unique, lively and artificial city that never sleeps. Activities in this city revolve around gambling, partying and shopping. Great fun for a weekend away, but after several days can become repetitive and expensive (if your unlucky).

The highlight of the trip which did not involve alcohol, was a half day tour provided by Papillion Grand Canyon Helicopters.

Seattle and New York, USA

Olie's work allows him the opportunity to fly to the USA for business (and also a bit of pleasure). This blog post highlights his solo adventures in the USA from 13 - 22 January.
This trip was made only 2 days after we had arrived back in London from our short stay in Kuala Lumpur for Ben and WeeKin's wedding. Jet lagged but excited about going to America for the very first time, he overlooked that he had promised Mei a blog post about this trip. So this entry has been ghost written by Mei using Olie's photos and whatever memories he can recollect.