New Zealand - 2015

I had the pleasure of visiting New Zealand back in October last year and have only now got round to uploading my video diary of my time there. I've been to New Zealand a few times now, both times before being when I was a lot younger and joined by family. This time was different and I was able to see a lot more of the country. My friend Louisa joined me, and we split the time we had there between both islands.

The majority of our holiday was spent in a van we called Terry, driving around the South Island eating noodles and porridge. That sounds terrible really, but it was honestly very fun. We saw and did some incredible things, including boat tours, glowworms, Lord of the Rings locations, rivers, bunji jumping, zorbing, kea birds, lakes, art, lugeing, The Remarkables and various other mountain ranges, Maori culture experiences and mueseum after mueseum. The highlight for me was visiting Milford Sound and kayaking in Harrison Cove. We filled our bottles with fresh Harrison River water and heard some interesting stories about moose. You'll notice theres literally about 3 seconds of footage of us on the water, but this was because we only had a low charged go pro with us at the time! I was way too scared to take my camera out considering this was my first kayaking experience.

I took a total of 900+ videos whilst there, and below is an attempt to arrange it into something worth watching. I've always wanted to try doing this whenever I've been on holiday in the past, so I'm quite pleased that I stuck with it and have something to show at the end! I made this for Louisa and I to remember our experience, but please enjoy.

Trams and Trains and Games, Oh My!

February 27th is my best friends birthday so I took a few days off work to visit her in Edinburgh! I arrived by train and met Fiona for a quick lunch at a place called The Edinburgh Larder. I'd been craving a full breakfast for weeks and weeks and we picked this place specifically for that. However we arrived just after twelve when they had just finished serving breakfast. I was gutted.

I eventually got to meet baby Dylan who is Fiona's sister in law's baby. He is the cutest little thing, though I'm pretty sure he gave me his bug. I had a bad case of sickness on Friday night, as did Fiona and baby's grandfather. Surely not a coincidence?
Even looking at these photos now I'm getting sickness memories!

I say this a lot whenever I go down to Edinburgh, but I love Fiona's family. They're the type of people that treat you like one of their own. I've only met Moira and Robert a few times, yet I can sit down and have lunch with them when Fiona goes to a meeting. It's comfortable and welcoming.
Moira gave me a piece of her famous beetroot cake which was warm and with cream.

On Thursday morning I'm pleased to say I finally got the breakfast I'd been craving. Mimi's bakery was the destination of our dream breakfast. Thick slices of french toast, syrup and bacon. Fiona's had sausages and tomatoes. It was breakfast heaven and we were stuffed for the rest of the day.

 We also headed down to The Game Masters exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland. You pay to get in and are allowed to play with all these retro and modern games freely until the exhibition closes. We ended up playing some old school Donkey Kong, Pacman, Asteroids, Space Invaders and I had a few rounds on Elevator Action. I think that and Pacman were my favourite from the older machines. I also played some Mario 64 and we both had a go at Super Mario Bros and Harry Potter Lego, which was harder than it looked! We couldn't get past the troll in the girls bathroom. Seriously, how do you get past that thing?!

There's was a rule about no photography which was a shame, but I still took a sneaky photo of Fiona. Those machines were too cool not too.

We had a little walk around the museum too and did some Chinese crayon rubbings like children. Classic Fiona and Cassie day out really.

All in All in was a fun day and I'm just kind of bummed that by the evening I was starting to feel nauseous. Think I'll stay away from sicky babies from now on!

Flaine, France - 25/1/15 - 31/1/15

Last month I was lucky enough to be in France skiing with my family. We also went last year, and it was my first time strapping on the skis. This year, I was so pleased to realise I could still do it! I started off with lessons at the beginning of the week, hoping to pick up where I left off and improve, but by day two had cancelled them. I felt confident enough to carry on and just practice.

However! on the third day, disaster struck. I woke up feeling a little worse for wear.

Went out in the morning and managed to throw myself all over the mountain, but by lunch felt like I was possibly going to faint. I headed back to the chalet and collapsed on the bed, not to be heard of again until a few hours later. When I woke up I was so hot, had bumps all over my arms and a headache. Those symptoms didn't really leave me for the rest of the week. It's quite annoying being on holiday and not being able to enjoy it. I had only mustered up enough energy to try again on the last day, and even then had to bow out by lunch. I think it's quite important when you're skiing to be in control of what you're doing. Being ill tends to take that control away and that's when accidents happen. I'm kind of gutted that I didn't manage to get out that much, but at the same time I enjoyed what time I did.

As apposed to last year, we were in a catered chalet this time. Our chalet hosts name was Joe. He was such a lovely person, and his cakes tasted so much better than mine. His victoria sponge was ridiculous.  

We had two birthdays whilst in Flaine, my mums and my roommate, Maureen. On Thursday Joe spent the morning cutting out a happy birthday template for the cake. Such a sweet thing to do. Note the messy little gluten free muffins for Steve!

Flaine as a resort is beautiful. The valley is so picturesque. I think my favourite part was this little split in the mountains where you can see through to the valley beyond. The trees that lined it were just so nice.

Check out the view from our bedroom window!

The first day we arrived we also got driven around in a snow buggy. This thing doesn't look like much, but the experience was pretty fun. The driver didn't have to slow down on corners and certainly didn't. I was terrified I was going to fall out!

 

I'm currently doing driving lessons at the moment. At this point I had only had 4, and I was a bit too keen to drive this thing. It would have ended so badly!

As always now is my chance to binge upload some of the photos. I always take too many.

I should probably mention that there were ten of us in total on this holiday. Not all family, but all friends of the family.

An accidental photo taken from the bus window. I just love it how gloomy it looks.

I think the trees were my favourite part of the scenery. The snow just sits on them and contrasts so beautifully. Like a christmas card!

 Before being struck down 'in the pribe of libe!' (anyone else reference Friends when sick?)

 My beautiful mother.

Looking forward to next years trip! Hopefully it won't end so horribly. I'll be sure to take all my vitamins and build up my immune system before I go!

New Years Photos!

A much delayed selection of photos from my trip up to Inverness for new years! My friend Steven took his big fancy camera with him and took some really nice photos. I meant to post them sooner but totally forgot!

 

 

 It was a really fun weekend. We stayed with Louisa and her family and went into town for the bells. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers were playing on the stage and we took an awful disposable camera selfie at midnight! I got the photos back last week and it's so blurry!

Below are some of my iPhone photos too. Lesser quality than Stevens and heavily filtered ;)

 We made an apple pie for New Years day lunch.

Some photos from the Clootie Well.

 

 

Sea-salty windswept hair.

So yeah! Sorry for the sheer mass amount of photos in this post. I took so many and just wanted to put them up in a big post. The clootie well and Fairy Glen were really pretty, I couldn't help but take loads of photos.