I've just realised that is's almost four months since I posted anything about holidays.
The trip to New Zealand was enjoyable, although I was totally caught out by the weather. The forecast temperature for our time there was a lovely cool maximum of 21 or 22 but it actually went into the high twenties most days - in combination with the 'down by the sea' humidity, I found this to be quite uncomfortable.
However, Wellington is a lovely place. We got to see the Great War Exhibition at the War Memorial which was of course the main reason for the visit, and also a smaller exhibit they've got in place at Te Papa. Both were just excellent and I'm so glad we got to see them. We also did a tour based around the local Lord of the Rings movie filming locations and it was really well done.
While in Wellington we also discovered a restaurant chain which I would never have considered - it's Malaysian cuisine and I'd normally think this would be too spicy for me. But, they have all sorts of options for the level of 'hotness' and the dish I chose was really nice. The restaurant is called PappaRich, and there's one here in Canberra, so I think I'll give them another try. Or maybe even more than one :-)
The kitchen renovation I talked about in my last post is now complete - it went quite well and I'm very happy with the result. Unfortunately while we were in New Zealand I started to get a back twinge which turned into a nasty pain. So, for most of the kitchen renovation I was either lying on the floor in the lounge room, or staggering off to work and struggling through the day with a combination of lying on the floor there (!!) and pain killers. After a fair bit of physiotherapy it's now sort of under control, although I still have to do my exercises every day (and it's not really going to get better any other way - two disc bulges, one disc hernia, and arthritic degeneration in a few places). And, I no longer sit at a desk - both at home and at work I now use a stand-up desk. It's all quite tiring but being tired is better than being in pain.... This all means though that there has been very little work done on the upcoming holidays; I've booked a couple of hotel rooms and the flight to Singapore, but that's about all.
The direct flights between Wellington and Canberra seem to have been quite popular - both flights we took were totally booked out, and we ran into two separate people that we know while in Wellington. However, Singapore Airlines have decided otherwise and have now cancelled these flights. They have also cancelled the direct Singapore to Canberra flights - you now again have to travel via Sydney. There is still a direct Canberra to Singapore flight a few times a week, and we were going to fly to Singapore with them for the cruise. However, flying direct from Canberra does restrict your options if you need to be there on a particular day - for example, in order to catch a cruise! And, it's a long flight in economy with a bad back. So, we're actually going to go to Sydney and get a "Scoot" airlines business class flight to Singapore; it's probably not much fancier that most airlines premium economy but it actually isn't going to cost any more than the Singapore Airlines economy fare would have been, and my back will be a lot happier.
