In July we went on a mini road-trip to the Coffs Coast in New South Wales, where we visited Coffs Harbour and then headed inland up into the mountains and rainforests. The road between Coffs Harbour and the inland university town of Armidale is known as 'Waterfall Way', the name gives it away but I … read more

The trip up to Jungfraujoch (the highest railway station in Europe) was magical. The trip back down wasn't half bad either. Snow and ice quickly replaced by lush green mountain plains. A change of train gave me an excellent opportunity to capture this shot. read more

After a fantastic weekend in Paris (for me at least), we caught the Eurostar that Monday morning from Paris Gare du Nord into London St Pancras. This was the first time through the Chunnel for all of us. What can I say, it’s exactly what you’d expect from going through a very long tunnel. It wasn’t … read more

It will be 2014 by the time I complete this blog post series. Anyway…. The rail journey from Grindelwald to Paris wasn’t quite as spectacular as from Venice to Grindelwald, but it was still a great way to travel. This time we caught a German Deutsche Bahn inter-city train. It ticked all the boxes - … read more

It’s been a while since I’ve posted but back to the trip….. Leaving early that morning, our departure was mixed with a sense of regret that we’d only allowed one full day in Venice, but also excitement for the next stage of our itinerary. Trip Series Links Part 1: The Planning Part 2: Sentosa … read more

A late flight to Venice from Gatwick Airport landed us at Venice Marco Polo Airport shortly after midnight. This was our first visit to Venice but I’d done my research. I knew at some point we would undoubtedly get lost in the car-less maze which is Venice. Trip Series Links Part 1: The Planning … read more

The next 10 days of our itinerary were to be spent in England, visiting family and friends and visiting a few places that we’d always wanted to visit but never got around to it when we lived there. After a trundle up the A1 from London, we finally arrived in Doncaster at about 9pm, a good 5 hours … read more

We had the dreaded night flight from Singapore to London Heathrow, flying with British Airways. It was the first time I’d flown with BA and I wasn’t impressed. After the great Qantas flight it was like stepping back in time. It looked like they hadn’t updated their cabins for 20 years. Small TV … read more

We’re off. After all the months of planning and anticipation the day had finally arrived. I woke really early again that morning. I’m not sure why I had been having such problems getting a good night’s sleep in the weeks before we left. Perhaps it was subconscious anxiety about the trip - a worry … read more

So much for good intentions. I had spent that much time planning this year’s trip that I fully intended to live blog it - giving a day-by-day narration to our adventures. When it came to it however, the itinerary was that packed that for the first 3 weeks there was not a single hour spare to sit … read more

A number of Lonely Planet travel apps for iPhone are currently available free. These are for cities in the US and Canada including New York, LA, Las Vegas, Vancouver, and Seattle. Get them while you can as the offer runs out Friday 4th Feb (today). They did the same thing just before Christmas when … read more

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get an overseas work trip to carry out a PCI DSS audit of a client and their service provider in the US. My trip took in LA and Omaha, Nebraska of all places. I travelled with Brad again from the client's security team. The trip started on a high note. We were … read more

Last week I was lucky enough to go off on another overseas jolly (err, I mean arduous work trip). This time to Auckland, New Zealand. I've never been to NZ before so I was quite looking forward to this one, even if it is the middle of winter and I new it would be freezing. We left on Wednesday and … read more

I've recently returned from a short work trip that took in Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This was the PCI DSS auditing keeping me busy again. I travelled with Brad from my customer's security team who I went to Manila and India with. He's from Melbourne so he was quite happy to use the … read more

I've recently returned from a work trip which included my first ever visits to the Philippines and India. The purpose of the trip was to carry out a PCI DSS audit for one of my clients. As is the way these days my client has outsourced their call centre to a company in Manila, and have also … read more

A couple of weeks ago I went on an Adventure Sailing Day courtesy of a gift experience that Rach bought me for my birthday. The Yacht I went on, which is called Solo, has quite a spectacular history. It has won the Sydney to Hobart race four times and circumnavigated the world 3 times. Also, it was … read more

We've recently returned from a memorable week on the Fraser Coast which included Whale Watching, a day on the world heritage listed Fraser Island and a trip to historic Maryborough. Whale Watching The highlight of the week was definitely our trip out into Hervey Bay itself to see the Humpback … read more

Continuing with the wedding planning, on the 13th April we went away for the weekend (well, just one night actually) as we had a decision to make. After setting the date we wanted to get the invites out in the post as soon as possible so we could give friends and family in the UK plenty of notice. … read more

Why is it that the word 'Wedding' automatically adds $$$ to the cost of things? This weekend we went up to Noosa for a wedding fayre. Yes, you would be right in thinking that attending a wedding fayre is is not in my top 5 things to do on a Sunday. However, sensing that I would immediately come up … read more

Me and Rachelle have been together over 9 years now and engaged for quite a few of those. We have a 7 year-old daughter, and most people just presume that we're already married. Rachelle often gets called Mrs Haines and never bothers to correct them. She's been nagging me for quite a while to agree … read more