Round the World in 40 Days (part 3)

The Final Stretch: From Italy to Singapore (then home)

It didn’t seem that long ago that we were learning some French phrases so we didn’t look like total idiots in Paris. But no sooner had we worked out what “sortie” meant than it was time to exit England and enter the land of pizza and gelato.

Part 5: Italy

By the time we arrived in Rome, got through the airport and caught a taxi to our hotel, it was about 11:00 in the evening, so not much time to do anything other than check into our room and go to sleep. Though actually there was still time for me to flood the bathroom when the water from my shower flowed out across the bathroom floor and under the door. Oops! Lucky we weren’t staying long.

The next morning we took a train to Venice, which was such an amazing place, like nowhere else I’d seen before. We took a map and set off to explore the canals and winding alleyways… and within half an hour were totally lost. Eventually (and with the help of a more useful map app) we found our way back and had a yummy pizza dinner beside the Grand Canal.

Everything was going great right up until the train drivers’ strike - right on the day we had booked to return to Rome. For a while it looked like we might be stuck in Venice and miss our entire day in Rome, but luckily Mum and Dad got us onto a different train and we were all good again.

Back in Rome, we had a full day to hit the historic sights, starting with the Trevi Fountain, then the Roman Forum, before visiting the awesome Colosseum, and finishing with the Baths of Caracalla. Lots and lots of walking, but such cool places. Stepping out of the underground train station to see the Colosseum right in front of us, so big and well preserved, just took our breath away.

After stuffing down one last buffet breakfast, it was time to head to the airport again, this time to leave Europe behind and start the final leg of our journey home, via another new continent: Asia.

Part 6: Singapore

We arrived in Singapore really early in the morning and got to the resort we were staying at even before the sun came up. Unfortunately we couldn’t get into a room that early so we just crashed in the lobby - literally all of us so tired we fell asleep on a couch.

The first thing we noticed about Singapore was how crazy hot it was. Like take a step outside the resort and immediately start sweating kind of hot. The resort pool and its lazy river were going to be our new best friend - every day we spent at least 90 minutes splashing about in it.

The one day we didn’t though was the day we went to Universal Studios Singapore. It was a lot smaller than the Hollywood version we visited last year, but lots of fun with some great rides and cool theming. My favourites were The Mummy ride and Jurassic Park, which we must have done five times across the day. Even the crazy Singapore heat didn’t stop us and we eventually left just before it closed at 8pm.

Another day we wandered around the Gardens by the Bay and walked across their treetop Skywalk, which stretched way above the ground between two huge trees. We also saw it at night when we went back into the city to see the light show outside Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

On our last full day of holiday we went to Fort Siloso to see some of the old tunnels and gun emplacements that had been used during wars over the years. And naturally as soon as we’d done that, it was back in the pool again.

But when the next morning came, it meant it was time to pack our suitcases one final time. When we opened them next, we’d be back home.

And that’s how our round the world holiday finished. Six weeks, five countries, three continents. One awesome adventure.

Epilogue

A week after we returned to New Zealand it was my birthday and I turned 13 - officially a teenager! Which means I’m just about grown up now and so this will be my final blog.

Across all these blogs I’ve shared my stories of growing up, with some help from Dad. Adventures and stories from all my 13 years, recorded here so I won’t ever forget them. Even the ones I might want to forget! The big and small; the good, the bad and the crazy. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

Round the World in 40 Days (part 2)

Rollercoasters and Road Trips: From England to France (and back)

The next step on our round the world adventure took us on a train through a tunnel under the water. No windows though, so we couldn’t actually see any water or fish, but at the other end we’d made it to France for the second stage of our Double Disney holiday.

Part 3: France

We stayed in this amazing themed hotel close to Paris Disneyland, with huge video screens showing cool animations as you walked through the lobby area.

But we were there for the rides, and with three days, plus Lightning Lanes for all of them, we could sure pack a lot of rides in. Paris Disneyland is definitely smaller than Anaheim, but that made it easier to get around and feel familiar with, so we didn’t walk for miles each day getting from one side of the park to another.

We absolutely loved it, especially Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and Phantom Manor, which we all thought were even better than the versions at Anaheim. Hyperspace Mountain was scary but awesome - too scary for Dad or William to go on it, though I dragged Mum on a couple of times.

There were so many cool details too, like the dragon in the cave under the castle and Skull Rock close to Pirates. One evening we stayed late to watch a show where fireworks and lights were displayed on and around the castle.

Eventually we had to move on (damn, I knew we should have made this holiday Triple Disney!), and we took the train to the centre of Paris. The hotel kinda sucked, just a big skyscraper with no English TV channels. And I had to sleep on the floor because there were only two beds and not enough space for William and me in the second one.

It turned out we were actually really close to the Eiffel Tower, we just didn’t realise it. When we left the hotel in the morning we turned around and there it was! We didn’t actually go up the Tower, but did go up the Arc de Triomphe nearby so we could see how massive the Eiffel Tower is and how it really stands out in the middle of the city.

After stopping for morning tea at a cafe on the Champs Elysees, we walked through the streets to pass by the Louvre (also not going in - queues were too long) and Notre Dame. But by this time we were getting tired (maybe too many long Disney days after all), so that was all the sightseeing we had the energy for.

The next stage of our journey was a return trip under the water back to England, and welcoming back a familiar friend…

Part 4: England (second leg)

When we picked up the rental car for our second England road trip, we were super pleased to see that it was Katie again! Our adventuring team was now complete, so we hit the road, heading north this time.

We stayed a couple of nights in Cirencester so we could explore the Cotswolds area. Lots of pretty little villages with strange names like Bourton-on-the-Water and Lower Slaughter - more Mum and Dad’s thing than mine, but the Roman ruins we visited at one place were cool.

After that it got super cool though as we visited Warwick Castle, this amazing well-preserved castle with lots of towers, battlements and even a dungeon. We got into the medieval mood by watching a couple of shows - one with eagles, falcons and other birds of prey, and another where they fired a missile out of this massive catapult called a trebuchet.

Then we got into the crap-your-pants mood in the Warwick Castle Dungeon, which was a dark walkthrough experience with all these gruesome scenes and jump scares like the London Dungeon. Needless to say, it was awesome!

While we were there we stayed in the Warwick Castle Hotel, where all the rooms are themed, even the reception area, which had a massive knight on horseback which made noises. William and me also got to become knights for the night when we took part in a lesson on sword-fighting. Just call us Sir Oliver and Sir William. And bow when we enter the room.

Next we went to Solihull so Dad could show us where his Grandad lived by Elmdon Park, when they all came to visit him on holidays when they were younger. So we’re kind of reliving the same holiday Dad had when he was about my age. We also met up and had lunch with Dad’s friend Hev, who he stayed with when he lived here in his late 20s. I wonder if I’ll also relive the experience of being in England as a grown-up one day…?

One of William and my favourite things about travelling around England were the gameshows. There are so many of them, and we must have watched all of them during the evenings. There was Lingo and Tenable, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Catchphrase, and our favourites, Weakest Link and One Percent Club. That was the one bad thing about leaving to visit foreign countries - no gameshows!

The last stop on this roadtrip was York, which was waaaaay up in the north of England and took hours to drive to (and drive back from). But it was a pretty cool walled city, with cobbled streets, quirky shops and the Yorvik Viking Museum, which we visited to see how those dirty old Vikings lived when they invaded England ages ago.

While we were there we did some day trips to castles, country estates and the town of Knaresborough. Every day we were hitting the road to see somewhere new.

England had been amazing and everything I had hoped it would be. But suddenly we were four weeks into our holiday and it was time to catch a plane (though thankfully just a 2 hour flight this time) to our next destination: Italy. You’ll find that, plus the fifth country on our tour, in blog part 3…

Round the World in 40 Days (part 1)

The Adventure Begins: From Auckland to England

How can you beat an adventure like that? A year ago that was the question I asked after our amazing two week holiday in Los Angeles. And yet, within three weeks of returning home, Mum and Dad were already cooking up plans for something even bigger.

Before you could say “jetlag” they had already planned out a journey that would last six weeks, visiting five countries across three continents, and requiring us to learn two new languages. Or a few words of each at least.

Less than a year after the last trip, we were jetting off again, although this new world tour started a lot like the last one. Yes, we deliberately made our plans this way just to see one special mouse…

Part 1: Los Angeles

Disneyland is such an amazing place that we just fell in love with it last time. But this holiday would be Double Disney - not only would we be starting with the original park in Anaheim, we’d also visit Disneyland Paris as well! But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We spent three days doing dozens of rides in the beautiful California sunshine. Some were rides we’d missed last time, like the Matterhorn bobsleds, which were closed previously, and which we all thought was one of our favourites. Another was Hyperspace Mountain, which Dad didn’t let us go on last time (even though he went on as a kid years ago!) but which was awesome (and even Dad enjoyed).

Part of the Star Tours ride is when the photo of a member of the audience is shown on the screen to everyone as a traitor to the Republic, which kickstarts the whole ride - and on one of the times we did it the screen showed a photo of me! I was the traitor they had to chase down! Big surprise and super cool!

Another fun extra thing about Disneyland is the surprise meet and greets in the different lands - you never quite know who you might bump into. Like the day in Galaxy’s Edge when the Mandalorian and his friend Grogu were lucky enough to meet and greet me!

We stayed late every night to pack in as many rides and evening shows as we could. Even second time around, Disneyland was just as magical as ever. And after waiting a whole year, William and I finally got to eat a churro.

On our last evening we did something un-Disney and visited Medieval Times, this cool themed restaurant with a show involving knights on horseback doing things like sword fights and jousting. And when the food arrived, everyone had to eat it with our hands. That was no problem though, I could dine like that every day!

The next stop on our world tour promised to be a little colder though.

Part 2: England (first leg)

By the time we landed in England we’d already spent a total of 21 hours on planes, leaving New Zealand and travelling about as far from there as it’s possible to go - all the way to the opposite side of the world.

Our first taste of England was taking the Tube from the airport to our hotel in central London. It seemed crazy at the start with all these different trains, stations and lines, but actually it turned out to be fun and I got to be really good with using the maps. Although lugging all our suitcases on and off trains, and up and down stairways in the stations, is something I definitely won’t miss.

We had three days in London and those days started early - none of us seemed to be able to adjust to the new time zone and so we kept waking up super early. Mum and Dad were often awake at 3am, hoping me and William would stir so they could get up!

So off we went, heading out just after 6am with only birds and a few random people for company. We walked through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace and down to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.

Across the river we visited London Dungeon, one of my favourite attractions - dark, creepy and lots of jump scares as we were thrown into scenes from some of the goriest parts of the city’s history. Plagues, witches and vile punishments - loved it!

The Tower of London was my first taste of a castle. I was expecting just this single narrow tower but it was actually a big place with lots of towers, rooms and battlements to explore. I bought a cool skull ornament from there as a memento.

Next it was time to hit the road as we got our rental car for a south of England road trip. It was super modern with lots of features that took Dad a while to work out (while he was driving!). The number plate was KT something, so we named her “Katie”.

First stop on the road trip was Stonehenge, which was pretty cool and amazing how long it’s been standing there. It just suddenly appeared in the middle of a field, miles from anywhere.

Then it was onto the town of Glastonbury, which was nice and had the cool ruined Glastonbury Abbey, but which also had lots of witchy shops and weirdos hanging around. People who looked like they were spat out of a time warp from the 1960s. It wasn’t my kind of place. We also walked up the steep hill of Glastonbury Tor to the ruined tower at the top.

After that we visited a tiny old fishing village called Clovelly which had the steepest street, all made of cobbled stones, that I’d ever seen. We had lunch at a lookout looking across the water, but it was spitting with rain so we didn’t stay too long - especially since the next place was a special one and a big part of the reason we’d driven all this way. The Hartlands reached Hartland!

Hartland the town is a pretty small place, so you’d think when some actual Hartlands arrived maybe they’d let us stay for free. Sadly not. But we did stay in this nice pub where me and William finally had our own room, and maybe, if some global pandemic hits the world again in the future, just maybe one day we could inherit the whole town! Now that would be awesome.

Next we drove through the area of Dartmoor, where we visited a ruined church on a hill and an area of stone circles and lines. We also stayed in probably our worst accommodation of the entire trip: a pub in the middle of nowhere, with no wifi in the room and a shower that seemed like some naughty kid was secretly controlling the water temperature and pressure so that it would jump up and down whenever he pleased.

The B&B we stayed in at Fareham was so luxury after that - a big comfy bed, proper shower and breakfast in the morning. While there we visited Portchester Castle and met up with an old friend of Mum’s who had the odd name of Fliss. It was she who introduced us to the typical British thing of a cup of tea and scone with clotted cream, which were delicious.

And just as we were starting to feel a bit British, it was time to head back to London, hand in Katie and get ready for country number three: France. That’s in blog part 2…

An 'Olliewood' Adventure in 'Carafornia'

Across the Seas to Los Angeles

America is one of those places everyone knows. It's in a thousand movies and internet videos and TV shows. But now we'd be seeing it for ourselves as we took off on a family holiday to Los Angeles.

It's been a long time coming. Mum and Dad first talked about it even before we went to Fiji, nearly two years ago! But after an 11-hour flight halfway across the world we were in California, or as Dad decided to name it, “Carafornia”.

Our first stop was Anaheim for four nights to visit Disneyland. This was an amazing place with a magical vibe. Every day we got there before the park opened and rushed to the first ride to squeeze in as many rides as we could. We'd constantly be checking the app to see which line was shortest, then we'd dash across the park to get there.

All the rides were amazing but I had a couple of favourites: the Star Wars ride Rise of the Resistance and the big outdoor rollercoaster The Incredicoaster (which you can see in the right picture above). I'd never even been on a rollercoaster before we came to Disneyland but turns out I love them, so I dragged Mum on with me twice, though Dad and William were too chicken.

But the awesomeness didn't stop at rides - I even got to meet a bunch of Star Wars characters. I had a close encounter with Chewbacca (see the pic below), got told off by a pair of Stormtroopers, and even had a private meeting with Darth Vader himself!

Disneyland was so great we didn’t want to leave. On our third day there, after we'd arrived at 7:30 in the morning, we stayed until nearly midnight, only taking a couple of hours off to freshen up at the hotel and have some dinner. We watched the fireworks display and a cool Star Wars light show.

As we were walking towards the exit, we heard a voice over a loudspeaker saying "Last call for the Disneyland Express", and without even stopping to think about it, we rushed off for the last ride of the night on the Disneyland steam train. We just didn't want to leave.

My wallet was bulging with American money I'd been given by Grandma and Aunt Val, so Mum and Dad had to restrain me not to spend it all on the first day. In fact, it was the second day, when I spent most of my travel money in a Star Wars shop at Downtown Disney. William also spent a bunch of his money in the Disney store there - the shop owners must have been pleased to see us that day!

Anaheim would be a tough act to follow for sure. Our next stop was West Hollywood, or “Olliewood” as I called it, for six nights. The hotel had a great pool and a nice big room perfect for watching American game shows and ghost hunting programmes in the evenings.

The first two days in Olliewood were at Universal Studios, which like Disneyland also had some amazing rides, like Jurassic World. My favourite was the Harry Potter one, even if it hurled us around so much in our vehicle that I was worried about keeping my buffet breakfast in my stomach!

On one of the other rides, we'd just gotten off and were outside talking about how much we enjoyed it when Dad asked Mum where our backpack was. That's the backpack which held all our money, passports and important stuff like that. When she swore loudly and ran off back into the ride, we knew she’d walked out leaving it behind in our buggy. Luckily someone had handed it in and we got it back. Classic Cara - we didn't let her forget about that for the whole rest of the trip.

After Universal Studios, we had a full-day personalised tour with a guide who also happened to have the best name in the world: Ollie. He was a super nice guy who took us up to the Hollywood sign, across to Hollywood Boulevard to see the stars on the Walk of Fame, down to Venice Beach and the famous pier, and up to the Griffith Observatory to see the city at night and look through the big telescope at Jupiter and its moons.

That Ollie had also thoughtfully provided two big chiller bins of drinks and snacks for the day, which this Ollie and William helped ourselves to constantly throughout the day.

The next day we did a day trip by train up to a seaside place called Santa Barbara, which was nice and much quieter than LA, but not that much to see for three hours each way on the train. I think Mum and Dad just wanted a change of pace after the crazy busyness of the last week.

Time was starting to run out, but not before we spent a few hours at the Natural History Museum seeing the massive dinosaur skeletons and this huge hall filled with gems and massive gold nuggets which William just loved. He was so excited by seeing the gold I thought security people might need to check his pockets on the way out in case he tried to take home a souvenir.

It was an amazing holiday and we were so sad to be leaving. After two weeks we were really feeling like locals. But before we even left America, we’d already decided: wherever the next holiday takes us, whenever we do it, it has to be via Disneyland. There’s just nowhere else in the world like it.

And that was our holiday in America. Now that we're back home again, this might be my last blog for a while. After all, how can you top an adventure like that?

A Frightful Time

Going Candy Crazy

There's something about Halloween that kids like me really love. It's partly the trick or treating, but it's also the spookiness of it all. It's a chance for us to get dressed up in the scariest costumes we can find, which Mum wouldn't let us wear any other time of the year.

William and me had been counting down to this Halloween for weeks, and by the time it came around the entrance to our house was decorated with bats, skulls and gravestones. And when the sun set, it got downright frightful...

Both of us needed new costumes this year, and I'd already decided I was going to be a grim reaper. But there were so many great masks that I ended up buying three of them! This would be one grim reaper who could change from a demon, to a ghostface, to an illuminated scary-face-thing.

William wasn't sure what to go as, but when we were looking through costumes in the shop, one really stood out - the creepy clown. So with our pumpkin baskets in hand, we set off on the big trick or treat candy hunt.

We had high hopes after last year's haul of goodies, but this year was even better. We walked and drove around streets, visiting houses and collecting candy as we went, and after about an hour and a half our baskets were full. William was having to squish his candies down to fit more in.

The massive pile of lollies, chocolate and gum would keep us going for ages. Except that I know I'm going to need to start wearing braces from the beginning of December, so that only gives me until the end of November to eat them all. Okay then - challenge accepted!

Crazy Costumes

From superheroes to Slappy

Clothes are pretty boring most of the time. In the morning you’re either putting on a uniform for school or some hacky clothes for whatever we’re doing on the weekend. Not very exciting. You can pretty much bet that if one of the presents under the tree at Christmas is some t-shirts or pyjamas, that’ll be my least favourite present (Santa, take note!).

That’s why getting dressed up is something all kids love. It’s our chance to beat the boring, lose the lame, and make clothes fun. Luckily this year me and William got the chance to dress up in a few different crazy outfits.

First up we had the colour run, where we both wore clean white t-shirts and had to run a course through school where teachers and parents threw bright dye all over us. Apparently it was to raise money for the school – maybe they needed a new laundry to wash all those t-shirts. By the end of it we looked like we’d been caught in an explosion at a paint factory!

Only a few weeks later I got to dress up again, but with Mum this time. We were doing a Shore-to-Shore fun run, and everyone was encouraged to dress up in costumes. So me and Mum went as superheroes – I was Superman/SuperOllie and Mum was kind of a Batgirl. I looked awesome anyway. It was really fun but I was so tired by the end – running is not one of my favourite hobbies.

The last dress-up event was probably the most fun. Our school had its annual book day, where all the kids come dressed up as characters from their favourite books. Over the last year I’ve been obsessed with reading all the Goosebumps books and must have read dozens of them, so I decided to go as one of the creepy characters from there – the ventriloquist dummy Slappy.

For some reason, William decided to go as Hairy Maclary, even though he hasn’t read those books in ages. I think he just loves cats and we already had half the costume. Mum did a great make-up job on us both.