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South Korea was never a destination intended to be on our bucket list of must see places. To be perfectly honest, we have witnessed enough tourists from this country to have an opinion that I shall refrain from repeating or sharing. I had hoped that visiting the country would shed new light, alas, I was wrong. Our next destination is our place of choice. To go there, we wanted to land on a certain day of the week. With Japan being a rather expensive country, we opted to fly to Seoul for a few days, then move on. What could possibly be wrong with visiting yet another new country? If flight prices had been more favourable, then we would have flown into Busan, a coastal destination, but alas prices dictated that the Capital was far cheaper to fly in and out of. And that is how and why we came to be in South Korea, and Seoul. Don`t get me wrong, its not all bad, our hotel is perfectly adequate. Exceptionally clean, very small, just 8 or so rooms, and one of the cleanest kitchens so far. Such a shame cooking is not an option. We have Netflix, a window that opens, and a private bathroom. The hotel manager is lovely. Very different to anyone else we have met whilst here. From his equivalent of our Amazon App he has purchased Teabags and SD Memory cards for us, we gave him the cash, order placed at 9pm arrives at 6am. We have required both for quite some time, not so much the T bags, but even in Japan, the land of tech, we were never in the right sort of place to find the memory cards. South Korea is a country of coffee shops, ever second shop leading away from our hotel is a Coffee shop, and not ones that have Tea tucked away in the corner of any menu. Its Coffee or bust. Mr and Mrs Bunny are not wanting to venture far from the central part of Seoul, google maps doesn`t work here, and though the local mapping app is good, its just not the same. Little B wanted to go on a trip to the DMZ, we were not particularly bothered. Of everything she learned whilst on said trip, more of which I will expand upon later, was the fact that Koreans are workaholics, and learnaholics. They strive to be the best English speaker, have the best white collar jobs, aiming always upwards, but gaining this by endless learning, school all day, quick nap, and additional advanced learning each evening until the early hours. Every day. Pretty much sums up why they drink so much coffee! (and why they look permanently miserable and tired) Seoul. From the moment I arrived I confess that I just didn`t feel or get the vibe of Seoul. It is not a pretty city, it is not a happy or bustling city, it just Is. Tourism doesn`t seem to have a place here. Very much, `Oh, your a tourist, well you can go here, or there, play dress up if you want, but just get on with it on your own please`. I do admit to arriving into this country very much feeling the pain and sadness of losing a very dear lifelong friend, but there is nothing here to take my mind off it, or cheer me up. I find Seoul, soul less. We went to the `Palace` we know they have a changing of the guard ceremony. Prior to watching this ceremony, we wandered the grounds of said Palace. Truthfully nothing about it looks like a palace. It is not a lived in palace, it looks more like a collection of Temples, a smaller version of the Forbidden City in China, and everywhere we looked we saw people playing dress up in the local traditional dress of the country, the Hanbok. Fine, go ahead and play dress up, but why? It looks perfectly wonderful when you have the face that suits the dress, but western people wearing the Hanbok looks, sorry, stupid. (my opinion only) Putting a pleasant quizzical look on my face (at times hard) I asked an older English speaking lady why she was wearing it, her reply `to be a part of it` ? Eh? You want to be part of a culture that does not wear its traditional dress everyday (unlike say Ecuador or Peru) I tried to keep my opinion of `well I think you look stupid` well and truly masked. Like I admit to earlier, I really do not get the vibe of Seoul. My frustration towards the dress was exacerbated when a white foreign person from a country which I deign to refer, had a hissy fit about having to pay an entrance fee because as per all the notices stated Persons wearing the Hanbok are exempt from paying. He was wearing it, but partly. Wearing scruffy jeans and trainers under the smock does not a traditional outfit make. The cost of the Entrance Fee? £1.50 for goodness sake people, get a life! The time of the changing of the Guard approached. They fenced off the area, people walked into the fence multiple times dragging it across the ground purely because they couldn`t bear to tear their eyes away from their phones. Oh I was getting so cross. At least let this ceremony be good. It wasn`t. It was a painfully boring and amateurish recreation of how the changing of the guard was done, way back when. 40 or 50 persons, in recreated traditional dress, some with stick on beards, marched about in some sort of formation, waved a few flags, and left. I may have found some humour in the situation if some infuriating bint behind me hadn`t used my head as a phone rest. I was so angry, but alas the parade ground was respectfully quiet. 20 mins of biting my lip, but she clearly knew as she scarpered pdq when the parade ended and I rounded on her in a fury. Poof, she was gone. Two younger end boys, possibly early 20s most probably from Korea, were my only salvation to the day. We saw them standing ever so proudly in their very smart Hanbok outfits of the most beautiful pale blue near the lake. Taking each others photo, they brought a smile to my face that day. Later in our stay in Seoul we visited the temple. A lot less people playing dress up, and a very fine room that you could view through the window were about as much as I recall. My patience with temples, is waning fast. We could have visited the secret garden to see the cherry blossom, but, you know what, we all agreed we were pretty much done with the cherry blossom. Starbucks hot chocolate and cake, Mr B having beer and chicken in the bar opposite, finished our day. That, my bunny friends, is probably all I can tell you about Seoul. We walked to a pasta restaurant one afternoon to find some real food, Pasta always works and a box was ticked. The choices of food here in Seoul are vast, and I promised myself that when we came away I would be brave and try different foods, but as per the food found across Asia, be it Singapore, Kl, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, if you cannot stomach fish of every variety, sea foods, chicken every part still with skin on, or even more bizarre sandwiches made with egg, crab meat, mayo, carrot, vinegar, onion, sweet corn and strawberry jam, on the same sandwich at home, then your taste buds are not going to change that much when away. I have really struggled with food these last few weeks, the 7/11 in Japan was a lifesaver with its huge choices of wonderful and almost `normal` foods, but in a few other places? Mars Bar anyone? South Korea, I may not understand you, but I respect you. It is unlikely we would choose to return and wish you every kindness and peace in your lives.

When we first planned the trip Japan was always a perhaps or maybe, never a definite, but being just a short flight away from Taiwan it made sense. Not a country that we had researched at length, but I did happen to know that the biggest and best Disney park of all resided in Tokyo. (hum te tum fancy that...) Not only could we visit Japan, we could visit in Cherry Blossom season (more about that later) and make a short but wonderfully sweet stop at both Disneyland and DisneySea. Win Win Win. I was somewhat reluctant to stay in Tokyo city, with 38 million people and the biggest populated city in the world, it felt a little overwhelming. The Disney parks themselves are found on an island all on their own away far from the bright lights and big city, and it made sense to me to plonk our selves down within the inner boundaries of the Disney bubble, and start our Japan adventure from there. Mrs Bunnies choice of hotel was quite superb, and we all knew that we were sacrificing ourselves to the much cheaper end of Japanese bunny hutches to compensate for this lavish 3 night blow out. (worth it? with bells on!!) Tokyo Bay Sheraton Hotel, Tokyo. With a flight landing at silly o`clock, we knew seeing Tokyo itself prior to our 2 days in Disney would be a stretch. Ideally we wanted to check in, dump the bags, get the metro to the city until 7pm, metro back, sleep the sleep of the walking dead, then awaken in time to join the hoards of Disney Sea queuing people at 6am. .A plan well and truly scuppered when the hotel refused point blank to let us check in before 1pm, (we had thought that a hotel of that stature would make some compensation for early arrivals, alas not). Then it started to snow! Say what? I kid you not it was absolutely utterly freezing, and of course having sent all our winter clothing and coats back home from New Zealand we were more than a little unprepared for this cold wet weather. We cut our losses, slept in reception until 10am, and generally passed time until 12pm when the staff, clearly fed up with us keeping politely asking if a room was available, agreed to let us check into our room just a little early. With Mr B feeling quite dreadful with a very bad dose of flu, that he "ahem" bluffed away as a dust allergy hence the sneezing, (this is Japan, the land of permanent facemasks) he retired to sleep until 3pm. Mrs Bunny whiled the time away perusing the entry requirements for DisneySea, and noted that we could get same day entry tickets and that the park closed at 9pm. Mr Bunny had quite the shock when he woke to find two female bunnies dressed in our very best Disney gear, and every other item of clothing we could find, raring to hop along to Disney Sea. With Sea being the busiest Disney park of all, with some fairly complicated ride entries, we thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of our half day to recce the park. Disney Sea Tokyo Disney Sea part one. We walked from our hotel to the Mickey Monorail just a 3 minute walk away, and boarded the Mickey train to Sea. Oh my goodness, after seeing all the pictures of this monorail, to see it for ourselves was just wonderful. The seats were Mickey Mouse colours of black, white and red. The windows were Mickey heads, the ceiling hand holders, were Mickey heads. The closing of the door was a Disney Jingle. The station master waved us off with a dance and a smile. We could not keep the grins off our faces. Naturally the entry queues were long gone, and the park entry area was almost deserted, maybe the cold morning had kept the crowds away (oh how we came to giggle about that little thought later) We entered Disney Sea and were instantly blown away with the sheer size and theming of this awesome park. This is not just Disney, this is Disney on steroids! Did we find the people? oh boy did we ! We knew from endless previous research that we would not be able to ride anything, but to see the actual wait times was quite mind boggling. 3-4 hours was not uncommon. Less popular rides had wait times of around 1.5 to 2 hours. Little bunny very much came into her own here. We had all downloaded the Disney app, and little B had trained us well on how to navigate it. To get on any ride, you either wait in a very long line, paid fast pass, or a free 40th anniversary fast pass. Quite complicated, but little B had it all worked out. This particular afternoon however we devoted to trying to figure out the layout of the park so that we didn`t get lost the following day when it all mattered. Very difficult. The park is simply massive. It is also quite brilliant at hiding all its rides. The exterior theming is such that you cannot see anything that gives the ride away. The only exception was a short bit of rollercoaster track in a couple of places. This particular afternoon we managed the Sinbad ride (all in Japanese) and a last minute free 8.50pm fast pass got us a ride on the Tower of Terror. We didn`t mind, nor did we feel like we missed out. The place is out of this world. In the evening there were two different light and firework shows, but unfortunately with our lack of extra warm layers we had to miss these and bolt for our bunny hutch of warmth. From this initial recce we deduced that the only way we could successfully navigate the park, ride the best rides with the least amount of wasted time, was to pay. Mr Bunny said Kerching and Game On! Disney Sea part 2. One full on magical day. We left our hotel at 5.45am, got on the metro at 6, arrived at Sea by 6.10am, and in no way whatsoever were we even close to the front of the queue. The local people have waiting in line for Disney off to a fine art. If you are thinking hot drinks and breakfast rolls? Oh no! Not at all. Try make up bags, hair straighteners, hair products, nail varnish, nail kits and accessories. All around us girls were quite nonchalantly touching up their make up, adding nail art to artificial nails, using portable hair straighteners, and generally preening. The ones not preening were taking selfies. We go to Disney and try our best to go as hands free as possible, the Japanese girls, and boys alike, think nothing of carrying huge handbags, styled bags, shoulder bags, smart rucksacks or crossbody bags all liberally adorned with copious amounts of cute everythings. Including the boys. Keyrings, stuffies, accessories are carried everywhere, and the rumours are true, taking your favourite large Disney soft toy is very much the done thing. Our next observation is the dress code. The Japanese dress with style. Not a single Disney t shirt or jumper did we see. My bright pink Marie (Aristocats) t-shirt, widely accepted as the norm in Orlando, was garishly out of place,. Yet, the young Japanese girls would happily wear cute cat ears, carry Marie bags, key rings, and other accessories but not give my cute Marie T shirt even a cursory glance. One Asian girl pointed to my T shirt and said That`s Cool! but her voice was pure American. Many girls would twin with their friend, wearing identical outfits, or complimenting dress, if one carried Mickey mouse, the other would carry Minnie. And a huge amount of them would be wearing school uniform. Was quite odd. Short pleated tartan skirts, white ankle socks, blouses with a large knotted bow tie, a blazer and brogues. At a Disney Theme park? Google informed us that wearing a school uniform of which they are inordinately proud indicated Youth. They crave to look as young as possible, for as long as possible. Such a refreshing change to the youth of the UK who try their utmost to look as old as possible as soon as possible. With flawless complexions it is quite difficult if not impossible to differentiate between a 14 year old girl and a 28 year old woman. When the doors to Disney finally opened, and security cleared, they literally ran to the first ride of the day, we saw very few younger Japanese or local people in the premier pass line. With little Bunny`s help, we three bunnies did the fastest finger first and booked, paid and planned our day with precision. We knew that paying for the fast pass was the only way we would survive the day, so Mr Bunny gave little B the green light to nab as many rides as possible, free or paid, giving us one heck of an awesome day. The newest part of the park was Fantasy Springs. 2 Billion pounds worth of awesomeness! The rides here are just unbelievable, 5 rides, with the most extravagant theming you could possibly imagine. We were happy to miss Tinkerbell, but with exquisite organizational skills, little B got us on all the remaining rides in Fantasy Springs, and all the rides and shows we wanted to see in Disney Sea. I could tell you all about every ride, but I`m sure by now you are getting bored. In brief, we Journeyed to the Centre of the Earth, dived 20,000 leagues under the sea, boarded a hang glider on Soarin, took the lift in the Tower of Terror and so so so much more. On far too many occasions we did the walk of shame, walking past hundreds of people with our fast pass that queue jumped us to within 10 feet of the ride start. To say that we were grateful not to understand the language was an understatement. These people had been queuing for up to 3 hours when we breezed past them. We will probably never get the chance to visit Disney Tokyo Sea again, but I am proud to say that on our one full day we did it well. Disneyland. Our magical day 2. With the phenomenal crowds at Disney Sea, we totally expected Disneyland to be so much quieter, and a breeze. We planned to get up at 7.30, join the line at 8, meander the park at leisure... lucky for us a chance conversation at the bar (Mr B of course) suggested that we needed to go such much earlier. Phew! good job we took the advice. Disneyland was every bit as busy as Sea. Once again Little B did the fastest finger first and again we queued, paid, and fast passed our way through another action packed day. Every ride is superb, but one was just unforgettable. Beauty and the Beast. How can I possibly describe this jaw dropping ride? From walking through a castle, listening to the story, boarding a t cup on a trackless ballroom, dancing with the plates, watching a lifelike yet totally animated Cogsworth and Lumiere to finally witnessing the Beast rise and turn into a man before your eyes was pure ride magic on a scale we have never seen before. We started the day with the most unbelievable ride, and ended at the most entertaining Disney theatre show. Not just one or two characters in the same costume. All of them, in all their costumes. Disney Sea and Disneyland Tokyo. You made all our bunny dreams come true. Leaving the Disney Bubble for reality is always a shock to the system. Just as we previously toured Disneyland Hong Kong, then ventured into the chaos of Hong Kong Island, this was to be the same sort of bubble pricking moment, this time it was Tokyo. Tokyo. We really wanted to say that we had at least seen something of this incredible city, but with just a few hours we could only touch on a little bit of something. We chose the Shibuya Scramble Crossing and learned the hard way just how difficult it is to do anything in a short period of time. especially in the most populated city in the world. With all our bags we headed into Tokyo with a plan to leave them at `one of the many lockers at the station`, we headed for Shibuya. Fail number One. No lockers. With a bit of thought and hindsight, we would have realised how daft we were for thinking we could find an empty locker at the busiest station in the biggest city in the world just because we wanted one. Fail number 2. Trying to find Cat billboard. In the time we had to spare we couldn`t even find our way out of the station, never mind find a certain street corner with a very special cat animation. Last chance to achieve a Tokyo dream., with all our bags we boarded yet another train for a further 15 stops (and still didn`t even remotely come near to touching the edge of Tokyo) we made it to Shibuya Scramble. Fail number 3. We needed tickets. We did not have tickets. (the tickets are for the elevator that specifically takes you to a certain viewpoint) We did however have access to a very large shopping mall with windows that looked across and down onto the crossing. Whilst it would have been awesome to have experienced the crossing at ground level, with all our bags it just wasn`t an option. We gazed our fill then boarded our first Shinkansen train to the west coast of Japan and to our next destination, the town of Kanazawa. I gave little B a free reign to choose whatever route she wanted through Japan. I asked for off beaten track places, less popular, certain attractions. We knew we couldn`t come to Japan without seeing a few iconic places, but we did try for a few of the quieter ones. Little Bunny does the most fantastic research, learning not only where to go, but she finds us the best places, local facts, must eat foods, and titbits of local knowledge. For example the manhole covers. Each city has their own design, here in Himeji where I am at the moment, the covers are all of the castle. Kanazawa, also known as little Kyoto. This wonderful city of many faces was one of the few places in Japan not to be affected by the war, leaving a very unique and special old town. Our first stop was the castle and the gardens. For just green trees and Bonsai, it was a very special garden. The trees are all tied from top to trunk with ropes. It makes for a very pretty and eye catching silhouette, these ropes act as snow landing deterrents for the delicate bonsai trees. We visited a tea house and watched a tea ceremony of sorts. Bit of a nightmare for 2 bunnies of limited mobility as everyone was invited into the room and asked to kneel. Kneel? One bunny has two knees with limited movement, and banana back bunny cannot sit on the ground in a kneeling fashion for all the tea in Japan. With a pointed look at two very able bodied young people just about to sit down on them, we acquired the two chairs that had been placed in one corner of the room. Little B with her own wonky hip sat in a partial kneeling position and we three bunnies tried hard to not giggle our way through this very formal ceremony at our lack of bodily functionality. Leaving the castle grounds, the castle btw was superb, but a reconstruction, and though beautiful was quite bland and wooden. If you are an architect and love wooden structures, this would be right up your street. For us mere mortal bunnies, it was just another pretty wooden structure, they called it a castle, we called it a large expanse of room. Leaving the `castle` behind, we headed next for the old town of Kanazawa. Old traditional wooden houses untouched by war or fire. Whilst busy in the town, we were as yet not confronted by the hoards and hoards of rude tourists that would plague us later in the trip. Kanazawa is the home of gold leaf paper. They even put gold leaf on ice cream. We ate gold ice cream. What does it taste like? The ice cream was incredible, the gold merely a tasteless but pretty addition. We had to eat in the shop as you are not allowed to eat on the go anywhere in Japan, least of all in Kanazawa and especially not ice cream. Mr Bunny sat all snuffly with his cold outside, but we sneaked him some ice cream to ease his throat and sooth his cough, Mr B, stuffed the lot into his mouth in one go and feigned his best chubby bunny innocence of not eating where not allowed. Our last visit in Kanazawa was to the home of an original Samurai warrior. His armour and sword preserved in a glass cabinet. Part of the house was a museum, and we found one artifact most amusing. In a glass case was a scroll of Japanese writing, and its translation, which read, ` We appreciate that you worked so hard to kill one high ranked officer on the fourth of last month at Yokokitaguchi Battle in Kaganokuni Enuamagun. We are very happy that you brought us his head` October 9th 1566 (Eiroku Ninth) From Kanazawa we had yet another glitch in our list of planned events. It was on the agenda to visit Shirakawa a small village in the mountains, but alas all bus tickets were sold out `due to the festival`. Again I will refer to this later. Instead we spent one last day in the old town of Kanazawa, then left our first, and very cosy capsule hotel, for our next destination, Takayama. Once more we caught a train. Catching a train in Japan is quite the art form. They have an app called Navi time and it is superb. Leaving the app to little B she has patiently and diligently navigated us around all our destinations of Japan using this app. There are around 7 types of train here in Japan, and a train is not just a train. ( Quick bit of info here...at our first hotel they asked us how we got there...I said `train`, they didn`t understand, I mimed choo choo and made train sounds, they still didn`t understand. I know now that most, if not all Japanese trains are not only silent, they are also very futuristic and silent, oops) There are 3 types of Limited Express trains, a rapid express, express, sub express, semi express and local. Then there is the Shinkansen aka the Bullet Train. These trains can only be described as `sexy` Japan train travel is quite the experience, and as for the stations? Kyoto alone has 15 floors/levels. At Takayama we stayed in a little house with the most giggly funny helpful Japanese hosts. They were so nice. They also thought we had come from Ecuador ( booking.com having a glitch) and had written us a lovely welcome message in Spanish. They were quite thrown when we said we were from England and couldn`t understand a word they had written. As we had arrived early, and the day so pleasant, we walked to the nearby Hida Folk Village which was (if you are from the UK) a Japanese version of Beamish. A whole forest area with original houses brought there from all over Japan. There were very many house and all original. Very interesting. As we travelled to Takayama that morning we had gone through many snow filled valleys, and snow still remained around the town and at this village giving it a very pretty almost Christmas village like appearance. On our walk back into town we came across one of the many hundred drink vending machines that you see absolutely everywhere. One can said Hot Cocoa, a hot drink in a vending machine? We thought it might have been one of those clever chemical reaction cans, shake to create heat etc, but nope, the can that came out of the machine was hot. Unbelievable. But this is also the country that puts strawberries and fresh cream in sandwiches so we really shouldn`t be fazed by a hot can from a vending machine. Our next visit in Takayama was to the original samurai homes. In particular the government house. It was huge. And all original. The Samurai history is quite fascinating. I keep wondering why it died out...but then again, what call is there now for warriors with huge swords, topknots and scary battle armour? Onwards and upwards by train this time to Kyoto, and the town of Takatsuki. Staying this time in a private Japanese house with more rules than an airport check in counter! At first we didn`t quite know how to take the old guy. He was quite fierce and precise. Leading us into his living room he first gave us his laptop and instructed us to Read! (Yes Sir ! ) So many rules! He then invited us into the kitchen and demonstrated the kettle, the oven and the glassware. He then proceeded to give us a washing up demonstration with a glass clearly prepared earlier. Wash the glass thoroughly with this sponge, like this. Now use this sponge and wash again to clean away the residual soap. Now fill this bowl to the brim with clean water and place washed crockery in this bowl for 6 hours to disinfect, before placing it here in the dishwasher. You couldn`t make it up. Shower instructions next. Like this, not that. Toilet, look, oh heck, did I dare step into the toilet area in the wrong slippers?? He barked at me Out!! swap!! We had to use the toilet, clean our hands, 2 squirts of soap only mind, then clean the toilet with a disinfectant sheet. Change out of shoes (which is customary in Japan) at the front door. Only indoor slippers to be worn, but must be left at the bedroom door. Wear bedroom slippers the 4 paces to the toilet, remove slippers, place feet in toilet slippers. Don`t slide the doors like that, don`t open that window. don`t eat food in room , we did, but only cold food. We also used our own cups to avoid making any kitchen mistakes. With respect to Ken, he also did run us to the station each morning, and collect us promptly to the second each evening. Such was his character we didn`t dare even be a minute late. We slept on Futons. We also slept rather well. On our last day with Ken he told used, via google translate/audio, that he also thought we were from Ecuador, and that he had researched Ecuador and learned that there were 50% more murders in Ecuador than Japan. Poor guy must have thought us bandits or something. Was quite funny when he told us he was nervously anticipating our arrival. He was a genuinely lovely man. Kyoto like most of Japan is exceptionally expensive, especially as our trip has coincided not only with Cherry Blossom season, The Festival as it sometimes referred to, but also a half term school holiday. Hence the reason we are staying out of the city. Going to Japan to see the Cherry Blossom is on every bucket list you ever read. Did we plan to be here in Cherry Blossom season? No. It just worked out that way. Would I come again in Cherry blossom Season? Not a chance. At this point in my writing I will talk about the cherry blossom. Its a tree. It blooms. It is pretty, but nothing at all like the pictures portray. The majority of all the trees in bloom are very pale pink or even white. In all truthfulness, the May blossom at home is far prettier than any Cherry Blossom we have seen here. Cherry Blossom season in Japan, HUGE. They celebrate the Cherry Blossom by decorating the shops, they dress up in pretty Kimonos and stand under the trees taking so many photos. They even dress their dogs. Tourists come from all over the world to witness this spectacle. Have we been wowed by it yet? No. Have we seen much of Japan? 3 weeks of travelling and moving through vast parts of the country by train I would say so. Are the trees everywhere? Yes, and no. Like everyone else I have seen all the pretty pictures of the vivid pink trees, but those bright trees are not found everywhere. We have seen a lot of the pale pink blossoms, but the vivid pinks are very few and far between, needing specific journeys to specific places to see them. I had images in my head of seeing many deep pink tree lined avenues, but alas I have been disappointed. The cherry blossom as I alluded to earlier also coincides with heavy touristic traffic. Never before have we witnessed such blatant disrespect for a country. No wonder my MSN homepage is full of albeit over exaggerated `places where tourists are not welcome`, but when Kyoto is mentioned, I can see why. On a visit to the Bamboo forest, there were big clearly marked areas with signs saying `Do not stand here` Do not take photographs, with one after another after another tourist just blatantly ignoring these polite signs just to take a photo, because they want to. At another point in the forest we witnessed a despicable act of vandalism by a loud brash American woman who egged her son to pick up a rock and carve his name into the bamboo. How very dare you. We were shaking with anger, and no amount of vocal `how dare you` would make her change her mind. Her brat was having his name on that bamboo no matter what. What a disgrace you are. Watch You Tube you ignorant witch, watch as we show the world your blatant disrespect for Japanese property. Kimono. another Japanese tradition that for me is being disrespected by the number of westerners hiring them to parade up and down in. It feels so wrong. I suspect they see the `hire your Kimono here` signs, and take it as a green light to play dress up. Would I not be correct in thinking these shops are designed for the Japanese tourist market, to wear a kimono, to feel a pull with tradition, and quite probably left their own at home? Yet there goes Mary, David and Sarah parading up and down looking, in my opinion, quite ridiculous. Even more infuriating when ` Western David` chooses to wear a female kimono, rather than the gentleman`s traditional Montsuki. Each to their own I agree with, but don`t flaunt it with another countries traditional attire. Rant over. Kyoto. A huge city, but an old city, everything that Tokyo is not. We first went to the temple and traditional gates of Fushimi Inari Taisha. Such a fabulous sight, but drowning in a sea of tourists. We left the train station and quite simply followed the 1000s of people to the Shrines and Temples. Signs everywhere beg you to show respect, but with everyone wanting `that photo` to prove to anyone who cares, not, respect seems to take a poor back seat. There are 1000s of these bright red traditional gates all adorned with Japanese writing, which looks very romantic to the non Japanese reader, but which, if you pause to take a second and translate, merely tells the reader who donated or sponsored that particular gate. The gates wend their ways up the paths of the hillside and do look very pretty. Just not with wall to wall people. On the rare occasion when we had no one around us, it was a lovely place to just stand and look around. From the gates we had planned to cross a certain bridge to see the old Edo period houses, but given the sheer numbers of tourists, we decided to give this area a miss and headed out of town instead. We chose to have ourselves a little pit stop of tea and cakes, and found the cutest little olde world cafe. No body there but us, and the Beatles. The soundtrack was back to back beatles music, there were so many photos, and cute little old ornaments it felt quite homely and a world away from the rabble of tourists. We had tea and cakes, cakes so light they felt like air. From the cafe we made our way to the oldest streets of Kyoto, Gion, where the Geisha ladies can be found. These dignified ladies are not to be seen just wandering the streets, and indeed we only saw one lady as she moved quickly from car to building. We did try, and failed, to find the Hokan Ji Temple, a 5 story dark wood building built on a hill. Such is the complexity of Kyoto old town, we had to give up and search another day. We booked ourselves a trip on the Hozugawa River. We got up super early took 3 local trains to our destination, and fell at the final hurdle. A large sign at the final station informed us the river boat was cancelled. How annoying. Long story short, it wasn`t but we only found that out when we applied for a trip refund. Anyway, as the boat was cancelled we took ourselves off to a local bamboo walk, and onwards to a pretty little garden. It was in this garden surrounded by numerous people taking photos, that we saw a guy with a little robot. He was carrying it in a pouch round his neck that rested on his chest. We saw him raise his camera and this little robot moved! We swear we also heard it talk. We begged him to show us the little guy and he was most willing to do so. Removing the doll like robot from his pouch he set it down on a bench and said watch, he can sing and dance, would you like to see? Yes!!! of course we would. He bent down and spoke to the little guy, can you dance and sing? Can you sing Ave Maria? Oh my goodness our jaws hit the floor, as this little man started to sway and sing so beautifully. He gave us the full rendition singing and swaying his little heart out. Of everything we saw in Kyoto, that little robot will always take first place. With time marching on, our last call of the day was the Samurai Museum. Quite Brilliant. A precise, non convoluting very informative talk about the Samurai their rise, and their demise. Turns out Tom Cruise in the film The Last Samurai did an excellent job of portraying the story. They even acknowledge its remarkable accuracy, with just one movie inaccuracy exception, in the museum. Mr Bunny along with Little B both took the chance to play dress up in the Samurai replica armour, complete with headwear and plastic life like swords. Mr B took several attempts to pose like a Samurai, with his first two poses being more reminiscent of Harry Potter. Poses 3 and 4 taking the persona of a Jedi. Finally with a little direction, we achieved scary Samurai. Little B tried and failed miserably to wipe the silly grin off her face as she wielded her sword. Our last day in Kyoto and we tried once more to find the Hokan-Ji Temple. Pleased to say that we, and 5000 other tourists, managed to find it, however only 200 tourists, perhaps even a few less, found our cutest little temple, am I allowed to use the words cute and temple in the same sentence?. A bunny temple. We liked it for the bunny statues, but I think it was family and pregnancy related as there were a lot of young couples praying there, buying the cute bunny that you place on the shrine, and generally praying quite fervently. We maintained a polite distance, having no further desire to encourage the arrival of any small bunnies in our hutch, thank you very much. Osaka. Another train, another destination. This time Osaka, and what a contrast this city is to Kyoto, quite the chalk and cheese. Osaka is loud! Bright lights and big city. We spent a lot of time in the area of Dotonbori, walking up and down the river just gazing at the many bright lights and endless food stalls. We were quite a long way out of the city, yet in a strange way also very close. We were staying within walking distance of 3 metro stations and truth be known, I actually got quite confused as to which direction we needed to be in at any given time. I resigned myself to playing follow the leader, relying solely on Mr B and little B to return me to our tiniest hutch to date. 2 small beds and a futon on the floor that didn`t quite fit. Our `kitchen` was a pan and two bowls, but we did have a private bathroom and loo. Always a bonus. In the area of Dotonburi was the biggest and strangest ferris wheel you have ever seen. Not round, sort of straight up, and over, then back down. Of course 2 bunnies thought this looked like a real bit of fun. Not wanting to be left behind, Mrs B, against her better judgement, also partook a ride on this crazy wheel. To say there were tears is an understatement. I truly hate heights, and this was just plain stupid. I managed a couple of glances, but I swear all I wanted to do was curl and hide. Never again will I subject myself to something so idiotic. We finished our short hop in Osaka at the tower near were we were residing. Lit up in all its glory displaying the countdown to Osaka Expo 2025, that starts in just 10 days time, 5 days after we leave Good timing or bad, I cannot decide. One final day trip from Osaka took us to the area of Nara. Famed for it tame, bowing, free roaming deer. From the moment we arrived we saw the deer. Casually roaming the streets. We watched them for a long time as they interacted with people, and we also saw how very pushy the deer were. So so many signs everywhere telling you how to behave around the deer, do not pet them if you do not intend to feed them. Of course, vastly ignored. People mean food. That is all that goes through their little minds. For a long time we chose to leave the deer well alone, but the pull to feed them the specially designed deer crackers was too much. The deer feed was not to be found everywhere. Naturally the deers gather where the food is found. Little B took her food, and such is her nature, was immediately surrounded by the smallest cutest deer, all clamouring to be fed, but all patiently waiting. Mr Bunnies deer had a hunch he carried food in his pockets and he was hassled by pocket munching deer. He had to feed them quickly before they raided his pockets for items that most definitely were not edible. Then Mrs Bunny. True to my nature, I was followed by the deer that wanted to know everything, Now! Where is my food, when, how, is it today, where do we get it...pushing me for food my group of deer were actually quite aggressive. With go pro in one hand and food in the other, I am certain it is going to reveal a kerfuffle of squeaks as I am bitten both on my breast and with more venom, on my backside. Damn deer took a real chomp at my rear end. Very painful, but what if I was a child? A lesson learned. Deer are wild by nature. Leave well alone. Leave feeding to the keepers. Nodding Deer of Nara Himeji. Our time in Japan is brief so we are continually moving forward. By train again we travel to the town of Himeji. We are here for one thing only, its fabulously huge Japanese Castle. Standing with in the grounds and surrounded by large moats, some with water, some now without, this beautiful structure dominates the landscape. From almost everywhere in Himeji you can see this stunning white wooden castle. About as different in construction to any other castle that we have in the UK, this is built purely of wood. Construction was started in around 1333, and continued expanding until around 1618. Considered the finest surviving example of Japanese architecture, its not difficult to appreciate why. Buying an entrance ticket we joined once again the many many hoards of tourists and I think locals alike, to wander, in a strict one way passage, to the Keep of the castle, the very top. Again I was forced to question the 'why'? people want to pay to enter such a stunning place, to merely trudge through, following the feet of the person in front, and blindly ignoring the actual physical structure of the building around us. We three bunnies, hopped out of the mass queue, and allowed ourselves the time to just gaze with wonder at this awesome piece of architecture. No screws, no brackets, no stone walls, just an internal structure of precision woodwork. Like a huge jigsaw this castle slots together. And the tourists just trudged past it all. We bunnies stood for ages on each floor just looking at the aged beams, you could see everything was hand carved, and the sheer size of these wooden beams? How on earth did they get them there? The inside of the castle was quite dark, with only narrow slits of light from the windows, but spotting dark holes, I shone my phone torch into one of them and noted they were iron hinged flaps, none were open, but very much pointed to archery deployment. The sheer number of people in the castle was a little alarming, surely even a structure of this complexity was never designed to house this amount of moving people? We never did make it to the very top. The stationary queue was quite ridiculous. We chose instead to appreciate the inner beauty of its construction. The rooms of the castle were not rooms, imagine a square outer edge, with an inner `room?` in the centre, then a staircase to another square, a little smaller, and so on. Each level getting smaller. No furniture, no dividing walls along any of the passage ways, no content. Long gone, or simple Japanese living? I will mention our odd hotel at Himeji. Always driven by budget, this 7.5 rating hotel seemed satisfactory, however I failed to read all the reviews of our latest stay. 2 rooms for a starter, (that ticked a box), but rooms that contained accessories of condoms, sachets of lubrication, a dvd/video player, `room service` a double bath with tv, a TV with adult channels? Beds (shudder) with rubber backed sheets, (banished to the floor)! I cannot deny the room had a decent amount of space and was perfectly adequate, but it felt just a little `icky` Turns out this was once a 'lurve' hotel, but is trying (according to their most recent responses on booking.com ) to reinvent itself as a tourist hotel. 5/10 for effort. Never mind, we have had more fabulous and acceptable places, than odd ones. This one was however, a little Unique. Hiroshima. I don`t profess to know everything about the war, the who fought who and why and when, but know a man that does. I do know about the Atom Bomb of Hiroshima. Wanting to see the city for myself, and attempt to share this cities history with him, we chose Hiroshima as our next destination. As soon as we arrived we noted this was a city with a very different vibe. It was a very quiet city, vast, spread out, and exceptionally pretty. The river banks were wide and green, the cherry blossom trees lining their paths. Buildings were spaced, not cramped. Leaving our bags at the hostel, we left straight away and headed to the Peace Memorial Park and Bomb Dome. I was already clenching my fists and preparing to bite my tongue should I dare witness anyone playing the fool or taking inappropriate selfies, (witnessed first hand at other poignant sights around the world) but you know what? I could totally relax. 99.9% of everyone standing in front of that eerie building was respectful. You could sense the feeling of, did this really happen? Here? yet standing before the only remaining building, was living proof of what one nation could do to another. This building was not the only building to survive, there were a few others, but for some reason this one held the most importance for the city. The plaques declare that for a long time the city managers wanted to destroy and remove all reminders of the war, but the residents insisted that it should be preserved as a memorial to all those who died, and how they should never be forgotten. Endlessly protected and with sympathetic preservation, this building stands, along with its fallen masonry ,exactly as is it was the morning of August 6th 1945 at 8.15am. We went to the museum. It was a very large museum, one half dedicated to the immediate after effects, the survivors, the artifacts, the human stories, and one half to the realities and prevention of Atom and Nuclear bombs. (Far too much reading) With a thousand other silent people, we read the stories and saw the realities of war, but chose not to read the vast expanses of `Why`. Prior to reaching Hiroshima, little B had done her usual endless research. What else was there, what to do, where to go. Personally I only wanted to see the Memorial Park and leave it at that, but I had this continuous little voice telling me that we could go to Miyajima. Only a train ride away, won`t take long, should we go, Miyajima, Miyajima, Mirayima, Miyajima.... I know when to take notice, and this is clearly a place we should be going. From experience, I know little B is seldom wrong. Of course she was right again. We caught a fast train to the coast, and a ferry to this Island, and Wow!! there they were, the Torii Gates of Mirajima, protecting the island since 1167 . They stand in the water and at certain tides appear to be floating. Quite the spectacle. Standing in the water and held up purely to their great size. We had planned to visit the beautiful Orange/Red temple of Itsukushima but alas, once again thwarted. Our second attempt to visit a 5 tier pagoda, our second time of seeing a pagoda completely shrouded in scaffolding being renovated. I could mention the deer of the island, but to be honest, once bitten, twice shy... Mirajima 1167 Our time in Japan has come to a close. It has been quite the journey and a fabulous trip. I would like to think that it gave us all food for thought. We arrived in time for the Cherry Blossom, but would I come to see it again, definitely not. The excessive hoards of tourists all heading for the same few spots make for a very crowded and unpleasant experience. The Cherry Blossom itself is pretty, but my most favourite picture of tree blossom was sent to me by my dad taken in our local park. The swathes of deep pink blossom are found in very few and far between places, not in every park as online photographs would suggest. The train system is also an eye opener. Not quite the easy to navigate stations of Taiwan. Don`t even consider trying to make eye contact with anyone except those with whom you are directly in contact with. Smiles are few and far between. Yet oddly in the poorest area of Osaka where we were staying, the people there was so much friendlier. Cash is the preferred method of payment, and slot machines of every description are everywhere. Gachapon machines, (think plastic balls containing absolutely anything and everything you can think of, in the small toy variety) are to be found everywhere. Claw grab machines are equally popular. Gaming is huge, as is `cute` Even the Shinkansen has a pink Hello Kitty version. Shoes on/off/on/off is a regular occurrence. Skechers slip ons would make a killing here! Bathrooms everywhere are mostly immaculate, with toilets having built in bidets and heated seats. Yet the bathrooms seldom have hand dryers. Women whip small towels out of their bags. There are no public bins anywhere. Food must not be eaten whilst moving. You must give and receive anything with both hands. Cleavage is not a thing in Japan. All clothing is exceptionally modest. The women strive to look as youthful as possible, younger girls wear school uniform, even when not in school. I found Japan quite wonderful, but also stifling. We tried our best to be as respectful to their customs as possible, but now and again it felt restrictive. If I chose to return to Japan my choices of both time of year and destinations would be quite different. A very special country. Japan, we thank you for your hospitality. Ps. I if can share one last silly lasting memory of Japan, it would be this little guy. (play with sound)

Taiwan hadn`t even been considered when we first set off on our adventure. It came about when we met a young newly wed couple whilst still in Chile. He was from Taiwan, she came from Scotland. We got talking and she mentioned visiting Taiwan and what a beautiful country it was . This took us by surprise as non of us had given Taiwan a second thought, after all we all know that everything is `Made in Taiwan`. So why would she call it beautiful? Willing to take a chance, and wanting to see as much of the world as possible, we decided why not, and booked a bunny hop flight from Hong Kong to Taipei. As soon as the plane started to descend into Taiwan my confusion about this country started. Surely this is a country of high rise, bright lights, factories and industry? Yet our very nearly landed plane was still flying over green fields and residential cul de sacs? Is this really Taipei, the capital of the country? From the moment we arrived into the airport we knew we had landed somewhere special. Smart, pristine, calm and immaculate are to be words I will be using often. Leaving the airport we had to take an Uber ride to our hotel around 65km away. It was evening when we arrived but our journey was still on a road of low buildings and wide open spaces. Our first hotel was so cosy. A little dated and tired, but still pleasant. At this point I would like to rave about our loo. I kid you not, I used to go and sit on the loo in preference to sitting on my bed! My bed was a brick, no other word will suffice, but the loo had a slightly squishy heated seat. Bliss. A heated loo seat, you have no idea how good that feels. Mr and Mrs Bunny expressed our grrrs frequently about our brick bed, yet little bunny remained suspiciously quiet. Turns out she had the bounciest squishiest bed ever and was loving it. Smug little bunny. Taipei. Deciding that a hoho bus was a good place to start to get orientated, we booked ourselves 3 tickets that covered two different routes, and had the most bonkers tour. The bus audio most definitely did not take notice of traffic lights or zebra crossings and therefore the audio commentary of a temple on your right hand side, was just as likely to be a shopping mall or the river. The last tour on the second route took us the National Palace Museum. It mentioned 1000s of unique artifacts. We took a chance and went, but got bored fairly quickly. There are only so many Chinese scrolls you can look at. We also had a giggle when we read them, or rather looked at them, as we would in the UK from L to R, then wondered if we should have seen them R to L, or even up and down. Early days in Taiwan, and far too soon to have learned any useful words. We can just about manage Neehow (forgive the literal spelling) and we will very soon practice shay shay, again very literal spelling, but means thank you. We made use of the cafe, had a very soggy risotto, quite peculiar, of anything I could have eaten I was at least confident the rice would come out sticky not soggy. The following day we headed to the metro of Taipei. Wow, easy or what? absolutely superb transit system. Buy a tap on tap off card, load it up at the super easy to use machines follow the coloured lines on the floor that indicates the various different routes, and walk calmly with every other calm person to the immaculately clean platform, and wait for mere minutes for the metro. There are queuing lines on the floor, and everyone abides by them. No pushing, rushing, barging past, just a peaceful queue of happy bunnies, all letting the bunnies disembark the tram before hopping on board themselves. So dignified. Don`t even think about eating or drinking on the tram, in fact don`t even sniff at your water bottle unless you are prepared to endure the wrath of a local resident. We didn`t but we were told of someone who did. The trams are pristine. When you get off the tram, everyone politely forms a queue to transit the station via the escalator. Stand on the right only, and you may encounter a slightly hurried bunny hopping past you on the left, but generally the exit is peaceful, calm and unhurried. We travelled to the area of Chiang Kai Shek memorial. A huge open space dedicated to their once great leader. In front of the memorial we watched the changing of the guard, hmm, good but not in the class of the Kings Guard at home. Perhaps we do, do something well in the UK. From Chiang Kai Shek we moved onto the Ximen Ding shopping area. A bustling little shopping area, full of cute shops and street vendors. Here we shared our first hot Boba Tea and dumplings. Boba tea is a strange but very pleasant hot (or cold) milk drink, served with sugary balls of goo, that melt in the milk and when sucked up your straw give you a moment of chewy somethingness. One of the more peculiar sights we saw, and not just once either, but cats or dogs in prams. Cats wear clothes, or even glasses, whilst dogs wear nappies. I kid you not. Needless to say, there is no smelly dog pee pillars here. Cats also have their own vending machine devoted to hats for cats.... Lukang. We didn`t want to stay in just one area of Taiwan, so we headed south west to the small town of Lukang. The nicer parts of Taiwan are actually on the east of the Island, but a huge earthquake last year has left the area in a state of managed disrepair. We felt it prudent to stay to the west of the Island. Lukang has one of the oldest areas in Taiwan, and it felt nice to be away from the city. Most definitely a local non tourist area, we were for the most part very much the only western faces. We got to Lukang using the HSR, or High Speed Rail. Awesome. Not the bullet train, but not far off. Mrs Bunny excelled herself with the choice of hotel. I knew it was a spa hotel with a bath, I just wasn`t quite prepared for the huge room, huge. We could play darts at the correct distance and still have room to spare for the audience. We didn`t, but for scale darts was the best example I could think of. As for the bath! Wow, a proper jacuzzi spa bath big enough for two, and still have room to move. Needless to say, three bunnies had our own little bathing session each night. (boo hoo, we miss that bath) We wont miss the breakfast though. Hot food served cold, and peanuts for breakfast? salad? cold rice, cold fried eggs? Thank goodness we spotted a toaster and bread. We spent several days in Lukang. Exploring the old town, the markets, the wonderful street food, and the not so wonderful items that we chose to leave well alone. We very nearly got ourselves some deep fried chicken, the stall smelt awesome, had a huge queue, and we were just about to commit when the owner tipped a whole bowl full of pre battered chicken into the bowl at the side of us. Heads. Wings. Legs, Feet. Breast. We scarpered pdq to the safety of our favourite sausage stall, scrambled egg on a stick, sweet potato chips, honey fried parsnips (we think) and quite possibly the fluffiest lightest cakes we have ever tasted. There were many other food options on the street to be had, but with all the best will in the world, no amount of googling would tell us what these strange offerings were. An older lady with a fine command of English, did try to tell is that the strange reddish flat solid jelly looking tongue thing, was pre cooked fish egg. From a very big fish. We did not try it. Nor did we try squid on a stick. Or caramelised duck tongue, or caramel dipped chicken heart. We did play it safe with Oreo filled waffles, or waffles filled with most delicious chocolate pudding. Taichung. This was a city around 2 hours from Lukang, and to where we went via bus, lift, taxi, train, and shanks pony. We set off confidently from the hotel, to the bus stop. Stood for half an hour before a friendly local managed to tell us that Taichung was in the opposite direction. We changed sides of the street. Then another local pointed to a pink sheet of paper on the bus stop sign, and gestured no buses today. She then proceeded to phone a friend, who picked her up, and took us all to the bus station and plonked us at the correct bus stop. Not. Once again the bus we knew needed came in on the other side of the street. One we got, and proceeded to drive to the stop where we had originally started over an hour earlier!! Bus to chengua, then train to Taichung. For 3 non mandarin speaking bunnies, I think we did pretty well. Little bunny had her eyes on 3 or 4 very specific areas of Taichung which actually is a highly annoying but utterly appreciated (and needed) bunny trait of hers. Our main must see sights were a very nice, but crazy expensive chocolate shop with Hogwarts Castle Vibes, think multiple wooden staircases. Then along the riverbank to the artists street where a small number of back alleys were painted in all manner of anime, disney marvel and other characters. To see an area so pristine and painted, with no graffiti was nice, but once again made you realise that this was something that at home would likely be vandalised and spoilt. There is so much nice in the world where we have been to make us appreciate how dirty, rude and ignorant certain members of British society are. So many times we have encountered nice things just sat in gardens, on the street, paintings, live fish, outdoor public paddling pools (referring here to further afield) but how much of what we have seen would we be allowed to have in the UK without some ***** spoiling it just because. Our last stop in Taichung was the Rainbow Village. Just a tiny little cluster of old houses that an old gentleman decided to paint in order to protect his little community from being knocked down. Was so so pretty. Sun Moon Lake. Another must see destination is the Sun Moon Lake, situated inland this is a lakeside destination much the same as visiting the Lake District in the UK. With the most favourable weather following us, we arrived for 2 and half days of perfect relaxation. Our room was out of town and situated in the woods. A small group of a cross between Anderson shelters/caravans/oversized glamping pods all immaculate, and so so cosy were to be found among the cement base clearing in the woods. The hospitality from the moment we landed was so lovely. They were so upset we had walked from the station, "why didnt you message and ask us?" The room was perfect, and even had the Disney Channel woo hoo. We walked into the small town of Ita Thao, and wow, we found people, lots and lots of people! We also found one very large and very beautiful blue lake, and a whole host of street foods. There were many different options and ways to ride on the lake, small ferry, larger ferry, taxi boat, tourist boat, stand up paddle board, or electric pedaloes or manual push pedal ones. Naturally Mr Bunny chose the electric pedalo, not.....and so he and little miss bunny had the pleasure of `rowing` me around the Lake. Was so relaxing, lol. I did try, but wonky knees here has great difficulty with anything bike related. Happy to say a work out was had by two out of three bunnies. Street food had to be tried as we had worked up quite the appetite. Potato with spices on sticks, vegetable pancake like rolls, sausages, and so much more. The following day, Mr Bunny and I made it quite clear to little b, that we had no desire to go riding bikes round the lake to see yet another temple, nor were we overly keen to ride the waves on any kind of boat. Little Bunny took herself off on her own adventure, see miss.tiff.travel s whilst Mr B and I hired ourselves an electric tandem bike. Oh the fun we had scooting the round the lake edge on an electric powered bike. The following day, with little b having zero inclination to hire yet another push bike, Mr B on our second hired electric bike, ferried little B to the 9 frogs viewpoint, then came back for me. At the lake edge is a frog statue of 9 frogs one on top of the other, they are a very cute depth marker for the lake. This second day was a Monday and all the crowds had vanished. Very much a weekend destination it would seem. Once again we troughed our way around the street food stalls. Very much some of the best food we had in Taiwan. Taipei part 2. We ended our Taiwan trip back in Taipei with plans to see all the parts of the city that we didn`t manage to see the first time. Kid bunny fancied the cable car and the tea tasting, whilst animal loving Mr and Mrs B took ourselves off to the Zoo. Gosh it was so expensive, a whole £4.75 each. We saw the panda (sleeping) the red panda (sleeping) the koala (sleeping) the rhino (sleeping) the puma not sleeping, in fact making so much noise with his cat calls I rather hoped he would succeed in waking the snoring animals. Such a lovely zoo. The next day we wandered an area called Ximending, a touristic yet also cutesy local shopping area. The home I must confess of TGI Fridays, sometimes the call of Western Food shouts too loud. It was in the area of Ximending that we found, but didn`t visit, the retriever cafe. 2 Golden Retrievers who wandered the cafe shaking paws with guests. We didn`t go as we we didn`t think we would ever leave. Our only organised tour was a day trip to Shifen and Jiufen. The trip took in a couple of other places, one was a sea side rock formation called the Queens Head, 2 bunnies had a very distinct meh moment, seriously how many tour buses? little B had a quick shufty but even she was less than impressed. We then followed the tourist buses to Taiwan`s answer to Niagara Falls, more meh....then lastly to the utterly beautiful villages of Shifen and Juifen. Well I presume they would have been beautiful if you could have seen them under the humungous influx of tourists! tiny little meandering cobbled streets strung with red lanterns. If I said the car park had 100 buses at least, you get the idea of how many people were trying to walk the streets. bit of a shame really, but just too crowded for us. Instead we found a tiny artists coffee shop and had the best Hot Chocolate in a long time. I could tell you about the red lanterns, that we bought, wrote our wishes on and lit to rise into the skies, but it felt so impersonal with so many people crowding around. I will hope however that my wishes come true. For all of us. Not just the bunnies abroad. With our time in Taiwan coming to a close, there was just one thing left to do. Taiwan 101. The biggest building in Taiwan and 11th tallest in the world. For a short time it was the tallest. We bought our tickets to the top and boarded the lift to the 89th floor. the fastest passenger lift in the world it took a mere 40 seconds. (ish) I cannot remember if it was 37 or 47, but it was def the fastest ear popping lift we have ever been in. For a few seconds you actually feel a little light headed. The view of course is second to non. At the start of my blog I described Taiwan as pristine, smart and clean. Yes, it is. It is also old and weather beaten. The further out of town we got, the more weathered and blackened the buildings got. Did we find the litter, the discarded bags of rubbish, graffiti ? No, we did not. Everywhere we travelled, no matter how, bus, or taxi or train, and the island was pristine. Everywhere is going to have the accidental windblown bits of rubbish, but Taiwan must have very little wind, such was its cleanliness. Calm, passive, peaceful, tidy organised and respectful. Taiwan, you are quite special. Good Bye Taiwan, a sleeping giant of calm.

When I first mentioned to a friend that we had added Hong Kong to our list, she was so excited, telling me how wonderful the skyline was, the river, the iconic buildings, the coffin houses....my reply? It is the home of Disneyland !! I got the facepalm icon text by means of a reply. So funny. Hong Kong was never meant to be on our list, nor for that matter are several other places that as yet shall remain nameless. but when you perused a map at length looking for cheap destinations (ha!) and the word Disney jumps out at you en route, it just had to be. These three bunnies are huge Disney fans and the chance to go was just overwhelming. So so excited. I have to admit that my research of Hong Kong was somewhat limited, knowing only that Disney was set on an island that appeared to be a long way from the main area. Do we book a cheap hotel and commute or do I twist Mr Bunnies arm and beg him to let me book the very wonderful Disney Hollywood Hotel, (the Mickey Mouse room of course) I gazed into his eyes, held his little bunny paw and without even needing to bend a little furry finger, one glance at my computer screen and his reply was, I hope you have booked it ! Mr Bunny was every bit as excited as I was, and so to Disney we went. Hong Kong Disneyland is same same but different to both Orlando and Paris. It has a castle, but strangely I didn`t find it as attractive as the others, and a railway that runs around the park, but one that didn`t appear to take passengers? The huge flower display outside the entry at Orlando is a big Mickey Mouse face, in Hong Kong it is Duffy Bear. Mickey does not appear to be a favourite figure in Hong Kong, two girls made this very plain to me when in front of the statue of Mickey and Walt, she asked me to take their photo whilst totally obscuring the Mickey. They were happy to have Walt and the Castle in their photo, but Mickey was artfully ignored. The rides at HK are similar, they have a Toy Story land with RC Racer, the Parachute Drop ride and Slinky Dog, all of which are at either Paris or Orlando. Haunted Mansion is very different, and has a mansion feel with a Runaway Railway experience. Space Mountain is called Hyperspace Mountain and was actually awesome, we loved it. The best ride of all was Grizzly Gulch, a mine train ride of epic proportions and brilliant cross between Everest and Big Thunder Mountain. We rode this several times and once in the dark. This was their biggest and fastest ride but had a queue time of just 20 mins, however the longest wait time in the entire park was a photo opportunity with LenaBelle, some sort of furry bear like cat figure and friend of Duffy. 2 hours they waited for this, all day long the queue time never changed. Unbelievable. There were many other rides that we loved, and we admit to having tried to ride all of them. Dumbo was the exception. As per both Paris and Orlando, Dumbo is very popular. Jungle Cruise....hmmm... lets just say `no no no` very apparent that their sense of humour and ours differs wildly. How else would I describe Hong Kong Disney? Cute. We probably used the word Cute several hundred times during our 2 days at the park. Everything is Cute. Everything. The Chinese dress attire at the park was everything that Florida isn`t. Dressing for a theme park is an art form, and these guys are Picasso. Anything and everything goes, but everything is styled and accessorised to the very last item. Tutu, with tights, leggings, `cute` cardi, furry character handbag (cute, not a disney character, just something `cute`) and a disneyesque cute again, headband, matching shoes not trainers, full make up and styled hair. Or how about a full furry gilet with tail? Even the guys were ultra smart and carried practical bags with furry or cute or anime accessories and many many of them wore their disneyesque cute headbands without an ounce of self consciousness, even groups of young guys without a girl in sight wore their cute headbands with pride. We bunnies wore our best newly acquired Disney Mickey Mouse t shirts, or in Mrs Bunny`s case an Aristocats Marie T shirt, two bunnies had mickey ears and where in Florida we would have blended nicely, here we stuck out like 3 of Snow Whites Dwarves. Casual is not the done thing. Our hotel was fabulous, with a gift shop of course, but no food? They had a full on bar service or an al a carte restaurant that required a booking reservation. We couldn`t even find a bar of chocolate, never mind a coke to drink. Sorry, slight lie here, they did have chocolate, but the brand was Godiva. IYKYK. Hong Kong part two After two wonderful days at Lantau Island and saying goodbye (for now) to Mickey, we headed for our next hotel on Hong Kong Island. We truly went from sublime to the ridiculous. Oh my goodness have you ever seen as many skyscrapers in one place before? I had no idea where to stay in HK but every review said Central on HK Island was the middle of everything. Yes it was, but it was so loud. Loud, chaotic, bustly, busy, rushed, were all words I could use to describe where we stayed. Leaving the hotel the first day and heading off in a direction with no great plan, my first thoughts were I`m a celebrity bunny, get me outa here! I have never been so overwhelmed by so much chaos. Every traffic junction had a sound indicator, a constant beep beep beep as you waited to cross each busy road. Tall buildings surrounded us on all sides, cafes, shops, were never ending and so close to each other. Whilst we had eaten reasonably well in Disney, we were nervous about immediately diving into any old cafe and had to think about what ingredients may or may not be used. Please don`t laugh when I say we had our first meal in McDonalds, but a chicken nugget is a chicken nugget, and fries look like fries. HK is an absolute maze of walkways and passageways. You can move through multiple buildings and never step foot outside. Having flown from the high humidity of Kuala Lumpur we found HK to be a little chilly. Knowing we were going to travel even further north, we chose to buy some warmer clothes. With very little walking we found ourselves in the most beautiful shopping mall. Brand new stands right next to very old. Like a crazy jigsaw. Not quite the right mall for us as once more we found yet another Gucci and LV. Uniqlo is the nearest shop to a Primark and sufficed our needs. Bakers are a plenty in HK and we bought a selection of bread items like pizza buns for our evening snack. I found a cake that I couldn`t resist. Who doesn`t love a panda? Day 2 and little bunny had us walking our little bunny paws all over the city. We walked through the park, a sea of green oasis within a myriad of buildings. Across the river to Kowloon island, using the green ferry. A huge eye watering 41pence to cross the river, on a boat that criss crosses this waterway constantly, back and forth, back and forth. We walked the Avenue of Stars until we reached the statue of Bruce Lee. There were many other named actors and actresses but non that we recognised, Asian stars we assumed. I had expected the Bruce Lee statue to have been the busiest place, but surprisingly not. Maybe the fact that is is a scary 51years since his death? We tried to adopt his famous pose, but two bunnies failed miserably. On Kowloon island is a very popular bakehouse, they sell egg custard tarts and amazing cookies. We bought a selection and ate them whilst sitting on the dockside off Kowloon island. The same evening we had tickets for the Aqualuna boat. We sailed at 6.30pm on the most beautiful little red `junk` boat up and around the bay. We watched the sunset and the saw the city light up. Hong Kong from the water is truly magical. It took me a while to `get` it, but slowly I began to feel the draw of this enormously varied city. From our hotel window, we could see the lights of the harbour. two streets away, two streets were all we had to traverse to return home. What a walk we had. Through buildings, across walkways, down escalators, upstairs, past Sothebys as they were stage setting a complete dinosaur skull, and skirting busy restaurants that were entertaining some rather smart gentlemen in suits. Have you ever tried using google maps amongst high rise? We walked over 30,000 steps that day. On our last day we headed for the Peak Tram. Little bunny ahead of the game as always, had prebooked our seats, and set us the route. Through yet another small park, we climbed to the entrance of Peak Tram, walked smugly past the rather large queue of people clamouring for a ticket, and boarded our tram to the summit. The track is so steep the tram could easily pass for a funicular railway. The journey was short but fantastic. The view from the carriage was amazing. We climbed so quickly that we towered above the high rises of HK, giving you the most wonderful panoramic view of the island. We could have gone to the very top of the Peak building, but better views always cost money. Why could they not just have a free timed entry, why does everything have to be pay pay pay? Why is a view point a paid experience? Instead we had drinks in the cafe with quite possibly one of the most scenic vistas to date. With time running out on us, we just had time for one last tour. The botanical gardens and the monkey house. The monkey houses were set in the most wonderful clean, tidy and well kept gardens. All the animals were active and climbing around which was nice to see. What we didn`t expect to see were the Orangutans. Not just one either, a least 5 or 6. A much more laid back animal, these lovely gentle creatures were mostly asleep, leaving just one keeping an eye out for a means of escape in the back quarter. A lovely end to our short bunny hop in Hong Kong. Crazy, noisy, chaotic and clean. Hong Kong you were quite special.

Another destination that didn`t start life on our original plan, but when it is only a 50min flight and you get to spend a day at, in my opinion, the best airport ever, it was a must a do. After all the wonderful Patronus Towers are here and the Batu Caves... We landed at our latest bunny hutch after a 45 minute drive from the airport, and when we could see the Patronus Towers, or admittedly the very tips of them from our wonderful little flats bedroom window, we knew we had landed in the very heart of the city. Our location was just perfect and the flat had everything we needed. With our next flights such much cheaper at the end of the month, we opted for a much longer stay than we had originally planned in order to recoup some of the bunny budget that we managed to blow in style whilst in Singapore. At £35 per night for a city centre location, it was self contained so Mr Bunny could cook to his hearts content, aided by the fact that the best supermarket to date was situated just the shortest of walks away. Kuala Lumpur with the exception of being the home of the Patronus Towers, was somewhere that we had little knowledge of. Little B did our to do list, and apart from the first day, we opted to spread our wings just a little each day, rather than doing our usual 10k step marathon days. Very much a chilled out layover, we spent a number of days just watching the views from our 13th floor flat and not doing much at all. In fact, on the 14th when everybody was spending a silly amount of money on overpriced flowers and chocolates, we decided to go to the cinema. We had tried several times in other countries to see Paddington in Peru, but finally our chance came. The cutest little cinema ever with bear shaped seats, and family settees, it cost us a whole £8 for 3 bunnies to watch the film. Talking of films, we caught the lift downstairs one morning like we always did and emerged into a scene of cameras, directors, actors, clipboards and microphones! No one spoke any English so unfortunately we couldn`t get any answers as to what the programme was, although it would appear it was a regular occurrence as the security guard with a little broken English shrugged his shoulders and said `filming again, as always`. We took a tour on the hoho bus, (Hop On Hop Off) to try and get a feel for the city. Not the best tour I must admit. We spent almost 5 hours on the bus, doing both available city circuits back to back. With each route taking nearly 2 hours to complete, with added time due to the many traffic holdups, it made for a very bunny bum numbing few hours. Whilst it did yield places of interest I never felt the wows of Singapore. There are definitely some impressive buildings in the city, but nothing comes close to the magnificence of the Patronus Towers. We wandered around the area of the KL Tower, but it was very expensive to go to the top. With the Patronus on our to do list, we didn`t feel the need to spend time and money on what was essentially just another viewpoint. Another point of interest was the Thean Hou Temple, this was worth the journey. A very beautiful temple high above the city, lots of coloured lanterns and celebratory Chinese New Year decor made for a very pretty place to visit. Inside the Temple, the architecture was quite special, naturally it was of little interest to us in a spiritual way, but we could appreciate its ambience and beauty. The Patronus Towers. We managed to choose the nicest possible day to visit the twin towers. We were most excited. Tickets sell out quickly for the observation deck, and we managed 3 tickets for 10.30am. Just a twenty minute walk away from our flat, we arrived in plenty of time, to be frisked, x rayed, bag checked and corralled into our small group for the 10.30 lift. Their timings and efficiency were superb. Nobody was allowed more than their fair share of time anywhere. We were whizzed up to the 42nd floor first to walk the sky bridge, whoa, my little bunny legs had a minor wobble, that is quite some height, but after a brief pause there for photos, we were gathered together again for the final flight up to the 86th floor. Now that, my bunny friends, is high! The views are just stunning, but so is the chance to admire the second tower in all its glory. As far as buildings go, the Patronus are beautiful inside and out. Whilst standing looking across with legs of slightly off firm jelly, I was gobsmacked to watch two workman hanging on ropes and pullies cleaning the paintwork just below me. Who am I to be nervous inside, whilst he dangles on a rope outside? With Kuala Lumpur being the home of shopping due to its very low import taxes, little bunny and I decided to have a day wandering the shopping malls whilst Mr Bunny had a peaceful afternoon watching a green screen somewhere. Lets just say our afternoon was not a success. Without the budget for Gucci, Prada, Tiffany or Louis Vuitton, we tried, and failed to find more western and cheaper shops elsewhere. K.L is not the place for western clothing, everything is very much Asian and tiny. Really, really tiny. Like, do the women actually have bums and boobs here tiny! Never seen so much clothing in very petite, sizes 4 or less. Neither was I particularly amused when in the market I eyed a pair of trousers, tiny of course, to have to woman shout to me, its ok much stretch, very stretchy...sure, stretch to a whole size 10 with a good pull grrrr. Two bunnies went home feeling quite miffed and empty handed. There was one shop in which I really had a fun time, I like cute and fluffy, I admit it, I am a sucker for a teddy bear of any design. One particular shop was aimed at me through and through. We did buy our new Disney (watch this space) t shirts here. Not even a t shirt did we find. Mr Bunny arrived sometime later seemingly having had a much more successful afternoon! Batu Caves. We had been looking forward to this trip almost as much as we had been looking forward to the Patronus Tour. A short taxi ride and we landed into absolute chaos. So many people, taxis everywhere, buses, stalls, rubbish bags everywhere, litter, food waste, pigeons, monkeys, good grief what on earth had we come to? The Batu Caves are Instagram (curse you Instagram and your stupid filtered artificial photos) worthy, painted steps, a beautiful courtyard, the tall golden Buddha (?) statue. But our reality was hell on earth. Before I mention the Caves, I should admit that we had managed to time our visit just 2 or 3 days after a HUGE religious festival had just finished, to which approx 2 million people had attended. Our timing sucked. Was a shame really, as our taxi driver told us that under normal circumstances the area was normally clean, the food stalls didn`t usually exist with the exception of maybe one or two, and the steps were normally a pleasant experience. With nothing to compare it with, we climbed the mountain of coloured stairs, trying to avoid looking at the abysmal amount of plastic bottles and discarded rubbish, dodging scavenging monkeys and arrived at the biggest cave I have seen in a long time. I could understand why this cave and the shrine within could be deemed special, but an area still cleaning up after an onslaught of a million plus people, all I could feel was the ickiness of dirty monkeys and discarded rubbish. And the smell. Oh dear, the smell. In a nutshell we went, we saw, we left. Such a shame. Little bunny was so disappointed that she even went back a few days later in the hope that normality had been restored. It had not. Instagram really does have a lot to answer for. I personally refuse to look at anything of Insta, but when the younger generation appears to live on it, these disappointments are going to be frequent. Whilst we very much enjoyed our time in Kuala Lumpur, I cannot say that it would be a destination that I would choose to return to anytime soon. A one off for me I think. Perhaps if the people had made up for our lack of enthusiasm for the city with lots of welcoming smiles, it may have been different. They did not smile. Ever. Is it our western faces or their daily busy lives into which we are intruding that fails to raise a smile, we do not know. But it has struck us how naturally friendly and approachable we are as Brits and how very odd it is to smile naturally at people who all but blank you and offer nothing in the way of a facial gesture in return. Thank you for your hospitality Malaysia, we bid you farewell.

After leaving Australia we always knew that our trip would be more flexible. We had a pretty good idea where we wanted to go, but it was always going to be dependent on the cost of flights and the weather. I have no intentions of flying our bunny butts to a country if its the middle of their monsoon season. Next time however, I am also going to take notice of other public holidays such as Chinese New Year. (Ho hum). I study the map at length, aided by the wonderful Skyscanner app, and see what route looks the best. From Bali, we had intended going to the Philippines, but on closer inspection they are an incredibly difficult destination to pursue on a budget, with `must do` islands lying a flight distance away. Then I remembered a conversation with my Aussie friend David, who said that Singapore was well worth a visit. With flights very affordable, that is how we ended up visiting one of our most favourite countries/city/state to date. Singapore. Why have I only every thought of Singapore as an airport. A city in which to land en route to somewhere else? Never in my wildest dreams have I ever considered Singapore as must see tourist destination. I knew it was a bright lights, big city kind of place, but truth be known I had never looked at it with any degree of interest. That, my bunny friends was big mistake number one. Big mistake number two, was coinciding our visit with C.N.Y. I just thought Singapore was a phenomenally expensive city judging by Booking.com , but what I think happened was an ill timed visit. (a bit like Liverpool on Grand National weekend) As soon as we landed and caught our taxi to the hotel, I knew I had goofed. This was a city like no other. Stunning, beautiful, green and clean. Very very very clean. We immediately extended our stay by one more night and hit the ground running. Little miss `what` bunny gave us a list of must see places, and putting our best foot forward, our adventure in Singapore began. `what` bunny? Just in case I haven`t mentioned or you have forgotten our nicknames, Mrs Bunny is `where`....Little bunny is `what` and Mr Bunny is `kerching`. I decide where we are going, little bunny is in charge of deciding what to do when get there, and Mr Bunny pays /kerching for it lol. Kampong Glam. I could expand at length about this area, but in a nutshell it is an area where you will find shops and restaurants that sprung up from the time of the pilgrimages. A beautiful mosque stands at one end, and the lovely streets set out in a grid pattern are decorated with some of the best street art I have seen. Non of your so called graffiti art, these are superb wall sized art works of every day life. Place yourself in the picture by washing up, stroking the cat, or taking a seat at the table. From Kampong Glam we headed next to the HoHo bus. We purchased the 5 event Singapore pass allowing each of us to participate in 5 different experiences. The Hoho bus mis read our pass, and as they scanned just one pass, not three, we decided not to tempt fate and instead only did one of the two routes. We toured one part of Singapore, studied and listened to the hoho recommendations, then on the second loop around we jumped off at our next port of call. the Raffles Hotel. Im sure all you clever bunnies know the story of Raffles, but I did not. It was at the Long Bar of the Raffles hotel that the Singapore Sling was invented. Ladies once upon a time were not supposed to drink alcohol, the Sling was invented to create an alcoholic beverage with the looks of a fruit cocktail. When in Rome etc...We duly queued and entered the Famous Long Bar. With eye watering prices for a mere drink, we did exactly what good backpacking bunnies should do, we opted for the Singapore zero alcohol sling, 16 dollars instead of 27, whilst Mr Bunny who hates Gin anyway, had a beer. The proverbial bag of monkey nuts was placed on our table, and like a good bunnies, we ate the nuts and ceremoniously threw the shells on the floor. The Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel is the only place where you will find purposely discarded rubbish of any description. From the Raffles hotel we walked a few blocks back to a good looking bronze coloured hotel and entered just for a nosy. Oh my goodness what a stunning ground floor port of entry. You just stand and gaze to the high ceilings, a mass of beauty and architecture, that is the Atlas Hotel. Chinatown. Yet another wonderful part of the city, smart, tidy and Chinese culture. With a heavy emphasis on the CNY there were a lot of decorations devoted to such. Red lanterns line the streets, banners everywhere wishing you Happy C N Y, and so many restaurants it was hard to keep a smile on my face. I shall elaborate. in Chinese cuisine they eat everything. I seriously mean everything and the photographic food posters, whilst they may look appetizing to many, just churned my stomach. Whilst only a silly person would assume I mean cat or more appallingly a woofer, the food to which I refer is boiled chicken feet, duck head soup, fish of every description, boiled chicken soup (with the skin still on) every manner of crustacean with heads, legs and eyes, as a complete non foodie and a passionate hater of all things fish related, food wise I struggled in Singapore. Two other slightly less fussy bunnies did not. Sentosa Island. Whilst you can go by taxi over the bridge, little `what` bunny informed us we were travelling there by cable car. Omitting the fact until we got there, that said cable car started halfway up the biggest hill in Singapore. I was actually quite looking forward to this. I have to confess at times I wish I could, what`s the phrase?, have a stiff drink to calm the nerves. It was high. very very high. I am relieved to say that we travelled in the cabin alone, just the 3 bunnies, and thankfully there was no wind. Little bunny nearly got skinned when she insisted on swapping seats to take video making the cabin sway by 2 degrees, but other than that it was an exhilarating, albeit slightly scary ride. All I knew about Sentosa is the fact that Universal Studios is based there. With added cost to an already expensive Singapore pass, we looked, but didn`t enter. (next time...next time...) what we did do though, was the super awesome interactive Harry Potter Experience. Each given a wand we started our `tour` on the night bus, watching the streets of London and the countryside of Scotland whirl past us as we sat on the Knight bus beds. Getting off at the M.O.M (if you know, you know) we had to use the Red Phone Box, to dial our way in. Cue the look of disbelief when a certain little bunny when faced with a dial phone, asked `what do I do?` From the MOM to the Department of Mysteries, to Diagon Alley, even to Newt Scamanders zoo type lair, 10 zones in total, each time you saw a hint of magic, portrayed by a visual circle of light, you pointed your wand and watched the magic happen. lights would come on and off, words would appear, animals would move, hidden objects would be seen. Almost every person in the group of 30 seemed to enjoy the whole experience. At the very end Mr bunny had a lot of fun setting off the fireworks magic in the Battle of Hogwarts room, prior that is until the only brat in the group got there, and whirled dervishly from one side of the room to the other. The kids frustration was palpable, but that only made us grin more. Even I nabbed a few timely fireworks as said brat approached. From Harry Potter we walked across the very beautiful, and fairly tourist free, island of Sentosa. The signage is appalling, we got lost so often, but getting lost in such a lovely place is no hardship. We came across the fort and its reproduction army `sets` reproducing how the fort may have looked in its most active form. We walked along jungle paths and beach paths, through the very beautiful resorts part of the island, and could still have spent more time there. Everything on Sentosa is a paid entry. If we had chosen the all inclusive pass, which was a little too expensive for our budget, we could have done so much more. What we did was free, but also very enjoyable. Marina Bay Sand hotel was next on our list. That 3 part hotel with the ship on top. This was to be a highlight, but our reality was a slightly frustrating fully booked observation deck. We tried every which way to get to the top, but the only way to achieve that was to pay $35 dollars each in exchange for food/drink vouchers redeemable at the bar. Even then there was no promise or certainty that we would get a table, and not just have to hover at the bar. Whilst it would have been wonderful to get that awesome view of the city, no view is worth that cost. Instead, we sent little bunny up armed with the go pro and she used one of the passes that didn`t get scanned when we went on the hoho. From the Marina Bay hotel which is quite stunning btw, we went to the Gardens By the Bay, through the garden of the Super Trees, a spectacular garden area of tree like structures and gardens. Mr Bunny and I went to the top of the tallest tree via the nicest lift ride ever. If the outside of the tree represents nature of sorts, the lift roof was a visual view of rising into a forest of flowers and trees. Little bunny walked the tree walk. From the top of the tree we got a birds eye view of the Marina Bay hotel and had a lot of fun taking forced perspective photos. From the outdoor trees we walked to the two separate domes of the Cloud forest and the Flower Dome. There is no denying both places are just fabulous, but while I suspect a person with a greater interest in all things plant would be able to spend a couple of hours in the flower dome, we bunnies of the preferred artificial plastic pot plants were able to scoot around in around 30 mins. There was a huge Monet type live ish exhibition, but yawn, boooring...(sorry) The cloud forest housing the worlds largest indoor waterfall was so much more interesting, and personally more fascinating. You climb to the very top of the dome via lift, but return to ground level via a series of aerial bridges and walkways. A tad scary if heights are not your thing, but quite wonderful. Another favourite tour in Singapore was the night safari. This is part of the zoo, but instead of walking around by day, this particular part of the Zoo houses all the animals that prefer to be active by night. You board an open sided bus anytime from 7.30pm when the park opens until 11pm, and are taken on a scenic tour around the park viewing animals in the dark. Not pitch black, the pens are lit by an artificial night light so that you can easily see the animals as they wander about and eat. You lose the animals true colours, but any fool knows an elephant is usually pink. The track that the bus takes is quite narrow, and very very green, your are driving amongst bushes and along side the pens. It feels quite special. Once you complete the bus section of the park, you return to the start and can follow on foot one of 4 very different walking trails to see numerous other nocturnal animals. Hearing and seeing a Lion roar at 10pm is quite intense. The animal pens are superb, wide ditches that are so cleverly disguised you almost feel like the animals could run down and back up your side for a closer view of the human pond. We were to return to the zoo the following day, this time to do the River Wonders Boat tour. A boat ride through the Zoo this time. Followed by a walking tour that took in Pandas and a Red panda amongst other animals. A truly remarkable Zoo that still had 2 other sections of the Zoo that could, if you had time, have been explored. I could write so much more about this fabulous City/Country State, but I wont. Singapore should be on everyone`s bucket list. The greenest, cleanest City you can imagine. In four days I may have been able to fill a small carrier bag with the discarded rubbish that I spotted. Their commitment to a cleaner greener environment is just enviable. Everywhere you turn there is a wow factor. We didn`t see a single ugly building. No scruffy corners. No overflowing bins. We did see 5 giant river Otters swimming in the pristine river. No plastic bottles, no floating rubbish, just pristine green lands and clean water. The water here is filtered. You can drink from the taps. Singapore you are quite special. Just teach your population how to smile and you have cracked the mystery of enviable city living. Prior to leaving we realised we still had tickets left on our pass, so we got back on the hoho bus and this time chose route number two. Both a pity and a relief that we didn`t do this route sooner as we found the shops. ALL the shops. Split into many different areas, Singapore is very clever in design, China town, CBD, India, Shopping, and Entertainment. (that`s just for starters) A smile. allow the edges of your mouth to raise slightly, a slight parting of the lips, and et voila! The lack of emotion was our only dislike of Singapore. Absolutely no one smiles! In the most stunning architectural and visually stunning city that we have visited so far, it was by far inhabited by the most sour faced people. Changi airport. This really is a beautiful airport like no other. We had spent hours pricing flights to Kuala Lumpur so that we could spend time at this airport. It wasn`t to be. We could get a bus for a minimal amount. That is, right until the day before we planned to leave. I found affordable flights and booked us on a late evening flight so that we could spend the time enjoying Changi and the Jewel. What an amazing experience. This airport and its 4 terminals is a wow factor and an experience all on its own. I once saw a Facebook reel about 2 boys saying that they were going to try and spend 3 days at the airport without flying out. Totally believable. Cinema, shopping mall, swimming pool, hotel, spa, nails. luxury shopping, flight simulator, flower garden, butterfly garden are just the tip of the iceberg. Waterfall? aerial walkway? gourmet restaurant? It has it all. The airport is a destination all of its own. Singapore. You are quite special. And quite categorically not just a stop over airport.

Everyone has told us, watch the West Coast, it gets very wet, a lot of rain, flooded roads and closed roads. Despite being billed as being the most beautiful coastline, we are happy to chase the sun and follow our own paths. In this case, Arrowtown, followed by Wanaka. New Zealand Arrowtown, a cute little place dating back to the Gold rush era. Leaving out the gold part, and the lake this town is Ambleside or Bowness all over (sorry for any confused non Brits who read my blog). Pretty little overpriced tourist shops albeit made of wood not slate or stone, small artisan shops, a few boutique shops, an excellent bakery and an even better sweetie shop. We paused there for a while, spent a whole 5 minutes in the Chinese Village. It would appear that the local New Zealanders were non too keen on said race, (fancy that...) but anxious to reflect on all aspects of local culture, good and bad, the Chinese village remains as a tourist interest. Onto Wanaka. Wanaka, the town with `That` tree !! Every sign, everywhere, refers to the tree as `That Wanaka tree`. It was here that we decided to take some down time, we booked an electric pitch site so that we could quite literally recharge our batteries, both human and electronic. Showers !! Yeah !! Whilst we had a shower available to us in the bunny bus, we had neither the inclination to wait a full 30 mins to heat the water, nor the energy to shower in such a petite and bijou space. This site had real showers. Oh the luxury. Day one was a little damp, but with energy levels running on empty, it was nice just doing nothing. well apart from rescuing a baby bird that had fallen from its nest, and was replaced into said nest by Mr B with the aid of the motorhome bed ladder. Little birdie we hope you survived. By late afternoon the damp morning turned into a glorious evening, so we decided to wander into town, see `That Wanaka Tree` and visit the best cinema ever for a night of much overdue entertainment. That Wanaka Tree. In a nutshell, Lake Wanaka is stunning, like every other lake, but on the edge of Wanaka town, a small tree is making its mark by growing out of the lake itself around 8-10` from the lake shore. Like the gloriously situated Church at Lake Tekapo, this tree hogs the limelight. When in Wanaka you take a picture of said tree. Mission accomplished. Paradiso Cinema. What a wonderful little cinema. From the entrance with its little cafe of food to order, for now or the interval, to the posters that adorn every wall of popular modern films, the bathrooms that are akin to your cute wooden cabin bathroom at home, wood log burning fire (not heated now, as its summer) and the cinema itself with 2 or 3 seater settees, single arm chairs, a couple of rows of regular cinema seating, love bug cars at the back, home from home cinema at its very best. A cinema manager who commanded respect by his most cheering and hearty `are we all ready for the film guys?`.. and absolute silence followed. Gladiators Ready!! (number2) Queenstown. Oh my golly gosh, just when you think there is absolutely no way South Island could get any better, you reach Queenstown. How and why this town is so much nicer than anywhere else is hard to say, but within 5 mins of arriving any of us could quite easily of scoured an estate agent to price up a house. We have a friend from years ago, an old band friend, who came to New Zealand for a short working holiday, fell in love, and stayed. We had plans to meet up with Emma after sampling the towns very famous Fergburgers. A burger place that is so easy to find, simply look for the shop with a queue half way round the building. Worth it?? Absolutely !!! We had a short walk around the town, to the harbour area, but with Emma promising us a tourist tour, we kept our wanderings short. At the end of the beach/lake side was a children`s playground, with a very adult sized slide. Yes, Yes I did. Several times. In fact all 3 bunnies had a turn. We started a trend, as by the time we left, at least another 5 adults had a quick whizz down this slide. We met Emma at the large Supermarket, and it was lovely to meet up again with a woman who was always a pleasure to be around. Emma took us around the town, pointing out all the little quirky places, especially the towns silly monument, which some clown decided that a boat was a good idea. True to form, as Emma pointed out, there were several traffic cones in said boat. One nice touch for the day, we met a bagpiper, who on request played Highland Cathedral. Happy memories. Queenstown jet boat. Mrs Bunny is a slight coward, and despite making promises to do anything and say no to nothing, boats are just not my thing, they have a jet boat ride called Shotover, it is the most famous trip offered in Queenstown, however ridiculously expensive, 150 dollars plus expensive, but on Lake Wakatipu a similar jet boat ride was so much more affordable, just as fast and not quite as scary. all the bunnies went on the jet boat, and it was crazy fun. We loved Queenstown so much. I could add that it is the home of bungee jumping from the nearby gorge bridge, and it was a place that we freedom camped for one night. Did we watch the bungee jumpers?? Yep, did we.....what do you think lol psst maybe the 300 dollar pp is the clue. Blue Penguins!! Who knew that penguins came in blue as well as the Lakes? Not quite the same shade of blue, but blue non the less. These little guys inhabit the town of Oamaru, which was to be the next town we hit. Unfortunately, literally. At the time we were not aware that the penguins from the reserve were out at sea all day, returning home to nest in the early evening. We got offered entry to see the newly hatched chicks, but when the receptionist showed us the chicks on the penguin cam, it seemed a little odd to pay another 60 dollars to visit them in person. that and the fact the penguins were under a red light? We cut our losses, accepted that penguins were not on todays agenda, and continued our journey north in our search for bigger fishy things, the Sperm Whale. With the bunnybus running low on oil???, a quick stop was in order, and here we bumped into a something, not a someone. A brief lapse of concentration, the need to get the bunny bus butt off the busy road, Mr B ducked left down the wrong side of the petrol pumps, and crash bang wallop we were stuck. Wedged firmly at the edge of the petrol station building. Obviously it was necessary for the petrol station worker to point out that we should have driven down the middle aisle ( no sh.t sherlock!) and so stuck are we. Naturally Mr B has the all events covered insurance, and a quick call to the hirers meant that the tow truck arrived within an hour to drag us free. With the bunny bus free, and sporting only a few minor war wounds, we drove along the coast road until the sun was nearly set, then freedom camped to lick our wounds for the evening. Kaikora, Whale Watching. Watching the Whales has always been on Mr Bunnys bucket list, not so much Mrs B, as those silly whales tend to prefer open water, which invariably means a boaty mcboatface thing. I did try ! I promise. We booked three tickets to see the wet whales in the water, but on booking in it was advisory that passengers took sea sickness tablets, as the waters were forecast choppy. Mrs B, already green and wobbly from walking along the solid and exceptionally stationary sea shore, grabbed the option for a refund with both bunny mitts, and charged her bunny butt back to the bunny bus for a brew and biscuits. The relief was palpable I assure you. The two whale watching bunnies returned around 4 hours later happily excited to have seen a whole tail come out of the water. Pardon the lack of enthusiasm, but you wanted me to spend 4 hours on a boaty thing to see a bloody tail?? Ive seen Jaws you know, If I was doing a wet boaty thing to see fishy stuff, I want the whole darn shebang, teeth, fins, the lot not just its sodding tail!!! Pretty confident I got the better deal that day, with my tea, chocolate and mountain view, all from the comfort of the bunny bus. Abel Tasman. the Jewel of the South Island. An area of South Island that we had been looking forward to the most. Prior to driving everywhere else, and realising that just about everywhere is glorious. Abel Tasman is a national park with reported exceptional beauty, and guess what,? mostly accessed by sea taxi! We booked yet another electric pitch, showers, showers, showers, the wet soapy variety, yeah baby. We were almost at the start of the Abel Tasman hiking trails, (two days, three days even 5 days) but lucky for us, there was a lovely coastal walk to the next sandy bay. This short (an hour) walk, was deliciously easy, and landed us at a picture perfect paradise beach. Palm trees, white sand, driftwood logs, blue seas, it had the lot. We stayed there for a couple of hours, on a beach, in November ! it was heavenly. Little bunny really fancied the water taxi ride to a further point, (arranged for the next day) and it was agreed that we would meet up for lunch at the beach we were on. The next day, bright and early, little bunny set off on her water taxi, and rang us an hour later shouting and screaming, I could hear water, and muffled words like xxx in the water. I kid you not, my heart ran cold. It was Mr B, hearing the conversation from further away who explained to me that she was screaming that she had seen an orca pod. Orca! off the coast of New Zealand. Little B was still grinning 4 hours later when we met up.*( This evening I rang my mum and dad, it was late in the evening and for peace and quiet we chatted from the camp laundry. Little bunny came to join me and told them all about seeing the Orca that morning. We giggled that night as recalled the usual good natured banter between my parents as neither could decide which way up to hold the phone. ) This conversation would later haunt my soul. Hokitika. A long drive from Abel Tasman, we planned to do this journey over two days. We originally planned to stay at Greymouth on the coast, but a slight misheard directional call sent us inland, not coastal, causing us to pause overnight in a tree forest, not a sea view. Nothing matters, and it all adds to the adventure. To be fair going the wrong way, put us closer to our end destination. Once at Hokitika we had two real things planned. First, send home our winter and surplus clothes. Two, walk the gorge, and the third unplanned activity, get eaten alive by evil little black sand flies. Box filled, sealed, labelled and ready for collection, we went to walk the Hokitika gorge. It was 38km inland from Hokitika but so worth the visit. Its a good job we gave little bunny the title of `what` as otherwise it would be yet another amazing little gem that we wouldn`t have chosen to go and see. Sand flies aside, (evil little barstools) it was a journey well worth taking. Arthurs Pass. This long road connects Hokitika on the West coast, to Christchurch on the East. For a long stretch of road, this is a road that you drive along saying, `that`s nice` and that`s pretty, right up to Arthurs Village where you pause and say Wow !! and for a further 30km or so, its just wow after wow after wow. At Arthurs Pass there was a big waterfall, a short 30 minute walk from the car park. 30 minutes my bunnybutt.!!!!! It took us at least 45 minutes and every second of it was up hill and up flight after flight after flight of stairs. We did it, but my poor bunny knees had quite the tantrum for many days afterwards. Whilst at Arthurs Pass village we saw many signs saying don`t feed the Kea. Kea? Beautiful chunky parrot type birds, and quite rare. We spotted two outside the cafe and went Kea stalking, with success, cute. International Antarctic Centre, Christchurch. For the last 50 or so years, Christchurch has the served as the main hub for transporting scientists to Antarctica. The excellent Antarctic Centre was a wonderful museum of education for all things snowy and cold. A 4D cinema gave you a tour around the ice caps, the Ice room provided us with a snow storm simulation, brrrrrrr, thankfully they provide you with coats, but I did wish for several minutes that I hadn`t chosen to wear cropped leggings, my ankles were freezing. There was a snow mobile on which to sit and take authentic pictures. From snow room to snow dogs. Huskies, the softest, calmest, most peaceful dogs I have ever had the pleasure of being allowed to cuddle and stroke. Their handler was a Maori guy (Joe) with his beautiful Maori story tattooed on his face. Knowing that Maori tattoos tell a story, he explained his story to us. Quite moving. A man to whom we could have listened to all day. Snow dogs to snow birds, Penguins! and not just any penguins, blue ones, yay. The penguins in the Centre are all rescued birds with extensive problems. One leg, no tongue, broken shoulders or wings. Each bird is hand fed, with an excellent handler talk. Did you know that penguins have hooked bills, get grumpy, and frequently bite. Even the cute blue ones. Outside we rode in Hagglund vehicles, (little 10 men transport machines once used to transport people across the ice), to a nearby track they were put through their paces, up hills, down steep inclines, across bridges, it was the bumpiest ride ever, but a lot of fun, an idea of the sort of terrain and how it feels when you cross the Ice Fields. Our time in the fabulously awesome country that is New Zealand has come to an end. Just time for one last quick meal, and shortbread biscuit at the Riverside, and its off to the airport. Goodbye New Zealand, you are without question, the most beautiful country so far. We will return.

As I start this very long and much overdue blog/diary, I must apologise and explain why. Leaving England I knew my mum was struggling with her mental health, Alzheimers is a slow cruel illness. Little was I to know that the call I made to her from that laundry in New Zealand would be the last time I would hear her voice. My lovely mum was to pass whilst I was in Australia, and my heart lost the will to write this blog. However, I shall continue now (however late) in her memory, with her and my dads great love of travel forever in our minds. To Travel is to Live. My Mum 3/6/43 -3/12/24 Uluru Our journey through Australia would start in the Red Centre. Uluru, how I have longed to stand before that Red Rock and gaze upon its wonder with my own eyes. I hadn`t quite realised that I would get to see it the moment we landed, and I assure you I was one exceptionally speechless and utterly confused Bunny. We were supposed to land, drive for 3 hours, then drive a further 3 hours to see the great rock, but there it was, right there!! Next to the airport, who moved it ??!!! My mind was working overtime. Long story short, Uluru really does have an airport of its own, whereas I had assumed Alice springs some 5 hours away was the Airport for Uluru, hence big red rock being exactly in the right place. This also placed our hotel several hours drive away, with a very bewildered car hire lady telling us, you can`t drive there at night, (told her where it was and our plans to return to both sunrise and sunset) it would take hours. You have to drive very very slowly to avoid the kangaroos, emus and camels (?) say what..... We had one full day to see Uluru and our plans were scuppered at the first hurdle...until she suggested we stay at the Outback lodge. A very kind booking.com transferred our accommodation to the Outback, and suddenly there we were in the heart of the red centre, with the rock actually visible to us from outside our little cabin. For a flying visit, we saw one distant sunset, one up close sunrise, one up close sunset, and a further close sunrise. The photos speak a thousand words. Staying near Uluru is easy for somewhere so remote. Airport, car hire, short drive to the resorts, with its varying accommodation options, tours, well signposted directions, walking paths, walking platforms, cute places to eat, drink or shop, it really is all there on hand with little effort. You cannot wander freely around the rock, and you certainly cannot climb upon it, but you can get up close and personal when you purchase the compulsory park ticket. Melbourne. With one previous memory of a whirlwind tour of Melbourne some 21 years ago, my list of places to visit were very much guided by my wish to recreate old memories with Mr Bunny, visiting the places I had previously, and to create new memories for me and brand new ones for him. I did have a whole list of places to see, and we did our best to see them all. We went to the Melbourne Gaol , a fascinating jail with such history, to see the death mask of Ned Kelly, Australia`s most infamous bandit. Aged only 27 when he was hung at the jail, his weird homemade armour was also on view nearby at the local library. A sad tale, and maybe he wasn`t quite the bad guy that he was made out to be. Certainly seems to have been made to go rogue by the appalling treatment of his family. From Gaol to Yarra River. We walked to wonderful riverside with its many Christmas decoration (yeah, we have found Christmas at last) and sat and watched the new evening Christmas lights show, passable but personally worthy of 4/10. The Gas Brigades outside the Crown Plaza were our main reaon for being on the waterside, and I was happy to see that their shooting flames were every bit as good as I recalled. Sovereign Hill was next on the list. A place like Beamish (for all you brits) an old recreated gold mining town with shops and character actors and actresses. I had such fun memories here, listening to two shop women discussing my mums frightful (yes, the were quite bad, but made by a friend, she was determined to wear them, kangaroo patterned cullottes...) the in character actors all had something to say, and it truly made for an authentic experience. Now?? it would appear that the `characters` are no longer allowed to interact in such manner such is the modern wussy attitude to political correctness and appalling soppy over protected children whom cry at any person daring to say anything even remotely firm to them. Sovereign Hill was still a wonderful place to be, and panning for gold is definitely a highlight, but such a shame to be blighted by present day stupidity. Ballarat Wildlife Park . Kangaroos and Koalas. This fabulous little wildlife park has so many Koalas, at close quarters, and free roaming Kangaroos that you could feed. As with everything nowadays, we would have had to pay quite a decent amount of dollars to hold or even stroke the Koalas, whereas my visit all those years ago, the keepers were happy to let us hold the Koalas with supervision. Even Mr Bunny, enchanted by most animals, fell under the cuteness spell of these adorable little `drop bears`. Werribee Mansion . A stately home just outside of Hoppers Crossing. In terms of age this house is actually modern by UK standards, built 1877, but for a house built 150 ish years ago, it has required a lot of renovation. I remembered head phones and holographs, now it was just a voice recording as you enter each room. Vic Market an excellent busy market with everything to please a foodie from fruit, fish. meat, cakes to the vast arrays of nicer end TS. (thats tourist sh.t to you) Paddys Market this was where we found the mass produced ts, but also a lot of closed stalls? I have memories of a never ending market. I guess time changes everything. A change of accommodation to Geelong gave us chance to drive The Great Ocean Road to see the 12 apostles. This was another destination that has changed massively since I was last there. From a little patch of gravel to park up, take a few pics and move on, this whole area is now a vast purpose built car park, toilet blocks, information centre, and vast walkways. Everything changes over time, and I`m not convinced for the better. For better or worse, the explosion of massive tourism is definitely having an impact on our most special places. As is the dislike of possums. We tried to feed the cute possums, as we had done all those years previously at Fitzroy park, after the constant unsettling sights of the numerous flat ones in New Zealand " damn pests, we don`t try to avoid them on the roads " we failed miserably as they are now considered city pests, and feeding is an absolute no no. We also visited Warnambool and Flagstaff, but I shall breeze over these places. Our last place to visit was Straws Lane and Hanging Rock. At Straws Lane you experience the very bizarre optical illusion that despite parking your car on a downhill, it rolls backwards, uphill. We managed a very credible 15km per hour rolling uphill. It was at Hanging Rock, where fictitiously 3 school girls and their teacher disappeared, that I learned that my mum had also vanished, from my life. 3rd December 2024. sleep peacefully mum x Our last visit in Melbourne was to visit our oldest friends. This was such a lovely day. We first met in 1977, and my mum remained firm friends with Gay until her passing in 2007. From then on, we have kept in touch with her family, and to see them again was wonderful. The children have grown up, and the next generation were a delight. To be able to talk about my mum was brilliant (apologies for the out of order blog, this day was obviously just prior to learning about my mums passing) Philip Island Penguin Parade One of our favourite and much enjoyed evening past time. At last, after being thwarted at so many previous places, both in South America and New Zealand, we were finally going to see Penguins. Little Fairy Penguins. Every single evening, 365 days per year, these beautiful little penguins make their nightly appearance. Emerging from the sea to run to their burrows is one of the funniest sights we have seen. We arrived at the Penguin Sanctuary, a huge brand new purpose built building, not quite the little box hut that I last remember, and waited for the moment we would be allowed to take our seats for the Penguin Parade. Wandering about the auditorium I was to learn that not only are these the smallest penguins in the world, they are also not called Fairy Penguins anymore, they are now known as Little Penguins, or to give them another name Blue Penguins !!!! Hurrah !!! I did not know prior to arriving that the cute blue penguins that I so desperately wanted to see in New Zealand, were these little guys. More excited now. There are around 5 sets of bench seating on the beach, separated by strips of sand, which face the sea. And then you wait. Once the sun sets and all cameras are put away, NO filming or photos please (unless of course you are that instagram twit who cares not for penguin safety and films anyway) Losing that battle, as every person alive seems to carry a phone, you are offered the chance to download professional photos, taken without flash...foc. I would truly say 95% of all people present, took photos. I did not. Personally I think they just need to emphasise that its the flash element which upsets the birds, and let people film away, as they clearly already do that anyway..Back to the penguin cuties. As the sun sets and darkness sets in, you start to see little black dots on the waves. The penguins have arrived. They arrived in little groups called rafts, and huddle to gather at the waters edge. FOREVER. I could hear the voice of Marlin from Finding Nemo so clearly as we watched these adorable little birds decide who would be the brave one to be the first up the beach. ......First we go out, then we go back, the we go out....then we go back....and just to be certain we go out again.. They stood and dithered, walked forward, ran back, four run forward two follow, and 6 run back to the sea. You sit there willing them on, to be brave and waddle their little butts up the beach. Up and down the beach you can see the little huddles of penguins at the waters edge, all vying with each other as to who would be the brave little penguin to start the beach dash. Once the beach dash starts, the soft hurrahs from the audience seems to give them encouragement to keep going until they reach the safety of the sand dunes and their burrows. Once the main bulk of the penguins have waddled up the beach you are allowed to leave your seats and watch these little dark blue cuties as they wend their way amongst the dunes. You also see a vast amount of possums, but all of a sudden, possum or penguin? Penguin usually wins. We visited Philip Island from the home of my mums friends. I had never met these people before, but trusting my mum and dads excellent judge of character we knew that they would be lovely people, and boy were we right. These two amazing people opened up their home to us, and we spent a wonderful 3 days with them, learning about what they did when my mum visited them on a Cruise a few years back, and other things that I didn`t know. New friends were made by all. After a farewell meal and a last sunset, we packed our bags to continue our journey. Sydney (and that damn bridge) These 3 crazy bunnies landed in Sydney with one day spare to prepare for the biggest adventure of at least two of our lives. Little bunny has climbed Sydney Harbour Bridge before, on her 13th Birthday, and this time all 3 daft bunnies would be doing the same thing. We had a walk out to see the bridge but I think nerves and a sense of dread and fear were a little at the forefront of our minds as it was clear that each of the older bunnies were wondering what the heck they had signed up for, and tempers, also induced by heat and being tired were a little frayed. Looking back I can quite clearly tell you which bridge photos were taken before the climb, and which ones after.! A little back story. Little bunny and her grandpa did this climb together whilst my mum and I climbed the stairs of the Pylon tower to watch. We saw them climb the bridge. We could see the steps. We could see what they wore and how they were strapped to the bridge. What we couldn`t see was the amount of pre climbing they had done to get to said point where they were visible. I was told about the practise steps. That the bit (read that again bit ) above the road was the worst. You could see the road below you through the mesh. Armed with that knowledge, Mr Bunny and Mrs Bunny have been walking Blackpool pier for around a year prior to the trip in order to try and desensitise their fear of heights . Oh how we laugh about that one now! Friday 13th. Yes. I chose that date. Bridge Climb day. Quite probably for the first time ever Mr B was not allowed to calm his nerves with a drink. First thing they do when you get there is a breathalyser test. Zero alcohol tolerance. A pre climb questionnaire filled in had alerted them to my wonky knees, but they assured me that there would be a chance to test my physical climbing ability prior to the ascent. A superbly organised climbing structure and climbing apparatus/body rigs meant we felt safe enough. We each tested the clip on rigs and reassured ourselves we couldn`t fall. All was good. We tested the ladders, not too high, good, tested the mesh walkways, yep, that was doable. And then it was our turn. Everyone wears headphones to hear the guide, and only she can hear you, and trust me, that was. awesome news. We clipped on, Mrs B at the front behind the guide, oh bother, now I had no choice but to move fast and to not hold up the group. Not for anything was I going to be the reason the group moved slowly. And we were off. Through the door, into a room, and once clipped and no going back, the enormity of that sodding bridge, and what it entailed, slapped you firmly across the face. If I used the F word once, i used it several times. Frogs were everywhere. There was a frog on the bridge, the handrail, the ground below us, on the cars, the low sided handrails, even the wind was froggy !! ` The first bit is the worst `my bunny butt !!! From the offset, the path is narrow, mostly open sided, mesh floor, hand rail on the left side only with your right hand guiding your life line alongst the narrow metal wire. Its also breezy. And did I mention that it is a long long long way!!? All my walking practise over Blackpool Pier ? absolute zero use. I have never been as utterly terrified in my entire life!! Its froggy high, froggy narrow, got frog all to hang on to and did i mention that it is froggy high!! That blissful bit of torture lasted around two weeks. Once my hand had secured itself into the grip of a thousand nations never to uncoil, the delightful guide yelled, that`s the easy bit over !! sorry, but wtf? easy bit ? Stairs next. Three flights worth. The sort of stairs that go in side tall hollow structures, that you look at and think nope, not for me! Nope, Up we go. Bunny balls and buttocks joined the party of frogs as once more I climbed. We reached the top and I breathed once more...until the guide says, we call this next bit the squeeze... I do hope you are kidding me? Nope, she wasn`t, between the rails, under the girders and along the frog laden path that joyously spanned more road. And just to add insult to injury, she then ever so kindly added " we are nearly at the ladders"... Well just look at those cute little ladders, exactly the same as the ones we practised on in the practise room, just 3 times higher, and 3 times as many, and over fresh air so that you can take in the lovely views. Chimps, chocolate, bananas and a whole other host of random objects now invade my thoughts and my mouth as I endeavour to give the frogs a rest. I solemnly declare that If I ever mention doing something so utterly stupid again, you may section me!! Finally, and not a moment too soon we stepped out onto the bridge itself. and this my bunny friends was the easy part. The steps are very wide, you cannot see over the edge, you cannot see the road below your feet. You can however see the whole of Sydney and the Opera House. The view is worth a million frogs. Cue music and fireworks, we`ve done it and I have the photo to prove it. I could tell you all about the numerous steps, ladders and other challenges that we met on the way down, but my favourite bit of the whole climb was the amazing ladder to nowhere, this gorgeous cute little ladder, connecting the lower path to the upper path. It really was the most beautiful steel mesh rung ladder you have ever seen and as the leader of the group, I, Mrs bunny, had the delight of standing at the bottom of this ladder for around 15 mins waiting for the rest of the group to slowly descend the ladders from hell behind me. The view below me through the wide mesh rungs was incredible. Absolutely nothing whatsoever obscured my view to the ground, and to my left I could see forever, such a shame my right hand view into infinity was partially obscured by train tracks. I forgot, must tell you, that ladder had special effects as well, every time the train and the numerous carriages went over, it shook like a jelly. It was a great feeling trying to hang on. 3 hours of hell later, and I am at last back on terrified firma. Having shared with both Mr B and little B the most incredible views of Sydney, I am delighted to announce that I will never do anything that daft for as long as I live ! Our time is Sydney was brief, but once the fear of that bridge climb abated, and the celebrations of survival set in, we could at last appreciate the beauty of said bridge with the back drop of the Opera House. We wandered the parks, to the Anzac memorial, The Rocks, we found the Christmas market, not great but the pancakes were pretty decent. The Christmas tree was quite special, as are most Aussie decorations. We love seeing the decorated Koalas, red nosed Kangaroos pulling the sleigh, Santa in board shorts, we have seen them all. We ate at the Wahlburger restaurant, an excellent burger place partially owned by Mark wahlburg and his famous chef brother. The East Coast beckons. We enjoyed our time in the bunny bus so much around New Zealand, and hated the buses with equal passion in South America, Mr B arranged to hire another big bunny bus to take us up the east coast. Envisaging a road trip of endless beaches, easy camping stops, and parking with the ease of New Zealand, our hopes were quickly dashed at our very first port of call. We had a 15 day plan of short drives and long stops at a multitude of different destinations. Leave early. Park, See, Camp. that was the plan. Port Stephens, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Noosa Head ,Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Airlie Beach, Townsville, Cairns. All the places we hoped to see, along a road that skirted the coast. whales here, railway there, caves anyone? On paper the suggestions look fine, but our reality was so so different. First and foremost we needed a powered site every night. Without Air Con we wouldn`t have survived. The heat has been incredible, and its only going to get hotter the further north we go. No free camping for us. The main road, is not a multi lane highway. neither does it touch the coast except in the rarest of places. How rare? Twice. that`s your lot. Parking. Complete nightmare. There is zero allowance for a motorhome with almost every parking space saying 6 or 7 feet or under. The most popular places are chocka by the time we arrive at lunchtime, so even if we can park its quite busy. Took us 3 days of travelling to know that if we had had hindsight, the east coast requires either a huge 4x4 and caravan, or a really decent car and cheap hotel stays. Not that any hotel is a cheap stay. We could have driven a little off the beaten track, but if we thought the main roads were dodgy, bouncy and hard to drive, goodness knows what off road would be like in a big bunny bus. The answer to most of our problems would have been to arrive at each camp site, then Uber to town, but after a while this just gets expensive. First stop Port Macquarie and the op shops. The op shops are the same as our charity shops but a million times better. These shops, our favourite, run by the Salvation Army and called Salvo, contains just about everything and anything you could possibly need, second hand, very cheap, and no tat. We had designs on everything Christmas. Bunny hopping from one salvo shop to another we Christmassed the bunny bus within an inch of its life. Lights and all. And 2 trees. Everything was stuck in place with either sellotape or blue tac, so we could drive at will knowing Santa was safe. With places difficult to access or park, we actually did very little sightseeing up the east coast. We did visit the Koala hospital and rehabilitation centre, a sad, but also inspiring place where they care for hurt or sick Koalas, placing the cured ones back into the wild, and loving and caring for the ones that can no longer care for themselves. Main cause of injuries? Humans. Loss of habitat, chopping down trees forcing the Koala to wander nearer and nearer to roads, we are their biggest cause for injury. The next injuries are by natural causes, mostly fire. One little koala, with the prettiest little face you have ever seen, was in the hospital for her own safety. She preferred one particular tree near a town, but would frequent the local court house on her way to said tree. After being rescued from `prison` several times, they decided the local hospital was the safest home for her. Byron Bay next Quite possibly one of the nicest beaches we visited, but in the most Aussie stereo typical vein you have ever seen. All three bunnies felt old, over dressed and out of place here. Young male surfer dudes in their board shorts, bare feet, shaggy blonde hair, bare feet and surf boards are followed everywhere by dizzy blondes in their 3 pieces of string bikinis, flip flops and endlessly sucking, but not depleting on the ubiquitous straws of iced latte drinks. With an average apparent age range of 21, we were clearly of the `mom and pop` generation. We loved Byron Bay, but wouldn`t chose to stay there. We would however love to have stayed longer at Brisbane. That is one lovely city. So chilled, easy going, and very pretty. We all felt very comfortable here. They have a lovely city beach called Streets Beach. My boss of 42 years, chose to to send me a photo of himself whilst on that beach last year. I felt it appropriate to send him the same picture back with me in said photo. Adding the caption, yep, Its great here. I felt it was a fair trade for his total lack of correspondence and interest in our trip. His sister, from the same company emigrated to said place many years ago, but I felt it more appropriate to enjoy a leisurely breakfast with an ex work colleague. We all met up at the best Cafe E V E R, in the town of Redcliffe, and fell in love with both cafe and town. (Cafe 63) Redcliffe was around 80 mins outside of Brisbane and is without any shadow of doubt the nicest town we have ever visited. Easily comparable to many of the towns of New Zealand, even Queenstown which I didn`t think could ever be bettered. Cafe 63, if you get a moment, just google their menu for a laugh. You will clock what I mean about best cafe ever. Australia Zoo. When little bunny added zoo to our to our What list, I had thought it was to pamper to Mr bunny's love of animals. What I hadn`t realised is that Australia Zoo is, or sadly, was, the home of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. This is not just a zoo, This is THE zoo. The most spectacularly beautiful and well kept zoo we have ever had the pleasure of exploring. This is the type of Zoo that every animal structure in the world should aspire to copy. Think endless acres of natural forest and open spaces, change nothing, just add a few strategic walkways, fences, and view points, and et Voila! The family still live and work at the zoo, and their legacy to animal conservation is second to none. Noosa Head, Rainbow Beach, both beautiful and spectacular. Rainbow is the jumping on point for tours to Fraser Island, the biggest Sandbar Island in the world. You can drive there when the tide is low and your vehicle is a huge big tyred 4 x 4 , but for mere mortals in a bunny bus, the only option was a ridiculously expensive boat trip. We would have made the trip with bells on, but how do you justify £200 each to visit another beach? Another fun fact, no matter how utterly beautiful the beaches are, they are also deadly. This is Australia, land of salt water crocodiles, stingers and jellyfish. Beautiful beaches are to be laid on or admired from a distance. Swim if you like, stinger suits are available to hire. Sorry, but sandy beaches have never been a favourite of mine, and now you want to add crocodiles and stuff that`s likely to sting me?? No thanks. Rockhampton. Christmas shopping time!! This was our only shopping town. We kept Christmas presents to a minimum spending very little. We kept to four categories , eat, drink, wear, read, with gifts to be practical, needed, liked and light. Who knew T bags would suddenly become a much appreciated Christmas present? We had intended purchasing food for a Christmas BBQ, free gas BBQs are to be found along most coastal towns. However, we chose to spend Christmas at Airlie Beach (awesome) at a gorgeous camp site, with a cute little swimming pool situated right behind our bunny bus. The pull of eating in an air conditioned bus, with a pool for dessert, was far greater than our desire for a hot BBQ. We have been to many English camp sites, and compared to the Aussie sites , we suck at it!. Never once have we encountered spoilt whinging brats, no crying babies, no barking dogs, no foul mouthed idiots or fish wives screeching. Every site has been so quiet, well behaved considerate people, superb cleanliness in the wash rooms and kitchens. Australia, you take camping to the next level. We stayed at Airlie Beach for 5 peaceful nights. We did go on a day trip to Hamilton Island, one of the many Whit Sundays, it was lovely, but to truly experience the magnificence of the Whit Sundays, you need to have cash to burn. Once again the trips are just so expensive. My mantra of ` a little bit of everything, but not a lot of something` is helping us find the places we would love to spend more time ( and money) at, whilst ticking off places that maybe we wouldn`t choose to go again. With 7 months of travel still ahead of us, and many many magnificent places, we have to be cautious and picky. Cairns. This is our last destination in Australia. After a journey of almost 2,400km, our time in Australia is coming to a close. In 2018, whilst on a trip to China, we met the most wonderful older solo (solo, not solo) traveller, and with whom I have kept in touch. She lives here in Cairns, and I always promised myself, that if I made it to Australia we would visit. On the best night of the year, and incidentally the last night of the year, we spent a glorious 5 hours with Margaret and her lovely husband Peter, on their balcony overlooking the Esplanade watching the fireworks with a birds eye view. It was an absolute joy to stand on that balcony and see for ourselves, the wonderful views that Margaret regularly posts on her Facebook page. The Bunny bus has gone to bed, and we are spending our last few nights in the best hostel (as voted by Hostel world several years running) in Cairns. A proper home from home little palace, the Travellers Oasis, is just that. an Oasis. One last trip in Australia and we saved the best until last. The Great Barrier Reef. Alas I have no photos, waterproof or not I wasn`t taking my phone into the sea. Or my go pro. A superb half day snorkelling trip, we, just the two older bunnies on this occasion, set off on a fast boat to the reef, with a lovely staff of 4. Everyone was given a floatation belt (or not if a competent swimmer) mask, snorkel, and fins. Being unable to wear and flap fins in the water, mrs b was given the opportunity to hang on to a life belt and be towed around the reef. We arrived at the reef after an hour of boating, we were prepped, the back of the deck was lowered, and we were off. We are also all wearing stinger suits, still in Australian waters after all. The water was the pleasant temperature of a warm bath, not a single cold shudder as you entered the water. My `tow lady` said to me after a brief swim, look down, we are over the reef. A little nervously at first and not using my snorkel, I stuck my head under the water and the beauty and size of the reef was incredible. Grabbing my snorkel knowing I was never going to take my eyes off the reef, I put my head down and watched the best underwater television. I have never been a big lover of open water, or snorkelling, but the reef and its huge variety of fish were just insane. I had such a mixed feeling about visiting the reef, we have heard about the bleaching, the sad state of parts of the reef, the ethics, but though we could see some effects of the bleaching, we could also see vast fields of very healthy coral, and a huge abundance of brightly coloured fish of all sizes. We also saw a clam shell. A living breathing clam shell, larger than any human! I missed half the commentary given by my `tow` guide, such was my desire to not miss anything below the water, but I did hear her say that this clam was very very old, probably over a hundred years, that he would have landed there as a small clam, dug in, and ate his way to this incredible size. Don`t misunderstand, the reef is far from the abundant day glo colours as perceived from fish tanks, but it definitely does have many different colours, shades of blues, greens and purples. The reef is incalculably huge. We were in the heart of the reef at the Whit Sundays, a 3 day drive away, and still that wasn`t the start of the reef. As a world, we need to learn to protect the reef. It is suffering. The fish are stressed. I was deeply saddened when my tow guide told me about the rainbow fish I was seeing below me, saying that they come in all sorts of bright colours, but when stressed they tend to be blue. My fish were blue. They get stressed by the presence of divers and snorkellers. I was one of those people causing my fish to become blue. Seeing the reef is one thing, but knowing your presence is causing the fish to visibly change colours in fear, is not right. There are 100s of tours available to the reef. At what point do we cross the line? Saving the reef v stressing the reef... To clarify, little bunny went to the reef the following day. She had a similar sort of day, but had the added pleasure of seeing a turtle up close. Our time in Australia has come to an end. For a country that Mr Bunny had thought that he wasn`t entirely sure he wanted to visit, I think it is fair to say we all enjoyed our time here so very very much, with frequent mutterings of `when we come back` not If. Good Bye Australia, you are truly awesome.

Toilet.. I love a good toilet, don`t you? In the UK lets admit it, good public loos are few and far between. Not so here in South America. There are toilets (Banos) everywhere! Public toilets, toilets in cafes or bars, just pay a few pence and take your own paper. Down side streets (now I admit these are loos that we never had cause to use, so I cannot comment as to their cleanliness or function) middle of the highway, car parks, public buildings, if you have the urge to spend a penny or a peso, there will be a place for you. All western types. Carry your own paper, and stick the after use (you get used to it) in the baskets provided. In the 5 months here I think I have only been challenged by a questionable loo once. Altitude. I know I have mentioned this before, but altitude can be quite challenging at times. You don`t notice it for a long time, then suddenly without warning you find yourself out of breath, the stairs suddenly become so much more tiring. One night you may find yourself breathless, or you look at a hill and dismay and frustration hits you when the puffing starts again. I`m sure younger bunnies will struggle less, or even the well seasoned hikers, but if like us, you are sea level living bunnies, the constant living at a height equivalent to three times the height of Ben Nevis can be a struggle. I know from a an excellent source on You Tube, Wolters World that the need for oxygen on rare occasions is very real, but I do think some of the silly questions asked on the travel groups are a little dramatic, asking about altitude tablets, where to buy certain tablets, how to cope etc... Look people, I am an older bunny with proven limited lung capacity, I`m no hiker, I live at sea level, and though I puffed and panted, (and I admit got thoroughly and vocally fed up) I managed quite well. Yet by comparison it was super breath holding capacity, I can blow a brass instrument for 20 bars on one breath Mr Bunny, who struggled. Don`t stress. Follow every good suggestion online particularly the drinking of extra liquids and taking it easy, the rest you will figure out. Buses Every blog I read declared buses are freezing . I beg to differ. Buses differ massively and it all depends on where you sit. I have sat on a bus and darn near melted whilst the people just 2 seats ahead of me piled on just about every layer of clothing they could get their hands on. I sat in a cotton vest t shirt and shorts and wished I was naked with a bucket of ice water. That, my bunny friends is how wildly different bus seats can be. I was sat that day on the bus heater over which I had no control. My only personal advice would be to dress in layers, cool stuff first, not thermals. Cooking Cooking at home has saved us a whole lot of money. We save more when mrs and little bunny let Mr Bunny shop alone. We have been banned from accompanying him. Not our fault that those biscuits fell into the basket, or that bar of chocolate. We try not to complain though as neither of the girly bunnies has cooked a meal yet ( bar one or two) and though he does keep trying to produce a meal we do not like, in 5 months Mr bunny has so far failed. Miserably. I really thought this would be a trip of Ramen noodles and Water, but not at all. We eat chicken most evenings, steak, sausages, eggs, pastas, rice dishes, risotto, there is no end to the talent of Mr B. Fry a mushroom and an onion and the smell of cooking makes our bunny noses waffle. Mr Bunny even cooks delicious meals with wine, sometimes he puts it in the food... Clothing and what to wear/pack I retired from work and decided that I wanted to be a whole new me. I packed a different selection of clothing to my normal colours, wanting to be brighter, more colourful. I found out the hard way, If you don` t like it or wear it at home, you wont wear it abroad either. bit by bit I have replaced my backpack with the styles and colours that I am more accustomed to wearing. Even little bunny is so glad she packed jeans, despite their weight. Mr B wishes he had. I`m grrring that I sent home my straight legged trousers. I cannot emphasis enough to listen and learn when every single you tube video without fail, says pack less. less. less. less. I am carrying multiple socks that I probably will not wear, ditto underwear. You can only wear one at once, you can wash overnight, seldom takes more than 2 days to dry, so why take multiples? Wear. Wash. Go. Merino socks. just buy them. You will never regret it. Stuff. Needed or Not? My best stuff. A plug , its a round flat grey plug and probably our most used object. Our Philips rechargable toothbrushes in their own cases. (charged before we left, and she says, tempting fate) still on the same charge. Useful when the only place to put your toothbrush down may be the sink or the loo cistern. Sellotape ! resealing packets of curry powder, salt, sugar, sauces, drink crystals, lids on loose items. A small torch , mine has different options including wide beam. Used when I don`t want to be forever using my phone. An airflap . simple flat bendable piece of leather coated metal. Mr B uses it all the time when watching horses on his phone, or generally just surfing on the net on a table. Kindle , with a long lead charger. My kindle fire , a bit heavy but i have used it often. Easier to watch in bed than the laptop. Decent ear plugs . If you enjoy a decent hot brew, my best on the road buy is a plastic thermal mug , with lid. So nice to have a decent sized drink from a pot that keeps it warm for longer. The second best buy was a cute little hot water bottle . Ladies buy one, guys thank me later. Small plastic tubs . (yep, same as the ones we bought to bring, and left behind) but proof that you can buy what you need, when you need it, along the way. Too much rice? in the tub, sugar bag too big? In the tub. Half a tube of butter? In the tub. Slippers. Paper/pens. both get constant use. The pen keep handy at the borders. Decent hand cream or moisturiser . Your skin gets very dry at altitude. Toilet Roll . always have a spare handy, you never know when someone will accidentally chuck one down the loo. Sit pads , they take up a bit of space, but we use them so often, quite the envy of people when we plonk ourselves down on wet rocks, or damp grass whilst they stand. We do not have, but wish we did, an airplane friendly screwdriver set. Lost count of the times Mr Bunny waves a loose handled saucepan at me. Go Pro with or without a small handle. I do have ready made ( ahem) breast pocket in which to store mine out of sight, whilst little bunny prefers the handle attachment. Here I emphasise, you do NOT need the all singing, dancing battery included official go pro, £100 plus handle as per the advice of a knows everything, but knows nothing idiot I once knew. It is a heavy p.i.t.a leave it at home, along with the brainless clown that also thinks it had a use!!....just saying.... (private joke) Talking about that brown stuff, Wype has been a brilliant little bathroom addition. when paper is at a premium, the smallest amount of this stuff goes a long long way. (google for a better description, but it really is quite excellent) Packable day bags . We use two different ones. a Patagonia black hole, and a Tripped pack away, both used very often. Small grrr here, small packable shopping bags, exactly like the 6 or so I have at home but managed to leave without. These would have been very useful, instead I saved a heavy duty plastic bag that takes up more room than I like. A buff, have to admit I wear this far more than I thought I would. Thin warm blanket I carry mine in a neck shaped pillow case, multi function. Need a pillow but not a blanket, you got it, need a blanket and a pillow? swap blanket for coat or spare clothes. A tried and tested reusable drink flask . I personally carry two. One functions exceptionally well for cold drinks, but warm drinks cool far too quickly, whilst my other keeps hot for up to 10 hours. I didn`t intend to leave with 2, but one was a gift, and I am very grateful that the gift flask is the one I use most often. Pillow case. used on multiple occasions when only one side of the bed (or neither) has access to a table. We each carry a bright coloured pillowcase in which we can stuff phones, kindles, glasses cases, bedtime munchies.. Water shoes had frequent use, from private slippery bath tubs and showers, to shared bathrooms and hot tubs. Tea Towels . used frequently. Not required As per my notes above, anything heavy including a Go Pro handle. A carbon dioxide monitor . Don`t ask, ( if you must know, it was suggested on a well respected you tube blog, and seeing as we cook often, yadda yadda yadda) no, not needed. A bit of common sense and an open window works just as well. Justin Case . If you are carrying anything at all, just in case, you probably do not need it. A super dooper pac safe handbag . Yep, absolutely brilliant, but when your clothes are ultra casual, a pac safe handbag screams `I contain something important` I sent mine home in favour of a canvas bag that can be bought anywhere. Little bunny carries a cross body bag in a low key colour. Mr bunny wears a bum bag. sore point. It works best at airports and on buses. For casual day wear, he too carries a `local bag`. Shower Gel it is liquid, comes in big packaging, usually expensive, and solid soap ticks exactly the same box. Solid shampoo bars either I haven`t found a good one, or they are all the same. Pointless. I have had 3 now, and they haven`t lasted more than 2 or 3 washes without disintegrating. To date, most of our rooms have provided shower gel and shampoo, for those that don`t , supermarkets in tourist towns tend to have single sachets available. Hot Water Cannot begin to tell you how many times we have needed it, but not had, had but not needed, we have washed up in Cold water more times than I would like, but solid washing up paste is there for a reason. It works. If we have hot water we can cook with oil, cold water and its pasta or rice. Washing your face in cold water is quite refreshing and good for the skin, but running a bathroom tap and finding warm water is bliss. Bidets also provide an excellent face wash. Too many times now I have leaned over, turned on the tap and got a face full of water. Note to self, sit first. Also note, find the cold water first, I can assure you hot water sprayed directly onto your hoo hoo is not fun. Doing Nothing Doing nothing is doing something. It is recharging batteries. Embrace the fact that you really do not need to be doing, walking, hiking, travelling every single day. Stopping is good for body, mind and soul. Doing Something Prior to leaving the UK, we would work all day, cook in an evening, play cards, watch TV. It worried the heck out of me before we left, what are we going to do to pass time? I had visions of long quiet evenings and early nights. We could play cards, but that doesn`t take much time. We cannot sight see all day, every day!! I admit I panicked. I am not very good at sitting around doing nothing. Reality. I wish I had more time. The last time we played cards was almost a month ago. We are never bored, nor do we clamour for entertainment. Ours days are fulfilling, little bunny is working hard producing her You Tube channel/Instagram. miss.tiff.travel s. I write my diary and this blog, far more time consuming than you would know, and Mr bunny is becoming quite a dab hand at backing the horses with 4 legs and mining for Gold. Netflix and Disney are there for us in an evening. Life is good. Backpacks and Rucksacks . Researched at length, I cannot begin to tell you how many bag videos we have watched. We are each carrying a Stubble and Co backpack. 42 litres, compartmented. The compartments make packing exceptionally easy, one bunny choosing to use packing cubs, 2 bunnies do not. All 3 bags have split across the seams. I still advocate these bags are excellent, but it is proof that with less stuff the bags wouldn`t have been under so much strain. Will they last the entirety of the trip? Yes. Will they need attention in the future, also Yes. Would I bring again? debatable. We have two Osprey Fairview and Farpoint bags at home, that might just take a trip of their own one day. Rucksacks/day bags. Again, researched at length, but still problematic. I absolutely love to bits my LoveNook bag. Pockets!! so many pockets!! I have a pocket for everything, it is brilliant and I love it, but I`ve since bought a Patagonia rucksack to use instead ! Why??? My lovenook does not like to be carry turtle fashion. Problem one. Problem two, buses are used frequently and my little bag was just a little too wide to fit under the seats, ditto on a plane. When we intend to be travelling for many more months yet, I need a bag that ticks those extra boxes. My new Patagonia ticks all the boxes bar the pockets. Oh how I miss my pockets. A problem I have sorted by utilising the small zipped cotton bags that I have with me. Mr Bunny has no issues at all with his 30litre Berghaus rucksack, whilst little bunny, who had intended just using her anti theft backpack, quickly realised that it didn`t quite fit all her tech. Nor would it carry the weight of. Borrowing a cheap 30 litre trespass rucksack has that problem now covered. I'm sure I will have many more lessons to learn as our trip progresses, but for now, 3 happy bunnies are signing off. PS Google Translate. Brilliant brilliant app, but not fool proof. Please note that when asking for chocolate without nuts, you request the correct version of nuts. Mr Bunny had a red face when he asked for chocolate without balls....

(so far..) Despite months, even years of watching You tube what not to pack, and do not pack Justin Cases, we did. Well truthfully not everything was justin cases, some things in our bags were simply duplicated items, or bulky items we struggled to pack, or items acquired along the way. Deciding to send some items back to the UK via DHL, because of their reputation rather than the local Peruvian mail was a mistake. No matter how diligently you translate conversations, list every item, under exaggerate the value of your box contents, when the office staff fail to tell you that your contents will be opened and scrutinised at UK Customs, expect to pay another £70 plus, on top of your already expensive box of mistakes.  Lesson One . Do Not Overpack . When they say you can buy anything you need on the road, you truly can. And so much easier than you can in the UK. There are shops by the thousand everywhere you go. These shops sell absolutely everything you could possibly want, and more besides. I swear that in a 5 block radius of any main town or city we have been in, you could buy everything from items to build and furnish a house, buy a car, maintain it, purchase dog clothes, human clothes, coffins and hospital beds. Every second shop sells food, and every third shop is a pharmacy, as for dentists???? on one street alone I counted 4 practices. Lesson Two . You don`t need to pack shampoo. Many of our hostels have provided such, and for those that don`t, you can buy single sachets from most supermarkets or tourist shops. Shower gel is overrated and unnecessary, ordinary soap and a scrunchy works just as well and is far easier to carry. Lesson Three, get off your high horse, and accept that yes, you really can wash pots in cold water. The washing up `liquid` here in South America, isn`t liquid, but comes in hard soap like substance that works exceptionally well, use it, trust it. By all means boil water for that extra greasy pan, but generally, cold water will suffice. Lesson Four and one that I find so difficult to accept, despite all the horror stories of being scammed or ripped off, people everywhere are for the most part genuinely delighted and willing to help you. Use your wits and common sense, but don`t be afraid. Not everyone is evil, some are desperately poor and will try it on, but be kind and understanding . Lesson Five,  do not walk anywhere anywhere with your nose stuck in your phone! Trust me when I say that the sidewalks/ pavements are littered with holes, raised flags, missing tiles, dogs toilet, overly high kerbstones and other challenging obstacles, use this opportunity to put the thing away, look up (and down) are be aware of your surroundings from your feet upwards. Lesson Six, plugs hang off walls, electrics spark, light switches and plugs can be found in bathrooms, showers are electric, with the wires usually hanging out of the wall just above the shower head, and try not to be overly alarmed when your host tells you that the water is at its warmest when the electric light goes out. It can be nerve wracking, but there are millions of people living like this, so join the club and embrace it.

From Galapagos we flew back to the mainland via Guayaquil. A city that at this moment in time has an avoidance advisory. We are careful to listen to government guidelines and local knowledge, but equally we listen to our own hearts as well. Guayaquil was not an exception. It is not a safe city at this time, albeit less so for tourists, but we like safe. So, straight to the hotel we went. Take heed wandering tourists, the German family also from our hotel chose to ignore advice, attempted to navigate the local district, got lost and were promptly bundled into a taxi by concerned locals and told to go back to their hotel. Mr Bunny heeded all warnings and surpassed himself by ordering us Pizza via delivery. Expensive? yes, worth it? oh yes!!!! sometimes a little splurge does wonders for both bunny bellies and blissful contentment. Pizza, Netflix and Ecuadorian chocolate, an evening made in heaven. So, Banos. Banos, adventure capital of Ecuador. We had an idea what was there, and why we wanted to go, we just didn`t research it in too much detail to allow for that element of surprise. Surprise number one. It took 7 hours and 2 buses to get there , not the 4 hours on one bus that I read online. It should have been one bus, but it broke down. The 7 hours part was actually correct, I had misread the bus timetable, 4 hours was just the journey to the town of Riobamba where we got dropped off with several other bewildered local bunnies at a small bus tour shop as apparently our bus was having difficulties. We were each given tickets that said 3 to Banos (or 2, or 1 etc) and got told to sit. So sit we did. After around 20 mins, another bus came and on we piled. 3 bunnies and our fellow bunny locals back on their way to Banos. One hour said the bus timetable, 2.5 hours was the reality. We landed in the late evening into what I can only describe as (for UK bunny visitors Blackpool/ Or US bunny visitors, a mini Las Vegas) Oh I was so gutted. Talk about awful first impressions. Neon lights, music, party buses, young people milling about on the streets, burger bars and street food vendors. We got a taxi straight to our lovely little hostel Timara, see booking.com , shared kitchen but lovely family and perfectly nice rooms, deciding to shelve our disappointment and see what daylight brought. Morning came and I realised that our mini Las Vegas and the disappoint of, was actually Saturday night fun and nothing more. We were in the most gorgeous little town, best described as super touristic, safe, relaxed and surrounded by the most awesome hills. We quickly came to love Banos, for its friendly relaxing happy vibes, ( awesome Chocolate Shop. Blanco Hot Chocolate and Dulche de Leche crepes, wow just saying..). The neon party bus was back in the garage, and all we were left with was a million shops all selling one thing. Adventure!! Canyoning? Abseiling? White Water Rafting? Zip lines? Bungee? When we thought Banos was a small town with one area of adventure, the reality is many choices of adventures and tours all in different places around the valleys and hills. Where to begin. Spa waters! After so many weeks on the road the pull of hot springs and total relaxation was too good to miss. El Salado was our first destination. A place where you really do need to know that the book is so much better than the cover suggests. A grey concrete mass of bland looking buildings, muddy looking brown pools, less than inviting looking changing rooms and showers, and the most glorious hot natural pools. 3 hot or varying warm temperatures pools and one one freezing (to be ignored lol) pool. Day 2 saw us visit the Amazon. Without doubt the most cringy tourist tour and one that I would normally avoid like the plague, but definitely had its merits. Picked up at 8.45, first stop the View Point, Just a stop at the side of the road but a place where you could pause to admire the size and majesty of Amazonia, or at least one little corner of it. From there to the waterfalls. A lovely quite easy, semi paved, walk through the jungle (I did say it was touristy) to the waterfall. Very nice, one of the better waterfalls seen to date, even semi impressing this normally unimpressed wet stuff bunny. From there we went, in the little tourist bus, to the `Indigenous` village. Greeted by the village elder with his parrot feather hat, he proceeded to talk about Chicha, the local drink and the making of, then each of us was given a drink of to taste, from the same cup each time (Who remembers Covid?) Time next for the children in their `native costumes` to come and paint our faces with traditional face paints, showing my age here, but Adam Ant eat your heart out, we rocked the war paint look. Women next, in their fancy grass skirts dressed up the female bunnies in multi size grass skirts and they proceeded to dance around the fire whilst the male bunny variety banged their drums. boys and drums, boys and toys. Mrs Bunny here would have partaken, but alas someone had to take the pictures. Time for the snake picture next, ( I did warn you, proper ts tour) Mr bunny was nowhere to be seen as the snake was brought out, but little bunny quite happily posed with said legless creature. What do they say about every good ride? Ends in a shop! We each bought a souvenir of the day, and left waving goodbye to the `local indigenous people` who were now wearing their presumably everyday attire of jeans, trainers, and the children in their mickey mouse t shirts /nike jumpers. Day 2. We hired a jeep for 3 hours and drove the road along which are 7 decent waterfalls. Making the decision to miss them all on the outward journey, we headed directly for El Pailon del Diablo. so glad we did. This particular waterfall is quite something, as is the walk! the steps were fine, the views were amazing, then we encountered that bridge. The bouncy, high, rope type bridge, that had to be crossed to continue the waterfall walk. After walking, or rather crawling over a very solid stone bridge that was a whole 8 feet high near home, I was super impressed when Mr Bunny hopped across it with apparent ease. Took Mrs bunny a couple of false starts before venturing across, but of course fearless little bunny just bounced across it with barely a pause. As waterfalls go, Pailon del Diablo is well worth a visit. Several days passed with us choosing to do very little, the weather was a little unkind, but the chance to catch up with some online work was much needed. On our next blue sky day we caught a local bus to the Casa Del Arbol, perched on the top of the nearby hill, this is known as the original Swing At The End of The World. Just a little tree house with a swing, perched at the edge of a very big hill. So much fun. Suitable for all age bunnies. Very small bunnies have their own little swing nearby if required. A nice little viewpoint, a bit of fun, and back home we went. An evening spent at another brown water super hot spa pool finished off the day and our time in Banos. Cuenca. Yet another long bus journey. But what a journey, I don`t think I took my eyes off the window view for one minute. Ecuador is just so dramatic. We climbed and climbed so many times, getting higher and higher until we were looking down on the clouds and valleys below us. We finally arrived into Cuenca late in the evening to one of best hostel stays to date. Posada Todos Santos. Easy walking distance to the town, cute little rooms, with gorgeous wall paintings. Cuenca, what can I say except that I wish we could have stayed longer. Totally unlike any other city or town we have been to so far, this place is almost elegant, smart and just different. Ecuador in general is a very tidy clean country, (especially compared to Colombia (sorry Colombia) and Cuenca was no exception. find a little hotel called Terra Rooftop 360 to be rewarded by the best view of the city. You can eat there if you wish, but beware, your little bunny pockets need to be quite deep. we settled for coffee and hot chocolate. We met a couple of fellow bunny backpackers back at our hostel who were hoping to enjoy the national park which was an easy bus ride away. We too fancied this national park, and agreed to join them for a walk. Aron, the owner of our hostel, offered to come with us all to guide us through the maze which is Cuenca bus station, and onto the Park itself. First you buy your bus tickets, then you buy another ticket (only a few cents) to leave the bus station to catch said bus. the National Park was around 45 mins away, and is best described as Ecuadors answer to the Scottish Highlands. Lots of hiking trails in this area, but we chose the easy walk around the large lake. 2 hours with stops for photos, is all you need. A nice break from city life. Our time in Ecuador has come to an end. We are sad to be leaving this beautiful country. There is so much more to be seen in Ecuador, a country this diverse deserves time to appreciate, time which alas we do not have. Good bye Ecuador, we love you.

Do what? Choose a bag, book a bus, plan a trip, get a taxi, or just generally figure out where to start? I admit it has been a difficult journey. Every aspect has been researched at length, but even now we have so many unanswered questions, and so many unknowns. The where was the hardest, so many places in the world and we want to see them all. If I had planned our 15 month journey once, I planned it a 100 times, buy a car and drive through Europe, fly to Egypt, fly straight to New Zealand, were just some of the early days options. It took guts and a feeling of recklessness when I decided (after watching endless YouTube namely Nicole and Mico, and Backpacking Bananas for some truly great and confidence inspiring videos) that South America was the right choice of budget conserving destination for us to start. Was it out of our comfort zone? you bet, are we loving it? absolutely. Bag/backpack, we are committed to backpacking, we really don`t want the hassle of suitcases, as for hold luggage costs, not for us. The charges of adding hold luggage can almost double the cost of your flight. We are each carrying a clam shell type backpack made by Stubble and Co, and they are awesome! 40 litres. compartmented. Neat, look small, easy to manage, and are cabin bag size. Each to their own, but these tick every box for us. Even got a shoe compartment. (and their customer service is excellent) " bunnies are also carrying 30 litre rucksacks as their personal item, whilst bunny three is carrying a love nook bag. This lovenook bag is amazing, my little bag of pockets, but it does have one problem, it doesn`t make for a good turtle front carry bag. Wait, am I hearing you say you cannot travel the world with only a backpack, well take a look at my room photos, do we look like we are missing something? Book a bus, or generally get around?. At home I tried every which way to learn how to get around, and finally decided to stop fretting and figure it out on the ground at each destination. Google and RometoRio. Your new best friends. R2R is just about the best app anyone can have, and when R2R is out for lunch, Google. Unless you plan to bunnyhop across the Andes or roller skate across the desert, I`m pretty certain somebody somewhere wanted to go or has gone exactly where you want to, and has written about it. I`m all for hindsight and experience, who am I to question those who have actually done these trips? Taxi drivers seek you out, at bus terminals just stand around and listen, somebody is more than likely shouting out your destination from their little booth. Staff are always ready to help, hotels or even shops will call you a cab. Getting to your destination is the least of your worries. (add google translate to your friends list, your probably going to need it) I don`t intend making suggestions to which bus or terminal you need, everything changes over time, eg Ambato (if you have been or going to Banos) has a brand new bus terminal, not mentioned anywhere online. but R2R and Google tend to stay up to date, besides, there is more than one way to skin a cat and peoples choices of destination and how to get there should be their own. For example, I feel like we are the only backpackers travelling North to South, everybody we meet is on their way uphill. Do it your way, do what suits you. Still early days yet, but up to now travel hasn`t been a problem. Less is more. Did we learn that lesson? nope, we didn`t. We tried, but failed. We still managed to pack Justin Cases. I did try very hard to follow the instruction to get out your stuff, divide it in half and divide again. Hence the reason I failed to pack a bra and managed to pack 3 green t shirts. Can you have too much? yes, very much so. I could wear a different t shirt every day for 2 weeks, same for leggings/trousers. See earlier blog post when I mentioned we went shopping for missing items...lets just say I got slightly carried away! A new t shirt every day for 2 weeks? That`s when you know you have too much. Best buys? I am living in Salomon trainers for their sure footed grip. I had expected to be wearing my old faithful comfy Skechers, but the terrain so far has warranted decent sturdy footwear. My expensive super light packable puffy coat is amazing. A waterproof is much needed, but splurge. You need a waterproof, but space is premium. Spend the money on the tiniest, lightest, 100% waterproof jacket you can find. Mr Bunnies coat ticks that box, where as my coat takes us more space than I like. Merino wool socks are the bunniesbolox, but t shirts have to suit the wearer. Sweaty bunnies make prefer the merino, but those bunnies who merely sweetly perspire may prefer cheap t shirts ( easily replaced on the road as required) and decent deodorant. Skinny little bunnies just take whatever they like and lots of it. Rule of thumb, the bigger the bunny the less clothes you can take. sucks, but its true. We are still reading the How To Book of World Travel. We have made mistakes, the wrong bus added 3 hours to a journey. Mis reading the room description left us sharing a kitchen. You can book a dorm room for 4 and still end up in a room for 10. You can book a tour and have the best day out, or you can end up with the self important family with the most appalling spoilt child who screams for an hour on a small bus. It is all a journey, and each day we learn to adapt. Ear plugs and warm clothes for buses, with a t shirt just in case. Toilet paper lives in every pocket, as does small change. The wish you had remembered to buy insect repellent, packed more tummy relief tablets, or not packed your most favourite trousers, the ones you live in at home, but don`t seem to have a place for now. We are learning that bus `rules` are pretty stickers with words to be ignored. No food! (but your dinner in a tray is fine) No Pets! but the dog is fine, so is the puppy, and the kitten, sorry sir sheep go in the hold..... And so the journey continues.