Finally some News! Blimey. We have been so lazy.

15 July 2002

Still plodding along in Sydney with the wedding plans progressing nicely. Will be going back to Wellington in September for a bit a catch up and some wedding preparation.

At the end of April we had Ultimate Nationals down in Melbourne. Sara's team cleaned up the women's division again. Dave played with the second NZ men's team. Nice to catch up with some old faces.

Back in May we both ran in the Sydney Half Marathon setting personal best times. Not bad for our first attempt ;-)

We'll write again soon. Ciao.

3 Jan 2002

We're still parked in Sydney as it slides gently into summer but some would think that it is still winter with the weather we are having. It's still a bit too cool to go to the beach, but that will all change soon we hope.

Dave finally made the decision to quit his job and flew back to London for a few months to work. The idea was to get a 3 month contract and make some money. The exchange rate is pretty good at the moment.  That was back in May. Good plan, but it took Dave 2 months to get a job. The market was very flat and jobs were being snapped up within minutes of them being advertised. Dave applied for over 60 jobs and finally got a contract for three months with a French investment bank. They were happy to extend the contract to Christmas so Dave carried on.

Sara stayed in Sydney all by herself but with the added extra of her mum coming over for a long weekend of shopping and going out. At the start of the year Sara changed jobs, joining Integratec Training, which is a company now owned by Tribeca (formally known as Worldschool). She is the Manager of Projects & IT.  Which has once again changed to just being Manager of Projects.  Tribeca have recently brought two more companies so the whole company is now about 60 staff spread from Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.  Sara’s enjoying the challenge of Projects but would like the IT stuff to go away. (DJ: Make it go my way!).

So it was long distance phone calls and email for the next 7 months with the added extra of Dave coming home for a long weekend (That was the condition of him working there till Christmas).  And Sara going over for a 3 week holiday.

What have we been doing outside of work?  Well Sara has been trying to keep fit and has being entering in any fun run there is.  Sara once again did the City to Surf 14km run but had an injured knee so just bettered her time from last year of 94 mins.  Sara has also completed a 50km bike ride around Sydney. This was going to be a good ride except the weather had other plans. It poured down ten minutes into the ride and everyone got soaked.  And once we reached the end it started to fine up.  Once again Sara got tickets to the Bledisloe and took Dave’s parents with her to watch.  It was a good game even thought the All Blacks lost.

Sara has also completed a course in mosaic, which was loads of fun, the next big project is to make a outdoor table.  Sara keeps promising that the house won’t get filled with tiled stuff.

Our Big Trip

Once again it was off to England and then on to Italy, the big secret kept from Sara.  Sara arrived on Thursday morning very tired and slept all day.   

On Friday evening we started at Bologna, where we hired a car to go round the top of Italy.  We've spent seven days speeding around Northern Italy and still had all our wing mirrors. We thought we were speeding at 130 kmh until we found out that was the speed limit. Got used to it after a while even though Sara kept hiding behind the map when a truck decided to pull out in front of us, driving at home will never seem so simple.

Saturday it was off to Maranello to go see some Ferrari’s. It was really amazing. We stopped at the factory and drooled over all the Ferrari’s that were there.  Then off to the Museum, which had a TV crew setting up for the Grand Prix the next day.  The Museum was well worth seeing (that is if your into cars).  Well time to move on next stop, Florence.

Sunday we were off to Pisa, which was just amazing, One of those sights that is amazing even after you have seen all the pictures. The buildings that are alongside the leaning tower were just as amazing as the tower.  The tower is now still leaning but they have restored it as much as they can there are no more wires holding it up.  Once we got our photos it was off to Levanto. We decided that we were going to go for a walk along Cinque Terre between some villages.  This was really nice. What we did was take the train to Riomaggiore and have a look round then take the train back to Vernazza to start our walk to Monterosso.  The walk took us about an hour and half it was a really nice walk that went through vineyards and some houses. The weather was perfect, hot and sunny with the sea looking so blue. Not the usual autumn weather at all.

Skipped Milan in favour of the funky monks at Certosa di Pavia.  The monastery was amazing and when we got there we joined onto the end of an Italian tour group. We nearly accidentally ended up in a Roman Catholic Church service.  Then onto Verona to watch people rubbing the right breast of Juliet's statue (don't ask us, wasn't in our guide book). They seemed to think it was good luck.

Stayed at the beautiful Torri del Benaco at Lake Garda for the night.  Which was were Sara popped ‘The Question’ to Dave and we got engaged.

Venice (amazing) we took a couple of days to look around and seeing all the sights.  Did all the normal things gondola, St Marks square, wine, pizza, pasta etc.  Then back to Bologna to complete our Northern Circle.

Ditched the car and took the train down to Rome. Nice to be off the road. Rome, the Coliseum and all the other sights were amazing.  We also happened upon a Klimt exhibition that was awesome. Sara now wants to go back to Venice to see more of his paintings.

Seven bottles of wine (nice) pasta (yummy) and a leather jacket (its kinda compulsory when you go to Italy and the fact that they make the best leather shoes, jackets etc.)  Not a bad shopping list.

Then it was back to London.

Dave skived off work and Sara went up to Norwich to see some family friends. While Dave worked, Sara spent the rest of the week catching up on London. The British Museum took a whole day. St Paul’s, one of the top church’s on Sara’s list.  We also went to see "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". It has Brendan Fraser (The Mummy and George George, George of the Jungle).

And that was it for Sara, back on a plane to smelly Sydney with its crap weather just as bad as London and back to work joy.  That’s always fun.

Dave was suppose to come back on the 19^th December, but someone with a PlayStation 2 had other ideas.  It was going to be a long anyway but 30 minutes into the flight out of Jakarta they turned.

We spent Christmas this year with Dave’s parents up in Port Macquarie then back to Sydney for New Years we were going to go camping but the Bush fires that we had stoped that.  It was amazing we had some that were near us, the ash was everywhere

And that has been our year.

24 October 2001

Allo once again. Back in London we got back from Italy on Monday. Dave skived off work and I went up to Norwich to see some family friends which was nice.

I only went up for the night. England has already started to flood again and loads of trains were getting cancelled because of it, thank goodness mine wasn't. But I did see a tractor in what would have been his farm land but it look like a lake. On the way back today the train that was suppose to get to Norwich didn't as a freight train crashed somewhere near Ipswich so loads of people crammed on to two little carriages. Its all fun and games with trains here.

Sorting through all the stuff we bought in Italy was fun, Seven bottles of wine (nice) pasta (yummy) and a leather jacket (its kinda compulsory when you go to Italy and the fact that they make the best leather shoes, jackets etc.) Couldn't get the bag I wanted as I saw it in Florence and didn't see it again. Oh well save some of Dave's money since I lost my wallet before I even left Sydney. But I have been told that its been found.

I have now got till Sunday to entertain myself as Dave is working in the day. This wont be hard. I am going to the British Museum that will take at least a day. I want to take Dave to St Paul's so he will have a long lunch and I also want to walk around London and get all those tourist photos that I never got when I lived here. We will also be going to see a show. We are going to try and see "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". It has Brendan Fraser (The Mummy) in it and is getting rave reviews.

I fly back on Sunday night and arrive in Sydney very shattered on Tuesday morning. Back to the grind on Wednesday. So for those of you that I work with see you all in a weeks time.

20 October 2001

Buon giorno! As you can tell Dave has taken me to Italy.

We've spent the past week speeding around Northern Italy and still have all our wing mirrors. We thought we were speeding at 130 km/h until we found out that was the speed limit. Got used to it now and driving at home will never seem so simple.

Started on Bologna, then to the Ferrari factory & museum in Maranello and drooled. Onto Florence, then Pisa. One of those sights that is amazing even after you have seen all the pictures. Next Levanto on the coast and walked between to small villages. Skipped Milan in favour of the funky monks at Certosa di Pavia. Then onto Verona to watch people rubbing the right breast of Juliet's statue (don't ask us, wasn't in our guide book). They seemed to think it was good luck. Stayed at the beautiful Lake Garda for the night. Venice (amazing) for a couple of days then back to Bologna to complete our Northern Circle.

Ditched the car and took the train down to Rome for a couple of days before we head back to London.

Wine's good, pizza's good, beer's good, pasta's good. Can't complain!!

Salute!

Old News: 22 April 2001

We're still parked in Sydney as it slides gently into winter. It's a bit too cool to go to the beach now, but we're still getting some nice sunny days.

At Easter we both competed in the Australasian Ultimate Championships at Manly. Sara's team Foxy won the Womens Division after going unbeaten throughout the whole tournament. Dave's team Skeleton Crew didn't fare so well coming 9th. We had beautiful weather the whole weekend. The NZ Open and Women's team came over and did very well. It was nice to catch up with a few familiar faces from Wellington.

At the same time Craig breezed through Sydney and stayed with us a couple of nights.

Dave has finally made a decision, quit his job and is flying back to London for a few months to work. The idea is to get a 3 month contract and make some money. The exchange rate is pretty good at the moment.

Sara is going to stay in Sydney and fly over for a wee holiday at the end of the contract. She recently changed jobs, joining Integratec Training which is a company now owned by Worldschool. She is the Manager of Projects & IT.

Even Older News:

Well it’s about time that we gave you some news.

We are now living in Sydney.  After about four years travelling we have decided to stay put for a couple of years. Well that is what we thought.  Until we got an email from Gary and Kris asking us to come over to Germany and play some more Ultimate.  At first we thought no because our next trip was going to be the Himalayas in about two years, but we just couldn’t resist the call.  So we went back to Germany to play some Ultimate.

We have got the time off work to go joy!!  So we will be there with bells on.

At the moment we are both slaving away in full time jobs (now that’s not heard of).  We have both been working for about 6 months now and boy do we need a holiday.

Dave is working for a company called Nomad Solutions working onsite all over Sydney.

Sara is working for a company called Worldschool.  They are a company that helps with kids and their school work, so if you want go and have a look at http\\:www.worldschool.com.au

She is working as there network administrator and learning heaps. 

We are both working and living on the North side of the Bridge, which helps.  We are in a little suburb called Chatswood. Most people know it for it’s shopping malls. They are huge.

We have now been in Sydney for eight months and in that time we have got jobs and seen a little bit of Australia.  We have been down to Melbourne, which was great, and of all things we bumped in to two friends of ours from New Zealand.  We have also been Katoomba and the Jenolan caves.  The caves are amazing and Katoomba is famous for its Three Sisters peaks and is part of the Blue Mountains.

We have driven on the Bathurst race track, which was great, but we were only allowed to do 60 kph as its residential area. Boring, it’s so hard not to speed.

We have seen and done everything in Sydney.  Jo (Sara’s best-friend) came over from NZ at Easter so we did all the tourist sights.  We have seen the Zoo, Aquarium, Bridge, Luna Park, the Blue Mountains and more roller coasters.  We also did all the Markets, Paddington being the best of them all.  So we have seen Sydney its time to move on now.  Sydney isn’t like London where it’s got heaps of history and there is always something to do or see.

At the moment we are training for Worlds Ultimate champs.  This is so hard in the wintertime.  Our other counter parts in England are practicing in a nice warm summer.  We have just started playing ultimate on Saturdays, which is a pick up game, and on Monday’s we play in a league.  We are also doing a strict fitness program from Sara.  We have to run for 40 mins or more at least 3-4 days a week.  We also have 3 gym sessions in our home made gym and then on top of that we are playing ultimate as well, so there is no time to rest.  We have also started a sprint program. Joy. What a killer the first day was.

Just to kill ourselves we have decided to do the City to Surf which is a 14km run of hell up and down hills. Good to try though.

Where have we been in the last four years?

England, Euro Disney, Prague, Ireland (Drogheda), New York, Vancouver, France, Serbia, Rimini (Italy), Canary Islands, New York, Paris, Switzerland, Salzburg (Austria), Munich, Nuremberg, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Wales, London, Hong Kong, Sydney, Auckland, Wellington, Singapore, London, Menorca (Spain), St Andrews (Scotland), Egypt, Turkey, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Zealand, Sydney.

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