Champagny-en-Vanoise

We had 4 very pleasant days in the Vanoise National Park, staying in the small ski village of Champagny. Once again we had a self contained apartment/chalet which was only a short walk from the village centre. Our favourite spot would have to be have been further up the valley from the village where the valley became quite broad and had a stunning setting complete with a great playground, "Restaurant du Canada" for cold drinks and ice creams and a walking track up the hill (last one for Adrian only). We had pizza in the village centre on a couple of nights, the first of which had some circus performers putting on an evening show for kids which was enjoyable for all of us. Matthew loved his pizza but enjoyed his fries even more! The performers were there for a circus on the following day which we had intended to go to. Unfortunately poor little Jordan had a virus which resulted in a high temperature, vomiting and being quite distressed, so it was off to a nearby town to visit a doctor instead of going to the circus. Fortunately a few days of pain relief helped him through the worst of it and now we're just waiting for his first teeth to break through.

Having a cold-ish beer on our first evening in Champagny

Spot Matthew watching the circus performers from the steps

Matthew loving his pizza, knowing that there was still icecream to come

Jordan on the balcony at our chalet - magnificent views again

A special mother-son moment admiring the view

Driving up the valley involved a very narrow road cut into the rock
and steep drops to the side!

Having a picnic - Matthew enjoying his apple

Jordan finally got hold of Matthew's apple, but not for long

Hard not to appreciate views like this surrounding a favourite playground

Vaujany and surrounds

After having high hopes of keeping our regular travel blog going, it would appear that with 2 active boys in tow that just isn't possible! So instead we'll just give a brief summary and attach a few photos from each place that we start.

Our first stop in France was for five nights in the tiny hamlet of Le Bessay - there isn't much there except for the very nice B&B-style chalet and a few other houses up in the mountains. Apart from being a very nice area of the French Alpes, our main reason for stopping here was to catch-up once again with our good friends Pascal and Karianne and their 4 children. Although only a brief catch-up as Karianne and the kids needed to head back to their house in Provence, we had a great time catching-up in Allemond (bottom of the valley from Le Bessay) and in nearby Vaujany. Pictured here is Matthew with 3 of the children (Jesse, Zoe and Seppel) in their Aussie t-shirts at the Allemond playground which Matthew spent alot of time at over the 5 days we were there. Unfortunately Gaby (Zoe's twin) was back in Provence horse riding so we didn't see her this time round. Matthew and Jordan each received a toy marmot (local squirrel) from the children which Jordan has since spent much of the trip sucking on! 

Over the 5 days we spent at Chalet Lingayoni we enjoyed fantastic breakfasts, enjoyed their dinners for a couple of the nights, did some local walks including to quite a large waterfall, splashed around in the hot tub, had icecreams up in Vaujany and sampled coffees and playgrounds in Allemond. We had great weather for most of the time, Matthew even getting some very sunburnt cheeks one day! Below are a few photos.

Jordan and Heather having breakfast

Mum time! Taking a break from the playground in Allemond

Outside the chalet and its great views

Looking uphill to the ski village of Oz-en-Oisans from our balcony

Matthew in front of the waterfall, a good 1km walk through the forest from our Chalet

Heather and Jordan in their robes ready for some hot tub action!

Matthew and Jordan having way too much fun splashing each other

Our final night having dinner with Pascal and Karianne's brother Julian

A week in Bexhill

We had a very enjoyable week in Bexhill, East Sussex with Heather's Dad Colin (Pops) and wife Margie (Nan). Our drive down from Heathrow (about 2 hours of driving) on Wednesday was quite tough with a number of stops for a quite restless Jordan and took about 4 hours. We arrived to our welcoming party of Colin and Margie outside our first B and B which we were staying for 2 nights. It was a warm sunny day so Pops, Matthew and myself went for a walk. After an obligatory stop at a pub for a welcoming beer (about half the price of Perth), we came across the local fountains along the beach promenade - Matthew had a ball and ran through the fountains for quite some time and was soaked through by the end. The afternoon breeze then made the walk back to the B and B quite chilly! The six of us all had dinner together at the B and B that night before heading down for an early night - our experience from the last trip was that jetlag makes young ones wake up early! Sure enough, Matthew was first up at 2:30am and was not the slightest bit interested in sleeping again. So I took him for a walk along the beach promenade and streets before swapping him over with Jordan at 4am! Unfortunately the boys love playing and making lots of noise together. We made this a bit easier the next day by heading round to Colin and Margie's house at 5:30am (they are both early risers) for a play in the backyard with toys and trucks. Towards the end of the week Matthew was nearly on local time, moving his wake up time by about an hour later each day

We swapped B and B's on the third day as we couldn't get into the one we wanted for the full seven days in Bexhill. We were glad we made the move as the room was much bigger which was essential when there are 4 of you and a huge pile of luggage - Jordan needed a bit of space to play on the ground too, and is even slowly moving himself around commando-style. We stayed at this B and B 2 years ago so knew it would be the right place to stay. They also did a great breakfast and catered to all our needs which was much help. Colin and Margie joined us for breakfast on a couple of occasions as well.

Matthew enjoyed a few local playgrounds with nearby Egerton Park being his favourite. This is a very large 'eco' playground made from recycled timbers and caters for toddlers right up to big kids. He spent plenty of time on the big spinning wheel and never got dizzy from it. On the sunny day that I took him there it was packed with kids, however a couple days later when the weather wasn't so good (cool and drizzly) we were the only ones there! The four of us went to feed the ducks in the lake with Matthew ensuring we ran out of bread quite quickly. The rain did eventually subside and the boys had a fun time on the play equipment. Their favourite would have to have been the see-saw, Jordan getting the giggles as he bounced up and down.

The rain continued for a couple of days so we headed to nearby Eastbourne one day to an indoor play gym with some big slides and ladders. At one point there we actually lost Matthew and thought he must have escaped out an open door when others were leaving! But after a bit of a panic and searching around the whole building we found him up the top of the playgym having a great time. The sunny weather did return and we enjoyed spending time with Colin and Margie having coffees and tea on the beach promenade. Matthew loved his time on the beach with Pops throwing rocks (no sand on these beaches!) at low tide as well as playing in their backyard with trucks, or hide and seek or being pushed around in the wheelbarrow.

On our final full day Colin and Margie took us to a Pub in nearby Ninfield for a big roast lunch and beer which was most enjoyable. There was also a nearby playground (number 6 for the trip so far) which Adrian and Colin took Matthew to for a play. On the Wednesday our week in Bexhill was over and after breakfast it was time to pack up for our complicated journey over to France - drive back to Heathrow in the afternoon, stay the night in a hotel, fly early the following morning to Geneva, pick up a hire car and then drive a couple of hours to our first stop in France. After needing so many stops on the drive down to Bexhill we were dreading what would happen on the return to London.......instead both boys slept the whole drive back to Heathrow making the journey a breeze! We had plenty of time on our hands so Matthew and myself went outside the hotel (near the end of one of the runways) to watch planes take off. Matthew had a ball for over an hour and clearly loved planespotting. We had dinner in Terminal 5 before heading down for an early-ish night ready for our big journey to France the next day. The hamlet of Le Bessay was our first stop and we'll tell you all about it in our next post!

Jordan enjoying playing on the floor at Dunselma B and B

Jordan having fun with Pops in his new outfit from Nan and Pops

Finally, our first post

We are already two weeks into our trip so it is time to finally get some blog posts together. With 2 (very active) boys in our travels there just doesn't seem to be any spare time!! We are now in France staying at a very nice Chalet in the French Alps, but here are some posts from what the four of us have been doing so far on the trip.

Our first stop was Melbourne where we had a wonderful couple of days with Paul, Rosemary and Alex which went way too quickly. Our Qantas flight over on the Saturday (2 August) went quite smoothly and Jordan was quite comfortable having a sleep on Heather during the flight. We had a big rental car with 2 baby seats installed waiting for us for our drive to Paul and Ro's house in Ashburton (about 30 minutes away). That night we had some really nice up-market fish and chips (i.e. no chiko rolls or dims sims for sale) for dinner  before the 4 of us all squeezed into the spare bedroom for the night - this is destined to be baby #2's bedroom from December so it lucky we got our visit to Melbourne in now!

On Sunday morning we caught up with some of Heather's side of the family who live in Melbourne - Carl and Sharon; Maxine, Byron, Luke and Lara; and Adele. It had been a freezing night in Melbourne (literally), so Matthew, Luke and Lara had a great time smashing the ice from the bird bath onto the brick paving! Needless to say Matthew had a very wet jacket by the end of it. Carl and Sharon had cooked up a huge late breakfast for us to all tuck into while Alex and Matthew had a great time playing with Matthew's second cousins Luke and Lara, especially on the piano.


After a failed attempt at getting Matthew to have a lunchtime sleep it was off to a playground - a huge one at nearby Markham Reserve. Matthew and Alex had a great time on the huge range of equipment that was there - slides, ladders, spinners, ramps, see-saws etc.

Paul had taken Monday off work and Ro had moved her work day so after breakfast the seven of us headed to a great train-themed playground right next to Hartwell Train Station and a cafe (coffees for the adults and trains stopping at the station for the boys). We stayed there for morning tea and an early lunch before heading home for another failed attempt at a lunchtime sleep for Matthew! Oh well, I guess the new surroundings and having Alex to play with were far more important than a sleep!

By afternoon our quick visit was over and we packed up (not an easy task!) and headed off to stay at a hotel at Melbourne Airport. Our long trip to the UK started early on Tuesday morning so it was easier to stay at the hotel connected to the International Terminal than have a super-early start from Paul and Ro's and deal with morning traffic and a rental car drop-off. We had a stir-fry dinner in the airport terminal then went down for an early night before our looooong journey to London the next morning. The 9hr flight to Hong Kong on Qantas was during the day and Matthew was having way too much fun to have a sleep. On arrival Matthew and Jordan had a visit to the cockpit and donned the pilots' hats as well - great fun!! We then had a 6hr layover and used the Qantas lounge to have some dinner and setup the travel cot for Matthew to have an evening sleep.....you guessed it, no chance! Our British Airways flight was called at 10.30pm so we popped Matthew into a stroller to walk to the gate - he fell asleep within minutes and didn't wake up for another 8 hrs, which was hardly surprising having been awake for nearly 20hrs! It was then off to London on our 12hr flight to then pick-up our rental car and drive to Bexhill for a week by the sea with Heather's Dad Colin and Margie. More to come in our next post!