In the steps of the forefathers

One of the first questions when meeting other expats here in London is generally “So are you on a passport or a visa?”. I am one of the lucky ones to be able to say that I hold a coveted UK passport. My cousin Sarah is also here on a passport (obviously) so we decided it was only fitting that we make the trek up north to see where our fathers lived. Due to work and travel schedules it was going to be a flying one day visit but we decided that was better than nothing. So at 7:50am we met at Euston train station to make the 2.5hr journey up to Liverpool.

Early start

Liverpool Station

We’d already got the address of the house the Dad and the rest of the family grew up in, as well as the address of our Gran’s mother’s house (though some google maps calculations meant it would’ve been another 2.5hrs to get there so we decided to can that plan early on). Aside from that Dad had suggested we catch a ferry across the Mersey River as it was something they used to do as kids to get to the fairground on the pier on the Liverpool side. Incidentally when I’d mentioned sometime ago to someone (can’t remember who it was) that my Dad was born in Liverpool, or rather ‘South of the Mersey’ I was met with a reaction of ‘Oh, south of the Mersey is much better than Liverpool’. Haha. Other friends had suggested we check out the infamous Cavern Club where numerous big names have played, the most famous being the Beatles. So with this is mind we grabbed some maps, all encompassing travel cards and with the help of a few friendly locals we were on our way to the house our Dads had grown up in (and Paul was just along for the ride generally). When we first got off the bus, Sarah declared that she could have totally grown up here as we were greeted by a Dance Studio that taught most types of dance that Sarah teaches (she’s done dance her whole life, has a degree in it and is about the most qualified to be a dance teacher that you can be). We eventually made it to the 1 Roseclare Drive, the house where my Dad spent the first 8 years of his life, and Uncle Tim the first 4 of his.

We finally found it!

The home of the forefathers!

We felt a little paparazzi-ish as we were taking photos of a complete stranger’s house. From the look of the building I don’t think it would’ve been the exact same house that our Dads grew up in. We took photos nonetheless.

The House

Paparazzi Styles

The thing Paul was most excited about was that there was a cricket pitch with proper sight screen and a boundary rope – you don’t even get that in club cricket in New Zealand. He kept saying, I can’t believe he lived this close to a cricket ground! Haha. Obviously despite not having official British roots (well one that will get him a passport anyway) Paul has definitely got the British love of cricket in his blood!  

The street leading to….

The Cricket Ground

After a few more paparazzi snaps we headed back to the bus stop to get back to the center of Liverpool. On the way we spotted this little clinic and wondered if it was a relative at all? Unfortunately it was closed so we didn’t have the opportunity to ask.

Long lost relative perhaps?

Sarah made some clever transport connections and realized we could get the a different bus to the ferry terminal on this side of the Mersey to get the boat back across (rather than the initial plan of getting the bus return, then the ferry return). So we made our way to the ferry terminal and before long the ferry was pulling up to take us across the river. It wasn’t a very long journey by any means but it was nice to get a different view of the Liverpool skyline. As it turned out, the trains that take people across the Mersery wasn’t running that day so the queue on the Liverpool side of the river was ridiculous!

We then wandered up to one of the Beatles exhibition areas in the ferry terminal and picked up a few Beatles souvenirs in the form of a tiny Abbey Road Crossing coffee mug for Paul to add to his collection and an Abbey Road sign fridge magnet.

We then took a walk over to the Albert Dock area to have a look around and to grab a Sunday roast and a pint for lunch.

From there we decided to head towards the infamous Cavern Club.

I am so glad we went there as it was such an awesome experience. From the moment you walk in there are photos all of the walls of all the famous people that have played there.

There was a live band playing there, the first of which I was especially impressed with as they played cover after cover of modern and not so modern songs, seamlessly transitioning from one into another. Brilliant.

They were then followed by an older band that played more songs from the 60’s.

The Cavern Club reminded us of the replica of it in Wellington, and to be fair, the Wellington club is actually a pretty good replica!

We also had a look at the live lounge which was were Sir Paul McCartney played his last gig of the Millennium which had some more cool memorabilia in it.

By this point we decided we should probably start heading back to toward the train station and ended up grabbing dinner at a Weatherspoon’s pub.

As we boarded the train we got chatting with a delightful older gentleman who was a local Liverpool resident. We had a very entertaining chat with him about why we were up there and he assured us that a day wasn’t nearly enough time to see Liverpool and made us promise that we’d be back just to check out some of the local pubs. To be fair though, I had a pretty hard time understanding him with his strong Scouse accent! Unfortunately from that point on the train trip went pretty down hill – the power was lost as we went through a station which resulted in our short window of time to transfer to the last tube rapidly diminishing as we sat going nowhere. Once we were on the move again, I asked one of the attendants if we could turn the heat in the aircon up as it was freezing. However the power outage had frozen the computer so we were left in about 7 degrees for the rest of the trip. This would’ve been manageable had it not been for the fact that the train got held up for an hour as there was a train on fire at a station up ahead. By this point any thoughts of making the last tube were well out the window. We eventually rolled into London at 2am where it was about 20 degrees warmer outside than it had been in the carriage!  We ‘d ordered ahead to get a cab back to our place as that was the fastest option for all us to get some sleep. So not the best end to a trip but definitely glad we had the opportunity to get up there and see some of our family history. Now to book the overnight trip to Glasgow to see the Hepburn side of the family history.

I’m on a boat….

After travelling through Croatia last year with our old flatmates Jo and Phil, we fell in love with the place. So when it was time to start planning our summer holiday for 2013 it was definitely high on the list. We decided that since we’d done island-hopping last time, we would travel around on a boat this time. I was sort of keen to try somewhere new time times, perhaps the Greek islands, but Paul was pretty adamant on going back to Croatia, and given how beautiful it was, I didn’t take much convincing! We’d discovered a Kiwi owned company over here called Medsailors, where you can fill your own boat with up to 9 friends to travel around with, or if you’re going solo, they will fill the boat for you. Unfortunately we’d been a bit disorganised with other friends who were also planning to go to Croatia this year, and somehow we’d all managed to book separate Croatian sailing holidays at various times of the year! So thanks to my old friend Meag and Pat, we managed to fill a boat with her sister Danielle, who was over from Australia for a conference; their flatmate Rene and a high school friend of Meag’s, Lou, who was on her way home at the end of her visa. We contemplated filling the last spot on our boat with a random but in the end we decided to all chip in a little bit extra to cover the costs. We’d also managed to get a deal where we were upgraded to their premier yacht which was a little bit more spacious and luxurious than the standard yachts (which still looked pretty good to be honest).

The standard layout of the boats, except ours had two rooms at the from and no bunk room

Getting to Croatia was fairly uneventful and we managed to check into our boat around 1pm. There was still some maintenance being done on our boat so we headed to the nearby cafe to pick up some lunch as well as some supplies for the boat (breakfast and lunch was included but we could bring on our own snacks and alcohol – unlike other companies such as Sail Croatia where you have to buy it all onboard). It was then back to our boat (called Gabriel) to meet our delightful skipper Ivory and get a briefing about the dos and don’ts of sailing and some general ground rules. Ivory was the only female skipper with Medsailors and after hearing her stories throughout the trip it seems like female skippers are a bit of a rarity! Despite Ivory only being 23 we had great faith in her as she regaled us with her wealth of experience and stories from sailing around the world. There were 16 yachts all together for our week with Medsailors but we split up into two groups and went opposite directions around the route, meaning that we met up with the other boats every couple of nights.

Getting ready to sail

Rene, myself and Paul ready to go

Meag and Lou chilling out

Inside the main cabin area.

Our room

One of the bathrooms

Before long we were out of Split port and heading for our first port, Sesula Bay on the island of Solta. We docked in the gorgeous Sesula Bay, which was so small it was only accessible for small yachts, which was exactly the kind of place we were looking forward to in contrast to the bigger ports we’d stayed at the year before. For the whole week we were going to be rafted up against skipper Sam’s boat so that Ivory could crash on their boat (turns out skipper Sam is Ivory’s boyfriend) due to being one bed short on our boat. Our anchor was also a bit dodgy so we would’ve floated away if we hadn’t! Soon it was time to be transferred to our dinner at the restaurant up on the hill. We had all decided to go for a traditional Croatian meal called peka which was basically a mixed meat stew which is slow cooked on coals for two hours. It was absolutely delicious, especially when topped off with some very enjoyable white wine, so we were definitely feel full as we were ferried back to our boat for the night. We had a little bit of drama for the night when a strangers boat pulled up to ours and asked us to grab their lines so they could raft up against us. As Ivory had already gone to Sam’s boat for the night, we enlisted the help of the skipper on the boat next to us who helped them out and tried to get them to do what they should’ve been doing (as the crew on board seemed a bit clueless). When we talked to Ivory in the morning about it she said it was very strange behaviour to just raft up against a boat that you don’t know – definitely not common practice at all! Perhaps they had just seen that we were rafted up in groups of four so had thought it was what you were supposed to do.

Paul with Split in the backgroun

Pat hanging out

Leaving Split

Snack time

Lou, myself and Paul

Doing a bit of sailing while there was some wind

Rene doing the ropes

Coming into Sesula – view from the bow

Beautiful sunset

Aww

Sesula Bay

All in a row

Delicious dinner

Our evening meal of peka with skipper Ivory down the end

Most days we would typically wake up, Ivory organize breakfast (we weren’t being lazy, it was part of their jobs) including cooking her delicious scrambled eggs along with cereals, yoghurts, bread with spreads and tea or coffee.

The view most mornings

After we’d done the dishes we’d set sail for the next port, generally stopped in a small bay along the way to have a swim and some lunch before heading off to our port for the night. Lunch was usually fresh bread bought that morning, along with a hearty salad, cheese, salami type meats, pickled capsicum and on occasion tuna pasta or sausages in a tomato sauce. For dinners we were generally left to our own devices or if it was a smaller port (like the first night), the whole group would be eating there so we’d put in our dinner orders before we got there.

Our port of call for day two was the little town of Stari Grad on the island of Brac, where we were actually able to dock up against the port-side so was a chance to charge cameras and phones while we could. We got in and went for a walk around the little town and grabbed a gelato on the way to cool down. I absolutely love the little cobbled streets and old school window shutters – it just gives it so much character. We stocked up on some snacks then headed back to the boat before heading to the transfer to the wine tasting we had booked on.

Docked up in port in Stari GRad

A cute little church we found on our wanderings

I love the stonework of these older places

Group shot in Stari GRad

Loving the terracotta rooves

Cute cobbled alleyways

A tiny wine store

Ancient carvings

I always fall in love with this architecture, something about the little shutters and balconies appeals to that romantic side of me

Library

Winding roads

The dock

Palm trees in the sun

A fair portion of the group went to the wine tasting which was good and it was such an awesome wee place. They were completely back to the basics with no power at all but we sat out under a beautiful veranda which was covered in vines. We were given a plate with cheese, salted and marinated anchovies and percutio ham to compliment the various wines that were to come. We tried two delightful wine whites then a rose and a red. We also had a range of olive oils and fresh bread they made on site to try which were also yummy. Paul and I decided to buy a bottle of the one of the white wines to take home as it was only about £5.

Donkey in the vines

The nice outdoor hut for the wine tasting

Cheers!

View from the vineyard

Rene, Meag, Pat and Paul

Our little snacks to go with the wines

The team

The men

Us Kiwis love a good drop

Rene and Meag

Outlook

The wine we purchased

After our tasting was over we headed back to the boat to get changed for the Medsailors welcome cocktail party on the dock. It was a nice chance to chat more with Ivory and get to know some of the other boats. We ended up going for dinner at a lovely little place just near our boat where we indulged in some more Croatian wine and some lovely fresh fish. Then it was back to the boat to chill out, look up at the stars and get some sleep before the next day of adventures.

Skippers

All docked up

Cocktails

View from the bow at sunset

Paul and I

I love the sunsets in this country

Sunset over sea

The Sail Croatia boat view from our dinner

Paul and I at dinner

The restaurant where we had dinner

Dockside at night

Night time wanderings

Night time wanderings

Cute VW cars

Our next port of call was Hvar, though we were staying at a little island off from Hvar called Palmizana, rather than in Hvar town, which Paul and I had been expecting having been there before. Of course we stopped for our midday swim and lunch in a little bay prior to that. It was so nice to be able to just jump off the back of the boat into the deep blue sea and no have to worry about stepping on sea urchins which are quite common around the rocky beaches and really painful if you stand on one.

Chilling on the boat

Lou cranking a cold one

Deep sea swimming

The view of Star Grad in the morning

Buying some fresh watermelon in Stari Grad before we left

Chilling and chatting with a cold one

As we came in to dock it looked as though it was Spring Break on the dock! It appears that ‘The Yacht Week’ boats were in town and seemed to be full of American and Australian’s determined to party it up. There was music blasting, loads of people drinking and swimming in the water (which is also where the boat waste goes…not so smart those ones…) and a variety of drinking games involving 10L bottles of Absolute vodka! Once docked we decided to head around the bay to a swimming cove Ivory had told us about  too cool off. After a dip in the water we headed to a beach bar called Laganini’s to get a drink and chill in the sun.

At Laganinis

The little bay by Laganini’s on Palmizana

Paul ready to roll

Meag and I

Spring break on boats

At Laganinis

Boats bobbing in the water

At Laganinis

After lazing around for awhile we decided to make use of the on shore facilities and finally have a shower to get ready for the night on the town in Hvar. After some drinks and snacks on the boat we got a water taxi from Palmizana to Hvar town in the early evening. Paul decided to ride up front with some of the other guys and swears he got airborne and nearly flew off numerous times as the boat sped into port. Once in Hvar town it was pretty obvious were The Yacht Week crew had ended up as there was a full on party happening at the bar/hotel right next to the hotel we stayed in last year. Such a change a month can make! In early June it was not nearly this active and seemed like a whole different place. One of the other skippers, Mikey, showed us the bar where most the Medsailors crew were going to be later that night, then we went off to explore and find somewhere to eat.

Lou, Dani and I on that water taxi to Hvar town

We found a lovely little restaurant and got a table up on the roof terrace. Paul and Meag got to choose their actual fish for their dinners (Paul opted for the small red  scorpion fish) while Pat and I opted for the traditional Croatian steak stew with gnocchi (I can’t remember what the others had). Again we washed it all down with some lovely Croatian white wine. The rain kept threatening with bouts of thunder throughout the meal but luckily the restaurant had a retractable awning which kept us dry. After the meal we headed to Kiva Bar for a drink or two. When we got there it was absolutely rammed with Medsailors people, as well as some Yacht Week people as we’d seen them get kicked out of their earlier bar. You could barely get to the bar and I was initially only going to stay for one drink, however one drink turned into about four or five and we ended up calling it a night about 2am. Rene and Lou decided to go on to the ‘party island’ which by all accounts was a pretty cool place.

Sunset from the water taxi to Hvar town

Hvar

Flashy super yacht Leonard III

Massive super yacht ‘joyMe

‘joyMe from the front

Paul and I in Hvar

The fish pre-cooking

The group at dinner

Delicious Croatian wine

Meag and the cooked fish

The chef presenting the fish

My traditional Croatian steak and gnocchi

The next morning there were a few sore heads among the various boats, though some hardy Yacht Week boats looked as thought they had continued drinking throughout the night by the looks of it. After connecting with the wifi, topping up some snacking supplies and having breakfast we were once again on our way to our next port, Gradina Bay near Vela Luka, on the island of Korcula. The mid-way swim stop helped to freshen up some heads but overall it was a pretty quiet trip with most of us either sleeping, reading or chilling in the sun with some sounds.  Once in the bay we got ready to get the transfer to Korcula old town. Paul and I had been before but decided to go along anyway. The ride was about 40mins in the bus and before long a lot of us were asleep in our seats. Once there, we had a wander around, sent some postcards and then tried to find the Massimo Cocktail Bar we’d heard about that has amazing views. Paul and I had heard about it last time we were here but hadn’t managed to get up there. The bar is situated at the top of an old turret and is only accessible by a ladder (so you certainly wouldn’t want to have too many cocktails up there!) and the cocktails are delivered to the top via a pulley system on the side.

The view from the cocktail bar at the top of the turret

View from the top

Paul and I with our cocktails

Paul and I with the sunset

Who’s this handsome man?

Gorgeous sunset

The ladies of the group

Photoging the Photog

Cute little stairway

Did I mention I love these alleyways

After a yummy cocktail at the top and some snaps we headed off to find some dinner. We ended up at a little place which did pizzas but unfortunately were too late to get a table with a view. After an incredibly long wait for our food to arrive, we stuffed ourselves full, then headed off for a wander around the town. Paul and I grabbed a gelato for the ride home before we had to get the bus back to the boats. The transfers back to our boats in the middle of the harbour was a bit dubious for some. We were using the small outboard which each yacht had, instead of the sturdier RIB. One of the skippers had run out of fuel on his runabout so was rowing back from halfway with his oars, while one of the others sounded like he’d had a bit too much at the bar so another skipper got stuck ferrying his lot back to their boat, while one of the other skippers managed to get his motor caught on three different boat ropes on the way out of the dock! Luckily good old Ivory was the most on to it and we were back on our boat in now time. It was so nice to be out in such a secluded area that I spent a few moments just sitting on the deck looking up at the stars and marveling at the beauty of our world.

The next morning we all woke up feeling much better after a good night’s sleep thanks to the cooler weather overnight. We were soon heading off to the island of Vis for our next stop.

We had a fair distance to cover and had to get into the dock by 1pm to get a decent spot on the dock and even then another boat tried to steal it (it was honestly like a mall carpark at Christmas time), though of course Ivory made sure we got our spot. We had decided to go on an island tour of Vis which included another winery visit. As it turned out, our boat and two other Kiwi girls were the only ones keen for the island tour as others had decided to book scooters or do their own thing instead. Our driver was a guy our age called Tonny (that’s not a typo, he pronounced it ton-knee) who normally works at an office in the capital Zagreb, but spends the summer in Vis where his Grandmother lives. Tonny was a great laugh to have as a tour guide and gave us an insight into the lives of everyday Croats our age.

The tour took in an old bunker carved into the rocky hill which was used as a radio station for the resistance during WWII. Apparently Vis was the only island not captured by the Germans in the war and despite repeated bombings they were never able to destroy the bunker. Even to this day it could be used again if it had to be and at one point there is an emergency exit that is sealed off but has a message to tear down that wall in times of war. There were numerous emergency exits with one even leading to the top of the cliff! Apparently for a long time after the war there was a ban on foreigners coming to the island and you to had to get a permit to be allowed on to Vis. Tonny was explaining to us that when he came to visit his Grandmother when he was a young boy, he had to provide his birth certificate as well as his grandmothers to prove they were related so he could get a permit to visit. From there we traveled to an abandoned nuclear bunker. The bunker has since been stripped of anything useful (wires, cabling, metals) but in theory could still be used to this day if it had to be. It can fit up to 70 people in it and we were shown the decontamination showers, where the beds would’ve been again the wall in the hallways, the bathrooms (no showers though!) and the kitchen areas. It was all really interesting.

View from our first photo stop

From there we were taken to a lookout with the oldest church on the island which is from the 14th Century. We also learnt that this area of sea is known as the planes graveyard as so many Bombers were shot down over this area of sea – as a result it a really popular with divers due to the number of wrecks down there. On the way we passed a few scooters having a bit of trouble with the steep hill and were definitely happy with our 4WD transport!

View from inside the little church

This church dates back to 14th Century

The tour group

Paul and I

We continued on to a vineyard which was based right next to an airfield that was used for bomber plans during WWII. To Paul’s delight, the British pilots had even built a cricket pitch next to the airfield for their down time. We were shown some photos of some British pilots from WWII and they pointed out one particular pilot who had been back at the vineyard the week before celebrating his 91st birthday! Apparently his grandson was there as well as was wearing the same bomber jacket that is shown in the photo – pretty cool. They showed us another picture of the airfield and the cricket pitch and pointed out a house behind us that was the exact same house as the one in the picture. We were shown how the peka is made (the meal we’d had on the first night) before sitting down to fresh bread and oils, as well as some percutio ham and other snacks to accompany our wines. We tried three wines starting with a white, a chilled fruity red (which I actually liked) and a normal red. All were very nice but I still need to get my palate accustomed to red wines. After a few purchases were made by the group we started our journey back to to the town.

Sheep leading to the nuclear bunker

Peka

Peka being cooked

Our wine accompaniments

Tasting time

Beautiful fresh break, olive oil and wine – what more could you want?!

The WWII Airfield and cricket pitch

The night was started off with some drinks and nibbles on our yacht, before heading to a big party at a place called The Fort (which was so notorious that our skippers were banned by the company from going!). It was (as the name suggests) held in a big fort which they’d done up the courtyard in the middle with lights, with couches and lights dotted around the place. We partied the night away with some of us leaving earlier than others but a good night was definitely had by all.

Pre-drinks and nibbles

Pre-drinks and nibbles

Paul and I

Pre-drinks and nibbles

Fort Party

Fort Party

Vis at night

Dani and I

Pat and Paul

The next morning Paul and I headed to the old town to have a look around before we headed off to our last island, Bobovisca. At our midday stop off, I had another chance to get back on the paddle board. If you don’t know what a paddle board is, it’s basically like a surfboard but you have a paddle and you stand up on it. As it turns out, it’s a lot harder than it looks. It was hard enough just to get up on the board without falling off, but another thing all together to keep standing while you’re paddling. I can definitely see how it would be a total body workout as it felt as though my whole body was trembling as I tried to paddle around. There was a bit of a breeze and quite a strong current so I found myself getting further and further away from the boat by the time I was standing up so decided to knee-board back in closer to the board before I was halfway out to sea. Loads of fun though and I’d definitely try it again!

Wandering through Vis old town

Too hot even for the dogs

Little church along the way

Love the bright flowers

Chilling on the boat

View from the front

Pat, Lou, myself and Meag

Me on the paddle board

Slowly getting there..

Getting further out to sea as I try to send up

Go it!

Meag and Danielle before their big splash!

The Medsailor’s photographers captured the moment

In they go!

Dani on the board

The Ferndale sisters

Today was also the day of the big regatta! Every Medsailors boat takes part and we were split up by size. Unfortunately we were about 2 feet too big for the smaller category so we were the littlest boat in our category. As it turns out, Ivory is one competitive skipper! Apparently she’s always made podium despite being the smallest boat. Ivory taught us how to use the ropes and what we had to do to pull the sails in and swing the boat around. We all had a go doing the various bits and pieces. True to form, Ivory got us as close to the start line as possible by the time the horn went off and we were first across the line, executing a perfect tack around the RIB (which formed the start line) and we were off racing to the finish line. As it turns out, racing in yacht terms is a relatively slow 3 or 4 knots per hour! So we all sat back, cracked open some drinks and enjoyed the ride. There was some good natured banter going on between the skippers over the walkie-talkies with accusations of motor use (a disqualifiable maneuver) and skipper interferance (that was definitely one of the crew and NOT Ivory on the ropes…hehe) resulting in a couple of boats giving up in favour of skinny dipping! The race was called and Ivory was stoaked that we’d kept a podium position finishing the race third in our category. The excitement on her face was delightful haha. We got into Bobovisca bay fairly early in the afternoon and at this stage all 16 boats were docked in for the night.

Once again we were all rafted up against each other so there was a lot of back and forth against the boats. Everyone spent the afternoon having a go on the paddle boards, chilling on the boats or having a drink in the lilo in the sea. Soon it was time to get ready, have some drink and snacks and before long we were getting our water taxi in the RIB to the shore for dinner. We had pre-ordered ahead for the BBQ at the little restaurant on shore and had all decided to go for the fish option. We were presented with a while fish each along with salads which was delicious though a little time consuming to pick out all the fish bones.

All 16 boats at Bobovisca

Bobovisca

Bobovisca

Pick the odd one out

The crew of Gabriel before our final dinner

BBQ fish

Gorgeous sunset

The night continued with drinks and the winning teams from each category were presented with their trophies (unfortunately coming third doesn’t include a trophy). It was such a gorgeous wee bay to finish our trip in. A few of us bought a Medsailor’s ‘crew’ singlet as a memento before heading back to out boat where the party continued into the wee hours (we know this because we could hear them scuttling across the boats throughout the night).

Sadly the next morning was to be our last and after a final midday swim, where Meag swore she saw some dolphins in the distance, were headed back to Split. Paul and I were a little worried about having to ask the boat to come back a bit earlier (as the airline had moved out flight forward an hour) however it seemed most boats headed back about the same time. We had a final lunch on the deck with Ivory before getting one last group shot and saying some sad farewells.

Proof Paul actually got in the water at some stage

Meag chilling out – hanging on to the rope so she doesn’t drift out to sea

Sunbathing time

Back into Split

Yet more luxury yachts

The Crew of Gabrie

Thankfully we made our flight with good time (no thanks to a taxi that never turned up) but it seemed we needn’t have worried because no sooner had we sat down on the plane (after some time had been spent trying to tell an old Croatian couple that you can’t just sit anywhere and there is actually allocated seating!) there was an announcement that there was a plane on fire at Heathrow and the airport was closed for an hour! After a 5 hour wait in one of the world’s smallest airports (we’re talking on par with Nelson) we were finally back on a plane and heading back into Heathrow. Of course this meant that we’d well and truly missed the last tube so it was a cab ride home at 2am to welcome us back to London.

All up we had an amazing time in Croatia and it still sits firmly at the top of our favourites list. Such amazing scenery, quaint architecture and lovely people – we will definitely be back before our time on earth is up (at least we hope)! If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend you add it to your (no doubt ever growing) travel list!

Note: Photo credits to Medsailors official photographers and Danielle Ferndale (plus my own)