Europe/UK 2023

 A very traditional Slovenian 🇸🇮 day yesterday. Drove from Ljubljana to Celje (approx 50 min) - Urh’s home town and where his extended family live. We met Uros (uncle) and travelled in his car to the Treetop Walk at Rogla, about 40 minutes from Celje in the mountains towards Austria (1500m above sea level). Note: temperature at Rogla was 16 degrees, we left Celje in 25 degrees. Never thought we would be so happy to be in cooler temperatures!  As usual the compulsory coffee-fix, and also some liquore tasting, enjoyed the blueberry 🫐, which is a local specialty. Uros kindly gave me a bottle to enjoy at a later date!  Look Then on to the walkway and the 37 metre tower.  Then the fun part … a 60m steel tube slide, twisting and turning around the 37m tower … quite a bit of yelling and screaming as you could imagine!                              Mats for the slide         ...

 On Thursday we walked into Vrsar, a 20 minute walk from the camp, which was the easy bit, then the steps to the bell tower on the hill was the hard part! But worth the effort for the view!  By this stage we had worked up an appetite; pizza and freshly gutted mackerel with refreshments for €23 … very reasonable. Seafood here is the local specialty and is very good!! Last morning coffee at the campsite with the Rucigaj/Roberts whānau before heading to Rovinj.  Left the camp yesterday (Friday) and drove down the coast to Rovinj, an old Venetian town, very pretty!  Had to share this … Urh pointed this out to me, being the architect he has an ‘eagle eye’ for these features. 🤣 Note the reinforcing pillars to combat the cracking above! As clever as the Venetians were, time stands still for …  A surprise for us on the way back to Ljubljana, a stop-off at the Lepa Vida salt water pools near Portoroz (Slovenia).  Salt has been harvested in these parts for many year...

The facilities here are amazing, everything you could possibly want!                            Our residence at 528       1000s of mobile homes (cabins) across the campsite Refreshments always available throughout the campsite                Shower to rinse off after an ocean swim                Steps and rail to assist leaving the ocean  Designated areas for dogs; including ramps into the ocean and showers!  Plenty to do for children, and big children!                            Aqua class for the energetic                                       Volleyball                            ...

 Drove into Poreć this morning, a 10 minute drive from the camp.  Started with coffee, of course! A very good reason why Urh is known as the ‘Coffee-nator’.The boys research places before leaving and cafes are always the first port of call for any outing!  Poreć is an old Roman town with aspects still visible today.  I’m working on a reciprocal arrangement between the Istrian (Croatian) Ministry of Education and our office in Christchurch on an education initiative still to be hatched in my head!                Working from my office yesterday.  And working remotely again today. Still haven’t figured out the exact details of the initiative, but feel I’m getting closer!