Our 1st Wedding Anniversary

We had such a lovely day yesterday on our 1st anniversary. 

Lynchy planned out the day & I was very spoilt!  

Our day started rather lazy with a glass of bubbly and croissants on the Heath

 Followed by a walk down to the Blackheath Farmer's market

 I just liked the colour of these trees at the train station

 I was surprised for lunch at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant called Maze, in Grosvenor Square in Central London.  They specialise in steak and wow was it good, I had fillet & Lynchy had rump.

 Outside the restaurant

The park in Grosvenor Square

 We then went to our local pub in Blackheath and James and Clare joined us which was really fun, quite a celebration as you can see! : )

New Zealand & Australia - March 2011

Here are the photos from our recent trip to NZ & Aus. We jet setted all over the place and had an amazing time.

Our first stop was a day in Melbourne where we caught up with Ben & Anesa and their 3 kids.

Fun at the park.

We spent one night at a hotel in Auckland just sleeping and getting rid of jet lag and then the next day we slew down to Wellington.  Melody very kindly had the whole family for dinner, including the beloved Zoe dog : )

Lunch at Leuven in Wellington, this place does the best mussels in the world.

On the harbour front in Wellington - what a glorious day

This is where Jim's apartment is, look up to the top right hand corner of the photo, those are the Museum Apartments and Jim has one of those on the top floor.

Arrived at Nutty Farm for the night on Tuesday before heading up to Hawkes Bay

Nutty Farm cottage

We stopped at the Tui Brewery on our drive up to Hawkes Bay

Can you see us?  : )

Lunch in Napier on the Sea front - yet another amazing glass of Sauvignon Blanc!

We came to stay with friends Mike & Mel and their little one Gracie.  Mike & Mel own this stunning B&B.  We had a lovely time catching up.

View over the Hawkes bay wine region, we stopped at a few vineyards to look around, taste vino and eat good food.

Craggy Range vineyard

Elephant Hill Vineyard

We had to take pics of our amazing looking food - Lynchy's carpaccio below

My prawn & saffron rissotto

And later on in the day a mediterranean platter

Back down near Nutty Farm on the day of im & Ali's wedding.  We had breakfast in Martinborough which is a little town close by.

Relaxing before the ceremony.

The wedding was at Gladstone Vineyard which was a beautful setting as you will see below.

Ali's daughter Emma doing a reading

Roz was the marriage celebrant, this was her first time officiating at a wedding - well done Roz

The 4 Lynch men

The happy couple

Lynchy & Derry at the reception

Paul, Gladiene & Lynchy

The day after the wedding we all went to the Gladstone harvest festival.  It was a great way for everyone to get together the day after.  Lots of food and wine stalls

The band and the area in front which turned into a big outdoor dance floor : )

While we were in Greytown for the wedding festivities we stayed at The Swan hotel in Greytown which was great.  Lots of the other wedding guests were there too so it was fun.  Nutty Farm was full with other family members.
On the weekend we were there, there was a hot air balloon festival so we woke up on Sunday morning to see this over our hotel!

Chilling at Nutty Farm

We went for a swim in the river - quite chilly but certainly cleared out the cobwebs ; )

Do think it suits me...ha ha

Our awesome week in NZ came to an end but we still had another whole week in Sydney to look forward to.  We went to stay with Hels, Doug & Sean and were lucky enough to overlap with mom for two days too.

Sean's photography of Granny.

All ready to go scooting in the park

I even got involved in the action at the park!

Sean and I having a close look at this very unconcerned Kookaburra

Hels very kindly arranged for us to do a "coffee cruise" around Sydney harbour.  It was a 2 hour cruise and we got coffee and pastries half way through.  The lady who gave us the history as we went round was really good too.

The ferries on Sydney harbour

Back at the Hayward's playing with Seanie in the back garden

All the boys flying airplanes

We spent a morning at Balmoral Beach with Hels and Sean - it was sooo great to swim in the sea again.

Sean the Penguin

Sean using his chalk on the tiles outside.  He wrote the numbers 1 - 12 in each square and then hel told me I must take a photo of him with all the numbers...too cute

We were very lucky to get free entrance into Ta Ronga zoo.

After our fun week in Sydney it was time to start heading back to the UK.  We did it in bits though as we decided to stop in Singpore for 2 nights to see the place and catch up with Hamish and Belinda, friends of Lynchy's from University who now live with their 2 kids there.

Our hotel

We had dinner in one of the market places which was great fun.

Singapore night skyline.

This is a crazy building they built with a ship structure on the top of it.  We went up to the top for the amazing views.  There is also a swimming pool and bar up there.

How awesome is this pool area at our hotel, on the the 5th floor

The infamous Raffles hotel