Kata Beach - Phuket, Thailand.

After our house sit in New Zealand had finished we could not find another house to fill a 12 day gap, so we looked into Hong Kong and Japan. As we have grown accustom to house sitting, it wasn't that easy parting with the cash on a hotel. We searched for nearly 2 weeks straight looking for hotels in both area's but non of them seemed value for money. The best prices we could find (for what we wanted) was £500 and this was only for one week. This I guess is what you pay for a city, but the size of a room was tiny compared to what we have paid else where in the world. So after a long thought we decided neither place is where we wanted to go so we settled on going back to Thailand where we knew we can get value for money and food is cheap.

Now we have been to Phuket twice already on this trip and both times we have stayed in Patong, but this time we wanted somewhere a little quieter to enjoy more of a holiday experience, because any traveler will know its hard work!!! lol. My sister and her husband had just been to Karon beach and loved it (please read her blog if you haven't already www.stylespeakslouder.com) so we looked into this area and also Kata Beach, which are in walking distance from each other.

We finally settled on Kata beach and we were not disappointed. We didn't want the busy streets that are in Patong and we are not clubbers so that scene did not matter we just wanted a quiet relaxing hotel. I don't know about you but when I read reviews on TripAdvisor I am always left more confused then when i started because everyone is different and some people just nit pick. (I too am one of those people at times). We found a hotel called Chanalia Flora Resort and on reading reviews I learn that there are too many stairs to climb, there isn't enough choice at breakfast and the pools were small. So I was a little dubious of what to expect when we got there, but from the moment we stepped out of the car the staff were fantastic. They could not do enough for us, and with it being low season there was maintenance going on around the hotel, the first room they put us in had no view and they were chopping trees down outside our window so we asked to move rooms and the did this immediately. We were given a top floor room with a sea view and it was perfect. (We did ask ourselves why they gave us the first room when the hotel was quiet??) There were stairs to climb to reach the lifts to the rooms but there was about 15 steps at the most so who ever complained about the stairs is just lazy. The breakfast had loads to offer from toast, noodles, pancakes, eggs, rice, cereal and fruit so there is enough to have something different each day.

Now to the pools, there was 2 pools a top and bottom, the top was one depth all the way along but had seats so you could sit in the water and bubbles and the bottom pool was deep at one end with a water fall, both of which we enjoyed. The thing that made this hotel greet to us was it was my birthday while we were there and without any prompting they sang me happy birthday and bought me a cake which i felt was lovely. I would definitely stay here again.




Kata area itself was just what we wanted, a lovely clean and not over crowded beach, plenty of shops to look at, night markets and restaurants everywhere. Our favourite and an absolute MUST is Danny's Bar Restaurant 44, the food here is a good price and the duck dishes they do are to die for. This became our local for the 12 days and we ate there every lunch and dinner it was delicious.

While in Kata we found another house sit in South Korea, which we are currently at hence the delay in blogging as I don't want to catch up with myself. So off we go to Incheon, stay tuned for my blog on 2 cats and an apartment.

Hotels we stayed in are:
Chanalia Flora Resort, £202 for 12 nights. We booked the room through their own site as we got free fruit platter on arrival, 15% off drinks and 15% off food in their restaurant and also breakfast was included in the price. Its the first time Booking.com was more expensive. The rooms were big and modern with a large shower room and large wardrobe space. TV reception was good and we WIFI was OK a little spotty now and then but the hotel dealt with this when informed.

Wanganui, New Zealand

Hello and welcome back. After a very early morning flight from Melbourne and some waiting around in Auckland for a second flight down to Palmerston North we finally made it to our next house sit. For both our flights to New Zealand (Jetstar) it cost us £308 for 2 people.

We were greeted at the airport by our house sitters, which was a little strange for us as they were just about to fly out for their holiday so we actually only met them for 30 minutes, but we had been in contact prior to our arrival and it just shows how trusting people can be. We got a ride back to Wanganui where they lived with their daughter and we began our 8 week house sit. Now i know what your thinking '8 weeks is a long time' and we did think this at the start of the sit, as the area was small with no close malls and of course it was coming into winter so a lot of attractions were closing down, but 8 weeks flew by, we don't know where the time went. The saying 'time fly's when your having fun' is really true, it does!

So Wanganui or as it is now spelt Whanganui, it a city on the west coast of the north island, it does have its own airport but flights from here were 3 times the price hence our flight into Palmerston North. Wanganui river which runs direct into the sea was a major European trading settlement, and grew into a military centre during the New Zealand wars. It now hosts Grand Prix motorcycle road race through the streets of downtown Wanganui, this is usually held on Boxing Day, and it is also one of the oldest rugby unions in New Zealand. As it was coming into winter there wasn't very many tourists in the area and the place itself was very quiet.

The house sit was very centralised to all supermarkets and the main street of shops in town. We had the pleasure of looking after Hudson, the miniature poodle who after a few days became inseparable to us and when ever we would leave the room he would follow and when we went out for the day he would cry until we left the house. It is amazing how dogs can adapt to new owners and when he realised we were no threat to him and we would play with him he was our best friend. We also looked after Bella, the cat who slept pretty much most of the day. She was our first cat we looked after and we knew cats slept a lot but didn't think this much, she was 13 I guess. She made the rare appearance if she was cold and came looking to snuggle into you for warmth. The friendship her and Hudson have is funny to watch, Love each other but hate each other at the same time. lol.

Attractions in Wanganui:

• Wellington: The drive to Wellington is long and boring, 3 hour drive with nothing to see along the way. The day we went Wellington definitely lived up to its name 'The windy city' as it was blowing a gale and when we left Wanganui it was a lovely day. Wellington is very easy to navigate round and I found the city to be more boutique shops, of course there were your brand shops there but majority of it was posh boutique shops. The streets were very clean and nice to window shop but as you may have guessed from reading my previous blogs we are not city people so this to us was not very exciting. There is a cable car your can take from the city up to the Botanic gardens but we did not do this due to the weather. Parking is expensive in Wellington and you only get 2 hours free, with car parks not very big. There are many museums dotted around the city we went into a few which we found all to be free. We would have liked to look around the Weta Caves which is a multi-award winning design studio and physical manufacturing facility which has worked on films like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Amazing Spider-man etc but when we arrived they had sold out so you must book in advance if you want to go.

 

• Empire cinema:

The cinema in Wanganui is very old fashioned and downs need some updating but on a Tuesday you can get cheap tickets at $9 (today's exchange rate £5) each.

• Durie Hill: The look out town which can be found on the opposite side of the river from the city. It is very high and there are lots of steps so if your a little scared there is a smaller tower in front of this one. The views from up here are amazing and you can see for miles 360 degrees. You can follow the river down the the sea mouth and see the path the tradesman took years and years ago.

• Virginia Lake: A beautiful lake just on the outskirts of Wanganui, which is lovely to take a picnic too but be-careful of the duck and geese down steal your food. You can walk all the way around the lake with different paths to take and you can also walk through the wooded area. There are 2 flower gardens to look around an indoor one and an outdoor one. No pets are allowed at the lake though.

 

• Palmerston North: This is probably the closest city with a shopping mall and is only an 1hour drive. It is a small city with a huge grassed area in the middle with a river and large chest board to sit around. The is also plenty of street art to find as your walking through the many streets.

• River Cruises:

Obviously a main attraction in Wanganui is the river so you will find a number of river cruises along the river banks offering different things from 10 minutes to a full day, morning or evening and a night BBQ. Unfortunately for us they had closed for the winter but we did walk along the river as there are boardwalks so we saw what you would see on a cruise.

• Mail Bus Tour: This tour is as it sounds, you take a tour on the mail bus all the way up the Wanganui river to Pipirki. The tour takes about 5 hours as you stop off and deliver post to the locals, there are no shops along the route so you do need to take a packed lunch or purchase the lunch with the tour. In the summer there are many things you can do along the tour from the Flying Fox, kayaking, jet boats, biking but as it was winter there was nothing open. It takes you up the Jerusalem where an old convent was build in 1892 and still houses 2 nuns who used to work there. In my honest opinion this tour was a waste of money and my advice would be to drive it yourself. We paid $63 (today's exchange rate £34) each. I feel they should drop the price through the week as they are going there anyway, but you were in the van for 90% of the day, you didn't see anything you wouldn't see if you came on your own.We didn't feel it was value for money. 

So before we knew it our 8 weeks were up. We did not find another house sit after this one so we decided to head back to.... you guessed it Phuket. Join me next time when we talk about Kata Beach, Phuket. Thanks for reading.