Bring your own beds?

Taking your bed wih you sounds like an odd idea, but I think in our case it's really going to help. Actually we're taking two different beds, to meet our kids different needs.


Emma's bed is actually a self inflating mattress from a camping shop. (TrangoWorld 120cm Skin Micro Lite by Casa Artiach )It's actually for climbers, to keep the main part of their body off the ground, but it just happens to be about the same length as our daughter, at least now at the age of 5.



By the way, "self inflating" is a little misleading, but it's easy to fully inflate it with about two strong breaths, so that's OK. It weighs 0.5kg and is easy to rolls up and put into a stuff sack.





Lara's bed is a pop up travel cot (model TR 1530) made by Samsonite. It has won lots of awards, and seems to have deserved them.

It is designed for babies from 6-18 months, and so it's quite roomy for our 10-month old. It's dimensions are: 96cmL x 60cmW x 82cmH. Folded up, the carry-case measures 33cm x 61cm x 10cm.

The deciding factor for us was that it weighs less than 3 kg, wheras other leading models were all around 8 kg. This one is enclosed in mosquito netting which i hope is also Sydney red-back spider-proof, though it doesn't offer the UV protection and thus the beach-action that it's rivals did. It's pop-up construction is a slight cause of worry, as we'll be setting it up and folding it together much more frequently than the average user. Also, it's very fast - it popped up into my nose on my first attempt (in the shop -not embarrassing at all) so now I open it as if I'm defusing a bomb.

We've tested both beds a fews times, and all in all, we're delighted with our purchases so far. We'll see if we made the right decision as time goes by.

About our trip

Itinerary:

• Our trip starts on November the 8th, 2008.


• We'll fly from Vienna to Taipei, Taiwan and spend a few days recovering from the jet lag.


• On November 14th we fly to Australia, landing in Brisbane.


• We'll probably rent a car and cruise down the through Gold Coast and the other seaside sights.


• After about 8 days, we'll return the car in Sydney, and spend a few more days there before hopping on another plane down to Hobart on the island of Tasmania on November 29th.


• 5 Days nosing around Tasmania shold be enough (as we can't do the heavy treks this time), so then it'll be a flight back to melbourne (a 2-hour flight saves us a bumpy 10-hour ferry ride - this is the sort of element we are adding to make it easier on the kids than our normal all-out travelling style.


• From Melbourne we'll bid farewell to Australia after nearly a month, and on the 11th of December, we'll fly over to Auckland, to start the remainder of our trip in New Zealand!

About our family

If you don't know us already, here is a quick introduction:



Andy is looking forward to bungy jumping on his 40th birthday, drinking Australian beer again but is slightly worried about sharks,
Area of responsibility: keeping the daily budget, taking bad photographs.




Dorka is especially looking forward to the stopover in Taiwan, to get a little taste of Chinese culture.
Area of responsibility: Keeping one eye on each child at the same time.




Emma (5) loves disney princesses, is looking forward to swimming with Dolphins.
Area of responsibility: Not leaving Teddy bears behind at places we can't get back to.

Lara will be 1 year old in December. She is interested in things on the floor mainly. Tasting them is her favourite thing. (Her dad has a very unsecret fear of Lara tasting a sydney redback spider in Australia)
Area of Responsibility: cleaning floors, making sure we don't oversleep.

To really get the picture, here's our video intro:

About us

This Blog is an online journal of our family trip to Taiwan, Australia & New Zealand in 2008/9. We (Andrew (21++), Dorka(21+) Emma (5) and Lara (nearly 1)) love to travel, spend time together and see stuff. We're writing this travel blog to stay in touch with friends and family and to keep a record our trip and what it's like to travel as a family down under!