The few times we travelled by air, everyone was amazed how small our bags were – we do travel light. We learned this the hard way years ago, dragging a great many excess kilos around a very wet hitchhiking tour of Austria, and now we always make a big effort to carry the absolute minimum, so that if we need to chuck our bags on a boat or a bus or hike across town with all our stuff on our backs, we can do this with minimum fuss.
In terms of weight, our big rucksacks and came in at around 12 kilos (my 60 litre bag) and 8 kilos (Dorka’s 42 litre one) though we also had a big (15 litre) North Face daypack and Emma carried her own (10 litre) rucksack of toys and books. Lara didn’t carry anything, and of course we had to bring some sort of pushchair for her too! All this gear could fit in the boot of a normal sedan car, though it was a tight squeeze!
Isabella. The North face daypack became a constant companion. Its model name was Isabella, and that name stuck. The great thing about it/her was that there were 2 main large areas, plus many sub-compartments for nappies, changes of clothes, food, etc. and these gradually became used for certain things, which made it easier to find them. No one dared put the car keys in binoculars place! Seriously though, you do tend to spawn a lot of stuff with kids, and let’s not forget that a standard lonely planet guidebook is itself pretty huge and heavy, so it was important to be comfortable.
The „Pram”
This was a tough three wheeler Italian Cosatto (http://www.cosatto.com/). It had originally been one of those 3-in-1 combi sets where you take the wheels and slot different upper sections into it, such as a car-seat, a pram (Mozes basket) and a sit-up pushchair (stroller). This last was the top that we took on our trip. It’s advantages were it’s rugged construction ( we bumped it up and down steps, dragged it across beaches and did more than a few gravel paths), that it could recline right back for naps, that it had a mosquito screen and a bottle carrier to keep drinks cool, though we soon found it was good for yoghurts, fruit, and pretty much anything. It also had a puncture repair kit for the inflatable tyres (used it twice in Budapest, but had no problems on our trip! )
Isabella. The North face daypack became a constant companion. Its model name was Isabella, and that name stuck. The great thing about it/her was that there were 2 main large areas, plus many sub-compartments for nappies, changes of clothes, food, etc. and these gradually became used for certain things, which made it easier to find them. No one dared put the car keys in binoculars place! Seriously though, you do tend to spawn a lot of stuff with kids, and let’s not forget that a standard lonely planet guidebook is itself pretty huge and heavy, so it was important to be comfortable.The „Pram”
This was a tough three wheeler Italian Cosatto (http://www.cosatto.com/). It had originally been one of those 3-in-1 combi sets where you take the wheels and slot different upper sections into it, such as a car-seat, a pram (Mozes basket) and a sit-up pushchair (stroller). This last was the top that we took on our trip. It’s advantages were it’s rugged construction ( we bumped it up and down steps, dragged it across beaches and did more than a few gravel paths), that it could recline right back for naps, that it had a mosquito screen and a bottle carrier to keep drinks cool, though we soon found it was good for yoghurts, fruit, and pretty much anything. It also had a puncture repair kit for the inflatable tyres (used it twice in Budapest, but had no problems on our trip! )
Its disadvantages were the weight, (about 5 kilos empty,) and it’s width (got stuck in a few doors) It could "fold down" but this was quite an operation. You had to separate the upper sections, remove the wheels if necessary and then fold the lower frame together - though this was still a huge flat framework about a metre long by 50 centimetres across. I managed to do this operation in 10 seconds flat once when we got stuck in the narrow doors of a brisbane bus, so it was just about feasible.
The red carrier and the blue sling
The blue sling was a strip of material maybe 50cm by 4 m that we could use to tie Lara our front. It was fine for short distances or for when we had to unexpectedly carry our 1 year old, and it doubled as a blanket a few times too.
For Longer stretches we used the red Liliputi carrier. Dorka had found a backpack style carrier, from a tiny Hungarian company (http://www.liliputi.com/ ) It was completely made of textile – no bulky frame, but more like a loose shoulder harness that the child slots into behind you, held on with great wide shoulder and waist straps for comfort- D saw someone wearing one about 2 days before we were due to fly, tracked down the couple who made them and managed to order this little wonder by email just in time. It arrived by courier an hour before we left, and thank goodness it did.
The red carrier and the blue sling
The blue sling was a strip of material maybe 50cm by 4 m that we could use to tie Lara our front. It was fine for short distances or for when we had to unexpectedly carry our 1 year old, and it doubled as a blanket a few times too.
For Longer stretches we used the red Liliputi carrier. Dorka had found a backpack style carrier, from a tiny Hungarian company (http://www.liliputi.com/ ) It was completely made of textile – no bulky frame, but more like a loose shoulder harness that the child slots into behind you, held on with great wide shoulder and waist straps for comfort- D saw someone wearing one about 2 days before we were due to fly, tracked down the couple who made them and managed to order this little wonder by email just in time. It arrived by courier an hour before we left, and thank goodness it did.
It absolutely changed our trip. Lara loved being in any kind of carrier of course, as it was nice and close to our bodies, but this one had some great advantages. It had strong, padded straps 
easy on our shoulders and hips, (Dorka carried Lara in it for all of a 4-hour mountain climb once,) it had a great hood-strap which we put up to gently hold her head to our backs and stop it joggling around when she fell asleep in there (quite often on long walks) and was also UV resistant (very important in the bright sun of Australia and New Zealand!) Basically, this contraption allowed us the freedom to walk in NZ – very important as almost all the sights are outdoors and often on tracks that would finish the toughest pram. If we were out and about during afternoon nap time, we preferred Lara in the push-chair if circumstances allowed, as it could recline flat, but things didn’t always work out that way, so she actually slept on our backs in any number of museums and even restaurants.
There aren’t many products we would recommend so heartily, but this is one – in fact we still use it now, back at home, even though Lara is bigger. (it’s good for ages - from whenever the child can support its head , until 3 or 4 years old (15-20 kg max, the makers say))
Baby monitor
Didn’t use this too many times, but it was useful when we hit the right circumstances – i.e. a hostel restaurant where we had a clear line of sight to our cabin door, or in one case, where the common room was right next door to our room and I got great reception. If that wasn’t the case, then we tended not to leave the kids alone when they slept, but rather one of us would go off shopping or to watch a film in the common room, while the other one stayed in the room and slept too (mostly . If you think about it, you’ll see this meant that there were very few times in the whole 3 months when we could be alone together, but that’s one side of travelling with kids. Being together with them all the time was also one of the great advantages, after all….
Hmm, what else was useful? The bassinet on the plane (Eva Air) was pretty good, but everyone with babies gets those, you simply get allocated space in the front rows by the bulkheads and the staff put it up as soon as the seatbelt sign is off.
Teva sandals were great, mostly because we only had 2 pairs of shoes each (boots and sandals), so these had to be pretty hard wearing. They make nice leather ones too, but I prefer the all-plastic version, as you can wade over rocks and into the water in them if necessary, and they suffer no ill effects.
Full body baby swimsuit. This little treasure was UV-proof, so we used it extensively in OZ and NZ.
Portable beds. I mentioned these
in a different post, right back at the start. They were great, particularly Lara’s little pop-up bed. Which we used each and every night of our 3 month trip, and of course we had to assemble and disassemble it whenever we moved - probably about 50 times! Emma’s blow up mattress was ok, but somehow we didn’t have to use it more than a handful of times. Everywhere we stayed had 3 bed rooms.
Head torch. This was a tiny head-band torch by Petzl It was just a little bigger than the 3 AAA batteries that powered it, and weighed nothing. It only had 4 LEDs, but these could be covered by a folding red filter for a night light / oh this was really useful for fiddling about in the backpacks next to sleeping children. The red light was less disturbing. The kids also loved playing with it, so they get one each next time!
Oh, and mustn’t forget the laptop. This was an ultra small Eee pc by ASUS. It was important to have something to write the blog on, and we wanted it to be very portable.
This thing is perhaps 25cm x 15 cm x 3 cm and weighs about 1 kg, so it was ideal. Dorka’s sister bought us this thing as a farewell gift, and even installed all the software, so that was a great help to our trip. It was mainly for writing this record on, but of course it also downloaded and stored all of our photos, and it could even power the charger for the camera battery, useful as we only had one main plug adapter. Emma watched a few cartoons we had on it, and we also kept in touch with home via skype on it too. When I had it all set up in a hostel cupboard in Auckland, it looked a bit like Nasa ground control!
That’s it really. As I said, we travelled light!
easy on our shoulders and hips, (Dorka carried Lara in it for all of a 4-hour mountain climb once,) it had a great hood-strap which we put up to gently hold her head to our backs and stop it joggling around when she fell asleep in there (quite often on long walks) and was also UV resistant (very important in the bright sun of Australia and New Zealand!) Basically, this contraption allowed us the freedom to walk in NZ – very important as almost all the sights are outdoors and often on tracks that would finish the toughest pram. If we were out and about during afternoon nap time, we preferred Lara in the push-chair if circumstances allowed, as it could recline flat, but things didn’t always work out that way, so she actually slept on our backs in any number of museums and even restaurants.There aren’t many products we would recommend so heartily, but this is one – in fact we still use it now, back at home, even though Lara is bigger. (it’s good for ages - from whenever the child can support its head , until 3 or 4 years old (15-20 kg max, the makers say))
Baby monitor
Didn’t use this too many times, but it was useful when we hit the right circumstances – i.e. a hostel restaurant where we had a clear line of sight to our cabin door, or in one case, where the common room was right next door to our room and I got great reception. If that wasn’t the case, then we tended not to leave the kids alone when they slept, but rather one of us would go off shopping or to watch a film in the common room, while the other one stayed in the room and slept too (mostly . If you think about it, you’ll see this meant that there were very few times in the whole 3 months when we could be alone together, but that’s one side of travelling with kids. Being together with them all the time was also one of the great advantages, after all….
Hmm, what else was useful? The bassinet on the plane (Eva Air) was pretty good, but everyone with babies gets those, you simply get allocated space in the front rows by the bulkheads and the staff put it up as soon as the seatbelt sign is off.Teva sandals were great, mostly because we only had 2 pairs of shoes each (boots and sandals), so these had to be pretty hard wearing. They make nice leather ones too, but I prefer the all-plastic version, as you can wade over rocks and into the water in them if necessary, and they suffer no ill effects.
Full body baby swimsuit. This little treasure was UV-proof, so we used it extensively in OZ and NZ.Portable beds. I mentioned these
in a different post, right back at the start. They were great, particularly Lara’s little pop-up bed. Which we used each and every night of our 3 month trip, and of course we had to assemble and disassemble it whenever we moved - probably about 50 times! Emma’s blow up mattress was ok, but somehow we didn’t have to use it more than a handful of times. Everywhere we stayed had 3 bed rooms.Head torch. This was a tiny head-band torch by Petzl It was just a little bigger than the 3 AAA batteries that powered it, and weighed nothing. It only had 4 LEDs, but these could be covered by a folding red filter for a night light / oh this was really useful for fiddling about in the backpacks next to sleeping children. The red light was less disturbing. The kids also loved playing with it, so they get one each next time!
Oh, and mustn’t forget the laptop. This was an ultra small Eee pc by ASUS. It was important to have something to write the blog on, and we wanted it to be very portable.
This thing is perhaps 25cm x 15 cm x 3 cm and weighs about 1 kg, so it was ideal. Dorka’s sister bought us this thing as a farewell gift, and even installed all the software, so that was a great help to our trip. It was mainly for writing this record on, but of course it also downloaded and stored all of our photos, and it could even power the charger for the camera battery, useful as we only had one main plug adapter. Emma watched a few cartoons we had on it, and we also kept in touch with home via skype on it too. When I had it all set up in a hostel cupboard in Auckland, it looked a bit like Nasa ground control!That’s it really. As I said, we travelled light!
