Goodbye to London – Hello Devon. 10 August - Maverick Scribed by Toni

Goodbye London, we couldn’t have squeezed in another moment, had any less sleep or caught up with anymore of our lovely people (I say our lovely people and I mean mine as well – this Kakapo has adopted them all as my own and given that I have so few relatives and friends of my own, given the near extinction of my species etc. etc.) – Anyway, Kakafriends, Kakacousins and Kakafamily are all mine too.  Squark – you get the picture.  London was perfectly packed and now we’re perfectly pooped and preparing for another day.

At 8:30 a.m. we say very sad goodbyes to Valda – I hate goodbyes and really much prefer hellos.  I am so totally sure it won’t be another 15 years before we see Valda again.  Perhaps Toni needs to start to like Skype a little more.

We head to Paddington on the train and go through the process of printing out tickets, buying the family rail card and then refunding our oyster cards before hopping on the train.

After the European trains, the train seems quite cramped and is extremely over-crowded with people in the aisles, blocking the hallways and bags everywhere.  No power in the points, no air con working, though a train host that needs a medal for ttending to all the older passengers

without seats, keeping a smile on her face and a cherry disposition.

After a few hours we arrive a little late into Totnes and are greeted by Diana waiting on the platform and Jock waiting in the car with his bad back.  We split into the boys car and girls car.  I went with the boys as Toni and Diana were of course going to catch up on lots of family news and I wouldn’t be able to get a squark in edge ways.

It is not too far to Kingswear along lovely Devon countryside.  We arrive in time for a cup of tea and crabbing!  The kids are really excited and head down to the marina armed with buckets, bacon and crab lines.  Jock leads us to the best marina pilons and the kids down their lines.  I look and cannot believe their luck.  Very quickly the kids are pulling up triple whammies.  Three delicious crabs per line.  Toni is kept very busy pulling the crabs off the bacon.  Uncle Jock takes a swift nip on the finger – Ouch.  I think I could crack one of those crabs with one gnash from my beak, though will I like crab? Sea food is not something we normally have in the bush, though having done everything a kakapo doesn’t normally do, perhaps I might like it…..

A bucket full of crabs is as great as it can get and soon we head back home to Diana and Jocks lovely house on the hill and it’s time for a drink in the garden before dinner.  The kids fly helicopters and do magic and are shown the sleepout den where they can have their own quiet place to hang out so the adults can be adults.  We have a lovely quiet dinner and then head to sleep for the night.

Viella 29 July - Maverick scribed by John

Le Sqkwark toute le mondes! We are in the sleepy quiet countryside of France - a small village called Viella where in a short walk on the Main Street you can buy petrol from the paper shop, get your hair cut, buy coffee and meet the Mayor and see where the humans dance with Bulls once a year! John gets very excited because village shop has a wonderful selection of les fromages et viandes whatever those are. No birdseed though. The family are taken to what is known as a Maison de vin. For some reason that I can't work out, they squash perfectly good grapes into big wooden barrels where they leave them in the dark and cold for a few years before emptying them into bottles. I ate grapes when I went on holiday to Queenstown once and had a runny tummy for ages afterwards. Just goes to show about foreign foods. Anyway, after a long and tasty lunch we all have a siesta which means having a sleep in the daytime so you can go out at night. Being largely nocturnal this is right up my street. Later on we all go to a jazz festival. I've never seen so many humans with instruments playing in one place. Apparently the music goes for 3 weeks every year. Even the old church we go into has jazz gospel playing in the background. What a fun evening, everyone relaxed and enjoying themselves. Just when I thought it was time for bed, we drive through the countryside to another small town that has a festival by a river where the musicians have performed a rain dance and turned a sunny warm day into a dark wet night. I'm impressed that humans can do this although for some reason the stall holders don't seem to happy. The humans had rustic sausages and potatoes wrapped in bread whilst they sheltered under the trees. Lots of stalls and not one of them selling birdseed. I'll have to write a letter to them when I get home.

Aussenberg - Brigg - Geneva - Toulouse - Viealla - 28 July - Maverick scribed by Lucy

Squaark!  It's Maverick the kakapo again, relaxing in a nice hotel overseeing a beautiful view of Switzerland, Aussenberg. We are just packing now and getting ready to board the train to Brigg. Oh, here's the train now. The doors are opening right now and we rush through them and scramble to get some seats. Now we're on the train we can really enjoy the views of Switzerland. About two hours later we finally arrived at Geneva Airport, ready to fly to France.

 On the plane over to France I was practicing my French.  Hóla!  No hãblo ēspanol! Oh, hang on thats Spanish,  Bonjure! C'est Magnifique Kakapo!  That's better. Now we have arrived at the two lous air port. It's probably not spelt like that, it just sounds like it. I mean, there are probably more than two lous in toulouse because if there are only two lous in toulouse that would be terrible!

Luckily, there are more then two lous. Anyway, Lucy and John wait around for the luggage while the others go on a mission to find Valerie and Jack,  Toni and john's friends who we are staying with. Lucy and John have successfully found and received the bag while the others found Valerie and Jack. Valerie and Jack welcomed us warmly, Toni and Valerie chatted on the way to the parking lot. We had to go in two cars because you can't fit seven people in one small car. Girls in one car, boys in the other, sorted. We were then finally ready to go. 

The two hour drive to valerie and jacks house was slow yet it made up for it by beautiful french countryside. Valerie and Toni chatted all the way while Lucy read, sometimes chatted and slept. After two hours e come to a small village called viella.  Valerie and Jack park across the street from their house. They lead us in to show us their house.

Three words, really,  really,  big. The house had four bedrooms, three toilets, big rooms, one balcony and a big garden with lizards crawling around left,  right and center. The kids chased lizards flew r.c helicopters and ran around. The adults chatted and Jack fried some meat on the barbecue. The smell was so good that Sam decided he wasn't a vegetarian anymore. Then the food was ready.

That food was delicious! John and tonk said that they were feeling the best looked after on this whole trip. The adults chatted and the kids ate their way through all the food except the courgettes. Toni gave Valerie some Ni e swiss chocolates and Valerie insisted that we all had some.

Those chocolates are really good! I could eat those all day! Though, it is getting quite late and the kids are going to bed, so I'll end my blog for now. Goodbye! Squaaark! 

Wiwanni hut to Ausserberg 27 July - Maverick scribed by Sam

We wake up to find ourselves in a hut at Switzerland. If you didn't read our last blog, we had to climb up a mountain. Now we have stayed the night. Unfortunately nobody got any sleep because there was an annoying beepy noise. Sam was the only person that wasn't woken up by it.We go have breakfast and we head town the mountain. The last bit is the steepest bit. Unfortunately when we get to the road we have to walk down unlike when we got up we got a taxi. We have to walk all the way to the hotel which is further than walking to the road. We see lots of amazing things. On the way down we fin a bench and we stop there for a little bit and eat some fruit and thankfully I am taken out of the bag. The whole way I only could see out of a little hole. We find little paths that cut a little bit and then go back on the road. When we get to the town we decide to stop James and Toni decided to go ahead because they needed to go toilet. But they took a wrong turn and they ended up being the last people there.Finally we get there and we have lunch. Lunch is great then we go back and relax for the rest of the day. It's dinner time and we get a cheese fondue. Well that was a day good night. 

Rome 20 July - Maverick scribed by James

Hello it's Maverick. Today where in Rome and today we did lots of Romeing. 

We started the day with breakfast. We had bread toast and cereal. It was tasty

After are "simple" breakfast we visited a church on the way to the Pantheon which was really big grand it had scenes from the Bible and the roofs where panted by some of the most famous artists. We had to be quite and respectful.

After the church we went to the Pantheon but it was closed. We waited a little bit but realised we were wasting time while it was still cold. So we visited the market that was down the road.

 I thought the market was cool and there was a clever sales man. He sold food cutters, peelers and other food gadgets and he advertised his products with humour and entertainment. We bought his products. The salesman had won. We cruised through the market and James spotted some quad copters but realised they were all the cheap kind. Sam's flying would break one of those cheap quad copters in 2 minutes flat.

We retreated to the Pantheon to hide from the sun and the Pantheon was open. We explored and read all about the Pantheon and the designer architect whom was buried at the Pantheon.  His name was Raphael, he had no last name.

After the Pantheon we set foot towards Vatican City which bored all the kids. The sun was beating down and my feathers never got clipped, so I'm cooking inside my own feathers. All the pigeons looked at me in a funny way and teased me about the heat.  My temper worsened and those pigeons didn't stop.  

We walked to Vatican City and entered the hard way.  We came through the car park, up the stair case and got lost until we followed the tourists out - how ridiculous. 

There was this great big queue, it was the mother of all queues. This queue went all the way round the square of Vatican City. Which is BIG!  People waited half a day to get into a chapel what a waste of time imagine how many pigeons James could of caught in that time. 

We walked and went sight seeing. We walked down the promenade and looked at the shops. Sadly things don't last and we got bored. Finally John bought a map, found our bearings and mapped out the way back. We went along the river of Tiber and passed seven bridges then finally we found our apartment. 

We guzzled so much water because we were so dehydrated. Rome had roasted us and made us all a little moody.

We finally had our lunch. It's the halfway mark in the day and we're already tired. Luckily we had a quiet time after lunch and cocktail hour came quickly. We had are fizzy drinks and this fizzed my beak -  I didn't like it.

Later after cocktail hour came dinner. Since it was the afternoon the sun went down. We went for a stroll in the streets and came across a lovely Italian restaurant. John pointed out that there was a pneumatic pipe behind the counter. The waiter put an order in the pipe and the order disappeared. I wonder if I squeezed in I could fly out really quick. After dreaming about flying out of an pneumatic pipes food arrived and James had spaghetti, Lucy had pizza and Sam was a copy cat. Toni ordered a sea food salad which to her was unpleasant and James looked at it and said the food wasn't recognisable.

Finally after sharing dinner and trying Italian food we walked back bellies full. I think there's still spaghetti stuck to my beak which is out of my

reach

Florence 23 July - Maverick scribed by Lucy

Squaark! It's me again, Maverick the kakapo?  Amazing writer? Green bird? Whatever you want to call me. I've been doing some poking around and have found out that there are people reading this blog right now from America, Ireland, France, Russia, Ukraine, Singapore, Germany,  Australia and probably a lot more other countries... but that's not the point. I'm writing about  the last day in Florence.  Here's how it goes...

Squaaaarwn! (kakapo yawn) what a nice day for a walk! After a breakfast of bread, fruit cereal and coffee we head out for a walk. As always, we pass: tall people, short people, long people, thin people, sausage dogs, massive dogs, and pathetic little spoilt purse dogs. We cross the bridge and wander and wander and wander around until we get tired of wandering around and go home. 

Lunch time... means Gelatos! And other stuff. But mainly gelatos.  After enjoying gelatos and looking at a poor one legged pigeon we decide to go and decide what to decide what to do. Turns out that there is a really good swimming pool not too far by taxi ride with an Olympic swimming pool and a diving board and pool. John and the kids hopped in a taxi and rode their way over to the pool...

Bump, zoom, beep. We are here. At the pool. It is massive. Really massive. And deep. The kid's pool is as deep as the deep end in glenorchy pool.  In other words, 1.5 meters. The 50 Metre long pool was about 2.5 meters deep and the diving pool was 5 meters deep. So the pools were really deep. I didn't actually go swimming,  that would ruin my feathers. Because I am a smart kakapo, I read the signs to say how deep the pools were. When we came in we were told that we needed: a swimming cap, passports or a copy of them, to be in good health, and amazing. 

Maybe not the last one. But anyway, we met outside the changing room area and went towards the pools. They were really cool.  Literally, sorry bad pun. But anyway, the kids headed straight to the diving boards. The diving boards were impressive. The was a small not so small diving board then a bigger one then a bigger one and so on. The only diving boards that were open were the small one and the slightly bigger one. 

The kids started off with the small diving board. This one was crowded. After jumping off that a couple times, John convinced Lucy to jump off the slightly bigger one with him... splat! Just kakapoing... splash! That diving board was a lot bigger up top then down below. Lucy told me that the best way to jump cows was with your feet pointing in a pin drop. Not falling in a half dive/half skydive position.  That doesn't work out right. Anyway, the kids jumped off the slightly taller board for all of two and a half hours.  Then it was time to go. We exited the pool and decided to take the bus back because it was cheaper but got dropped off at the nearest station to home, which was still ages away. 

After getting really lost, we finally get back to the apartment,  have a quick dinner and go to bed. Well, all that wandering and being scared for the kids is making me tired. So ill end this blog now. Squaaark! 

Rome to Florence 22 July - Maverick scribed by Sam

Helloooooo it's Maverrrrrrick and today I'm in Rome. We are amazing and we are amazingly going to have an amazing breakfast. Corn flakes for breakfast with milk yummy. After breakfast we walk a little bit get a bus for a little bit and then we get the train to Florence on the way we saw lots of amazing things. The scenery was amazing we saw lots of hills and sunflowers finally we get to Florence we get a taxi from the station to the triangle square yes you heard me a triangular square!
Who names something a triangular square that's like giving orange juice that's made with apples. We have lunch it is really nice because some buskers come and play some music. After we have lunch we go get 1€ gelato's There were quite a lot of flavors and all of them looked good. We went down the street for a very short walk to our apartment. We stayed there for a little while and headed out to a chapel and there was very old paintings. We went through a shop with pens and wax kits. We headed through to see a church with a lot more paintings. Past that there was a room that had a movie sort of thing about the area. The place had burned down once. We headed back for dinner. It was great but Sam could not have the sausages because he is still a vegetarian. While we were having dinner a thunderstorm came. When it cleared we went to a bridge with houses on it. We stayed there for a while and watched the sunset it was beautiful there was a busker who was getting lots of money. After the sunset we walked for a bit and headed home.