“Not knowing is half the fun”, Aphrodite said. Rick Riordan

This weekend, (one of fourteen long weekends in Cyprus this year) we are staying in a small village on the more remote western end of this magical island. Gorgeous little Latchi is around an hour and a half from our new home in Limassol and is the gateway to some of the most breathtaking terrain on the island, the Akamas Peninsula. This morning we hiked the Aphrodite Trail. The Baths of Aphrodite are along the hike, a surreal mountain grotto where it is believed that Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and passion used to take her baths. We can certainly feel what she saw in this place!

We are now around three months in to our latest adventure of life on a Mediterranean island and we are loving every minute of it. The culture, history, food and warm embrace of the friendly and helpful locals have made us feel right at home from the minute we stepped off the plane. It was a gigantic leap for Zeke and Lani to go from travelling the country, camping in the Australian outback for a year with Mum and Dad as their ‘teachers’, to moving to the other side of the world and having to wear shoes (and shirts and ties) to go back to a real school. They absolutely rose to the challenge and are now thriving and utterly loving their new school, teachers and friends from all corners of the globe. Mum and Dad couldn’t be prouder of our little troopers. Speaking of Mum and Dad, Rach is absolutely revelling in being back amongst the working class, loving her new role and the people she is working with. Plus, she is very much appreciating only being a 4 hour direct flight from London for business.  Between cooking, CrossFit, kiteboarding and teaching himself to trade Options on the NYSE, (and writing blog updates) Paulie doesn’t have time to scratch himself – which makes him happy, although he still struggles to explain to people we meet, what exactly it is that he does.

We always knew that a major bonus of living at the junction of Europe, Africa and the Middle East was going to be the opportunity to travel and explore. The first opportunity was to visit our long-lost besties who have lived in Cairo for the last 6 years. Not only did we get to spend an incredible 10 days catching up with old friends, we got the total local inside scoop on how and where to explore in and around Cairo.

On the day we flew back to Cyprus, Rach had breakfast in Cairo, then we had lunch at home in Limassol, before we took her back to the airport for a work trip and she finished the day with dinner in London, before heading off to South America, via Madrid in Spain the following day. When she got home, we thought it might be nice to have a few days at home, so we set of for 5 days exploring the Turkish occupied area of Northern Cyprus. Such a beautiful part of the island with an incredibly emotional and complex history that we could only begin to try and understand by visiting.

Well, what’s next – who knows? The kids have 10 days off at Easter, we might go backpack around Austria and Hungary, after all it’s a few hours away and less than 100 euro to get there…..