Ribbonwood B&B

Ribbonwood – web Ribbonwood was our home for two nights in Warkworth, about an hour north of Auckland. It's a very nice home, with an attached apartment as the B&B portion. We had a living room/kitchen/dining area (with a sofa bed for Alex), a bedroom, and a beautiful bathroom. Our hosts Berris and Alan were…

Creekside Inn

Creekside Inn – web Creekside Inn was our home for two nights in Sawtell. It's a very nice B&B with three guest rooms. We had reserved the Garden Room, which was a little more money because it had an extra bed for Alex; still better than having to get two rooms, and still not bad…

Toowong Villas

Toowong Villas – web Our home for the two nights in Brisbane was the Toowong Villas complex in the Toowong (te-WONG) neighborhood. We had a studio apartment with one bed (since Alex was still at his own apartment), which was on a lower level, but with a little private walled patio out back. The room…

The SUSAR scale

… Or… Sandy's Utterly Subjective Accommodation Rating I've just now invented this system so I can rate places we stay – it's a completely subjective and relative scale based on what I happen to think are the best and worst places we've ever spent a night. My "gold" standard is The Mill House Inn in East…