Outdoor Activities
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NZ Road Trip: South To Kaikoura
We are seriously beginning to think that there isn’t a single drive in this country which is anything less than spectacular. From Motueka on the edge of Abel Tasman we retrace our steps though Nelson city and Marlborough wine country then, turning south past Blenheim we are suddenly confronted by terrain completely different from all previous scenery: large barren hills devoid of greenery, the first treeless tracts of land so far. Bone dry straw coloured landscape. Slowly the green returns, as do the lines of vines, until we rise over the top of the next hill and there stretched out before us is the incredible turquoise ocean which will accompany…
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Rotorua: Boiling Mud And Urban Volcanoes
We’ve read several times that as you approach Rotorua, it’s possible to smell the town before you ever see it. Well it’s not strictly true but the pungent odour of sulphur hits us as soon as we open the car door and, as we are to discover, permeates through this most unusual city 24/7. The smell emanates, of course, from the excessive geothermal activity taking place just below ground level – the whole city of Rotorua is built over a caldera formed during a volcanic eruption around 240,000 years ago, and there is certainly no mistaking the level of activity still present today. It’s impossible to miss, in fact. But…
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NZ Road Trip: The Coromandel Peninsula
Time is an illusion, it has often been said. Somehow in the process of returning home from California and then heading out here to New Zealand we have moved forward 21 hours, meaning that we’ve lost, somewhere, almost a full day of our lives. Whilst the 8 hours from California was effectively repaying the 8 we gained on the way out there, we won’t be reimbursed the other 13 until we go home from NZ in mid April. Given that delay, wouldn’t it be good if, like a savings account, it was possible to earn interest on the time invested? You know, be given bonus time in return for investment.…
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Indian Safari: On The Trail Of Tigers
Well here’s something different, India without humidity. All of our memories of this country are of clothes drenched within half an hour and sultry cloying heat which saps the strength, but it’s not like that now, in December, where even in Delhi despite its ever present pollution there is an uncharacteristic freshness to the air. And as we are shortly to discover, it’s properly cold at 6:30 in the morning. With Alwar now off the agenda and trains to our next destination at unfriendly times of day, we explore the cost of travel by road and find that, remarkably, an “inter-city Uber” will take us the 350 kilometres for only…
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The Photographic Catch-Up #2
Reunited in Trieste after Michaela’s weekend alone and my football odyssey, she was ready to move on whereas I kind of wanted to see more of Trieste. But, regardless, we were committed to a bus across the border into Slovenia, specifically to its capital Ljubljana, a capital city with only 300,000 inhabitants. And we were quickly smitten. Ljubljana is a thoroughly quaint, beautiful city. Old ancient town, castle, river….well, cue Michaela’s photographs again….. Somewhat unfortunately our time in the city was dominated by heavy rain incessant enough to limit our activities a little. From lovely Ljubljana we moved on, via rental car, to the magnificent surroundings of Lake Bled and…
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Sardinia’s Eastern Coast: Orosei, Palau & La Maddalena Archipelago
I keep referring to the wind here as the Mistral, but it is in fact only wind in a certain direction which carries that name. Each wind, be it northerly, easterly, whatever, has a name in these parts, and there are seven in all, each with different characteristics and each bringing different weather. I guess when your livelihood – and indeed your life in the case of the fishermen – depends on such things, the knowledge bar needs to be high. The town of Orosei sits in the middle of a stretch of notoriously beautiful Sardinian coastline, rugged yet fertile, bold yet tranquil. The best way to view this stretch…
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From Setúbal To The Algarve
When we stumble more by luck than judgment on a tourist information office near the ferry point, the lady is more than eager to present us with a glossy booklet entitled “Setúbal, Portugal’s Best Kept Secret”. Well, there’s enough people here for it not to be called a secret, but, given how lovely the city and surrounding area is, it’s definitely surprising that Setúbal wouldn’t appear on most people’s list of favourite destinations in Portugal. It’s on ours, for sure. Setúbal has an old city centre of atmospheric narrow streets and alleys which open every now and again into exciting plazas (pracas) of varying sizes, each one buzzing with chatter…
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Cusco & The Rainbow Mountain: Life At Over 11,000 Feet
So now we enter the first part of this journey – there’s plenty more coming – where altitude sickness is a looming enemy, so as a result we have developed a strategy long before the day we arrive in Cusco. Flying in from Puerto Maldonado adds to the risk, coming straight from low lying wetlands to a city at 3,400 metres in less than an hour gives no opportunity for graduation, just a steep learning curve in which a large dose of being sensible is called for. We’re not always good at being sensible. Consequently we hatch a plan. There’s a certain regime to follow for the first 48 hours…
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The Five Day Jungle Experience: Heat, Humidity & Eating Live Termites
It’s unmissable as soon as we step off the aeroplane. Even out here on the concrete apron of the small airport, the humid air is thick with the dank smell of the rainforest, the scent of damp earth on every inward breath. In just a little over 24 hours we’ve travelled from the desert where it never rains to the jungle where it nearly always does. Paul and his driver collect us at the airport and off we go, at first along a stretch of the highway and then for more than an hour down a bumpy dirt road to the banks of the Tambopata River. Paul – pronounced “Powl”…
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Oasis Days: Pisco, Desert Wine And An Earthquake
Carlos in Nasca asked us one of the funniest and most unusual questions we’ve ever been asked on our travels. The conversation went along the lines of… “So, in England it rains a lot, yes?” “Well, yes, on lots of days” “And sometimes it rains at night?” “Yes” “And you can hear that it is raining?” “Well….yes” “I cannot understand. How would you be able to sleep if you can hear the rain?” So here speaks a man whose whole life has been spent in the desert, a man who cannot even conceive of a world where you would be able to fall asleep to the sound of rain. Doesn’t…
