Wildlife
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The Final NZ Chapter: Mt Cook, Lake Tekapo & Akaroa
Another long drive, yet another great cafe stop. Honestly, the ability of New Zealand to keep coming up with unexpectedly good food in terrific little cafes is ridiculous and after all these weeks we still haven’t found a bad one. Today, eggs benedict and a long black in Kurow, delicious as ever, served with a smile and, wait for it, a 15% surcharge because it’s Easter Monday. We’re en route to Lake Tekapo but detouring to Aoraki Mount Cook, the highest of all of New Zealand’s mountains at 3,724 metres above sea level and another of this country’s iconic sights. Unfortunately the cloud cover is stubbornly thick and the famed…
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NZ Road Trip: Wedding Weekend In Warrington
My nephew Jack, my sister’s boy, came out to New Zealand with his girlfriend on a short term work visa, liked what he saw, applied for residency, and soon started his own business. That was fourteen years ago or thereabouts, and it’s abundantly clear that returning home will never be on his/their agenda. So here we are, after another long drive along these spectacular routes, back on the east coast of South Island in the hamlet of Warrington some twenty minutes north of Dunedin. The rather lovely ceremony is, in keeping with both the character of the happy couple and with kiwi culture, unconventional and innovative, taking place in the…
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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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On To South Island: Abel Tasman
Out of the airbnb by 6am, a short drive to Wellington port, through the gates and into the line of cars, trucks and camper vans all ready to leave the shores of North Island and head south. Two hours later we’re all still here, waiting for the ship’s “technical issue” to be resolved before we can drive up the ramp and on to the Bluebridge Ferry, then, just as we are starting to fear hearing the word “cancelled”, the bollards are withdrawn and we’re on our way. The crossing is flat calm with not a wave in sight, but what really intrigues us is that for the latter two hours…
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Waitomo, Taupo & Raw Power
Sometimes you have to do something illogical to make the most of things when travelling, and so it is as we leave Rotorua to head to our next destination, Taupo, via a somewhat staggered route. The most direct route would be less than 100km but a detour west is the only way we can take in something which we want to see, so we dogleg our way across to Waitomo and then back across to our next base. What attracts us to Waitomo is the cave network in the hillside which is home to a particular species of glow worm, the arachnocampa luminosa, and seeing them turns out to be…
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Poovar & The Ayurveda Hospital
At last, right in the final knockings of this 8-week Indian odyssey, the stars finally align sufficiently for us to make a journey by train. It’s fifty odd minutes late pulling into Varkala, then trundles its way slowly through tropical scenery and past the bustling city with the commendably long name of Thiruvananthapuram, until we reach our stop at Neyyattinkara. It’s not just the place names which are longer than in England either: the train has many, many more coaches than you will ever see back home, consequently the station platforms are much longer – and so are the journeys. This train, number 16526, began its journey in Bangalore (Bengaluru)…
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Messing About On The Backwater: 48 Hours On A Houseboat
Shaking off the curse of Montezuma has taken far too long. On our previous visits to India we’ve avoided the worst of the Delhi belly, but not this time. Everywhere we go in the world we always try to eat like the locals, try every local food, do the “authentic” thing, so much so that we felt we’d both got pretty good constitutions and could deal comfortably with the consequences of unusual food. But after a quick to-be-expected bout around Udaipur, things recovered like they normally do, only to then dive backwards with what we think were bad prawns on Christmas Eve. Nearly three weeks later we’re still not firing…
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Fort Kochi, Town Of Rich Cultural Heritage
Our journey through Kerala is set to take us to ancient coastal cities, up into the misty mountains, through tea plantations, into the backwaters then down to red cliffs, a seaside holiday resort and even a specialist ayurvedic retreat. But we start here at Fort Kochi, which soon shows itself to be an utterly absorbing, multi faceted city with so many elements to its character and so many different aspects that it’s difficult to know where to start. So we’ll start with its rather unique geographical setting. Fort Kochi, its neighbouring towns and cities and even the giant sprawling Cochin city sit on what you might term a broken coastline,…
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Exploring The Sights Of Jaipur
The city wall of Jaipur, visible from all around the city, is not your normal city wall by any means. Rather than the remaining sections being deep within a congested sprawl the likes of which one might see in many cities, this is an undulating major construction which circles the city some distance from its outer limits, following the contours of the land even where the inclines become steep and the peaks become seemingly inaccessible. It is in its way rather reminiscent of a scaled down version of the Great Wall Of China. Our three days in Jaipur are spent exploring many of its notable sights. Rather than trot out…
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From Ranthambore To The Pink City Of Jaipur
Breakfast is curry. Dinner is curry. Lunch, if you have it (we haven’t had room) would be curry. By our first Saturday we’re on curry number 10. That’s going to reach a very big number by the time we see anything like a change of cuisine. Tummies, you better be ready. Saturday afternoon and our fourth sortie into the Ranthambore National Park sees us take a break from seeking out animal sightings and instead we climb to Ranthambore Fort, the huge 5th century hilltop construction from which the National Park takes its name – indeed the vast area covered by the park once formed the fort’s hunting grounds. Today the…
