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Indonesia – Jakarta, Java
We have just spent a few days in Jakarta, Java, the capital of Indonesia. A sprawling city with a handful of interesting places to visit, however the traffic is unbelievable and with a useful metro system still under construction, travelling between areas is extremely time consuming by taxi, tuk tuk is marginally quicker. Anyway Kota Tua (old town) is dominated by Dutch colonial buildings. Its square is full of life, colourful bicycles to rent, live music and happy people is the theme and as usual we (rather me) are stopped by locals for selfies on numerous occasions as usually happens in Asia (I guess its the blonde hair! 😆) other…
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Indonesia – Postcard from Java
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Indonesia – Postcard from Java
After 1 night in Jakarta, a fabulous 3 hour panoramic train journey took us to the city of Bandung, West Java and after good night sleep we got over our feelings of jet lag. Today, our first day exploring the region’s amazing places, the highlight, White Crater, a volcanic crater lake. Other sites …. tea plantations, rice fields, volcanic hot pools and a walk across what is claimed to be the longest suspension bridge in South East Asia. Our time in Bandung is done, heading back to Jakarta now. Bandung is not a particularly interesting city, with really just one cool street and a handful of art deco buildings however…
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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: Queenstown To Milford Sound
Heading out of Queenstown towards our next destination we detour first to the small but absorbing Arrowtown, another gold rush town but one with an additional draw. Like Reefton before on this NZ odyssey Arrowtown has all of the classic looks of a gold rush town, so reminiscent of those in California and, we are sure, other locations worldwide, its main street looking like something from the Wild West. But there’s an additional twist here in the shape of the reconstructed and renovated Chinese village where the homes of emigrants from that country came in search of fortune. How odd it must have been to hear rumours – rumours is…
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Queenstown: Both Popular And Beautiful
We leave Franz Josef in the heavy weather which caused us to miss out on the glacier flight, on one of those mornings where any excursion out of the car is a dash to the next piece of shelter in a race against the downpour in order to stay as dry as possible. The early part of our route takes us through the “other” adventure village, Fox Glacier, but this morning’s cloud cover is so thick that we don’t even catch a glimpse of the glacier itself, just an immense white curtain excluding it from view. If there is any benefit on a morning such as this then it is…
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A Day On The Road: From Kaikoura To Glacier Country
With seven hours’ driving time ahead of us to make it to our next destination, we decide that our best option is to make a full day of it and allow for a few stops in small towns along the way, rather like we have done previously on our US road trips. So with the darkness of night still awaiting the sunrise and Kaikoura still asleep we drop the motel key into the night box, pull out of the car park and turn to the right, out on to the highway, the ocean away to our left rolling in heard but not seen. It’s still dark half an hour later…
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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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NZ Road Trip: To Windswept Wellington
The excitement of a road trip is always enhanced when an evocative route name is involved, so you can picture our joy when we discovered that our journey away from Taupo would take us along the Volcanic Loop Highway and on to the Desert Road, you can’t get much more evocative than that. For forty minutes or so we hug the shores of the lake before we pull away to pass through the volcano belt which provides great views of the largest of them, Tongariro, with its almost perfect peak. From there it’s through the heather-clad rocky desert before we regain pastures and hills as the coast comes ever closer.…
