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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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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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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 Salar de Uyuni: Part 2
We’ve survived the bitter cold night. The Danish boys Johannes and Valdemar have also slept well, Max is feeling a little unwell. Carlos bursts through the door in his usual animated style, enthusiastically running through today’s programme. Edwin is out in the cold, filling the fuel tank from the spare can and letting air from the Landcruiser’s tyres. Over the course of the three days Edwin will drive over 1,100 kilometres, precious little of it on anything resembling a road. There’s dirt roads in the sand, there’s rough rocky tracks, there’s sections where two tyre tracks are the only clue as to the way – and there’s times where he…
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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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Philippines: Time To Reflect
It was a journey in which we set foot on 21 different islands, passed through many of the country’s 82 provinces, slept in 18 beds in 15 different locations and enjoyed a host of experiences. On the long journey home we find ourselves debating whether this has been our most varied single country trip so far. It probably has. There was without doubt one constant, something which never changed – the Filipino people. It’s hard to relate the harsh lives in the rice terrace villages of northern Luzon with the tourist trade workers of the holiday islands, yet, whatever their background, whatever their lives, Filipinos are consistently amiable, happy and…
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Puerto Princesa And Another Of The World’s Seven Wonders
Tempted fate now, haven’t I? I really should have known better than to instigate a conversation about the fact that the Philippines has been kind to our tummies with not a hint of an upset in over six weeks. Michaela wakes up in Puerto Princesa with all of the warning signs; by breakfast she can only manage half of her omelette and by lunchtime her body has gone into that “I am going to force you to lay down and sleep while I work on curing this problem” mode which we all know from travel. But she’s blessed with what we in football circles call bouncebackability and by Monday we’re…
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Okavango & Makgadikgadi: Days In Amazing Places
The outdoor shower at Boteti Tented Camp takes us aback, not because of its temperature but more due to its extreme saltiness, so saline as to give off a sea-like odour and leave the skin feeling pinched once dried. If this in itself is hardly an Earth shattering fact, the point that it is part of the unique topography of this area just adds to the mystique and intrigue we are already feeling as we gear up to explore more of our amazing surroundings. The natural phenomenon which is the Okavango Delta is full of features which are utterly fascinating and in some instances unique. Its annual story is this.…
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Northwards To Maun And The Okavango Delta
Francistown, whilst there’s nothing exactly wrong with it, isn’t the world’s most exciting place and we’ve been kicking our heels a bit, spending three and a half days in a town where you can probably see everything worth seeing between breakfast and lunchtime. Maybe though, our three days have seemed lengthened by anticipation, for when we leave here we will be heading for somewhere which was always planned to be one of the highlights of the whole trip. To herald our last night in Francistown, the very first invasive mosquito of the entire trip makes an appearance and clearly wants to be tonight’s star, whining its way past our ears…
