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July 7th, 2005
07:25 pm - I aten't dead
Fortunately, although I live and work in London, I was nowhere the explosions this morning. It looks like most friends and relatives who might have been expected to be in the area have reported in ok, so *touch wood* it looks like the chief impact on my life will be a couple of long and incredibly tedious journeys and a rather twitchy unproductive day at work. Here's hoping that you and yours are equally lucky, and my thoughts are with those that haven't been.
Current Mood:  morose
Current Music: channel 4 news
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March 3rd, 2003
08:08 pm - Tekapo to Queenstown
Sunday was not such a nice day in terms of the weather. I finished off the coach journey that I had started on Friday, which took me to Queenstown via a lunch stop at Mount Cook Village. This was fairly interesting, although the most common comment from the driver was "we'd have a good view of Mount Cook from here if it wasn't for all that cloud". At one point he resorted to singing a song about the legendary sheep-stealer MacKenzie, as he couldn't use all the bits and pieces he'd prepared. This actually got a round of applause at the end, although I'm not sure how much of it was down to sympathy or relief it was over.
After that, the only real point of interest was Cromwell, which is known for its fruit produce, so we got to stop off at an orchard shop. Nearby there's a very silly giant fruit sculpture, no doubt celebrating Cromwell's productivity, but still somewhat incongruous. Finally, we reached Queenstown, and headed off to the YHA and then bed in preparation for another early start on Monday.
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March 2nd, 2003
06:51 pm - Lake Tekapo
I only stayed in Christchurch for the night before having to get up really early in order to catch a coach to Lake Tekapo, which is in the area known as the high country or MacKenzie Country. Christchurch will be my last port of call before I fly home, so I'll say more about that then.
( Friday: Up into the high countryCollapse )
( Friday: Flying over the mountainsCollapse )
( Saturday: Pottering about Lake TekapoCollapse )
All in all, a nice couple of days.
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February 27th, 2003
February 25th, 2003
11:53 pm - Marlborough Sounds
Late on Monday afternoon, Alais and I took the Interislander ferry across from Wellington to Picton in the Marlborough Sounds region at the very Northern tip of the South Island. This was a good opportunity to sit back and watch the world go by over a quiet drink. Unfortunately, we managed to bring the cloud across with us from Wellington, so I didn't really get to see the Sounds at their best, If we'd had more time, then I would have liked to have take one of the small boat cruises around them, or done a tour of the vineyards.
We stopped over in Picton in a B&B overnight, and (typical!) Tuesday turned out to be a gloriously sunny day. Alais headed back to Wellington on the Lynx, while I took the Transcoastal train to Kaikoura.
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11:32 am - Wellington
We spent Sunday night in Wellington with Anne, who is a former work colleague of Alais. She was really hospitable, and offered to take our luggage and give us a lift to the ferry terminal the next evening. What a total star!
( Monday: Hobbits and other cultural stuffCollapse )
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February 24th, 2003
03:23 pm - Ashhurst
Friday morning: took the scenic train from Auckland station down to Palmerston North, and on from there to Ashhurst which is a few miles away. The journey down was very pleasant and we passed through lots of pretty scenery, although it all looked rather parched as it hadn't rained for quite some time. At least not until I turned up - it was spitting as we left Auckland that morning, and we couldn't see Mount Ruapehu or Mount Taranaki as you sometimes can, because it was too cloudy.
It was lovely to see Alais again. I can't believe it's been two and a half years since the time she came over for CCDE. Her husband Nic cooked us a lovely dinner of New Zealand Lamb with Rosemary and Garlic, plus lots of side veggies, while we caught up on the gossip - not that I could actually think of a great deal...
( Saturday: Camp Vikings, Vineyards and Posh RestaurantsCollapse )
( Sunday: Around Palmerston North and on to WellingtonCollapse )
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February 21st, 2003
11:24 pm - Auckland
Stayed in Auckland on Wednesday and Thursday nights in the Auckland City YHA, which was nice cheap and very handy for the town centre. Oh and it has a terrace that you can have barbecues on which has a really good view of the Sky Tower.
( Thursday: Auckland Zoo and up the Sky TowerCollapse )
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February 19th, 2003
09:52 pm - Rotorua
Arrived in Rotorua at about 8:45 local time on Monday morning. After spending a bit of time sorting out my travel arrangements for the next few days at Tourism Rotorua, I headed off on one of the local buses to the Skyline Skyrides. The main feature is the cable car that takes you up to the top of a fairly steep hill, or you can take a chairlift if you're feeling a bit more adventurous. Surprisingly enough, I wasn't. The view at the top was quite pretty though, so I stopped and took a few photos and had some lunch. After lunch, went to check in to my hotel which was near the Whakarewarewa thermal village, but not as sulphur smelly as I had been led to expect. Was just going to have a shower and then head out to have a look around, but ended up falling asleep. Oh well.
( Tuesday: Lots of Geothermal StuffCollapse )
( Wednesday: Maori Cultural thingsCollapse )
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February 16th, 2003
11:59 am - New Zealand here I come....
I'm writing this sitting on the plane - we're over Reykjavik apparently. The plane has one of those GPS systems and every now and then it flashes up on the big TV where we are, how fast we're going etc. Even when we were taxiing at Heathrow it kept updating to show which direction we were facing, which I thought was overkill slightly.
Update: Later on, about 8pm London time we went over the Arctic (at least if it wasn't it was doing a pretty good impression). And although this sounds a bit nuts given how high up we were, I could've sworn I saw Polar bears. As I didn't have an aisle seat, I couldn't tell you much else about the scenery, apart from a few weird glacier things in Northern Canada.
( A small rant about securityCollapse )
Managed to have a bit of a kip on the second leg of the flight, although it was more of a series of catnaps it was enough to leave me feeling vaguely human by the time we got to Auckland. From there it was a quick flight in a little 16 seater plane to Rotorua, the thermal area, where I'll be staying for the next couple of days.
Another update here in a day or so.
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