Where is Phil now?

Castles, beaches, views and almost a sunset.

Monday 03 March 2014 – Swanage.

After a fairly solid sleep I was up pretty early again, but the view out the window had me back in bed for a while with a cup of coffee and yesterday’s paper. It was raining and there was no way I was heading out early with absolutely no hope of a sunrise. I waited till the dot of 8:00 am and was down in the restaurant for breakfast, this time I asked for a break between my fruit and my eggs on toast. I think I introduced a whole new level of stress to the staff with that request…

I had another big day planned, with a shorter coastal walk as well as a visit to a couple of castles. I love castles, and have done since I was a child when I visited some with my family. If you have followed my blog for a while you will have probably worked out I am a fan of all things old. Coming from New Zealand where anything over a hundred years old is considered historic it is great to be visiting places that are ten times older and more.

My first stop was nearby Corfe Castle, I had driven past it a couple of times and had been really looking forward to visiting it, it was one of the many reasons I chose Swanage as a base.

I parked on the far side of Corfe Castle village and walked through the town, the village is dominated by the castle on the hill. The whole village is built of the same locally mined sandstone as the castle, they love their rock around here!

The sun was shining when I entered the castle and thankfully the wind had dropped significantly from yesterday, so I was in for a nice walk around.

Corfe Castle was developed over a five hundred year period, starting from the early twelfth century. Sadly it was destroyed by an act of parliament during the English civil war in 1646 as one of the final outposts of royalist resistance. What I saw today was pretty much as it was at that time it was blown up.

I love how the walls are sagging over the steep side of the hill, I guess one day they will just roll down to the stream below.

I really enjoyed walking around and exploring the place, but as I started walking up to the top keep the clouds were gathering on the horizon, so I picked up the pace a bit.

And the rain started to fall just as I made the exit gate, a shame for the people arriving as I left, sometimes it pays to be up early!

I stopped for a coffee in one of the small coffee shops and the rain stopped soon after I finished my coffee, and I got to carry on with my day. The clouds over the castle looked amazing from the car park though.

My next stop was Lulworth Cove, not too much of a drive away. The roads here pass through a large military camp which has a live firing range for tanks and cannons and all sorts of things. I sneakily stopped on the side of the road just before the range as I saw some (I think) wild ponies in the light flooding among the trees, I should have grabbed a better lens, but figured outside a military base was not a place to be stopping with a camera…

I parked at Lulworth Cove at walked up the hill and over to Durdle Door. As I started out the weather was lovely compared to yesterday – I was in a t-shirt and unzipped hoodie and worked up a bit of a sweat walking up the coast path , though a shower moved over once I was over the top and the rain jacket was soon on again.

Man O’ War Bay.

Luckily it didn’t last and by the time I was down at Durdle Door the sun was shining again. The seas were looking pretty good here, nice even, though large swells – and no, I was not tempted to swim…

Durdle Door is a large hole in the limestone rock and is a major tourist and photographic attraction. Surprisingly it is part of a private estate owned by the Weld family, who also own Lulworth Castle – plus about fifty square kms of Dorset. At least visiting the site is free, though of course parking isn’t!

The steps down to the beach have been destroyed in a recent land slip, as there were a few people down on the beach I made my way down as well. The way down was incredibly slippery and very muddy and I was lucky to have my trail shoes on as I didn’t fall over – looking at the state of some other people’s trousers, I was a fortunate one. I am really glad I ventured down though.

Once back up the bank I walked down the steps on the other side and visited Man O’ War Bay.

On the way back up to the hill top walk to Lulworth Cove, I spotted the lovely Durdle Door Holiday park, a bit of a blight on the English countryside !

Lulworth Cove is lovely though, as are the numerous cottages in the village. When I visited here two years ago it was absolutely rammed with people, so it was quite pleasant to visit when it was empty – though not much was open for coffee and lunch.

After a very average sandwich, but a spectacular ice cream cone I jumped back in the car and drove over to Lulworth Castle.

The castle was built as a hunting lodge in 1610 and was purchased by the Weld family in 1642 (it is still in the family !) It was the residence of the family up until it was sadly destroyed by fire in 1929. The exterior has been fully renovated, but the interior is just a large shell, but interesting nonetheless. The whole time I was at he castle I could here gunfire in the background, I guess it must be what a fire-fight over the next hill sounds like. Something I have no desire to hear.

Next door is the Chapel of St Mary, built in 1786 once the persecution of Catholics ended in Britain. It is a lovely building and I would have liked to have seen in-side, but it was all closed up.

It was getting to be late in the afternoon and the sky was still looking good so I decided to go o Kimmeridge Bay and see if I could catch the sunset I missed on Saturday. I stopped just outside the town of Wareham and took some photos of the flooding there.

I made it to Kimmeridge reasonably early and took a walk around the beach as the tide was out, it was a good time to play with the camera as the sun slowly set. I took a load of photos.

The storms have created a massive pile of sea weed on the shore.

As the sun was slowly setting I watched the big thick clouds move their way slowly across the sky towards me, and with a sinking feeling I knew that there was going to be no sunset again !! I guess, to be fair, the sun was still going to set, just not in a spectacular display.

I made my way around to the point anyway and met another photographer there who pointed me to “the” spot for sunset photos, he had been there a million times before so was out today photographing the surfers. Surfing in that cold water – madness!

I lurked there for a while and then moved down to the waters edge for a bit, but then the threatened rain started to arrive so started making my way back towards the car.

I got back to the good spot and the rain stopped so I lurked there for a bit and took a bunch of photos of the clouds that were going to block the sunset, and left again as another shower hit. The clouds were damn good though !

Once I made it back up to the car the rain stopped again, so I hung around and watched a very light sunset struggle through the gloom, though the sky did get very colourful and a little liquid at times.

Once dark settled in I packed up and went back to the hotel for dinner and a glass of wine before collapsing into bed nice and early with my book.

It had been a long but very enjoyable day. Great to see so many lovely places and with much relief I really enjoyed taking photos again.

A walk along the coast

Sunday 02 March 2014 – Swanage.

The hotel definitely seems to cater for the slightly more ‘delicate’ market, my room is about a hundred degrees and I spent most of the night on top of the covers as it was too hot to sleep underneath. I had the window open to let some cool fresh air in as soon as I woke – my inner Englishness meant I could not open the window all night and waste the power from the central heating ! I had no means to turn it down either.

I had chosen to stay in Swanage for a number of reasons, price being one – but one of the others was it was facing east; with good weather forecast when I booked my trip I was hoping for a good sunrise or three.

I was up early and after swallowing an instant coffee I was out the door to see if the sunrise would appear from under the large blanket of low cloud. I was to be pretty much disappointed! I went down to the waterfront anyway and had a play with some ND and ND grad filters to see if I could at least get some good cloud and sea action.

I took some rather unspectacular photos for a while before deciding to walk along to the pier and Peveril Point for a look around before heading back to the hotel for breakfast. I was just taking this picture when a local photographer appeared behind me and we wandered off together to the cliff tops at Peveril Point to see what would happen as the sun finally attempted to rise.

We were rewarded with a small glow on the far horizon, peering out from under the clouds that took a slight hint of the suns glow.

We hung around and chatted for a while before gave up trying to take photos on a tripod in the wind, so I thanked him and headed back to my hotel to get breakfast as soon as the kitchen opened at 8:00 as I had a big day planned.

Luckily breakfast was served at the same breakneck speed as last night so I was out the door soon after 8:30, camera bag loaded with camera, rain coat, gloves, hats and everything needed to cater for the weather turning wet and cold later in the day. I planned on walking along the coast path to Worth Matravers, a section of the coast I had travelled with Malcolm in 2012 and one worth returning to with a camera. I knew I had about three hours before the rain was due to arrive, though it was incredibly windy, at times I was almost blown off my feet – luckily the wind was blowing in off the sea.

I headed back up over Peveril Point, there was a lot of damage caused by the recent storms – a story across both days of walking, large chunks of the cliff had fallen into the sea and signs new and old where everywhere.

I walked up to Durlston nature reserve via the old Isle of Wight Road, a wee bit muddy and I was glad I had my trail running shoes on – a bit of tread was very useful! I remembered Durlston Castle from the run, and the fact there was no signage for the coast path here and Malcolm and I spent a bit of time faffing trying to work out which way to go.

Durlston Castle was a rich man’s folly built in the 1800’s, not particularly old compared to some of the places I plan on visiting tomorrow, but it is kind of cute and I did notice a coffee shack out the back which I planned on visiting when I returned.

As I walked along the path from the castle I took one of many pictures throughout the day looking up and down the coast.

This region has had a long history of limestone quarrying and there are a number of old quarry sites along the coast. The first one I came across was at the far end of the Durlston Reserve just below Anvil Point Lighthouse.

Past the lighthouse the wind really picked up and gusts were blowing me sideways at times. It was almost hard to walk, thankfully I was not planning on a run today, though I did jog on the odd occasion – trying to be gentle with the bag load of camera gear I had on back.

The limestone has been used for the dozens of stone walls used by the local farmers.

I walked for a while to my first scheduled photo stop at Dancing Ledge – so called because at certain tides as the water washes over, the rock appears to be dancing. I was utterly amazed to see a group of climbers there, playing on the small ledges. Not that people would climb there per se, just that anybody apart from me was out on this miserable windy day. I would not want to be climbing about on ledges, no matter how small on a day like this !

It is a really spectacular spot and I would love to visit with big clouds – but no wind !

As I left the area and started walking further along the coast the rain started to come down so it was camera away and jacket on, some of the rain gusts were so cold I ended up having to put gloves on and had my hat down as far as it would go on my head.

It wasn’t far to my final destination and I thought I would stick it out and hope the rain stopped as it wasn’t forecasted to arrive for another couple of hours. Though it was not raining that hard it never did stop, and the wind made it quite unpleasant. I jogged a bit more.

I was disappointed when I got to where I thought the old village of Worth Matravers was, I remembered there being some old ruins of quarrymen houses on the coast, which was what I wanted to see but I could not find them, all I found were some old, fenced off, mine holes. I saw a sign to the village, pointing up a really muddy cow track and it was a mile away and the weather miserable I decided to return to Swanage. I had had a good day out so far and there was no point in just hanging around and maybe getting sick.

I had met some people on the way that had come down a hilltop track so decided to walk up there and avoid some of the spray that was coming off the sea on the cliff top Coast Path. The bad weather has had a real impact on paths along here with numerous slips and this was typical of them.

At the top of the hill I was really unsure of which way to go as there were a few paths, I ended up following narrow cow paths for a while before I found what appeared to be the proper path. An hour of walking later I finally caught sight of Anvil Point Lighthouse and made my way gingerly down the hillside towards it and then back to Durlston Castle.

Sadly the coffee shack outside was closed so wet, a little cold and a bit muddy I went into the castle cafe and joined some shiny and clean people for what was a welcome and damn good coffee !

On the way back to Swanage and my hotel I saw this rather out of place bollard in the castle grounds.

It took me a further hour to get back to the hotel, I was glad I had layered up properly as I was pretty damp when I got back, but not overly cold considering the wind and rain. I was out for six hours and had missed lunch in the hotel, so I took a bath for a while before heading to the pub for a beer…

I had sort of known, but it had never been top of mind when I planned the trip – a late winter Sunday night in a small rural town is never going to be a great place to find a meal ! Virtually everywhere was closed. I had my heart set on a nice pasta meal but ended up with a burger and chips in another pub. Good burger and chips though and the beer was good to.

Another good day !

Road trip !

Saturday 01 March 2014 – Swanage.

Just before I went back to New Zealand at the beginning of February I heard from Tom, who I first met almost two years ago when he ran the 1014km South West Coast Path with my NZ friend Malcolm. I was support driver for Malcolm on the run and Tom returned the favour and supported my when I did a 50km run along the coast path for my 50th birthday later in the year. Tom and his family are returning to New Zealand mid-March and had a farewell function in Umborne Hall in Devon today.

It was just the excuse I needed to organise myself to head back to the south coast for a few days, do some walking, maybe a run and take some photos – maybe even getting my photography mojo back, who knows! I started to look at the trip when I got back from NZ, and at the time the weather forecast was looking pretty good so after some research I decided to stay for three nights in Swanage and do day trips from there, I had a loose plan in mind.

Now that time to go has actually arrived the weather has decided to not play ball, and I may well end up with a couple of rainy days. At least today is fine, though I do have a lot of driving to do.

I picked up a car from the rental place in Walthamstow that El and I used last year, not a bad deal and close enough to walk to, so an obvious choice. I left just after 9:30 and allowed myself four hours to get to Lyme Regis, my first stop for the day. The drive down was pretty good, not a lot of traffic and I got to play music loudly in the car and sing along as well, definitely something I miss about not owning a car.

Lyme was a lot busier than I expected – a whole lot busier. I sort of planned on rocking up, parking the car and going for a walk, but had to hunt around to find somewhere to park the car. Bizarrely, I ended up parking in the same car park I was fed and watered in on my run – and it was just as busy back at the end of summer.

The Undercliff is a well known part of the South West Coast Path and a section I covered on my run. It has been closed for over a year now due to subsidence, and sadly this has gotten a lot worse over the big storms early this year. Not sure if or when it will be re-opened.

I had a walk around for an hour and took a bunch of pictures, some of which I was happy with.

I walked up the Cobb, just as I arrived these two guys on trials bikes turned up, so I watched them for a bit before walking around to get some views back over the town.

I walked along the foreshore to the end of the town, I love the beach huts, though these are quite new, there is something so English about them. I particularly liked that the bunting was still hanging behind the windows in this one.

It is a real British sea side town, buckets and spades and beach balls for sale all along the front – though not so many customers in early spring.

I picked up some fish and chips for lunch, they were lovely, but I didn’t really need them as there was food at the party – but I could not resist, they looked so good. There was no way I could even get close to finishing them, the fish was huge.

And hopefully really fresh.

After over-indulging in my fish and chips I was surprised yet happy to be able to program Umborne into my car’s GPS and headed off to Tom and Tash’s farewell lunch. It was only a few miles from Lyme Regis but once off the ‘highway’ I was slowly negotiating my way down some lovely Devon back roads.

Through the small village of Shute and the entrance to Shute Barton – one of many massive historical houses I saw over the three days I was away.

I spent a couple of hours at the farewell, it was especially nice to see Tom’s parents as I spent a lot of time with Tom’s mum during the Coast Path Run as she was co-support driving with me. I wish Tom and Tash and the kids a great time in New Zealand!

I left with the intent of getting close to the coast near Kimmeridge for sunset, but badly miscalculated how long it would take to get there, and missed what appeared in my rear vision mirror, to be a pretty decent event. Given the new forecast, the only sunset I am likely to see on my trip. Bugger !

I arrived at my hotel in Swanage in the early evening and once settled in had a drink in the bar and then dinner in the restaurant. It was a weird meal. The food was fine, but the service was too good – I was all done in what seemed like a matter of minutes, and I was the only one under 75 and not wearing a tie… I retired early to my room and just managed to stay awake for Match of the Day at 10:30.

It was a good day!

Top O’ the South, South Island, NZ

Friday 14 February 2014 – Top o’ the South, New Zealand.

For a holiday we were up pretty damn early on Tuesday, we had to check in for the ferry that was taking us across the Cook Strait to Picton in the Marlborough Sounds at 7:00 AM. We were travelling on the Bluebridge ferry and good fortune rather than good planning saw us on a crossing where my brother in law John, was the captain. Good fortune also saw us on a quiet crossing, apparently the previous day there were five metre swells in the Strait, and vomit bags were well used :

We had a lovely, if cool, morning.

The crossing was delayed slightly as the competing ferry companies ferry broke down again and we had to wait for their passengers and freight to be loaded on our ferry, but after an hours delay we were under way – on the next leg of our wee NZ adventure.

The journey to Picton on a good day is one of NZ’s finest – yet relatively under-subscribed, experiences. The exit from Wellington harbour is lovely and crossing the Cook Strait gives the sharp eyed the opportunity to see all sorts of sea mammals. I was lucky enough to be able to be able to briefly catch up with John and as I asked him about seeing dolphins a school of them passed by the front of the ship, fabulous – though of course I did not have my camera on me at the time!

The real highlight of the three or so hour sailing is slowly cruising up through the Marlborough sounds, being on a large sea vessel as it negotiates these narrow channels is pretty damn amazing. It was very cold out on the deck, I was wrapped up more thoroughly than I was when I walked from my home to the station in wintery London and El was wrapped for the full Antarctic :)but it was worth the minor discomfort to experience the ride.

We arrived in Picton an hour late and by the time I had run around picking up the rental car we were well into the early afternoon. My daughter Mel and her friends had come over on an earlier ferry but had left by the time we arrived – though we would see them later on. (Yay). After some time spent in Blenheim we headed out to our hotel for the night, the Marlborough Vintners Hotel.

Maybe if you have been dead for the last twenty or so years then you would not know that the Marlborough district at the top of the south island is one of the premier wine growing regions in the world, so I am assuming that most people have at least heard of Marlborough sauvignon blancs ! Before we left London we had decided that a visit to Marlborough and a tasting or two was an essential part of our trip.

We were a bit late for tastings on the Tuesday but had a very nice meal and some lovely local wine in the hotel. The local rieslings and pinot gris were just stunning! The sunset was better than what I managed to capture on my camera.

Sadly, the following morning had to check out of the hotel, we had tried to get a second night but it was fully booked. It would have been a perfect place to just laze about for a day and enjoy the main reason for holidaying – relaxing (with awesome wine !). We stayed until kicking out time which happened to coincide with the opening for tasting a number of the major wineries in the area. Our first stop was the obligatory Cloudy Bay, where we shared a couple of tastings. I was driving so this was all very civilised – and it was only 10:00. The wine was fabulous as you would have expected!

Our next stop was Allan Scott, we were looking forward to this as we had a couple of Allan Scott pinot gris in Auckland and they were absolutely lovely. However, after hanging around in the shop for five minutes with no one coming down to see us we left. Pissed off.

Anyway, it was our good fortune as we decided to check out Hunters Vineyard as we had time and capacity for one more small tasting before hitting the road. Wow ! Hunters was great. The tasting was free and very informative, and the best thing was the wine was fabulous, especially the Riesling and gewurztraminer. We bought a couple of bottles and I was especially pleased to know that the London importer was Laithwaites, which is just down the road from where I live. Well done Hunters ! stupidly I did not take a photo 😦

Today was supposed to be a fairly chilled and relaxed drive over to my sister’s place outside of Nelson (I have two sisters for those who have read this blog for a while and may get confused, one in Auckland and one way the heck out in the country outside of Nelson). We decided to take the scenic route through the Marlborough Sounds Drive – oh so lovely. We stopped for photos on a couple of occasions on the way, first at the bay where my sister used to live in a tiny hamlet called “The Grove”.

And then at the top of a hill on Queen Charlotte Drive (I forgot to get its name) with views over Queen Charlotte Sound.

And our next stop, the small town of Havelock.

We stopped for coffee and lunch in Havelock, and as mentioned in my last post, the food and the coffee were great. This cafe had the added bonus of homemade fudge – I bought watermelon, passionfruit and Bounty as after dinner treats for my sisters family. Surprisingly they actually tasted as described, the watermelon was simply delightful!

Our next stop was at the aptly named Pelorus Bridge, over the Pelorus River. The Pelorus River was used for the scene in the Hobbit Part 2 where the hobbits were fleeing the orcs in barrels down the river – one of my favourite scenes in any of the Middle Earth movies. The river was not quite as exciting where we were. We took a short walk down to a swing bridge and back again to the car as out short driving day was slowly getting longer and longer.

We arrived at my sisters in the late afternoon, my bro-in-law was still working on the ferry so it was just my sister and their two sons who were there. They live way the heck out in the countryside and we had drive down two long unsealed roads to get there, El’s first time on metal roads – as we call them in NZ. I had to resist the teenage urge in me to go sideways round the corners…

It was great to see my sister and the boys, it has been a wee while since I last saw them and the boys had grown immeasurably since.

They live in a house on a small farm, and though there are only four of them living there there were EIGHTEEN gumboots !

They have sheep – it is NZ, of course they have sheep!

The following morning we set off towards the north-western corner of the south island and Farewell Spit, I have never been there before so was keen to check it out. The spit is twenty something kilometres long and is only accessible by a day tour, we didn’t have the time for that so just had to contend with a visit to the base. We started with a walk over to Wharariki Beach, on the Tasman Sea. It was howling with wind and once we had passed the farm land we were constantly being sand blasted in the gusts. But it was a beautiful and remote spot and on a fine day would be spectacular. There are baby fur seals in the area which was one of the attractions for me, but we did not see any.

We then headed up to Farewell Spit proper and found a a really nice cafe at the entrance to the park, the coffee was great and the food pretty damn fine, a very nice lunch was had – very much to my surprise. After lunch we walked down to the beach and strolled up for a while before turning back and heading back to the nearest point of civilisation – Takaka, where we spent some time on the internet and booked a bed for the night. This is the closest we got to Farewell Spit – though one day I will be back !

We found a very nice little hotel at Pohara Beach, just outside Takaka on Golden Bay. This whole area used to be very erm, rural and a wee bit hippy, especially towns like Takaka. The game has really been lifted and it is a charming country town. It is very tourist driven, something I am normally against, but it works here. I liked it. And I had the best damn coffee in NZ in Takaka.

We arranged to catch up with Mel and her BF, plus additional friend from the UK here. It was my final catch up with Mel before we left and it was very special to see them in such a cool place like Pohara Beach. So I did get a photo before we left.

The following day we caught up with Mel again for breakfast coffee before El and I drove back to Nelson city where we had lunch with some old friends of mine before flying back to Auckland, and there pretty much ended the holiday.

A very short North island road trip.

Mon 09 February 2014 – Road trip North Island, New Zealand.

On Saturday morning mum took El and I out to Auckland airport where we picked up a rental car for a couple of days of driving down to Wellington. As we were not bringing the car back to Auckland we were charged a monstrous “one way” fee. Almost twice the car rental, outrageous in these modern global tourism times. They all charge it, milking the customers – bastards!

We were going to take two days to drive south, not a huge amount of time given all the cool things to see on the way. We had limited ourselves to two stops on the first day – Hobbitton near Matamata and the Orakei Korako thermal area between Rotorua and Taupo.

We stopped in Matamata at the very neat tourism office, made up to look like a Hobbit house. We were informed that the only way to visit Hobbitton was on a tour, this really didn’t suit our (my) aggressive timetable that much so we sort directions to Hobbitton (not that easy to get) and drove there ourselves.

El is a big fan of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series (I am little bit) and we were both keen to at least have a look at the site and El wanted to pick up some gifts from the gift shop. After the very cool looking tourism building in town we were both seriously let down to find the entrance to Hobbitton is a large tin shed…

El bought a couple of souvenirs and we then carried on with our journey to Rotorua. Rotorua is the probably the main tourist centre of the north island. One of only a couple of areas of thermal activity in the world it has some fairly unique attractions, combined with a few Maori cultural sites and some extreme sports make this tourist heaven. We took a slow drive through town and then continued on to the thermal area of Orakei Korako, almost in Taupo.

To get to the smallish area of interest you take a small boat from the office and then walk up the edge of a large silica bank, it looks very dramatic with the white silica stained by the different algae growing in the warm thermal waters.

The thermal activity here comprises of a lot of pools of super hot spring water and a couple of small geysers, though the geysers did not spout while we were there. It was incredibly cool though and we both enjoyed the walk around. I loved this, the Diamond Geyser – so East London…

At the top of the trail we found some boiling mud, something I was really hoping to see, as it is something very unique to the area. One of the downsides of thermal activity is the smell of sulphur, just like rotting eggs. Luckily it was not overpowering here; or maybe we got used it !

We spent a couple of hours at Orakei Korako and thoroughly enjoyed it, in a way it was good we did not go to Hobbitton as it gave us more time here to walk around and enjoy such a unique experience.

We briefly stopped at Huka Falls on the edge of Lake Taupo.

Then a further brief stop to photograph the lake, which is one of the world’s largest.

We had original planned on staying in a lakeside hotel in Taupo but I had a brain wave as we were researching accommodation and we decided to stay at the Chateau Tongariro on the edge of the Whakapapa ski-field on Mt Tongariro. The only time I have been in there was to see a band on some ski trip way back in the beginnings of time and I had always wanted to stay there. It was surprisingly ‘cheap’, so we decided to do it. The drive to the Chateau through the central highlands and national park was just stunning. We could have done two days there alone…

We had a great night in the hotel, I was expecting ‘faded glory’ but it has been well maintained and was quite plush.

The following morning we were up early, and under cloudy skies headed off for the long drive to Wellington. We stopped for more photos of the mountain on the way but sadly did not get to see Lord of the rings ‘Mount Doom’, otherwise known as Mt Ngauruhoe as it was so cloudy.

We stopped for coffee in Bulls – NZ pun central, and had an average drink in a place that really did not make us feel welcome at all. The only place in NZ we visited that seemed to not like visitors – or us anyway.

We arrived in Wellington in the early afternoon and checked into our hotel before returning the rental car, the bill still sends shivers up my spine ! We arranged to meet my daughter and her BF for lunch, they are on a longer road trip than we are – lucky them. And then El and I walked down to water front to the Museum of NZ, Te Papa for a look – it was free, and pretty good.

I found some cool anti-shark fining street art on the way 🙂

After a drink with Mel and friends we enjoyed a really nice meal in the hotel and then retired early and tired. Up early tomorrow for the ferry to the south island!

Auckland

Friday 07 February 2014 – Auckland, New Zealand.

My plan to blog most days and get a good written and visual record of El’s and my trip to NZ was doomed to fail from the very start – too many things to do and not enough down time planned. I did, however, expect to get at least a couple of posts done while I was actually ‘in country’. I am now over a week back in London and have just sat down to write something about NZ. At least I have been through the rather meagre collection of photos I took on the trip and selected the best of an average bunch, so there is something to base my report on other than slowly fading memories.

I will say the trip was really good, I was a little nervous about, especially introducing El to my family. They are all lovely so I was not expecting any issues, but I was not 100% sure on how it would go. I should never have been concerned; the kids were fab and El lovely. We were also blessed with pretty good weather – apart from Wellington where it was cool and wet, the windy city certainly lived up to its name. It was also colder than London was on the ferry across to the south island! Thankfully the rest of the trip was mostly completed under warm sunny skies – just what was needed coming from grey damp London.

El and I stayed at my mum’s place for a couple of nights, she gave up her room for us, which was much appreciated and it was nice to be able to relax in one place for a day or two. My mum walks for an hour most mornings before breakfast so I was up early on the Monday and out for an hour long power stroll around the nicer bits of Henderson – not really one of Auckland’s lovelier suburbs I will admit, though the park areas and interlinked stream side path ways make for a decent and reasonably car-free walk and it was nice to spend some time with mum.

My brother-in-law, Allan, had kindly lent us a car for the week we were in town so after breakfast we headed off up the north western motorway to Muriwai Beach so mum and I could show El one of our favourite NZ spots, and one of the few places I really do miss.

After watching the waves from the king tide banging on the rocks we took a walk up to the gannet colony at the top of the cliffs before Maori Bay. The gannets have mostly gone for the season, just a few stragglers left, but enough to see and plenty of gannet noise going on.

After lunch we met my daughter and her partner for lunch at the Hallertau Brewery. This was El and my first introduction back into eating out in NZ and it was really good. I must say that the quality of the food and service has really stepped up in the last few years, almost without exception we had fantastic dining experiences everywhere we went – even small and remote (though touristy) locations like Farewell Spit. No more bad tea and soggy ham and cheese sandwiches.

The following day was another food fest, we caught the ferry over to Waiheke Island to visit a vineyard or two and have some lunch. The ride over to Waiheke is all part of the experience and the Waitemata Harbour and inner Hauraki Gulf were as gorgeous as always, with Rangitoto lurking under cloud in the background.

We arrived on Waiheke later than planned and started (and ended) our experience at Mud Brick Cafe. I have been here before and it has always been a great spot, the food was fabulous, the wine tasty and fresh, El loved it, so there was no need to move on.

The vege sharing plate for lunch – OMG !!

Heading back into the city just seemed wrong – and the clouds certainly agreed !

On Wednesday we had breakfast in the newly completed Wynard Quarter on Auckland’s waterfront. The renovation project had started before I left NZ at the end of 2011, but was no where near complete at the time. I must say it is pretty damn cool, and breakfast was great too. I really liked the new buildings in this area, even the bank had come to the party with a really funky office.

We had a fairly major walking day planned and visited the Auckland City Art Gallery, which I love. My favourite painting Robyn White’s “Fish and Chips, Maketu” was sadly not on display, but I really liked this massive Ralph Hotere piece.

After lunch El and I walked up to K’Rd and then across Grafton Bridge to the Auckland Museum. I must pause the narrative to comment on how disappointed I was at the changes to some of my favourite shopping streets. High St particularly and K’ Rd to a degree have all changed since I was last here. I really liked the little boutiques on High St, but now it just seems full of sushi shops, sad. We were to be further disappointed when we arrived at Auckland Museum, I wanted to show El the Maori history section, but there was a $25 entrance fee for non-residents. WTF !!! This is insane… We spent $8 each and visited a reasonably good history of fashion photography exhibition instead. We got to pose in front of a couple of backdrops with some good lighting to have a play. Sadly I was not that fashionable…

Seriously disappointed at the cost of entry to the museum, that really sucked.

We stayed at my brother in law’s house for the next few nights which again we appreciated, it was good being able to unload all the stuff out of the suitcase and lob it around the floor – well that was me anyway. The boys came round for tea on the Wednesday night which was great, it was so good to see so much of them while I was in town.

On Thursday morning my youngest son came around and we went for a big walk up to the Arataki Centre on Scenic Drive, the views out over the Manukau Harbour and the dam and bush are fantastic and the centre has some good information on the lovely Waitakere Ranges – my favourite part of NZ. Later on El and I drove out to one of the many ranges beach, Piha for a walk but it was really windy and not entirely pleasant on the beach so we didnt stay for long. We were planning on having lunch at the Piha Cafe, but it was closed as it was a public holiday, grrrrr. We drove on over to Karekare beach, Karekare is my favourite part of my favourite place, I love the fact that there are no shops, not many houses and that the carpark is not right by the beach. Time and energy have to be invested in getting to this lovely expanse of black sand beach, therefore not that many people go there. I have a million photographs of it (lots anyway).

After the beach we walked to the falls over the road, as it is the end of summer, there was not a huge flow of water, but they are still wonderful…

Friday was a bit of a rest and organisation day, we had a small mission in the afternoon – I went record shopping at Real Groovy Records and picked up five bits of NZ vinyl, mostly second hand. A friend of my brother in law was talking about a new venture down at the end of town. A shipping container had been converted into a wine tasting and blending shop so we went to check Blend out. The idea is you get to taste a few grape varieties and then have three goes at blending them into a blend that you really like. You then get a bottle of it to take away. It was such a cool idea and a bit of fun. I ended up with a red made up of 50% cab sauv, 30% merlot and 20% grenache. Not sure I would buy it in the shops mind, but we have brought them back to London and will drink them soon. A very cool idea indeed.

After Blend we moseyed back on out west and went to a BBQ with a group of my old Titirangi friends which was just perfect. We just did not have the time to visit people on this trip so seeing a group all at once was great. It was a good evening, thanks Martha 🙂 I had a run planned the following day so kept it all quite tame.

Saturday was our final day in Auckland, and I had arranged to go bush running with my friend Vicki. She had a pre-run run organised so we didn’t meet up until mid-day which was appreciated 🙂 I dropped El off at a friend of mine’s house as she was going on a shopping mission to the main boutiquey type areas of Ponsonby and Newmarket – work related research apparently, while I was out getting muddy.

It was a great run, up from Karekare beach.

Across the top of Mercer Bay.

Down past Kitekite falls and into Piha.

It was interesting to see all the changes to the tracks as the council is ‘upgrading’ a lot of the trails that make up the “Hillary Trail”, I can understand why they are doing it, but it does sort of ruin some of the fun, and makes it so much less exclusive ! It was a great run, nice to catch up with Vicki and try to solve the world’s problems as we ran. Much as I love London, I do miss running the Waitakeres !

El and I took mum, my boys and my bro-in-law out for tea on the Saturday night to thank them for their hospitality. We went to Mikano on the waterfront and it was fabulous – and the most I have ever spent in a restaurant, lucky none of us were drinking ! It was a lovely night, and a great way to cap our week in Auckland.

Yay – off to New Zealand !

Sunday 02 February 2014 – Hong Kong / Sydney and Auckland, New Zealand.

Last week had finally seen some wintery weather arrive, a cold wind and rain made walking the streets of London on the first week after I finished work less fun than I would have liked. Though, I did make it out for a quick look at some street art and the purchase of a new record.

The great news for the week was meeting El at Camden tube station after she finished work on Thursday and heading off to Heathrow Airport to start a two week trip to New Zealand – 22 hours of flying to Sydney, with a lay-over in Hong Kong.

The first leg took eleven hours and was not too bad, the plane was only half full so we were not rammed in like sardines as usual. Service was good and the food and drink not too bad, though of course I did not sleep as much as I would have liked. We arrived in Hong Kong on time and were whipped off the plane and with a group of others taken aside and asked if we would like to be put on an earlier flight to Sydney – we did ! This meant only an hour of transit time – yay.

I had been to Hong Kong once before, in 2007, and did not have the best of experiences. No fault of Hong Kong’s, but I spent eight days of my five day trip in a private hospital with a serious bacterial infection of my liver. I am quite keen to go back there and see the city, it looks amazing, but there was no time on this trip to stop. I did snap a couple of photos out the window of the airport terminal. Good to see the smog has not left the city!

The flight to Sydney was another nine hours, not as long as the first leg, but those hours really dragged and made the flight seem a lot longer. The plane was also very full which always make the flight less pleasant. It was a nice plane though.

We arrived in Sydney two and half hours earlier than originally expected at 7:00 am, it was a bit of a haul though customs but we were soon out of the airport and on to the (very expensive) train to Circular Quay. We had a hotel in “The Rocks” area of downtown Sydney and were very fortunate to be able to get in to our room so much before normal check in. After twenty four hours of travelling a shower was definitely top priority.

We had heard that the view from the roof was pretty cool so we headed up there before we left for a walk. El ha has not been to Sydney before, but as we only have twenty four hours we wanted to focus on the harbour area.

Apparently sunrise over the opera house was well worth the early rise, but there was a very large cruise liner between us and it, hopefully it leaves before then.

We went for a walk around the opera house and over to the botanical gardens when we got a call from El’s Sydney friends and we arranged to meet them in Manly where they were having lunch, which worked for us as we were heading over there later in the day to visit my friend Nicole.

I love the ferry ride to Manly, one of the best harbour crossings, it has great views of both the Opera House and the harbour bridge and on a great day it just a magic trip. It was a great day.

We had a very nice lunch with El’s old London friends, Mel and Ian and then shared a bottle of bubbles with Nicole before heading back over to the city side in the late afternoon. We were both knackered after the flight and feeling the effects of jet lag and no sleep. It was great to be able to catch up with Mel and Ian and Nicole in one of Sydney’s best locations, plus get to see the harbour all in one go. Stupidly I did not take any photos in Manly, though I did get a few when I was there last year.

We had a walk around the harbour side for half an hour and then meandered back to the hotel to try and get some sleep in, before getting up at 5:45 for the sunrise at 6:15. The cruise liner had left while we were out.

We had a reasonable amount of sleep, but I was definitely a bit thick in the head when we got up on time for the sunrise. It wasn’t particularly spectacular, but it was pretty and I am glad we got up for it.

After a monster breakfast in the hotel (well, I had a monster breakfast) we took a cab to the airport, it was only slightly more expensive than the train – and so much easier! We had a late-morning flight to Auckland that was frustratingly delayed, though not by much. With the time difference we did not arrive almost 6:00pm. The airport was busy and it took ages to get out, which was annoying. Auckland airport always seems to be a slightly different configuration each time I fly in, and this one didn’t work at all well – massive bottle neck at customs….

My sister picked us up and we drove up to my mum’s where the whole family were waiting to join us for tea. I was very happily surprised to see my daughter was there, she arrived back in New Zealand for Christmas with her BF and I was not expecting to see them until next week. It was great to see all three “children” together in one place for the first time in over five years. They are lovely !

It was wonderful to see my family again, and introducing El to them was a wee bit nerve wracking, for everyone I suspect, but it all went well and it was a nice evening. Two weeks will seem like a very short time I think.

A brief overview of the last three months…

Wednesday 29 January 2014.

It has been an awful long time since I lasted posted, or even wrote a blog post. Time just seemed to pass by so quickly and the very few things that happened that were note worthy have all become memories as I didn’t have the time or the inclination to type them after they happened. The main thing that has happened, and the number one reason for not writing – or more realistically – doing anything worth recording, is that I have been working !

Now, there is no immediate need to get all excited in thinking that after six months or so of looking that I have landed myself a cushy IT job worthy of my experience and paying me the salary to match ! Nope, I have been working in a pub – earning just over minimum wage pulling pints and pouring glasses of wine. It is work I have sort of enjoyed, but work I am going to cease at the end of January when main bit of news number two happens – a trip back to New Zealand.

To back the truck up a bit – I had become a bit dispirited with applying for IT Management roles and not getting much of a response from the recruitment firms I have to deal with for most of the roles I am interested in. As I have mentioned before, there are plenty of interesting vacancies, but there an awful lot of people applying for them. I guess my two year ‘sabbatical’ is not being seen as a positive by some. I am using that as the reason for the lack of interest in hiring me anyway.

El saw a post on FaceBook from the Queens Arms, a pub near her home in Walthamstow looking for staff for their newly renovated and about to be re-opened premises. I popped in on a whim and ended up being offered a job on the bar with a start a few days later. Not having worked in a bar before I was quite excited about the whole thing.

I have leant an awful lot working there, the work is harder than it looks and I have found it to be physically exhausting. I have met some very nice people there and have had a few good laughs, but a couple of weeks ago I realised it was not for me and have now resigned and will finish up when I go to NZ. I do have renewed respect for those who work in bars and restaurants – some make it look so easy ! I guess I will just go back to being on the other side of the bar in the Queens upon my return.

What else has happened? I have reached a few anniversaries in the past few weeks.
Two years since I left my last IT Management job at PMP.
Two years since I left New Zealand on my travels.
One year since I first met El.

I cannot believe so much time has gone by and while I feel I have not done much in the last wee while I have achieved a huge amount more than I expected when I started to think about leaving work to go travelling, thirty or so months ago. I will have to confess that my original plan, which was to tour Europe in the summer of 2012, has not actually happened yet, I got distracted on the way !

One of those distractions was of course meeting El, we first met on the 25th January last year and we have had some good times since – hopefully with many more to come. Tomorrow we head off on a two week visit to meet my family in New Zealand – via a quick stop in Sydney on the way. El has not been to either place before and I am very much looking forward to showing her around, and of course introducing her to my family and friends. It will all be rather exciting I think…

Then back to the excitement of finding a job again when I get back in February.

A quick summary, I just needed to get this out of the way !!

Here is a photo of El I took at a Christmas night walk of Kew Gardens back in December. It was great fun and was worthy of a blog post. I just never got around to doing one…

Millennium Bridge

28 January 2014 – London

I have not logged into here for ages and have just noticed the date of my last post – wow, it has been such a long time. I do have a post in the wings, a general, sort of quick wrap-up of those missing months, but it has been in the wings for rather a long time. I must finish it in the next day or so as I am heading back to New Zealand for a holiday tomorrow and I do not want to have old blog baggage hanging over my head…

Rather than finish that post off I am going to procrastinate on it further by doing this post instead.

I took a brief walk along the south bank this afternoon, I went to have a look at the Landscape Photographer of the Year photos on display at the National Theatre. I was suitably impressed, and also depressed at my lack of out-put this year, plus the fact I really am going to have to get the Canon or the wide angle lens looked at as the images are really ‘soft’ and I am not sure why.

The secondary purpose of the walk was a vain hope of getting a sunset – though the forecast was for showers, it had been reasonably fine all day. I have been following a couple on Instragram who have been coming up with some great London images lately and I had been looking to them for some motivation, and sunsets always make for some great images.

There was no sunset… But I did like watching the clouds come in from the south and skip over the Thames so I took a few photos of that instead. The light was quite flat and the sky grey so I have converted and them all into monochrome.

Trees by the IBM building.

Rain starting to fall as the clouds cross over Waterloo Bridge.

I was going to walk over to St Pauls as the light was looking quite good and there was the possibility of some dramatic shots, however as I walked up the Millennium Bridge the rain started to fall – and the Big Issue seller scurried away soon after.

I took a few shots of St Pauls over the arch of the bridge, before calling it quits and walking home.

This is my favourite shot from the walk, the clouds were sweeping in, slowly filling the clear patches of sky.

It was good to get some practice in before my New Zealand trip, and I have now decided I will take the Canon rather than the smaller and lighter Panasonic. A decision I had been pondering on for a few days. Whew!

Sunrises and Sunsets

I have had the luck to see a few really good sunrises and sunsets in the past week or two as the seasons really change from summer into autumn. Usually when I see a good sunset I do not have my camera on me, but I had a lucky 36 hour period when I saw two good sunsets and a decent sunrise as well.

Sunset over Walthamstow.

Sunrise over Canary Wharf (Yes I know, I actually caught a sunrise !)

Sunset over the Thames and Cannon Street rail bridge.