Travel – Page 5 – Where is Phil now?

The Pink City of Jaipur

Friday 04 November 2016 – Jaipur, India.

The real culture shock hit once I got out on to the street. The hotel owner gave me directions to the ‘Pink City’ the main tourist area of Jaipur after the Amber Fort. It seemed to be a fairly straightforward walk along a main road. This is not a main city thoroughfare like you would find in any western city. There are no footpaths, and if there were they would still be used by cars and motorbikes, it was chaos out there. Though it does all appear to be reasonably safe, keep your line and everyone works around you, cars and motorbikes included. Not sure if I would mess with a bus though. Where there was a raised footpath it covered the sewer and in so many places the path was broken and the stench of the sewers mingled with the fumes of the vehicles. It was pretty unpleasant.

I walked for quite a while and saw no sign of the ‘Pink City’ gates. I started to wonder if I was going in the right direction, and soon gave up in confusion and despair. Eventually I did what I should have done back at the start. I took a tuk tuk, one of the three wheeled motorbike taxis. I asked the driver to take me to the Pink City gates, discovering that I was heading in the right direction all along; it was just a hell of a lot further than I thought.

Jaipur is the capital city of the state of Rajasthan. It is named after its founder Jai Singh II who built his capital here in the late 17^th century, the Amber Fort. As the population expanded the capital was moved down to the flat land below the fort and was named Jaipur. In 1876 the maharajah had the entire old city painted pink, the colour of friendship, to welcome the Prince of Wales. The city palace sits within the Pink City, and was my objective for today. I had about 30 minutes to get there before they stop allowing visitors in at 5:00pm.

Once through the city gates I was confronted with the bazaars, each section dealing with a different kind of product, spices, cloth, metals, leather, all have their sections. It was very crowded and a little disorientating to begin with, it wasn’t helped by the main thoroughfare being packed solid with noisy, smelly traffic. At least there was some sort of footpath along the shop fronts. I did not take a load of photos here. I am very reluctant to aim my camera at people I do not know. If you have followed my blog at all, you would probably have guessed this by now. Some people are good with people and others are not. I sit very much on the ‘not’ side of the equation. I suspect this will continue to be an issue through the rest of my India journey.

I did take some photos of the buildings though. By law all buildings have to be painted pink. I would love to have the paint supply contract!

Reluctant to offend, I did not take any photos of shops, or people near shops, or anything that tried to capture the busyness and colour of the bazaar, though I did see a few things that caught my attention. Like these dolls for instance.

And a small shrine on the side of a building.

Eventually I found my way to where the City Palace was located, I saw a bus full of westerners and decided to follow it!

Passing through a small square, full of parked tourist buses, I finally found a place that I felt comfortable taking photos in. Goats, monkeys and bikes abounded, my sort of thing.

I paid the entrance fee to the City Palace just before the office closed. There were still a lot of people inside and I had an hour before everyone was booted out.

Wondering around listlessly I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to what was going on, nor to the history of the place. In the past I tried to get a bit of background before I enter a castle or a palace or temple so I can get an idea of what I am seeing. I had not done so here and it impacted on my enjoyment, plus I had been awake for 27 hours and was knackered. I took a couple of photos and left without seeing much at all.

Though I did appreciate the silence.

I headed off round the back of the palace, down some streets that I suspect tourists do not generally go, I like back streets.

They are quieter and often more interesting – and on the other side of the gates there was a lot less pink!

I eventually found my way back to one of the main streets and as it was approaching evening I decided to grab a tuk tuk back to the hotel. Alcohol is almost frowned upon in Rajasthan, though cannabis is, I believe, legal. My tuk tuk driver was smoking a joint and offered to sell me some, which I politely declined. I am not sure if it impaired his driving or not, hard to tell on these streets.

Back at the hotel and verging on darkness I asked the hotel owner if I could buy a can of beer, he pointed me in the direction of a beer shop not far away, but on the other side of the main road. It was a challenge getting across that road, all for the sake of beer! As I walked back up the smaller, one way street the hotel was on, I discovered that having lights on your vehicle appears to not be mandatory, driving a car down a one way street the wrong way, seems to be OK as well. You really need to keep your wits about you. I drank a can of beer in my room before dinner as it is not allowed in the hotel restaurant, it was very nice!

Dinner in the hotel was good, cheap and delicious, though sleep was even better…

Bright lights, Big city.

Wednesday 06 April 2016 – Hong Kong.

We had a fabulous time in New Zealand, and leaving was tough. I really enjoyed seeing my family again and with such nice weather for most of our time there, being outside in the warm sun was very pleasant as well. But things end and it was time to move on. There will be no more lovely cool pinot gris for a while.

Rather than heading directly back to London we decided to break the trip and take a couple of days in Hong Kong. El had never been there, and I had an ill-fated work trip there back in 2007. Unknown to me I had been quite ill for a while with a bacterial abscess growing in my liver. It finally hit the day I arrived in Hong Kong for a five day work trip. I spent one day in the hotel and then eight days in hospital, where they made me well enough to fly home to New Zealand. I didn’t see much of the city at all. I was hoping for much better fortune this time around !

After almost 11 hours of flying we arrived in Hong Kong first thing on Wednesday morning, the flight was OK, I dozed a little bit but would hardly say I slept. We decided to get a cab to the hotel, we had pondered getting the train, but the cab was hardly more costly, and seemed a reasonable option for brain dead passengers. As we had an overnight flight and arrived at 7:30 am I had decided to book a hotel room for the previous night so we could go straight to the room rather than having to wait till mid-afternoon. This was a wise decision, it gave us a chance to change, have a shower, a coffee or two and a wee relax before heading out for the day.

The ride in from the hotel was less painful than I expected, and the view was similar to that from the airport, a heavy low sky resting on the top of high rises. Which is not really representative of what HK looks like, it is surprisingly green and lush and hilly! The pollution at first was terrible, I am hoping it cleared rather than we got used to it as I didn’t notice it at all later in the trip. Early in the ride from the airport my throat was sore and my eyes burnt. The smoggy fog did clear and stay gone later in the day.

I had booked a hotel right in the centre of the tourist section of Kowloon, on Knutsford Terrace, a pedestrian only street full of bars and restaurants. When I booked the room I didn’t know this. I was really nervous that we were going to have noisy nights as we were only on the fifth floor. Luckily I was very wrong, and we had two great nights. I could not say the same about the view from the room though!

I do love Asian scaffolding, Bamboo is immensely strong, but I am not sure I would be standing on that deck.

It was late morning before we headed out the door, we had no real plan in mind. Stroll down towards the harbour and see what happens and what we felt like doing was as planned as we got. It was only 21 degrees, cooler than New Zealand had been, and not particularly humid either. Perfect weather for strolling.

The museum section down at the waterfront was closed for renovation, which was a shame as quite a large area of harbour side was closed as well. I really liked this building though.

Above the hoardings around the closed museum and on the far side of the harbour, loomed the magnificent International Finance Centre tower (IFC).

The view on either side of Hong Kong harbour is magnificent, tall towers and steep hills make for a great sight.

We were down by the Star Ferry building and it seemed rude to not get a ferry over the harbour from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island.

The Sky 100 tower on Kowloon is equally magnificent !

We stopped for lunch in the mall in the IFC, sadly it was only on the 2^nd floor and not right up there with the big views.

From first observations, Hong Kong seems to be quite a new city, most of the buildings look to have been built in recent times, so it was quite nice to see an older and lower building deep in the shadows of the towers.

We walked through the central streets of down town Hong Kong and I have never seen so many high end brand shops, all the big names were there, more than once in some cases.

Though we didn’t catch one, there were a lot of trams on the lower, flat streets of down town Hong Kong. Vast sections of both down town Hong Kong and Kowloon are reclaimed land, and there is still a huge amount of work reclaiming more land from the sea. I heard that the IFC tower has foundations 44 metres deep!

We walked past the headquarters of HSBC and the Bank of China, both with their theme on the lion.

The French mission building really stood out as we started to wind our way up the lower foothills, as did St John’s Cathedral behind it.

We were looking for the Peak Tram, a funicular that went from the lower foothills up to the top of Victoria Peak. Built in 1888 it has been ferrying tourists up a very steep incline to the peak. It is quite a piece of engineering and is larger and steeper than I imagined. It is also very popular and we were lucky on our ride up to not have to wait long at all. There were much bigger queues going up when we got back down again.

There is a further climb up a series of escalators once we were off the funicular, though the view out of the window was a taste of what we would see from the top.

There was a southern US shrimp restaurant at the top, bizarre. We are in Hong Kong, not Louisiana. It even sold Forrest Gump souvenirs.

The view from the Peak is amazing, we had an OK day, we could at least see some distance, and we could see all of HK and over to Kowloon. I took a lot of photos, living in a large but low rise city, I love all these big towers, not so sure I would like to live in the middle of them.

We were up the top for a while, and had a bit of a walk around before heading down. The viewing platform is a rather odd shaped building.

With no sleep last night and being quite a walk from the hotel we decided to catch the funicular back down again rather than walk. Back down at almost sea level we walked through a small park towards the main shopping area. There are a few little parks around, for all its masses and height it is quite a green place, pleasant in parts.

Back down at the harbour side we caught one of the old Star Ferries back over to Kowloon.

That tower is really big!

It was a 20 minute walk back up to the hotel.

After a brief rest we decided to head to the bar downstairs at street level and have a couple of drinks before heading back out again, purely for hydration of course.

We decided to do a harbour tour tonight, there is a light show at 8:00pm every night over the harbour, with a lot of the building owners on either side lighting up their buildings or shining lasers into the sky, the photos we saw before hand made it look very spectacular, and a trip on a harbour is always a good thing. The walk back down again was more interesting at night, there is a lot of neon here.

I really liked this guy’s variation of ‘guy floating in the air’ – especially dressed as a monk in front of a giant CK advert…

The light show was a bit of a flop really, very unexciting. I am going to blame the clouds that swept in over the harbour, obscuring some of the lights, and rendering the lazers pretty much useless. It was hard to see what, if anything was going on. I did take a load of photos though, a lot were deleted as these were all hand held.

The show was a bit too long, and surprisingly it got quite cold, something I really did not expect. I was not dressed for coldness and got a bit shivery on the boat. I was glad to get off and walk back up to the hotel. We didn’t fancy anything big for dinner so grabbed some bread and cheese from an M and S on our street (it is so British here). We retired to our room to eat and drink a glass of wine sitting on our bed watching a Japanese football team play a Chinese team in the Asia Cup.

It was a long old day, but really good and neither of us ended up in hospital.

A trip to the zoo, a final day with Mason.

Tuesday 05 April 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

Last day in New Zealand – it has all gone so fast, 12 days is such a short time. Even though it is our last day I was looking forward to it as we were going to take Mason to the zoo. I love the zoo. Auckland Zoo do this cool thing where you can buy an annual pass for a named child and get a free un-named pass for an adult to go with it. This means any adult can take the child to the zoo for free. I think it is a wonderful scheme.

El and I did a fair amount of packing and organising before we left for the zoo with mum, we picked up my grandson Mason on the way and arrived at the zoo late morning. It was a glorious day, it will be good to leave Auckland on a good weather day – means the flight departure will not be too bad either !

The kids pass seemed to be well liked as there were loads of mums with prams making use of the lovely day. Mason seemed intrigued by what was going on.

There was not a lot to see for the first hour we were at the zoo, it was a warm day and the midday sun seemed to force a lot of the animals into wisely slumbering in the shade. Mason was sort of interested in what was going on, but there was not a whole lot of it. The zoo has had a real make-over over the past couple of decades, no longer do you see listless animals pacing in small boxes, there are far less animals but in much bigger and more appropriate enclosures. We did stop for a look at the lemurs.

I wanted to visit the Kiwi House, so I could show El what the kiwi bird looks like. They are nocturnal creatures, small, brown, flightless and defenceless. They are an endangered species, but I do not think they are on an immediate concern list. We did see a couple walking around behind their glass shields, though it was very dark, and impossible to take photos in.

We stopped outside so Mason could have a drink and a snack, he only stayed in his stroller for a few minutes and had been walking around for a while. He only has little legs. He also has a very cheeky grin.

After looking at the elephants we stopped for an ice cream, and in my case a much needed coffee. Mason and mum seemed to be very happy with their ice cream.

After watching some other kids playing, Mason wanted to go and walk around in the little fountain, so like a true kiwi kid, it was shoes off for a splash.

Mason finally found his happy place in the zoo, not with any of the animals, he found a bike. Mason loves bikes, cars and trucks, and these are some of the few words he has. He was very happy to be able to sit on the old scooter on display in the African section.

Then joy of joys, there was another bike!

The highlight for Mason, and for us watching him, was a small looped tunnel that led to a viewing window in the middle of the meerkat enclosure. He spent quite a bit of time running in and out of the tunnels with two other children his height – just short enough to stand up. It took us a while to tear him, and the other kids away, it was great listening to them laughing out of sight in the tunnel.

He also quite liked the meerkats, as did I.

That was pretty much the end of our loop of the zoo, a couple of hours had disappeared really quickly. Mason was knackered (I know how he felt) and he was asleep in the car before we even left the car park.

We dropped him off at home, and I got to have one last cuddle before he went inside. I won’t see him again for a while, hopefully I will be back in New Zealand before the end of year.

In the evening we had dinner with Mum, my sister, Mel and Dickie and Aiden in a Sri Lankan restaurant not far from Mel’s place. It was great to have kotu roti again, the food was excellent, and very good value. After dinner we said goodbye to Aiden, mum and my sister and Mel and Dickie took us to the airport for our flight to Hong Kong at midnight.

And that was it. Our time in New Zealand was over, all too soon once again. We had a really good time, we both enjoyed our road trip up north, and it was fabulous seeing family and friends again. It was especially good to be able to spend some time with Mason and take a few photos that will come back to London with me. El liked Auckland a lot more than she did last time, so the possibility of buying a property there is on the ‘maybe, one day’ list. We will have to see.

Thanks to mum and my sister for letting us stay, for looking after us. Mel, Aiden, Dickie, it was great seeing you and Mason again. Love you all and looking forward to seeing you on Skype and hopefully in the flesh November(ish). xx

Visiting and old friend with an old friend.

Monday 04 April 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

Like most bloggers I also follow and read a few other WordPress blogs and sporadically randomly read a few others. I like to see what is out there, what other people are seeing and doing and maybe get ideas about writing and photography for my own use. I recently read a post by a youngish guy, I think he was English, who had just left Auckland. He was moaning about how boring, expensive and unfriendly he thought New Zealand and specifically Auckland was. In between his moaning he described what he did in Auckland. Pretty much nothing, he never left the city. No wonder he was bored.

I, on the other hand, always get out of the city, and today was going to be one of those out of the city days. I had yet to see my good friend Vicki on this trip, there just hadn’t been time so far to fit enough time in, but I had kept a day up my sleeve just in case. Vicki and I usually catch up over a walk or a run somewhere in the hills, as I did not have a huge amount of time we decided to keep it semi-local and go to one of my favourite places in the whole world – Karekare Beach.

Karekare is on Auckland’s west coast, it has no shops, few houses and a toilet block was only built there in the last few years. It feels remote, yet it is under an hour from the centre of the city, less if there is no traffic on the very winding road. It is a magical place and I have been here to run, walk, swim and photograph many many times.

There was not going to be much running today, I am woefully unfit and Vicki is very very fit and would leave me for dead on the trails, but we had lots of gossiping to do so a good walk was definitely in order. We started walking along the black sand beach – following where we could find them, the trail markers for the Hillary Trail.

I have mentioned the Hillary in previous posts, it was created in honour of Sir Edmund Hillary, and is 75kms of interlinked trail traversing the Waitakere Ranges from South to North (or Vice Versa). When it was first created it was a rugged and gnarly walk using old hiking trails. Over the last few years, it is slowly being ‘dumbed down’ and made easier and safer – though it was never dangerous. This is to cater more for the walking tourist who may not necessarily want to get their boots dirty, well that is how it seems to me. This section along the beach did not exist when I left the country, the trail was back in the hills then.

Back in the old kauri logging days there used to be a train line running along this section of the coast, ferrying the great logs to Whatipu where ships used to take them into Auckland, the train line is long gone, but the old tunnel at Tunnel Point still remains, as does a rusting hulk of a cylinder.

I stopped to take a few photos of the small lake that has long been here, stuck between the sand dunes and the cliff face, over a rainy winter this whole area can flood as the water comes down from the hills and finds nowhere else to go.

One of the things I really love about New Zealand is, apart from some people, there is nothing dangerous, too bitey or poisonous living here. Wading barefoot and legged through a swampy flooded lake might not feel good on the feet, but at least no animal is going to try and kill you. Being the end of summer, there was no flood, and no need to wade barefoot through anything at all. The only life we saw were a couple of black swans.

We turned inland past the lake and headed up the start of the Pararaha Valley. The first hundred yards or so cuts through reed beds and the track is a low boardwalk. Designed to allow 365 day access to the area, though I have walked up here before when the boardwalk has been submerged as well.

And then it was UP ! Buck Taylor was always one of my least favourite tracks on a long run or walk, it is steep ! But the view back down over the entrance to the valley is always worth it.

I was surprised by how much mud there was when we got to the ridge line at the top, there wasn’t huge amounts, but I was surprised to find any at all, given that it is the end of summer. It was good to see the tracks here are still proper hiking tracks with mud and roots uneven steps. Just how I like it.

We followed Zion Ridge Track, it is pretty flat and a real joy to run on, the bush up here is really nice too, with lots of manuka, kauri and puriri trees leaving layers of crunchy leaves on the trail.

We came across this big old puriri tree, slowly being taken over by the vine like rata. It is a massive tree, ancient and twisted. Lovely.

Very soon we were on the cliff top overlooking Karekare Beach where we started. Looking back down the beach towards Pararaha Valley.

Karekare Beach.

Now you can see why this is one of my favourite places ! Beach, surf, hills, mud, trees, wilderness. What is there not to love about Karekare.

It was a great couple of hours out and about, Vicki is good company, a not too old friend, but one of my best friends and it was great to catch up. Vicki is the editor of Kiwi Trail Runner magazine and is very enthusiastic about anything trail and trail running. She gave me a couple of issues of the mag to take home with me as I was not quite up to date !!

She also stores my trail shoes at her house, to save me carting them back and forth from England. Now that is a true friend !

If it’s yellow, let it mellow.

Saturday 02 April 2016, Northland New Zealand.

The morning broke open with a better sky than it closed with last night, solidly grey but not raining at least. Today we return to the car and continue our journey south. Not a long day driving again, we are spending a night in Leigh, an hour north of Auckland. We were not in any rush.

We took in the view from the front of the B and B as we were packing the car, I love the way the mist is curling up out of the hills, feeding that big wet blanket looming above them. Perhaps that rain might come back?

We left just before 10:00 and I made my first stop not far out of town, my last Northland church on this trip. The church at Taumarere was originally built in Paihia in 1874 and was barged here in 1926. It does not look like it is used overly much anymore. I was trying to get a photo with the mist and low brooding hills as a backdrop, but there was not enough space on the narrow strip of land surrounding the church.

Our first stop was in Kawakawa at the famous HunterWasser toilets. I had been looking for these a couple of days when we passed through Kaitia on our way up the country as I was sure they were in that town. I was really pleased to find I was wrong and we got see them today. I have heard about them before but never seen them in the flesh. Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian architect and artist who migrated to New Zealand in 1975, he passed away in 2000. He has designed buildings all over the world and I always thought it bizarre he built a public toilet in northern New Zealand. They are a shining light in an otherwise unspectacular rural NZ town. And they are free to use !

Whangerei Falls was a fairly regular stop on any northern journey, though the car park and facilities have improved since I was last there, there are some facilities at least. The falls sit in a residential area and the size of them really come as a surprise to the newcomer. At 26 metres high they are bigger than you would have thought.

There is a nice circular path from the top to the base and back up again to the car park. They were a really enjoyable diversion on our travels south.

There was a huge amount of spray coming off the falls, I took a quick snap before heading back into the trees.

We were meeting my daughter and her B/F on the way back south. We had agreed to meet in Matakana but sadly ended up being forced to meet at the Brick Bay Winery Smile The pinot gris was really really nice and I was gutted to be driving. Even though it is sunny in this picture, a very heavy shower passed over soon after, and heavy showers passed over for the rest of the day, we got damp a couple of times. Me thinking ‘I wish I was not driving!’

After a soothing glass and a shared cheese board we headed off to nearby Snells Beach for a walk. It has been a popular Auckland holiday destination for many years, but I was shocked at how big and built up it had become since I was last here.

The beach is still lovely, and this photo of my daughter Mel and her B/F, Dickie is one of my favourites of the whole trip, the light was just perfect for those few minutes.

As you could tell by those clouds, we did not get to stay for much longer and they were soon on top of us, and they dumped a fair amount of rain in a very short time. Though it did not seem to bother these two old blokes netting for their tea.

We stopped in Matakana on the way out to Leigh to pick up some provisions, cheese, crackers etc for a pre-evening drink. El really liked Nosh, the deli we shopped in, and Matakana in general.

I had rented a bach for the four us to stay in. The original plan was my son Aiden, and grandson Mason would join us as well. However, Aiden had tickets to a music festival in Wellington and had stuffed up dates for the weekend… A bach is basically a beach home, they used to be small and full of shabby furniture, mismatched crockery and cutlery, piles of board games and a BBQ outside. Seems these days that most cost more than a million dollars and are palaces for the rich. NZ is changing like the rest of the world. Though, our bach, in the village of Leigh, is a proper bach bach, we loved it.

Brown Fibrolite is classic New Zealand bach building material, it made me nostalgic for times old.

I was really pleased that I had picked such a good place to stay, Leigh itself is a little bit inland and does not have the spectacular sandy beaches some of the other places on this stretch of coast have but this place made up for any of that. El really liked it though she was not so impressed with the loo poetry.

The other reason for selecting this place was it was walking distance of Leigh Sawmill Cafe, where we went for dinner – and a couple of bottles of, you guessed it, pinot gris.

Kicking about in and around Paihia.

Friday 01 April 2016 – Northland, New Zealand.

Wanting to stay away from the main tourist hubbub of ‘downtown’ Paihia, I booked El and I a room in a small B and B in Haruru Falls, a couple of kilometres inland. The room was very comfortable, (it had the nicest chairs ever !) had nice views and good wifi. Perfect for a down day on our small road trip, and a welcome opportunity for me to not be driving all the time. El does not have a drivers licence so we could not share the driving. We had expected that the day was not going to break like yesterday with a great sunrise followed by clear a clear sky, so we were not surprised to look at the window at a grey old view. It is still a damn good view!

After a very nice breakfast in the B and B we headed out to see Haruru Falls, and maybe get a short walk in before the forecasted downpours arrived. In the very early 80s friends and I hitch hiked up here from Auckland over a couple of summers for the new year celebrations in nearby Russell, we used to stay in the campground near the falls and it was pleasing to see the old campground is still there, looking a bit run down mind.

We were lucky in that there had been a little bit of rain over the past few days as this meant there was some water passing over the falls.

We spent a bit of time around the top of the falls, I was waiting to grab a photo without other viewers, something I always try to do. We didn’t have to wait too long mind.

The rain that was due to come had not materialised so we decided to do a short walk along the path to Waitangi. I had originally planned that with good weather we could do the full three hour return walk, but with heavy rain forecast we decided against it. We did get down to the water edge and through a small section of mangroves, before turning back as rain drops started to fall. Naturally the rain stopped before we got back to the car.

The walk we did was nice enough, we got to stretch our legs a bit and saw some interesting flora along the way. This is a very unusual and spiky plant, it looks quite n nice, but it is wild ginger and is an imported noxious pest and one of the most invasive weeds in the world. I have never seen it flowering before and was not sure what it was until I looked it up.

The owner of our guest house told us to visit Mt Bledisloe; at a mighty 105 metres high it is hardly a mountain, not even higher than the hill next to it. It does have a big view over Paihia, Waitangi, over to the Hen and Chicken Islands and up and down the coast. On a clear day I am sure it is spectacular. I liked the useful sign at the start of the track.

Bledisloe was the governor general of New Zealand and presented this ceramic plaque on the top of the hill to the nation in 1934. The plaque was made by 11278 miles away in London by Doulton and is fabulous.

We drove down to Waitangi to have a look at the treaty grounds. The Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of New Zealand and is (in theory) the guiding principle by which the government make and change law. It was signed in 1840 as a treaty between the British Crown and a group of north island Maori chiefs and was the document that made NZ a part of the commonwealth.

The treaty grounds are now part of a large new museum which now attracts an entry fee of $40 each, which is far too expensive for us. I was really unhappy that all the museums we wanted to visit had what we considered an exorbitant entry fee. Maybe we are just too used to free museums in London, or low cost museums elsewhere. I was particularly disappointed by the fee here as this location and its history is fundamental to New Zealand’s history and should be made as widely and freely available as possible.

Carrying on to Paihia we stopped near the very cool ‘wee’ public toilet.

We had a bit of a walk around, and stopped for coffee and a cake, but as a tourist centre there is not a heck of a lot in Paihia itself. Especially on such a grey day.

There is a a lot to do and see nearby, but apart from eating, drinking and sleeping Paihia holds limited attraction. So we drove up to nearby Kerikeri instead.

Like Cape Reinga I do not recall ever having seen the Stone Store since I was a child. It is one of the classic north island tourist locations, but I just never had cause to go there as an adult. Showing El around was a good excuse to check it out.

The Kerikeri mission station was founded in 1819 and was the first European settlement to be built under the blessing and protection of local Maori chiefs. It was part harbour, part safe haven and part mission site.

The stone store is New Zealand’s oldest stone building. It was built in 1832. Living in the UK, I do find the fact that it is so new, but still the oldest stone building, quite laughable, but in a cute and loving way!.

I recall the church at Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight that was REBUILT in 1070, and it is so insignificant that hardly anyone has even heard of it, ‘old’ is very subjective.

Kemp House (or the Mission House) is the neighbour of the stone store and is New Zealand’s oldest building, it was completed in 1822.

One of the things I find amusing in an angry ironic way, is that the early European settlers decided to bring little bits of home to New Zealand, the church at the mission station has a lovely old English oak tree growing next to it.

While the oak is fine, what the settlers also brought with them were pests; rabbits, deer, possums, rats and mice. These animals have devastated the New Zealand countryside, destroying native vegetation, birds, insects and reptiles. With very few exceptions, New Zealand had no land based mammals prior to European visitors. The early Maori bought pigs with them from Asia, and prior to that there were only bats and sea based mammals. The native birds and insects had no chance.

I loved these epiphytes growing on the branches in this tree, I have seen these on a few occasions before, there is small one in my sisters garden, but I have not seen one this massive, or close to the ground. An epiphyte is a plant that grows on another plant without harming it.

On the way back to Haruru Falls we stopped in the Cottle Bay Winery for a small tasting, I was driving so needed to be very careful. They made a really unusual walnut liqueur which was really nice, so we ended up buying a bottle of that and a white port to take back to London, as well as a bottle of wine to drink later on.

I ended up driving a lot more than I wanted to today, but the weather sort of dictated what e could do, but it was good to get too a few places I haven’t seen, as well as show El some more of my lovely adopted homeland!

Cape Reinga

Thursday 31 March 2016 – Northland, New Zealand.

After a really nice evening, we slept well and were up early. We had quite a big day ahead, with five or six hours driving to get up to the top of the country and back down again, but to Paihia on the east coast. El was up to watch a great sunrise, but slack bugger that I am I missed it entirely. I am not much of a photographer! I did catch the glow just before the sun fully popped up over the horizon.

After an unspectacular breakfast (I still ate like a pig) we checked out and were on the road early. I had planned on catching the car ferry from Rawene, but foolishly did not check a timetable before we left and arrived with a 45 minute wait for the ferry. I took a photo of the great old church at Rawene.

With another half an hour to go we checked out the local coffee shop and sat out on the deck in the sun, gazing over the harbour and enjoyed a very nice flat white.

The car ferry is small, it is only a 15 minute journey, and there were only eight cars on it, still more than I expected for a mid-week morning.

I took a photo of the route planner that was outside the car window on the ferry. We drove up from the bottom of the map to the top, up the right hand side and down the left. Luckily there are not too many road choices !

The small town of Rawene.

Another church, stupidly I forgot to note the name of the church, and even more stupidly I cut the top of the spire off. Doh!

The drive up to the cape is very pretty, wild and remote, and fairly deserted on the road as well. We decided to not take the beach route (and the rental car terms forbid it anyway) and with so much driving already planned we did not take any detours either. We could have gone to 90 mile beach for a look. Next time.

The road to the cape is excellent, it was unsealed not that long ago, pleased to see some of the petrol tax dollars I paid in NZ put to some good use.

We arrived at Cape Rienga early in the afternoon, the car park was about half full, which was a relief, I was half expecting a load of tour buses, but it was pretty quiet. The walk to the tip and the lighthouse takes about 20 minutes. I was a little bit excited as I had very much been looking forward to coming here, and showing El some of my adopted homeland.

Soon we were there, at the cape.

where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean at the very end of New Zealand.

Only 18029km back to London!

We were a little snackish as we set off back southward. I had been big-upping the fish and chip shop at Mangonui on Doubtless Bay on the way, so we stopped there for a very late lunch. We were not impressed, service was a bit confusing and not particularly friendly and the small fish and chips were nice, but massively overpriced. I was disappointed to be honest. It is not on my recommended list any more, sadly. We had such a good eating and drinking experience in New Zealand, shame to have a couple of places bring it down a bit.

After the break we carried on driving down to Haruru Falls, just outside Paihia where I had booked a room in a B and B for two nights. I was glad to get there, after six hours in the car, albeit with lots of breaks, it was nice to not have to get back in and drive again.

Though we had to in the end, there are no restaurants in Haruru Falls, so I had to drive into town for dinner. We did have an amazing Thai at Amazing Thai.

It was another good day.

Lord of the Forest

Wednesday 30 March 2016 – Northland, New Zealand.

As this New Zealand trip is a large part of El and my holiday allowance for the year I snuck a few days away for just the two of us amongst the family and friend visits. Family and friends are a crucial part of my visits back to NZ and I really enjoy them, but after long flights and jet lag I find them stressful and draining as well – especially trying to fit everyone who wants to see us in to such a tight schedule. El and I were both looking forward to going away by ourselves for some R and R. Naturally I planned on squeezing in touring and road trips and sightseeing and as much as possible. I never learn.

I wanted to go up to Cape Rienga, the most northly tip of New Zealand, the only other time I was there was in 1975 – mum and I think so anyway. It is pretty much a new bit of New Zealand for both us, though I have been as far as Omapere before. It is a long drive from Auckland so I broke the trip up over three days so we could relax a bit and see a few other things on the way up, and down again.

It was a slow start to the day, we left mum’s place at 9:30 and after a wrong turn here, some incredibly bad traffic there and some stupid lane choices and getting stuck going the wrong way on a non-moving motorway it was an hour before we actually were officially ‘on the way’. I had elected to go up the western side of the island and come back down via the eastern.

By some sort of miracle, it was a stunning day, warm and sunny and perfect for driving. I have slowed down a lot on the last few years, Kiwi drivers are notoriously awful, not madly suicidal like some countries, just rude, arrogant and ignorant. I was that person behind the wheel. No longer; cruising ‘up north’ at a sedate pace was the order of the day, enjoying the reasonable quiet off-season, mid-week roads, and some great scenery.

Our first stop was Matakohe, at the Kauri Museum, we decided not to go into the museum as it was a bit pricey, but we did look in the shop and I took a couple of photos of some of the buildings outside. I have a thing for the old churches in Northland, I have a few photos from ‘back in the day’ kicking around somewhere. I was going to stop and take photos of as many as I could, but only managed to grab a few. They are quite unique, mainly built in the latter part of the 19^th century when Anglican missionaries flooded into the country, they are small, wooden painted white, often with a red roof. They look lovely.

The old Matakohe post office – also lovely. New Zealand’s history is not very old, there are no ancient buildings, but the ‘old’ buildings are quiet unique to New Zealand.

Heading further north we came across this wonderful old derelict church.

After a pretty reasonable, though quite expensive lunch in Dargaville we were soon heading north again up to the Waipoua Forest. The Waipoua is one of the largest areas of northland kauri remaining in New Zealand, and I was keen to stop briefly to see Tane Mahuta, New Zealand’s biggest kauri tree. The road north was surprisingly good, a lot of work must have been done here in the last few years, though it is pretty windy and we got stuck behind someone going really slowly and the Kiwi driver came out in me for a while and I was muttering and cursing for the ten minutes we were held up.

We stopped by the Waipoua River to take a couple of photos of the river and some of the other kauri growing.

After a leg stretch, we were back in the car and finally stopping at the entrance to the short path to the big tree itself, Tane Mahuta ‘Lord of the forest’. It is not a particularly tall tree at only 58 ft tall, but it is 45ft round and looks massive. It is quite impressive up close.

The tree is accessed via a board walk to prevent visitors from trampling too close to its roots, as the bush is quite dense the tree almost appears by surprise when you walk round a gentle bend in the path. I have been a bit obsessed with taking photos with a bit of flare in them but went full flareage here !

It is only a short drive from the Tane Mahuta car park to our final stop for the day at Omapere on the edge of the Hokianga Harbour. There was a viewing point at the top of the hill above the harbour so we stopped to have a look. I hadn’t really told El much about the places we would be staying and she was really excited to know that we were in a small hotel right next to the wharf in the bottom of the photo. What a view !!!

I had booked a room on the internet, but had not really specified any particular requirements, once we were there I asked if we could upgrade, for a nominal increase in cost to a beach view room, and thankfully we could. Wow ! out of the room, on to the ground level deck, across a small stretch of grass was sand and then sea. We could not be any closer. After nipping back up the road to the shop to get a bottle of pinot gris, I was togs on (NZ for swimming costume) and into the sea. My first swim in 18 months. It was cold, but not too bad, El watched…

Once dry and refreshed with a glass of wine, it was camera out and I took a lot of photos as the sun slowly sunk into the sea in front and to the side of us, the golden hour was truly golden.

The sky started off with a nice set of clouds and I was really looking forward to a great colour show once the sun dropped out of sight below the horizon.

However it was not to be, as the clouds slowly dissipated before my eyes and the wild red and purple sky that was in my head did not materialise. It was very special all the same.

A great start to our road trip, tomorrow is Cape Rienga!

To New Zealand. (Warning – this post contains gratuitous grandchild photos.)

Thursday 24 March 2016 – Auckland, New Zealand.

It has been an interesting few weeks since I last mentioned looking for a flat to buy, or made any visits to Folkestone, the main location I was looking at flats in. It has been a slow start to the year at work and I have been a little nervous about getting a mortgage I could not afford to pay if I was suddenly out of work. I have taken a break from flat hunting until things become more certain. I am a little disappointed that I have had take a break from finding my own place, but it has also been good to take a break. My three day weekends are my own again!

Earlier in the year El and I booked return tickets to New Zealand, it has been almost a year since I was last there and 24 months since we were there together. Like all visits this was to be short, and hopefully sweet. We had 12 days in New Zealand followed by three days in Hong Kong on the way back to London. It is a lot of money, but it will be good to see family and friends.

With so much on at work we have employed a contract applications analyst who will cover for me while I am away, and then do the grunt support work when I return, so I can concentrate on some projects that are coming up. It has been so busy these last few weeks I have been really looking forward to the break!

I have also been looking forward to some nice weather too, we have had a pretty mild winter in London, no snow (yet), so it has not been too cold, but it has been grey and damp and the thought of 21 degrees in Auckland was very exciting. Naturally, the day we left London was glorious.

Our flight left London on Tuesday evening, we had a day at work to contend with, which is never fun, and even less fun was lugging big suitcases on the tube through rush hour traffic. We left home at 7:00, hoping there would be less people than 7:30. There seemed to be more, oh well – at least the walk to the station was nice.

We flew Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong, it was a full flight, and unusually for me I slept for four or five hours of the 11 hour flight. I was quite happy with that outcome. El has a much worse flight than me, poor girl. Mine was aided by a couple of red wines at the Heathrow before the flight. I watched a bit of inflight TV – most of season 6 of Archer, and one movie. The entertainment options were not too bad. We had just under two hours in HK airport, we stay here for two days on the way back to London and I am really looking forward to that – especially after my last ill fated visit to the city. It was all looking rather grey out of the airport window.

I didn’t realise the flight on to London was code-shared and on an Air New Zealand plane, I may have planned differently and grabbed a few more Air NZ air miles for next time. I recently found out I am going to be a grandfather again, my oldest son and middle child, Dom’s partner is expecting in October. He lives in Aussie and sadly I will not see him on this trip. I will come back to NZ and Aussie once the baby is born, hopefully using some air points to either improve the flight or reduce the cost.

We were seated over the wing on both flights, which meant there was no spectacular view out the window – a waste of a window seat really ! I put the camera away after taking this picture, didn’t seem to be much point.

We left the terminal slightly late and missed our take off spot, this ended up with a massive delay in leaving and we were in the plane for over an hour before take off. It really adds to the joy that is long distance travel ! it was another very full plane, El had a better flight than me this time, so I guess we were even !! The 10 half hours to Auckland seemed to take forever, possibly because we lost a day – we left on Tuesday and arrived on Thursday morning. Wednesday failed to exist for us. We did watch the movie Wild, which I have been wanting to see, I also watched the final Hunger Games movie, the second Divergent series movie and four episodes of the TV series Blindspot. Got them all out of the way, though none were on any particular must watch list.

We landed on time fortunately and ever more fortunately had a quick trip through customs and out in to the arrival hall where my mum was waiting. It was really good to see mum again ! We haven’t Skyped for a while, and of course we have not seen each other since I was last here almost a year ago.

Unlike London, Auckland was grey and warm – 21 degrees and quite humid. We were, apparently, very lucky to have just missed a really bad storm that blew through over night. With heavy rain and high winds it would have made for a lousy approach and landing, and I really hate those !!

We are staying at mum’s place for a few nights, and not long after we arrived my youngest son, Aiden arrived with his son, and my grandson Mason who is about 20 months. He was a little cautious about these strangers for about the first two minutes, but soon settled in to playing and interacting with us. It must be unusual to see me face to face when he would normally only see me on the computer screen, I was very much out of context.

He is a delightful wee boy, and very hard to take a photo of…. he loves cars, bikes and trucks. Like most boys his age I expect.

Mason takes his food very seriously.

Aiden is teaching him to pull faces, a skill that he will obviously need later in life.

Aiden and Mason left soon after an early dinner, I was falling asleep on the couch by 7:30 and ended up being soundly asleep in bed by 8:30. I had a great, and very unexpected sleep too!

Lovely to see mum, Aiden and Mason today and looking forward to seeing my daughter, Mel and her partner, Dickie tomorrow.

Castillo de Sagunto.

Sunday 28 February 2016 – Valencia, Spain.

With the room nicely pre-warmed last night, along with a late night, red wine and whisky, most of us slept in quite late this morning. Paul managed to sneak out and go to one of the local markets well before anyone else emerged. It was a much warmer morning than yesterday, the wind had dropped and there were hints of a sun peaking through the clouds.

Paul returned soon after we had breakfast and we all set out rather late for today’s adventure. A trip up the coast to the small town of Sagunto and its wonderful old ruined castle.

Sagunto is a port town and the castle sits on a low bluff overlooking the sea and a wide valley. We knew the castle closed at 14:00 on a Sunday and it was after 13:00 when we arrived in town. We drove around for what seemed like ages trying to find the entrance, the first attempt led us completely to the wrong side of the bluff. I had resigned myself (quietly) that this would be as close as I would get to visiting this massive old structure.

We finally found the way in to the right side of town, but found absolutely no where to park. Paul volunteered to drive off and find a park, so Paula, El and I jumped out the car and went looking for the road up to the gates.

We were dropped off outside The Church of Saint Maria, so I stopped for a quick photo of its magnificent doors. The church was started in 1334 and finally completed in 1730, a rather long build – a bit like the restoration of the escalators at Walthamstow Central! As was common at the time, it was built on the site of the main mosque in Sagunto soon after the Christians under Aragon 1 wrestled rule of the town from the Moors. It was finally finished in what has become the Valencian Gothic style of architecture.

Just outside the church there was a small road train that took visitors up the hill to the castle itself, for expediencies sake we jumped on the train and took the lazy way up the hill. Outside the main castle is an old amphitheatre, recently renovated and still used as a theatre.

I was very excited on the final walk up to the entrance, hoping we would be allowed in so late, I am a little boy at heart when it comes to castles and ruins, cannot help it ! Even the outside walls, especially with the un-British sight of cacti growing below had me bouncing…

We arrived at the gate at 13:30, were allowed in but advised we had 30 minutes. I am going to have to go back and visit another day, it is a big place and worthy of a couple of hours! We did make it in, I was very happy.

There has been a settlement on the bluff for hundreds of years. The Roman settlement was under siege by Hannibal way back in 219 BC, this event was the start of the Punic War, one of the most significant periods of warfare in ancient times, Hannibal’s army was finally stopped just outside the gates of Rome. Any further and the world would be a different place !

In 214 BC the town was retaken by Rome and as you would expect what followed for the next few hundred years was long periods of settlement interspersed with the odd invasion, change of ruler, change of religion when the Muslim Moors ruled this part of Spain for 500 (ish) years, with a brief change in the middle. It was in 1238 when Aragon conquered the area that things pretty much settled down for a while.

All this time the castle on the hill was expanded, modified, knocked down a bit, built up some more, but was never really destroyed. You can see influences from all the different groups who have occupied this vast site.

There is little information about the actual interior of the castle, there are a few signs inside that describe some of the sections, but they were not overly verbose and they were in Spanish so not much use in the short time we had. We only managed to see one side – the far end is over a kilometre away.

The Temple of Diana is pretty much the first thing you see once you are through the gate. There is a lot of renovation work going on, numerous sections are fenced off, and you can tell there is a monumentally large and long project going on to explore and renovate the interior. If it is all done as well as the already completed sections then it will be a fabulous place to visit in the future. There are photos of this building from 1923 and it was looking very similar to what it is like now. It must have been maintained for a very long time.

As we did not have a lot of time, I left El and Paula to it and nipped off here and there, taking photos where I saw something interesting, there are parts of the castle that can be explored and clambered on, and I am always up for that. I imagine as things become more formally renovated then the clambering will stop, I am not against that of course, but will take the opportunity to explore where I want when I can. Obviously I take as much care as I can, and do not risk either myself or the place I am exploring.

We explored the eastern end of the castle, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, as you can see the western end is quite a long way away.

Paula took a photo of me taking the photo….

I walked around a small section of the perimeter, there were great views down on to the rooftops of the houses below. I really like a good view of rooftops, especially the higgledy piggledy view over a town built on a hillside. Sagunto looks great from up here and the Church really stands out when viewed from this angle, from the ground it is all bunched up in the narrow cobbled streets and much harder to feel the scale of the building.

The walls are really imposing, and I could see why so much is still standing after such a long time. I also have a thing about walls and trees…

With time running out I headed quickly back over to the centre of the castle, to try and get a good look at the far end, from a distance it looks even more imposing than where I had just been. I really must come back here and explore again more fully. There is a whole castle up on that hill!

The walls show building materials and styles from most of the various occupiers of the site, from the Romans, the Moors and the later Spanish.

There were some great details, in some cases, literally lying on the ground.

All too quickly it was 14:00 and the gates were going to close, so I reluctantly bade adios to Castillo de Sagunto and walked outside to meet El and Paula.

We headed back down the hill, through some of the streets and past houses that I saw from the top of the hill. Looking back at this trip, and back further to my time in southern Spain in 2012, these small hillside, ‘white house’ villages are some of my favourite places to wander around. I love the randomness of the streets, the twisting and turning, the ones that end in steps, or just go nowhere, the fact there are few people about and almost no visible cars. Perfect!

By pure co-incidence at the end of one of the streets we wandered down we found Paul sitting outside Mason el Castillo, a roadside cafe, drinking a beer and waiting for us to turn up. We ordered some food and drinks all round and relaxed there for a while, enjoying the atmosphere and some really nice tapas (again)!

I went for a quick walk around the area, up and down a few more streets, this part of town is really lovely.

It was not a bad day so we decided to head back to the car and drive down to sea and hopefully find an ice cream. On the way back we passed this building which looked like it had an old Roman era pillar holding up one corner of a mezzanine. Wonderful.

On the way to the car, parked in another free train station car park, we passed a real estate agent and was surprised to see that you could by a one bedroom flat in town for 26000 Euros… It probably wasn’t very nice, but that is much less than a car park in parts of London.

We drove down to El Puig, a small beach side town. Sadly, like so many other places in Spain El Puig has its share of failed building ventures and we parked right outside one of them. Liberally covered in graffiti, and broken walls visible through the gaps where doors and windows would have been, this place was a reminder of the failed fortunes of Spain and other places in Mediterranean Europe.

The beach was still nice, and there was plenty of other far more successful businesses along the strip of beach and the marina nearby. We walked down to the end of the marina and then back again, stopping for an ice cream – just as it started to get cold, before heading back to Lliria and Paul and Paula’s house.

I lit the fire inside, while Paul set up the fire in the outside stove, where he eventually baked a wonderful fresh salmon which we had for tea. It was another evening of wine and The Walking Dead and another quite late one. But we did almost finish season two!

We had another good sleep, before getting up quite early on Monday morning as El and I were flying back to London. Paula dropped us off at Lliria station and we caught what must have been a late rush hour train back into Valencia. It was reasonably full by the time we got in to the centre, though we crossed over to another line for the almost deserted train out to the airport.

And that was the end of our trip to Valencia. We had a great time, Paul and Paula’s place is fantastic, Paul and Paula are great hosts, Valencia is an awesome city and we are both really looking forward to going back again.