At the Top End - Darwin

 Please do not think dear reader that we have zipped back to the UK for a festival!, this blog describes our visit to the iconoc Mindl Beach Night Market in Darwin. This was an amazing experience and all the better for being quite unexpected. Phileas had failed to bring any travel information about Darwin as the stay was only to be brief. But amazingly, we were in Darwin on the one day a week when this market happens. A shuttle bus took us from our hotel and we spent an hour or so browsing the 100 or so food stalls selling food from all over the world, from Greek Souvlaki to French Crepes and Vietnamese Pho. We opted for delicious salads and took our supper to the beach to watch the sun set. Now we have watched the sun setting from Cornwall to Vietnam, Australia to Vancouver Island but we have never experienced a sunset watch like this one.

 We, of course, had to have a quick beachcomb, and Fogg snapped this rather intriguing photo of a small volcano made of almost perfect 'pearls' of sand. Phileas thinks she knows what animal made it, do you?

 A few shells and fragments of coral had to be collected and more wiggly lines investigated before we returned to the dunes to join the several thousand other sunset watchers.

 Families were enjoying picnics, playing footie or just sitting gazing out to sea waiting...... We are always happy to chat to people we meet, these 2 from Queensland were as amzed as us by the numbers. While we waited we swapped travellers tales and compared journeys we had made.
Then the sun began to sink slowly in the west (I know it isn't really!!!) and we were delighted when a range of boats moved across our view. We will leave the pictures to speak for themselves. Well, hopefully, as at the time of writing a couple seem reluctant to appear, maybe they will be there when we finally hit the publish button.

Quite beautiful and crazy at the same time!! We wandered through the market and chose a small painting of a turtle by a young, aboriginal woman called Natasha Lloyd. The green back sea turtle (gurlibil - Yawuru language) is her totem, given to her when she was born. It is painted in traditional colours and in the 'dot' style.

Now we are in Broome, waiting to head to The Kimberley. We will blog our adventures on our return in about 2 weeks.

Until then, best wishes from

Fogg and Phileas

Aoraki/Mt Cook postscript, fishing with Fogg and MacKenzie country

 Fogg where are you? Phileas seems to have lost her bearings as she and Fogg climb to the Red Tarns above the village of Aoraki/Mt Cook. They reprised their rendition of the Sound of Music to the tinkling of the mountain streams that gurgled down the track below them.

 We spent three days in Twizel with Alan and Jude and whilst there returned to Mt Cook to explore further. This is a view of the Tasman Glacier, the largest in New Zealand. Like many glaciers it is not white and shiny but filthy with the moraine that it collects as it travels. Many glaciers in NZ are receding and in the case of this one melting. Some 30 years ago the melt was so great that a lake formed at the end of the glacier and this can be seen in the photograph with the snout of the glacier in the background.

 At regular intervals pieces of glacier break off and float to the end of the lake. These icebergs were absolutely beautiful, again not snowy white but blue, green, pink depending on the light shining on them and what they contained.

 Our explorations took us away from Aoraki and into the open, bleak beauty of MacKenzie country and the clay cliffs near Omarama. These monumental edifices formed over two million years by erosion stood like Gaudi's spires on La Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona.

 James (Jock) MacKenzie was a sheep rustler who brought his flock to these windswept hills. For those who do not know Phileas' grandfather was John (Jock) MacKenzie hence the photo!!

 Who is this scruffy person standing in a solitary fashion beside a canal (?) in MacKenzie country? It is the Fishing Fogg and oh was he good at it!!!!

 Look at his catch, made almost within minutes of casting his line!! From the top, Brown Trout (4lbs); Brown Trout (8lbs); Salmon (8lbs). Unbelievable, but true and the aforementioned fish have now been either bottled or smoked by Alan to be enjoyed by him and the family for many weeks to come!!

 Before we left the area we had one final visit to make to the Mt John Observatory and Astro Cafe, for a 360-degree panorama of MacKenzie Country. It was breathtaking or as described in The Lonely Planet 'insanely spectacular'. The coffee and muffins were pretty good too!!

 Lake Alexandrina, in the top picture, and below it the azure blue of Lake Tekapo. The colour is caused by 'rock flour' - glacial grit which is deposited in the water  giving the water a milky colour and refracting the blue from the sunlight shining down.

So, we post our last blog from New Zealand. We fly to Australia in a day or two and we are spending our final days here on the farm with Alan and Jude sorting ourselves out for the next stage of this journey. Phileas is finding it hard to even say we are leaving, we have formed a deeper love of this place and it will be hard to go.

But we are very excited about going to Australia which is where our next blog will be from. Until then, au revoir to all our readers

Phileas and Fogg

Air is fluid and light travels in straight lines!!

 Someone has described New Zealand as the world in a pocket handkerchief and we can confirm that following our travels yesterday through the high tundra of the awesome Lindis Pass to the Alpine landscape of Aoraki/Mt Cook, which is where we are now.

 Once over the Pass the road follows a straight line for several kilometres and has become a cairn road with thousands of small cairns of stones piled along the roadside. Not to be outdone we added our own to this quirky display before heading to Twizel and thence to Aoraki/Mt Cook.

 You will remember, dear reader, that a week ago we came here in the pouring rain and left without sight of the highest peak in Australasia - Aoraki/Mt Cook (3754m). So you can imagine our joy when we turned the corner from the Twizel - Lake Tekapo Road to see this vision still over 30 miles away!!  Aoraki means Cloud Piercer in Maori but for us she became a cloud former as water condensed around the peak and then formed small clouds which drifted away.

 We ate our picnic on the shores of Lake Pukaki in the warm sunshine before driving along the lake to the village of Aoraki/Mt Cook where we stayed last night. We do not want to make you jealous with descriptions of the warm rooms, open fires and large picture windows looking directly to the mountains so we won't mention it!!
The title of this blog refers to what we saw as we walked from the village up to a spot called Kea Point which is just above the Mueller Glacier. The sun was beginning to hide behind the mountains in this case, Mt Sefton and the clouds were back lit allowing us to see very clearly how were formed and they moved rolloing over the sky tracing 'waves' as they went. At one point the angle of the sun light hitting the ridge caused totally straight rays of light to run upward into the sky like great pillars of light.

 Fogg's photos, as always, show this phenomenon brilliantly. He was snapping away and now has a wonderful bank of images to remind us of this wonderful place.

This is the path we walked, icy and snowy in places, through glorious alpine scenery - very specialised plants for this suprisingly dry and very windy place.

 The walk took us to a viewpoint where we could see one of the many glaciers and its lake - The Mueller Glacier, amazing.

 We are stunned, fascinated by the range of clouds over the mountains here. But most of all we have fallen in love with this lady, clearly seen from our bedroom window.

 This final shot taken as the sun set slowly in the west and two very happy travellers headed to the bar!!!

With lots of love to you all

Phileas and Fogg

Extreme activities with Phileas and Fogg!!!

 With no consideration for their own personal safety, your intrepid travellers set forth to bring you photographs of their type of extreme activity in the centre of extreme activities in the world - viz Queenstown!!!
On board TSS Earnslaw, bravely battling the waters of Lake Wakatipu they set out to visit The Walter Peak Station. Lifeboats were ready in case of emergencies and pumpkin soup was consumed to keep up their strength.

 There was no chance for white water rafting or jet boating although Fogg was keen to have a go at these two activities using the lifeboat!!

 This is TSS Earnslaw who plies her trade to the remote farms around Lake Wakatipu and takes tourists and travellers for trips at the same time. She is a wonderful 99 year old lady who uses classic steam technology and has original fixtures and fittings.

 We are staying in Arrowtown a delightful gold mining town some 22km from Queenstown. The settlement lies in a narrow valley and most of the original 19th century houses still line the narrow main street. It is also home to a fascinating Chinatown - home to some of the many Chinese who came to find fortune in the goldfields and who also set up market gardens to provide fresh vegetables for the prospectors.

 We have driven today along the shores of Lake Wakatipu and Fogg took the opportunity to fit in some snowboarding. If you look closely you might just see him, hair streaming out behind as he twists and turns and finally cascades down these Remarkable Mountains!! Actually forget the hair - he went to the barber yesterday!!

 White knuckle photography of our picnic spot, a hairpin bend (with large lay by)!!!!

Seriously, Queenstown is the adrenalin capital of the world and we can fully understand why so many young people pour in here every day. We have to say that we have never seen a place like it - hostels, ski shops, casinos, bars, restaurants, activities on the mountains and lakes and the whole place surrounded by the most beautiful, majestic and awe inspiring scenery.

Best wishes

Phileas and Fogg

This is a post of two halves

 They tell it like it is in New Zealand! We love quirky signposts that say things like 'wrong way' and this one fitted the category of quirky nicely! We found it on the road from Kaikora to Sefton where my cousin Jude and her husband Alan farm.

 We thought that you might be interested to see what happens to some of the wood we have previously talked about - house building, here at Pegasus a new town under development near Christchurch. This building style is typical as is the single storey - not a bungalow!!!! It was interesting to see how Pegasus was developed as we have a similar project - Wixams, down the road from us at home. The main difference is here you buy a plot or section and then go to a house shop and buy a house which you can build or is built for you

 As was the case here with the farm -Summer Lea Farm, one of our most favourite places in the whole world. We spent a couple of days with Jude and Alan, helping out with the cattle when we could and catching up with all the news since we had last seen them at Picton. Whitebait patties and crayfish were eaten and wine enjoyed with these two very special people.

 Having left the farm we spent a couple of days with another very special lady, my cousin Noeline, and her husband Ivan in Oamaru. We had a very wet trip to Aoraki/Mt. Cook and so no photos of that. We hope to return there in a day or two so hopefully the weather will be better and Fogg will be able to do the highest mountain in New Zealand justice with his camera. On the way back to Oamaru we passed through Mackenzie country and Phileas was delighted to find another ancestor, this time the sheep rustler and his famous dog, John (Jack) MacKenzie after whom this area is named.

 We drove to Queenstown yesterday through some unbelievably beautiful countryside with snow capped hills and mountains. As we arrived in Cromwell these snow clouds were tumbling down presaging today's wintry weather. It is very cold in Queenstown!!! But as this final photo shows vey beautiful, this last shot a view from our breakfast table this morning.

More from this area on our next blog.

Christchurch after the earthquake

This part of the blog has no photographs as we felt it quite inappropprite to photograph places which are still technically graves or the detritus of people's broken lives.
We want to convey that the aftermath of the two earthquakes and all the subsequent aftershocks are far more significant than we have been shown on UK news. Many people asked us before we left if we were going to cancel our trip, were very surprised when we said that we would be visiting family and friends in and around CHCH. We were determined to come to NZ and could not miss seeing people who mean a great deal. So when we were at the farm Jude and Alan took us into the city so that we and they (it was their first return after the 2nd quake) could see the progress being made in the aftermath. As we drove in, everything seemed to be quite normal but we could see the occasional house with a broken chimney, loose tiles, red tape round the property, red stickers on the doors - no longer habitable. Soon we could see sections cleared, piles of rubble, crumpled roads and pavements, fences hung with messages of love on heart shaped pieces of paper. Most of the damaged buildings were of brick, for example old churches. One building/shoe shop in particular took our attention. The whole front had been ripped off and the contents were still in full view, rows of dusty boxes with shoes sticking out and other contents strewn around. This had been like this since February. The CBD ( Central Business District ) was effectively quarantined, fenced off, no one was allowed in. The authorities are still deciding what to do about broken buildings in every direction. In fact it has now been decided to pull down nearly 1000 buildings. CHCH has to be re-built, plans and discussions are underway but it is a very long term project which will cost billions. We also visited Sumner a small town south of CHCH was was also very badly damaged. To protect the already damaged buildings hundreds of Ship Containers are placed along roads, three high to protect against falling inland cliff edges. The houses on the tops of theses cliffs are in many cases just hanging over the edge and it is only a question of time before they too come crashing down.

We will close now, could talk more - maybe we will. New Zealanders are very resiliant but these quakes have severely knocked them and they are not over yet.

Best wishes from us both

Fogg and Phileas

Sun, RAIN............... sun!!

 We do not wish to bore our readers with the weather but it has had a significant impact particularly on our journey to Kaikoura from Murchison. This first photo was taken whilst we were walking through a beautiful piece of forest in the hills above Murchison and as you can see the sun was shining!

 But the iconic journey through the Lewis Pass, and one which Phileas had particularly been looking forward to, was completely shrouded in rain, mist and cloud. Fogg found it very interesting, hence the photos but it did prevent us from enjoying 'the view'. Nonetheless it was a wonderful drive and we ate our picnic behind this very wet windscreen!! Which for some reason seems to be at the bottom of this blog!!

 But we woke on Sunday morning to a gloriously sunny day in this very lovely holiday home where Phileas can be seen planning their next adventures / doing the sudoku / not drinking wine but eating rather fab NZ new season apple!

 The next 2 photos show the view from our bed!! Couldn't quite fit the mountains in so they appear in next photo!!

 This is the view we see when we open the curtains in the morning and we enjoy it throughout the day for lunch, pre prandials etc! The mountains are part of the Seaward Kaikoura Range and in places are snow capped - magic!

 Previous readers will know of our love of Kaikoura from our previous visit. It has everything - beach, mountains, seafood and a local winery plus whales and albatross. We have stayed on land this time, taking a wonderful walk yesterday along the cliff top where we watched albatross doing what they do best - gliding apparently effortlessly across the surface of the water. We also revisited Seal Point, where at low tide it is possible to walk out over a 'beach' of rock and pools to watch the waves, seals and the awesome forests of kelp.

 The afternoon ended with an ice cream - holey pokey for P, rum and raisin for F sitting on the beach .... heaven!!

So from a sunny Kaikora, best wishes from us both

Phileas and Fogg