Dear friends, Following quickly on from the last post, this one is mainly scenery of the west coast from Franz Josef up to Westport, from where we headed eastwards towards the city of Nelson. The latter part of the day over the hills and through the Buller Gorge we hit some rain, so no photos [...]
Dear friends, After three beautiful days in Wanaka, we left early to drive through the Haast Pass to the West Coast, passing along the western side of Lake Hawea and then back along the upper reaches of Lake Wanaka before continuing on through the valleys and gorges of the Haast to reach the coast. From [...]
Dear friends, Leaving Dunedin behind we drove back up the coast as far as Palmerston and then turned inland, driving through the Maniatoto District and then into Central Otago. The colours of the coastlands are more green and as you move into Central, the colours turn to golds and aqua. Rolling green hills of North [...]
Dear friends, On a quick visit to my hometown Dunedin, we enjoyed browsing in the Saturday market held in and around the Octagon, bang smack in the centre of the city - bands on various stages belted out old favourites, jazz or solos, there were food stalls in abundance and a few quirky exhibits too. [...]
Dear friends, I hope you will bear with me for this posting as it is rather a nostalgic one for me. It is about my day in Hampden where I spent many of my holidays up until the age of twelve at my paternal Granny's house, and the next village, Moeraki, which we often visited [...]
Dear everyone, After our time in Christchurch and Akaroa, we travelled south from Christchurch, turning inland after an hour of so and headed west towards the MacKenzie country and the South Alps beyond that. Not so much traffic on the NZ roads ... The rolling green hills around Geraldine and Fairlie slowly gave way to tussock-clad [...]
Dear friends, This will be the first of several blogs about my road trip around New Zealand. Starting in Christchurch, I will take you with me across through the MacKenzie Country with glimpses of our highest mountain - Aorangi (Mt Cook), along the Otago coastline and Dunedin, into Central Otago and the beauutiful Lakes Wakatipu [...]
Dear friends, One of the distinct pleasures of living in Asia is having the opportunity to celebrate the many colourful festivals which are an important part of life here. Perhaps none is as important across the whole region as the Chinese New Year. This year on 28 January we entered the Year of the Rooster [...]
Dear friends, It could be said that New Year Resolutions are merely 'To Do' lists for the first week of January. If so, now that we are in the second week of January 2017, I can feel free to share some thoughts with you about life in general and to bring some positive energy into [...]
Greetings everyone, I've been looking back over this year's travel and remembering not only the beautiful places I visited, the many interesting and passionate people I met and learned from, and the variety of entertainment and delicious food and wine we enjoyed, but also thinking about the small details and discoveries, the splendid light and [...]