Listons Down Under

BACK ON THE AIRPLANES This had been a very good stopover of a very good trip overall. Christchurch was three and a half hours away and we wanted to get back as there was one exhibition we hadn't seen before - Quake City, which dealt with the events of 2010 and 2011.  A delicious stop for home made fruit scones in Geraldine, a farming community, and then ploughed on. When we eventually reached Christchurch we had an incredible welcome reception from the hotel staff who remembered us from our earlier stay - what had we done? There was a card welcoming us back and gifts of a beanie hat each to help us ward off the cold weather when we returned to the UK.  However, we hurried off as, although Christchurch centre is small enough that you can walk everywhere within a few minutes we didn't want to miss this special and moving exhibition.  It has some incredible artefacts from the Earthquakes, many filmed experiences from survivors and explanations of 'liquefaction', which wa

NEARING THE END Wanaka was only a short distance from Arrowtown, but the journey was spectacular. Along the route, we stopped at the A.J. Hacker Bungy site. Hacker did not invent the Bungy, but he sure did commercialise it (see video right). There was also a zip wire at the site, but surprisingly no jet boat. Did he miss a trick? Following along the river, we came to the Gibbston Valley, which is a notable pinot noir wine area. Then, a little further along, we came to some water falls at a place known as Roaring Meg. Now, this is interesting because there is a wine that we are both fond of called 'Roaring Meg'. There is a story that two prospectors were escorting two ladies of the night across the river. One of them didn't stop hollering and shouting and kicking up a fuss. They called this woman Roaring Meg. Her friend was known as Quiet Annie and there is also a small stream nearby named after her. We arrived at our lodgings in Wanaka and were slightly surprised by th

ACROSS TO THE WEST We left Dunedin early for a four hour drive to Lake Te Anau, from where we would visit the Milford Sound. We left on State Highway 1 going west to an area known as Fjordland. Our lunch time stop was at Luggate, which had a signpost indicating distances to almost everywhere in the world. What it told us was that we were roughly equidistant between the Equator and the South Pole (see picture left). We arrived in Te Anau at the Lakefront Motel. I had been corresponding through e-mail with Megan. However, the owner was a Chilean woman called Soledad and her husband was from Patagonia. Soledad only used Megan as a postbox as far as bookings were concerned. Soledad owned 2 restaurants and her husband was chef in the Italian one and she ran a cleaning business.  It is interesting that we met so many people from South America, who have now settled in New Zealand. Is it the political freedom, the stronger economy or the opportunities that drive these people to New Zealand?

TRAVELLING SOUTH We picked up our nice little RAV4 with an inbuilt GPS in Christchurch and headed towards the east coast for Akaroa. I had high hopes of Akaroa. It was settled by the French in 1840; their were rare Hector's Dolphins and the coastline looked attractive. However, the clouds were hanging low and threatening rain. The drive started well but then, as we got nearer, the land rose and the roads became more twisty. We arrived at the Summit Hotel, above the Banks Peninsular, and the views looked attractive (see picture right). We drove on down, the roads getting a little scarier until we reached the bays. The towns now had French names, such as Duvauchel. We carried on the road around the headland and then the next, until we reached Akaroa and Mullberry Cottage where we were due to spend the night. We met the owner and she showed us our accomodation, the Garden Cottage, literally at the end of her garden (see picture right), and everything seemed OK. We walked into t

HAPPY NEW YEAR Debbie and Mark had promised us something different for our New Year's celebration and they certainly delivered. We were staying at the Theatre Royal Hotel in Kumara (see picture right). This was a restored hotel from the original gold rush mining town in the 1860's. The rooms have a blend of Victorian decor, antique furnishing and modern amenities. It was the best room we have had all trip with a lovely bath on claw feet. That night the hotel had no special meal for New Year but we ate and drank reasonably well anyway. However, the entertainment was special. We had a brother and sister with a combined age of 161 who played piano and trumpet. They gave us songs that everybody knew, especially those focusing on the war years. At the end of the evening, we joined in with the other guests singing 'Auld Lang Syne' and went to bed feeling very happy. Well, it wasn't long before our precious days with Debbie and Mark came to an end. They took us to Gr

GO WEST Cape Foulwind is an unfair name for this next stop on our tiki tour. There was no foul wind nor much wind at all. Having just stayed at the Settlers Motel in Hanmer Springs, we were now staying at the Settlers Motel, Cape Foulwind. Very nice motel room/chalet, quite spacious and with a hot tub just outside under the trees. We had a nice meal at the pub next door where I played pool with Mark whilst we waited for our food and was lucky enough to beat him but it was a low quality game! Next day we went to Denniston, an old coal mining town which is being set up as an historic village but they need to do more work if they want to bring in tourists.  Its perched high on the hills, above the clouds. It was very wet and visibility was very poor (see picture below right) but gave you a feeling of how hard life must have been. Westport is a reasonably big town next to Denniston. It has seen better days but apparently it is being revived.Not noticable yet. We had lunch there and shop

NEW ZEALAND FOR CHRISTMAS We flew into the quaint airport at Wellington. You'd never know Wellington was a capital city from the size of its airport. After a short wait, we boarded the 20 seater Air New Zealand prop plane for the 20 minute flight to Blenheim. Initially, there was a problem with two suitcases that had gone missing, which caused a minor delay, but that was resolved and we were off. Debbie, husband Mark and soldier Will were there to meet us and then our luggage arrived on a wagon - very high tech! We went straight from the airport to a restaurant recommended to Debbie for dinner, where we caught up with all of the family news and plans for our trip after Christmas. We had a very nice meal, washed down with a bottle of Fromm (more about this label later) Pinot Noir. It was so lovely to see our Kiwi family and it was very special staying at their new home in Blenheim. The dogs, Harley and Flecker, had certainly grown up since we last saw them (9 years on) and they w

REFLECTIONS ON AUSTRALIA Australia is a very beautiful country, but it is suffering at the moment from the bush fires around Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. We were very lucky with our time in Australia as we were only impacted to a very minor degree although we watched the fire reports for the roads all the time. We couldn't go to the Blue Mountains and we had some ash fall on the balcony of our hotel in Sydney. During our first few weeks in Australia, there were news items on the bush fires but, at that stage, the fires were minor compared with how they developed at the beginning of January. It is good to see that help is being given from so many other countries. We are currently in Arrowtown in New Zealand and two schoolgirls were raising money in support of the Australian fire fighters.  People are really taking notice of the present catastrophic situation.  Perth was a very special stop over as it gave us a chance to meet family that we hadn't seen for years and to meet

RETURN TO SYDNEY Interesting drive to Sydney competing with huge trucks on the steep winding 3 lane road narrowing to approach the Sydney Harbour Bridge (SHB)! (see picture right) After all the smaller towns we had forgotten about driving in the city traffic but reached our 'old' hotel down by The Rocks.  Lovely welcome by the staff but only stopped to drop off our bags and left to battle fuel top up and find the car drop off place.  An hour plus later ....We finally returned to the hotel and all angst was forgotten when we reached our apartment to find a 70th birthday celebratory bottle of red wine from the hotel to David.  Once again, after 9 years, we had the pleasure of the view from our balcony of the SHB to the left and the Opera House slightly right (see picture left).  Bags down, off we went to get organised. Now we can ride a tram (which only opened on 14th Dec) to Woolworths opposite the QVB (Queen Victoria Building) and visit the basement which is a really excel

HUNTER VALLEY We left Port Macquarie for the 3 hour drive to Hunter Valley. For a major wine area, Hunter Valley keeps itself well hidden. There are no signs to the wine region or to Pokolbin, which is the main town in Hunter Valley. Once we left the main A1 highway and turned on to the B56 it became more difficult to find our way as our GPS still wasn't working. In the end, we knew we were not far away so we stopped a man getting into his car and asked him directions. Luckily, he knew exactly where we were going and let us follow him most of the way. We were staying at the voco Kirkton Park Hotel, owned by Inter Continental Hotels. The hotel looked very good, spread out in one storey buildings over a wide area. Very nice people on the front desk who answered most of our questions. We were surprised that there wasn't a shuttle or tour bus to take us to some wineries so we had to book a private wine trip with Gaz. We were shown to the Manor House, with a very pleasant room wi

NEXT STOP PORT MACQUARIE We had one more breakfast at Dave's in Yamba before taking the road out of town only stopping to buy a bottle of chardonnay at the Liquor Store and a peaked hat for David with Yamba written on it. Back on the freeway, we were at last beyond the roadworks so were able to go at full speed. En route we stopped at Coff's Harbour. This was somewhere that we had considered staying, but everybody told us to avoid the place. Nontheless, we took the sign for the jetty and went through an industrial part of town, not very pretty, but arrived at the jetty. At the Surf Club there was a sign saying coffee served all day. They lied, the coffee shop shut at 4 pm and it was now nearly 4.30. We were soon back on the freeway, glad that we hadn't stayed there. The journey was quite short and pretty soon we were turning into Hastings River Drive, towards our hotel - Sails by Rydges.  Ultra modern design and very welcoming. Our room was on the ground floor, with a