More then Half Way Around the World

I don't want this trip to stop ... the fast-paced change of scenery has been mesmerizing; like a giant slide show with an old projector:

slltrr vineyards
slltrr desert
slltrr city
slltrr beach
slltrr ocean
slltrr old friends
slltrr glacier
slltrr ...

And now the slide show is almost over; the second-to-last slide shows the tail of an Air New Zealand jet against the backdrop of a ring of mountains (is this the most beautiful airport in the world?) and then the projector will come to an end, there will be just a white rectangle on the wall, the lights will come back on and I need to go back to my normal life.

But I don't want them to come back on yet.

Just give me another slide. One more. Something different.

Tomorrow, travelling back in time to before I left as I cross the international date line, and then the last slide.   
sllttr San Francisco

South Africans Abroad

There are supposed to be large numbers of South Africans living in New Zealand and Australia. I only came across traces of them. In Sydney, on the subway, I listened while an Afrikaans mother read out the names of South African animals to her daughter
Dis 'n klipspringer ... 'n steenbok ... 'n slang
It was eerie.

And in Brown Bay, there were butchers seling boerewors and biltong and a South African shop close to the beach. You could purchase your favourite Leon Schuster movie. Or how about that old Rhodesian flag, together with the Orange, White and Blue of the old Apartheid republic?. But to really get that nostalgic taste of home, there is nothing like a packet of Smash instant mashed potatoes. Hmmm. The fine taste of nostalgia.

Auckland

My last night in New Zealand was spent in Auckland in the company of family: my cousin Shirley, her husband Dos and (briefly) their children Daniella and Graeme, who I'd last seen as infants back in Zimbabwe, and who are now freshly married and freshly graduated respectively.

It's always interesting to see how people react and adapt to new conditions. Shirley and Dos live in a two-storey house in North Shore, on the dge of urban Auckland (which sprawls out into a giant hour-glass, constained by water on two sides). They are different to the way I remember them: they've taken up cycling, swimming and running; take part in protests (open up the Auckland bridge to cyclists!) and in general seem to be loving their new environment. And there is a lot to love: calm sandy bays and forrested hills close by, cheese farms and old bars, good restaurants and a lot of outdoors stretching to the north.

On my last night they took me into the centre of the city, up Mnt. Eden (one of the highest of a cluster of old volcanic cones which dot the city) to show me the 360 degree dusk views and the skyscrapers and giant tower (flushed pink for breast cancer week) of the sklyine; we had a good Indian meal on the bay and coffee in the Viaduct, a waterfront development dominated by a giant yacht suspended in the air. Its the one which won the America cup which has had so much influence on the recent development of the city. Fuzzy photo; I took it without a tripod:

Corrugated Culture

There is a pleasant quirkiness about some of the small towns in New Zealand. I was just going to drive through Tirau on my way to Auckland, but I had to stop, grab my camera and get out the car because it was plasted with colourful signs and statues - all made of corrugated iron. Maybe its because I grew up under a roof of these metallic waves, but I found it really appealing.

Kiwi Experience

Its really rare to spot a Kiwi in the wild. They're nocturnal and shy and many of the species have been ferreted to the edge of extinction. I went to a Kiwi nursing project (they incubate and hatch eggs and care for the young birds until they can be released into the wild). It was close to Rotorua, a town in the middle of beds of hot springs and geysers.

The Kiwis are like no bird I'd seen before: feathers like fur, long beak used to root through the soil while snorting loudly, no tail, tiny stub remains of wings (under which the long beak is still tucked while sleeping). And whiskers like a cat's.

Atene Skyline Hike

Today was the only day in New Zealand which didn't go according to plan (not that there has ever been much plan). I was going to attempt the Tongariro Crossing, a day's walk across the high slopes of a volcano. But the weather was against it: low cloud and the constant threat of rain.

So instead I spent 5 hours on the Atene Skyline in the nearby Whanganui National Park. There I got rain and mist, but also beautiful views through the forests onto the surrounding hills and the Whanganui River, and a quiet close-up with some of New Zealand's beautiful and often pre-historic looking vegetation.

Wellington

Got up at 4:30 am to catch the 6:25 am ferry from Picton to Wellington, New Zealand's capital on the North Island. It wasn't my choice to go this early (the next ferry was full) but it worked out well, because it gave me most of the day to spend in Wellington. The ferry trip (the bit I groggily remember) was interesting because a lot of the route on both sides was through long fjords and inlets, so it felt more like a trip down a huge river than one across open sea.






Wellington reminded me a lot of San Francisco: it has wooden terrace houses, forested hills, lots of coffee houses, a compact down town and what any city needs to be compared to San Francisco by a tourist: a cable car.

Te Papa (Our Place) is the sprawling national museum on the waterfront at which I suffered through a cringingly bad tour by an ex-South African guide. Lot of good mixture of modern multimedia and old artefacts.

Road from Nelson

Scene from the pass above the town of Nelson, on my way to the ferry port of Picton. 

Sea Kayaking, Abel Tasman

Day-long sea kayak trip along the coast of the Abel Tasman National Park on the extreme northern peninsular of the South Island. The weather cycled through many shades of grey with occasional quick bursts of bright sunshine, the sea was pretty rough because of East winds, especially on the 'Mad Mile', and the temperatures were cold (with big wind chill factor during lunch on a beach). Kayaked past NZ fur seals, cormorants and pelicans. Shared a kayak with Adria who hails from Tennessee, whom I'd met on the Franz Joseph glacier.

The park is named after the Dutch explorer who was the first European to set eyes on the island (although he never landed), and left his name behind him like a trail: Tasmania, Tasman sea.

The park is unusual because there are still the remnants of private property within it: small houses which sell for $2 million and up up up.

Driving

In Australia, everyone keeps exactly to the speed limit. You know that it's changed when all the cars around you slow down or speed up. On the motorways, you end up travelling a hundred kilometres with the same constellation of other vehicles locked into cruise formation. That giant 18-wheeler which started out the trip 20 metres behind you is still there at the next town.

New Zealand is more like the wild east. People drive at crazy breakneck speeds around the twisty roads. Everyone is going just faster than the speed limit ... or a lot faster.

Pancake Rocks, and Taking Back the Eggs.

These crazy rock formations (the Pancake Rocks) are in Punakaiki on the west coast of the South Island.

I saw a couple of these Weka (woodhens) when walking to the rocks. About a kilometer down the road, I stopped for lunch: a couple of freshly-boiled eggs with breadrolls. There were two Weka that hung around suspiciously close to the car the whole time. I kept my eye on them, but when I put the prepared lunch down at the table, but I'd forgotten my cup of tea, so I went back to the car to fetch it. On my return, there was only one egg on the plate - the Weka had not been interested in the breadroll, but somehow managed to spirit a jumbo-sized egg away. Would have loved to have seen how he did it
- just gulped the egg down?

This is an evening photo from the Motueka valley - I think its Kiwi fruit being grown in this matrix; whatever it is, I liked the three-dimensional effect.

Sun Goes Down on New Zealand

Sunsets in New Zealand can be bombastic: this one offered a giant double rainbow, golden clouds, thundering surf, a calm lagoon and icy moutains on the horizon with cascading clouds of mist. Too much!

It was in the small village of Okarito, not far from the glaciers, where I spent the night after talking to a young Kiwi couple around a beach bonfire.

Glacier Trek

Walked with a guided group up the spectacular Franz Joseph glacier today. Being in crampons and able to hack at the landscape around you with an ice-pick is such fun.

As part of the trek (which was about 6 hours on the ice) we went through a series of ice tunnels. The blue of the ice is intense and beautiful.

This is a Kea (mountain parrot) which greeted us on the way down. They are tame and intelligent (I saw one later trying to open the sunroof of a car with its beak).

 

Bowled Over by South Island

My first views of New Zealand's South Island from the air were stunning, and it just kept on getting better and better. I hired a campervan, picked it up, bought a bunch of groceries and camping gear and just headed out of Queenstown into unbelievably spectacular scenery: towering ice-covered mountains, silvery lakes, lush temperate forest. This is, without doubt, the most beautiful country I have ever seen.

Fly Air New Zealand!

Reason 1: Well Run. Air New Zealand is comfortable, well-run and has good in-flight entertainment and all that other stuff which is the bread-and-butter of airlines - at least the good ones.

Reason 2: Customer Care. It regularly happens to me that an order for a special vegetarian meal goes wrong or gets lost (this happened on the SAA flight to Perth, for example). Most airlines don't give a damn. The hostess of Air New Zealand was really concerned and got me to give her the flight details of my onbound flight so she could check. Its the most effort from any airline ever when this happens.

Reason 3: Naked Flight Attendants. This is the biggie. The pre-flight security video is the first I've watched through in a long time because (blush) its done with all the 'crew' in the nude, using body paint so it looks like they're in uniforms. Its damn funny and really well done. In fact, you don't have to fly to New Zealand to see it; its online on YouTube:

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

Coming to Sydney was a bit like going to London for the first time: there is so much that you have seen before in photographs that it feels eerily like you have already been to the city before. I first saw the opera house as a bleary pearl of light through the scratched train window on my way to Wahroonga, and it felt so much like I'd seen it before. Here are some photographs of the bridge I took. I walked across (but not over it: really expensive!)

I liked the opera house in reality much more than from photographs - the roof is really beautiful, especially the simple tile pattern which gives it a texture like a reptile's skin. One of the nicest experiences in urban Sydney was sundowner beer at the Opera Cafe on my last day, watching the root slowly glow through different shades of egg-shell and yellow.

Bondi Beach

Smaller and more elegant than I expected. Goes for the waves too. Went for a three hour walk along the coast of Sydney's eastern suburbs.

Ku Ring Gai National Park, Sydney

Today, Sue Jones took me to the Ku Ring Gai National Park, which is about 5km North of Wahroonga. This was one of the first things I saw in Sydney, and it demonstrated how the complicated water inlets on the coast here make this such a beautiful city - like the city itself, Ku Ring Gai has a long tongue of water at its heart. Around this are rolling hills covered with forests. Its very beautiful.

Sue and I went bird and tree spotting. Like elsewhere in Australia, there was amazing birdlife here. I saw the first Kookaburra in the wild here (a large carnivorous bird with a distinctive profile).





Cockatoos are everywhere in Sydney. The park was full of the Sulphur-Crested variety. I loved their handsome looks, but apparently the gnaw up everything they come across and have a loud raucous call. The ones I saw kept their beaks shut. Was lucky with this photo of one in flight.

Sue is creating photo montages of macro-scale photos of tree bark and flowers; they're so close up that they're abstract, and the composite is beautiful. Here she is in front of a 'Scribbly Tree', a gum in which a worm borrows out scribbles under the bark.

And more unusual Australian plants: this is a "Flannel Flower"; a kind of daisy both the petals and leaves of which feel like flannel.

Home from Home in Wahroonga

As a teenager and in my early twenties, I sent hundreds of letters to Ingram Rd, in Wahroonga - home of the Jones family and my friend Vivienne. The address is burnt into my memory; besides the address of my parents its the only one I know off by heart (very useful in Australia whenever I was asked for an Australian address).

It was eerie to catch a train out from Sydney to Wahroonga and pass through stations of the places  I knew from Vivienne's letters: Macquarie (University), Pymble (Ladies College) and Wahroonga (home from home for two days with the Joneses). The stay was sans Vivienne, currently in Calgary - but we did speak with each other while I was there.

African Diaspora Dinner

The silver lining of the African diaspora is that you can cage free meals from family members around the globe. Tonight I had a great meal with the family of my cousin Shirley in Berwick, outside of Melbourne. I hadn't seen her for over 10 years.

Australian Road Signs

There are some signs I've encountered on the Australian roadsides which ave made me laugh out loud. Apart from the animal profiles which adorn souvenirs here (Beware: Kangaroo! Beware: Koala!) there are the ones which help you locate power naps. Something like

Power Nap in 5km

And then there was this beauty which was put up every second kilometre on the Great Ocean Road.

TripleJ accompanied by some Coastal Scenery

Today I hired a car so I could listen to hours of TripleJ radio. While listening, I now and then enjoyed bits of the coastal background scenery to music.

 

These old cliffs were there as a backdrop when I had to take a quick pee break from the music.

Crazed Australian Bellplayers

Crazed Australian Bellplayers dress up like unionized workers and bang their bells with no expression on their faces and a lot of expression in their hips.

(Melbourne acrobatic troop Strange Fruit performing in Birrarung Marr in the city centre).

Melbourne

Couple of pictures of Melbourne's downtown.

This black swan was swimming in Melbourne's Yarra River. I wanted a picture because I've just finished reading the book Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.