Posts

Showing posts from April, 2016

NZ: Welly (Take 2) to Napier

Image
Our ferry trip was uneventful though we did spot a pod of dolphins in the distance, and we headed off to our accommodation via a trip to the supermarket.  Anja had a family friend connection who’d offered to put us up for 2 nights, which was very kind of them, especially as Anja had never met either of them!  We turned up to dinner being cooked for us which was an added, unexpected bonus.  Our room even had its own bathroom – bliss! We spent the following day doing a self-guided ‘highlights’ tour of Wellington – we walked into town through the Botanic Gardens down to the harbour, spent 2 hours in the Te Papa museum (where this time I actually stayed and absorbed information from the Gallipoli exhibition – which is really very good, though did leave me with a huge sense of sadness.  It’s easy to forget that whilst your country is having its own wars, other countries are suffering similar losses.  And also crazy to think that NZ, even though it’s the other side of the world, had to

NZ: Heading North with Anja

Image
With Anja and Gandalf (the car) along Lake Wakatipu with Glenorchy in the far far distance We extended our time at Kinloch by one day as I wasn’t feeling too well and we wanted to climb Mt Alfred on the way out, and the weather was looking much better the following day.  Mt Alfred was amazing – only 1375m but deceptively difficult mainly due to the weather conditions – the first ¾ of the climb are in the bush and pretty easy but the last ¼ is a scramble up a gulley, which when the rocks are covered in a layer of ice makes it pretty difficult!!! I was genuinely scared at points but all I can say is thank god for the grass as we were using that to haul ourselves up – it’s strong stuff!  Tiny mushrooms growing in a rotten log Scrambling to the top Fear on my face! Views are getting better The view at the top was worth conquering my fears for, you can see for miles in all directions! It was nice seeing where I had spent the last month from above