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Tag Archives: Sea
Chill out in Fiji
After driving over 2,000kms in twelve days I felt so drained that I hadn’t opened the Lonely Planet book on Fiji. So when I saw brochures for Fiji in a travel agent’s window in Dunedin it took me for for as long as it takes eat a smoked salmon bagel and drink a long white, that’s a coffee, not the cocktail it sounds like, to choose the ” lazy threesome” package.
This backpacker outfit has resorts strung along the islands on the western side of Fiji, the boat goes up and down picking up and dropping off every day. There’s no choice in where you go. The first island, though just like the brochures, long white beach, palm trees, blue green sea and sun, was a bit of a disappointment as there were only four of us, and the resort ran no activities to speak of. Having said that, we went out snorkling and walked to the local village. The cyclone in December made a real mess of things, roofs blown away, the more older fragile houses destroyed, trees down and crops ruined, but no fatalities. So everywhere a lot of building is going on. The food reminded me of boarding school, though at least we had pudding there.
The resort I’m at now has many more people, mostly in the dorm, I’ve got my own little bure (little hut) and unexpectedly it’s en-suite!!! Well the shower’s in the back yard, but in this weather that’s fine. After a fantastic dinner, there was entertainment, enough to make your heart sink. First welcome songs and dances then we played games, a mad version of musical chairs and similar. After those and the staff went off and a crowd of us sat round playing various card games , all of which involved heavy drinking penalties. But I declared myself an impartial observer and went to bed sober, about three or four hours before the everyone else. There were some wan looking people at breakfast today.
It’s a tough life, there is an option of basket weaving and coconut husking this morning, why not? And then I’ll go snorkling again this afternoon………
Greymouth
Greymouth
I don’t really need a great big glass of hot chocolate, but there’s nothing else to do in Greymouth (other than eat a breakfast fit for a King, which everyone else in this Cafe is doing on this wet, thundery Sunday morning). I think the only excitement here is the train from Christchurch coming in at 12.30 and departing at 1.30. The train is actually the reason I’m here at all, and had hoped to fill in my 24 hours and 30 minutes by visiting the museum and a few other places of interest, but that shut at 4.00 on Friday afternoon, and the shops all closed at noon yesterday.
Back in Picton, following my tramp, I had an excellent Wine Tour with gourmet lunch, extra, in the Marlborough Vineyards, then onto Nelson. You won’t be surprised to hear that the coach drivers here are better than in Vietnam. Not only do you know you’re not going to die imminently but the driver gives a very good commentary of the countryside, towns and history of settlements.
Nelson is a City with smart shops, good restaurants and cafes. The Cathedral was started as Gothic and was completed in the 60s, trying to be more modern. A grey marble mish-mash. There is a beautiful sheltered beach and the Abel Tasman National Park is on the doorstep. The first day I took a trip up the coast, with a 4 hour tramp back to the boat pick-up. It rained. The sea was rough. The second day I had designated for museums, it was scorching hot.
The coach drive to Greymouth was stunning. We drove down the Buller Gorge for an hour and a half, and later along the Coast road, listed by Lonely Planet as amongst one of the ten top coastal drives in the world.
The locals have kindly said that on a cloudy day like this, once you cross the mountains in the train, the weather changes. It’s certainly very dry over in Christchurch and they have had four days of bad fires.
I might see some mountains on one of “the world’s most scenic train routes”, but may not.
Happy New Year
Happy 2013.
Between Christmas and New Year I did next to nothing, on Boxing Day Jenny and I went into Wellington and went on a tourist trip one afternoon, and another day went into the fabulous museum Te Papa, which was brilliant but so huge we only touched the surface. Another day I went in, had an interesting tour of the Parliament and browsed the Sales. All but the last day of that week the weather was vile.
On 2nd January, I took the ferry to South Island. The night before had been blowing and raining like billio, but it had calmed down a little when I crossed. Everyone on the boat obviously had hangovers as they were clinging to rails or furniture when they stumbled about the boat, till I stood and tried walk too! then realised how choppy it was. I went out on deck, got soaked from the spray and had to hang onto the rail not to get blown away, but very exhilarating.
Only half the journey is through the Cook Straight, then into the Marlborough Sound where the water is sheltered. More stunning landscape, not unlike Scotland, with layer after layer of mountains in the near and far distance. Picton, where the ferry comes in, is much buzzier than anywhere else I’ve been, but maybe because it is now the summer holidays and it’s very dependant on tourists, doing sea activities, cycling and walking, which is why I’ve come here. That evening it bucketed down which didn’t auger well for a five day holiday.
The weather had blown itself out by morning and the day was clear. In fact we had five fine days, about as unusual as a glorious week in the Lake District. We walked through very varied terrain, mostly rain forrest, with different sorts of flora and fauna, lots of Punga trees (fern trees) . Sometimes you could have been walking in the Cotswolds or Devon, through beech woods (though a different sort of beech tree), then come out along a path looking out at crystal clear green sea below and have been in the Mediterranean, then up and down and up again along the ridge, similar but with bigger ups and downs ,to the Malvern Hills. Or looking down a valley with fields of sheep and another inlet, I thought I was looking down at the head of Derwent Water or Buttermere.
In New Zealand you tramp, not hike or walk. We were “glamping”, different from English glamping, glamorous/ camping. This was glamorous/tramping. There were ten of us and we all got on very well, on the fourth day, after a 24.5 km walk the previous day, six of us stayed at the resort and enjoyed sea kayaking and lounging around. Myself and Aussie room mate shared a kayak, neither of us having done it before. All well until the wind came up and it was suddenly not so easy, but a great sense of achievement when we got back to the beach.
The hotels were definitely on the luxurious side, and now I have to re-educate my tummy that eggs Benedict with smoked salmon, a good packed lunch with homemade cake then a three course dinner is not really my New Year’s resolution.
Catch up
Hoi An is a beautiful 17th/18th century Vietnamese/ Chinese city with French Colonial thrown in, not destroyed by the American War as most places have been. It’s rather like going to Broadway, something slightly museumish about it, and full of tailors , dressmakers and shoe shops that will make you new shoes by next morning. Some of the silk is decidedly dodgy, the attendant in the silk museum showed me how you can test its purity, but as it involves setting fire to it, you might be hounded out of the market. The best way for you to find out more about the town is to look it up on the web, as I can’t do it justice.
Then on to Hue, a pretty big city and I thought I would need a couple of days there. Actually one day would have been plenty, as the Old Citidal, Palace etc, was largely destroyed in 1945 when the French were having a war here, then finished off by the USA. I could spend one hour at the Fine Arts Museum, and then there’s the Culture Museum, two hours? No…… a thorough examination of the former took fifteen minutes and the latter was closed for lunch. Never mind, a massage and a good book took up the rest of the day.
My passion for road travel has waned, as has your interest in it by now. Originally I wanted to take the next leg of my journey, the top half of Vietnam, by train, but decided that I didn’t want to sit on a train for 18 hours. So against my Eco-instincts I flew north to Hanoi. I have to say it was great to cover about 350 miles in 55 minutes, even though I feel I have cheated.
Arriving in Hanoi quite late in the evening is quite scary, especially as the taxi driver didn’t know where the hotel was, and there are two with the same name, hotel proper, and backpackers’ hostel, which I discovered I was booked into!! If I hadn’t been so hungry I would have stayed in my room, but had to find an ATM and food. The Old Quarter is like a medieval town, a mass of tiny streets and alleys. But the great difference between Hanoi and anywhere else I have been, is that this was not just a tourist Ghetto, but full of bars of locals too. I’m longing to have a proper explore in daylight.
I was a bit worried that the fortune I had paid to a travel agent in Nga Trang, might have been a scam and that the next part of the holiday wasn’t going to happen, but I should know by now, not to worry and that things turn out alright.
So now I am having a luxurious cruise in Halong Bay, 2 nights on a “junk” and like all cruises too much yummy food and tai Chi on the sun deck at sparrow’s fart!! Swedish, Swiss, Spanish, French, Oz, Korean, New Zealanders, Austrian living in Hawaii, USA, One Brit. 30 disparate nationalities !!!!
P.S. ( I’m not yet so wanton that I’ll pay $100.00 for a bottle of Champagne though)
Ban Bang Bao, Koh Chang
Ban Bang Bao, Koh Chang
Sorry, no picture attached last time, don’t know what happened there.
It’s Sunday , I think, forgive sloppy spelling etc, as it’s not easy typing while lying in a hammock. A well deserved rest, as the first day here I went on a trek in the jungle. Was warned it was hard, but as ever didn’t listen. It was steep, steep, hot hot, and slippery, the best way down was by sliding on your bottom. A sort of off piste, cross-country -down-hill slalom at 34c. And for added adventure, a few rivers to cross, some through the water or simply a felled tree.
Yesterday was a great improvement. Out on a boat all day. Three goes at snorkling and lots of beautiful fish with a good lunch thrown in. Definitely something I could take to!! And then night fishing later in the evening.
To all at work, thanks for the Snorkling kit.
The Island is very beautiful, just a lump of jungle-covered mountains with a road that doesn’t quite go all the way round. The first resorts you hit when you get off the ferry have long sandy beaches. But the bars, eateries etc are Blackpool -in -the -tropics, well more hippyish than that, but you get the drift.
This village at the south end of the island must once have been a fishing centre as it has a large natural harbour. But the local economy has now become so tourist dominated with over priced restaurants ( 3 times as expensive as Bangkok and not so good) hippy clothes and tat, that you can’t even see where the locals do their shopping.
Picture of sunrise!…..
Paradise
Paradise
Woke up this morning, just as it was getting light, and this is the view from my window.
Worth being awake at 6.00a.m.