That is the cyber question.
The S.E. Asia trip was an easy decision regarding blogging, I did it for my own fun, and to let all youse folks (wherever you are) including, Back Home, into our travelling world. It also had some insights, methinks, of Asian travelling, PLUS, it was like nothing any of us had done before
Some introspection to follow:
The issue becomes one of relevancy. Does anyone actually want to know about this stuff? Quite possibly, it is simply my indulgence. After all, how many people actually want this ongoing irrelevant monologue? Probably not many, but then how many people want silly endless supposedly "funny" emails? Actually, surprisingly enough, quite a lot of people....
No, it has not taken me 5 weeks (yes!) to decide this, its just been rather a busy time, and as often as not, decent communications (I need that for Gmail connectivity) is not available, like some of the Nullabor for example.
Hmmmmmm.
However, several folks did tell me they enjoyed the last lot, (of course, many more could just as easily simply deleted my musings....) so, even if its just for posterity, something to tell the grand kids about when we are mere brains in jars, at some future time, and most importantly, maybe, Why Not? Even though we are mainly retracing familiar cups of coffee and downing similarly tasty pies as the last 2 adventures here.. Lets, finally, begin
Well, its now October 14th, and it is well past time.... Now October 27th, and I've been avoiding this till I had some quality time. FINALLY!, in our timeshare for a week of non driving vegetating
Spoiler Alert! Just finished and re read it all. This is a pretty dull stuff unless you really want to know about how we have fun on our trip, east to west
To, (finally) Begin....
The genesis for this trip actually started about 10 days after we got back from our S.E. Asia tour with a quick "now what?", and with a realisation shortly after, that one way tickets are not much more expensive than half of a return, and give pretty much unlimited flexibility to simple country folks like me & the missus.
Our neighbours wanted to do a timeshare in September, so, with this in mind, we scanned the RCI availables, and finally booked a week from September 8th in Kauai, the westernmost of Hawaii's inhabited island which appeared to meet everyones idea of a good time. Unfortunately, Mel & Brian, an hour too late, found they couldn't make it that week, so we're off on our own.
Westjet does a cheap flight direct to Lihue Fridays and Saturdays only, and so we're off to Princeville. The "adventure" begins
Once again, after $$$Money, and travel docs, this time we are both on Canadian passports again, without any doubt, the most important item is a good (ie Android :) ) smartphone. After making sure you have somewhere to stay on your first night, ALWAYS make sure the first thing you do after coffee the next (or even the same) day, is to find a local SIM card with data. It goes without saying of course, this phone item must not be locked, preferable unlocked from birth.
It also helps if you are a member of CAA, which, via their web site, provides really cheap car hire throughout North America, I have a VISA card (for all that deductible stuff etc), so all I pay is the rental of $18 per day for Hawaii. As an "Executive Member" of CAA, I'm also offered a free upgrade. Hah! as Kayla's says, its not fair us old farts who can afford to pay, don't have to.... He He!
We have no idea when we will leave or even where we are going from here, how long we'll stay, when we will get home or even if we are going to be back for Christmas...... Isn't this fun?
Princeville, where the timeshare is located, is a nice enough place. The people are really friendly, and the island is really beautiful. I'm surprised I like the place as much as I do. The time share is bulk standard decent place. It's home for a week, and there's some form of wifi so I can keep in touch and occasionally update clients needs. Yes, some clients are still clinging on. There is the standard set of golf greens, and almost endless timeshares areas in the locale. Looks like its the place to be if you are a retired postman from Pennsylvania.......
There are chickens (real ones), EVERYWHERE on the island. Come 5 AM, you know all about them. There's also lots of cats. Feral cats AND feral chickens. You would think they might cancel each other out.....
There is not much island, about 50Km by 30Km, but several mountain ranges, one of which contains (one of?) the wettest places on earth - Mount Waialeale which gets an average of 11,500mm of rain annually (thats about 40 feet folks). Its certainly green, at least on the windward side, and walking and hiking among the non residents appears to be the thing to do. We settle for a coconut smoothy at the end of the road, and ponder the waves.
There's not a great deal to say about the place, its just a nice break. Its warm, not hot. We take in a few shops, restaurants, cafes and shows, go biking for a day (that was fun!), check out the local wildlife area - mainly birds, and a Luau, the Smiths garden one. Not particularly overdone, and also the pretty biosphere which you can drive around on a silly train thing, I of course walked. I was the only one to do that.
After the pig roast and piles of endless grub and booze, the finale is a Las Vegas Pacific type down market production of tired tourist version of polynesian dances, groaning stuff, but also due to the unlimited food and booze from the Luau. Not a bad evening though.
I find a cheap flight to Auckland so we are booked for the 18th and we can meet our mate Chris for a bottle or 2. with internet and the ever viable credit card, its easy to book our hotel there in a matter of minutes, we are set for our next adventure.
We also take in Doug and Sandy McMasters slack key guitar concert which was actually difficult to find, but fun to be at. This is apparently a very special kind of guitar & Ukulele music where the guitar is tuned out of all resemblance to anything you've ever heard, and the tune is somehow divined from the fingering and plucking. Whatever, it sounded good.
The pool at the time share gets some use........ but its a bit of a hike so we don't barbecue there. The usual suspects inhabit the place. This is a timeshare in the US after all
Eventually, our week is over. Luckily for us, this is just the beginning.
In the meantime's we have 4 days before we leave, so we head up to Koke'e state park for 2 nights. A bit basic after the TS, but lovely walks to the coast. Na Pali, which is the backdrop for movies like Jurassic Park. A great walk.
We are also booked into a one nighter on Oahu, North Island. We only had one response to about 10 inquiries for accommodation which were not on the Waikiki strip. But we eventually got one. That's just enough thanks
The security getting from one island to the other is pretty pathetic. By that I mean extreme The security scanner needs some wet wipes to be taken out of a backpack and identified, all footwear is checked, and everyone gets the full body scan. But, this is the States. However, no cavity searches today it seems, well not for us anyway
This time, on Oahu, we have a $15.00 / day vehicle, a big one!, so we get around the island for 30 bucks and have dinner at the Rusty Shark on the north shore at Hau'ula beach. It's just a caravan serving on plastic plates, but we get a chilled bottle of wine from the supermarket next door and watch the sunset. The food is also magnificent too. Wonderful food, great sunset. Perfect
It appears that all the island homes are numbered from 1 to 100,000. We are at 543 something something, so, its not too difficult to locate. About half way around the island. Quite a useful system
"Kalani Hawaii" is a really great place to chill out at, and Bernie, our host is a wealth of local information. Everyone appears to be here just for the surfing, resident or traveller, some both, making a living is just a side issue. He tells us there's also a resident family of turtles just down the road. Fun to watch, they are literally just on the beach, then we're off to finish our circumnavigation.
The tour of the island is complete, and Ilge thinks we should get to the airport early and relax. Nice try. Air New Zealand refuses to allow us on as we do not have onward tickets, even though the website says no such thing. I even talk to immigration in Auckland and they won't budge.
After 30 minutes of arguing, the flight is leaving in about 1.5 hours, they close the counter in 30 minutes. Thank god I have a smart phone and a working internet capacity (see above!). It's hot, my phone has almost no battery, and the airport wifi is pretty much useless.......
Much cursing, typing on a tiny keyboard, panicking and cursing, and sweating later, it probably only took 25 minutes, but it felt like and age, I have an email with ticket numbers on it for us to show we are leaving NZ too. It's enough to board the plane. We are the very last to check in, so, no special seating for us, except do actually have seats. Now with our hasty booking, we know we are leaving New Zealand on October 1st, at 6:10 AM. I chose the cheapest option in case they still had an issue of some consequence
Never travel without your Android plus a working phone data plan kids. Certainly saved our bacon.
Its wet on arrival. no one in immigration gives a shit about onward tickets. It seems its the carrier, not the government that demands it. Hence the website lack of such a requirement? Who knows. We're here. Love it. No Chris, so we bus into town
The America's Cup is on, and New Zealand appears about to win it. We decamp to a coffee shop on Queen Street and sample our first NZ coffee in a few years. Everyone is so welcoming, friendly, helpful. Suddenly, we are taking photo's of coffees again. It all comes back to us. We're home!
It appears the NZ folks are 8 races up and they only need one more to clinch it. Much cheering around the shop.
Its fantastic to be back. Our apartment will be available in a few hours, we are not too badly jet lagged, so I visit our bank, get new cards (we have an NZ account for our travels, and my old ones still work as I got cash at the airport). Guess what, for $NZ25.00, I get a my all over NZ SIM, phone calls plus plus lots of data. We're set
No word from Chris, so i send him my brand new phone number.......
I love Auckland. Its on such a human scale, and I just adore wandering around the Auckland Domain (thats a park for you Northern stay at home types). Its so Middle Earth.
We catch up on emails, and various electronic stuff (ie games for the missus, customer support for me). After a few hours, I take to the streets and of course, up to the domain. Its good to be back.
Saturday and I'm on walkabout around Auckland, for about 8 hours. I'm surprised, the Auckland suburbs are in fact pretty boring.
We are re acquainted with NZ folks and culture.... it's lovely.
Come Monday, I pick up the car (most expensive to date, $22 per day), and head off into the new day, without saying a word to Chris. Oh well. Life moves on.
We head south east to Tauranga: its such a pleasant town, with its own volcano, about 2.5 hours south east of Auckland. We've passed through before, but now we're here for the night
Next day, the storm hits and its rough to be out. Our coffee is inside today, under the extict volcano - there's lots of them here. Cold and miserable. We valiantly try to be tourists, heading around the coast via Whaketane and Opotike (what lovely names eh?), but eventually give up and batten down the hatches at a hotel on the Bay of Plenty peninsula. Fantastic to be in with a bottle of wine when there's a gale outside, and the sea (suitably raging), is only a few metres away. New Zealand does landscapes very well.
The road has washed out in several places. This one, the river beneath has chopped a huge chunk of bank away. Pretty dangerous to be driving when this road gave out. There were lots of road outs on our way to Gisborne that day. However, the weather is again, glorious.
The KiWi's achieve the almost impossible. They were 8 - 1 up in the America's cup, now, they are 9 - 8 down, and they've lost it. Everybody recedes into glum funks
We decided to spend a day wandering around checking out birds at various places around, and headed up toward a bird sanctuary, miles away, we head up, and there's not much there in any bird sense, just trees and a stream, so we continue on down a dead end road. About 10Km into mountainous nowhere, we met and chatted to a sheep farmer, mainly about birds. he invited us back to his farm for a cuppa complete with incredible views of the surrounding mountains from his deck. Really lovely just to meet someone on the road, have a chat and a cuppa and say farewells - lovely. New Zealanders are just the best.....
Tomorrow is the 27th, its Ilges birthday, so we book an early morning walk with the rays. Just off the beach on her birthday. The tour is at low tide, 6:20AM today. we embrace the sunrise, then head down to the bay. We are given hip waders, and each have a bamboo pole to steady ourselves. Going out at really low tide is easy. we are about 80 metres out when they arrive
Mostly they are parrot rays, apparently, they can sense our heartbeats, so as they have been part of this thing for about 20 years, they know human heartbeats means free food. No, not us, fish in a bucket
We are out for about 20 - 30 minutes, and don't really notice that the tide is coming in, so instead of being up to our calves, we are now well up above our knees. As we head back, a manta ray (about 1.5 metres across), surges in looking for her share, or more. The parrots simply nudge you to feed them, the manta is far more insistent, and I very nearly get butted into the tide. Wild stuff, but luckily, somehow, I remain upright and dry. With 2 camera's, that's a good thing.
On to Napier. This means Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay, and wine country. We have made it to our first objective. The Red wine region of NZ. There's only a half day tour available, so we take it.
Gareth of Odyssey Wine Tours is excellent. Very knowledgeable and funny. We have a happy half day in the boozing mode. Sad to say, the only wines we like are Sav Blancs from the south island. Not a decent red amongst them. Maybe it was because Marlborough was such a great gig, and this was only half a day, without spotting a decent imbibe, that it was a bit of a let down. Move on.....
To Hastings, another lovely day and we find a farmers market. Unfortunately, we've already had breakfast. This is (heard this before?), a lovely place with really nice people, but EVERYWHERE.
We amble down to Greytown, about 230Km south. Its a slow languorous trip, we are taking it all in because we are leaving in 36 hours. Here, we motel it for the night.
When I booked the hotel in Wellington, I could only find one room near the airport.I thought this would be useful as we needed to be at the airport by 5:00AM. One thing you can say about the place is "its very near the airport". That's it.
Before we leave, we head to WEKA, on Weta street.
guess what these folks are famous for.... we take the tour, which by and large, is pretty dull.
Then, all we have left to do is offload the car and into the hotel
October 1st, our taxi arrives at pre dawn at 4:45AM, and all we need to do is scan out passports, put the labels on our bags, go through security, have a coffee, get on board, and depart. This time, no check in, no one wants to know whether we are going anywhere else
Sayonara NZ.
That was fun, we'll be back
Now over to Oz for our 4 x 4 adventure
From Your Correspondent
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