Oamaru to Dunedin via Moeraki

After leaving Oamaru we headed for Moeraki. The destination for lunch was the iconic Fleur's Place. We stopped off at the Moeraki Boulders, which while interesting were unspectacular, but the beach is beautiful, and then headed to Fleurs for an amazing kaimoana lunch. Surrounded by water on three sides, the homey little restaurant produces the most spectacular seafood in generous portions. The bill was fairly hefty, but it was worth it for every delectable seafoody bite. We had clams, fish, mussels and eel  - fresh caught and home smoked - damn good. We then made our way down the coast to Dunedin. The destination was the Forsyth Barr Stadium for the Hurricanes and Highlanders game, preceded by a drink at a Bar in the Octagon and a catch up with friends. Our first 'freedom camp' stop was an industrial complex walking distance to the stadium which was perfect. Maybe not so much the next morning with the machinery starting up at 7.30am and a few dull heads...we made our way to the marina carpark for brekky then off to hunt for coffee.

Fleur's Place

Moeraki Boulders

Moeraki Boulders

Kaimoana Feast

Christchurch to Oamaru

Picked up the campervans without incident. Chris Coaster is from Rolleston and his owner kindly picked us up and delivered us to the bus. From there, after gathering some supplies we travelled toward Oamaru and Riverstone Kitchen for an amazing degustation meal. Travelling through Canterbury you can see how dry the poor place is and windy as. Lynda (me) was freaking out a bit as the bus we are in was being blown across the rumble strip by huge gusts of wind. Got ourselves to Top 10 Oamaru to sleep off the food and up in the morning for a look around the old historic precinct, some yummy breakfast at Tees Street cafe and a drive out to the penguin colony (minus the penguins - they depart at sunrise.) A highlight was artist Donna Demente's gallery, Whitestone Artists' Collective and Grainstore Gallery, in the historic precinct in Oamaru - crazy, gorgeous and very well priced. It's such a shame that we don't have any of the preserved history in Tauranga that they have here in Oamaru. Much like other new world cities, ironically it is poverty that has kept the history intact as there was no money to replace them, now they are irreplaceable. Another highlight was the foraging for some wild watercress - not the first we have subsequently found. You'd never find this much watercress in a creek in town in the North Island. Oh, and it's really cold! After months of sleeping on top of the bed and sweating all night, the temps have plummeted for us here - must be below zero for sure! Well, at least 10 deg or under overnight. Brrr..

Chris Coaster

Historic Buildings in Oamaru

Victorian Precinct Oamaru

Beautiful Oamaru Harbour

Victorian Precinct Oamaru

Watercress foraging

Oamaru Harbour

See more history - just gorgeous

Hi Everyone and Hello 2017

I have resurrected this old blog from our Europe Trip in 2010 to cover a couple of big trips Chris and I have planned this year.
Our first trip is down to the South Island for a fortnight in a cute bus - leaving March 3rd returning March 17th.
 Our second trip is a roadie from Los Angeles to Seattle in late-July to early August for a fortnight. Keeping this blog as a memory and place to share pics with Jordan and Liam who will be at Uni while we are travelling and the rest of the fam and friends.
 Lynda xx

Home Sweet Home

Thought I should put a last note here to let everyone know we are home safe and sound and to apologise to Kaye for the lack of Hongkong photos! I'll just have to show you them at my place Kaye! Thanks everyone for reading our blog, we had a blast and it was great to get comments from home so we didn't feel so far away. We are pretty happy to be home, especially to our own beds, and finally getting the body clocks back in order. If we haven't caught up with you yet, we are looking forward to it and we will see you soon...

Love the Royals.

Hongkong Experience - Part 2

Today, although we were still up a bit during the night, we are all feeling a lot better thanks to a better nights’ sleep. We went to the Kowloon side today, being the mainland side of Hongkong to visit the markets. The Ladies’ Market was our main destination, a block from Nathan Road which is Hongkong’s most famous tourist strip. The Ladies’ Market is a bit of a misnomer as the market sells almost everything you can think of but seems to specialise in small electronics, clothing, shoes, jewellery and leather goods. Particularly ‘under the table’ copies of brand name watches and handbags and ‘on the table’ label goods. I was surreptitiously offered Tiffany jewellery, Bulgari and Chanel watches and Gucci and Prada handbags, plus other replica expensive gear which was then brought into the shop from ‘out the back’ and you had to have a quick look while they stood lookout for police I suppose.


The boys thoroughly enjoyed negotiating bargain deals for the things they bought and all in all a lot of fun could be had for a couple of hundred dollars.

Now we have overcome the worst of our jetlag, found our way around and sorted the trains out it is time to go home tomorrow which seems a shame.

Hongkong is a pretty cool place and here is some idea of the prices of things:

Meal out at flash restaurant: NZD$115

Bottle of beer from 7/11: NZD$2.50

Meal out at McDonalds: NZD$16

iPod Touch 8GB – genuine article at proper shop: NZD$260

iPod Nano 8GB - not real article but good working copy at market: NZD$45

Converse sneakers in shop: NZD$44

Converse sneakers at market: NZD$21

So, it is certainly reasonable cost-wise to come and stay and shop here. I am sure we could have found cheaper places to eat, but the trade off would have been as described in Part 1.

Another few comments about Hongkong –

It is immaculate, other than a few strange/bad smells at times the place is absolutely free of rubbish and graffiti which is quite a feat for such a crowded city.

There is obviously a vast amount of wealth here – there is a huge concentration of Porsches, Maseratis, Ferraris and new Mercedes/Audis on the road. And they have a low level of car ownership because of the cost of fuel – about NZD$2.80/l - only 77 cars per 1000 people.

Because land here is at a premium, you can only lease a space in a cemetery. It costs HKG$20,000 for 6 years. (About NZD$4000). After that you are dug up and turfed out – literally. Hence, cremation is a popular option!

I will post up some pics from the airport tomorrow - bye!

Hongkong Experience - Part 1

We were very lucky it seems to leave Europe when we did. And so far, our flight is still on although we are confirming the time now as the flight we are on originates from Heathrow which still may be closed tomorrow.


In the meantime we are experiencing Hongkong through a veil of jet-lag as we have been awake through the middle of the night and therefore have been feeling a bit jaded as we try and keep it together all day in this full-on place. Yesterday morning we ventured downtown and Starbucks and McDonalds have never looked so good (There are 288 McDonalds Restaurants in Hongkong)!

We had a wonderful tour around Hongkong Island yesterday. What a place of contrasts. Hongkong Is. Is very mountainous and we went to the top of the highest mountain for the view over Victoria Harbour which was quite sensational. There are apparently 39 beaches on the island, and one that we saw was a manmade beach complete with sand from Bondi Beach. It was really pretty.

We visited a fishing village with a difference – it was on the water. We had a sampan ride around the village where the fishing families live on houseboats and have their fishing boats tied alongside. Some even had separate rafts that they kept their dogs on. It was fascinating to see. Unfortunately this way of life will soon be over for these people as the waterway the village is on is being reclaimed for development, as has a lot of land in Hongkong, and they will lose their houses and their means of livelihood which has apparently been this way for generations. Our guide told us that they all need to get other jobs anyway as the South China Sea has been fished out. That’s progress for you!

The Chinese are generally very polite but the wall of people everywhere you go is quite something. The population density is so great that it would be equivalent to the entire population of Tauranga, Mount and surrounds all living in Matua (51,000 people per square km). As you can imagine, this is taking it’s toll on our tired selves.

Our guide recommended a Chinese restaurant to us as we have been struggling a little with finding somewhere for a meal while avoiding the slimy noodles in our hotel. We have seen a few small noodle houses which would be a good option but they are invariably full and although we are not averse to queuing for a table (we have been doing plenty of that), because the restaurants are so tiny there is no room inside to queue, and of course with the wall of people outside, waiting outside is not an option either. So we rocked up to this restaurant with high hopes until I picked up the brochure of their speciality dishes: 100 year old egg anyone? Or maybe a whole snakefish lightly tempura’d and tied in a knot on your plate? Or maybe I could tempt you with a whole chicken sitting up like jacky, bright yellow, with it’s head still on, comb intact? We couldn’t get out of their fast enough. Where are the Western style Chinese restaurants when you need them? We headed back to this huge shopping centre that has the 11th, 12th and 13th floor jam packed with restaurants and selected a nice, safe Thai restaurant...



See Part 2...coming soon..X

Hongkong

We landed in Hkg just after 4pm yesterday and made our way to Hotel in Wan Chai which is on Hongkong Island – for those who don’t know – Hongkong is made up of 2 main islands – Hongkong Island and Lantau Island, plus the New Territories on the mainland. Wan Chai is near Causeway Bay which is an upmarket shopping area. Wan Chai itself is a former Red Light District that provided ‘services’ for G.I’s in the Vietnam War but apparently has resurrected itself into a nice little shopping and eating area. In fact, most of Hongkong was fishing villages and hovels until last century which would account for the now futuristic cityscape that has sprung up very quickly. We are hoping to go on a tour of Hongkong Island tomorrow which will give us a bit more info on this fascinating place. We were very tired by the time we got to the hotel yesterday, so had dinner in the hotel restaurant before hitting the hay. The hotel is quite nice, but we are back to 4 of us in 2 beds in a rather small space! It’s always hard work eating foreign food when you are tired – you feel like something comforting and familiar – but the noodle dishes with veges that we thought would be okay for dinner were kind of gross and slimy with vegetables that none of us could name and only Chris and I would eat.


Today we caught the shuttle into Causeway Bay, only a short drive away but the hotel has a free shuttle. The weather is pretty yuk – smoggy, misty and raining so it feels kind of like we are on the set of Tokyo Drift – misty, wet, dark narrow streets filled with tiny shops, neon signs and millions of people and round every corner huge shopping centres. Kind of surreal. A quietish day today, Jordan is pretty tired so we had dinner while we were out – we found a CPK Restaurant – the same one as we went to in L.A – for dinner, so that was easy and headed back to the hotel. The weather isn’t clearing up till Saturday, even then I don’t know if we will see the sun, but there is certainly plenty to do and see so we will keep you posted!