Category Trips
New Zealand/Australia 2024 – Whanganui, Part Two
January 5 – 7, 2024 On the way back to the house in two cars, ours made a brief stop at Cooks Gardens, a multi-purpose stadium that is currently used mostly for rugby union matches, athletics and cycling. The main stadium, known as Westpac Stadium, can hold 20,700 people with 3,500 covered seats and while […]
New Zealand/Australia 2024 – Whanganui, Part One
January 5 – 7, 2024 Our bus ride today would be one of the longest of the trip, requiring that we head west to Hamilton, and then turn south for Whanganui, our eventual destination. It would take us over seven hours given the number of stops that the bus would be making along the way, […]
New Zealand/Australia 2024 – Tauranga, Part Two
January 2 – 4, 2024 We finished up at the Redwood Grove and motored a short distance to the Living Village. It is a semi-rural geothermal area in the Taupō Volcanic Zone that was the site of the Māori fortress of Te Puia, first occupied around 1325, and known as an impenetrable stronghold never taken […]
New Zealand/Australia 2024 – Tauranga, Part One
January 2 – 4, 2024 We finished at Winona Forever and called a couple of Ubers (Auckland didn’t have any large enough for all five of us) to get us to the Sky City Bus Terminal on Hobson Street, where we arrived soon after. This, our first interaction with the bus system, would be mildly […]
New Zealand/Australia 2024 – Auckland, Part Three
December 28, 2023 – January 1, 2024 Our last day in Auckland would be a lazy one, with Joanna and Marty heading off to the Auckland War Memorial Museum while Kim, Bev and I would Uber to the harbor and stroll about there. The museum is one of New Zealand’s most important museums and war […]
New Zealand/Australia 2024 – Auckland, Part Two
December 28, 2023 – January 1, 2024 Our first full day in New Zealand would turn out to be an exciting one, with a long and exciting e-bike tour in the morning capped off by a nice dinner and then trying to manage to stay awake until midnight. It was a challenge all around but […]
New Zealand/Australia 2024 – Auckland, Part One
December 28, 2023 – January 1, 2024 The Christmas holiday arrived, and we hosted this year as there would be a very short turnaround between the 25th and our flight to Auckland on the 28th. I met with my eye surgeon on the 27th who confirmed that the blood was clearing out and all looked […]
New Zealand/Australia 2024
December 28 – February 6 Throughout the second half of 2023 we began to actively plan for our long-delayed journey to New Zealand and Australia. Between Covid and various health issues, we’d pushed the trip back two years and now with my sister Bev’s pending retirement, we could move forward with filling in the details […]
Peru – Aguas Calientes/Machu Picchu, Part Three
July 25-26 In our last post we left Joanna at KM 104 to begin her hike up the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu. Not fond of writing, she reluctantly, but effectively, related her experience for us as follows: “When the train stopped at KM 104 (Chackabamba) I was a bit anxious as I wasn’t sure […]
Peru – Aguas Calientes/Machu Picchu, Part Two
July 25-26 The four of us (Luis, Beppie and Ian) soon arrived at the entrance to the grounds, cleared security and began to wind up our way upward through the terraced landscape until we reached a high ground overlooking the entire complex. It was steep going and at this altitude not as easy as one […]
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