Bimbling Along

Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl –
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok – doplodovok – plovodokot-doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl –
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp.

Edwin Morgan (b. 1920)

came across this and thought I’d had to share… the trick is to read it out loud. No, really!!

I imagine that most people come into New Zealand through Auckland or Wellington which bring you into the two largest cities in New Zealand. I came into Queenstown, which is a bit more like coming into Southampton… assuming Southampton is in the mountains and is cool and hip.

New Zealand is one of those lovely countries that has both snow-capped mountains and sea within sight of each other… at least from the air!!

(nb – SOPA/PIPA protest means this photo may be darkened for up to 24hrs, you’ll just have to come back!!)

Now I will have to admit, I really liked Queenstown, it’s small and nestled away up in the mountains and if you’re an adrenaline junkie this is the place for you. Not only are there the usual mountain activities of skiing, mountain biking, hiking there is also jet boating, zip-lining, sky diving, 4×4 and famously bungee jumping.

Queenstown was also where I met up with the friends that I was going to be travelling around with.

And whilst some activities such as jet boating and zip-lining were acceptable, no matter how I suggested it I just couldn’t convince them that they really did want to do a bungee jump… which was a shame cause it was simply awesome!! AWESOME!!!

And I kid thee not, that feeling of freefall is a truely great feeling. It’s not quite like flying… but maybe falling with style…

Something else that you can do in Queenstown is play frisbee golf in the park, and afterwards head off to Ferg Burger for a burger!! Nom nom nom!!

Incidently, the native New Zealand reptile, the Tuatara is so special it’s part of it’s own special order… and everyone knows about the Kiwi, but did you know that the kiwi has a largest egg (compared to the bird) in the world…

And if you thought I wasn’t going to say any more about the bungee jump… well, you were wrong!! ;o) GERONIMO!!!!

I’ve been away all of last week working in an empty warehouse in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, but I took advantage of being that far north by visiting a good friend of mine over in Bangor. Tea, gossip and playing trains with the boy (tis a hard life). I did take advantage of the fact that it was sunny (!!!) in North Wales to drive there via the A5 through the mountains… OMG, I’d forgotten just how beautiful they are and how much I missed them.

Whether I’d have thought that if it had been raining and miserable is a slightly different question… though I’d have like to think so.

However, a few gratuitous photos…
this from Bangor Pier;

and this on the way back along Bangor Pier having gotten to the end;

and I did purposely take a longer way home just so I could see a few more mountains…. so I’ll give you Moel Siabod

In an attempt to ruin my one and only New Year resolution work has decided to send me Up North for the week to work in some warehouse… but you never know, this might be a good excuse for trying out something new on the smart phone.

But I am disgressing.

I don’t know about most people, I tend to write these posts in the evening and then set them to go “live” the next morning… I don’t know why. Maybe I just feel that it’s better for blog posts to go out in the morning than late at night.

Of course, I am very much a night owl… which always amuses me considering that you’d have thought that after however many years that I’ve been having to get up earlish to go to work I’d have slipped more into getting to bed before 1am… or later at times.

Admitedly I have never been able to work out how it can be I can be sitting in this chair, barely able to keep my eyes open, and then go to bed and just not fall asleep… but there are many puzzles in this world and I think that’s one of the lesser ones!!

They say (eventually, when you get round to writing it) that you are either a Melbourne person, or a Sydney person. And they are both very different cities. Melbourne feels very people-centric, very colonial. Sydney on the other hand is a much more modern city. As you can tell I felt a lot more at home in Melbourne. Though before you think I’m coming too down on Sydney there are certainly parts of it that were great.

Having arrived late evening by train I was quite glad that I had picked the YHA right opposite. And this was a pretty impressive hostel… as well as the regular hostel things they had a cinema. A roof-top swimming pool with decking. A sauna… And during the roof-top bbq I even had a kangaroo hotdog… nom nom nom!!

Walking through the city (looking for a charger for my camera… knew there was something I’d forgotten) this was my first view of the Harbour Bridge… a pretty decent work of engineering if I do say so myself!!

Of course, being Sydney there will follow pictures of the most famous of Sydney’s (if not Australia’s) buildings… that and is of course Sydney Opera House. This is one of those buildings that has just simply become iconic world wide and when you see it you can see why!! And if that wasn’t enough the story behind how it came to be is equally amazing. A rough sketch, picked up off the floor, ten years late and fourteen times over budget… and did you know that you can hire it… if you wanted to hold a wedding there??

But I will have to say that the area around the Opera House was one of those areas that I quite enjoyed… that and Darling Harbour which had several nice bars, a swing bridge, a submarine AND a wonderful aquarium with some truely massive tanks!!

Next stop is New Zealand… I have liked Australia, and there is so much more of it to explore as I’ve only seen Melbourne, Sydney and what is visible from the train between the two… add it to the list!!

EDIT – I knew there was something I’d forget… I’ve got video from Sydney Aquarium… so if you like fish, enjoy!!

I really don’t know what’s come over me*… I swear at this rate it’ll take me longer to write up this trip than it did to take it. However, this is a new year and so I promise to roll my sleeves up and actually write posts rather than just think about writing them…

So the one resolution that I intend to keep is to actually update more frequently… much more frequently!! Oh those early days when enough was happening that it was possible to post an almost daily blog… But whilst I don’t think that I can ever make my life that entertaining (if it was back then anyway) a couple of posts a week shouldn’t be all that hard…. especially when I still holiday trip to cover!!

* – this is a slight lie

I have been on long plane flights before but nothing comes close to that of the London-Melbourne flight. Even with a 90min break in Hong Kong this flight was long enough that even I managed to get some sleep on the plane. Still managed to watch several films… mostly ones I failed to see in the cinema. Thor, Kung Fu Panda 2, Paul, The Soul Surfer (very good), Tangled (which I loved)…

Arriving at something like 5am it meant that by the time immigration had been gotten through it was a suitable breakfast time, but also meant that I could take advantage of the free tourist hop-on/off trams that circle the city centre. This is really quite handy as you get a 45min trip around the city with on-board commentry telling you what you’re passing.

I will have to admit that I quite liked Melbourne. It’s a very nice city. The botanical garden was nice, and they have Captain Cook’s house in the park… which I have a funny feeling they brought over from the UK.
That afternoon I headed over to Melbourne Zoo. This was quite simply so I could see the main animals of Oz, in Oz… as I suspected I wasn’t going to see them any other way whilst spending so little time in Australia!!

And of course, the terribly unusual platypus!!

The next day I did go spend considerably longer at an archery store than I had planned… but gee, I got chatting and they had Jaffa Cakes… it would have been rude to have left earlier!! But after that I headed down to the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), which is one of those classic sports grounds.

If you are wondering about those lights, it’s because during the winter that half of the turf doesn’t get enough sunlight for the grass to stay healthy. And I will say, if it was full (120,000 people) it would be one hell of an amazing pitch to walk out onto. I think one day I shall have to make it to a Boxing Day Ashes Test just to hear the roar of the crowd.

From Melbourne I travelled to Sydney, but whereas most people would fly I took the train. I don’t know about you (whoever you happen to be) but I do find travelling by train a wonderful way to see the country. You can sit next to the window and watch the world go by… towns, villages, farms… you know… The Country. I think you may recognise the train, based upon our Intercity 125 trains.

My next post will be coming from Sydney, however if you want to see more photos from Melbourne (and the Sydney ones) they are on my Flickr account and in the set RWC Trip-Chapter1 Australia

You know when the small things slip your mind and you forget to do them…?? Letting folk know that I was going to have a really good excuse for not blogging for the last three months was one of those small things I was going to let people know.. back in August.

For those of you whom I don’t know in “real” life (ie-facebook) or in facebook-lite (ie-twitter) I’ve spent September/October with little bits of August and November travelling the world spending a fair chunk of time in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup.

If I had been a really good boy I’d have made sure that I’d taken the http:// login address for my blog so I could have kept you generally updated as things went along. Failing that I’m going to do the next best thing which is to use the journal I kept to recreate blog posts, mostly as and when I upload some of the 5,800 photos/videos to flickr/youtube… you know, after I’ve gone through them, sorted them out, processed them (in the case of the videos) and then finally uploaded them…

And after all that I’ll need a holiday again!! ;o)

I realised that this may seem slightly cynical but the more I learn about weddings the more I start to wonder just what the point is. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no problems with the institution that is marriage, it’s a wonderful thing.

Two people who love each other enough to stand before each other, their friends and family and, if they happen to be religious, before God and say that the person standing next to them is the person they want to spend the rest of their life with.

However… everything else just seems so… unnecessary. And when I say everything else I mean pretty much everything else. All the fluff and hassle that goes before and all the drunken revelries that goes on afterwards. I mean… is it really needed??

And yes, I do realise that when it’s my turn the answer will be yes… whether I think it should be or not!! ;o)

Every now and again I end up with a free hour or so between finishing work and meeting up (usually for lunch) with friends. What I enjoy doing in this time is to Free Walk to the rendezvous. What this means is that you simply head off in the general direction and hope that you get there on time. And the important thing to remember is… No Maps.

I know that the use of no maps can be a risky strategy, but what I find is that you end up seeing a lot more of the city than you usually would by sticking to the main routes. There are certainly people whom I imagine that not using maps might be a rather silly thing to do… especially if you’re supposed to be meeting up with someone, but the idea is to go where you wouldn’t normally go. That and the sense of achievement when you get it right!!

It reminds me of the great fun I had when they had the elephants out and about the city.. trying to decide the best route from A-to-B that would pick up the most elephants… Simple things eh…?? ;o)

If I was being honest, I’d also admit to doing the same thing when I’m out in the hills… having a rough idea where I’m going and then heading out in that direction. For those health and safety folks out there I do also take a map… you know… just in case.

Certainly saves having to ask for directions!!