Category Archives: Choices

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Putting Our Feet Up At Punakaiki’s Pancake Rocks

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We left Punakaiki yesterday after spending  four nights there resting from days spent exploring all there was to see in that lovely place. After asking a local how many people actually live there, I discovered that the number was even smaller than I had imagined.

She said that she was not exactly sure, but somewhere between 30 and 100 people lived in or close to Punakaiki with most providing services in some way to people like us who come to stay for a few days or those who pass through quickly stopping only for a few posed photos in front of the famous Pancake Rocks. I am going to show you some of what you miss if you think all Punakaiki has to offer are pancakes without syrup.

You can see that the rocks resemble a stack of pancakes from where they take their name.

John and I had the good fortune to be able to stay at a sweet little place just down the beach here about 30 steps from the sea.

In addition to some lovely sea views there was a path along a river in a park not far from where we were staying.

There was almost no one around until we spotted this man in the bushes photographing the river with a baby on his back. I had just snapped the photo below when I saw him and realized that he was photographing his wife and son on the river.

Our day trips included some cave time for me with John keeping an eye on the tide coming in while I went exploring. I’ll show you what I discovered next time.

One of my favorite photos of John lately … taken at sunset not long before I took the picture below.

Punakaiki Beach At Sunset

 

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Two Minutes For 29 New Zealand Miners

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A Memorial For The Miners In A Greymouth Shop Window

I woke this morning in Greymouth, New Zealand to the smell of a coal fire burning. John and I were staying in a place that heated its hot water with a coal-burning stove so I assumed that was the origin of the familiar scent.

In the Cornish village where we live in the UK some people still heat their homes with coal and the smell filters through the air more and more as the weather turns colder especially late at night.

This morning was different. Waking in a town where 29 coal miners lost their lives 10 days ago made me keenly aware of how the scent of burning coal might be affecting the families and friends of the men who died in the Pike River tragedy.

I cannot image the pain they must be feeling. What I can do is pause for two minutes to honor their lives and memory with the rest of New Zealand when everything stops for 2 minutes at 2:00 pm today during a memorial service for the miners. I have a feeling that I will be thinking of them even longer … linked as they are now for me with the scent of winter and the security of home.

Two minutes at 2:00 pm.

 

 

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A View From Above Coromandel Town

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I know the last thing anyone wants to read is me whining about how I have too many images to sort, but it’s true. There is so much to take in here on North Island, that I can’t make up my mind when trying to decide what to show you. Everything is stunning and I want to upload it all, but you would likely be as bored as someone forced by the obligation of friendship to sort through their friend’s big book of travel pic’s with the returning holiday-maker narrating at their side.

This has been the most interesting mix of different landscapes I think I have ever seen with a huge variety being observed during some fairly short walks.

Flowers are blooming everywhere and the scent of the honeysuckle blossoms warming in the sun made me go back in memory to my grandmother’s house and a time when the smell of summer coming was enough to make a girl want to shout out loud. Giving in to the memory and the sweet scent of nature, I did let out a little whoop sound which had John turning around to see if I was okay.

I told John that sometimes I feel like I am in a Jurassic Park movie with all the Ferntrees scattered about the woods.

On walks like these John can sometimes end up way ahead of me as I am constantly stopping to take a photograph.

Don’t you just expect to see a dinosaur coming around the next gap in the woods?

Just as I was tucking into some dinosaur day-dreams, I head a rustling sound and this friendly cat came down the path looking to have her ears scratched. After give her a little head rub I thought I was on my way to meet up with John when she followed me a bit more meowing loudly.

When I tried to go she threw herself down in front of me rolling around to get my attention.

 

I called her Cora since I found her above Coromandel Town and when I headed down the path she stayed behind.

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Seeing Sydney By Dawn’s Early Light

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Sydney Harbor By Dawn's Early Light

Arriving in Sydney Australia early yesterday morning just as many of you were waking or going to sleep yourself, we flew into a gorgeous sunrise and the beginnings of a journey I never imagined I would take.

While I have long had a list of 50 Things To Do Before I Die, trips Australia and New Zealand were not included. Travel is there of course, but closer to home and more familiar than the other side of the world to where I was living in Athens Georgia when I began building my list.

Looking back I have to wonder if some of the things on it were limited more by the idea of practical obtainability than the scope of my imagination.

Don’t get me wrong … there are some pretty far-fetched ideas written on that wrinkled piece of yellow legal stationary such as my desire to write a speech for a US president or play the cello like some of the musicians I had seen on stage.

Many dreams I imagined important in my 20s no longer matter and there are new ones taking shape in ways I could not have foreseen when I created my list in the late 80s while finishing my undergrad years and preparing for the birth of my daughter.

Turning 50 a few months ago, I realized that I needed to close the door on certain dreams. It seems very silly now to mourn for a lost life as a dancer when I never even had ballet lessons as a child. Truth told, I have such trouble picking up steps that I was always a disaster in any musical audition that required dance and early lessons probably would not have changed that.

Speech writing for the president is another dream that’s not likely to happen as people develop whole careers as speech writers, a path I do not wish to follow. And while cello lessons and practice would improve my skill with the instrument, I wish for smaller things with it now such as solo pieces I can play with ease for myself.

It did occur to me while I was sitting and thinking during our 22 hour flight to Sydney that a writer has the best career because they get to be anyone and do anything in the stories they create.

After seeing treetops filled yesterday with loads of large bats in a park near our hotel, I wondered if the Wright brothers had studied the bat and its wings when considering how to cover the wings of airplanes while dreaming of the possibility of flight.

Which led me back to who I really am as I began crafting a story outline involving Orville and Wilbur Wright. I may not have a pilot’s seat on the flight deck listed on my list of 50, but I can fly all of the planes in the stories I write and the possibilities are really much larger than that old list ever was as long I stay open when the opportunity presents.

This two month trip with John is one of those opportunities and I am wide open to possibility.

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New Zealand Travel Research – Traditional & More

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New Zealand Travel Guides

For all of you who included New Zealand as a destination in our upcoming extended holiday … you were right!

Even though we have Round the World tickets, most of our time will be spent touring New Zealand. While I usually book flights myself, this was one instance where I saw the benefit in working with an agency to book the many flights we will be on while we are away for eight weeks.

John has handled all the arrangements, bless him for that … for most of my travel life, I have been the one to take charge of the big and small details and it is so different to relax and let someone else do it. Having been to New Zealand in 1996 for six weeks, John knows exactly what he is doing and how to get the best experience for the money.

I would never have known that buying Round the World tickets were the way to go since I associated the RTW expression with the mega wealthy who might go for six months at a time and stop in more countries than the four that our toes will touch down in while we are away. Remember when I said we would be in four countries, well … one was to throw you off a bit as we will only be refueling there during the 22 hour first leg of our journey.

We can hardly count Thailand as it will only be a quick stop, but we will spend a few days in Sydney, Australia before moving on to New Zealand. If you live in Sydney and want to meet for a cup of coffee or a bite of lunch let me know. We are staying near the Botanic Gardens while we are there, but plan to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing after we recover from our long flight. If you have any suggestions for places around Sydney that we should put on our ” Must See list ” please leave them in a comment below.

Some of you guessed correctly that America would be on our list as well. After about seven weeks in New Zealand, we will fly to Atlanta to spend Christmas week with my family. I am really looking forward to showing John what Christmas with my family is all about and it feels like the perfect way to end our trip.

Getting back to travel research, we have gone through guide books both old (from John’s 1996 trip) and new, The Rough Guide To New Zealand, but none of these have photographs that do proper justice to the beauty of the country we are going to see.

The slightly unorthodox ” travel guide ” below has done more to get me excited about what we will experience than all the words in the books above.

Billy Connolly’s World Tour Of New Zealand

Billy Connolly is a comedian who I find screamingly funny at times, but has such a potty mouth that some of you may find him offensive. I know a lot of comedians can get pretty tacky on stage and he tends to put me off a bit with his bad language and constant references to sex, but when he talks about New Zealand (off stage) and shows us places he visits during his ” Too Old To Die Young ” comedy tour he shows us his softer side which is my favorite. (Off topic: I also think he is a fine actor and I loved him in the role of John Brown in the movie, Mrs. Brown with Dame Judi Dench)

John ordered the New Zealand World Tour DVD set above and we have been watching it for the last few days. It is broken into series of eight shows that mix New Zealand travel with segments of his shows performed in towns on both North and South Island. The country looks as magnificent as I have heard and I cannot wait to get there.

I will as you might expect be blogging from the road so don’t be a stranger as I won’t be completely away.

If you are a reader who lives in New Zealand and would like to meet for coffee, just give me a shout through email (found on my “About Me” page at the top) and I will get in touch. Suggestions from readers about what not to miss are always welcome so feel free to share your thoughts in a comment below.

We still have a few days before we go, but the house is such a wreck in places that I feel a little overwhelmed. I don’t know if I feel more obliged to leave it spotless as our housesitters will be family or if strangers would make me feel the same need.

What about you … would you worry more about order and neatness with family or with folks you did not know well?

 

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Doing Battle With A Demon

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In a world where people are starving, I feel bad saying that I hate waking up feeling full. While I cannot say that I have a food addiction, I do reach for sugars and starches in much the way I imagine people with more deadly addictions begin.

I wonder sometimes if not being able to say no to another slice of cake or reaching for another scoop of ice cream when you promised yourself only a taste … I wonder if that is how it begins.

One moment it’s five extra pounds that make your clothes feel a bit tight and the next time you look up from the table you are carrying enough weight to feel it on your bones in a way that makes your joints hurt. You get out a breath faster when climbing a hill and you begin to understand why people call a developing tummy a spare tire.

You notice it mostly when you sit, but you know if this demon keeps gaining strength you will begin to feel it affecting other parts of your body. Your heart will suffer in physical ways that you have only read about and cannot imagine because until now heart pain has been about sadness and regret, not clogged arteries and heart disease.

It feels both extravagant and weak to say that I ate so much before bed that I know I will not be hungry until just before lunch. I also know that people who have bigger issues with weight than my little bit will likely think, ” What is she talking about? “

What am I talking about?

I know that late night snacking is a demon for me that has begun to spill over into my daytime eating so that any occasion can seem like a reason to indulge.

Some people will say just stop.

Stop eating they will say, but I know that I need to do more than just push back from the table or add more exercise to my day. I need to face down my enemy and call it out from where it lurks … waiting as it does to offer comfort in my weak moments in the form of a sweet flavored treat or a salty bag of chips.

Worse than a simple lack of self-control it feels like something bigger gnawing at me from the inside creating a deeper hunger that food cannot satisfy. It is a demon with no name yet … this hunger that has grown larger than my stomach can accommodate.

 

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Reading A Kindle Book Without A Kindle

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Today I made my first Kindle book purchase from Amazon. I always thought one needed a Kindle to buy books in this way, but after doing a bit of research this morning, I was able to download a book straight to my MacBook.

Intrigued by a post written by Suzanne Anderson who comments at GOTJ from time to time, I went in search of her book, Mrs. Tuesday’s Departure which she talked about over at her place today.  She recently decided that self-publishing by way of Kindle was the quickest way to get her book in front of readers. It is an interesting possibility for many writers and one I had not considered until today.

 

Photo Courtesy Of Suzanne Anderson

I plan on doing some more of my own research, but I may be a bit slow in getting back to it as I will be busy reading Suzanne’s new book.

Big congrats to Suzanne and good luck on this new adventure. She will be talking more about self-publishing in the days to come and you can follow her discovery and progress here.

 

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Round The World – Tickets For Two

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We are pretty busy around here sorting out details for an eight week-long trip we have coming up. It involves two Round the World tickets, two backpacks, and two people with a passion for adventure. We will be in four countries during that time, but will spend most of it traveling in one country in particular. I am thrilled to bits to have an opportunity to go on such a lengthy journey with John and will be blogging about it as we go. Can you guess where we are headed … or do you need more clues?

As we will be gone for two months, we have been firming up house sitting details (my biggest worry) and are now just down to packing, cleaning, and prepping the house for the folks who will be watching over our home. It is never easy to have people in when you’re not, but at least our house sitters are family. After reading Donna Freedman’s post about house sitters yesterday, I hope that having family versus a friend of a friend as she has had in the past will make for a better return experience for us.

I am off now to read more of Carolyn Barnabo’s thirteen ‘Passion for Travel’ posts which have just the kind of information one needs when taking a trip like the one we have planned.

There will be loads of great photo opportunities over the next two months and if you feel like joining us on our travel adventure, be sure to stop by from time to time and see some of what we’ll be seeing.

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Public Displays Of Affection – When Is It Too Much?

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While in London last month with my sister, we had a walk along the Thames after John arrived on my birthday. With only two days left on our visit, John took us on a walking tour to some of the places we had not managed to see during our time in London. We saw and photographed a great many interesting places and things on our walk, but the couple below turned out to be the oddest of the day for me.

 

Public Affection On London Street

 

As we turned from the river and went down a nearby street, I was surprised to see a couple about my age having what was clearly an intimate moment in a public place, in the middle of the afternoon. My sister Margaret and I had been walking with our cameras in hand the whole day and as we approached and they did not move, I could not help but snap a photo or two.

This slightly blurry one gives you another look at just how absorbed they were in their connection. Her eyes were closed and he seemed  to be talking to her as we passed, but softly with words that only she could hear.

I took this image after I looked back and saw that their position had not changed.

Immediately after that, a couple walked by and I caught their expression just after they had given the couple a surprised look. I wish I could have gotten their initial expression especially that of the woman who looked rather shocked to see this private moment happening within a few feet of her.

When I turned back for a last look, I half expected to see they might have moved apart, but they were still there behaving as if the world was not passing by. John and I discussed it later and thought that perhaps they might have been having an affair and had no time to go to a place to carry on privately.

I don’t think of myself as a prude, but I do think that some things should be done without the benefit of an audience. What about you …would this have caught you off guard as it did me or would it have not even rated a second glance on your internal shock meter?

For the record, I asked John this morning what he thought and he said he was amused rather than shocked and thought the couple were as he put it, ” … probably grabbing a quick snog because he had to go home to his wife.” If that is so then my blogging about it may not be the best thing for the couple, but a good one for a wife who might need a better understanding of her husband’s latest project at work.