Travel
Links below to 
online Travel blog I wrote as I explored New Zealand:
Following my fiancé home
Arriving in New Zealand towards the end of a chilly British January, after around 24 hours in the air, winter turned into summer and night into day…
Spaceships, beer and ‘fire baths’
Free dung for everyone. Raise the school leaving age to 65. Limit the right to vote to people under the age of 18.
Steamy times in Rotorua
Robert and his wife Joyce from Surrey and Walter and his partner Kim from Singapore were our companions over dinner at Peppers on the Point…
I see a dolphin pod
Today we went on an organised ‘swimming with dolphins’ trip – a four hour tour around the Bay of Islands. While there was no promise that we would end up swimming with dolphins…
Up with kiwis, down with possums
Over dinner at Chow’s restaurant in Wellington, conversation turned to flora and fauna. Hamish, a writer friend who lives near a conservation area high up in the city’s hills, tells us that he regularly hears a kiwi’s nocturnal call…
Marlborough not very light
It is with aching arms and legs that I write this from the Bay of Many Coves in the Marlborough Sounds. Not that I’m complaining of course. What better way to get some early morning exercise than to take a sea kayak out…
A sobering Maori tale
“As there’s booze around, I won’t be telling you any of the deeper stories about my family history,” says Hemi Te Raku, a Maori storyteller…
Water, water everywhere
Getting out of Welcome Flat isn’t easy – it’s a seven-hour walk or rescue helicopter, so before setting off on our tramp (as they call walks out here), we registered our intentions…
The end of our New Zealand sojourn
“When taking a holiday ourselves, we usually schedule around a week at the beginning when we don’t have to talk to anybody,” says Dave, who runs Misty Peaks B&B with his wife Lee…