Category Archives: travel

A lot can occur in a week.

Featured

Posted on by
7

It certainly can. Last Friday I joined my daughter Lara on a road trip from Auckland through to Wellington. It was so good to be away from the city and the cars that crowd our highways as we drove the back routes with few people on the roads. We skirted Hamilton, past Waitomo and onto Tauramunui, the weather truly perfect for this special ride. We stopped often to take photos of the countryside.

A view of Mt Ruapehu (my photo)

Lara had hinted at a stop-over a day or two earlier, but kept it a surprise. She kept me guessing the destination all the way, hinting at Raglan at one point, where I’d thought, ‘nice, haven’t been there for a while,’ and then past Otorohanga, where we’d both seen Kiwi some years ago. But no. We pulled over for lunch, and filled up the car, and turned back to join the Forgotten Highway, a place now popular with sporty types who like to go biking in forest terrain. There’s a railroad alongside the road which runs trips for tourists using rail carts. The long road stretches between Tauramunui and New Plymouth and takes in hilltop views and ocean vistas amongst its many splendours.

Continue reading →

The Road Trip

Featured

Posted on by
8
A taste of Melbourne traffic

The first day, did not start well, when we realised the rental firm where our vehicle was located was a long way from where we were staying. Family were busy, so an Uber was called, and we set off through the morning traffic. We will certainly study the map more throughly next time before booking. Nice driver, but hates Melbourne traffic. It was to be our first taste of this phenomenon, as we had never driven in Melbourne before and we would soon be amid the crush. Navigation set up, and co-navigator (me), whose job it was to read screen and report to driver. Anyway, we made it out of the city, (phew) and onto the much lauded Great Ocean Road! Ye ha!

Continue reading →

Australian adventures: One

Featured

Posted on by
4
Isn’t this fun NaniViv & Kerry?

It was a busy couple weeks in Australia; a miscellany of many things, starting in Melbourne. We looked after our granddaughters for a few days; busy times indeed working around their activities. We visited the National Art Gallery to see the Triennial exhibition; a host of fabulous contemporary art. NaniViv (as I’m called), was travel-worn and hot, but the girls not. I suggested afternoon tea, and they suggested the city centre. We did both. It was fun trying on clothes at Cotton On, and buying a top each. Though they were extra excited when I suggested shoe shopping, having just lost a heel off mine at the gallery. Next came groceries, and the need for fruit ‘straps’ for a secret treat they wished to make for dessert. They had no idea these would harden on contact with the ice cream and cause a spectacular dripping.

Continue reading →

Port Douglas: Part 2

Featured

Posted on by
6

The second week in Port Douglas passed in a similar pleasant style to the previous one, seeing us mingling with our friends at the beach, or over drinks in the evening. The weather was warm and skies calm until the end of the week, when strong wind ruffled the sea and waves rolled onto Four Mile Beach. Kerry was undeterred by the strong wind as he loves nothing better than body surfing the waves. I was happier either walking or sketching. But this week had a different focus, because we decided to visit a wildlife habitat a short distance from the town. Never before, I must add, had I ever posed for a touristy photo like the one you see here. I only agreed as I love owls. What a hoot!

Continue reading →

Port Douglas: Part one

Featured

Posted on by
6

Kerry and I were lucky to be invited to spend time with old friends in Port Douglas, North Queensland, Australia for two weeks. We landed in Cairns (a 5 and a half hour flight from Auckland), and if you look closely on the map you’ll see Port Douglas marked above it. It is an hour’s drive further north.

We left in winter temperatures and arrived to a summery 27 degrees. The sky was blue, the water likewise. Too cold for ‘stingers’ we were told. Thank goodness for that I thought, knowing there were many that had wrapped their tentacles around unsuspecting strangers’ limbs in the past.

Four Mile Beach Port Douglas early morning

Continue reading →

Visiting the past

Featured

Posted on by
8
Lyall Bay looking surprisingly calm

The trip to Wellington last week catered for two needs; to see my friend Jayne, and to gather research for the book I am writing. Jayne and I met when I lived in the area many years ago. We had a lovely couple of days together, one of which involved Jayne offering to drive me around the areas I wished to research. So, we headed across town, through the ‘tooting’ tunnel and towards Lyall Bay – one of the places the protagonist of my novel lived in the 1970s. I’ve called her Marjorie and she is based on a very complex woman I used to know well. Back then she liked to be called Mother.

Continue reading →

Little did we realise

Featured

Posted on by
12

My daughter was staying for a while as she is directing a stage show in Auckland, and suggested that she could mind Ninja, our tabby, should we wish to have a few days away. “Hawkes Bay,” Kerry and I said in unison and set about looking for accommodation. We booked a cottage in Clive, which is equi-distant between three centres; Napier, Hastings and Havelock North. Fabulous beaches, bike trails, wineries and food abound in this region – a five and a half hour drive from Auckland. The cottage was new though named Colonial, as it was built to look like the small wooden homes from the late 1800s. It was delightful, inside and out and the bed super comfy, especially since Ninja wasn’t hugging our space (don’t tell him).

Continue reading →

Meeting Barbara at Heide

Posted on by
2

Photograph by Jeremy Weihrauch of the new face of the Heide Museum of Modern Art

I was excited when invited to visit an art gallery in Melbourne I had visited before. The Heide Museum of Modern Art specialises in modern art and sculpture, is quite unlike others, and one I never tire of visiting. It is in Bulleen, a suburb of Melbourne, and was established in 1981 by art benefactors John and Sunday Reed. Thanks to their ideas and inspiration, the museum is a superb asset to the city, and sits well with the other, larger art galleries in the city centre. I was especially excited to visit this day, as they were featuring an exhibition of Barbara Hepworth sculpture. Hepworth is a British modernist artist and sculptor (1903-1975). > Barbara Hepworth

Continue reading →

Travelling, and art in Melbourne

Featured

Posted on by
4

I feel a bit guilty, not having posted for some time, but not having the sanctity of my study nearby did that to me. And travel. I’ve been back a couple of days from a trip to Tasmania and Melbourne, Australia. Tasmania was new to Kerry and I, but not Melbourne, as we have visited often because of family and friends who call it home. The whole trip was eclectic, including the changes in weather and temperatures. Looking at different land forms, buildings, creatures and art. I still feel a little unsettled, but let me begin with some art that we saw.

Continue reading →

On the road again

Featured

Posted on by
8

I’ve been biking in Central Otago again, undoubtably one of the most picturesque areas in New Zealand. It has a multitude of walking and biking tracks, if that’s your thing. And biking is a thing for my in-laws and me (to a lesser extent). Or, maybe I should rephrase that to the less brave. I was down here almost two years back with Kerry, to ride part of three tracks: the Rail Trail, The Roxburgh Gorge and The Dunstan Track, some of which we were about to repeat, but rather differently as it turned out. That’s me above, on the Roxburgh Gorge Trail last week.

Continue reading →

Caravaggio revisited

Featured

Posted on by
4
From The Soul and the Blood advertisement

Two weeks ago I took myself to see the film Caravaggio: The Soul and the Blood, which was part of the Italian film festival showing in our local cinema. I am a big fan of Caravaggio, and three works in particular, which appear in the movie. To think that I almost missed seeing these works in the flesh when visiting Rome some years back. The accidental way this came about is quite funny, I think, and why I’m reposting the story I wrote in 2018 about this experience.

Continue reading →

Meanderings and accidental photos

Posted on by
1
Morning view from The Terrace, Wellington

Last week I took a short break to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, and my old home town. I went specifically to stay with a friend I’ve known most of my life, and now that she lives alone, I try and visit often. Jayne is Wellington-born like me and lives in an apartment high up on The Terrace which affords marvellous views out over the harbour. It’s a great place to see the breadth of changing cloud with each shift of the weather, and I could spend hours watching its passing moods.

Continue reading →

Capers

Posted on by
4

Elizabeth and I met at High School, and have been friends ever since, and I am very pleased to be telling you about her recipe book Capers, not just because she is an exceptional cook, but because this recipe book is different from the usual. It is a kind of memoir, with each recipe marking a particular time, and meals shared with family and friends, in settings that span the globe.

She writes so well. For example, when describing the ‘casually impressive starter’, Bruschetta, Red Peppers and Cannellini Beans, as ‘Minimal, like a Paul Klee painting, with clean flavours and interesting textures’. We follow Elizabeth as she takes us to Jerusalem, and we walk down Salah al-Din Street to Damascus Gate where the village women gather with their wares and we breath in the fresh scents of mint, basil, tomatoes, cardamom… Yum.

That’s just the first recipe. With a story on one page and the recipe nearby, I turned the pages, enjoying the stories and the recipes created from my friend’s memories. In one, she observes her mother gorgeously dressed for a special party, holding aloft a tray of Choux savouries, her skirt, a field of poppies swirling. I’ve never made Choux savouries, but now I shall – using Elizabeth’s recipe, of course.

Continue reading →

Matiu/Somes Island

Posted on by
3
A Birdseye view of Matiu/Somes Island

The reason I haven’t posted recently is, that I had an unexpected road trip to Wellington with my daughter. She was filming in the city for a couple of weeks, so, I arranged to stay with my friend Jayne for a week. ‘Have you been to Somes Island?’ she asked me that first night, as we talked about what we’d like to do, or see. I originally came from Wellington and worked in the city when young, travelling from the Hutt Valley by train, which skirted the harbour and I came to know Somes Island well. In those days Matiu/Somes was known as a quarantine island. Day-trippers were unheard of, and its status only changed in recent years. The weather was hot and clear when I arrived at my friend’s, but wild winds and brooding skies blew in, and plans quickly changed.

Continue reading →

New Year Usa, Japan 2002

Posted on by
9

I met Mutsuko in Nakatsu. She wasn’t part of the art group I wrote about in my last post, but she was an artist all the same. She was years younger than me but we connected right from the start through our love of travel and art. Her family home was in Usa, just a few kilometres from Nakatsu, and I visited often. Mutsuko was a teacher of English, but loved teaching me Japanese. Our classes were weekly, but often shorter than planned as she liked to show me the sights in her wee Toyota. I was introduced to her family, as well as the Sagara family whose girls she taught. And when my husband came to visit, he got to meet them all too. It truly was a special time.

Continue reading →