Vancouver and Cruising 11- 19th..... August

27th level apartment

We were excited to be flying into Vancouver City and having a familiar face to meet us as we got off the plane. It was 6.00pm Monday evening so Blair had finished work and was waiting in his auto (no one drives a "stick-shift" in North America) Mazda 6 to take us across the city and into his downtown apartment that he shares with Jan. They generously offered us a part of their space and we were soon comfy and fed. While Blair and Jan worked Diana and I wandered the streets of downtown, Diana mostly looking at clothes to wear with the man with the 10 quid suit. While our sandals and shorts had equipped us well throughout our trip so far we had the impression that they would not quite cut the mustard on the Holland America Line. This shopping required more than one day so while one shopped the other geocached about the place.....I enjoyed my day. After I navigated my way home it was pretty high tech to be able to open up the iPad and track the sales Diana was making as they debited from our account and instantly showed up in the Inbox!

We had a few days of dining out downtown with a few of Blair's friends and tidying up our wardrobes. At 2.30pm on the 15th we boarded the Holland America Line's Zaandam to cruise the inside passage of Alaska. We have a nice balcony "stateroom" which in plain language means 'cabin' but stateroom sounds better. The first day and a half was spent motoring northwards along the coast which gave us plenty of time to explore our ship. There are 1500 passengers and 603 crew (mostly Indonesian and Phillipino), all very friendly and well organised. The ship is 220 metres long and 34 m wide, uses 65,000 litres of diesel per day and has a top speed of 38 kms per hour. I don't think we are at top speed as we are dodging among islands most of the time. It is fairly palacious with plush carpets, gleaming metal work and several lounges and bars. We won't go hungry as there are numerous options from burgers by the pool to full formal dining in the Rotterdam Restaurant (time to unfold the ten quid suit). Fortunately it also has a gym with an expansive sea view to take your mind off the hard work.

It didn't take too long for the motoring and the exploring to become tiresome so we were pleased to see Juneau, the capital of Alaska and our first shore excursion. The weather was not great with all flight-seeing cancelled. There are numerous options for shore excursions and fortunately we chose whale watching by boat and a visit to the Mendenhall Glacier. The whale watching was exciting and we saw over 20 humpback whales, mostly as they dived. We had seen whales while motoring on the inside passage, they were rearing out of the water and crashing back with a great splash evidently to try and remove critters off their hides. Quite spectacular but very difficult to photograph. While on our whale watch we were also taken to a colony of sea lions. Following the water excursion we boarded a bus that took us a short way out of town where we could view the receding Mendenhall Glacier. We didn't choose to walk on the glacier but it was an impressive site from the viewing platforms. We also dropped by a small creek to see red coloured salmon heading up stream to lay their eggs. Some of the track was closed as the bears also enjoy this activity and not just for viewing!

Back on the Zaandam we bedded down as the ship slung it's hook and motored away from the wharf. When we woke up we were in Skagway, a little further north. Skagway is a town of 800 in the summertime that totally relies on th the tourist trade and four cruise liners a day. There are no balls left on the brass monkeys in winter so the service people head south to warmer climes. The four cruise ships a day provide about 6000 walking wallets so I guess they do OK in a fairly isolated location. Unlike Juneau and Ketchikan, our other two shore excursion destinations, Skagway has access by road via the Yukon Highway. Sea and air are the only way to reach the other two little towns.

Dewey Lake Trail

We went for a bush walk first thing in the morning for the good of our health but also to check out the native bush here. I couldn't help thinking that we were in an exotic forest, my brain seems entrenched with the idea that conifers are exotic...40 years in NZ forestry might be difficult to erase. The bush that we saw was mostly hemlock and Sitka spruce with a few cedars thrown in. Pleasant walking on well marked trails.

In the afternoon we took a train ride on the historic White Pass railroad that covered quite a bit of the history of the Klondike gold rush. As usual, a few people got very rich and many left with empty pockets and a broken heart. The journey took us back into Canada so we had to do the border crossing bit and 30 minutes later were waved back into Alaska. The train ride was excellent, rising from Skagway on the edge of the Sound and up through forest, about 35 kms, into stunted mountain vegetation (where they get 5 metres of snow lying in winter) to an altitude of 875 metres.

North Sawyer Glacier

Back on our cruise liner we ate excellent food as usual, tidied up a bottle of Nobilo and sank into our very comfortable bed...and got rocked to sleep. On waking on Tuesday morning we were in Tracey Arm Sound and the cliff walls were closing in on us. We continued a long way into this Sound until we got up very close to the glacier and pretty much ran out of water. It was brilliant and a real treat to have such a big ship so close. The seals were lazing around in the freezing waters just to add to the majesty. The crew did a great job manoeuvring us amongst the icebergs and it is not very often that trips can do it due to inclement conditions. Our lucky day. We must have taken a hundred photos so a bit of culling will be required when we get home.

North Sawyer Glacier

'We' (actually the eagle-eye hunter of us) spotted some wild sheep living on a cliff face on the way out so another burst with the camera.......thank goodness for digital photography

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"....the land of the free...." 5 - 11 August

Our last couple of days were spent geocaching with Helen, and tying up loose ends in Scotland...not that there were many of those but it was a wonderful time with Helen and Moira. It is a shame that they aren't just in the next town as we had endless pleasure in their company.

On one outing into Dundee we ventured into a Red Cross shop looking for some tidy clothes that I may be able to wear on our cruise if invited to the Captains banquet....Surprisingly there is a guy in Scotland that is exactly my size and not in need of his suit, 50% wool. This is now in my wardrobe for the princely sum ten quid....brilliant!

As the sun rose over the horizon we were speeding to Edinburgh International airport looking to board a plane to Chicago via Dublin, flying with the Irish. All USA immigration details were managed in Dublin which was hopelessly overwhelmed with west bound travellers and although the plane was held up for an hour, we were safely landed at O'Hare 6 hours later. A free lift to our lodgings compliments of the hotel was welcomed however we weren't quite prepared for our friendly driver. Turns out he had more yap than the drovers bitch and in the space of 20 minutes we knew more about Chicago than the average native. All very entertaining and with a $5 tip he was sent on his way quite happy.

Our body clocks were a bit tested as we had caught up 6 hours. To try and sort things out we went and gathered a couple of caches in the riverside park opposite the hotel. Surprised to see a little Roe deer in the park with so much concrete and cars all around. After that to the Casino next door for dinner (on UK time that was 1.00am) no wonder our stomachs were protesting! Try as we might we couldn't bring ourselves to part with any money at any of the other opportunities in front of us...bed was most welcome.

We flew into Cedar Rapids the next afternoon. We believe it was Cedar Rapids however there are no rapids on this flat piece of the mid-west nor did we spot any cedar trees.....might need to do some research? Brian met us at the airport and it was great to see him after two years then we sped down the freeway to Iowa City, a small US university town. Population varies from 30-60 thousand depending whether the students are in town. Saturday morning is Farmers Market and Lesley and Brian are up early to run their "Dumpling Darling" stall. The tasty Korean pork dumplings are very popular. We wander in for breakfast mid morning and a stroll through the bargains.

Sutliff Cider

We have had three nights with Brian and Lesley Triplett who must be two of the most genuine people in the United States....we have enjoyed their company immensely. We had a good look around their town and in the local parks and reserves. Most of the adventures were centred around hunting for geocaches and I think there are two more names to add to the 6 million people involved with this treasure hunting game....where there isn't any treasure! We visited a number of bars and restaurants but our best visit was to a small Cider Brewery in the middle of the cornfields, where we were treated to live Blues music and very drinkable cider. We had a real down-home happy Sunday afternoon.

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Wandering in the British Isles 23 July- 4 August

It has been a while since we blogged but we have covered a fair chunk of territory in our little car and met a lot of people on the way.

From the north of England we headed for Glasgow and spent a day in the town centre appreciating what the town had done in preparation for the games. Glasgow seemed a very friendly town and everyone was involved in the Commonwealth Games in some way. It was quite fun to have a day checking that out and to fix a very noisy hearing aid that had been bugging me for a couple of weeks - "...clean your ears out man...." was the diagnosis which was duly done and a little more hearing was restored.

Corrie of Fee - Cairngorms National Park

It was lovely to arrive back in Dundee to the comfort of Helen and Moira. We enjoyed a walk in the Scottish Highlands but never quite made it to the top of a "Munro". But we did get puffed and a small bead of sweat on the brow. Fortunately the weather was perfect and as we got back in the car it started to rain heavily....good luck was with us and we believed we would carry that into the Sevens rugby final the next day.

An early start was required to get to Ibrox Stadium in time for kick off and we enjoyed watching the NZ team cruise through the preliminarys. While we hadn't seen any of day one on the screen we were aware that there had been some controversy with our pool game against the Scots. As we were getting on the bus I heard "........cheats" directed at us in our full All Black strip. Maybe we did go a bit over board with two sin bins in the last minute to prevent a 5 pointer to the home side. The cheer was loud at 10.00pm on completion of the final. Some of it aimed at South Africa for their excellent effort in beating us and some of it aimed at NZ for being beaten....that's sport. We were a bit sad driving home to Dundee at midnight but at least we hadn't flown 20,000 kms to see the game....we had more adventures tomorrow.

Glenmore - Cairngorms National Park

From Dundee we headed through the Cairngorms National Park, did a bit of geocaching, and arrived late in the afternoon at George and Shona Sinclair's home in the Caithness countryside south of Wick. I expected we would be getting a bit isolated up there and while there is no sign of the hustle bustle and queues of London it was all very civilised. It was not nearly as cold as I had expected, London is closer to the North Pole than Dunedin is to the South. George drove us around the far north, through rural countryside (which most of it is) and visited John o' Groats towards the northern tip. George and Shona had a wonderful gathering of family one evening where we could meet son Gary (he has stayed with Blair in NZ), daughter Lynsey, plus their fiance's and also George's sister Rita and her husband, George Sutherland.

It was good to have a yarn around the dinner table but I must admit that while they believe they are speaking English, I understood very little. I found out that "dinner" not only means an evening meal, is also the pronunciation of the monetary system in some countries but also means "I did not". "No I dinna". I got quite mixed up when someone was asked if they had done something yesterday and their answer had something to do with last nights evening meal! We also went on a walk of discovery to search for a geocache down on the seaside just below George's house. This led us to an interesting bag suspended over a cliff and tied off on very steep rocks.....a project for George.......we are awaiting an explanatory report in due course.

From Forse we headed back down the coast to somewhere as yet undefined but included a visit to the Glenmorangie whisky distillery. We had an excellent host who spoke a reasonable version of Scottish English and included a wee dram on completion. There are numerous distilleries here in Scotland and while I am not an enthusiastic whisky drinker I don't think we see many of these whisky's in NZ. Glenmorangie produce 600 million litres a year so presumably someone is drinking it! I do know that the Scots consume about 15% of production themselves but have been informed by reliable sources that most of this is for medicinal purposes. Sounds like a line for a Tui's advert....?

Finally saw a dear crossing

We found a comfortable bed and breakfast at Blairninich for the night. This was half way to no where but we were heading for the west coast and rendezvous with Moira and Helen at Morvich and it looked a reasonable option. At Dornie we took a quick photo of the ubiquitous castle before meeting up at Morvich. Once unpacked we piled into Moira's car for a scenic tour and lunch on the Isle of Skye. Remembering well my school days and the singing of songs at assembly I was expecting a speeding bonny boat, but not to be. Over the sea to Skye is now by way of a two lane bridge so I expect we will soon hear of a modernised version of that song. Next morning we awoke expecting forecast storm conditions but were pleasantly surprised by blue skies and warm temperatures. We drove to Plockton and spent the afternoon kayaking about in a sea loch, that is a loch open to the sea with salt water. There were no mishaps and we enjoyed this soft form of exercise. Sitting in the back of a kayak with Diana, I got to have had a few extra breaks and am now sure she doesn't have eyes in the back of her head.....basically I got taken for a ride, lovely.

Back to Dundee late Sunday and we are now in preparation for our flight this week to Chicago and onto Iowa City the next morning where we will have a couple of days with a couple that looked after our hostel a while back.

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Motherland - the Hub of the Empire 18 - 22 July

We were pleased that our aircraft landed safely in London City airport, the closest airport to the centre of London and also the newest. As the docks in the East of London were of little use a part of them was utilised to build a brand new international airport. Once through customs/immigration, a seamless invisible operation, we picked up our hire car and set sail into the London traffic. Quite an experience and one that finds us digging deep into our reserves of patience. These guys seem to think that queuing is part of life, we don't get that sort of training in NZ that sets us up for Britain.

However, we mastered the M25 without mishap and arrived in the early evening to Mike and Merima. Mike is one of the first backpackers that ever stayed with us, back in 1992 and we have kept in contact over the years. They have a lovely home on the south side of London and two gorgeous young ladies and a spare room for us, well actually Emma generously moved out so we could inhabit her space for three nights thanks Emma. We headed in to London Town by train and wandered with the incessant constant crowds for a day. This town is different to any we have encountered and it can get to be too much. We thought we would go to the London Eye and experience that huge Ferris wheel thing that takes people high over the city. We lay on the grass and considered the length of the queue. Once in line it would take 40-50 minutes to get to the front and onto the wheel. We steeled ourselves, battled our inner doubts, considered all options and took the plunge.....yes, we can do this. At about the same time that we made that positive decision we realised that we had to first stand in line, another line, to get a ticket, and that would take 40-50 minutes! also........we never did get to ride on the London Eye. We enjoyed the walk mostly for the fact that we could leave the city and once again, at sometime, roam freely on the streets of Blenheim without interference. We did manage to get tickets to "The Commitments" musical which was quite fun and ended up with a concert of all the movie songs at the end. The whole theatre were on their feet dancing to "Mustang Sally", a good way to finish a day in the big smoke.

Palace Theatre

After leaving south London, with a couple of caches logged, we headed to Devon in our Vauxhall Astra. We found a B&B in Kingsbridge which is a nice small town near the south coast. From this town we could easily get to Start Point where Diana has distant relatives, Mary-Jane and Nick Ansell. This is a family that Kathleen, Diana, Hayden and Blair all visited and are related by way of a great, great grandfather. It turned out to be son Charlie's 30th birthday bash with lots of people camping in the paddock - like a mini Woodstock! The family is well into music so we enjoyed a line up of six different bands playing in one of the farm sheds including an 8 piece band which had Charlie, his sister Annie, and his father Nick along with cousins and uncles. Unfortunately brother Freddie could not be there as his band is having some success with gigs in Germany at present. The "Ferrets" were able to put on a great performance, including a few "Rolling Stones" hits, magic.

Start Point

James, Mary-Jane's brother, was down from Hereford with his son, Anthony, and we had a good catchup with them. James visited us in Blenheim about 100 years ago. It was wonderful to visit these distant relatives and to feel so welcome in such a beautiful part of England. We walked to the lighthouse and also to an abandoned village built on rocks under a cliff on the edge of the sea while gathering a couple of geocaches. There was a tinge of sadness in finding Mary-Jane battling cancer, but it was so nice to meet her again after so many years and we will always have fond memories of our times with the Ansells in Devon.

From Devon we drove back to London and caught up with another special couple, Mike and Holly. They had looked after The Grapevine for us a couple of years ago and it was good to see them happy and together saving money for a house. We had dinner with them before we set off north.

Our route north took us through numerous little villages and past some farms which all look a picture at this time of the year. We haven't seen any rain and no doubt the farmers would like to see a change in the weather. We camped for the night in a wee town in the Yorkshire Dales, Hawes. It was a real treat with fantastic weather and such picturesque surroundings. We enjoy driving on the little by roads but they are much slower than the motorways. We tend to use both depending how quickly we want to get somewhere. Hopefully next time we write we have just witnessed our Sevens team winning the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

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Out of Africa

There are numerous ferry options out of Tangier to ports along the Spainish south coast, we chose a high speed ferry to Tarifa and then a free bus to Algerciras. Not sure why it was free but that word is worth a million dollars to a budget traveller and try as we might, budget still enters our conversation if one hand is on our wallet. From Algerciras we took a train through South Spain and up to Ronda a small holiday resort town if you don't fancy a beach. Spain is straightaway different. There are no loud speaker yodelling calling anyone and everyone to prayer. Those calls are made five times a day everyday, must be heaps of sinners I reckon when we only have a few bells on a Sunday. We can also walk along the street without someone trying to sell you something that you obviously don't need or want. It was regular to have an Arab encouraging you to buy a watch when clearly the one on your wrist was doing the job. A hat, even though there was one on your head, a suitcase, a meal, a pair of sunglasses even though you are wearing corrective lenses.

Morocco was certainly different to Europe but we love that cultural stimulation and would be first on the plane back if the opportunity arose.

 

Once settled in to our apartment in Ronda we got out and did a bit of exploring. The city seemed so clean after Morocco and the population clearly European but still not much English to be heard. Ronda is an old city and has a similar history to Lisbon where it has been colonised by different tribes over thousands of years including Muslims in the past. It is built on the edge of a rock cliff so had wonderful views out over the countryside below. Like all European cities Ronda has it's share of town squares or quiet areas where there are numerous monuments to dead heroes and a fountain. That is something different to Morocco, no statues of dead heroes anywhere there. We had time for a bit of geocaching as we wandered along the narrow streets and off the beaten path.

 

Following Ronda we took a bus down to Malaga, a coastal town with an international airport, most used to flying Brits in to catch some sun during their winter. We had rented an apartment through AirBnB and the owner Sergio kindly picked us up and delivered us to his wee house. This was close to the centre of town and had everything we needed. We could catch the bus to downtown and once again meet the dead heroes but the bird watching on the beach was more interesting, in my opinion. The town has 15 urban beaches where some of the swimwear was fairly brief. Even though temperatures were into the thirties we couldn't be tempted to get our swimming kit on and venture into the flat calm deep blue Mediterranean Sea.

Malaga

 

 

 

Malaga, like Lisbon, has the similar history and a castle or two as well. We spent a few hours wandering among some well maintained ruins and hunting out a cache or two. This blog I am writing as we are winging our way, courtesy of British Airways into London City. So it is goodbye to our last town on continental Europe and a sort of closure of another leg of our travels - I have the feeling we won't be coming back. However, we have family and friends to visit in England and Scotland and we are looking forward to seeing the New Zealand sevens team winning the gold medal in Glasgow in less than a fortnight now.

 

 

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Fes to Tangier 3-7 July

Fes was an interesting town and our accommodation there some of the best we have had. We stayed in a "Riad" in the old town which had once been a house for well moneyed people. As families, fathers and sons, all married, tend to live in one house, they lend themselves well to accommodation places when the family decide it is time to move on. They had a picture of Bono and his band set up in the central courtyard, having a jam but unfortunately didn't seem to understand when we explained that his audiences were usualy in the 100's of thousands. Acoustics would have been interesting. The Riad was 3 stories high with a deck on the roof, wall to wall tiles for cooling, heaps of trinkets and vases around and a fountain in the centre of the whole house on the ground floor, which opens right through to the sky. The fountain evidently is what distinguishes them as a Riad.

Leaving Fes we headed towards Meknes an old town founded by Berbers in the 8th century. It is known as the city of 1000 minarets, presumably because of the number of mosques. (In the Fes medina, the old walled city, there is a population of 350,000 and 140 mosques) These people certainly don't wish to walk too far to pray. Unfortunately Ramadan had taken the heart out of the city the day we visited with most shops closed and only a couple of street vendors in the city square pedalling their wares. Beautiful gates on the Royal Palace were worth a photo, Diana hesitated for a moment. (Actually it took 14 photos before I got one without a car, truck, bus or horse and cart in front of her!)

 

 

Our next stop was at Volubilis, an amazing Roman city in the middle of the Arabic Kingdom of Morocco. It was strange to find stone paths and stone columns looking like somewhere in Greece or Italy, here in Maroc. Volubilis was founded by Romans in the 3rd century BC and thrived in a fertile area on olives. In the year 238 it was overrun by the Berbers and the Romans gave it up...it was at the limits of the Roman Empire and practically indefensible. The town was inhabited until the 11 th century and then abandoned as Fes became the dominant city. It wasn't until 1908 that the French, who were governing Morocco at the time, began excavations and restoration. There is still a large area of the 40 hectare site un-restored although the current government see the value in the site and have recently opened a museum there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting high in Chefchaoeun

 

 

By late afternoon we had arrived in Chefchoeun, a small picturesque town just south of Tangier. The town is notable for its architecture and colour. Most all of the houses in the medina are white washed with blue round the bottom. A bit different in this dusty country. Originally settled by the Spanish, hence the white wash, it was inhabited by fleeing Jews in the 1930's who added the blue, blue as the sky is. The major industry in this town is the cultivation of marijuana. Drug growing and use is illegal in this country however the government aren't too strict here as a complete clampdown would force considerable hardship on the community. The general trend is to encourage tourism and associated services to get away from the illegal stuff. I presume their tactics are working however it seemed that there were a number of young tourists here trying out the hooch as part of their travels. I think our grey hair told the touts where we stood but walking through the narrow streets it was easy to smell the wafts of smokers in a dark alley, of which there were many. Diana and I did get "high" but it was only to take a photo from a distance.

 

 

Our last day with Mohammed and Mustafa was a quick run into the northern port city of Tangier. We arrived at 11.00am and had hurried goodbyes as the boys turned their mechanical camel "Mercedes" around and headed back to their homelands near the desert. They had been great company for nine days, kept us safe and delivered us to our accommodation and to all the sights without incident.

We settled in to Tangier thinking we may stay 3 nights. Unfortunately a dodgy chicken sandwich on the first night has forced a lay day and we are planning to head to Spain on the 9th and if we can, to Ronda, a small town just north of Malaga, for 3 nights. My personal health advisor has me back on track in a few minutes over 24 hours so a lucky break I reckon.

 

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