Farewell to Palm Beach

Well, we have been blessed with a few days with Hilary and Mick up in the Northern beaches, Sydney, to adjust to coming home and all that brings. This was this morning's serene view from their balcony -which has helped. Hilary and Mick provided us with a lovely refuge and we got to to see the gorgeous Charlie and Clair too (ha...are you reading this dahling?)...so we've managed to fit a lot into our 4 days here
It was buy two get one free for H&M as they wonderfully put up Sarah too for a couple of days; we had Mastermind champion versus Jobseeker at Scrabble on Saturday....but the result is still pending.Sarah's been for a teaching job interview today and is presently tutoring some Korean students in English, I believe...
Presently sitting in the Qantas lounge eating cake and drinking tea in readiness for the culture change. have just heard that there is a further delay on the flight...aaaghh...which should have gone at 5.20 and is now set to leave at 8 pm. They are citing 'engineering requirements' which as it's an airbus is a tad worrisome...
back in Blighty by 8am ish Tues we hope.....

Sadness

Thanks to those who commented.
Sadly, it looks as though our world trip will now be curtailed. We heard the news -rather late as we haven't had access to Internet- that John Wallace, Davids business partner since 1974, died on Monday.
We 'll be thinking of all his family as we fly home but are not sure yet when that will be.

Can it get any better?

Well.....Tuesday saw us walking to the end of the Fox Glacier - unusual that a glacier remains unmelted so far down into a temperate zone - and then ending up at the sea at Punakaiki.
Suffice it to say...it's going to be hard to beat this place to stay; our own 'bach' (hideaway) with private beach. We just may be here for two nights.......!

Brilliant Blue

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That was the colour of the sky on Monday. And the waters we encountered too...coming in the form of lakes, rivers and sea. We probably drove 250 miles from Tekapo pronounced Tikka-poh) under a cerulean sky, to Aoraki National Park at the foot of the snow covered Mount Cook, where we walked up to look at Tasman Lake, dotted with (rather dirty) icebergs.The temperature rose steadily throughout the day from a crisp 15 to a perfect 26, although in the shade the air reflected our altitude and had a glacial edge.
The roads were straight, empty and scenically so beautiful that we ate up the miles without it feeling like a chore. Stopping in Twizel to buy ourselves some lunch in a supermarket, we also found our bargain of the day- a zip bag for $2.50. It can accommodate what ironically call our 'capsule wardrobes'.....it's no fun lugging around suitcases packed with 3 months worth of gear, so we selected clothes and necessities suitable climatically for this part of the journey and packed them into aforesaid bargain. My capsule wardrobe has the extra protection of a plastic shopping bag, emblazoned with 'Be a Tidy Kiwi'.....read this and weep, Mrs Beckham....
We pushed on, driving past lakes -and rivers of various blues from turquoise to reflected blue-greens and through lush planting; blobby, vertical trees, horizontal canopied tree-ferns - until we realized we needed to find a place for the night. There's plenty around but the exchange rate is not on our side - so prices are quite high. At Lake Moeraki we enquired what a room might cost at the Lodge; $798 she said....but that includes dinner (!) We computed that and moved on fast to Lake Paringa where we found a basic motel with kitchen facilities, right on the Lake shore for $95 which was PERFECT.
We even had a pontoon to bob around on as we watched the sun go down and finished up the rest of a bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon blanc. There were no shops in the vicinity by about 30 miles...so we ate from the manager's emergency supplies; instant noodles with tinned salmon and baked beans never tasted so good!

Anybody out there?

Off, under very very clear and sunny skies (if half the temperature of Samoa!) in a moment. But...I know I have the grand total of 2 followers to this blog; if there are any more of you out there please feel free to comment in the handily supplied boxes! Thanks!

Lake Tekapo, New Zealand

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The Church of the Good Shepherd is just to the right of this photo.


We did make it out of Western Samoa....driving through the pouring rain to the airport..and our landlady texted to say that, so far, the cyclone has skirted the island ; I think we're both going to miss Samoa and listening to tropical rain belting down , although having now reached New Zealand and opened our cases of damp damp clothing and found that they dried out within a few hours, we are not missing the saturated atmosphere. The temperature was a bit of a change too...down from 30'C  to about 15 when we arrived at midday.
We have spent our first half day in NZ (a day we lost because having crossed the date line  we missed out on Saturday entirely!) driving from Christchurch to Lake Tekapo,po about 3 hours south. We turned up, found a hotel with an amazing view and have just watched the sun go down over the lake whilst eating the most delicious fish and chips. Being Sunday, we found that there was a service at  the Church of the Good Shepherd right on the edge of the lake and shared communion and the lake view, through the picture window behind the altar, with a congregation of about 20.  The sun shone as we arrived here but who knows what tomorrow will bring....we really don't mind -it's all good! 

As the cyclone builds, Maria decides it's time to ask for the bill...

This was supper with our landlady just before we left lovely Samoa....

And now......a CYCLONE!

Well....having got to St Louis earlier in this trio and been in the midst of extreme weather there ( from 70 F - (21C) to the midst of a mini tornado)  we've done it again! 
David is at the Air Pacific office as I type...waiting to hear what the plan is should the CYCLONE warning turn into an actuality.
We know we have a place to stay here..and if the winds don't get up too much our landlady is taking us out to dinner tonight!
Will keep you posted...

What every waterlogged world traveller is wearing!

I'm going into business manufacturing these for every place the Hoblyns visit....

Tropical abundance!

Fed by new friends

All delicious from sausages to palu Sami....

Waterfall without health and safety regulations.....

Yes that really is the top of that waterfall!

Tropical Rain

Well....I spoke too soon. We haven't seen the sun now for over 24 hours but we do have PROPER rain. It's hurling down out of the sky, banging on the tin roof of our carport and assuring us of a day of rest. We are very cosy in our hill house and I can potter around making delicious stuff to eat from the produce Maria has given us. Huge papayas are a favourite and are the traveller's friend....I'll leave that to your imagination. Last night we ate a bacon, watercress and avocado salad; the avocado was splitting its skin with ripeness and the size of two tennis balls. Pork is a staple in tropical climates and wild pigs wander about everywhere here-a family was crossing our drive as we drove in yesterday!

Email may be a problem but the phone signal is usually great...it worked well enough on a ferry crossing from our main island of Upolu to Savaii to be able to text Louise in Glasgow. Isn't that amazing? And this morning she let me know that she's been offered a place on the PGDE (primary school teacher training) course at Glasgow uni in September...only 80 places and she's got one!

Here we can get a grainy terrestrial TV station that brings domestic news from New Zealand ( the Hoblyn weather effect is on target....the rear end of cyclones affecting south island!), local news in Samoan and English and lots of Christian TV. Religion is really a large part of the culture here with an endless variety of Christian denomination churches; also lots of Latter Day Saints and now a Bahai temple and a Hindu retreat. There is still a curfew in every village between 6 and 7 pm for family prayer time but the creeping changes are there. Until recently no shops were open on Sunday and now they are. Whether the young will continue the culture, I'm not sure. The average age on Samoa is a staggeringly low 22.


What have I loved about this place? Apart from the peace of the lush countryside and the open-ness of the people it's a visual treat. And I love the generous proportions of the people, at ease in their skin. I've even got to like tattoos a bit.....on Samoans anyway!

And that neatly links to my latest reading matter, picked up in the airport in Hawaii, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I've just begun and so far it seems a good holiday read. My copy is saturated as a bottle of water leaked on it yesterday and the atmosphere is so humid it hasn't dried yet. I'm not going to try and help it as I've had two disasters trying to do that; I carefully put some waterlogged shoes (result of wading a river) in the warmed oven in Costa Rica and they dried nicely but shrank...so I had to buy more in Hawaii. And I put my all
weather vinyl travelling handbag (soggy from same bottle of water) in the oven here but forgot to turn it off. Result one melted bag! Luckily no damage to oven or house though....

I began this blog at about 9 a.m and it's still raining at 3.30 Ok...enough now....and the wifi is still preventing picture evidence...but soon, I hope!
     

The Blogger is Willing but the wiFi is Weak

The Blogger is Willing but the Wi Fi is weak

It seems a very long time since we left the Big Island on the 14th Jan. Now we're in Western Samoa and, despite tropical rain, we're loving it. We do see the sun at some point in each day and are never cold. The temperature ranges from 27-30ish degrees C and the humidity is high (I've never had such voluminous wavy hair!) The place is lush and abundant...in everything but wi fi.

Following the theme of angels ( as in day one of this blog) we seem to have our own guardian angel here. We'd booked only one night of our 8 night stay in 'the' hotel in Samoa- Aggie Grey's - and knew we really didn't want posh hotel living but hoped we'd find something suitable on spec.
As we were waiting to get off the plane at Faleolo International Airport ( spot the difference between it and a field) we struck up a conversation with a Samoan lady - Maria. Suffice it to say that between plane and baggage carousel (where we were serenaded by a Samoan quartet) we had been offered a house to stay in. And that's where we are now - in a place in the hills, big enough to sleep 10.
This is the friendliest place on earth. We strayed on to a beach on Saturday (aptly called Paradise Beach) and the extended Samoan family who were barbecuing there, invited us to share their food.
On Sunday I was welcomed to a Catholic Samoan service at Maria's church and the choir was out of this world (think Polynesian harmonies) After church David and I were fed royally on breadfruit, yam, taro root, smoked fish and palu sami - a delicious confection of taro leaves
(like spinach) and coconut milk at Maria's family 'bake'.
Apart from lovely people, this island is a visual delight...even grey clouds and rain can't make it look drab. There's a great pride in their homes, they paint them in marvellous colour combinations; orange and pink, limes and yellows, sanguine and black... and the garden planting is also dynamic, to say the least. We 're lucky to have Maria's sister, a teacher and a village chief, to tell us about Samoan culture but I know this is why we're enjoying this part of our trip so much- because the Samoans do have such a strong culture and we are able to share it. Tourism here has an exciting edge...I've been a little 'thrilled' a couple of times, particularly when we were guided to the very top of a 500 foot waterfall, wearing only very slippery flip-flops, by a couple of small children!
I'm aware we are living in a bubble to some extent -especially as we don't plug into the Internet each day- so we have only heard vague things about the floods in Queensland or the Brazilian earthquake; what news we've caught has been very local...and that's a relief in some ways. Just to be able to wake up each morning and react to the weather or our mood is a blessing. We're here until Saturday when we move on to New Zealand and I'm not sure when I'll be able to blog again so will sign off until next time. (ps...there were meant to be pix with this but the Internet is so slooooow...I'll try another time)  
 

Departure lounge, Kona, Hawaii...

Don't you just love it.....?

I may have cracked it!

This, believe it or not, is a pic posted through the dreaded iPad.....I take it all back, t'was the operator not the technology. Anywyay, it shows David driving us to Kona airport - those are lava flows you can see in the background. I may yet download a pic of the best airport departure gate we've experienced....bet you can't wait!!!

Being Grateful

Ok, so we're temporarily in a damp little room in the Pacific Marina Hotel, Honolulu ( not as romantic as it sounds believe me!)..just waiting out the night so we can board our plane to Western Samoa where, by all accounts, it is tipping it down....but we are really happy and grateful to be experiencing such wonderful things. It's one year and one month to the day since David had his op and he's looking really good.
I'm back into the clutches of iPad technology so picture downloading now probably escapes me until we get to Antipodean shores.Oops...just off to apply the mozzie repellent!

Doing the Accounts

Our home for the last few days

As we've just completed a little over a month of travelling and these days with Charlie have been a time for taking stock, here are a few numbers;
18 - the approximate number of days we've seen the sun in the month.
3 - the number of times I've swum ( water not always above 21 C and not always calm enough Sadly, conditions haven't allowed snorkelling yet....)
8 - the number of flights we've taken
1 - the number of things I've lost whilst travelling ( make-up purse, containing eye mask...very much missed)
3 - the number of bits of clothing not yet worn
7 - the number of friends and relatives we've seen.
75 F - the average temperature her on the Big Island over the last few days....we've had to adjust back to Fahrenheit and Imperial measurements!

1 beer is always nice at the end of the day

                                                                                 

3 to 4 ft...The surf at Mauna Kea beach today

Catching up

Just had a morning on a beach....we had loads of rain last night and so that was unexpected. Yesterday we made use of an overcast day and zipped up to see the volcano on the Big Island; not sure what we expected but it wasn't the glowing lava of our dreams just a gently steaming fissure. So instead of showing you that, you've got a pic of me in front of the much more lovely Waimea canyon in Kauai. We've been catching up with ourselves at Charles'; taking his dogs for walks, reading,(I've temporarily ditched Hilary M for Jonathan Frantzen's The Corrections, which I may have to leave behind if I don't read fast, and am enjoying it greatly) and sunning.


D and C with Pal and Tasha

 Despite being in a green setting amongst loads of lovely palms I've been miraculously left alone by bugs except for one gaint moth that flaps around in the bedroom at night like Dracula's familiar and hides impressively in the day, avoiding detection.
C also has a lovely bathtub....and this wonderful piece of flat plastic that acts as a seal to any size of plug hole...I feel tempted to steal it.
All this pic uploading is done courtesy of Chrles' pc...the dreaded ipad has completely stopped working here.

Quiet times

David and Charles share a sunset on his balcony

We've made it to the Big Island of Hawaii....totally different from Kauai, with it solidified lava flow beaches and, at last, the sun. Enough sun to now be able to ignore it.
We had a delay getting here and had to negotiate our way to friend Charles' house in the dark; not possible - so we met him on the highway and he led us up what was once a steep blacktop (tarmac to you) drive and is now a potholed hazard; the hire car just made it.
This morning we were rewarded with a stunning view down over Keei bay and the sun. So, not a lot's going down here now, sista. Except for cold beers, sushi and goat's cheese nibbles. David's up on the 'land' lying in the sun amongst all the palms C has planted, whilst I tap away at Charles' pc. My...not so fab...ipad doesn't work here.
There may be a jaunt out to see the volcano but probably not a lot more; we did a lot of sightseeing on Kauai...and the Waimea canyon was amazing....I'm hoping to get some pics up  (still!) This is rest stop.

Awake, awake!

Contrary to popular belief, roosters don't only crow at the dawn but also throughout the night. These handsome black and orange jungle fowl accompanied my jet lag waking. At 4.30 a.m local time I was reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel; historical fiction is generally not my thing at all...but a tenth of the way through I think I might like this. haven't read much since all the lazy hours we had on our cruise...then I really romped through The Help (brilliant thanks Lucinda!) One Day -a great holiday read and very funny and clever and some Kazuo Ishiguro short stories. And on the literary theme...it's fantastic to hear that Jason Wallace ( son of John) has won the young Costa award for Out of Shadows
Having now been in or on the periphery of American culture for over three weeks now, Im finding it a bit wearing at times...especially the food.It's loaded with sugar...we even had pre-packed whipped butter for our toast that tasted sweet! It's been hard to find anything Hawaiian...because this has been so fused into other cuisines;actually D and I had an Indian meal in Kapaa Thursday and it felt like home...how odd is that?! last night we did have some lovely local fish and shrimp and mine was on a bed of the indigenous sweet potato...which amazingly is slightly less sweet than normal stuff and PURPLE! makes for an interesting visual plate.

I've been a bit grumpy cos of lack of sleep and waking to cool temps and overcast sky...I had a HOT bath yesterday morning (reminder for future travels...always take a bath plug with you in showering nations..at least this place has a tub (note how I'm slipping into USese!) and I improvised with a full plastic bottle. And presently at about 6.30 am I'm sitting in fleece and joggers by the pool doing this. However, it promises to be sunny today and the temp gradient will be on a steep rise....a bit like yesterday when we saw the fabulous Waimea canyon and went from 52 -78 F in the space of an hour's drive.
Off to The Big Island today to stay with friend Charles Fogler for about 5 days...but to be honest we hardly know which day it is....
Still working on how to upload photos to this....that's my big project for the next few days!

Day's End



David walking underneath Bali Hi...interesting we should have pitched up there as we'd just been in St Louis with Ali who'd just finished a run of South Pacific at the Fox Theatre; well, I thought that was interesting...

 Mission accomplished. Spent a couple of wonderful sunny - if windy- hours on Nukoli'i beach. It was almost deserted, possibly because this counts as a cold snap on Kauai(22 C down to 20 C at night...lovely for sleeping and even too chilly for the mozzies it seems!)
Our days here seem to be forming nicely into getting up and going out early while the sun is around and then retreating to our comfy hotel THE KAUAI INN for afternoon rests when the cloud rolls in.
Yesterday's treat was the LIMAHULI GARDEN - the National Tropical Botanical Garden. The backdrop to it is Makana mountian which towers over the valley, commonly referred to as Bali Hai, from the film South Pacific. The garden neatly combines a bit of Kaua'i culture and history alongside the plants of the island;it's doing a good job of conserving and reintroducing plants too.It's the only place with a forest made up of 100% native Hawaiian species.But apart from all that worthiness, it's just beautiful;the sunlight sifts citrus green through the canopy and the Limahuli stream makes a cool line to follow.
Talking of water....we did have rain last night - but nothing like the amounts we had in Costa Rica. There it tipped down every day, except for miraculously, Christmas Day! A possible low point of our trip (and doubtless there will be more)was having to spend a night in the HOTEL ARANJUEZ in San Jose which was not equipped for the cool temperatures. A COLD shower was
followed by a night in a bed with a thin blanket -so I slept in jogging bottoms,nightie and fleece jacket. Could have stayed home for that!
Here, we found this hotel by ringing around after we stepped off the plane and it's cosy and they're very hospitable. Palms rattle outside our window...sounding like rain, so it's always great to find that it's not the case. Kauai does boast the wettest spot on earth, on one part of the island they have 500+ inches a year, so we can't take all the credit for rain making
(David and I do seem to have this way of arriving to precipitation wherever we travel!)
For a thumbnail sketch of this island, imagine incredibly verdant with roosters running around everywhere (no-one asks why the chicken crosses the road) and intense red earth; they dye t-shirts using the soil....one bucket stains 500 shirts. White sand beaches - but not intense turquoise water at this moment. Everywhere we've been the water has been pretty troubled and either grey or dark; always somewhere out to sea a storm has been brewing and the legacy is water that pounds on to shore. Yesterday they had 15 ft waves on the North shore here. On our Caribbean cruise most of the snorkeling and diving excursions were cancelled and there was no chance of us trying to snorkel in Costa Rica either. Hopefully we will get to do some before journey's end!
Enough for now...I'm not sure what time this post will be shown as...I have feeling it's still displaying Miami time..anyway it's 6 pm here and almost time for a Cuba Libre (with Costa Rican Centenario rum and diet pepsi) we've developed some very decadent habits......

Epiphany

Well. if you crane your neck sideways you can see that this is an angel walking the streets of Miami; he was a college professor who walked the fleshpots with a sign saying Peace on Earth just before Christmas. Brilliant! Not so brilliant is not finding a way to make this pic vertical......

This is a good day to start my blog, being Epiphany. That's all about travellers going to see something wonderful. An epiphany can also be a sudden insight, often triggered by the commonplace; we've had a few of those but not in our common place. And, it's the 12th day of Christmas.It's been a treat not to have been at home in the midst of the usual self-inflicted razzmatazz - it's all over and another year has begun!
So, how to write about the things we've done since our 11th December departure will be a challenge as I've called this blog This is the Day ( check out Psalm 118.24 )and hope to record a few things as fresh experiences- sorry, a few will have lain on the shelf for a while and will have the packaging of retrospect.I also need to find out how to add pictures from my iPad thingy....I've not yet mastered this beast, purchased in Miami to keep in touch.
But....the sun has come out now and it's a quest to find a beach here on Kauai. The Hoblyn effect has been working on the weather on this trip - so we've actually not had our fair share of sun, hence the urgency of this mission.
I'll be back later, if not today!