Passepartout

Tongariro Alpine Crossing

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing forms part of the Tongariro Northern Circuit, one of New Zealand’s famed Great Walks. It passes through Tongariro National Park in the centre of the North Island, starting at Whakapapa at the base of Mt Ruapehu (2,797m), past the base of Mt Ngauruhoe (2,291m) and over the top of Mt Tongariro…

A Day in the Life of a Sea Postie

Jim Baillie thinks that he has the best job in the world. I think he may well be right. Three times a week he takes his boat out of Havelock harbour to deliver mail, groceries and gossip to the residents of the remote corners of the Marlborough Sounds. Apart from cruising around some of New…

Quick Update

Following a period of blog silence, we have been inundated by a request for an update. More to follow shortly now that we are settled in one place for a couple of months, but here, in brief, is what we have been up to for the last seven weeks. After a week in Christchurch we…

Quake City

As we got the bus into Christchurch from the airport last Monday, and then walked the couple of blocks from the bus stop to our hostel past large expanses of gravel and rubble, we wondered how long we could keep ourselves entertained in such a city. In every direction lay a damaged building, or a…

Californian Wild(and not-so-wild)life

We have spent much of our first few days in New Zealand sorting out boring things like bank accounts and mobile phones. I will write about Christchurch, which we are gradually growing to love, shortly. In the meantime, here are some photos of animals from our three weeks in California.

Week 3 – National Parks

Well, we are in New Zealand, and the temptation to jump ahead and write all about Christchurch is strong, but I will resist – that would not be fair on our last week in California, and weeks get upset easily by that sort of thing. So I shall begin where I left off, at the…

Week 2 – Highway 1

Again the inexcusable lack of WiFi internet access in the back of the Californian beyond is my excuse for the delay in publishing this post. I feel sure that once we are settled into a routine in New Zealand and have nothing of interest to report, I will be able to report it with tedious…

Week 1 – San Francisco

This post comes about five days after it was intended to, due in large part to poor organisation on my part, and in small part to the understandable lack of internet available in campsites between San Francisco and Los Angeles. We are now in a hostel on Hollywood Boulevard, LA, after a couple of days…

Introduction

An introduction should set out the purpose and scope for a piece of work. This one will not, since I do not know that I am sure of either just yet. What I do know, I shall attempt to explain. Background We both graduated from the University of Glasgow in June 2014. We had already…