We have just arrived in sunny Queenstown and plan to stay here for a few days as we have been on the road in rugged country for a while.
So in the bin go the Kraft cheese sandwiches and down to the trendy waterfront we go for some cappuccino and light wine sipping amongst people who are clueless as to where the crutch in their trousers ought to be located.
But as we haven’t had an internet connection for a while I’ll just report on a few incidents as we made our way down the west coast.
After we landed we stayed a couple of days at Nelson (Tasman Bay) – very pleasant with well maintained art deco buildings.
Perhaps it’s not too delicate to report that Sian has been suffering a few (age related) memory lapses. As an aide-memoire she has taken to recording every “convenience” on her camera – that way she can retrace her steps when caught short.
No surprise – in one of the world’s most beautiful countries – we managed to find the most awful place. Cape Foulwind delivers everything the name suggests including NZ’s premier cement works.
It was nicer a few miles down the coast.
The west coast is ruggedly wild and we saw some spectacular blow-holes and rock formations at Punakaiki where we stopped for the night. The New Zealanders are very service orientated, they will quickly fill any gap in the market place. I was much impressed with the tasteful early-morning expired infant collection vehicle solution.
We treated ourselves to a semi-swish hotel at the Franz Josef glacier (magnificent) but we liked the Fox glacier better (wilder looking place).
Back to the hotel. Whilst cleaning my teeth in the bathroom I heard a torrent of curses coming from our Alps-view lounge. What she wasn’t going to do to the receptionist for providing a broken ‘remote-control’ to operate our state of the art Sony Bravia flat-screen telly. I’m saying nothing – here’s a picture of the ‘remote’ herself was trying to work the telly with. Any resemblance to a Tesco ‘value range’ 50 pence calculator is purely coincidental.
Anyway Sian cheered up when we happened upon a beach full of stupid bits of wood. It also had some wispy plants called ‘Tane’s eyebrows’ with a plaque which explained how they got the name. Her grandson’s name is Taine (Maori) so she is sure there is a connection.
taine
