Kia Orana all, Well the good news is that the Ana is off the reef. Not refloated but rather hauled up onto the hard. Surprisingl,y little damage and still no clear reason why she went up in the first place. Sadly our little cat was hit by a car and lost a back leg. He did not make it through the combined trauma and surgery. Damm! He was a bloody good cat, almost up to dog standard. In the visiting friends department we have had Paul Collins paul@finetravel.co.nz and family up over the Easter break. Many of you will remember Paul [View Full Entry]

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I guess the biggest news here currently is that poor old Tapi has yet another boat on the reef. This time the Ana, which went up Saturday afternoon in calm conditions. Rumours are rife as to what caused this calamity but until Taio Shipping makes some sort of statement it is all rumours. We had the Mercury Celebrity arrive on the 6th with 2200 passengers aboard but conditions on the day meant that none got ashore, a shame for the many vendors and tour operators like ourselves who look forward to these big influxes of visitors, even if it is [View Full Entry]

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My Buddy Bill, yapdivers@mantaray.com warned me that writing a regular news letter was hard work and I laughed, I owe you a beer buddy. The last few weeks we have been without all of our regular summer visitors and this is always a quieter time for us. Our two PADI Instructor candidates Fai and Meti are back from NZ and are now qualified Instructors, well done men! We have had some interesting folk through however, a couple of professional stunt pilots from the UK, obviously both certifiably crazy but lot’s of fun. A bunch of Kiwi’s from Queenstown who had the [View Full Entry]

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Kia Orana everybody, After discussion with my mate Dale last week, I have decided to revive the travel blog. Although it is not this time about travel but more about keeping my many buddy’s overseas up with what is happening here in Raro. Obviously with a four month delay the catching up will be a bit compressed as such a lot has happened in this time. I will cover these good times, but a bit briefly, and on from here I will Endeavour to keep things up to date. This will be a bit longer than usual, At RPC length rather [View Full Entry]

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11 Oct Well it is back on the blog again, after an absolutely wonderful break in Yap. Unfortunately as my camera spent most of the week in its underwater housing I did not get many good blog type surface shots. I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Guam and we depart this afternoon for Cairns where I will stay twelve hours and then fly to Auckland. Tom and Shirley etc. are continuing on with the original plan of driving to Brisbane and then flying from there to NZ but I have decided to forgo this section of the trip. [View Full Entry]

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02 Oct Well, I didn’t get my blog away last night as I bumped into Rohan Ellis and lost track of what I was doing. It was good to catch up wih Rohan who has lived now in Beijing for six years. I am currently in Agana airort in Guam and nothing is open so no access again. I will send this tomorrow from Yap and as we will be there for a reasonable time I will stop the blog until I am on the move again. I did, it must be he drink. Well we are now in Yap and [View Full Entry]

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01 Oct Off early this morning headed for the great wall, and Raf, you are correct, the air is pretty shitty although our guide tells us it will be sorted by the time the Olympics are ready to go. It is China National Day today so as expected huge crowds everywhere. As we were on a pre-arranged guided tour we got priority parking at all our stops and small group exclusivity at many venues, this is a real plus on a tour like this and one I would definitely recommend. Our first stop was a jade factory, we saw the production [View Full Entry]

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29 Sep Dull and cloudy this morning when we got up. We departed Oslo at 1200, still dull and cloudy. We arrived Schiphol one hour thirty later, dull cloudy and raining. Not much happening today as it is an all day travelling day, we get to sit in Schiphol for almost four hours then around nine hours to Beijing plus a 6 hour time difference. 30 Sep Well here we are I Beijing, customs and immigration was fast, efficient and painless. Then we arrived at the Novatel, our guide tells us it is almost the most inefficient hotel in Beijing to [View Full Entry]

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28 Sep Minus 1C when we got up this morning. We first went to the site where heavy water was first produced and was the scene of major sabotage efforts to prevent the German scientific community getting hold of it. It is now a museum and very interesting. It is set in a valley that is so steep and narrow that as of the 25th of this month the sun does not get above the hill line so the valley does not see the sun again until the 12th of March which is the cause for a big celebration. We headed [View Full Entry]

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27 Sep We headed off this morning up over the nearest mountain range and then up and over several others. It was below 0C when we went out to the car and the first job was to de-ice the windows, ho hum for some of you but new to me. The terrain was stark but very beautiful and as long as you were in the sun it did not feel cold even though the max for the day was 11C. Very narrow windy roads and in one section controlled one way at a time changing direction every thirty minutes. Heaps of [View Full Entry]

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