Travelling Shoes

Hobbit Wanders Part Five: Te Wahi Ponamu I am so excited about showing Moka the South Island. We are being more than a little ambitious with our itinery: sail from Wellington to Picton where we will hopefully hitch, (funds are quite tight) to Christchurch, we will then bus it to Queenstown to meet Sarah to hike the Milford track. After which we will return to Queenstown and hire a car so we can drive up the West Coast to Hokitika and come back again. Finally, fly out of Queenstown up to Auckland where we depart for Oz. We only have two weeks. The journey across the Cook Strait was chilly but clear and picturesque as possible. We messed about on the ferry walking around the decks and taking photos then snoozed in chairs and watched bits ... read more

Hong Kong Vertical growth, towering high into the sky, deeply stacked tradition blended with modern style and sophistication. My first impression of Hong Kong is positive. Our late night arrival and uncertainty of the guest house touters coming up to us on the street finds us in a rather posh hotel – talk about lost back packers! Although the budget was a little pushed by this move, a night of luxury was a great way to start our stay in Hong Kong. The next morning we had the genuinely interesting task of finding a clean safe guest house. We were on Kowloon Island, which is the mainland part of Hong Kong in a place called Mong Kok. The first thing that really made an impression on us while searching for a room was the sense of ... read more

HOBBIT WANDERS - Wai-o-tapu As our hobbits gather food for the night’s meal, (at Pak’n’save) they are attracted by a new sight: strawberry flavoured Lindaur - popular NZ bubbly wine. It seems like a great idea putting strawberry flavour with the wine. They later realise that although it tastes fine, it’s a shame it smells like toilet spray. It might have been better drinking water from the ‘rotten egg’ smelling sulphur pools at Wai-o-tapu. So what is Wai-o-tapu? It is Maori for ‘sacred waters’. You can see from the pics that any trip to New Zealand would be incomplete without a visit here. It offers a unique glimpse at our earth’s thermal activity that will not be seen in any other country. Rotorua is one of the most volcanically active areas in the world, making up ... read more

The Elusive Obvious - by Moshe Feldenkrais Having just finished this book and thinking it is absolutely fantastic, I have distilled the main ideas and added quotes from the text. Introduction Moshe is super cool - I won’t bore you with a litany of his achievements except to say that he is a smart Russian guy who opened the first Judo club in France, and hangs out with Nobel Prize winners. As a child Moshe seriously injured his knee, then one day his knee was cured out of the blue. It was this miracle that he quietly questioned over decades which finally led to the publication of several books and an international school of Physiotherapy - The Feldenkrais Method. The way this book is written is great. From the beginning he outlines the limitations words put ... read more

Lake Titicaca - Island of the sun. By Tina Torres After backpacking around Bolivia for a month everything is a bit dirty, a bit stinky and a bit worn out, especially me! We have been constantly on the go, finding buses, finding accommodation, finding food, finding that monument that is on the map but not on the street. I am glad to be on Isla de Sol, (Island of the Sun) for a genuine break and a chance to find me. Lake Titicaca, which is situated on the border of Bolivia and Peru. Isla de Sol is one of many islands in the lake, Although it is a lake, its 230km length and 97km width make it seem more like an ocean perched at 3820m above sea level. When you arrive in the southern village of ... read more