...is my idea of nothing to do! (with apologies to Cole Porter.) Nevertheless we are doing it again...so on Tuesday 12 June we left a wet rainy Sydney to fly to New York via Los Angeles only to find that NY was also wet and rainy! But then again it was another Tues 12 June so what could we expect. It was about 7pm before we finally arrived at the Upper East Side apartment to be met by Kerrii, Seb, Grace & Rupert for a fantastic reunion!! After dinner Kev, Kerrii, Grace walked down 5th Ave (in the rain) to take part in the Museum Mile Festival. A slight drizzle when we started before long it was pouring down! But it was fun! Today however we only had a little rain and for most of that ... read more

It's been Kev's goal to travel on the Ghan ever since we took the Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth a couple of years ago. The train left Darwin just after 9am. Apart from its name, it was exactly the same as the Indian Pacific. Naturally it didn't take us long to settle into our compartment; a lounge during the day which one of the staff converted into bunk beds while we were out of the way, eating dinner in the dining room. All very easy to take. After lunch the train stopped at the town of Katherine for four hours where there were various excursions to choose from. Since we'd explored Katherine Gorge by boat when were last in town with our own Katherine (do you remember it Katherine?) we opted to take a ride ... read more

One of the temporary bus exchanges on Bealey Ave ran free buses to the Christchurch Hospital; quite convenient for me since the Dickens Society events I went to Christchurch to attend took place at the Hagley Park Community Centre right next door to the hospital. Friday night, after meet and greet drinks and nibbles we watched Helen Moulder in “Playing Miss Havisham”; a very interesting play which I thoroughly enjoyed. Written by Helen Moulder and director Sue Rider, it has been playing since 2006 touring around NZ, Australia, UK, France and the USA. Saturday 16 April was an all 'Day with Dickens'. Jeni Curtis, Christchurch Conference Chair welcomed everyone, thanking so many of us for coming from far and wide. She also told us the correct procedure should an earthquake occur – that is to roll ... read more

The day we headed off to Akaroa was quite foggy to begin with but soon we were once again in bright sunshine as we travelled from Ashburton towards the Banks Peninsular, named of course after Sir Joseph Banks. First stop was the Barry's Bay Cheese Factory which wasn't very impressive. No doubt they made nice cheese but we were only given three different cheeses to sample and none of it was a blue cheese so that wasn't much good as far as I was concerned. But the fact that the drive down to the cheese factory was through such beautiful countryside more than made up for my little complaint! From there it was off to Akaroa, the only place in NZ settled by the French in 1840. It was also the site of ferocious Maori wars ... read more

Day Five of our literary tour was just magical. We left Ashburton at the decent time of 9.30am and were taken deep into McKenzie Country where we enjoyed some spectacular scenery along the way. While the morning tea stop seemed to occur not too long after we'd had breakfast there was no deciding not to partake; beautiful home cooked biscuits and blueberry muffins. On the road again we followed in the trail of a young Englishman Samuel Butler who arrived in NZ in 1860 setting up a sheep station called 'Mesopatamia'. Remaining there for five years he wrote “A first year in Canterbury Settlement” on his return to England. Samuel Taylor was also a talented painter with a passion for music, (especially Handel's) as well as a writer. His written works include a satirical novel “Erewhon”, ... read more