Blogs from Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania

UNBELIEVABLE! Jane and I are sitting outside NZ’s longest operating general store, “Gilchrists General Store”, in the town of Oturehua, consisting of the aforementioned store, the pub across the road, the local hall and 3 houses, when 5 blokes who have just stopped and poured out of a vehicle, give us a look, go into the store and after a while emerge and come to our table … the leader of the group, a strong, good looking guy says to me … “Are you Andrew, Andrew Belotti?” (Jane is wide eyed and shaking her head saying, “not again”, as this has occurred a few times before). Naturally I reply in the affirmative. He continues, “You used to coach me in football and athletics. I’m Jaimie. Jaimie Walsh.” (son of the former Australian hockey great, Terry) I ... read more

Cooked! Stuffed! Buggered! Rooted! Challenged, physically and mentally. We cannot remember a time when we were so exhausted. A difficult trail in undertaken during the rising heat of the day. There was no escape. Shade was non-existent unless one hugged the side of the cliff face which we did numerous times in our exhaustion. We coped with the first 20km from Cromwell to the “Coffee Float”, two small river craft selling coffee, icecream, burgers, muffins, cold drinks, etc, quite well. Literally metres from the Coffee Float the trail morphed into one out of a horror movie. The Cairnmuir Ladder began with steep climbing switchbacks with steep drop offs that seemed never ending. (Watch the 2min and 1min 20 sec videos) We walked most of them. It rose 130 vertical metres. There is a total of 580m ... read more

The Grand Tour was always all about revisiting old places we had been to in the past but more importantly about discovering new locations, many of which we expected we might have been so close to previously but never actually got there for some reason now faded in the past. And today was to be one of those occasions with Bannockburn, a small settlement, just outside of Cromwell. We are sticking with Highway 6 still, as we have since leaving Nelson all those days ago, and heading for the Kawarau Gorge. Now if you live in this part of NZ you would have no trouble pronouncing ‘Kawarau ‘even though you say it not quite the way the word looks. I will leave that over to you to check that out on Mr Google to get it ... read more

I had a lovely weekend with Bibiane from Haute-Savoie (France) while waiting for my tyre to get repaired. Together, we walked to the Isthmus Peak from where you have a view over the lakes Wanaka and Hawea. We spent the next day playing disc golf, which is a mix between frisbee and golf, writing postcards and going to the Puzzling world. In the following days (24/10/2017) I drove to Mt.Cook, the highest mountain in New Zealand and to the famous lake Tekapo. Beside this my phone fell into a long drop toilet so I had to skip the Arthurs pass, which is a hike between Christchurch and Greymouth. I had to drive to Greymouth directly, where I bought a new phone... The next days I checked out the Franz Joseph Glacier doing a 7 hours hike ... read more

Two years ago as we drove through the Burgundy area of France we made the decision to come back sooner rather than later. Before that trip had ended we were planning our return. If the reason for returning was to revisit Burgundy then where else would we like to travel. Italy. And so the itinerary developed. Now you have the opportunity of following our journey through Italy, France and the United Kingdom. Before we leave home lists are created. We have set ourselves a six week programme of gardening, household tasks, informing the various agencies of our trip, haircuts, doctors’ visits, and packing. As each item is ticked off the lists soon shrink. We are now down to just one final list. Hopefully we’ll complete the last item – arrive at the airport on time. These ... read more