Amanda Smith

We had torrential last night and woke to heavy cloud. A leisurely start for a change and then off to Lake Taupo, a short journey (2 ½ hours). Drove out along the coast through Napier and its suburbs. Passed through some low lying wetlands with lots of water birds, then out through vineyards, olive groves, lavender farms and orchards. Lots of fruit stalls on the road selling fruit and veg. Through the Esk valley which appeared to be covered in vines, not sure that we have tried any wines from here. We start to climb and have a long drive through the Maungaharuru and Ahimanawa ranges. The hills/mountains are covered in native bush, forests and clumps of pampas grass. The forest changes to cultivated pine and we eventually emerge on to a huge flat plain with ... read more

Drove up the coast on another beautiful morning. Similar sort of road to the one we arrived on, mountains falling into the sea and just the road and single track railway line between the two. After about 100 km we lose both. We head towards Blenheim, the hills are golden brown here, obviously there hasn’t been much rain. In the distance there are, what looks like huge white cones. These turn out to be giant piles of salt that is collected from Lake Grassmere. We travel through the Awatere valley, and start to see some vines; this is the start of serious wine country. Spot what must be the North Island on the horizon. Continue on through rolling hills, down a very steep zig zag road with some dubious fencing on the side that wouldn’t stop ... read more

Set off early today for Queenstown, clouds were tumbling across Mount Sefton as we left. Drove out across vast brown plains surrounded by mountains. Through a couple of towns and then over a pass. Landscape was really barren here, just lumps of tussocky grass and the odd bush here and there. There were lots of birds of prey eating the road kill for breakfast, mainly possums. No sign of human habitation and very little traffic in either direction. Then into a valley with a few farms. Just before our next turnoff a farmer on a dune buggy was herding a flock of sheep along the road, he indicates to Al to drive through them. Ten minutes later we are still crawling along, cars coming the other way and these sheep are charging through gaps, up the ... read more

Next stop Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. The Chinese version of Michael Schumacher took us to the airport, as we had decided to take the airport bus for once, never again, it picked you up at the door of the hotel and we had to leave at 6am so thought it would be easier (cases weighed a ton let alone the hand luggage). Crammed into some little mini bus with a luggage wagon attached, we hurtled off around Sydney at breakneck speed; fortunately there wasn’t a great deal of traffic around at that time in the morning. Don’t need this sort of stress just before a flight. Stopped at a set of traffic lights and Schumacher gets out to check the wagon, he thought some luggage had fallen out! Anyway arrived at the airport in ... read more

Spent the next day wandering around Brisbane. Really nice city, felt very safe. Some of the women have the most bizarre dress sense, even Al was moved to comment, most unusual. We decided to take a river cruise to see some the sites. Brisbane is situated on the Brisbane River, very original. To get there we needed to take a ferry across the river, we took the wrong one to the wrong place and ended up having to walk about a mile to where we had to pick the boat up, we were also very tight for time as they only go twice a day and this was the last one, so it ended up being a power walk in about 30 degrees. Anyway we made it and saw quite a lot. The south bank of ... read more