NancyandRonnie

Short trip to my old birth place. Should be an interesting trip, a trip down memory lane, providing that everything works OK, and the timetable works. A trip that would not be allowed if certain family members had their way. Anyway, first message received this morning telling me that the flight would be delayed by 30 minutes. That will mean a bit of a rush from arriving in Düsseldorf to catch the 18.02 train To Bielefeld and Lemgo. Not a good start, got a phone message to tell me that my flight is delayed until 16.05. Which means, of course, that l will miss my connection and probably not get to my hotel until at least 23.00. Arrived at my least liked Manchester Airport and found the usual chaos. Information board tells me that my flight ... read more

Hi there and good morning from San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day and our final stay. Did you know that there is a severe shortage of supermarket trolleys in San Francisco? Well if there isn't there should be. Why. Our initial impression of San Francisco when we arrived in the early evening was that there are a lot of homeless people around here and they all appear to have shopping trolley's to push their personal processions in. They sleep in doorways, camp out on park benches and lay about on sidewalks. All this within walking distance of our hotel and the main tourist area. For information we stayed in a very nice hotel called The Whitcomb on Market Street. The hotel building has a long history and is outstanding with a really nice interior. It is obvious ... read more

Bula from Fiji Fiji, just for information, sits on the 180 degree of longitude, direct opposite the Europe. This fact will in later in this blog. First impressions remind us a little of India. What with the poor conditions of the roads and building. It is in fact a very improvished set of 366 islands. But what the people lack in conditions they make up with their greeting and hospitality. They appear to be very happy people. Just as we left the airport we came across our first introduction to a one of the mainstays of the country - Sugar. They have, in this region, a narrow gauge railway whish is devoted to the transport of the sugar cane. We are apparently in the middle of annual sugar harvest and the cane was being transported to ... read more

We have to say that We have to say that our decision to travel to almost the top of NZ was certainly the correct decision. The beauty of this place is overwhelming. We had a prize position in the Holiday Park in Russell, the view of the window of the van was fabulous. We looked out over the bay with yachts and boats drifting past in the clear blue water, the sun was shining (not a cloud in the sky) and individual islands everywhere. Nancy has asked me to relate to you what happened when we first arrived at the Park. We had booked in at reception and were driving to our site when Nancy issued this almightly shout STOP. Nancy had seen a family of Californian Quail, that was both parents and 7 tiny little ... read more

Hi everybody Change of plans today. We had already planned to the Coromandel pennsiula today for a two night stay. However when we arrived in Coromandel Town we discovered that the actual Holiday Park was some 4 miles outside of town and miles from anywhere. No Restaurants of any description, and more importantly no watering holes. So it was a drive back into the town, find a shop and settle for a 'cook in' in the van, only the second time in three weeks. Nancy reckons we are slowly turning into Kiwi because we having to go to bed earlier than normal because the Kiwi's tend to go to bed at 9 pm (or so its seems) and everything closes down. And Jack l had a very nice bottle of Cloudy Bay with and after the ... read more