I’m nervous, I’m conflicted and I’m unable to get more than a brief few minutes of sleep as I sit in seat 42F on our 10 hour flight from New Zealand to Singapore on our way to Thailand for a few days of scuba diving. We have left the natural wonders of New Zealand under our wings. It is now about 9:00 a.m. and we are flying northwest over the Java Sea. I know this...
Leaving Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island by the Tranz Alpine train is a thrill. The cold morning air wakes you like no coffee ever could. The train cars have a domed roof so passengers can peer out at the farms that eventually give way to the Alps without having the squish your face up to the glass. There are two children sitting across the...
The procession of peaks are like endless crests of white and green dinosaurs marching into the horizons all around us with some wearing cloudy shawls on their collars under crisp winter blue skies. Heading South into the Fjordlands from Queenstown, you lose all sense of scale. On your right, Lake Wakatipu spreads calmly into the distance, bordered on the opposite...
Walking towards the very heart of the city, Cathedral Square, we don’t know what to expect. A New Zealander questions our desire to see the Cathedral, saying, “It’s a pile of rubble.” We circle the closed off church, finding most of it standing. Sadly the Western wall is gone, replaced by massive iron trusses preventing gravity from completing what a massive...
A step into a simpler time, an easygoing local culture as welcoming as the lushness of this tropical rain forest and as welcoming as the captivating beauty of the liquid blue sea. This is Taveuni, Fiji. We take flight in a small deHavilland propeller plane from the town of Nadi. We fly across the craggy green and golden mountains, dark rivers and small villages of...
I’ve always felt lucky if we can find some small experience that gives us a sense of the spirit of the places we visit. Mostly it’s a challenge. When we left Taveuni, we stopped off at Treasure Island in the Mamanuca Islands for a couple days, an overpriced generic island resort overrun by vacationers with small kids, which was a perfect place for Kimberly to...