Verona is our starting point for a little jaunt letting the train take the strain and spending few days in Vicenza, Padova, Mantova, Desenzano del Garda and finally Verona.
We are on the trail of Palladian villas and frescos by Giotto and Mantegna but there will also be Roman ruins, the oldest botanical garden in the world, the largest lake in Italy and possibly a famous balcony!
Chris is looking forward to Hellas Verona playing Lazio at the end of the trip as well as pizza and pasta and risotto but we may well find some slightly more unusual dishes on the menu too.
Hoping the sun will be warm and the trains on time … Viaggio a Verona here we come!
In the early days of film, it was rumoured that a budding star only had to parade around the junction of Hollywood and Vine to be spotted by the film directors who drank coffee in restaurants here. Turning off the Boulevard, we saw the famous Hollywood sign high on the hills above and passed the iconic Capitol Records Tower, resembling a stack of 45rpm records, and actually visible from our bathroom window.
The Kodak Theatre, now renamed the Dolby has hosted the Academy Awards since 2002 and is surrounded by the Babylonian columns and elephants of a shopping centre.
We also explored the Financial district of Bunker Hill, Central Library and the Grand Central Market, together with the Angels Flight Railway …
Well Chris said, having got as far as New Zealand, why turn round … let’s keep going, so we did! After eight weeks in a campervan Chris was looking forward to having no car keys and I was looking forward to dining out rather than cooking camper meals … and some sun would be nice as South Island got a bit chilly!
Avarua is the main town and in the north of Rarotonga and we were staying at Muri, the next largest village in the south-east. The centre has hilly jungle and everyone lives close to the 32km road which runs round the outside. There are lots of scooters whizzing round the island, but we got about by bus, either the clockwise bus, or the anti-clockwise bus! Not that there are many places to go apart from Avarua!
Abuzzy, Affordable, Alpha, Apollo, Britz, Cheapa, Cruisy, Discover, Escape, Euro, Happy, Hippie, Hugo, Jucy, Kea, Kiwi, Mauri, Mighty, Roadrunner, Rocket, Spaceships, Star, Sweet As, Tui, United, Walkabout, Wendekreisen, Wicked, … and of course Wilderness … what a lot of camper companies, providing everything from a converted estate car or VW style camper to a one like ours, or even bigger. We’ve also seen converted buses and an ambulance!
The mainly straight road took us away from the mountains and towards the plain. We were going to do a couple of kms of the Mount Somers Track to Shaplin Falls … but our plans fell through. Instead, I was able to take a photo of a pukeko or swamp hen, an almost flightless bird that we saw far more of on the North island but didn’t get round to snapping … then we saw no more till today!
Mackenzie Country is named after a Kiwi folk hero, a Scottish immigrant of uncertain background who was arrested in 1885 for stealing over 1,000 sheep and grazing them in an unknown area of high-country pasture with the assistance of a single dog, Friday.
Next stop Rakaia Gorge …
We took the back beach road to Oamaru so we could enjoy what I think will be our last stretch of coastline in New Zealand, and it was striking even though the morning was rather grey.
Having carefully planned our arrival to be at low tide, when we walked down the beach we could see what looked like perfectly curved concrete domes protruding out of the sand. These are the Moeraki Boulders which were formed 55m years ago by lime depositing round shells or pebbles, rather like a pearl in an oyster, to make solid spherical concretions over a metre across. The sea has eroded the cliffs, releasing them from the softer stone and they have embedded in the sand. Needless to say an unusual sight and a tempting photo op!
We arrived at Leith Campsite on the outskirts of Dunedin.
The world’s smallest penguins, they are just 30cm tall and weigh a kilo each, and the first little group got washed onto the beach and started scurrying up the sand. They clambered over some rocks and up a sandy path to their burrows … all very fast! We were standing on a viewing platform and they came very close, but the lights were dim so not to frighten them and we obviously couldn’t use a flash, so the photos are vague. We saw around 40 in all return home and they were very cute!
Leaving Invercargill, our first stop was Waipapa Lighthouse, slightly further south than Bluff and more interesting as it had a lighthouse and also a sealion on the beach. He was a bit sleepy after swimming and fishing, but cast a beady eye our way! Moments later the heavens opened!
Off Travelling Together 