Sally at Home	Seaton Delaval Beach
New Years Eve 2009 Chillingham Castle

Updated: Last update for a little while, added photos from our New Years Eve visit to Chillingham Castle…

A visit to london	Zoe & Leela’s Parents
Edinburgh Zoo (1st Set)	Alnwick Gardens
Chillingham Castle	Alnwick Parade
Edinburgh Zoo (2nd Set)	Andrea’s 40th Birthday Party
Comitatus Roman re-enactment at Chillingham Castle	Our new house
Camping in the Lakes & Knights of the Damned	Karting at Teeside Aerodrome
Chatsworth House & Outdoor Art Installations	“Super Moon”

I’ve also upgraded from Gallery2 to Gallery3, so if you notice anything broken, please let me know.

We had a walk into Queenstown for lunch.  Leela had a lovely chicken sandwich and I demolished an English Breakfast.  A few cappuccinos later and we were wide awake. 

Took a ride on the Skyline gondola/cable-car up to the top of Bob’s peak.  The views from the top were amazing, looking across Lake Wakatipu and The Remarkables.

Next, the Luge beckoned!  The Skyline complex has a fantastic Luge course at the top where you can hurtle around the track on small carts.  After seeing an accident on the “extreme” track with some of the Great Britain winter sports team Leela was a little sceptical but ended up enjoying it too.

We booked in early for the restaurant and sat writing some postcards, drinking beer & wine to pass the time.  We were called in first to the restaurant and got shown to “the best seat in the house”.  We had to agree!  We were right in the corner of the restaurant surrounded by the glass windows overlooking the mountains, lake and Queentown.  We spent our meal watching the sun set whilst paragliders and bungie jumpers threw themselves off the mountain…

23rd August – Queenstown to Franz Josef – Cloudy/Rain

We left Queentown’s lovely weather behind and headed north up the west coast towards Franz Josef.  As with almost every part of NZ, the views of the mountains and ski areas were beautiful.

As we neared Franz Josef the weather started to turn for the worse and rain fell.  Our first port of call was the Fox Glacier, driving down a very slippery road with sheer drops either side and cascading waterfalls almost everywhere we looked.  The glacier was huge and an amazing sight.

We finally found our campsite for the night and were treated to another free spa to warm up in!…

24th August – Franz Josef to Greymouth – Heavy Rain

The rain’s really coming down down.  Due to the bad weather the helicopter/hike excursion on the Franz Josef Glacer has been cancelled.  So, we decided to drive up and take a look at the Glacier on our own.  After another journey down a very slippery road towards the glacier car-park we donned our waterproofs and headed out.

After 30 minutes or so we reached the first viewing platform.  From here we could see the glacier in the distance and it didn’t really look that far (famous last words).  A sign told us a return journey to the “terminal point” of the glacier would take around 1 hour 45 mins to walk.  Somehow I managed to convince Leela it’d be fun and set off on a very long, very wet and very windy journey to the glacier.  Crossed over/through a few fast running streams quickly becoming small rivers, climbed over not-small piles of loose rocks and finally made it.  A pretty cool sight (no pun intended!).  Managed to take a few photos and shoot a bit of video whilst trying to keep the rain out of the cameras.

We were totally soaked through so didn’t stay long, but it was worth it.  The walk back to the van seemed to take forever but we were on a mission to get into warm dry clothes again!

Once were were warm and fed we set off on a slow & wet journey up the coast to Greymouth.  Luckily the rain had dried out by the time we reached the campsite so we took a walk down to Monteiths Brewery for a tour and BBQ.  Pulled & drank lots of nice beer and met some nice people…

25th August – Greymouth to Punakiki to Christchurch – Wet (west) & Sunny (east)

We headed north again up the west coast from Greymouth to Punakiki, to view the Pancake Rocks.  Again the rain was pouring down, so we put on our waterproofs and headed out on a 20 minute coastal walk.  The rock formations were fascinating – The ocean waves have washed away parts of the limestone over the years and have left rock formations that look like stacked pancakes.  Due to the weather we didn’t stay out very long and headed back to the van to get dry again.

After lunch we headed off over a very wet, windy & foggy Arthurs Pass.  There were waterfalls cascading down the mountains all around us due to the rain.  Around half way through the pass, the sky turned blue and the sun came out for the rest of our journey to Christchurch.

Once again we were treated to a free spa by the campsite which we followed up with a walk to the local take-away.  We ate Sweet & Sour Chicken and Chicken Tikka Massala and washed it down with a nice bottle of wine we picked up from the Drylands Vineyard a couple of weeks ago.

26th August – Christchurch – Sunny

Spent the morning cleaning the van and packing our suitcases as it was our last day in New Zealand .  We ate left-overs from last night’s take-away and then headed over to the Antarctic Centre.  Had a fabulous afternoon, we paid extra for a “behind the scenes” pass and got to meet a couple of the penguins, Pedro and Orlando.

After watching the penguins being fed I went and took a ride on the Hagglund all-terrain vehicle.  The Hagglund took me round a course with huge steep hills, some with crevasses in, around steep banked corners and finally over a 7 meter hill in plunged into a 3 meter deep pool.  We slowly floated across the pool with the vehicle using its tracks as paddles.  Managed to catch it on video too, I’ll see if I can get it on Youtube at some point.

After the ride we went into the Antarctic Storm Room where they simulate the conditions found at the Antarctic.  We put on the overcoats, gloves and shoes provided as the room was currently at –8C.  The room was filled with snow, had an igloo and an ice-slide.  After a few minutes they started a simulation of a wind storm, taking the temperature of the room right down to –34C.  It took a while after that for us to warm up again…

27th August – Christchurch to Singapore – Sunny

Final day, starting with an early 6:50am wake up call.  A quick clean of the motorhome and we set off at 7:40am to drop it off back at KEA.

Trying to get through customs, a jar or Kiwi jam that Leela bought for her dad was confiscated for being a liquid(!) 30ml over the limit!  Leela ended up buying an alternative present in the airport instead.

12:30pm NZ, 1:23am UK time: We’re on our flight to Singapore.  I’ve started on the beer already to try to help me sleep later.  We’ve finally finished the last batch of thank-you cards and all thats left to do now is fly home.

2:30am NZ, 3:30pm UK time: In Singapore waiting for our connecting flight to Heathrow.  5 hours down, 1 to go.  We’re just about still awake!

28th August – London Heathrow – Clear

We have now been travelling for 34 hours.  We both managed to get a few hours sleep on the plane, until a child behind Leela turned the spotlight on and started kicking her seat.

Passport control was quite a bit more thorough on our way back in.  Had photos taken this time, also had to remove shoes, belts, jackets, phones etc and walk through the scanner area whilst holding jeans up.  Fun.

In the V bar now, drinking hot chocolate, waiting for our last flight to Newcastle…

We spent the night camping in a lovely campsite by a snow-capped mountain.  The staff gave us a free visit to the spa as a Honeymoon gift – It cleared both our colds!

We spent the morning sight-seeing in Kaikoura bay and browsing the tourist shops before setting off on an exhausting 4 hour drive to Timaru.  The weather heading into Timaru was really gloomy – Not a great sign.  On top of this, the campsite seemed to be in the middle of a really built up area on the edge of a housing estate – A first!

Once we’d settled for the night I got an emergency call from work which I dealt with whilst Leela finished off more of the Thank-you cards.

16th August – Timaru to Dunedin – Dry with Sunny Spells

Today we set off for Dunedin with a stop off at the Moereki Boulders, large unusual rocks that have slowly been uncovered on the beach by the erosion of the Pacific Ocean.

We arrived at our Dunedin campsite late in the afternoon, and dropped in on an old school friend, Paul Charters, who is now living there with his wife & kids.  Enjoyed catching up, it’s been years since we last met.

17th August – Dunedin to Te Anau – Sunny + Foggy at altitude

We got up nice and early for a change today to visit the Dunedin Peninsula, unfortunately some very thick fog decided to join us.  Visited Larnach Castle, a very nice interesting building if a little strange (it’s not exactly a “real” castle).

We stayed for brunch before heading off for Te Anau.  The drive might have been 3 hours, but through the most amazing countryside with panoramic views of snow-capped mountains.  We passed through Clinton the “3 horse town” (we saw none!) and on to Gore down the Presidential Highway .

At Te Anau we camped by a gorgeous lake, surrounded by more snow-capped mountains.  We’re very excited about tomorrow’s trip, setting off for Milford Sound.  The local’s have told us the recent avalanche has finally been cleared and the roads are open once again.  Hopefully we won’t have to use our snow chains!

18th August – Te Anau to Milford Sound – Sunny

Took a walk into town to book tomorrow’s kayaking excursion and to find some lunch.  Found a nice small bakery and has some tasty Cheese & Ham Toasties.  Before setting off for Milford Sound we stopped off at Te Anau lake which was beautiful.  Took a few photos of us with the mountains and lake in the background.

Finally we set off on our journey to Milford Sound, which went much better than we’d anticipated.  Much of the road was fairly straight through flat terrain with excellent views of the mountains all around.  Our first stop was at Mirror Lake, which as the name suggests is a small sheltered lake which reflects the mountains around like a mirror.

Quite a bit further up the road we finally hit the twisty mountain roads and the “Avalanche Zones”, where we found the remains of last week’s avalanche banked up at the sides of the road.  In the middle of these zones were small areas where vehicles are allowed to stop.  Found loads of tourists making snowmen and taking photos of helicopters – So we just had to join in

We finally arrived at our Milford Sound chalet at 4pm for our first night of 3!

19th August – Milford Sound – Glorious sunshine

Early start today to move our van next to our chalet.  We’re in a beautiful location below a mountain with waterfalls running down into a river flowing past us.

After breakfast we went kayaking with Jason from Rosco’s Kayaks.  We changed into our stripy thermals (very attractive), a thick polo neck jumper, a yellow waterproof, a life jacket and finally a rubber “skirt” (attaches to the kayak to keep water out).  We then proceeded to get eaten by Sand Flies whilst Jason took us through the dos and don'ts of kayaking.

With the sun beating down on us, we headed out onto the Sound – Leela at the front paddling and me at the back paddling and steering.  Out on the Sound we saw lots of seals, waterfalls, native ducks and Mitre Peak which stands over 1 mile high.  We had lunch sat in the middle of the sound, with everyone in the group holding each others kayaks together.  It was now time to head back to land, another 6km of paddling.  This last 6km was extremely hard and our arms were very tired, the thought of a cosy chalet and a nice meal to return home to kept us going.  The total round trip came to approx 14km.

20th August – Milford Sound – Cloudy

Woke up after a really nice sleep in a wonderful soft cosy bed.  The chalet is great - nice and warm, wonderful views, has under-floor heating, a big bath and a huge TV!  Much better than your average camp-site by far!

We took another trip out onto the Sound – This time for a much more relaxing cruise.  The boat went out much further than we did in the kayaks.  In fact, it seemed to get where we turned around in the kayaks in minutes compared to the hours it took to row.

Along the route the boat made a few stops to show us some rare Blue Penguins, seal colonies, and a waterfall he drove the boat under, filling a tray of glasses with fresh clean water to drink.  On the way back we stopped off at a small underwater observatory which gave us a look at some of the underwater wildlife in the area.

Once the sun went down we made a trip out to the glowworm walk trail in the pitch black darkness.  Unfortunately along the way we were blinded by lights from a passing van and walked straight past them.  Eventually our eyes got used to the darkness again, we found our way back on the trail and found the glowworms back near the start of the trail!  Doh

21st August – Milford Sound to Queenstown – Sunny

Our last morning in Milford Sound.  We set off after breakfast at around 11am and stopped for a 20 min walk to a waterfall.  The trail was through a lovely tropical forest.

We travelled at a leisurely pace through the avalanche zones and straight on towards Te Anau, stopping occasionally to take more photos along the way.

The drive to Queenstown was gorgeous, through the mountain ranges and overlooking a very picturesque lake/bay.  Again, a fantastic photo session as the sun set.

Queenstown and the campsite itself was heaving, it turned out that afternoon was the opening of the Winter Games.  After a walk around town we headed back to the campsite for an early night as we were both totally wiped out by the journey.

• Kylie - Live at Newcastle Metro Radio Arena (Photos and Video!)
• Leelas PGCE Graduation
• Simons Leaving Night Out
• Trip to Amsterdam

More photos to come, when I get round to sorting them out...

Enjoy!

A great day and evening was had by all - A DJ who wasn't afraid to play any kind of Rock/Metal you could want was a real bonus too

As usual, my photos are online - Just click here...

There's still some missing (more panoramic photos and the videos we took), but the majority are now online.

Go to http://www.cardus.com/gallery/v/Outer+Hebrides to check them out.

Autostitch is a really handy tool for automatically stitching overlapping photos together into one large panoramic shot.  Links to the few I've uploaded so far: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7*

* - This one's a bit screwy and needs fixing & cropping

Whilst we're still trying to get everything unpacked and tidied up again, I caught a few minutes to start downloading all the photos off my camera.  So far I've put the photos from Ste and Cathy's wedding online.  The photos from the holiday (amost 1.5GB of them!) will probably follow sometime this week...

The support act, Ladytron, didn't seem up to much. The music was fairly interesting, but the vocals were almost totally drowned out. Thankfully they were only on stage for 30 mins

Approx 45 minutes later we were treated to a room almost totally full of smoke, the silhouettes of NiN and the start of a blinding set.

I've uploaded a selection of the photos I took to my gallery (as usual)

This was my first serious play with the new camera Leela bought me for Christmas - Due to our distance from the stage and the angle we were at, the photos didn't come out quite as well as I'd hoped. Maybe a little bit more experimentation is required before the NiN gig
Click here for the gallery

I dont update this page very often, but whenever I've felt like adding something blogger.com has been really sluggish. So, this evening I've decided to give WordPress a shot.  Being able to manage posts directly on my own server is so much nicer and quicker than using a really slow 3rd party server which then uploads the changes via a really slow FTP connection...

I've been a Fotopic member since April 2003 and they've been great the whole time I've used them. However, I've now got oodles of spare disk space in my server so it makes sense to use some of it I'm now using Gallery2 to host my photos and so far I'm very pleased with the results.

I suppose the default templates for WordPress & Gallery look ok, but at some point I'm going to have to break play around with them...