Rotorua and Surrounding Gases

Waimangu Volcanic Valley

So at this point I got a little lost and confused. We stuck around Rotorua for a few days and made the odd trip out to the Thermal Wonderlands, of which there are many. Wai-O-Tapu, Waimangu Volcanic Valley, Wairakei Thermal Valley being three big ones. It was quite easy to get them all mixed up, and they deserve a post all on their own so I will do a separate post about them very soon.

This part of NZ shows some signs of heavy marketing and Rotorua itself, boy oh boy, if there’s a hill, it has a zipwire on it, if there’s a forest, it has a canopy walk, if you’re into sheep, there’s the Agrodome, (pretty good actually, not sure who are better trained, the sheep or the sheepdogs).

I do however draw the line at the the National Road Board hopping on the bandwagon with the grandly named “Thermal Explorer Highway”, this evokes images of bursting geysers, lava flows, rugged 4by4 travel over steam swathed landscapes, but it is, at the end of the day, just a road. There’s nothing thermal about it, unless you turn the car heating up.

That said, they do have a lot to work with. Even Rotorua town itself, a view across the town will show rising steam from between the buildings.

Steam coming off of from the town.

I know this isn’t a great photo by the way but I’ve realised there is a difference between just posting photos that tell a story themselves, and photos that support a blog. I’m not 100% sure about the ‘photos that tell a story’ schtick anyway. Those arty photos about the lonely Afghan goat herd contemplating the changes to his life and the impact of increasing urbanisation, actually, No. He’s Not. He’s probably thinking about lunch. Or thinking ‘If This Guy Doesn’t Bugger Off Pretty Quick I’ll Set The Dog On Him’.

A casual stroll down to the placid lakeside will take you to Sulphur Point, where there are dire warnings about going off the path and where all the lake birds congregate in the bubbling water.

I am not a natural videographer (you needed telling, right?) but in case you haven’t clocked, part of the purpose of this website is for me to learn how to ‘do’ websites.

This particular video is quite a simple edit of two video files, but involved loading them into Corel Videostudio, applying an ‘anti shake’ feature, fades in between and at the end, and separating out the soundtrack and replacing it.

Replacing the soundtrack involved going onto the website to look for ‘sound files of wind howling’, finding a clip that had been posted on youtube (with permissions to use), saving it via EasyYoutube mp3 as an audio file. Which incidentally sounded eerily like the original windy noises that were on the tape. And patching that audio file into Corel Videostudio, and saving the lot in a file.

Then to get it onto your website, you have to upload the vid to Youtube, and put a link to the Youtube video - and then insert a tricky bit of code (?rel=0 …are you impressed?) to prevent Youtube then going onto make suggestions about what people can watch next at the end of your video. In my case that would be loads of camera gear reviews and videos of boats being sunk to make artificial reefs.

I really should get out more, shouldn’t I?

So - Rotorua. One place where you can be assured of getting a motel, as my partner blithely informed me, because they’re everywhere, so I let him choose. I had forgotten his criteria were a little different to mine.

I tend to go for places with crisp cotton sheets with a high thread count, a view of the Peninsula/Volcano/Desert. He tends to go for the thing that starts with "£$BARGAIN”, and ends there. Places, perhaps, where the customer is not so much ‘King’ as ‘King for an Hour’.

I know it’s just personal preference but my preference is somewhere where the glory hasn’t faded yet, where the lights don’t fizz when you switch them on, and where there aren’t discreet messages about what to do with your needles in the kitchen area. But that said, in this particular case, when we asked about a clothes airer and the last one was in use - the guy at the desk went out and bought us one. That doesn’t happen at the Hilton.

Has to be said, I did not feel particularly safe in Rotorua, lots of little things, a screaming row between another hotel resident and the kind guy with clothes airer, the extensive Rogues Gallery in the New World Supermarket of people who were banned from shopping there, and the number of times my partners said “Don’t look, keep going” all contributed to that.

I think the thing that really brought it home to me was when we’d just exited the Gondola Station at the bottom of Ngongotaha Mountain, all chrome, new glass, whizzy tourist attractions like a luge and some horrendously scary bike trails, and walking across the car park fiddling with my camera and hearing my partner say “That’s so sweet…”. I thought I’d done something whimsical but he was referring to the fact that I was so involved in whether my camera was in Programme Mode or Aperture Priority, I completely failed to see the two cars full of yoofs spinning around the same car park, screaming at each other and waving guns.

Guns. In New Zealand?

So Rotorua. Tons of things for families to do. But, Gangs, and Guns. I’ll move onto the Thermal Wonderland with the next post and we’ll be back to steam, rocks, landscapes with green ponds before you know it. You’ll see.

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Travels - traversing the Hamptons

So after an uneventful flight, marred only slightly by discovering that some oik had stuck the pages of the safety briefing together with chewing gum, and then discovering that the in-flight entertainment didn’t work. I suspect Thing B led to Frustration which led to Thing A, but it was only a 4 hour flight so I whiled it away staring hard at everybody else’s screens and making them uncomfortable.

Customs and security was interesting, my partner thought he’d whizz through security faster than I on an NZ Passport, which he would have done, had I not offered to fill out his Landing Card for him and inadvertently ticked the “No” box to the question “Do you know what’s in your bag?” He didn’t let me do that again.

However, we got through it, and how we laughed! Well I did. And I was quite glad that we hadn’t succumbed to buying any coral or wood souvenirs at the airport duty free in Avarua, as Customs made you throw them away when you arrived in NZ. We got out to our hire car, in the dark, having narrowly escaped being upgraded to a 7 seater when really we only needed a slightly large boot, not a truck.

I think the agent got his own back on us though as we had a) keyless start b) automatic c) non-intuitive lights, d) indicators on the wrong side and e) parking buttons, not handbrakes, to contend with.

Most of these were OK, as we took it slowly at first, however there was one heart stopping moment when my partner decided to slam the brakes on (trying for the imaginary clutch) and we had a loud beep from behind us from a kiwi gentleman who, after that point, drove at a safe distance.

This was the only time we experienced this phenomenon. I don’t mean accidentally slamming on the brakes, we did that loads. I mean having a kiwi drive at a safe distance behind you.

We pulled into a motel in Hamilton, ragged in the way that international travelling leaves you, but I’ve decided that’s probably the best way to experience Hamilton. The motel was nice and I learned how to use NZ heat pumps at 3.00 in the morning, when it went on at full blast because some of the random button pressing I’d been engaged in earlier in the evening trying to switch it ON somehow activated a timer.

Then on, the next day, towards Rotorua. We passed through a small town, Tirau, which had some rather odd buildings made by someone who had a lot of corrugated iron and too much time on their hands.

Why? Just Why?

We saw signs to ‘The Blue Spring’ which seemed to be a tourist spot, and made a detour towards it.

It was quite a way off the beaten track but it proved to be well worth it. For a start my partner saw several Pukekos that remind him of home, not surprisingly, as we were, actually, ‘home’ but that always cheers him up.

It would appear that while you can have too many photos of ducks, you can’t have too many photos of Pukekos, and if he’d had his way, the 4,000 photos I took when I was overseas would have all been Pukekos.

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Pukeko

Good eating on one of these…

And this is a Takahe. A Takahe is a larger, bluer bird. Quite rare. Which is a good job as partner already goes nuts over Pukekos. They run away from him, startled. Imagine what he’d be like if there were Takahes in the wild too…

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Takahe

Larger, bluer, less good at evading predators

I should perhaps clarify at this point for the Department of Conservation, that there is NOT Good Eating On A Pukeko. At least I wouldn’t know.

So on we went to the Blue Spring. As we approached it we came upon a Cormorant drying its wings. I was so excited to encounter this at relatively close range, I took loads of photos with a 400mm telephoto lens, and a 1/50 of a second shutter speed, so the end result was quite impressionistic and could have been a cormorant drying its wings, or a whale breaching, so I’ve not included them here. However, I did catch some later of the same bird resting on top of a cabbage tree.

So herewith, photos of the Blue Spring - the stunning colour of the water is due to it’s optical clarity, having filtered through underground aquifers for between 50 - 100 years.

And that is enough for today, the next posts will be about the Thermal Wonderlands, Rotorua, and how I could never be a photo journalist, a decision I came to after realising I had wandered into the paths of two cars driving full pelt, and bristling with gang yoof waving guns and screaming foul oaths at each other, and I was too busy adjusting the settings on my camera to notice.

That for another day!

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Travels - last night in Rarotonga

I had taken a few last shots as the sun set and I thought that was pretty much it for the evening, just one more of some of Rarotonga’s stray dogs fishing in the lagoon.

Or maybe two. These two were best buddies, and the dark one was really friendly. If you patted her she would even ‘guard’ your stuff when you went in the ocean for a dip!

Night fell and I was busy packing the complex chinese puzzle that my luggage had become. My partner, who tolerates rather than enjoys my photography habits, came in and said to me “You’ve got to see this…”

In the UK, you can hardly ever seen the Milky Way. Sometimes you can just about tell it’s probably there, unless you are in a true Dark Sky site like the far West of Scotland.

Rarotonga is an island, but it isn’t really a Dark Sky spot, however it does have very little pollution and that makes a huge difference to how much you can see.

I think the bright star you can see in some of these shots is Venus, it was so bright you might have mistaken it for the moon. As with all the other photos, double-clicking on them will bring them up full size.

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Travels - Rarotonga - the Curse of Metua

Could this happen anywhere else? I don’t know.

Picture this. Vaimaanga Tapere, a stretch of land that runs from The Needle, an inland spike of rock, down to the beach on the southern side of Rarotonga, looking out onto the lagoon.

Rarotonga’s Great Road, Ara Tapu, encircling the island, runs through it. Beside this road, blink and you miss it, there’s a quiet space, a blank moment, with a strange sense of past times, of quiet and decay. This is the Sheraton Hotel Resort.

No, this is not the bitchiest hotel review ever. This isn’t because I had simply the worst quiche in my life there, or the most overpriced daquiri, at this hotel there is no customer service, no daquiris. No anything except brooding, quiet ruin.

In spite of being prime Rarotongan real estate, the resort was abandoned when it was partially completed, something like 25 years ago. No guests have ever stayed there and to date, nobody has stepped in to try to develop it.

This is one of about 15 buildings, set in a great semicircle that make up the complex.

Image courtesy of Google Maps, I ain’t got no drone

Image courtesy of Google Maps, I ain’t got no drone

Admittedly there are some downsides to the location: You have to cross the main road to get to the beach (this makes a huge difference to the prices holiday lets can charge); The beach itself is relatively small and it opens onto a fairly rocky part of the lagoon; And finally, this part of the lagoon can kill you.

If you look slightly to the left of the hotel complex in this picture, you also see a blue ribbon going from the lagoon out past the reef, and another, more obvious blue tendril to the far left of the picture.

These are riptides, deceptively calm looking parts of the lagoon with a strong current that will whisk you out to sea before you know it.

But the real reason this complex lies abandoned is because it is cursed.

In pre-colonial days, it was the scene of bloody tribal battles and spirits are said to walk the land. And in the early 1900s, the land was claimed by a prominent chief at the time, Pa Ariki. The claim was disputed by another tribe led by chief More Uriatua and this simmering powder keg of emotions (you get it all in this blog, don’t you?) came to a head in 1911, when a European Settler by the name of William Wigmore, shot and killed More Uriatua.

More Uriatua’s daughter, Metua, appeared in vengeance and placed a curse on the land. She said that none would profit from the land until it was returned to the tribe. Although Wigmore managed to escape prison, his businesses failed.

Fast forward to 1980, and some Italian businessmen struck a deal with the Cook Islands Government, to open a 5 star hotel on the site, involving joint investment from both parties.

In 1990, at the ceremony to start the building works, Metua’s grandson, More Rua, suddenly appeared dressed as a high priest and dramatically renewed Metua’s curse. He struck his spear on the rock bearing the inaugural plaque, and it shattered.

This naturally was a little upsetting for the developers, but they pressed on. Three years later, with the site almost finished, the Italian money suddenly stopped, and the building contractor went bust. There were rumours of mafia involvement and the Cook Islands government who had underwritten the project ended up facing a bill of $120m. This had an absolutely devastating effect on the island and marked the emigration of waves of Cook Islanders to New Zealand to try to find work.

In spite of repeated attempts to re-start the project, all subsequent efforts have failed amid allegations of tax fraud, and the head of the tribe, Amoa Amoa, has refused to lift the curse unless the land is given back to the More tribe.

This story might seem incredible to our eyes, but the place really has a creepy atmosphere.

I had the eeriest feeling I was being watched. In spite of the fact that it was very obviously abandoned, I felt really uncomfortable about going in any further. You can just walk off the road onto the site, but you do feel like you are walking on sacred ground.

Pause for thought.

Later on the same day, I took the road from the north of the island, Happy Valley Road, up to the start of the track to The Needle. Calling it a road was aspirational, in the same way as calling my moped an Off Road Vehicle was. Mopeds have a very odd centre of balance thing that makes you feel a bit like an elephant riding on a marble. You sort of get the impression that this thing was designed by someone who just didn’t care if it remained upright.

The road gradually deteriorated under me, there were deep channels cut into it from flash floods. And it got increasingly rural. Rarotonga is well known for its roosters and chickens everywhere, but here there were also pigs tied at the side of the road, the odd farmer working in a field.

The atmosphere got steadily more intimidating, and eventually I got to the end of the track, and parked up.

It was really quiet, you really noticed that you couldn’t hear the waves, something you got used to virtually everywhere else on the island.

I headed back down. I came to a fork in the road, and on one side was a farmer loading some crops onto a flatbed truck. Next to him was his son, probably about 12, staring at me.

I thought, what must I look like to them? bleached white and occasionally sunburnt, on a hired moped, obviously a tourist, with a backpack. I started drawing parallels with the film ‘Deliverance’ in my mind.

Then the boy waved at me and gave me a thumbs up sign.

These Rarotongans are really Awfully Nice People, aren’t they?

That is it for this evening, the next post, one more from Raro I think, to say goodbye and then off to New Zealand, Rotorua, and Lake Taupo!

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Travels - Rarotonga Constitution Day - Te Maeva Nui

Purely by chance, we ended up in Rarotonga when they were celebrating their Constitution Day, 4th August 1965.  This is a big deal for the Cook Islands, and Islanders from all over the Cook Islands come across to Avarua in Rarotonga to celebrate the diversity of the islands and showcase their culture. 

The Cook Islands include 15 islands scattered across the South Pacific over a vast area and when you see just how vast, it cover 1,800,000 square kilometres of ocean, and shows what a tribute this was to the early Cook Islanders who set off across the ocean to see what they could find.  

Some of the islands benefit from tourism, such as Aitutaki, Rarotonga, and others like Manihiki benefit from black pearl farming. Some are nature reserves with only 2 caretakers, others are very difficult to get to for tourists, and even Rarotonga gives the impression of being relatively unspoilt so there is a huge amount of variety in each of the islands.   

I had assumed that colonialism probably brought with it a lot of negative things that we tend to associate with Empire, one of which would have been concepts of land ownership, and you would suspect given what has happened elsewhere with Empires, the principle of land ownership being followed very closely with the principle of swindling original settlers out of it with beads and blankets, apparently one of the things that came out of this colonialism was a concept of indigenous land ownership from mountain to sea - so when they were allocating land to various tribes, sections were divided up this way.  This would mean that the islanders could own the very desirable beachfront properties all around the lagoons.  

I am not 100% certain this is absolutely accurate, I learnt all this from a very friendly Kiwi couple who initially mistook me for the Official Photographer of the Parade, and ended up telling me I'd be very welcome as an HR Manager in New Zealand and even suggesting the jobs website I should check out.

So the Parade was a little casual, shall we say, and I have subsequently found out that we were some way down from all of the action.  I think the first sign was the arrival of the first float, this one.

which as you can see, is Float No 4.  This was followed after some time by Float No 11, then 21, and the order of appearance gave some clue to how the Parade was going to go.  It took quite a long time and to be charitable something like this is fairly difficult to co-ordinate (and it should be noted that this is just one of the activities that mark the Declaration of Independence..  

Anybody who has read my blog previously will realise I am usually fairly reluctant to photograph people, something that many amateur photographers have in common, and looking through the following pictures you may get the impression I've been able to overcome this - however, in practice I shot these with a very long lens and initially thought they were pretty disappointing and cluttered, then I started realising that I could crop other people out of them and some of them ended up being quite interesting portraits.  

That said, these are really easygoing people.  If you can't take a photograph of someone who's that friendly, who can you photograph?

Later on, I'll look at some of the other aspects of Rarotonga, the night sky, some of the beaches and the lagoon, even the slightly spooky interior and the definitely creepy abandoned Sheraton Hotel Complex that's a story in itself...

But for now - Constitution Day!

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Travels - to Rarotonga

Our stopover in Auckland was brief as we were moving on to Rarotonga.  I'd planned this partly in case any of the long flights were delayed, but also because I just could not get my head around the fiddly business of crossing the international date line, which lies between New Zealand and Rarotonga, and arriving the day before we set off.  

Now I've had days at work like that where you think it's Thursday and you realise with sickening clarity when you get there that it's really just Wednesday again, and I've had the opposite, when I was on the famous Whiskey Diet, and lost four days in one week (sorry, old joke there) BUT it's a different matter entirely when you're also trying to book hotels around it.

I found myself wondering… What would happen when I arrived on Wednesday and I was back in Tuesday.  Would I be able to call myself in Auckland from Rarotonga, and speak to myself the day before I travelled?  In the short term, that could be very handy, for instance, if you forgot to pack your sunscreen, or if you were aware that an entire wedding party would be on your plane and would clean out Duty Free on arrival.

But in the longer term, the possibilities are endless.  If I just crossed the International Date Line loads of times, could I eventually get back to my 30s?  Maybe make some long term investments. Do It All Differently the second time.

Sadly this was not to be.  I can’t help thinking though that we should have been able to come up with a date and time system for the planet which didn’t include an enormous temporal zip stretching from the North to the South Pole.

But that’s for another day.

The flight was uneventful, but arriving in Rarotonga was exciting.  I know a bit about flying, having actually passed my Private Pilot’s Licence years ago.  On Flight Simulator.  I remember proudly telling a friend that I’d done everything I would need to do to pass my Private Pilot’s Licence, and he commented “Except fly a plane”

So I often watch the flight progress monitor on the in-flight entertainment.  Was that wise? I hear you ask.

Well, on Cathay Pacific, I noticed they switch it off just as you’re landing – I think this is because there was an American flight where the passengers actually got to watch themselves crash and that was considered to be demotivating.  But on Air NZ, no such thing happens.

And unfortunately, unfortunately, they don’t calibrate in-flight entertainment systems to be entirely accurate because you’re not expected to actually fly a plane using the information you can get from the back of the seat.  So I didn’t know that, on my screen, the plane was showing about an inch lower i.e. to the South, on the map than it really was.

Rarotonga is a very pointy island.  It has a lot of volcanic peaks in the centre.  

I was expecting us to come in from the West, but we overflew the island and turned to approach the airport from the East.  Because of my minor screen glitch, I noticed that we weren't lined up with the runway as we came in and we appeared to be flying into the mountains South of the airport...

At exactly the same point that I noticed that, the captain decided to do a Go Around.   This is where they abandon the landing and have another go.  So the engines powered up suddenly and I braced for the sight of palm trees in the window and the inevitable impact, carnage, screaming (think Sale at TK Max and you’ve pretty much got it).  

Thankfully I didn’t go the whole hog and do that thing where you put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye but I did grab my partner, and far from being grateful at being alerted to our possible demise, he slapped me.   And of course it's good to know for the future that should I have some other urgent instruction like "JUMP!  It's gonna BLOW!" or "RUN!! RUNAWAY ELEPHANT!!!" his go-to position is probably going to be to tell me not to be so ridiculous.

So we hurtled skywards with a lot of noise and then came the cabin crew announcement, that this was all perfectly normal, and the captain had done a ‘go around’ and it was all perfectly normal.  It was so perfectly normal that the steward felt the need to repeat this about seven times, by which time everybody in the cabin was pretty clear that it wasn’t perfectly normal, and were individually clocking up all the times they’d flown before and this perfectly normal thing hadn’t happened.

Then we spent a while circling around over the ocean on the west side of the airport, while I imagine a humongous argument went on in the cockpit about who’s fault it was that they’d wasted all that avgas. 

We had a second announcement that we were waiting for another landing slot because of other traffic, thinly concealing the fact that way out here, there wasn’t any other traffic.    I suspect this delay was due to one pilot trying to get across to the other pilot that he really had to learn to land at this airport from BOTH ends and he was going to have to do it from the East sometime.  Perhaps even pointing out that if he couldn’t we may just have to go back to New Zealand, as there was nowhere else out here they could land a plane this big.  There may have been voices dripping with sarcasm.  Who knows.

So the second time round, we came back in from the East, and this time landed uneventfully.  

Kia Orana Rarotonga!  

Unchanged from the last time we were here, still the same horrendous queues through customs, still the same incredibly friendly and welcoming people, and you still get a lei necklace of fragrant flowers when you come out of the airport.  I don't remember that happening at Leeds Bradford Airport...

More later, but for now, some pictures from that first evening in Raro.

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Travels - to Auckland

So today we were to say goodbye to Hong Kong and venture forth to New Zealand.  A 9.00pm flight via Cathay Pacific seemed a fairly civilised option, and you could check your luggage in at the main railway stations in Hong Kong and they'd whizz it out to the airport for you.  Don't see that happening at Kings Cross. 

This wasn't to happen quite as we expected.  This was an 11 hour flight, running half an hour late initially, then we FINALLY got on the plane.  I mean FINALLY like, Tchoh! 35 minutes late???  Call Yourself An Airline etc etc etc.  Little did I know.

Comfortably sat in the Airbus A350 Sardine Can and about to push back, we then had an announcement that Philippine Air Traffic Control had had a power cut, and we would be grounded for at least an hour and a half.  Another flight to Auckland had left approximately 15 minutes before us and while we were pondering our misfortune to have picked this one, we quickly realised it was probably better to be on the ground, stationery, than in the air, flying blind across Philippine Airspace in an ATC powercut.  

Then at the hour and a half mark, an announcement that the pilot had 'timed out' so we had to wait for a relief pilot.  This is a pilot just like any other pilot, except that when he arrives, everyone feels such a sense of relief that we can get going.  That's why he's called a relief pilot. 

Ok, look, you don't come here for the jokes.

So, three hours later, we took off.  Funny thing is, I don't remember doing anything on that plane for those three hours that we sat on the apron.  We just sat and waited in silence. Like a very boring special interest club consisting of a lot of people just pretending to go flying in a passenger jet.  

This turned a 11 hour flight into 14 hour one, but we were landing mid-day anyway so it didn't make much difference.

Sunrise across the Coral Sea (not a bad picture for a Sony Xperia Z3 phone)

One small moment of levity however came from the terribly nice old lady who sat in front of me.  Calling her 'old' still feels a bit wrong, because in spite of being obviously around 80 years old, she was wearing shorts, a backpack, and was clearly a lot fitter than I was. 

She was not very used to planes, as she managed to change the language on her in flight entertainment system to cantonese as soon as she touched it.  My partner helpfully switched it back for her, but it reverted pretty quickly.  She got the hang of it eventually but not before watching half of a gay coming-of-age film with growing confusion.  I did love her dearly though, not for her quirkiness but because on an entire 14 hour flight, she didn't put her seat back.

Auckland, City of Sails

Arriving in a fairly unremarkable hotel in Auckland, I wonder if those occasional unsung heroes who are just trying to do the best job they can, realise how much difference they make to an utterly knackered traveller.  On check in we were greeted by a Māori guy who asked us where we were from, and we ended up telling him about the flight delay and he said "Well you've still got beautiful smiles on your faces so I guess it can't have been too bad, eh?"

Those of you who have been to New Zealand will recognise the Kiwi 'A' there. It's not an accent, or a letter, it's pretty much the end of every sentence, as in "So you're from the UK, eh?" or, quite a good example from my Kiwi sister in law when I took out my 100 - 400mm lens later in our trip "Jesus Ken! you compensating for something or what, eh?"

A little later on, a trip to the Skytower, to watch the sun go down.

Next, Kia Orana, Rarotonga! and the closest I came to an in-flight emergency...

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Travels - Hong Kong

It has been so long since my last blog I almost forgot how to log in to the website.  However, I have been busy.

I finally found an answer to the Leeds - Temple Newsam - You-Can-Never-Have-Too-Many-Photographs-Of-Ducks photographer's fatigue.  I have exhausted Temple Newsam, and I have finally decided, Yes, You Can Have Too Many Photographs Of Ducks.  Even ones like this:

I have truly Maxxed Out on Ducks.  And short of photographing Temple Newsam upside down, I can't think of anything else to do with it.   

The simple answer was to go to New Zealand and photograph something different.   

Well I said it was simple, I didn't say it was cheap.

As you can imagine, once released from the relative photographic prison of Leeds and Area, I went a bit nuts and at the last count, my computer is now over 4,000 photographs richer.   Relax, gentle reader, I do not intend to post ALL 4,000 on here.  Maybe 2,000.

So my plan is - a few blogs, in instalments, taking in Hong Kong, Rarotonga and New Zealand in turn, with maybe some observations on travelling with cameras on the way.

The first observation is I am now a different shape.  Not fatter, thanks to what I think is a tapeworm I picked up on Hong Kong, which has sadly now left me, but with legs like a baobab tree trunk.  This is because I was going to photograph night scenes, cities, landscapes, and possibly tiny insects and that meant taking both cameras and an assortment of lenses, which can be a little heavy.

There are dire warnings all over photographic phorums about checking your beloved camera into hold baggage as you might as well wrap it up with NICK ME tape, so basically you have to carry it all on yer person into the cabin.  And I rapidly discovered that with two cameras, a 14mm wide angle, a 150mm macro, a 100-400mm zoom, and a 24-70 mm zoom, not only was I not zooming ANYWHERE, but I was also overweight.  Most cabin baggage allowances run to 7Kg and this lot weighed something more like 10Kg.  I also had to include a small laptop, for transferring the pictures onto an external hard drive, and spare batteries, because you can't put either of those in hold baggage. 

So, tips for the phlying photographer: 

First of all, get an App called 'My Packing List' which will allow you to input the weight of each item, so that you can work out how much it all weighs without having to balance on the scales and deducting your body weight 50 times. 

Secondly, get a small carry on, like a 'reporter bag' because you are usually allowed to carry a cabin bag, and one small item, like a brolly, coat or small bag, and work out, to the gramme, which lenses you can swap over into your reporter bag before you check in, to get your rucksack down to 6.99Kg.  You can swap stuff over later so that you can have something useful to put under the seat in front of you rather than two inert lenses.  

Thirdly, vitally important, when you check in, DO NOT put your rucksack down.  Sling it casually across one shoulder, because, like, it's not heavy.  Assume an air of nonchalance.  Watch videos of drug smugglers being caught at airports, and don't do any of the things that they do if that helps.  This should mean they don't realise how heavy your stuff is.  

Fourthly, very important this, don't forget to put Your Medication in your rucksack.  Make sure there is quite a lot of it.  Doesn't matter what it is.  Aspirin, Diet Pills, Bisodol, Multivitamins, Dried Frog Pills, because you see, you can't travel without Your Medication, and if you have like 15 bottles and four spare camera batteries, they're not going to ask you to just put them all in your pockets.  Fake an asthma attack if you get stuck, but also bear in mind your inhalers will have to be in clear plastic bags.

Swap the random lenses you'd ensconced in your reporter bag back into your rucksack after you've checked your hold luggage in.

Going back to the Before You Leave bit for a moment, which I did many, many times on my subsequent travels, ask yourself, do I really need ALL of those lenses, because by the time you've finished dragging them half way around the world, trust me, you will feel the weight of every one of them.  And you too will end up a Different Shape.

It's not just airports you have to think about.  It's rental cars.  It's places where you might have opened the boot and someone might have had a chance to look inside.  It's hotels that you're checking into, that don't have the room ready, and offer to keep your bags.  One of the nicest hotels we stayed in was in Hong Kong, the Novotel Century, quite posh, freezing airconditioning, a large atrium with no discernible ceiling and an air of ruthless efficiency from the staff. 

On our arrival, we had hours to kill before our room was ready, and jetlag.  They helpfully let us leave our bags, all very efficient, and even gave us a numbered security tag so that we could reclaim them, and off we went into the sweltering Hong Kong heat.  So that first time, the only time, I left my camera rucksack with them, and when we returned to the hotel, as I walked up, noticed all of our bags, along with my rucksack, on the street, where the taxis pulled in.  

They were secure.  Well, they had a rope around them.   It was quite a thick rope.  And apparently there's very little crime in Hong Kong because they're all too busy looking at their phones.  You think we have it bad in our country...

Hong Kong was an experience, but all talk, no photographs.  I'll cover a bit more in a subsequent blog about the stop in Hong Kong on the way back.  But for now, some pictures.  As ever, click on the pick to get a bigger version to look at.

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