Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Travel Blogging

Posts on my experiences in travelling

A sculpture day

Auguste Rodin - Adam - 1881Yesterday I did an excellent walk with my Jesus Green Pool swimming friend Chris. I have been wanting to visit The Henry Moore Foundation site at Perry Green, so when a 25% discount voucher appeared in the post & also prompted by Chris wanting to do a longish walk for him 🙂 (but a walk Sally & I would consider a bit short at 13 1/2 miles) . I finally made it there.

We took the train from Cambridge to Bishops Stortford (equally fast frequent trains from Stansted airport & London). First part of the walk is along The Stort navigation past locks & narrow boats plus two nature reserves, although Chris didn’t have much time for bird watching, apparently walking and twitching don’t mix). After leaving the river and crossing the main line (trains every 3mins so don’t hang about on the level crossing)  we made our way over to Thorley with its delightful church we had a bit of confusion at Thorley Wash after crossing the A1184, but we took the track, rather than through down the private drive, which then transforms into a delightful old coach road.

We arrived at Perry Green and made straight to The Hoops for a pint & salad, a tad pricey but excellent quality.  Straight after lunch it was across the road to see the Moore / Rodin exhibition of  sculptures, totally stunning! & a must see. I thought artists were meant to be poor! However, according to Wikipedia he was paying a million pounds a year in income tax! Maybe we overpay for public works of art 🙂 The staff said it was OK to take photos outside so you can see some of them on Flickr.

A lovely walk back via SideHill full of bluebells (Chris pondered wether they were Spanish or Native) past enormous houses and then a lovely walk into Bishops Stortford through the sports grounds of the college ( a snap at £24,000 per year for boarders).

Chris treated me to tea and a chocolate brownie at the Host restaurant in Stortford. Then it was back home. an excellent walk on a perfect day. The walk is on Everytrail :
Bishops Stortford circular walk to Henry Moore  Centre at EveryTrail

 

First Great Walk

Tomorrow I try my first New Zealand Great Walk it’s the Tongariro Northern Circuit and goes around two active volcanoes Mt Tongariro and Mt Ngauruhoe. What makes it different for me is that I have to take all my food & possible water for two nights & three days. I’ve booked both the Oturere Hut and Walhohonu hut and taxi service to take me to Mangatepopo and collect me from the Whakapapa Village Centre

The weather forecast is looking OKish although there are certainly high winds. I don’t intend on going to the summit’s so hopefully should be OK.

I’ve downloaded the relevant New Zealand Topo50 maps into the Viewranger app and will be taking a spare battery.

Should be interesting – now to pack my bag 🙂

 

Arrival in New Zealand

I left Cambridge at 9am on Sunday the 14th October and arrived in Auckland at 2pm on Tuesday the 16th with brief stops at Dubai, Kuala Lumpur & Melbourne on the way. Thats 43 hours  straight without any proper sleep.

First job in Auckland was to try and get my D550 camera fixed as it went totally dead on the way over. It wasn’t the battery and so I ended up buying a second hand body from Camera & Camera on Queen street for about $599 🙁 an expensive start to the trip. Next job was to sort out the iPhone.

text from 3
Welcome text from 3

Three had kindly sent me a text  on arrival offering internet at £6,000 a GB in New Zealand. I thought that just a tad to expensive… So I went over to Vodafone where I quickly was set up with a 2GB / 1 month Supa Prepay Broadband+ package complete with iPhone5 SIM for $50 a month a saving of ££5,960 🙂

Emily Place signAfter all that excitement it was off for a well needed sleep at Jucy’s hostel. in Emily Place 🙂

 

I arrive in Kuala Lumpur, well Gate C22

Dubai - Kuala Lumpur flightpathFor some reason the  flight from Dubai to Melbourne takes a break in Kuala Lumpur  after 5689km. It’s not clear what is happening other than we are all deplane with our belongings. The pilot reminded us that there is a death penalty for anyone having drugs!

So we come out of one door and re-nter through another, having our bags x-rayed far more thoroughly than at Gatwick. I had to remove my kettle and aluminium spec case so the lady could see they were harmless.

Now on my 4th airline meal are a couple served earlier:

Dinner on EK016

 

Emirates snack

Well we are all boarding the same plane, same seat for the next leg to Melbourne!