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WORLD TOUR PICTURES - PART 2(Click on any of the thumbnails to see a larger image in a new window - use the 'Close window' button at the bottom to get back to this page) As with Part 1, we have tried to be very selective with our photos (but haven't been quite so successful). Out of 267 we have selected just 65 for your viewing pleasure. MALDIVESWe stayed on the resort island of Veligandu Huraa. With just 16 rooms the island is so small you can walk round it in just 10 minutes. However, it is twinned with (and joined by a boardwalk to) a larger island with more facilities, Dhigufinolhu. The islands are managed (and mostly visited by) the Swiss and it showed - everything was managed with clockwork precision.
A total of four islands actually make up the resort. Veligandu Huraa, is on the left with Bodu Huraa on the right.
And the island at sunset after we had been on a dolphin-spotting boat trip.
Mo sits in the warm lagoon waters.
We came back from dinner one evening to find our bed decorated with flowers and palm leaves, and with the sheet scrunched into a heart. It may not be as creative as the towel swan in Egypt but more comprehensive and time-consuming (including to clear up before we could get into bed!). Some pictures taken during our dives in the Maldives:
So many colours.
Some sort of worm thing (we think - marine biology isn't our strong point).
One of the many inquisitive (and huge) angel fish (we think - nor is remembering fish names).
A clown fish (top) defends his (or her - we don't do fish sexing either) anemone.
Mo underwater. NEW ZEALANDWe started off on the South Island which is cooler, wetter, less populated with people (but MUCH more populated with sheep), more mountainous, wilder and more beautiful than the North Island.
A rolling green country. This was our first sight of the mountains separating the East and West coasts. They presented a serious obstacle to early pioneers - some West coast towns depended solely on shipping and air transport until relatively recently - and we were going to work our way right round them via the South of the South Island. Big sky country. This is Lake Tekapo, coloured turquoise by 'rock flour' coming out of the glacier which feeds it. Last time we saw this phenomenon it coloured Lake Louise in Canada green.
Looking over Lake Pukaki to Mount Cook, the highest peak in New Zealand.
Bushy Beach outside Oamaru where we waited to see rare yellow-eyed penguins coming ashore. After an hour and a half a solitary penguin deigned to emerge from the surf and begin the long climb up to the top of the cliffs. Very nice - we went for a drink. The unusual boulders at Moeraki: spherical concretions that look like giant marbles, dinosaur eggs or turtle shells depending on your imagination. Rather than having been washed up onto the beach, scientists reckon they were formed by minerals crystallising in the mudstone cliffs behind and then eroded out. Huh? Our understanding of geology matches that of marine biology.
Baldwin Street in Dunedin - the steepest street in the world. It doesn't look it from the bottom but once you've climbed up, your eyes (and leg muscles and lungs) confirm the claim.
Larnach Castle - more a fusion of Victorian folly and colonial country house than a real castle but very nice all the same.
This is Brighton! We've been to Brighton in the UK, in South Australia and now in New Zealand and this is definitely the most beautiful.
Nugget Point seal playground. We didn't have the super zoom lens with us in New Zealand so you'll have to take our word for the fact that there are over 60 seals basking on the nearest rocks and playing in the rock pools.
And, leaving Nugget Point, a baby fur seal on the beach with his mum.
Had to take the wheelchair on a hazardous path to the foot of the beautiful Purakaunui Falls. Probably worth it for the view but there were some sticky moments, with Steve torn between rupturing something and letting Mo drop off the path. Fortunately we didn't quite reach decision point.
Looking out over Te Waewae Bay, these cows were as mystified as us as to why a lone seal had clambered away from the beach and into their field.
The forest next to Lake Manapouri was full of the most beautiful mushrooms.
Part of the hydro-electric power station at the head of Lake Manapouri. There are bigger and more impressive power stations in the world but this one is important to New Zealanders because a hugely popular nationwide petition prevented the water level of the lake from being raised by the 11m required for the full functioning of the power station. As a result, the shoreline - and the flora and fauna that depend on it - has been saved and the station has never worked at full capacity.
Our trip across the lake and to Doubtful Sound took us into the heart of New Zealand's 'Fjordland'. This is a postcard of what it looks like for about half an hour on one day of the year.
And this is what it looks like the rest of the time - ie when we went. It rains more here than almost anywhere on the planet.
Queenstown, the 'adrenaline capital of the world' (and therefore far too active for our tastes), is set beside the beautiful Lake Wakatipu. That's our motorhome on the right.
The original A J Hackett bungy jump off an 1880 suspension bridge into the Kawarau Gorge.
The foot of Fox Glacier. It's hard to get a sense of the scale of these things so we've marked a line of walkers on the blow-up. The highlight of Part 2 was probably our ski-plane tour of the glaciers and mountains. The views were incredible and the patterns formed by the snow absolutely beautiful. The plane landed high up on Tasman Glacier and shut off its engines, leaving us in the silent, crisp white desert of snow and mountain. Stunning.
A river valley from the air.
Snow patterns on the mountains.
A glacier and river valley heading out to the sea.
The turquoise Lake Tekapo from the other side.
Beautiful textures in the snow.
Part of the Tasman Glacier we had just landed on.
Mo and the plane.
Steve and the glacier. Despite the permanent snow it was actually quite warm up here.
Another plane comes in to land, temporarily breaking the peace and quiet but giving us an observer's view of what we had just done.
Helicopters also do the tour. The downside is that they have to keep their rotors running all the time so you never get the peace and quiet.
The foot of Mount Josef Glacier. The glaciers are in retreat and, when first found by Europeans, this one extended to where the photo was taken from.
Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki. There are various theories on how they were formed with the older idea that alternating layers of hard limestone and softer mudstone were somehow laid down now superseded by the concept of 'stylobedding'. This suggests that, after solid limestone was laid down, some geological process forced some layers to go into solution and become softer. This probably does better explain why the 'pancakes' are such a regular thickness but, like the Moeraki Marbles and other geology, is pretty hard to get your head around.
One of New Zealand's flightless birds. Their national symbol, the kiwi, is shy and nocturnal so very rarely spotted. These wekas are much more common and very friendly.
Another seal playground, this time off the fabulously named Cape Foulwind. There were about 100 seals here (count them if you can but it's like looking for elephants in the African bush) and all much closer than at Nugget Point. A generous New Zealand bloke lent us his binoculars for a closer look but spoiled it by 'joking' about what you could do with a gun and so many sitting 'duck' targets. Hah, bloody hah.
The last leg of our drive round the South Island took us along the Queen Charlotte (who?) scenic highway to Picton. Very attractive views of Ngakuta Bay and Queen Charlotte Sound but really only for passengers. Drivers are, or certainly should be, far too busy concentrating on the exceptionally narrow and winding road. At the beginning of the road they warn you to look out for logging trucks and a milk tanker but we nearly died when two city 4WD cars hogging the road coincided with the setting sun in the driver's (Steve's) eyes and an amazingly badly dressed jogger on the road. There probably isn't a road sign for this but there should be. We took the ferry from Picton to Wellington to start our tour of the North Island. The crossing was a scenic holiday event in itself as the boat sailed through Queen Charlotte Sound past all the picturesque heads, inlets and bays, past Arapawa Island, out through the very narrow Tory Channel between East and West Heads, across the choppy Cook Strait, and then in a long loop around the far south west corner of the North Island, through another narrow channel, and into Wellington Harbour. Of course, we had left the camera in the motorhome and weren't allowed back to get it - doh!
In the North Island we dashed away from Wellington (just another big city) and went to look at the Art Deco cities of Napier and Hastings. This is part of the panoramic view of Hawkes Bay from Te Mata Peak with Napier on the horizon.
We followed a sign to a 'scenic viewpoint' and, pulling up in an ugly car park with overflowing rubbish bins overlooking a rather dull valley, thought 'What scenic view?'.
Moving closer and looking over over the boulder wall, though - 'Oh, that scenic view'. Very pretty.
In the thermal area in the centre of the North Island we first went to the 'Craters of the Moon'. This looks like the opening sequences of Dad's Army with mock shells exploding but that is all steam coming out of the ground.
A fumarole lined with sulphur.
Waiotapu 'Thermal Wonderland'. Our photos don't do this place justice and the dull weather didn't help. The colours were amazing: craters streaked with bright yellow sulphur and bubbling with dark brown mud, pools of luminous lime green, rich burnt orange and delicate pearl.
Champagne pool and Mo looking at it.
Next stop on our thermal explorer tour was Rotorua and the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute. This is in the thermal reserve of Te Whakarewarewa - short for Te Whakarewarewatangaotopetauawahiao! The reserve has fantastic bubbling mud pools ...
... and geysers that send columns of water up to 30m into the air.
After our thermal adventures in the centre we spent the rest of our time in New Zealand on the coasts. This is sunset from the beachfront campsite at Matata.
And finally, a rainbow from the beachfront campsite at Takepuna just outside Auckland. FIJIIn Fiji we stayed at Musket Cove Resort. It wasn't bad but suffered in comparison with the Swiss clockwork management of the Maldives resort.
An aerial shot of the island. We had to take the catamaran transfer from the mainland so, sadly, this isn't one of our photos but a postcard.
The view over the pool towards the cove.
Mo spent her time in the pool, Steve went canoeing.
Bye-bye beachfront bure. Back to World Tour home page. Go to World Tour Pictures: Part 1.
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