Back Home, and Work!

10 th September 2008

We've been back at work now for over two months and still haven't found time to finish off our diary. So here is a holding page which we'll update as soon as possible...

After arriving back from New Zealand, Australia and Singapore we stayed brieflyat home in Sheffield with Chris, Russell and Heather, then set off again for Feance to be re-united with our beloved van. After a few days recovering with my Mum and Dad, we set off again for another few weeks of travelling around France, beginning with a trip to the English Channel to take the van for a test in Dover.

Returning South we met our good friends Bob and Jayne in Honfleur and set off travelling together in the general direction of La Rochelle where we spent a few sunny days together exploring the coast and the City. Our next stop was Futuroscope near Poitiers, where we had a great time experiencing all the futuristic buildings and high tech film effects, including 3D Imax and a robot disco, where you dance in robots!

More to come soon

Sydney to France

25th April – May 2008 Sydney to France

More picture at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/findthebinghams/44SydneyAndSingapore

Our apologies for being rather slow with this Blog – we’ve been caught out by time zones, time-warps, 29 hour days and feeling odd. We’re sure the explanation lies in having been in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, England and France within 2 weeks!

It was so good to be able to spend time with Matthew, Hilary, Megan and Graham in Sydney. We arrived in time for ANZAC day and watched the City Centre processions of bemedalled Aussies marching behind banners listing an amazing number of campaigns including Korea and Vietnam...it’s recognition is taken very seriously here - also good for the local economy ‘cos the pubs were full to bursting later.


We saw such a lot in a few short days – from beautiful Blue mountains to a lovely sandy beach and Sydney Olympic Park. Rick was enthralled by the Zig-Zag steam trains and I begrudgingly own that I quite enjoyed the trip too. Why do the trains smell so evocative?





All the Binghams experienced Sydney Harbour through a drenching spray of Jet Boat wash....what fun!
















It was quite something to actually see the Harbour Bridge and the iconic Opera House in the flesh.

We’ve never seen so much wildlife as we did in one day - emu, padamelons (new to us), kookuburras, parakeets, spinifex mice, kangaroos, pelicans, flying foxes and the House Possum. All very enlightening, especially the Koala who was rescued from a dog attack and so has to manage with no kneecap. Apparently he’s very grumpy, and the only person who can handle him is the Croc specialist!













Rick took the “Essential Tour” of the Opera House which explained the difficulties of building Utzorn’s original concept, even after he simplified the geometry to sections of a sphere. Cost overruns were so bad that someone had to be removed and the Government made sure it was the Architect. Utzorn is now 90 years old and too frail to return to see the job finished (disabled access work is still in progress) but he has at last been re-instated as Chief Architect...They couldn’t tell me if he’s getting the back pay!

Very many thanks to the Oz Binghams for entertaining and feeding us so well! We had a great time with them all and hope their house now has a new roof. We look forward to seeing everyone in December at Derek’s 80 birthday celebrations.

Our Singapore Stop-over was amazingly cheap and all too brief at 36 hours. The City Centre is a glistening panorama of very modern, tall buildings and beautifully manicured public areas – oh, and shopping malls round every corner– a veritable temple to Mammon, with possessions and wealth seemingly the focus of life. Interesting to see, but not to be part of. There are, by law, no demonstrations, no Trade Unions and no social security...hangings are on Fridays. Still, we enjoyed the Orchid Gardens, the bumboat ride and seeing the Taoist temple, and the break helped us cope with the time zones.

After an all too brief few days back in Sheffield at home with Chris, Russ and Heather we returned to France and our cherished ‘van, which had been taken over by another family...of mice! Fortunately Rosi had decided to spring clean anyway, so out went all the nibbled packets and clothes, now converted into nests. Rick came face to face with the culprits in the battery box where they were unceremoniously evicted, scurrying off into the field at Petit Regis.

We’re now heading for Dover and a new MOT....

1st-8th April 2008 The Catlins Coast to Queensland, South Island


http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/findthebinghams/42CatlinsToMilfordSound for more pix.


This wonderfully scenic stretch of southern coastline is spectacular – often rugged and windswept, with rocky cliffs, sometimes vast sweeps of sandy inlets gently wafting with bull kelp, all breathtakingly beautiful. Purakaunui Bay was simply gorgeous and the Petrified Forest in Curio Bay was fascinating - you can see Jurassic tree stumps and fallen trunks from 180million years ago – we could even see bark and count rings.

Weather has been very kind and has stayed sunny and warm. We’ve done lots of great walks, many through forests, with enormous totara trees, ancient beech, giant tree ferns with carpets of green moss covering slowly decomposing timber– beautiful and very comfy.

Rick finally got to see the Hydro-Electric Power Station at Manapouri. It was really exciting, a trip across the beautiful lake, a 2km coach ride down into the mountain to see the huge generators churning out up to 825 megawatts of power for the aluminium smelting plant at Bluff. Before returning, the bus took us up the track to see Doubtful Sound (correctly a Fjord) from above – wow!

We delayed our cruise on Milford Sound (8m rain a year!) by a day for a better weather forecast. It was majestic, surrounded by towering mountains rising vertically from the fjord for 1.5km, with 150m high waterfalls - the scale of it is hard to grasp. It’s origins? Well, it’s either a drowned glacial valley and/or was created by the Maori demi-god, Tu-to-Rakiwhanoa, using ice-axes. Take your pick (sorry...).

The road from Te Anau to Milford has to be one of the most amazing, we’ve been on so far, flanked by mountains, forests and rivers, chasms– so many photo opportunities!, including a Kea (alpine parrot) that we had to shoo off the top of the van when it tried to re-arrange the satellite dish cables.

Queenstown has a pleasant water-front and is very activity-orientated. We resisted the urge to go white-water rafting, para-gliding, sky-diving, swinging (?), horse riding and ballooning. Instead, we stood on the A.J Hackett bungy-jumping platform at Kawarau Bridge (the world’s first), looked down and promptly retreated... Rick also had a close shave wet haircut experience, by a gay Ecuadorian with a penchant for fondling ears...that really made him squirm.

Lots of the Lord of the Rings film locations were in this area of the South Island (scenes are marked on many of the maps), so we’ve played the soundtrack and tried to compare with the DVD’s on our laptop.

We’re still meeting lots of people – Happy Hour (or 3) with 4 Kiwis, lovely evening at Gavin and Tania’s (they own the wonderful HouseTruck). There are loads of others making life-changing journeys too..

Rick is contemplating............ retirement.

26th – 31st March, 2008 Sheffield, in Canterbury, to Dunedin

For more photos, see http://picasaweb.google.com/findthebinghams/41SheffieldToDunedin

All this wildlife is such a privilege to see. Having 30 ton whales 30m away was an awesome experience; equally so was being 3m away (in a hide) from rare Yellow-Eyed Penguins. They’re known as ‘noisy-shouters’ – and they were. The rarer Little Blue penguins were so dinky (25cm tall) and such a funny sight, rolling in on waves, then being rolled out again before finally making it on to the sand and waddling up to their nests in the grass. Royal Albatrosses are damned impressive too, with 3.5m wingspans.

As for this chap – 2.5m and 150kg of Hooker’s Sea Lion. He rather surprised us by flopping out of the sand dunes just in front of us and then waddling to a suitable position on the beach, to just lozz, occasionally flicking sand over himself. They can move pretty fast, so we stayed the advised 10m away!

We had to visit Sheffield, of course - all of 40 houses, 2 churches, a garage and a fantastic pie shop with very friendly people (of course!). Rotherham was 10 houses and no pub, while I was intrigued by the origins of this...

After driving through the rather flat Mackenzie Country, (so-named after a jail-avoiding sheep-

stealer), with fields full of Merino sheep, cows and deer, we reached the magnificent glacier-fed Lakes Tekapo and Pukaki – achingly beautiful. ‘Rock flour’ (pulverised rock) gives them their beautiful turquoise colour. In the distance was Mount Cook looking suitably impressive (although it’s10m shorter than 1991, after the top dropped off.)

The Hooker Valley Track in the Aoraki Mount Cook National Park (UNESCO) is reputedly one of the best in the country. We thought it was fabulous and we were lucky enough to have sun all the way. We walked by the riverside along valley floor, between 700m high mountains with glaciers crawling down their sides. The lake below the terminal moraine was milky-white - beautiful but very cold!

We found yet more water at Benmore Hydro-electric Power Station - closed for repairs!

We’ve been fascinated by intriguing rock formations. Moeraki Boulders on Ortago Peninsula were certainly strange, formed by concretions around a lime crystal core (not my words, needless to say!). Some were 2m in diameter. The Elephant Rocks were similarly fascinating; hundreds of large, soft sandstone bottoms, shaped by wind and rain.

We liked Dunedin’s railway station building (1906). Much to Rick’s delight, we spent 5 hours on the Taieri Gorge Railway, the only route through the gorge-ous (sorry!) scenery of enormous rock faces, rivers and forest, over viaducts, bridges and up hills to see the most fantastic views. You had to spare a thought for those who’d cut through the schist rock in 1879 to create 235km of track for access to gold mining country – hard and dangerous work.

We’ve had yet more amazing stop-over spots – sometimes, we just sit there, not believing where we are and what we’re seeing!

40 – Whale watching at Kaikura to Sailing at Akaroa - 19th to 25th March

See more pictures at - http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/findthebinghams/40Blogpix
Rick's blog....

6 sperm whales, 200 Dusky dolphins, dozens of fur seals, 12 Hectors dolphins, a handful of yellow eyed penguins and one fantail that decided to join us in the campervan....our current tally of wildlife that we’ve seen over the past week in Canterbury (apart from flattened possums).

Walking the Kaikura peninsula we zigzagged though dozens of very dozy basking seals on the beach, with lots of pups dashing around in the water, then joined the whale watching trip which Rosi had been so looking forward to since we arrived in NZ. From the powerful catamaran we got really close to 6 huge sperm whales who were feeding in the 960 metre deep water canyon. Zooming off across the bay we then came across hundreds of Dusky dolphins, with several jumping clear of the water next to the boat, a great trip which Rosi enjoyed despite not having any sea legs.

Despite Easter we managed to camp in Christchurch and spent a day exploring the centre, including the old trams which I thought were great and the Arts Centre / market, which had Rosi spending all our ready cash. The Centre is housed in old University buildings modelled on Cambridge University (they even have punting on the local river) and is evidently a great place to have a studio. On market days they also have continental food stalls, where I tried the spiciest sausage I’ve ever eaten and Rosi had her first taste of Souvlaki. We saw some excellent paintings, including this one, which looks just like our friend Chris Rogers!

Our route east took us on to the Banks Peninsula, which Captain Cook mistakenly thought was an island, and we set up camp for a few days on the Banks of Arakoa Harbour at French Farm. At this delightful free camping spot we met several travellers, notably including Heide and Helmut from the Emscher Valley in Germany with whom we nattered for ages...at least Rosi did to Heide as she was also a teacher! Neighbouring Farmer Verne (75 years old) also zoomed round on his quad bike with a gift of peaches from his orchard.

We also had lengthy chats with Gavin and Tanya from Cromwell who are travelling in their newly acquired ‘Housetruck’... We were spellbound by one of these trucks in the ferry queue at Wellington and were full of speculation as to what they might look like inside....So you can image how excited we were to be invited in for a guided tour! Beyond the drawbridge and porch are two double bedrooms (both upstairs), a fully fitted kitchen with woodburning stove (and back boiler) and a washing machine, a bathroom (even with a tiny zinc bath) a dining area, and lots of very neatly fitted storage cupboards. All had been lovingly put together by the previous owner using local timber with solid brass fittings and nice touches like stained glass windows (all double glazed with safety glass).

A short trip around the bay took us to Arakoa, New Zealands first French settlement (although the English staked a legal claim first!). A very pretty village full of French road names, millionaires bungalows and lots of Easter visitors. The fish and chip lunch was a bit steep at £6.50 but it did include a Bundaberg ginger beer which is now a firm favourite (and about the only soft drink here not made by the wretched Coca Cola company).

After lunch we boarded the sailing ketch Fox II to sail round the harbour in search of more sea and birdlife. We saw Hectors dolphins...the smallest and rarest in the world and unique with their rounded fin, and in the distance some very shy Yellow Eyed penguins who were being mobbed by Cormorants (Shags in NZ). The Captain (a New Yorker) gave an interesting running commentary in between nattering to Rosi as he has plans to tour Europe this summer in a campervan.

Next stop Mount Cook, and the Hooker Glacier.