Category Archives: New Zealand

24th January picture of the day…

24 Sunday Jan 2021

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Another early in the day picture from me. Well, if you count nearly 9 o’clock in the evening ‘early’! This weekend the pair of us have been playing catch-up on chores and also trying to get some more exercise as we’ve actually had two dry days in a row which is a minor miracle for this neck of the woods at the moment. I’m not sure what the rain statistics are for January but they must be substantial, and there’s more on the way next week, so the pair of us getting out for a long (dry) walk through our local woods and along the canal together today was lovely – although with it being a Sunday and sod-all for people to do, the towpath resembled Piccadilly Circus! Most people were good and respected social-distancing but there’s always a few muppets who try and walk three-abreast and think others should just squeeze past them. What IS it with some people?

Normally, Dawn and I spend January abroad but this is the second in a row where we’ve been stuck in the ‘septic isle’ and it really makes the year drag as we’re not used to the short days and freezing weather. OK, it’s been a novelty and I’m keen to keep it that way. I’m praying life returns to normal this year so that we’ll be able to book time away in 2022 with confidence.

As a tribute to the winter weather I’d much rather be experiencing, here’s the picture of the day which is one of a batch of slides I scanned earlier this afternoon. It was taken on the 25th February 1999 and shows Lake Wakatipu (near Queenstown) on the South Island of New Zealand.

Now that’s my sort of winter weather! You can find the rest of the pictures from the trip in this gallery. Next week I’ll have the last New Zealand pictures scanned and I’ll be moving on the Fiji, so expect some spectacular sunsets…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

22nd January picture of the day…

22 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by in Environment, New Zealand, Picture of the day, Travel

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Thank God it’s Friday! The week’s been a frustrating one. Nothing seems to have gone right and many of the things I’d hoped to have achieved never came to fruition or are still works in progress. I’m hoping for a much better weekend and a more fruitful week next week. On the bright side, I’m still making progress with scanning old slides although that process has slowed down as a consequence of everything else. This brings me neatly on to the picture of the day, which I took on the 20th February 1999…

This is the magnificent Franz Josef glacier on the West Coast of the South island. The picture was taken from the helicopter that was taking Lynn and myself and a group of other people for a trip onto the middle slopes of the glacier as part of a heli-hiking experience – which was an amazing experience. Seeing a glacier’s magical enough, but having the chance to explore the surface of one is doubly so.

I returned with Dawn in 2019 and I was shocked by what I found (here’s a link to my blog written at the time) Due to global warming the Glacier had shrunk significantly, retreating further up the valley and down off some of the steep mountain sides. It’s a very visible testament to the damage human activity is doing to the planet. I sincerely hope we get our acts together in time to prevent the glacier disappearing completely.

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

20th January picture of the day…

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Musings, New Zealand, Photography, Picture of the day, Railways, Travel

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Sorry there was no picture or blog yesterday. I’ve been struggling to keep on top of a long list of things I’ve set myself to do. Despite lockdown, there never seems to be enough hours in the day. I can’t think how I used to manage before when so much of my time was taken up with travel. Ah, travel – I remember it well (I think)…

To add to the fun and games the weather over the past couple of days has been utter crap. We’ve had so much rain in the past couple of months that the ground is completely saturated, leading to worries about flooding. Fortunately, despite the storm warning, the rain hasn’t come down hard, it’s just never stopped! Even so, I’ve still ventured out for my daily splash in the mud, slipping and sliding down paths akin to small waterfalls or plodding along paths that resemble WW1 battlefields – anything that gets me some exercise and away from staring at a computer screen for a while.

I’d planned to catch up on some blogging today, instead I became bogged down in editing a backlog of slide scans whilst watching the Brexitshambles lurch from one revelation to another as UK businesses come to grips with the reality of the shit-show we’ve got ourselves in. I’m reserving the rest of my feelings about this for a spleen-venting blog tomorrow, as well as another blog catching up with news about High-Speed 2 (and there’s plenty).

The one bright spot in the day was watching that orange tw*t leave the White House for the last time and seeing the new President sworn in. Biden’s speech was everything you never got from Trump. It was statesmanlike, conciliatory, coherent and meaningful, truly a breath of fresh air after listening to the rambles of the previous incumbent.

Anyway, enough of politics for now until tomorrow. The pictures I’ve been editing have taken me back half-way around the world to Australia and New Zealand (and back 22 years in time). Today’s picture is a classic tourist view, taken on the 5th February 1999 in Wellington, the city on the Southern tip of New Zealand’s North Island. Wellington posses a funicular railway which takes you from the town centre up the hill to Kelburn where you get a stunning view across the city.

Opened in 1902 and rebuilt several times since, the cable worked funicular railway is a popular tourist attraction.

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If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

4th October picture of the day…

04 Sunday Oct 2020

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Remember the days when you had things to look forward to? No, me neither. That seems like a different word. So many things have happened over the past 9 months with lots of events cancelled or curtailed that the world feels like a very different place to the one it once did. As someone who’s always travelled I feel my wings have been severely clipped – and I don’t know when I’ll get to spread them again.

That said, I think that things will be changing very soon.

In the meantime, here’s the picture of the day. I’m a fan of industrial archeology and things like shipwrecks. This particular one’s from New Zealand.

This is the wreck of the TSS Waverley. She’s a ship with a fascinating history which you can find here. I really enjoy exploring these old shipwrecks – and ones 1000s of miles from the UK always pique my interest.

I’m sure I’ll have another shipwreck or two to add here soon enough. In the meantime there’s lots of old rail slides to look forward to – as well as a different local focus.

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Thank you!

5th September picture of the day…

05 Saturday Sep 2020

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It’s been an odd day. So many things I wanted to get done never happened whilst others did. Hey ho…

On the bright side I’m almost packed and prepared for the start of my round Britain trip on Monday – I even know where I’m going now, mostly, ish… The struggle of these trips is that when you’re planning to visit odd locations they’re fixed events. You can’t just pitch up on the next train, so the rest of the timetable has to be written around them – as you’ll see next week! Obviously I can’t go into the level of detail that I will in the magazine articles but I hope to pique your interest. I can certainly blog about my experiences that won’t form part of the three articles anyway – such as my impressions of the various towns I’ll be staying in, such as Kilmarnock, which I’ve only ever passed through. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever left the station before!

That said, here’s today’s picture from a place I have explored in the past. This is a view across Lake Hawea on the South Island, New Zealand, which I took on the 18th January 2019.

As much as I love living in the Pennines…

Covid and having my wings clipped is really starting to get to me. I miss the opportunity to travel so I’m really looking forward to next week. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep readers of this blog entertained as I wend my way around the UK…

I’ve a favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this blog, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course (although if you did find something that tickled your fancy would be fab!), but the revenue from them helps to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us locked-down freelances need all the help that we can get…

Thank you!

Rolling blog: New Zealand day 31. Auckland and the first flight home…

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

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10:15.

Our time in New Zealand’s finally come to an end – just as the heatwave arrives! We’ve spent the morning at Lisa’s packing our suitcases and working out what we can leave to create room for some of the things we’ve bought. Later we’re all going into the city for a farewell lunch at the Crab Shack before heading out to the airport. Neither of us are ready to go home – especially as we’ll be returning to a country that’s increasingly looking like it’s lost it’s marbles thanks to the utter shambles they call Brexit…

I’ll post some pictures throughout the day.

12:27.

All packed up and ready to go…

15:37.

It’s Crab Shack time!

18:20

We’re now at Auckland airport waiting for our Air New Zealand flight to Houston, Texas on the first leg of our trip home. Lisa was brilliant and gave us a lift after the meal, although it was an emotional parting as we don’t want to leave and I’ve not seen her for donkeys years!We’ve had a fabulous time here and I’ll sum up our experiences in another blog. Right now we’re drinking overpriced alcohol in the departure lounge, drowning our sorrows before catching our plane…

We’re on the plane now and trying out our “if we smile they’ll serve us wine” look…

See you on the other side of the pond!

15:55 (US time).

We’ve landed at Houston, Texas and gone through the faff of having to collect your luggage even though it’s checked in all the way through to London. When the carousel breaks down whilst you’re waiting it only adds to the stress levels! Now we’re on our connecting United Airlines flight 880 to Heathrow on another Boeing 777. Thing is – I thought it was always sunny in Texas?

New Zealand day 30: Auckland and area on our last full day…

29 Tuesday Jan 2019

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Yesterday was our last full day in New Zealand so we popped into the centre of town after Lisa dropped us at Papakura station where we caught a suburban train into Auckland city centre. It was my first trip on the local rail network. It wasn’t bad, the trains are comfortable, if a little slow and they’re certainly well used. Auckland traffic’s bad, so it’s no wonder people prefer to use the train if they can. Here’s the type we used, seen at Papakura.

dg318511. 565. papakura. north island. new zealand. 29.1.19crop

Once in town we caught the ferry to Waiheke Island which is a 40 minute journey. The weather was glorious – ideal for the trip – as you can see from this picture of the changing Auckland skyline and harbour which I took en-route.

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Waiheke is an attractive little island with lots of activities (cycling, walking etc) as well as less taxing ones like visiting wineries, lying on beaches or sampling some of the local seafood in one of the many restaurants.

dg318459. waiheke island. north island. new zealand. 29.1.19

The place is popular with tourists. So much so that we were told that in the summer many of the residents rent out their homes and go and live on their boats! Ones bigger than this one, anyways!

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Our day  out ended when we met up with Lisa again and drove to Karioitahi Beach, near where she lives. It’s a black sand beach popular with locals as its great for beach activities.

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New Zealand day 28: Waiuku (near Auckland).

26 Saturday Jan 2019

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We’re having a slow start to the day here in Waiuku, where we’re staying with an old friend of mine from my teenage years in Southport. It’s the first time Lisa and I have seen each other since my sister Ruth’s funeral nearly 15 years ago. How time flies…

We’d actually got a full programme planed for today but the early sunshine soon deserted us and the day was mostly cloudy with a few spots of rain. One thing we did manage was to visit a few local sights. I’m still amazed by how many preserved railways there are on New Zealand and I was delighted to find that Lisa had one on her doorstep – the Glenbrook Vintage Railway. We paid a visit earlier this afternoon and I was impressed by the size of the operation. Not only do they have a lovely little railway, they also have impressive workshop facilities where they’ve a number of locomotives being restored. The line’s only 7.5km in length, but it makes for a relaxed trip – especially if you travel in the Parlour car where you get coffee and cakes included in the fares. Here’s a few shots from our visit.

dg318242. parlour car. glenbrook vintage railway. north island. new zealand. 27.1.19crop

Travelling in style in the Parlour car.

dg318274. 480. waiuku. glenbrook vintage railway. north island. new zealand. 27.1.19crop

This locomotive was built as WG 480 at the hillside workshop, Dunedin for the NZR in 1910 as a 4-6-4 tank locomotive. The Wg class was designed to meet the need for a more powerful locomotive for the haulage of suburban trains chiefly at Auckland and Wellington. Twenty were produced at the Hillside workshops between 1910 and 1912. The Wg class proved to be very useful locomotive and soon saw a wide variety of duties including haul-freight trains and mail trains.

dg318301. ja 1250. pukeoware workshop. glenbrook vintage railway. north island. new zealand. 27.1.19crop

Ja 1250, a 4-8-2 express locomotive undergoing a boiler overhaul at Pukeoware Workshop.

dg318335. 480. glenbrook vintage railway. glenbrook. north island. new zealand. 27.1.19crop

480 running round its train at Glenbrook

dg318338. somersault signals. glenbrook vintage railway. glenbrook. north island. new zealand. 27.1.19crop

A lovely old signalbox and a fine collection of somersault signals at Glenbrook station

dg318342. 480. glenbrook vintage railway. glenbrook. north island. new zealand. 27.1.19crop

480 waiting to run a service from Glenbrook to Waiuku.

 

New Zealand day 27. Queenstown to Auckland

25 Friday Jan 2019

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Our time on the South Island’s come to an end today. We’re currently sipping coffee in the “Fat Lamb” cafe in central Queenstown before heading out to the airport ready for our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland this afternoon. I have to admit, there’s hardly anything I recognise about the town since my last visit in 1999. The place has grown and changed that much! As well as being a magnet for adrenaline junkies thanks to all the extreme sports activities based here, it’s also a magnet for a lot of young English people who’ve found jobs. Last night we were sat outside the 1876 bar having a drink and watching all the tradesmen (carpenters, builders etc) having a drink at the end of the working week. The range of regional British accents was quite entertaining! They mingled with others of their generation who were working in the hospitality industry. Tourism obviously generates a lot of money here – not to mention traffic jams! This is the only place we’ve seen on the whole of our trip where traffic is queuing to get in/out of town…

13:30

Now we’re sat at the airport, all ready to go. For an ‘international’ airport it’s a small place where you hang around in the terminal to eat/drink/shop rather than doing so airside.

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Killing time at the airport. Every so often things are enlivened as a domestic flight lands and passengers wander into the terminal off the tarmac to the right of the picture…

Last time I flew from here the turbulence was so bad the plane was like a bucking bronco, which meant the staff weren’t allowed to serve any hot drinks due to the risks. Hopefully today will be a little calmer when our Airbus A320 takes to the skies…

UPDATE (31st January).

Here’s a couple of camera-phone video’s for your entertainment. The first is taking off from Queenstown and heading for Auckland.

The second video is approaching and landing at Auckland on the same flight.

 

 

 

Rolling blog: New Zealand day 25. Milford Sound to Te Anau.

23 Wednesday Jan 2019

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Wow! What a fantastic 24 hours that was. I’ll pick up from where we left off yesterday when we ran out of wifi and phone networks after passing through Te Anau.

Our journey from Dunedin met with a variety of weather including heavy rain at the start but picked up for most of the way – until we left Te Anau for Milford Sound. We could see the mountains ahead were swathed in cloud, but we weren’t too bothered as this had been forecasted. Although we didn’t realise it at the time, this was to lead to a fantastic experience as we saw the Milford area at it’s absolute best – in a range of weather. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll describe much of the rest of the trip with them, using captions…

dg317643. waterfalls. milford sound highway. south island. new zealand. 23.1.19crop

On the Milford highway en-route to Milford Sound. The torrential rain had produced waterfalls from nowhere.

dg317653. milford sound highway. south island. new zealand. 23.1.19crop

This was the view of the road to Milford Sound once we’d passed through the 1930s-50s built tunnel. The weather made it look more Mordor than anything else.

dg317667. milford sound. south island. new zealand. 23.1.19crop

The passenger terminal at Milford Sound’s been rebuilt since I was last here. The new building and facilities were opened in 2012.

dg317693. milford sound. south island. new zealand. 23.1.19crop

We were very lucky to see these waterfalls. They would only last a few hours and be gone by the next morning. The non-porous rock in Milford Sound and lack of soil and vegetation means that in many places the rain runs straight off the tops of the mountains and creates effects like this.

dg317742. milford sound. south island. new zealand. 23.1.19

How’s this for a sense of scale?

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dg317890. ovation of the seas. . milford sound. south island. new zealand. 24.1.19crop

dg317927. dolphins. milford sound. south island. new zealand. 24.1.19crop

dg318010. ovation of the seas. milford sound. south island. new zealand. 24.1.19crop

dg318046. milford sound. south island. new zealand. 24.1.19crop

This evening we’re taking it easy in Te Anau, which is a small town on a pretty lake. We’re only here one night so we’re staying in the Lake View backpackers where we have a chalet room out in the rear with a new shared toilet and shower block we share with the people camping in the small grounds. The chalets are new and very comfortable for what they are. The place itself is very well organised and maintained, with plenty of communal and kitchen space. It’s popular with people of all ages and nationalities, especially outdoor types who’re here to walk the various trails in the area or visit one of the Sounds.

Tomorrow we move on to Queenstown, our last port of call on the South Island. From there we fly back to Auckland for our final few days before returning to the UK…