Navacerrada

Navacerrada

After two nights in Barcelona we picked up a rental car and made the 6 hour drive towards Madrid, reaching Navacerrada in the early evening. We had a minor panic on the way when the Tomtom battery went flat and we had no map.  There was no power coming from the cigarette lighter socket, so we stopped a Citroen dealer in a small town called Fraga. No-one spoke any English.  Initially we couldn’t even open the bonnet (why do Ford have to be different and hide the catch behind the badge on the grille?).  Then the mechanic couldn’t find the fuses.  We  were referred to an auto-electrician who made a phone call to the Ford dealer, and 2 minutes later were on our way again. We have no paper maps, and learnt to rely on the GPS which is amazing and essential in the busy roads getting in and out of cities.

Antonio and Alicia, who have just arrived home from their year in NZ, had us to stay in their home in Navacerrada.  This hill-side town is only an hour from Madrid and is a popular holiday resort, with mountain walks, rock-climbing, and in winter, skiing.  In only a few minutes drive Antonio has over 4000 rock climbs to choose from. Short boulder problems to 5 rope-length walls, with a variety of slabs, cracks, and traditional routes.

Having left climbing gear back in NZ we were content to do a walking circuit around La Pedriza, and climbed the most spectacular rock, El Yelmo (1716m), by its easiest route.  The views are spectacular and there are there is a seemingly endless vista of granite outcrops.  After 5 hours we completed the round-trip to the van, just in time as the sole was coming off Dara’s boot.  Alicia used the skin stapler in her first-aid kit to very effectively fix it back on for the last few kilometres. 

Following a brief siesta we drove through the mountains, over a 1850m pass, to the medieval city of Segovia.  While relatively unknown out of Spain, and hardly a mention in the Lonely Planet guide, this beautiful old town is a treat.  It has a perfectly preserved Roman aquaduct, which is amazing.  It is hard to imagine something of this scale and durability could be built today, with modern equipment and knowledge, let alone 2000 years ago.  There is also an imposing castle, built on the remains of a Roman fort, and the typical massive church. Segovia is famous for its food, the specialty being a whole cooked piglet, called a cochinillo.  The local wine and tapas are delicious.

Click here for photos of Navacerrada

Barcelona

Barcelona

Dry at last and 27 degrees.  Barcelona is bustling with tourists and littered with many sunny outside bars.  The old buildings are interesting but the Gaudi architecture is by far the most outrageous. Few straight lines, random wrought shapes, organic looking arches and buttresses, with brightly coloured mosiac.  His aim was to out-do any other architect in the street and it appears he has succeeded. Brilliant.

We are fairly knackered after walking around the town,  including up the hill to the Park Guell, to see Gaudi’s attempt at landscaping. Rehydration by way of a litre of sangria.

The Sagrada Familia is wonderful, and well worth the visit. Designed over a 120 years ago, building started about 110 years ago, and it won’t be finished for at least 10-30 years.

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North Wales and Stroud

North Wales

Bill Andrews invited us for dinner at Rhosneigr, a wind-swept Welsh holiday town on the beach in Anglesey, a mecca for kite-surfers , and only 30 minutes drive from the ferry. Prince Harry and Kate Middleton are living there at the moment as it is near an RAC airbase.

We hadn’t seen Bill for 17 years, and had a great catch-up walking at the beach, over a pint at the pub, and then supper at his holiday house. He originally lived in Monkstown near Dara, got her the job in West Bromwich where we met, and was best-man at our wedding.

Next stop was the stone cottage in Nantmor, North Wales, where we met with Steve Pitman, Andy and Hanne Barton, Chris Alford, Ruth, Julie Calvert, Roger Humphreys, Mike Roger and Mike Thomas.  Sue and Rod Cook, and Bill Andrews arrived on Saturday morning. The cottage was a charming restored farm building, surrounded by green fields and very white tame sheep with long tails.

In keeping with tradition on Saturday morning, many cups of tea and many hours late, we went off walking in the hills with threatening black clouds hanging over the bleak dark gray peaks of Snowdonia National Park. The peaks look huge but the scale is different from NZ and we arrived at the top after a bracing scramble up the Watkins Track.  We were just in time for a cup of hot chocolate in the very naff summit cafe with all the punters who had taken a ride up in the train.

The walk ended, predictably, in the pub a couple of hours later. David Pugh had arranged a dinner at the cottage and we had a great time reminiscing with everyone, finishing the evening with a single malt at about 2.30am.

So another slow start followed on Sunday and another soggy walk, this time a little shorter as most people had a long drive back to England that night.  Dara and I, with Sue Cook, stayed an extra night, heading to Stroud the next morning in pouring rain.  My shoes were beginning to grow smelly moss by now as they had been wet for so long. The drive through mid-Wales was very scenic though and we called in to Bromsgrove on the way. A mistake. This was the venue for the first work Christmas party I went to in England with Dara in 1983, but it was now going through hard times.

Stroud was as we remembered, with beautiful Cotswold stone houses and streets.  We had two lovely nights there, at David and Rowena Pugh’s, meeting Rowena for the first time, and looking at a lot of old photos.

Back to Heathrow the next day the kind and sharp sighted car rental man pointed out that the small dent in the bumper (which appeared after a 10 point turn in a narrow dead-end Welsh lane lined with un-yielding stone walls). 50 pounds please.  The fee was waived when we countered with a complaint about the non-functioning air-conditioning. Time for a climate change; Barcelona, here we come.

Click here to see photos from Wales and Stroud

Ireland

 Ireland,  RIP the Celtic Tiger

After 3 full days of extreme Irish Hospitality we are returning to the UK on the Swift ferry, 2 hours instead of 4. Several full cooked breakfasts, many pints of Guinness and Smithwicks Irish ale have taken toll on my health.  We need a holiday! 

It has been full on catching up with people, Gillian (Dara’s 2^nd cousin) and Gerry in Dublin, Sally (Aideen’s cousin) and Jack on the beach in Rosslare,  and then Mamie Bowen who put us up for a couple of nights in Monkstown.  She has a magnificent 150 year-old house with towering ceilings, elegant stairways going up 4 floors, walls adorned with old family and boating pictures, and a lovely view of the yachts moored across the road in Cork Harbour.

We enjoyed a couple of evenings with most of Harry and Aideen’s local friends, who entertained with their outrageous Irish good humour and made us feel very welcome.

During the day, we re-explored Cork city, visiting Dara’s old school (now with no resident nuns and in disrepair but with plans for restoration), and her University. We lunched with Teresa (dental colleague), and caught up with Aunty Ruth at the Jameson’s Whisky distillery.  It was too early for a dram unfortunately.

There have been many changes in Ireland since we were last here 17 years ago.  With the help of the EU and the Celtic Tiger the roads between and around the cities are now modern efficient motorways.  Off the main routes though, the old Ireland is still there and even our trusty GPS was confused at times.  In the suburbs there are ugly rows of new housing developments, with many only half finished when the money ran out.  House prices have more than halved since the economic crash and unemployment is soaring, even the Poles are going home. No-one can borrow to buy new houses and business confidence is at a low.  We have been let off lightly at home.

The ferry crossing is thankfully calm this time and we are looking forward to supper in Wales with Bill Andrews, our best man.

Hope the world cup is going well. We have been getting a hard time about being the only Kiwis to leave NZ for the World cup.

Click here to see Irish photos

Back in Old Blighty

We are having a great time, catching up with friends, seeing some new areas of Old Blighty, and stirring some old memories.

True to form, England has been wet and cool, at least cooler than HK.  EasyRentals had a little Hyundai diesel waiting for us at Heathrow  and the TomTom GPS guided us up towards Cambridge without one argument. 

The traffic on the M1 reminded us of how easy it is to get around in NZ.  5 lanes moving at 2 km/h at times, but eventually, an hour or so late, we turned up at Ann and Kevin Ruhin’s house in Oakley. 

Ann is a dental school friend of Dara’s and we all worked together in Birmingham in 1984.  She has a 1 hour drive to work each day and Kevin has a 2 hour commute to London every day.  Never again will I complain about Oamaru traffic delays.   Oakley is a pleasant and sleepy little village with a pub, and most of the people living there would appear to commute to London for work.  We had a family dinner with Ann, Kevin, and their 2 grown-up kids Laura and Alex, and Laura’s boyfriend Mat.  Ann and Kevin were off to the heel of Italy the next day for a 2 week holiday, and Laura and Alex off to New York.

Next stop Saffron Waldron, just a short drive away on the other side of Cambridge, to see the Van den Borsts.  Gary (another BDS Otago 1981 grad) and Criddy came to UK 2 years ago for their OE.  They a have a cosy flat in the middle of this medieval town which has been a market town since 1127. It is just across the road from Oliver Cromwell’s headquarters in the middle of the 17^th century.  It is very scenic, with amazing crooked old buildings with low doorways and roofs.  Ancient Britons must have been very short.  Gary had to get away to work early the following day so we were on the road first thing to try and beat the weekend exodus to the Lake District.

Jon and Annie Graham live near Torver on the banks of Lake Conniston in an old converted stone stables.  They are surrounded by Oak and Silver Birch forest, with ferns and moss covering the forest floor.  It’s not unlike the West Coast of NZ.  In keeping with tradition, shortly after arriving we walked off through stone-walled lanes, over muddy swamps, and through colourful heather to the pub in Torver for a couple of pints of local ale before dinner. 

A similar trend developed over the weekend and there were many muddy miles ending at idyllic stone pubs with great beer and food.  The weather was wet, windy and atmospheric most of the time, as a storm moved in with hurricane warnings.

Right now we are on the car ferry at Holyhead, waiting for departure to Dublin across a very rough Irish Sea. Several sailings have been cancelled already but ours is a big ship and we’ve taken Dr Graham’s strongest sea-sick pills.  The people seated around us have opted for pints of beer and glasses of wine.  It could get messy.

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Hong Kong

Greetings from 30,000 feet above Khyzakstan!

Hong Kong was a perfect stopover and we are celebrating the first leg of our trip with a glass of bubbly, at 9-30am.  Somehow Air NZ found out about our wedding anniversary and Dara’s birthday, treating us to bubbly, gift boxes and special attention.  Not quite the upgrade to First Class but appreciated all the same.

The stop-over in HK was hot, humid, and sweaty, with temps in the 30’s.  The shopping would be fantastic, as everything seems very inexpensive, especially the electronics and camera stuff.  But we were not in buying mode, and to make the most of it you’d need to stop there on the way home.

The streets in Kowloon, and on the island, are lined with high rise buildings, draped with brightly lit advertising, and bustling with cars and people.  It reminded me of the street scenes from “Bladerunner”. 

After exploring the area near our miniature hotel room, we ventured across to HK Island by bus and walked up The Peak through semi-deserted forest.  It is very easy to escape the most populated area in the world and experience a bizarre contrast, in totally green hilly landscape with views of the sea.

We were worn out after walking down, through the city, and then taking the ferry back to Kowloon. Cost $2.

Last night, after an early evening pint at one of the many English pubs  (rehydration after the walk), we went down to the waterfront to see the laser light show.  This was mind-blowing, with the already spectacular highest and most well lit buildings going mad with colourful laser lights, set to music.

Looking forward to the WRC which should easy to follow in UK.


Click here to see Hong Kong photos