Whales, wildlife and Kendalians!

Cruise out to see whales - saw sperm whale, dusky dolphins, seals, royal albatross + lots of other local seabirds.

Dusky dophhins

Then did great coastal walk for 3-4 hrs with a crayfish (Kaikora means crayfish) Sunday lunch on the wayat this great little shack by the sea.

Amazing meet up with a couple from Kendal, Martin and Gwen Tordoff, who overheard me saying "Ham not as good as Higginsons!".  they are travelling by bus and put us to shame with single rucksacks v. our 3 bags and 2 rucksacks and car!  They are doing several 3-34 day hikes and hiring gear at each place to carry themeselves.  We start Queen charlotte Ttrack tomorrow and have water taxis to transfer luggage - such wimps!

  YHA - our room was middle one - dining room and lounge left and right overlooking sea

Kaikoura - South Island - North East coast - Whales

Looking for whales - too wet today for cruise, but promised better tomorrow - so internet and book and diary catch up time - and a rest for a couple of hours - jet lag is just about gone and sleeping past 4.30 am now!

Drove up to here from Christchurch via another great cafe at Cheviot (Two Rivers cafe and gallery for those folloing in our footsteps) and now at a brilliant YHA right on the beach overlooking mountains and sea.

View from our room:

Did our first supermarket shop and loaded borrowed coolbox and basket (thanks Sheila) - YHA usual efficient place - great kitchen with plenty of room for food with all utensils and cooking areas.  Dining room and lounge overlooking sea and seats outside for pre meal drinks and nibbles.  Who needs to go out ot expensive restaurants?

This photo shows part of the kitchen - there are green labels for all your bags/food to put the date of leaving on - there is also an area with free food that peoople have left and for you to leave when you no longer want stuff.  The kitchen is kept spotless and everyone cleans up after themselves - unlike some backpacker hostels we used last time.  A much more respectable class of people in YHAs!

Hectors Dolphins

Mother and baby - Hectors Dolphins

Great cruise around Lyttleton Harbour, Christchurch and saw lots of Hectors Dolphins - even a mother and baby came right up to the boat. When even the naturalist on board gets excited, you know you have seen something special - a great trip.

Staying at cousin Ron and Sheila

Flood updates from home say all is now well and waters receded - have put a few more photos on my Picasa albums - accessed via photo links on the right hand side. Will be adding travel photos as we go along.

Now in Christchurch and staying with Graham's cousin Ron. They share the same great, great grandfather, George Honeybone, who made the clock at our house - see piccie below of Graham and Ron. Ron & Sheila stayed with us at Beck Head earlier this year.

Our hairstylist and friend, Christine (who posted my first blog comment - thank you!!), in Cheshire will remember Sheila - she is probably the 10th or so member of our family to get their hair done by Christine - and certainly the furthest away.

See map of where we are at Rons House. or street view

This is a picture of their house from when we stayed with them a few years ago

Thanks to friends and neighbours

Arrived at Christchurch after 12 hr stop at Singapore Airport and enjoyed sun and a short walk before crashing out after Sheila's welcome meal.

A few public thanks now to all those who have helped us in the past few days - we really appreciate what you did for us in the hectic times before leaving:

• Nigel for sand, support and a lift to the station


• Peter for sandbags, sand and support


• Carole for taking on the task of plant watching and visitor tracking at the house whilst we are away


• Lin and Rob for giving us B&B and lifts from station and to airport


• Ron and Sheila for meeting us in Christchurch and making us so welcome again.


• and lots of you for emailing your concerns about the floods

It is great to know that friends and neighbours rally round in times of need - thanks to all

Singapore Airport

Makes Manchester Airport look like a second rate bargain bazaar!

Whole place is really restful - cathedral like - great sculptures, orchids and space space and more space

Tips for SA - Terminal 3

• Had a great room in the Transit hotel - 9 hours shower, sleep and wake up call.
• Terminal 3 - lovely butterfly garden
• Found free loungers in quiet area for on the way back - near hard Rock cafe
• Loads of free internet sites - quietest ones round back near quiet areas
• Best places to eat upstairs
• Convenience store upstairs for snacks etc
• Left luggage if needed - trolleys if not for hand luggage

How to set up a blog

Some of you have expressed bewilderment, interest or indifference to this blog.

But for those who are interested in trying it out yourself - it took me all of 3 minutes to set this up. And then a bit of playing to get the photos, text and bits at the side.

If you have Google then follow this (if you have Yahoo, MSN or other system - just find the Blogging item when you are in your Account- it will be similar):

1. Set up a Google account - you may already have one or click here to set one up
   
2. Once in your Account, find the list of Google products and add Blogger to your products.
3. Then just follow the instructions - 4 easy steps:-

• Create a Blog
• Give it a name (eg Graham and Cathy in New Zealand) you can edit anything you put here or elsewhere at any time by clicking on "Edit". You will get a URL (the thing that says www.?????) with your personal details - this is what you give out to people
  
• Choose a template - this is why some of you think it took me ages to set up - but you just choose a layout that you like and cheat.
• Create your first Post - type in a Title and some text and you can either "Publish" (which everyone can see) or "Save" and it creates a draft Post. You can publish this whenever you want. You can see a list of all your posts at any time when you go to Edit Posts - and surprise, surprise, you can edit any of them.
  

As you type up the new Post you will see a list of things at the top that you can do - eg Bold, Italics, colours, Add an image (click that and you can choose a photo to insert), Create a link etc

And there you have a blog.

I then just played around with the layout tab at the top of the page until I got what I wanted down the side panel.

Floods at Beck Head

In case you wonder why we want to leave Beck Head in the winter:-

Floods last night - nearly up to the back doors when we got up this morning -

most of it came through the gate in the back field -
lawn mower and strimmer could be a Spring casualty - no time to check before we go!

Standing on the bridge collecting papers and milk

The "spout" only appears after a lot of rain - and there has been for the last 48 hrs.

Starting the trip

Having never done a blog before and several people have asked to keep track of our travels, here is the first Honeybone blog about our New Zealand trip.

For those interested I will add photos and update the diary as we go along.

Dates - As a brief overview we fly out 22nd Nov and return 17th February. We will be picking up emails as we go along and will be on South Island until 20th Jan - then 2 weeks in North Island and on to Perth 3rd February, leaving on 16th Feb.