New York Day 1 – March 20th

NY Videos here and here. 

We’ve had a really exciting but exhausting day today. We firstly moved hotels then set out for the Guggenheim . The metro proved difficult to master as there were lots of repairs going on, it being Sunday, and lots of stations closed and diversions! We got to the museum eventually after an hour underground, and were surprised by how small it seems outside, especially compared with the high rises around it. Once inside we were completely bowled over by it as a space, or series of spaces and as an exhibition experience. Once again, the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t live to see it completed.

‘The Great Upheaval’ exhibition brought together many of the modern paintings from the collection, leading up to WW1 and showing the development of several of the movements towards abstract art. I was pleased to see some early Mondrian paintings showing how he developed towards the coloured lines and squares that were all know him for. You could also see just how closely artists worked, developing ideas together alongside one another at a particular moment in time.

We went from there into Central park for a walk in the bright sunshine and it is strange here to see daffodils and winter jasmine just coming out and snowdrops almost over, whereas in San Francisco, the daffs were all but over. It really shows the change in season. It is very cold here at night and in the morning too, but people were lying basking in the winter sun in the park in the afternoon. There was also a photo shoot going on of a group, so I took a shot of the photographer.

Losing 4 hours caught up with us at about 4 and we had to come back to the hotel for a rest, but we picked up again later, and, as we are on the edge of Chinatown, we went out for a truly authentic Chinese meal, complete with fortune cookies.  Photos here. 

An aside (New York 19th March)

It has been very strange in America, especially from Santa Barbara on, how much Spanish we've encountered, from the obvious place names, like Los Angeles etc to streets called Los Gatos boulevard. In Fiji and in Oxnard too our cleaners were all Spanish speakers and we had conversations with them in Spanish. It  seems to be South Americans and Mexicans who are doing a lot of the menial jobs. We have asked directions in several places and found it easier to speak Spanish, to be understood, than English. On the airplane all written instructions were bi-lingual and in supermarkets and restaurants too. Perhaps it is just our ignorance that led it to being a surprise. Here in Queens, New York, we went out to eat and there were several South American/ Cuban places as well as Pizza and Fried Chicken. We chose one where there were chairs and tables, the menu was all in Spanish and nearly everything they didn't have, but we did end up with Calamare and Rice and Chicken, and Rice and Pork! Tomorrow we go to Manhattan to start NY proper and Best Western should be better than Queens. No Photos today as we lost a few hours and spent the rest on a 'plane.

Monterey to San Fransisco - March 17th and 18th

SF Video

Again the main impression from the Scenic Coast road has been of the amazing power and size of the sea in these parts. We have also passed through some lovely little towns and seen some really elegant deco architecture. We finished our road homage actually in San Francisco where the road goes right alongside all the wharves and through the city. We then followed another scenic route driving around some of the highlights of the city. This will explain why lots of photos are taken from the car, because it was often impossible to park. We were able to explore a few on foot, notably the Palace of the Arts and the Fisherman’s wharf area.

The next day we awoke to torrential rain, as forecast, so again you will see photos taken from the tour bus, and lots of rainy shots! Still we enjoyed ourselves, and drove over all three bridges, because the visibility was so bad, we got lost driving in to the city. We went on a ferry around the bay and also a cable/tram car, and by then the rain had stopped briefly so we could explore a bit on foot. We had the traditional clam chowder in a Boudin sourdough loaf, which was great and went on their factory/historical tour. It’s a great city, with some huge parks and some very steep hills, lots of bridges and all the fun of the fair along the wharves.  Photos here.

Santa Barbara to Monteray (Just!) March 15th &16th

The next part of our journey is characterised by some spectacular scenery, mountains and trees, and wild huge seas and the wildlife that lives within the ‘Big Sur’. We have seen some amazing things driving along route 1, that here stays close to the sea and is often under repair, due to damage from rain and sea erosion, or rock falls. We have just heard on the news that part of the road we drove today, has fallen away this afternoon!! And is now closed to traffic…. Just made it!! By a couple of hours.  Utube video here   It has some incredible bridges and they build out across bays to produce a safer roadway sometimes. Goodness knows how they will repair this part that is now closed indefinately.

Santa Barbara is a lovely town, partly sheltered by a peninsular, so the only effect of the tsunami here was that sand was moved so much they had to re-dredge the entry channel. The harbour was untouched and contained a great selection of boats, some beautiful, some bizarre. There is also an historic mission there, which was very interesting with adobe walls, pantiles and lots of timber. Inside the walls were wash painted, sometimes very elaborately and sometimes very abstractly. The sculpture, old and new, was fantastic and we enjoyed the historical scenes.

Along the way there are great lodges, some with very good views and good cafes and shops for travellers. Some with free internet. We spoke with Iona from one of them as we had lunch. We saw a hummingbird in another. Along the way we have also seen pelicans, condors, and herons but they are all very hard to photograph in flight of course. Easier to catch were the elephant seals that were breeding along parts of the coast. Despite promises we did not see any whales today.  Maybe tomorrow.

Our favourite photos were from the McWay waterfall, where a stream falls directly onto the beach, unique in the world. Hope you like them too. Photos

Los Angeles and the Scenic coast road March 13th &14th

Getty, Getty.... So good we did it twice.......... 

So tired of flying, up on the road again.....  we're on the road againnnn......

We were amazed at the level of security before we boarded our plane to America. We had expected a very laid back routine, judging from the rest of our visit there, but Fiji came into it’s own in the airport. We had our suitcases scanned, our hand luggage and our bodies hand searched, including having to turn on phones and laptop to prove they were what we said, and then we were isolated until we took off. If you needed the loo, you had to be re searched afterwards!!!

Our Quantas flight was actually run by Air Pacific, who are not the same quality at all, but the flight was OK. Of course it’s difficult to sleep but we were sufficiently refreshed to get the hire car and set off down the Scenic highway, (More about that tomorrow) aiming for the most fantastic time share apartment in Oznard, complete with private hot tub.

We stopped off at the Getty Centre on our way and were quite blown away by the building and the garden, even without the fantastic exhibitions. Photos for Centre here .
We saw the Getty Villa in Malibu the next day, having decided we liked the accommodation so much we’d stay here an extra night. The Villa was built first, based on a Roman villa, buried with Pompey in the Vesuvius eruption. Getty loved to collect a variety of Art, but he loved Roman antiquities most and wanted to build the Villa to house them, once the collection outgrew his home, on the same site, but further up the hill. The collection then outgrew that space and the Getty Centre was built and the Roman collection stayed at the Villa, which was remodelled, and the rest went to the Centre. John Paul Getty never even lived to see the completion of the Villa, poor thing, and would have hated the modernity of the Centre, but left sufficient money for his trustees to be able to continue to enable the public to see his Art collection, as he had wished, and to continue to expand it. Web link here Photos for Villa here.

We really enjoyed both buildings for their different qualities and both also had gardens and collections that matched up to their high standards. Lots of culture, then back to the hot tub for a soak and Jacuzzi massage before going out to dinner. Not bad, eh, and a great introduction to America.

Ooops forgot to post..... Auckland Day 2. March 7th.

A day of two halves.

This morning we travelled to Ayrlies Garden at Witford on the outskirts of Auckland. The best garden in New Zealand according to the RHS booklet and included in Monty Don’s ‘Round the world in 80 gardens’.

It was a beautiful morning and we found the garden without too much problem, but only one small sign pointing out the way, when you are almost there. We had had to make an appointment to visit, and there were a maximum of 6 people there. We actually saw one other couple and were lucky enough to meet up with and have a good chat with the garden’s creator. Compare that to the experience of visiting a garden of that prestige in England, say Sissinghurst, with the millions that pass through there and all the hype and huge signs from miles around. You have to wonder who has got it right?

We really had a fabulous time, were able to sit on some of the seats and simply relax and enjoy the atmosphere. We discovered our second ‘Sitooterie’ there, having always imagined that John, in France, had made up the word, to be like the Boulangerie or Patisserie. Some of the seats were completely covered in litchen, showing that our sunny day was not the norm! Most were surrounded by scented flowers and had wonderful views in one direction or another. The site covers 25 acres and was started from scratch by Bev and her husband in 1964. They have photos of the development in the first little ‘gallery’ and it is amazing to see the site at various stages and them up to their ears in muck and boulders as they were constructing the various areas. Like most of us they worked area by area, extending slowly through the years. Now Bev has a team including herself, her children and 5 gardeners to maintain it. There is a lot of water throughout, a stream having been used to create several lakes and waterfalls and a natural wetland area at the edge of the garden. There are groups of huge, wonderful trees around the site, creating shelter and shaping various vistas. Nothing like the lines of uniform brutal conifers used as a ‘hedge’ around fields and houses elsewhere.

The planting is a joy to behold, with lots of emphasis on the textures created by different colours and leaf shapes, and growth patterns, and several different growing conditions, rockery, waterside bogs, shady and sunny borders, and sculpture at key points. Many plants are very ordinary varieties and things we all cultivate, in Menorca or England, though there were some rarer things, or unusual colours, a very pale Verbena bonariensis for example or several shades of nerine. There were huge drifts of these under trees in one place, clivias in another. The scrambling roses and clematis, used to clothe structures and trees were gorgeous, but above all it was how things were combined, the storeys of plants and the ‘rooms’, all different but leading seamlessly one to the other, that most impressed me.

Bev was very modest about her achievement and , when we mentioned we had been to Paloma gardens, said ‘Oh but he’s a real plantsman.’ Perhaps so, but she is a real gardener and a superb garden designer.

In the afternoon, after eventually getting the hotel Internet access to work and posting the last blog, we set off to see some of the city. At the second set of lights we follow the sign for “Art Gallery” and that was as close to an Art Gallery we could get. There were no more signs and nothing on our map.  So we eventually got down to the harbour area and did some window-shopping. There are lots of old buildings set between new high-rise offices and the sky tower reappears at every turn. Some of the boats would be at home in Mahon if they could afford the fees. The “Britomart” transport centre is a clever mix of an old building with new technology train station, while still coping with buses. The reason for us being here was to catch the 6.12pm to Panmure where we were meeting up with Matt and Narelle Stone (ex Ellesmere College). We had a good catching up session, had a great meal which Narelle had prepared, and downed several beers and bottles of wine. We were amazed at how well these guys had kept up with past colleagues. Sandy McKinnon and Cameron Moir are of course just across the Tasman sea in Australia. So they see them more regularly than others, but they go back to the UK every now and then and make a point of dropping in to Ellesmere. Those blog followers who have borrowed our book “The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow” will be delighted to know that Sandy has written another, entitled “The Well at the World’s End” and I have a photo of the back cover so that you can order it on Amazon. As the night drew to an end, Matt ordered us a taxi and we went back to the hotel to pack ready to go to Fiji in the morning. The sky tower even looks good at night.

Photos here.

Fiji Day 3 and 4 March 12th and 13th.

We awoke this morning to be told about the Japanese earthquake and how, unbeknown to us, we had been on tsunami alert all night. Our neighbours and I had heard some louder than usual crashing waves early in the morning, but apart from that we have not been affected.

We are here on the Coral Coast of Fiji.  This means that we have sand and sea at our doorstep, but also a coral reef about half a kilometre out to sea, where all the breaking waves happen. Inside that, there is a shallow coral lagoon which is still tidal and can be swum in easily only at about an hour either side of high tide. During the day, women stand in the water, up to their armpits at times, fishing for all sorts of marine life. At low tide some coral is exposed and the women leave, after several hours, carrying a polythene bag of their catch.  This is often sold later from roadside stalls to passers by. The sunset on the 11^th was spectacular and I was fortunate in being able to catch one of the women walking out of the lagoon with her catch at the same time as the sun was setting.  Sunset photos here .
The next day we decided to travel east along the coast as far as Pacific Harbour and once there have lunch. It was an interesting drive, with occasional rain, but generally lots of small villages with 20kph speed bumps and the odd radar speed trap. They are good here at flashing their lights to warn of Police cars and we avoided two traps. The overall speed limit is just 80kph and most of the time that is appropriate as the road quality is generally rubbish.

As you will remember we visited the “pottery” village with Ros and Mac a couple of days back and now we found a “broom” village on our way to PH. All along the road, outside nearly every house there were at least a couple of besoms (witches broom sticks) for sale. In all, the village probably had about 100 for sale. PH itself was a disappointment as most of the shops sold imported tat, but lunch was fine and a nice change from our resort. On our way back we spotted this really old house with woven walls and thatched roof. No windows or doors, just curtains and about 3m square, but fully equipped with outboard motor and outside loo of course. When we got back Ann went paddling in the low tide and found all sorts of sea cucumbers, starfish and beautiful little stripy fish. It was difficult to take good photos though as a breeze had arrived and agitated the water.
Today was our last day at Tambua Sands and after breakfast we cleared the room and packed the car ready for the drive to the airport. The flight is at 10pm and it is now 10am…. So we decided to a) write up the blog and b) sunbathe by the pool. We also managed to get a short time with Ann kayaking so that we had photographic evidence. This morning several horses decided to walk along the beach from one village to the other.  Not a sight seen everyday. We left TS at 12.30 and started the drive to the airport, deciding to lunch on the way. We found a very run down dive school at Momi which served a very poor toasted sandwich, but it filled a gap and as the heavens opened we set off for Nadi. Arriving 6 hours ahead of our flight and with it chucking it down we drove around a bit, took some photos of the Indian temple and went in search of the “Sleeping Giant” garden, which we eventually found down a very bad road and it was closed Sunday afternoon. Still raining hard, so it would have been difficult to view anyway, we gave up and made our way to the airport and finished writing up this blog. Photos here.  ………

  

Fiji Day 1 and 2 -- March 10^th and 11^th

We arrive in Fiji at 4.30ish  and soon get our car sorted and set off south to the Coral Coast to find Tambua Sands. Ros and Mac are already there and awaiting our arrival before starting supper. Ros has twisted her ankle and needs crutches to get about, but is already on the mend. The resort is right on the beach and nothing between our “Bure” ( to rhyme with Hurray)  and the sea other than a bit of grass and crunched coral sands. You do need shoes to get to the water’s edge as the coral is often sharp. After a few beers we sat down to supper and a good chinwag about the various places we had each visited on our independent tours of NZ. We had all caught up with Matt and Narelle a few days before as we had prepared to fly from Auckland. There were very few of us in the resort but the management organised a Kava ceremony for us to be educated in the Fiji way of life. Kava is nothing like Cava! It is a root based drink made up with water and looks like thin mud. Tastes a bit like thin mud…… but has all sorts of powers that include making you sleep, making you fall down and making you have crossed eyes. We sat round in a circle and had bowls of the stuff delivered to us in varying amounts. “low tide” (half measure) for the ladies and “high tide” (full ) for the gents. Mac was designated “Chief” for the night, and had to take the first drink from the cup.  After each round we were told a story about the magical properties of this liquor and how the authorities had tried to ban it, without success, as it had such an effect on the population. Most of the men were asleep most of the time! Those that were awake could not see where they were going if they had both eyes open and as a “relaxing” drink, was relatively cheap. Another round of offerings and another round of stories…. And so it goes on, in every community all across Fiji all the time, if our teachers were to be believed. Eventually the main bowl was empty…. No problem…. Get the dregs and some more water and we will make more…. And they did. After two more rounds, Ann and another lady drop out of the ceremony and soon the bowl is dry. We each go our separate ways to “sleep so well we would not believe it possible”. We had a good storm and we all slept like babies……. Awake every couple of hours, in fact the worst night’s sleep I have had in ages. Were they having us on? Was it really thin mud?

The next morning the four of us went to the pottery village where they demonstrate how they hand make a variety of articles from bowls to frogs, from necklaces to turtles. The clay is locally dug, kneaded by foot, shaped by hand (no wheels here) and fired in an open fire. When the article comes out of the fire it is wiped over, while still hot, with the sap of the eucalyptus tree to give it a glaze. We all then have a song sung to us, have a little dance, and then have to view the items on display so they can sell us something. Which was nice!

We then went back into Sigatoka village for some retail therapy. Mac bought a loud Fijian shirt and Ros some post cards and earrings. We then went into the market and got seriously hassled by Indian traders, who gave us presents to entice us to buy other items. We all did. Which was not so nice!  At this point the heavens opened and a huge storm sent torrents pouring down the streets and we thought it about time to “get out of town”. On our way back to the resort one road was about a foot deep with water, but every one else drove through it. So with high revs and clutch slipping, to ensure slow progress, we got through with the water over the bonnet at times. Good rain storms here!

That night we said good bye to Ros and Mac as they boarded their transfer bus to the airport. Ros, now minus her crutches and contemplating wheelchair assistance at the airport. Photos here.

Also at the resort were a couple from Scotland who told us they came from The Shetlands. I announced that we had a nephew and his family living there now. I know its only a small place so I said “David Gray…. Something to do with Marine Biology up there”……. “He’s the boss” came the reply, “I know him well, as a councillor we meet up often”.  So Dai, if you wondered where Robert Henderson was recently, he’s down here in the southern hemisphere and about to go on to NZ.