Crater of the Moon. Serious steam

Crater of the Moon is just outside Lake Taupo.It's a place with a small active volcano. Wherever you go, steam and smoke gushes out of the mountain. You feel that the ground could burst open at any time. (And they actually don't know when the next time will be.

Now we've done smoke. Time for a change

Fire, brimstone and Rotorua

6th January
Rotorua isn’t called Sulphur City for nothing. It bubbles, smells and hisses with the pungent stuff all over town. It’s almost like sticking a main shopping street on top of a live volcano. The problem with these geysers is that they are not just geothermal sources, they are also sources of income. They all cost money, but that money goes back into the land.
One really interesting place to see is Hells Gate. A Maori owned Geothermal park that spits and oozes boiling mud everywhere. It got its name from George Bernard Shaw who decided that this must be what hell really looks like. Pia treated herself to “rejuvenating, whitening face cream” so now she looks like Michael Jackson.
Dining out: Lattes (or Lahteys) are big, but the lunches are three times bigger. To say New Zealand is a growing population would be an understatement (Björn Hellberg fat people spotting paradise).
Food at the garages isn't the normal Swedish "cup of tea" You caneven buy the world famous battered MArs BArs here. Yum

Bay Of Islands.

We drove about 31/2 hours from Auckland to the Bay of Islands, a beautiful drive up. It’s unspoilt (so far) and really spectacular. One detour we took is the road to the waterfalls at Whangerai, then checked out the cove at Whale Bay. It’s a stunning walk down to the beach.
We went dolphin chasing. We got on a boat to look at something called “hole in the rock” which is errm a hole in a rock. It’s in the middle of the sea and is formed after millions of years of battering from the ocean.
Back to the dolphins. People say they have more intelligence than humans, and this proved to be true. We spent hours trying to find them and when we did, everyone shouted “Dolphins up ahead”. While everyone rushed to the front of the boat, the dolphins dived underneath it ten resurfaced to laugh at the idiots trying to find them.
STAYED AT: The Copthorne Waitangi. 4 star service at 2 star prices - and the only place with vacancies when we were there
ATE AT The Sugar Boat. Old clipper turned into new restaurant.
Waitangi is also the place where the Maoris agreed to be under “British Protectorate”. A bit like the protection afforded to locals in New York by Tony Soprano.
Waitangi is also a Kiwi reserve, but one single dog managed to ravage over 180 of the poor things.
If you’re a golfer, then Waitangi boasts one of the best golf courses in the world. We know. We were there.

We came back to Auckland down the north-west coast. Fantastic. Beautiful mountain scenery, no people, nowhere to eat or stay and no toilets. So make sure you stock up if you take that route. We didn’t.

Auckland, New Zealand. The Internet’s OK, but you can’t beat booking “on spec”.

First we had to get our boots cleaned on the way in. No foreign dirt here, thank you.

We arrived on 2 January to a city with one million inhabitants, yet it seemed someone had exploded a Neutron bomb before we got here, there was like NO ONE anywhere.
Our goal is to take NZ as it comes, at our own pace, and in a camper van, the “de regeur” way to see the country. We’d heard a horror story from a Danish guy who told us that he’d tried to book a van over the Internet, only to discover that everything from the South Island was booked, so all he could get was one week in the North Island, then hired a car for the South. Hmm. Should we be worried?
After turning the first corner in Auckland we found a place called “Escape rentals”, hiring out - camper vans. (sorry, can’t find the web address just now). This young guy was great. He fixed us up with a camper for half the going rate of the larger companies - just that there’s less advertising on the side of the van. He also fixed us a cheap car so we could head north to check out one of NZ’.s must sees, The Bay of Islands, in the north of the North Island. See next post…

Happy New Year Singapore style

New Year’s Eve is always different from one year to the next, but never more so than when you experience the traditions of different places and cultures. This one was really different. We had a very nice but very quiet poolside meal at the hotel (Goodwood Park off Orchard Road – more later) complete with four course dinner, wine and champagne. We could see, though, that the wild side of New Year was a non-starter with the controlled, reserved company we were keeping.
So at 11.30 we left our placid backwater for Orchard Road.
BANG. The place was full of partying, young people, mostly Indian, all of whom were in great spirits without resorting to any, if you get the drift. It was chaos. People were buying white spray by the bucketload, and the trick was to spray the opposite group and make them look like snowmen before they did the same to you. Polite, middle-aged people like ourselves were easy game. The Indians thought it was even better fun to “bomb” nubile Chinese girls with their sprays (strange pickup trick, must try it sometime).
We woke up to New Year’s day and it’s as if nothing had happened. The streets were clean, shops were open. It’s a bit of a pain shopping in the smaller shops in Spore as you get hassled a lot to buy, buy ,buy; bye bye! but you can really get bargains as long as you know what you want and know what it costs before you start to barter. You buy stuff up to half price if you do the “no, no, njaa, maybe, perhaps, can’t you do it cheaper, OK then” trick.
New year’s day was also our last day for now in Spore, so it was a tropical hike up and down their “mountain” (large hill with cable car and 48,000 people in the queue) while we whiled away the hours before our next port of call, Auckland and another flight of over 10 hours.
Goodwood Park Hotel, an Oasis off Orchard Road.
If you are heading to Spore for any reason and don’t have to go bargain basement for accommodation, we heartily recommend the GoodWood Park Hotel. It’s just a stone’s throw from Orchard Road and has a colonial luxury about it, with 2 pools, a gym and an arctic aircon system. (33 degrees outside, Pia wore her fleece inside). It really is a beautiful hotel with excellent service. We searched for the hotel on the Internet and got something like a 60% reduction on the room rate per day. Mind you, we booked well in advance.

Singapore's Little India - for a big curry

Our first stop in Singapore was to look at China town. Not as good as the ones in New York and San Francisco maybe, but all the same a great place for any bargain.
TIP – If you’ve just hopped off a transatlantic flight and your body is telling you it’s had better times, treat yourself to a relaxing foot massage, known as reflexology. Prices vary from 18 Singapore dollars (about 9 Euro) to over 70. You’ll find lots of places in the lower price bracket in Chinatown

And for dinner…
We ate at an Indian veg place called Gokul at Upper Dickens Road, a side street in Little India. Despite doing all they could to hide their guests so it looked empty, their soups, curries and Naans were excellent value for a mere 29 dollars, about 15 Euro for two. As they say, “it’s cool to GoKul. (sorry).

Slings at the Long Bar, steak on the stones.
Drinking Singapore Slings at the Long Bar in Raffles is a must. OK, it maybe cheesy touristy, but it gives you some inkling of what colonial life may have been like. The interior is a bit upmarket English pubby, but you soak in the past while you sip on your sling. By Singapore standards, it wasn’t the cut-your-arm-off-to-pay-for-it expensive. Two slings weighed in at a mere 41 dollars, around 20 Euro.

Sling it your self.
Here’s how to make a Singapore Sling:

Ingredients
30 ml gin
15 ml cherry brandy
120 ml pineapple juice or soda
15 ml lime juice
10 ml Cointreau
10 ml Benedictine
15 ml Angostura bitters

Mix with ice in cocktail shaker, Strain into glass, serve with cherry and slice of pineapple. Throw lots of peanut shells on the floor while you’re mixing to make things feel really authentic.

Singapore is restaurant city, and the Quay areas are real tourist traps á là Spain and Greece. Oned speciality among the Chinese, Thai, Malay and Indian eateries is to have “Steak on the Stone”. You get your steak served on a hot stone that keeps it cooking for as long as you want to. What happens in practice is that you start eating a rare steak, and finish eating something that’s cremated.

Get away with Singapore Airways

It’s pleasant flying with Singapore airlines on long haul. Even when you sit in tourist class you still feel just that bit more special than you do with other airlines, (especially the Scandinavian ones where the hostesses are so old that you have to help them and not the other way round)
You get decent legroom, good service, reasonable food served at reasonable times and just the 80 films to choose from . If there is a drawback it’s arriving at Singapore at 5.30 in the morning. At least there’s not problem in getting around

In the mornings young Chinese, Indian, Malay and the odd ex-pat all interact with each other in the most polite, yet distant of ways. Get to the evening and the place bustles. Gone are the drab, dreary faces and it’s on with the “Hi, I’m happy, healthy, young, free and don’t you wish you had my future?” Great to see. As of course is the hustle and bustle in and around Orchard Road, the Mecca of Gold card spending sprees.