The Thorsborne Trail is Pretty Good
May 14, 2019For quite a few years now Jan has been on my back to walk the Thorsborne Trail. She remembered it as a truly great experience and when I googled around I discovered various touristy sites purporting that it was one of the top 10 walks in the world and a *must do* on the bucket list. All this stuff turned me off immensely but eventually, I was talked into doing it. We started off with an exhilarating early morning boat ride out of Cardwell that went along huge expanses of mangroves and through an intricate network of inlets to reach…
Bartle Frere, the wet tropics mountain
After New Zealand we were gripped by mountain fever, the desire to climb the “highest” of something was impossible to resist. As it happens Rob was visiting for our first weekend back so we decided to climb Mt Bartle Frere,…
An improbable Christmas on the Hollyford Track
If you were to make a list of the rainiest places in the world Fiordland would be near the top. Milford Sound famously has an average annual rainfall of 8m a year with over 200 rainy days. The Hollyford Track…
Roughing it on the Banks Track
The Banks track is New Zealand’s first privately owned and run walking track. We had heard good reviews of this somewhat unusual track and were keen to see what it had to offer. Even though he booked the walk Ira…
Heaphy Track
This year we decided to treat ourselves to a long and relatively unplugged holiday in New Zealand. Ira had been there many years ago on a big adventure with Tristram and was keen to see what it was like to…
Wolverine Walks the Wilderness Coast
Usually Jan is just a regular feminist lefty academic, trying to make the world a better place in her own small way. This is the story of how she came to realise that she has a special power. The story…
Blackwood
This weekend we headed straight out to Blackwood after work on a friday. Almost immediately, Jan got herself setup by the fire and started dreaming about a walk the next day. Overnight we discovered that the place we were staying…
Smaug the Wood Fired Oven (part 1)
These pictures tell the story of how Smaug came to be. [slideshow_deploy id=’444′]
South African Extravaganza
Here’s to an awesome awesome cool cool holiday … clink, clink. That’s how our South African holiday ended, and we really meant it too … at the risk of casting aspersions on holidays past, it may have been the best…
Glenelg River Adventure
This Easter we decided that a camping adventure was in order and we decided to combine it with one of our other favourite activities, canoeing. We’d heard about the wonders of the Glenelg river (near Nelson) for many years now…
The great wall
In the beginning it rained and it rained and it rained until it started to flood, and the water rushed down from the hills and swept away everything in its path. The terrible power of the flood waters threatened to…
