Anne here, dashing in with a very quick blog — I'm at my third conference in four weeks, and have revised a book in between, so I'm time poor and brain-dizzy.
The middle of those conferences was in New Zealand (as any of you who read my Hobbiton post would realize) so today I'm going to give you a quick glimpse of some New Zealand places I visited.( Click on the photos for a larger view)
It was early spring, and I'd only ever visited NZ in the summer, so I kept stopping to take photos of the flowersI kept spotting in people's gardens.
The RWNZ conference was in Rotorua, a site of bubbling hot mud and gushing geysers. The first hint that you're getting close is the smell of sulphur in the air, like rotten egg gas. (All through the conference I kept thinking of a boy called Lynton Hastings, who I went to school with, and who was notorious for concocting bad smells in science class.) So that's what Rotorua smells like. (Below is the view from my hotel.)
But you pretty soon get used to the smell. The thing that kept astounding me was the way that you would see steam coming out of the earth, in the middle of a park, or a paddock — usually with a small fence around it. It was a sobering reminder of how thin the earth's crust is in places.
When I was twelve my family visited Rotorua and I've never forgotten how the Maori people used the hot springs and mud for all kinds of ways, from cooking to healing to washing. I didn't visit the Maori village this time, but I certainly watched my faire share of bubbling mud pools.
Boiling mud, plop-plop-plopping away.
When I left Rotorua, I drove south to Lake Taupo, just for lunch — I only had a short time in New Zealand. Wow, what a gorgeous place -- the lake was like glass, and behind it the snow-capped mountains rose. That's it, below.
After that I drove back north, to the town near Hobbiton where I stayed the night.
After Hobbiton, I drove out along the Coromandel Peninsular, and wow what a narrow winding road it was. A little bit scary too. I'm a confident driver generally, but not only was this very windy and narrow, the road bordered a considerable drop to rocks and water below and there was not much edge, and very few barriers — I few sticks with reflectors on it. Not my idea of safety.
In places the edge of the road had washed right away, and those gaping spots were edged with bright orange witches hats and a bit of tape. On the inside lane of the road, there was evidence of big mudslides and a couple of rockslides.
But for me the most dangerous part of the drive was the continually gorgeous views that each sharp corner revealed. There were very few places to stop and admire the view, and it took will power (and terror) to keep my eyes wholly on the road. I was simply swamped by beauty.
I drove until it started to get dark and then started looking for a place to stay. I drove up a few dead-end roads just to catch the views and at the end of one of them came to a house that advertised itself as a "motel style B&B." I asked could I have a look at a room, and as it was lovely and the price was good, I stayed my last night in NZ there. This was the view from my room. Not bad, eh?
So that's it, a quick glimpse of a small part of New Zealand. It's a truly stunningly beautiful country — I once spent three months travelling around there (as a student) and every part of it is lovely.
Have you ever visited New Zealand? What's the most beautiful place you've ever been to? If you could take a holiday anywhere in the world (all expenses paid) where would you go?