Putrajaya

Putrajaya might not sound like an interesting place, it is the Malaysian Federal Governments administration centre and it was only designed in the 1990's.

But… it is a whole city designed and built since the 1990's. It is so different to the rest of Malaysia that it was well worth a look. It has wide roads and footpaths, there is a man-made lake at the centre and there are gardens everywhere. Putrajaya is about 20 minutes away from KL, once there we hired a taxi for a couple of hours to take us around the city as the local public transport is still being put into place (this was a great idea as it was a super hot day and after 5 minutes of photo taking we were thankful of the air-con blast). I will cut the waffle today and let the photos do the talking.

Aimee enjoying the breeze on the bridge

It was designed as a garden city and there really are lots of gardens

One of the seven bridges that cross the lake

Even the skyscrapers have been designed to be different from each other

The national convention centre that looks like a landed flying saucer

The lake and more parkland

The water sports grandstand

Two of the (very fancy looking) hotels 

Mosque on the water front, it was huge!

Lots of the building had beautiful minarets

Eat your heart out Queen of England this is the Prime Ministers residence 

Half the world away

Half the world away, a set on Flickr.

A combination of a good Wifi connection and 2 days of thunderstorms is all it took for me to finally catch up with organising my photos.

Here is a link to my New Zealand gallery. There is a few more added to my USA set.

Hopefully these few images help tell the story of the New Zealand leg of our round the world trip.

A beautifully constructed hot water foot spa

With an overnight stop off in Orewa again to breakup the journey we moved onto the Coromandel peninsular for a few days. Our first stop was a beautiful walk down to (and backup from) Cathedral Cove which has been sculpted by the unforgiving waves. The huge stone arch has been roped off (it seems to be finally giving into the elements) so we could not venture far along the beach or see the blow holes but it was still very pretty.

Part of the amazing water carved cove

The waves are this big

Our over night stay was at Hot Water Beach Top 10 park and again it did not disappoint, the facilities were very new and there was a really nice communal lounge/eating area where we got chatting to a few of the other campers. It was rather difficult not to as a gregarious Australian guy with his son in tow made himself the host introducing everyone to each other. We had a fun evening trying to chat to people from all over the world (although mainly France and Germany). Who knew that car insurance was so cheap in Australia?

The morning of the 13th we made an early start to beat the tide (and the crowds) to the highlight of New Zealand so far, the hot water at the beach. After a few minutes poking around trying to work out what to do we located our own area of hot sand and started to dig with everyone else (there were about 20 of us at this time). At a few points half way along Hot Water Beach (only accessible near low tide) hot water warmed by the volcanism in the area bubbles to the surface. We quickly found that the temperature of the water varied over a very small area, within 6 inches it could go from boiling to freezing. Being my geeky self I realised that the nice temperature areas ran in a band down the beach so dug a long trench with a pool at the end rather than a wide pool like everyone else, once I had finished building the walls we had our very own perfectly constructed hot water foot spa where we lounged for the next few hours until the beach got too crowded.

Me digging with a saucepan

Aimee enjoying my creation - note the large retaining wall

Is Aimee smiling because of the hot water or the view?

Relaxed like only a free, all natural, foot spa can make you we stopped at the Hot Water Beach cafe and had a delicious platter of fresh bread, hummus, salmon and other such goodies and read magazines. Now totally chilled out we departed on the short two and a half hour drive to Papamoa beach, but how long would it take us to get there…

Top 10 camping

Our cosy van

Since leaving Auckland we have been spending the night in Top 10 holiday camps in our funky van. So far the sites have ranged from good to great and we have not had any problems with dirty bathrooms or noisy neighbours. The camp sites have been so good that we have been using the communal kitchens to cook most of our meals.

September 10th we spent our last day in the far north exploring the beaches around Doubtless Bay, even with the occasional gust of wind we had a great time peering into the rock pools and looking at the amazing shells. We also treated ourselves to a meal out at a Thai restaurant that served one of the best Thai salads I have ever eaten (the brilliantly name Pattaya.

Can you spot the duelling hermit crabs

Tropical but chilly

I guess I used all of my good luck on the Thai salad as that night we were treated to something of stormy night, the flat metal roof of our van acts as a beautiful natural amplifier for each rain drop giving us a free steel band concert (although we were warm and dry). The wet weather came and went over then next day and we were able to glimpse some of the beauty of the rugged, west coast. The weather held out just long enough for us to visit some of the largest Kauri trees in New Zealand nestled in some very dramatic fern jungle. As we passed through the small towns we both thought that it would make a nice place to spend a few more days but we had an appointment further south.

Some of the Kauri trees are huge and can be thousands of years old

Mossy stuff

North of the north way down south

Sorry for the big gap, the net is pricey here but watch out over the next few days as we should catch up to date.

Way back on September 9th we took an organised trip with Sand Safaris up 90mile beach to the far north of New Zealand's North island. The day started with a rousing Maori welcome to the north with a fun (but short) cultural display. A guy from Colorado, USA, volunteered to be our 'Chief' for the day and played his role in the ceremony well thanking the Maori Chief for the welcome (he got to wear a rather fetching cloak). Everyone in the tour then posed for pictures before we got underway to 90mile beach.

My face... enough said

That is a lot of sand

Throughout the tour the driver gave a fun commentary on the local area explaining some of the meanings behind the place names, commenting on interesting local flora and fauna and even explaining some of the local industries. 90mile beach (odd name as it is not 90miles long and New Zealand distances are given in km) was spectacular as was the drive up it as the beach is actually used as the road, swapping normal road hazards for lazy sea birds, anglers and small rivers. Apparently the dunes were made by hand in a series of phases to protect the land for the blown sand and to create land suitable for farming, that is a lot of planting. 

Aimee found a dog on the beach

After the drive up the beach I enjoyed some sand boarding while Aimee did her good turn as the group photographer. I was finding sand in my hair, shoes and pockets for days afterwards even after multiple showers and washes of the trousers. The view from the top of the dunes was surreal as all you could see was yellow sand and blue sky.

That is a big sand dune

Me zooming down it

I enjoyed it...can you tell?

A quick stop for lunch (where we got chatting to the other veggies on the trip who were from Malaysia) and it was off to Cape Reinga. The cape is not quite the northern most point of New Zealand (by about 10 km) but it is beautiful and has a very cute lighthouse. I geeked out on the Geology while Aimee enjoyed the sun, she saw some dolphins while I was marvelling at the rocks and trying to decide if they were the same as some in Cornwall.

Mmmm tea and biscuits

The lighthouse at Cape Reinga

Not any old waves, on the left is the Tasman the right the Pasific

Back on the bus we checked out some super soft white silica sand before a sleepy ride back to the local gift shop where the bus could be hosed down to remove the worst of the sand and salt (the buses generally only last 12 months due to the daily runs on the beach).

Sand so white it was like icing sugar

We are not normally partakers in organised tours as we like to take our time and avoid the crowds but this time it was well worth it, we can't take the rental van on the beach as too many people get stuck (to be fair it did look tricky) and the drivers commentary was top notch (the sand sledging was an added bonus). 

How far!