Tawatawa Reserve

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The first time I have done the Tawatawa Reserve loop track, and enjoyed it greatly. Some great southern views, with its location in Owhiro Bay.

It is a very diverse track. You start off on the flat in open plains. You then go up the hill, mainly on open tracks. However once you get up the hill, you end up walking through bush a fair bit.

A nice walk over to a reservoir, with some good views on the way. Then from the reservoir you join the City to Sea walkway for a bit and have a climb up no less than 145 steps! Nice views of Berhampore Golf Course and surrounds.

From there you then carry on uphill a bit more until you get to a lovely flat field at the top. Great views of Cook Strait from here. You are close to the area where the Wellington landfill used to be, before it swapped to the other side of Happy Valley Road. I can recall coming to this old landfill a few times as a kid with my Dad. Pleased to say now all grass area and no smell!

Also here is a pouwhenua placed there by the Tapu-te-Ranga Marae.

From here it is all downhill. On the way down you go through a pine forest, which adds to the diversity of experience from open plains, to hillside tracks, to bush trails, to steps, to flat fields and then the pine forest.

We got back to the car park in just under an hour. The official guide says 90 minutes. Only 3 kms in length, but the terrain is steep in places, which is good for burning up energy.

Definitely one I’m keen to do again. There are also some other walks in that area you can do.

3 News reports:

David Shearer went for the Prime Minister’s jugular when he brought up a past quote, in an attempt to prove John Key’s hypocrisy for not sacking John Banks.

But he missed by a mile – it turns out the quote was from National-leaning blogger David Farrar.

Mr Key had never uttered the words and David Shearer had to return to the House last night to apologise.

This is first I knew of this. Looking at Hansard it seems the exchange was:

David Shearer: Does he stand by another of his statements: “The issue has never been one of legality as much as ethics. The criminal code is the bare minimum standards for society. For MPs we expect behaviour well beyond that.”, and if so, how is he applying that standard to John Banks?

That quote is indeed mine.

Then later:

DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition): I seek leave of the House to make a personal explanation to clarify a question that I made earlier in the day.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for the honourable Leader of the Opposition to make a statement. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is none.

DAVID SHEARER: During question time I attributed a quote to John Key in one of my questions. In fact, that quote was actually made by David Farrar, and I would like to apologise to them both.

I think the PM would be more offended by the mix-up than me!

Mr Mallard this morning told RadioLIVE he was to blame.

“It’s a terrible mistake and I take responsibility for that,” says Mr Mallard, who still managed to get in a dig at the Prime Minister.

“We confused David Farrar with the Prime Minister – they both say the same things all the time, and the quotes got shuffled.

Yes, it annoys me also when the PM steals my lines

I should point out that Labour happily quote me in the House when I do say things critical of the Government.

For those interested, I’ve got three speaking engagements next week.

On Monday evening I’m speaking in Auckland on the MMP review to the National Party’s Northern Region Policy Committee. That is open to party members only.

On Tuesday I’m speaking at a forum organised by the Legal Research Foundation on media and new media regulation. This is also in Auckland and open to the public. There is a fee to attend.

On Wednesday I’m speaking at the “Privacy in the age of big data” forum, organised by the Privacy Commissioner. This is in Wellington and open to the public. Also a fee to attend.

A somewhat diverse range of subjects. Hence, blogging may be lighter than normal next week.

Te Ahumairangi Hill

EveryTrail – Find hiking trails in California and beyond

Started on Wadestown Road at the dog exercise area, as there is parking there.

It’s a pretty steep climb up the hill. You climb around 120 metres over a 500 meter walk, so that is a pretty tiring climb. As you go up you’ll see four or five intersections, but ignore them as they will just take you back down. Keep going until you hit the actual Northern Walkway.

Once you are up there, then fairly easy going along the Northern Walkway. Just before the end there is a steep path down and then you pass behind Premier House before you can come down either on St Marys Road or Grant Road.

Once down on the road, then a small hike back up Wadestown Road to where the car is!

A nice scenic sub-hour walk for a lunch break.

Trelissick Park

EveryTrail – Find hiking trails in Californiaand beyond

A lovely hidden walk in the Ngaio Gorge. You enter Trelissick Park from Kaiwharawhara Road, and most of the time you are walking a path next to the stream.

Sadly Easter is over, and today is the long drive back to Wellington. I said on Twitter last night I’d love Easter to be longer which got a Labour acquaintance excited at me supporting more public holidays, until I said but in return I’d cancel Labour Day and Queens birthday

On Easter Sunday we … well … did nothing … and it was great. Just spent the day reading and drinking in the sun on the balcony.

One would never get sick of the view.

On Easter Monday headed back to Cathedral Cove, this time getting there early. Spent the day swimming, sunning and reading.

This is on the other side of the cave, at Mare’s Leg Cove. As you can see with the tide higher you can get cut off.

Incredible to think of the cave having been created over so many years by tidal pressures. Some parts of the interior now have concrete, to stop it collapsing on us!

At a guess, I’d say this young lad is not happy there is no longer an ice cream seller with a concession for the Cove!

The weather forecast was for terrible weather and rain all Easter. As it turned out, the weather was brilliant. Almost makes up for the summer!

We’re staying at Hot Water Beach, and the name is literal. Within an hour of low tide, you can dig down and hit hot water springs. And they are hot – up to 65 celsius.

The beach gets very crowded, The most inland spots go first, and the challenge of being further out is well the tide comes in over the walls.

One can see the pool taking shape with the workers hard at work.

Me working, and ‘Young Nigella” pretending to work.

One happy child.

Two happy children.

Two more happy bigger children.

One happy couple!

In some of the pools the water got so hot, that they had to let seawater in to cool it down. Our pool was at a very nice temperature – probably 30 celsius or so.  Sadly a slightly cold ending as when the tide started to come back in a large wave crashed into it. Brrrrrrr.

Headed up North just after Thursday lunchtime to avoid the traffic and made Taupo around 5.30 pm. Spent the night in Taupo, and nice view of Lake Taupo as the sun came up.

On the way to the Coromandel stopped at Paeroa for breakfast.

Arrived at Hot Water Beach around lunchtime on Good Friday. This is the place we’re staying at.

The view from the (very large) deck. Yes, we have been out there a lot.

Looking down and out.

And you can see the crowds down at Hot Water Beach during low tide.

Then we headed to Hahei, where above is the start of the walk to Cathedral Cove.

It’s around a 45 minute walk in, and mainly uncovered but a few parts get into the bush.

The view around half way along the path.

Then we are down in the cove. It was highish tide as you can see.

The famous tunnel which makes Cathedral Cove iconic. It was incidentally used as the entrance to Narnia in the Prince Caspian film.

Looking out to sea.

Kids love going up on the ledge. All around the examples of erosion are massive.

At the lookout on the way back, with one of Jadis’ kids. There’s eight of us staying here at the moment, and have some more friends visiting later.

Am on The Court Report this Thursday (TVNZ7, 9.30 pm) discussing the review of the Privacy Act, with a focus on the Internet and privacy. The show is now hosted by Linda Clark and privacy lawyer Kathryn Dalziel was my co-panelist. I thought we had an interesting discussion.

The next segment was also interesting for those interested in Internet issues, with IT lawyer Rick Shera talking about Twitter and defamation.

Korokoro Dam

EveryTrail – Find hiking trails in Californiaand beyond

A commenter suggested I download Tracks for my iPhone and seems to work great. Maps your walk and you can add details and photos to it.

Just 10 minutes drive north of Wellington you find Cornish Street in Petone, which is at the corner of Belmont Regional Park.

Even though I go up Te Ahumairangi Hill (was Tinakori Hill) a lot, I was actually blissfully unaware that in 2010 an official lookout was opened. I tend to be around the Thorndon end, more than the Northland end.

This is the lookout itself. You can get to it from Orangi Kaupapa Road. Either a steep but short walk up from the road, or if really lazy you can drive up to it. Alternatively you can walk along the Ridgeline track and then head down to it. And you can climb up to it from Tinakori Road or Glenmore Street.

A nice view of the city from over the bush.

This is from Stellin Memorial Park, which is a bit below and to the south of the lookout. A nice grass area for a picnic, and a great view.

A close up of the city and harbour.

As I was in Northland, I drove over the back route to Brooklyn and checked out the war memorial which I had been meaning to look at for ages.

Not too bad a view from Brooklyn either.

A couple of weekends ago did one of my favourite walks from the wind turbine to the Hawkins Hill radar station, along with a couple of friends, a baby and a dog! It was a brilliant day weather wise, which I have to say has been pretty good the last few weeks.

A friendly Emu following us along the fence line.

Posing for a photo with said baby and dog. Was very funny as at one point a person passing by commented what a fit family we were. This caused us much merriment as we were not sure what sort of family he thought we were with two women, one man and a baby. We concluded that he probably thought the two girls were lesbian lovers and I was their “donor”.

The views of the south coast and suburbs are just stunning.

The Wellington Castle, from above. Had a brief exchange of pleasantries with the owner as he was driving out his front gate. I didn’t tell him that I wanted to purchase the castle one day as a headquarters for the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

And the radar station itself. Next o the radar station are some foundations from a destroyed building. Anyone know what it used to be?

One of the little secrets in Wellington is there is a very nice walking path on the east side of the motorway. While you do get the noise from the motorway (less of an issue with an iPod), for a lot of it you get to walk through some parks and bush.

I normally start at the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Park and walk south along the path, crossing under and over all the Thorndon roads that cross the motorway. You then pass down behind Parliament and cross into the Bolton Street Memorial Park. Eventually the path ends at Aurora Terrace, which is where I normally turn around and head back.

Today I carried on up the Terrace a bit and then went into the Clifton Terrace Car Park. I had noticed what appeared to be a path around the Terrace tunnel that I wanted to explore.  From the car park a path follows along next to the motorway and then just before the tunnel there is a steep climbing path up to a little park on top of the tunnel. Quite a nice view from there.

Then you can move onto the west side of the motorway by a little bush track that takes you up to the Vic Netball Courts. Wasn’t quite sure the best way to get back from here so went exploring through Kelburn Park and a walkway down to Talavera Terrace. From there a walkway down to San Sebastian Road, connecting to Clifton terrace. From there you go along Tokyo Lane (a walkway) to Bolton Street, and then enter the Bolton Street Memorial Park again, going to the Seddon Memorial. From there cut pass Anderson Park to Tinakori Road, and along Tinakori Road back to where I started.

In total a 9 km walk, and some really nice scenery along the way. A few hills, but nothing tough. I might try doing it in reverse next time.

Andrew Stone in the NZ Herald reports:

A new book examines the positive impact of Jewish people in New Zealand

Three New Zealand prime ministers have been Jews.

So have two chief justices, six Auckland mayors, the country’s first female lawyer, Ethel Benjamin, and first woman doctor, Emily Siedeberg, who enrolled at Otago University in 1891 with the consent of dean John Scott who told her to give “no encouragement for frivolity”.

The record of achievement from a small community rolls on: in education, the law, arts, business, medicine, civic affairs, philanthropy, architecture and film.

“Punching well above their weight” was the late writer Michael King’s observation about the Jewish community in New Zealand. Art historian Len Bell, co-editor of a handsome, richly illustrated new history of Jews in New Zealand, firmly agrees. The impact, says Bell, of the smart, often secular mid-century professional migrants, displaced by the rise of Nazi Germany, has been vast.

He says many were motivated to succeed, encouraged by family, education and tradition, driven to high levels of accomplishment.

It is not just in New Zealand that members of the Jewish community “punch above their weight”. In New Zealand, only 0.17% of the population are Jewish. This is well below the number of Buddhists, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Brethren and Sikhs. Of course some (such as John Key) are included in the definition “Jewish community” even though he is not of the Jewish religion.

I’m not Jewish myself, but my father’s family are of Jewish descent (but not religion), fleeing Hitler in 1938. I didn’t know this until I was 14, and by coincidence just a couple of weeks ago ran into an old schoolmate I had not seen for 25 years who was indirectly responsible for me finding out my family background. At 14 we were discussing girls of course, and my friend, Nathan, told me that he can only date Jewish girls, as he has to marry within the religion (which I found out he did indeed do). I had not realised he was Jewish, and remarked to my parents when I got home that Nathan was Jewish, and that I had no idea as he seemed so “normal” (remember I was 14). That’s when I learnt my father’s family was Jewish. The trauma of the anti-semitism that culimated in the Holocaust was so great, that it was something that had never been discussed with my late grand-parents. It was only after they passed away, did I learn more of their life in Vienna, and what happened in the 1930s there.

In 1934 the Jewish population of Vienna was around 9%, yet the comprised 52% of the doctors, 86% of the lawyers, 25% of the leather merchants, 75% of the wine dealers, 82% of credit bureaus etc. I suspect this is was partly fueled the anti-semitism, but of course anti-semitism had existed for hundreds of years prior also.

In the US, this “over-achievement” is also profound. Wikipedia cites:

Forty-five percent of the top 40 of the Forbes 400 richest Americans are Jewish. Twenty percent of professors at leading universities are Jewish. Forty percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington are Jewish. Thirty percent of American Nobel prize winners in science and 37 percent of all American Nobel winners are Jewish. An estimated thirty percent of Ivy League students are Jewish.

Jews make up just 1.7% of the US population. 14 Senators are Jewish, 30 House Reps the same and seven Supreme Court Justices have been Jewish (out of 112 total).

A good book for those interested in Jewish history is The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels.

Took part in the Wellington Round The Bays this morning. Very crowded with 12,000 taking part. Great weather, so was spectacular sights going around the bays. Love how the local residents get into it and set up unofficial showers.

I did the 7 km track only, but if things go well will try the longer distance next year. An easy way to help raise some money for the Malaghan Institute.

Just returned from a dinner at MariLuca Ristoro. Until the change of owners, it was previously Maria Pia’s – one of Wellington’s best restaurants.

The occasion was a farewell dinner with Auckland Girl who is returning to Auckland.

I was interested to see whether MariLuca could keep up the excellent food and service that was a trademark of Maria Pia’s.

For the wine, we went with a bottle of Gavi  D.o.c.g. Duca di Aleramo 2010 Piemonte. At $42 a bottle it was very reasonable priced and a very good match to the pasta. So good, we had a second bottle. Very helpful that the wine list suggested foods it would match.

My entree was the Grigliata Impanata di Pesce, which was grilled prawn, squid, scallops and mussels in herbed bread crumbs. It was very tasty, and I had no complaints. 7.5/10. Auckland Girl had cockles, which were also delicious.

My main was the Pappardelle  con Anatra, which was with braised duck sauce. It was quite simply magnificent. The pasta was home crafted, and the duck was exquisite. A 9/10 easily.  Auckland Girl chose the gnocchi, which was also lovely.

My dessert (which I normally skip, but was a special occasion) was the gelato. Hard to get a bad gelato, and this one certainly wasn’t. AG went for the tiramisu, and from the sound of her groans of satisfaction, it was also very good. 8/10 for the desserts.

After dessert we had a port and a cognac. The service during the night was excellent and classy. The waitress (from Argentina) knew all the essentials such as how to properly pour wine, and was very friendly, but professional. The owner topped off the night by offering us a couple of lemoncellos on the house. I give the service a 9/10 also.

The overall bill was around $200, which for four excellent courses and two bottles of wine is very reasonable. A definite recommendation to those who want a classy night out, without paying the earth.

During the dinner, AG and I had fun playing Sherlock Holmes and trying to work out the backgrounds of all the other diners based on observation only. Our conclusions were:

1. A table of two older men, and an older woman. Conclusion was a businesswoman out with her husband a a business colleague.
2. A table of a young man dressed casually, a blond young woman in business dress and older woman. After considering they were a couple we decided they were brother and sister as they had no body language between them. Also he was dressed too casually for a date, and she had relatively little makeup on. The older woman was their mother, whom we suspect was from out of town, and this was her treat for them. Out detective skills were proven correct when at the end we heard her refer to them as her offspring.
3. A man and woman in their 40s. Had one course only. Conclusion was a local Thorndon couple and this is their regular.
4. Two men and two women, with one of each in their 40s and 50s. The men we decided worked together, and were out with their respective wives.
5. A young asian woman and a slightly older ginga. She gave him a card. Our conclusion is she is a law student and he is probably her tutor and boyfriend.
6. A man and woman in their late 30s. She was wearing an orange dress. Based on the dress we decided they were from Lower Hutt. They took 30 minutes to decide what to order, so were obviously not locals. Obviously a special dinner out, so I think it was an anniversary dinner treat for them.

We also discussed what people would probably guess we are, if they were doing the guesswork on us, we had done on them. We figured their guess on us would be a couple who had met over the Internet and were on their first date

Anyway, back to the restaurant, definitely has kept up the good standards of its predecessor, and a restaurant worth returning to.

There’s two great reasons to go to Circa at the moment. In Circa One they are staging The Motor Camp for a repeat season. But if you have already seen that, then you can see Esencia del Flamenco in Circa Two.

I attended last night along with Stalker Girl and the performance put on by the Desde Sevilla Flamenco Dance Company, is captivating and engaging.

The first half is very serious – the Cry of Spain, about the Spanish Civil War. Five stern faced dancers do a wonderfully timed routine, supported by singer Christina Gomez and guitarist Paul Bosauder, both from Barcelona. Also in support are a couple of percussionists.

If you like great dance and music, you’ll love Esencia del Flamenco. There is a great contrast between the serious dancing of the first half and then the Fiesta Flamenca in the second half where the smiles light up the theatre as they dance and sing up a storm.

We had a very engaged audience, and you could see some of the audience almost wanted to jump onto the stage and join in.

We both thought it was a great performance, and I’m really glad I went along. I am never sure if I am going to enjoy a performance if it isn’t my traditional comedic or dramatic play, but Circa has been great at helping me discover a much wider range of performance to enjoy.

Highly recommended if you enjoy song and dance. Also would be a very good event to take a date to!

I’m always in two minds about posting about Great Barrier Island, as I’m worried too many people might start holidaying there, making it harder for me to holiday there. But it really is an iconic part of New Zealand that provide world class beauty, just 30 minutes flying from Auckland.

Myself and three friends stayed at Blind Bay, and you can see the view from the balcony. The weather was so nice, that we were able to drink and play cards out on the balcony until close to midnight. One can never get sick of views like that.

A couple of the locals very kindly took us out fishing over the weekend. This is their dog Max who just loves being out on the water.

Even I managed to catch a couple of fish, including this parrotfish. We also caught lots of snapper, which we had for dinner.

I loved this sight of the dog being towed along in his own boat.

After the fishing, we went to this very remote bay (basically only accessible by boat or a two hour walk) and it really was a piece of paradise. The water was wonderful.

Yum. I can never get enough crayfish. It was a perfect end to a great day out.

Also love the sunset over Blind Bay.

I love living in Wellington, and don’t think I would ever live in Auckland. But if I did, a big plus would be being able to spend more time on the Barrier. The locals are so absolutely friendly, and the scenery so wonderful.

Whale has the photo of what happens if I back out too quickly of an unfamiliar driveway. I needed to get to a NZ Post store quickly to do a Western Union transfer and backed out the drive. I backed in a nice straight line, but the problem was the driveway wasn’t straight

This is rather weird. On Thursday I was at Waikanae Beach in the morning. Drove to Wellington and then flew to Auckland. At Auckland Airport I grabbed my luggage and got on the flight to Great Barrier Island. Got to sit in the co-pilot seat which is always fun as you get the best view. You just have to be very careful not to knock or grab anything.

Anyway a few minutes into the flight the underside of my right arm starts throbbing – quite significant pain. I turn it over to see what the problem is, and I see this:

This photo was taken two days later, so have faded a bit. You can’t see all of them, but in total there were ten cuts from just above my wrist to just below my elbow. Still fairly visible five days later.

Now the weird thing is I have no memory of them. I can’t think of any activity I did which could give me multiple cuts on my arm, let alone ones I would not notice until later. If it had happened in Africa I would assume it was some bush we drove through, but this was back in NZ.

And no, they are not self inflicted – unless I have a very bad case of sleep walking. Plus they are cut the wrong way for that.

So this will have to go down as one of life’s mysteries – both how they occurred, but also why I only felt them when I was on the plane to Barrier.

In Waikanae they have the Nga Manu nature reserve. I’d never been to it, and saw a good review, so decided to give it a visit.

$15 entry (Zealandia take note) and it’s a very pleasant 60 – 90 minute walk around. On a hot summer day, especially nice. If you’re into birds, or have kids, could be a good place to pop into. Kids are just $6 each and a family no more than $35.

Just after the entrance a large grassed area with a pond and lots of ducks.

A black swan being curious.

You can get a packet of duck food for $2 and the ducks are not shy. The literally surround you, and even walk over your feet if they think there is food nearby.

This is a kakariki, specifically a red-crowned parrot. I love how the green matches the grass.

A kaka.

(more…)

My holiday in Africa was so exhausting (getting up at 5 am daily) that I needed another holiday to recover from it! I’ve been up at Waikanae Beach with my whanau and friends. We’ve got a great place for 10 days. It has five bedrooms and three bathrooms, and the sloped roof has windows so pretty much all day sun.

This is the view from the back lawn. At high tide, you are around 10 metres from the water. A great view of Kapiti Island. There’s something very relaxing about being able to hear and see the sea from your living room.

I was a bit surprised initially to see a sail whizz past at high speed, until I investigated and saw they were on land, not sea.

The water here is seriously nice. Great waves and warm water. I’ve gone in a few times. Kapiti is only an hour north of Wellington but by not being Cook Strait, the water is heaps warmer. The temperature is a few degrees higher also, often.

We’ve dined outside pretty much every day, and even had the BBQ fired up. Did fish and chips one night which was great – something “right” about fish and chips by the beach.

Waikanae Beach is very long, so good for long walks to burn off lunch. One day we decided to walk to the cafe down the road, along the beach. We over-shot it by around 1.5 kms which was very funny. Not so funny was walking back along the road (we didn’t want to miss it again). Bare feet on hot melting tar is a painful mixture.

Sadly it has not been all relaxation, as have had quite a lot of work to do and reports to write for various clients. But working on the laptop up here with a view of Kapiti, sure beats being in an office in Wellington.

A great place to have a week off for Wellingtonians, so to speak. And usefully if for some reason you do have to head home, you can be there in just 45 minutes (30 minutes if doing a Lundy).

Stuff reports:

The Labour Department has closed its investigation into a complaint by Australian computer programmer Glenn Watson who claimed to have been pressured to work up to 120 hours a week at the Auckland studio of games-maker Gameloft.

Spokeswoman Ailsa Mannell “no substantial evidence” of a breach of health and safety laws had been found and no action would be taken against the French multinational.

Watson’s description of working conditions at the Auckland studio, where he was head programmer, was widely reported in computer games publications around the world after he blew the whistle on his employer in July.

He said he resigned after a four-week stint in which he worked 14 hours-a-day, seven days a week. Watson accused Gameloft of creating artificial deadlines to encourage a frantic environment among the 70 Auckland staff and said a junior programmer had worked for 24 hours in a single, straight shift.

Ha, I can beat that. In 2000/1 when rolling out a new database system, I actually worked a straight 60 hour shift, broken up only by showers. It is amazing what you can manage when there is a non changeable deadline approaching.

The reason the deadline was not changeable is I was booked to fly/drive around the country doing installation and training starting on Tuesday, so I worked Saturday morning to Monday evening without sleep to complete everything.

What was funny was that when I completed the final testing and documentation just prior to my flight to Auckland on the Monday, I landed at Auckland early evening and had to drive to Warkworth. But I got a call from a friend inviting me to a party. I actually declined initially, but then he put on the phone the attractive blonde (knowing my inability to say no to them) who pressured me into attending, so despite no sleep for 60 hours I then attended a party (drinking non-alcoholic) for a couple of hours before resuming the drive to Warkworth.

It’s quite interesting when you go long periods without sleep, the cycles you go through. Every 12 hours or so you have a really tough period for 2 – 3 hours when staying awake is damn hard, but if you push past that, then you feel fine for another 9 – 10 hours or so.

Beyond doubt the highlight of a trip to Africa is going out into the wilderness. Until you have seen giraffes in their natural environment grazing trees, had a lion stare at you from a few feet away or had a hippo swim towards you – you’ve not had the full experience.

I was very lucky with the four places I went to. They were all great, but also all different enough that each was special. Below I blog a comparison between the four places I stayed at. I had an excellent time all four of them – the differences are minor, so don’t sweat the choices too much.

I did find &Beyond consistently great, and many fellow travelers said they swear by them, and only stay with them. However the first place I stayed at, Tintswalo, was easily equally superb.

I stayed at four places, with stays ranging from two nights to four nights. With the benefit of hindsight I would make all my stays three nights each. Two nights is too short as it only gives you one full day in camp, and traveling every second day is exhausting. Four nights on the other hand can drag on slightly on the final day. That means eight safari drives in the same area.

What I intend to do in future, and would recommend, is three stays of three nights each. That’s nine nights in total and 18 drives.

Now to the four I stayed at:

With the location important to note three of the four sites were in private concession areas. That means there are few other people about, and the guides are allowed to go off the main routes, can drive with spotlights after sunset etc. Chobe National Park is more restricted with what you can do, but the quantity and diversity of wild life there is higher than other places – so it is a trade off. I recommend rather than one or the other, you include Chobe but also include some private concession areas.

All the accommodation was luxury. Where-ever you go, you should be comfortable. Tintswalo was the most luxurious, and Ngabexa my personal favourite as being under canvas fits the environment.

The amount of time you spend out on each drive varies. I think four hours is a good maximum as Tintswalo did. You get a bit tired beyond that. Nice to have a bit more siesta time during the day also.

Tintswalo and Chobe had pretty well formed dirt roads to drive on, and would often go at reasonable speeds. With Tintswalo you would often go off road and literally push your way through and over trees and bushes. The two Okavango locations tended to be less well developed roads – sometimes just slightly worn tracks through fields. These would be very bumpy, but that is part of the fun. Normally driving around 15 km/hr or so (which is good for spotting things). I did discover that even on those roads, they can do around 60 km/hr as when we had to drop some water off to a broken down jeep on the way to catching my flight. I was almost bouncing out of the jeep, but loving every minute of it.

The hospitality was impossible to criticise. Everyone is so friendly and helpful. I give Nxabega slightly extra points for the fun we had on New Years Eve, with great hospitality from Megan and Dave – the co-managers.

With meals, you will also have nothing to complain about. Each place has a chef or chefs who will even make meals on demand. The challenge is to not eat too much.

I’ve included the trip advisor rankings and reviews. Again I would stress they are all excellent places to stay. Some of the reviews are years old, so I suggest anyone interested focus on more recent reviews.

It is worth noting that Nxabega was ranked 1st out of 40 in the Okavango Delta, and I’m not surprised by that. It was the perfect end to my trip. I’ll definitely be going back there. I’m keen to return to some of the other places also, but have to weigh that up against exploring new locations in Kenya and Namibia also.

The trips are costly. If it were not for the cost, I’d go there annually.

In terms of other things to do, outside the safaris – I would put Cape Town and Victoria Falls into the must see categories. Sun City was fun, but not a must do or see.

When will I return? I hope to do Latin or Central America in the next two years as have never been there, and that will cost a bit also. So realistically probably won’t get back until 2017, but will be something to look forward to.

I’ve had a fair number of people ask me about how I arranged the trip to Africa, saying they are keen to visit there also.

Normally I prefer to arrange my trips myself, and research places, activities and accommodation through sources such as Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor. I tried to do this with the Africa trip, but I found it too challenging for a first time visitor to Africa. There were three significant challenges:

1. Safety – I wanted to minimise safety risks such as travel in unsafe areas, dodgy internal airlines, being exposed to touts etc
2. Connections – it was difficult to work out by myself how one would actually get to and from certain safari camps
3. Variety – there are so many different lodges and camps to choose from, that even with Trip Advisor, deciding where to go was challenging – even deciding what countries to go to was a challenge

So in my googling I came across a package from World Journeys for The Cape, Kruger & Victoria Falls. Now these were three of the places I wanted to go to. However I was dubious, as I am not really into group tours, as you lose flexibility. However I filled in the form to see what they could do.

This put me in touch with Kirstine from World Journeys. She informed me that their packages are not all group tours, but in this case they put together individually tailored trips. So over the next few weeks I probably drove them crazy with my “Can we do Chobe also” and “How difficult would it be to also go into the Okavango Delta” and “Would a couple of days at Sun City blow the price out much” and they dealt with all my variations. They knew all about how you could fly from one camp to another via small safari planes to and from obscure air strips.

What was very useful is that Kisrtine had actually been to Africa, and stayed at all the places I was staying at. This was very reassuring when making decisions about whether to stay in a lodge or under canvass in certain areas. I’m glad she pushed me into the under canvass options.

After it was all agreed, World Journeys sent out a very helpful package of itinerary, travel advice, medical requirements, tipping guidelines, baggage guidelines (you need to travel with soft bags) etc. They were great to deal with, and I highly recommend them for this sort of trip.

But the really useful them is they were partnered with &Beyond in Africa. What this meant was from they point I arrived in Africa, &Beyond took over responsibility for my trip. They had a driver met me at Cape Town airport, who gave me vouchers for the rest of the trip. They had their own reps or other companies meet me at every destination where a transfer was needed. And when something happened such as a strike at one safari camp, they arranged me to stay at another camp at no extra cost. Knowing that no matter what happened, they would take responsibility for making sure the trip all fitted together was hugely reassuring.

&Beyond also owned several of the safari camps I stayed at. I will do a seperate detailed post on the four camps I stayed at, but suffice to say for now they were all great. In my travels I chatted to many other people staying at the various camps, and many of them were return visitors who swear by &Beyond and say they will only stay at their lodges and camps. They are at the higher end of the market, but have a mixture of price packages over their 35 lodges and camps.

So for someone who normally likes to do it all myself, I was very happy with the service I got from World Journeys and &Beyond. It was really good having both a company to deal with in NZ, and a company to deal with when actually in Africa. If you are a first time traveller especially, I would highly recommend both companies. I had nothing but good experiences with them.