My Growing Reading List

I read an average of ten books a month, and yet my reading list keeps getting longer rather than shorter. In fact, it seems to multiply faster than rabbits do.

The problem is simple: I’m addicted to reading. One year Roland got me a sweatshirt that says, “Lead me not into temptation . . . especially bookstores.” When I see a book that sounds interesting, I have to get it, or to at least put it on the list for later. But if it’s available for Kindle at a decent price, I will probably buy it right away so that I have it handy when I’ve read the books ahead of it on the list.

So where do those titles come from? I’ll start with the books in the stack at the top of this post. Nellie vs. Elizabeth: Two Daredevil Journalists Breakneck Race Around the World  is a children’s book based on Nellie Bly’s 1889 race around the world to see if she could match the trip in Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in Eighty Days. (She did.) I came across the book when I was looking through the entries for a SCBWI award that I, as a member, will be voting on in several weeks. Looking through lists of children’s award-winners is one way I discover books to add to my list.

The Vanderbeekers to the Rescue is the second in a series of children’s books about a present-day family (the series is similar to The Penderwicks or, for those of you who are old enough to remember them, The Five Little Peppers). I bought this one from a school book fair because I wanted to support my daughter’s school, and I had read the first one in the series and enjoyed it.

Letters to My Love is by one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Cadell. As a writer, she is not Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte, but her books entertain me when I want a break from heavier reading. This book is on my list because every time I go on the internet to buy another Cadell novel, I find several that sound interesting. So I pick one for my immediate enjoyment and add one or two others to my reading list.

Then there are the books mentioned by friends with similar reading tastes. I read Christy by Catherine Marshall many years ago, but when a friend mentioned it the other day, I knew I’d like to read it again.

Two other ways I find reading material are worth mentioning. I get a daily email from BookBub that highlights Kindle books on sale for $2.99 or less. I do find some of my books that way, but, unfortunately for me, I already have most of the good ones.

I’m also a member of Amazon’s First Reads, which lets me pick a free book each month from new releases by its affiliated publisher. Unfortunately, the selection isn’t the best. Sometimes I do get a good book, but at other times I can’t find anything that interests me or, worse, I start reading one and put it down when I realize it isn’t right for me.

All of this is to illustrate that there are many ways to find good books to read, and there is no shame in having a book list that multiplies faster than rabbits do.

Because we can never have too much to read.

The Camps in New Zealand--The North Island

 

On most of our trips, we’re lucky to get one or two photos with the two of us together. This time we got a lot more because our tour director kept offering to take them. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have any joint photos from the North Island, so I will have to give you individual ones. Since I’m the photographer, I’m fortunate to even have one of just me, but the tour guide at Hobbiton took it. The first photo shows me as a Hobbit, and the second has Roland checking the bath temperature at the thermal village. More about both later.

Our North Island adventure started on Valentines Day there (although it was February 13 in the U.S.). The plan was to fly from Queenstown on the South Island to Rotorua on the North Island, with a connecting flight at Christchurch on the South Island. We got up at 3:00 a.m. and made our first flight without any issues. When we reached Christchurch, however, we discovered that our second flight had been cancelled because Cyclone Gabrielle was supposedly headed to Rotorua. But our awesome tour director got us onto a flight to Auckland, where the worst of the cyclone was already supposed to have passed. Then she arranged for the bus driver who was supposed to meet us in Rotorua to meet us in Auckland, instead.

So far, so good.

The plane to Auckland actually had enough legroom for Roland and arrived on time. Then we sat on the tarmac for about 1½ hours before they freed a gate for us to disembark. That was the beginning of our tribulations.

When we finally made it into the terminal, it was a madhouse. We must have been about the last plane to make it in, because the first thing we heard on entering the terminal was that all flights in and out had been cancelled. You would think this wouldn’t affect us since we were being picked up by bus, but you’d be wrong. They were unloading all the checked luggage on the cancelled flights first, and word was that ours would not be available until the next day. Our luggage wasn’t lost—we knew exactly where it was—but we couldn’t get at it. Rather than have us wait around with no place to sleep in Auckland, our tour director sent us on with the driver while she stayed behind to wait for the luggage. Here is a photo that shows you a bit of the madness at the airport.

Roland had packed some emergency clothes in his carryon luggage but this was about the first time I hadn’t. So I washed out some underwear and wore Roland’s swim trunks and my fleecy to bed. Fortunately, I had my contact stuff in my carryon. The bus driver bought toothbrushes and toothpaste for everyone, and the situation made for interesting conversation among the group since we were all in the same boat (or plane or bus).

By sending us ahead with the bus driver, the tour director also got us to Rotorua in time for our evening activity, which was a Māori Village and Hangi Feast. Hangi is a cooking method where they steam the food in the ground to give it the flavor of the wood. The feast was held in a banquet hall with a number of tour groups and was preceded by a show that was clearly designed for tourists. Even so, the food was good and the show was entertaining. The next two photos show the food where it was cooked and the setting for the show.

I had signed up for a tour of Hobbiton for the next morning, but Roland had no interest in going. The plan had been for him to do the laundry while I was gone, but that was hijacked when our luggage was. So he relaxed and walked around town a bit.

For those of you who don’t know what Hobbiton is, it is the movie set for the home town of the main characters in the Hobbit movies, based on The Hobbit by J.R. Tolkien. (A Hobbit is a type of creature, sort of like calling us people.) In a joint venture between the farmer who owns the land and Peter Jackson (director) and the company that produced the movies, they took the temporary set and turned it into a permanent tourist attraction. They did a really nice job with it, and I learned a lot about the production of the movies during the 1½ hour tour through the set. The first photo at the head of this post shows me peering around a door in one of the Hobbit houses. (We didn’t get to go inside any, however.) The photos below show Frodo’s Hobbit Hole (home), another Hobbit Hole, the mill, and the Green Dragon pub, all from the book and the movies.

In the afternoon, our tour director arrived with the luggage but we didn’t have time to change before we were off for a gondola ride and wine-tasting on Mt. Ngongotaha. Then we visited a jade-carving factory and walked through a redwood forest before setting out for another Māori dinner that was more solemn but told much the same story we had heard the night before. It was also less touristy, however, and we were the only group there. The next two photos are of  Rotorua from Mt. Ngongotaha and Roland showing the size of a redwood.

The next day we loaded our luggage on the bus for our trip back to Auckland—on purpose this time. Before we actually left Rotorua, however, we toured the Te Whakarewarewa Living Thermal Village, which is where Roland is testing the temperature of the water in the photo at the top of this post. It is a Māori village built on top of a thermal field. Part of the tribe moved to that location many years ago after their village was wiped out by a volcano. They use the thermal pools in ways that don’t disrupt their natural state, so they don’t pipe hot water into their homes. They have more traditional heating there. And although they use the thermal heat to cook some of their food, they have regular stoves, too. The next four photos show a pool where food is quickly cooked by dipping it in, another pool that provides the heated water for the baths, a geyser, and part of the village partly obscured by the steam.

As we traveled from Rotorua to Auckland, I was remined of the differences between the two islands. Aside from the weather (the South Island is colder than the North), the South Island was carved out by glaciers and there are a number of sheep farms. The North Island was created by volcanos and primarily raises cattle. The next two photos show the gently rolling green hills of the North Island and two volcanic mounds.

When we arrived at Auckland, we visited the Auckland Museum and then took a driving tour through the town. It was a beautiful day, and most of the damage from the cyclone had already been cleaned up. The next photos show the skyline, the bay, and two of the mansions overlooking the bay. I love the pink one, but it is owned by the owner of a pink “pleasure palace,” and many people in Auckland see the color of the mansion as an insult.

Our final day in Auckland was on our own except for a farewell dinner at the hotel, so we rode up the Sky Tower for views of Auckland, finished our Christmas shopping, and walked along the wharf. The final two photos show the Sky Tower and a view of Auckland from above.

Our flight home left at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 18, and arrived just after 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, Friday 18. No, we weren’t using a Star Trek transporter machine, but we did cross the International Date Line.

We arrived home tired but happy after a great trip.

Now I’ll have to think of something else to blog about next week.

The Camps in New Zealand--The South Island

 

From Australia we flew to New Zealand’s South Island.

Although there are many islands in New Zealand, the two main ones—and by far the largest—are the South Island and the North Island. We spent time on both, but this week’s post will concentrate on the South Island.

We flew into Queenstown, New Zealand and took a gondola ride up Bob’s Peak while we waited for our rooms to be ready. The photo at the top of this post shows Roland and me at the top of Bob’s Peak with Lake Wakatipu in the background.

New Zealand’s scenery is very different from Australia’s, filled with barren mountains and lakes. Just because the mountains are barren doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful, though. The next photos show the mountains surrounding the airport, Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown from above, and the telephone in the bathroom of our room at the Hilton. (Roland just had to have that photo).

We spent the next day in Queenstown, which was my least favorite place on the trip. It reminds me of Traverse City, Michigan, or any other lakeside town that caters to tourists. Nothing against those towns, which are fine for people who like small shops or watersports (Queenstown also had parasailing, ziplining, etc.). Even I like them fine for an hour or two, but then they start boring me. We spent most of our time walking through a park that they called a botanical garden but wasn’t as heavy on the flowers as I’m used to. The highlight of Queenstown was Fergburger, which advertises the best burger in the world. It was very good and worth the long wait. The next two photos show Queenstown and the long line at Fergburger.

We were late leaving for our hotel because our bus got into an argument with a camper van. The bus was parked and suffered only minor damage and the driver wasn’t hurt at all, but the accident delayed us for about an hour when I was already bored with Queenstown.

The original idea had been to spend two nights in Queenstown back to back, but there was some event going on (a marathon or a bicycle race?) that made hotel rooms hard to come by, so we drove from Queenstown to Te Anau, where we spent two nights. On the way, we drove through farming country, where there are lots of sheep. They don’t pay for themselves these days, though, so many of the farmers are also planting hops. I don’t think we saw any hops fields, but I did get a number of photos of sheep, all taken from the bus window as we drove by. Since they look like any other sheep, I won’t include a photo.

The next morning we drove to Mitford Sound in Fiordland National Park. On the way we stopped at Mirror Lake. We also passed a snow-covered mountain, which I photographed from the bus window as we drove by. Those are the next two photos.

The highlight of the day, however, and also one of the highlights of the trip, was our cruise on Mitford Sound (which is really a fiord). Our cruise director was very excited that the clear weather allowed us to see the top of Mitre Peak (so named because it is shaped like a Roman Catholic Cardinal’s mitre hat). Apparently it is like Denali in Alaska, where you can see the top only about 10% of the time. There were also a number of waterfalls along Mitford Sound. The next two photos show Mitre Peak and one of the waterfalls.                           

That night we took a tour through the interconnected Glow Worm Caves, which was really cool. The roof of the caves looked like a clear sky filled with stars. That’s my description, anyway. All I could see was the white glow that stars give off. Roland saw some green and blue. Photographs weren’t allowed, but they wouldn’t have come out, anyway.

On Monday we returned to Queensland with two stops on the way. The first was at the Kawarau Bridge, which is the suspension bridge where bungy jumping was born. We didn’t have time for anyone from our group to do it, but I got a photo of someone leaving the platform. Look for the red shirt. The other photo is the bathroom sign there.

The second stop was at Arrowtown, which was a gold rush town in the mid-1800s and is now a tourist stop. The second-most interesting thing at Arrowtown is an area that shows how the Chinese lived in those days. They weren’t allowed to dig for gold until the whites decided it was too much work to try to get anything else from a spot, but the Chinese were hard workers and made out okay. The next two photos show the main street of modern-day Arrowtown and one of the Chinese houses, which, as you can see by comparing it with Roland, was pretty small.

But the most interesting thing in Arrowtown was the public toilets. They were totally electronic, and the only manual thing in them was the person using them. They give you ten minutes to do your business (with a warning at minute nine). If you aren’t done by then, the door automatically opens and puts you on view to the world. In fact, there were a number of interesting toilet signs in New Zealand. The next two photos show the bank of toilets and the sign warning you about the time limit, and the last two are signs that appeared in a number of public toilets around the country.

That night we ordered room service and watched the St. Paul’s service on the internet. Then we went to bed since we had an early flight to the North Island on Valentine’s Day. More about that next week.

The Camps in Australia--Part II

 

After Melbourne, we flew to the Uluru Region in the outback, and from there to the rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef. All three are UNESCO Heritage Sites.

On Thursday, February 2, we flew from Melbourne to Ayres Rock in the middle of the desert. None of our flights within the tour had enough leg room for Roland, but the real comedy of errors started when we arrived at Ayres Rock Airport. There was no gate, and at first they announced that they didn’t have enough rolling stairs to let us out of both the front and rear of the aircraft. Then they told us that the one set they could find didn’t want to align with the doorway. They finally got it to work and let us off the plane, but it took a while. (They blamed the problem on being short staffed.)

That was in the morning, In the afternoon we visited Walpa Gorge and Kata Tjuda, which are both red rock formations rising out of the middle of the desert in the Uluru Region. The next two photos show Walpa Gorge and Kata Tjuda.

It was very hot in the desert, so we were happy when the sun went down. Our tour group joined many others for a traditional tourist activity, which is to drink champagne during sunset while watching the light reflect off Ayres Rock. (The sunset was actually in the other direction.) The photo at the top of this post shows us holding plastic champagne flutes with the light shining on Ayres Rock in the background.

I got up early enough on Friday morning to see the sunrise across from our hotel, but it wasn’t that special. Then most of the group (including Roland and me) went for an up-close look at Ayres Rock and to hear about its meaning to the indigenous people, who have most of the responsibility for governing the area. Guides have permission to tell a few of the tribal legends in brief but not the longer versions, which are sacred.

As we were driving around the rock, the bus driver told us that a particular part of it was so sacred that, although we were allowed to see it, we were not allowed to take photographs. But when we got to the point where he said “no photographs,” I thought he meant just right there, so five or so minutes later when there was some really cool erosion art, I thought it was okay to take pictures of that. After we passed it, the bus driver said we could take photos again, and I thought “oops” and erased the ones I had taken. Fascinating as the images were, I have no desire to be disrespectful.

There was some erosion art that we were allowed to take. By “erosion art” I mean art that God created through the erosion process—no human hand involved. The next two photos show erosion art shaped like a crocodile and a heart (at the top of the image).

We also saw some relatively recent human paintings made by the tribe to teach its younger members about their heritage. You can see some of it in the next photo.

That was an early morning excursion, after which we left the Uluru Region to fly to Cairns. Australia’s travel routes are still seeing the effects of COVID, and the only direct flight wouldn’t accommodate all of us plus its regular passengers. As a result, we had to take three separate flights. All of them were late, and it was after midnight when we finally got to our hotel. It was even worse than it sounds because we had to be on the bus at 8:00 a.m. for the next day’s activities.

Saturday was dedicated to the rain forest. We started with a guided walk through Mossman Gorge, where we learned about the various plants and some of the culture of the local tribe. The guide told us that she was lucky to be from a younger generation because in the recent past many children from indigenous tribes were taken from their parents as infants, adopted by white families, and never knew where they had come from. We heard that several times while in Australia.

From there we went for a cruise on the Daintree River, where we saw three crocodiles (four including the one that ate Roland in the photo below). On the way back, we drove by part of the  Coral Sea, which is where the Great Barrier Reef is located. The next photos show Roland being eaten by a crocodile, our boat, a real crocodile, and the Coral Sea.

On Sunday, February 5, we went to the Great Barrier Reef. Because it is protected, there are only a few areas where commercial entities are licensed to take people to snorkel and view the reef. We boarded a boat that took us to a pontoon platform sitting over the reef. That’s the next two photos.

It was raining when we started out but had mostly cleared up by the time we got there. I wasn’t interested in snorkeling, so we started by taking rides on a glass bottom boat and then on a semi-submarine. The next photos show some of the coral we saw on those rides. If you look closely, you can see fish in the first one.

Although I wasn’t interested in snorkeling, Roland tried it. The next two photos show Roland in his stinger suit (to protect against jelly fish) and getting into the water. Unfortunately, he had trouble getting the flippers on even though they were the same size as his shoes. He didn’t get very far before one came off in the water. After retrieving it, he swam back to the platform and left the water. He did get a brief glimpse of the coral before that happened, though.

Monday was a free day, so we slept in, did some laundry, watched the St. Paul’s service on the internet, and just generally relaxed. I had a bug for dinner. Technically, it’s a Morton Bay Bug, which is related to lobsters and crabs. It was very good. So was the potato salad that came with it, and I wish I had the recipe. That’s the bug in the next picture.

Roland’s favorite part of the trip had us getting up at 3:00 a.m. the next day for a hot air balloon ride. It took an hour to get there and an hour to get back and a long wait for the balloons to inflate. Our group had a balloon to itself, but there were two others as well. The ride was supposed to be about 30 minutes, but it may have taken a little longer because the crew had trouble finding a landing spot. Then they let the passengers help deflate the balloon, which Roland did while I took photos. Most of the ones below are self-explanatory. The animals in the third photo look like kangaroos but are probably wallabies (they look similar but are smaller) because the balloon operator said there was a family of them living in the nearby woods.

The rain forest and Cairns are in the northern part of Australia and nearer to the equator, so they were as hot as the desert. That made us happy to fly back south to Sydney, where it was cooler. I wrote about Sydney last week, so stay tuned for New Zealand.