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9 April 2025
Ascending Tianmen Today is our first day exploring the mountains in this part of China, starting with Tianmen. The hotel advised that if it isn’t busy, one can normally turn up for the cable car before the timeslot that has been booked. We grabbed a disappointing breakfast around 0645 a couple of doors away from […]
8 April 2025
Leaving Changsha Today is a somewhat fragmented day where we can’t afford to have anything go wrong. And fortunately nothing did. In short, we move from Changsha to Zhangjiajie city where we would then do a dinner excursion to Furong ancient town, all by bullet train. I chose to have breakfast alone in my room […]
7 April 2025
Orange Island Changsha was meant to be a stop simply it was along the way. The main sight was Orange Island and even then, it was more iconic rather than a must-see. I did want to go to Dufu Pavilion if convenient but wasn’t keen on Mount Yuelu as we had many mountains ahead on […]
6 April 2025
Bullet train to Changsha Today we move on to Changsha by bullet train at 1126. With the station far away, we started around 0800 with breakfast at last night’s wonton shop. We had specially made an arrangement for them to open somewhat earlier for us. We took two separate cars to Wuhan station where everything […]
5 April 2025
Yellow Crane Pagoda E & BW had arrived late last night and despite the late night arrival, they were ready at 0830 to begin the day with breakfast at Hubu Alley before heading to Yellow Crane Pagoda. BW is fluent in Mandarin and can read. Until now, I was the best Mandarin speaker amongst us […]
4 April 2025
Qingchuan Pavilion With my bodyclock on New Zealand time, I woke at 0540, lazed around before having breakfast of muesli and coffee (from the machine in the lobby). I arranged to meet KL & M at 0900 downstairs before going out to explore Wuhan. First up, we took a car to Qingchuan Pavilion. There we […]
3 April 2025
Continuing to Wuhan On the flight from Auckland to Haikou, I had about 4h30 sleep then sat with my eyes closed for a further 1h30. We landed about an hour earlier than the scheduled time of 0500. Immigration at Haikou was super-fast. KL & M had missed the arrival cards on the plane as they […]
9 January 2025
Continuing on the road After lunch in the Whanganui, we continued our drive to New Plymouth, getting to the Devon Hotel around 1730. Driving through town in search of dinner, we came across the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery / Len Lye Centre with its impressive mirror-finished exterior. We took dinner at a Korean fried chicken and […]
9 January 2025
It was about 1000 when we started our drive leaving Wellington. The car performed well, with Kim doing most of the driving to Whanganui where we stopped to visit friends Michelle and Colin. They live on Durie Hill overlooking the city, by the War Memorial tower. The suburb is served by a 66m elevator since […]
9 January 2025
Above: Mt Taranaki on the flight from Auckland to Wellington. Landing at 0910, we were met by David, the seller of the Lexus ES300H. I was surprised that he had parked and came into the terminal for us, holding a rose. At his age, maybe 80, I expected him to pick us up at the […]