Category Archives: food

Africa, engineering, food, history, travel, vehicles

Pyramids!

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With the overnight flight and the immediately-after day trip to Alexandria to recover from, most of Christmas Eve was spent doing so with a lot of sleeping, eating and reading.  The evening trip to the Pyramids was another add-on, but with the logic of “I’m not likely to be here again in a hurry” it was a bit of a no-brainer to hand over a few more Egyptian pounds.

Six of us went along and I got my first taste of Cairo traffic – more on that later. The result was that we missed the first, English, sound & light show that night and after a short tea stop we went to the Italian version of the show – luckily we had the English version on small radios.  This was the closest I had been yet to the Pyramids & Sphinx and the various lighting made them a spectacular sight – not that they aren’t usually, but there’s something different about it being dark all around.  The audio of the show went some way to describe the story behind these huge structures and some of their features which was good, but not nearly as wonderful as sitting marvelling at the age and immensity of the achievement.  Decent photos were difficult with a phone and a point & shoot – mostly because by the time one realised that the particular lights and colours were good for a shot, they had changed.

It wasn’t too early a start to Christmas Day – especially compared to those no doubt sharing houses with excitable early-rising children.  Meeting after breakfast, it was our first time together as the whole tour group.  With this being my first multi-day tour, I prefer to travel independently but wasn’t really keen on that for Egypt in its current situation (hindsight supports that decision), I was well pleased to see that there were only ten of us on the tour – a nice small group.  Hesham, our guide for the week, took us through some of the points about being tourists in Egypt and what would be happening on the tour before we loaded on the bus (one of the many small ones we would use for the week).  Riding along with and shadowing us for the day was our guest from the Ministry of Tourism – an unobtrusive guard keeping a sub-machine gun well hidden beneath his jacket.

With the traffic markedly better than the previous night it wasn’t long before we were in the parking lot and feeling pleased with our fortune at travelling to Egypt at this particular time.  With all the upheaval in the last two years, tourism is well down in the country (Cairo hotels are only running at six percent occupancy!) and the industry is hurting.  But this was our gain as there were very few people, comparatively, at all the sights we went to; no where was this more noticeable than at the Pyramids which were going on for deserted.  The downside of this is that the vendors selling tat (souvenirs) really have to work hard to make a sale – some found this a little overwhelming, but dark glasses with eyes front, hands in pockets, not uttering a word or giving an opening worked well for me.

I digress, I was thrilled to see the only remaining wonder of the ancient world (they really don’t look like they are going anywhere in a hurry) and get up to close to the many large limestone blocks that had been hauled and positioned four and a half millennia ago.  We had plenty of time to wander around and take photos and avoid the vendors in the sunshine.  Although a lot warmer and drier than the UK, it wasn’t ever too hot – as you can see by the icebreaker sleeves in the photos below.

Beside the Great Pyramid/Pyramid of Cheops, mandatory wearing of Christmas presents. Thanks Adele – & yes, that is a sheep driving a Massey Ferguson tractor.

Looking towards the second pyramid, Pyramid of Khafre, which still has some of the smooth outer layer at the peak

Most of us went down a very steep staircase and then up another to get to the centre of the Pyramid of Khafre. Despite the mildness outside, all that limestone really holds the heat – it was really hot in there

Panoramic photostop

Much time spent holding, pushing, lifting pyramids. Guide Hesham & Radley; unfortunately none of the efforts on my camera really worked out

Camel riding – that was a bit of fun for three quid. All the handlers/herders/whatever were good fun & took plenty of photos

A brief visit to the Sphinx and funerary temple beside it

We headed south to see some pyramids earlier in the evolutionary chain, this one a step pyramid and another bent pyramid

Back at the hotel in Giza after a most excellent day looking at many pyramids, big and small, there was enough time for a shower each before heading to the Giza train station for the overnight sleeper train five hundred odd kilometres south to Luxor.  I was initially due to go on the, separate, seater train overnight but decided a bit of extra money was worth it for something resembling sleep and extra security.  It was just as well we left in plenty of time for the station as the twenty kilometre (12 mile) trip took us close to an hour and a half in what has to be some of the worst traffic everywhere.  Strangely, fuel is heavily subsidised bringing the cost down to about twelve US cents per litre (!) – this just adds to the traffic woes as an over-abundance of vehicles compete for position on worn out, unmarked and unsigned roads.  This chaos does lead to some great sights though – best of the trip being the passenger standing on the front bumper/fender of a large lorry/truck cleaning the windscreen as the vehicle drove on; absolutely nuts.  After an hour or so the traffic thinned, about the time we drove past the massive crack running down the length of part of the elevated highway.

We all managed to make it to our cabins and settled in for some food and a bit of sleep.

Train food is not all that different to plane food

The only part of the train that made me feel like I might be in an Agatha Christie novel

city, Europe, food, history

Dublin

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The drive to the airport was considerably shortened by choosing Southampton instead of Gatwick for a weekend away – however that was largely undone by an afternoon of fog cascading delays through the evening. Nevertheless, I made it into Dublin in good time to settle into my room & have a brief wander around Temple Bar & over and alongside the Liffey.  The slightly cooler air necessitated a winter coat & beanie/toque, but it was hardly uncomfortably cold.

My airbnb host had previously sent me a useful Google map with places to visit/eat/drink around the city.  Immediately catching my eye was small the eatery named Brendan’s close by that apparently served the best full Irish breakfast in the city – for those working at the adjacent produce market.  It was a good meal to get me fuelled for a day wandering – & I got to meet a fellow Brendan.  It was a little strange being in Ireland for the first time & seeing my first name plastered in all sorts of places (it’s an Irish name if you haven’t joined those dots yet).  Along with the coffee shop, there was St Brendan’s Hospital and then a minor character with the same name popped up in the book I was reading.

My first encounter with an Irish accent that completely bamboozled me was here

I found Dublin a great city to wander around and get glimpses of a long and varied history.  Unsurprisingly, a lot of this was to do with rebellions and struggles.  I spent a good hour or so at the National Museum at Collin’s Barracks where there was an intriguing exhibit detailing all the various places Irish have fought around the world.  It seemed to me that there were Irish fighting in most of the major conflicts around the world in the centuries before WWII, even when it seemingly had nothing to do with them.  Either they’re always spoiling for a fight, they liked to fight oppressors or were just looking to be somewhere else.  I was puzzled that the republic refrained from sticking it to one of the biggest oppressors in WWII, but by then I suppose they had their independence & didn’t fancy all the bombing.

Wishing I had a wider angle or could get a bit further from Collin’s Barracks

The most interesting place I found to visit during my stay was Kilmainham Gaol a little west of the city centre.  Entry was by guided tour, but it was only six euros & it would have still been good value at twice the price.  The building itself wasn’t particularly interesting, but the endless self-deprecating stories told of failed rebellion after failed rebellion were fascinating.  It was rather chilling, & not just from the mid-afternoon gloom & wind, standing in the windowless courtyard where the key figures from the 1916 Easter Rising were executed.  Obviously, that rebellion was also pretty rubbish & mass support for the independence movement only really got going after the harsh punishment handed out in that cheerless stone enclosure.

The Victorian addition to Kilmainham Gaol

General Post Office – one of the key buildings seized during the Easter Rising

It turns out that that famous stout does taste better in Dublin.  It may be accentuated by my only previous Guinnesses were consumed on the other side of the world, where all that shipping may have done something to it.  Still, it was good fun (somewhat surreal) sitting in a neighbourhood bar nursing a pint, reading Rebus and explaining the differences between Kindles & tablets to a guy setting up the karaoke whom I could hardly understand.  Dublin sure is not short of bars & pubs (I saw quite a few claiming to be the oldest around) – that is to be expected; but oddly, almost as plentiful as watering holes are convenience stores and, even more bizarrely, American diners.

Sunday was spent walking around a lot – two walking tours probably contributed to that.  The guides were excellent, with gentle ribbing of the hated English and yet more stories of disastrous attempts at overthrowing the rulers.  The intervening pub lunch was interesting – I quickly saw why a potato blight would lead to an awful famine.  I ordered Irish stew – the first guy behind the carvery put a healthy serving of mashed potato on my my plate & then covered it with stew.  The next guy then loaded more mash on & then thought I could do with four pieces of baked potato as well.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so much potato in my life, & I didn’t even finish it all.

The oldest part of Dublin Castle – the tower at the back

The filled in bit where the black pool (the literal meaning of Dublin) used to be beside the castle. The River Poddle still runs underneath – what a great name

The weird bit of Dublin Castle – it’s only a castle, why not use vivid primary & secondary colours? Bare stone is so last century

Of course, no visit to this city could be complete without visiting the Guinness factory.  Well, the Storehouse which is quite the behemoth of an old building surrounded by the still working factory.  With seven, or so, industrially-sized floors there’s plenty of space for all the necessary visitor experience bits & bobs.  There were quite a few old industrial artefacts – even older than some of the stuff we’ve got at work, hard to believe as it is.  Getting to pour, & then hastily consume, my own perfect pint I then had to dash off to walk across town, get my bag & head to the airport.  No time for dinner that night, just as well all that spud meant I wasn’t hungry or in need of a meal.

So a very good weekend in Dublin & I think I got a good overview of Irish history – I now look forward to visiting other counties, perhaps some of the southern ones.

city, engineering, Europe, food, history, travel

Ravenna & Venice

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Barely having recovered from the exhausting journey back from NZ, I was off to Italy less than a week after getting home.  It was a little odd going back to work after NZ & having all sorts of people telling me I was going to visit one of our sister plants for a week to see how they operate their similar plant better.  It was a very productive, informative & interesting week spent with my boss & workmate as the Italian process engineers showed us around and gave us plenty of ideas to try out back at Hythe.  For the most part, the language difference wasn’t a problem as most, except some operators, spoke reasonable English; Steve (my boss) knows quite a bit of Italian & Henry (workmate) knows a little – I of course only know the tiny amount I remember from previous Italian trips.

Ravenna is a very nice little city (~160000) & fortunately we were staying close to the centre – so it was very easy to walk around town on the warm evenings.  We didn’t have a lot of time to see some of the renowned early-church mosaics (eight UNESCO World Heritage sights to be seen), but Henry & I managed to see a couple once Steve had gone back to England early.  Of course, being Italy, the food was fantastic & as the capital of Romagna region we were able to sample quite a bit of the local food & wine.

The SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber) plant was on a huge industrial site, a similar size to the Port Kembla Steelworks – but with more space dedicated to plant, rather than stockpiles. There were an incredible number of bicycles and small Fiats all around to save much walking.  There was an appropriately sized canteen, where the lunches were bountiful & cheap.  Perhaps I ate too much pasta last week.

It wasn’t too difficult to get my return flight pushed out by two days so that I could have a free day exploring somewhere else in Italy.  Conveniently, Venice is on my list and only a short, cheap train ride away from Ravenna.  I rolled in Friday evening & then had a twenty minute walk rolling my cases along a lot of cobbles and carrying them over many bridges.  The end of September is a good time to visit: it’s warm, but not hot; the famous stink wasn’t there; and the crowds are tolerable.

But what an absolute nuts city – built on (& sinking into) the water, it’s just mad.  Being so flat, it’s a very easy city to walk around & get to the main sights & even outlying neighbourhoods – pre-cached maps on one’s phone really help in not getting lost in the labyrinth (the GPS signal was surprisingly strong in such skinny streets surrounded by tall stone buildings).  While I expected no cars, the lack of bikes took a little more to get used to – especially after the proliferation of bikes in Ravenna.

Grand Canal

Rialto Bridge

St Mark’s Campanile

As usual, I walked an awful lot around the city popping in to a few of the famous buildings & museums – Scuola Grande di San Rocco (filled with huge Tintorettos – said to be his Sistine Chapel) was my favourite.  The Jewish Quarter was nice & quiet, but then so were a lot of the neighbourhoods away from the Grand Canal & associated crowds.

Somewhere along the way I stumbled across some sort of musical museum, so I took a peek and learnt all sorts about Vivaldi – I didn’t know he was from Venice.  But that’s not surprising as I am musically ignorant.  Which makes it even stranger that I somehow ended up at a concerto that night in a packed hall listening to (what seemed to me, at least) an incredible string recital.  It can’t have been just me that thought so as the applause was prolonged – they came back three times just to bow and another two times for encores.  Most of the evening was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which as well as being brilliant kept on fooling me into thinking that another summer of NZ cricket was here – thanks National Bank.

So that two hours of the four violins, a viola, a cello (the cellist was particularly exuberant and highly entertaining), a double bass & a harpsichord turned out to be the highlight of Venice for me.  A great place to visit, but with so much stone, so many people, no grass & few trees I don’t think it’s a city I could spend much more than a few days at a time in.

bikes, city, family, food, friends, MTB, NZ, travel

NZ Visit – Northern Week

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Ben & Gina’s upcoming wedding finally provided me with the motivation to spend considerable money & annual leave to return home to New Zealand for a brief visit. I was a little concerned that a wedding at the end of winter would mean that I would have a rather cold & gloomy visit home.  I need not have worried, it was a generally stunning & warm fortnight – especially after all the prior rain I was told about.

I had planned for my inbound flight to arrive on my birthday – much better than the other option of missing one’s thirtieth through time zone changes – & was very pleased that favourite sister, Adele, made it all the way up for the night’s celebrations.  After picking up the rental car & navigating new roads, we made it to Mt Eden.  Andrew & Shelley’s house (they have returned to NZ after many years in London – the latter few during which I spent a fair bit of time with them) was in a fair state of disarray as the kitchen area was gutted for next week’s new kitchen.  It was a gorgeous & warm day to head up Mt Eden with a good old steak & mushroom pie to catch some views of Auckland.

We decided a local B&B was a much better option for sleep than a rather crowded lounge next to a (de)construction site – so after a jet-lag induced nap, it was time to wander up the road to Mt Eden Village & the bar where I’d organised a small gathering to see a lot of people at once.  I recommend having a birthday when visiting home – it’s a good excuse to get everyone together.  A most enjoyable night catching up with many old friends – a little odd for me being the only one that knew everyone else & therefore having to actually mingle & talk to everyone, imagine that!  Was my usual slack self at taking pictures of people, but pretty pleased with this one.

Another clear morning was enough excuse to wander around Mission Bay with Adele in the sun, before having lunch with cousin David & dropping Adele at the airport.  Straight down to Waihi Beach & the farm, where strangely Rosemary & the children were missing (gone to Te Puke).  While Dave continued milking the cows, I had another big nap before a bit of a boys night eating well too much down in the village before returning to watch the All Blacks.

Sunday Brunch with catching up with Tori & Greg down at the Mount before strolling along Main Beach reminiscing (my first school is not too far away).

Up in to the hills behind Tauranga to check out Bruce & Sue’s new property (they’ve recently moved from Pukekohe) before taking the back roads in to Te Puke for another gathering/birthday celebration. It seems plenty of kids have arrived since I left, there were almost as many children running around as there were adults (not running around) that evening.  Penny excelled in the cake department, yet again, & there was the general abundance of food that comes from a good Te Puke shared dinner.

I’ve just realised that the rest of the week continued in the same way – I drove a fair bit & saw scores of close friends & family.  I’m still tired from the return flights & going straight back to work, so it’s to the highlights we go.

I was thrilled that my first bike ride post-shoulder operation was in the Redwoods & on my singlespeed that I haven’t ridden for over three years (I brought it back with me, it’s now assembled & awaiting Thursday’s after work ride).  A relatively easy ride which the shoulder & legs handled admirably.

More Auckland outings with Shelley & Amelie in the sun, plenty of good food too.  By the end of the week, I’d seen that Auckland is actually quite a nice city – if you can get down to the water.

From Devonport

Auckland City from Devonport

Rangitoto from Devonport

Other good visits included a return to Ironmaking at NZ Steel; Pukekohe visits to my old flat; and a coal dinner.  The wedding was down south of Hamilton on a vineyard (who knew there were such things in the Waikato?) halfway through my visit.  It was just warm enough for the service to be outside (but that’s easy to say when you wore a jacket & weren’t one of the ones with bare shoulders). It was a super sweet service & most excellent to see two close friends clearly so happy; the food & cake wasn’t bad either.

One last stop before the South Island was necessary in Wellington to see Elizabeth, Nigel & recent-addition Cara. I’ve not been more thrilled on hearing a friend was expecting a first child as I was when Elizabeth told me she was pregnant, so there was much delight in catching up with this expanding family. In what seems to be a common thread of these visits, the food was once again scrumptious.