They're off? No, that's off

Well, I was going to write about the Melbourne Cup today and whinge about how the Aussies stole Phar Lap, and about seeing his hide at the museum in Melbourne, and his skeleton in Te Papa in Wellington, and how everything shuts down in Oz for the race, and how big it is here too, and even perhaps referencing Makybe Diva at Port Lincoln in South Australia - but I've done all that before, as no doubt you well remember. So instead here's another coincidence.

Months ago I was nailed to this very sofa painfully putting together a story about Queenstown restaurants (without having been to most of them) for Vacations & Travel magazine, an Australian-based publication. When it eventually came out, they sent me a pdf but not a hard copy of the magazine (tch - black mark) and I tried to buy one but couldn't find it. Then, travelling home from Viet Nam, I came across it in a bookshop in Singapore Airport, but didn't have any local currency to pay for it.

So today I put my faith in a little magazine-only shop in Takapuna, and there it was. With, on the cover, a view of Halong Bay that was instantly familiar. Just as well really, because the photo wasn't labelled anywhere - nor, oddly, was there a story inside about Viet Nam, although I found a couple of references to the Mekong hidden inside a story about river cruises (which I could have written for them from personal experience, pft). It's a bit naughty, I think - though understandable, as the view from high up at the exit from Surprise Grotto really is cover-worthy. Why, I even took a snap of it myself.