Bem vindo a Portugal!

There are worse ways, I guess, to spend a sunny Sunday than sprawled in Emirates’ business class watching movies – but I’m glad the journey’s over at last and we’re finally here in Portugal. We swooped in low over Lisbon’s cathedrals and its hills clad with tiled roofs and headed straight out of town to the north-east, into the region of Alentejo, which we’re already learning is Portugal’s forgotten land: less well-known, less glamorous than the Algarve where most tourists (especially the English) go. So it’s quiet and rural, unspoiled and very pretty: connoisseur country.

We drove through rolling countryside where huge boulders lay like sleeping elephants amongst the olive and cork trees, through small villages where mostly old people lived, sitting on benches in the sun or standing at doorways keeping an eye on things. Up on the hills there are forts, built for repelling all the invaders who have swept through here during the last couple of thousand years or so: stone-walled with watch-towers and battlements, above a sprawl of white houses. We visited one, Marvao, driving through the narrow and carefully-designed offset gateways (the stone full of scrape-marks, ouch) into the tangle of little cobbled lanes. In a hurry, as ever, I leaped up flights of steps to the top where there was a long view over the countryside from a lovely parterre garden with a fountain just below the castle – beautiful in the evening sunshine.

And then we went (eventually) to dinner, to eat generous proportions of peasant food: chorizo, venison, pork and hare, all tender and tasty and some of it boiling hot, literally, served with heaps of carbs: clearly we won’t be wasting away here. Nearly every dish, including puddings, includes bread, so this is no place for the gluten-free fusspots. We even got the recipe for our dessert, a sweet and delicious almond-based dish called Golden Soup. Yum. And then our driver, Antonio, who’s solicitous and keen to please (and who enjoyed the dinner even more than we did, scoring several souvenir “medals" of drips on his red tie) whisked us back along the dark winding road to bed, finally.

Small city, small world

Had I realised I would be photographing my bag today, I would have taken the fancy cork one I bought in Portugal and not my battered old faithful. So disregard its tatty lack of style and focus instead on the rectangle of carpet beneath it: "a shag for your bag" our cheerful waiter said, as he went around the table putting down these little mats so our handbags needn't sit on the bare concrete of the terrace. What a sweet little touch! We were at Cibo for a long lunch hosted by Rail Europe, RailPlus and Switzerland Tourism, a jolly tableful of 8 pleased to be there on a balmy afternoon.

The food was interesting and delicious, with lots of unusual ingredients and combinations - like this chilled lettuce soup with prawns, tangy and refreshing, and leaving lots of room for the main course of scallops with dehydrated mandarin and other good things that the equally good pinot gris is preventing me from remembering. And then there was dessert: pavlova for which the Aussie in the group made no historical claim (he was outnumbered) with passionfruit sorbet, and other small sweet treats.

Although we were on the other side of the city from the Tourism Tasmania event two of us attended the previous evening, our hosts from that were at the next table, which made the travel business seem a very small world in Auckland. And so it is - though you can hardly claim the same about LA, which makes it extra astonishing that one of today's group, while being driven around there in a bus, spotted another of the group walking along the footpath, there on a separate trip. Now that was amazing - and so, on reflection, was the fact that anyone was using their feet to get about that car-focused city.

Pride and prejudice

A sea of young heads, capped and full of knowledge, ideas and enthusiasm: it's a hopeful and reassuring sight, even if some of the higher science degrees and diplomas awarded yesterday by Auckland University were for research that was either so esoteric that the description seemed in another language, or so down-to-earth it was hard to get excited. Apples seemed to feature rather a lot; though the woman who got hers in "wine science" caused a ripple of enthusiasm amongst some of the audience.

It was a shame that the drought had broken so dramatically that the traditional parade of graduands through the central city was cancelled for only the third time in 80 years: it's always a lovely sight, the students so pleased and proud and endearingly self-conscious in their robes and hoods, the procession accompanied by a fluttering of equally pleased and proud parents. All so different from the last time I saw students on the streets en masse: at the beginning of the academic year in Evora, Portugal.

The young people parading then weren't pleased or proud, though the older students lording it over them were very smug and self-satisfied, as well as rather sadistic. It's tradition, it seems, to humiliate the new entry, so the black-robed third-years were herding the newbies round in groups, having made them dress up in embarrassing outfits, and stopping them periodically to make them chant or sing or do silly things. I suppose having had it all happen to them made it easy for the seniors to inflict it on the next intake, but I did feel sorry for the unhappy-looking victims, many of whom wouldn't have known anyone else and perhaps were in a city for the first time. It felt unkind, even though it was probably meant, in its distant origins, to instil a sense of solidarity amongst the first-years. It seemed mean-spirited, and out of place in a lovely city with an especially beautiful university.

Power play and other disappointments

Borba is a marble town, and I strolled around it early this morning watching the sun warm it up as it rose high enough to shine down into the narrow lanes. It’s not just the churches and statues that are marble: so are the cobbles, the kerbs, door sills, window surrounds… it seems very profligate, but here it’s just the local building material, and it certainly gives the place a glow. It helps that it’s a morning ritual for the women to mop their doorsteps and leave them clean and shiny.

At Evora it’s the same: marble everywhere from the Roman temple to Diana, the ancient churches and cathedral, the palace, the university founded by the Jesuits (16^th century lecture rooms with 19^th century blackboards, 20^th century overhead projectors and 21^st century students) down to the patterned cobbles in Giraldo Square. It’s a World Heritage place and if that makes it sound worthy but perhaps a little dull, it’s also a lively town. It's full of course of tourists providing the main industry, but it’s lived-in too, and today the students were making a feature of themselves. It’s the start of the new academic year, and in most of Portugal it’s traditional to begin it with a ritual humiliation of the first-years by the third-years. The seniors are dressed in black suits and ties, with black cloaks trailing behind them, and groups of them take junior classes hostage and parade them around the town, making them chant and sing, hold hands and dress up, and end by ‘baptising’ them in the town fountain. Though some of the groups we saw seemed cheerful, others were not enjoying the experience at all – youngsters away from home for the first time, surrounded by strangers, and then made to do embarrassing things. It wasn’t kind.

Nor, on the face of it, was the chapel lined and decorated with bones and skulls: 5,000 skulls, in fact, and uncountable femurs and other bones, arranged in patterns on the walls and ceiling. It seems so disrespectful to treat human remains as design features, but the idea was apparently to demonstrate to the rich worshippers, who were the only people allowed into churches inside the city wall, that everyone is the same underneath, with the same fate awaiting. Above the door, it read “We bones that are inside, we are waiting for yours.” It’s a novel twist on socialism.

Only connecting

“Tibby… proceeded into the dining room to eat Elvas plums.” Today’s connection is especially random. Here I am, in Rarotonga on actual holiday, with time for reading which I’m using to revisit Howards End, having chanced across the movie on TV recently – and what do I find in Chapter 8, but a passing reference to Elvas, an ancient walled city in Alentejo in Portugal, which I explored just a week ago, never having heard of the place before (apart from apparently reading that sentence in 1975 and, pre-Google, not being bothered enough to look it up). By the way, Forster would never have dreamed of writing such an unwieldy sentence as that, in all his life.

That Elvas is known for its plums was not touched on during our visit, curiously, given the intense food-focus of the famil. We went there after yet another long, long lunch in another town, when the conversation was entirely about the dishes (“ad nauseum”, I grimly noted at the time) and trailed about the cobbles after an eager guide who was anxious that we should learn all about the town’s history of defence. The walls are certainly striking, built in consecutive star-shaped sets, making Elvas a World Heritage site because of its fortifications: it’s only 10km from Spain, so there’s been a lot of argy-bargy here over the last couple of millennia. I’m guessing that if I ever re-entered my Bernard Cornwell Sharpe phase I’d find it featured  there too. Elvas has “seven bulwarks, four half-bulwarks and a redan connected to each other with curtain walls” if you were wondering. What that means is that it’s simply spectacular from the air, where the shape of the city walls and its outlying forts are clear to see.

On the ground, they’re still impressive, but even better I reckon is the Amoreira Aqueduct, which is 8km long and up to 30m high right beside the town: that’s four levels of arches in creamy limestone – beautiful and amazing, the product of 90 years’ work from 1537 – and which I didn’t get to photograph or even properly look at (we just drove past it without stopping) because of that blasted food writer getting lost at the previous town and making us late. I feel like fasting just to spite her; but instead I’ll go for the massage that the Pacific Resort people have kindly given me a voucher for, and try my damndest to stay awake this time.

Bon appetit

Now, I've just cleared up the kitchen and dining room after an evening hosting a family dinner that took all afternoon to prepare and felt almost like Christmas. It was fun though, and the food - though I says it myself - was very tasty, the creamy potato and apple-layered baked dish that I copied from one I tasted when I was in Portugal being a particular success. I have to admit, though, that it wasn't a patch on the dinners we were served in our up-country homestay in Viet Nam on our World Expeditions Rocky Plateau tour.

It was, however, much more comfortable, sitting on padded chairs at a proper table instead of sprawled awkwardly on the hard floor alongside a table literally nine inches high. Totally unable, in our useless Western way, to either cross our legs for more than five minutes or to squat flat-footed, we propped ourselves up somehow, legs all over the place, feet poking up in inconvenient places. It's testament to the deliciousness of the food that the discomfort mattered not at all, as we eagerly worked our way through the usual assortment of plates of pork and beef and rice and crispy vegetables and rice: so hot and fresh and yummy, healthy and filling and tasty. In this photo it looks a bit sparse, but it was honestly a feast, after a day spent hiking up and down hills and grappling with slippery steep paths through the rice paddies.

My kitchen's fitted out with a fancy oven and microwave and fridge and dishwasher and hot running water and double sink and so on. Theirs had a double gas burner, a stack of enamel bowls on the floor, a tap, and very little else. It's kind of embarrassing, how much better their food was than mine. All I've got going in my favour is the pork crackling - which was magnificent tonight, believe me.

These are Isaac Davison's photos, by the way: thanks for that, Isaac. If I could offer you another half-finished drink, I would.

Eccentric Sintra

If you're building yourself a summer palace, you might as well go the whole hog, and back in 1840 King Ferdinand designed himself a Romantic fantasy with Germanic thoroughness. In a town where every building is a self-indulgent riot of towers, turrets and tiles - it's Portmeirion, for real - the Palacio da Pena is literally top of the heap. At the end of a winding cobbled road through an extensive English woodland garden, it grows out of the rock on top of the crag like something you'd see in Disneyland. We were assured that all this architectural extravagance was paid for with the king's own money - though that's hardly the same thing as being earned by honest toil.

Every square inch is decorated, with tiles, relief work, paint and carvings: lions, dogs, crocodiles, birds, plants and patterns. It looks like nothing so much as a playground for grown-ups, and it really is a delight, every room bringing some new astonishment. One struck me before we'd even entered: seeing cabbage trees and flax planted around the gateway, an odd sight against such an exotic backdrop - although for Ferdinand, and European visitors, of course it was the other way around, with the New Zealand native plants being the exotic feature. Inside, in pride of place in a courtyard with tiles and pillars, is their most treasured plant: a tree fern growing in a stone shell with tortoise feet. It's a young plant, but the original was placed there by Ferdinand himself - he built up a collection of 2000 plants from around the world in his garden.

It was the second palace we saw today, the first being the Palacio Nacional down the hill, which is even more grand, though we had to hurtle through it as, once again, we were running late. It's been the theme of this trip, and one of its greatest frustrations. Portugal is simply too good to rush, but that (apart from all those interminable meals) is exactly what I've been doing for the past five days - and now I have to leave.

T to Z - the end, finally (when else?)

For my final cheat, from the future (ie exactly four years later, on the day when I have taken my first sea swim of the summer) here is the end of the alphabet list, started so very long ago (but points, please, for being so conscientious/anal about completing it).

T for 30,000 feet: We went decimal here in NZ way back in 1968, but there’s no way aeroplane cruising height would ever sound right in metres. And there’s also no way anything to do with flying has ever been ordinary for me, even when I was zipping all over the place, sometimes with trips back-to-back; and even when I was cramped in economy, in the middle seat, with big men hogging the arm rests each side - though, obviously, turning left or, better still, entering over a higher air bridge, to be wafted to my own personal space was infinitely preferable. But wherever my seat was located, gazing out of the window down 30,000ft to countries so far below, or even just the sea, or clouds, was a miracle I never tired of.

U for Ushuaia: As in, “Where’s that? I’ve never heard of it”. It’s a big category now, of odd places I’ve been sent on famils; and if you add in the ones I’d only vaguely heard of, and others I knew of but had never thought of visiting - well, that’s my entire travel-writing career, right there. And that, of course, is/was the joy of it. Easter Island, Antarctica, Iceland, Cape Cod, Galapagos, Shanghai, Rwanda, Portugal, Tiwi Islands, North Vietnam, Jaipur, Skye… so many wonderful destinations I would never have thought of visiting, wafted there and shown around, connecting, everything done for me - fabulous. What luck. I am so grateful.

V for Vienna: As in, never got there, sigh. Nor Tuscany, Neuschwanstein, Switzerland, Spain, and many other obvious places that you’d just assume any decent travel writer would have gone to. Mea culpa. Well, not really mine, but there you go. But I did tick off 60 countries, which is at least a satisfyingly round number.

W for WiFi: How wonderful that this now-indispensable part of daily life did become available wherever I went, for free! In the early days, though, it was rare, and SO expensive, and limited, and slow and unreliable, and often only to be found in a hotel’s lobby. Talk about primitive! But now it’s everywhere, even on planes, so there’s no excuse not to be in touch, not to file work, not to be able to find out anything… Hm, may you get what you want, eh? Classic curse.

X for X-ray: It’s astonishing to be able remember flying before X-rays were an unavoidable part of the process of boarding an aeroplane - but it wasn’t really that long ago. Unibomber ring a bell, anyone? And then of course 9/11 brought in the body scanner. It’s a chore, certainly, queuing with the hand luggage, and always annoying when people ahead of you don’t know the drill, or just forget. But as for setting off the scanner, for me - never. In compensation, though, I’m always picked out for the bag explosives sniffer. It happened so often that I asked once, why? And, as suspected, the sniffer person admitted it’s because I look amenable/accommodating/meek and unlikely to give them a hard time. Hijackers, take note.

Y for Yum: Food. In my day-to-day life it’s mostly just a tiresome necessity, nothing more than fuel - but on my hosted visits to so many countries it was an immensely important part of each day’s itinerary. Of course I was served some weird stuff - huhu grubs, green ants, coconut crab, guinea pig - but also fabulously delicious dishes, beautifully cooked and presented, with carefully-selected wines, all consumed with good company at the end of a colourful day. “My mouth is watering now” is a frequently-repeated sentence I’ve used here, writing about yet another chef’s triumph.Or even just Dat Dog’s loaded fries, in New Orleans.

Z for Zealand, as in New: Though I have met a few people on my travels who have never heard of my country, it’s very much less the case these days. We take pride in punching above our weight, and the world is better off for us in many ways - electric fence, disposable syringe, jogging, the flat white and pavlova (shut up, Aussies) and much, much more, big and small. We have certainly been discovered now, and have more nationalities living here than just about anywhere else. There are still only about 5 million of us, though, in a country with an area bigger than the UK. So we have it all: big cities, little towns, lots of empty space for exploring, and just about every sort of scenery you could name (Outback excepted), unspoilt and SO beautiful. I’ve travelled a lot (proof? You’re reading it) and I am deeply sorry that all that seems to have been brought to an end, through no fault of my own - but if I have to be stuck anywhere? New Zealand/Aotearoa is the place to be.

Homeward bound

So here I am, back on the A380-800, upstairs, ensconced finally in what I knew would be my favourite seat out of the four trips I’ve made on this aircraft: 11A. The number’s not so important – in fact, smaller would be better as it would make me just a bit further in front of the wing – but the A is because it’s the window seat. There’s one on the other side, obviously, but left has always been good to me, view-wise.

 

Today, leaving Dubai after six, count them, hours kicking my heels in the Business lounge of the long white slug that is Dubai Airport – a new and shiny slug, that is, amazing in both the sheer numbers of people swirling about inside, and the miles you have to walk to get to your gate – during which I snacked, showered, surfed and snoozed, and even found a copy of the NZ Herald, the view was of the city as we circled round the Burj Khalifa. On the right, I could have seen the Palm and The World artificial islands, but the BK and I have a thing going on now. It was fun to see it from above this time.

It was 7+ hours from Lisbon to Dubai, and it’ll be the best part of 13 to Sydney; there’s about an hour on the ground there, and then it’s another 2½ home to Auckland. We were often asked in Portugal how long our journey had been to get there, and when they guessed, they thought 10 hours sounded sufficiently epic; so they were to a man blown away when we said it amounted to more than a day. Apparently, though, it’s common for lottery winners there to nominate NZ and Australia as their dream destinations, so the urge to set out on a great voyage of discovery is clearly still an important element of the modern Portuguese psyche.

There’s no need to do a Vasco da Gama any more, of course: it’s far easier these days, especially courtesy of Emirates Business class, tucked away here in my private little enclosure surrounded by shiny blonde walnut veneers, a nice big screen with a huge library of entertainment and information, my own mini bar, lots of cubby holes to stow my gear, and an almost-flat bed with a cotton mattress. There’s also the bar down the back, though I reckon that’s really just a novelty. But, wonder of wonders, there’s wifi, which I’ll use now to upload this post, just for the novelty of it, even though I’ll have to – gasp – pay for it: a whole US$5 for 30MB. Appalling.

UPDATE: Wifi there and connectible, but that’s as far as it went, disappointingly. I knew that some airspaces didn’t allow it, but though I tried periodically, nothing worked on this journey, tch. So this is coming to you from Sydney – after crossing over the city, harbour, bridge and Opera House, all on the left. QED.

2012, wrapped up

The most remarkable thing about this year is that I didn't go to Australia. (I'm still feeling that I've used Oz up - although I'd be happy to be proved wrong. Anyone listening? Kimberley cruise, Kakadu, Maria Island, WA for the wildflower season...?) 

I did pass through, though, a number of times, on my way to more distant destinations; but my first travels this year were domestic, first to old favourite Waiheke Island, just across the harbour but in another zone entirely, ambience-wise. Beautiful, relaxing and laid-back, it never fails to please - even when the weather disappoints.

The weather gave us the runaround for the next trip, too: doing the Crater Lake walk on Ruapehu with the daughters - but after driving down there through thunder, lightning and torrential rain, the day of our ascent to and traverse along that precipitous crater rim was one of glorious sunshine that showed off the turquoise of the lake to great effect, while the cloud that came to swirl around beneath us made us feel like gods, on top of the world in both senses.

My Pavlovian addiction to checking my emails dozens of times a day was reinforced by an invitation popping up there in February to go on a LAN tour of South America. It was a wonderful circuit in a small but jolly group through Santiago to Buenos Aires, to the literally over-the-top spectacle of Iguassu Falls, to Lima where the food was a revelation, and then to Easter Island, which was very special and totally worth foregoing the Travcom/Cathay Pacific Media Awards (in which I was only Runner-Up, so, pft).

In April I began my longest trip yet, flying Etihad to Abu Dhabi, where the Grand Mosque was astonishing, though I could really have done without the sweaty nylon robe I had to wear. Next stop was France, for a glorious, fabulous cruise up the Rhone from Arles to Lyon and finishing at Chalon-sur-Saone. I do so love a river cruise, and Uniworld's River Royale was just perfect, with the best staff ever.


Then it was England for a wedding and old friends, and another cruise that didn't go so well, when I managed to dislocate my shoulder leaping off a boat in the Norfolk Broads. Ouch. But I soldiered on, fortunately joining an Insight coach tour of Eastern Europe for the next 3 weeks where I was very well looked after. It was all about history, war and architecture, subjects which would have bored me rigid in my youth, but which now I find deeply interesting. It helped too that on the way to starting the tour in Budapest, we'd called in at Zagan in Poland to visit the site of Stalag Luft III where my father had been a prisoner, which was a moving experience as well as being fascinating.




Home again after 5 weeks away, I was anchored to the sofa for the next three months, writing, writing, writing with a cat at each side and a dog at my feet. I popped down to Christchurch for a look at my sadly shaken hometown, and was both horrified and inspired by what I saw - the vast empty spaces, blowing with dust, and the cracks in everything; but also the optimistic spirit of the people I met, and their bright plans for the future.

September saw the start of another flurry of travel, beginning with flying with Emirates to Dubai again, where I went up to the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa, and on to Portugal for a scant 5 days mostly in the province of Alentejo where I loved the fortified hilltop villages, the gnarled olive trees, the sheep with bells on and the friendly people; but hated the food-focused itinerary and unprofessional behaviour of one of the small party.




Back home for one night, I was away again next day for a week of glorious relaxation in the Cook Islands, purely a holiday of lying about, sleeping in the sun (not recommended: the sunburn was epic and I still bear the unsightly tan-marks) and doing very little of anything. Stand-out was the day spent cruising on and wallowing in the WMBL (world's most beautiful lagoon) at Aitutaki - just perfect, in every way.

Then, four days later, I was off to North Viet Nam in another group which was lots of fun. We had a brilliant guide, Duke, who took us from Hanoi up into Ha Giang province for a homestay, a day's trekking through the paddy fields and villages, and a long drive into the Dong Van Karst Geopark, which was just brilliant: spectacular peaks, cute kids, colourful villages and a mind-blowing road. The traffic throughout was fascinating - even in Ha Long Bay out on the water amongst those absurdly picturesque islands.



After a fun day out on the train down to Matamata for a look at the obsessive detail of Hobbiton, the year finished back on the sofa with, sadly, just the one cat now at my side. I've had 49 stories accepted for publication, about half of those in the NZ Herald, as well as writing around 30 blog entries for Air France and others for the Yahoo! website. I've been to lunches and dinners and a cooking class, learned how to take the top off a champagne bottle with a sabre, had massages, ridden a camel and a Segway, eaten insects as well as fabulous meals, and been given a huge and beautiful bouquet for my services to Australian tourism, having had over 100 stories published about that immense country. Ironic, or what?

It's been a good year and I've been to some amazing places, met lots of lovely people and written masses of stories (if you're interested in reading some of them, click on the links over there to the right). It's been busy, and tiring sometimes, but I've loved it and am looking forward to more of the, er, different: Alaska, maybe? Africa? Who knows - can't wait to find out. Watch this space!

Feeling stuffed

Not as in had it, but as in having it all. After months of famine, it's feast time again, publication-wise: last week stories in the Press on Monday, Herald on Tuesday and DomPost on Wednesday. And today two in the Herald, the prime spots of Page 3 (Samantha Fox territory!) and the central dps, as we in the trade call it. Double-page spread. Er, that makes it sound like Sam Fox again. I don't know why it works this way, but it always does. People start saying, "Are you still doing that travel writing thing?" and then, when there's been a flurry, swap to a slightly disparaging, "I keep seeing your name everywhere".

And the travel is the same. I had a South American tour at the end of March, followed by five weeks in Europe just a fortnight later - and then, nothing. For nearly four months. Nothing but sitting on the sofa with a cat at each elbow, tapping away day after day. But that famine's almost over now, too: next Friday I'm away to Portugal for 10 days, then back on a Sunday and off again on the Monday to the Cooks with scarcely enough time in between to wash my smalls. After that, back for four days and then away to Viet Nam for another 10 days - and that's October taken care of. Goodness knows how the cats will cope; and I'm a bit worried about myself to be honest. Plus I'll be spending my entire birthday on a plane. In Economy! Sob.

Thank goodness the one in the middle is an actual holiday: nothing to do but lie on the beach, snorkel, go on a boat trip across the world's most beautiful lagoon, eat, read and sleep. What a treat! The sort of thing, in fact, that's the whole purpose of all the stories I've been writing. Go away, take some time off, relax, experience something different. It's what ordinary people (that's you: no slight intended) do several times a year. I can't remember the last time I did that. It's going to be a real novelty. But first, I'm off with the notebook and camera, flying Business with Emirates on the A380 to Dubai again, and then Lisbon. Yay!

Next? Vancouver and Alaska

When people find out what I do, the first question they ask, once they've got the sudden flush of envy out of the way, is How do I arrange my trips? The answer's not straightforward, and their eyes are usually glazing over before I'm finished, so I really need to work on a snappier reply. I suppose it really just boils down to "I ask, or I'm offered".

The latter is the more exciting, just because it's usually unexpected - and that's why I'm addicted to checking my emails, trained like Pavlov's dog by every so often opening one that asks out of the blue if I'd like to go to Easter Island, or Portugal, or on a cruise.Who wouldn't find that thrilling? And well worth trawling through the oceans of spam. Mostly it's an invitation from a PR person or tourism rep to take part in a group famil - usually small, 2 to 6 others along on the trip - but sometimes it's just for me, which in its way is equally rewarding. While it's fun (usually) to be part of a group, it can be more productive sometimes to be on my own, because I interact more with the people I meet. The third variation is when I'm allowed to take a  companion, often when there's a self-drive element, or when it's the kind of experience (like a cruise) that sharing would enhance - not that I haven't rattled round alone in more than one honeymoon suite in my time.

The downside of that kind of trip is that there's little, if any, room to choose where or what - which makes the self-arranged junkets more personally satisfying. They are, though, a whole lot more work - and usually more expensive. Airlines aren't always accommodating, though hotels are, in both senses; and local tourism people are generally pretty helpful with suggestions, contacts and authorisation. It all takes a lot of research, though, emails back and forth, fitting things together, reading timetables, reviews, getting visas perhaps... So I'm very glad to have my own personal in-house travel agent, who likes nothing better than doing all that stuff, writing up the itinerary and building up a file of paperwork. Which leaves it to me - right now, as it happens - to tempt and nag and inveigle my editors to say they'll take the stories that are the basic currency of the whole set of transactions.

N to S - no, not north to south. Although...

Continuing my (plagiarised) travel connection journey through the alphabet, 4 years after I began it:

N: for Notebooks, which have been an essential part of my working travel trips, literally the start and the finish. It was (is? oh, how I still hope so) my smugly exciting ritual before departure to take a new 3B1 notebook from my drawer (bought in bundles at the beginning of the school year, when they are about 5c each), write the dates and destination on the front in bold black Sharpie, and inside the cover staple my business card, writing beneath it 'If lost, please return to...' But I never did, because it was even more valuable and irreplaceable than my photos. I scribbled notes in it every day of the trip, using abbreviations that, back home, foxed me completely, and referred to it constantly when writing up the stories. It's very satisfying to have an entire drawer full of them, even if they're far from being readable diaries.

O: for Orca, which have been a recurrent thread through so many of my trips. Not because they were always there, impressively big and powerful - but because they never were. Well, apart from a very distant sighting of a pod in Antarctica, which I could only see thanks to my telephoto lens. Not what anyone could call an encounter. No, though I have been to so many places where they hang out, from Friday and Vancouver Islands to the beach below this very house, despite spending often chilly hours scrunched up on various decks gazing out over the sea, I have never seen one. But I live in hope...

P: for People, because no matter how spectacular the scenery, impressive the architecture, enjoyable the activities, delicious the food, it's the people I've met who stick best in my memory. The lovely Suri in Thailand, who was SO keen to share the delights of her country, the cheerful ease with which Duke wafted us through Vietnam, friendly Miriam who popped up on three of our Silversea cruises, and ditto MC Moss who made Trivial Pursuit such fun. Barcin, in Turkey, effortlessly filled long hours on the coach with interesting and entertaining commentary, including details of his traditional circumcision, aged 9. Of course, guides are obliged to be charming, but it's easy to pick out the genuine ones, and these really were. Plus, of course, there are the random strangers I've met, who were uniformly friendly and helpful, and great ambassadors for their countries. All very reassuring.

Q: for Quadrupeds. Ok, it's a stretch, but bear with me. Actually, bears are one of the many animals that have given me pleasure, excitement and, yes, occasionally a bit of fear, on my travels. Besides that bear coming to stare at me in Yosemite, I've been up close and personal with rhinos, a dingo, a wombat, elephants, iguanas, monkeys, giraffes, koalas, a capybara, a tiger and a reindeer. Horses have given me huge amounts of pleasure; crocodiles have kept me from having refreshing swims; gorillas have amazed me; and harnessed dogs have whizzed me along at remarkable speeds. Animals are right up there with people, for me. (Sometimes, even higher.)

R: for Roads. I simply couldn't guess how far I've driven/been driven on travel trips. In coaches, cars and a couple of rugged trucks, I've done umpteen miles and rarely fallen asleep, simply because the life passing outside the window was so entertaining, the scenery so spectacular. Africa was best for the former, a literal roadshow with a cast of thousands; but following Australia's endlessly empty stretches of tarmac through red and blue scenery was mesmerising. England's A40 links bits of its best; winding through Portugal's ancient Alentejo was a visual (and edible) treat; and getting off the main roads in Vietnam was a delightful education. True, it's all fleetingly glimpsed through glass - but it's still worth it. That self-drive, though, from Lafayette to Avery Island and back again, on the wrong side of the road? Just terrifying.

S: for Sumptuous.  Despite being frugal by birth and upbringing, I can still enjoy a bit of luxury, and on many of my hosted famils, I sure have been treated. Cruises with Silversea jump into focus first - friendly opulence with butlers, bottomless champagne in the suite, rose petals floating in the bath, all staff knowing my name, fancy food, every need met... I was never a cruise fan, but Silversea won me over. My first cruise also included an introduction to Peninsula Hotels, and that was a revelation, too. Multi-room accommodation with a TV over the bath, everything super-elegant, plus being met airside at the airport and driven to the hotel in a Rolls-Royce - yeah, I can handle that. There have been plenty of other fancy hotels and lodges too, and flash restaurants. All good fun. I couldn't, for one moment, countenance actually coughing up my own money for such indulgence - but I hope my reviews have encouraged readers to do exactly that.

H to N (hears a who?)

[I’m actually writing this from the future. I started this post four years ago, and then got seriously distracted. I have no idea now what the title refers to - sounds vaguely Seussian, but who knows? Anyway, here we go.]

Continuing my copied-idea alphabet of travel associations/memories, today we begin at -

H: for Helicopters which, appropriately enough, summon both highs and a painful low. The low was meekly taking my seat in the middle with a professional photographer on one side with his huge camera, and a fat guy on the other with an iPad, and then setting off for a once-in-a-lifetime flight over Iguassu Falls, in Argentina/Brazil. I saw only glimpses of those huge and amazing cascades, and was so upset, but determined that would never happen again. Nor has it, though it could have. I have since stood my ground, and refused that seat, and always then been given a window seat, often in the front. So I've had glorious flights over New York, Kings Canyon, Auckland city, Waiheke, Milford Sound and the Southern Alps, and landed on snowy mountain tops, once courtesy of pilot (and ex-All Black captain) Richie McCaw. Fabulous! I love choppers, their effortless  flight, and the spectacular sightseeing they enable.

I: for Imposter Syndrome, which it took me a long time to shake off. Coming into journalism travel writing through the back door, as I did, I felt - and was - both unqualified and inexperienced. Being given, for free, curated trips (famils) overseas that started with business class flights and included fancy hotels, hosted meals, guides, transport and stuffed-full itineraries, was a thrill I never took for granted, even when I got to feeling somewhat authenticated. Wine tastings though? Always uncomfortable, trying to remember, from seeing other people doing it, what to do, what to say, all the while being genuinely flummoxed - even nervous enough, once, to confuse, in front of a clearly unimpressed sommelier, cabernet with chardonnay. Ouch!

J: For Japan, where I have not been, though I nearly got there in 2019 on a Silversea cruise. Covid killed that one, to my lasting regret, since it seems to me such a fascinating place to visit. Also on my to-go list is Greenland (ditto, Seabourn cruise for that one); plus Spain and Finland; and Iceland, for a proper look since my 5 day famil was not enough. Having, though, boasted since I was 15 that I could say 'the men are drinking beer now' in Japanese, after a taster lesson at school, Google now informs me that 'otokonoko biiru o nomimasu' has quite different overtones - so maybe it's just as well that trip got cancelled.

K: for Kayaks, in which I've had a lot of fun, as well as some strenuous exercise. Most of my outings have been here in Aotearoa/NZ - a peaceful glide along the Avon River in ChCh, a battle with head winds both ways here on Waiheke, a cruisy couple of days along the coast of the Abel Tasman NP, and stirring up bioluminescence on an evening outing to Brown's Island. But I also watched a dingo chase a kangaroo along the shore of a river in the NT, plus several other Aussie outings, as well as Hawaii, Seattle and Galapagos. Kayaking is easy and fun, and a lovely way to get in touch with nature. Recommended.

L: for Left - as in turning, when you board an aeroplane. I am irredeemably frugal, and could never justify to myself the outrageous prices of Business class seats, which are just mind-bogglingly exponential. Even Premium Economy I've shelled out for only under duress, and would never do that voluntarily. But, if someone else is paying... which, even before these end-times, was happening less and less often for us shameless travel-writing freebie-grabbers. Back in the golden days, though - ah! The sheer fabulous glory of wafting into that airy space, welcomed by name, then ripping into the amenities pouch as I sipped the excellent champagne, stowing my stuff in all the little cubbyholes, and tapping away at the iPad to see what entertainment was on offer. Lovely, leisurely food, endless good wine, SO MUCH PRIVATE SPACE! and then, come bedtime, classy, comfortable pjs, a magicked-flat bed with actual elbow room, a soft pillow and airy duvet. Bliss!

M: for Malbec which, despite (or possibly because of) my entry for I, above, was a revelation on a lovely LATAM famil to South America. Having, during my student years, drunk far too much cheap and horrible red wine, inducing ghastly hangovers, I then foreswore it for about 30 years, drinking only white. On this group trip, though, we were hosted by a charming vintner and were proudly presented with his best wine, which of course I couldn't refuse. What a revelation! Richly flavoured, velvety smooth, delicately scented... it was glorious. I was instantly converted to red wine, which I have drunk ever since, and delighted to be given a small bottle of the malbec to take home. Which some low-life hotel room attendant subsequently stole from my suitcase. Still not over that.

N: Noises that instantly summon up a place, like muezzin calls in Istanbul, cooing doves in Africa, melodious magpies in Australia, rowdy penguins in Antarctica. There was also the Penguin Café Orchestra that my driver played on repeat in Mauritius, plus clicking prayer beads in Greece, sirens in New York, gentle creaking on board Silversea ships. I heard sheep bells in Portugal, kokako on Tiritiri, a Spitfire clattering overhead on the White Cliffs of Dover, chainsaw-screeching of insects in the jungle in Ecuador... Honestly, this list could go on and on. So evocative, the tourism people really should make a feature of it.