Tag Archives: Panorama

From Wellington to Abel Tasman

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Saturday 28 February 2026 – The sun put his hat on and came out today, perhaps to celebrate our departure from Wellington. The view from our hotel room was very fine,

and so we drove up to the Mount Victoria Lookout, which is well-known for giving panoramic views of the city. We weren’t the only ones with this idea.

We bumbled our way through the crowds of people slowly making their way up the 73 steps to the viewpoint (because our knees had finally forgiven us after we inflicted the Tongariro Crossing on them), and there was indeed a good view, of both the city

and the area around the airport.

It’s a great panorama spot.

The observant among you will have noticed a bunch of mountain bikers in the photo of the car park, and there was clearly An Event going on because every so often one would take off and then just disappear down the steep hill that leads up Mount Victoria.

After admiring the view for a bit, we drove to the ferry port, as we had to catch the InterIslander to take us over to the South Island. I was anxious to get there in plenty of time, as we’d been told that it was booked up solidly for months ahead; missing it would thus have put a major crimp in the second half of the trip. We got to the ferry port about two hours early in the hope that there might be something like a terminal building with, who knows? maybe even a cafe.

Nope.

There was at least a toilet there, and a machine that would have served us coffee if it had not run out, and that was it.

Jane, patiently waiting to get back into the toilet to retrieve her phone

All we had to amuse us for about an hour and a quarter was the view of the ferry we would be catching.

Eventually the serried ranks of vehicles were released to go on to the boat. We were taken by the significant number of camper vans there.

The queue of them stretched right back to the car park. Of course we got our turn to go into the belly of the machine

and, having parked, headed immediately to the Premium Lounge, access to which was included with our ticket.

And so passed a comfortable three and a half hours; there was decent food available and alcoholic drinks if we wanted, and a decent view of the passing scenery. The windows weren’t spotless, so every so often Jane or I would pop out on the viewing deck to take photographs. The views were impressive, both leaving Wellington

and threading our way through the islands outside Picton, the ferry’s destination.

At about 7pm we were let off the boat and started on our three-hour journey to Mārahau. The South Island scenery was some what different from what we’d seen on the North Island; more dramatic

and with a lot more vineyards,

which were, like their North Island counterparts, on the flat rather than on a slope as would be normal in Europe. We drove on through the fading light

stopping only to get more fuel and some breakfast essentials for the next day; and at around 10.15pm we arrived at Abel Tasman Lodge, so called because it is just by the entrance to the eponymous National Park. This would be our home for the next couple of days. We made ourselves a mug of Twinings Finest Earl Grey and hit the sack, as we had People To See And Things To Do the following day.

Sunday March 1 2026 – The People To Meet were Bill and his wife Eve. Bill and I went to school together back in the ’60s and had stayed intermittently in contact over the years since – another example of something Facebook is actually good for. They live about an hour’s drive from where we were staying and so could come over and take us to a couple of places to look around.

Bill had offered me a choice for the first Thing To Do; either a short but steep bush walk or a coffee cruise. Having proved my point with the Tongariro Crossing, I wasn’t in the mood for steep anything, and, as it happened, the route to it was closed, so the decision was made for us.  Bill drove us to Kaiteriteri;  en route, as well as vineyards, we saw fields of hops, which Bill told us the area was noted for.

For our coffee cruise, I was sort of expecting to board a fairly substantial vessel via a jetty and sit in a comfortable lounge drinking coffee whilst lovely scenery drifted by.

That was sort of how it worked. Sort of. But this is New Zealand, remember.

Our vessel was not all that substantial, and the boarding method had a lot in common with our Kapiti Island experience – walk on the beach and climb aboard; having expected a jetty, I was wearing street shoes and so a little spurt of agility was needed to avoid getting them wet in the waves. Several other vessels were using this boarding technique, so it’s obviously A Thing in these here parts.

Kaiteriteri is around the headland from Mārahau, and the two (and other points) are linked by a water taxi service, which seems a popular way to get around.

The chap who ran the coffee cruise was quite knowledgeable about the various things to be seen, both by way of wildlife and onshore properties, and happy to chat to us punters

which showed up his relaxed attitude to navigation

as we drifted past the nice scenery.

After about half an hour we reached the cruise’s destination;

Split Apple Rock. It’s just offshore by a long sweeping beach

which is clearly popular with kayakers and canoeists.

I was quite taken with the double canoe shown above, which was paddled dragon boat-style.

At anchor near the rock, the skipper amused us by throwing bread upon the waters

and, indeed, up into the air.

We eventually pottered back to Kaiteriteri where we had an efficiently served and very tasty lunch at a cafe/bar/restaurant called the Waterfront.

We headed back towards Mārahau after lunch, but Bill and Eve took us on a small diversion intriguingly named the Riuwaka Resurgence. This is a Māori Sacred Place, as evidenced by the waharoa (carved entranceway) to the walking path,

which leads to a short and pleasant stroll (including some steps, mind) past scenes of riparian loveliness

to a water hole

which is the Resurgence in question: a deep, clear pool where the Riuwaka River emerges from the depths of the Tākaka Hill. I don’t know if it’s disrespectful, but it’s a popular spot for people to go for a plunge. There were four lads there who eventually psyched themselves up to take the plunge.

None of them was prepared to admit that it was fucking freezing in there, but one chap did say that it was quite fresh. Jane took a fabulous shot of one of them going in.

Obviously a talented chap who could walk on water….

Bill and Eve dropped us back at our accommodation and we said our goodbyes. It had been a lovely day; great to meet them again after many years, wonderful to find that we still got on so well after such a long time, and very enjoyable activities, too.

We are at the Abel Tasman lodge for one more day before we chase off further south. It’s a pleasant place

with comfortable chalets and well-organised facilities (such as a guest laundry; well, these things are important, you know). In the grassy area to the back of our chalet we were able to see some passing wildlife: swamp hens

with their enormous feet;

a juvenile blackbird;

and a covey of around 20 California quails,

doing their usual scavenging bit and completely ignoring a passing cat

who was content to ignore them right back.

 

There being no scheduled items on our itinerary for tomorrow, Jane has been busy working out engaging ways to pass the time, and I’ll tell all in tomorrow’s page.

Intermission (Impossible): Siena

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Monday 19 May 2025 – Warning! Long Post Alert! Really long!!

I have to try to sum up Siena as we’ve seen it for the last couple of days, which is pretty much an impossible task. Actually, for a tourist only here for two days (for that’s what we are, before going back to becoming travellers tomorrow), there are relatively few highlights to hit: the Duomo, of course; the Campo (the main square); some notable churches; and the general scenery. Once you actually visit any of these tick-box items, though, you are deluged with all sorts of astonishing images. I’ve taken literally hundreds of photos, and obviously can’t bore you with all of them. I’ll try to summarise.

Our hotel, the Chiusarelli, is in a decent location, a few minutes walk from the centre of the old city.  I’ve mentioned its eccentricities, which also extend to decor.

Our room, while not particularly large, is comfortable enough. Unlike most hotel rooms we’ve come across so far (and not, I may add, just in Italy), it has a sufficiency of charging points for the various devices we use – camera, phones, activity monitor, backup drive, tablet – and some of these are usb-c, which is outrageously modern and very welcome. The breakfasts

are ample and feature Twining’s finest Earl Grey, so it has been a happy base from which to ramble. We’ve had a guided tour with the somewhat theatrical Serena, and also been for our own walks. Obviously. Here, in no particular order, are some of the things we’ve learned and some of the things we’ve seen.

Siena is built upon three hills. The practical upshot of this for us tourists is that to get anywhere involves toiling up really quite steep slopes. But for the original medieval settlers, it had a more significant problem – lack of water. Being on the top of hills meant that, unlike its dreaded rival Florence, a river didn’t run through it. It took some significant medieval engineering to create a series of underground aqueducts, 25km in length, called bottini. These tapped into underground springs and rainwater run-off, and were Siena’s principal source of water until the 20th century. There’s a fountain in the Campo, the Fonte Gaia, built to express gratitude for the water. It’s not impressive, like the Trevi jobbie in Rome, there are just a couple of she-wolves dribbling water,

but it represents something terrifically important for the locals.

The Campo itself, yesterday, was not the unencumbered place whose photo I shared the other day, oh no. All over the centre of Siena, barricades were being set up

and equipment rolled out

in preparation for the arrival, yesterday afternoon, of the Giro d’Italia, the Italian equivalent of the Tour de France.  As the day progressed, crowds began to build up

and, at around 5pm the circus arrived, unwatched by me, since I was

making myself useful. Jane watched on TV as the cyclists made their way into town and round the Campo to the finish. Apparently it was quite exciting.

The Campo has been used for racing of quite a different sort – horse racing, believe it or not. Twice a year, the outer edge of the Campo is covered in sand and 10 horses are raced for three laps, a process that takes just over a minute. But it’s a terrifically important minute, and the running of these races continues a tradition started, in Siena at least, in 1633 (apparently, this kind of lunacy has been going on in various other places since the middle ages, would you believe). The race, and the parades and other pageantry that precede it, is called “Il Palio“. Is it popular with the locals? You bet! This is a photo I got from a pamphlet on the Palio, showing the Campo as the race is running.

Why is it so important to the locals? This comes down to the way the city is divided into “contrade” – neighbourhoods. There are 17 in total and each horse represents a “neigh”bourhood. Only ten horses run each time; in the next Palio, the seven neighbourhoods which didn’t participate get a place as of right, and the other three places are allocated by lot. Horses are allocated by a draw, and to be the winning jockey is very important for the inter-neighbourhood rivalries.

Each neighbourhood has its own flag on which is represented its animal. The choice of animal is non-intuitive. One might expect lions, or tigers, but what you get is the rhino, the owl, the silkworm, the snail and other unlikely candidates.  Every contrada has its own museum, church, fountain and baptismal font, and if you look carefully, you can see the badges of different contrade on either side of a boundary.

Eagle on the left, Forest (featuring a rhino!) on the right

The flags are sold everywhere for tourists to buy;

one can buy individual flags or one with all of the insignia on it.

If I understand it correctly, the distinction between neighbourhoods extends even to the way the street lamps are mounted, on “braceletti”

though it would appear that there are also special braceletti, too.

Siena was an important city in medieval Europe, and its historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which contains several buildings from the 13th and 14th centuries. The city is famous for its cuisine, art, museums, medieval cityscape and, of course, the Palio. According to local legend, Siena was founded by Senius and Aschius, two sons of Remus and thus nephews of Romulus, after whom Rome was named. Supposedly after their father’s murder by Romulus, they fled Rome, taking with them the statue of the she-wolf suckling the infants (Capitoline Wolf), thus appropriating that symbol for the town. You can see it all over the place; for example on the wall of the courtyard inside the Palazzo Pubblico, the town hall – the building with the tall tower (the Mangia Tower) on the Campo.

You can also see the she-wolf represented on the floor of the Duomo, so now that I’ve exhausted you with talk of history and such, let me show you some images from our tour of the cathedral. It took us a little time to work out how to get in, and in fact our guide, Serena, gave us the best info. We bought the inclusive ticket, for €16 apiece, which got us into the four main bits of this vast complex – the cathedral itself, the baptistry, an area called the crypt even though it isn’t one, and the “panorama”. Fixated as I am with aerial shots of places, we started with the panorama, which you can get to via (loads of bloody steps and) a beautiful arch.

This takes you into a courtyard of which one wall overlooks the Duomo from the eastern side.

This courtyard immediately made me think that it was once a church; in fact it was going to be a church, to expand the Duomo to be bigger than that thing the bastard Florentines have. It was never completed as the pillars you can see to left and right wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight of any roof. So now it’s a car park. But it’s a car park overlooked by a very tall wall, which one can climb; entry is via the museum, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.  An internal staircase and a couple of very narrow spiral staircases take you up to the lower

and then the upper level, officially called the Facciatone, from which vantage point the view of the Duomo is spectacular.

Because of the narrowness of the spiral staircases, the traffic up and down is closely monitored and carefully controlled; but, amazingly, we were virtually the only people there at the time we climbed it – it was more crowded later. You also get great views over the city and surrounding areas.

Coming down, you’re led through the museum, which has several museumish rooms with examples of embroidery

and paintings an’ that.

As you can tell, I’m not particularly moved by this kind of art. But awaiting me was a room with material in it which I did find engaging.

In the central display cases were books of ancient music – gregorian chants, written out on vellum and gloriously illuminated.

Around the walls were pictures on what appeared to be paper. We asked an attendant, who told us that they were drawings of the pictures made in marble on the floor of the Duomo. Indeed, there was one of the entire floor plan

with each marble picture carefully drawn.

Elsewhere, there were individual pictures of each of the tableaux.

This is a representation of the she-wolf, and it’s surrounded by the representations of other cities – Pisa, Lucca, Viterbo and so on. Remember this for later.

The way out takes you past a gallery of statues with a lovely representation of the rose window from the Duomo

and the exit is via the church of St. Nicholas,

which is also the gift shop – with possibly the ritziest gift shop ceiling on the planet.

Ritzy ceilings are a key feature in the baptistry, which is back through that arch and down a whole load of steps. Going inside made me catch my breath.

There are all sorts of beautiful details, but the fresco-painted ceilings are, for me, the most amazing aspect.

 

You’ll be unsurprised to learn that I have many more photos, but I hope these give you the basic idea. The bottom right-hand photo there is painted on the inside of a dome. Hold that thought….

Before going into the Duomo itself, we visited something inaccurately called the Crypt.  It’s not a crypt, it has no corpses in it. It was once a church, or perhaps the entry into the cathedral of the time, or maybe a meeting place – whatever, it was built on a level below the current Duomo, which was simply piled on top of it. No-one knew about this earlier space until in 1999 during renovations, workmen accidentally broke through a wall and found something painted blue. Careful research revealed this room, dating from the 1200s, whose walls were completely covered in frescoes which have been preserved by it being filled with debris in the 1300s, buried and forgotten. The interior was excavated – carefully, because of the not inconsierable bulk of the Duomo above, which necessitated special reinforcing to be put in place. And the result is a phenomenal display of frescoes telling biblical and Christian stories.

You can see the steel frame used to support the Duomo above,

and, on one wall,

lo! the outside of the dome of the baptistry. This has to be one of the most atmospheric places we have ever visited.

The final piece was, of course, a visit inside the Duomo itself.

This is the rose window reproduced in the statue gallery in the museum

 

As I said earlier, the floor is covered in tableaux made in marble. They are marblous!

and, of course, there’s the she-wolf.

There was nothing for it after all of this visual overload but to go for a Nice Lunch.  Heading back to the hotel afterwards for a Nice Lie-Down, we managed to do a key piece of shopping

which should stand us in good stead for the remainder of our walking.

Which restarts tomorrow.  We have some 21km to walk to Lucignano d’Arbia. We’ve had a fabulous time in Siena, and it’s been wonderful having the chance to draw breath and do the laundry – these things are important, y’know – but it will equally be nice to get underway again as we head to Rome. I hope you’ll accompany us through the medium of these pages.