Travel eye-candy

[musey]

Fox Glacier (the actual glacier!). Yeah, we hiked that.

 

[Po10472]

More, more...........this is one of my fave threads!!

DH and I plan to go in the next 5 years once we''ve saved up enough to go to Japan, Oz and NZ and I''d rather be flush than skint when I do finally go. Also, I fancy NZ more than Oz for some reason.

 

[musey]

On top of the glacier. Wow, what an experience.

 

[musey]

It was very rainy during our whole trip (yay! I love rain!), and we got a lot of cool views like this. I just love the beauty of clouds hanging on mountains.

 

[musey]

Franz Josef Glacier up the road... we decided to check it out on our way north after hiking Fox.

 

[musey]

Little shroomie on the Franz Josef overlook trail!

 

[musey]

My new husband walking the Franz Josef overlook trail

 

[musey]

Ice cream cone!!

 

[musey]

Punakaiki (pancake rocks). We did this walk/overlook on our LONGEST driving day, which was about 10.5 hours on the road (if I''m remembering correctly). We drove an average of 5 hours per day trying to see as much as possible in our 15 days there!

 

[musey]

Picton harbor... about to take the ferry to the north island.

 

[musey]

The last bits of the south island, taken from the ferry

 

[musey]

Our first view of the north island

 

[musey]

Wellington Civic Square

 

[musey]

Zorbing!!! Hubby''s best man gifted us 3 rides each. It was amazing.

 

[musey]

Beautiful Rotorua sunset

 

[musey]

About to enter a glowworm cave near Waitomo...

 

[musey]

Woohoo!

 

[musey]

Hobbiton!

 

[musey]

Heading into the Coromandel Peninsula

 

[musey]

Driving Creek Railway just outside Coromandel

 

[musey]

Our little traveling Gnomie making friends

 

[musey]

My first attempt at stitching together a panoramic shot

this beach was BEAUTIFUL... on the east side of Coromandel Peninsula

 

[musey]

(hey, it's PS after all!) on another beach on the east side of CP

 

[musey]

Beautiful cheetah at the Auckland zoo... which was actually the highlight of the trip for me... I LOVE zoos and this one was fantastic!

 

[musey]

Auckland from the top of the SkyTower

 

[musey]

And finally, a collage of some of our favorite funny New Zealand food items!!

 

[mrscushion]

Date: 4/25/2007 10:40:30 AM
Author: ursulawrite
Oooh, the Four Seasons Maldives! Lucky you, Harriet. As for the Amanpuri, it was nice, sure, but no more than any hotel in that category and certainly not worth the inflated room rates. Perhaps I was put off by the so-so food, and the surrounding locale wasn't all that impressive (save for the beach).

I am going to chime in here and disagree -- I loved, loved, loved my stay at the Amanpuri. Back in the day (this was pre-tsunami) the hotel at the other end of the beach was a very upscale Sheraton and the Amanpuri was infinitely nicer. I loved the accommodations, the daily tea ceremonies, the staff, the other guests, and I thought the food was very, very good.

ETA: Oh my gosh, I am so stupid. I totally didn't realized I'm responding to something almost two years later! Aaaah! Sorry.... I thought this was a recent thread. Blush...