The Week that Was

It declined somewhat, the working part of it, however time and the hour runs through the roughest day and after the weekend at Waiheke I am all brighteyed and bushytailed again. Went over on the 2pm boat straight from work and was just in time to meet the gardener who was removing the privet trees and cutting up the wood for firewood.

Out to dinner at the Bowling Club buffet with roast pork, vegetable bake and other meat and salad dishes. Saturday we got the first real rain for a couple of months. Our water supply was getting low but it is up a third again, so we didn't mind too much being housebound with the weekend Herald. However must have my daily dose of computer so up to the library on the bus and back in the afternoon. I really appreciate my email contact with you all. Sunday the weather was better so walked to Mass at 9.15 then coffeeed at Cortado, which had been reviewed favourably in the weekend Canvas magazine. Good coffee and stunning view over Oneroa Beach.

I have let the bach for 3 months to a former resident of the island so spent the afternoon cleaning and tidying for her. We will be turning our attention to Orewa on the weekends for a while.

Yesterday carried on with bottling and turning the golden queen peaches into preserves and chutney. After the windy weekend there were a lot of windfalls to process. Also brought back pears from the island to do something with once they ripen.

Elisabeth is in the South Island having a great holiday. Today she did the South Dunedin op shops and was going out to a Greek restaurant tonight.

The first picture is the view from the roof of the bach looking over to Surfdale beach, the hall and the macrocarpa trees, the next, my souvenir writing compendium, my trusty preserving pan and good old Alison's recipes.

Domestic Craft on Tuesday 19 February

Went off to my group at Art Station this morning. Hadn't done any knitting since last week so it was nice to be able to sit down and knit for a couple of hours. Was delighted to find that we had a guest speaker, Susan Jowsey who had images of her art career which took off dramatically about 1990 when she won the Visa Gold Award with her series of blankets, with embroidered words like faith, hope in the same cream colour and which kept the original stains and had more added by Susan to create the effect she wanted. Then there were red crosses on each blanket as a symbol of salvation. Carrington Mental Hospital had just been closed and the work came out of her capturing the histories and humanity behind the austerity of mental illness at that time.

One of the next images was of artworks which were made out of old baby clothes and had other pieces added to them making them into something new and transformed. She made about 100 small crosses out of layers of them, oversewing them with embroidery. They fitted in a lunch boxwhen not installed somewhere.

Other domestic objects she used were a coathanger, scales, a cardigan, the insides of handbags, again with all their stains which she used in her capacity as "a rearranger of life".

Then she moved away from art as object to art as photograph, using her daughter as model. Now she works collaboratively with the family - eg in a film her young son made she added certain effects, as did her husband, also an artist and photographer.

Her latest work is as a digital artist and we were shown 2 very short art movies with the aid of the computer. Again her husband, Marcus Williams, appeared in one.

The photo, still life with yellow phone represents my domestic craft for this afternoon. I made 4 jars of marmelade which I put into old Rose's marmalade jars, and preserved two small jars of Golden Queen peaches from our garden. The golden double yellow hibiscus is from 4 Salisbury Street. I gave the bush to my mother about 23 years ago. It is in one of my favourite vases of hers - it has butterflies on it. The yellow telephone I am going to sell on Trademe.

Rakino

Out on the gulf on Sunday to visit Rakino. This trip was organized by the Auckland Historical Society. About 30 of us headed out on rather a small boat which rocked from side to side whenever anything larger or faster moved past it, scaring me no end. There was a classic yacht regatta, lovely big yachts with elaborate sails, some of them coming very close to us. Our skipper gave us lots of information about these boats and also the big boats moored at the Viaduct Basin, including Michael Hill's. Out past Brown's Island, Rangiato, then the length of Motutapu, then further on west of Waiheke to Rakino, first to Home Bay, then on to Sandy Bay for our short spell on land, just time to walk over to Home Bay where there is an old homestead and tiny church. There seemed to be very few houses. They say there is no electricity. Read Shirley Maddock's chapter on the island. She was there when there was a guest house, an alternative community and a few locals. Chugged back to the mainland doing a tour of the viaduct past the yachts which had returned from the day's racing for the prizegiving.

The top photo is at Home Bay, Rakino where Sir George Grey had a house built, this is the house you see in the picture. He started it, but did not finish it. He probably planted the trees too. The next one is in front of the boat that took us to Rakino - Riverhead Cruises. They also do a lot of other interesting ones which we may go on - one up the Waihou River from Thames to Paeroa.

The others are out on the gulf with the yachts, one of a little island just off Sandy Bay, Rakino, the last one is of Home Bay from the distance.

Real Gold - Exhibition at the Central Library

Made another visit to this wonderful exhibition at the library with good friend M who noticed the book at our place when she was here in Inner Ponsonby last weekend. I gave it to Dieter for Christmas . Anyway however had the Special Collections exhibition space to ourselves this Saturday afternoon and had a good browse - things from many of the different collections - maps of early Auckland and Wellington, letters - from Darwin to Sir George Grey, Florence Nightingale to Grey, diaries of Sarah Mathew, autobiographies of Peter McDonald (1876) " Auckland was a queer wee town...in 1842", and Robin Hyde , written while a patient at Auckland Mental Hospital in the 1930s. This manuscript was given to the library by the doctor who encouraged her to write it, Dr Tothill. I remember it coming through the cataloguing dept in the late 1970s .There are photographs by Clifton Firth of Allen Curnow and ARD Fairburn, others of Lee Grant of the Mercury Theatre, John A Lee's scrapbooks with photos and cuttings stuck down with bits of sticking plaster. I seem to recall him gifting those to the library in the the late 70s or early 80s too. Whina Cooper came in too and gifted a beautiful cloak. This year I will have been in the library 30 years (1oth of July this year!) I digress. The middle picture is of the winning garden plan for Western Park, then called Central Park. It is still a great big park with huge trees going from Ponsonby downto Auckland Girls and beyond.

The last picture is the southern end of Waiwera Beach, a watercolour by Thomas Ryan, 1892.

We have another picture of Waiwera, a watercolour painted by Dieter's friend Sir Riga in the 1950s, one showing the big rock and a pier that used to be there. I remember the Waiwera hotel which was the place to go in the 1960s, before or after a hot swim. Those were the days...

Anyway however there are the beautiful manuscripts, rare books, even a handwritten translation of St Luke's Gospel in an aboriginal language, done by a missisonary L E Threlkeld in 1857. Sir George Grey had it bound and had it illuminated like a medieval manuscript by Annie Layard, the wife of his private secretary.

Other collections represented are bookplates, music (God defend NZ) , Maori manuscripts, first editions. The book contains even more information about other collections, I didn't even know the library has - for example old tokens. Dieter has quite a few of these, sadly being sold off by me on Trademe, with his consent of course. You can't keep everything for ever can you.

Finished off a pleasant afternoon with coffee at the library cafe, Real, then paid a visit to Smith and Caughey's sale, where I bought a cute little floral torch which I will keep for myself to take on holiday with me. We are going round the East Coast in a couple of weeks time and up the Danube from Bulgaria to Germany later in the year.

Knitterati

For the past year or so the knitting group at Art Station has been knitting blankets for an exhibition in May. The theme of the exhibition is shelter and the blankets are going to be given to the Red Cross for refugees once the exhibition is over. Most of our knitting has been at home but we meet once a week at Art Station to knit, chat and go to local art galleries and see what is new. Last week we went to one across the road and there were a couple of interesting knitted pieces in an exhibition by up and coming artists - a large length of knitted fabric made out of plastic bag strips in different colours, and a similar length of "material" made of very finely rolled pages of fashion magazines. The middle photo is one of my blankets and I am in the third photo knitting at Leys library - we go to public spaces and knit!

Pictures of the bach at Orewa, and Motuihe trip

A week or so ago we went to this island in the Hauraki Gulf on a day trip with the Silverdale Historical Society. We got the boat from Westhaven, chugged around the harbour and then made out to sea, passing Browns Island and getting to Motuihe in about an hour. In the olden days Motuihe was a common daytrip for Aucklanders aand there was a regular ferry service. I hadn't been there for about 40 years! One man on the trip was there last as a 10 year old over 70 years ago when he was sent to the health camp there in the 1930s!! It is also famous for being the island where Von Luckner was held after being captured in the Pacific during the first world war and from where he made his escape, distracting attention from himself by setting a fire in one of the barracks. He ande 10 other men slipped away under cover of darkness and escaped in the commandant's motorboot, for which they fashioned a German battle ensign out of flour bags. They were recaptured off the Kermadecs a few days later and returned to Motuihe.

Motuihe also served as a quarantine station during a smallpox outbreak in 1872, and flu epidemic of 1918 and there is a small cemetery where casualties were buried. We walked there past trees that Sir Logan Campbell had planted there when he farmed the island between 1843 and 1858. We passed the remnants of the naval station HMNZS Tamaki which was in operation from 1941 to 1963. Now most of the buildings are gone, just an old water tank remaining.

Had a nice walk up the other end of the island and back along the beach before gettingthe ferry home agaian. We went back to Orewa with the group stopping along the ay at Browns Bay for an icecream and spending part of the weekend up at Orewa. Took some photos of the bach which I will post here having forgotten my digital camera on the Motuihe trip.

My new Picture - 3 melons by Clare Dargaville

Went to a lecture on NZ art last Sunday with a friend. Clare Dargaville spoke about three artists - Charles Goldie, Frances Hodgkins and Evelyn Page with a brief mention of Peter McIntyre, telling us a bit about their lives and their work and their influence, showing a lot of their pictures in the process. Then she spoke at length about her own career as an art teacher and artist. She was widowed early on her married life and brought up 4 young children on her own, fitting in art, mainly pastels, as they were portable and easy to clear away when the space was needed for family life. Her husband was Maori from Pangaru and her paintings reflect the influence of Maori motifs such as the paua and kete. Over afternoon tea there was the opportunity to view an exhibition of her artwork some of which was for sale. And so I bought one for a bare wall in our front sitting room. It does look rather lonely there so will put up some of Dieter's artifacts to keep it company.

Me Again

Hi all, Nobody has been more bereft than me without a computer for 11 days or more. No Trademe, no scrabble, no email, no blog , a very boring existence. The old one packed up and the new one has taken days to get installed. However I have my music on the MP3 player and other niceties so that is good, a nice new layout and everything is quicker to load. Have done lots of interesting things over the past fortnight and as soon as I can see how to load my pictures and scan things I will be writing about them.

Took the picture of Sir Ed's statue in Hillary Square, Orewa a few days after the the funeral, which I watched on TV. It was a state funeral. Lots more people and flowers there after he died

Anniversary Weekend

This picture was painted by a friend of Dieter's way back in the 1950s. Dieter met him in Hawaii in the 1960s whilst on his OE. His name was Sir Riga de Mazaryk, a title he gave himself, we think. He was a seaman back in the 1960s and when his ship was in Auckland he painted scenes from round and about but also travelling up to Orewa and Waiwera where he did a couple. When Dieter returned to New Zealand with me in the 1970s Sir Riga sent Dieter his NZ watercolours and a couple from Hawaii. He died in the 1980s , taking the secret of who he really was to the grave with him.

Music in the Park

Had a pleasant afternoon lounging in the grounds of Alberton listening to some Scandinavian folk music by a trio of young Danish musicians - 2 females on saxaphone and violin and a guy on guitar. They had a lovely manner and spoke about the songs and tunes, many of them from the Danish island of Bornholm. As they said this kind of music travelled over the centuries and it was surprising to hear how similar it sounded to some of the Scottish music. Had a look through the house beforehand. Several women showing people around were dressed in period dress adding a nice touch. Hadn't been to Alberton for about ten years it seems. Admired the lovely Wedgwood blue and yellow dinnerset. We are members of the Historic Places Trust so we can and should go to these houses more often, so watch this space.

The Whitford playcentre had a stand selling tea and coffee and lovely homemade cakes and scones. Had a piece of sourcream berry cake and Dieter had an apricot mereingue slice.

29 degrees in Auckland today. Would have been a good day for the beach but both our baches are let this weekend. Wew have two long weekends ahead of us - Anniversary weekend and Waitangi day which is on a Wednesday this year. I will only need to work Thursday and Friday morning.

Sir Edmund Hillary

This is a very sad day for us New Zealanders as we mourn the death of Sir Edmund Hillary. I got an email at work from a colleague soon after it was announced. The tv presenters are in black suits and ties and he is to be given a state funeral next week some time. The Primem Minister is on her way home. This evening the whole evening is devoted to documentaries about his life and achievements. I have reread some of the books over recent months - Louise's books about their trips, John Hunt's book The ascent of Everest. Dieter had a sheet of commemorative stamps, marking the 50th anniversary of the conquering of Everest which he had listed on Trademe already and now somebody has bought them. I have listed my books too for somebody else to get pleasure from. One of the first books of adult non-fiction I ever read at the age of 13 or 14 was his book on climbing in the South Island. Well, off I go to watch the documentary on his life.

Christmas and New Year

Chrismas passed quietly with the usual festive meals and religious observance, just the 3 of us, though on Chrismas Eve we were 4. Went for a walk up one of the Three Kings on Boxing Day, back to work the next day and over to Waiheke for our Chrismas sojourn the day after. Had 6 wonderful days there, with a couple of swims, cafe, library and art gallery visits and a couple of visits by friends from the mainland. Back to work on the 3rd of January for a day and a half .

Have had a nice weekend at home although D finds them difficult and gets a bit gloomy. We went for a walk along the Carrington walkway behind Unitec and parallel to Great North Rd on Saturday morning . Saw the waterfall and walked along Oakley Creek. Lots of native trees have been planted but there are a lot of weeds. The Friends of Oakley Creek work there once a month. It is something we might do one of these days. Then today we went to the Avondale Market - lots of exotic vegetables used by the different ethnic communities who were out in force in their headgear and robes. It got very crowded and after I had bought cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes, strawberries and peaches I was pleased to escape back to Ponsonby. Toimorrow I am going to make some tomato relish and piccallili. Roland and Rosalie made a belated Christmas visit and over coffee and goodies we listened to a German Christmas CD. Time to pack the decorations away again, but no doubt it will be another week or two before we get round to it. Finished the evening off with a visit to the foodhall and had a delicious prawn fettucine with courgettes in a creamy light tomato and herb sauce.

Christmas Eve

Have progressed through Advent in a more low-key homebased way seeing friends or writing to them. Made two lots of cookies - checkerboard cookies and very nice hazelnut ones. No rolling out and cutting out this year - dough was shaped into a log, chilled then sliced and baked. Easy peasy as they say.

Saturday night we went to a Musica Sacra concert of Christmas music at the refurbished cathedral, a very nice venue for a concert like that, though rather warm with all those people in it. Accompanied by a brass ensemble they sang many carols from over the centuries, interpersed with some old familiar ones which the audience could sing along to with the choir.

Will make some little Christmas mince tarts today and then I will be ready for Christmas.

Advent

We were up at Orewa for the weekend enjoying our bach again after it was let for a 10 days or so. On the Sunday afternoon at 3pm we went to the Prebyterian Church in Albany for the German Club's Advent celebration. It was very nice and has put us in a good frame of mind at the start of the festive season. We took a plate of cinnamon stars, bought, as we only found out about the gathering on Saturday morning. There were lots of people there, none we knew however, mainly younger couples and families with young children. We all sang nice German and English carols with a professional accompanist and a soloist, with some of the children playing their instruments or reciting a poem. After an hour of singing in very nice surroundings with a large Advent wreath as the focal point we adjourned for coffee and Christmas Stollen and cookies. There was lots of German homebaking and I am spurred on to do a few cookies myself this year.

I had got on the telephone on Friday night and rang several friends and hope to see them all before or over Christmas, part of which we will spend at home and some of the days between Christmas and New Year over at Waiheke.

Today we went to Motat - the Museum of Transport and Technology. I was interested in the Victorian village and some of the old vehicles. Dieter and Elisabeth went in the Voyager - a simulated adventurous journey not for the faint-hearted or timid , like me. Had a look at their library then came home for lunch - bagels and smoked chicken, followed by strawberries and icecream - the strawberries left over from my jam making exploits this morning. I like making the most of my days.

Mid November

Started last week off with a visit to the University of Otago House exhibition of lithographs after Louis-Auguste de Sainson from the Hocken Library . Sainson was a French artist on board the Astrolabe in the 1830s and did several portraits of Maori , on their own and in groups as well as seascapes, landscapes in the Bay of Plenty, Northland and Marlborough Sounds among other places. Dieter has a book about him, I have a calendar of people in various costumes and Dieter also has a couple of prints of Maori chiefs - Natai and Rangui in his collection of NZ prints. These are not the very old ones, but ones produced in the 1970s or 1980s when Dieter was doing all his acquisitions. l We finished off the morning with lunch in town and then a visit to the library's book sale where we bought just 5 books and resolved to donate another 5 back to the library sale the next day which I duly did .

On the Tuesday the knitting group to which I belong, the Knitterati, usually at home at Art Station, came to our place to knit and chat. We are working on blankets for our Shelter exhibition next May. I have done just two and am finishing off sewing the strips of the first one together. It looks very nice. Made some date scones for morning tea which were rather heavy!

Wednesday to Friday was work, Friday night we went to a St Cecilia's Day concert at the recently renovated Cathedral. Lovely choral music by the Cathedral choir and a string quartet, organ and soloist Lyndsay Freer, a contemporary of Kiri and Malvina and with a beautiful soprano voice. It was a reflective way to start the weekend.

Saturday was our first visit to Waiheke for two or three months as the bach has been let. It was lovely to be back. The resident wood pigeon was feasting on loquats, the cinerarias were in full bloom, as is the first pohutukawa. Went for long walks, coffeed at Salvage after Mass, bought myself a skirt and blouse to celebrate the onset of summer.

The Week and Weekend that Was.

Went to the museum to look at the Darwin exhibition after Mass this morning. Auckland City staff could get entrance, two for the price of one and as it was $15 entrance fee it was quite a saving. It was a great exhibition from the American Museum of Natural History with interesting biographical details and a clear exposition of the science behind evolution, selection and adaptation. There were a couple of actors enacting scenes from his life and travels - one a discussion between Darwin and Admiral Fox of the Beagle on their opposing views, and another a conversation between a missisonary, Baker , in the Bay of Islands, and Darwin on his impressions of New Zealand which were not very complimentary.

Had a late birthday celebration here at home with family friends Pamela and Christine which was very nice. Started with an old fashioned afternoon tea with all the customary treats - coffee and cake, savouries, meringues, followed by strawberries with a splash of brandy in a glass of bubbles. Our mothers and fathers were very good friends - our fathers worked together in the Inland Revenue. Mum and Gwen were lifelong friends and after Mum's death, and her return to New Zealand, Gwen moved to Mum's beach house where she lived for a couple of years.
She made a special home for herself there and created a beautiful garden with her green fingers. Last weekend when we were up there, her rose bushes and irises were in bloom and a b eautiful reminder of a special person.

Had a phone call and visit from another childhood friend, Pat from Dunedin. She was up on business and I met her at her hotel after work, had a walk through Myers Park on our way to the busstop and met up with Dieter and Elisabeth at the Ponsonby foodhall, where we each had our favourite ethnic food - Turkish hummus and pita bread while we chose - Chinese, Thai and Italian dishes. Went back home for a cup of tea and chat before taking her back to her hotel.

Our knitting group, Knitterati met at a large public building, Vero in Shortland Street this week. It has lots of beautiful artworks which we looked at after coffee then we got out our knitting needles and blankets and knitted in public as part of our Shelter Exhibition which is to take place next May. The group are gathering at our place next Tuesday morning so I am having a sociable time.

Historical Society Trip to Whangarei

We hadn't been up to Whangarei for several years so decided to avail ourselves of the Silverdale and Districts Historical Society's trip up thataway last Friday. We joined a nearly full bus at the ungodly hour of 8.20am and rode northwards to the Kauri Clock Factory on the outskirts of Whangarei, having had a morning tea break at Te Hana I think it was. There were hundreds of clocks fashioned out of pieces of up to 50 000 year old kauri , much of which now comes from the Takanini area. It is then highly polished and has the clock mechanism attached and hey presto a kauri clock ready for purchase. The choice is overwhelming , too overwhelming for me, so will b e relying on clocks I already have and like better.

The town basin is very picturesque with yachts and a Parnell type development with cafes and galleries. We had lunch there then went to the museum and Clarke homestead. There was a Matariki exhibition there for Maori New Year and a weaving one upstairs with woven costumes from different cultures.

Ho Chi Minh City

We were off to an early 7am start but managed to take in breakfast at a pavement stall - tea with condensed milk for me, coffee for Dieter and scrambled egg in a roll for us both. Our first visit was the War Remnants Museum, a sobering place for the unprepared. There were a few tears shed by members of our group at the human cost of the Vietnam War, the American War to the Vietnam people. The display of massive tanks and other war machinery in the courtyard outside was enough for Dieter and me.

The Cu Chi tunnels was our next destination. There was a museum there with a harrowing film, and a walk round the area we took, with displays and information about the tunnels and how they penetrated so close to Saigon. There were some aweful booby traps which did terrible things to their victims.

People could go down into the tunnels and crawl along a little way. I was not going to do it, but Dieter went down in an impetuous moment and emerged hot and bothered after a few minutes. l I was supposed to take a photo of him emerging but failed to press the button hard enough and didn't want to delay his reentrance to the real world a second longer than necessary.

Off to the Mekong Delta after that - a journey of 3 or 4 hours. We hurtled along and the inevitable happened - we had a slight accident - the driver had to swerve to avoid a motor cyclist and veered to the side hitting a woman motor scooter rider with the side mirror. Luckily she was wearing a helmet, which was split by the impact but she was not injured. After reimbursing her for a new helmet we continued on our way with the driver driving more carefully I hoped. We went by boat across to an island in the delta, then upriver on a punt for a swept up Vietnamese lunch at a private home. It was several courses, starting with baked fish which we combined with pineapple, cucumber, noodles, to make our own fresh spring rolls , served with a dipping sauce. Then came the most succulent huge prawns followed by spicy fried rice with shrimps, soup and fresh fruit.

Onwards and outwards on a trailor drawn by a powerful motorbike in a couple of groups to a place where they grow fruit and served it with tiny cups of spiced coffee filtered through the tiny filters that fit over a cup. There we sampled mango and dragon fruit, that red skinned fruit with white flesh and lots of black seeds. Then it was on to the coconut sweet factory where I found the ideal present for my workmates. It was getting late by this stage and it was back to the mainland on the boat, a 20 minute trip and a several hour trip back to Saigon in the dark.

Out for dinner to a nice restaurant for our farewell dinner and it was goodbye to all our group members who went out to a night club and back to our hotel for Darby and Joan.

Our flight to Singapore was at 5pm so we had time to go to the Fine Arts Museum across the road from the hotel in the morning and to the market for some last minute shopping for a gingham top for Elisabeth and some cashew and pistachio nuts for us.

What a contrast was Singapore with its wide open spaces, wide roads and little traffic at that time of the night. It was bliss to be back in familiar territory.

Home sweet home the next day after a pleasant but packed flight on Singapore Airlines.

Hoi An

Travelled down country in a minibus stopping at Danang and China Beach briefly, then at a marble workshop near Marble Mountain - apparently 2 of 5 marble mountains have been completely quarried and now the marble has to be brought in from near Hanoi. A couple of our group succumbed to quite large garden sculptures, which they were having shipped back home. I liked the smaller animals but didn't buy anything in the end. Arrived hot and sticky at Hoi An in time for a late lunch then a quick orientation walk round the old town before having some free time until dinner at a nice restaurant with the group. I had wontons with a kind of hot tomato and onion salsa - Vietnamese fusion I would call it. The food is difficult to order - you never know how plain or fancy it will be, usually it was the former but always very fresh. The next day we went on a fuller tour of the old town with its two storeyed wooden houses, a couple of centuries old, now museums of various kinds - ceramics, folk art to name a couple. Took in some Vietnamese operatic singing there in the afternoon. Braved the market with its very persuasive sellers, so persuasive that it put Dieter completely off and he abandonned me there a couple of times. Once I bought peppercorns and fragrant cinnamon, another time a funny little pair of scissors and a sharp knife in a holder, both of which got me nto trouble on our trip by plane from Danang to Saigon. They were confiscated and I had to go back and send them separately with the checked in luggage. Hoi An was once a thriving port and textile centre and here you can get clothes made up cheaply. The others got more tailored good clothes and suits, I just got a nice summer skirt made for about $20. Of course there were the ubiquitous T-shirts at bargain prices if you could hack the haggling. D bought a couple for Elisabeth - one of Tin Tin in Vietnam, and a Polo shirt. We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool, and French pastries for breakfast which were delicious.
Then it was onwards and upwards for our flight to Ho Chi Minh City, arriving in rush hour traffic. Five minutes later we were on our hair-raising cyclo trip through the said rush hour traffic.

Hue

Arrived in Hue after our overnight creaky train ride about 8am and were picked up by minibus and taken to our spacious resort-style hotel near the historic citadel. Had breakfast, which traditionally seems to be fresh fruit - pineapple, papaya, dragon fruit - a white fleshed fruit with black seeds, like a kiwifruit, and a thick bright red skin and quite delicious followed by an omelette, rolls and jam or a tiny segment of cheese, coffee or tea. Vietnam incidentally is the second largest coffee producer in the world after Brazil, I read somewhere. We were dying to get into our rooms for a shower and change of clothing, after which it was time for our walking tour of Hue, the old imperial capital, led by our guide, Tan. He studied tourism mangement in Singapore and Hawaii and has worked in the industry for over 15 years, mainly with Intrepid, so he knew his stuff. Past the citadel into town to go to the market where all of a sudden it poured with heavy rain, forcing us to abandon the market (rather pungent) , get a ferry across the river to the other side of the city and take refuge in a cafe for an expresso until the rain stopped then we carried on to a backpackers restaurant, the Mandarin, for a cheap traditional Vietnamese meal - I had Pho Bo, a beef soup with noodles, which was so delicious I went back the next day and had it again. I think it was US$1.50.

A bike tour out to a village where there was an interesting covered wooden bridge "Blue Hope" was the afternoon's activity - about 7km there through narrow country roads through rice paddies and the occasional village. We stopped for photos off and on and for a welcome break. It was of course round 30 degrees and humid. At our destination were very pleasant women selling drinks at their mini- cafes - tables and chairs under the shade of large trees. The trip home was almost as long and into the city traffic where I even overtook a couple of cyclos. No helmets of course, just a little red Vietnamese flag with a yellow star to keep us safe! On an Intrepid journey you don't waste time and it is packed with interesting things to see and do.