Let's Roll

[2porscheguy]

Have fun Motion and please do keep us poor landlocked souls posted!

WE ARE ALL GREEN WITH ENVY!

Oh, wait....I'll be in Oahu and Kauai in two weeks!.....

[motion]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Pity I'm in Wellington, which is about half the way up the country. Otherwise I'd have loved to meet up for drinks and to show you around.

for a future round the world. A place not often talked about, Rarotonga - part of the Cook Islands (near Fiji, Samoa), is my new favorite part of the world. It's beautiful as lots of pacific islands are, but it's fun, uncomplicated, the people are genuinely very friendly, you are NOT going to get robbed, and the food is great.

Bill, well I had hoped to make it down your way, but I grossly underestimated the speed of driving around the island, and came up short on time. I made it as far south as Whanganui, and am back up in Auckland now, for a flight to Christchurch tomorrow morning. Next time!

[motion]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

Somehow I'm guessing you don't have a corporate gig with 2 weeks/yr vacation with unused days accumulating...sheesh.

You would have to shoot me first

[wdfifteen]

The source of your name just hit me - Motion. Because you're always in it.
Have fun on your travels! Keep us posted and send pics!

[motion]

Yeah, I'm a rolling stone gathers no moss kinda guy, I guess.

Will do!

[slodave]

Sorry, motion.... Had to do it!

[motion]

Originally Posted by slodave

Sorry, motion.... Had to do it!

I'm sorry Dave, you can't do that. I know where you live

[slodave]

You burn me down, you burn my neighbors down! Viva la revolucion!

[motion]

I think this photo captures the essence of the south island. Within a couple of miles, you can go from the beach to a rainforest, to glaciers, to brown, rocky dry mountains. So much diversity. This is the Franz Josef glacier, just to the south of Mt Cook, the tallest peak in New Zealand.

[ckelly78z]

Just beautiful, I could spend the afternoon lounging in that glacial pool.

[kach22i]

Looks like a good location to film in.

Surreal.

[Don Plumley]

Great stuff, keep it coming

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by kach22i

Looks like a good location to film in.

Surreal.

Strangely they do a lot of car commercials in the Otago (near the bottom) area of NZ. There is something about the air or light that they like. Companies like Audi, BMW hire a mountain road for a few days, swap the road signs to German and drive on the "wrong" side of the road while filming from helicopers.

A lot of the Lord of the rings footage was filmed not far from where Richard is now. Good trout and salmon fishing too.

[motion]

The fishing looks off the hook. In 2,000 miles of driving, I've only seen one fly fisherman!

[motion]

I think I did pretty good for one week on the ground!

[motion]

Wrapping up 6 days in Australia. I drove from Sydney down to Melbourne along the coast (long way). Visited friends in Melbourne and Barwon Heads. Drove the Great Ocean Road for a day. Beautiful views along the road. Highly recommended to anyone making a trip to Oz.

The 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road:

[Hugh R]

Missed this thread, glad you enjoyed NZ. Did you notice that there are no four lane divided highways anywhere in the Country. When I was there NZ was cold and AU was hot. Silly me I thought the distance from NZ to AU was a few hundred miles, it's a few thousand miles.

Did you catch the permanent sulfur odor in Rotorua,NZ?

[Jandrews]

Keep the pictures coming, Motion!! Epic trip!

JA

[motion]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

Missed this thread, glad you enjoyed NZ. Did you notice that there are no four lane divided highways anywhere in the Country. When I was there NZ was cold and AU was hot. Silly me I thought the distance from NZ to AU was a few hundred miles, it's a few thousand miles.

Did you catch the permanent sulfur odor in Rotorua,NZ?

Yep, there are no highways in NZ. There is one just south of Auckland, but its like 2 miles long, LOL. I skipped the Rotorua area... was a bit skeered of all the tourist activity surrounding the Maori villages there. I really do not like crowds.

Wrapped up a week in Japan. I can't for the life of me pick just one photo for Japan, so I'll go with this one. I enjoyed Japan immensely.

[motion]

Sri Lanka is a beautiful place with lots of potential, but its in much rougher shape than I anticipated. Much nicer than India, but it has a long ways to go before the infrastructure is adequate. Weather is great this time of the year, and long walks on the beach are really nice, as long as you can jump over the sewer streams and avoid dipping your feet into the ocean. Its extremely polluted.

I stayed in the Mount Lavinia area, just south of Columbo. I had plans to explore more of the island, but the public transportation is in such poor shape I decided to just stick close to the hotel.