Category Archives: travel

bikes, city, Europe, event, family, friends, history, NZ, snow, travel, UK

2012 was certainly different

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For the first time in four years, I’ve managed to live in the same place all year and to be working for the same company at each end of those twelve months.  While this has given life a bit more stability this year, it hasn’t been without plenty of variety.  The event that influenced half of the year was having surgery on my shoulder to stop it dislocating.  Six weeks in a sling and six months before being fit to mountain-bike again was quite the upheaval – but it was all worth it as my shoulder is much more stable & predictable now.

Not being able to ride my bike did have the advantage of forcing me to find other things to do with my time & money.  Consequently, it turned out to be a bit of a travel year with twelve significant trips:

First up was an excellent week of skiing in the Alps with good friends

The day after the sling was banished, I finally crossed Rome off the top of my list – it had been there some time

The Pantheon was the highlight for me, followed closely by climbing St Peter’s Basilica

A week in Turkey was mostly spent in Istanbul, where the architecture continually impressed

Hot-air ballooning early morning in Cappadocia rates near the top of all I’ve done in the last three years away from NZ

Prague – with Te Puke school friend, Levi, a long way from Fairhaven Primary

The country was gripped by the Olympics late summer, great to be around for that

I was lucky enough to take a last-minute spare ticket & made it along to watch some of the mountain-biking – quality athletes & a great course to be a spectator

The highlight trip of the year was finally heading back to New Zealand for a whirlwind two weeks of thirtieth birthday parties (mine), a wedding (not mine), and tripping all around the country & spending time with dear family & friends (not to mention meeting quite a few additions that have arrived in the intervening three years).  There was also the added bonus of the physio declaring my shoulder fit for gentle exercise – so I managed a bit of mountain-biking and a ski too.

Treble Cone, near Wanaka, is a spectacularly beautiful ski field it turns out

These photos don’t come around as often as they should – excellent to have all the family together

Shortly after NZ, a work trip to Italy sprung out of nowhere – I managed to tack Venice on the end

Gorgeous city for a day – but I found the lack of trees, grass and bikes a little disconcerting

Pleased to finally make it back briefly to Edinburgh & even see the sun

I’d waited a long time to see Sagrada Familia, after hearing Dad’s stories – it didn’t disappoint and was, in a word, incredible

Watching football with eighty-odd thousand Spaniards at Camp Nou; Barcelona crossed off the top of the list

Still managing to explore England a fair bit, mainly the south – Leeds Castle (in Kent) was one of the most enjoyable visits

Fancy that, a summary of my year & no mountain-biking pictures, that should change next year – here’s hoping.  In the last few months I have been riding a fair bit (even though my bike-commute is short, the miles add up), but it’s pretty flat & wet (for now, or perhaps always) around here so the riding isn’t too exciting.  Work will be changing a bit next year too; I managed to be a process engineer of sorts for a year but am now moving into a different role scheduling the site’s production, amongst other things.

So that’s about it for this year – thanks to all who had me to stay, travelled with me, helped while my shoulder was out of action or simply kept in touch.  I’ll have to take this opportunity to wish all a merry Christmas and the best for the New Year, as I’ll be incommunicado then – Egypt will be off the list by the end of next week.

city, Europe, travel

Barcelona

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A pesky little cold turned up the night before I was due to fly to Barcelona, but a curtailed day at work enabled sufficient midday napping to make the drive to Gatwick and subsequent flight possible (the fantastic wild boar at Jamie’s Italian at Gatwick deserves a mention – especially as I didn’t have that much of an appetite [OK, that last part is hardly ever true of me]).

I had about an hour that Friday night after finding my airbnb accommodation to have a quick look around the local neighbourhood and grab a quick bite before crashing for the night.  The highlight of that was seeing a mob of Halloween costumed inline skaters – completely bizarre.

Saturday is mostly a bit of a cold-fighting induced daze as I walked around the central area, the harbourside, Las Ramblas and sat in the sun watching Catalonian life go by.

Christopher Columbus set off from this city for the Far East

Cold kicked & just leaving me an irritating cough for the rest of the week (“Would you call that moss green or forest green?”), I was well enough to wrap up too much for a mild evening at Camp Nou.  The home of FC Barcelona, it is the biggest stadium in Europe nudging one-hundred thousand capacity.  It’s not exactly new & I was up in the rafters (well I would have been if the section I sat in was roofed).  I was surprised at how good the view was from the top – it was easy to see the skill of the Barca passing as they relentlessly attacked the Celta Vigo goal in front of me during the first half.

While it was only a La Liga game (the Spanish football league), the stadium filled up to 83000 and it was excellent to get along to one of the great sport venues in the world and soak up the atmosphere – even if I didn’t understand much of what was being said; at least football is pretty easy to understand.

I must have been feeling better by then as over the dinner menu, convinced I wanted some lovely chanterelles I thought it would be a good time to try lamb brains for the first time.  Strangely, the brains were the highlight – not that the mushrooms were bad.  One just had to get past the whole zombie eating brains & texture thing.  The pitcher of sangria may have helped a little.

Not quite early & out on the metro early enough to avoid the regular large queue at Sagrada Familia, I climbed from the metro tunnel, turned around and was suddenly struck by a sight I’d waited twenty-odd years to see.  Of all Dad’s travel stories from when he was tripping around Europe in his late twenties, the story of Antoni Gaudi who started a huge church in Barcelona and was killed by a tram before it was close to completion & how it was now standing unfinished always did the most to capture my imagination.  I always knew I’d see it one day & I finally did; I was not disappointed – it’s a staggering project that is still some years off completion.

Nativity Facade

The intricately decorated Nativity Facade forms the largest & most spectacular part of what Gaudi managed to complete in his lifetime (it also forms part of the World Heritage Site, along with his crypt).  All through it are various parts of the nativity story along with an awful lot of nature – plants & animals abound.

Passion Facade

The more recently completed Passion Facade on the opposite side of the basilica is not just geometrically opposite – there is a lot of bare stone & it’s austere & somewhat chilling in its simplicity.

Only very recently has the church part of the complex been enclosed and I’m not sure what is the most impressive thing inside.  For me, it was probably the huge pillars of varying heights and width.  The pillars get more sides the further up you go, so they almost end up being completely round as they branch like trees near the roof.

I paid my extra three euros for the elevator up, walk across and down the towers of the Nativity Facade – well worth it to get a much closer look of the stonework.  The audioguide, for the record, is also worthy of the extra euros.  I’m not sure I’ll ever see anything quite like Sagrada Familia – & am already looking forward to seeing it after it’s completed (there is a huge tower still to go on top).

Spiral staircases abound – this one in the Nativity Facade

Back to the Nativity Facade

The towers on the Passion Facade

I had been told that Park Guell was also a Barca sight not to be missed.  Post lunch I strolled in that direction – it turned out to be quite a walk up a long hill that gradually increased in steepness.  But it was worth it to see more Gaudi work – the gingerbread-esque houses were quite something.  The park was very popular despite the hill and there were plenty of entertaining musicians around.  It was a little cloudy by then, but the views over the city were still good.

So that was Barcelona, a little less than I perhaps would normally do on a weekend break – but I saw all that I wanted to & loved it.  I hope it’s not twenty years again before I fulfil my desire to visit the city.

city, engineering, travel, UK

Scotland for a night

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Trials of our SBR (synthetic rubber) through our sister plant’s granulator at Grangemouth necessitated an overnight visit to Scotland earlier this week.  The trials went well, the half a tonne of rubber we previously sent up was annihilated by the rotating knives (“Did you say knives?”, “Rotating knives – yes.”).  That left enough time to see around the rest of the plant, quite a different process to ours – solvent rather than emulsion based polymerisation.

Shaun & I popped in to Edinburgh that night, it wasn’t far & I was disgusted that Shaun hadn’t been before.  The grey day had given way to a very misty night with a light rain falling.  After a great dinner (mmm, haggis) catching up with family-friend Thomas, whom I stayed with on my last visit three years ago, we went up & found the castle entrance looming out of the mist.

After more time discussing granulators, balers & general Finishing Plant issues the following day it was time to head off to the airport.  Misjudging the time it would take, we were well early & popped down to the Forth to check out the bridges.  We managed to get closest to the rail bridge (on land anyway), & it is by far the more photogenic – thankfully the weather was much better on Wednesday.

An all-too-brief return to Scotland, I must get up there again soon – it’s beautiful & I’d forgotten how much I missed the accent.  Black pudding isn’t too bad either.

city, engineering, Europe, food, history, travel

Ravenna & Venice

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Barely having recovered from the exhausting journey back from NZ, I was off to Italy less than a week after getting home.  It was a little odd going back to work after NZ & having all sorts of people telling me I was going to visit one of our sister plants for a week to see how they operate their similar plant better.  It was a very productive, informative & interesting week spent with my boss & workmate as the Italian process engineers showed us around and gave us plenty of ideas to try out back at Hythe.  For the most part, the language difference wasn’t a problem as most, except some operators, spoke reasonable English; Steve (my boss) knows quite a bit of Italian & Henry (workmate) knows a little – I of course only know the tiny amount I remember from previous Italian trips.

Ravenna is a very nice little city (~160000) & fortunately we were staying close to the centre – so it was very easy to walk around town on the warm evenings.  We didn’t have a lot of time to see some of the renowned early-church mosaics (eight UNESCO World Heritage sights to be seen), but Henry & I managed to see a couple once Steve had gone back to England early.  Of course, being Italy, the food was fantastic & as the capital of Romagna region we were able to sample quite a bit of the local food & wine.

The SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber) plant was on a huge industrial site, a similar size to the Port Kembla Steelworks – but with more space dedicated to plant, rather than stockpiles. There were an incredible number of bicycles and small Fiats all around to save much walking.  There was an appropriately sized canteen, where the lunches were bountiful & cheap.  Perhaps I ate too much pasta last week.

It wasn’t too difficult to get my return flight pushed out by two days so that I could have a free day exploring somewhere else in Italy.  Conveniently, Venice is on my list and only a short, cheap train ride away from Ravenna.  I rolled in Friday evening & then had a twenty minute walk rolling my cases along a lot of cobbles and carrying them over many bridges.  The end of September is a good time to visit: it’s warm, but not hot; the famous stink wasn’t there; and the crowds are tolerable.

But what an absolute nuts city – built on (& sinking into) the water, it’s just mad.  Being so flat, it’s a very easy city to walk around & get to the main sights & even outlying neighbourhoods – pre-cached maps on one’s phone really help in not getting lost in the labyrinth (the GPS signal was surprisingly strong in such skinny streets surrounded by tall stone buildings).  While I expected no cars, the lack of bikes took a little more to get used to – especially after the proliferation of bikes in Ravenna.

Grand Canal

Rialto Bridge

St Mark’s Campanile

As usual, I walked an awful lot around the city popping in to a few of the famous buildings & museums – Scuola Grande di San Rocco (filled with huge Tintorettos – said to be his Sistine Chapel) was my favourite.  The Jewish Quarter was nice & quiet, but then so were a lot of the neighbourhoods away from the Grand Canal & associated crowds.

Somewhere along the way I stumbled across some sort of musical museum, so I took a peek and learnt all sorts about Vivaldi – I didn’t know he was from Venice.  But that’s not surprising as I am musically ignorant.  Which makes it even stranger that I somehow ended up at a concerto that night in a packed hall listening to (what seemed to me, at least) an incredible string recital.  It can’t have been just me that thought so as the applause was prolonged – they came back three times just to bow and another two times for encores.  Most of the evening was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which as well as being brilliant kept on fooling me into thinking that another summer of NZ cricket was here – thanks National Bank.

So that two hours of the four violins, a viola, a cello (the cellist was particularly exuberant and highly entertaining), a double bass & a harpsichord turned out to be the highlight of Venice for me.  A great place to visit, but with so much stone, so many people, no grass & few trees I don’t think it’s a city I could spend much more than a few days at a time in.