Eat Up Toronto

My story about a food walking tour we did of Toronto as part of last year's Adventure World media trip was published in yesterday's Sunday Star Times. The online version is here.

Niagara Falls

My story about our visit to the amazing Niagara Falls, as part of the Adventure World media trip, is published in today's Press/Stuff (click here to read).

Photos, of course, by the talented Animator.

Terrific Toronto

One of three Toronto stories from the Adventure World media trip last year is published in the  NZ Woman's Weekly (click here to read).

Btw, check us out sitting in the first O of the iconic Toronto sign...

Second Canada story

Playing catch-up after being away but my Rocky Mountaineer story from May's Adventure World famil was published in last week's Sunday Star Times (click here to read).

Thanks to the Animator for the glorious pix.

A Passage to India

My story on our Adventure World media trip to India is published in this month's North & South Magazine. Note the glorious pics from the Animator (click here to read).

  

Toronto

Yes, yes I know I've been back over a month but in the nightmare that has become my life, I forgot to share photos of our three nights in Canada's largest city, the fourth largest in North America.

It was the rump end of our Adventure World media trip and we were a bit shattered but had a fabulous time (how could you not in this city?) with lots of sight-seeing, a food walking tour for a food magazine story and lots and lots of eating and shopping. It should come as a surprise to exactly no-one why Toronto is regularly voted one of the world's most liveable cities.  

Here's a few of the zilllions of photos taken by the Animator.

Check out us, sitting in the 'O' (there's a sentence you don't get to type every day).

First Vancouver cab off the rank

My first story from last month's Adventure World media famil to Canada and the US is one of two stories I have in this week's NZ Woman's Weekly (click here to read).

    
(pic credit: Tourism Vancouver) 

Lake Louise

Rewind two weeks to our Adventure World media trip to the STUNNING hamlet of Lake Louise, in Banff National Park.

Famous for its turquoise glacier-fed lake that's hemmed in by snow-dusted peaks, we were dumbfounded by the greedy beauty that filled every window of the gorgeous Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, the kind of hotel I want to live in forever (I defy you not to start checking out flights when you click on this link).

Apologies for ODing on the scenery photos but can you blame me? Seriously, that view never, ever gets tired...

  

India story

My travel piece on last year's Adventure World media famil to India is published in this month's NEXT Magazine (click here to read).

 

Vancouver the Beautiful

Note: post contains the words 'stunning', 'civilised' and 'outrageously attractive' far too many times.

But we are here and it is stunning and civilised and, frankly, a big fat show-off. But Vancouver is such an over-achiever in the visual stakes, it is perfectly entitled to be a little bit too far up its own bottom.

We have eaten and drunk and walked and caught buses and ferries. And we had an upgrade at the excellent Fairmont Waterfront Hotel.

Bonus: for a city reported to have around 175 days of rain a year, it has been gloriously sunny and warm (25 degrees today). We are in heaven.

Some quick pics from our full first day. It doesn't get much more sublime, civilised and outrageously attractive than this.

Currently girding my loins

For the one hour flight to Auckland, and then the 13 hour slog to Vancouver.

Will miss this little chap so much but looking forward to a fun time and our amazeballs Adventure World Western Explorer Rocky Mountaineer trip (and lots of great things I can write about for the many, many stories I need to file on my return).

See you on the other side....

  

Canada - and New York City, baby!

It's been a bit of a slow start to the year, travel wise, which is fine by me, given that I spent so much of last year climbing on and off planes, filling out stupid immigration forms and trying to remember it all sufficiently to write innumerable stories.

Besides, having multiple contracts means I haven't actually been able to leave town. But later next week that changes when we fly to Vancouver for the glorious nine day Adventure World Western Explorer trip from Vancouver to Calgary on the Rocky Mountaineer train, which has been called one of the world's best train trips. Then we fly to Toronto for more adventures, including dinner with a cousin I've never met.

Thanks to the lovely folk at Adventure World for this media trip - and for letting the Animator come too. We are super excited.

But that's not all. As I have an, um, milestone birthday hovering on the horizon, and I spent the last milestone birthday in New York, it seemed rude not to do the same. So after we're done with Toronto we fly to my favourite city in the world for four nights of eating, drinking, shopping and trying to forget how old I am. What's more, I am determined that NO work will be done on this leg; this is strictly a holiday (even as I type those words, I know I will end up writing something about it).

But yeah, how exciting is that? Now I just have to get a ridiculous amount of deadlines out of the way before I can get my head into travel mode...    

In the Pink

My story on Jaipur, India's 'pink city', from last year's Adventure World media trip, is published in the Flight Centre blog (click here to read).

  

Destination Fabulous

Another story from the recent Adventure World media trip to India, this one about the pink city of Jaipur, is published in this week's NZ Woman's Weekly (click here to read).
 
Currently girding my loins for the flight to Auckland, then to LA, then an 11-hour layover, then a flight to Detroit and then another to Nashville. Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself!

Am, however, very much looking forward to the heat after yet another cold snap in Wellington.

See you on the other side...

Don't try this one at home

Found a couple of stray pics from our Adventure World media trip to India in May  - these are of the waiter having fun with the gullible foreigners.

They were taken in Samode, at a gorgeous former palace which has been turned into a hotel, about an hour's drive from Delhi. It took a while to wrap the exquisite cloth around the Animator's head but it gave the kitchen staff (and me) something to laugh about.

Apologies for the rubbish photos (old and dodgy iPhone meets leaking water bottle, etc).

Fancy staying in a 16th Century palace?

Don't mind if I do.

We spent Monday night at the gob-smackingly beautiful Samode Palace, about an hour north of Jaipur. Built as a Rajput fort by the local royal family, it was converted into a luxury resort in the 19th Century. Today, its marble floors, mosiac walls and mirrored ceilings give themselves up to anyone with deep pockets and a desire to be utterly spoiled.

I've never stayed in a palace before, and probably never will again, but holy crap it was stunning.

      

Later, when it got a bit cooler (as in 38 instead of 44 degrees!) we did a tour of the tiny Samode Village. There wasn't much to see but we  met some of the locals and joined in a game of cricket with the village kids. The colours in Rajasthan though are outstanding - a clash of bright yellows, reds, greens and pinks that could only work under an Indian sun. So from a photographic point of view, Samode Village was truly an over-achiever.