The Lord of the Rings was filmed in several locations all over New Zealand. Even just flying into Queenstown on our arrival evoked images of many beautiful scenes from the movie.
So, it only made sense that we would take a “Lord of the Rings” based tour while we were here.
With the cancellation of the planed activities up in Port Douglas due to Cyclone Olga, we took our first formally organized tour – a bus tour up into the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
The weather threatened (again) but things turned out quite well.
Here’s a thousand words:
Yep – I took that, and yes, that’s the view out of our hotel room.
Actually it’s a small part of the view, since to the right is Circular Quay, and to the left the Sydney Harbor bridge.
I did take a panoramic shot from the roof of the hotel. (Because of the layout of the accessible roof portion, the picture’s mostly roof, but it’s pretty cool nonetheless.)
Monsoon
Olga was a bust. Lots of warning, lots of cancellations (including most of our plans in Port Douglas), but then … nothing.
Nada.
Zip.
Monday was a quiet, almost windless day. Hot and humid.
As part of setting up this trip, I’d booked a few activities that were to take place today (Sunday, as I write this) and tomorrow.
Note the words “were to take place”.
It turns out that 30 years ago Kathy and I got married during “cyclone season”.
How … interesting.
So when I started putting together an itinerary for this trip I asked Kathy if there was anything in particular she wanted to see or do or whatever.
She had only one request:
“I want to hold a Koala.”
Actually the title is a misnomer.
Folks overseas probably thing this is kinda silly, but as it turns out our cell phones simply won’t work overseas. In our case our carrier (Verizon) uses CDMA technology which isn’t even used overseas. Other carriers use the more globally accepted GSM technology, but “lock” their cell phones to their networks. Get a phone from AT&T, and it’ll work with AT&T, and that’s about it.
With our upcoming trip, we don’t really need a cell phone, but we’ve come to rely on its convenience and security.
The Dungeness River flows north from the Mountains on Washington’s Olympic peninsula along side the city of Sequim and empties into the Strait of Juan de Fuca which separates the United States from Canada’s Vancouver Island (and, coincidentally, my birthplace, Victoria).
Along the way from mountains to ocean, the Dungeness passes the small community where our vacation rental happens to be located.
So this morning I went for a walk.
Sequim, Washington, on the north coast of the state’s Olympic Peninsula, is a two and a half hour drive and ferry-ride from home, and a world away. We decided to take a few days away prior to Christmas, staying at one of the Sequim Retreats vacation rentals owned by a very good friend.
Naturally I took the opportunity to dry-run some of the things I plan for our longer trip earlier next year.
Another year of Ask Leo! and the questions don’t fail to inspire … and
dissappoint.
Here’s this years collection of the odd, the strange, the off-the-wall quesions.
As always, every question is a real question I’ve received via Ask Leo! within the last year, presented exactly as I got it
(except that any potentially identifying information will have been removed). Each “answer” is the answer that I’d be oh-so-tempted
to give…
(For perspective – remember that Ask Leo! is a tech site where I answer computer questions. Makes some of the following even more … puzzling.)
The recent deaths of pop icon Michael Jackson and pitchman Billy Mays caught
me be surprise. Not that their deaths shouldn’t have been unexpected – they
were – and by everyone, not just myself.
No, the problem, and the personal impact, relates to the fact that they were
my peers.
