Author Archives: dipidydoo
Lonely Mountain Sprints Day 1
This morning we woke to rain; our Lonely Mountain was well and truly gone. The radar suggested we’d be getting wet – and it was right. Our lovely new DROC tops were buried under raincoats, and we looked gloomily out of the window, not enthused about any sort of outdoor activity. We steeled ourselves, dived […]
The Lonely Mountain
We’ve come to New Plymouth to compete in the Lonely Mountain Sprints – Mt Taranaki being the “lonely mountain”. So named because there is nothing of comparable size anywhere, and when you can see it in all its glory, it completely dominates the view. Last time we visited, the skies were cloud free and we […]
The Never Ending Road to New Plymouth
We picked up our rental car this morning. It’s a Prius. None of us have ever driven a hybrid. We asked the nice rental car man for instructions. He explained how to start it. We followed his instructions and duly set off, heading south. Google said it would take us 4 hours plus, to get […]
New Zealand – It’s Good To (Finally) Be Back
It’s been almost five years, but Dipidydoo is finally having an Orienteering adventure Overseas! Well three quarters of us are – I’m travelling with Pete and Ilze, while Ian is looking after things on the home (and streeto) front. This time we’re joined by Pam and Peter. We’re in the North Island of New Zealand, […]
The Temple and the Skytree
We’d left our plans for the last day flexible; with a 9pm flight, we had time for some last minute sightseeing, but what we did would depend on the weather. Yesterday’s rain (the only wet day of the whole trip) cleared overnight and we woke to blue skies and fluffy white clouds. We packed up, […]
A Ride In The Rain on a Teeny Tiny Train
We had plans to go to the seaside … but when we woke up this morning, Tokyo had all but disappeared under a blanket of mist and rain. Not exactly beach weather. However, most of the journey involved train travel, so we figured we’d start out dry, so we set off regardless. Captain K had […]
A Sunday Metrogaine in Tokyo
Our travel day to Tokyo went smoothly enough. Captain Kumamon kept an eye on the speed app on Ian’s phone, but we were unable to get near Pete and Ilze’s Italian record. We enjoyed a relaxing 3 hour journey; less fun was the hectic transfer from Shinkansen to subway at Tokyo Central. We’re staying in […]
Osaka Observations
It was our last day in Osaka, so we thought it was time to look at the local sights, rather than just the immediate neighbourhood and the inside of the subway between Shin-Osaka and Shinsaibashi. We mapped out a rough plan for the day, and set off. Yesterday I told Ian that for every temple […]
A Funny Old Day In Kyoto
In the words of Arkwright in “Open All Hours”, it’s been a funny old day. In the morning we were hiking up a mountain covered in fox shrines and thousands of vermilion Torii gates. In the afternoon we were shuffling around a Buddhist temple wearing ruby slippers. We weren’t in Kansas anymore, but Kyoto. We […]
The Train to Hiroshima, and the Dangle Train
It was our longest excursion, 340 km to Hiroshima. After a dash to Shin-Osaka in personal-record-breaking time (32 mins), we boarded a Sakura Shinkansen, which covered the distance in 90 minutes, at a top speed of 290 kph. I wish we had a train network like this. I would have saved years of my life […]
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