Our route for the day started by heading out of Pitigliano down the now familiar Via Cave di Poggio Cane, but when we reached the highway we turned in a new direction and followed a couple of roads until we reached the beginning of the Via Cave di San Guiseppe.
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Tag: tunnel
Pitigliano
Today’s walk was mercifully quite short, as we are spending a second night in Pitigliano. The town has a population of about 4000 people, and although it was once another Etruscan settlement its name dates back to Roman times.
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Vitozza
Vitozza was one of the largest cave settlements in central Italy, and has over 200 dwellings excavated from the volcanic tuff stone. It was inhabited from Etruscan times (around 800 BC) until the end of the 18th century.
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Sorano
We were dropped off at the end of a small country road near San Valentino in the early afternoon, so we only walked a kilometer or so before stopping under a shady oak tree to eat lunch. Soon after we set off again, the road petered out into a grassy track and eventually we came to a sign advising us that we were at the beginning of the Via Cava di San Carlo. Continue reading Sorano
Orvieto
Our instructions for getting from Orvieto train station to our accommodation were to take a taxi, because the town is over a hundred meters up on top of a steep cliff. When we asked a taxi driver to take us however, he told us that the road was closed for the day because of a “celebrazione”. Fortunately, there is a funicular railway as an alternative. Continue reading Orvieto
Auschwitz-Birkenau and Wieliczka Salt Mine
For our last full day in Krakow, we booked a tour of the nearby Nazi death camp followed by a trip down a salt mine. I can now appreciate why the government here recently passed a law which forbids these camps being referred to as Polish. Continue reading Auschwitz-Birkenau and Wieliczka Salt Mine
Krakow Old Town
We enjoyed our walking tour of the Jewish Quarter so much that we decided to do another walk around the old town with the same company. This time our guide was named Dimitri, and he was a student of linguistics, working part time to help pay for his studies.
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Gabriels Gully
Directly inland from Dunedin is the town of Lawrence, just outside of which is an area known as Gabriels Gully. Nowadays it is a DOC reserve in a pretty tree-lined valley, but its claim to fame is that in 1861 a bloke named Gabriel Read discovered gold there, and the Otago gold rush began. Continue reading Gabriels Gully
Catlins Coast to Owaka
Because the weather was forecast to be wet, we planned to head out for a day trip and return to Curio Bay, but we changed our minds about mid-afternoon and ended up at Pounawea instead. The motor camp is on the edge of the Catlins River surrounded by mature bush, and there is more bird song than we have heard anywhere on our trip so far. Continue reading Catlins Coast to Owaka
Waitangi weekend cycling in central North Island
Tuakau Bridge
I had done quite a bit of driving around the city completing chores, so by the time I left town mid-afternoon Wednesday, I wasn’t feeling like travelling far. I also felt like a swim so I returned to the Les Atkins Reserve next to the bridge over the Waikato River at Tauakau.
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Pureora Timber Trail
Since I read about the opening of the Pureora Timber Trail almost exactly four years ago I have been itching to ride it, and with Felicity away overseas at a conference I finally got my opportunity. The trail is 85km long, and while some truly hard bastards ride it in one go, most take two days with an overnight camp in the middle.
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Kuranda
The skyrail trip from Cairns to Kuranda is one of the best attractions we have run across. The ride up in a gondola took almost an hour and a half, including a couple of stops along the way.
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Cromwell
All the way across the Haast Pass it continued to pour with rain, so although there were numerous interesting-looking places to explore, we didn’t stop. When we arrived in Hawea, we finally had cell-phone reception and internet again so while we ate lunch at the edge of the lake we caught up on emails and blog updating.
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Gillespies Beach
20 kilometres along a winding metal road out of Fox Glacier is Gillespies Beach. When Felicity was a teenager she and a friend rode all the way out and back on bikes, which is very impressive because this would be a big mission for me now. She has wanted to return ever since, so here we are.
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Franz Joseph
It is only a short trip from Okarito to Franz Joseph, so we arrived in time for lunch, which we ate parked in the main street. We did some shopping while we were there, and visited the information centre to ask about guided walks on the glacier.
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Denniston and Cape Foulwind
We visited Denniston back in Easter after walking the Old Ghost Road, but our hostess convinced us that we had barely scratched the surface of this old coal mining area so we drove up the hill after breakfast this morning. Lerey is friends with Gary and Sylvia James who are some of few people that still live up there, so she rang to find out if the Friends Of The Hill museum was open – which it was.
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Charming Creek
The Charming Creek Walkway runs from Ngakawau through to the Charming Creek Road at Seddonville, a 19km return trip. We had planned to walk it together today but when I discovered you can ride it on a mountain bike I came up with a cunning plan.
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Millerton
Up a winding road from Granity on NZ’s west coast is the old coal mining town of Millerton. Like its much more famous neighbour Denniston, it had an incline which allowed wagons of coal to be lowered down to the railway along the coast.
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Mallaig
With another 110 km walk starting tomorrow, and Felicity having a bit of a sore knee we decided to have a rest day today. We took the Hogwarts Jacobite Express train up the coast to a small port where the ferry leaves for the Isle of Skye.
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Rocky’s Goldmine Trail
We spent the last night of our Anniversary Day holiday camped on the edge of the Firth of Thames at Little Waikawau Bay. We had a swim before dinner, but the water is pretty shallow, and the “beach” was stony and not easy to walk on in bare feet.
Continue reading Rocky’s Goldmine Trail