Dubai

I'd heard Dubai described as everything from a hole , to 'fantastic'.

  Like it or loath it, it's amazing !  Too new to have slums. Clean ,gardens and lovely green lawns by the mile. Where the hell do they get their water from?This is a desert !

The old markets and traditional dhows on the "creek", that's the driver in the center,

We were lucky to have cousin Penny as a guide,our very own 'Arab' 

Penny is a food critic for a large magazine and knows some great places to eat out.

 We ate at an outside seafood place the first night ,right beside the fishing boats. You chose your fish and prawns at the counter, then it was cooked and bought to your table. With salad ,narn bread and drinks, 135 Durand ( about $40 NZ ) for 3 people

Most people come here for the shopping. The malls are mind blowing !

That's a ski field inside this mall, with a penguin enclosure! So funny to see women in full burkas in special snow clothes . Then in one of the cafes next to it, people sitting around fires , sipping their coffees . Hard to believe its a desert outside and over 40 degrees

Another mall had an ice rink, a 4 story high waterfall , a lake with a water show every night ,and boasted the Burj Khalifa.!  This is the tallest building in the world and you can go most of the way up to the observatory deck.

You can see part of the mall in this shot and the fountain piping. The next shot shows the metro and the air conditioned 

walkway to the mall. 

I especially loved the architecture of Dubai. Every building is different and some , quite beautiful works of art.

The malls are so big you can even get a taxi to take you around 

Public transport is good and very cheap. Taxis are cheap also,which is just as well as there's no way you'd want to walk or bike. Water is 60 cents a liter , but petrol is only 30 cents ! 

I skyped Dennis from the tower and he commented that it looked colorless . That's probably the best description so far ,but if you're ever lucky enough to pass through this way, allow at least a couple of nights to look around,as there really is no place like it.

Leaving London

We've decided to bring our return flights forward 10 days and so it's 9pm at Heathrow airport. Our flight leaves at 10.15 for Dubai. It's a long weekend in the UK and the line at customs went for well over 100 meters   

For the last week here we've been living the English life. Walking over farms, something you can't do in NZ, taking the dog to the local ( also something you can't do in NZ ) and cruising down the Thames on Andy's boat

Andy and Black Keith at the White Hart , our local

A lock on the way to Windsor castle

That's Rolf Harris's house ,and then lunch at the Windsor racecourse marina.

  That's it from England , they're starting to board. Next stop , Dubai.

Oh! And our youngest grandchild, Eli ,just turned 1

Life in England

In Katikati we have several people that live in NZ for our summer and in England for theirs. 

 Our friends  Roy and Jill do this and we arranged to meet up for lunch with them at a lovely little pub called the 'Crooked Billet'

Some of their customers need to update their cars I think.

Interestingly, Roy and Jill live in the center of a golf course ,and to get to their house you have to look both ways as you drive across the fairways. 

Running the gauntlet ! A rabbits view of life.

  Bletchley park. 

  On Sunday we drove up to Milton Keynes to Bletchley Park. This is the well preserved site of the most intriguing story  of the WW2 code breakers .

The story starts before the war began in Poland ,where some very clever mathematicians got hold of an enigma machine,used by the Nazis to send secret messages. They nearly worked out how to break the code, before passing it along to the Brits. This memorial recognizes the Polish heros

Churchill directed that a group of the best brains England could muster be formed to break the code. They purchased Bletchley Park, a private estate, to house this department of code breakers .

An enigma machine was captured from a damaged submarine ,with a code book, and with the ingenious machine above,the code for the day was broken. 

 The code was changed once a day at midnight. It was such a huge operation that it took a staff of 9000 over 3 shifts 24 hours a day

The staff explain every step . Hitler's personal messages to his generals was sent by a far more complex decoder, so the code breakers. Came up with this magnificent machine called colossus with which they were successful

In my opinion ,Bletchley Park is a 'must see 'if you're ever in Britain . Opens at 10am and closes at 5pm . You'll need all day.

 

Back in the UK

Our last night in France was in the walled town of Berges. Once again a Vauben fort. Never realized there were so many of them !

  We headed for Dunkirk the next morning. Our ferry tickets were flexible so we thought we'd bring the crossing forward a week. They didn't say that flexible only applied to 3 days either side ,so ended up paying an extra £60. *%~€!

   

This is our new best friend Daisy. Andy and Mandy are having a holiday in Spain so we're going to babysit.

  Windsor is a short bike ride away so today we rode along the Thames to see the changing of the guard.

The route takes you around the rowing lake used in the Olympics . Privately owned by Eton college.

  We waited with a large crowd for the guard change

They change the guard every 2 days whether they need it or not.

And half an hour later the old guard is marched away, presumably for a good wash and a change of undies.

Le Quesnoy to Eypre

After the September offensive , the German army reset their line further north. 

  The fortress town of le Quesnoy ( say 'ken wa' ),which is by the way ,another Vauban designed fortress,was an important link in this line and would have ordinarily been subject to a massive bombardment.

  Enter the kiwis. A mixed NZ regiment entered the fort by scaling the walls at night , and with the element of surprise, captured the town. 

Look closely at the NZ memorial and you may see them scaling the walls. The town folk have since then, honored us with a service each year, flying our flag ,naming streets after NZ places and various statues and murals like this one on the primary school. And for our Cambridge grandchildren , le Quesnoy is twinned with Cambridge. ! 

Oh NO !

What we didn't like about the place was the rain. Still ,First real rain in a month so mustn't grumble.

This morning our route back to the coast takes us through Ypres. This town was totally leveled by bombing and then completely rebuilt copying the old style.

  It's also the closest town to Passendale where NZ lost more men in a week ,than in any other war.

Only about 20% of the 5000 lost are here . The rest were never recovered and their names are among these on this memorial wall

Most losses for us occurred on 4th october 1917 ,including that of Katikati's own son and NZ's first all black captain Dave Gallaher.

At 8 pm we joined about 600 others for the service at the Menin gate. This gate was built to house another 100,000 odd men who were never found. The last post has been played here every night since 1928 and pulls a large crowd every night

Our hotel was in the town square .Bit worried by this sign though.

  'those who live by the sword...' etc etc

The Belgium's love vending machines!

 They sell fresh bread, sandwiches , ciggies , and in this case potatoes and strawberries.