Running is the best way to discover a city – or, in this particular case, to re-discover a city. Alas, I’m about to find out that after six months of being away from Singapore, I’ve lost my acclimatisation to extreme humidity. It’s murderous.
Acknowledgement of gratuitous illustration: I did take the above photo of the iconic Marina Bay Sands; but that was sometime last year, and you wouldn’t see it in the course of this particular running route.
Fresh from three months in the Antipodes, we’re back in Singapore for less than a couple of weeks – better make the most of it! I’ve always fancied living in the hip Tiong Bahru district, and so jumped at the chance of staying at our friend Matt Chapman’s gorgeous flat in Eng Hoon Street while he was away. Thanks again, Matt!
Tiong Bahru is the city’s very first public housing estate – built in the 1930s by the Singapore Improvement Trust (predecessor to the HDB, or Housing Development Board). In recent years, this district has become one of Singapore’s trendiest and therefore priciest residential areas.
The Tiong Bahru Road block shown above is typical of this Art Deco estate.
It was another of those perfect mornings down at the beach – the infamous Perth wind hadn’t yet sprung up – and there they were again: hundreds of Chinese men, couples and families streaming down the footpaths through the dunes to the sea below.
They seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and they were clearly on some sort of mission. The sea wasn’t especially cold that morning, though it can be here, and many of them were kitted out in full wetsuits, plus snorkels and masks.
What can I say about our 14-night cruise from 14-28 February on Holland America Lines’ Noordam? First of all, thank you, Roy, for organising it all and presenting me with the tickets as a fait accompli on my birthday in January.
Have you cruised? Did you like it? They – whoever “they” are – say that there’s a cruise for everyone. You just need to choose the right ship and the right voyage for you.
“Almost no one here actually comes from Wanaka,” says our friend Ayse. She and Richard moved to this beautiful spot with their three kids (10, 12 and 13) just over a year ago, after 14 years in Singapore. She’s a Brit (of Turkish/Kurdish extraction) and he’s a Kiwi from Nelson.
I’d been speaking airily of us spending “most of February” in New Zealand, thinking we’d hole up at our apartment at The Oaks Club on the shores of Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, South Island. But no – the apartment was only available for the second week of February, having already been booked out by the agents for the rest of the month.
Some things have changed since we first visited Queenstown in 2006. Not our awesome view over Lake Wakatipu; and my run along the lake path – either turning right to jog the couple of kilometres to town, or left to Frankton – is still as lovely as ever, though the number of cyclists seems to have increased tenfold.
Bay of Plenty – isn’t that a name brimful of promise! With a few days to go in North Island, Roy and I headed south in our Nissan Tiida rental from Auckland to Rotorua, less than 300km away. For some unknown reason, he made the unilateral decision to spend one night in Hamilton on the way there, and another on the way back to Auckland.
Overnight in Hamilton
I reckon the world can be divided into two groups: (a) those who are quite happy with a quick shower, and (b) those, like me, who love, need, have to soak in a bath. Not necessarily every day, but at least several times a week. The bigger, the better… and if it bubbles, I’m in heaven. In short, spas make me happy.
With Jenny at the wheel of her and Doug’s hired Hyundai Tucson – a little more butch than our Nissan Tiida – we headed off from Parihoa Farm in Murawai to the nearby wine country of Matakana. On an apparent whim (so unlike my own, strictly destination-focused husband), Doug spotted a sign for the historic village of Puhoi – and then actually turned off and stopped the car!
With the sheep in New Zealand famously outnumbering people by about six to one, staying on a working sheep farm was a superbly appropriate way to kick off our travels. Our friend Matt Chapman has over 400 of these lovely, woolly beasts at his farm (parihoa.co.nz) at Murawai Beach in North Island – about 66 times his fair share.
This is Roy’s and my first visit to the North Island of New Zealand. With only a week to go before we fly to Queenstown, South Island, there’s no way we can see everything – so we’re taking it easy. No point in rushing around, we reckon: we can always come back.
We had two good reasons for booking a full-day tour: Roy was sick up and fed of driving, and I was sorrowful about having been driven past so many vineyards without stopping at a single cellar door.
Glenn, our guide for the day and also the driver of the 13-seater bus, arrived bright and early at our motel on a cloudy, cool morning that blossomed into the most perfect blue-sky day. And, with a total of nine stops between the 10am hotel pickup and 5.30pm drop-off times, our $115 each (including lunch) was good value.
