Auckland and journey over

Well I am in a lovely warm (though a bit rainy) Auckland hanging out with my nephew Ben (very happy young thing), my brother and his wife...well, it's mainly me, Ben and Cat cos Jez is at work.

The journey was long and didn't involve getting stuck at Heathrow, though we did spend a fun 2 hours or so at Ho Chi Min city airport (not sure of the exact name) cos there was a fire at the air traffic control at Singapore, which shut down the local airspace round Brunei. However, it meant that there was only 10 hours to kill at Brunei and not 12, so that was something. But it was ok, cos I passed the time chatting with some fellow passengers from the plane.

All in all a long journey, but it all went fairly smoothly, so no complaints. Going to hang out in Auckland for a couple of weeks, then up to Goat Island marine reserve for a few days with the fam, before heading down south to hook up with Neil and get some hiking (or tramping as they call it over here...yes, yes, very funny) done with Neilski.

Until next time, here are some shots which don't live up to the standards set below, but hey ho...deal with it! For interest (or not) the shots of the mosque are from a moving vehicle, through glass, which will explain the less than ideal angles and the reflections (but I still quite like them) and the mosque had something like 25 domes, all of which were solid gold! Brunei is a pretty rich country (offshore oil reserves) and offers free housing to it's citizens and hospital treatment for $1, regardless of what the treatment is and very, very cheap petrol/diesel...pretty sweet. I'm sure it has some bad points though to counteract these....wikipedia it...

Benjamin the nephew

mosque in Bandar Seri Begawan (aka BSB), Brunei

mosque in BSB, Brunei II

Ben the nephew again