U3A – Travel Group Meeting, 25 June 2015 We had 2 x 15 minute speakers at our meeting this morning before breaking for morning tea. We heard about New Zealand East Cape, California, Nevada and Arizona followed by “Bridges around the World”.
The first speaker was Lesley Hollis talking about her trip around the East Cape of New Zealand with No. 8 Tours. She found they were really quite self-sufficient in the remote areas around the Cape and showed some very interesting photographs. The pier at Tolaga Bay was opened in 1929 and at 660 metres it is the longest in New Zealand.
The second speaker was Jan Hutson who showed us some great photos of her trip in May this year to California, Nevada and Arizona. One of the highlights was a plane trip over the Grand Canyon which is 446 km in length, 29 km wide and 1,857 metres deep. She visited Monument valley and a Navajo house. The Navajo code talkers were used to transmit secret messages during WWII. The last stop of this tour was Las Vegas where Jan managed to see Paris, New York and Cairo all in one afternoon as she walked up and down “the strip”. She had 3 days in San Francisco and went around the main sights before going to Napa Valley, Sacramento and Yosemite National Park.
Cam Fisher’s talk after morning tea was on “Bridges around the World”. He told us that some people travel the world just so they can walk over suspension bridges! We saw some wonderful photographs of bridges some of which were:- Brooklyn and Golden Gate (New York), Opiki (Manawatu), Singapore, Bristol, Shropshire (England), Whananaki (Northland) which is the longest foot-bridge in the Southern Hemisphere, Ponte Vecchio (Florence), Pont du Gard (South France) which is an ancient Roman aqueduct bridge, Carrbridge in the Scottish Highlands.