The U3A Tauranga Travel Group meet the 4th  Thursday of each month in the lounge at the Wesley Methodist Centre, 13th Avenue. 23 March 2017 had two speakers, morning tea and lots of discussion.

Jonathan Spink spoke to us about his trip from Darwin to the outback of Northern Australia on a glamping holiday for 5 days/4 nights.   There were 16 people on the tour and they stayed in tents or permanent huts and had their own guide.   They visited Kakadu National Park, Katherine Gorge and Lichfield National Park etc.   He mentioned to us that Kakadu National Park is about half the size of Switzerland.   Jonathan went at the coolest part of the year and even then it was quite hot which meant there wasn’t much bird life but plenty of wild life including salt-water & estuarine crocodiles.

They did quite a bit of walking and saw many ancient aboriginal rock-face paintings.
 
He showed us a number of photos and some beautiful reflections.

After morning tea Annette McLachlan gave a talk on her trip to the Cinque Terre in Italy.

The Cinque Terre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera which consists of 5 small villages (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore).  It was a very poor area until the 1970’s when the development of tourism brought wealth to the area and it was then that the houses were painted.   The only village that used fishing as its main industry was Monterosso.  The locals lived off vineyards and olive cultivation.  There are very few roads into the towns that are accessible by car.

A train runs from La Spezia to Genoa which is the best way to get to the villages.
It is possible to walk to all five villages in one day but Annette found it much nicer to stop and enjoy the villages as she went through them.
The area is all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.