The Daily Photo Challenge ...

The element of 'challenge' continues to dominate as I work at finding a photograph for every day of this year however my lovely friend and I are delighting as our stories and images roll out over days.

Today's image began as a shot of the beautiful dish with the delicate fern leaf imprint inside.  The one that was gifted to me by the truly special New Zealand family I had the pleasure of photographing when I was home.  But as I worked at composition and struggled with light ... because yes, I did leave it until the last moment, it soon became clear that it was more about the bracelets and necklace I wear everyday.  They nestle there in the dish over-night.

The jade necklace was carved by Jayme Anderson, a talented New Zealand artist and jade carver. I was told that the jade is Marsden Jade and that delighted me.  Hokitika and the wild west coast stole my heart way back when I was teenager.

A little from Jayme's business card , 'Jayme's love for jade and carving began in 1996, the first year of his Diploma of Visual Art and Design.  He graduated in 1998.

Later it tells me that, 'From his 10 acre lifestyle block at Marsden, home of the flower jade, he travels internationally and pushes the boundaries in techniques and stone limitations. His innovative work is in the Spiritwrestler Gallery in Canada and private collections in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K...

I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have a piece of his work.  It was well worth the horrific journey through my old nemesis ... the Homer Tunnel.  That story is here.

Awake ...1.29 am in Italy

I did the crime ... an Italian espresso at 5pm in Venice.   And although it was in celebration of finding our way out of the maze that is Venice, it seems I must do the time.  It's 1.29am and I'm still awake.  Wide awake!

Today has been all about leaving Trieste, then impulsively stopping for an hour or two of wandering through Venice, and driving on afterwards, another million miles towards Milan then Lake Como.

An impulsive couple of hours in Venice that became 4 hours when we were lost for a while on our way out of that ancient city. 

And Venice ...!!!  I'm not even sure how to write up the experience.  Not yet.  But tonight, once we found our way to Bellano, Italy, there was this dinner consisting of this divine smokey cheese, provided by our lovely Air B&B hostess, and a bottle of Italian red wine we had been carrying since Budapest.

Julie made herself pasta but it felt too late for me to be eating something so serious and anyway, I was still recovering from The Most Delicious pasta dinner I had ever tasted ... the previous evening, back in Trieste.  Something to do with mushrooms, a cream sauce, and pasta at Al Barattolo.

If you find yourself in Trieste, I can only tell you that you must eat at Al Barattolo because the food is divine. The house red wine is also delicious but that's a whole other story.

That said, tonight's pasta did inspire Julie to write up a blogpost about our roadtrip so far.  But our journey is almost done and tomorrow we're off to the airport.  I'm heading back to Antwerp while she's continuing on her long journey home, with Athens as her next destination.  

I will miss that cousin of mine after almost 2 months of living and traveling together.  We do have the most excellent adventures though.  Always.  Last time we wandered all over England, wondering about speed limits and road rules as we went, occasionally phoning home to seek wise counsel on these serious matters.

We drank wine with mercenaries on that journey.  I actually went through a stage where I met 3 different groups of them socially ... by chance and yes, I found it bizarre.  We also managed to accidentally walked out of a cafe without paying, realised, then found a branch of the same chain in another town over there, confessed, felt the love ... well actually, their surprise that we were so honest.  I think they might have been stunned but anyway, they'd written it off, much to our relief.  And so much more.  It's never sedate when we get together.

Anyway ... tonight finds us in a lovely Air B&B in Bellano in Italy.  It seems to be located on one of the arms of Lake Como, not Como itself though.  Everything we've viewed online tells us it's lovely however ...spending time lost in Venice complicated our arrival here and made us some hours late, in fact, after darkness had fallen.

The light was fading fast when we began driving the 50 minutes alongside Lake Como to Bellano.  Darkness AND there were masses of tunnels, some as much as 5kms long.  And while The Homer Tunnel experience in New Zealand last year, seems to have cured me of my previously intense dislike of tunnels, I wasn't the happiest creature when I realised we had driven an extra 16kms beyond our destination exit road, due to our troublesome GPS losing its satellite connection while in those very same very long tunnels.

But arriving here, meeting Laura - our lovely B&B hostess, settling in, drinking the last bottle of red wine Julie and I will share in a while ... somehow everything took on a rosy restropective glow and voila, we were happy again.

We are fortunate, it doesn't take much to right our sometimes wonky worlds.  Well ... I could have done without the whole 'sleepless in Bellano' thing but you wouldn't have this post and nor would you have this small glimpse of a scene I spotted in Venice.

Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway or … how I earned my greenstone.

If there is one tunnel, in the entire world, that I fear … it's the Homer Tunnel down in Fiordland, New Zealand.

It's 1.2km (0.75 miles) long and takes just over 2 minutes to drive through. It's nothing like a European tunnel and really, I don't particularly like them either. Probably because I come from a country of earthquakes. 

Anyway … Gert and I were there in Fiordland and because most of our European Tunnel Experiences have been narrated with Stories By Di from THE Homer Tunnel. The Tunnel of all Tunnels. The one without escape exits built in throughout the tunnel. The one where one used to have to turn on the lights because there were no lights inside. The one where I had once been trapped for quite some time while two buses negotiated passing each other INSIDE said tunnel...but that's another story.

Tuesday 11 December I took Gert to almost all of my favourite places inside Fiordland National Park, dating back to that time in the 90's back when I lived in Te Anau, Fiordland. We visited Walkers Creek – the place where my beloved Labrador swam. We stopped in at McKays Creek and photographed the multitude of summer Lupins in flower there. 

We wandered on to the Mirror Lakes and tried for the promised mountains-reflected-in-the-lakes shot but there was a troublesome breeze. We drove on … stopped at Gunns Lake and were almost consumed by Sandflys (so much worse than Mosquitoes, for the curious).

And slowly I fell silent, as the inevitability of the promised Homer Tunnel Experience fell down upon my little kiwi shoulders. I really don't like that tunnel but I had to show him. 

We pulled up at the entrance. There are traffic lights there now. Traffic is only one-way. I appreciate that since The BusJam Experience with Diede back in 2001. However, a word of advice … never ever, under no circumstances, talk to a local while you wait for the green light to enter The Tunnel.

Always friendly, I asked, 'Anything I should know?'

She smiled and gave me the usual, 'Safe as houses' and 'So many use it everyday' stuff.

But then she continued with 'Lucky you didn't come through yesterday though … there was a slip on the other side'.

'Really???' squeaked I.

She saw my face and changed down a gear. 'If you didn't know about it, you would hardly know that it's there though …' 

I reminisced about my experience with Diede and the Big Old BusJam and she said, 'It's much better now … it's one-way and there are lights'.

I said, 'Excellent!'

She continued with, 'So no one could understand how that tourist crashed into the wall recently … I mean, the tunnel's so wide inside'.

I said, 'I'm not sure I'm the right person to tell this to … '

We both laughed. Gert was controlling a belly laugh … I'm almost sure of it.

Thankfully, before more could be shared, the neon sign lit up and said 'Prepare to go', or some other thing … and we left.

I shook.

Great rolling waves of fear rocked through my body as I led the way into the darkness that is The Homer Tunnel. Roadwork signs, inside the tunnel, stating 30kms p/h was the limit, DID NOTHING to calm my chicken-hearted little self but finally, we emerged into sunlight.

You know, I really understand when the mountaineers say that the summit is only halfway. There's still the getting down. We were through the tunnel however I knew, almost immediately, that we still had to tackle the return very-steep-gradient before this whole Homer Tunnel Experience was over.

The one bright spot on this adventure was The Chasm ... both the beautiful photographs we would take of said beautiful area and the Keas, who would do their beautiful Kea thing in The Chasm carpark. 

I boldly allowed the little red car to roll down the mountainside, downdowndown, knowing that I would be photographing those Keas soon however … wouldn't you know it. The Chasm … the longed-for or, at very least, looked-forward-to, Chasm WAS CLOSED.

I U-turned at the first opportunity, wanting to avoid Milford Sound's carpark, sandflys and expensiveness, and headed back up that damn mountain to the scary old Homer Tunnel.

Happily, I found myself at the head of the queue heading back into THE TUNNEL, as being behind a campervan wasn't my idea of a good time and … I set off when the green light said go.

Gert videoed the return trip.

He told me I didn't do the 30kms asked of me … he said I was a wee bit faster.

What can I say …

I got out of that tunnel, parked. Praised God and everyone else responsible for my safe return and wandered off to photograph the Keas loitering there at The Tunnel's entrance. 

I drove out of Fiordland Park, so full of the joy you feel when you live through something that could end badly, with Gert in complete agreement with my idea that The Homer Tunnel is one of the scariest tunnels we've ever ever driven through.

Hooray me.

Now … on to Hokitika to find the piece of jade that is mine because I am the bravest creature around at the moment.  Or that's my spin on the story.