Mrs Kalinowski (62), of St Clair, and her twin sister Lorraine Drew, of Macandrew Bay, are busy talking to community groups about their latest travelling adventures - through China and the former Soviet states of Central Asia to the Turkish coastline on the Black Sea.
The 62-year-old sisters have been travelling every couple of years since they turned 60, and last year spent August to October with 10 other people exploring the ancient Silk Road - an important trade route for more than 2000 years.
‘‘If you can smile and wave your hands you have an international language wherever you are,'' Mrs Kalinowski said.
The journey started in Beijing, China.
‘‘Meeting the people is always a highlight, no matter what country you are in,'' Mrs Drew said.
‘‘But in China, the Great Wall is also always a highlight - being on such an ancient construction.''
Border crossings were often an event in themselves.
Crossing from China into Kyrgyzstan they arrived at the border at 5am only to find ‘‘football fields'' of vehicles already waiting to cross. The whole process took more than eight hours.
‘‘They say there is very little unemployment in China. At the border crossing you know why. We showed our passports at least nine times, and that was just on the Chinese side of the border,'' Mrs Kalinowski said.
In Kyrgystan the group stayed in felt-covered yurts in a small village 2495 metres above sea level.
Mrs Kalinowski was one of only two in the group who suffered altitude sickness. But everyone had to ‘‘fight the geese to break the ice on top of the buckets of water'' that made up their outdoor bathroom. Throughout the trip they stayed and ate with the locals.
In Uzbekistan that meant two weeks of sheep kebabs.
‘‘We are not sure what parts of the sheep we were eating. We didn't ask,'' Mrs Drew said.
It was in keeping with a philosophy the sisters adopted from Mark Twain.
‘‘He said, ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the things you did do. So throw off your bow lines . . . Explore, dream, discover'.''
Turkmenistan was a strangely fascinating country.
Independence from Moscow came in 1991 when a former Communist Party boss declared himself Turkmenbashi, leader of the turks.
The authoritarian but well-liked Turkmenbashi then brought in French architects to create a new capital city built of Italian marble and paid for from the country's oil revenue.
Petrol was free in Turkmenistan but the health and education system - Turkmenbashi wrote the school curriculum - was run down, Mrs Kalinowski said.
Photos were not allowed, so had to be taken surreptitiously.
Crossing the Caspian Sea into Azerbaijan was the only part of the journey that involved air travel.
‘‘If the ships that cross the Caspian Sea have no cargo to pick up, they leave port and then just wait at sea. You can be waiting for up to two weeks. So we flew,'' Mrs Drew said. The sisters loved what they saw of Georgia despite being there towards the end of the Russian invasion. ‘‘It was beautiful.
We didn't see much sign of the war but we heard war planes going past overhead,'' Mrs Drew said. The real danger turned out to be a dog.
One member of the group was bitten by a large mountain dog, a cross between a St Bernard and a Rottweiler, Mrs Kalinowski said.
‘‘We had to drive 12 hours to get her to a hospital but they would not let us in at the clean military hospital so we had to go to the public one. ‘‘You wouldn't put your pigs in it.
‘‘The Sri Lankan doctor kept apologising for the condition of the place.'' The woman lost the use of two of her fingers ‘‘but she is going on the next tour''. Turkey marked the end of the journey.
In reply to information that they were from New Zealand, the twins were told ‘‘enemy'' in more than one large Turkish town.
‘‘My guess is that in a few years it will be a completely Islamic state,'' Mrs Kalinowski said.
Planning has already begun for their next foreign foray - North Africa.
