Dec 2008

Hello,

After spending the last 5 or so weeks driving around the north and south islands of New Zealand, I guess it’s probably time for an update. I’m writing this sat in our hotel in Christchurch on Boxing Day. There’s not much to say about it so we’ll go back to the end of November when interesting stuff was happening.

After picking up the campervan in Auckland (upgrading to one with a heated towel rail…an essential item on every great intrepid explorers wish list) we spent the next five weeks driving a lap around the north and south islands.

This is a beautiful country, no if’s or but’s about it, it’s just beautiful. Unless I say otherwise you can almost guarantee that every place we went and everything we saw, from the volcanoes of the north to the glaciers and mountains of the south it was well worth spending a few seconds of our short lives standing and staring at it. They also have some fantastic drives and with road names like ‘The Forgotten Valley Highway’, ‘Twin Coast Discovery’ and the ‘Thermal Explorer Highway’…how can you not be tempted to take a detour just to see what’s down them. Even the photo’s don’t do the country justice, but they do present it better than I could ever describe so have a look if you want. If you can’t be bothered, but you’ve watched Lord of the Rings, or Narnia, or one of the other films shot here, then you already know what I’m talking about. One thing we thought we had left behind in Australia though was the stupid town names. Looking back now, Wagga Wagga sounds quite sophisticated next to some of the rubbish places here. It’s like the Kiwi’s commissioned a 12 month old baby to name each town…Wahwewoowoo and Whangamumu, and even Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu!

During our quick drive around the north Island, we tried to visit as many highlights as we could.
Our first stop was at the Springs on the Coromandel Peninsula, where natural hot water seeps up through the sands on cleverly named ‘Hot Water Beach’ (in some points it’s hot enough to burn your feet). There’s something cool about digging a hole, letting it fill with warm water and sitting in it looking out to the sea…if only the other 98 people hadn’t had the same idea.

Next stop was Rotorua and one thing I can confidently state about Rotorua is that it smells terrible. There is a very good reason why it smells, it’s the Sulphur, but that doesn‘t make the eggy odour any easier to digest. So after the “was that you?” joke wore a bit thin we walked around looking at the geothermal pools, steaming lakes, bubbling mud and spouting geysers at Te Puia. After spending the rest of the day Mountain biking around the forest we chipped back to the caravan park to a very welcome hot spring bath and a beer. After a couple of days just sat in the hot pools we realised we could wilt away if we didn’t get out and move on, so we drove on to Lake Taupo via a ridiculous detour to the Waitomo Caves. These caves are the best place in the world to see glow worms, even Sir Richard Attenborough thinks so, so it must be true…they were very glowy.

As the wind picked up and the rain swept in making the volcanoes and mountains disappear quick enough to make David Copperfield jealous, we spent our time playing cards and drinking hot chocolate in true British caravan holiday stylee. When the sun finally came out and the cloud cleared we found just enough time to hike around Mt Ngauruhoe, which played the part of Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings and look up at Mt Taranaki, which won an Oscar for its role as Mt Fuji in the Tom Cruise film The Last Samurai. We even managed to squeeze in some canoeing down the grade three rapids (some going backwards) on the Wanganui River, which was fun. Our final stop was Wellington to visit a museum, drink some Mac‘s beer and catch the ferry across to Picton on the South Island.

The ferry journey was as it says in the brochure, very scenic, and whoever writes these things is probably right saying it is one of the best ferry journeys in the world. Although I think Phuket to Ko Phi Phi in Thailand was better, this one was definitely a lot safer as it didn’t constantly break down and float aimlessly in the water until the engines kicked back in.

Our first South Island stop was the Marlborough Wine region and I’ve just realised who got the short straw here…Rachel got to drink free wine and fall asleep in the van, where as I had to drink water and drive us hundreds of Km to our next camp site! What’s that about?!? Oh, and Rachel’s favourite wine here was Matua Sauvignon Blanc if you’re interested…hint, hint.

Our next stop, Abel Tasman Park, is one of the best National Parks we frequented. The weather was perfect and the beaches beautiful. We only wished we had taken our swimming stuff, especially after getting a wet arse from trying to cross a low-tide only crossing at high-tide.

Before heading on down to the Glaciers we popped up north to Golden Bay to see some Sea lions, stopping en route at Waikoropupu springs, the worlds clearest freshwater outside of Antarctica (I think you need a keen eye to spot the difference though).

After a few more miserable days of wind and rain (we’ve had 50:50 good to bad days here) we found ourselves heading off to hike up the Frank Josef glacier. We had a bit of a stuttering start to the morning when the guide said to the group, “You can put your crampons on when we get to the glacier face”. We both looked at each other and said under our breath “what crampons?”. We had to fess-up that we didn’t have any after our plot to steal the weedy kids crampons was foiled when we realised we were the weedy kids. But after that little hitch (solved by another guide driving from the office and running a couple of Km to catch up and give us some) it was an amazing day, squeezing through little crevasses and clambering over the glacier ice. It was tiring, but definitely worth the effort. It makes you laugh when you look at the old Victorian photo’s back in town and compare yourself to the old Hikers. There’s us, all dressed up in our flash gortex coats, gloves, boots, and crampons when the moustachioed guys back in the day were climbing up to the top wearing just a woollen suit and some hobnail boots…and doing it all while smoking a pipe!

After stopping over in Wanaka to watch the new James Bond film we pulled in to Queenstown, the self proclaimed adventure capital of the world. Here I took the decision to jump off the 109 meter high Shotover Canyon swing where I developed my own jumping style called ‘the cat falling out of a tree’, I think they were most impressed. The day didn’t start too good when we though we had locked the keys inside the van, only for me to find them in my pocket just before I smashed the window…my bad. It ended up a great day though, riding the Shotover Jetboat and watching buskers in the street as well as jumping off the cliff.

We moved on to Te Anau then up towards the Milford Sound (which if it wasn‘t a big lake, would be a great new romantic’s band). The drive up was so great, through the tunnel and past the snow covered mountains and parrots, it was actually better than the cruise on the Sound (which isn’t really a Sound anyway, it‘s a Fiord - I can’t be arsed to explain the difference - although Milford Fiord would be a good name for a Pulitzer Prize winning author). The weather was rubbish, but they kept telling us it looks better when it‘s like this anyway…Yeah, right, find me a postcard that has Mitre Peak half covered in cloud and pissing rain, rather than with blue skies and its reflection in still crystal clear waters, then I’ll believe you. Bad weather wasn’t that surprising around here though as they get 7 meters of rain annually on the west coast. London’s 1.5meters now seems like the Sahara in comparison. So to sum up: The drive brilliant, cruise so-so, weather crap.

From here it was on to the Catalins via Invercargill just to see Burt Munroe‘s Indian bike (of the film ‘Worlds Fastest Indian’ fame) on display in a tool shop. We stayed the night near Porpoise and Curio Bay, a wicked spot where you can see Hector dolphins playing just off the beach and Yellow Eyed Penguins (the worlds rarest penguin) waddling past you on the rocky bay. I even got chased by a Sea lion. Honestly, they make look like big balls of blubber, but they can run like the wind! Less than 24hours after seeing the worlds rarest penguin, we had driven up to the Otago Peninsula to see 100 Blue Penguins (the worlds smallest penguin at 25cm tall) waddle up the beach to their nests and a couple of Royal Albatross (with 3 metre wingspans) gliding around the cliff edge…you don’t get that in Trafalgar Square.

After the towns of Dunedin, Oamaru and Twizel and with a brief stop to help a couple of guys unhitch a jack-knifed trailer from their car, only to see it roll down in to a 20ft ditch, we headed up to Mt Cook National Park. This is one of the most beautiful places in a beautiful country and a great place to hike around the Hooker Valley and Tasman Glacier, which is what we did. The next day we woke up to a fine crisp cloudless morning, a perfect day to climb a mountain….obviously not Mt Cook, we’re not crazy. Only last week two mountaineers have died in separate incidents on the highest peak around these parts (12,246ft). Instead we climbed Mt John, which is a little smaller, but if you squint and tilt your head a little it almost looks as tall and has good views over Lake Takapo and the Southern Alps...oh, and there’s a café on top, which is one thing Mt Cook doesn’t have! From here we headed over to Christchurch via Akoura. A former French settlement, it was built back when New Zealand was first populated. Unfortunately I think it has as much in common with France as Tesco Value French Salad Dressing, but maybe it was just the miserable weather clouding my judgement.

The five weeks went fast and we had a great time driving around and experiencing all that we have here. Even sleeping in the van was as fun even if it just made us appriciate a comfy bed and hot shower. One day you think you’ve discovered the most perfectly beautiful campsite in the world, the next day you’ve paid $40 to camp in a glorified carpark and get bitten by sandflies while stood under a cold shower that must have been built for an Aqua-phobic. Our last couple of nights with the van were spent at a ‘Qualmark 2 Star’ caravan park in Christchurch. Looking around the horrible place that’s three stars too many if you ask me. Anyway, we took in all the usual sites, the river, the art gallery, the cathedral, the Museum...If there is one thing I’ve learnt on this trip that is that every Museum around the world has a bloody Egyptian Mummy! We sent the van back on the 23rd and spent the last few nights locked in the hotel watching the Sky Movie channel. We did manage to venture out for a few hours on Christmas day to eat at a Bengali restaurant (the only one in Australasia) and to watch some Carol singers. But just sitting in the room, eating chocolate and drinking beer has been as good as any other day we’ve had here.

And you’ll be relieved to know that this is the end of this blog entry and the Australasia leg. Now it’s time for continent number three and Los Angeles and our last few weeks of the trip. We’ve updated the photo’s and the Beer diary is looking better than ever. We’ll update this again soon, maybe.

Laters,
Joe.n.Rachel.x