Well after a lovely night with Sam & Tom, supping wine and eating lovely food, I had to drag myself out of bed at 5am for my flight to Australia.
It all went smoothly and here I am in Melbourne, a city where they really know how to look after tourists. At the airport I got the Skybus in to town, once at the main station the driver told us that there would be mini buses to take us to the door of wherever we were going. After checking, that wasn't just a service for hotel guests, but cheapo backpackers got it too. Plus if you give them enough notice, they'll pick you up too when you want to head back to the airport. All free service on top of the orginal bus ticket purchase (which is about 10 quid return! eat your heart out the heathrow express). So I got to my backpackers nice and easily, checked in and dumped my stuff. At which point I was told that they were making free pasta for everyone that night and that all I had to do was turn up at 6pm in the dining room. Sweet! Oh and they provide breakfast free (plus do proper cooked breakfasts on Thursday mornings, so I might just have to go out for a few drinks tonight to really feel the benefit tomorrow morning). Double sweet!
Feeling a bit tired after the flight and journey in, while it was only noon, all I wanted to do was find a nice park and lie there reading a book or snoozing. Walking along the street I saw somewhere wearing a red "i" t-shirt, which basically means that they are a volunteer there to help tourists. Fab! Armed with a city map and advice on the best park to head to (I tell you this place is just great for tourists) I made my way there and sure enough, soon found the perfect place to lounge around for 5 hours, before heading back to the hostel for my free pasta.
The girls in my dorm here are very friendly too, although I managed to get out of doing drinking last night based on tiredness, I think it will look very sad if I don't make it today so I may well have to head out for a few brews tonight. However, as mentioned above, free cooked breakfast tomorrow will see me right.
As for today, after a potter round central Melbourne, I once again headed to the park, claimed a nice big patch of grass and lounged around reading. What can I tell you, while it doesn't make for an exciting blog, it is cheap and relaxing. I had rather spend my money doing exciting stuff when I am on the coast (snorkeling or sailing or running away from people who want to go swim with sharks ) than spend it in a city. Who knows, maybe tomorrow I will tear myself away from the sunshine and make it to a museum or something. Umm or it may be overcast... that might inspire me to be cultural. Chances are thought that I will be once again vegged out in the park (plus I have found a place that does the greatest ice cream) beaing completely and decadently lazy. Bring it on!
Signing out, as I need to check out what the pub action tonight is going to involve.
Me love you all big time...
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
last words from NZ
Well it is officially my last day in New Zealand as I have to get up at Sparrow's Fart tomorrow to drive out to the airport, drop off my hire car (of the non-squealy break variety) and catch my plane to Melbourne. I will be very sad to leave but am informed that Australia is fab too, so will maintain a stiff up lip and bid NZ a fond farewell.
When I left off I was in Queenstown about to head back to Auckland the next day and since then I have been pretty rubbish at updating so here is a topline summary of what i have been up to since my last update.
Well my 1 evening in Queenstown I indulged myself and went to the cinema to see a film called River Queen (stars Samantha Morton, Kiefer Sutherland and lots of great Maori actors that we won't have heard of back home, and is set round Whanganui so was great to see the river and the beautiful scenery around there captured on film).
I really loved the hostel that I stayed at which was called Bumbles,so had a lovely night's sleep with no major snoring action from any of my dorm mates. The next day I pottered round Queenstown, wrote lots of postcards, sorted out some stuff on-line and treated myself to a nice pizza at Winnies. After that I took my now incredibly noisy braking car to the airport, packed myself up like a mule and said farewell to the Nissan Pulsar that had taken me around so much of the South Island (noisily in the end but always safely). My flight to Auckland, via Christchurch, went very smoothly, giving me lots of time to read, which was lovely. I arrived in Auckland at 7pm, so after the car rental company had closed, so armed with a description (white, nissan sunny) and the reg, I searched the airport car park, not looking dodgy at all! I found the car, with the keys and car park ticket in the glove compartment, as promised. Amazing that it was still there. Can you imagine leaving a car unlocked with the keys in the glove compartment in Heathrow? Surely it would never be seen again.
After inadvertantly taking the scenic route to Sam & Tom's (OK I know that Mount Eden isn't on the way to Ponsonby but I got confused and made it in the end once I spotted a familiar Starbucks), I made it in time for a lovely Chicken and honey dish that Sam had prepared (umm yummy, home cooking went done a treat I can tell you). I had a lovely evening with them both, before as workers they headed to bed and I watched Madagascar on DVD, giggling like a child. I want a pet penguin now! I am sure that the cats won't mind.
The next morning I drove to the Coromandel Pennisular, specifically to a small town called Hahei. I found a nice hostel, secured myself a bed for 3 nights before going for a wander. 2 swedish girls and a brit, staying in our hostel mentioned that they would love to visit Hot Water beach, but you need a car to get there,so we went on our outing together in time for lowtide (which is when you can dig in the sand to get to the hot water springs below, while the cool sea water washes in to cool you down). Of course there was only a very small area with the hot water under it and a lot of people with shovels. We had a good time though, sinking our feet in to the warm sands and laughing as kids were getting annoyed by the waves destroying their carefully built pools.
The next day I walked from Hahei, along a lovely coastal pathway to Cathedral Cove beach, which is gorgeous. This was my official first full day on the beach in ages. I sat in the soft sand, reading a Dennis Lehane thriller, soaking up the sunshine before I got so hot I had to go jump in the waves and have a swim to cool off. It was great. I read the whole book in one day and feel completely lazy & sun drenched.
I had been hoping to go sea kayaking the next day but the weather was starting to turn (big swells, although no sign of the rain that the forecasters kept threatening us with) and it was a little overcast. I headed to the nearby town of Whitianga to check my e-mails, have a nice spot of lunch and generally potter around. I was back in Hahei for late afternoon, lounging in the beautiful hostel gardens reading another cheap thriller (which I again finished in one day, gripping stuff).
Thus ended my time in the Coromandel, as the next day I got up in the morning, said goodbye to my dorm mates (Henrietta from Germany in particular, who was a great help when I couldn't find my purse, suffice it to say, we found it but that was a pretty nerver wracking 30 minutes) and headed Aucklandwards, as I needed to go through Auckland on the motorway to get to the other side and head to Russell in the Bay of Islands, as that is where I was meeting Sam & Tom for the weekend. The journey took about 7 hours including lunch stops and the ferry crossing from Opua to Russel, so i had time to check in to the motel, watch Tootsie on TV and go buy some food in before Sam & tom made it just before 10pm, in time for as late dinner and some wine & chat.
The next day when we woke up it was clear that it wasn't going to be a problem that Sam hadn't brought her swimmers as it was very overcast and definitely not beach weather. Instead we headed off to Waitangi, which is where the treaty was signed that effectively created New Zealand and established it as a country. It was a great place to go with the Treaty house being a really interesting place to visit and the grounds were lovely. Plus I got to see a Maori war canoe, which was huge, the trees used to make it must have been enormous, with one tree making up a huge section of the canoe. It was great to explore round there before heading in to Pahia so that I could check my e-mails quickly (was checking to see if my accommodation was sorted in the Cook Islands, which it has been with a 23 night stay at Vara's all confirmed where I will have my own room for a great rate so no snorers for a whole 3 weeks! it will be heaven).
That evening in Russell (a beautiful town, that is hard to imagine ever was called the Hell Hole of the Pacific, due to all the sailors, prostitutes and general debauchery that was present there some 170 years ago) we went for a lovely meal at Gannetts, drank some nice wine and had a good chat, enjoying ourselves despite the fact that the tail end of Cyclone Wattie had hit and there was torrential rain outside.
The next morning (sunday) we woke to discovered that the rain hadn't stopped for a second since the evening before and was still going strong. I think the word used on the forecast was "lashing" which was a good description for it. So we had a lovely breakfast at Sally's before heading back towards Auckland going along the old Russell road rather than the ferry. Fun driving in heavy rain along very windy NZ roads! It definitely put my driving skills to the test, but I made it back in one piece, so that has to be a good thing! The cup of tea that Sam made, once we made it back to their house has to be the nicest I ever had! The rest of the Sunday was lazy, watching the Commonwealth Games and My Big Fat Greek Wedding on the TV before getting an early night.
So now it is Monday and I am relaxing at Sam & tom's. Ruthie is over at the moment sorting some stuff out on-line and any minute now I am going to sort out lunch. I just want to chill out and pack all my stuff up before my 5am start tomorrow. It will be so sad saying goodbye but having had such a wonderful time in NZ, I know that I will be back one day. Maybe not as soon as I would like (it is a long way to travel) but this is definitely a country that I want to visit again (although doubt that I will have as much time as I have had this trip!)
Next update will be from Australia. I will get to find out if they say "sweet as bro", "choice" and "awesome" the way that they do here! My hostel is booked in Melbourne so all I need to do now is find it.
When I left off I was in Queenstown about to head back to Auckland the next day and since then I have been pretty rubbish at updating so here is a topline summary of what i have been up to since my last update.
Well my 1 evening in Queenstown I indulged myself and went to the cinema to see a film called River Queen (stars Samantha Morton, Kiefer Sutherland and lots of great Maori actors that we won't have heard of back home, and is set round Whanganui so was great to see the river and the beautiful scenery around there captured on film).
I really loved the hostel that I stayed at which was called Bumbles,so had a lovely night's sleep with no major snoring action from any of my dorm mates. The next day I pottered round Queenstown, wrote lots of postcards, sorted out some stuff on-line and treated myself to a nice pizza at Winnies. After that I took my now incredibly noisy braking car to the airport, packed myself up like a mule and said farewell to the Nissan Pulsar that had taken me around so much of the South Island (noisily in the end but always safely). My flight to Auckland, via Christchurch, went very smoothly, giving me lots of time to read, which was lovely. I arrived in Auckland at 7pm, so after the car rental company had closed, so armed with a description (white, nissan sunny) and the reg, I searched the airport car park, not looking dodgy at all! I found the car, with the keys and car park ticket in the glove compartment, as promised. Amazing that it was still there. Can you imagine leaving a car unlocked with the keys in the glove compartment in Heathrow? Surely it would never be seen again.
After inadvertantly taking the scenic route to Sam & Tom's (OK I know that Mount Eden isn't on the way to Ponsonby but I got confused and made it in the end once I spotted a familiar Starbucks), I made it in time for a lovely Chicken and honey dish that Sam had prepared (umm yummy, home cooking went done a treat I can tell you). I had a lovely evening with them both, before as workers they headed to bed and I watched Madagascar on DVD, giggling like a child. I want a pet penguin now! I am sure that the cats won't mind.
The next morning I drove to the Coromandel Pennisular, specifically to a small town called Hahei. I found a nice hostel, secured myself a bed for 3 nights before going for a wander. 2 swedish girls and a brit, staying in our hostel mentioned that they would love to visit Hot Water beach, but you need a car to get there,so we went on our outing together in time for lowtide (which is when you can dig in the sand to get to the hot water springs below, while the cool sea water washes in to cool you down). Of course there was only a very small area with the hot water under it and a lot of people with shovels. We had a good time though, sinking our feet in to the warm sands and laughing as kids were getting annoyed by the waves destroying their carefully built pools.
The next day I walked from Hahei, along a lovely coastal pathway to Cathedral Cove beach, which is gorgeous. This was my official first full day on the beach in ages. I sat in the soft sand, reading a Dennis Lehane thriller, soaking up the sunshine before I got so hot I had to go jump in the waves and have a swim to cool off. It was great. I read the whole book in one day and feel completely lazy & sun drenched.
I had been hoping to go sea kayaking the next day but the weather was starting to turn (big swells, although no sign of the rain that the forecasters kept threatening us with) and it was a little overcast. I headed to the nearby town of Whitianga to check my e-mails, have a nice spot of lunch and generally potter around. I was back in Hahei for late afternoon, lounging in the beautiful hostel gardens reading another cheap thriller (which I again finished in one day, gripping stuff).
Thus ended my time in the Coromandel, as the next day I got up in the morning, said goodbye to my dorm mates (Henrietta from Germany in particular, who was a great help when I couldn't find my purse, suffice it to say, we found it but that was a pretty nerver wracking 30 minutes) and headed Aucklandwards, as I needed to go through Auckland on the motorway to get to the other side and head to Russell in the Bay of Islands, as that is where I was meeting Sam & Tom for the weekend. The journey took about 7 hours including lunch stops and the ferry crossing from Opua to Russel, so i had time to check in to the motel, watch Tootsie on TV and go buy some food in before Sam & tom made it just before 10pm, in time for as late dinner and some wine & chat.
The next day when we woke up it was clear that it wasn't going to be a problem that Sam hadn't brought her swimmers as it was very overcast and definitely not beach weather. Instead we headed off to Waitangi, which is where the treaty was signed that effectively created New Zealand and established it as a country. It was a great place to go with the Treaty house being a really interesting place to visit and the grounds were lovely. Plus I got to see a Maori war canoe, which was huge, the trees used to make it must have been enormous, with one tree making up a huge section of the canoe. It was great to explore round there before heading in to Pahia so that I could check my e-mails quickly (was checking to see if my accommodation was sorted in the Cook Islands, which it has been with a 23 night stay at Vara's all confirmed where I will have my own room for a great rate so no snorers for a whole 3 weeks! it will be heaven).
That evening in Russell (a beautiful town, that is hard to imagine ever was called the Hell Hole of the Pacific, due to all the sailors, prostitutes and general debauchery that was present there some 170 years ago) we went for a lovely meal at Gannetts, drank some nice wine and had a good chat, enjoying ourselves despite the fact that the tail end of Cyclone Wattie had hit and there was torrential rain outside.
The next morning (sunday) we woke to discovered that the rain hadn't stopped for a second since the evening before and was still going strong. I think the word used on the forecast was "lashing" which was a good description for it. So we had a lovely breakfast at Sally's before heading back towards Auckland going along the old Russell road rather than the ferry. Fun driving in heavy rain along very windy NZ roads! It definitely put my driving skills to the test, but I made it back in one piece, so that has to be a good thing! The cup of tea that Sam made, once we made it back to their house has to be the nicest I ever had! The rest of the Sunday was lazy, watching the Commonwealth Games and My Big Fat Greek Wedding on the TV before getting an early night.
So now it is Monday and I am relaxing at Sam & tom's. Ruthie is over at the moment sorting some stuff out on-line and any minute now I am going to sort out lunch. I just want to chill out and pack all my stuff up before my 5am start tomorrow. It will be so sad saying goodbye but having had such a wonderful time in NZ, I know that I will be back one day. Maybe not as soon as I would like (it is a long way to travel) but this is definitely a country that I want to visit again (although doubt that I will have as much time as I have had this trip!)
Next update will be from Australia. I will get to find out if they say "sweet as bro", "choice" and "awesome" the way that they do here! My hostel is booked in Melbourne so all I need to do now is find it.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Land of mist and water
Well I made it out in time for my 6.30am pick up to go to Milford Sound. Our guide Will turned up right on time in the Fiordland experiences mini bus and we hit the road. It turned out that there would be 8 of us going out with him that day, so a nice sized group (apparently they often take 16 but one of the guides had injured himself so only half size group my day which as nice). We were a happy group with 3 brits (inc me), 3 Americans, a Kiwi and a Canadian plus of course our guide.
Will did warn us that it was going to be a rainy day and he wasn't kidding. As we started getting closer to Milford Sound everything started to get wetter. His view was that this was the best kind of weather to see that Sound in as you get fewer tourists (we were the only kayakers our and there were not many tour boats) and you get 100s of waterfalls. He wasn't kidding about that, as the rain continued more and more waterfalls started to appear, as the mountains around the Sound are pure rock there is no where for the water to go except down the side in really quite spectacular fashion.
Once we arrived in Milford, Will checked with several boats further out to make sure that no nasty winds were heading our way, but the Fiord was flat and calm where we were and the prognosis further out was that it was also calm. He couldn't understand why the other kayaking company were cancelling their trip (maybe they are scared of getting wet!), but just called them wimps. We headed to the cabin where we were given many layers to wear over our swimsuits, and boy was I grateful for them. We had thermals, covered by a wet vest thing, covered by a fleece, covered by a safety jacket, covered by a rain coat, finished off with two hats (one woolly and one to keep the sand flies off - I hate those damn insects, they love the taste of me though!).
Looking truly gorgeous, we headed to the kayaks to set them up. They were doubles and I was sharing with Gloria from America (real sweetheart, originally from New York City but studying geology in Minnesota, so used to the cold). After a quick training session we hit the water around 10.30am for a good 4 hours on the water. By this point it was well and truly raining, and the fiord looked amazing in the mist. It really did feel kind of spiritual out there! Us looking mildly ridiculous, kayaking over a flat fiord surrounded by huge mountains, trees, waterfalls and mist. At some points the clouds were so low that we got very limited visibility and it was like kayaking through a magical grey wet world.
However, there were moments where the mists lifted and we got the most amazing views of the fiord and the amazing peaks around it. We saw more of my friends, the seals. This is where all the adolescent males hang out until they are mature enough to venture out and try to pull female seals. They were doing their thing, lounging around on the rocks, looking very comfortable. I managed to get some good photos of them though, so that was cool.
I really recommend Milford Sound when it is raining, as you would go along and find waterfall after waterfall, where when it is dry there are no where near as many. When we headed out, some near where we set off where quite small, by the time we got back in they were gushing with water, with mist rising below them. It was awesome.
I have to say though I was quite tired after all the paddling in the rain and was glad to get back in to my warm clothes and finally eat my lunch (it was too wet to eat it out on the water as originally planned). The journey back was cool with Will stopping at various waterfalls and look out points so that we could visit and take more pictures (my camera needed some coaxing as it was claiming in be out of battery but it didn't let me down and managed to keep going so that I got all the shots that I wanted).
At one of the waterfalls we stopped in a car park and found a Kea (a big green parrot native to New Zealand) chewing on some poor person's car roof. I managed to get a great photo of it though, so all was not lost. When we got back from visiting the waterfall it had started on a new car, gnawing on the side of the door. They have pretty evil beaks, so I wasn't about to try and persuade it to stop its run of vandalism. We saw someone pull in with a really nice new car and just wanted to tell them to make a run for it, it just wasn't worth the damage that this bird would inflict on their vehicle. Apparently the Kea's do this because people kept feeding them and it completely threw off their usual diet pattern, so now they go after anything, including cars (seems keen on the rubber bits).
By the time I got back to the hostel it was 6.30pm and I could hardly keep my eyes open (we had a noisy snorer in our dorm, I affectionately refer to as Miss Piggy so I had naff all sleep the night before) and I collapsed on my top bunk (easier said than done). I woke up at 11pm to take out contact lenses and put on PJs before passing out cold until 8am the next morning (actually felt like 9am as the clocks went back so that gave me an extra hour of sleep - which I obviously needed).
So I was refreshed this morning when I loaded up my now very noisy car (the brakes aren't sounding very healthy but I only need to go 17km tomorrow to the airport and I can live with the noise and the people giving me funny looks everytime I have to stop the car - it really is the most grating sound), picked up the 2 German girls that I was giving a lift from the hostel and headed to Queenstown. It was nice to have people to chat to as I drove so the journey felt really short. I dropped them off at their hostel (them laughing at my noisy brake situation, but hell so was I by this point) and headed over to mine. This hostel is lovely, called Bumbles and run by a lovely couple with a cute baby that likes me, which is a good sign apparently.
Ironically I am feeling activitied out and I am in activity central. I my do something tomorrow morning before I have to head to the airport and fly to Auckland. If I can find something here that does not involve jumping off anything. After my Glacier trip it is obvious that I don't do heights (although bizarrely am fine driving round bends with sheer drops on the side, but that is probably cos I am focusing on the road and on-coming traffic rather than the thought of hurtling down for miles). There is loads of Lord of the Rings related stuff round here too, even more so than the rest of New Zealand (which is saying something), maybe I will give in and just do a Middle Earth trip or something naff like that. Who knows!
Anyway, sure that the next update will be from Auckland. I am really looking forward to an evening with Sam and Tom tomorrow. It will be nice to have a proper conversation with friends. I have met some lovely people on my travels but every conversation starts with "how long have you been in NZ", "how much longer do you have", "where are you from" and "where have you visited and where are you going next".. all of those in no particular order. Reminds me of the first year at university ("what A levels did you do", "did you have a GAP year", "where are you from"...) .
Hope that all is well with everyone
Will did warn us that it was going to be a rainy day and he wasn't kidding. As we started getting closer to Milford Sound everything started to get wetter. His view was that this was the best kind of weather to see that Sound in as you get fewer tourists (we were the only kayakers our and there were not many tour boats) and you get 100s of waterfalls. He wasn't kidding about that, as the rain continued more and more waterfalls started to appear, as the mountains around the Sound are pure rock there is no where for the water to go except down the side in really quite spectacular fashion.
Once we arrived in Milford, Will checked with several boats further out to make sure that no nasty winds were heading our way, but the Fiord was flat and calm where we were and the prognosis further out was that it was also calm. He couldn't understand why the other kayaking company were cancelling their trip (maybe they are scared of getting wet!), but just called them wimps. We headed to the cabin where we were given many layers to wear over our swimsuits, and boy was I grateful for them. We had thermals, covered by a wet vest thing, covered by a fleece, covered by a safety jacket, covered by a rain coat, finished off with two hats (one woolly and one to keep the sand flies off - I hate those damn insects, they love the taste of me though!).
Looking truly gorgeous, we headed to the kayaks to set them up. They were doubles and I was sharing with Gloria from America (real sweetheart, originally from New York City but studying geology in Minnesota, so used to the cold). After a quick training session we hit the water around 10.30am for a good 4 hours on the water. By this point it was well and truly raining, and the fiord looked amazing in the mist. It really did feel kind of spiritual out there! Us looking mildly ridiculous, kayaking over a flat fiord surrounded by huge mountains, trees, waterfalls and mist. At some points the clouds were so low that we got very limited visibility and it was like kayaking through a magical grey wet world.
However, there were moments where the mists lifted and we got the most amazing views of the fiord and the amazing peaks around it. We saw more of my friends, the seals. This is where all the adolescent males hang out until they are mature enough to venture out and try to pull female seals. They were doing their thing, lounging around on the rocks, looking very comfortable. I managed to get some good photos of them though, so that was cool.
I really recommend Milford Sound when it is raining, as you would go along and find waterfall after waterfall, where when it is dry there are no where near as many. When we headed out, some near where we set off where quite small, by the time we got back in they were gushing with water, with mist rising below them. It was awesome.
I have to say though I was quite tired after all the paddling in the rain and was glad to get back in to my warm clothes and finally eat my lunch (it was too wet to eat it out on the water as originally planned). The journey back was cool with Will stopping at various waterfalls and look out points so that we could visit and take more pictures (my camera needed some coaxing as it was claiming in be out of battery but it didn't let me down and managed to keep going so that I got all the shots that I wanted).
At one of the waterfalls we stopped in a car park and found a Kea (a big green parrot native to New Zealand) chewing on some poor person's car roof. I managed to get a great photo of it though, so all was not lost. When we got back from visiting the waterfall it had started on a new car, gnawing on the side of the door. They have pretty evil beaks, so I wasn't about to try and persuade it to stop its run of vandalism. We saw someone pull in with a really nice new car and just wanted to tell them to make a run for it, it just wasn't worth the damage that this bird would inflict on their vehicle. Apparently the Kea's do this because people kept feeding them and it completely threw off their usual diet pattern, so now they go after anything, including cars (seems keen on the rubber bits).
By the time I got back to the hostel it was 6.30pm and I could hardly keep my eyes open (we had a noisy snorer in our dorm, I affectionately refer to as Miss Piggy so I had naff all sleep the night before) and I collapsed on my top bunk (easier said than done). I woke up at 11pm to take out contact lenses and put on PJs before passing out cold until 8am the next morning (actually felt like 9am as the clocks went back so that gave me an extra hour of sleep - which I obviously needed).
So I was refreshed this morning when I loaded up my now very noisy car (the brakes aren't sounding very healthy but I only need to go 17km tomorrow to the airport and I can live with the noise and the people giving me funny looks everytime I have to stop the car - it really is the most grating sound), picked up the 2 German girls that I was giving a lift from the hostel and headed to Queenstown. It was nice to have people to chat to as I drove so the journey felt really short. I dropped them off at their hostel (them laughing at my noisy brake situation, but hell so was I by this point) and headed over to mine. This hostel is lovely, called Bumbles and run by a lovely couple with a cute baby that likes me, which is a good sign apparently.
Ironically I am feeling activitied out and I am in activity central. I my do something tomorrow morning before I have to head to the airport and fly to Auckland. If I can find something here that does not involve jumping off anything. After my Glacier trip it is obvious that I don't do heights (although bizarrely am fine driving round bends with sheer drops on the side, but that is probably cos I am focusing on the road and on-coming traffic rather than the thought of hurtling down for miles). There is loads of Lord of the Rings related stuff round here too, even more so than the rest of New Zealand (which is saying something), maybe I will give in and just do a Middle Earth trip or something naff like that. Who knows!
Anyway, sure that the next update will be from Auckland. I am really looking forward to an evening with Sam and Tom tomorrow. It will be nice to have a proper conversation with friends. I have met some lovely people on my travels but every conversation starts with "how long have you been in NZ", "how much longer do you have", "where are you from" and "where have you visited and where are you going next".. all of those in no particular order. Reminds me of the first year at university ("what A levels did you do", "did you have a GAP year", "where are you from"...) .
Hope that all is well with everyone
Friday, March 17, 2006
Glaciers, the old fashioned way
Well I made it to Franz Josef no problem and had a lovely evening chatting to people in my hostel (nice place called Glow Worm Cottages) although I did turn done the invitation to watch the Return of the King at 11pm, as I didn't really fancy getting to bed at 2.30am! Most of my dorm mates watched it though, so I still got a bit of a wake up call at 2.30, but such is life.
The next day I woke up to clouds and mist (it had been sunny the afternoon before damn it). It seems that the weather has finally turned on me. Sure enough, when I checked they confirmed that the visibility was too bad for a helicopter to go to the Glacier, so my helihik was off. But what is a girl to do? That is right, walk it, if the helicopter can't get me there I'll be old fashioned and use my legs (with very angry blistered feet attached as an added perk). So I booked on to a half day guided Glacier walk, was given crampons to put on my boots (I know, they sound like they should come with wings & neurofen but turns out that they have nothing to do with the time of the month when women want to roller blade with dalmatians), a waterproof jacket and was popped on to a mini bus to take our group out to the car park near the Glacier.
After that you have to walk through some bush and than along a sort of valley (sure that isn't the geological term for it, but sod it) to the face of the glacier. It was big. Fortunately some very nice men with axes had already carved out steps so that we could climb up it. So digging my crampons in to the ice I headed up. It was very impressive. It is hard to explain why being surrounded by such a huge volume of ice is amazing, but it just is. There was so much of it and I am sure that my photos won't do it justice.
I had one sticky moment when we had to step of a sort of very deep crevice in the ice. I made the mistake of looking down and got a full on vertigo attack. Don't mind having drops near me, but stepping over them felt above and beyond the call of duty. Ram (our guide) had a firm grip of my hand but I just didn't want to move. But in the end I took a deep breath and went for it. One person in our group didn't make it over at all, so I was quite proud that I managed to overcome my fear. What they hadn't told me is that we would be coming back that way too (ahh) but fortunately I knew not to look down the second time.
Anyway the time flew by and before I knew it, it was time to head back. In a way I wish I had always gone for the hiking route, as that way I could have done a full day out there, but you live and learn and I had an 8.5 hour drive to look forward to the next day, so wasn't like I could squeeze any more glacier time before I drove off (left Franz Josef at 8.22am precisely).
Back at the hostel I enjoyed a couple of beers and "Finding Neverland" on Sky Movies, that film always makes me cry which is kind of embarassing. As mentioned above I got up early and was driving towards Te Anau just before 8.30am. I finally got here at 5pm, with a brief coffee stop, rock blasting stop (don't ask) and lunch stop,so must have been driving for about 7.5 hours solid. I am now officially knackered and will be getting a nice early night as tomorrow I have a day of Kayaking booked on Milford Sound and the pick up is at 6.30am. I am yawning just thinking about it.
Love to all...
The next day I woke up to clouds and mist (it had been sunny the afternoon before damn it). It seems that the weather has finally turned on me. Sure enough, when I checked they confirmed that the visibility was too bad for a helicopter to go to the Glacier, so my helihik was off. But what is a girl to do? That is right, walk it, if the helicopter can't get me there I'll be old fashioned and use my legs (with very angry blistered feet attached as an added perk). So I booked on to a half day guided Glacier walk, was given crampons to put on my boots (I know, they sound like they should come with wings & neurofen but turns out that they have nothing to do with the time of the month when women want to roller blade with dalmatians), a waterproof jacket and was popped on to a mini bus to take our group out to the car park near the Glacier.
After that you have to walk through some bush and than along a sort of valley (sure that isn't the geological term for it, but sod it) to the face of the glacier. It was big. Fortunately some very nice men with axes had already carved out steps so that we could climb up it. So digging my crampons in to the ice I headed up. It was very impressive. It is hard to explain why being surrounded by such a huge volume of ice is amazing, but it just is. There was so much of it and I am sure that my photos won't do it justice.
I had one sticky moment when we had to step of a sort of very deep crevice in the ice. I made the mistake of looking down and got a full on vertigo attack. Don't mind having drops near me, but stepping over them felt above and beyond the call of duty. Ram (our guide) had a firm grip of my hand but I just didn't want to move. But in the end I took a deep breath and went for it. One person in our group didn't make it over at all, so I was quite proud that I managed to overcome my fear. What they hadn't told me is that we would be coming back that way too (ahh) but fortunately I knew not to look down the second time.
Anyway the time flew by and before I knew it, it was time to head back. In a way I wish I had always gone for the hiking route, as that way I could have done a full day out there, but you live and learn and I had an 8.5 hour drive to look forward to the next day, so wasn't like I could squeeze any more glacier time before I drove off (left Franz Josef at 8.22am precisely).
Back at the hostel I enjoyed a couple of beers and "Finding Neverland" on Sky Movies, that film always makes me cry which is kind of embarassing. As mentioned above I got up early and was driving towards Te Anau just before 8.30am. I finally got here at 5pm, with a brief coffee stop, rock blasting stop (don't ask) and lunch stop,so must have been driving for about 7.5 hours solid. I am now officially knackered and will be getting a nice early night as tomorrow I have a day of Kayaking booked on Milford Sound and the pick up is at 6.30am. I am yawning just thinking about it.
Love to all...
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook
After only 1 night in Christchurch it was unfortunately time to move on as I am quickly running out of time in New Zealand (although my trip to the Air NZ office on Monday morning does mean that I am now leaving on 28th instead of 22nd so I can go to Bay of Islands and the Coromandel).
I headed inwards and mountainwards to Lake Tekapo a beautiful lake about 1.5 hours drive away from Mount Cook. I arrive in the early afternoon and wasted no time in dusting off my hiking boats and heading to do the Mount John Summit and Lakeshore walk (about 3.5 hour hike). Being me I managed to do it the wrong (and therefore harder) way round, starting with Lakeshore and ending up at the summit before going back in towards turn along a windy walking path going through lovely bush, at just about the time that all the bunny rabbits were coming out the play (stupid animals, as if I am not going to see them just because they are standing still. Saying that they are very good at standing still in shadows so have no cute bunny rabbit photos, poo!). The walk was great going past some amazing scenery, so that my camera was about as knackered as I was by the time I made it back to the hostel (where I had a dorm to myself, oh the luxury, although tonight it is going to be full but everyone seems really lovely).
The only negative point was that I have managed to develop a really annoying blister (to look at only small, but when you put boots on feels like it is the size of a golf ball and very sore), so today I had a very fetching but subtle limp!
After a quiet night and a very good sleep I got up this morning, jumped in the car and headed to Mount Cook village where I was booked to go out the see the Tasman Glacier, which has a glacial lake and lots of icebergs, near Mount Cook. Our boat trip was going out until 2.30 so I had a bit of time to explore the village, although really didn't wander as much as I normally would, do to blister issues. The boat trip out with Glacier Explorers was great. There were only 3 of us in our boat, as another big tour group had actually ended up being much smaller than booked, so they thought they would keep us apart from the Japanese group with the on-going translations and put me and a nice couple from near Auckland in our own boat. Our guide (Maggie, from Finchley, the Brits get everywhere) really knew her stuff and obviously is really passionate about what she does. I snapped lots of pictures of glaciers, Mountains in the background and of course the icebergs, that were melting and dripping water as we watched them. I even got to suck on a crystal of ice from one of the icebergs (it tasted like water, in case you were wondering). I will now be spending this evening editing down my photo collection, as I suspect that I got carried away and have about a dozen pictures of the same view. But that is the joy of digital.
Actually the excitement of the day started before I made it to Mount Cook, during the journey. There I was happily bombing along when I come over a hill and there is a huge stretch of road ahead of me and what looks like a house in the middle of the road. Now with my contact lenses I have pretty good vision, so this kind of worried me, I hadn't been driving that long so I couldn't be hallucinating. Sure enough, as I got closer I discovered that it was a house, fully built on a truck that was taking up both lanes. Cars coming the other way were having to drive off the road and wait for it to go past. Suffice it to say, houses do not move that fast (50km/hr seemed standard although once going down hill it must have hit 80 km/hr). Can't they just do an IKEA and take the pieces and build the stupid thing on location rather than carry it around fully built holding speed freaks like me up?
Anway, eventually the house pulled over and the lead car went ahead to stop traffic (one car) coming the other way, so that the now considerable tailback of coaches and cars could overtake. So once again I was bombing along through the most amazing scenery. 20 minutes later I see a flashing truck with "Be prepared to stop at request. Film crew ahead".. So I thought, here we go again. But they had to be the most elusive film crew as there wasn't a sign of them and I was free to keep bombing towards Mount Cook. On my return trip to Lake Tekapo, there was another film crew truck but it seemed to be packing up. I have not a clue where that film crew was, what it was filming or where it is now, but for all I know there could be some period drama with a white nissan discernable speeding along in the background. Doubtful but a thought that makes me smile.
Well tomorrow I bid farewell to Lake Tekapo and am heading to Franz Joseph Glacier. Will update after my Glacier hike on Thursday! Weather of course permitting, hopefully it will stay my friend.
I headed inwards and mountainwards to Lake Tekapo a beautiful lake about 1.5 hours drive away from Mount Cook. I arrive in the early afternoon and wasted no time in dusting off my hiking boats and heading to do the Mount John Summit and Lakeshore walk (about 3.5 hour hike). Being me I managed to do it the wrong (and therefore harder) way round, starting with Lakeshore and ending up at the summit before going back in towards turn along a windy walking path going through lovely bush, at just about the time that all the bunny rabbits were coming out the play (stupid animals, as if I am not going to see them just because they are standing still. Saying that they are very good at standing still in shadows so have no cute bunny rabbit photos, poo!). The walk was great going past some amazing scenery, so that my camera was about as knackered as I was by the time I made it back to the hostel (where I had a dorm to myself, oh the luxury, although tonight it is going to be full but everyone seems really lovely).
The only negative point was that I have managed to develop a really annoying blister (to look at only small, but when you put boots on feels like it is the size of a golf ball and very sore), so today I had a very fetching but subtle limp!
After a quiet night and a very good sleep I got up this morning, jumped in the car and headed to Mount Cook village where I was booked to go out the see the Tasman Glacier, which has a glacial lake and lots of icebergs, near Mount Cook. Our boat trip was going out until 2.30 so I had a bit of time to explore the village, although really didn't wander as much as I normally would, do to blister issues. The boat trip out with Glacier Explorers was great. There were only 3 of us in our boat, as another big tour group had actually ended up being much smaller than booked, so they thought they would keep us apart from the Japanese group with the on-going translations and put me and a nice couple from near Auckland in our own boat. Our guide (Maggie, from Finchley, the Brits get everywhere) really knew her stuff and obviously is really passionate about what she does. I snapped lots of pictures of glaciers, Mountains in the background and of course the icebergs, that were melting and dripping water as we watched them. I even got to suck on a crystal of ice from one of the icebergs (it tasted like water, in case you were wondering). I will now be spending this evening editing down my photo collection, as I suspect that I got carried away and have about a dozen pictures of the same view. But that is the joy of digital.
Actually the excitement of the day started before I made it to Mount Cook, during the journey. There I was happily bombing along when I come over a hill and there is a huge stretch of road ahead of me and what looks like a house in the middle of the road. Now with my contact lenses I have pretty good vision, so this kind of worried me, I hadn't been driving that long so I couldn't be hallucinating. Sure enough, as I got closer I discovered that it was a house, fully built on a truck that was taking up both lanes. Cars coming the other way were having to drive off the road and wait for it to go past. Suffice it to say, houses do not move that fast (50km/hr seemed standard although once going down hill it must have hit 80 km/hr). Can't they just do an IKEA and take the pieces and build the stupid thing on location rather than carry it around fully built holding speed freaks like me up?
Anway, eventually the house pulled over and the lead car went ahead to stop traffic (one car) coming the other way, so that the now considerable tailback of coaches and cars could overtake. So once again I was bombing along through the most amazing scenery. 20 minutes later I see a flashing truck with "Be prepared to stop at request. Film crew ahead".. So I thought, here we go again. But they had to be the most elusive film crew as there wasn't a sign of them and I was free to keep bombing towards Mount Cook. On my return trip to Lake Tekapo, there was another film crew truck but it seemed to be packing up. I have not a clue where that film crew was, what it was filming or where it is now, but for all I know there could be some period drama with a white nissan discernable speeding along in the background. Doubtful but a thought that makes me smile.
Well tomorrow I bid farewell to Lake Tekapo and am heading to Franz Joseph Glacier. Will update after my Glacier hike on Thursday! Weather of course permitting, hopefully it will stay my friend.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Swimming with Dolphins
Hi Guys
It is me again, a very jammy cow indeed as the weather has really been my friend and I got to swim with dolphins! Yeah, lots and lots of wild Dusky Dolphins!
When I left off I had been to watch whales, which was great and all but lets face it Sperm Whales aren't exactly playful! Beautiful but beyond spouting water before finally diving, they don't do much.. Now dolphins, they are much more about the entertainment value. So yesterday morning, when I dragged my sleepy self out of bed at 5am, threw on a swim suit and some warm clothes, blearily worked out how to de-mist my car windows and slowly drove to the dolphin encounter office, there was a small dissident part of my brain that was hoping that it would be cancelled due to weather so that I could go back to bed, where frankly my body firmly believed it belonged.
However, as mentioned the weather was on my side, so rather than snuggling back in to my sleeping bag, I found myself squeezing in to a very fetching (NOT) wet suit, picking up my fippers, snorkel and mask and watching a video on the dos and don'ts when swimming with the wild dusky dolphins.
One of the first things that they flagged (repeatedly I might add) is that these dolphins are wild, so they can not predict whether they will want to play with us or not. As a result, we were told that it was crucial that we entertain the dolphins. Personally I think that the sight of me in a wet suit and flippers should be enough entertainment for anyone, but no they wanted us to sing, make silly noises, circle and if possible dive, in order to keep the dolphins entertained and therefore interacting with us. Oh boy!
After the video we popped on a coach, were taken to our boat (there were about 15 of us on a boat) and off we went in search of dolphins. I have to admit that I was really starting to have mis-givings, it wasn't exactly a warm morning (although the sun rise was spectacular over the water) and what if the dolphins decided that they didn't like me. Could I take the rejection?
Within 25 minutes a pod of hundreds of Dusky dolphins was located and we joined them. We went out on deck and sat on the edge of the boat, waiting for the signal that the propeller had been switched off and that is was safe to get in the water, that at this point was only making my feet feel arctic. Dolphins were everywhere leaping through the air, doing somersaults, playing around the boat and near my flippers. The water was full of them, so when the horn sounded, it wasn't a case of swimming towards the dolphins, more a case of slipping in to the water directly with them.
Now I won't lie to you, for the first minute or so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to stay in. I started to hyperventilate but realised that this was my body reacting to the sudden drop in temperature, so I stayed calm and within 30 very long seconds I was breathing normally again. About 2 metres to my right I could see a woman with her arm up giving the distress signal to the boat, that came round to pick her up, I can only assume that she had the same experience but it freaked her out, poor thing.
Once I was breathing again I put my face in the water as instructed and realise that there were 2 dolphins swimming directly under me. I squeeled, and the pressure started as I tried to swim (arms by side dolphin style as instructed), look at dolphins and think of something to sing, or noises to make. It is amazing what rubbish I came out with, but I can only blame my brain for being partially frozen at the time. I soon realised that I needed to make more of an effort as none of the dolphins were staying with me, so I started circling and for some reason "Rain drops keep falling on my head" came out at a high pitched hum and that seemed to do the trick as a couple of dolphins started circling me and really looking at me (we were also encouraged to return eye contact, which is an amazing feeling) so that was my tune for the morning, with the odd warble and splutter in between, as inevitably I would get distracted and go to deep and end up drinking sea water through my snorkel.
Suffice it to say, it was an amazing experience and I recommend it to everyone. We seemed to swim for ages and it was great to have the dolphins playing around you. They would come so close, within inches of me and they seemed to find my bad singing entertaining (either that or they are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid fans! It is a great film).
At one point we got back on the boat to move on before swimming with yet more dolphins, it was great and everyone on our boat seem to have great success with them, as they leapt around them and circled around. I'll never forget it. The captain of the boat did point out, as we were heading back and we saw huge pod of dolphins, that we should be flattered that our dolphins stayed with us rather than going to join the pod. I definitely feel humbled by them, rather than flattered. It was a strange feeling as you really felt that they were assessing you as the swam around you. It was so awesome (sweet as bro, choice...)
After that we changed back in to our warm clothes on the boat and I took lots of pictures and little video clips of the pod, so you can all see them when I get back if you want to.
That is when the cold finally hit me! Even with every warm item of clothing in my possession I was still cold! By the time we got back to shore I could hardly feel my toes, so I drove straight back to the hostel to be re-united with my sleeping bag. I really didn't do much that morning beyond sleep in bed or snooze in front of the television.
At around 5pm I dragged myself to the supermarket and remembered that I was supposed to check if the sunset horse trek over Kaikoura was happening (as when I had called them before I was the only person to book and the weather forecast was looking dodgy). Once again I hoped to hear the words that it was cancelled, but weather was still being friendly and 6 other people had booked on the trip so I had 10 minutes to work out where I was going before grabbing my jacket and trainers and heading to the farm.
Once again, I am glad that my laziness didn't win out as it was an amazing evening as we rode our horses up in to mount Fyffe and got some amazing views over Kaikoura plus we were rewarded with the most amazing sun set! It was breath taking. My horse was called Star and she was a bit of a star really. All of the others that came out (4 brits and 2 americans plus our 2 kiwi guides) were really good fun so we had a great time. By the time we got back (did have a bit of a short run and managed not to fall off this time, so am making progress!) it was dark, we had laughed a lot and our guides (the owner of the farm that we had been riding across, through fields with sheep and cows) had set up some drinks for us plus a lovely cooked Crayfish for us all to taste. So much better than lobster! Their cat Splodge was very affectionate, turns out that she is a big fan of crayfish and that we are all a bunch of softies as we kept feeding it to her! Expensive cat!
After that I had my first experience of driving through pitch black country lanes (I did good), had a couple of glasses of red wine at the hostel before climbing in to bed to sleep the sleep of the truly knackered.
When I woke up this morning the sky was grey and it was raining solidly. Which goes to show that the weather is my friend, as if it had been like that yesterday both the dolphin swim and the horse trek would have been a no go. Instead, today I happily packed up my stuff, loaded up the car and headed to Christchurch with windscreen wipers on hyperspeed most of the way (bends PLUS rain - excellent combination).
So here I am in Christchurch where the sun is shining (left the rain behind about 30 minutes before getting here) and I have had a lovely Sunday afternoon wander through the park, the botantical gardens, the arts centre & market and where I will be watching Casanova in the cinema in 10 minutes (a cinema! I am so excited by the idea of going to a cinema! See I am still a townie at heart!)
Yeah! So I had better go and get the popcorn in!
It is me again, a very jammy cow indeed as the weather has really been my friend and I got to swim with dolphins! Yeah, lots and lots of wild Dusky Dolphins!
When I left off I had been to watch whales, which was great and all but lets face it Sperm Whales aren't exactly playful! Beautiful but beyond spouting water before finally diving, they don't do much.. Now dolphins, they are much more about the entertainment value. So yesterday morning, when I dragged my sleepy self out of bed at 5am, threw on a swim suit and some warm clothes, blearily worked out how to de-mist my car windows and slowly drove to the dolphin encounter office, there was a small dissident part of my brain that was hoping that it would be cancelled due to weather so that I could go back to bed, where frankly my body firmly believed it belonged.
However, as mentioned the weather was on my side, so rather than snuggling back in to my sleeping bag, I found myself squeezing in to a very fetching (NOT) wet suit, picking up my fippers, snorkel and mask and watching a video on the dos and don'ts when swimming with the wild dusky dolphins.
One of the first things that they flagged (repeatedly I might add) is that these dolphins are wild, so they can not predict whether they will want to play with us or not. As a result, we were told that it was crucial that we entertain the dolphins. Personally I think that the sight of me in a wet suit and flippers should be enough entertainment for anyone, but no they wanted us to sing, make silly noises, circle and if possible dive, in order to keep the dolphins entertained and therefore interacting with us. Oh boy!
After the video we popped on a coach, were taken to our boat (there were about 15 of us on a boat) and off we went in search of dolphins. I have to admit that I was really starting to have mis-givings, it wasn't exactly a warm morning (although the sun rise was spectacular over the water) and what if the dolphins decided that they didn't like me. Could I take the rejection?
Within 25 minutes a pod of hundreds of Dusky dolphins was located and we joined them. We went out on deck and sat on the edge of the boat, waiting for the signal that the propeller had been switched off and that is was safe to get in the water, that at this point was only making my feet feel arctic. Dolphins were everywhere leaping through the air, doing somersaults, playing around the boat and near my flippers. The water was full of them, so when the horn sounded, it wasn't a case of swimming towards the dolphins, more a case of slipping in to the water directly with them.
Now I won't lie to you, for the first minute or so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to stay in. I started to hyperventilate but realised that this was my body reacting to the sudden drop in temperature, so I stayed calm and within 30 very long seconds I was breathing normally again. About 2 metres to my right I could see a woman with her arm up giving the distress signal to the boat, that came round to pick her up, I can only assume that she had the same experience but it freaked her out, poor thing.
Once I was breathing again I put my face in the water as instructed and realise that there were 2 dolphins swimming directly under me. I squeeled, and the pressure started as I tried to swim (arms by side dolphin style as instructed), look at dolphins and think of something to sing, or noises to make. It is amazing what rubbish I came out with, but I can only blame my brain for being partially frozen at the time. I soon realised that I needed to make more of an effort as none of the dolphins were staying with me, so I started circling and for some reason "Rain drops keep falling on my head" came out at a high pitched hum and that seemed to do the trick as a couple of dolphins started circling me and really looking at me (we were also encouraged to return eye contact, which is an amazing feeling) so that was my tune for the morning, with the odd warble and splutter in between, as inevitably I would get distracted and go to deep and end up drinking sea water through my snorkel.
Suffice it to say, it was an amazing experience and I recommend it to everyone. We seemed to swim for ages and it was great to have the dolphins playing around you. They would come so close, within inches of me and they seemed to find my bad singing entertaining (either that or they are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid fans! It is a great film).
At one point we got back on the boat to move on before swimming with yet more dolphins, it was great and everyone on our boat seem to have great success with them, as they leapt around them and circled around. I'll never forget it. The captain of the boat did point out, as we were heading back and we saw huge pod of dolphins, that we should be flattered that our dolphins stayed with us rather than going to join the pod. I definitely feel humbled by them, rather than flattered. It was a strange feeling as you really felt that they were assessing you as the swam around you. It was so awesome (sweet as bro, choice...)
After that we changed back in to our warm clothes on the boat and I took lots of pictures and little video clips of the pod, so you can all see them when I get back if you want to.
That is when the cold finally hit me! Even with every warm item of clothing in my possession I was still cold! By the time we got back to shore I could hardly feel my toes, so I drove straight back to the hostel to be re-united with my sleeping bag. I really didn't do much that morning beyond sleep in bed or snooze in front of the television.
At around 5pm I dragged myself to the supermarket and remembered that I was supposed to check if the sunset horse trek over Kaikoura was happening (as when I had called them before I was the only person to book and the weather forecast was looking dodgy). Once again I hoped to hear the words that it was cancelled, but weather was still being friendly and 6 other people had booked on the trip so I had 10 minutes to work out where I was going before grabbing my jacket and trainers and heading to the farm.
Once again, I am glad that my laziness didn't win out as it was an amazing evening as we rode our horses up in to mount Fyffe and got some amazing views over Kaikoura plus we were rewarded with the most amazing sun set! It was breath taking. My horse was called Star and she was a bit of a star really. All of the others that came out (4 brits and 2 americans plus our 2 kiwi guides) were really good fun so we had a great time. By the time we got back (did have a bit of a short run and managed not to fall off this time, so am making progress!) it was dark, we had laughed a lot and our guides (the owner of the farm that we had been riding across, through fields with sheep and cows) had set up some drinks for us plus a lovely cooked Crayfish for us all to taste. So much better than lobster! Their cat Splodge was very affectionate, turns out that she is a big fan of crayfish and that we are all a bunch of softies as we kept feeding it to her! Expensive cat!
After that I had my first experience of driving through pitch black country lanes (I did good), had a couple of glasses of red wine at the hostel before climbing in to bed to sleep the sleep of the truly knackered.
When I woke up this morning the sky was grey and it was raining solidly. Which goes to show that the weather is my friend, as if it had been like that yesterday both the dolphin swim and the horse trek would have been a no go. Instead, today I happily packed up my stuff, loaded up the car and headed to Christchurch with windscreen wipers on hyperspeed most of the way (bends PLUS rain - excellent combination).
So here I am in Christchurch where the sun is shining (left the rain behind about 30 minutes before getting here) and I have had a lovely Sunday afternoon wander through the park, the botantical gardens, the arts centre & market and where I will be watching Casanova in the cinema in 10 minutes (a cinema! I am so excited by the idea of going to a cinema! See I am still a townie at heart!)
Yeah! So I had better go and get the popcorn in!
Friday, March 10, 2006
Whales ahoy
Well as the name of the post implies I did go whale watching this morning, the weather was my friend today.
After a quiet night at the Top Spot Backpackers last night, another nice hostel full of very friendly and chatty people (plus the obligatory guy who plays guitar and knows the entire Jack Johnson back catalogue), as well as having a lovely cat that is 18 years old and is enjoying his twilight years by being fed bbq and generally spoilt by the backpacker community. Lucky old thing.
In the morning I dragged myself out of bed at 8am, which was hard as it was pretty cool out, I am now used to warmer temperatures, had a lovely hot shower, dressed and staggered out to my car to drive the full 5 minutes round the corner to the Whale Watch office (I am turning in to an American! sorry to my Californian friends, but you know what I mean!). Much to my relief our boat was confirmed to be going out and other than light swells the sea was pretty calm. In fact, while the temperature has dropped the sky is a beautiful clear blue and the sun is very bright. Hopefully it will warm up here during the day.
We headed out on a coach to the boat and I was sat next to a nice Irish girl called Katherine, who realised that she had left her memory card for her camera at the chemist where they were putting the pictures on to disc for her. As a result she is with me now as we are waiting for my photos to be put on disc, one each so she has shots of the whales in action.
On average Whale Watch say they see 1-2 sperm whales on an outing. We were spoilt and saw 3 of them. They are amazing, although it is hard to get a feel for how big they are because most of them is underwater. They had come up to re-oxygenate before another dive (they generally stay under water feeding for 45 mins, although apparently the record is over 2 hours!). You can see the water spouting when they are up for air. I took lots of pictures that all look like a log in the water, but that is life! I do have a couple of great tail shots though from when 2 of them were diving! It was excellent, worth the morning for that alone.
We were also joined out there by some lovely large albatross (sorry but they just look like giant sea gulls to me!) and a huge pod of hundreds of dusky dolphins. I have got some great pictures of them jumping and swimming around the boat. They seemed to be having so much fun, I can't wait to swim with them tomorrow morning (weather permitting, fingers firmly crossed, although I do realise that even in a wet suit, it is going to be arctic in there.. brrrrr). After that we sailed past a load of fur seals lounging on the rocks. By this point my camera battery had decided that it had enough and had run out. Fortunately I have lots of pictures of fur seals from Abel Tasman so I wasn't too worried, plus hopefully we will go past them on the dolphin swim trip as they were near where the pod of dolphins were frollicking.
So that brings me up to date again. I will keep you posted on the dolphin swim and am currently making my mind up about whether to go for a sunset horseriding trek around Kaikora tomorrow night. Although, knowing me, I will talk myself in to it using the "once in a lifetime trip" card. It works everytime. So for my friends in London, all I can say is I may be a tad on the poor side when I see you all again in July. I will not object should anyone want to buy me a drink : )
After a quiet night at the Top Spot Backpackers last night, another nice hostel full of very friendly and chatty people (plus the obligatory guy who plays guitar and knows the entire Jack Johnson back catalogue), as well as having a lovely cat that is 18 years old and is enjoying his twilight years by being fed bbq and generally spoilt by the backpacker community. Lucky old thing.
In the morning I dragged myself out of bed at 8am, which was hard as it was pretty cool out, I am now used to warmer temperatures, had a lovely hot shower, dressed and staggered out to my car to drive the full 5 minutes round the corner to the Whale Watch office (I am turning in to an American! sorry to my Californian friends, but you know what I mean!). Much to my relief our boat was confirmed to be going out and other than light swells the sea was pretty calm. In fact, while the temperature has dropped the sky is a beautiful clear blue and the sun is very bright. Hopefully it will warm up here during the day.
We headed out on a coach to the boat and I was sat next to a nice Irish girl called Katherine, who realised that she had left her memory card for her camera at the chemist where they were putting the pictures on to disc for her. As a result she is with me now as we are waiting for my photos to be put on disc, one each so she has shots of the whales in action.
On average Whale Watch say they see 1-2 sperm whales on an outing. We were spoilt and saw 3 of them. They are amazing, although it is hard to get a feel for how big they are because most of them is underwater. They had come up to re-oxygenate before another dive (they generally stay under water feeding for 45 mins, although apparently the record is over 2 hours!). You can see the water spouting when they are up for air. I took lots of pictures that all look like a log in the water, but that is life! I do have a couple of great tail shots though from when 2 of them were diving! It was excellent, worth the morning for that alone.
We were also joined out there by some lovely large albatross (sorry but they just look like giant sea gulls to me!) and a huge pod of hundreds of dusky dolphins. I have got some great pictures of them jumping and swimming around the boat. They seemed to be having so much fun, I can't wait to swim with them tomorrow morning (weather permitting, fingers firmly crossed, although I do realise that even in a wet suit, it is going to be arctic in there.. brrrrr). After that we sailed past a load of fur seals lounging on the rocks. By this point my camera battery had decided that it had enough and had run out. Fortunately I have lots of pictures of fur seals from Abel Tasman so I wasn't too worried, plus hopefully we will go past them on the dolphin swim trip as they were near where the pod of dolphins were frollicking.
So that brings me up to date again. I will keep you posted on the dolphin swim and am currently making my mind up about whether to go for a sunset horseriding trek around Kaikora tomorrow night. Although, knowing me, I will talk myself in to it using the "once in a lifetime trip" card. It works everytime. So for my friends in London, all I can say is I may be a tad on the poor side when I see you all again in July. I will not object should anyone want to buy me a drink : )
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Paradise and infernos
Hello All,
Well I am playing catch up as I haven't had internet access in days. When I left off I was about to go Kayaking in the Marlborough Sound.
Well I woke up that morning to a glorious day for paddling, I grabbed a hearty breakfast and headed to the dock to check in. There were 6 of us going out, including the guide, so 3 double kayaks. I lucked out and was in with the guide, which is always the best way to get all the insights as you paddle round. The scenery was amazing and we saw lots of shags (which, once I stopped giggling like a school girl, I realised were birds). We paddled in to the heart of the national park area, stopping for refreshments on a lovely quiet beach. It was really good fun.
We got back to Picton around 4pm and I jumped straight in the car to head to Abel Tasman (a 4 hour drive and I wanted to get there before dark, so it was beat the sun time). I made it injury free, despite another run of very bendy roads. I think I am getting used to them and find it odd now if I drive in a straight line for too long. This could be problematic when I get back to the UK!
I found Old MacDonald's Farm, where I was staying, no problem! How cool to be staying on a farm! They had a cafe, so I grabbed a burger and was eagerly watched by some hens, a peacock and some pea hens to see if I was in the mood to share my food with them (I wasn't).
I was in a 4 bed dorm, but only one of the other beds was occupied, by a really nice lady called Kate, from Cambridge, and it was good to have someone to chat with. The next day I took an Aqua Taxi out to Anchorage (which is a bay in the Abel Tasman national park). The taxi itself was great fun. It was quite windy so it was bouncing through the waves and I was getting pretty soaked. Nothing quite like it for waking you up! From Anchorage I had a nice tramp back to the entrance to Abel Tasman (which is where I was staying in a tiny town called Marahau), that took me about 4 hours, with stops at some of the pretty bays along the way, plus a bit of a chat with a girl that I bumped in to that had been in the same dorm as me in Picton. Small world of travellers out here, it really is.
The walk itself was fantastic with some amazing views, lovely patches walking through the trees and giant ferns, which gave it all a kind of pre-historic feel. Plus often you were completely alone on the track so it was nice to amble along, taking in the views, hearing the bird song and generally day dreaming.
That evening back at the farm, we had a guy in the dorm next to us, which meant that there were 3 of us sitting around, comparing travel notes and giving each other advice on must see places (Mount Cook has now appeared on my list of places to go after seeing Kate's pictures). It is so hard as I am fast running out of time and can't do everything. As the weather has been a little changeable I might just give the glaciers a miss, but that just gives me another reason to come back here for another holiday (maybe not quite as extended next time!)
The next morning was another day of Kayaking. I got up early and did the whole windy road thing to Kaiteriteri where the trip was setting off. This time there was 10 of us in 5 double kayaks. From the mix of people, you could tell that we were going to have a great time despite the grey and windy start to the day. There were 2 couples from Texas (the oldest in the group turning 70 next month) that were really good fun. A really sweet couple from the UK (Londoners, although Nora was originally from Wales but had what sounded like a Liverpool accent, confused me I can tell you). Plus our Canadian guide, Damian, his girlfriend Shelley (a Kiwi) and Damian's friend Jessie (another Canadian who was the 2nd guide for the group).
As Damian referred to the double kayaks as divorce boats, he shared with me rather than his girlfriend, so once again I got the best of the trip by being with the guide. Actually it was hilarious as Shelley spent a lot of the trip saying how hopeless Damian was and that they had no future. The couples loved winding Damian up by saying that every pretty secluded bay was a good spot to get engaged and I just took the mickey (unlike me I know). It was a real giggle.
We went far up in to the National park on an Aqua taxi to get our kayaks and we paddled out to an island that is a protected seal colony. There were seals swimming around the kayaks and seal pups watching us from the rocks (at only about 3 months old, they weren't allowed out to play by their mums). We headed to a bay to have our lunch and sleeping in the rocks by where we were eating was a big, lazy, male seal who had obviously gone there to escape from all the females.
After lunch we paddle towards Bark Bay where we were being picked up by Aqua Taxi at 4pm. Along there way were some great rocks that we navigated through paddling like mad and shreeking. It was great fun, bit of an adrenaline rush, although not really that scary. Not everyone went through them all, as I think that they thought we were a bit mad, but me & Damian were thrilled to see Ed & Virginia (Ed is the one turning 70 next month) following us through. We could hear Virginia going "Ed I said I didn't want to go through the rocks" while we saw them getting near the rocks and were shouting "Paddle harder!". They made it through fine, although I think I am getting to understand why they are called divorce boats.
This was the best kayak trip so far and I definitely have the bug now. Want to do more! Plus Abel Tasman is just a gorgeous place to kayak, everyone should go there! There is a sign up in the Park Cafe by the entrance to the national park that says "Smile, it's another lovely day in paradise", for me that summed it up. Abel Tasman is a little piece of paradise.
Anyway after that day trip I was sad to get up this morning and leave Abel Tasman for a 5 hour drive to Kaikora, which is where I am now. Nothing much to report about the journey, well except for the inferno part. As I was tackling the many bends coming towards Havelock, there were signs telling us to slow down to 30km/hr, I turned the bend and straight ahead of me the forest was on fire, with smoke coming out from the trees right next to the road (obviously they had that part under control or they wouldn't be letting traffic through, but it was still quite exciting). To our left where helicopters taking off with big buckets hanging under them, going over the trees and dropping water on the fire. It was pretty phenomenal to see in action, we didn't need any encouragement to all go at 30km as everyone was gawking out of their car windows. I couldn't help but feel sad though, as that beautiful wooded area was going up in smoke, I hope that they managed to contain it all quickly.
Well now I am in Kaikora. Weather permitting I am going Whale watching tomorrow morning at 9am (I checked in at Whale Watch and they think we should be good to go for the morning runs, although they are bit worried about the forecast for their trips going in the afternoon, glad that I followed the advice of the girl I spoke to when I booked, as she said I had a better chance of going out in the morning). Saturday morning at 5.30am I am going to swim with Dolphins (again weather permitting). Suffice it to say, I am not looking forward to the early start, or having to squeeze myself in to a wet suit again, but it is an experience that I really don't want to miss.
So that is my latest news... once again I have got completely carried away with all the details, but as you all know me, I can't help myself. At least I have managed to keep the tangents to a minimum!
Love to all
Well I am playing catch up as I haven't had internet access in days. When I left off I was about to go Kayaking in the Marlborough Sound.
Well I woke up that morning to a glorious day for paddling, I grabbed a hearty breakfast and headed to the dock to check in. There were 6 of us going out, including the guide, so 3 double kayaks. I lucked out and was in with the guide, which is always the best way to get all the insights as you paddle round. The scenery was amazing and we saw lots of shags (which, once I stopped giggling like a school girl, I realised were birds). We paddled in to the heart of the national park area, stopping for refreshments on a lovely quiet beach. It was really good fun.
We got back to Picton around 4pm and I jumped straight in the car to head to Abel Tasman (a 4 hour drive and I wanted to get there before dark, so it was beat the sun time). I made it injury free, despite another run of very bendy roads. I think I am getting used to them and find it odd now if I drive in a straight line for too long. This could be problematic when I get back to the UK!
I found Old MacDonald's Farm, where I was staying, no problem! How cool to be staying on a farm! They had a cafe, so I grabbed a burger and was eagerly watched by some hens, a peacock and some pea hens to see if I was in the mood to share my food with them (I wasn't).
I was in a 4 bed dorm, but only one of the other beds was occupied, by a really nice lady called Kate, from Cambridge, and it was good to have someone to chat with. The next day I took an Aqua Taxi out to Anchorage (which is a bay in the Abel Tasman national park). The taxi itself was great fun. It was quite windy so it was bouncing through the waves and I was getting pretty soaked. Nothing quite like it for waking you up! From Anchorage I had a nice tramp back to the entrance to Abel Tasman (which is where I was staying in a tiny town called Marahau), that took me about 4 hours, with stops at some of the pretty bays along the way, plus a bit of a chat with a girl that I bumped in to that had been in the same dorm as me in Picton. Small world of travellers out here, it really is.
The walk itself was fantastic with some amazing views, lovely patches walking through the trees and giant ferns, which gave it all a kind of pre-historic feel. Plus often you were completely alone on the track so it was nice to amble along, taking in the views, hearing the bird song and generally day dreaming.
That evening back at the farm, we had a guy in the dorm next to us, which meant that there were 3 of us sitting around, comparing travel notes and giving each other advice on must see places (Mount Cook has now appeared on my list of places to go after seeing Kate's pictures). It is so hard as I am fast running out of time and can't do everything. As the weather has been a little changeable I might just give the glaciers a miss, but that just gives me another reason to come back here for another holiday (maybe not quite as extended next time!)
The next morning was another day of Kayaking. I got up early and did the whole windy road thing to Kaiteriteri where the trip was setting off. This time there was 10 of us in 5 double kayaks. From the mix of people, you could tell that we were going to have a great time despite the grey and windy start to the day. There were 2 couples from Texas (the oldest in the group turning 70 next month) that were really good fun. A really sweet couple from the UK (Londoners, although Nora was originally from Wales but had what sounded like a Liverpool accent, confused me I can tell you). Plus our Canadian guide, Damian, his girlfriend Shelley (a Kiwi) and Damian's friend Jessie (another Canadian who was the 2nd guide for the group).
As Damian referred to the double kayaks as divorce boats, he shared with me rather than his girlfriend, so once again I got the best of the trip by being with the guide. Actually it was hilarious as Shelley spent a lot of the trip saying how hopeless Damian was and that they had no future. The couples loved winding Damian up by saying that every pretty secluded bay was a good spot to get engaged and I just took the mickey (unlike me I know). It was a real giggle.
We went far up in to the National park on an Aqua taxi to get our kayaks and we paddled out to an island that is a protected seal colony. There were seals swimming around the kayaks and seal pups watching us from the rocks (at only about 3 months old, they weren't allowed out to play by their mums). We headed to a bay to have our lunch and sleeping in the rocks by where we were eating was a big, lazy, male seal who had obviously gone there to escape from all the females.
After lunch we paddle towards Bark Bay where we were being picked up by Aqua Taxi at 4pm. Along there way were some great rocks that we navigated through paddling like mad and shreeking. It was great fun, bit of an adrenaline rush, although not really that scary. Not everyone went through them all, as I think that they thought we were a bit mad, but me & Damian were thrilled to see Ed & Virginia (Ed is the one turning 70 next month) following us through. We could hear Virginia going "Ed I said I didn't want to go through the rocks" while we saw them getting near the rocks and were shouting "Paddle harder!". They made it through fine, although I think I am getting to understand why they are called divorce boats.
This was the best kayak trip so far and I definitely have the bug now. Want to do more! Plus Abel Tasman is just a gorgeous place to kayak, everyone should go there! There is a sign up in the Park Cafe by the entrance to the national park that says "Smile, it's another lovely day in paradise", for me that summed it up. Abel Tasman is a little piece of paradise.
Anyway after that day trip I was sad to get up this morning and leave Abel Tasman for a 5 hour drive to Kaikora, which is where I am now. Nothing much to report about the journey, well except for the inferno part. As I was tackling the many bends coming towards Havelock, there were signs telling us to slow down to 30km/hr, I turned the bend and straight ahead of me the forest was on fire, with smoke coming out from the trees right next to the road (obviously they had that part under control or they wouldn't be letting traffic through, but it was still quite exciting). To our left where helicopters taking off with big buckets hanging under them, going over the trees and dropping water on the fire. It was pretty phenomenal to see in action, we didn't need any encouragement to all go at 30km as everyone was gawking out of their car windows. I couldn't help but feel sad though, as that beautiful wooded area was going up in smoke, I hope that they managed to contain it all quickly.
Well now I am in Kaikora. Weather permitting I am going Whale watching tomorrow morning at 9am (I checked in at Whale Watch and they think we should be good to go for the morning runs, although they are bit worried about the forecast for their trips going in the afternoon, glad that I followed the advice of the girl I spoke to when I booked, as she said I had a better chance of going out in the morning). Saturday morning at 5.30am I am going to swim with Dolphins (again weather permitting). Suffice it to say, I am not looking forward to the early start, or having to squeeze myself in to a wet suit again, but it is an experience that I really don't want to miss.
So that is my latest news... once again I have got completely carried away with all the details, but as you all know me, I can't help myself. At least I have managed to keep the tangents to a minimum!
Love to all
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Lovely sunny Picton
Well I have fully recovered from the excitement for the crossing yesterday. I popped to the pub round the corner for a nice spot of seafood (when I say a spot, the portion defeated even me, I don't think I can face seafood again for a while).
When I got back to the hostel loads of people where in the TV room watching the Last Samurai, so I grabbed a spot on a bean bag and watched Tom Cruise (sorry but he is a mad midget, I don't care how famous he is) once again fail to die (hope I haven't spoilt this for anyone else but it is kind of obvious, he just won't die in films, I think there should be a clause in his next film requiring him to die in a really gory, terminal, no hopes of a magic recovery kind of way, it would cheer me up!)
Feeling thorougly sleepy afterwards I headed back to my room, another set of nightmare bunk bed ladders (I made it up, although it really wasn't dignified and thank god for the PJs that Jenny got me, they are getting a lot of use out here). I think last night had to qualify as my best nights sleep to date. I was completely out for the count and the bed was so comfy once you made it up the ladder. I woke up to sunshine and feeling wonderfully relaxed. 3 coffees later and I am still very mellow.
Unfortunately my plans to go kayaking today where scuppered by the fact that due to lack of demand the half day afternoon session wasn't going out. But all is not lost as I am booked on the full day kayaking trip which should be fab (they include lunch, which as a traveller I really appreciate, I am just so bored about having to work out what to eat, fortunately I have a supply of muesli bars for when the apathy completely takes over so I am not going to starve to death or anything). I can hardly wait and will report all on my next update. So we are out from around 9am getting back at 4.30am. At this point I hope my arms aren't too jellified as I am driving for 3 hours up to Abel Tasman national park, where I am staying at Old MacDonald's farm, as it is a place recommended by one of the other backpackers here who has just come back from that area. They have loads of animals roaming around there, as it is a working farm, complete with Llamas. I have 3 nights there, so I am really looking forward to it (plus it will be nice to be in one place for 3 whole nights, the decadence of it!).
Oh and one last thing to say, since I am looking forward to Shark's Tale in the TV room tonight, Sequoia Lodge here in Picton is fantastic. So if any of you are ever over this way, I heartily recommend it. Lovely bunch of people, good facilities and the TV room is virtually a cinema type experience.
As it hasn't been long since my last post, really don't have a lot more to report. I can give you a few highlights in terms of funny signs etc I have seen so far:
1. In New Plymouth on the back of an admittedly filthy car a large sticker reading "I wish my wife was this dirty"
2. On Nelson Square here in Picton, which is one way, very helpfully states "Wrong Way" for anyone who might not realise they are going in the opposite direction to everyone else
3. Announcement on the Interislander ferry just before we left Wellington "our current etd is 2pm, members of the crew will be going round shortly with sick bags, we recommend that you take one.."
So many other things have made me giggle along the way, but my mind is now a blank. I leave you all as I head beachward (well I am sure there must be a beach around here somewhere...)
Choice!
When I got back to the hostel loads of people where in the TV room watching the Last Samurai, so I grabbed a spot on a bean bag and watched Tom Cruise (sorry but he is a mad midget, I don't care how famous he is) once again fail to die (hope I haven't spoilt this for anyone else but it is kind of obvious, he just won't die in films, I think there should be a clause in his next film requiring him to die in a really gory, terminal, no hopes of a magic recovery kind of way, it would cheer me up!)
Feeling thorougly sleepy afterwards I headed back to my room, another set of nightmare bunk bed ladders (I made it up, although it really wasn't dignified and thank god for the PJs that Jenny got me, they are getting a lot of use out here). I think last night had to qualify as my best nights sleep to date. I was completely out for the count and the bed was so comfy once you made it up the ladder. I woke up to sunshine and feeling wonderfully relaxed. 3 coffees later and I am still very mellow.
Unfortunately my plans to go kayaking today where scuppered by the fact that due to lack of demand the half day afternoon session wasn't going out. But all is not lost as I am booked on the full day kayaking trip which should be fab (they include lunch, which as a traveller I really appreciate, I am just so bored about having to work out what to eat, fortunately I have a supply of muesli bars for when the apathy completely takes over so I am not going to starve to death or anything). I can hardly wait and will report all on my next update. So we are out from around 9am getting back at 4.30am. At this point I hope my arms aren't too jellified as I am driving for 3 hours up to Abel Tasman national park, where I am staying at Old MacDonald's farm, as it is a place recommended by one of the other backpackers here who has just come back from that area. They have loads of animals roaming around there, as it is a working farm, complete with Llamas. I have 3 nights there, so I am really looking forward to it (plus it will be nice to be in one place for 3 whole nights, the decadence of it!).
Oh and one last thing to say, since I am looking forward to Shark's Tale in the TV room tonight, Sequoia Lodge here in Picton is fantastic. So if any of you are ever over this way, I heartily recommend it. Lovely bunch of people, good facilities and the TV room is virtually a cinema type experience.
As it hasn't been long since my last post, really don't have a lot more to report. I can give you a few highlights in terms of funny signs etc I have seen so far:
1. In New Plymouth on the back of an admittedly filthy car a large sticker reading "I wish my wife was this dirty"
2. On Nelson Square here in Picton, which is one way, very helpfully states "Wrong Way" for anyone who might not realise they are going in the opposite direction to everyone else
3. Announcement on the Interislander ferry just before we left Wellington "our current etd is 2pm, members of the crew will be going round shortly with sick bags, we recommend that you take one.."
So many other things have made me giggle along the way, but my mind is now a blank. I leave you all as I head beachward (well I am sure there must be a beach around here somewhere...)
Choice!
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Beating sea sickness
Well I have made it to Picton so am back on the South Island. My last blog update I was heading to Wellington and my journey was pretty uneventful except for some very strong gusts of wind, which should have been a sign of things to come. I made it in to Wellington and drove round for ages trying to find the youth hostel, which, once located was full. I than drove around some more looking for alternative, as parking anywhere in the vague proximity of the information office was proving impossible.
After an hour of getting no where fast, although I was getting a good feel of this very windy city and the lack of parking and I decided to stop at the first hotel I saw. Hang the expense. So I stayed the night at the Duxton Hotel (they had a special on but it still was well beyond my usual budget level) where they had valet parking (bless them). As it was so hideous out (I almost got taken out by a metal chair from a cafe that decided to fly at me down the pavement) I made the most of my room (well given the fact I couldn't really afford it, would have been rude not to) so I had a decadent evening with my own bathroom (man I was enjoying that bath until housekeeping starting pounding on my door about turning my sheets down, I explained that I was in the bath and could turn my own sheets down later, it really wouldn't be a problem) and my own TV (oh yes, lots of TV wonderfulness for me to watch). I even went mad and ordered some room service. Lovely. Later when I looked out my window the weather had melted down even further, with some really quite spectacular horizontal rain action going on. But just cos I was getting the ferry the next morning, I refused to be worried.
Anyway, my radio alarm in the room went off at 7am and the news was on. Turns out that after facing 10m high waves the night before, people had been injured on the interslander ferry by some flying furniture (various cracked ribs and broken arms) and a lot of the cars had been totalled (they shifted in transit so the proud owner of a Porsche discovered when they docked that a truck had landed on top of it - nice!). As you can imagine it was chaos and the outlook was not good for the ferry going that day.
I however refused to be defeated (mainly because I didn't have a clue what else to do) but checked out, picked up my car for our final journey together and headed to the ferry where I was to drop the car off (turns out I just had to park it in a certain section of the car pack and drop the keys in a box, which is worrying as I hope that they don't invent damage to the car without me there... oh well I have to have some faith in human nature, despite all my years living in London, right?).
I went in to the departures area where there were people how had turned up for the ferry the night before (last one didn't go out) and people who were due to go on the 8.30am crossing (I was booked on the 10.35am crossing). All our crossings were officially cancelled but the lovely people at Interislander had got their biggest ferry (therefore safest to go over in gale force winds and by this point more subdued 5-6m high waves) and we were all getting on it (the joy of being a foot passenger). We boared at 10am. We actually left at gone 2pm, so it has been a very long day.
It was good though, as there was a definite camaraderie on board, mainly I think because people were so relieved to be heading off at all, plus there was the impending threat of sea sickness. Following advice from one of the crew I sat in the bar area near the back of the boat. I was soon surrounded by a really nice bunch of people. A lovely couple from Palmerston North fed me ginger as that is supposed to prevent sea sickness. I had a great chat with a guy that had come down from Auckland and had been waiting to leave since the night before. A group of people from the Ulysses bikers group made me laugh through the roughest parts of the journey, while in the calm final hour in to Picton, once we were out of open seas and in the sounds I had a nice chat with a chap, recovering from sea sickness who was en route to Dunedin to see his 3 month old son. It was great and I wasn't sick once, which my mum will attest to being unusual, as I normally get travel sick looking at a boat. It was actually really good fun and great to chat to such a lovely mix of people. We were a bit concerned when we saw a bit of the ship fly off during the journey (it looked like a railing - when the crew were told about it they looked concerned and asked if anyone had been attached to it at the time, fortunately we hadn't seen anyone go in with it!). It would have been hard for anyone to get swept overboard though since the sun deck was closed as it just wasn't safe to be out there.
I picked up my new car (a Nissan pulsar that feels like a toy after my lovely peugeot and which for some reason has a child seat in it, I didn't ask why as it may come in handy if I decide to pick up any under 3 yr old hitch hikers) and can now sympathise with Andy H as my indicators are on the other side of the wheel, so now it is me putting on my windscreen wipers every time that I want to turn a corner... oopsie.
I am at a hostel that seems nice called Sequoia lodge, and will be here for a couple of nights, as there are supposed to be some really nice walks and kayaking trips around here that I want to investigate tomorrow after a good nights sleep.
Anyway I have precisely 1 1/2 minutes left before my money runs out, so I had better upload this.
Love to all
After an hour of getting no where fast, although I was getting a good feel of this very windy city and the lack of parking and I decided to stop at the first hotel I saw. Hang the expense. So I stayed the night at the Duxton Hotel (they had a special on but it still was well beyond my usual budget level) where they had valet parking (bless them). As it was so hideous out (I almost got taken out by a metal chair from a cafe that decided to fly at me down the pavement) I made the most of my room (well given the fact I couldn't really afford it, would have been rude not to) so I had a decadent evening with my own bathroom (man I was enjoying that bath until housekeeping starting pounding on my door about turning my sheets down, I explained that I was in the bath and could turn my own sheets down later, it really wouldn't be a problem) and my own TV (oh yes, lots of TV wonderfulness for me to watch). I even went mad and ordered some room service. Lovely. Later when I looked out my window the weather had melted down even further, with some really quite spectacular horizontal rain action going on. But just cos I was getting the ferry the next morning, I refused to be worried.
Anyway, my radio alarm in the room went off at 7am and the news was on. Turns out that after facing 10m high waves the night before, people had been injured on the interslander ferry by some flying furniture (various cracked ribs and broken arms) and a lot of the cars had been totalled (they shifted in transit so the proud owner of a Porsche discovered when they docked that a truck had landed on top of it - nice!). As you can imagine it was chaos and the outlook was not good for the ferry going that day.
I however refused to be defeated (mainly because I didn't have a clue what else to do) but checked out, picked up my car for our final journey together and headed to the ferry where I was to drop the car off (turns out I just had to park it in a certain section of the car pack and drop the keys in a box, which is worrying as I hope that they don't invent damage to the car without me there... oh well I have to have some faith in human nature, despite all my years living in London, right?).
I went in to the departures area where there were people how had turned up for the ferry the night before (last one didn't go out) and people who were due to go on the 8.30am crossing (I was booked on the 10.35am crossing). All our crossings were officially cancelled but the lovely people at Interislander had got their biggest ferry (therefore safest to go over in gale force winds and by this point more subdued 5-6m high waves) and we were all getting on it (the joy of being a foot passenger). We boared at 10am. We actually left at gone 2pm, so it has been a very long day.
It was good though, as there was a definite camaraderie on board, mainly I think because people were so relieved to be heading off at all, plus there was the impending threat of sea sickness. Following advice from one of the crew I sat in the bar area near the back of the boat. I was soon surrounded by a really nice bunch of people. A lovely couple from Palmerston North fed me ginger as that is supposed to prevent sea sickness. I had a great chat with a guy that had come down from Auckland and had been waiting to leave since the night before. A group of people from the Ulysses bikers group made me laugh through the roughest parts of the journey, while in the calm final hour in to Picton, once we were out of open seas and in the sounds I had a nice chat with a chap, recovering from sea sickness who was en route to Dunedin to see his 3 month old son. It was great and I wasn't sick once, which my mum will attest to being unusual, as I normally get travel sick looking at a boat. It was actually really good fun and great to chat to such a lovely mix of people. We were a bit concerned when we saw a bit of the ship fly off during the journey (it looked like a railing - when the crew were told about it they looked concerned and asked if anyone had been attached to it at the time, fortunately we hadn't seen anyone go in with it!). It would have been hard for anyone to get swept overboard though since the sun deck was closed as it just wasn't safe to be out there.
I picked up my new car (a Nissan pulsar that feels like a toy after my lovely peugeot and which for some reason has a child seat in it, I didn't ask why as it may come in handy if I decide to pick up any under 3 yr old hitch hikers) and can now sympathise with Andy H as my indicators are on the other side of the wheel, so now it is me putting on my windscreen wipers every time that I want to turn a corner... oopsie.
I am at a hostel that seems nice called Sequoia lodge, and will be here for a couple of nights, as there are supposed to be some really nice walks and kayaking trips around here that I want to investigate tomorrow after a good nights sleep.
Anyway I have precisely 1 1/2 minutes left before my money runs out, so I had better upload this.
Love to all
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Beating the clock on a slow computer
Well hello to all from Wanganui (or Whanganui depending on who wins the argument about putting the 'h' back in to make it proper Maori spelling). I am in a backpackers with 11 mins left on my internet time, so apologies if there are even more typos and spelling mistakes than usual.
OK well when I left off I had just arrived in Raglan where I was spending 2 nights. I had a lovely time there although it was a tad windy and overcast a lot of the time. My first evening, after walks along the nearby beaches and a spot of window shopping I headed back to probably the best hostel I have stayed in so far (well it is definitely up there with Watson's Way in Renwick) where I was sharing a room with 4 other people. The atmosphere was relaxed and they had a cat, which most of you know will make me very happy.
I had a lovely meal with Siobhan from Northern Ireland (working as a doctor in Hamilton) and a Canadian couple who were leaving the next morning. It was really very mellow, nice conversation, good food and another early night as I just can't seem to keep my eyes open once it gets back 10pm (probably all the internalised trauma I am feeling from all those very bendy roads and aggressive Kiwi drivers).
Through the backpackers I was booked on to a horseriding trip the next day at 11am. Another girl called Niki at the hostel wanted to go too, so I was the chauffeur (strange feeling for me) and drove us out there. That over simplifies a very stressful journey involving us missing the turning, long very windy narrow gravel roads and trying to drive with fingers crossed that another car doesn't come from the other direction (which of course they did, which led to manoeuvres to the edge of drops and lot of very cheerful thumbs up). We finally made it to the horse place 40 minutes late due to our inadvertant detour and bless them they had waited for us (they had called the backpackers so knew that we were on our way and didn't want us to miss out as they say people are alwaays getting lost trying to find them). I was introduced to my horse, Jack and we headed off.
The countryside was amazing. Jack wasn't really in a hurry so I got to enjoy the views from the back of the group. We went over mountains, through forests and eventually down to the beach, where, as we all had riding experience we actually got to give the horses a good run along the sand. Turns out that Jack loves to run (although he was good and didn't belt off as fast as the others, as I haven't ridden properly ages). There was a rather unfortunate incident in which Jack tried to avoid an incoming wave, stumbled and I had a choice, hang on or swim. I went for a dip. It was quite refreshing and definitely confused Jack how stopped, turned around and looked at me reproachfully. Wayne, the guy who owns the horse place came riding over but it was clear that while I was soggy, I was fine (well I had the giggles). What can I say, I have fallen off before and will no doubt fall off again. Why I still had a stirrup was a bit of a mystery to me, but hey it added to the adventure.
After that we headed for home (FYI we were always going to, not because of my minor mishap - and anyone who reads this knows that I am the queen of minor mishaps) back through the mountains and forests. It was lovely and Jack was definitely livelier knowing that he was heading back for some food and a shower (trust me I witnessed it, that horse loves a good shower).
It was a great 3 hour round trip and I really enjoyed it. I will definitely be trying to get some more horse riding trips booked in on my travels. It is good for the soul! Although my legs are black and blue after it, but that is only to be expected.
That evening I had some pasta back at the backpackers, supped on some red wine and watched some of my hostel mates playing a marathon game of surfer monopoly (don't ask!). I am reading a great book at the moment (Carter beast the devil - b'day pressie from Esteban and I love it, everyone read it) so I was a bit distracted, although I did join in with the finer rules of "Cheat" once the monopoly game was over.
The next day I headed to New Plymouth, once again having to face those nasty windy roads. It was another white knuckle ride but I made it through and headed off on the slightly less windy main road to New Plymouth. It was a nice journey down punctuated by the odd coffee break (I am addicted to flat whites).
I booked myself in to the Shoestring backpackers there which is another gem (yes they also have a cat, I can't help it I'm a sucker for felines). I had a quiet night in watching a bit of TV and listening to music. The next day I walked the Coastal pathway that runs in front of New Plymouth for 7km (of course stopping for a coffee and fritata for lunch en route). I had a good wander round New Plymouth but I wasn't up for any of the hikes in to Egmont National park as my feet still haven't fully recovered from the Tongariro Crossing, which was a shame as there are supposed to be some really good day walks there. But I have another 4 months to go and don't want to completely cripple myself too early.
That leads me up to this morning when I drove to Wanganui, another nice drive with some good coffee drunk along the way. I got in at 1pm and headed straight to Tamara's backpackers (nice place, shame about the slow computer) and found out that the only working paddle boat in New Zealand, the Waimarie, was going for an afternoon trip up the Whanganui river at 2pm. So I booked myself straight on and settled in for a very mellow afternoon of reading, taking photos of the scenery and eating a scone with raspberry jam and ginger beer (very Enid Blyton moment out here in NZ).
Tomorrow I head to Wellington for a night there before getting the ferry to South Island in the morning (after saying goodbye to my trusty Peugeot as I pick up a new car in Picton from a different rental company, but good news is that it is cheaper and I have 0 excess, so can be less paranoid about all the flying, scratchy gravel and loonie drivers).
Well that brings me up to date. I now need to check to see if my washing has finished yet, so I can transfer it to the dryer. Not sure if my riding clothes were salvageable but I live in hope.
Love to all
OK well when I left off I had just arrived in Raglan where I was spending 2 nights. I had a lovely time there although it was a tad windy and overcast a lot of the time. My first evening, after walks along the nearby beaches and a spot of window shopping I headed back to probably the best hostel I have stayed in so far (well it is definitely up there with Watson's Way in Renwick) where I was sharing a room with 4 other people. The atmosphere was relaxed and they had a cat, which most of you know will make me very happy.
I had a lovely meal with Siobhan from Northern Ireland (working as a doctor in Hamilton) and a Canadian couple who were leaving the next morning. It was really very mellow, nice conversation, good food and another early night as I just can't seem to keep my eyes open once it gets back 10pm (probably all the internalised trauma I am feeling from all those very bendy roads and aggressive Kiwi drivers).
Through the backpackers I was booked on to a horseriding trip the next day at 11am. Another girl called Niki at the hostel wanted to go too, so I was the chauffeur (strange feeling for me) and drove us out there. That over simplifies a very stressful journey involving us missing the turning, long very windy narrow gravel roads and trying to drive with fingers crossed that another car doesn't come from the other direction (which of course they did, which led to manoeuvres to the edge of drops and lot of very cheerful thumbs up). We finally made it to the horse place 40 minutes late due to our inadvertant detour and bless them they had waited for us (they had called the backpackers so knew that we were on our way and didn't want us to miss out as they say people are alwaays getting lost trying to find them). I was introduced to my horse, Jack and we headed off.
The countryside was amazing. Jack wasn't really in a hurry so I got to enjoy the views from the back of the group. We went over mountains, through forests and eventually down to the beach, where, as we all had riding experience we actually got to give the horses a good run along the sand. Turns out that Jack loves to run (although he was good and didn't belt off as fast as the others, as I haven't ridden properly ages). There was a rather unfortunate incident in which Jack tried to avoid an incoming wave, stumbled and I had a choice, hang on or swim. I went for a dip. It was quite refreshing and definitely confused Jack how stopped, turned around and looked at me reproachfully. Wayne, the guy who owns the horse place came riding over but it was clear that while I was soggy, I was fine (well I had the giggles). What can I say, I have fallen off before and will no doubt fall off again. Why I still had a stirrup was a bit of a mystery to me, but hey it added to the adventure.
After that we headed for home (FYI we were always going to, not because of my minor mishap - and anyone who reads this knows that I am the queen of minor mishaps) back through the mountains and forests. It was lovely and Jack was definitely livelier knowing that he was heading back for some food and a shower (trust me I witnessed it, that horse loves a good shower).
It was a great 3 hour round trip and I really enjoyed it. I will definitely be trying to get some more horse riding trips booked in on my travels. It is good for the soul! Although my legs are black and blue after it, but that is only to be expected.
That evening I had some pasta back at the backpackers, supped on some red wine and watched some of my hostel mates playing a marathon game of surfer monopoly (don't ask!). I am reading a great book at the moment (Carter beast the devil - b'day pressie from Esteban and I love it, everyone read it) so I was a bit distracted, although I did join in with the finer rules of "Cheat" once the monopoly game was over.
The next day I headed to New Plymouth, once again having to face those nasty windy roads. It was another white knuckle ride but I made it through and headed off on the slightly less windy main road to New Plymouth. It was a nice journey down punctuated by the odd coffee break (I am addicted to flat whites).
I booked myself in to the Shoestring backpackers there which is another gem (yes they also have a cat, I can't help it I'm a sucker for felines). I had a quiet night in watching a bit of TV and listening to music. The next day I walked the Coastal pathway that runs in front of New Plymouth for 7km (of course stopping for a coffee and fritata for lunch en route). I had a good wander round New Plymouth but I wasn't up for any of the hikes in to Egmont National park as my feet still haven't fully recovered from the Tongariro Crossing, which was a shame as there are supposed to be some really good day walks there. But I have another 4 months to go and don't want to completely cripple myself too early.
That leads me up to this morning when I drove to Wanganui, another nice drive with some good coffee drunk along the way. I got in at 1pm and headed straight to Tamara's backpackers (nice place, shame about the slow computer) and found out that the only working paddle boat in New Zealand, the Waimarie, was going for an afternoon trip up the Whanganui river at 2pm. So I booked myself straight on and settled in for a very mellow afternoon of reading, taking photos of the scenery and eating a scone with raspberry jam and ginger beer (very Enid Blyton moment out here in NZ).
Tomorrow I head to Wellington for a night there before getting the ferry to South Island in the morning (after saying goodbye to my trusty Peugeot as I pick up a new car in Picton from a different rental company, but good news is that it is cheaper and I have 0 excess, so can be less paranoid about all the flying, scratchy gravel and loonie drivers).
Well that brings me up to date. I now need to check to see if my washing has finished yet, so I can transfer it to the dryer. Not sure if my riding clothes were salvageable but I live in hope.
Love to all
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