Mar 2007

Back to reality!! Typing this final entry on the computer at home and it feels like we’ve never been away: 9-5 in a mind-numbing office job and daily fights with Rich over the car – some people are just never happy…Whilst in Fiji we were wishing we were back home, now at home I think even Fiji is appealing, despite the fact it wasn't the holiday-brochure paradise we were expecting…

13/03/07
Returned the car and escaped an anticipated ‘chipped windscreen charge’ (I challenge anyone to drive around NZ without getting a stone thrown onto their windscreen – road works galore!) Checked baggage in, incredibly efficiently and hung around the airport for what seemed like eternity.

Arrived in Fiji where we were greeted by bright blue skies and glistening white sand? NOPE!! We got grey skies, a thunderstorm (accompanied by 1000% humidity), muddy brown seas and a clapped out old mini bus to take us to the hostel…so far so good?!?

The hostel was in an extremely isolated location so there was nowhere to go for dinner other than the in-house ‘restaurant’. We then returned to our room, but had to re-locate due to a leaking roof. Finally, we settled down to survey the island literature and realised that there was no way on Earth that we were going to be able to afford to go anywhere…we therefore reassessed our financial situation and decided to alter our return flights for 5 days time, pushing our budget back up to a reasonable allowance per day.

14/03/07 – HAPPY BIRHDAY GRANNY + MWAHH!!
The storms had continued all night and the morning offered no alternative…what do you do in Fiji when it’s raining?? Well, you pat yourselves on the back for deciding to get out of there and spend the morning on the phone to Qantas altering your flight plans. Eventually we managed to cut the trip back by 10 days, enabling us to spend 3 days on 2 of the surrounding Yasawas islands (which were meant to be more idyllic). Even then we could only afford ‘budget’ accommodation – but how bad could it be? We booked 2 nights on Nanuya Lai Lai and 1 night on Nacula, leaving the following day.

Having sorted that out we decided to head into Nadi town centre and caught the local bus (typical 3rd world variety, fully ventilated (i.e. no windows)) for 65cents. There was nothing there but tourist shops with 1000’s of Americans tourists in - obviously the arrangement works well. We were somehow dragged into a shop with a couple from Finland, who we’d been chatting to on the bus into town. The shop owners then coerced us into participating in a ‘welcoming ceremony’, where we had to watch them make kava (local drink, reminiscent of muddy pond water – in taste and appearance). You had to clap and chant something Fijian whenever anyone was given the drink. Finally we were allowed to browse around what we had thought was a market, but in fact was a family-owned shop the size of a walk-in wardrobe. We literally couldn’t get out of the shop until we’d bought something (obviously lost the skills we’d developed in Vietnam) and ended up with an extortionately over-priced wooden mask.

Having escaped the mad-house we found an internet shack and then waved goodbye to our Finnish friends (Is that what you call people form Finland??) By the time we got outside again the sun had made an appearance - hurrah!!! We therefore rushed to get back to laze by the pool, and in our haste got on the wrong bus. Fortunately we managed to jump off before being driven out of town and walked the rest of the way back to the hostel (40 mins) without getting lost.

That evening we went to a reasonably posh restaurant (‘Chef’) in town to celebrate my 23rd birthday. We had a really lovely evening; gorgeous meal served by our very own singing waitresses and a complimentary desert with ‘Happy Birthday Ema’ written on the plate in chocolate – ahhh.

15/03/07
A massive storm thundered throughout the night, damaging the electricity supplies, so when I rose at 5.30am I had to take a shower with only our battery powered lantern to assist my sight. After breakfast we were picked up by a coach and taken to the harbour, where we boarded a catamaran and spent the morning cruising through the Mamanuca islands (home to Monuriki – a.k.a Castaway Island, think Tom Hanks, and Bounty Island – a.k.a Celebrity Love Island).

We spent most of the day on the boat and arrived at Nanuya Lai Lai (a.k.a. Blue Lagoon) about 3.30pm. The owners of ‘Seaspray’ (our budget ‘resort’) collected us from the main ship in a ‘speed’ boat, along with another couple from Birmingham. Bearing in mind we’d compromised our remaining budget into these 3 days we were somewhat shocked when we arrived. The lady who’d booked the resort was right about experiencing the ‘real’ Fiji… claustrophobic/cramped, dirty bure, ‘eco-friendly/human-enemy’ toilets where leaves are used to ‘flush’ your excrements after you’ve battled with the flies and a bucket of rainwater complete with a margarine tub to wash….utter paradise!! Accepting our plight, we did enjoy the company – both tourists and residents. Queenie and Britney (the 2 gays in the village) provided meal time entertainment, whilst the owners little boy gave an added cute factor. Oh, and of course Wayne loved the 1000’s of stray dogs.

The meals consisted of 100% carb stodge, which we ate at the family table with 9 other guests after holding hands and saying ‘grace.’ We then carried out plastic seats outside and sat around a bonfire on the beach. Spoke to a really friendly Dutch lady who’d (along with her boyfriend) quit her job in advertising and decided to travel the world. They’d been to Antarctica –sounded amazing.

16/03/07
The family cockerels woke us up at 5:30am, so we got up and wondered around. After breakfast we went shark-feeding on the family boat (kitted out with masks and snorkels). It was a bit of a non-event… my mask kept leaking and they only found one reef shark. No money-back guarantee here though. We had booked to do a dive that afternoon, but the visibility was awful so we decided to cancel and wonder over to the Blue Lagoon on the other side of the island instead. No-one had warned us that the island is pretty steep and well forested (we assumed it was all sand), so we set-off on our little trek in bare feet (ouch!!) An hour later (our feet battered, bruised and covered in mud) we reached the Blue Lagoon. Our hired snorkelling gear leaked yet again, so we couldn’t see much underwater, but we did catch a glimpse at how Fiji should be – for those with a bit of cash. The luxury resort on this side of the island was so much better than ours…we purchased a drink and Wayne made use of a flushing toilet. A couple of hours later we plucked up the courage to go back, but bypassed our shack in favour of the beach tea shop, where we purchased a very, very weak tea and a slice of chocolate cake.

That evening we sat at the dinner table speaking to the remaining guests; the Dutch couple and 3 English lads, who’d had a similar opinion of Australia as us…i.e. they hate the British and glamorise their own country far too much, which led to an overall disappointment upon arrival. Similarly they couldn’t fault New Zealand. Great minds think alike.

17/03/07
Took the ‘speed’ boat and raced over to Nacula; the third largest island in the Yasawas. Although the facilities at this new ‘resort’ were slightly better: dripping pipe for a shower and a flushing loo, our bure was full of cockroaches, ants and centipedes – cringe!! Wayne had mild sun-stoke and slept most of the day, so I just spent mine reading my book on the beach. That afternoon we were dragged over to make palm leaf headdresses for the Fijian ‘lovo’ evening. I really wasn’t in the mood and just wanted to go to bed – I think the beginnings of our week long illness were setting in. We forced ourselves to attend and ate the ‘lovo’ food, which had been cooked underground and tasted like it had been shoved into a chimney breast all afternoon; smoked isn’t a strong enough adjective. After the kava ceremony (that we couldn’t participate in because we refused to pay to drink the muddy water) we sneaked away and went to bed feeling a bit grotty. We were definitely looking forward to heading home at this point.

18/03/07
Couldn’t sleep because the bed was so uncomfortable and my mosquito bites were unbearably itchy all night. Got up at 6am, showered and sat waiting for the boat to take us over to the returning catamaran – yes, we really were that fed up. Suddenly, about 8.30am we both started getting stomach pains and ran to the filthy toilets (luckily there were 2). I think we had contracted food poisoning from either the ‘lovo’ food or the previous resorts fly-ridden meals. Our 30 hour plus journey home suddenly didn’t seem so appealing – we crossed our fingers, hoping it would reside.

The five hours spent on the boat dragged, but was relatively uneventful – 1 toilet trip each. We got back to the hostel and asked the unhelpful lady on reception (who I now know retained my birthday cards!!!) if we could take a shower before catching a lift to the airport. She was so blasé about everything she just nodded us in the direction of the shower so we assumed this was ok. However, when we returned to reception she unapologetically informed us that the minibus had already gone to the airport and we would have to get a taxi!! AGHHHHHHH!!!! With no time to argue (well, no time to argue successfully) we caught a taxi to the airport and managed to check our bags in before running to the toilet yet again.

The 10 hour flight from Fiji to LA was at the time, how we imagined hell could be – I think Wayne spent most of the flight in the toilet rather than in his seat. I did however manage to catch up on a bit of sleep and the time passed relatively quickly. The 10 hours spent in LA airport made the Fiji to LA flight look like a breeze. At least we just had to sit there, and our only worry was reaching the toilet in time. At the airport we couldn’t do anything right. Firstly, I took a mouthful of abuse from an arrogant American passport control ‘officer’, whilst desperately wanting to run to the nearest WC. Secondly, we went to collect our baggage from a carousel (despite the fact we were a connecting flight), where surely the logic here is to let the baggage circulate around the belt so that passengers all have an opportunity to spot their bag and grab it – but no, in LA they employ someone to stand at the opening and throw the luggage off the belt into a massive pile on the floor. Us passengers just stood waiting for about 20 minutes before someone pointed out that all the bags were sitting around the other side. AGHHHHH!!!

We were then directed through to the check-in desks and had to queue to get through to departures – not good as my stomach had started to churn AGAIN. Very strange – Wayne suffered more whilst sitting still on the plane, where as nature kept calling when I was moving around in the airports. Anyway, we queued up at BA’s desk, only to be told that we needed Qantas to stick a little date-change label on our ticket….why?!? they had us booked onto the flight on the computer!!! So, we trundled along to the Qantas desk and waited an hour and a half for them to open up, got the damned sticky label and went back again to BA. Fortunately we didn’t have to queue for quite as long this time. We simply didn’t have the energy nor adequate control over our bowls to take a wonder around LA, so we sat at the gate for about 4 hours willing time to pass. Since we’d flown over the date line we were back where we’d started, and it was 9pm again on 18/03/07 – when to us it should have been about 2pm on 19/03/07.

19/03/07
Another 10 hour flight in similar degrees of agony and we finally touched down into London Heathrow – phew!!!! Only 1.5 hours from home…or so we thought. It actually took us a couple of hours to get through to arrivals (baggage collection at Heathrow doesn’t have the best reputation) and we spent a further hour sorting out our hire car to get home. We were told to go outside, choose our car and check it for any damage. Well…there was no way we could stand outside in the snow checking for damage when we were in flip-flops and all we wanted to do was roll into bed. So, we took the car and drove off, looking forward to surprising Mum and Rich, dropping the car off at Luton Airport and then going straight to bed. Even in England things didn’t go to plan. 8pm (landed at 2pm) we pulled up outside the house, no lights on, Wayne desperate for the loo and no cars outside….trouble. No-one answered the front door and I didn’t have a key. We drove down to the garage so that I could phone Mum and Wayne could use the toilet, but Mum’s phone was switched off and the garage didn’t have any toilets! I then suddenly remembered that it was Monday night and that Richard would be at work, so we rushed down to Sainsbury’s, Wayne ran straight to the toilets and I got a supervisor to call for Rich over the tannoy system. When he finally arrived at the customer service desk he said ‘hi’ as if I’d only seen him an hour ago and ‘what did I want?’ Then it suddenly registered that this was the sister he hadn’t seen for 6 months and he tried again…’OHHHH, HI!!!....what are you doing here???’ After a brief explanation he ran upstairs and gave me his car and house keys. We then dropped off the hire car at Luton airport, attempted to pick Rich up from work – although he’d started to walk home and by the time we got fed up waiting for him and drove back, he was just strolling up the road – some things never change! At 9.30pm we FINALLY got home. Mum was out with her school children at the Royal Albert Hall, so I had to wait up until midnight to say ‘Hi’.

This magical ‘appearing’ act continued for a couple of days – we sprung up in Rushden, then again in Harpenden and then finally in Luton. I think everyone was a bit put out by our early return – apparently no-one was ready for us quite yet.

After a week of being home we feel like we’ve never been away, so I will try and sift through these blog entries in a couple of weeks to remind myself of what this write up was all about ….

The End.

We’ve both really enjoyed our time in New Zealand – the North Island wasn’t quite as scenic as the South, but still provided us with a fantastic fortnight. I think we needed another month here to see everything on offer – unfortunately we’d need another few grand as well! Only negative: I’ve lost my tan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

28/02/07
Drove to Picton Port and then wondered around the town for a couple of hours. Boarded the ferry around lunchtime and arrived in Wellington 4 hours later. Navigated our way out of Wellington and into Plimmerton (seaside suburb, 20 mins north of the city). Staying in a ‘homely’ guesthouse, although owner is a little ‘full on’ and spent most of the afternoon trying to avoid him!

01/03/07
Hung around the guesthouse in the morning to get our laundry done. Unfortunately this innocent chore entailed a 40-minute ear bashing from the owner who tried to corner us into his 3-man dingy so that we could explore the nearby island – fair enough if we had time, but we wanted to go into the city and look around before moving north. We escaped, after he’d offered us a self-made itinerary of the city, complete with hand drawn map and spent the rest of the day (about 4 hours) looking around Te Papa; the national museum. It was excellent – very interactive and lively. The geology exhibition was the most impressive section because all of the plate tectonic case studies were local: volcanic eruptions, earthquakes (complete with a shaking house) etc. Since the weather was poor we decided to head back to the hostel, but sneaked in via the back entrance so as to avoid another ‘incident’ with the owner.

02/03/07
Back into Wellington…wondered down the waterfront, through the city and took a cable car up to the Botanical Gardens. Ate lunch in the gardens and then zigzagged down through the park and back into the city. Pretty place but surprisingly small for a capital city and nothing remarkably different about it. Bought a couple of tickets at a small independent art house cinema and watched the ‘Last King of Scotland’ that evening – excellent film.

03/03/07
Headed out of Wellington and up to Turangi; a small town close to the Tongariro National Park. Planned to do the Tongariro Crossing (reputedly the best 1 day walk in NZ) as it would be a cheap and health benefiting day out. Only the latter was true…it cost us a humungous $70 to get to/ from the park (not a circular walk so couldn’t drive ourselves). Spent the rest of the day recovering from the shock…

04/03/07
Tongariro Crossing: The national park comprises of 3 mountains; Tongariro (1967m), Ngauruhoe (2287m) and Ruapehu (2797m, best know for its cameo as Mordor’s Mt Doom, in Lord of the Rings). The 7 hours hike was exhausting but very rewarding – we set off at 7.30am, along with what seemed to be the entire tourist population of NZ, and trekked up Mt Tongariro to its’ Red Crater (1900m, last erupted 1926, but still regarded as active). We then walked down/skied down (without the ski’s!) a slope of ash, past the Emerald Lakes to its central crater. Some parts were very demanding; Wayne landed face first in ash 4 or 5 times!! Haha. Emma moved at a snails pace so as to avoid such embarrassment. Unfortunately we couldn’t appreciate the views of the surrounding national park, hence how high we’d battled, as the weather didn’t serve us well - we were caught up in cloud for most of the day. On our decent we saw numerous hot springs gushing sulphur and spent the final 2 hours engulfed in lush native forest. We reached Ketetahi Car Park 6 hours and 15 minutes later – blisters galore! Spent the rest of the afternoon lying down recovering – ate dinner at 5.30pm and went to bed! I told you it was exhausting.

05/03/07
Drove from Turangi, past Lake Taupo to Rotorua (dubbed ‘Sulphur City’, due to its distinct rotten egg aroma – nice!) Wondered around the town centre, but there was nothing of any interest, unless you count the pungent steam rising from the drains! Since we were still aching we went back to the campsite.

06/03/07
Walked into town again, quick internet stop and then walked across town to the Rotorua Museum, which was originally an elegant spa retreat (medicinal/therapeutic bath house) in 1908. The museum gave an insight into the past: electric current treatments, mud baths and the ‘maintenance nightmare’; the complex pipe system that continually eroded away due to the rich mineral waters. Ate lunch in the government gardens watching bowls and then wondered up to Lake Rotorua (formed by an eruption and subsequent subsistence of the area) and around to Ohinemuta – tiny Maori village.

That evening we drove to Te Puia and spent the night immersed in Maori culture. First up was the Powhiri (a traditional welcome ceremony), where we were told NOT to laugh or smile, as this would be deemed offensive. This was a challenge in itself for me – how can you not laugh at people who stare at you eye to eye whilst sticking their tongues out!! By biting my lip I managed to pull it off – thankfully or that would have been a waste of money! Our self-volunteered tourist chief (an American chap) had to go and greet the Maori chief with a ‘double nose rub’ and then we were allowed to walk down into the intricately carved meeting house: men at the front, women ‘protected’ at the back. We ‘sang’ a greeting in Maori and then watched the Haka performances, which were excellent…wide eyes, tongues out, body slapping, foot stomping dance routines (even treated to the original ‘All Black’ haka). The women then performed a Poi – formation dancing with balls of woven flax, before escorting us to Pikirangi – a reconstructed Maori village. We’d booked without knowing that a meal was included in the price, but luckily re-read the literature before starting dinner that afternoon. The buffet meal was gorgeous: roast, stews, salads and even a kiwi pavlova. I was very aware of the fact that we were the only people sticking to the free jug of water on the tables!! Cheap skates! Haha. We sat next to a Dutch couple, who were very friendly but had slightly overpowering singing voices – my lip was well and truly mauled by the time we got back into the car! Fantastic night out.

07/03/07
Rose early because we were intending to visit the Waiotapu Thermal Reserve. The weather was really bad though and we didn’t want to spend money on something that we were going to rush around, so we changed our plans…visited the park next to the campsite: Kuirau Park and caught a glimpse of a volcanic area…some boiling mud and a steaming crater lake, for free!! We then went into town and purchased a cheap card game (yes, we were getting desperate for ideas) that kept us entertained for the rest of the afternoon.

08/03/07
Another uneventful day – drove for most of it…to the Bay of Islands – 7-hour journey. Booked into a hostel just up from the beach, between Paihia and Waitangi. Pondered over the idea of booking a dive, but decided we couldn’t afford it so opted for a boat trip around the islands instead.

09/03/07
Visited Waitangi National Reserve, where Wayne spent most of the morning toying over the idea of purchasing his very own piece of Maori weaponry – when I reminded him that the ‘stick’ (for want of a better word) he was about to purchase was 200 GBP he decided against it and we were FINALLY able to look around the grounds. Visited the colonial style Treaty House and gardens (built 1832 by Busby, an English officer), which was the setting of the ‘Treaty of Waitangi’ signing in 1840, and then walked around the Whare Runanga (Maori Meeting House – built in 1940 to celebrate the centenary of the Treaty). That afternoon we caught the ferry across to Russell – an early European settlement. Very pretty, but small and since it was raining (yet again!) we quickly moved on.

10/03/07 – Happy Birthday Andy!!
Up early, walked to Paihia dock and boarded a catamaran that took us on a 6-hour trip around the Bay of Islands. We sailed up to Cape Bret and the ‘Hole in the Rock’ Island and then back down past Black Rocks. The highlight of the trip was seeing 3 different pods of bottlenose dolphins in the wild!! Unfortunately we couldn’t swim with them because they had a few calves, but it was an amazing sight…they swam with the boat for about 30 minutes – kept up with the speeds of about 45kph.

11/03/07
Arrived in Auckland and the pre-booked cabin at the campsite wasn’t ready, so after hanging around for about an hour we finally got checked-in. The room was reminiscent of our Asian lodgings – indistinguishable smell (musty, damp, stale…rank!), carpeted walls and an MDF bed that Wayne couldn’t fit on! He went to complain and we were begrudgingly ‘upgraded’ to a larger, but equally ghastly room with a longer bed (at an extra cost – cheek!) – Wayne’s still too long but at least his feet can dangle off the bed – the previous bed had a wooden board at the end?!? Problem solved…except they didn’t have a room key?!? We were given the master key – great security – but the door didn’t lock so Wayne marched up to the office again to get them to sort it out. We needed to stay another night, but they claimed the room was fully booked the following day so were moving us to a smaller room the other side of the park the following morning–we know for a fact it hadn’t been occupied the previous night so they should have put us in there in the first place! It was SO infuriating!

Briefly visited the city centre later that day, but came back as we had no money to do anything – ahhhh. That night our room door mysteriously flew open, despite there being no wind…spooky!! I don’t like this place.

12/03/07
Drove into the city and got ripped off by a second hand book dealer with an annoyingly large grin…we needed to get rid of a few books as our bags have become too heavy and we got charged excess baggage weight by the last airline! The women bought 8 books off us for $9 (less than 4 GBP) – bargain! Spent the rest of the day on this internet sorting out flight problems and writing this blog.

So long New Zealand...hopefully I’ll get a bit of colour back whilst lazing on a few beaches in Fiji. I doubt I’ll have much to report next time, but I’ll try and give you one last update before we return! It’s all going too fast! See you all very soon, take care e xx