New Zealand

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

Absolutely love New Zealand, why did we only allocate 1 month to explore this beautiful country?!?

13/02/07
Rose early (final time in the camper – hurrah!!!) to sort out our rental car for New Zealand...we thought we'd sorted it out before we left the UK, but Qantas had changed our flight times and we were unable to collect the car at our stated time. Since we've chosen a cheap rental company they fail to offer such luxuries as 24hour reception, so we had to arrange to collect the car from a hotel car park upon arrival. $15 later; after numerous phone calls and fax correspondence, we THOUGHT everything was OK: the rental company had phoned to confirm, so we checked out of the campsite and headed in search of the garage we had been instructed to return the camper van to. No easy task with an inadequate map, but we'd left plenty of time so the odd wrong turning or two didn't create too much tension. After a 30 minute argument over the phone with the Cairns rental company (what legit car rental company makes the customer wash the vehicle before returning it!!) we were on our way to Melbourne airport and arrived 5 hours early...I don't know how I ever earnt a reputation for being late??

Arrived in Christchurch around 11.30pm but didn't get through passport control until after 12.30am, primarily due to poor management: 5 officers allocated to 'Australian and Kiwi' stations, 1 officer for the rest of the world! The line moved unbearably slowly – there were a lot of angry tourists, mainly impatient Americans (as you can imagine: we didn't suffer in silence). Only benefit: luggage was out before the owners so no waiting around the carrousel's. We managed to find a pay phone in arrivals and rang the hotel so that they could come and collect us and take us to our car...only problem - they didn't have any keys to a rental car! AGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! We tried to ring the rental company to find out what they were playing at but no-one was in the office until the morning. Without a guarantee of reimbursement we reluctantly caught a taxi to our pre-booked campsite, where thankfully a key HAD been left for us in a safe and rolled into bed about 3am. Noticeably colder here – these rooms have heating instead of air con.

14/02/07
Forced ourselves out of bed at 7am and rang the rental company – no help, advised us to go back to the airport office. Caught yet another taxi and 'politely' explained our predicament to a guy on reception. They were extremely apologetic and realised that their Auckland office hadn't informed them of our new arrival time. We managed to get our taxi rides reimbursed, a day knocked off the rental price and a reduced ferry crossing fare from the South to the North island. Since they were so accommodating and apologetic we let the fax fees slide in exchange for a free road map – result!

Stocked up on grocerys before returning to the cabin and finally made it into Christchurch city centre by lunch time, where we ate our picnic lunch on the banks of the Avon River. Very pretty place (often described as the most English of NZ's cities) but by mid-afternoon our tiredness kicked in and we had to go back and catch up on sleep. Awoke about 7pm and spent the evening planning our NZ itinerary. Realised that we haven't got nearly as much time as we'd like here: we are going to have to move on every day so that we can fit in as many places as possible.

15/02/07 – CONGRATULATIONS ANG + ANDY ON THE BIRTH OF YOUR NEW BABY: KEIRAN ANDREW BUNKER – we can't wait to meet him.
Left Christchurch and headed down Arthurs Pass through glorious scenery to the West Coast. The landscape here is so majestic: snow-capped mountains, bright blue skies and lush green forests – I don't think you could ever get bored driving around. We planned to reach the glacier region by late afternoon so that we could take a guided hike on a glacier the following day. Although we did manage to book ourselves onto the 7.30am hike we couldn't find any accommodation for that night: all fully booked! Stopped off in Hokitika and found a tourist information centre to ask for their help. Here we learnt that you 'must' book your accommodation in advance, as NZ is a popular tourist destination, especially at this time of year. Whoops – this was a new revelation as we had simply been turning up at places in hope of a bed/spot of grass for the last 5 months. After a number of attempts the helpful tourist info lady managed to find us a motel room in the tiny hamlet of Hari Hari (1 hour north of the glaciers). It was perfect, stunning views and very quiet so we couldn't be taunted by people getting ready to go out (a 'no no' for us in the late stages of our trip: we are now trying to survive on 19GBP a day!) Since there was no phone reception at the motel we drove down the road and parked outside an independent garage for 2 hours, so that we could sort out accommodation for the following 2 weeks - no easy task as many places were fully booked. In fact we had phoned so many places our phone credit ran out. Bookings could only resume after we'd driven back to the local shop and purchased some more phone credit. After dinner we returned to our phone spot and rang Wayne's mum for a baby update...thinking surely Ang must have had had it by now?!? Our hunch was confirmed....'a little boy!!!' So once again, congratulations Ang and Andy (and Tia: now officially an older sister – tough job T but I'm sure you'll be up for the job – plenty of role models!) Don't let Keiran grow too much before we get back!

16/02/07
Up at 5am and drove into Westland Tai Poutini National Park at dawn – stunning 'Lord of the Rings' like scene: mist hovering over the water in front of a beautiful mountain backdrop...photographs just couldn't capture it. We arrived in Franz Josef village around 6.45am and waited around for 45 minutes before the office opened and were then kitted out in a gortex rain jacket, waterproof over trousers, woolen gloves/hat/socks, leather boots and attachable Ice Talonz for grip. We caught a bus to the Franz Josef Glacier car park, walked to the terminal face (about 45 mins), attached our ice talonz and were good to go. The Franz Josef glacier is the 3rd largest in NZ (11km long) but is the World's steepest and fastest flowing glacier (1-5m/day – 10 times faster than the average glacier!!)

The guide carved steps into the ice as we climbed and we soon got used to walking normally (initially I found it hard to put trust in the spikes of the talonz). It was an amazing day but felt very surreal: we were standing on a massive body of ice but could absorb fantastic views of forests and lush mountains! We spent 4 hours on the ice, but it only felt like an hour (at the time – later that day it felt like we'd spent 10 hours on the ice as our knees started to ache.) The dangers surrounding these natural formations were brought home towards the end of our trek...we'd heard a crack and ice crumble 10 minutes before reaching the terminal face but weren't sure what had happened/where the ice had fallen. It was only when we'd made it back down onto solid ground that we realised what had happened. The opening of a glacial cave on the face had collapsed and some idiot who hadn't bothered to fork out the money to go on a guided trip had decided to explore the glacier alone (despite rope barriers and numerous signs warning of the dangers). He'd been knocked over by some ice and thrown into the freezing melt water. A few guides who were about to take people up the glacier had seen him and fished him out (lucky guy), but his legs were badly injured and a helicopter ambulance had been called. By the time we got there he had been wrapped in foil blankets and the guides own fleeces. Another older man had also fallen onto the ice (due to the vibrations) and injured his head.

By the time we got back to the car we were exhausted and plans to walk up to the Fox Glacier (2nd largest in NZ) face were aborted. Instead we drove down a viewing road and walked 5 mins through some rainforest to a lookout point. We then drove 40km down he highway to another motel room in the middle of nowhere (no reception again – we were trying to ring to congratulate you Ang – promise!) Spent the evening talking to some guys from York – reminiscing about Asia and comparing our glacier trips...they'd spent 5 times the amount on a helihike, where they were flown to the middle of the glacier. Sounded excellent but they didn't have as much time on the ice.

17/02/07
Rose early and drove from the Fox Glacier to Arrowtown (30 mins north of Queenstown.). We stopped off in Wanaka enroute and ate lunch on the southern tip of Lake Wanaka: beautiful (sorry I think I have exhausted this word now). The entire journey was once again stunning: snaked along the Haast River and up into Mt Aspiring National Park. Arrived in Arrowtown, a picturesque ex-gold mining town, early afternoon. Wayne was determined to pan for gold so we spent 2 fruitless hours knee-deep in river water whilst an elderly Norfolk gentleman (on holiday with 3 other ladies – he kept dropping this into the conversation) demonstrated his gold panning skills. I had no time for this activity – kept trying to remind Wayne that it was an 'EX-gold mining town' but was kept entertained by Waynes' chum who professed his entire life story...and found the gold-digging ex-wife chapter quite ironic.

18/02/07
Drove from Arrowtown to Te Anau (Fiordland) via Queenstown (NZ's adrenaline activity capital – we surfed the web). Since there wasn't a lot to do there unless you had big bucks to spend we moved on to Te Anau; a very quiet town in a magnificent location. Wandered down to Lake Te Anau (53km long, 2nd largets in NZ) and watched the sun go down. Te Anau is the gateway to Milford Sound, an apparently stunning fjord (once described as the 8th natural wonder of the world) – we'll see and judge for ourselves tomorrow...

19/02/07
...Breathtaking!! Majestic mountains (including Mitre Peak 1700m) covered in thick forest despite the absence of soil, glacial striations, waterfalls and even a deep fault line was evident on the mountainsides surrounding the fjord lake. Our cruise boat pulled up near some young mail fur seals basking on rocks in the wind (to keep the sand flies at bay) and up to Stirling Falls (approximately 3 times the height of Niagara Falls – but obviously not nearly as wide!) where we were soaked by the spray. The ship just seemed dwarfed by the scale of the surrounding landscape. The trip around the fjord only lasted 2.5 hours but it was a constant photo opportunity and we had to endure a brutal editing session later that day. Beautiful part of the world. Our return trip was held up by a rouge tree that had fallen earlier that day and was subsequently blocking the highway. Tree surgeons were already at the scene (apparently – we were over a mile away so relied upon Chinese whispers!) so we only had to wait about an hour for the traffic to clear.

20/02/07
Drove to Dunedin; home to NZ's longest running university, the World's steepest street and NZ's Cadbury's World (none of which we had time to visit.) Instead we spent the afternoon in search of the cheapest frying pan and saucepan in town, as contrary to our original belief (and hopes) many campsites fail to provide cooking apparatus (we have been microwaving baked beans in non-microwavable bowls – not a very balanced diet!) Dunedin looked like a lovely town and if we'd had more time in NZ we would have probably stayed longer. Unfortunately time isn't on our side so we stopped here primarily to break up the journey from Te Anau to Mount Cook...

21/02/07
...woke up too early due to unbearably low room temperature (no linen provided so we only have our own sheet) and hit the highway in the direction of Mount Cook. Paused at a number of interesting sights along the way (mainly large rocks!):
1.Moeraki Boulders – bizarre spherical creations formed millions of years ago around lime crystals within the surrounding mudstone. Way too many tourists on the beach – 3 coach loads!
2.Elephant Rocks - surreal landscape: massive boulders (originally sand hardened to limestone) scattered around a grassed mountainside. Setting of Aslan's camp in the recent Chronicles of Narnia film (according to the Lonely Planet – I couldn't recall it??)
3.Lake Pukaki – just stopped very briefly to take some snaps of the unusual colour of the water: milky turquoise -gorgeous.
Eventually arrived at Mount Cook (Australiasia's highest mountain) but we couldn't find our pre-booked accommodation?? Gave them a ring and they politely informed us that they were on the East coast -close to Christchurch (we were sitting in the middle of NZ). WHOOPS!! My fault – in our hast to sort out the accommodation for the south island (2 hours outside the garage) I must have highlighted the wrong number. Unfortunately the entire village was fully booked, bar The Hermitage Hotel (NZ's most famous hotel) who had a room for $800/night, but were prepared to drop to $500 – Wayne was actually considering it!!! Mount Cook looked stunning covered in snow and was very inviting, but we decided (very quickly) that paying $500 to explore the area the next day wasn't worth it, and reluctantly moved on Lake Tekapo, knocking a '0' off our accommodation bill in the process.

22/02/07
Spent all day driving and ended up in a hostel in Hanmer Spring, which was probably the best place we've stayed: massive bedroom with French doors in an old house with a lounge, dining room and huge kitchen. So nice in fact that we spent the rest of the day there – reading in the garden.

23/02/07
Visited the outdoor Thermal and Sulphur Pools (35-42C!) in the town spa, but only spent about an hour there before the novelty wore off! Started to rain not long after we left so our plans to go for a long walk were aborted. Instead we spent the rest of the day back at the hostel, sorting out our North island accommodation. Glad we did this as I read a newspaper article the other day reporting a massive overseas visitor influx this year – hardly any rooms are available and rental cars are in short supply. In the glacier region up to 25 people a night have been caught sleeping in their cars and in this hostel there are a lot of senior citizens residing in dorm rooms! Tensions were rising the other day...battle of the ages. The older generation get up too early (although me and Wayne are always up with the best of them!) and open the dorm curtains!! haha. Whilst the younger generations have turned green with envy at the smell of the wholesome dinners they cook.

24/02/07 – 25/02/07
Drove to Nelson and wondered around the town centre: ghastly cathedral (art deco = breeze block extreior and interior!!) Did very little. The next day we visited Rabbit Island and spent much of the day lazing on the beach.

26/02/07
Got up early and drove further north to the Abel Tasman National Park. We'd seen so many tempting tourist leaflets: cruises, kayak tours and multiple night stays but decided to just experience a taster of the area on the cheap....we walked. It was an unbearably hot day, but we managed to walk 12km along the coastal track in 2.5 hours (from Marahau to Anchorage Bay). The actual track was very disappointing (not many views – too much growth) but Anchorage Bay was stunning and almost deserted. It reminded us of a Thai beach (but without the crowds), although the sea felt like it was -50C!! Both had a quick dip before frost bite had a chance to kick in and then bathed on the picture perfect sands. This country is fantastic: I doubt there are many places in the world where you can experience sizzling temperatures on tropical beaches and freezing temperatures on icy glaciers within the space of a week!

Wayne decided that he wasn't going to walk the 12km back (blisters- ahhhh...) and ' dragged' me into a water taxi speedboat....the first smile of the day appeared on his face! Suprise, suprise. When we reached land we were attached to a trailer and towed back through town by a tractor (whilst still wearing life jackets!!) The park is very pretty and if we ever had a chance to come back to New Zealand we'd try and visit with a bit of money and take a kayak trip further north for a few days.

27/02/07
Last day on the South Island - time has just flown.
Spent the day in Nelson city again, mostly on this computer. We are catching the ferry to the North island tomorrow morning so will update you in another 2 weeks. Not long left – a serious job hunt looms aghhhhhhh - well for me anyway, Wayne has sorted out his job. Hope everyones well? E