Oz Photos
Oz photos are up on the website now... might add some panoramas later though :o)
September 05, 2006
August 10, 2006
Auckland then home
I'm now home after the most hideously long flight!
Auckland was nice and relaxing. The tour of the city wasn't overly good - the panoramic views were kind of spoilt by cloud! The aquarium was good fun with underwater glass tunnels and lots of fish and sharks to see. We spent most of the time doing some souvineer shopping and on our last night we met up with my friend Fiona who is from Auckland but spent one semester on my course in Nottingham. We went for hot chocolate and cake with a couple of her friends and it was great to catch up.
Our journey home took us 28 hours - yuck. Our second flight from Sydney was interesting in that the plane aborted take-off just as it was about to leave the runway as the pilot had noticed a problem. Apparently the reverse thrusts were malfunctioning so after spending several minutes on the runway trying to recreate the situation and check it was playing up we headed back to the terminal where they simply disconnected the reverse thrust. The pilot's words were "we don't need it... it's more of a luxury than anything". Very comforting.
The plane we were on was a bit old and the entertainment system hadn't been upgraded to their super dooper ones. The movies were pretty terrible so this made the flight seem to last even longer... but it did mean that I got some sleep! We were sat next to the most miserable Australian Girl and her unfortunate boyfriend who were on their way to Europe for a few weeks of travel and she thought it was going to be the worst experience ever. She huffed in disappointment at the fact it was only 16*C in the UK at 6.30am!!!
So we got back on Thursday but didn't have much time to rest as we had to go to a wedding on the Saturday down in Surrey! Friday was spent rushing around to buy an outfit! Traffic was absolutly disgusting and I am now even more convinced that living in the South of England is a bad bad idea because of it!
I start work next week so this week is a rush of tasks to get done before then!
July 30, 2006
Skydives and bubbling mud!
Following my last blog we headed on our way to Rotarua. We stopped of at Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland where we looked at all the bubbling mud, steaming ground and geysers. They are supposed to be the most colourful ones in the country and were pretty impressive but VERY smelly. All the sulphur makes it all a bit eggy!
It was glorious sunshine again the next day so I decided I should jump out of a plane.... I decided that I'd give the skydive thing a go... Paddy decided that if I was doing one he had better do one too - He thought I might brag or something :oP We drove back to Lake Taupo as it's the cheapest place to do it and we could see Mt. Doom in the distance so it was pretty cool. We had non existing briefings beforehand and I was slightly unnerved when my tandem master grabbed me to drag me to the plane and quickly introduced himself as Damien. There was no going back :oS He was pretty cool though. It was great fun, though it doesn't last very long! Not quite what I'd ever imagined - really awesome. Ed and I both got videos done of our freefalls and now have action footage of us plummeting towards the earth - all pretty cool.
That night Paddy and I went along to a Mouri Concert and Hangi. It was a really weird experience. There were only 7 "guests" and we were outnumbered by the Maori performers who were all dressed up in their traditional costume along with face art. Being so few of us, none of us got away without getting up on stage doing a dance with them. I had to do a poi dance with the ladies and Paddy did the Haka with the men!! Very very funny! The food afterwards was amazing! There was loads of it and it was all delicious! We crawled back into our little campervan with very full tummies!
On we went from Rotarua up to the Coromandel Peninsula stopping off for a quick look at Hobbiton and then drove up around the coastline. We called in at Hot Water Beach where we had a paddle in the holes people had dug and sat in. Some were so hot you couldn't stand in the water! We were a bit to late in the day to hire our own spade and dig a hole so we just used other peoples which had been finished with :o) We did a walk to Cathedral Cove and took some photos there. We found ourselves an interesting sleeping spot perched on a narrow layby above the road and started early the next day.
We then drove all the way to the Bay of Islands where we camped in a disused airfield! The next day we did one of those super dooper 1600 horsepower jet boats to go through the hole in the rock. Afterwards we went to Waitangi to the Treaty house where the treaty between the British and the Maori was signed. It was a pretty interesting visit with some beuatiful Maori carvings. We continued on down the coast on our way back to Auckland. We stopped to see the Giant Kauri tree and camped in a nice campsite for a change.
Now we are in Auckland! We have handed back the Spaceship and are set up in a hostel which is lovely. Tomorrow we're doing a tour of the city and the next day we are going to the aquarium as we have some free tickets. Apart from that we are going to relax for our last few days in New Zealand!
July 25, 2006
Volcanoes and Glowworms
Kia Ora! Seeing as I haven't actually used that one yet!
We are now on the North Island! Our boat was delayed by a few hours so we didn't get much time in Wellington. A very weird capital city though... no buidings above 10 stories! We had a quick look around and jetted up the coast to our destination for the night... another picknic (as they seem to spell it over here in places!) site. This one was particularly grotty but we picked up some pizza on the way so we barely had to get out of our little bubble car after dark. Mr Nuggles will be very pleased we have been educating ourselves with Smallville :oS
The next day was spent travelling to and around Mt. Egmont - A HUGE Volcano! Sadly we had amazing views on the way there but missed to take a photo and when we arrived at the visitor centre it was all hidden in cloud :o( Very impressive drive in though! We did a little walk through the rainforest down to Dawson Falls (a very pretty waterfall) and waited in vain for the sun to come out again before heading on to New Plymouth. Now I don't quite get it... why build a big town beneath a HUGE (did I mention it was massive) volcano... I certainly would buy a house there! It was a nice looking little town though.
By the evening we had reached Waitomo where we booked on to do some caving the next day. We had wanted to do the cheaper Black Water Rafting Option but the lady seemed terribly keen for us to do the "more challenging" abseiling and caving option and gave it us for almost the same price. She also recommended a carpark to sleep in so that was nice!
We started our caving adventure at 8am. Yuck - it was still dark. They took us to the cave location and kitted us up with some rather fancy gear. Black Wetsuits and White recycled abattoir wellies complete with harness and helmet. Nice. We looked and felt suitably stupid. They introduced us to the most scary looking abseil device I have ever seen and then we climbed down into the caves. The abseils were actually quite fun - all the more so because we got soaked as we were going down waterfalls. We followed the river down quite a fair way and stopped here and there and turned off our head torches so we could see the hundreds of glowworms all over the caves. Very cool. Now some bits was rather tight squeezes... and I have some issues with tight squeezes... especially when they are full of water. I checked with the lady if there wold be any such things and she said no... but I call me flat on my tummy crawling through water and having to tilt my head to one side to breath rather tight. Still... the slightly chubby Mexican girl infront of me gave me faith I would make it through alive and I did... and it was great fun! :o) I have a picture to prove it! :oP
After the caving we quickly showered and headed over to Tongario National Park where they filmed Mt. Doom (using the active Mt. Tongario) in Lord of the Rings! We had hoped to do the 1 day walk across the Tongario Crossing, but it is currently Alpine Conditions with high avalanche risk so no guides are going. We found a carpark under the mountains and woke up to a gloriously sunny day with wonderful views! We did a little walk to get some views and have now driven to Lake Taupo. I'm looking at skydives but think I might have to pass... it's pretty expensive.
We plan to go to Rotaroa next to take in some Maori culture.
July 21, 2006
Waiting for the boat...
Well, the roads were less windy and we got through the last bit a bit quicker than we expected! We're in Picton!
After Greymouth we drove up north and visited the Pancake Rocks in the Punakaiki Reserve and then went further north and visited a seal colony at Cape Foulwind... which stank! But the seals were very cute! We cut into land through the national parks and camped somewhere inbetween there and the Abel Tasmen in a carpark next to the Owen River.
Yesterday we made it to the Abel Tasman... which was really quiet. We went for a walk up the coast and saw lots of Oyster Catchers and other birds. We went to the weirdest campground as there was a "Spaceship Station" and we wanted to swap over our dvds (Yes... our Spaceship even has a 7" dvd player in it!) It was called "Old Macdonalds Farm and Campsite"... it was dead... there were a few cows.. and one or two ducks but no people. It was slightly scarey as the signs were all hand painted and circus like and were faded and worn out and so it looked deserted. Weird, because the things I thought were creepy were also the things I thought were quite cool! Old Macdonald did eventually turn up and we swapped the dvds and went on our way... would have been nice to have stayed if we'd had longer though - the cows and ducks were very cool! :oP
So on we went to Nelson... It was there that we stumbled across the first Chavs we have seen in NZ... 3 cars of them in the botanical gardens carpack! We decided not to leave the car there and went and found some safer street parking... this country is so like home in so many ways! We did the walk up a very steep hill to the centre of New Zealand. It's funny... we don't know how they worked out where the centre was... but they must have been very happy that it lay right on the top of the hill and not in a bog to the side! A nice man with a huge dog showed us one of NZ less treasured birds... the Native Pigeon... who are fat as. At the top of the hill, at the centre of New Zealand... we bumped into the boys who had been on our Glacier walk - we had also bumped into them at Pancake Rocks so that was very weird! Less weird than when we bumped into the girl on our Kakadu trip in Queenstown, but hey. We chatted to them then went our own way again and started heading to Picton.
Last night we had our 3rd freecamping night so this morning we made it to Picton (going via a few scenic bits) and arrived rather smelly! So we are in a 5* campsite with spa and are now squeaky clean ready for the North Island!