The rest of the North Island...

After a couple of days in National Park, mooching about round the volcanoes and chatting to our new mate Dave the road worker from East Anglia, we hitched a lift over to Turangi with a friendly but stern looking Croatian guy who was in the country 'on business'. We asked no questions.

After a quick stroll around Turangi, we set off for Taupo, on the shores of Lake Taupo, NZ's largest lake and a volcano in disguise. A really, really big one. We resisted the bargain bungee jumping and sky diving on offer, in favour of a stroll up to the beautiful Huka Falls (enough water flows over this bad boy in one second to fill 2 Olympic-size swimming pools, waterfall-based pub trivia fans) and a burger in an old wartime DC3 plane parked handily next door to the local Maccy D's.

We then headed to Rotorua, home of lots of geothermal hot springs and mudpools, lots of Maori culture, and one of the smelliest places on Earth. Here, we had a 'first' for the both of us - we stayed in a 'themed' hostel - Cactus Jacks. We stayed in the 'barbers', next to to 'Madame Fifi's Bordello'. Classy.

Here's a couple of pictures taken from our stroll around Rotorua on the first day. As you can see, it's a really nice place. Apart from the smell.

On our next day there, we visited the 'Geothermal Wonderland' that is Wai-O-Tapu. Another monumentally stinking place, but at the same time absolutely fantastic, especially to geology geeks like me. Even Clare was impressed!

The next day we headed up to the Gondola ride with a couple of guys we'd met in our hostel - a Chinese girl known to us as 'E' (probably grossly mis-spelled by me), and Jason, a Californian. Here's us in our helmets before the first run of the day (safety first, you know!) and a picture of the track.

We had a lot of fun up there and a few mishaps, E cut her finger, Jason was thrown completely out of his luge kart, and Clare's bag burned a hole in itself, spilling the contents out onto the track. I'm pleased to say there was no real harm done!

The day after, we headed to Hamilton for an overnighter before heading back to Auckland, where we are now, until our flight tomorrow to Bangkok. We're both really looking forward to some warm weather!

More from Thailand!

-Si

North Island Part 1 (Auckland and Wellington)

In last last week or two, me and Clare have been on a whistle-stop tour of the North Island. We had just 2 days each in Auckland, the biggest city in NZ, and the capital itself, Wellington.

Auckland seems like a nice place, with hundreds of sailing ships in the harbour, an impressive 300-odd metre tall 'Sky Tower' and loads of extinct volcanoes dotted about the place. We took in a Maori cultural show in the city museum, culminating, of course in the Haka. We also met up with Clare's mate Joe, who took us to his local, a damn fine microbrewery pub. Here's a few pics of the place...














































After a short 45 min flight, we arrived in Wellington. Wellington is a good little city, very hilly and apparently very windy, although it was pretty still while we were there, if a little overcast. Clare and I did separate walking tours, bumping into each other at the 'Beehive', NZ's parliament building, which I liked and Clare disliked. Each to their own I guess. We also took in the cable car, Botanic Gardens and Te Papa museum, all of which are excellent. That night, we met up with one of my old Entec buddies, Kate, back on her native turf. Kate took us out to a couple of her favourite bars, and we all had a great beery night talking about this and that.






























































The next day, after a quick tour of the NZ Parliament, we set off back towards Auckland on a 10-day roadtrip. First stop was Palmerston North, only a brief overnighter, during which we met Mike, a travelling rug salesman (honestly!) who very kindly gave us a lift in his bus the next day to National Park, gateway to Tongariro National Park, home to the mighty volcanoes Tongariro, Ngauruhoe (pronounced narra-ho-ee) and Ruapehu. On the way, we stopped in Ohakune, NZ's 'carrot capital, apparently. Cue more comedy oversize fibreglass vegetables. Here's a picture of the might Ruapehu from the 'Desert Road' on the way to National Park, and the vegetable in question:































More soon

-Si

Dunedin and Oamaru Pics...

From top to bottom: Baldwin Street, the World's steepest street and a house on it; me and Clare sampling 'craft' beers at the Speight's Brewery; the biggest ploughmans' lunch in the world; Dunedin and some of it's fine old buildings; the 'bucolic splendour' of the Otago Peninsula; Clare pretending to be a penguin at the crossing; one of Oamaru's fine old buildings.


























































































































-Si

The NZ-based ponderings of Miss Robbins...

If you were to listen to the backpackers on the East Coast of Australia, you could easily be led to believe that all New Zealand is good for is bungee jumping and sky diving. Well, as the more senior section of the backpackers (you may scoff, but half of them don't remember Thundercats!), we have avoided most of these adrenaline junkie fuelled activities, mainly because of lack of funds, and poor Si's vertigo. And to be honest, we have seen a different side to this place. New Zealand is usually bunched together with Australia, but bar their geography, these places are worlds apart. It is only in recent times that New Zealand has been promoted to a 'developed country', which initially seems ridiculous, but has become more understandable the longer we are here. A pilot on Air New Zealand has recently come under fire after announcing on a flight that "We are now arriving in New Zealand, please set your watches back 25 years". This unprofessional scamp has hit the nail on the head. New Zealand is, in a funny way, how I remember home being when I was growing up. You can't really go shopping on a Sunday, if you run out of milk in the evening you will just drink black tea and a highway means it has tarmac, not that it is a motorway.

For all these reasons, I love this place. Where else in the world can you live in a caravan in the snow, and be happy. And the locals think it is normal.

Clare
xx

Dunedin and Oamaru...

Dunedin, NZ's third largest city, is supposed to be modelled on Edinburgh. To be fair, it has a bit of a Scottish feel to it, with place names such as Princes Street and Portobello, as well as decidedly overcast and rainy weather, and the fact that everyone here says 'wee' a wee bit too much.

However, that's not to say that Dunedin is a bad place; far from it. The tour of the Speight's brewery here was excellent, with many fine 'craft' beers to sample and a damn fine pub next door where me and Clare shared the biggest ploughman's lunch you've ever seen, including a whole loaf of fancy-looking white and brown bread. This bad boy made the portions in the US look rather paltry by comparison.

However, the chocolate factory tour was somewhat of a disappointment. Firstly, there didn't actually appear to be any chocolate making going on when we visited, secondly, the 'free samples' we got were mainly of odd things we didn't recognise like some weird banana chocolate. Thirdly, the chocolate in the shop was actually dearer than that sold in the supermarket next door, and fourthly (is that a word?) and most importantly, THERE WERE NO OOMPA-LOOMPAS TO BE SEEN ANYWHERE! NOT EVEN ONE!

Oh well, you win some you lose some I guess. We took a trip out to the Otago Peninsula, famed for its wildlife and fantastic scenery, both of which we found in abundance. My dear old friend Grifter would probably describe the place as having a certain 'bucolic splendour', which would seem to be rather appropriate.

While we were in Dunedin, we also took the time to visit Baldwin Street, AKA the worlds' steepest street. After frog-marching Clare to the top, we waited to see if any of the visitors arriving at the bottom would drive their cars up, but they didn't. It's that steep. The only person we saw driving up was an old fella in a clapped-out old car, who lived at the house at the top. Fair play to him.

We then made our may on to Oamaru, known as 'The Whitestone City' due to it's many fine old buildings (built in Victorian Italianate, Venetian Renaissance and Venetian Palazzo styles amongst others, architecture buffs), which is all rather nice. The clock tower on the main street here also looks just like the one on Welshpool High Street too. Spooky.

We had a stroll out to Bushy Beach yesterday (!), home to a small colony of Yellow-Eyed Penguins. After waiting in a cold and windy hide for an hour yesterday evening, one of the shy little critters stumbled onto the beach, only to spot us, and head straight back into the water again. We tried to 'hide' a bit more in our hide, and the little chap finally built up the courage to come out of the sea and waddle back to his nest in the cliffs. All very cute and worth the wait.

Anyways, tonight we head back to Christchurch for our Flight to Auckland on the North Island. More from there.

-Si

The bottom of the South Island...

According to my trusty map of the World, you can't go much further south on a mainland (apart from South America) than the bottom of NZ's South Island. Antarctica is within spitting distance. Well, as long as you can spit a few thousand miles, but what's that between friends?

We had a few days in Invercargill, which, and I'm paraphrasing the Lonely Planet here, is 'full of chavs in souped up cars and chavettes in souped up hairstyles'. I really don't think it's a bad place at all. Granted, a few of the women here choose to have dodgy bleached blonde hairstyles, and there are a smattering of big-bore exhaust motors, but other than that, it's just a good, honest working-class southern town with a damn fine microbrewery where you can buy great beer in plastic bottles. What more would you want?

My only gripe about Invercargill is the paltry opening hours of some of the tourist attractions. The observatory, for stargazing geeks like me, is open for an hour or so on Wednesday nights only. We happened to be there on Wednesday night, so that's OK. However, the Water Tower, with it's spectacular vista over the town, is open on SUNDAY AFTERNOONS ONLY. Well really. It's hardly worth opening it at all, is it?

Anyways, here a few shots of NZ's most southerly 'city', including Clare having an argument with a sealion, the local park and Cathedral, and the offending water tower in question:

Next stop after Invercargill was Gore, the country music capital of NZ. Right. This place is also a mecca for fishermen, apparently the local Mataura river is world famous for brown trout fishing. So famous, the locals decided to erect a giant statue of a trout in the town square. and I mean giant - here's Clare trying to 'catch' it in her own inimitable style:

We slept the night in an old converted Fire Station (unfortunately there was no pole to shimmy down, boo!), but it was cool nevertheless. As it's out of season here at the moment, we have been in a few hostels recently where we've been the only people there. Hence, me and Clare have got into board games recently. Dingbats and Twenty questions last night, out of interest.

Anyways, we're now on our way to Dunedin, home of Speight's beer and Kiwi Cadbury's chocolate. I can't wait!

-Si

Milford Sound...

Last Saturday we said our goodbyes to Rich and Vick, after over a month together travelling and set off on the early bus to a very foggy Te Anau. See you back in the UK guys! Te Anau is a nice little place on the shores of the appropriately of Lake Te Anau, which apparently is the second largest lake in NZ, not that we could see much of it due to the fog!

The next day we went on a trip to Milford Sound. Now, you may or may not have heard of this place, so for the benefit of those of you that haven't, Milford Sound is a very impressive fiord with mountains that tower a mile straight up from the edge of the water and waterfalls that drop water from over half a mile up down sheer cliffs straight into the water. Just to get some perspective, if you look at the picture below, you'll see a tiny dot at the base of the cliffs on the right of the picture. That tiny dot is a really big tour boat, the size of the one balancing on Clare's head in the next shot:

Our tour boat took us straight underneath some of the mighty falls, where we got very wet standing like chumps at the front of the boat. All good fun!

While we were out on our cruise, a pod of bottlenose dolphins decided to join in the fun and tag along:

The day after Milford Sound, we took a trip to Te Anau glow-worm caves, which was really cool. We went in a little boat up this river winding it's way through a series of caves, deep underground in pitch darkness. As you round a corner, it's as if there's a starry night above you all of a sudden, but instead of stars, these are little critters shining lights in their bums trying to catch food! No pics I'm afraid, as cameras are banned as they scare the little fellows. Oh well, imagine a boat ride on a starry night, and you're about there!

Just to finish, I couldn't resist posting this pic of me and Rich mucking about at the big boy's toys museum in Wanaka. Enjoy!

-Si