New Zealand

Ah New Zealand....how I wish I had discovered it a lot sooner!! Despite a near disaster at Sydney airport trying to get out of the country we found our way to our first stop on a whirlwind tour of New Zealand and arrived in Christchurch. Our flight landed quite late so it wasn’t til the next morning that we got up and were able to explore. The lovely staff in our very old fashioned house hostel which was brilliant pointed us in the right direction to head towards town. However on the map the girl marked off the CBD section of the map and said it was still closed after the earthquakes...this was our first realisation that things were still pretty bad. So we started wandering and got so far before we were confronted with a fence closing off a whole road and diversion signs all over the place...and it hit me that this terrible thing had happened here not so long ago and the city is still very much in its recovery stages. As we walked around the perimeter of the Red Zone, as they call it, we couldn’t help but notice destruction all over the place. In the centre of the Red Zone there were still skyscrapers that were semi demolished and I could see how badly damaged they had been by the quakes. There were empty plots of land everywhere, where buildings had been damaged and then completely demolished by the companies and they just didn’t rebuild them, whether for fear of another quake or for financial reasons I do not know. Even outside of the Red Zone there were these beautiful old buildings that had windows boarded up, or fences around sections of them. One building even had its turret on the ground at the foot of the tower it had once stood on top of. We passed the site of an old historical church that had been damaged beyond repair and so to mark the fact that the church had existed at all a memorial had been set up. There were 183 stones from the walls of the building laid out on the ground surrounded by a floral arrangement, one stone to mark each fatal casualty of the quake. I think the most poignant thing that I saw though was when we walked past a cemetery one day. Lots of the headstones were knocked over and crumbling down, some of them had been picked up and leant against the graves the belonged to, but in most cases the stones were just lying on the ground as the graves were so old that they had no one around to look after them anymore. I also saw the headlines of the newspaper the day we arrived and the story was about the buildings that had been destroyed by the quakes. Very few buildings were actually completely destroyed by the quakes; most were just so damaged that they couldn’t be repaired so the city council was tearing down what remained of them to make the area safe for people and cars to pass through again. Since the quakes thousands of buildings had been demolished. And the headline of the article that day was discussing the fate of another 30 buildings right in the heart of Christchurch. Some had already been marked for demolition, some were uncertain and out of the 30 buildings shown, only 4 were deemed safe. All of this on the first day really brought it home to me just how bad the quakes had been and that the city isn’t even a tiny bit close to being back to normal.

Having said all this there was signs of regeneration, the most notable of these being the Restart. The Restart is a shopping area that was built after the quakes, made from shipping containers to give shop owners and banks etc somewhere to continue conducting business, so that the city could continue something of a normal existence. Since the Restart was first built it has gotten better and better and now seems to be a permanent fixture in the city. The containers have been fitted with full display windows, electricity, plumbing and everything they need to function as a normal business. It is a really colourful area, each container painted a different colour and there are lots of benches and seats for shoppers to rest at and to sit and enjoy a coffee or slice of pizza from some of the cafes that are around. It was really inspiring to see and as much as I hope the city eventually gets back to normal I do hope they keep the Restart as a sign of the city’s refusal to give up after the quakes.

Our first day in Christchurch also gave us our first introduction to Kiwis! And holy God were they a lot different from what we had been used to! Something me and Joe always said about Australia was that in a lot of cases we found customer service to be somewhat lacking in most places. In stark contrast to this we met Graham. Graham was a man in his 50s who worked at the iSite (tourist information) in Christchurch. The first time we went in he spent almost an hour talking with us, helping us organise all we wanted to do and suggesting extra things for us to do along the way that would fit in with the rest of our plans. After all this was organised we pottered about the city, having lunch at a little cafe with extremely cheery staff and a wander around the museum where we were greeted by a lovely lady. This lady came to give us a map, welcome us to the museum and explain that only the ground floor was currently open as, as we may have heard, “a lot of Christchurch is closed”! We found this explanation to be slightly amusing and it was nice to see how the people of the city explain it without making it all too heavy for tourists. The museum had a whole section of it dedicated to the quakes, with before and after pictures that showed just how devastating it was. It was, well I don’t want to say great to see it, but I certainly appreciated the opportunity to fully understand what affect the quakes had on the city and most importantly how they are dealing with the aftermath. After this we had a couple of other things to sort out so went back to Graham...and spent another 45 minutes with him! He was a chatty man but he just seemed to love his job. He knew everything about every mode of transport, entry prices and costs of almost anything a tourist would want to do and also wasn’t pushy about different activities, he gave the information and was happy for people to come back if they wanted it or to leave it if they didn’t. It was refreshing to see someone so enthusiastic about their work...and put both of us in a good mood just cause of his enthusiasm.

The next day we decided to head to Akoroa. Akoroa was the first French settlement in New Zealand and is situated on the peninsula about 80km from Christchurch. We got collected early (on a cold morning...our first in 4 months yikes!!!) and brought for an amazing drive up through the mountains. This drive gave us our first taste of the New Zealand scenery and I was stunned. It was beautiful. Our driver would stop every now and then to let us hope out of the bus to take a photo and I just couldn’t get enough of it!! There were beautiful green rolling hills as well as snow capped mountains and crystal blue lakes whichever way I looked. I was very quickly falling in love with this country. Akoroa itself was very quaint. It is very much influenced it its French roots with beautiful buildings and gardens. We wandered about for a few hours, dodged the little bit of rain that we got and then got dropped back to Christchurch that evening.

 The following day was another day trip, this time up to Kaikoura. Kaikoura was a 2 hour drive north of Christchurch and I had read lots about it so we decided to go see what all the fuss was about! And it was stunning! We had great weather that day and walked from the town. , along the Esplanade and right down to the tip of the peninsula to a seal colony. The seal colony itself was a bit of a disappointment as it wasn’t so much a colony as 4 seals scattered about bathing themselves! But we were able to get close to them and even saw a little cub. We had a picnic lunch then and decided to walk up to the lookout point that was also on the map. This walk took us up a steep path...and then into a field full of sheep!! At first we weren’t sure we were quite going the right way but when we realised there was absolutely nowhere else for us to go we shrugged our shoulders, hopped over the stile and meandered in among the sheep and sheep shit and up to the top of the hill!! Once we got to the lookout point we didn’t want to leave. We could see for miles and the most stunning thing was this massive snow capped mountains that ran right up to the crystal blue waters of the sea. We sat for awhile and took it all in...and fell in love with New Zealand just a little bit more!

After that it was time to say bye to Christchurch and head south to Queenstown.

On the way to Queenstown we did stop in a lovely little place called Lake Tekapo for a couple for nights. This was to enable us to go and see Mount Cook. Tekapo was beautiful in itself though with a crystal clear lake surrounded by snow capped mountains! We had an early start for our drive to Mount Cook the next day. It was a lovely drive and the driver pointed out a few Lord of the Rings filming sites to us which was pretty cool! When we got to Mount Cook though, as was our luck...it was misty, overcast and threatening rain...and bloody cold!! Bear in mind I had just completed nearly 4 months working in the desert and then suddenly I was in places that were raining sleet (is that possible? Is it just “sleeting”???) We still braved the element and went on a 2 hour walk to a lookout point...where we couldn’t look at a whole lot to be honest but at least we did it!! We headed back to the little village then and wandered around before getting a cup of tea (yes me!! It was bloody cold!!!) and wait for our bus back. We actually ended up sitting down and having a nice chat with our driver...who is an extra in the next Hobbit movies!! And oddly enough had also trekked Punhill in Nepal!! He also managed the Annapurna trek and did a total of 15 days up the mountains...fair play to him...5 days nearly killed me!!!

Next it was onto Queenstown! Queenstown has a reputation as the adventure capital of the world...and I’m not sure that I would dispute that! There are hundreds of opportunities to bungee jump, skydive, white water raft, jet boat, canyon swing and just about every other adrenaline-pumping activity in the world. My reason for going was slightly less death defying however!! I wanted to go to Milford Sound. Milford Sound is one of the natural wonders of the world and is famous for its cascading waterfalls down the cliffs that line the waterway. I had heard a lot about it and was really looking forward to seeing. However the downside of its beauty is that it needs rain for its waterfalls...and as such it is one of the wettest places on earth! So the day we were heading to Milford Sound we got our bus at 6.45 am and started our 6 hour (six hour!!) drive. There was a beautiful sunrise over the Remarkables that made the clouds on top of the mountains look like they were on fire. It wasn’t long though before I fell asleep...and when I awoke it was too a pretty rainbow...against a VERY dark sky!! As we drove on it got darker and the rain started falling...and continued to do so for about 4 hours! The driver was giving us a commentary on things we were passing...but not stopping as none of us were too eager to climb out into torrential rain and soak ourselves and our cameras for a rainy picture! As we got every closer to Milford Sound the rain seemed to get worse and the driver decided to tell us that it doesn’t happen very often (about once a year) but sometimes they have to cancel the boats that go out on the Sound because of bad weather. Now call me a pessimist, but the fact the driver even felt like he had to tell us this was a bad omen to me!! When we did get to the drive way into the Milford Sound harbour the driver was quite concerned about the amount of cars driving out of the car park and the lack of cars or buses in it. Then we passed a coach coming in the opposite direction...and the bus driver of that bus gave us the thumbs down. Our driver told us that it was 99% certain that we wouldn’t be going anywhere. He pulled up to the wharf building, made a mad dash inside and popped back to us soaking wet to tell us that all the boats had been cancelled and we had to get out of there cause they were closing the road due to the amount of rain that was falling (I should mention here that although the drive to Milford Sound is one of the most beautiful in the world it is also the most avalanche prone public road in the world!!!) As it was I couldn’t even see the water or the boats we were supposed to get on, despite the fact that they were only 50 feet away from where we were parked, the rain was lashing down and the trees were being blown in fifty different directions. I for one was glad the boat was cancelled as I’m pretty sure my fear of drowning might have been realised that day if I had gotten on a boat!!! Our driver pulled out pretty quick and gave the thumbs down signal to the rest of the buses we passed. And so after 6 hours of driving on precarious roads in the rain, we doubled back and did the exact same thing...except this time in a race against time before we got stuck on a closed road!! We did make it back to Queenstown without incident though and a relieved, yet slightly disappointed group of tourists alighted in a very sunny, not at all rainy Queenstown!! We did stop feeling sorry for ourselves though when we heard one coach group that was going for an overnight bus trip was made up of a wedding party who were to be wed on a boat at sunset in the middle of Milford Sound that night. And because there was no accommodation available the party of 50 would have to sleep on the boat regardless of it being moored in  choppy stormy waters and hope that the weather might be a bit better the day after to have an early morning ceremony instead. We did hear the next day that the tour groups all went out and had a lovely day...so yay for them!! Also as an aside, a week to the day after we went to Milford Sound there was an avalanche on the road that brought 300 tonnes of rock onto the road, some boulders the size of cars! Lucky us I say!! Anyway once we got back to Queenstown nothing would suit us but to have a drink to drown our sorrows, so we headed to a pub and a drink turned into a few and we headed home slightly merrier!

After Queenstown it was off to Wanaka. Wanaka was a one night stop over as I really wanted to go to a place called Puzzling World that I had heard about. Puzzling it was! One puzzle in it (for display only, not to be played) would have taken one person something like 700 billion years to complete doing one move a second, doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun to me! But what was fun was the tilted room. This is only the second time in my life I have walked and acted like a drunk person when I have been completely sober (first time being on the top of Nemrut Dagi in Turkey for those of you who are slightly curious!!) It was such a surreal feeling. There was a pool table in the room that gave the illusion that the white ball was rolling uphill to pocket itself in a corner pocket...could have played with that for hours!! Funniest of all though was when a family came in with a little girl of about 3. Well her body just didn’t know what to make of the whole thing! She got a bit confused and tried to walk to her Dad but ended up stumbling backwards...she managed to get her balance only to give it another go and to end up running backwards down a slope with no way to stop herself. Her Dad ended up running after her and catching her by her face before she crashed into a wall!! Those of us in the room were in tears laughing while she just looked totally flummoxed...I did feel a bit bad but once I say her Mam laughing as hard as me I just lost it and couldn’t help it!! It was great fun though and I was glad we stopped in to do something a bit different and to have a few laughs!

After Wanaka we made our way up the west coast of the south island to Franz Josef Glacier. We were there for 48 hours...and it rained for the entire time!! Honest to God there was not one let up in the rain! That didn’t stop us though and we still went on a little walk to see the glacier. It wasn’t quite what I expected, although we did go to the end that it was slowly melting so there was a lot of rubble and rock around it. It was still pretty cool and there were loads of pictures of what it used to look like and how it is now...and it is definitely melting is all I can say! Other than our dash out into the rain we didn’t get to do much in Franz Josef...though once the glacier is ticked off the list there’s not much else to actually do anyway! The only thing of note is that I met a girl from England called Ruth in the TV room of the hostel one evening. Without even noticing we ended up spending about 3 hours talking about our travels etc as she had also been to a lot of the places I have been to. Then we commandeered the TV room and along with another English girl put Mamma Mia on. Quite funny as every now and then a couple of guys would walk in, sit for all of 10 seconds and get up and walk out again!! First time I have ever seen girls control the TV in a hostel!

Our next stop was our first stop over in the North Island, Wellington. It’s a pretty nice city and we got out of the central city for a little bit and headed to the suburbs to visit Weta Caves. Weta Caves is the special affects studio that Peter Jackson worked with for Lord of the Rings. When we walked in the door we were greeted by a very realistic looking Gollum and then the big massive scary Orc that kills Boromir!! It was a pretty small place but still so good to walk around. There was lots of the weapons that were used for the films about, even saw Legolas’s quiver, the normal size one and the one that made the hobbits look small! There were lots of different types of armour that was used for the elves, orcs, hobbits and human armies. And then there was stuff from King Kong, Avatar, alien movies and of course lots of new stuff from the Hobbit. It was a small place and a short visit but well worth it. After that we took a ride on the old Wellington Cable Car to the top of the city and walked around the Botanical Gardens. We were very glad we got the Cable Car up as the gardens are at the top of a steep hill and walking up probably would have taken me days!!

Next we were off to Rotorua. Rotorua was where we spent the longest amount of time in New Zealand, 5 days in total. There was a few reasons for this, firstly there was a few things we planned on doing here so we wanted to give ourselves enough time to do it, and also we were just over 2 weeks into our 3 and a half week travels in New Zealand and we were ready for a break and a day of pure and utter relaxation!! Rotorua is famous for its geothermal activity, so one our first day there we wandered around to some of the parks to see what it was all about. Well first off it was feicin smelly!! There is a lot of sulphur in the air and it’s hard to find somewhere that isn’t downwind of something geothermaly!! I was a bit shocked by it all at first, I walked by a rock in the first park we went to and there was steam coming from underneath it and a loud hissy noise! I expected it to go flying into the air as I stood there! Well obviously it didn’t but it just made me realise exactly how active the area was. On our walk we came across steaming pool, bubbling mood pools and areas where the rock had turned a burnt orange colour from where the sulphur had settled! At one stage we were walking through a village and the cobble stones were starting dissolve a little and there was steam and water coming up through the cracks! Mental!

Our next adventure in Rotorua was to go to a Maori cultural night. This was one of the highlights of New Zealand for me. We got picked up from our hostel and brought outside the town a bit to a placed called Tamaki Village. Sonny, the driver, gave us a few guidelines about what was going to happen. The first thing we had to do was pick a chief who was going to be challenged by the chief of the village to ensure we came in peace and were not a threat to the Maori Village. I’m glad I wasn’t the chief! It looked quite intimidating as the warriors came up nose to nose with our chief and was doing a whole load of tricks with his spear. After the attack display the chief determined we came in peace and we were welcomed into the village. The reason the Maoris did this years ago was to prevent any wars. If a new tribe appeared on the territory of another tribe the tribe that owned the land would have its warriors do a display of their skills and then the haka and the hope was that this would frighten the other tribe off and there would be no war! Apparently it worked quite a lot and I’m not bloody surprised. I would have run to the hills if I was planning on invading Maori land!

Once we were finished the welcome ceremony we were then escorted through the village to see displays of different Maori crafts. We saw a display of how the warriors trained to ensure they had a lot of speed and agility. We got a lesson in the haka and poi twirling. I also ended up playing a Maori game at one stage, running around trying to catch sticks before they fell to the ground!! Once all that was over we went to the Hangi area. Hangi is how they cook food; they dig a pit and put white hot stones in the bottom of it. Then they put their meat on it followed by their veg. It is then covered by wet sack cloths and this is then covered by the soil from the pit to ensure it is completely air tight and none of the steam can escape. 3 hours later and the food is ready! We were there for when they took the food out of the pit and it smelt amazing!! The food looked gorgeous and I think we all started to get very hungry at that stage! While the food got prepared for us we went into the village Town House and were entertained with Maori songs and dances and the night was finished off with the haka. I’m not sure if they were trying for it not to be totally scary as we were all sitting quite close to the stage but honestly, the All Blacks scare me a lot more when I watch it on TV than the people at the show did. Not to say it still was amazing and fun to see! After that it was dinner time! We were led into the dining room and allowed one table at a time up to the buffet table. There was the chicken and lamb that was pulled from the hangi, as well as all our veg, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and something New Zealandish that I can’t remember! There was also fish, bread, muscles (yuck!) and a million different types of fresh salads! It was so good, and I could actually taste the smoke off the chicken from the hangi. I wish I had been able to fit a second plate of food in...Or at least taken a doggy bag!! After dinner it was dessert time which was a Maori sweet baked pudding and a gorgeous Pavlova!  Of course I had a little space left to give a traditional Kiwi Pavlova a go!! Then there were a few more songs for us, courtesy of Sonny our driver and then the evening was over all too soon and it was back into the town. It really was an amazing night and so much fun to experience so many cultural traditions.

Next day was an early start for a day I had been looking to for a long time! Hobbiton day!!! When I found out there was a place to go and actually see the Shire there was no way I could be stopped going! It was about an hour’s drive from the town and the further we went the greener and rounder the hills got and I got more excited. When we got to the Alexander farm we were all popped onto a bus called Gandalf and driver through the farm. When we got off the bus I was like a kid on Christmas morning, I just wanted to walk down the path and see what goodies there was for me! And I was not disappointed...it is exactly like it is in the movies!!! We walked by Rosie and Sam’s Hobbit hole. We stood right outside Bag End where Frodo and Bilbo live. We saw the party tree and the Green Dragon. We even got lots of insider tips from the movie. Here’s one, next time you watch the 1^st movie and Merry and Pippin set off the big dragon firework, listen out for a very high pitched scream. That scream comes from the actor who plays Merry. He wasn’t expecting such a loud bag when it went off and that yelp is his true reaction to it. Apparently when they played it back and heard the scream everyone laughed so much and took the piss out of him that they decided to leave it in to forever be a joke for the actors and anyone in the know! So there you go...insider knowledge!!! In all we spent an hour and a half walking around the set and seeing lots of hobbit holes and being told different stories from the filming. Me and Joe both loved it and felt like complete geeks because of it! But nothing could take the smile off my face for having actually been to the Shire...so if you ever watch it with me...be warned...there is a whole new world of “I was there” to come!!!

In Rotorua we also got to go to Te Puia, a geothermal village that had geysers in it. They geysers go off about every half hour or so. They spend the whole half hour building up, with steam and some splashes of water shooting out of them...and then it explodes. And it’s not just a blink and you miss it kind of thing, it keeps on erupting for at least 20 minutes before it dies down and starts to build up again. It was so cool to watch it and to be waiting for it to go off. In Te Puia we also got to see real live Kiwis (the national bird!) it was nice to finally see the bird that the country is so well known for. It was a bit bigger than I thought but fluffier too!! We also got treated to another Maori culture show before heading back into town to pack our bags once again and head to our penultimate New Zealand destination, Bay of Islands.

Both myself and Joe had been advised by a few different people that we had to make this one of our stops, so with a re-jig of a few dates we managed to fit in a couple of nights and book ourselves on a dolphin spotting cruise in around the islands. Think the highlight of the day was seeing dolphins within about 30 minutes of being on the water. They came right up beside the boat and it was amazing. They were bigger than any dolphins I had ever seen and there was a little baby in with them too. They kept coming right up beside the boat and then swimming underneath and popping back out again. I was mesmerised, but the boat had to adhere to certain guidelines as the bay is a world heritage site so we could stay with the dolphins too long so that we wouldn’t disturb their habitat. So once we spent about 40 minutes watching them the captain put the throttle down and we sped off in through the islands. The sights we saw were pretty cool and we stopped at one island and we able to walk to the top of a hill that gave a stunning 360 view of the area. The waters were crystal clear and there were lots of little islands with sandy beaches dotted among the sea. It really was a great day and well worth the stop over...so thank you to everyone who told us it was a must see!!

It was then time to head to our final destination (not in a creepy going to die movie kinda way!)Auckland....well it was rainy! But we were also there for the World Championship Triathlon. This was cool in one way, but sucked in another, because when we got to our hostel we discovered that they were completely overbooked so we had to try and find somewhere else to stay in a city that was fully booked! Lucky enough Joe found us some space and we made the most of it! Our first night we found out that New Zealand was playing Australia in a rugby match. So we decided to seize the moment and cheer on the All Blacks in their home country...something I’ll probably never get to do again! With the time difference between Australia and New Zealand the match didn’t start til about midnight but we were determined to stay up on account of it being the All Blacks. Hmm...in the end they bloody well drew!! Not a try was scored and it was game of penalties! I was not impressed and the All Blacks have some making up to do...though as long as they don’t do it against Ireland I’ll be happy!!! The next day, on our last day in New Zealand we went and watched some of the triathlon, I cheered on a few Irish athletes across the finish line and then we went up the Auckland Sky Tower. We were up there for about 3 hours, having a drink and taking in the views over the harbour. It was a pretty cool way to round off an amazing 3 and a half weeks and reflect on everything we had seen and experienced. New Zealand will definitely go on my “must come back here list” and also on my “tell everyone else to go here list”!!!

A few facts I found out about New Zealand before I sign off...

It has a population of 4 million [people...and 40 million sheep!!

 We passed by a farm that had 14,000 cattle on it. 6,000 of which were milking in 3 rotations of 2,000 each. (That fact is for the family farmer for those of you who think I’m a bit crazy!!)

Hostels are on a whole different par to most of the world in my opinion...in a good way!

Kiwis are extremely friendly, happy people.

It’s a rainier place than I thought!

Overall I think New Zealand will be up there with Nepal and Vietnam as one of my favourite countries in this 20 month trip that I happily call a holiday! Despite the fact that I wore my coat and a hoodie pretty much the entire time I loved every minute of it. The landscape itself is enough to keep anyone mesmerised. From the glacier green lakes I saw in the South Island surrounded by snow capped mountains to the geothermal areas in the North Island and the Shire-like mountains that dominate the landscape I just could not get enough of. And I know that I only hit the tip of the iceberg on my whirlwind trip. There are lots I would go back to New Zealand to do again...and lots of things I would be doing first time around. Either way, New Zealand can expect to see me in the future!!!

And so it is back to Australia to finish off the last of my travels there. A colourful Hippie Van awaits me in Cairns and 3 weeks of open road before a last final farewell to Sydney. Hopefully I will have plenty of stories to tell from that part of the journey too. So keep your eyes peeled for the next update.