Volcano Climbing to Haka Dancing...

Day 19, Friday 20th March 2009: Christchurch – Wellington

Taking advantage of the library’s free wifi to catch up on the world and what’s been going on while I’ve been living in Angie killed most of the few hours left in Christchurch before catching the late afternoon flight to Wellington. The remainder was spent wandering around the Cathedral Square market and listening to the Discworld Wizard pontificating from his stepladder and enjoying the cheap lunchtime fish and chips.

The flight itself was ridiculously short. No sooner had we set off and the seatbelt sign flashed off then the pilot was announcing we were about to descend and to put our seatbelts back on. Supposedly a 45 minute trip I doubt we were in the air any longer than 30 minutes. Still I was most relieved not to be taking the torturous ferry trip from Picton which we worked out was over double the cost in comparison to our flight tickets. The journey, brief as it was, was enlightened by the most humorous cabin crew I have had the pleasure to fly with. The hostess in charge started off the safety drill by introducing herself her crew as Sandy, Candy and Mandy and herself as Randy...she then proceeded to mix up her spiel with hilarious commentary mostly pointing to the ridiculousness of all the obvious things she was compelled to say. She had the whole aeroplane in stitches as we tried to work out whether she had one too many to drink before boarding or whether this was her style!

A Super-shuttle took us from Wellington airport directly to the door of the hostel we had booked, Worldwide Backpackers. Set on The Terrace, just off the main square of the city, it was primarily a long term backpackers stay with most of its inhabitants having been there several weeks at least and we were met with a garden full of young people gearing up for their Friday night. We had encountered real difficulties trying to book anywhere for the night and were fortunate to have got just a four bed dorm at this hostel which we shared with two girls.

It was a case of dumping the bags and heading out to explore and make the most of the one night we had in the capital. Wellington didn’t disappoint! The buzziest, liveliest most city-like city I have come across in New Zealand yet we had a great night exploring the main hub of the city dining out at Leuven’s on posh gastro food and enjoying the multiple drinks offers in the many bars which ended up with us drinking 2-4-1 Bubbles by the end of the night.....

Day 20, Saturday 21st March 2009: Wellington – Greytown

Turns out that the only room we could find available in Wellington happened to be the one next to the kitchen in the hostel so even though we didn’t get to bed until well after midnight sleep was another couple of hours arriving given that every single person in the hostel seemed to congregate in the kitchen...

Generous portions taken of the free breakfast set us up well to begin exploring the city by daylight. Due to pick up our new Escape campervan at the railway station at 11am we fitted in a ride on the creaky, quaint red cable car up to the Botanic Gardens and then walked back down through the grounds.

Having spied many Escape vans during our southern island tour we had been trying to guess what would be sign written onto the side of ours. I had joked that a big fat cake would perhaps be most appropriate given the frequency of our patisserie visits so it was hilarious to find that on one side of our new van was an Alice and Wonderland faced tea party with a jolly eyed slab of chocolate cake and comic teapot and cups! This was countered on the other side by a giant ashtray filled with pixie faced cigarettes bathing next to some pointy-nosed take away coffee cups....

Downsizing from our previous hi-tops I was a bit wary of the smaller sized van but in actuality it was just as large but without the added height. It also had more basic kitchen facilities with a one gas bottle stove that you have to cook on outside of the van with the back door open and a tiny pump water sink and an eski as opposed to a fridge. It will involve a certain amount of readjustment but once we had packed everything away and filled up with a New World shop it was fine.

Our first stop in the van was to the house that Katherine Mansfield was born in. A contemporary of the Bloomsbury sect and counting Virginia Woolf as her only female friend in the world I was keen to visit as she was instrumental in shaping the modernist technique of writing and her short stories were crafted with this design in mind. The house had been restored by the Katherine Mansfield Society and where it had once been a picturesque detached building now lies in the centre of a triangle of busy highways. A self-guided tour takes you around the building pointing out all the literary references it held in the works of KM (as she liked to call herself). As a Kiwi who left her native country for good aged 21 (after several years spent in London led to her describing her brief return to New Zealand as a type of provincial imprisonment in which she felt friendless and without hope) her writings are filled with a combination of nostalgia and fondness that increasingly intrudes upon her material as she gets older. Having not known anything about KM’s circumstances I found the tour and house fascinating though I wasn’t allowed to stay for the documentary much to the sadness of the ladies who ran the house and reminded me of my favourite Oxford librarians!

Lunch in town at the Kapai salad bar was followed by an afternoon spent at the brilliant Te Papa museum. The walk from the car park to the museum along the waterfront was feted out for a dragon boat racing charity competition which we watched en route. The museum is so large that you could easily lose a whole day. Restricted, as ever, by time I chose to explore the fourth floor where the exhibitions took you through a history of Maori occupation before the shameful land-stealing of western colonisers that was only recently restored in the 1990s after 150 years and several generations of campaigning.

We left Wellington in the late afternoon just as the infamous wind brought rain to the city and stopped an hour’s drive north at Greytown where we enjoyed our first night in our van, which we discovered was appropriately named Rehab, at a very cheap campsite situated in the grounds of a War Memorial run by an elderly couple who popped over several times just to see how we were doing! Befriending a couple on their 20th wedding anniversary celebration in the shared kitchen we saw out the rain which had been drumming down on the tin roof of Rehab before retreating for the night.

Day 21, Sunday 22nd March 2009: Greytown – Napier

A 250km drive saw us leave the cold and rain behind for the promised sun and blue sky of the eastern coast landing in Napier in the late afternoon after passing through a series of unremarkable identikit towns on the way. Fortunately Napier provided a much needed antidote to these drab conurbations. Destroyed almost completely in a 7.9 Richter scale earthquake in 1931 it was rebuilt under the enthusiastic influence of the Auckland Art Deco architecture. With the sea-levels having dropped two metres after the earthquake enough land had been reclaimed to link the then island of Napier with the mainland. Today the rebuilt town is a mass of zigzags, sunbursts and streamlined strokes that make it stand out from any other place in the country, and according to the natives’ proud boasts the rest of the world. We enjoyed a short documentary movement outlining the history of the earthquake and chartering the birth and development of the subsequent Art Deco restoration that enabled us to wander about the city spotting and pointing out all the things we had learned about. The residents retain a proud sense of their artistic heritage so that most of the succeeding architecture has kept with the style whilst updating it so that even the shopping centre and beachfront maintain the trend. Once a year they have an Art Deco festival where all the locals dress up and bring out the vintage cars and have a good old boogie!

We camped for the night at another cheap campsite, Westshore Holiday Park, just north of the city where we perfected the formation of a day bed inside Rehab for reading and film watching!

Day 22, Monday 23rd March 2009: Napier – Tongariro

A big day of driving took us from the campsite in Napier up to Lake Taupo in the Central Plateau in time for a lunchtime waterfront picnic. Checking in at the I-site for a weather update in Tongariro in advance of our trekking we headed on to the National Park and grabbed a spot at the Whakapapa Village Campsite. The village itself is a protected Department of Conservation site that has prevented greedy real estate moguls building on tourist demand and expanding the facilities and permits only the original buildings meaning that every overnight guest stays in the holiday park at the end of the road, the grand Chateau Hotel or our complex which guarantees a community feel of whether you want or not with everyone either listening to intrepid tales from people who have just finished the walk or seeking solace with other nervous walkers with similarly insufficient walking gear...In the hour or so it had taken for us to drive the official weather forecast had changed warning of rain and high winds that might prevent the walk from happening altogether. A little disillusioned and stuck in the middle of the National Park we hope for the best and stodged up on a big pasta meal in wishful preparation for our hike.

Day 23, Tuesday 24th March 2009: Tongariro Alpine Crossing

The dreaded early start saw me up at the Office at 7.30am for the most recent official forecast that determines whether the walk is open to the public to be greeted with the news that a fine day was expected after all! Another stodgeful meal of porridge and we were in the minibus to take us to the start of our self-guided 20km walk described as one of the best one day walks in the world.

Dropped off at 9.30am we were given a lecture on the dangers of missing the last minibus back and told to notify someone responsible of our “intentions” so that they could call out emergency services if we failed to let them know we had returned we set off.

The first section wound through the flat land surrounding the volcano for several kilometres before we began ascending towards the crater. It was a steep climb up to the rim but offered a fantastic view into the red crater with bubbling sulphur clouds adding to the atmosphere. I somehow ended up in the middle of a huge school group where it was hug-a-tourist moment as we stopped for photographing opportunities. We had to walk in the smooth paths carved out by the last lava flow and were so close that you could see where it had bubbled over the edge and run down the mountain. From our vantage point we were able to gain an overview of the ground we had already covered which looked like a post-Apocalyptic wasteland of endless dust and fallen boulders surrounded by the far-off green of the forest. Declining the opportunity to climb to the main tor of Tongariro which was used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy we followed the crater rim round to the emerald lakes – tiny, startingly green pockets of water sitting in bowls carved out by previous eruptions – and through the rest of the locations used for Mordor and the Orc camp.

By this point we were 1900m high and the sharp descent back towards the plateau involved sliding down the ashen laden walls of the volcano where the only thing to stop your descent was the remnants of scree peppered in the dust. We had to pick our way through the rotten egg smelling sulphuric acids that burned ominously either side of our crater rim. By the time we had climbed down the steepest part of the volcano we were well overdue lunch and climbed out of the path of the bitterly icy Southerly wind rushing over the top of the crater into a sheltered dig-out by another lake.

The descent from this point was the long 11km stretch of winding pathways that brought us to the finish point at about 3.30pm where we waited in the much welcome sun for our pick up bus to take us back to Rehab where we scoffed a pack of Hot Cross buns as a reward. Our plan to dine out in style at the Chateau – a giant red brick (Philbeach-esque!) mansion with burlesque lounge and staff at every doorway – was scuppered when popping into the lounge foyer to view the menu in board shorts and flip flops we were greeted by an embarrassed doorman, younger than us!, who said that the lounge served guests in dress shirt and trousers and that we might perhaps find the late night cafe in the adjoining wing more to our taste! Humbled indeed we made a graceful retreat back to Rehab to finish off last night’s carbonara...

Day 24, Wednesday 25th March 2009: Tongariro – Taupo

With aching muscles bid a fond farewell to the National Park and arrived in Taupo by late morning. Parking up the nicely named Spa Roa we went on a gentle stroll from the car park full with a community service team to the Huka Falls, one of the country’s most visited tourist attractions. The walk to the falls involved an undulating path that wound up and down and caused my stretched muscles no end of problems as it followed the crystal clear blue river through its course. The Falls themselves were a spectacular show of brute power ending in a crescendo of thundering blue and pure white water which provides 65% of the North Island’s power alone.

On the same path back we stopped off at the natural thermal springs for a quick dip given that while in neighbouring Rotorua you pay through the roof to enjoy this natural pleasure here we were able to take advantage of it for free. The volcanic heated waters were so hot that I could barely dip my toe in to start with but as you accustom to the temperature you slip through the boulders into the little rock pools and shower under the little waterfalls. Alternating between the spa and the cooler waters of the river we lost track of the time and ended up spending a couple of hours in the sun at the springs.

It was fortunate that we made the most of the relaxation because a short trip to the cash machine when we got back into town realised that our accounts were several hundreds of dollars down and I was left with less than $300 to see me through the next ten days...The phone call to the bank brought no explanation as they said that nothing would show on their systems until midnight. Trying not to worry where $1000 each had disappeared to we checked into the All Seasons Holiday Park and enjoyed their free thermal spa and a giant barbeque to distract our minds...

Day 25, Thursday 26th March 2009: Taupo – Roturua

A morning wasted on the phone and internet eventually uncovered the mystery of the missing $1000 when we discovered that Escape Rentals had mysteriously deducted the extra amount from us. Much firm talking and refusing to take spluttering excuses led them to admit they were in the wrong and as well as reimbursing us they gave us an extra night in the van for free which meant that we could stay in it until we had to return it on Monday morning.
Finally able to set off it was a short 80km drive north to the sulphuric city of Rotorua. Our first stop was the gigantic I-site office where we located a cheap campsite and booked our hangi and cultural concert for the evening getting and continuing the day of unexpected freebies got given a complimentary entrance to the Hell’s Gate mud baths. However, checking into the brilliant Kiwi Paka hostel (the best accommodation I’ve stayed in during our month in New Zealand owing to a combination of cheap rates, brilliant staff and a cute yet kooky site with all the facilities you could want from your usual amenities to a cheap all day cafe, late night bar and thermal pool!) we discovered we had been ‘done.’ The $100 package paid for at the I-site for the hangi was 75% the price at our hostel and with no refund option we were forced to accept we had been swindled.

Trying to make the most of the situation we headed out in Rehab to the Hell’s Gate mud baths consoling ourselves that considering this was about $30 we had actually got it for free by buying our hangi ticket at the I-site. I should have known better! When we arrived at Hell’s Gate we were informed that our ticket only covered the entrance and that if we wanted to use the mud baths that was an extra $85! Contenting ourselves to walking around the site we explored the range of natural bubbling mud baths, some with a PH1 acidity and a 600 degree temperature, so named by George Bernard Shaw who on visiting the site as a committed atheist reasoned that this must be his bridgeway to Hell. It is well named and having transferred from the Kitchen to the Gate I am not sure whether I am entering further in or moving closer to escaping...

We returned to Kiwi Paka to enjoy the afternoon sun before being picked up by the shuttle bus to take us to the Mitai Village for our hangi – the traditional Maori meal. Seated in a giant marquee housing about 150 other tourists we made friends with our South African and Cambridgeshire neighbours until our host arrived and introduced us to some basic Maori etiquette before taking us out to see our dinner cooking nicely wrapped in foil in the earth. We then had to select a ‘chief’ from our group which was unfortunately on behalf of the nineteen nations gathered in the marquee a drunken idiot from Somerset who represented all the worst qualities of his nation, snobbery, arrogance and an endearing sense of self-superiority, that left me cringing. Following our chief we were led to the Mitai’s sacred river where we watched members of the family sail down on a canoe chanting before being taken to their recreated traditional village. The highlight of the night was then being treated to an hour long Cultural Show where the family and members of other tribes performed a range of songs and dances interspersed with displays of weaponry and strength. This combined with the Mitai Haka which we had to join in with sticking out our tongues widening our eyes and shaking our limbs!

By this point we were ready for dinner and were led to the marquee where the hangi had been taken from the earth and placed on buffet tables for us to help ourselves. A simple spread of chicken, lamb, kumara (sweet potato) and salads including a delicious cauliflower and sesame seed dish, I managed two gigantic plates before topping it off with a less traditional dessert of trifle and fresh fruit!

By the time we came to the glow-worm tour I was barely able to walk but managed to stumble back down to the river where the luminous maggots were glowing a pale blue on the river banks and hillside before tumbling back into the bus and sleeping off the hearty dinner back in Rehab.

Day 26, Friday 27th March 2009: Rotorua – Mount Maunganui

A quick morning walk around the city assisting some poor geography students with their surveys on tourists was spent before leaving the rotten egg smelling city for the Bay of Plenty so named because it receives the most hours of sunshine in New Zealand.

Tauranga is the principal city but we opted to drive through it and stop in the peninsula beyond it where Mount Maunganui pokes its little tor out of the sea. Climbing to the top of the steep mountain I realised that for the first time I had forgotten to take my camera and was robbed of the opportunity of capturing the glorious views it afforded. To one side lay the busy port of Tauranga and stretching from it was a desolated island with golden sandy beaches while to the other, stretching south from the mountain lay a strip of land bordered by similarly beautiful beaches all surrounded by a rich turquoise ocean unspoilt by boats.

In preparation for acclimatising myself to a week in the Cook Islands the afternoon was spent taking advantage of this long strip of beach in the sun. After nearly a month of frantic touring it was lovely just to take a break and doze away an afternoon in a beautiful area which remained undisturbed by the mass tourism that the drone of campervans are normally attracted to.
The evening was spent on the beachside caravan park at the very tip of the peninsula where aperitifs (Pringles and cider!) was served on the beach before being followed by a barbeque with the legendary Bentley burgers.

Day 27, Saturday 28th March 2009: Mount Maunganui

A lazy day hanging by the beach and eating up the remnants of our shopping. Tomorrow we head to Auckland and then early Monday morning head to the Cook Islands for a week to top up the tan before heading to LA for a few days and coming home just in time for Easter. Probably the last blog and email contact till then.

Reacclimatising for Blighty...

Day 10, Wednesday 11th March 2009: Queenstown – Lake Gunn, Milford Sound

After a freezing cold night wrapped up in clothes and under a blanket and woollen rug all seven minutes of the hot shower were savoured as I attempted to shake off the cold that seemed to have settled into bones unused to such temperatures during the past eleven months.
While it was no longer raining the sub-freezing temperatures and the still persisting saggy grey mist combined to deter me from doing the hang-gliding that I had been looking forward to and instead decided it was best to cut our losses and head on down the coast in search of warmer climes. Before we left the Holiday Park we bumped into a fellow Explore More campervan rental and exchanged our free DVDs, a staple to passing the cold nights when freedom camping in this country!

Another trip to Patagonia to take advantage of the pots of Earl Grey tea and free wifi delayed our departure but eventually we set off down the highway towards Te Anau. The journey was marked by torrential rain and the persistence of the cold to clamber through every nook and cranny and seep into your bones which we combated with the dual armoury of the van’s heaters turned up full blast and an oversized bag of New World pic’n’mix!

We spent an age hoping the weather might provide us with a break for lunch but with the clouds showing no signs of dissipating and stomachs growling we pulled over in a sodden lay-by in Mosstown where we indulged in some home-made bacon butties and pumpkin soup and then had to wee out of the door because it was too wet to even attempt to maintain some dignity...
When we finally did arrive in Te Anau the rain had abated and there was even a glimmer of some clear sky. We checked into the DOC site for advice about camping and picked up some essential sandfly repellent as the wet fjorldands offer the perfect breeding ground for the little blighters.

The route from Te Anau to Milford Sound is a 100km highway that provides postcard perfect scenery everywhere you look and our settlement was interrupted by numerous photo shoots and assessment of DOC campsites. Without realising we had neared the end of the highway and so stopped at the final DOC site, a beautiful lakeside clearing at the start of the fjordland inlet. Pulling up at about 6pm the tiny campsite was already quite full and we had to perform some interesting manoeuvres to squeeze into a self-made space with the back window looking out over the mirror-like lake. We were however by no means the last to arrive and to our amusement (and horror) more and more latecomers filled up so that we were hemmed in at every angle, quite comedically, by fellow campervanners. With the setting of the sun and the return of the ice-cold temperature there was little opportunity for campfire singing and such jollity as we all hastily locked ourselves in and tried our best to use the heating from our cooking to keep ourselves warm...

Day 11, Thursday 12th March 2009: Lake Gunn – Curio Bay

Exploiting the prime lunchtime tourist the boat cruises at Milford Sound escalate in price from the first early morning trip and so we awoke early and quickly drove the final 25km from where we had camped to the boat terminal in order to take advantage of the cheaper and less busy cruises.

This final leg is one of those winding hairpin roads that crawl around the mountains but in doing so offer a languorous enjoyment of the fjordlands which open up as you pass over the crest of the mountain range. In order to do so we had to drive Angie through a tiny tunnel hewn out of the mountain, much like the passing at Samphire Hoe. In the winter, when it is embossed with snow and ice, it creates an incredible vista and I found myself holding my breath as we pushed on underneath hoping that the lights at the opposite end were working as the last thing we wanted to encounter inside it was one of the gigantic shuttle coaches.

Aside from several leaks pouring through the uncovered earthen roof the tunnel crossing was perfectly safe and we arrived at the terminal to take advantage of our 2-for1 ticket that we had received as part of the Explore More package. Served by an extremely dour and unhelpful Scotsman we were so desperate to escape him that we managed to leave our tickets on the desk as we hastened to the cafe to wait for our cruise departure. The forty-five minute interlude was filled by an informative pamphlet on sandflies which besides the horror warnings that you can be bitten up to a thousand times in one hour informed us that the Maoris tell the story that one of their demi-goddesses unleashed the plague on this particular part of the country in order to keep it safe and untouched from the bludgeoning of human activity. New Zealand tourism authorities perpetually and proudly joke that it this ferocious insect that has ensured the survival of their country’s natural beauty as they prevent tourists tramping about spoiling the natural habitat! The pamphlet also explained that it is only the female sandflies that bite and that the docile males are perfectly harmless...shocking!

Pleading with the dour Scotsman to reinstate our tickets we were allowed to board the Scenic cruiser and took immediate advantage of the free hot beverages. Despite the warning of our fellow Explore More DVD borrower that the tour was a disappointment we enjoyed a brilliant morning on the water sidling in and out of the main fjorldand inlet. This was mainly due to the fact after all the rain and poor visibility of the previous days we were visited by clear skies and sunshine that showed off the mountain ranges in all their gigantic glory and revealed the numerous natural phenomenon and wildlife that reside in its ubiquitous crevices.

Perched permanently on the top deck we wound up next to gigantic waterfalls, some of which are three times the size of the Niagara Falls but are still dwarfed by the sheer rock faces they dribble down, and were treated to colonies of dozing sea lions. My Mr-Goodfellow enthused A-level geography came creaking back as we toured around the enormous U-shaped valleys cut into the rocks and followed the glacial movement over millions of years through the fjorlands to the entrance of the inlet that Captain Cook entered and discovered the country through – he stayed long enough to describe his disgust for the local sandflies which he also has the honour of naming.

I made my most tenuous friendship of this travel yet when posing for photos with my finger puppet (Marley the alpaca) I discovered that two American visitors were doing the same thing with their friend, Mr Monkey. All four of us realised what we were doing at the same time and bonded over joint photo opportunities with Marley, Mr Monkey and Rich’s Geoff the Giraffe while the rest of the boat’s passengers continue in their earnest photographing of the geological wonders being pointed out by the tour leader’s narrative.

When we arrived back at the terminal it was swarming with hundreds of visitors newly arrived on their coach tour packages. Our cruiser with a several hundred person capacity and had only carried about fifty of us was now packed to the decks with tourists hemmed in at the elbows vindicating our decision to get up early and catch the early worm.

Sadly as we departed the fjordlands and headed deeper south the all too familiar driving rain brought on by the prevailing south-westerly winds returned, physically buffeting the van as I struggled to keep it on the road. The winds were so strong that even the powerful eagles were struggling in the sky and one unfortunate flock of small birds were splattered against the windscreen as taking off from the tarmac found themselves unable to beat the down-pressing current and unable to steer the van out of their course became guilty of taking out several of its members...We were kept amused by the hilarity of the local radio which alongside reporting the double bookings of the tennis courts also posted advertisements for the reproductive services of the best breeding sheep in the area!

For the first time in New Zealand we got lost...attempting to leave the grey, dull lattice of Invercargill for the pretty Catlin coastal area the road signs disappeared and became replaced by symbols completely confusing the foreign map-readers! After an incredibly circuitous drive we managed to get back on track and pulled into Curio Bay at dusk. With no possibility of freedom camping we were forced to stake a claim in the extremely primitive Curio Bay Campsite in the still abysmal weather. This, however, was all forgotten when stepping out to explore our surroundings we came face to face with a sea lion! A large colony nestle on the beach and frequently lollop into the campsite for the shelter of the tall grasses. There were signs dotted around the campsite warning about not camping in certain places as the extremely territorial sea lions will not hesitate in attacking tents or humans treading on their habitat! After reading these warnings and continuing to explore the craggy coast we both jumped out of our skins when we saw an unruly male charging straight at us at a pace that belied its ungainly stature. Along with the sheep we bolted clearing its path towards the sea and decided we had enjoyed enough adventure for one day and safely locked ourselves into the van.

Day 12, Friday 13th March 2009: Curio Bay – Dunedin

It was up bright and early to take advantage of the low tide and spy on the local wildlife. A couple of sea lions fighting in the shallows of the surf and an achingly wild and rugged coastline revealed by clearer skies were our reward and after all the grumbling about the rain and lack of signage the previous day we were glad that we had persisted in visiting this truly desolate part of the country that very few backpackers attempt.

With the sun continuing to shine we enjoyed a very lazy day’s drive wiggling along the coastline. Our first stop off was at the Niagara Falls cafe, a tongue-in-cheek named enterprise that served up delicious bumblebee cakes (tightly dough balled macaroons with currants) in a gorgeous little garden eatery that also doubled up as a local gallery. Our second stop was at the eccentrically unrivalled Lost Gypsy Gallery in Papatowai. The artist had driven a bus onto his front lawn and turned it into an experimental workshop transforming watch parts and kitchen utensils into twisted sculptures such as the wind-up Sound of One Hand Clapping toy that you couldn’t resist turning even though you knew no sound would be made. The walls and ceiling were covered in a truly eclectic mix of paraphernalia from upside down circuit boards to wry newspaper articles.
The artist had also taken five years to build a Garden of Thoughts which took the same approach but on a much grander scale. If I had had the money and space I would have bought amongst many other things the male-whale. As a fellow hoarder it was a dream home so cleverly designed and so resourcefully crafted that on my return Angie felt sterile and barren by comparison...

Afterwards we detoured via Nugget Point and went rambling on the coastal path to the desolate lighthouse that was built back in 1898. The view offered fantastic views across the emerald green sea and was littered with raucous packs of barking sea lions.

We arrived in Dunedin in good time and after ten days in rural New Zealand were glad to be back in a city. Parking up in the Leith Valley Holiday Park we decided to treat ourselves to a night out in the student town and ended up residing in The Hog where the bizarrely named Irish band, Catgut and Steel were playing.

Day 13, Saturday 14th March 2009: Dunedin

For the first time in our stay we spent two nights in the same place and this afforded us the luxury of a lie-in! It was nice to indulge in a completely lazy day with no driving and no tourist pressures upon us. A potter to the farmers’ market in the morning to stock up on the week ahead’s food was followed by a languid day wandering around the town centre (and finally discovering K-Mart!) before settling back into Angie for an evening game of The Game of Life and making full use of the communal oven to have an early-Sunday roast!

Day 14, Sunday 15th March 2009: Dunedin – Trotters Gorge (Palmerston)

We arrived in the Otago Peninsula, directly to the east of Dunedin, at lunchtime ready to explore the rugged headline and keen to spot the endangered native yellow eyed penguins that live here. Our first stop was to the infamously titled Sandfly Bay that fortunately bore no resemblance to its namesake. We had to pick our way through the sunbathing sealions splattered across the sandy beach to reach the penguin hide at the far end but went unrewarded as our early afternoon viewing coincided with their prime feeding time out at sea.

On the way back to the car Rich managed to get a bumblebee stuck in the Velcro of his board short flies which resulted in him stripping naked and running away while I tried to prise the poor bee from the trappings of the Velcro. It was like some sort of warped Carry On scene with Rich trying to hide his nakedness from the other walkers on the path while I tried to explain why I was prodding at a pair of shorts with a very long stick!

We headed up to the chasm lookout at the top of the cliffs for lunch and enjoyed a quick walk to the gorge before lunching on a picnic bench at the car park overlooking the headland and only a few hundred metres from where the local paragliders where setting off for their Sunday afternoon flight.

We were on our way to Tairora Head, the furthermost tip of the peninsula, when we pulled up at a mangled t-junction to decipher the fallen signs and an equally battered car pulled up alongside us from the opposite direction. Worried that we had performed some foreigner’s faux pas or screwed up the strange New Zealand driving etiquette we politely wound down the window. The driver of the other car was an elderly gentleman who looked like he had suffered some kind of stroke and took several attempts at speaking before he could communicate with us. Somehow in this odd conversation we had ended up agreeing to be taken to Allan’s Beach to go penguin-spotting with him and as he tore off down a little dirt track in the direction opposite to where we were heading found our British sense of manners forcing us to tear down after him. The road became more and more desolate and both of us began to wonder where we were heading...Eventually we pulled up at the beach and were immediately directed into a parking space by the gentleman clearly impatient with our slow driving and watched him clamber over the stile on his way to the beach. Sadly our penguin hunting was not confined to the safe, sandy shore of the beautiful beach and while Rich remained on the flat compelled by a sense of obligation I followed the gentleman up the fallen rocks into the caves dug into the cliff face.

There were a number of times when the gentleman seemed to be wobbling precariously tiptoed on the point of a rock destined to fall and slide down the cliff face but managed to save himself at the very last second. All my excitement about perhaps seeing one of the penguins gave way to relief that we managed to ascend the rocks in one piece and while he keenly showed me the stoat traps and the nesting boxes and footprints all I could worry about was how we were going to get down...Somehow we did and despite his persistence in wanting to check the other end of the beach we made our polite excuses and managed to escape before any awkward emergency services had to be called.

I have to say I am looking forward to the conversations when I return about what adrenaline-filled activities I embarked upon during my travels only to say that I eschewed the sky-diving and bungy-jumping for card games in retirement villages and pensioner rock-climbing! It’s as if I have some in-built magnet carried with me from all my years in Hythe that sees me getting myself into these situations!

After successfully extricating myself from that situation we eventually found Tairora Head and fearful of any further advances confined our viewings of the albatrosses to a very short walk before heading back towards Dunedin and beginning the final leg North back to Christchurch.

A disgustingly cheap ice-cream at the local gelato in Palmerston restored my nerves before we located the nearest DOC site at the Trotters Gorge Reserve. 18km off the highway it was truly remote; a small, sheltered campsite situated in the ox-bow bend of a small stream. To enter the reserve we had to pass by an overgrown field pasted with posters about the owner’s Pet Wild Pig urging us not to shoot him should we see him wandering about! Thinking this was perhaps some small town South Island peculiarity on arrival at the Reserve we were met with our first Guns Permitted sign which led us to a very careful inspection of each of our grey-haired neighbours for the night!

Day 15, 16th March 2009: Trotters Gorge – Akaroa

Unbeknownst to us we had chosen a DOC site shrouded by the geological phenomena of the Morecki Boulders. Keen to embrace a rare historic moment we raced to the beach to witness the rocks only to discover a few nicely spherical pebbles lumped in one corner. Our fellow tourists who had also trekked down the shore to view this important sight were doing their best to make the most of the situation with some comic poses but with the edge of the southerly still snapping at our flip-flopped feet we gave up any pretence and headed straight back to the car and continued our way up the coastline.

Sadly the south-east of New Zealand, perhaps suffering from comparison, really doesn’t hold much of interest. The gentle rolling hills are like English countryside and the coast is lacking in beaches and there is a general absence of atmosphere between the spaced out, enclosed tiny communities. We stopped first at Oamaru because it is the self-proclaimed Penguin Capital of the country but asides from this Happy Feet pandemic is a drab, grey town. Monopolising the tourism industry on penguin tours and charging exorbitant fees we decided against embarking on any of them and with little else to hold us carried on up the coast. Our second stop was at the more bustling conurbation, Timeru, where we lunched at Caroline Bay, a forlorn beachside park trying its best to ignore the huge industrial port spoiling the vista. It didn’t stop one elderly couple, the gent in a thong and his wife a two-piece bikini, laying down their towels on the ugly beach and soaking up the few rays of sun that peered over the tops of the pollutant emitting funnels which at least provided us with a hilarious photograph!

Having planned to spend a day pottering about this part of the country we gave up and bumped up the itinerary making it to Akaroa by the evening. Another small peninsula for weekenders from Christchurch we made it as far as Little River where we discovered a small clearing by a lake to camp for the evening. The lake was covered with a flock of black swans that silhouetted brilliantly against the sinking sun while we adopted the chickens and ducks that popped over to visit their new neighbours and enjoyed a very peaceful evening meal by the lake without any sandflies!

Day 16, Tuesday 17th March 2009: Akaroa

Only 50km from our final destination of Christchurch we were able to indulge in a very lazy day beginning with a long lie-in in our undisturbed camping spot. We then wound our way through the crinkled volcanic crater countryside of the peninsula towards the main town of Akaroa set on the lip of the biggest inlet. Akaroa is a charming French-influenced town set on the water with a brilliant range of cafes and patisseries that centre around its primary tourist attraction of swimming with the tiny Hector dolphins.

A walk around the town and part of the inlet prepared us for lunch and then as the sun came out we headed to Le Bons Bay for a quick swim. The beach was completely deserted and we had it to ourselves which was fortunate as we took advantage of the free showering opportunity before heading back to Akaroa for a late afternoon high tea in Jove.

Confined by the selection of dinner ingredients from the tiny supermarket we decided to head back to our free camping spot and were joined once again by our feathered neighbours.

Days 17-18, Wednesday 18th – Thursday 19th March 2009: Akaroa – Christchurch

A little detour via Lyttleton en route to Christchurch turned out to be more little than detour as the attractive village written in the guidebook turned out to be a stinking port town. The briefest of stops by the waterfront was all that was permitted and so we found ourselves arriving in Christchurch much sooner than anticipated. It meant we were able to check in quickly to the conveniently situated Stonehurst Park and enjoy a lazy couple of days soaking up the low-key city life.

I enjoyed having access to a bit of culture wandering around the Cathedral and the beautiful Botanic Gardens whilst the Christchurch Art Gallery was a brilliant find and the punting on the river of the Oxford Terrace made me nostalgic for summer days as a student! The Cathedral Square was only a short stroll from Stonehurst so not only did I get to see the infamous wizard (man dressed up as a wizard preaching to whoever will listen and has been doing so for the past 40 years!) but also some of the great street entertainers who all seemed to be Scottish....

We finally parted with Angie – only after having to fill out a mile of forms about the tiny accident – and celebrated moving from a van into a proper room by dining out at the cosy Turkish restaurant Topkapi where I sampled my first ever shish kebab and apple tea!

New Zealand

Day 1, Monday 2nd March: Sydney – Auckland

After two months of living the high life in Sydney the realisation that we were about to trade our spa and Harbour view for life on the road inside a 6x4m tin sunk in as we ate the remainder of our home-baked goods in the airport lounge before the highly vicious Sydney Customs team could confiscate them. The transition was momentarily forgotten during the three hour Air New Zealand flight in which I managed to split my viewing time on the in-flight entertainment system between the newly crowned Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire and everyone’s favourite tonsillitis recuperating sequel Madagascar 2. The Air New Zealand service was fantastic though this is probably largely down to the fact that you could start using the entertainment system as soon as you boarded the plane instead of having to wait until you were in the air and that they served an incredible roast chicken and potato salad lunch.

Arriving at Auckland airport we were transported two hours into the future of New Zealand’s timeline and caught the shuttle bus into town. The journey was a tad bizarre as every time the bus stopped at traffic lights the female driver would get out of her seat and start fiddling about with various parts of the bus until the cars behind beeped to let her know the lights had changed back to green again. Apart from that we were dropped off almost outside the hostel I had booked and were upgraded as they had lost the reservation in their system and so we ended up with a private ensuite room with a television. On the downside it had no windows and the graffiti on the bed slats about the oven like sweating of the cell rang true...We tried to spend as little time as possible in the room heading downstairs to make the most of the free evening meal included in our booking – a welcome plate of nachos and chilli – before exploring the town in the fading light of dusk. The city, as we had been pre-warned, held little of attraction except its charming harbour which was moored with some historic looking sail boats and looked out over the city bridge. We ended up in a robust pub off one of the Queen Street side streets to celebrate the next stage of our adventures and then had to muster all our will power to resist one of the burgers from the White Lady burger truck parked outside our hostel: a vintage carriage towed into position by a small train and lit up in neon fairy lights!

Day 2, Tuesday 3rd March: Auckland – (Christchurch) – Kaikoura

Waiting to catch our connecting flight to Christchurch the morning was spent sorting out the remaining details of our New Zealand travels in which we discovered that you can’t buy a local sim for less than $35 unless you are staying for longer than six months in which case you can only get a local one by signing up to their twelve month package and that if you are willing to take the risk of booking your campervan when you get to New Zealand you can get some great deals!

While we had been diligent in our research and booked a campervan well in advance for our south island travels we had experienced lots of problems in finding any company that would provide us with a van in Wellington to drive to Auckland without charging an extortionate relocation fee to first drive the van down to Wellington for us to pick up. The prices we had been quoted were almost as much for the cost of our south island van but for less than half the duration. Stumbling around the Auckland depots we eventually managed to locate a company who had a couple of vans loitering in Wellington desperate for someone to drive them back to Auckland and so we gamely signed up waiving any relocation fee and bartering a $25/day reduction into the cost!

It was a relief to board the self check-in flight to Christchurch knowing that everything was sorted and the forty-five minute flight soon whizzed by and we were in Christchurch airport ringing Explore More and being picked up and deposited at their extremely busy depot. Having got the dates slightly wrong and booked the van for pick up a day later than we wanted it we had to speak to several personnel before they grudgingly agreed to change the dates and provide the van on our arrival so that we didn’t have to waste a day waiting to start our travels.
We were introduced to the boringly named Andy H as our new home for the next three weeks and after completing all the routine checks, securing our free DVD player and DVDs and making the most of the discounted shopping vouchers at the New World shopping centre we were allowed to go! Driving through Christchurch’s suburbs was like driving through a typical English suburban town both in architecture and climate and it was only as the highway began wounding its way in between the eastern mountain range and the sea that we felt like we had entered a new country. The road along the coastline revealed New Zealand in all its rugged glory and we followed the train tracks through the tiny holes in the mountains until we arrived in Kaikoura just as night was setting in.

We had been told that New Zealand has a liberal policy towards free camping and as long as there are no obvious prohibited signs you can camp overnight where you please. Keen to take advantage of not having to pay the extraneous Campervan Park fees and embrace the true hippie lifestyle of unclipped travelling we parked up in the Whale Watch seaside carpark and enjoyed our first night overlooking the waters that we were about to carve through on our search for sperm whales!

Day 3, Wednesday 4th March 2009: Kaikoura – Picton

To mark the first proper day of our New Zealand adventure I woke up early, just as the sun was breaking above the horizon of the water in the cloudless sky, and booked us into the whale watching tour. A couple of sea-sickness pills popped later and we had boarded a small catamaran and were bouncing along the waves out into the ocean. We had to sail out to where the ocean bed drops to 800metres deep and the lone male sperm whales, who have left their pod and are waiting for full sexual maturity before they return, feed and graze in the deeper waters. The early tours are usually best to catch sight of the whales and were extremely lucky spotting four sperm whales in the first forty minutes and being drawn alongside to watch them resting at the top of the water before performing a spectacular tail turn and diving down to feed for between 45-60 minutes. Because they have collapsible lungs that allow them to descend up to 3000m for as long as two hours the average sighting per trip is 1.2 whales so to see four we were incredibly lucky that the whales were not preparing for or already on any deep water feeding while we were there. In fact, the hardest thing was not spotting the whales but fighting the pensioners to get out of the carriage and onto the deck. While the catamaran was moving we all had to sit down in the seats on the lower carriage until the signal was given that we could get out and progress either to the side of the boats or up onto the deck for a better vantage. There was always more than enough time for everyone to get into position and have 5-10 minutes viewing time but as soon as the signal was given the pensioners had their sharpened elbows and booted feet ready to trample you and push you out of the way so that they could get up first. I felt like I was back at primary school rushing to be the first out into the playground! I admit that when the first whale was sighted I was in prime competitive mood to get up and out first, though not to the detriment of black-eyeing my fellow seamen, but once you realise that there is ample space and time and that you won’t miss out on anything by being last out I realised there was no need for pushing and shoving but even after the routine had been well worn our grey haired companions were still ready to push you overboard lest you dare step out before them!

After the whales we travelled back closer to the shore line and found a 200 strong pod of playful dusky dolphins who as soon as they saw our boat came racing to check us out in dizzying somersaults. The promiscuous mammals mate three-four times a day with whoever they can find and have to keep half their brain alert all the time just to remind them to breathe! We were soon surrounded by the dolphins and became extremely envious of the small boat of tourists who had paid to come swimming with them. The final stage of the tour whisked us over to the white rocks where the seal colony was resting and we were able to watch the baby pups taking their first swimming lessons in the natural pool carved out at the base of the rock.

I had been a bit wary of going on the whale watch, a combination of apprehension towards mass-tourist engineered projects and a wariness of having inherited my father’s sea-legs, but it was worth all $140 and was the perfect way to start the trip demarcating the transition from Australia and throwing us back headfirst into the travellers’ mindset.

Back on unmoving land we embarked upon the well reputed Kaikoura Peninsula walk, a three hour loop that took us across the rugged clifftops with spectacular views of the many sheltered turquoise bays and wound back through the historic sites of the old whalers town including Fyffe’s House, the last remaining cottage of the town’s formerly bustling whaling industry. Famous for its crayfish I couldn’t resist the shack bar serving up fresh seafood on the route back and indulged in a bargain platter of crayfish fritter before getting back inside the van and driving northwards along the coast.

By late afternoon we had reached Blenheim, a rather ugly town but situated in the centre of the Marlborough Wine-making region. Passing by a huge hillside fire in Seddon that was reminiscent of the bushfires we had just left behind in Australia we stopped off first at Montana’s for a wine-tasting session before progressing to Lawson’s Dry Hills where getting in at the end of the day’s tasting seemed to take full advantage of the taster’s proclivity for her wares sampling the full range and ending up with a hugely discounted Pinot Noir to take back to Andy H!
We ended the day in Picton a small picturesque village nestled in a valley between two mountain ranges on the waterfront that harbours the ferry that shuttles between the north and south islands. Taking the next step of the free camping we bathed in the marina much to the amusement of the locals sat on the lawns and then went off to find somewhere to camp. Following the signs for the Victoria Domain lookout we wound up one of the hillsides and emerged into the clearing looking down on the waterfront town. With the sun setting over the opposite hillside we had dinner overlooking this incredible vista shared only with two girls in their van at the other end of the clearing.

Day 4, Thursday 5th March 2009: Picton – Abel Tasman

Our scenic night time location had become filled with keen ferry snappers when we awoke and poor Andy H was surrounded by the nautical equivalent of trainspotters flashing their extra long SLR lens cameras while we attempted to retain some dignity breakfasting from our vantage spot.

Leaving Picton we took the wiggly Queen Charlotte Drive road along the northern coast to Nelson. While not for the faint-hearted it offered further stunning vistas of rural New Zealand although my enjoyment of these were distracted by the numerous crosses erected on virtually every hairpin bend in memory of fallen drivers.

Nelson had been sold as the artsy, cultural capital of New Zealand and so I was looking forward to reaching it but failed to remember that what is “bustling” and “vibrant” in New Zealand speak is often parochial and introspective in comparison to the same adjectives used for Australia or the UK. Nelson was actually disappointing in the fulfilment of its expectations and an afternoon of wandering around the mock-Gothic Anglican cathedral (with its brilliant Hot Topics newsletters each exploring a different current issue within the framework of the Anglican teaching from Pacific Island climate change to the war in Darfur), perusing the second hand bookshops that doubled up as bohemian clothes shops, eating cake and purchasing woollen blankets we decided not to spend the night and instead try and push onto the Abel Tasman region so that we might be able to get in a full day’s walking.

Reaching Abel Tasman was not actually difficult and in spite of the weather was a pleasant drive passing through the fresh fruit and veg roadside vendors of Motueka and then winding up via the golden beaches of Kaiteriteri. Unfortunately reaching the wilderness of this National Park in the very north-western corner of the island we entered the captive tourist market in which the strict No Camping prohibitions meant that in spite of our best efforts we eventually had to check into a Campervan Park in Marahu for the night which at least provided the consolation of my first shower in four days! The sleeting rain that had been falling all day grew to a crescendo as it crashed down on the roof of the van throughout the night leaving us with little hope of being able to tramp the following day.

Day 5, Friday 6th March 2009: Abel Tasman – Murchison

In spite of my fears about the weather which was continuing when I woke up as much as it had when I had gone to bed by the time we had showered and breakfasted it had remarkably come to a halt and so we decided to risk the still greying sky and venture out into the National Park.
The Abel Tasman Coastal Track is one of the most famous walks in New Zealand which takes between 3-5 days to complete and involves complicated tidal calculations in order to be able to pass all its incoming waters at the right time. With Rich not keen on the idea of tackling the whole loop and camping overnight we opted for the one day tramp which took us all the way up to Stilwell Bay and back down the coast.

The 14km walk took us about 4 ½ hours and was well worth braving the showers that broke and threatened to turn into deluges before departing as quickly as they broke and leaving bright sunlight to mop them up. The path wound its way across the cliffs underneath a jungle canopied track that offered enticing peeps at the paradisical turquoise waters and sandy bays that popped out through various clearings and offered breathtaking views across the Tasman Sea.

We reached Stilwell Bay in time for lunch and enjoyed an isolated home-packed picnic on the beach that fortified us for the return journey that saw us arrive back in Maharu a couple of hours later and in the usual spirit of our travels saw us reward our hard work with a couple of cakes that we ate with homemade tea on a bench overlooking the sea.

A little sweaty from the walk and without showering facilities we drove back via Kaiteriteri in order to take a more natural hygienic bathing in the sea. The beach was quite busy and those sunning themselves on the sand were treated to the spectacle of an oversized campervan pulling up by the water and unleashing two British guys who ran from their seats into the water and then two minutes later dove back into the comforts of the van to towel themselves down and reverse out as quickly as they had arrived!

Driving back through Motueka to pick up dinner I experienced the first successful, strange New Zealand driving manoeuvre that we had been warned of when we picked up the van. If you are pulling left out of a T-junction you must give way to the person opposite you pulling out right into the same lane. This bizarre legislation has seen me pull up at every junction in confusion waiting for the guidance of my fellow drivers to beep or flash their lights at me until I acted according to their rules but finally on day five in this country I mastered it!

With daylight savings still in force and providing the grace of a good couple of hours of evening driving we carried on towards the West Coast. To do this we entered the Gowan Valley which was the first place that truly reminded me of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Plunging through the valley with steep, craggy mountains soaring up to the sky, their tors hidden in the mist of low-sliding cloud mist, I could just imagine Frodo and Samwise trekking their way through the terrain!

As night fell we managed to locate a picnic spot nestled into the plateaus of one of the mountain ranges and set up camp for the night trying to avoid plague of hungry sandflies circling our van...

Day 6, Saturday 7th March 2009: Murchison – Lake Mahinapua

Woke up today to find that I had been massacred by the sandflies. While I seem to have remained impervious to the attacks of the mosquitoes as in Belize I well and truly fell prey to these vicious mobsters, barely able to see a part of my lower legs, ankles or feet that wasn’t swollen in the red bumps of their fang marks or smeared in the blood squashed from their full bellies where I had managed to swot them.

The distraction of the itching was taken away as we passed through the Buller Gorge and entered the true wilderness of New Zealand’s rugged beauty. A quick petrol top up in Westport to see us through the fuelless roads of the upper West Coast and we tackled what the Lonely Planet has described as one of the Top 10 drives in the world.

The hype failed to disappoint as the highway gripped the edge of the clifftops battered by the full weight of the ocean throwing its foaming mass against the granite boulders. The recession of the land was clear in the wastrel of isolated stacks and stumps littering the shallows of the shores like the fallen soliders of a retreating army engaged in a slow, bloodied war of attrition that they knew they were destined to lose but fight every step of the way. Similar in landscape to the Twelve Apostles in Australia but even more feral and untamed it was a breathtaking drive that provided plenty of photo opportunities due to the enforced snail pace imposed by the treacherously winding roads.

We stopped off at the Pancake Rocks for lunch and were enjoying a homemade Ploughman’s in the safety of our van when a Japanese couple in their monstrous Winnebago tore into the back of us whilst attempting to squeeze into the narrow parking berth adjacent to us. Fortunately, given that we were stationary and they were only trying to park the damage was limited to a broken back light and a nasty rip in the bumper and rear left panel, but which came accompanied with that awful grating metallic gnashing that sounds far worse. We had to get out of our car and direct the Japanese driver back out because his attempted reversal out of the berth would have ploughed straight back into us. When we finally extricated him from it he jumped out of his car and started pulling desperately on a cigarette while his wife gave us their insurance details. It was only the second day of their holiday and they were both quite shaken by the accident but it was all perfectly amicable and we ended up wandering around the Pancake Rocks with them exchanging travel news! It was a relief to us to only be hiring the van and fully insured so that after reporting the accident to the company we did not have to worry about anything else unlike the many histrionics of Andy H’s great-grandfather, Stubby!

The Pancake Rocks are named so because the rivets in their granite formation make them look like a pile of stacked pancakes. They were beautifully set out in a small coastal park that took you around the cliffs through a series of bridges and tracks that offered perfect panoramas of the coastline. The park also incorporated the blowholes into its layout but given that these perform only at high tides (which on the day of our tour were as far as they could possibly be from our lunchtime visit at early dawn and very late evening!) we were unable to see them in action.

Trying our best to leave the Pancake Rocks well after the Japanese couple had departed we headed on down the coast towards Greymouth where the ocean became more manageable and less petulant as it reigned in its aggression. Disappointingly Greymouth seemed to have followed suit offering a drab city that aptly suited the dull description of its name and not wasting any more time gave up on the supposedly impressive flood walls and headed for its more colourful sibling further south.

Hokitika is best known for hosting the annual Wild Foods Festival every year which we were sadly one week too early for as I would have enjoyed sampling some of the more weird and wonderful New Zealand dishes! Instead we pottered around the cafe looking longingly into the closed patisseries and marvelling the eccentric arts-house cinema before deciding to push on and end our night at somewhere we could camp for free.

In the end, after many unsuccessful diversions, we opted to spend the night at Lake Mahinapua. I had endured enough anxious moments on the bottleneck single lane bridges that are unsighted at one end and force you to have to guess whether there might be any oncoming vehicles. This wouldn’t be so bad if the bridges didn’t also traffic the trains and offered no supervision of access or warning of impending carriages! I suffered nightmares of making it halfway down the bridge only to see a train approaching and having split seconds to jump out of the doors and plunge into the rivers while Andy H and all my worldly belongings were smashed to smithereens.
The campsite is part of the Department of Conversation (DOC) set up that provides beautiful pieces of land for very cheap prices for travellers. For $6 each (the equivalent of two British pounds) we were able to park our campervan anywhere within the grounds along the stunning lake and enjoy the facilities on offer (no shower – that’s why the lake’s there, it even has a cove named Swimmers Bay!) and stroll along the many paths that bordered the water in the evening dusk and watch the sun set.

We made friends with an elderly gentleman parked up in his campervan who had embarked on a driving tour of the country with his wife when he was younger. She had passed away three years previously and he had forced himself to get the van out again and follow the route they had taken revisiting all the places they had stayed at. He said it was the hardest thing he had ever had to do but that he was enjoying the memories that it was bringing back. As well as imparting several tips about where to head next (he was driving up the coast while we were heading down) he was also able to explain the strange phenomena of helicopters passing overhead with what looked like garrotted executions swinging from ropes attached to their undertows. Apparently these are local hunters who go out in their helicopters shooting deer and then tie them up and bring them back home flailing through the sky. It is certainly a unique take on hunting and one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen passing through the sky!

Day 7, Sunday 8th March 2009: Lake Mahinapua - Haast Beach

As we carried on down the West Coast the full force of the climatic geography hit us. Receiving over 3300mm of rain annually that is deposited when the clouds passing over the sea hit the coastal mountain range we were treated to a good few of those millimetres with slating rain falling throughout the day without any respite.

Undeterred we stopped off at the Franz Josef glacier and donning my full rain prevention attire (Dad’s outdated rainwear, a cheap and disturbingly named “spray” jacket bought in Australia in anticipation and my umbrella which had been impaled by an explosion of melted chewing gum) ventured out. With one hand gripping the stem of my brolley and the other taking photos of the blue-iced glacier we managed to stumble across the shore of granite boulders, avoiding the tributaries of milky water rushing through, to as close as we were possibly allowed for further photographic excellence before admitting we were sodden through and stumbling back.
A quick stop in the Full of Beans cafe, where I was restored to life and warmth by a miraculous piping chicken and mushroom pie next to a table of professional travel writers who I watched with envy, and we were back on the road. Wisely we ignored the Fox Glacier and continued driving along the coast until we hit the tiny settlement of Haast that is bizarrely divvied up into three sections: beach, pass and the archaically named township.

Finding a secluded bay by the beach we pulled up for the night. The shore was reminiscent of a wasted post-apocalyptic cinematic scene with greying sand and gnarled and charred pieces of wood embedded into its floor while a rainbow tore between the threatening grey clouds and the struggling sunset. We were cheered up by the folly of a fellow campervan following us into our hideway and then getting themselves stuck in the sand as they attempted a more ambitious park! They had dug themselves out before we came back to our van and slept alongside us in awkward nonchalance!

Day 8, Monday 9th March 2009: Haast Beach – Queenstown

It isn’t far from Haast to Queenstown and so we enjoyed a lazy start to the day and an unrushed drive that took us to Wanaka for a late afternoon lunch. The highway took us on a spectacular drive that passed through the mountains first via the unnaturally blue Lake Hawea and then Lake Wanaka before arriving at the little town where we parked up by the waters and went off tramping round the lake in search of a waterfall that eluded us. Defeated we returned to the van and in vain tried to dry out our still soaking glacial clothes in the sun. Lunch revolved around a main course of wholemeal raspberry and coconut muffin followed by a dessert of orange cream muffin at the brilliant Cafe Tango.

We opted to take the shorter and more dangerous Crown Range road from Wanaka to Queenstown via Cardrona rather than the much longer highway loop. This involved negotiating the many tight hairpin bends and dodging the landslides that had caved in on several sections of the road but was rewarded by fantastic views across the valley as we wound up the mountain and then back down it.

We detoured via the historic town of Arrowtown which still retains most of its original buildings in a quaint charming National Trust environment but were unable to find anywhere to camp for the night and so had to continue on to Queenstown for the night. Passing right through the town we eventually found a DOC site on the road to Glenorchy perched right on the tip of the lake and secured our most picturesque camping spot yet parked by the water with the sun setting behind the mountains – even the festival style toilets were spotlessly clean though the water was far too cold for my ambitious showering hopes.

Day 9, Tuesday 10th March 2009: Queenstown

Having decided to check into our first campervan park we wanted to make the most of it so woke early and drove into Queenstown and booked into the Lakeview Holiday Park up near the gondola. With temperatures plummeting and a biting wind whistling through the mountains the first luxury was to indulge in the one dollar coin operated hot showers! We then plugged into the mains and charged our much used cameras and much maligned telephones.

Eventually we dragged ourselves out of the park and set off to explore Queenstown which is the adrenaline capital of New Zealand with more nosedives and bungee jumps than you can shake a stick at. I was keen to do the hang-gliding but the inclement weather conditions meant it wasn’t feasible and so I settled into one of the many coffee shops and whiled away an afternoon on the lakeside from behind the comfort of glassed windows and accompanied by a bottomless pot of Earl Grey tea!

Treating ourselves to a night out, away from the stove, we opted to dine at @Thai where I indulged in a chicken, pineapple and coconut curry that warmed my chilled bones before heading to one of the many bars for late night happy hours with live music before returning to our frozen van and being eternally grateful for the woollen blankets we had bought in Nelson!

Out with the old, in with the new.

After a nomadic nine month existence involving river-tubing, near-death volcanic experiences and a twenty-five year old campervan called Stubby, 2009 has seen an attempt at returning to civilisation and embracing the sensible adult somewhere within me.

In the short space of a few days of the new year I found myself with an apartment (and its fortnightly rent that could well afford another six months accomodation in south-east Asia), a job that required me to pack away the board shorts and flip-flops and purchase a pair of trousers and proper shoes and sit in an office instead of on the beach and a happy French couple wishing to buy Stubby.

The transition was far from seamless with Stubby deciding to blow a hole in his muffler twenty metres after we had handed over the keys to his new owners and requiring us to spend our first weekend in Sydney finding a mechanic who could and would fix an ancient van without trying to steal all our rent money. In the meantime we had to negotiate the hell that is Sydney parking where you cannot park your vehicle for any longer than two hours in one place and spent the weekend taking it in turns to move him from one spot to another until 10pm when the traffic wardens went to bed. In this brief period my extreme sadness to be parting with him changed to a relief to be finally shot of him though the tears did return when I finally saw him trundle off into the horizon with his new owners.

Similarly, the search for more permanent housing was eventually successful though not without the joys of sifting through the dregs of options beforehand. The first place we looked at, in a quiet residential suburb, was met with the sound of screaming. Opening the door into the apartment we discovered the sound to be coming from a sobbing Chinese girl whose non-Englisht speaking parents had just arrived from overseas and were sitting awkwardly in the lounge. Politely greeting us they sat back down on the sofa while the girl continued her argument with the husband as he showed us around the spare room pretending she wasn't there. This served to be a good indicator of the standard of rooms available on our budget which also included apartments where the communal lounge areas had been divided into sleeping areas for travellers passing through and windowless cells rented out by unashamed drug dealers conducting their business admist showing us their non-powdered wares.

Despairing of ever finding anything vaguely liveable we then scored a coup landing the apartment of the guy whose New Year's Eve party we had been invited to. Working away up the east coast with business he needed some flat mates and we were more than happy to oblige taking up residence in the apartment block squatted firmly on the boundary of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst with a 23rd double balcony view overlooking the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. In addition, we gained free use of the gym, spa, pool and billiards room and had a concierge tripping over themselves to assist us in any possible way. Located just ten minutes walk from the CBD it is incredibly central for all transport, shopping and entertainment while its neighbouring suburb of Paddington is a delightful area brimming with al fresco dining and drinking options.

There wasn't much time to indulge in the new pad as I landed a researcher's job for an independent production company on a brand new rescue documentary series and started work almost straight away. Having spent the Christmas period resigned to signing up to temping agencies for data input work and handing out CVs to the local restaurants for waitering opportunities I was extremely lucky to gain a job in my profession for the limited period I was available in Australia. Having now been there for a few weeks I realise how even luckier I have been in securing a researcher's position that is the most journalistic role I have had yet in television on a show that does not stitch people up or expose them and has a far higher salary than in the UK. Furthermore I am enjoying working in a smaller company of only ten-fifteen office staff where it feels like the grinding rotations of my little cog are churning far more emphatic propulsions than in the machinery of a vast corporate, commercial, network. The nature of my work has so far seen me hunting down shark attack victims and crocodile bounty hunters amongst many of my stories. Frequently it is quite sobering and most phone calls end in tears or some kind of trauma but it has been a great show to work on. I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of getting to grips with the mechanics, infrastructure and foibles of the country in a professional capacity and have found on numerous occasions that my jollies around Australia in Stubby have taught me more than I knew about this island in a way that has helped me in my work and in the understanding of my new home.

So, after nine months I have finally unpacked my trusty backpack and am luxuriating in having a base for longer than a couple of days. Simple delights such as owning an oven and a washing machine seem to keep me domestically amused for hours at a time, not to mention a giant television on which to watch the Australian Open! Weekly shops are actually quite thrilling as I discover whole new aisles of foods that have previously been disclosed and having a bed big enough to spread-eagle upon in a room where the walls don't let in every creak of the neighbours floorboards have proved to be most entertaining. The Sydney Festival is currently on and so every night there is something different on which is a great way to explore the city's less obvious jewels and with a wide residue of friends, old and new, around the city it has certainly become a home away from a home.

To temper the perenially aching itch of my little feet I am traveling down to Melbourne this weekend to go and see the tennis but am otherwise, for the next five weeks, perfectly content to enjoy my new home and lap up the joys of a summer in Sydney and ignore the headlines about physical and economical bleakness back in the UK before I pack the bag one final time and begin to wend my way home.

A Holiday Away From A Holiday

After becoming accustomed to driving for ten hours during a day and completing only a third of your journey we were mightily surprised when only a couple of hours after having left Sydney we arrived at our first destination along the East Coast. Port Stephens is a poky coastal headland formed around an inlet of water and formed by a cluster of small towns that are renowned for producing the best pies in the country – which in the Australian book constitutes being the best pies in the world. Having stopped for the obligatory sample we proceeded to Nelson’s Head, the most bustling of the conurbations, before tracing our steps to locate the beautiful and unspoiled beaches nestled way beyond view behind the ridges of the dunes. Eschewing the offer of camping in what seemed to be an eco-commune, despite the lure of its resident joey bouncing around the grounds, we decided we had seen all that Port Stephens had to offer and to take advantage of these shorter distances and continue up the coast. As a result our first night was spent in Taree which served only to dispel the illusion that strange caravan park residents are confined to the western states and prompted an unusual early morning start the following day.
Having had my notion of a sunshine laden Australian climate ruined by pouring rains, freezing temperatures and self-perpetuated storms the rumours of blue skies and blazing beaches promised by the eastern coasts offered a potential redemption for my tattered dreams. That day two of our travels were remarkable only because of the persistence of the rain and grey of the clouds hovering above us did little to undo this damage. The conditions were so bad that rounding a bend we had to stop to offer help to three Irishmen who had spun off the road and down the verge. One of the guys was trapped in the car while the other two had shakily called an ambulance and with nothing we could do we carried on breaking up our journey with stops at Coffs Harbour and a fantastic farm shop to stock up for the fortnight.
Eventually the rain cleared and we reached Byron Bay just as evening arrived and in true advent style there was no room at the inn for poor Stubby. We had been warned that we were travelling towards destinations favoured by schoolies (school leavers) for their month of decadence, self-indulgence and teen-angst shenanigans and true to the word every hostel and caravan park was packed with hordes of scantily clad youngsters abundant in alcohol, hormones and swagger that made me realise how long ago my own schoolies week to Faliraki was....After exhausting all central locations we found a field leased as an overspill for late arrivals and suffered the indignity of parking in a grassless plain of cow pats.
For the second morning in a row we were up early and sniffing around the town parks for the scent of departure and for our efforts nabbed ourselves a glorious spot in the First Sun Caravan Park right on Main Beach, the principal shore. Epitomising the anti-establishment attitude of the town (which in my mind deserves award for Town Of The World for its altruistic campaign by locals to prevent McDonalds building an outlet) we shunned the trimmed and tanned surf bodies packed together like battery hens and set off to the sleepier, more chilled Belongil Beach. Inhabiting a good half mile of golden sand and surftastic turquoise waves to ourselves we noticed a bevy of naked bathers playing around us and realised we had discovered the nudist beach. As they say “when in Rome...”
The evening was spent exploring the small hub of the town’s centre which in continuation of the anti-McDonalds stance is constituted of independently owned boutiques and quirky cafes with not a single chain (excepting a lonely Subway) in sight. The inhabitants wander around barefooted and it is a haven for hippies with impromptu jamming sessions forming around every street corner. This was just one of the many contradictions of the town which traditionally a base for non-conformists is now the major attraction for schoolies just as the residents despise tourists and do everything they can to resist them yet their whole economy is completely dependent upon the holiday income. Similarly our night began with cheap scooners in a backpackers’ favourite but ended with a picnic on the beach sat clustered on the sand with the wash of the lighthouse beam passing over us every few seconds.
Renowned for its surf the rest of our time in Byron Bay was spent brushing up on our board skills where you could hire a board for a twenty-four hour period that allowed us to surf all day and then get up early and catch the morning surf as well before we had to return it. This proved to be incredibly successful except for one small incident where I was so immersed in holding onto the wave I had caught that it wasn’t until I had ridden it all the way into the shore that I discovered that in the process my shorts had ended up around my ankles and the whole (packed) beach had been treated to a full frontal display....
We were reluctant to leave Byron Bay but wanted to explore further north as well and so set off for Surfers’ Paradise which only on arriving we discovered is to Ozzies what Magaluf is to Brits. It has a beautiful beach but this is framed by ugly sky-rise apartment blocks that stretch the length of the shore and destroy the natural attraction of the coastline. The centre itself is like any generic European 18-30s magnet with a plethora of tacky Irish bars, cheesy clubs and fast-food diners so we decided to camp outside of the city in a swanky caravan park on the northern beaches. The disappointment of having given up Byron Bay for this was represented in the sympathetic fallacy of the weather which turned from sunshine to pouring rain as soon as we stepped onto the beach and continued for the rest of the day forcing us to hole up in Stubby with our books and newly acquired Retirement Village card games.
The second day saw little improvement in the weather so we explored the city enjoying the wares of Chinatown and the hundreds of Gelatos before having to hide from the crazy man running amok in our amenities block. We took it as the final sign to move on and enjoyed our final morning on the beach where entertainment was provided in the homoerotic physical conditioning of the university rugby team and a highly competitive surf competition. We were all set to leave when Stubby decided not to start...once again our RAC cover proved its worth and we were visited by a true Kath-&-Kim ‘Sharon’ who turned up in her dungarees after having been water-skiing. We had in fact been flooding the engine when we started it and so she showed us how we had to start Stubby to prevent this and so a little red-faced we fled the campsite and headed to Brisbane.
Described as the most loveable city in Australia Brisbane is unique in that it is not set on the coast but inland on a water inlet. Characterised by the tropical climate of Queensland it is lush and green and we secured a cute little campsite on the fringes of the city and caught the bus into the centre. The main shopping arcades and markets were comparable to all the other Australian cities we had been to but the South Bank stood out as its most distinguishing feature. Walking over the bridge it felt like I was crossing tower bridge and entering London and this effect was compounded by the collection of galleries, libraries and museums clustered along its waterfront. We had a brilliant afternoon exploring the weekend market, sampling the frozen yoghurt from the New Zealand Natural shop that I had been longing for for months and taking pride in the inferior Eye they had erected over the river as we sunk a scooner in one of the many live music bars in the evening sun. The day was rounded off by stumbling upon the Queensland Police Carol Concert in the Suncorp Piazza which we duly queued to get in lured by the sound of brass, red felt hats and reindeer antlers! I had been searching for a good carol concert to attend as I felt I was missing out on the traditional Christmas build-up back home and it certainly didn’t disappoint! Primarily a family affair it drew together the collective talent of the state with a mixture of angelic voiced sopranos to local choirs and school groups all supported by the Youth Orchestra. By no means a polished affair I loved the amateur-dramatics nature of the concert with everyone chipping in to celebrate from staid police officers performing the YMCA to their re-written version of XMAS to the cheesy father and son compeer act. As it was a family show we were also treated to a small pantomime of adult-sized koala bears (called Klancy), emus, frogs and a beat-boxing kangaroo calling on the crowd to help them locate Santa who then distributed sweets amongst the crowds. The police chaplain delivered a brilliant story about the wombat who wanted to take part in the nativity but was continually ignored for each part he auditioned for because of a variety of reasons until he was cast as the sleeping babe and we were also introduced to the Ozzie versions of Jingle Bells and the Twelve Days of Christmas which involved a menagerie of dancing dingoes and leaping kangaroos which the poor signer nearly collapsed trying to keep up with the translation of for the deaf children in the audience. Even though we were all in shorts and still dripping with sweat as we chimed in for the first time I felt for the first time that I had entered into the Christmas spirit.
The following day I went to the local church where mass was celebrated by one of the most bizarre priests I had seen who looked like Jesus, acted like Johnny Depp and alternated from deeply religious silences and prayers to unabashed intellectual contempt for his parishioners in a manner that suggested he loathed having to be amongst such inferiors! We then headed straight back to the South Bank for a picnic lunch in the gardens and then hired roller blades and had the most hilarious afternoon exploring the city by in-line wheels. Unfortunately neither of us could really brake properly and there were many an occasion where caught by a slight incline we ended up hurtling into bushes and hedgerows to break our fall. The climax came when we tried to cross the beach. Drenched and exhausted blading up to the peak of the bridge the only way to negotiate the downhill half was to cling to the rail and haul lower ourselves down much to the laughter of everyone else crossing the bridge. We rewarded our weary muscles by taking a dip in the Street Beach, a brilliantly innovative man-made beach next to the river which is so shrouded in palm trees and comes complete with Surf Rescue and sunbathing spots that you forget you’re in the middle of a city so much so that I ended up taking the bus home in my sarong and wife-beater!
We left Brisbane the next day to enjoy our last couple of days of the trip back in Byron Bay where the prices had suddenly hiked up for the arrival of the Australian holidayers who traditionally leave for their vacation just before Christmas and only return home at the end of January. The First Sun Holiday Park was packed with the most elaborate vans and tents with families bringing along their whole fridge-freezer unit for the month. We spent most of our time back on Belongil Beach burning inappropriately and enjoying our new cocktail of whisky and pineapple and mango crush.
We arrived back in time to wave Paul and Sindy off and found ourselves in charge of a multi-million pad with swimming pool, spa, home gym, theatre room and bar which proved most distracting when we should have been spending our time hunting for jobs and a place of our own. In return we had to feed the cat, Tashie, a half-Begal male, and Bubby, a cross between a red setter and a spaniel female who was a rescue dog. Having grown up together they play-fought like cat and dog with Bubby taking Tashie’s head in her mouth and dragging her all round the house until Tashie escaped and climbed onto a sofa or table to pounce, claws out, on Bubby. When I wasn’t picking up broken ornaments from their fights I managed to get another interview for an independent production company making a Rescue show for Channel 9 which went as well as it could have with the Executive Producer telling me that she would love to hire me but was concerned about my lack of local knowledge and so would think about it over the holiday period and let me know. The rest of our time was spent by the pool or taking advantage of the luxury of having an oven!!! Continuing the pursuit of the festive spirit we had one night with the Carols from The Domain playing on the television while we baked two Christmas puddings (from Granji’s restaurant), thirty mince pies, a platter of Florentines, a vat of mulled wine and personalised gingerbread men as Christmas presents!
For Christmas we ended up driving to Melbourne, which at a mere 850km each way seemed like a doddle, and spent it with Rich’s family. They closed their restaurant on Christmas Eve for three weeks and brought home literally mountains of leftover food that they share amongst their family and friends in a big Christmas Day extravaganza. Trying to maintain as much of the English tradition as possible we opened stockings in the morning and then went to church only to discover the church I had found had been burnt down and the replacement service was on the other side of the town which b we opened stockings in the morning and then went to church only to discover the church I had found had been burnt down and the replacement service was on the other side of the town which when we finally got there entered just in time to hear the closing blessing...Undeterred we ended up driving into central Melbourne and catching a 4pm service at St Francis’ church which was beautiful. This had no impact on the family celebrations which owing to the daughter having to work at the Customs Dog Centre all day had been strictly postponed until 6pm which meant we all arrived back at the same time. Dinner was had outside and began with traditional sea-food platter which was followed by a bizarre concoction of deep-fried left-overs before finishing with trifles, pavlovas and our Christmas puds! Boxing Day, far from running around in the mud and cool, was spent chillaxing in the spa before we headed back to Sydney the following day.
Arriving back to Paul and Sindy’s the first thing we saw was a pea-green pool...the second thing we saw was two bedrooms full of dog pooh! Flooding the pool with a gallon of chlorine and shovelling away the dog pooh we realised that our invitation to stay might not be extended when they returned and so began our own house search. Unfortunately this was just a dire sequence of apartments ranging from hosting screaming matches between a Chinese husband and wife couple while their newly arrived parents sat politely on the sofa to grunge pits where mattresses on the lounge floor served as bedrooms. Suffice to say we were pretty disgruntled and spent all our time flitting between viewing houses and meeting potential buyers for Stubby who we had with much reluctance put up for sale as soon as we arrived.
Fortunately we had the distraction of being taken up to Palm Beach and dining in the Burger Shack by family friends of Rich’s first and then New Year to provide some respite and with Rich’s friend, Isobel, visiting from Melbourne, and my old primary school friend Felicity started the day off in style in the spa before progressing to the slide on a variety of inflatables and enjoying a BBQ in the sunshine. We then headed into town where we had been invited to champagne drinks at a friend’s apartment before heading onto a fancy dress wig and sunglasses party at another apartment overlooking the harbour bridge where we stayed for the 9pm fireworks display before moving once again to an even better location on the north side of the city in a flat virtually sitting on the bridge where we crowded onto the balcony at midnight for an unrivalled view of the breathtaking fireworks. Getting home was slightly more traumatic as we caught a train to Chatswood and then spent half an hour fighting for prime taxi-hailing spots before eventually persuading a lovely Chinese dude to take us back to Forestville!