New Zealand

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Kia Ora (That´s hello in Maori and not that squash type drink)

The weather in New Zealand is crap! It is the same as England, possibly even worse and this is supposed to be the start of their summer. We have had a couple of good days but still not hot, just warm and sunny and for the last 3 days it has been chucking it down with rain and been pretty cold so not very impressed thus far! Anyway back to last Saturday and without knowing what the weather was going to do we picked up our hire car. As we are only here for 2 and a bit weeks and trying to budget a bit we thought (as recommended by the nice lady at the Tourist Information Centre) we would hire a "Micro Camper". This is basically an estate car where you open the boot at night and there is an awning which comes down over the back, making some extra room enabling you to sleep in the back of the car. It comes with table, chairs, stove, utensils, bedding etc and once all of this is loaded into the car, there is actually no room in the back for us!


So we set off and headed up to North Shore to meet Jim, my old housemate. He took us down to the beach where the film The Piano was made and he showed us a few other sights which I have forgotten the names of so we will move on. That evening we said bye to Jim and headed down the North Island to Hamilton which is a small town which was to be our base for our first night. On the way we pulled over at a garage to fuel up, but whilst inside I spotted an 80´s film soundtrack CD (the best of!) on sale and could not refuse. It is exactly what was needed to make this a proper road trip and a welcome break from New Zealand radio, trust me on that. So with "What a Feeling" and "Fame" blaring out of the speakers we hit the road and headed to Hamilton!

We found a campsite (eventually) and started to prepare the car for sleeping, which was interesting as whilst everything fitted in when driving during the day we were not sure where everything was going to go at night when we needed all the space in the back. So with military type precision we organised the back of the car so that there was enough space for us. This basically involved shoving as much stuff on the front seats as possible and the rest under the car. We then began to prepare our first nights feast on our stove (once we had managed to light the bloody thing and get it to stay alight) Chicken soup and bread. For the majority of the time whilst we prepared the car and the dinner we just laughed hystericaly at our plight and joked at how we would cope like this for two and a bit weeks. At least with the weather not being that great (the only good thing) it wasn´t too hot in the car like the camper (with the large bed, fridge, oven, space, comfort, heat, Australia, ah Australia, so warm, so so warm and with people who talk at a normal speed and not like a tape recorder with worn out batteries).

On Sunday we headed down to Rotorua which is a major touristy place on the North Island due to it's thermal activity. Everywhere you go there is steam coming out of the ground and bubbling water and hot springs, although on the down side there is a lovely smell of Sulphur in the air. The campsites here were fantastic as they all had outdoor spas with the water averaging 38-40 degress thanks to the geothermal activity. That afternoon we went on a chair lift up a mountain with great views over Rototua and its massive lake. At the top we went luging which is like sledging but with wheels. You sit in this cart and go down a mountain on a track as fast as you can (you have brakes). Really it´s for kids but we had great fun and went down several times racing each other, naturally with my-lets call it gravity advantage I won!

That night we spent at a beautiful site where there were 3 pools all at different temperatures which we stayed in for as long as possible in order to prepare us for sleeping in the damn car.
The landscape here was just like the countryside back home, well, apart from the river of boiling water running just in front of our campsite. This was particularly disconcerting as our car was parked not far from the edge, the car being our home and place of sleep. I just hoped the handbrake was good as I didn´t particularly fancy being boiled alive.

Tuesday we awoke un-boiled and went to a Thermal Activity Park and walked amongst the bubbling mud pools and hot waters which was pretty impressive if not a little stinky (although secretly I think Becks just had a bad case of wind). In the afternoon we found another campsite more central where another evening was spent sitting in the hot thermal pools! The next morning we went to the Buried Village which was a village (obviously) which was destroyed by a volcano many years ago and you could see parts which were left of the village and here the story of what actually happened. Being here is starting to remind me of school/Uni with all this tectonic activity and talk of Gondwana land, and am starting to feel a bit of a geology geek again. The scenery here is very spectacular as we drive around it just looks like Lord of the Rings where ever you go.

What with the threat of a volcano erupting or an earthquake occuring being slim to none, we didn´t feel our lives were in danger enough, so we decided to go White Water Rafting on a Grade 5 river. This included a drop over a waterfall which was just over 21 feet high! So that afternoon we were picked up and taken to the rafting place where they kitted us out in helmets, wetsuits, fleece (bloody cold weather), boots, life jackets and a paddle. Once ready we sat in the rafts on dry land and recieved a brief training session which lasted all of 10 seconds, with that we were on our way down to the water. I have to admit that I had been feeling reasonably nervous up until this point, but my fears were eased when one of our raft guides explained that the down time, if we came out of the raft at the bottom of the 21ft waterfall, would only be 40 seconds!!

There were 3 of us "novices" in the raft and 2 guides and we started off on a leisurely raft down the river. Knowing this wouldn´t be the case for much longer I decided to make the most of the beautiful scenery and enjoy the calm before the storm. We soon arrived at our first waterfall which was only a three metre drop which didn´t seem too bad and the next, a one metre drop was almost un-noticeable. This white water rafting lark was actually a lot of fun and all my nerves had soon dissapearred.

Just as quickly as they had gone they returned as we had arrived at ¨The Big One¨ and recieved some on site training as to what to do when going over the edge. This essentially involved dropping to the floor of the raft and holding on as tight as possible in order to avoid being in the 1 out of 15 rafts that tip over and in the even higher percentage that just fall out!

Well you can see for yourselves by the photos how close we came to being that 1 in 15 but luckily we stayed the right way up. Although I never realised that the boat would actually submerge at the base of the waterfall for a few seconds which I have to admit did panic me somewhat. Fortunately the noise from the waterfall and the water in everyones ears seemed to have drowned out the noise of my screaming. My screaming quickly turned to gargling as I began to enjoy approximately 8 pints of the complimentary fresh water I had began to swallow. Following this we went down some more rapids which seemed very easy compared to the waterfall and were soon back on dry land, it was fantastic and will definitely do it again.

That night we headed back to the campsite to spend more time in the hot spa which was becoming a bit addictive but well deserved that day, we are also becoming rather good at this self catering lark and using the camp kitchens. We have come a long way from Chicken soup and are up to Spag Bol and Chilli Con Carne now.

The next day we headed to Taupo which is the skydiving capital of New Zealand. When we arrived we went to the tourist information centre so Becky could enquire about doing a jump, if you think I am going to do one of those you must be mad! Well after being in there for a few minutes Becks decided that she would leave it for now as would prefer that we both did one. So we just stayed the one night there and then headed off towards Wellington. It took us most of the day to drive down as we stopped off on the way at Mount Ruapehu (Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings). We went for a walk around the mountains to admire the spectacular scenery and had hoped to catch a Ski lift to near the top, although sadly these were closed for repair. The weather started to turn very bad by the time we reached Wellington and it was chucking it down and blowing a gale so we checked into a campsite and they recommended we stayed in cabin rather than the car which we agreed was probably a sensible idea.

On Friday we went into Wellington and was not that impressed it has to be said. Not a great deal to do and the weather didnt help although we did stay dry for the trip up on the cable car to see the views over Wellington and then the walk back down. That evening we were supposed to be getting the ferry over to the South Island but decided to just stick with the North. The crossing takes 3-4 hours and with the predicted bad weather, high seas and my seasickness I would of just been chucking up the whole time, plus it would of been a rush to get round and back up as we had spent longer than intended on the North Island already.

We left Wellington and started heading back up the East Coast with a detour today (Saturday) to Eastbourne. Yes they have a Eastbourne here although not particularly similar to ours. I had been given the task by the Evil Duo at East Towers of carrying out a Jacko type challenge which I think they may have put in the magazine so I won´t write too much about it as it´s in there (They best have, cause we got bloody soaked for the cause - oh and can someone save me a copy please). I guess I should also take this opportunity to remind you all to buy your ¨I love Jacko¨ merchandise (Don´t you just hate self promotion, but here is the link anyway - http://www.eastmagazine.co.uk/shop/ for some reason I have been relegated to pages 3 and onwards, outrageous!)

Anyway back to the traveling bit - This evening we arrived in Napier and it's the main wine area so are hoping to go wine tasting the following day. Can not believe only a week until Mexico, very excited and looking forward to the hot weather again as hate the cold and my tan is fading. Still does not feel Chrismassy but I expect you have all started on the Xmas parties already.

Will write again soon.

Jacko

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