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Published: April 26th 2008
One way street...
A dead-end somewher near RotoruaAlack and alas but this is the final blog from Aotearoa or New Zealand depending on what you call it... And due to the Aotearoan's love of Dub music and our happening to be Dubs, the pun was unavoidable, cheesy but unavoidable!
Once we left Dunedin, Gertie was pushed to her max as we sped along, trying to get to Methvin on time to meet up with Alaistar, a childhood friend from Donegal, and now a dairy farmer in New Zealand. On the way we applied the brakes at Moraki to look at enormous circular rocks that formed in the coastline and are gradually being exposed due to erosion. They are enormous and bear a strong resemblance to Maltesers, enormous Maltesers... mmm. And as they are broken down themselves, their insides are quite crumbly, like... I know, you get it, Maltesers. After that we stopped in a town called Oamaru and Ali had a quick look at Janet Frame's house. It's quite a heritage town and to be honest if we hadn't been in such a hurry, would have been worth a longer look.
Alastair is very busy at the moment, planning his wedding, running the farm and was
It's a big dog!
A great building in Tirau heading up to Rotoroa the next day so it was now or never. We arrived on time, PHEW and it was great to catch up with him, he looks the same only fifteen years older than the last time I saw him. He´s living a really tranquil life and doing a great job looking after one thousand cows. He showed us around the farm while we asked all sorts of obvious questions about cows but he was very patient indeed.
That night we stayed in Methvin, a popular ski resort during the winter, but when we were there a sleepy village. Our hostel was empty except for us and one other guest who we never saw. That meant that we had the run of the place and it was lovely, stretching out in front of the crackling log fire and watching ´Once Were Warriors´on DVD... (´make the man some iiiigs´ was added to the classic catchphrase list after this).
The next morning we got up and had a ridiculously lengthy breakfast that went on into the afternoon, but the hostel owners were so congenial and the chat so good, that we enjoyed ourselves greatly. One thing I didn't
mention in the last blog (it was far too long anyway) was the drive from Invercargill to Dunedin through the Catlins. It was spectacular and we stopped at Curio bay to look at a petrified forest. No silly, the trees weren't scared, they were just frozen in time, back in the Jurassic Period, and you can see the tree trunks and fallen logs formed in rock, dramatically set with the ocean crashing in around them. I pottered for ages looking in rock pools at sea snails and tiny fish. We also stopped at a lighthouse and wandered along the ocean shore, stumbling across a small colony of sealions, dozing and basking in the sun. Later still we stopped at Porpoise Bay, where there are dolphins often spotted, but no porpoises apparently, according to the woman who sold us some 'Mrs Mac's' pies for our lunch. Sadly we had missed them for the day, as they had been there in the morning, so we contented ourselves with some splashing and pies. And that was all before we got to Dunedin, happy days.
After Methvin we drove to Kaikora, the main reason for going being the fact that you can go
Whale-Watching. The town itself was fine, not the most pleasant, but fine. We based ourselves in a backpackers off the main street, it was actually quite difficult to get accommodation, so we were delighted when we found a place. The next morning we booked into the whale-watching - I didn´t end up going (bit strapped for funds after all the adventures) but from all accounts it was amazing and the videos and photographs were great. It´s quite an operation, with planes flying out first thing in the morning to scope out where the whales are, and all sorts of electronic gadgetry employed to make sure that visitors get to see as much as they can on their trip. Apparently the whales are huge, as long as the boat that you go out to see them on - maaassive!
The next evening in Kaikora we decided to go and see a movie in the local cinema, similar to small town cinemas in Ireland, and got a real surprise when we bumped into Adrienne, a girl who Ali, Sean and myself were in college with years ago. We all thought it was a crazy coincidence as the three of us are
Solitary brother
Seal makes an appearance rarely in the same place, and then we run into Adrienne when we happened to be together. All the weirder considering that Adrienne lives in Dublin, where I lived for years without bumping into her once, and there we are on the other side of the world, strange. Still, it was lovely to see her.
We headed on up to Picton and caught a ferry over to Wellington, which is going to be Sean´s future home (actually come to think of it, he´s living there now, so it is his home now I guess!). It was pretty cool to be there on the ferry with him when we came into harbour knowing that he was going to live there. If it hadn´t been for the smell and lowing of the hundred or so cattle that were right under the viewing platform, I daresay we would have lingered longer there pondering the moment.
Wellington is a great city, quite small and compact, a nice eclectic mix of the old and new in terms of architecture and full of quirky little boutiques, cafes and bars. It was interesting being back in a city after so many weeks in the country,
Zzzzzz
A snoozing sealion in the Catlins. Check out those gnashers! and we were all a bit like rabbits in headlights, looking at the shiny lights and funkily dressed punters. When there we went sightseeing to Te Papa, drank oodles of coffee, spending a few mornings in a bar called ´Fidel´s´and you guessed it, based on Fidel Castro with tonnes of photos of him and a general Cuban vibe, quite apt given that it is situated on Cuba street, the centre of cool in Wellington. One night we were there we started with a cocktail tipple or two at the Good Luck Bar, a great spot with excellent cocktails. Nicely refreshed we decided to enter a pub quiz in a nearby hostelry and I'm sure nobody will be surprised to hear that we came third (except us that is!). The questions were great, with references from David Bowie to 21 Jump Street and Snatch, suiting us perfectly. We were even asked what skill you are bestowed with on kissing the Blarney Stone - ha. They said 'the gift of persuasive conversation' but of course amended the answer to ours, 'the gift of the gab'! We won a twenty dollar tab on the bar and swiftly spent it on a pitcher of
The petrified forest
Felled trees turned to stone millions of years ago. Curio Bay Monteiths, tasty.
The next evening was our last in the city, so it became a sort of ´good luck in your new life - slash - blah it´s the end of a wonderful roadtrip´night. We had a delicious Malaysian meal and went to a few pubs afterwards, ending up in 'MightyMighty' a great spot, where we crashed somebody's birthday party! And weird, we also bumped into Helen another girl who was on our college course. Sean´s mates with her and knew she was in the city but it was random to bump into her unexpectedly nonetheless. Cue spooky music. Ali also utterly surprised me by giving me a thirtieth birthday present - two of my favourite characters from 'Where the Wild Things Are'. We had spotted them in a shop the day before and she snuck off to buy them on the sly. In 'Reel Groovy' she had spotted two 'groovy' tshirts the day before, hers read 'Nobody puts baby in the corner' and mine had Max from 'Where the Wild Things Are'. Naturally they had to be purchased and naturally we were wearing them on the night out. I have to admit, I did look a bit obsessed.
'Would sir care for the Led Zeppelin table?'
Arc Cafe, Dunedin. Great place for cake, pool and free internet Towards the end of the night we all stood with one of our many bundee jump drinks and toasted to every single person we had met on our road trip, which of course was to the bar-man's delight as it was such a lengthy session of toasting. It was a great night out, one of many and our trip had been fab so it was a fitting end to it. We all wandered into our bunks for the last nights sleep, and there was absolutely no nostalgia, we just zonked out straight away.
The next morning sadly we bid adieu to Sean, and I stood on his toe (by accident I swear) after we picked up our new car,´Ermentrude´. We went to Napier, a town that suffered an earthquake just when art deco was the mode for architecture, resulting in the town being a testimony to the art deco style.
At this point Alan and I had only a few days left before flying out of Auckland, and so it was time to say goodbye to Ali, who had a good fortnight left. Still exhausted from the emotional goodbye earlier in the day (and it has to
Moeraki Boulders
Weird geological phenomena slowly being revealed by the sea... be admitted the many pints the night before) we didn´t go out that night, waiting to say farewell over breakfast. The breakfast was as usual in New Zealand, yummy and pancake heavy, but it was awful as we knew that goodbyes were imminent.
And then it was just back to being Alan and I again, so much quieter than before, it took a day or two to get used to! We headed on to Taupo where we didn´t do very much except look around the town and start thinking about South America as we were flying there a few days later. On the road we stopped at the ´Craters of the Moon´- how could we not with such an irresistable name?! And strolled around looking at the steam rising, mud bubbling and water gurgling angrily, pretty cool stuff.
We went to Rotarua and stayed in a lovely hostel, and Alan got chatting to a guy who loves South America and gave us some good advice about what to see and do in our limited time there while I ended up chatting with the owner and her cute baby who kept falling over a lot.
We got some
Moeraki Boulders
Not petrified maltesers, Aoife! fab news from home - Olive and Niall are engaged!!!! YAY! A nice couple you just would never meet. CONGRATULATIONS YOU TWO! xx
We discovered another cool cafe and a noodle house where we ate noodle soup and thought about Japan. Walked around and saw loads of steaming pools and went to the Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland where we ´ooo´ and ´awed´. We also went on a Cultural Evening to a Maori Show, which was very disneyland, touristy and yet compelling at the same time. The Haka was cool as was the start of the evening where the driver chose one of our group to be the ´chief´and he had to stand while the Maoris thumped around twirling weapons, rolling their teeth and sticking their tongues out right in his face. If he laughed apparently it was a big faux pas, so luckily he was the chief as I found it hard to keep a straight face. The hongey or dinner was amazing (this is named after the way in which the food is prepared, in a hole dug in the ground with boiling volcanic stones placed on top to cook it - similar to the old celtic way of
Old-timey radio station in Oamaru
Walk-in! There were some really groovy old records around the place, including this gem... cooking in Ireland, the ´folach fia´or deer roast).
Then we drove Ermentrude to Auckland for just enough time to pick up some guidebooks for the next few weeks and then it was onto our flight and heading to Santiago in Chile...
xx
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Helen
non-member comment
Ah the whales ......! One of my dreams come true!! Yes you do need to see beyond the "disney" and the "touristy" to how proud the young Maori are of their culture and their heritage and admire their resourcefulness in both making a living from it and promoting it at the same time. It's all some of them have and tourism is the main industry and source of employment in that area. The language and culture is taught and all schools there now and all of NZers are proud of it. Looking for ward to the Chillean blogs!