Advertisement
Published: October 20th 2006
Skytower, Auckland
The tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.After a short stop off in the Chilean capital, our evening flight to New Zealand began with a great view of Santiago which looked just like a giant circuit board. Somewhere over the pacific we were treated to an amazing view of the rising crescent moon and the mesmerising stars. The flight was a whopping 14 hours but strangley it passed in a flash and before we knew it we were descending having traversed nothing but Ocean. Having crossed the date line on the way we actually lost a day so stepping out of the airport at 5am we lethargically boarded a bus on its way into Auckland city centre as the first light of day appeared in the east. Driving through the familiar english looking suburbs our bus dropped us way past our hostel so we had a gruelling walk up the steep and deserted Queen Street with our bags.
Once we'd rested for a short while we stepped out into Aucklands streets to take in our new surroundings. Having spent the last three months in South America it was a strange experience being in New Zealand but in oddly familiar surroundings. With a degree of jetlag now setting
Skytower, Auckland
Looking down through the glass floor in our direction was drawn to the dominating Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hempishere (although cheating by measuring the mast on top).
At its base we gazed up to watch a rather silly person doing the renowned sky jump from the observatory and plummet on wires down to the ground. Dizzy from gazing up we ventured into the I-site (excellent country wide information points) downstairs to try and organise hire of a camper van for our time in New Zealand. Having secured a decent deal with Adventure Vans we took the fast elavator to the observatory tower with inevitably incredible views of Auckland city and its' peaks and bays.
Unbenownst to us prior to our ascent, the area around Auckland is in fact a cluster of no less than 48 Volcanoes (although only 12 are highly visible) and it is these volcanoes and many others which have over millions of years propelled the North Island from its watery home. Situated on the Pacific "Rim of fire" this spectacular country as we were about to find out is a spectacular treasure trove of geological activity.
Back down at street level we began to feel exhausted
Skytower by night
taken from our hostel window! and spun out by the futuristic traffic crossings which bleeped while it left you waiting for what seemed like hours when no traffic was moving and then zipped a loud space invader alarm when it was safe to move. Tired, confused and embarrassed by saying "hola" to a few shopkeepers we went back to the hostel to sleep through the entire afternoon evening and night!
In the morning we awoke afresh and walked to the DOC office to pick up information on the various campsite locations around the country. When we found they were closed we grabbed a bus up to the Auckland Museam, a grand and imposing Greco-Roman building perched on the hill above the city. Inside lay several incredible exhibitions on the cultures throughout the Pacific island. On display were a huge and fascinating collection of aritifacts all beautifully displayed and each exhibited with fascinating information boards. The higlight of the Museum was the focus on Moari artifacts with the main hall being decked out with several incredibly carved meeting houses and one impossibly long kayak carved out of one huge tree trunk.
For a small fee we also signed up for the Maori cultural show
where a stout and thonged Moari summoned the group in the main foyer with a mighty blast on the konch shell before leading us into a back theatre room for the show. Although for a first intro into Maori culture it wasn't bad, the show was more for the kids than anyone else and the room lacked any authenticity and charm.
Impressed by the museum but feeling like we should be leaving with a good bag of sweeties we headed back into town to realise that the Ferry building we tired to visit earlier was closed becuase it was a Saturday and not as we supposed becuase they were too lazy to open! Obviously the jet lag was still playing tricks on us!
From the Ferry Building we caught the bus up to Ponsonby Road, an aesthetically uninspiring strip but home to countless expensive restaurants and independent fashion boutiques. Passing great views of the Auckland skyline the road continued and turned into the less upmarket "K'Road" which also housed an abundency of fashion outlets but this time interspersed with bondage shops and peep shows. After a decent curry at Bollywood on Ponsonby that evening, we headed the next
day out to the airport to pick up our motorhome and set off to do some food shopping in preperation for our road trip.
Hitting Route 1, we left Auckland and headed south in the direction of Rotarua passing through the town of Cambridge where locals had clearly become immersed in a culture of making huge signs from corrugated iron including a humungous corrugated sheep and its companion sheepdog. The carpet like fields were littered with conical turrets of rock where volcanoes had pierced through the bright green pastures of rolling tellytubby hills.
Arriving in Rotarua we booked up an evening show at the most highly regarded Maori show for that evening and spent the afternoon with a flock of seagulls at the lake edge and driving into the unexpected Geothermal area which sits bang in the middle of the town. The expanse of bubbling pools of mud apparently only appeared in Jan 2001 when a vast and presumably eggy explosion occured within metres of residents homes. Thankfully no-one was injured but seeing the newly formed active area must have been a bit of shock to those living on what must be a precariously thin piece of the
earth's crust.
The show in the evening at "Mitai" was a short drive out of Rotarua to a fantastic forest setting where a lively and entertaining guide talked us through the evenings itinerary and showed us the Hange (underground Moari oven, where our food was being cooked). In the absence of any other volunteers (and a firm nudge from Claire and two middle aged Canadian women), I ended up nominating myself to be "The Chief" of the group of 30 or so people and was given a brief of my duties for the evening (including a speech as part of the show) and a hand carved Whale tooth Maori necklace. Despite initial embarrasment, being cheif afforded Claire and I the best seats in the house and royal treatment for the rest of the evening. The Show began with an atmospheric walk through the lit jungle and a group of aggressive chanting Maori's paddling up the stream in their Waka (canoe). Walking back to the theatre like arena a brilliant show commenced in the authentic Moari village where Maori warriors fought each other with surprising aggression.
My duties as Chief meant I had to get up on stage and
withstand a spitting and agro warrior swinging his spear in front of my face and having to step forward and accept the peace offering of Fern from the ground. After giving a speech to the Tribes cheif about our tribe of 14 nations and doing the Honge (pressing of noses) with the burly chief, I returned to my seat to watch the rest of the fantastic show. In comparison to the show at the Auckland museum the Mitai performance was incredible and it really gave an authentic impression of the Maori culture in its natural environment. After tucking into mountains of beautiful Lamb and sweet potatoes cooked in the traditional style, we returned to jungle walk to view glowworms lighting up the moss banks like thousands of LED's and to visit a sacred spring where pure volcanic mineral water bubbled into a clear pool. After a brilliant evening we drove away in our Motorhome, hung up the necklace from the rearview mirror and duly named our wheels "the cheif" in honour!
After bacon and eggs on toast we drove the chief down to Wai-O-Tapu, a vast geothermal park where deep chasms of hot acid have made the earth collapse
leaving steaming caves and huge pools of brightly coloured minerals. Each pool exhibited a kaleidescope of colours from bright green & azur blue to dandelion yellow and vivid red. After a brief walk around we headed to the north of the park to see the Lady Knox geiser with fires at 10.15am sharp every day! The spout would naturally fire at random every couple of days were it not for the chance finding in 1930 by a prisoner who accidentely dropped his bar of soap whilst doing his laundry. The geiser as it turned out was made up of two underground chambers of water which are kept apart by surface tension with the top being relatively cool and the bottom being superheated. What the shocked prisoner discovered was that the soap acted to break that surface tension causing the chambers to mix and trigger a 20m eruption which we saw demonstrated today.
From there we followed the Orange trail through a wooded area and over platforms where on every side the earth literally boiled. On the trees and vegetation around a fiery orange moss coated every branch and rock and in the air the pungeant whiff of eggs due
to the huge quantaties of sulphur emitted. The fascinating and colourful walk was topped off at the end with a visit to a squelching lake of spitting, boiling mud which we walked around and childishly laughed whenever the mud made a fart noise.
Driving south toward Lake Taupo, we stopped at the impressive Huka Falls, a narrow gorge through which the Waikato river is sqeezed at an atonishing pace and over a short 9m drop created by thousands of years of erosion. Passing huge Geo thermal power stations we camped up for the night by the river before heading to the airport in the morning in the bizarre hope that we could jump out of a plane! Sadly, the company we had chosen had decided not to fly despite us watching the neighbouring firm drop several planes worth of thrillseeking tourists from the sky. After sitting around watching the clouds drift over the lake we ended up booking up with the other company for the following day.
The next morning we awoke to drizzle and dark clouds so instead of sitting around at the airport we decided to drive to Craters of the Moon, another highly active geothermal
area which appeared fairly recently as a result of the effect of the nearby power station on the underground magma position and one that grows progressively unstable by the day. Here several acres of short scrub and heathland steamed eggy sulphur from hundreds of craters, some the size of rabbit holes and some as wide and deep as a house. The interiors of the craters were scorched and barren save for a few specialist mosses which have adapted to life in the hot steamy sulphur. As we walked the 45 minutes it was remarkable to appreciate just how thin the earths crust must be in this area to create such a landscape and to make the soil all around hot to the touch. Having seen several active geo thermal areas on this short jouney it was quite humbling to witness just how alive the planet beneath our feet is.
Our attention however soon turned from the ground to the far off streak of Blue sky and a mad dash back to the airport where we were given a probably thumbs up to jump. Thankfully after much more waiting around the sky held out and we began kitting ourselves up
Wai-O-Tapu
Vibrant mineral deposits at the edge of a geothermal lake. and signing our next of kin disclaimers!
Within no time at all and with virtually no training other than being told to assume the shape of a banana, the bright yellow plane rolled up and we shuffled aboard in our pairs and sat facing backwards on two parallel benches. Having both signed up for a 12,000 feet jump, I with Ollie, a polish/German and Claire with a camera weilding Alex from Sussex sat in a cramped line as the plane took off and started its 15 minute circular ascent above the shimmering water. As if sitting in a plane backwards wasn't weird enough, the now alarming realisation that we would not be returning to ground in the plane was starting to send swarms of butterflies through my stomach!
As the now shrinking expanse of Lake Taupo dissapeared in a veil of haze, Ollie tapped me on the shoulder to show me his Altometre; 3,200m or 300m shot of the drop zone. Within moments, the sliding door was opened, the icy air entered and the tandem pair in front of me shuffled to the edge and dissapeared in a flash as though they were tied to a passing truck!
This was it, a bum shuffle for two feet and a big intake of breath and my feet we dangling on the underside of the plane being buffetted by the air speed. 3, 2, 1...
I was no longer sitting but plummetting face first towards the earth! Instantly a wave of adrenalin rushed through every vein of my body and my breathless mouth, firmly in the "F" position! Accelerating from 0 to 200kph in just 5 seconds to reach terminal velocity, we smashed through the haze and the stunning mountain edged lake burst into view. Mouth now in the "ah" arrangement, my thoughts turned to Claire who was no doubt also hurtling towards the ground by now and the question "What the hell are we doing!". Now starshaped and punching the air with joy the answer was clearly having the most intense experience of our lives!
For 45 seconds we dropped like a piano as the deafening air pummelled my body and stretched the skin on my face. Imagine if you will the sensation of falling similar to that experienced on a decent rollercoaster drop and crank it up 5 times for the height and the view and
5 times because on this ride there is no track! Add to this the sensation of sticking your head out of a car window at 124 mph (Not whilst driving please) and healthy dose of "Did the Kiwi with the steaming hangover pack my chute?" fear of death... now hold for 3 quarters of a minute and you might be somewhere near.
When the freefall was over it was time to grab on to the harness again and finish the "K" of my uncontrollable word as the parachute opened and hurled us back into the land of the sane. WOW. Moments after catching my breath and shivering with excitement Ollie turned us down into a tight spiral spin as the world beneath my feet revolved like a record... left, then right. Having not seen anyone come past for a minute or two I could now relax in the knowledge that Claire was also now under a parachute and save for a poorly positioned crutch harness could enjoy the spectacular view. Swirling down and skying across the ground to land Claire and I whooped with joy and sat around grinning whilst our DVD was produced.
Back on the road
straight away and with a huge grin on our faces, we headed south on Route 1 all the way to the southern tip of North Island passing on the way the incredible Mount Tongariro used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. As we travelled the Desert road, a bleak but beautiful stretch of land where the flows of the imposing volcanoes have sprawled across the plain, we followed the line of Pylons through the plain and stopped for the night right on the beach near Paraparaumu.
The next morning we made a beeline for Wellington to catch the morning ferry to Picton in the South only to arrive with minutes to spare to find that the Interislander ferry quoted prices triple what we were expecting. Thankfully we headed to the only other company "Bluebridge" and booked up for the afternoon crossing for less than half the price! The delay thankfully gave us a chance to spend a few hours in the Capital Wellington, a pleasant city with a laid back feel and a great mix of modern and historical buildings.
Although our time in the North Island was short our memories of the incredible
Volcanic activity and of course our amazing skydive will never be forgotten. Boarding the 1pm ferry to Picton we sailed the unusually well behaved Cook Strait and looked ahead to the beautiful South Island...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.198s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 18; qc: 117; dbt: 0.1088s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Laura
non-member comment
Wow- Great pics of you Claire!! very proud of you both doing that- Looks amazing...Stay safe and look forward to your next instalment. Love Laura x