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Published: October 19th 2011
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Stray Second week adventures!
Another day, another road trip.. this time leaving Taupo and making our way over to the Blue Duck Station in Whakahoro (pronounced f***-a-whore.. much to everyones amusement!). We stopped off at Taupo Bungy as some of our group wanted the morning adrenaline fix. Always fun watching them, especially the big guys who are most scared! We then took a leisurely cruise up to the farm, which is the most remote area of the North Island.. Nice drive up there, and we were assured the scenery is spectacular, although the rain was so bad we couldn’t see much!
Upon arrival, Wendy who helps run the lodge gave us a rundown on the history and all the conservation stuff they get up to. The place was stunning - we had 9000 acres to explore! First things first we grabbed our beds (it really is every man for himself this dorm malarky!) then went for a walk up to the waterfalls where the endangered blue ducks are, didn’t get to see any but the walk itself was worth it and we were well ready for the nights feed - goat curry! Just before having our feast, we decided
to partake in some clay pigeon shooting.. I’d never even shot a gun before (apart from the paintball gun on the boat trip a week earlier!) and I was pretty bad! Darren did really well on the practice shots, but then we had a competition, and I beat Darren, woohoo! I only hit one clay.. So yeah you do the maths and lets just say he wasn’t ‘as good as he usually is’.
After our amazing tea we settled around the fire for wine and the token guitar playing.. House of the rising sun etc, you get the picture.. The girlies chatted away while the men did some axe throwing (like you do!) all in all a great day and night and a truly amazing place!
We only had a short drive over the National Park the following morning, where there’s heaps of hikes and bike tracks and all sorts of activities to do.. Only issue, the weather was shocking, proper big rain, never stopped all day! So we had one of those rock and roll days of reading, laundry, catching up with emails.. Yeah riveting! Had a couple of drinks in the lodge in the evening and
met two nice American guys. Mark and Steve, and played cards and chilled in front of a huge open fire (one thing I’m loving about the poo NZ weather is that there’s real open fires everywhere - simple pleasures ey!)
The next morning, we set off for Wellington, the capital city. Once we arrived - around 3pm, we decided to go for a walk around the city, as there wasn’t enough time to visit the NZ museum. There was loads of bars and coffee shops everywhere, and some bits reminded us of the Northern Quarter in Manchester, very cool and arty (witnessed a good few men were wearing skirts!?) It seemed like a great place and it was a shame we couldn’t have spent an extra day to explore, but the coach timetable didn’t fit in.. We had a couple of drinks, and ended up eating at ‘Hogs Breath Café’ (sorry Rach!) Rachel and I basically lived there in Oz so I couldn’t resist trying it out 8 years on. The food was really good and we were very full afterwards, so we decided to retire early again, as we were getting the ferry over to the South Island
at 6.45 the following morning.
The ferry crossing was pretty uneventful (even though it was Darren’s first time on a ferry) until we reached the fiords on the way into Picton, just stunning, and even better the sun was out! We popped into a winery for a morning wine tasting, and made our way over to Abel Tasman National Park. We checked into our ‘cabin’ ie. Portakabin with a bed in! but the scenery was that breathtaking that we didn’t care (until that evening when we almost died of hypothermia!) We took a walk over the 1km beach to the coast and just took it all in.. there was nobody to be seen anywhere, it was amazing! That night we had a BBQ and sat around the fire, really chilled out. The following day we were supposed to go kayaking and on a boat trip, but we overslept, oooops! Instead we took the aqua taxi up to Anchorage from Marahau and took the 12km walk back.. Taking 4 hours, felt really good by the evening and had a few well deserved beers whilst watching Wales get knocked out of the RWC!
The gorgeous weather continued for our trip
from Abel Tasman to Greymouth. Unfortunately our ‘cabin’ had given me a terrible cold so I was really rough all day. We stopped off at Pancake Rocks which was pretty impressive, and took a walk along the coast (you can’t escape walking on this trip!) then upon arrival in Greymouth, had a quick change and went on the Monteiths Brewery Tour.. We basically did it for the chance of sinking as much beer and cider as poss for $15, but it was actually really interesting, and yeah we definitely got our moneys worth! We came back to the hostel at 9ish to watch the All Blacks batter Australia (woohoo!) then stumbled up to bed!
The next morning, Darren got up early and went bone carving for the morning in Barrytown. The place he went to was like a farm, the lady who owned it Karen had a sheep, a goat, a rooster, several chickens, a cat, 2two dogs and even fed huge eels from the stream at the back of her house. Darren said it was really interesting, and decided to go with a whales tail as they are sacred to the Maoris. The Maoris believe it gives you
courage.
Once we picked up Darren, we set off to Franz Josef, stopping off several times at lakes etc for our regular 30 min stop offs between each place we stay. When we arrived at ‘Rain Forest Retreat’ they had a spa and a huge bar area, the rooms were really good too. At night time, they did a competition to win free tickets on the shotover jet costing around $120. The game was killer pool, there were around 30 players to start off with and Darren got beat in the final! Gutted! He got runners up prize of a jaegar bomb, but was devastated to not win. After the killer pool, we went to bed as Darren had booked the full day glacier hike the following day, and I wanted to get rid of this cold as quick as I could.
In the morning Darren set off for his 8 hr glacier hike with some of our stray friends, whilst I skyped and took medicine all day! When he returned with a bruised knee and a war wound on his thumb (wimp), we went for a curry to sort Jens cold out. We were joined by Jess
from Switzerland who is such a top laugh, always hyper and positive, she said the next morning that it sorted her stomach out haha.
Next stop… Makorora then Queenstown baby!
TTFN x
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Philip Millson
non-member comment
Looks Brill!
Hi U2, hope you are feeling better Jen and that Darrens thumb is improving. The scenery is spectacular and looks like you are having a Brill time! keep it up! Missing ya Father figurexxx