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Published: March 21st 2006
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Steve, On Beach @ Nelson
Still looking for that museum. Fabulous Queenstown Without doubt our favourite town in New Zealand. The backdrop setting is incredible - mountains, alpine forests and an enormous lake. Ultra laidback atmosphere contrasts sharply with the fact that most people who arrive here are hellbent on doing something batty (extreme sports capital of NZ, hundreds of ways to scare yourself silly and have a great time doing so). Lots of great treks (that's tramping to the Kiwis) in the surrounding area. Best cake we may ever have had - chocolate caramel slice @ Coco's. We kept returning until they ran out. Ate very well in general, gastro style nosh aplenty (finally got down to some serious NZ lamb, delicious). Hostel was a little on the shabby side, but made up for it with a great view and a crazy dog with an insatiable appetite for fetching squeaky toys (this becomes less appealing after 40 minutes of the same game. Steve finally distracted Barney for long enough for us to slip away).
Kayaking - Abel Tasman National Park Our diplomatic guide started out by saying that in every group there are always people who pick it up right away and speed off into the
distance, and those that need a little more time, usually found way behind the rest. Everyone nodded sympathetically, but really they were looking around thinking 'who is the weakest kayaking link, who can I annihilate'. Sadly, as it turned out, Steve and I were the thickos who were never going to get Pokahontas worried. I am hoping that Kayaking is not a metaphor for marriage, as Steve and I seem incredibly ill-suited to a life aboard the ocean wave, paddle in hand. So much so, that we were split up! How humiliating is that?! Took me back to my schooldays and not being allowed to sit next to Clare Hepburn as we never got any work done. But split up we were, I did rather well out of this exchange, ending up with the Kayak guide (very muscly, very tanned and unsuprisingly rather deft at paddling). Steve faired less well, ending up with a gangly slightly scary looking man named Pat who insisted on giving him lots of advice on what he was doing wrong.
But, shredded egos aside, a good time was had. No one ever told me how exhausting Kayaking is, especially for a whole day, at
sea. Anton (my upgraded partner) explained early on that it is all about technique and not about brawn, but even so, after a couple of hours the shoulders and arms do start to complain. Not used to all the hard work, normally falls to the good old uncomplaining legs.
Home for that night was a catarmeran anchored just out to sea (wittily called the cateract). 8 of us were squeezed into a dorm the size of a very small, short, thin corridor. But they fed us very well - sausages the size of sausage dogs on the outdoors barbie and we slept long and hard. Next day we awoke to blazing aches across the shoulders from the previous day's exertions. But our legs were keen and able, which is good because our transport back was Shank's Pony. The coastal path takes about 4 hours. It is not the most inspirational of walks, as aside from the odd view of the admittedly stunning beaches below, it is mostly green vegetation on both sides. But we had a pleasant enough saunter back, happy to rely again on leg power.
On the road again, the final leg Abel
Read all about it, Queenstown
Steve catches up on news from home Tasman has been our last major venture in NZ. Our last couple of days have been spent driving back to Auckland (we clocked up 3340 miles during our 5 weeks here) whilst trying to find a radio station that doesn't drive us both mad (too many mountains causing too much interference) or a song on our jukebox MP3 that we haven't heard a million times (if I hear one more of Paul McCartney's gooey solo efforts I may drive off the cliff).
Our last night was spent once more with our fantastic hosts - Ian and Katie - it was St Patrick's Day and the whole of Orewa was out celebrating so we made a rather feeble attempt at going to the pub, but after a few jars we all were ready for tea and cake back at theirs (could there be any more cake references in this blog? I don't eat cake all the time, honest). Katie's mum Sue was at the house this time so it was great to catch up with her, and her partner Alan as they had both previously been away when we first visited, battling high winds on their boat. I managed to
View from hostel, Queenstown
Shabby round the edges but great views redeemed it. Right bottom is the insatiable Barney mid fetch. offload quite an impressive array of junk onto Katie, and she managed to do a very good job of looking quite chuffed with the bizarre assortment of oranges, tea bags, wooly jumper, tent (never used, Steve was too much of a wimp) and yak wool scarf.
Well, NZ has really been 'sweet as . . . ' (they never finish this sentence so can't shed any more light) and it will be strange to leave as we have felt so at home here.
A warm Kia Ora (that will be a friendly welcome kiwi style, not orange squash left out in the sun) to Cosmo Adam and Keira Manglani who have both made their entrance to our strange blue and green planet over the last few weeks.
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Helen Lord
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RODDER
Steve it's so good of you to read Rod's magazine while you are on the other side of the world. I didn't know he'd set one up