Wellington, Napier & The East Coast Adventure!

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Hello

As promised here is the latest blog for my time in Wellington, Napier & my East Coast Adventure......

After I got off the ferry in Wellington I got the free Interislander bus to the train station and then went across the road to the Downtown Backpackers. I was a bit dissapointed when I first got there. It was very big, a bit dirty, the duvets smelt and there was a very strange girl hanging around in the dorm. I didn't get there until mid afternoon and I still felt ill from the boat so I just wandered about and got my bearings. I looked at the parliment buildings and went to the supermarket for the weekly big shop.
The next day when I woke up I felt really ill. Luckily I had met a nice girl from the Netherlands the night before in the dorm called Harma & she was lovley and brought me a nice cup of tea up to bed. I'm not really sure what was wrong but it turned out that a couple of other people in the hostel were sick that day too. I got out of bed and went off to the Te Papa museum for the day, I didn't want to lie there in bed with the smelly duvet feeling sorry for myself! It was a brilliant museum as far as museums go and it was actually really interesting. There was too much information to take in on one day so I will probably go back on my way back down to the South Island as I have to have another overnight stay in Welly. The museum is free to get in and there is a good cafe in there that is really good and not expensive.
The next day I set off to Napier on the Magic Bus with Harma as we were planning to do some walking together. People call Wellington "Windy Welly" and I found out why that morning, as I stepped out of the hostel the wind hit me and it was so strong it was like my coat was sellotaped to me and it was quite hard to walk without looking like an complete idiot. Everyone looked like they were in slow motion or they had just landed on the moon! There are lots of day walks to do over here but there are also a lot of 3-10 day walks they call "tramping" You stay in huts on the way round and I really wanted to do some of these. It took us all day on the bus to get to Napier. Napier is the art deco capital of NZ. In 1931 there was a huge earthquake which demolished the town and killed a lot of locals. After this the town was completley rebuilt in the style of the time "art deco" It is nice to have a walk around as it is so different and the hostel we stayed in was really good too. It was called Archies Bunker and a very nice man called Doug and his wife Julie run it.
We told Doug about our plans to do the Great Walk round Lake Waikaremoana & we were originally going to try and hitch hike to the start of it but he advised us not to as it's so quiet we would never get there. He also said he had four daughters and that he couldn't let us even try. He said that the best way to get up there was to hire a car. There was only one shuttle that picked you up from a town that was two hours away anyway and it was 80$ each way! He ended up getting us a Nissan Pulsar for 40$ per day between us. In light of this we decided to change our plans as there didn't seem to be much point in us paying to hire a car to have it sat in a car park for three days while we did the walk. We decided to do some shorter day walks around the Te Urewer National Park and then drive around the East Coast of the North Island & sleep in the car to save money. We did some good walks in the park including Papakoaro Falls, Lous Lookout, Onepoto Caves and Lake Waikareiti. The first night sleeping in the car was truly awful. There was gale force winds all night and I was so scared I coudn't sleep and then in the middle of the night Harma accidently honked the horn with her foot and frightened us both to death! I was led across the backseat and my legs were all cruched up and killing me & the car was rocking all over the place in the wind. The next day after more walking we set off on the East Coast. We have driven all around the coast in a loop starting from and getting back to Gisborne. We stopped off at the Mahia Pennisular as there has been a dolphin in the area swimming with people and coming right in towards the beach but he wasn't around when we were. We slept the second night at Tolaga Bay. We both slept better that night, probably because we were both knackered and we both slept in the front seats and put them right back which was much better, unless you were on the drivers side! There was a big sign up saying "No Camping" but by the time the police drove round in the morning we were already up having breakfast & watching the sunrise on the beach. We have not done too badly for meals on the trip. Harma has a little camping stove with her so we have been using that to make porridge for breakfast & cous cous in cup a soup for tea. It's repetitive but at least it's something hot to eat, which is good. We also made a few cups of tea on it. The problem was it was only really small and it's very windy on the coast so we had to sit in public toilets making our food so the flame didn't keep blowing out. If you don't pay to stay in campsites then there is just nowhere else to do it - not really my finest moments of the trip I've got to say. We did however have some standards and drew the line at doing it in the long drop pit toilets!
The next day we drove around a few bays, the sun was out and we took a few photos (actually Harma took about 500) had a walk on the beach and I finished my Paulo Coehlo book - Eleven Minuites. I've just started reading his books since I set off travelling and he is now one of my favourite authors. We went down to a nice quiet bay for our lunch and there were cows wandering all over the beach! I think New Zealand is probably the only place where you have to share the beach with farm animals. It's just a perfect mix of beaches & countryside. That night we parked up at East Cape lighthouse to watch the sunrise in the morning. It is the most eastern point of NZ & the first place to see the sunrise every day. The sunrise was lovley although we did have to get up at 6am and tramp up 600 steps in the dark to see it. There was a french couple doing the same thing as us and they shared their chocolate biscuits with us at the top and offered me a jumper. They must have got fed up with me complaining I was freezing and hungry!
There are a lot of Maori communities on the way round the coast & just really small communities with nothing in except a wooden general store which sells a little bit of everything like rope and pegs, everything except the things that you actually need and it is all covered in a good layer of dust! I bought some sweets to eat in the car but I ended up throwing them away. I think they must have gone off or something as they stunk and tasted horrible - kind of like sweaty hands - YAK! We we both dissapointed to find the locals were very unfriendly and unhelpful towards us. I was expecting them to welcome me with open arms and do the haka for me but they just seemed to be really uncomfortable with us being around. One of the shops I went in had a big sign saying "no more credit for Billy John Ray" They must have wanted to shame him into paying his bill or something! There was also a lot of graffiti covered derelict buildings around and some really nice carved "marae" which are the community meeting houses. Animals were just wandering around in the road. We had to stop for pigs, cows, horses, dogs, goats, an eagle sat eating a dead rabbit, stoats and we nearly ran a few possums over. I don't know if we did actually run something over at some point as the car engine had a whiff of "death" when we turned it on. Personally I think it could have been Harmas socks though! ha ha. It was a strange place to be in, most certainly a road less travelled and just a little bit too lonley at some points.
On the last night we drove quite a way back as we wanted to get back to some kind of civilasation to buy some tea. We slept near the beach on the Mahia Penninsular. The next morning we attempted to go for a walk on the beach but after we both got a face full of sand Harma looked at me and said "what the hell are we doing Rachel" and we just went back to the car and drove all the way back to the hostel without stopping.
The trip on the whole was a really good experience. It gave me a good taste of travelling with your own transport rather than going on the bus and staying in hostels. As with everything there were advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that you go where you want, when you want and stop and see everything you want. The disadvantages are that it can be tiring, boring, frustrating, cold and lonley. Spending five days living in a car with anyone is a massive invasion of personal space and a good amount of patience and comprimise is needed if your going to survive without dispising each other at the end of the trip! I think that if you set off with the wrong person then the consequences are potentially disastourous. Any issues that have been lurking under the surface will without a doubt rise to the surface and have to be dealt with and you can say goodbye to any dignity or vanity you might have as soon as you pull out of the carpark.
I found the main difference is that your priorities change. Your planning needs to be second to none, if you run out of supplies, water or petrol in the middle of nowhere then you coud be in trouble. There could be no one for miles around and you probably wont have mobile signal either. You go to the toilet when there is one and not when you want to go, otherwise it's a trip into the trees. Showers are when you find them, which was not at all on our trip and your main priority is finding shelter to make food and somewhere to camp that is quiet but not too lonley and not illegal if you can help it, otherwise you need to set your alarm early doors and get out of there! It was a brilliant experience and a great way to explore the coast and it was an adventure!
I'm up in Auckland at the minuite with some relatives and I am seriously making up for the roughing it. I'm staying in a room with a lovley comfy bed with an electric blanket and I'm just sat in the living room on the laptop watching sky TV! Katie and Sandy who I am staying with are absolutely lovley and I am so glad that I came to meet them.
The big news is that I have cancelled all my flights other than my flight home. I have decided to stay in New Zealand now until I fly home on Monday 27th July. I just love it too much to go anywhere else now. I've found my place and I am happy! I am planning to sort out some farm stays where you get free accomodation and meals in return for working on farms and I'm planning much more walking. I've also been back in touch with Harma and we are planning on meeting back up in Taupo in a week or so for more adventures!
More updates to come! I hope you are all good, I miss everyone at home and think about everyone lots. I will be seeing you all in just nine weeks!
Lots of love
Half way round the world Rach - ha ha
xxxxxx

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Photos

Photo 1
The Parliment Building and the Beehive in Wellington

Photo 2
The beach at Napier

Photo 3
Packing for the East Coast trip

Photo 4
Our home for the next five days!

Photo 5
Waterfalls in the national park

Photo 6
Just after I saw this sign I fell!

Photo 7
Making a cup of tea before bedtime

Photo 8
Harma getting ready to go to sleep

Photo 9
Breakfast time

Photo 10
A lovley cup of lukewarm tea

Photo 11
Nice views!

Photo 12
Organised chaos - Harma knew where everything was

Photo 14
Me on the road to nowhere

Photo 17
yum - cous cous in pumpkin cupa soup

Photo 20
sunrise at Tolaga Bay

Comments

[Mum]

Nice one.
Glad you are well and happy. Some nice photo's and information is good. I think we get the feeling of roughing it - living out of the car. Can you get some Maori photos to show us? Lovely views and it does look quite remote. Good luck for your next adventure. Mum.