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Published: November 30th -0001
Well, it has been quite a long time since I wrote hasn’t it! Afraid I have been having far too much fun to sit down and write. Plus it’s been too wet, hostels in the north charge an obscene amount of money for the internet (how I miss the poor south) and I have now become an official Backpacker, with backpack and consequently now lose small items, such as laptops, in the bottom for days on end.
Suitcases are definitely a better way to travel, for one thing they have wheels and no one expects you to pick them up. Also you can clearly see what is in your suitcase and don’t have to assume the position of ’birthing the cow’ to find your jumper, it fits easily under your bed and when you fall on your back while using a suitcase you do not get stuck like a beetle.
That aside, I have now been initiated into the world of true backpacking including sleeping in a van, not showering and been educated on how (not) to cook a pizza. When I last wrote I was heading off in a van with two lovely Irish boys - it’s a
hard life I know! Well we had a whirl wind tour of the North Island including the Te Papa museum in Wellington which is well worth a visit if ever you happen to find yourself in Wellington. Sadly this was all that I saw of Wellington as the boys were about $50 off bankruptcy and were not keen to be spending their last few pennies on fancy coffee. Beer, however, was a different story so we pulled up near a beach somewhere north of Welly and drank to good health and not having to go to work.
The weather of the previous few weeks had lulled me into thinking that New Zealand was the land of the round yellow sun not the long white cloud, that all changed while camping in the van. For one thing it is cold in spring and their April showers occur in September, so after waking up cold and breakfast-less we proceeded to drive north into a dark grey sky. Much like being at home then. Except home has breakfast. And showers…
Our trip up north was a little unplanned, we followed the usual tourist approach of driving to lake Taupo - I don’t know
what the fascination with Taupo is, admittedly it is a big lake (biggest in Oceania don’t you know) but aside from that it’s just a crummy tourist town where they double the price of fish and chips. This latter fact put a hole in the brunch plans. ‘Fear not!’ declared Connor, ‘We can have pizza!’
Ah, pizza… yes, I like pizza. Hot bread with tomato sauce and cheese, maybe some toppings… My mouth began to water. Then Connor reaches into the big white polystyrene box (the ‘fridge’) to produce… a defrosted pizza. He then attempts to cook this, in gale force winds, in a frying pan on top of a camping stove. This IS NOT how you cook pizza. Also, week old defrosted value pizza IS NOT pizza. Thankfully, the winds of luck were blowing hard enough that, despite his fort of cardboard and bags, the stove would not stay lit. Half an hour after his moment of inspiration a cold, wet and disheartened Connor got back into the van (me and Macken had watched this pitiful attempt from inside) and we went to the chippy. Delicious!
We then went to Rotarua (smelly and expensive), hobbiton ($70 to go
see the last remaining house, didn’t do that) then on to some of Connors friends family (part Irish, part Kiwi - Kaddy? Padwi?) who kindly put us up for two nights. Ahhhhh - power showers. Ahhhhhhhh - French toast. Ahhhhhh - a bed. The Kiwis are great for this; they say ‘Come and stay’ and what they mean is ‘Come and stay’. Not ‘Come and have a awkward cup of tea why I try and think of a reason why I have to go out’. It was very kind of them to let us stay and I had a lovely time: Alison and family, if you’re reading this Thank you ever so much - I don’t know how much more van I could have taken!
After carefully studying the weather report like a gambler with the racing sheet, I headed for the Bay of Islands (pretty much as far north as you can get on public transport) and holed myself up in a pretty little town called Kerikeri for two days eating oranges off the tree and hiding inside from the torrential rain. Clearly my studying hadn’t paid off!
I then moved down the road to a little
seaside resort called Paihia to meet up with a girl I’d met in Queenstown. It’s a pretty place with a lovely bay, nice cafes and an abundance of coffee shops. All in all a nice place to while away a few days. But be warned potential travellers - it is high up on the ‘Kiwi Experience’ hit list. Not sure if I have explained the Kiwi Experience yet. If not, here goes:
The ‘Kiwi Experience’ is a bus tour company that is very well advertised to the British public (and increasingly to the rest of the E.U.), pretty much any search you do about travelling NZ their website comes in the top 10, very clever. It does look like a really great, cheap way to tour NZ; I very nearly booked it myself. So glad that I didn’t! It’s know affectionately as ‘the shagging wagon’, ‘the Syphilis express’ or ‘the Kwik and Easy’ amongst many others. Basically - travel has gotten so cheap now that instead of Spain or Greece all the 18year old piss heads can now afford to get out to NZ. And they brought their wet T-Shirt competitions and Dildo races with them. Their parents would
A little too graphic?
This was on the toilet in a hostel in Kerikeri, whilst I agree with the sentiment, did it really have to have That much detail???be so proud!
Avoiding the K.E. has become a mission of mine. For anyone who is looking for tips on how to do this the best ones are: Naked Bus is cheaper (much cheaper) as is intercity - though then you miss the ‘tour’ part. If you desperately want to do a tour, Stray is a bit more grown up but from what I have been told Magic Bus is the one to go for. Do not stay at any Base (do this not only to avoid the K.E. but also because they are dirty, loud and expensive) most Nomads are just as bad. Get a BBH card and stay at BBH hostels, lovely jubbly! So I did do some touristy things while I was up in the bay, went to see the hole in the rock. Prizes for the first five correct guesses at what that was. Saw lots and lots of dolphins - they were really showing off for the boat. Wouldn’t be surprised if one of the tour guides had been sent off with a canoe and a bucket of fish before we arrived. Beautiful creatures though, we had come across a large school
of them ranging from babies to old timers complete with battle scars. Our very enthusiastic guide got increasingly high pitched as she identified one after another by the markings on their fins, by the time we finished she had risen into a falsetto the artist formally known as Prince would be proud of. Apparently the guides get very attached to the wildlife… I may start vetting the people I allow to transport me…
Also had a fig and manuka honey ice cream. Great idea.
After enjoying the Bay of Islands and realising that the weather forecast for the next few weeks was ‘Storms’ (it is a country of few words) I came to the conclusion that, as much as I am my dads daughter in my love of food, I am most definitely my mums daughter in my love of warmth. So an email was quickly dispatched to Malcolm requesting that my flight to Perth be brought forwards and I packed my bags and headed off to Auckland. Would the 21st be ok asked Malcolm? The 21st would be perfect.
Ah Malcolm, when I first met Malcolm in the travel agents on a sunny Sat morning, I could
be forgiven for assuming that his enthusiasm was dampened by a hangover and having to watch the rest of the world enjoying their day off - it would be enough to make any of us seem a little less than excited when discussing other peoples travel plans. Now, either everyday is a hungover sunny Saturday for dear Malcolm, or round the world travel agent really wasn’t his calling in life. Needless to say - the 21st August came but my flight didn’t. Neither did the one on the 29th, by now I have probably managed to completely confuse/annoy Jane in Perth - who keeps receiving very excited ’I’m on my way emails’ followed by ’Well, not quite, but soon’ ones. Hopefully I am just upping the excitement for her…
But all was not lost - the extra time did mean that I got to meet some lovely Canadians, terrible influence the Canadians, and to catch up with an old Mosserite…
So the Canadians, they came armed with a 2liter bottle of Jack Daniels, the directions to a micro brewery (with great tasting racks, and Jennings! They do get around those Cockermouth brewers) and 2 boxes of wine. Cue the
Hole in the rock
Well, duh - what did you think it would be? worst storm Auckland has seen in the last 10 years and throw in some cheese, some Italians, some Argentinians and a pack of cards and it all adds up to a very entertaining and noisy night. Not that anyone could hear us above the 100km winds outside. Great fun!
My plan after Auckland was to pop across to see Nicola, a girl who had lived down the road from me back when we were young and who had been in my class in Primary and the first part of Secondary school before her family moved to NZ. I think it would be fair to say (and I’m sure Nic will agree) that our friendship had been a little tempestuous at times. Both being strong willed and outspoken in a small school doesn’t always mix well. Luckily, a lot of the things that seem to matter so much when you are little really don’t seem so important when you grow up. I’m very conscious as I write this part that Nic will be reading this and I seem to be getting some sort of writers shyness… Please Nic, if any of this is accidentally insulting please believe me that it
is accidental!
First thing, it is great after spending time in hostels (no matter how lovely or fun) to get to sleep in a room without the snoring of others. Or with people coming in at 2am, or leaving at 6am, or forgetting to turn their alarm off (all crimes that I have been guilty of as well). So I must thank their eldest daughter, Amber, for giving me her princess bed for the week, lilly pads and all. Originally I was only going to stay one night en route to the east coast but I had such a lovely time that when they offerd me the chance to stay for the week I just couldn’t refuse.
Nic’s life has gone in a very different direction to mine, she has two beautiful daughters and (I hope I’m not spilling the beans here) another kid on the way. Which is great - pregnant friends are fantastic, they equal lots of chocolate and an automatic designated driver. I think I may start persuading more of my friends to start reproducing! And then of course there is her husband Andy, who may be having some sort of pseudo pregnancy given the 20
odd bars of chocolate he suddenly produced one evening. Seemingly he was going to buy some Cadburys miniature heroes but the shop didn’t have any so he went for the full size heroes. I then introduced him to mars bar toasties, or moro bar toasties as they are over here. I’m now his hero, ah the power of fried bread and melted chocolate. If my life is beginning to echo ‘eat, pray, love’ then my time at Nics definitely ticked the eat box. Very naughty but great!
We did do some exercise - we walked around ‘the mount’ and along to the blow hole. Pushing a pram resembling a small 4WD I feel really does up walking into a workout. Which made up for the mussels… and the ice-cream… and the lemon tart… And just in case we weren’t feeling quite spoilt enough we also went to two sets of hot pools. One in Rotorua (which really isn’t bad once you get used to the smell) which is actual hot springs that someone has cleverly built a spa around - thus requiring you to give them money in exchange for sitting in a natural occurrence. Genius. And the other in
her home town of Tauranga which is actually a load of swimming pools filled with sea water heated by under ground streams (I think) which are open until 10pm and in the evenings apparently become quite the hangout for teenagers. I am so grateful that my puberty years involved minimal amount of in-bikini flirting.
A little part of me wants to write a description of Andy. But then another part of me knows that he is really wanting me to write a description of him and I know that it is really going to wind him up if I don’t… I may just let this picture of him speak a thousand words… but I will say that if the man is not a millionaire in the next 10 years I will be surprised. And I hope that they do come over to England sometime as I will strangely miss his sense of humour. And listening to him scream like a girl when a jumpy part of a movie comes up.
So I had a whole week of living like a grown up again (princess bed aside),by this I mean getting to go out for coffee and dinner and cooking
real food and riding in cars that were built in this century - not a jot of gaffa tape to be seen! We went to Nics parents for a lovely roast dinner (just in case I was feeling homesick) and Andy tried to introduce me to traditional Kiwi cooking. This would be a ‘boil-up’ which is basically boiling up a load of bacon bones with some sort of weed (not kidding) and then eating kind of like a soup but also eating the meat off the bone. It was… Interesting. Then there was whitebait fritters, which (I’m sorry to say Andy) were not exactly my favourite, they were nice enough but their appeal was lost on me after Amber started counting up their eyeballs. A little queasy… They also took me to get fish and chips at one of the top 10 fish and chip eateries in the world. It was bloody good, especially the scallops and prawns that were thrown in there for good measure. I think the Kiwis may be better at fish and chips than the British… well, at least the fish part - it’s all so fresh. They need to chunky up their chips a bit.
Though I have fallen in love with Kumar (sweet potato) chips. Oh and me Nic and Amber made a delicious baked chocolate mousse cake with Star Anise.
Oh, and one other thing I have to say is that it was lovely to be able to communicate with a 20month old child without it involving screaming (from either party), which is down to them having taught Summer sign language. Seemingly kids can start to articulate using hand movements from 6months old, which is amazing - they really must get so sick of us pulling faces and talking in baby voices at them, no wonder they scream so much! So, if I ever do have kids, I will be teaching them this - or persuading the friends (who I previously persuaded to get pregnant in the first place) to do it.
So, all in all, my flights getting messed up was a blessing in disguise - thanks to Nic, Andy, Amber and Summer for showing me such a great time!
Malcolm has now promised me, hand on heart, that I am flying on the 2nd October, so having a few days to kill, I have ventured up into The Coromandel to
break me into the sun, sea and surf way of life. Firstly I went to Whitianga, which is a nice seaside town on a lovely beach. On the Wednesday the sun shone and I set off to walk to the next town of Hahei; which looks close on the map - but what you don’t realise is that there is a rather large estuary that you have to walk around, so all in all (factoring a nice hour in the sea at cooks beach) it was 4½ hours later when I finally arrived, pretty hungry, in the town only to find that their eating options were quite disappointing. Which is unusual, because the Kiwi cafes usually seem to be very well stocked in all sorts of delectable treats. And the ice-cream shop was closed. Very sad. So, cutting my losses, I went on my way to Hot Water Beach. So named because there is an underground hot spring that, 2hours either side of low tide, you can dig a hole which promptly fills up with warm water - thus creating your own hot tub. Just in case anybody is going to do this, test the water before you get in
- because it can live up to the ‘Hot’ part, you have to find a bit where you also have a cold stream or else you end up doing what I did, which is burning your feet. I did the obvious thing and jumped out of the cup of tea I had seemingly stood in into the pit next to me - from which my exit was impaired by a large group of Japanese tourists taking photos of everyone else having fun (I think this might actually be what the Japanese find fun, sort of living vicariously through others) at which point the small boy digging said hole looked up at me and (rather rudely) informed me that it was his hole and I should ‘get out’. Now, while I do agree with him that it was his hole, and having a pink footed girl leap into it was a bit much, I was not likely to jump back into the pit of boiling water from which I had just emerged. I opted for the jumping into the Japanese photo (the child was armed with a spade), so somewhere in Japan people will be laughing at a photo of their
friends and relatives looking extremely alarmed as a white and pink British girl jumps, yelping, in amongst them. So that was the end of Hot Water Beach for me, sometimes you could really do with someone to laugh at yourself with.
Then it was on to coromandel town, apparently very pretty and full of historic charm - a fact I can neither confirm or deny as it rained so heavily that I only left the hostel once, which was to go to the mussle smokery down the road. OMG, why can't you get smoked mussles in England? They are amazing, a bit like smoked cheese but healthy! Though I did bite into one to find a tiny (dead) crab, not sure if the crab had been trying to eat the mussel or if it was the other way round but either way, it was a little disconcerting.
The weather did brighten up as I went to get the ferry over to Auckland. If you get the opportunity I would highly recommend doing this trip. It costs maybe $20 more than the cheapest bus (but does save about 3hours) but the views as you sail into the harbour were
Ketchp anyone?
A girl after my own heart!
jst fantastic. The sun was setting as I got onto the boat, which is small and fast (heehee!), though I recon if yo did this trip in Nov or Dec then you'd be sailing into the setting sun and still arrive in Auckland after dark.
After that it was find a cheapy hostel in the centre and bnk down for the night. I treat myself to an amazing breakfast the next day before heading off to the airport - 8 hours to fly to Perth??? These European centred maps really do make Australia look a lot smaller than it is...
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Yvonne and Steve
non-member comment
Great to hear from you.
Dear Sophie, We have just enjoyed reading your wonderful blog.It's good to hear that you are having such a brilliant time. You could write a fantastic travelogue, you have huge talent. We look forward to reading about your exploits in Australia. Wish we could share some of the Aussi sunshine! Lots of love, Yvonne and Steve. X X