Part Three - The Fellowship is Complete

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Kia Ora again from New Zealand. Much has changed since the last post, and with all six of us finally reaching New Zealand time to yourself to jot down some thoughts has been hard to find, especially when you are spending over 80% of your time within five feet of each other. I have therefore decided to split this leg of the trip over two blogs and make them more manageable as I am aware my incessant stories may be getting a little boring and some of you have short attention spans!
We would prove to find a new enemy on this leg of the trip, and aside from bodily gases in confined spaces, it was time that kept hindering our plans and cutting short our R&R. With so much of the country to see and only just over two weeks to do so, we were continuously against the clock. However, back to the tale.

We left with our last member of the clan winging her way out to New Zealand. Mum had set off on the Sunday night from Heathrow and was due to be with us on Tuesday afternoon.
Tuesday morning started for us with a drive back from Hot Water Beach to drop the camper van off. The drive was in itself lovely, but made near unbearable by Ruth's excitement at seeing Mum. A heathy dose of chloroform would have been nice to keep her quiet. She was so excited to see Mum that she insisted we arrive at the airport over an hour early. Whilst stood there waiting, getting more and more agitated at Ruth's excitement, the Big Four decided to opt out, leaving Ruth to annoy all the other bystanders at arrivals, and we followed our stomachs for some lunch.
But before we could disgust our sushi properly, we were all here! Mum arrived in a whirlwind of tears and hugs, almost mowing down a small Asian boy with her luggage trolley in her attempts to get to Ruth.
Now I guess that like all other members of the crew, it's only fair that Mum gets here own introduction, so here goes. The absolute and undisputed 'Queen of the Selfie', any opportunity to take a cheeky snap will be jumped at and indulged upon. Her military precision and organisation has become 'trademark Alison', and I'm sure a key factor in the four of us children managing to survive to the tender ages of adult hood we have now reached. Her structure and organisation is evident in the holiness of the family calendar. This gospel for the Potton's has many a time been my downfall, with Mum's motto being 'if it isn't written on the calendar, then it simply does not exist' slaying many a well laid but not documented plan. Ironically, this trait of having to visualise and write down all plans and thoughts is the habit I have picked up of her the most, with anyone who has had the misfortune of spending any period of time with me will know, I go mad for a list! Anyhow, Mum had finally arrived to complete the team sheet, and we were ready for the next set of adventures.

We headed from the airport to our new apartment in Auckland, where we were to be spending the next four nights. It was situated in the heart of Auckland's main street, Queens Street. This is the busiest street in Auckland, leading down to the harbour and within throwing distance of Sky City and Aucklands famous Sky Tower. It was heaven when compared with the camper van that we'd been living in for 3 weeks. We gave Mum a little time to settle in, so Jp and I went out to explore the city.
Whilst half of all New Zealanders live in Auckland, and we were slap bang in the middle of the busiest street in Auckland, we were both extremely shocked by how few people there were in the city. I had seen Marlow busier on a Sunday night! Even at peak rush hour, when everyone should have been leaving work, there were still a drastically few number of people. We put it down to the Christmas holidays though, and after checking out a few cool side streets with a number of cool bars and cafes, we headed back to the apartment for our first family meal. Mum was struggling severely after dinner with jet lag and weariness, so at about 9 we left her to her bed and the four children headed out for a few drinks and to see what Auckland had to offer by night. Granted it was a Tuesday night, so nothing major was going on, but we stumbled across a backpacker bar that was offering a few good drinks deals and a raffle for loads of adventure activities and trips around New Zealand. To nobodies surprise, we won absolutely nothing in the raffle, which included a bungee jump and white water rafting. So we drank up and headed back by about midnight.

Wednesday morning shocked everyone to realise that it was Christmas Eve, and it was the first major disappoint of the holiday for David as he realised that his advent chocolates had run out. With all the warm weather and excitement about the trip, Christmas had snuck up on us all and we were all felling rather un-Christmassy. As Mum was still a bit tired, and we were enjoying a few comforts such as personal space after the time in the camper, Wednesday was a slow day. A swim, Jp had a beard trim and the inevitable beard discussion were all to report. On this subject, Jp's already blossoming facial hair has stepped it up a notch, with his rigorous grooming and oiling techniques receiving multiple praise from fellow beard enthusiasts. The less said about Davids beard at this point, the better.
In the afternoon we headed for a drive out of Auckland around the coast which was great as we got to glimpse Eden Park, home of the All Blacks. David and I have already spoken of going and watching a few games there.

That evening Jp and I found a cool venue for Christmas Eve dinner. It was the equivalent of a food court, but instead of the usual McDonalds, Burger King and KFC around the outside, it was quaint and rustic restaurants of different countries, and the seating was done in this old fashioned, low ceiling, timber and tasteful decour. It was a really novel idea, giving everyone to chance to try a little something from each place. For example, I had Japanese gyoza for starter followed by Argentina steak for main. The cocktails flowed and by the time we headed home after dessert, textbook Ruth was shrieking 'Merry Christmas' at at passers in the street.. She couldn't keep her eyes open as David Jp and I sat down to watch Love Actually before Santa arrived. Classic Christmas Eve viewing.

We all awoke on Thursday morning to our first Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere (except Ruth). The normal Potton traditions were turned upside down, with late rises from nearly all members of the family and time for a quick bite to eat before we were whisked off to Pat's for Christmas Day.
Proper Christmas brunch was eaten at Pat's, where we joined by an unexpected but delightful guest. One of Andy's friends from uni was joining us, his name was Mathew and he was an international student from China. It was also his first Christmas!! Mathews delight and joy at every little Christmas tradition was evident; his first present, his first Christmas cracker and then telling the awful jokes. It was all unchartered territory for him and his excitement was infectious! I imagined it to be like a child enjoying their first Christmas.
The Southern Hemisphere tradition of a trip to the beach included J.p making a fool of himself playing beach cricket against some Indians, and a quick swim, then back for real dinner and the inevitable food coma.

Boxing Day was our last day in the city, and it started with a trip to the iMax theatre to see the new Hobbit film. The afternoon was spent relaxing the apartment before the children headed down to the marina that evening for a few drinks with Ruth's friends from school.

Saturday had come round far sooner than any of us had anticipated, as it meant leaving the comfort of the apartment and returning to the camper van for the final part of our road trip. But before we could hit the open road, we had one quick stop in North Auckland and a day spent relaxing on the beach. Ruth caught up with yet more of her old school teachers, as Ms Calendar and Ms Hughes were gracing New Zealand with there presence over the Christmas holidays. A fantastic dinner and evening relaxing was the perfect preparation for our last set of adventures.

Sunday morning was the drive to Turangi, at the southern end of Lake Taupo. A pit stop for breakfast at a famous Maori and European battle ground including some mass graves was a particularly cheery and insightful start to the morning. The mood was improved by the space age toilet that played soothing music to you whilst you occupied it. It was late in the day by the time we arrived at the Tuarangi campsite, and we were joined by our neighbours from home, Gill and Charlie for some dinner.
There was time to head to the lake for a swim before the pub though, so we made our way towards Lake Taupo's shores for a quick dip. Lake Taupo is new Zealand's largest lake stretching 64km at its longest point, but it was by no means New Zealand's deepest. We were able to wade out a good few hundred yards into the lake and were still able to touch the floor, which is all the more impressive by the fact none of the Potton's are particularly graced with height!

Monday was the day of the big white water rafting trip, and after a slow morning sat by the lake we headed into town to the rafting centre. After the standard safety talks with a bit of a Maori twist, we were on the water, and again had the joy of another rogue individual amongst the crew of our boat. Jonas was another international student from China, who had the privilege of filling the last space of the crew for HMS Potton. As you can imagine, the rafting was incredible, the scenery was stunning and banter plentiful. Even Jonas who had a low level of English was able to chip in. Sat at the bow of the boat, I was named as stroke man, meaning that I was to dictate the speed and power of the paddling, with everyone mirroring me. This was an obvious joy, as it gave me carte blanche to dish out heavy criticism to all crew mates at any opportunity, also making myself impervious to any returning criticism in the process. That annoyed J.p and David sufficiently to mutiny at the half way point, forcing me to less prestigious position mid vessel. Whilst performance and handling did significantly fall, I was quite glad to be away from the bow of the boat, or as our guide knew it, the crumple zone. On more than one occasion the boat would hurtle head first into a solid rock wall, with the knees and ankles of the unlucky front pairing providing the bumper and slowing us down.
Quite luckily we all returned back to the rafting centre in one piece, where they put on some food and beers for us before we headed for dinner.

Barely having recovered from Monday strenuous exploits, the activities kept coming, and Tuesday was the day of our big trek. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a 20km trek through some of New Zealand's most beautiful but demanding landscapes. All guides advise you to set aside 6 or so hours for the trek, with an additional 3 hours if you choose to attempt the summit of Mount Ngauruhoe, and not underestimate it! Whilst the trek itself is beautiful, and considered a must for those coming to New Zealand, Mount Ngauruhoe is better known as Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings films. The thought then of climbing up the famous peak was enough to bolster spirits as we set off at 8.30am, in much colder conditions than anticipated, and a tick blanket of cloud hanging over the mountains.
The four children set off, and the first 6 km passed as we listened to David's jabbering whilst assigning us all characters from Lord of the Rings, and mocking him mercilessly when we found out he had bought a small silver ring to cast into the volcano, very Frodo-esque. By the time we reached the turn off for the summit ascent, morale was still high and the clouds still hung so low on the mountain that visibility was reduced to only 20 meters. This meant that we could not see the top of the mountain and the challenges it would present. In hindsight, Ruth told me if she had seen the mountain at this point, she would not have attempted it. Mount Ngauruhoe is a very traditional volcano coned shaped mountain, compromising of rock, gravel and sand, all cooled volcanic discharge. Saying this change in terrain and gradient slowed progress would be an understatement, and mentioning no names, one of our crew was reduced to actually crawling up the mountain on her hands and knees. We stayed together but slowed to mere metres per minute. Visibility was reduced down to less than 5 metres, and the continuous shifting of rock under foot and increase in height at which were we to fall becoming greater, the climb was turning out not to be the walk in the park we had expected. David quite quickly renamed Ruth 'Gollum', as her already unphamomable muttering and snake-like demeanour was accompanied by her hunched figure scurrying up the mountain. Jp has got some brilliant photos and videos of the ascent, which I will ask him to post on here for everyone to see.

After the final ascent through snow and ice, we were finally at the summit, and were looking down into the crater of the active volcano. Unfortunately, visibility was so bad still, that we could have been sat in a cloud anywhere on earth, and did not get to see the amazing panoramic views we had been promised. After a quick rest bite and snack, we started the descent. This proved to be a much quicker journey, with J.p and David adopting a maverick style of running down the side of the mountain, taking great leaps and covering some serious distances quite fast. Ruth and I developed our own technique of surfing down the mountain, which wasn't as quick but got Ruth down in piece with only a shoe full of stones to complain about. The summit ascent had taken much longer than expected, so we were against the clock for the remaining 13km of the journey, which was took a more purposeful pace.
At about 7pm though, we found our way down the other side of the mountain and Dad was waiting to pick us up in the car park. A few celebratory selfies (dad included) finished this grand day, and we headed back for rest and chilli con carne!

So, Wednesday. New Year's Eve. We moved on from Turangi fairly early and had a four hour drive south to Wellington for the night. Upon our arrival in Wellington though, the heavens opened and it bucketed it down. Serious, serious rain. We parked up in the motor home park on the harbour front, and undeterred by the weather, I donned my green jacket and lead the way to the Te Papa museum, New Zealand's equivalent of the Natural History Museum. It was really interesting in there, lots of displays about the geography and geology of New Zealand, the volcano and fault lines it lies on, and the wildlife, countryside and culture on display. By the time we were kicked out at 6pm, the weather had worsened, and five out of six of us were wet through and needing to change . It goes without saying that my new coat was in its elements, handling everything that was thrown and it, and making me extremely smug. I choose this moment to remind everyone of the ridicule and jokes of the previous weeks, and that I was the one laughing now. These comments were not well received.
After the crisis meeting we decided a few beers in a local pub whilst two people ran for dry clothes from the camper van was the action plan. We got changed in the pub toilets in time for dinner at the Crab Shack, which turned out to be a really nice evening meal, whereby the time we'd finished the rain had subsided enough for us to venture out and watch the fireworks. Wellington is the first capital city to bring in the New Year, and it did it classic Kiwi style. New Zealand national orchestra serenaded the brave onlookers who weathered the storms to enjoy the entertainment, and a modest fireworks display capped off a great evening and, all in all, pretty good year. In classic David style, he provided a highlight of the year in its dying moments, as he shamelessly scoured the crowds for attractive ladies looking for his New Years kiss, making 'laddish' remarks to Jp and I under his breath.

And this is where the story will cease again. We shall pick up with our adventures on the South Island in the next blog. I hope everyone is well wherever they are in the world, and that English winter isn't being too unforgiving.
Til next time x

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