New Zealand Part 7 New Plymouth - trapped!!

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Well with Xmas day over the reality was beginning to set in that we were stranded in New Plymouth, and with the weather being unpredictable we were both suffering with feeling sorry for ourselves. Luckily on some of the sunnier days we got straight out to see what New Plymouth had to hold, the answer is, in our eyes at least, not a lot!!

Boxing Day we decided to head to the local Puke Kuara Park (where they have the festival of lights we went to on Xmas eve) and go for a walk around the extensive grounds and see the little zoo we’d heard about - hey it was free so we figured why not. When we arrived we realised why it was free, because no one would pay to come and see only three or four displays. There were some monkeys, a Chinese Red Panda, some bird aviary you could walk through and then a small farm like area with a pig, some alpacas and chickens etc. Took about 30 mins to walk round at a slow pace, but hey after this we were unsure what else to do so we made it last as long as possible.

We had been offered some salvation for our Xmas troubles when the socialiser Annette who we’d met up with before called to invite us round for drinks at their house. Because we had made such an effort to decide to fill our day with park stuff, including seeing the local bands that night, we turned down the kind offer, also feeling a little British and thus not wanting to get in the way of their xmas plans (stupid British politeness). Turns out from reading my guide book that over here, if people invite you to something, go, they meant it and aren't just saying so to be polite, like we do (come on you know you do it).

Anyway with time to kill before dinner and the bands playing that night, we drove out around the coast to see what that had to offer. We stopped at a beach that was supposed to be the place the locals went to on xmas morning. Not the main beach we had gone to on Christmas morning. I’m not sure why the locals came to this beach? Maybe because the sun had started to go in or that it was black sand, but it just seemed a bit dirty and boring to me. We went for a quick walk anyway before heading back to the car park where it seemed the most interesting part of the day was happening - 2 different incidences involving the police and parked cars (I think one was just a guy who had locked himself out his car but hey that’s news round here).

On our way back to town we passed the huge Sugar Loaf Mountains (and islands) that jet out from the sea, which would be quite stunning if it wasn’t for the chimney stack right next to them!!. Nath decided that he was gonna climb up one of them (it did have a path a very steep broken one, but a path none the less). I was again in flip flops so was not gonna drag myself up the hill only to break an ankle or something. So I sat in the van and fell asleep awaiting either Nath back safe and sound or the screams of pain as he fell down the side- luckily it was the former. By this point we were heading home for some dinner before the live music, but by this point we were both beginning to feel a bit down on our luck and un enthused with what New Plymouth had to offer (knew we should have gone to Annette’s), so yet another night sat in front of the TV doing nothing it was, hey at least it was like Christmas back home again!!

I can now appreciate what is like to be retired, trying to drag out the little jobs just so you have something else to do the next day. Its amazing the things we managed to get done very slowly over the coming week (unfortunately as you can tell finishing the blog was not one of them!!). So with a few more days of doing nothing, literally, we decided to drive over to the Waitomo caves, which we had meant to visit previously. Yet again it was pouring with rain and we wondered whether they would actually be running, but luckily when we arrived it was all go. I hadn’t really thought about what exactly we were about to be doing, I think if I had given it too much thought I probably wouldn’t have done it. Now you probably wondering why id be a little nervous about a seeing some caves. Well unlike the show caves in the UK which you walk around with the biggest danger being a bumped head on a low ceiling these caves we were going to “black water raft” through!! (So wet suits on with a giant rubber ring, rafting through dark underground caves). Getting the wet suit on itself was fun; I felt like sausage stuffing and looked surprisingly similar too. Managed to find some shoes big enough for Nath and then took our positions in the fake background to have a group shot taken, so nothing new there. We were driven down to the start of the caves in a very wet and smelly van (that old cheesy smell you get from the reused foam floats at the swimming pool), and taken to a small river with a jetty on it for our “practice” jump in the rubber ring. We were told to collect a ring that we could fit our bums in, so Nath, with his tiny bottom, ended up with one the same size as me (don’t know if that’s bad for him or me???). We were then shown the way to jump backwards off the jetty holding the rubber rings to our bums as this is what we would need to do on the waterfalls inside the caves. On jumping off the jetty Nath plunged deep into the water and went completely under before eventually surfacing, apparently he should have chosen a rather larger ring!!!

With the test “dive” over we headed towards the opening of the cave, which you would never have known was there, climbed in and just hoped it wasn’t the last time we’d see daylight!! Inside the cave we had some photos taken (which you can see on the blog were a bit shoddy but they wouldn’t let anyone else take a camera in) before getting into the first watery cave and heading into the dark. We all had mining hats on (no one got the joke about pot noodle as they were all foreign!!) with a light on so we could see our way as we surfed though the cave network. I was a little preoccupied with thoughts of cave ins and what I’d do in an emergency situation. Nath however didn’t seem to be that bothered and when asked for a volunteer to lead put his hand up and walked off into the dark! Soon we were all laughing along and I forgot all about my negative thoughts and got on with enjoying it. The water was freezing but luckily the wet suits kept you kind of insulated, but our hands and feet were going numb. The staff had said not to bother them with complaints of cold extremities as there was nothing they could do about it and hey everyone gets cold. Without the ability to move your fingers you can also see why they don’t let cameras in now, you’d never be able to operate them!!

After a couple of caves we got to a water fall, the small practice one they called it, where you jumped off the top backwards into the dark behind you with only your rubber ring to hold onto. Unfortunately with Nath leading the way he was first to go!! Now I should have mentioned, we had to fill in a waiver when we got to the centre and I had to declare my neck issues just in case. With this knowledge they wouldn’t let me jump into the water so I had to gracefully (definitely not gracefully) lower myself down the rocky wall into the water. At the time of starting the trip I was kind of glad as I was a little worried about jumping in but after seeing everyone else do it, I wished I hadn’t said anything!!. Everyone else got the count of three before they were literally pushed into the water, no second chances, no turning back, one, two, three, push…..

With the waterfall over with we all had to grab each others ankles in a line and float together down some rapid areas. The guides had said to squeeze the toes of the person behind you just to make sure they were still alive, but with numb toes I doubt you would get any reaction anyway! We then stopped in a long thin, very low cave tunnel and turned our head lamps off so we could see the glow worms. Turns out they are actually maggots and the glow they give off is actually their poo glowing!! The glowing poo and a long sticky string they extend from the cave ceiling is how they attract and catch their flying prey - nice, we came down here in the freezing cold and dark to see glowing maggot poo! Following this nugget of information we then enjoyed a small marshmallow chocolate covered fish (was this to be our last meal!!!) which the tour guide would cook anyway you wanted….I asked for deep fried, so she dunked it in the running water, Nath had his battered so she smashed it on the miners hat of one of the other group members (you get the idea). This snack was sooo needed too; we had so much adrenaline going round our bodies the sugar was well received. Into our line formation again and descended into another cave network, this time with very high ceilings. You could see abseiling ropes coming into the cavern (which was the other trip option) and far above your head a lit walkway where the old people could just walk into the cave network to see the glow worms (I so nearly opted for that one!).

By the end of the trip we were all knackered and I had lost sight of Nath, he was now at the back without a guide so the darkness was creeping in around him all on his own …wooooooooooooo. For most of the trip I ended up floating around waving my arms around in front of me for protection as you could only see dark with a few darker bits in front of you which turned out to be rocks!! Of which a couple of times I hit my body and arms against them. Swimming along with your hands and sat inside your little rubber tube you did feel a bit like you had some kind of hemaroid toilet seat stuck round you, or when you were a kid and too small for the grown up loo and ended up slipping in (ok just me then….). Soon it was all over and there it was the beautiful sunlight, which to be honest we had all forgotten completely about as we were having so much fun.

Walking back to the van our entire group was very quiet, I felt bad for the guide who was trying to get everyone cheering and high fiving, but with it just being me, rather than looking like I was helping, I looked like a mental home escapee…...Oh well nothing new there then I hear you say. After fighting to get out of our wet suits and a quick shower we headed back to the centre where we were given some hot soup and a bread roll to warm us up - needed. I’m so glad we did the full on adventure; the only depressing thing now was the drive home back to our little tin prison as it was now becoming.

With the realisation that our campervan was not gonna be fixed in the few days people were back at work between xmas and new year we were absolutely gutted that or new year plans were now gonna be scrapped as well. As xmas day had turned out to be a cool one, we almost didn’t mind too much but now we were not only gonna miss out on seeing Ben and Heather again to go to a concert on the beach (which we already had tickets for) but also our plan to drive to the East Cape and watch the sun rise on the first day of the new year (sounds silly but we really wanted to do it). In desperation we spent the afternoon online desperately trying to organise a rental car or rental campervan, but they were all booked out. This is a busy time of year for tourists and locals alike so we had no choice but to give up and stay at Hearing Dogs again. We both sat in the little lounge gutted and numb at our predicament - I’d been so hopeful the van would be fixed in a few days and we’d have been off so the boredom of sitting around since Xmas day wasn’t that bad. If we’d have known it wouldn’t have been fixed in time we would have hired a car and gone up to Tauranga anyway - never mind the beauty of retrospect eh!!

On New Years Eve, after shopping for alcohol we headed back to the Wave bar Annette had shown us previously and settled down on the old people sofas to eat our carrot cake and latte in front of the ocean - pretty sweet ay. With this over and the New Year fast approaching, we got back to the tin prison to prepare for our night in. We had decided to try our very best and make the best of a bad situation, so what was our master plan?......booze!!! We got a load of it in ready, sent out an email in desperation for ideas of how we could spend our time and watched the New Year on TV. Now I know there aren’t many people living here and there is the unfortunate issue of having the new year here first but we were expecting a little bit more than a rundown of the people who had died over the last decade and a last minute count down and then the program turning off and the grey fuzz replacing it….was that it!!!!??? No images from across the world, no old Lang’s eyne, no fireworks…..nothing. I guess in fairness we were too pissed to really notice (see New Year blog for antics)


Next day, having been given the recommendation that we must attend the New Year’s Day beach carnival in New Plymouth (it’s a must apparently) we figured why not and headed off as we had nothing else planned. With our beach gear on, we were a little excited as we drove out to the coast hoping the grey clouds that were in the distance weren’t gonna be where we were headed. We got parked up and the lovely sunny day we had left at Hearing Dogs was long gone and now we were walking to the beach in cold cloudy weather wishing we were wearing a lot more. Oh well a carnival in grey weather should still be fun, we were looking forward to all the stalls, and music and colour etc. ….. No chance in hell, as with everything in New Plymouth we should have learnt that most recommendations of the great local treats should be taken with a pinch of salt - a really big pinch! We paid $10 each to enter a street next to the beach only to find a total of: 4 stalls, two selling food, one doing massages and one more signing people up for something; a small area full of rides for kids and then the pis de resistance the beach stage with a hypnotist working his magic whilst the crowd sat huddled in blankets. Over all this was a tanoy advertising when the next section of the Miss Taranaki competition was gonna be, which would have been fine if either of us were paedophiles!!! Why oh why were we surprised……………………

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Photos

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After the rafting

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Poor possum

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Me stuck in a fake cave

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Yummy Red Panda

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One of the oldest (parts of) buildings in New Zealand

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Sugar Loaf Mountain