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Published: February 7th 2009
With a massive half an hour to kill before we could board our luxury liner across the Cook Straight to the north island of New Zealand, we decided to relax with yet another lunch consisting of Nutella sandwiches for myself, and devil sandwiches for the wife (cheese). We seated ourselves on the sun deck located on floor ten of the ferry. That's right, floor TEN! We ain't in Thailand anymore!!! The toilets were normal and there was an actual cafe, not just a guy selling make your own instant noodles! Unfortunately, the noodles turned out to be a better option as we'd have needed a mortgage to get a proper meal on the ship! We weaved through the Islands as we left Picton and before we knew it were out on the Cook Strait, headed for wellington. The wind got a little much for Lizzie's arctic circulatory system so she joined me in the recliner lounge, where I had already headed to escape the sweat inducing Ultra UV New Zealand sun! Like many other journeys we had made around the world, we again nodded off into unconsciousness! We awoke as we were docking at the ferry terminal of Wellington, the capital.
Welcome to the north Island of New Zealand! We caught a couple of buses to our hostel, the palatial Nomads! Unfortunately the lady on the desk informed us kindly that our room stank and they weren't sure what it was, but do we still want the room! We took it in our stride and headed to the sweat box room complete with pile of filthy clothes and their smelly owner! We could handle two nights with that! Our only full day in Wellington consisted of a trip to the national Te Papa museum, so we could learn about Maori culture and the history of New Zealand! Instead we ended up looking at a 4 metre long giant squid and playing with some volcano interactive screens! We looked around the city for a while but for the rest of the time we didn't do much else except watch Chris Rock get blown up in the Longest Yard. Our highlight of Wellington was probably the free (hobbit sized) curry and nachos, which constituted our free meals!!!
Our next stop was Napier, where we had to stop overnight and then carry on to Lake Taupo the following day. On the way
we had a thirty minute stop for a spot of beer tasting at the Tui brewery, where we got three pints for a whopping two dollars (roughly 70p!)! We only had thirty minutes to drink them so not a lot of finely tuned tasting actually went on, but it was a refreshing stop none the less! Twenty minutes later we stopped for a toilet stop to let all the beer tasters drain their bladders. From the stampede that flew down the aisle of the bus, the bladders were close to bursting their banks. BEST TOILETS EVER!!! As you lock the door, a polite American lets you know "You have ten minutes" before unleashing some Burt Bacharach to relax you as you fill the bowl.
Napier itself was devastated by a humungous earthquake a while ago and they rebuilt the town in an Art Deco Stylee. If you're into your architecture it might have been interesting, but we're not so it wasn't! We walked along Death Beach instead, where if you try and swim you'll probably drown. We stayed dry and headed back to the hostel for a fantastic sweet chilli broccoli stir fry concocted by Morgon Ramsay before watching
Napier
Art Deco townHarrison Ford defy the wrinkles and arthritis in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Maze! We're broadening our movie experience on this trip as you can tell! This was about as good as it got before we hit the road again in the morning, this time to start Ian "Soon to be officially late twenties" Morgan's birthday celebrations!
The north Island so far had pretty much consisted of just town after town, with nothing much to see, so it was good to get to a place with something to look at! This time we were at Lake Taupo, which is a volcano crater that has actually filled with water and is about 200metres deep. In the distance was the Tongariro mountain range, a cluster of active volcanoes including Mt Ngauruhue that was used as Mt Doom in New Zealand's best export since the Haka, Lord of the Rings. "The best one day walk in New Zealand" (according to the guide book that we'd paid a fortune for and hardly looked at) was a 20km alpine crossing across the Tongariro range. We fancied a crack at this and after the initial shock of being offered pick up times of 5:40am or
6:20am the following day, we composed ourselves and agreed that the earlier one would probably be better for our unfit selves!
So, with Nutella sandwiches and devil sandwiches packed safely in our day packs next to the value sweets mix, we were on the bus to the start of the trek. We left the bus and hit the sweets straight away, but not before donning our jumpers and raincoats to combat the arctic breeze. We were heading for a 9 hour day of heavy trekking so we set off with other Magic Bus goers as company, including GI John of Bungy Jumping fame and Sam and Mark (not of X-Factor annoying kids TV fame). After a couple of hours we hit the Devil's Staircase, a forty five minute lung busting climb to the base of Mt Ngauruhue (Mt Doom). Lizzie was up that staircase like Anneka Rice in her prime on Challenge Anneka, while I plodded on admiring the view. Our leaflet guiding us through the walk went on about how climbing Mt Doom was very dangerous, not for the faint hearted, only for those with sturdy walking shoes and those who found the devil's staircase easy etc. Not
to be defeated, a few of us thought if Frodo could do it then so could we and we head off in our unsuitable footwear and with cameras in hand. It was a three hour round trip and Lizzie decided to wait behind with Michaela (not Strachan unfortunately) and watch us stumble our way up to the top! Two thousand metres up and an hour and forty five knackering, wounding and demoralising minutes later I'd reached the summit, to where GI John had been waiting for about an hour and forty minutes. The wind at the top ripped across the top of the volcano but luckily, with it being active, there was a steam, vent surrounded by heated rocks to warm ourselves on before climbing those last few steps to the summit. The view was even better than expected and I was tempted to run up the last part but the fear of falling off was too great.
The way down was yet another, "What would Bear do?" moment and after watching him negotiate sand dunes and volcanoes, decided it was best to kind of surf and slide down. It was stupidly steep, and stupidly high but a huge
buzz coming down! Thanks Bear! Only took us thirty minutes to get down and we hit the bottom just under three hours after setting off to find Lizzie and Michaela happily eating sandwiches and chatting, despite Lizzie's blood gradually turning to ice. So that was Mt Doom ticked off the list but with only four hours to finish the final five hours of the hike, we had to crack on and stormed across towards Red Crater for another brief, but steep climb. We headed up and over the ridge by the crater where, according to our scare tactic leaflet, if you fall in, you're not going to come out. So with that in mind, we took our time here and scaled it safely with a view of the Emerald Lakes greeting us at the ridge summit. After refuelling our struggling lungs, we negotiated our way down the soft "scree", mostly on our arses and that's where we kept ending up. Just like Mt doom, the best way was sliding down Bear Grylls Styleee which we just about managed without injury, except for a few bruised hands and arses!
We plodded on to the end, past steaming vents, grassy hills
and rainforest after trekking across live volcanic craters, which again showed us the diversity (an old old wooden ship used in the civil war era) of the New Zealand landscape. We arrived at the pick up point, 19.7km and 9 hours later to be greeted with the news that two people had been airlifted from Mt Doom that week. One for tumbling down to the bottom after being hit by tumbling rocks and another with a broken ankle! Relieved to not have known before we went, we were ready to hop on the bus and wake up back at the hostel!
Our next day was a day of rest, with aching limbs the main reason! We relaxed with some surprisingly competitive table tennis from Wong Wang Liz and sorted out a jet boat ride through the Aratiatia rapids, before failing to buy some birthday drinks as a result of inadequate ID. Gutted. I thought it was initially because on my driving license I look more like a Gary Glitter target than the Morgan of today, but apparently they only accept passports in that supermarket! We returned later with passports in hand to finally get what we wanted! Lizzie treated
me like a king that evening by cooking dinner (must've been a special occasion) and baking me birthday muffins! Unfortunately, despite her best efforts of keeping me out of the kitchen so I didn't see the muffins, the beautiful chocolaty smell escaped so two and two were put together! We watched Tom Hanks realistically live in an airport as an eastern European who managed to bag Catherine Zeta Jones in The Terminal and then hit the hay.
The birthday consisted of a rude lady in the information centre followed by some quality rapid surfing in a jet boat. Lizzie, having flashbacks of the Mighty Zambezi, yet again, survived well as we hit top speed over the rapids spinning and twisting like the Yarmouth boys on the Optic Dance floor! We later hit Hell's Pizza for a birthday 241 offer, including the hottest chilli since the days of the chilli sauce spill in Thailand! Then it was off to the local Irish bar and onwards for some drunken tomfoolery!
In the morning, surprisingly sprightly, we hit the road for a two hour trip to the sights and smells of Roto Vegas!!!
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