NZ adventure

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Hi guys,

I am sitting writing this blog sitting at my new desk, in my new office, in my new home of Wellington. Perhaps I should be doing some work but this is what we officially call ‘down-time’ and we are waiting to start the next stage of our project i.e. we have been told to entertain ourselves.

Here is an Interesting office fact for you; the person sitting opposite me is also from Hampshire and used to live in Edinburgh. These strange coincidences happen all the time when you are travelling. Ok ok this is perhaps not such a surprise as my new work buddy is….Tom!

Strange though as he is the last person I ever expected to be working with. Its all good as we are both doing the same temping job and the length of the project is exactly the same amount of time that we are in Wellington. Also I think Tom has finally had enough of being a planner and he decided to take a paycut and take a proper ‘career break’ by doing some temping. We are both employed by The Ministry (of Education, not magic) but I won’t say anymore as it is highly confidential and probably not very interesting. Luckily our office is right in the middle of town and the hours are pretty good apart from the fact that I am having to commute to work by bus for the first time ever then it is the perfect job.

Less of the work thing though, instead I will tell you about our trip down to Wellington from Auckland which was a but of an adventure and the first chance we had to see the ‘real’ New Zealand. Having moved out of our rather lovely flat in Parnell we packed up our hire car (being proper travellers we had to name it of course, we called it Neville after our former flat manager) and hopped it. In fact we rather limped our of Auckland due to the excessive amount of luggage we were carrying, it is surprising how much junk three backpackers (Meredith was heading south with us) can accumulate. Plus it was an automatic rental car which don’t tend to have much welly behind them - hmmmm, perhaps this was a good thing though as I was getting back in the driving seat after a 4 year absence and Meredith was tackling the whole driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road thing for the first time. We had taken out full insurance though and it all went very smoothly in the end.

We headed first to the Corromdel which is rugged peninsula bit a couple of hours drive from Auckland. The first stop on our mission was to be fish and chips but we soon discovered that the gastronomic delights of the area are limited to KFC and pubs that serve food but only from 6pm. Now this is a bit unfortunate if you happen to leave for your holiday without having any lunch but not surprising given NZ’s recent catering history, whilst there is no doubt that NZ now has some of the best food around and certainly the ‘café culture’ has been cultivated to a scarily high food and coffee standard, we should look at this in context, for example whilst NZ now have some great bar and night life the early closing that was introduced to NZ during WWI continued until 1967, which meant that EVERYTHING shut at 6pm - leading to some rather chaotic post-work, pre 6pm drinking habits throughout NZ. Ok so this was the opposite and nothing here was opening until 6 but we began to realise that we were leaving the city life far behind us as we headed out into the wilds of NZ

So anyway we battled on and drove across the peninsula in search of food. We stopped at one place with a big sign outside saying 'OPEN - Cafe and gardens' only to be shoooed away by a crazy lady shouting "didn't you see the sign?!" um, yes that’s why we stopped we mumbled as we ran back to the car but hey ho the search for fish and chips continued.

We spent that night at a hostel, had some dinner, played some board games, Meridith taught Tom how to salsa dance etc and then set off the next morning for Cathedral Cove, so called because of the huge cave, which looks a bit like a cathedral I suppose. It was a bit of a hike down to the beach and it was raing so Tom and I donned our waterproof sailing trousers and looked rather stylish even-of-we-do-say-so-ourselves.

Another drive later and we were in the famous hot-water-beach where you are able to dig a hole and voila you have a hole full of hotwater. So we searched about using a fruit bowl as a spade and tried to find some heat. In fact it was so cold that every bit of sand that we dug into seemed warm because the air temp was so low. Eventually we were informed that you have to visit at low tide as the hot water spring is under a bit of the beach that gets covered at high tide, i.e we were about 8 hours too early. Doh.

Instead of waiting 8 hours for a bath we went down to Mount M which is a bit of a beach resort town with a reputation for surfing and the like. We soon discovered that the local thermal baths were open late so headed down there to soak in the various temperature pools and the various levels of sulphurous stinkyness. AND there was an abundance of fish and chip shops so was a big successes.

The next day we headed to one of the other big North Island attractions, the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. Apparently NZ and Australia are the only places in the world with glow worms and to get to these ones you head underground and onto a boat which takes you through an subterranian river. The glow worms were ace, Floating down the river looking at the lights in the dark was amazing though, looks like you are looking up at the night sky. Even better when they turned the lights on to show us the strings of dribble that the little fellas produce in order to catch insects, can be a couple of feet long, very ingenious.

Next stop Rotorua where we visited ‘Te puia’ a large cultural and geothermal centre. We went along in search of mud baths but were soon informed that these being boiling hot mud pool probably not a good idea to apply to skin.. Ummmed and ahhhhed about whether to pay the entrance fee to go in and see the geothermal activities within the site. So glad we did, got to see the gyzers and loads of boiling mud and steaming rocks, there is a certain eggy aroma to the whole of Rotorua but is particularly strong in this area, yummm!

There was also a large emphasis on Maori cultural education within the site and we went to visit The New Zealand Maori Arts & Crafts Institute, some of the stuff they had done was amazing and the meeting house that the students made took 10 years to complete. Inside the house we watched some traditional Maori dancing, the highlights of which being the huka and the ladies using the poi - little pom poms on strings.

The afternoon was spent 'tramping' - thats what they call it hear, honest! - through the redwood forests with our new friend Adie.. The paths were full of coachparties so we decided to off-road and make our own way through the bush. We couldn't really get lost and we were all delighted because it looks like a proper rainforest but we were safe in the knowledge that there is nothing remotly scary or dangerous in the woods of NZ. Apart from an inflatable monkey called Trevor.

Back at our hostel that evening we took advantage of the in house climbing wall which was good fun. Took turns to hold the safety ropey thing for each other. Tom was so engrossed with shouting instructions to Meredith - being somewhat of an expert after his 30 mins of climbing experience - that he neglected to hold on to the rope, or rather to feed it though so if for some reason she had lost her footing she would have had nothing holding her on.. luckily for us she was good at climbing and even luckier for Tom she didn’t notice that he was not doing his bit!

On our last morning in Rotorua we splashed out on treatments at the Polynesian spa. After an hour soaking in the outdoor sulpha pools Meredith and I indulged in 30 min massages - mine being a water massage with about 10 jets of water, crazy - whilst tom went for a mud-wrap-exfoliating-full-body-treatment. What a big girl!

So it was in a rejuvenated bodies (and super soft skin) that we headed south to Taupo. Tom's going to tell you all about that when he stops doing some work!

Love to you all.

Liz

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Photos

Tom and M at the glow worm caves
Sorry not pics of the actual glow worms, v dark in the caves and with the light from the flash they wouldn't glow...

Poi
These lovely ladies showed us the art of poi (the balls on strings) and managed to twirl up to 4 sets at once

Polynesian Spa
Tom relaxing in the spa pools before his mud-wrap and massage

Forest walking
Walking through the redwood forrests with our new friends Trev (the monkey) and adie.