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Published: December 31st 2006
Our Cata bus journey from Mendoza got us into Santiago with just enough time and a quick whisk through the streets of Santiago on the airport bus was enough to make us realise that it was way out of our budget range. We were very glad we only stayed in Chile for 9 hours! Can we also mention that Chile has the most anal border restrictions ever, this seemed aimed at annoying the Argentines because they have better wine and fruit! As we write this blog we are swatting sand flies whilst drinking our Argentine Chablis in a matchbox size campervan...more on this in our South Island blog entry.
Our LAN flight to Auckland had great entertainment, Neil revelled in being able to play battleships and hangman against the computer. But this was probably also to take his mind off the fact that his seat has lost its headrest ad Donna's seat liked to propel her forward with no warning. After complaining to the cabin crew we were upgraded for the first time in our lives...no...not to first, executive or business class...but to 2 seats 6 rows up the plane in economy or as we fondly know it as, cattle
class where we were sandwiched between an Aussie and Japanese girl.
Arriving at Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand we had to sit and wait until the campervan people picked us up. this was 3 hours as we had landed at 4am, so during this time we planned our North Island route and made good use of the free shower facilities at the airport. This is the first indication of us being cheap skanky bastards! Our Maouri sleepervan picker-upper was hyper asking us what kind of bungee jumpo we wanted to do to which we both thought, how many different types of bungee jumps are there?
After an anal 'Chilean style' checking of the van perfomed by Donna (that's the Maouri Donna) we headed straight for the supermarket to stock up on food and supplies for our trip. It was here that we realised that everyone and everything is like something straight out of an Aussie soap opera...yes we know we are in New Zealand, but to a naive UK couple this is how it seemed. We have since learned to distinguish the Kiwis from Aussies. This is because the lovely Kiwis have vowel issues (no,
not bowel issues, VOWEL issues!). Some examples follow: we say fish and chips the Kiwis say feesh and chups. We say kids and cliffs, they say kuds and cluffs. We say christmas gifts, they say Chrustmas gufts. Do you get the picture?!
Maouris appear strange to us as we aren't used to seeing them, apart from the occasional New Zealand rugby player. It's surprising that you don't see many outside of New Zealand, maybe because New Zealands population is so small (4.5 million) and Maouris only make up 17% of that population, so maybe it isn't so surprising.
We headed for Lake Taupo in the centre of the North Island and realised that the sleepervan we had, had two main faults. Both of these involved the the van making lots of banging and crunching noises much to the surprise of the many sleepy village residents we passed on the way. The journey to Taupo was very much like the Shire landscape from Lord of the Rings. Unusually though, most of the hobbits we encountered were in the South west of the South Island, but more on this in our next blog entry.
Taupo was spectacularly blue and
we camped next to a river that fed into the lake. To say that this river was blue is an understatement, it was so vividly turquoise you would think it was artificial. The Huka Falls, further up the river, looked even more blue evidently because the bubbles and oxygen makes it lighter in colour. See the pics, but they really don't do it justice. Throughout the whole of New Zealand we have noticed that the water quality and colour is stunning and like nothing we have seen before. It's probably one of the things that has stuck in our minds the most about New Zealand.
The next day we went to the wine making region of Hawke Bay (no we aren't pissheads, we just like wine!). We stopped off at the Art Deco town of Napier on the East coast and hiked it out of there pretty sharpish as everything seemed a bit pricey.
Donna had the bright idea of an informal Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite for the night. 'Turn right here', Donna said, 'down this dirt track and we should be there in a few minutes'. As you know from previous blog entries, Donna's map reading
Hobbit landscape...
we did not spot Frodocan be a little off at times. 20 minutes and several scarily steep bends later our nice clean campervan was now covered in dust and our drive had turned into an impromptu sheep herding event (see the video!). On our journey to the DOC site we encountered approximately 500 sheep on the road...yes, we were that far away from the main road! The farmer was there and waved Neil on to drive through the sheep on the road. Neil having never driven through 500 sheep before foudn this rather daunting and beeped his horn enthusiastically whilst shouting to the farmer in his best British voice 'Now look here chappy, what am I meant to do with these darn sheep, I'm British you know!' whilst Donna sat and laughed. It was one of those moments when you think to yourself, what the hell are we doing here? Made worse by the fact that there was no option to turn back! 1 hour later we reached the DOC site. there was only us and the sleepvan and a few leftover sheep and wasn like one of those places straight out of a horro film. You know the type, the rusty caravan with
the curtains shut in the corner, the rotting wooden pier over the river, the looming forest adjacent to the campervan and the knowledge that there was no-one around for at least 20 miles. This became the theme for many of our camping spots.
Surprised to still be alive the next morning and not chopped into little bits by the caravan axeman or eaten by the underwater river monster or swallowed by the looming forest (it's amazing what your imagination can do when you are crapping yoursdelves in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere and you need the toilet in a campervan with no toilet!). We headed to Rotorua (thermal activity spot of the world). Donna, by use of her well honed map reading skills managed to take us on a road that:
A we weren't insured to drive on
B was bendier than a gay Uri Geller
and C was dustier than a Saharan sandstorm.
We should have realised we shouldn't have been driving on the road when we passed a sign that had a long list on vehicles which shouldn't drive on it. Bravely (or foolishly?) we carried on. The road took
us up and down several mountains and so many bends that although Neil was driving, he actually got car sick! Parents shut your eyes for the next few sentences. Conversations on the road consisted of 'oh shit, is that how far up we are with no crash barriers?', 'oh shit, should we be on this raod seeing as we can't breathe for the dust?', It's amazing how cold it gets at 4000m' and 'look at how small that boat is - how the hell do we get past those other idiots in a capervan coming towards us?!'. Going around that many bends made us go around the bend and when we started singing ' is this the Road to Rotorua' in the style of Tony Christies 'Amarillo' we started to worry. We wouldn't say we reached Rotorua safely, but we reached it 6 hours later than we thought and the place stunk...in more ways than one!
Being a thermal town, Rotorua is full of geysers, mud pools, sulphur areas and so the place had a smell reminiscent of a post-baked bean fart disaster ie evil eggy smells. Rotorua was the first place in New Zealand where we encountered tourism
Blue water huka
lots of Photos of the Huka! at its full force and with it many wannabee yuppies with wine bars and expensive eateries. Such a shame considering the majority of New Zealands tourism originates from low budget backpackers but the Korean/Asian tourists with their very fat wallets seem to rule here. Ignoring the 'no camping' sign and too stingey to pay for the extortionate camping sites, we parked next to the eggy lake (its amazing what you'll put up with if you are getting it for free!).
Rotorua is built on a cauldron of thermal activity due to it's location of two techtonic plates. So what has New Zealand done? charged for entrance to every naturally occuring thermal area...bar one which we had the luck to stumble across. Very very annoying.
A few minutes further north of Rotorua was the Kaituna river, grade 5 rapids with a 7m high waterfall (the highest commercially raftable in the world). After 2 hours of convincing by Neil (the fear of capsizing was too great!), Donna was convinced into doing this 50 minute experience and WOW was it worth it! See the photos...yes, that is us in the submerged raft! It was scary but extremely fun and even more
Bottom of Huka falls with rainbow.
Not the bottom of a Huka in case you misread! fun was when we guided the raft against the rapids and surfed them so you could feel the power when the water submerged the front of the raft. For 70 New Zealand dollars this was an experience of a lifetime. Neil couldn't resist the urge to shout 'RIPPER" at the top of his voice in his best down under surfer dude accent before being submerged by the raging river water!
On the jounrey back to Auckland we stopped at Tauranga, a place that seemed to have it all. Pacific beaches, a great town, wineries and enough thermal activity to creat spas. We sampled one of these spas for $10, not because we wanted to experience the luxiourios 37 degree outdoor pool, but because we hadn't had a wash since the airport 4 days ago! skanky or what? you decide! but ponder on this, Donna took advantage of the free shower facilities to wash our dirty socks and knickers with the free hotel soap acquired in Salta.
Our final night on the North Island was spent at Waihi beach. A beach apparently good for surfing, but we didn't see any. We set about getting our campervan ready whilst being
Phone S.E.X
This is a prime example of how well Kiwis can take the pee out of themselves. This was Steves Electrical Expertise in case you were wondering. Read the van up close. Call 0800 foreplay..hee hee and the number plate which read 'Ya better brace YASELF' watched by an elderly couple sitting in their large barbeque area, crikey they know how to build houses here and their barbeque areas are nothing short of extensive!
Arriving at Auckland airport, we found out that our flight had been rescheduled to 3 hours earlier that morning and no-one had told us. Qantas were very understanding and rearranged our flight and within an hour we were off on to the second part of our New Zealand experience...
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