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Published: July 15th 2006
Big Rock
This was at Cathedral Cove, I thought it was quite cool.......that is I have two t-shirts, one to prove that I did a sky dive, and one to prove that I did a bungee jump! New Zealand is a fantastic place, everything I expected it to be and more. Fortunately, the pound is very strong out there, unfortunately, this means that all of the activities are reasonabley priced, which means you end up doing it, which means you end up spending a fortune! It's worth it though, and even in the middle of wintertime I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone.
I arrived on 20th May, after cutting down my Fiji trip to two weeks. Most people I had met in Fiji had warned me that New Zealand was "freezing", but after six months of a rocky mountain winter-time, stepping off the plane at Auckland was like stepping into a warm spring day back home. Unfortunately, this didn't last.... After weighing up the options, I decided to join the Stray bus, who could take me from Auckland to Christchurch with the option of jumping on and off at any town on the way.
First port of call was the Bay of Islands, north of Auckland, and Cape Reinga, the
Geyser
Amazingly, this goes off at exactly 10am everyday, I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the guy who tips a load of washing powder in just before... northernmost part of New Zealand, where we able to have a go at sandboarding, which like its name suggests, is body boarding down a sand dune. Good fun but I'm still finding sand in places that it shouldn't be...! We stayed in Pahai for a couple of nights, a very pleasant sea-side town, and also went horse riding (in the rain - just like home). We then headed back to Auckland for a couple of nights before starting the main section of the tour.
Our journey took us over to Cathedral Cove on the East, then back across to Raglan on the West, and into the middle and down, through Rotorua, Lake Taupo, Whakapapa (in NZ, wh is pronounced 'f'....) ending the North Island trip in Wellington. Cathedral Cove and Raglan were both seaside destinations and I was able to conserve some cash by taking advantage of the non-paying activities, i.e. walking! Unfortunately this all changed when we left Raglan and stopped off at the Waitomo caves. Here we went tubing, which is basically caving until you reach a small underground river and some large car inner tubes that you stick your bum into and float along with just
Mount Doom...
Me and Katherine in front of Mount Doom the light of the glowworms on the roof to guide you. We were told when we got out that due to the recent heavy rains, the water level was around 3 feet higher than usual which meant that trip was a lot more 'adventurous' than normal - I thought it was great! We then headed onto Rotorua where around half a dozen of us jumped off the bus to spend a few days.
The next morning some of us headed out to try out the locally invented past-time of Zorbing. Zorbing consists of squeezing yourself through a tiny hole (the only way is to take a few steps back and dive in head first) into the centre of a giant inflatable ball and then be pushed down a hill. Sound crazy? Well it is, and to top it off, we did the Hydro-Zorb, which meant that the thing was filled with water! I felt like a hamster in a (wet) ball, it was hilarious! We decided it would be the perfect summer party activity, so when I have some money..... you have been warned!
Roturua is the stinkiest town in New Zealand, and I mean this literally. The
...and The Land of Mordor
If you look really hard, you can just see Sam and Frodo crawling through, somewhere on the bottom right hand corner... area is a hotbed of volcanic activity and there are sulphur pools all over the place which means that the entire town smells of rotten eggs, most unpleasant! We hired a car for the day and headed out to one of the nearby national parks to check out this local phenomonem, with geysers, splattering mud pools, beautifully coloured pools and stones and steaming hotbeds, hopefully the photos will do it some justice.
Whilst in Rotorua we also went to a local Maori cultural evening which was really interesting. We were taught all about the local Maori history and culture, watched a play and had hands on experience of the Maori dancing. Watching a group of English guys trying to perform the Haka (the dance that the All Blacks perform at the start of every rugby game) was one of the funniest things that I have ever seen!
The next day we jumped back onto the bus to head to Lake Taupo, the largest lake in NZ. That afternoon some of us took advantage of the clear weather and did a tandem sky dive. Myself and Kat were the last two to jump at which point the sun was
Look at those colours!
An expample of one of the views on the Tongaria crossing, amazing colours aren't they! setting so we had some remarkable views out over the lake and mountains, but it was bloody freezing when we jumped!
The following day we did what was one of my highlights of my time in NZ - the Tongaria crossing. Billed as possibly the best one day walk in the world, this takes you 18km across varied terrain with spectacular views. The first half of the walk takes you up into the mountains, up the unforgiving Devil's staircase, and, for those fans of Lord of the Rings, into the Land of Mordor! Yes, this is where they filmed Mordor and you can understand why, the landscape is other-wordly! I now have a photo of me in front of Mount Doom which I think is really cool! The whole area is volcanic so the colours of the rock are amazing and there are brilliant turqouise pools dotted about and spouts of sulphuric steam are all around, even off the top of Mount Doom - very atmospheric! After a couple of hours walking through this landscape you pop over the top of a mountain into a lush green landscape with amazing views down over Lake Taupo. Then, after descending what
A New Career?
I think I'm a natural! Making a start on my knife in Barrytown. feels like a million steps, the final section of the walk is through a beautiful forest - cartainly a walk with plenty of variation! That night we stayed in a place at the bottom of the mountains where I think everybody was in bed and asleep by 9.30! The next morning we were off to Wellington.
Wellington is a pleasant city and has an absolutely great museum, which due to the bad weather, we took full advantage of! As it was a holiday weekend (can you believe that they get a public holiday for the Queens birthday when we don't?) they had a special show on - stunt men from Lord of the Rings showing us the tricks of the trade, it was really interesting. They also had a full on movie exhibition for the film which was great, full of props, costumes, info, swords, sets, the actual ring (!) and even a life sized, scarily life like, wax work of Sean Bean dead in a canoe - I was convinced he was going to pop up and say 'surprise'!
The weather continued to be shocking the next morning when we had to get up ridiculously early for
the ferry crossing to the South Island. After being delayed an hour to make sure that it was safe to do the crossing we finally headed off. I have never seen so many sick people in my life, and the staff were certainly kept busy. It was the roughest crossing that I had experienced yet. The South Island is much more spectacular than the North Island and the bus took us on a circular tour of the whole island, visiting Abel Tasman, Barrytown, Franz Joseph, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Invercargill, Stewart Island, Dunedin, Christchurch and Kaikoura. Abel Tasman was very beautiful and reminded me a lot of Tofino on Vancouver Island. Unfortunately it was a quick overnight stop there so I didn't really get a chance to check it out properly, and place to go back to I think! Our next destination was Barrytown, which should really be called Barryplace, seeing as it has a population of around 60 people. I was really looking forward to this section of the trip as we had heard a lot about the activity here - knife making! This was a full day activity where we started of with a rusty bit of steel, some
Milford Sound
Great weather eh? wood, nails and a bit of brass, and after some heating, pounding, filing and shining, ended up with a fully functional professional knife! It was such an enjoyable day and the couple that ran it were brilliant, at the end they even invited us into their home to give us their home brewed firewater and show us their Egyption mummified cat! That night we were all invited to a leaving party held in a bone carving workshop - it was very surreal drinking wine surrounded by cow's shins hanging from the wall...!
The following day saw a few sore heads clambering onto the bus for the trip to Franz Joseph. To help with the hangovers, our driver stopped off at the 'Roadkill Cafe' on the way, the strangest cafe/shop/museum that I have ever seen. Their speciality was possum pie. New Zealanders hate possums, which, after being introduced from Oz, are destroying the natural bush at a phenomenal rate. They kill (for fur and meat) around 20 million possums a year, and this doesn't even make a dent in their numbers. As I was at the end of the queue when we got there, they'd sold out of pies so I had to have a cheese and ham toastie instead. I still haven't decided whether or not this was a good thing...
Franz Joseph is one of only three temperate glaciers in the world (the second being Fox Glacier, which was just down the road), and it is a very strange spectacle. It's a beatuifully lush, green, forrested area, and then you turn into a valley and are faced with a giant lump of ice protruding through the mountain sides - very surreal. I joined a couple of the others from our bus on an ice climbing trip which was a great day out. After a winter in Banff where I helped out with the weekly ice climbing sessions it was a very pleasant experience to spend some time on ice and be able to feel my fingers and toes at the end of it!
The next stop on our journey was Queenstown where I had the scariest activity waiting for me - the Nevis Highwire bungy jump. The second highest bungy in the world (and the highest in NZ) at 134m, this consisted of jumping from a platform suspended on high wires over a canyon and riverbed. This jump was designed to provide maximum exposure to the jumper and boy did they do a good job - it was scary stuff and I questioned my sanity a number of time was waiting for my turn to leap. But when I did, it was well worth it! The rush from the jump was just amazing and I would be back there doing it again in a flash if I had the chance. I caved in a bought a DVD of my jump so I will be able to show you all when I get back home (I bet you can't wait...)! Queenstown is a lovely town and is known as the adventure capital of NZ. It's built on a lake with the mountains in the background so there is plenty to do. We arrived on the day of Englands first world cup match so of course we stayed up to watch it (kick-off was 1am!) in the backpacker bar. It was just like being back home, it was rammed with English travellers, all with flags and painted faces and the familiar chants were going in full force, it was a very entertaining evening.
After a few relaxing days in Queenstown it was back onto the bus (another early start!) and on to Milford Sound. Unfortunately the weather was not kind to us and it threw it down all day. I had been told my Vella, my old boss in Banff, that the only way to see the sounds was in the rain, and so it was to be! The sounds are stunningly beautiful and well worth seeing. They are very touristy though, and I did feel a bit like a Japanese tourist, being hearded from bus to boat to bus again, but hey, that's the way it goes sometimes. That night we stayed in a place called Te Anau, where we experienced something that most of us had not had since we had left home - a room to ourselves, and it was bliss!
Invercargill was next on our route, not the most exciting of places but we were only there for an evening so we just went to the cinema to see The Omen (it's rubbish) and had a few drinks before heading across to Stewart Island the next day. Now whilst I was in NZ I was lucky enough to have some wonderful clear days, but there were also some terrible days, and the country had some terrible storms. We did the crossing to Stewart Island (which incidentally is the second roughest crossing in the world) in one of these storms. None of the extreme activities I had done so far in NZ compared to this - it was brilliant!! There were only about 12 people on the crossing and the boat wasn't big. At times you would look out of the window and see that the waves were twice the height of the boat! Susan, who suffers from motion sickness and had knocked back a few red wines the night before, did not enjoy the crossing in the slightest... Stewart Island is a lovely place, mostly taken up by national park. We hired scooters and explored all 25km of road that the island has, did some walking and relaxed. It was very pleasant.
The crossing back was much calmer and we headed to Dunedin for a night (where we visited the Cadbury factory) and then onto Christchurch, where I actually had a decent curry - amazing! Whilst there we headed out to Mount Hutt for a days skiing, which was very beautifull but not a patch on skiing in the Rockies. Myself, Susan and Glenda then headed up to Kaikoura the next day in an effort to go swimming with dolphins, but again the weather was against us, and much to our dissapointment, all the trips whilst we were there were cancelled, so to make up for it we went out for an extravagent meal (by backpacker standards anyway), although their apple crumble was no-where near as good as mum's, and then headed back to Christchurch to say our goodbyes to everyone.
And that was my NZ trip finished. Five action packed weeks around NZ. I had an amazing time there and met some fab people, but it was time to head on with my adventures and fly out to Sydney.
Which is where I am now. Hopefully some of you will have made it to the end of this update, apologies for it's length but I just didn't have chance to write it until now and there was a lot to tell!
Until next time.......!!!
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gez
non-member comment
your insane
Hi Lucy, seems like your having a great time....enjoyed the world cup! :) Jumping out of airplanes and diving attached to elastic.... you've gone mad!! Some really cool photos, look forward to reading the next instalment! Cheerio