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Published: November 19th 2008
A big sorry to everyone as I have been getting really behind in my blogs, as most of you know I am in Auckland and have been here a while now. I have been doing a lot of job searching and haven’t had the time (OK, as well as being plain lazy!!) to catching up on them.
Well after having a lovely scenic cruise from the South Island through the Marlborough sounds, I finally arrived in Wellington the capital city of NZ later that afternoon, but being typical me I hadn’t booked any kind of accommodation so ended up walking around for bloody ages from hostel to hostel trying to find a room as there were all fully booked for some reason. I did eventually found a hostel called Wellywood backpacker which was right in the center of the city and couldn’t be missed as it was painted in huge black and white zebra stripes ha ha (check out the pic).
I met up with Rob my Skiing mate from Wanaka that first evening as he was in Welly for a few days trying to sort out a house. So we decided to head out to a proper Sushi
restaurant which had one of those revolving tables of food which everyone sat around. I really didn’t know what half of the dishes were but most of them were really tasty and it was all washed down with some Japanese saki (warm wine). I have always been intrigued in going to one of these restaurants but was too scared as I had no idea what I was meant to do and didn’t want to look the idiot (yeah I know I do a good job of that most of the time anyway), but it was a really pleasant experience and have been to a few more Sushi restaurants since as it’s my new favorite food and with the added bonus that its really healthy.
I really didn’t do a huge amount while being in Wellington as the weather was still really bad and in true Wellington style it was windy as hell, which is why it is known as ‘windy old Welly’. There was a great museum called the ‘Te papa’ right near the harbor and it has to be one of the most interesting and well arranged museums I have ever been to. There were loads of really
interesting sections were I learnt about the geology of this amazing country.
NZ is right on the edge of 2 tectonic plates which are continually pulling and pushing the country in two different directions, these tectonic plates are responsible for the Southern Alps and many of the other dramatic landscapes in the South Island. Not only does New Zealand have to deal with Earthquakes from the moving plates but up in the North Island where I’m heading are hundreds of active and extinct volcanoes. Lake Taupo is the largest lake in New Zealand and was formed by a huge volcano erupting around 26,000 years ago and then caving in on its self and creating this massive lake. Also the Mountain named ‘Mt Doom’ in the Lord of the Rings trilogy is also a huge cone volcano just sound of Lake Taupo. Some of these volcanoes have erupted as recently as 1998!!
I wondered around the museum and learnt about the Maori people, how the English colonized NZ, tropical typhoons and quite a lot of interesting other information. I thought to myself it’s funny how Australia is known as having all the dangerous animals such as crocs, spiders, sharks and snakes
One of the powerstations
Turning all the thermal activity in power for the countryetc but NZ having none of these dangerous creatures so is considered so much safer but then it has Volcanoes, earthquakes, tropical storms etc which can be just as deadly!!
The following day I had a walk around the city and headed to parliament building and decided to have a guided tour around to learn a bit about the government. It was pretty interesting learning about how legislation and law is passed and how the houses of parliament are made up. We had a good walk around the main build and seen inside some of the more important rooms, right down to the basement levels to see where they re-engineered the foundations onto rubber mounts to save the building from earthquakes, as the building is only 400-500 meters from the main fault line!
The next day I had booked a bus to take me north to Lake Taupo, I had arranged to stay with some of my Uncle Roberts friends called Rick and Min Hart that moved over to NZ nearly 20 years ago. I had only intended to spend a night or two here but ended up having quite a laugh with them so ended up being
Wellywood
Not hard to miss hey! here for a whole week!
Rick and Min live on a big Dairy farm just a few miles north of the lake and milk 1500 cows! My job was to ride around on off-road motor bikes all day, feeding and rounding up cattle, this was so much fun but it was really steep learning curve as I had ridden bikes a few times but never on this kind of terrain and having to change directions so fast while herding cattle!!
The first afternoon I got there was very entertaining as within mins of arriving I was introduced to a French lad who had been helping on the farm, he had fallen off his bike badly that day and had punctured his leg with the handle bar from the motorbike. Rick had to rush him to hospital while Min and I had to put out a fire that had got out of control as rick had accidental set alight to a pile of rubbish that he wasn’t meant to and the wind had then blown it across to a heap for wood chips! This was all within the first hour of arriving - what an introduction ha ha!
As I
had explained earlier a massive volcanic eruption 26,000 years ago formed lake Taupo but the whole surrounding area for miles around was covered in layers and layers of volcanic ash, this has caused the area to be extremely hilly and uneven, most of the farm can only be driven about on 2 wheels and there are just too many steep slopes, drop offs and wash-outs to navigate it safely of a quad bike etc.
While working on the farm I did get to explore and see a few of the sites around the area. One of the evenings I went to the thermal pools with Peter their youngest son, this was great with 3 different pools ranging in temperature up to 38 degrees!! All of this water is heated directly from the volcanic activity below and piped out from underground straight into the baths.
I also got a chance to see the Huka falls, which I thought would be just another waterfall but turned out to be very impressive and unlike any waterfall I have seen previously. The Water forces its way through the narrow valley at such incredible force that it could fill an Olympic swimming pool every
4 seconds!! What you really can’t appreciate in the pictures is the sheer speed and force at which the water is travelling at, I’m a good swimmer but there is no way I would survive going through there.
Due to the huge amounts of thermal activity around the area, there are many areas where cracks have opened up in the rock and steam is released in to the atmosphere, one of the most concentrated spots is a place called ‘craters of the moon’, I had a little walk around here which was pretty interesting as I got to see huge craters that have caved in from the heat and pressure etc, as well as seeing all these huge clouds of steam rising on from all around me, unfortunately with all volcanic activity comes the horrible sulfurous smell of rotten eggs!
Around the whole of this region there are many geothermal power stations and they can use the huge amounts of steam trying to escape to the surface to drive turbines which in turn produce electricity. Around 15% New Zealand’s power comes from renewable energy sources such as these, it really great to see countries using it geology in
The Briton Motorbike
This incredible motorbike was hand built from scratch by a kiwi bloke and on its debut race beat the Duccati race team - Incredible bloke/bike this why, which in turn use less coal an oil etc and is in turn better for the planet.
Having spent a very exciting week on the farm with the Hart family who made me feel very welcome and feed me very well (will be missing that food) I now go to the big city to meet one of my old mates, Dan. This is long overdue as I was meant to meet him over a year ago but the unfortunately had to go home early, so have been quite excited about this.
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Libby
non-member comment
Brilliant photography!
These pics are terrific, especially the first one looking down into the steam rising between the rocks. Very informative too. Your grandad would love all that detail if someone would read it to him. Did you not get a pic of you on the farm bikes doing a footrot flats impression with the dog?