Return to the north island

Since the last blog I've journeyed from Nelson on the South island of NZ right up to nearly the northernmost point. Not that I've seen much the last two days due to the torrential rain. Today I'm in Whangarei, in the Northland region (the bit above Auckland on the map). Staying at quite a cool hostel, the Bunkhouse, which is basically someones (big) house with a few bunkbeds in some of the rooms. There are two guitars, both sadly missing 'A' strings.

All I've done the past two days is sit either in buses (yesterday) or cars (today). Er, maybe I should recap. After Nelson I took the ferry over to Wellington, and got a room in the Downtown hostel near the train station. It wasn't the most friendly of places, with a big cavernous dining room. It was raining (and had been for the previous three or four days) but I braved the long walk out to find something to eat. It was a sunday, but in a capital city you'd expect to find something open. There was very little on offer in the way of food until I got to the cinema complex and got some Malaysian buffet food from one of the stalls inside (I don't know what was so Malaysian about it, seemed like Chinese food to me). Then I went to see Boy, an NZ film about a Maori family, was pretty good. Funny in places but mostly quite a grim depiction of poverty.

The next day I got a bus up to Ohakune. This town is described in the Lonely Planet as being the "carrot capital of NZ", although the only evidence I saw of this was the giant carrot sculpture by the road on the way into the town. In fact the town was dead, seemingly awaiting the arrival of snow and the skiing season. I had a dorm room to myself in the YHA hostel, which had a nearly in-tune piano. The only other residents seemed to be a crowd of working men, who spent all night playing poker and drinking beer. I played a couple of hands and lost all my change ($3, whoo hoo). The only other coins I had were Singapore dollars and Thai baht but for some reason they weren't interested. Why was I in such a place, you might ask. Well, I wanted to be near the Tonganiro national park, which contains three mountains made famous in the Lord of the Rings films. There are several walks there of varying lengths which I wanted to do. By the accounts of other people, the one day crossing is outstanding. Unfortunately for me, visibility above 2000m was very poor and there was snow and ice on the tracks. And it was raining. So in the end I hiked up to waterfall, took a picture, then got out of there the next day. Bah.

Next stop was Hamilton. No more needs to be said about this place. It was just a means to make a bus connection to Rotorua, but as I arrived late I had to spend a night there. The man at the YHA-associated hostel, Microtel (on Ulster st, not where my LP guidebook indicated, which is nice when you're walking around a strange town in the dark with all your gear on your back), gave me a single room for the price of a dorm. The room was tiny, so no yoga for me there. The kitchen was also tiny and I had lots of fun drinking red wine and trying to cook while four manic Malaysian men of ages ranging from middle to ancient also prepared food while observing me and asking a lot of questions, as is their way. They were impressed with the few words of Malaysian which I happened to pick up in Indonesia (the Indonesian language is based on Malaysian).

Rotorua next, I spent a few days there wandering around the thermal areas. The earths crust around this area of NZ is very thin and there is a lot of voalcanic activity. Lots of pools of bubbling mood and steaming sulphurous water can be found around the town and lake area. I visited the Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland, for more of the same only on a much bigger scale. For $68 it was perhaps a bit expensive (that price included the shuttle bus). I spent an hour and a half inside, but that was more than enough to see it all. There is also a geyser show, which is vey corny. Basically around 10.15AM, all the tourists gather around this area which has a rocky cone behind a fence. A man steps up to the cone and starts telling the audience about the geyser (apparently it used to be a hot pool used as a bath by convicts; one dropped in a bar of soap which caused the geyser to erupt and lo, a tourist attraction was born). The man adds disinfectant (biodegradable, he assures us) to the cone, which immediately begins to froth (something to do with two pools of hot and cold water underground, which mix in the presence of the soap, causing vast quantities of steam to be produced). By this point, the entire audience is standing, cameras raised, waiting for this thing to go off. But the man keeps talking, no-one is listening by now. The frothing gets more and more excitable until eventually the man stops talking, gets out of the way and the geyser goes off. And it is quite impressive, I'm no judge of heights but lets say the water spray is about 30ft tall. Although it goes on for some time, the whole audience clears out in a few minutes, once they have their obligatory "stand in front and strike the same pose you always do" shots taken. I'm one of the last ones to leave, its quite sad seeing this geyser gradually die down, deflated, forced once again by its human servants to go on its ejaculatory display.

After another day of aimlessly wandering Rotorua (note: its a crap drinking town. $9 for a pint of Guinness? And more souvenir shops than in Asian towns - well, nearly), I took an epic 8-hour, 4-bus journey up to the Coromandel peninsula. I was aware that this region is more of a summer, surfing spot, but several people had told me how nice it was. Apparently they grow a lot of a certain mystic herb there too which I was intrigued by. In the end, I arrived at Whitianga in the middle of some very heavy raining (the whole country was geting battered by rain at this time). All I saw of the place was the information centre (closed when I arrived), the ferry terminal (where I was supposed to meet my farmstay host, but who never answered his phone - he emailed me the next day to say he'd lost it), the hostel (Cats Pyjamas - nice place, nice owner Anne, another one which is given the wrong address in the LP), the fish and chip shop (Bluenose - couldn't distinguish it from any other fish I've had battered) and the offy (6 cans of Waikato draft, ta). I spent the night playing drinking games with some of the other guests, and got invited to come with them the next day to Whangarei, which explains why I'm here.

Ok, thats more than enough cyber-babble. Til next time!

Sea's a bit choppy today, skipper

Well then. I'm typing this quite late as I can't sleep. This could be due to:
a) The large Irish bloke snoring in my dorm room
b) The mussels that I had for dinner, a nice couple from London shared today's catch with me
c) Because its a new moon

Or all of the above.

Anyhow, the Abel Tasman coastal track was very nice. I took a bus and boat combo to Totaranui and walked down to Marahau, staying one night in a hut. The track dips in and out of some nice looking beaches. It cost me 40$NZ to get from Motueka to Totaranui, and 20$NZ to get from Marahau to Nelson. The driver was good enough to stop by the YHA in Motueka so I could pick up the stuff I'd left there. Luckily I had just got to the end of the walk when the rain started, its a full on storm out there now. It was a very scenic route, also very easy. It would probably be a good one to do first rather than leaping straight into hard multiday treks up mountains and so on (like I did).

Ok, til next time
Rob

Another day another hostel

Hi, just a quicky again. I've just come from Kaikoura, which is on the west coast of the south island, about 2 hours north of Christchurch. Its a really nice place on the coast, I spent a week there just wandering around the shore and on the walk across the cliff-tops. There are lots of seals there lying around. I nearly walked into one on the first day, even though they are quite big they are well camoflauged against the rocks. You can smell them though!

I'm in a small town tonight called Motueka, staying in the YHA which is massive but seemingly dead. Its out of season for walking now - this is one of the main bases for people doing the Abel Tasman track, which I'm starting tomorrow. Its a long walk on the coast, and so far everyone I've met, tourist and kiwi alike, has told me how beautiful etc. it is. It will probably be the last hike I do on the south island before I go back to the north island and attempt the Tonganiru (Mt Doom) hike - hopefully the mountains won't be covered in snow by then.

Well, I'm okay, actually really relaxed. Been doing yoga everyday, I'm bendier than ever. Til next time!

ps I saw the film Kick-Ass in Kaikoura, it was great especially the mass-murdering little girl

Northern migration

Just a quick post as I'm knackered tonight. I've had a good time in Christchurch, the job was not too taxing and I got some good results in the lab, the boss was happy anyway, and I've got some experience doing chromatography. It was nice being at my friends house, cooking food and taking the dog for a walk, and having my own room!

Ted the dog

Tomorrow I'm heading back out, getting a bus to Kaikoura at 7.15am. Should be a nice place to chill out, there's usually a big sun over the place on the weather reports. I've been travelling now for 6 months, and strangely I'm sort of on my way home now. I'm planning on heading back up north, eventually getting to Auckland in June for my flight to Japan.



Ok then, take it easy



Rob