An aimless wander to Royston Vasey

Last week I was up in Haltwhistle with Linda, checking out Hadrians wall and Vindolanda, the remains of a Roman settlement. There's not much left of either, just the foundations really, although the supports for the underfloor heating were visible in one of the houses' remains, they looked like weird little tombstones.


The weather was getting nasty and we were feeling over-exposed, luckily Haltwhistle has a great pub in the form of the Black Bull. After three days we were well-established with the locals. They speak with an uncannily Geordie-like accent there, although they are adamant that their accent is different. I had a shock when I walked past a newsagent to read "North East man feared dead in Christchurch earthquake", as I have two good mates from Newcastle who lives there (I stayed with them last year), fortunately they were ok. Such an idyllic place, but with a terrible reality lying in wait underneath (New Zealand that is, not Newcastle. Although...)

I was feeling a bit restless on monday morning so I decided to walk part of the Transpennine trail which runs quite close to where I live in Stockport. Probably the most interesting thing I came across was the ruins of some old mills near Broadbottom, so named I think because the nearby hills look like two giant curvaceous butt-cheeks. I walked for about 5 hours in total, to reach Hadfield, I was feeling a bit fed up by then due to a very painful blister on my right heel (actually caused by my wearing "proper shoes" to an interview over a week ago) so I didn't stop to invetigate the town and just headed for the train station. Only when I read a tourist information board while waiting for the train did I realise that Hadfield was the set for Royston Vasey in the TV programme "The League of Gentlemen". So I missed the opportunity to go into a shop and be asked "Are you local?" before being subjected to some form of surreal torture.

I'll leave you with a weird scarecrow I saw in an allotment as I was coming into Hadfield:

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!

New Zealand mega-blog

Hi. I'm in Christchurch, I've got a job in a lab, Otago university (although most of Otago Universtiy is in Dunedin, which is in Otago county, whereas Christchurch is in Canterbury). Have worked two days so far. I'm just analysing someone elses samples, but its quite nice to just have one thing to do. Almost like watching paint dry: watching liquid inexorably drip out of a tube.

I'm staying at some friends I know from Newcastle. It sure makes a change to not be living out of a bag for a bit. I still haven't shaved since I've been in this country though!

I suppose I should write a bit about what I've been doing in the last month. I started out in Auckland, where I stayed with a very nice couple I met when I was in Vietnam. It was good for a bit of normality. The first day I was there I went into a supermarket with them, it was very strange. I felt like a caveman. Also, it was weird not to have to haggle with anyone when buying fruit! I had a couple of nice days in the capital, climbing up the various ex-volcanoes (well, apparently the area under Auckland is still volcanically active) for views of the city. The Louis Vuitton sailing regatta was on, which meant a lot of boats floating about.

Auckland. With boats.

I then took a train to Wellington. Well, I should say "the" train. Its mainly done for (mostly elderly) tourists now. However, it was a nice trip, and there is an outside viewing platform for taking in the scenery (and waking yourself up). And a bar. I like train travel a lot more than buses.

Action shot from the train.

Wellington is a nice place, I hung around there for a few days. I missed the Tonganiro national park out though (where they shot Mt Doom for Lord of the Rings), I regret spending so much time in Auckland and Wellington now, as its getting nearer to Winter now and I don't think I'll be able to do the hikes there when I've finished work. I took the ferry to cross to the south island and another train journey to Christchurch, saw my friends briefly and spoke to my new boss, and then got myself a bus pass (Nakedbus) to go travelling around the south island with. First stop was Te Anau, which boasts the delightful Trout Observatory.


A trout.



Te Anau also is within an hours walk of the start of the Kepler track, one of NZs "great walks". This track is also circular, meaning that, unlike most of the other great walks, transport does not have to be arranged for either end. The first day of the walk is very gentle, through beech forest, then up a substantial climb leading up to Mt Luxmore. Day 2 crossed over some alpine ridges, and was definitely the most scenic with plenty of misty views of the Fjords below. The last day was a long one as it was meant to be done over two days, but I didn't want to fork out for another night in a hut for $45 (dorm rooms where $27 in the Lakeside backpackers).

As well as bunks with matresses, the huts have gas stoves, flushing toilets, and were very clean and maintained. I didn't get a very good sleep at the first hut (Luxmore), as it was very crowded and there was a couple of late night rustlers (people going through all their plastic bags in the middle of the night). At the second (Iris Burn), there were far less people, and it was much more relaxed.


Mists over the Fjords



Yes, I'm a tight git, so I also didn't shell out for a tour of Milford sound (which is a big valley with a river) or jump out of a plane, or bungee jump, or pay for a guided hike up Franz Josef glacier. I did at least see the glacier, very nice. Hey, I'm trying to save my money to keep travelling. I bet all the crowds of people doing all the tours didn't get to see the Trout Observatory.


Yes, its a big load of ice. Coming right for you. Or is it receding?

So I went up the West coast, which has some very dramatic scenery - rugged coastlines, I think they call them, and rainforests, gullies, rivers, lakes and mountains. The bus journeys here pass by really quickly because the views are so nice. I've also met quite a few people, some of whom showed up in other places later on. Not surprising when there's basically one road going round the island. I stopped at Wanaka for a few days, then Franz Josef (which is a nice town aside from the glacier) and Westport.

A friend I made on the Kepler track was telling me about Nelson lakes, and it sounded really nice. Its a bit hard to get to by public transport as its off the main bus route, but I did it by taking the Nelson lakes shuttle bus from Nelson to St Arnaud. There's not much in the town except one shop, which doubles as the petrol station and chippy, and a backpackers/hotel place. I stocked up on instant noodles, bread, eggs, biscuits, beans, crackers, cheese, peanuts and a camping stove, bought a backcountry hut pass for $60 then set off on the Travers-Sabine track, a 5-day hike in the bush. I really enjoyed it, there was not many people about, lots of nice scenery and breathing clean air. Just to be that far away from society for so long was good to experience. The huts on the non-great walks tracks are smaller, and don't have gas stoves, and only have outside drop toilets (one was full of wasps - agh). But once you have a pass you can stay in as many as you like. I'd love to do a 10-day one next time! I had a gas stove, but as the huts have wood burning stoves I saved some gas and cooked on the hut stove in the evening. Chopping wood is also great fun when you haven't done any manual labour (or any work of any sort) for a while. Generally there was only about 8 people staying in the huts per night, and it was a good atmosphere. It was especially good talking to local people, as it was mostly tourists on the Kepler track. Not that I don't like other tourists, its just nice to speak to people from the actual country I am visiting. If you are a possum, stoat, deer or any other introduced animal, you are fair game and killing these animals is actively encouraged by the DOC (Dept of Conservation). One night, the father and son of a family from Hawkes bay went out and clubbed a possum to death outside the hut, and thought nothing of it. It also is your duty as a Kiwi to run over any such animals you see on the road. I've never seen so much roadkill, nor birds of prey tucking into said roadkill. The roads are actually pretty empty outside of the cities, if you drive its probably great.



View of lake Rotoroa, dawn at the Sabine hut, Nelson lakes
(not shown: wasps and sandflies)

Travel plan

This shows the flights I have booked. Bit of a strange route, it looks like it would make more sense to start in Japan and travel down Asia to Malaysia and then on to New Zealand. However, I wanted to get to NZ before Winter. The trip is basically three legs, the first in South East Asia:
The blue arrows show flights, the black lines are the potential overland routes. The first flight is to Cambodia, where I'm planning to spend some time at the Ankor temple sites and then travel to Vietnam. Vietnam looks like a long, long country. There are tons of motorbikes and little in the way of road rules. I'm travelling North, making a few stops (probably at Hoi An, for instance), and I'll probably be in Hanoi (the capital) for Christmas. After that, I'm planning to fly into Laos and stay around Luang Prabang for a bit (flying rather than taking the 24hr+ bus journey from Vietnam!). I need to get back into Thailand for the next flight, so I'll probably cross over at Chong Mai (probably spelt that wrong) and travel down to Bangkok via train, stopping at a couple of places (like the old capitals, Sukothai and Ayyuthaya).

After that, I haven't planned much, so I'll save that for the next blog. New Zealand I might do a bit of work, and I definitely want to do some hiking. Japan I'll visit a couple of cities and maybe stay in a Buddhist temple. I want to get to China via South Korea, and visit Beijing and Xi'an, finally getting to Hong Kong. That's as much as I want to plan really.

Rob