New Zealand - Highlights

Aha! This blog format is blatently not working as I just never get time to update enough and always leave my diary in the van/hostel! Definately going to change this for South America, and will probably continue in a more usual 'blogging' manner ie, random updates as i go along.... so he's number 1...


Update
Well I've been out travelling in New Zealand since October and have bought a camper van and driven around North and South Island with Sophie who is now joining me to South America!

At the moment were stuck in Auckland trying to desparately sell our camper and going a little stir crazy...

A quick tour of the highlights so far (see diary for more details day-to-day)... anyway here we go...

NORTH ISLAND

• Parnell - cool Auckland suberb - excellent food! Loadsa galleries!
• Waitomo caves - saw glow worms up close!
• Bay Of Islands - stayed on a boat, swam in phospherant waters and kayaking to an island! Got fed weird sea-things caught by the crew and snorkelled with loads of fish around reefs!
• Tauranga - got drunk with a crazy Icelandic fisherman & his medium-wife (see previous diary entry).
• Rotorua - Wai-o-tapu - incredible thermal and volcanic pools, geysers and crusty formations, streaming ponds and all manner of weird coloured rocks, sand, bubbling mud and shooting steam!
• Coromandel Pensinsula - found crabs and wandered around cathedral cove, missed out on Hot Water Beach (where you can dig a little thermal pool for yourself in the sand) but got to New Chums Beach after a 30 minute trek over headland and rocks - totally stunning beach, weird volcanic rocks and deserted!!!

SOUTH ISLAND

• Cape farewell was isolated and a really amazing headland. Farewell spit is a massive (and i mean massive) expanse of white sand you can get lost in - as far as you can see, theres just dunes of sand and sea - incredible! Best place in New Zealand!!
• Wharariki Beach was incredibly desolate and beautiful, Soph wandered into a cave past some weird looking rocks only to be grunted at by them! They were a couple of Sea-lions! She came scampering across the beach to me pointing after a bull-sea-lion warned her not to get any closer! We got really close to them. They smell really bad.
• West coast was bleak and rainy, rainy, rainy. Dismal!
• We went on an Ice Hike over Fox Glacier and scrambled over the headland to Franz Josef Glacier. They were both big wedges of grey/blue ice streaming down between mountains. We spent a day hiking over Fox in crampons and wandering through ice holes and crevaces. Wanted to do a skydive over the glaciers but defeated by poor weather over the next few days...
• Went hanggliding in Queenstown - running over the edge holding onto a Japanese guy and then swooping over the mountains was amazing and caught some really great thermals (both our flight partners - spookily from Japan and Chile! - said so). Perfect weather, excellent flights! Really wanted to take a course to do paragliding afterwards!
• Spent Christmas at Milford Sound - an incredible fjordland area with breathtaking scenery, huge mountains rise up from nowhere - really sharply- and give way to valleys, waterfalls and gorges. theres a basic tunnel cut right through one mountain you drive through - kea's (alpine parrots) hang around the car parks.
• Went to Stewart island - a haven for wildlife especially Kiwi's although we didnt have longenough to see any (they're nocturnal).
• Spent New Year in Dunedin - a University city, went to outdoor fireworks, got very drunk and felt a bit miffed at the lack of NZ nightlife even on New year! A french girl summed up well when she said "These Kiwi's need to come to Europe! We'll show them how to party!"
• Otago pensinsula was pretty - saw Yellow Eyed Penguins (World's rarest!) Coming ashore and clambered over a massive sanddune in the pooring rain, then hid in a hide watching seals fight on the nearby beach.
• Christchurch was a weird chunk of England dumped in New Zealand even down to the filthy public tiolets (which have been immaculate most places in NZ so far!). Watched Benjamin Button at cinema (during which I almost died of old age!).
• Saw a whale in Kaikoura on a really rough sea, people were looking green at points! Also saw a blue shark, little blue penguins and some albatross.

BACK ON NORTH ISLAND

• Went tubing underground in Wait-o-mo and floated, leapt and scrambled through rock caverns with running water and glow-worm lighting
• Tongariro Crossing was a day trek over the volcano, which was just incredible from start to finish! Volcanic craters, green & blue lakes, amazing views, thermal pools - just look at the photos on my facebook & see!
• Big Day Out festival in Auckland - saw Mike Patton, Trevor Dunn & Dave Lombardo in Fantomas play the Director's Cut - stunning & really cool if a tad 'orchestrated', got crushed to death in the dance tent to the Prodigy , Son of Dave was the best act at BDO with his impromptu beatbox blues, he got 2 girls on stage and gave out spirits and fruit(!?), Pendulum were shocking and dumbed down all their own stuff plus covering 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica - they had guitar, drums & bass player - what happened to the DnB?!?!? - luckily saved by dancing our asses off to Simian Mobile Disco!

Nov 23rd

No one at office so a free nights camping! Watched local Maori lads snorkelling for mussels north of whitianga.

Went to new chums beach - after spending as while trying to locate the 'way in'. Turned out we had to clamber over the headland rocks, then scramble accross the land for 30mins before emerging at an amazing beach! Crazy red and black volcanic rocks alongside white sands! Best Beach in NZ so far!

Nov 24
Cooks beach. Drove through some bays to Hahei
and saw Cathedral Cove - after spying out a few crabs from the near by headland rocks. Craggy steps lead down to two beaches split by an impressive rock arch. Pinnacles in the sea. Wanted to go to Hot Water Beach recommended by Aussie girl, but bad weather maent we carried on - Hot water beach is where you can dig out a seat in the sand and it fills with hot thermal water - like a mini spa! Sad to miss it..

Drove to Waihai - massive mining town with active mine at one end - Huuuuuuge pit (like an asteroid had hit) with tiny diggers still trundling to the top then back down.

Nov 25.
Still in Waihai we saw aman taklking to a glove puppet walking down the road. Seems all this mining has taken its toll on the locals (many in wellies).

Nearly drove into a police car taking a sharp turn from the motorway down a farmers track down one way bridge..! Eek. Walked round Karangahepe Gorge over walkways and swing bridges and through an ancient mining site inc. tunnels through Gorge sides where carts used to run with gold & silver. Took a stroll through a massive tunnel in pitch dark for ages to emerge other side of hill.

Continued to Tuaranga and just as we parked, looked up to see the girls from the other night who had successfully managed to get threir car out of the ditch and we exstatic to see us. Gave us their number and said we'd meet up but ended up getting back into town late that night and didnt bother. Sat at a pub, where a pub quiz was on - very english. couple of Kiwi plumbers asked us to join them for a drink and were joined by a crazy (and very, very drunk) Icelandic fisherman who was celebrating his biggest catch ever with his (very, very odd and drunk) wife, who seemed to slip in and out of consciousness - we thought because she was drunk - but at one point she came around and pointed to me (as I was talking to the wild fisherman about his icelandic son) and said like some psychic medium "He's Balanced" and then "Five years!". Ended up sat out the front of the bar after hours with the young kiwi's, the fishermen and the bar staff, where were slightly over-proud of being kiwi's and part-maori.

Nov 26.
Drove to Mount Mananui - a pleasant harbour if a tad resorty, by a mountain. Had a wander by the bay and then up the mount - an odd mix of wilderness, built up city, Sandy beaches and grazing sheep - all in one view - truely diverse. New Zealander's seem to have a weird appitite for jogging up mountains too we're finding.

Continued on to Rotorua - known for it's nateral thermal features. Before we arrived you can smell the sulphur - thats why its known as sulphur city. Its also called Roto-vegas as its very tourist-orientated. After a bit of so you apparently get used to it and dont notice, but we never quite did.

Lake Rotorua was plesant with randoms flying around in helicopters and water-planes.

Nov 21st.

In Coromandel. Pleasant area. Went to see a local band in a pub - hmmm. Left early afetr disapointing Maori blues band with out of place Kiwi guitar widdly god.


Nov 22nd.

Went to Driving Creek Railway - a mad railway that takes you up into the hills built by sculptor Barry Briknell. Pottery there - weird surreal pots & people all the way to the top on a ricketty homemade 'train'. Went to Kauri Grove in Coromandel Forest and saw Siamese Kauri trees. Camped up and chatted to some UK girls who were based in Turanga and had parked there car over an edge with 2 wheels off the floor!