Diary

Arrival and Auckland

Auckland pictures here

Our last few days in Chile were, as predicted, uneventful and spent relaxing before the flight. Though, to be honest, the thirteen-hour flight was a breeze compared with the 1600-mile bus trip we'd done just a few days earlier. The only slight challenges were the idiot sat in the seat in front of me, the 22 consecutive hours of darkness, and the fact that the seats on the plane were a lot smaller than we remembered. At check-in, we met an Aussie couple who had been travelling through South America for six weeks or so and who were desperate to get home to Sydney after a series of disasters involving missed flights, cancelled itineraries, penalty fees, missing visas and the like. David gave them some advice on how to get on the flight (they had no ticket), which they eventually did.

We arrived at 3.40am to a typically Kiwi welcome - torrential rain, which didn't let up until the evening. By the time we had loitered to kill time in the airport and then taken the bus into town, we were pretty drenched. We killed yet more time in the Britomart Transport Centre, along with a sorry selection of party-goers waiting to go home the morning after the night before (we envied them for having had a Saturday), during which time we managed to formulate a plan for tackling the country, aided by the reams of free guides and maps we picked up in the airport. We then walked over to our hostel and attempted to dry ourselves in the communal lounge. The few people we "met" there seemed happy to ignore us and hide behind their laptops and cups of tea, and our room was ready for us at 11.

Determined to beat the jet lag and keep ourselves occupied (and therefore awake), we got busy organising our first few journeys (trains from Hamilton to Wellington to Christchurch, as well as the Magic Bus!) and then headed to the supermarket to buy essentials for the next few days (relieved to actually be able to buy food to cook with!) We then lounged on sofas to watch Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics (!) and Dave discovered an old school friend was staying at the same hostel (what are the chances?) Our first venture back into the world of cooking was a delicious spaghetti carbonara.

We woke the next morning to the sound of foghorns in the harbour, breakfasted on our first cornflakes in months, and, while it was still sunny, headed into town. After a bit of parrot-spotting in Albert Park, we arrived at the Sky Tower and promptly ascended it. Dave chose not to appreciate the view (through a glass panel in the floor) of the lift shaft dropping away below us (anyone that knows Dave well will know that he's not fond of heights or, more specifically, tall, cylindrical buildings). Similar glass panels on the viewing platform offer views of the traffic flowing far beneath your feet. Crazy people have the oh-so-appealing option of either walking a lap of the narrow ring surrounding the viewing platform, or, if they're really nuts, jumping off it. We watched one of the latter suspended in his harness at around 200 metres above the streets below, before being left to drop to the landing platform. Dave felt queasy.

As the weather was holding up, we took a walk south to climb Mount Eden, one of the scores of volcanoes that provide Auckland with its countless green hillocks. The crater at the top was very impressive, as were the views. Hungry from our long walk, we then headed into Newmarket and found a little sushi place to have a snack in. Never had sushi tasted so good (I realise I sound as if we have been starved for the last three months, but, much as steak and more steak is nice for a time, you can't reasonably live without sushi.) We also snuck in a local ale before arriving back at the hostel.

Our sleep that night was disrupted by rude and thoughtless French people (as if there were any other kind), and we were very disappointed to discover our cornflakes had been stolen in the morning. However, things picked up and we headed to the train station to confirm our earlier bookings and jump on a train to Papakura, where David's friend James was due to meet us. James drove us home to Cambridge where his wife, Katrina made us a delicious Thai green curry and we bored them with our trip photos.

Cambridge is a good place to relax for a few days - a pretty little town with a villagey feel. We have taken the opportunity to do all our chores, a bit of organising for the next few weeks, and we have both had haircuts! On Wednesday we went to a pub in nearby Hamilton to see James' band play a gig, and have spent the most of the rest of our time playing with James and Katrina's two kittens, Bumble and Moose, who, thankfully, we're not too allergic to.

Trains, Ferries, Wellington and Christchurch

Trains, Ferries, Wellington and Christchurch pictures here

It's been a long while since we've done an update, mainly because the internet access in New Zealand is more expensive than we would like, but also because we've been on the move pretty much non-stop since we left Cambridge. The train journey from Hamilton to Wellington was very civilised and picturesque: rolling hills that look like they've had a golf course draped over them, gamboling lambs (yes, it's Spring here), snow-covered volcanoes (none for ages and then three turn up all at once). The three scenic train journeys we have done are seen more as a day out than a way of getting from A to B. There is a running commentary of what to look out for and open viewing carriages. It's train travel from a bygone era.

When we arrived in Wellington it was very, very cold. Luckily our (enormous) hostel was directly opposite the train station. Even better, as we were feeling quite wiped out, the hostel had it's own bar and a little man was selling pies and other tasty bits in front of the station. And to boot, he introduced us to the delights of chicken salt (no explanation needed: it's chicken-flavoured salt).

Next morning we went exploring the Wellywood docks and the rest of the town, including the impressive botanical gardens. And we got to see a real-life Tui close up, singing his odd little song. We went on a bit of a quest for sushi (strange how there's a sushi bar on every corner when you're not hungry, and then when you are, they all go into hiding), bought travel sickness pills in preparation for the ferry crossing, and slept for a good few hours. That night we dined on beans on toast and felt like proper backpackers.

Early next morning, we braved the cold again to get the free shuttle from the station to the ferry port, where we discovered we would be sharing a ferry with 300 school children. But no self-respecting backpacker would stoop so low as to pay the $40 to upgrade to the executive lounge so we just found a quiet-looking corner of the bar and tried to keep to ourselves. The unconvincing paint-over job on the boat's original name (Pride of Cherbourg) was a giveaway that this was an ex-channel crossing ferry. We pondered the possibility that this might not even be our first time on board.

At Picton, we managed to be the first foot passengers off the boat and made our way over to the train station (without our luggage, which was checked all the way to Christchurch, something we agreed to believe when we saw it) and checked in for our second picturesque train journey. The mountains were higher, the forests bigger and there was more snow on the peaks this time, and we spent some blowy minutes on the viewing platform watching the waves roll in along miles of coastline. We even glimpsed a few fur seal colonies.

When we arrived in Christchurch in the early evening, we discovered we would be sharing a flat with a Chilean and a Uruguayan (we almost felt at home), cooked something simple to eat and had a very low-key evening.

The next day (1st September) was apparently the first day of Spring in this corner of the world, and was, as it happened, a beautiful cloudless day. We spent it exploring the town by foot, including the botanical gardens and nurseries, where we say some impressive orchids and tropical plants (hopefully a taste of what we might be spotting in the wild in a few months). In the evening, my kiwi friend Anna picked us up and took us home where her family spoiled us with a lovely home-cooked dinner (and where David got attacked by Bella the grumpy cat).

South Island

South Island pictures here

The next morning we packed up and got the shuttle bus back to the station (where there was a moment of confusion when we tried to pay and were told we didn't need to - we're not used to this kind of treatment) for our third and final scenic train journey across New Zealand, the trans-Alpine. We recognised Penny and Rod, a pair of Aussies we met on the trans-coastal and had a long discussion about the Kiwis confusing vowels. Unfortunately the weather wasn't so good to us this time and there was a fair bit of mist covering the mountains. The landscape was still pretty awe-inspiring though.

We arrived in Greymouth where the shuttle was waiting to take us to our hostel, which was heavily fish-themed. After playing a bit of pool and eating free cakes from the bakery over the road, we headed to the Montleith's brewery for a tour and an opportunity to meet some of our fellow magic-bussers. This involved tasting the seven different varieties they had on tap in the bar, and then having a go at pulling a few pints ourselves. I seem to remember we learned a load of stuff too, but that's not really what stood out. The tour ended with a trip to the local pub where we had our first drink free, and food from the barbie. After half an hour of saying "these pints look really big" we realised we were being served in 1.5 pt glasses. We didn't complain though, and the evening descended into silliness, fuelled mostly by one particular Swede who knows who he is.

The walk back along the sea-wall brought home what a desolate and isolated place we were in. We didn't see another soul all the way.

The next day was our first Magic Bus day and Scottie was looking after us. We set off at 8am and signed ourselves up for the half-day glacier trek in Franz Joseph. However during a stop in Hokatika where we watched some jewellers doing fancy things with the local greenstone, we were told the glacier was closed. Shortly afterwards it became obvious why and the rain started pouring down. We made another stop in Ross to do a bit of gold-panning and once we arrived in FJ, settled in to watch the rain for the rest of the day. We'd never seen anything like it and were told they were expecting 480mm in two days. With such bad luck, there was only really one thing left for us to do that evening, and we got more than a bit merry with two American girls we'd met, at the Blue Ice Bar, where Scottie was DJ-ing. We even got talked into downing the house special shot, the red peril, sold to us as the most disgusting thing we'd ever taste in a bar. It was. The most offensive of the fourteen ingredients was the extra hot chilli powder. It took us a good while to recover and the conversation was thin on the ground for about six or seven minutes while we regained the use of our mouths.

As the rain seemed pretty much here to stay, we didn't stick around to see if the glacier path would open, but headed down to Queenstown. The journey was very picturesque and we stopped to look at the mirror lakes (their black algae makes them reflective), though with the weather as it was, there wasn't much besides clouds to reflect. The rainforest-style walk there gave us plenty of opportunity to see New Zealand's famous ferns. We made a few other stops, one at Knight's Point to look down on the Tasman sea breaking on the rocks, and another at Thunder Creek falls. We then headed over Haas Pass to Makarura.

At this point, David signed himself up for a bungy jump at the very first commercial bungy site outside Queenstown, but eventually backed out when he realised he was the only person due to do it. We did get to watch a few people jump though, but agreed it was far to cold and that we'd wait for better weather (any old excuse). Queenstown looked stunning on arrival and we were dropped off at our hostel to check in. We headed straight down to the Kiwi Discovery office to book ourselves on a trip to Milford Sound the next day, and then went back to the hostel and cooked so much ratatouille we fed two extra people. We finished the night by taking advantage of the 2 for 1 beer offer down at the Buffalo Bar, where Scottie unsuccessfully tried to persuade us to join the (dangerous-sounding) pub crawl.

The next morning was an early start for our Milford Sound tour, and there was plenty of sleeping to be done on the bus to begin with. Luckily, though, we managed to wake up in time for the spectacular scenery, including Lake Te Anau, clouds nestling in among the mountains and mist rising up off prairies. We saw more mirror lakes and stopped at monkey creek to fill our bottles with fresh spring water. We drove through a few avalanche zones before stopping to do another "rainforest walk' and making friends with a very cheeky kea. Finally we arrived at the port and went on our 45 minute boat trip up and down the sound, getting wet in some waterfall spray on the way. The return bus journey was long but we didn't feel we could really afford the alternative of a helicopter ride.

That evening we sampled the local culinary institution of the Fergburger, and damn good it was too.

The next morning we headed up the hill in the cable car, watching a few parapenters sailing down as we went, and had a few goes on the luge. This is on concrete, not ice, and is really more like go-karting, but it was a lot of fun all the same. Somehow Dave managed to video himself driving the whole circuit. We watched some more parapenters jumping off the side of the mountain, and a few bungy jumps. The views of the town and lake were stunning and the weather perfect. Queenstown is basically a very chic ski resort with opportunities to spend piles of money on every corner. A few of our new magic bus pals had booked three day ski school, sky dives and bungy jumps (including the "Nevis" at 143m!), but we decided there were plenty of cheaper options back up on the North Island (swiftly putting it off again). After dinner that night, we chatted with some guys in the hostel about their silliness on the slopes before heading to bed.

We had a new Magic Bus driver the next day, Andy, and there were plenty of no-shows that morning. Apparently lots of Magic Bussers get "stuck" in Queenstown, always being too hungover to make the bus out. We made a stop not far our of town in prime fruit growing country, and took photos of each other in front of the giant fruit monument. There was plenty more stunning scenery to be seen on the rest of the journey including the recently-watered orchards that had formed thousands of icicles on their branches. We also made a short stop on Brighton beach! We arrived into Dunedin (The Edinburgh of the South) at about 1.30pm. Dunedin thinks it's in Scotland, and the street names and tourist shops selling kilts and bagpipes and the like are evidence of this. It's also pretty cold! We went into town for our customary sushi lunch and took a look at the old railway station and Cadbury's chocolate factory.

Back at the hostel that evening, we watched a Japanese girl show her two friends how to make sushi and felt a bit embarrassed about our beans on toast dinner. Mind we had a nice bottle of red to go with it. We also made arrangements for the end of our NZ trip, booking some extra buses and agreeing dates with James and Katrina. And we discovered Dave had become an uncle to a large and overdue Ella Kirby.

The bus the next morning made a stop at Baldwin Street, the world's steepest street, and we tested our early morning fitness by walking up it. We made another stop to see the Maoraki Boulders, huge round concretions that the sea washes out of the hills onto the beach. Some of the ones further into the sea are starting to fall apart, whilst others are still embedded in the mudrock cliffs. And the beach was strewn with pieces of rock that would just disintegrate if you touched them. We made one final stop at the Benmore Dam and hydroelectric power station, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. After that we arrived in Lake Tekapo, where we checked in to the Lakefront Lodge and relaxed for a while and watched a few DVDs of people skydiving and bungying.

After a short walk on the pebbly "beach" we headed into town (more a gathering of houses really, this place is small!) and got a cheap dinner at the pub.

There must have been something in the air at Tekapo as more than one Magic Busser (including myself) had bad dreams that night. We left early the next morning (by this stage we're beginning to feel like we're never stopping long enough to get our thoughts together) for Christchurch, making stops in Geraldine and a few other places. During one of them, Dave gave a short course in stone skimming to a few of our fellow travellers. We arrived in the early afternoon and checked into Charlie B's. Before doing anything else, we checked the result of the US tennis open final that morning and discovered to our disappointment that Murray had lost after all. We actually managed to watch the match that afternoon in an Irish bar. Apart from that, we got some laundry done and feasted on sushi for both lunch and dinner.

The next day, we arrived into Kaikoura at around 11.30am, taking an opportunity to book our ferry back during a stop in a cafe. The weather was overcast but we decided to go for a walk anyway along the coastal road to a fur seal colony. This turned out to be further than we thought, but we didn't need to go all the way in any case as we came across a lazy fat seal basking by the side of the road and looking very comical. He was huge, and cars were slowing down to get shots of him. A couple of foolhardy Japanese girls eager to get a good photo got a little too close and got growled at. Those things have big teeth! (the seals not the Japanese tourists).

The weather improved suddenly on the way back and the clouds lifted a little to reveal the breathtaking mountains we didn't even know were there. We walked past lots of very nice expensive-looking houses and stopped off to have a Thai lunch before heading to the hostel to relax for a while. Later, we went to The Strawberry Tree for the pub quiz, which was cancelled due to poor turnout, and instead ended up exchanging notes on SE Asia and Latin America with a girl who was travelling round the world in the opposite direction.

North Island

North Island pictures here

The next day we headed up to Picton to take the ferry, stopping off to see a huge seal colony on the way said goodbye to Andy and waited around for our ferry. There was a bit more movement on the sea that day, but we were fast asleep for most of it in our corner of the bar. We felt a bit like we were coming home when we got to the Downtown hostel in Wellington, and made ourselves a delicious chicken noodle stir fry and had a few drinks in the bar.

The next day we met our new Magic Bus driver, Mangu and headed up to Napier. We made a stop on the way to see a real life kiwi in a bird sanctuary (the chances of us seeing one in the wild were looking increasingly slim, as they're nocturnal and very shy). We had to let our eyes adjust to the nocturnal house darkness but when they did, there was Mr. kiwi doing his funny little walk and poking about in the soil with his long beak. Then Mrs. kiwi joined him and they can't have known they were being watched because they got kind of friendly with each other!

We drove down through some pretty impressive hills on the way down into Napier and arrived early afternoon, checked into Archie's Bunker and went for a long walk with lots of steep ups and downs, taking in the botanical gardens, the art deco architecture and a budgie aviary along the way. We instantly liked the town. Who wouldn't like somewhere where prawns are cheaper than lettuce? We cooked ourselves a garlic chilli cream prawn pasta that night, with a bottle of white wine, then played some pool and watched the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

The next day's bus journey was a short one and we arrived in Taupo at 10am. The weather was perfect for sky diving! We were picked up at 11.50 and taken to the airport where we were persuaded in seconds flat to jump at 15,000ft rather than 12,000ft (15,000ft is the highest commercial jump available anywhere), weighed, kitted out and briefed. I met my tandem master (Albert the German crocodile wrestler) and Dave met his (Phil from Newcastle) and we were led into our plane (a converted ex-crop duster painted yellow and bearing its teeth). After take off, the tandem masters spent some time fiddling about attaching us to them (pretty tightly!), keeping us talking all the while. When we were high enough, the 12,000-ers jumped, and we climbed even higher. I was the last to leave the plane and so had to watch Dave disappear out before me. I think I was expecting to sort of float out of the plane, because I was kind of shocked when we dropped out like a sack of bricks, and Albert performed a flip before facing us back to the ground for our next 60 seconds of freefall. The view over the lake was stunning, though I'm not sure I was fully appreciating it. After the parachute opened it was all plain sailing, if you'll pardon the pun, and Albert even gave me a go at taking the controls. Phil brought Dave over to say hello (I'd somehow managed to overtake them by then) and we came in for landing.

We were feeling sort of elated for the rest of the day, had a bottle of wine with our lunch (though the woman in the supermarket very nearly didn't sell it to us as we had no ID) and watched a few bungy jumps before heading to the pub to watch the final of the tri-nations (excellent atmosphere and fortunately NZ won).

The next day was bungy day! We spent the morning in town taking advantage of the beautiful weather, then walked up to the bungy spot, got ourselves weighed (again) and signed up, and walked out to the platform. The jump at Taupo is over the River Waikato which runs through a spectacular gorge. I won't say any more about the jumps, as you can watch the videos here. Suffice to say it was terrifying!

David's bungy video / Amy's bungy video

To calm us down, we took a walk up to the hot springs, had a paddle and continued up to the Huka falls. These are a more a stretch of white water than water falls and look like they'd be excellent fun to raft over, but you would die. We were told that the final pool is a bit like a washing machine and if you fell in, it would take three or four days for you to come back to the surface. After heading back to the hostel for showers, we went to the Warehouse shop to look for shorts for me to go zorbing in the next day. We finally found something wearable in the children's section! Then, starving, we went into town and had a pizza from Hell (a NZ pizza chain) and a few beers before turning in.

Take a look at our skydive and bungy pictures

We saw lots of familiar faces from the South Island on the bus the next morning, and made a stop back at the Huka falls where we dutifully got out and had another look. Once in Rotorua, our driver made some enquiries for us and discovered the river was currently closed due to heavy rainfall. Disappointed, but still hopeful the river would reopen, we checked into our hostel (with free hot spa and the biggest double bed you've ever seen) and then headed with our friends Cat and Dan from Ireland and Jess from Canada to town for lunch and then to the agrodome, home of zorbing.

Zorbing is something we've been wanting to do since the first time we were told about it. Who wouldn't want to go rolling down a hill in an enormous transparent, water-filled ball? We got changed, took the minivan to the top of the hill (a very bumpy ride), and first watched Jess take the zigzag route before following suit one by one. It's a lot of fun in a very silly kind of way. The run is fairly smooth to begin with but once it speeds up, you give up on any chance of staying even a little bit dry. Afterwards we had a look at the yak, ostrich, freefall simulator and bungy they have this strange farm / extreme activity complex. We all agreed that jumping from a wobbly crane didn't really cut it bungy-wise (we're oh so self-congratulatory now we've done it).

There's something I should point out about Rotorua, and that's that it smells. It stinks of egg. The whole town is sitting on a bubbling, stinking sulphurous hive of volcanic activity as the Earth's crust is very thin here, and there are pools of bubbling liquid sending eggy steam up all over the place. But we weren't complaining when we spent an hour relaxing in the hot spa at the hostel that afternoon. In the evening we went with Cat and Dan to the Pig & Whistle to swap travel notes (another pair doing the world in the opposite direction to us).

The river was still closed the next morning, so we got a lie in. I had started to feel like I was coming down with a cold or something and was almost relieved I wouldn't have to douse myself in icy water at least for one more day. We spent a few hours walking through the thermal park from one steaming pool to the next (our hands over our noses), and then went to admire the dozens of black swans at the lake. We had sushi and ice cream for lunch and then a long sleep at the hostel before taking Dan and Cat on at Scrabble (they had had an equally lazy day). I can't have looked well as Cat donated some Lemsip sachets to me and by the time we'd had dinner, I was ready for bed.

By the next morning, Dave and I were both performing a coughing and sniveling chorus and we called up to cancel our places on the white water rafting, which was finally going ahead. We checked out and put our bags into storage before heading out for a coffee and some web surfing before going to the Government Gardens and some of the smelliest pools yet. We shared the Pig & Whistle spare ribs for lunch (and both made a terrible mess) before getting our bus to Mount Maunganui. On the way in, our bus driver quoted us the prices of some of the houses, to make the point that this is the most expensive place to live in the country. We checked in en masse at the Pacific Coast hostel, met with tea, cakes and pizza and a briefing from our host. This was the poshest hostel we'd seen yet. Cat and Dan joined us for a stroll along the beach, where we picked up shells and saw a dead penguin. Then we headed to the Irish Bar where we'd been promised there would be a pub quiz (we had high hopes after the Kaikoura disappointment). There was some confusion when another team coincidentally also chose to call themselves the Dead Penguins (they'd been on the beach too), and some stiff competition from local teams and regulars, but we held our own to come third and win a $20 bar tab.

We said goodbye to Cat and Dan that night as we were due to leave early the next morning, which we did, hungover and wishing we were still in bed. The familiar smell met us back in Rotorua and we treated ourselves to a restorative fry-up and flat white coffee before getting our next bus to Cambridge. It was beginning to rain heavily by the time we arrived, but fortunately Katrina, who must possess some sort of sixth sense, spontaneously drove up to meet us as we emerged from the bus station. So here we are again, back with the cats, getting our clothes clean, eating lovely food and generally just chilling out with James and Katrina, happy to be in a house we don't have to share with morose, bad-mannered backpackers.

The next time we write, we will be in Sydney, will have lost two hours to the time difference, said goodbye to those weird (but charming) vowel sounds, and Dave will have met his new niece.