Hmmmm, can you smell something?

Been a bit of a break since my last blog, and I’ve covered a fair bit of ground since then. Since leaving Wellington I’ve passed through Napier, Taupo, Rotorua, Mt Maunganui on my way to Auckland. I didn’t stay anywhere for too long but I’ll be passing through a few on the way back south so can see anything I missed then. Not much was happening in Napier (it was Sunday and nearly everything was closed). I didn’t find the Art Deco buildings there to be particularly exciting really, because there’s barely any nice modern buildings and some really dubious colour schemes it feels a lot older than is.

Taupo was okay, there I visited Huka Falls and the Craters of the Moon, a geothermal spot here with lots of craters (obviously) and fumaroles all venting steam and gas. It makes for quite a surreal landscape, even more so because it’s such an isolated pocket amongst normal forest. They have nice forests up here by the way, and lots of native birds. My favourite’s the Tui because it sounds like R2-D2. The lake, as people regularly point out, is big enough to contain Singapore, but it’s just a whole bunch of water really so it’s all flat and didn’t get me all that excited. Mind you the lake itself is also one massive volcanic crater so any excitement it might cause would probably be of the hot, explosive kind so perhaps it’s for the best.

There were more geothermal shenanigans in Rotorua, where you don’t have to go too far to find something interesting with gas of some kind. And of course there’s the smell, which I didn’t find all that bad although I don’t think I would ever eat eggs again if I had to live there. Visited the museum there too which is in a fantastic old Tudor-style building which used to be a bath house back in the day.



Mt Maunganui was really nice, and felt exactly like the beaches at Caloundra or Coolangatta back home. But with sheep. Yep they’re even at the beach over here, but I suppose they need a holiday too.



Anyway, I had to make it up to Auckland a bit ahead of schedule to meet my sister Karen, who decided to pop over for a surprise visit. Auckland’s a much nicer town when you’re visiting it on purpose by the way – I didn’t have fond memories of it at all but that’s because last time I was stuck here when I should have been in Vancouver. While Karen was here we went to the Coromandel Pensinsula, where we visited Cathedral Cove (my favourite place on the north island so far) and did some bone carving, and also headed up to the Bay of Islands, which is a really nice spot. We did the Hole in the Rock cruise (didn’t get to go through though, bummer) and visited Urupukapuka Island, which I try and mention whenever I can just cause it’s fun to say. It’s pronounced Uru-puka-puka, where the u is as in ‘put’. Try it, you’ll enjoy yourself. Karen also went dolphin watching while I visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds and Hururu Falls, and we also did a day trip to Russell and went to a Maori cutural performance one night on the history of the area. Oh and we visited the Auckalnd Zoo as well, in case you were wondering what all the exotic animals on my Flickr site were all about.

Here's Karen in action.



So it was a nice change to have a travelling companion for a while, although I did have to make a few adjustments. I was at a bit of a loss at what to say at first, without the usual routine of finding out where people are from, where they’ve been and where they’re heading (and eventually their name, if it looks like they’ll be around long enough that you might need to use it. I also had to drop my usual walking pace a little bit (and then quite a lot) so Karen could keep up, or at least, not collapse. So she flew back home this morning to get some rest before going back to work, and I’m starting back down south again tomorrow to Waitomo and the caves there.

Call me Ishmael

The past week’s had a bit of a maritime theme. After leaving Christchurch I headed up to Kaikoura, a nice little seaside town which is New Zealand’s whale watching capital. And watch I have, from the shore, by boat and by plane, and it’s been fantastic. I’ve always believed Giant Things are Cool, so have always liked whales and was glad to finally see some in person. The minute the bus arrived in town we got to see our first two, a Southern Right Whale mother and calf were hanging around just off the shore near town until the baby’s old enough to head out into the open ocean. So pretty much every day you could see them swimming, spouting, feeding or breaching.



Headed out that same afternoon on the boat trip which was really good. I was glad to discover I’m not prone to seasickness, which I’ve never put to the test before, although the woman beside me wasn’t so lucky and I don’t think she quite got her money’s worth on that trip. I did though, we got to see about 10 Giant Sperm Whales, 4 quite close up, a few seals, a few albatross flying (it’s cool watching them run across the water to take off – I thought they made that up in The Rescuers movie) and on the way back passed through a pod of about 300 Dusky Dolphins, so they were completely surrounding the boat, swimming underneath, jumping out beside it and even somersaulting.

The next day I went for a walk around the peninsula, where there’s a seal colony, so got to see lots of sleepy fur seals onshore for a bit of a rest. And was subjected to much shrieking and a few fly-bys from 100s of angry seagulls, who also had a breeding colony out there and were nesting at the time, and that didn’t really add to my already low opinion of them.



Also went up on a flightseeing trip to spot some whales from the air, because you are pretty much limited to seeing just their back and tail from the boat, so that was really good to get a full view of them and see them in perspective against some of the whale-watching boats. We see another 10 whales or so, a few of them swimming together in formation, but the view of the coast alone would have been worth the cost, it’s a really spectacular place with snow-capped mountains running almost to the sea.



There was a really great bunch of people at the hostel too, it was a small little house (with a fantastic view) and because there weren’t many of us there and we all got on so well it seemed like we‘d known each other for ages. We had a great roast dinner one night, which never seemed to go completely to plan but was the most fun I’ve had in ages. There was plenty of wine, 2 courses of roast chicken (with just a hint of melted plastic but we’re sure we got rid of most of it), plenty of dessert, good music, probably some pretty terrible singing and what I thought was at least reasonable table drumming to accompany PC’s (my French room-mate) guitar playing. The next day we were all a bit subdued, and while Amy and Yannik had to leave us to head to Fiji, the lucky buggers, we managed to entertain ourselves with vacuuming (which is apparently just about the most fun you can have, or so Gemma told us anyway and she seemed to be enjoying herself, bless her), we watched a few videos, and then found PC had cooked us all dinner so we had another great night. In all I was only there for a few days but felt so at home was just as sad to leave there as I was Wanaka, where I’d been for weeks. But we’ll all be catching up again at Gemma’s wedding, which we’ve been invited to or will quite probably come to us if we can’t make it to Scotland, which is very convenient.

Sine then I’ve caught the ferry across from the South Island to Wellington, which is quite a nice city really, but is far too windy, and I can’t say I’m crazy about the earthquakes either, even though there’s only been one so far I could even feel (it was barely anything, just like being near a big truck driving or train driving past, but still pretty freaky). Heading up to Napier tomorrow, which ironically is most famous for being devastated by an earthquake years ago and got a bunch of nice new buildings because of it. It should be nice just as long as they’ve got all that out of their system now and don’t feel the need for any more urban renewal while I’m there.

I'm beck. Beck in Christchurch

Yep, finished my loop of the central south island and back in Christchurch now. You can really tell it's spring here, all the trees and flowers are starting to bloom, and Christchurch is really the kind of city which is best viewed in the springtime so I'll be glad to get back here again later when it's in full swing.

Left Dunedin on Wednesday and to be honest was pretty glad to get out of there. I quite liked it the first time I visited but this time around it just seemed grey and dreary and I couldn't wait to get back out into the countryside. And I've seen some of New Zealand's best since then - we drove up the coast (stopping by the Moeraki Boulders which are pretty cool, if you like round rocks. And I do), then turned inland through the Otago countryisde, which I love, and finally back to the Southern Alps, which I'd missed terribly in the few days I'd been away from them. Got my first look at Aoraki (also known as Mt Cook but i refuse to use such a dull name when I can refer to him as the Cloud-Piercer. that rocks) across Lake Pukaki, which along with Lake Tekapo are incredibly beautiful lakes, managing to combine mirror-like reflections with incredibly blue water.



Really enjoyed my stay in Lake Tekapo too, it was just one day but seemed much longer I enjoyed it that much. I've actually visited everywhere I've been on this trip at least once before, but only briefly, so it's been really interesting how my impressions of these places have changed after spending some time there. I only stopped at Tekapo for lunch on a bus trip before and thought it was kind of pretty but not really impressed, but after getting to explore the countryside around it I really enjoyed it. I've got a better appreciation for the landscape too - Mt John, which I'd barely even registered as a hill beside the lake, seemed much taller and impressive this time (Probably because this time I knew I was going to walk to the top, and have a better idea of the effort that involves. Which wasn't that bad at all actually, luckily Tekapo is already at 700m so it doesn't take long to get to the 1000m summit. Bargain ). The view from up there was fantastic, spent ages just sitting around on the summit enjoying the view, and then went back up again that night for the stargazing tours at the observatory there. It wasa full moon, which was a bit of a mixed blessing because the 360 degree view of the surrounding plains, lake and mountains was just unreal bathed in the moonlight. I could have stayed up there all night, but thought I should go down to recover some feeling in my hands and feet becuase it was cold up there and i'd lost my gloves. But unfortunately the moon did blocked out a lot of the stars, as they're supposed to be amazing on a clear night, so I'll have to consult the almanac to plan another visit when it's a new moon.



So that brings me back to Christchurch, after another great drive through the farmland of the Mackenzie Country, where I was almost reduced to tears of culinary joy on discovering first a carvery where I could get a roast pork sandwich for lunch (they're surprisingly hard to find over here, and we'd been passing sheep and cows all day and I was hungry. Notice I chose pork though - I'm not a complete monster. We didn't see any pigs at all.) and then, finally, donuts. Hot donuts. Which are virtually non-existent over here and which is why Mario and I plan to open a donut franchise over here. It's just the perfect climate for hot donuts, and yet they're nowhere to be found. i can't understand it. But anyway, it leaves a definite market opening for us, and don't worry Mario, they were only mini-donuts so if we move fast we can get set up before they discover the technology to make full-sized ones. So I took my donuts and went and sat in the gardens where all the daffodils are in bloom, and all was well with the world.



Man, that's a long post. I"m still on a bit of a sugar-high from the donuts I think. Anyway, here until Sunday, and then to Kaikoura to go whale watching. Hurrah.

Down to Dunedin

Spring has arrived and it’s time for me to get moving again. I’ve left Queenstown behind after 3 weeks and will be on the go a bit more now for the next month or two. I used to really love Queenstown but I have mixed feelings about it now. In some ways I prefer Wanaka because it’s quieter and it’s much easier to get right out of town, and I met a lot of really cool people there. Queenstown on the other hand is a lot busier but that does mean there’s more to do, and it’s set right amongst the hills so it’s nice to be able to get up amongst the mountains really quickly. There’s a lot of development going on though and while I can’t really begrudge people wanting to live in a place like that I do think it’s definitely eating away at the charm of the place.

I didn’t do quite as much as I had intended but I still had a good time in my last week there. I finally made it up Queenstown Hill, which I’ve been meaning to do for ages, and spent a really good day out at Arrowtown, a nice little former gold-mining town. Checked out a few of the walking tracks out there, a lot of them take all day though so will have to spend a few days there sometime to explore more thoroughly.



Arriving in Dunedin was a bit strange. To start with I was pretty tired, Queenstown being the party town that it is I of course had about 4 hours sleep before the bus trip down here, having been up until about 2:30 the night before. Playing Monopoly. Because that’s the kind of wild and crazy guy that I am. It was good fun though, I was playing with 2 Germans and an Israeli guy and we were all heading our separate ways so kept deciding to have just one more game. I’ve never been particularly good at Monopoly, mainly because rather than using any kind of sensible strategy I tend buy places whose names I like and refuse to buy railroads or utilities because they don’t have a colour. I usually end up wandering the board paying other people rent, either by choice or just bad luck. I did finally get to own some hotels once though. See - I even have proof.



Okay so they’re on the cheap streets (or Slumville as we called it) but I did get some on the yellows later on.

Anyway, so I was tired when I got to Dunedin and it was really strange being back in the city after the last few months in small mountain towns. I felt like a bit of a hobo actually in my still-muddy boots and outdoorsy clothes, and while I’m a bit more used to it now I’m still glad I’m only here for a short while. Worst of all there’s no mountains anywhere (lots of hills but they don’t count) and the more time I spend around them the more I’ve realised how much at home I feel there. But I’ll be back to them soon enough – heading up to Lake Tekapo for 2 nights soon and then on to Christchurch and Kaikoura to watch me some whales. Here's a picture form the train trip I did from Dunedin through the Taieri Gorge to leave you with.