Day 128 - ?
As you may know, some stupid volcano has grounded me in LA! Its very annoying to say the least! I would much much much prefer to be home right now!
BA are actually being fantastic to us though, were in a pretty swish hotel (for us) with three bufets a day, for free... still its not home! Aaaand we have no idea when flying might be possible, a plane was going to fly last night, not sure if it managed to, but seems unlikely as none went (are going) today...
Anyway I still cannot wait to be home, it just seems a little less possible these days!
HOPEFULLY I will see you soon...
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Los Angeles
Day 120
The longest day of my life!
Up at 6.30am, in auckland at 8am, airport by 10am, plane around 12, LAX at 7am, hostel by 10am – oh god its morning AGAIN! Lol
Immigration and customs take forever, this place truly is as paranoid as it gets, they're worse than biosecurity in NZ, making everyone queue for ages so the sniffer dogs get a chance at everyone and taking your fingerprints and photo etc etc. grr! And as an aside old people who think they can push in deserve to be slapped! Especially when they turn to you and say 'some people dont like queuing'! I got one sneaky whack with the didgeridoo box, but not nearly hard enough as I would have liked!
Anyway our hostel is pretty cool, free shuttle, breakfast muffins, afternoon cookies, wifi, tea and coffee, buffet of chips etc at dinner, cake for pudding, champagne/soft drink vouchers – all free as can be! And in a 20bed dorm we are only paying $14.35 a night!
Days 121 – 127
Not a lot really happened in LA, mostly we hid at the hostel, using free wifi when we left our room and to be honest just feeling generally intimidated by the whole americanness!
Our area isnt very nice, so our excursions after finding theres no kitchen to cook, were mainly to subway as thats a lot healthier than burger king, and within walking distance those were our lunchtime choices!
We also had predictable hostel issues, the water was off for one day (yeah hes just fixing a pipe, itl be on in half an hour my ass!) and for 2 days one of the taps in the boys bathroom was stuck on which made sleep time a little noisy, but all in all its been a pretty good hostel for us, new towel and a freshly made bed every day and clean and friendly dorm mates!
We also did one tour of La city, hollywood and downtown. The downtown was an addon that the driver said we could do for tips (instead of the $14 it should have cost) after I explained I literally only had $4 left! I think he did it because he keeps his tips, and he doesnt care how many people are on the bus, but it was still very nice of him!
The tour of LA, rodeo drive, venice beach etc was quite boring, yada yada its big and famous and expensive! And venice beaches homeless just showed how large the gulf between rich and poor is (never have I appreciated the UK so much!) which just saddened me. But if I had money and time both the farmers market (where I got SALAD for lunch :-D) and downtown would have enchanted me, especially downtown with its little market of worked leather goods and pretty little stalls in a small street, by a square filled with beautiful trees and fountain!
We also got to see the walk of fame and all its stars, the chinese theatre with its hand and foot prints, the hollywood sign etc... all the stuff it is kinda obligatory to see if you go to LA!
I guess thats pretty much it, life gets boring when you run out of money (just so you know my overspend is nearly £1000 now)! WE did have a hilarious american guy in our dorm though who couldnt believe “you have roads only one car can fit down!?” and didn't know what a hedge was! He also had a gallon of mouthwash which we laughed at him about!
Anyway I cant wait to see you all! We are leaving tomorrow, and I cannot wait to be HOME!
The longest day of my life!
Up at 6.30am, in auckland at 8am, airport by 10am, plane around 12, LAX at 7am, hostel by 10am – oh god its morning AGAIN! Lol
Immigration and customs take forever, this place truly is as paranoid as it gets, they're worse than biosecurity in NZ, making everyone queue for ages so the sniffer dogs get a chance at everyone and taking your fingerprints and photo etc etc. grr! And as an aside old people who think they can push in deserve to be slapped! Especially when they turn to you and say 'some people dont like queuing'! I got one sneaky whack with the didgeridoo box, but not nearly hard enough as I would have liked!
Anyway our hostel is pretty cool, free shuttle, breakfast muffins, afternoon cookies, wifi, tea and coffee, buffet of chips etc at dinner, cake for pudding, champagne/soft drink vouchers – all free as can be! And in a 20bed dorm we are only paying $14.35 a night!
Days 121 – 127
Not a lot really happened in LA, mostly we hid at the hostel, using free wifi when we left our room and to be honest just feeling generally intimidated by the whole americanness!
Our area isnt very nice, so our excursions after finding theres no kitchen to cook, were mainly to subway as thats a lot healthier than burger king, and within walking distance those were our lunchtime choices!
We also had predictable hostel issues, the water was off for one day (yeah hes just fixing a pipe, itl be on in half an hour my ass!) and for 2 days one of the taps in the boys bathroom was stuck on which made sleep time a little noisy, but all in all its been a pretty good hostel for us, new towel and a freshly made bed every day and clean and friendly dorm mates!
We also did one tour of La city, hollywood and downtown. The downtown was an addon that the driver said we could do for tips (instead of the $14 it should have cost) after I explained I literally only had $4 left! I think he did it because he keeps his tips, and he doesnt care how many people are on the bus, but it was still very nice of him!
The tour of LA, rodeo drive, venice beach etc was quite boring, yada yada its big and famous and expensive! And venice beaches homeless just showed how large the gulf between rich and poor is (never have I appreciated the UK so much!) which just saddened me. But if I had money and time both the farmers market (where I got SALAD for lunch :-D) and downtown would have enchanted me, especially downtown with its little market of worked leather goods and pretty little stalls in a small street, by a square filled with beautiful trees and fountain!
We also got to see the walk of fame and all its stars, the chinese theatre with its hand and foot prints, the hollywood sign etc... all the stuff it is kinda obligatory to see if you go to LA!
I guess thats pretty much it, life gets boring when you run out of money (just so you know my overspend is nearly £1000 now)! WE did have a hilarious american guy in our dorm though who couldnt believe “you have roads only one car can fit down!?” and didn't know what a hedge was! He also had a gallon of mouthwash which we laughed at him about!
Anyway I cant wait to see you all! We are leaving tomorrow, and I cannot wait to be HOME!
The End of New Zealand
Day 109
We are booked on the earliest boat out to Milford sound so we get the fiord all to ourselves! It's quite a small boat, and so upstairs is relatively crowded, but we get a seat, wrap ourselves up tightly in our warm clothes and get our cameras at the ready!
It is utterly beautiful out here... the sun is only just rising over the mountains, and on the facing side the cliffs are all topped with blazing crowns as the first light of the day touches them... The cliffs themselves are immense, so tall you have to crane your neck to see the summits and all draped with hundreds of waterfalls!
Most of the waterfalls aren't permanent, but 3 are, and we see all of them. The beautiful rainbow filled 'fairy falls' are the prettiest by by far, but Stirling falls is very impressive, and the boat goes right up to it, sticking its nose in so we can see the full power of the spray... the captain warned us to get inside, saying “it's wetter then you think, you will get soaked” and being as it looked pretty wet anyway we took his advice!
On our exploration of the fiord we do not only see mountains though, we also get to see some more seals (and I get an awesome video of one just out of the water, all shiny, black and slippery looking!) and some dolphins!
At the end of the fiord the wind picked up, so strong it nearly blew our hats off (and mine was tied on!) although the Tasman sea was again quite calm. Looking into the fiord from outside you can see why cpt cook never found it, it's very hard to see the opening, even if you know where it is! Luckily we knew where we were going (well our cpt did), so we made it back into the fiord safely, although the wind continued, so we hid in the shelter for most of the return journey!
Shortly before arriving back in Milford the boat stops, and around 13 of us get off. The reason is to visit 'the deep' an underwater observatory where you can see the very rare black coral (which is actually white) and generally have a look at what it is like underneath the water of the fiord. It was built because Milford sound is one of the only places in the world where you can observe the phenomenon of 'deep water emergence' whereby the environment mimics that of much deeper waters so you can see life which normally only survives at over 60m at only 10m!
(This happens for a number of reasons. Firstly the water in Milford sound is abnormally dark, because it has a layer of tinted fresh water lying on top of the salt water. This is the water which runs off the mountains. It collects tannins on its way down, because there is barely any soil to filter it, or keep it on the mountains, and it acts like sunglasses on the water beneath. Normally this would not make much of a difference as the salty water of the fiord and the stained fresh water would mix, but Milford was carved out by a glacier which left a deposit of rocks and general debris at the mouth of the sea, which acts like a breakwater, making the waters of Milford sound very calm – therefore hindering any mixing. In many places this would still not create deep water emergence, but because Milford has 7metres of rainfall a year, there is a constant 4 – 6m layer of this dark fresh water creating the perfect environment for things such as black coral!)
Anyway the deep is awesome! Like diving but quiet and effortless and you can take as many pictures as you like (the windows are perspex, not glass so they do not magnify or distort) using a tripod so they come out good! There are fishies of all kinds, anemones, coral (obviously), a starfish which is actually long and thin and snake like, not a star at all, some squid eggs... apparently sometimes the dolphins come down and play around just outside the windows too although we weren't lucky enough to see this... it was the best part of the trip without a doubt!
We take the rest of the day to drive to riverton, passing some trees which have been well and truly BATTERED by the wind and a field full of cows ignoring two bulls who appeared to be having an argument (over what we shall never know). Mr left seemed to be consistently winning the pushing match, but mr right was determined not to lose ground... quite amusing! We watched for about ten minutes, but no conclusion seemed near so we left them to it and drove on! A few miles down the road we come to a place called Clifden, which has a 'historic' suspension bridge LOL. It's a tiny little thing, no longer used but as the site for a scouts camping ground but it did make me chuckle!
Day 110
Up early as were not sure if were allowed to stay overnight where we are... turns out this was a good choice as we get to see an absolutely stunning sunrise over the sea – beautiful!
We then head into the town and have a look around, chatting to a man who's sons have just come back from England and are now camping on the Catlins coast (our next destination) He raves about the Catlins, and tells us all the best places to go, Kiwis really are very friendly!
Anyway the Catlins is lovely, we stop at Waipapa point and see our first sea lion (acting all cute flicking sand over itself to keep cool) looking smug as he was blocking the pathway! Curio and porpoise bay are a bit of a disappointment as we see no wildlife, although they are both gorgeous, and there's a fossilised forest to marvel at (quite cool, you think there are loads of rock, then you realise they're tree stumps! Growth rings and all preserved for thousands of years!). We see the very pretty Purakanui falls, which are quite lothlorienesque, and then we get to nugget point, which does not disappoint! From the hideout there we see no less than 4 yellow eyed penguins (Hoiho)!
Hoiho are cute little penguins which look like they are wearing superhero eye masks of bright yellow! In the evening they return from a days feeding to their nests, swimming up to the shore looking like ducks in the surf, and then standing up and waddling over the beach to the bushes at the edges. At one point there are some quite large rocks to navigate which they do by making little hops – absolutely adorable!!!
Day 111
Dunedin and the Otago peninsula today! We go straight through Dunedin, and head out for some more wildlife watching! After an hour or so on a long windy cliff-top road which gave us some absolutely magnificent views of the beaches and sea on each side, we stop for lunch at 'sandfly bay'. Here an old man called liam gets talking to us, and offers to show us his favourite spots – we accept as this seems like a pretty good offer, he'l drive us around, show us all the best places to see wildlife, and give us local commentary at the same time!
It was a very good offer, our first stop was Allan's beach, and before we had even set foot on the sand we had seen a sea-lion, then we saw two red-billed oyster catchers, three or four seals lolling around on the rocks, and... a baby penguin! This was a little blue, and Liam knew where the nest was (a little cave under some boulders) and lo and behold we could see its little face looking at us from the little entrance – cute as! To top all this off the beach itself was fantastic, all rock shapes and sand and surf and sand dunes... fantastic spot, and completely off the tourist trail, apart from two guys making driftwood art, we were the only people there!
We drove to the albatross colony, the only mainland colony in the world. Liam was worried they wouldn't be flying as there wasn't much wind to help them, but again we saw four or five, flying right over our heads and just in front of us – they are MASSIVE; truly awesome birds! You can't really appreciate how large they are from a distance, but when they are only a couple of metres away, and practically winking at you, you can really see how immense they are!
After an hour albatross spotting we head back to sandfly bay, stopping to look at the odd falcon and a lot of swamp hens (funny little blue birds with a red beak and a white tail feather they like to flash as they walk). Sandfly bay is apparently another Hoiho residence so we head down at dusk to see them come home. Unlike Nugget point you are allowed to get right onto the beach (you have to walk all along it to get to the hideout) and we see one quite close almost as soon as we are down there! There are also a couple of pairs on the cliff side which you can see from a distance, and at the end of the day we saw one more heading up into the dunes. Again they are quite adorable, but the main memories I have from this beach are of the Sea Lions!
Again we had barely got on the beach before we saw our first, a pure white female (they're a lot prettier than the males!) but as we walked along there was one every 10 metres or so. In the middle of the beach they all seemed to be resting, although one was a BIG male (mane and all) which was cool to see up close, however at the end we saw another big male yawn, stretch, and lollop off into the sea, which was amazing! Then as we walked back to the other end of the beach they got positively lively! We saw two females get up and go to the sea, and a huge male chase one for a bit, sit around yawning, completely block the beach for us (as you shouldn't get to close to them) and then eventually also make his way to the sea. Wow. What an experience!
The day ended with us making our difficult way back up the massive sand dune to the car park (and I mean massive sand dune, I was surprised Liam, at 80 was still making this journey, but apparently he does it at least three times a week). It was tough going, but definitely worth it – I've never been on a beach with so much wildlife! Thank you Liam for a fantastic day!
Day 112
Just a long long drive today – all the way to Hanmer springs before the Lewis pass!
Oh and we see the moeraki boulders, huge spherical honeycomb rocks strewn all over the beach! Quite pretty but not as impressive as described! Nevertheless it made a nice break in our day, and the photos are quite cool!
Day 113
Up early to get to the thermal pools early, only to find out they don't open until ten! Anyway we are in the first few people to get into the thermal pool complex at Hanmer, and they are lovely, it's almost like having a bath, sitting in the 41degree water, but it does smell slightly different, being that they're sulphur pools!
Anyway we spend a couple of hours relaxing in the pools, then get out and have a lovely lovely hot shower, and then we're on our way, driving through the not actually all that impressive Lewis pass and onto the Punakaiki rocks, which apparently look like piles of freshly cooked pancakes! I'm not sure how true this metaphor is, but the rock formations are pretty cool! They are limestone pillars, columns, spires and walls all made in layers. The walk out and around these impressive formations (which remind me of an old castle, crumbling into the sea all around) is a very nice one, short, but it winds through a bit of forest (tree ferns and old gnarly trees and palms galore) and then over a couple of bridges out to the formations, and at one point along a path through the rocks! Very nice end to the day, and worth the drive no matter how much mark tries to tell you it wasn't (and it was not 460km out of our way!)
Day 114
Even the best of us make mistakes, and today I admit, I made quite a big one! I didn't turn the page of the map to check the end of the route I was taking us on... a route which apparently has no end! What kind of road actually goes to nowhere!? Stupid road! Anyway the sign which said 'last fuel for 92km' was now around 60km ago, so we had to carry on to the end of the road to refuel (we were running low) – a little bit worrying as Karamae(?) is a tiny dead end town and it was good friday... will it be open, wont it be open, will it be open? Wont it be open? It was open! Phew!
Now we were in the dead end of nowhere we decided we should check the guidebook to see if there was anything worth doing up here, as it turned out there were a couple of impressive limestone formations to look at, so off we went to find them!
Now, New Zealand is awesome in many ways, but the one thing they don't seem to have the hang of is roads. Even main roads sometimes degenerate into gravel tracks, and this wasn't even a main road! Anyway it took us a while to get to the car park (which turned out to be massive and have a huge notice board full of information, in proper tourist style, which seemed odd after following a gravel path for 14k!) so we had lunch before we set off through the amazing forest to our first destination, the 'gates of moria'!
The forest here was the best we have seen, gnarly gnarly old trees dripping with moss and ferns and the odd impressive fungi... just like fangorn, there are even some entish trees (or maybe treeish ents...) I may have been reading LOTR! Anyway the forest really was lovely, looked ancient too! Anyway the gates of moria are also pretty cool, they turn out to be a mini adventure all by themselves too, as to get to them we had to lower ourselves into a cave in the ground and then make our way through the darkness to the gates! The gates were an arch over a river, all dripping with stalactites and looking very impressive... I can see how they got their name!
Our second limestone feature is a MASSIVE arch over another river. The walk to this one is not as impressive, but we do meet the bravest, most inquisitive little bird I have ever seen – he hopped onto our shoes and pecked marks feet and everything! I have no idea why, but it was very cute of him! Also, whilst the forest is just normal gorgeous NZ rainforest, the river is something else entirely. The water is bright orange, but the rocks it runs along are pure white, and the water is so still on the surface it is a near perfect mirror or the surroundings... it looked genuinely magical!
The 'Arch of Oparoa', once we get there is definitely impressive. It's immense, covered in stalactites, and just generally huge! I would have to say its more of a tunnel than an arch, but kiwis don't seem to understand tunnels, nowhere we have seen limestone tunnels have they been labelled as such... always called an arch or a cave (odd isn't it)! Anyway it is 40m high, 37m wide and nearly 100m long (clearly a tunnel!) although at the beginning one huge chunk of the ceiling has fallen down, leaving an arch nearly separated from the main tunnel.
All in all I think my mistake was a blessing in disguise... we saw some lovely stuff, but it did cost me $40 as mark made me pay for the fuel it used!
Day 115
Abel Tasman national park (eventually) today. It's a nice drive, up a MASSIVE hill (which our spaceship struggles with somewhat!), and there are stunning views over rainforest and beach, but it just makes me sad that we can't spend time here. It seems like the kind of place it would be fantastic to spend at least a few days (or weeks) in, but as a flying visit so much of it is missed :-(. We do get a bit of adventure though, having to drive through two massive washouts on the gravel tracks – no room to turn around until you get to the car park at the end so no choice but to risk it! I was glad i'd had experience of washouts before otherwise I think I might have chickened out!
Day 116
Easter Sunday! Also clocks go back giving us a useful extra hour! We drive the Queen Charlotte drive through the picturesque Marlborough sound stopping to watch some logs being loaded onto a huge huge huge tanker – mark made us stop (no matter how old a boy gets really big toys still fascinate them!) but it was quite interesting to watch, we were very high above them, so everything seemed quite comic, the little tractor type vehicles moving around, picking up great piles of pine trunks in their mouths and delivering them to the ships four massive cranes...
Anyway we get to Picton via the scenic route, and book onto the next ferry ready for our return to north island! It turns out the fact its Easter Sunday is good, as there's an extra ferry running at 2pm so we don't have to wait until 7pm. Yey! We also get to charge up cameras etc on the ferry, which is useful as we are now both completely out – marks has run his battery down twice since its last real charge, the solar charger has really shown its worth whilst campervanning!
Day 117
Mt. Taranaki (Egmont) today. We drive to dawsons fall, but are somewhat disappointed by the 17m falls when we see them, and the drive along the coast is also not that pretty... this is the only place which has disappointed really, I guess its somewhere you need to spend time in – or just miss out really. The mountain itself makes a nice picture, brooding in the background shrouded in self made clouds, but it wasn't worth spending a whole day on!
Day 118
On the way to the Waitomo caves we stop off in three places. The first is the moropoka waterfall (far better than Dawsons fall!) which makes a nice early morning walk! Its quite impressive, and definitely worth seeing although you cant walk to the bottom of it.
The second stop is at the piri piri caves (only one cave as far as I could see) where we get to feel very adventurous entering it all on our own and shining our tiny torches up at all the stalactites!
The third stop is the mongophue natural bridge, an arch over a river, its pretty awesome really, but not what the guidebook made it out to be!
The waitomo caves cost us $65 to visit two caves, the fantastic, magical Aranui cave, and the overly commercialised glow worm cave. Aranui is, as I just said, wonderful and magical full of limestone marvels quite tastefully up-lit with soft lights. We are in a small group with a down to earth guide who lets us get on with looking around in peace for the most of it! In comparison the glow worm caves leave a bit of a nasty taste in your mouth, even though its all the same company! 50 people to each guide, and a group going every 15 minutes... and tacky names for all of the formations, but the reason for it all, what makes it such an attraction, is actually completely magical. The (thankfully) silent boatride through dark tunnels whose ceilings sparkle with thousands of glow worms is absolutely worth it! It is a lot like looking up at the stars, but so close you could nearly touch them... no photos allowed and words dont really do it justice....
After our trips we eat lunch in the carpark and get chatting to a friendly ex-pat who advises us to stay at Raglan, a seaside town around 2hrs out of auckland. On the way we stop at the 55m bridal veil falls, which is otherwordly in its beauty. Even as accustomed to beauty as we have become it was like a vision from a fairy tale, a straight white frothy fall into an almost perfectly circular pool ringed with moss covered boulders and lush green forests... Wow!
Day 119
Today we have 2 aims, find some internet (to book somewhere for LA and touch back to reality) and unpack and clean spacey ready for his return :-(
takes us a long time to find internet (looking very dodgy curb crawling around the little towns looking for an unsecured network!) and once we do its a four hour connection to the outside world... then its a bit of a rush to find a place to stay so we have daylight to do our pacing etc. Therefore our last night in the magical New Zealand is spent in a grotty lay by (albeit in a forest covered gorge) which is sad, but beggars cant be choosers, and its dark by 7 now!
Anyway tomorrow I will be in LA and on the last section of my trip! See you soon!
We are booked on the earliest boat out to Milford sound so we get the fiord all to ourselves! It's quite a small boat, and so upstairs is relatively crowded, but we get a seat, wrap ourselves up tightly in our warm clothes and get our cameras at the ready!
It is utterly beautiful out here... the sun is only just rising over the mountains, and on the facing side the cliffs are all topped with blazing crowns as the first light of the day touches them... The cliffs themselves are immense, so tall you have to crane your neck to see the summits and all draped with hundreds of waterfalls!
Most of the waterfalls aren't permanent, but 3 are, and we see all of them. The beautiful rainbow filled 'fairy falls' are the prettiest by by far, but Stirling falls is very impressive, and the boat goes right up to it, sticking its nose in so we can see the full power of the spray... the captain warned us to get inside, saying “it's wetter then you think, you will get soaked” and being as it looked pretty wet anyway we took his advice!
On our exploration of the fiord we do not only see mountains though, we also get to see some more seals (and I get an awesome video of one just out of the water, all shiny, black and slippery looking!) and some dolphins!
At the end of the fiord the wind picked up, so strong it nearly blew our hats off (and mine was tied on!) although the Tasman sea was again quite calm. Looking into the fiord from outside you can see why cpt cook never found it, it's very hard to see the opening, even if you know where it is! Luckily we knew where we were going (well our cpt did), so we made it back into the fiord safely, although the wind continued, so we hid in the shelter for most of the return journey!
Shortly before arriving back in Milford the boat stops, and around 13 of us get off. The reason is to visit 'the deep' an underwater observatory where you can see the very rare black coral (which is actually white) and generally have a look at what it is like underneath the water of the fiord. It was built because Milford sound is one of the only places in the world where you can observe the phenomenon of 'deep water emergence' whereby the environment mimics that of much deeper waters so you can see life which normally only survives at over 60m at only 10m!
(This happens for a number of reasons. Firstly the water in Milford sound is abnormally dark, because it has a layer of tinted fresh water lying on top of the salt water. This is the water which runs off the mountains. It collects tannins on its way down, because there is barely any soil to filter it, or keep it on the mountains, and it acts like sunglasses on the water beneath. Normally this would not make much of a difference as the salty water of the fiord and the stained fresh water would mix, but Milford was carved out by a glacier which left a deposit of rocks and general debris at the mouth of the sea, which acts like a breakwater, making the waters of Milford sound very calm – therefore hindering any mixing. In many places this would still not create deep water emergence, but because Milford has 7metres of rainfall a year, there is a constant 4 – 6m layer of this dark fresh water creating the perfect environment for things such as black coral!)
Anyway the deep is awesome! Like diving but quiet and effortless and you can take as many pictures as you like (the windows are perspex, not glass so they do not magnify or distort) using a tripod so they come out good! There are fishies of all kinds, anemones, coral (obviously), a starfish which is actually long and thin and snake like, not a star at all, some squid eggs... apparently sometimes the dolphins come down and play around just outside the windows too although we weren't lucky enough to see this... it was the best part of the trip without a doubt!
We take the rest of the day to drive to riverton, passing some trees which have been well and truly BATTERED by the wind and a field full of cows ignoring two bulls who appeared to be having an argument (over what we shall never know). Mr left seemed to be consistently winning the pushing match, but mr right was determined not to lose ground... quite amusing! We watched for about ten minutes, but no conclusion seemed near so we left them to it and drove on! A few miles down the road we come to a place called Clifden, which has a 'historic' suspension bridge LOL. It's a tiny little thing, no longer used but as the site for a scouts camping ground but it did make me chuckle!
Day 110
Up early as were not sure if were allowed to stay overnight where we are... turns out this was a good choice as we get to see an absolutely stunning sunrise over the sea – beautiful!
We then head into the town and have a look around, chatting to a man who's sons have just come back from England and are now camping on the Catlins coast (our next destination) He raves about the Catlins, and tells us all the best places to go, Kiwis really are very friendly!
Anyway the Catlins is lovely, we stop at Waipapa point and see our first sea lion (acting all cute flicking sand over itself to keep cool) looking smug as he was blocking the pathway! Curio and porpoise bay are a bit of a disappointment as we see no wildlife, although they are both gorgeous, and there's a fossilised forest to marvel at (quite cool, you think there are loads of rock, then you realise they're tree stumps! Growth rings and all preserved for thousands of years!). We see the very pretty Purakanui falls, which are quite lothlorienesque, and then we get to nugget point, which does not disappoint! From the hideout there we see no less than 4 yellow eyed penguins (Hoiho)!
Hoiho are cute little penguins which look like they are wearing superhero eye masks of bright yellow! In the evening they return from a days feeding to their nests, swimming up to the shore looking like ducks in the surf, and then standing up and waddling over the beach to the bushes at the edges. At one point there are some quite large rocks to navigate which they do by making little hops – absolutely adorable!!!
Day 111
Dunedin and the Otago peninsula today! We go straight through Dunedin, and head out for some more wildlife watching! After an hour or so on a long windy cliff-top road which gave us some absolutely magnificent views of the beaches and sea on each side, we stop for lunch at 'sandfly bay'. Here an old man called liam gets talking to us, and offers to show us his favourite spots – we accept as this seems like a pretty good offer, he'l drive us around, show us all the best places to see wildlife, and give us local commentary at the same time!
It was a very good offer, our first stop was Allan's beach, and before we had even set foot on the sand we had seen a sea-lion, then we saw two red-billed oyster catchers, three or four seals lolling around on the rocks, and... a baby penguin! This was a little blue, and Liam knew where the nest was (a little cave under some boulders) and lo and behold we could see its little face looking at us from the little entrance – cute as! To top all this off the beach itself was fantastic, all rock shapes and sand and surf and sand dunes... fantastic spot, and completely off the tourist trail, apart from two guys making driftwood art, we were the only people there!
We drove to the albatross colony, the only mainland colony in the world. Liam was worried they wouldn't be flying as there wasn't much wind to help them, but again we saw four or five, flying right over our heads and just in front of us – they are MASSIVE; truly awesome birds! You can't really appreciate how large they are from a distance, but when they are only a couple of metres away, and practically winking at you, you can really see how immense they are!
After an hour albatross spotting we head back to sandfly bay, stopping to look at the odd falcon and a lot of swamp hens (funny little blue birds with a red beak and a white tail feather they like to flash as they walk). Sandfly bay is apparently another Hoiho residence so we head down at dusk to see them come home. Unlike Nugget point you are allowed to get right onto the beach (you have to walk all along it to get to the hideout) and we see one quite close almost as soon as we are down there! There are also a couple of pairs on the cliff side which you can see from a distance, and at the end of the day we saw one more heading up into the dunes. Again they are quite adorable, but the main memories I have from this beach are of the Sea Lions!
Again we had barely got on the beach before we saw our first, a pure white female (they're a lot prettier than the males!) but as we walked along there was one every 10 metres or so. In the middle of the beach they all seemed to be resting, although one was a BIG male (mane and all) which was cool to see up close, however at the end we saw another big male yawn, stretch, and lollop off into the sea, which was amazing! Then as we walked back to the other end of the beach they got positively lively! We saw two females get up and go to the sea, and a huge male chase one for a bit, sit around yawning, completely block the beach for us (as you shouldn't get to close to them) and then eventually also make his way to the sea. Wow. What an experience!
The day ended with us making our difficult way back up the massive sand dune to the car park (and I mean massive sand dune, I was surprised Liam, at 80 was still making this journey, but apparently he does it at least three times a week). It was tough going, but definitely worth it – I've never been on a beach with so much wildlife! Thank you Liam for a fantastic day!
Day 112
Just a long long drive today – all the way to Hanmer springs before the Lewis pass!
Oh and we see the moeraki boulders, huge spherical honeycomb rocks strewn all over the beach! Quite pretty but not as impressive as described! Nevertheless it made a nice break in our day, and the photos are quite cool!
Day 113
Up early to get to the thermal pools early, only to find out they don't open until ten! Anyway we are in the first few people to get into the thermal pool complex at Hanmer, and they are lovely, it's almost like having a bath, sitting in the 41degree water, but it does smell slightly different, being that they're sulphur pools!
Anyway we spend a couple of hours relaxing in the pools, then get out and have a lovely lovely hot shower, and then we're on our way, driving through the not actually all that impressive Lewis pass and onto the Punakaiki rocks, which apparently look like piles of freshly cooked pancakes! I'm not sure how true this metaphor is, but the rock formations are pretty cool! They are limestone pillars, columns, spires and walls all made in layers. The walk out and around these impressive formations (which remind me of an old castle, crumbling into the sea all around) is a very nice one, short, but it winds through a bit of forest (tree ferns and old gnarly trees and palms galore) and then over a couple of bridges out to the formations, and at one point along a path through the rocks! Very nice end to the day, and worth the drive no matter how much mark tries to tell you it wasn't (and it was not 460km out of our way!)
Day 114
Even the best of us make mistakes, and today I admit, I made quite a big one! I didn't turn the page of the map to check the end of the route I was taking us on... a route which apparently has no end! What kind of road actually goes to nowhere!? Stupid road! Anyway the sign which said 'last fuel for 92km' was now around 60km ago, so we had to carry on to the end of the road to refuel (we were running low) – a little bit worrying as Karamae(?) is a tiny dead end town and it was good friday... will it be open, wont it be open, will it be open? Wont it be open? It was open! Phew!
Now we were in the dead end of nowhere we decided we should check the guidebook to see if there was anything worth doing up here, as it turned out there were a couple of impressive limestone formations to look at, so off we went to find them!
Now, New Zealand is awesome in many ways, but the one thing they don't seem to have the hang of is roads. Even main roads sometimes degenerate into gravel tracks, and this wasn't even a main road! Anyway it took us a while to get to the car park (which turned out to be massive and have a huge notice board full of information, in proper tourist style, which seemed odd after following a gravel path for 14k!) so we had lunch before we set off through the amazing forest to our first destination, the 'gates of moria'!
The forest here was the best we have seen, gnarly gnarly old trees dripping with moss and ferns and the odd impressive fungi... just like fangorn, there are even some entish trees (or maybe treeish ents...) I may have been reading LOTR! Anyway the forest really was lovely, looked ancient too! Anyway the gates of moria are also pretty cool, they turn out to be a mini adventure all by themselves too, as to get to them we had to lower ourselves into a cave in the ground and then make our way through the darkness to the gates! The gates were an arch over a river, all dripping with stalactites and looking very impressive... I can see how they got their name!
Our second limestone feature is a MASSIVE arch over another river. The walk to this one is not as impressive, but we do meet the bravest, most inquisitive little bird I have ever seen – he hopped onto our shoes and pecked marks feet and everything! I have no idea why, but it was very cute of him! Also, whilst the forest is just normal gorgeous NZ rainforest, the river is something else entirely. The water is bright orange, but the rocks it runs along are pure white, and the water is so still on the surface it is a near perfect mirror or the surroundings... it looked genuinely magical!
The 'Arch of Oparoa', once we get there is definitely impressive. It's immense, covered in stalactites, and just generally huge! I would have to say its more of a tunnel than an arch, but kiwis don't seem to understand tunnels, nowhere we have seen limestone tunnels have they been labelled as such... always called an arch or a cave (odd isn't it)! Anyway it is 40m high, 37m wide and nearly 100m long (clearly a tunnel!) although at the beginning one huge chunk of the ceiling has fallen down, leaving an arch nearly separated from the main tunnel.
All in all I think my mistake was a blessing in disguise... we saw some lovely stuff, but it did cost me $40 as mark made me pay for the fuel it used!
Day 115
Abel Tasman national park (eventually) today. It's a nice drive, up a MASSIVE hill (which our spaceship struggles with somewhat!), and there are stunning views over rainforest and beach, but it just makes me sad that we can't spend time here. It seems like the kind of place it would be fantastic to spend at least a few days (or weeks) in, but as a flying visit so much of it is missed :-(. We do get a bit of adventure though, having to drive through two massive washouts on the gravel tracks – no room to turn around until you get to the car park at the end so no choice but to risk it! I was glad i'd had experience of washouts before otherwise I think I might have chickened out!
Day 116
Easter Sunday! Also clocks go back giving us a useful extra hour! We drive the Queen Charlotte drive through the picturesque Marlborough sound stopping to watch some logs being loaded onto a huge huge huge tanker – mark made us stop (no matter how old a boy gets really big toys still fascinate them!) but it was quite interesting to watch, we were very high above them, so everything seemed quite comic, the little tractor type vehicles moving around, picking up great piles of pine trunks in their mouths and delivering them to the ships four massive cranes...
Anyway we get to Picton via the scenic route, and book onto the next ferry ready for our return to north island! It turns out the fact its Easter Sunday is good, as there's an extra ferry running at 2pm so we don't have to wait until 7pm. Yey! We also get to charge up cameras etc on the ferry, which is useful as we are now both completely out – marks has run his battery down twice since its last real charge, the solar charger has really shown its worth whilst campervanning!
Day 117
Mt. Taranaki (Egmont) today. We drive to dawsons fall, but are somewhat disappointed by the 17m falls when we see them, and the drive along the coast is also not that pretty... this is the only place which has disappointed really, I guess its somewhere you need to spend time in – or just miss out really. The mountain itself makes a nice picture, brooding in the background shrouded in self made clouds, but it wasn't worth spending a whole day on!
Day 118
On the way to the Waitomo caves we stop off in three places. The first is the moropoka waterfall (far better than Dawsons fall!) which makes a nice early morning walk! Its quite impressive, and definitely worth seeing although you cant walk to the bottom of it.
The second stop is at the piri piri caves (only one cave as far as I could see) where we get to feel very adventurous entering it all on our own and shining our tiny torches up at all the stalactites!
The third stop is the mongophue natural bridge, an arch over a river, its pretty awesome really, but not what the guidebook made it out to be!
The waitomo caves cost us $65 to visit two caves, the fantastic, magical Aranui cave, and the overly commercialised glow worm cave. Aranui is, as I just said, wonderful and magical full of limestone marvels quite tastefully up-lit with soft lights. We are in a small group with a down to earth guide who lets us get on with looking around in peace for the most of it! In comparison the glow worm caves leave a bit of a nasty taste in your mouth, even though its all the same company! 50 people to each guide, and a group going every 15 minutes... and tacky names for all of the formations, but the reason for it all, what makes it such an attraction, is actually completely magical. The (thankfully) silent boatride through dark tunnels whose ceilings sparkle with thousands of glow worms is absolutely worth it! It is a lot like looking up at the stars, but so close you could nearly touch them... no photos allowed and words dont really do it justice....
After our trips we eat lunch in the carpark and get chatting to a friendly ex-pat who advises us to stay at Raglan, a seaside town around 2hrs out of auckland. On the way we stop at the 55m bridal veil falls, which is otherwordly in its beauty. Even as accustomed to beauty as we have become it was like a vision from a fairy tale, a straight white frothy fall into an almost perfectly circular pool ringed with moss covered boulders and lush green forests... Wow!
Day 119
Today we have 2 aims, find some internet (to book somewhere for LA and touch back to reality) and unpack and clean spacey ready for his return :-(
takes us a long time to find internet (looking very dodgy curb crawling around the little towns looking for an unsecured network!) and once we do its a four hour connection to the outside world... then its a bit of a rush to find a place to stay so we have daylight to do our pacing etc. Therefore our last night in the magical New Zealand is spent in a grotty lay by (albeit in a forest covered gorge) which is sad, but beggars cant be choosers, and its dark by 7 now!
Anyway tomorrow I will be in LA and on the last section of my trip! See you soon!
Saturday, 27 March 2010
New Zealand!
Well... I have only had access to the internet twice in New Zealand before now! Madness I know! Anyway here is an account of what has happened to me in The Land of the Long White Cloud...
Day 89
Mission = buy NZ guidebook (which has been our bible ever since, best $20 we have spent I reckon!), find NZ sim card and buy some food... all accomplished :-)
Day 90
Off on our tour of the far north today, first stop Paihia, which is nice, we walk along the beach finding broken paua shells and taking pictures of the gorgeous Bay of Islands before an evening barbecue.
Day 91
Our tour takes us to Cape Reigna today, on a bus designed for sand driving so our trip along 90 mile beach goes smoothly (which is actually 63 miles long; settlers named it 90m beach because it took 3 days to walk, and they usually averaged 30miles a day... when someone actually bothered to measure it however...!). The beach is pretty, with a sand dune background n all... we see some white breasted terns (the bus has fun chasing them) and some wild horses too! The normally choppy(!) Tasman sea is surprisingly calm today though, so much so that our bus driver spends more time looking with surprise at the sea than at the beach he's driving along! I would have preferred exciting waves, which just does to show the unusual is not necessarily more exciting than the usual!
Everyone apart from me and an older couple then goes sandboarding down the dunes... I am covered with stupid infected bites from Cape Tribulation, and I feel that filling them with sand probably wouldn't be the best idea! It looks really fun though, and I take loads of pictures of everyone, including a hilarious one of one guy crashing :-)
Cape Reigna itself, when we get there, is very pretty: a coastal walk to a white lighthouse with distance signposts to lads of places (London, Sydney, New York etc etc) There is also a good view of the tree where maori spirits leave aeoteroa (land of the long white cloud) for Hawaiiki (their home land).
On the way back we stop at 'The Ancient Kauri Kingdom' A shop which sells all manner of things made from Kauri trees buried in swamps over 45,000 years (which is as far back as carbon dating can go before it starts estimating in millions of years!) ago. We saw Kauri trees on the way up, on a pretty forest walk, and although they were undeniably the biggest trees I have ever seen, they didn't quite live up to my expectations, which were of trees “as big as a bus sat on its behind” (this is what the bus driver said...!). The fossilised ones were at least that big though – in the middle of the shop on huge trunk holds an entire spiral staircase, leading to the second floor! Magnificent!
Our last stop is for 'the best fish and chips in the world', which is ok, but falls short of it's reputation quite magnificently!
Day 92
We have until 3pm to explore Paihia, so we walk to nearby Waitaga, where the treaty of Waitanga (obviously) was signed. This is hailed as 'the founding document of New Zealand'. You can visit where it was signed and as well as learning about it you can look at the original treaty house, a subsequently made Maori meeting house (complete with impressive carvings representing all of the 'iwi' tribes, in NZ) and see the biggest war canoe in the world!
This huge 'Waka' cannot be safely paddled with anything less than 76 paddlers, and on its maiden voyage had 88 paddlers and 55 passengers! It is made from 3(!) huge Kauri trees, and the stump of the largest of these has been moved there so you can marvel at it – its HUGE, over three metres across!
After our little expedition into NZ history we head back, and board our bus back to Auckland.
Day 93
We pick up our spaceship 'padme' today, and were off!
In reality it takes a lot longer to pick up and stock up on food than planned, and we only get to see castle rock form a distance and reach cathedral cove at nightfall. It is however a lovely drive along the pacific highway, winding around mountains by the slightly choppy sea.
Day 94
Our first job is to un, and then re pack the van. We then head down to cathedral cove, to marvel at the awesome arch which splits the little picturesque beach in two, and take lots of photos of the odd rock formations out to sea (the 'cathedral's pillars).
Next stop is Hot Water Beach, where we search for the hot water for ages... lots of pools had been dug in the sand but no matter where we wiggled our toes all we found was chilly sea water. Then we saw a group of people looking very excited in the surf... had they found hot water? YES. To get to the hot water you had to be directly in front of, or within a metre from the edge of the rocks in the middle of the beach, and the best area was just in front of them in the sea. I wiggled my toes into the sand doubtfully at first, went down too far and scalded them! You had to be careful as the waves coming in would lull you into a false sense of security; you would dig your toes in, and then as the waves retrested the hot water would well up and get you!
Whilst painful on occasion the experience was magnificent! It's very strange to feel the contrast between cold sea water around your ankles, and scalding spring water at your toes! Sweet As!
Our stop for the night is at Karangahake, an old mining town with a pretty gorge to walk along. It's not all that impressive, but makes for quite a pleasant end to the day.
Day 95
Wake up with the sun and leave the carpark where we stayed asap – it didn't seem like a very nice place to be! We mission on to Rotorua, which smells like.... roses!? We end up doing a circuit of the whole lake, stopping for lunch at the neighbouring lake Rotoiti. Our home for the night is the shore of lake Okareka, reached in late afternoon. Its a lovely little spot, and very close to Wai-O-Tapu so we can visit the thermal wonderland there tomorrow morning.
Day 96
The first thing we get to see at Wai-O-Tapu is the Lady Knox geyser, which is artificially induced every morning (by bio friendly soap) at 10.15am. It's pretty cool – shooting up to heights of around 10 metres, and we get a nice chat about what geysers are from the Waiotapu man (as well as some awesome photos!)
We then wander around looking at all manner of unbelievable thermal features, coloured pools, steaming craters, misty bright orange lakes.... all with names like 'the devils ink pots' , 'the artists palette', 'bridal falls', frying pan flat', 'the devils bath', birds nest crater' etc etc.
It is (as most amazing experiences seem to be) difficult to describe, but it was very very very cool, and afterwards we didn't feel any need to visit white island to satiate our desire for volcanic activity!
There was one very memorable moment when, walking along a bright blue lake with orange sides and pink mist rising off it, we were getting gusts of cold air one second, and warm mist the next... the contrast reminded me of hot water beach, and the sensations was perhaps even stranger!
After we had had our fill of wonders we left, and then saw a sign to mud pools. We stopped for a few minutes and were again entranced by the bubbling mud, which would occasionally hiccup loudly signifying a large blob of mud flying up to splash back down again! Geothermic mud pools were the only thing missing at Waiotapu thermal wonderland, but we got to see them anyway :-D!
The rest of the day is spent reaching lake Taupo, via the magnificent Huka falls, where 400 tonnes of water pours over a 10foot drop every second! The sound was earcrashing, and the sight fantastic! We didn't stop for long, but it was, without any kind of doubt, definitely worth seeing!
Day 97
Our plan is to do the tongariro alpine crossing today (a day hike) but its rainy rainy misty misty and we don't fancy it. Before we know it we're halfway to wellington! Bored of driving we stop at a supermarket, and whilst contemplating whether it's necessary to buy water (free water is hard to come by, its our biggest problem! Apart from showers that is...!) we meet an old hippy who shows us to a lorry park where we can fill all of our containers for free. He also tells us of a lovely place to stay when we get to Wellington, and as he advices we spend the night at Halswell point, a lay-by with a lighthouse which has a lovely view of all of Wellington lit up at night!
(he had a lovely old truck, something which is quite common here, everywhere we go there are old buses and trucks done up for travelling, it seems NZ is far friendlier to travellers than the UK! Some of the vehicles are really nicely done too, its quite cool to see.)
Day 98
Te Papa today, Wellingtons museum of New Zealand. The bottom floor is all about natural history which is intersting, but the pickled colossal squid creeps me out a bit, and I feel I could have got the same out of a visit to the national history museum in london!
The upper floors however have a history of the immigrants to NZ (maori, pakeha and samoan) which is really quite interesting, and there is a truly beautiful display of jade tikis.
Day 99
We are booked on the 8am ferry to Picton ($215!) so its an early start, but we get to charge stuff up on the ferry which is useful, and we get to Picton with plenty of time to continue our journey that day.
The drive is a little nerve racking at first as were low on petrol (we didn't fill up at Picton as it was expensive at the ferry terminal, and we didn't realise that Picton is a pretty much nonexistant place with nowhere else to fill up!). The worst bit is when an angry lorry is on our tail, lights on full and hooting his horn, but we survive, and with a full tank we head on down to Kaikoura, dolphin, seal and whale capital of NZ!
We drive to the edge of the Kaikoura peninsula to find a seal colony, and are immediately rewarded with a seal about 15m from the car park, lolling around on some rocks! Further exploration reveals 4 more, one is 30metres to the right, around the cliff and is curled up and cute like a sleeping puppy (although far far larger, seals are bigger than I thought!), one is a young one – not quite a baby as it had real fur, but still absolutely adorable on the beach, and the final 2 are right next to the first one we spotted, just behind the rocks a bit! Also the tide is right out, so we can walk to the edge of the rocky outcrop to get quite a good photo of the colony – there are hundreds of seals just out to sea, relaxing on the rocks!
Its a fantastic sight, but after a while dusk creeps up and we have to find somewhere to stay for the night as this carpark has the dreaded no campervan signs!
Day 100!
We go back to the seal colony in the morning (it's too good to miss!) and see a load more seals. One is so camouflaged that I nearly stand on it! (not quite, but I was only a couple of metres away and I didn't notice it 'til I saw someone taking photos of it!). Then after our fill of seals we are on our way again. I am a little sad that I didn't see any whales or dolphins – we decided not to go on a whale watch cruise because of money and time limitations, but dolphins are quite a common sight from the shore, however we need ot be on our way so I swallow my disappointment.
Then, a few km down the road we see some people pointing out to sea – there's a pod of dolphins in the distance! We only see their fins, no jumping or playing, and they are quite far out, but I'm very pleased all the same!
The afternoon sees us into Arthurs pass, and beautiful moutain scenery. We stop by a fantastic lake to see the sun set, eat our dinner, and feel very pleased with ourselves for being in such a magnificent place!
Day 101
It's not too long a drive before we are at Hokitika, the greenstone capital, so we spend the afternoon browsing jade galleries to choose our pieces. I buy mark a fish hook necklace (good luck and safe passage over sea) and in return he buys me an unbroken circle (which means what I cant remember). Apparently it is good luck to give away your first piece of 'pounamu'! We also buy a very very tasty ice cream from a cute little fudge shop before we leave again.
Day 102
The glaciers today! We reach Franz Josef quite early, and investigate the info centre, which also has a historic mountain shelter hut (the 'defiance hut'), an interesting little thing! It is raining too much for us to attempt any of the walks, but it is very impressive seeing the blue glacier imposing itself over the horizon!
Day 103
It's pouring down with rain again in the morning so we visit the towns shops to look at waterproof trousers, we decide $60 is far too much, and decide to brave the walks, only to discover the one to the glacier face is closed (and the others would be pointless being as Franz Josef is covered in mist today). It's a sad moment, but we cheer ourselves up by driving to Fox, checking in to a campsite and having our first hot shower of our trip (as well as tidying up the van and doing a lot of laundry!).
Day 104
Today we hike the Fox glacier! We check in and then get thoroughly kitted up in warm and waterproof gear (and full crampons – the rain has made it slippery up there).
Our hike begins with a rainforest walk, which is more like a never ending staircase! 'steppy' is how id describe it! After around a thousand steps I am thoroughly worn out and have to stop, the guide n front carries on and I slip back through the group, and then when the rear guide catches up everyone stops for a break! This is the halfway point and a planned 'rest' – I don't feel so bad anymore!
Eventually we get to the ice, and after a while 'practising' on the precut steps for the half day walkers we are off on our own, following our guides wherever they may take us! Its pretty chilly up on the ice, but so breathtakingly beautiful that I hardly notice the time passing! All too soon its time for lunch, although the boffy bag (a kind of empty tent/sheet which you sit inside to keep warm) is welcome!
Our exploration takes us down the glacier, to look at crevasses and treacherous 'moulins', deep holes where the water has found a weak spot in the ice and is trickling down through it to the river which expels itself from the front of the glacier. The are fatal if you fall down, but fascinating to look into, very dangerous! We then walk upwards, towards the 'seracs', which are the opposite of crevasses, formed as the glacier falls down the steep mountain side, like how water breaks up as it goes over a waterfall.
We are teased by our guides on the way up by the promise of something that will be, because of the rain washing the glacier clean blue again, either 'awesome, or gone'... it turns out what they are looking for is mostly gone; all that remains of the small ice cave is a kind of half tunnel (which is in fact fantastically beautiful). However next to it the rain has opened up the entrance to another old moulin, and an absolutely wonderful ice cave/tunnel is what remains. This is, according to the guides, the best they have seen all year, and we are very very pleased with ourselves for having seen it! Apparently even if you take a helicopter up to the higher glacier ice caves such as this are rare, and they truly are stupendous. The ice itself seems to glow inside it with an ethereal blue light, and the twists and turns, glistening with droplets of water are wonderful!
We also get to see the endangered Kea, the only truly alpine parrot. It paraded around nicely for us, posing against the impressive background very nicely – apparently they are somewhat of a pest on the glaciers, nicking peoples lunches, ripping unattended bags and so forth, but I think he was lovely!
Day 105
Today we go through Haast pass, lots of magnificent waterfalls and misty mountains, and then, as we reach the other side of the mountains, the weather stops being moody and wet (according to the guides we experienced 140mm of rainfall in the three days we were by the glaciers!) and becomes dry and sunny! All of a sudden I can see the likeness to middle earth, and its all stunning!
It is a pretty much straight run through to Queenstown, where we stock up on food again, and search for somewhere we are allowed to stay!
Day 106
Civilisation! We spend the day shopping and internetting in the town centre, I pick up a scarf, a cute little torch (very bright), some dry bags, a rucksack ($5, how could I refuse!?), a mini tripod (again $5, reduced from $40!) and some Tiki statuettes. This all comes to around $70, which I don't really have, but I think this has satisfied my need for souvenirs (and warm clothing) as I have picked up some other small things on my way around too.
Mark spends an absolute fortune, on what i'm not quite sure, but he seems pretty happy with his purchases, although he hasn't really bought any souvenirs yet... A lot of his money was spent on a white water rafting trip though, for tomorrow morning – he's very excited!
Day 107
Mark is off on his little adventure so I spend the morning all alone, on the banks of a beautiful lake, overlooking a majestic mountain – it's not a bad life really! I catch up on reading LOTR, now I'm fully in film country, and generally chill out!
Mark comes back looking very pleased with himself, although he says it wasn't as white watery as he would have liked – still he keeps on coming out with interesting facts from the trip, and altogether I think it was a success. He almost wasn't allowed on though, without my guidance he forgot the receipt which proves he paid 15% yesterday, and he was $10 short of the full amount (and I had already driven off!) Luckily the receptionist took pity on him and all he had to do was promise to drop the receipt off later, which we dutifully did!
The afternoon is spent driving back around to Te Anau (teh-Ahn-ow) where we stay for the night before heading to Milford Sound!
Day 108
Looking for somewhere to get water we run into another spaceship today, they had come from milford sound and their advice was to stay at the milford lodge, as you get $20 off a milford cruise, which covers the price of staying there (and you get water and showers etc!) It is good advice so we take it!
The milford road itself is beautiful, hedged by mountains which get bigger all the time, with their snowy caps swimming in and out of the clouds above. From all of the mountains come hundreds of little waterfalls, the most spectacular being the falls of 'falls creek', a roaring monster which envelopes the road in mist! The sides of the roads are coated with lush green moss, and near to falls creek it is beautiful, dripping with water and all spiky and green.
Also, just before Homers (scary craggy) tunnel there is a huge ice fall, which has been moulded by the water into a fantastic ice cave/tunnel, with a waterfall rushing down behind it. It's odd to see, as everywhere else is green, and whilst we are waiting for the lights to go green so we can go through the one lane tunnel we thoroughly explore it. It is massive, and a picture of mark on the top of the arch puts the whole thing into perspective the way words can't (obviously this is no use to you right now, but i'l show you when I get back!).
We also see another Kea. We stopped at a lookout point (although the mountain it was looking out on was too mist shrouded to see) and up it hops, probably looking for trouble, but being very cute! We had a good five minutes of it posing, and then we decided we should probably stop looking at the parrot and get on our way!
We get to Milford lodge quite early, so cook ourself a tasty lunch and then settle down to charge up all our appliances etc – we are currently sat in a nice cosy lounge on sofas, and shortly i'm going to have a real actual hot shower! And maybe I will have one tomorrow morning too!!!
Love and miss you all, not long 'til I'm home now!
Day 89
Mission = buy NZ guidebook (which has been our bible ever since, best $20 we have spent I reckon!), find NZ sim card and buy some food... all accomplished :-)
Day 90
Off on our tour of the far north today, first stop Paihia, which is nice, we walk along the beach finding broken paua shells and taking pictures of the gorgeous Bay of Islands before an evening barbecue.
Day 91
Our tour takes us to Cape Reigna today, on a bus designed for sand driving so our trip along 90 mile beach goes smoothly (which is actually 63 miles long; settlers named it 90m beach because it took 3 days to walk, and they usually averaged 30miles a day... when someone actually bothered to measure it however...!). The beach is pretty, with a sand dune background n all... we see some white breasted terns (the bus has fun chasing them) and some wild horses too! The normally choppy(!) Tasman sea is surprisingly calm today though, so much so that our bus driver spends more time looking with surprise at the sea than at the beach he's driving along! I would have preferred exciting waves, which just does to show the unusual is not necessarily more exciting than the usual!
Everyone apart from me and an older couple then goes sandboarding down the dunes... I am covered with stupid infected bites from Cape Tribulation, and I feel that filling them with sand probably wouldn't be the best idea! It looks really fun though, and I take loads of pictures of everyone, including a hilarious one of one guy crashing :-)
Cape Reigna itself, when we get there, is very pretty: a coastal walk to a white lighthouse with distance signposts to lads of places (London, Sydney, New York etc etc) There is also a good view of the tree where maori spirits leave aeoteroa (land of the long white cloud) for Hawaiiki (their home land).
On the way back we stop at 'The Ancient Kauri Kingdom' A shop which sells all manner of things made from Kauri trees buried in swamps over 45,000 years (which is as far back as carbon dating can go before it starts estimating in millions of years!) ago. We saw Kauri trees on the way up, on a pretty forest walk, and although they were undeniably the biggest trees I have ever seen, they didn't quite live up to my expectations, which were of trees “as big as a bus sat on its behind” (this is what the bus driver said...!). The fossilised ones were at least that big though – in the middle of the shop on huge trunk holds an entire spiral staircase, leading to the second floor! Magnificent!
Our last stop is for 'the best fish and chips in the world', which is ok, but falls short of it's reputation quite magnificently!
Day 92
We have until 3pm to explore Paihia, so we walk to nearby Waitaga, where the treaty of Waitanga (obviously) was signed. This is hailed as 'the founding document of New Zealand'. You can visit where it was signed and as well as learning about it you can look at the original treaty house, a subsequently made Maori meeting house (complete with impressive carvings representing all of the 'iwi' tribes, in NZ) and see the biggest war canoe in the world!
This huge 'Waka' cannot be safely paddled with anything less than 76 paddlers, and on its maiden voyage had 88 paddlers and 55 passengers! It is made from 3(!) huge Kauri trees, and the stump of the largest of these has been moved there so you can marvel at it – its HUGE, over three metres across!
After our little expedition into NZ history we head back, and board our bus back to Auckland.
Day 93
We pick up our spaceship 'padme' today, and were off!
In reality it takes a lot longer to pick up and stock up on food than planned, and we only get to see castle rock form a distance and reach cathedral cove at nightfall. It is however a lovely drive along the pacific highway, winding around mountains by the slightly choppy sea.
Day 94
Our first job is to un, and then re pack the van. We then head down to cathedral cove, to marvel at the awesome arch which splits the little picturesque beach in two, and take lots of photos of the odd rock formations out to sea (the 'cathedral's pillars).
Next stop is Hot Water Beach, where we search for the hot water for ages... lots of pools had been dug in the sand but no matter where we wiggled our toes all we found was chilly sea water. Then we saw a group of people looking very excited in the surf... had they found hot water? YES. To get to the hot water you had to be directly in front of, or within a metre from the edge of the rocks in the middle of the beach, and the best area was just in front of them in the sea. I wiggled my toes into the sand doubtfully at first, went down too far and scalded them! You had to be careful as the waves coming in would lull you into a false sense of security; you would dig your toes in, and then as the waves retrested the hot water would well up and get you!
Whilst painful on occasion the experience was magnificent! It's very strange to feel the contrast between cold sea water around your ankles, and scalding spring water at your toes! Sweet As!
Our stop for the night is at Karangahake, an old mining town with a pretty gorge to walk along. It's not all that impressive, but makes for quite a pleasant end to the day.
Day 95
Wake up with the sun and leave the carpark where we stayed asap – it didn't seem like a very nice place to be! We mission on to Rotorua, which smells like.... roses!? We end up doing a circuit of the whole lake, stopping for lunch at the neighbouring lake Rotoiti. Our home for the night is the shore of lake Okareka, reached in late afternoon. Its a lovely little spot, and very close to Wai-O-Tapu so we can visit the thermal wonderland there tomorrow morning.
Day 96
The first thing we get to see at Wai-O-Tapu is the Lady Knox geyser, which is artificially induced every morning (by bio friendly soap) at 10.15am. It's pretty cool – shooting up to heights of around 10 metres, and we get a nice chat about what geysers are from the Waiotapu man (as well as some awesome photos!)
We then wander around looking at all manner of unbelievable thermal features, coloured pools, steaming craters, misty bright orange lakes.... all with names like 'the devils ink pots' , 'the artists palette', 'bridal falls', frying pan flat', 'the devils bath', birds nest crater' etc etc.
It is (as most amazing experiences seem to be) difficult to describe, but it was very very very cool, and afterwards we didn't feel any need to visit white island to satiate our desire for volcanic activity!
There was one very memorable moment when, walking along a bright blue lake with orange sides and pink mist rising off it, we were getting gusts of cold air one second, and warm mist the next... the contrast reminded me of hot water beach, and the sensations was perhaps even stranger!
After we had had our fill of wonders we left, and then saw a sign to mud pools. We stopped for a few minutes and were again entranced by the bubbling mud, which would occasionally hiccup loudly signifying a large blob of mud flying up to splash back down again! Geothermic mud pools were the only thing missing at Waiotapu thermal wonderland, but we got to see them anyway :-D!
The rest of the day is spent reaching lake Taupo, via the magnificent Huka falls, where 400 tonnes of water pours over a 10foot drop every second! The sound was earcrashing, and the sight fantastic! We didn't stop for long, but it was, without any kind of doubt, definitely worth seeing!
Day 97
Our plan is to do the tongariro alpine crossing today (a day hike) but its rainy rainy misty misty and we don't fancy it. Before we know it we're halfway to wellington! Bored of driving we stop at a supermarket, and whilst contemplating whether it's necessary to buy water (free water is hard to come by, its our biggest problem! Apart from showers that is...!) we meet an old hippy who shows us to a lorry park where we can fill all of our containers for free. He also tells us of a lovely place to stay when we get to Wellington, and as he advices we spend the night at Halswell point, a lay-by with a lighthouse which has a lovely view of all of Wellington lit up at night!
(he had a lovely old truck, something which is quite common here, everywhere we go there are old buses and trucks done up for travelling, it seems NZ is far friendlier to travellers than the UK! Some of the vehicles are really nicely done too, its quite cool to see.)
Day 98
Te Papa today, Wellingtons museum of New Zealand. The bottom floor is all about natural history which is intersting, but the pickled colossal squid creeps me out a bit, and I feel I could have got the same out of a visit to the national history museum in london!
The upper floors however have a history of the immigrants to NZ (maori, pakeha and samoan) which is really quite interesting, and there is a truly beautiful display of jade tikis.
Day 99
We are booked on the 8am ferry to Picton ($215!) so its an early start, but we get to charge stuff up on the ferry which is useful, and we get to Picton with plenty of time to continue our journey that day.
The drive is a little nerve racking at first as were low on petrol (we didn't fill up at Picton as it was expensive at the ferry terminal, and we didn't realise that Picton is a pretty much nonexistant place with nowhere else to fill up!). The worst bit is when an angry lorry is on our tail, lights on full and hooting his horn, but we survive, and with a full tank we head on down to Kaikoura, dolphin, seal and whale capital of NZ!
We drive to the edge of the Kaikoura peninsula to find a seal colony, and are immediately rewarded with a seal about 15m from the car park, lolling around on some rocks! Further exploration reveals 4 more, one is 30metres to the right, around the cliff and is curled up and cute like a sleeping puppy (although far far larger, seals are bigger than I thought!), one is a young one – not quite a baby as it had real fur, but still absolutely adorable on the beach, and the final 2 are right next to the first one we spotted, just behind the rocks a bit! Also the tide is right out, so we can walk to the edge of the rocky outcrop to get quite a good photo of the colony – there are hundreds of seals just out to sea, relaxing on the rocks!
Its a fantastic sight, but after a while dusk creeps up and we have to find somewhere to stay for the night as this carpark has the dreaded no campervan signs!
Day 100!
We go back to the seal colony in the morning (it's too good to miss!) and see a load more seals. One is so camouflaged that I nearly stand on it! (not quite, but I was only a couple of metres away and I didn't notice it 'til I saw someone taking photos of it!). Then after our fill of seals we are on our way again. I am a little sad that I didn't see any whales or dolphins – we decided not to go on a whale watch cruise because of money and time limitations, but dolphins are quite a common sight from the shore, however we need ot be on our way so I swallow my disappointment.
Then, a few km down the road we see some people pointing out to sea – there's a pod of dolphins in the distance! We only see their fins, no jumping or playing, and they are quite far out, but I'm very pleased all the same!
The afternoon sees us into Arthurs pass, and beautiful moutain scenery. We stop by a fantastic lake to see the sun set, eat our dinner, and feel very pleased with ourselves for being in such a magnificent place!
Day 101
It's not too long a drive before we are at Hokitika, the greenstone capital, so we spend the afternoon browsing jade galleries to choose our pieces. I buy mark a fish hook necklace (good luck and safe passage over sea) and in return he buys me an unbroken circle (which means what I cant remember). Apparently it is good luck to give away your first piece of 'pounamu'! We also buy a very very tasty ice cream from a cute little fudge shop before we leave again.
Day 102
The glaciers today! We reach Franz Josef quite early, and investigate the info centre, which also has a historic mountain shelter hut (the 'defiance hut'), an interesting little thing! It is raining too much for us to attempt any of the walks, but it is very impressive seeing the blue glacier imposing itself over the horizon!
Day 103
It's pouring down with rain again in the morning so we visit the towns shops to look at waterproof trousers, we decide $60 is far too much, and decide to brave the walks, only to discover the one to the glacier face is closed (and the others would be pointless being as Franz Josef is covered in mist today). It's a sad moment, but we cheer ourselves up by driving to Fox, checking in to a campsite and having our first hot shower of our trip (as well as tidying up the van and doing a lot of laundry!).
Day 104
Today we hike the Fox glacier! We check in and then get thoroughly kitted up in warm and waterproof gear (and full crampons – the rain has made it slippery up there).
Our hike begins with a rainforest walk, which is more like a never ending staircase! 'steppy' is how id describe it! After around a thousand steps I am thoroughly worn out and have to stop, the guide n front carries on and I slip back through the group, and then when the rear guide catches up everyone stops for a break! This is the halfway point and a planned 'rest' – I don't feel so bad anymore!
Eventually we get to the ice, and after a while 'practising' on the precut steps for the half day walkers we are off on our own, following our guides wherever they may take us! Its pretty chilly up on the ice, but so breathtakingly beautiful that I hardly notice the time passing! All too soon its time for lunch, although the boffy bag (a kind of empty tent/sheet which you sit inside to keep warm) is welcome!
Our exploration takes us down the glacier, to look at crevasses and treacherous 'moulins', deep holes where the water has found a weak spot in the ice and is trickling down through it to the river which expels itself from the front of the glacier. The are fatal if you fall down, but fascinating to look into, very dangerous! We then walk upwards, towards the 'seracs', which are the opposite of crevasses, formed as the glacier falls down the steep mountain side, like how water breaks up as it goes over a waterfall.
We are teased by our guides on the way up by the promise of something that will be, because of the rain washing the glacier clean blue again, either 'awesome, or gone'... it turns out what they are looking for is mostly gone; all that remains of the small ice cave is a kind of half tunnel (which is in fact fantastically beautiful). However next to it the rain has opened up the entrance to another old moulin, and an absolutely wonderful ice cave/tunnel is what remains. This is, according to the guides, the best they have seen all year, and we are very very pleased with ourselves for having seen it! Apparently even if you take a helicopter up to the higher glacier ice caves such as this are rare, and they truly are stupendous. The ice itself seems to glow inside it with an ethereal blue light, and the twists and turns, glistening with droplets of water are wonderful!
We also get to see the endangered Kea, the only truly alpine parrot. It paraded around nicely for us, posing against the impressive background very nicely – apparently they are somewhat of a pest on the glaciers, nicking peoples lunches, ripping unattended bags and so forth, but I think he was lovely!
Day 105
Today we go through Haast pass, lots of magnificent waterfalls and misty mountains, and then, as we reach the other side of the mountains, the weather stops being moody and wet (according to the guides we experienced 140mm of rainfall in the three days we were by the glaciers!) and becomes dry and sunny! All of a sudden I can see the likeness to middle earth, and its all stunning!
It is a pretty much straight run through to Queenstown, where we stock up on food again, and search for somewhere we are allowed to stay!
Day 106
Civilisation! We spend the day shopping and internetting in the town centre, I pick up a scarf, a cute little torch (very bright), some dry bags, a rucksack ($5, how could I refuse!?), a mini tripod (again $5, reduced from $40!) and some Tiki statuettes. This all comes to around $70, which I don't really have, but I think this has satisfied my need for souvenirs (and warm clothing) as I have picked up some other small things on my way around too.
Mark spends an absolute fortune, on what i'm not quite sure, but he seems pretty happy with his purchases, although he hasn't really bought any souvenirs yet... A lot of his money was spent on a white water rafting trip though, for tomorrow morning – he's very excited!
Day 107
Mark is off on his little adventure so I spend the morning all alone, on the banks of a beautiful lake, overlooking a majestic mountain – it's not a bad life really! I catch up on reading LOTR, now I'm fully in film country, and generally chill out!
Mark comes back looking very pleased with himself, although he says it wasn't as white watery as he would have liked – still he keeps on coming out with interesting facts from the trip, and altogether I think it was a success. He almost wasn't allowed on though, without my guidance he forgot the receipt which proves he paid 15% yesterday, and he was $10 short of the full amount (and I had already driven off!) Luckily the receptionist took pity on him and all he had to do was promise to drop the receipt off later, which we dutifully did!
The afternoon is spent driving back around to Te Anau (teh-Ahn-ow) where we stay for the night before heading to Milford Sound!
Day 108
Looking for somewhere to get water we run into another spaceship today, they had come from milford sound and their advice was to stay at the milford lodge, as you get $20 off a milford cruise, which covers the price of staying there (and you get water and showers etc!) It is good advice so we take it!
The milford road itself is beautiful, hedged by mountains which get bigger all the time, with their snowy caps swimming in and out of the clouds above. From all of the mountains come hundreds of little waterfalls, the most spectacular being the falls of 'falls creek', a roaring monster which envelopes the road in mist! The sides of the roads are coated with lush green moss, and near to falls creek it is beautiful, dripping with water and all spiky and green.
Also, just before Homers (scary craggy) tunnel there is a huge ice fall, which has been moulded by the water into a fantastic ice cave/tunnel, with a waterfall rushing down behind it. It's odd to see, as everywhere else is green, and whilst we are waiting for the lights to go green so we can go through the one lane tunnel we thoroughly explore it. It is massive, and a picture of mark on the top of the arch puts the whole thing into perspective the way words can't (obviously this is no use to you right now, but i'l show you when I get back!).
We also see another Kea. We stopped at a lookout point (although the mountain it was looking out on was too mist shrouded to see) and up it hops, probably looking for trouble, but being very cute! We had a good five minutes of it posing, and then we decided we should probably stop looking at the parrot and get on our way!
We get to Milford lodge quite early, so cook ourself a tasty lunch and then settle down to charge up all our appliances etc – we are currently sat in a nice cosy lounge on sofas, and shortly i'm going to have a real actual hot shower! And maybe I will have one tomorrow morning too!!!
Love and miss you all, not long 'til I'm home now!
Bye bye Oz
(Just an update on the end of our time in OZ!)
Day 84
Diving!
We head to the reef fleet terminal for half seven, and check in for our all day, 3 dive, cruise on the coral sea. It takes a while to get going, but as soon as we're off we are briefed upstairs, given our kit, and it seems no time at all before we are at our first stop (Herman reef). We have opted to be guided on our dive (as we've never dived alone) and it is very very cool – beautiful coral growths everywhere and a multitude of all different kinds of fish, but we keep on holding up the group as we want to just stop and stare, it really is magnificent, and words aren't really enough to describe!
Because of our tendency to lag behind and want to explore the reef more intimately we decide that our next two dives will be all on our own! I hurriedly plan how deep we can go (with an excessive margin of caution it turns out, but I have no problem with that, id rather miscalculate on the healthy side, we were only one pressure group more cautious than the dive crew – and personally I think they overestimated our surface interval!) and then we're off – all on our own beneath the beautiful turquoise sea!
We spend some time revelling in our new found freedom – doing somersaults and so forth, and then spend our time getting up close and personal with the reef, swimming around mushroom shaped growths and finding the little fishies which like to hide! In the to dives I think the coolest thing I saw was a coral with fantastic blue spirals emerging from it. The were pretty small, around 2-4cm in length, and had a dark blue centre lightening as it got to the edges which were made up on tiny fronds. The best thing about them though was that if you waved at them, they popped back into the coral and hid! Magical little spirals!
Day 85
Not a lot to say about today, we shop for marks souvenirs so he is a happy bunny and just enjoy Cairns!
Day 86
Book our 'spaceship' for travel around NZ – feel very poor but relieved everything is now sorted!
Day 87
Spend the day packing – wrapping up marks didjeridoo nice and snug in bubble wrap and a sleeping bag and stuffing it inside a huge didjeridoo box the nice man in the didj shop sold us for $5 (bargain!).
Day 88
To the airport we go! Bubye Australia!
Our bags turn out to be well within the weight limit (something we were seriously worried about!) although they are both pushing 20 kg now!
Flights are good, connections made well within time, the only hold up is at biosecurity where they steal our tent, boots and didjs to wash, only they didn't clean our tent at all, and didn't even have the courtesy to pack it back up again! Humph!
Day 84
Diving!
We head to the reef fleet terminal for half seven, and check in for our all day, 3 dive, cruise on the coral sea. It takes a while to get going, but as soon as we're off we are briefed upstairs, given our kit, and it seems no time at all before we are at our first stop (Herman reef). We have opted to be guided on our dive (as we've never dived alone) and it is very very cool – beautiful coral growths everywhere and a multitude of all different kinds of fish, but we keep on holding up the group as we want to just stop and stare, it really is magnificent, and words aren't really enough to describe!
Because of our tendency to lag behind and want to explore the reef more intimately we decide that our next two dives will be all on our own! I hurriedly plan how deep we can go (with an excessive margin of caution it turns out, but I have no problem with that, id rather miscalculate on the healthy side, we were only one pressure group more cautious than the dive crew – and personally I think they overestimated our surface interval!) and then we're off – all on our own beneath the beautiful turquoise sea!
We spend some time revelling in our new found freedom – doing somersaults and so forth, and then spend our time getting up close and personal with the reef, swimming around mushroom shaped growths and finding the little fishies which like to hide! In the to dives I think the coolest thing I saw was a coral with fantastic blue spirals emerging from it. The were pretty small, around 2-4cm in length, and had a dark blue centre lightening as it got to the edges which were made up on tiny fronds. The best thing about them though was that if you waved at them, they popped back into the coral and hid! Magical little spirals!
Day 85
Not a lot to say about today, we shop for marks souvenirs so he is a happy bunny and just enjoy Cairns!
Day 86
Book our 'spaceship' for travel around NZ – feel very poor but relieved everything is now sorted!
Day 87
Spend the day packing – wrapping up marks didjeridoo nice and snug in bubble wrap and a sleeping bag and stuffing it inside a huge didjeridoo box the nice man in the didj shop sold us for $5 (bargain!).
Day 88
To the airport we go! Bubye Australia!
Our bags turn out to be well within the weight limit (something we were seriously worried about!) although they are both pushing 20 kg now!
Flights are good, connections made well within time, the only hold up is at biosecurity where they steal our tent, boots and didjs to wash, only they didn't clean our tent at all, and didn't even have the courtesy to pack it back up again! Humph!
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Cairns
Day 77
Off to Magnetic Island today (so named because CC was having trouble with his compass as he sailed past – turns out it wasn't the island but aussies don't like to change names!)
UV rating is 'Ultra' meaning you can burn in under 8 minutes – that's before the sun cream can kick in! Aaaaah!
We check in to a little hut (I'm not very impressed - $27 a night! I will only be staying the one night then!) and then head off to do the Forts Walk – aparently the best thing to do on this beautiful Island.
It really is fantastic, not only do we see 2 wild Koalas (one of which we spotted because it growled at us!) but the panoramic views from the top of these hills is incomparable – I dont think I have ever seen such beautiful views! Straight out to the sea one way, over rainforest covered undulating hills in the other, interspersed with fantastic boulder rock formations.... the 'forts' themselves were anything but impressive, but the walk was wonderful!
Shaun and Charlie are doing their SSI dive certificate here, so are staying a while, and so here we part ways... until we meet again!
Day 78
Long bus journey to cairns, little entertainment = boring day? No sireee!
Admittedly the bus journey is not overly exciting (although it is our last) but early afternoon we stop at a crocodile farm, and its mad! This guy gets on the bus, says does anyone want to hold a croc, and hands me a 11month old male saltwater crocodile! He then puts it on the floor for a while, before asking me to bring it off the bus! Wow a real life crocodile in my hands!
We then get to have a pic with little mr croc, and hold him like a baby, and play with a python, before going to seeing the big breeding males get fed. Some are pretty well trained, but 'joy boy' ('rescued' in the joy cyclone) is a veritable monster, trying to go for the keeper not the chicken leg and everything!
Then we get to play with some more roos, which is no longer that much of a novelty, but I got to cuddle quite a cute joey, and they are really very soft, if very stupid too! And finally (or so we thought) the keeper gets a dingo out to pet and cuddle and see try to eat a stupid kangaroo (“whats over here? Ooo a Dingo, I know, i'l go have a look”.... stupid roo, it wants to eat you! Really they are the most stupid animals I have ever encountered!).
We get back to reception, sad because the fun is over, and what do we get to see? Baby crocs hatching! It's mad, once a certain amount of time has passed the remaining eggs are either to weak to hatch, or dead, so the keepers were cracking them open like chicken eggs to aid the little guys! Really really mad to see!
(It's a crocodile farm, so instead of letting the breeding pairs do their thing normally, they steal the eggs and incubate them themselves – means 99% success rate as opposed to 40% - this also lets the keepers determine the sex of the baby crocs, as at 31degrees the babies will be female, and at 32 degrees they will all be male, males be preferable as they grow faster, this is a farm we must remember!)
We get to Cairns and check into an awesome hostel before exploring the city centre. We both love it here! I'm so glad we skipped the time we planned to spend on magnetic and in mission beach! Also because we got here early we can leave Oz before we planned and get to NZ early, giving us enough time to explore that wonderful country (i'm only worried it might be a little cold!)
Day 79
We spend the day in Cairns city centre today, changng our flights and booking a trip to cape tribulation, not exciting for you, but we had a good day!
Day 80
Another day shooping, I pick up some souvenirs, I wont bore you with the details!
Day 81
Cape Trib today, traditional tour guide telling bad jokes and playing bad music, but he seems a nice enough chap, and we have a pretty nice journey up there. Today is king tide (the biggest tide of the year) and even though you keep on telling me i'm going to experience a tsunami the weather is perfect and the views are stunning! First stop is at Mosmon gorge, where we paddle in the chilly water and watch our guide feed the evil marsh flies to the fish we can see in the crystal clear water.
Then its off to see some more crocs, in a strange old fashioned sanctuary - pretty cool as they were being fed, but nowhere near as good as the farm! It is mad to see the size difference between males and females though, the girls only reach 5/6 foot, the boys can be up to 5/6 metres!
Our hostel once we get there is nice (too nice, no cheap food!) but TORRENTIAL tropical rain starts to fall as soon as we check in, so we only get a chance to see the beach that evening - once the rain stopped it was only an hour til dark, and with the flood crocs tend to move about and we didn't fancy becoming dinner so we ran off back to our hostel as soon as it was dusk!
Day 82
Off to cape trib beach, which is non existent as its high tide so we walk up to the lookout, oogle a lethal spider which is dangling from one of the trees, and marvel at the beauty where the daintree rainforest world heritage site meets the coral sea world heritage site - apparently this is the only place in the world where two world heritage sites touch!
At lunch time the bus picks us up again, and its back to the daintree river to do a croc spotting cruise (wild croc spotting!). Our skipper tells us lots of info about mangroves, how the daintree national park has the widest variety of any in the world (the most different types on one river bank), how the seeds (or should i say babies - they're not really seeds, but live young: ready made trees with leaves ready to unfurl and everything!) float in a particular way so that they will only embedd where the salinity of the river is correct (this particular tree only survives in the 75% salt water areas). The salinity reduces by 15% every 5km from the sea, so the seeds have quite a small area to aim for!
Of course the aim of the cruise is croc spotting, and although it's not the best time of year (the females are nesting and the big males patroling the nesting areas so there are fewer in the river to be seen) we see two! Admittedly they're only small specimens, one apx 1yr old (cutie pie) and the second around 3 years, but it's amazing to see real wild crocs!
Day 83
City centre again as mark hasn't managed to pick up any souvenirs yet. He gets a.... (surprise for when we get back) but then has a panic that his Ipod has been nicked - after the last three times he's pulled this, only to find he's put it in a 'safe place', i'm sure its back at the hostel. He's adamant it's not, but we go back anyway because it would be stupid not to check...
Yup its on his bed.
Stupid boy!
I am now totally and entirely and fantastically up to date! We have no more tours or anything planned (apart from diving tomorrow) as we are poor :-( poorer than I expected :-( So i will only blogg once more before we go to NZ (just to reassure you all that no tsunami has hit!!!)
Love you all! xxxx
Off to Magnetic Island today (so named because CC was having trouble with his compass as he sailed past – turns out it wasn't the island but aussies don't like to change names!)
UV rating is 'Ultra' meaning you can burn in under 8 minutes – that's before the sun cream can kick in! Aaaaah!
We check in to a little hut (I'm not very impressed - $27 a night! I will only be staying the one night then!) and then head off to do the Forts Walk – aparently the best thing to do on this beautiful Island.
It really is fantastic, not only do we see 2 wild Koalas (one of which we spotted because it growled at us!) but the panoramic views from the top of these hills is incomparable – I dont think I have ever seen such beautiful views! Straight out to the sea one way, over rainforest covered undulating hills in the other, interspersed with fantastic boulder rock formations.... the 'forts' themselves were anything but impressive, but the walk was wonderful!
Shaun and Charlie are doing their SSI dive certificate here, so are staying a while, and so here we part ways... until we meet again!
Day 78
Long bus journey to cairns, little entertainment = boring day? No sireee!
Admittedly the bus journey is not overly exciting (although it is our last) but early afternoon we stop at a crocodile farm, and its mad! This guy gets on the bus, says does anyone want to hold a croc, and hands me a 11month old male saltwater crocodile! He then puts it on the floor for a while, before asking me to bring it off the bus! Wow a real life crocodile in my hands!
We then get to have a pic with little mr croc, and hold him like a baby, and play with a python, before going to seeing the big breeding males get fed. Some are pretty well trained, but 'joy boy' ('rescued' in the joy cyclone) is a veritable monster, trying to go for the keeper not the chicken leg and everything!
Then we get to play with some more roos, which is no longer that much of a novelty, but I got to cuddle quite a cute joey, and they are really very soft, if very stupid too! And finally (or so we thought) the keeper gets a dingo out to pet and cuddle and see try to eat a stupid kangaroo (“whats over here? Ooo a Dingo, I know, i'l go have a look”.... stupid roo, it wants to eat you! Really they are the most stupid animals I have ever encountered!).
We get back to reception, sad because the fun is over, and what do we get to see? Baby crocs hatching! It's mad, once a certain amount of time has passed the remaining eggs are either to weak to hatch, or dead, so the keepers were cracking them open like chicken eggs to aid the little guys! Really really mad to see!
(It's a crocodile farm, so instead of letting the breeding pairs do their thing normally, they steal the eggs and incubate them themselves – means 99% success rate as opposed to 40% - this also lets the keepers determine the sex of the baby crocs, as at 31degrees the babies will be female, and at 32 degrees they will all be male, males be preferable as they grow faster, this is a farm we must remember!)
We get to Cairns and check into an awesome hostel before exploring the city centre. We both love it here! I'm so glad we skipped the time we planned to spend on magnetic and in mission beach! Also because we got here early we can leave Oz before we planned and get to NZ early, giving us enough time to explore that wonderful country (i'm only worried it might be a little cold!)
Day 79
We spend the day in Cairns city centre today, changng our flights and booking a trip to cape tribulation, not exciting for you, but we had a good day!
Day 80
Another day shooping, I pick up some souvenirs, I wont bore you with the details!
Day 81
Cape Trib today, traditional tour guide telling bad jokes and playing bad music, but he seems a nice enough chap, and we have a pretty nice journey up there. Today is king tide (the biggest tide of the year) and even though you keep on telling me i'm going to experience a tsunami the weather is perfect and the views are stunning! First stop is at Mosmon gorge, where we paddle in the chilly water and watch our guide feed the evil marsh flies to the fish we can see in the crystal clear water.
Then its off to see some more crocs, in a strange old fashioned sanctuary - pretty cool as they were being fed, but nowhere near as good as the farm! It is mad to see the size difference between males and females though, the girls only reach 5/6 foot, the boys can be up to 5/6 metres!
Our hostel once we get there is nice (too nice, no cheap food!) but TORRENTIAL tropical rain starts to fall as soon as we check in, so we only get a chance to see the beach that evening - once the rain stopped it was only an hour til dark, and with the flood crocs tend to move about and we didn't fancy becoming dinner so we ran off back to our hostel as soon as it was dusk!
Day 82
Off to cape trib beach, which is non existent as its high tide so we walk up to the lookout, oogle a lethal spider which is dangling from one of the trees, and marvel at the beauty where the daintree rainforest world heritage site meets the coral sea world heritage site - apparently this is the only place in the world where two world heritage sites touch!
At lunch time the bus picks us up again, and its back to the daintree river to do a croc spotting cruise (wild croc spotting!). Our skipper tells us lots of info about mangroves, how the daintree national park has the widest variety of any in the world (the most different types on one river bank), how the seeds (or should i say babies - they're not really seeds, but live young: ready made trees with leaves ready to unfurl and everything!) float in a particular way so that they will only embedd where the salinity of the river is correct (this particular tree only survives in the 75% salt water areas). The salinity reduces by 15% every 5km from the sea, so the seeds have quite a small area to aim for!
Of course the aim of the cruise is croc spotting, and although it's not the best time of year (the females are nesting and the big males patroling the nesting areas so there are fewer in the river to be seen) we see two! Admittedly they're only small specimens, one apx 1yr old (cutie pie) and the second around 3 years, but it's amazing to see real wild crocs!
Day 83
City centre again as mark hasn't managed to pick up any souvenirs yet. He gets a.... (surprise for when we get back) but then has a panic that his Ipod has been nicked - after the last three times he's pulled this, only to find he's put it in a 'safe place', i'm sure its back at the hostel. He's adamant it's not, but we go back anyway because it would be stupid not to check...
Yup its on his bed.
Stupid boy!
I am now totally and entirely and fantastically up to date! We have no more tours or anything planned (apart from diving tomorrow) as we are poor :-( poorer than I expected :-( So i will only blogg once more before we go to NZ (just to reassure you all that no tsunami has hit!!!)
Love you all! xxxx
Whitsunday Islands
Day 71
Bad day. Stinky, tired, long bus journey, psychotic shower when we get to scummy hostel and sweet chilly sauce explosion in the cool bag, and nothing for dinner but chips – blurgh!
Day 72
Feel better today as no longer tired! Explore Airlie Beach and like it :-) Buy a pretty bag so I no longer have to have two rucksacks... things are looking up!
Day 73
Sailing today! Not a lot of wind, so we mainly use the motor, but we're on a sailing boat! And the scenery is too beautiful for words! The whitsunday islands are gorgeous, and the sea is a deep, clear, azure! Wow!
Day 74
Jam packed day today, first to whitehaven beach, which is gorgeous, white, fine silicone sand – which I appreciate from a lookout before trying to sleep away my impending illness in the shade!
Then we go to luncheon bay (so called because captain cook stopped for luncheon here!) and snorkel – its amazing, there are fish everywhere, of all sizes (from a tiny yellow and black one, which hung around with us for hrs, to massive metre long monsters!) And the coral is awesome, loads of different types and colours rising up out of the sand in weird and wonderful shapes... then we went diving, through coral ravines and into massive shoals of fish – absolutley fantastic!! We spent around 5 hours in the sea today!
Day 75
Last day on our boat, The Samurai, today, and more snorkelling for breakfast. It is again, very beautiful, but the stingers are out today. It is jellyfish season now, so whenever you enter the water you have to wear an oh-so-attractive stinger suit (or rick death by box jellyfish – I wonder which i'd prefer!). Yesterday there were no jellies around, but today the water is full of tiny, see through stingers, who are completely non dangerous, but I tell you now, their stings still hurt! Especially all over your face!
On shore the stinging sensation stops after about 5 minutes, so not too bad, but I still only snorkelled for around 15 mins – the pain was too much and i'm beginning to feel pretty fluy :-( I'm so scared of the jellies and my illness I even pass up the chance of a $45 dive (cheap as chips but not worth the pain) And i'm happy with what I see anyway: I see Elvis (the biggest fish around) and a family of clown-fish in their anemone, baby fishy and all!
We get back to a better room in the hostel (cheaper and nicer as the 4 of us share a twin) and a far far better shower, and some jellybean-esque medicine – again, showers must have been invented by the gods!
Day 76
Don't do a lot today as although the jelly beans helped I still feel pretty ill. We look at buying some fins in a dive shop, as they are very cheap compared to tother Oz prices, but we look at the Vobster website and decide it will be a LOT cheaper to wait til we get home (we LIKE Vobster)!
Bad day. Stinky, tired, long bus journey, psychotic shower when we get to scummy hostel and sweet chilly sauce explosion in the cool bag, and nothing for dinner but chips – blurgh!
Day 72
Feel better today as no longer tired! Explore Airlie Beach and like it :-) Buy a pretty bag so I no longer have to have two rucksacks... things are looking up!
Day 73
Sailing today! Not a lot of wind, so we mainly use the motor, but we're on a sailing boat! And the scenery is too beautiful for words! The whitsunday islands are gorgeous, and the sea is a deep, clear, azure! Wow!
Day 74
Jam packed day today, first to whitehaven beach, which is gorgeous, white, fine silicone sand – which I appreciate from a lookout before trying to sleep away my impending illness in the shade!
Then we go to luncheon bay (so called because captain cook stopped for luncheon here!) and snorkel – its amazing, there are fish everywhere, of all sizes (from a tiny yellow and black one, which hung around with us for hrs, to massive metre long monsters!) And the coral is awesome, loads of different types and colours rising up out of the sand in weird and wonderful shapes... then we went diving, through coral ravines and into massive shoals of fish – absolutley fantastic!! We spent around 5 hours in the sea today!
Day 75
Last day on our boat, The Samurai, today, and more snorkelling for breakfast. It is again, very beautiful, but the stingers are out today. It is jellyfish season now, so whenever you enter the water you have to wear an oh-so-attractive stinger suit (or rick death by box jellyfish – I wonder which i'd prefer!). Yesterday there were no jellies around, but today the water is full of tiny, see through stingers, who are completely non dangerous, but I tell you now, their stings still hurt! Especially all over your face!
On shore the stinging sensation stops after about 5 minutes, so not too bad, but I still only snorkelled for around 15 mins – the pain was too much and i'm beginning to feel pretty fluy :-( I'm so scared of the jellies and my illness I even pass up the chance of a $45 dive (cheap as chips but not worth the pain) And i'm happy with what I see anyway: I see Elvis (the biggest fish around) and a family of clown-fish in their anemone, baby fishy and all!
We get back to a better room in the hostel (cheaper and nicer as the 4 of us share a twin) and a far far better shower, and some jellybean-esque medicine – again, showers must have been invented by the gods!
Day 76
Don't do a lot today as although the jelly beans helped I still feel pretty ill. We look at buying some fins in a dive shop, as they are very cheap compared to tother Oz prices, but we look at the Vobster website and decide it will be a LOT cheaper to wait til we get home (we LIKE Vobster)!
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