My first destination was a little
ghost town called Bingara, imagine a long open street with
a few shops either side and add a bit of tumbleweed (well almost)
blowing down and you have Bingara. There really wasn't much
to do here, but I did take up the opportunity to do some horse
riding for 4 hours. I cannot remember the last time I had sat
on a horse, the pain afterwards lasted for 4 days! The trek
took as through some fields, through some rivers and on a little
gallop... I think I resembled a lump of jelly on bouncy castle.
Halfway through the trip we dismounted (althoughI still felt
like I had the horse between my legs) and got to have a swim
in the stream, a couple of the horses followed us in, which
we then rode bareback and did some water skiing with, the idea
being you hold its tail, its gallops off and you are almost
pulled up out of the water. After we had all arrived back at
the ranch we headed back to shower and then make our onward
trip. The onward journey stopped me off at a couple of national
parks, where I stayed for a couple of days and had my first
experience of the outback and did went for some treks, and
I finally got to see my first wild Kangaroos, Wallabies and
Koalas.
The next major stop was the insanely wonderful
town of Byron Bay. Byron is the most easterly point of Australia
and is so laid back, if it got any more laid back I swear it
would fall back on itself and collapse. Byron is full of alternative
cafes and shops - no McDonalds or big names have been allowed
to set up and make the most of us tourists, so it has a real
nice fresh feel to it. I took up the chance to do some Sea
Kayaking, trying to get the bleeding kayak out past the shore
and then myself and another into it, caused a bit of grief
for a while. About 30 mins out to sea, we spotted Dolphins
(closely followed by an American girls comment - "are
they wild Dolphins?") and paddled out to get a closer
look, at this point they started swimming under us and jumping
out of the water following us as we paddled along. A little
bit later we jumped out of the kayaks and swum along with them
-
priceless moment, until we realised we had to get back into the Kayak. I also
took up a 2hr Circus lesson which involved trying (huge emphasis on the word
trying) to ride a unicycle, walking a tightrope and how to be the clown of
all clowns - I pulled of none of them (no comments please). I took a slight
detour whilst here and went inland to the strangest place around. Nimbin. Back
in 1973 a little festival took place in this sleepy town and the hippys came...
and never left. The town is now covered in a constant fog of weed smokers.
Whilst walking down the main street you find yourself getting inundated with
offers for weed, cookies or anything else connected with the smoking scene.
Next stop took me to the most over rated place
on the East Coast - Surfers Paradise. Don't get me wrong the
beach is nothing short of amazing (42km of white sandy beach)
but as a whole Surfers is a Spain, Miami, and Orlando wannabe.
The only good thing about it are the Meter maids - highly attractive
girls who walk around in Bikinis checking the parking meters
that line up the coast - perve heaven!
I stopped of in Brisbane, initially for a couple
of days - 5 weeks later I left. Something about Brisbane I
loved, it is a big small town that has the
atmosphere of a city and the laid back nature of a country town, I also experienced
the hottest day I have had to date in Brisse - 45 degrees. I met a young local
lass who kept me more then entertained for my stay and decided to top up the
bank account and got
myself a job doing door to door sales of telephone systems - Tough going but
a laugh was had, although I didn't quite make the fortune I was hoping to.
I finally got my arse moving out of the city and headed onto Noosa, a nice
little holiday resort with some serious money and property floating around.
I stayed here for a couple of days before moving on to Rainbow Beach in order
to do the highlight of Australia for me so far - Fraser Island.
Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the
world. It is about 120km long and 15km wide and has vast rolling
sand dunes, tropical rainforests and deep if not at times mysterious
fresh water lakes. A group of people I met hired out a 4WD
some camping gear and headed off into the unknown. The island
has no roads so all the driving is definite off road and also
dictated by the tide - which limits the amount of time you
can drive down the beach and not have to use the inland tracks.
Fraser is nothing short of stunning, the highlight having to
be Lake McKenzie, which is a spectacularly clear fresh water
lake, surrounded by bleached white sands that give the lake
an amazing bright blue/turquoise look. Along with the beauty
of the island, the camping, drinking and Dingo’s and
laughs that continued to happen for the 3 days made the whole
trip something I won’t forget in a while.
Well folks that’s all for now. Sorry that
its not as detailed as some of my previous emails, but it should
give you some idea on what I have been up to. I’ll fill
you in on the rest another day. As for me, I’m going
to enjoy this sunshine. I promise the next one won’t
be so long in coming.
Love and smoothies
Iain
xxxx |
July 2nd
A Whirlwind Visit
Howdy,
Its that time again!! Before I start, how are you all? I'm 'sweet' and have
really enjoyed my time in NZ and now wish I had more time there. As some
one kept telling me "its bigger than you think and I soon discovered
this was true. Anyway as usual I'll start from the top and work my way down,
which I feel tends to always be the best way. (Looking at things now this
is another long email, savor it and enjoy it, you may have to wait a while
for the next one!)
I finally made it to Santiago airport with a tear in my eye but with a buzz
inside of what lay ahead. After a fantastic 13-hour flight I touched down at
Auckland airport at 4:20am with 3 hours sleep and a lost day somewhere along
the line. As usual my planning for going anywhere new was at a minimum so first
port of call was to grab a coffee (which I did in Spanish without thinking
about it - I got a 'what?' in return) and to try and figure out somewhere to
stay. I hopped on the next bus out of the airport and headed for the most central
hostel for a night at least. I checked in, hit my new dorm and met what would
turn out to be my traveling mate for the next 2 weeks or so, Daron. We both
decided that we were going to hit the South Island straight away but how to
do it we where unsure, in the end we settled for a camper van. Two days later
we were at the depo loading our gear in, and off we went. We drove from Auckland
down to Wellington to catch the bloody expensive ferry to Picton on the South
Island. We got the cheapest ferry we could which meant leaving at 1:30am and
arriving the other side at 4:30am. The crossing was fine and as soon as we
had got to the other side we parked up, and crashed out for a few hours. Picton
is tiny, as most of the towns in NZ are, really nothing there but it is pretty
town and supposedly the second largest marina in the country. We pretty much
left here and headed to our first major stop, Nelson.
Nelson should have been a little hive of activity as it is the SI's second
biggest city (pop around 52,000!) but due to it being the Queens Birthday,
it was a bank holiday Monday and everything was shut down, we even struggled
to find a decent bar that was open, nasty. In the end we decided to make a
move on instead of sitting around like a stale bag of chips, although we did
have a wonder around looked at the Art Deco Cathedral which dominates the surrounding
skyline a quick and disappointing visit to South St, which is meant to be the
oldest preserved street in NZ, I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't
really what I got, and finally a visit off to the Founders Historic Park, which
is a replica of the town from the early 19th century, including the Founders
Brewery... who am I to turn down a tour and tasting session?!
From here we had made a rough plan of things we both wanted to see, but due
to the 18day time limit we had (Daron needed to be back in Auckland to fly
to Auz) and the distances we were going to try and cover it soon became clear
that we where going to be doing a lot of driving to get from A to B. We decided
to head towards Greymouth on the West Coast. The driving soon become second
nature and the scenery surrounding us caught more of our attention then anything
else (except the odd wave here and there to fellow campers coming the opposite
way!) its hard to explain NZs geography, varied would be one word. It is simply
remarkable, even in winter it has more green then I have ever known. On route
to Greymouth we passed through lots of little towns, (and I mean little - pops
of around 250-1000people) far too many to start to document here although we
did stop of at Buller Gorge which is little mother nature scar from a 1929
earthquake, the gorge itself now has NZs longest swingbridge crossing it at
110m and believe me it does swing. On the other side of the bridge we took
some short walks the main one being to the epicenter. We hopped back in the
van and continued the drive to Greymouth. We finally arrived in Greymouth to
find once again another sleepy town and with not a great deal to do, although
once again we did (or at least Daron did) discover the Monteiths Brewing Co.
Once again we found ourselves in the Brewery being given a tour having a few
tasters and then a free bar for the next half hour, milk it? us? damn right
we did. By the time we left we both decided we were over the limit to drive
on so stayed where we where for the night, took a walk around the town and
across to the quay. In the morning we set off once again and headed to Hokitika.
Hokitika is another small town, anyone who has been to NZ will tell you that
every town over here is small. Daron had suggested stopping here as it is a
major arts and crafts centre for Jad and as he really wanted to purchase some
for some friends we stopped off for a few hours. Whilst he went shopping I
took a wander round but apart from various Jade, Wood and Whale bone factorys/craft
shops there is very little to see and do, if nothing else it made a nice lunch
break before heading down to Franz Josef
We arrived in Franz Josef around 6pm and parked the beast up. The main reason
we stopped here was to take a trip up on to the appropriately named Franz Josef
Glacier. We arranged the tour for the next morning. That evening we popped
into the only bar in town for a quiet drink before retiring. The quiet bit
lasted for about an hour until we met up with a bunch of Irish girls and then
things got messy. Around 4am I crawled back to the van knowing we had to be
up in 4 hours. Surprisingly we woke up with no troubles and felt right as rain,
even more so when we stepped out to discover it raining. Hard. We got suited
and booted, rain macs provided and off we went. We were advised to take the
'fast' group by our new Irish friends so thats what we did. It took about 10
mins to walk from the drop off point to the foot of the glacier at which point
we put on our boot spikes and given some tips on how to keep safe. As I'm sure
you can all imagine a huge frozen block of ice is slippery at the best of times
add the continuing rain and it became even worse, most of us fell or slipped
at one point looking more like a drunk elephant on an ice rink rather than
Torvil and Dean recovering from a bad move. The Glacier it self is amazing,
climbing even more so. In places it looked like marble, occasionally scattered
with some dark slate style rock from the towering cliffs either side. The colours
ranged from ocean blues, to grays and turquoise all still mimicking a marble
effect. At other points it resembles more of a deep freezer, just pure white.
We followed our rather nutty guide around the caverns, we went up and down
and through the ice, every now and again we would stop whilst he tied a rope
down so we could clamber our way up. Occasionally he would have to stop and
figure out where the hell he was and how to get up or down the imposing block
of ice in front of us, whilst we all stood squashed between two blocks of ice
feeling that if we stood around any more we would go down in history as the
famous 'tourists stuck in the ice', looking back I don't think we stopped for
anything more then 5mins. At around 1:30 we reached a nice flat opening and
stopped for a bite to eat. The other two groups at this point had decided that
they were going to turn back. AJ gave us this option and we all gave him looks
to suggest that he was idiot for even thinking we wanted to turn around. So
off we went again, the higher we went the better the glacier got, the colours
more intense and the little pools of water more frequent. At around 3:30 we
started to head back down, and finally arrived back at the bus at 6pm. That
night we slept like babies.
We arose the next morning and started our long drive towards what is described
as one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand, Milford Sound. Our initial
intention was to drive straight down and spend the night somewhere there, visit
it in the morning and then head back towards Queenstown. As Milford Sound is
in the middle of a national park, the drive meant that we had to do a big U
from Te Anau and come back on ourselves some 120km. Around about 8:30pm we
realised we were not going to make it due to the Petrol light flashing at us,
we made it to Te Anau just in time before the van gave up hope and chugged
to a peaceful stop. We searched round for a petrol station only to discover
that the idea of 24hr stations has not reached NZ as of yet. We pushed the
van (a damn sight harder then you can imagine) to the nearest layby, cooked
some dinner and had an early night. The next morning we arose bright and early
to find the lake we had parked next to covered in a thick fog, with an almost
perfect mirror reflection of the few boats , and the odd mindless seagull perched
on the piers the boats where moored too. Once again we pushed the van to the
nearest station, luckily across the road, filled her up and off we went. The
drive to the Sound was nothing short of spectacular. The weather to start was
cloudy and with a bit of drizzle in the air we assumed that our visit to Milford
was going to be seen in the same light, however the more we drove the clearer
it got. The view opened up to soaring snowcapped mountains, with a lone cloud
drifting slowly below, we continued to follow the road around, slowly climbing
our way up through the mountains, a real scene from the LotR, but despite how
good the views are in the film, it does very little justice to seeing them
for real. Eventually we came to the Homer Tunnel, which was completed in 1935,
and cuts 1200m straight through one of the mountains to the canyon the other
side. The drive from here was like driving down a slanted Curly Whirly, the
mountains surrounding as at all sides, enclosing us in like a pebble at the
bottom of the ocean. We finally made it to Milford, parked up and bought tickets
for a
boat tour around. Its hard to describe Milford itself. Basically its a huge
fiord with perfectly calm waters mirroring the peaks that protect it from the
rest of the outside world, with a marine life that is home to some unique life,
including black coral. The boat took as around the outskirts up to where it
meets the sea before taking a leisurely cruise back to the port. Our luck on
the weather didnt hold out though and half way round the heavens open and the
rain fell. BIG STYLE! We returned to our van and made the long journey back
towards Queenstown that evening.
Queenstown, what can I say? Firstly it has to be the most adrenaline packed
town in the world, I think if nothing else they invented the stuff, you can
almost smell it in the air. That aside its probably one of the prettiest towns
in NZ, its situated on the edge of lake Wakatipu, with the Remarkables mountains
at the back of this. The town itself is small and compact but has a fantastic
night life. Whilst here there were two things both myself and Daron wanted
to do, firstly a tandem skydive and secondly a bungy jump. We got a deal to
do three bungys for the price of 2 and off we went. The first we conquered
is called the The Ledge its a 47m drop from the gondola that over looks Queenstown.
I was harnessed up, not by feet but in a strap that resembled more of a big
pair of pants. The great thing (or at least I thought at the time) was that
you had to take a running jump at it and as I was tied in at the waist and
not my feet it wouldnt be a headfirst jump. I was walked to the edge, told
to look around and smile to the camera above took a few steps back and after
the count of five. run and dive off. 5.43.2....1 I reached the edge and instead
of doing a nice star dive of the edge, I resembled more of a human bouncing
bomb. Knees held up, hands somewhere, suddenly my brain caught up with me and
reminded me that I was now plummeting towards the ground, two seconds later
the Bungy stretched and I was catapulted back up, gravity got the better of
me again and back down I went, this continued for a few more bounces until
the cable was dropped to pull me back up. I attached the cable, adrenaline
pumping around my body and reached the top, was un-harnessed and suddenly had
a urge to do it all over again. We had booked the Skydive for the next day
so after a few beers caught an early night. I awoke the next morning feeling
a lot less anxious about the skydive then the remaining Bungys, one which was
booked for the same afternoon. We arrived at the jump zone, dressed into our
fashionable suits and given our brief tutorial by our diver and before we knew
what was happening where in the plane climbing to 12,000ft. At around 7000ft
the instructor connected me to himself and reminded me what I had to do, mainly
keep my legs back, my head pushed firmly back and my hands on the straps until
he gave the thumps up to let my hands go and look around. 12000ft came, the
door opened, Daron was first to be shuffled to the edge, seeing him sit there,
the ground a long way below us and then he was gone. I was then shuffled towards
the edge, my legs hanging out the door, the cold air beating my face, looking
12000ft down, one last word from the instructor to remind to keep my legs back
and then urrrrrrghhhhh, followed very quickly by arse these jeans were clean
on this morning. Im still not sure if my stomach hit the floor before I did
or if I left it in the plane. About two seconds later I was told I could stretch
out my hands, falling 200km and hour, the ground rushing towards us for the
next 45 secs. The adrenaline pumping through every inch of my body, the surrounding
view of Queenstown far below me, the Remarkables for the first time looking
like little snow covered hills rather then the giants that they are. Before
I knew it we were at 5000ft and the parachute was pulled. We slowly drifted
back down to earth, doing a few spins, taking in the views whilst the realisation
of what I had just done coming to me, and a burning desire to do it all over
again. Of all the things that I have done so far on this trip that 6-minute
section has been battling for the top spot and not far from winning. I really
cant explain the feeling of it all I can say is you havent done it do it. Now.
After we landed we where driven to back to Queenstown, hoped in the van and
drove towards our second Bungy jump off the Kawarau Suspension Bridge. The
jump itself was the smallest at 43m, however this time there was no running
jump and no pants, my ankles were strapped together and I was walked to a tiny
platform, the river flowing carelessly below me. Same process once again, wave
to the camera 5..4..3..2..1 despite having thrown myself out of a plane less
then 3hours previously I must admit this scared the life out of me and I did
take a second or two longer to make the dive off out. I finally pushed off
out, my arms stretched out to the side, watching as I quickly fell towards
the river once again the elastic band stretched and I was flung back up towards
the bridge before once again falling towards the river and back up again like
one of those kids toys where the ball is tied to a bit of elastic and you have
to keep it bouncing against the wooden bat. My adrenaline at this point had
got to some serious levels and I found myself with an urge to jump and dive
from anything I could find. However deep down my conscious was worried at the
thought of the final one the next day. The Nevis is NZs highest jump at 134m.
You arrive at a remote scenic spot to find a little gondola hanging from a
few suspension cables across a canyon. We were whisked across in a small cart
to the pod. On reaching the pod we discovered it had a glass floor, so inevitably
we had no choice but to look down. 134m is high. Eventually it was my turn,
I was sat in a nice comfy leather chair, my ankles strapped together once more,
told that I needed to do a BIG dive out for a nice comfortable ride! I was
ushered to the edge, 5..4..3..2..1 I gave the biggest dive I could, for the
next 8 secs I felt myself being totally weightless, the canyon floor getting
closer and closer. The Bungy had still not extended at the point I was used
to on the other jumps and I continued to fall, all of a sudden I felt myself
whizzing back up the canyon, the Bungy relaxed and my body was free in the
air again before once again dropping like a stone. After a few minutes, I pulled
the release cable and was slowly winced back up to the pod. An absolutely exhilarating
experience, a very different rush to the skydive, but one I could get very
addicted to.
The next morning we left Queenstown and started too drive north and stopped
off at Wanaka. In many a way Wanaka reminded me of Queenstown, just without
so much tourist traffic. Saying that a lot of people descend there during the
ski season, which had been postponed due to not having enough snow. The town
itself is small and compact and over looks lake Wanaka, with the imposing ski
mountains surrounding it. We hit Puzzling world whilst there, basically a large
outdoor maze the idea to be to get to each tower in each corner of the maze
but in a corresponding order. Imagine a square the bottom left would be yellow
the bottom right red, the top left green and the top right blue. The first
to find was the yellow then the blue then green and then red and then back
out the same way you came in. Not as easy as it sounds, but good harmless fun.
Even when you have kids giving there parents a race to do it and then discovering
the kids still waiting outside 15 mins later waiting for their parents to come
out!
From Wanaka we took a rather lengthy drive (time was starting to be against
us at this point) to Christchurch. Christchurch itself is a nice enough city
but thats pretty much all it is. It has a nice feel to it, albeit a very English
one. A day or so later we made the long drive back to Picton to catch the ferry
across to Wellington again. Daron departed for a couple of days to watch the
Rugby and I....erm... actually I'm not sure what I did. I know I was out for
the 2 days I was there and at the time thought I had done a lot but now have
no idea what it was. I some how got myself invited to a party from a women
I met in travel agents, turned up to that and had a fantastic evening but apart
from that I couldnt say. If it comes to me I'll let you know.
After Wellington we took the 9hour drive back to Auckland. Daron left the
next day for Auz and I arranged a short tour for the North Island. I hoped
on to a tour bus with what I thought was going to be an 17-19s crowd but was
pleasantly surprised. Out of the 12 people on the bus, including myself there
were only 3 blokes and one of them was attached. Bing Shubba Bing. We left
Auckland and once again drove through and occasionally stopped at various towns,
too many and really not much point to start to write about. However, our first
major stop was Raglan. A major surfing point in NZ and known around the world
with surfers and surfets, apparently, dude. Despite the freezing cold weather
most of us opted to do have a try and surfing (my main reason was to see some
of the girls in wet suits, nothing more and nothing less as it turned out it
was a great day out at sea). We had a brief tutorial on the beach, told the
basics and then thrown out to the sea like whitebait to sharks. If I was going
to be dishonest I would say I was fantastic, a natural, a born genius. However
in reality I sucked. I could try and break it down a little bit more then that,
but I dont like to dwell on the little insignificant parts of this update!
The night the hostel put on a great meal for us, we drank some wine and a few
beers, people mocked my surfing all in all a routine kind of night!
We awoke the next morning early, but far from bright. We lumbered into the
coach and made our way towards a small town called Waitomo. In un-sunny Waitomo
we all took part in a great adventure known as Black Water Rafting. Similar
to white but you sit in a large rubber ring, and drift through pitch black
caves, occasionally stopping to drop over a small waterfall. What made this
so unique (despite for the 2nd time in 24 hours seeing some real beautys in
tight wetsuits Ill stop stalling and get to the point soon enough!) was if
you looked up at the ceiling it was covered with hundreds and hundreds (not
the little flaky bits your mum uses in cakes) of glo-worms. This in turn gave
it a blue star night effect, a really cool thing to see, or at least it was
until your hand disappeared under water again. After we had all had hot showers,
and sorted we drove on to our next stop for the evening; Hahei. We arrived
here about 8pm so cooked a big group meal between us and then sat around playing
cards, reading, chilling out for the evening.. well until 9:30 when we all
voted the driver to do a beer run for us. The next morning we all woke up and
hit possibly one of the most scenic short walks I have ever done. It took about
a 2 hour return trip. Starting on the beach we followed it down until we came
to a little walk way with a gentle slope to it. The path gradually took us
to the top of the cliff face and gave an amazing view of the coast and rock
formations a short distance out to see. The path continued round, up and down,
until we took a downward path back towards the beach, or Cathedral Cove, named
so due to the steeple type hole that is between the cliff. At low tide you
can walk through to two different beaches. If you have all seen the film the
Beach, this place is similar. Very deserted, extremely tranquil, and very very
beautiful. When we arrived back we loaded up again and made our way to Uncle
Boys.
Uncle Boy is a Maori and has lived a very interesting life, so say the least.
He knows the man that owns the tour company I used and just over a year ago
agreed to make his house an over night cultural stop for this tour company
alone. He basically gave us an insight to the Maori culture, traditions and
way of life, both current and past. Half way through the evening a local school
group came in and performed a few local dances for us, and then it was our
turn. Us limited boys had to learn the Haka (if you watch rugby, think of the
little dance the All Blacks do before a game) within about 10 minutes then
perform it to all the rest of the group. To top it off our shirts had to come
off, and oh how the crowd went wild, (running out shortly after in fear). The
girls in turn had to do a dance routine with Pos (I think). The whole evening
was magical and really brought us together as a group.
The next morning we made our way to smelly ole Rotorua. Maybe smelly is a
tad harsh, it has a very distinctive humm in the air due to the high Sulphur
content of the ground and the high seismic activity of the area. Rotorua seems
to have made a nice living out of it though, there a plenty of natural steam
baths and beauty salons happy to part you with your $$s for a mad pack (yeah
the girls loved it) We took a look around a natural thermal resort called Te
Whakarewarewa (its full name is Te Whakarewarewatanga o te Ope Taua a Wahiao,
which translates to; The Gathering Together of the War Party of Wahiao, so
now you know!) Where we saw geysers bellowing into the air (similar to what
I saw in Chile) boiling mud pools, and how the village cooks its food and heats
the houses all just the aid of the steam activity. This was to be the last
night we spent together as a group so had a drink or two to mark the occasion.
The next morning I made my way back to Auckland and got ready for my flight
to Auz a couple of days later.
So what now? Well I am now in Sydney and enjoying the consistent rain, but
that will all keep for now until its time for the next email
Thanks for all your emails (and birthday ones, those of you that remembered
that is!!!) keep em coming.
Lots of love
Iain xxxx
P.S. If you are ever in Queenstown, had a quiet drink, and decide to take a
walk down the pier/boat Jetty for a breath of fresh air, watch your step, as
it can get slippery. Or so Im told. |
