Still oop north

After New Year's we went back down to Rotorua to meet up with Ben & Coleanne once more. We had planned to do the Tongariro Crossing together, one of the most famous one day hikes (or 'tramps' as they call them here) in NZ. It is an estimated 7-8 hours of walking and crosses a series of volcanoes, incidentally used as the location for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings. We parked one of our cars at the end point, drove the other to the start and, armed with the one ring to rule them all, oh, sorry, I meant our lunch and plenty of water, we set out to hike our socks off.

I'll be honest, I thought I was fairly fit, but it seems age has certainly taken its toll on me. The first half of the walk is all uphill, and I wasn't doing too badly here at all. The weather was perfect, sun with a smattering of cloud giving excellent visibility across the whole region, nice cool breeze blowing, and although we all had to take the occasional breather, we were alright. When we had almost completed the ascent, we were given the option to climb up to the mouth of a volcano, which would have added a couple of hours on to the walk and looked practically vertical so we thought sod that and carried on. Just as we got past the summit and saw down the other side I literally gasped as i glimpsed the incredible colour of the Emerald Lakes. Our descent began and I thought it was all going to be a piece of cake from here - how wrong I was. I've had a dodgy left knee for a while now, maybe a couple of years, and whilst I've noticed that if I kneel or squat it stiffens up when I get back up again, I hadn't really paid it too much attention. Trying to walk down the pretty steep side of a mountain however took its toll and while Ben & Coleanne raced ahead, Isaac - gawd bless 'im - remained with me getting ever slower. There were big steps down on the path, a couple of feet deep each, placed every hundred feet or so, which after a while I just couldn't get down. Isaac had to either hold my hand as I stepped or literally pick me up and lift me down. I was getting exhausted and at one point I thought I saw the car park which was our end goal. When I realised that I was imagining it I thought 'Oh blimey, I'm not in a good way if I'm seeing mirages'. In fact when eventually Isaac called from up ahead to say 'We're here!' and I could barely bring myself to believe him. We collapsed into the car where Ben & Coleanne were waiting for us and realised that we'd done the walk in 6hrs 15m, despite my stupid knee, which was pretty good we reckoned. Although we had brought stuff to make dinner we just couldn't be bothered to cook so we went to the campsite restaurant. Ben barely made it through dinner before he crashed at 8.30pm; we blamed sunstroke as he was red as a tomato.

The next morning Ben & Coleanne headed back to Rotorua while we went on to Napier, which was destroyed in the 30s by an earthquake and was therefore rebuilt all in the Art Deco style. We pinpointed a campsite that said it was brand new and had free internet - virtually unheard of over here - so we headed there even though it was a bit out of the way. It took a while to find it, but we kept going past another campsite on the same road, so we called them and they said that that WAS the campsite, that there'd been a misprint in the book. We pulled in to find a tiny and wholey univiting place that looked more like a cramped car park than a campsite. The 'office' was a caravan on site with some unsavoury looking people sat on deckchairs out front. We paid our $20 and asked about the internet - oh no, it wasn't free, another misprint, it was $1 per 15 mins. If you could get it that is. It actually belonged to the backpackers next door. I checked and it was actually $2 per 15 mins and when I tried to get it from the van there was no chance. "I'm not staying here" I told Isaac, and went to get our money back. "Well, that's not really how it's done," she told me "I'll get in to trouble if I give you your money back". "I've only been here for 5 mins" I said firmly "and I'll have that $20 back please." She relented and we raced off with relief.

After a night spent at a decent enough campsite in town we headed into Napier but given that we had to get down to Wellington that evening we didn't spend much time there. We were back on the road in no time and taking the winding Highway 2 down to Windy Welly.

One of the girls I trained with, Sally, lives in Wellington and she very kindly offered to lend us her flat for the few days we were there, going off to stay with her boyfriend. She even lent us her car! We felt like proper people again *sigh*. We went out for dinner with Sally & Tom the first evening - Isaac was turned away from the bar we went to for not presenting valid ID haha* - and the following evening Isaac took me to my first strip club, Mermaids. They have a big tank the girls dive into! I thought it was great.

We visited Wellington Zoo, which was excellent. They had a sun bear, which I'd never seen or heard of before, which was a funny looking thing. We wandered around eating ice creams (of course) and we while we were looking at the chimps, a keeper came over to stand next to us with a dingo on a harness. They were still young, only around 5 months old, and were being acclimatised to the zoo**. The chimps went mad and started screaming at the sight of the dingo; one of them ran to the front, pulled up a big clump of earth and hurled it at us! We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and Isaac says he knows what he wants his next pet to be now: a red panda. I've pointed out it's probably illegal but he's determined.

The next evening Sally came round with a friend and asked if we wanted to come with them to visit some other friends of theirs. Only when we got there did it click that everyone there was either gay or a lesbian - I took Isaac aside to mention it to him, just in case he hadn't realised, as it's not really the kind of crowd he's used to back home! Still, he soon settled into it and within a few beers he was nattering away - it was a bit of an education I think. The following evening we went with Sally & Tom to a BBQ at another friend's and found ourselves surrounded by semi-famous musicians and the director of the fabulous Kiwi film Eagle Vs. Shark. I told him I loved the film and he seemed genuinely touched.

All too soon we had to leave Wellington at the crack of dawn to take the ferry over to Picton on the South Island...

*it was perfectly valid, just Canadian. They seem to think that you should bring your passport with you everywhere over here unless you have a NZ driving licence. Even though Isaac had two pieces of photo ID with his date of birth showing he was 19 and several other pieces of ID, including his birth certificate, to prove it was him, the manageress threw a Parkie on us and ordered him out.
**Hello Lorenzo! Hello Lorenzo! (I don't expect anyone but my sisters to get this comment)

Just a few reasons why Isaac is the perfect travelling companion (and boyfriend)

• He’s always eager to help. If he hasn’t done something before or doesn’t know how to do it, he’ll watch me do it and help in any way he can, following instructions to the letter. Next time round he’ll offer to do it, remember exactly what I said and do it perfectly.
• If I cook, he’ll insist on washing up. In fact, he won’t even insist, he’ll just get on and do it without any fuss.
• He washes up to a high standard. If I’ve used a knife to cut bacon for example, you know that the serrated edge of the knife will be clean because he’ll have scrubbed it properly, then checked to make sure it is completely clean. The other day we used a pot to cook with on the gas burner and the bottom was black. He scrubbed and scrubbed it before asking me “How clean do you want it?”
• In company he is always polite when he should be, friendly when that’s required and quiet when someone else likes to talk. He always gets it spot on.
• He never assumes there’s anything I should do, like cooking or anything, or anything I can’t do, like fixing stuff. He is equal in all things.
• He appreciates everything I do, even when I think it’s no big deal.
• He actually listens to what I say and remembers it, even weeks after.
• He gets excited about the same things I do, like our power cable and our new fridge.
• If I ask him to make me a cup of tea while I do something else, he’ll do it without question…and gets the chocolate biscuits out too because he knows that I’ll want them to go with it.
• He has common sense in abundance and uses it: I asked him recently while we were at Jude & Glynn’s if he would pop out to the van to get my toiletry bag so I could take my make up off. He did so and came back with the hairband that I use to keep my hair off my face while I take my make up off as well, even though I hadn’t asked him for it and it wasn’t even kept next to my bag. He just thought about what I’d need and made sure he brought it.
• He compliments my driving often.
• He knows how to say sorry.
  

Hot Christmas and ker-razy New Year

Jude & Glynn had invited us for Christmas and we decided that we would like to spend it with nice people rather than on our own, so we took them up on their offer. We headed back to South Auckland on a very un-Christmassy Christmas Eve (too hot!) and spent the evening with them and their Japanese friend Mayuko having Thai curry and watching The Muppets Christmas Carol, which did help us get in the mood a bit. The next morning the sky was purest blue and it was hot as a bastard, so we had a leisurely start and a big breakfast with bacon, scrambled eggs and hash browns. Eventually we opened presents – we had two presents that my sister Jenny had put in my suitcase before I left and it turns out they were two brilliant t-shirts (mine says ‘Vote Clarkson’ and Isaac’s ‘DCI Hunt: I’m ‘aving hoops’) and from Jude & Glynn we got a camp shower (trying to make up for the one that they had snatched from beneath my metaphorical fingers at a garage sale we’d been to together) and a set of badminton racquets. We spent the day playing badminton in the back garden and lounging in their hammock before heading off to a BBQ at Jude’s friend Liz’s. It was a family affair but they were so welcoming to us and we ate some fabulous food. There was a dip made from refried beans, guacamole, salsa, sour cream which was heavenly. We met a guy called Mike who offered to come the next day and, for the price of a few beers, he would help us try to fix the oil leak that we’d developed on the van. It was a lovely Christmas and we were so glad we decided to spend it with Jude & Glynn.

On Boxing Day we went to the sales but only picked up some icepacks and some new boxers* for Isaac, since he came to NZ with only 5 pairs that he’s been juggling ever since. A lazy day ensued. The next day however, we got up (relatively) early and headed north to Snowplanet, the indoor ski hill, to catch some fresh pow. Well, some hard packed man-made snow at least. I rented some dodgy skis, Isaac rented a dodgy snowboard, and we hit the slopes. Sorry, slope. After so long away from snow we were grateful to have anything to ride on and we spent the next 7 hours hitting the park (that is to say, Isaac was hitting the park, and I was just trying to do one jump and one box without falling over). We got so used to wearing big coats and feeling the cold air on our faces, every time we went outside for a break we were amazed to remember it was in fact swelteringly hot.

Next day we said our sad goodbyes to Jude & Glynn, because we knew we wouldn’t be seeing them again for a long while, and drove to the Coromandel Peninsula. The drive up to Colville, just north of Coromandel Town, was the nicest we’ve had the whole time we’ve been in NZ – it was right on the coast with the bluest water you’ve ever seen, and the pohutekawa trees, which I’ve finally learnt how to pronounce, were in full bloom. We treated ourselves to a fantastic posh meal in Coromandel (still only worked out to £27 so didn’t feel too guilty!) As we approached Colville the sun began to set and the most spectacular reds, golds and pinks streaked across the sky. We stopped in a beautiful bay to watch the sun go down before we reached our campsite.

The campsite owner had said he didn’t mind when we checked out so we took advantage of the leisurely morning (most campsites have a 10am checkout) and headed over to Whitianga on the east coast, where the weather turned rainy again and Isaac complained constantly about getting drenched when I dragged him out into town. The following day however it was back to boiling hot sun, so we drove to Hahei and took the 45 min coastal path to Cathedral Cove, which was well worth the walk. There’s a huge hollowed out arch in the rock from one beach to another and two freestanding rocks in the sea. There’s even a toilet on the beach, up on a platform, which has a huge window overlooking the sea – a proper loo with a view! We found a spot on a campsite at Hot Water Beach which, like the beach we went to in Kawhia, has a hot spring running under the sand so you can dig yourself a spa bath to sit in. We took a spade and wandered down to the beach but found this one was very very different to our experience in Kawhia, where we were one of only about 8 people on the whole beach. This time it was PACKED to the gills, and because the area where you could dig was relatively small, they were all crammed together. After a short time trying to find a place to dig, we gave up on the hoards and took ourselves off up the beach to sit and watch surfers instead. Isaac dug a hole with his spade, which I stood in, and he then buried me up to my ribs, so I looked like one of those knitted dolls you put over loo rolls. I managed to escape but was covered in sand, so went down to the water to try to rinse it off. The water was a bit chilly but Isaac & I managed to get in up to our waists before we spotted a couple of jellyfish nearby and got scared and ran out. Shortly afterwards I realised my left thigh was stinging and burning, and Isaac found the same on his feet. At first we thought we were imagining it, but red marks showed that we weren’t – we’d been stung by jellyfish! Not particularly dangerous ones at least but enough to hurt. We hobbled back to the campsite and went into the showers – as luck would have it, the only place we’ve been to where they had communal as well as single gender ones – and…well, it was all in the name of stopping the jellyfish sting hurting you understand, not for sexual kicks…Isaac passed urine on me and then on his own feet. I couldn’t stop giggling. Not sure it worked but kept us amused.

Following day we had a stop in Whangamata, which was a really nice town and a fantastic beach, though we got approached by young Christians who asked if we wanted to take part in a ‘survey’. Not realising there was a religious agenda we said yes and spent the best part of the next half an hour looking at a stack of pictures they had and talking to them about our non-belief in God. I think they quickly got the idea that we were lost causes, and happy to be so. Fortunately they had no debating skills whatsoever so it was easy to blast their arguments out of the water haha. We had a very delicious Soul Burger (bit like Gourmet Burger Kitchen) before carrying on to a place we’d pretty much picked out of a hat, Mount Maunganui…or at least that was the plan. It was New Year’s Eve and on our approach into town we discovered the traffic was solid. We phoned a couple of campsites and they were all fully booked, so we looked a bit further out of town and found one in Papamoa, just down the road, that had a spot, though the campsite owner warned us there was a group of 500 young people camping out the back and that we might not want to use the facilities if we didn’t need to. We didn’t want to be stuck without accommodation on New Years so we took our chances. The campsite owner also told us there was a bus going into Mount Maunganui at 9pm that night which cost $10, did we want tickets? Isaac & I discussed it – he’s never really celebrated New Years so wasn’t bothered either way, but I thought that we shouldn’t spend another night in the van watching DVDs while everyone else was out partying, so we bought 2 tickets.

At 9pm we got on the bus, along with a hoard of teenagers. Now, I’ve nothing against teenagers – I mean, I’m going out with one so how can I? – but a large number of very drunk teenagers crammed into a confined space for half an hour was, I have to admit, a horrific experience. Isaac moved me to the inside seat in order to protect me** but I’ve never heard so much screaming – not just the occasional yelp or a bit of loud excitable talking but total, solid SCREAMING in my life. In order to give us something else to concentrate on we put bets on the first person to be sick – I won my bet when the guy a few seats away vomited on himself. Cue more screaming. Someone at the back was sick too, and passed out. Someone threw something at the bus and smashed one of the windows at the back. The passed out guy had managed to cut himself on something, no idea how, and by the time we arrived at Mt Maunganui the floor of the bus was running with sick and blood. Tons of blood. The passed out guy was carried out of the bus by his friends and met by an ambulance and 5 policemen. We got off as soon as we can and as soon as we were clear of the bus I burst into tears with sheer relief. Isaac took me over to the beach and held me while I sobbed. Once I’d calmed down we walked up the road, passed several road blocks which ensured that the beach front was an alcohol-free zone, and discovered that pretty much the entire population of New Zealand was here celebrating New Year. There was a fairground, two stages and an outdoor club. We walked up and down the strip a couple of times before settling down on a hill overlooking the club and the beach, where we knew there was going to be fireworks at midnight. We people watched for a while – and boy! was there good fodder – and come midnight we watched the fireworks go off. Then we booked it down the road, me in bare feet*** because I’d made the mistake of putting on my heels, not realising we’d do so much walking and had blisters on both my little toes, in order to catch the first bus home because we couldn’t bear the thought of being caught in that furore again. The journey home was still packed but much calmer and I got talking to a young English lad who was next to us, who emigrated here a few months ago. “So how did you find out this was the place that everyone in New Zealand comes to party at New Year?” he asked us. “Erm…we didn’t, it was pure chance we came here” I replied. To be honest, if we’d known it was that big a party town, we probably wouldn’t have gone there but hey ho, it was an interesting night nonetheless.

We drove to Whakatane**** the next day, which was pretty much all closed for New Year’s Day and paid for 2 nights in a campsite there, so we could have a lie-in the next morning. This never actually materialised however, as we had some idiots camping next to us who decided to play death metal at a ridiculous volume early the next day as they dismantled their tents. We debated going on over and just switching it off, but fortunately another camper went ballistic at them and they soon drove off in a huff. We wandered into town and saw a camping shop. We went in, as we always do, as we’ve been looking for a plug in coolbox for the whole time we’ve been here, so we can keep our beer, sorry, food cold. We’ve found a couple but they’ve usually been tiny and cigarette lighter powered only (not suitable for us when we’re parked for a few days obviously), or ridiculously big and expensive. We had begun to lose hope that such a thing as we were looking for existed, but as soon as we walked into this store there it was, right there near the door. We fell instantly in love with all 28 litre capacity, AC plug or DC cigarette lighter, not too bigness of it. We bought it and ran – literally ran – back to the campervan to get it going, then went to the supermarket to stock up on things that we couldn’t have bought before unless we knew we were going to eat them straight away. Bacon, milk, chicken: all ours for the taking. Isaac even has somewhere to keep his beer cold. We’re very excited. The new fridge and Percy the power cable are getting married and providing us with edible grandchildren. And the icing on the cake? Isaac’s parent’s have offered to give us the money for it as our Christmas present/Isaac’s birthday present. Thank you lovely Weinerts!

*well what else do you buy on Boxing Day?
**Awwwwwwww he’s sooooo adorable
*** which is very Kiwi – you wouldn’t believe how many people don’t wear shoes here
****pronounced Fuck-a-tanee, which we try to say with as much emphasis on the fuck as possible, naturally

Next installment

After a one night stay in Auckland with Jude & Glynn – always a pleasure, never a chore – we headed up to the Bay of Islands for a mini-cruise on The Rock. The night before the cruise we found a campsite that overlooked a waterfall, Haruru Falls, and picked a prime spot on the waterfront. We sat outside the van and made a delicious stir fry for dinner; we thought we were in heaven. Around 9pm I went back inside the van to get things ready for the night and I noticed one or two mosquitoes. I told Isaac to shut the van door, and it was only once he’d done so that I realised that the problem was far worse than I thought. I shone the torch around and discovered to my horror that the van was filled with mosquitoes. Hundreds of them. I called Isaac in panic and asked him what he thought we should do. “Well, our first option would be to light a mosquito coil” he said. “Which we don’t have” I pointed out. “So” continued Isaac, “our only other option is to kill them all.” We looked at each other for a moment while we contemplated the task ahead of us.

The carnage which ensued is not suitable for those a delicate constitution, but suffice to say roughly one hour later, we had managed to squash, mangle and flatten almost all of the little buggers. The van was littered with corpses and when we went to bed we counted 55 dead mozzies just in the one panel above our heads.

The following day at 5pm we waited on the jetty in Paihia to be collected by Climax, the tender to The Rock. There were around 35 other people waiting and I looked around to see who might be potential friends. Over the next 22 hours we met a few people we didn’t particularly click with, like a couple of English nurses – Charlie (male) & Charlie (female) – who were disappointingly dull, and a few people with whom we became firm friends: a Scottish couple called Toni & Kenny who were on their honeymoon and were hilarious, an English girl called Jo who was travelling by herself and one of the crew, Chris. We had a shooting competition (which Kenny won) off the back of the boat, aiming at a floating duck which bobbed about as we motored along to our destination, got our rods out and fished (but no one caught anything but a few small bait fish), ate a feast of lamb, sausage, steak & salad, went night kayaking after dark with Chris, looked up at the infinite stars and watched as our paddles made the incredible phosphorescence (glowing algae) in the water twinkle before diving in to the water and swimming around in it too, stayed up late around the fire chewing the fat with Alice (an 18yr old English girl over here travelling by herself), Chris & Jose, another crew member who was from Chile. Eventually it was time to go to bed and I was very proud to be the last one on the whole boat to make it to my (top bunk) bed. Next day we had breakfast and went to Motorua island to hike, snorkel, kayak & sunbathe before eventually heading back to the mainland. All in all it was an amazing trip and we had a ball.

We had two more stops on the way back down to Auckland to spend Christmas with Jude & Glynn. First of these was Whananaki, a proper one-horse town. When we arrived at the campsite, we asked the owner where she recommended we go for lunch – she looked at us blankly and said “Well the shop is right next door…” turns out ‘the shop’ was the town, being a grocers, takeaway food, post office and petrol station rolled into one. We had a (slightly rubbish) lunch and went to see the only attraction in the area, the Southern Hemisphere’s longest footbridge. It was very long and lead absolutely nowhere.

Next we went to Waipu Cove, where the weather took a turn for the worse and we drove to the famous Waipu Caves. The Rough Guide said ‘wear old clothes and good footwear, take a couple of good torches each and explore’. We arrived in the pouring rain so we sat and waited for a bit until it slowed, during which time we fell asleep. Waking up after an hour or so we found several other cars had arrived. Everyone else seemed to be kitting up big time - backpacks, rain jackets and hiking shoes - and we felt horribly unprepared in our normal clothes. Then we read on in the Rough Guide: ‘The cave…is impenetrable after heavy rain’ and decided to give it a miss. Still, nice place for a nap we decided, and there’s even a loo for when you wake up bursting for a wee.

On our way back to Auckland for Christmas, we went past Sheep World - we liked the logo so much we decided to stop. It was brilliant, we got to feed lambs, watch sheep dog trials, have a go at sheep shearing, feed eels (nope, no idea what that has to do with sheep) and ended up staying there for hours.