Nothing new in North Island? Not likely!

From Franz Joseph we spent a few nights more in South Island, namely in Greymouth (nothing there) Nelson (a great Saturday market, filled with buskers, hippies, food and merino sheep's clothing) and Picton (extremely picturesque, but very quiet, their 4000 strong population swells to 14,000 in Summer).

We took the Inter Islander Ferry across to Wellington, and as there were so few decent camp sites for us to stay we decided to spend a few nights at the Base Backpackers right in the center of town.

Wellington is a very cool city, and extremely windy! We were just around the corner from Courtenay Place, a road lined with bars, cafes and shops, and found ourselves eating out there for two nights, taking advantage of some great food deals. Our first evening was spent in the enjoyable confines of the bar in the basement of the hostel, having a few drinks and playing some pool - relatively relaxed and chilled. The day after, we met up with one of Matt's long lost relatives David (2nd cousin's dog's mother's owner or something) and had a nice lunch in the Mac's Brewery. He was a wealth of knowledge on where to go and what to do, and helped us plan the last week of our NZ tour. He also bought us lunch, which went down even better, so David, have one for us!

After he left to go back to the office, Matt and I took a stroll through the free Te Papa Museum, which, I must say, was great. You've probably noticed through the blog that I'm not one for lingering over a discovered bit of chamber pot from the 18th Century, but the exhibits here are superb. You can take a look at the Colossal Squid, preserved in formaldehyde sporting eyeballs the size of footballs (that's English football you phillistines) and learn a bunch of Maori things, promptly forgetting them again after (while I was there I found out what all the bits of a marae were called but can't remember now. The marae itself is a meeting house for the village). A highlite was the 10 minute film, which starred various New Zealanders, both Maori and other, explaining their life for the likes of us ignorant British tourists.

We left Wellington and had a long day driving to Taupo (pronounced, for no discernible reason, tao-paw) stopping off on the way at one of David's suggestions, a wildlife centre which had a Kiwi house. Unfortunately, said Kiwi House had only one male kiwi who was rather upset because his kiwi konkubines had been taken away for some reason or other. I felt sorry for him. Matt went and did one of his walks in Taupo, I ended up playing a bit of one on none basketball in the campsite's court. I still managed to lose.

Through the very friendly staff there however, we organised a Maori cultural experience thingummy at Rotorua, called Tamaki Maori Village. It was for the next evening, and he also sorted out our site for the night. Enroute we stopped off at a Thermal Plateau kind of thing, interesting and colourful but smelly smelly smelly.

And on to Rotorua: what a cool place. While waiting for our bus to come collect us for our Maori dooberry, who should rock up but K and Jit who we met in Franz Joseph. We were on our way out, but organised to meet up the day after for fun and games. We were taken away for the evening by a great Maori woman called Aroha, and spent the evening learning Maori games, Maori weapons (those things are deadly I tell you, very scary) and watching a concert. Well I say concert. The only instruments were an accoustic guitar and some percussion, and the songs, while lyrically were in Maori, sounded like early 90s boy band covers. However the extremely impressive poi and sticks they were throwing about, WHILE singing, distracted me enough from the singing to enjoy it a lot. Add on the haka and an amazing hangi meal (where everything is cooked on heated volcanic rocks in the ground for 8-10 hours) and it was a superb evening.

We spent most of the next day with K and Jit. We watched them zorb down a hill (basically a big bouncy ball filled with water, you climb in and get pushed down. Fun to do, but even more hilarious to watch) followed by a ride on the sky gondola and 3 rides on the luge. That was great fun, and each of us managed to get the little sleds up onto two wheels rather than four, and clear air on one of the sharper drops. K and Jit went off to do their Maori concert and meal that night, and Matt and I met up with a couple we'd met while travelling through Vietnam, Luke and Beckie (Mum you'll remember them cos you helped sort out their tickets!). They'd been staying with Luke's cousin who lives in NZ, and the 5 of us went out for a meal and some drinks, a really enjoyable evening and great to catch up with them again. It finished as it started, with me losing at pool and Luke and Matt winning. Nice and symmetrical, but hopefully we'll see them on the other side of the world at some point.

We drove to Auckland today, ready to say goodbye to NZ. We've had a great time with our campervan (strangely enough more comfy than the bed at Base in Wellington) and can honestly say there's nowhere I've been that manages to combine addrenaline with beautiful scenery in such a seamless way.

The open road, sheep and empty towns

What is it about the open road that calls people? I'm not completely sure myself, but it's sort of got me under its immense (if unfathomable) spell. New Zealand's roads are, to put it bluntly, carnage. Not the normal carnage you may find in Italy, Dubai, Egypt etc, where there are way too many cars to fill the road so, in a Darwinian way they all crash into each other and only the fit survive, thereby making the roads less congested (hah!) but in the sense that there's so few cars on the road, all you have left is speed and breathtaking landscapes.

The roads through the New Zealand Alps

The national speed limit is 100km/h, about 55-60mph. This is, on first impressions, a tad slow. Fair enough, I'm driving a van which is longer than the Nile river, and a diesel to boot, but it can go faster. I've tried. But then you realise what sort of road you're driving down. They're one lane each way, and breaking up this 100km/h limit are a series of small and not so small towns, which these roads go straight through the middle of. That's fine when said road is the only road in the town, lending other options to the classic 'one horse town' motto (or in the case of one such ville, 'enjoy our three horse town'). But then the speed limit drops down to 50km/h (just under 30mph) and normally without much warning, i.e. blind turn at 100 and BANG 50km/h now now now, brake brake brake!

It's also very easy to find your speed creeping up to 120. I've mentioned that the roads are one lane. When they're straight, they're also very, very empty. Going at 100, you wouldn't see a car behind or infront of you the whole time, unless someone turns out of a side street. I see plenty in front, then behind as I overtake. But coming the other way, you'd be forgiven thinking it's heavy traffic if you see more than 3 cars at a time, or more than three over the space of say 30 minutes.

Practicing safe driving

It also makes it very easy to tell when a car has had a mishap. We stopped by the side of the road having seen a Jeep in a ditch. An unfortunate girl has pulled over to answer her mobile phone, but found that the grass was much more boggy than she'd anticipated. When we stopped to help her, she was in tears, having failed to flag down a passing motorist for over half an hour. Having stopped, a good number of cars passed us, until eventually another guy stopped and said he had a tow-rope. We connected her to the back of our van, and pulled her out. Smug with our good deed for the day, I powered off, and nearly ran over a herd of sheep in the middle of the road, the farmer (in his 4x4 and dog running along side) screaming at me to slow down. Lesson learned.

Carrying on from the second last post:

On the way to Milford Sound - awesome ground mist

we were in Te Anau, and we did the trip to Milford Sound. We saw where an avalanche had closed the road for 10 days (the snow was still there, now ice really) took a boat trip, saw some piddly water falls, saw an interesting if not enthralling underwater observatory, and that was that. We then drove to Dunedin, a town known for it's lively music scene, and the chance to see yellow eyed penguins. I drove 30 minutes along the narrowest of cliff roads for this, only to be told that it wasn't the right season. We didn't see any music either.

Cutting back across NZ, we stopped at a place called Campbell for the night (again nothing there and the town had shut by 6pm) and made our way to Franz Joseph, where I was astounded at how truly tiny the world had become. A few weeks ago, Rachie (great mate from Uni) told me that a friend of hers was also travelling through NZ, and we should get in touch. Through the wonders of Facebook we did, and ascertained we'd probably cross paths on their southern journey as we passed north. Arriving in Franz Joseph, I find a message from her, telling me she'd just arrived in...Franz Joseph. I'd noticed a large group of people staying where we were, and nonchalantly asked if there was a girl called Vicky with them. Yes there was. The guy I'd asked then said he recognised me, and it was someone we'd met in Vietnam and Cambodia. I had a chat with him, and on doing so, a girl walked past us. I told him I'd seen her before in Airlie Beach on the same boat trip as us. He said it was Vicky. Rachie's friend, who she'd told me to meet, I'd already met nearly a month before in a different country. Fun times.

As you can see from below, the sky dive we did while in Franz Joseph was out of this world, and great fun. The other reason to go there is to trek through the glaciers. I've seen other people's pictures of this, and it looks great, but the prices being asked meant we'd had to decide - sky dive or glacier walk. You can see the results below.

Looking rather scared, dangling out of the plane

Since then, we've spent a night in Nelson, quite a charming town with a great Saturday market, selling everything from Merino Woollen Socks to homemade knives, and we're now in Blenheim, hoping to meet up with friends made in Laos, and subsequently met again in Kuala Lumpur. Told you it's a small world.

Jumping out of a plane over a Glacier...sweeet

So today I took a small plane and jumped out of it. There were mountains and glaciers to my right, and a beautiful open Tasman Sea to my left. Awesome. View the vid. Cheesy music aside (and it really is cheesy) you'll notice that regardless of what the hell I was thinking, just before we jump I still look like I'm gonne pee my pants. Or worse...Enjoy!

Queenstown - adrenaline on ice, air and water

Queenstown. You know how in London and other cities there are bronze statues of notable people or icons, say Nelson in Trafalgar Square, or the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen? Queenstown instead has a guy cuddling a ram. Maybe it used to be a farm. It's about the size of a very large one. Or maybe two. But it's packed and teeming with every kind of adrenaline rush you can find, be it heli-skiing/boarding (taking a helicopter to otherwise unreachable peaks and hurtling down on one or two bits of wood) shooting down the river on a 180km speedboat, bungy jumping or sky diving. A far cry from sheep based activities.

After skiing at Cardrona, I decided to take a few snowboarding lessons in Remarkables while Matt went tramping (what the locals call hiking) around the town. Unlike anywhere else I've skied, Remarks has amazing views right from the base camp, and the weather up there was superb, great powder and great sunshine.

Remarkables from base camp - the white below the cloud is more cloud covering Queenstown

My first two lessons, both on the same day, went rather well, to the point where the cute blonde New Yorker who was taking the lesson took me up to the first chairlift and helped me out coming down my first green run. Boarding actually does feel more free than skiing, but it's completely different (surprisingly) and my third lesson (where I was told to jump 2 levels) took me down some blue runs. Mostly on my arse, head, shoulder or wrist. I did stack it impressively at least twice, both times cartwheeling on my head. Quite a skill, but it wasn't intended. I'm now black and blue in a number of places, but great fun nonetheless.

As you can see from the last post, we also did the Nevis Sky Arc and Bungy, but they speak for themselves.

If you're not into the whole 10 second adrenaline rush, you can either take a 15 minute tandem paraglide from the Ledge, or chill at one of a zillion bars, pool halls, cafes or restaurants. Each evening we headed down for a few beers, taking in a pub crawl or two, and meeting some random people. This included one guy who we found smoking a spark plug. When asked what was in it, he said it was weed, that he'd grown himself. Turns out he works on films, supplying the vehicles, and the last one he worked on was Wolverine. Apparently he shared a spliff with Hugh Jackman. I also entered a free poker tournament which was pretty damn popular. By 1am we were down to the last 8, and I came 3rd. Pitty you only won bar tabs for 1st and 2nd place...!

We're now in Te Anau, about to take a trip to Milford Sound tomorrow. It's boring here, to put it bluntly, everything was closed at 6pm, and there were literally five people on the high street. With some luck tomorrow will be awesome, and then we're off to Dunedin. Cue Lord of the Rings Soundtrack....

The world's highest sky swing...

Something you may want to see...

Or not. People have already said they screamed slightly when they saw me drop on the vid...

In any case, I thought I'd do a bit of a story on this, though there isn't much to say. You get driven about 45 mins outside of Queenstown, the last 10 minutes of which up a hairy one lane track, cliff on one side and sheer drop on the other. You get your first glimpse of the bungy and Arc platform from there, and you immediately start wishing you'd chosen to do something safer that day, swimming with sharks for instance.

Must say though it's bloody well done. Everything's explained to you, you get strapped in nice and tight, and the guys who work the thing are a laugh. Also if anyone from Dorking knows a girl working at the Nevis Bungy let me know, she has friends in Dubai, but Jenna it's not you. Sorry.

Re the sky arc, as you can see from the video it's all very chilled. At least till they release you. You rush to about 150km on the way down, and it really does look as if you're going to go splat on the opposite canyon wall, but no, the boffs have done their measurements well and you come up short. And then you just swing. Which in all fairness is rather boring. It takes longer for them to bring you up than it does to get down there. Will def have to do it again though...

NZ, country number 8

Christchurch is rather nondescript. It's another town. The sun was shining as we landed and left the airport, and for this reason we were in good spirits. Maybe somewhat confusing to others however, we were also happy because we were going to Jail.

This is in fact the Jailhouse Hostel in Christchurch, an actual jailhouse built in the late 1800s, converted into a hostel. It's amazing. Imagine a film you've seen set in jail. Shawshank will do. Apart from being heaps smaller, it looked so similar. You sleep in the cells. You cook in the original kitchen, pee in the original (though maybe slightly improved) bathrooms, eat in the original common area. A few creature comforts have been added such as a small cinema, a TV room, and you get a key to get in and out of the building. Somewhat confusing as well, the next morning when I went for my shower the men's was being painted and we were directed to use the girls showers. As well as them. A very liberal jailhouse indeed.

We only stayed in Christchurch one night having booked a camper van for the coming month in NZ. It's great. About 6.9m long, it has two beds, its own shower and toilet, fridge, sink, stove and grill, plus microwave. It also has an inbuilt heater and plug sockets but annoyingly they only work when we're plugged into a 240v power-point at a campsite. As Matt had his licence stolen in Thailand, I'm the only driver, and so setting out at 10am I drove to Lake Tekapo, arriving around 4pm. Not really wanting to do much, we cooked our dinner in the campsite facilites then went to watch TV. In the TV room we met two Aussie girls from Sydney and Newcastle, chatted a bit, watched the American Apprentice and something called Packed to the Rafters (the girls said it was a great, funny Aussie show. In it the characters had marital, financial and ex-related porn net video problems. Funny on the face of it maybe but the show was depressing as hell, leading me to wonder what passes as humour in Sydney and Newcastle) before calling it a night and spending the first night in our camper. Surprisingly warm and comfy even in the -3 degree NZ nights.

The next day we drove to Wanaka, an incredibly scenic and beautiful drive. The sun was out the whole time, lighting up the snowy mountain peaks and valleys. I had fun driving the van around twisty turny roads, and even overtaking some cars. We arrived around midday in Wanaka, a small town with a lake on one side (named Lake Wanaka funnily enough) and surrounded by mountains. We had our lunch (Campbell's Chunky Irish Stew, very hearty) and found our campsite, about a 5 minute walk from the main road. We drove back to the main street to get our ski and snowboard gear, returning a bit later to the campsite. Who should we see there but the two girls from the previous night (we think they may be stalking us, one of them admits to not really having friends). After dinner the four of us went out for some drinks,and stumbled across some karaoke. I was rather pants and didn't do any (much against my nature I know) but












Cardrona from the top... Zoe exposing her granny pants

Nat and Zoe took to the floor for a rousing rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, introduced in fine fashion by Nat saying 'We want to see all you girls down the front, all the guys can go f*** off!' An extremely funny, drunken night was had by all, not least when there was a slight tremor, leading me to think I was drunker than I actually was due to blurry vision and a lack of balance. Turns out it wasn't just me. Getting up the next morning at 7am to go to the ski fields was not easy, but I felt a lot better on passing the girls camper and spying a sick bucket outside their door. Good on ya girls.

The skiing at Cardrona, a 30 minute drive away from Wanaka, is immense. The drive up the mountain through switch-backs and ice/grit was hairy only a few times, and I took to it like a duck to orange (or possibly pancakes). We picked up some hitchikers on the way, two of whom turned out to be some Irish guys we'd met back in April in Laos. Small world or what?

The actual slopes themselves apparently had the best powder in 10 years according to one local, and they did not disappoint. A good variety of easy, medium and hard runs, the blacks were nothing near as difficult as what I've found in Europe and USA/Canada, but were superb all the same. Unfortunately my knee was playing up after only a few hours, and so the two days we were on the slopes I was restricted to a morning session, then packing ice onto it. Stupid knee...

We ran into the girls the next evening, learning that Zoe had stayed in bed all day suffering from the mother of all hangovers. Nat had gone and had a facial and hair cut/blow dry as reward for being thrown up on the previous night. We went and found another bar that evening but only for one, and had an early night.

We've since driven to Queenstown, apparently the adrenalin centre of NZ. We're staying in a campsite very close to the main town itself. Today we booked our bungy and sky arc (the highest sky swing in the world apparently) and tomorrow we will take a jump from 134m high. God help us. Check it out by clicking the title of this post.

A sub-tropical sand Island and a lack of swell

***NEWSFLASH*** ***Telegram from Mr Toothpaste himself, Rick***

HAVE SEEN BLOG STOP FIND IT A GROSS MISREPRESENTATION STOP MY OCD IS RESULT OF ORTHODONTIC APPLICANCES STOP PLEASE INFORM THE MASSES STOP

END

There you have it folks. Now enjoy the blog.

We took another overnight bus. I thought I'd left those behind with Asia, but it wasn't to be. 6.10pm to 6.50am the next day we were on the move, being unceremoniously dumped at the bus stop in Hervey Bay. It had been absolutely freezing on board, and the first thing I did was change from my boardies into jeans. Rick brushed his teeth. 10 minutes later we were picked up by our Fraser Island tour bus.

Fraser Island is the world's largest natural sand island, and a sub-tropical one at that. It is home to a huge number of Dingos (supposed to be Australia's purest bloodline) snakes, spiders (we saw a black funnelweb) and plant-life. Bearing in mind it's a sand island, you have to wonder how such a rainforest managed to bloom.

A few things to look out for when you go there (and go there you should!):

1) Eli Creek
On the amazing 75 mile beach, the water in the creek is a sparkling emerald green, and you can float all the way out to the sea on it.

2) Lake McKenzie

An absolutely spectacular lake, the difference in the near-shore torquoise and the deep blue is startling. The water is so pure, as is the sand, that you can mix the two together to remove scratches from glass, and a dip in the lake will leave your hair silky smooth (I have none to base this on, but Matt was impressed).

3) An 80 year old ship wreck
Yeah, um...fun to see

4) Rick brushing his teeth

It was a cool day, especially seeing as we were on a 4WD bus, bumping and jumping all over the shop. Our driver expertly negotiated obstacles, all the while recounting stories and facts about the island. Did you know that the King Fern can be traced back over 150m years? Yeah I didn't really care either. Rick was more interested in finding somewhere to brush his teeth.

We finished the tour around 6pm, which was a shame seeing as our bus to Byron Bay wasn't until 1.25am, but did give Rick plenty of time to minister to his oral needs. A rather unfriendly bus driver wouldn't let us put our bags into the storage locker, and so we had to wait the whole 7+ hours until our bus arrived.

At 10.05am the same day, we arrived in Byron Bay. Luckily we'd already booked our accommodation at the Backpackers Inn on the Beach, and they'd sent someone to pick us up. It was only a 5 min walk, but it was good to get there with minimum hassle. We got shown to our 4-bed dorm room where we met our roomie, another Brit from London called Matt, and while Rick found the washroom to brush his teeth, I went to sleep as two nights on a bus had taken their toll on me.

The hostel was great, hosting BBQs, live music, and had a really social atmosphere. As its name suggests it was 30 seconds walk from the surf, and it was nice to once more be able to jump out of bed and into the water. Unfortunately, the swell wasn't all that for the 4 days we were there (i.e. the waves were small). Byron Bay is surfer central, and while they were good for Matt to learn on (I still couldn't move my arm properly so begged off, and Rick needed to brush his teeth) the lack of decent sufers was noticeable. Still, the nightlife was rather impressive, split between the Hotel hosting live rock bands, Cocomangas giving us a free drink every night, and Cheeky Monkeys, producing the recommended daily allowance of free booze and wet t-shirt competitions.

All too soon it was time to leave however, and for (hopefully) the last time, we boarded a Greyhound Bus to Sydney. After 13 long hours spent looking out the window, we arrived at Sydney Central Station at 11.20pm. Rick had booked himself some digs close by, and needed to brush his teeth. Matt and I, having a flight at 9.15am (which is in an hour from the time of writing) took the train straight to the airport, expecting to buy some food then bed down on a chair. Sydney Airport however is the only airport in the whole frigging world which CLOSES. That's right folks, from 11.30pm (we only just got in) until 4am the airport is closed for business. For those wanting to stay, there are three rows of seats you can collapse on. I thought Aussies were relaxed and laid back, but in so many things I'm being proved wrong! I did get chatting however to a girl who was also going to Queenstown. She'd been living on the Gold Coast, and we were able to chat about what we'd done, and what we'd missed (I apparently missed the weed capital of Oz, Nimbin, but I'm cool with that) and with luck we'll catch up in NZ.