Filed under: new zealand
An early start saw us leave Taupo under cloudy skies (forecast was showers in the morning easing to blue skies in the afternoon). We were briefed about the changeable conditions, the point of no return and that the organisers were in no way responsible for the weather forecasters ability!
So we left Mangatepopo car park with the low clouds all around, the rain changing to snow as we headed up from our starting elevation of 1000m. However within half an hour of setting off and walking through the tussock landscape the clouds were easing, sun out and we were stripping off the layers. Shortly after the last loo stop and the start of the ‘devils staircase’ the weather changed again, hoardes of happy trampers stopping to redress themselves. People will have you believe that the ‘devil’s staircase’ is a hard climb, obviously they’ve never ventured onto the Queen Charlotte track!
Having completed the staircase we were at the base of Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom in LOTR I’m reliably informed) and heading over the south crater which was still covered in snow…after what seemed like an endless walk across the expanse of white we started ascending again, this time to the Red Crater. This is still an active part of the volcano, and from the smell emerging from it I can vouch for that. The descent was not something I enjoyed, the small track had a steep drop into the crater, the scree was loose, and my walking pole was not helping at all! I think I just wanted to take a walking pole so I looked like a proper rambler!
At this point the clouds came tumbling back in, looking back behind us we could not see the other peaks and after we passed the Emerald Lakse (still frozen in parts) we were back into snow, about a foot of the stuff. We had asked the Expedition company what the track was like, we had been reliably informed that there was still snow on the track, but we hadn’t anticipated quite so much! The walk to the final hut was pretty much covered in snow, and the snow was also falling all around us – but we happy trampers come prepared, plenty of Scroggin to keep energy and spirits high!
The final push from the hut and we were out into tussock and steaming hot streams, heated from geo thermal hot springs, Neil was convinced that our boots would melt if we walked through them, although I have to admit my walking pole didn’t look all that healthy after going through the water!! The lower we went, the wetter it got, from snow to hail and finally to pouring down rain, so yes, weather forecasters in NZ do get it wrong, but it was worth every minute to complete the crossing, and yes, I’d do it again tomorrow given the chance!
Our final day in Taupo was spent seeing some of the sights, we headed for Craters of the Moon, a geothermal area, huge craters, hot steam all make for a terrain similar to the moon (hence the name). Next stop Huka Falls, this is where part of a huge river gets squeezed through a tiny gap (in comparison) to cause the volume of an Olympic sized swimming pool to fall over the waterfall every second. I have to say, despite seeing many waterfalls on this trip so far, this one was fairly spectacular! We even manged to get a view of Mt Ruapehu, Mt Ngauruhoe and Mt Tongariro for the first time as the clouds cleared over Lake Taupo!
Next stop Rotorua, just 80kms away up the Geothermal Highway. Now, as soon as you arrive in Rotorua you can’t help but notice the smell of sulphur, this is from the hot pools found in peoples front gardens, back gardens, just generally everywhere! Rotorua is also Maori show central, and where we were entertained at the Matai village, basically a very tongue in cheek show, starting with the Maori warriers arriving in a traditional canoe down the stream. It then got a little hollywood as we ploughed into a purpose built arena to watch traditional dance, fighting techniques and the tribes own Haka. More importantly though we had come for the Hangi which was up next, a traditional meal cooked in the ground (they now have a concrete pit instead of just placing the food in the ground in bags to steam) – and I have to say it was delicious. Lamb, chicken, kumara (a type of sweet potato) and stuffing, which I’m not sure is so traditional, but yummy all the same. As you can all imagine, I went back for seconds.
I then had the pleasure the following day of driving us around the out of town attractions in an automatic!! It’s just un natural, but it did the job, and we headed out to Wai-O-Tapu, the geothermal village which shows off the Lady Knox Geyser. They basically pour soap powder into it, which causes a reaction under the ground in thermal chambers and the result is a 10 metre high explosion of hot water - very impressive, and if you are on the front row a cheap way of getting your washing done!! The village itself also has other attractions to show off, mostly very smelly affairs, but some of the pools are impressive. As I’m not a science buff I can’t explain why the pools are all pretty colours, and how the minerals make the colours, so I’ll just put a piccy on so you can see for yourselves!
Next stop, Zorbing. Effectively an inflated hamster ball, with room for two, rolled down a hill. We opted for Zydro, the hamster ball basically has some water in it, which causes you to slip and slide as you roll down the hill. Neil did very well to get us rolling and even managed to keep standing for a short time, whereas I fell straight away and just laughed all the way down! It was well worth every $, although I was aching for days from laughing!
Our last stop of the day was at the Polynesian Spa, where Neil and I tried out a heated mineral pool. We paid for a private pool so we could just laze around for half an hour in the steaming hot without being disturbed, easing our zorbed muscles!
And that was that, the auto was handed back, our aching muscles eased – and a giant chunk was taken out of our bank balances.
Filed under: new zealand
So the North Island adventure began with a slight culture shock – a city, traffic lights, shops and more importanly the Golden Arches of Maccie D’s!! Wellington is a nice city – plenty of green space with the Botanical Gardens (accessible by Cable Car) and the Skyline Walkway to Mt Victoria lookout. We took advantage of the good weather, heading out early to the markets (currently working our way through yellow kiwi fruit jam at breakfast) before continuing on to the Botanical Gardens and enjoying the peace and quiet before making our way up Mt Victoria to take in the views of the city and Cook Strait.
Day 2 took us indoors – making use of the free entry to the Parliament Buildings and Te Papa Museum (we even got a free hot drink in the museum for filling in a questionnaire – bargain)!!
Before heading off to Wanganui for our canoeing adventure we took the bus out to the Weta Caves and Museum, home to the horrid wax works from films like Lord of the Rings and other Peter Jackson movies. I have to admit, it’s all very clever stuff that they do there – they do lot more than waxworks – but all the films were a little gory for me!!
Onwards and upwards to Wanganui, this was a flying visit to get us out on the longest navigable river in New Zealand – it has been used from Maori days to travel the lower half of the North Island. An early start took us out with the mailman, a nun we were dropping in Jerusalem (this is no joke) and off we went dropping mail and supplies at the handful of homes along the River Road. Our stop was Pipiriki were Neil and I headed out with our Maori guide Tim for a few hours along the river, taking in a fair distance and far too many rapids for my liking. I have to say, at the time it’s a bit scary, but once you’re over them the adrenalin kicks in and in a sick sort of way you want to have another go!!
As a reward for our hard work on the river we headed across the country to Napier, the art deco region (rebuilt in the style after a HUGE earthquake many moons ago!) and in the Hawkes Bay wine region, to sample some of their finest wines! Our intention was to cycle around the local vineyards (although Neil wasn’t keen on the tandem idea), but mother nature was not playing the game and it rained all day. So we decided to play it safe and head off on one of the many tours…we chose Vince’s World of Wine as it looked more on our level (no mention of floral aromas in his literature!!) and trusted him to get us through the vineyards and back to Archies Bunker!
I will come clean at this point and say I don’t really remember much after the third vineyard…..but here goes with the list of vineyards we visited. Moana Park was the first stop – a nice boutique little vineyard that had by far the nicest wines – including a scrumptiously sweet desert wine that would be perfect with a chocolate cake (in my wine tasting opinion). Next stop was Trinity Hill, a little more stiff upper lip in my opinion – all talk of “floral hints on the nose” – hmm whatever that means. I remember the next stop, Frank was the guy in charge at Ngatawara – an old stables, I also liked the bottles on his Farmgate range of wines (how I pick my wine at home!) and he was the most generous in his measures! Last stop was at Matanki, where I do remember being told that everybody is a wine connoiseur – you either love it or you hate it! I have to say that after 4 vineyard stops that I have to agree with him!
Vince was a responsible tour guide and at this point decides to break the journey back to Archies with a stop in a brewery – just so that we could all sober up!!
So next stop Taupo, the Tongariro Alpine crossing awaits us tomorrow (weather permitting) – Neil as always gets the best blogs to write. Check in next week for his update!
Filed under: new zealand
As far as I am concerned, tramping is called tramping for one reason only. By the time you are finished hiking for several consecutive days through the searing heat, the pouring rain and the resulting mud you wouldn’t look wholly out of place in a gutter or sleeping on a park bench.
The Queen Charlotte Track is a 3-5 day tramp through the Queen Charlotte Sound, just outside of Picton.
We opted bravely for doing it in 3 days. Mostly to save money but also to escape Picton.
Having arrived on the Sunday morning, we made enquiries and arrangements to start the walk on the Tuesday. We passed the time by spending 20 cents (8 pence) each to ride the model railway and paying a visit to the Flying Haggis, a Scottish pub. ‘Scotland on steroids’ is how the owner described New Zealand. Och aye he’s right ye know.
With Pictons main attractions exhausted we were chomping at the bit to get tramping, but unfortunately Tuesday morning brought torrential rain and heavy winds, so we had to postpone until Wednesday.
Our water taxi dropped us off at Ships Cove at 10.30am. We were fully loaded with water, scroggin and newly purchased waterproof kecks. Even our backpacks were being delivered for us so all we had to worry about was tackling the first 27km and reaching our accommodation before nightfall.
There is little point denying that the first day was knackering… the track was wet and muddy from the previous days rain and there were some real killer climbs with little reward for the effort except for getting to the finish at Noeline’s homestay. Noeline is 77 and shares her home with a small dog named Tuppence and each evening, backpackers . We we greeted with scones and a pot of tea. Someone described the experience as like staying the night at your grans. Quite true. Very homely and it was great to kick back and watch some mindless telly whilst Tuppence bit our toes.
Day two was shorter, just a meager 23kms. However we had several climbs, peaking at 500m, which for NZ is like a speed bump, but after the third speed bump we were in need of an MOT. The views from the top were well worth the effort though and seeing the kilometers ticking over spurred us on. Luckily our accommodation was empty except for ourselves and we managed to sleep for 10 hours to re-energise for our final day.
The route from Torea Saddle to Anakiwa was the final push, a leisurely 20kms and a pleasant finish to the walk. We smashed the estimated time and had to hang around for a couple of hours before our water taxi picked us up and returned us to Picton, where we enjoyed a curry and a beer (flying haggis again) for our efforts. Jobs a good’un.
Today we boarded the inter-islander to Wellington, at the Sourthern most tip of the North Island. Who knows what we will get up to here.
Filed under: new zealand
Kaikoura is a special place – 1km off the coast is an underwater canyon, that brings in the big fishes close to land. So our first stop naturally had to be a whale watching cruise – in a bid to see the resident sperm whales! We were lucky enough to see two whales just before they arched their backs and dived into the ocean – giving us that perfect tail in the air photo!
As Kaikoura is on the eastern coast it also gave us perfect opportunity to see the sun rise up from the ocean, luckily daylight savings time is here so we didn’t have to get up and some silly time of the morning. We just raced down to the beach in time to see the start of a day – it was nice to know we were one of the first people to see in that day in the world!
Now – Hapuku Lodge, very expensive, very out of our league, but an experience not to be forgotten. Our tree house was nestled high in the treetops, overlooking ocean from the balcony/shower and from the lounge we could see the Kaikoura ranges. The place was unbelievable, spa bath, ipod fully loaded with tunes, underfloor heating, and our own log fire (which we couldn’t get to light, but at least we gave it a go)! It was heaven to take a dip in the bath, in fact we used it that much we must have had a direct impact on the worlds water supply!
Dinner was served in the lodge after drinks with the manager (how posh is that!), smoked salmon sushi roll appetiser, followed by our starters of lamb sweet breads. For mains I tried the pork belly in a red wine sauce and roasted leeks (the meat was just delicious) and Neil tried out the Butterfish (which was also delicious). And for those of you who know Neil and I, the dessert, the most important part of any meal, did not disappoint – Jack Daniels and Walnut chocolate cake (yummy yummy yummy)!
Neil decided that he would have a spa bath before bed (hangover prevention he told me) and I drifted off to sleep. Next morning we were woken early by the winds battering the tree house, and yes it moved, so we decided it was time to make use of all the little extras, like coffee grinder and press to make fresh coffee – it was silly, but you have to make use of everything on offer! Sadly after breakfast it was all over and time to head back to our backpackers, Sunrise Lodge (which was lovely) and head out for fish n chips for lunch…freshly battered blue cod for me and groper (maori name hapuku) for neil!! We had just enough time to stop at the local winery and discover that we are much better at beer tasting than wine tasting!
Next stop was Nelson, a city (it has a Cathedral) that boasts the jewellers, Jens Hansen who made the ring for the Lord of The Rings films….in all honesty, they made a selection of them, for all different cast members!
We didn’t hang around for long as we were keen to get on to Abel Tasman National Park and our sea kayaking trip. It was a great two days out in the park, water taxi out to Onetahuti beach, then sea kayaking out from there, around Tonga Island to see the seals and little blue penguins before heading along the coast to a lagoon for a spot of lunch. At this point I think the sandflies got their spot of lunch as I am now covered from the waist down in bites (including the soles of my feet)!
Our afternoon was far easier ,cruising down the coast, through rocks (and hitting them most of the time) before taking it easy down the river. Final stop was Anchorage bay where we were spending the night on a house boat, converted catamaran that now houses backpackers like me who do not want tp spend the night out in a hut with a long drop loo and no electricity. We were treated to a bbq as the sunset and quiet fell in the park – heaven!
The second leg of our Abel Tasman National Park experience was walking back along the coastal track from Anchorage to Marahau. It was nice to be able to divert off the track onto a secluded beach for a break, just take in the surroundings, sandy beaches and crystal blue waters. Sadly it was all over to soon, and before we knew it we were on the bus heading back to Nelson – the only plus point being the Tasman Bay Backpackers free chocolate pudding and ice cream at 8pm!!
However the 2 day trip into the National Park gave us the tramping in style bug, so we are now heading off to Picton, hoping to undertake the Queen Charlotte Track before we head overseas to the North Island.
