Glacier Country!

We headed EVEN FURTHER south on the West Coast and entered Glacier Country - home to a number of New Zealand's glaciers - most famous of which are Franz Josef Glacier and Fox Glacier. Both myself and Su weren't in the mood for any hiking (thanks to numerous sand fly bites to the ankles - Feckers!) so most of our photos are from a distance. You'll get the idea anyway - massive ice flows coming down mountains:

The photo above is of Franz Josef glacier. The next one is also a photo of Franz Josef glacier but taken from a place called Peter's Pool:

Despite the name, I didn't have any urge to swim in (no doubt) freezing Peter's Pool.

Then we went to Fox Glacier! No sign of any polar bear sitting on this Fox Glacier (sorry):

You get a sense of size of the glaciers from this photo - the little dots on the bottom right hand corner are people. Normal sized people at that - not little people!

Su reckoned that this glacier could do with a cleaning as it wasn't as white as Franz Josef.

Then we drove further south again and just as we thought we were leaving Glacier Country we rounded a bend and saw this:

This is Mount Hooker (hey, I didn't make up the name) and it also has a glacier on top. Hooker Glacier to be exact!

So that's it for the day - we're all glaciered out now and ready for our next stop: Queenstown! Backpacker central! We're looking forward to chilling out and maybe hitting the town for a night or two. Look out!!

Punakaiki and the Mystery of the Unsolved Pancakes

The pizzeria outside Charleston turned out to be a little stranger than we had imagined. We went in to check it out and found it run by eccentric heavy metal loving Germans. After having a pizza each (which were very nice) and a glass of wine we found the bar attached (with a disco ball), full of local New Zealanders and the hosts (about 6 people in total). We got the impression that the night could be a late one so we had a drink or two each and chatted to the people at the bar (one guy had family from Inis Boffin!) and got out of there when the music turned from Motor Head to German techno. It was all a bit odd. We filled Hyacinth full of water and headed off to Punakaiki to solve the riddle of the Pancake Rocks.

Now for the science bit: Through a layering-weathering process called stylobedding, the Dolomite Point limestone of Punakaiki has formed into what looks like piles of thick pancakes.

No one knows why this happens here so that's the mystery. Satisfied that erosion was the answer we took more photos:

At certain times when the tide is right the sea surges into caverns and comes out of blowholes (didn't happen while we were there).

If the rocks aren't impressive enough for you, you can imagine them in shapes of animals and people! What fun!

The hours we spent there imagining different things! The craic we had! Finally exhausted we took off and have stopped off at Lake Mahinapua for the night. We are heading to the Glaciers soon so stay tuned!

Nelson Lakes to Golden Bay

Quick update with a few nice photographs - we're currently on the West coast of the South Island after leaving Nelson Lakes (after our long hikes... yeah right) and drove up to the north of the South Island to Golden Bay. We took a nice photo of meself and the missus on the jetty at Lake Rotoiti - the other of the Nelson Lakes:

I felt like a bit of a spa sitting on the jetty by myself while Su set the auto-timer on her camera so excuse the grumpy face. Still a nice photo though!

We got to our chosen resting place in Golden Bay late enough in the evening. We saw a nice beach with a jacks nearby and made ourselves at home.

The beach is called Tata Beach (so Su tells me) and it seems to be a hotspot for motor boats, jet skis, and water skiers. Su showed me one of her hidden talents and rocked the water skis:

The seasoned water skiers on the beach were gob-smacked and in total awe of her abilities. Shortly after this photo was taken she did a triple back somersault and glided perfectly onto the beach and stepped out of the water skis to a rapturous round of applause. I've never seen anything like it (never).

After all that exertion, it was time to stop sunning ourselves and watch the sun go down. We stayed two nights at Tata Beach - no sand flies and lovely weather - you couldn't ask for more:

 

I think this is one of the better photographs I've taken. Anyway, we're just outside Charleston on the West Coast now - at a pizzeria that has a camp site attached! It's great! We might even splash out and go for a pizza being the crazy things that we are. Hope all are well!

Kiakoura to Nelson Lakes

We left the sunny weather of Kaikoura to take a trip further north-west to Nelson Lakes. On the way out of Kaikoura we passed a Seal colony and Su took this wonderful photo (she's got a great eye! Two, in fact.)

Not sure if that's a Seal in the background. Pretend it is anyway.

Then, after a few hours driving, the weather took a turn for the worse but we arrived at the first of the Nelson Lakes: Lake Rotoroa. The light was fading but I managed to get this hastily-taken shot:

It was hastily-taken, not because of the fading light though, but because of the feckin' swarms of sand flies that feasted on me as soon as I left the van. The little feckers were everywhere and it was like something out of a horror movie with myself and Su huddled in the van for the night burning insect repellent incense. Our Lonely Planet book of New Zealand now has a nice join-the-dots puzzle on the cover where dozens of sand flies have met their demise. Did I mention that they are feckers?

We awoke the next morning to rain, rain and more rain. We went for a short walk and got rained on and that was about the highlight of the day. We had four games of "20 Questions" - the score is 2-all so it's close. I'll let you know if either of us edge ahead at any time. The weather is promised good for tomorrow so we're determined to go for a proper hike and take some decent photos of the place. I know, us hiking - WTF?? Stay tuned!!

The South Island and Whites Bay

After two days of idling around Wellington (we did some shopping - Su bought prezzies and I bought a book - I've read Harry Potter in two days) we got the ferry over to Picton on the South Island of New Zealand. We hung around Picton for a while to stock up on the essentials (Shhhhpuds, Shhhhalad, and Shhhausages) and made out way down the south-east coast to the Whites Bay DOC Recreation Reserve where we were promised (according to the DOC Conservation Campsites booklet), hot showers, picnic areas, and bins for our increasing rubbish. The showers were cold unfortunately and were housed in "Blair Witch" style concrete loos which Su had a problem going in to after dark (not that I blame her) and there were no bins but don't get us wrong, we weren't complaining. The setting was, again, lovely:

Su rustled up yet another fantastic meal (10 points to those who can guess what it was? Spuds, Salad, and..... SAUSAGES!) I tell you - that woman can make the best meals out of the most basic of ingredients - she should make her mother proud) and then we settled down to a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy on the laptop (can you believe that McDreamy was already married!! We were shocked!! I think I need some male company soon...). Between episodes we had a peek out the curtain to see the moon rising. Very rose-mantic!

Getting the new battery for Hyacinth in Rotorua has been a Godsend - it has been 9 days now without plugging in and today has been the first time the 'electric' has run out. After spending another day in Whites Bay getting burned to a crisp (well - I did, Su had the good sense to put on sun screen early enough. I'm ok though - don't worry about me...), we headed further south along the east coast to Kaikoura to plug in to a campsite, recharge Hyacinth, and hit the town. Once we got to Kaikoura we stopped off at a seafood barbecue and had a lunch of Crayfish fritters, garlic Scallops, and garlic Mussels - TAS-TEE! We also met an Irish couple (Ken and Lorraine) who have been to a lot of the places we are planning to go to and updated us on the hip-hop-happening places to go in South-East Asia. So here we are now in the campsite - the fridge is up to full strength again, the beers are nice and cold, Su has had the hot shower she has been looking forward to since Wellington, I've got the blog up-to-date, we're both healthy and happy and life is good. We're treating ourselves to a meal tonight so fish and chips it is. Hope everyone is getting on well at home and you're enjoying the updates! Be sure to leave comments - it's always nice to hear from everyone!

Kaitoke Regional Park and Rivendell

The plan was to go to a place called Paraparaumu today, which is the principal town of the Kapiti Coast, and spend some time on the beach but the weather was so miserable by the time we got there and after driving around for two hours trying to find a campsite we decided to cut our loses and have a look on the map for another campsite. We found one in a place called Kaitoke Regional Park which seemed about 40 kilometres away and after consulting our guidebook we discovered that it was where the Rivendell scenes from Lord of the Rings were shot (this won't mean a thing to a lot of you). Anyway, we headed off and perhaps three hours later, after driving through some of the most mountainous and winding roads I've ever been on, we got there. And just to reward us for our strenuous efforts, the weather cleared up just as we got there! The campsite was pretty reasonable aswell and had a power socket (so I could charge up the laptop) and an outdoor kitchen with barbecues. We had a quick drive around to find the part of the park where the Rivendell scenes were shot...

If's it's not recognisable it's because they built a big scaffold towards the right of the river where the set was - you might be able to see it on the photo of the notice board below...

... and then we found our campsite for the night and cooked dinner on the barbie provided. This evenings meal consisted of a starter of around 4 beers, followed by steak seasoned with salt and pepper, sliced barbecued potato slices, carrot sticks cooked in oil and balsamic, and barbecued corn on the cob cooked in butter. Dessert was the starriest sky we've ever seen and a glass of wine or two while watching the Lord of the Rings (part 1) on the laptop. Scene of the crime so to speak.

The next day was a scorcher aswell so I decided to have a dip in the morning.

The water was unbelievably cold but there were people watching so I forced a smile for the camera.

Off to Wellington now for a few days before heading to the South Island on the ferry. More to follow from the South Island and please keep leaving the comments - it's great to hear from all of you!

Ohakune, Waitonga Falls, and Gravity Canyon

Su recently got a new camera so we were a bit snap-happy lately. As New Zealand is such a beautiful country and the area we are in is particularly beautiful, it is proving very difficult to sort through which photos to post up on the blog. I think this photo does the place justice though:

The reason Su is standing beside a massive carrot (by the side of the road incidentally) is because we have travelled through Ohakune which is the North Islands top ski location and also New Zealand's carrot capital. Don't be fooled though - the carrot in the photo isn't real - I have broken teeth to prove it.

We were feeling particularly energetic (must be the mountain air) so we decided we would trek to Waitonga Falls. The photos in the information centre we went to were spectacular so we decided it was worth the expended energy. After a stunning walk of a whole 40 minutes (well... it was uphill) we finally got to the Falls:

 

You might notice a distinct lack of water here - so did we. I might photo-shop this photo later to add in torrents of water. It was a nice walk nonetheless and besides, this is the view we had from our camper van the next day:

I also promised in the last blog that I would show a better photo of Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom to those film fans) and here it is - again partly obscured by cloud but that's as good as it got:

We passed by a bungy place on our travels called Gravity Canyon. As we were walking up to have a look before deciding whether to actually partake, we saw an old man and his son (in his 30's I'd say) come towards us deep in conversation. The son was saying "So the cable is faulty! Wow!" before looking up at us and saying "Oh hello there!" with a big smile on his face. Joking or not, that was enough to put us off and doubly so when we saw this:

The old guy seemed genuinely disappointed when we said we weren't doing it.

We stayed in a place called Hunterville that night - which had a free campsite. I think it also had a pub.

We are off further south tomorrow for some beach-side fun!

Waitomo Caves and Mount DOOM!!!

Another busy day today - yesterday we hopped in Hyacinth and drove from Rotorua to Whakapapa village (and ski resort). We had a battery problem with Hyacinth so we had to go to a garage for an hour or two so our fridge would work for more than a day - it all worked out fine though and it seems to be functioning properly. Waitomo caves is the home of glow worms in New Zealand. To be honest I had reservation about how interested I would be about seeing Glow worms in their natural habitat but I must admit they were spectacular - like seeing the night sky right up close (that's about as lyrical as I wax I'm afraid). Su wasn't impressed with the post-larval stage of the glow worms which looked like big spiders but at least I got a good laugh at her being at the edge of the boat cringing at the sight of them. We couldn't take any photographs of them so no photos for this part unfortunately.

Next we drove to Tongariro National Park as I had a bee in my bonnet that we were in New Zealand and I still hadn't seen one Lord of the Rings site. We made our way to Whakapapa Village, which is a big skiing area, to see Mount Ngauruhoe which is Mount Doom for all you Lord Of the Rings fans. The clouds were pretty low so it's barely recognisable but if I get a better photo tomorrow I will update:

 

On our way to our campsite for the night (more steak and spuds!) we saw a sign for a trek - being the energetic sorts that we are we decided that after a lunch of noodles (25 cents!) we would hike out to Tawhai falls. It nearly killed us - I wouldn't advice mere mortals to take this walk but myself and Su managed it and it was well worth it in the end:

I tell you - 20 minutes hike is far too much. We were in need of a stiff drink afterwards.

Great!

Triple By-Pass and afterwards a big Fry-Up

A lot of photos here folks so it could take a while to download! Today was a day of activities so we went to the Agrodome just outside of Rotorua and took a few years off our collective lives. First we went Zorbing - for those who don't know what Zorbing is - it's basically jumping into a rubber ball within another rubber ball and being fecked down a hill with a load of water thrown in. Both myself and Su decided to do our Zorbing separately - I though I'd kill Su with my weight and general bigness and Su thought her sharp elbows and knees would render me half the man I used to be. So after a long enough wait we Zorbed! Su's Zorb ball wasn't too transparent so you couldn't see here through it but here's a photo of her afterwards. She's so cute:

I should just mention that the title of this blog is called "Triple By-Pass" because we decided to do a 3 in 1 deal which got us a Zorb, a Swoop, and an Agrojet in one package - all will be explained. With Zorbing, there are three ways you can do it - one being strapped in with a harness (which we couldn't do that day), one going as a couple going straight down the hill (which we decided against for reasons explained above), and one which is a single Zorb on a zig-zag track down the hill. We waited for a lot of people doing it before us and not one had gone off the track. Then steps up McGrath:

I wasn't suppose to go over the hump. It turned out ok though - I was perfectly in control...

Zorbing is great!

Believe it or not, Zorbing was the least terrifying part of the TRIPLE BY-PASS!

Next we moved on to the Swoop. Sounds innocuous but it's not. You are put in a sleeping bag together (don't worry - we were fully clothed) and raised over 40 meters into the air by a cable and then swung at over 130 kilometres an hour over and back. I hope these photos do it justice - looking a Su's face in these crack me up every time.

Someone has to pull the cord to begin the Swoop - if Su had to do it we'd still be up there:

Terror!

Good craic!

We went on the Agrojet after that - which I think is a jet powered boat. The pictures don't really do it justice but it reached up to 100km per hour in 4 seconds. Here's a photo anyway. We are going to do it in Queenstown when we get there which is supposed to be even better (so we hear):

After all that we decided it was time to relax so we went to to Waikite thermal baths for some sun and relaxation. These springs come out of the ground at around boiling point and are cooled by being sprinkled up in the air and collecting in a pool before trickling down into baths at around 38 degrees. I knew it wasn't time for my 6 bi-annual bath but I went anyway. Here's a picture of the boiling stream and waterfall leading down to the baths:

Right - enough was enough. Time to get our grub on so we went back to the D.O.C site and after getting our lake-side camping site we cooked up a storm on the free-to-use public barbecue. We had steak - we had spuds - we had carrot wrapped in tinfoil cooked with balsamic.... heaven!

I mean, with a view like that out your kitchen, could you go wrong?

Cape Reinga and 90 Mile Beach

We took a bus tour today to Cape Reinga, on the northern tip of the North Island, and what a trip it was! We started off way too early in the morning (7:30am for Gods sake!) and stopped off at Puketi Kauri Forest to view the giant kauri trees - not the tallest trees in the world but the biggest in terms of timber (according to the tour guide). The ones we saw weren't massive but back in the day they were bigger. Here's a photo of a tree!

We then hopped back on the bus and worked our way up to Cape Reinga with our tour guide giving us snippets of information about the region and New Zealand in general - most of which I can't remember. At Cape Reinga we took a short walk to the cliff top underneath a nice little lighthouse (automated - looks a bit like Valentia) and we saw where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific ocean.

The Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean are an hour out of sync (so I'm told) and cause the meeting place to churn up, as you will see in this photo at the top:

We then hopped on the tour bus again and drove along a quicksand stream at Te Paki to see the giant (and I mean giant) sand dunes. Everyone grabbed a toboggan and began the long climb up to the top of the nearest dune and pelted down on our stomachs. You can go up to 80 miles an hour if you don't put on the brakes (i.e. dragging your feet). I decided to give it one more go and I was so knackered afterwards that that was that. It was hard work. The shutter speed in my camera is so quick that the following photo of me and Su barreling down the sand dune makes it look like we are stationary.

Remember kids, speed kills.

Anyway, covered in sand we hopped on the bus again and took a short journey to 90 Mile beach. Funny story - 90 Mile beach is actually more like 60 miles in length - the person who named it often mixed up his 9's and 6's and hence 60 became 90.

Actually I don't know why it's called 90 Mile beach but it is in fact more like 60 miles in length. You can see another rock with a hole in it but it's a different hole in a different rock to the one we saw in the last report.

We then heading homewards and stopped off at Mangonui for something they call Fush n Chups in New Zealand. Not sure exactly what it was but it seemed like some type of small marine creature battered in... ehhh.. batter and serves with thinly sliced potato sticks fried in oil. Yum! Actually not a patch on Burdocks chipper in Dublin but it did the job!

We got home to our car park after a busy day and open a nice box of wine (so much better from a box) and chatted til the early hours (around 11pm). A day of driving ahead of us as we are leaving Paihia and the Bay of Islands and off to Rotorua, roughly 500 miles away! Woohoo!

DOC Holiday

Woohoo! After roughly 500 miles of driving we arrived in Rotorua in the evening. Our initial plan was foolproof - we'd hit Rotorua in the evening, find a car park like we did in Paihia and camp out for the night and save some money. For those of you who don't know, the camper van has two batteries - one for the automotive part of the camper (like a car) and one for the fridge, indoor lights, water pump etc. This battery only lasts for about 2 or 3 days (or so we were told) so it needs to be recharged as a camper van site - which costs money - roughly 30 - 40 dollars a night. These sites have running water, showers, kitchens etc so even though our battery had run out while we were in Paihia, we thought there'd be no point in booking into a campsite in Rotorua in the evening as we wouldn't get the full benefit of the facilities unless we got there early. So, the plan was to find free parking. We stopped into the local i-Site which is the tourist information office in Rotorua and I asked the young girl behind the counter if there was anywhere we could park up for the night. She told me that it was illegal to park within the city overnight and that we'd have to find somewhere outside the city. Hmmm. "Well, ok, can you tell me where we can go outside the city then?" I asked hopefully. "No." she said. I then noticed a certain slackness of jaw on this young girl that I hadn't noticed before. "No?" I asked. "No." she said flatly again. I'm nearly sure I noticed a perceptible blob of drool seeping from the corner of her mouth as the blank look in her eyes got more and more unfocused. Right - so, you've been very informative Ms. Information Office worker. Thanks.

We were in a dilly of a pickle at this time as it was starting to get dark and we thought we might have to bite the bullet and pay for a camp site (can you imagine!). We had heard that the Department of Conservation in New Zealand had camping sites littered around New Zealand and we were under the assumption that these would be very basic and would cost money but would at least be cheaper than a powered campsite so we went to an internet cafe and got a list of them in the area (not sure why the i-Site didn't have this info???). The nearest one was around 40 kilometres away and the light was fading so we hightailed it out of there and went in search. We weren't expecting much. This place was on Brett Road outside of Rotorua - no offence to Brett but the name doesn't inspire visions of lake-side beauty!! We thought we would be in a car park in the middle of a forest with maybe a tap for water. After driving down back roads for about half an hour with the light fading extremely fast we pull in to the D.O.C site. For 6 dollars a night, this is what you wake up to:

New Zealand rocks!

Around Bay Of Islands and Dolphins

We got up early today (well, 8am is early to backpackers) and took a tour on a catamaran around the Bay of Islands. First off we encountered a pod of Bottlenose dolphins which was pretty cool. Normally we could have swam with them but there was a new born dolphin there and it's illegal to swim with them if that's the case. Nevertheless, it was great to see them do their thing - although it was difficult to get a good photo with the digital camera with the delay. However, Su managed this one which was pretty good:

I then discovered the video option on my camera so ended up taking a good bit of video footage - once I get hooked up to a decent internet connection I will post it up.

We went around the different islands around the Bay of Islands - the day was a bit overcast so we didn't get too many good photos but the ones we took of the Hole in the Rock (which is a hole in a rock) came out ok. The first one is from outside and the second is from inside:

We off on another trip to Cape Reinga and 90 mile beach tomorrow so hopefully there'll be another update soon!