Ferry and Fireworks

Day broke grey and wet over Wellington and the helmsman's face glowed white through the wheel house window.  We are up early this morning to make our way to the ferry over to south island.
When we booked, and also when we hired the car, they gave us a map of how to return the car to the ferry port,  though I am not sure why they bother as the map is so stylised it actually doesn't tell you anything useful.  Eventually we worked out that the system is that you just park up and drop your keys in to the box.   We checked in and then boarded the ferry in the grey drizzle as the helmsman's face glowed white through the wheel house window above us. 

We are in the "plus" lounge which gives us a breakfast and elevenses plus most important of all wifi!  Free wifi is not an easy thing to come by in NZ.  Most hotels seem to charge for access,  which seems to be a bit of a cheek really when you have already paid for the room.

We settle down and get talking to a welsh couple sitting nearby who are doing a grand tour of the country by motorbike! -  its a special trip for her 70th birthday and her choice - so much for growing old gracefully. Good on them. They did mention that they'd been here since mid Dec, and had only had 4 days without rain. Now I thought my own parents were rain gods, but these 2 trumped them easily.

The horizon is straight - its the boat that's leaning

We sit and eat breakfast as we watch the deck lashed by rain and wind,  only an idiot would be outside in this weather.  So it's not long before I am out on deck with my camera, as are a couple of other brave souls with cameras.   I get chatting with a local photographer who kindly explains what I would be able to see if the rain and wind weren't in the way.  Alas all we could see was the helmsman's face glowing white through the wheel house window whilst the rain lashed the deck. 

Queen Charlotte Sound through the rain

It's brightening up - honest.

As we approached Picton the rain eased off and breaks started to appear in the clouds.  Was this the weather finally relenting?  We could only hope.   We disembarked and waited for our luggage to come round on the conveyor.  It's always a nerve-wracking time when your cases don't appear for ages.  I have visions of the baggage handlers riffling through my gear and making fashionable hats out of my underwear.  But eventually it appears and we head off to pick up our new hire car.  This is pretty easy as the car is literally outside the rental office & its a bit bigger than the one we had in North Island, so all our gear fits.  Though I do wonder what caused the designer to fit a release catch to enable you to escape if you have been locked in the boot!

We have hardly been on South Island for more than a few minutes and we are already loving and appreciating the truly stunning scenery.  We head of through vineyard country that is surrounded by mountains, and wow, its an amazing place.    On our way, we stop at a vineyard and get a tasting of their various wines (well Maria does - I'm driving and its wasted on me anyway),  and we seem to have to buy a few bottles - just in case the rest of South Island is bereft of wine.

Vines and Mountains

The drive to Nelson is scenic, with mountains all around and the final drop down to sea level seems to redefine the concept of twisty.  A long sweeping left handed bend is followed by a sharper right-hand hairpin then the combination of the two bends seems to repeat for hundreds of turns.  By the end of it I was feeling quite dizzy. As was my co-pilot.

Once into Nelson we were looking for Trafalgar square (yes there is a bit of a Nelson theme to the road names with "Trafalgar Street", "Victory Road", "Nile Avenue", and "Kiss Me Hardy lane").  We drive round the place about three or four times but can't find Trafalgar Square on the map or in real life.  Suddenly the local radio station we are listening to, announces that the Nelson New Years Eve bash is in Trafalgar Square at the very end of Trafalgar Street near the cathedral.  The reason we couldn't get to it was all the roads had been blocked to prepare for the impending party. We manage to find our way round the road blocks eventually and find the hotel car park.

We check in and get allocated a room on the highest floor they have.We have a lovely meal in the restaurant (after Maria has done a spanish inquisition on the waiter regarding vegetarian options ) and it is a very pleasant way to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary.  Then we join the revellers in the town (just across the road), watching the bands and enjoying a really lovely, warm, New Years Eve atmosphere. Maria is now, however, obsessed with the lack of vegetarian foods and wishing some entrepreneur would come and fill the obvious market gap.

View of the cathedral from our room

We head back to our room  before midnight, as tiredness is beckoning after a long day ,and we can see and hear the whole thing from our room anyway. Then it's the countdown to midnight, a few fireworks and the last closing songs by The Doors tribute band,  Finally as we settle for the night at the beginning of what I hope will be a wonderful 2012. I look out the window and I can just make out something,  I'm not sure at first but as the smoke from the fireworks clears I can see it...yes it's the helmsman's face glowing white through the wheel house window!

Rotorura to Wellington, the soggy slow way

The day started in its now traditional way,  with Maria reading excerpts from the etiquette section of The New Zealand Herald.  Favourites so far are "how do you tell someone they are showing too much arse-crack" and "how far away from the beach is it acceptable to wear budgie-smugglers".   Somehow I can't see The Daily Express using the term "arse crack" - unless of course the arse crack was suspected of murdering princess Di.
Today is a long drive down to Wellington.  Unfortunately NZ is being hit by the tail end of a cyclone...which is a posh way of saying it's p*ssing down. The "land of the long white cloud" has turned into the "land of the low grey murk".

Lake Taupo in the murk

Swans looking for a snack

We drive down alongside a grey looking Lake Taupo and then up along the desert road onto The Central Plateau.   The volcanoes of The Central Plateau are huge impressive mountains dominating the flat areas surrounding them...apparently.  The low grey murk mean that all we could see was a few grass tussocks and a lot of rain.

What the central plateau should look like

What we saw in a brief gap between rain storms

Now we stop for lunch at Waiouru,  well we would stop for lunch if only there was something for Maria to eat.  Small town NZ, really doesn't cater for Vegetarians - well they do, with a cheese sandwich but that's about it.  We give up trying to find something at Waiouru and try somewhere larger - Taihape.  This isn't much better and we finally end up in Subways, which is not really experiencing the place but my suggestion that Maria try the steak pie wasn't greeted with much enthusiasm.
We head down towards Wellington, when suddenly the road comes to a complete halt.  We spend 3 hours without moving.  Apparently there was a double fatality in a crash that had blocked both lanes,  so us and hundreds of other cars were stuck with nowhere to go.

The soggy view from our hotel room

We got to a soaking Wellington at 7pm after a gruling 10 and a half hours on the road.  Exploring the town wasn't really an option now, so we settled for dinner in the hotel and then bed.



Not a good day.

Rotorura, Maoris and bubbling mud

Woke up at 5:30 this morning due to a text coming in from O2...rapidly followed by another from Marks and Sparks!   As I was up anyway I took my camera out into the hotel gardens to attempt to capture the sunrise.  New Zealand is similar to England in a lot of ways, one of which is that as soon as you point a camera at a likely looking sunrise,  a huge grey cloud appears blocks the sunrise and soaks you.

Not much of a sunrise

We headed out to the Waimangu Volcanic valley,  to have a look at more geothermal stuff.  Unfortunately it took us much longer to get there than we thought it would.  Now normally you walk down the valley to see all the sights then on to a boat trip round the lake and finally a bus trip back.  As we were short on time we just went for the boat trip.  So we got the bus down the hill,  just us two and the driver.  The driver was very kind and stopped at various points so we could see most of what we would have seen if we had walked.  Then it was onto the boat for a trip round the lake to view the steaming cliffs, small geysers and fumeroles - literally "oles for fumes". Then onto the bus,  with loads of people who had done the walk, to get back up the hill. 

Cruising the lake

An ickle geyser

Fumeroles...er fuming

Then we headed back to our hotel for pick-up to take us to the Maori Hangi feast.  We got picked up by a minibus that took us down to Te Puia thermal valley and Maori park.  First a tour of the Maori carving school , which looked really rather skilled. Then it was on to the weaving school where we learnt how to make a grass skirt, which whilst very clever does make an uncomfortable item of clothing. 

Next came a chance to view the shy, nocturnal Kiwi bird. Kiwi is a Maori word that means cuuuutttteeee in English. As they are nocturnal they keep them in a dark enclosure so they were active for us. Then a chance to view the bubbling mud pools and geysers.

Now it was time for the main event, the Maori cultural evening and Hangi feast.  The whole thing was very well done with various songs, dancing and hakas.  The trouble was it did have shades of Monty Python about it.  I kept expecting Graham Chapman to appear in the middle of it saying "now stop that, it's got silly,  what started as a nice war-dance has just got a bit silly". Mind you,  I don't think I will mention that thought to one of those big Maori fellas.

The Hangi feast is food and vegetables cooked in the geothermal steam.  There was an awful lot of rather pleasant food - which is no bad thing.  the final treat of the evening was to see the large geizer erupt. This erupts every 20 minutes...unless there are a load of Tourists watching in which case they have to wait over an hour for the thing to actually go off.  The shame was that when it did go off it was too dark to get any decent pictures.  So you will have to take my word for it that it was rather impressive!

A Geyzer doing absolutely nothing

Then back to the hotel for a nightcap and memories of an unusual day.

Auckland to Rotorura

So, today we leave Auckland and start to head south.   First we need to get a cab to the car rental place,  though for some strange reason our neat packing we did on the way out has failed us and now we seem to have loads of bags.  Rather than moving two individuals it seems more like we are trying to move a light infantry regiment with all the supporting equipment.

We pick up our car with little hassle and lots of signatures then we head towards Rotorura.  It doesn't take me long to get the hang of driving an automatic.  But what does take a while, is getting the hang of the indicators being on the wrong stalk.  Every time I turn I hit the wipers instead,  seems that we have caused a lot of confusion on the roads of North Island but at least we won't get stopped for having a dirty windscreen.
The scenery on the route is rolling and full of cows.  No idea where all the sheep in NZ have gone but at least I know where Anchor butter comes from now.  It's an easy drive down to Rotorura, with just a stop at The Breakfast shed in Cambridge for a snack and a chance to bash my head on the boot lid of the car.  This leaves a nice cut on my forehead, which looks very attractive. Then its on to Rotorura.

Turns out we are actually staying in a lake resort just outside of Rotorura,  which is  nice and peaceful and full of American coach tourists. We prefer it to the hotels we saw in town- we have a view of the lake and  a posh room with huge internal shutters between the bedroom and toilet. This I feel is an architectural feature which will not catch on.

A quick cup of tea on arrival, then we headed on to Hells Gate which is a geothermal area with lots of mud pools, and the Southern Hemisphere's highest warm water water fall.  We had a walk round the steaming landscape which looked just like a Doctor Who set, but this time it was real, not a quarry in Wales with a smoke machine. This was followed by a mud and sulphur bath.  A mud bath is the traditional Maori way of cleansing the skin, fleecing tourists and making white people look ridiculous. A Sulphur bath performs the same functions but makes them smell of poo as well.

Then back to the hotel for an evening meal during which I bravely tasted beetroot...which was nice.  Maria tried it and agreed it didn't actually taste like beetroot,  which is probable why it was pleasant! Before retiring  to bed I managed to hit another part of my head on the underside of the TV, stupidly positioned above the tea / coffee making facilities. Maria can make her own camomile tea while we stay here........

Bush and Beach

So, given that we were well short of sleep it seemed like we would sleep forever.  Unfortunately our body clocks still hadn't adjusted and by 5am we were wide awake,  so I headed down to the harbour and caught the sunrise over Viaduct Harbour.  I took a walk round and I was soon in amongst the fishing boats of the harbour.  Like the UK this year, the day after boxing day is a holiday so things were pretty quite first thing in Auckland.

Dawn on the Streets

Harbour Bridge

Dawn across Viaduct Harbour

After breakfast we decided that sight seeing around the town didn't hold much appeal, so we booked a day on the "Bush and Beach" tour.  We were the only people on the trip - with John our guide who is a "resting" actor,  having had a role in many big films....none of which you have ever seen.

First stop was the Arataki centre, which gave us views across the various parts of Auckland and the surrounding rainforest. Then it was into the bush for a fairly warm walk up to the Kitekite falls. These huge falls crash down through the rain forest and wre once used to quickly transport the logs that foresters had felled in the depths of the rainforest.  Only trouble was that it was such a violent drop that it turned the massive thousand year old trees into matchsticks, which was far from ideal and the scheme was abandoned.

Kitekite falls - look carefully and you can see the people at the bottom for scale

After that it was onto the beach at Piha, which features black sand.  Now in the UK black sand is not that uncommon,  it simply means that an oil tanker has run aground in the last few years.  But here it means that a volcano has exploded and the beach has been created from titanium deposits ejected from a volcano. This means that you can pick up the sand with a magnet - which is pretty cool.  This was all in front of the modest beach hut of the Finn brothers from the popular beat combo "Crowded House".

Sand with a magnetic appeal

Then  it was a walk up and down the cliffs at Karekare which was kind of similar to walk the coast path in Cornwall but with more cicadas. 

O look, there's a boat down there

Maori carving

Finally we did a walk through the ancient rain forest under the giant Kauri trees.  This really was like walking through Jurassic Park and I wouldn't have been surprised if a diplodocus had poked its head round one of the trees.

Kauri tree

Its a jungle out there

Then it was back to base,  some light snackage and off to bed for some well earned sleep.

NZ wins the award for the worlds most attractive dog poo bins

Boxing Day in Auckland

For two people who had managed about 3 hours sleep between them over the last 24 hours, sleep proved amazingly elusive.  A few hours of fit-full sleep and I was up in time to catch the dawn.

View from our room

After breakfast, we took a walk along the water front and then down Queen Street which is the main shopping street.  I managed to visit only two camera shops before it was time to head for the ferry to Devonport.

Devonport sits over the water from the main town of Auckland, and is the original home of The New Zealand Navy and is full of lovely clapper-board houses from the 1800s.  We took the tour which was run by a local driver and we were the only two people on it  to begin with as he drove us round the sites occasionally picking up someone he had dropped off previously.  He took us up to the top of Mount Victoria (an extinct volcano - mind you every hill is an extinct volcano round here), where you get some lovely views back towards the city.

View from Mount Victoria

These lovely read trees only flower over Christmas.  The Kiwis call them their Christmas trees

After the tour, we made our way along the sea front to a lovely restaurant that did some rather pleasant food.  Then back along for a sit in the sun under the banyan tress by the local library.  Although the local library was shut it had left it's free wifi on and I made full advantage of it to update our blog.
Then it was back across the ferry for a light ale by viaduct harbour, then back to the hotel for a sleep.  OK it was only 4pm but we were still jet lagged, so a couple of hours kip was in order.

Back on the ferry

Up again at 8pm, we popped out to get something to eat and found another restaurant that was empty except for ourselves but did some slapp up scran.  Even though I went for the salad I can't help feeling I might come back from this holiday an ounce or two overweight.

After that it was back to bed, in an attempt to match our body clocks to the local clock.  All in all a fairly laid back day as we ease ourselves in to the NZ life.

Singapore to Auckland

We arrived at a hot and humid Singapore airport starting to feel somewhat frazzled after a 12 hour flight.  Luckily we only have a 10 hour flight to do next. 

The security staff at Changi Airport immediately recognised us as terrorists due in no small measure to Maria attempting to  get on the plane with an almost deadly bottle of water and compounded by me forgetting I had left a LEE filter screwdriver in my carry on luggage! We were marched to the desk and handed a receipt for my screwdriver whilst Maria's water went straight in the bin.

Yet more food!

Then it was on to a 777-200 which seemed positively tiny after the massive super jumbo we had just been on. It was morning in Singapore,  so no sooner had we taken off than we were being served another breakfast. It was 2:30 London time, so that makes 3 breakfasts in the same day...a new personal record. 
After breakfast we actually managed to get an hour or so's kip,  I think this might have been a bit longer had not a wailing child and the loudest snorer on the planet been working together to produce a somewhat unusual duet. On waking up we were almost immediately greeted with a cup of tea...a sandwich, bag of crisps and some Ferrer Roche - "Stewardess with these chocies you really are spoiling us".
At this point I thought it would be a good idea to check to see if I still had my car keys - yes I did.  The only trouble was that they are usually in my pocket next to my wallet....which wasn't in my pocket.

Panic ensues as I dismantle my seat, then lay on the floor to look underneath.  I must say if you get a bored moment, you really should look under a motorised fully reclining airline seat, as the engineering down there is superb.  Still no sign of the wallet, by now I am panicking like Jonesy in Dads Army. So I ask the nice hostess ladies  if I can look in my coat.  They were so helpful,  not only did they help me look through my coat, but also offered to call back to Singapore airport to see if I had left it on the security conveyor.  Finally, on the advice of my very clever wife, I checked my rucksack and the wallet was in there, relief all round. I must have shoved it in the wrong place when I was being marched around security!  Sometimes I think I must be the original "Idiot Abroad".

As the sun goes down over the pacific - it's time for our evening meal. Now according to my body clock its 9am Christmas morning but it is 10 at night in Auckland.  So it's time for a Christmas dinner.  I manage a nibble of 2 of the  5 courses,  but as they offer me cheese and biscuits I know how Mr Creosote felt when offered a wafer thin mint!

Auckland airport was a relative breeze as we were reunited with our luggage and even got my screw driver back.  We said hello to the drugs dog who had a good sniff of our bags and then it was on to the customs area.  Customs seem more interested in if you are a bio hazard than if you are smuggling beer or fags.  In our cases were our walking boots, stil with a small amount of mud on them from the UK.  In NZ they take this very seriously and the customs man took them away for ages and gave them a thorough clean. Its almost worth the trip to get your boots cleaned that well!

Pick-up from the airport was a breeze with a driver who gave us loads of info about what to do in Auckland.  Unfortunately not much of it went in as we were in a haze of jet-lag.  Then it was into our 6th floor apartment overlooking the harbour,  and so to bed.

Singapore, here we come..

We left our heroes relaxing in the lounge at Heathrow.  Having been told our boarding time was 10:25 we watched the screens to see at 10:10 that they said "boarding now".  Being good passengers who do what we are told, we got our stuff together and made our way to gate 1.
No sooner had we left the lounge than the tannoy announced "final call for flight SQ371 to Singapore".  Suddenly we were late and, as you might have guessed, Gate1 was as far away from the lounge as could possibly be!  We rushed to the gate and when we got there the screens were flashing "closing".  We handed our tickets to the man behind the counter and asked why it was closing 10 minutes early.  Apparently that announcement is for the steerage passengers - it doesn't apply to business class!  Well thanks for letting us know, we are new to this privileged world!

Anyway we were soon on board and luxuriating in our large seats.  Plenty of leg room and the storage space in front fitted my new Thinktank rucksack perfectly,  another reason why I love their gear. I was impressed to see that they had even gone to the trouble of putting Christmas decorations up on the plane. Take-off was pretty uneventful and even Maria seemed pretty unstressed by it once we had got over the initial climbing. 

Its Christmas!

Then came the food:  Satay as an appetiser, pama ham with melon for starters,  then steak as a main course. then on to chocolate cheesecake for desert and then for those who were feeling a bit peckish cheese and biscuits.  It even got to the stage where I refused food!

A low calore snackette

Maria had opted for the vegetarian option which looked really good, not a vegetable lasagne in sight.  All the time we were plied with lots of drink.  Maria tells me the wine was really good, to me it just tasted like week vinnegary beer but apparently that is a good thing.  It was really impressive that all the cabin crew (and there did seem to be a lot of them) knew our names and nothing was too much trouble.

More Champers

After dinner I watched the latest Harry Potter and then I noticed it is apparently "slumber time", most people seemed to try to get some sleep.    Once the staff had performed some origami manoeuvres on your seat it turned in to a fold-flat bed. Trouble is to us it was 3 in the afternoon and after much tossing and turning sleep proved somewhat elusive.

The airline gives you some lovely slippers to keep your feet toasty. The trouble is, that if you fidget too much you end up moving the sheet a bit and that uncovers a velcro strip.  The slippers are made of a special velcro attracting material and Its not long before your feet discover a magnetic attraction to this strip and they are glued to the seat!. You try to pull that foot away and the other sticks in a seemingly never ending game.  I must point out that no one else seemed to suffer from this problem - just us two fidget-arses.
Over the Bay of Bengal, we hit some pretty bad turbulence.  Maria,  the nervous flyer,  coped with it admirably - just an occasional nervous grimace.  I on the other hand decided that pink was no longer the fashionable colour for faces and mine would look much better in a nice shade of green!

So now it gets complicated,  it's 5 in the morning Singapore time but my body was still set to 9pm. So now, its time for breakfast.  Maria gets a lovely vegetarian breakfast,  whilst I get to stare at mine just able to manage a cross ant and a cup of tea.  The lovely Singapore airline ladies offered me an alternative breakfast, but I was just far to green around the gills to face food.....first time for everything!

And so it begins...

Who needs alarm clocks?  I had two alarms set for 5am and there I am wide awake at 4:45, time to get up and get ready for the big adventure.

An hour and a half disapear in a blur of getting dressed, final packing and checking things are locked/switched off...then going back and checking them again.  Before we know it, headlights are coming towards the house and our cheerful driver gives us a wave.

Now this is travelling in style,  Michel (our driver) packed our bags into the push minibus that we had all to ourselves. Michel made sure we had passports, tickets, money, glasses, mediciens, etc before we set off and then we were off on our adventure.  The traffic on the M25 missed an opportunity for a Christmas traffic jam and we wer soon at Heathrow. Michael made us wait in the bus till he had loaded our bags on the trolley as he didn't want us to get cold,  now that is classy :)

In to Heathrow and checkin went swimmingly.  Then a quick visit to the toilet, now I know I am not alone in approaching any public toilet with treppidation as to what the last occupent left in the loo but it really was a shock to see 3 AA batteries at the bottom of the pan.  Was it a battery smuggler who could not make it through customs?  Who knows.

We were fast tracked through security where my bag, which was stuffed to the gunnels with batteries, cameras and wires only went back through the xray machine 3 times and then it was off to our business class lounge.

At the moment I am sitting in the lounge utilising their free wi-fi and seeing if I can eat my own weight in mini croisants and bacon rolls.  Whilst Maria takes the opportunity to browse the various shops and to be be mistaken for someone who works at the airport.

Hopefully I can keep my friends and family updated with our travels through this blog, Depending on wi-fi availability and if I can remember to type stuff. 

Hope you all have a great Christmas and New year.