On our last day in Taupo (it was raining- HARD!) we went to Huka Prawn Farm- sounds rubbish but it was one of the most hilarious things we’ve done so far! They have made a simple prawn farm into a huge place, eveything has a prawn embellished on it or a cast iron prawn or you can buy prawn t shirts etc everywhere! Shawn the Prawn (a giant pink prawn) guides you round. We went on a guided tour of the facililties, fed baby prawns which was very funny (they felt like tiny spiders crawling over your arms!) then we could go fishing for the larger prawns (they were Mayalsian Prawns- around 15cm long! The clever thing about this farm is that their neighbour the thermal water power station wasted heat heats up the water just enough for the prawns to live.).
We collected our bamboo fishing lines and off we went with ice buckets in case we caught some. In only a few minutes I had caught my first massive prawn, unfortunately I was so excited that I threw it across the gravel (missing the ice bucket completely) and he sat there for quite a while. We tried to pick him up, but as he was still very much alive he keep jumping and twitching- very tricky to get hold of! After much hilarious laughter (15 mins!) Andy braved it and after a few attempts got the blooming thing into the bucket- it didn’t die straight away either- but jumped out of the bucket in Andys’ face. V funny! In the end I was becoming a bit of a natural at catching the whoppers (caught 4 altogether!) Andy didn’t catch anything, said his equipment was rubbish.
We stayed in Rotorua that night as because we could take the prawns that we caught away with us we tried to cook them. However neither of us have ever cooked prawns before and we felt so guilty that these poor creatures were alive only a few hours previously and now they were bubbling away in a pan of water! Andy attempted to eat one, but as we didn’t know where to start (pulling legs, tentacles, heads off??) we decided to give up!
Thank you Becky (Ed’s Becky) because as soon as I saw the leaflet for Huka Prawn I remembered you had been and enjoyed it so that was the entire reason we went!
We arrived in New Plymouth to meet Jordy, Midla, Jo and Jude (you may remember that we met Jordy and Midla in Manta Ray in Fiji) to spend a few days with them. It was a hairy drive from Waitomo – through mountains and gorges and although it was only 100km or so away it took over 3 hours. We arrived a bit early-Midla and Jordy were both out so we entertained ourselves along the New Plymouth seashore. We walked along and found a rather bizarre art piece called the Wind Wand biult and designed by the famous New Zealand artist Len Lye. (only famous in NZ perhaps?)
Midla showed us around New Plymouth- the only place I have ever seen with sea and mountain in a few km of each other. She took us back to her house to be suprised when Phillip (also met in Manta Ray) appeared from the Kitchen. Midla and her house mates had organised a BBQ and party that evening, we met all their friends (most of whom were English! and/or cricketers!)
The day after Jo had promised to take us up the mountain (Mount Taranaki in Egmont National Park- not Eggplant Andy!) so Phillip, myself, Andy and our guide Jo hauled ourselves up the mountan for 2 hours. It was a pretty spectacular sight, you could see the entire of Taranaki, New Plymouth on the coast- and sometimes you could see the two other volcanoes in the area.It was a really clear day, the wispy clouds seemed to be only a armstretch away from us we felt so high up. We were lucky to see some flora that apparently only lives on Mount Taranaki (little white alpine flowers).
That evening all of the house (and Adam- Judes’ boyfriend) took us to the local park. Every year they put on a display of lights and activities called the “Festival of lights”. It was awesome, the trees, waterfalls, lakes, fountains were all lit up, laser beams dancing over the lakes and scaring the ducks! There was a ‘Big Band’ free concert under the stars which we danced and listened to. The park itself was enormous, it had a zoo and ampitheatre at one end and a cricket pitch at the other! Apparently some of “The last Samauri” was filmed here, Mount Taranaki a good stand in for Mount Fuji.
Adam took us (and Phillip and Jo!) to the zoo the next day- a very cute litttle zoo with a huge monkey enclosure, a sleeping (perhaps stuffed?) red panda, big scary birds with huge claws and the funniest farm animals. They had been sheared- the llamas were completely shaved within an inch of their lives except their heads which were big and fluffy! The ampitheatre is actually a music arena, with a stage and some pretty big named bands that have played there- UB40, REM and the Pretenders just three that I can remember.
We had such a good time in New Plymouth, we picked up the brochure “Emmigrating to New Zealand” and had already decided what house we wanted. (In the photos it is the blue one on the sea front that I’m standing infront of) But I’m sure we wouldn’t have loved it so much if it wasn’t for our fantastic hosts Jordy, Midla, Jo , Jude and Adam. Thnk you all so much for a brilliant few days, you should definately go into the homestay business!
We left Hamilton, the largest inland city in New Zealand to continue down the north island to the Waitomo Caves, the home of Glow worms. We drove a few hours to a little campsite near the caves and specifically ‘Rap, Raft and Rock’ where we’d booked to do a 6 hour session.
I woke up quite excited raring to get down into the caves, we arrived at the office to meet simon, our guide for the day and took a short minibus trip to another hut, where he kitted us up in wetsuits, lovely purple trousers, and our miners helmets. Then another minibus trip to the cave entrance where the fun began (if getting kitted up wasn’t fun enough).
After a little safety talk and some instruction (quite rare for New Zealand) we walked down to the rappel point and lowered ourselves into the dark, a 28 meter drop into eel infested, freezing water. We were a group of 6 so one after another we waited for our turn. Once all of us were down and Simon had followed, we got out of our climbing harnesses and with our lights switched off, started to paddle through the water into the darkness of the cave system. As it got darker we started to pick out the glowing worms above us until we came out to a chasm absolutely covered in them, looking up was like looking at the stars. Simon created a huge bang on the water, as well as scaring us to death, the worms thought it was feeding time and started to glow brighter. He told us about the worms and how they weren’t worms at all but maggots, they glow because they cant go to the toilet so they burn their ‘waste’.
We walked further up to find the caves getting narrower and narrower until we were on our bellys scrambling through the mud, fantastic (or awesome) fun! at one point we came out at an underground lake and some of us jumped in the freezing water for a quick swim to clean off, absolutely pointless as we had to go back the way we came, through the mud.
Once back to one of the joining systems, we grabbed rubber rings, once again switched off our lights and with the aidf of simon floated down a pitch black river, the glow worms showing us the way, maybe simon too. At the end Simon told us to get off our rings to climb out of the caves, he didn’t mention however that were I was, was still 8 feet deep and surprisingly to me and Becky we went straight under, more freezing water. When we surfaced everyone else was standing looking at us and Simon chucking to himself.
Lastly (5 hours after we started), it was time to get out to daylight and dry land, this involved getting our harnessed back on and a further 28 meter rock climb out, with wellys! not a pair of scarpa boots in sight….
Hoorah! We have a car! A white Nissan Sunny- classy! We drove off, relishing our freedom when we got toa motorway and I got a bit scared so did my usual thing on motorways, drove really slow in the slow lane (they call it that here) and annoyed everyone else. Kiwis had better get used to some traffic jams with me around!
We stopped off at Goat Island Beach, a black sand and rocky beach, looking over islands dotted around in the bay. No members of the public are allowed on the beaches as they are Nature Reserves. However one island was devoted to Goats. Why??
We drove on, meeting our first sign of Kiwi lunacy; unsealed roads! They are gravel roads and on this trip they seemed to play Russian Roulette on which piece of road they were going to seal or not. We drove up this 80kmor so road, every couple of km would be sealed, then a stretch of unsealed, then back to tarmac, gravel, tarmac, gravel. It took a rather long time. We did come across the wizard made out of wood though on the side of the road.
Russell “the hell hole of the Pacific” was suprisingly beautiful, a tiny little village with a harbour, cafes on the pavements and amazing views of the other islands. We had a little explore, found “long beach” which Andy ran into the water and then confessed later it was so cold his feet had gone numb!
We parked up at a Top 10 holiday park- we had been recommended these by a honeymooning couple in Fiji, they are camping/caravan parks with little apartments and motel rooms. We enjoyed a bit of luxurious camping for the evening, looking forward to our first big trip out tomorrow- Swimming with dolphins!
 The boat departed at a rather early 8am, so you all probably realise I struggled to wake up and do much for at least an hour- which was a problem as we had to leave the campsite by 7.50 and I woke at 7.30-Gah! Fear not, we made the boat- Tim was our dolphin watcher- he would casually stand ON TOP of the boat with hands holding super strength binoculars looking for tiny changes in the waves that would pinpoint the dolphins. We did this for about an hour and a half before be found our first pair of dolphins- a mother and her baby! They hung around the boat for ages, riding along the front of the boat, ducking and reappearing next tothe sides of the boat. Unfortunately New Zealand rules that if there is a ‘juvenile’ in the group we were not allowed to swim with them. So after taking loads of photos and enjoying their company we set off in search for other ‘common dolphins’ which live further out to sea than ‘bottlenose dolphins’ which we had just seen.
We searched and searched for another hour and a half, and eventually we headed over to some boats that we crowded around a pod of dolphins. They were amazing, Andy even saw one jump out of the water in the classic dolphin way. Awesome! We had to go back to Russell because our time had run out and although we didn’t get to swim with them it was still one of the best things I have done since travelling. Wow!
Look at the photos of Tim and dolphins here:
http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/auckland2russel/
We were told if we spent more than 2 days in Auckland and you’ll be bored… But no, this is our 5th day, we still haven’t eaten at the harbour, climbed one of the many volcanoes or been to the park. But until we’re back to fly out we’re calling it a day here. We’ve been up the sky tower twice, shopped, shopped, shopped, watched Casino Royale, attempted to buy a car but decided against it, walked, walked and walked, had a Dominoes Pizza (2 large pizzas cost $16, about 5 quid), had a subway (again a subway here is about 2 quid), Bex got a hair cut, travelled on the Link bus ‘the long way around’. Maybe we didn’t get bored because this is the first time we’ve been able to do some of this stuff for a few months, who’d have thought we’d get excited about Starbucks.
We’ve loved Auckland, its a really clean, friendly, spread out city where the road signs are polite and the pedestrian crossings sound and look like computer games, where the little green man actually walks when its time to go, then gives you a count down until the lights will change. The buses have screens just like in Total Recall, which show the news, weather, trivia (New Zealands favourite flavour is Chocolate, closely followed by Banana) and a map that shows you where you are, where the next stop is, and what your likely to see when you get off.
We’re staying in Auckland Central Backpackers, the biggest hostel we’ve been in with 10 floors of rooms the biggest kitchen you’ve ever seen! More of a hotel than hostel (but with hostel prices).
If you haven’t already, you can see some photos of Auckland here
So midday we’re off to get our Hire Car (a lovely nissan sunny) and drive north to Whangarei, a 3 hour drive, where we’ll be walking about the treetops and playing in the waterfall
More notes on Fiji! if you missed part 1 :
http://earth.kitjunkie.org/fiji/vinaka-vakalevu-fiji-part-1-2006/
1st January 2007 – Kim’s Place – Becky
“Kim and his family picked us up from the Ferry. We took a slow ride over VERY choppy water, with one child steadily emptying the boat of water with a bucket, Kim had on hand steering and the other trying to catch dinner with his fishing line. Andy had no problem fishing as a small flying fish committed suicide by jumping into his lap. 40 minutes later we had settled into our bure, which had a swinging bed. Andie (Kim’s wife) had prepared dinner for us all, a HUGE plate of noodles and Curry, Rice and Chicken, A root vegetable, coleslaw and pineapple. We didn’t even dent the mound of food, apparently Kim has it nightly or he can’t sleep.”
2nd January 2007 – Kims Place – Andy
“At low tide the island Kim’s house is on is connected to Turtle island, a very elite resort where recently Britney Spears had her wedding. We walked between the two to look at the crabs and explore the mangroves, not getting too close for fear to security shooting us from there little watch tower. We headed back to see Kim preparing the boat (emptying the water out) for our return journey.”
2nd January 2007 – Korovou – Andy
“One of the staff, Moses, wasn’t impressed we were staying in the dorm and kept telling us to move into the ‘Love Nest’ next to him and his wife to be. After a little bartering we did move into our own little lodge for 3 pounds more. One of the guys we were talking to at dinner ran an outreach program back in Canada to teach kids how to break dance, he gave us a fantastic demonstration and taught one of the local kids some moves.”
4th January 2007 – In the Island Village – Becky
“We got on the boat to the Village, a 30 minute trip with great views of the coast of the island, we arived at the beach of the village and our guide went to the chief to ask permission to enter. Andy was pronounced Chief of the group as he sat down for another Kava ceremony. While we were drinking Kava, the local women set up a market on the floor selling, craft items, as soon as we’d bought something they started packing up as we were their only customers for the day. I was really impressed with the school whose school motto was ‘the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom’. School was out as its the summer holidays here, so the kids were around the village, helping parents and playing volley ball (and wearing party hats)”
5th January 2007 – Manta ray – Becky
“Iva and Cody were in the shallow water, feeding the fish bread and pancakes trying to get their trust before trying to grab them out of the water, they never caught any. Later we all went (Me, Andy, Midla, Jordy, Iva, Kathie, Thierry) off Kayaking to another island, pulled our Kayaks up onto the beach and spent the next hour snorkeling, I saw loads of purple starfish, and a 2 meter sea worm (Yuck). Kathie and Midla disappeared so Andy went on a rescue mission to find them and came back towing the girls along. That night Mike and Tam (Codys’ parents) put on a fire dancing show, fantastic Jordy joined in and so did some of the staff. Absolutely amazing”
6th Jauary 2007 – Back to Octopus – Andy
“Said good to the friends we’d made and headed off the Octopus. We decided to spend our last 2 nights in Fiji here as we loved it so much over Christmas, I was amazed that some of the staff had remembered me. That evening we played some games for champagne, My team and I won a few bottles. There were only 5 or so games and we were still up for more when we finished, as we’d (England) had just lost the ashes miserably, we thought we’d rematch the Australians to the cereal box game. All good but Becky (due to her previous training with Toni) won for England, we couldn’t stretch to champagne so it was a Fiji bitter instead. After most had gone to bed (including Becky) we carried on drinking, Anna, a Yorkshire girl living in Sydney convinced us to dive in the pool, shortly after the manager came over to suggest we called it a night, an hour and one more dip later and we did. In the morning, Anna and I were checking out in the office when some of the staff were chatting about the rowdy lot the night before, we sat there sheepishly.”
More to come later!
Well we’ve left Fiji and arrived in Auckland, back to the City, and the Internet.
So we thought rather than trying to summarize the last 4 weeks, we’d post snippets of our journal, anything we think might be interesting… This could be a long one.
17th December- On our way to Nadi Airport – Becky
“Andy got called into the ‘Restricted area’ at Rarotonga airport while I was in the toilet, when I got back Sam had told be where he was and was winding me up saying he’d seen all sorts of funny things through the door. Apparently they’d seen something odd on the xray of his bag, which turned out to be our gas lamp, they we’re very excited by all his camping kit and Andy was in there chatting a little while, even got offered a cup of tea. The time difference in Fiji is 22 hours! We missed Saturday completely!”
18th December – Staying at Horizon in Nadi – Andy
“The music here is Hilarious! Fijians love Boney M, Cyndi Lauper, Earth Wind and Fire! Grease Mega Mix! Its in the shops, on the radio, at the hotel. We bumped into Sam again, he’s on the FeJee Experience, a 52 seat coach touring the mainland, 2 of them left on it this morning, tourism is definitely suffering because of the coup”
20th December – On the Yasawa Flyer Ferry – Andy
“The Ferry ride is a great way to see the islands! Glad we’re away from the mainland, amazing views of tiny islands, very cool, every time the ferry comes to a stop at a transfer point, flocks of boats race to the side of us to get their supplies, passengers, family who’d been shopping in Nadi. It reminded me of sheep running to the gate when the farmer arrived. Our first stop is the Island of Tavewa right at the top of the chain of islands, climbed into the locals boat and raced to where we were staying, Coral View. The boat couldn’t get all the way into the beach so we had to jump out and paddle the last 50 meters with our packs through the water, first time it stepped into the water in Fiji, very warm.”
22nd December – On the Beach, Tavewa – Becky
“The hammocks are great, I want to get one when we get home, theres Pumice all over the beach which has floated over from Tonga (There was a Volcano eruption there recently). One of the guys who lives here has been coming out every day to rake it up into a pile, I guess he’s getting bored of it, today he left a patch and wrote BULA in 6 feet letters”
23rd December – Octopus – Becky
“Octopus, WOW, Not going to want to leave, Hammocks everywhere! Our dorms fantastic! individual beds (no bunk beds) with mosi nets, fans and reading lights. Huge, hot powerful showers! Fantastic Food. We joined in the Kava ceremony, my first bowl and my tongue was numb”
24th December – Christmas Eve – Becky
“Got ready for dinner, as we left the dorm I saw Charlotte was wearing exactly the same outfit! Over dinner the villagers came over to sing Christmas carols to us, which was amazing! All Fijians can sing amazingly, odd to hear ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ in Fijian. Andy won a Fiji Bitter by playing paper, scissors, stone with the barmaid”
25th December – Christmas Day! – Andy
“Woken up by a very excited Bex who’d been outside with Charlotte and found presents! Very unexpected. I got up and we opened our cards and presents. The rest of the day was lovely, on the beach, swimming in the sea, in the hammocks, with Christmas music playing in the background. It may be 32oC but we still played Monopoly! Becky Won (Probably by cheating)”
27th December – Octopus Still – Becky
“Went Snorkeling with Andy, Charlotte and Pete. It was amazing! The water was so clear, we saw thousands of different types of fish, almost sculptural pieces of Coral, Pete spotted a Ray hiding under a ledge, and Charlotte and I were surrounded by thousands of tiny glittering fish. Andy went to do a ledge Dive in the afternoon, he said it was quite dark and scary in places, he saw a shark! a moray eel and managed to stay under for 47 minutes. In the evening we watched
Indiana Jones around the pool, as it started to rain we sat under umbrellas and ate popcorn. It wasn’t until it poured down did they decide to pack away the projector.”
28th December – Bounty Island – Becky
“Bounty’s a tiny island, only a few acres big. Andy thought it was like a tropical Huish Woods, with paths all over the place. We came across a partly dismantled shell of a building, that after some investigation turned out to be the Celebrity Love Island House. Andy was overly excited because the dorm was converted from a production room and there where sockets all over the place”
29th December - Bounty Island – Andy
“We walked around the island, in 20 minutes, so then we borrowed some kayaks and paddled around, another 20 minutes. Becky struggled (Partly because she’d picked up a left handed paddle). The Islands close enough to the mainland to get mobile signal, the first time since we’d come to the islands. We spoke to our parents and wished the a Merry Christmas!”
30th December – Wanna Taki Cruise Boat – Andy
“I love boats, already I’m happy we’re spending new year on here, Becky’s feeling a little queezy but I’m sure it will pass. We both jumped off the top of the top deck, 8 or so meters up, quite a drop.”
31st December – New Years Day – Becky
“Holly, Meredith and Andy spent the afternoon trying to convince me England’s a nice place and that i should miss it, all they could come up with was Bumble Bees, Hedge Hogs, Wetherspoons, Castles and of course our friends and Family. We had a traditional dinner, a Lovo, food cooked in an underground oven with hot stones. Chatted till midnight, the staff drank a ridiculous amount of Kava and some of us jumped off the boat, we were warned about Barracudas, so no one spent any time in the water!”
Happy new Year!