We’ve been in Sydney and about now for 4 days, having left the city for the sea side town of Narrabeen, we came back in today to help celebrate the bridges birthday!
Sydney is a vibrant city, full of people! We estimated that there are more people in Sydney than we saw in the entire of New Zealand! It has been quite an effort getting used to full streets, busy shops and full cafes. We escaped to the seaside for fewer people and to get used to Australian way of life from a distance.
Our first day and a half was spent sightseeing, lovely Christina from the hostel gave us a map and route, first port of call was the botanical gardens which overlook Sydney Opera House, where we took endless photos of it and the Harbour Bridge (both iconic landmarks are much bigger than photos make them look), walked round The Rocks- the first part of Australia to be colonised by 700 odd criminals and very quaint- old cobbled streets and European style old houses. Then the Aquaruim- hopefully the only time in Australia that we will come face to face with very big, scary and evil looking sharks! The Aquaruim was awesome, underwater tunnels in the seal and “ocean” areas, an enormous crocodile and vast containers of brightly coloured fish.We also visited the Australian Museum and the Museum of Comtempary Art. After the aquaruim and Museum, we (well Becky mostly) have been checking the lawns for spiders and snakes, any piece of water for jellyfish and crocodiles and we haven’t even dare go in the open sea yet! Damn Aquaruim and Museums!! Today we went on a boat from Manly (Sydneys premiere seaside town) to Circular Quay. Manly, if you can imagine it, looks very much like Torquay! Wasn’t quite what we were expecting!
We were staying in Kings Cross- very swanky during the day, THE place to have a street address, by night it turns into restaurants, strip clubs, “adult entertainment” etc. It is fair to say that this place does not sleep and is full to brimming with quirky characters. We stayed at the Blue Parrot, a bright yellow house situated on the “quieter end” (yeah right!) of Kings Cross. You could compare Kings Cross easily with Soho!
We have been trying some “Australian food”- e.g. kangeroo! We made it into spaghetti bolognase- Andy remarked it tasted very much like horse!! Think that is another story altogether…
It was a wet, foggy, miserable day in National Park, so what better than watching all three Lord of the Rings in the comfort of the National Park Hostels Lounge? If we could see outside the window we would have seen the towering presence of Mt Ngauruhoe aka Mount Doom across the fields. As we watched Lord of the Rings (LOTR) we prided ourselves that we had seen a lot of this landscape in the film, from snowy topped mountains to waterfalls in forests; a lot of the scenery is classic New Zealand scenery. All I needed for our epic journey on Friday is a good looking blonde haired elf, a short ginger dwarf, an old grey haired man and a couple of very small people. Oh and not to forgot a Ranger who mysteriously is the real leader of men on earth. Excellent.
We set off first thing in the morning (7am!) to a brighter day. We started quite high up; above the low cloud level anyway! We first skirted round the infamous Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom!) looking angry and forbidding, red dust and jet black scree in a perfect cone. We trudged over marsh (fortunately with no dead things with glowing eys to lead us to our doom) then up a very very steep rock climb (Frodo and Sam surely had blisters by the end?) and to a stunning lookout over the mountain. As we looked into the West (no not elf ships!) we saw Mt Taranaki on the horizon peeping out through the clouds.
We carried on, our mission to catch the 3pm bus at the other end; through craters, volcanic rock, scree sloped mountains. We had beautiful views of “Orc country” no wonder than Peter Jackson chose this landscape for Mordor. Our highest point was “Red Crater” a stunning view of a massive red rock crater, before the journey down. This wasn’t as easy as expected, over a kilometre of rough, slippery grey scree or gravel. No wonder Boromir was so adamant that he wasn’t going anywhere near the place. After pretty much sliding down, praying that we weren’t going to break anything we got to a look out point over the Emerald Lakes.
The Emerald lakes, are, exactly how they sound, 3 bright turquiose lakes at the bottom of the mountain. They were pretty impressive at the top, looking like little puddles but closer inspection found them eeriley still….as if some monster with tentacles was biding its time before snatching small hobbit sized creatures…..hmmmm. We braved it and sat down near the edge for a well earned scroggin snack.
Off again, across a vast crater guided by white poles the Tongariro Crossing continues over Central Crater to Blue Lake. Blue Lake (an old volcanic vent) is also known as Te Wai-whakaata-o-te-Rangihiroa (Rangihiroa’s Mirror). Quite a mouthful. We were on the way down now towards Ketetahi Hut. The walk to the hut had magnificent views across to Lake Taupo (at least 100km away) and what felt like half of Middle Earth…sorry New Zealand. It might well could have been, there was no houses, settlements or any sign of human interference for as far as the eye could see, and it was a long way.
After refreshing ourselves at the Hut (but no lambas bread for us) we carried on down, through alpine scrub and further to dense rainforest with waterfalls and bubbling streams. We arrived for the bus 1 minute too late, the bus had gone, our mission seemingly failed. However there was a glipse of good fortune (Elvish magic me thinks) there was also a bus a 4.15. Phew! What an adventure!
Taupo:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/taupo/
Went sailing on Lake Taupo (but no breeze at all!), visited the CRATERS OF THE MOON! – a highly thermal area near Taupo- boiling steam, bubbling mud, pink and green earth. Huka Prawn- the most hilarious fun you can have with 15cm Malaysian Prawns, Huka falls, watching bungy jumpers fall over rivers and come up drenched, the nicest Top 10 park yet (I will go on a jumping pillow!)   Â
Rotorua:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/rotorua/
Smelt the sulpher smelling air, went to the Rotorua musuem (which could be mistaken for the Woolacombe Bay hotel!) saw the iconic bowl players on the green, saw bubbling mud pools everywhere.
Gisbourne:
Beautiful city on the East coast, streets lined with Palm trees. wished we could have stayed longer.
Napier:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/napier/
Art Deco city of the World- nearly every building has art deco esque designs, there is even an art deco weekend coming up where cinemas show 1920 films, have balls and drive around in old cars. There is “Bertie” the Art deco man who walks around Napier in full kit (unfortunately we only heard this and didn’t see him). Road out to Hastings was lined with beaches on one side and winerys on the other.
Wellington:
Lovely scenery driving from Napier to Wellington, mountains flanking the road, Upper Hutt road was interesting. Cor blimey it’s windy here in Wellington! Only had a brief wander around Wellington as we arrived late and left early. Saw huge amounts of public art all over the city, men chainsawing concrete in parks to create more sculptures. Apparently there is a life size cave troll and winged Nazgul hanging over a building somewhere. But no pizza shops! Want to visit the impressive museum and watch Lord Of The Rings again! (There is a cinema here that will always show it) Haven’t seen any of the film sets yet either- there are a few around Wellington including Rivendell. We went across the Cooks Strait on the ferry in the morning, beautiful views across to Wellington the “Garden City”.
Picton:
The entry point to the South Island. Went through the Marlbrough sounds which were stuning, all huge mountains, turquiose sea and sandy white beaches. Drove up the Queen Charlotte Drive (the car only just managed this feat!) which gave spectacular views over the sea and sounds.
Nelson:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/nelsonlakes/
A very nice little city, on the seafront. Is home to the “One ring” which I couldn’t find….grrr. Swam in the Tasman sea off the coast of Nelson, found a gorgeous beach called Cable Bay, had takeaways! Bought a new camera- both of ours are now dead! Went for a long 2 day walk around the Nelson National Park, stayed in a backcountry hut. (got blisters….and lost my sunglasses!) Met up with Zoe.
Abel Tasman National Park:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/abeltasman/
Andy should be writing a more detailed account of this, but for the moment, Zoe, Andy and myself kayaked for 3 days in the beautiful National Park- all sandy beaches, tiny coves, seals, warm water, compost toilets, blue penguins, sacadas (bloody noisy and very ugly beetles) wood pigeons, impossibly tight kayak skirts, massive amounts of kayaks on otherwie empty beaches, water taxis making waves, 4 year old children making us laugh, pumping water, nappy rash and boil in the bag food.
