Earth

Adrenaline Junkie

Queenstown is the adrenaline capital of the world, with Bungys to Skydives, to Canyon swinging, to white water, you can do it all. We wanted to go rafting but due to the lack of rain in February it would have been more of a gentle float down the river.

So instead we set off to find something not quite as scary as attaching a rubber band to our feet but more thrilling than the local swimming pool (granted after swimming there, there is a good chance of getting some kind of infection). We set off from our ‘Top 10′ to go catch the Sky Gondala to the top of the mountain, to get a look down on the town.

Up there we found ‘The Luge’… basically, you sit on a tray with handle bars and skid down the track carved into the mountain, just one little curb between your tray and the 500 metre drop into the town, who needs bungy jumps?

We bought our tickets for 3 rides each and set off on the ski lift, helmets on, to the top. First ride down we knew 3 wasn’t enough as we skidded, squealed, bounced into the air, shot through tunnels and swerved, desperately trying to get the hang of the breaks.

Once our goes were over we left the mountain unscathed, wanting more. So… the next day with our campsite neighbours in tow, we went back for more, buying the maximum 5 go ticket before even getting up there.

I didn’t leave unscathed this time, getting a little over excited on the final turns i came off head over heels ripping the skin off my wrist and knee… for photos go to the usual place.
Other places about here to note are Puzzle World in Wanaka! (cheers James) which was brilliant!

Franz Josef Ice Glacier

Having little sleep that night, like a kid on christmas eve. I woke up many times asking Becky ‘Is it time to go yet?’

We made our way to the meeting point in town to get kitted up with gortex jackets, boots, hats and gloves, and crampons, and catch the bus up to the terminal of the glacier, actually although it looked like we’d been dropped off right there, it took us another hour to walk to the head, once there, we donned on our crampons and listened carefully to what our guide, Sam, had to say.

The ice glacier moves, at the terminal (where it stops) about a metre a day, even faster further up where the valley closes in. Everyday new streams and holes appear, so the guides never have a clear idea of the route for the day.

As we climbed up on the ice we started to get our footing and felt (at least i did) surprisingly stable. We spent the next few hours wandring about the natural icy maze, stopping every now and again for Sam to wander up a little gully before turning back, annoucing ‘This way guys’ and walking in the other direction. Or cutting steps into the ice for us to climb, keen for someone else to want to try so he would get a rest.

We finally, after what seemed like hours of going up and down, sat down for lunch, on our rucksacks so we didn’t get numb bums, and ate our ‘one square meal’ (if you ever see them, dont try them) before turning up twards a large crevasse and finally trying to make our way back down the way we came up, some of the steps cut into the ice already gone!

Again, as with lots of our trips, i’m not going to try to describe how amazing it was, so look at the photos!

We’re off to Wanaka now to go find a river to raft down!

My Terra Nova Ultra Quasar has its first birthday! (of use)

Thats 365 (ish) nights of use! Bought in 2000. Its first birthday was spent on a beach during a kayaking tour of Abel Tasman National Park.

Its been up mountains, sat on wind blown scenery, dug in on beaches during wintry offshore winds, crammed with too many people during near death experiences (thats 5! you try it), and just had a fab time during the calm of family camp sites.

Its been sewn, patched, resealed, re-elasticized, cleaned by many immigration departments, poles broken and fixed. But other than maintenance due to excessive use (and Becky)… still going strong.

So thank you Terra Nova for sheltering us from the elements, here is to another year!

The Southern Alps! (last known location of Beckys Washbag)

We drove across from the Christchurch and the East coast to the West coast through the Southern Alps, with some (OK, all of it) amazing scenery and some hairy roads we travelled to Arthurs Pass Village (Population 50, highest settlement in NZ) where we planned to stay the night, although a lovely village and a cheap little campsite we neglected to think through our accomidation. Arthurs Pass is THE route through the mountains with the rail road one side and the main highway the other, our tent, slap in the middle.

In the morning, after a noisy night, and little sleep and a catastrophic tent faliure (we’d like to thank Terra Nova for making tents that just won’t die. our tent was as good as new by the next night), we went off the the DOC office to find out about local walks. I wanted to do Avalanche Pass, a crazy walk, a steep 1 kilometre rise over 4 hours, but with a lot of low cloud (low cloud? or high mountains?) and bags under our eyes, we decided against it, settling for a nice 3 hour hike through the valley and then another drive down to the West Coast
Photos Here : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/southernalps/

Blenhiem to Christchurch

Blenhiem and the Marlborough region are home to many of New Zealand’s prize winning wines, so we couldn’t pass without stopping and finding somewhere to try a few. The Marlborough wine festival is kind of an up market version of Newt Beer Fest in Somerset. The girls (and some of the men) get dressed up, hats and all and spend the day listening to the live bands, and more importantly, tasting and eating the local produce. We tried many, many wines and I absolutely have a better idea of what I like!
As with all day time drinking, we gave up, tired, some of us more drunk than others (Becky) and went back to our hostel for a nap and dinner, with no energy to cook, we went out for Fish and Chips!
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/blenhiem/

Our next stop was Hanmer for its Hot Springs. It was a drizzly day so we were quite excited to sit in bath hot water for a few hours! Hamner is a little alpine village, so it was a effort getting the car up those steep alpine roads! There were 9 ‘rock pools’ 36-37 C water, 3 sulpher pools (40 C!!) and a few mineral pools. It was lovely sitting in the waters while it was cold outside!

As we felt refreshed we decided to keep driving the 180km to Christchurch. A really nice drive; cutting through mountains, past stoney rivers and smal villages. We arrived in Christchurch early enough to get to the i site and tried but failed to get somewhere to stay in the city, so we went to our fall back- Top 10! They had a ‘lodge’ avaliable (a considerable step up from camping) so we took it up for 3 nights (over Valentines) and it was dark and raining!

The following day we did the sightseeing thing. We saw the Catherdral, went on the tram tour, tried to see kiwis (but 4pm is kiwi bedtime) so we couldn’t. On Valentines day we went to the International Antarctic Centre, home off little blue penguins. We messed around in the snow room, got chilled to -18, went on a snow mobile (huggland vehicle), saw blue penguins, saw Scotts Base (in Antarctica), and read many amazing displays and saw many awesome photos - Andy wants to go there as well now! Later we went to the cinema and watched Music and Lyrics, watch the 80’s spoof classic here! It’s brilliant! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0A7dtdc-nU

And photos from there : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/christchurch/

Kayaking the Abel Tasman

We sat down on the beach of Kaiteriteri bright and early raring to get in the water but first we had to go through our safety briefing with Tim, one of the Kaiteriteri Kayaking guides.

We were setting off for 3 days paddling with their kayaks, fully loaded up with tents, sleeping kit, food for the duration, everything we needed, hardly surprisingly they wanted to make sure their kit got back to them and didn’t float off to sea (with us). We went through capsize routines, watching the weather, landing the kayaks on the beach, and which bits of the kayaks would keep our clothes the driest.

Once in the water and ready to go we slowly paddled away from the shore leaving the guide behind. Becky and Zoe in their double kayak and me, apparently being the more competent in a single. Our first stop was appletree bay to try our first beach landing. (which went great)

Kayaking through the Abel Tasman National Park was absolutely fantastic, amazing pointy hills, little green islands full of wildlife, seals, dolphins, white sandy beaches, secluded campsites only accessible from the sea, three days absoluetly isn’t enough, I could have kept going and going, sadly the kayaks were hired and had to go back.

Our two nights accomadation were provided by DOC, the guys in charge of all the parks in New Zealand. Our first night in my tent, a little cramped with the 3 of us but we stayed dry, our second night in a hut at Bark Bay, which was also on a walking path, with luxurious bunk beds, and even a cold outdoor shower! a couple 4 year olds to keep us entertained (or maybe us entertaining them). Our food was of the dehydrated variety, with soups, pastas (and dehydrated ice cream for Becky) on the menu.

We paddled around the coast for the three days getting more and more excited by the day. We kayaked about with seals swimming underneath us, we splashed through the wake of the speeding water taxis, navigated our way through reefs. Our last day we landed on the beach (landing involves paddling as fast as you can at the shore, and as you slide up the sand, jumping out before the waves try to drag you back), dragged our kayaks up, got all our kit out and did a spot of sun bathing before our taxi arrived.

Words just don’t do the three days justice, so look at these photos!

Summary of the last fortnight

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!)    

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.

Huka Prawn!

Photos: http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/taupo/

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!

New Plymouth

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!

Waitomo Caves

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….

Have a look at the photos here