A bit more travel

A friend from Limerick organised to come to Palmerstown North for a conference, so we agreed to meet up with him there. On the way we spent a night in Taupo and picked up a down river racing boat for Sean that a friend in Auckland has given him. Sean also got a much needed swimming lesson from Jeanine in Lake Taupo before we tucked into a barbeque in the evening sun by the beach!

We met up with Mike in Palmerstown North and over the next couple of days discovered that there’s not much to do there bar visit the rugby museum, drive through Manawatu Gorge and play pool!

When Mike left, we drove up the west coast to New Plymouth with lovely views of Mount Taranaki on the way. While there we went on one of the numerous walks around the base of the mountain, we weren’t feeling quite energetic enough to walk up it!

Further along we stopped in Hamilton and had a walk around the Hamilton Gardens, which are really pretty but had at least 4 wedding parties there at the time having their wedding photo’s taken! Deciding there isn’t much else to do in Hamilton, we carried on up the road to Auckland where we were going to play in the clubs Christmas Polo Comp. The comp was on Sunday morning, and by lunchtime I’d played 7 games, including one of teams from the south side of Auckland versus the north side. Apparently I’m now from the south of Auckland… And I thought being from the Northern Hemisphere would have put me on the north side!

As the competition was finished by lunchtime we went mountain biking in Woodhill Park for the afternoon. It was my first time ever on a bike off the road, but thankfully the others were nice enough to wait for me and put up with my hands being firmly attached to the brakes at all times! The park is a great location for mountain biking, but I’m more used to being on a horse when crossing country! After that energetic day we went back to Dave’s to a massive barbeque and a sleepy evening!

On Tuesday evening Dave was doing a kayaking race so we went along to cheer him on. We weren’t expecting the crowd though. The race is part of the Takapuna Beach Series on every Tuesday evening over the summer. They had 388 competitors that night with 3 different events running at the same time. There was a 5km kayak, a 5km run and a 1km swim. Sean and I have been doing a bit of running since we got here so the next day we ran the 5km course, not quite in the winning time of 15 minutes 39 seconds but we were happy!

That evening we went with Dave to watch him play underwater hockey. Not being much of a spectator sport we went swimming ourselves after about 2 minutes of watching! The game is 6 a side, with all the players wearing snorkels, masks and fins. They have a little stick and the puck is on the pool floor. From the top all you can see is them all diving for one spot in a flurry reminiscent of a tank of piranhas!

The weather wasn’t great for the week, so the next day we went for a drive up Mount Eden and One Tree Hill, two of the extinct volcanoes in Auckland. Despite the weather there was a good enough view, though with Auckland being such a sprawling city all you could see was buildings and water. On Friday we drove over to Marewai Beach on the west coast known for the gannets nesting there.

A week in the life! 17-25 Nov

Saturday 17^th November we hit the road again. First stop was at the Huka Falls Jet where we were only charged the special “locals” discounted price of $20 instead of the usual $95. Perhaps it’s a sign that we’ve already spent too much time in Taupo but we weren’t complaining! The jet goes between Huka Falls and Aratiatia Dam at up to 80kmph, including a few 360^o spins on the way. It was great fun, but I’m glad I wasn’t paying full price!

Then Sean, Jayne, Mike and I carried on up to the Coromandel Peninsula enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way. We stopped in the tiny town of Hahei and from there walked to Cathedral Cove, where a gigantic arch has been cut out of the limestone along the beach. On the way back we also saw Gemstone Bay and Stingray Bay (we kept out of the water there). After our walk we went to the famous Hot Water Beach, which was quite an interesting experience. There was a large, quite nice looking beach that was nearly deserted bar one spot where over a hundred people were grouped together. On going closer you find that it’s quite a busy spot as most of the people there are busy digging the beach up with their shovels – you can dig a little pond in the sand which fills with hot water coming up from the volcanic activity below. Then, once you’ve checked it’s not too hot with a tentative toe, you lie down in your own hot pool and relax. That is, if you can relax in the midst of all the madness! We were also there when the tide was coming in, so got a great laugh when the outermost pond was breached by a wave coming in much to the disgust of the people in it!

The next day we drove down the west coast of the Coromandel Peninsula and stopped along the way to enjoy the beauty of the area. The sea was calm and the sun shining - it was absolutely beautiful. We had a bit of a whirlwind trip around the Coromandel because Jayne was flying home on Monday. On Sunday afternoon Jayne and Mike left us to go to Auckland. We continued driving around the Firth of Thames as far as Maraetai where we decided to stop for the night. For the first time we had a bit of difficulty finding a campsite, but after a few enquiries we got booked into Omana Regional Park campsite, which turned out to be a long drop toilet in a field which we only had to share with a few hens. It was a beautiful spot though where we enjoyed the sunset and got a great night’s sleep without any distractions! The next morning the park ranger came around looking for the hens as they apparently shouldn’t have been sharing the field with us at all – I think they must have known he was coming though as by that stage they’d completely disappeared!

We decided to go up to the Northland next, so we had to go through Auckland. As we were passing we thought we’d pop into Dave’s factory again to say hi. That trip resulted in us getting the keys to Steve’s bach (holiday home) and driving a jet boat ourselves! They’re making a prototype jet boat and were bringing it out for a test run, so we got to go along too. They brought another older jet boat out to video the new boat, so we went out in that first and got to drive it for a while. Then we had a spin on the new boat, which was just scary! It’s so fast! It was brilliant, and sooooo much better than the Huka Jet!

After that excitement, we were a bit late to go too far North that day so we pulled into a campsite at Sandspit. It turned out to be quite an unusual campsite, with an open museum around the office. We had fun playing an after dinner game of snakes and ladders on a life-size board!

We then carried on to Goat Island where we went snorkelling, which was really good, once I got over the shock of the huge Snappers (fish) that had no fear of me, and seeing a ray of some sort! Sean had his waterproof camera with him so has a few good pics.

After that we carried on up to Matapouri to Steve’s bach where we had a few great days enjoying the beautiful scenery, we even took a go at sea-kayaking. Thanks Steve! Our time there was cut a bit short by an invitation to go jet boating on the Wanganui River for the weekend, which we couldn’t refuse! We got a lift from Auckland with Dave and got on the river near Taumaranui. From there we drove downstream for a couple of hours, overtaking the slogging kayakers on the way, as far as the Bridge to Nowhere Lodge, where we tucked into a fab venison dinner. We had a great weekend there, enjoying living it up! We went to see the Bridge to Nowhere – we had to walk 20 minutes through the bush to find it – a solid bridge in the middle of nowhere with nothing but bush on either side of it with a walking trail through it.

On Saturday our boat got a pebble caught in the grill of the engine (or so we thought) leaving us not able to put the revs over 4,000 for the trip back upstream on Sunday. The extra time it took us to get back up caused us to run out of petrol 3 times, the last time just 100m short of home! When we got the boat out of the water and did a bit of investigation we found that a fist-sized stone had got past the grate (which moved up and down, rendering it really useless for river use) and had been wearing down the propeller all the way home!

The East Cape and around

Much to the surprise of Jayne and her housemates (who were convinced we were never actually going to leave Taupo) we finally hit the road on Saturday, 3^rd November with the plan of going up the east coast as far as Auckland before going back to Taupo for Jayne’s goodbye party the following Saturday. We headed first over to Napier, where we stocked up on some food supplies before driving on to through Wairoa to Gisbourne, where we booked into a campsite (at a showground in the middle of a dressage competition) and spent our first night in the van!

We woke up, pretty well rested, the next morning to find that it was raining and cold! Undeterred, we set off up the coast and happened upon a surf comp just outside Gisbourne. We watched the final and decided that kayak surfing is much better (you can do a lot more moves on the waves in a kayak) though apparently, a surf-ski is the best!

We carried on up the coast almost as far as Hick’s Bay that day, but took a detour to the East Cape to see the Most Easterly Lighthouse in the World on the way. It’s 21km down a narrow road, which is mainly not tarred and goes right by the sea most of the time. We walked up the steep hillside to see the lighthouse and were nearly blown over by the wind! But it was definitely worth the trip.

The next morning, we woke up to find that the power to our campsite had gone overnight, which didn’t surprise us at all given the stormy conditions. We drove on along the coast as far as Whakatane, amazed at the angry sea alongside us. We stopped to take photos at the beach in Hawai where the shelf was so sharp the waves were literally crashing straight down on the beach with a great bang sending spray high into the air.

On Monday morning, we took a tour ferry over to White Island, a live volcano! It was quite exciting wandering around the island with great clouds of steam coming up from some areas. It wasn’t too dangerous though, in the past they’ve had people living there mining the sulphur, until each group got wiped out by explosions that is… Thankfully the ferry trip home was considerably smoother than the trip out when sick bags were in great demand, luckily not by either of us though.

That evening we headed to Tauranga and stopped at Kiwi 360^o on the way. The next morning we walked up Mount Manganui, accidentally taking the steep route up! After deciding that was enough exercise for the day we travelled on towards Waihi. We found a campsite with hot pools at Athenree so decided that would be a great place to stay the night. After over an hour in the hot pool we finally got hungry enough to take our wrinkled hands out and go cook dinner!

We took a look at the open Goldmine in Waihi on Thursday morning before heading on to Auckland. On the way we stopped to have a cup of tea in the World Famous in New Zealand Café in Paeroa known for the L&P (Lemon & Paeroa) World Famous in New Zealand drinks – we had English Breakfast tea though…

Back in Auckland again, we were just in time to play polo with the club again. On Friday we drove out to Dave’s factory where they make Bermuda sea kayaks, to have a look. Then, on Saturday morning, we headed back to Taupo again, under strict orders to go to Jayne’s going away party that night!

Taupo and around, 19th October to 2nd November

On Friday 19^th Oct we braved the open road and took the four-hour trip south to Taupo. Jayne, a friend of Sean’s invited us to come down for the bank holiday weekend. On the way down we stopped in a little town called Tirau for lunch. It’s known for the giant shepherd, sheep and sheepdog made from corrugated roofing that have been built in the town! Both the dog and sheep have shops inside they’re so big!

That evening, in Taupo we met up with Jayne’s boyfriend Mike and a group of their friends who were planning on spending the long weekend on a 3-day hike. That was far too energetic for Jayne, Sean and I, so instead we went for a drive around Taupo on Saturday afternoon. We saw the famous Huka Falls, and started contemplating the correct line to paddle down it, much to Jayne’s disgust! She then took us to the Aratiatia Dam just in time for us to watch a release. The trickle of water downstream became a big full river in a matter of minutes. They release 3/4 times daily from there as well as the several other dams further downstream. We then headed up to see the Wairakei Geothermal Power Project, which consisted of fields of pipes harnessing the naturally created steam to make electricity. You have to be careful driving through as there’s so much steam it can affect visibility! We finally headed home to a BBQ via the pretty Acacia Bay further along Lake Taupo.

On Sunday we got properly introduced to the geothermal nature of the area by first going to the AC Baths to relax in their naturally heated (37 degrees) outdoor pools. I managed to be energetic enough to do 10 lengths of their slightly cooler (27 degrees) normal outdoor swimming pool! Later, we went for the more natural option and we sat ourselves down in a pool in a stream of roasting hot water of about 42 degrees! Quite a lot for the Irish mind to cope with! If it started getting too hot for us it was a quick walk further downstream to the cold river that the stream was running into! Jayne was careful to warn us about the natural streams though as they’re very sulphurous and it’s advised not to put your head under the water as you don’t want the water to get into your ears.

After all the relaxing on Sunday, Jayne decided we needed to be a bit more energetic on Monday (she was off as it was a bank holiday) so we drove to Rotorua. On the way we stopped off to see the Wai-o-tapu Mud Pools, which were amazing and very very smelly! A large area of mud that just kept making plopping sounds as it bubbled up, sometimes sending mud shooting up 6 feet! Rotorua is a strongly geothermal area, nicknamed “Sulphur City” and accordingly has a nasty smell of eggs on the air at all times! Parking in the Government Gardens (with remarkably English styled lawns with their own thermal Blue Baths) we walked to the Sulphur Lake, the Champagne Pools and the Laughing Gas Pool (we were reserved and didn’t try breathing too deeply around there – it was still too sulphurous to try that!). After lunch we drove to see the Green and Blue Lakes – two lakes both seen from one vantage point, one clearly blue and the other clearly green due to the minerals in the water. We also had a quick look at the area of the Buried Village which was covered in an eruption, quite some time ago and Mount Tarawera. On the way home we stopped at Kerosene Creek and would have had a dip in the hot pools there if we had remembered our togs!

The next day, Sean decided we’d better start working on getting fit, so we managed to go for a bit of a run, before sorting out our tired muscles in the hot pools again – not such a bad way to finish a run! In the afternoon we went for a drive all around Lake Taupo.

Wednesday morning we got up early and drove over the mountains to Napier, a town famous for its Art Deco buildings. After seeing around the town, we went to the local museum, which has an interesting section about the earthquake that practically destroyed the town in 1931, though most of the wooden houses survived it.

Jayne and Mike took Thursday off to go skiing, so off we set bright and early, only to find the ski slopes on Mount Turoa and Mount Ruapehu were both shut! It was a great drive though, with fab views of the both of those mountains and Mount Ngauruhoe (known to some of us as Mount Doom) in beautiful weather.

On Saturday the four of us went back to Rotorua. When we were there on Monday we’d been tempted by some of the activities on offer there. So we went straight to Mount Ngongotaha and had a go on the Sky Swing. It involves sitting in a cage like contraption, being hauled backwards up really high and then pulling a string to start your freefall back down again! I’m very good at screaming on those sort of things! After that we had races down the mountain on luge tracks on go-karts! Great craic. Finally, to finish off the day on a high, we went zorbing. It’s basically rolling down a hill inside a big ball filled with nice warm water, but is loads of fun. Sean used his new waterproof camera to video it from the inside, resulting in a chaotic video of arms and legs falling all over the place and a soundtrack of loads of giggles!

On Sunday the four of us went sailing on Lake Taupo. We split up, me going in a boat with Mike and Jayne with Sean. We made it a bit out in the lake and then encountered a little difficulty getting back again – the little wind that there had been disappeared altogether! After contemplating abandoning ship and just swimming back to shore for a while, we finally managed to get back in!

Though we were supposed to leave Taupo on Monday morning, Jayne arrived home that evening to find us in the midst of building a bed for the back of our car! Over the next few days we ripped out the back seat and built a bed for ourselves, and bought our mattresses and all the necessary things for sleeping in the van – now we’re ready to hit the road properly!

Capsicums...

Sean and I were shopping for dinner one day and decided to make fajitas from one of those kits. Reading the instructions on the front it said to get meat, onions and capsicums... Sean and I looked at each other asking “what are capsicums?” We quickly decided that we didn’t care what their funny instructions were; we were going to put peppers in! So, off I went to get the peppers, only to find them labelled “capsicums”…

Auckland Week 1.5

Sunday morning (14th Oct) we were brave and went to the polo clubs training session. It was on the edge of a lake in an area that had been quarried out. We had to wait for the men with their little 1m long remote control sailing boats to finish their race before braving the water in the very strong winds! Ball throwing left a little to be desired...

Monday we went and picked up (and paid for!) our new car and spent the next while wondering whether the wipers really wanted to work or not. We took the car to visit a mechanic and got it sorted out. After all that, we decided it was about time to do some touristy stuff!

Wednesday, we went to the Auckland Museum, which is huge! It has big sections on all the wars that NZ has been involved in, the volcanoes, and plenty more. It also has a Maori section and we went to see their Maori Cultural Performance. Singing is very important to them and they do it very well!

On Thursday we got a ferry from the main city of Auckland across to town of Devonport on the North Shore for the afternoon. Compared to the busy city we left it was a quiet little village like place. While we were there we took a look at the Navy Museum, which was small but interesting, telling the history of the NZ navy. Of course, we made it to the polo pool session that night too!

Friday morning, we got up bright and early, got a set of roofracks put on the car and set off for Taupo.

Auckland, Week 1

Wednesday, 10^th October 2007, we arrived in New Zealand, made it through security (including the stringent checks of Piper, the customs Beagle, who can sniff out fruit at 10 paces), the kind people at immigration stamped our visas and we were in!

We got the bus into town and straight to Auckland Central Backpackers. We managed to check in and get a quick bite of lunch before the jet lag hit us again! We’re now 12 hours ahead of Ireland.

Thursday morning, we got moving again. First call was to the Backpackers Car Market, a garage where people can display their car/van for sale for a small fee. A handy source for backpackers! It’s the start of their busy season, so prices are about to go up. The vehicles on show there are usually at 12 – 25 years old so it’s only backpackers buying really, and the prices vary according to the demand at the different times of year. Hopefully that means that what we buy will be worth about the same again if we sell in a years time.

We’d both organised getting NZ bank accounts opened from home, so just called into one of the branches here with our account details and ID and got our bank cards! How simple compared to home! Though we’re still trying to work out how one accesses one’s money and moves money from our Irish Accounts to the NZ ones now…

I got a sim card for my phone (Vodafone are the only mobile providers here and are enjoying the monopoly – no freebies!) and texted a Kiwi polo player Sean had contacted before leaving home. He invited us to their club session that evening, so we tackled the bus service and turned up at the pool. We played a couple of good games with them in their heated outdoor pool, and then set off for their after pool session pub session. Ended up at a committee meeting – those things are the same the world over! Got a lift back to the hostel from one of the lads, Andrew, and an invite to their training session on Sunday morning. Starting to feel like we’re not just on holidays here! Well, not just the kind of holiday where we’re going to be going home in a couple of weeks anyway!

Since then, we've agreed to buy a 1993 Toyota Emina, which hopefully is in good enough nick to last us the year without falling apart, and that we'll hopefully manage to sell pretty well at the end of the year! Paying over the dosh tomorrow.

We went to the local Polo Club's training session this morning. It's far too energetic a way to spend a Sunday morning -trying to play in a plastic polo boat in very strong winds! We're going to stay in Auckland till Friday morning, going to the pool session again on Thursday evening. Then the plan is to hit Taupo and visit Jane, an old friend of Sean's.

Oh, and the update from home is that my sister, Susan, managed to fall off my horse (even though he did a great jump over the fence) and break her leg! Get well soon Susan!

Kuala Lumpur

After several going away parties, my trip finally started at 1.30 a.m. on Wednesday 3^rd October 2007, when Dad and I set off for Dublin airport. By 9 a.m. I’d met up with Sean (who flew from Cork) in London Heathrow and by the next day we arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, suffering from jet lag and a 7 hour time difference.

We got a taxi to our hotel, gathering some useful local information from our driver on the way. Our hotel was just down the road from the Twin Towers and the posh Suria KLCC shopping centre at their base.

On Friday (5^th Oct) we set off to the National Museum, followed by a walk around the Lake Gardens. When the heat got too much for us we went to the air-conditioned Planetarium, which is quite dated at this stage. Some of the reports were talking about planned missions in the late 1980’s… But it was much cooler than being outside! The humidity was very high. I managed to get a bit sunburned even with trying to avoid being outdoors for too long!

On Saturday we tried out the hop-on-hop-off bus tour round the city. We found a big boys toy shopping centre in Bintang – 6 floors of shops full of cameras, computers, phones and the likes. It took quite a while to get Sean out of there, and not without a dent in my credit card… When we went to leave, we discovered that it was pouring rain, which did a bit to help the humidity status thank goodness. We waited patiently for the bus again and had a quick look at China town before heading back to the hotel.

Sunday morning we got up early and rushed to the Twin Towers to get our free tickets to go up to the Skybridge. While the towers are both 88 floors high, the public can only go to the bridge between them, which is at floor 41. It’s still a great view, and who can complain about something that’s free! As we were already enjoying the view from up high, we then went to KL Tower, the communications tower, and got a full view of the city from ???m. We decided to treat ourselves a bit and had lunch in the revolving restaurant on the floor above the observation level. Tasty food and, once you could find your table again after going to pick something up from the buffet in the not revolving middle bit, very enjoyable! Next stop was the Aquarium before we collapsed in a tired heap again!

On Monday we felt like a bit of a change and went to the Sunway Lagoon on a tour organised by the hotel. We had great craic on the water slides and roller coasters, saw two gorgeous Bengal tigers and other animals, and of course, both got sunburned a bit due to forgetting to top up our sunscreen. I think we were slightly distracted by the water slides…

Tuesday 9^th October we packed our bags again and headed to KL airport. Another long flight later and we landed in Auckland, New Zealand!

I'll get around to posting something on this soon....