Clare's World

Australia: Girraween National Park

2009-03-30T23:36:00.004+13:00

Our first stop outside Brisbane was at Girraween National Park. Immediately we were delighted we’d listened to Steph. There were just a couple of cars in the car park, and not a rental car in sight! The park is full of granite rocks, some in very interesting formations. We went for a walk up to The Pyramids, which ended in a very steep climb right up the so called pyramid, the kind of steepness we had to zig-zag up! At the top we met a man who told us we were supposed to have walked around the pyramid and come up a less steep route… It was spectacular up there though, we could see for miles. We went back down (the proper route this time) and took a detour to see a huge granite arch that had formed naturally by erosion of the stone. We finished the visit off by having lunch watching some kangaroos grazing close by. A great place to visit!

Australia: Crikey! Brisbane

2009-03-30T23:31:00.004+13:00

Bright and early on Monday morning we made our way to Australia Zoo, the late Steve Irwin’s legacy. We had a fun day wandering around seeing all the Aussie animals. You could feed the kangaroos or have your picture taken with various different animals that the keepers brought out around the park during the day. Steve Irwin seems to be still alive and well there as there are pictures of him and videos of him everywhere you go.

From there we made the short trip on down to Brisbane and found our Aussie mate Steph’s house. We met Steph in 2006 when we went paddling in Uganda! We’d kept in touch enough to know she was still in Brisbane and thankfully she was happy to have us to stay for a few days. We all ended up staying up a lot later than usual each night catching up on the last couple of years and talking about more recent things!

While we were there we spent one day seeing around the city. It turned out to be Melbourne Cup Day and we were surprised to see lots of people getting dressed up in their finery to celebrate the race so far away from the track. It is a big night out across the country apparently. Steph didn’t really know much about it though! I think she has much more interest in paddling than horses, or night’s out for that matter! That night she treated us to some authentic Asian cuisine, which turned out to be really tasty. It was also fun making real spring rolls by hand. I might need a bit more practice at that!

The next day we went to the Wet’n’Wild Theme Park, in the rain… There were fabulous slides there which we stuck for as long as we could before giving in to the cold. It’s worth a trip, but maybe when the weather is a bit better! Back in the warm car again we drove over to see the famous Gold Coast. We stopped at Surfers Paradise, which wasn’t looking so much like a paradise due to the rain. It seemed much more like a beach with lots of high rise hotels and apartments overlooking it. We decided that having seen it now, we could leave and not have to go back again!

That night Steph continued her culinary education by treating us to something properly Australian, kangaroo steaks. These apparently had to be eaten quite rare, so while Seán was looking around for a defibrillator to get it going again, I tucked in. They were pretty rare to be fair to Seán though! Quite a strong gamey taste to it though.

Our trip in Australia had so far been quite different to New Zealand. We only had the Lonely Planet to guide us and were following the same route as all the other tourists. Steph changed our trip around by telling us about all the places she likes to go that were anywhere near our intended route, for which we were very grateful. And so, with her notes in hand, we set off south again, only this time going inland and off the beaten tourist trail.

Australia: Fraser Island

2009-03-30T10:32:00.004+13:00

Our next stop was at the adjoining towns of Agnes Water and Town of 1770 where we walked along yet more spectacular beaches. That night we made it to Hervey Bay, the jumping off point for trips to Fraser Island. It was a pleasant change to leave the car parked the next day, finally staying in one spot for more than one night. We had a meeting in the afternoon with the group we were to travel to Fraser Island with to give us a bit of insight into driving on the sand island as we were going on a self driving trip. It turned out that there were two more Irish couples in our group, a pair of English girls and a pair of German girls. Luckily we all got on ok making our three days together on the island much more enjoyable.

On Friday morning our group gathered again and we were sent forth in our jeep to get the ferry to the island. Danielle was first to take the wheel and bravely reversed onto the ferry last so we were first onto the island. The first stop on our itinerary was Lake McKenzie which had beautiful clear fresh water with a hint of sunscreen! We went for a swim there and had lunch before heading on across the island to the beach. Driving up the beach we saw the Maheno Shipwreck and The Pinnacles (a sand formation) before arriving at our campsite for the night at Dundubara. That night we had a barbeque dinner and went for a walk on the beach in the dark to celebrate Halloween. Just one dingo went past, making us jump!

The next morning we raced against the tide to make it along the beach as far as Indian Head. While we waited for the falling tide we watched the sea from the top of the headland and saw a dolphin surfing in the waves. We also went on to the Champagne Pools. Unfortunately we stopped a bit short of our destination at a spot where we saw other people, assuming that was where we were looking for. After an hour or two Seán and one of the girls went wandering and found the actual champagne pools; pools with a wall around them that the waves can crash over, creating a bubble effect in the still pool water. We had a little time to enjoy the bubbles before heading back to the jeep.

We were taking turns to drive the jeep, so I had a go on the way back down the beach on quite a nice surface as the tide had just gone out. We later had quite a scary trip (cut short by a good deal of complaints from the other passengers) when one of the youngest members of our group took the wheel. She clearly had decided that the best way to go was to put her boot down and race along. That would have been fine if it wasn’t for little streams going across the beach at random that we could easily crash the jeep in!

With a change of driver or two, we arrived at Eli Creek, a little stream that you can walk up and float down, which we did before playing our own version of net-less net ball in the shallow water. That night we stayed in K’Gari Aboriginal Camp and after dinner sat around a campfire with some other groups that were staying there also, listening to a digiridoo being played by our aborigine host. It was passed around among the men to try, but apparently women cannot touch real digiridoos due to legend saying they will get pregnant, among other nasty things!

On our last day on the island we went for a long walk over the Hammerstone Sandblow to get to Lake Wabby. When we were only half way there we were questioning the sense of this trip – it was incredibly hot and we were walking across what really felt like a little part of the desert! A quick swim in the lake was refreshing enough to make us tackle the return trip. We had our last lunch at Lake McKenzie again before catching the ferry back to the mainland again. Seán and I were anxious to get moving south again so that evening we got back in our rental car and went as far as Mooloolaba that night.

Australia: Moving South from Cairns

2009-03-30T10:24:00.006+13:00

On Saturday morning we got a rental car and hit the road again. We had been hoping to get a camper but would have had to wait until the following Wednesday to get one. Apparently it was busy season for campers! We drove through the Atherton Tablelands where there were beautiful views of the countryside and coast below us. We stopped at Lake Eacham for lunch before going along the waterfall trail to Millaa Millaa Falls, Zillie Falls and Ellinjaa Falls – I wonder who named them all!

That night we got as far as Mission Beach and stayed in a lovely hostel called the Treehouse. They were having a group barbeque that night so we joined in. A good tasty meal for just $5 so we were happy! The following morning we tried some sea kayaking. Unfortunately we could only hire sit-on-tops but we made do and spent a lovely hour floating on the South Pacific.

We wanted to keep moving south so we drove on to Bowen that day, arriving in the renowned Airlie Beach the next morning. Having looked into going on a tour of the Whitsundays we finally decided not to. It seemed that we would be spending 2/3 days on a boat just to see some islands and go snorkelling, which we had already done. So, after a quick swim in the lagoon in Airlie Beach and lunch we moved on towards Mackay.

On the way there we took a detour inland to the Finch Hatton Gorge, which turned out to be really worthwhile. Watched by cheeky cookaburras we walked through the forest to the cascades, a pretty waterfall, and on to the wheel of fire! It was a nice pool where we decided to go swimming. The water turned out to be really freezing, but after the initial shock it was wonderfully refreshing. The best bit was we had it all to ourselves, having finally managed to leave the busloads of tourists along the coast!

Ever moving onwards, the next day we made it to Rockhampton and had lunch after a walk through the Kershaw Gardens before continuing to Gladstone where we found a “fun and fitness” course. It was pretty tough – a running track with about 14 stops along the way with different exercises to do like sit ups, push ups, chin ups and lovely things like that! It did make our run much more interesting, and challenging, that evening! We tried it again the next morning before hitting the road.

Australia: Around Cairns

2009-03-30T10:17:00.004+13:00

We had a stop over in Brisbane on our way from Auckland to Cairns, which proved to be a little exciting. As there was very little time between the flights all the connecting passengers were told by the airline to stay together. We were rushed through immigration and customs and raced to pick up our bags, where we waited for 10 precious minutes for a family who had taken their time going through duty free! When they sauntered in we were told to group together and get taxis to the other terminal as (having waited so long) we now didn’t have time to get the connecting train! We decided the airline could be responsible for the fare. After all that excitement we had a pleasant flight on to Cairns. On that trip I was sitting beside a nice man called Kevin who kindly gave us a lift to our hostel.

Anxious to start seeing Australia we booked ourselves onto a tour out to the Great Barrier Reef for the next day, which saw us boarding our cruiser at 7.30am. During the day we went snorkelling in two different spots. First we stopped at Michaelmas Cay and enjoyed snorkelling close to the beach. The coral and fish were beautiful and this time when I saw a manta ray I didn’t scream and swim away as fast as I could! Sean saw a black tipped shark which could have caused that reaction from me had I seen it though! Our second stop was somewhere with no land in sight and decent waves. I found it easier to dive with my snorkel than keep breathing just under the surface! It was already hitting us how many Irish there are in Australia, especially in the touristy areas of the East Coast, as half the boats passengers seemed to be Irish. We had avoided Irish tourists for most of trip so far, so it was coming as a shock to be surrounded by so many Irish accents again.

Our next trip from Cairns was up to Kuranda on a gondola over the rainforest. En route the gondola stopped to let us have a quick walk through some of the rainforest and also to see Barron Falls, a lovely waterfall that would be amazing if it hadn’t been so dry at the time! In Kuranda we walked through the markets reminding ourselves of excess baggage charges before getting the train back down to Cairns again. The train trip was more fun than the gondola as we went through the forest and could see much more than just treetops!

Our last week in New Zealand!

2009-03-30T09:51:00.005+13:00

We got back from Samoa in the small hours of a Tuesday morning and so missed the Team Latte paddle that morning, but we did make breakfast with the group before going into the Backpackers Car Market once more. It was time to sell our van. We had put it on a website, Trade Me, before going to Samoa but nothing had come of that. We booked the van in for the following Friday morning, as the market was quite busy at the time. While we were in town we took a look at the other vehicles on sale there and were amazed at the prices. Having seen that we quickly decided to up our asking price a bit!

That night we went to Greg’s house for a barbeque and met his new housemates – two German girls and one Irish guy. The three Irish started talking to each other so quickly Greg was left smiling in the corner for a while, not having a clue what we were saying to each other. I think we haven’t lost our accents at all!

On Friday morning we brought our scrubbed up van to the Backpackers Car Market again, arriving about 10am. By noon several people had looked at it and one couple sent it for a mechanical check. At 4pm the results were in and they agreed to buy it. Easy!

Selling the van so easily meant we were free to go to Taupo on Saturday without any worries. Ron and Carolanne were kind enough to lend us their spare car so we drove down and found everyone in the back garden around the hangi. A hangi is the traditional Maori way of cooking and the lads in Taupo had decided to try doing one specially for our going away party.

Here’s my simple explanation of a hangi: first you dig a big hole, light a big fire in it and heat stones (or in this case some big lumps of steel) on top. When the fire has died down and the stones are hot you put the food on top of them, wrapped in tin foil and sacking. The food is then buried in the soil you dug out of the hole and left smoking for the afternoon. This was the guys’ first attempt at it and there wasn’t a bit of Maori blood in any of them, so they were pretty pleased when it all turned out to be edible and quite nicely cooked. It was a great way to finish up our time in Taupo and we’re really grateful to all at 16 Rahui Street for having put that effort in and hosting a great party.

A few more Irish friends (Barry, Eibhlin and AnneMarie) were in Taupo that weekend too, so we met up with them and they were able to come to the party so it was a great weekend.

When we got back up to Auckland we had to pack up the two polo boats that we were shipping home, along with all the things we’d decided to put in them (which turned out to be quite a lot). Thankfully everything fitted and we were just about able to carry the package out to the truck that picked them up. Then we squeezed our remaining things into a bag for the trip home.

On our second last night in New Zealand we had a big Oosterdijk family dinner with Mammy and Daddy, Dave and Nic, Uncle Steve and Auntie Pauline and Uncle Denis and Auntie Anita. The following morning we made it out for our last Team Latte paddle and breakfast. That night, after dinner with Ron and Carolanne, we went to Andy’s house for the night as it’s near the airport.

Waiting for our taxi the next morning we saw a white rabbit hopping up the street, strange! After a bit of re-arranging of our luggage at the airport to meet the weight restrictions, we were off to Australia to start the trip home.

Samoa

2008-11-28T20:33:00.004+13:00

Our years visa was about to expire, but we weren’t quite finished with New Zealand yet, so we set off to Samoa for a week with the plan of returning to New Zealand as regular tourists while we sold our remaining bits and pieces and packed up. Carolanne gave us a lift to the airport and we hopped on our plane to Samoa without any trouble. We’d been warned that the plane would be laden with tinfoil wrapped KFC meals, which are considered a great delicacy in Samoa. We were quite disappointed when we didn’t see any KFC, but we did see several bundles of McDonalds instead. Half way to Samoa there was a great rustling on the plane as they all tucked into their McDonalds meals, hopefully not too cold at that stage!

En route to the island we had crossed over the date line, so even though we had left New Zealand on Monday 6th October, we arrived in Samoa on Sunday 5th. Similarly on our way back to New Zealand Monday 13th October 2008 didn’t exist for us at all!

When we arrived we took a bus from the airport to our hotel in Apia and rushed out to get some dinner before all the restaurants closed (maybe we should have followed the lead of all the McDonalds munching locals!) We had to wake up a taxi driver asleep on his back seat to get us home again.

The following day we decided to see around the capital city, Apia. We walked into the town via the Maketi Fou (Food Market) and Flea Market before going on to the coast where we looked at various monuments and the government buildings. That afternoon we went snorkelling in Palolo Deep Marine Reserve. As it was quite near high tide we didn’t get to see much of the “deep” part but it was good fun swimming with multicoloured fish through the coral.

On Tuesday morning we were up early to go on a tour around Upolo Island. We were the only people on the tour and had a driver and tour guide just to ourselves. It was a really interesting day, helped a bit by the comfort of an air conditioned van as we drove around. We stopped at several places including their rugby stadium, a few waterfalls and beaches. Our favourite was swimming in the Piula Cave Pool. It is a fresh water pool near the beach, which is partly uncovered but also goes about 10 metres into a cave. The water was crystal clear and we had no trouble seeing fish in the water with us even inside the cave.

We also got some coconut education on the tour. Firstly we drank the juice of young coconuts, which is much sweeter than the mature coconuts we get at home. We also had a demonstration on how to make coconut cream. They take a mature coconut and rasp it out and squeeze the shavings to get the cream out. It is very tasty!

After a quick visit to see some turtles we were home again. We arranged to go to a Fia Fia buffet dinner that night. A Fia Fia involves traditional fire dancing. It was quite a show, and we were the only non-nationals there. Because of that they put us up at the front right in the middle and gave us a special mention during the show!

We had been told by a few people that Savaii was by far the nicer of the two islands of Samoa so on Wednesday morning we got a ferry across, hoping to get a hire car to drive around the island for a couple of days. When we arrived we discovered there were no rental cars to be had so we decided to think about what to do over lunch. The taxi drivers were quite insistent and pestered us quite a lot. We had been told that Tanu Beach Fales was a great place to stay. When we came out of the restaurant after lunch we spotted a Tanu Beach Fales van so hailed that and got a lift to the accommodation with him, much to the disgust of the taxi driver that was trying to adopt us.

The van driver turned out to be a son of the owner and he called ahead to get a fale prepared for us. Open fales are thatched huts with no walls used for shade during the day, which can have walls of woven reeds attached for sleeping. Our fale was right on the beach and we made the most of it, going swimming and relaxing in the shade.

On Thursday morning a group of 12 people staying at Tanu Beach Fales set off with Grace, a daughter of the owner, for a tour of Savaii Island. We paid just $90 for this tour but as the day went on the number of $2 or $5 we had to fork out for various “attractions” built up! Anyway, en route we saw the Canopy Rainforest Walkway, which was a fun walk up a big tree house really to see above the rainforest. That was followed by paying $2 to look over a cliff at the side of the road… lover’s leap. The Alofaaga Blowholes were fun, as a local man put on a display for us, throwing coconut husks into the holes just before they blew, sending the husks high into the air, while he ran away from the water! We went for a refreshing swim at the Afu Aau Waterfall and later we swam with the turtles at Saloalepai.

That night and the next morning we were given the excuse of staying in bed by a big thunderstorm. Unfortunately it didn’t remove the humidity for long. In any case we had to go back to Upolo Island for our flight home. We were flying out on Sunday evening, but that day the entire island shut down to celebrate White Sunday. The only place we found open for lunch was McDonalds! We made our way to the Papaseea Sliding Rocks where we entertained ourselves for a while in the pools of the river. Seán tried sliding down the rocks, but after looking at how shallow it was and listening to his shouts, I passed!

After a nice relaxing week off it was time to fly back to Auckland and sort out our things before starting the trip home.

River Paddling again – The Wairoa, Aniwhenua & Mid Rangitaiki

2008-11-28T19:51:00.004+13:00

On Sunday 28th September there was a release on the Wairoa so a group of us got together and drove to the river near Tauranga. The new arrival to the Auckland Canoe Polo Club was a guy called Sam from Switzerland. We picked DaveI and Sam up and met up with Paul en route. As Seán and I had just sold our huka, and Nic’s scud, we borrowed more boats from DaveO. I got Nic’s rad and Seán had an inazone 230. We had a good day out just doing two runs of the lower section. We had a bit of fun in the whirlpool on our second run down – take a look at Seán’s website for a video of it.

The following weekend we went down to the Lake Aniwhenua campsite for our last proper weekend in New Zealand (this trip!). It was also Nic’s birthday on the Saturday so a good group of about 30 of us gathered there to help her celebrate. On the Saturday I ran the Aniwhenua section of the Rangitaiki in a topoduo twice. First time I had a complete beginner, Sue, who loved every minute of it. We quickly started paddling back up eddies to go down the rapids again! Second time around I had Tanya, who had paddled a little before. We did a couple of impressive rescues on that trip!

Our Irish friends; Nicki, Davin and Michelle arrived at the lake while we were on the first run, so Nicki and Davin had joined us on the second run. Unfortunately Davin decided to try to eat Dave’s kayak on the trip and broke one of his teeth – yes, the plastic in kayaks is pretty strong! He has since had his tooth fixed and his grin is back to normal.

Later that day five of us; Fuzzy, Greg, Dave, Andy and I, went for a quick run down the mid-section of the Rangitaiki. It was a fun run, bouncing our way down not bothering to take any eddies as we were hoping not to run out of daylight! When we got back to the campsite we were hoping that dinner would just be cooked as we were pretty hungry, but no, the rest of the group decided they’d wait for us to get back before starting cooking! A tasty dinner was had by all, possibly made extra tasty by the fact that some of us were so hungry!

While we were doing that run, Seán had raced down the Aniwhenua section in about 19 minutes. We had been taking about an hour to do it with the group…

The next morning I was woken bright and early by an apparent earthquake, which turned out to just be fuzzy shaking our van. Good thing the handbrake was on or we could have ended up in the lake! When everyone assembled a group of us got ready to go paddling. Campbell, Steve and Karrn’s son who I had taken down the river in a duo previously, asked would I take him again. Remembering his last trip with me I was quite surprised! He didn’t really like being splashed… This time however, I took the easiest routes and he stayed pretty dry and happy!

After a bite of lunch it was time for more goodbyes. Not fun, but again we promised to go back and we could be in for a lot of visitors at home over the next few years!

Kerry in Tauranga

2008-10-18T08:53:00.002+13:00

Seán’s friend, Kerry, who we had met up with in Dunedin, was on placement in Tauranga in September so we went there one weekend to see her before we leave. Her parents are living there so we stayed with them all in Tauranga. It was great to catch up with her again and Saturday was spent chatting over cups of tea.

On Sunday morning we went to Bethlehem Market where her mother sells jewellery she makes and after lunch we walked up Mount Manganui in beautiful sunshine. We got Monday off work and so were able to spend all day Sunday with her. On Monday morning we took a spin up the mountain again before meeting Kerry for lunch and going back up to Auckland via a run in the Karangahake Gorge through the tunnel we walked through with Susan.

And so begin the goodbyes!

Cambridge to Hamilton Race

2008-10-18T08:45:00.001+13:00

Carolanne was helping organise this 23km kayaking race so we decided we’d give it a go. Ron kindly loaned me his Beachcomber and Seán decided to take his Downriver Racer. As he was the only one he was put in with the fastest category of all, the Multisporters. We loaded up our van with those two boats and Uncle Steve’s Beachcomber and set off on Saturday afternoon to stay in Cambridge for the night.

Sunday morning we found most of the Oosty family and some others at the race. Ron was going in his Tasman Express, Steve in his Beachcomber, Dave and Nic in one double, Greg and Debs in another double and my fellow competitor; Chris in a Beachcomber.

I got the best start in a race I have ever got, only to be stopped just around the corner by a kid in a sea kayak claiming to have broken his rudder and lost control. I managed to hit him right in the middle and had to wait for him to move a bit to get past! Not to worry, I soon caught up with Chris and we worked together until he got cut off from following me and I was out on my own. I caught up with a few guys and hung on to them for as long as I could but my shoulders decided I was only allowed to paddle for 1 hour without them getting really sore. Problem was that it was a 2 hour race… I carried on slowly and eventually Chris caught up with me again and we managed to go over the finishing line together, though I think I was a good deal sorer than him!

It was to be my lucky day though. I never win things, through effort or luck! But this day I won a spot prize of a book about sea kayaking and a paddle leash (maybe I’ll have to take up sea kayaking with a nice shiny new Beachcomber sometime) and I managed to win my category: Women’s Open Plastic Sea Kayak. Nice!

Skiing Holiday

2008-10-18T08:19:00.003+13:00

On the last Sunday in August, in the middle of the afternoon, Seán and I realised there wasn’t that much work for us to do the next week. We texted Dave to check if he needed us for the week and his reply was “Well, not really until the ski machine is fixed. Where are you going?”. Umm, skiing we thought…

How many jobs are there where you can decide on Sunday afternoon to take off for the week?! Thanks Dave!

So, with that arranged, we packed up and headed down to Taupo on Monday morning to catch up with the lads there. The following morning we got up bright and early to get down to Mount Ruapehu and get our passes and skis. We got a three day pass at a mid week discount, which also included a one hour lesson. Already a much cheaper trip than in Europe! We had one quick run before our lesson, where I was told I was doing ok (memory of those classes in school must have come back ok) and Seán got loads of help. There was much more snow that when we were there with Susan and the weather wasn’t too bad so we had a nice day skiing loads before going back to Taupo for the night. We had planned on staying at the mountain but were ordered back as Jeanine had bought roast chicken for our dinner that night. Given that she was offering food who were we to resist! We also made use of the hot pools in Taupo AC Baths to ease our tired legs a bit.

I sent a message to Mary and Fergal telling them we were going skiing if they were around and interested so we met with them on Wednesday morning and all decided we would still ski for the day even though the weather was pretty crap. On the mountain our visibility was down to less than 10m at times so we ended up sticking to the main routes where there were plenty of people and we were happier we weren’t going to end up skiing off a cliff! The day helped my skiing as Mary and Fergal had done plenty before and trying to keep up with them sped me up a bit.

The New Zealand North Island Primary Schools Skiing Competition was scheduled to be on that day on a separate bit of the mountain, but had to be postponed because the weather caused said bit of the mountain to be closed altogether. Our little bit of the mountain was crawling with kids as a result, all of whom skied so much better than me it wasn’t fair!

That night the four of us stayed in a campsite at the bottom of the mountain. Seán and I stayed in their lodge, where we had previously stayed with Susan, and had it to ourselves complete with log fire and plenty of space to dry our gear.

Thursday morning arrived with better weather, but Mary and Fergal weren’t quite convinced it would be good enough so continued on their travels around the country. Seán and I decided we’d give it a go and were lucky enough that the day cleared quite nicely and we had the best views of the three days. As we were quite fed up of the main runs due to the day before we spent a lot more time exploring the mountain and had great fun. The schools comp was going ahead on the different slopes so it was also pretty quiet where we were.

That night we went back to Taupo and I felt sorry for my knees that had decided this skiing was too abusive to them, especially after the life long abuse of horse riding and kayaking. We made use of the hot AC Baths again on Friday and by Saturday we were good enough to go up Mount Tauhara (the little mountain outside Taupo) again. On our own this time we were up and down in under 1 hour 30 minutes and after a quick lunch we headed back to Auckland. We had left the Oosty house with strict instructions we were to be back for a family dinner that Sunday!

Jet Boating in Auckland Harbour!

2008-10-15T16:42:00.001+13:00

Remember the jet boat that we went down the Wanganui River in back last November? Well, since then it’s got a bigger engine and some other things changed (and they took the big stone out of the impeller) so now it’s really really fast! They’ve added a bar behind the driver which is very useful to hand on to for dear life, as I found out pretty quickly when Dave took us out in the Harbour in Auckland one quiet Saturday morning.

Dave and some others were out practising for a swim from Paihia to Russell in Northland. It’s a relay swim where each swimmer dives into the water grabbing the team flag on the way and swims until the support boat has caught up with them and someone else takes over, leaving the first swimmer to get back into the boat again. Then the boat catches up with the second swimmer and a third swimmer takes over and so on. I think they had about 4 swimmers per team who each do several quick sprints until they are nearly in Russell, at which stage the team diver takes over the flag and swims along the sea bed to the shore, runs up the beach and skulls a drink to win the race. Strange you might think, but the people doing this are the same people that play Underwater Hockey and Underwater Rugby so it’s a perfectly normal thing for them to do!

While they practised their turnovers, the rest of us were left to play with the jet boat. Seán had fun driving us around the harbour and under the bridge at ridiculous speeds, while I hung onto the safety bar! Good fun!

Underwater Rugby...

2008-10-15T15:30:00.001+13:00

Yes, it does exist, and Seán and I have now played it. Only once though, so sorry to those of you in the know if I mess up any of the following interpretations of the rules and regulations!

It’s played wearing snorkelling gear and a coloured swimming cap to distinguish between teams. The goals are similar to big flower pots and are weighted to sit at the bottom of a five metre pool. The ball is a small basketball filled with salt water to weight it so as it drops to the bottom of the pool at just the correct speed. Tackles are allowed anywhere bar a players flippers, though if the tackled player is feeling a little lacking in the oxygen department they can just drop the ball and must be released so they can swim back to the surface. The ball has to stay below the surface of the water to avoid a turnover.

It’s a very strange but pretty cool game to play (bar when my ears hurt once I went below 4m). There is a real 3D aspect to it as you can not only be tackled from the side but also from above or below you. As this was only the third time Seán and I had ever been snorkelling it was pretty hard work. My efforts generally involved waiting for a good moment, trying to do something useful and then swimming as fast as I could for the surface again where I floated panting for air for a while! I had one moment of almost glory though when I got the ball at about half way and everyone else had gone to the surface for air, so I swam my heart out despite the protests of my lungs and just as I was about to put the ball in the basket to score Emma arrived in between me and the basket. Very mean of her I thought! I spent quite a bit of time on the surface recovering from that effort!

After playing Underwater Rugby, I think I might fare a little better playing Underwater Hockey, as they only use a two metre deep pool for that so my ears might not complain as much. It was good fun though, even if we were lured to the pool on the pretence that we could just go for an ordinary swim at surface level while the others played rugby!

Back to Normality

2008-10-15T15:03:00.001+13:00

After Susan left we had a good nights sleep (without her snoring!) and went for a run in Okura Scenic Reserve the next day. It’s another forest to the north of Auckland with a long track through it. Unfortunately it’s a bit soggy at the moment with all the rain we’ve been having so we went home after our run and put all our muddy clothes straight into the washing machine! That night we met up Seona again, just before she left the country.

For the next while life reverted to the usual timetable of working and paddling, so I’ll not bore you with tales of that.

We also had more Irish visitors, Mary and Fergal, so we met up with them a couple of times in Auckland before they headed off around the country in a campervan.

Susan's visit - Tauranga and back to Auckland

2008-10-15T14:51:00.000+13:00

With just two days left of Susan’s visit we drove from Taupo to Tauranga in the hopes of seeing Mount Manganui. When we arrived the weather was awful so instead we had a bite of lunch and went on to Te Puna and met up with some of my new found fifth cousins; a son of Margaret from Hamilton, Tracey, and his family. Tracey has been researching his genealogy and has gathered a lot of information already and was delighted to meet us to hear about more of his old relations. After giving him as much information as we had, we left with promises to email him with family trees and other details we have back at home.

That night we stayed in a campsite in Bowentown and made the most of their spa the next morning before going on to see the goldmine in Waihi. On our way to Paeroa we stopped in the Karangahake Gorge and went for a walk alongside the river and through a 1km long former rail tunnel.

In Paeroa we stopped and had a look at one of the giant drinks bottles advertising the famous New Zealand drink Lemon & Paeroa while a couple more new tyres were put on the van. Then it was time to get back up to Auckland for dinner before dropping Susan to the airport for her flight home.

Susan's visit - Mount Tauhara

2008-10-15T14:34:00.001+13:00

To continue our busy schedule, the day after our parachute jump (finished off by Susan going swimming and soaking in the hot pools while Seán and I went to the gym) we decided to walk up Mount Tauhara. This mountain is just outside Taupo and Seán and I had gone up it with Jeanine in January. Unfortunately the great weather hadn’t quite held so we weren’t anticipating great views from the top.

After just under an hour we reached the top and had a quick break before heading back down. Susan dashed off on the downward trip; trying to get off the mountain asap perhaps? I don’t think she’s going to forgive us for making her do that particular hillwalk! As we guessed, the views weren’t quite worth it but at least we’d seen as far as we could with the parachute jump the day before, and the exercise was good for us!

Susan's visit - The Parachute Jump!!!

2008-10-15T13:56:00.000+13:00

After our days skiing, we woke in Taupo to a beautiful clear day, perfect for Susan’s last request – a parachute jump. After a bit of indecision on my part, put aside by Susan and Seán both telling me I was doing it, and Susan deciding that Dad was paying for it (thanks Dad!), we booked our flights. We then got another pair of tyres put on our van which finally put an end to the bone shaking drives we had been experiencing!

The Taupo parachute jump companies are all based around the small Taupo airport. When we arrived we were treated to a video explaining what would happen. My stomach started turning… We then got dressed up in our jumpsuits and met our tandem partners.

Before I knew it we were heading up into the sky in a tiny airplane and I was shaking – largely due to the cold up there, but also from sheer terror. My opinion was, quite firmly, why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good plane! On the way up Susan’s partner pointed out many of the sites in the central north island, as we could see quite a distance. For the second day in a row we could see right over to Mount Taranaki in the west as well as Mounts Ruapehu and Ngaurahoe across the lake.

We climbed up to 15,000 feet and the door was opened – then I was in a perfectly good airplane with the door wide open! Susan was the first to go so she and her tandem partner shuffled to the door and rolled out quite quickly. The problem with that was that it was my turn to go next! I reluctantly did the shuffle to the door and my tandem partner rocked us back and forward and suddenly we were out. I was quite impressed that I managed not to scream my head off. I’m not sure if that was just cos I couldn’t make any noise at all though… We whizzed down rapidly for what felt like ages and I spent most of that time concentrating on breathing! The jump from 15,000 feet includes over a minute of freefall. With a little bump and a welcome reduction in speed our parachute opened and so started what was definitely the best part of the jump. We floated gently down taking in the breathtaking views of the lake, the mountains and green fields everywhere. From that I can really understand why people go paragliding and all those similar free flight sports.

All too soon I had to tuck my legs up and we landed with a bump back on the ground where we had started. Only then did I think of Susan and Seán. They were both still in the air (perhaps showing more enthusiasm than me) but soon landed beside me. We agreed that the jump was good fun, but unfortunately for us it wasn’t quite the buzz we had expected. On subsequent contemplation Seán and I reckon that we are both control freaks and the reason for the lack of buzz was because we had no control whatsoever over the parachute and it’s opening. Because of being entirely in the hands of our tandem jumpers we felt like we were just along for the ride. But despite that I loved the bit after the freefall was over!

Susan's visit - Skiing at Mount Ruapehu

2008-10-15T13:14:00.000+13:00

It was time for us to do a bit of skiing, another activity Susan had requested for her visit. We got up early (in the opinions of Seán and I at least) and were up at the mountain by 9am. Unfortunately so was half of New Zealand as it was still school holiday time. We were planning on only doing a half days skiing but as we only got onto the mountain with our skis at 11 we quickly decided to go for the full day.

As Seán had never skied before, he went down to the aptly named “Happy Valley” and got a lesson while Susan and I headed up and tried to remember how to ski. It had been quite a while for both of us! We had a great day exploring the mountain and even got some great pics. We ended up above the clouds and had a fantastic view of Mount Ngauruhoe and even Mount Taranaki far off to the west.

By mid afternoon Susan’s patched up ankle started giving out so we decided to pack it in for the day. We tried contacting Seán to tell him we’d stopped but his mobile battery died as soon as I texted. We were quite surprised when he skied for the full day, given his lack of enthusiasm when we’d left him that morning. However, it turned out that he had been having a great day practising everything he learned in his lesson.

Once we finally managed to locate Seán we headed up to Taupo again to catch up with the household there.

Susan's visit - The Whanganui River Road

2008-07-30T16:44:00.000+12:00

In Wanganui, Seán and I took a look at the map to see where to go the next day. We had been planning on going skiing the next day, but it was going to be a Sunday and, as it was in the middle of the school holidays, we decided it would probably be better to go skiing on Monday instead as the slopes might be a bit quieter. We didn’t have far to travel to the slopes, so Seán suggested we go down the Wanganui River Road, though the next day he protested that I had misinterpreted him… I had wondered why he was suggesting going down such a long unsealed road!

Either way, we set off on Sunday morning and started going down that road. There were great views with the river on one side of us some distance down, and great cliffs on the other side. Also, the road started off as sealed so it was all going quite well until we came around a corner and saw a slip in front of us. With all the recent rain bits of the cliffs had come loose and slipped down onto the road. In this case two pretty big rocks had fallen down and were perfectly placed in the road just far enough apart that you couldn’t get past them. As the surface of the road wasn’t good enough to hit the brakes Seán opted to go around them on the side of the road, which was very muddy but fine until all the wheels left the hard surface and we just glided slowly over until we came to a gentle stop against the cliff. Thankfully it was of a similarly slippy muddy surface and did no damage to the van, other than getting it very dirty!

As the van was stuck in the mud, we got out and started trying to work out how to get it out again. We tried pushing, but the pushers couldn’t get purchase on the mud with their feet to get a decent effort in. Then we tried putting mats at the tyres to give them something to grip on, together with some strong grasses we cut out. We were just about to try that combination when a 4WD truck arrived around the corner! With next to no effort the van was toed back onto the road and we were off within ten minutes of arriving there. Given that this is a back country road we were pretty pleased with that result!

After that excitement we drove on a little bit until we arrived at the end of the Atene Skyline walking track so we put our boots on and set off up the hill with our cameras. The track started going through woodland and was beautiful and sheltered. However, soon enough we hit some nasty steps and then a whole lot of mud. We made it up the hill to a good viewpoint in about half an hour though and made the most of it before heading back down. I was taking my time and being careful and was quite glad I was doing so when I heard a shriek behind me that was Susan almost falling over in the mud on the way down! Though she didn’t fall all the way she ended up with very muddy trousers! After that adventure we decided it was lunchtime so parked up at the side of the road and made ourselves tea (or coffee for Susan, she doesn’t do tea! Silly!) and sandwiches and dried out a bit in the sun.

The slips weren’t done with us yet though. As we continued down the road (which turned out to be sealed for a lot of the way, but still with some impressively potholed dirt sections) we encountered a few muddy slips that we could just drive carefully through, a tree that we had to get out and break some branches off so the high roofed van could get through, and another tree trunk that had been sawn off at the spot where you could just get past it and keep your tyres on the road. The most impressive was the last one though. We had driven over 50km down this road and were nearly at the end of it when we came around a corner and saw a massive slip that had covered a large section of the road with a couple of feet deep of mud. There were a couple of diggers working there and a big truck set up on the other side. We couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that we’d come so far and now it looked like we’d have to go back past all those other slips again! However, one of the workers told us to carry on and drive through on the basis that there was sealed road underneath all that mud, so we drove on thinking that at least there was enough machinery there to pull us out if we got stuck this time! By some miracle we actually made it through and got to the end of that road in one piece, even if the van and the three of us were all pretty muddy! It took two goes at washing the van before it started looking respectable again!

Back on proper roads again we drove to Okahune in the hopes of getting somewhere to stay there for the night near the ski slopes. Everywhere in our budget range was booked out so we carried on to Whakapapa and got checked into hostel type accommodation there where we had a tasty dinner and laughed at our day’s mini adventures!

Susan's visit - back in Wellington

2008-07-30T16:43:00.000+12:00

Having missed out on the Beehive tour before, Susan and I got up early and got the bus into town, but yet again we were a little late so instead we went straight to Old St. Paul’s Cathedral. When we’d called in there the other day there was a lunchtime concert on, which we enjoyed for a while before having to leave. As a result we hadn’t seen the war display that is in the old church. This morning Susan and I spent some time there watching a video of people’s memories from war times.

We made sure to leave in time to get to the Beehive early for the next tour and finally were lucky enough to get on it. As the school holidays were still on there was a big group of about 30 of us and we had the same guide as Seán and I had previously. Once we’d finished we met Seán for lunch and carried on to the country’s main museum, Te Papa where we split up each going to see what we wanted, arranging to meet when it closed. It’s a massive museum so Seán and I were able to see parts that we had not seen before. The best bit about it is it’s free to go in, so you can come and go as you please and don’t have to see it all in one day.

The next morning we decided it was time to move on up the country, though with the pouring rain outside we weren’t even keen on leaving the house! When we finally got moving we drove up to Palmerstown North where we stopped for lunch and to finally meet Anne, a downriver paddler that Seán had been in touch with since we arrived but never managed to meet. She happens to be the only person in New Zealand who is doing downriver paddling at the moment. She was just back from the Worlds in Europe where she did pretty well and had met the Irish team. She and Seán talked non-stop for well over an hour and then it was time to hit the road again. We carried on to the town of Wanganui and got set up in a cabin at a campsite on the banks of the river, which we could tell was pretty swollen, even in the dark!

Susan's visit - Christchurch

2008-07-29T16:24:00.001+12:00

Back in Christchurch again we met up with another Irish paddler, Mike and his Chinese wife, Alice, who he met and married in New Zealand, but who had just returned from a year in Canada. International? The next morning we got up early to see as much of Christchurch as possible before our flight back up to Wellington that evening.

We started by following the Lonely Planet walking tour from Christchurch Cathedral to the Botanic Gardens ending in the Museum, having seen all the sights along the way. After lunch Susan went back to the museum to see their special display – the Da Vinci machines that Seán and I had seen previously in Nelson. Unfortunately the school holidays had started that week, lasting for a fortnight of Susan’s visit, meaning that most places we went were pretty busy with parents and children making the most of their holidays.

Before we knew it, it was time to get back to the airport to fly back up to the North Island. Although our flight was delayed a small bit we made it back to Wellington without any problems. It’s pretty amazing how relaxed security is for internal flights here. So far we’ve taken five internal flights and on none of them have we had to produce any ID. When our flight from Auckland to Christchurch was delayed for the day we were free to go in and out of security as many times as we wished. For this flight back up to Wellington we didn’t go through any security of any sort! There was just a short corridor with the shops at one end and gates at the other end and no metal detectors or anything else to slow us down!

Susan's visit - The TranzAlpine: Christchurch to Greymount via Arthur's Pass

2008-07-29T16:18:00.000+12:00

It was late in the evening when we arrived in Christchurch but we got a shuttle to our hostel and then went out for pizza. We were booked on the TranzAlpine train tour over Arthur’s Pass to Greymouth and back for the next day and in the hostel we were told that a shuttle ran to the train station every morning about 7am and we just had to wait outside for it.

We had a quick breakfast before going outside to wait for the bus at 7am. At 7.45am we were very cold and getting worried, as the bus had still not arrived and our tickets said that we had to be checked in before 7.45… However, the shuttle company obviously knew differently and finally turned up and got us there just in time. We had hoped to get a bit more substantial a breakfast while waiting in the station but there was nothing there bar a dodgy coffee machine so we got on the train, found our seats and settled in for the day.

The trip claims to be one of the world’s greatest train journeys and starts along the flat of the Canterbury Plains with the Alps looming in the distance, getting more beautiful the closer we got. There had been some awful weather over the country while we were in Hawkes Bay, the only place to be missed by said bad weather. As a result the mountains were perfectly snow capped. Also as a result we ended up being quite delayed along the trip as the points along the track were frozen and the driver had to keep stopping the train to get out to move them.

Once we got to the mountains we started climbing through gorges and tunnels, up the “Staircase” and over several viaducts making our way to the small settlement of Arthur’s Pass. We stopped there for some time while waiting for the air to be cleared in our next tunnel, the longest on the trip at 8.5km, through which a coal train had just passed. The delay was again as a result of the bad weather, which had caused one of the two extraction fans in the tunnel to break. It gave us plenty of time to take photos though!

Having enjoyed the scenery all the way we arrived in Greymouth an over hour late, just after the time that the train was timetabled to leave. The train had to be cleaned and refuelled regardless of the time so we were still allowed an hour to go into Greymouth. As it is not a very interesting town we used that time up finding somewhere that was still open for lunch and eating.

Back on the train again it was a similarly beautiful trip back up into the mountains again. It was still daylight when we went into the “Otira”, the long tunnel I told you about. It is at quite a steep gradient so, while it hadn’t taken us long to go through that morning, it was a slow trip back up. When we emerged the sun had set! I had been hoping that morning that we’d get to see the sunset when we were just leaving the mountains but with all the delays that was not to be. However, when we stopped at Arthur’s Pass there was still an amazing pink glow to the sky as per the photo here.

We hopped back on the train when the siren sounded and were glad of the heat inside. We carried on to Christchurch in darkness, unfortunately missing out on the last bit of sightseeing for the day. It was a really good trip with beautiful scenery that you could relax and enjoy fully without having to worry about driving or anything else so it’s worth doing if you want to see the mountains in comfort.

Susan's visit - Wellington, briefly!

2008-07-29T16:15:00.000+12:00

We drove down one of the few main roads that Seán and I had not already been on from Hastings to Wellington. It wasn’t a very exciting road though, which is why we hadn’t been on it before! We had arranged to stay at Alan’s house and were treated to a tasty lasagne by his housemate, Carmen, when we arrived. They had a full house this time so Susan got the couch and Seán and I got the floor.

The next day Susan and I got a bus into the city and went on tour. First of all we got the cable car from the city up to the Botanic Gardens, where there is a great view. We walked through the gardens back down to the Parliament Buildings. The main building is nicknamed the Beehive due to its shape. They run a free tour through it every hour and, as we had just missed a tour we carried on to the New and Old St. Paul’s Cathedrals before meeting Alan and Seán for lunch. After lunch we tried to go on the parliament tour but were too late again, so we walked back along the main street to the information centre where we booked accommodation for Christchurch that night. We got the bus via Mount Victoria back to the house and packed up our things and got ready to hop on a plane to the South Island!

Susan's visit - Hawkes Bay

2008-07-29T16:12:00.001+12:00

When we arrived in Hawkes Bay we took a quick look at the art deco architecture in Napier in the dying light before going on to Hastings and checking into the Top 10 campsite there. We explained how there were three of us but our van only fitted two and asked what our cheapest option would be. We must have got the guy at a weak moment as we ended up sleeping in the van with Susan in a cabin for $45 total per night!

We had arranged with Philip, our hunting friend, to have a day out with the Hawkes Bay hunt that Saturday and had been planning on staying with Philip and Jane. However, during the week I got an email from him saying that he’d had a bad accident and dislocated his shoulder and lost an eye. I gave him a call and was very relieved when he turned out to be in really good form and was adamant that he still wanted to go hunting on Saturday, but now I would have to drive. I happily agreed to those terms!

On Saturday morning we had a good breakfast and went off to collect Philip, and his car as our van only fits 3! When we arrived at the meet we called up to the house of our hosts for the day, Jamie and Pru Lowry. Pru was kind enough to lend us her 4WD Subaru for the afternoon too; as Philip’s car wouldn’t have had a chance of going up the hills we scaled that day!

As we had done the time before, we drove through the fields getting ourselves up on a perch to get a good view of the hounds and followers. We chose very well at one stage during the afternoon and had the hare and hounds pass right by us. Susan was really excited and couldn’t wait to get back to Dad with pictures and videos from the day.

It was a really cold and windy day but there were clear skies and the hounds showed us a bit of sport. We later found out that the entire rest of the country had terrible weather that day and were freezing with rain or snow. Most of the mountain passes and some other roads were closed over the next few days after the snow that fell. We were pretty glad to get back to Jane’s warm house for a tasty roast mutton dinner that night! It was brilliant to see Philip in such good form and I think Jane also appreciated having an afternoon to do all the things she hadn’t had the chance to since Philip’s accident, and again they were excellent hosts.

The next morning we took a bit of a lie in before going into Hastings to find out where the best wineries in the area were. Apparently over here they distinguish between wineries and vineyards. Wineries are vineyards with shops I think! Hawkes Bay is renowned for its red wine, which Susan loves so she was quite happy to do the tour there. We started off by going back up to Napier and taking a proper look at the art deco architecture and having a bite of lunch. Then we set off for our first winery, Mission Bay. This is the oldest vineyard in the region and has been going since 1851. We asked could we do a tasting and it turned out to be free. Seán drew the short straw and got to drive for the day, leaving Susan and I free to enjoy ourselves. Moving on from there, we went just down the road to Church Road where Susan made the most of the information we’d been told at Mission Bay by repeating it all knowledgably to our hostess there! After that we moved on towards Hastings and to Te Mata and Black Barn wineries before deciding that was quite enough for one day. The best bit of the trip was that none of the wineries charged us for the tasting. Susan finished the day well armed with bottles to bring back home. We later found out that the information site in Hastings had been good to us as those wineries are among the best in the region.

That night we finally met up with Dermot, the brother/son of the family friends from home that we met with in Auckland. We went out for a tasty dinner with him and his girlfriend Vanessa. The next morning we set out towards Wellington for the next phase of the trip.

Susan's visit - Taupo

2008-07-29T15:48:00.000+12:00

The lads in our favourite Taupo house were good enough to have all three of us to stay for the night, so we set ourselves up on the spare bed and floor space! On Friday morning we got up early to get out to Aratiatia Dam in time to see a release. Making sure we were early, we waited patiently until after the scheduled time before finding a sign saying that because of the reduced levels of the lake they were only doing a couple of releases each day. There have been strict warnings in place to use as little energy as possible as all the power generating lakes in the country are very low at the moment after the drought during the summer.

As we now had two hours to wait until the next release we went upstream to Huka Falls. Susan was very impressed and instructed us never to paddle it. Admittedly it was quite high that day and there’s no way we’d dream of paddling it at that level. From there we went to the Honey Hive only to find that it was shut for winter – things weren’t quite going according to plan! We had a quick look at the Prawn Farm and convinced Susan that she didn’t really want to go fishing for prawns in ponds! We then drove over to the Craters of the Moon and the Wairakei Terraces to show Susan all the steam that is naturally coming out of the earth in that area. At Wairakei Terraces there is a major power generating operation harnessing the energy in the steam. Later on that day we returned to Aratiatia and got to see the release. Here’s a couple of before and after pictures for you, taken about 10 minutes apart. It’s pretty impressive to see how quickly the river can go from a trickle to a big fast river. Don’t worry – we won’t be paddling that one!

That afternoon we hit the road again, this time heading to Hawkes Bay and along the way we stopped at the Bridge over the Mohaka.

Susan's visit - Rotorua

2008-07-29T15:39:00.000+12:00

We arrived in Rotorua quite late on Tuesday 1st July after visiting Margaret in Hamilton. I had planned on getting there earlier and doing something there before we ran out of daylight, but instead we booked ourselves into a campsite with naturally heated hot pools and lazed in them in the dark instead! Susan stayed in a cabin while Seán and I stayed in our van.

The next morning we started the tourist trip by going out to the Blue and Green Lakes, Mount Tarawera and Lake Tarawera. While it wasn’t as good a day as when Seán and I got the tour with Jane, you could still see the difference between the two lakes. Back in the 19th Century Mount Tarawera was a popular tourist site as there were Pink and White Terraces formed by volcanic activity in one spot. However, in 1886 the mountain erupted and covered them so there’s not much left there for us to see now!

Before lunch we went to Whakarewarawara (yes it is quite a mouthful) Forest Park and Seán and I went for a run while Susan went walking on one of the many tracks. By the time we got back an hour later we were all soaked through from the rain, and Seán and I were pretty muddy from the track too, so we went back to the campsite for showers and lunch.

With all that rain, we decided the best thing to do for the afternoon was a wet activity – zorbing! Susan wasn’t too sure if she’d be allowed to do it given the amount of metal currently in her ankle since her fall last October but it was no problem. We got a lift to the top of the hill and found out on the way that we had two choices – we could go together straight down the hill (which was the only option we had the last time Seán and I were there) or we could go on our own down the windy track. The zorb bounces so much down that track they can only use it when it’s not very windy. Of course we all opted for the windy track and so off Susan went first. She jumped into the zorb without any bother (much to our disappointment as we’d been winding her up about getting stuck half way in) and soon was off. I think she enjoyed it cos we could still clearly hear her laughing when she was half way down the hill! Seán went next and then I was off, falling all over the place and having a great time. Yet again I think everyone should try zorbing, it’s great fun! As it was still cold and wet when we finished that we got back to the campsite and went straight into the hot pools again.

Thursday proved to be a nicer day so we continued the tour of Rotorua by walking around the Government Gardens and showed Susan the bubbling pools and steam in the area. To continue our active theme we went to the Luge and Skyswing after that. Seán and I passed on the, erm, pleasure of the Skyswing so Susan was going to do it on her own but got adopted by a group of 4 South Africans who were doing it in pairs, so she hopped in with two of them. Again, I’m pretty sure she enjoyed that as, unlike me, she didn’t scream her head off, but she did laugh quite loudly!

Once she was safely back on the ground again we tried out the luge. This was the third time for Seán and I so we were pretty well clued in to the whole thing. Susan didn’t take long to pick it up and soon we were having tight three way races, with Seán playing dirty as usual and trying to push us off the track!

After that it was time to move on to Taupo. Along the way we stopped at the bubbling mud pools and briefly jumped out of the van in the pouring rain to see them. We didn’t want to wait around in that weather so were pretty quick getting back in the car and continued to Butchers Pools. These were much more natural than the hot pools at our campsite, though a lot more elaborate than Spa Park in Taupo. This pool is at a hot water spring in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere! The council realised people were going there so they built the frame of a pool with benches under the water and also a cabin for changing rooms. The rain even stopped when we got there so we hopped in to warm up for a while before carrying on to Taupo.

Susan's visit - Auckland and Hamilton

2008-07-28T15:00:00.000+12:00

After a fortnight of really terrible weather involving a lot of rain, thunder and lightning, the weather finally improved a bit just in time for Susan’s arrival. She arrived in Auckland late on Sunday 29th June so we picked her up and brought her back to the Oosty household where Carolanne and Ron were delighted to meet her.

The next morning I was letting her have a lie in to get over her jet lag, which was rudely interrupted by her jumping on my bed to get me up… Our first stop for the day was to update the rego (a kind of car tax) on our van that we’d forgotten about paying. From there we went on to Barracuda to pick Seán up as he had gone in early with Dave to fix his polo boat so Susan got to see some of the factory and meet Dave and Steve during smoko.

We then went back towards the city and drove up Mount Victoria where you can get a great view of Auckland (you can see both in the first pic). Just to the east of the mountain is North Head, which was of prime importance to the Kiwi’s during the war. They dug tunnels through the headland and put canons there to protect the city. We walked through some of the tunnels with my little head torch to guide us.

To get an even better view of the city we then went into the centre of the city and up the Sky Tower, something Seán and I had been meaning to do since we arrived! We were about to head home when we got a call from Alan saying he was in Auckland for the week and did we want to meet up, so we ended up staying in town for dinner with him before Susan started wilting from the jet lag and we got back home.

The next morning we hit the road to Rotorua. You may remember that I spent a while in the City Library doing a genealogy search and found a possible relative in Hamilton. On our way down the road I gave her a call and it turned out our guess work was on the mark. Margaret turned out to be a sprightly 80 year old who was very excited to hear from us and delighted to have us visit. It turned out that if we’d contacted her a month earlier she wouldn’t have known much about the family history at all, but her son had recently become interested in it all and was also researching. She had unfortunately just posted most of the information and photo’s off to her son, Tracey, but had just enough left to keep us occupied for a couple of hours. She told us all about her children, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, together with some details of her Robinson in-laws. We left with piles of information to relay to home and promises of meeting again and continued on our road trip!

The Irish Invade!

2008-07-23T15:08:00.001+12:00

Mid June brought an influx of Irish! The first arrivals were Debbie and Seona, two girls who were in ULKC with us, who came from Mexico as they’ve been travelling for a while. They were here for about 5 weeks. We met up with them both just after they arrived and were able to give them suggestions for their trip. We also went to the cinema with them to see the Sex and the City movie, though I think Seán will call it being dragged there by the girls!

A couple of days later another ULKC paddler, Paul, arrived. Neither us nor Debbie and Seona had known he was coming until we got texts out of the blue from him a couple of days earlier saying he was coming out. We spent an evening with him also. He ended up joining the girls and travelling around most of the country with them.

The same day that we met with Paul I got a call from some neighbours from home who were in town so we went to see them on our way in to see Paul. Mary taught me in my first year in secondary school and she, her husband Pat and their daughter Niamh, who had just finished the Leaving Cert, had all come out for a few weeks to see their son/brother Dermot who is working in Hastings. I had contacted Dermot previously when I was in Hastings but we hadn’t managed to meet. Niamh bought her first, and second, pony from us and it was fun hearing the story of the first purchase from their side. They’d been given an audition period by my Dad who wanted to make sure that Niamh and the pony were a good fit before he agreed to the sale, as both the pony and Niamh were inexperienced at that stage.

We had another couple of visitors to work around this time, though not Irish ones. The Aussies who had placed the big order during the summer came to see around the factory. The visit seems to have gone well enough as before leaving they confirmed they’d be placing more orders soon. That means that we will have work with the company for a while to come.

The other bit of socialising that month was the B Grade Barbeque! A platter of meat was bought by Cam and Nic on the way home from the Wellington comp and they decided that it should be used for a barbeque for the B Grade polo players and their significant others. The date was set and Andy offered his house for a Sunday afternoon. Again, all those from the North Shore hopped into the Barracuda Fun Bus and drove south to Andy’s. We had a great afternoon there with some tasty food. It was definitely fun playing the B Grade, and I was quite grateful for ending up on one of the teams as the A Grade could have driven me mad otherwise. Though it wasn’t so much fun at the finals with the lack of sleep!

The Mohaka

2008-07-23T15:03:00.000+12:00

The second weekend in June saw us leaving Auckland once again in the Barracuda Fun Bus with Dave, this time headed for a “long boating weekend” on the Mohaka River. The River is between Taupo and Napier, so we drove just as far as Taupo on Friday afternoon, allowing us a chance to catch up with the lads in the house there. Sam and Tim were busy packing up their gear as they were going snowboarding at Mount Ruapehu for the weekend.

The next morning we met for breakfast at 8am. One of the other people coming canoeing with us for the weekend had already done a 100km cycle at that stage… This weekend was largely for friends of Dave who like doing multi-sport races. These are long races involving running, road cycling and/or mountain biking and canoeing. As a result, we were spending the weekend with some very fit and motivated people.

After breakfast we drove off up through the mountains and, after dropping our bags off at our accommodation for the night, we arrived at the get on for the river. We were a little daunted by the amount of frost still on the ground, even though it was after 11am at this stage, so we got ourselves into as many thermal layers as possible. Most of the group were in multi-sport boats; a long narrow boat designed specially for speeding down easy enough rivers. Seán took his downriver boat and Nic and I borrowed the demo Beachcombers from Barracuda. I did offer to take one of the party, a 4 year old boy, down the river in the front hatch of the sea kayak, but his mother vetoed that one!

With the shuttles done 9 of us set off downstream. The river is a Grade II so pretty flat with some little rapids. It was interesting to do the river looking from the perspective of racing though. We picked the quickest lines through the rapids, trying to go with the fastest water to make good time down the river. While Seán, Dave, Nic and I all had plenty of white water experience; the others in the group were a bit daunted by the river and, as racers, were trying to find the ultimate line down a river. Seán and Dave were kept busy teaching them that every rapid is different and they should do practise runs on every river they plan to race to find out where they should be going. The group really appreciated the advice and it was great to be on the river with people who were really interested in learning and absorbed everything we said. As I was in a much more stable boat than the others I got to fish a few of them out of the water on the way down also.

After our first trip down the river, 8 of us decided we’d go again, so after getting our gear and ourselves upstream we hopped in again, leaving those staying dry to shuttle the cars down for us again. This trip was a little quicker as we had a couple less swims. As the water was really cold I was also glad of this as it meant less time for my hands to be in the water, let alone what it must have been like for the swimmers!

At the end of the second run, five hardy enthusiasts decided to go again. I have to say that Seán and I weren’t included in that number! They decided to race down the river and it wasn’t too long before they arrived and we all set off back to our accommodation for a tasty home made dinner. We tucked up warm in our dorm room for the night, thinking of the frost outside the door.

The next morning, after a good fried breakfast we decided to try getting on the river beside our accommodation, instead of going further downstream to the usual get in. This time the river party was reduced to 5, Seán and I included. The energetic girl who did the cycle and all three river runs the day before abstained from paddling that day as her training programme required her to spend four hours running and cycling that day. We did tell her she was crazy! Apparently she and her partner have decided to dedicate a year to training really hard for these multi-sport races, and once the year is over all training will cease and they’re going to start trying for children!

Anyway, the remaining five padders hopped on the river and were very relieved when we turned a corner and the sun started shining down on us as it was a very cold morning! When we arrived at the end of the river, we looked up at Dave’s van and saw that his roof bars were missing. Unfortunately the roof bars had a bit of a fight with a tree while we were on the river, and the tree won. We farmed out a couple of the boats to the other vehicles, but had to put two directly onto Dave’s roof. Thankfully he had some pretty good padding in the van, which protected his roof for the trip.

On our way home we stopped at a bridge over the river, on the main Taupo to Napier highway, which has a walkway built underneath it. It’s quite strange walking under the bridge looking down at the water as the whole bridge shakes when a truck goes over it! The walkway itself is quite odd as it goes almost to the very edge of the bridge, but to get to it you have to climb over the structures of the bridge itself. It’s as if the walkway was being built on a Friday afternoon and the boys decided to quit a bit early!

Ireland -v- All Blacks

2008-07-23T14:57:00.000+12:00

After a lazy week in Auckland after the polo finals, we got up early on Friday morning to get a bus into town to get the train to Wellington! We had booked our van in to get its WOF (Warrant of Fitness and the equivalent of our NCT) done on the Friday while we were away by a mechanic friend from the polo club. We were relieved to hear that it had passed when we were still on the train.

Public transport is not used much in New Zealand and generally isn’t that great. I’d hate to have to travel around the country relying on it. We only got the train as we decided we could see the country from a slightly different perspective that way, and with the special offer price of $49 each one way, it was much cheaper than buying the petrol to drive down!

You can drive from Auckland to Wellington in about 10 hours easily enough, including some quick food breaks. The train doesn’t rush… It takes 12 hours to get there! Thankfully we knew it was going to take that long so we arrived at the train station fully prepared with our sudoku books and other things to occupy us for the day. Surprisingly enough the first 10 hours went pretty quickly... The train is now geared completely towards tourists. It has an outdoor viewing platform, which is good to get out into to blow you awake again, though the fumes aren’t so nice out there! Also, the end of the last carriage had a big window and a comfortable seating area so you could get a really good view of the countryside as we travelled along. The picture here is of Mount Ruapehu.

Throughout the day the staff would tell us about the areas we were passing through over the intercom. As well as some quick stops along the way to pick up passengers, the train stopped at National Park for half an hour where most people had lunch. We just had a cuppa as Mammy Oosty (our lodgings landlady) had sent us off with rolls and ham. There was a food carriage on the train also to keep us going for the day.

The last two hours of the trip dragged a bit as the sun went down so we had nothing to look at but our watches until arriving in Wellington! Despite the long day, the train trip is a really great relaxing way to see the country, especially if you were lucky like us to get nice weather. Only do it one-way though! The train only runs on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so we had decided to fly back up to Auckland instead, a decision we were quite pleased with by the end of the train journey.

Alan (our Irish friend who has just moved up from Christchurch) met us at the train station in Wellington and we went out for dinner with him that evening before taking over a spare room in his house for the weekend.

On Saturday we were focused on just one thing – the match. I have to admit that this was to be the first match I’ve ever gone to in any sport with the exception of canoe polo and a couple of Olympic Handball games Pauline convinced me to play in for DCU a while back. So, needless to say I was quite excited that my first game would be an Ireland v All Blacks rugby match!

After a good preparation lunch we went into town to pick up our tickets, armed with plenty of warm clothes and a good jacket as, despite the fact that it was quite a nice day at that stage, miserable weather was threatened. The day stayed fine until about half an hour before the match when it all changed. We were just about to set out for the stadium when the heavens opened and a gale started blowing up from Antarctica! Some of you may have seen Brian O’Driscoll being interviewed after this match when the interview was actually cut short cos the poor guy was shivering so much. We were actually very lucky in our seats as we had paid for the cheap seats that weren’t under cover, but we were close to the covered seats and the wind was blowing from behind us so the rain only just blew over us and hit all the people below us. A couple of friends of mine weren’t so lucky and we met them shivering and soaked to the skin after the match – they went home pretty soon afterwards.

The match itself was good, though we didn’t win. I’m sure those of you with any interest in rugby were watching so I’m not going to analyse it! We were pretty cold by the end of it, but at least we were dry. That is, until we went to leave. The exit from the stadium involves walking a long way on a platform over the train station, which has no shelter. We got a pretty good wetting while walking back into the town. Of course, we can’t complain after seeing how miserable the poor folks who were sitting in the rain for the match were!

That night we continued on to celebrate our existence (well, we couldn’t celebrate winning, or deserving to, and I think we were still celebrating something, maybe just being Irish and great!) into the wee small hours.

We spent the next couple of days wandering around Wellington again before getting a plane back up to Auckland – much quicker than the train trip! The flight wasn’t even delayed!

Wellington Polo Competition - National League Finals

2008-06-29T16:42:00.001+12:00

The finals for both Grade A and Grade B were on in Wellington from Saturday 31st May to Monday 2nd June. I was a bit worried beforehand given that the competition was in a pool with only one pitch, and so would be running from 6am to midnight each day, apart from Monday when we finished in the early afternoon. The organisers split it so that B Grade was in the morning and A Grade in the evening each day. As I was playing in both Grades I ended up with games on Saturday from 7am to 11.30pm, Sunday from 8am and going until 10.30pm and starting on Monday at 6.40am! Very unsociable hours!

Dave loaded up the Barracuda Fun Bus (his van) with 9 of us and we set off about 3pm on Friday afternoon to drive from Auckland to Wellington. One of the passengers is a teacher so we had to wait for her to finish school before leaving. It was a bank holiday weekend so you can imagine what traffic was like on the trip down. We arrived at our accommodation at about 1.30am and went straight to bed. As I said earlier, I had to play at 7am so I wasn’t too happy or awake when my alarm went in the morning!

We had just one B Grade game on Saturday and as we were down to four players we recruited Cam’s wife, Nicolette, to play with us. With a tight defence, a few good attacks and a lot of time wasting on our parts we won that game and were feeling good!

Later in the day our A Grade campaign got going again and in what became our typical style for the weekend we played great first halves to each of our games, but couldn’t quite keep it up for the second half. The team harmony was greatly improved from Christchurch though which was quite a relief.

With far from enough sleep I got up on Sunday morning to start playing at 8am. We recruited Mel from my A Grade team to play with our B Grade team so we had six players, but three of them (the three girls) were all playing on two teams for the weekend, so we rotated subbing between us. Using the same tactics as the day before, we wasted a lot of game time passing the ball out the back in attack, and won all our games.

The same could not be said of the A Grade team, though in our last game of the day we played a stormer of a first half and were actually winning 4v1! Unfortunately it’s a game of two halves, and our second half wasn’t quite so good!

The luck of our B Grade team wasn’t to last through to Monday. Unfortunately the opposition had gotten too bored of our passing the ball out the back and decided to come out and pressure us there to their success. The finals finished with my team placed 8th and the other Auckland team placed 7th. They were designed to be even teams and proved to be just that. We played each other three times and won one game each and drew the third. The ladies team kept up their record and came 6th in Grade A, while the Men’s team came 5th in their division.

After a busy weekend we had to drive all the way back up to Auckland again. We shared the driving and had a little detour imposed on us by Peter who doesn’t see signposts while driving and missed a turn off on his shift. In the end we got home just after 11pm and Seán and I hit the sack and weren’t seen until quite late on Tuesday!

Christchurch Polo Competition and afterwards

2008-06-29T15:43:00.000+12:00

Having finally made it to Christchurch, we got up early and walked to the pool as it was only a short distance from our friends house. All the flights from Auckland had been delayed (though none quite so much as ours) so the players on both Auckland teams were very tired and that was certainly reflected in the ladies team’s games. Our first game started with 6 flustered and tired players who by half time had resorted to shouting at each other. I subbed after half time and took the opportunity to calm myself down again and managed to stay a little calmer for the rest of the comp. We improved in every game over the weekend but some people weren’t in the mood to realise that. By the end of it all I was tired out from trying to be chirpy against all odds and collapsed into a grumpy heap on Sunday evening! My team came last (funny that…) and the men’s team came 7th, so not a great weekend for Auckland.

On Monday we had a lazy morning before hopping on a bus into town to get a bus to the airport. When the bus hadn’t gone into town and we didn’t really know where we were after 45 minutes we got a bit worried… After seeking the advice of the bus driver (who we had informed on getting onto the bus that we wanted to go into town) we ended up getting a taxi from where we were as it wasn’t actually too far from the airport. Thankfully that was the extent of our travelling problems that day as our flight back up to Auckland went on time with no difficulties!

We went back to Andy’s house to pick up our van and got treated to dinner while we were there. The best bit was that dinner included some delicious sausages that Andy had hand made himself a few days earlier. Really tasty, and reassuring to know exactly what had gone into these sausages, unlike bought ones…

The next night I got my new polo boat, which had arrived in the next batch of boats from Oz. Very exciting! Of course it’s all scratched and battered looking by now but it’s always good getting a new toy! I want to bring this boat home to Ireland when I go though so that could be fun. Anyone know any cheap shipping companies?!

After work, on Wednesday night we presented ourselves at our new friends from the airport’s house for dinner. As promised Jenny and Chris treated us to lamb shanks and mashed potatoes and plenty more and we had a lovely evening with them.

The next weekend we actually didn’t have a polo competition to go to and stayed in Auckland. Carolanne (Dave’s mum) didn’t want us to be at too much of a loose end for the weekend and decided we could paddle in a kayaking race she was organising on Sunday morning. Dave set us up with a double kayak that had to be delivered from the factory to a friend’s house, saying that of course we could use it before completing the delivery!

The race was in the Tamaki River estuary on the south side of Auckland. We had looked at a map of the estuary the night before and had half an idea of where we should go, as there were a few rivers and other inlets that we had to pass along the way. Of course, when we started the race all those plans were forgotten about and we decided that everyone else must know where they were going as they’d all done the race before, so we followed the guy in front of us.

It was a while later, when we were gaining on him quite well, that he stopped and looked behind him. When we saw this we got worried and looked behind us, only to see some other boats streaking across behind us going a different way! We worked out that our little diversion cost us about 10 minutes and without it we would have had a pretty respectable time. When we got back and told Carolanne what had happened she wondered why on earth we’d followed him, of all people. Wish she’d told us that before!  We didn’t do as badly as that man though. Apparently when he’d turned around he saw us and decided he must be right so kept going. I thought he was turning as well, so didn’t think I needed to shout anything at him to tell him we were turning. I’d say he added nearly half an hour to his race!

Later that week we had a couple of days off work so I finally started doing a genealogy search that my family had been bugging me to do. A great great uncle of mine moved over here in the early 1900’s and married a Kiwi and settled here. Seán and I went into the City Library and started searching for living relatives. After a couple of days work and a lot of assumptions, we think we’ve found a daughter-in-law of his living in Hamilton. Now we just have to get down to Hamilton again to meet her and see if all my guesses were correct…

Christchurch Polo Competition - getting there...

2008-06-28T13:02:00.001+12:00

On the Thursday morning before this competition we left Hawkes Bay and drove all the way back up to Auckland as we’d booked flights from there to Christchurch for Friday morning, the plan being to spend the day in Christchurch and catch up with friends there and not be in a rush.

We got up to Auckland in time for the pool session, where I was supposed to be picking up my brand new canoe polo boat. It was quite exciting but also annoying that it had arrived at that stage as I was then going to have to bring it on the plane with me to Christchurch and have to get it to the pool myself and things like that, i.e. lots of hassle. However, it turned out that my boat hadn’t actually arrived so I was quite relieved, as was Cam who had been a bit worried about breaking the news to me.

That night we stayed with our friend Andy who lives near the airport and dropped us there in the morning, barely able to see 10 metres ahead of us due to the fog. We checked in for our fight and got set up to wait for the fog to clear for us to get going. We were due to fly at 9.30am and when that time came around we were told it would be 10.30 before we’d be off, but if we wanted we could go back out to the main area whenever we wanted and come back in through security as we pleased. This was quite a shock to us given the security we’ve gotten used to at home. Apparently they’re quite relaxed about internal flights. Then we were told we’d be off at 11.30, but at about 12.30 when the fog still hadn’t cleared our flight was cancelled!

We all rushed off to pick up our checked in luggage and get booked onto the next available flight. While I waited for our bag, Seán queued up at the desk. The policy of the airline was to book all the passengers onto the next available flight in the order of who had paid most for their tickets. Of course we had got the cheapest tickets possible so it turned out we were booked on to a flight at 9am the next morning! That would have resulted in me arriving at the airport when I was supposed to be playing my first game, so we smiled sweetly and asked if we had any other options, or could we go on standby. We were put on the standby list and told to come back at 5pm when they might know more.

There wasn’t much to do in the airport, and no where worth going outside the airport that wasn’t a taxi drive away so we invested in a book each and waited patiently for 5pm to come around. When we went to the desk we were told to come back at 7pm when the delayed inbound flight was due to actually arrive.

We got ourselves a bite of dinner and were still sitting at a long table after finishing when a lady arrived over and asked could she and her husband sit beside us to eat their dinner. Of course that wasn’t a problem and we chatted to her while she waited for her husband to arrive saying how we’d been waiting all day to fly and were in New Zealand for a year etc. When her husband arrived she started writing in a note book. Within 5 minutes of saying hello she gave us a note with their address and numbers on it and we were invited for a dinner of lamb shanks and mashed potatoes the following Wednesday night.

A bit bemused at what had just happened and the fantastic hospitality of the Kiwi’s, we returned to the check in desk. It turned out that we were at the top of the standby list, probably by being the first people to ask about it. While we waited to see if there would be space for us on the flight, two more polo players arrived for their flights and had a good laugh at the fact we were still in the airport. However, luck was to favour us at last that day and we got on a plane at 8pm. When we arrived in Christchurch at last we were too tired to bother with busses and just got a taxi to our friend’s house and went to bed. So much for our social day in Christchurch!

Hawkes Bay Hunt Inc.

2008-06-28T12:03:00.000+12:00

A friend from home put me in touch with a couple over here who are very involved in hunting, Philip and Jane. They live in the hills above Hastings and while we were there for the polo competition we got in touch with them and arranged to stay on after the competition and have a days hunting with the Hawkes Bay Hunt.

With some detailed directions, we had no trouble finding their house one sunny Tuesday afternoon. We had a very grand and also very tasty dinner of home grown lamb that night to prepare us for the next day’s exertions.

The meet was at 12 o’clock at Shanley Road so we arrived a bit before that and Philip brought me around to meet the Master and some other hunt members. Apart from being a beautiful sunny day it was very like home, with the same style of turnout of both horses and riders, though there were more followers than we would normally have at home. We counted about 50 on horseback and three cars of followers in all.

When they moved off we drove up to the top of a very steep hill and, while the car stopped smoking, we got set up to watch the proceedings. The country was very open, with no hedges or ditches and only wire fences which the hunt had put posts over to hinder the followers. From our vantage point, we watched the hounds working and during the day they had three quick hunts. I was amazed that they were able to hunt at all given the lovely weather, but it did seem that scent was hindered a bit. The best hunt of the day was under the cover of a small plantation where we couldn’t see anything, but did enjoy listening to the hounds in full cry.

At about 4pm they decided to call it a day, so we drove on home without waiting for the hunt tea, which seems to be quite an event out here. That evening we enjoyed another tasty dinner and prepared for our departure the next morning. We had to get back up to Auckland again to get flights to Christchurch for another polo weekend. Philip and Jane told us we were mad and should have booked the flights from Napier, but at the time of booking we hadn’t planned on still being in Hawkes Bay at that stage. They were to get another good laugh out of that on Friday, but I’ll tell you more about that later…

Hawkes Bay - Polo Competition and being tourists!

2008-06-11T13:03:00.000+12:00

From Northland we popped into the house in Auckland and picked up our boats and carried on towards Napier. On the way we spent a night with Jason and Rose in Hamilton where we went for a paddle the next morning. We also spent a couple of nights in Taupo catching up with our friends there.

On Friday we drove over the mountains to get to Napier and Hastings, thankfully before it got pretty stormy. The second round of the B Grade Polo Comp was on in Hastings that weekend, so we had dinner while waiting for the rest of the clubs players to arrive. They didn’t have quite such a nice drive as we had with the weather closing in. The club had arranged to stay in the local school’s gym (Mel’s father is a teacher there), so we all set up our beds there, us using our mattress from the van!

Our first game wasn’t until the afternoon on Saturday so we had quite a relaxing morning getting breakfast and going to the pool in Flaxmere. My team had a win, a draw and a loss at the end of the day. That evening we had a barbeque at Mel’s parents’ house.

In the gym that night, at about 4.30am, there was a huge bang that woke us all up, complete with the ground moving. It was my first earthquake!!! I have to admit that I woke up with the bang, and promptly went back to sleep again, but the next day we were very excited! It was 4.5 on the richter scale and based about 30km out to sea. Oh, and we haven’t a clue what exactly the bang was...

On Sunday morning we were up early again for more games. With a series of 3 wins that day we finally came 7th of 15. The other B Grade team came 6th.

The next day we got out the Lonely Planet again and went touring around Hawkes Bay. We first went out to Te Mata Peak where we went for a walk around the mountain after driving to the top. Then we went to see Maraetotara Falls which was quite interesting as there is a dam just at the top of the falls. You can swim in the pool at the bottom too but we decided it wasn’t quite warm enough. From there we went to see Ocean Beach which I’d say would be lovely in the summer time as it’s pretty quiet there and there’s not much housing around compared to many of the country’s beaches.

The Kauri Coast

2008-06-05T14:10:00.000+12:00

After Northland we started moving south again along the west coast, known as Kauri Coast. After a quick ferry trip across Hokianga Harbour from Kohukohu to Rawene and a bit more driving we arrived at Waipoua Kauri Forest, where we went walking to see New Zealands best living specimens of kauri trees.

First stop was Tane Mahuta (Maori God of the Forest), the tallest kauri tree in New Zealand at 51.5 metres, estimated to be between 1200 and 2000 years old. We went on to see Te Matua Ngahere (The Father of the Forest), which is impressive as it has the widest girth of all the trees at 16.41 metres. It is believed to be 2000 years old. The other impressive sight is the Four Sisters, four tall trees clumped together.

Driving on, we spent the night in Dargaville before continuing to the Matakohe Kauri & Pioneer Museum, which was very interesting. It’s a very big museum pretty much in the middle of nowhere. A group of local descendants of the pioneers have done most of the work on the museum and have been acknowledged by their likeness being used for the people in the scale models showing the lives of kauri bushmen, tradesmen and their families. There is also a scale exhibit of a working sawmill and a gum room, with an amazing collection of sculpted and polished gum. It also includes a few pieces of gum with bugs caught inside in the style of Jurassic Park. I wonder what’s inside those bugs! This museum is well worth a visit if time allows.

With all the stress of sightseeing we then went on to the Thermal Pools and Slides in Parakai. The pools (and adjacent campsite) are looking a bit worn now, but there are plans in place to revamp the entire area which hopefully won’t take too long.

The Far North - Cape Reinga

2008-06-04T11:40:00.000+12:00

From Paihia we drove up along the coast and stopped at Te Ngaire Bay and went for a walk along the beautiful beach, getting back into the van again just in time to miss the rain. As it kept raining we didn’t stop until lunch, though there are many other fabulous bays along the east coast. We had our lunch at Tokerau Beach during another dry spell, again enjoying the blue sea and sky and sandy beach.

From there we drove west to Kaitaia and booked ourselves onto a bus trip to Cape Reinga for the next day. We chose a more expensive trip that went to one extra place, but as we were the only two to book it, we were later switched to a different operator.

As there is no nice campsite in Kaitaia we went further west to the coastal town of Ahipara for the night. Before dinner we went for a run up the famous 90 Mile Beach (it’s actually only a little over 60 miles long). The Beach is a main highway so it’s possible to drive along it. We had thought about driving it ourselves, but with varying reports that we’d be fine, we ought to have a four wheel drive, and stories about cars getting stuck and never getting out, we decided a bus trip was the safer option. Running along it was strange as the scenery was exactly the same all the way – the sea on our left and sand dunes on our right and the beach going on as far as we could see. It felt like we hadn’t gone all that far until we turned around and saw how far away the end of the beach was. There is a special marathon run on the length of the beach every March. We met one person who did it who said that it was one of the hardest things to do, as the scenery is the same for the entire duration of the marathon so you never feel like you’re making any progress.

We got up bright and early the next morning and caught the bus in Kaitaia. The first stop was at the Ancient Kauri Kingdom, a shop, workshop and café where we were advised by our tour guide to keep our wallets firmly in our pockets. Kauri trees are giant trees that were used to make war canoes and many other things when people first settled in New Zealand. Much of the trees were cut down and the remaining trees are protected as much as possible. There are huge numbers of ancient stumps that have been found in the swamps in Northland and the Ancient Kauri Kingdom has created some beautiful carvings from them. The showpiece of the gallery there is an upright kauri log that has had a spiral staircase carved into it bringing you up to the mezzanine level of the shop. It is really amazing how big these stumps are. The tour guide was quite right about watching your wallets though. There was beautiful furniture, sculptures, clocks and much much more carved from the wood, most with rather big price tags. Though the staircase is not for sale, there was a large sofa with a price tag of $55,000. My credit card limit is not that big…

Moving on from there, we went to Rawawa Beach to see the white silica sand that is prominent in some of the more northern beaches. They mine it, and now take it from a slightly out to sea, rather than directly from the beaches as they did initially. Someone finally got a bit worried about erosion!

Later we stopped for lunch at Tapotupotu Bay, yet another brilliant beach. Again we were lucky enough to be back in the bus when the rain started, and it kindly stopped as we arrived in Cape Reinga, almost the most northerly point of New Zealand. (The most northerly point isn’t easily accessible and we didn’t feel like hiking for several hours to get there!) A lighthouse marks the point and in the water below you can see the waves where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean.

While we were at the lighthouse there was a young couple there who had just completed a one-year tour of the entire country on horseback raising money for Canteen, a charity for young people (teenagers) with cancer. We had actually heard of the charity already as Barracuda, the sea kayak company, had sponsored a man who kayaked around the five main lakes of New Zealand in seven days for Canteen.

From there we drove down quickly down Te Paki Stream in order to avoid being caught up in it’s quicksand… After finding somewhere safe to park there, we hopped out and picked up our toboggans and sprinted up the steep sand dune beside us (or at least the first five metres, getting gradually slower after that). Tobogganing down the sand dune was great fun, and I was quite impressed to see that everyone on the bus, old or young, healthy or infirm, gave it a go at least once. Sean and I had three goes before the bus got going again and we were onto 90 Mile Beach.

Though we had a few stops along the way on the beach, for the most part we were driving along quickly, given that the beach is treated as a normal road and has a speed limit of 100km/h. Then it was a trip back to the Ancient Kauri Kingdom to wash the sand off the bus and home.

The night before at the campsite we had met a group of people members of YHA (Youth Hostelling Association) including the Chairman and CEO who were having a meeting there that weekend. They kindly invited us to join them for dinner after our trip to Cape Reinga so we had a lovely evening with them, complete with a mountain of food from the barbeque. We joined them for breakfast the next morning too before heading off to the Gum diggers Park, which was the extra place we had planned on seeing with the tour bus the day before. Around 1900 the park was very busy with people digging for kauri gum, which was used for varnish, linoleum and other products. Unfortunately, it was a swamp, and when we arrived it was pouring rain, but we put on our waterproofs and went walking around the park anyway. By the time we were leaving it was pretty hard to avoid the deep puddles that had appeared on the path! The park was good, but the next day we went to a museum in Matakohe, which had much more information about the gum-digging era, and was indoors! I’ll tell you more about that later.

On our travels again - North to Paihia and the Bay of Islands

2008-06-04T11:28:00.000+12:00

Having worked a total of 16 days we decided it was time to hit the road again! With the big order finished in work things were quieter again so we saw the opportunity to get away before any follow up orders come in.

The main area that we hadn’t already seen in New Zealand was Northland, although we had tried to go up there twice, but both times stopped in Matapouri and didn’t make it any further! This time we put our heads down and, with a quick stop to stock up our food supplies in Whangarei, we made it as far as Paihia in the Bay of Islands where we stayed for a couple of nights, just down the road from Haruru Falls, quite a nice looking waterfall, with a few nasty placed rocks requiring a careful line through it. We didn’t have any boats with us though.

The next day we walked through the Waitangi National Reserve adjoining Paihia, where the Treaty House stands, the location of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi by the representatives of Queen Victoria’s government and local Maori chiefs in 1840. The treaty then toured the country and was signed by other Maori chiefs, though many in the central North Island didn’t greet it warmly. It seems that now most of the difficulty between the Pakeha (Europeans) and Maoris are in that area still, with many claims of land being taken from the tribes without fair payment. Also in the Reserve is the Whare Runanga (meeting house) and a 35m long war canoe both of which were built for the centenary celebrations of the signing of the Treaty.

That afternoon we took a boat tour around the Bay of Islands going out to the Hole in the Rock and seeing some of the many islands in the bay along the way. We also encountered some dolphins on our way out. It’s a beautiful area, though rather busy with tourists a lot of the time.

Grade A Polo Comp in Auckland

2008-06-04T11:26:00.000+12:00

Finally I got to see Division 1 New Zealand style, playing in the Ladies Division with the two Mels, Vish, Phoebe and Toni. The kiwi women are pretty big, but of course, we are the smallest team (sounds familiar) in the division! Those girls come and hit you hard too! Gave me a bit of a wake up call. We won our first game, which apparently is quite unusual for the Auckland womens team, so that was a good start. While our play improved over the weekend, the results didn’t and unfortunately we ended up last in the division of 6 teams due to goal difference as the team we beat managed to beat another team.

There was a mens team from the club also playing in the open division. They managed to do very well indeed contrary to expectations and came 3rd out of the 8 teams.

It was great to be finished early and not have to travel too far to get home - 1 hour is quite a different story to 8!

Update

2008-04-25T16:12:00.001+12:00

We’ve now finished three weeks of working for Dave and Gordon in Barracuda. See www.barracudakayaks.co.nz if you want to see the boats. We got the order for Oz finished and shipped off on time. I now know all about all the bits that go onto and into sea kayaks, and Sean knows a good bit about cutting the plastic and putting the pieces together to make a boat. It’s been fun, and we’ll be working there for the next while on and off. It suits both us and the company for us to work at times and have spare time to travel at other times.

We’ve been kept busy in the evenings after work too. Monday evenings I have training with the Ladies A Grade polo team, Tuesday is training with the mixed B Grade team and Thursdays is the pool session for the whole club. Fridays tend to be traveling and on Wednesdays we get a bit of a break unless we go for a swim while Dave and Greg are playing fish feeding (underwater hockey). It’s a busy life!

Today is ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Core) day so we got to have a lie in, I’ve given Sean a haircut, and I’ve caught up with my blog at last! Yeay!

Polo comp in Otaki

2008-04-25T15:41:00.001+12:00

Getting into a bit of a habit, our second Friday of work was also cut short, again hopping into Dave’s van, but this time heading down to Otaki, just an hour short of Wellington. Steve from work also was coming with us, and along the way we picked up Nic and Scott. Cam had filled his van with all the boats for the weekend so we just piled our bags into Dave’s van and the seven of us headed south. After a very very long drive we got to Otaki and picked up the keys for the scout hall we were staying in for the weekend, conveniently located right beside the pool the games were on in! After a bit of indoor cricket (played with a plank and tennis ball) we headed off to bed.

This weekend was the first for the Grade B teams. Auckland club had two teams entered and had structured them to have two even teams. I was playing on Hammerheads with Sean, Cam, Andy Candy and Alistair (so no subs!), while Dave, Nic, Steve, Scott, Martin and Stacey were playing on Mako. Our team started off well on Saturday, winning two games and drawing with the strongest team in our group. However, on Sunday we lost our last match in the group stages, leaving us in 3rd place and playing for 7th to 9th place. It was a close run thing though, as one more goal at the right time in the group stages would have resulted in us playing for 4th to 6th place, and two goals at the right times would have left us playing for 1st to 3rd!

However, that was not to be and we ended up coming 9th after another draw and a loss. It wasn’t so bad though, as Mako came 10th so we were still ahead of them!

Then it was off back to Auckland to be ready for work the next morning, feeling like a normal Monday morning, wrecked after a polo comp!

Rangitiki River

2008-04-25T14:55:00.000+12:00

On our first working week, Friday was cut short by being bundled into Dave’s van and heading to the Rangitiki River for the weekend, to a free campsite at the Anawhenua Power Station. As plans changed along the way, we switched into Greg’s car, which turned out to be quite good as we got to have a sneaky burger stop along the way to keep us going until meeting for dinner in Tirau! The campsite was very nice for a free campsite, with proper toilets and even a solar shower! As soon as we got there Sean was planning a return trip sometime for training!

On Saturday we all set off to do the Anawhenua section of the river, an easy Grade II. There were quite a lot of beginners with us though, so care was needed. I took our youngest paddler, a boy called Campbell, down the river in a topo duo (2 person boat) which was fun, though he really didn’t appreciate getting splashed, so gave out to me for heading for the parts with most waves! Sean was also in a topo duo with Campbell’s mum, Karrn, having her second ever time in a kayak. There were about 16 of us there in all, though some stayed dry and went up and down the river in the prototype jet boat with Dave.

That evening, making dinner was a bit chaotic, by lamplight, with everyone trying to be helpful somehow. Spaghetti Bolognese made by over a dozen people… We ended up with a team of spaghetti makers, including a Director, Manager, and me, the stirrer. It was fantastic spaghetti when we were finished with it!

The next day a smaller group of us did the Anawhenua section again. This time I was in a boat on my own (a Rad 180 which felt really tiny after the big topo duo) and looking after Karrn, who did really well on the white water bits, but did manage to fall over on a flat bit! Later on, six of us; Dave, Nic, Greg, Chris, Sean and I, did the mid section of the river, which was fun. It’s really Grade II but it’s so continuous it merits a Grade III rating. The water level was a bit low but we enjoyed it, and would love to do it again when it’s a bit higher.

The last of our holidays... for a while!

2008-04-25T14:36:00.000+12:00

While we were in Christchurch I got a call from Dave in Auckland. Barracuda got a big order for sea kayaks from Oz so they were pretty busy and had a week or two’s work for us if we wanted it. After six months of traveling and no working, it was time for us to work again! So, we started making our way back up to Auckland.

First stop off the ferry was Wellington where we met up with Alan again, who had just started his first week in his new job. We also went to the Te Papa Museum, a massive six storey building with free entry! Although I’m not very fond of big museums (due to a personal belief that I must see everything in them and therefore tire myself out) it was really good and well worth visiting. It had a section on the earthquakes and volcanic activity in New Zealand, the Maoris, the Scots and other immigrants over the years.

We then went back up to Taupo for the weekend and met up with all our friends there. Sean was delighted to get to paddle his downriver boat again. We’d left it behind as it was too awkward to bring it in the van (it only just fits in and cuts off all conversation as it blocks the view from driver to passenger) and we didn’t have roof bars. When we were in Auckland just after getting the van we were quoted about $656 for roof bars as the roof is so high above the gutters on the van, but we finally got a brand new pair in Christchurch for just $150! They were old stock and that design isn’t being produced any more, but we were more than happy to get them.

And so, all packed up again, we drove back up to Auckland. Dave had everything arranged for us, including our accommodation, boarding with his parents. And so, we were all ready to start work bright and early on Monday morning, for the first time since last August for me!

Moving North

2008-04-25T14:05:00.001+12:00

Further up the East Coast from Christchurch lies Kaikoura, renowned for whale watching. There is a sudden drop in the shelf off the coast, which means they don’t have to go far from the coast to see plenty of whales. We booked onto a boat trip and set off with cameras in hand. Each time we were moving in the boat they explained a bit more about the whales to us, with the help of a screen at the front of the boat.

We were in luck for the trip, it was a calm sunny day, and they had been tracking two sperm whales all day. We rushed straight out to where one had just come up for air. It was strange to see one sperm whale sitting at the surface of the water, with two boat loads of tourists around it and two tourist planes flying overhead. The sperm whales usually spend about 10 years in this area so I assume they’re quite used to all the fuss at this stage! This one was called Little Nick, due to a distinctive nick in his tail. We watched dutifully, seeing only a tiny fraction of the bulk of the whale above the water, until the exciting finale when he dived, showing us his tail. They usually dive for about 40 minutes to feed before coming back up for air again, so we set off to find the other whale they were tracking that day, Tiaki. We got two separate views of Tiaki, of a similar nature to that watching Little Nick. Here's a picture of sperm whales showing how much we see above the water and how much more there is below:

While Tiaki was feeding between our views of him, we also saw a lone Wandering Albatross sitting minding his own business floating on the sea, and a school of Dusky Dolphins. There were an estimated three or four hundred dolphins in the school, and they leapt and played just as you’d expect from Dolphins. I hadn’t realised there would be so many in one school and it was amazing to see. I really enjoyed the trip, though I would love to have been able to go underwater and see just how big the whales were as we really could see so little of them from the boat, and what we could see was still immense!

We then went back to visit Marie and Ross in Nelson again as promised, and had a few nice relaxing days with them, including making a trip to the “centre” of New Zealand, strangely located on the top of a hill overlooking Nelson. I’m sure it was close enough to the centre!

Finally, it was time to say farewell to the South Island for a while, and we hopped on the ferry on April Fools Day.

Christchurch

2008-04-25T13:25:00.001+12:00

On the edge of Christchurch stands Mount Victoria, which has some mountain biking trails that we thought would be fun to try out and so we drove up the mountain via Lyttelton. When we got there, we got a map of the tracks and studied it for a while, before deciding that it all looked far too energetic (steep) and really we should just enjoy the views from the top of the mountain! It was very impressive as we drove down along the scenic route, with the blue sea, the mountain and the city to see.

Back down in the city we went for a walking tour, following the directions in my Lonely Planet. At the city centre there is a fine cathedral and square, which always has a few street performers or buskers to entertain everyone. Finally we found a city with a clear centre, an unusual thing for New Zealand. Christchurch is a very English city though, so perhaps that is why. It is full of older buildings, trams and even has punting available! We spent some time in the Museum there also, which has sections on the Moas, an extinct New Zealand bird, some breeds of which were over 2 metres tall, the Scott base, and also a section on early types of transport, including a penny farthing (safely attached to a wall) which you can try out.

We found a better place to mountain bike too – Bottle Park is to the north of the city and is quite flat, but has good mountain biking tracks none the less. While we were in Christchurch we went out there with our bikes several times, and also ran there a couple of times. I did my first ever Orienteering Event there too. Sean has done it plenty of times at home so did a different course to me. When it was my turn to go, I was all set up with my map and a few tips from Sean as to how to navigate. You had a card that you had to punch at several different markers, reaching each in the correct order, the fastest time around the course winning. Despite having some difficulty trying to identify hills that really were just bumps I came 3rd in my division, and Sean came 4th in his. Not too bad for my first attempt I reckon!

We met up with another Irish paddler just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. Alan played polo in UL on Friday nights back when we were in college and has been living here for about 7 years now. We spent the rest of our time in Christchurch staying at his house. It turned out to be quite a hectic visit as we had to celebrate Paddy’s Day and my birthday and Alan was about to move up to Wellington with his job, so was busy with leaving parties too. We managed to cook ourselves a roast dinner for Easter Sunday though after playing on the slides and wave pools in the QEII Centre for the afternoon! After staying with him for about a week, we discovered that his little sister was the year behind me in Alex too.

Sean and I met up with an ex DCU paddler, Hannah, and her boyfriend Tim one day also. They have been working on a farm near Ashburton since getting here and were amazed at the time we’ve spent traveling. Tim studied agriculture, and they are crying out for farm workers here to the extent of advertising how good a life it is on the TV, so he had his job organised before leaving home. It was good to catch up with them though and they were grateful for the tips on where to go!

Eventually we decided that it was just starting to get too cold on the South Island and it was time to go north for winter, so we left the fun in Christchurch, with Alan coming behind us ready to move to Wellington.

The Scenic Route, Dunedin to Christchurch

2008-04-25T12:47:00.000+12:00

From Dunedin we drove straight up Highway 1 to Timaru where we met Ross, our friend from Nelson, in the campsite we chose. Promising to call in to Nelson before going back to the North Island, we set off the next day on the scenic route to Christchurch. Along the way we stopped in Peel Forest and spent a few hours walking there, going to see the 'big tree' and the 'waterfall'. See the pictures - very exciting... When we set off again, Sean spotted a mountain biking track at Mount Oxford on our map, which we decided could occupy us the next day. Having spent the last while touring only, we were eager to get some exercise to break up the site seeing.

When we got to Oxford that evening we decided to drive up to the start of the track, which turned out to be through some private looking land. When we were there we saw another possible start on the map of the tracks, and thinking it might be a more normal access point we drove that direction. Having made it through four shut gates, 2 fiords and a very bad pothole filled track, we finally reached the start of the track! After enjoying the view we’d bounced so hard to get to see, we agreed that we could start from the first place the next day! The track itself turned out to be hard going for me. We spent most of the first 20 minutes pushing or carrying our bikes along the track, which I was not very pleased about! After battling on for about three quarters of an hour we turned around, and the downhill part of the track was quite fun! Sean even managed a good tumble, nearly taking me down with him, in front of two walkers we’d just passed, much to their amusement!

After dusting ourselves off we finally made it to Christchurch, planning on staying a little longer this time!

To Dunedin

2008-04-01T23:20:00.001+13:00

From Hanmer Springs, we headed on down through Christchurch towards Dunedin. On the way we stopped to see the Moeraki Boulders, strange round boulders on the beach which scientists believe were not washed up, but rather were eroded from the mudstone cliffs behind. The boulders themselves have suffered more erosion with a strange network of cracks appearing.

When we arrived in Dunedin we met up with Kerry, an old friend of Sean’s who moved over here with her parents about 6 years ago. They had a lot of catching up to do so we stayed a few days. While there we went on a tour of the Cadbury World factory, which we got very excited about, looking for Oompa Loompas all around the factory! In the end, although they did give us some tasty chocolate, it was just a tour of a factory, so not something I’d rush to do again – it would be cheaper to just buy the chocolate from a shop than pay for the tour!

We also went to see the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in the old Railway Building (apparently the most photographed building in New Zealand, though I have no idea how they would calculate that!) and it was well worth the visit. They pay tribute to sporting heroes of all sorts, in a great diversity of sports.

One fine day we went to Otago Peninsula to see the worlds only mainland Royal Albatross colony. Apparently they don’t normally nest on islands inhabited by humans. However, as it wasn’t a very windy day none of them were flying so we didn’t get to see much. Because they are so big, they need quite a lot of wind in order to get airborne.

Finally, we walked up Baldwin Street, the worlds steepest street, with a gradient of 1 in 1.266. It is very steep… We went the day before the annual Gutbuster Race, a race up and down the street. I’d say that’s pretty tough!

Bullerfest

2008-04-01T23:17:00.000+13:00

We made our way back up to Murchison again in time for Bullerfest and met Larry Feeley and his family there. His son, Lorcan, races Wildwater with Sean. They are spending about 6 weeks here travelling around the country.

Bullerfest started on Friday with the Extreme Race. Sean and I decided to brave it in our slow boats so assembled at the start. The format is the same as the Boatercross at home. Usually four paddlers starting at the top of the rapid, and first 1/2 paddlers to the finish line go through to the next round. We all got a test run first and were then put into heats according to our placing. That was quite useful, as plenty of us had never even seen what was around the corner from the start, let alone knew where we should go down it!

For my first test run heat the starter was obviously getting a bit impatient and shouted “go” while the four of us were in random places on the river. I paddled off as fast as I could in the Scud (it’s a very very slow boat!) and through a bit of guile managed to knock one of the girls out and managed to come third. I was just happy not to come last! It turned out that the whitewater around the corner was fun but not very difficult. Sean came third in his heat too.

With that run over, we hauled our boats back upstream, cursing the slowness of both our boats, ready for the next run. There was a great bit of banter amongst the paddlers as first runs were discussed, and plans made for the second run, some taking the whole thing a lot more seriously than others. Then I was up again. This time I was all ready at the line when we started, nearly too close though as I nearly got my head taken off by the starters rope… Not to be deterred I paddled like fury again, still moving quite slowly in my lovely Scud though… However, adopting the same tactics as last time I managed to bang into someone on the way and again not come last! Of course I didn’t come 1^st or 2^nd either though, so that was the end of my racing for the day. Sean also came 3^rd again in his run. The two of us are pretty sure we could have made it through the first heat at least if we only had a faster boat!!!

With that moaning done we enjoyed the rest of the racing before paddling the rest of the way down the river. That was nearly like a race in itself as we had Lorcan with us who decided to paddle the whole way down as fast as possible! We were trying to introduce the concept of eddies to him, but he was determined to get home for his tea! It was all great fun though. Oh, and it was on the Earthquake section of the Matakitaki River. The party that night was pretty good too!

Murchison, like the rest of the country, was pretty lacking in water at that stage, and the organisers were having some difficulty because of the low levels of the rivers. However, it started raining at last on Friday night. But then it didn’t really stop for a few days…

Saturday’s event was Slalom together with a Raft Race on the O’Sullivan’s section of the Buller River. Though Sean and I didn’t take part, we went down to have a look, until we got wet through and went back to our campsite for tea that is. The course was looking a bit hairy at that stage though. Two gates had been taken out of the course altogether. Apparently the water rose over 1½ feet over the course of the racing, and it had already risen quite a bit overnight, the course having been laid the day before. It was a hard course to run, though thankfully there were some fine slalom paddlers there to do it properly.

By Sunday, the rivers had swollen so much the planned Big Air competition was cancelled. Mainly as the organisers were quite worried that the ramp would be washed away. To explain to the non-paddlers out there, a big air comp involves paddlers going down a slide in their kayaks and trying to flip their boat in some sort of a fancy way before they hit the water. I was really looking forward to seeing it too! So instead, we all assembled for the prize giving, followed by the handing out of a massive amount of spot prizes. They’ve a huge number of great sponsors for this event, which is no wonder cos it’s a great weekend and well organised. Well done to all the lads and lasses who work so hard to pull it off!

After the excitement of Bullerfest we drove to Hanmer Springs and spent some time lounging (in the rain which still hadn’t stopped) in the hot pools for which the town is famous. It is quite a lot cleaner than the water in Spa Park (Taupo) but much the same thing, only this time you have to pay for it. It was a nice evening though and a good experience. We’re not the sort of people who would enjoy spending a day there though!

The West Coast

2008-03-31T16:26:00.000+13:00

Feeling better again we drove to the west coast, starting at Westport, where we took a detour out to Cape Foulwind where there is a seal colony. Although we were quite distracted by the crashing waves on the coast we did get to see some seals lazing on rocks at the bottom of the cliffs, complete with young seals playing in the rock pools.

From there we went on to Karamea for the night, using it as a base to go to the Oparara Basin the next day to see the limestone arches and caves. It took us a while to get there though, as we had to pull an unfortunate American out of a ditch on the way there. The road up to the arches is one of the New Zealand speciality dirt roads, steep, windy and narrow. The American met two other tourists on the road and slipped into the ditch as they passed each other. A few minutes after we arrived on the scene a couple of climbers drove up, later followed by a couple in a four wheel drive. With the mix of us providing a rope, knots agreed on between Sean and the climbers, and the power of the 4WD we got the car out without a single scratch!

The arches and caves were pretty cool. One of them is called Moria Gate Arch, so of course we went to see if the Mines of Moria were there too (no, they weren’t). However, as usual, we got a bit distracted from the arches by the water flowing under the arches. The Oparara River rose by over 400mm while we were looking at the arches. When we checked the whitewater guidebook later and it turned out that the river had gone from below the lowest run-able level to above the highest run-able level in just 20 minutes while we watched! It’s amazing how fast rivers can change in this country.

We found ourselves an interesting little campsite in Seddonville for the night. It’s a quiet area and we only found the campsite by following a few signposts. When we got there the place was deserted, everything was open, and there was a note on the door sending newcomers up to the local pub to check in. We found the landlady there and she just told us to make ourselves at home. We had to go looking for her the next morning to give her money for our lodgings she was so relaxed. Another great place to stay! Quite different to the regimental attitudes of some other campsites here.

Before we got back to Westport we stopped off in the ghost coalmining town of Denniston. It turned out to be a very interesting spot with plenty of information about the mines and all that went on while the town was flourishing as the largest producer of coal in New Zealand. Particularly interesting was the Denniston Incline, an engineering feat for its time, whereby the coal trucks were hauled up and down the side of the mountain at a gradient of one in one in places (which is really steep to you and me). There were a good few deaths caused by runaway trucks over the years. We had actually gone up there to do some mountain biking as there are a few good tracks around. We tried out an intermediate track, which was so hard it even pushed Sean’s limits, but it was fun, once I was happily back in the van and out of the rain!

After spending the night in Westport we continued our trip south, stopping in Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks and Blowholes. By good luck we arrived just before high tide when the blowholes are at their most explosive. Some day I’ll get pics up on the web so you can see them! They’re well worth the visit.

Further south, we met up with John the Swede again in Hokitika, along with Malin, a Swedish girl visiting for a couple of weeks. Malin had never paddled before coming over, so with just a flat-water lesson from John under her belt we all set off to do the Lower Whitcombe from the normal get out down. Malin did so well we carried on to the Milltown Gorge section of the Lower Arahura. For the latter river we met up with some American friends we had paddled with in Murchison. They had arrived at the get on a bit before us and had started hiking further upstream. When they saw us arrive they got on the water above us. Although we went as slowly downstream as we could they never caught up with us and it was nearly dark when we got off the river. After waiting for them to arrive and doing the shuttle to pick up the cars left at the start we weren’t home for dinner until 11.10pm! Fortunately the campsite staff had left the kitchen open for us to cook our dinner, as there’s no hope of getting dinner out, or a take-away, that late at night anywhere in New Zealand bar the cities! It was a fun days paddling though, and Malin paddled really well. She was totally wrecked the next day though!

Mount Cook to Christchurch to Murchison

2008-03-31T16:25:00.000+13:00

Feeling like being a bit touristy again for a while we hit the road from Queenstown towards Mount Cook. We thought it had been pretty cold the night before. That was confirmed by the fact that three centimetres of fresh snow had fallen on the higher mountains overnight. That’s quite unusual for the middle of February here, which is supposed to be a very hot month! It did make the views impressive though as we drove through the freshly snow dusted mountains towards Mount Cook. Mount Cook itself was beautiful surrounded by the other impressive mountains in the range.

We headed on from there and stayed in a really good campsite in Fairlie for the night – the Top 10 campsite, I’d highly recommend it! After a good nights sleep (not quite so cold this time) we drove on to Christchurch and found the two paddling shops that there are there, finally managing to stock up on airbags and various other things for paddling.

By that stage, JP and Liz had arrived in Murchison so we went back there to join them, with Alan and Aisling arriving later in the week. Over the next few days we had some runs on the Doctors Creek and Granity Creek sections of the Buller River, both pretty easy but really nice runs. All the paddling caught up with us by the end of the week resulting in Sean and I spending a day at the campsite nursing our colds after waving goodbye to the other Irish as they headed towards Auckland airport and home.

Queenstown again

2008-03-19T18:24:00.000+13:00

When we got back to Queenstown I finally got myself back into a boat again and ran the Dog Leg section of the Kawarau River with the others. It’s a great run, with an easy enough shuttle, and a fantastic couple of big water rapids at the end. I started off following Sean down through the first one, but quickly decided to make my own way down after coming over a wave and seeing him heading straight for one of the crashing waves, just for the fun of it, and capsizing! I had a great run down it though, taking a more sensible route!

After that run, Sean and I got on the road again heading towards Mount Cook. However, on the drive from the river towards Queenstown we decided the groaning from our brakes could be ignored no longer and had to be fixed. So, we booked the van into a garage and stayed in Frankton again that night. Frankton is just beside Queenstown and seems to be the more practical town, complete with supermarkets and other such shops. The campsite we were in was by the lake and overlooked by the Remarkables, an amazing mountain range that has a very surreal look. It felt like a giant cardboard cut out of mountains to me, but I was assured that they are real and are great for skiing in winter.

The next day we got up bright and early and got the van to the garage. By the time it was fixed I’d woken up enough to wish Sean a happy birthday. We got in touch with Alan, Aisling, Swede and Alaska as we figured they hadn’t moved from the get out of the Dog Leg since we finished the river the day before! There is a nice quiet free camping ground there with a long drop toilet and a ring of stones for your campfire. We found them there and decided to have another run on the Dog Leg, which again was great craic. We spent a good bit of time playing on a wave half way down the river too, which mainly involved rolling practise for me!

After that run, the boys decided they’d like to run the Citroen rapid, a bit further down stream so off we went. Aisling and I did the shuttle and waited patiently for them to arrive back. And waited some more. And then thought that if they didn’t arrive back by 8pm we’d start to worry quite a bit… Finally the Swede came running towards us from up the road. They’d completely missed the take out and nearly run another rapid, Retrospect, further down. Thankfully they made the last eddy before it and realised their mistake before running it! There’s more detail of the fun they had paddling back upstream and then beating their way through 50m of bush for an hour to get out to the road on Sean’s blog if you want to take a look. Anyway, Swede, Aisling and I hopped into the vehicles and started driving down to where the others were waiting. On the way I met a pretty nice looking Porsche with hands coming out the windows flagging me down. I was a bit confused but pulled in anyway and out hopped Sean with the biggest grin possible on his face, delighted with getting a spin in a Porsche and completely amazed that a Porsche owner had given him a lift while in his smelly wet paddling gear!

We packed up pretty quickly and made our plan for the evening, agreeing to stay at the Dog Leg get out. First, we drove the van back to the get on for Citroen and filled it up with wood that was lying around there as we’d used up most of the wood lying around at the Dog Leg already on our campfires. I had also got my first lesson in back woods cooking when we stayed there before when Sean and I cooked steak, spuds and veg in tinfoil on the fire. A new experience for me! Having gathered wood, we car pooled into Queenstown and got a good feed at Fergburger, a brilliant burger joint that is well worth the visit. Their burgers are heavy to lift there’s so much food in them! We followed that up by getting icecream in Lick a few doors up the road. They make their own icecream, putting out a different selection every day, and it is delicious! To finish the day off we went back to the campground and lit ourselves a campfire. Nice!

Sandflies

2008-03-19T18:20:00.000+13:00

Sandflies are just little small flies that are nasty biting buggers! Apparently only the females bite, but there are plenty of them around. Sean has had very little bother with them but it seems my blood was much tastier than his. I had some big reactions to them on the North Island and finally found out that if you take Vitamin B your blood stops tasting as nice so you don’t get bitten as much. I am now a dedicated Vitamin B capsule taker!

Everyone warned us that the sandflies on the South Island, particularly the West Coast, were much worse than the ones on the North Island, so I was quite worried about the trip South. However, by the time we got there I’d finally built up a bit of immunity and learned not to scratch them. If you scratch at all they just get worse and worse, till you find yourself waking up in the night in mid scratch! Also, I wasn’t plagued by them much at all as we had the two other Irish girls, who hadn’t yet learned about vitamin B, with us down there. They were being bitten constantly and having the same reactions as I had before! Milford Sound is so full of sandflies you see people standing talking on the street waving them away constantly!

So, while they are not a reason not to come here, I would definitely advise a dose of vitamin B before you make the trip!

Milford Sound

2008-03-16T13:09:00.000+13:00

Having had fun in Queenstown, we heard reports that Milford Sound was expecting rain, so off we went. Going there basically involves driving about 120 km down a cul de sac, a New Zealand speciality. They have several very popular tourist destinations on cul de sacs.

True to the predictions it was quite a bad day when we drove into Milford Sound, resulting in us not being impressed with the scenery at all, though you do have to go through an impressive tunnel that I think is about 1km long and only wide enough for one lane between its quite rugged walls. There’s a 15 minute wait for the traffic lights at either end. Even with the bad weather there hadn’t actually been much rain and we arrived to find out they had been predicting rain for the last few weeks and nearly none had arrived. This is quite unusual for a place that boasts that its annual rainfall is 6 metres.

So, after getting quite annoyed at the number of sandflies (I’ll explain more later) around we drove part of the way back out the road and stopped at Gunns Camp, a lovely little campsite pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It is right beside the Hollyford River, where the others had an interesting day paddling the next day while Liz and I went back to Te Anau, the nearest town, to buy groceries as it turned out none of us were really prepared to stay a few days away from civilisation! It did give us a much better impression of Milford Sound though as it was a much nicer day and the views really were quite remarkable.

Meanwhile, the others did the Falls Creek section of the Hollyford twice, with the river gods claiming Aislings paddle on the first trip. Later that evening the boys did the Moraine Creek section further down. It’s a great river in that most of it is beside the road, a rare thing in this country, so it can be scouted and you can also get out easily if you want! Sean and I got the bikes out also and cycled further down the road to see the Humbolt Falls, a very impressive high waterfall.

The next day, after the boys ran the Moraine Creek section again, we headed back to Queenstown.

Paddling at last! Hokitika to Queenstown

2008-03-15T21:49:00.000+13:00

We made our way to Hokitika to catch up with Alan, an Irish paddler we first met in Uganda (and then on the ferry to France last September when we told him we were going to NZ – some day we’ll meet up in Ireland!). While waiting for him to get back from a river we went mountain biking around the town. They were so late back from the river, they passed on paddling the next day, so Sean and I set off to do the Lower Kakapotiha with “Andy England”. The trip was pretty good but there was so little water it was quite scrapey. We spent most of the trip waiting for a gorge with a swingbridge at the start which was the signal for the hard part – turns out that the swingbridge has been gone for years! I managed to get my boat pinned on a drop but it came out easily enough in the end, basically by Sean walking across the river and pulling it out, despite Andy’s efforts at climbing the steep hill on the far side to set up complicated rope systems. T’was a fun day on the river none the less. The next day we joined Alan and the other Irish in having a lazy Sunday at the campsite.

On Monday we decided to move on, so drove down to the Waiho River, which flows directly out of the Fox Glacier. It was very very very cold and at the level it was at it was flowing really quickly down a channel with nearly no eddies along its entire length, complete with actual huge lumps of ice floating downstream! Just to make it more difficult the water is all grey too so stoppers are quite hard to see. Aisling and I both skirted one hole and then went straight into another one at one stage. The cold water got to us and it seems we both lost the ability to roll and swam. It turns out that the river was also quite shallow too so I banged my knee trying to get to the bank! My advice is as follows:

1: Don’t get on glacier rivers – they’re freezing!

2: If you are silly enough to get on, don’t capsize.

3: If you do capsize keep trying to roll up all the way down the river if you have to!

The next day we carried on down to Wanaka. On the way we stopped to ogle the Gates of Haast and the Blue Pools, both pretty crowded with tourists – so much for the south island feeling remote! We found a campsite with a swimming pool and slides, so livened the place up a bit with our shrieks when playing there before going to bed and again first thing in the morning! We finally dragged ourselves away from them and set off to Queenstown, stopping to paddle the Roaring Meg section of the Kawarau River along the way. It was fun, loads of whirlpools and boils all the way down. A company in Queenstown runs river sledging trips on that section of the river too and a group overtook us just above the main drop. It was funny to watch them just floating down through the middle of the hole, most without a clue what they were doing.

We followed that up by a day wandering around Queenstown. Queenstown is hailed as a party town and fantastic location for all outdoor activities. It's also known as beng very expensive - probably because all the outdoor activities are quite costly (which we avoided). We decided to give the party town a test run and got ourselves dolled up on Friday night. The pubs were busy but we found them and the town in general very lacking in atmosphere that night. The streets were nearly empty. So, to sum up Queenstown - lots of outdoor shops and plenty of people around during the day, lots to spend your money on, but not much going on.

The Karawau River just out the road from Queenstown is quite another matter though! I’ve already told you about the Roaring Meg Section, but there’s plenty more, including the Dog Leg Section, going underneath a bungy jump in one place, which the lads did before our big night out. I was taking a break from all this strenuous paddling (?) and decided to cycle the shuttle instead. At this stage there were 8 of us travelling around together, 6 Irish: Sean and I, Alan and three other outdoor instructors, Aisling, John and Liz, together with John from Alaska and another John from Sweden. As there were so many Johns they became known as JP, Alaska and Swede respectively. So, when they finished the Dog Leg section Swede and Alaska were going to carry on downstream to run the Nevis Bluff section, quite a gnarly bit of water. We busily set up rescue in various places, holding token ropes and paddles along with our cameras that were the only thing we were going to use in reality. Both boys made it through fine though showing us how it should be done, and both feeling quite happy before our big night out!

On the other side of Queenstown is the Shotover Gorge, a river that has a bungy jump and canyon swing on it and is rafted and jet boated! Despite all this activity the dirt road down to the get on is dreadful and rental cars are prohibited from going on it! So eventually we got down to the put in and were surrounded by rafters arriving by bus, mountain bike and helicopter. I kindly did the shuttle again and rattled my way back up to the main road. To collect the other cars Sean and Swede mountain biked down the dirt road, taking 21 minutes to bike down (Sean says he would have been much faster if he didn’t have to wait for the Swede, Swede says it was terrifying) and 22 minutes to drive back up again. It might be a good river but I don’t think we’ll be taking the van back down that road again!

Moving on...

2008-02-15T22:31:00.001+13:00

We finally booked ourselves on a ferry to the South Island so drove from Taupo to Wellington one incredibly windy day. Thankfully Sean did all the driving but it wasn’t much fun with a loaded van. We spent a few days there and met up with Askea and Rea again. In Wellington we toured around a bit and saw the Botanic Gardens, had a spin on the cable car, saw the new and old St. Paul’s Cathedrals. We also took the mountain bikes out for a spin in Lower Hutt one morning. A free tour is run in the Parliament Buildings so we took that opportunity to see inside the “Beehive” and elsewhere. We learned something interesting on the tour too: when notices of pending legislation are put in the paper anyone, whether a national or just a tourist there for a couple of weeks, can write in and request an oral hearing where they can voice their concerns over the legislation. This cannot be denied, so when the cabinet are considering it the person can attend the entire meeting and has absolute freedom of speech while he/she is sitting in the meeting. Apparently it’s not abused, though I’m sure it might not run as smoothly at home!

And so, on Friday 25^th January, 3 ½ months after arriving in New Zealand, we finally boarded the ferry to the South Island.

On arrival, we slowly drove towards Nelson, stopping in Blenheim for breakfast and again in Pelorus Bridge for lunch at the side of the river. We couldn’t resist taking a dip too in the heat of the day. When we arrived in Nelson we went straight to Maree and Ross’ house as instructed! They are both Kiwi’s but Maree sometimes comes over to Ireland and works with Sean’s mum, so Sean met with her this summer in Ireland and she invited us to visit. They were great hosts as we stayed with them for a few days, doing more mountain biking and also going to the Da Vinci exhibibtion running in Nelson at the moment. It was really interesting as it had small models of his drawings together with computer graphics of how some of his machines worked.

We dragged ourselves away from Nelson and drove up to the base of the Abel Tasman National Park, another popular walking track. As we weren’t prepared for camping out overnight, we couldn’t do the 2/3 day walk all the way around the headland, so instead we arranged to get a boat to drop us about seven hours up the track at Bark Bay and we would walk out. The scenery was best from the water, but the walk was nice under the cover of the trees. We stopped for lunch at Stillwater Beach and had a swim before carrying on, the entire walk taking us about 4 ½ hours.

The next day we started heading further south to meet up with some other Irish paddlers. We stopped in Murchison, which is a busy centre for kayakers, but due to the lack of water there at the moment it was nearly deserted! Apparently it’s the best summer they’ve had for about 15 years, which is doing wonders for my tan, but not so good for the kayaking! As it was so quiet, we carried on to Greymouth that evening and met our friends in Hokitika the next day.

January 2008

2008-02-15T22:30:00.001+13:00

Since New Years, and changing the van, we spent a while in Auckland doing up the interior, but we did manage to fit in a few fun things like going roller blading in Mission Bay – I didn’t fall! Once the Homy was ready to rock we went back down to Taupo.

One evening Sean, Jeanine and I walked up Mount Tauhara which is quite near Taupo and gave us great views of the lake and town. That was a warm up for the Tongariro Crossing, a popular walk through Tongariro National Park. The walk first climbs up to the base of Mount Ngaurahoe, which was Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. We were tempted to go up Ngaurahoe until it got hidden in the clouds – as there is no track up it (and it’s quite a steep climb) people are advised not to do it unless there’s very good visibility. So we continued along the track through a remarkably flat basin before climbing again to the Red Crater. From there we decided to go up the side track to the top of Mount Tongariro, a round trip that is supposed to take a few hours but only took us one. Carrying on down the path we passed the Emerald lakes and some great scenery before arriving at the end just 6 hours 20 minutes after leaving the start. We only walked for about 5 hours 30 minutes in all on the track too, despite the guidelines suggesting what we walked should take over 10 hours! Sean was on a mission to complete the walk as soon as possible! It is a very good walk through some amazingly barren scenery.

Our new bikes arrived while we were in Taupo so we set off with Tim and some others one evening to go biking. With a little confusion about how far away the track was, we finally arrived at Ikawhenua Range two hours and 120 km later. It was getting dark but we hadn’t driven all that way to not go biking, so out came the bikes, and the two torches that we had between seven of us… It was good fun though, trying to keep on the track in the dark! Another day Sean and I took a spin in Taupo on the track between Spa Park and Huka Falls, which was a great easy run. Sean has to be patient with me, a beginner biker!

Changing our van

2008-02-15T22:29:00.001+13:00

We started hunting for a new van – the Emina is getting a bit too cramped as we gather more and more toys! We took a look through Taupo, Rotorua, Hamilton and Auckland and vans were few and far between.

However, just after Christmas we got a call from Jason saying he had found us a van, so we drove down to Taupo to check it out. It was a lovely clean high roof Nissan Homy with a tow bar that is running well so we quickly shook on the deal and trotted off to the bank.

After spending an afternoon cleaning up the Emina we drove both vehicles up to Auckland and checked the Emina into the Backpackers Car Market. After just a few hours patiently waiting a very tired and jet lagged Austrian arrived in with his son looking for a van that he and his wife could sleep in at night, but that they could also transport their two children in with them by day. Our shiny van stood out and suited them perfectly and so, happy with the $200 profit we were making on the van, we waved goodbye to the Emina and happily went back to the bank. As a tip for you all – shine up your vehicle before you try to sell it! Well worth the effort.

Having sold the Emina we turned our attention to the new Homy. We got tinting for the windows in the 25% off sale in Supercheap Autos, saving a few more pennies, and spent a day putting it on. It’s hard work but well worth it. We discovered that putting sudsy water on the tint and the windows works really well – next boat I put contact on is going to be brilliant!

Before getting the van we’d spread the word that we were looking for one, so our friend Greg who is a builder thought of us when his company were about to throw out some lovely plywood. We used that wood to make our bed in the back of the van. Another friend who is building a house also had some off cuts of wood around and we used them to make a chest and shelving as well.

The next step was putting in curtains, so we bought some great material for $3 per metre and I got down to sewing.

After all that, we’re pretty happy with the new van and happier still that we were able to buy some bikes (nicely discounted due to being “earthquake damaged”) and fit all our clothes, boats and bikes in the van!

Christmas and New Years

2008-01-09T14:01:00.001+13:00

Dave and co. kept us good and busy over the festive period. We didn’t even get much time to think of what we were missing at home and the hot weather put it further from our minds!

On Christmas Eve, 7 of us went tramping in Waitakere, where we walked along the tracks to a dam and back in about 3½ hours, having a bite of lunch along the way. On Christmas Day Sean, Paul and I went surfing at Murewai Beach for a couple of hours. It did start to feel a bit more like home when we were sitting on the water in the middle of a solid downpour of rain! One way to clear the beach in seconds! On Boxing Day (that’s what they call it here so I’m allowed call it that at last!) a group of us went mountain biking in Woodhill. This time I got away with going a little slower though due to having the convenient excuse of having a child along with us! I’m getting fond of mountain biking now… The day after that we went surfing at Murewai again with Fuzzy, a little less rain that time though!

We took a quick trip down to Taupo also (to do with van hunting – I’ll explain later) and went sailing on the lake. Of course, the wind seemed to die once we were out on the lake again! I’m thinking I might be a bit unlucky with this sailing thing… Sean got to have a spin on Jason’s new jet ski though. Jason has been racing them for years and this is the most powerful one he’s ever ridden, so given that he can hardly hold onto it, I figured I wouldn’t have much of a chance!

On Sunday 30^th we joined Dave, Nic, Paul and Stacey for our first river in New Zealand (at last!). We paddled the grade 3 section of the Wairoa River twice before heading back to Auckland. There, we packed up and all went up to Matapouri for New Years in Dave’s parents’ motor home. As it was so late when we left Auckland, we only drove as far as Whangarei that night. En route, Nic and I got the pleasure of cooking dinner… Apparently it’s legal here, but I advise you all to never even attempt to fry sausages and steak in the back of a moving motor home, especially on the windy roads of New Zealand!

Safely in Matapouri, we went surfing again at Sandy Beach on New Years Eve and then rang in the New Year on the beach watching fireworks!

On New Years Day we decided to try a little experiment towing kayaks behind the prototype jet boat! Sean and Paul got to be the crash test dummies but I stuck to being photographer! Dave and Steve’s son, Brad, also tried it on a surfboard!

The next day Steve brought us to Poor Knights Island in his bigger boat and we went snorkelling. It’s supposed to be one of the best diving destinations. This time I only swam away from jellyfish at speed! I also got to swim right up to a blue penguin – it was only about a foot long and sooo cute! That evening Sean tried out Steve’s surf-ski at Sandy Beach before we headed back to Auckland – Dave and Nic had to go back to work!

Mid-December

2008-01-09T13:30:00.001+13:00

We got back to Taupo in time for another barbeque. We brought a sea-kayak down to the canoe shop there for Dave, which we delivered first thing Monday morning, and met some friends from home in the shop! Askea from UCCCC and her sister Rea have been here for months, and her boyfriend Liam, also a UCCCC member was over for December. The next day we joined them in Rotorua and had a great time racing each other on the luges. We also finally managed to buy a couple of paddles at last!

A week later we met up with them again when we went to the Waitomo Caves together. We took a great trip with one of the many companies that do tours there, Rap, Rock and Raft. Combined we spent about 6 hours abseiling into the cave, walking upstream and floating downstream on rubber inner tubes looking at the glowworms lining the ceiling and walls of the cave, squeezing our way through small gaps, and finally climbing back out again. Well worth the trip!

We made our way from there slowly up to Auckland again, arriving in time to join the polo club in playing a few demonstration games in a pool that was just opening in the city. We had a bit of fun getting the kids to try out the boats in the pool afterwards too.

Then it was time to get ready for Christmas!

A bit more travel

2007-12-16T17:46:00.001+13:00

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

2007-12-16T16:28:00.001+13:00

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

2007-11-12T16:33:00.000+13:00

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

2007-11-12T15:50:00.000+13:00

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...

2007-11-02T17:33:00.000+13:00

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

2007-10-29T22:27:00.000+13:00

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

2007-10-14T19:22:00.000+13:00

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

2007-10-14T19:19:00.000+13:00

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!

2007-10-11T23:48:00.000+13:00

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