RTW 2007/08

Philly: More Than Just Cheese Steaks

2008-07-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

First night in the city that never sleeps (New York). Sat in the basement of the ‘Jazz in the Park’ hostel, a vibrant, music-filled place of confusing proportions and hip-and-they-know-it staff, just off the north-west corner of Central Park (I can see it beckoning me just metres away at the end of 106th West Street). I arrived in the big city by train from New Jersey - my first double decker, very fancy too - during the early evening hours, taking a locally known, subsidised route from Philadelphia (saving myself $40 in the process - thanks Courtney and Kenada). Have a lot to thank those two for: they played the excellent hosts, allowing me use of their sofa for several nights, driving me around their wonderful city, showing me the sights, taking me to their friends’ parties and even making me breakfast. The smell of maple syrup bacon is still fresh in my nostrils. Courtney really can cook: her boyfriend Kenada’s a very lucky boy.

‘Philly’ was a nice city: much older architecture than anything I saw on or near the west coast (stands to reason, really), which a mix of Victorian and Georgian houses (lots of bricked terraces - not something I’m used to seeing in this country), open-air markets, large, trimmed parks, a Thames-like river lined with University owned boat houses (they have a regatta here) and many large, impressive government buildings. The city has a well known and celebrated history, being the birthplace of the constitution as well as home to Benjamin Franklin and, more recently, the setting for the Rocky films (there’s even a scarily popular - though understandably so - Rocky statue, located right by the steps he slogs his way up whilst training in the first film).

Whilst there, we went to a whopping three parties (two of those on Saturday night) and attended July 4th (Independence Day) celebrations on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (a large, international flag lined road that runs through parkland from the centre, where sits a tall and slender, peaked, whitewashed stone city hall, bunched up amidst multiple skyscrapers, to a grand and ancient museum of art (the steps of which featured in Rocky). For the latter, the street was closed off to cars, busy with food stalls, thousands of people and giant TV screens, providing close-ups of the action on the stage, which was set up in front of the museum. Things were going on all day, but we caught up with it late in the evening, just as the R’n’B’ singer John Legend was performing his encore, which lead onto an enormous firework and music display. The crowds were absolutely lapping it up: it was an event for everyone - parties, couples, families and the like - and despite the huge numbers of people, the atmosphere was friendly and exciting, buzzing with catching enthusiasm. Those that weren’t present in the park were having their own parties in their homes, some of which spilled out into the streets, even taking over entire streets (with granted permission to close them off to traffic). Amazingly, I received next to no jibes for my nationality, despite being the enemy. As I like to look at it - they’ve got us to thank for that day, otherwise what would they have to celebrate? ;)

Thursday night was a trip to Courtney and Kenada’s local: a brewery bar right on a canal where, thanks to Kenada’s connections, we were granted free entry (they were charging $5 on the door) and an unlimited tab for next to no cost (even though it did cost a small amount, I wasn’t allowed to contribute). Like I said, fantastic hosts. It was great to see Courtney again, especially in her element showing me around her home town, and I had a top time getting to know her boyfriend Kenada, who apart from being an all round great bloke and incredibly easy to get on with, spoke like a true movie star. Fritzy’s definitely onto a winner there.

My last night, Saturday, involved a trip to a couple of house parties in New Jersey, the second having a Christmas in July theme. We stopped off at an enormous Target superstore on the way there - think Matalan, only slightly more upmarket and much larger - where I got myself a steal of a deal in a $2 red t-shirt as well as a quality trilby hat. Plenty of party games, some truly excellent vodka jelly (or ‘jello’ as they say here) and my first taste of a home keg and margarita machine lead to a memorable night, where I met a load of Courtney and Kenada’s good friends and family, as well as several they didn’t know. Special nod, winks and more go out to Shannon Murphy, a stunning red-head who I wish I’d had more time to get to know. Facebook, don’t fail me now.

First night in the Big Apple and time to hit the sack. Three nights on the razz and I’m done for. I’m getting too old for this ;)

p.s. Philly Cheese Steaks. Jaw dropping. Glad I waited (rather than buying one on the west coast; so famous, they’re even available three thousand miles away).

USA: The West and the Rest

2008-07-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

22.5.08

Arrived in SF and met Lucie - all going swimmingly so far, except that the hostel is a bit of a party place, with ‘kids’ whooping, hollering, shouting and playing various instruments (like a loud horn) late into the early hours of the morning. Means no sleep and a grumpy Jake today. Glad I finally managed to find the hostel: it was scary going, not getting into town (via the BART sky rail system into the city) until near 11PM, then getting lost in scary neighbourhoods, hulking my bulging bags around streets laden with bums and druggies (people bent over in odd positions in doorways or in the middle of the sidewalk, lots of them black; police crawling the curbs, forcing tramps and beggars to move on). Such a relief to finally find the place - the directions were a bit weak and I’d forgotten to take a note of the exact address of the hostel (doh) - but on doing so, I said a quick hello to the extremely jet-lagged Lucie and grabbed myself some freakily enormous slices of pizza from a local Italian around the corner.

27.5.08

Ok, so the blog has taken a real backseat to enjoying my high life living crossing the States in a red shiny convertible (a fuel guzzling Ford Mustang) with Lucie. Unfortunate, but true: traveling with someone else is in most ways preferable to traveling alone - it’s definitely revitalised my love of sight-seeing, having someone to share it with - but at the same time is a distraction, meaning less time devoted to writing and more to doing. Speaking of doing, we’ve done plenty, barely stopping to rest until now, having reached the glamourous sights and sounds of Las Vegas. In the two full days we spent in ‘cisco, we fitted in a couple of cable car rides (amazing how many people can squeeze into the cramped, aged carriages, operated by a lever-pulling driver overly and hopelessly enthusiastic about clearing people out of his way and forcing everyone to the back), a trip to Fisherman’s Wharf (multiple piers, the most famous and touristy being Pier 39, brimming with cafes, restaurants and tourist shops: have been in more of these with Lucie during the week she’s been here than during the entire rest of my trip) and a boat ride out to a tour of ALCATRAZ (need I say more; well I COULD say that it once imprisoned some of America’s most notorious criminals under one roof, we partook of an excellent included audio tour, walked around and got a feel for the inside of the cells, the exercise yard, offices, kitchens, library, behind the walls - where several criminals escaped to the roof, having burrowed their way through their cells’ rear walls using handmade equipment and spoons! - and finally took in an awe inspiring view of the city and bridge).

We met a couple in the noisy hostel (it appears as good as USA Hostels are, with their free pancakes and wifi, they don’t have a curfew and they do play home to many under-21s, who are forced to party inside rather than out) called Josh and Leah (or ‘Ross’ and ‘Laya’ as I jokingly and absentmindedly called them, to Lucie’s utter despair), who we went out for some drinks with and accompanied on an organised tour of San Francisco: ‘Dylan’s Tours’. It was a great half day out in a van, taking in the business and government districts, as well as different parts of the cities belonging to different ethnic groups - Salvadorans, Latinos, Italians, Chinese (enormous Chinatown) - and a huge, dedicated homosexual neighbourhood (where the colourful stripy flag was invented and is still proudly displayed on many houses) and downtown hippy-ville (the corner of Haight and Ashbury, home of the swinging sixties, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead). The cumulation of all this was a trip across the Golden Gate Bridge (so called because of the look of the land across the bay from the city and also presumably a reference to the gold mining that formed California’s beginnings), swinging by the ‘bay’ that Otis Reading famously wrote a song about, a hilltop viewpoint offering the most staggering views of the city and suburbs yet (San Francisco is possibly the most picturesque city I’ve ever seen, thanks to its sometimes impossibly staggered blocks of streets comprising of a multitude of brightly coloured, wooden Victorian buildings - these, by the way, go up and down at forty five degree plus angles seemingly arbitrarily). Before finishing the tour, we travelled a little way out into ‘the valley’ to see the Muir Woods, home to some neck craning-ly tall, massive Californian redwood trees. It was quite a day.

29.5.08

About to hit ‘the Strip’ on our last full day in Vegas, having spent the morning burning in the thirty degree sun.

15.6.08

Sat on one of two humongous beds in a motel in the swish town of Jackson - Wyoming’s most trendy residence - just south of the Grand Teton National Park (containing mountains that Teddy Roosevelt once said looked how mountains should).

30.6.08

It’s 10.22 AM and I’ve just had my first lie in since Vegas (over a month ago). Feel particularly good as I was terribly hungover yesterday, after spending my first night alone in six weeks at McMenamin’s ‘Edgefield’ hotel/winery/bar/brewery/concert resort, drinking an exorbitant amount of their excellent IPA (not to mention a couple of ‘Maker’s’ Bourbons) and chatting with as many random people as time would allow. I had dropped Dad off at Seattle Airport just prior, and after a three hour journey of nothing but highways and incredible heat brought on by a sudden heat wave (the journey we shared during our last few days in NW USA has been more on the bleaker side: grey, cool and cloudy, with the occasional few hours of blue sky and mild sunshine), I was more than ready to cool off.

Whilst at Edgefield, I managed to take in a couple of sights that Dad and I missed there during our stay a week ago, including a Jerry Garcia statue (very surreal monument, easily missed amongst the trees it lay situated amongst on the edge of a golf course, it looked like ‘Barnacle Bill’ from the latter Pirates of the Caribbean movies) and the distillery (a dimly lit, smokey, entirely wooden ‘shed’ of a bar, host to plenty of liquors - as they call spirits here - and, fortunately, beers too, a groovy, bearded hippy of a bartender, and a small television showing old reruns of Woodstock). Whilst there, I also took in a wedding reception party on the edge of a grassy, picnic tabled clearing, into which a fiddler and his band piped merry music until the wee hours (sitting there also had the advantage of being near a large, central bonfire, which wasn’t really needed until after midnight). I got chatting with many Americans - some staying the nights, others braving it with taxis or by driving - and even an English bloke, there on a working holiday.

Have just spent the night in the cheapest US motel I’ve ever stayed in: $38.50 for a decent, clean, pretty large room, right on the corner of the Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. Am trying to eat the cold pizza remains from last night’s tea for breakfast, but it’s not working as the in-room fridge has turned it into a huge, pizza flavoured ‘popsicle’. Yuck. Got to pack up now as its nearly kicking out time.

2.7.08

Sat in the cafe of the H.I. Fisherman’s Wharf Hostel in San Francisco, looking out of a window that overlooks the currently very foggy bay. It’s been a busy day today. I dropped off the car - said a weepy goodbye to the beautiful V8 driving deity the has been my trusty steed these last six weeks, in both red and white guises, clocking up 5,400 miles with Dad and almost 2,000 miles with Lucie. It was incredibly dirty both inside and out after such a magnum opus of a journey, having wrestled with so many hills and mountains, as well as the occasional dirt, stoney track: I gave it a once over with a hostel loaned towel and plenty of tissues, but it was all a waste of time in the end, as the Budget Rental people didn’t even bother leaving their desks to look at it. Had a heck of a time getting to the Hyatt Hotel (where this particular Budget office is based) to drop the damn thing off: I’ve never seen such a maze of one-way streets. Fortunately got it there with minutes to spare.

I spent a lot of time walking to and fro between the hostel, which is located on a state owned ‘national park’ campus called ‘Fort Mason’ (looks like an old fashioned army campus, sitting on a hill, between the wharf and a marina), and ‘North Beach’, San Francisco’s cafe-filled Little Italy. There I had lunch, took in the warmth of the sun and blue skies - what little of it there was, flitting between heavy bouts of California’s infamous creeping, coastal fog - and got a hair cut (at last!). I also confirmed my flights to Philadelphia for tomorrow, sorted out an early minibus collection to the airport (5AM: yawn!), mailed Courtney to arrange meeting her at the airport, booked myself into a hostel in New York for next week and contacted Qantas to bring my final flight home forward. I’m set to fly out of New York’s JFK Airport at 6PM on Friday 11th July, nine days from now. Decided I couldn’t wait another week for the original date, I’m wrapped up with this trip, very much ready to come home and besides, out of money!

Last few days traveling south, I’ve covered a heck of a lot of miles as well as a tonne of sights. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride, with me barely having time to assess what I’ve seen before flying onto the next attraction. Southern Oregon was awesome: having left the busy and boring Interstate-5 a hundred miles south of Portland, I entered the ever thickening woods of Willamette National Forest. To the south, these turned out to be on a larger scale and denser than even those I saw with Dad, lush with deep greens and rising as high as five thousand feet, where the forest fell away to reveal America’s, now, trademark snow-topped peaks (that of ‘Diamond Peak’, to name but one). Then it was a steady descent back to a hot, dry, sandy dust bowl close to Crater Lake, where I spent the night in the aforementioned cheapest motel I’ve ever been in. That same day though, even having driven over four hours with a hangover, I simply had to go see Crater Lake.

The drive to it was completely bonkers: a super straight road that would make the Romans proud, barrens gave way to yet more thick forest, sprawling for miles in ever direction. Though the road bobbled up and down over the fourteen miles to the northern entrance to the park, I don’t remember climbing a significant way up, but on entering it, all of a sudden there was snow everywhere. A heavy cloud also appeared out of nowhere, blocking the sun and sending the hot, steamy temperature I’d been experiencing yet minutes before plummeting to freezing. Madness. The park surrounding Crater Lake was almost as stunning as the lake: great snowy vistas, trees dotting the landscape and rocky jaggies protruding regularly to force the road off course. The snow was almost as thick as it was on the ‘Beartooth Pass’ in Montana, in fact the scenery was very similar. Leaving the park, and for what must have been hundreds of square miles surrounding it, forming a significant portion and southern Oregon and Northern California, there was nothing but uninterrupted tall, wild forest. Some of the twisting and turning and undulating roads (marked as ‘Scenic Byways’) were fabulous, the superb cornering on the Mustang making them a real pleasure to drive. But the biggest impression that the area made on me - especially around Crater Lake, before I hit the busier Highway 199 - was that of complete, vast solitude. There wasn’t a person, let alone a car or building, sometimes for miles, and looking into the depths of forest I could see only more trees and only for a short distance too, the shrubs being so closely packed the light barely filtered through. I heard Dad use a phrase - a ‘cathedral of trees’ - a few weeks back, and that’s certainly how I felt: traveling through a snaking, narrow valley of foliage, the only source of a light a narrow strip above me.

Crater Lake itself was a humongous, water filled, spherical, sudden drop in the ground, like as if a giant, circular scooper had been used to rip a city sized chunk out of the earth. It was surrounded all the way around by dramatically jagged peaks, rising steeply on both sides, which enhanced the overall strikingness of the ‘cavity’. It was so large, I couldn’t get far enough away to fit it all in one picture, so had to make do with several dozen instead.

The drive down to the northern tips of the coast of California the next day was another long one, mainly through lots of forest (as mentioned above), later on following a stunning river which carved up a increasingly narrow and steep valley. The temps really dropped as I got closer to the coast, from the thirties down to the mid teens, as I eventually hit the coastal fog (brrrr). Before hitting the fog, I made a stop at the ‘Jedidiah Smith Redwood State Park’, as recommended to me earlier in the trip, particularly focusing on ‘Stout Grove’. I was going to get to it by entering the park through the traditional entrance, but the lady at the gate explained I could enter via a back route, drive all the way up the the grove’s entrance that way, take in a six mile gravel road through the redwood forest all the way to the coast (she assured me it was in tip top condition and well worth it - it was too, great snaking corners, trees growing into and over the road, ethereally lit by dappled sunlight) and to top it all off, avoid paying the $6 entrance fee. It was a no brainer!

‘Stout Grove’ was a large collection of incredibly tall redwood trees, mentioned in Lonely Planet’s top twenty things to see in the States. The trees were massive, though their bases were not as thick as some Dad and I had seen, they made up in height what they lacked in girth (though don’t get me wrong, they were still several feet thick). What really struck me was how familiar that section of forest looked. It wasn’t until that night, checking into a hostel which was perfectly located right on the coast, opposite a stunning section of volcanic sanded beach, that I found out it was where George Lucas filmed the setting for Endor, the moon on which the Ewoks lived in Return of the Jedi!

Last day of driving to San Fran took in mainly Highway 101 - the fast freeway that bisects California north to south, where I saw the tree populated, green landscapes turn ever yellower and drier, then into vast swathes of grape vines as I entered wine country - as well as a three hour detour to the coast on the fabulous Highway 1 (I’d previously traveled several hundred miles of this scenic, mainly coastal hugging road north up from LA to San Francisco with Lucie, past places such as the bourgeois Santa Barbara and the sensational cliff sides of Big Sur), where I tempted fate by heading back out to the coast for a while, into the occasional clutches of ‘the fog’. (That particular journey was well worth it, by the way. The stretch of hill hugging, forest road that formed the part of H/W 1 leading out to sea was the most devilishly twisty one I’d ever been on, and brilliant for swinging round in the Mustang with the top down, each blind bend bringing with it a perfect blend of adult fear and childish excitement. Finally got to see what the car could do.) On hitting the coast, I lapped up the cliffs, ocean views and cool weather for a while, eventually giving in and headed back inland to the welcoming heat (extreme difference in temp. in just a few miles, yet next to no difference in altitude) on an equally bendy road.

Finished with the west coast now, off to do the east, catch Independence Day in the city it transpired in (Philadelphia), shop till I drop in Manhattan, then catch a plane home.

Hopping the Pacific

2008-06-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

11.5.08

It’s an early Sunday morning, just finished my usual breakfast of coconut riddled muesli and fresh fruit, with a piece of coconut bread-cake on the side (you get coconut in everything here), and I’m sat bent over my computer on a wooden veranda, facing the beach and a breezy, blue-green sea. It’s my fifth day at the Octopus Resort and the fifth since updating my blog! This resort does indeed live up to its name: a proper tourist holiday destination, it has a long, white sand beach, lapped by a shallow ocean perfect for scuba/snorkeling (so I’m told - haven’t tested this out yet, but intend to this afternoon), a sand carpeted dining area, bar, pool, ‘bures’ (thatch roofed cottages, housing 2-4 people), a couple of dorm rooms (unusual for a resort but I’m not complaining as I’m staying in a really nice one, along with 13 others) and the obligatory palm trees, hammocks and sun beds (free).

Weather wise, Wednesday through to Friday were pretty miserable, with Thursday being the worst. I took a two hour boat trip to get here - was picked up from my hotel shortly after 9AM (worried they weren’t coming, but turns out they were running to ‘Fiji Time’, like everybody else), driven along with a few others to a small, very pretty jetty, where I had some yummy coffee (and found a free wifi hotspot, but alas, too late to use it) and then we jumped aboard a small, motor-powered boat, which whizzed us off to Octopus Resort’s own island. The ride started off fairly pedestrian but after we cleared the bay I made some stupid comment about the going being slow, which naturally prompted the driver to put his foot down, sending the boat crashing over the busy surf, everybody holding on for dear life. It was quite the thrilling ride - all of the flapping, plastic windows but my own were battened down to keep out the splashing water, I enjoyed the wind in my face and getting wet (that was until some less enthusiastic Fijians on the boat insisted I clip down my window too). When we got to the resort, a smaller boat took us and our bags to the shore, where we were greeted by a flowery shirted, guitar playing song and dance troupe: a traditional Fijian welcome.

20.5.08

Aloha!

Well, I got sidetracked from my blog for another nine days. Have been relaxing the last week away in Hawai’i, intent on getting away from it all, chilling out and making an reasonable attempt at updating my travel diary. Two out of three doesn’t feel too bad, but the guilt’s been eating away at me, so here I am, waiting for my plane to San Francisco (have to remember to call it ‘ess ef’ or ‘the city’, so not to sound too much like a tourist) at the amazing Honolulu Airport. Wish that it had made such a good impression on me on arrival: all there was to greet international flights was a long (LONG) wait for a bus, boxy, grey, concrete buildings, a noticeable lack of ATMs (did indeed find one, but took me almost an hour to) and then an even greater lack of shops to get change from (‘The Bus’, the Oahu public transport system infamous for its $2, take-you-anywhere charge, refuses to split notes). Leaving the country, on the other hand, presents me with wide, glorious lounges stacked to the brim with Starbucks, cafes and duty frees, an onsite Hawaiian band and a huge, central garden, open aired and kitted out with fish ponds, palm trees and stacks of tropical vegetation (has to be a first for an airport). Swish.

There’s been a few big differences between Hawaii (Oahu Island, that is) and Fiji. I spent six out of my seven days in Fiji at the Octopus Resort in the Yasawas Island group, a small, mountainous island with the one resort, a local village (very ‘local’, home only to around a hundred Fijian natives - the traditional Kava drinking, hut living, satellite TV watching, self-sufficient type - most in the employ of the resort), jungle, absolutely no roads and some long, sandy beaches. I spent most of my time socialising with the people in my resort (couples or girls mainly, the latter part being fine with me), reading on the beach or under the shelter of thatched roofs (about half and half - sadly the weather tended towards overcast and the rain kept on coming, most frequently over the first few days), eating (the inclusive three meals a day were excellent, the menu very varied), playing the odd game of beach volleyball (I was rubbish, but enjoyed it), going for walks on the beach, snorkeling (some beautiful corral and stunning, multicoloured fish) and taking part on the occasional organised (supervised) hike to the neighbouring village, up and over the other side of the mountain (two visits: one on a Sunday for a Christian service held at the village church, spoken entirely in Fijian but still very evocative, thanks to the powerful evangelical choir and the put-the-fear-of-God-into-you, just as loud preacher, the other to look around and join in a Kava drinking ceremony). Kava, by the way, is a local delicacy made from the roots of a special plant: it’s infused into cold water through straining it, rather like how tea is made. The result is a drug that’s supposed to get you high if you drink enough of it (rather like the effect of cannabis). I had several bowlfuls in one ceremony and can only report a slight fuzzy head, with a very noticeable numbing of the lips and tongue. Other things of note in Fiji: despite the crap weather (only one full day of sunshine, two partially overcast, the rest: rain) I had a great time, met lots of nice people (all Facebook’d), really enjoyed the absolutely fabulous resort (everybody staying there - and that was lots, what with each day interchanging new people for old, sometimes admittedly poignantly - said it was the best one they’d been to, throughout the entire of Fiji), feasted on some great food (too much food: a different three-course meal each night - curry, meat BBQ, fish, pasta - lots of continental breakfast to choose from, plus a choice of around ten dishes for lunch, with a daily changing special) and took part in/witnessed several entertaining shows (from a dance performed by the native villagers to beach party games to watching DVDs on giant, poolside screen). Everything had a polished, package holiday feel about it, without the tackiness.

Hawaii, on the other hand, turned out to be incredibly civilised, trashy in parts and boldly American: leaving the airport and heading into Honolulu, I could have been entering any large, US city, such was the spaghetti-like entanglement of roads, each bearing witness to big, flashy cars (lots of 4x4s and sports cars), shopping centres and high rise office blocks. Waikiki, where I spent the first couple of nights and my last night, turned out to be a real haven for tourists - like a Disneyland for grownups, it had more sky scraping hotels than I could count, with as many again restaurants and cafes, likably clean streets (‘sidewalks’?) spilling over with holiday makers and the famous, but extremely tacky in my opinion, ‘Waikiki Beach’: a long strip of sand barely big enough to contain those splayed out upon it. Still, as bad as that sounds, it was fun for a while, especially nice after the remoteness and quiet of my stay in Fiji. Whilst staying in the Octopus Resort, I made countless friends with the girls in my beautifully clean and high sociable dorm (it WAS a lovely dorm too: fourteen extremely comfortable beds, equipped with mosquito nets, made every day by the friendly Fijian staff), but eventually got ‘in’ with a crowd of Irish girls who had their own bure (Alison, Grace and Frances). Turned out they were staying in the same crappy hostel as me back in Auckland - they remembered me, having asked for directions to the laundry (but I not them: naughty!) - and that two of them happened to also be going on to Hawaii next. So straight away I was keen to get to know them, also attracted by their entirely hilarious Irish (‘Oyrish’) accents - being from Cork and Dublin, they sounded exactly like any female member of the cast of Father Ted. Their accents and colloquialisms seemed really exaggerated as well as, at times, derived, yet completely natural too (‘feck’ was a constant feature of conversation). Brilliant :)

Anyway, I spent the first couple of nights in Waikiki with Grace and Alison, where we took in Duke’s Bar on the beach the first night (it came recommended - the cocktails were great, the view excellent, the food not so) and the delights of the ‘Cheesecake Factory’ (YES!!!) the second. The latter had an upmarket ‘TGI Friday’s’ feel to it: the food was good and massive, the cheesecake desserts exemplary. On the first day in the centre of the Pacific - a Tuesday, where I left Fiji at one minute to midnight on the Tuesday, flew for eight hours (sat with the girls, the flight took this long thanks to a stopover at ‘Christmas Island’: what appeared to be nothing but a pancake flat, sand and palm tree lined archipelago - no man made constructions in sight, other than a tiny terminal building and a caked, old runaway with cracks on its surface), then arrived at just after 10AM the same day, receiving a whole extra day, thanks to crossing the Pacific ‘date line’ - I had a sublime piece of Tiramisu Cheesecake (as good as it sounds) coupled with a super strong and sweet Mai-Tai cocktail (an atypical Hawaiian cocktail: Hawaii’s all about the cocktails and the leis [the flowery necklaces]). Cocktails have turned out to be a godsend in Hawaii: very suitable in the hot, sultry climate (unlike the heavy Samuel Adams beer I tried, but I can also see why ‘light’ beers - such as ‘Corrs Light’ - would be popular, though I hear that’s a trend that unfortunately continues throughout the whole of the US). The staff in the ‘Cheesecake Factory’ were also incredibly friendly and engaging, almost overbearingly so; the reason for which revealed itself when the bill arrived, where, as I expected, a 15-20% tip was expected, spelt out by a thoughtful gratuity advice slip for tourists.

So Hawaii has very much marked my entrance into the United States. Of the Americans I’ve met or happened across here, many have seemed friendly, those that I’ve spoken to very willing to engage in conversation, some most intrigued by my accent. The second day I spent in Waikiki I teamed up with a Canadian for a trip to Pearl Harbour, where just as many Americans were taken by his accent as by mine. Though his name escapes me unfortunately, the Canadian was a radio advert producer from Calgary, as well as a past radio disc jockey: an interesting, ginger bloke with a very loud voice (seemingly unbeknownst to him, which was a tiny bit cringeworthy in quieter places, such as on ‘the Bus’). The trip to Pearl Harbour was really satisfying: we went for a walk around and inside an old and very impressive battleship, the USS Missouri, built before the second world war, prior to the supersession of the aircraft carrier (several old veterans were employed inside, who were very chatty and helpfully explain the workings of the ship, the bus driver who took us round the sights was also jolly and talkative, but warned us not to take photos whilst traversing the still active - ! - naval base: all we really saw were streets upon streets of identikit officer’s home, looking as colourful and fake as those in the film ‘Edward Scissorhands’) and we also got to see the incredible insides of a submarine (built in retaliation of the Pearl Harbour attack, used to take out many Japanese ships and subs - as indicated by the rising sun flags painted on its side, as well as one French one, unusually). The latter was the best part of the full day, the worst (least exciting, anyway) was the free visit to the USS Arizona, the sunken, unsalvageable, rusting remains of a ship bombed during the attack of Pearl Harbour (preceded by the much more interesting film of the event, shown on a big cinema screen, including both American and Japanese sourced clips). Watching from a viewing platform above, I did witness a stingray pass through the waters above the wreck, which was by far and away the highlight of that particular trip.

Am typing this from my seat on an American Airlines passenger jet, some 25,000 feet above the ocean. I can’t believe quite how tight this airline is. Not only do they insist on charging for food - ooh, but at least we get a complimentary soft drink - but you also have to pay for headphones, in case you wanted to watch the inflight entertainment. It’s a joke. The American guy from the Napa Valley (famous for its wines he tells me, I’m sure I’ve heard of it before) sat in the seat next to me informs me that all the American airlines have started charging for these services. Won’t be long until England follows suit I bet, though perhaps because this constitutes a shorter flight - relatively speaking, being less than five hours long - that’s how they get away with it.

After the first couple of days in tourist hotspot Waikiki, I was ready to get away from it to the comparably quiet ‘North Shore’. Ooops, forgot to mention - one other cool thing I discovered about Oahu is that Lost is filmed here. Not only that, but later the same day, I was taking a stroll down Waikiki’s highstreet only to pass by one of the actors from it: the guy who plays Ben, leader of ‘the Others’. Feigned ignorance until he passed me then whipped out my camera to grab a clumsy back shot. Still got him though :) Anyways, Thursday I caught a bus up to the North Shore with my Canadian acquaintance, glad to leave behind the complete hole that was my hostel: no curtains, loud music late into the night from the next door neighbours, dirty and grotty rooms, annoying, ignorant staff, poor free breakfast (bread, a limited supply of peanut butter and crappy coffee basically). Passed a ‘Dole Banana Plantation’ en route, trading a fully urbanised landscape for a much more rural one. Had a long chat with an old and well informed American guy who seemed only too happy to tell me how his country was going to hell thanks to Bush and his cronies. Argh, the lady in front of me has just lowered her seat back as far as it would go - and then some - limiting my space to just a few inches, or so it feels. In front are a couple of loud, obnoxious, black Americans - their rudeness to the air stewardess said it all - so I’m not too inclined to argue.

The hostel I stayed in on the North Shore was a godsend - despite the crap the guys at the Beachside Hostel in Waikiki tried to feed me about it. The unfortunately titled ‘Ho Hostel’ comprised a couple of spotless, freshly painted houses, set within the landscaped grounds of well trimmed, plant filled gardens, equipped with seats and hammocks for lounging lazily in, run by a welcoming and helpful Latin American family who, through their constant attention, kept the place feeling fresh and homely. I had a large, astroturfed veranda to sit, relax, browse the web (free and FAST wifi) and eat on, adjacent to a pristine, new, fully fitted kitchen and several colourfully painted rooms, one of which played host to my bunk bed. For the entire duration of my stay - four nights, five days - there was only one other person in the dorm (if you could call it that), an American midget from Florida, who was considering Hawaii as his next place to live (it’s wonderful how the United States work). Like the old guy on the bus, he also had extremely negative opinions on his country, its current depression, how Americans appear to outsiders and the general ignorance of his fellow countrymen on these subjects. Appears defeatism could turn into a bit of a theme for my US trip.

Right across the road from my ‘hostel’ (like I said, if you could really call it that - more like a hotel or a ‘home’ in actuality) was a bike track, succeeded by miles of thick, behind a long strip of thick, creamy white beach (the sand particles were larger than the usual grain sized, appearing like tiny, smoothly rounded pearls or pebbles), stretching for miles in either direction, lined with some pretty expensive looking beach condos and picturesque palm trees (the really tall, swaying variety, like those you see in the movies). The beach directly opposite Ho was called Sunset Beach, barely distinguishable from its neighbouring beaches if I’m honest, except that some were considered safer for swimming in, thanks to the presence of jutting rocks in the sea, calming the ever-present, bone crushingly powerful surf (I can attest to this, my one experience swimming in the sea sending me crashing back into the beach). Speaking of the surf, I could see why Hawaii, and in particular the North Shore, is considered such a top destination for surfing: despite it not even being the surfing season, I bared witness to some of the largest waves I’d ever seen - some towering easily more than a dozen feet into the air, they’d crash into the beach with an incredible impact, enough to create a ridge in the sand whilst sending showers of white foam scattering in all directions (sometimes alarmingly far up the shore).

I did plenty of sunbathing, reading (finally completed the ‘Outline of American History’ book I ‘borrowed’ from a hostel in Kuala Lumpur, so now I’m fully clued up) and cycling. The weather has been wonderful for the most part (blazingly hot when the sky was clear), though disappointingly it occasionally got cloudy for long periods. What the locals call ‘VOG’ was mainly to blame, a misty settling of fog issued by the Big Island’s volcano. My experience of food in Hawaii hasn’t been all too positive - apart from the cheesecakes, cafe and restaurant grub seems largely to be based around the concept of ‘fast food’. Burgers and fries are very much on the menu, lots of sugar and salt form a large part of the island diet, everything is BIG and not fresh, and preservatives and colouring appear to be overly present in everything, from Chinese Spicy Pork to Chocolate Haupia Pie (a chocolate and coconut dessert from Ted’s Bakery, Hawaii’s most famous confectioner - pretty tasty but too artificial, too obviously the product of a machine). I really hope this isn’t indicative of America in general - it would go some way to explain my obsession with meals whilst touring the States when I was 15, however - but a lady at my noticeably nicer hostel last night, the ‘Polynesian Beach Hostel’ in Waikiki, kindly reassured me it wasn’t (what I’m to look for, it would seem, are ‘diners’). Here’s hoping.

After relaxing up on the North Shore and not taking advantage of all that free time to blog (!!), spent the last day in Waikiki, so to be closer to the airport. Had to make do with fast food outlets (Subway, Starbucks) as nothing else was available. Went on an enjoyable, though rather tiring, trip that took me all the way around the outside on a circuit of and up on top of the ‘Diamond Head Crater’: a large crater left by a long dead volcano, just past one end of Waikiki Beach. Got lost going there, wound up in a very posh, Beverly Hills alike neighbourhood of dead ends, retreated and made my way up along the coastal ‘Diamond Head’ road, which turned out to be the much longer way round to get to the entrance of the crater (took me a couple of hours, as opposed to the half an hour return journey coming back the other way). When I made it to the ticket office, the lady announced it was closed - it was 4.50PM, the park closed at 6PM and the round trip to the top was supposed to take 90 minutes (many signs bared warnings, for fat Americans no doubt, about the whopping 1.5km trip, without toilet and water facilities: oh my god!) - but she could see the anxious, tired and disappointed look on my sweaty face, as she very kindly let me through anyway (and for free, saving me a whole dollar - woo!). Speed walked my way to the top, up a windy path, through a dark tunnel, up some very steep stairs and finally up a spiraling staircase, before making it to a lookout point/defence bunker on the rim (the route was an old one built by the US Army). The views of the island and its tall mountains in one direction and the expanse of the city of Honolulu equalling towering in the other made it worth the walk (and just as the sun was going down to).

Made it back in time to the beach for another sunset: I’ve been watching these avidly and taking many photos since Granddad reminded me how impressed he and Gran were by them. Attracting whopping crowds every evening, they’re indeed a marvel, so long as the sky is relatively clear of clouds or VOG. The sun, like a huge, full, round, iridescent torch light, turns from yellow to orange, then to deep red as it descends, the sky taking on shades of pink then purple as dusk follows. Perhaps not quite as spectacular as those I witnessed in the deserts of India, but magnificent nonetheless. Unfortunately my new digital camera doesn’t cope with such shots half as well as my old one, so will have to rely on memory mainly for these.

So, just over three hours until I reach SF, then I’m all set to meet Lucie. Am excited to gain a companion for the next part of my trip, but also a little anxious. Hope she doesn’t get bored of me, plus I hope I don’t suffer too much for lack of private time. Am really counting on being myself around her, dunno if this will be the case as never spent so much time with her. We do get on really well usually, and I can’t wait to catch up. Doesn’t seem real yet. One really good thing I’m looking forward to is that I’ll have someone to share photos and experiences with, plus I know Lucie will have me doing all sorts of activities I wouldn’t normally be doing, as she’s one of those crazy, always active persons. Hopefully will keep the blog up too.

P.S.: The split between native Fijians and Indians is 55:45. The natives resent the (originally imported by the Brits) Indians, thanks to the latter’s ability to work hard and make money (explains the presence of so many Indian taxi drivers at the airport). Fijian dollar notes have the Queen’s head on them. Native Polynesians in Hawaii look more like their Maori counterparts than the African looking Fijians: a definite cross between a Asian and American Indian, which makes sense being that Hawaii is almost exactly in the centre of the Pacific. Didn’t notice too many native Hawaiians about, however, thanks to the heavy presence of multi-ethnic Americans (both tourists and residents). There’s a large Asian presence in Hawaii, especially Chinese (Honolulu has its own Chinatown). Being in the States, I’m really disliking the reintroduction of single and two cent coins (completely redundant, since you can buy nothing with them, and weighing down my wallet, I find myself dumping such change straight into a donations box on receiving it), as well as the paper one dollar note.

Really disappointed I wasn’t presented with a free lei by a beautiful grass-skirt wearing lady on my arrival at Honolulu Airport. The movies they lie!

The USS Arizona was still leaking oil fifty years on. You could see it floating on the surface of the sea above.

I saw a lady open her handbag and drop her pet dog into it, sealing the zip close around the neck so that it’s head popped out the top, before throwing the bag over her shoulder and entering Foodland (whilst on the North Shore). Only in America.

Mount Muanganui & Views From It

2008-05-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

Lake Taupo, THE Venision Pie, Rotorua's Kuirau Park, A Maori Meeting House

2008-05-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Tongariro National Park: Mordor & Mount Doom

2008-05-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

Pictures from the Forgotten World Highway

2008-05-04T05:15:00.000-07:00

Wellington, A Maori Temple Within Te Papa Museum, Whanganui River

2008-05-04T05:07:00.000-07:00

Eggy Breath

2008-05-04T03:57:00.001-07:00

3.5.08

Man I’m tired. Dunno quite what it is, but I’ve had a distracting headache for most of the day - possibly from staying up late reading the excellent ‘Pushing Ice’ by Alastair Reynolds. It’s a real page turner and I’m unable to put it down, which was fine by me today: happy to spend most of the afternoon reading and nursing a coffee in a cafe on the tourist strip/central high street of the seaside town of Mt Muanganui (translates to ‘Large Mountain’ - sometimes referred to just as ‘the Mount’ - which describes an striking, steep, preserved hill that protrudes from the end of an otherwise flat, populated peninsula, across an inlet from the city of Tauranga, which is where I’m actually staying/typing from tonight). Especially happy to chill this afternoon, being so tired today I made some very elementary mistakes whilst driving: the usual mixing up which side of the steering wheel the indicator stick is on (left here, rather than right), instead turning on the windscreen wipers, but also, embarassingly, failing to stop at some roadworks - where traffic was directed into one lane. It didn’t help that the sign told me to stop when requested, but the workman was sat on his arse and not holding any signs (normally they do hold up a sign, and what a crap job that must be too!). In hindsight - such a wonderful thing (!) - I think this particular sign only had ‘GO’ printed on it. Not holding it up naturally meant I had to stop. Much waving of hands and irate gestures forced me to reverse and just in time too, oncoming traffic appearing seconds after I did so. Soon forgot about this when I arrived at the sunny marinas of Tauranga, leaving behind the bone-numbing cold of Rotorua (yes, it’s getting that cold again) for sparkling sunshine.

The city of Tauranga that I’m staying in boasts a large harbour, whilst the township of Mt Tauranga, stretching across the bay on the cape opposite, is lined with beaches, set back from which are rows of expensive condos and spectacularly tall pine trees (a touch of the Australian influence there: very ‘Manly Bay’-esque). Both urban areas, part of one of the country’s sunniest regions, known as the ‘Bay of Plenty’ (a popular hotspot for New Zealand holiday makers, named so by the Maoris thanks to the fertility of the land, now used mainly to grow kiwi fruit), are tourist heavy and commercialised, centred around their own stylish tourist strips, lined with the usual trendy cafes, restaurants and shops. Am getting used to this feature of the north island, though I can’t help feeling a bit short changed at times: swapping the remote and spectacular of the south for the busy and touristic of the north. I guess I have to get used to it - I doubt California will be any better! ;)

Fortunately, there’s still occasions that slaps me in the face, bringing me back to reality by reminding me I haven’t left the New Zealand I love yet. Today’s was the walk up to the top of Mt Muanganui. After lazing most of the day away in a cafe, in the early evening I set out on a pretty heavy going walk up a steep, muddy path that encircled the forested hill, surprisingly busy with joggers, sight-seers and, heading out to sit on rocks in the sea, fishermen (a very big past-time in NZ). The view from the top made the climb worth it - I hadn’t even realised before heading up there, but I made it out above the tree line and onto a grassy plateau (with landmark to prove I’d made it to the top) just in time to witness a breathtaking sunset: a golden torch melting into the sea, spreading a warm glow over the blue carpet, the fabulous, hill crested, partially urbanised coastline (with small mountain range in the distance) and tree layered archipelago that stretched out to the horizon. Ahh, this is more like it.

Am about to head out and catch some grub now, having not eaten anything since this morning’s adventure to the amusing ‘Fat Dog Cafe’: a cartoon dog themed eatery - very popular with kids, for obvious reasons - where I was served an unfairly large slice of bacon and egg pie (I mean, how can they expect a normal human to eat that much - filled layer upon layer upon layer of alternating bacon and egg), plus a much easier to digest strawberry smoothie. It wasn’t a bad breaky, but nothing to write home about after yesterday’s culinary lunch time delights. Will get on to describing that and my day in smelly Rotorua later.

4.5.08

Yummy grub last night at the ‘De Bier Haus’ - little that was German about the fancy bar, other than the appearance of Bratwurst. On recommendation of a saucy Canadian member of the bar staff, I had a delicious chicken, salad and sweet chilli sandwich (made even tastier by the sumptuous guacamole) and the lovable beer-battered chips (or ‘frites’ as they called them here: large, extra breadcrumb encrusted, salty chips), washed down a ‘handle’ of my now favourite Kiwi beer, Speight’s ‘Sassy Red’. I was actually recommended this place by a girl working at my hostel (a small, busy but fairly impersonal YHA, about ten minute’s walk from the waterfront), on account of their divine CHEESE CAKE! Ummm. So obviously that was a no brainer for desert, and like the girl at the hostel, the eyes belonging to those working in the bar (a couple of girls and even one bloke!) whom I mentioned the pudding too soon glazed over. Good cheese cake seems to have this effect on people! (Especially the sort that is butterscotch flavoured, with lumps of chocolate and marshmallow scattered throughout.)

I gleaned some information off one bartender about why the place was so empty. Apparently most people hit the bars starting at about 11PM, thanks to New Zealand’s long standing late drinking laws (3AM being the standard for most establishments). I was there between eight and ten, meaning I was joining the ‘eating crowd’. Also, I questioned him on speed cameras, or the lack thereof, and was informed that the stationary ones had been taken out of commission, leaving only the occasional mobile one. Scarily, they don’t require any warning, but as usual, drivers that know about them will warn oncoming traffic with a quick flash of the headlights (have seen this many times whilst driving: warming, small community behaviour that’s long disappeared from England).

So, what happened between Taupo and Tauranga? I was typing my blog for so long in my hostel in Taupo - cheekily long after officially checking out (handing in my key) - that it was lunch time by the time I had finished. I decided to pop back to Rotorua’s voted best cafe, the ‘Bodyfuel Cafe’, to give it a second chance at proving itself. Once again, the coffee proved average, but this time the food was just inspired! I had an incredible venison pie - the meat was amazing: stringy, lean (absolutely no fat), dark, tender and juicy, it and the delectable, large pastry ‘pot’ it sat in were divine, melting right off the tongue. Venison is now a firm favourite of mine, definitely. Somehow, this was if not topped at least equalled by the desert, a slice of ‘caramel crunch’: take the caramel from a normal ‘caramel slice’, make it super rich and sumptuous, then add toasted oats and a biscuit base. Ummmm :)

Good food has definitely been on the menu these last two days. After chilling out in that wonderful cafe, reading my excellent book and letting my food go down, I struck out north to Rotorua. About an hour’s drive away, I drove through densely forested, green parkland, with trees so tall that they interrupted radio signals. The weather was playing silly buggers, trading heavy grey clouds for blinding sunshine, then just as quickly swapping that for a fast flowing rainstorm. Am definitely beginning to feel an affinity for New Zealand - the climate, the countryside, its friendly people and their wicked humour feel alien, but at the same time pleasantly familiar. Am going to miss this place.

Arrived at the hostel in the lakeside ‘city’ of Rotorua (again, I have difficulty acknowledging this ‘town’ as a city: they work it out by numbers here, not cathedrals), greeted by the amusingly sarcastic jibes of the owner (quite a character, instantly likable!). The place I stayed was really a large, converted house, very busy and homely with backpackers who seemed to know one another, intermixing with the owner and his family. I dropped off my stuff and set out to investigate the city. To be honest, the place felt fairly boring and uninspired, especially whilst I was busy getting drenched by heavy rain showers, following Lonely Planet’s recommended walk by the black swan studded lakeside. However, this soon changed when I discovered Rotorua’s novelty feature: white, sulphur-rich, clouds of gas creeping up out of drains, from warm, bubbling rain puddles (!!) and fissures - any small gaps in the ground, basically. These smelly (think rotten eggs), dense billows of smoke shoot up from the ground all over the place, giving the impression that the town is perpetually on fire (like, say, Gotham City). Rotorua sits on New Zealand’s most dynamic thermal area, cluttered with small but active volcanoes, as well as geysers, boiling mud pools and thermal baths. These makes it a major tourist attraction, plus adding to the fun is a whole host of Maori buildings: I took in an intricately carved meeting house, as well as an Anglican church, which combines Christian and Maori art under one roof. They, as well as some of the surrounding lakeside buildings, employ a mock tudor style, painted a mix of cream white and red. Bit of an eyesore if you ask me.

The highlight was without a doubt Kuirau Park, a fenced off, free to roam cumulation of volcanic behaviour, all under one leafy roof. I wondered pathways that led through blindingly thick layers of dense, white steam, past several boiling, bubbling pools of mud, lots swamp-like fauna and sick looking trees, and a number of hot, crater lakes (with warnings not to go near: according to LP there’d been an eruption here as recently as 2003, splattering much of the park in mud). It was eerily exciting: like taking a stroll through a horror movie set or perhaps a scary Brother’s Grimm faery tale. It also goes without saying that it was the smelliest part of Rotorua too. The novelty of which I’m sure you soon get used too - the bored kids in the park would attest to that.

Ok, I’ve been kicked out of my hostel, as they’re now cleaning the kitchen/living area and, having already checked out, I’ve got nowhere else to go. Am finishing typing this up sat in my car, the steady rain dripping noisily on its roof. Worryingly, I’ve got to head to Auckland today - was going to stop by en route for a paid visit to the official set of ‘Hobbiton’, but little point in this weather - and haven’t got a copy of the street map and directions Scott Pederson sent me (he’s an old work colleague of Dad’s whose kindly offered to put me up for the night). Got to find me an internet cafe, pronto.

Didn’t do a huge lot else in Rotorua. Could have gone to a Maori concert (the most famous is ‘haka’ - think of the unique ‘dance’ that New Zealand’s rugby union team ‘the All Blacks’ perform, to intimidate their opponents) or a Maori meal (‘hangi’, where food is cooked in the ground over hot river stones), but both sounded very heavily commercialised and therefore off putting. It was getting pretty late when I left the park, so I headed to the ‘Pig and Whistle’, a popular tavern that used to be a police station - hence the name - with its own microbrewery (didn’t find their homemade ‘Swine Ale’ very palatable, unfortunately). One unusual feature was the large, bulbous, leafy tree growing on the street just outside of it: it was humming with noisy birds - there must have been hundreds of them, all singing, making a tremendous racket. Whilst I sat in the bar reading my book and snacking on some nachos, the lights must have dimmed three times on me, making it harder each time to make out the words on the pages. Kiwis really like their bars to be dark (very atmospheric!).

The walk to the pub took me up a steep hill on which sat a hospital, providing me with some great views of the lake. On the way back down I felt almost as if I was back home: the weather was cool, wet and fresh, the yellow leaves of autumn coating the ground, hospital staff and visitors were beginning to leave for home. It was only the Maori-inspired names of surrounding buildings and the occasional Maori, wooden carving that offset this fantasy. It’s great to see such a natural fusion of two cultures, working alongside one another (seemingly) harmoniously. I imagine it must be a source of envy for their Australian (and even, if they bothered to look, American) cousins: a sign of what could have been. I guess it’s thanks to the cultural and technology divide not being so wide that the two races managed to combine, not to mention how originally both they and the colonialists depended on one another for resources. The Te Papa museum described how things didn’t always go so smoothly - many wars broke out - but, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Maoris were able to put up a fierce resistance and survive (I mean, have you seen the size of these guys??).

Finished the day with a trip to the cinema, where I watched a new superhero movie called ‘Iron Man’. A silly but fun action-romp, like a cross between Transformers and Robocop. Bit scary half way into the film when it was interrupted by a member of the audience who appeared to have a fit. After much general confusion, some running about and a call for an ambulance, unassisted he was able to get right up from his seat and walk away. So not sure what happened there.

Right, time to make the 200km trip to the great city of Auckland. I’ve got the feeling it’s a bit on the large side, what with the maps of it spread over several pages in my guidebook. I may get a bit lost.

Middle Earth

2008-05-01T17:55:00.001-07:00

1.5.08

First day of May and the signs of winter are here! I reached the pretty boring ‘village’ of ‘National Park’ not long before six last night (the uninspired name should have been a warning, but I’m sure this place had been recommended to me), going against the recommendation of my guidebook to stay in the highest rated BBH establishment in the area (BBH = [NZ] Budget Backpacker Hostels: picked up membership on my first day in this fine country, entitles me to $2-3 discounts in all participating hostels). Needless to say, I should have trusted my guidebook: this place is more like a motel - clean but impersonal - my roommates are moody Germans, the other, Chinese occupants appear stuck-up (more fool them, I ‘borrowed’ some of their milk this morning - that’ll teach ‘em!) and the owner but an immediate downer on things when he told me the ‘Tongariro Crossing’ was closed, thanks to snow (!) reaching as low as a thousand metres. I haven’t seen any yet though - just miles of rolling parkland around here. The ‘Tongariro Crossing’ is New Zealand’s most popular one-day trek - it crosses a volcano - and also my only real reason for coming here, so hearing this on my arrival was a bit of a ‘bummer’. I went out in search of a place to snack, found a nice cafe cum restaurant and befriended the smiling staff - people in the service industry are SO much friendlier and happy here, but you could say that applies to just about everybody, as a general rule of thumb. A very congenial, helpful Maori guy sat at the bar suggested I go take a look around in the morning anyway - near a ski lodge there’s an area that was used when filming Lord of the Rings, plus the nearby ‘Mount Ngauruhoe’ IS Mount Doom (only less digitally enhanced in a sort of non-erupting kind of way) - but informed me that preparation for the upcoming ski season was underway: this was to be the first round of snow, followed shortly after by the second and then, once that was set, the third, etc. It’s as regular as clockwork each year. Wish I’d done my research! Everybody around here is really excited by the upcoming snow, and presumably the business that comes with it (ski-ing etc.). Can’t say I share their enthusiasm for the cold!

I left ‘Windy Wellington’ a couple of days ago, to head up north along the west coast. (It is so called because it’s constantly buffeted by winds - and rain, in my opinion - as I found out when, on stepping out into the rain on leaving a book shop on my first night, the owner came floundering forward, telling me not to bother with my umbrella. “No-one uses them around here,” she said, and she was right too. It wasn’t too windy on my arrival, but the next day kicked up a real gale: the annoying kind of unpredictable wind that changes direction on a whim. I only saw one other umbrella in my whole time there. Obviously an outsider!) I was a bit disillusioned with the north island so far: lots more people - including lots more Maoris (there’s a considerable presence, many place names are Maori, plus Maori translations appear all over the shop, such as in the Maori-titled ‘Te Papa’ museum) - which translated to lots more cars on the road, lots more houses running alongside it and, on the good side, more radio stations, less white noise. Most of Tuesday was grey and overcast, sporadic showers turning into a serious downpour when I reached Wanganui in the afternoon. The journey to there took me at first along the coastline, where I went through Scottish Highland country: heavily populated, furry green hills, dipping their toes into salt water lochs on one side, the sea on the other. I could make out an island, struck several miles off the coast, as little more than a black blob in the steady rain.

Then the road - State Highway 3 - struck more inland, across English dales, occasionally providing quick glimpses of the blue ocean. Was like this all the way to the city of Wanganui: more a town than a city, it had a really long central, leafy, shop-lined strip, running westwards, perpendicular to the ‘Whanganui River’ (notice the additional ‘h’: a recent modification to indicate that ‘wan’ is breathy and aspirated, inserted by the Maoris, whilst the ‘Pakeha’-dominated town - that’s outsiders or English to you and me - kept the old spelling), New Zealand’s longest, navigable river. The tree-lined river turned out to be fairly pretty when the sun peeked out for a couple of hours: smoke-gushing paddle boat meandered its way at impressive speed along it, a path cut through grassy park running alongside the water’s eastern edge, behind which a road granting access to residential neighbourhoods ran parallel for several miles, part of which included my amazing, show-stopping ‘hostel’ (if you could call it that). The ‘Anndion Lodge’ was a large house, fitted out with comfy, clean leaving room, kitchen (with not only the usual free coffee/tea, but free milk and biscuits too!), lounge with free pool table, a rear garden with swimming pool, spa and sauna, very tidy, hotel-like rooms (chocolates on pillows) and completely free wifi! At $35 it cost a fair bit more than I was used to paying, but throw in the free internet and you’ve got a bargain :) The owners were a super-friendly Kiwi and Maori couple, treating me more like a house guest than a paying customer, offering up maps and advice on my next destination. To top it all off, there was barely anyone staying in the hostel - nobody in my room, which meant I had all that comfort to myself! The locals say that not many people stop in this city, and it shows.

The only slight downer was the distance from town: a good 3km, but not a problem with my car. I spent the whole afternoon researching Fiji and Hawaii on the web and downloading my favourite podcasts and updates for my comp (so happy to get free, unlimited internet, I entirely forgot about the world outside!). Am very happy to say Fiji is completely sorted now - thankfully, stress levels were starting to peak - but Hawaii still needs doing, as I’m stuck between sticking to the fairly featureless but does boast Peral Harbour Oahu (which is where I land at Honolulu), or catching an internal flight to Maui (heavily recommended by everyone I speak to: sun, sea, sand, small volcanoes) or the Big Island (volcanos, some beaches). The latter two will probably have to include car hire too, so it could get fairly complicated, especially trying to fit it all into a week. Must decide today - have to sort this before I land in Fiji next Tuesday, as I’m almost 100% confident there’ll be no internet there.

I did make time for a gourmet pizza at Stellar in Wanganui - a bar whose name I think I may have seen before, but despite being a chain had talkative staff and served an excellent gourmet, mexican pizza (with my favourite sour cream topping, plus plenty of tasty jalapenos: happy to see my tongue can still take the spice!). Yesterday started off beautiful, the sun had his hat on and the blue skies were out. A perfect day to hit the aptly titled ‘Forgotten World Highway’ (SH43), something I had been saving up since finding out about it from an old English couple on the cruise in Milford Sound (my gratitude goes out to them!). It’s a road that has restored my faith in New Zealand’s north island and then some: taking me away from the busy streets, it twists and winds its way 150km through central, north island countryside, occasionally brushing past tiny villages, reducing to unsealed gravel for 12km, even dropping mobile coverage for the most part. It’s a perfect journey to take you outside of the grips of civilisation, you could say like going back to the south island.

It was the sun that made my mind up to do it: the end of my journey was National Park, only 80km or so north of Wanganui up SH4. I think that and the fact I was knackered - stayed up late exploiting my free internet the night before: surfing the web last night, finalising my Fiji details (sorted: yes!), speaking to Gran & Granddad over Skype then getting up early to do the same with my sister and Mum. The detour ahead of me stretched over three hundred kilometres, heading west, north, east, then back south again, in a completely round about way. Throwing on some shorts and a t-shirt, I fueled up at a petrol station, took some advice on a cafe from the workers there (yet more friendly Kiwis in the service industry) where I headed to grab an ultra-strong, ‘long, flat white’ (a ‘flat white’ is Oz/Kiwi speak for a standard coffee, you can work out the ‘long’ bit) and hit the road.

When I hit the start of the infamous highway I felt fully awake at least, but I was gutted to find dark clouds had gathered threateningly, and upon reaching the welcoming sign I was indeed ‘welcomed’ by a heavy, stormy downpour. The first part of the journey was filled with intermittent rain showers, some occasionally stopping me from stepping out the car to take photos of the fabulous views on offer, but not always. It certainly didn’t stop me from gaping at the awe-inspiring vistas: the perfect curves of bulbous hills, creating a rippling blanket of green countryside, impossibly green (truthfully, the grass here is so divinely green, it looks luminous at times, almost radioactive - it screams GREEN at you, as if some godly figure has played havoc with the turf’s colours: do not adjust your television set, it IS meant to look this way). Put this in contrast with the just as vibrantly coIourful trees (reds and yellows and golden-orange blends of in between) and you’ve got yourself a sight for sore eyes. I had a great time whizzing along listening to the sublime ‘Rock FM’, playing classics from the likes of Dylan, the Stones, Metallica, Guns ‘n Roses, for as long as the signal lasted (the first few hours). Rocking along, I passed through several aptly named ‘Saddles’, where deep valleys were met on either side by the tall slopes of hills. Heavy rain saturated the ground in parts - gentle streams in valleys turned to gushing torrents - whilst rounding a very sharp, U-shaped bend (as there were many: once again, perfect biking country) could lead to dazzling sunshine and blue skies, where the fields looked untouched. Continuing on the ‘Lord of the Rings’ country theme, this could easily have been the setting for ‘The Shire’ in ‘The Fellowship...’.

Half way along the highway, I met the hamlet of ‘Whangamomona’. This was another secret I was keeping until now, and in truth my real reason for heading out this way. In the late eighties, the local councils threatened the township with transferral from one region to another, a change which brushed its forty odd residents up the wrong way (it’s hinted that the last straw was telling them they’d have to play rugby for a rival district). In defiance, the citizens threatened to separate from both councils entirely - something which went from being I imagine an off the cuff remark to a reality when they declared themselves an independent republic. Now the small village - only fifteen people actually live in it - has its own ‘republic day’, which is celebrated on every second January (my guidebook tells me 8,000 people descend on the single pub in the village, it’s owners told me it was more like 15,000 people last year; in fact, just in the hour or so whilst I was there, they received two calls inquiring after it). Anyway, it all sounded absolutely fantastic and completely barmy, so I just had to drop in and see it.

The village was preceded by the Whangomomona Saddle: an incredible transformation in landscape that lead from quasi-English countryside to sub-tropical jungle. Mud and rock walls stood inches from the roadside, looking threateningly fragile, leading to both sheer drops and climbs on either side, the effect somewhat softened by a thick coating of dripping wet, lush forest: a diverse mix of palm trees, shrubs, tall grass and more familiar bush, compacted so tightly together the barely allowed for any light to filter in. A foggy mist sat in the gaps as well as hovering above the road, helping to enhance the mysterious, solitary feel. ‘Lost World’ indeed! I’ve been thinking more about that name, and it really does apply to the north island, where most roads and places are populated by cars, buildings and people. During my time in the north, I haven’t managed to find an landscape devoid of civilisation - a far cry from the south. However, this journey was THE exception: I only came across three vehicles going in the same direction as me for the whole 150KM/4-5 hour journey (that should give some indication of how tight the corners were). Going the other way was a tiny bit busier, the majority of which consisted of camouflaged, khaki-coloured trucks and motorbikes. I guessed this must have been the army - perhaps they were there to check that there wasn’t any trouble brewing on the borders of its neighbouring republic? :)

Whangomomona proudly sported a big, red sign welcoming travellers into it (on the reverse it informed passersby they were now re-entering New Zealand). The village sat in the lieu of some hills, five or six buildings strong, the biggest being the president’s house - a small, fairly rundown, white (hey, at least it was white!), wooden bungalow (sadly he wasn’t around to be seen, busy doing his other, day job) - and the other the infamous ‘Whangamomona Hotel’, the only pub for over a hundred kilometres. (There’s also supposed to be a border guard, in the form of an outside toilet or ‘dunny’, but I didn’t spot this unfortunately.) The pub was fantastic: I ordered myself the a pint of the ‘national ale’ (‘Republic Ale’: fabulous, it was the first beer - a dark bitter - I’d had in two months that dared not to have any fizz in it!) and topped it off with a ‘Whanga Burger’, an extremely greasy egg, bacon, beef burger and coleslaw concoction (though the owner insisted it was meant to contain lettuce instead, it was just that her husband was on a day-long expedition to restock on groceries). Perfect food for bikers, many of whom I was informed past through here (including something known as the ‘Tiger Rally’).

The owner and barmaid were so welcoming, they invited me to sit with them for lunch, while I fired away with my questions - something they are used to, no doubt. I even got chatting with the one other couple who popped into the place - also to investigate the novelty - other than that the pub, and village, were empty. It seems it’s not always that way though: their twenty three rooms in the hotel are normally always full, the village reaching incredible heights of popularity after their 1989 ‘separation’. It’s really a bit of a gimmick: their president used to be a goat, until it passed away at the grand old age of fourteen. For their ‘republic day’, live bands come and play, they skin possums and race sheep, amongst other hilarious activities, I’m assured. You need to purchase a ‘passport’ in order to attend the event; of course I had to have it - at $3 it was a no brainer, guaranteeing me entry for a bargain-tastic ten years! I did, however, pass on the t-shirt. It turns out the reason they don’t celebrate their independence every year is simply a matter of logistics. It takes a whole year to plan the thing! Surprisingly, there isn’t much competition to the pub; the president used to run a cafe outside of his house, but alas no longer.

Anyway, will have to finish this account later as I need to shoot. It’s raining this morning and chilly - the cold weather (end of an ‘Indian Summer’: turns out the balmier feel to the north island wasn’t just my imagine, my stay in Wanganui topping twenty three degrees, when it wasn’t raining) the radio has been forecasting has finally arrived, bringing with it wind and more wet. I really am glad to get out of this place - the owner is a grizzly, old, moaning bugger with a stupid ponytail: he just gave me a lecture about leaving lights on, but I didn’t even put them on in the first place (deep at work on my laptop, I don’t notice these things). Time to split. Am heading to Lake Taupo today, a place where I was considering doing a skydive, until I found out it costs $500. Of course, you can do it for half that, but then you don’t get any photographs (they chuck in a *ahem* ‘free’ DVD of your experience with the photos - how kind of them!). So now not sure about that. Still, any place is better than here :)

2.5.08

Don’t know why I’m so afraid of updating this damn blog: had a few days off to de-stress - it may just be the pressure of deciding upon and sorting out accommodation for not one but TWO countries in the next couple of weeks, I don’t know - and now the amount of things to report on has increased two to three fold. Doh.

Am in Taupo, having got away from the grumpy hippy and the dead village of National Park. The hostel is wonderful: a (Maori) family run place - the clues in the name: ‘Tiki Lodge’ - where they actually share the facilities with the guests (always a good sign), with big rooms and kitchen, and an enormous balcony overlooking the horizon spanning Lake Taupo (New Zealand’s largest lake, at 606 square kilometres, sitting in a still active, large volcanic crater - or ‘caldera’ - formed by one of the world’s largest eruptions, over twenty thousand years ago). Had some nice pleasant chats with the owners (including one frantic one this morning, where I couldn’t find my car keys - turns out they were in my shoe all along). Taupo is a large town - or city, if you go by Wanganui’s principles - that sits lakeside. Unfortunately it’s bustling with people - many if not more Kiwi tourists than foreigners - and is also a shining example of how much more commercial the north island is than the south: McDonald’s sits next to Burger King, which is next to KFC, which is beside Subway, all littering the waterfront. I guess that’s what comes with more people: more buying power. I’m still noticing how easy and comradely Kiwis are - at first I thought perhaps they were more so than those living in the south, but it’s dawned on me I’m noticing it more there’s more of them. Up here, New Zealanders outnumber the foreigners.

Taupo is also the sky-diving capital of the world, being one of the cheapest places to do it. Unfortunately, I’ve decided that, as good as sixty seconds of free fall offered by a drop of 15,000 feet sounds (you could say), $500 for it is still too much. It’s also completely overcast today so I wouldn’t see much doing it: a shame, as yesterday, after a grey start, the blue skies came through bringing with it some warm goodness, facilitating some great views of the lake and surrounding, bumpy, house and tree lined landscape. Sounds like I’m making nervous excuses doesn’t it? Maybe I am ;)

The latter part of my ‘Forgotten World’ journey was just as beautiful, if not more so, as the first. It certainly helped that the rain had stopped. The hills and valleys took on a completely new shape and look: instead of rolling slopes, the land became much more prominently staggered and ‘boxy’. So very different to anything I’m used to seeing, so hard to explain, but incredible in its alien-ness. The best way I can describe it is to imagine taking a slightly scuffed, aging snooker table cloth (felt like in texture, but thicken it up for the purpose of this example), blowing it up to landscape conquering proportions, then laying it over to entirely cover an enormous rubbish tip site. Envisage the sorts of weird shapes that would be formed by throwing such a large ‘carpet’ over a great assortment of random junk and that gets you half way to conceiving the amazing scenery that I drove through. Litter it with autumnal trees, wooden fences and the occasional wood house, and you’ve got it. Probably best you just look at the pictures :)

On the way to National Park, I passed a cafe, the ‘only cafe for one and a half hours’ as it merrily informed me. Also, I came across a river, alongside which a fence ran, upon which somebody had laid out to dry the tanning hides of what, judging by their sizes, must have belonged to cows. Creepy. I crossed through a narrow tunnel cut through a mountainside, so thin I futilely held my breath as I drove through, as well as yet more, even thicker, jungle, this time encompassing sheer rock walls, glistening in the wet, as well as a muddy, winding river. As I neared my journey’s end, I had to swap lanes to swerve out of the way where dodgy cliff walls had predictably crumbled and fallen into the road, as well as stop on one occasion where the road was swamped with sheep (I seemed to do a better job herding them out the way with my car than the farmer with his sheepdog did). I also passed some spookily crooked and leafless, grey trees, worthy of a Tim Burton film.

The end of the ‘Forgotten World Highway’ was signified by my arrival at ‘Taumarunui’: a town made pretty by the slender bowl of a picturesque, ripe green valley it sat in. Wish I’d stayed there rather than National Park! At least I got to NP late, meaning I didn’t have to suffer it much. It was raining by the time I arrived there and still raining when I got up in the morning. Heard on the radio that Wellington had suffered some flooding, especially the centre (where I’d stayed)! The weatherman was also predicting snowy showers for the south island too. I can’t get to Fiji soon enough :) Speaking of snow, I took a meandering road through the ‘Tongariro National Park’ to head to Lake Taupo - the park forms a significant part (the south-west) of what is known as the ‘Central Plateau’ of the north island - and headed just off it, along ‘Top of the Bruce Road’ (who is Bruce?) to the ski-village of Iwikau, at the foot of the 2800m, snow-capped ‘Mount Ruapehu’. The national park consisted of miles of grassy, undisturbed plains, punctuated by great forests, the occasional lake and some cloud scraping mountains (including - did I mention - Mount Doom!!!). As I drove up the steadily rising, newly surfaced road to Iwikau, I passed through lots of dry looking brown/yellow shrub and grass. I gathered the landscape must remain this way throughout the summer, its plant life never really prospering, thanks to heavy, lasting snowfall over the winter. The large number of neighbouring ski lodges and related buildings give clues to this (as they did whilst I passed through parts of Arthur’s Pass).

Nearing the top of the road, the distant landscape became quite clouded, but as I drew closer the view of the impending, tall Mt Ruapehu loomed ahead of me, glistening white on top (and quite a few hundred metres below too). It’s the highest and most active VOLCANO in the park: the area surrounding Iwikau was completely devoid of any plants or grass, thanks to hot mud and volcanic eruptions occurring over the last few decades (the last spectacular one was as recent as 1995!). What’s left is kilometres of nothing but volcanic rock: thousands of black and grey, sharp rocks and boulders litter a brown and yellow, ragged landscape (thanks to moss and dirt). It looks like being on the surface of Mars or perhaps the moon. It also looked eerily familiar: somehow, on reaching the village, I bumped into the Maori guy from the cafe the night before, who pointed out an optimum viewpoint - a five minute scramble up a mountain of rocks, just past a ski-lift, closed under testing - where I could really appreciate the area where they filmed Frodo and Sam’s walk up to Mount Doom!!! So that explained where I’d seen this area before, also where they filmed some of the fighting scenes in ‘Return of the King’. A nearby DoC store (Department of Conservation) provided me with a leaflet that had a small section on the area’s starring role. Plus, and really annoyingly, they told me that, despite the tour agencies calling it off today, I WOULD have been able to do the Tongariro Crossing that day - especially as it was now brightening up - but that now it was a bit late to contemplate doing it. Damn that miserable old fart at the hostel! I asked after whether I’d be able to get to the ‘Emerald Lakes’ - brilliantly coloured (aqua green) volcanic lakes they are the highlight of the trek - but was told that that was a six to seven hour return trip alone. So that was a no then :(

Still, one good thing was that the clouds were beginning to dissipate, so I was able to have a good gawp at Mount Doom on my drive back to the highway. The volcano was still fairly clouded at its table top summit, but it was still recognisable (and definitely the most volcano looking of the park’s selection). I stopped beside the Chateau Tongariro’s (as pretentious as it sounds) golf course to grab some decent photos. Then I was off to Lake Taupo, a drive that took me through the parkland, past one sign-posted Maori historic site - a stick encircled, grass clearing that led to a lake with some geese and couple of (fishing?) boats bobbing on it - then onto a viewpoint of Lake Taupo and its surrounding valley (one prominent bulge of a hill, countless green and brown pastures, clumps of trees, the first settlements for miles around and that enormous lake, world famous for its trout fishing, spanned the horizon: it was so clear I could see for miles. Driving along the lake’s edge - which may as well have been the sea, it being so vast - I headed to Taupo, leaving behind the magnificent mountainous, volcanic part of the central plateau for less remarkable wooded dales and plains.

Taupo sits at the mouth of the Waikato, New Zealand’s longest river. Having checked in my stuff at the hostel, I took a short driving excursion out to Huka Falls, where the wide and fairly shallow Waikato is slammed into a constricted, narrow, deep chasm, increasing the force of the river into a fast surging torrent of white-water as it crosses the ten metre falls. What’s special about this stretch of water is that it feeds a hydro electric dam that provides 65% of the power for the north island of New Zealand. Great to see how far ahead they are at using renewable energy. After seeing this, grabbed me a muffin and coffee from Taupo’s best cafe - the ‘Bodyfuel Cafe’ (was reminded of home when I sat next to an old, moaning couple: the guy seemed incapable of not cussing after every sentence, but he and his wife turned amusingly polite whenever a member of staff brought something over) - and headed back to the hostel, where I spent yet another afternoon browsing the web, this time sorting out the details of my Hawaiian trip (this needed doing too, as I’m under the impression I’ll be without my precious internet in Fiji, and perhaps even power to boot!). So pleased to have this off my chest, I headed into town to have a, what turned out to be fairly naff, pint of ‘Whaikato Bitter’ at a rowdy sports bar (for the first time the barmaid appeared disinterested in banter, which came as a shock!). Having had barely nothing to eat all day, I rewarded myself with a fairly tasty pizza from the amusedly named ‘Hell Pizza’, then hit the sack.

It’s rained a bit this morning and feels pretty cold - doesn’t help I’ve chosen to wear shorts! Sat in the living room in my hostel, checked out over a couple of hours ago (been writing this for over three!) and so really need to get a move on. Heading to Rotarua today - a Maori hotspot (think someone mentioned they considered it their capital), which is also home to some impressive geysers and smelly boiling mud pools (the stench of sulphur is all pervading, so Marie and family informed me back in Oz). Sounds like it’s going to be a blast. Time to go: I’ve done ENOUGH writing already! :) Photos will come later.

P.S. Have had to put up with some crappy drivers whilst staying in Taupo: on the way to the falls, I had to take a left off of a busy road followed by a quick right, and got pipped at for the pleasure of doing so by some obviously blind bint of a woman. Had a few drivers turn off in front of me not bothering to indicate too. More observations:-

‘Ratana’ is a national Maori religion - fused with Christianity, they both share Sunday as the Sabbath - and the Maori lady owner at the Taupo hostel informs me that Wanganui hosts their main church (if only I’d known!).

The flies here are REALLY annoying (think I’ve mentioned that one before). How is it they know to get indoors when the cold weather starts? Apparently they all gang up inside for the duration of winter, just starting to die off when it gets seriously cold, before hitting the outdoors again as spring picks up. Seems to me they have disconcertingly clever insects in this country.

New Zealand has some world famous wood, sourced from trees known as ‘kauri’. Having vast, incredibly firm, straight trunks and reaching sky-rocketing heights, these were much sought after during the early colonial days (both for export and for settlement). Most of the older houses in New Zealand are built from it. Now these trees are protected, being few and far between. Speaking of trees, I passed my first stretch of harvested timber coming into Taupo yesterday: several square miles of deforested land, piles of wood laid out crudely, looking like a large, wood landfill site. I think I could make out the trees surrounding the manmade clearing quivering.

Windy Wellington

2008-04-29T00:14:00.000-07:00

28.4.08

No blog update yesterday - thank my laziness, a full stomach and a busy day! I’m now in Wellington, the windy (and wet) capital city of New Zealand, based on the south coast of the north island. It’s the first real city I’ve experienced in NZ - much more so than Dunedin. Its sleek grey, silver and glass modern skyscrapers - owned by the usual banks, IT and communications companies - that peer out at the ocean from behind its quayside, mixed in with older, colourful Victorian buildings, form a fashionable fusion of old and new. My first impressions of this place, coming in off the ferry, was that it was like Leeds, but by the sea (it’s a grey city, the tallest buildings of which top no more than twenty stories). But having ventured out at night into the colourful, sleek - exceptionally clean - cosmopolitan streets, lined with dimly-lit, atmospheric trendy bars and restaurants, as well as experienced the bustling, business-as-usual, central shopping road that is Willis Street during lunchtime rush hour, it feels much more like London.

I’m sorry to say goodbye to the south island, for what has so far turned out to be urban, city life. It appears it was sorry to see me go too: as I got nearer to its northern shores and my departure, the beautiful, clear blue skies clouded over - pregnant, grey, ominous looking clouds - then as I hit Blenheim (a town I’ll remember only for its long string of roundabouts, one of which had a IN USE rail track running right through the middle of it: how about that for crazed novelty value??), the rain came hammering down. The journey had started so well too: the snowcapped tops of the Kaikoura (mountain) Range were observable from the town’s shingle beach in the morning (supposedly they’re the closest snow topped mountains to a shore in the world, according to the hostel’s owner - unsure about her facts, but you get the idea). The road north took me around on the coastal side of the range, running parallel to a railway track for most of the way, where I witnessed so many picture perfect sea and mountain vistas (the latter seeming to float on the water, such were there proximity) - ocean spray and hovering mist giving the terrain an ethereal quality - I kept having to stop every five minutes to marvel and gape.

Had to book up my ideas as, having set off just before 10AM, I only had three hours to get to Picton, where my ferry was to depart. I also had to fit in a stop at ‘The Store at Kerengu’: a cafe standing all by itself on the edge of a cliff, halfway between Kaikoura and Blenheim, highly recommended by the LP. As it turns out, it was worthy of the praise lavished upon it - shaped a little like a wigwam with its dome like, cloth roof, but modernly decorated inside, it afforded fabulous views of the sea whilst serving up some fabulous food. I indulged not only in a tasty piece of quiche, but also a mouth watering (not to mention huge) slice of carrot cake, plus a damn fine cup of coffee. As the guy at the counter called it: the breakfast of champions!

It was pee-ing it down by the time I reached Picton, where I joined a tightly packed jam of cars waiting to get on the ferry, which got even tighter once we made it and were parked inside the belly of the beast (or the ferry). The ferry itself was a multi-storied affair, several floors dedicated to vehicle parking, then a cinema, cafe/bar (with rugby league on the TV, a popular fixation with Kiwis, as is V8 super cars - not so much cricket as far as I’ve been able to work out, though that could be because it’s now out of season), viewing gallery and ‘sun deck’. I spent most of my time on the latter, though it was anything but sunny! The rain did slow and eventually all but disappear as we undocked from Picton. It took about ninety minutes to leave the channels of the south island, crossing over a large stretch of sea towards the north island. In fact, during the whole of the ‘Strait Escape’ (as called by the ferry company), there wasn’t a time when some form of land - whether it was green, rolling farmland or inhabited, tree clothed islands - wasn’t in sight. I only had the widest stretch of water to signify what I assumed was the actual ‘crossing’ from one big isle to the next.

Going out for some dinner at a Mac’s Brewery now with a Bristol bloke (Andy) I’ve befriended at my Wellington hostel (an enormous YHA institution, boasting six floors, a massive projector-based TV room, a huge common-room-esque living area, a room dedicated just to games, cheap takeaway options each night and some genuinely knowledgeable staff - shame about the $5/day on-street parking, five minutes walk away). Will finish this in the morning.

28.4.01 - 11.44PM

Just back from the pub and thought I’d give this another stab. Andy and I headed down to Wellington’s wharf area to visit the brewery, but turns out there food selection wasn’t all that. Fortunately, the guy behind the bar being a friendly, helpful Kiwi suggested a nearby burger bar which we set out to, after sampling a delicious pint of Mac’s ‘Sassy Red’ (a heavy, slightly fruity ale: the only decent Mac’s beer - the only award winning one too - albeit still fizzy). By the way, New Zealanders don’t appear to be offended by the term ‘Kiwi’ - perhaps likening them to the native, hedgehog-like bird with long, curved, thin beak (the only bird that has nostrils positioned at the end of their beak, used for sniffing out creepy crawlies; thank Wellington’s ‘Te Papa’ Museum for that!), or maybe the indigenous, furry, sweet fruit - as the handle pops up everywhere.

Filled up on a tasty burger and kumara fries (took it as an opportunity to introduce ‘I’m a farmer’ Andy to the sweet tastes of local sweet potato - which I also learned from the museum was originally introduced by the Maoris), then we headed to another pub, where we met a group from our hostel - including a few girls from my room who I’d met prior - taking part in a quiz. The bar felt a bit like a student pub, though a bit trendier (is there anywhere in Wellington that isn’t trendy?), thanks to its open log fire and non-sticky floor. The quiz had been going on for over two hours (!!) when we arrived before 10PM and carried on for at least another hour. Party games - such as picking up a cardboard box from the ground with your mouth, hands behind back and without touching the floor with your knees - took place between the eight rounds of ten questions: yes, it was THAT sort of a quiz. Feeling overly hot, thanks to the beer and the fire, plus a bit too old for all this, I decided to head back, soon after followed by Andy and other room mates.

On to the topic of the temperature: despite the rain and the wind, it definitely feels warmer here by a few degrees, much more ‘stuffy’. I haven’t figured out yet if that’s because of the cloudy, storm-like weather or just the north island in general, but nonetheless I found myself stripping down to shorts today (with jumper). Good to be out of jeans for the first time in weeks.

When I arrived yesterday, it was early evening - still light enough to make out the hills dotted with houses surrounding Wellington’s small bay. The city is sprawled across many of them, though the central, built-up CBD - right next to the harbour - doesn’t spread much further than a few miles I’d say, and it’s mainly flat (the rest is less bunched up, residential suburbs). It took over an hour to get in our cars and off the ferry, and by the time I’d found the hostel and parked my car, it was 6PM and dark. Unfortunately, I missed the $8 offer of takeaway pizza my hostel was offering that night, so instead investigated the buzzing nightlife of the surrounding streets. It was a bit of a shock: I hadn’t seen so many people populating such a small space in a long time, nor had such a variety of drinking and eating establishments on offer (all very trendy, as I keep repeating!).

One odd thing that happened: I felt uneasy about dining alone, for the first time in months! Perhaps it was because the western, thriving city scene that was Wellington put me in mind of back home, because I found myself feeling quite put off from eating at a restaurant by myself (to be fair, it was packed with couples). So instead, I headed to one of Wellington’s many swish cafes and had myself a big bowl of nachos, digging into a book I’d just bought (Wellington has several big bookstores, selling both old and new books, that stay open late into the night - don’t you just love city life!). I felt like I’d hit the jackpot when the owner offered me a free plate of fries on top, completely out of the blue. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I say!

Speaking of cafes, this is one of Wellington’s biggest appeals, as well as its thriving arts scene (with many playhouses and cinemas, it has a feel of Melbourne about it; there’s even a comedy festival on). Of the two cafes I’ve been into - the one today was rated one of Wellington’s best - they’ve both been very classy, bar/restaurant like affairs, only specialising in the art of the barista, serving some sublime coffees, pasties, cakes and snacks. A lot of them stay open late and they tend to be brimming with people, some bantering in couples or in groups, others reading to themselves or just watching the world go by. There’s a really good vibe to these establishments, similar to the atmosphere you’d get, or hope to get, in a bar back home, only more sophisticated, less rowdy.

Today, took in the sights and sounds of the city centre, including the ‘beehive’ (a controversial, modern, commercially owned building, built right next to the grand, Victorian parliament house, that does exactly what it says on the tin). I also took the time to do some extortionately expensive clothes washing at my hostel - $4 for the machine (!) - and to visit the fabulous ‘Te Papa’ museum, New Zealand’s finest (not to mention free). Looking rather like a cross between Melbourne’s own, recently built museum and a modernised, ex-polytechnic English university, that the government decided to frivolously inject a load of cash into, it proved to be a fantastic source of information on all things Maori, whilst also including several fascinating exhibitions on indigenous animals, plate tectonics (NZ is on a moving fault line, after all) and whales, amongst others. I was thrown not only by the size of the now extinct mao birds, the longest one’s leg being two thirds my size, but also by the ‘mooing’ noise they were presumed to have made, like a cow. I didn’t know whales/dolphins originated from walking, land mammals tens of millions of years ago - they had reconstructed, fossilised remains on display - nor that they used a combination of their noses to emit and fatty jaw tissue to receive signals, in order to navigate the deep (using sonar).

Everything at the museum was presented in an attractive and appealing way, each display boasting its fair share of interactive and audio-visual exhibits. Have to say I came away impressed. I only had a couple of hours there and I left wishing I had had longer.

Heading up north tomorrow. Time for bed now.

P.S. Some more useless (?) facts... Walked into the ‘New World’ Supermarket today (similar to Sainsbury’s), and was impressed to see they use fancy, LCD price tags for many of their items, positioned just below the shelf that they are on. Very modern! I love the fact that, like in Australia, New Zealand has done away with its one and two cent coins. Indeed, they’ve gone one step further and got rid of the fives too. In Australia, they can be a bit cheeky, still pricing goods at single cent denominations (say $0.99), then charging you by rounding them up (bad) or down (good). Since getting to NZ, I’ve been bombarded by heating ads on the radio. This makes a contrast to Australia, where the majority were trying to sell me air conditioning.

The Devil's Curry, Kaikoura & a Wild Seal

2008-04-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

Arthur's Pass & THOSE Rocks

2008-04-27T03:42:00.000-07:00

View From Franz Josef Hostel, Walk to & Climbing Franz Josef Glacier

2008-04-27T03:11:00.000-07:00

Rock Pile Valley, Fox Glacier & Crazy Guys I Met in the Pub (Franz Josef)

2008-04-27T03:05:00.000-07:00

Custard Mountains nr Wanaka & Views From My Mt Roy Climb

2008-04-27T02:53:00.002-07:00

Kaikoura

2008-04-27T02:53:00.001-07:00

26.4.08

Umm, a nice slice of vegetarian lasagne (with pumpkin, mushroom and spinach, it was lacking tomato - this pumpkin is really growing on me as a decent meat substitute) and a strawberry milkshake (my stomach’s queasiness has allowed my sweet tooth some free roaming today: any milk products will do, including a ‘smoothie’ I had at a cafe for lunch which was more like milkshake with fruit bits in) for dinner. Guess my stomach is back on track, though my tongue is still swollen to twice its size I swear and hot drinks are not an option.

So yes I’ve made it to the pretty, relaxed seaside town of Kaikoura - a popular destination for crayfish (it’s name translating to ‘fish’ and ‘cray’, so my over-helpful hostel owner informed me), whale-watching (the major drawer) and swimming with dolphins. The latter of these formed my original purpose for visiting this place, but it turned out they were fully booked (I was asking for it really, calling just a day ahead and on a weekend too). No matter, I had a fulfilling afternoon, driving up to the small neighbouring peninsular to take a close look at some wild seals, basking on the rocks at the very end. I didn’t realise until now that they were furry, thinking them to have rubbery skin, like that of a dolphin. I then took an hour’s walk along the cliffs of the fenced off - but still open to the public - grassy peninsular, soaking up views of the town’s beautiful long, crescent shaped, pebbled bay, sat in lieu of a range of looming, snow-capped mountains. In my mind, these things don’t mix - snow and the sea/beach - but there they were together, feeling even less likely in light of the fabulous weather: golden, cloudless and sunny, I got a bit of a sweat on during my walk (though that could have been my weary stomach).

It’s been a scorcher of a day, all the better for a surprisingly pretty drive ending on the beach. Once I finally got going out of CC - no thanks to its road signs (or lack of) - the road (another motorway, with a whopping two lanes this time!) was long, straight and boring, right up until it exited the Canterbury Plains, where it threaded through winery country. Once past there, the fields began to roll, the green pastures rippling with curvaceous hills, as they pushed their way up out of the flat planes, crowds of trees sprouting up in place of vines, the colours of autumn springing up all over the place. The landscape looked like a huge, bobbling quilt: a patchwork of yellows, browns and reds, set on an uniform backdrop of green. All this cumulated unexpectedly in some absolutely breathtaking valleys, looking like they wouldn’t have been out of place as a substitute for Lord of the Ring’s Rivendell (in the first book, ‘The Fellowship...’).

Somehow the road clung to the hillsides, providing several hair-raising one hundred and eighty degree turns, whilst sloping. Still this wasn’t enough to slow down Kiwi drivers: adamant to get to their ever-so important destinations, oblivious to their surroundings. At one point I was trailing a double-wagon lorry transporting live cattle (looked to be cows through the peep holes in the slats), until he topped 100kph and kept going. God knows why companies allow such vehicles traverse steep, narrow, dangerous passes like the one I crossed through today, plus there wasn’t just the one, but several. Anyway, enough of my old fogey-isms.

The climax to the journey came with my arrival at Kaikoura: a sharp decline that lead to an abrupt, dramatic end to the mountains as the Pacific Ocean appeared from nowhere, cutting them short as they were forced to dive down to meet the coastline. Hugging a narrow space between sea and cliff wall I followed the road north, narrow and windy it negotiated a ten kilometre journey alongside the rock, sometimes through it (via slim, tube shaped tunnels), all the way to Kaikoura. The coastline to my right was littered with plenty of beaches and long rocky outcrops, backed by the glittering swell of a choppy sea partnered with picture book, craggy mountains, all of which looked stunning cast in the yellowing light of a glaring sun.

Blimey, that sounded good didn’t it? Will try and get some more photos up very soon, so you can see what the fuss is (and was) all about.

I’ve bought some nice, shortbread biscuits from a bakery local to my hostel today, for chomping on my way up to New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, tomorrow (and beyond, there’s quite a few biscuits). Am looking forward to chilling out there, possibly catching a movie at its fairly famous theatre (as recommended by my Lonely Planet Guide, it’s the place where they premiered LOTR and King Kong) and perusing the city’s popular cafe scene. I still need to sort out my accommodation for both Fiji and Hawaii, although I pleased to say I’ve sourced somewhere for my first night in Fiji (somewhere close to Nadi’s airport).

Oh, and I’ve just got off the phone to Mum and Teresa, after a regrettably short conversation due to an unbearable delay. No relevance to my travels: I mention this only because they asked me to!! Haha! :)

P.S. Whilst I remember, there’s a few things I forgot to mention in my last diary update. Forgetfulness, by the way, is becoming an issue - during the day time, I see and automatically think of things I’d like to record in my blog. But when the time arrives to do it, my mind freezes up and I forget everything. Think it may have something to do with a fixation I have with logging everything right now: as I go about seeing and doing things during the day I’m concentrating on quite how I’m going to report them, rather than on the things themselves. Either I need to get a dictaphone or a notepad, else I should stop worrying about the blog continuously and let it write itself. Think I’m leaning towards the latter - go with the flow - as it should result in less stress (this is supposedly a holiday, after all).

So, the things I’ve forgotten. On my trip east from Franz Josef to Arthur’s Pass, I passed a rather humorous road sign, advertising ‘Palm Readings, Fruit & Veg’. On the journey from Arthur’s Pass back to Christchurch, I saw lots of ramblers on the go (perhaps they call them ‘trampers’ here?). With the beginnings of the spectacular Arthur’s Pass being less than an hour away from Christchurch, I can see why. The second leg of my Arthur’s Pass journey - AP to CC - was by far the more impressive: great desert plains of rock, interspersed with dry, tufty flora (picture a mass, hilly landscape of yellows, browns and grays) beats mountains of trees and stone riddled valleys.

A random note: Australian/Kiwi toilets have two flush buttons: one for a half-hearted flush, the other for the full shebang.

In response to Marie’s comment made to an earlier post: it’s true I haven’t seen much of Australia for the sake of comparison (parts of Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra are like drops in the ocean). But what’s incredible about (the south island of) New Zealand, by itself or when compared to Oz, is the staggering variety of its scenery, ranging from the fantastic to the simply stunning, concentrated into such a small area of land. My view is also biased by the here and now, also that I REALLY like mountains (Australia’s are teeny). But don’t get me wrong, Australia is a beautiful country too. The eucalyptus trees aren’t, though ;)

Jake 1 - Stomach, Tongue, Common Sense 0 :(

2008-04-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

26.4.08

Ughhh. I guess I didn’t think the ‘suicide’ curry option through. Feel terrible today: stomach is rollicking, tongue feels swollen and numb, I can’t taste anything, head is fuzzy. But hey, I got myself a t-shirt (well, um, eventually - it’s in the post) and my name will be appearing on the plaque on the wall of the ‘Two Fat Indians Restaurant’ in Christchurch, as well as on its website (www.twofatindians.co.nz). Was it worth it? As me in a few days when I’ve recovered in a few days, fingers crossed. I didn’t expect the curry to be so putrid: both evil looking and smelling - bubbling like a thick, turgid sample of muddy-red, swamp water, in a surprisingly big bowl (damn them!) - swallowing it was a true case of mind over matter, not so much my tongue but my stomach rejecting it from the first mouth full (later that night it did just that, except that time the ‘r’ was a silent one, if you know what I mean). I’m just praying I haven’t put myself off Indian food for life.

The rest of the day was a better one. Following the TranzAlpine Trail eastwards towards Christchurch, the tree carpeted landscape began to fall away as the ground gave way to grassy parkland. Some fiercely sharp turns brought me to a large section of flats, the landscape turning steadily more dry as the distant mountain ranges lost their furry look to become barren. The large plain, dotted with cow-doting fields, a meandering river and the occasional collection of trees, was cut off before the horizon in the direction I was headed, by a thick hanging veil of hill cloud. Before reaching the wall of fog, I had the fortune to spot a long train trailing many carriages across the valley floor, making for some excellent photo opps. Besides, I wasn’t in a rush, so was happy to cruise along, making several stops by the side of the road to lap it all up (unlike most cars, tending towards breaking the speed).

The cloud was just like a dense wall of fog: rising up a steep incline I rushed headlong into it, unable to see more than a few metres of the stretch of road ahead of me. Breaking out the other side, I was met by large stretches of barren, desert-like land, the dry hills and mountains taking on the appearance of great, crumbling molehills. Still, there was room for one more lake, then I happened upon a most extraordinary scene. Just outside of a small, hilly town, stockpiled off to one side of the road, were the most peculiar ‘rocks’ I’ve ever seen. Protruding from the the sides of several grassy foothills, some precariously balanced, others leaning on one another for support, a great gathering of elephant-grey boulders were perched. Of many different shapes and sizes, slightly dimply, they were nevertheless smooth and rounded, looking like colossal pieces of plasticine. A line of cars were parked along the roadside, people streaming from them to get close as they could to the display (it turned out a good proportion of these were rock climbers - a top destination for them, no doubt).

Like a sheep I followed the queues along a sign-posted track, drawn in by the mysterious, magical lure of the place. Close up, they were no less impressive: like giant’s playthings, standing ten or more stories high, some of them took on familiar shapes, like that of gigantic, round bowling balls (with pock-holes for the fingers) or buildings that would have housed the Flintstones. I hate to repeat myself, but this TOO could have been the scene were Aragorn went over a cliff on his horse (Twin Towers, LOTR). A nearby sign mentioned nothing of Lord of the Rings, but instead explained that the rocks were made of limestone: deposits of sediment by the ocean, formed over tens of thousands of years. It still didn’t explain how these rocks had managed to appear in just this one place, about a square mile wide, so prominent against an otherwise featureless landscape (apart from the stunning backdrop of sharp mountain ridges, rolling hills, broad lakes and expansive, desert-like countryside - but they’re just par for the course in New Zealand ;)). Adding to the incredulity of the situation, the central, largest stones of all were arrange in a crude circle, giving the appearance of a natural formed, if a little deformed, Stone Henge.

Most annoyingly, my camera decided to give out at this point (stupid me, I forgot to charge it, plus this will serve me right for not buying a spare battery, even if it was a whopping £40 in Queenstown). During the battery’s dying breaths, I caught several snaps of the mysterious rocks - some fairly close up - but not enough, sadly! On heading back to the car, I’ve got to admit that I was hoping that the rest of the trip would be boring, saving me from any more guilt. Lady Luck was on my side at (this point - don’t forget the curry!) of the day: other than one heart-thumping, precipitous, corkscrew of a drop down into the valley below - invoking memories of my decline from the high point of the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, only this time with a car and a road to take care of the business for me - the journey back to Christchurch was pedestrian and smooth sailing, passing through 80km of the flat and boring farmland of Canterbury Plains. Passed many cars heading in the other direction, taking the advantage of the long weekend to get away.

The afternoon was spent wandering around Christchurch agasp at how dead it was - almost completely empty, most of the shops, cafes, restaurants and even bars were closed in honour of Anzac Day (Australia and New Zealand’s day for honouring their war heroes, it’s also a bank holiday). I had to make do with Starbucks (of all places!) for lunch. No chance of book shopping either. Rest of the day was spent researching places to stay in Fiji and Hawaii. Still plenty to do on that front.

Off to Kaikoura today, then the ‘North Island’ tomorrow.

J

Cold As Ice

2008-04-24T23:59:00.000-07:00

24.4.08

Brrr, chilly and overcast start to today. Guess it was inevitable, after such great weather. Last two days have been sunny and warm, verging on short wearing, which really worked out for my glacier climb yesterday. Two days ago I set off from Wanaka on a long drive - another 300km+ - to the west coast road, heading north to the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. The drive lead me through an assortment of pretty scenery, par for the course except for a couple of things, unique to the west coast. It started as a route that struck out north west into desert, before circling impassable mountains before cutting back across to the other side of 300m+ deep Lake Wanaka, a good 40km from where I started. Then the land started to rise and I found the road dipping and climbing, twisting and turning violently, as it struggled to keep up. The landscape took on a similar look to the fantastic fjordlands of Milford Sound, which shouldn’t have been surprising as I was skirting its backyard (amazingly, I was only about 100km from the fjord, but thanks to the lay of the land and roads, a good two days’ drive).

I couldn’t really afford to stop much as I had plans for when I reached the first of the two glaciers, but I did take a break at one signposted waterfall, leading me into the deeply entrenched, forested wilderness. Only a couple of minutes walk, it was a really lucky find too: a stone speckled valley amid great, climbing walls of never ending forest, topped only by snow encrusted mountain peaks (I’ve realised these look uncannily like a very generous portion of Vienetta Ice-Cream has been ‘dolloped’ on top). What made this valley particularly special were the hundreds of rock piles that people had built there (say half a dozen or more stones balanced on top of each other), like primitive shrines or statues. I believe this was the start of one of NZ’s big treks, which may explain the unusual sight (trekkers, or ‘trampers’ as they’re known here, are weird people - I should know, having been one of them).

From thereon in, having climbed high up through the pass, the road began its descent to the coast, where I eventually happened upon sand and stone flats, leading all the way to the sea. I stopped at the self-proclaimed town of Haast (named after the same guy who discovered Fox Glacier incidentally, whose vanity knew no bounds when he labelled a great many things on the west coast after himself), which in reality was little more than a cafe, guesthouse and petrol station, all very drab. Grabbed a drab tasting coffee from the cafe, then set off north on the only road out of there, crossing a long, single-carriage bridge across a wide, sandy estuary, to head parallel to the west coastland on the ‘Glacier Highway’.

Now the land grew even more wooded, suffocatingly clothed in exotic trees, vines and thick undergrowth, that looked more like a tropical jungle than the forests I’d come to expect from the south, central and eastern parts of the island (I’ve been informed that the trees in the west are indigenous, whereas those to the east are mainly a result of plantations, since most of the land farming was and still is performed in the more fertile east). I took a break to see the west coast’s sand dunes, unique in the southern hemisphere because they still support their natural forest and wetland vegetation, since forming 14,000 years ago in the wake of a glacier (those glaciers seem to get everywhere). What I saw were long stretches of beach, interrupted by trees, dead wood and, interestingly, a swamp forest. Further north along the highway, the coast became more dramatic as the mountains rose to join it - though no less shrouded in heavyset jungle - I stopped at the 'Knight's Point' viewpoint (named after a surveyor's dog), where I caught some memorable sights of the ever-encompassing ocean (could this be the Tasman Sea?), leading all the way to Australia and Tasmania, and the sharp drop of steep cliff faces, green with vegetation, into its waters.

The last third of the journey I tailed an unusual trailer carrying an enormous vat or barrel, that despite looking heavy didn’t stop him from taking the steep chicanes at hair raising speeds. I kept my distance. The road swept inland, through some dramatic valleys teeming with jungle, where I had to negotiate some of the tightest corners I’ve had to deal with yet (15kph yellow speed signs were a regular sight). Still it was worth the drive as the views were stupendous. Breaking out at the other side, I took a turn for Lake Mattheson - near the Fox Glacier, it’s supposed to provide stunning photo opportunities of good, old Mount Cook and his pals (remember him?), reflected on its still surface. I grabbed a tasty, home baked sausage roll at the trendy cafe - the only thing out there but seemingly making lots of money, the lake must attract its fair share of visitors. There was a one hour walk through the woods encircling the lake, but fifteen minutes in, I came across my first viewpoint, were I was disappointed to find the view really wasn’t all that, thanks to some heavy clouding and a rippling lake. It was after 3PM then and, knowing I was short on time, I gave the rest a miss, hurrying back to my car and to the Fox Glacier.

The Fox Glacier was awesome: a huge cascade of ice, like a frozen waterfall, sitting at one end of a wide valley studded with great rocks and enhanced by the magnificently steep rock walls on either side, stretching for many hundreds of metres above my head. The valley had in no doubt been carved out by the glacier over thousands of years, which at this point was receding (the neighbouring Franz Josef Glacier is actually in the process of growing - they’re not really affected by global warming, but instead localised snowing). I chose the Fox Glacier to walk - instead of climb, which I’d be doing the following day - because I’d read you could drive then walk right up to where it began (what’s known as the ‘terminal ice’). The walk was a long one - much longer than expected, thanks to the scale - and I got within perhaps fifty metres of the ice wall, where a safety fence warned me not to go any closer without supervision. It was pretty dirty near the bottom (where the ice moves/changes the slowest), coated in layers of broken rock and scatterings of black, filthy dust, but still a formidable sight, the many metres of thick, blue ice crystals visible beneath the dirt.

I carried on the additional 30km to the town of Franz Josef, next to the equally impressive Franz Josef Glacier, where I found my hostel for the night. The ‘Glow Worm Hostel’ has proven to be excellent: a free spa, vouchers for a nearby bar/restaurant (the excellent ‘Blue Ice Bar’, cosy and always busy, where I’ve happily frequented the last couple of nights), heated rooms, wireless internet (fairly expensive, but best price in a week) and great showers (yes!). Spent a few hours sorting out the uploading of blogs and photos, then hit the nearby bar. On the way there I stopped to ask the only bystander in the street - an excitable American lady - where the bar was, and on getting there, investigating the fairly posh restaurant (where it was suggested to me I might like to check out the bar upstairs instead - no offence taken though, they were right), I headed up to the drinking establishment, to find she and a couple of her pals were already there. The two people she was traveling with were real characters: a couple of middle-aged Kiwis on a road trip, both right, slap, bang in the middle of mid-life crises. One looked and behaved exactly like ‘Ron Bergundy’ (aka the film ‘Anchorman’) and the other was the body double of the cowboy narrator from ‘The Big Lebowski’. I kid you not. They were the life and soul of the party - and it was a party in there that night, staying open to 3AM and playing host to a rabble of ‘kids’ on the ‘Magic Bus’, getting wrecked on drinking, party games (par for the course, it would seem). Had a great time being entertained by Dave and the ever-drunken Murray (they were, of course, a couple of old drunks), got plenty of info about the states from the American girl, Chelsea, met several other randoms and cumulated the night with a visit to a local glowworm spot (a long, dark walk through some woods of the main road, helped by the light of the near full moon - like a lantern in the clear night sky - we were lead by a friendly bar bouncer to the worms: little pinpoints of bright, blue light living on the underside of a great, toppled tree stump). Had a really great fun that evening: ate the whole of a delicious Mexican pizza (like the gourmet pizza I had in Christchurch, it had nachos atop a dollop of sour cream sitting on a spicy, bean and chilli pizza - an superlative invention - with free pint too!), drank way too many ‘handles’ (500ml glasses) of Monteith’s (bargain at $5 a glass) and met loads of friendly, laid back local folk and travellers alike (I’m still waiting to catch a Kiwi out: they really do seem to be genuinely helpful and happy to meet tourists/strangers). The time flew by, with me not making it back until the wee hours of the next morning.

Next day was all about the glaciers! Startlingly hot and sunny start, with barely a cloud in the sky I had a clearest view of the forested hills set against snow capped mountains in the distance. It felt too warm to wear the three layers of clothing recommended, but I went with my better judgement and put them on later, deciding that standing on a mountain sized block of ice was bound to be cold (I would be proven right!). It was towards there that we headed: a packed bus load of tourists (erk!) towards the car park by the Franz Josef Glacier, which turned out to be a good few kilometres from the terminal face (took almost an hour to walk up the rocky valley, though it looked ridiculously close - our sense of scale was warped by the enormity of our surroundings: gigantic, carved mountains, great rocks and a mammoth, jagged ice face). I partnered up with a Dutch girl, a doctor in training on a six month break, pleasantly smiley and good to talk to, whose name I can’t spell, never mind remember. The large group had to split into four teams: from the fastest and most determined in the first team, to the slowest and lazy in the last. Somehow we found ourselves in team four ;) We had to strap on ‘clamp-ons’ to scale the wall of ice: spike attachments for our provided boots. Then it was a steep climb up chiseled, steep steps of what looked like rock (the whole bottom of the glacier was coated in rock and dirt), our guide occasionally stopping to cut them out with his pickaxe, where they were thinning. We had to hold onto a rope pinned into the ice for safety, it was that steep.

Eventually, the dirt began to disappear, and it was like we were walking on the world’s largest ‘slush puppy’, such was the consistency of the broken, partially melting ice. It was slow going - there were thirteen of us in the group and we had to negotiate hollowed out tunnels in the ice (great photo opps) and many deep troughs followed by steep climbs. As we got much higher, we eventually broke through the dirty and crumbly ice and hit the real stuff: solid and smooth. Then I got a real feel for it: standing in a world built of ice - an ice palace - where every carving, crevice, curve, spike, peak, valley and rock was made entirely of thick, whitish blue ice. It was like being on Planet Krypton, except blue rather than green. Amazing. Away from the glacier, the view of the valley left in its wake was stupendous: towering, awesome cliffs of rock on either side, tapering off slowly into the distance, separated by a flat, stoney bed of rock intertwined with wide, fast flowing rivers - formed from the melting ice - that eventually merged into one another as they headed out to the sea. On the way back, the size of this all laid out in front of me was really brought home: squinting at the people in their teams ahead of us, they looked no larger than ants, marching in formation across the valley floor below.

Spent over two hours on the ice in all, which turned out to be more than long enough: it was FREEZING at the top - no doubt thanks to the many tonnes of ice lying right under our feet, I’d wager - plus it implausibly got even colder once the sun disappeared behind a cliff. Wish I had insisted on taking the gloves on offer as my extremities were just a bit on the numb side by the time we had slid our way back to the bottom. I wasn’t the only one: the whole group was audibly fantasising about hot chocolate drinks and warm pizza the whole way down.

Treated myself to a delicious muffin and warm coffee on my return. As it happened, was really knackered - probably a delayed hangover from the night before - so turned into a bit of a moody old git/party pooper that night (hit the sack early, scowled at my noisy, annoyingly German roommates, insisted the light way turned off before 11PM etc.).

Had way too much sleep now - it’s ten thirty in the morning and I need to set off. Long drive to Arthur’s Pass today: a scenic route leading back east. Plus, I’ve booked into Christchurch for Friday night. Going to make amends and conquer the ‘suicide’ curry at the ‘Two Fat Indians’. Determined to get that free t-shirt and my name on the wall :)

24.4.08 - 6.50PM

Man, I’ve been so dozy today. Must have been all the sleep I had. Signs were there for me to see right from the off, purchasing cereal from the supermarket, paying for it and then walking off without it. Fixed myself with some extra strong coffee before setting out on the road north, but my mind continued to be in other places for the rest of the day.

24.4.08

Of the days to be distracted, yesterday was probably a good one, as most of the scenery I passed through tended to be a little on the tame side, relatively speaking of course! The twisting and turning coarse ran inland, through densely wooded landscape of sharp, hidden bends, crossing yet more mountains and tracing out the edges of a couple of huge lakes, before dropping down to the rugged coast again, hitting several miles of rough, overgrown grass land - keeping the herds of cows happy at least. Eventually made it to the plain seaside town of Hokitika, pretty busy with tourists, which my guidebook explained was thanks to its booming Jade industry (given that the only greenstone gorge in the south island is located right next to this town). Sure enough, every other shop on its high street was a Jade shop or factory. Drawn to this town by a large, brash, colourful, plastic fish advertising fish and chips (or, as they say here, ‘fush and chups’), I bought some at a ridiculously cheap price of $5 - to be fair, they tasted like they cost it (very greasy) - and headed for the grey-sand beach, sitting on one of many pieces of driftwood and basking in the warm sun. Must have been one of the warmest days since arriving in NZ, as I found myself even taking my jumper off and thinking about losing the jeans for some shorts.

It’s a good job I didn’t. It’s amazing how a few hundred metres can make a difference, especially in the vertical direction. Setting off north then turning off inland eastwards (once I found my way out of K**** - they really need to sort out their road signs here), I joined State Highway 73, leading to Arthur’s Pass National Park. After negotiating the ups and downs of a the wavy road, flowing into a wide expanse of farmland and wetlands, punctuated by paper-mache hills and anthill mountains, I met up with the rail track used by the popular ‘TranzAlpine Express’. The journey taken by the train is described as one of New Zealand’s most scenic, and I was happy to acknowledge that, as the road ran parallel to it all the way to Arthur’s Pass, I wasn’t to miss a thing!

Passed a few well placed pubs along the way, which made for good drinks stops and some great photos. At times the road had to veer away from the rail track - crossing it meant physically looking out for trains, as they had no gates to stop you (and sometimes no warning lights, either). The hills grew to eventually join in with the mountains, these drawing nearer and nearer until I found myself driving inside a ravine, joined by a fast flowing rocky river. I imagined the going to get a lot tougher, but just as the road started to climb, I came upon some new road, leading through an open-walled and steeply inclined tunnel that cut a route straight through the side of one mountain, crossing an equally impressive, enormous viaduct, to reach above and over the top of another (still a baby compared to its brother and sister mountains about it). There was a viewpoint right at the top where I was able to capture this manmade spectacle.

Not far from their, I arrived at Arthur’s Pass - in really good time actually, arriving a good hour before I thought I would. A small, street of a town - boasting a hostel, couple of guesthouses and three cafe bars, plus several quaint, log-cabin cum houses - it sits squat in the centre of a canyon, cushioned by steep, impassable mountains on either side, some nudging, others piercing the skyline with their sharp, pointy tips. The owner of my hostel had had to disappear on an emergency, so I took the opportunity to dump the car and take the steep, wooded climb (would have been even steeper if it hadn’t have been for the conveniently placed, wooden staircases) up to the ‘Devil’s Punchbowl’: a thin-topped, towering waterfall, its white waters steadily streaming from a rocky outcrop high above, spilling on the crooks and crannies of the vertical rock face below, creating a dreamlike spray and widening out to take on the appearance of a giant, white, watery ponytail. Quite the attraction, it has been pulling in tourists since the early nineteenth century, and Maoris since before that. Bet they didn’t have wooden steps back then.

The hostel is nice: music playing in the new and mod con equipped kitchen, everything very clean, the showers hot and fast. At first I thought I had my room all to myself, but a couple from England turned up just after 7PM to join me. Had a brief chat with them - they’re on a ‘short’ break, taking in NZ in just ten days before heading for a month in Australia (that’s still short for this part of the road, right?) - before I headed out for a dinner of tasty and warming ravioli, at the cafe diner across the way (the ‘Wobbly Kea’). Had the opportunity to join a social table of traveling chit chats, but declined so I could read my book instead. Being this high up in the mountains, I’d noticed an obvious drop in temperature earlier since driving up from the coast; I was able to visibly see my breathe for one. By nightfall, it was COLD. As shiny and modern as the room in my hostel was, I found myself wishing that the owners had spent less time polishing the wooden floor and more time putting in central heating. Brrrrr.

It’s a freezing start to the day - literally, my car’s windows needed hot water attention and some scraping this morning - and thanks to the soaring valley walls it feels much earlier than it is (it’s 9AM), as Arthur’s Pass is still cast in shadow. Back off to Christchurch today. It’s only a couple of hours’ drive away, so I intend to use the afternoon to pick up some new books and plan my trip in Fiji and Hawaii. Less than two weeks away so it needs doing. Coincidentally - though perhaps unsurprisingly (getting used to meeting people who have thought up similar journeys to my own, and there was I thinking I was the only one!) - whilst staying in Franz Josef, I bumped into not one but three people all individually planning on visiting Fiji in the coming weeks. A couple were able to give pointers about places to go and hostels (not sure they’re called that there) to frequent, including some that are ‘all-inclusive’ (!). Going to check all this out today. Tonight is curry night, booked in and ready to do some damage to my gut. Tomorrow’s going to be ‘messy’.

Drive to Wanaka, Wanaka Lake and Wanaka Highstreet

2008-04-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

The Otago Peninsular, Yellow-Eyed Penguins and Dunedin

2008-04-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Way Back, World's Fastest Indian, a Sea Lion & the Catlins

2008-04-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Milford Sound & Cruise

2008-04-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

Queenstown From Above, Journey to Milford Sound & Homer Tunnel

2008-04-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

Figure of Eight on the South Island

2008-04-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

Foreword: having been a whole week (wow!) since I last was afforded internet access - reasonably priced access, anyway - I've been unable to update my blog, but the entries have built up, nonetheless. So here they are, in all their glory, ready to be slogged through. Will add a mix of my favourite photos later (it's going to take a while to sift through them all!)...

15.4.08

Man, New Zealand is the land that just keeps on giving and giving. Just when you’ve stopped to take what you think is possibly the best thing you’ve ever seen, you round a bend to be confounded by a greater scene still. Now that I’ve arrived in the ‘fjordland’ that is Milford Sound, I know how important Douglas Adam’s Slartybartfast’s designing job was: these never ending, deep, U-shaped valleys, pronounced by dramatically steep, magnificent mountains - slowly carved out by glaciers 10,000 years ago - truly look like the work of giants.

Had a great night’s kip (at last!), got up in the wee hours (8am) and descended into the centre of town, snapping pictures along the way (this trend continued for much of the day). As I was expecting a long day of driving ahead, I stopped in at the ‘Vudu Cafe’, dining on some LP recommended blueberry and raspberry pumpkins (deliciously fruity and rich). While I was in this trendy cafe in this trendy town, I shared tables with a German guy who himself was ‘fruity’, in that he was incredibly camp. He told me he was a documentary writer/director, laying out the groundwork for his latest film before the arrival of his crew in a few days. The film was about some eco-warrior determined to rid New Zealand of all but its indigenous species (mainly birds, according to him), his cause funded by eco-cruises, which the crew were lined up to go on. All this was very interesting, but I couldn’t get away from the guy’s joking-on-pancake likeness to the over the top, gay, German, tour guide from the TV series ‘The League of Gentleman’. Alice Klaus! (?)

Picked up a mobile phone sim card, at last. Following that, caught a gondola ride up to the top of a wooded mountain, which provided glorious views of the lake, bay, deep valleys and sprawling city, not to mention the menacing looking mountains, the ‘Remarkables’, towering over everything in the distance. On grabbing my car and quickly giving my dying camera battery a charge - keep forgetting to charge it - I was soon on my way south, following a wall hugging, twisty road, built into the side of these stone-faced mountains. The fairly windy journey, enormous lake on one side, cliff-face on the other, kept me enraptured for the first part of the trip, eventually reaching flatter ground, where I veered west towards ‘Te Anau’, passing through green, wet looking, cultivated fields and rolling hills, filled with the biggest flocks of sheep I’ve laid eyes on (I swear I’ve never seen so many of the bleating beasties: there must be at least ten for every Kiwi on this island). It was all very English-like actually, only the illusion was shattered by tremendous mountains that eventually appeared, punctuating the horizon and signaling my arrival in Te Anau.
This town is on the edge of another great lake, surrounded by yet more mountains (the ‘Kepler Mountains’). It’s also home to one of NZ’s great walks: the ‘Keplar Track’. Unfortunately it’s a 3/4 day affair - I’ve already decided against doing one of these thanks to the implications: booking, cost, equipment requirements - but fortunately there’s shortened versions available. I’m intending to come back here tomorrow, when I’ll do some more snooping around. For now, I stopped there to fill up on caffeine and charge my batteries, before heading off in the direction of Milford Sound.

This part of the journey was best. Road signs warning me to fill up on fuel prior to the journey and to expect the 119km trip to take at least two hours had me excited about it from the get-go (I saw some other cool signs along the way: one notifying me that I’d reached the 45 degree southern latitude line, another warning me of buses - they weren’t wrong either!). The road was long, windy and, most importantly, next to empty. Hitting the throttle, I flew along, lapping up not only the road but also the stunning sights of endless forests coating the land, mountains increasingly dominating in size and stature, valleys widening and deepening, rapid rivers and ocean-like lakes appearing and disappearing around each new turn. It was truly awe inspiring. The most tremendous sights involved the hilariously named ‘Monkey Creek’ (normally the names for NZ landmarks are so boring and unimaginative too, like ‘Dead Horse Creek’ and ‘Big Rock Hill’), which criss-crossed a wide valley of yellowed, dead grass, closed in by several of the most immense, neck-craning mountains you can ever imagine (and then some), some bare and rocky, others smothered in moss, another dark and snow tipped, several carpeted in funky looking trees (droopy and covered in lichen, like those you could imagine quite happily living in a swamp). There were many more valleys just like this. The last one I went through ended at a thousand-metre wall of rock, surpassable only by the a single-lane, barely lit tunnel (the ‘Homer Tunnel’) that had been built by job-starved Kiwis during the depression of the second world war (on a related note, many of New Zealand’s bridges are single lane, meaning one set of traffic has to wait - not that it’s ever that busy). There was a traffic-light indicating whether it was yours or the oncoming traffic’s turn to pass through the tunnel (a sign read the lights changed every fifteen minutes, though I’d say it was more like five). I passed the time waiting taking photos of a nearby waterfall, until my camera’s battery died, that is.

The other side of the mountain presented the most windy roads yet - 25kph recommended by the yellow, roadside signs - and yet more dramatic scenery provided by the glaciers. Milford Sound was upon me before I knew it: the smell of salt on the air telling me I wasn’t staring at another mammoth lake this time. It’s another beautiful place: vertical mountains, jutting out of the sea, pointing to the heavens, tree-filled valleys, a gently lapping shoreline and just a few buildings (a cafe, small jetty for the cruise ships, nearby hotel and hostel). Hostel (‘The Milford Lodge’) seems okay: front lounge room filled up with people, drinks and snacks for sale, simple, 4-bed dorm rooms, $2 charge for duvet - the latter seems to be the now norm). Pesky sandflies are all over the place, turning using the outside phone into a bit of a nightmare. There’s unlimited wifi internet for $10: would go for it if I were staying longer than one night. I’m sharing a room with a group of well spoken Malaysian students of English, very friendly, pally, all grinning ear-to-ear at my comments on their home country.

Looking forward to my ‘nature cruise’ tomorrow morning. After that, planning a trip back to Te Anau - more photos en route and hopefully a trek when I get there, if there’s time. Booked into a hostel in the ‘Catlins’ - a national park and set of picturesque beaches on the south-east coast - the following day. I’ve been recommended a place to stay where there’s sea-lions living on the beach right outside. If that doesn’t sound appealing, what is? It’s all coming together nicely, if not hurriedly.
By the way, could really see myself living here. This is a magnificent country, with so much natural landscape, thanks to the lack of people. It’s amazing to think that with only four million residents, they have so radio stations (no national ones it would appear, but the local ones are good; there’s an unusual number of Christian related broadcasts too - I’ve come across three or four at least) and TV channels (offering some excellent programming, admittedly from abroad). From what I’ve witnessed, New Zealand offers more diverse and astounding terrain than Australia - at least compared to the parts of it that I saw - which is no doubt afforded by the significantly cooler, less hostile environment and its sitting on a fault line. People are just as nice too, and I’m sticking with my more laid back claim and throwing in quieter to the mix too.

Could really see myself living here, no trouble. Seems that a lot of people have had the same idea, given the number of English I keep coming across. Shame I hear that the wages aren’t so good. Still, food for thought.

Speaking of food...

15.4.08 - 9.01PM

Dinner in the land of giants. Pizza at the local bar - a pretty plain affair in a fairly average place. The little differences that stood out were the charcoals painter sitting in one corner of the pool room, capturing the scene to an A3 canvas (wonder if I was in it - couldn’t quite make out), and the view outside: under the moonlight, I could just about make out the deep black, monstrous silhouettes of the fjord walls against a not so dark background. They remind me of the wondrous mountains I came across whilst in the centre of Laos, only on a much larger scale - no build up, just suddenly erupting, tall, ominous, unclimbable, out of nowhere, from the innocuous, flat surroundings. Never have I felt so Lilliputian.

Time for some self reflection now, as this isn’t just a physical trip, but an emotional one too. How do I feel at this stage? Elated and thrilled to bits by what I’ve uncovered recently, but also quite lonely. Though I’m in what’s basically an enormous common room full of people, I’m not up to making small talk. I’ll admit to myself that my food indulgence, as well as excitement in anticipation for the event, is my replacement for going out/socialising. Perhaps I should class it as comfort eating, though it’s enjoyable so not as negative as that sounds. The food, the driving and the sights have become my journey, the key to my enjoyment. Holding back from conversing with strangers is an interesting experience for me: I’m very capable of holding my own with people I don’t know - as I have done on numerous occasions - but also both it and the very thought of it makes me uncomfortable. Despite this, as mentioned, I feel lonely when I don’t make the effort. It’s a Catch-22 situation.

One thing I do know - if I had to choose somewhere to be whilst lonely, I can’t think of many places more beautiful than this.

16.4.08

Yet another incredible day for sights, sounds and smells. Well, sights mainly. Think I’m risking sensory overload, taking in so much awe inspiring scenery during such a short space of time. Getting close to feeling burnt out, so having just got off the phone to Dad - hooray for reception - I’m going to slow down from tomorrow, on reaching the south-east coastal area, known as the ‘Catlins. At the very least, I think I deserve a break!

Slightly uncomfy night’s sleep with flashbacks to my time in the tropics, as my fellow Malaysians kept the heating set to roasting. Plus, I forgot to pay out for bedding, meaning I made do with my paper-thin silk sleeping bag liner. In the morning, chugged down some breakfast and coffee, zoomed down to the bay and was on the cruise ship before I knew it. Sadly it was a pretty full ship, but this didn’t stop me from getting a good view up at the front. It was pretty damn fresh and chilly whilst in the shade of the mountains, what with the sea breeze, but clear blue skies and glorious sunshine soon fixed that. In fact, it occurred to me how lucky I’d been with the weather so far: over the PA, the captain of the ship announced how the usual, water-clogged sound and surrounding area - known for raining two out of every three days of the year - had been dry for a record setting two weeks.

Setting sail towards the ocean, we passed through the momentous corridor-like passages: sharp, jagged, stone walls looming 800m+ straight out of the water on either side. The humungous scale of these were incomprehensible, needing things like passing passenger ships, helicopters and airplanes - of which there were many - to put things into perspective. Still it was hard to grasp the magnitude of the scenery. We sailed by rock faces twice the height of the Empire State Building and a waterfall taller than Niagara Falls, but it was hard to believe this, as all the surrounds were just as big. In way of comparison, think of the statues Frodo and Sam passed by boat, at the end of the first Lord of the Rings movie, or the mind blowing rocks guarding the entrance to the island near the start of King Kong (to be fair, they were about an hour into the movie, but it still counts at the start, as the introduction just dragged on way too looooo-oooong), or the enormous cliff faces in Jason and the Argonauts (where the Greek god of the sea - was it Neptune - appeared, to pull them apart).

On the way out to the ocean, we spotted a seal, lolling about in the water and diving for fish. Saw some more glaciers, a buoy filled bay where lobsters were caught then transported alive around the world (as long as the destination’s reachable within 72 hours, you’re guaranteed a fresh lobster), the dominating ‘Mitre Peak’ and, on breaking out of shallow waters - provided by rocks, deposited into the sea over tens of centuries by a glacier - we hit the ocean, where the tide really picked up. Didn’t stay there long, but long enough to glimpse the equally dramatic coastline and see how Captain Cook managed to miss the Milford Sound fjord not once, but twice (from the sea, it does indeed look hidden), before turning back. On the way back we spotted dolphins gliding elegantly through the waves - though the cheeky buggers made a beeline directly to another ship, ignoring ours completely (I thought we were supposed to be the ‘nature cruise’ ship??) - and it was explained to us how so many trees managed to grow and remain attached to the cliffs, at times smothering them, even at vertical angles. Using a combination of strong vines and roots they grip onto one another. Over many years this can sometimes result in catastrophe, when several hanging trees lose their hold on the mountain wall, falling and bringing entire forests with them, into the sea. Local Kiwis call this a ‘tree avalanche’.

Determined to break out of my shell and talk to some people today, I chewed the fat with an old, retired, English couple (now living in NZ) and their visiting friends. They gave me plenty of food for thought regarding my next few destinations (some exciting ones, which I’ll leave secret until I get there). The cruise was then over before I knew it - it was 1PM - so I jumped in the car and sped off back along the incredible mountain road to Te Anau, knowing I had a good 2-3 hour journey ahead of me. Fortunately, my car lapped it up: once I got past a stream of slow traffic waiting at the tunnel entrance, I was cruising along happily, hitting my car’s terminal velocity of 120kph (at which speed the steering wheel begins to shake uncontrollably, like a little, lost lamb - poor thing) and whizzing by. I passed several sights I’d seen the day before, reminded of the ‘Mirror Lakes’ (a serene stop by waters that live up to their name, overlooked by specially designed wooden viewing platforms) and the awesome Elginton Valley (30km of shimmering views, beginning with a drive above and beside the enormous Elginton River which, after rounding one bend, becomes nothing but a stream, running inside a wide, dry, deep, empty valley). I also stopped by ‘The Chasm’, which involved a ten minute walk through thick forest, cumulating in a bridge crossing a heart stopping, steep and rocky plummet into a dark abyss, running water cascading noisily over the edge.

On my journey back, I was again reminded of how lucky I’d been with the weather - it quickly turned from sunny to cloudy and misty, hiding some of the spectacular views a clear sky had afforded me traveling in the other direction yesterday. My trip back was also a tad scary: my petrol gauge dropped from a quarter full to empty within minutes of starting - frightening amber petrol light appearing out of nowhere - but I put this down to the steep incline of the road. Fortunately I was right, but about half way back on the 120km route, it had steadied on the empty line and 30km from my destination, the indicator’s needle was on the cusp of breaking, so eager it seemed to push past the limits of the dial, beyond ‘E’ and into, literally, ‘nothing’. Bare in mind there’s no petrol available in these parts (I wasn’t risking running dry for fun!). For the remaining miles, I drove slowly and gingerly, relying on the downhill runs to keep my speed up and pooping my pants on the inclines. I reckon I made it to Te Anau’s petrol station on fumes, confirming a full tank will eek out 650km, when pushed (!), costing $75 (£30).

17.4.08

Spent the night at a delightful ‘farm’ about 9km out of town, with over a dozen, wooden cabins overlooking the undulating, cattle-filled, green countryside (very English) - one of these I shared with several Israeli and German backpackers - and a reception/lounge area converted from a barn. Dinner at the ‘Fat Duck’, a modern, trendy bar/restaurant/cafe on the edge of town, as it was busy, warm and looked inviting. Luckily the food was good too: a mammoth chunk of sizzling deer meat, wrapped in a salad, sitting inside a huge, freshly baked, toasted bun (so big, I really needed three hands), beside beer-battered chips, yet more salad and a generous pot full of sweet tasting ketchup. They called it the ‘Venison Burger’ and it was delicious, the meat tasting somewhere between pork and lamb, plus salted (though that could have been the condiments, as there were many).

Had a good night’s sleep (caught some excellent TV shows on ‘TV 2’ on the little telly in my room beforehand; really impressed with NZ TV - must remember an American show by the name of ‘Knights of....’, damn!) and some breaky (picked up some more muesli from the supermarket yesterday: the muesli cereals are really good here), now ready to hit the road. Revised my plan and hoping to take things a bit more slowly from here. We’ll see!

P.S. Feeling more and more like Colin McRae whilst rallying about New Zealand, no doubt thanks to the windy roads accompanied by stunning, dangerously steep scenery. The feeling is exacerbated by the yellow road signs, displaying recommended speeds for cornering as well as a cute arrow diagram, illustrating the shape of the curve. It’s almost like they’re teasing you to try and take the corner faster, if you dare...

17.4.08 - 10.25PM

Another cool day, that bit more laid back than yesterday, which was needed. Ended up taking the slightly longer route marked ‘Scenic Road’ down to Invercargil, after finding out it only took twenty minutes longer than the most direct route. In the morning, the clouds had lifted from the previous evening, revealing a distant backdrop of jaw dropping, pointy mountains, behind the rolling hills I’d seen the day before from the farm. Once again, I was transported far from England.

The drive was indeed ‘scenic’, the road winding its near to the foothills then beyond the soaring mountains, as the landscape steadily began smoothing out, slowly turning into hill swept farmland. After about 100km I hit the coast: a heavy hitting breeze all the way from the Antarctic was blowing inland across the ocean, breaking the backs of coastline hugging trees. Any dramatic inclines had long since disappeared, a gentle slope reduced fields to rocks to sand to sea. This went on all the way to Invercargill, possibly the first bland Kiwi town I’ve come across so far (was beginning to think there wasn’t one ugly or boring thing about New Zealand): a long, double-carraigeway (the first?), leading past masses of retail outlets before getting to a busy, nondescript town centre. Have got to say, it took me by surprise to come across traffic lights - hadn’t seen them for what felt like a long, long time!

However, all was not lost. I chose a random cafe for a spot of lunch and on going up to the counter to pay my bill, the owner seemed to get all excited, asking if I was a tourist and then telling me to ‘wait right there’ while he disappeared out the back. The other person behind the desk just shrugged, explaining that he gets like this around foreigners. Eventually, he appeared out of the kitchen, clutching a local map, pointing out a hardware store round the corner and telling me I ‘simply MUST see it’. Anyway, I’m really glad I did. Right at the back of the shop stood a small, neglected exhibition, showing off the genuine, world-record holding ‘World’s Fastest Indian’ motorbike, as ridden by the New Zealander Burt Munro. Part of the display talked about the Anthony Hopkin’s movie based around it and included a replica bike used in the film. It was a real steal of a find: there were absolutely no adverts for the bike outside the shop or anywhere in the town, plus it didn’t cost a penny (or cent) to see. How lucky was that?

Following that, I struck out east, looking for a scenic route marked on the map as leading into the south-east coastal area known as the Catlins. I got a bit lost on some country lanes thanks to a serious lack of signposts or even a number for this road/highway, but eventually found my way onto it. The landscape surrounding the long, pale beaches is a calm ocean of hills like waves, topped with mossy, green, cropped grass, giving the impression of driving through the world’s largest golf course. It would have been difficult to play mind, what with all the massive flocks of sheep (I found out today that there are forty million sheep in NZ, whilst there are four million people) and the powerful, driving wind. I stopped off to look at a lighthouse - built soon after New Zealand’s second greatest shipwreck disaster - and was nearly knocked off my feet. Once in a while I’d drive through a swampy area of land, presumably fed into by the sea, where the road would lower dangerously level with it (who knows what happens at high tide?).

The second coolest thing I saw was a sea lion, just off the road heading back from the lighthouse, lazily lolling about in the long grass. It looked just like a very fat, brown cow, only with flippers. I took the warning of people that pointed it out to me not to get too close - supposedly they can move fast and they sport a mean bite, pretty hard to imagine considering the size - but it hardly paid me the time of day. Made some what I imagined to be sea lion noises - “ow, ow, owww” - which provoked a head raising reaction, but little else.

Finally arrived at my hostel, which turns out to be a godsend. It’s a proper holiday home (the outside shell is made of corrugated iron which, as I found out, gets very noisy when it rains: it amplifies the noise ten-fold, like being in Gran and Granddad’s conservatory) which is right by the beach; doesn’t sound like much, but it has all the mod cons inside, plus it’s like a real house: there’s a large, kitted out living room/kitchen area, kept warm by a lovely, wood fed stove (really needed!), several bedrooms (one containing some bunks and used as a dorm room), en suite facilities and an ocean facing veranda. When I arrived, there was nobody there - all the doors are kept unlocked, a note on the table with my name and several others next to allocated rooms, telling us to expect the owners to pop in some time in the evening to collect payment. It’s all remarkably trusting, but then who’s going to abuse the system? I’m right in the middle of nowhere, off a almost dauntingly quiet road, which turned to gravel track about 20km ago, with only a few other houses about (it’s all farmland and empty fields), next to no people (just sheep), and no radio or mobile phone signals. New Zealand has this uncanny knack of making you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, only a few miles out of a town. Once you’re over that first hill, it’s practically like you are. I guess that’s the advantage of having only four million people for a population, only a fraction of that living in the south island.

Took a brisk walk along the beach to its end before it got dark, cup of tea in hand. Saw some signs advertising a rare breed of dolphin living in the bay and known to swim and take food from people, but no sign of them today. There were quite a few seagulls about and plenty of giant seaweed. Went for dinner at the only local, very expensive cafe: played it safe with a starter, shooting the breeze with a couple of welcoming American girls (I recognised them from the lighthouse earlier and so they invited me to share their table). By the time I got back to the house a troop full of Chinese girls and another couple had arrived, filling the house and creating a lively atmosphere. Sat, chatted a bit and whiled away some time getting toasty and snug before the fire before hitting the sack.

18.4.08

Freezing today. Rained all night, windy now and I’ve seen some hailstones already. Yes, hailstones! The power’s out - I was really lucky as I’d just had a shower and made a cup of tea before it cut! Fire’s going strong but the house hasn’t warmed up yet. Everyone’s getting ready to leave as it’s kicking out time in less than half an hour.

Though the beach house I’m staying at is on Curio Bay Road, its actually sitting on the wide beach of ‘Purpoise Bay’. The headland rises up to grass covered cliffs at one end, at the other a corner of jutting rocks signify the start of Curio Bay: a stretch of sharp, daunting, black rocks, climbing steeply out of the sea. There’s a collection of fossilised petrified wood that’s viewable four hours around low tide over there, but I think I’ve missed it as the Chinese girls came back from there over an hour ago and said there was little to see. Staying at Surat Bay tonight - a short drive away from here, so I’m going to take it easy today. However, I find I’m missing the beauty of the mountains now, unable to really appreciate the beaches thanks to the shocking weather. Nevermind, am booked to stay here at least another day, then onto the student filled city of Dunedin tomorrow, to see the world’s only colony of albatrosses!

19.4.08

Oh my god, is it COLD. I’m sat in a wooden armchair by a wood fire in my hostel, right next to Surat Bay, which is well known for its sea lions. I’ve just been out on the beach to see if I could catch one, but instead was assaulted by wind, then rain, then hail. The weather hasn’t improved since yesterday, if anything it seems to have got colder, if that’s possible? I reckon the temperature is hovering around freezing - yesterday morning it was cold enough when I set out for the ice from the hail storm to have settled by the sides of the road.

Not having a jacket is turning into a bit of a nightmare. I made do with layering (t-shirt, long-sleeved undershirt and micro-fleece, which I wish was less ‘micro’ and more ‘fleece’) and keeping my trusty umbrella to hand. The day turned into a real battle for the elements: grey clouds bringing great gusts of wind, hail storms and rain, gallantly fought back on occasion by the sun and blue skies. When it cleared up, the landscape was really beautiful - yet more of the same rolling green hills and mix of empty and sheep filled fields, only this time punctuated by large expanses of rain forest, as I drove through the ‘Catlins Rain Forest National Park’. Stopping for a coffee at a cafe advertising ‘McLean Falls’ nearby, it was so miserable outside I ended up staying for lunch (lamb in a bun, which reminded me why I don’t eat lamb - too much fat - but I felt I was doing my part to help NZ with its blatant sheep problem). Chatted to the owners and several tourists flowing in and out of the place, plus took the opportunity to dig a little deeper into my book.

I spent most of the afternoon waterfall spotting, along the scenic, coast road to Surat Bay. I took in four of them in all, each a different shape and size, all pretty spectacular. What really set them apart was the surrounding foliage: getting to each one required a lengthy walk through dripping wet sections of rainforest, containing all manner of lichen covered trees, vines and plants. When the sun came out, the forest really came to life, taking on so many shades of vivid green, leaves glistening in the sunlight, the creeper constricted trees looking almost alien.

Before stopping at the hostel, I took a slow drive down a long, windy, gravel track - spraying stones all over the shop, my poor car turned a new shade of grey-brown - to arrive at Roaring Bay for 5PM. There, at the end of a wind and rain battered bay (becoming a bit of a theme now), was a tourist filled wooden shack, from which I saw as many as six ‘hoiho’, the very rare species of yellow-eyed penguin. They only appear at occasionally and at around dusk, so I was thrilled not only to see them, but capture some half decent photos and a video. Plus I was chuffed to realise I’d saved myself the $30 it would have cost me to see them at Otago’s penguin reserve :)

Had some pretty naff grub at the only place within 10km of my hostel, then drove back to spend the night huddled around the fire, whiling the hours away chatting to an American couple of Montana (amazing stories of deep caving, dangerous snakes and scorpions, and shooting coyotes, all in their state) and a guy from Holland. Chilly night, where I stole an extra duvet from the unused bunk above mine (well the owners shouldn’t have turned the heating off at bedtime, should they!?).

As you can no doubt tell, am a bit miffed with the Antarctic weather right now. Am still determined to get by without a coat (hat, gloves etc.), instead finding myself eating more (doh!) and layering up as much as I can. Still, it’s all north from here on in (you can’t get much further south than the south coast). Not that I want to rush it, but in two and a half weeks I’ll be in Fiji, where I’ll no doubt be praying for cooler weather. Here’s hoping.

20.4.08

Not a good day for hitting my own sight-seeing targets yesterday, mostly thanks to the subzero temperatures (being serious, Dunedin hit a high of 4 degrees celsius) and lashings of rain. Left the, what felt like staying at your grandma’s, house some time after 11AM. The owners were a quaint old couple, busying themselves about tending to everybody’s needs, like surrogate grandparents (the man looked bizarrely like an old Steve Farrell). Before leaving, I set off for the neighbouring beach, right outside the door, unsuccessfully trying to spot some sea lions. A resident Scottish girl tried and failed, followed by the Montana couple, who came back with the most amazing photos of an open mouthed sea lion playing in the sea, followed by me, when it was like the damn things had gone into hiding - probably putting there feet up in front of a fire somewhere, whilst I was getting wet and numb from the big chunks of ice thrown forcefully from the heavens.

Was pleased to be heading inland and away from the breeze, back to civilisation! (I did take a long detour back to another beach known as ‘Cannibal Bay’ - another dodgy, gravel road doing god knows what to the paint and underside of my car - as I’d heard rumour of wild sea lions living there, but no joy, just more rain that turned to ice, like I crossed into a cold front getting close to the sea.) Filled up my near empty petrol tank - only managed roughly 550km out of it this time, possibly because I had filled up on ‘Ultra’ instead of ‘Regular’ - and hit State Highway 1, all the way to the city of Dunedin. Getting there involved navigating windy corners through green, rolling valleys, filled with great grass dunes of hills and the occasional vast lake.

Dunedin feels like the first real city that I’ve seen in NZ, despite the fact that it’s smaller and less sprawling than Christchurch (so I have been reliably informed). The first shock came when I hit a self-titled motorway section of road: two to three lanes of traffic at who knows what speed limit?! Entering the city limits, you come over the lip of a hill to see a sprawling city laid out on a semi-circular slope, which descends on all sides to an enormous bay, known as the ‘cove’. Dunedin is Gaelic for ‘Edinburgh’, the city is meant to be heavily populated by Scots thanks to its cooler climate - for the record, I didn’t meet any - plus the main road running through its centre is called ‘Princes Street’, it has a faux old cathedral and even an attempt at New Zealand’s only castle! I guess if I was to compare it to Edinburgh, it could look a little like the northern part of the city, where from memory I remember houses sitting above and around a river, but other than that I can’t see the resemblance. The biggest irony was the weather: the fact that it was chucking it down almost immediately made me feel like I was in Scotland (an old running joke, it actually DOES rain every time I go there).

Dunedin feels like a city because you can see its sprawling limits, it has big roads and large, gothic buildings. Christchurch had a few of the latter, but outside of the rustic centre and less formal, small CBD, there were just wide expanses of single-storey houses, that felt like suburbs (I guess the flatness of CC exacerbates the small impression, as you can’t see how big it is). I haven’t actually done all that much in Dunedin since arriving. I dropped my stuff off at my hostel - ‘Hogwartz’ (ho ho!), a big, old mansion of a house, right on the side of a steep hill, opposite the cathedral - and set off down to the cove, to drive up the ‘Otago Peninsula’ to see some albatrosses, those of the 2.5m wingspan. Unfortunately, there were none there when I got there - likely thanks again to the horrendous wind and rain - but I grabbed a coffee and a scone at the Royal Albatross Centre’s cafe, and sat for an hour or so, hoping to catch a glimpse (I refused flatly to pay the $30 fee to walk up the ten metres from the cafe to the top of summit it was perched on, in order to see some eggs and get wet - of note, the staff coax the great birds to land on the opposite side of the hill, so freeloaders in the cafe don’t get to see them, but happily I’m told it never works!). Still no show from the birds, instead I had a quick look at a video and exhibition on them - to my uninformed mind they look like enormous, ugly sea-gulls with deformed beaks) and set off back to the city.

Fortunately, the drive out there made the trip worth while: skirting the bay and heading out to the end of the southern peninsula, the road followed the contours of the land, right at the water’s edge. Sometimes the road was less than a metre above sea-level, the choppy waters lapping at it. On the opposite side, I’d sometimes be driving through the steep, carved out rock of a tall hillside, at others I’d be passing by small, charming villages and beach houses (plus I passed by - but can’t say I wanted to stop - the aforementioned castle: ‘Larnach Castle’). It simply wasn’t a day for the outdoors!

Last night, I went into the city centre early and took several holiday snaps, then later on wined (or is that ‘boozed’?) and dined at the ‘Speights Brewery’, which had an attached bar and restaurant. It was a large, wooden, barn sized affair, similar to say your standard Walkabout Pub, only classier. Dinner was a mushroom sauce coated steak with some excellent kumara chips (the native sweet-potato). My theory about Monteith’s being the only good beer was disproved; I had a couple of pints of ‘Dark Ale’, which were very hoppy and with a hint of chocolate (though still served chilled and fizzy). Also, had an unexpected and enjoyable long chat with a bouncer there, a top bloke who was a rugby trainer - he’d even been to England to do it professionally - and did the job part-time, mainly for the banter (Dunedin doesn’t appear to be the place that attracts much trouble). Before I knew it is was almost midnight, so I pushed off back home, passing by crowds of noisy, student infested bars (Dunedin is also known as a university town, with around 30,000 students, or so I’m told) and back through the city’s very centre, known as the ‘Octagon’. The Octagon’s forms more of a circle, with a bit of parkland in the middle of a loop road, surrounded by bars, restaurants, a hall and a gothic church. Bizarrely, there was a group of Christian Evangelists equipped with signs and a megaphone, making a gratuitously noisy and manic - come on, it was midnight, cold and people had better things to do - demonstration in the centre. Police were driving about and there was what appeared to be an unlicensed stall set up selling dodgy sausages. A very surreal experience, I’m sure you’ll agree.

It’s fairly early and I’ve got to set off on a long journey now, to reach Wanaka during the afternoon (about 280km+ I reckon, being just north of Queenstown, it’s around the centre of the island). I’m very happy to write it’s a gloriously sunny day - blue skies and no sign of clouds - but I’ve no idea how warm it is yet.

21.4.08

Ugh, just had an ‘orrible breakfast. Smoked salmon and poached eggs in some sickeningly creamy sauce: reminded me exactly why I don’t tend to go in for seafood (slimey, slippery, like eating entrails - yuck, yuck, yuck!). Big breakfast, big mistake - my intention had been to fill up prior to hitting a 3-4 hr trek around Wanaka, not to get sick doing it. Whoops.

Weather was a fabulous turnout yesterday - pleasantly warm and completely still, it was all the more amazing considering the days preceding it. The drive from Dunedin to Wanaka was a long one, stretching over three hundred kilometres and taking 4-5 hrs, including a stop for lunch at a great little road town, sitting in a wide valley basin, encircled by a river and the narrow peaks of far off mountains. Both the people running the cafe and those frequenting it were as friendly as ever, something I’m finding easy to get used to in this mild mannered country.

The journey began with a cautious, hilly landscape, that gradually built up its confidence as slopes became more aspiring and the road more windy, like a roller coaster. Again, fabulous roads for biking, I’m sure. What really impressed me with this route was the fauna. The colours of autumn were everywhere, a typical valley fertile with so many different trees - everything from cypress (definitely the most pleasing to the eye, giving the landscape an Italian feel, if I’m thinking of the right tree) to ashes, ferns to oaks; willows, pines, ‘christmas trees’ (lots of these!), palm trees (a strange juxtaposition), and, I’m glad to report, not one ugly eucalyptus in sight - would paint the landscape with ripe yellows, luscious greens, strawberry reds and golden browns. Continually rising, as the lumpy land turned more mountainous, scattered rock formations began to surface as the green hills turned to brown, looking exactly like the landscape used in ‘The Two Towers’, during the fight at the end of which Aragorn takes a tumble off of a cliff (the controversial scene that didn’t take place in the book). I wonder?

Adding yet more beauty to already, eye-achingly stunning surroundings was a vivid blue, shimmering river, which meandered its way through the mountains, accompanying the road and my view for most of the time. The scenery began to look familiar when I took a sharp turn to be confronted with a great lake and the town of Cromwell, where I’d had a real fruit ice-cream days earlier. The route took me back towards Queenstown, through apple orchard and grapevine littered lands, where I took a turnoff just prior to it, up my steepest climb yet, along a scenic route direct to Wanaka. After much use of low gears, twisting and turning up the dangerously narrow, sharp-bended road, traversing a steep cliff-face - on top, it didn’t help that the local council were doing roadworks (there seems to be roadworks all over NZ, especially on narrow, twisty roads, and always the kind that involves ripping up and replacing the tarmac, leaving skittering, hard to grip gravel in its place, for those unsuspecting tourists) - I made it to the top: a frightfully high viewing platform, overlooking an incredible, colourful valley.

Snapping plenty of pics along the way - sometimes whilst from my car dashboard without stopping (cheeky!) - I descended down a road that cut right through the middle of two mountains, snaking its way into another, larger and less dazzling, basin. It took me about another hour to reach Wanaka, during which I passed a surreal scene - several novelty monster trucks sitting in a field, minding their own business - and had to make do with a tripe-ridden country radio station (though I should have been glad for any radio reception at all). Not to sound like a broken record, but Wanaka is - another - pretty town beside an enormous, sparkling blue lake, tall mountains painting the horizon and trees dotting the streets. The centre is a riverside strip, mostly fancy cafes, bars and restaurants (the aforementioned place that provided me with the stomach wrenching breakfast is located on this road - it also serves a delicious, locally brewed beer, so I have mixed feelings about the place). The town is widely known as a more laid back alternative to Queenstown - being so close - but despite the wonderful views offered from lakeside, they’re not nearly as jaw dropping.

My hostel seems alright: ‘The Purple Cow’ is situated just back from the lake - still retains the views - and has an excellent movie projector room. My, admittedly tiny, bedroom is in one of several self-contained cabins, each with their own TV, kitchen and bathroom. Annoyingly, they only come equipped with one oil, radiator heater, but there’s two bedrooms (it’s still freezing at night). Whoever thought of that needs their head checked.

Had a fairly decent Indian meal last night at a place run by a genuine Indian from Kashmir and an English guy from Luton: feeling a bit homesick I opted for a Chicken Korma, which disappointingly had the taste and texture of tomato soup, not helped by its red colouring and lack of any coconut (perhaps a northern Indian recipe?). The experience was more than made up for by the long conversation I had with the very sociable owner and cook: we had a good chat about my experience of India, which most amusingly ended up with the cook offering a houseboat holiday with his family to me (so typical of India!).

Off to do a long trek, the ‘Rob Roy’ Trek (knowing the name I simply have to do it, if only for Liam Neeson), in the neighbouring ‘Mt Aspiring National Park’. The sky continues to be blue today, but the wind is kicking up a bit of a fuss. Bravely - or is that stupidly - I’m going to head out in my shorts. I pray it does not rain.

21.4.08 - 9.30PM

Took the drive to the start of the trek, skirting round the lake, and on rounding a corner leaving Wanaka, was greeted by a yet even more spectacular view: the lake filling out, lapping at the feet of a flat stretch of green parkland, tree decorated valleys and towering distant mountains. I figured the journey wouldn’t take too long, but 20km into it, I hit my old favourite, the gravel road. It went on for a good 30km more, crisscrossing a flat valley floor about a kilometre wide, straddled by cloud-topped, distinctive mountains on either side (imagine a giant dolloping thick mounds of lumpy, grass-coloured custard onto them, and that gives you some idea of how they look). The going was slow, exacerbated by cattle traps, several dangerous fords (a particularly rock-filled one caught the underside of my poor car) and the odd dozy cow or sheep venturing into my path (very reminiscent of India!). A quick blast on the horn or the odd game of chicken soon saw them scamper.

Crossing into the national park was signified by a change in the weather, for the worse unfortunately. Mount Aspiring appeared to emanating ominous looking clouds from its summit, imposing a dark ceiling, whipping up some serious winds and chucking rain into the package too. By the time I got to the start of the trek, the wind was of cyclone proportions and visibility was disappointingly low. Unfortunately, this put me off the idea of doing the walk entirely - what’s the point if you’re going to spend the whole time buffeted about, unable to see anything? Actually, if I’m honest, I think I was looking for any excuse - I’m that lazy right now. It’s pretty awful of me too: I’m made to feel extra guilty by the sheer number of people taking part in outdoor activities around me, all of the time (this is the country for it, after all). For instance, I had a lie until 10AM this morning (my first in what feels like forever, as I’ve been used to spending single nights in hostels, where I’m required to vacate my room early), and on getting up bumped into a girl who’d already been out, gone horse riding and come back again. Another example: on my drive up the near impossibly steep mountain from Queenstown to Wanaka, I was amazed to pass by several people on bikes braving the route (brave or just stupid - answers on a postcard). There’s nothing like casually cruising by heavily struggling cyclists to make one feel lazy.

Perhaps it was this guilt that made me stop on the way back, at the foot of Mount Roy and the start of the Mount Roy Trek. Also, I’d left the nasty weather behind, the sun was shining and I felt like taking in some views. Really glad I did this actually - I’d forgotten how good exercise could be, stretching the legs and letting the endorphins do their thing. I find challenging walks not only physically but mentally stimulating as well: all sorts of thoughts ran through my mind whilst traversing the slopes. Wanting to shed as much weight as possible, I took with me only my fleece in one hand, a bottle of water in the other. It was just like being back in Nepal.

The slopes were pretty demanding, zig-zagging up a taxing incline. I passed a few tired looking people, all on their way down (one advised it was too late to head to the top, as I didn’t set off until 3PM - glad I ignored him!), and many timid sheep, spending their time feeding off the straw strewn about or running away from me. I noted how it’s true, sheep DO all look the same (plus they have an amusing waddle when the run). The path’s angle of incline seemed to get greater the further up I went, or at least that’s how it felt to my ever tiring legs. It didn’t help that the pole marked summit looked deceptively near, whilst never appearing to get any closer. As I finally neared what I thought to be the top, I bumped into a roommate on his way down - he looked half dead - who corrected me by telling me there was yet another forty odd minutes to go. Ouch.

The last part was most tiring of all. I ran out of water as well as energy - hadn’t eaten anything since that disgusting, half-eaten breakfast in the morning. Still, the thrill of the challenge plus the mind blowing views of the valleys below kept me going (I was on one very tall peak, at about 1700m above sea-level). One particularly thrilling sight took exhaustion off my mind: I came within 3 feet on an enormous bird of prey, sitting on a jutting of rock, staring off into the distance (and fortunately not at me). Provided for some excellent photos, as did the incredible 360 degree panoramic from the very top. Such a thrill, the sun was just sitting atop a set of mountains to the east, illuminating the lakes and casting awesome shadows and shade into the valleys. It was only counterbalanced by the tremendous, noisy, chilling winds, strong enough to throw me off balance more than once.

Took me just under two hours to reach the top, plus a further eighty minutes to get back down. It was dark and fairly chilly at the bottom, though overall tonight’s worked out to be much warmer than last night (no doubt because it’s overcast; there’s already been a bit of rain, eventually catching up with me from Mount Aspiring). I was extremely shattered but also elated and immensely satisfied, so pleased I was to have made it to the top. Plus I was just happy be back to my car. Zooming back to town, I rewarded myself with a pizza sized burger, chunky fries and a luxuriously thick banana ‘thickshake’ at a recommended burger joint. Yum :) Followed up with a terrible NZ-based movie in the cinema room at my hostel - staring Eowin (spelling?) from Lord of the Rings (didn’t realise he was a Kiwi). Skipped on visiting Wanaka’s novelty cinema: the choice of film on offer was poor (it was French!), plus I was too full from dinner to take advantage of the comprehensive choice of excellent snacks on offer. Save it for next time.

P.S. The brand Heinz is known as ‘Watties’ here. Kiwis are very forward thinking and pragmatic: it appears they only fine for speeding (though I did spot a sign warning of speed cameras today, grrrr), shops charge for plastic bags (Australia was in the process of incorporating this too whilst I was there), prostitution is legalised (confirmed by the bouncer at the brewery in Dunedin) and they’re very into recycling, having started much earlier than we did. More news as I find it.

Arrival in Queenstown

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Some pics from my hostel in Queenstown...

Journey to Queenstown

2008-04-14T04:23:00.000-07:00

To Queenstown

2008-04-14T04:22:00.000-07:00

14.4.08

Yesterday’s tiredness: bah, that was nothing compared to today’s! YAWN. But what a day. It was like yesterday but turned on it’s head, starting off woefully then all of a sudden becoming unbelievably brilliant. The bad start followed a sleepless night (comfy bed, nice and warm, yet for some unfathomable reason I couldn’t switch off and get some nice sleep - ummmmm, sleep), when I got up to find out my car had a flat battery. In my attempt to get back quickly from the climb yesterday and save a whopping ONE dollar on a pint, I’d unknowingly left my car’s lights on. Stoopid. A trek up the hill to fetch from the tourist info. office - and pay $20 for the courtesy of borrowing - a portable battery charger with jump leads proved to be to no avail: my car made pathetic chugging noises and that was it. After several attempts I gave in and took it all the way back (pant) to the office armed with a sob story that won me my money back (it didn’t work, after all).

Another $20 brought me a decent English fellow from the nearby Hermitage Hotel, equipped with jump leads and a van - this did the trick. Whilst waiting for him, I had a chat with ‘James’ (the other English guy from the pub last night) and took off of him a tonne of advice on places to visit, plus I got talking to a really helpful Californian girl who had a few tips of her own. It also dawned on me on that busy, frantic morning how little time I had to see everything, so I got to planning a hectic schedule covering the next few weeks (plus, now I have some dates in mind, booking hostels at my next few destinations). Once everything was finally sorted, the engine up and running and me finally on my way back through the valley, away from Mount Cook towards the highway, I at last felt de-stressed. In fact, not only that, but the reality of what I was doing dawned on me: here I am, the open road stretching ahead of me; sights, sounds, people, places awaiting. I had several moments of fantastic clarity: a real feeling of elation, of freedom. Add to this some of the most amazing sights I have seen yet on my trip to my next destination - Queenstown - it was now dawning on me just how incredible New Zealand really is. Sure, it doesn’t appear to have the sheer variety of scenery crammed into such a concentrated small area as Nepal has, but it has buckets of dramatic terrain of mammoth proportions, enough to make one’s eyes bleed. I travelled up and down, taking one winding corner after another, over brown/yellow barrens, then formidable, closely collected grey hills, tufty with bushes, of all different shades of green, then past great lakes, acting as perfect mirrors in their stillness. Then I was driving through England’s fresh green pastures once more, which blended uncannily with desert like, whipped up, dry terrain - trees such as weeping willows and vivid-yellow, tall, striking, autumnal trees only added to the most bizarre landscape.

I stopped off for a delicious chicken and sweet chilli sandwich at a sheep shearer’s, of all places. It was a fancy, modern place, with a cafe boasting a large veranda which I sat on, drinking a damn fine cup of coffee (best I’ve had in a long time). Whilst there, a coach arrived, offloading a troop of Chinese tourists, busying themselves in the gift shop and with the sheep in their paddocks to the rear of the building. I’ve noticed a heck of a lot of Chinese/East Asian tourists during my time in NZ - proximity I guess. There’s enough to warrant signs written in both English and Chinese in many public places, including the sheep shearer’s I stopped at, which I never noticed in Australia.

On the subject of food, 60KM or so before Queenstown, I stopped at a town sitting on the edge of one of the lakes mentioned prior ('Cromwell'), where I took timr to stare at the view and treat my insatiable taste buds to a real fruit, vanilla ice-cream (made by a incredible looking ice-cream contraption, in a farm shop, which also happened to be a ‘cidery’). This shop was at the beginning of town obsessed with growing fruit, evidenced by its multiple vineyards, apple and pear orchards, and a giant fruit sign (comprising several boulder sized plastic fruits). A long, windy and eventually busy (5PM: rush hour) road, taking me through several more gasp inducing, river bottomed valleys (I witnessed some pretty rapids that provided some jetski and water sliding sports to several wannabe wet victims - the first sign of Queenstown’s renown for extreme sports), lead me round the corner of one large mountain into the city of Queenstown. Woah: what a sight! Smothering the side of one large mountain, centred about a U-shaped bay that drops down into the vast Lake Wakatipu, the steeply lined streets of the city look magnificent. The view from these streets across the bay is staggering, whether looking out across the picturesque bay, down at the glinting waters, ‘Steamer Wharf’ and the modern, attractive looking restaurants, cafes and shops of the centre, or up behind you, to the forest coated summit, where the ‘Skyline Gondola’ station peeps out from way up on top.

The hostel is tops - very big and spread out, with an excellent rear garden providing said views, plus free wifi! I’ve decided, in my haste, to only spend the one night here - I’ll take in the city centre and catch a lift up and back on the gondola in the morning, then onto Milford Sound via Te Anau, hopefully by early evening (long drive awaits me, past some even more stunning scenery, so I’m told). I’ve also booked myself into a hostel there already - taking no chances as there’s only one in Milford - as well as a three hour nature cruise around the bay, which according to everyone who’s done it is worth every penny. I promise many pics.

Had a nice chat with a Japanese girl, an Irish guy and a couple of fellow Northerners whilst here. Tried to ring Dad on Skype but must have missed him. Took a wander into town at night to grab some dinner: found myself walking down some neon lit steps into a tourist wonderland. This place has some very flashy and modern restaurants, laid out like a fancy retail/entertainment outlet or holiday complex. I can’t help but think of skiing holiday resorts, thanks to the number of chalet-like, log-fire buildings there are scattered about the place, which makes sense as that’s exactly what this and many of these places become during the winter months.

Had an excellent, waste line extending meal at ‘Fergburger’ - an upmarket fast food joint that takes its burgers seriously. The Hawaiian burger I had was enough to feed a small family. Don’t get me started on the chips.

Somehow I feel I’m going to sleep well tonight. Here’s hoping.

More Mt Cook

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Some more pics from the trek as well as a shot of a couple of Kea Birds, taken on the 'Kea Walk'.

Mount Cook

2008-04-14T04:04:00.000-07:00

Following are pics of the journey to Mt Cook, my hostel, pics from my trek up the mountain.

Hitting New Heights

2008-04-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

12.4.08 - 10PM

Short day. Had a brief chat with a Kiwi girl who was hanging out clothes as part of her work for the hostel, then wandered into town. Then onto the church, which was reached by way of a bridge over a dam (which I hadn’t noticed on the way in), stopping the lake from filling up the river beyond. The river itself was little more than several large streams, winding along a wide, mostly dried up, grey, stone strewn riverbed. I’ve noticed quite a few bridges in New Zealand that cross dry riverbeds like this - presumably they fill up at certain times of the year (or perhaps when the tide comes in?). Other things I’ve noticed but failed to mention so far: there’s plenty of cows and sheep dotting the landscape, many more than I spotted in Australia (presumably something to do with the land being more fertile). Sheep and deer are really commonplace here, meaning lamb and venison are always on the menu. Also, I read today that pumpkin and kumara (the aforementioned sweet potato) are ubiquitous. These help explain the unusual toppings on my pizza last night (I forgot to mention the pumpkin ingredient - tasty, but not up to the standard of fresh, battered pumpkin in Laos).

The church, known as ‘The Church of the Good Shepherd’, was nothing more than a small, stone church really, though it provided a good photo op. against the background of the lake and mountains. It’s one of the oldest buildings in Lake Tekapo, preserved since it was built using only materials sourced within a small, local radius. After that, I headed off to a cafe and treated myself to a coffee whilst reading my book, then onto a pub next door where I had a beer (can’t remember the brand, but it wasn’t as good as yesterday’s Monteith). After popping back up the hill to drop a few things off, have a brief exchange with my new roommate (a German backpacker who has helped provide some insightful information to places in the south island), speak to Dad over Skype and pick up my almost dry clothes off the washing line, I headed back down to the pub for dinner (fairly basic but cheap battered ‘Blue Cod’ and wedges). There was a rugby game (several, actually) on the many tellies dotted throughout the bar, capturing the attention of the mainly old occupants sitting in there. Earlier on things had been a bit more lively - I spotted a group of middle aged guys getting revved up for the rugby, one of larger of their number dressed up as a woman (it was the six foot five bulk and hairy legs that gave it away). Looks like the youths of Lake Tekapo - if there are any - go elsewhere on a Saturday night.

I came back to the hostel, deciding I was too full to investigate whether Pepe’s had any more cheesecake after I polished it off last night (I was this close!). Ignoring the excited rabble in the kitchen, I took to my room to watch episode two of series two of the Morse spinoff Lewis (thank you Katie for providing that). Off to Mount Cook fairly early tomorrow morning, where high walks (the mountain is New Zealand’s tallest, at ~3700m tall), tall glaciers and steam saunas (courtesy of my pre-booked hostel) await me.

13.4.08

Man, 9PM and I’m knackered!! A long, long day but absolutely brilliant. Set my alarm, got up early and was out of Lake Tekapo between 9 and 10 AM. A long, sunny drive through the seemingly (and impressively) never-ending brown, shrubby flats - during which I stopped to take many photos of the single, long windy road to nowhere - lead me eventually up and out of the valley, into a thick bank of fog, that appeared out of nowhere. Then I was driving alongside an enormous, blue lake (‘Lake Pukaki’), fading off into the oh-so-far, misty distance, cropped by the steep terrain that I was driving along and the tree-filled town of Twizel: a small town at the foot of the turn off to Mount Cook, in the direction I was headed.

I was under the impression that postcard views were available of the mountain range from the lake, but the fog had other ideas. Took a few pics but I was disappointed, instead heading on to grab a cinnamon frosted coffee in the dump that was Twizel. However, whilst killing time there, the sun did some of its own killing, of the fog that is. As things looked much clearer on my way back to the Mt. Cook turnoff, I drove past it, back to the lake, in order to grab the money shot. Though the infamous mountain was still hidden, the view was definitely much more satisfying, showing off part of the range that reflected in the still, very blue waters of the lake.

The drive to Mount Cook was when things really kicked into overdrive: the scenery was tremendous. Forests stretching out like green blankets as far as the eye can see, a lake large enough to be the ocean, taking on a new life under the sparkling, spread-like sheen of the sun’s warm rays, hills and grey-brown mountains spurting up to dazzling heights out of the earth, coated in layers of fern and christmas trees, like the growth of algae on great stones. And, in the far distance, signifying the end of my journey, a range of sky touching mountains, among them Mount Cook (or ‘Mount Aoraki’ to the Maoris), their tops glittering with brighter than white snow. These mountains coupled with a couple of great glaciers, at the far end of a great, flat, brown plain, gave me pangs of Nepal. The fog had completey cleared at this point and the sky was blue, the sun high up in it and the weather felt dry, very warm (nigh on hot) and crisp. Stopping my car at every great picture providing opportunity (believe me, there were many) reminded me of Dad’s own trip to Switzerland on his bike. Shame I don’t have a mascot for my photographs!

Even more reminiscent of Nepal was the trek I took up one of the smaller mountains, leading me around 1500m above sea level. I drove to the starting point of this along a gravel track (the dust kicked up by vehicles traversing this made quite a sight, for miles around - views across the plain extended for tens of miles in all direction), having checked into my plush, enormous log cabin of a hostel (deliciously heated, nicely furnished, big windows opening onto views of the mountains and cabins). The walk, rated a medium difficulty in tramping terms by the $1 walking guide pamphlet I purchased, was at times extremely tiring and very steep, clambering up jaggy rocks and the occasional set of wooden planks, acting as wonky steps. It was at times very precarious, the drop being very steep and almost vertical, which was surprising to me from a western health and safety standpoint (it was more like Nepal if anything, though less well signposted and perhaps not quite so frivolous with one’s safety). The views were breathtaking: I could take in not one but two glaciers, their lower, dirt coated, thick sheer walls of ice slowly receding at a rate of 100m a year (it’s cyclical apparently, not entirely globing warming’s fault), melting into nearby partially frozen lakes, which filter out into streams then rivers which run into the valley. If I stood still long enough, I could clearly make out an occasional reverberating, deep, rumbling boom: the noise that signified another piece of ice collapsing and slipping into the water (though I wasn’t close enough to be able to make it out).

Right at the top of the walk, I could make out the whole valley (including my micro-machine sized car, in the micro-machine sized car park, plus the tiny, most famous hotel in NZ - the ‘Hermitage’ - looking for all the world like the hotel from ‘The Shining’), the 3000m+ snow-capped mountains (one of which I was very close to), the lakes and the glaciers. I spotted a small pond which I discovered, to my disbelief, provided a perfect reflection of one of the white tipped range; I ‘snapped’ that up right away. Had a nice conversation with a Dutch couple whilst catching my breathe at the top there, then as the sun went in behind the mountains, the weather changed promptly from warm to very chilly, prompting my descent. On my way down I happened to bump into the ‘nothing he hasn’t done’ guy I met in Lake Tekapo (his name, he reminded me, is Peter), who was chuffed having climbed up even further than me. Typical ;) Still, we had a good natter on the way down, which lead to going for some drinks during the happy hour at a fancy bar not too far from my hostel (we sped up down the mountain and ended up pegging it to get there just in time for cheap drinks, only to find out we’d only saved a dollar each in doing so!). I really like the bar - friendly staff, a triangular roof tapering off to a great, all-glass wall revealing a view of the mountains, a grand, log-filled fireplace burning away merrily. Shared a table with another English guy who had been living over here for six months, as part of a long holiday which he intended to lead onto employment, eventually. Really nice bloke actually and really easy to chat with, once I got him and Peter off the ever so technical subject of cars.

After a couple of pints, I made the day’s only mistake of declining to join them for dinner and instead head to another slightly closer to the hostel establishment (took me some while finding it, in the cold, ill-lit dark), on the recommendation of its portion sizes by my hostel’s desk staff (plus I had a hostel voucher for one free drink). Anyway, compared to the food that my new acquaintances had started to guzzle on my departure, the as it turned out expensive burger and chips (with bacon and egg topping) that I had was pretty bog standard, plus the straight-out-of-a-packet chocolate brownie dessert did nothing but dampen the experience. Shame, as after all that walking I was starving! Before I’m accused of being a fatty, I kind of skipped having lunch today, having only a piece of overly sweet choc-banana cake and even sweeter Chai Latte (the west’s attempt at an Indian chai: not bad, but could do with some more spice and less sugar). Ok, reading that back, I do sound like a fatty! :(

So, excellent day but spoilt a tad right at the end. Plus, I missed the sauna experience (it only runs 6-9PM). Tomorrow’s plans are to head onto Queenstown I reckon, where I haven’t yet sorted out any accommodation. Hopefully that won’t be a problem.

Pooped.

N.B. More things I’ve noticed about NZ: lots of roadkill (especially of the rabbit and bird variety), many birds of pray (have spotted scarily big eagles soaring about whilst driving around), relatively few people about, outside or in public establishments (considering the size of the island, but this does explain the small population), Monteith’s, from the west coast, is the only good beer, plus it’s really good (the south coast stuff is rubbish). New Zealand flies - how annoying are they?! There aren’t quite as many as there are in Australia, mainly consisting of pesky blue bottles, but they somehow manage to get indoors wherever I go, plus why are there so many or in fact ANY, considering how cold the climate currently can be? Am really glad I paid out extra for insurance: one of New Zealand’s current hot news topics is whether it ought to be illegal for drivers NOT to have insurance. Shock, horror: insurance isn’t mandatory here!

Another note: I’ve yet to come across a double carraigeway in NZ. Occasionally single lanes split into two to form an overtaking lane - annoyingly forcing those in the outside lane to merge into it, when two lanes become one (ala Australia) - but that’s it.

Finally - a bit mean this but it needs saying - it seems to me that Maori women are on the whole pretty damn ugly. This is likely connected to how Maoris are not only predisposed to being large but also how they all appear to look the same, men and women alike (oval eyed, flat nosed, wiry haired, manly).

Bye Bye, Melbourne

2008-04-11T19:43:00.001-07:00

Since I'm waiting for my washing to finish, here's an extra pic, saying my goodbyes in Melbourne. It's taken from outside Alvary's house with, from left to right, James, Bridget, me, Katie, Marie and Alvary.

Driving and Lake Tekapo Pics

2008-04-11T19:19:00.002-07:00

Pics, as promised...

Sunday Driver

2008-04-11T19:19:00.001-07:00

12.4.08

Yesterday, I was a true Sunday driver. Arrived in Lake Takepo mid-arvo, after a slow, leisurely drive inland from the east coast. My average speed was 80kph, a good 20kph LESS than the speed limit - shock horror! This caused at times a fairly big line-up behind me, but I was enjoying myself and the view too much to care.

Picked up promptly at about 9AM yesterday from my, what turned out in the end to be, excellent hostel (free, freshly baked bread appeared in the kitchen that morning, elevating Jake’s hostel rating from a swell eight to the dizzying heights of nine out of ten), I was taken with several other travellers in a van to ‘Ace Car Rentals’. The driver was an English fella - so far I’ve noted a lot of Europeans, particularly Brits, living and working in Christchurch (though I’m told the pay doesn’t amount to much, leading to New Zealand’s biggest export: it’s people). Signing for and paying for my car took no time at all and before I knew it I was gingerly driving my dodgy, Japanese, white, 5-door automatic southwards, into the flats of the ‘Canterbury Plains’.

‘Plain’ is about right. Miles of extremely flat, green, tree-dotted, DULL landscape, all used for farming, as well as the occasional vineyard (protruding from some of these fields were huge, foreboding looking watering contraptions: presumably New Zealand isn’t as water starved as Australia). In degrees of latitude, New Zealand sits in the forties - which I’ve been told can make life very windy - the south island placed equivalent to the south of France in the northern hemisphere. There was no evidence of warmer, foreign climates on this morning: it was chilly and very grey, heavy clouds hung in the sky, teasing me with frequent showers of rain. Had a bit of a dodgy start with the car - I was a few kilometres down SH1 (all the major highways are labelled as ‘State Highways’) before I realised I’d left the handbrake on. I wondered what was causing that squealing! Then, not even an hour into my journey, I’m guessing what must have been a stone flicked up off the back tire of an overtaking car and chipped my windscreen. I couldn’t believe it! I congratulating myself for taking the precautionary step of paying for ‘Gold Insurance’ - thereby reducing my excess to $100 - all the way to my first coffee stop, at a small roadside cafe about 100km south of Christchurch.

To get to Lake Tekapo, I had to cut westwards inland, heading to the mountains. I joined what a roadside described as a ‘Scenic Road’, which will eventually lead me to Mount Cook: New Zealand’s tallest mountain, at over 3000m (I’m booked in at a hostel to stay there on Sunday night). The landscape soon became more exciting as it turned to rolling fields, then suddenly became beautiful as the sun broached the clouds and the green paddocks, great ferns, tall hills and even taller mountains came to life in the sunshine. The countryside looked a lot less like Lincolnshire and more like Northumberland. I stopped a few times to take some photos; the first time I was lucky enough to walk round a bend in search of a shot and come across an enclosed field full of deer! Have decided to include these photos this time as they’ll do a lot more justice than I can with my writing. Perhaps it’s just laziness - right now I’ve hit a point in my trip where I’ve lost some of my motivation to do my bog. I’m finding it all a bit of a chore to be honest! Am hoping this will pass soon enough.

I stopped for lunch in a small village - very much like a typical Australian village, with its verandas and wooden buildings (many concrete ones as well, as I noticed in the suburbs of Christchurch), though so far the roads have been much narrower - in a very wide and flat, brown, shrub-filled valley, which the Lonely Planet informed me was the gateway to the real mountains. Traversing several very windy roads - perfect for motorcycling, I’m assure - I continued to climb. Within an hour I had reached the place I’d booked my hostel for the next two nights: Lake Tekapo. This small town sits by the side of a lake of the same name, funnily enough. It’s a vast lake, surrounded by several hills and tree studded mountains. The name ‘Tekapo’ comes from the Maori for sleeping mate (‘teka’) and night (‘po’). Whatever that meant, it sounded like a safe bet for staying the night (or two, as it happens, since the highly recommend YHA hostel at Mount Cook is fully booked until Sunday). The lake itself is famous for its vivid - and it really IS - turquoise blue colour, a result of sunlight mixed with ‘rock flour’. This ‘rock flour’ is the fine dust of rocks, a product of the grinding of nearby glaciers, which filters its way down into the lake. It English, it adds up to a pretty picture - an almost impossibly blue lake.

Having dropped my stuff off at my hostel - I’ve got one of four proper beds in a room here, with the added bonus of a fantastic electric heater (am so happy with this!) - I took my map and headed off on a sign-posted trek, along the west side of the lake and up its tallest mountain. On the way I met an older English guy who was on a detour whilst making his way back to England having lived in Australia for seven years. He seemed like a nice guy but eventually I got weary of the stories of his accomplishments: he was one of those persons who seems to have done EVERYTHING, from yacht racing to house building to car manufacturing to dating a millionaire, yada, yada. The kind of guy you love to hate! (You can probably tell I’m still not quite into the people meeting, friend making mood.) Still, he provided a useful distraction during the long journey back (we got a bit lost, losing the path and coming back on the hard-to-traverse, stony bay). As well as the ‘University of Canterbury Observatory’, the top of the mountain provided 360 degree panoramic views: simply stunning views of the lake and beyond it and the town, such an enormous, vast, brown valley, extending for mile upon mile until meeting the feet of faraway mountains, it was almost too much to take in. (Many of these mountains, I’ve seen from photographs, become decoratively snow-tipped in the winter, including the mountain I climbed.) It was all very reminisce of Rohan in Lord of the Rings (as in the ‘Riders of...’). As an after thought, the greener pastures I passed through en route also echoed feelings of ‘Hobbiton’, though actually I’m told that was filmed in the north island.

I past the evening dining at a nearby pizzeria followed by chatting to my late arriving roommates: part of a touring group of Taiwanese English language students (there’s so many visiting Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese here), they had come to see the observatory and from there check out the night sky. Lake Tekapo offers the ‘clearest, darkest and most spectacular night sky’, according to a handy leaflet, provided by the hostel. The stars looked pretty stunning on my way back up to the hostel last night, thankfully unimpeded by little in the way of street lighting (the hostel is on a fairly newly constructed road running up, away from the main strip by the lake, where there’s a few cabin-like buildings sitting on ample plots). For dinner, I had a choice between ‘Pepe’s Pizza’ and a neighbouring Japanese restaurant, the latter being quite infamous apparently, attracting people all the way from Japan. I guess that would explain why there’s so many of them here, and they all seemed to be at the restaurant that night: it was packed. I decided to play it safe with the pizza parlour. I needn’t had worried, it was excellent. It had a ski-lodge feel to it, like a large log cabin made cosy with a blazing fire, dim lighting, chatty, friendly ambience and some good music (a rather fit girl behind the bar informed me the owner had spent forever formulating a special, eight hour playlist - you could tell she was bored of it already). The pizzas were unusual there: I had a ‘Venison’ something or other, which had lamb, sweet potato, plum sauce and some goat’s cheese on it, which was very tasty, but easily usurped by the cheese cake pudding, which was easily food of the gods. I washed all this down with a ‘hopsy’ bottle of ‘Monteith’s Original Ale’ - the same strangely fizzy but tasty, with a hint of berry, ale as I had at the Indian in Christchurch. I remembered the name this time as I kept hold of the label! All in all, not a bad deal for £12.

The day is in full swing now - it’s 2.30 PM - the night’s chill has disappeared, replaced by some glorious sunshine and bright blue skies. It’s still very crisp, quite a unique and awakening feeling after living in a continuous summer. Makes you feel alive :) Think I need to get out of this room and do something with, what’s left of, the day. There’s a church here worth investigating, so I think I’ll start there. Oh, just so you know, my reason for staying in so far today is to make sure I get my money’s worth on the internet (and not because I’m plain lazy, honest!). It’s costing me a shocking £5 for 24 hour’s wifi access. There’s a couple of clever ISPs here that are turned on to making money from hostels, provided them with free wireless routers that connect to portals, requiring users to pay for the time they use. It’s ruthless, extortionate and a true sign I’m back in the capitalist west!

Christchurch, NZ

2008-04-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

10.4.08

Barely travelled more than a couple of streets from my hostel today, but feel pretty exhausted. Made it for it as usual by treating myself to some great grub - though it’s expensive to eat out here in New Zealand, I haven’t yet gotten used to the idea of my own home cooking yet. I did pop to a conveniently nearby greengrocers to pick up bananas however, along with some cereal and Earl Grey Tea (thank the Openshaws for my latest addiction to tea) from the supermarket next to it. Yesterday I found out just how expensive eating can be here, sampling an excellent curry and some beers (some kind of ale - at least it looked and smelled like ale, only it was slightly, curiously fizzy) at the modern, stylish and delightfully fire-heated ‘Two Fat Indians’ Indian Restaurant. However, it was definitely worth the price of admission, not only for the good grub but also for a good natter with an English bloke (name also forgotten) that I met in my hostel.

I’ve got a bit of a head cold forming right now, so you’ll have to forgive my memory for names. It’s been pretty damn chilly at times since I arrived here and I haven’t had a full rested night’s sleep yet, sleeping in a full, yet spacious, dorm room.

So, New Zealand then. My first impressions were formed from the plane, flying in low over grey/brown mountains and then finally flat landscape, comprising of vivid green pastures, kept symmetrical and hemmed in by fences. This was just like England! I wasn’t dissuaded by the chilly climate, nor the appearance of Christchurch. The centre of Christchurch is trying desperately to be Cambridge (so a guy at my hostel who comes from Cambridge informs me, from my own experience it looks rather like Stratford-upon-Avon). It has a large and magnificent cathedral, a market and tourist filled square, charming English-style pubs and buildings, cafes that run alongside a grassy, tree banked river (unashamedly called ‘The Avon’ and providing punting for the tourists, by straw-hat wearing boatmen). It’s all very picturesque and feels achingly like home.

I took a walk into the centre to observe all this yesterday, after catching an early night the night before. The hostel’s a fair way out of the city centre (about 20 mins) - didn’t seem on the first trip, but definitely started to grate by the third or fourth journey. Using a guided tour walk set out by my faithful Lonely Planet, I took in the insides of the cathedral, the square, the art gallery (lots of modern art, the sort that teeters on the edge of really being art at all), the national museum (some interesting Maori historical objects, such as old tools, weapons and primitive housing, plus a display on the mao: massive, 240kg, flightless birds - like giant ostriches - that were hunted by the early Maori tribes to extinction) and part of an enormous botanic garden. Sadly I didn’t have the time to take a ride on the quaint looking tourist tram, though I pretty much covered the places that it went.

So far, I like the people a lot. They’re friendly and, not only do they act calmer than their neighbouring Australians, but they’re accents appear that way too. It’s hard for me to put my finger on - I realise I’m generalising here - but they seem to speak more softly, more slowly. When I went for dinner on my first night at the nearby ‘Memphis Belle’ (a hostel recommended American/Italian Pizzeria that perfectly captures the feel of the fifties with its lined up, metal-trimmed, plastic table and chair booths, old music and walls adorned with wartime photos, advertisements and posters; great food too), I figured by his speech that the owner was just incredibly relaxed and laid back (chilled out), but everybody appears to speak this way. It’s nice - less course than the typical Australia pronunciation.

I’m also thrilled to say I’ve seen a few Maoris about, distinctive not only by their common bulk, but also striking tattoos (very Celtic-like). I’m informed that tattoos actually originated from Polynesia, which happens to be where the Maoris came from. Tattoos are therefore pretty popular here - I’ve already met a traveling Swiss couple who have everything intention of getting some. (Before Gran starts to worry, I’m not quite ready for that. Yet. ;) ) Though Maoris are meant to be fairly scarce on the south island, I’ve already seen more milling about than I did Aborginals throughout my entire time in Oz.

I finished off yesterday with the meal at the Indian restaurant, followed by another jar of NZ ale at an Irish pub, with one of the aforementioned Swiss (‘Ellen’). He’s and his girlfriend are returning to New Zealand, hiring a car and covering places they missed last time. They’re also traveling around the world - who isn’t these days - and they happen to be landing in Hawaii whilst I’m there. I’ve taken a few notes on worthwhile things to see and also added them to my Facebook account, in case we might meet later on down the road.

So, what else haven’t I mentioned? First, the weather. It’s been nice and verging on very warm in the day time (hovering around twenty), so long as the sun pokes its head out from the clouds. At night though it has been getting close to the low single digits, hence my cold. The hostel I’ve been staying at is great - nice, big and clean, it has a TV room with a DVD player, seemingly continually playing Monty Python’s Life of Brian to every new arrival (it being the only DVD in there). I think it’s playing for the fifth time right now since I got here. I already mentioned the hostel is a fair way out of the centre; it’s in what feels like quite a rough neighbourhood, surrounded by flat streets arranged in blocks, many old, unkept houses and cheap shops. Soon after you leave Christchurch’s charming but small centre, the old ‘Englishe’ setting drops away, revealing flat, ugly streets (reminiscent of the outskirts of Chelmsford, thanks to its flatness combined with many ugly warehouse and retail outlets).

Fortunately, it’s not all bad. There’s the excellent local ‘Memphis Belle’, where I’ve eaten twice (the nacho, bacon, ham, jalapeno, sour-cream pizza was mind blowing). Also, whilst I was thinking of what to do with myself today (plus trying to plan the next four weeks), I was pointed in the direction of a nearby cafe, ‘Under the Red Veranda’, which turned out to be a real find. In the same dodgy neighbourhood, but feeling a million miles from it inside, was a delightful cafe with an attached, peaceful little tea garden, serving up fabulously rich pastries, salads and cakes. The building itself was unconventional, built from corrugated iron but designed and painted up like a traditional English cottage. The garden too was unusual, lacking grass but instead substituting it for plants, trees and gravel (plus it backed onto some far from quaint garages towards the rear of the building). Despite being the middle of a weekday, it was packed out, with good reason too. As I mentioned, the grub was good. I treated my taste buds to a mouthwatering kumara (sweet potato) and bacon quiche, followed up by a sumptuous berry crumble, held up by a sizable dollop of cream. The staff were very friendly, the owner taking the time to lead gullible me on with the claim that her accent - “but you sound so English!” - was in fact Maori. Fool me once...! :P

Didn’t do much today, but happy that I made a decision on what to do next. I got chatting with a Brummy girl working behind the reception of the hostel and on both her advice and studying many leaflets and maps she through my way, I decided to book myself a car rental. At less than £12 a day, including ‘gold insurance’ (meaning an excess of only NZ $100), it would be rude not to. The receptionist was also kind enough to let me hang onto all the bumph we looked out, as well as throwing a roadmap of New Zealand in with it, so long as I kept my mouth shut! Needless to say, my lips are sealed.

Some angry European is making a big fuss outside right now, banging on a door outside the hostel somewhere and demanding to be let in. It’s half-past ten at night, I’m sat on my dorm room bed and there’s a couple of other people in the room - one I don’t know at all, the other who hasn’t really responded to my attempts to get to know her. Battery’s about to die too, so a good time to finish. Early start as I’m due to pick my rental car up at 9AM. It’s a Toyota Corolla, has a stereo radio (important) and A/C (useless in this weather). Once I’ve got that, it’s my intention to try and find my way to Lake Tekapo, inland to the west. I’ve heard it’s rather pretty.

More anon.

p.s. Want to mention, I’m a bit nervous and still not back into the swing of talking to strangers yet. This is part of the reason why I’ve opted for the car - it’s more private and it gives me my independence. Twenty three days of it, to be exact.

Australian Goodbyes

2008-04-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

8.4.08

Wow, over a week since my last update. I’ve really let the side down during my last full week in Australia - deciding to focus on chilling out and having fun, in preparation for the next part of my journey, and so not concerning myself with my blog. I regret the latter part of this now as I’m already having trouble remembering all the things I did during those supposedly uneventful days. I’ve just arrived at ‘The Old Countryhouse’ hostel in Christchurch, New Zealand; feeling a little low, scared and very podgy. (David Coles’ weighing scales put me at a whole 2kg heavier than I’m used to carrying around, at 68kg - see, that’s what staying in Melbourne does to you!!) I’m a little frightened as I’ve been out of the backpacking loop for a while and, now that I’ve arrived here, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the next four weeks... The hostel seems nice: a set of yellow painted bungalows arranged around a small garden. The one I’m in has rooms with polished wooden floors and high ceilings, some used as dorms, others single/double rooms, with a kitchen and large living room. They have a wifi connection somewhere but I haven’t found it yet - not missing a trick they charge for that: $1 for 10MB. Duvets cost $2 for the duration of your stay, too. Things don’t come cheap in the southern hemisphere!

The flight over here went by without a hiccup; I spent most of my time preoccupied with talking to an older lady (possibly in her late thirties, early forties) from Canterbury. She too was undertaking a trip round the world, only at a rate of knots, attempting to do it in under ten weeks. The speed at which she talked suggested she didn’t take much of anything slowly. I’m pretty tired now, having got up before 6AM to catch a plane by 8.35AM, only a couple of days since Australia’s clocks went backwards to adjust for daylight savings. For some reason, they decided to delay it a week this year, confusing computers, digital clocks, the internet, everybody. No-one’s sure why either.

So, a short recap of the end of the Australian era of my trip, as I need to get up to date! On Sunday the 30th March, I took up an invitation to travel to St. Kilda’s to visit Tim O’Hara and family. He reminded me of Liam, only a slightly older version of him. He’s married to Deb (not ‘Debbie’!) and they have two really nice and bright kids: Clarwyn and Declan (spelling?). Scary Irish names! I took a short ride on a tram from the centre of Melbourne to the edge of Albert Park - where the F1 Grand Prix takes place - where Tim and Deb picked me up in their car, on the way back from a game of tennis. Turns out Deb is quite the sportsperson: when she’s not playing tennis, she’s cycling to work (I believe Tim follows this trend too) or cycling across the country. Tim’s tells me he’s not as sporty, but being marine biologist, working full time at Melbourne Museum whilst juggling research projects- involving trips abroad and deep sea dives - plus managing to fit sailing in too, he’s pretty active. On the way to their house, Tim took a detour down a street where they showed off a horrendously ugly, blue coloured, flat fronted building, painted from head to foot - in shades of blue - with a house sized portrait of Pamela Anderson’s face. That it was part of a set of nice terraced houses on a fairly average Melbourne street made it all the more incredible. Tim and Deb seemed to know a lot about it, having even been to its auction (how most houses are sold in Oz), though they swear their interest was purely academic.

Their house turned out to be only a street away from the park and tram station. Apparently they were near enough to not only hear but see the recent Kiss concert there, which took place as part of the F1 weekend. The house is a lovely, old, bungalow cottage, set back from the road by a picket fence and small garden. Inside, the rooms are all large and high ceilinged - none of that new, air-conditioned nonsense here. I was particularly impressed with their hallway, the doors of which framed colourful stained glass windows. Anyway, it was a cosy, moderately sized old house, in contrast to the larger, more modern abodes I’d become accustomed to staying in of late. Tim and Deb took me for a walk with their small, yappy-type dog (an energetic, grey sheepdog) along the beach of St. Kilda, about five minutes walk away. It was damn chilly and windy, making me glad that I’d made it there previously when the weather had been more on my side.

In the brief time I spent with Tim, he took me for a few drinks at a local bar. It was a dark and dingy place - known as the ‘Espy’, it was one of the originals in the neighbourhood and had a lot of character for it. Many of the bars around were advertising live bands and this one was no exception. It was cool to see some live music again, only it was a bit too loud, meaning we spent most of our time out in the cold, nursing cold hands. Deb cooked a nice chicken meal for us, and sitting down I had time to meet the kids properly. Declan seemed like some young, laid-back surfer dude, with his long blonde hair hiding his face and his fairly quiet but ‘cool’ attitude. Bit like his dad, really. Clarwyn was quite the opposite: of strong opinions, hyperactive and very talkative. She’s currently holding down a couple of jobs during the first half of her gap year, saving to some some traveling in Europe and South American during the second. Then she’s set up to start on her law degree. Amusingly, the whole time I was sat there, I couldn’t get away from the feeling I was surrounded by academics. I’m told the kids call their father ‘Tim-o-pedia’, as he knows everything!

On Monday, after accidently breaking the strap on my watch (curses!), I took a trip back into the city and visited Tim at his place of work, the ultra-modern, tall, glass paneled Melbourne Museum. Getting there I had to head to the north of the centre, past several parliament buildings I hadn’t yet seen, plus a garden exhibition (to which I let slip to Alvary - she didn’t waste time, heading there with Katie on her first day off). Tim gave me a tour around behind the scenes of the museum - which was actually located on floors high above it - in X-Files-like storage rooms containing rack upon cupboard upon rack of sea ‘monsters’, preserved in jars of formaldehyde. He also showed me a DNA reading machine, as well as the decidedly less impressive desk where he works.

Tuesday, I did little during the day, leaving the house in the early evening with Katie and James to go for a chocolate treat at my favourite chocolate cafe, ‘Koko Black’. There we gorged on hot chocolates plus a chocolate dish, consisting of chocolate mousse, choc. cake, choc. ice-cream and actual hand-made chocolates. Heaven! It was so good I managed to return twice more that week, the last time picking up a big box of chocolates for Alvary (the least I could do for her letting me stay). Tuesday night, Bridget joined us at ‘Transport Bar’, a place that serves just about every bottled lager under the sun - including my favourite ‘Peroni’ - located conveniently next to the train station. We went and watched a couple of large comedy shows at two of Melbourne’s bigger halls: Jeff Green and ‘The Best of the Edinburgh Fest’. Both turned out to be a hoot, though the latter was better, just about living up to its name and providing good value for money at the same time, being that there were four comedians and it ran almost half an hour over time. To me, the South African comedian was the funniest, poking a go at Melburnians at their poor excuse for a ‘drought’.

Wednesday brought with it some horrendously stormy winds, knocking down lots of drying and dying eucalyptus trees onto roads, houses, railtracks and people. Several power lines got hit, cutting the power to most of the east of Melbourne and its suburbs. After a couple of hours without power, I agreed to go with James to Knox City and to his gym, where I cheekily feigned interest in joining, in order to gain access to a free session. Had to sit through half an hour’s sales speak and tour, but it was worth it. I felt great after that workout. Really miss doing that!

Thursday, somehow I dragged myself out of bed before 9AM, heading into the city with Katie to check out the aquarium. It was pretty exciting, displaying a large range of fish, from the smallest to the very biggest, let down only by the huge number of kids getting in the way there. What with it being the Easter holidays, I should have expected it really, but it didn’t help that children under three got in for free. We were constantly having to sidestep prams and buggies. The highlight were the biggest fish: in the excellent underwater tunnel, I was blown away by how large stingray could be. Easily the size of a human, only flattened out and three times as wide, they dominated over the largest sharks on display. It was no trouble understanding how Steve Irwin was killed by one - these are not animals to be messed with.

Friday, whilst Katie and Alvary were at the garden show, James and I joined Bridget for a walk around Tim’s museum. I called him down in order to get him to let us in for free - I wasn’t about to miss THE perk of having a relative working there! It was a fairly standard, natural history type museum, with a section on Aboriginals - mainly concerning art, lacking anything interesting about their history, sadly - animals, insects, marine life and a new exhibition on the human body (James was particularly amused by the naked model statues). I got to speak to Tim on a couple of occasions, but as he was busy that was all sadly. Will have to leave getting to know him better for another time. I felt I needed to arrange a proper goodbye to Chris and Marie, so that evening I went back to their house with Bridget, stopping to purchase gifts including what turned out to be a just divine cheese and cherry strudel as well as a bottle of wine on the way. Buying the bottle of wine was interesting: Chris took me to a supermarket affiliated bottle shop where the owner offered advice on the bottles of plonk I was considering, adding that - at home, much missed - personal touch.

Had a great, jolly evening of dining and drinking with the Mutton family, followed with even more drinking on Saturday, when Chris and Marie took me on the long-awaited tour of the Yarra Valley Vineyards. First stop was at a dairy, where we sampled cheeses, including ash covered, blue chilli, camembert, cream goat and cow fromage. Taken with a glass of red wine and a wide assortment of crackers and bread, I was in seventh heaven. We followed this up with a trip to the very modern and popular De Bortoli Vineyard, where we propped up the bar in a room dedicated to wine-tasting, working our way down an enormous list of sparkling, white, rose and red wines, all free to taste. Behind the bar, funny, chatty and surprisingly un-pushy ‘bartenders’ attended potential customers, opening up bottle after complimentary bottle (of note, none of the wine bottles I’ve seen in Australia have corks, instead using screw caps). God knows how much wine is wasted this way, but we weren’t complaining. I guess it can pay off too, as I at least walked away with a bottle of locally produced, fairly dry white, intended for the party at Peter and Gwyneth’s that night.

Speaking of Saturday night, I joined Alvary and family at Peter and Gwyneth’s for a sublime meal of homemade, kangaroo-based lasagna and some delicious pudding (can’t remember which it was, there have been so many). It was a perfect end to a perfect last week, really. I was pretty sloshed by the time Marie dropped me off in the evening at Alvary’s door, so you can imagine how merry I was by the end of the night. We topped off the meal with a confusing board game based on the Lord of the Rings, which had so many rules and then rules for rules, it was hard to take it seriously. It went on a bit too long I think, as Alvary fell asleep before the end. Had some nice conversation with everybody, also saw lots of old family photos, plus some of the Michalke’s recent trip to Tasmania - they’d gone for a work dinner do and spent a few extra days there. The strangest part of it was that one day they had woken up to snow! Keep in mind this place is further north than New Zealand’s south island, and you can see why I was worried.

Speaking of weather, it’s pretty damn cool here in Christchurch though not snowing, sitting in the low teens during this afternoon (it was thirteen degrees centigrade when I arrived at 2PM). I’m not holding out much hope for it to be warmer tonight. Guess I may have to bite the bullet and pick up a coat tomorrow. Also, thinking of going for a run along the nearby riverside, before it gets dark. Haven’t really made any friends here yet, though several people are walking around outside of this room (the DVD and TV equipped living room). Really feeling out of practice with this right now.

My last full day in Melbourne, I spent packing, jogging and chilling out. Jogging didn’t come to much, which is a shame considering how well my session at the gym went. I watched the last episode of series seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I’ve been glued to and able to watch the whole of whilst staying with Alvary and family. I also felt pretty sad, especially on the Monday morning, realising I was going to have to leave behind this family I’d become so accustomed to living with. I’ve made promises to everyone I’ll consider coming back here to work/live and already I miss them. Trouble with me is I’m so sentimental! Alvary outdid herself once more on the Sunday evening with yet another fabulous meal, plus an incredible raspberry chocolate brownie desert courtesy of Katie (nor would she let me leave on Monday empty-handed, chucking several sandwiches into my bag). We shared this with some guests (yet more! :) ) who arrived on the Sunday to stay for a couple of days - old friends of Alvary, who I’m very happy to report appear to be ACTUAL good friends of hers, rather than the less informal ‘acquaintances’ who had invited themselves beforehand.

Anyway, I was very sorry to go, but happy to leave on a high note. Marie very kindly drove me to the airport. Having arranged with him the week beforehand, David Coles just as kindly picked me up in Sydney, later dropping me off very early today. Yet again I owe him a debt of gratitude, not least because as it saved me a heck of a lot of hassle sorting out accommodation and early morning transport. So many people to thank - hopefully I’ll get the chance to repay them one day.

J

Mining for Gold and Hangovers

2008-03-28T22:04:00.001-07:00

27.3.08

So, Easter Sunday then. Spent the day as guest to Chris, Marie and family (whose kindness knows no bounds - yes, I know they’re reading this) in the old gold-mining town of Ballarat, Victoria. We spent the majority of the day at Sovereign Hill, a mock 1850’s town that mimics life during the time of the gold rush, serving as a tourist attraction. Though I’m a few thousand miles out, it had the feel of a wild west town, from the wooden houses, swing-door saloon and mud-filled streets, to the people dressed in period costume and the active horses and carts. I half expected a showdown or pub brawl to breakout. All Sovereign Hill was missing was a sheriff’s office, which I’m told is because Australia had the army and then its police, never a sheriff. The main street had a hotel, playhouse, bank, post office, candle makers and a clothes shop amongst others, each run by informed persons in costume, some selling suitably thematic (and expensive) items - such as personalised horseshoes at the blacksmith’s - whilst others put on displays at specified times of the day. Erin and Bridget pretty much planned our whole day’s itinerary within minutes of arrival (mainly according to Erin’s approval: it was her birthday, after all), so us adults (yes, guess I am one now too) followed their lead. It was a pretty action packed and busy timetable as it turned out; my request at one point to stop for a toilet break caused much scowling and disgruntlement, such was the tightness of the schedule!

Highlights of the day included a trip down a replica mine shaft, where we were guided along by the pre-recorded, floating voices of invisible miners, through an elaborate set of narrow, dimly-lit passageways running thirty-odd metres underground, eventually to where a huge plastic lump of gold sat in a safe, a replica of one of the biggest nuggets ever found (at this point I heard an American tourist remark whether it was real or not). We also dropped in on demonstrations of candle making and gold smelting, the latter where we witnessed the production of a bar of solid gold, using melting, distillation and cooling techniques. The biggest gasp from the crowd came when the value of the gold bar was given, a cool one hundred and thirteen thousand dollars. Erin and Bridget took part in a Victorian school recreation, whilst I had a go at getting my feet wet, panning for gold in a very busy stream.

The park closed at 5PM but we weren’t done yet - Chris had booked us evening tickets to the Eureka Stockade show, which would require us back at 8PM. This packed out event turned out to be a pretty spectacular mixture of light, sound and pyrotechnics, using the town as a backdrop to recreate a famous piece of Australian Gold Mining history: the story of how a group of miners rebelled against the tax heavy authority and ultimately won. The scene was set by a short film in the beginning, followed by a walk to an audio show down by the creek (a similar production to what we saw down the mine, though this time with coloured spotlighting thrown into the mix) and then ultimately a tram ride to a building in a formerly closed off part of the park. We were lead to seats facing a screen wall in what turned out to be an auditorium; once everyone had arrived the wall lifted, revealing the outdoors, containing a large, tent covered landscape that spread out in all directions in front of us: the recreation of an old mining camp. There, using a mixture of - at times shockingly loud - sound effects, voiceovers, specially positioned lighting, smoke, fire (at one point a whole house set alight, another a burning wheel passed rolling just metres from the front row) and water (creating a very convincing rainstorm: no water restriction problems here). It certainly gave MGM studios a run for their money, very impressive considering the lack of actual actors or animatronics, and definitely the best part of the whole day.

Coming a close second, during the break in between we visited a nearby ‘Pancake Parlour’ restaurant, one of several which seem to be very popular in Victoria at least, if not Australia. After filling to bursting point with sumptuous mexican cheese and chilli crepes, followed by birthday pancakes and my first, not to mention very memorable, malt chocolate, pint-sized glass of milkshake (it was a meal by itself), I could see why. Quite the fantastic feast, it was only thanks to how interesting the show was afterwards that I mentioned to steal myself awake. We did have a bit more time to kill in the town of Ballarat, during which we took a trip to an enormous dried-up lake - the surrounding disused piers and yachting clubs were a real eye-opener - and drove through streets stacked to the brim with nothing but beautiful, ornate 19th century buildings - illustrative of just how much money there was flittering about back during the gold boom.

Monday and Tuesday were spent killing time, first at Chris and Marie’s, followed by staying at Alvary’s, right up until today. In the interim, I’ve been to the shops, picking up some warmer clothes to suit the currently much cooler climate, including new jeans and some tops. Since the thundershowers on Monday, the temperature has been significantly colder, hovering around twenty and dipping into the low teens in the evening. It’s got me worried about New Zealand, which is further south too! On Wednesday, Katie and I took a trip into the city to check out the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It was so cold I had to borrow a coat from James (now the next item on the shopping list). We took in just the one show, an English comic called John Moloney, who had been advertised on the Foxtel’s (Australia’s Sky TV, something I’ve been watching far too much of lately) Comedy Channel. Taking place in a function room in the basement of the Victoria Hotel, it wasn’t quite the venue I had imagined, lacking a dark, dingy, drink fueled vibe, instead representing a clean and small theatre. Soon the comedy came thick and fast, making up for the lack of presentation. Though it was clearly very rehearsed and dry humour, it was an the whole very funny. We were just glad we didn’t sit on the front row, its occupants a constant source of humiliation.

Katie and I went for a good meal and several exorbitantly priced drinks in one of only a couple of pubs we were able to find in the centre (as much as $20 for a couple of pints and some peanuts in one place, nonetheless very popular as it was filled to the rafters with Aussies catching the Australia-China World Cup qualifier). Turns out Katie’s quite the pint meister! We played catchup too, which kept us busy, having about a ten year gap to catch up on. The only downer to the evening was, having caught the last (and achingly slow) train at 12.05 (AM), we had to walk back in the pouring rain, sans umbrella. Won’t be making that mistake again tonight, when we head out again. Was hoping to catch Ross Noble live, but it seems each and every one of his shows is fully booked up. Hoping it’s a ‘Ticketmaster’ website issue, otherwise we’ll have to make do with something else.

Other pieces of news. Have finally sorted out by future itinerary. Leaving Melbourne a little earlier than originally planned, spurred on by the bad weather, mainly. Will be flying to Sydney a week on Monday (the 7th April), then onto Auckland, New Zealand the following day. Spending four weeks in NZ, then onto Fiji for a week, then Hawaii for another week. Landing in San Francisco late on May 20th, where I’ll hopefully be meeting Lucie Day. A couple of weeks traveling with her should take me up to Dad’s arrival. Looking a bit closer to now, I’m planning a possible vineyard trip with Marie and Chris on Saturday - weather allowing - following by a visit to Tim’s at St. Kilda’s on Sunday. Also, Tuesday night has been set aside for another night of comedy in the centre, this time also with Bridget and possibly James, if he can be bothered.

Got to take a quick power nap now, as exhausted. Probably all the copious amounts of good food and tea relatives keep on giving me ;)

29.3.08

Quality night out with Katie last night. Though we planned to hit the comedy circuit, we found and subsequently spent the whole evening in a wonderfully atmospheric bar just off a dark and spooky back alley. Drinking several enormous ‘long neck’, 750ml bottles of ‘Melbourne Bitter’ (like VB, fizzy and not really bitter, but tasty) and ‘Cooper’s Pale Ale’, we killed time sitting and chatting at a cramped high table in the tiny, very student-like front section of the bar (i.e. not too trendy, laid back, fairly messy, full of educated, jeans and t-shirt wearing folk), that got increasingly to ridiculously busy as the night wore on. Despite the number of people spilling in and out of the room, everybody was in high spirits, the good vibe being catchy - no doubt thanks to the playlist which, whilst a bit small, included lots of good music (everything from ‘The Smiths’ to ‘TV on the Radio’). The rear of the establishment was the most popular, playing host to several more bars, a few DJs on mixing desks and being outdoors a lot of dancing, drinking smokers (my clothes were not smelling so good this morning, let me tell you). We did some more reminiscing whilst trying to drink ourselves under the table, not getting back until the wee hours of the morning (unintentionally missing our last train by only minutes, so forced to splash out on a ludicrously expensive taxi, sadly).

Nothing happening with me today. Somehow Katie managed to drag herself out of bed before 9AM to go on a shopping trip with her mum, an invitation to which I politely bowed out from on account of a not inconsiderable hangover. The extents to which women will shop! James has gone to watch another AFL game. I also turned down an offer from Chris and Marie to go wine tasting - no doubt I’ll regret it but somehow alcohol has lost its appeal today. Plus it’s very cold and wet today, the coldest day yet I reckon. Could this be the official end of summer?!

More on Melbourne

2008-03-27T00:38:00.000-07:00

22.3.08

Sat in my room at Alvary’s and James is talking in my ear with a voice distorting megaphone, to be annoying, for a change. (Argh!) Just got back from a trip to the shops with Alvary, James and Katie, where I finally picked up some new tops (not the best, but they’ll do as I can’t seem to find anything better this side of $80), they bought some clothes and cosmetics, and we all gorged on coffee and muffins. It’s great to finally meet Katie - she’s really nice, cool, very chatty and friendly. The complete opposite to her brother, in fact! She arrived very early in the morning at Melbourne airport, where Alvary was there to pick her up. I didn’t go on account of feeling shattered and a wee bit ill - had way too much of Alvary’s delicious homemade chocolate cake yesterday! She seems to be planning to not spend all her time here working on revision for her upcoming exams, so fingers crossed we’ll fit in some socialising while I’m here (such as the ongoing Melbourne Comedy Festival).

Arrived back at Alvary’s late Thursday afternoon, after a day trip to Healesville Sanctuary with Marie. The open air exhibition contained entirely Australian indigenous animals, including kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, dingoes (cross between a dog and fox, that howls like a wolf), platypuses, several parrot/budgerigar varieties of bird, owls, echidnas (confirming it was one I saw by the roadside whilst driving with Peter and Marie; turns out there aren’t any hedgehogs in Australia), reptiles (saw a couple of lizards over 2m long) and all kinds of marsupials of many different shapes and sizes. The koalas were exceptionally cute: when we arrived, one of them appeared to be really active, patrolling up and down the gate between its pen and the next. Such behaviour is very unusual for a koala, which needs to spend nineteen hours a day sleeping, in order for it to digest the low-in-nutrients eucalyptus leaves that it lives off. The reason for this soon became apparent when a keeper turned up and let him into the neighbouring pen, where she picked him up and stood cuddling him whilst introducing him to the crowd. He was nothing short of a small, fuzzy, furry-eared, beady-eyed, cuddly teddy bear, hand-reared from birth and therefore quite uninhibited in front of humans. So damn cute!

In another part of the sanctuary was a hands-on display where I was able to touch several stuffed animals, including the koala (furry), platypus (coarse hair, brushlike tail) and echidna (seriously spikey), amongst others. Later on, we crossed a small river in a creek, where Marie told me many platypuses were originally found (and still live) there, the discovery of which lead to the setting up of the sanctuary. Marie proved to be a wealth of information about both the place and the animals. Her family have a zoo/sanctuary annual pass and she’s seriously considering volunteering as a zoo guide, much to her credit.

On getting back to Alvary’s, James and I caught a train into the city, in order to watch Richmond play Carlton at the MCG, the very first AFL game of the season. The game was pretty exciting - it was split into four quarters of twenty minutes each, but they tended to last around thirty as the clock was stopped every time a player stood still with the ball in his hands - a time during which the opposition are unable to attack him - which occurred often. However, the flow of the game barely ever seemed interrupted, as the ball constantly being kicked or hit from one player to the next. Even when the game’s only injury happened, the play continued, the action never letting up. Such momentum really stirred the enormous crowd, spread out but not quite filling the 100,000 seats of the humongous stadium. The pitch was a massive green oval - much bigger than a football pitch - and filled with dozens of people: players, referees, instruction deliverers and drink carriers. Every roar that went up was spine-tinglingly awesome, reminding me of the stadium crowd cheers in the film ‘Gladiator’.

It was a pretty cold night, the weather having turned with the onset of a rain shower - Melbourne’s first in weeks. It’s been relatively cool ever since, getting downright cold at night and making getting up in the morning difficult! I must try harder tomorrow as I’m off fairly early with Marie, Chris and family to Ballarat, home of the gold field and living museum. Plus it’s Easter, so lots of choccy to look forward to there. Speaking of chocolate, I was delighted to receive an Easter Egg from Great Auntie Elsie, after finally meeting her on Friday. James, Alvary and I were invited to an Easter lunch at Peter and Gwyneth’s on Friday afternoon, prompting Alvary to bake the aforementioned chocolate cake (the one I stuffed my face with). There, as well as receiving multiple chocolate goodies, plus a very tasty salmon steak and potato and egg souffle (courtesy of Gwyneth), I got to have a nice chat with Elsie, who was as wonderful as I imagined her to be. She really reminded me of Gran, in fact, even more so when Gwyneth put her glasses on her and pointed out her similar they both looked. She asked after you, Gran, and I told her just how well you were doing, plus how you are still putting the rest of us to shame by being so active! Elsie seemed very well and healthy too, very much enjoying our company and dinner, especially Alvary’s chocolate cake (she didn’t leave a crumb). I was regaled with some stories of Gran and Granddad living in Middleton, plus some more embarrassing ones involving Dad. Before I knew it, it was time to go, Auntie Elsie having to get back to her home and Peter and Gwyneth wanting to get ready for their small trip away for the long weekend. Gwyneth is organising another family get-together for the weekend of the 5/6th April. Really hope I get to see Elsie again once too, before I leave Oz.

26.3.08

Been a slow few days, much cooler of late since a tremendous rain shower and storm on Monday night, quite uneventful otherwise. Easter passed with much chomping of chocolate, plus a couple of cakes baked by Alvary, not to mention a banquet of crepes, pancakes, ice-cream and sumptuous malt chocolate milkshake on Easter Sunday, also in honour of Erin’s birthday. More on this later, when I get time...

Kangaroo Kontingency

2008-03-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

19.3.08 - 11.55 PM

Driving today was so liberating! It felt wonderful being able to pick a place on the map and just go straight to it. That place was the Mornington Peninsular, the vehicle, Chris’ nippy five-door saloon car. I was a bit nervy at first, taking the alien feeling roads nice and slow, getting used to driving my first petrol-based car (very sensitive clutch too) and keeping a steady speed. Got lost a few times but I had the world’s biggest Melbourne map to help me (a 300+ page roadmap book dedicated entirely to Melbourne and its suburbs). There’s quite a few distinctive differences between the road systems in Australia and England, all of which helped me to make daft mistakes, but never twice! The nasty ones were:-

Left-hand lanes that merge into the right-hand lane

When two cars in opposing directions proceed to turn right at the centre of a carraigeway, they cross in front of one another, instead of going around each other

Strange speed limits, such as 100kph on a single carriage lane, as well as special school zones where different speeds apply at certain times of the day

Cars driving in any lanes, irrespective of speed or whether they’re overtaking anybody (although there was the odd sign suggesting drivers keep to the left lane, they mainly went ignored)

The drive down to the north part of the south peninsular took almost a couple of hours, the longest stretch being the almost endless Highway 9, parts of which crossed through such barren, flat, dry, empty landscape, I could have sworn I was alone in the desert and not just a few miles away from both coast and big city. Passing through the town of Mornington (where a streetside market was in full swing) onto a coast hugging escapade that ran east to west, I caught stunning views of the sunlit, sparkly bay and golden sands, right next to the roadside. On the other side, collections of shopping parades and houses were dotted about, beginning just metres from the beach.

A pretty funky thing happened to me that afternoon. Stopping for lunch at a roadside cafe in a small town - with beach, water and sea breeze separated from it by the road and only a thin layer bushes opposite - I was engaged in conversation by a couple. (I ordered a sandwich and ice coffee, by the way, thinking that sounded small; it wasn’t - the sandwich was family sized and the coffee came with two chunks of ice-CREAM in it!) The husband had a bit of a Yorkshire twang in his accent and he picked up on mine too. Turns out he was from Doncaster! Of all the places! He’d emigrated from England in the sixties, coming to Melbourne to start his own car engineering business, and hadn’t looked back since. He was full of friendly advice, telling me about all the great things this country had to offer (great salaries, very little theft, being able to leave your doors unlocked, great weather all year round), practically imploring me to make it my home (even mentioned he could get me a job). I’ve got to say, his enthusiasm was catching; looking out at the gorgeous sea, I certainly felt I could settle there!

One cool thing that came out of the conversation was that he told me of a certain dirt track leading to a privately owned farm, where if I were to enter it and climb to a certain water tower when it was dusk, I’d be guaranteed to see some wild kangaroos. The destination was on a small road (which turned out to be fairly big, as are all roads in Australia) that cut south a little further along the peninsular, traversing it from the north side to the south and ultimately ending up at a seaside town of Flinders. Using the map, I found out I could skirt round that town, head north back up the peninsular and do a loop, getting back home in time for tea! I headed down there, passing under hot skies, A/C turned up making life much easier, in-car radio turned up too, making it everything good. I drove past countless, massive stretches of brown and yellow, dead looking pastures and water-forsaken trees, before finding the turn off. Felt a bit cheeky crossing into the farmer’s field, but screw it. Boy am I glad I did! There must have been four or five HERDS of kangaroos - there were literally dozens of them. They must have been red kangaroos too, being that they were massive: easily man sized. I climbed up to the water tower to get close to them, but unfortunately they bounded away, all in unison, always keeping a safe distance. Still, thanks to my camera’s zoom, I got some great shots, plus a video, not to mention some serious satisfaction at having seen them.

So fancy that - meeting a man from Doncaster in one town of many (just picked randomly) in a place about as far from Yorkshire as one can get, which lead to me finding the favourite jumping spot of Melbourne’s kangaroo contingency. Is that fate or what?

Stopped by at Flinders for a few coastline shots and a soft drink, before heading back to Lilydale (near to Chris and Marie’s). Arrived back shortly after 7 PM. Went for a nice dinner at a local Indian/Nepalese restaurant, where I chatted with Indian the owner about the wide, landscape photos of Annapurna, Pokara and Everest on the walls (her husband comes from Nepal). Food was great - very tasty - really impressed by the presence of Kingfisher Lager, not so with the keema naan (was like pizza; also informed that naan breads in Australia tend to be tiny, chapatti sized). Found out Bridget can’t make the AFL game tomorrow, so looks like it’s just going to be me and Jolly James. Actually, he’s not really that bad - saw some of the nicer side to him this week, occasionally. I’m really just hoping the game itself doesn’t turn out to be a snore-fest.

Oh, we all like to be beside the seaside!

2008-03-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

14.3.08

Finally dragged my lazy ass out of the house today, returning once more to Melbourne’s busy centre. The day began as a scorchingly hot one - on the way up to the train station, there wasn’t a cloud to be seen in the bright blue sky and I felt pretty sweaty before I even got there. Having sussed out the most direct route as well as the times that the train departs, I made it in record time and had little time to wait. Saw a man wearing a luminescent orange workers uniform, riding on an old motorcycle - side-car equipped - along the side of the pavement, delivering pamphlets. I guess he’d need that to think about getting around in this heat. He gave me a nod and I gave him one back. At the train station, despite it being daytime on a weekday, I was able to purchase and use an ‘off-peak’ ticket for travel into Melbourne (covers trains, trams and buses within zones 1+2, which is everywhere on the transport network, basically), saving me a dollar on the normal, day ticket price. Even more strangely, the ticket barrier accepted my ticket on the way back, right in the middle of the heavy rush hour! Could the Melbournian’s have missed the concept of what ‘peak’ is, altogether?

When I hit the central rail loop, I decided to get off at a stop right next to the Queen Victoria Market, which I mentioned in my last blog posting. This time I was early enough for it to still be open - I entered the undercover, outdoor market with a self-congratulatory pat on the back, before realising that on Fridays it remains open all day long. Nevermind, the thought was there. I was a bit disappointed with the market at first - it felt like no more than a large car-boot sale, consisting of several rows of adjoining stalls selling all sorts of ‘bric-a-brac’ under the cover of a long, open-ended warehouse. Delving deeper, however, I found the real heart of the market: very popular fresh fruit and veg. stalls, followed by a large meat and fish section. So far, so British - could have been at Doncaster Market, albeit cleaner - but for the last section which was devoted to all kinds of delicatessens, bakeries, cheese shops, sweet stands, plus a whole number of food stalls, ranging from those selling German sausages (Bratwurst, or whatever they’re called) to anti-pasta (such sweet smelling olives, you can’t imagine) to spicy noodles to great pizza slices. All looked seriously delicious and tempting; I was in seventh heaven, spoilt for choice! :)

After lunch, I took a much needed bit of exercise and strolled down to find the ‘Immigration Museum’, a place I decided I must go after reading the gushings of Bill Bryson. Despite it being a weekday, Melbourne’s streets were very much business as usual, the pavements packed out with businessmen, shoppers and tourists alike, and roads busy with cars and trams. In the afternoon, the sky clouded over, spoiling the forty degree prediction of the weather forecast but still keeping the high heat trapped and giving the air a sultry, stormy feel. The museum was set in Melbourne’s old Customs House, a great, three floor, white, stone building, dating from the mid-19th century. The main exhibition that I took in covered the first floor, dedicated to the history of Australia’s - particularly Victoria’s - immigrants, funnily enough. The biggest display concerned a detailed timeline dating back from today to when us Brits first came over on ships in the late 18th century, half populated with convicts sentenced to ‘transportation’ (to Australia) as their punishment. As I’d discovered back in the Convicts Museum in Sydney, some of these crimes were surprisingly petty - something as insignificant as the stealing of a horse could see you shipped away to the other side of the world, which back then meant for life. It was very informative and some of it fascinating, particular the changes to foreign policy (such as the ‘White Australia Policy’, which was employed over many years and at multiple times since Australia’s inception - as late as the 1970s - though not always under so unsubtle a title nor via obvious methods). Many posters dating back decades were on display, which really helped to capture the essence of the time: some depicted anti-Asian propaganda, others advertised the post-WWII, subsidised, £10 trip to Australia. Inventive, beguiling (deceitful?) adverts lured potential emigrants to help repopulate the land of forever sunshine and endless prosperity. There was also some mention of past anti-semitism - like with the Chinese, European occupiers of this gold enriched country didn’t like the idea of other races becoming successful on their turf, especially not Russian Jews, which was ironic as one story told of two such men who arrived at the beginning of the 20th century and went on to form what is today one of Australia’s biggest department stores, ‘Myers’.

After taking all (well, some) of this in, plus a wander through an modeled, cutout subsection of a ship - recreated in the centre of a great, column-filled (Roman style), central atrium, replicating life as it used to be, traversing the ocean waves from England to Australia - I headed to a Borders like bookshop (‘Dymocks’) to check out the contents of some New Zealand travel books and to get a coffee. There, my plans to stick to a slightly healthier (at least, compared to recent times) regime were unknowingly foiled: I ordered an ice-coffee and received something reminiscent of a coffee ‘float’ (like the old ‘coke float’ drink, it came with ice-cream AND cream). I also popped into an original looking shop, dedicated to magazine publications only. I dipped in to have a look for my favourites from back home, skimmed through a few, but decided against paying for them thanks to their extortionate costs (Australia imports most of its magazines it seems, as well as its books, leading to high prices and many second-hand book shops) and out of date-ed-ness.

Had a night to myself tonight as Alvary went off to a ballet with a friend from work and James ditched me at the last minute for a party with some friends. I received a text from a friend back home, Lucie Day, to tell me she’d allotted herself some holiday time from mid-May until the first week of June and wanted to join me for then. I already knew something about this, but didn’t realise it’d be quite that far ahead. Now I’ve got to really do some thinking and organise the next few months, nevermind the next few weeks. Saturday tomorrow, so should be heading to Marie’s soon (by Sunday or Monday, at least). Then I’m going to arrange to see Tim O’Hara for a day or so, then Katie should be due back for Easter. Hopefully I’ll get to catch up with her, then onwards and upwards.

Need to get up before the sun does (or thereabouts) tomorrow to do some running. I’m feeling glutinous and flabby and my lack of exertion is getting ridiculous. I’m stuck in a lazy rut. Bet those Timtam biscuits I had for pudding tonight didn’t help, either. Bah.

19.3.08

Time is once again racing on and the blog lays dormant. I’m now staying at the house of Liam’s sister Marie, along with her husband Chris and children Erin (15 on Easter Sunday) and Bridget (18). Since I arrived on Sunday, I’ve felt like one of the family: there’s a real buzzing family atmosphere to the house that’s delightful and catching. The hub of the action is also the busiest room, the kitchen and living area, which opens onto the living room through some always open double doors (to-be-ironed clothes seem to live in this gap), a couple of corridors (one leading to the bathroom, girls’ bedrooms and bushy but dry back garden - patrolled daily by an egg-laying chicken - and the other leading to the front bedrooms and door). During the first couple of days, I wasn’t aware of how open-plan and light and airy the house could be, since the curtains remained closed during the day and the air-conditioner was on full assault, keeping the aggressive heat at bay. Marie’s house is further out into the outback than Alvary’s and thus even hotter: at the start of the week, after a relatively cool Saturday, temperature’s were soaring again at forty degrees! The land out here is on the whole much drier: grass and shrubs are a mixture of browns and yellows, no thanks to the strict water bans in place.

On Saturday, before I left Alvary and James, we took a drive up to the Dandenong Mountain area - just east of where Chris and Marie live, as it happens, as well as at the southern tip of the Dividing Range - in order to catch a famous steam train known as ‘Puffing Billy’. Stopping at Sassafras on route, we took a beautiful, green, shady mountain route to get there. Surrounded on all sides by tall pines, the gaps between the trees provided tantalising glimpses of the enormous valley Melbourne sits in to the west, leading out to see. The village of Sassafras was another old, quaint settlement whose only reason for existence is to provide tourists with refreshments and craft shops. Its location was fantastic however, being high up and in a forest clearing, and the tea room we stopped at sublime. ‘Miss Marples’ stood out as a large, old, two storey cottage - like an English country pub. It was packed to the rafters, so we booked a table, visited the nearby speciality teas shop and art gallery, then returned later to dine on Yorkshire Tea (!!!) and the biggest ice-cream, fudge, chocolate sundae I’ve ever seen, much less eaten (the cream alone allowed it to stand as tall as a foot off the table). Nor were Alvary’s chocolate cake (sitting on a bed of whipped cream) and James’ side-splitting banana split any less indulgent.

We missed the departure of the Puffing Billy, but being so full I wasn’t too fussed. We made a detour to take in some views of both the valleys to the east and west - the former showed a massive lake, hills and trees leading to an expanding horizon, the latter the city and on the edges of vision the skyscrapers of the CBD, but sadly it was too hazy to see the sea. On the way back we made a stop at a sculpture park, dedicated to a recently deceased eccentric, whose artistic talent was making creepy statues of Aboriginals, sculpted from clay. The exhibition had the feel of a darker Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, reminiscent of the film ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, though I’m sure that wasn’t the desired effect.

Marie picked me up on Sunday and drove me to her house in her big, white 4x4 monster truck (ish), possibly the largest I’ve ever been in. It turns out Chris and her are quite the fans of off-road adventures, though the kids aren’t so keen. Sunday ‘arvo’, I was given the grand tour around the nearest shops and train stations (a good 30 minute walk I reckon, though I haven’t tackled it yet), as well as a drink at one local pubs (the one we visited had a pretty dire mish-mash of old pub and new bar styles, hosting a band so bad I figured it to be karaoke night) followed up by an enormous and satisfying meal at the other, fancier one. Gave me a chance to get to know everyone and see just how well the family gets on together.

Monday, I lazed around in the morning, did some web-browsing using Chris’ wifi (yippee!) and playing with the dog, a cute King Charles Spaniel, whose name I still can’t remember. The only thing he seems to like more than being played with is sneezing all over your ankles! :) Marie got back from her morning shift inoculating kids - she’s a part-time nurse - at a relatively local school - several miles away - before we went shopping for meats for the barbeque. When Chris got home in the evening, he showed me how a true Australian BBQ is cooked, using the rudimentary big, gas powered grill in the outside yard running down the side of the house, he claimed sole ownership of the cooking, not letting his beer leave his hand throughout.

Tuesday, I caught a lift with Bridget to a nearby train station before heading into town. She’s studying both IT and the arts at one of Melbourne’s universities; her commute takes over an hour there and back, using car, bus and train. Before she got off at Blackburn Station, she pointed out Chris’ work: a bright, monster green eyesore of a building, off to one side of the newly constructed and soon to be opened (finger’s crossed, hey Chris?) Eastern Freeway. He’s involved in the IT side of things for the company building said road. There's a lot riding on this new road and the council haven't helped by announcing it's running six months ahead of schedule and so should open 'very soon'. Needless to say, it's a busy time for Chris.

Once I hit the city, I was undecided what to do next, but a tram heading to St. Kilda’s Beach that stopped feet from my nose soon made my mind up for me. This was my first tram ride: it was slow and rickety but novel, feeling much like sitting on a train in the middle of the road. On a side note, I have managed to organise to see Tim towards the end of next week thanks to Marie, but couldn’t lay off checking out his neighbourhood in the meantime. St Kilda’s sports a beautiful long stretch of beach, a happening cafe-bar filled sea-front, a very big pier and a Luna fairground (with a giant clown’s mouth forming the entrance, just like in Sydney). I took a long walk out to the end of the pier, where the ferocious winds took the bite out of the scolding sun’s rays. From the tip, there’s a magnificent view of central Melbourne’s towers, preceded by St Kilda’s suburbs, its palm tree laden, sandy stretches of beach, parachuters sporting vividly coloured parachutes criss-crossing the sky, towed by speed boats in the waters, and right next to the pier, dozens of docked ships. Looking out towards the western horizon, I felt I was on the sea, such is the size of Port Phillip Bay.

Started my lunch at a Rough Guide recommended bakery, but wasn’t enamoured with the cheese danish I ordered, so then proceeded to order nachos next door, for some real nourishment. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on a serving for two, but me being me I conquered it, plate and all. Thoroughly stuffed, I waddled back to the tram, to the city and home, picking up some easter eggs for the Erin and Bridget on the way. On the subject of Easter, I’ve been invited to join the family on a trip to Ballarat, home to one of Melbourne’s famous gold mines and ‘Sovereign Hill’, an interactive museum (see link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Hill).

Today, with much thanks to Chris, I’m being let out on Melbourne’s roads. Have to admit I’m a tad nervous - driving here is probably less risky than in Thailand, but no less different. So far there doesn’t appear to be a strict rule about keeping to the left unless overtaking, with cars sticking to any lane they feel like, though I’m told it depends on the road. Also, there’s junctions where a green light indicates you can drive straight on, but a red arrow forces you to wait to turn right. A green left arrow may mean you can turn left, but not if pedestrians are crossing (same in Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia, if I recall). Not to mention the bizarre pull-into-the-left-hand-lane-to-turn-right system, operating in places to avoid holding up eager trams. Let’s just say I’m planning on avoiding tram routes today. Marie suggested a trip down to Mornington Peninsular, on the south head of the entrance (the forebodingly entitled ‘Rip’) to Port Phillip. Best set off soon if I’m to make it.

p.s. Future plans are forming. Going to stay in Oz until the end of the second week of April, visiting Tim and Elsie, taking in the comedy festival (which starts today), an AFL game (tomorrow) and whatever else life throws at me. Then I’ll head over to New Zealand for five weeks, followed by a couple of weeks in Fiji (where I’m meeting my friend Lucie, who’s flying all the way from England to join me for a break), a week in Hawaii and then finally onto California. That’ll bring me up to the second week of June, when I’ll meet Dad.

Melbourne Mellow

2008-03-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

10.3.08

Am about to set off into the city to witness the last day of the Melbourne Moomba Festival 2008. From what I can gather, it takes place around the River Yarra and involves plenty of watersports. Of this I’m thankful, as it’s a teeming thirty-seven degrees today. Phew! There’s some sort of parade scheduled for today, which I’m told by Marie (Liam’s sister) involves her daughter. Unfortunately, having laid in for the first time in several days - having kept very active over the weekend, staying with Peter and Gwyneth - I’m guessing I may have missed it.

Will do a recap of the last few days’ exciting events soon as I get back, IF I have the energy! For now, the heat...

11.3.08

As usually happens, the more stuff I do, the less time I have to update my blog. This is annoying, as I want to get down all the details of my three trips into Melbourne city centre (or the CBD: ‘Central Business District’), taking in the Melbourne Gaol, ‘Game On’ at Federation Square, the cafes, restaurants and street-life, plus finally the Moomba Festival James and I caught the end of yesterday. Alvary and I are heading off on a long-awaited and much delayed trip to the zoo any moment now, so hopefully there will be time to get down these details once we return.

13.3.08

My tardiness of late when it has come to my blog or doing anything has become ridiculous, so I’m going to try and start afresh, updating every day or two. Since a very busy long weekend (Monday was a Labour Day in Victoria, plus Alvary had Tuesday off work), I’ve done little but sit on my backside, stay in the shade and eat lots of food. No change there, I hear my guilty conscience cry! Have tried to get into some jogging while I’ve been in Australia, but I’ve found even just a hint of sun to be near unbearable: it seems so concentrated here, though the shade is much more effective than in east Asia and thus a pleasurable and much sort after reprieve.

Speaking of the weather, it really has been barmy this last week or so, starting fairly cool and overcast at the beginning of last week, then hitting some soaring highs over the latter parts of the weekend (it was thirty five degrees centigrade on Sunday), before cooling ever-so-slightly by yesterday (Wednesday). It’s now on its way up to some extreme heights again: I’ve seen thirty seven and eight bandied about on some news websites. Definitely not the jogging/activity sort of weather.

So, an account of my last ten days or so. I spent last week enjoying the perks of European civilisation and culture, both in and out of the house. A couple of days were dedicated to exploring Melbourne’s city centre, reached by train from the nearish Heathmont Train Station (takes roughly 20-25 minutes walking uphill from Alvary’s house to reach, then there’s train every half hour, which takes about 45 minutes to get to ‘Flinders Street Station’, the beginning of four stations that form the rail loop of Melbourne’s Central Business District, CBD). It only takes so long thanks to the train having to stop at every little station along the way; I reckon the actual journey length is about twenty miles or so.

My first day alone in the centre, I took in the area around Flinders St, which comprises of several old Victorian style buildings (the actual station being one of the most impressive: an enormous yellow and red brick building, topped with several grand, but rusting, green domes, a large clock and a great archway forming its entrance). Inside, the station is fashioned very much like an old English railway station - say Kings Cross - though on a relatively small scale. The Australian pie shops and confusing ticket barrier system, which can be approached from either direction, leading to predictable and regular pileups, give the game away though.

Outside, wide roads (all roads in Australia are wide) form a busy crossroads, busily populated by cars, people and trams. Busy trams are a prevalent sight throughout Melbourne and sometimes they are the only mode of public transport. I’m planning on and looking forward to taking a trip to St Kilda’s on one, which is home to a thriving cafe scene, beachfront and Tim O’Hara et al. I just have to organise a visit to see him and his family, hopefully though Marie, whom I’ll be seeing next Monday (Marie and I had quite a long chat - over two hours in fact - over the phone a few days ago, when she told me I’d be welcome to stay for a few days if I wished, starting March 17th).

Opposite Flinders St Station, there’s a large square known as Federation Square, which houses a huge, underground and very flash tourist information centre, as well as a massive outdoor screen (useful for catching Australia lose to India in the latest ODI cricket series - brilliant) and an ugly, boxy, metallic monstrosity which is the ‘Alfred Deakin Building’, which houses ACMI (the ‘Australian Centre for the Moving Image’). ACMI stole my attention for most of Thursday, when ‘Game On’, an international, roaming videogames exhibition dedicated to the history and future of gaming, decided to set up there. What are the chances of that, eh? There were dozens of computers, consoles, arcade cabinets and ‘machines’ that predate them, all interactive and mine to play with for a measly sum of $15. I got my rosy fill of nostalgia playing Monkey Island and Frogger on giant screens, as well as some insight into modern game development. It’s interesting to see how gaming has gone from a huge investment to create one - i.e. back in the 1960s, a dedicated television computer had to be designed and purpose built for a game - to costless bedroom coding by lonely, never-see-daylight individuals, to ambitious, multi-million dollar, mammoth scale projects worked on by great teams of people, including designers (both visual and audio), programmers, advertisers, publishers, writers etc. Now it looks like the tide is turning again, as the ‘indie’ scene is attracting more attention, swapping imagination and innovation for big budgets and sequels.

The crossroads outside Federation Square still had more to offer. There’s tall skyscrapers on the skyline in most directions, including Melbourne’s biggest (whose name escapes me now). Across the road from the square and the train station, there’s an impressively tall and gothic St Paul’s Cathedral, on the corner of Swanston Street, the hubbub of the centre’s activity (containing cafes, restaurants, pubs, an old, stone State Library, part of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology - RMIT - and the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre, impressive for not only its towering glass dome of a roof, but also for hosting an excellent food court!). Heading in the other direction, there’s the wide Yarra River, home to a thriving cafe scene along its banks, which runs past Yarra Park in one direction (home to the MCG and close to other smaller, yet no-less popular, stadiums such as the Vodafone Arena and Telstra Stadium) and merges into ‘Port Phillip Bay’ in the other.

Melbourne is spread over many square miles, the centre of which stretches around the north-eastern part of the second largest bay in the world, ‘Port Phillip Bay’ (the city and its suburbs encapsulate all of it). The city centre’s roads are arranged in a grid shaped system, making getting around very easy, as I found. Equipped with my guidebook, I easily located Melbourne’s 1870 Queen Victoria Market, but was disappointed to find it closed. Am going to have to attempt an early morning to sample its delights. The Old Melbourne Gaol proved more accommodating, staying open till 5PM. One whole, ancient block, dating back to the early 19th century, has been kept open for the public, now acting as a museum. Of most interest were the death masks: impressions made of prisoners’ heads soon after their execution, kept for study in a once popular field of science known as ‘phrenology’. It was believed by some that the shape of one’s cranium could explain a person’s personality, including criminal tendencies. Several of these death masks were placed in glass cases in prisoner’s cells, next to accounts of their crimes, trials, details of incarceration and ultimately executions. The most infamous criminal to enter the old gaol’s doors was none other than Ned Kelly, Australia’s most notorious thieving, murderous bush ranger, and also, bizarrely, their number one folk hero. Guess when you’re a country without much of a history, you’ll grab onto anything! There was a whole section of the museum dedicated to him. One cabinet contained the last gun he had fired, with part of the handle dented where a bullet had clipped past and hit his hand. Right next to this, hanging from a couple of wooden racks, were some crude looking body armour plates, used by Kelly during his final showdown with the police. Tackily - and rather insensitively I thought - a sign nearby read that children were welcome to try the ‘suits’ on. Anything for the tourists!

Food-wise, I sampled a delicious falafel sandwich from a wide selection at an Italian restaurant/cafe from the aforementioned food court (the cafe was sort of a squashed oval bar which customers sat around on high stools, watching the staff dizzyingly run around its centre, from one end to the other). It was filled with many smartly dressed business men on their lunch hours, the food was excellent yet the price moderate. There was also a huge variety of different types of food on offer, all for good prices. As I had been prepped beforehand, Melbourne does not disappoint on the culinary front! (I was surprised to learn later that Alvary wasn’t aware of this.) To further reinforce this point, I stopped in on another day at Melbourne’s number one chocolate shop, ‘Koko Black Shop’. There, in a quaint little upstairs cafe, I had the most delicious hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted. It took real effort not to order everything from the entirely chocolate filled menu, let me tell you.

So, that was my week last week. Other than that, I basked in the joys of having a house to myself, a big TV and satellite, taking in several episodes of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘The Shield’. It’s amazing how quickly you can slip back into old routines. To add a bit of spice, I also did some jogging, though as I’ve hinted not enough, no thanks to that sun, and also took the Buddy and Amber for several walks (Alvary and James’ big dogs). There’s a popular, scenic walk just five mins away, some parkland, a track, gum trees and river, known as ‘Dandenong Creek’. The dogs are lovely, no trouble and very well behaved: they act pretty old and slow at times however, definitely unable to keep up with me if I break into a canter. I guess the heat gets to them too. I’ve been getting on very well with Alvary - she’s been very kind, allowing me a free run of the house, as much food as I want (dangerous) and helping me organise activities amongst her already busy schedule. She always seems to have a heck of a lot on her plate - as well as close to full time work, including long shifts, she has visa application forms, housecleaning worries, choir practice, keeping in touch with family and friends, issues with Chris’ will, tax troubles, church plus James, who has proven to be quite a handful for everybody. I’ve offered to help Alvary out as much as she’ll let me - with dishes, dog walks and so forth - but I’ve been struggling a bit with James. Not quite the introverted but nice person I had presumed he was, he’s a bit of a terror at times, refusing to do his school work, very rude on occasion (including to his mum), deliberately rebellious and generally ‘mopey’. A typical teenager I suppose, but I’m under the impression this has been going on longer than necessary. I feel for Alvary as she has enough on her plate as well as sorting out his future, which looks a bit bleak as of now, thanks to recent problems at his school.

Anyway, onto brighter things. The weekend was fun and very event filled, having spent it in the company of Peter and Gwyneth. I was driven several miles across to Doncaster, into a rural looking, hilly estate that houses many large, impressive mansions, each with several acres of land to spare. Gwyneth’s house was no exception: a long, winding driveway led back across a beautiful, large expanse of lawn to a wide, country manor like home. Inside, everything was nice, homely and spacious, not to mention impeccably clean. I felt like I was dirtying the place, just by being there!

I hadn’t really met Peter and Gywneth properly before, but they made me feel equally as welcome as Alvary did. However, I did feel like slightly more was expected of me - so I was on my best behaviour at all times and acted a proper as I could. For instance, when everyone made for bed at half past ten on Friday, I did likewise. James had forewarned me I might expect an early morning to be thrust on me during my stay and he was right: at 8.30AM, Peter entered my immaculate room, saying something about how if I was cold he could show me how to use the air conditioner/heater (no such things as radiators in this country, the a/c unit usually works both ways), then hastily retreating but leaving the main dazzling light on. I took this as my cue to get up, which is a good job, as Gwyneth was in full preparation mode, getting clothes and drinks bottles ready (one I was amused to find labelled with my name on it), then soon after shoeing us out of the house, into the large, triple garage beside it.

Setting off this early - in order to beat the sun - there was a bit of confusion with the day’s organised itinerary: when to visit the infamous Yarra Valley Vineyards. If we went now, they’d no doubt be closed for tours, but then on the way back, it’d be too late. We settled on driving by several instead - and they were beautiful, acre upon acre of symmetrical lines of green grape vines, stretching up and down the sides of valleys as far as the eye could see. They reminded me of the tea plantations I’d seen in Malaysia. Also that morning, we stopped at a huge roadside cafe where I tasted my first ‘Beesting’, a custard and jam filled sponge, spotted with almonds, and one of Peter’s favourites. Delicious it was too!

We drove through several national parks, including one whose trees grew thick and tall, dozens of feet off the ground. Coming back this way later on, we stopped the car so I could take some photos of an echidna, a hedgehog like creature belonging to the same subspecies as the platypus. It was ambling along by the side of the road but rolled into a ball and wouldn’t show its head, sadly, when I came bumbling along with my camera. The main aim of Saturday’s drive was to get to Marysville, a small, rustic town home to a waterfall. The waterfall was quite pretty, the forest around it moreso thanks to the large variety of gum trees. The town was filled with small, wooden craft and clothing shops: at one that specialised in llama wool, I was accosted by its old Scottish owner, who wouldn’t let me go until she’d grilled me about my every little detail of my stay in Australia. She was ever so charming and friendly, but it was bizarre, especially as she took no interest in the actual potential customers in the shop.

We had a delightful lunch in a Greek-run, eat-in bakery in the town, which was a bit too soon after my morning cake, but thanks to its food being so damn good (I had the freshly made vegetable quiche followed by even more cake, this time chocolate and mousse), I didn’t have too much trouble dispatching it. Peter treated me to some New Zealand white wine, which was delicious. Unfortunately, he and Gwyneth stuck to soft drinks, as they’ve given up wine for lent (Alvary in the meantime has given up both wine and chocolate, though I’m told she allowed herself a glass or three of Champagne on her birthday recently, but that didn’t count as it was fizzy). As well as how kind, tidy and organised Peter and Gwyneth are, I also discovered over the course of the weekend that they are also dedicated bird and plant enthusiasts. I was introduced to more variants of birds than I can name, I’m sorry to say, but at least I learnt that parrots and budgerigars are indigenous to Australia, that they come in many colours, shapes and sizes, and that the oft-called magpies here are not actually magpies at all (they make beautiful birdsong, for one).

I ended the day riding on Peter’s drivable, sit-on lawnmower, which was fantastic fun. Sporting five gears, you can turn cutting the grass into a speedy, dangerous adventure, pulling handbrake turns, yanking on the wheel at the last minute so as not to run headfirst into a tree at full speed, cheerfully spraying bemused spectators with waves of grass spewed up and out from the side of the vehicle. Who would have thought that a chore such as mowing the lawn could be turned into so much FUN!? After finishing, I went back over a second and third time, just to be sure. I never imagined I’d be looking for an excuse to spend longer grass cutting.

Saturday didn’t actually turn out to be all that hot, but Sunday was an absolute scorcher, rocketing to the mid thirties. We set off a bit later that day, to visit Hanging Rock, a site where a volcano had struck many hundreds (thousands?) of years ago. What was left was a large, irregular bulge of rock issuing straight out of a very flat landscape, to form a small but striking rock covered mountain. There’s also a famous story written at the turn of the 19th century about it, concerning a disastrous school trip to it where several school girls went missing, never to be seen again. The views from the top were stupendous, well worth the very sweaty climb. On the way up, Gwyneth spotted a wild wallaby! These are basically the midget version of a kangaroo; it can’t have been more than a foot and a half off the floor. Against the red clay and grey gum tree backdrop, and at a distance, it was easy to miss, practically blending in when it wasn’t hopping about.

The top was filled with a maze of closely congregated grey, craggy rocks, jutting out an all sorts of extreme angles. Some stood perched precariously on top of much smaller pinnacles, looking for all the world like they’d take a tumble at any moment. I shouldn’t have liked to have been anywhere near there during an earthquake. Interestingly, despite the presence of several manmade paths, there were many unprotected sheer drops dotted about the edges of the mountain. It was both easy to see how the schoolgirls in the story could take a critical tumble from one of them and surprising there hadn’t been many more accidents, considering the number of visiting families. I insisted on climbing to the very top of the highest rock - just about, a couple of Ozzies were sat on the tallest perch, refusing to budge - before retreating to the safety of the shade.

For lunch we had a picnic at the bottom of Hanging Rock and off to one side, next to a cricket pitch where a game was in full flow, despite the unrelenting heat. We dined on a foldout, blue, plastic table and chairs unit Peter brought with him, right in the middle of a section of track belonging to a (currently) disused horse racing course. Bizarre. The game was fun to watch, plus we weren’t the only ones indulging in picnics. Seems that these are still going strong in Australia, another old, quaint, British tradition that has fallen by the wayside back home but continues unabated here.

We headed back to the ranch, stopping off at a cricket ground where the first Australia based Ashes game was played. On getting home, I had a quick dip in Peter and Gwyneth’s pool, which was absolutely freezing, despite the intense heat, before setting off again for church. There, after an upbeat, evangelical service run mainly by young adults - that went on for an uncomfortably long one hundred and five minutes - we met with Alvary and James and went off for dinner. In line with Melbourne’s fame for its good food, we arrived on a bustling street (it was a Labour Day on Monday, let’s not forget) lined with busy restaurants spilling out onto the pavements. This, Peter described to me, was the equivalent of Little Italy, though it could have been Little Europe as far as I was concerned, thanks to the mix of Greek, Italian, French, Turkish and many more western establishments. After spending an inordinate amount of time searching for a car parking space - thankfully, we only brought one car - we settled for an Italian restaurant with the most enthusiastic waiter that we could find, who had dragged us to a table and was serving us our food and bill before we could think of saying no. Thankfully, the food was excellent (lasagna for me, naturally), as was the complimentary red house wine, though I was the only one to sample the latter (damn lent). I’m not sure everyone was too chuffed by the conversation: I brought Peter into a bit of an existentialist debate on Jesus and religion, which got serious very quickly and pretty much excluded everyone else from discussion. I soon put all to rights, however, offering to buy everybody what turned out to be delicious double-helpings of gelato ice-cream from a vendor on the way back to the car. Mine was one part Snickers, one part Cherry Ripple, in case you’re wondering :)

On the Monday, James and I took a trip into Melbourne centre, which was waylaid - as always seems to happen when him and I travel together - so that we had to catch both train and cumbersome bus to get there. By the time we arrived, mid-afternoon on the last day of the Moomba Festival, everything was wrapping up, sadly. We’d even missed the parade, which took place at midday. Instead, we settled for a Mocha Java Chip Frappucino from Starbucks (think fancy ice-coffee) and a walk beside the Yarra River, taking a quick look at the fun fair, music stage (with beat-boxing female singer) and kids events (skate ramps, slides, soccer). It was too hot to do much else. On the way back, we got picked up by Alvary at Ringwood Train Station (one down from Heathmont) and we drove through my first ‘Bottle Shop Drive Thru’. This is exactly as it sounds: an off-licence where you can go to pick up enough booze to be a hundred times over the limit and they will bring it to you in your car. Mental. Good fun though - I picked up my first batch of ‘Cascade’, a Tasmanian Beer and supposedly Australian’s first. It’s a nice, quite sweet tasting, distinctive beer, reminds me a little of Becks. All the beers I’ve tasted in Australia have been good so far, bar the standard Toohey’s (a New South Wales Beer, though I do like the ‘Extra Dry’ version). Other good ones include Victoria Bitter (a tasty lager beverage that isn’t a bitter, also product of Foster’s, scarily) and Carlton’s Draught (a bit like Stella).

Tuesday, on Alvary’s day off, she and I took a trip to the zoo. It wasn’t too hot a day - a gentle breeze made it a suitably fine day, even cool when the sun went behind a cloud. As far as zoos went, it was fairly large, each enclosure separated by tall trees, plants and shrubs. I mainly used the visit as an excuse to have a nice catchup with Alvary, find out how she was and what she’s up to, discuss my potential next set of travel plans and talk about my trip so far. Whilst chatting, I saw the usual range of zoo animals - tigers, leopards, bears, giraffes, elephants - and more excitingly some of Australia’s indigenous ones. In particular, I was excited to finally see some wombats: thickset, lazy but powerful looking, furry pig-like creatures (like a dog sized gerbil), with pointy ears, furry snouts, small limbs and fat bodies. The red kangaroos were just as I imagined, as tall as a man, able to leap large distances and fast, using disproportionately big hind legs. One fatigued kangaroo intrigued me - it was using its tiny front legs and paws, in symphony, to drag its front body forward, then doing the same with its back legs, using its mammoth tail for balance, like a walking stick. Doing this, it gave the impression of being crippled, but I fancy it was just being lazy. What struck me as odd was how it used two of its legs together at a time, unlike how a quadruped would use each leg individually. The highlight of my zoo visit was the platypus. It was just how I imagined, a mish-mash of creature designs belonging to both reptiles and mammals, all under one hood. It was swimming about frantically in its dark tank, fur stuck to its back and glistening in the half-light, large, employing its frog-like webbed feet as flippers (also, these reminded me of small batwings), using its wide, flat duckbill to sniff around from side-to-side under rocks and pebbles, like a fish would look for algae. Disappointingly, it was too dark to get a decent picture, just like it had been at Singapore’s Night Safari.

Yesterday and today I’ve done very little: yesterday was all about polishing off Bill Bryson’s account of Australia - had me chuckling to myself all day - and today was all about the blog. Going to commit to keeping this up to date regularly now, as otherwise it can take hours (as I’ve just found out)! Tomorrow, I’m planning on heading into the centre to visit the Immigration Museum, as recommended by Mr. Bryson, then possibly onto the Aquarium. This weekend, Alvary has mentioned taking James and I down to Mornington Peninsula, the southern head of Port Phillip Bay. At last, I’ll get to see the bay! Next week, a stay at Marie’s is on the cards, plus Melbourne’s Comedy Festival is due to start, Katie is returning for Easter and I have to sort out my plans with Gina. I don’t think a flight to Perth is possible now I’m sorry to say, as it’s looking to be too expensive (a $600 round trip). However, on the upside, I’ve discovered a website that specialises in car deliveries, where they fund some of (sometimes all of) the trip so long as I do the driving. There’s a whole range of journeys on offer, it’s just up to me to choose one and cover the distance in the time allotted. Could be an excellent opportunity to travel on the cheap (so long as cheap, dorm accommodation is on offer). Of all the places left in Australia, Cairns and Uluru (home of the infamous Ayer’s Rock) take my fancy. I also think getting to New Zealand by mid-April at the latest would be ideal.

As always, you’ll be the first to know.

p.s. Sometimes, regretfully, I start writing this and it turns into a bit more of a column, rather than a commentary or diary, hence the finishing comment above. I really don’t like it when it turns out this way, as it feels a bit contrived. Hopefully, back to norm from now on!

Australia, Australia, We Love You...

2008-03-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

23.2.08

Five days into the land where the water runs the wrong way down the plug hole and I’m starting to get a feel for the place. It’s been pretty unreal for me since getting here - first the shock of leaving cold, north hemisphere climes to arrive in a much warmer southern hemisphere, then that of being met by an eccentric but very welcoming distant relative (David Coles), who has planned with a fine tooth and comb every day’s events for me down to the tiniest detail. Thanks to our not stopping since touchdown, it’s all been a bit of a blur.

Australia is a very odd place; possibly the oddest that I’ve visited so far. Everyone here looks and acts as British as I am, though they’re not (both their friendly inquisitiveness and strong Aussie accents give the game away). The buildings are familiar, but they’re not (there’s skyscrapers and roads and pavements and houses, but many houses are single story affairs and a large number of the buildings date back to the art decor style of the 1930s). Somebody told me to expect Australia to be like England in the sixties: I have only film, TV and word of mouth as frames of reference, but the sheer amount of drab brown employed in workers’ clothing, furniture and architecture, plus the curb culture (I’ve witnessed multiple groups sitting on benches on the roadside during the daytime, idly chatting) and the unpleasant salesmen I encountered lurking around electronics shops whilst I hunted down a mobile sim card (reminding me of how Dixons used to be back in the late eighties/early nineties), make me feel like I’ve entered a time warp.

The weather is just about perfect: despite one very cloudy and slightly drizzly day, there’s been plenty of sunshine and blue skies, thrown in with a pleasant sea breeze (and smell) that keeps temperatures very pleasant in the mid to high twenties. Nights are cool but still warm enough to keep your shorts on. It’s very different to SE Asia, being very dry and a lot more like an English summer. David tells me it’s been one of Sydney’s coolest and wet summers in a long time, and its residents are all the more happier for it (bizarre, they actual like rain here).

So far, I’ve visited Sydney’s centre, via a public ferry (a ‘River-Cat’, an engine-powered, fast, modern catamaran) caught on the river just outside of David’s home (a flat, known as a unit, with a balcony looking out over the salt water Parramatta River, which comes inland directly from the sea, only a few km east of here). I leapt off at the Circular Quay, which offered beautiful views of the modern skyscrapers that formulate the business/shopping district, as well as the world famous Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge behind it. I spent Tuesday wandering around this area, also stopping to see Sydney’s oldest building plus tasting my first Australian Beer (in a bar with its own brewery, no less) in an area known as The Rocks - an area kept mainly for tourists where all the buildings date back to Victorian times and are immaculately kept. I’ve seen the outside of many of Sydney’s government buildings, been inside some of its old-fashioned shopping centres (where I sampled a tasty Chinese Satay Curry - eastern foods have become more and more common in the last couple of decades, thanks in part to Australia relaxing its immigration laws, though ‘pie and peas’ and steak are still considered the backbone of the staple Ozzy diet) and walked through its botanical gardens.

Thanks to David getting up early enough to pick up some tickets - he tends to get up around 6am he tells me, whereas the best I’ve managed is 9am - I’ve also seen my first opera at the Opera House: La Boheme. We had cheap-ish standing only tickets at the back, but the hall wasn’t too big and I had a good view of both the action and the ‘subtitler’. It was an Italian opera, funny, romantic and tragic; though the words didn’t always match the emotion poured into the singing, the script was fairly strong, not hard to follow - even less so, as the setting was thoroughly modernised - and the song and music were touching. The Opera House itself was very impressive from the outside, but the hall was smaller inside than I had imagined, thanks to sharing the building with several other theatres and a cinema. I also felt positively underdressed for the first time on the evening of the opera; everybody appeared to be dressed up to the nines in smart suits and glamorous dresses, whereas I was wearing my shorts, sandals and - admittedly - ironed shirt (David was wearing shorts, shoes and socks pulled up to his knees, in stereotypical Australian fashion).

I took a trip to David’s sister Angela’s ‘unit’ yesterday, up on a peninsula a few miles north of Sydney’s centre, right on the coast. We took a drive to a beautiful bay home to many anchored ships and a grassy picnic and beach area, right next to a quiet town - where we picked up traditional ‘Australian’ (ahem) fish and chips - built on a hillside sprawling with New Zealand pine trees. There’s woodland all over this part of Australia, likely making up for the miles of nothing in its centre, and everything is enviously spread out, leaving plenty of area for parkland, long empty streets, big yards and natural parks. After a quick paddle in the sea and feeding the ducks, we drove a few miles round to the other side of the peninsula, leading to Sydney’s Palm Beach. I got plenty of pictures of this beautiful, long stretch of sandy beach, surrounded by multi-million dollar holiday homes and sporting an impressively violent surf, especially after the stillness of Thailand’s oceans. There were beach closed signs present, but it didn’t appear to bother keen surfers, and Angela and I had a dip in the surprisingly cold sea. Before calling it a day, David and I drove up to a point where he lived decades ago: the top of a tall cliff providing a breath-taking view of several long, sandy beaches stretching in both directions along the eastern coast. Many miles to the south I could just make out the rounding of a cliff edge which led onto the entrance to the Sydney Harbour. The city’s skyline ran around behind us, its houses starting right on the shoreline and spreading out as far as the eye could see. The sky was decorated with a stunning, red sunset, the Pacific a deep blue speckled with white surf, the beaches a dark yellow and the streets a good blend of houses and greenery. It had a look of the idyllic about it, and the good weather lent its hand in proving this place was far from the same as England.

25.2.08

My blog entries are really taking a hit right now thanks to my oh-so-busy itinerary. David is like a man on a mission, trying to fill up every day with as many activities as possible! During the last couple of days, I’ve been on a 100 km+ trip to Sydney’s infamous Blue Mountains followed up by visiting the city’s enormous - compared to Headingley, at least - cricket ground (a stunning oval shaped affair with original pavilion, unlike, so I’m told, Melbourne’s own ground) to witness the Ozzies take on India in a one-day international. Though the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ would have you believe otherwise, Australia didn’t ‘thrash’ India, but put on a good performance beating them with almost 330 runs, but only with a difference of around 20. The stadium was brimming, the atmosphere electric and running off lots of booze (‘lights’ and ‘mids’ were available; I ‘skulled’ a few of the more manly sounding latter), and we were sat right in the middle of the action, in what could have been Little India. Indian flags, faces painted with orange, white and green, blue Indian shirts and loud chanting in Hindi surrounded us, the people brimming with enthusiasm for eight hours straight. It was pretty catching and all the more boisterous when the occasional Australian might turn up challenge them with shouts of ‘Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy...’, plus any time the cameras were turned on them the Indians went crazy. The stand we were in was the only uncovered one - known as the concourse - and I was subjected to the hottest weather down under yet. Angela had given me a genuine cow skin, wide brimmed hat which came in handy - hats are really common in this country, thanks to how close it is to the hole in the ozone layer, so I didn’t feel too daft wearing it (though maybe just a little). It was a great game anyway, with an atmosphere far less formal than what I’d seen in Headingley: most spectators could happily have had a place in the Barmy Army, apart from the few conservatives in the members’ stand (every time there was a mexican wave - of which there were many - these people were subjected to a huge chorus of boos, thanks to their non-participation). The natives only reinforced the rough, ‘rug-ah-bugger’ attitude that I’m starting to suspect Australians of, right down to their cockney like rhyming words and names (like the ice-cream van named ‘Wozza Whippy’ I passed on the way out west to the Blue Mountains). They’re all originally convicts, after all ;)

Speaking of convicts, having persuaded David to allow me a morning off to chill out a bit and do some blog-work - am beginning to suspect him of control-freakery - we’re off into Sydney centre to check out the Victoria Barracks, which is now a convict history museum. I figured this would be a suitable place to start learning about the history of Australia.

Lastly, I should mention how impressive the Blue Mountains were. Amidst taking a trip in the evening to an Imax-like cinema (where we watched a large but slightly blurred film about the discovery of the area) and having a go on the ‘Zig-Zag Railway’ (a wonderful little steam train that ran forwards, then backwards along a track in the shape of a ‘Z’, in order to traverse a tall mountain, as they used to in the early 20th century), we also took in the spectacular view of the mountains and its tree-filled gorge from the top of the Queen Elizabeth endorsed ‘Echo Point’. Though it wasn’t very echo-ey, the view was tremendous, offering a mini Grand Canyon like vista, though each valley was packed to the rafters with ‘gum trees’ (Australia’s most popular, indigenous eucalyptus trees). In the heat, these give off a blue mist, hence the name of the area. The sheer scale of the mountains combined with the startlingly clear, unadulterated and unspoiled view spanning off many miles into far distance, was really something.

Other than the scenery, I found the many quaint, hillside towns we passed along the way fascinating, thanks in the main to the wild-western designs belonging to street-side buildings. Many of the shops and hotels were crammed closely together, each with an outstretched awning, I’m guessing to help protect pedestrians from the sun. Above this, some of the said buildings had balconies, whilst all were decorated with fancy curved and rimmed tops, much in the style of the shops in so many American wild west towns. The fact that many of the properties were wooden also enhanced the effect. David put all this down to the date of construction - mid-to-late 19th century - but I was just excited to feel a bit like a cowboy. Now to find me some low down, no good, dusty varmints!

26.2.08

Am sat in the middle of the most tremendous thunderstorm. The thin, straight, steady stream of rain has been coming down for a good fifteen minutes, the sky thick with it and a low, grey haze of cloud. It started with a tremendous curling of overlapping clouds high up above in the hemisphere, which I witnessed from David’s balcony. For the past ten minutes I’ve been unable to see anything out of his window - not even the gardens or the river below - shuddering at the occasional crack of nearby, heavy thunder. I even spotted one jagged fork of white lightening, a shocking contrast to the smutty backdrop. Slowly the bright sun has begun to push its way through the fog and I can make out the bank across the water again. This sort of storm is far from what I’d expect back home - perhaps more like those you’d see in Spain - though I have to admit that the calm before it reminded me of early autumn/late summer in England, the smell of freshly mown grass in my nostrils and clouds in the sky. Ah nostalgia.

Today, David and I took a short ride by car around Sydney’s ‘South Head’: the southern part of headland that makes up the entrance to the great harbour. We had some fantastic beer-battered fish and chips at the lovely Watson’s Bay, made up of some well trimmed parkland - made all the more British for having a bandstand - a slither of beach, several fancy moored boats and an area known as ‘The Gap’. I had to walk up quite a stiff incline to reach this, but the incredible views of high, mountainous cliffs jutting straight into the sea with nothing but water and a worn away rock shelf to jump onto made it more than worth it. To be told that it was Sydney’s infamous suicide point underlined how steep the drop was.

Afterwards, we followed up with a drive to Bondi Beach. Apart from grabbing a disappointingly yucky ice-cream from a really grumpy seller - the brand was Gelati’s Italian, which seems fairly ubiquitous here - I wasn’t too impressed with the large, very busy (the busiest I’ve seen yet), semi-circular bay, which reminded me of a grander, cleaner version of Newcastle’s Tyneside beaches. It paled in comparison to Manly Bay, which David and I took a ferry out to from Circular Quay the day before. Manly is a very pretty, picturesque town, with a real seaside feel to it. It has a nice mixture of old and new buildings, the streets are all paved and clean, beautiful, tall ‘Norfolk Pines’ line the roads, as well as run alongside the promenade. One side of Manly faces the harbour, the other the Pacific; a swift walk of five minutes will transport you between the two. We got there fairly late in the day, after tying up some loose ends in Sydney’s centre, taking a quick look at the convict museum that comprises the Victoria Barracks, as well as the Botanic Gardens and a view of the QE2. The ferry trip to Manly is half of the fun: you have to catch an older than the ‘river-cats’ ferry, which unlike the hovercraft is sea-worthy, and the trip out there takes over half an hour, taking in the sights of the harbour entrance as well as many other coves along the way. Coming back provides a stunning, ever-expanding view of the Harbour Bridge, city centre skyline and Opera House, allowing for dozens of photos that I know will make a great desktop picture when I get home.

My views of Sydney have changed somewhat these last couple of days. It’s not quite caught in a time-warp: the heart of the city centre is as modern as any, wi-fi DOES appear to be available (in McDonald’s McCafe: their response to coffee culture, something which is incredibly popular in Australia - you can’t go a block without bumping into a cafe), open all hours off licences DO exist (usually as ‘Bottle Shops’, attached to ‘Hotels’, which generally means pub but due to ancient licensing laws has to have some sort of guest facility attached in order to sell alcohol), shops don’t just operate out of sixties style parades and anything - electronic or otherwise - is available, so long as you don’t mind paying the huge import fees. I’m a big fan of their muffins as they’re much bigger than our own, have built up a taste for VB (Victoria Bitter) but not Toohey’s (Sydney’s local) and like the fact that they tend to show lots of English TV dramas here. Everyone I’ve met and spoken to so far has been polite, interested in what I’m doing and on the whole friendly (apart from that ice-cream lady). If David’s generosity is anything to go by - letting me want for nothing, he’s barely allowed me to reach into my own pockets to pay for anything - then I should be in for a great time.

Speaking of David, I’d like to thank him for being a great host, not only for allowing me to stay this last week and a half, but also for feeding me, showing me the sights, providing all the transport and never once grumbling. He’s a bit of an eccentric (self-confessed) and at times a little overly nervous and humble, but his kindness has shone through and I’ve definitely gained a bit of a soft spot for him. We’re off to Canberra tomorrow - he’s driving me there and putting us up for the night, at his insistence - then I’m catching a coach down to Melbourne on the Thursday, to join Alvary and James.

29.2.08

Bit of a change of both scene and pace during the last couple of days. Set off at about half past ten Wednesday morning with David in his car, heading on a long road trip south to the Australian capital. Managed to sneak in a quick breakfast followed by a shorter jog around a nearby bay; my first since Christmas. Dragging my heavy trainers and weighty shorts, I tired out pretty quickly, though I fear the real reason is I’m purely out of practice. Once out of Sydney - which took over an hour - we trundled through a national park, the road leading up and down steep hills and miles of deep, never ending forest. We barely passed more than ten cars over the hour or two it took us to traverse it, but this became a common theme the further into the ‘bush’ we got. Eventually, we broke through onto a coastal road, which wound its way south along the eastern seaboard for as far as I could see. With the impressive heights of the mountains and hills of the ‘Dividing Range’ to our right and the endless stretch of the Pacific Ocean to our left, I was at times pretty awestruck. We stopped so I could take some what I hope to turn out to be spectacular pictures from a cliff-top lookout north of the first major town of Wollongong. David had an ice-cream and I a crispy onion topped BBQ hotdog, having spied the people in front of me buying one.

The weather certainly played its part during the day. It started off fairly cool and cloudy, but then the sun finally broke through whilst we drove down the coast, bringing the feel of summer with it. However, the weather took a severe turn for the worse after we stopped at a quaint little seaside town of Kiama, bringing hard hitting, heavy thundershowers and making driving very difficult. Whilst in Kiama, I experienced my first Australian ‘club’ (very popular in this country - kind of like a bingo hall inside, but filled with fruit machines or ‘pokies’, and just as tacky), went to visit a blow-hole that sadly wasn’t performing and dropped off some souvenirs at an old fashioned, pink painted post office. Carrying on, we eventually road out the storm. It left behind a thick, grey, overcast sky and took away the day’s heat. I soon found us driving through green pastures and farmland, passing cows and sheep grazing in meadows, a smell of wet grass on the air. It all felt very reminiscent of England actually and nothing like I imagined Australia’s outback to feel like.

It wasn’t until almost 6pm that we turned inland, just north of a place called Bateman’s Bay (no relation to the bitter, sadly). What followed was miles of plains, most of it just shrubs and the occasional patch of gum trees, with not much traffic and very little else. It took a couple more hours to reach ACT (Australian Capital Territory) and the city of Canberra that it houses. We actually spent the night in a motel in a town just on the outskirts of the capital, where we chowed down on some Chinese takeaway and I caught a brand new, unseen episode of House on the telly. Hoorah, signs of civilisation at last!

Next day, up bright and early, we headed into the capital. The weather was disappointingly dreadful, the grey sky ominous and it was cold enough to force me to wear my jeans and jumper (the end of summer?). Canberra seemed like a fairly dull, drab city, with an uninspiring collection of tall buildings contributing to its business district, a large, manmade lake cutting the city in two (Lake Burley Griffin) and several museums dotted around the place. There didn’t appear to be much to lure tourists there at all, until I discovered the impressively long line of lawns, ponds and red paving (reminded me of the run-up to Buckingham Palace), connecting the New Parliament House (on Capital Hill), Old Parliament House and Australian War Memorial, which extended over several miles, dissecting the lake at its centre. Stood at either end, it provided some great views, though the best view of the city came from the top of a tall hill someway behind the Memorial, where I was able to appreciate what the city’s original designer was trying to create (at least, prior to his competition winning plans being disrupted by bureaucracy followed by the second World War). We were able to take in all of the above sights, plus a short trip to a war hero monument built by a distant relatives of David’s and some small time spent at the relatively new National Museum. Our time at the War Memorial - which turned out to be a sort of war museum, with many fascinating exhibitions - was disappointingly brief too, though I got the feeling David didn’t want to spend much time there (understandable if you’ve seen it before).

Caught the bus at 1.30PM and arrived roughly on time at 10PM in Melbourne, where within minutes Alvary and James turned up to whisk me away in their new estate car. Spent most of the journey on the bus chatting to a very talkative self-confessed nerd, Ayshah, who was far too paranoid about what people thought about her - her Indian background really bothered her - and sadly didn’t realise just her pretty she was. Sadly won’t see her again as she’s now back off to Canberra. Missed a bit of a trick by not observing much of what was going on outside the bus, but reckon I saw a sufficient share of the outback with David. Still no sign of any ‘roos, though I did see some suspicious kangaroo-shaped roadkill prior to arriving in Canberra. Nice.

4.3.08

March now and having had a sufficiently lazy start to the month at Alvary’s, it’s time to get back into the blog again. Arrived in Melbourne just about on time, lingered about wondering if Alvary would find me - the bus station was an indoor car park and its entrance wasn’t exactly obvious - but didn’t have to worry longer as James and her arrived to pick me up in their nice, new estate car, or ‘station wagon’ as they’re known here. Their house is on the outskirts of Melbourne; it’s only four years old, very modern looking and just the right size to house three people, with its three bedrooms, study, large central living-room and upstairs landing, couple of bathrooms and its piece de resistance, an open plan, white and lilac kitchen/dining area at the back, its whole back wall consisting of tall glass pane windows running from the floor to the ceiling. The dining area sticks out from the back of the house, fashioned into one half of a hexagonal shape, creating the look of a conservatory. A couple of these windows act as patio doors, leading onto the paved area at the back of the house, where a preserved giant eucalyptus tree sits, as well as several other trees and plants skirting its edges, a table and some chairs, and a large, gas run barbeque. I’ve already used the latter twice, in true blue Aussie style!

Alvary and James have made me feel completely at home, giving me my own bedroom to sleep in and offering the whole house at my disposal. I’ve tried to help out by washing up but there seems to be little else left for me to do! On their advise of making myself at home, I’ve certainly given it my best shot, spending a couple of days relaxing in front of the TV, catching up on the cricket and several shows I’ve missed from back home. Over the weekend, I caught Australia losing to Sri Lanka in a ODI cricket match on the telly with James, then he showed me round the local neighbourhood, pointing out where the nearest shop parade and shopping centre are (one being about twenty minutes walk beside a busy highway, the other a short bus-ride away). The nearest parade also has a train station beside it (‘Heathmont’), where we caught a train into the city centre on Sunday (takes about 30+ minutes), taking a short wonder round the shops and squares, also past the infamous Melbourne Cricket Ground (the ‘MCG’). I quite fancy catching a game of cricket there, or perhaps some Aussie Rules Football, so am keeping my eyes open for any forthcoming matches.

On Sunday, we drove to a church in a nearby neighbourhood called ‘Doncaster’ (ho-ho!), where after a service I met Peter and Gwyneth for the first time in ten or more years. The seemed pretty much as I remembered them, though Peter’s hair had turned from black to all-white. Gwyneth entertained with a few stories about my dad in his younger days and complimented me on looking thin (though privately I had to disagree - my food intake isn’t getting any leaner, thanks to Alvary’s well stocked larder!). Peter invited me over to their house next weekend, to take a trip to a place called ‘Hanging Rock’. From my brief impressions, they both seemed nice, welcoming and friendly, though I was a bit nervous not really knowing them that well. Later that evening, I had a chat on the phone with Liam’s sister Marie for the first time. She seemed really easy going and fun to talk to on the phone - she’s housebound at the moment, being unable to drive thanks to a recent operation of her thumb. Alvary’s planing a trip for us to the zoo on Friday - on her day off - and there’s a good chance Marie may come along too.

Monday I did very little, other than take an exhausting jog in the midday sun along a grassy verge beside a local creek (basically a stream-cum-river), under a dazzling blue sky. The weather here is very unusual - as it has been for most of my time in Australia - starting off with very cool, near chilly mornings, then slowly getting warmer until its hot by the evening, then turning the heat down again at night. Sunday and Monday, the temperature was up and above thirty degrees, yesterday being extremely hot for most of the day, then balmy at night. It’s forecast to continue this trend for this week, despite it being the start of autumn (it’s begins on the 1st March for Australians). Strangely though, it’s a overcast cool day today, very English spring-like.

I’m off into the centre on my tod today to take in some sights and hopefully some culture. About time I got out of the house!

p.s. Just a quick note. My quest to reach some sort of understanding of Australia has prompted me to make some more discoveries. I’ve noticed they’re just recently adopting Virgin Megastore/HMV type shops here. Combining this with their old fashioned laws on drinking, the old Dixons style electronics shops, the cheaper petrol (about $1.37 a litre) and the lack of channels on TV, and I’m convinced I’m living in England in the early nineties. Except that this time-warp involves sixties style shopping parades (fashioned similar to how Cherry Willingham’s parade used to be), a strange accent using an odd slang comprised of shortened words ending in ‘-o’, the occasional didgeridoo playing Aboriginal, a real yo-yo of climates (now I know what Crowded House were harping on about), a strange concept of how football barely involves feet and a very adherent metric system (no miles and stones here!).

Hong Kong Stopover

2008-02-17T04:34:00.000-08:00

17.2.08

Lazy day, having spent half of it in bed. Needed to take time getting over my crazy, sleepless time in Bangkok and also allowing my stomach to process the sheer amount of terrible food I shoveled down my neck yesterday. Suffering from a crazy night out on Khao San Road, lots of drinks and sleep deprivation all round (including a night spent with a beautiful Danish girl, Line), and for reasons unknown, I decided to eats lot of food: Thai green curry and mixed fruit shake for brunch (so far, so sensible, as it would be my last meal in Thailand), followed up by an enormous glass of coffee caramel frappe and big slice of coffee nut cake at the airport (sugar rush galore), then a chicken curry on the plane (it was free, after all) and to top it all off a McDonald’s ‘Sausage n Egg McMuffin’ and fries (at just before bedtime as well, and I NEVER go to McDonald’s). Needless to say, I gave myself a good twelve hours of hard kip as punishment, just to process all that junk.

To continue on my food theme - which Granddad has pointed at to me is a subject which has become increasingly prominent in my blog - I had a rather strange late lunch of squid balls today (which were just that: doughy, fried balls with chunks of squid inside, with some seaweed chucked on top for good measure) and a mango jelly juice to wash it down. The latter is something extremely popular in Hong Kong: these cafes have counters open to the street that sell varieties of fruit drink - mango and coconut juice are most common - each which come with small, square chunks of jelly mixed in. The straw you’re provided with is just big enough for you to suck up the tasty jelly as well as the fruit juice, though it becomes both more difficult and embarrassingly noisier as you get nearer the end.

Armed with my juice and squid, I spent the day wandering aimlessly through the pedestrian packed streets of Mongkok, located right next to my wonderful guesthouse (with free, fast wifi and en-suite facilities). I’d seen it all before, but didn’t feel like venturing out far. Actually, am looking forward to moving on, as it’s way too cold here! Supposedly the temperature is about fifteen degrees celsius, but it feels ten degrees colder than that! Brrrr.

I still can’t get over the obsession with gadgets that the people of Hong Kong have. Every other store in this part of Kowloon Island is an electronics store, each and every one of them packed to the rafters with shoppers (from morning till late night). The most popular item which is on display everywhere is the mobile phone, but also present are media players - of all shapes and sizes, some impressively tiny - as well as digital cameras and laptops. The tax free tills never stop ringing.

I’m off now to get some dinner then find a bar that may be showing a Sheffield United game tonight (thanks, Dad). Australia tomorrow...

Wee.

On the road again...

2008-02-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

13.2.08 - 21.05

You know, I feel I may have been a bit too harsh on Ton Sai, so I’ll backtrack a little if I may? I popped there for dinner tonight - took the long, slightly treacherous route along the beaches, up and down several scrabbly slopes, across a bunch of giant rocks lining the shore and then straight through a hillside holiday resort. I noticed that, once the beaches had emptied of sun shoulder-to-shoulder sun worshippers, but prior to the time when the (all-) night-owls hit the scene and the bars begin to blare out terrible pop music, the town takes on a kind of charm. When I arrived there, people were milling about casually in the streets, idly bantering, dipping into book shops, restaurants, tattoo parlours, drinking coffee and fruit shakes, browsing market stalls. Locals and foreigners alike were playing football on the beach or in the island’s one schoolyard. A wide selection of attractive eateries were open on the sea-front, most offering a mammoth assortment of fish a la carte, all on show (I could also see - and smell - several being barbequed as I walked by).

I took the opportunity to trade in some books (I polished off the Graham Greene book as planned - surprisingly it turned out to be a photocopied book, according to the unwavering book shop owner, and so I was only offered a meagre sixty pence for it) and picked out another meaty Iain M. Banks novel, ‘Against a Dark Background’. I also bought some laxatives from the pharmacy (yes, that old chestnut) and picked up a couple of DVDs from a street stall (‘Grindhouse Death Proof’ and ‘The Golden Compass’). I settled on having dinner at a beachside Italian restaurant: penne pasta carbonara and garlic bread (didn’t want to risk them murdering my favourite, lasagna, though I oughtn't have worried as the pasta, cheese sauce, ham and bacon dish was excellent, if a little on the small side). I was still a bit peckish and, as I had to walk past the bakery to get back, I thought, why not? A delicious fresh cookie and jam doughnut soon put me to rights.

14.2.08

Killing time waiting for my ferry. Said goodbye to the room, it was emotional. The staff seem a little sadder than usual, but maybe that’s just me! It’s another glorious day, blue skies, little haze, the boats are out in full force around the bay. I’m less than thrilled at the prospect of the upcoming journey back to Bangkok - a two hour boat trip followed by a thirteen hour bus odyssey - but also excited to be on the move again. Hong Kong, here I come :)

Phi Phi Pharewell

2008-02-12T22:24:00.000-08:00

13.2.08

Not a huge amount to report upon today. Yesterday was on the whole cloudy, the sun’s hat didn’t make an appearance and my skin enjoyed the respite. However, it was an incredibly sultry day: humidity was at an all-time high and I was drenched by the time I got back from my walk into Ton Sai.

I decided to take my usual route to the lesser known beaches, but then continuing straight past those sandy path turn offs, hitting instead a crudely built, concrete road which lead further up into the interior of the island (but still roughly in the direction of the town, I checked). The road was the size of one small lane, just large enough to fit a 4x4, which was lucky as one passed me as I made my way up. That was the only traffic I saw though. After trudging along in the sweaty heat for about ten minutes, I reached a plateau and stood looking across at a huge pit that spread off far into the distance, just to my right. I can only guess that it was intended as either some sort of reservoir, lake or dumping ground, as it was about the same size as a medium sized lagoon - perhaps half a mile in diameter - very deep and lined from end to end in a black plastic material, looking as if someone had lain thousands upon thousands of bin bags next to each other, or rather like the lining you get in a manmade pond. There were multiple levels to the crater - like shelves - and the very bottom of it contained shallow water. I could see what looked like a simple wooden raft moored up to one side of this and at the opposite end, upon a higher shelf, a scattering of what appeared to be dozens of white plastic bags, piled up against and on top of each other.

I’ve honestly no idea what this big crevice was intended for and a few Thais who were milling around could offer up nothing but their incredulity at finding me there (a few bemused grins here and there). I guessed that not many people came up that way - especially not westerners - and my suspicions were confirmed when I carried on along the road, which promptly turned into a dirt and rubble track that lead me through thick jungle, past a few run down wood buildings on stilts, half a car and then to the rear of a bungalow complex at the edge of Ton Sai, passing nobody en-route.

Ton Sai still came as a bit of a shock to me - I was expecting many tourists but not THAT many. The beaches were a blur of pink and white, where westerners left little room to breathe crammed in so close to one other, each as desperate as the next to get his or her spot in the sun. If only they’d bothered to explore the rest of the island, though I was secretly glad they hadn’t! To give it its due, the town was much bigger than I had originally thought, consisting of a large maze of alleyways, playing host to guesthouses, bungalows, book shops, restaurants, bars and cafes. A few bizarre things caught my interest: the sudden appearance of a book shop/cafe on one street corner, looking for all the world like it belonged in a shopping mall and not just off the beach; the contrast between a rundown, dirty, shanty town, hidden from view in the centre of the town, just opposite a new and very clean, well-kept park; small sign-posts indicating a ‘Tsunami Escape Route’, lining a street which lead to some steps at the foot of a hill and then seemingly to a dead-end; the left-over remains of buildings wrecked by the Tsunami, waiting their turn to be resurrected into another money-making device. Cynical I know, but when you see the sorry remains of what distinguishes this place from any other holiday destination in the world - the Thai houses on stilts, actual Thai restaurants/cafes/’darbars’, the real Thai people, anything that feels distinctly native - hidden away, shoved to one side and on the decline, it’s hard not to feel this way. It’s obvious the true motivation behind the forerunners of the new, sterile Ko Phi Phi is money, with little desire to keep its beauty or ethnicity. These people are what’s wrong with society. But then, what does that make the people who pander to it, I wonder?

So I mixed in with the masses, browsed some book stores, bought a boat/bus ticket back to Bangkok, set to leave on Thursday - I was lucky, the lady running the travel agency said that nearly all of the tickets were booked up - and had an excellent feed at the P. P. Bakery (yes, despite my above diatribe, I was drawn in, being a sucker for baked goods).

Sun’s out today, it’s early afternoon and I’m determined to finish ‘The Quiet American’ on the white sands of the ‘Last Paradise’ beach.