Birdlife

We drove a smooth tarmac road that hugged the cliffside around the bay of Dunedin, right onto the Otago Peninsula. As a protected region, we had to go to the one campsite as free camping was a strict no-no. Here, we experience the most squishy grass known to mankind and little else really. We got an early night and made ready to set out in the morning.
Our plan was to visit the Royal Albatross colony on the headland and after climbing high into the hills, buffeted by wind, we made it to the colony centre. However, turns out that this time of year is prime egg laying time and as such no-one is allowed to even breathe near the albatross in case they spook and fly off, never to attempt reproducing again. Nevertheless, there were some taxidermed versions to look at as well as an instructive exhibition about the wildlife and a video that made me instantly guilty about having started to eat fish. In other words...Save the Albatross! Use simple fishing methods to avoid catching giant, 3m wingspan birds of the sea on your hooks! Albatross friendly fish!
We left the hills and meandered into Dunedin itself. We were not sure if we would like this city, after initially visiting it on the way into the Otago Peninsula in search of fuel, at 6.30pm, with the emergency light bleeping and the car making funny straining noises on hills. Fuel is aparently a rare commodity in Dunedin when you are actively searching for it, but we got some in the end, after coming across a disused fuel station, one in the process of being built and one that was just closed early!
Turns out however, that Dunedin is very pleasant. We wandered the streets and had a browse in the shops. I discovered a pajama store that is now my absolute favourite shop, called peteralexander. We also discovered a Cadbury's chocolate factory and decided to go on the tour.
This was an awesome decision. First up, we went through the groovy exhibition on the discovery of chocolate by the Aztecs (I love learning about Aztecs) and how Cadbury's came into being. While Alex waited for the tour to begin, scorning my need to read every board on display, I carried on regardless. This, it turned out, was the way to go!
Our guide 'Cocoa Joe' turned up in bright purple dungarees and fetching head cover. We had to don head covers as well and in a moment of pure comedic genius, Alex was made to wear a 'snou' or a beard cover! Hilarious, he looked like Santa Claus. Off we went into the factory, the air positively heavy with chocolate scents. We were each given a little plastic bag with a chocolate bar in it - to hold goodies as we went. This was excellent, we had not realised we got free stuff into the bargain.
In some weird cliche, everyone working at the chocolate factory was happy. Everyone! They all beamed at us as we passed, gave out free chocolate to fill our bags and had names like Bernie. It was awesome. Even better, 'Cocoa Joe' had a policy of ask a question, and give the reward correct answers with free chocolate. The moment I realised this, the stuff I'd been reading in the exhibition came into itself! I have many, many free chocolate bars now. All is good in the world. They are all weird crazy ones that have never been heard of in the UK - like 'pinky', 'moro', 'snowball' and 'funkynana'! They all involve much marshmallow though, so Alex is pretty much reaping the bounty of my question answering skills.
After Cadburys we went into Dunedin and had a coffee before going back to the car to start the drive onwards to Christchurch.
We arrived in Moeraki around about 5pm. Now, the boulders along the beach here are what initially decided New Zealand for me - they are the photograph on the cover of my travel guide. As such, I was eager to see them. They are a bit of a geological oddity, in that they are rounded boulders, quite large, randomly strewn about the otherwise unremarkable beach of Moeraki. Some are split open, like eggs, and reveal a honeycomb centre which is even caramel coloured for realism! Alex and I had a good bit of fun playing about on these, Alex jumping easily from one to the other while I flopped and floundered about through them.
Onto Christchurch. On the way, we passed Omarau, which promised a Blue/Fairy penguin colony. We decided to stop and have a looksie. Imagine our amusement when it turned out to be a full-on centre and conservation movement for penguins which we had seen earlier in a leaflet and wanted to go to, but clean forgotton about since. Not only this, but we managed to turn up at dusk, at the exact time that they recommend you arriving so you can get seats before the penguins come inland.
Here, we sat in a small grandstand overlooking the beach, the boulderstrewn cliff and the swathe of grass covered in hummocks and man-man penguin next boxes. As darkness fells and the yellow lights came on (penguins cannot see yellow) we spied a tiny little blue penguin making its way up the rocky ramp. We named it 'Jonesy' as such named individuals are apparently always on point position in war games and watched it scamper up in a very sneaky, ninj-like manner. Upon finally reaching the grass, it made an all out break for it, scurrying across the grass towards its nestbox at full throttle. I know this description is typical of penguins, but it is so true - he looked like he was wearing a full dinner jacket and smart shirt. Admittedly, in oh-so-fashionable indigo blue and satin sheeny white, but still. What makes it funny is that he was a mere 10 inches tall. As it got darker, more and more penguins arrived. They spend the day fishing alone, then form up into groups or 'rafts' about a kilometre out to sea. They then cruise in together, catch a wave and ride it onto the beach, standing up as it recedes and waddling, hopping and scrambling up the rocks. They make odd honking-shrieking-purring noises to each other and move across the open area before the grass in groups of 20 or 30, leaving behind a rear guard each time who waddle back to the waiting penguins in the rocks to, assumably, inform them it is okay to cross now! We saw fuzzy chicks and mates running out of their nests to welcome back there partners from the sea. It was really cool. It was also very, very cold. After freezing for an hour or so, we decided to leave. As we stood, one of the penguins noticed and appeared to make eye contact with ALex, even though they are not supposed to be able to see in the dark. It made straight for him in an unwavering line, practically leaping over the pebbles. After stopping and staring for a while, it moved on and ALex and I continued down the path. Here, there were three penguins clustered together. They were wandering about so we stopped to watch and they started towards us. Alex bent down and the penguins went crazy for him again! Running straight through the wire fence, one approached him and gently tapped his shoe! Whether this was because he was wearing blue and white converse or because, as I think, he has a weird affinity with birds and was quite possibly a bird in a past life and thus attracts them to him...who knows?
We drove away from Omarau to find somewhere out of town to park up for the night. This proved tricky. Everywhere else we have been there have been lookouts and rest stops about every 10kms. Not so here. After driving for nigh on 50kms, in the dark, we were starting to be concerned. This was not helped by glimpsing a possum trying to leap in front of the car (it failed, luckily and stayed on the other lane), by a random collie dog frolicking around in the dark and by a giant unrecognisable creature slinking along the side of the road. Suitably freaked, we drew up at a lookout over a dam and went to sleep, nervously awaiting attack by previously mentioned unrecognisable creature.
In the morning, it was gloriously cloudfree sky and brillaint sunshine. There was no evidence of fenzied scratching or clawmarks on the car, so we ventured forth again. This time, our goal was a lookout over a lake to Mt Cook. Upon reaching it, we sat on the roof for elevenses and marvelled at the expanse of pastel blue water stretching in front of us to the foot of the mountains covered in snow. It was stunning.
Continuing on, we reached Lake Tekapo which was, if possible, even more beautiful. We were both amazed at the fact that all the land around the edge of one side of the lake is for sale - the view is spectacular. We sat on the rocky beach and soaked up the sunshine for a while, skimming stones across the water.
Some time later, we arrived in Christchurch, in the evening. We have bought ourselves a patch of holiday park to call our own for the next two nights, so we get showers, a pool and loads of associated benefits, wahey! It also allows us to catch a bus into the centre tomorrow and properly look around the city, which we are both keen to do as it is almost impossible to do when you have a car in tow!

Happy Halloween everybody!

Luge

Imagine climbing into a fibreglass toboggan on wheels, checking your brakes are working, then zooming off down a steep polished concrete ramp at full speed. Oh, you are at the top of a mountain too, overlooking NZ's adventure capital, Queenstown.
Today dawned blue and gold so we headed for the gondala that carts people up the mountain looming over Queenstown and Lake Wakitipu. After boarding, we soared upwards through the pine trees in our little plastic cube, with epic view across the Remarkables and the lake. Once up top, we were fitted out with helmets (brilliantly colour-coordinated with our hoodies) and given instructions on stopping. Always handy, that.
There were two routes, scenic and advanced. We had to do a scenic one first to prove competence and whizzed down it with no permanent injury. I managed to rather spectacularly spin off track on a corner and career into the fence but I'm used to bruises by now.
We had bought five goes, so after the scenic slope we had a practice run of the advanced before our competition began. We had three races. Only one could win. Who would it be?
Both outrageously confident, we set off from the top. I raced ahead, taking the corners at breakneck speed. Alex drew up alongside and for one brief instant managed to ovetake me...but then I got back in the lead at the next corner and was laughing all the way to the finish line!
Second go down, luge car rattling along as if it was going to shake itself apart, we kept side by side, each edging forward a little then slowing on the corners. Finally, on a straight about halfway down, Alex took over my position and try as I might, I could not get up enough speed to overtake him again.
Last race, the tiebreaker. The guy supervising our cart usage was amused by our attempts to best each other. We set off from the top, down the slope and into the first corner. Steeply turning, I took the inside while Alex whizzed around the outside. The first ramp was approaching and the speed we could get from that would determine the winner...Argh! I wheelied my cart around the ramps following corner and smelt burning rubber as Alex flew into the lead yet again! I couldn't catch up and he waved at the cameras as he crossed the finish line ahead of me.
After our exhilarating racing moment, we sat and admired the view for a while. We were looking straight down over an evergreen forest, across the massive lake of Queenstown which was a steely blue colour and at the higher peaks of the snowy Remarkables. The radio forecast snow last night and we could see the fresh dusting on the lower slopes. Bizarre, as it was warm and sunny on our mountain.
We took the gondala back down in order to get back to our car before its parking ran out and then moved on to grab a good lunch at the food court. Curry goodness was had by all and we are now very full of food.
Eeep! Another siren just went off right outside!

All good, its fine. No one started running for their lives. All the odd noises and emergencies that no one cares about are things that definately should be mentioned to strangers so as not to panic them unnecessarily!
We are heading on to Dunedin this afternoon. It is right across the country on the opposite coast -this is as far down as we go! It can only get warmer from here, yay! We thought we'd update the blog in case we stop half way across and have zero signal due to elevated landmasses.

Hope all is well back home and everyone is doing good. Love to all xxx

Driving

With much sadness, we left Wanaka to continue on around the South Island. Monday was a Public Holiday (Labour Day) so the roads were busy but it was nice to see so many natives. We drove straight onto Queenstown and while driving, the rain started. Having had three beautiful sunny days, Alex tempted trouble by putting our raincoats in the boot, instead of on constant standby on the car seats as they have been since we left in Newt. Of course, the perpetual downpour we then endured yesterday shall be attributed to Alex. Grr.
Anyways, we arrived in Queenstown which appeared through the rain to be as lovely as Wanaka, if a bit more bustling and people-filled. Once we had located parking spots, we took a stroll along the waterfront and then gave up on trying to be scenically interested due to freezing conditions and aforementioned downpour. We ventured instead into the Mall in a hunter-gather mission of sustenance. Alex had some nasty McDonalds meal for comparisons sake between NZ and the UK. The verdict was that the burger actually resembled the picture, and felt cleaner to eat. No comment. I, on the other hand, opted for a curry from the food court which was very yummy. After eating, we wandered around the shops looking at the range of clothes available and prices, as we will both probably need to purchase some at some point! Alex got a brilliant green hoodie with NZ slang on it for the summer.
After moshing about Queenstown for a few hours in the rain, we realised that all the things we wanted to do there pretty much demanded good weather. In a snap descision, we decided to move on and attempt the mega drive to Milford Sound and hope for good weather the day after (today) in which to see it. Milford Sound is not that far away from Queenstown, geographically. However, there happens to be a rather large mountain range running between the two, making the drive 291km more than would be necessary if you had the bonus of wings.
With the aid of an energy drink (luminous green and fruity) we miraculously managed the entire drive and outran the rain! We camped overnight in a DOC site in the woods and then this morning drove the last little bit to the Sound. The environments we are driving through are crazy. We have passed well over a million sheep and their progeny. Most of the drive was in a basin-like valley surrounded by huge mountains called The Remarkables, all snow and jutting peaks. We passed a few kilometres of gentle rolling hills covered in golden-red grass tussocks (imaginatively named 'Red Grass Tussock Conservation Area') and also scrubland and lakes. Once in Fiordland, we marvelled at the views and bought passage on one of the Milford Sound cruises.
This was well worth it. One of the best boat trips I have ever taken, we were steered around the tranquil waters of the inner Sound to the edge of the Tasman as it smashed against the rocks. We saw the vertiginous peaks of the mountains surrounding the blue-green waters. Waterfalls cascading down from hundreds of metres up in the air and misting down across the water. Fur seals basking on the rocks in the sunshine and tiny little crested Fiordland penguins hopping over the rocks and swooping through the water. There were many pictures taken and when we have a better internet connection we'll get right on uploading some photos.
Once we had disembarked, we started the drive back to Queenstown. We are now parked up for the night about 30km outside of Queenstown and having lucked out on the weather today for our trip, we're hoping for similar again tomorrow for our second go at Queenstown.

Wanaka

We had tasty breakfast today, making full use of the kitchens at the campsite - scrambled eggs, beans, toast. Yum! Anyways, thus fortified for a while at least, we set off to 'Have-a-Shot' just outside of Wanaka, in order to test our aim and various projectile weapons. First up was archery. Now, I had a bit of an advantage here having practiced weekly for a couple of years at the local shooting range, but here we were equipped with bows, arrows and targets. It was excellent fun and reminded me how much I miss the sport. After a few quick tips Alex was shooting away like a pro and I managed to get my eye in and land some good target practice. I will not reveal end results (being a good sport and all) but surfice to say I may have ended up with just a few more points than Alex did...
Next up was the rifle range. Now, this scared me. I dislike guns. I dislike their use and their purpose. However, Alex had done this before and we had quite the competition going by now. After instruction on loading and aiming and all that jazz, we set to.
 

Bang! Quite a noise, yet much easier than bows to aim! I managed an entire target sheet with holes all gathered in the middle. Top points to me! Alex tried to get a bit fancy and aim without a rest, so lost what would have been his lead.
Finally, we took a turn at the driving range with the golf. Now, I do not see the point in golf, other than as a social sport. I can whack the ball, but that is pretty much it. I also did a few classic try and miss swings. Doh. Alex was hitting the balls all over the range, in the attempt to hit the TV at 100m and so win us $45. Alas, it didn't happen, although he did get to a very impressive 160m.
Once we had finished indulging the need to shoot things, we headed off to Puzzling World, an oddity park full of illusions and mindtricks, as well as a massive maze. We managed to complete the maze (eventually) which was on two levels and involved finding four towers in a particular order. We managed the towers reasonably well, the hard part was then trying to get out again! When we finally emerged, we had trod at least 3-5km and were exhausted. We recharged with a slab of chocolate cake and some brilliant puzzles in the cafe, then headed into the illusion area. First up was a room of holographic pictures that leapt out at you as you passed. Then, the worlds only 'Room of Following Faces', where large casts of famous people's face sline the walls and their concave nature causes them to follow you intently about the room - not just their eyes, but their entire head!
 

After pictures with Mandela and Van Gogh respectively,we headed on into the Balance Room. Oh, was this odd! The whole room is on a tilt, so that you walk upright, but appear to be slanting over...it was so hard! We kept falling down the room and banging into the walls!

 

It really messes with your head. There were optical illusions on the wall as well, to further confuddle your poor brain, so we had anti-grav chairs and water flwoing the wrong way to contend with as well.
Wrenching our way out of that room, we went to the Ames Room, which is how the hobbits were created in Lord of the Rings - it appears to be a normal room, but when filmed a person on one side appears to be too large to fit inside while the other person on the opposite side is so tiny they cannot reach the ceiling!

We also explored (this is going to sound odd) the toilets - where an illusionist motif painter has a replica Roman bathroom just outside of the real toilets.

 

Lastly, we tried some silly poses around the meandering buildings of Puzzling World, just for fun.
Once we had returned to our campsite, we had a full-on sort of the car. We cleaned it out and got it spick and span. I was also made to streamline my lugguge, which was a traumatic experience. I am now in mourning for the things which I will have to send home in order to lighten my load. We made an epic amount of dinner and then got sociable - the dining room was full of people who all wanted to chat, so we have been in here for about 3 hours swapping stories and travel routes with various people, from Scotland, LA and Germany! It all started when our 'next-door neightbor' in the campsite asked me a question...even though he seems incapable of hearing my answers! They have all gone now though and we are going to bed after I have finished the blog - Alex is currently dancing around the kitchen/dining room area with the fish slice, attempting to defend himself from the overlarge moths flying around the ceiling. There is an all out defensive going on here!

Updated Flickr with lots of shiny new photographs, also, hopefully sorted the comments issue (again).

Blue

New Zealanders hate possums. I am talking real hate here, not the namby-pamby way in which people throw it into their sentences, but proper burning, loathing disgusted hatred. As such, many of them have taken to driving in the darker hours solely for the purpose of swerving and hitting possums out of existence. Today, on the road from Fox Glacier to Wanaka, we have passed no less than 52 dead possums on the road. What is more disturbing, is that many of them were in such a good state that they may have been sleeping. This means they were probably all hit within the last twelve hours. New Zealanders really hate possums.

On other things however, blue is an apt word to sum up our trip today. We set out from Lake Matheson, marvelling at the view of Mt Tasman and Mt Cook gleaming away in the morning sunlight. To our delight, it continued to get both sunnier and warmer throughout the journey, so we had lots of stop offs. First up, we had elevenses at Knight's Point, an elevated lookout across the clear bright blue Tasman Sea. This was at the calmest we have ever seen it. To the South-East was Tasmania, to the South-West was Antartica. We sat on a picnic bench and had sandwiches while watching the gentle waves cruise into the shoreline.
Next up, we stopped at the Blue Pools walk. This was a brief 30 minute trek (nothing after yesterday) through the forest and across some swingbridges to the blue pools of glacier water. Glacier water is blue due to the high concentration of mica suspended in it and these were so clear you could see the borwn trout hanging in the water as if there was nothing there. We sat on the pebble beach and regarded the mountains and played with the glittery sand. Back at the car, we made lunch and gave cheery helloos to every single person who wandered past the car.
We trugged on through the mountain roads (you know the drill by now, twisty, turny, steep, vertiginous...) and all the time we were just surrounded by epically beautiful snow capped mountains and waterfalls and creeks. Finally, getting closer to our destination, we drove past Lake Wanaka. Immense, edged with forest and spectacularly deep blue, we parked up and stared at it for a while. However, just around the corner, was Lake Hawea. This was breathtaking. It quite literally has exhausted my list of descriptives. We went down onto the beach by scaling some crumbly, rocky slopes. The beach was made up of smooth, flat stones, all pinks and greys, blues and greens, all with the ever-present mica making them glitter. The water was luminous blue, deep and intense, like Venetian glass. In front of us, across the lake, were the snowy mountains. Around the edges were mountains covered in brown-green scrub. Unbelievably the day was actually full on hot by now and it was so lovely.
Reluctantly, we left the lake and drove onto Wanaka town. This also captured our interest, due to it not being American-looking, but the buildings actually suiting the surroundings, resembling nothing more than an Alpine Village. We are treating ourselves (and the other tourists we occasionally come across) to have showers tonight, as we have foregone such luxuries for over a week now. As such, we are parked up in Wanaka Lakeside View Holiday Park, which I am happy to say has very nice showers, nothing like the pit of doom that passed for a shower in the last place we paid to stay. We have a view of blossom trees, deep blue lake and snowy mountains. It is so hot, I have put on shorts and a t-shirt. I even got out sandals and am seeing my bare feet for the first time in about a month. I also do not ache from yesterday's glacier hike, as I thought I would. Life is good.

Glacier

I am so exhausted. I also think my legs may be about to fall off. More on that in a moment.

The moment I finished updating the blog yesterday, a piercing siren rent the otherwise tranquil air of Franz Josef. We freaked, neither of us had a clue what it was about and started having visions of earthquakes. In looking about, we saw people running up the hill. We decided the safest place to be (later checked and recommended by the authorities on the web) was the car. Luckily, in this situation, the siren was just calling the firemen to the truck. We have since researched what to do in every possible emergency situation - namely earthquakes as NZ has small, 'unnoticable by human' ones every single day which often get big.

We went on to Fox Glacier village and Lake Matheson where we stayed the night. An iconic lake, nearly every NZ photo book or calender has a picture of this lake reflecting Mt Cook and Mt Tasman. We walked through the rainforest at twilight, looking for the perfect spot to take our own pictures. It was cool and mostly clear and so beautiful. Absolutely breathtaking.

We also bumped into (finally!) another Spaceship in the carpark! Yay! We got to swap our DVDs and meet a random Swiss dude who didn't fully understand what we were on about most of the time.


We started today bright and early, we had an appointment booked. We were going onto Fox Glacier! We arrived and got suited and booted, with massive heavy leather hiking boots and loads of layers. We were carted up the 6km track to the terminal face (the snout) of the glacier. From there, it was all on foot.

We had to hike along the valley, viewing ridiculously gigantic landslides and rockfalls as we went. Our informative guides kept up the banter, explaining the vivid blue colour of the pools nearby as due to the mica suspended in the water. Such a clear, intense blue. We reached near to the edge (about 300m away due to severe danger of being anywhere closer) and steered ourselves away from the freezing cold hunk of ice and into, get this - sub-temperate tropical rainforest. Bizarre. Warm, verdantly green, ferns and mosses, waterfalls of pure snow melt which we drank from - it was lovely. Except for all the stairs. Cut into the mountain, they were built to the size of the guide who makes them. We met one of them, working away. He was 6''7. That is a whole 12 inches taller than me. These steps were massive! There were so many of them! We trudged, up through the rainforest, melting gently in all our layers. We went through no-stop zones where landslides were so frequent, we had to be spotted across. After so many stairs, we reached the ice of the glacier's surface.

The glacier itself was gargantuan and really hard to judge scale on. It involved swoops and spike of dirty white ice, all glowing eerily blue from deep within. The striations on the surface were grey and red - grey from the 'rock flour' of grinded rocks and red from Uluru in Oz! Incomprehensibly large. We all strapped our crampons onto our feet (I managed to do so in a way which our guide had only seen once before and she thought it was hilarious that I essentially reversed her instructions on how to do them. Doh.) and picked up our 'alpenstock' (read: mountain stick) then we set off. More steps ensued. In order to get about, the guides are equipped with pick axe with which they hack away at the ice, creating steps which can be climbed.

The glacier is not smooth. No Fox's Glacier Mint this, instead, picture cravasses, deep holes, hills and valleys, swoops and dives. All covered with fingernail sized chunks of ice, glowing faintly blue. It is like walking on a very large, very solid, blue Slush Puppy drink. We tramped about, up the glacier, down the glacier. Near its snout we explored caves of blue ice and walked along a cravasse. Waterfalls and rivers swooshed along nearby as we literally made our own path across the surface. It is certainly a unique environment! Being in a deep ice cave is like standing within blue Turkish Delight. The walls are smooth to look at, yet you can peel huge translucent crystals off the walls with your fingers. They look like waves, sculpted from ice. It was amazing.

We spent 4 hours hiking about on the ice, after our 1 hour hike up the mountain. Of course, we had to hike down too, and by the end of that walk, everybodies legs were shaking. I have personally never been so happy to see bus seats. So much effort goes into it, it is so much harder than we were prepared to deal with, yet so worth it.

We had a pizza back at Fox Glacier village, now we are heading back to the Lake to get an early night. Exhausted! There is going to be pain in the muscles tomorrow, but such is life. 

Wekas

After the sunset, we stood outside the car for a bit in the absolute darkness looking at the dome of twinkles above. There are definately more stars in the Southern Hemisphere. No question about that. No recognisable constellations or patterns, we just stood and gawped. However, the temperature on the coast really takes a dive after sunset, so it was rather chilly. We got back in the car pronto and went to sleep.
Nest day, we awoke and breakfasted while watching the hilarious Wekas. These are flightless birds, bigger than ducks, with individual distinguishing features. One, for example had scarlet legs, while another was sporting particularly bushy white eyebrow streaks. They are meant to be quite rare, but we have seen about 6 of them now. These two were zooming round the flax plants over the hills at top speed. I'm not sure what the one had done to offend the other, but they were really going for it, like marathon racers. It was hilarious to watch!
We visited the seals again before we left, seeing them plop in and out of the water and heave up onto the rocks from the foamy sea. The little ones were playing together and racing about quite fast, considering their transportation limitations on the land. A few were still just sunbathing as they had been the day before!
We also ran into a fellow campervan driver we had met in Nelson, so had a brief catch-up and then we moved on.
We drove down the coast and got to the Punakaiki National Park, where we parked up in order to sea a biazarre natural phenomenon. This was spectacular - Pancake Rocks! It occurs when limestone and mudstone layer up and the mudstone is eroded, leaving limestone 'pancakes'. The sea, gushing in and out of the rocks at high tide (minutely calculated so we could see them at their best! Skills!) was awesome! The rocks have formed giant blowholes and cave systems, so you could stand and watch a huge wave swoop into the rocks and then boom out of the blowhole in a resounding crash. It was excellent and the walkway was pretty cool too, weaving in and out of the rocks. Back in the carpark, we encountered Wekas again, hiding in the bushes around our car. They are so curious, they come out and start tapping at the car and giving you the oddest looks.
We continued along the coastal road, which was beautiful, with views right out across the waves. We stopped for lunch and once again, practically stumbled on an entire Weka nest. This was a huge (comparatively speaking) complex of flax plants with their leaves woven together to make rounded dens. Inside, was the parents, the aunts and uncles, as well as a few chicks and an adolescant bird. The teen was a total poser, stealing bread from Alex and then dancing about for my camera. The chicks were tiny, fluffy black things on legs and stoof in the shadows of the nest, chirping. The father was a massive one with angry red legs and big feet. The others were delicate looking and speckled brown and rushed in and out of the flax stealing bread.
We reached Greymouth, one of the only settlements of any sizable note down this side of South Island (due again to the Gold Rush) and had some amazing fish and chips while sitting on the jetty looking out at the whitebait fishers. They are all obsessive over a minute little white fish, which has a fishing season of about one month. They all sit there with their nets for hours - whitebait is a delicacy round here, although we have yet to sample any, due to its massive cost for what seems like a tiny herring.
After Greymouth, we moved on to Hokitika, the last proper town before Invercargill on the very bottom of the South Island. Here we stocked up on groceries and petrol before finding a remote spot to settle for the night. It poured all night long with ferocious intensity, the winds howling around the car. It was so dark it was impossible to see anything, although, amusingly, we did catch sight of a Weka poking the tyres just before the light faded!

Today then, we awoke to blue skies and a burning heat from the sun! After a quick breakfast, we went back into Hokitika to do some craft sighting. We wandered round a gold nugget museum/shop/gallery and marvelled at how incredibly expensive it was. Then we sauntered round some jade carvings (this is one of the prime jade supply areas in the whole of NZ). We watched a glass craftsman working at the furnace and curling the molten glass into shining curls representing ferns. Lastly, we visited a Kiwi House, where they have a captive breeding program to see these birds. As they are the national emblem of NZ, and many other random NZ creatures were there too, we had a look in. We saw tuataras, which have not changed since the dinosaurs and which can live for over 300 years! Also, giant eels being fed, which was horrible. They are such manky creatures - nasty to think they were in the cave water we tubed down in Waitomo! Then we saw the Kiwis. They are crazy birds! We are glad we have seen them, because if we had heard their call in the forest, alone in the car in the middle of the night...well, suffice to say they sound like someone being murdered, horribly. They are so loud! It is the noise used for the raptors in the Jurassic Park films. They skitter about in the dark, running with such an odd gait and scuffle noise. They have ridiculously long beaks which they poke into the ground looking for bugs. They make funny grumbling, huffing noises too. Freaky if we come across them in the wild, in the dark!
After leaving Hokitika, we drove down towards the glacier country -this road hugs into the Southern Alps instead of the coastline. Cue more twisty bendy roads. Also, bizarrely, the straightest flattest road we have yet come across. It is as if the Romans turned up, tutted at the NZ natives roads and went to work to show them how its done.
Now, we are in Franz Josef! We can see a solid river of white ice creeping down between two mountains and the sky is crystal blue. The sun is actually burningly hot, but strangely, there is still drizzle. We are going to have a snack and a walk down to the glacier. Then onto Fox glacier, which is our chosen destination for some glacier high jinks!

Seals

I write this from a sun-soaked beach, bathed in the last rays of the day as the sun sinks behind the granite boulders lining the shore.
It has been a good day. We awoke in the benighted campsite at which we stayed last night and were immediately plagued by the sandflies again. After fully taking advantage of the site's superior cooking facilities (more than one cooking ring! Luxury!) we drove away from 4 River Holiday Park, hopefully forever! The drive took us to the West Coast country, an area which got ever more dramtically beautiful the further we went through it. The mountains grew larger, the forests denser and the river we followed was nothing short of immense.
The Buller Gorge and river (the Maori name for which means 'deep and swift') is a granite lined area of curvy boulders, huge swathes of water-cut rock and tumbling waterfalls. The river itself is blue and rapid, with white curlicues all over the surface. We followed this round to the Buller Gorge Swingbridge, the longest in NZ.
Feeling akin to Indiana Jones, we took to the bridge in single file (it was very narrow). Balancing on the thin bits of metal, swaying high over a swishing river and very hard-looking rocks was a great experience, if mildly nervewracking. Once safely over the other side, we embarked upon a track through the rainforest.
This took us along a vaguely well-travelled path lined with boardwalks looking out across the fault line revealed by an old earthquake. We then decided to take another track, leading past open mine shafts and remaining gold claims. This track had probably only been traversed once, in the distant past and was more like an intense trek through the rainforest.
Still, we got to see a fair bit of gold country as it was before the rush caused everything to be cut down and forced to go into regeneration. The West Coast was primarily colonised in the first place due to gold and so it was a glimpse of days gone by.
Just to prove how long it was since someone last took this path, the promised bench at the end of it was nothing more than a rotten plank merging with the forest hillside behind it!
Having safely made it out of the rainforest and ended up, miraculously, where we had parked the car, we had lunch. We also had, (no exageration) 100 flies join us in the car for lunch. So ensued a grimy and horrible massacre, of which neither of us is proud (well, maybe Alex is, a bit. He has a thing against flying bugs.) Anyway, now our car is littered with insect corpses, so we had to have a clean out but somewhere where more wouldn't just come in. We drove on, admiring the beautiful surroundings and crazy roads (cliff hugging road over a raging torrent anyone? Or how about a lofty viaduct soaring over a granite cliff into the mists of the river?)
We stopped to have a brush out and a doze, as the tramping about earlier had tired us out. Then we continued on our way to Westport. This town is another grid system, based on American architecture and generally odd looking due to its mix of styles.
We continued through to the Tauhanga Beach, to go seal watching. There is a rookery (breeding spot) for NZ fur seals here and we came to see them. This section of the drive was stunning and we have both fallen in love with the area. Coastal views accross the sea, out to rugged granite formations in a haze of seaspray and blinding sunshine.
The hills are gentle and low, covered in Herakeke (Maori for flax, which they use for everything) and palm trees. After a brief walk, we came to the viewing platform.
The seals were so gorgeous! The rocks below formed a sort of natural enclosure, with rock pools and little watrefalls over bigger rocks when the tide spilled over. The seals themselves were almost indistinguishable from the rocks, but you can start to pick them out as they move. They were all draped accross the rocks, bathing in the sunshine. Their coats had gleaming highlights where the sun was catching the hairs and they got up every so often and flopped off over the rocks in that unmistakable seal-gait. This time of year, they are mostly weanig off last years pups and giving birth to new ones. There were some tiny seals playing on the rocks. One crept over the rock and looked as if it were worried about the drop to the next rock. In actual fact, it was planning a jump onto its companion!
Since  then we have parked up for the night, by the sea. We had dinner and are just sitting, watching the sun go down now. It is by far the most beautiful place we have yet come across.

Also, in exciting news, today our speedo reached 2000km! We have been travelling for a month now and it just keeps getting better!

Net connection is a bit unreliable, so this is yesterdays post - if we have any net tonight I'll do a post of today - pancake rocks and wekas, anybody?

Chores

Today, I awoke, bright and early at 7am. Alex was just crawling back to bed having got up at the crazy hour of 4am to stream the F1 race and possible championship-decider onto the pc for live viewing from Brazil. As such, while I was rustling up breakfast (Milo cereal and our fabulous new discovery, powdered milk!) to assuage the hunger, he was curled up in the duvet, his head barely visible. In fact, its possible he transformed into a duvet, as the only real Alex-identifiying feature was the voice that mumbled out of it every so often in response to my chattering.
Once we were both awake and fed, the morning began in earnest. We headed off out of Nelson to find the recommended mechanics on from Tahunanui Beach. After abandoning poor Newt to the car doctor, we wandered off into the industrial district (which is where we now found ourselves) and tried to amused ourselves for an hour. This was not too hard, as we found a Homebase-style warehouse to walk around gawping at patio furniture. Luckily, it also had a brilliant little cheap cafe inside too, so after boring of the furniture (0.5 seconds) we had coffee and chai. Yum. We also had an in-depth discussion of English Politics for some random reason, much to the interest of the friendly staff who thought it amusing that we both had 'Kent' on our clothes and had also lived in Kent. We are both thinking of getting new jumpers, or else working out some sort of advertising fee from UKC for our patriotic duties overseas.
Back at the garage, we discovered the mechanic had replaced the battery which was epically destroyed and also some of the cables which were frosted in green and blue battery acid. Even better, he sorted it all out for us and charged Spaceships the bill, which they agreed to, as they should, since we had nothing to do with it. Thank-you Spaceships! On we drove.
Into town again we popped back to the library in order to re-charge and continue looking at the books. It was during this time however, that Nelson struck us. Out of the window, I saw the ticket guy at the car. We tried, we failed, we were ticketed. Grr.
Deciding Nelson was no longer for us, we abandoned New Zealand's 2nd oldest settlement and headed towards Westport, as the weather seemed set to stay rainy for the next week and so we will come back to Abel Tasman on the way up again. Bizarrely, we were assured, yet again, by the native Kiwi mechanic that 'this weather is not usual' and no-one knows why its raining so much. We know. It is because we came. Soon, we shall patent this and become millionaires, as we can induce countries to rain even if they are in draught. Oz is going to worship as as gods when we get there and it starts pouring.
The drive took us through increasingly rugged mountains, limestone jags playing host to millions of tiny waterfalls, all meeting up in the Buller River. We have stopped for the night at a campsite (5 days without a shower is more than people living in a small enclosed space should have to bear) and will continue on the road tomorrow.
Argh. This campsite. I shall find out what its name is when we leave so it can be properly shamed.
We drive in, pay a surprisingly cheap rate, pull up in a spot. It is practically empty, all well and good. It seems like a nice place. There is a view over the gorge and river, the other side looks over forested mountains. It is all to lull you into a false sense of security. I go for my long-awaited shower. First, I spend about 15 minutes walking all round the massive site just trying to locate the showers. When I finally find them, they are not the luxury I was hoping for. A metre square cubicle, with badly locking door. A slippery floor and freezing cold air. No lights at all. To make this dark box of cold misery worse...the shower was on a timer! Two dollars for SIX minutes! Daylight robbery. Or in this case, dark robbery. Grr. What was even worse, is after Alex got back from his shower, looking unbelievably relaxed and pleased with himself, he had managed to find the closet thing to Heaven in a shower on the other side of the campsite. The meter was broken, so he paid no money for it. It was entirely not fair. I dislike the campsite.
There are also sandflies. Many of them. This is amusing, as Alex has taken to sitting clasping the open jar of Marmite to him, to ward off the blighters. He dislikes Marmite, but so do the flies. He makes faces. It is hilarious.

Flying

In a rush of air, we tipped away from the platform. Strapped into what was essentially a comfy chair, wearing crazy hats for no particular reason, we set out across the forested mountains. This time however, we were not in a car at ground level, but over 150 metres above the canopies, with views over the mountains to pastureland glowing green in the afternoon light and even over to the turquoise waters lapping at the sand in a far away bay. It was so tranquil that high up and even at 92 miles an hour, the forward zoom of our flying fox ride was in no way, shape or form scary, just brilliant fun and a new perspective on the landscape we've been driving around so much. We took the ride at Happy Valley just outside Nelson, it is the longest zipwire in the world at 1 mile long.
It was excellent to fly over the treetops in the sunshine.

However, now it is raining again. Shocking, I know. We decided that Sunday deserved a special breakfast so we sat and made apple pancakes in the carpark, which attracted a few odd looks from early morning dogwalkers. Its a popular spot for random walkers - turns out we are very close to the geographical centre of NZ! Trust us to not realise despite reading through the guidebooks and million or so leaflets repeatedly. So we shall probably go and have a look at the exact center a bit later. In the meantime we had an issue: the darn car stopped working again. This time round, it was not even our fault! Nothing was on that should not have been, there was no logical reason for the car battery to have died. Logical reasons however, do not matter to cars. At all.
The AA guy suggested we get it checked out at an electricians, so we have to go first thing tomorrow morning. Luckily, we were not really planning on moving on instantly anyway. Our hopeful next destination, Abel Tasman, really depends on gorgeous weather so we are in no rush to leave for the National Park in the drizzle.
For the rest of today then, we are here in Nelson, hanging out in the library. This is good, as it gets us out of the car where we are usually trapped when it rains, and it also puts us in the path of books, which have been missed due to slim packing.

Oh! We finally opened the CookieTime packet and those cookies definately live up to their advertising promise. So good. Good thing they are the size of small plates, and come in packs of nine.

Nelson

Today, we awoke and somehow entered into an hour+ long debate about the pros and cons of war in the modern world. Over beakfast. Yes, we are a bit strange.
Anyways, once we had theoretically found satisfactory answers to the worlds major problems, we went into Nelson to visit the largest bead stockest in the world. Doesn't sound very exciting, but this place was a treasure trove. Over 10,000 different types of beads, ranging from a 1 cent plastic bauble to a 1000 dollar Roman pottery shard with a hole drilled through the top. Sacrilage to the archaeologist within of course, but pretty nifty as well! The idea follows th eline that you pick out your beads, play with them for a while to make a design you like, string it all together with the help of the in-store jeweller team and then walk away with your own personally designed piece of jewellery. This was very exciting. I am now the proud owner of a hemaetite, paua shell, teal and red venetian glass necklace with silver fixings. Its pretty, it reminds me of NZ and it was bargainous too! Alex was bamboozled by the choice of beads available, so decided not to make anything in the end. The guys beads did tend towards the bone material, which he was not too fond of.
After caving in and buying a giant pizza for lunch (you never know how much you will miss oven baked food until you lack an oven!) which we ate by the beach, we decided to go in search of adventure.
We found it. Booked into an afternoons quadbiking, we have spent the majority of today hurtling around a boulder strewn, muddy, wet, sheep infested mountain at high speed on top of hulking red quadbikes the size of a small rhino. It was excellent fun! SO exhilarating, we have decided to get quadbikes ourselves at the first opportunity. We had a picnic on top of the mountain with our guide Greg, who was brilliant and gave us informative and funny commantary about the German Princess who owns the island you could see offshore. I even managed to jump a ditch and fly over it, all four wheels off the ground! Alex and Greg were amazed.
Also, Greg found out about my love of lambs and took us to see a newborn that had popped out one hour previously. It was so small and wobbly on its legs! Then he took us to a small enclosure on the farm where they kept lambs that had been rejected and let us hold one lamb each. It had really soft ears, and tiny ringlets, and made small 'Maaaing' noises.
This whole day has been awesome. We are parked up at the Miyazu gardens again, ready to head into town tomorrow morning for the famous Saturday Market.

Hope everyone is good! Thank-you very much for the lovely comments about my writing! :)

South

Wahey! Okay, so we got to Wellington, both instantly fell under its spell and then realised one very annoying fact. Wellington, by car, is a bad thing. The streets are narrow, car-lined, turny and steep. There is no free parking, or even cheap parking. So in a shock spontaneous decision, we booked passage on a ferry to the South Island for that evening and jumped aboad. We are making plans to return on a city tour (sans inconvienient car) in late November. In the meantime, we were on one of the most picturesque and famous ferry cruises in the world.
The three hour journey took us through the choppy aquamarine waters of the Cook Strait and then into the Queen Charlotte Sounds, thickly forested inlets and mountains, all aglow in the evening light. We arrived in Picton at about 9.30 and drove off into the night.
Luckily, we found a spot to pull over in for the night quite quickly and then marvelled at the densely packed sky. At night, the pitch black above is scattered with stars, so many more than in the Northern Hemisphere. With no recognisable constellations, but a clear view of the Milky Way we spent a while trying to take long exposure shots from the roof of the car.

The next morning, we set off in the sunshine and drove through the mountainous regions out of Picton and towards Nelson. We decided to take a random road off the main highway towards Okiwi Bay in the hope of good scenery. Well, the road was so crazily bendy it was like constant deja vu. Seriously, curve around one bend and you are staring into the face of another, identical bend. It made both our heads dizzy. With a bit of a drop on the one side, and a landslide prone cliff on the other, we were climbing further and further up a mountain with no visible destination. Eventually, we even hit a cloud, and could see no further than about 10 metres in any direction. It made for exciting driving!
We made it (in one piece) to Okiwi Bay to discover...a sleepy village with a large, beautiful bay, sheltered by forested mountains wreathed in mist and a pebble beach covered in creamy pink and purple shells. We set up for the night at the local holiday park, as large signs forbade us from parking anywhere else and we were not driving back up that road in the dark!
We happily ate banana cake purchased earlier that day ( and meant to last for a good few days to come, ahem) and planned the next few days ahead.

Today, we left the campsite and drove back down the mountain, which was happily mist-free. After seeing nothing but trees for kilometres, we arrived in Nelson. Nelson is a beach town filled with arts and crafts in an established wine region. After arriving, we headed straight for the supermarket, this time an alive and kicking Woolworths, although with green instead of red.After a substantial restocking of our Spaceship's larder (in which we have now included classic Kiwi buys such as 'CookieTime', 'Milo' cereal and 'Pineapple Chews' for long car journeys) we headed to Tahunanui beach to enjoy the sun. This beach was especially engaging, due to the view - overlooking the long golden sands and the clear waves, were giant snowy peaked mountains. It was quite bizarre, but spectacular at the same time. We sat for a while, building a garden of shells before moving on.
We decided to visit the WOW museum, an oddly coincedental pairing of interests that had our names on it. 'WOW' - or 'World of WearableArt' is a gallery combining wearable art pieces as well as a classic and vintage car collection. Wow is the right word - the costumes are so fantastically detailed and so creatively put together that they are amazing to behold. The exhibition was cleverly done, and the clothes held both Alex and I entranced. One dress was made exclusively of recycled clear plastic, another was constructed of geometric triangles. One was made of over 1000 Chinese paper fans, while yet another was crafted from gleaming metal. The range was inspiring and it would be a fun, if intensive competition to enter. On the car side, they were literal carriages with engines instead of horse, shiny and powerful. We looked them over, but they could hardly compare to the genius of the WearableArt.
With hunger starting to stir and a need to find a place to sleep encroaching on our afternoon, we drove out to the Miyazu Gardens, a Japanese garden on the outskirts of Nelson. After touring the garden in its meditative state, we have parked up in the carpark and are set to cook our dinner. Then, we shall have to sample the CookieTime. We have already seen full size planes completely coated in pictures of these cookies, so they better meet expectations!

Interesting

Today, we have been doing the long drive down from Tongariro National Park, where Mt Ruapehu is situated, down towards Wellington. We are south of Levin at the moment, having holed up for the night before continuing onto the capital tomorrow. As such, most of todays highlights include continued sightings of lambs (at which I coo gratuitously and Alex licks his lips), lots of white cars turning up out of nowhere (seriously, why are all Kiwi cars white?) and us running out of all food excepting breakfast. So, instead I include a little selection of interesting things we have noticed here; 
1. Cillit Bang, of the product that provides brilliant amusment value with its adverts, is found in NZ too, but under the name of Bam!
2. About nine out of every ten Kiwis has a personalised number plate on their car. Favourites include: OD1, LUVM3, R0YA1 and SK1.
3. The supermarket we have been patronising, Pak 'n' Save, has bright yellow and black insignia and resembles the unlikely offspring of an Ikea Warehouse and a LIDLs. If flat pack furniture and random Eastern European produce had children, of course.
4. The radio has just gleefully pronounced the results of a survey on accents in which the Kiwi accent was rated as second after British most attractive English-speaking accent.
5. The place we have parked tonight is a random field. Insignificent apart from the two magnificent roosters that are waiting outside the doors of the car. They follow us around when we leave the car. They stare at us from right outside the windows. Our only relief from their baleful glares is now to be found in darkness.
6. These are not the only bizarre birds hanging about strange places. We came across a turkey, happily grazing at the side of a road, no farmstead or any other turkeys to be seen. Not to mention all the other crazy, weird and wonderful birds that NZ has just casually strolling about.

That is all I can remember right now.
Alex has been working on a googlemap that shows our trip in detail, which is a cool little detail we'll add to the blog when its complete.
So far 1350km over the North Island, onto Wellington tomorrow!

Mountain

Delay due to unprecedented number of mountains in the area...no internet signal.

Now, lets get this straight. I am not a religious person, but yesterday, I found myself practically preying. We'll get to that in a moment.
Yesterday started, cold and grey. We decided to head to Mt. Ruapehu as Taupo is a dead loss when its raining. The rain was so dense we didn't even realise we were surrounded by mountains until the morning when the sky cleared!
We piled on the clothing, after I was frogmarched to a camping store to purchase thermals. Honestly.
We drove up through the outskirts of the Tongariro National Park and turned a corner and BAM! Instant transformation from lush green forested mountains to huge, rugged white-capped peaks, wreathed in clouds.
We hot footed it up the mountain, following a nerve-wracking track with sheer drop-offs on either side and boulders the size of sofas casually propping up the side of the road after avalanches. Thick snow started to appear, we climbed up above the clouds.

I have never seen so much snow. Ever. A good 6 foot drift leant against the buildings, some of the slopes were just thick, powdered white. It was like walking through diamonds.
Ruapehu is an active volcano - the last eruption was in 2007! There are avalanche warnings peppering the mountainside and posters of surviving eruptions in the toilets.
Due to a gale that morning, the mountain was pretty much closed off unless you wanted to slide down it on a tray or in a bucket. We walked up it a little way.
Alex sunk up to above his knees at one point. That was hilarious. It was tiring walking!
We decided such effort meant we deserved a meal at the mountain snack shop and had some tasty hot food while hopefully waiting for the rental shop to open. Alas, it didn't, but we got Alex a groovy hat after extensive surveying of every hat-like option.
On the drive down, we passed a few signs for random tramp treks. One was for Tawhai Falls. We pulled up and went for a trek through the bush to look for the waterfall.
Along the way we found several semi-inebriated Americans. Semi-naked, semi-inebraited Americans. They were pysching themselves up for a leap over the waterfall, plummeting down to the icy (and I mean icy - snow trickling straight off the mountain as the source) water below.
At the base of the pool, I set up with my camera to take some pictures of the crazy people...possibly for their insurance company to look over later.
After they had all (miraculously) survived, not only the jump but the freezing water below which turned them all an interesting shade of blue, I turned to Alex.
'I want to do that' he says. Hence the preying.
Resigned to his need to throw himself off a 20m cliff over a waterfall, I armed myself with a hot water thermos, two towels and my camera. May as well record his last moments after all. I also needed to something to concentrate on, so I wouldn't yell 'Don't jump!' at the last moment and throw off his aim.
So prepared, we went to the Falls again. Alex whipped off his clothes and stood, only in his boardshorts at the top of the cliff, to the extreme consternation of a foreign couple standing there too (within the barrier). I rushed down to the pool and set up my camera. Another couple looked at me oddly as I scrambled over the rocks to be closer, with no doubt a slightly feverish looki in my eyes. They realsied why all of ten seconds later, when with a cheery wave, Alex launched himself off the top and tumbled in to he depths below!

Thankfully, the Americans had already prooved in their numerous numbers that the pool was deep enough for such antics, pretty much wherever you landed.
Alex survived and was duly covered in towels and force fed hot drinks.
Once the adrenaline had ceased to course quite so recklessly, we both sat on the roof of Newt and enjoyed the last rays of the evening sunshine gleaming on the peak of the mountain in front of us.
We stayed in a nearby camp park in order to get rid of our growing washing pile, have hot showers and charge all our gadgets.

There are three colours 2000m up on a mountain. The intense luminous blue of the sky, the blinding brilliance of the snow and the earthy borwn of the volcanic rock.
Today, we re-donned our warm clothes (never actually took them off, it was a very, very cold night) and drove back up the mountain. We hired snowboards, purchased our chairlift pass and awaited our instructor. After a 2 hour lesson, we were released on the slopes.
First off, snow is inordinately slippery, more so if you strap giant, flat boards to your feet. Second, once down, you have to get inventive in order to get back up again. Lastly, if you can't stop properly...you will get up close and personal with more snow than you ever realised existed.
Alex pretty much got into the flow of it instantly, due no doubt (as he keeps reasuring me) to his ten year experience with skateboards. I have the balance (just). I also have the weird desire to speed over snow. What I lack is any other ability. To stop, I chuck myself onto the ground. I find this technique works for me best because it has prevented me flying off the random, no barrier sharp and fast turns of the beginner slope. Yes, for some random reason the beginner slope is mental and aimed at weeding out the rubbish comapred to the amateur through Darwin-like principles of Survival of the Fittest.
After a while of landing in the snow every 3 metres, I was starting to get irate. It was beginning to hurt. However, we took a break and Alex gave me some tips, which made so much more sense than the instructors did. Anyways, so I was happily doing my zigzag turning down the slope when I stacked it again. No problem, except some out of control 6 year old and his dad on a solid plastic sledge were coming up behind me. At speed. 6 year olds, it turns out, lack aim. So do their fathers. It hit me right in my lower back which equals pain! After establishing that I could still feel and move all my limbs, and Alex had been prevented from giving the father a yelling at, we sat at the edge for a while. I have rather nice bruise developing on my back now and I'm rather stiff, but thats probably from the general cold and exhertion. After all, I was sitting in a natural icepack at the time!
We took a break from the slopes, then I returned my gear while Alex went down again, then we went on the chairlifts, towards to top of the mountain. We weren't allowed our gear up there anyway, as beginners, but we saw the epically beautiful scenery and admired the super-pros (who still fall!)

It was rather chilly, the snow was deep, icicles were forming down the sides of buildings and rocks. After hot drinks in the cafe, with sweeping views accross the valley, we headed back down the mountain and back to the car.
It was a gorgeous day, apparently the best of the season! Oooh, fun fact: the next mountain across the valley was the mountain used as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings.

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New pics have also been added.

Lakeside

We had stuff to sort out this morning, so we traversed the electricity stores of Rotorua looking for cigerette lighter power adapters to charge gadgets on the go...luckily, we found one! Now we just need to keep the car...
We were going to head to Whakarewarewa for some Maori cultural interaction, but we decided to delay that until its warmer, on the basis that we just could not take the smell of Rotorua any longer.
Instead, we headed out for Taupo.
One of the Maori myths goes along the basis that the son of the Earth and Sky, upon pushing his parents apart to create the world, floated along in his canoe on the water. He caught a giagantic fish. The South Island is his canoe, the North is the fish. Lake Taupo is meant to be the heart of the fish.

We are currently pulled up alongside this lake, at another of these free parking areas for vans. We have a view right out over the lake, complete with friendly ducks who have been following Alex about like devoted disciples. While I relax next to the lake, after my tasty (if cold, due to gas running out as meal was cooking...) dinner of pasta, tomato sauce and vege sausages (Yes! They have them here too! Not Quorn though, these ones are not so yum. In fact, kind of grim. Alex reckons they are pretty near identical to real sausages though. Called VegeDelight, which should have been suspicious from the start), I shall tell you about our journey.
Up hill and down dale yet again, we passed through a landscape of very high, very oddly shaped mountains, some even with snow glistening on the top. We diverted whenever the fancy took us. As such, we visited the Waikite Hot Pools.
These were brilliant. Six pools, public access, all of varying temperatures from 30 degrees to 46. Heaven. We soaked in the heat and looked around at the surrounding mountains and rainforest. Its a good life.
We also, bizarrely, met an alumnus from Kent Uni, circa 20 years ago! After a while reminiescing and comparing destinations, we sang a short round of 'Its a small world after all' and continued our merry way around the pools.
Continuing our journey down to Taupo, we were driving through dense fir forests when, wonder of wonders, we passed a field containing not one, but two alpacas! One caramel coloured, the other creamy, they responded to our whistles and pranced about for us a bit.
At another stop, we discovered more information than we ever thought existed about bees (thereby arming me with the credentials to back up my 'beekeeper' status should it become necessary...) and tasted about 10 different types of honey. Alex was going to move onto tasting the meads, but the place was closing for the night, so we figured we should get on. We purchased some Manuka and Burbage honey and hit the road again, reaching Taupo around 5.30.
We found the spot recommended by our fellow campers from yesterday and made friends with the new ones next to us here. Now for a spot of planning for tomorrow.

We have sorted and selected a few photos to put on FLickr - when we went to add more yesterday, *shock, horror* but we had exceeded the monthly upload already (three days in) and we had already filled half the account. So we are re-sorting for a bit of a Spring clean, as it were. Fitting, considering every other field contains lambs and calves, the ponds are full of ducklings and the ground is covered in bluebells and tulips. It is a little bizarre to be going into Spring instead of Autumn, but as such, the temperature has not yet differed from that we would be experiencing back home.

Please comment, we'd love to hear from you!

Pools
Bees

Adventure

Today has been a busy one.
We woke at 9, to brilliant blue skies and sunshine. We decided to zoom off straight away to get to a geyser that spouts at exactly 10.15am every morning. We even skipped breakfast in order to get there on time! What is the world coming to.
Anyhow, we got the location of the Geyser a little confused, and ended up up Hells Gate instead. This is a national park-like area which, for a small fee, allows you to wander the environs of typical Geothermal landscaped. I say wander - the gist of the sign at the entrance reads:
'Enter at own peril. DO NOT under any circumstances, even to rescue a puppy, leave the path, or you WILL fall through the thin crust into a fiery, steaming cave of sulphourous Hell torture.'

Like I say though, it was sunny so we continued on (though we did keep to the path). The land is bleached, parched white and grey with powdery yellow-green crystals huddling about the steaming craters and pools of intensely bubbling mud. The noise of popping, spludging goop at high temperatures, combined with the sulpherous steam was distinctly unnerving. Neither Alex or I can imagine why, on seeing that place for the first time, the Maori's first urge was to get into the water and take a bath.
There was a Maori guy at the end of the park, offering to give basic instruction in Maori carving, so I had a go and successfully (its recognisable...) carved myself a Maori stylised shark, meaning 'strength'.
We got back on the road and went to Okere Falls. It used to be used as a water turbine, now is a wild water rafting experience. We watched some rafts go over the 9m falls and explored the caves and surrounding forest. We also went searching for trout in the pools.
We stopped for lunch at the side of Lake Rotoiti, which means 'Little Lake' in Maori. The sun caught the min wavelets and made them sparkle. It was quite idyllic.

In the afternoon, we headed for Hanumana Spring. This place was magical. A stand of giant Redwoods kept the air light, cool and smelling of foliage in a pleasantly green manner. The ground was spongy with bracken and it led us on a lovely walk to the spring.

This was fascinating - a 15m rock hole, underwater, with water serenely welling out of it-a million gallons an hour! Yet so quietly and softly! The water was so clear as well. The river walk on the way back - you could see right to the bottom of the river, and the water actuallyu appeared to be turquoise. Tiny bubbling springs lifted up grey sand and floated it around. Black swans posed and tussled for picture space on the surface. It was beautiful.
Back at our little camping spot on the sulphur plains, we have got some ideas for our next destination from our fellow campervanners, parked nearby. They have just arrived in Rotorua from Taupo, our next major relocation destination. It is sounding gooood!

Random

There are a  few things about NZ in general that have caught our notice and been variously left out or forgotten about for blog entries.

1. Owls are called Moreporks or Rurus.
2. There are some seriously gigantic moorhens round here. The size of geese!
3. The big articulated trucks look like multi-coloured dragons.
4. Some of the birds are tiny, and yellow and they graze in the grass like sheep.
5. There are loads of birds. We have seen one cat in the entire time we have been here. Lots of dogs...no predatory creatures.

Other than that;
5. You cannot physically imagine smell. Especially one as bad as the smell that hangs around Rotorua. Rotten eggs does not cut  it. To really understand, you have to picture yourself in a beautiful garden, fragrant blooms, sunshine...then a sudden, unexpected gust of wind carrying a smell that turns your stomach upside down.
6. We turned out to be parked on the sulphur flats. Doh.

As to the horrible conditions of the past two days...we bought an extra duvet, a thermos flask and a large wodge of chocolate cake. What do you know, we woke up to sunshine and blue skies this morning, so the remedy of the chocolate cure-all is still alive and kicking!
We have wandered around Rotorua's Government Gardens today, looking at the boiling mud and splashing  pools. The steam coming of the lakes has a stench, and the whole surrounding area is chalky white, yellow and dead looking. Manuka bushes surround, tangled and scrubby.
We spent the morning luxuriating in a hot pool, so hot when you get in it is like your skin in melting. Its a good feeling after the pain had dissipated. Makes you positively lightheaded however! Makes you hungry as well, despite our celebratory 'its sunny again' breakfast of French toast and caramelised apples.

Spaceship

There have been loads of questions about the Spaceship - so here is a quick guide. Pictures will turn up, once we can charge the cameras!
Its a Toyota Lucida, automatic, bubble-like. It is also bright orange.
The back of the car is one giant storage unit, lifting up from within the car and holds our gear, our food and random junk. On top of the storage bits are foam bits that assemble to make a mattress. We can extend this out into a full size double bed by some nifty metal bars and wooden boards sliding together either over the middle chair, (which swings around to face forwards, backwards or out the side depending on what function you are going for), or out the back of the car. We have only extended it inwards so far, due to weather conditions. If it ever gets warm and sunny again, we have the option of an awning thing that can be attached over the back of the car.
There is a metal arm that swings out from the middle of the car and holds our gas cooker so we can make food. We have taken to using this out of the extended part of the back of the car instead, to shelter from rain when cooking.
The interior has curtains and lights, as well as a DVD player. If we see another Spaceship, we can swap our DVDs for theirs.

We have an alpha 2 berth, check it out on here:
www.spaceshipsrentals.co.nz

Monsoon

Yesterday was a bad day. One of those days that tries you.
We slept for longer than usual, obviously subconsciously aware of the day ahead. Anyway, we set off from Waitomo at 10am, having looked around the local museum to learn about glow worms (!) and, brilliantly, gone to see the angora rabbits being sheared. These rabbits are huge, with a good 8 inches of soft, pure white fluff to dig your fingers into.
I heartedly wished I had stolen one later, as it would have provided much needed warmth.
Anyways, we set off on the 160km drive to Rotorua. It continued to rain, as it had done so all morning, getting stronger and heavier with every half hour. The inside of the car was steaming up, there was water everywhere...it was slow going. We pulled over with 65km to go to our destination and cooked up some lunch from the back of the car, using the trunk roof as shelter from the immense amounts of water cascading out of the sky.
Ready to get going again, we got in, tidied up and buckled up. The car would not start.
The battery was dead, the lights were on, the entire 30 minutes we had been sat there had destroyed our chances of getting away again. The water kept on coming.
We asked the friendly Canadian couple parked up a short distance away if they had any jump cables, and despite their best efforts and kind nature, that was a no-go. We called the AA.
After a very long and tedious phone call, in which they quizzed us on every aspect of the car and our location, they agreed to send someone out. We were both soaked through, and freezing cold.
The AA guy turned up pretty snappily but the battery gave up the ghost with its final spark of life...leaving us stuck in a steadily more lake-like field and with the electric window stuck in open mode. We rigged up a towel to keep the worst of the water out and sat around waiting for a brainwave.
Thankfully, the spaceship is equipped with two batteries, one for the driving and one for the inside lights and DVD player. The AA guy had been jump starting the spare one, not the dead one, hence no engine working. Once the engine was running, (but us not actually realising that this was the case - AA guy thought we just had a mentally wired up car) we were advised to drive to Rotorua, stop for no reason on pain of not being able to get going again, and find an electrician.
We realised the issue of the batteries, so did not need the electrician. Once parked up in the miserable gravel free camper place, we sorted the car, stowed all the wet stuff in a bag and tried to get warm and dry again. We even hosted our own fabulous cooking program, 'Cooking from the Boot' with your hosts, Alex and Emily! In the wind and rain, we concocted a giant amount of hot casserole type food which we have named 'Newt Stew' in honour of the car. Made up of kumara, apple, onion, rice, pasta, chilli beans and sauce, it was darn good and filled a hole.
Next came the coldest night ever, with us stowed under the duvet in trousers, socks, legwarmers, scarves, jumpers, hats and gloves. In the morning, it was still raining. Still is now as a matter of fact, and its 1.30pm!
I have never seen such amounts of water and all the natives we meet keep commenting on how this is the worst Spring in 20 years. Gah.

We smelt Rotorua before we saw it. Sulphurous fumes waft through the air, even when tamped down by rain. For those who don't know sulphur, that mean rotten egg smell...constantly, and stronger all the time. It is a grid system town, full of motels and neon. It looks like small-town America, as demonstrated by the many teen dramas played out on the TV in the UK. We are going to get our stuff together, try and sort out a way of charging up the gadgets, and hopefully, find some way to insure tonight is not as miserably cold.

Caves

Cue your cannily fashionable morning wear - a neoprene body suit with fetching matching jacket, accessorized with a scarlet hard hat, a jazzy black and yellow harness and some funky-as green and black gumboots. (Unless you are Alex, in which case your wear blindingly white wellies. Point and laugh).
Get yourself attached to a cable and then throw yourself off of solid ground and abseil 37metres down a narrow, wet, creamy-white limestone hole. In the dark.
Once safely landing, and realising just how cold it is in a cave, go clambering over shards of spiky limestone. Look around you in wonderment as your headtorch lights up stalactites (down) and stalagmites (up).
Then jump off a ledge, in pitch black, strictly all torches off, attached to a zipwire in a cave filled with glow worms. Exhilarating does not cut it as descriptive enough.
Take a break drinking hot tea and supping on cake, kindly brought down by the guides. Swing your legs over the edge of the ledge, not knowing what is below. Then, once tea is done, grab a giant inflatable tube and launch yourself off again, landing in the water far below with an ear-rending crash.
I kid you not, but this water was cold. It redefined the meaning of the word cold. I have never been so freezing cold.
After hauling ourselves through the water, we stopped and floated, turning off our torches and allowing the current to take us back. It was like floating on a gondola through space. Thousands of twinkly glow worms, blue-green phosphorescent pinpricks of light, adorned the walls of the cave like brilliant constellations.
So much so awe-inspiring however. Next up, we trekked further underground, down narrow tunnels lined with spiky limestone. I am amazed that my hands are only mildly pink, instead of ripped to shreds as I thought they would be.
We leapt over a waterfall, plummeting down several metres and in my case especially, submerging myself so deeply my headtorch went out and left me bobbing around in the dark, swirling water.Luckily, the guide, Lloyd, was on hand to pull me up again.
Crazily enough, we had done so well we were ahead of our time, so our guides took us on an alternate route out of the caves. First, we shimmied along a narrow (half a metre at best) tunnel, using our knees and backs to stay upright. Then, we scurried through a tube-like tunnel, heads down, hands in the mud. We trawled through a cavern where the ceiling became so low, we ended up going along with one eye out of the water and the rest of us completely submerged. Nerve-wracking, to say the least!
At the end of this crazy escapade, we had a choice - the tranquil way out, or the dangerous way out. Obviously, all being of sane disposition, we choose the mad, bad and mental way out.
We climbed our way up two separate waterfalls, water gushing down in a veritable torrent, slippery rocks providing the tiniest of hand and footholds, torches flickering and distorting the light. Finally, there was daylight at the end of the tunnel. We had successfully climbed over 70 metres out of the dark, dank, freezing depths into the light of day. The sense of achievement and satisfaction is unreal.
We have celebrated our success with a massive pub dinner.
That caving trip, was quite simply an awesome experience. Waitomo Caves, and in particular the Black River Rafting Co. were beyond expectation.
Pictures are in the slideshow on Flickr, to the right. Check them out!

Hot

Hamilton gardens were beautiful, sweeping lawns in that vibrant green I now associate with New Zealand. After lunch, we went on exploring and looked through the Paradise Gardens, which were recreations of gardens in different cultures, including India, Japan, China, England and Modernist America. I was very excitable by all the macro photo opportunities and have now got way too many shots of flowers...
We settled up in the gardens carpark for the night after walking through the forest, along the Waitikere River and looking at a random Russian log cabin which I now wish to occupy. We sat out on the lawns for our dinner (chilli) and watched The Bourne Ultimatum once it got dark.
Come morning, we woke to blue skies and sunshine and, although I also had a bit of a snuffly nose as well, we set off in reasonable spirits. Our aim was Te Awamutu and from there onto Pirongia.On the way we drove through Cambridge, which hosted Roche St.!
After attempting to get into the Pirongia Forest Park, we decided it was a giant conspiracy as each road sign directing us there took us instead closer to Raglan again! In the end, we gave in to fate and drove back through Raglan. This turned out to be a worthy sidetrack - today, Raglan was gorgeously sunny and the sea a gentle azure blue. We stopped for lunch ('Gunod' (?) fish and chips and ginger beer. It was yummy, especially considering the view - right over the harbour from the wharf, mountains in the distance and even an old fashioned pirate ship.
Our next destination was Kawhia. We embarked upon the road, edging the coastline and experienced the most mental road we have so far stumbled upon. The roads so far have been wide, smooth and easy to drive, with twists and turns to keep it exciting. Times this by 20, and you have the Kawhia road. Gravel as apposed to tarmac, stomach-clenching edges, head-turning heights, landslides...I loved it and now want to do a quadbike or 4WD adventure. The scenery exposed us to dark green fir forests lining the pastoral hillsides which got more and more rugged. The sheep appeared to be wearing wollen knickerbockers and the lambs (Spring again!) gambled across sheared-off rock and streams. Where landslides had occurred, the sides of the road were deep, intense ochre colour. We stopped off a few times to get pics of the surroundings and take a break from the jiggling about in the car, like ping pong balls.
The whole time, the only other vehicles we saw were three seperate quadbikes - crewed by ten+ kids. I have no idea where the adults are in this area, but the kids have the run of the place.
We arrived in Kawhia and parked up. The sand was black, with a purply sheen and so unbelievably soft and silky on the feet. We climbed the dunes and viewed the sea. We had heard that Kawhia was a hot water beach. The water was very, very cold. We met some other trippers who had been digging about and found nothign but cool water. We grabbed sticks and started digging our own patches of sand around the vast beach. After a good hour or so of hunching over the sand and stabbing away with twisted sun-bleached sticks, steam started to pour out of the ground. We dug faster. The water filling the hole was boiling hot. Alex actually burnt himself. Quickly, we opened up the ground, making a round, shallow pool of steaming hot water. The air was freezing cold, the wind biting, but we could not resist the thought of a hot bath after three days living out of a car.
There is nothing so good as luxuriating in your own personal, natural jacuzzi on a windblown beach.
The walk back to the car however, was coooold! After a change of clothes and a snack, we set out yet again. This time, we headed for a shop Alex had previously found on the net, which promised free overnight stays to campers. Having arrived, we made up our macoroni cheese and viewed the misty mountains. After popping into Bill and Brenda's for cookies, we found out just how generous Kiwi's can be.
They have given us a ready-brewed hot water supply, allowed me to charge all my gadgets, given us use of the washing machine and laundry line, the shower and, they even taped the F1 and are allowing us to sit in their closed cafe so I can blog and Alex can watch the practice sessions in Japan. The wind outside is blowing such a gale that the car is acually rocking gently, so to be safe and warm inside is brilliant. The cookies are flippin' amazing too.
Tomorrow, we plan to head to Otarohanga and Waitomo, to get some caving adventure time. Glowworms should be sighted with any luck. Today has been amazing. Tomorrow can only get better.

Roadtrip

There is a permanent curtain of water descending from the skies.
Yesterday, we passed from the Auckland region into the Waikomo. Huge, sumptiously green hills roll over the landscape. Oak and fir forests coat the hillsides. They are so vibrantly green, that it could almost hurt your eyes to look at them for too long. Driving is truly the perfect way to see it.The roads are good, wide and smooth although twisted like a knitting pattern. Alex seems convinced I'm going to career off the edge into the abyss below, but despite the crazy speeds the natives take the corners at, I'm not only cautious but still reading the kph as mph, which naturally keeps us slower anyways. Apart from the odd turning on of the windscreen wipers when I am meant to be signalling and vice versa due to the canny switching sides of these vital levers on my steering wheel, the automatic is actually very simple. It obeys the basic principle of 'Go' and 'Stop' without any of the fiddly gear bits inbetween to worry about.
There are calla lilies growing like weeds on the sides of the road, pure dots of white against the verdant green.
We stopped in Raglan for the night, a point of particular interest to surfers, who kept turning up at ungodly hours to ride the storm tossed sea. We parked up all of ten metres away from the waves, up from the black sand that shows this is volcano land. There was a massive storm, rain falling from the sky all night long, battering at the roof of Newt. There were signs all over Raglan forbidding camping and overnighters - the residents are haters of the backpackers apparently. Alex got some stories up on the net that told of Raglan citizans coming out of there homes at 1am to pelt tents and campervanms with flour, or call the police out on them. We gambled on the weather being so horrible no-one would feel the need to attack our vehicle, but still it was an anxious night constantly waiting for the sound of flour bombs hitting the windscreen!
We couldn't cook due to the rain, so feasted on olives, babybels and bizarre sandwiches - marmite and salt and vinegar crisps anyone?
Once the morning came and we realised we had survived the night, we had breakfast, again an odd mix. I figure sandwiches are going to be what I am eating for most meals for the next two months, so I better make them as interesting as possible. I had nutella and banana in mine, Alex decided to stick with peanut butter. Mine had the odd aftertaste of watermelon. Figure that one out!
We abandoned Raglan and it's never-ending rainstorm and drove through some gorgeous country-side to reach Hamilton. We are currently at the gardens, having looked at the rhododendrons and successfully cooked up some scrambled eggs and beans for lunch, we might venture into the town...if the rain holds off!

Hope everybody back home is doing good! Drop us a line and let us know! :)