Christchurch to Aukland - the last leg

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  Christchurch to Aukland, New Zealand
Sunday, February 18, 2007

CHRISTCHURCH - MORE WATER !
Stopped off for some lunch in Akaroa on the way to Christchurch, which is perched on the Eastern tip of the Otago Peninsula.  Another ridiculously pretty place in the middle of nowhere, but not particularly noteworthy in the grand scheme of things.  Of most interest in this picture postcard town was the company i kept for lunch - a depressingly uncouth young English couple who swore like terrets is going out of fashion.  Noun, Adjective, Punctuation - i had no idea f**k could be used so liberally.  I warmed to them after a while and decided not to dissuade them from their frequent outbursts with a quick fork to the back of the head.

I hit Christchurch late on and had high hopes after a number of people raved about the place.  I can only conclude that they were missing 'big' city living and the amenities that come with it as it is not a particularly special place.  It has a nice enough centre which revolves around the Cathedral, a now defunct tram system which serves as a traveling restaurant and a decent park out the top end.  Other than that it is like every other city.  Having wondered around for a day i started to hanker for an adrenalin fix again and signed on to do some more White Water Rafting.  The water is pretty big an hour outside of the city and i was looking forward to hurtling down it again (Grade 5 in sections - if grade 2 is like a fart in a bath tub, grade 5 is like paddling through waves the height of houses (well, bungalows)).  I got the raft full of women which i ordinarily would not complain about but when you have to paddle a raft for 4 hours, half hearted and dainty paddling can be a real pain in the arse.  The river got progressively bigger as we went down and ended in two sections of grade 5 that could prematurely age a man - one just 40m long and the other a series of rapids 400m long.  Damn it was exciting punching through the standing waves with your face as you try frantically to paddle in an effort to stop yourself slamming into the rock faces.  Needless to say our guide thought it would be a laugh to steer into the rocks on the way down, in an effort to warm us up before the big stuff. 

The hostel i am staying in came highly rated, though i am not sure why.  The highlight of my stay was the beds in the dorm which screamed out every time you twitched and were made for dwarfs (or whatever the PC term for them is).  The bed issue was not a huge one for me but was for the poor couple who needed a pee in the middle of the night and walked face first into my stinking feet.  I basked in satisfaction as they yelped and then walked into the door amid the confusion.

That was enough of Christchurch for me.  After a brief stay i headed up to Wellington on the North Island as time was now running out.  I took the gentile option and went via the train as it wound it's way slowly up the east coast passed all the spots i could not appreciate on the way down as i was busy driving and trying to block out the German girl who was meditating in the seat next to me (on reflection she strikes me as a cross between Animal from the Muppets and Yoda - i can just imagine what that must have looked like, Yoda and Lurch sharing a car !)


WELLINGTON, NORTH ISLAND
Damn i like Wellington, it is a fabulous city.  Diverse, laid back (as all of NZ appears to be), and full of interest.  The place is divided into quarters:
1) A posh city and fashion district full of impossibly self conscious people mincing up and down frantically during their lunch breaks
2) A couple of Cafe quarters ranging from upmarket to downright scuzzy (bumped into guys smoking crack on the street one night and a couple of prostitutes plying their trade)
3) A waterfront district that had skate parks and basketball courts at one end and a pretty beach front at the other (reminded me a cross between Manly Beach and Nice).

Spent a day wandering around eating and drinking, watching the kids at the basketball court beat crap out of each other and enjoying the sight of pro skateboarders mixing with kids who have even less balance than me and would inevitably end their sessions with an 'Ollie to Face Plant'.  

Stayed with some family friends on the way out of Christchurch.  This is the first time since Zimbabwe i have had a bedroom to myself and a bed big enough to sleep in - it was heaven.  So good in fact that i woke at 5.00am startled by the lack of noise.  My much needed rest was rudely interrupted though by their adorable little girl who decided she would come into my room at 7.00am and jump up and down on my bollocks.  You have to love kids.  The two i spent the day with were like Duracell bunnies on speed - i have newfound respect for parenthood !


TAUPO - WALKING MOUNT DOOM
Next stop was Taupo, a very pretty town on the edge of Lake Taupo.  I came here to walk the Tongariro Crossing - meant to be one of the finest day walks in the world.  It came with a fearsome reputation as a relentless 10 hour slog - i started the day rather meekly.  30 minutes in i could see why it has that reputation as i fought my way up the near vertical side of one crater - after kicking my 10th rock i was starting to regret wearing sport sandals.  The good news is that once on top of the crater, which only took a further 45 minutes, it was all downhill and turned out to be a piece of cake.  I was joined at the top by a haphazard Dutch guy and a relatively sober Irish bloke who made fine company.  The view from the top of the Tongariro crater was incredible - it was like walking on the moon.  Mount Doom shot straight up in front of us, a near perfect conical volcano.  The guidebook said it was climbable if you found the first ascent easy.  I melted, heaved and cussed my way up that first climb and so declined the invitation. 

The area is still active, which meant steam rose from the ground around us and it smelled like rotten eggs - good news as i was a bit windy that day.  We got a chance to practice some scree running on the way across the craters and we bounded John Wayne style down the slopes with considerably more ease that we had climbed the first ones.  5 hours later we were down the other side and nursing weary legs while we waited for the bus.  The first bus went when it was full and the second one was not guaranteed to leave until everyone was down - this could have taken another 3 hours.  The three of us therefore spent a good 10 minutes planning our attack to ensure we got to the front of the queue.  I subtly sat in the middle of the car park while the other two perched on the flanks to stave off the hordes.  We had agreed that punching was not on but judicious elbows were fair game.  When it came down to it there was depressingly little jostling.

I spent Valentines night with the strange Dutch bloke i climbed with and we ate cheeseburgers and played pool - all very romantic. 

ROTORUA, RAGLAN, WAITOMO AND THE CORROMANDEL
After the exertion of the climb i could barely move and opted to take it easy for the the last 3 days in New Zealand.  I popped into Rotorua for the thermal springs, which were all very pretty - blah blah blah, and then headed out to the coast to hang with some surfers at a tiny place called Raglan.  It looked bigger on the map but turned out to be a one street town with a very bohemian feel to it.  Ate drank, chilled out and went for a swim in water that would make your nuts shrivel to raisins after about 2 minutes.  Nothing very eventful happened other than that.

The next day i headed out to Waitomo to do some Caving.  There are over 800 caves carved into the Limestone under Waitomo and the surrounding areas, only a few of which are commercially explored.  Some, of course are explored by less well equipped animals and the cavers are regularly called out to rescue Cows and Sheep that have inadvertently fallen down a cave.  I booked onto an all day caving adventure called the 'epic lost world adventure'.  It promised to be the most physically demanding of the various options as well as the most expensive - i nearly had a nose bleed when i discovered just how expensive.  Still, sod it i thought, you only die once.  We got kitted up in more rubber and helmets (no rude suggestions please) and piled on down the abseil, which was fully 100m - a damn long way down.  The descending device we used was new to me and while i was assured it was safer than the ones i am used to it had the unnerving feature of being particularly hard to lock off if you were generously proportioned.  Hence i slid with ever greater speed down the rope toward the bottom. 

We stopped for lunch at the bottom before we took to the caves which stretched out for 2km - a good 5 to 6 hours caving.  It was fabulous fun, wading through underground rivers, climbing over fallen rock roofs, scrambling under massive boulders and wading under and climbing over waterfalls.  At one point we had to jump through the 'Jaws of Death'.  This was a hole in the cave floor about the size of a human which led into pitch black.  The jump was literally a leap of faith and terrifying.  We turned off all our helmet lights to add to the sense of occasion and each in turn plunged down.  It felt like an eternity until i hit the rock pool at the bottom of the new cave system and i gasped with shock as i finally resurfaced.  Before we had time to recover we were then on to the big climb over another waterfall which required us to crab our way up a small funnel through a waterfall and traverse a rock ledge to a more substantial flat section about 10 - 15m further up.  Not easy to do when you are covered in a restricted wet suit and wearing wellington boots.  Several people slipped and fell (harmlessly into the pool below).  We were all totally shagged out when we finally emerged out the other end.  It was all i could do to crawl into bed at 9.00 to grab some kip and try to recover.

Final stop before Auckland and my flight to Hong Kong was the Corromandel, another peninsula and even more breathtaking that Otago.  I spent a glorious day in baking heat and sunshine exploring the various bays and headlands before crashing for the night in Corromandel town.  The specialty here - well, one of them any rate - is battered, smoked mussels.  Sounded interesting but on reflection tasted much like i imagine the sweaty insoles of my walking shoes would.  The campsite i am in has a very strange take on a trampoline.  It is a giant inflated cushion tethered to the ground and the size of a tennis court.  I threw myself around on it for half an hour but had to retire guiltily after knocking some kid clean off the thing following a more acrobatic move.  To my relief the boy looked initially stunned and then burst into laughter.  Resilient the little buggers they breed here !

NZ is now no more - only a day left in Auckland to go and then i start my way home via Hong Kong.  Sad to be leaving such a chilled place with such fantastic geography and so much to do, but i am battered, bruised and sleep derived and so getting back to a sense of normality may be just what i need, before still more parts of my anatomy stop working

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