New Zealand

  Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Picture the scene: the Jamison suite on the 23rd floor of the Amora Jamison hotel on a cool Sydney Sunday morning. Barry sips a cappuccino while surfing the free internet, swathed in the Hotels bath robe, one that has been handmade by blind Bavarian nuns, his feet ensconced in complimentary lambs wool slippers. 'Eva', he says, turning the heating up a further 1 degrees whilst admiring the view of the harbour bridge from the triple glazed window, 'how about we rent a camper van in New Zealand?' 'A campervan?' I say, only half listening as I fiddle with the TV remote trying to find something to watch from the 853 channels available, ' Won't it be cold in New Zealand?' ' Naah,' he says, 'it will be the same as here......'

This is how we found ourselves in the campervan offices in Christchurch on a cold, wet dark Wednesday in July.

The Van

Let me start by saying that a campervan is the best way to see New Zealand. It gave us lots of freedom, and we saved a lot of money by not staying in places like the Amora Jamison (aaah the amora Jamison..) However, nothing could have prepared us for the unbelievably cold weather that we have experienced and by the end of these 3 weeks, a motel lodge is now our idea of luxury- how the mighty have fallen..

Wow

Cold outside van!!

Christchurch, in the south island, is, we hear a nice city,more english than england itself; but as out holiday park was a good 20k outside the centre, we never really got to experience it. We spent our first New Zealand night there and headed off first thing the following morning. We headed south, stopping in a place called Oamaru which is famous for its blue penguin colony and not much else. As it is winter, the penguins are not into coming in for a bit of breedin' so our guide told us not to expect to see too many and if they hadn't come in by 6.15 pm they weren't coming at all. At 5.45pm one little dude rocked up onto the shore and stared back out at sea waiting for his buddies. As if he was watching the clock, at exactly 6.15 he gave up the ghost and made the long lonely walk up the rocks to the breeding ground where he was met by 2 rabbits. As if they need a designated breeding ground!

Penguin

Oamaru was a strange place, so quiet! Although as it is winter most of the places we have visited have been in semi-hibernation. But Oamaru was like something out of a movie, there was a bookbinder-that was only established in 1988-lots of curio shops and ye olde shoppe type affairs. We had dinner in a pub called 'fat sally's', run by rather a rotund lady called...sally. Although the kiwis would pronounce it 'fit silly's' which may be more of an insult...but maybe not.

Speaking of the kiwi accent, one thinks that one can't distinguish it from the Aussies but rest assured one can. You will remember Peter and Peter who we met in Cairns; they told us that Kiwis pronounce fish and chips as 'fush and chups' and if we say turty tree they double it with suxty sux. Fush and chups are everywhere by the way, brought to NZ by English settlers along with cats and stoats who are the biggest threat to the kiwi bird (v cute but bit dull)

After Oamaru we headed west across the island towards Queenstown, spending a night in Cromwell (brrr! -3° at 8pm!). The scenery on the drive, and indeed most of the drives was fantastic, every turn providing a new vista of lakes, snow capped mountain or forest- really fabulous. The roads are interesting though. Well maintained but don't let the title of 'state highway 1' fool you. Most of the roads have more twists than an episode of 24 and more curves than Pamela Anderson. Not ideal for a beast of a campervan or 'road lice' as the kiwis affectionately call them.

Mirror Lake

Queenstown is an absolutely fantastic place, one for the adrenaline junkies... and the Irish. Everywhere we looked there was somebody doing some death defying activity from hang gliding to parachute jumps to snowboarding (ok, not so death defying) On the ground then were lots of cool kiwis, and lots of sore looking Irish, limping, or wincing from said death defying stunts. We spent a day on the slopes of Coronet Peak learning how to ski. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I didn't hate it either, it's just bloody terrifying! There is a really great vibe in Queenstown, lots of lovely pubs and restaurants with outdoor log fires, perfect for chatting to friendly kiwis.

Us skiing

We would have stayed longer but there is just so much to see here that we had to leave the beautiful lake and picture perfect snowy mountains and move on. We headed further south to Te anu, another town in hibernation, but the gateway to Milford Sound, one of the major tourist attractions in New Zealand. Milford sound is one of many sounds in New Zealand, basically a large inlet within rocks created by volcanic movement. There is no doubt that Milford sound is fantastic, beautifully serene water surrounded by magnificent waterfalls and rocks so pure that they contain diamonds and rubies. Our day on the sound was beautifully crisp and sunny, and it was a great experience, but I'm not sure that you won't experience such magnificence simply driving through some other parts of New Zealand. In addition, the sound was full of noisy tour boats with over zealous tourists (of which we are two) taking pictures of everything.

Ice Formations

Apparently, Doubtful sound- so named by captain cook as he was doubtful that the winds there would blow their boats back out to sea- is a lot less touristy, and is only explored by 2 tour boats as opposed to probably 15 in Milford. We also saw gloworm caves in Te anu, a really eerie experience, these caves are lit up by the larvae of fungus gnats of all things (nice...) and we did a little boat tour in complete and utter darkness, the only light was provided by the gloworms. You couldn't even make out the shadow of the person next to you, and I'm still not convinced that the person groping my leg was Barry....

Back up north then and on to Franz Joseph, via Wanaka, Queenstown's little brother. Franz Joseph was definitely the highlight of NZ so far and maybe even the whole trip, fighting for first place with Uluru. This is glacier country, and fox and franz joseph glaciers are about 25km apart- the drive between the two was hair raising to say the least. Here we treated ourselves to the luxury of a motel for 2 nights and had proper showers and did laundry. It's shameful to admit that despite seeing some of the most amazing sights in the world, the prospect of clean laundry is almost as exciting. Nowt as comforting as clean long johns. Anyway, in Franz Joseph we did a heli hike, a helicopter ride landing on the glacier and a 3 hour hike on it before getting the helicopter back.

Glacier trek 1

The helicopter was exhilarating enough, (we both thought we were in the A Team), a first for both of us but the hike was really fabulous. Again, the weather was perfect, beautiful blue sky which gave the top of the glacier a lovely blue hue. The snow looked edible, like big fluffy meringue (although blue meringue probably should be avoided) and the hike was great fun, but hard work, especially wearing crampons on your boots which allow you to grip the ice. The most precarious part is taking off the crampons but still thinking that you have the same grip on the ice. There were a few sore bums after that I should imagine; the landing is not a soft 'un.

Hiking Eva

We left Franz Joseph and headed further north, our ultimate aim to get the ferry from Picton at the top of the south island to wellington at the bottom of the north. More jaw-dropping scenery- it's a shame to stop driving really, as most of the towns we stopped in are pretty dreary places. It's easy to forget that New Zealand is an agricultural country, where herds of sheep cross your path on the road. Therefore lots of the towns are farming ones selling cow poo, Massey Fergusons and not much else.

We took the 3 hour ferry ride to wellington at night, which was a pity as it must be a pretty scenic journey and arrived in Wellington at about 10pm and drove straight to our holiday park which was about 20km outside the centre of the city. Wellington is a nice place, though pretty unassuming for the capital city. The museum there Te Papa (our place) is really fabulous, one of the best we have seen- really interactive, modern and best of all -free! There are lots of nice bars and restaurants in wellington, and it was really busy for a midweek night, like a Saturday in Dublin. We were dropping the van back in Auckland so our plan was to head north via Napier and Rotorua. Napier is a town that was completely flattened by an earthquake in 1931 and was rebuilt in the art deco style of the time. Its worth seeing, but they really trade on the art deco thing, and in parts it feels a bit run down and dated. Barry's campervan fuse was wearing thin so we stayed in the Masonic hotel in the centre of the town. There is a movie in that hotel. It was so unintentionally dated; sink in the bedroom, pitch dark corridors, a string from the ceiling that controlled the light. An eerie place, betcha there has been some dodgy incidents there over the years...
Rotorua is a bit like Queenstown for the north island, except with a really bad smell. Rotorua is a sulphur rich thermal city (darn it more science!) with geysers, hot mud pools and thermal springs rockin' up all over the place. As fascinating as it is to be only 3km above hot molten lava, the smell here is really bad. Apparently it's great for the sinuses, and after 2 weeks one has become used to it. The locals reckon if they smell sulphur in the air then rain is coming. Rotorua has a very strong Maori influence and we spent a day at the Maori cultural centre where we saw Maori blokes teach tourists to do the haka, including a Japanese tourist who looked like he was doing the 'timewarp' instead. He was enjoying himself no end, arms and legs flailing everywhere! The haka is really great, and I have been practicing my facial expressions with little success. It wouldn't be Eva and Barrys 'set the world to rights blog' without mentioning the Maori of course; since leaving Australia we have also left our aboriginal crusade (© John O'Farrelly 2007) to begin the Maori crusade, although the situation is a lot different here. While the colonial fundamentals are the same, the Maori are settlers to New Zealand themselves and seem to have put up a hell of a fight when the Dutch arrived, even eating some of them...eek! After long battles over land rights and equality, the Maori are now an integral part of New Zealand society, and while represented at government level, as an ethnic minority, it's probably fair to assume that they don't feel as equal to the European settlers as they would like.

Geyser gushing

After Auckland, our OZNZ experience comes to an end, bringing us a new challenge in South America. One thing that has amazed us is the amount of Irish and English youngsters in Australia and New Zealand; the rite of passage for English is the gap year between school and college, and for the Irish it's a little older. While it's pretty easy to get around here, its still a big challenge for an 18 year old- jaypurs, I thought I was intrepid at 18 going to Santa Ponsa! It has to be done though; they are both absolutely fantastic countries, with spectacular scenery and wonderfully friendly people. We feel that we have done New Zealand justice albeit in a short space of time, but Australia...In the words of that famous Austr(al)ian: I'll be back.
Ps- we would get A1s in Leaving cert geography without opening a book at this rate, and loupol the blue mountains are caused by eucalyptus trees!
Pps- the bogs in campervans 'flush' anti clockwise.
Ppps- we miss you all and are really really sorry that the weather in Ireland has been so miserable.
Pppps- we're not really that sorry.

Barry's Cliff Notes:
New Zealand: south island is just beautiful, every corner you take on the drive around the island is a different mix of mirror lake, snow capped mountain, forest, wildlife, snow, greenery, rivers, you name it is just gorgeous and met all expectations on that front. Definitely somewhere you should visit.

Highlights: Queenstown, Queenstown, Queenstown, this is where I could live, retire and die, just brilliant, there is so much to do at your fingertips, skiing one day, luge the next, skydive the next, bungy the next, kitesurf the next, I could go on. Lovely place to boot, with very cool and friendly people abound. Only down point is that I bottled out of the famous AJ Hackett bungy, it is just WAYYYY to high.

My first time skiing also on Coronet Peak in Queenstown was great fun, but hard work and I wiped out big time, but I guess this comes with the territory.

The Franz Joseph glacier heli hike was also amazing and well worth a try, I also took a major fall on this one too!!! May be ice/snow and me are not bedfellows!
Funny enough, the rest of the south island is beautiful but not as exciting as Queenstown and in mostly hibernation at this time of year.

On the Van front, it is the best way of seeing New Zealand, but it was bloody cold, minus 5 some nights, see photos. Also New Zealand is basically a lot of mountains and driving is a challenge to say the least, especially a van, also see photos. So with all this, the novelty of living in a van wore off about 2 weeks into it, the last week was a bit of a nightmare, I must have smashed my head off that goddamn van about 50 times!!! I hate that van!!!!

The Van

SO.. between my falls and head smashes I am fairly bruised but delighted by our NZ experience and thrilled by what is to come in South America.

Cheers Barry