Ooop North!

  Auckland, New Zealand
Tuesday, February 6, 2007

New Zealand is odd - you head north and the weather gets nicer - surely it's the other way round?

Anyway, leaving behind the beauty and shite weather of the South Island and off to Auckland and then further north to Tutukaka and the Bay of Islands.

Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city has a population nearly twice the size of that of the South Island. On the way in from the airport, we got stuck in a pretty large traffic jam, which thinking about it, was the first I'd sat in since leaving China. But anyway, I asked the driver, a nice Sikh gentleman, if this was normal for the city - his reply that he'd only arrived in New Zealand the day before from India, kind of surprised me and didn't give me much hope of reaching the hotel! But arrive we did without getting lost - impressive work.

I didn't get much of a chance to look round the place, but Auckland

City of Sails

strikes me as being a mini-Sydney. It's built around the harbour, has a harbour bridge, a very large tower (which the Kiwi's are very proud to tell you is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere) and the overall feel is similar to it' bigger cousin over the Tasman, but with a slightly more laid back attitude. That's one thing that comes across overwhelmingly in New Zealand is how relaxed the people are - nothing really seems to faze them, apart from rugby that is!

Rugby obsessed

On from Auckland, to a little village called Tutukaka, gateway to the Poor Knights Islands. Village is perhaps an overstatement - the place consisted of a hotel, a dive shop, a café, a pizza bar and a few houses dotted around the marina. The place really is just a little holiday place where Aucklanders come up to sail and numerous divers come to dive on the Poor Knights islands., which was the reason for my visit. The Poor Knights is one of the best dive sights in the world and its isolation and marine park status gives it a quality that lacks in other places I've been diving. It's located at the point where the flow from the Coral Sea (tropical) meets the Pacific (cold!) so the marine life is unique and untouched. Some of the colours and coral where unbelievable and the fish life varied and numerous. However, the first dive also provided me with my first (and hopefully last) real encounter with pant-spoiling terror on the trip. On the way down, on my first dive, I started to feel a bit uncomfortable in the environment and by the time we reached ten metres I was beginning to breathe too hard - a few metres further and I started hyper-ventilating and really panicking that I wasn't getting enough air. There's absolutely no reason for this - the equipment was good, the conditions perfect and I've been diving a lot recently - yet, here I was, 16 metres down in a state of real panic, convinced I was about to drown., but unfortunately my dive buddies hadn't noticed I was in trouble and were swimming further down -  your brain starts to do weird things at this point and  you find yourself convinced that the best thing to do is inflate your BCD (your dive vest, which controls your buoyancy) and get to the surface as quick as possible - of course if I had done this, I'd have earned myself a trip to the nearest hospital with a nasty case of the bends! Bizarrely, you're also convinced that taking out your breathing reg is a good idea - which it's not! I somehow remembered some training from years back and focused on my dive computer which gives you an arrow showing you how fast you can ascend and made it back to the surface after what seemed like a lifetime - I popped up, inflated my BCD and just lay there breathing in the air like a nutter. The guys on the boat spotted me and swung round and pulled me out of the water, not I suspect, in a very dignified way! After getting my breath back and calming down (a very sweet cup of tea helped!), I explained what had happened - apparently this is not an uncommon thing in diving and happens to the most experienced of divers - no-one knows why - it just does. All you can do is try to remember your training and get to the surface in as controlled a way as you can manage. Most cases of the bends occur when divers panic and shoot up as quickly as they can. But as the guys reminded me, it had happened to me now and hopefully I'll be a better diver because of it. Rather like falling of a horse, I was persuaded to go back in for the 2nd dive - this time with an instructor as my buddy - we took it really slow and despite the fact that a couple of times I felt the urge to come back up, he calmed me down and we completed the dive, with me feeling a bit more comfortable. The following day, we dived two purposely sunk wrecks

Get off my wreck!

and by the end of the 2nd dive, I felt comfortable again in the surroundings.  I've never had an experience like that before and I really really hope I don't again - but if it makes me a better diver and more aware of the dangers involved, then there is an upside.

So, after the fun of diving, up to the Bay of Islands - New Zealand's premier holiday area. The bay itself had over 400 islands and is incredibly picturesque, with a few little towns dotted around the place. I was staying in a town called Pahia, the first place settled by the Europeans in the early 1800's and on the other side of the bay is Russell, which was New Zealand's first capital. The best way to see it is on a boat,

The only way to see the Bay of Islands

and I jumped on a pretty impressive catamaran for a days sailing round the bay - we also managed some kayaking and wake-boarding and for once in this place, the weather didn't manage to spoil the day!

Me being kind of active!

A couple of miles up the coast is a little place called Waitangi, where the treaty was signed by the Europeans and Maori's turning this place into another one of our colonies. In a nice little coincidence, today actually marks Waitangi Day, and although I've now left the area, there were numerous festivities taking place - I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I went over to look at the house where the treaty was signed.

The Treaty House

To be honest, it's a treaty that still rankles the Maori's a bit, 200 years on - I've heard it described as various things, but the funniest and probably most accurate is the "We'll give you a couple of kegs of rum - you give us your country, Treaty". Another great example of British commerce! However, the real root of the problem lies in the original translation of the document - in English, the document basically said, "we'll have ownership of the land and let you live there" - in Maori, the document said "we'll protect the land for you and you can still own it" - you can understand why the Maori's where happy to sign and a bit peeved when they found out what the English version said!

Relations between the European's and Maori's aren't at there best at the moment here. There's a big national debate about the merits of flying the Maori flag

The Maori Flag

from the Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day. The Maori's argue, correctly in my view, that the Aboriginal flag in Australia has set a great precedent, with their flag flying alongside the national flag from all civic buildings - whereas here, the government argues that the only flags that should fly are the two national ones (weirdly, NZ has two national flags - the one that looks like the Aussie one and another that looks like a White Ensign). At the time of writing, it seems that the government has got its way, but you do have to stop and think that this might be a bit short-sighted and stupid. The Maori population is the poorest in the country and to give them some self-respect and cultural pride won't actually cost anyone anything and might even help relations between the two populations. In truth, the Kiwi's aren't nearly as bad as the Aussies when it comes to their treatment of the indigenous peoples. The Maori's do get treated with a bit more respect. One of the sailors on the boat was explaining that a lot of this has to do with the fact that the Maori's tend to be bloody good rugby players! This may be slightly glib, but in a country so utterly obsessed with the sport, it kinda makes sense!

And that's it - after nearly two months in Australasia, in a few hours, I head off on a plane to South America for the next leg in the trip. I've had a great time here and in New Zealand especially, been really bowled over by the shear beauty of this place - There's no way in the world I could actually come and live here - it's just too far away and provincial, but for a holiday, it's pretty damn good!

I'm now faced with my longest journey of the trip - around 20 hours from Auckland up to Quito in Ecuador, from where I hop on another planes to the Galapagos islands. This is one of those odd journey's where I'll arrive before I left - I hope Tuesday 6th Feb is a good one, cause it sure as hell's going to be a long one!!