On the road in Australia: Part I

Waiting for the train to Circular Quay: Sydney airport railway station, brand new and shiny. 

The little Boeing 737 that carried me across the Tasman sea made the smoothest landing I've ever experienced at Sydney airport, it was still mid-morning and the journey to the city was quiet and highly uncomplicated. Incredibly easy in fact. Wendy and Paolo were waiting for me outside the city center in the suburb of Manly, so I made my way there by train to Circular Quay (oooh, look, a gyros stand!) and a ferry across the famous harbour.

Views from the ferry.

Tourist photo cliche.

It was a very painless and simple journey, the ferry proved to be a popular tourist route in order to get a cheap look (relative to the tourist cruises I presume) at the sights of Sydney harbour. I joined in with the photo taking of course, so here are a few more pictures of Sydney, because I anticipated where the best views would be from the ferry and took a seat accordingly I got swamped (nearly smothered) by tourists who caught on a bit later and inadvertently must appear in thousands of other peoples' holiday photographs as the big dumb hairy giant blocking out half of the harbour bridge with his big dumb hairy head.

At times like that I'm reminded of and quite miss the difficulty of traveling in a land where the people, language and customs are unfamiliar to me (a travel snobs idea of 'real' travel perhaps), I crave the challenge of getting about and often I crave the craziness in some deep seated need for escalating challenge. I'm worried I'm becoming lazy too. As in lazy in the act of exploring by riding in cars around the place, not having to do any serious preparation because buses, trains and other public transport are over half a year away now and I'm psychologically a few thousand miles away from the multi-layered gargantuan chaos of Istanbul Ottogar, the mindset I need to get beat it, and for that matter enjoy it.

Getting swamped by picture-mad tourists

Holding the camera wonky on the ferry to Manly.

I had pretty much agreed to jump straight into another road trip, I crammed my stuff into the already full Toyota Corolla and we set off northwards.
There was barely enough room for three people in among our combined things. The boot was full of 'stuff' and pretty much out of bounds meaning two backpacks, a large suitcase (the wheely type), boxes of food, numerous smaller bags, a full size acoustic guitar, several pairs of shoes, books, assorted coats and outdoor clothing, one large pillow, numerous electronic leads and charging devices, several hats and a Djembe had to go in the passenger compartment. We had to get into the clutter to ride in the vehicle with the standard boarding sequence being passengers getting in between large items and then having things placed upon them. Wendy, being the littlest one had to go in the back. Me being the biggest one generally got into the front with Paolo driving on then first day and the rest of us having turns afterwards. Somehow along the way we found space for a big box of booze from Dan Murphy's as well as things we found on the beach, souvenirs and the like.

Suburbia began to thin away to... Good grief! We were in the Aussie bush! Tall gum trees and their dappled shade, square yellow warning signs, kangaroo nets the roadside, young green grass and dusty old soil everywhere, I was in Australia for the first time and having a sensory feast. We headed up the coast of New South Wales towards Newcastle and Port Macquarie. The thing I'm learning about Australia is it's towns and cities are more like home (bizarrely) than the ones in New Zealand. They're just a bit bigger, the buildings are made of (bricks) masonry and they tend to be a bit older (specifically this bit of NSW) and then there's the people who all look so... familiar.

At the Koala hospital.

Port Macquarie was our first overnight stop. Unsurprisingly this part of the country looks a lot like the typical coastal Australia you see in photographs, most probably because somebody took a picture of this coast and we've all seen it somewhere. Soft cream-coloured sands, seas of the deepest blue, strikingly verdant foliage (this time of year I guess) full of strange and colourful creatures. It's all here. Hundreds of miles after hundreds of miles of it. There was a charming little Koala hospital to visit there where most of the patients were slowly being nursed back to health while others were long term inmates. The hostel was not far from the coast though by the time we arrived it was dark, it did have some friendly animal inhabitants to cheer up the weary traveler and a Domino's Pizza nearby where I was first introduced to the infamous $5 pizza deal.

Main entrance!

One Sickly Koala

Paolo and our new friend Cheeky the lorikeet. Port Macquarie YHA.

After a few stop-offs along the road, we spent the next nights at Yamba, because we set off late and the distances involved in any Australian trip are massive we arrived at night just before everything in the town shut. As soon as we had taken care of our hungry bellies we found that the hostel that we were staying in was another important node on the East coast Australia backpackers trail with lots of other travelers from around the world competing for that one decent saucepan in the kitchen. Although most of the guests were very young (think 18-24) this was no Goon palace as I'd feared, although there were some travelers who seemed never to go out and pretty much everyone drank in the basement car park at night, there was a large surfer contingent who I guess made the place alright. The toilets and communal areas was generally not filthy and covered in puke. However the hostel dog did have fun pooping everywhere the cleaners had just been on the morning we left!

Paolo made fast friends with another Italian from roughly his own area and within hours they had decided to make loads of delicious food together and sell portions on a cost-covering basis. While they were out shopping Wendy and I went for a walk to explore the bays, beaches and headlands of Yamba, until it rained anyway. It's good to take a walk in Australia, we spotted some pelicans!

Yamba sea views.

The only other picture I took in Yamba...

We headed generally north towards where Paolo wanted to sell his car in Brisbane via various stop offs and points of interest. As I had actually done no research on Australia at this point (and still haven't really) I decided to adopt the 'go along and see what happens' philosophy. And so I found myself going to Nimbin. The area has an interesting recent history as counter-cultural capital of Australia (well, maybe NSW) which remains largely unknown to me due to a fire that destroyed the towns cultural museum a little while ago. The town hosted a music festival in 1974, which in its high tide of peace, love and optimism, stranded quite a lot of debris and more than a few castaways. Some of the raggedy survivors settled down, opened a business and made a living for themselves in the town. Others still haunt the covered sidewalks, living the free life as they've always wanted to. Perhaps they are in fact the prisoners of the drugs they came here to take in order to free their minds. Many castaways sit all day outside the row of little shops, some seemingly still in the same tattered clothes they were washed up in, covered in ash and dirt, trying to hustle tourists into buying hash cookies from them at a 150% mark-up. 
Nimbin sure is an interesting place.

Nimbin Main street

A groovy park in Nimbin

A map, I love maps.

Covered sidewalks, crazy cats just about visible.

We stayed in a YHA hostel on the outskirts of Nimbin, the hostel fell in to the 'alternative' category with tipis, tents and yurts all being used as accommodation. Wendy and I stayed in the 'yurt' (more like a permanent tent, no yak hair being evident) and apart from the day we arrived being on the wet 'n' windy side making it bad for moving around to the toilet and suchlike in the dark along muddy paths, it looked like a good place to stay. 

I noticed an odd musty smell when we put our bags inside the yurt that afternoon (I'm learning to trust my nose more and more on this trip) that I later realised was rodent urine soaked into the untreated plywood floor. When we went to bed later that night there were rodent-sized (marsupial?)  droppings on the pillows but we cleaned them up and got ready to sleep. As soon as the lights went off the creatures of the night began to stir. 

Now I've had mice dance a little jig on my back whist I was trying to sleep on an Indian sleeper train and not minded too much, I've squatted over a hole-in-the-floor toilet with large cockroaches scuttling out from the septic tank and not particularly cared (well, perhaps a little), but here the activity was much too intense and frequent to let me sleep. Dim rat shaped shadows darted over the outside of the yurt's inner netting, tiny thuds of things bumping into the outer cover could be heard, strange scratching noises came from beneath the bed, occasionally loud thumps of something jumping around on the plywood floor caused me to spring up and turn the light on to see what was happening around us. Each time the noise fell away instantly. I could visualise dozens of rats or mice frozen in their stride as if playing the children's game 'statues'. Each time there was nothing to see, and to be honest I didn't want to look too hard.
Then after what could have been hours of this I heard the unmistakable sound of tearing fabric from the end of the bed.

The yurt from the outside, daytime.

I quickly sat up and in the thin light from the path light outside, saw something hanging on to the side of my backpack, in the dim light it looked like a long light-grey rat. 

It was gnawing.

I shouted "Oi!" at it, of all things (like discovering a kid spraying paint on your front door I guess) and the creature detached itself from the bag and vanished through the unsecured gap between the door flap and the floor. When we turned on the light I saw shredded pieces of plastic bag on the floor with more shredded bag poking through a rough hole in the top of my backpack. It turned out I had forgotten a half un-toasted bagel in the top compartment of my rucksack when I left the hostel in Auckland early one morning several days before and the frantic wildlife activity was inspired by the odour of delicious oily bread coming from inside the bag.

We got out of there pretty quickly and camped out on the TV area sofas while we finally got someone to fetch the hostel night manager out of bed to open up a dorm for us to sleep in. At first I was a little pissed off about my bag and the way that no-one at the hostel had warned us about the very active wildlife. The night manager who turned out to be the receptionist from earlier was also a little pissy about being dragged out of his camper van in the early hours of the morning. However by the next morning after a good nights rest in a bunk bed we were all seeing the funny side. To this day I still have no idea what chewed the hole in my bag. The animals running over the yurt's interior net were mice, but the thing I saw on the bag was rat sized. Later that night I saw a Potoroo hopping around outside, it could have been some of those instead of rats. I suppose I'll never know.

Jamming Paolo

After a pleasant morning playing pool and relaxing in the sunshine we got back into the trusty Corolla and headed out through the spectacular bush below Nimbin rocks and headed back towards the coast, on the way out we saw a little piece of rural interior Australia; it was all very charming and beautiful, of course I didn't take any photographs.

The beach at Byron Bay, nice waves!

Arriving in Byron Bay we drove around a while searching for a place to stay and almost inevitably we wound up all sharing a small four-bed dorm room at the YHA. It's not like we planned the trip that way, it's just when you're tired, hungry and looking for a place to rest a while, you tend to look around a few places and go for the comfiest one. 

Cape Byron is the most easterly point of Australia and a popular node on the backpacking/road-tripping trail as a result, additionally like Raglan in New Zealand it is a surfing Mecca. We only stayed a couple of nights before pushing on northwards so I didn't take advantage of the surf straight away, instead resolving to come back another time. In hindsight I wished I had rented a board for those few days as the conditions were perfect.

Cape Byron Lighthouse.

Every Monday afternoon the hostel put on a free walking tour. Notice I didn't write 'guided tour', one of the hostel employees walked and we followed, there was no guiding particularly other than 'this is the beach' and 'you can get free internet here'. You know, the important stuff. So we walked to the Cape Byron Lighthouse in a loose group followed up by the guide who seemed to be on some kind of schedule and didn't want us stopping anywhere for too long.
Along the way we passed through some woods and out onto the headland after a short climb. Wendy thought she saw a whale off in the distance, I couldn't see any, though the word was that the migration routes for several species of whale follow the coast and pass close the the cape.

Out to sea, spot the whale?

Don't get excited, this isn't 'round the twist.

Das icebucket challenge, Ja.

I hope I'm not sounding facetious when I write this, but the best part of the walk was the home stretch along the beach towards Byron Bay town. The sun was setting to the northwest and the guide had gone back to the hostel so we could amble along, relax and take in the sunset.

Regretfully we loaded up the car again and pootled north towards the border of Queensland along long, long highways hemmed in on both sides by now-familiar gum trees. At this point I still hadn't seen a Kangaroo, but lots of fences designed to keep them off the road.

The border between NSW and Queensland runs through a town called Coolangatta there was even a big marker where the two states had their demarcation line. Interestingly although Coolangatta was on the Queensland side of the border the river mouth, headlands and harbour that would have been the early town seaport were on the other side of the red line in New South Wales. Paolo had brought us here in the quest to sell his car to a friend, she seemed impressed by the tatty but reliable Toyota but didn't make an offer to buy it straight away. Instead we sat on her balcony and hung out for the evening. Coolangatta is a beautiful little corner of the world so we stayed the night there in a weird hostel in a former motel before moving on the next day.

The state border marker.

Although it was technically winter when I visited, the times I spent outdoors were very pleasant indeed. The afternoon we spent in Coolangatta would be described as a mild summer day in the UK for instance. Comfortable warm temperatures and bright blue skies surrounded us on the way to Queensland, heaven knows what it's like here in the summer, I dread to think.

Coolangatta skies.

Say no to pugs

The Gold Coast as seen from the beach at Coolangata.

On the way to Brisbane we stopped off for lunch and to meet up with a friend of Wendy and Paolo. The rendezvous was at the Gold Coast which is surprisingly a big skyscraper filled city and not the lazy, chilled out beach paradise that the name suggests. Most of the development is relatively recent and lo and behold there was a fine beach between the millionaire's row skyscrapers and ocean. The city is becoming famous for its eponymous 'Geordie Shore'-type programme, I saw some fancy cars driving around but nothing too ostentatious, maybe it wasn't the right time of the day for that kind of thing.

We had lunch in a shopping mall food court and took a short drive through the concrete and glass lined streets (all very fancy) to the beach for a little walk. I didn't take any photographs of The Gold Coast, nothing interested me enough to dig my camera out of the compacted luggage.

Wendy pulled off quite a coup in Brisbane; a stay in a hostel for a week in the CBD would have been very expensive and not at all relaxing (see goon palace), so she used her Chinese language skills to book a couple of rooms in a privately let house for ten days direct from the landlady. The catch was the landlady only let rooms to Asian people, usually students, considering this she took it quite well when two big hairy Europeans got out of the car when she went to meet her new tenants. We stayed in Brisbane while Paolo arranged to sell his car, and as soon as he lined up his buyer. A little over a week of downtime was good for the body and mind, we still had time to do loads of things around the city including a day of touristy activities in the city center. 

I like Brisbane, It's bright even when it is raining it's not too modern except it's pretty modern. The people are nice, not too much either way, it's baby bears porridge in city form. The arts quarter of the city -'South Brisbane' is unmissable, built on some land last used for industrial purposes since the 19th century and repurposed at roughly the same time as (most of) London's south bank using roughly the same architectural styles and materials. The big difference is the setting; the arts quarter is set in gardens and has been well maintained unlike the fits and spurts of care the London equivalent has received over the years. It was the site of the World Expo in 1988.

Inside the Queensland art gallery.

Crossing the bridge from the CBD to the South Bank

Brisbane.

No, actually this is the Brisbane I will remember.

During that week we unwound, cooked, drank a little bit, got to know our temporary housemates a little, did laundry and rested. Wendy and I prepared our stuff for more foot/bus/train travel after a long time moving about in cars, we were worried that it would be hard without the luxury of a lockable motorised box to throw our junk in. Wendy sent two big boxes to Singapore (edit: they took 4 months to arrive going everywhere else in the process) and slimmed down her kit to a couple of bags. I had acquired such luxuries as salt, spices and basic kitchen equipment that we got down to one box. 
Apart from the stress of wondering what to do with the 'stuff' we had a very relaxing week in the suburbs of Brisbane in our little student house. Annoyingly I seem to have taken no photographs of the place or the charming little suburb with the park that we played our instruments in one day as the sun set.

The city at night.

Paolo was due to fly back to Italy, his year visa in Australia expiring that week, I helped him empty his car of weeks of road trip stuff and investigate the electrical fault that appeared, according to Murphy's law a couple of days before he was due to fly out. We thought we had it fixed by moving some fuses around, but it turned out in the end to be that the gadget that makes the indicators flash had blown. He had it replaced the morning of his flight.

Paolo was also 'thinning down' his kit and was throwing/giving away most other things beside the car. It's a strange, melancholic feeling to wind up (perhaps it's wind down?) a period in your life that way. Some people never have to, their relatives sifting through their belongings after they kick the bucket. I've done it before, I wrote about it at the start of this blog. Bizarrely now I'm not so attached to things and possessions as I was when I first set off. I've lost things, ruined clothes, broken stuff, replaced some of it along the way and picked up other items that have in turn got lost or broken. I suppose traveling is, in its way life on fast forward; we go through possessions much faster than usual so that their transitory nature is much clearer. Similarly and sadly we meet and say goodbye to many wonderful human beings along the way too, and although their time as fellow travelers is limited, a part of them in the memory of the experiences we shared together remain with you much longer than a pair of Jandals.

With heavy hearts we said goodbye to Paolo at Brisbane airport and drove back to the house. He made it back to Italy in time for his father's birthday, surprising him in a furry kangaroo suit he bought in a mall on our day in the CBD. 

I think this makes a convenient point to divide my travels in Australia, part two will follow.

Sometime.

On the road in New Zealand: Part III: the return leg

Today at the pharmacy, buying some expensive drugs for my poor old lungs (flu in Istanbul and smokey Indian air had made me puff through most of the small supply I brought from home) I came to describe (as you do) what I was doing here to the pharmacist:
"You're a lucky guy" he said.
"Did you win the Lotto or something?"
It made me smile right then and there in front of the counter, I suppose I am a lucky guy, doing what I've dreamed of doing, traveling to where I want to go when I want to go and in my own time. I wanted to tell him that it was easy to do; drop everything and run away to see what's out there and to fall in love with the big, stupid world one piece at a time. 
Except it isn't easy, you have to be brave-stupid, pig-headed and pragmatic at the same time. You have to learn how to accept, and to forgive and to let it pass. Finding the money is one of the easy things, besides, you don't need that much.
I didn't, I would have sounded like a dick. I can't help it.
Some things are better left unsaid, so I smiled at him, denied winning the jackpot, amiably said goodbye and let it pass.

Te Anau

I drove into the bank of low cloud you saw in the last entry (all those months ago) and to me at least didn't seem to emerge for four days. At this point I envisioned the rest of the time I would spend in Fiordland would be enveloped in a chilled cloud, I'd also envisioned clearing off quickly if this was the case. You can see the situation well enough in these two photographs; the signboard above shows the view I should have seen as I stood o the lakeside. The photograph below gives the real picture.

The YHA in the town was a nice little place, a former lodge and not too expensive so I decided to stay a couple of nights at least and take the opportunity to do a walk below the clouds. I chose the section of the Kepler Track before it climbed up to the summit of a mountain, ordinarily the hike (called tramping here for some reason- I'm guessing sounds more rugged) takes three days and involves staying in huts two nights along the way. These require a hut pass that you buy and would be a super basic bunkhouse arrangement with little or no heating and the company of other walkers. 
I chose not to go for that option. It sounded way to serious, hell, they'd all go to bed at 8pm and wake me up at 5.30am to rustle and click before striding off to be all outdoors or something. The day walk was rather enjoyable and to my pleasant surprise I was alone for most of the time with my thoughts and meditations, once or twice I surprised a couple of hikers coming in the opposite direction, hurtling around a corner, disheveled + unkempt bum lurching out of the undergrowth it seemed chattering away to myself. Heeheeheeeeeee!

Inna bush

A friend I met along the way sizing me up for a meal.

Lakeshore

Lake Te Anau

That evening a couple cooking dinner at the same time as me told me that the cloud was only to be found inland and that the views in Milford sound were unobscured, so the next day I set of in that direction and lo and behold! The joy when after 10 minutes in the car I popped out the other side of the cloud into the clear blue skies and snow covered peaks on all sides!

Scenes along the road to Milford, it seemed everywhere I stopped that seemed quiet I'd be joined a matter of a minute or two later by a tour bus disgorging it's giggling snap-happy occupants all over the place. Obviously Milford sound is quite a popular tourist destination.

Icy cold desolation along the way.

The car has done surprisingly well throughout the journey, only after a long climb like the one that leads to the Homer Tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_Tunnel does the engine begin to get a little hot and make a strange smell. The scenery along the way reminded me a lot of Scotland, maybe the Cairngorms. Whatever the recollection the sights along the way were grandiose and built the expectations for Milford sound itself.

Hello!

While stopping to take photographs just after the tunnel I turned my back on the car to photograph a couple of Kea ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea ) sitting on a road sign, when I turned back the rest of the gang had crept up behind and were setting about my venerable wagon, Kea are notorious for their mischievous antics around new objects in their environment but seemed particularly  interested in the rubber parts of cars which their beaks seem almost custom made to pull off.

Set upon by the local hoodlums

'You parked in the wrong neighbourhood...'

'Don't mind me, just pulling your windscreen off'

I let the Kea have their fun for a few minutes and intervened a couple of times when one got a little too close to getting a windscreen wiper off, I've heard they can, if left to their own devices remove all of the rubber parts from the outside of a vehicle, most of the plastic fittings and some metal ones too. It was nice to see the car was parrot proof in the short term, but I had to go.

The road to Milford Sound has many opportunities to stop and view the beauty of Fiordland, lakes, waterfalls rivers and mountains can all be walked from the roadside car parks. One observation  I couldn't help make was the DOC paths are almost too accessible, removing the 'wild' completely from, well, the wild. That isn't a criticism, it's more a reflection on the kind of tourist that the area hopes to attract. 

Look, another KiwiExperience bus...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_sound

Mitre Peak dominates the sound.

The Sound itself has been hailed by some as  natural wonder of the world, it certainly is a beautiful place and very tranquil when the pleasure cruises are out of earshot. It also is like nowhere else on earth I've seen. I would have loved to seen it before the car parks, hotels, airports, campervans, pleasure cruises and bloody juicy rentals moved in. 

A friendly Robin

 From Te Anau I went in search of the regular, everyday south island town, something to contrast the resort towns I had visited recently. I also wanted to see a slice of ordinary life and spend a quiet day strolling around the streets where ordinary folk live, seeing what goes on. The town I chose was Cromwell, it was conveniently located just a (relatively) short drive from Queenstown and absolutely no-one I had met in a backpackers hostel had said they were going there or had been there. That's usually a good sign.

Every town has to have a 'thing' to be a symbol of the settlement, Te Puke has a giant Kiwi fruit, Ohakune has a giant carrot, and so on. I guess if it doesn't have a big thing then it's not a proper town, I've no Idea who started this idea, but now it has it's inertia, big things are popping up all over the country, sometimes against the will of the local people (they are follies, after all). Cromwell has four big things in one: an apricot, apple pear and nectarine. The fruit is a reference to the regions long association with fruit growing.Predictable really. 
I like this idea of having things, though I wouldn't like to have to fund them as a taxpayer. Coming from a land where the symbolic landmarks are accidentally appointed old things it has a certain charm. 

Suburban Cromwell, bin day.

Cromwell has a long and interesting history, on the surface the streets are long, wide and orthodox in their suburban-ness, the town centre is truly awful in it's 90s town planned way. I find this truly charming, even down to the bleak slightly out of town pub/grills that seem to have taken the new build pub idea and run with it down the drive in boozer route. Below this is the goldrush town of the mid 19th century, only a few visible landmarks remain of the great ore-seeking enterprise of former times, the shanty towns for migrant workers from all over the world, have been excavated and the relics are now in the local historical museum guarded by a pair of old dragons. The main street and much of the town that stretched down to the banks of the river were flooded when the Clutha dam was constructed from the 1980's onward. Except it wasn't as I learned the developers demolished the main street and then used modern gold extraction methods to harvest the nuggety goodness that had been buried under the  town for its short but colourful history. When the waters had risen the hole where the town had been was filled in and landscaped into terraces. Very interesting. Apparently the old bridge is still in place 10 meters below the waters surface, I had a look, but couldn't see it. 

Wedding photos by the new lake Dunstan

A few notable buildings have been moved to a new site clear of the waters and make up a historical precinct

Cromwell today, you can see submerged land toe the bottom left

Clutha dam

Life wasn't easy for the early settlers, the Scally family fell victim to typhoid

I enjoyed wandering around Cromwell, checking out the local history and learning about a piece of little know history, I even took a swim in the local leisure center! However the accommodation was a little too expensive for an extended stay so I took off for Queenstown (again) for a few days more in a resort town.

I moan about how fake it is, but it is rather pretty.

Up the gondola

Views across the town.

This visit I took a ride on the skyline gondola for a good view of the town, I was surprised how small the centre of town is, I also decided I had wandered around enough to be able to identify most buildings in the 'CBD' from the mountain. There was a lot of wandering. So I had my last Fergburger and headed to pastures new.

Lake Wanaka on the way.

I find the formula of staying at least 3 nights in a place even if it is too quiet or too busy then driving for no more than 4/5 hours most agreeable to my quite specific sensibilities as to what it is to road trip. I'd hate to have to move every day and not be able to take my time along the way. I headed north to Hokitika and along the west coast northwards. Along the way countless stunning views and places of interest invide a little exploration.

Pebbles with writing on, somewhere (probably Bruce Bay)

Check out that sea mist!

That's that. 

Along the west coast there are many indications of glaciation, just a short distance from the main highway there are several easily accessible glaciers. Now I was (and still am) quite excited about this as I'd never seen a glacier before. The thing that struck me first is how blue they are; blue like children colour ice in drawings. Astounding. What does it mean?

Fox glacier as seen from a clearing in the bush

The second thing I noticed was that the glaciers were shrinking, clearly they had been much larger recently. There were visible marks on the rocks where the ice has reached recently. This is pretty much what I'd heard was going on around the world as a combination of reduced snowfall and higher average temperature in the years leading up to the present day.

Ice climbers give an idea of the scale of the glacier front. Unwary climbers have been crushed by huge blocks of falling ice in the past, it is very hard to recover the bodies.

At both Fox and Franz Josef glaciers you can take a gentle walk along the glacier river side (the water tastes quite like you'd expect, with added grit) to a safe viewing area quite some distance from the ice (will squash someone eventually) where you can get a good view of the glaciers. Being New Zealand there are a variety of extreme sports options such as taking a helicopter to the top of the glacier and going ice climbing, jumping out of an aeroplane over the glacier etc etc... No, I didn't. My budget is a bit too downscale for these kind of activities.
Arthurs Pass is as spectacular as you can comfortably get. The car just about withstood the climb with just a suspicious burning smell and a bit of overheating. Also as a reward for the trip I was treated to a simultaneous sunset painting the mountains in red and pink hues and full moon rise. 

The same moon rise taken by fellow traveler Shanna with a decent camera and stolen be me.

Sunset on the mountainside

Moon over Arthur's pass village

Arthur's pass backpackers hostel was a pleasant surprise as it was quite empty! he handful of guests recognised each other from staying in other places together and there was a friendly atmosphere for the night I stayed there.In the morning there was a thick frost carpeting the world and the weak morning sun just about brought the air temperature above freezing. This created the most spectacular mist which looked epic but stopped me seeing much on the way to Christchurch.

The mist clears.

To my surprise someone replied to my open couch request for Christchurch, as couchsurfing experiences go it was pretty impersonal and a little busy for my liking, however, with a car and my own things to do I could cope with that. The host was really nice and gave me a key with which to come and go as I pleased so no waiting for someone to get home (as in Chania where I had to be out all day until 12.30am when my host showed up). It was interesting to experience this side of couchsurfing in contrast to how I prefer to host and be hosted, I'm pretty sure that's not how it was intended to be, or then again maybe it was. I'm not sure. In any case in New Zealand it hasn't really worked for me with the exception of a few hosts. 

One day I went to the RNZAF museum in Christchurch, I like Aeroplanes, what can I say.

DH Vampire with early RNZAF roundels before they stuck on a flightless bird.

I got to spend a little time with my cousin Jethro in Christchurch too, in all I spent a week in the city. As I've already explained what is going on there (after the earthquakes) I won't go into it now. I did get to explore the city a little more and pretty much figure out the one way system around the CBD. I even ventured out of the city to some of the surrounding towns and beaches.

Christchurch from the Banks peninsula hills.

Sunset at Sumner

Note to self: Clifftop houses in a seismically active zone might not be such a good idea

Gold

Christchurch is an interesting city in the way it has evolved before and after the natural disasters earlier in this decade, staying longer this time allowed me to see how everyday life functions in a 'square doughnut' around the city within the four avenues. Shopping malls and retail parks have replaced the old city in peoples lives. It's difficult to find anywhere to have lunch in the old CBD, the foodcourts in the malls are crammed with just about everyone, meetings are held in McDonald's. I hope that when the city is redeveloped it regains its centrality and also its intolerance to bad driving. I have never seen such bad driving in a developed country; usually utes, usually involving jumping a red light, sometimes on a pavement. It seems the earthquake has also damaged manners.
In Christchurch I re-united with Wendy and we began to travel north together, the return to the North Island was underway! 

We stopped off in Kaikura because it is in my opinion a great place to spend a little time (especially if you love wildlife) and just far enough to overnight before catching the Cook Straight ferry without having to stay in Picton (which no-one really wants to do) or Blenheim. The Kaikura peninsula has one of the best walks in the world; where else can you go for a stroll and turn a corner to find a snoring seal? It has has history, archaeology, epic views, geology and of course just up the coast... BABY SEALS! 

Remembering what happened last time I was there I made sure my camera battery was charged and I arrived in decent daylight conditions. As a result my photos are a bit better than last time, and I made some videos too.

It was nice to see the little fellows again, frolicking in their pool and learning to seal, their numbers had lessened I guess as a result of pups leaving the stream as they become old enough to make it on the beach outside. 
With our joy reservoirs topped up, we headed north up Highway 1 through breathtaking coastal scenery and made the Picton to Wellington ferry in good time.

Fierce competition for the best seats on the ship.

Along Queen Charlotte sound, I even saw the seal that follows the ferries in and out of the harbour at Picton again.

Farewell the mainland

Overtaking the slower Blubridge ferry

Preparing to disembark at Wellington

We stayed in Wellington for a night then headed north to regions unexplored in Hawkes Bay. The town is famous for its sunny disposition (it is in the rain shadow of the rest of the island) and its art deco remake after the earthquake of 1931. It is a pretty place, though it seems I wasn't overly impressed enough to take many photographs. On the first night there we heard music coming from along the sea front and followed it to find a free festival in the art deco colonnades/ open air concert-dance venue. It was a celebration for Matariki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matariki ) which is marked around the shortest day of the year. There was the predictable Maori reggae band (Maori like reggae, island time etc) food stalls, amusements and best of all lots of people to check out.   

'It's Makariki Bro!'

Sunny Napier

Napier and Hawkes Bay were a nice destination for a break from travel, it definitely felt as if I was back on the North Island, the people had changed as well as the landscape. This changed even more along the 'Geothermal Highway' to Taupo and Rotorua.

There's something going on underground...

State Highway 5 winds through rolling hills and vineyards but then the hills become increasingly steep and it suddenly dawns on you that you're driving over the lips of a huge crater. Lake Taupo is a collapsed supervolcano (caldera I think) that erupted in the 2nd century AD coating much of New Zealands north island in a blanket of distinctive ash (rust red in colour- heamatite, formed over 700 degrees). The area is still very, I say VERY active today in a volcanic zone stretching from the south of the lake at Mt Ruapehu north-eastwards for 220  miles  until a little volcano out to sea called White Island that erupts quite frequently. Here and there the earth is visibly steaming and there are several 'Volcanic attractions' to visit along the way, which, being a tourist I did.

A large fumerole at 'Craters of the moon'

It's quite terrifying to think that as you walk around on this landscape, that there is huge uncharted chambers below ones feet filled with boiling water corroding the rock with their acidic fumes.

The colours are caused by the minerals present in the superheated water below.

The park called 'craters of the moon' was impressive and in spite of the high (relatively) entrance price I thought it good value. Please bear in mind that I've never seen anything like this before so I was easily impressed, Kiwis or visitors who live near such things may not be as overawed as I was. I thought it was all pretty neat.

We decided to stay a few days in Rotorua to explore the area and it's sights, just outside the town is the long visited 'Geothermal Wonderland' that after the destruction of the pink and white terraces near Mt Tarawera in 1886 has ben the areas premier tourist attraction. On the day we visited we arrived just in time to buy a ticket and quickly drive to the Lady Knox geyser.

The Geyser in its resting state

On one side of the geyser there was a sizable viewing area filled with tourists ready and waiting for the spectacle to begin. We were told that it would start at 10.15am. Sure enough a cheerful fellow in a high visibility coat appeared at 10.16 precisely and began to inform and entertain. It turns out that below our feet was a large chamber of superheated water sub-divided into two chambers, the upper chamber being slightly cooler. Naturally the rhythm of eruptions are roughly every 36 hours or so, so the cheerful fellow dumped a carrier bag of washing soda into the hole as he does (I presume) every day at 10.25am precisely and went off for a cup of coffee at the cafe/visitor center. Meanwhile the washing soda dissolved in the hot water and decreased the inter-molecular forces in the top chamber making the water in the two chambers suddenly mix which caused the water in the the lower chamber to flash boil (a loud rumbling noise from underground!) before the steam forced water out of the spout at high speed and pressure. Much photography occurred.

In goes the washing soda

*RUMBLES*

*FOOOOM*

*WHOOOOOOOSH!*

The rest of the park was a collection of volcanic pools with a few kilometers of track linking some great viewpoints. I was disappointed to find my camera was not quite capturing the colours I could see, the pictures you see here are enhanced by a free photo editing programme I  have since downloaded. Still there is no substitute for seeing it. And for that matter smelling it!

Boiling mud pools

Sulphur condensing around a vent.

It never gets old, does it?

The town of Rotorua has an interesting smell, the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulphide is stronger in some places and almost unnoticed in others. Hot springs have been harnessed for electricity generation and for geothermal hot pools since it was first discovered that various temperatures of water were to be found just flowing from the ground. The town is built upon a network of subterranean vents and passages, some small while others larger, I spent quite a lot of the time wondering if the locals worried about a steam vent opening up in the middle of the lounge and swallowing up the coffee table and the cat. In some parts of Rotorua the air smells of rotten eggs (hydrogen sulphide) while at others it smells like burning tyres (I really don't know) and assorted cough drops. I can't complain as a visitor as I took to the waters in the Polynesian spa pools which are the spacial descendants of the early 'priest pools' of the 19th century. I find the minerals in the water are therapeutic to the skin and the temperature of the pools (36-41 degrees) soothes aching joints and muscles.

Leaving the Rotorua area and approaching the Coromandel peninsula via a nights stay to check out Whakatane (to find not much in particular going on) the pace of the road trip increased. Wendy had to be in Auckland in a few days for a flight and I felt like i should be heading south back to the family. We drove along the coast of the Bay of Plenty, past the industrial areas of Tauranga (looked like Birmingham by the sea) and northwards to Whangamata where I had a coffee with a crazy local gentleman and his quite ordinary friend from England (he saw my Exeter uni shirt and wouldn't stop talking about archaeology, which is fine by me except we had to be going) before checking out the local beach before heading north again to Whitianga which due to having walked all around the town (there's not much of it really) when I first got here I know quite well.

Rainbow! Looking out to Mercury bay.

Cathederal cove is there somewhere.

The hostel in Whitianga is great, they have free sea Kayak hire and the sea is just across the road, yes literally it's just across the road! There are plenty of nice places to walk in if the wind is not too cold, a shopping street, a marina (checked on Alex's boat) and LOTS to do in the locality. Probably the most fun in my opinion is hot water beach where as a consequence of a geological fault opening up under the sand hot water flows through the sand to the sea. All you have to to is dig a hole and you have your own little hot spa pool. There were a few people there, so I can't imagine how crowded the beach might get in the summer peak days (it's technically winter here! Haha!) as the are with hot water is around 20 meters wide with a central strip way too hot for digging. Yes, I could have spent a lot longer on the Coromandel.

Climbing to see the view over Coromandel

The view

After a little loop of the Coromandel, we made a quick visit to Thames where I witnessed the first real cockroach infestation in a hostel I'd seen in this country, then drove cross country via Hamilton to Raglan to do a little bit of surfing.
Raglan was much quieter than I remembered it, though the pub bore in Valentino's cafe bar was still there, the off season really is the best time to do this kind of spontaneous travel as there was ample room available at the hostel for extending a stay, the facilities were not in the slightest bit crowded, the beach and Manu bay were not crowded and best of all it was still pretty warm. There were a couple of days during the week with bad weather and I gave myself aching elbow joints from all the paddling in cold water but it was worth the diversion. I can't say yet that I can surf, but I've got over a weeks falling off the board out of the way.

My Mitsi Mirage 'Father Dick Byrne' gone all surf bum.

I would like to post some pictures of me falling off surfboards, sadly I was too bust falling off surfboards to take any, so here's a nice picture of the beach where I did my babysteps.

Ngarunui Beach

Stormy seas, I got beaten up by the waves a number of times.

After a lovely week in Raglan it was time to drop off Wendy in Auckland and head south towards Taumarunui, time for a brief trip to Mt Eden and to spend a day wandering around Ponsonby in the cold, wind and rain. Also the most crazy buffet dinner in a Korean barbecue place somewhere a stones throw from the skytower, all that meat and your own little hotplate grill to cook it on! Best of all it has a bring your own licence, wine was drunk. I went back to the hostel happy, tipsy and bloated with random meat.

Mt Eden, it's a volcano

Awoockland

More volcanoes.

There was time for a little diversion to Piha where it was so windy we got sandblasted.

Piha Beach

Sea stars, everywhere.

I was supposed to head back to Richard's farm but as he was marshaling at a motocross event south of Lake Taupo, so I went across to see what that was about...

erm...

The last day of the road trip was spent riding around in a cool two-seater buggy chasing the last rider in the races around ready to signal the next race was clear to start. There were lots of races to watch with varying levels of rider capability and money spent on the bikes. To my surprise there was also a category for racing quads.

If I'm honest, I miss being on the road, the feeling of waking up in the morning and not knowing or caring where I'd lay my head that night. the feeling of choice that comes from having nowhere in particular to go, exploration of the abouts places, watching the world change around you as the black ribbon flow-hums along beneath. Perpetual change.