On the road in New Zealand: Wanganui-Wellington-Christchurch and many other places in between.

"The real travelers are people the world does not know."

-Paul Theroux

It's a sunny afternoon in Hanmer Springs. Due the internet situation in New Zealand I'm writing away here in the public library surrounded on two sides by incessantly chatty French and German backpackers (the French in particular are doing the most inane giggling), small children (with very clunky shoes) and those book bins that make 100% more noise to return a picture book to than necessary.

Yes, I'm on the move again after many weeks staying with family on the north island I have taken off to the south in my 'reasonably cheap but still works o.k. car'. The scenery here is absolutely breathtaking and has been so from the first day of travel. It is so photogenic at times that I have not been able to remember to photograph it. However on occasion I have been suitably underwhelmed by the view in order to remember I'm carrying a camera and to get it out. That's what you're basically seeing here. The stuff that I remember to take pictures of.

Mount Doom, apparently.

The joys of driving in New Zealand

These, everywhere.

The sluggish Whanganui winds it's way to the ocean.

I began the road-trip by following the Whanganui river south as closely as I could, at times I had to drive far away from the river but soon enough I was following it closely downstream through its valleys and around its bluffs. The area contains many sites of historical interest and I enjoyed stopping off to take a look at whatever I spotted.

Jerusalem

My first overnight stop was in Wanganui, it was quite a shock to be staying in a hostel again after so long staying with family. Hostel kitchens can be quite busy at times and with a large Chinese family colonising the one in Wanganui, even eating can be quite a challenge. I took a walk along the bank of the lower stretches of the river and decided to stay another night in order to explore the town some more. This is slow travel after all.

The Wanganui war memorial tower.

A view of the city from the monmument.

In order to understand yourself it is important to understand what motivates you to do things. What fascinates me about incredibly dull little cities? Why do I feel compelled to explore them in order to find something 'happening' unknown to most if it's inhabitants in a crumbling building at the end of a dark alleyway in a quiet part of town? Why the obsession with melancholic seafronts or bay-sides at the end of the summer, old adverts, closed shops and peeling paint?
I have no idea.

You too can have all the mod-cons: 1990 Mitsubishi Mirage brought up to date with some wires and duct tape

One of the best things about going on a road trip by yourself is the ease of just changing your mind and going off on a tangent to see what's there. One of the worst things about going on a road trip by yourself is the ease of just changing your mind and going off on a tangent to see what's there. It's nice to indulge the impulsive side now again.

I spent a little too much time in Wellington, it's easy to do as there is a lot to see and to do there. The people are interesting to watch too.

Curiously the city felt quite homely in spite of its size, I did my usual 'walk around the place until I get blisters' and everywhere I wandered there was something of merit and quite often something good to see and do. The old wharves have been redeveloped and thrown quite gracefully into a state of useless usefulness. There are artsy sculptures along the waterfront and the odd literary quote embossed in the concrete in various hidden places that reward those that loiter to look harder. Away from the bay, a boring grid of wide streets is patrolled by a mixture of funny looking tourists, students and beautiful locals. Almost every other other person seems to be in sportswear en route to or currently taking exercise. The bodies are beautiful in Wellington, yet the faces are remarkably, well, British in their thin-lipped earnestness. Strange. One must see is the museum on the waterfront 'te papa' where I went for a morning but ended up being thrown out at closing time.

Inside te papa

Wellington from Mt. Victoria, I have a thing for cites on a bay.

Contrary to what others suspect; how I get lucky while traveling. only another 4 to find so I can get a coffee!

Still Wellington

Oh Lord, how those negative life-choice patterns come around time and time again.

FIRE IN THE HOSTEL! FIRE IN THE HOSTEL!! unfortunately at 6.50am. 

In case anyone as forgotten the point of this road trip was to explore the south island before the weather got nasty down in the far south. So I booked a car ferry to Picton. The Cook strait was as windy as advertised but the views from the observation deck on the 'roof' of the ship 8 decks up were well worth the exposure. The journey through the bays and islands to Picton reminded me a lot of the Lofoten islands and the ride on the 'hurtigruten' I took back in 2008.

In Marlborough sound

Picton harbour

In Wellington I posted an advertisement of sorts on couchsurfing for traveling buddies for my journey around south island, the post got a fair bit of interest though only a few serious offers dropped into my inbox, one matched my route exactly so In Picton I went over to the Sequoia lodge backpackers to meet Kira and show her that I 'wasn't too creepy' (It must be the beard). As I've written before I prefer traveling along for most of the time, however it is nice to have a travel buddy when you're driving for hours and hours every other day for three weeks and staying in hostels where everyone else seems to be traveling in self-contained groups of around 4 (and very antisocial). As I found in India it is WAY easier to couchsurf when you're sending requests from the account of a young woman; this saddens me considerably, I'll write more about this later when this trip is done, suffice it to say I believe it to be one of the major flaws in hospitality website/schemes, or perhaps it is in fact a flaw in human nature?
We agreed we were both going to head southwards somehow, I had no actual idea which way to go and no particular reason to head anywhere in any order. Kira ad a couple of weeks to kill before going job hunting in the southern wintersports resorts so we decided to just muddle generally southwards stopping wherever either of us found a place to stay or something interesting came around the corner.

Split Apple Rock

Taking photos of peopletakaking photos ofpeopletakingphotos...

Riwaka resurgence: http://www.motuekaonline.org.nz/attractions/walks/riwaka-resurgence.html
It's like the gateway to hades or something...

Another one of those traveling sunsets

Kaikoura

Sleepy Fur Seal

..and another

 If there is one experience that I can call truly mind-blowing and that I'd recommend to anyone it would be a visit to the seal creche at the Ohau falls; we got there an hour or so before dark and found the path along the stream almost entirely deserted.
Then suddenly a small group of seal pups climbed into view and began to play in the shallow pools under each small fall of water.

 We climbed further after a long while and lots of bad-quality photographs to find even more seal cubs sitting around in the bush, at this point I was completely astounded and took even more poor photographs (the light was too low) so many that my camera battery went flat.

Further along the track, taking care not to step on any seal cubs we came across the plunge pool of a waterfall literally full of frolicking baby seals.  

I managed to take a few grainy photos with my phone, none of which even touch on the life-affirming joy of spending time at the waterfall. I think there is a video somewhere.. search for Ohau seal pups on youtube, go on. I dare you.
After Kaikura I went to visit cousin Jethro near Christchurch at Akaroa, discovered I really don't like mussels at all then carried on to Christchurch. You have probably heard about the loss of life caused by the February 2011 earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake but not how the city's core was so devastated. It still is almost four years on. Some reconstruction has finished or is nearing completion but most is only just getting started, yet there is a sense of collecting momentum around the place as the reconstruction gains momentum as it passes out of the planning stages. The greatest problem (so I am told) is that there is just not enough money available to rebuild quickly.
It's that old money problem again. 

Leaving India Behind, and my trousers.

Marina beach Chennai. My last sunset in India.

I left India five days ago, I have mixed feelings about leaving when I did. 
I'm trying to travel slowly, taking in each place I visit deeply and using the experience and slow pace in order to do some deep thinking. Before I arrived I believed that India was where a lot would change; I wanted to stay until my visa expired at the end of March and along the way keep my feelers out for work. However, with my feet on the ground things were different. Not in a bad way particularly, it was just different to experience I had anticipated.

So the curious reader may ask why not stay in India until my visa expired? The answer is I'm not exactly sure. during my first day in Auckland I overheard a guy in a hostel kitchen telling some young Irish backpackers about his plans to travel in India 'for 4-6 months', they were very impressed by this accomplished traveler, his way of reeling off names familiar to me (yes, in a familiar order too) in a cool french accent, those grungy pantaloons, the very suggestion of over 200 nights spent carelessly kipping on vomit-strewn night buses. Did I want to be that guy? Maybe, traveler adoration is a cheap thrill and that's not really what I was after.

This is what I get for flying Malaysia Airlines

Goodbye India

I could have moved my flight later in the month or even to my visa expiry date, I could have got a visa extension if I found something work-like to do as I had originally anticipated. I chose not to, I had seen enough for now.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't unhappy traveling through India; I had a great experience, saw and did what I wanted to, went where I wanted to (I never even got started on the must-see list) I mostly avoided the hardcore tourist traps and as a result met the most wonderful people in the street, on buses and trains, it's amazing how different people are there when it is not their job to try to get you to spend some money. Couchsurfing allowed me to pretend that I lived where my host lived, which with the exception of Jungle Johnnie, was entirely believable (I could never imagine living in a tiger reserve) and rather nice. It also allowed me to meet and socialise with real, everyday people and in some cases to make friends (not many backpackers who go from hostel to hostel can say that). I got to know a few places very well and began to be accustomed to living there, I was close to looking for work in Bangalore, maybe teaching English, maybe Science in an English medium school. It felt like the sort of place where I could have stayed for a time at least.

I think the main factor in choosing to go when I did was that my love/hate relationship with the country, the people and the society had a time limit, if I stayed any longer and saw and heard more about the country, I may have started to do more hate than love. In retrospect perhaps that wasn't really a possibility, but it felt as if it could be at the time.
Realistically I got what I wanted from the experience and decided to move on. I was never going to check in to Amma's (hugging) Ashram and open my mind to pre-fabricated belief systems that are tailored to be sold to lost-soul westerners with a few thousand rupees to spare, nor was I about to embrace yoga wholeheartedly and check into a mountaintop yoga school where I would challenge my body and mind to fit into completely new shapes. Physically I managed to stay clean and healthy for the most part; I believe a good dose of Turkish village yoghurt before I left Istanbul made me resistant to the anticipated and much feared food poisoning. I harbour no regrets there, however I do regret not teaching the street kids something or other in the  Bandra beach promenade street school, though I'm not exactly sure what. My experience of India was different than most, not better, or worse.
I liked it because it was mine.

For that reason I wouldn't say I've been greatly changed by 'the India experience', I remember writing about how I wasn't so much expecting to find myself on my travels but to lose myself in a way. At least the parts that I considered undesirable, and about 10Kg. 
Somewhat to my own surprise I found and continue to find that there isn't much I'd like to lose, In fact I'm beginning to believe in myself increasingly. Now please do not think that John has seen the light or something, I'm just beginning to appreciate the little things more, learning that I am capable of doing just about anything  I want (if I want to enough, or desperately have to), learning that I can be very happy by myself and/or with other people, and a variety of people at that and I'm beginning to value my own patience and ability to understand the viewpoints of others (empathy if you want to call it that). I've realised that if you go out prepared to be a friend to everyone, you'll be surprised with how many nice people  you meet along the way and how the world changes when you do so- just a little but enough for you to notice like a tiny earthquake. I've earned to suspend my cynicism a little, but that it can be really useful at times.

Most poignantly I'm realising that the things that I miss about home and those places that I have to tear myself away from along the way are the things that I really should incorporate into my future. Learning what you value is an important part of going forward, because they are ultimately the things that will bring happiness. 

I still have no Idea what I'm going to do with myself when this is all over, luckily now I'm staying with my cousins in New Zealand I have a little time to think about that sort of thing instead of if I'm on the right train or what is safe to eat. The answer may come, it may not, the answer may well be that there is no question. In any case, my mind is open.

What do you mean you don't understand the cause of my love-hatey-ness ?

Auckland

Oh, My trousers? I left Arvind's house in the super-early morning and missed a pair of trousers drying on a chair, nothing exciting. Sorry.