Barney, Wellies and NZ Part 6

It's been a busy week this week, we've lifted boats out - well not physically ourselves obviously, but organised and winterised them, one here in the Marina and one we picked up from Vounaki, the Sunsail base south of here on the mainland and took it just a bit north of here to Prevesa.

And our foster cat has come to stay again, he sulked for a couple of days when his Mum and Dad left him, then he came in, ate his own body weight in food and decided he was settled in......

Most importantly my new wellies arrived - yea .........

Just in time as well, it's going to rain all week now!


Michael and Eve arrive in NZ

Wellington is COLD and raining. winter is definately on its way. Marks friend came from Whitby in the UK and now lives in Whitby in NZ – how bizarre is that?? We spent a couple of nights with him, explored abit of Wellington, the museum and the local restaurants. Both shocked at how early everything closes, apart from one street in Wellington where the nightclubs are everyone’s gone home by 11pm – amazing. Wellington can be a very nice city, but it's difficult for anywhere to look really attractive in this weather. So May 30th we take a quick flight back up to Auckland – Michael arrives in 2 days and I want some time with Mum before the mayhem ensues.

June 1st Michael and Eve arrive in Auckland, minus their bag with all their snowboarding gear – oh dear, fingers crossed it arrives in the next couple of days. Fantastic to see them, haven't seen them since June 09 when they came out to Greece and we've got two weeks together. June 2nd, lunch with my cousin, she lives a few minutes walk from a lovely beach so after lunch we all trapse down and let the dog have a mad half hour in the warm sunshine - YES SUNSHINE, its lovely and warm in Auckland. June 3rd we're off to Rotorua, home to bubbling mud pools, hot sulfur pools, geysers and stinky smells.

Sixteen years ago we took Michael and his cousin Hayley to Hells Gate and then prices for entry were reasonable, now it's spoiled slightly by the excessive price you have to pay to get in. Unfortunately this became a theme of the visit to Rotorua, everything touristy was ridiculously expensive and it's a real shame because many people will be put off visiting this truly amazing volcanic region.

While at Hells Gate we tried our hand at simple wood carvings, the instructor said they were simple, you would have thought we were producing master pieces with the looks of concentration on our faces!

Not far from Hells Gate is the Giant Redwood forest, very spectatular, we took a walk though at dusk and the colours where really lovely.

Giant Redwood - our arms aren't long enough!!

June 3rd We had planned go to an evening of Maori dancing and 'hangi' (hangi is the method of cooking food in the ground and is mouth wateringly delicious), however the price for this was over $100 per head!!! We couldn't believe it, that's outrageous and disappointing, the budget is only going to stretch so far! So we head to Huka Falls between Rotorua and Taupo. Eating lunch on the banks of Lake Taupo we read that Taupo was the world’s biggest and most destructive volcanic eruption ever, over 50 times the magnitude of the Mt St Helen's eruption. Mt St Helen moved 3 cubic kilometers of earth, Lake Taupo moved 110 cubic kilometers! This eruption is regarded as the biggest in the last 5000 years. The event was recorded by the Chinese and the Romans. The Chinese actually heard the bang and made a record of the brilliant sunsets that lasted approximately 6 months - how's that for spectatular!

Looking across Lake Taupo towards Mt Tarawera

More piccies here of Rotorua and Taupo

Lake Taupo is fed from the surrounding moutains and then feeds into the Waikato River. Along the Waikato is a series of nine hydroelectric dams and we discover that the first damn (Aratiatia) will be opening it's gates and releasing water at 2pm. It was 1.45 and we were 12kms away, cue the race to get to the damn before the water was released. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare and were rewarded with a very satisfactory siren. Another siren on one minute upped the anticipation. We could see a water line against the rocks, way above the current calm pool, and never thought it could be reached, how wrong we were. Over a period of half an hour we watched gallons of water flood into a pool below the bridge, thunder noisly down the narrow gorge and cover extrememly large rocks, creating a foaming sea of brilliant turquoise and reaching that water line. When the gates of the dam closed and the flood water carried on it's way down the river with the pool and narrow gorge slowly receeded back to the calm trickle it started with. One of those sights that has to be seen to be believed. The hour we were there seemed to pass in just minutes.

You can see the series of pictures of the flooding and receeding water from the dam here

Time to head back to Auckland. For dinner we stop to get takeaway from Noodle Hut, a new age fast food concept, fairly common throughout NZ and they’re awesome, everything is cooked fresh in front of you, huge portions and VERY hot, lovely finish to the day.

Next time family reunion and finding Lord of the Rings sites.

I spot Xmas Dinner and NZ Part 5

This weekend was the round the island sailing race again, I can't believe it's a year since I wrote about us breaking the record last year for this race. Anyway it is, and luckily I don't have to go this year, they have enough crew and the weather forecast is for little and NO wind, so it's going to be long and dedious.

Instead I cycle as usual with my friend and as we're cycling through the olive groves we hear 'gobble, gobble gobble' muliplied lots of times. It's Xmas dinner on the hoof!! Leap off my bike quick, get the camera out quick (which I had with me cos I was supposed to be at the start line for the race to take piccies), and just managed to get a picture of the gobblers as they were heading off into the groves. What a site, what a noise, they won't be so chatty in a month or so!!
Anyway back to the race - Mark said they were starting at 10am so I was in plenty of time - oops, he got it wrong and as we were cycling along the north edge of the lagoon we could see sails up - bugger, I missed the start, but this is the picture I did get......
It took them a punishing 23 hours to complete the race, they were second over the line and first on handicap - victorious again. I was so pleased I wasn't with them!!


Glaciers to Chrishchurch NZ Part 5

May 27th, drive north towards Hokitika. The landscape is more gentle and rolling on this coast, but in complete contrast the coast line is seriously dramatic. In true Kiwi style, 5 km south of Hokitika we come across a surprise. A ONE LANE combined rail and road bridge over the river Taramakau...
Believe it or not, this bridge forms part of the NZ’s National Rail Network and it’s disturbing to know you have to share this bridge with trains!

Hokitika is a small, not particularly attractive town, known now for it’s jade, gold and glass arts and crafts. In the mid 1800’s it was the gold rush capital of the West Coast and it’s home to NZ’s largest gold nugget. Unfortunately we don’t have time to plan a heist on said nugget so we continue north to Greymouth.

Greymouth is also not a particularly attractive town, it’s wealth originally came from gold and coal. Now it’s more forestry and tourism. The camp site we picked was lovely and right on another of the west coasts long dramatic beaches. Had a lovely walk along the beach at dusk as the tide was coming in. We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner and the best way to describe the place would be to say, someone was trying to hard to make a chic minimalist look but they failed miserably and the result was dull and bland. Food was just OK, but just like the decorations it was trying to be pretentious and also failed. I had Elephant fish – never heard of it, how bad a Kiwi am I!

May 28th, today we go over the Southern Alps via Arthur’s Pass back to Christchurch. Weather is closing in behind us and we’re wondering what we’ll find when we get up high. We climb for an hour before meet the snow, at first it was just a light covering of snow on all the trees, it looked lovely. Higher we went more snow there was, snowing heavier and settling. Carry on toward Potters Pass and signs are telling us snow chains will be needed – yikes!! It’s a shame for Mark because visibility is minimal, but on a clear day there are stunning views across the Alps. At the bottom of Potters Pass, sure enough they’re stopping everyone and insisting they put their chains on. Mark looks miffed, puts his jacket and hat on – it’s snowing quite heavy now – and gets out to put the chains on. I do an unusual girly thing for me and stay in the van and give encouragement through the window!

As it happens we didn’t really need them we would have made it down OK. They come off again when we get over the pass and continue onto Christchurch. Next stop Springfield – all of you Simpson’s fans will understand the significance of this. We love the Simpsons. We stopped for lunch at Simpsons café and had the most lovely homemade pies, baked on the premises. It’s still cold here and the lovely little wood burner makes it feel really homely.

Onwards to Christchurch, and it’s grey and drizzling, we decide to take the little old tram ride around historic Christchurch which is beautiful. It’s over 30 years since I was in Christchurch and it’s changed so much with all its modern high rise buildings that I hardly recognise it.

After a wander around the catherdral we have coffee at ‘The Bike Thief’ café. It’s beautifully decorated with post war pictures of Rome and with such an unusual name I ask the owner how he chose it. He had named it after the famous foreign film ‘The Bicycle Thief’ a story set in war ravaged Rome where a father, desperate to feed his family is offered a job putting up posters, however he needs a bicycle to do it. With his family he takes everything he can from him home to the porn shop to reclaim his bike that he had hocked some time ago. On the first day of his new job his bike is stolen and from then on the film follows his desperate attempt thru poverty stricken Rome to find his bike. The café owner is a real enthusiast of the film and will chat at length to anyone interested enough to listen. After the most chocolaty hot chocolate I’ve ever had we set off to find a campsite for the night. We ate at the pub across the road where the food was fine but they wanted to shut as soon as we had eaten - about 9.30pm - they close early on the outskirts of Christchurch!!!

May 29th, take the camper back to base – today it’s freezing – news says it’s snowing heaving in Queenstown where we’ve been and due to snow at lower levels around Christchurch, many roads are closed, we’re leaving and moving north at just the right time. Check camper in – mosey onto the airport. A friend of Marks from the UK now lives in Wellington so we ring him and ask if we can stay a night with him if we can get a flight. This bit wasn’t planned and we’re playing it by ear. A couple of hours later we land in Wellington, it’s blowing hard and raining. News that evening, ‘snow closes the passes from Queenstown to Wanaka and Arthurs Pass. Cars stranded, lorries stuck, cars run into each other and off the road’. We’ve managed to leave a carnage of weather conditions behind us. Lets see what we can do for Wellington.

More piccies of that trip here