17th May,
A fellow dorm roomie is currently sat writing her journal which she does everyday so I thought I better do my own update – didn't realise how long it has been. Or, in retrospect from starting to write this entry, how long it would take! I'm now sat in a lovely cafe in Wanaka thinking back...
Firstly, Jon and I are both proud owners of jobs at Mount Ruapehu which we are apparently super lucky to get as they are well sought after jobs. We start on the 14th June when we pick up our uniform and go to a toga party...Now that's sorted, we have just under six weeks to get our backpacks down to the South Island.
After leaving our comfy farmhouse in Waipuk, we headed to Wellington (which was not as windy as it's reputation) and stayed in possibly the worst backpackers in NZ; I even refused to make any dinner in the kitchen. We hung out in the superb museum checking out the only preserved giant squid and more scary exhibits about volcanoes and earthquakes in NZ and some controversial art work from the Venice Biennale. The infamous rough crossing from Wellington to South Island's Picton wasn't as bad as predicted but with a slight hangover (after a few drinks with one of Jon's former roomies from Napier, Issac's cider is very nice!) it wasn't great. Sailing into Picton was not your average Dover-Calais crossing: green waters swimming with millions of jellyfish surrounded by dense hilly vegetation. After a short stay in a lovely hostel with a quick bike ride up to yet another viewpoint we took the train to Kaikoura. The train even had a 'scenic carriage' with no windows – a tad windy- through the Malbourgh vineyards.
Kaikoura is the marine watching capital of NZ. There's an underwater gorge just off the coast meaning it is one of the few places in the world where the ocean is very deep next to land. I braved the renowned rough seas to capture sight of a whale. Real live whales! Although admittedly you only really see the tops of them and then the fin as they dive down for another feed. It's still amazing to be so close to such an amazing mammal (note I didn't put fish). It was an educational tour too; I cant believe the ban on whale hunting in these shores may be lifted soon, sad times. I also saw hundreds and hundreds of playful Dusky Dolphins which I could have watched for hours; very powerful and hypnotising creatures.
From our nice but not very friendly hostel where I received a beating at Monopoly (how?!I always win!), we headed to another WWOOFing place arriving after a slightly scary moment where we thought we'd been left on a pitch black road in the middle of nowhere encountering an interesting and helpful truck driver of an unknown sex. Our host was Ester and her five teenage kids although all but one – Rufus - were actually at the house. The house itself is set in a valley with a good 15 minute track to any proper road and no phone signal. Two nomad cows some quick marching chickens and a stray random dog kept Jon and I company as we painted, chopped wood, wiped the outside walls of spiders and collected hundreds of walnuts. I reckon I can make a pretty good fire these days. Ester was another brilliant host whilst Rufus kept Jon busy on the playstation. Ester's place embraced every bit of the kid's personalities with the walls plastered in photos, paintings, certificates, notes, stickers, books...it was a really great loving household. I've not had an epiphany of 'what to do with my life' yet but I do think I want a garden and a real fireplace. Probably could have learnt that back home but hey ho!
What you get through Wwoofing is finding out about things which are not in the guidebooks. Kaikoura has thousands of seals (protected here) on it's coastline and we went to the same spots as everyone else to view them. Then, Ester told us about a short walk to do off the main road which leads to a waterfall where the seal pups hang out and play. I've never seen anything like it. In a small pool, about 50 seals messed about having the time of their lives; I swear if they could have done they would have waved at us. I'll upload a video of it. Someone else Ester met described it as magical and I think that was pretty much spot on. A unique experience I think.
Time to go solo: I booked the Magic Bus which is a travel network for backpackers – ones slightly older than the party animals on the Kiwi Experience bus – to get myself round the South Island and hopefully to meet some like minded folk. Following a flat battery in the car taking me to the bus stop, some furious phone calls and Jon holding up a sign to flag down the bus, I did finally make it from Kaikoura to Nelson. Jon was left at Ester's with the playstation, I doubt I was missed much.
Nelson gets the most amount of sun of any place in NZ, about 360 days a year of sun. So of course, we had rain for 3 days. The Paridso hostel kept us dry and entertained though. I made some travel buddies (Tracy, Katie, Dean, Fien) to my slight relief – there's always the fear you'll meet no one and have to find a really good book. We took a day trip out to Abel Tasman, a national park outside of Nelson where the rainforest meets the ocean. Whilst the rain let up for a while, we hiked through the bush; it's a really beautiful place with one 'wow' after another. The mix of what I would call 'European' and 'tropical' trees as well as other vegetation meeting pure golden beaches makes the quandary of how to place New Zealand even harder. Perhaps it's identity is best described as eclectic; I'm still thinking about it. Towards the end of our hike, we were lucky to have the heavens open and watch Fien's hair stand up on end with the electricity in the air. We were not however as impressed to find that all the coffee shops at the end of the hike were all closed and one with a broken hot drinks machine.
At the hostel I sat next to a group from the Kiwi bus and whilst I watched them wok sausages (!) one of the guys told me how he'd found cooking for himself difficult: he previously cooked a kilo of rice which he thought would just be enough for three of them and when someone said you just throw the sauce in that comes with the noodles, he took it literally and threw the packet in. For the first time I felt my age and became quite glad of the bus I chose as they started that night's drinking game. I cant take the pace any more.
The rainy days in Nelson were spent at the cinema to watch Russell Crowe attempt a Liverpudlian/Irish/Leeds accent in Robin Hood and reading one of the Stieg Larrson triliogy. After picking up a traveller's cold, it was pretty nice to do nothing too strenuous. We hopped back on the bus the next day with our amusing driver Rich entertaining us with ridiculous stories. The trip to Greymouth on the West coast passed through more rugged county out to the Tasman Sea. The scenery reminds me of the Devonshire-Cornish dramatic coast. We did check out the famous 'pancake' rocks, a stretch of coastline eroded in such way it is supposed to resemble a stack of pancakes. It's a little imaginative but a good tourist trick! Like pretty much everything here, it was another piece of spectacular viewing. Not sure if I'm getting a little bit numb to the beauty and will probably appreciate it more in hindsight.
Greymouth looks like it sounds. Still entrenched in beauty but a little boring and drab as towns go. We stayed in a very friendly nautical themed backpackers which got the local bakery's left overs delivered everyday as a treat for everyone staying there. Nice little extra. The one night there was spent checking out Monthieth's brewery tour where, to be honest, the best bit was the tasting part . The pipes and containers they showed us could have been anything and I'm not entirely sure how much I could recall of it now. No, that has nothing to do with the beer I drank. Good beer and cider followed by a meal out – yes an actual meal out! Although it was in the equivalent of a working man's club with gambling machines setting a great ambience...That night, apparently I saw my first ghost. I woke myself up by calling out 'who are you' to what I thought was a figure at the bottom of my bed. One the guys I'm travelling with is a Funeral Director and he said he felt a 'presence' in the hostel and someone else thought there was something in the room too. So there you go, Ghostly Greymouth.
Another day's drive and more of our bus driver's amusing stories to get us to Franz Joseph, one of three places in the world where there are glaciers in the mountains. I think I am going to have to consult the thesaurus for more words for 'spectacular'. The place was outstanding. The glacier runs through the mountain valley surrounded by rainforest. It takes one snowflake sixty years from the top to make it to the bottom, melting into the ashy rivers ( the colour caused by the grit of the rock, not a volcano!). It rains here a lot so of course we had perfect blue sky for 3 days. After watching a safety video on hiking the glacier and the drops you would encounter, I was a little apprehensive about what to expect. An early start and a kitting out of gear later, we ascended the mountain valley, clipped on some crampons and cautiously stepped out on to the ice. I've never seen anything like it. We hiked up and down steps created for us by our guide and climbed over 'waves' of ice created by the wind to amazing view upon amazing view. The scary part was walking through tiny crevasses and getting completely stuck. A small wave of panic hit when I realised I just could not move but alas the guide popped out a rope and I pulled myself out briefly thinking that I should cut out the muffins until I saw everyone else getting stuck. It was an exhilarating and pretty tiring day. The day after we hiked the glacier one of the guides who was ice climbing slipped ten metres down a crevasse and was stuck there for two hours as helicopters tried to pull her out; she was ok in the end. Selfishly, I'm glad I didn't hear the story before I hiked.
The rest of Franz Joseph was spent hanging out with my dorm roomies, reading more of Larsson, checking out another walk, soaking in some hot pools and scaring ourselves on a night-time hunt for glow worms. Sweet as.
I've not really mentioned much about the bus network but what was supposed to be a useful deal has become a little complicated as there are not enough travellers on the road to warrant buses everyday so I'm now having to spend longer in places than I perhaps would have liked. But at least I have no excuses not to do my washing any more. So we've headed to Wanka for the slightly longer three nights which is actually great because it is a really beautiful place; probably the first place I've been which I could picture myself staying in. A stunning lake surrounded by mountains and a really upmarket town with a lovely feel to it. It's truly autumn here and temperatures have dropped as much as the leaves have. With some of these places, I'm glad I'm visiting in these months as I can imagine at the height of summer this place is insufferable with tourists. We hired bikes and toured the lake for three hours having whole stretches of it to ourselves which I very much doubt would happen in the busy periods. I've even hit the town to a hip hop club which was very amusing.
Onwards to Queenstown tomorrow for more adventure...
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