2 Sheilas go Down Under

Thursday, 2 October 2008

Windy Wellington!

The 'Beehive' at Parliament

Wellington city, it's windy believe me

Welcome to Wellington, the captial of NZ, and probably the windiest place I have ever been. We found a lot of rainy day activities here as the weather was being very, well, like New Zealand. We went to 'Te Papa', the museum of New Zealand, which was really interesting. They even had a section on the Scottish communities that are so prolific over here and we took much joy in watching a DVD on the highland games of NZ! There were kilts a plenty! We also decided to take a look at Parliament, which was really good. The main building is shaped like a beehive, apparently a national symbol for NZ, and we were taken on a tour of the inner workings of Parliament. We even got to sit in the debate chamber and listen to some guy rant on and some shrill lady MP laugh at him, provoking a full on shouting match. It was more than we expected shall we say!

Is it me or do Kiwi's hate us?

It wasn't an unfair question to ask given some of the 'hospitality' that New Zealanders have offered us of late. Having the largest van ever made has proved difficult recently, with the worst problem so far being finding somewhere to park the beast. Firstly you need somewhere that has no time restrictions, which is hard to come by in large towns (ie the hell hole that is, Christchurch), and secondly you need adequate space to fit in, preferably with a large 'run up' (a technical term we have adopted). Try finding those in a large city. We arrived in Christchurch, ok so it wasn't quite a hell hole, and struggled to find anywhere to stop, so we found a 'Pak N Save' supermarket with a 90 minute parking time as long as you're shopping. Perfect. So we stayed there once on the first day, again on the second, and thought there would be no bother on the third, even though we didn't actually go in the shop this time, but didn't think anyone would notice. You can imagine our suprise when we are in our van about the leave the car park with ignition on, and we get a knock on the window from some guy who was 'about to make our day', apparently. There was a tow truck on the way to get rid of our precious beast. A quick call to kindly cancel said truck and I asked the idiot to just imagine we had left a minute earlier, but apparently that would result in a large fine going straight to our rental company and on to my credit card. We had no choice but to pay the man a slightly smaller tow truck cancellation fee. I hate Christchurch, and the trolley boy from Pak N Save who shopped us in, and the fact that it cost us $80 to park for an hour.

You can only imagine how annoying it was to be so careful with your money and then lose a massive chunk of it over something so trivial. Even worse though is when you turn up in a town that doesn't seem to allow campervans ANYWHERE! Every turn we took in Hamner Springs there were 'no campervan' signs, so finding somewhere to stay the night was going to be tough. We waited until the dead of night and moved to a road, pretty much the only one in town that didn't have a mass of 'I hate campervan' signs, and thought we would sleep easy given that we would move at 8am so not to bother anyone. What's the worst they are going to do? Bang on the door?

They banged on the door. They banged on the bloody door at 6.50am shouting that it was 'illegal to park in the street'. Now I'm not sure of the accuracy of the statement that the incredibly shrill lady, who was most definitely a member of the 'I hate campervans' society, proclaimed to us, but we were in no mood to have a chat. So we got up, drove off, and found yet another Kiwi that hates us.

Tuesday, 23 September 2008

Bog Bandits

We have been away from home for quite a while now, and although we are a pretty well behaved bunch, foreigners have a knack of getting in trouble with the law away from home. I didn't think this would be us. I guess even the strong can fall. Imagine the scene, it's late at night, you've just arrived in a new town, and you need the toilet. Now none of the public toilets are open at this time, but we spotted a sign for a caravan park and didn't think it would be too much hassle if we just popped in and used the toilets. So Nic and I park the van up outside the park, all the lights are off everywhere so we thought we would sneakily get in and get out without causing any bother. So apres toilet useage, we are commenting on the excellent hand soap, and we leave the toilets. As we leave we see a torch being shined around the kitchen area of the park and so we make a bolt for it thinking that this light is after us. Sure as anything I get a torch shone in my face and a shouted of 'OI!', I look around and Nic has scarpered (nice solidarity there) and so I try and make another run for it, guessing that the gruffness of the 'oi' rendered him too fat to chase me. Well I find Nic behind some building and she just says to not bother running. So we confront the man, as I guessed a fat hairy man from Northern England who wanted our blood. We explained our situation that we needed the toilet and thought it wouldn't bother anyone, and thought we would be on our way. Oh no, he gets out his phone and then proclaims that he is taking our photo and sending it to the police! Nic was totally gobsmacked and pretty much told the bloke where to go. He didn't like that and also told me to 'wipe the smirk off your face'! So we're there, in the rain, late at night, arguing that he was going to call the police, because we used the toilets. The guy wouldn't budge but I tried taking the sympathetic route and just said sorry and asked him to see it from our perspective. That was met with more talk of police. By that point Nic and I had both had enough and just started kindly explaining to the delightful man that he was, in fact, a complete idiot. So after a while he gave up and we were told to 'clear off'. Never would I have thought that using the loo would have been such an issue!

Napier and our dive buddy!

Scrum time baby!

Napier prison. Oh and backpackers

You may remember that on our dive trip, Nic and I made friends with 2 yanks, and fortunately for us, one of them now lives in Napier on the East coast. Patrick was more than happy to show us around, and show us around he did! We went to wineries, a cheese factory, a honey factory, Te Mata peak which is a lookout above Napier and Hastings, a tour of Napier prison (now running as a backpackers, like everything else in Oz and NZ), and finally a rugby game! The match was really good, it was the Hawkes Bay Magpies (complete with Magpie mascot) against the Mooloo's, a team not far from Napier so it was a bit of a local derby. It had a lot of tries and a lot of Jono Lomu types that I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. The NZ chants leave a lot to be desired however, with the Magpies whole heartedly singing
'Come on the Bay, Come on the Bay, Black White, Alright, Come on the Bay'. Oh dear. It was a catchy little number though I won't lie!

Zorbing, Mordor and a lot of sulphur in the air

We are now Zorbonauts

Sulphur lakes in Rotorua!

Tongariro National Park, aka Mordor!

We continued our journey South as we left Auckland, through a couple of national parks. On this trip Nic and I have gradually forced ourselves to learn to like walking, not just walking 5 minutes to the shops, oh no, like, hiking hard core, needing to take water supplies. Well, we like to take it easy and so when venturing into the Coromandel Peninsula we decided to take the 50 minute walk to the waterfalls. These waterfalls appeared more and more illusive as 2 hours down the track we were still lost, heading up some seriously steep cliffs and growing more and more annoyed. We bumped into some fellow 'trampers' (the technical term for those in the know) who showed us where we were on their secret squirell walking map. Ie we were miles from where we thought. We headed in the 'right' direction and then found that the track followed the route of this stream, and crossed the water about 20 times. It had rained the night before and so navigating a dry route across the river via a few rocks was getting tough. It was about the time we reached the 19th crossing that I really lost it. Having so carefully made the crossing before I was keen to keep dry, but the river had other plans. One slip in the wrong direction and you guessed it, I fell in. Nic laughed for a while until the 20th nightmare and she also met with her watery mishap. So we trudged back, wading through water to the van. In case you were wondering, trainers and jeans become very heavy when they are wet.

Back on dry land we made the trip to Rotorua, which is a really interesting place, not only because as soon as you arrive you can smell rotten eggs. That's right, this place is teaming with volcanic activity, and even in the centre of town they have bubbling mud pools and steam rising from the ground as a result of the hot volcanic rocks not far beneath the surface, and as a bonus, it kicks up quite a sulphury smell! Rotorua is proud to boast that it is the birthplace of a 'phenonmenon' called Zorbing. Imagine yourself as a giant hamster, in a ball, and then imagine that ball is being pushed from the top of a steep hill. Oh and add some water inside so the hamster sloshes about a bit. Now replace hamster, with yourself, and you have Zorbing! Nic and I got in our togs and made the ascent to the top of the hill, and we were officially now 'Zorbonauts'. Individually we got in our watery ball and were pushed and shoved around down a zig zag course until we made it to the bottom, where as drowned rats we had our photos taken, and then exiting the Zorb meant pretty much falling out the bottom of it with a flood of water resembling something, not unlike, a rebirth. Beautiful.

We then moved on to a place called Taupo, which has a huge lake, formed from a volcanic crater, and is overshadowed by none other than Mt Ruapehu, aka Mordor from Lord of the Rings! It is an absolutely beautiful place and is perfect with the snowed capped mountains. We stayed in the town for a while and investigated more steaming mud pool and craters, and then made the trip to Tongariro national park, home to Mts Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro, of LOTR fame! In our haste to do a walk (ok exaggerating slightly now) we drove straight to the top of the snowy mountains (which are also still in ski season) and tried to do a walk. It wasn't long before it started snowing on us however and believe it or not, our 10 ton van could not withstand the terrain. We were pretty close to becoming a casualty of Mordor so we decided to head back, but it was an awesome day!