My last night in Wellington was pretty chilled- after my weekend of being (let’s call a spade a spade) blissfully drunk and disorderly I needed to plan the rest of my trip and chill out. So I just chatted with my cousins housemate and his friend, who told me a story about the time he was working in McDonalds in Nelson and a drunk lady came who was so rude he called her a skank and threw a burger in her face.
I was with them when I found out Whitney Houston had died. Their reaction? ‘Who was she?’. They are all under the age of 21 and I am apparently old. I have many happy memories singing Whitney at the top of my voice with the girls and I am not ashamed to admit it.
Anyhow…
Nelson
I headed over to Nelson on Tuesday 14th February – Valentine’s Day. Thing is, when you are on a lowly populated country, they don’t shove Valentine’s Day in your face. I’m just a girl who was aware of the date. My focus of the morning was not red and pink love hearts and overpriced flowers (I sound bitter, I’m really not). My focus was the next leg of my journey- get to Nelson.
I managed to drag my sorry arse out of bed for the uber early InterIslander ferry that travels between the North and South Island. I got there in time to head to the reclining chair lounge, but once I’m awake, I’m awake so I sat listening to my iTunes and suddenly, as we sailed, all this amazing scenery started to emerge. Now I’m an old hand at ferrys. Having grown up near Folkestone, we used to jump on the boat all the time and go for day trips to buy smelly cheese over in France. Not only that, with relatives in Ireland, you face that Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire route pretty frequently. But this… this was suddenly like arriving into the Scandinavian Fjordlands. And with my own soundtrack in the back round, I was all about embracing the experience. If I was with someone, they would have just grumpily grunted and said, ‘It’s some f***ing hills Lela, let me sleep’. So instead, I sat back, listened to Bombay Bicycle Club and soaked up the scenery. I even got a few Valentines texts..
I was staying with my aunt and uncle, Phil and Derek in Nelson. They run a lovely motel called ‘Lynton Lodge Motel’ and they are listed in the Lonely Planet. According to the latter, they are ‘affable hosts’. I dually teased Derek for this when I called him. ‘Hello, is that the affable host at the Lynton Lodge? It’s your niece speaking..’. Derek said he wasn’t feeling affable, but he’d make an effort for me.
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| Nelson Beach |
Derek is married to my mums sister, Phil. They have always been the ‘cool’ aunt and uncle. Not to say the rest of my family aren’t amazing, but they just automatically fall into different (and just as awesome) roles. I could go into that, but this is about my travels, so I’ll save that for another time.
So as children visiting Phil and Derek was always fun – they would show up in a camper van on their way to Spain, and then they moved to Spain and lived in the old renovated Town Hall in a southern village in the hills called Polopos. They both have a very silly sense of humour which was entertaining as child, and as an adult the humour is there with the bonus glass of local wine, in this case the local Sauvignon Blanc.
It was a great week of catching up on the last 10 years or so with them. We’d sit around the dinner table every evening and laugh and tell stories. I absolutely loved it. They reminded me of the time I was 5 and decided to change my name to Tina because I loved Tina Turner so much. *blush*
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| View from harbour in Wellington |
Sadly I missed out on seeing my cousin Hugo sadly as he is away in Argentina learning Spanish. Go Hugo!
I mentioned to Phil that I might want to try yoga while I was in Nelson. Well, through the small network of their friends in Nelson, 12 hours later I was given a voucher that would allow me to do 7 days of ‘Hot Yoga’ for free.
Hot Yoga. Bikram. 40 degree heat. Something I have always previously dismissed with, ‘Why the hell would anyone ever do that..?’
Because you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, that’s why.
I even tried to put off going that night, but Phil motivated me into going to the next session which was in 30mins.
The session takes 1.5 hours and starts with you standing on a mat, facing a mirror at the front. Then, the man who had previously been sat at reception wearing jeans and a t-shirt suddenly enters, wearing nothing but tiny black pants. I mean, the speedo-banana hammock-leaving nothing for the imagination tiny pants. I wanted to bust out laughing, but all the other people in the room seemed to be serious yogurt weaving yoga enthusiasts and it would have ruined the ambience. He introduced himself to the room with this calm American voice, ‘Ok, I’m going to start with a warming up exercise where I’m going to breathe out loudly. Don’t be alarmed, but I may sound a little like Darth Vader’. Right, ok then..
At first, the heat is Ok, but then it starts to get difficult, especially when you aren’t used to stretching yourself in those positions for that amount of time. ‘Don’t be alarmed if you start to see black spots and you feel like you need to pass out, that’s perfectly naturel..’
Yeah, no shit Sherlock.
‘If you have an intense feeling where you feel like you need to break into uncontrollable crying, that’s perfectly naturel too. Bikram can set out a whole range of emotions’.
Well the thing is, I could see why. It felt like I had encountered yet another sport that I was completely shite at. I spent the last 30 minutes trying to stay conscious and not cry.
I got back to the motel, with a feeling of accomplishment that I had managed it, but also a feeling that I didn’t really want to do it again, but knew I had to before I laid on judgement.
Derek took one look at me and said, ‘Jesus, you’re half the size you were when you left! Do you need water or can I reward you with a glass of wine?’
Like most things, I needed to give it another chance. Like a second date. And the second date went OK, (less compulsions to cry and pass out) so who knows, maybe myself and Bikram will meet again in the future.. as long as myself and the tiny black pants do not..!
Nelson has a gorgeous beach. It goes on for miles… I cycled out to meet Phil for lunch and once she went back to work I strolled along the sea front. A common thing seems to be turning washed up driftwood into sculptures and little dens. They are all over the show in the South Island. Another common thing spotted was messages being written in rocks at low tide. It’s very moving in its own way.
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| Nelson Beach |
A lot of the latter were spotted when myself and Phil went on a road trip to Golden Bay and Abel Tasman. My cousin Aidan had used the same car for a previous road trip earlier on in the summer, so we had a collection of CDs his friends had made in the car. On the ‘Paternal Playlist’ we rocked out to the Beach Boys and various classic rock anthems. The rest of the collections, ‘Mellow Mix’, ‘Slick Beats’, ‘Teen Angst’ had a medley of Kanye, Calvin Harris, Blink 182 and Green Day.
Our first stop was the Pupu Springs and Hydroplant (yes Sharon, that’s pronounced ‘pooh pooh’). The springs are said to produce the clearest water in the world. They are pretty lovely.. We beat the predicted 2 hour walk and did it in 1.5hrs, with enough time to play pooh sticks.
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| Pupu Springs |
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| Hydroplant Walk |
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| Road trip with some 'slick beats' and a 'paternal playlist' |
Our accommodation that night was the recommended San Scousci Motel in Pohara, which is an eco friendly place with very tidy composting toilets and a dinner that was amazing. AMAZING! We then strolled along the beach and drank Cooks Beer from The Mussel Inn at a hotel that looked like The Longford Arms. The area has had a lack of tourism this summer due to mud slides and flooding that happened before Christmas. If you get the chance, go there. It is stunning!
Abel Tasman was the road trip for the next day. I think it’s the smallest national park but the most popular. You can hike and stay out there for 3 to 5 days, but just we walked about an hour into the park until we got to Coquille Bay, a gorgeous beach with white sand. It really looked like paradise and is not too crowded at all. It was definitely one of the best parts of my trip.
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| Abel Tasman |
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| Messages in the sand, Abel Tasman |
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| Coquille Beach, Abel Tasman |
Greymouth
Now, when one is depending on public transport to get from A to B, getting around can be a bit tricky and there is a long stretch between Nelson and the Glaciers in the South Island where there are things to visit, but not enough to spend a night there. So I was ‘uumming’ and ‘aahhing’ about where to move onto next when Phil and Derek suggested their friend Lynn in Greymouth. She is married to their good friend Pete. Greymouth, by name alone doesn’t sound very attractive- as the Lonely Planet points out, it was named after a Mr Grey- they weren’t very original in those days. And to be honest, there isn’t an awful lot going on there.. unless you are with someone who knows there area.
Lynn collected me at Punakaiki, Pancake Rocks, which is this gorgeous rock formation out on the coast. In choppy weather there is apparently an amazing blow hole. It was calm as anything, but the rocks were still pretty so yay!
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| Punakaiki, Pancake Rocks |
Next stop, Lynn took me to meet her friend Stephen, who teaches people how to make knives. It’s a popular class, also mentioned in the Lonely Planet.
Steven is bloody hilarious. There was no room on his knife making course so he just gave us wine and told us about some of his recent students. Apparently one class included 7 French and 7 Germans. When they got to the final stages of their knife making (polishing and buffering etc), one of the French held up a white rag and asked, “Excuse me, but what do we do with this?” at which point one of the Germans replied (joking), “You wave it at us when you see us coming!” Well, that went down like a lead weight..
Another class, another German, this time telling a joke, “How many Germans does it take to win a war?” Bear in mind, the class again was made up mainly of Europeans. The punchline? “Well, we don’t bloody know do we?!”
After much more hilarity, we headed onto Lynns batch on 14miles beach. A batch is a summer cottage on a coastal road which is said to be the 7th most scenic drive in the world. It was gorgeous. Big crashing waves, clear for miles around. Sometimes, they even get seals on there.
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| View from the batch, 14mile beach |
Myself and Lynn then wandered home and were planning the next day. She told me all about her gorgeous car, a Masda MX5 which if it were good weather she would lend me. Well, it wasn’t due to be good weather, so we just went that evening.
I got to drive a convertible Masda MX5.
IT WAS AMAZING! We drove to the seafront, and then back along the river. It is a very fast car..
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| Awesome! |
One more thing ticked off the ‘to do’ list.
The next day, as forecast the weather was miserable so it was a bit of a non event. Rupe was driving his way back up the coast and we tried to get him to stop for the night with some beers, but he was on a mission from Queenstown to Picton(mad eejit!) so only saw him for an hour or two at a great pub called Speight Ale House.
Myself and Lynn hid from the bad weather with some Merlot and some evening TV. We watched a very amusing episode of the NZ reality TV, ‘Shearing Gangs’, which follows Peter Lyon who is apparently the ‘Tony Sopprano’ of the sheep shearing world and his gang of sheep shearers. Yes, this show exists, and as soon as they put a clip of it on YouTube, I am going to post it up. It’s full of mullets.
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| Myself and the lovely Lynn |
Franz Josef Glacier
My bus the next day took me to Franz Joseph Glacier, “From its origins high in the Southern Alps, the Franz Josef Glacier descends deep into the lush rainforest of Westland's National Park, from a height of 2700m above sea level to only 240m in as little as 11 km, making it the worlds steepest and fastest flowing commercially guided glacier” (http://www.franzjosefglacier.com/about-us/our-glacier/)
As I travelled south the weather just got progressively worse. By the time I got to my hostel ‘Chateau Franz’, everything was grey, rainy and cold. People were huddled in the common room watching ‘Lord Of The Rings’ (it’s so long, I bet myself that if I went out to get dinner, it would still be playing by the time I got back- I won that bet). And I had booked to climb the glacier the next day.
Now, I’m no glacier expert, but in my head rain + icy glacier = a lot of slipping. I therefore had a mental image of me losing my footing and sliding all the way down the mountain. At high speed. Like it was when I went skiing..
The morning of the climb arrived and it was windy, rainy and cold. There was the option to cancel as the conditions were so bad, but I was heading off the next day and so after much toing and froing, I decided to go for it. Very reluctantly. And not gracefully at all. I met another fellow traveller, Louise and we both agreed, ‘I don’t want to do this. I hate the wind, rain and ice. Spirit of travel my arse’. But then that made me feel better, so we still went through with it. And it was no way near as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was cold, and the waterproofs they lend you aren’t waterproof, but seeing a massive chunk of ice so close to the sea and not feel cold is pretty special. To climb on the glacier, you have these hiking boots with ‘crampons’ (Let’s get our cramp ON!) that you have to stomp into the ice and therefor you don’t lose your footing and slide down the mountain. And it’s quite fun really!
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| Dusty Glacier |
Sadly, there was a rock fall last year so a good part of the glacier is covered in dust and rocks (which they don’t tell you when you book!) but you still see the ice. And there are loads of little caves which you can explore. Our guide was Doug, who had to hack out steps for us with a huge pick axe. I totally wanted to start singing ‘Hiiii Hoooo!’ but there wasn’t really an appropriate moment.
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| Myself and Louise on the Glacier |
After you get out of your wet waterproofs, you are then given a pass to the Glacier Hot Pools, which are 3 large shallow pools at 36°, 38° and 40°. You just sit around in warm water and chat to people, it’s lush! 36° seems to be the more popular social temperature.
Queenstown
Friday morning, grey and early, I jumped on a bus to Queenstown via Wanaka. By now, I was getting quite used to these long Intercity coach journeys and really enjoying them. And I’m not the only one who enjoys them- the coach drivers are so enthusiastic it’s unbelievable. They tell you ALL about the history of the place, and then stop at their favourite look out points, ‘Now guys, you really need to see this next waterfall, it is amazing!’.
Stark contrast to the Megabus in England where you’re lucky if you get a smile, never mind polite dialogue, ‘I’d rather be anywhere but here! I’m dying for a drink’ is what one of the last Megabus drivers said to me..
Queenstown is a place many people sort of scowled at when I mentioned it. Some said it was a hole. Nowhere with a gorgeous lake and huge mountains can be deemed a ‘hole’. It even has frisbee golf! Yes, it is teeming with tourists, but you don’t need to talk to them. Not all of them anyway.
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| View from the top of the mountain, Queenstown |
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| Hanging out in the park |
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| Pinot Noir at the top of the mountain |
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| Gardens, Queenstown |
I am not an adrenaline junkie, or slightly mad (well..), so I had no intention of jumping off or out of anything at a height while in Queenstown, which is what it is famous for. That and its party scene. I did try yoga in the park and ended up in a lot of pain. So while the Austrian girls in my room went for a hike up to the top of the mountain, I went out and sat in the park with an infamous Ferg Burger (so tasty I don’t know where to start with a description) and then took a gondola up to the top and had a glass of wine. From the gondola, you can see people jump off to bungy and that was enough for me.
The party scene I discovered is a lot of fun. Myself and a girl called Sabrina met up with 2 Canadinas, a Brit, a German and an American and had a few drinks from the hostel before venturing out with our various vouchers. Every night when you are in the hostel kitchen, a promotions girl will wander through from Buffalos offering you vouchers for a free shot and the chance to compete in either ‘Miss Backpacker’, ‘Topless Tuesday’, ‘Ginger Wednesday’ and on Saturdays, ‘Best Booty’. Yes, apparently places like this still exist, and they are alive and well in party bars. We however ended up dancing in UV light at a fluorescent paint party and doing a dance that can only be descried as ‘the sprinkler’ in World Bar. You can also drink cocktails out of a teapot in World Bar.
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| Preparing for a night out in Bumbles Hostel |
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| Winnies Flouro Party |
Myself and Joel (an American who had just returned from studying in the Antarctic) had drunk a few fizzy pops by this stage and had the grand plan to try and find ‘The Bum Bar’ (Buffalos). We must have wandered around for 30 minutes looking for this bar (which was in a very obvious location) before giving up, and then loosing each other and going home. The whole group woke up with fluorescent paint on our faces the next morning.
Feeling a bit delicate, I found myself in a park the next afternoon in the sun with a group of people who had been travelling with Louise (who climbed the glacier with me in Franz Josef). At one point there was an Englishman, An Irishman, A Welshman and 2 Canadians. Could be the makings for a great joke..
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| Hanging out in the park again.. |
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| Ferg Burger |
That night, myself, Sabrina, Joel and an Australian called Trudy found a bar that is one of the most amusing places I have ever been called ‘Cowboys’. You walk in and there is a large stuffed bear at the entrance corridor. To his left is a bucking bronco. All of the bar stools are saddles, the beer taps are shot guns, lined with bullets, antlers on the walls, barrels to sit on, beer served in litre glasses and country music playing non stop. We sang to Kenny Rogers, Shania, Dolly… By the end of the night, Joel was on the bucking bronco we were very familiar with the lyrics to ‘The Gambler’. I laughed a lot. That night started off the game of ‘Mullet spotting around New Zealand’. There were loads in that bar..
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| Cowboy bar |
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| Trudy with a litre of beer |
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| Joel on a bucking bronco |
We’d another night out at World Bar the night after, which again started with a few beers in the park and ended up watching live music in World Bar (and again, mullet spotting!). I woke up the next morning singing ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’.
I haven’t partied like that (and as cheap as that!) in a while – it was just like Freshers Week at Uni.
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| World Bar, Monday night |
I know I should have been jumping down valleys, going out on jet boats or hiking up mountains, but it was quite nice to save a bit of money and just chill out in a town for a while. Sadly I missed out on a trip to Milford Sound because of booking details and timings, but it will still be there the next time I go. And I will be back..
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| Lake Tekapo, en route to Christchurch |
Christchurch
So, my final stop, despite people telling me it was a ‘ghost of a city’, ‘depressing’ and ‘broken’ was Christchurch. Christchurch suffered from 2 huge earthquakes, one in September 2010 and the other in 22nd February 2011 and they are still suffering from aftershocks. They ‘celebrated’ their 10,000th aftershock last week. The entire central business district, the Cathedral area and main centre is completely closed.
Well, I was flying out of Christchurch so I had to go there, but I chose to add a day on to see the city. And I wanted to go because it is one of those places where no one is going, so they aren’t getting any tourism or money put back into the city and I wanted to support it, even if it was with the very pennies I had left.
My accommodation was Brendans couch, who is a friend of a friend. When I was staying on the houseboat on the Hawkesbury River, one of my fellow travellers Charlie advised me to look up one of his mates for a place to stay when I got to Christchurch. So I sent a text a week before, asking if it was still Ok. Apparently it was fine, but the lads had gotten plastered the weekend before, broken a window and had been evicted. But he was moving into a new place and it was fine for me to stay on the couch. Also, the new place looks a bit dodgy from the outside, but it was fine inside.
Well, it looked a bit like a crack house from the outside. The taxi driver looked hesitant about letting me out of the car. Then started giving me advice on how to get out of there.
Works out, the building has been bought by a company and the lovely landlady is leasing out the rooms until they can turn it into a proper motel. It used to be an old peoples home. And then it was a brothel. They still have the sauna in there and a circular space on the carpet where the hot tub used to be.
I was supposed to meet up with Joel (American I met in Queenstown) but he got caught out on the Banks Peninsula. I was also supposed to be meeting Jimmy, a lad I met in Raglan who is studying and living in Christchurch, but when I got there, he was in hospital..! So, not everything going to plan, but you just have to get on with things and make the most of it. Which is very much the spirit of the people I have spoken to in Christchurch.
So I explored the botanical gardens which are currently displaying the Flower Festival, and headed over to the recently opened Re:Start Container Mall. As the centre of the city is closed off and being restructured, they have temporarily set up a new city centre using old shipping containers and making them into shops and cafes. It’s pretty funky.
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| Re:Start Christchurch |
I had coffee and lunch there wandered over to the post office and did one touristy thing: punting on the river Avon. It looked gorgeous when I had walked past it earlier, just like the river in Canterbury UK (which makes sense seeing as Christchurch is in the region of Canterbury). When I got there however there were no other people waiting for a punt, so I got a whole boat to myself with my own punter. I looked a bit like a fool, but the punter was nice enough and he let me have a go at punting.
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| Flower installation, Christchurch Botanic Gardens |
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| Punting on the Avon |
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| Attempting to punt on the Avon |
I then popped by to visit Jimmy in the hospital. He fell on his thumb after a beer festival at the weekend, had stitches and they got infected, so he was in hospital having surgery to clear it up. It’s pretty grim. His neighbour snored loudly but we had a laugh and I got a brew from the tea lady.
After I left I was asking this old bus driver with a crazy tash about somewhere nice to eat, should I head to the beach or where else should I go. Somehow I got my wires crossed and ended up getting a lift with him as he drove his bus route to Lyntton and told me all the details of where the earthquake had hit. He suffered from depression and just wanted to share his story, which was interesting. As I was getting a connecting bus I spoke to some students who’d just got their free student bus pass and were travelling on ‘a magical mystery tour’ to see how far they could get.
Christchurch is a broken city. But as cheesy as it sounds, it’s spirit is not broke. As well as the bus driver and other people, I also spoke to a woman in the park who was part of the flower festival. She had lost everything, but was still hopeful and making the most of what the city still has. She was saying many of her friends won’t go back into the city but she is determined to make it home again. The people I spoke to thanked me for coming to see the city. I didn’t go and look at the main damaged area as I didn’t want that to be the main focus of my trip. The park and river were far nicer!
There was a huge storm the night before I was due to leave, so bad that when there was a slight shaking at 8.00am that morning, I just thought it was the wind on the house. No, apparently it was an earthquake. So mother, there was no need to worry, I survived!
At the airport the next day (after the 15 gates and hurdles you have to pass before you can get onto the plane) I ended up talking to a Welshman called Steve who is going to fulfil a lifelong dream and play Mr Von Trapp in Queenstowns Amateur production of The Sound Of Music. He was a writer who had brought his family up in New Zealand and told me a very amusing story about picking up a 60year old Welsh hitch hiker who told him (graphically) about his life as a swinger back home.
People like to talk. It’s the great thing about travelling.
So, I am now back in Australia. It’s been raining here every day for the past month and all the rivers are flooding. I am desperately looking for a job (unless someone out there wants to fund my living costs? No..?).
I calculated that I travelled about 2775km in New Zealand (both North and South Island) and yet I barely saw any of it. It just means I have to come back one day and do the rest…
