Weather With You - Part 4

  Taupo to Barrytown, New Zealand
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Taupo 15th January

Arrived in Taupo yesterday; once again New Zealand scenery out does itself; a gorgeous lake (that's actually an active volcano) and beautiful mountains. The town itself is OK; a few nice bars and restaurants, but generally its typical Kiwi-identikit architecture.
We're staying here a couple of days before we do the Tongariro Crossing; a big hike across the mountains.

On the way in we stopped off at the local Skydive centre. Vicky and I were tempted, but decided we think about it some more tomorrow. Nick can't do it coz he's over the weight limit, ha ha. Checked in to the hostel (nothing special), had a few beers, took some amazing pictures of the sunset over the lake. Tomorrow is a non-travel day on the bus, so instead the three of us are going to rent a car and drive down to Napier, a town on the east coast that was knocked down by an earthquake in the thirties and rebuilt in the Art Deco style. Should be interesting.

Napier 16th January

Picked up the hire car first thing this morning; after yesterday's beautiful weather we're back to default NZ summer, it was pissing it down. The drive to Napier took a couple of hours over twisting mountain passes, great but the car was asthmatic, and once we crossed over to the east side of the mountains the sun came out and all was well.

Napier is very pretty and the Art Deco look of the place was pretty cool. You can do walking tours or get a driving map that points out all the Art Deco landmarks. It was a very pleasant and relaxing place to visit. On the drive back, as soon as we crossed back over the mountains the weather turned to crap again; I think we made the right choice getting out of Taupo for the day. Bit worried about the Crossing tomorrow; if the weather's too rough they close the tracks and won't let you cross.

Tongariro 17th January

Had a lousy night's sleep at the hostel, was sharing a room with a bunch of Israelis who insisted on showing their usual levels of pig-ignorance; one tosser was playing games on his mobile at three in the morning, which wouldn't have been a problem if he just turned off the beeps. I lost patience and threatened to shove the phone where the sun don't shine if he didn't shut up. He complied but got his own back but making loads of racket at five AM when he left to get his bus.

We set off for The Crossing at 7AM, the weather looked a bit iffy but our driver said we should be OK.

The Tongariro Crossing is a 17K hike over the mountains (including the ones they used as Mount Doom and Mordor in the Lord of The Rings movies), the driver drops you off at one end and picks you up at the other. 17K doesn't sound like much (just over 10 miles), but it goes up, and up, and up. Some of the bits are gentle walks, other bits are near vertical climbs, you go through all kinds of terrain, including volcanic calderas, sulphur pools, open moorland and woods. It's a great trek, but the last few kilometres are down these steps that seem to go on for ever! My thighs were killing by that point, and I had an unfortunate *ahem* 'chafing' problem that hurt like hell (a lesson for future treks). It was also chucking it down; we started in bright sunshine, went through fog and then rain. I was walking with Vicky and Nick and we kept up a pretty cracking pace; the Crossing normally takes around six to six and a half hours for an average walker, and we did it in five and a half, so I was pretty pleased with myself. Knackered, but pleased.

After we staggered on to the bus, and waited for the others, Wozza, our driver, took us to our hostel, called The Park. This is easily the best hostel I've ever seen. If all hostels were this classy no-one would stay in hotels. Great place, and after the hike I was really grateful for the comfy bed.

Off to Wellington tomorrow.

Wellington 18th January

Wellington is an extremely likeable city; almost the antithesis of anodyne Auckland. The place is tiny (for a capital city) but buzzing, its got loads of bars, clubs and restaurants, all located downtown in a compact area. I didn't do much in Wellington, just chilled out, visited the museum, got a haircut and ate in nice cafes up Cuba Street. Wish there was more to tell, but I had a nice time there anyway.

Abel Tasman National Park 21st January

On to South Island. Caught the ferry over from Wellington to Picton and then picked up the Stray bus there. Nick has stayed in Wellington and will catch up with us later. The ferry journey was uneventful but the view as the boat cruises up the Marlborough Sound has to be one of the top ferry sights in the world. Picton looked nice, shame I didn't have any time there. We drove across the top of South Island, through Nelson and then to Abel Tasman National Park. We have a new driver, Nevan, seems OK, but he keeps banging on about how we should all spend more time in New Zealand and people rush around the island too much; not practical for most people.

We're staying in a place called "Old McDonald's Farm", a kind of campsite-cum-hostel. For the first time I feel like I'm in the country; there are sheep and alpacas all over the place here, and also bugs! Huge beetle things, but also sandflies; I'm scratching like crazy.

22nd January

The best way to explore the National Park is along the coast, there are plenty of ways to do this, but we decided to take the most elegant; a sailing catamaran. The weather in the morning was glorious, and we visited beaches, islands and seal colonies along the coast, and I finally got to work on my tan for a bit. Unfortunately in the afternoon the weather turned crappy again. It made an 'interesting' sail back in the afternoon; there was quite a chop and we all got pretty wet, good fun though.

Had a barbecue in the evening. Nevan is proving to be quite opinionated, and seems to really dislike Australia and the Australians; he banged on about it for ages, "why would anyone go there? It's a hole" etc. etc. As you know if you've read my earlier posts, I think Australia is overrated, but there's no reason to bore people for half the night with it. You could see he was annoying quite a few people who'd spent a while in Australia.

Abel Tasman is probably worth a few days' visit but I'll be glad to get out of here tomorrow because I'm getting bitten to death.

Barrytown 23nd January

We're heading south down the west coast now and our first stop is here in Barrytown, a tiny little place that only Stray stop at. The hostel is in a pub, and it has a certain rough edged charm, but every time I wandered around the village (such as it is) I expected the locals to be building a wicker-man somewhere. We went down to the beach this evening to try and spot Comet McNaught, a huge comet that is visible from all over the world, but especially in the Southern hemisphere. Unfortunately there were clouds in the just the wrong place, but the beach was beautiful and we had a bonfire and watched the sun go down.

Next morning a few of us went Kayaking up the river at Punakaiki, just up the road from Barrytown. I haven't been kayaking for years (a stag weekend in Wales) and I'd forgotten how much hard work it is going upstream, but I got the hang of it in the end; right up until the point where I fell in. The current was pretty strong, but I caught my paddle, and my favourite hat stayed on (I got it in the Bahamas). Unfortunately, on the way back downstream my kayak shot sideways and got jammed between two rocks. My paddle got stuck under the water in some branches and then my kayak started to fill up. I rolled out, Nevan tried to loose my paddle and as he was doing that he fell in, then as Nevan's kayak shot away, one of the other Kayakers, Mike tried to grab it and then he fell in. As we were all flailing about in the water, a family having a picnic just sat there watching us impassively; they didn't even laugh. Wierdos.