Windy Welly 22/04-24/04

My final night in Kaikoura is a ‘sweet’ as one the owners of the backpackers makes a hot chocolate pudding for us to share as ‘it’s a cold night’ and we eat it with ice cream in front of the fire. All the people staying there are English, which is unusual as I haven’t encountered many and it seems to be more mainland Europeans travelling at the moment. I have been joined in the room by another girl but she is fast asleep by the time I get to bed (10pm) and I hope that it stayed this way as I had a sleep taking night and woke myself up by shouting ‘short bread’. Fortunately, my roomie had left by the time I got up and this saved any awkward moments or recipe sharing. If you are in the mood for some armchair psychoanalysis, then answers on a Freudian slip, please.

The weather is glorious and the coach trip to Picton (2.5 hrs) is on the coastal road for the main part but then it dips into Marlborough country (not the fags) and I notice that the hills are very dry. This region and in particular, Blenheim, boasts in the region of 2,500 hours of sun per year. It is also home to over 100 wineries and the Wairau Plains (it has a continental climate and free-draining soil) make it perfect for wine. Although it’s pretty, the scenery is nothing compared to the wineries and landscape of SA.

The coach arrives in good time for the 2pm ferry and I recognise some people from my whale watching trip. I get spoken to by an English business man who’s on business from NY but I soon head to the cafe as I am beginning to feel a bit queasy (possible something to do with the conversation!) I keep popping out to have a look at the Queen Charlotte Sound to take some photos, avoiding any sudden movements.

I manage to hitch a lift from the quayside to my backpackers with a tour company and they provide a useful commentary of Wellington: apparently it’s on the Alpine fault line (the Pacific moving in one direction and the Australian in the other) which runs through the centre of the city and if a major earthquake occurs, it’s curtains for Welly. (NZ has an astonishing 15,000 earthquakes per year but most of them are not noticed, which is just as well).

I walk the rest of my way to the backpackers and check into a single room as I am feeling antisocial. The room is just big enough to swing a gerbil but I sleep well and then transfer the next morning to a 4 bed dorm with one other girl in it and she is from Chile. She has been in Wellington for two weeks and judging by the tone of her voice, she has overstayed her welcome as she tells me ‘it’s very boring’.

I go off in search of the Te Papa Tongarewa museum and the infamous giant squid that my fellow travellers told me about when I was in Kaikoura. The museum is NZ’s innovative and interactive national museum and it has an exquisitely carved marae, art collection and you can be shaken in the Earthquake House.

The giant squid doesn’t disappoint. On February 22, 2007, it was announced by authorities in New Zealand that the largest known Colossal Squid had been captured. The specimen weighed 495 kg (1,091 lb) and was initially estimated to measure 10 m (33 ft) in total length. Fishermen on the vessel San Aspiring, caught the animal in the freezing Antarctic waters of the Ross Sea. It was brought to the surface as it fed on an Antarctic toothfish that had been caught off a long line. It would not let go of its prey and could not be removed from the line by the fishermen, so they decided to catch it instead. They managed to envelop it in a net, hauled it aboard and froze it and after being prodded and probed by scientists, it’s now in the museum.

The museum is much bigger that I expected and after all this talk of squid and the onset of museum fatigue, I head off in search of lunch and the cable car. Unfortunately, the route to the cable car takes me through the shopping district and I get a bit distracted and decide to go up the cable car the next day instead. I end the day by going to see ‘Boy’ which is a new local film and I can highly recommend it.

The next day, I manage to escape the tentacles of the shops and take the cable car up to the botanical gardens but walking around, I am struck about how quiet it is and the lack of a great number of people for a capital city. The cable car has linked the harbour and the hills for over 100 years but it takes less than 10 minutes to get to the top. I take some photos of the view and then walk back into town via the botanical gardens and find some proteas growing in a local park. After a visit to the market and some retail therapy, I visit the other museum in Wellington which is housed in a category 1 historic building in the wharf, built in 1892.

It’s an interesting account of city and sea and there is rather a lot made of the 1905 ‘Originals’ All Black tour and in particular, their game against Wales. Now, you rugby fans out there will know that on this tour they played 32 matches, scored 830 points and only conceded 39. Their only loss was to Wales, played at Cardiff Arms Park on 16 December 1905 and although still considered to be one of the sport’s great matches, the circumstances of the Welsh win are still debated because the referee denied a try to All Blacks wing Bob Deans. When I got my lift from the quayside the day I arrived, the tour rep pointed out a Welsh pub (it claims to be the only Welsh pub in the Southern Hemisphere with genuine Welsh hosts) which is situated in a building that was originally a public latrine. I guess that the Kiwis are still pissed off about the win after all....

Tomorrow I am off to Auckland (and my final week in NZ) on ‘The Overlander’ train which takes 12 hours and I am promised: ‘fantastic views of New Zealand farmland, the volcanic plateau, Mount Ruapehu, the world famous Raurimu Spiral, and stunning river gorges - all from our panoramic windows or open air viewing decks allowing you the best possible views’.

Moby Sick 19/04 – 21/04

As predicted, as I am stiff as a stiff thing the next day and it takes me ages to get down the flight of stairs from K and J’s flat when I finally venture out for a hobble on the beach and to get some food as I have elected to cook tonight (lucky K and J!). I think my 93 year old Grandmother can walk faster than me at the moment and it reminds me of how I felt after the London Marathon, which co-incidentally is nearly a year ago. That also means that I have been unemployed and out of the ‘real world’ for nearly a year and unsurprisingly I haven’t missed it one bit: thank you OC for making me redundant!

I don’t really do much on my final days in CHCH: it has been great catching up with K and J, eating great home cooked food (not mine) and being out of a yoff hostel. K and J were very generous in giving me their room too, so many thanks for that.

K comes to see me off at the bus-stop and I catch the bus to Kaikoura mid afternoon. Sadly, my anecdotes on NZ bus drivers comes to an end on this trip as Wayne just gives us the safety announcement and reiterates several times that no ‘hot food or drink’ is allowed on the coach. I thought the road to Kaikoura would be a coastal one but instead it winds through farm land and hills and as the sun begins to set, a lot of low cloud begins to settle and I fear for my whale watching trip tomorrow.

We arrive in Kaikoura in the dark and I struggle to find the backpackers that I am staying but after asking in another backpackers, I finally check in. It has a lovely communal lounge with a fire place and it was originally the town’s post office, dating back to 1893 but is now a high quality eco-friendly inn. In fact, this is the first commercial place that I have stayed in that does recycling, which doesn’t seem that big in NZ. I am on my own again in a 4-bed dorm and the bathroom is across the hall: a major bonus for travelling off season.

Kaikoura has a rich history and culture and its earliest inhabitants, the Moa hunters, date back 900 years. The legend goes that Tama ki Te Rangi arrived in the area many hundreds of years ago and was hungry and tired. He found an abundance of crayfish and named the area Te Ahi Kaikoura a Tama ki Te Rangi – ‘the fire that cooked the crayfish of Tama ki Te Rangi’. It is beyond me why they decided to short the name to Kaikoura: ‘food and crayfish’. I also read later that the Kaikoura community are leading the way in NZ in terms of a sustainable community and by taking real steps to address the factors contributing to climate change. Good on them.

It’s a gloriously sunny day and I head off in search of the whale watching company and I’m told that there’s a two metre swell offshore and it’s advisable to take a sea sickness tablet. I duly do as I am told as I do not have sea legs at the best of times and appearances are deceptive as the sea close to shore is as flat as a pancake. We go 5 miles off shore and this is deep enough for the whales to feed and hang about. I am feeling decidedly ill and try and concentrate on the presentation as I don’t want to disgrace myself by hurling over the person in front of me.

We are looking for male sperm whales as it’s too cold for the females (sensible) and the males can be as big as an airbus aeroplane, and their hearts can be as big as a Volkswagen beetle. So, they are not very big then!

Suddenly one of the crew shouts that a sperm whale as been spotted but by the time we get there all I can see is its tail disappearing into the ocean as it begins its average 40 minute decent to do whatever it is that whales do (get away from tourists, no doubt) The sudden movement and being outdoors has made me feel a lot worse and I join some other non sailors indoors to wait out the resurfacing of Big Nick (this is his name as he has been identified by the ‘nick’ in his tail). Who says you should never work with animals? We head off in search of the other whale that has been spotted in the area- to no avail- but come back to see Nick coming up for air and what a sight it is. I am so excited that I think I am going to wet my pants and although Nick does not surface for very long, it’s long enough to get an idea of his size, get some photos and to see the classic ‘tail dive’. I feel like I am going to cry (although this might be sea sickness): it has been an incredible experience.

We are running out of time, so we cannot wait for him to resurface again and we head back to shore and luckily come across a pod of Dusky dolphins as they swim under the boat. The operators tell us that is has been an ‘average’ trip and we are therefore entitled to a 20% discount, and although this is great for the budget conscious, I would not have described it as average and I have had a whale of a time.

I am pleased that I managed not to throw up and I go back to the backpackers for lunch and go for a walk along the beach and take some photos. I am off to Wellington tomorrow which involves, firstly, the bus to Picton and then the ferry crossing over the Cook Straits to Wellington, with its 92km of breathtaking views.

Weekend tramps: 16/04 – 18/04

As the British founders had intended when they arrived 158 years ago, CHCH remains steeped in colonial heritage and the tree-filled parks and old stone buildings ensure that CHCH is likened to England. It’s a beautifully sunny day and K very kindly drives me around CHCH and we have lunch in a vegetarian cafe and according to their website: ‘The Lotus-Heart is independently owned and operated by students of Sri Chinmoy. We aspire to create a small corner of the world that is inundated with the spirituality and philosophy of our meditation teacher and to offer a peaceful oasis with music and videos to inspire the heart’. The food is amazing (when it arrives as the service is appalling but since it is prepared with ‘love and care’ we feel that we cannot complain otherwise we’ll be cursed with bad karma for the rest of our lives)

We head for the hills and a drive over Port Hills, past the Gondola and signs for paragliding (on the radio news on the drive back from Mt Cook, there are reports of a paraglider having a serious accident and being hospitalized, so I take this as my sign....). We stop for tea and an Afghan biscuit in the now trendy suburb of Lyttelton, which is southeast of CHCH and the Port Hills slope down to the city’s port. An Afghan biscuit is a national favourite and after tasting one, I can see why: http://www.kiwibaking.com/afghan-biscuits-recipe/

We are being weekend tramps early tomorrow, so after picking up J from work we go home and get ready for our big weekend ahead. I am amused by the word ‘tramp’ as here it means ‘hike’ and not a smelly, old guy or a woman of ill repute and I quite like the idea of being a tramp for the weekend.

It’s a 4 hour drive to The Mount Cook Alpine Village in the Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, driving along the foot hills of the Southern Alps and rolling Mackenzie countryside. We stop off in Tekapo for me to take some photos of the lake. The Tekapo lake is the most amazing colour I have ever seen and due to its high altitude above sea level, the area holds the reputation of having the cleanest air in the southern hemisphere.

Mount Cook is NZ’s highest mountain standing at 3,754 metres and is known to the Maoris as Aoraki ‘Cloud Piercer’ and when are arrive at the Mt Cook visitor centre, the mountain is completely surrounded by cloud and it is drizzling. After a Team Tramp talk, we decide to risk it and pay for a night’s stay in the Mueller Hut at the end of the Mueller Hut Route (start is 765m and the Hut is 1,780m) and fill in the ‘Trip Intentions’ form. For the privilege of being the last climbers of the day, we are given the unenviable task of collecting the names of the people in the hut and giving them to the warden who will radio in at 7pm (I cock this up and have to pass over to Sherpa K amidst much laughter from everyone else!)

‘At 1800 metres on the Sealy Range (nearly half as high as Aoraki/Mount Cook’s summit), the hut provides a 360-degree panorama encompassing glaciers, ice cliffs, vertical rock faces and New Zealand’s highest peaks. It’s a great site for hearing and viewing ice falls, alpine sunrises and equally unforgettable sunsets. Climbing to the hut through alpine scrub, herb fields and scree slopes can be an achievement in itself, or the start of further opportunities for the more experienced.’

The hike is only 5.2 km but when one is tramping up some very steep gradients, it feels like a whole life time. I am lucky to have two excellent sherpas with me and K suggested that I hire a trekking pole which helped a great deal with my dodgy knee. When we reach the Sealy Tans (half way), we decide to carry on up to the top even though the steepness of the next climb makes me want to vomit and I have had to banish all thoughts of nice hotels and comfy beds from my mind. It did help that the weather cleared quite early on into the climb and Mt Cook was clearly visible and it was a perfect temperature to continue on this masochistic climb.

The climb after the Sealy Tans is mostly off track and you have to follow the orange markers and rock carins but the breath taking (that may be just me) view of Mt Sefton and the Muller Glacier when you get to the summit is, well, spectacular. I am pleased that I decided to carry on and after a 20 minute section of clambering over boulders, the Hut is in full view and we are just in time to see sun set over Mt Cook.

There are 15 of us in the Hut and it’s not bad as huts on top of mountains go (not that I’ve seen many) It has a kitchen, two sleeping rooms with ‘bunk’ beds and a long drop outside. The long drop is the worst smelling long drop I have ever encountered and it makes me want to wretch very time I go in there but the alternative is a ‘poo pot’ and I have to draw the line somewhere!

The rest of the climbers are a mixture of Kiwis and Europeans and one of the Kiwis takes a shine to us and we avoid him by making a sharp exit to the balcony after dinner to watch the stars before retiring to bed.

We get up for the sunrise and after a breakfast of porridge and tea, we make our way back down the mountain. It’s a gloriously sunny day and I find the tramp down quite difficult as the backs of the legs begin to ache and shake and I feel like I about to have a sense of humour failure (if you ask J, I did). It is also quite warm and I don’t think I would have made it up yesterday if it had been like this. Still, I make it and feel a great sense of achievement as we munch our sandwiches in the car park before heading home. I must point out that I didn’t even have heavy rucksacks to carry like K and J, so I don’t know how they did it.

We collect our prize for making the radio announcement which is a poster of Mt Cook (circa 1980) and begin the long drive back to CHCH. It has been an amazing weekend and I hope I can walk tomorrow and don’t look too much like John Wayne.

Seventh Dwarf 15/04

I am super grumpy this morning. This is in part because the English boys in the rooms next to me were incredibly noisy last night and kept smoking outside their rooms, and the acidic smell seeped into my room and also in part because I am hormonal (too much information?!). Yes, I know that I sound like a grumpy old woman but I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep for ages. Anyway, rant over.

A lot of the people who were on my coach from Queenstown are now on the coach to Greymouth. I chat to a guy from Malaysia and he’s booked on the Tranz Scenic rail at 1.45pm but I didn’t book this as I thought that we may not get back into Greymouth in time but in hindsight, it would have been a better plan. For those of you following ‘The anthology of New Zealand coach drivers’, our driver today is Glen but he doesn’t seem to have the gift of the gab and is very quiet (which may be just as well considering the mood I am in!)

We continue our trip up with West Coast through small towns like Hari Hari, Hokitika and Ross (the latter being famous for gold mining during the boom in the late 1860s and during this time over 800kg of gold was shipped to Melbourne on a monthly basis.) We have a comfort break in a tiny place called Pukekura (pop. 2) in a rustic cafe called 'Bushmans Centre'. Glen warns us that you have to have sense of humour when you enter the place and he isn’t wrong as they have a pathological distrust of possums; animal rights activists and Aucklanders (not necessarily in that order)

On the way I notice a lot of placards outside houses with ‘ban 1080’ on them and I find some leaflets in the Bushmans Centre which explain what they mean. It would seem that the NZ government are concerned with possums carrying TB so they are poisoning them with 1080 (sodium monofluorocetate) but this is also killing domestic pets, birds and plant life. The next drop on the West Coast is May – September 2010 over 90,000 hectares and 270 ton of poison will be dropped over prime NZ bush. I cannot say that I am very impressed with this but it would seem that there is a massive problem with possums (there are over 70m of them in NZ and they destroy vegetation at an alarming rate) and there is no real solution on how to deal with them (I dont have a problem with getting rid of possums but I have a problem with poisons being used)

We continue on to Greymouth in the rain (yes, I know this is a rainforest) and when we reach Greymouth I decide to try and change my ticket on the train to today as spending 24 hours in Greymouth would be something that I wouldn’t wish even on my worst enemy.

Luckily, this is done without a hitch and after a quick text to K and J to make sure they don’t mind me turning up in Christchurch a day early, a find myself on the Tranz Scenic (or Tranz Alpine as it’s called in some literature) heading towards Christchurch.

It is rated as one of the great train journeys of the world and they are not wrong. The journey is 231 kilometres and takes 4 and half hours. There are 19 tunnels and the highest viaduct is the Staircase at 73 metres. We also pass through Arthur’s Pass National park which covers over 94,500 hectares of rugged wilderness rising to Mount Rolleston at 2,270 metres and the Waimakariri River an ice-fed river which is about 150km long (it starts its journey in the Alps above Arthur’s Pass and reaches the sea near Kaiapoi, just north of CHCH)

My carriage is packed with a tour group of people in their 60s with a mixture of Aussies and Brits and when we pass over one of the viaducts, one of the women announces that the scenery is like that to be found in the film ‘Deliverance’. Now, I don’t know if you have seen the film but the scenery is not something that you immediately associate with that film!

We burst into CHCH in brilliant sunshine and K and J are there to meet me and we head to their flat in the suburb of Sumner for dinner, beer and bed.

Fabulous Franz 14/04

I meet up with P for a final drink and he takes me for a drive to Arrowtown which is famed for his golden past but now is a quaint tourist town with original buildings and tree-lined avenues. We have a few beers in the local pub in front of the fire and then I head for an early night as I have to get the 8 hour bus journey to Franz Josef.

When I wake up there’s a lovely pink tint to the sky and it looks like it is going to be a nice day in Queenstown the day I leave but waiting for the bus to arrive, the sky starts to cloud over. The bus is packed, mainly with Korean/Japanese/Chinese tourists on their way to the glacier. The bus is a normal intercity like a National Express but it comes equipped with a minute by minute commentary firstly by Paul and his patter and then the drivers swop over half way and we get George and his jabber. George displays an impressive knowledge of cloud types and photosynthesis. No chance to sleep on this bus, but most of the commentary is interesting despite Paul’s obsession with the local golf courses. I cannot image a driver on a National Express bus in the UK doing this and the most you get of them is a grunt and followed by a ‘feck off’. The ‘Orientals’ seem to love it and take every opportunity to take a photo whether it be through the bus window at full speed or over the tops of people’s heads.

The West Coast of the South Island stretches 600 km from north to south and is only 70km at its widest point and has Nikau palms and semi tropical fruit trees in the north to ice, snow and temperate forests in the south. En-route, through Wanaka and Haast, we pass wild coastlines; deserted beaches; dense forests of giant trees, ferns and mosses; big rivers and little creeks and glaciers and mountains that form part of the Southern Alps. We also pass Bruce Bay and it’s where people put piles of stones and other weird things on the beach and make wishes: I make mine from the coach as we pass but Brad still hasn’t called.

We reach Franz Josef at 4pm and there is just enough time to catch a shuttle bus to the face of the glacier. I get chatting to a bloke who was my bus from Queenstown as he’s staying at my yoff hostel and is also going to the glacier. He’s a Kiwi but has never seen the South Island and has been travelling around for 2 months and is then heading to France to learn French and teach rugby. Sounds alright to me.

We get dropped off in the car park and then it’s a 45 minute round trip walk to the face of the glacier, first along a track and then across a stream. And it’s worth the visit.

Franz receives 300,000 visitors a year and has the unenviable reputation of being New Zealand’s wettest township (I cannot get used to this word being used to describe a town without the South African connotations) and in 1982 lost both its airstrip and bridge when a torrential 1.83m of rain was recorded in 72 hours. Apparently more rain fell, but the gauge overflowed and it could not record anything further.

The science bit. A glacier is fed at the head (nerve or accumulation basin) by large amounts of snow that compact and partially melt to form a whitest granular snow called firn. Over several years as water seeps in and air is expelled under the weight of accumulating snow, the granules eventually merge together forming bluish glacial ice. Under constant gravitational pull down the valley, the glacier slowly moves forward/downward like a giant ice river. The ice slowly melts as it reaches the more temperate lower levels closer to sea level.

As you will see from the photos, the ice is blue in some places but it has stated to rain and the light is fading so we head back to the car park and get the shuttle back to the yoff hostel. I sit in the bar, check emails and have some dinner. I am on my own in the 4 bed en-suite dorm: alrighty!

Quirky Queenstown 11/04 – 14/04

R and V drop me off at the bus station in Lawrence and I get the bus to Queenstown and again, the drive is dramatic through glacial mountains and rivers and it takes 4.5 hours to get there. I check into my yoff hostel called ‘Hippo Lodge’ and try not to take offence when the shuttle bus driver refers to me as ‘Miss Hippo’. He’s actually very lucky to have escaped the Mapp wrath. Queenstown has a reputation as a party town and this is confirmed when I am unpacking my stuff in my 4 bed mixed dorm and a young bloke comes in wearing only a small towel (to hide something small, perhaps?) and gets into bed and promptly goes to sleep (it’s 7pm in the evening). He stinks of booze but luckily I am heading out to meet up with B’s friend P who is a lawyer in Queenstown. He very kindly takes me out for a Thai meal and I want a reasonably early night as I have booked myself on a tour of Milford Sound and it leaves fairly early in the morning. I get back to find all 3 of my dorm mates asleep in bed (it’s now about 10pm ish) and I pleased that they have partied themselves out so much that I won’t be woken up at 3am by drunken revellers (god, I sound so old....)

I am picked up in the morning by Eco Tours and there are about 20 of us and Martin is our driver. Martin’s monologue is considerably more interesting than Dave’s discourse as he worked in the conservation industry for a number of years and has some interesting facts, including teaching us a NZ saying ‘rattle your dags’ which means ‘hurry up’. After a scenic drive along the shores of Lake Wakatipu and past The Remarkables mountain range, we stop in Te Anau to visit the Bird Wildlife Park and see some rare NZ birds whose names escape me. It has started to drizzle slightly but since this is one of the wettest places on earth, it is pretty difficult to avoid the rain. In fact, it is so wet that it receives 6526mm of annual rain fall which equates to about 180 rain days.

Milford Sound is not a sound at all but a fiord and it is 16 kms in length and it is the northern-most of 14 fiords that make up the spectacular coastline of the 1,200,000ha Fiordland National Park, part of Te Wahipounamu World Heritage Area. And it is spectacular (I am starting to run out of adjectives for the scenery in NZ). It rises out of the Cleddau Valley and reveals a large number of waterfalls trickling down the glacial rock like icing on a black cake.

Milford was discovered by John Grono, a Welshman, who named it after his birthplace, Milford Haven and Captain Cook had missed it on two occasions (one nil to the Welshies). We do the cruise amongst the fiords and although the viability isn’t great, one can still get a good impression of how high the peaks are and the waterfalls are in full flow (one good thing about it raining is when the sun does come out, they can dry up in a matter of hours and you don’t get to see them) It’s a long day and we get back to Queenstown about 9.30pm and my 3 roomies have been replaced by 2 quiet Korean girls.

It’s Tuesday and it must be raining. I try to get a bus to Franz Joseph but they have all left so I foolishly get my hair cut with what I think may be a stylish fringe a la Kate Moss but I end up looking like Stirling Moss, so I hide in a cafe and catch up on admin. Tomorrow I am off to Franz Joseph (once I’ve purchased a large hat or a wig)

Eggs-iting news: Lawrence , South Island, New Zealand 08/04 – 11/04

It’s a beautiful sunny day in Sydney on the day I leave. I get the distinct impression that Oz is sticking two fingers up to me and quite frankly, I am happy to reciprocate. My journey to the airport is quick and easy and even though it’s ‘rush hour’, the trains are virtually empty. My Air New Zealand flight is fully booked as it’s the skool holidays and I have an enormous woman sitting next to me and her lard arse thighs spill onto my seat, but it is only a three hour flight, so I try and put up with it. Air New Zealand have the most hilarious safety video I have ever seen: I was thinking that their uniforms were very tight when I later learn that it’s body paint. I have never seen a safety video made in such a cheery fashion that you almost look forward to an opportunity to be in the brace position. We pass Mt Cook on the way into CHCH but the Beryl Cook-esque woman sitting next to me obscures most of my view but what I do see of it, it looks imposing.

It takes forever to get through immigration and customs at CHCH airport and I am surprised that they let me in as I realised that I don’t have R’s mobile number on me or her sister’s contact details. The Kiwis are just as paranoid as the Ossies about undesirable things being brought into the country (i.e. flora and forna) but it seems like their paranoia is justified and the UK could take a leaf out of their book. I catch a connecting flight to Dunedin.

R is there to meet me along with her sister V and we head for her and Mr V’s small holding outside the town of Lawrence. Mr V has gone on a bike ride to the North Island and I think he’s wisely escaping having three women in the house. The small holding is lovely and it homes Weka the lovable chocolate brown labby; Bill and Bing the horses, Pumpkin the feral feline (who will apparently savage your arm at a hundred paces without provocation); a veggie patch and a Range Rover. This is my idea of heaven and all I need is for Brad Pitt to see the error of his ways and come and join my rainbow family and the picture would be perfect.

Lawrence is famed for being one of the first places in New Zealand where gold was found and Anthem House were J J Wood composed the NZ national anthem. There is still gold to be found but Weka fails to do any retrieving. We take the dog for a walk around Gabriels Gully were Gabriel Read discovered gold in 1861 and then head to the small but compact town of Lawrence for lunch in the Wild Walnut Cafe (where we are served by a wild waitress who flings our plates onto the table and has clearly failed module 1 ‘Customer Care’ in waitressing school) It is here that we discover the next culinary fad which is bound to reach trendy London tables in due course (no pun intended) no doubt to be highly endorsed by Nigella Lawson in her usual food porn manner.

Well, what is it you ask? Smoked eggs! They are raw eggs cold smoked using the maunka plant and the process takes about six hours: “It’s like bacon and eggs without the bacon” says Neville, who set up the NZ Manuka Egg Company, in an article in the paper the next day. Hot off the press: you heard it here first! www. manukaeggs.co.nz. R cooks a magnificent frittata for dinner using the eggs and we wash it down with some equally magnificent NZ sparkling in front of the fire.

The following day we take the Range Rove out for a drive along the Clutha River and stop off to have lunch in the Speargrass Inn near Alexandra in Central Otago. The Inn was established in 1869 as served the hungry and thirsty gold miners who flocked to the region in search of gold. The drive along the Clutha is truly dramatic and the river is unimaginably clean and has the colour of turquoise-blue-green. It has been another great day and I will be sad to leave tomorrow.

Carry on Sydney 04/04 – 08/04

I leave Newcastle with a sparkling hangover and Mr and Mrs G dropped me off at Cardiff station (yes, that’s what is it called) to get the train to Sydney. The train journey wasn’t as spectacular as I was hoping for but it went by quickly and I managed to get to Milsons Point where my ‘lodge’ was based. On their website, they proudly state that the lodge is situated 6 minutes from the station and this turns out to be a blatant lie as I struggle to drag my luggage over quite steep hills and then a steep flight of stairs to the reception.

The lodge has a bizarre statue outside but the good news is that I am on my own in a 4 bed dorm and whilst the shared bathrooms are a bit further away than I would like, it’s all very clean and comfortable and as I find out in the morning, the included breakfast more than makes up for things.

The weather isn’t too bad and surprisingly the forecast for the next 5 days isn’t great so I decide to head out and make the most of it. Milsons Point is across from the main CBD district and as I soon find out, across from the infamous Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. To say that I am disappointed with the Opera House is an understatement and I can equate it to when you ask for the latest flash stereo for Christmas when you are a kid but you get a crappy Toshiba radio instead (only joking pair-runts)

For a start it isn’t white, it’s more a magnolia colour and I am hoping that it just might be that the dull light is making it look uninspiring. I walk across the Harbour Bridge which is far more impressive and makes for a good viewing platform for taking photos of the harbour and The Rocks. Sydney is very cosmopolitan with a lot of Asians and Indians as inhabitants and even though it’s a Sunday and there are a lot of people around, one still manages to have personal space and not feel crammed as one does in Londres.

I have a wander around the harbour area, check emails and decide to go and watch ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ in the evening. I have read the first two books in the trilogy and feel annoyed that I will never get that time back as I really don’t see what all the fuss is about, however, the other options are less appealing and the film may be better than the book. [Joey, if you are reading this: yes, I will still replace your book that I borrowed!]

I walk back over the bridge and feel completely safe as there are a lot of people around still, including an extraordinary number of joggers and it would seem that it is all the rage to run the distance of the bridge several times and look kool. I get back to still find that I have the room to myself and I have a good night’s sleep.

The next day the weather is overcast and not hugely warm but I decide to get the ferry to Manly and attempt the 10 km costal walk from Manly to The Spit. This is a popular route and the ferry is packed with tourists and the name gets itself from when Captain Arthur Philip was exploring the harbour in 1788 and he saw a group of well-built Aboriginal men onshore and proclaimed them to be ‘manly’. Sadly, I do not see any manly men of my own but then I am trying to stop cruising around harbours.

Luckily, the rain holds off and the walk is pleasant even if the other walkers I encounter are a little unfriendly (i.e. people who are running the walk or power walking push past without ‘an excuse me’ or any other such pleasantries) I fail to see any of the manly Aboriginal rock paintings because they are not sign posted and I finish the walk at the Spit and get a bus back to the town centre. I hang around The Rocks area (this is the historic heart of Sydney) and then head back for an evening of watching TV in my room.

I don’t do much the next day (Tuesday) as I am booked on a tour of the Blue Mountains on the Wednesday and am hoping the weather holds. I visit Bondi beach because that is what everyone does but I cannot say that I am overwhelmed (South Africa’s beaches are far more superior) but it doesn’t help that the weather is overcast. Still, there is an impressive coastal walk with some incredible rock formations and some Aboriginal art (hoorah, at last) of a whale. I am still on my tod in the room and I have an early night as I am up at 6am to take advantage of the breakfast before being picked up for my tour of the Blue Mountains.

Yes, you’ve guessed it: it was pouring the morning of my tour to the BM’s. There are 24 of us on the tour with a mixture of British, Ozzies and some Belgians and there is a Scots girl on her own, so we end up sitting together and she turns out to be great fun. I realise that I haven’t really spoken to anyone for the last 3 days, so it’s nice to have someone to chat to! Dave is our guide and he’s a retired gentleman of 65 and judging by his incessant talking, I don’t think he’s spoken to anyone for the past 3 days either. Whilst most of his commentary is interesting, I don’t think I need to know huge detail about the road works on the way to the BMs. At one point he says that he is going to stop talking to rest his voice but this only lasts a matter of seconds and soon I begin to feel my ears bleed.

The Blue Mountains are a section of the Dividing Range and they get their name from the blue mist that rises from millions of eucalyptus trees and hangs in the mountain air. The rain does stop by the time we get to the lookout points and the scenery is actually more dramatic with the low cloud than it would be with brilliant sunshine. All in all, we visit Kings Tableland, Wentworth Falls, Katoomba and the Three Sisters and scenic world. Scenic world involves a short cable car ride and a scary railway journey back to the top. The tour finishes with a 30 minute river cruise along the Parramatta River back to Circular Quay in central Sydney. It has been a great day, despite Dave’s discourse.

It’s my final night in Oz and I feel like I should be heading out for a celebratory beer but 1) I cannot afford it and 2) I have knackered and have another early start tomorrow to get my flight to Christ Church, New Zealand. I am looking forward to a change of scenery and to being somewhere where my pathetic pound stretches a little further.

30/03 – 04/04 Newcassle, pet

Newcastle was founded in 1804 for convicts too hard even for Sydney to cope with. I arrive in torrential rain and the landing on Oz’s equivalent of Easyjet freaks me out a bit but I am met at the airport by G & G and whisked off to their lovely home and their two pooches. They tell me that it has been boiling up until now and now the rain has started – I am beginning to develop a complex about the weather in Oz!

I have a reasonably early night and I am still suffering a bit with all the flights and time zone changes: I know Oz is big but it seems ridiculous that there’s a half an hour time difference between Cairns and Brisbane and now an hour between Brisbane and Newcastle.

The next day Mrs G very kindly drives me around Newcastle and it reminds me instantly of Gonubie and East London: the weather isn’t great but I manage to take some photos and then I spend the afternoon in the centre of town catching up on emails and visiting the old goal, which is now a small museum. Newcastle’s town centre is surprisingly small and a little run down but they are developing the harbour front and you can sit there and watch the ships come into the dock. Newcastle still exports a lot of coal and you can see a lot of ships out to sea waiting for their turn to come into the port and load up.

My neck is still bothering me, so Mrs G and I head to a massage session run by physio students and I get a full body massage done by a tall, fit hottie for 22 AUD $! What more could a girl ask for.

Luckily, the weather has improved the next day and Mrs G and I head to the beach to take the dogs for a walk. It’s nice to feel the sand between my toes but the water isn’t very warm (although warmer than Noosa) so I head back into the town for some free Wi-Fi and do some research on what to do in NZ. I have also decided to stay in a yoff hostel in Sydney as I will be closer to everything and there is the possibility that some of the people from the Ayers rock tour may be there at the same time as me.

It’s Good Friday and Mr G is off work so we head to the Hunter Valley for a spot of ‘champagne’ tasting and some lunch. The first vines were planted 150 years ago and the jail in the main town of Cessnock even has its own vineyard and apparently the prisoners have produced some prize-winning wines! Our first stop is Peterson House and the staff are in fine form and have already begun a tasting of their own (their mantra is ‘Life is flat without bubbles’) and I feel pissed after tasting a number of sparkling.... I treat Mr and Mrs G to lunch, although this does not make up for their generous hospitality, and then sample two more houses, including one called ‘Emma’s Cottages’ and then we head home after a great day out.

Mr G’s brother and family are due from Sydney for the Easter weekend and it turns out to be a magnificent day for taking the boat out on the lake and to have a picnic on one of the islands, where we sample more sparklings! You will see that a pattern is developing.

I’m off to Sydney tomorrow.