Costa Rica!!

(Still) Having a few issues with the photos right now in blogger... will try again tomorrow night.


Well – we started off with a couple of days on a farm near Siquirres, which is about 2 hours North East of San Jose. We did well with getting a local bus there, costing us only $4 each! We even managed to get off at the right stop and not have our bags stolen (mainly because I was watching the baggage compartment like a hawk every time we stopped!). We had some nice local food before getting a taxi (quite a unsuccessful journey!) to Brian’s farm up towards the mountains and Turrialba area. It’s not really a farm as we would imagine here in the UK – it’s more an area of land that you can occasionally farm things from – there were some unbelievably tasty lemony orange things on the trees outside the guesthouse we stayed in and we hiked to where some of the locals were chopping up a tree that had fallen for wood (massive tree, very impressive). So we spent the days lazing around in the hammock – watching the birds and listening / trying to look for the frogs. Brian is ‘the’ guy to go to in Costa Rica if you want to see some serious frogs – which I did (and Rob was very soon to realise he did too!). We went out on two hikes – both at dusk / beginning of the night and within about 5 minutes managed to spot the one frog I’d definitely wanted to see (red eyed tree frog) – apparently they are really common here – although the ones we saw (about 5 or 6 in total) over the days we stayed with Brian were the only ones we saw the whole holiday (though we could hear some in the other places we stayed, we couldn’t see them). We hiked further into the farm on the second night and found the second frog I wanted to see but didn’t think we would – a glass frog – the one we saw (the one below) is an Ilex glass frog. We saw some other very cool frogs (the red eyed stream frog being my third favourite) and all round had a good frog spotting relaxing start to the trip!

From Siquirres we then took another local bus to Limon, then another bus down to Puerto Viejo, which is almost as south as you can get on the Caribbean coast without hitting Panama. It’s a very relaxed place with a bit of a reputation, and being offered hair braids and drugs within about 10 minutes of getting off the bus you realise why it has that reputation! Pretty place though and it was nice to see the Caribbean Sea again after so long! The place we stayed at was cool; we had our own little bungalow with a nice hammock and table etc. We also had a nice little bird watching bench around one side of the bungalow which we sat at one morning getting photos of the humming bird. We spent some time on the beach, playing in the waves, checking out the beaches further down the coast etc. We were told that this was one of the best places to see a sloth (they have two-toed and three-toed sloth’s in Costa Rica) and although I spent a lot of time gazing up into the threes that Brian had told us they like the most – we didn’t see one. I was gutted as although you can see them anywhere; this was supposed to be the place! Anyway, we got a taxi to the bus station to get our nice 4.5 hour bus journey back to San Jose and one the way we saw this one in the road!! Such a funny creature – it totally just stopped, looked up at the taxi, and then continued to walk around towards the trees!

So back for another crappy night’s sleep in San Jose before our ridiculous 6am pickup for the rafting trip. We were on the four day trip which meant a day of rafting into the lodge half way down the river, then two days hanging out at the lodge and doing trek’s etc, then another day of rafting out. The first day’s rafting was pretty tame (call II and III rapids), but the last day’s rafting out was going to be III and IV rapids so that was the exciting day! The lodge itself was beautiful, all made of wood and three stories high – which was a little worrying from a structural point of view, especially taking into account our lovely stone bathroom up there on the third floor! Great food and cocktails at 5pm every day it was a great place to spend Christmas. We did a day trekking out to a farm on horses (clearly the best ‘four-wheel-drive’ vehicles about!) – as most of you know, Rob and I are not a fan of getting around by horse (although for some reason we keep ending up on horse treks) – we both spent most of the day scared half to death, there were some very steep parts to the trek and I think I would have been much happier to get off and walk most of it! We trekked out to a Tilapia farm and did a little bit of old school fishing (both Rob and I caught fish and had them for dinner) then around to Jose’s (the horse owner) house for lunch and to check out Jose’s collection of snakes and a cayman (stayed well back) then back to the stables and a nice walk through the forest back to the lodge. Nights were spent eating and drinking until about 9pm when they turned the generator off and everything went dark! For Christmas day we walked up into the rainforest and then followed a river back towards some huge boulders that had been made into a cool natural waterslide by the river water. So we grabbed the rice sacks and had a few goes – lots of fun! The last day rafting out was really good – we ended up in the raft with a bunch of male Americans that were really into the whole macho thing. Rob and I sat at the back of the raft – which is a change for us as we usually sit at the front, and I’m glad we did as the macho Americans did most of the paddling work and when you are at the back you really have to get right into the rapids before you see how big they are – and they were BIG. Lots of fun though – the guide we had was pretty game for a laugh and tended to take us the hard way into and out of rapids and we only got stuck once!

Another crappy night in the crappy San Jose hostel and then we were on the bus North to Arenal to see the volcano (hopefully) and try the canyoning that had been recommended to us by people on the rafting trip. Arenal was probably the first proper ‘touristy’ place we went – plenty of expensive restaurants and bars, and most of the prices started to appear in US$ rather than Colones. No visibility of the volcano on the first day, the second day we went canyoning and it was great fun – a lot less scary than I thought it would be – some photos below but they really don’t do the heights of the waterfalls any justice! The first one was 100 ft high and the second one was 250 ft high. Crazy. Had some great food afterwards and went into the ‘town’ with a few of our fellow cayoners for some beers, then met up with them again for dinner. Our final day in Arenal and we finally got to see the volcano! Very nice it was too – all sorts of stuff coming out the top. We spent the day in the hot springs / spa place – very well organised and super pretty, very strange climbing into hot water when it’s so hot outside though – and in my head streams are always cold! Had a lovely massage in the spa that removed all my aches from the previous day’s canyoning and a fabulous lunch in their restaurant complimented by a margarita! Early night for an early start of our dodge journey from Arenal to Monteverde via Jeep-Boat-Jeep.

Well – apart from them picking us up an hour late, the journey wasn’t bad at all – very long with a typical stop off at a mate’s restaurant / shop for us all to buy overpriced food / stuff! Our place in Monteverde was in a great location, we were able to walk into the town of Santa Teresa (which seemed more touristy than Monteverde) and also walk to the cloud forest reserve, and have a bunch of nice restaurants, cafes and bars close too. Monteverde was again very tourist orientated but we got to see some more frogs, and had a nice walk about the cloud forest – although we did see more wildlife at the café outside the cloud forest than we actually saw in the forest – but, I guess animals are smart and they know humans feed them! Saw some more humming birds although I think the photos look much better with real flowers in rather than the ugly plastic feeders! The second day here we got to do the ‘official’ zip line canopy tour thing – it was a bit cattle like – everyone in, take the money, everyone on, everyone off etc. It was very very cool being that high up above the canopy and it really gave you a great view of just how massive the forest is – you are basically 500 + feet above the ground on a bit of wire, and I think the top speed is 40mph. Add in the 65mph winds and it was a very exciting morning!! The longest of the lines was about 750m – great fun, highly recommended! That was New Year’s Eve so we went out and had a few celebratory drinks and a nice meal – very grown-up New Years eve, no throwing up or anything! The next morning we were up early and off to the reserve – we decided we were close enough to walk there - but I think we must have guessed where we were on the map wrong because it was a quite the hike! We walked up to the continental divide – saw a few birds but generally not that much, we saw much more wildlife at the visitors centre where the visitors were feeding the animals!! Saw some more humming birds – managed to get extremely close and now understand why they are called humming birds.

From Monteverde we took the supposed ‘easy’ route to Montezuma – this was a tourist bus that advised saying it made getting around Costa Rica easy – having taken local buses up to now we thought we would treat ourselves – especially as this trip involved a local bus, a ferry and then another bus. Anyway – something went wrong with the booking and they didn’t pick us up. As we had the receipt our hotel person told us it was their responsibility to get us to Montezuma. So we sat around for a while waiting to see what happened… eventually a taxi appeared and we started off towards the ferry port. It’s a fairly scary journey down to the port as you go from a reasonable altitude (5600 ft) to sea level, along what appeared to be ridges and saddles between the mountains. I say appeared to be because of the speed we were travelling, I was just happy I wasn’t getting a closer look else I think I would have been even more scared than I was. Eventually we got down to sea level and paved roads (seatbelt on then for the driver) and we figured that either the driver was in a really big rush, or he was trying to get us to the port by a certain time. There were some scary moments in the town where he was just overtaking (on the wrong side of the road) the whole line of people waiting at the red light, then when he got to the front of queue he’d just jump the light! We arrived at the ferry port at 10.58 – just in time for the 11am ferry! The ferry was OK – packed but it was nice to be on the sea again! We picked up the bus on the other side of the ferry and everything was going smoothly until we pulled over to side of the road with a blown radiator! Luckily Rob and I were prepared by this point for the fact that something else might not go right so we calmly got the beers out of our back packs and started drinking! Eventually we got to Cabano and then got a taxi to Mal Pais and to the hotel. Mal Pais was beautiful and dusty. Very dusty. But some awesome sunsets and lovely beaches and great places to eat (we had some unbelievably good argentine chicken and some great pizza!). We had a fun couple of days just exploring and then we hired a quad bike to check out the beaches a bit further away – lots of fun driving it on the beach! We decided that we’d done enough cheapo travel and so we got the small plane back to San Jose rather than the 6 hour bus and then a taxi to our very cool and crazy hotel. I think you could probably stay for a week in that hotel and notice something new every day. Very arty / decorations / sculptures etc. Lovely room and probably the best food of the trip (bar the argentine chicken).

So all round – a great trip! The only thing I would recommend – do not fly with Delta!

Big News...

... i've bought a new camera... the Nikon 7900 has finally got to the point where bringing it out held together with an elastic band is a little embarressing. I'm still keeping it as i don't plan any time soon to invest in a housing for the new camera... So - any photos from this point onwards are taken with the Canon G9.

Updates..

As the task of updating all the missing bits from the blog is a massive one - i have decided that i will get on and update as from now and then if i feel inspired i'll backlog things.

This weekend we went up to Didmarton and then to the national aboretum. Although we might be a little late for the majority of 'turning' we had perfect weather...

New Year's Resolution...

.... is to update the blog and then keep it up to date... things to add....

1) South Pacific Photos and log (i have it still somewhere)
2) Return to England..
3) Trip to Amsterdam to visit Benji with Andy-Pand & Rob
4) Weekend Wakeboarding in Canada
5) Weekend in Germany
6) Weekend in Belgium Mountain Biking
7) Africa Trip
8) Arctic Circle trip
9) Xmas in England for the first time in.... forever!

Chrispx

Tonga, Fiji & Cook Islands

All coming soon. Back to real life in England then. BIG CHANGE. :)

Waitomo – Coromandel – Auckland – Northland – Auckland

Well – the caves turned out to be a bit more involved than either of us had actually anticipated. Our first clue to this was the dripping wet wetsuits we had to put on. Not impressed by that at all! We then had a 10-minute lesson on how to abseil before getting clipped on and sent down a small dark hole in the ground. It wasn’t a massive descent – 30m – but they had the rope set up to accommodate all the people in the group. Unfortunately for me that meant that I had to use the same rope as the 15 stone Danish guy, which resulted in my fear quickly turning into frustration and me having to ‘bounce’ up and down on the rope to get myself to go down at all. After this first bit we then clipped onto a flying fox and slid into the darkness admiring the glow-worms.

Our response to the 30m abseil and then the flying fox pretty much told us what we had suspected on the way to the caves. We were completed and utterly activitied out. Having jumped from one place to the next over the last 2 months, fuelled by experiencing the next adventure, we were exhausted. Bouncing along the river in a tube, the dark cave full of glow-worms provoked nothing more than a mild whine at how our wetsuits didn’t fit and the water was freezing. Nothing whatsoever mentioned about the spectacular hidden world we’d bought our way into. All we could think about throughout the 5 hours it took was how long was left and how soon we could get out of our wetsuits and help ourselves to the free soup. I’m sure under different circumstances we would have raved about it. As it was, when presented with a choice near the end of the trip (option one – climb up the waterfalls, really difficult as you have to climb up, then shuffle through the top of the waterfall where the water is trying it’s hardest to push you back down or option two – walk out the other way) my question of ‘which way is the quickest?’ dictated that we start the waterfall climb. We left after our soup taking only seconds to decide – no thanks, we don’t want the CD with the photos on. Sam & Andy did the same trip - so if you want photos, look on their website!

We drove off into the night looking for somewhere to stay but somehow managing to miss the turn for accommodation in each town we passed through! We eventually stayed in a holiday park in the middle of nowhere, which meant that we paid the same as usual but got a sink and a TV in our room (ah, the small things). The next day we carried on towards the Coromandel and found Whitianga and a hostel with a room for two nights. We killed time for two days, purchasing food for our camping trip, drinking, eating and finishing off the shopping for Christmas stockings.

On Christmas Eve we left for Stony Bay, right on the tip of the Coromandel, the car weighed down with food and drink. So weighed down in fact that as we drove the last 20km of gravel road the bottom of the car would occasionally scrape the ground, causing an horrific noise and invoking panic. The road was hideous and an accident waiting to happen. It was the kind of road that you should beep your horn when going around a corner to warn anyone coming in the other direction, the only problem being that if you did this, you’d have your horn on all the time. Now, Rob and I have been to many countries between us, and seen or experienced many of the roads and drivers in those countries and without a doubt New Zealanders take the lead in the terrible drivers list. Baring in mind we are drawing on experiences such as Lanzarotti bus drivers hurtling around corners on the edge of cliffs to the point where I threw up in my mothers sun hat and then stopping without warning to have a chat with someone else going the other way, Japanese drivers, Canadians, Americans, British, Cuban taxi drivers determined to get down the skinny streets of Havana as fast as possible while you hold your breath hoping it’ll make the car thinner. Kiwi’s are still the worst. In some ways you have to admire them, they have purchased their 4WD, it’s expensive and fast and is built for driving off-road. Which is effectively what this road was. What I think anyone’s neglected to tell them is that they aren’t the only one using the road, and they may have brakes and maneuverability on the loose gravelly roads, but not all cars do. You immediately understand why some of the road signs have the speed limit on and then the words “it’s not a target” written underneath! When anyone passed us we would be temporally blind for a few minutes because the speed they were doing kicked up all the dust, we flip-flopped between being glad we were in a hire car (as the scraping noises got louder and surely more damaging) and petrified someone was going to hit us and we would have to pay our $3000 excess. Never have I been so glad to see a campsite!




We set up our little tent, cooked some very un-Christmas Eve like food, drank one or two of the many bottles of alcohol and slept. Christmas day we thought would bring out the festive spirit in our fellow campers but everything was pretty quite and dull, until about 10.30am where people did seem to get a bit more festive. By then we had finished off a bottle of champagne so it may well have been that of course! We spent the day doing nothing, the bay was beautiful, but the wind was wicked and the temperature of the water very un-inviting. We continued to finish off our red wine supply, read our Christmas books, watch the first few episodes of season one of the Family Guy and have a very un-Christmas day dinner of chicken tikka masala!! Boxing day we got up early and threw all the stuff in the car and drove the worst of the 20km of gravel before stopping at a pay phone to call home. Most people seemed to be heading the same direction as us so it wasn’t nearly as scary on the way down, plus drinking all the red wine, beer and champagne had lightened the load on the car so it wasn’t scraping the gravel any more! We headed for Auckland for a quick stop and a lovely Thai meal (thanks Rob’s Mum and Dad) before heading up to Whanganui where we would do our last planned activity in NZ – diving the Poor Knights islands.

In Whanganui we stayed in a lovely hostel by the Abby Caves called Little Earth Lodge. Finally a room big enough for us to unload the car and sort out our rubbish! Again we managed to do nothing for a few days before organizing the diving trip, which was really good. Very very cold and has put both of us off cold water diving for a while! Lots of kelp and nudibranch and eels. On the second dive we went into a cave and you can pop your head out in an air pocket and take out your regs, have a chat etc. I found it a bit strange, especially as you look at your computer and it tells you you are 9m below the surface. Very strange. But it was well worth doing even though we only lasted 40 minutes on the first dive and 30 on the second because of the cold! After the diving we decided that we would head north and try and stay in Pahia for the night.





It was like Blackpool, but without the illuminations. I couldn’t believe how much it had changed since I was last there. With a quick check at a few hostels we left with a “good luck” from one of the hostel owners after I had turned down his offer of a double room at $120 a night and headed North. We found a run-down, full-of-weirdos campsite with cabins for $40 just outside Kirikiri. Bargain. The next day we drove further north landing in Pukanui and finding a very nice homestay farm place with a lovely room and good kitchen. We spent the night watching Star Wars (a very seasonal film!) and chatting with fellow guests (a Kiwi-English couple escaping Wellington for the holidays) and eating leftover food (tinned tomatoes).

The next day we decided that we would go horseriding. We booked it through the farmstay woman and got an indication of what it would be like from the fact that when we got to the town that it was in we had to go to the local shop and they would give us directions to the actual place. It was SO much fun. Rob had a horse that was aptly named ‘Stumpy’ and mine was called Troy. Being the second time Rob was on a horse he got the smaller one, and it being a totally relaxed kiwi experience we had no helmets or anything silly like that, just a wild horse that had been caught off the beach and tamed and a branch of leaves to urge him on if he happened to stop at any point! We rode thorugh the bush where our guide Brandon told us that you can pretty much eat anything that moves in there, and that it was all delicious. We went from the bush to the sand dunes and then over onto the 90 mile beach to have a run about and splash in the water. All good fun.


From the horse riding we headed north as we were half way to Cape Reinga anyway – we had a quick lunch stop and took some photos then headed back down the coast for ‘the farm’ where we were to spend New Year.

To the left

The tip of New Zealand

Lovely place to stay, all very friendly and relaxed, we just pitched our tent and joined in the festivities (when it had stopped raining enough for us to get out the car). We managed a trip to the beach, a bottle of champagne, a couple of bottles of red & a crate of beer, a lovely sweet & sour stir-fry and a communal dinner of spit-roast chicken & various sides. There was some frisbee throwing (until the dogs got involved) and some lounging around in the sun. All very pleasant!

The last sunset of 2006

After New Year we made our way down to Auckland for our flight out to Tonga on the 6th. For our last night we spent an horrific night in what can only be described as a small stinky jail. It wasn’t actually a jail but I did think that auckland’s actual jail was probably nicer than this place. Top tip for Auckland? Do not stay in Surf ‘n Snow Backpackers – it sucks.

And to Tonga…

Updates....

Well, my intention was to spent tomorrow (our last day in NZ) updating the blog, sending stuff home and packing before flying to Tonga in the evening. Having called Air NZ to confirm our flight, we actually have to be at the airport at 7.30am tomorrow morning - not evening - slight oversight on my part!! So the last installment of adventure New Zealand will have to wait!

We have 2 weeks in Tonga, 2 weeks in Fiji, a week in the Cook Islands and a week in Tahiti before flying to LA then London. Updates to follow late Feb!

Chrissie

Christchurch – Cheviot – Kiakoura – Picton – Wellington – National Park – Rotorua

So we left Christchurch after another two nights at Casa Steve and hit the road for Cheviot, just south of Kiakoura. The dolphin swimming was booked for the morning that we wanted to go so we had some time to kill. After a few beers and catching up with Nath from work we go to Cheviot and decided we could go no further! We stayed in jail for the night – a cool 1900’s jail that they have made the two cells into rooms – they did add an extra window, but thoughtfully left the original window, complete with bars and original door, complete with little hatch to talk to the criminals through!! Very amusing!



So we got to Kiakoura to be greeted by rain and wind – our hopes for 5am dolphin swimming diminishing quickly. We got up at 5 and gave them a call – the trip was on as they had less wind than expected – so we rushed down there, got suited up in 7mm two piece wetsuits, with hood, and jumped on the bus to the boat. Once on the boat we headed out to one of the bays where they usually see dolphins, but after about 10 minutes they decided it was too rough to continue and we headed back to the shore, got back on the bus to the base, got out of the 7mm two piece wetsuits, with hood, and returned to our little room to watch dvd’s for the rest of the day as the weather was just foul. We re-booked for 5am the next day though and we made it to the bay second time. Just after we had got into the bay the captain said the swimmers should all start to get ready as the dolphins were about – then they blow this big horn and you all start jumping off the back of the boat into the 14oC water!

The dolphins are totally wild, so you have entertain them to get them to stick around, they don’t get fed by the company, so they don’t hassle you, they are just interested in you. It’s all very strange – they like it when you duck dive down (no chance of that happening in water that cold) and they like to swim in circles around you and stay about longer if you spin around looking at them while they swim around you. You are also encouraged to make noise as they find that interesting. A great experience and we are both so pleased we got to go – well worth the waiting around. By the end of it we felt a little sick… beware – treading freezing cold water for 30 minutes in a swell while spinning around and making noises can make you feel sick as a dog!
The photos don’t nearly do this amazing experience justice, but you get the idea…


Set your camera on continuous photos and take about 50, you’ll end up with one or two with dolphins actually in the air!


Unfortunately the visibility wasn’t great, it looked better than this in real life!

So from Kiakoura we headed north to Picton. We had planned to walk the Queen Charlotte Track, but we both managed to pick up some sort of bug from somewhere and only managed to do a tour in the car. Very stunning area...



From Picton we got the ferry over the Cook Straight to Wellington – it was super windy, but a calm crossing (thankfully!) – despite the wind, when the captain announced that he had seen Orcas off to the front left of the ferry everyone braved to wind to try and catch a glimpse – sadly they had moved on already! In Wellington we visited Te Papa – the national museum and then headed north to Wanganui to try and find out about canoeing the river there.

We got there as the information place was closing but the nice man let us in anyway and sold us a 3 day adventure down the Wanganui river in a Canadian canoe. We had another couple of hours drive up to National Park where all the tours went from and we were treated to some spectacular views on the way…


Mount Ruapehu

The three days canoeing were perfect! The weather was awesome sunny & blue skies for all three days (resulting in burnt heads / knees / feet etc!) and it was very entertaining being in a big open Canadian canoe rather than the regular sort. It made for interesting times when we came to the rapids!! We camped the first night and then stayed in a hut the second night. Over the three days we covered about 90km of river, a slab of beer, a bottle of wine and mountains of food – a job well done.





We did a side trip (about a 40 minute walk) to ‘The Bridge to Nowhere’, which is a bridge to nowhere, in the middle of nowhere! It was supposed to be an area developed for farming, but by the time the bridge was finished everyone had moved to greener pastures and now it’s just there, in the middle of nowhere!


A constant source of amusement throughout the trip – the feral goats!!

We decided to stick around in Nation Park for the next couple of nights and do the Tongariro Crossing, hailed as the best one-day walk in NZ. I did this walk last time I was here and it was wicked so I’m glad we got the chance to do it. The weather was perfect – again (don’t worry, we are currently paying for those 4 days of perfect weather!) and there are too many photos to chose from! A great walk if you get the chance to do it.











From National Park we then entered the rainy days again and didn’t get a good look at Taupo Lake and the nice view you get there in the sun, or the good views of Rotorua. We had decided to go an see an old school friend of Rob’s the next day so we had to find something to do for the morning. Rob picked white water rafting (our 3rd time this trip) on the Kiatuna river. This one is special because you raft over the highest commercially rafted waterfall – a whopping 7m (~21ft). Now I wasn’t too excited about this – but the trip is only 45 minutes so I figured it would at least be over quickly!

There were four of us in the raft with two guides. So one of the guides was in the back – then it was the other guide and Rob, then the next couple and then me at the front. On my own! I wasn’t very happy about it!! But once we got in the raft and got going I wasn’t too bothered, that was, until we came to the bit with the waterfall. He took us near the edge and then got us all to stand up to have a look – you couldn’t even see the bottom where you would land – very scary. I totally tuned out when he started saying about how you have to go into a little ball if you fall out of the raft as the waterfall will suck you under and blah blah blah. I wasn’t very happy about being in the front on my own at this point. Anyway – over we went and upright we stayed, although you can see from the photos we disappeared for a bit!



After that bit it was all OK – for one of the rapids I even got to sit on the front of the raft with my legs over front bit, holding on with one hand, the other in the air – just like a crazy bull-rider! Sadly no photos of that bit! All in all an excellent activity and I will certainly recommend it to people!


Me and the other chick doing the Titanic as the guides made our raft ‘surf’ the rapid!

After this we called in at a 4WD place where we had a go at scaring the crap out of each other by driving up, down and through scary things!



So we had a lovely evening visiting Rob’s friend, a chance to wash things (everything smells clean!) and sleep in a real bed (ahh, the luxury!) and now we are back in Rotorua before heading to Waitomo to ‘do’ the caves tomorrow afternoon.

Other stuff:

We went to watch the new James Bond film – despite thinking the new dude wasn’t James Bondy at all – it was awesome! Go and see it if you can.

We have changed our ticket (mainly due to us wanting to go to Tonga, the Fiji coup & the great deals to Tonga!) so that we don’t have as much time in Fiji as we did (one month down to two weeks) – this left us with a spare two weeks so we are heading to Tonga to explore! Less than three weeks until we start our South Pacific tour!!!

It’s the 20th today and we still have no plans for Christmas, we are not even sure where we will be! This must be the most un-Christmassy I have felt ever! We have booked diving for 30th Dec, but again have no idea where to spent New Year, holidays like this should be scrapped when you are traveling!

Well, now it’s the 22nd and we have a vague plan of what to do for xmas, we are hoping to get booked into one of the DOC campsites here on the Coromandel afer purchasing our tent and trying it out (successfully) last night in Hahei. Photos to follow! Have a great Christmas everyone!

Motueka – Collingwood – Heaphy Track – Westport – Punakiaki – Franz Joseph – Makarora – Queenstown - Christchuch

Able Tasman was at it’s best for two of the three days, the weather was awesome – and it was probably for the best that the majority of day two was cloudy as otherwise we would have had some serious sunburn! It was a great three days – and although the company we went with messed up our booking and instead of staying in the huts we ended up camping, we both ended up thinking that it was probably best that they did mess it up as by camping as we got to stay in some small campsites that you could only access by the water. Very cool.


Me and the kayak!


Split Apple Rock.


View from the lookout at campsite number one.

Both very glad that we waited for the weather to clear up as the scenery was stunning in the sunshine. We saw some gorgeous little bays, lots of seals, lots of birds and finally – some lovely sandy beaches. It’s the first time in months (and literally months) that we have been able to wear our boardies for 3 days in a row!!


Seals!


View from campsite number two...


Beach - a real beach!!

After some recuperation in Motueka we decided that we would do the Heaphy Track (another of the great walks) – it’s the longest out of all the great walks (~85km) and takes a good four days to complete. We arranged with Stray (after three phone calls) to pick up our bags in Motueka and us in Westport (460km away) in four days time and started the walk. The first day was quite easy – the second day was long (27km) but an awesome walk through the red tussock fields that seem to go on forever. The third day was a nightmare of 6 hours of solid rain, where we discovered: 1) why most people walk in waterproof boots, 2) that the ‘waterproof trousers’ we had bought could only live up to the ‘trousers’ part of their name and 3) we did not like hiking in the rain… especially for 6 hours. But despite 1, 2 & 3 we also discovered that we although we didn’t like walking for 6 hours all soggy - we could, and weren’t that worst for wear of it afterwards. The last day was a nice easy walk and because we left early we got the best of the weather (it was nice and sunny for when we walked along the beachy bit and then we were under the trees when it started to rain!) and a lift to Westport by another couple that left early too – saving us a nights stay in the little town you end up in after the walk and $80 in bus fares! Result!


Red tussock land.


Lush west coast.


West coast inlet.

After a brief visit to the brewery in Westport we got picked up by the Stray bus and then managed to persuade the driver to drop us in Punakiaki rather than Barrytown for the night. A lovely little hostel by the beach, a nice pub meal and a sleep, then we were off to Franz Joseph for our second attempt at the Heli-Hiking.

After waiting two days the sun finally came out – which transformed a dreary little town into a stunning alpine village. Finally we could see why people would choose to live there! We booked onto the last heli-hike of the day and sat around watching films & the weather until check–in time.

It was all very ‘cattle’ like – everyone in – everyone pay – everyone out, but once up onto the glacier I think it was worth the money. Although almost everyone I’ve spoken to who has visited New Zealand has hiked on the glacier it’s still one of those things that you rarely get the chance to do (especially if you live in Europe). It’s also one of those things that won’t always be there for you to do either. I can highly recommend it to anyone who gets the chance – the photos don’t nearly do it justice.



Me with talonz on...


Climbing up an ice crevice...


The Mighty Glacier...


Me in a frozen tunnel..

From Franz we went to Tuatepere for the night again – via Lake Matheson see photo below! - and then onto visit Wanaka quickly before heading to Queenstown for the next couple of nights. We found a very nice little hostel (by accident) that charged the same price for a double as most of the other places in NZ rather than the extra $15 they seem to put on everything because it’s Queenstown! After an evening of pizza and beer we were ready to do something adrenalin creating the next day and Rob got to pick the activity. He wanted to paraglide off of Coronet Peak (one of the mountains around Queenstown), but when we called the company it was a mainly handgliding company who had one paragliding pilot. So I decided I would handglide having already had a go at paragliding-ish post sky-dive a few years back.


Lake Matheson

It was all very strange, you get set up and then run quickly off the edge of a ridiculously big mountain. I hadn’t really thought about handgliding before so I made the assumption that the handle/bar in front of you was where you ‘hold on’. It’s actually the ‘steering wheel’ and you are harnessed from your middle to sort of dangle. Very weird as it was a natural instinct to hold on and felt really silly when you didn’t! We had perfect conditions and actually climbed up to a higher altitude than where we jumped off at one point. The landing was very scary as you just sort of go head first towards the field and your feet drag along the grass. I wouldn’t say that I’m about to run out and buy a handglider – but it was fun and the views we had that day were awesome. The few photos and video that they took for us are pretty funny; we both went at the same time so we are in each other’s videos too!


Me running off hill...


Just after take off..


Me flying and smiling.

So now we are back in Christchurch trying to figure out what we are going to do for the next four weeks before flying out to "we're-having-a-military-coup-Fiji". Christmas and New Year are looming ever closer and we still don’t know what we will be up to! Diving sounds like an appealing option as long as I keep my mind off the water temperature! It’ll all work out I’m sure.

Franz - Makarora - Queenstown - Te Anau - Steward Island - Christchurch - Kiakoura - Nelson - Motueka

Well – we’ve had a little more luck with the weather! As soon as we got about an hour or two from Franz the skies started to clear and the sun proved it was still there. We stayed in this backwards out of way place with only one bar (what a change!) called Makarora, which in itself was very pretty. We work up early to go jet boating only to find out that they won’t go unless there are four of us (there was just Rob and I) so we ended up going for a walkabout in the forest for an hour.


Makarora in the morning


Ferns in the forest

After a quick stop in Wanaka we headed to the ‘extreme’ capital of NZ – Queenstown! Last time I was here in Queenstown I didn’t do any of the activities (apart from drink and eat) so this time we decided to cover the Shotover river as neither of us were that fussed about bungying. We did a jet boat and then took a helicopter up Skippers canyon and white water rafted down.

The jet boat was awesome. It goes stupidly fast and spins around and goes scarily close to the canyon walls. All good fun! It was freezing though – not that it made much difference to us as we were going to be in a raft within the hour! The helicopter ride up the canyon was wicked – especially as the pilot pointed out the road we would have had to take otherwise – a windy skinny dirt track on the edge of a very steep cliff face! Then it was about an hour and a half of white water rafting down – after the Tully the rapids were fairly tame, but the fact that the water is 4oC makes you super scared of being flung in the water (unlike the Tully where you get in voluntarily several times!), it was fun, but it cold and an hour and a half was just the right amount of time! One of the reasons we wanted to raft the shotover was the 170m tunnel at the end that you raft through – it was the best bit!

After this we met up with an old school friend of Rob’s and had a few more drinks than we needed and then got on the bus at 7am the next day to get to Te Anau – a good place to start if you want to do any of the walks in the area.


How cool do we look?!

After finding out the Milford track was booked until about March, and the Routeburn was waiting to be bombed to remove the risk of avalanche, we settled on the Kepler. We cheated on the first day and instead of walking along the beach from the start we took a water taxi to the end of the beach and started on what is known as the ‘grunt’. Straight up for about 3 hours from sea level to 1000m. After we popped out from the trees we had great 360 degree views of the surrounding area (Te Anau Lake & Manapori Lake) – from here it was a short 45 minutes to the hut – our first NZ hut experience! The hut was awesome! It was quite quiet (we are at the very start of the ‘tramping’ season really) so we had a section of bunks to ourselves – I can imagine it gets quite nasty when it’s full of hairy sweaty snoring hikers! We cooked ourselves some dinner and then went off with two fellow walkers to find the nearby caves. All natural and not restricted the caves we wicked – I was having Harry Potter flashbacks and therefore didn’t go too far in to explore but Rob and others went right in and they went on for ages! Very cool.


First hut of the walks!

The second day was the worrying day – the weather hadn’t been forecast that great and we weren’t exactly the best-prepared people out there! Because you were fairly high (around 1000-1400m all day apart from the last bit), any rain forecast for the area would have been sleet or snow where we were – great! We were very lucky with the weather though, and although it was SOOOO windy (I think I actually got blown over about 3 times due to the extra weight of the pack and gusts of wind coming exactly when I lifted one leg!!) we – thankfully – didn’t get too much rain / snow / sleet. We took the 10-minute side trip minus packs to the summit of Mount Luxmore and then spent most of the day struggling along in the wind. It was extremely dramatic scenery – snow covered saddles between two mountains that you knew you had to walk along – some of them had very long drops either side and with the wind I was constantly nervous of getting blown off the track!


The mighty Mount Luxmore waiting to be climbed!


It's very windy, very cold, and we are very tired - but we at the top of the highest mountain as far as we can see!


Look closely on that snowy ridge. People. This is when we realised we'd have to walk along that snowy ridge!


Look closely on this photo too and you can see the track

We did a side trip after dinner again – to a waterfall this time, we got to see a nasty possum on the way back to the hut – all very pretty, all very peaceful. The last day we decided to skip the last hut and walk straight out – it made it a really long day (23km) but it was worth it to know that at the end we were going to get a nice dinner and more importantly – a shower!! By the last hour we had both had enough and the aches and pains had got worst but we made it to the end and got the bus back to town.


A nice waterfall



By far the hardest bit of the walk was from reception of the holiday park to our room – all of about three and a half minutes, but after having sat and waited for the bus for about 45 minutes and then sat in the bus for another ten, both of our bodies had decided we had walked enough and didn’t want to walk anymore!!!

It was a great trek, and we covered about 50km in the three days and gave ourselves a huge confidence boost to do more walks. How very quickly you forget the agony it was to move about the day after we got back!

We spent the next few days recovering and then hopped back on the bus for the Milford Sound cruise and onto Tuatepere. We had THE best weather for the Milford Sound cruise, blue skies and hardly any wind – made a lovely change!


Me on the boat.


One of a million Milford Sound waterfalls.

We stayed overnight in Tuatepere and managed the early start to get to the farm to shear a sheep, play with a lamb and a calf and watch the working dogs do their stuff. A very entertaining morning and well worth getting up early for!


Sheep!

After the farm we went down to catch the ferry over to Stewart Island for our next walk – The Rakiura Track – another one of NZ’s Great Walks.

It wasn’t as good as the Kepler and it was a lot harder on people who have bad knees (i.e. us) because of all the steps you have to go up and down. Most of it is a boardwalk type track so we spent a lot of time looking at our feet as it was wet, muddy and slippery – I’m sure we missed some of the scenery because of this!! We had all sorts of weather – luckily whenever it was snowing or hailing or raining we were under the trees so we didn’t get too wet! The morning after staying in the first hut we walked along the beach for a bit and saw dolphins!!


On the beach!


Me crossing the first of three extremely scary bridges!


One of the huts.


Rob looking dashing in his hiking gear!


One of the many beautiful bays!

We then spent a couple of nights on Stewart Island not doing all that much before heading back on the bus.

We expressed from Stewart Island to Christchurch – with an overnight stop in Dunedin. We then slept on Steve’s floor for a couple of nights before heading off again on the bus (our free tickets allow us to go around the South Island as many times as we want in a year) up to Kiakoura for a stop (we didn’t do anything apart from decide that next time we come through Kiakoura we would do the dolphin swim) then got the bus to Nelson.


I'm ashamed to admit i've forgottne where this is.. somewhere between Dunedin and Chrstchurch that's stormy. ;)


Moraki Boulders on the beach...


A few yellow-eyed penguins on the beach - these guys are really rare so we were super lucky to have seen them!

Now – Nelson is the one place in NZ that gets the most sun of all NZ. And – just like last time we got to Nelson, it was pissing down! Not just a shower, but a full on, good 48 hours worth of heavy rain. We were supposed to head through to Marahau, but we hopped off in Nelson as the place the bus stops in Marahau is a bit…. Primitive (to say the least) so we opted for a warm cosy backpackers instead. We then hopped back on the bus the next day and we are now in Motueka.
We’re booked onto the kayak trip (3 days up the coast, then a water taxi back) starting tomorrow 8am – very excited, the weather is perfect right now (sunny!) and if the wind drops just a little then it will be the best weather ever! So fingers crossed it blows itself out tonight.

We got back to Christchurch about 3 weeks before we planned to, so we might do a couple of extra things on this go round. Next big stop is the glaciers to do the heli-hike, another weather dependant thing. I predict some more waiting coming up!

Until next time, keep smiling!

Picton – Abel Tasman National Park – Barrytown – Hokitika – Franz Joseph

Well – we are getting rained out all over the place. We are currently in Franz Joseph where it’s stopped raining for about 20 minutes of the 20 hours we’ve been here! Because of the rain we have opted to leave the heli-hike for now, and hopefully we will get back here and do it next time. We also left the kayaking because of the rain – by the time we get back around it will be in December so the weather should be better. Should. Hopefully.


So that’s what we haven’t done, but we did managed to do a few things too, we had a nice two day stop in Barrytown which is in the middle of no-where on the West coast. There’s only one good thing to do in Barrytown and that’s make your own knife. It’s an all day affair and you start with a rusty piece of steel, a few brass bits and a lump of wood – after hand forging, grinding, shaping and sanding you produce an awesome knife. So far we haven’t had much use out of them, though I can say mine slices a tomato very nicely!


Birthday in Barrytown! :)


Cold forging the knife...


Sharpening and shining..


Half done...


Starting kit and end knife!


Sunset from the restaurant..

After Barrytown we stopped in Hokitika to visit Steve’s Dad & Frances – their B & B is lovely! We spent a few days doing nothing, eating some good food and drinking a few bottles of red. One of the days we headed to a local guy who carves jade and carved ourselves some jade things – took all day and by the end of it most of us had totally crossed of ‘jade carving’ as a potential job! Much harder than it looked, and so much harder than the bone carving we did in Christchurch. On our last night in Hoki we had a nice Indian meal and followed it by a trip to the cinema to watch ‘Snakes on a plane’. The most ridiculous film ever made, without a doubt. Hoki is a small place so we were two of four people watching it! Like having a private cinema!


Hoki...


A whitebater catching his (more likely other peoples) dinner....

And now we are waiting for the bus to take us down to Haast for the night before heading to Queenstown tomorrow. The weather has to get better for us to attempt any of the walks we have planned so fingers crossed everybody!

Christchurch - Kiakoura - Picton

We are currently in Picton – work has finished (yes!) and we’ve had the obligatory drunken leaving BBQ and said our goodbyes to friends made while we’ve been in Christchurch. We are just waiting for the next Stray bus to take us to Abel Tasman national park! We are hoping (weather permitting) to hire out a kayak and camping gear and kayak around the national park for a few days.

So far the bus has been fine – today on the way to Picton we stopped at a ‘secret, just discovered’ seal nursery that I distinctly remember from the Magic bus six years ago – maybe secrets last longer in New Zealand?!

We spent the last few days in Kiakoura walking walks, seeing seals and watching whales. The seals were at the seal colony just out of town, lots of seals lazing around on the beach having their photos taken! We went twice and the second time did the coastal walk around to the other side of the headland and back over the top – very nice walk, with the normal spectacular views New Zealand seems to offer everywhere we go. The whale watching was great; we got to see two whales (sperm) and then a bunch of Dusky dolphins, which made the trip - not that the whales weren’t amazing, but they aren’t the most active of creatures!

We took part in a pub quiz on Wednesday night and managed a respectable joint-triple-second and last night we wandered down the campsite and had a few drinks with Nathan & Mel who are staying in Kiakoura for the long weekend (labor day or something).

Team Rock Paper Scissors 2006..

A big thank you to Duncan, Helen, Jono, Maxi, Rob, Joseph, Andy, Katie and Steve for coming along to the bar for the last three weeks and joining in the rock, paper, scissors contest on Rob's behalf!

A special thanks to Duncan, Helen, Rob & Steve who came along every week! Even though after the first week, Duncan was so sick he had to have a couple of days off work (must of picked up a bug, couldn't have been anything to do with the beer, right Duncan?!!).

We will hopefully be back in Christchurch in about a month of so to catch up and bore everyone with photos and stories of the South Island! :)

Day trip to Rakaia Gorge...

At the weekend we headed towards Methven and Mount Hutt to walk up the Rakaia gorge - it was a great walk, a little introduction for Rob and I for the planned walks we have when we leave Christchurch. The scenery was really amazing, the mountain with the snow on and the blue sky and the brilliant blue of the water - a great walk.

This week is my last week in work - I finish tomorrow (Friday 13th... oooOOooo)! Very excited about that! We have a leaving BBQ on Sunday at Steve's (we've got the Pimms and gin & tonic!), and then a couple of days to get ourselves sorted before we hop on the Stray bus on Wednesday morning. We managed (3rd time lucky) to win a second bus ticket for Rob, well - we didn't actually win it - despite three weeks of practice and trying our team only made it to the quarter finals, but the girl who did win it didn't realise you couldn't sell it and therefore had to give it away and I was the first one there! A huge thank you to her (far too excited to actually remember any names!) for that. So we both got free tickets around the South Island! Great news as that's a saving of $1600!!

Wednesday we head off to Kiakora for the weekend - and then it's around to Able Tasman National Park to do some kayaking & camping. Photos of everything to come, of course.


The sun is just about to come out and Rob is just about to realise that his jumper on the fence behind him is in bird poo! :)


We stopped here for the view, an apple and a banana...


The Rakaia River...

Day trip to Akaroa

One of the few things left for us to do here within the Christchurch region was Akaroa – It was beautiful! We picked a really nice day to go and although it clouded over towards the end of the day it was still warm. We had a nice coffee by the sea and then hopped onto a harbor cruise to see some of the local wildlife.


Rolling green fields and the bays in the background..

We got to see a couple of small blue penguins and some seal pups (very cute!), sadly we didn’t see any of the hector dolphins that everyone sees here as they were having a few days off (thankfully we had opted for the dolphin watching tour rather than the dolphin swimming tour as I’m sure I’d be much more miffed if we’d togged up in smelly wetsuits and had motored around the harbor for an hour looking for the dolphins!). A great day out all round really.




That, in the middle of the photo, believe it or not, is a tiny blue penguin hiding under a rock! Awwwww.


And that's a seal. :)

Sunday was spent spending money on stuff for traveling in a few weeks – I can’t wait! It was actually a lovely sunny and warm morning – but then around lunch time the temperature dropped from 22 oC to 14 oC in an hour! Fingers crossed the weather gets a little better for when we start traveling!