What's your excuse?

Finally, civilisation. Otherwise known as a backpackers with internet access. But let's backtrack.
We arrived in Rotorua on sunday for the zorbing and a few of us on the bus decided to take a much needed break from all this hectic adventuring and check out the Rotorua thermal pools. Hot water rises naturally from the ground here due to geo-thermal action, or some such, and heaps of spa resorts have been created in the area to take advantage of the pre-heated water with it's natural salts and rejuvinating properties. Full from a huge breakfast at Fat Dog's cafe (who does a gigantic and delicious hot chocolate) myself and a couple of girls decided to go for the full pamper treatment at the best spa in town, apparently in the top 5 in the world. With a massage later to look forward to we soaked up the heat in the rockpools that had water up to 42 degrees celcius, cooling off every twenty minutes or so in the lounge, sipping iced-tea. After an interesting massage with salt scrub and water jets we curled up in our oversized, fluffy bathrobes kindly provided by the spa and indulged in a hot chocolate while we waited for our brains to lose that soft, fluffy feeling that you get after a really relaxing massage.The next day we were off to Taupo, who's main boast is their sky diving and crazy pubs. The skydiving was cancelled due to bad weather, much to the disapointment of the people who had been watching the slowly descending figures fall from the sky in anticipation for over an hour, but the pub did not disapoint. The rule that any girl who donates an item of underwear to the bar gets a free drink meant that the walls were decorated with framed and signed bras and knickers, along with photos showing the winners of drinking competions held there nightly.


Another relaxing stop was mt Tongariro, where rain stopped us doing the hike over the mountain and kept us inside in front of roaring log fires to play scrabble and watch movies.

I'd been steeling myself for a bungy when we got to the famous A J Hackett bridge in queenstown in a few days but my chance to hurl myself off a bridge attached to a piece of elastic came sooner than I thought. Our driver Gollum (nickname relic of a past fancy dress party) had found a cheaper and higher jump in the canyon area of Mokai. Duly we headed down to gravity canyon, through lanscape much more like the australian interior with it's rising stone cliffs and sparse, spikey scrub. Cheap deals always get me and with an offer of the longest and fastest flying fox on offer I went with that thrill ride as well.

At 160km an hour, strapped horizontally into a sleeping bag along with two other crazy girls the light rain was like pins and needles on my cheeks. It took us over a kilometre to slow down, plenty of time to admire the canyon walls speeding past us on either side and the river far below. Pumped full of adrenaline I waited for the people on NZ's highest canyon swing to have their go while I broke into a cold sweat over what I was about to willingly put myself through. I dont remember jumping, only shuffling up to the edge of the bridge, restricted by the rope strapped tightly to my ankles, trying not to be dragged over the edge by the weight of the huge rope. The guide counted down and I felt like I paused for an eternity staring over the edge, 80 metres down to the river below. Then I was falling through the air, screaming like my lungs would break, waiting for the snap of the rope at the end. When it came the recoil of the rope was surprisingly gentle and as I swung back and forth, rising up and down on my string I shouted back to my friends watching from the observation deck how awesome it was. My blood stopped pumping after we'd been on the bus a while, but I was left with a bad headache for the rest of the day. Either from the mass of adrenaline or the shock of blood rushing to my head, I'm not sure.

I'd been telling myself I had to go see something at the Embassy theatre when we got to Wellington and as luck would have it we arrived on the opening night of Pirates of the Caribbean. The Embassy was a beautiful old theatre running to ruin that was bought and revamped by Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings movies, who lived nearby. It now boasts one of the biggest screens in the southern hemisphere and still has a wonderful old-world charm in it's double staircases leading up from the carved arches at the entrance.
The ferry over to Picton was blissfully uneventful after all the horror stories I'd been told about rocking boats and stormy seas over the crossing between the North and South islands. And then, off to Abel Tasman national park...

-- H in NZ

Crazy Kiwis

I think it's a testament to how much Stray manage to cram into every day that it's only been four days since my last blog but it feels like I've been travelling for two weeks already. I've finanly managed to catch my breath with a couple extra days in Rotorua, before I head onto the rest of the north island. My only day in Auckland was spent wandering around in the city in a daze recovering from the 1am arrival at the hostel. After inhaling the smell of socks and gingerly stepping over other people's junk in the room I was thrown into in Melbourne the Base hostel in Auckland was bliss. I managed to creep into the dark room without having to trip over the entire contents of someone's bag strewn onto the floor and collapsed into clean white sheets and a soft pillow. They really go out of their way to enhance the girly experience of the girls-only dorm in this hostel with magenta walls, free hairdryers and spotless bathrooms. Yes, clean bathrooms really are that rare in hostels, as I now know. Auckland is the capital of op-shopping, as I saw wandering down K-road, with a nicely huge selection of asian cafes. The city cemetery is facinating, looking like an ancient roman ruin built into the side of a hill, surrounded by prehistoric jungle.
The next morning saw me on the Stray bus and on my way to Hahei and the hotwater beach. Several quick stops on the way showed us such tourist highlights as Mt Eden, an extinct volcano in the centre of Auckland, and Thames, the city where the country's white discoverer first entirely failed to set foot on the soil due to a misunderstanding over some mis-shot arrows and a boat full of slaughtered sailors. The landscape around here started to get really beautiful and the next few hours were a blur of rolling green hills, blue cloudy skys, hazy mountains and autumn trees. Also, sheep. Our driver informed us that one third of New Zealanders live in Auckland, but the other two thirds dont consider Auckland to be part of NZ at all. Having seen the dramatic change in scenery since leaving the city, I have to agree.
At Hahei we hiked through forest and up cliffs to get to Cathedral cove, where the huge rock formations and natural bridges draw travel show

cameras from all overthe world. Dozens of tiny island dotted the ocean view we sawfrom the tops of the cliffs, and we trekked back in the dark after an exhausting day to the barbeque that our driver had prepared. The main attraction for Hahei is the geo-thermal activity under the local beach, which causes hot water to rise to the surface when the sand is dug into. This only works at low tide when most of the beach is uncovered, and unluckily for us low tide today was 1am. I made the unfortunate mistake of deciding to nap before we left and woke groggy and confused at the suggestion that we should rug up and head down to the beach with shovels where we would then dig down, strip off and sit in the water under the stars. Thankfully it was really worth the effort, the air around the hot water was warm from the steam rising out of our sometimes too hot pools and it was an amazing experience which I would gladly have repeated, even in the middle of the night.

Next morning we headed down to Raglan, famous surfing beach. It was a one horse town with a bohemian and crafty feel, and the hostel we stayed at was something else altogether. After being greeted by the owner running into the middle of the road waving we piled off the bus to find ourselves up amongst the hills in a little rainforest retreat lavishly decorated with rainbow mosaics and a view of the sea from the dorms up at canopy level.

Surfing lessons were offered there, but seeing as the temperature had dropped several degrees since climbing into the hills I headed down to explore the town instead. After dark back at the hostel we took advantage of the flying-fox to launch ourselves screaming and giggling into pitch darkness down the slope.

An early start the next morning took us to the caves that honeycomb the area around Waitomo. Myself and Tanja (an awesome german girl I met on the bus) opted to do the 100 metres abseil into one of the more scenic caverns. Since there was just us and the guide we got the personal treatment, and after a short drive through some story-book farmland we geared up like house-painters in gumboots with a bondage fetish and trekked through the jungle-like landscape to the cavern we were about to drop into. I can honestly say I wasn't the least scared right up until the point where I was sitting on the edge of the platform and I looked down between my legs to the tiny cave floor below. The rope setup allowed us to drop straight down into the caverns, with no support from the walls and so, feeling like a spider dropping myself down on a thin strand into a giant room, we lost contact with the platform. After half an hour of lowering ourselves down into the rising mist, past the hanging ferns and moss adorning the cave walls and staring at the stalactites and arches that, in the slanting morning light gave the cave a cathedral-like quality, we dropped unsteadily onto the rocky bottom. After pulling ourselves together after the shock of what we'd just done we clambered up a steep rocky incline into the cave-propper and started our ascent back to the surface, stopping to look back at the mist-shrouded cliff walls we'd just dropped past. A couple of hours of stalagtites and glowworms brought us to a 30 metre ladder that would take us up to the surface. Climbing that ladder suspended in the middle of the cave with darkness above and darkness below, gripping the steps made slippery with the mud on the shoes of the people who went before me was probably more frightening than trusting to the ropes and pulleys that had gotten me down there. Emerging into a world straight out of a child's picture book, with green hills, blue sky and bouncing white sheep after so many hours in a world that seemed untouched by time and humans since the dinosaurs was an unreal experience. The drive back let us aclimatize to our normal surroundings again and left our trip to the caverns beneath feeling like a dream of a lost world.

After the longest drive so far we eventually arrived in Rotorua and were greeted by the smell which is often explained but can only be experienced. Somewhere between rotten eggs and a rather fruity fart is my impression. Thankfully your nose seems to shut off after a while in defense and you stop smelling it. Our driver took us out for indian as a treat after so many bulk pasta cook-ups and raw fruit. Feeling full and tired we ventured into the hostel's backpacker bar and my impression of the short-skirted, ugg-boot wearing girls in there did nothing to raise my opinion of contiki tour groups.

This morning was an interesting mix of New Zealand's past and present with a trip to the living-village amongst the geisers where the Maori residents still use the boiling water and steam that rises from pools and cracks in the ground to do their cooking and bathing. The wry humour of our guide when she explained to us the Mao-Ri-Mi-Crowave they use to cook their food (a wooden box built over a steam vent for cooking food) taught us not to be too serious about the "cultural experience" we were having, especially when she mentioned that because no vegetables will grow in the soil around there they still all shop at Pak'n'Save. After watching a 30 foot geiser erupt before dancing the hokey-pokey with the Maori performers we ate the most delicious cake and sausage that had been cooked in said 'microwave' earlier.

I now know a lot more about Maori art, including the fact that the red, white and black in all their paintings symbolise the red blood in our veins, black for death and white for life after death. The tongue poked out to the side in the carvings that decorate the entrance to their halls is a welcome whereas the tongue poked out straight down is a defiant challenge and warning.
Having soaked up as much facinating culture as I could in two hours we headed off to partake in one of the more bizzare pasttimes that the New Zealanders in their isolated place down here at the bottom of the world, Zorbing. Essentially this is rolling yourself down a steep hill in a huge transparent rubber ball filled with water, preferably with two or more people. Diving through the small opening and washing around inside as the ball rumbled down the sloped with two other squealing girls was a real rush, but I could have done without the photographer at the end poised to capture our first moments as we emerged dizzy and drenched at the end.
Finally I've collapsed in our hostel for the evening, anticipating a trip to one of the world's best spas to relax and be pampered tomorrow. Exhaling....now.



-- H in NZ

Microcosm Macrocosm

I found getting lost among Melbourne's back-streets and alleys was the best way to explore the city center and find the most interesting little boutiques and cafes. Wandering down what seemed like a service access and rounding a corner I caught sight of some cafe tables at the end of a particularly graffiti-ed alley. Curious I walked down there and, passing an eclectic montage of framed paintings on the brick wall, I found a charming little cafe that made the best chai I've found so far in Melbourne.



Tonight I decided to step out of the microcosm of the city and see the big picture up in the observation deck, 55 floors above street level. To give you a sense of the height I'll just say that my ears popped about half a dozen times before the lift doors opened at the top. What really took my breath away when I looked out over the city though, wasn't the height we were at but the vastness of the twinkling lights spread out as far as the eye could see below. I went at sunset and the lights of the city made beautiful moving patterns that continued unbroken all the way to the horizon. The city was more huge than I could have imagined and I suddenly felt insignificantly small. I spend a good three quarters of an hour marveling at the sight and something I over heard a lady beside me say really caught the atmosphere up there, she remarked that the roar of the city below sounded just like the crash of waves at the beach. It was a constant rush below us and the lights of cars moved about the highways like cells rushing through a living organism. A sight worth seeing I thought.


-- H in Oz

Hazy Days

Even though I was a well-travelled toddler, this morning is the first time I've been able to fully experience the highs and lows (pardon the pun) of flying. I think I coped well for a first time flyer, if you put my sweaty palms and nervous, darting glances at the emergency exits down to excitement rather than sheer terror. I'm certainly not frightened of flying, but having a window seat next to the wing and having full oportunity to watch it wobble alarmingly up and down as we taxied down the runway did nothing to inspire my confidence in our flimsy craft. The moment the 737 charged the runway, engines blaring and lost contact with the ground gave me pins and needles, starting at my toes and working their way upwards as the ground dropped away below us. The upward ascent seemed to take ages, but the thrill of the moment was tempered by the annoyance of constantly having to re-adjust my inner ear pressure. When we finally leveled out and the plane stopped shuddering we were above the clouds and the journey became more relaxing, you could almost forget you weren't still parked on the airport runway, if not for the constant hum of the engines and roar of wind outside the cabin. Touch-down was blessedly uneventful and I managed to get myself from the airport to the shopping district with all haste. ten hours later I've collapsed, with sore feet and muzzy head. More later about the winding alleyways and interesting oppertunities to spend money that melbourne offers. Yes, I was very camera happy.

-- H in Oz

Melbourne papillons

The butterflies are starting to set in (not the papillons d'amore that my friend recently translated for me, but almost as uncomfortable). Interestingly it's not New Zealand that's got me nervous but Melbourne, where I'm going to be spending a few days before flying overseas. My initial plan was to spend the time soaking up the Melbournian lifestyle, drinking fancy cocktails, sipping cafe lattes at boutique cafes and shopping at the trendiest stores. Now I've had time to do my research a little more I've had my eyes opened to how huge the inner city of Melbourne really is, not to mention that the best of it is hidden away and can only be accessed through a labyrinth of dingy alleys and byways. Planning my trip this way round means that anything I pick up in Melbourne will need to be taken with me to NZ but I'm hoping the upshot of this is that I'll pick up some good cold climate clothes that I just cant find here in sunny Brisbane, the temperatures in NZ and Victoria being roughly the same. So if I step off the plane and start shivering I'll have the most legitimate of excuses for running to the nearest boutique. Of course.
The Caxton seafood festival was to be the highlight of this weekend, but tragically the gods of marketable enterprises did not want it to be. Friends who have been to the festival in Paddington for three years running swear by it as a great day out, and very well it might have been if the planners hadn't decided to include some well-known bands in the lineup for entertainment. Regular diners and festival goers there only for the sea critters and wine were shouldered out by the screaming masses of trashy youth who showed up for the bands. In short, the festival had turned from a cultural and culinary experience to a rock concert. The two local pubs were swamped with festival rejects and those who just didn't have the strength of will to cool their heels for a couple of hours for some live music and a prawn on a stick. People were honestly taking pictures of this line. Fortunately the evening was salvaged by a trip to Hanaichi's for some sushi and sake. Sushi fixes everything, or was that sake...

-- H in Oz

minus 10 days and counting

I've been doing a little online research for my trip, trying to find stories from other people traveling to NZ to live it vicariously for the next two weeks. I've managed to pick up tips on cool things to keep me busy in almost every town I go through. It was an awesome moment when I came across a blog by a guy who went through the south island at the same time last year that I'm doing my trip, and to top it all off with the same bus tour I'm using, Stray travel. I'm fully confident of having a fantastic time, even if the weather's tragic like it occasionally is in winter, simply because of the great accounts of cool people traveling on this bus. I've started organising little details (but not big ones) like what songs I'm going to have on my ipod to while away the hours I'll be spending on the bus each day, in fact I should pick up some travel sickness tablets (somehow it didn't occur to me until a week after I'd booked a 2 week bus-trip that I get travel sickness just doing the 4 hour bus-ride home to my parents...*facepalm*). I'm trying to shake off a nasty cold right now, hopefully the long weekend coming up will let me rest enough to get rid of it before I fly out the next weekend or I'm going to spend my three days in Melbourne with my face buried in a hanky. There's a wine and seafood festival on Sunday I'm going to, so the way I'm going I'll probably give myself salmonella as well.
Despite my nerves about not having been on a plane since I was 3 I still have an irrational urge for there to be SNAKES ON A PLANE! (followed by the sequel SHARKS ON A BUS!) I'm actually more worried about finding and boarding the right plane than I am about the actually plane journey strangely enough.
I've been perfecting my ability to take photos from a moving bus window with these shots from northen NSW taken after the easter break, an essential skill for this trip.

-- H in Oz