Caboose

While I was in Canada I’d decided to book my Christmas accommodation in advance, so I didn’t end up with nowhere to stay. After a quick look through the guidebook I picked the Bay of Islands, which turned out to be a good decision.

The bus from Auckland to Paihia was uneventful, I’m starting to get a bit fed up of buses now. Once in Paihia it was just a short walk up the road to Peppertree Lodge, where I’d booked a bed in an en-suite 4-bed dorm.

Paihia is a nice little town on the Bay of Islands, with a small beach, a wharf for tourist boats and lots of accommodation. It’s also just along the road from Waitangi. Peppertree Lodge is one of the best hostels I’ve stayed at, the owners are very friendly and the facilities are well looked after. You can even borrow a bike or a kayak for free.

I spent a little while working out what I wanted to do and booking things then borrowed a bike and pedalled along to Waitangi. The Treaty Grounds are pleasant and they’ve obviously done a lot of work renovating the buildings and gardens but there’s little information unless you pay extra for a guided tour. The main sights are a very big and beautifully carved waka (canoe) and the Treaty House.

On the way back I picked up some supplies at the local supermarket: milk, butter and beer.

Christmas day started quietly, I was the only person in my room so got to lie in undisturbed. After a while I wandered down to the wharf and took the fast ferry across to Russell. The plan was to go for a walk but just as I arrived it started raining, so I quickly had a look around town then took the ferry straight back. The ferry really hurtles across the bay, with various loose metal bits clanging every time you bounce over a wave.

The owners of Peppertree Lodge put on a fantastic free Christmas lunch barbecue, huge piles of ham, turkey, sausages and vegetables. We sat outside (under the covered bit because of the rain), drank beer and ate. Later in the afternoon most of us moved inside and watched films.

For Boxing Day I’d booked a trip to go and see dolphins in the bay. Not long after we set off we found a large pod of adults and juveniles with at least one baby dolphin among them. Because the baby was there no-one was allowed into the water with them but we stayed for a while to watch the dolphins playing around the boat. As we left some of them seemed determined to keep up with us (going pretty fast), hurtling along through our wake and leaping into the air behind the boat. I spent most of my time watching them rather than taking pictures, unlike the rude and selfish big-camera people who kept trying to push other people out of the way and only saw the whole thing through a viewfinder.

A bit later we found a couple of adult dolphins without any young ones around, so we all dived in and spent a while swimming around trying to get closer. The dolphins seemed to be teasing us, and it’s much harder to see anything when you’re at sea level and there’s a bit of a swell (especially in my case when I’m not wearing my glasses). I decided to give up and climb back aboard.

In an odd connection to some previous travels it turns out that Marion du Fresne was killed nearby. Although the historical note (accompanying a copy of this picture) on board the Marion Dufresne II failed to mention that the French retaliated by killing hundreds of Maori (apparently from a different tribe from the attackers).

For the rest of the day I just relaxed, reading and watching films, as well as catching up on some laundry.

Now I’m back in Auckland, having a couple more relaxing days before I fly on to Tasmania tomorrow. Both in Paihia and here in Auckland I’ve ended up suffering from inconsiderate room-mates, the kind who come in late at night, turn on the lights and start talking noisily for hours. Even worse they then get up early in the morning and crash around while they pack, still talking noisily. I know it’s impossible to be completely silent when you’re packing up your bags and moving out, but I wish they’d at least save the conversation for outside the room.

After the Magic bus picked me up again we only had a short journey up to the coast at Mount Maunganui. This is a popular beach resort and, with the Christmas holiday coming up, it was absolutely heaving.

There’s a nice long beach, a hill at one end and not much else to be said about the place.

The following day was my last on the Magic bus, the usual stops for coffee and scenery and finally arriving in Auckland around 2pm. I’d booked into the Base ACB hostel, in an office block right in the centre of Auckland. Like the other big backpackers I’ve stayed in it wasn’t great: creaky bunks, impersonal and the feeling that they’re trying to extract money out of you every way they can (NZD4 for the washing machine and expensive internet).

The bus journey up from Napier to Rotorua wasn’t very interesting, I slept a lot of the way. You certainly know when you reach the active geothermal area, the whole town stinks. Just when you think you’ve got used to the smell the wind will change and a fresh sulphurous blast will hit you.

I was staying at Treks, a very new and very nice hostel. It’s the first “flashpacker” I’ve stayed at that actually deserves the name. The kitchen is especially good, huge and with plenty of room for lots of people to cook at once. It’s also right next door to Kuirai Park, which has plenty of geothermal activity going on — in the picture below each of the fences encloses a steaming pond or boiling mud pool.

After a stroll around the lake to Sulphur Bay I visited the Museum of Art and History, located in the former Bath House. The museum itself is a bit light on detail about the spa but the building itself is interesting and they have a couple of good audio-visual presentations, including an excellent film about the local Maori battalion during World War II. In an odd connection to earlier parts of my trip there’s a totem pole outside, a gift from the Canadian government at some point.

In the evening I went to the Tamaki Maori village for their cultural ‘experience’ and dinner. A bus picked everyone up from where they were staying, then dropped us at Tamaki’s office in town for a little audio-visual introduction to Maori culture. We then piled back onto the buses (or a different bus in our case, ours had broken down) for the drive out to the village, during this time our very entertaining driver/guide explained a bit more about the culture and chose someone to be our ‘chief’.

At the village our chiefs had the traditional ‘challenge’ — lots of face-pulling, waving of weapons and horrible noises — before we were welcomed in and could wander around looking at various traditional crafts and activities. After that there was some singing and dancing before we were escorted through to the dining room for the hangi meal, an enormous buffet of meat and vegetables.

The next day the bus wasn’t due to pick me up until after 3pm, so I spent a while wandering around town, visiting the Blue Baths (formerly a swimming pool, now a museum and venue) and reading in the public library.

Back on the Magic bus, this time with Rangi as the driver, saw some old faces again and got talking to Dave and Jessica, a couple from California.

We had a brief stop at a wildlife sanctuary where I finally got to see a live kiwi. They’re much bigger than I expected and I was quite surprised when one started calling and sounded a bit like a seagull. I couldn’t get any photos because they were being kept in a darkened room (they’re nocturnal) and flash photography wasn’t allowed.

On through the countryside, passing through lots of small towns serving the farms. I noticed that a lot of them still seem to have their own cinemas, obviously the multiplexes haven’t yet completely taken over in NZ.

When we arrived in Napier most of us were staying in the same hostel, Archie’s Bunker. No idea why it’s called that, it seems to be just another converted hotel but was comfortable and friendly. Napier is a pleasant seaside town noted for its Art Deco buildings, which were the result of a terrible earthquake in 1931.

Speaking of eathquakes, while we were sitting in the lounge watching a movie the building started shaking. I assumed it was just a passing train or something, but Dave and Jessica got up and headed for the nearest doorway (Californians are used to these thigns). Nearby Gisborne had experienced a earthquake reaching 6.8 on the Richter scale. Although there was quite a bit of damage it seems that there were few injuries and only one related death.

From Kaikoura the bus took us to Picton, where the Inter-Islander ferry leaves for Wellington. As we got on I could see that the Kaitaki had once been the Pride of Cherbourg, I’m pretty sure I’ve travelled either on that ship or one just like it before. The journey wasn’t very exciting and after about three hours we arrived in Wellington and took the free shuttle bus to the railway station.

I checked into Nomads Capital backpackers, which claims to be a “flashpacker”, i.e. a bit more upmarket. They squeeze four pairs of bunk beds into a fairly small room and the top bunks are ridiculously high and wobbly. I had to wedge my duvet down the side of the bed so it didn’t bang off the wall every time I moved.

On my first evening I took the Wellington cable car up to the Botanic Gardens. It’s quite a nice view from up there, although it was a bit windy. I went up again the next day to visit the cable car museum, while I was there it started raining heavily, spoiling my plan of walking down into town.

Instead I passed a couple of hours visiting New Zealand’s parliament. There was an interesting tour of the Executive Wing (better known as the beehive), the parliament building and the library. Afterwards I went into the public gallery to see the end of question time and the start of the third reading of the controversial Electoral Finance bill. It was surprisingly exciting watching as speeches were made, opposition MPs booed and jeered and a couple were asked to leave by the speaker.

Woke up feeling a bit grotty due to the previous nights beers, had breakfast and got on the bus. Today we were going back to Christchurch, some people were finishing their trip here (just doing the South Island loop). I’d already done enough sightseeing in Christchurch so I spent the afternoon doing my laundry, reading and watching films.

The next day the bus up a load of new people and myself and we set off for Kaikoura, known for its whale-watching activities. After weeks of sticking closely to my very tight budget I decided to treat myself to a whale-watching trip. Whale Watch Kaikoura, a company owned by the indigenous Kati Kuri people of Kaikoura, runs the trips out of the former railway station. After boarding the shiny new catamaran we sped out to sea for a bit, then spent a while stopped with the captain listening for whales using a hydrophone.

This was repeated a few times before one of the local whales finally surfaced and spent a while resting on the surface before his next dive. Most people rushed up onto the top deck to take pictures, even more so when he decided to dive again. After this we started trying to find another whale and had an exciting high-speed trip bouncing across the waves when the captain got a tip-off over the radio. Again, we were all out on deck snapping away.

We left Dunedin on a cold and miserable day, with our first stop being the Moeraki boulders. They’re big round boulders that have dropped out of a soft cliff onto the beach. They’re really not worth getting out of the bus for on a cold, rainy and windy day.

After passing lots of hydro-electric dams and various canals bringing water to the dams we eventually reached Lake Tekapo. It features exciting attractions such as a monument to sheepdogs, the church of the Good Shepherd and an observatory (not much use given all the clouds). Our driver organised a barbecue — so we sat outside, ate and had a few beers.

The trip from Queenstown to Dunedin on Wednesday wasn’t too interesting, we had a stop for breakfast but not much interesting scenery and less interesting driver too.

I’ve wandered around town a bit, visited the Otago Settlers Museum and been on a walking tour of the city. It does remind me a bit of Edinburgh, partly because of the street names but also all the grand buildings, including the totally over-the-top station.

More troubles with hostel roommates: this time two girls having a loudly-whispered argument in the middle of the night, squeaky bunks and somebody’s iPod dropping on my head early in the morning.

We had quite a few stops for photo opportunities on the way from Franz Josef to Queenstown, although Lake Matheson (famous for reflecting the mountains) wasn’t cooperating — a slight breeze was ruffling the water.

One of the stops was the Kawarau bridge, famous as the location of the first commercial bungy jumping operation. We got shown a video about the history of bungy, although it seemed to be more about what an amazing man A.J. Hacket is. After that most of us went out to the viewing platform while two people from the bus did their jumps.

Not long after that, we arrived in Queenstown and I was dropped off at my hostel, the slightly grotty Pinewood Lodge. The unit I was in was a mess, obviously some untidy occupants hadn’t done any tidying up for a while and neither had the staff. As it turned out I was sharing a room with the untidy ones, two young Swedes. In the evening a bunch of us met up for an evening on 2-for-1 beer at a local bar…

The next day I got up pretty late, but even after a slow breakfast and some laundry my Swedish roommates were still not up. They had managed to pile up some more dishes in the sink though. My main activity of the day was picking up a leaflet from the DOC about walks in the Queenstown area.

On Tuesday I got up early, planning to go walking although the weather wasn’t looking great. The Swedes had gone, leaving piles of rubbish in the room and lots of dishes in the sink.

My original plan had been to follow the One Mile Creek track up from Queenstown and then the Fernhill loop back down, although that makes for a fairly short walk. Once the rain slackened a bit I started out, leaving the decision on my destination to later. The track follows an old water pipeline that used to connect Queenstown’s first power station from a dam up above. Bits of the pipeline are still present although it hasn’t been used for years. Occasionally I could see Queenstown through the trees and cloud as I approached the top station of the gondola.

The rain got worse again, so I sheltered in the top station then decided to head up the Ben Lomond track until I got fed up. The DOC leaflet warned that it takes 6-8 hours and requires a “high level of fitness”. Despite that I managed to get all the way to the summit in less than six hours. I met a crowd of young Americans who’d been studying in Australia and were taking a holiday on their way home. We enjoyed the fine views at the summit together before I scuttled back down in the lashing rain.

I spent the rest of the day reading, relaxing and washing my wet and dirty clothes.

On Friday a couple of us were picked up from the hostel in Christchurch and taken to the station to catch the TranzAlpine train across the Alps to Greymouth.

Once I’d checked in and dropped my bags off at the luggage van I took a few pictures of the train and found my seat. The carriages are fairly comfortable, with nice big windows. During the journey the train manager gave a commentary pointing out various scenic or interesting things. In the middle of the train is an open observation car, this was crowded with the “my DSLR is bigger than yours” crowd determined to photograph everything — none of them with the manners to let other people take a turn. We were allowed to get off and stretch our legs at a couple of stations, including Arthurs Pass (below).

Once we arrived in Greymouth I put on my rucksack and trudged along to the Neptune’s International Backpackers. It’s a old hotel restored as a hostel, quite comfortable and with really good hot showers.

In the evening I joined a tour of the Monteiths brewery, along with lots of other people from the Magic bus and the Australians I’d met on the train (Cal, Claire and Simone). The brewery tour was good, with a tasting afterwards and the opportunity to pour our own beers while we waited for the minibus to take us for the included barbecue at a nearby pub.

The next morning I got up early to beat the rush for the shower, only to find that there wasn’t a rush. Eventually the others got up and the bus appeared outside to collect us. Driver Scotty provided music and occasional commentary as he drove us down to Franz Josef, with occasional stops along the way. My favourite was the Bushmans Center in Pukekura, with Bushman Pete explaining about his former work in capturing deer by leaping on them from helicopters and doing everything he could to upset vegetarians. I was feeling hungry so bought one of his (very tasty) possum pies.

Once we reached Franz Josef the bus dropped us at our hostels and people headed off for various activities — mostly glacier hikes. My budget doesn’t really allow for many organised activities and I’ve spent plenty of time wandering about on ice anyway. Instead I booked all the remaining accommodation for my time in New Zealand and then went for a walk around the foot of the glacier.

By the way, there are more pictures than I’ve included here. You can browse through the rest here.