There and back again (Or to Stewart Island and Back)

Photos - in no particular order as I still haven't mastered Blogger formatting...

1. Steve and I on the "Round the Mountain" walk out of Akaroa, Banks Peninsula
2. Moeraki Boulders
3. Very friendly Stewart Island Robin
4. Oban, Stewart Island
5. On one of the Lost Gypsy creations - a bike-powered TV
6. Baldwin Street, Dunedin (aligned with street)
7. With Simon and Elizabeth at Te Mata peak, near Hastings
8. Anna and Rusty in Napier
   

Our gamble paid off in Christchurch, we found the car market vastly superior to Auckland – this must be partly because most backpackers fly into Auckland, buy cars there, then sell them in Christchurch before flying out again.Anyway after walking about 10ks up and down the main car sales street we managed to find a very sporty looking Subaru Impreza which we principally bought because of the very comfortable “bucket” - read racing – seats. But it is pretty speedy and I beat some boy racers off the lights. Steve said he was proud of me ;-)

Sorted out with a car we were off: we did a quick tour of the Banks Peninsula just outside Christchurch on one of the few clear days we were to see in South Island. It's a beautiful but weird place – a rugged volcanic outcrop bereft of trees after man got there set against the flat Canterbury Plains with two enormous and beautiful harbours carved out by volcanic eruptions. Along the way Steve had his favourite ice cream yet: berry mudslide – in Akaroa.

Heading south along Highway 1 the next major stop was Oamaru where we called in to witness the Yellow Eyed Penguin colony. These are the rarest penguins in the world which only nest in New Zealand and its offshore islands. Their progress up the beach in the late afternoon is pretty glacial and after two hours in which we'd seen two penguins stand around for about an hour each we decided enough was enough.

South of Oamaru is the famous Moeraki boulders, perfectly round rocks embedded in the sandy beach. They are formed due to some process “similar to the formation of a pearl in an oyster” - anyway they make for nice pictures! Sadly the whole place was a phenomenal tourist trap and the tour buses and campervans got overwhelming pretty quickly.

We raced through Southland to get to Bluff for the last ferry of the day to Stewart Island at 5pm and just made it. Traditionally the choices for reaching Stewart Island were 20 minutes of terror (flight in a small plane) or 2 hours of misery (on the ferry). Fortunately they've upgraded to fast catamarans, so it's now only a one hour crossing which is a good thing as the Foveaux Strait has a reputation for being very rough. This crossing was no exception, the first pitch up a 2 metre wave was great fun but after about 5 minutes the chuckles dried up and everyone was just hanging on for dear life and hoping to arrive soon.

Luckily the misery is worth it as Stewart Island is a gem. It's how all of New Zealand must have been before humans came along. Steve commented it felt a bit like being back in Sumatra with jungle encroaching onto Oban, the one and only village on the island. Birds you struggle to see on the mainland fly all around the village – within 10 minutes we'd seen Kereru (native pigeons) and Kaka (parrots) squawking overhead. We set up camp and had fish and chips for tea. In the morning we went for a walk around the village and tried in vain to get pictures of bird life. But after lunch we went on a guided tour of Ulva Island which is probably the best bird sanctuary in the whole of New Zealand with no introduced predators at all and virtually intact forest. There some birds are so unafraid of humans they hopped around our feet allowing for great photo opportunities. We saw South Island Saddlebacks, Stewart Island Weka, Stewart Island Robins, Bellbirds, South Island Fantails, Tuis, Grey Warblers, Brown Creepers and Blue (Little) Penguins.

In the evening we went to a concert in aid of Search and Rescue. This was very much a locals affair with all the local characters on stage singing, but upstaged by the “special guests” - tourists with guitars who they'd met at the pub quiz and roped into taking part! It was a special evening though and in a community of only 500 people even we recognised people there – the girl from the ferry and the lady from the fish and chip shop.

Stewart Island is a great place and one we'd love to go back to. There are some good walks there but with walking boots boxed up in Nottingham and rumours of thigh-deep mud it'll have to wait for next time.

The return ferry at 8am the next morning was much calmer and we stopped off in Bluff for the obligatory “Land's End” photos at the sign board – probably about as far from London as most people will ever get. Invercargill was ruled out of our possible places to live due to its failure to provide donuts. Very disappointing.

Our next stop was very special though. Curio Bay in the Catlins Forest Park is one of the few places in the world where dolphins live very close to the beach. These are Hector's Dolphins, one of the rarest dolphins in the world and the smallest too. We watched them frolicking in the surf not 5m from the beach, but unfortunately it was so cold and wet when we were there (only 12 degrees) neither of us felt like swimming – another reason to return. Also at Curio Bay is a Yellow Eyed penguin colony and a petrified forest so well worth a stop.

For sheer quirkiness you have to stop at the Lost Gypsy Gallery in Papatowai where the a guy who spurned fame and fortune in Auckland makes automata in a bus. A train triggers lights and sounds, a bike powers a tv, dolphins squirm as you wind a handle, a monster writhes in the bushes. Stop if you pass by – it's worth it.

Torrential rain in Dunedin curtailed our stop there, though it reminded us a bit of Bristol with the hills and the rain, and even Baldwin Street, the address of my old work is represented in the steepest street in the world – 1 in 2.86 at the steepest point. Photo 6 is me on Baldwin Street with the camera turned level with the street so you can see how much of an angle the house is built at to make it level.

We sped back up South Island as we had one last date to keep: meeting up with Simon and Elizabeth (my aunt and uncle) in Napier. By the time we'd made it back over the Cook Strait to Wellington and found a campsite we'd both had enough of driving so I set of alone on the very cheap bus (only $33 for a 5 hour journey) to Napier. Even in the sunniest part of New Zealand it was raining (February has been very bad weather over here, unluckily for us) but in the morning we joined a 2000 strong contingent from a floating city of a cruise ship to take photos from Te Mata peak overlooking the bay. Wonderful views and later I joined our friend Anna from Bristol who's leapfrogged us by leaving Bristol behind us and arriving and even finding work before we arrived! She and her very energetic puppy made for an entertaining stop before back to Wellington and the serious business of:

Do we really want to find work? Is there work available during a recession? Or should we just upsticks and back to Asia for more of an easy life?

The sheer boredom of car hunting

Photos:

1) Onemana Beach, Coromandel

2) With the Dowgrays: me, Antonia, Carol, Steve, Dorothy, John

3) In our "private" spa pool, Hot Water Beach, Coromandel

4) Welcome drink, Auckland Harbour

5) Steve in the campervan

6) Tongariro National Park

7) Shorts and T Shirt weather at Lake Taupo

8) The Taihape gumboot

9) "River Anduin" - actually Steve a bit terrified of the drop at the Bungee Jump on the Rangitikei

10) Ohau Point, north of Kaikoura - NZ fur seal

11) Motunau Beach - a diversion specifically to visit a circle on the map!

We always said we'd be buying a car to drive around New Zealand in when we arrived, and scout out possible places to live. We spent a couple of days acclimatising and doing stuff like opening a bank account before heading off for a weekend with family friends the Dowgrays who had kindly invited us to spend the long Waitangi Day weekend with them, daughter Antonia and her friend Carol in a beach house in the Coromandel. Waitangi Day is the anniversary of the signing of the treaty of Waitangi between Maori tribes and Europeans - in itself a not too unreasonable treaty, but it has been systematically ignored by governments, depriving Maori of their land rights. This means Waitangi Day often sees protests - this year we didn't hear of much but we did see a photo of a canoe race in which Maori warriors heroically paddled a war canoe while their European competitors sank (poetic justice perhaps?!)

At the Coromandel my old school friend Antonia (second from left) cooked us up feasts each evening, including seafood fritters from pipis and cockles gathered on the shore (something of an NZ tradition!) Steve and I ventured out to the famous Hot Water Beach where for the price of shovel hire you can create your own private (or not so private, on the busiest weekend of the year) spa pool filled by a natural hot water spring.

Back in Auckland we discovered buying a car was easier said than done as we were looking for a manual hatchback and at least 75% of cars over here are automatics (they're imported from Japan). We spent a miserable couple of days driving (the hire car) around Auckland's suburban car yards and getting a good look at areas we definitely DON'T want to live in. We found a couple of possible cars but with the dealers refusing to negotiate and nothing suitable coming out of private sales we were getting pretty annoyed. We just managed to have our welcome drink in the muggy Auckland evening before sweating it out in 100% humidity overnight and finally deciding that driving around suburbia probably wasn't the best way to spend our hard earned cash.

Just at this nadir of emotion we hit lucky with a campervan relocation deal - $1 a day to drive a luxury van from Auckland to Christchurch. We bit their hands off to take it and headed off down Highway 1 as fast as we could. You only get 4 days to complete the journey which doesn't allow much time for having fun (it's around 15 hours and 1000km), but we did manage to see some of the gushing Waikato River in Taupo, the lake itself, take a diversion to one of the locations for the Lord of the Rings (River Anduin - recognise it anyone behind Steve's terrified expression?)

In Wellington all I managed to do was lose my wallet on the bus. This is more stupid than it sounds since I'd actually lost it 3 days previously in Auckland and got it back when someone found it and handed it in. No such luck this time and I felt a fool though fortunately didn't lose much money.

From Wellington to Christchurch the weather was absolutely appalling. It had been very warm when we left Auckland (over 30) but got down to 12 degrees north of Christchurch with constant rain. We were very glad of the van to sleep in instead of having to be in a tent. We did manage to visit two places along the way - the seals at Ohau Point (very close to the place Mum circled on our NZ map!) and Motunau Beach which Alice Hindle circled. Both lovely but it was freezing when we were there.

Anyway we're now in Christchurch and back to the slog of car purchasing, possibly the most boring activity I can think of. We are not feeling very optimistic but hoping if the weather warms up we will feel a little better about it all.

To Sydney via the spare rooms of friends and rellies

So to cut a long story short, we made it to Sydney and managed to meet up with lots of friends and rellies on the way.

It was like a dream to arrive at Jo's house (Steve's sister) – a whole proper bed, not an airbed – and we caught up on some much needed sleep while enjoying lounging around watching the tennis and seeing the sights of Stawell. It has a lot of facilites for a small town – hospital (where Jo works), two supermarkets, gym, swimming pool, even a lookout point with views to the Grampians.

Very greedy lizard in the Grampians

The top of the hill with Steve's sister Jo

We went on a bit of a fitness binge, inspired by Jo who's into triathlons. I did step aerobics (very unco-ordinatedly), we played tennis, went for a swim and enjoyed a walk in the Grampians, the towering granite and sandstone pinnacles you can see from the town. At the top three cheeky lizards binged on pieces of cheese and banana we fed them til they looked a bit sick!

Jo hits a winner

From Stawell we headed back to Melbourne to stay with Colin and Jacqui who have a lovely house in Williamstown within a short walk of a city beach. We all got a bit carried away with Singstar and stayed up til 4.30am with some truly awful renditions of Abba songs. I hope the neighbours had earplugs! After that we had almost no energy left for the rest of the weekend. We ambled around town with Jasmine the labrador behaving badly, ate fish and chips and Colin and Steve hand-made sausages which were actually pretty tasty.

Colin and Steve in the sausage making factory

Colin and Jacqui in a marina in Williamstown, Melbourne, at sunset.

Our next stop was one of Australia's top tourist attractions, the Penguin Parade on Philip Island, where Little Penguins come in from the ocean after dark. This necessitated a drive right through Melbourne to the far side of the bay. We made it even more painful by driving in circles around Melbourne for about an hour trying to avoid paying the toll on the freeway.

The Penguin Parade is probably the most touristy thing we've done in Australia, with an astonishing number of Japanese tourists and an enormous shop selling penguin themed everything. Steve was in fridge magnet heaven! The main thing you notice at the parade is the cold, with a biting wind off the Antarctic Ocean, even on a hot summer's day, so wrap up warm if you go. The low number of penguins on the day we went was a little disappointing but you do get to see them up close and personal on the boardwalk behind the beach which is cool.
The weather in Victoria was really hotting up with plus 40 forecast for 4 days in a row. Luckily for us we were on our way eastwards to Sydney just at the right time.

The long drive was made longer when we came across a bush fire on our route and were forced to divert, but we made it to Wodonga for the evening where we met up with Michael (a friend from CBH in Perth), his wife and her brother. They took us to a “club” that has no UK equivalent as far as I know. It was enormous with a self-service buffet restaurant, bars, performance rooms and about 200 “pokies” or one-armed bandits to the rest of the world. We let the bright lights and funny noises fool us into feeding them for a while but made a lucky escape before we gambled away the car!

Steve, Sal and Mike in Wodonga

That night was exceptionally hot and we couldn't sleep until well after midnight when it finally got down to about 30 degrees. But it was our last night on the airbed because after a long, boring drive up the Hume Highway we eventually made it to Sydney and my brother Sam's place that evening.

Nectarines for sale on the Hume Highway. Peaches and apples not yet available!

Once in Sydney we were totally focused on selling the car and tramped the city sticking up posters in hostels. I walked all the way from Coogee to Bondi in the process – a lovely coastal walk around rocky inlets, sandy beaches and lovely clear blue water. Selling the car proved to be a bit more tricky than we thought as the WA plates meant the new buyer would have to go through the annoying and costly process of re-registering the car in NSW if they didn't have an address in WA. We hoped for a backpacker driving west but in the end found a buyer pretty quickly who was willing to take on the re-registration after we discounted a bit: we bought the car for $3000 and re-sold it for $1900 – not so bad in the end.

Sam and Steve enjoying the weather of a Sydney summer's day

After the car sale was out of the way we started having some fun and had a night out catching up with old friends from the UK Ann-Marie and Alex, then two beach days with Sam's mates. Could get used to the whole Sydney lifestyle thing, but we're FINALLY off to NZ on Tuesday, it's the end of an era, and a very long way from Bristol, let's hope we like it ;-)

The Manly ferries in Sydney