New Zealand Tour Bus

Sat, 04 Dec 2004 13:16:55 GMT

Waiting in the lounge

Our bags are checked in and we've eaten the nibbles provided for in-between-drinks in the Air New Zealand lounge (not that this place seems to be set up for serious drinkers or anything), and we're off to Kuala Lumpur in the next hour.

All of our bags have 'heavy' labels attached, and it was a miracle of engineering (mechanical) or maybe supply chain that our stuff was made to fit inside!

Waiting to catch our final flight

After a night in a hotel actually in Kuala Lumpur airport, we're now about to catch our last flight home on Groundhog Day.

Fri, 03 Dec 2004 16:16:22 GMT

Auckland

After Rotorua we hit the road, and have checked into a hotel down the road from Maui rentals. Tonight is our last night in NZ - all of the nasty cleaning in the van is done, we've reclaimed our suitcases, and tonight is Operation Shoehorn, as we try to fit everything in to our bags for Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.

We nearly had a go at Zorbing today - Catherine's idea, but I'm more mouse than man!

Guess what - it was windy on the drive here today!

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 17:22:37 GMT

Rotorua

Checked out of Huka Lodge this morning (Yes, there' s been a day without an entry!)... but there's a reason: yet another migraine attack!

We had a super morning in the windiest city on the planet: Napier. We went for a guided tour on foot around the art deco centre. Napier was flattened by a massive earthquake and rebuilt over about 2 years in the early thirties. Art Deco was still in vogue and used reinforced concrete rather than brick. Anyway, despite James howling round the city, it was a great tour.

Before we left, the wind picked up to the usual ridiculous level, and we set off after our coffees were blown of the table.

I think it was partly the stress of gripping the wheel so tightly that did me in, because by the time we reached the swankiest (and definitely the most expensive!!) hotel in New Zealand I was starting to suffer... after a lie down and some of AstraZeneca's finest Zomig I fet alright and stupidly enjoyed my dinner with a couple of gin and tonics and shared a bottle of wine with Catherine. Bad move, because I woke with the most fearsome pain in my head in the middle of the night, and it was with some effort that I managed to compose myself for our short drive on to Rotorua. So my lovely break from the camper van wasn't quite the relaxing treat I'd imagined.

Rotorua is perhaps the smelliest place on Earth - on any other day this would've been fine, but the rotten eggs flavoured steam clouds were almost too much on this particular day!

So it was with greenish hue I managed a walk around the Maori village, watched some singing and dancing (with James clapping in all the wrong bits and shouting "More butter" for some some reason), before retiring to the top of the van with a cold flannel on my head. Catherine went walking round the town and said next to perfectly clipped lawns would be bubbling pools of sulphurous mud! Kind of like 'Craters of the Moon' but smellier.

After my R&R we walked into town and fed James most of our dinner later he'd finished his!

Tue, 30 Nov 2004 21:28:08 GMT

Woodville > Napier (the Great Escape)

The Motel was a timely reminder of some of the benefits of not staying in Campervans, e.g. not walking 5 min to the toilet in the early morning bursting to go, not having to make your bed before you go to sleep, not having to unmake your bed when you wake up, not having to worry about how much water you are using to wash up because of running out of gas/water/drainage but I still sort of missed our cosy home from home.

The wind in the morning was better but still strong. After talking to several locals we decided to press on cautiously since south of Napier appeared to be the worst area on the island (and we later read that 2 women had been killed in their car the night before by a falling tree). Fortunately the drive was uneventful and we arrived in Hastings, just short of Napier in time for lunch.

We then drove on to Napier, pitched camp and enjoyed a few hours sitting in the sunshine for the first time in a few weeks, albeit still in a strong wind. The short drive into the centre of town later on allowed us to appreciate the architecture: the Art Deco buildings make it look a bit like Miami and the town has a good feel to it, like we thought Nelson would be but wasn't.

After a good steak dinner we are now back safely on our Powered site in the Motor Park waiting for James to go to sleep -the joys of sharing a small space with a child!!

Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:17:15 GMT

Lower Hutt > Woodville (not Napier)

We got up extra early for today's trip, by far the longest leg of our drive around, an epic 320km, but...

Wind! Wind! Wind!

We're in a motel now - having given up on driving today due to gale force winds. The warnings started as we climbed up the Rimutaku Range - maybe not the twistiest road, and maybe not even the windiest conditions... but combined it was awful! And then coming down again, with only a flimsy fence (occasionally) guarding against an enormous drop, and massive gusts shoving us across the road. It just got windier.

So, we stopped for tea and toast in our van at Featherston (naively hoping for a break in the weather) before heading into the storm. It just got worse and worse - horizontal rain and massive gusts picking the van up!

Again we stopped - and didn't realise we'd stepped into the set for Twin Peaks...

The location was the Eketahuna Country Cafe & Crafts. From the outside it looked fairly normal, inside however it was a combined cafe and bric-a-brac shop. In other words it looked like a shop with tables in it , with 1 other customer, and in parts felt like someone's house. Oh, and had a garden pond fountain in the middle. We ordered our lunch (toasted cheese sandwhich & hamburger) and sat down to wait. A woman came in (so far so good), said hello and took her coat off to reveal the most hideous yellow nylon top, and looked like she was going to start mopping the kitchen. Instead she started to arrange the furniture and attached a microphone to the lo-fi near to where we were sitting.

I joked, "Are you about to sing us a song?"
"Yes."
[Embarrassed] "Oh..."

And then she started, sort of Country and Western Karoake - it was so bad, I just didn't dare make eye-contact. The yellow top was obviously her stage outfit, and I later noticed a CD for sale on the counter. I just tried to act normal, and played with James in the corner, and managed to capture some of the awful racket as I filmed James playing with the marbles.

Then I went to use the toilet - 'Toilets second left' read the sign. So I opened the door to find myself standing outside in gale-force conditions in a junk filled yard, with the toilet indeed being in the second shed on the left. It was so strange I forgot to take a picture. In fact it wasn't until we'd politely paid the bill that I managed to compose myself (straight face, act normal) and 'casually' take a photo of the shop frontage. It was seriously weird! When we stopped laughing, we compared notes, and I was just sorry I hadn't warned Catherine about the toilet first.

Anyway, the wind degenerated to 'diabolical', so we crawled into the next town to avoid any more mountain passes, found the last motel room in Woodville, and haven't stepped outside since. The wind has not dropped one bit, it's almost impossible to walk outside, and the forecast is for more of the same tomorrow. So, maybe Napier won't actually happen this trip. In fact we mightn't even make it out of here if it's like this in the morning.

I'm increasingly coming to suspect that there's a bit of propaganda obscuring the true NZ climate. No one said it was dry, true enough, but the wind is never ending. THIS IS THE SUMMER! I'm sure there are days in the UK like this - it makes the news (in January), roof tiles blow off and insurance companies wring their hands. However, it has not escaped my attention that no-one here has roof tiles, it's just corrugated metal sheets for everything. Also, what would shred oak and uproot beech back home doesn't seem to touch native trees here. Like there's been a few million years of toughening up.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Sun, 28 Nov 2004 21:06:17 GMT

Blenheim > Picton > Wellington > Lower Hutt

Sounds epic, but the drive to Picton was just a hop, and Lower Hutt is just overspill from Wellington, really... although as for the bit in the middle...

When we chose last night's site we were offered either a field (which looked like something left over from Glastonbury) or a carpark-like area near the railway line - we chose the carpark...

...not only was there an awful karaoke blasting into the night in the culture low-spot that is Blenheim, but also the freight trains like to test their fog horns when passing campsites. There were three trains in the night - I know I was awake for all of them. And then the football started at 6.30am. Yes, we were surrounded by about 30 kids playing soccer in the carpark!!! James enjoyed the show, anyway, although we were sufficiently 'inspired' into leaving early that we were in Picton in time for the earlier ferry back to the North Island.

The worrying sign was probably that we couldn't actually see the ferry, just a radar spiining round over the buildings. And then we twigged: this time we were on the Lynx, a fast catarmaran, rather than the juggernaut Interislander. And I really did think that the loaders were joking when they directed me to reverse our campervan up the ramp into the cargo hold... but managed it easily enough, anyway!

So were set off through the sheltered bays towards the Cook Strait, and still didn't think about the twin-hulled business until the Captain warned us that we were going to hit some high seas - so James and I kept playing on the toys, and left Catherine reading her book. And then it started, roll after roll after roll. Crash! Roll! James started to look unwell, everyone else seemed to reaching for the sick bags... so I carried him back to Mummy (who had also gone green), and eventually just had to lie him on a cushion on the floor, and just stroked him till he fell asleep. It was awful - and I didn't even get to see any whales this time.

Wellington was pretty much as we remembered it, and so we had some 'isotonic' beer from the Wellington Brewery before taking a howling little boy around Te Papa, the NZ museum on the waterfront - what we managed to see, in between keeping James out of trouble, was great anyway. James did require an outfit change after trying to climb into the fountain.

Dinner was at a Malaysian restaurant, and Catherine and James went to stock up on food and beer essentials whilst I found a (Korean) Internet Cafe. We're now down the road in Picton, and this is the earliest that it's been all quiet on the top bunk!

Sat, 27 Nov 2004 21:28:31 GMT

Richmond > Blenheim (The dreaded)

A beautiful sunny day, with one of our smoothest, unstressful campsite departures. Catherine drove first, along windy street (that's both blowy and not straight) to get us to the gateway to the Marlborough sounds. The scenery was fantastic, and more European looking again, the sun was shining and it was a good start to the day. We stopped after about an hours drive at Havelock, which is one of the Gateways to the Sounds. The town was quaint, the harbour was beautiful and one of the few places we've seen where there were some great 'lifestyle' houses (as the kiwis call them).

After a wander through the town and along the harbour we had lunch at the Mussells Boys. Havelock is also known as the Green-lipped mussel capital of the world so Catherine had a large bowl of steamed mussells (fantastic) Gavin had Blue Cod and James had sausages (again). Mellowed by a glass of Sauvignon Blanc each (the kiwi standard) we drove the 30km to Renwick, the start of Marlborough Wine country.

We decided to visit a few vineyards and started at Highfield Estate. This had a beautiful Tuscan tower overlooking the whole valley and gave us a great view of all the vineyards. We tasted some wine, bought a few bottles to tide us over for the rest of our trip and continued up the valley. We then drove to Mudhouse which also had Schnapps to taste (by this time CMcD was very glad she'd driven the first leg and could take full advantage) then finished off at Cloudy Bay.

Bleinham was a short drive away and didn't look any better the second time around!. We set up camp, had a rest then walked in to town to do some more eating and drinking. CMcD thinks this is definitely more her style of holiday although the previous few weeks of exercise and deprivation (?!) made us appreciate the experience more.

After several aborted attempts to find a restaurant (having set off confident because Blenham is supposed to be the food & wine capital of the South Island!) we found a great restaurant with fantastic service who took great care of James which allowed us to eat a starter, main and dessert without having to make a hasty departure. The food was delicious and James had sausages again.