Last days in New Zealand (soph) February 26, 2008

North Island NZ

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Hello Y’all,
We are on our last day in New Zealand and are very excited about flying to Australia. We are being met by the gorgeous Debsi West,soon to be wed. After spending four months on our own we will finally be socialising with people we know and for more than just one night. Fantastic!
We are not in quite the state we thought we would be by this point in our travels. We planned on being lean,tanned and sporty. Let’s just say that the tan is as near as we have come to accomplishing this. So our brown pot bellies are finally leaving NZ. We have been here 6 weeks and seen both islands now. The last few days have been spent in and around the Bay of Plenty. We headed back to Napier for the cricket (England v NZ international 1 day.) Check me out, i am so into cricket.
It was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky. Ironic as it was spent in the shade of a stadium. Much more fun than i thought it would be with many people using it as an excuse for day time drinking. They were mad as it cost two pound fifty for a half of warm lager and we managed to not get lulled into it,unfortunately.
England batted first and i was a little gutted that Monty didnt play (he is my favorite,so gentle and worried looking.)
As the day progressed it got less and less exciting for me, ball hit, lots of clapping, ball thrown,lots of clapping! Chris loved it and barely looked sideways as i asked annoying questions for the best part of the day.”Why isnt he out?e.t.c”
It did become a bit more fun at the end when NZ were trying to catch up, finally ending in a draw. The men behind us,in their fifties, grew increasingly immature as the beer sunk in. Much to my amusement they started shouting out things like “hairy bum” to put off Smallbottom who was bowling (Chris is sitting next to me and just told me that’s his name) and phoning their wives with declaration of love. On a trip to the pizza stall a man staggered past shouting abuse at some one (didnt think it was me) and pointing to his NZ map that was tattooed to his chest. Quite alarming, but at least he will always know where he lives and he definitely looked like the type of fella that might forget. Cricket is definitely a lot rougher than i thought and involves a lot of shouting “you sit down,you sit down” being one that springs to mind. But the main thing was that in made Chris very happy, although he got a bit emotional in the middle and started biting his nails!
After that sunny day we set off North to Maunganui Mount to enjoy the last few days in this beautiful country and top up the tan. But alas no, it wasnt to be. The sun that had followed us up the windy roads to the coast ,disappeared literally as we put the car brakes on and got out at our destination. The skies opened up,the wind whistled and our hearts sunk. Mr and Mrs Warn ,get back into a cabin! We headed for cover and found out via internet that the weather was here to stay. We were gutted and all camped out, so we hurled ourselves into a snoozing contest. Hours of lounging,reading,snuggling and tv watching followed over a 3 day period. We actually enjoyed it quite a lot and although we didn’t see, or even walk the Mount we found other pleasures. I had my hair done and said goodbye to the roots, last addressed in India. We watched cricket in a pub ,drinking wine in the day time,we caught up on our sleep and ate very fattening meals,indulging ourselves into a frenzy of cheese boards,scrabble and buns. It also gave us time to put our wit to good use (Chris insisted i put this in.) While drinking orange juice i commented on how much pith there was in the bottle. Chris replied “i think it is making my throat sore with all the pulp friction.” Come on chaps, you just can’t get humour like that anywhere. He is awesome!
Anyway back to the story, when the big, yellow, selfish ,rude, holiday spoiling sun, finally did come out (hip hip horray) we were on our way to Auckland for our trip to Aus. We managed to get a night camping at Orere Point in and enjoyed a stroll on the beach. Unbelievably we were woken in the night by quails fighting, what an earth would a quail fight about in the darkness?i have no idea, bread? If i had a shot gun i would have taken them out (sorry Pat and Roger and any other twitchers reading this). It didn’t help that i was dreaming about Silas in the book i am reading (Da vinci code,probably the last person on earth who hasn’t read it yet) and incorporated their scarey fighting noises in to my dream.
The next day the sun was out and we had sucessfully dried some of our washing. Not much point washing our clothes as all faded,stretched and grubby looking. As you can imagine this effects me more than Chris and i often think about all my lovely clothes at home and dream of shopping all day alone, without Chris ever knowing how much i have spent. Damn those joint bank accounts!
We are now in Auckland after a night in a cabin,the tent is dry ,our sleeping bags have been washed and we are good to go. We both love flying and are the most enthusiastic passengers, grateful for fun onboard meals and we don’t speak to each other at all to make sure we get our moneys worth of in flight entertainment. I have previously stayed awake well into the night on a flight to squeeze in one more free movie.
It feels like a bit of a mile stone in our travels now that we are heading to Oz. We have been on our own for 4 months and camped loads in Nz. I am very proud of us for getting on so well as travelling probably is a bit of a relationship tester. New Zealand is stunning and people have been friendly. It has rained a lot more than we thought and it gets really cold camping sometimes.We have the amusement of waking up next to each other fully covered from head to toe in sleeping bags with only our faces half showing. Auckland is beautiful and we loved our kakaking trip and glazier heli ride. The down side is that the place has robbed us blind by lulling us into all its tastey adventures and it has been no-where near as cheap as we thought it would be. Oz is the next big adventure and i have a feeling boozing will be high on our list of day events. We are no longer the beer fit people we were before we left so hopefully the photos will include some views and not just a group of people pulling faces into the camera while intoxicated. Watch this space.!
Just a quick one before i go to say hello to all the wine club girls and to sent the Walshies our love. They are due a baby Walshy and we are thinking of them every day waiting for the news. Big pushes Caz!!
And a quick hello to Roanne who mananged to combine a skiing holiday and a young baby (George) well done chick, you must be a hellava mum.

Right i am off to buy a tankini!keep blogging chaps,we love hearing from you and our stats are brill xxxxxxxxxxx

A Twist of Fate, Chris’s Nanna’s Mate and a trip to Hell’s Gate! (C – 19/2) February 19, 2008

North Island NZ

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Things have been very interesting over last couple of days and the time seems to be really flying past in NZ. After last blog we spent a leisurely day in a camp site still in Napier, recovering from our ‘extreme’ dining experience on Valentine’s Day. Decided that I should ring my Nanna’s friend Joan who lives in Rotorua and who we were going to try and meet up with, after several calls I finally got through this time, she seemed to have a busier social life than us!

After that I rang my friend Neil Carson (a bloke I hadn’t seen for 2 years as he went down-under to join the Aus Navy, I did my Perisher with him back in ‘98) it was on the off chance really as his wife had passed a mobile number to us via e-mail. Got him first time and after a conversation that went something along the lines of ‘Hello Neil’ ‘Hello Chris’ ‘Long time no speak, where are you?’ ‘Napier’ ‘Oh that’s a shame I’ll be there in a few days, I’m in NZ at the moment’ ‘Cool’ ‘Where are you and Soph tomorrow?’ ‘Taupo’ ‘Good I’ll see you then, I’m down there fishing tomorrow!’ – yes it was surreal, he was only in the same town as we were the following night, he was visiting Auckland on an Aus Submarine and had a few days R&R – so we arranged to meet up. I walked back to the camp-site in an excited daze, looking up at the sky as an aerobatic display team practised in the skies above for the Napier Art Deco weekend celebrations. I was rudely brought back to planet earth by almost being run over by the Napier Express an old steam engine which took to the lines at this time of year, bringing people clad in thirties outfits into the town centre. I hadn’t really noticed the hundreds of people gathering track side to get a photo of the hissing monster! Still myself and Soph were very excited and waved to everyone on board, just like a grown up and slightly dishevelled pair of railway children!
Off to Taupo the next day and it was a glorious trip across wooded areas, which were engaged in replanting in a big way, so there were lots of different sized trees as far as the eye could see. Stopped off to view Waipunga Falls, NZ has lots of these Scenic View signs up by the side of the road, too numerous to do them all, but when we do stop invariably it’s something wonderful as was the case this time. Rain came in again on and off, but we didn’t care as beers were booked that evening! Arrived at our camp-site and had a quick game of tennis as we had the luxury of a court on site – rain came down in sheets mid-way through the first set and we almost abandoned it, but our Englishness shone through (unlike the sun) and we kept at it, right up to the point where I started losing really badly and claimed my sore throat was still hurting and I wanted to stop. Can’t believe these camp sites charge you for racket hire though, really tight!
After this it was a quick call to Neil (aka Willie after the jockey, not that he is anything like a jockey as you can see by the photos) and he was sat in the Maccy Ds (just a coffee Vicky, no burger) so we dashed down to meet up with him, shelving our plans to go for a long walk. Really good to see him and I won’t bore you with the details but the evening went off very well. Ended up in an Irish bar watching Warratahs (who Sam, Neil’s son, is playing under 21 rugby for) in the Super 14s, before going to the ‘back’ bar and dancing and singing along to the Maori barman, who every so often stopped serving and flashed up his guitar, mostly Maori protest songs, but a great night! Soph told me later it took me quite a while to get into the tent as we had the fixed mesh bug screen over the entrance, I could see the light inside but just couldn’t understand why there was something holding me back! Think I may have broken the zip of my beloved Coleman tent!
We were certainly not so great the next morning however and we had a long day ahead. First up a bit of rehydration and a burger king and then another snooze, well ,we are on our holidays. Took the chance to walk along the Haku River water-front area and wandered into a spot where a natural hot spring ran into the river, beautiful temperature water which you could just sit in and several people and a couple of dogs were doing just that. Wish we’d brought our cossies, but just had a paddle instead. Then we went back up river to the Haku Falls Jet Boat ride, which we had pre-booked and then delayed due to the headache! I was excited and, as you can imagine, so was my wife. 75km/h in a shallow bottomed jet boat, steaming down the river towards the falls, narrowly missing the canyon sides and various trees/swans with the odd 360 degree spin manouevre thrown in for good measure. Excellent, we didn’t buy it because it was a bit pricey, but one photo taken of our boat mid 360 had everyone laughing with their hands up and in the dead centre of picture is my wife, a stand out, with her mouth wide open in a silent scream and terror on her face – classic Soph!
We were left with 27 minutes to view the falls from the bridge crossing the gorge and then double back on our tracks to get down to the Aratiatia rapids for 4 o’clock. These rapid are dry apart from 4 times a day when the floodgates are opened and all the water is allowed to crash back down the wadi. We managed it with 30 seconds to spare, as the alarm went off and the gates opened a real force of nature (sort of) as the mass of water and power erupted down the valley. Never seen anything like it and the rapids re-filled really quickly such was the sheer bulk of water, you just wanted to dive in it looked so clear, fresh and beautiful.
We trooped back into the car to go and meet my Nanna’s friend Joan (82) who lived in Rotorua, cut it fine and we were a bit late but she was as nice as pie and offered us dinner, which we eagerly accepted. Glad we did, Joan was top company (she was a sort of child genius or so it sounds and gained Uni entry at 16, then originally trained as a pharmacist before becoming the first female Post master general of this area! That’s where she met Nanna and the rest they say is history) and she can make a lovely chicken and veg. She sent us to bed at 2130 as we looked so shattered from the night before! Bless.

Next day, spent looking at the various thermal springs of Rotorua. Visited the local park in central town, Paikau park where there are fenced off boiling springs and mud baths, there for all to see. That was a taster and after this we went to Hell’s Gate (for the name more than anything, there are several sites we could have gone to) to view the big boys. Fascinating place, originally called Tikitere, after a visit by George Bernard Shaw in the 1900s he nicknamed it Hell’s Gate and the Maoris allowed the adoption of the name. He also named a few other individual pools, but with ‘the goblin’s nostril’ and ‘the hippos ring of fire’ we believe we should have been given the task. The most impressive sight was the steaming cliffs, which was a pool about 30 feet across filled with boiling mud 145 degrees C at 1 metre down apparently. All I know is that the sulphur was extremely strong and the explosions violent, every few seconds you would get a strong belch of fetid, moist gas from the eruptions (it really was like a night out with Chris Taylor).
The smell of sulphur pervades the whole town and originally my wife kept giving me knowing and accusing looks, but I promise you IT WASN’T ME! After the walk around Hell’s Gate, we stopped off at a carving stall by the exit and met a bloke called Benji Hatu the resident expert and were allowed a free go at some wood carving, great fun and we were ace! Also bought one of his originals, so have finally got a bit of NZ art. Back to the camp site for dinner and a quiet night, we’ve noticed the two nights here in Rotorua have been cosier in the tent than anywhere else and think it must be the thinness of the earth’s crust in the area keeping us warm at night. Had a bit of an embarrassing moment as we made our way to the tent at 11ish. Several noisy, braying Dutch folk were sat outside the communal TV room all talking at once about how fit they were or something, so we basically told them to be quiet (in a niceish way.) As they all grumbled off to their accom, and as I was getting into the tent I accidentally set off our car alarm! Ha, ha excellent skills – you should have seen me move to try and cancel it though, like a cobra! One tent based stat for the spotters out there – we’ve been travelling 126 days and have slept in our tent only 33 times – now that’s slumming it! We are back in Napier now and ready to view some more International cricket tomorrow, a one day match which is in the balance with Eng needing a win, just off to see if we can find Ian Botham in a pub!

Do you know the way to Taumata whakatangi hangakoauaucta mateaturipu kakapiki maunga horonuku pukaiwhenua kitunatahu? February 15, 2008

IMG_7625Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Hello you lovely people,
We are finally drying out after a couple of very wet days in the luscious New Zealand. Seems like we have been here for ages now and we are absorbing all the healthy outdoor karma. That said poor Chris has been ill! His throat (as pictured in the last blogg) has been really sore so he is now making a good recovery with the help of antibiotics.
We are now in Napier.Where is that? i hear you cry. Well it is the east coast of the North Island.
After arriving in Wellington we became caught in what was discussed on the news as “a heavy electrical storm.” A little unfortunate i grant you. We were originally camping but the weather was so bad we had to stay in a cabin. Lucky we did as the rain kept coming and coming. Even Chris’s tent which he continues to say is”made for this type of weather” would have got soggy.
When we talk about “cabins’ they are not the romantic ones with fires and minibars. They are normally about as big as a garage with bunkbeds in and not much else. Recently we had one with tv as well and we were so pleased we turned it on instantly and watched it like a couple of cave men, all night!
Poor Chris has been snoozing a lot so just as well he had a bed for it. We spent a day under cover before heading up the east coast to Hastings. On the way we did a detour to see the worlds longest place name. It was strange when we arrived as there was just the sign and nothing else. Great sign though and we defied death to get our photo taken either end of it. We had to put the timer on the camera ,place it in the middle of the road and then press the button and run back to the sign. Took a few attempts but well worth it! The place is named after “The Brow of a Hill Where Tamatea,the Man with the Big Knees who Slid,Climbed and Swallowed Mountains,known as land eater,played the flute to his lover.” And its’ official name is,say it with me !
“Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauctamateatuvipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitunatahu”

After another night in of rain we woke to a break in the weather and paddled around in the big puddles left behind, with all the ducks bragging about what a great night they’d had. Soon enough the fantastic NZ sun came out and in a couple of hours it was like it had never rained. We had a quiet reading afternoon to aid Chris’s recovery and a night in front of the communal campsite tv. I shamelessly wore my pyjamas in public,i love them! We have begun to realise that we care less and less about what people think of us. Home comforts are missed massively if we are ill or it rains and we talk about what we would do,eat,wear e.t.c if we were at home.I often day dream about my xlarge marks and spencers fluffy blue dressing gown and Chris dreams about sky sports and our leather sofa, we both dream about a cheese board as well.

Fortunately Chris is finally on the mend after having to pay a painfull admin fee to join the medical centre. He was nearly on fighting form for Valentines Day, the day of lurve!
We squeezed out of our tent to be greeted by a sunny day and after coffee on a picnic table we headed to Napier as Chris had planned a suprise(the little beauty) On the way we listened and talked along to our Spanish lesson on C.D. instantly forgetting the words as soon as they have passed our lips.
Pulled up into Napier to find it was Art Deco week so people pottering around in all the gear and lots of vintage cars are driving around. Napier is beautiful and romantic. Loads of freshly painted art deco buildings,flower beds,fountains and sea front cafes.Our mums would love it here,loads of gift shops!
We pottered around and had some photos taken with people dressed up. Two of the ladies in costume looked elegant in all the gear and posed for a photo for us. In return Chris (the smoothy) gave them a kiss ,not on the lips thankfully and they sauntered off(we didnt tell them about the tonsilitis!)
Chris’s plan unfolded as we went to a lovely hotel room with an ensuite,something that has been alien to us since new year. We normally run across a wet field with torches in the night if we have to go to the loo.Some of those toilets are really spooky at night and the knowledge that it is cockroach happy hour means the toilet trips are speedy and a bit upsetting!
So our Valentine day was spent in luxury with a kitchen,tv,fridge,bathroom,fluffy towels and double bed all to ourselves.Bliss! Chris later told me he had booked us up on a gourmet wine tasting restaurant tour for the evening and i was so happy i cried!
Absolutely brilliant idea and our evening was really special. My husband is brilliant. I am telling you,that fella has got all the moves!
We were collected for the tour at 5.30ish and met by our guide Carl and another couple from Canada who were doing the tour with us. The five of us set off to a beer tasting start at a place called Roosters. we tried to guess some samples and match them to the menu. So much from our years of drinking,we were rubbish and didnt get any right. How can we have drunk so much and know so little?
Roosters was great outdoor place like The Dolphin with lots of hardy men in vests drinking after work. A great day time drinking pub,no food,just beer.
We moved on to a restaurant for a seafood platter and lots of wine samples. Mostly white wine from Marlborough region,blimmin lovely!
After putting in our order for dinner we headed to the hills and watched the sunset on Te Mata Peak and popped open a bottle of bubbly. Real V.I.P treatment with Carl topping us up and telling us about the wines of the region. The citylights were just starting to twinkle below and it was just perfect. Our new Canadian friends Murray and Harvey were great fun and we bonded over booze and beautiful food for the rest of the night. The trip took us to another two restaurants,one for main course and another for pudding. Lovely,lovely,lovely! The restaurants were all top notch with lots of fairy lights and candles,my favorite.
Back to our great accommodation we stayed up even later to watch tv and make the most of the home comforts. Fabulous!
Sunny day today and we are back in the tent. Boo! Hoping the weather will stay sunny so we can enjoy the beauty of NZ for our last two weeks. When it is sunny we have the best time but when it rains it feels a bit like we are on the run from the law! Cover photo is one that dates back to our kayak adventure in abel Tasman (South Island), this is our kayaking gang getting a sail up to Anchorage Bay -right to the beach very cool! (Copyright Bart from San Francisco, y’all have a good time now!)

Thugs, bugs, thunder and lightning – very, very frightening! February 11, 2008

South Island NZ

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Well after Soph’s last blogs we ran out of really beautiful photos to show you, involving blue skies and even bluer water. This photo collection is a bit bizarre. We spent a lovely couple of days in hut accommodation in Christchurch, spoiled ourselves with walks along by the river and even out for a nice bottle of white wine and a snack before the big match ie Eng v NZ 20/20 cricket. As we meandered through the town we saw David Gower and Ian Botham proving they DO drink before a SKY broadcast, the last time I saw those two out together, they were in a house of ill-repute in Antigua (but that’s another story). Also saw ‘Bumble’ Lloyd but he always looks wasted so not sure if he had been drinking or not – all good fun though. The match itself was a bit bizarre 1) it’s not real cricket it’s more like baseball 2) the crowd were a real bunch of hill-billy red-necks and there was even some crowd violence with people being thrown out etc. We avoided all that business, but did manage to drink a fair bit to build up our protective shields. Match was over without any tactics, Collingwood scored as did Mustard, but K-P let himself down again. If you don’t like cricket, stick with me! Went back into the town centre afterwards to meet up with the victorious team and have a photo with Monty, but they didn’t show – light-weights! With slightly baggy heads we didn’t do a lot the next day and this head-ache stayed with us for 2 days, we are just getting too old!! We travelled north to stay at Picton (really big waves on this East coast and only skilled surfers and lots of Fur Seals in the water) before catching the ferry back to the North Island. In Picton we decided to go to the cinema and after the biggest in Asia in Kuala Lumpar, this thing was a bit of a come down, the size of our bedroom in Fortescue Place with what was effectively a big TV at one end. Bizarre because it was accessed through the local aquarium, free access with your cinema ticket. So after viewing some sea-horses and a giant rotten squid in a suspiciously yellow liquid we went through and watched a Danish film with sub-titles (and this evening isn’t even recommended in our Lonely Planet!!) A damp evening, but again we treated ourselves with a meal out, my first cooked fish dish in South Island unbelievably. Sat in a nice bistro type restaurant and listened to some live music, first girl was young, nervous and good and I only insulted her as we were leaving by asking her if this was her first time performing (she said she’d been singing at a big music festival that afternoon). Second girl was very right-on, explaining the meaning of all her own songs and advertising her new album (Helen House, anyone ever heard of her?) she expounded views on political and social injustice, bit boring really when you’re halfway through your cheeseboard and port! In fact the only social injustice we wanted to hear her shout about was the fact that the cheese portions were so miniscule! Stayed in a camp site in the rain with THE biggest cockroaches we have ever seen, all laying dying all over the place, whatever they were putting down to kill them certainly worked, but it was disconcerting even just standing on them as your hair brushed the ceiling (yes they were that big!) Ferry trip back to North was miserable (just like on the way down) so we never truly got to see Queen Charlotte Sound in all its’ glory. Wet when we arrived in a dank looking Wellington, why isn’t Auckland the Capital, it’s bigger and much more attractive in our view! Drove north to camp at Lower Hutt, which is closer to Wellington than Upper Hutt and probably Middle Hutt (if it existed). Hutt river was where they filmed the hobbits in boats scenes in Lord of Rings, but we never saw it’s charms as there was heavy fog. We pitched our tent and as I was suffering from a sore throat (pse see photo, no I don’t want any sympathy, no it’s not ‘man-flu’, yes it does hurt!) just rested up. As we did so the rains came and came and came, we packed up the sodden tent mid afternoon, because Soph didn’t want to make me any worse, bless her! We are so very glad we did, because last night was the worst storm we have seen on any of our travels so far. You could feel it come in, strong gusts of wind then the sound like approaching Hell’s Angels and then lightning and more thunder. Even some simultaneous lightning and thunder like a cannon shot, meaning the thing was right over our park. I looked out of the window as Sophie slept through it and the water was streaming off our roof and flooding the small carpark, thank god we weren’t in the old tent – the multiple ducks in this park must have loved it, it really was their kind of weather! Up today and the sky has cleared and we are in Wellington, which is nice enough, but not awe-inspiring like say looking at Mt Cook down the length of Lake Pukaki. Two bits of news before I sign off 1) we are now expert at clearing a communal TV area and 2) we have taken to hiding from one another in big places. This is great fun (I hid under our chalet table the other day and scared the wits out of my wife by rushing out from under barking like a dog) but can be confusing, as I was looking for Soph in the Aquarium the other day for about 10 minutes chuckling to myself and congratulating my wife on her stealthy Ninja like abilities when I realised she had left the room and gone into the gift shop. Take Care all.

Top of the world(NZ soph 2-5feb08) February 6, 2008

South Island, Franz Josef GlacierOriginally uploaded by chris.warn

Hello all,
I am lucky enough to be writing up the last few days activities and am very pleased about it as we have had the best time! I will warn you now that some of the photos may make you dislike us!I also apologise that it is cold at home and yet the photos will show us having too much fun in the sun.Sorry!
We drove up the west coast towards Franz Joseph glacier in really bad weather and arrived at a gloomy looking town with not a lot happening.After a night of wet wet tent sleeping, we fell out onto another cloudy and wet day.Camping is a nightmare when it rains,the tent is tight to get out of and i always flail around a bit in panic ,shaking water onto my back.Then once you get out of the tent you just have to hit the ground running and sprint to the dry buildings,normally across a small damp field.It does wake you up quickly though.
Anyway after doing that business we headed to town for our massively exciting helicopter trip to the glacier.Unfortunately we would have to wait as it turned out.Too cloudy for travel so we sat in a cafe and kept our fingers crossed for a few hours.Back again and the ‘all clear’ led us to the scrub land for top helicopter action.I hadn’t been in one before so a little nervous but as we took off it felt really stable.That feeling was quite short lived as the pilots like to add a couple stunts to liven the trip up(why?).This involved going towards mountain ranges and then swerving quickly away and putting the helicopter at an angle.I wasn’t with Chris on the trip out ,but couldn’t help myself and ended up squawking out loud at a particularly scarey manouevre. After looking surriptiously around i was pleased to see no one had heard as they all had on the ear pad things.
We headed over a few low mountain ranges and arrived at the glacier pretty swiftly,the pilot deftly lowered our helicopter onto the glacier and then we spilled out onto it, slipping and sliding around.Absolutely beautiful and only a little bit chilly.The sun was shining and the ice had streaks of white and blue like marble.
Chris arrived a few minutes later on the next flight and the trekking began.We had some spikey things (crampons) for our shoes and i was thrilled to see that we instantly looked like intrepid explorers in our kit. We stomped around the glacier for 2 hours with our guide,who had the type of hair i had always wanted and never got(long blonde ringlets. )Chris and i felt really lifted by it all and hurled ourselves in to as many glacier poses as we could photo,we then dropped our camera in an icey puddle and stopped such nonsense instantly.We were amazed by the colours and shapes in the ice and felt great knowing that some of our friends had previously walked these steps before us and enjoyed this cool fresh air(Ani Lesley,the Walshies and Charlie and Bobo Thomas)
Amongst the ice sculpture were holes and caves ,all captured on camera, so we will bore you with them on our return.By the time the helicopter came we were on a high and felt it was a once in a life time trip.The helicopter trip home had one more adventure in store for us as it climbed high over the nearest mountain and dropped manically down the other side.With our hearts in our mouth I let out another scream (heard by all this time despite ear pads)and looked down to find that i had taken hold of the hand of the lady next to me.A little embarrassing but she was very understanding.
We handed back our intrepid explorer outfits on land (boo)and bounced off to our car feeling very pleased with ourselves indeed.Brilliant trip!
Then next day was a drive up the rainy west coast from our camp in Westport on to Motueka.The rain was hurling itself at our car in bucket loads, but we did not care a jot as we were still high from our glacier trip.It was a day for making up some miles to our next adventure so we wiled away the hours with continuous bad singing along to our mp3 player.
A beautiful day greeted us as we staggered out of our tent in Motueka and we set off to begin a 2 day kayak trip around the north island headland. The sun was shining and i was a little worried about such a physical challenge.We arrived and met up with our group for the day.Ben and Shaye(Aussie couple)Bart and Michelle(American)and Johan and Eliha(swedish.)I did a once over to see if they all looked fit(they did) and then worried even more about how taxing our trip would be.We took off on a very fast boat trip which gave me big palpitations.I was thinking our driver was wreckless and that i would complain about his dangerous driving as he cut into waves and raced other boats, while we bounced around clinging on for dear lives.Then i took a look around the boat and realised everyone was having a great time and loving it,it made me realise that i needed to lighten up a bit.So i put on smile i kept my feelings of dislike about the driver to myself( i still feel a bit annoyed with him as i am writing this).
We arrived on the beach and our 14 year old instructor(thats how old he looked)ran over some safety tips and said”sweet” at the end of most sentences while giving us the double thumbs up.He was very relaxed and we set off in double kayaks after him.The sea was a smooth green and i wondered why i had worried about the trip at all.After a potter around an island close to shore for a look at some seals we headed up the coast passing beautiful sandy bays ,empty of people with clear waters and lush greenland holding them all in.Chris and i got a rhythm going with the kayaking and we pulled up at one of the bays for a spot of lunch.It really was very civalised and Chris was delighted when they bought out a selection of cakes.
The rest of the day took us along the coast at a leisurely pace to Anchorage Bay.As we approached it the instructor said we were going to sail in.Great fun and we all grabbed hold of each others kayaks to form a raft.A sail came out of nowhere and the four people on the outside af the raft held it up.The people at the back had it attatched to their paddles and once they raised them up we were off.The wind filled the sail with a couple of blusters and we caught a few waves into the bay.We were all massively chuffed with ourselves and i like to think we caused abit of a stir on the beach with our brilliant sailing antics.I even saw people taking photos,we were that cool.It also serves as great bonding for us all and we jumped onto the beach triunmphant and a little tired from our first day kayaking.As the instructor would say”sweet”(double thumbs up.)
We were all staying the night on a boat house and promptly got picked up in a dingy boat to take us onboard.It was only a little way off shore and not quite as glamourous as it sounds.It was more like the Tamar ferry than a luxury liner.However we did get upgraded(shocker)to a room on the top, so missed the night some experienced in the bowels of the boat with low ceiling and a generator for company.
As soon as we were all dry we clinked stubbys to our tremendous kayaking trip and spent a few hours chatting before the tiredness of the sea air and the rain drove us to bed.Great trip so far and great people in the group to share it with.
Day two began with toast and coffee and a few goodbyes as it was only ourselves and the American couple (michelle and Bart) who were doing the 2 day course(we are so hardcore.)I should also mention now that Bart looked exactly like the doctor fella in Lost with his sun glasses on,we posed for a photo together and are thinking of sending it into Heat magazine and pretending it was him.Bart and Michelle were also great company with dry senses of humour that reminded us of our witty friends form home. We launched off with lots of banter and Michelle kept mentioning the headland we had to go around,and said she was worried about it.As usual i was not really aware of our route and was applying the usual”follow Chris he used to be a navigator”tactic.So it was a bit of a surprise when we headed into massively choppy water with 3-4 foot waves.We had no guide for the second day so we just had to get stuck in.I was nearly hysterical,whinning in a high voice and on the verge of tears as we pulled into the cove to get our breaths after the first part of the headland.I suggested getting out and walking(i was trembling by now) but my plan was scuppered when Bart and Michelle continued on throught the high seas triumphantly turning the corner out of sight.So back in the waves we went.I was shaking and cursing and my arms were going like the clappers.Chris was cool as a cucumber and kept us afloat and we got around the headlands collapsing on the beach around the corner.Really scarey and i would never had done it if i knew what it would be like. Bart and Michelle joined us and Michelle and i were a little emotional,while the chaps looked on amused but avoiding laughing for fear of attack.Michelle said she had told Bart not to talk to her for an hour as she was so upset by it all.Very funny looking back.When i finally did look at the map i saw we had just completed “the mad mile” and indeed there were big waves and a warning on the map too.That will teach me.I dont understand why my husband didnt warn me though,a mystery !
We had a really relaxing trip around the rest of the bay and arrived back at Motueka when the tide was at its lowest,the beach was huge!After dodging the thousands of star fish and shared a beer with Bart and Michelle ,who were brilliant fun,before heading off.A truely great adventure.and our trip is just getting better. As were were driving away Chris (my brilliant husband) summed it up beautifully by saying “These are the days of our lives”
In summary for my busy friends at P.R.S.U.especially Marky Mark, we are having a good time!

Into the Mountains, down by the Lakes and a big leap of faith!! (C – 1/2) January 31, 2008

South Island, NZ

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

After Bon Jovi we were the last up the next day, all the other denim and leather clad rockers had left early, very sensible and gave an indication of the predominant age group of the fans!! We wandered around beautiful central Christchurch and bought a big shop we were cooking for guests tonight, Rich (Thompson) and Jamie. Great night, barbie and plenty of booze. Girls talked about how unfair it was to be denied all material possessions and regular shopping trips when camping and discussed Heath Ledger, boys talked solely about cricket and tents and ate a lot of chocolate! Also a lot of beer and then wine, first white and then a 3 day old pre-opened red, classic Warn! Got told off for making too much noise and were v rock and roll! Next day a sluggish start, we had to depart by 1000 and left at 0959, very pleased with that. Drove South through Ashburton (made us think of Plymouth) and stopped off at a town called Geraldine (nice name for a town) for a lovely fish and chips and other post booze treats. Weather mixed, first bright then stormy and eventually blistering as we drove towards Lake Tekapo, where we first saw the gorgeous colour of the local water, a vivid milky blue almost turquoise, created by blue skies and the glacial silt that the water carries – it was a real eye opener. Continued down towards Lake Pukaki where we saw the real money shot, facing North with Mt Cook at the head of the Lake and a wide expanse of this blue framed by green forest. Sat for a long time just sucking it all in and dipping our feet in the icy, crystal clear water. My God, this is why we came travelling. Camped that night in Twizel, yet another cool named place (Ruataniwha Camp) by a smaller lake, no less clear and attractive. Hired kayaks and went for a paddle, pushing out some phys on way out and then drifting back in the hot sun to the jetty with the prevailing wind, blowing a pine scented breeze that was just strong enough to take us home, but not too strong to be chilly!! Up early next day to conquer Mt Cook, well drive up the side of Lake Pukaki with country and western blaring out of the MP3, just perfectly suited music, Coward of the County was the favourite. Reached the settlement Mt Cook or Aoraki to give it its’ original name. Mt Cook didn’t look that well, in fact you could say it looked a bit peaky (come on!). Then we walked up a track to Kea Point which was far enough in the blistering heat. Mt Cook looked pretty close though and regal against a clear sky, crowned with snow and ice. Talked to an old German who had climbed it back in ‘66 (why wasn’t he watching the footy?) he said there was a LOT more snow around then! He was very modest especially considering the fact he probably did it in nothing but a thick pair of socks, a pair of +4s and a tweed jacket! Good walk for us though and had a smashing home made cheese and tomato sandwich when we got back to the Sir Edmund Hilary museum, the old boy would have been proud of us for sure, may he rest in peace on that big summit in the sky. Turned back and drove the way we had come, to return via Twizel and then Omarama and on to Wanaka. Bit flat on the way and boring after the great views of last 48 hours,but Wanaka very attractive, if touristy and on the banks of Lake Wanaka so good place to stay. Up very slowly for some reason the next day and seemed to be employing delaying tactics before hitting the road to our next destination – THE BUNGY JUMP dun, dun daaaaah! We travelled over the very scenic Crown Range to get to the Queenstown area, great descent from the hill top on a series of hairpin bends with no protective fences – great for the driver (me!). Turned towards Cromwell and the jump, feeling nervous all of a sudden as we saw the first sign post for it – Kawauru Gorge! As we drove over the new road bridge here, we looked across at the old bridge which is now the launch site, just in time to see someone leap off. The red metal of the bridge was stark against the unyielding grey rock of the gorge sides and the blue water crashing through the narrows foaming into peaks below. It did look a very pretty place for death to be diced with. Onto the viewing platform and at this point Soph decided she’d rather spend money on clothes. I was not happy but needed to pay the money and get this booked before I too backed out! The whole thing was really quick, about 2 minutes from the weigh in I was kitted out on the platform, listening to the staff joking about life insurance! ha, ha, ha! And that was it 5-4-3-2-1 and I was off. Fortunately the sheer shock was enough to keep me quiet – so no girlie squeals of terror, I didn’t utter a sound until the 3rd bounce, when relief gave way to laughter and some swearing! Brilliant, first and last time for me, but brilliant! Got dunked as well, right up to the waist so felt well hard waltzing around afterwards, in the shop waiting for my certificate and t-shirt. After this we went to Queenstown, which was nice enough and had a lovely gardens to walk around and come down off the adrenalin high, but the mere presence of near naked young and healthy thrill seeking travellers forced us away!! Back to Wanaka for a relaxing evening, Soph went for a quick shop (bought some polka-dot PJ bottoms, as it’s so cold at nights here) and I had a Tim-Tam (good advice Phil) and an ice-cream sorry I mean an extreme ice-cream, now I am officially a dangerous sportman!
Bed early after Gordon Ramsay swearing a lot on telly. What a few days. Bed-times are extremely comfortable now we’ve learned how to inflate the mattress properly, but it’s like being on a bouncy castle at times. Sophs fidgets as we fall asleep and I fidget in mornings, so one or the other of us has got their nose to the ceiling most of the time!
Heading North now, this is the closest we’ll get to the Antarctic Circle and it’s still boiling!! Got some great treats to look forward to over course of next week, but I’ll sign off now and leave the telling of these tales to Sophs.

Rocking down to the South Island and rocking on with BON JOVI (Chris 28/1) January 28, 2008

Bon Jovi, NZ

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Well we’ve been away for over 100 days now, did you notice us gone?? Travelled 21959 miles by air, 109 by walking, 95 by tuk tuk, 7278 by car (and counting), 2548 by train, 6 by bus, 80 by boat and 6 by tram – total 32081, I LOVE STATS!! strange thing shappening to my wife after 100 days, she’s putting things in strange places they don’t belong. 1st she threw a shop of vegetables in the bin and when it came to eat we had stir fried plastic (well we would of if we hadn’t rummaged around in the bin to find them and eat them) and 2nd she put a load of post-cards in a museum money donation box (well it was shaped like an old fashioned Brit post box so you can forgive her, guy in the museum just could not believe it, Soph asked if many people did that and he just said ‘No’ incredulously!
We left Raglan on west coast of North Island after bumping into an ex-bootneck who new a guy I worked with in recruiting, Bob Ewen – it’s a small world out here! Had food and beers with Jason and Hayley and it was nice socialising. Next day drove to the Waitomo Caves through lush forestry next to a beuatiful river that snaked through the valley in the Pirongia Park Reserve. We passed through a building called Whatuwhatu, great name. As the billboards increased and every building was advertising some adventurous activity involving black water rafting and glow-worms we knew we were getting close to the famous caves. We booked up for a standard tour and took the precaution of dressing in t-shirts, flip-flops and shorts, of course everyone else, including Pam our 60 yr old guide, was in fleecies and boots – classic Warn we said to ourselves. Inevitably it was freezing in the caves as we were led through underground caverns, with twisting eerie shapes thrown up by the meagre lighting. Then into a boat to be guided through about 100m of ‘Golem’ like caves to see the glow-worms. They were magical, thousands of pin-prick blue lights against the pitch black looking like myriad stars clustered in a desert sky. Almost poetic apart from the fact that what we were looking at was the worm poo that sits glowing in their abdomen attracting bugs for dinner! We also got a look at the 15-20 cm tendrils that hang down from the worms, covered in sticky mucous and grim looking. As we left the caves (no photography and NO talking, soph suffered I can tell you!) the light showed that Pam the pensioner had been the one dragging the boat and about a dozen people through the pitch black caves on guide-lines, she must have been about 65 what a job, there’s a lesson there Liz and Gill! After the caves we were glad to see sunshine again, the weather a bit all over the place but the sun guaranteed to start shining as soon as we get in the car! On drive to next camp site at New Plymouth, we stopped for strawberries, extremely juicy and freshly made mixed berry ice-cream, absolutely lovely. Spent a very pleasant 20 minutes munching on these in a clover field. New Plymouth not much to write home about (apart from gourmet hot pies), even worse than old Plymouth!! Stayed in camp site by the beach at Oakura. Went for a bracing swim in the Tasman Sea and beach side strolls on the black sands. Drive next day continued to Wellington through strange towns such as ‘Bulls’. Into city centre with Soph at wheel during rush hour (she as cool as a cucumber) to a back-packers which was filled with wasters so decided to turn round and drive back out of town to Upper Hutt, rural camp-site, again through rush-hour traffic, felt strange as we hadn’t seen much traffic since Auckland. Soph’s cooked up a storm on outer barbie and we ate like kings, as did the bugs feasting on my ankles and feet (just me not Sophs, I think mine smell more of quality cheeses). As we settled in tent had huge hoo-ha over thinking we’d lost the car keys, of course they were in a sleeping bag of course! Cold, cold overnight and when I shuffled out of the tent, had the privilege of a wet, slimy flysheet sliding down my back first thing, hadn’t experienced that for many a year! Up at 0545 and on road by 0615, next morning a record! Still dark as we drove to Wellington to catch early morning Bluebridge ferry, sun rising on the valley with freezing fog cloaking the river, tinged pink in early morning rays. Bluebridge ferry old and cheaper than the inter-islander, my seaman’s eye believed it to be safe though. After sausage sandwich we loaded and settled in to our comfy seats for more snoozing. Woke for entry into Tory Channel, ironic name as standing in the wind on the upper deck in the steel, grey light everyone was turning blue. This channle then turns into the Queen Charlotte Sound, which is famous for it’s beauty but I have to say as I huddled by the smoke stack for warmth the forested glens leading down to bleak foamed waters in a strengthening wind, it reminded me a lot of Scotland I half expected to tsee the floating dock in Faslane Naval BAse (AFD 60) hove into view. After 4 hiur cruise arrived at the South Island, in Picton with 2 old fashioned aircraft (bit like US Mustang, if you’re interested) doing acrobatics above our heads, they didn’t have to do all that just for little old us! Picton itslef v picturesque, but town rammed with local fete so didn’t stick around. Couple of hundred km to next camp site. Stopped off at Blenheim to do a bit of internet and indulge in yet more key losing (twice in about 18 hours must be lsoing our marbles) this time I’d left it under the keyboard in internet cafe, very wise! Drove on sharing driving, through, to be honest, the fairly boring vista of the Marlborough wine district long rolling dun coloured hills and lots of …you guessed it, vines! Arrived at Kaikuara, famous for it’s whales and dolphins, well didn’t see any of them (we are coming back for a spot of that) but did see some Bluebottle jelly fish we stopped me swimming. Fine dining that night in the campsite, red wine, pasta and pesto, accompanied by the grunts of 3 fishermen eating at next table, it was like being in The Dolphin all over again without the benefit of Bass! The next morning we slept in until 9.40 (check out at 10), as Soph’s went for morning ablutions I proved how good we’re becoming at packing up tent, by doing just that everything in the car in about 6 minutes and drove off. When Soph re-apppeared after cleaning her teeth, I’d gone. You had to be there, genius!! Fortunately Soph saw funny side and we had a right old chortle as we set off at 0959 for Christchurch. Not a lot to report, scenery continued in same vein and we arrived in CC nice and ealry to find a camp site in the city centre (you just can’t say that about many places). First one we visited looked like a set for a Quentin Tarantino movie, aplace where murderers do their laundry and crims hang out waiting for the heat to blow over – ie messy! Next place right up our alley though and soon settled in ready for the wait for THE CONCERT! We have been keeping this one a secret, apart from Sophs over the last few days tellig loads of people in e-mails so my blog isn’t as exciting as it should be (you know who you are Dover!) – the big secret off to see Bon Jovi in concert. Air of anticipation in the camp site as most people there were going. Had crayfish supper with our NZ neighbours and shared a taxi in with them. Concert excellent, ’stand up Jon’ we shouted as he arrived on stage and as he stood there with a guitar that looked to big for him, I wasn’t sure what to expect (this was my first big rock gig) – it was fantastic, lots of oldies that for some reason I knew all the words to, massive Richie Sambora?? guitar solos and lots of arm waving and shouting/screaming ’spit on me Jon’ – now why would my wife shout that?? We were at the back in seats (not sat in once) but it was awesome!!! Walked back after concert well happy with ourselves. In Christchurch library now having walked along the river that runs by the University, Botanical Gardens and Hospital – all road side cafes, ducks and people lolling around, great way to spend a Monday!! Anyway that’s all folks, unlike Jon who gave 3 encores it’s none for me, all together now ‘I’m a cowboy, on a stell horse I ride, I’m wanted ….DEAD OR ALIVE!!’

Rain,rain,GO AWAY! January 23, 2008

Northland, NZ

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Hello all, after having emails from a couple of you it sounds like everyone is ill and missing the fun of Christmas. Hope the New Year gets better for you lot. Maybe you will feel better to know that we are also getting lots of rain! We have stumbled, inadvertantly upon a cyclon. Its called “Funa”ironically. Not massively scarey,no worse than a bad day in England but it appears to be following us around the island like a mean ,wet, windy stalker. We had great plans to go Kayaking, as it was free at our backpackers, but ended up snuggled up all day watching movies. This is fine when you are in your own house but when you are sat next to grubby teenage travellers who keep talking,its just not right! Luckily we were stocked up on food and wine. We are now cooking all our meals to save cash ,both of us are happy about this as we like cooking and have missed it. We are working a 2 day rota system (this is what happens when you have too much time on your hands)and taking in turns with cooking, shopping for meals and dishes. Loving it! Chris made sausages and mash, then steak with homemade ratatouille (very nice Mr Warn) and i felt prepared for equally fabulous meals with chicken saute with potatoes. Unfortunately cooking conditions took a turn for the worse on my shift and i had to cut and prep with the Leatherman and serve food in our plastic bowl(like dog food.) However the cooking in unusual situations is great and we are back on suitable low budget wine .Great fun, 2 bottles seems to help aid tent sleeping and less than one bottle, well you might as well sit in the car all night and not even bother to try sleeping!
We have been getting stuck in to some driving around the north island to keep ourselves busy in the bad weather. New Zealand is so beautiful,it really is the cleanest,healthiest looking place i have ever been. We headed North first to Cape Reinga, top North of the island,where the pacific meets the Tasman Sea. Ridiculously windy, so much so it took a while to open the car doors. Worth the battle as we walked to the farthest north point of New Zealand and saw for miles up the coasts. There was a very dinky white lighthouse,as perfect as a pepper pot sat right on the far point .The rain held off and the sun popped out briefly for some pics. Chris really wanted to come here as his uncle Rich(or uncle RRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEECCCHHHH as most of the boys from the stag night know him) had a photo taken there under a sign post when he was a lad and Chris wanted to do the same! The sign pointing to London said we were 18029 km away, clearly a very long way to walk! We staggered back to the car holding onto each other and sat exhausted and bedraggled before heading to camp. Pretty average camp site, Ahipara, with both Mr and Mrs Warn back in the manic flapping tent after the 2nd bottle of white and slept like dreams.
Off to Taipano next.Still crazy weather and our trip on the Kohukohu ferry was a little bleak. We passed the oldest wooden house in New Zealand,”who cares “i hear you cry. Not us ,so just a quick glance around and a firm refusal to pay entrance fee had us back in the car. We drove on to the Waipoua Forest ,where it appeared everyone else had gone as well. Lots of bad clothes so we felt no shame in putting on our macs( one pound from Tesco Metro with free Emergency Blanket)Cutting a dash ,we headed for the biggest Kauri Tree in the world. Yes you heard me “the world”. We were looking out for it and pondering over which one it was, then headed around the corner to see this unbelievably huge tree.We said what i imagine hundreds of other people said before us”That tree is massive”. It seems normal size in the photo but it is really impressive in real life,5 metres wide, 50m tall and 2000 years old. Very wise old tree indeed. We took this stunning photo of us in our macs,it wasn’t raining at this point, but we just felt so special in them it seemed a shame to take them off.
As you can tell we have limited activites available to us so lots of sight seeing from the car has been the only option.The country side is amazing here, when we left the forest you could see trees and shrubs overspilling into the road as New Zealand is so fertile. The plant life is every shade of green you can imagine,piled up,jammed in and green and glossy around you.
Everything wasn’t as pretty back in our campsite that evening however. Just a car park type set up by the river outlet. It was quite strange as there was nothing there and no lighting so when it got dark at 9.30 we just had to go to bed. Very strange being tucked up in sleeping bags so early with no noise whatsoever outside.
We both woke this moring in quite foul moods. Bad weather again meant it was raining so we had to get out of wet tent, into a wet field,water falling down our backs in the process. The showers were on a money timer that was really eating up cash. It was in a shed with dead goggled eyed cockroaches staring through the transparent perspex at me. When i had run out of cash and was left soapy i nearly punched in the wall in a Incredible Hulk style and ran out throwing cars around. As it was i dried myself sadly and went and sat next to my damp sad husband in the car. After a small moan to each other we headed south passing Auckland to get to our Big Gig on 27th in the South Island. Our moods were lifted thanks to our MP3 and we sang loudly and out of tune to Oasis,Was not was, Paulo Ntini, ACDC, Dido, the Proclaimers and several bad rap tunes. The time was well spent as we asked ourselves the question,would it have been better to see Elvis in concert when he was young and handsome gyrating around? Or when he was older, fat and sweaty in that white catsuit and he had a few more tunes under his heavily strained belt? Thankfully we have arrived at our camp in Raglan for the night and can rest with a chicken curry ala Chris.
New Zealand is brilliant but we really want the rain to go away now.

In the land of the long white cloud (and blistering sunshine!) January 20, 2008

NZ

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Have arrived and are immediately refreshed by New Zealand, stayed in Auckland backpackers which although noisy and filled with the dreaded young travellers, was well situated backing onto the Domain park land in central auckland and with views to the back of the Museum. walked everywhere and got a real feel for the place, lots of hills, we have buttocks like brass sculptures! Wandering around on our first day, we passed the Heineken Tennis Championships and pondered whether to go in, unfortunately we had missed most of the games already that day and an old lady advised us to not bother unless they gave us the tickets for free, her advice was good but she then ruined her credibility by falling into the gutter, I’ve not seen anyone do that since Simon Morris, awesome. We’ve eaten really well in NZ and an example of this is our first eat out in Auckland where we went into a ‘greasy spoon’ and then proceeded to scoff the best eggs benedicte I’ve ever eaten. City is clean and beautiful set against the blue waters of the Bay and we took full advantage of this with a boat trip, bit touristy but we passed under the bridge and up towards Birkenhead (prettier than the scouse version) and up towards where my Nanna and Pop used to live. Then back down to cruise past the Naval Base at devonport (see the ships meet the men, we could almost hear the call) and on to raratonga a volcanic island thats its majestically in the harbour. A great trip with free coffee and …wait fo it… choc muffins, come on you don’t get that on the Torpoint ferry. After that we went to devonport for a Sunday stroll around shops and galleries and and walked up Mount Victoria for some splendid views looking back to the city. Then we holed up in a nice little bistro ate a sumptuous meal and drank 2 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, the walk back to the ferry was highly amusing, but we did seem to capture some great photos on the short trip back, sunset over Auckland you could enter those in a competition, the sway of the boat must have counter-acted the sway of the booze! Soph had a full shopping day in Auckland so collected a few new items of clothing, she a happy girl without me peering over her shoulder and tutting every five minutes. We also saw a few movies to save evening out expenditure, Golden compass (one for children) and American Gangster (now that’s a movie!) . Picked up new car, sleek grey Nissan Bluebird, with a boot reminiscent of my old ‘beast’ we have nicknamed this little beauty ‘The Daffy W’, bit of a drive and to sophie’s amusement has automatic drive, much easier. anyway we left auckland having really enjoyed it, saying things like ‘we could live here you know’. On way out of town quickly nipped to top of Mount Eden, to see the collapsed volcanic crater and the great views. Sweeping from One Tree Hill (ironically no tree), past Mt eden Cricket Ground, past the bridge, North Shore , the Skytower dominating proceedings and then your eyes are drawn down the harbour and to the sea, awe-inspiring (I almost got my sketch book out). We travelled over the bridge and onto the North shore where we purchased a blow up bed, victuals and some wine (soph got talking to lady in wine shop about weddings, there is just no stopping her when marital organisation is being discussed). Fully tooled up for forthcoming adventure we passed through Birkenhead and into Birkdale, where I used to live as a kid. Had many half memories flash in my head as we pulled into the road and it was quite emotional for some reason. Asked lady who owned the house if we could see garden and she kindly said help yourself, really recognised it although the last time I was there I was five! The tangerine tree is still there though! Went down to the lagoon and small beach at the end of the road to compelte the trip down memory lane (well Island Bay Rd but close). North to Waipu Cove, where we spent 2 days in a nice camp site, 1 night in a tent cooking on Trangia, next in accom both very nice evenings. The beach was beautiful and we spent both days on it, alternately swimming, sunbathing and boogie boarding. Great fun. At one point I wastood in the sea at about the surf break line, looking along the ‘tubes’ seeing fish swimming in the crests of the foaming waves, with the sun in my face being cooled by the spray from the breaking waves blown back at me by the off-shore wind, each sparkling drop looking like tossed diamonds. At this pioint, the sun reflected small rainbows all around me, and that was it – me in my own little pot of gold, very nice I’d say. The boogie boarding was also great fun, we both laughed like kids on the very rare moments when we found ourselves sharing a wave in to the beach. Wine was drunk, cheap home cooked food was eaten and there weren’t too many bugs, India was a distant memory. The only slight snag was the blow up bed deflating on the first night because we hadn’t done the valve up properly, we didn’t really notice until we became fully sober at about 3 in the morning, freezing but too lazy to pump it up again (well I know I was!) It was also the continuation of the table-tennis championships, sophs said the light was poor but the only thing that nearly distracted me from winning (ahem) was the large spider crawling across the games room ceiling, the size of a mouse it seemd to be staring at me with all of its’ mean looking 8 eyes, urrghh! After the bach we went sort of inland across green forested areas and up and down some hairy bends where the roads had collapsed in parts and big road crews were doing there best to replace the road, which was handy. The next stop was Whangerei next to Whangerei Falls a 30 m waterfall, in a nice camp site again first night in the tent the next in the accom. Food getting better as we buy more adventuruous stuff from the supermarket to cook up a storm on the BBQ. Well at least scrounge some steak from a swiss man who came much better prepared, Soph was embarrassed and called me a Gypo! Really good camp site though and we were joined on the first night by a bunch of ‘trikers’ even worse than bikers apparently. All hair, dark glasses and ACDC T-shirts, they were actually the nicest guys you could hope to meet. They were travelling up and down NZ on charity gigs, collecting money etc. For all their fearsome initial appearance, they dined on fish fingers, didn’t touch a drop and were in bed by 1030! One of them to his credit, had driven along 90 mile beach on his trike, naked, apparently copying Billy Connolly who had done it in his adventures round NZ programme. The falls were beautiful and the forest walk was lovely, lots of reds, yellows and white flowers and huge Kauri trees with a solid and re-assuring wooden canopy walkway halfway round. NZ is truly a beautiful place when the sun shines! On that note, we have moved onwards and Northwards now to the Bay of Islands, a high point in terms of views we ahven’t actually seen that many because the rain and wind has come in big time. We got an impressive glimpse on arrival, but that’s been about it. Staying at a slightly more expensive back-packers we have free use of kayaks, tennis and bikes BUT can’t use any of it because the rain’s so bad. Currently in a Macdonalds in KeriKeri (cheap Internet) with rain battering the glass windows! Visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds where on 6 Feb 1840, the basic constitution of NZ was drawn up and signed by all the major Maori Tribal leaders and various Brit representatives. This still stands as the frame-work for race relations in NZ quite impressive really as it was drawn up by a civil servant in about 4 days. They had to rush, the French were sniffing around looking for a bit more empire themselves. It was great though, nice museum bits and a live display of dancing and song, celebrating ancestors, love, welcome, challenge (incl Haka) and farewell. Really moving and not as cheesy as it sounds, Soph came out with a tear in her eye wanting to hug the ‘big fella’. Loving every minute even the rain is warm. Will blog again soon. welcome to all the new bloggers, if you don’t already know you can visit all our other blogs through the archive section of wordpress.