A happy-go-lucky English rambler dude goes to New Zealand for a year. Here he interfaces with some of those he left behind and details his nefarious activities. Or summat.
Recently clicked on MP3s - 7th June 2005 The Lucksmiths - Warmer Corners
Jens Lekman - When i said i wanted to be your dog
The Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting
Teenage Fanclub - Man Made
Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacier
The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Eels - Blinking Lights
Monday, April 29, 2002
Quick status update: Am in Paihia, Bay of Islands, in the worlds most expensive internet caff $9 per hour!
Anyway, had a great time in Auckland with Alex & Jo, Alison & Marie, the city did grow on me after initially feeling a bit negative about it, though i'd pick the mighty 'Church over it everytime if you asked me which i prefered.
Am currently looking for WWOOFing / proper jobs, as funds are dwindling rapidly. I phoned a few places last night with no joy, they were either full or didn't need people. However I did learn that Kiwi fruit harvest will be starting soon, so hopefully jobs will be easier to come by then.
One of the farms i phoned was run by Zen Bhuddists, who ran meditation sessions every morning and night, however he said he. "was too stressed out at the minute to take on a WWOOFer". So i'd take it from that,Zen meditation is a load of cack, or he's just not very good at it?!
4:02 am Tuesday, April 23, 2002
A big beehive shaped Hello to you all, from the capital of NZ, Wellington.
It's a bit of a relief to be here after a fairly fraught day preparing to set off for Welly. Both the Altern8or and the boot catch on the usually trusty Toyota Corona packed up. So i set off for the ferry in a slightly stressed state, with a bungy cord holding the boot shut and me praying that the battery wouldn't end up getting fried by the dodgy Altern8or. The 5 hour drive, starting 11pm and getting to the ferry for 4am would have been bad enough anyway, but with the added possibility that my car could croak, and the contents of my boot go flying across SH1, at any second, meant i arrived at Picton feeling less than relaxed. On the plus side though, the choons provided by my bitching new Sony Discman (That was the only colour they had left!), helped to keep me concious and sane on the loooong drive up.
My first impressions of Welly after driving off the Ferry at 8:30am were YIKES! Straight into a fast moving, rush hour, lane changing nightmare. Christchurch is based on a grid system, so you can never go too far wrong, or go too far without hitting an intersection, so things go at a fairly sedate pace. However driving round Welly, is more like the warfare of Lestar's one way system in the rush hour. But, after a few hours aimlessy cruising around, i managed to acquire a working Altern8or, get my boot to shut again, book into the Maple Lodge and have a few hours kip :o)
Wandering round Welly tonight has confirmed my earlier impressions. It's a far "cooler" place than Christchurch, the difference is bascially the same as between Lestar and London Village. There just seems to be loads more going on here, with groovy looking people, places, buildings and things round every corner. Even the the internet cafe, or "Fragatorium" i'm sat in is too trendy for it's own good, a darkened loft with bland, pumping trance for all the spotty gimps playing Operation Flashpoint (Sorry Dan & Hamish if you're reading :op ).
And, as it's so trendy, i've no doubt it's got an extremely trendy charge per hour too, so i'll bugger off for now. Am off to Tongariro (See below) tomorrow to meet up with Jo & Alex, and check out some passing Volcanoes :oD
7:58 am Sunday, April 21, 2002
Ooh! I've decided to take a rather radical step for a traveller, and actually - go travelling!
Specifically, to the far flung North Island of NZ, which i've so far avoided as there's been more than enough mountains down here to keep me happy. But, as work is running short at the moment, now seems like an ideal time to disappear for a few weeks, not to mention the opportunity to meet up with my sister Dave for a few hours between landing in Auckland, and flying out to Fiji.
Oh, and there's a few things like this lying around.
5:30 am Thursday, April 18, 2002
Hmmmm, i've just had to pop into work to sort out an mini problem with one of my apps, so i've got the chance to let you know about my Cricket performance tonight, which sadly broke new boundaries for crapness (The only boundary i was anywhere near to all night)
My bowling figures were: 2 overs, going for 17 runs off each, with each over consisting of 5 wides (2 runs each) and one ball on target in each over, which went for 7 runs both times. It's not easy to get hit for 7 off one ball (twice), but i managed it. However it was my batting that really let me down, scoring believe it or not, a sub-duck of -15, in a partnership of -9 with the plucky Grant who did his best to help me, but numerous run outs (-5 runs each) were my downfall. Also the fact that the other team were, rather rudely, bowling really quite fast. Michael, analysing the first ball i faced, said that i had, "swung at it after it had hit the netting behind you".
It was pretty good fun, but i can't help but feel England's & Leicester City's (I wore my LCFC shirt) reputation abroad would have suffered less if i had hung around here and written an in depth review of AI instead.....
1:16 pm
Ooh! I was about to write an in depth review of AI - Artificial Intelligence which i watched last night with Michael and Greg "Snake" Chalmers, and thought was wonderful film.
However i've just been invited to defend England's honour in a game of indoor Cricket, so there's no time for waffling on about the dreamlike pace and visuals, the excellent performances of Haley Joel Osment & Jude Law, the fascinating vision of the future displayed and the essential humanity of a film based on robots, as i've got to go and cane some Kiwi's, and hopefully and Aussie, if Michael comes along, at Cricket - HOOOOOWWWWZZEEEEEEEE!
6:23 am
So no-one gets too excited, and i don't have to do too much typing in one go, my rollicking account of the Heaphy track is now going to be serialised in two parts. This first part appearing today is entitled "We walked a long way". The exciting conclusion, to be published 'later' is called, "And then we walked a bit further".
Enjoy the hot rambling action........
Day One
Before even starting the Heaphy track we had a couple of days of getting to, and messing about in the Nelson area. I won't bore you with the details, but they included 8 hour drives, top organic tucker in a Murchison cafe, a night spent in a rickety caravan in a hippy retreat (Pit toilets & Buddha shrines a go-go!) and one and half hours in Takaka Tourist information, spent booking endless buses to and from the track, with a lovely if rather doddery old lady called Colleen.
The first day of the track started off in Nelson itself, catching the bus at 7am (nngh!). We reached the track at around midday, after driving through 4 reasonably deep rivers, and crossing a bridge that was rickety enough to require all us passengers to get out of the bus first and walk across, as it couldn't take the weight of the bus and us at the same time!
The actual walk for the day was fairly uneventful, apart from meeting some of our fellow trampers. Firstly a sweet looking, old, English lady, who in fact turned out to be the biggest moaner in the entire world. I don't recall her saying a positive thing about anyone or anything for the entire time we were with her. There were also more kiwi's present than on the other famous walks i've done, including one tough looking Mum, with three kids, who despite being surprisingly boisterous after a 16k walk, were completely un-irritating and hardly moaned about anything at all. I dread to think what I would have been like at their age, "Mum, I'm KNACKERED! I wanna go 'ome and watch telly! Not carry on walking for another 3 days WahWahWah!!!!".
At lunchtime Alex and Jo stopped to knock up a tasty looking little feast, consisting of all sorts of fresh food, wheras i picked out a couple of muesli bars, from the dozens i brought along. They may not be the most inspiring of foodstuffs, but while yomping around NZ, i've discovered that you can happily keep going all day long on Muesli bars alone. This removes the need to try to find a shop that sells veggie pasties/sarnies, to make your own food, or to carry around lots of heavy, squashable ingredients for 4 days. So the fact that my rucksack was twice as heavy as theirs seemed slightly unfair.
The climb to the Perry Saddle Hut was 910 metres, but was so gradual that it hardly felt as if you were climbing at any point, it just seemed to drag on all day. As usual on tramps, the first sight of the hut was very welcome, and although busy, was quite cosy. There's not that much to do in huts of an evening, so after you've had dinner, met your fellow hutters for the evening and done some star gazing (Which is amazing down here due to the almost complete absence of cities) you normally go to bed fairly early (at 8pm!). It would have been even earlier, but i was attempting to befriend two kiwi blokes who'd had the "sense" to bring a bottle of Jamesons with them, but my staring at the bottle and drooling gave my game away slightly, and i went to bed whiskeyless :o(
Day 2
The one drawback of the Heaphy, and most big Kiwi tramps, is that they avoid the summits of perfectly good mountains they pass by. So, unlike everyone else in the hut, i decided to start the longest section of the walk (27k's) by nipping up to the summit of Mount Perry, a few 100 metres above the hut. From the summit i had great views along the track in both directions, and spent a good half hour on the top enjoying them, the sunshine, as well as mulling life over in general, and as usual not really coming to any conclusions. By the time i had got back down, and had a chat to the Hut warden i was miles behind everyone, so spent the day walking on my own. Fairly enjoyable for a while, but after 27k's of it i was glad to catch up with Alex & Jo and the rest of the trampers at the Mackay hut for a bit of socialising.
Oh, did i mention the the weather was gorgeous all day, and the track wound it's way over the Gouland downs between lots of hills covered in rusty brown, tussocky grass, crossed lots of crystal clear rivers, the intricate songs of rare NZ birds filled the air, and the day ended with a really mellow orangey sunset over the Tasman sea? I didn't? Well it did.
My photos from the walk are here, and someone else's photos are here, including a pic from the Perry Saddle Hut kitchen, ooh!
4:46 am Monday, April 15, 2002
I think i may have broken a world record at the weekend, for the longest distance cycled after getting smashed on a Friday night, 170k's after approximately 7pints in fact.
I didn't quite manage to complete the Le Race course. Due to my typically late start it was getting dark as i neared the last mountainous section, and i didn't really fancy tackling it in the pitch black, with a lo-powered, yellow disco strobe for a front light and steamed up glasses. So i took the 'main road' into Akaroa, which still had plenty of hills on it, giving me numerous opportunities to do some star-gazing while waiting for the strange thumping and wheezing noises in my chest to stop.
The ride back was taken at a more leisurely pace, with a short stop for a sunny snooze under a tree, at the top of the hill leading out of Akaroa harbour, and also taking a route that avoided the now horrendous looking Port Hills i'd ridden over without any problems 24hours earlier. See Map below for route details.....
Other news at the weekend - Jo has bought a house! Fairly unusual behaviour for a backpacker, but she did admit once to "dabbling in the markets", so i'd imagine she's got pots of cash stashed away in some dodgy, offshore thingumy. Apparently it's a great place, and to be honest, if i had the available lolly, i'd think about doing the same myself.
9:12 am Friday, April 12, 2002
Joy! - Heaphy photos online...
Click here to have a nose. Still haven't had time or energy to write anything about the walk itself due to working till 10pm or later most nights this week :o(
I would do something now, but it's starting to get dark, and i'm off out for a quick bez on the trusty Scott Tampico instead. I need to do a bit of training for the weekend anyway, as Keith and I may be riding out to Akaroa and back (100k's each way :os) to make up for missing 'Le Race'.
Although the whole thing is in jeopardy, as i'm going out for some farewell drinks with Michelle and the posse tonight. She's off back to Dunedin after studying in Christchurch, and staying at the Excelsior for the last few months. And i'm predicting the last thing i'll want to do tomorrow is ride 100k's over lots of big hills.
6:36 am Wednesday, April 10, 2002 Exciting new web opportunity: join forces with 'T' to enhance most websites. (Sadly doesn't work on blogspot sites, but does work very nicely on Planet Bobnoxious!)
2:42 am Tuesday, April 09, 2002
Despite knowing that you were all desperately waiting for an account of my latest rambling exploits, i callously went and got drunk instead of writing up the Heaphy adventure :o(
But, fear not, i did go to get all my photos from the trip back today, and if i say so myself, there's a few good'uns in there. So here's three tasters to keep you going till i sort it all out properly....
Alex on the summit of Avalanche Peak, displaying his superb "Shaktimaan" t-shirt (India's very own super hero)
Me and the mighty staff of 'Shambala' on Farewell spit (Looking rather bald too)
Ahhhh... The sunset from the Heaphy Hut, on the last night of the walk
Had a great time with Alex and Jo last week, tramping all over the place and staying in 'Shambala'. When i get home tonight i'll write a full-ish report, there's also 5 films worth of pics being developed as we speak, so you'll all get to see those soon too :oD
I would do it now but i've just had a fairly crappy day, involving spend huge amounts of money to get my car through the WOF (MOT). For instance the whole windscreen has had to be replaced because of one, tiny unfixable chip, and some highly dangerous cracks in my rear indicators have had to be remoulded at great expense. GAH! Though at least my tyres have a comfortable 1mm's worth of tread left before they become illegal! So that's saved me a few 100 dollars for the moment, unless i career off a mountain road at high speed in the near future, in which case they may well cost me a small fortune in body work, both to me and the car :os
