Best bits so far

So we are almost halfway through now and as we sit in Sherbert waiting for the rain to stop we are pondering the best bits so far - here we go.....

Best ice cream - despite NZs fab efforts Martyn declares the triple scoop waffle cone that took an hour to eat from San Pedro dr Atacama is the winner!
Best little bit of paradise - The Woolshed
Best walking day - day 3 QCT
Best car - for Kay = Sherbert for Martyn = Jalopy
Best lunch - Christmas dinner in Punta Arenas
Best camping experience - thunderstorm night on way to Everglades (although didn't sleep much and toilets were awful!)
Best campervan experience - cyclone night and being the only people in the campsite
Best driving experience - the 'hold on' moment at 90mile beach (although we weren't driving)

Martyn says that is enough for now - rain stopped so we have to go find/make some more!

Would you like ice with that?

Please help - I have run out if adjectives for all the things we keep doing! This morning was stupendous (that's my last one so you will have to insert your own now. When I get internet I shall research some more to use later!)

Awoke to the cloud rolling down the valley which was 'insert adjective' but did make us wonder if we would see anything on out kayaking trip but off we went anyway!

We passed the little 'prove your paddling capability test' which surprised me being as we were out of the water and when the guy said 'now pretend to turn left' I had to turn to Martyn and ask him how to do that. This was very weird as when on the water you kind of do it instinctively but you do feel like a bit of a muppet waving these paddles around on dry land. Didnt feel so bad when everyone else made equivalent errors though.

So having passed but still feeling slightly nervous about abilities we loaded into the truck and went to the lake. A 15min (insert adjective) walk got us to the lake where we donned life jackets and tutus ( sorry, spray decks) and after a safety briefing that mentioned Titanic just once too often for me onto the water we went.

Our guide was Charlie Hobbs owner of the Old Mountaineers Cafe, kayaker and mountain guide. He had just got back from helping out in Christchurch and was amazed by all the huge icebergs that had been knocked down off the glacier by the earthquake. Not surprisingly I was somewhat more hesitant in my appreciation, especially when he picked one and started trying to knock bits off it to make it turn over. This is I'm sure a spectacular sight but after the safety briefing and all the instructions about what to do if an iceberg turned I was a bit busy remembering all I was supposed to do to truly appreciate the moment!

Anyway, genuinely 'insert adjective' with the icebergs peeping out from the morning mist and then blue sky and bright White ice. Saw Mt Cook from the other side and also Mt Tasman. also saw grey dirty icebergs and bright blue ones.

Tootled back to cafe and experienced lunch accident - menu was much nicer than planned crackers and hummus left overs so stuffed ourselves whilst reviewing photos with Charlie who thought some of them were so good he gave us his card so we could email them to him!

Strangely after lunch we were a bit sleepy so we sat and admired the view for a while and pondered what to do next. Decided against the planetarium and 3D movies at the posh Hermitage hotel (where we went for two glasses of water and a lemonade last night). Can't understand why in such an (insert adjective) place they would have these (although planetarium visit before stargazing last night was brill),

Thought about going for a walk in a vague attempt to work off lunch. Found a good 3-4h return which would have been pushing it but also a two hr rtn just right. Went to DOC for instructions/map but got side tracked by the old mountaineering exhibitions. Also found the memories books for all the people who have died on the mountains. These were all experienced people who did everything right. Having read about someone who died on our nice easy little two hour return we decided we had probably pushed our luck by not experiencing Titanic this morning so chickened out of the walk and just admired the view some more.

Later we tootled off to Omarama and had crackers for tea and an early night - after a nice older gentleman walked into our cabin by accident - his was right next door!

I feel very small

Wow - ten past midnight and still awake - we've just been stargazing with a Sherpa!

At 21.30 our stargazing trip started with the best planetarium show ever (just a snapshot of what we hope to see more of tomorrow) to get us used to what we would hopefully see. Then a bus journey out to the runway of the Mt Cook airstrip.

Southern Cross, Orion and his dog, Pointers, Large and Small Magellanic Cluster galaxies, globular clusters, the jewellery box, a nebula which is actually one of the 'stars' of Orion, shooting stars, a satellite, and the Milky Way like I've never seen it before.

wow wow wow wow wow - made us feel very small!

And our driver on the way there was a Sherpa who has been to the top of Everest, got stuck on Mt Cook and survived 3 days and was friends with Edmund Hillary. We opted for keeping quiet about our 'trial' climbing weekend in Wales!

Gotta go - Martyn has actually set an alarm for tomorrow morning! Check out is at 10am.....but oh dear we have to be doing next activity at 09.30........night night

apple n cheese

or cheese n apple?

if you have read previous blogs you will remember the debate we were having.

Today at dinner it got worse.

Crackers, pate, hummus, cucumber, red pepper and cheese. Very nice. But what order do you have them in? I didn't think it mattered but Martyn is as specific with this as he is with cheese and then apple (which if you ask me is just wrong but obviously I'm not telling him that). Apparently you have to have cracker, pate, cucumber and then cheese on top. He wasn't even prepared to try any other order. Supposedly anything else is 'just wrong'.

I didn't like to mention that he had a different order if it was hummus as sometimes he didn't have a cracker at all!

and then we had apples for pudding. Martyn got very stressed when I asked him if he would like cheese with his......can't think why :)

Baaaaaaannnnndddwidth

Finally, somewhere that has some decent internet. We've uploaded some more photos to Flickr, and this cool little video of the Dolphins we saw off the coast of Kaikoura.  Enjoy, then snigger at the fact that it cost me a fiver to post this. 8-/

Now we're Cookin' it

We are at Mount Cook but unfortunately our blog camera photos of it don't do it justice so the picky today is on the way here and we will post more photos soon - in fact we have left the laptop attempting to upload some more but given Martyns earlier cursing it may not happen!

So what has happened so far today? We woke to cloudy grey skies and a chill in the air but set off with our usual high hopes for the weather - we kept telling ourselves that in the hills and mountains the weather changes rapidly and do you know having driven for 50km ish and stopped at Lake Tekapo to view lake (what a surprise), church and statue of collie dog the sun came out. Just in time for our horse trek.

Beautiful ride around the base of Mt John. Martyn rode Chief and I had Fergus who had feet so big he occasionally got in a muddle with them bless him! Still that was much better than the digestive issues Chief seemed to have. Martyn and I could not stop laughing. Every time we went up a hill Chief emitted a certain booster. Sensibly Fergus decided to keep his distance for which I will remain eternally grateful!

Before the horse trek we had a bit of time so we went up to the Mt John observatory to look at the telescopes. Unfortunately the berry muffin and banana smoothie caught our attention before the sign for the guided tour but never mind they were yummy and there were pictures of the telescopes on the leaflet!

Then we drove to Mt Cook and we are currently sat at a look out watching the sun set. It's a hard life.

Hello sherbert

Got up and left our nice cabin in Kaikoura and headed off to Christchurch in search of new car (well replacement car - it's definitely not new!). Managed to fill up with petrol before we left as the petrol station up the road had a delivery over night and we got there before people had realised! Filled every container we had with water and packed the three days worth of shopping we did last night into carrier bags and set off.

Car swap fine in car hire places that were out near airport and had text from Martyns parents saying they were having breakfast in Brisbane so their plane must have left alright!

Got into replacement vehicle - the 4WD we had booked and planned to call Lucy (not very inspired as we hired it from Jucy) Immediately had to rename him (definitely a he so Lucy just wouldn't work) he smelt of those Refresher sweets / sherbet . Hence the name.

Officially he is called Sherbert. This is shortened affectionately to Sherby or, when struggling to get up the odd hill he is known as Herbert the sherbert! He must be a good little truck as we've only had him a day and I'm very attached to him! We hope Jalopy is okay and today we also wondered what Vinny is up to now as we saw one of his younger brothers yesterday.

Anyway, due to the situation in Christchurch Sherbert was given to us with just over half a tank of fuel and a very muddy bum (boot) but we loved him anyway and filled him up at the first station without a 15 min queue for fuel! We've left his muddy bum as it makes us look like really well travelled 4WDrivers!

Made it as far as Fairlie where we found a campsite that wanted a ridiculous amount of money for their last available cabin (oh, sorry - apartment as the receptionist was determined to tell us-like that made any difference) so decided to break out tent again - we must be missing home or something as it's less than ten degrees here!

We've decided to use the days we should have been in Christchurch to head up to the Mt Cook region which we were going to have to miss out and not surprisingly as we went up to the mountains and read about the stunning views the cloud came down and the rain started - typical.

Still, tent pitched in the dry and it's not raining yet, keep it to yourselves but it might actually be brightening up which would be great for all the cool things we've planned for the next few days!

Oh and touch wood - we are officially declaring the rash gone (fingers crossed it stays that way!)

Boat mechanic Kay

Walked to seal colony this morning. On the way tried to book kayaking trip but they were closed and then found Albatross Encounter trip so signed up for that instead. Thought we had plenty of time to walk from there to seals, back to campsite for sea sickness tablet and back to office for albatross trip. Spent a bit too long viewing NZ fur seals (what a surprise) so had a bit of a route march back to campsite - ran out of time and had to take car back down to trip office - oooopsie!

Still at least we managed to get sea sickness tablet so sea was of course only just above mill pond level. Although one poor bloke who didn't take tablet was ill!

Despite that we had fantastic trip, they gave us list of things we saw which I shall now type in as I shall lose the list!
Dusky dolphin, NZ fur seal, blue penguin, wandering albatross, antipodean albatross, royal albatross, gannet, black backed/black billed/red billed gulls, White/black fronted tern, pied/spotted/little shags, arctic skua, bullers/flesh footed shearwaters and giant northern/westland/White chinned/snares cape petrel oh and new Zealand White capped and salvins albatross.

Wow it was amazing!

And then the boat got caught up in some seaweed and because the very nice American tourists kindly said to the skipper that they would leave him to it I was leaning over the side trying to untangle us! To no avail and the skipper had to wrestle open the engine hold undo some bolts and clear the jets from the inside with a very large knife. Martyn was then holding up the lid to the hold so I could clear the kelp off the side! Hands still stink of seaweed but it was a cool little bit of added excitement and Martyn enjoyed seeing the engine almost as much as when the boat shot up the ramp out the sea onto the trailer and the tractor towed us straight up out the water!

P.s Kay has just discovered a large insect bite on her bum

Train

Forgot to mention we have named our new car 'Jalopy' as it is a bit of one. Also, because we were supposed to be in a train we made train noises all the way down as we drove. We were not quite sure what type of train we would have been on so we alternated between steam train and diesel locomotive noises! (mainly the difference is in the whistle/horn and the wheels on the tracks - for those of you not in the know a steam train goes chuggity chug chuggity chug wooo ooo wooo and a diesel train goes clakety clak hhaaarrrhhhnnnkkkk hhaarrrrhhhnnnkk.) Martyn is much better at diesel whilst my steam train whistle is now very impressive!

What to do?

So, we were supposed to get the train from Picton to Kaikoura today and then in two days get the train from Kaikoura to Christchurch.

Not surprisingly we felt that heading towards Christchurch was probably not the best of moves at present so what to do?

We texted Isabel and Barrie who do not yet know how their coach tour is going to end being as they were due to fly out of Christchurch. We contacted our car rental company who said there would be a car for us in Christchurch (near the airport which the roads are all clear to and nowhere near CBD). What to do we pondered again....

Eventually we opted for getting slightly closer to Christchurch in case we needed to extricate Barrie and Isabel somehow, but we thought we would stay far enough away that we could choose to carry on our tour down the west coast instead of east coast if necessary. So how to get on the move again? No train and no bus either, ferry arrived and all people due to pick up cars descended on the info office as their car rental companies were unable to get their car for them.

Eventually we found this little local car hire company who had a car that they needed to get to Christchurch. They waived the one way hire fee and only charged us two out of three days so we have a bit of time to get there and we set off.

Arrived in Kaikoura at 3pm ish having followed the army trucks, porta-loos and mobile surgical units down the road. Fortunately filled car up with petrol in Blenheim as the queue for gas in Kaikoura was really long and the police were in the petrol station.... Were told later that there Is no fuel in Christchurch and everyone just left, made it here and then ran out of fuel. Fortunately as well we had managed to book somewhere to stay - most places full now.

Bought dinner but only later realised not in backpackers now so no cooking utensils or pots or plates. Also no tin opener. Realised we may have an issue with our extended camping plan! What to do ?

Martyn managed to borrow a tin opener (my hero) so tonight was microwaved tinned spaghetti in a bowl with toast on top. Wow what a culinary masterpiece! Checked can of soup bought for tomorrow - it has a ring pull, phew!

It was however a good travelling day as it was grey and rainy but if it's nice tomorrow we might go kayaking with NZ fur seals - and albatross spotting!!!!

18 rated - adults only

Martyn has a bite. It's a somewhat unfortunate shape now it's blossomed. Rotate picky 90 degrees anticlockwise and have a good laugh.

Would type more and take better piccy but were laughing too much!

Most important update

Can't believe I forgot to let you know.

Martyn was reunited with his missing trousers today.

He is very happy.

It's quite sweet really.

Back to Picton

Bit of a depressing day really ...... Well, in the grander scheme of things not so bad for us just lots of bad news about Christchurch combined with that generally 'feeling very lucky not to have been there but completely useless as can't help at all' thing.

Woke up to rain - bit much really, rain, I mean honestly, we haven't seen any of that for a few weeks now!

Read our books and chatted to the other guests in our backpackers for a bit then went out for a walk. Got quite wet but never mind.

Chatted to Tanya and Shane the lovely owners of our lovely backpackers for a bit. They are off to Borneo soon so we gave them that blog address etc - they wanted to know if we could house sit for them. Can't tell you how tempted we were.........

Had left overs lunch - jam sandwich, cold pasta, red pepper, cucumber and a tin of chicken in lite mayo. Sounds grim but consider the jam sandwich as pudding and then make the rest into pasta salad and it wasn't too bad.

Wandered down to water taxi just in time to hear of earthquake in Christchurch.

Remember those lovely photos we posted of the views on our walk? Today's picture is the view from the water taxi so you can see what the weather is like!

Back to backpackers in Picton via supermarket for dinner and lunch tomorrow and then laundry, photo downloading, finding somewhere to stay in kaikoura and generally trying to work out what to do next in our trip.

We stayed downstairs chatting with guests and watching the news until it all got a bit too depressing about Christchurch.

Hopefully better weather and a cheerier outlook tomorrow. It is good to have 'housework days' every now and again though!

Oh and just so you know - I am organised as ever, food in fridge and cupboard in kitchen and have just turned to bedside table to switch off light and for some reason there is a 400g packet of sultanas along with a insect bite zapper and my glasses there(and yes I have just put my glasses on to check it is a packet of sultanas) really must remember to eat them soon!

Earthquake

Nasty Earthquake at Christchurch earlier today, poor people. Some hurt and some even lost their lives. We weren't aware it had happened as we are further north currently.

Guess what.....

I've just been swimming in the sea under the most beautiful stars with phosphorescent micro-organisms.

A perfect glow in the dark swim. Like the stars in the sky were floating all over me.

QCT day 4

Had a lie in....left at 9am and walked through the sculpture garden back over the land slips, pulled ourselves up the rope bypass and made it back to the track.

Martyn had declared himself still too full for cooked breakfast this morning - crikey!

Half way back to track he asked me if I'd packed his trousers for him. Apparently to be really helpful and remind me to do this for him he had wrapped them in his bedding. Strangely I had to say that I hadn't packed them. In the middle of nowhere he got phone signal, rang lodge and asked if housekeeping could put then in bag for water taxi to collect!

Very pleasant walk- sun out so quite hot bur lots of nice shady bits. Many mote beautiful views.

Made it to Anakiwa by 2.30pm perfect timing for ice cream!

Bags arrived on water taxi - no trousers. Oh dear. Ho hum. Hey ho and all that.

Showered, chatted with other guests and owners of backpackers for a bit and sat in hammocks reading books. This is the life. Then the odd biting thing arrived but it was too nice to go indoors so I sealed myself into my hammock. Martyn found this hilarious hence the photo!

Have finished track now 71km in 4 days very nice. Just chilling in lovely Anakiwa until 3.30 watertaxi tomorrow. Although owner of backpackers gives water skiing lessons...........

QCT day 2 - forgot to tell you

That the earth moved.....umm no it didn't

Finished walk and sat in lounge - Martyn ensconced himself on sofa while I checked our the earthquake emergency procedure - number one on list - don't panic! Right got that!

Two hours later the Walls move there is an almighty rumbling and the sofa shakes. 'earthquake?' Martyn says. I sit still and listen. 'nope' I say 'what?' he says .....

'it's going on too long and the cicadas are still making noise' I say feeling very clever!

'what can it be ' pondered Martyn.....

10 mins later the tumble drier in the laundry room next door finished!

Lamp shades

Martyn loves them - these are the lamp shades in the restaurant at Lochmara lodge where we are staying tonight. It is a very cool place with a wildlife centre and sculpture garden and all sorts of things that are going to delay us leaving on our walk tomorrow.

Martyn has discovered that the restaurant is doing cooked breakfast!

He says the lampshades are made out of old network cards that he said he could buy off eBay. What I said in reply to him thinking he needed to buy anything to make them is not typable but suffice it to say I think I emphasised that I was sure he already has enough stuff! He spent a good portion of our dinner staring up into one to work out how to make the light fitting. Apparently he needs a tin lid so when we get home can he have a big tin of baked beans on toast please?

Not too sure about this

Strangely we decided not to have our lunch here when trekking today!

QCT day three

Up early and walking by 0815 which is not that early by some of our trekking standards but without 9-15 school kids in tow it's nice to take it easy!

We left early as we weren't sure how long the walk today would take us. The DOC timings reckoned in the region of 9-10 hours so based on our previous two days we thought 7-8 still a long day and someone let slip that there was a killer hill at the end! We checked and height of killer hill was ummmmm 407m above sea level - Claire stop laughing!!!!!!

Anyway on we plodded along the ridge between Queen Charlotte Sound and Kenepuru Sound. Despite our concerns about the weather yesterday the sun came out and the views were stunning.

Up and down we went and then up and down and up and down some more. Stopped at Bay of Many Coves for snack and Black Rock campsite for lunch before we got to 'the killer hill'.
Now it may be less than half of Snowdon but what makes it a killer is that I swear it's 407m that if it were any steeper would require ropes! The gluteus maximus has worked hard today :)

On we tootled having reached the summit - woo hoo and just as we were starting to wonder where we were sleeping up popped a sign that said one hour to go. Perfect, glug of drink and a few dried apricots and no problem. Just for a bit of added excitement at the end there was a land slip to clamber over with a path so narrow Martyn told me to put the camera away and concentrate! And just a bit further on someone had needed to make a new path around a landslip. This one was so steep it came with a rope to help - dad you would not have wanted to see the other side - due to the requirement to hold on to the rope there are no photos of this bit so you'll have to take my word for it.

Fun though - oh and it was a dead end path so no other way out which means guess what - we have to do it all again tomorrow to get back up to the track and finish our walk- yahay!

Great day - just long enough to make legs ache pleasantly and feet tingle slightly. Oh and Martyn very happy - have bed with duvet and he's just had steak, potatoes, salad and two scoops of ice cream in the lodge restaurant for dinner - he says this is the kind of trekking he can get into (not that there is anything wrong with his wifes pasta and packet sauce of course!)

Day 1&2 Queen Charlotte Track

Early start - left backpacker at 0730. Dropped at ferry and caught water taxi to Ship Cove.

To be honest I remember very little about this bit as my drowsy antihistamines were living up to their description. All I could do was hope in that in my last remaining moments of consciousness last night I had managed to tell Martyn what we needed to pack for the trek!

Anyway Ship Cove is very pretty and there were some info boards to read which Martyn says were interesting.

And then we set off. Up. I do remember that bit.

But then we got to the first distance / time marker and discovered that we had done in 30 mins what the sign reckoned was a 1 hr walk. Martyn was pleased by this. I yawned.

I finally started to come round enough for Martyn to feel he was conversion with his wife again at around 11am - only 16 hrs after the one tablet if which I'm supposed to take three a day. Even Martyn has declared I can just be itchy!

Rest of walk very very pretty. 4.5 hrs after we left we arrived at the Woolshed our first nights sleeping point.

It was at this point we realise we had sleeping bag liners but no sleeping bags - darn those antihistamine! Found blanket that'll do!

It was wonderful. This little corrugated iron shack with a wooden planked building as outside toilet and shower. No other people there except Adrienne, the owner, who was in her own private lodging down the track a bit. We had freshly laid eggs and still warm raspberry and rhubarb muffins bought to us. Wow. It was fantastic. Nothing but the sound of the sea shore, the wind and the possum scrabbling on the deck.

Unfortunately for the possum there was also a possum trap on the tree by the deck so we said farewell to the very dead possum when Adrienne removed it this morning!

Typically for us when walking somewhere that the views are stunning the cloud has come down and I do not hold out much hope for staying dry during the ridge walk we have to do tomorrow.

After two hours walking today we made it to Punga Cove where they did have bedding but we had to pay extra for it. Never mind. Oh and there is a wedding here so our planned dinner in the restaurant is out - but we can have a BBQ for 20 quid a head (can you hear my voice going up two octaves!) A quick rifle through out food stash eeks our meals another day - self catering it is- lodge tomorrow night after big long slog walk day has a restaurant, honest Martyn!

We are currently sat reading books as we got here at 1130 and have worked out that we've done in 6hrs what the book and maps reckoned was 9 hrs. This is making us feel better about our long slog along the ridge tomorrow!

If tomorrow goes well we might finish the trek in time to have a day in Picton at the end. We'll see.

When we left there was a guy staying in our backpackers who had done this walk in two days - bonkers we're definitely not that mad, besides it's too pretty to go that quickly.

From north to south

So after excitement of visit to doctors yesterday I did the thing all not good patients do and ignored drs advice! Well that is not strictly true - due to ferry crossing of cook strait which guidebook says us 'notoriously rough' I opted for delaying the taking of my antihistamine which may have made me drowsy and sick feeling swapping it instead for travel sickness tablet.

Cook Strait was a mill pond!

Through the Malborough Sounds was beautiful - so I was very glad to be awake!

Took antihistamine at 7pm and at 8.15pm was being driven completely crazy by itching legs. Nurse Martyn was supplying cold wet towels and I gave up an popped some well known brand ibuprofen. Nurse Martyn researched side effects and drug compatability and discovered I may well have some interesting dreams! I was asleep by then though so too late 8) (mart: she didn't apparently, what a disappointment!)

We have however as you may have gathered, made it to the South Island and are currently doing the Queen Charlotte Track but there is no phone o wireless so you will have to catch up on all of this when we get back to civilisation!

Diagnosis ?!

So having worked our way around the invading ducks and after avoiding Doctor Diesel we made it to the hospital and followed the red line to the emergency department.

I always feel awful going to emergency dept for thing that do not involve broken bits or bits falling off but the other drs was closed and reception said this one would treat non residents.

Of course I wasn't an emergency so was at back of queue so 2.5 hrs later I got to see the dr - typically they came and called me just as I had nipped to the loo!

Triage nurse said it looked interesting and could be anything as there were thousands of rashes! Doctor said 'hmmmmm' and peered a lot. 'Legs look very different to arms...,.' 'well yes' I replied thinking that in quite a lot of ways there were similarities (5 finger and toes etc) by understating what dr meant all the same - the rash is quite different on arms and legs when you look closely. 'Hmmmmm' again - is there a correlation between the amount of hmmmms and bad news? 'well it's not infected' this was a great doctor - I'd waited three hrs for this! 'no but the ones on my leg are pus filled' I said - dr looked up with raised eyebrows 'I squeezed some to find out' I said - if I haven't grossed you out with that I think i did the dr! Hee hee.

In the end dr opted for allergic reaction. This was despite me answering no to all the questions relating to potential allergen exposure and based on a 5cm x 10cm strip of rash on the inside of my arm and nothing to do with the pus filled pimples on my legs!!!!!

Still, at least NZ has reciprocal healthcare agreement so it was all free!

Prescription = more antihistamine but stronger and they will make me sleepy. There may be no blogs for a while as the last time I took a dose of a "drowsines causing" antihistamine I was out cold for 24 hrs and I've got 30 of the blasted things to get through and some trekking to do and views to see. - perhaps Martyn can carry me?

Still at least we managed to get prescription - at one point they were not going to let us have it as their drs check had shown the dr didn't exist (that could explain a lot I thought) they found her eventually though !

So now we start the process of elimination - antihistamine will at least stop the itching and if it doesn't get rid of the rash I have to find another dr somewhere and try the next thing.

Ah well least I didt get an injection in my bum - bring on the sheep dip!

Had a bit of a domestic day after that, read a book, cleaned and washed Vinny etc.

If no blog for a bit don't panic - I'm just lying in an antihistamine induced coma somewhere - gotta go catch a boat now!

'rash-cam' pic below for your enjoyment, and perhaps diagnosis!

Mans Work

While enjoying the tramcar museum the other day, we snapped this gem from the original 1900's tram operators instruction book -

"Realise that running a tramcar is a man's job and needs thought, care and brain work."

Don't hold out much hope for me then!

Mart

Diesel doctor

Hahaha Martyn has just tried to use a certain map application on his certain fruity hand held app to find a doctor to go visit. I told him we should just go ask at reception......he agreed......when the gadget came back and said "diesel doctor"

Wellywood

Well I had no idea!

Bit of a Martyn day today as I found something in a leaflet that I thought he would enjoy. He enjoyed it very much - after a late start - we were not very organised - I kept asking if we had everything we needed in a bag to go in the car and repeatedly needed reminding that we gave the car back yesterday and didn't need to pack a bag as we were taking Vinny with us. And then there was the whole duck intimidation thing (see previous post)

Anyway, eventually we set off for Weta Cave. This is a little shop / museum set up by Weta the company that did lots of the special effects / animation etc for Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, King Kong and lots of others. Due to copyright they were not allowed to show too much but what you could see was very good and Martyn loved it - the people that started it up used to do everything in their flat / garage. Methinks I can see an attempted justification for a bigger study coming.... Their electric bill for one building is approximately 17000 GBP per week and they have 8 buildings. I think Martyn has a way to go yet but he's working on it!

After that we planned to pop to parliament (as you do), stopped for lunch in the Te Papa cafe as it was somewhere we knew we could park Vinny and then realised we had missed the tour and would have to wait an hour for the next one. Couldn't be bothered to do that so nipped out to the Dowse art gallery in Lower Hutt near campsite to see exhibition by artists who work / used to work or Weta so lots of sci fi imagery and sculpture etc.

Tried to get in to cinema by couldn't find a car park Vinny would fit in so headed back to campsite to put feet up.

Martyn declared I have to display my rash to a pharmacist tomorrow so I did done internet research and decided it looks most like the pictures of bacterial infection - searched around our med kits for antibiotics but decided can't take anti malarial as I'll run out! Thought about savlon but leg is deffo not septic so instead have smothered my leg in antibacterial hand gel and it does actually look a lot better (although this may well have more to do with it being elevated all afternoon than with the hand gel). Did think about the scientific approach of dividing my leg into test segments and trying out different things in each bit but then the usual Kay 'nnaaaahhhh' brain cell took over! Possibly a more informed update tomorrow as Martyn seems quite determined to sort me out (bit of a lost cause I think but hey!)

Quack attack

Help... We are surrounded! This was the view when we opened Vinny's door this morning. We have not once fed them but the duckies were lined up waiting!

Yesterday Martyn attempted to chase them whilst flapping his arms around. I think they must have bonded with him. Today Martyn has decided he does not want them here and is trying to make scary duck noises to make them go away. He just sounds like The Penguin from Batman.

But hurrah - despite 6am this morning requiring the addition of the duvet Barrie and Isabel are no longer using (yes it was beep cold) the sun is up and the shorts are on so we shall see if the rash is sun related or not...... That is if we ever get organised to go - have currently lost a shoe - found it ! Off we go then....

Has anyone lost an avocado?

Slightly delayed start today - Isabel assured me she was awake at 0630 and just closed her eyes for 10 min and then it was 0800. I think we must have done something wrong and they decided to leave us out in the cold and wet in our tent (not really but it did rain last night and I have had to wear jeans and jumper today so I would like a refund on my weather please as tan is fading rapidly)

Anyway, left to find craft shop in Petone which was ok but not great then dropped bags at Isabel and Barries hotel before returning car.

Wandered along Lambton Quay found somewhere for lunch and then headed up in cable car. Not great views due to cloud being down so went in cable car museum. Very interesting. Houses here have private cable cars as their only access. Mad but cool. Said I wanted one. Isabel said I could have one in our house - a stairlift. Not quite the same somehow.

Walked down through botanic garden back to city centre and parliament buildings. Back along Lambton Quay, dinner and then farewell to Isabel and Barrie who are off south on their tour tomorrow. We have another two days in Wellington before our crossing of the Cook Strait.

Off we popped on the bus back to the campsite only to get 10 mins in and have an avocado roll between Kays feet. We looked puzzledly at each other for a moment befre Martyn picked it up and in his best British accent uttered the immortal phrase 'ummmmmmmm, has anyone lost an avocado?' Judging from their expressions this is not an everyday encounter for the Kiwis on the bus but the man behind us was very pleased to get his avocado back!

Back in bed in campervan now. We've named him Vinny (the van) not sure why but I read somewhere you need to develop a relationship with and consequently name your camper. We agreed on Vinny tonight which is good as I was getting worried about returning a nameless van!

Te Papa

Full on full day at the museum. Did all of floors 2,3&4 which covered NZ natural history, geology and culture.

Had a quick pop up to floor 5 which was a photography exhibit - decided we have taken some that are just as good if not better so didn't bother with the rest of floor 5!

Giant squid was revoltingly fascinating, images showing decimation of forest and reduction in land held by Maori was depressing. Isabel was upset by the fact that the coconut tree she sent in to space as part of a simulation died. Kay enjoyed making a 'mash up' on the wall (still not quite sure what this us but apparently I did it). Pounama stone section very good, also got to see some flax weaving being done. Replayed our whole NZ journey so far on the giant floor map which if you stood on bits made photos show on the wall!

Martyn not sure what his favourite bit of the museum was but he did enjoy curry for dinner!

Art deco

No we haven't nipped back to Miami. We went to Napier which was completely destroyed in an earthquake in 1931 and then rebuilt in art deco style. Unlike Miami which was all big tall art deco buildings these were all only 1 or 2 stories high.

After short walking tour which followed some numbered information boards and was made a bit longer by missing out board 4 and having to go back and find it we set off.

Long driving day today straight down SH2 to Wellington. Tried desperately to find something to stop and do on the way down but apart from a car park for lunch with a musical toilet and an ice cream shop there wasnt really much.

So we just drove along a lovely flat valley up some large wiggy hills, into the rain/cloud, down some large wiggly hills, out of the rain/cloud and in to Wellington where we missed exit for campsite so had to resort to gps. Found campsite. Planned tomorrow - all day Te Papa museum!

Oh and lunch - found hummus in supermarket, had to have it - Martyns sister made it 8)

Rash update

It's spreading - now from ankle to hips and wrists to shoulders (as opposed to being around knees and elbows before)

Thought you'd like to know!

No pustules yet though so hold off on the sheep dip! (see previous entries if that makes no sense to you)

Fish n chips

Left Rotorua and tootled towards Taupo. Stopped at Orakei Korako to see a very pretty thermal area - best here, only about 8 other people there with us!

Nipped on down to Taupo for a picnic at Hula Falls but it was raining so we all sat cross legged on the bed in the camper van.

Tried to get in to the prawn farm but the last tour had gone (one of the few geothermally heated prawn farm in the world - sounds better than it probably was - fishing for your own prawn and seeing if you can hit a golf ball over the prawn bed wasn't really our yhing anyway!)

Decided in the interests of time to bypass Taupo and scooted down through more rain to Napier where it was time for washing, email and fish n chips - we compromised and ate them off the paper but with knives and forks!

Rotopua

Yes I have typed that in correctly - we have renamed it.

We went for a walk along the shore of lake Rotorua having got used to the occasional sulfurous whiff.

It was not a long walk and the whiffs were not sulfurous. An info board told us they are trying to clean up the lake and have managed to divert the effluent from the surrounding area to a new treatment plant but they are still battling run off from fields etc.

It smelt like they still have a long way to go!

Guess who part 4

The final part - did you get the three choices from yesterday right?

Today we went to Te Puia a Maori cultural experience. We saw traditional carving and weaving being done. There was a cool map showing all the theories as to where the Maori people came from. They are adamantly Polynesian but the currently accepted theory has them island hopping from south east Asia which when you look at the map does seem to make more logical sense.....

Looked out on the geyser for 45 ish minutes until Martyn uttered the dreaded phrase "mum I'm bored" and then went on little circular walk around the site.

Viewed historical village mock ups and a Marae.

Learnt a new Welsh word from passed on from Julie a friend of Isabel and Barrie. Apparently a microwave is a "poppityping" which even if a wind up is so great we shall be calling them that from now on - can our welsh contingent please confirm?

I digress so to get back on track we were lucky enough to catch a traditional Maori welcome also which was good.

The men cooked dinner which was even better - BBQ but then we had to clean BBQ which was not so good. Pudding was a Kiwano or horned melon as pictured above because we had not seen one before. Interesting was the general consensus. A bit like lemmony grapefruit passion fruit frogspawn. The only similarity to melon was the seeds as far as we could tell. K&M managed four teaspoons between them. Barrie ate half the fruit as he tried to decide what it was like!

We have decided each time we visit the supermarket we shall pick a fruit we haven't seen before and try it!

Oh and by the way - Kay is back to looking lovely again, bites and peeling just about gone so now she has a rash. Arms and legs only so far. It's great being here with a retired vet. Apparently she only need to worry if the spots become pustules! And even then all she'll need is a worming tablet and a sheep dip......

Guess who part three

Shhhh or they'll hear you.... Don't wake the babies.

We went to the hatchery and intensive care unit of the Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs wildlife park. Very very cool (she whispered) especially as we got to see two one day old chicks and also an older one being fed.

Off to cafe for cake before meandering around rest if park to see silver fern, Manuka trees, kea and loads of other native plants and animals.

Back to van for sandwich and the realisation that with our slice of cake for pud it had been a three cake but no ice cream day. We made ourselves feel better with the knowledge that whilst we had consumed three cake we had not had lunch!

And then after dark back to the kiwi encounter to make full use of our 24 hour pass. We spent about 45 minutes watching grown kiwi (that couldn't be released and are used as part of a breeding programme) fossicking around for their food. Wow. If we don't see any in the wild that will do nicely!

And some people had wondered if we could do three things in a day!

Phew sleep needed!

Guess who part two

Gently up we go and then two of us go 'weeeeeeee ooooooooh aaaaaaaarrrrrggghh wwwoooopppeere oh is that the end, nope back up we go for two more runs'

Yes it was the Skyride and Luge combo.

Gently up in ye gondola for pretty views over Lake Rotorua and then a practise in the scenic luge trail, back up on the chairlift and then down the advanced run twice. Kay has bruised bum from going airborne (not sure luge meant to do that but it was either speed up a bit or melt her luge by pulling the brakes on too much!)

Meander around at the top for a bit and then gently back down in the gondola again!

Guess who part 1

So today comes in three parts and you get to guess who chose which bit! You can choose from Martyn, Kay, Barrie and Isabel.

First up - Mamaku Blue. A lovely family run farm just north of Rotorua. It was quite a big farm with all the usual farmy stuff but then they diversified. They planted blueberries and gooseberries.

All was going great until cyclone bole blew all their crops down. Then a mate said they should make wine with all their fallen and unusable crop. An hours worth of hilarious stories about pantyhose, bathtubs, welding, colour sorting machines (the only thing they bought new) and wine school and we were well informed and some of us were slightly well imbibed (having already tasted the wine in the shop we moved on to the gooseberries soaked in alcohol and the fueijoa liquor) as well.

Valuable lesson in kiwi humour learnt:
Q: how do you get a blueberry cutting to grow well (serious question)
A: stick it in the ground

Back to cafe for giant stack of blueberry pancakes, a blueberry smoothie and two blueberry muffins!

So - who chose that then?

PS happy birthday Ian - think we've missed yours (sorry about that)

Happy birthday

To you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Nanny
Happy birthday to you

More on what we did today later as it's bed time now but I thought I should get that little message in quick! (hope I have the date right - lost track a bit)

No ice cream day

Wow it is possible to do without it. I'm sure the large cake we had didn't compensate at all!

After a stop at the supermarket we headed off to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach. Cathedral cove was closed due to a landslide and we realised we had our timing wrong as well - hot water at hot water beach is only accessible 2 hrs either side of low tide. We managed high tide - wooopsie. Still it was a good spot for cake!

Pootled on down to Whangamata for lunch and then headed in land via Khangarake (sp?) gorge to Paeroa home of the 'national' drink L&P. Thought we'd have to try it but cafe was closed - grrr. Never mind we had bought a bottle in supermarket anyway.

Martyn says it tastes like dilute Iron Bru. It looks like dilute something else and I did not like it!

On through Tirau and left to Rotorua where we set up camp and tried to decide what to do for the next few days but first off we had to decide how to decide what to do, option included:

1) each person picks one thing and the others can either join in or not
2) put all ideas in a hat and pull one out as we finish one
3) each write a list and do the 'common' ones

We decided 'couples negotiations' were allowed which basically means we ended up spending two hours reading all books and leaflets, listened to the boys suggestions and then ignored then completely - I'm joking, tomorrow we are actually doing Barrie and Martyn's suggestions but I'll leave you to work out who picked what when I tell you all about it !

There's gold in them thar hills

And we saw some of it today. We tootled into Thames for coffee and cake and then submitted to Martyn and Barries desire for lumping great machinery and went to see steam, electric and water powered gold panning machines including a trip down a mine shaft. Martyn is getting a bit worried that he's spent more time below ground than above!

Gutted that I wasn't around when one of the shafts of the mine was in operation - in 3 yrs the Caledonian shaft drew 300 million NZ dollars worth of gold! Not that you would catch me anywhere near any gold other than in the form of jewellery now I've seen what goes in to getting it - a bit of romantic swirling of a frying pan this was not. If the quartz dust and cave ins didn't get you the mercury, cyanide, lead and heat probably would have done to say nothing for the tiny little lift they squeezed 7-12 people in.

Lots of Cornish names in this town - we thought they bought their tin mining expertise over with them but apparently the mine owners shipped them in as they were short and stocky enough to fit in the tunnels - Martyn had crick in his neck!

Back to campsite for lunch and something better than gold for Isabel and barrie - their bags arrived - hurrah.

Drove to Coromandel Town with stops at pretty little beaches. Avoided land slips that were still being cleared including one LARGE one with a very precariously perched digger on top that was still slipping! Got up close and personal with a logging truck coming the other way down a very wiggly road. Martyn and Barrie were behind in car and couldn't see why brakes had gone on - when we stopped I was told I had instigated excellent avoidance measures - very proud (once stopped shaking! Stomping on brakes with your lovely mother in law in the passenger seat is not to be repeated too often!)

Paused for ice cream (we instructed parents they were to wean us off cake and ice cream - our powers must b greater than theirs as this is not going well so far!)

And on to Whitianga and camp for the night at Mercury Bay.

Wot no bags???

We had parked the van at the bottom of Hazel and Gavins driveway and when we awoke and opened the door Buster the dog greeted us with a hearty bark. He was fine once we reintroduced ourselves and h realises we were allowed to be emerging from the big white and orange alien spaceship at the end of his driveway!

Walked Buster to appease him a little. Had breakfast and went for a drive around Maratae (with ice cream shop) and picked up fish and chips for lunch - yummy.

Said sad farewell to Hazel and Gavin.

Said happy hello to Isabel and Barrie at airport. Unfortunately we didn't say hello to their bags which are having their own little holiday in Sydney. They are due to arrive tomorrow.

Introduced Barrie and Isabel to local supermarket for necessities (having given address if campsite to baggage people) and set off in convoy - rubber duck rubber duck! (not sure I've ever actually seen that film but anyway)

Slight circular tour of Auckland got us going due to an intersection the gps wanted not being in existence. Should have gone north to pick up the coast road 'decided' to go south and go the inland way so we went down and left instead of up a bit and right but th effect is the same - Barrie and Isabel ensconced in campervan for the night and we are in tent near Thames on the Coromandel peninsula.

Bags due to catch us up tomorrow.
We're thinking of setting Barrie and Isabel up with their own blog bagsnothere.blogspot.com !

Happy waitangi day by the way - not as much of an event as I'd expected - to the extent that unlike usual weekend holidays where they get an extra bank holiday on the Monday it's back to work. All a bit political really - to do with the two different interpretations of the treaty and some other stuff no doubt. Ah well, never mind, I'm off to dream about bags on holiday in Sydney !

Good friends

Happy waitangi weekend everyone - actually waitangi day is tomorrow but they had a market and multicultural event on the shores of Lake Taupo this morning so we popped in there for a bit and then headed back up north to Auckland.

Only went wrong once on the way to our friends house. Hazel and Gavin emigrated about 8 yrs ago and we've only seen then once in that time so it was great to catch up. You know you have good friends when you don't see each other for that time and after 30 mins you are hanging out the washing and nattering like you only met for coffee yesterday!

Got taken to see One Tree Hill and Mt Eden and Gavins school and a few other little bits.

It was really good to sit down at a proper table in a house with great company for great food (BBQ).

Two ice cream day.....ooops

Wake up, where are we again, oh yes, not in mountain hut with days walking ahead of us, instead in Taupo. What are we doing here? Not sure really but it was preferable to 90km/hr winds in Tongariro. We’ll try the crossing again later but in the mean time what shall we do?

 

In the end opt for getting up. This was a good start.

 

Found some information on Huka Falls and a walkway there from campsite (ish) also can extend walk up to a dam which opens to let water through at certain times. Pretty sure we can make it for one of those times and it sounds cool. Also see Kayaking advert and a bungee swing. Martyn vetoes the bungee swing but is happy to go for the rest of it! (Not sure I could do a bungee swing either much as though there is a part of me that quite likes the idea!)

 

Anyway, set off for walk to falls / dam. As usual get lost. After one hour we should have been at the waterfall. It took us two hours. In the end we worked out we had managed to pick up the mountain biking trail which went up and down a lot more than the nice flat river walk Martyn had been expecting. Ooops. Never mind. It was a lovely walk. As a consequence of getting lost we realized we would not make it to the dam in time for opening so head off to see what we can see in terms of Kayaking.

 

Bargain, its 12.15 and there is a Kayaking trip at 13.30 going to these Maori sculptures that Martyn quite wanted to see. After a quick trip to Honey Hive for a honey ice cream and a banana and honey smoothie (which Martyn informs me is a drink and so does not count on the ice cream front despite having a considerable amount of ice cream in it) its off Kayaking.

 

After an hours Kayaking we get there. Martyn very upset to learn that the sculptures are only 30 years old and had been done by 2 blokes on scaffolding as the water beneath them is only 3m deep. They do look very cool though and it was a lovely Kayak to get to them. It was much better once I got used to the huge 25cm swell there was at one point! I was much better in the white water with my inner tube…..

 

Stop for a break, drink and some yummy brownie and fruit cake and then back to Taupo to walk up to campsite. It was quite humid and we completely forgot about our previous ice cream so unfortunately/fortunately depending on how you look at it,  today was a completely accidental two ice cream day. We will have to have none tomorrow to balance out. We’ll have to be good and eat those apples we bought……am seriously considering what the consequences of moving to a totally ice cream diet would be. Nutritionally speaking as long as you included the odd fruit flavoured scoop it can’t be that bad right?????

The Man From DOC - he say NO

And it happened again! That great Martyn/Kay event that is a lovely view
that you really have to go and see.....and the cloud came down and the rain
started. You'll note the lovely 'white out' effect behind the sign in the
photo. Its not a clever effect. As usual with us, it's the weather!

So we left Waitomo and the caves which were great (especially being as it
was raining - Martyn says his book is very good by the way) and headed East
in the hope that the weather would pick up or at the very least we would pop
out above the cloud level. Silly us.

We had this plan to do the Tongariro Crossing which is an 8 - 10 hour hike
through beautiful alpine plateau with lakes and all sorts. We thought it
might be a bit of a rush in one day but hatched a plan to maybe get to the
first hut bunk overnight and then finish it the next day. Got to National
Park village and the DOC office where you should register and check that all
is okay for walk. Weather = rain and 70 - 90km/h winds for the next 3 days.
Big sign says shouldn't do crossing in winds above 60km/h. Well that and the
fact that it was a white out and we wouldn't have seen any of the views
anyway put us off. Thought about doing the whole thing in one day but the
weather system was due to stay around for 3 - 4 days. Great.

Managed two little walks around the National Park as we decided to head off
to Taupo to see if the weather was nicer there! We might try Tongariro again
in a week or so...

Weeeeeee kersplash

Woop woop weee splash cough spluttter ooh that's cold, will I actually fit through there- it's a good job Martyn is not here, oooof good job have hard hat. What is this "chocolate fish" sweet guide has given me to eat, only outside is chocolate, inside is marshmallow, ugh what a waste of chocolate and can I sue for trade descriptions?

There is nothing like squeezing into wet booties and wet suit, putting on little ankle boots, squeezing your bum into a suitably selected inner tube (without my glasses on I chose one with pretty orange bits on I thought they were polka dots - oooops they were patches, group was in fits at me!) jumping backwards into very cold river to practice (and get wetsuit even wetter and booties full of water) only to be told you have 15 min walk to cave.

Down small dark hole we go, eyes get used to dark so off we stomp. Three mins in wonder what on earth I'm doing as I sit in my inner tube and jump into a small amount of White water to end up down a tunnel where my head nearly touches the ceiling.

Jumped off waterfalls (which I'm sure were not as big as they seemed) which we had to jump off backwards (probably a good thing as I may have Bottled it if I could actually have seen where they wanted me to go!
Through a little squeeze and oooooh the glow worms.

Glow worm facts for today - they are actually maggots and not only do they eat their parents but the first to hatch also eats it's brother and sisters. The hungrier they are the brighter they glow. Oh, and just before they die they have sex for 48 hours and half the adult body weight is it's genitalia. Strangely the males then die of exhaustion. Apparently it's their poo that glows as well.

But as the guide pointed out "carnivorous, cannibalistic maggots that have lots of sex and shiny poo" doesn't sound quite the same as "glow worms" on the family friendly advertising! (guide didn't use the word "lots of sex" and "shiny poo" either but I'll leave you to imagine the actual phrases!)

Finish off with a gentle float through the "tunnel of love" which would be better named "tunnel of mild concussion" for those who did not see or manage to avoid the bulbous stalactite hanging down! For once I did not bash my head and so was able to fully appreciate gently gliding along back into the daylight.

Bruises ahoy

I wondered why Martyn was looking pale when he returned from the bathroom this morning. Maybe travellers tummy had struck. He was fine apart from a bit of mental trauma. apparently somebody in the gents was using a cubicle for the thing gents do in the cubicle. I didn't quite see the problem until Martyn informed me that the door to the cubicle was wide open. I didnt want to know anymore. Martyn did mention something about it being nice that the guy felt so at home in a campsite. I told him there is no way on earth he is ever feeling that at home even when we're at home.

So working on the theory that the day could only get better we set off - after telling a nice Swiss / German couple how to switch off the battery charger in their campervan so they could get some sleep.

We had determined to avoid all things Hobbity whilst out here but inadvertently we ended up driving past Weathertop (well the limestone rock formation where that bit was filmed anyway).

On to Nikau caves we went and as luck would have it we arrived just in time for the 10am tour which was us and an older couple. After a bit of negotiation it turned out they wanted to just go in and see the big bit of the cave so we ended up with just the two of us and the Swiss/German lady from previous campervan conversation as they had caught us up.

Having been caving once or twice before we thought to ask exactly what was involved. We were told definitely no squeezes and a 10m crawl on hands and knees which Martyn said was fine (he has ultimate veto on all subterranean activities as they are not really his thing). There was a stream involved as well. Judging from Swiss/German lady's attempts to hold up her 3/4 length trousers as we paddled into the stream she had not asked / been told what she was getting in to!

We must also remember to do a size comparison of Martyn and whoever we are asking about what is involved in a caving trip. with hindsight the bloke we asked was quite a lot smaller than Martyn so it probably wasn't a squeeze for him.

Suffice it to say it was a bit of a wiggle but we popped out the other end very soggy and a bit muddy having got up close and personal with glow worms (which just look like someone sneezed on the cave wall until you change the angle of your torch and see their little hanging sticky threads that look like pearl necklaces and then you turn your torch off and a delicate green milky way of shiny glow worm bottoms appears above your head)

Did you know the glow worm is the larva and it only eats about 4 times in 9 months before it pupates to form a bug with no mouth that then mates, lays 120 eggs and then gets stuck in the hanging mucus pearly drop wires of a larva which pulls it up and eats it.

The pretty little glow bugs don't seem so nice now do they?! But hey - Sabine, we've never seen so many bugs with torches in their butts! :)

Next stop Otorohanga Kiwi House just in case we don't see them in the wild. Think Beale Park but with native NZ birds and a nocturnal house so you are guaranteed to see Kiwi. They're bigger than I thought. also saw lots of other native birds.

After that we headed down to Waitomo for a slightly tackier glow worm experience but loads more
Glow worms on a leisurely boat trip through Waitomo cave so a bit more Martyns thing.

And then I glanced down at my knees. No knee pads on morning cave trip. bruises coming up nicely now.
Fortunately I have green shorts and blue shorts to choose from so I shall be able to coordinate my outfit with the shade of my bruises.

And there is a whole new me appearing from out beneath my peeling shoulders and back.

Peeling, bruises, mozzy bites, sea blown wind swept hair - gosh I'm looking great at the moment! Time limit allowed by campsite in shower tomorrow is 10 mins - luxury, last two nights were 5 and 7 but then not sure I'll bother as tomorrow morning I'm going to launch myself through a cave on an inner tube - woo hoo!!!!! (and Martyn is going to sit outside and read his book thankyou very much)

An early start

Of oh about 0830 which is quite good going for us.

Left Orewa beach on the east coast and headed back across to the west coast to view the gannet colony at Muriwai beach. Did you know that the parent of the young birds stay behind while the young head off to Australia on their own? Wow but somehow not as impressive as the eels I'll tell you about in a mo!

After viewing gannets and appreciating the smell (ugh) we drove down to Piha beach. Before we got there we stopped at a little DOC site for a 2nd circular walk we found to Kitekite falls. Beautiful 40m waterfall with a pool at bottom that you could swim in (but not us - no kit and we had seen the eels!).
The eel are long finned eel and are threatened or endangered (can't remember which) but they swim here from Tonga at some point in their lives (can't remember if it's to spawn or after spawning) anyway there were some in the shallows of the pool which quite honestly were more interesting than swimming in the pool! Then walked up other side of waterfall and back down to car park. Very nice.

Quick stop at the beach to see Lion rock and have a paddle. Waded across stream to get to beach - following the people in front, quite deep bottoms of shorts bit soggy bit going for paddle anyway so never mind - on way back saw bridge, doh, used bridge!

Then on to Port Waikato for the night and laundry (very important as was wearing last pair of clean pants) phew - campsite had laundry. Set washing off and went for walk, up to look out, down to sand dunes (got a bit lost here) back to campsite via kids playground which had giant air pillow and no digs saying "kids only" (not that that would had made a difference). bounced around for a bit, washing into tumble dryer, walk to beach but slightly miss time things and just miss the sunset - ah well the bouncing on the air pillow was worth it!