Kia Ora!

Weird. 2 hours 40 minutes to get to New Zealand? Last time it took me about 2 days to get here and about 5 days to recover. We are now 13 hours into the future and as far away from home as we can geographically get, thanks to a rather terrifying flight full of turbulence and a travelling companion doing his childbirth breathing. Auckland is known as the City of Sails and true, there are a few boats knocking around but it kind of pales into insignificance after Syders. In keeping with our passion for climbing up high things, we ventured to the top of the Sky Tower - something I was too lazy and/ or busy drinking to do last time I was here with Bruce, Lovdeep, Mandeep, Sarah & Paul 4 years ago. The Sky Tower looms over the city and is pretty scary because there are glass panels in the floor overlooking the street below!! We both had a go at walking across them, but it sort of makes you feel a bit ill. If you're a nutter you can do a bungy jump from the top. It's funny being back and seeing the same places, like the casino in Sky City where Lovdeep spilt his beer during a game of Blackjack all over the gambling table. There was a lot of fuss involving contacting the on-call cleaner with a mobile hair-dryer, thus holding up everybody's hard gambling for half an hour and thus ruining my Bond-girl moment.

Consisting of two main islands - North and South, NZ is a place of great geographical diversity, given its comparitively small area. The total land mass, including some of the smaller islands adds upto 270,534 sq km (the UK has 244,800 sq km) but is home to a measly 4,158,720 lucky people as opposed to 60,441,457! No more queing in Woolworths (Woolies is a supermarket in NZ & Oz, rather than a crap elderly-shoppers- only retail outley selling overpriced CDs and Pick 'n' Mix). There are mountains, frisky volcanic activity and a more pronounced Maori presence. By contrast, the south island has glaciers, more rain and more mountains. It's a country of unpredictable weather and to keep it green, one minute you're putting on the Factor 30, the next you're reaching for your fleece. So you can be on a beach in the morning and walking up a snowy mountain by the afternoon - NZ has it all. Except indigenous land animals that is. The only indigenous things here were birds, all others have been introduced from other places. Isn't that weird? Good news is that there are no poisonous snakes or spiders, very few great white sharks, scorpions or anything else nasty. There are a few big trees and the Kiwis seem to like their ferns. Little bit of background for you there.

Tomorrow we pick up our new camper van (this time from a company called Ezy - we learnt our lession). Same type of van, only it's furnished with a TV & DVD player, so things sounds promising. In the meantime, we're staying in a brand new backpacker place of indeterminite name somewhere downtown. There's not a lot to do in Auckland, if I'm totally honest, so we headed out to the cinema to watch Flags of our Fathers. The trailer looked awful, but I was talked into it. Anyway, it turned out to be a TRULY awful film, centred around a theme of a flag. There was a bit of debate about who put the first flag up, then there was confusion with a second flag and then there was a lot of war. Hideous.

Well, the new van is brilliant. It's all brand new and has lovely aubergine moleskin furnishings! They won't last five minutes with our crusty feet pawing at them, but it feels posh and that's important after 10 months of not-posh. Vix said to me the other day "Is every day of travelling brilliant?" I shall attempt to address this question by giving you a brief synopsis of our first week in Kiwi-land.

Our first stop was the Bay of Islands. I've seen photos of the place and it looked pretty special, except when we got there, it was very grey and rainy. It's quite an important place historically, as this is where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1838. This was basically an agreement between the Maori chiefs and the Queen of England about land ownership and rights. Trouble is, there was some discrepency at the time about what it really meant and the debate still lingers today. The Maori chiefs conceded their sovereignty to the Queen in exchange for her protection and the granting of the same citizenship rights and privileges to Maori people as English citizens. Basically, this meant that Maori could only sell their land to the Crown and then it would be sold on to other (mainly European) settlers for a fair price. Difficulties have emerged since this time regarding interpretations and translations of the Treaty. We decided not to hang around waiting for the seasons to catch up with themselves (it's supposed to be approaching summer) and drove down to a little-known place called Whangerei.

Whangerei brought us to Tutakaka which is the gateway to the famous Poor Knights dive sites. Dive booked, we headed out for a short walk as recommended by the campsite owner. This short jaunt turned into a 3 hour expedition involving getting lost by missing a fork in the road. There was nothing to see and we just ambled aimlessly around farmland. Though glad to eventually return to our van, we were a bit alarmed to find that the bloke camping next to us kept shooting at unseen things scampering around in the field. He then stuck them on the BBQ for supper (still unidentifiable). Doing our best to ignore Tony Martin, who really was doing too much chuntering to himself than is condsidered healthy in psychiatric terms, we had an early night.

The following morning we were greeted by rainclouds and drizzle. "I'm not diving in this!" The thought of it - water temperature 17 degrees and a 7mm wetsuit? Not me at all. The dive company had actually cancelled the trip anyway, so this was another day wasted. Eager to get on, we legged it South in the general direction of Raglan, a chilled out surfey kinda place (still contemplating that surfing lession). Weather terrible along the way, wipers going at full pelt, so thought that perhaps the beach was not the most favourable desination. Andy was quite keen to head to the Kiwi House in Otorohanga, which is billed by the Lonely Planet to be quite special. Though out-of-date by 4 years, we were too tight to buy a new edition and anyway, I've carried the thing around for 10 months (why, oh why?). Time was not on our side, so we were covering some quick miles to get to Otorohanga. Just before we reached the town however, we saw a car lying on its roof at the side of the road. Some young hoodie had just ploughed into one of the pylons, bringing it to the ground. Not fancying driving over live power lines, we had to take a massive detour in order to reach our planned destination.

There are a few of these Kiwi houses dotted about the country, caring for rescued Kiwis (birds that is, not locals or fruits). If you're ever in Otorohanga and feel the urge, go spend an hour in a public toilet instead - you will have a far more rewarding experience. We had half an hour before the Kiwi House closed - the hoover was already out in the foyer. We shelled out $30 in entrance fees as I was "desperate to do something today." Turns out there was one Brown Kiwi snuffling about in a 'moonlit scene,' which didn't allow flash photography. I know this is upsetting in an already rivetting blog entry, but our hands were tied. I wish they had of been and then I wouldn't have had access to my purse at 5:00pm that rainy Friday in Otorohanga. The rest of the (open air) park was full of ducks enjoying the rain and their dismal pens. The only glimmer of hope was contained in a bird like an owl called (not kidding), a Morepork. It is thus called because it's call sounds like it's saying "more pork," which someone close to me can identify with needing. Poor thing looked too depressed to speak, so I can neither confirm nor deny the reasons behind this bird's ridiculous name. Oh what a joy.

Undeterred, we read more and planned more and shelled out more money for bizarre experiences. If the weather was going to be stubborn, we would have to go underground to avoid it. Waitomo is famous for its glowworm caves. Wai means water and tomo means hole - very appropriate for a place dotted with dangerous shafts which drop unexpectedly through the lush green countryside into underground caverns and streams. They are mostly fenced off to prevent people and cows falling down them. Skeletons of the now-extinct Moa birds (a relation of the cassowary) have been found in some caves, along with the bones of many creatures who ended their days rather unenviably. Long- known by local Maori, the caves were shown to a European explorer in 1887, where tours have been running ever since. Tourism being what it is in NZ however, means that things have progressed from the gentle boat-ride through the caves. You can now abseil 100m into a canyon and squeeze yourself through tiny holes all in the name of fun. We've both read Aaron Ralston's "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" and were in no mood for getting into a situation necessitating self-amputation of limbs. Especially as I had my Swiss army knife confiscated at Auckland airport (they let me keep the bike chain, though how unfortunate all my weapons were stashed in the same festering compartment as my worn knickers - mortified, especially when she put gloves on for the procedure).

Aiming for an in-between level of excitement, we headed out in a truck with a couple of sour Germans and an affable Canadian who lacked any swimming ability. Dressed in wetsuits, gumboots and miners helmets whilst carrying rubber rings, we looked quite gorgeous against the surreal English countryside backdrop. Our guide, from Cave World, was a bit odd and insisted on taking many (mostly rubbish) photos to capture our Teletubbies moments. Before long, we happened upon our cave and descended through the ground. Immediately dark, we instantly saw our first small cluster of glowworms. We were told to listen very carefully to the noise of the water dripping from the stalagtites onto the stream below. It was at this point when the guide (the incongruously named Rodney) popped a balloon and nearly scared us to death. As soon as he did this though, the glowworms glowed even brighter which looked very pretty, but there was a lot of "Mein Gott!!" from one corner of the cave.

Glowworms are actually gnat larvae with luminescent organs (lucky things). They weave sticky threads which hang down from the cave ceilings and attract other insects with their lights. NZ and OZ (a remnant from when the two countries were joined together) are the only two places in the world where you can see them. Rodney said we were likely to feel eels wriggle past our legs in the water, encounter cave wetas and massive spiders. For most of the trip our headlights were to be switched off, so maybe this was a good thing. It was then time to start tubing! Sitting in our rubber rings, and reeling from the water temperature, we formed a line by securing the feet of the person behind us under our arms. We then let the river take us downstream in the most surreal ride ever. Straight away we were treated to a galaxy of glowworms above us. Another balloon explosion later and they were all shining like a million faraway stars. I did worry about the non-swimmer as the water was out of our depth, so I held onto his feet very tightly.

We became aware of a waterfall ahead of us which became more scary the louder it sounded. By the time we reached it, being first in line, I was told to jump off the waterfall, bottom first, ring in position. It was very weird and quite scary falling several metres into the darkness, not knowing how deep it was or where my ring would end up. A massive splash at the bottom meant I'd made it, and I sat with the eels until everyone else had done likewise. The second waterfall had a slide underneath it, but you had to lie back with your head in the rapids. Very weird and quite unlike those at Wet 'n' Wild.

Not being too good with small spaces (just to add to his list of made-up phobias), young Andy did very well. There were a couple of moments where you had to squeeze through a small space but nothing too bad. The final drift downstream towards the cave opening in our bizarre little train, someones wellies under my armpits, was made more atmospheric by Rodney's rendition of the NZ/Maori national anthem. We said goodbye to our glowworm friends and headed back to sea level for hot soup and showers. So no, every day of travelling is not always brilliant, but you know there is something wicked just round the corner. I think the NZ extreme activities have begun!





Currently listening to: Russel Brand Podcast.









Currently drinking : Oyster Bay Merlot