Travelling in a fried out Kombi

So I pottered around Auckland for a bit and got some good views from Mt Eden.

Then my parents Arrived. This started with a race around the New Zealand Maritime Museum, where we found the brigantine Aratapu, a cradle boat and the 1972 VIII that NZ got the gold in, that looked extremely old! W also discovered the good but loud restauranty bit of Ponsonby, extremely slowly as there was a lot of limping to get there...

The NEXT day we went and picked up our VW bus for the week! I had picked up at there was a surprise for me and was terrified that my siblings or someone had decided I ought to jump off a plane. I actually had a nightmare about this. So I was very relieved to fend our orange VW bus was the surprise! We looked very cool but, if you are thinking of hiring one, you should know that they are VERY loud and a little bit more exciting to drive than  a VW polo, say. Still, lots of Beach Boys and Men at Work.

Quite a small living space!

Overlooking Taupo

First stop was near Taupo (good view of a very beautiful, large lake) at Tongariro National Park. We did (despite hips, knees and steep assents) manage to do at least the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. I say at least because half of it was closed due to volcanic activity (lots of visible gas, steam etc) so we did the first bit and then turned around. This involves the steepest bit which is not good for going up or down! But it was exceptionally beautiful and, partly as a result of the Taupo hot springs we visited afterwards, none of us were very sore afterwards. Plus we accidentally left it until the last bus and had no option but to complete it in the six hours, which we did! Heroic.

 

 

 

This was followed by a day driving to Wellington via Napier, a rather nice town full of Art Deco. We have since found out that quite a few towns on the northern island have at least bits of Art Deco but it was quite a nice stop. Some spectacular views of the Pacific and a good port with vast amounts of timber to be shipped.

Napier

Wellington was predominantly rowing friends, which we did rather well out of. Firstly, we got a guided tour of 'Zealandia' and saw all sorts of native wildlife that, not only would we have been relying on a guide book for, but we probably wouldn't have noticed. New Zealand's native wildlife is nowhere near as obvious as Australia's. Zealandia is a wildlife park that has been made into an 'Island' that is bio secure so that native wildlife can survive and flourish. Then we had an exceptional lunch, a detailed introduction to Maori culture from me museum Te Papa and my parents were introduced to Vietnamese food (which was very much enjoyed!). To top it off it was a very beautiful day and we got to see the harbour at its best.

In Zealandia

Finally, the last stop in the van was to near Whanganui. Here we had a six hour canoe down the river. We saw some good gorges, pastoral land and got very good at rapids! In fact I feared we were being a bit arrogant but we had lots of time to spare at the end. THEN I realised how little I could move my arms and had dreams about being washed over a rapid in the VW bus. Somewhat stressful.

 

Now we're back further north and heading north again to our chartered boat. Fingers crossed that the string easterlies don't really materialise...

More posing with the Kombi

 

It's funny what people ask you to take pictures of....

Arrival in Middle Earth

I have now completed a very strange route into arriving in New Zealand, due to plan changes. Photos to be added when available!

Firstly, I flew into Christchurch, which I imagine is completely different to when most people have visited it previously. The entire CBD (city centre) is inaccessible and closed off. A lot of other buildings are visibly being rebuilt or are held together with scaffolding. It is eerily quiet to wander around and yet also filled with the sounds of building work. It's evident that there is a lot to not only rebuild, but also be knocked down first. It was quite moving to see.

Red Zone is right in the city centre

That's not to say it was without it's charm. There's a very pretty river that you can punt on and a really good museum. They had the exhibition that was on in London, 'Scott's Last Expedition'. I was very impressed by the food they brought with them, such as 450kg of Lyle's golden syrup, as well as a lot of Rudyard Kipling to read. They even put together a midwinter feast, with the menu written up on a cardboard penguin and after a good evening they were 'amiably argumentative'. It was also quite remarkable how much was being done in the face of the devastation from the earthquake; the art gallery was closed but they had a number of outside pieces around the city, they had some lovely markets and coffee shops that had relocated to stalls outside. It was surprisingly warm (warmer than Sydney at the time) so this was all rather nice. I stayed in the historical jail, which was a bit unusual and quite good fun. I wouldn't recommend walking though, I am very neatly packed so my back and shoulders didn't hurt, but I the chafing on my lower back from my rucksack is extremely painful and somewhat unsightly!

Slightly better than our diagrams of dolphins Phili?

I was only in Christchurch for about 22 hours before flying norht to Auckland, via Wellington for just long enough to work out that it's quite windy in Wellington. I have not generally heard many positive things about Auckland but it's a nice enough city. The location between two seas and with volcanoes all around it make for sore calves walking around but is quite attractive. There are lots of glimpses of good views as you move around. The city itself is relatively small but nice enough. The art gallery isn't brilliant but they had a good exhibition celebrating photography of rock stars - some really quite amazing photos from the last six decades or so. Similarly, I was lucky enough to catch the New Zealand Geographic photos of both 2011 and 2012 being exhibited at the museum - really made me want to get started exploring the rest of the country. Lots of parks too, the musuem is in the middle of the Domain and is also a war memorial. It is well placed with views of hills, water and a busy port!

I've also been fortunate enough to visit New Zealand's TF. They are right at the end of their institute. There was actually someone else visiting from Malaysia who I'd met there, doing my tour of summer institutes... It is only just starting and has an exceptionally small cohort, but then there are only 600 secondary school teachers being trained in the whole country, so it's quite a different context to the UK. What was most striking is the way that Maori language and culture is very much part of the organisation; we saw some singing and lots of talking in Maori just as part of their group meeting at the end of the day. I couldn't tell you what it meant but it was interesting to see! I think this is quite telling of how Maori culture is essential in New Zealand, not just in this organisation.

 

A few more days in Auckland, although hoping to see some more of what's just outside the city itself, before more of the North Island.

Sydney!

Unfortunately, this blog does not have any photos due to a technical problem. It also has a lot of writing, sorry.

I arrived in Sydney with Darren and Izzy and pretty much went straight to stay with Darren's very generous parents who live in the Blue Mountains. This was a definite added bonus, as the mountains are beautiful. We spent a day near Katoomba, which started virtually entirely in the mist, then with masses of people and finally very hot with nobody else but us with some spectacular views. We also included 'Scenic World', hence the people. This was kind of gimmicky, but it includes the steepest railway in the world which used to be the coal mine track and is really quite good fun! Lots of views of the Three Sisters and, to finish off our legs at the end of the day, an awful lot of steps...

Sydney itself is incredible. Just the nature of being based around the harbour makes it a really attractive and fun city. Izzy, I think, was just excited to be in a city outside of Perth and kept being thrilled by 'civilization', things such as shops being open late and cafes being open beyond 3pm. Lots of nice restaurants and, like any good Australian city I am learning, a good Botanical Garden (although I am afraid I actually preferred Perth's and Melbourne's ones..)

Our trip over to Manly was a good chance to see the harbour and get the classic bridge/opera house photo (I think we've ended up with a lot of these). Manly itself was FAR busier than any beach I have ever been on (and had more loud speaker announcements then any other beach I've been on as well) but quite good fun to see. Better than the beach itself was the Scenic Walk nearby, lots of stunning views along the coast and looking out to sea. Waves and sea breeze much appreciated anyway, given that Australia was about to break its national average temperature record.

I did make a visit to the Opera House; it is an amazing building, particularly when you go inside, but I was far more impressed with the Bridge. There's something mesmerising about it, I walked across it and admired the view from the Pylon Tower at one end. The masses of photos and paintings of it, particularly during construction, are good fun too. I was staying in the Rocks very close to the bridge, somewhere that is newly trendy with lots of little streets and older buildings (see later), and got very annoyed with the cruise ships of obscene proportions that blocked views of the bridge.

The Gallery of NSW had a  number of these bridge paintings. Izzy and I managed to spend almost a whole day here, although rather a lot of that time was spent in the cafe. I really like the nineteenth century Australian art where you can pick out how the landscape is so different to European landscape, and therefore paintings. The trees are particularly different. I visited S H Ervin Gallery as well, which had a rather more modern exhibition on which I enjoyed.

This second gallery is right by Observatory Hill, where Dawes made some observations of the skies but also wrote the most comprehensive record of the language spoken by aboriginals in that area, which is now unfortunately extinct. I had read Kate Grenville's book that is based on this man, so it was quite interesting to see. In fact, I then went to a stage adaption of her other more famous book, 'The Secret River', which was incredibly well done. It is a rather terrible story which is much more striking on stage. Lots of weeping but excellent all the same. There's a bit at the end where one aboriginal old man is left on his own and the main character goes to bring him food. He gets frustrated at the man who refuses to speak to him and shouts at him for being a bludger and relying on other people's generosity. Having seen the rest of the play, we don't really agree with him -not in the book but probably added to reflect/challenge some current sentiment.

I also had a bit of a history session visiting the Hyde Barracks Museum, Sydney Museum and then traveled out to Parramatta. This was actually more settled than Sydney originally as it was fertile enough to provide food for the colony. The two historic houses I visited, Hambledon Cottage (named after Hambledon, Hampshire!) and Elizabeth Farm were both interesting, but what was much more so was the approach to conservation. Based on the opinion of the tour guide there, The NSW National Trust has little sway compared to in the UK, and has to work quite hard to conserve buildings. In fact, she got quite upset by a building, Subiaco, built by MacArthur's nephew, that had been bulldozed in the 60s. At the same time, there was the 'Battle of the Rocks', where many of the older buildings near where I stayed were due to be demolished and were saved as a result of lots of protests. The lady I spoke to seemed to feel it was still a major problem, although there is now a Heritage Building law which helps.

Other than that, lots of swimming in saltwater swimming pools, some wandering around the city as well as more suburbs with some older buildings. Definitely lots to come back to!

Southern Western Corner of Australia

So, along with a lot of W.A., Izzy, Darren and I headed south where it is, supposedly, a bit cooler. Bill Bryson dubbed this bit 'the pleasant peninsula', which, much as I normally don't like to agree with him, is about right. It is full of gourmet food, wine, beaches, older towns, forests, caves and the odd lighthouse all of which we enjoyed. At another time of year there would have been a lot of whales, but you can't have it all!

Firstly, we spent four nights in Busselton which is all white beaches, nice views and the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere. Because of its shallow bay, it also has warmer waters and therefore quite tropical fish that you normally wouldn't expect (if you were in the know). Due to the high quantity of shipwrecks it's also good for diving, but we missed that. We enjoyed the underwater observation at the end of the jetty, as well as the shark netted place to swim in. Lots of suncream and swimming on this day!

Busselton Jetty

Busselton Underwater Observation

The end of Busselton Jetty

Busselton Underwater Observation

 All around Busselton, Margaret River and Augusta are a huge number of limeston caves. We didn't particularly feel up to exploring all of them, but we went into Jewel Cave, which is enormous. I was quite interested about the thylacine skeleton they found down there from an animal falling in the one tiny shaft hole that was the original access to the cave. There were also a couple of straw stalactites, really quite close to the longest in the world, but I can't quite remember the statistic. From there we went further south to Augusta, which is the most south westerly point in Australia. We saw the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean meet at complete flat calm and got some good views from the lighthouse. This was all followed by an immense meal courtesy of Megan and Edward (thank you very much) with scallops, seafood spring rolls, lamb and an awful lot of chocolate and hazelnut pudding. We rolled home from there and Izzy assures me it was worth the tummy ache she had that night! Very appropriate for the time of year anyway...

Jewel Cave

 

Stopping for a paddle and a swim, something we did every day, often more than once!

From the top of Augusta Lighthouse

From the top of Augusta lighthouse

Sunset coast! Taken at Prevelly

The following day was our epic Margaret River day. Margaret River is famous for its wines but has also grown up as a place with breweries and gourmet foods. We took FULL advantage of this. We did an awful lot of wine tasting throughout the day, chose our sparkling wine for NYE and the like, but also explored coffee tasting, toffee tasting, cheese tasting, yoghurt tasting, chocolate tasting, cider tasting, nut and cereal tasting, all on top of lunch at a winery.

The final two nights were spent at Albany, further around and along the south coast. On the way, we visited Walpole and 'The Valley of the Giants', as this part of the country is full of karri, jarra and tingle forests (I'm slightly unclear on which of these terms overlap), which are very tall varieties of the eucalyptus tree and really very beautiful. I think they are also the tallest flowering plants, or flowers, or something along those lines, but I obviously need to verify this. The tree top walk was really quite high with a grated floor so you could see down (!), unfortunately the March flies slightly ruined the walk around the bottom.

Tree top Walk

Another beach stop

Albany itself was actually settled before Perth and had quite an interesting historic walk and museum that we followed. The oldest building in W.A., the first church to be consecrated in W.A. etc. It did well with trade and being linked up on the railway until mining rather took over everyone's attention in W.A.... It was also the last stop for ANZAC soldiers on their way to Gallipoli and therefore has an impressive war memorial and a famous ANZAC morning service. It is hillier than elsewhere on the coast so we got some good views too. A nice meal out and some fireworks to celebrate the New Year as well.

Replica of the Brig Amity that settlers first arrived on

Finally, we made our 400km plus journey back to Perth. Quite uneventful with a pleasant detour via and through the Sterling Range, which are hills that stick up in an otherwise completely flat plain. One night in Perth and then on to Sydney and the Blue Mountains!

Sterling Range 

Christmas Decos

By far the weirdest thing about Christmas in Australia is the light. Everybody comments on the cold but being in the southern hemisphere made me appreciate that almost all of the Christmas traditions are based around it being dark. Nobody plays games, watches TV, sits around hibernating when they can be outside DOING things. Lots of people visit two or three people on Christmas Day itself because they don't have to 'settle down' for the evening at about 4pm. Having said that, it was over 40 degrees on Christmas Day and I was very much aware of it!

On arriving off the train I spent an early Christmas Day with Izzy, Darren and Darren's children. After presents, we went and visited New Norcia, which is further inland and hotter. It was a missionary school set up by Spanish monks and therefore looks like bits of Spain plonked in the middle of an arid bit of Australia. It is really quite extraordinary. There are still a few monks there but they no longer educate indigenous children as they did for about one hundred years. The following day I met up with Barb's brother in law and his family, Andy, Marie and Liz and we went out for a lovely meal in a winery in the Swan Valley. We later then went out to an outdoor cinema showing 'Skylab', a French film I would very much recommend. We brought a picnic and a jumper (their summer is a little different to ours!) and there are lovely pine trees all around. A very surreal thing to be doing on the 23rd December.

Christmas Eve was a beach day, as well as a cooking day, which felt a bit more Christmassy. On Christmas itself I opened my stocking from the UK, chocolate truffles and all, before we headed to Jeanette and Colin's, where Izzy stayed when she first arrived in Perth. There were 23 for lunch and more coming and going all day. Masses of food, with ham, prawns, lots of salads, all followed by various dips in the pool. A very good day but not at all like Christmas.

Boxing Day was the beginning of our trip southwards, which involved stopping at Mandurah where Darren's sister and her family are camping. Freshly caught crabs are perfect boxing day fare!

478 km straight railway track...

A very brief stop in Melbourne before I set on my first leg of one of the world's longest train journeys from Melbourne to Adelaide. This first bit was rather uneventful, predominantly Victorian agricultural countryside, whereas the coast holds the interesting bit. In fact, Adelaide was also a little disappointing. I have been told that the area around it is getting drier and drier so that South Australia is increasingly poorer and less desirable to live in. It is wine country and the beaches were very nice but I was a little unimpressed with the city. First impression was a taxi man who asked me why I'd bothered to come, was decidedly racist and insisted on pointing out all the homeless people and homeless shelters and noting their proximity to my accommodation. Second impression was that everything seemed to be closed at 8pm, so I took advantage of the hostel rather than the city initially. After wandering around in the day, it grew on me slightly. It has some nice older buildings and I enjoyed the art gallery. It is noticeably more ethnically diverse than Tasmania and Perth, and probably Melbourne as well. It is also noticeably poorer.

From Adelaide, I caught the India-Pacific line to Perth. This crosses the infamous Nullarbor Plain and take two nights and a day. Being a poor backpacker, I was also sleeping in the 'Red Class', which means 48 seats in a carriage with one loo and shower. I actually really enjoyed it. Everyone was on their way back to see people for Christmas and there was quite a mixture of people all willing to chat to each other. The food was reasonably good, I slept relatively well and the staff were ridiculously friendly, one gave me free chocolates! Shame they were chocolate covered raisins...

The landscape was also really impressive. I wanted to do the ride firstly to have a break from flying and secondly to appreciate the scale of Australia. I also happened to be there on the 21st, possibly the middle of nowhere is the best place to be when the world ends! The edges of the Nullarbor do have trees but there is miles and miles of blank horizon. I got to see four camels and a dingo, which was quite exciting. We also stopped at a couple of 'towns', comprised of very small populations, for mail bags. We were allowed to get off at Cook, which is an absolute nowhere town, with a population of four. Since the privatisation of the railways, its fortunes have somewhat suffered... 

Cook

Nullarbor Plain

We also stopped at Kalgoorlie (or 'Kal' if you're a miner), which is solely a mining town of c. 32,000 people. I saw the 'Superpit' which is a ridiculously huge hole with ridiculously large trucks driving around it (about my understanding of mining). They have to pipe water 600km from Perth for it to survive, although it is only (!) 360km from the nearest water source. There is also a relatively high number of pubs and brothels here!

Finally pulled into Perth at 9.30am to be met by Izzy in her cycling kit. Very much worth the slightly less than comfortable sleep and I almost agree with Robert Louis Stephenson that 'I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.' I can definitely believe he said that before airports...