Mount Ruapehu & Black Water Rafting

Will's birthday has been a lot of fun starting with drinks in Auckland last Thursday night at Honey's champagne bar with some of his work mates (nice bunch of people) Highlights for me was talking about favourite movies and soundtracks :-)



Next day we set off for the Tongariro National Park - long drive, stopped for lunch at Otoruhanga, which had some impressive Maori totem poles (thanks to Kirsten for pictures!). We decided against black water rafting (3 hour trip) that day because it would have meant we arrived late at hostel - didn't have earliest of starts as Will wanted extra time in bed - must be getting old and can't hack the pace of drinking! ;)


We had the pleasure of listening to my i-tunes via speakers until the batteries run out - was a lot of fun mixing up drum'n'bass, rave, dance, indie, pop and rock'n'roll!


Nice to arrive in the mountains and see Mount Doom! (Film picture vs my own - not quite so scary!!)





We had a few birthday beers at the Schnapps bar and then went for dinner at the Station - lovely restaurant with recommendation of wine to match main meal, well worth it.


Next day we got up early to eat a full cooked breakfast before heading to the mountains to climb Mount Ruapehu. Climbing the volcano as seen from a distance ...


We did the summit climb for Sir Edmund Hilary - found a lovely bunch of people and guides doing the walk we wanted to do. This was just as well because it was tough going - very bleak landscape, difficult rocks, and freezing fog at top but we made it - hard to see craters! I was very pleased to have my new north face kit - all used in this expedition and some of my skiing stuff too (mainly thermals, silly hat and gloves) it was very cold!!



Other pictures = snow on ground near top, me looking out into fog, the narrow path, the summit, Will and Kirsten under hut shelter!


At top we heard two excerpts from Sir Ed's book and the sun shone briefly as if to mark the occasion. We held hands and hugged to share the moment and some warmth as cold wind blew. Climbing down was harder and I got lost at one point from the rest of the group because my glasses were misted up, could't see path and soon realised no one was in front or behind me. Luckily I spotted two people ahead of me, I shouted to them and they helped direct me safely back to the rest of the group and I caught up with Will and Kirsten. (I had a phone, food, water etc if I things had gone wrong but it made us appreciate that we should have talked more at start about what to do if we had been split up!) We all got lost as a group and I'm sure we took a more complicated way down (where guides had gone no one knows, shame that cameraderie spirit on way up had gone) - not good when tired, at least we'd stopped earlier for some lunch on route.

Hot tea and cheese scone was greatly appreciated when we got back to the chair lift. My quads hurt so much afterwards and still do (Monday!). We had a very quiet night drinking a few beers and enjoying a home cooked curry in the hostel.

On Sunday we set off early and had a cooked breakfast at the Copper Kettle cafe (much better than hostel) on route to Waitomo cave for 12 noon black water rafting. Listening to Lord of the Rings BBC Radio series on CD - rather fitting given landscape we were driving through. Kirsten wasn't feeling up to it - still exhausted from volcano walk - so Will and I head off to face the challenge of dark, wet caves and glow worms! It was awesome (albeit in freezing cold water) and I had so much fun entering the labyrinth with our guides Ryan and Steve (jumping in waterfalls, paddling in the dark towards daylight, etc). I loved it. Here are some fun pics from the event ...


Our reward afterwards was a hot shower, hot soup and bagels - yum! We set off and listened to more LOTR - just as well it's such a long book because we got stuck in traffic - got up to the breaking of the fellowship. When finally home in Auckland we had steak and kumara chips (or sweet potatoes) with Will's bday pressie of Sebastiani's Sonoma Valley Barbera 2005 - delicious.

All in all a great birthday weekend, plenty of adventure, drama and fun - the accommodation was alright but service could have been better, would not reccommend!

Tuesday - the return, DNA testing + chasing rainbows!

Hmm ... so back to Tuesday and leaving the Bay of Islands, which seems like an awful long time ago now with it being late Thursday night. Our first stop was Kawakawa Toilets designed by Fredirich Hundertwasser. I had seen them featured on TV when watching Billy Connolly's world tour of New Zealand and I remember thinking I must go there to see for myself this colourful and creative design. I'm pleased I did because it combines the local labour and talent e.g. students from schools created some of the tiles and the windows in the block were constructed using old bottles from the district. It even won the Creative New Zealand award in 2000 for being innovative, proud and very creative whilst embracing and enhancing the community - Urban and Landscape design.
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Next we went to Whangerei Falls, which made me so happy for a very silly reason and I'm not sure how well this will translate here in writing. I guess it all depends on your prounciation and if you've seen That Mitchell and Webb show .... to cut a long story short ... before I learnt how to say Whangerei properly (wh = f sound), I thought it sounded (at least on Friday) very similar to say numberwang - I guess you probably had to be there at the time (on a very long and otherwise boring car journey!) Nevertheless, the actual waterfall was spectacular - see picture - and the weather was sunny. Kirsten and I stayed for about an hour walking a trail in the sun around the area that followed the stream for sometime before we turned around and came back retracing our steps when we realised it wasn't going to loop back to the car park.



Back on the road we made slow progress in the rain because since Friday it seemed like a hundred road works had set up on highway 1. It took us forever to reach our next port of call Warkworth for our packed picnic lunch and purchasing of good quality meat from the local butchers - lamb, beef and chicken. Luckily the rain held off so we didn't have to eat in the car. We had the good fortune to pick up a map of Matakana - home of several vineyards - and chose to visit one or two for some tasting and hopefully a desert! Here is where we went ...


'Ascension is a family owned vineyard situated on a single steep, north-facing hillside at Matakana, an hour north of Auckland. Ascension was the first winery to pioneer Flora in Matakana. Recent critcally acclaimed vintages of this wine had been labelled Pinot Gris, grown from cuttings of a rare and forgotten clone sourced from two original “mother vines”. However, recent DNA testing in California revealed an amazing result. Our “pinot gris” vines were actually an exceptionally rare variety called “Flora”, almost indistinguishable to look at. The “mother” vines tuned out to be “rogue” vines creating “The Rogue”. You have in your hands an exceedingly rare wine that possesses a soft, oily texture and flavours of pear drops, lychees and spice. Simply superb with barbequed NZ salmon.'

I didn't get any desert in the end because Kirsten wanted to go and collect Gordon, but I did buy a bottle of the rogue wine - Bridget who is married to the owner talked a good talk about it (mentioning DNA sampling - very CSI) and it tasted very good. I also sampled a few other whites and reds, plus a tawny port and desert wine. Sadly there's a limit on how much you can bring back from NZ to UK or I'd have been tempted to buy more!

It continued to rain and shine on our journey back leading to a few sightings of rainbows, particularly in Auckland. I was chasing a picture of it and the sky tower from inside the car and this is the best I could manage after several attempts because it was a tricky task to do - windscreen wipers getting in the way etc. It may not be quite as bright as the DCSF Children's Plan rainbow, but it is real and I captured it. :-)

Finally we collected Gordon who seemed reasonably pleased to see us and we had the lamb for dinner that evening.

Gazing into the future - plans for Tongariro National Park

I feel a bit like Mystic Meg sat in front of a crystal ball! There are several parts to celebrating Will's 30th birthday - some are known and some are yet to be decided. What I do know is that we'll be going tomorrow early morning (Friday) to Tongariro National Park and off to walk in the mountains on Saturday - starting with a scenic chairlift ride to 2,020 metres, your experienced local guide will take you on a spectacular 6 hour journey through stunnng alpine scenery to Mt Ruapehu's snow-capped peaks at 2,670 metres. Probably some smaller walks and either tomorrow in Waitomo Cave (way up) or on Sunday (way back) black water rafting!! Oh and we'll be staying at Howard's Lodge

For everything that isn't known, you'll just have to wait for this blog to be updated to reveal what actually happened or didn't happen as some activities will be weather related....

Monday - Russell and swimming in the sea!

As promised, I'm doing my best to report back on what's been going on over here in New Zealand. I can highly recommend a trip here to see it all for yourselves if you are feeling jealous ... It's been lovely to get everyone's messages/phone calls/etc and learn all about the exciting news in your lives (moving house, a forthcoming baby shower, an engagement and accepted job offer)!

Monday 21st April - Kirsten had to take Will to the airport about 5.30am so he could go back to work. I wasn't up that early (thank goodness!) and it was probably closer to 9.30am when we left the hostel to explore the Bay of Islands further. My legs felt like they'd had a good workout from climbing the sand dunes on Sunday for the sand surfing. So our plan was to have a relaxing and fairly lazy day. It started well enjoying a coffee outside by the sea and writing a postcard - still not posted any yet so they will probably arrive after I return, oh well never mind, it's the though that counts!


We got a slow boat over to Russell, which back in 1820-40s was know as the 'hell hole' of the north in NZ. It's a very different place now and is even described as being a romantic get away! Kirsten and I, strolled around the town and settled for a picnic on the beach. It's a hard life being on holiday when the sun is shining ;)


Then we explored some more and saw some fantastic local arts and crafts. We had a wonderful conversation with Edwyn Scott who carves jewels from bone, paua and pounamu (green stone) at his eco friendly home above Long Beach and specializes in carved feathers. In another shop there was an artist who had blown up his photos on canvas. Now I know there are ways of doing that at home in England, so I'm hoping that I can do something similar because it'd be more personal - not to mention probably cheaper than buying over here!


We climbed up the hill and found a zig zag path to walk back down - not as dramatic as Lombard St in San Fran though! I then tried hokey pokey ice cream, which is a honey comb flavour and super sweet. We sat on the pier and I wrote some more postcards before catching the boat back. At 4pm it was still gloriously warm and sunny, so I managed to convince Kirsten that it'd be criminal for us not to swim in the sea. She tested the water and agreed it was a reasonable plan. Running into the water was a bit bracing at first, although once fully immersed it was actually quite warm. I only let out a small squeal during in the whole process. The funniest thing was watching two German men going for a swim after us and shouting their heads off as they got wet, clearly they were not as tough as us!!


Afterwards we went back to the hostel for a cup of tea and a hot shower. We then drove to Haruru Falls near Waitangi before going to Woolworths supermarket(!!) to buy food for dinner - lamb yellow thai curry cooked by Kirsten, which was scrummy. I had an early-ish night because the swim/walking left me exhausted. I slept very soundly. zzz

Cape Regina and 90 miles beach awesome adventure

Okay, so this is Sunday and I'm off on my own to have an awesome adventure at Cape Regina and 90 miles beach. Silly early start and had to race to meet at pick up point only to discover I could have been picked up closer to the Pickled Parrot. Meant I didn't have caffeine until 8:30am at the Old Oak Inn and didn't think to take camera out when we stopped at home of giant ancient Kauri trees before 8am :(
Picture above is on 90 miles beach so named after the fact that it took Samuel Yates' cows 3 days to travel along and everyone knows cows travel 30 miles per day! It's actually only about 88km or 60 miles - Auto our bus driver measured it this summer - he has best job ever providing commentary on what he loves and listening to his own music via ipod whilst driving (in his own little world)!

As you can see my luck has run out and I encountered some rain at the light house in Cape Reinga - a very spiritual Mauri place at the northern most part of NZ. It's where the Tasman sea and the Pacific Ocean meets - Mauri's believe this is where spirits of the dead travel to before continuing their journey.
Things brightened up enough for us to do some sand surfing near the 90 miles beach, which was awesome! I climbed up three times to zoom down sand even though it stripped off clean my pedicure - well I'd done it myself to save money so figured I could do it again. Next pic is me with Annika (from Germany) and Jacinda (from Australia). We had a great time collecting shell fish I was the only person interested/brave enough in taking them home - which was cooked up into a tasty starter for dinner! Ok they tasted very salty and a bit sandy but steaming them in beer definitely helped improve the experience. :-)



After 90 miles beach we stopped at the Magic Kauri Kingdom - home of inspired chain saw carvings like this seat and other sculptures, plus spiral staircase made out of one tree! I particularly liked the Seed Pot Lady - check out the story behind it below 'growing and learning from the past, shedding old learnings and the past. Peeling back the layers and facing each layer with courage and determination knowing that the final outcome will be all worth it. Leaving exposed ones true self and emerging in the purest form. Little seed pod in hands - to recreate new life of love, joy, truth, humility to blend with daily rhythms on the earth. A time for planting new seeds for new ventures to prosper.'


The awesome adventure included a stop at Doubtless Bay - near Coopers Beach, which Will and Kirsten claim belongs to them (if only!) for fish, chips and beer. This was also a day for many more first experiences - my first Moro bar (basically a mars bar by cadbury's), my first taste of feijoa's (i like) and tomarillo's (don't like). I'll try and catch up again soon on what happened Monday - when Will went back to work and Tuesday on our journey back to Auckland.

Today (Wednesday) has been very different because I actually engaged my brain in focussing on updating my CV for a promotion job opportunity in HR - could be very exciting, although I love my current job and have some amazing ideas following the authenticity course in Santa Barbara that would need be altered if I moved on ...

I then celebrated the progress made by going out for lunch at the Jazz Cafe (where Kirsten and I first had brunch a week ago). Followed by shopping in Auckland for birthday and baby shower presents = very successful! The day was all rounded off by a tasty roast chicken dinner and catching up with folk on line, whilst rewatching flight of the conchords episodes - very funny show about two NZ guys in America - the one where they experience racism and have girlfriend problems. Bye for now. Em x