Toby Chandler

We weren’t in a rush this morning, we were going to be in Queenstown for a few days, so decided to take it rather easy. After getting up, we went and prepared breakfast in the hostel kitchen. We had decided that we would go back to Arrowtown today so that we could give it a proper look, since we hadn’t been able to find accommodation there the night before, it was Saturday the 11th of February.

According to Francesco’s book, the lonely planet, Arrowtown is one of New Zealand’s most picturesque towns, very small and historic. According to my research it was also the location for filming of the scene of Bruinen Ford from the Lord of the Rings movie.

We walked to the edge of Queenstown in the direction of Arrowtown and then proceeded to stick our thumbs out for a lift. This road only really lead to Arrowtown, so the chances of being picked up weren’t going to be difficult. After about 30 mins or so, yet another car turned in the road and came back to pick us up. The woman who was driving was English; but, had moved to NZ many years ago. She lived in Arrowtown and owned a restaurant in Queenstown. She told us that the only reason that she came back for us was because of my big smile!

Arrowtown is indeed a very small town, with one main street. It reminded me a lot of an old western movie. The town was built around the gold was discovered in the river Arrow in 1861.

We walked along the high street looking in the windows, going into the English Sweetshop and then into the local tourist information, where I asked about the location of the filming. It turned out that there were two locations near by; both situated on the river. The woman marked them on a map and we set off, no really knowing what we were looking for, I was just hoping that I would recognise something.

We decided to start by following the map to the location that was furthest away, the new location that I was unaware of. We happily walked along the river, enjoying the wonderful heat of the sunshine, stopping to take pictures occasionally.

We continued walking to where I think we should have been looking; but, I wasn’t sure. We crossed a bridge and continued, it was a lovely afternoon stroll and we saw kids and adults playing and swimming in the river. We were beginning to think that we had walked far enough on this side of the river and looked for a place to cross so that we could go back on the other side. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find somewhere suitable and just as we were about to retrace our steps we came to another bridge, which meant that we could do a loop. We came to a bower with tree that had a rope hanging over the river and we decided to have some fun swinging too and fro.

I discovered later that the other location was the filming for the Gladden Fields. This is where Isildur was waylaid by orcs and lost the ring. I did take many pictures of the area and we definitely passed the location; but, it wouldn’t have looked the same anyway, since the filming took place in the Winter and we were there in the Summer.

We finished our loop and then decided to go onto the location of the Ford of Bruinen. The actual filming of the scene were Arwen crosses the river with the Nazgul close behind her as she calls forth the waters to wash them away was completed in several different locations, which I didn’t know about, for example in Skipper Canyon. I took many pictures of places that to me looked correct; but, in hindsight, probably weren’t correct; although, we did walk in the correct place of where the filming was undertaken. Francesco relaxed on the banks of the river whilst I took photos of the beautiful scenery and of tourists panning for gold in the river.

After exploring the river and the filming locations we took a look at the area known as the Chinese settlement. During the gold rush, Chinese settlers came to the area to pan for gold. There isn’t much left of the buildings now; but, the main store along with some of the houses have been preserved and or rebuilt for all to see.

We hitched back to Queenstown so that we could walk around the town in the evening. We hadn’t seen very much of it yet. We walked through the botanical gardens and took more photos before going to the supermarket to buy provisions for dinner and for lunch the following day.

We were looking forward to climbing Ben Lomond mountain the next day so went to bed relatively early. The hike was going to take us about 8 hours in total, to the summit and back. Unfortunately we didn’t sleep well… the music from the bar below us (we were on the third floor) was incredibly loud and went on until about 4am. We were also woken by other people who were drunk coming in and out of the room at stupid times throughout the night.

Still, we woke early enough to have breakfast and set out at about 8.30am. The first part of the walk started very close to the hostel at the gondola station. It consisted of a steep-ish climb up through the forest, which continually grew closer and darker, passing insane looking downhill mountain-bike tracks. After about 40 minutes the path finally opened up to a clearing where we found the top gondola station. We walked up past the luge track and into a different type of forest.

Coming out of the forest brought us into low shrub and grasses. We were quickly finding that we were passing many other walkers until we finally came to the Ben Lomond Saddle. We stopped here for a rest, drink and a snack of bananas.

After about half an hour we continued the walk. This part was considerably harder than the previous part. It was very steep and very rocky, where in parts it felt like we were mountaineering rather than walking. Both Francesco and I have problems with our legs and it soon became apparent that maybe we should have taken the first part of the walk a little slower. Some of the people that we had previously passed were now passing us! We piqued too soon.

We finally reached the triangulation point which marked the summit, 1748m above sea-level. There were some breath-taking views of The Remarkables (a mountain range) and of other mountains too. There were few clouds in the sky and visibility was relatively high. we felt like we had achieved a lot, even though, in reality, this was a ‘small’ mountain. We learnt our lesson, about the tortoise and the hare!

The return journey was taken slower, we felt that we had plenty of time to reach the bottom. It seemed to take a lot longer to reach the top gondola station; but, probably, because it did. We refilled our water bottles and continued on down the last section, only stopping to take pictures of the mountain bikers hurling themselves down the tracks at high speed.

When we got back, we felt that we really deserved a beer and after a quick shower we went to quench our thirst with a proper drink. Just like most of my entries, and just like most of our days, we had a relatively early start again the next day and unfortunately, our sleep was interrupted again by loud music from the hostel bar and drunk people coming in and out of the room throughout the night.

Early on the morning of Thursday the 9th of February, Tracey, Warrick’s friend came to collect me. We drove to fetch Francesco from the hostel where he was staying and then to the otherside of Richmond which is a suburb on the far side of Nelson. Tracey was working there anyway, and the main road towards the west coast lead this way.

We piled out of the car with our backpacks and waited at the side of the road smiling at the drivers as we held our thumbs out hoping for someone to stop to pick us up. After about 30 to 40 minutes a pickup truck towing a fishing boat behind it, driving in the opposite direction turns in the side road and pulls up next to us. The driver, Dave, had driven past us and turned around to come back and offer us a lift. Dave was a bit of a Kiwi wild man, who enjoyed fishing and diving, had a farm; but, pretty much had it run for him by wwoofers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms). He wasn’t able to take us all the way to Franz Josef; but, was able to drive us for a few hours from Richmond to Westport, wich was a good third of our journey.

Not long after we were dropped off another hitch-hiker was dropped off in exactly the same place, a girl from Spain. This wasn’t good news for us, so we upped our bags and walked a couple of Kms down the road to a new spot.

Several people stopped to ask if we wanted a lift; but, weren’t suitable. It was a relatively long wait and we started to sing to pass the time. Finally a camper van owned by two German’s stopped and gave us our second ride of the day. Again they weren’t able to grive us all the way; but, did help us get another chunk out of the way. We stopped along the way to take photos of the beautiful coast and then on to where they dropped us off, Punakaiki. Panakaiki can also be a great place to visit; but, only at high tide. They have a rock form there which looks spectacular (apparently) at high tide. we were neither there at hide tide, nor did we have time.

Whilst waiting again we heard the song of a bird that really was musical. I still haven’t found out what bird it was; but, we heard this type of bird again in other places. It was so musical that we both agreed that the notes of it’s song could actually have been used in music. Again we sang to keep our selves amused and after a while our third lift was offered to us. This time we got as far as Greymouth. We didn’t wait long for out next lift. We arrived in Greymouth at rush hour and there were lots of people commuting to Hokitika from there. We were picked up by someone in their work vehicle who dropped us off on the other side of Hokitika; but, said that at this time we were unlikely to get any futher… To which I replied,

“Of course we will!”

We waited a while, not too long and for the second time that day a car turned back in the road for us. Two girls who were driving directly to Franz Josef drove us the rest of the way. We had fun in the car telling lots of jokes and stories and finally arrived at our hostel at about 9pm, about 11 hours of hitch-hiking having covered 450km. It had been a long day. We went to the supermarket bought some food, returned to the hostel kitchen. After dinner, we didn’t waste time in going to sleep. The next day was going to be relatively long too as we wanted to see the Glacier in the morning and then hitch on down to Arrowtown.

In the morning we ate breakfast and prepared our sandwhiches. We then went to the shop (there are only two (well not many)) in Franz Josef, so that Francesco could buy some more suitable trousers for walking. It was about a 3 hour round trip walk from the hostel to the glacier; but, for us, longer as we kept stopping to take photos.

We couldn’t get very close, there was a barrier and a sign with newpapers clippings on it telling of two people who ignored the warnings and were crushed to death by falling ice. The only way to get close and to actually walk on the glacier was to pay through the nose for a guided tour. We weren’t prepared to pay these prices, and just seeing the glacier was enough for us.

After seeing the glacier we returned to the hostel, collected our bags and walked to the outskirts of the tiny town of Franz Josef. We originally waited for quite a while, most people who stopped to offer us lifts were going to the glacier and not in the direction we needed, so we decided to walk further past the junction so that we only attracted the people that were going in the correct way.

It was here, that, out of sheer need to occupy myself that I started to dance whilst sticking my thumb out. The nutcracker suite seemed like the best thing at the time. I have no idea where that came from; but, we were singing away whilst I danced like a crazed, rabid ballet dancer… something like this:

Just as I pulled off a (beautiful!) pirouette a 4×4 car (a chelsea tractor) pulled up. A Scottish couple who had moved to New Zealand were on their way to Arrowtown, exactly where we were going. We had lots to talk about on the journey. The couple were horse breeders, who had moved their business from Scotland to Nelson.

Unfortunately, The Doobie Brothers were playing a concert near Arrowtown and when we arrived, we couldn’t find any accommodation. The couple waited for us whilst we went in to different places to ask; but, we were out of luck. They were so kind that they offered to drive us on to Queenstown which was another 20 Kms. We found a hostel that had room for us right on the main street of the town.

That night I introduced Francesco to curry at the local Indian restaurant. After dinner we returned to the hostel bar where, to my surprise I bumped into someone from school. I Hadn’t seen Hazel for about 14 years and to bump into her on the other side of the world was the last thing that I expected. It really is a small world.

*This blog was edited on the 14th of March 2012. If you read it before, I previously missed some details out which I’ve now added*

On the evening that Warrick and I returned from Luminate festival, I received a message via facebook. The message was from my friend Francesco, who I know from Milan. The message was asking if I had got to or was still in New Zealand. Before leaving from Italy for my adventure, I’d spoken to Francesco and found out that he too was travelling to New Zealand; but, we hadn’t planned to meet. I replied and told him that I was in Nelson and planned to travel around the south island until at least the last week of February when I wanted to return to Havelock North to see Jon and James before I left.

In short; it turned out that Fra didn’t have any plans either and that he was currently in Wellington, not too far from Nelson. We agreed to meet the next day in Nelson and from there we would do some travelling together.

In the morning before Fra’s arrival, I decided to do some quick research of things to do in the South Island.  With money runing short, I decided that it might be fun to visit some of the locations used in filming Lord of the Rings.  I soon discovered that the jeweller that designed and created the rings for the movie was actually in Nelson and had the rings available to view.

The next afternoon, Warrick’s Mum dropped me off in the city so that I could meet Fra. He arrived at the station and one of the first things I noticed was that he had exactly the same backpack that I did, great minds think alike! He told me where his hostel was and we quickly found it on the map. I escorted Fra to the hostel and waited whilst he checked in and got himself settled. Soon after we found our way back into the city and into the Sprig and Fern pub, Warrick’s favourite.

We had a couple of beers and waited for Warrick and his friend to arrive.  This pub only sells the beer that they brew themselves and the list of beers is quite extensive. After Warrick arrived, Fra and I decided to have a tasting rack which consisted of 6 glasses (two pints in total) of different beers.  During this time, Fra explained to me what had happened to him over the last few days.  He had planned his trip with a female friend of his.  They had spent a long time organising everything from their route to hostels.  After arriving in New Zealand she told him that she thought it would be better if they went their own way, leaving Fra in the lurch!  He had no idea what to do, remembered that I was going to be in New Zealand and contacted me.

We were getting fairly drunk and Warrick’s friend decided to leave. At this point Warrick suggested that we move onto a different bar for Chili-Margaritas! This bar was a bit more upmarket and the chili-margaritas certainly didn’t disappoint. We only stayed here for one drink before moving onto The Shark Club.

The Shark Club is the local pool hall. We had another drink, not that we needed it, and started to play pool which was free of charge. None of us played very well, not surprisingly after the amount that we had consumed. We weren’t incredibly drunk; but, we were very merry.

Soon afterwards we decided to go home. I agreed to meet Francesco the next morning so that we could plan an adventure of the South Island together.

Sure enough, the next morning I went to meet Francesco, I walked from Warrick’s house to the city with my PC so that we could go to the library to use the free Internet. We spent a good few hours making plans. We decided to hitch-hike and couchsurf as much as possible because I was running out of money. We had 10 days to travel because Fra wanted to be back in Wellington to see his friend. We planned to travel down the west coast as far as Queenstown, stopping on the way. Then over to the east coast and back up to Picton to get the Ferry, stopping on the way. This was our itinerary:

• Day 1: Franz Josef
• Day 2: Arrow Town
• Day 3 – 5: Queenstown
• Day 6: Ashburton
• Day 7 & 8: Christchurch
• Day 9: Kaikoura
• Day 10: Picton

Afterwards we went to “Jens Hansen” the Jewellers to see the One Ring.  There were many versions available; but, the most impressive was a HUGE version of the ring, which they refer to as THE ring.

We then went to the outdoor shop so that Francesco could buy some walking boots, since we planned to do some hiking and then onto the Sprig and Fern again to have a couple of pints.  Warrick arrived and we decided to take part in the Pub Quiz, Francesco’s first.  Warrick’s friend Tracey joined us, we weren’t doing to badly to start with; but, then got worse.  In the end I think we came 4th out of about 12 teams.  We left the pub and Warrick persuaded us to go to the beach because it was a fullmoon.  We didn’t stay for long because it was rather cold.  We were going to take Francesco back to his hostel; but, Warrick again persuaded us to go for one last drink, which we agreed to, since this was going to be the last night that I saw Warrick.

Tracey agreed to give us a lift in the morning to Richmond, so that we could start our adventure hitch-hiking to Franz-Josef, it was going to be a long day.

Warrick had been asking me for quite some time if I’d like to go to a festival with him whilst I was due to be staying with him. The festival was called Luminate and was held on the Canaan Downs in the mountains of the Golden Bay area.

On the morning before leaving, we had to go into the city to get some last minute resources, such as food and gas for the cooker. We were going to be camping there for 4 of the 8 nights. The first night of the festival was the 1st; but, that was really just setting up, so we decided to arrive on the 2nd.

The drive to the festival took about an hour and a half leading up a steep curvy mountain road, followed by an incredibly dusty track for many kms.

When we arrived at the gate, we had to show our tickets to receive our wrist-bands and whilst we were doing this, security checked the car for alcohol. This event was an alcohol free event (what?!).

We drove around trying to find the best location to set up camp. When we finally chose a place we parked up and set about putting up our tents, we had one each. Then we had coffee and went for a bike ride to familiarise ourselves with the festival ground. It wasn’t too large and there weren’t actually very many stages and tents.

As the evening rolled on it was getting close to the opening ceremony. We went back to the main area of the festival which looked like a huge crater or swallowhole which at it’s centre they had built a huge fire ready to set fire to. They started to have some readings and play some music, it all seemed a little bit hippy, which I was expecting. Then the fire dancers came in and did a show, lighting the fire as they did so. The hippies started to dance around the fire and then… started to take their clothes off and continue to dance naked around the fire… This was a little ‘too’ hippy for me! Luckily, we were sitting far enough away that we couldn’t see too much detail!

After the ceremony had finished and the dancers departed to the tribal zone we decided to go and sit next to the fire so that we could warm up. It was quite cold at the top of the mountain and the fog was rolling in. As we sat and watched the flames and sparks take off into the night like burning fire flies a man stood up and asked the crowd

“Would you like to hear the story of the tree stump that stands at the centre of this fire?” There was indeed a huge tree stump burning. The crowd seemed interested, a story no-less!

“We’ve seen this stump every year for five years and have often talked about using it as the central fire” He started. Apart from the sound of the crackling and spitting fire, there was silence as we all listened.

“This year, with 20 people and two off-roaders, we pulled the tree stump into place to burn for you here tonight and for the next few nights to come… BUT WHY?! WHY?! WHY HAS MAN DONE THIS! WHAT HAS THIS TREE DONE TO US!? WHAT DID IT DO TO DESERVE THIS?! WE HAVE DESTROYED FORESTS AND TREES… FOR WHAT?!” Blah blah blah…

We then heard a voice from the other side of the fire.

“FINISH! FINISH!” and several other people started to gently persuade this man to sit down and be quiet.

After a while, Warrick and I decided to go to the E-Zone, the electonric dance tent. The music was reasonable so we stayed and danced for maybe a little over an hour, during which a German guy stopped us to ask if we were dancing in the Industrial style. I guess that old habits sometime die hard. Sebastian was his name and we agreed to meet him the next day at 12.00 by the info tent.

We went back to our tents shortly afterwards, we’re simply too old to party! When we woke up we made breakfast and just hung out at the campsite until we had to meet Sebastian. We walked around a little first and we were late getting to the meeting point. I said to Warrick that Sebastian would be punctual, he’s German afterall and by the time that we got there, there was no-one waiting for us. We stayed for a while until Warrick had to leave as he had to drive back to Nelson to collect his daughter, Mandy. This was going to be Mandy’s first real festival.

I stayed on at the festival and watched some of the street performers, particularly “Mullett Man” he was talented and funny; but, I soon realised that many of these acts contained very similar tricks and jokes. I’m begining to think that there’s only one school for street performers.

I met Warrick and Mandy just before dinner time and helped to pitch the other two tents. I don’t know why we had four tents between three of us; but, in the end it made it look like we had a proper camp going. We had one tent each and one tent for storage. We cooked dinner together and whilst we were boiling water to do the washing up, we ran out of gas!! It was decided that the next day Warrick would go down into the valley to get some more gas.

In the evening we went to see what was going on at the festival and we all ended up at the E-Zone again, dancing away. Mandy was a little embarrassed to be dancing with her Dad and decided to go for a walk. We asked her to be back in an hour; but, we also had walkie-talkies so that we could keep in contact. After an hour we found Mandy and again, decided that we couldn’t go on too long so went back to the tents to go to sleep.

The next morning we had cereal for breakfast because we couldn’t cook anything without gas. Warrick and Mandy went down into the valley to get gas and to go swimming at the beach.

I wanted to stay on at the festival and went to see what was going on in the circus skills area. I wanted to try my hand (or foot) at Slack-lining. Slack-lining is similar to tight-rope walking, except there’s no rope and it’s not tight. Instead of a rope they use wide, heavy duty nylon lines, silimlar to that which is used to keep loads on trailers. Under a relative amount of tension between two trees, the idea is to well, in the most simple form to walk along it like a tight-rope. It’s not easy! I tried many many times and only ever managed a total of 6 or 7 steps.

Then it was time to learn how to use Poi. Poi are two heavy objects on short ropes that you swing around in the air in an ‘orderly’ fashion. Here I met Sebastian, and we both took part in the workshop. It wasn’t so easy to start with; but, I picked up the basics quickly. I was probably quite dangerous swinging those things around!

In the late afternoon Mandy came to find me to let me know that they had returned and we cooked. It was now Saturday night, the main night of the entire festival. Warrick and I agreed that we had to stay up until at least 3am this night. We all went to watch one of the bands; but, got split up. After the band played, I started to look for Warrick and or Mandy and suddenly all the sounds of the festival stopped, it was midnight and all music around the entires festival were cut. Over the tannoy a voice started speaking, something along the lines of this.

“Let the quarz mountains below us amplify our engery into the galactic contiousness…”

Oh dear, I thought. Again a little too hippy for me. After the speech had ended there was a ten minute silence when the fire dancers began to play with fire again. One guy came running up to me and some other people and said.

“Is this silence what you really want at a festival on a Saturday night?”

To which one of the other people replied

“no.”

“THEN MAKE SOME NOISE!!!” replied the guy who started the conversation.

This is apparently what the hippies were calling ‘The Activation’. Activation of what? I have no idea. After 10 minutes the music started again and I found warrick sitting by the fire. It was easy to spot him as he had a glow stick attached to a string around his neck. All three of us had them and we were the only people at the festival to have them, so it also made it easy for us to find each other. We went to the E-Zone again (without Mandy) and danced there, meeting Sebastian and dancing until just after 3am. We found Mandy back in her tent, she had become tired and went to bed earlier than us, maybe we’re not as old as we thought we were!

Sunday was our last day and night at the festival. Mandy had to be back with her carer Monday afternoon ready for school the next day (it was a bank holiday on the Monday). The morning was a fun morning. Back to try slack-lining again, uni-cycling, juggling etc. In the afternoon Warrick and I participated in a couple of workshops. The first was to do with the Mayan Calendar and the second was a very intrested talk by Dr. Sam Shay on Epigenetics. The evening was spent listening to bands again before having an early night.

On Monday morning we ate and then packed up our campsite and drove back to Nelson. Warrick showed me around Nelson a little before we went to teh pub for a quick drink and then back home again.

Has it really been a month since I picked up the proverbial pen? I can’t believe that I’ve done myself such an injustice! This blog was meant to be an accurate representation for not only myself; but, also to all of my avid readers…

sorry, I just got side-tracked for another 10 minutes…

Where, do I start?

“Well, if there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that it’s farthest from” – Obi Wan Kenobi.

It would probably be a good idea to start from the point at which I left Havelock North (for the first time… you’ll read about that later (not sure how much later though)). I think I shall also break this into several chapters of their own, since I’ve done many things in one month and to read one month in one entire blog will bore the living daylights, or what remains of them, out of any undead zombie or human alike.

I’m already digressing.

Jon offered to take me into Hastings early in the morning of the 31st of January. He works there anyway so it made sense for me to tag along since I was catching the bus from there. I haven’t been able to afford travelling with buses; but, my good friend Sara had about 20 hours remaining of a bus pass that she wasn’t using and luckily the pass also included taking the ferry across from Wellington to Picton on the South island.

The bus journey was pretty uneventful, it took something like 5 hours from Hastings and stopped in Wellington very close to the hostel where I was staying. I had booked one night, so that I could catch the ferry early in the morning.

I checked into the hostel, left my bags in the room and went to have a look at Wellington. I’d decided that half a day would be ample time, since, really, I wasn’t there to see the city. I walked along the coast to “Te Papa” a museum, and spent several hours looking around. The museum is quite extensive and I didn’t have time to read about everything that I was looking at.

Afterwards, I strolled around the city, which is actually quite small. I walked around the main CBD and the well-known Cuba Street before heading back to the hostel. I showered and promptly went to bed. I tried to sleep well that night; but, it was difficult. The wind was howling and battering against the old windows of the room, keeping me awake for most of the night.

I got up early, I hadn’t unpacked anything since I was only there for one night, so I didn’t need to repack. I walked to the station from where I took the bus to the ferry port. I slept for the majority of the ferry journey. It was a dull day outside and the wind was so strong that the viewing deck was closed anyway.

I had to get another bus to Nelson from Picton; we were cutting it short as the ferry was quite late arriving at the port; but, I was still one of the first people to board the bus. I was kept entertained by an eccentric Maori woman who kept going on about her estranged family.

The bus finally arrived in Nelson; but, at a different station to the one that I was expecting. Warrick’s mother was collecting me from a different station, so I had to walk a short distance. I wasn’t quite sure who I was looking for; but, I correctly guessed when I saw her.

Warrick lives with his mother and her partner, just outside Nelson in a small Village called Atawhai, it’s about 6km away. We drove to the house where I settled in and ate dinner with Warricks mother and her partner whilst waiting for Warrick to come home from work.

I hadn’t seen Warrick for quite some years, so it was really good to finally see him again. That night we drank Three-Berry Cider, Warrick’s favourite drink from a local brewery. We looked at old photos from years gone-by and chatted for hours catching up.

I’ve already written about Friday, kind of. I wrote review about a restaurant that we went to call Pipi’s, you can read it here if you’re interestered. James recently got a job there; but, his opinion of the place is far better than mine.

Saturday, Jon took his fishing kayak out again, this time really wanting to prove that he could catch something. James and I agreed to meet Jon later at the beach so that we could help him lift the kayak onto his car. Jon had caught a rather large fish and was also given a crayfish (rock lobster) by another fisherman.

We decided that we’d have a BBQ with home-made chips, Jon managed to borrow a wood smoker for the fish from his local pub, Diva. We bought Jack Daniel’s wood chip for the smoker which made the fish really tasty. James’ chip were absolutely great and I cooked yams on the BBQ to go with the boiled crayfish.

I also made a caprese salad. That evening a couple of Jon’s friends joined us after dinner for drinks. I slept in the hammock outside; but, it was really a little too cold and at 7 in the morning I cam back inside.

Sunday was a real day of being lazy. James started his new job and Jon and I watched “The Whistleblower”.

Today is my last day here in Havelock North; but, I’ll return on my way back up to Auckland next month. Tonight I’m cooking steak and Guinness pie. Leaving early tomorrow on the bus to Wellington, where I’ll stay one night before getting on the ferry to the south island and onto Nelson to visit my old friend Warrick.

I had planned this hike the day before. A trip to the Ruahines where there are many hiking routes and huts available. Jon had mentioned to us previously about a track called the Sunrise track, so called because it leads to the Sunrise Hut, a fantastic place to watch the sunrise from. The hut is a bunk house, so we had an option, arrive the night before, sleep and wake up or hike through the night and arrive at sunrise.

James and I decided that we would get up early in the night and hike, that way we could watch the sunset the night before from Te Mata Peak near Jon’s house.

We prepared everything the afternoon before, our sandwiches, clothing, drinks, camping stove… everything that we needed. That night we went to bed at around 10pm as we needed to wake up at around 2am. We finally left the house at around 2.45am. We had to drive for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to get the to base carpark. The roads were empty apart from several suicidal rabbits that I’m not sure whether we missed them or not. James would like to think that we didn’t murder any animals. As we got closer to our destination, about 20km away, the roads became smaller and foggy. For some reason, I imagined a woman in a white dress walking in the middle of the road coming out of the fog, something out of a horror movie. I told this to James, which, in hindsight probably wasn’t such a good idea as the pale looking trees started to play with his imagination.

After driving along a trackway without tarmac for a few kilometres and having to pass through 3 gates we finally found the triplex carpark and parked the van. The guidebook had advised us to be on the lookout for truck-sized bulls whilst passing through the gates; but, we saw nothing. Just after we alighted from the van we saw the lights of another vehicle coming in our direction, from the sound and size it was obviously a quadbike. As the bike came closer, it drove off in a different direction; but, the sight of it in the distance still made me feel a little uncomfortable, especially at just after 4am.

Armed with our head torches we started our walk by climbing over a stile and into a field, it was about 4.20am. Sunrise was at 6.14am and the advertised walking time was 2 and a half hours, we really had to get walking fast, and considering that we were walking up a mountain, it was going to be tough. In the beginning, we weren’t too sure of the correct way to go, the field didn’t really have much of a visible path and our head torches only lit up the path to a certain distance. It wasn’t too long before we found the sign that pointed us in the correct direction and as we entered the forest the path began to ascend.

The path was well maintained, wide and covered with gravel; however, it wasn’t easy going considering that we pretty much had to go as fast as we could so that we could get to the sunrise hut. It was pretty steep in places and what seemed like hundreds of hairpin bends, more than Dame Edna (as written in the guidebook). I was getting pretty out of breath and wasn’t able to keep up too much with James, my leg, not being as strong as it used to be meant that I had to walk slower.  It was difficult to see anything, it was pitch black with only the light of the stars shining above us through the trees.  James almost killed another animal; without realising it, he narrowly missed treading on a hedgehog.  James’ observancy didn’t get any better, although not killing anything I called him back to look at a firefly that I saw next to the path.

As the sky began to get lighter and the birds began to sing, we noticed that we were actually above the cloud level, the trees became shorter too as we got higher and higher up the mountain. At 6.00am, we came to a clearing in the path, it was clear that we were close to the hut; however, as I looked around the next corner, it was difficult to tell whether we would reach the hut in time. We were already tired from walking so fast, we had knocked some 50 minutes off the walking time, that we decided to stay in the clearing, make proper coffee in my italian cafetiere that I carried with me in my backpack and watch the sunrise from there.

After watching the sunrise and drinking our coffee we packed up and continued our walk to the Sunrise Hut, which was only another 10 minutes away. The trees became thinner and we arrived to the welcome view of the comfortable hut. The hut had gas cookers and many bunks, some of which were 3 levels high. It was here that we decided to actually have a proper break and eat breakfast.

We had always planned to walk further, across the Armstrong Saddle to the cairn; but, having looked at the map and walking times, I suggested that we walk to the next hut which was about a 2 hour return walk to the Sunrise Hut. James agreed, after all, it would have been a shame to come so far and not do as much as we could. I filled in the guest book, writing of our intentions to walk to the next hut (it’s good practice to complete the guest book with these details in case you guest into trouble or lost).

The track across the saddle and ridge of the mountain was far different from the track leading up the mountain. This one was more similar to a goat track, what I describe as a real hiking trail. As we left the Sunrise Hut and started on this trail, there was a sign that read <b>Warning, this track is for experienced trampers only</b> (trampers is the Kiwi word for hikers). It was a little dangerous though, the wind was blowing a gale and we had to lower our centres of gravity to make sure that we weren’t blown off the side of the steep mountain. At this point, we were about a thick covering of cloud and below a fast moving whispy cloud.

The difficult track, finally led down out of the wind and back into the tree line. The descent was steep and uneven, we had to step down over tree roots and boulders. The walk was supposed to be one hour, although, I think that due to the wind we were a little longer. Around a bend in the track James shouted to me that we had reached the Top Maropea Hut, an unexpected sight as the hut was situated in a small clearing far in the middle of nowhere.

This hut is much, much smaller than the Sunrise Hut. It’s completely secluded and cut-off from everything. It contained two bunk beds and a small open fire. Here we rested a while, lying on the beds for no longer than 10 or 15 minutes followed by a second breakfast and coffee, we called it elevenses; but, in reality it was just after 8 in the morning.

After clearing up after ourselves, taking in the beauty and spectacular views we decided to hike back to the Sunrise Hut. The ascent to the ridge was much easier than the decent and we were making good time… until we reached the ridge. The wind had become fierce and the dangerous track had become perilous! Still we pressed on; the clouds behind us looked as if they might turn to rain. The wind blew me over twice; but, since I was keeping low, it wasn’t a problem. In the end, it didn’t rain and the clouds seemed to stay over the very peaks of the higher mountains. We arrived back at the Sunrise Hut and took off our boots and socks and placed them in the sun to dry out. The clouds below us had cleared to reveal tracks and tracks of land and mountains in the distance, a spectacular view.

The walk back to the carpark was going to be another couple of hours and having studied the map a little longer I calculated that we would have walked 13km by the time we got back. I looked at the map a little more and realised that we could take another route back along the bed of a river and visiting another hut meaning that our walk would be 15km in total at only a fraction of time longer. James didn’t need any convincing, he was up for the extra distance.

The next part of the walk started off on the wide track that we used to arrive at the Sunrise Hut; but, after about 40 minutes the path veered off to the right onto another small track that descended though trees and rocks. The sound of the river became clearer and louder as we reached the bottom of the valley. Finally we found the riverbed, a wide mass of grey rocks, gravel and sand, with two smaller streams of river that flowed along. The sign stated that the hut was 200m away and we started to climb over the rocks, crossing the river back and forth where necessary. Well after 200m, we still hadn’t come across the hut and we decided to read the guidebook again. The book said that the “shady hut” could be found on the far side of the river after an orange triangular indicator. James and I decided that we had probably passed it without noticing, so would continue along the riverbed until we came to the bridge where we were meant to then take the path back to the carpark.

Suddenly James saw an orange triangle indicator; but, we saw no sign of a hut anywhere and had to continue without stopping. We had to criss-cross the river many times, leaping from boulder to boulder and occasionally throwing rocks into the river to create stepping stones. It was written in the guidebook You will get wet feet; but, either we were lucky. James was able to jump pretty far; and although I wasn’t due to my leg, my boots were waterproof. At one moment James was about to give up and just walk into the the river (his walking shoes aren’t waterproof)… he thought differently about it after I advised him that walking with sopping wet feet would be miserable and uncomfortable. The terrain was quite rough and probably seemed further than it really was.

We eventually reached the bridge across the river where we left the riverbed behind and found the well worn road/track. As we were walking along a farmer on a quadbike passed us (maybe the same quadbike that we saw at the beginning of our walk) and he asked if we had been enjoying our walk. It wasn’t long until we came to the carpark and found the van.

We didn’t have much diesel left and were practically running on empty. The first petrol stations diesel pump was out of action, so we had to drive further, limping along at a slow pace and even where possible free wheeling to conserve fuel. Luckily we finally found a BP garage and filled the tank.

We arrived at Jon’s house at about 4pm, we were knackered and just a little bit sore; but, had thoroughly enjoyed our night and day of walking. We had planned to stay in; but, Jon asked us to go for a quick drink with him… to which we did, until the sunset.

The entire photo gallery can be viewed here

Oh dear, I’m really out of touch with my blog.  I guess that I’ve just been too busy having fun to write.

So, let me take you back to Friday the 20th of January. I was leaving Taupo to go and visit my friend Jon. Jon is an expatriate living in Havelock North, which is near hastings. He’s lived here for something like 10 years. Jon had recently met another English guy in Auckland who had arrived in New Zealand at around the same time as me and at the moment James was in Taupo too.

I contacted James by telephone and arranged for him to give me a lift to Jon’s house in his van since he was also going to be staying with Jon. James arrived at the hostel at around 11am and sent me an SMS to let me know. I met him in the carpark and we set off, stopping briefly at a shop to buy a new mirror for his van.

It was obvious right from the moment of meeting James that we were going to get on. He’s a lot like me in many ways and having spent a week hanging out with him, it’s obvious that we’re going to stay friends even after I get back to Italy.

The journey flew by as we had lots to talk about and finally arrived in Hastings just after lunch time, parked the van and looked for a pub. The first place we found looked a little dodgy and so did a lot of the people in Hastings. Having walked around for a bit we found a pub that looked friendlier and we had a couple of pints before recieving a text message from Jon who told us to go to his local bar in Havelock North called Diva.

We got back to the van and drove to Havelock North and having driven around for a while we found Diva and a place to leave the van. Jon sent us a message letting us know that he was going fishing on his new ocean fishing kayak after work so we had to wait for him. I don’t remember how much we drank… it was a lot; but, it helped fuel our conversation about everything from politics, religion and morals to jobs, friends and life. later in the evening, we discovered that Jon had returned home, so we got into a taxi to his house and left the van where we had parked it.

Jon was hosing down his kayak, he hadn’t caught any fish, which became a running joke for a week. I scooped up his little dog and walked around his house carrying Bella in my arms. It became apparent how drunk I was when I discovered the second kitchen, which was in fact, the first kitchen. Jon wanted to go back to Diva, so we all climbed into a taxi again and returned. James and I realised that we had had enough, so we did the responsible thing and drank Pepsi (we’re adults).

It wasn’t long before James and I became tired so we walked to the van and slept in the back until around 7am the next morning.

Having driven around for a while looking for somewhere to find breakfast we found a BP garage. After a quick bite, we looked at the map and decided to drive to Ocean Beach for a morning swim before returning to Jon’s house.

The beach was a little further away than we expected and the water was cold; but, we managed to swim anyway before then walking along to the beach to find rock pools. After searching for a while I began to find life in the pools, mainly hermit crabs. I picked on up and handed it to James to have a look, at which point the crab moved, James screamed and dropped the crab giving it serious concussion; but, don’t worry, it wasn’t long before a larger hermit crab with a red cross painted on his shell came to collect him.

It was harder to get back to Jon’s. We had his address; but, the road map didn’t have a close up of Havelock North and after asking a few people, we realised that only old people were reliable enough to know where we needed to go. Jon was already awake and waiting for us. We chilled out that morning and had a relaxing day. That evening I cooked pasta con pomodoro e basilco fresco (fresh tomato and basil).

I’m now having a amount of difficulty remembering some of the things that happened.

On Sunday we went to a farmers market and then to Waimarama for the annual Miss Waimarama contest. There were lots of other things going on; but, we didn’t stay long enough for the judging. That evening we were invited to a BBQ at the house of one of Jon’s friends for which we made home-made burgers using a spin on a recipe that my mother taught me from Harry Secombe’s cook book.

Monday James and I cooked roast beef.

Tuesday afternoon I suggested to James that we do a small hike to Shine Falls. We had to drive north for just over an hour and as we turned off the main road we saw a fence that was literally covered in old shoes and boots. I wanted to take photos; but, decided to do it on the way back. The walk time was advertised as 2 hours return; but, in fact we did it in 1 hour only.

We thought that we had driven past the shoes on the way back; but, finally James spotted them as I nearly drove past. A young kid came out from nowhere and said that this was his farm. I asked him about the curious shoes; but, he knew nothing; just said that people came and left their old shoes there.

That night I cooked carbonara.

On wednesday afternoon I planned Thursdays hike (next blog). I cooked a beef stirfry using the left over beef from Monday and then Jon drove us up to Te Mata Peak to see the sunset.

We went to bed early that night as James and I had to get up incredibly early…

Last night we went to a restaurant here in Havelock North, New Zealand. My friends probably think completely different than I do; but, then again, they haven’t been spoilt with genuine Neapolitan pizza.

The Restaurant that we went to is called Pipi’s. The night started off well. The restaurant itself has a wonderful character to it, with what sounds like a strange choice of colour, pink; but, really works giving the place a young and trendy atmosphere. As the restaurant is so small there is much dining space, so on arrival we booked our table and were told to go across the road to the bar which is also Pipi’s. We had a beer and were then told by the barman that our table was ready and walked back to the restaurant.

One of our friends had told us that this was the only place in Havelock North that Prosecco could be ordered, so one of us decided to order a bottle. The Prosecco was called Bosca, a genuine Italian wine which declared on it’s bottle D.O.C (denominazione di origine controllata) which means that it’s origin has is proven. It was a good wine; but, since this is a review about the restaurant and not the wine, I won’t continue on this track.

For started we decided to order salt and pepper calamari and a Parmesan garlic pizza bread to share among us. The first error made by waitresses was that we were brought two calamari and no garlic bread.

The calamari was excellent, it was cooked perfectly so that it was tender and not chewy at all, it was perfectly seasoned too, so the flavours were complimented and not overdone. The dish was accompanied by a simple salad of what tasted like rocket; but, didn’t quite look like traditional rocket, it could have been a different variety; nonetheless, it was perfect.

The Parmesan garlic bread too, was pretty good; although, it could have done with a touch more garlic.

The second mistake by the waitresses was that they brought us pizzas that were destined for another table and only after she had placed them on the table and that we informed her did she realise.

The pizza menu consisted of some well known Italian pizzas; but, the ingredients were not generally not traditional so I decided to have the Margherita. That way I’d know what I was to expect and be able to compare it to my favourite pizza back in Italy.

When the pizzas arrived, the look of them wasn’t so bad. A genuine pizza (Neapolitan style) should be 30cm in diameter (although we ordered medium sized pizzas, so this is something that can’t be compared), between 1.5cm and 2cm at the crust and no more than 0.3cm at the centre. Our pizzas were adequately thin at the centre and soft too which is definitely a good quality; but, the crust wasn’t quite large enough; overall for the base, I give 4 out of 5 stars.

The taste of the pizza; however, was incredibly disappointing, it was sickeningly sweet, like a dessert. It didn’t take long before I recognised the sweetness as being tomato puree, smeared on top of the base. Had they used a good passata the pizza could have been one of the nicest pizzas that I’ve had outside of Italy. One other (small complaint) about the Margherita, is that the basil, should have been cooked a little on the pizza towards the end of the cooking time instead of being simply placed on top like one does with rocket.

I tried the other two pizzas as well. The salsiccia pizza had far too many mushrooms on it and a caramelised onion that yet again added to the disgustingly sweet flavour. The Capricciosa, although having incorrect ingredients was the most palatable of all, mainly because the other ingredients hid the taste of the puree slightly.

Although being hungry, I just couldn’t bring myself to eat all of my pizza. Very disappointing. Overall 2 stars out of 5.

Yuna and I were staying in the same dorm room and in the morning we set about cooking breakfast and preparing for our walk to the Huka Falls, via a natural hot stream. Not long before we set out from the hostel we met a Finnish guy in our room, Rikke (sorry if that’s totally wrong) and asked him to join us.

View Larger Map

We walked from the hostel to the Waikato river. The river itself is a beautifully coloured river, which is the longest river in New Zealand. We walked past the bungee jumping and watch a few people dice with death as they jumped from the platform attached by elastic ropes above the river.

As we looked down we saw first a group of kayakers followed by a group of people floating down the river on inflatables, mostly rings (this port is called tubing). At this point, Rikke and I decided that the next day we would do the same thing.

We continued our walk to the Spa Thermal Park where we met the hot stream that flows into the Waikato river. The stream is very hot and getting too close to the actual river can burn; however, there were two nice pools created by the river in which it was possible to relax in the water.

After a short stop we continued on our walk to the Huka Falls. The Huka falls, although, look like strong rapids are actually quite impressive, since the amount of water that flows over them is enough to fill 5 Olympic sized swimming pools in 2 minutes!!

I could have mistaken the falls for rapids had I not been with Yuna. After we arrived and took a few photos I suggested that we continue on to the waterfall… to which Yuna told us that these were the falls.

Yuna offered us icecream; but, we discovered that the icrecream van wasn’t in the carpark. I noticed a sign that pointed towards a cafe; but, we needed to continue walking. When we finally came to the cafe, it was closed; but, Yuna tried the door and it was open. No-one was around and Yuna and Rikke shouted to see if there was anyone there. Just as we were about to leave, a guy came out, surprised to see us. I think he had forgotten to lock the door. After a little persuasion, he finally agreed to sell us icecream.

We took a different route back to the hostel, along a small road. We went to the supermarket on the way to buy some beer and food as we were all eating together that night.

The next day, Yuna left early and Rikke and I slept in for a while. I spoke to the receptionist about tubing and got all the advice on where to start and where to buy the inflatables. At the shop, I bought a simple inflatable ring, whilst Rikke, decided that he wanted an inflatable reclining chair. We bought some simple foods and two miniature bottles of sparkling wine to enjoy when we arrived at the spa pool. It took us about 40 minutes to float down the section of river that we did. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures as my camera isn’t waterproof.

After drinking our wine at the spa we walked back to the hostel, did some reading, cooked and ate together then watched some TV.