On Fiji Time

I arrived in Fiji last night and it was boiling hot. I didn't really know what to expect from here as I know nothing about the country. At the airport I met a couple of guys that I met in my first hostel in Christchurch so I tagged along with them to their hostel. They informed me that 3 weeks ago there was an attempted coup here, but apparently it's alright now. Great. The weather is insanely hot, it's about 30 degrees and I'm melting. I feel like I should be doing something after my hectic month in NZ, but I'm happy just sitting by the beach trying to figure the world out. I am currently in a place called Nadi (pronounced Nandi) and it's a bit of a dump, it's the tourist capital of the country so I should be able to find something to do. I've wandered around the town and a shopkeeper made me have Kava, the national drink to welcome me to Fiji, of course I was expected to buy something to help support the village (they are a community shop, they all chip in). This seems to happen a lot, so expect presents people.

I'm planning on doing some more diving tomorrow (it's lots cheaper out here) and depending on how safe the equipment and the boat is I might go out again the day after. They said that if I go twice, they'll make sure that we go different places. I have seen some dive companies that actively encourage Bull Sharks by feeding them so that you can get near them, but seeing as they are man eaters, I decided this wasn't too good an idea. After I've dived I think I'll take a bus to Suva, the capital for a couple of days before coming back to fly on to LA. If I can find a cheap deal I might head out to one of the islands, but they just seem to be party resorts and I'm not really looking for that. Internet here seems pretty crappy, so I can't add pictures at the moment, when I can I will.

Leaving New Zealand

This will be my last post from Aotearoa - The Land of the Long White Cloud - as I fly to Fiji in a few hours. I've had a fantastic time here and done so much and the last 2 days were no exception. Yesterday I was up in Paihia staying in the Bay of Islands. This is a collection of 144 natural islands that are incredibly scenic. My reason for being there was to dive the wreck of the old Greenpeace Ship The Rainbow Warrior. It was sunk in 1985 by the French government as Greenpeace were protesting against French nuclear testing in the Pacific. The wreck was dragged up to the north and sunk so that it could be dived on.

I'd never done a wreck dive before, so I was not really sure what to expect. It tottally blew me away. I never really saw the point of diving sunken boats, but it's a really spooky and impressive sight. The colours of the anemones on the side of the boat were amazing, all sorts of pinks and blues. We even went inside the boat where we found a pocket of air at the roof of the room and we took our regulators out and had a conversation 20 metres underwater. I was down there for about 40 minutes and saw so many fish it was amazing. For our second dive we dove "The Tunnels" which is a reef further out from the Warrior. I got pretty lucky here as when I got down I didn't quite get my buoyancy right and I plummetted to the ground. My divemaster started pointing to my hand and sitting about 3 inches away was a pissed off looking Scorpion Fish. I've never moved so fast! We swam around some tunnels and inbetween some tight squeezes where we were lucky enough to see a manta ray. I had 2 great dives and I keep remembering why I love it so much, apparently there are loads of wrecks of the English coast and I'm starting to think I should look into diving them. We were also lucky enough to see dolphins (again) on the boat out there. They must like me :)

This morning I did my 4th and final bungy jump of this trip of off the Auckland Harbour Bridge. I opted for a harness jump again and ran off into a somersault. I can't describe how cool it was! I really enjoy bouncing around on a rubber band over a huge drop. Sorry for the crap photo, but nevermind. Next stop... Fiji.

Back on the beaten track

So I know I've been quiet for a while, but I've only been in towns where the Internet is still so new and shiny that they charge an arm and a leg to use it. I'm now in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city and it seems quite nice. I've a lot to tell you all about, so I'd better get started.

I got to Taupo with the intention of doing a skydive. It WAS pretty cheap, but I couldn't bring myself to spend $259 to jump from a plane seeing as I've done it before, figured I'd put the money towards something new. So instead I stayed an extra day and went hiking on the Tongariro Crossing. This is known (by the NZ
tourist board probably) as the greated 1 day walk on earth. I can vouch that it's certainly very good. It's a 17km hike, passing by several mountains, including Mt. Ngauruhoe, the volcano they used as MT DOOM in some film about rings. The scenery was incredible, as the whole area is volcanic, the craters and the scenery is all very different. I decided, that although the top of MT DOOM was clouded, that it would clear and that we should definately hike it. It didn't clear. It was pretty tough getting up, the path up is very loose and every step you take you slide back down half a step. Getting up took me ages. Getting down was quicker. The trick is to try and surf down on the scree that shifts out from under your feet. It was good fun, even if I did take a few tumbles. After this I crossed several large craters and down the other side of the crossing to where the bus picked us up from. I was stiff and aching, but I'd done what Frodo did, so I was happy.

From Taupo we went to a place called Rotarua. Because of all the volcanic activity, Rotarua stinks of sulphur. For those of you unaware of what sulphur smells like, I envy you. The smell of rotten egg is all over the town, but you do get used to it. Our hostel had thermal heated baths that supposedly had curative properties these were lovely and warm, but I still ached from walking. We wandered out to see the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphre (it also stunk of egg), then rushed back in time to go on a trip to a Mauri cultural village. This was fantastic, if a little put on. The sentiment and the respect for their culture however was very real and it was quite humbling to hear how the Mauri culture has had to assimilate with the Western culture and what little they ask back. I saw the haka and some other cultural stuff including a meal cooked in their traditional way under the ground. It was great.

The next day I took some of my Skydive money and went blackwater rafting. Not as violent or as rapid as whitewater, but still pretty cool. We abseiled into a dark cave and then floated around on rubber rings looking at gloworms. Apparently these gloworms are not even worms, they are maggots that burn their waste in their bums to attract insects into their sticky tendrils that hang down. I was pretty surprised at how bright they were. We did a little bit of caving (well squeezing through tight rocks) and then we had to climb about 30 metres back out of the cave where we had abseiled down. It was good fun and good value, so if anyone is heading up here check them out.

I'm now in Auckland for one night then up to the Bay of Islands for another night and back here for my flight on Monday. I'm hoping to do another bungy jump as I have a discount token for the bridge here in the city. Stay tuned...

Cricketing with dolphins

I did quite a lot yesterday. After a lot of fussing around and hassle, I eventually managed to get on a dolphin swimming trip which is one of the things Kaikoura is famous for. However, the only one I could get on started at 5.30am which is a little earlier than I'm used to. I wasn't going to let this spoil it, so I signed up and went for it. I said my goodbyes to Vicky and Shaun the night before and got set to go. The basic premise was - if the dolphins are interested in you, they'll play, if they are not, they won't. The dolphins we were looking for were called Dusky dolphins and are off the coast of New Zealand all year round due to the geography of the water. They are less than 2 metres long and have a kind of dark topside. They told us that they like it when we sing, when we swim around in circles with them and when we dive down. I tried pretty hard to think of songs dolphins might like.

We got suited up in (quite catching) wetsuits and set off. When we finally found a pod of dolphins it was incredible. They were flipping and jumping out of the water and just seemed to be enjoying life I was unsure of what to expect and it was quite amazing. I sang a bit, they seemed to like the Jaws theme and Van Morrison but weren't to impressed by Sennen (sorry guys). Whenever I was singing loads came and swum underneath me and all around to have a look. They really did seem love it when I dived under the water because they would all swim around me and look me in the eye. It was like they were fascinated by this weird looking thing that couldn't stay under the water for very long. However, when I bobbed back up (the wetsuits were super bouyant) most of them scarpered when I coughed up the seawater. It was good fun when they swim in circles around you. They liked to play and it was a game I'd never win. Basically the idea was you both swim in circles (I sang as well) until the human gets dizzy or gulps seawater. We then got some photos and we saw a pod of about 700 dolphins! We had 3 swims in total and I have no idea how long I was there for, but even if it had been hours it wouldn't have been enough time. It was a great experience and should anyone get half a chance to do it, do!

After my early start and swim, we headed north to Picton and crossed the Cook Straight to Wellington where I am now. As we got in our driver mentioned the 1-day cricket game between NZ and the West Indies. Having never been to a live cricket match I was well up for going, so a bunch of us set off to catch the Windies batting. It was great. I am definately going to more cricket. The Black Caps trounced the Windies and we saw some pretty cool dismissals. Some good catches and a someone getting bowled out with the ball going between his legs.

Off to Taupo tomorrow where you can skydive for pretty cheap so I might give that a go, but as I've done it before I might not bother and put the money towards something new. Also want to say thanks for all the nice comments about the blog. It's nice to know you're out there.

40-40 I see trouble

I have good news. I arrived in Christchurch to find that 2 of my group from Fraser Island were also staying there! So instead of catching the bus that I'd paid for the next morning at 7.20am, we got drunk, didn't get any sleep and missed it (this may be partly due to the X-rated actions of some the other noisy people in my dorm room, but I won't go into that). Shaun and Vicky offered to drive me up to Kaikoura (where I am now - top of the east coast of the South Island). Which we did. Seeing as I had an extra day in Chrischurch and we had nothing better to do, we ended up drinking boxes of wine in the sun in the massive park in the city. This soon turned into a game of 40-40. It ended up with 4 drunk English people and a bunch of Kiwis (including ine lad in a wheelchair) playing 40-40 in the dark with a torch. A good time was had by all.

The next morning we left for Kaikoura, famous for whale watching, seals and dolphin swimming. It's a really nice little place that has sea on one side and mountains on the other. It seems built around the tourist trade, but this hasn't seemed to affect the laid back friendly astmosphere. I leave here tomorrow morning, but not before I've given the lucky dolphins a chance to come and swim with me.

The pack on my back is aching, the straps seem to cut me like a knife...

So I'm back. I ache all over. I have feet like a hobbit and I probably still smell terrible. As the avid reader will know, I just spent the last 5 days hiking the Rees-Dart Track. I have done a little hiking before, but nothing on this scale (it's about 67km), so with the benefit of hindsight maybe it wasn't the best idea to go straight into a "moderately difficult tramp" without some kind of warm up first. But I did, and it was fantastic. It's been a pretty arduous few days, but I've seen some breathtaking scenery that really made me realise why Peter Jackson chose this area to film his Lord Of The Rings trillogy. There are a lot of tramps you can do in this area of the country, but I was recommened this one by a guy in Christchurch who told me that it's not a touristy as some of the more famous ones and if you want to, you can easily go 5 days without meeting anyone. For some reason this appealed to me. So off I went.

The first day is a 17km hike from the Muddy Creek car park to the Shelter Rock Hut. I started off great, feeling fit and fine wondering why I don't do this every week. After about half an hour I started to realise how different this was to the hiking I had done in the past (just day hikes carrying very little). It's a whole different game having to carry everything you need for 5 days with you. The track began on a fairly even level and I was happy just wandering along. When I got to the first area of wetland I realised that even though it was bright sunshine and the middle of summer, I was going to get wet. Within an hour I had already tripped over and gone up to my thighs in mud. Only now do I get why it's called Muddy Creek. I got to 25 mile creek in about 3 hours and after crossing the ankle deep water, stopped for some lunch. I set off again into the valley and walked on to the boundary of the National Park. This took a lot longer than I expected and I started to feel that maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. The sun was extremely hot and my soaking wet feet were really slowing me down. The track continued into a beech forest and rose slowly into the mountains. Eventually (about 6pm) I spotted the swingbridge and my home for the night, Shelter Rock hut. I arrived, cooked my dehydrated food and was asleep by 8.30pm. I was absolutely shattered.

The second day I woke up after about 12 hours sleep. I felt refreshed and ready to take on what I knew was going to be the most difficult day. I spent most of this day walking with Bruce, an Aussie maths teacher who appeared to have years more experience than me. Today's hike reached my highest point, the Rees Saddle, at 1447 metres. Compared to the other days, it's the shortest distance at 9km, but it was incredibly demanding. It took me about 5 hours to reach the bottom of the major climb to Rees Saddle. In this time I had a period where I was properly exhausted. I ended up just laying down in the sun and almost passing out. Luckily Bruce came back and gave me a kick and got me going again. The hardest part was yet to come. The climb to the saddle was a grueling climb up for what seemed like forever, having the pack made it so much harder than I could ever have anticipated. However, when I reached the top, I realised that it was all worth it. The view was breathtaking. I stopped and had lunch and eventually began the descent down on a roughly marked track following Snowy Creek. The drop was huge and the weight of the pack coupled with my tiredness and lack of fitness meant that every little trip was almost lethal. I had a couple of close calls, but as you know, I survived, so it's all ok. Another 3 hours of descent and bush walking and I made it to Dart Hut, where (you've guessed it), I made dinner and passed out again.

On the third day the weather turned. It was no longer blinding sunshine, but constant drizzle and rain. This was my "easy" day as I decided to take a day hike up to the Dart Glacier from the Dart Hut. I emptied my pack and took only what I needed and set off. I walked until I could just see the glacier, but the poor weather and poor visibility made me decide to turn back early so that I could rest up for the following couple of days. I reasoned that having hiked on a glacier last week, I'd make do with just seeing it today rather than going right to it. I walked about 8 ir 9kms today and because of the up and down terrain it took me about 6 hours. Although I did stop for a while to read my book in the shelter of a over hanging rock.

It rained all through the night and I was starting to wonder what I was doing. The clouds had come in and where not spoiling the view, but they were certainly taking something away from it. However, I set off in the rain towards Daley's Flat Hut, another 18Kms and what I expected to be about 8 hours of walking. However, today I didn't seem too tired and I seemed to get a second wind. The rain stopped on my 3 hour wander down hill through the beech forest and by the time I reached Cattle Flat, it was clearing up. I stomped on up and down the flats (blatant false advertising) feeling great. I didn't need to stop nearly as much today and I could feel my fitness coming on. I crossed streams without caring and made it to the hut about 4pm, well before I expected to. I did however fall straight to sleep for 2 hours. Eventually I got up, socialsed with my fellow trampers and made some food and got ready for my final day.

I set off this morning about 8.30am because I was booked to get the bus at 2pm. most of today was spent hiking up and down through beech forest, but the breaks there were were fantastic. The sun came out today as I followed the Dart River on to Chinaman's Flat. There were a few places where I didn't feel particularly safe, including some 200 metre droppoffs whilst hiking on a 2 foot path. My stamima had returned by today and I found myself pushing on quite well when I wasn't stopping to appreciate the magnificent view. The walk this morning was about 19kms and I arrived at the Chinaman's carpark about 1pm feeling pretty good about myself, but smelling pretty damn bad. As I sat waiting for my bus, an English couple dropped their friends off and asked if anyone wanted a lift back to Queenstown. I weighed my options, stay and carry on getting bitten by sandflies (my new least favourite animal) or get home early and shower. Easy really.

What next? Next is a Fergburger (Stuart you were right, they really were worth going to NZ for) and tomorrow morning I get a bus back up to Christchurch and on to Kaikoura where I hope to swim with dolphins if I have time.

Just in case I don't get to a computer tomorrow, Happy Valentine's Day to Rebecca, I love you and I'm missing you loads. I'll call again as soon as I can.

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 BUNGY!

Those of you reading who knew me before I left England will know how much I was looking forward to bungy jumping. Well I've done it now and it was awesome! I thought I'd slap some photos of me dangling like a pillock on the end of a giant rubber band on here so that you can all see that I didn't bottle it. I started today on the 134 metre Nevis jump which was the only one I was a little anxious about. We got taken across to the cable car in the middle of the valley and harnessed up. Then once it was my turn it was all over pretty quickly. I shuffled to the end of the ledge with a look of terror on my face (you can see this on the dvd) when he said jump, I jumped. The fall was incredible. Because you get about 10 seconds of freefall, you really have time to think "what the hell am I doing!?". I bounced back up trying to look cool for the video, but when the bit that brought me back up locked in place I bricked it and grabbed on for dear life. Everything went great and I shook for about half an hour.

Next up was the ledge jump. The view over Queenstown is stunning, the giant lake and the surrounding mountains were and incredible backdrop for one of best things I've ever done. It's only 47 metres, but becasue you have a body harness on this one there are more things you can do with it. I decided as it was my last jump (until Auckland - can anyone say addict?) to do something special. So I tried a somersault. I was never particularly good at gym, but luckily everything went perfectly. I managed 2 full rotations until the rubber band flew out of my hands and I was on my way back up. I can't recommend doing this highly enough (I might do one in Vegas too), the mental energy it took me to push myself to do it meant that it was so rewarding, right now I feel like I could take on the world.

As for my tramp in the bush (slightly slower paced than the last 2 days), I'm currently set to go the day after tomorrow, so I should be back the 13th or 14th depending on the route I take.

Queenstown

A lot to fit in here, so bare with me...

First things first. Franz Josef glacier ice hiking. This was awesome. I've never hiked on ice before (there's not many places to do it in Norfolk). It's an odd experience. They kitted us up with spikes for our boots and ice picks for those who wanted them, he did warn us that the fun wore off after a while, but Gary and I certainly didn't seem to think so. The glacier is a pretty impressive natural phenomenon, it receeds and advances over periods of years depending on the weather. Apparently at the moment it's in a state of advance. We took a long walk up the terminal face and then the real fun began. Our guide walked ahead cutting steps for us, so we got to stop every few minutes whilst he hacked away. As we got higher we started getting into more crevases and had a few pretty tight squeezes. I confess that I did slip in a crevase and got stuck by my ass. I would have been embarrassed had it not been so cold and funny. Some of the drops were absolutely terrifying, there's something awe-inspiring about knowing that you're pretty much at nature's whim. If she decides to drop a large block of ice there's not much you can do about it. We got up fairly high and turned around to come back. An excellent hike and something really different to anything I've ever done before. Top class.

From Franz Josef we headed to Wanaka, a lovely little town where we swam in the freezing lake and kicked a ball around. We tried to take it easy, because the post glacier hike celebrations were probably a bit too prolonged for a 7am start. I managed to trick my body out of a hangover by running round a lake in the morning, others weren't so lucky. From here, after a stop at the awesome Puzzling World, we headed towards Queenstown which is where I am now. It's a town that has pretty much been built out of the tourism and adventure activities in the surrounding area. It's also famous for being the birthplace of modern Bungy Jumping. Bungy legend AJ Hackett opened the first commercial site in 1988 just outside the city from the Karawau Bridge. This is where I did my first jump. As I have been before, I tried something new on this jump, I fell backwards. This was one of the strangest things I have ever done. If you've ever played that trust game where you fall back and someone catches you, it's kind of like that, but you don't hit the ground, you just fall. I asked the guy to dip my head in the water, but the b*stard put me in up to my knees. Still great fun, watch out for the DVD release coming soon.

So on to the future. This is likely to be my last post for a while. As I am off to do a mammoth trek called the Rees-Dart trek for about 5 days. Probably tomorrow or the next day. Today however, I am doing the largest bungy in the Southern Hemisphere and then it's slightly smaller brother where you can jump with a body harness, so you can run and jump. The views from these are breathtaking so hopefully expect some good photos next time.

Ice ice baby

Quick post to say I survived my climb on the glacier. I have a load of pictures and will put them up. Going to do the first of 3 bungy jumps this morning. Have to go, bus is leaving without me! More later.

Chase the Ace

I'm going to try and be pretty comprehensive in this post (wouldn't want to get complacent huh Rich?) and cover the last few days. Before I do, I want mention that on the way to Westport we had lunch in a little town called Otira.
It's an old mining town in the Southern Alps which is pretty unique. It's a quaint, quiet little place with, what we were told, is a typical old style West Coast Pub. This pub is home to Bill and Christine who a few years ago bought the town for $70,000 (that's about 30,000 GBP). When they bought the pub, they didn't realise that the rest of the town (which the mining companies had finished with) came with it. They now own everything there and rent out the houses to holiday makers. I really liked this story, I think I want my own town.

We left Westport pretty early and we have headed further down the coast. We stopped off at a seal sanctuary where we saw (from a fair distance) a load of seals sitting on rocks and just doing their thing. We rode on the bus somemore down some crazy coastal roads. It's a real art getting a 40-odd seater coach round some of those corners, but our driver Jamie seems to be a seasoned pro. We stopped off for lunch at a place called Punakaiki where we saw the Pancake Rocks. I have to be honest I was a little cynical as they looked nothing like pancakes. I felt robbed. They were pretty impressive rocks though so I'll suppose I'll let New Zealand off this one. Apparently they are formed by sucessive layers of silt laying over layers of limestone over time. Fascinating.

This done we headed off to Lake Mahinapua, where some of us decided to go kayaking. Those of you who have seen me kayak, will know that I'm not exactly gifted at it. It was made all the more difficult when we decided to go 2 people in a one person boat because they were heavy to lift and we thought it would be ok. We had a few spills, but after a while my American counterpart and I seemed to have it licked. We took on a serious amount of water, but we only capsised early on. The views were stunning and the lake was fantastic. I didn't bring my camera, so you'll have to trust me. That evening we had an excellent steak dinner and a beach themed night in a pub run by the oldest living publican, a legend called Les. My costume was a bad Hawaiian shirt and goggles. I'm getting lax in my old age.

Today has been pretty much more of the same, a lot of driving and stops at various places of outstanding natural beauty. We visited a Bushman museum where we learned how some crazy nutters used to jump out of helicopters onto running dear so that they could gather them for farming to supply the demand for New Zealand's venison. I shared a possum pie for breakfast, it was ok, kind of like the thigh meat on turkey. I don't think I'll be rushing to order it again however, I was basically eating tree-rat pie.

We are now in a place called Franz Josef, home of the Franz Josef Glacier. It's a giant ice cube that goes all the way down to sea level. It's quite impressive. I don't know all the science yet, but I will find out for you all as I'm sure you want to know. Tomorrow I will be getting suited and booted with ice climbing equipment and will spending the day walking on it (I even get an ice axe!). I'll be here 2 nights so I will try and add some pictures of it tomorrow when I get back.

On the Westsiiiide

Quick post here, but a lot to say. Basically I left Christchurch as soon as I could (ie this morning) because I decided I didn't really like it. I did the right thing. I got the bus this morning and we travelled cross country to a town on the west coast called Westport. It's a coal mining town and there doesn't
seem to be all that much here, but I think there are a lot of walks that you can do around here. We are only here one night though. On the way here, we went through Arthur's pass and saw some frankly stunning scenery. We stopped at lake bruner for a swim which was great, just what we needed after the strenuous walk up to see "The Devil's Punchbowl" (a waterfall). It's been a good day. I will add pictures when I can.