It seems like its been an awful long time since we last wrote. I suppose its really only been about 4 days. Our last day in Napier was a wet one. We had planned on going to the beach but that got kaiboshed... so we walked in the POURING rain to a place called the Boathouse. It is a very neat shop filled with antique mariner tidbits. Photographs and paintings of old ships and lighthouses, original ships-in-bottles, some over a hundred years old, bits and pieces that divers have pulled up from shipwrecks, World War I and II relics, be they toys, tools, compasses, spoons, china wear, or coins. The owner himself was an interesting man, dedicated to finding the history and story behind each piece in the shop, researching its origins and its authenticity. It made for a very interesting morning listening to him tell about many of the different pieces and how they came to be in his shop. He was a professional model maker in Australia, and he brought that back to his shop making model ships, ships in bottles, and restoring authentic pieces. He was also in the process of building a scale model of the Napier bay prior to the tsunami/earthquake that caused some of the seabed to be raised over 2 meters, turning what had been lagoons into solid ground. So that was pretty neat. From there we grabbed a hot chocolate for the long wet walk back to our lovely toad hall.... and went for a second session at the hot pools. We figured, hey we're already wet, we may as well be warm! Then back to the Hogs Breath to try the seafood platter.
Our next crazy kiwi bus trip brought us to Wellington. The capital city of New Zealand and a very artsy city. It may very well be the smallest capital city in the world, its very condensed. I think we walked the entire core of the city about 12 times in two days. About the only thing we didn't take in was the residential area. We spent a fair amount of time on Lambton Quay. Now apparently the water front used to butt up to Lambton Quay at some point, thus the name, but now the water front is about 1-2 streets away. We're not sure what happened there, whether it was man made or earth made, but the difference in distance is quite significant.
So when we arrived in Wellington, our bus dropped us at the train station and we searched the GPS for a backpackers lodge in the vicinity. We found one and headed on our way and then the GPS decided it was a good time to freeze. And naturally stay frozen for a good long while, and of course we didnt have a map of Wellington yet. So we wandered around (luckily not in circles) until we found "Wellywood" backpackers. It was like a 5 floor apartment complex all set up as a backpackers. Maybe not the most personable, but it was clean and we certainly didn't worry about falling through the floors! big step up! That night we walked the streets and tried to get our bearings. For some reason Miles was very turned around in Wellington, not sure he's got those bearings even yet.
We had one full day in Wellington to make the most of. We took the cable car up to the botanical gardens and wandered the gorgeous paths through beautiful trees, lovely flowers, and a swarm of rather perturbed bees that had been stirred up by something. We heard the steady thrum of pissed flying, stinging insects and kept well away. Bri being leery of any winged stinger since a very undeserved sting in Thames. (so she claims). At the gardens, its just a few steps away from the Carter's observatory. We decided to take in a program (similar to the one at the Space and Science Center Edmonton) that shows some of the more well known constellations of the southern hemisphere. We learned the significance of the "Southern Cross" also known as "Crux", depicted on the New Zealand national flag. The Southern Cross along with two "pointer" stars and another particularly bright star, can be used to locate the southern pole. This was very important to the Maori and other navigators long ago. The Maori may not have found the islands without the cross to guide them, neither would the Europeans.
We headed back down the Cable car and did a walking tour and photo shoot of the city. Along the way we grabbed some crepes from a hole-in-the-wall crepery. Litterally, there was like a 6 foot gap between two big buildings and there was a tiny crepe stand wedged into it. But OH MY GOD those crepes were to die for. SOOOOO good. We tried to go back again later but they had closed for the night :( :( I just had a simple butter, sugar and cinnamon crepe, and Miles had one with Nutella, banana and coconut. Yum! I suppose its a good thing we didn't get two, or Miles hips wouldn't fit through the shop door (inside joke for Wes there).
A particularly amusing moment was when we saw a pigeon fly full speed at a gap between a wall and column and wedge itself between the two, it did later escape, but we were contemplating a rescue mission. Apparently they do that all the time according to the unimpressed security guard we ran into amidst our startled exclamations.
Had another yummy supper at the hogs breath (another branch in this city, lucky us) then back to the hostle to pack up to catch the ferry to Picton in the morning.
On the shuttle to the ferry we met a fellow Albertan, (a Calgarian, but we'll forgive him) then he just kept popping up. Couldn't get rid of the fellow! Just kidding, he was really nice and we actually ended up at the same hostle for the night and spent most of it visiting with him (Jordan), Hector from the Dominican, and Henrich from Germany. We spent the night in stitches over Hectors stories from his trip to China (communal toilets ick, and mis-identified political leaders- no the Chinese leader did not die a few weeks ago, that was Korea.), Jordan's crazy Irishmen who snuck into NZ in sea cans on container ships (seriously!?!?! four weeks on bags of sugar??? fuck And how the hell do you get out again????) not to mention a old crazy drunk man coming back into the dorm room at the hostel without pants.... go figure that one, or a girl stripping buck naked to win a contest in a bar, her mom must be proud.
So back to the sherry via fuddle er.... ferry, its a three hour sail from Wellington to Picton. Miles enjoyed the trip from the front lounge of the ferry, watching the scenery and the ocean go by. Brianna didn't so much enjoy the trip from the outside deck freezing and trying not to puke as she watched the the most distant horizon line... behind us. But Miles had a good time, though was totally perplexed as to how Brianna could get SO sick on such a huge vessel and yet be fine one a tiny little diving boat bobbing around like a cork in the much larger waves... he's still working on that.
We arrived in Picton and got pretty much the only room left in the town- bunkbeds. We then proceeded to check out the town, pretty small, very beautiful and very homey. We hadn't been sure we wanted to spend much time in Picton originally, but wound up spending three nights.We booked a sea Kayak tour through Kerepuru sound, and a dolphin watching/swimming cruise through Queen Charlotte Sound and up Tory straight.
So January 31, Kayaking! We took a cougarline water taxi across Queen Charlotte Sound to the Portage, took a quick shuttle to Portage bay in Kenepuru sound and from there we took to the water. Now bear in mind we have never sat in kayaks before and we are flat-landers. We were looking out at the bay and the 2 foot swells going "ummmmm are you sure that navigable???" even our guide was questioning it a bit at times. So we headed off on our maiden voyage- against an INSANE headwind and waves bigger than I like think about. And it wasn't that bad! Miles took the rear so the stearing was in his hands- or feet really as thats how the rudder is controlled, while I took the front. Much to my frustration as I"m admittedly a control freak. Now add to that that I kept getting blinded as we were continually swamped by large breaking waves and I was a bit grumpy... ok a lot. but once the wind died down and we got to sheltered water, I really enjoyed it. Miles loved the whole thing. I'm making him sit in the front next time. In all seriousness though it was pretty great. When we reached sheltered, calmer waters, we headed over to a nearby mussel farm and raided a few green lipped mussels off the line. Much easier said than done. We rafted together our three kayaks and Miles and Marius (our guide) heaved up the line to reach the mussels. Miles was rewarded by picking some of them off, and receiving them promptly in his lap. We pulled up approx 3lbs of mussels which costs roughly about 80 dollars at a restaurant as we were informed by our companions on our trip. Then after our raid we took to a nearby oyster bed and got out of our kayaks for a much deserved stretch and some delectable rock oysters, served up fresh. We took oysters on a half shell to a new level. Break it open still stuck to the rock, a little lemon for flavour and down it all goes. That is fresh seafood. Quite tasty, even Miles started breaking oysters with a rock to get a few. Miles doesn't even like oysters, but they were tasty.
Running out of time, to be continued...
Continuing February 2
From the oyster bed we jumped back in the kayaks and headed to a gravelly beach where we had lunch. We cooked up the mussels and had sandwiches and cookies and hot chocolate on the beach. What a great day! The paddle back to the bay where we started was much easier as we had the wind at our backs.
On the first we tried to go dolphin swimming. Now after watching "the Cove" we did a fair bit of research into the ethics behind the tour, but in NZ they are very wildlife conscienscious. They take protecting and conserving to a very different level than north americans, its actually really great to see. So this tour takes you into the bay and tries to find pods of wild dolphins, they will drop you in the water about 300 m ahead of the pod and leave contact up to the animals. If they choose not to, they will try again a max of four times and then if its still no go they leave the pod alone. There are five dolphin species in the sounds at different point during the year, Hectors dolphins- the smallest and most rare/endangered which you are not allowed to enter the water with for conservation reasons, they are about 120 cm (approx 4 ft) is their maximum size. Then there are Dusky dolphins, they max out at about 4 to 5 feet, the Common dolphin which is slightly larger than that, Bottle nose which everyone is familiar with which can be as much as 4 m in length, and the Orca aka Killer Whale. Now you can't swim with Hectors or Orcas, and you certainly never see them together! Our tour was searching for a pod of bottlenose that had been in the area recently to swim with, unfortunately we never did see them, so no swimming for us. BUT we did see about 3 or 4 Hectors dolphins. They are very shy according to the guides so they were really excited to see them close to the boat. We were pretty excited too, its a once in a lifetime sighting as these dolphins are only found in New Zealand waters and they are very endangered. They were SO tiny! When you're used to seeing most video footage of bottlenose dolphins, its hard to imagine a full grown dolphin who is shorter than the average 10 year old. Their calves are approx the size of a football at birth. We got a very cool tour though, we travelled the entire Queen Charlotte sound out to the Tasman sea, and then got to tour part of Tory Channel as well in our search for bottlenose. Miles and I were the first to spot the Hectors, even before the guides which was kinda cool. We saw a lot of wild birdlife too, Australasian Gannets were the most noted as they plummeted towards the water at speeds up to 145km/h!!!!! Now thats a fast dive, better hope its deep water. the sound as they hit the water makes it sound painful to be honest, the splash is impressive. They aren't small birds either, their wingspan is probably 3 feet. We also saw fluttering Shearwaters and someone spotted little blue penguins, but we didn't see them. Our Skipper Paul gave us some info on really neat local dive sites that we may check out. He's and underwater videographer so he had some really neat stories about diving and photography that he told us. Apparently Octopus are smart and territorial, VERY territorial.... they never tell you that in your open water classes! His first dive with a company taking sea urchins, he was looking over the side of the boat and saw WAY too much air coming up from the diver so he's going "what the hell?" the guy surfaces with a HUGE Octopus clinging to his back and all 8 tenticals wrapped around his body head and neck. All Paul could see was one terrified buggy eyeball peaking out around octopus. When Paul started unwrapping the guy, the Octopus tried to attack him so he grabbed a few tenticles, started whipping it in circles above his head and let her fly. Freaky. Glad I wasn't that diver! Note to self- never steal an octopusses sea urchins...
So because we didn't swim we got some money back, we didn't have a wallet with us so we came back a few hours later to do the exchange. Our luck that we did because as we were about to head out again, Natasha and Paul (different paul) were like "are you at a backpackers tonight?" which we were, so they asked if we had supper and we hadn't planned it yet so they were like "here have some fish" A buddy of theirs had come in with a HUGE grouper cleaned and filleted and they had more than they could eat so they gave us a large fillet to cook up for supper. Yum! we had a seafood feast, we picked up mussels and calamari to go with the fish and man it was good. you just cant beat fresh seafood.
WE checked out some of the local shops and found some neat things we'll have to share when we get home.
We are now in Nelson, on our way to Abel Tasman National Park. I'm not sure we'll have much in the way of internet for a while, so we'll check in when we can.
Hope everyone at home is doing good.
Cheers,
Brianna and Miles
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Napier- Friday January 27 2012
Hey all,
From Rotorua we headed to Gisborne, first city in the world to see the sun each morning. That was really the main reason we went there. We got up at 5:30 to watch the sun rise from the beach, unfortunately with our luck it was cloudy and we didn't actually see much of a sunrise. But I guess its the thought that counts right? We also checked out another Jade Carvers shop, got to watch a few artists working on carvings, and picked up a couple "raw" stones because I want to try my hand at carving a piece. My stained glass grinders are diamond grit and wet grinders so they will work perfectly for jade carving too. Who knows, new hobby?
We are currently in Napier, famous art deco city in the Hawkes Bay area. A little bit of history on Napier, it was hit like most places by the depression in the early 30's, and then in February of 1931 (I think, pretty sure it was 31) it was hit by an earthquake that devestated the city. First it crumbled, then was ravaged by fire so that anything that may have survived the quake was destroyed. The town was almost completely rebuilt two years later. This boom of building actually created jobs and brought people from all over New Zealand. The city was primarily built in the art deco style and most of it still remains today. There are four buildings still standing today that did survive the quake and resulting fires, one of these is the hostel we are currently staying in. It shows too. I have to admit, our reaction when told that this building was one that survived was a unanimous "pity..." If the building had been looked after in the last 80 years it might be a different story, but it is in a sad state, Miles was afraid he was going to fall through the floor in one place... and there are wires hanging out all over sort of haphazardly tacked to the walls up the stairs, and well yeah, we're a bit afraid to touch anything for fear of catching something. Quite the dive really. The buildiing just needs..... a dozer. Not our best choice to stay at, but we just need a place to rest our heads at night, so it works. Despite our hostel the area is very well kept. The city takes very good care of it's many gardens, statues, roads, etc. Very tidy place. Once again we have walked most of the area. It is quite nice walking beside the beach, primarly consisting of gravel, with the cool breeze blowing over you. Its really warm here. Probably the warmest we have had since arriving in NZ. Closer to the city centre the heat really bares down on you. The ocean breeze doesn't blow for the buildings. So stopping and getting an ice cream was quite the treat.
On January 25 we arrived here in Napier, that first day we arrived at about 1:00 and had enough time to check out a very uique and morbid store as we later found out, called Opposum World. Apparently NZ is fighting a losing battle with these Australian introduced opposums. 70 million of these animals are estimated to be here, they eat in one night approximatley 40 tonnes of vegitation every night. So as Opposum Worlds slogan says: "Making quality useful products out of an ecological nightmare." They have actually come up with some pretty good uses for these opposums. Unfortunatley they display the means of attaining their products quite vividly, and some of the methods are quite cruel. The use of opposum fur mixed with merino wool is the softest and most insulating natural fibre today. The opposum fur reduces the itch of the wool, and the merino wool is strong, warm. Resulting in the softest quality sweaters, gloves, and toques. Anyway, enough about opposums.
After our slightly off-putting tour of Opposum world we decided to head to the aquarium instead. Live animals are more our thing. The aquarium was pretty neat, it displayed and described many of New Zealands native fresh and saltwater fish as well as many of the introduced species that have become pests in the area. They have a tunnel that goes beneath the oceanarium (much like the one we went to in Perth Angie), and there are sharkes and rays and an assortment of large fish in the oceanarium. Overall it was a pretty cool place. Oh! there was also a display of early diving gear, we're talking like the moon suit looking diving gear with the huge helmets and the weights that you had to drop in order to get back to the surface. There was a handmade helmet made and used by a local diver back in like the 60's that was pretty cool too.
That evening we relaxed in the Ocean Spa. A collection if different temperature pools with an ocean view. The pools are only about 100m from the shore, so you can see the different hues of color on the Pacific as the sun sets behind you. It was a lovely relaxing end to the day.
The 26th was a packed though mostly leisurly day. We started with a visit and guided tour to the haunted prison. It is the oldest prison in New Zealand dating back to 1862, was the only one to have hanged a woman, and was only closed in 1993. It is said to be haunted, the most famous haunting perhaps is a cat named Basil. We did see Basil, a real flesh and blood feline, but the story behind it is a little bit creepy. There was an inmate in cell 26, a rather gentle man in terms of prisoners, named Basil. He adopted a cat somewhere along the way, but because he never bothered anyone the guards and wardens let the cat stay. Basil himself had been injured somehow so his moustache grew on only half of his face, it was ginger in color though the rest of his hair was darker. A couple of days before Basil passed away, his cat disappeared. About two weeks later, a kitten wandered onto the jail site. It had dark fur atop its head and the markings of a half moustache in ginger. The cat lived out its days at the prison, and then as a rather elderly cat it one day disappeared. A few days later, a kitten with the same markings wandered onto the prison site and stayed there until as an old cat it repeated the pattern. The current cat (also named Basil) showed up the same way, shortly after the elder cat disappeared. They all show up on their own, and all have the same half moustache. The prison was briefly set up as a backpackers hostel after it closed its doors to inmates in '93, but it is no longer used as such. Some of the men who stayed there claimed to have been "touched" while in the single stall showers, and those who slept in what was the old infirmary (about the only place the prison nurses ventured) claimed to smell womens perfume wafting through the dorm when there were no women on site. Perhaps the most creepy story happened to the current prison owners. They run a "spooky" tour at night and have these creepy dummies in some of the cells. well in one of the solitary confinement cells, she had placed a dummy on the bed, the door closed behind her and locked her in the cell. Aparently it was pretty easy to get locked in that cell so she thought nothing of it. She had the key in her pocket so she unlocked the door and let herself out. She kept the key in her pocket for the remainder of the night. After the tour, she went to take the dummies out of the cells and close up. When she looked at the solitary confinement cell, the dummy had been tossed to the floor and there were fingernail marks ripped into its back. The door was still locked as she had left it and the key was still in her pocket. She never did figure out how that happened. There was one room where they had set up a bit of a maze in a dark cell with no windows. We were game to go through it, and had started when suddenly I looked behind me and was alone as far as I could tell. I called to Miles and was like "are you still behind me?" "nope, I'm back at the door, I'm not going through there" Well shit. I was stuck in the dark and had no idea where the hell I was, so I figured I may as well go through. Wasn't too keen on it though. Miles (who I will admit is a bit more sensitive to those kinds of things than I am, if you choose to believe in such) said it just felt wrong to go in there for something as frivolous as a maze. Something just felt off, so he got out. Well that creeped me out. The guide said (after the fact naturally) that she refused to go into that room. Why do they always tell you these things after the fact??? Anyway, the prison was definitely interesting, both the haunted aspect and the historical. Aparently it was the "safest" place to buy drugs for the longest time too. The prisoners had quite the drug trade going on, and one drug lord in particular had an agreement with the wardens, and his was the only cell never checked for drugs. They showed us cells where prisoners were on suicide watch, which was ironic as those were some of the most dangerous cells to have someone in that frame of mind in, with wire bedframes, electrical outlets and even a bare wire... kind of makes you wonder. I definitely got uncomfortable when led to the cell in which the last suicide had taken place. His note was still scrawled on the wall. On a lighter note, the cat pretty much led us through the whole tour and then chilled out in the hanging yard once it was done. Aparently thats her favorite place to hang out. Go figure. I found it interesting, that before entering the graveyard there was a sign that read "for cultural reasons, pregnant women and children under 5 should not enter this area". Maori believe that young children and pregnant women are more susceptible to being posessed by a poltergiest than are adults and older children.
After the prison we meandered through the quarry turned gardens for a bit then headed down the marine parade to play a round of mini golf (neither of us has the attention span for a real game of golf I don't think) and an icecream cone. From there we headed back to our hostle to change and go to the Napier Wine Center for a wine tasting. We were educated on the different growing regions on the North Island, then we got to go to the aroma room where we smelled different scents that are found and looked for in different wines. There was a brief section at the end where we had to sniff and try to identify some of the scents we had been introduced to earlier. I failed miserably only managing to get one. Miles did considerably better, he identified 5 or 6 out of the 8. We tasted 6 whites from around the area, and lo and behold, the ones that contained the scents we didn't like, weren't too agreeable to our palate either. Of the 6 there were 3 that we didn't mind, and probably only 2 that we would have had a glass of. Meh so we're not really wine connoisseurs, it was fun. We finished the evening with a really yummy supper at an unlikely place called the Hogs Breath Pub. It might not sound overly appealing, but they did a superb prime rib. We're planning on heading back to try their seafood platter :)
Anyway thats about all thats new on our end of the ocean.
Oh wait, weirdest thing, we stopped for breakfast at this little cafe yesterday, and we heard the Canadian national anthem on the radio there. How unexpected is that??? The cafe owner laughed when I told him I felt like I should be standing. Made fast friends with him over it though, hes a rather friendly chap!
Ok that really is all,
we'll be in touch soon
Love Miles and Brianna
From Rotorua we headed to Gisborne, first city in the world to see the sun each morning. That was really the main reason we went there. We got up at 5:30 to watch the sun rise from the beach, unfortunately with our luck it was cloudy and we didn't actually see much of a sunrise. But I guess its the thought that counts right? We also checked out another Jade Carvers shop, got to watch a few artists working on carvings, and picked up a couple "raw" stones because I want to try my hand at carving a piece. My stained glass grinders are diamond grit and wet grinders so they will work perfectly for jade carving too. Who knows, new hobby?
We are currently in Napier, famous art deco city in the Hawkes Bay area. A little bit of history on Napier, it was hit like most places by the depression in the early 30's, and then in February of 1931 (I think, pretty sure it was 31) it was hit by an earthquake that devestated the city. First it crumbled, then was ravaged by fire so that anything that may have survived the quake was destroyed. The town was almost completely rebuilt two years later. This boom of building actually created jobs and brought people from all over New Zealand. The city was primarily built in the art deco style and most of it still remains today. There are four buildings still standing today that did survive the quake and resulting fires, one of these is the hostel we are currently staying in. It shows too. I have to admit, our reaction when told that this building was one that survived was a unanimous "pity..." If the building had been looked after in the last 80 years it might be a different story, but it is in a sad state, Miles was afraid he was going to fall through the floor in one place... and there are wires hanging out all over sort of haphazardly tacked to the walls up the stairs, and well yeah, we're a bit afraid to touch anything for fear of catching something. Quite the dive really. The buildiing just needs..... a dozer. Not our best choice to stay at, but we just need a place to rest our heads at night, so it works. Despite our hostel the area is very well kept. The city takes very good care of it's many gardens, statues, roads, etc. Very tidy place. Once again we have walked most of the area. It is quite nice walking beside the beach, primarly consisting of gravel, with the cool breeze blowing over you. Its really warm here. Probably the warmest we have had since arriving in NZ. Closer to the city centre the heat really bares down on you. The ocean breeze doesn't blow for the buildings. So stopping and getting an ice cream was quite the treat.
On January 25 we arrived here in Napier, that first day we arrived at about 1:00 and had enough time to check out a very uique and morbid store as we later found out, called Opposum World. Apparently NZ is fighting a losing battle with these Australian introduced opposums. 70 million of these animals are estimated to be here, they eat in one night approximatley 40 tonnes of vegitation every night. So as Opposum Worlds slogan says: "Making quality useful products out of an ecological nightmare." They have actually come up with some pretty good uses for these opposums. Unfortunatley they display the means of attaining their products quite vividly, and some of the methods are quite cruel. The use of opposum fur mixed with merino wool is the softest and most insulating natural fibre today. The opposum fur reduces the itch of the wool, and the merino wool is strong, warm. Resulting in the softest quality sweaters, gloves, and toques. Anyway, enough about opposums.
After our slightly off-putting tour of Opposum world we decided to head to the aquarium instead. Live animals are more our thing. The aquarium was pretty neat, it displayed and described many of New Zealands native fresh and saltwater fish as well as many of the introduced species that have become pests in the area. They have a tunnel that goes beneath the oceanarium (much like the one we went to in Perth Angie), and there are sharkes and rays and an assortment of large fish in the oceanarium. Overall it was a pretty cool place. Oh! there was also a display of early diving gear, we're talking like the moon suit looking diving gear with the huge helmets and the weights that you had to drop in order to get back to the surface. There was a handmade helmet made and used by a local diver back in like the 60's that was pretty cool too.
That evening we relaxed in the Ocean Spa. A collection if different temperature pools with an ocean view. The pools are only about 100m from the shore, so you can see the different hues of color on the Pacific as the sun sets behind you. It was a lovely relaxing end to the day.
The 26th was a packed though mostly leisurly day. We started with a visit and guided tour to the haunted prison. It is the oldest prison in New Zealand dating back to 1862, was the only one to have hanged a woman, and was only closed in 1993. It is said to be haunted, the most famous haunting perhaps is a cat named Basil. We did see Basil, a real flesh and blood feline, but the story behind it is a little bit creepy. There was an inmate in cell 26, a rather gentle man in terms of prisoners, named Basil. He adopted a cat somewhere along the way, but because he never bothered anyone the guards and wardens let the cat stay. Basil himself had been injured somehow so his moustache grew on only half of his face, it was ginger in color though the rest of his hair was darker. A couple of days before Basil passed away, his cat disappeared. About two weeks later, a kitten wandered onto the jail site. It had dark fur atop its head and the markings of a half moustache in ginger. The cat lived out its days at the prison, and then as a rather elderly cat it one day disappeared. A few days later, a kitten with the same markings wandered onto the prison site and stayed there until as an old cat it repeated the pattern. The current cat (also named Basil) showed up the same way, shortly after the elder cat disappeared. They all show up on their own, and all have the same half moustache. The prison was briefly set up as a backpackers hostel after it closed its doors to inmates in '93, but it is no longer used as such. Some of the men who stayed there claimed to have been "touched" while in the single stall showers, and those who slept in what was the old infirmary (about the only place the prison nurses ventured) claimed to smell womens perfume wafting through the dorm when there were no women on site. Perhaps the most creepy story happened to the current prison owners. They run a "spooky" tour at night and have these creepy dummies in some of the cells. well in one of the solitary confinement cells, she had placed a dummy on the bed, the door closed behind her and locked her in the cell. Aparently it was pretty easy to get locked in that cell so she thought nothing of it. She had the key in her pocket so she unlocked the door and let herself out. She kept the key in her pocket for the remainder of the night. After the tour, she went to take the dummies out of the cells and close up. When she looked at the solitary confinement cell, the dummy had been tossed to the floor and there were fingernail marks ripped into its back. The door was still locked as she had left it and the key was still in her pocket. She never did figure out how that happened. There was one room where they had set up a bit of a maze in a dark cell with no windows. We were game to go through it, and had started when suddenly I looked behind me and was alone as far as I could tell. I called to Miles and was like "are you still behind me?" "nope, I'm back at the door, I'm not going through there" Well shit. I was stuck in the dark and had no idea where the hell I was, so I figured I may as well go through. Wasn't too keen on it though. Miles (who I will admit is a bit more sensitive to those kinds of things than I am, if you choose to believe in such) said it just felt wrong to go in there for something as frivolous as a maze. Something just felt off, so he got out. Well that creeped me out. The guide said (after the fact naturally) that she refused to go into that room. Why do they always tell you these things after the fact??? Anyway, the prison was definitely interesting, both the haunted aspect and the historical. Aparently it was the "safest" place to buy drugs for the longest time too. The prisoners had quite the drug trade going on, and one drug lord in particular had an agreement with the wardens, and his was the only cell never checked for drugs. They showed us cells where prisoners were on suicide watch, which was ironic as those were some of the most dangerous cells to have someone in that frame of mind in, with wire bedframes, electrical outlets and even a bare wire... kind of makes you wonder. I definitely got uncomfortable when led to the cell in which the last suicide had taken place. His note was still scrawled on the wall. On a lighter note, the cat pretty much led us through the whole tour and then chilled out in the hanging yard once it was done. Aparently thats her favorite place to hang out. Go figure. I found it interesting, that before entering the graveyard there was a sign that read "for cultural reasons, pregnant women and children under 5 should not enter this area". Maori believe that young children and pregnant women are more susceptible to being posessed by a poltergiest than are adults and older children.
After the prison we meandered through the quarry turned gardens for a bit then headed down the marine parade to play a round of mini golf (neither of us has the attention span for a real game of golf I don't think) and an icecream cone. From there we headed back to our hostle to change and go to the Napier Wine Center for a wine tasting. We were educated on the different growing regions on the North Island, then we got to go to the aroma room where we smelled different scents that are found and looked for in different wines. There was a brief section at the end where we had to sniff and try to identify some of the scents we had been introduced to earlier. I failed miserably only managing to get one. Miles did considerably better, he identified 5 or 6 out of the 8. We tasted 6 whites from around the area, and lo and behold, the ones that contained the scents we didn't like, weren't too agreeable to our palate either. Of the 6 there were 3 that we didn't mind, and probably only 2 that we would have had a glass of. Meh so we're not really wine connoisseurs, it was fun. We finished the evening with a really yummy supper at an unlikely place called the Hogs Breath Pub. It might not sound overly appealing, but they did a superb prime rib. We're planning on heading back to try their seafood platter :)
Anyway thats about all thats new on our end of the ocean.
Oh wait, weirdest thing, we stopped for breakfast at this little cafe yesterday, and we heard the Canadian national anthem on the radio there. How unexpected is that??? The cafe owner laughed when I told him I felt like I should be standing. Made fast friends with him over it though, hes a rather friendly chap!
Ok that really is all,
we'll be in touch soon
Love Miles and Brianna
Saturday, 21 January 2012
Waimangu Volcanic Valley - January 21st 2012
Emerald Pool in Echo Crater
Frying Pan Lake, the worlds largest hot water springs, water temp at 55 degrees C
Hot Water Stream leading from Frying Pan Lake
Hot Water Stream, Can you tell it stinks
Brianna can feel the heat from the Springs through her flip flops, The trees here that do grow, grow in soil about 30 degrees C at about 1/2 a meter down
This is Inferno Crater, It matches Brianna's shirt. Quite honestly the most beautiful colour of water, but at a acidic level of pH 2.1
This is a guyser. It just happens under the water. This crater is more shaped like a trumpet
Iodine pools, connected to the Silica white terraces, similar to those destroyed in Mt. Tarawera Eruption near the Burried Village
White Silica Terraces
Green slimmy hot silica terrace
Yet another terrace
Burried Village, water fall and museum- January 21 2012
Hanmurana Springs- January 19, 2012
See what I mean about the clear water? Levitating trout!
Another spring that connects to the Hanmurana, the headwaters of this one are called "Dancing Sands" I think its pretty obvious why...
Waitomo Caves January 20th 2012
Photo Opportunity before we head out to the caves at Waitomo. Here Brianna Poses as if she is the tough one and I as the Model. Good start and a good example of the good down to earth fun we had all day.
Here we practice our abseiling or rappeling in Canada. That is our guide Andy in the middle, quite the character
Well, Brianna gratiously told me to hed down first. lol I obliged. Here we head down the shaft 33m. At times it got so tight i had to pull and wiggle myself down, all with about 15 min experience rappeling. The guide said "he's and natural, smooth, and easy are you sure this is your first time doing anything like this."
Yes is definately is my first.
Brianna was right behind me, or technically above me on her way down. Now Brianna is pretty tiny, and she still had to fight to get down the entrance of the cave, so goes to show you how tight some places are. Very cool feeling
Ahhh the so call "Rebirth" can you guess why?
Brianna taking her turn at the Rebirth. Little easier for her, but still tight lol
Our guide, had us jump one of the gates, to go and see these magnificent stalactites and stalagmites. All was cosher, just an extra to our trip
This was after going through a tight squeeze. You can see how dirty it can get. Alot of fun, but then again gettin dirty is always fun !
Same spot as Brianna was in, this was after the tight squeeze and on our hands and knees crawling around in mud. I politely left two big muddy hand prints on Brianna's back end while in the cave. Looked kinda cool and gave us both a giggle
Added this photo of Brianna Caving because we thought it looked so cool that the cave almost is a perfect profile to match her body.
This after climbing two of the waterfalls. Such an awsome experience feeling the water pound on you, hitting you in the face and trying to knock you down, but the you prevail and keep going.
As you can see, your in weird positions most of the time your underground. Brianna sure felt it in her muscles a few days even after or bout in the cave.
I decided, or rather the cave thought it easier for me to crawl around. I thought it easier anyway
This was such a cool spot, most dont get to see it because its hard to get too. WE DID IT. On either side of us are two waterfalls. and a Big pillar holding the whole thing up right behind us.
Cool shot to finish the trip off, sadly this is the end of our cave adventure. Cool how the water looks green and the perfect cave look on the way out. Sure hurt our eyes after so much time being at leat 50 meters or more down
Brianna and I in our chariots. (Rubber tire tubes, with lots of patches on them. I can see why.)
Rotorua
Hey all, we are now in Rotorua, the smelly city. It really is, there is a pervading odour of sulphur in the air pretty much all the time. Anyway, after our Hobbiton adventure we hopped a bus to Rotorua. Determined not to make our travel day a wasted one we got of the bus and hit the ground running. We checked into our backpackers, ditched our increasingly heavy bags, rented yet another car and headed out. We actually picked up the car and parked it at the backpackers then walked around town. We had been staying out of tourist trap souvenier shops, but we finally caved and checked out a few. Aaaannnnd we may or may not have splurged a bit. Got a few small things for the kids back home (super cute by the way) and touristy though it may be, we picked up a t-shirt. The quote on it is a bit morbid, but totally true and damn funny. We also went to the jade factory and I got myself a chain with a pendant and some earings, and Miles got himself a set of Jade dogtags which are pretty cool looking. Then we decided that we had had enough shopping to suit us for quite a while and jumped into the car and headed to Hanmurana Springs. Its about a 20 min drive from our hostel just around lake Rotorua. It is the largest spring in the north Island pumping out an amazing 450 000 L of water every hour. We weren't really sure what to expect when we got there, but it certainly wasn't what we found. We had thought "oh that might be kind of neat" well it was really beautiful. You come up to the start of the trail and there is a bridge over this creek thats about 16 ft wide and has an assortment of Ducks and geese swimming along. Which is pretty but not amazing, the amazing part is when you look into the water and it is so completely clear its like its not even there. You can see trout swimming through the plants and across the rocky bottom and its as though they are just suspended in midair. Neither of us has ever seen water that clear in our lives. It puts the water in the rocky mountains to shame. I thought that was clear water but it doesn't even come close. And where it reaches any depth it is the most amazing blue. We spent probably 2 and a half hours walking a 1 1/2 km trail. We just kept staring and trying to get a photo that would do it justice. I'm not sure we ever did. Once we reached the headwaters, it became apparant how the spring could pump out that much water, there was a 15m deep hole that was about three and a half feet in diameter that pumped out a steady flow of water strong enought to move small pebbles straight up in its current out of the ground.
We had wanted to go white water rafting while here in Rotorua, as the Kaituna river boasts class 5 rapids (which you cannot do commercially in Canada anymore) and the worlds tallest commercially rafted waterfall which is 7m tall. unfortunately due to heavy rains the last while, the river is closed to rafting and because of the swell of water the waterfall is only 2m high. so we have postponed that and are going to make a second stop in Rotorua near the end of our trip to take it in then.
We did however get to do Waitomo glowworm caves. We now have a conundrum, we aren't sure which we enjoy more, scuba diving or caving. Even after diving in Tutukaka, a world renound dive site, the first words out of my mouth when we came out of the cave at Waitomo were "that is quite possibly THE coolest thing I have done in my whole life". What an experience. Charlene told me to do it, she took a tour when she was here a few years ago and she said it was an amazing trip, but that was the understatement of the century. Those caves were amazing times a million!!!!!!
There are a few different ways to see the caves, there is the dry walking tour, there is the wet "Labryinth" tour, and there is the extreme wet adrenaline rush "Abyss" tour. We did the Abyss tour. Going into it we thought "wow thats kind of expensive" but coming out, it was well worth it. We got doubly lucky, when we got to the office to sign in and do the waiver etc etc. the girl at the desk was like "do you want to wait until the 11:30 tour instead of the 10:00 tour? You are the only two booked for the 10:00 tour" to which our response was "SWEET! No we'll definitely take the 10:00 tour thanks" And we are both SO glad we did. Because we didn't have to wait for 6 extra people to suit up and get sorted out or wait for more people to get down the ropes or do the flying fox (zipline). We got to see 80% of the entire cave system that is open to the public which is more than any one tour ususally sees. We got to do the entire "Abyss" tour as well as portions of the other two tours as well. Our guide had us climbing over railings and doing sections of the cave he hadn't taken a tour group into in years. He himself had done them on his free time, but not with a group. Our day started with an abseil. As we learned, this is like rapelling. So we walk up this hill to a small metal platform over what looks like a large boulder surrounded by rainforest. Then we get a better look and realize that behind that boulder is a oval shape hole, its widest diameter about 3 feet and its narrowest about 20 inches. Dangling into that hole was a half inch rope that dissappeared into darkness. So after a couple practise runs down a steep hill our harnesses were strapped onto this rope and we were told to "bend your knees and drop off the edge. We'll see you at the bottom." Though I hid it very well, I was having a bit of a panic attack. I was like "you want me to just step off that platform attached to this tiny rope and drop into a hole in the ground barely big enough to fit through that goes to God knows where????" I made Miles go first which suited him just fine as he would rather just go and not watch someone else have issues with it because that makes him nervous. My legs were shaking so bad I wasn't sure I'd be able to walk out onto the platform. After watching Miles do it though, I stopped shaking and actually did pretty well. It helped that I was so light that I had to actually pull myself down the rope to move at all, no worries about plummetting to my death for me! Once we hit the bottom it was smooth sailing. We walked a few hundred feet of cave then got to a zipline. Our guide hooked us on and then we all shut off our headlamps and did it in the dark. which was REALLY cool because you could see all the glowworms as you whizzed by, and you had no idea how far you were going to go before you stopped abruptly and the other guide turned on his lamp and unhooked you. From there we were given inner tubes and we jumped off the edge of the rock into a murky underground river and floated downstream checking out Glowworms as wer passed. Of course no matter how pretty they look from afar, the reality of glowworms is that they are basically the maggots of giant flies-on-steroids with glow in the dark shit, as our guide so eloquently put it, and you just can't put that on the brochure. From there we got to do some of the extras. We got to climb up 3 underground water falls, jump off of a waterfall, do a "wet" tight squeeze called the re-birth, we climbed the rails of a walkway and did part of the "dry tour" that goes through a beautiful cavern with huge stalactites and stalagmites, flowrock and cave coral, and in a part of the cave not normally seen, we climbed down through a crevice that was maybe 18 inches wide, narrower in some spots, I'm still not sure how Miles even fit through some of those, as I had difficulty. Andy said he didn't usually take tours there at all, but we were in good shape and had done some of the other challenges easily and with agility, so he took us. After we made it through there successfully, he told us that they used that location to train for emergency evacuations with a neck or back injury. He said that the procedure took over 4 hours to get someone with those injuries from that spot out to open air for an airlift to hospital. The shocking part was that the entry way took us about 15 seconds to walk to on foot. Thats why he doesn't take most tours to that location, if there was an injury it would be serious and rescue efforts are extremely difficult. So on that note we turned away from the cave exit and crawled into a tunnel that let us back to the bowels of the earth- 65m below the surface. Along our travels we came to a particularly clear stream that pooled a little bit. In that pool we saw an eel, probably about a foot and a half long (kind of hard to tell through flowing water with only headlamps) Andy, our guide, splashed his fingers on the surface and the eel came up to investigate. They call him Cecsil (spelling?) and he is a permanent resident of that cave section and is estimated to be about 30 years old. We were told that for the most part he wont bite, but to keep our fingers out of the water as he may think they were food and try to take them off........ We kept our fingers tucked under our armpits for a little bit. We also saw a rather large creepy spider that I hurried away from and a huge group of cave wetas. Most of them were about the size of the tip of my baby finger to the first knuckle, but there was one whose body was as long and as big around as Miles thumb. While I found them fascinating and wanted to look at them a bit longer, I was sitting well away from them where as Miles was right underneath them with the cave roof about six inches from his head. He told me to get the hell moving or he was going first. I got moving. The tour ended with a slow gentle float along the river in the dark looking at the mesmerizing lights of the glowworms.
Yesterday we decided to check out some of the geothermal activity that makes Rotorua famous. We took in the burried village, the site of the tours that took people to see the "eighth wonder of the world" the pink and white terraces in the 1800s. Until June 10th 1886 when Mt. Tarawera erupted destroying the famous terraces, tearing a rift up the entire valley and covering the land with up to 20 meters of boiling hot mud and volcanic ash. within 5 hours, all life in the valley had been completely wiped out. Over a hundred years later there are only photographs and paintings of the terraces, and one village has been dug out by archeaologists and a museum set up to tell about the volcanic activity and the history of the area. There is also a gorgeous waterfall just a few minutes walk from the museum and dig site. From the museum we headed down the hiway to some of the thermal reserves. We checked out Waimangu volcanic valley, the newest geothermal region in the world. It houses the largest hot water spring in the world in the form of frying pan lake whose surface temperature is 55 degrees celcius, and has temperatures at vents and inlets that reach 97 degrees. There was also Inferno Crater which is the largest guyser type feature in either the world, the southern hemisphere or New Zealand.... I can't remember which. Its not really a guyser to look at it, its a crater lake that fills and empties itself every 38 days. The reason it is called a guyser feature is because there IS a guyser, it is just far below water level, so you don't see it shooting up, you just see the resulting flux of the water levels in the pool. The water itself is about 33 degrees and very acidic, the pH level is usually somewhere between 2.5 and 2.1. The color is what is really remarkable. It is a bright vibrant blue, a little bit like lake Louise, but a bit lighter. That was really pretty to see, to be honest though, the rest of the thermal reserve wasn't all that remarkable, there were some silica terraces, similar to the historical pink and white terraces but on a much smaller scale, but the rest was pretty much a bush walk, and a very hot one at that what with hot water lakes, creeks and steam vents heating the valley as well as the intense sun. So yes it was neat, but for what we saw and what it cost, I'm not sure I'd recommend it. So with sore feet, and tired hot bodies and a little bit disappointed we left the Waimangu valley and headed for a place called Kerosene Creek. This had been recommended to us by the Irish fellow we met back in Thames- and rather sternley dis-recommended (that is so not a word) to us by the guy at the information center here. He suggested we not go there because it isn't safe to put your head underwater, well seing as the water is only about a foot to two feet deep and smells just like its namesake, that wasn't really an issue. I wasn't putting my head in that water no matter what. And I am really glad we did go there. it was SO cool. you're walking along this rainforest trail with this creek gurgling along beside you (and a hint of kerosene odour in the air but ignore that) and everything is bright and green. And then you come to a place where the creek pools and widens and there is a waterfall. Thats when you notice that the water is steaming slightly. So we dipped our toes in and WOW its warm! Its not hot enough to burn your bum like at hot water beach, its the perfect temperature, like a nice warm bath, and talk about ambience! Gorgeous rainforest setting with clear water and a coarse sand bottom or volcanic rock flows. Really, except for the noxious odour, it was perfect. We have since decided that some of the best things in life really are free :) There were a few other groups of people there too, so we swapped cameras around and took photos for each other and generally just enjoyed the warm water.
Which brings us to today, and as it is still morning, we haven't done a whole lot yet. We'll let you know what the next few days adventures bring when we next find computers and internet access. Miles is currently uploading some photos, so hopefully we'll get to post those.
Cheers,
Miles and Bri
We had wanted to go white water rafting while here in Rotorua, as the Kaituna river boasts class 5 rapids (which you cannot do commercially in Canada anymore) and the worlds tallest commercially rafted waterfall which is 7m tall. unfortunately due to heavy rains the last while, the river is closed to rafting and because of the swell of water the waterfall is only 2m high. so we have postponed that and are going to make a second stop in Rotorua near the end of our trip to take it in then.
We did however get to do Waitomo glowworm caves. We now have a conundrum, we aren't sure which we enjoy more, scuba diving or caving. Even after diving in Tutukaka, a world renound dive site, the first words out of my mouth when we came out of the cave at Waitomo were "that is quite possibly THE coolest thing I have done in my whole life". What an experience. Charlene told me to do it, she took a tour when she was here a few years ago and she said it was an amazing trip, but that was the understatement of the century. Those caves were amazing times a million!!!!!!
There are a few different ways to see the caves, there is the dry walking tour, there is the wet "Labryinth" tour, and there is the extreme wet adrenaline rush "Abyss" tour. We did the Abyss tour. Going into it we thought "wow thats kind of expensive" but coming out, it was well worth it. We got doubly lucky, when we got to the office to sign in and do the waiver etc etc. the girl at the desk was like "do you want to wait until the 11:30 tour instead of the 10:00 tour? You are the only two booked for the 10:00 tour" to which our response was "SWEET! No we'll definitely take the 10:00 tour thanks" And we are both SO glad we did. Because we didn't have to wait for 6 extra people to suit up and get sorted out or wait for more people to get down the ropes or do the flying fox (zipline). We got to see 80% of the entire cave system that is open to the public which is more than any one tour ususally sees. We got to do the entire "Abyss" tour as well as portions of the other two tours as well. Our guide had us climbing over railings and doing sections of the cave he hadn't taken a tour group into in years. He himself had done them on his free time, but not with a group. Our day started with an abseil. As we learned, this is like rapelling. So we walk up this hill to a small metal platform over what looks like a large boulder surrounded by rainforest. Then we get a better look and realize that behind that boulder is a oval shape hole, its widest diameter about 3 feet and its narrowest about 20 inches. Dangling into that hole was a half inch rope that dissappeared into darkness. So after a couple practise runs down a steep hill our harnesses were strapped onto this rope and we were told to "bend your knees and drop off the edge. We'll see you at the bottom." Though I hid it very well, I was having a bit of a panic attack. I was like "you want me to just step off that platform attached to this tiny rope and drop into a hole in the ground barely big enough to fit through that goes to God knows where????" I made Miles go first which suited him just fine as he would rather just go and not watch someone else have issues with it because that makes him nervous. My legs were shaking so bad I wasn't sure I'd be able to walk out onto the platform. After watching Miles do it though, I stopped shaking and actually did pretty well. It helped that I was so light that I had to actually pull myself down the rope to move at all, no worries about plummetting to my death for me! Once we hit the bottom it was smooth sailing. We walked a few hundred feet of cave then got to a zipline. Our guide hooked us on and then we all shut off our headlamps and did it in the dark. which was REALLY cool because you could see all the glowworms as you whizzed by, and you had no idea how far you were going to go before you stopped abruptly and the other guide turned on his lamp and unhooked you. From there we were given inner tubes and we jumped off the edge of the rock into a murky underground river and floated downstream checking out Glowworms as wer passed. Of course no matter how pretty they look from afar, the reality of glowworms is that they are basically the maggots of giant flies-on-steroids with glow in the dark shit, as our guide so eloquently put it, and you just can't put that on the brochure. From there we got to do some of the extras. We got to climb up 3 underground water falls, jump off of a waterfall, do a "wet" tight squeeze called the re-birth, we climbed the rails of a walkway and did part of the "dry tour" that goes through a beautiful cavern with huge stalactites and stalagmites, flowrock and cave coral, and in a part of the cave not normally seen, we climbed down through a crevice that was maybe 18 inches wide, narrower in some spots, I'm still not sure how Miles even fit through some of those, as I had difficulty. Andy said he didn't usually take tours there at all, but we were in good shape and had done some of the other challenges easily and with agility, so he took us. After we made it through there successfully, he told us that they used that location to train for emergency evacuations with a neck or back injury. He said that the procedure took over 4 hours to get someone with those injuries from that spot out to open air for an airlift to hospital. The shocking part was that the entry way took us about 15 seconds to walk to on foot. Thats why he doesn't take most tours to that location, if there was an injury it would be serious and rescue efforts are extremely difficult. So on that note we turned away from the cave exit and crawled into a tunnel that let us back to the bowels of the earth- 65m below the surface. Along our travels we came to a particularly clear stream that pooled a little bit. In that pool we saw an eel, probably about a foot and a half long (kind of hard to tell through flowing water with only headlamps) Andy, our guide, splashed his fingers on the surface and the eel came up to investigate. They call him Cecsil (spelling?) and he is a permanent resident of that cave section and is estimated to be about 30 years old. We were told that for the most part he wont bite, but to keep our fingers out of the water as he may think they were food and try to take them off........ We kept our fingers tucked under our armpits for a little bit. We also saw a rather large creepy spider that I hurried away from and a huge group of cave wetas. Most of them were about the size of the tip of my baby finger to the first knuckle, but there was one whose body was as long and as big around as Miles thumb. While I found them fascinating and wanted to look at them a bit longer, I was sitting well away from them where as Miles was right underneath them with the cave roof about six inches from his head. He told me to get the hell moving or he was going first. I got moving. The tour ended with a slow gentle float along the river in the dark looking at the mesmerizing lights of the glowworms.
Yesterday we decided to check out some of the geothermal activity that makes Rotorua famous. We took in the burried village, the site of the tours that took people to see the "eighth wonder of the world" the pink and white terraces in the 1800s. Until June 10th 1886 when Mt. Tarawera erupted destroying the famous terraces, tearing a rift up the entire valley and covering the land with up to 20 meters of boiling hot mud and volcanic ash. within 5 hours, all life in the valley had been completely wiped out. Over a hundred years later there are only photographs and paintings of the terraces, and one village has been dug out by archeaologists and a museum set up to tell about the volcanic activity and the history of the area. There is also a gorgeous waterfall just a few minutes walk from the museum and dig site. From the museum we headed down the hiway to some of the thermal reserves. We checked out Waimangu volcanic valley, the newest geothermal region in the world. It houses the largest hot water spring in the world in the form of frying pan lake whose surface temperature is 55 degrees celcius, and has temperatures at vents and inlets that reach 97 degrees. There was also Inferno Crater which is the largest guyser type feature in either the world, the southern hemisphere or New Zealand.... I can't remember which. Its not really a guyser to look at it, its a crater lake that fills and empties itself every 38 days. The reason it is called a guyser feature is because there IS a guyser, it is just far below water level, so you don't see it shooting up, you just see the resulting flux of the water levels in the pool. The water itself is about 33 degrees and very acidic, the pH level is usually somewhere between 2.5 and 2.1. The color is what is really remarkable. It is a bright vibrant blue, a little bit like lake Louise, but a bit lighter. That was really pretty to see, to be honest though, the rest of the thermal reserve wasn't all that remarkable, there were some silica terraces, similar to the historical pink and white terraces but on a much smaller scale, but the rest was pretty much a bush walk, and a very hot one at that what with hot water lakes, creeks and steam vents heating the valley as well as the intense sun. So yes it was neat, but for what we saw and what it cost, I'm not sure I'd recommend it. So with sore feet, and tired hot bodies and a little bit disappointed we left the Waimangu valley and headed for a place called Kerosene Creek. This had been recommended to us by the Irish fellow we met back in Thames- and rather sternley dis-recommended (that is so not a word) to us by the guy at the information center here. He suggested we not go there because it isn't safe to put your head underwater, well seing as the water is only about a foot to two feet deep and smells just like its namesake, that wasn't really an issue. I wasn't putting my head in that water no matter what. And I am really glad we did go there. it was SO cool. you're walking along this rainforest trail with this creek gurgling along beside you (and a hint of kerosene odour in the air but ignore that) and everything is bright and green. And then you come to a place where the creek pools and widens and there is a waterfall. Thats when you notice that the water is steaming slightly. So we dipped our toes in and WOW its warm! Its not hot enough to burn your bum like at hot water beach, its the perfect temperature, like a nice warm bath, and talk about ambience! Gorgeous rainforest setting with clear water and a coarse sand bottom or volcanic rock flows. Really, except for the noxious odour, it was perfect. We have since decided that some of the best things in life really are free :) There were a few other groups of people there too, so we swapped cameras around and took photos for each other and generally just enjoyed the warm water.
Which brings us to today, and as it is still morning, we haven't done a whole lot yet. We'll let you know what the next few days adventures bring when we next find computers and internet access. Miles is currently uploading some photos, so hopefully we'll get to post those.
Cheers,
Miles and Bri
Sorry the pics are a bit scattered in dates. This is Rotorua (Kerosene Creek and Mud Pools)
Kerosene Creek again, you wont catch us with our heads below the water in any of these photo's apparently it's not safe to do so. Menangitis can be in the water. Just better to keep your ear and face out of it.
After heading to Kerosene Creek, Brianna and I headed just up the road to a place called the Mud pools. As you can guess this is an area of gas caught below a layer of mud. This gas escapes and makes these mud pools boil. There are like guysere at times, shooting hot mud violently at you, but for the most part they are pretty tame and just boil, bubble and spit. The nise from such actions is actually quite soothing and relaxing to listen to. January 21st 2012 Rotorua
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Hello from Hamilton :)
well we've moved yet again :) We may have posted from Thames, but we never did tell about our adventures there.
A little background information: Thames (pronounced like the river in England- Tems) is the gateway to the coromandel peninsula, a gold and silver mined area in the late 1800- early 1900s. It has since ceased in the interest of protecting the land and the people. At one time the coromandel peninsula had been completely logged for timber and the remainder burnt to clear for farmland. There is still a lot of clear grazing lands for sheep and cattle, but a few woods and protected forests are being planted and maintained. Its truly amazing the effort the kiwis have put in to reforesting these areas, and it is quite the area to see. Lush, green, and full of adventure.
While in Thames we stayed one night at a place called Dickson Holiday Park, let me tell you that that evening was no holiday. First it remained hot, muggy and inescapable. Second the mossies were vampires, biting and nibbling every inch of exposed and even the skin we thought to be covered. Third at about three o'clock in the morning we had a torrential down pour. Buckets of water and a river underneath us, with winds so strong we had thought our tent was going to leave us. Quite something to experience. Amazingly we did stay dry! The next morning we caught a ride with Geoff, the owner, into town and booked a hostel instead. Geoff was great, the facilities were good too, just not the weather. That first night in Thames, we saw "Sherlock Holmes II" in what was quite possibly the smalledst theater we had been in since the Magic Lantern in Spruce Grove. This on was older though, that building had to be from the 20's! very quaint theatre, and very good movie.
Once we made ourselves at home in the hostel, our adventuring began. We started out heading to the "Driving Creek Potteries and Railway". A sole venture, taken on by one charismatic and eccentric potter. His whole goal in life was to have his own railway in order to move the clay from the mountain to his pottery, and kilns. This venture soon became his life's work, 30 years. Still alive today at the age of 73 he still walks up every step to the top, 400 plus steps up a very steep mountain. Where his masterpiece,called the Eyefull Tower, overlooks the Coromandel waterways. And to show it all off we rode a train up to the tower. Seeing every inch of track that was laid, and every tunnel made in order to arrive at the top. A true inspiration to hard work and perseverance.
The train was never intended to carry passengers, only clay, but as his infatuation with the small scale train carried him farther and farther up the mountain, his excess cash grew steadily less and less. Introduce some tourists and the only switchback train track and New Zealand and voila- income. BUT the proceeds that come from the train don't go back into his pocket, all the proceeds go to the upkeep of the railway, and to his sanctuary. He owns six islands in the bay- as well as the 300 hectares the railway sits on and has planted native trees of all kinds on these lands. All of which had been forested and burned in the past. he also has a native bird sanctuary on the land that has a predator proof fence surrounding it. This fence keeps out all the introduced mammals such as rats, mice, possums, rabbits, hedgehogs, stouts etc that damage local flora and fauna. As a result, within this sanctuary there are populations of native flightless birds that have otherwise disappeared from the peninsula and much of NZ. Overall, a pretty cool endeavor and very neat to see.
From the Railway and Pottery, we headed to a "theme park" called Waterworks. Let me tell you, you will not find anything like this in Canada! To those who don't appreciate innovation and tinkering, it might appear like just a bunch of random junk with hoses and bits that squirt water. But its a hell of a lot of fun.
So much fun that Miles is still sporting bruises (and rug burn) four days later! WE may have to let the photos and videos explain that one.
The next day we headed to Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove. We didn't realize it before we got to Thames, but Cathedral cove was one of the locations used as Narnia in the filming of "Prince Caspian" in the Chronicles of Narnia. its this amazing arch in the rock formed from millions of years of sea water wearing away the cliffs. The overall effect is amazing. you Hike in a good 2km of hot dusty trail and wind down a staircase and through some thick trees and step out onto a pristine beach with white sand and turquoise water and to your left is this immense arch that leads to yet more white sand beach and turquoise water. When you look out you can see these tree covered islands all through the bay and kayaks and small water craft dotting the water. It is amazingly beautiful. After splashing in the ocean for a bit, we headed to Hot water Beach.
At Hot Water Beach we tried our luck at finding an underground hot spring (that you have to dig for) in a 9km stretch of sand... Ok its not as difficult as that made it sound. we pretty much looked for the huge crowd of people, wriggled into the middle of it and started digging. Three holes full of cold water later we hit gold! In the form of steaming hot water filling our little mud hole. In fact a little too hot, we discovered that we had hit THE hot spot where the water comes out at approximately 65 degrees Celsius. We burned our toes, our fingers and our bums and decided that it might be a good idea to move to where we could get a bit of cold water from the ocean to balance out the heat. Success! Our very own spa.... ankle deep and cool enough to sit in without burning any important body parts, or unimportant ones for that matter! In the hole next to us there were a couple kiwi guys with a full cooler of beer and no opener, well we had the solution (good ole' Canadians with bottle openers on the bottom of their Jandals (sandals for you non kiwi speakers)) and thus we made fast friends. We traded a few good jokes for a couple of brews and had a damn good afternoon. I'm pretty sure we still have sand stuck to us in a few places.
The hostel we stayed at was Gateway Backpackers, if you are ever in Thames, you have got to stay there. The owner is great, he's a born kiwi raised in Australia and come back to retire. He makes you feel at home no matter what and will randomly throw BBQ's for the whole household. So our last night there we all came out to the back porch and enjoyed a BBQ and a LOT of Irish humor from a couple of the other guests. Now those are some funny people. If you get the humor. So we all chatted for a bit then a fellow traveller (Daniel) pulled out his guitar and started singing and playing some Irish folk songs. Greg (the owner) shared some stories about life here and in Australia and they all razzed me about a Teacher's hours and getting too much vacation time. Yup felt like being among friends at home. But don't worry, they are just temp friends.
WE then hoped a bus the next morning from Thames to Hamilton
Our adventures here so far have led us into the Hamilton Gardens for a quick photo shoot, and then back into a rental car headed about 45 mins out of town towards a little place called Raglan where we took in Bridal Veil Falls. A mesmerizing 180 foot waterfall took our breath away, while looking over the very top. There are a many vantage points from which to view the falls. An upper veiwing platform, midway point, and a view from the bottom bridge. Its not until you reach the bottom of the falls that you realize you have just descended a whopping 261 steps. It's lucky the falls were beautiful, or we might not of willingly taken the adventure. This fall is one of the highest in the southern hemisphere and it shows its stature when standing at the foot of this giant.
Which leads us to today. We would tell you the details but then they would have to kill us. Seriously, you should see the waiver. All we can say online is that we went to "Hobbiton" the film site of the "Shire" from the Lord of the Rings movies. It was pretty cool, but they were all "you can't post any details on blogs facebook etc etc etc. pretty much online is forbidden. Anyway its on this farm in Matamata district. Even driving in it starts to look like it belongs in Middle Earth. Rolling hills, green everywhere and sheep. lots of sheep.
Anyway, that is pretty much all we've done since we last wrote. Hope everything at home is good.
Cheers!
Miles and Brianna
A little background information: Thames (pronounced like the river in England- Tems) is the gateway to the coromandel peninsula, a gold and silver mined area in the late 1800- early 1900s. It has since ceased in the interest of protecting the land and the people. At one time the coromandel peninsula had been completely logged for timber and the remainder burnt to clear for farmland. There is still a lot of clear grazing lands for sheep and cattle, but a few woods and protected forests are being planted and maintained. Its truly amazing the effort the kiwis have put in to reforesting these areas, and it is quite the area to see. Lush, green, and full of adventure.
While in Thames we stayed one night at a place called Dickson Holiday Park, let me tell you that that evening was no holiday. First it remained hot, muggy and inescapable. Second the mossies were vampires, biting and nibbling every inch of exposed and even the skin we thought to be covered. Third at about three o'clock in the morning we had a torrential down pour. Buckets of water and a river underneath us, with winds so strong we had thought our tent was going to leave us. Quite something to experience. Amazingly we did stay dry! The next morning we caught a ride with Geoff, the owner, into town and booked a hostel instead. Geoff was great, the facilities were good too, just not the weather. That first night in Thames, we saw "Sherlock Holmes II" in what was quite possibly the smalledst theater we had been in since the Magic Lantern in Spruce Grove. This on was older though, that building had to be from the 20's! very quaint theatre, and very good movie.
Once we made ourselves at home in the hostel, our adventuring began. We started out heading to the "Driving Creek Potteries and Railway". A sole venture, taken on by one charismatic and eccentric potter. His whole goal in life was to have his own railway in order to move the clay from the mountain to his pottery, and kilns. This venture soon became his life's work, 30 years. Still alive today at the age of 73 he still walks up every step to the top, 400 plus steps up a very steep mountain. Where his masterpiece,called the Eyefull Tower, overlooks the Coromandel waterways. And to show it all off we rode a train up to the tower. Seeing every inch of track that was laid, and every tunnel made in order to arrive at the top. A true inspiration to hard work and perseverance.
The train was never intended to carry passengers, only clay, but as his infatuation with the small scale train carried him farther and farther up the mountain, his excess cash grew steadily less and less. Introduce some tourists and the only switchback train track and New Zealand and voila- income. BUT the proceeds that come from the train don't go back into his pocket, all the proceeds go to the upkeep of the railway, and to his sanctuary. He owns six islands in the bay- as well as the 300 hectares the railway sits on and has planted native trees of all kinds on these lands. All of which had been forested and burned in the past. he also has a native bird sanctuary on the land that has a predator proof fence surrounding it. This fence keeps out all the introduced mammals such as rats, mice, possums, rabbits, hedgehogs, stouts etc that damage local flora and fauna. As a result, within this sanctuary there are populations of native flightless birds that have otherwise disappeared from the peninsula and much of NZ. Overall, a pretty cool endeavor and very neat to see.
From the Railway and Pottery, we headed to a "theme park" called Waterworks. Let me tell you, you will not find anything like this in Canada! To those who don't appreciate innovation and tinkering, it might appear like just a bunch of random junk with hoses and bits that squirt water. But its a hell of a lot of fun.
So much fun that Miles is still sporting bruises (and rug burn) four days later! WE may have to let the photos and videos explain that one.
The next day we headed to Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove. We didn't realize it before we got to Thames, but Cathedral cove was one of the locations used as Narnia in the filming of "Prince Caspian" in the Chronicles of Narnia. its this amazing arch in the rock formed from millions of years of sea water wearing away the cliffs. The overall effect is amazing. you Hike in a good 2km of hot dusty trail and wind down a staircase and through some thick trees and step out onto a pristine beach with white sand and turquoise water and to your left is this immense arch that leads to yet more white sand beach and turquoise water. When you look out you can see these tree covered islands all through the bay and kayaks and small water craft dotting the water. It is amazingly beautiful. After splashing in the ocean for a bit, we headed to Hot water Beach.
At Hot Water Beach we tried our luck at finding an underground hot spring (that you have to dig for) in a 9km stretch of sand... Ok its not as difficult as that made it sound. we pretty much looked for the huge crowd of people, wriggled into the middle of it and started digging. Three holes full of cold water later we hit gold! In the form of steaming hot water filling our little mud hole. In fact a little too hot, we discovered that we had hit THE hot spot where the water comes out at approximately 65 degrees Celsius. We burned our toes, our fingers and our bums and decided that it might be a good idea to move to where we could get a bit of cold water from the ocean to balance out the heat. Success! Our very own spa.... ankle deep and cool enough to sit in without burning any important body parts, or unimportant ones for that matter! In the hole next to us there were a couple kiwi guys with a full cooler of beer and no opener, well we had the solution (good ole' Canadians with bottle openers on the bottom of their Jandals (sandals for you non kiwi speakers)) and thus we made fast friends. We traded a few good jokes for a couple of brews and had a damn good afternoon. I'm pretty sure we still have sand stuck to us in a few places.
The hostel we stayed at was Gateway Backpackers, if you are ever in Thames, you have got to stay there. The owner is great, he's a born kiwi raised in Australia and come back to retire. He makes you feel at home no matter what and will randomly throw BBQ's for the whole household. So our last night there we all came out to the back porch and enjoyed a BBQ and a LOT of Irish humor from a couple of the other guests. Now those are some funny people. If you get the humor. So we all chatted for a bit then a fellow traveller (Daniel) pulled out his guitar and started singing and playing some Irish folk songs. Greg (the owner) shared some stories about life here and in Australia and they all razzed me about a Teacher's hours and getting too much vacation time. Yup felt like being among friends at home. But don't worry, they are just temp friends.
WE then hoped a bus the next morning from Thames to Hamilton
Our adventures here so far have led us into the Hamilton Gardens for a quick photo shoot, and then back into a rental car headed about 45 mins out of town towards a little place called Raglan where we took in Bridal Veil Falls. A mesmerizing 180 foot waterfall took our breath away, while looking over the very top. There are a many vantage points from which to view the falls. An upper veiwing platform, midway point, and a view from the bottom bridge. Its not until you reach the bottom of the falls that you realize you have just descended a whopping 261 steps. It's lucky the falls were beautiful, or we might not of willingly taken the adventure. This fall is one of the highest in the southern hemisphere and it shows its stature when standing at the foot of this giant.
Which leads us to today. We would tell you the details but then they would have to kill us. Seriously, you should see the waiver. All we can say online is that we went to "Hobbiton" the film site of the "Shire" from the Lord of the Rings movies. It was pretty cool, but they were all "you can't post any details on blogs facebook etc etc etc. pretty much online is forbidden. Anyway its on this farm in Matamata district. Even driving in it starts to look like it belongs in Middle Earth. Rolling hills, green everywhere and sheep. lots of sheep.
Anyway, that is pretty much all we've done since we last wrote. Hope everything at home is good.
Cheers!
Miles and Brianna
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Sheep World just outside Warkworth
Hey there everybody:
Well we went to sheep world, actually before we left for Thames, but in order to make sure you guys are always up to datte, we figured we just throw it in here now. Sheep world, what to say about sheep world. Well as we found out, its not only sheep. We did an eel feeding (dog food on a fork) we walked through some of their protected woodlands and generally just made a day of it. We petted sheep of all ages, donkeys, pigs, one of the biggest rabbits brianna and I have ever seen and goats, ducks, roosters, chickens, dogs, possum, emu's, you name it we saw it or touched it, or fed it. The coolest part by far was watching the sheep dogs work, and their master guiding them through all the steps with nothing more than a whistle. Quite a few differnet roles for sheep hearding dogs. There were three dogs we came to know during our visit. Sam (who moves sheep by using his voice, and body), Boy (who they call and eye dog, because he can litteraly stare sheep down and move them. He actually does most of the leg work to herd the sheep around. He does not make a sound the entire time. Not even a wheeze or a bark). Juniour (dog in training, they are practacing with him to find his strengths, and then train him appropriately). We watched sheep get round up from the feild, sorted into appropriate corrals, and last but not least the shearing. Quite the dance (literally, to shear a sheep) Lots of fun, we have video of the dog work for everyone to see when we get home. It was an informative day filled with lots of humour, and a good meal at the attached cafe. And no we did not eat any sheep for lunch (Just didnt seem right when they are all looking at you and you were just petting them)
Well that is it for now, back to the adventures
Love
Brianna and Miles
Well we went to sheep world, actually before we left for Thames, but in order to make sure you guys are always up to datte, we figured we just throw it in here now. Sheep world, what to say about sheep world. Well as we found out, its not only sheep. We did an eel feeding (dog food on a fork) we walked through some of their protected woodlands and generally just made a day of it. We petted sheep of all ages, donkeys, pigs, one of the biggest rabbits brianna and I have ever seen and goats, ducks, roosters, chickens, dogs, possum, emu's, you name it we saw it or touched it, or fed it. The coolest part by far was watching the sheep dogs work, and their master guiding them through all the steps with nothing more than a whistle. Quite a few differnet roles for sheep hearding dogs. There were three dogs we came to know during our visit. Sam (who moves sheep by using his voice, and body), Boy (who they call and eye dog, because he can litteraly stare sheep down and move them. He actually does most of the leg work to herd the sheep around. He does not make a sound the entire time. Not even a wheeze or a bark). Juniour (dog in training, they are practacing with him to find his strengths, and then train him appropriately). We watched sheep get round up from the feild, sorted into appropriate corrals, and last but not least the shearing. Quite the dance (literally, to shear a sheep) Lots of fun, we have video of the dog work for everyone to see when we get home. It was an informative day filled with lots of humour, and a good meal at the attached cafe. And no we did not eat any sheep for lunch (Just didnt seem right when they are all looking at you and you were just petting them)
Well that is it for now, back to the adventures
Love
Brianna and Miles
Hey From Thames
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