Palmerston North to Lake Tekapo

After a good three months it was finally time to leave Palmerston North for good. Luckily I planned my trip to Taupo to get me back to my little flat in time to pack up and properly clean the place. I didn't plan for a last night out that ended after 4 in the morning with slight police involvement and statue climbing... This meant my well planned cleaning and packing day was spent sleeping and nursing an impressive and well earned hang over. Somehow I managed to pack (throw everything into my bag) and clean (sort of) and get out only half an hour late. For some reason the reception staff paid me my deposit back without even checking the room, apparently I look clean...

My first aim was to get all the way down to Queenstown on the South island so that I could finally try snowboarding. The first step of this was a coach down to visit Wellington again, a city which is a lot more appealing with more people and some sunshine. It was only a flying visit so not much to report. I was only here thanks to my need to save money hence taking the ferry to the south island rather than a plane. In the end the ferry was a great choice as the crossing between the islands is a really picturesque trip through the narrow channels of the Marlbourough Sounds. 

On the South side of the Cook Strait it was onto another coach for the next leg of the trip to Christchurch. my minimal preparation for my arrival here had at least picked a route to walk from the bus stop to the hostel I was going to stay at. What I hadn't planned for was the fact that the city centre of Christchurch is still partially abandoned and without power. The bus had arrived after dark and it turns out city centres with no lights and lots of boarded up or smashed windows feels like a zombie film waiting to happen. Luckily I avoided any earthquake zombies and made it to the hostel with only minimal police interference.

The next morning I was off on another coach finally bound for Queenstown. Unfortunately this is not how it worked out and halfway through the journey the bus stopped at the tiny village of Tekapo and we were told it was going no further. Apparently the snow between here (where I am writing this blog out of extreme boredom) and Queenstown is too much for the coach. Luckily there was a big hill to climb here with amazing views of the surrounding area and the brilliant turquoise lake. Be sure to full size the last picture to see just how isolated this area is! This stop has made a mess of plans but I am staying positive that tomorrow I will actually make it to Queenstown. In the mean time I will leave you to marvel at the fact that this blog is the first "live" one I have managed!

Taupo

To fill in the gap from the last blog I have spent about 3 months working on a project titled "Statistical inference of Malagasy settlement history via molecular coalescence simulations". If you want to know more about that then God help you. Anyway after spending so much time in Palmerston North I felt like I should see some more of the North island before I left. I settled on going up to great lake Taupo in the centre of the island.

The place is supposed to be really beautiful... unfortunately the weather was not on my side and all the time I was there it was completely overcast, windy and rainy. This meant that there were not the fantastic views of the mountains across the lake that Taupo usually boasts.  Luckily the scenery was really a secondary reason for visiting Taupo. The main reason was to scare the crap out of myself in various different ways. The first was a 47 meter bungy jump. Notice the completely fake smile in the picture and the fact that I had rolled my sleeves up. The bungy is advertised as a water touch jump and I didn't want to get my jumper too wet.

They do say that they can't guarantee a water touch for everyone. The next picture is the one from the bottom of my jump; judge for yourself whether I "touched" the water...

So thanks to that I spent the rest of the day soaked pretty much from head to toe. I bought the bungy as part of a package deal that also included a ride in a helicopter and a jet boat ride and a sky dive. Unfortunately the bad weather struck again and my sky dive was cancelled. This was really annoying for me, though I am sure my mum was happier to know that I didn't do it. The other activities slightly made up for the lack of skydiving as they were far more interesting than I had anticipated. They gave us 2 different views of the Huka falls, New Zealand's most visited natural attraction.

So this will be pretty much the last entry for the North Island, I head south tomorrow hopefully to see some snow.

Wellington

After Pete and Jess had left I spent one last day enjoying the sun and warm weather of Australia as due to me standard lack of planning I would be arriving at the start of the New Zealand winter. I had foolishly assumed travelling to New Zealand would be simple as it was one western country to another. It turns out the airline wouldn't let me board my flight without an onward ticket out of New Zealand. This led to me rushing around the airport to find a computer to buy a ticket on and then rushing around again to find a printer that would work. Eventually I got onto the flight and made it without any more problems to Wellington.

Since my accommodation in Palmerston North wasn't ready for me to move in for another day I spent a day looking around Wellington. However it seems that Easter (yes Easter I am that far behind) is a much bigger holiday over here than back in England. Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, was an utter ghost town with all the shops apart from McDonalds closed. Luckily there were some tourist attractions still open to occupy my day with.

First I took the famous red cable car from the city to the top of a hill overlooking the bay. At the top it turned out there was a plane-arium that was still open and since I had never been to one I decided to give it a go. As well as flying around space it also had a weird animated film about the space race that was incredibly disorientating to watch projected onto the ceiling.

Once I had taken the cable car back into the city I walked around a bit more embracing the cold weather before deciding to find an attraction with a roof and some heating. Luckily the Museum of New Zealand was nearby and free so I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around and learning what giant squid look like, how crappy earthquakes are and childishly giggling at certain exhibits. 

The next day I took a coach to Palmerston North the city (don't know who they are kidding it is a town) that would be my home for the next 3(ish) months. As a perfect welcome it was hammering down with rain when I arrived and when I got to the accommodation there was a sign on the door saying the reception was closed for Easter. Thankfully the sign wasn't completely true and there was a very bored man sitting there who gave me my key and neglected to tell me anything of use. It has to be said that I didn't quite get the sort of "extensive views of the city and surrounding areas" that I was expecting...

At this stage of the blog I was going to take a 3 month break but thanks to my brilliant timing (laziness) I can pretty much carry straight on as today is my last day at work, which is why I am using it to write this blog instead of working.

Hervey Bay and the end.

We spent much longer in Hervey Bay than we had planned. The town doesn't really have a lot going apart from being the town that most people leave on trips for Fraser Island from. Unfortunately neither Pete nor I had the funds for the trip and so we would have to spend a few days hanging around until Jess returned.

The best attraction of the town that we could find to visit was Vic Heslop's Shark Museum. Now don't be fooled by the name this was just a couple of small rooms filled with shark hating memorabilia. I know they aren't the most friendly creatures in the world but this guy really

 hated them and had killed hundreds. The crowning glory of the experience was a bunch of frozen sharks including a great white in a very low budget fake aquarium. 

There wasn't much else that happened during our stay apart from us spending some time fishing (feeding fish prawns) off a pier. And we had a meal time visited by another possum, this one much more forward and actually tried to get into the van.

Three nights later Jess had returned and it was time for me and Pete to finally part ways. After over 6 months of almost constant company it was an emotional farewell. I will take this opportunity to leave my soppy message of thanks to Pete; it was a brilliant journey and certainly wouldn't have been the same with anyone else so thank-you for letting me tag along on your trip.

Despite the misleading title this isn't quite the end yet. I will be working in New Zealand for 2 and a half months (now only another 2 weeks left thanks to my laziness at blog writing) before seeing a bit of the country. After that I have stupidly ambitious and terribly thought out plans for the end of the trip.

Campervan Leg 4 - Brisbane to Hervey Bay

Our route from Brisbane to Noosa took us down the Steve Irwin Highway, and past the glass house mountains, providing views very reminiscent of our journeys in parts of Laos and Vietnam (though luckily with better driving).

In Noosa we managed to stay in the car park of a hostel, entitling us to use of all of their facilities for only $20 a night. During our first day there we went for a walk along the sea front. The path showed more signs of destruction from the flooding in January. On the walk we spotted the front legs of some sort of tarantula in a hole in the ground. This led to us hunting them for about an hour, unfortunately not finding one to get a picture of. 

We stayed in Noosa for quite a bit longer than we had planned thanks to the price of the hostel parking being so much cheaper than everywhere else we had been. On our last night there we went out again and the next morning I was still feeling very drunk. Unfortunately I had also volunteered to drive us to Hervey Bay, this led to a driver that was finding life far too much fun and us flying over a mini round-a-bout that I swear appeared from nowhere.

Luckily we made it to Hervey Bay without further incident (or if there were further incidents I was too drunk to remember them). Whilst there me and Pete also discovered what is possibly the greatest board game ever created. Unfortunately as it is in Australia it costs a stupid amount and so had to stay in the shop (we did find Jess a diablo though, something I expect she is amazing at by now...).

Campervan Leg 3 - Byron Bay to Brisbane

Next stop after the blur of Byron Bay was Surfers Paradise, just up the coast. The drive there was largely uneventful with the only noteworthy thing being me finally getting a picture of our favourite Aussie road sign (albeit a terribly blurry photo). Instead of no entry signs most one way streets seem to have these "wrong way go back" signs.

Once we had found a campsite in Surfers we headed into the city to have a look around. It is quite a strange place with miles of beautiful white sand beach fringed by miles of high rise accommodation. On our way back to the van we were suckered into getting tickets for a club crawl for the next night. This meant I would have to buy some new jeans as I had been wearing a pair ripped right across both ass cheeks since Sydney. 

The club crawl wasn't as great as the sales women had made out. We had to be out in town far too early meaning there wasn't time for pre-drinking and the first few places we went to were completely dead. The clubs were all ridiculously expensive for drinks so in the end we gave up and called it a night. Our arrival in Brisbane didn't go all that smoothly as the nearest campsite to the centre was on the far side of the city somewhere out in the suburbs. Obviously this meant that we got lost on our way there. Eventually we figured it out and relaxed for the rest of the day. The next morning our trick of avoiding the extra person fee was nearly foiled when a worker came to the van to check if we were planning to stay another night, luckily I was holed up in the roof of the van and managed to hide from him!

We didn't feel too bad for the deception at this park as the owner had recommended that we visit the south bank of Brisbane to go swimming in an artificial lagoon. Whilst there was a free museum that we had fun looking around the lagoon was a pretty big let down. The whole South bank was being renovated after the flooding earlier in the year (the only signs of the flooding that we witnessed). This meant there was only a tiny area open and this was filled with young children and so most likely young children's urine. We went for a swim anyway and then headed back to our van, ready to head onwards to Noosa the next day.

Campervan Leg 2 - Nelson Bay to Byron Bay

After Nelson Bay we carried on towards Port Maquarie. Due to mistiming the drive we ended up arriving in the rain and after dark; not great when you discover that if you try to switch to high beams the headlights went off instead. The dark did, however, help us with the new tradition of one of us hiding in the roof of the van when entering campsites to avoid the extra person charge.

The next day it had thankfully stopped raining so we went down to the beach, which ended up being a massive walk from the campsite. In the afternoon we went over to a Koala sanctuary to see a bunch of sick Koalas being fed. The extremely boring woman at the sanctuary told us all about the many ways that Koalas can get ill. Did you know they get Chlamydia...

After Port Maquarie we carried on to Byron Bay. Thanks to a combination of drinking far too much wine and not charging my camera I only have one picture and that is of the sign for our campsite there. This came in useful as on one night out I managed to get myself very lost for hours and lost another pair of flip flops (that is 5 pairs for the trip).