27th
We got to Wellington at the very Southern tip of the North Island around midday and found a park about 5 mins from the ferry terminal. We took the bus into town and took a tram to the top of a hill where the botanical gardens are situated. The view over the natural harbour was amazing, there was some sort of speed boat race going on so there was all sorts of activity to look at. We had decided to walk back down the hill to the lower tram terminal, it had been about a 5 minute ride up the hill and we had covered about 500m so how hard could it be? A path through the botanical gardens (free) said it lead down to the parliament buildings so we followed it for about 20 mins through the park looking at all the plants and trees; but soon the walk ended up going out onto the roads so we made our way back to the top again to try again. ANYWAY... after several voided attempts we finally found our way back down, who would have thought that a 500m tram ride could turn into such a long, winding and complicated walk (including going into a building and taking a lift out on the bottom floor to continue on!).
When we returned to our campsite we found that we had a slightly flat tyre and made an attempt at changing it only to find that we hadn't been given the correct tools; the thing we had for undoing the bolts wouldn't fit; and so we had to call out the AA. When the chap arrived he got out our spare from under the vehicle only to find that the rim was broken and he said it was too dangerous to fit, so he pumped up our tyre, gave us all sorts of info to give to the hire company and left. Our ferry was first thing the next morning so there wasn't much we could do, so we decided to leave it until we got to the south island - there are two wheels on each side at the back so he said it would be alright for a while as not all the weight goes on that wheel.
We went to a bar to have a drink, use the internet and eat Nachos! We overheard some guys talking, they were only in there 60s but they were talking about how terrifying it was to drive these days with so many cars on the road.... it made me chuckle... the roads here are so empty, if they went to the UK I think they'd have a heart attack!
28th
By 7am we were at the ferry terminal waiting in the queue to load. It was all very efficient and good natured, I suppose with no customs and immigration it makes the whole process much easier. Once our van was loaded we made our way up to the 7th deck to sit in the Atrium, a big sort of glasshouse near the back of the boat. The water was really calm as we went out into the natural harbour, but once we hit the open sea it was a bit like a slow fairground ride, rocking and rolling over the waves. I slept for most of the journey in a big comfy chair!
We reached Picton at around 11am and our tyre looking big, fat and healthy, did not set off any alarms, so we drove off the ship and went in search of a tyre place - no luck, it was Sunday and things are generally not open on Sundays here. We drove to Blenheim, a short way south, where there was also nothing open and so we decided to go in land a bit to see what we could find. We drove along the Wairau valley which is filled with endless vinyards, apparently this is the best grape growing region due to mild all year round weather, until we reached Saint Arnaud. Here we found a campsite next to the picture perfect Rotoiti Lake which is framed by mountains at the far end and surrounded by native forest (undergoing an intensive 'get rid of non-native species' program so that Kiwi and other native birds can be reintroduced).
By the time we arrived it was only about 3pm but there was a bitterly cold wind blowing, so we took refuge and drank tea. By the time night fell it was bitterly cold and we spent some time with the gas burners on the cooker at full blast just to get the chill out of the air before we went to bed!
29th
We awoke to sunshine but it was still bitterly cold until after 10am when we finally emerged from under our duvets to face the day! We did all the maintenance (emptied the tanks and refilled the fresh water) and then set out on a walk through the bush down by the lake. There was a fantastic conversation going on in the trees between numerous bell birds that have a clear ringing song for a few notes finished off with a couple of sniffs - it is quite quirky! The walk was great apart from one thing, it is on horrid gravel paths that mean you can't walk quietly and sneak up on things, I know they are trying to make the paths accesible to all but I think that this is just going too far, it really spoils the quietness of the bush (apart from the birdsong). We passed a beautiful mossy waterfall, many fallen logs that had become home to new trees, saw a Harrier preening high in the branches and the strange looking Silvereye. The lake was crystal clear, the sun was shining and it was just beautiful.
By 1pm we were on our way westwards towards Murchison (which looked on the map like a big town but turned out to be tiny) where we thought we would be able to find a tyre rim but again no luck. We parked up quite early and did our washing, a maths lesson and caught up on the blog. At the moment Celso is outside BBQing some venison and pork sausages that we bought from a local butcher. We have fed the campsite animals, a 3 month old deer called Norma that was taken from her mother's stomach after she was shot (there is no hunting season for deer here as they are non-native species and therefore considered pests) and they saw her stomach moving, she survived against all the odds; 3 emus; ducks and chickens; sheep and an enormous black and white pig, called Westie, that was also taken in as a rescue case as a baby when he was found covered in dog bites on a hill just west of here (that's why he is called Westie). Westie gathers fresh grass for his bed every night and has very good toilet manners using the same spot every day and leaving everywhere else in his paddock clean! There is another pig that lives away down the hill a bit but comes when he is called by name - Kevin Bacon!
The owners of the campsite are going in to the local school tomorrow do give a talk to the younger children about American Indians and have asked us to go along, so I'll be able to look in the school and Celso will be able to tell the children a little bit about S. American Indians!
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Friday, 26 March 2010
Bridge to Nowhere in Whanganui National Park
By 9:30am we were in Pipiriki at the cafe from where our jet boat was to go. We met Ben (Bin as they say here) and our two fellow travellers (from Germany and very, very quiet). We made our sandwiches, packed our hats and sun tan cream (as we were praying for sun after the miserable day yesterday and a greyish start to the day), put on our life jackets and walked down to the river and our bright yellow jet boat.
We whizzed up the river through the most fantastic steep sided gorges loaded with ferns and fern trees.
Most of the area right next to the river was natural bush but you could see the affects of settlement with huge fir trees up at the top of the hills and some opened up grasslands (which would all have to have been planted).
We entered into a small side river in a beautiful small gorge with steep sides and a small stream emptying in at the end. Here, we were told, a film called the River Queen had some scenes filmed with Maori rowing their waka (canoe) up and down. Will just have to watch that now.
Then on, about an hour up the river to the landing at the end of the valley where the steam boats used to stop to load and unload the unfortunates who tried to farm the valley of the Bridge to Nowhere. We were shown some huge metal hooks in the wall where metal cables were attached so the steam boats could attach their winches and pull themselves up the rapids.
We walked 40 mins along a track through lush bush (but secondary growth - though I wouldn't have known that if we hadn't been told) to the Bridge to Nowhere. The story of the area was slowly revealed to us as we walked.
After the first world war the valley was surveyed and split into plots. Returning servicemen were allowed to lease plots to buy at a later date. They were given time to clear the land and as soon as they were able to put sheep on the land they would start to pay the lease. The only way into the valley was either a walk from one end (total length from one end of the valley to the other was 70km) or a two day ferry ride up the river to the landing where we arrived. These people had to walk or use mules / horses to bring everything in until the government made the gravel road in the early 1920s with swing bridges or pulley on a wire type systems to cross the streams. However by the mid 1920s lots of the farmers were just giving up and moving out. The government decided to finance the building of the bridge over the largest gap in the road and so 'the bridge to nowhere' was built. In the middle of construction the road further up the valley was washed out by a big storm and the valley residents had to appeal for more funds. By the time the road was mended and the bridge was finished 8 people attended the opening (half of them were the builders of the bridge!), most of the other residents had given up and left. Two cars went over the bridge, turned round and went back again, and then apart from foot and animal traffic the bridge was never really used ... it was just too late, the residents had gone!
10 years after the bridge was built it was covered in a layer of grass, by the 1940s the government forced the final 3 residents out of the valley and declared the place a national park. It was only in the 1960s that the old road was cleaned up and made into a walking path and it became what we see today, a bridge in the middle of nowhere.
We ate our sandwiches and drank tea as the sun came out; we sat on the bridge and flicked through old photos showing some of the houses and lives of the early settlers here. At one stage there was even enough kids to open a single room schoolhouse here and a mail man (on horseback) used to visit twice week.
Then back to the river and 40 mins back down the river to our canoe and kayak. We had 10km to paddle and as long as we wanted to do it. Tris and I were not very good at keeping our canoe in a straight line so we ended up tying on to the back of Celso's kayak and he kept us on a fairly straight course. As we went down the river we passed 5 sets of rapids that slowly got more and more hairy (but nothing too big), Tristan and I ended up going down one nearly backwards but we coped quite well I think.
We had a couple of great stop offs in some riverside caves, one that was just full of mud and the other with a beautiful waterfall inside and rocks full of fossils outside.
Just as I thought I couldn't paddle a stroke more the end came into sight and we gratefully tied up our boats at the jetty and trudged up the hill to the van.
We then drove for a couple of hours to the south along first a gravel then a paved road that ran along the Whanganui river to the town of Whanganui, it was a beautiful drive but a little hairy along a very thin winding road with people coming in the other dirrection far too fast.
We finally found a campsite just after dark outside a little village called Bulls.
We whizzed up the river through the most fantastic steep sided gorges loaded with ferns and fern trees.
Most of the area right next to the river was natural bush but you could see the affects of settlement with huge fir trees up at the top of the hills and some opened up grasslands (which would all have to have been planted).
We entered into a small side river in a beautiful small gorge with steep sides and a small stream emptying in at the end. Here, we were told, a film called the River Queen had some scenes filmed with Maori rowing their waka (canoe) up and down. Will just have to watch that now.
Then on, about an hour up the river to the landing at the end of the valley where the steam boats used to stop to load and unload the unfortunates who tried to farm the valley of the Bridge to Nowhere. We were shown some huge metal hooks in the wall where metal cables were attached so the steam boats could attach their winches and pull themselves up the rapids.
We walked 40 mins along a track through lush bush (but secondary growth - though I wouldn't have known that if we hadn't been told) to the Bridge to Nowhere. The story of the area was slowly revealed to us as we walked.
After the first world war the valley was surveyed and split into plots. Returning servicemen were allowed to lease plots to buy at a later date. They were given time to clear the land and as soon as they were able to put sheep on the land they would start to pay the lease. The only way into the valley was either a walk from one end (total length from one end of the valley to the other was 70km) or a two day ferry ride up the river to the landing where we arrived. These people had to walk or use mules / horses to bring everything in until the government made the gravel road in the early 1920s with swing bridges or pulley on a wire type systems to cross the streams. However by the mid 1920s lots of the farmers were just giving up and moving out. The government decided to finance the building of the bridge over the largest gap in the road and so 'the bridge to nowhere' was built. In the middle of construction the road further up the valley was washed out by a big storm and the valley residents had to appeal for more funds. By the time the road was mended and the bridge was finished 8 people attended the opening (half of them were the builders of the bridge!), most of the other residents had given up and left. Two cars went over the bridge, turned round and went back again, and then apart from foot and animal traffic the bridge was never really used ... it was just too late, the residents had gone!
10 years after the bridge was built it was covered in a layer of grass, by the 1940s the government forced the final 3 residents out of the valley and declared the place a national park. It was only in the 1960s that the old road was cleaned up and made into a walking path and it became what we see today, a bridge in the middle of nowhere.
We ate our sandwiches and drank tea as the sun came out; we sat on the bridge and flicked through old photos showing some of the houses and lives of the early settlers here. At one stage there was even enough kids to open a single room schoolhouse here and a mail man (on horseback) used to visit twice week.
Then back to the river and 40 mins back down the river to our canoe and kayak. We had 10km to paddle and as long as we wanted to do it. Tris and I were not very good at keeping our canoe in a straight line so we ended up tying on to the back of Celso's kayak and he kept us on a fairly straight course. As we went down the river we passed 5 sets of rapids that slowly got more and more hairy (but nothing too big), Tristan and I ended up going down one nearly backwards but we coped quite well I think.
We had a couple of great stop offs in some riverside caves, one that was just full of mud and the other with a beautiful waterfall inside and rocks full of fossils outside.
Just as I thought I couldn't paddle a stroke more the end came into sight and we gratefully tied up our boats at the jetty and trudged up the hill to the van.
We then drove for a couple of hours to the south along first a gravel then a paved road that ran along the Whanganui river to the town of Whanganui, it was a beautiful drive but a little hairy along a very thin winding road with people coming in the other dirrection far too fast.
We finally found a campsite just after dark outside a little village called Bulls.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Central North Island
25th
We set off from Rotarua heading south towards lake Taupo (NZ's largest lake created by an enormous volcanic eruption thousands of years ago). On the way we visited Orakei Korako, a fantastic thermal valley full of geysers and silica terraces. The hot waters flow down into a lake which has tepid waters and is full of eels and catfish.
You cross the lake in a small ferry to reach the active thermal area so it is quite an impressive entrance. The terraces are beautiful, covered in the green, orange and white slime that lines the waterways down which the hot, acidic water flows from the geysers. All this was set amongst some pristine native bush with fantastic tall fern trees framing the volcanic peaks beyond.
At the top of the site is an enormous cave (they are not sure how it formed)called the Ruatapu or sacred Cave, at the bottom of which is a crystal clear pool of aquamarine water - the mirror pool, Waiwhakaata, with bubbles emerging showing its hydrothermal activity. The guide leaflet that you carry with you states - be careful you may find yourself standing in the pool - and that is exactly what happened to Tris.... the water is so clear and still that it is impossible to see its edge and Tris just walked straight in!! Some of the rocks near the pool show mineral deposits in a beautiful array of colours. Perhaps the picture could be used in school and kids could try to judge what chemicals must be present in the water to make the blue, green, orange, white and black deposits.
Outside the cave are some more hot mud pools, this time rather than just one bubbling mass in each hole the pools were filled with numerous bubbles, so the bubbles weren't as big but it was all much more active, and the sounds excruciatingly delicious!
Then we drove further south to the outskirts of Taupo where the Huka falls crash over a 15ft spillway, 200,000 litres per second. The water comes from Lake Taupo and then squeezes through a 15m wide 10m deep gorge, it is an impressive sight and sound, with the immaculately clear turquoise water. Upstream of the falls we could see down into the water about 5m, it was just so clear - I've never seen anything like it. We took short walks up both sides of the river and stopped to eat blackberries under the trees and tree ferns.
After booking the trip that we will be going on tomorrow in Taupo we drove further south round the lake with impressive views across the lake and to the many volcanic peaks that make up this region. We stopped at several spots for Celso to try his luck with fishing (this area is meant to be the fishing capital of the north island) but his luck just wasn't in. We are camped at Ohakune, a small town in the skiing region of the north island.
We have seen some Kiwi signs so we will be listening out for them tonight.
We set off from Rotarua heading south towards lake Taupo (NZ's largest lake created by an enormous volcanic eruption thousands of years ago). On the way we visited Orakei Korako, a fantastic thermal valley full of geysers and silica terraces. The hot waters flow down into a lake which has tepid waters and is full of eels and catfish.
You cross the lake in a small ferry to reach the active thermal area so it is quite an impressive entrance. The terraces are beautiful, covered in the green, orange and white slime that lines the waterways down which the hot, acidic water flows from the geysers. All this was set amongst some pristine native bush with fantastic tall fern trees framing the volcanic peaks beyond.
At the top of the site is an enormous cave (they are not sure how it formed)called the Ruatapu or sacred Cave, at the bottom of which is a crystal clear pool of aquamarine water - the mirror pool, Waiwhakaata, with bubbles emerging showing its hydrothermal activity. The guide leaflet that you carry with you states - be careful you may find yourself standing in the pool - and that is exactly what happened to Tris.... the water is so clear and still that it is impossible to see its edge and Tris just walked straight in!! Some of the rocks near the pool show mineral deposits in a beautiful array of colours. Perhaps the picture could be used in school and kids could try to judge what chemicals must be present in the water to make the blue, green, orange, white and black deposits.
Outside the cave are some more hot mud pools, this time rather than just one bubbling mass in each hole the pools were filled with numerous bubbles, so the bubbles weren't as big but it was all much more active, and the sounds excruciatingly delicious!
Then we drove further south to the outskirts of Taupo where the Huka falls crash over a 15ft spillway, 200,000 litres per second. The water comes from Lake Taupo and then squeezes through a 15m wide 10m deep gorge, it is an impressive sight and sound, with the immaculately clear turquoise water. Upstream of the falls we could see down into the water about 5m, it was just so clear - I've never seen anything like it. We took short walks up both sides of the river and stopped to eat blackberries under the trees and tree ferns.
After booking the trip that we will be going on tomorrow in Taupo we drove further south round the lake with impressive views across the lake and to the many volcanic peaks that make up this region. We stopped at several spots for Celso to try his luck with fishing (this area is meant to be the fishing capital of the north island) but his luck just wasn't in. We are camped at Ohakune, a small town in the skiing region of the north island.
We have seen some Kiwi signs so we will be listening out for them tonight.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Hobitton and Rotarua
22nd
We drove south and west from Huntley towards Matamata where there is a farm that houses the only surviving evidence that the Lord of the Rings trilogy was ever filmed here. The Hobbit village of Hobbiton was made on a sheep farm in the area, when the filming was finished demolition of the whole set began but after a few days the rain came down and the demolition work had to be abandoned for safety reasons. The winter had set in and no more work could be done until spring. Over the winter flocks of people came to the farm asking to see the site and the owners realised what a money making venture they could have and so started negotiations to have the site left and to allow them to operate tours of the site. It took 2 years to finally get full agreement and so we went to see what remained. Incredibly most of the set was made of polystyrene, so none of that remains, but several of the hobbit house fronts are still in situ and the party tree and lake are original to the site (that is why the farm was chosen), our guide explained where everything was, how the sets were made etc.... it didn't mean much to me as I'm not a real fan, but Celso and Tris seemed to know what he was talking about!!! On our 2 hour tour we saw the first real rain that we have seen in months, I think since January!! Then we watched a strapping young Kiwi shearing a sheep explaining about how the wool industry works etc. Then Tris bottle fed a lamb before we set off again in our van.
Eastwards, to Rotarua where we are going to stay for a few days. We have found a fatastic little campsite on a river that flows down into the huge Rotarua lake. Celso immediately went off fishing and Tristan is amusing some ducks that come begging around the van. The laundry is in, the sun is out and we have time to relax.
23rd
By 10am we were at Rainbow Springs; a wildlife and Kiwi conservation park. They had all sorts of native birds on show set amongst fantastic native bush and a volcanic mineral spring stream that (apparently) is water that fell as rain about 50 years ago and has slowly been filtering through volcanic rock ever since until it emerges in the natural spring at the top of the park. We collected some of the water to taste later! We saw Kea (a large ground parrot endemic to NZ that is endangered like the Kiwi because it is flightless and therefore prey to the many introduced carnivourous species) and Kaka (that can fly short distances but still in peril), there were an enormous number of rainbow trout in the stream that were introduced from the US in the late 1800s, they are free to come and go as they please as the stream flows into the Rotaroa Lake (where Celso went fishing last night with no luck!). At 11am we went on our Kiwi experience tour where we went to see behind the scenes at the Kiwi conservation breeding program. We learnt all about the Kiwi, saw eggs being incubated, watched a sped up video of a hatching (they take about 3 days), saw a newly hatched chick and month old chicks that still hadn't regained their birth weight (they lose about half their birth weight as they use up their yolk sac) and then some that had regained their birthweight so were out in natural enclosures but in a darkened area so that we could see them out and about. We could have watched for hours, they are so endearing and completely odd (no other words for it!).
The eggs are taken from under the male (who does all the incubating) when they are about 40 days old, then incubated artificially for another 40 days or so until they hatch; this time is so exhausting for the chick that it then just lays around for about a week, living off the yolk sac. There first meal is then usually some sticks or stones to put in their crops and then they should start eating worms, insects, fruit and seeds. In about a month they should regain their birthweight and after 6 months they weigh about 1kg and are strong enough to defend themselves against predators; so they are released back out into the wild.
Monitoring has shown that only 5% of wild reared chicks survive to breeding age, but with the captive rearing program 75% survive - so it is really working.
Here are some interesting facts about Kiwis:-
They have the shortest beak of any bird even though they are really long!!! This is because officially a beak is measured from the nostrils to the tip of the beak but since the Kiwi is the only bird to have its nostrils at the end of its beak (rather than on its head) then this measurement is really tiny.
Kiwis are one of only a few types of bird that have a good sense of smell
The Kiwi has bone marrow whereas other birds have hollow bones to reduce weight and help with flying.
Kiwi feathers are practically like hair, they are so thin and fine.
Kiwis have whiskers at the base of their beak
Kiwis have huge ears and have excellent hearing
The Kiwis wings are tiny, they look like a little finger and only have a few feathers on the upper surface and a large claw at the end.
Kiwis hatch from the egg with adult feathers, they have no fluffy, downy chick stage.
Compared to its body size the Kiwi lays the largest eggs of any birds (up to 6 times a year), in human terms it would be like giving birth to a 4 year old!
Male Kiwis do the incubating of the egg as the mother recovers from the trauma of producing and laying the egg!
Kiwis don't have an egg tooth, that is why it takes them so long to hatch.
Kiwis have massive legs for their size, they use them for digging, defence and in the females case to carry around the huge eggs that can take up to 30 days to develop before they are laid.
We all fell in love with the Kiwis.
The park also had some Tuataras (the lizard that hasn't changed in over 200 million years), did you know that they can survive on two meals a year and can breathe as little as once an hour. Also geckos and skinks, parakeets, chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep, quail, pheasant, donkeys, possums and wallabies - a little haven for animal lovers like us... needless to say we spent a happy few hours there.
We then went into the centre of town to a park we had passed yesterday where we could see clouds of steam rising from fenced off areas - we had to investigate. The smell was sulphurous and not very pleasant but we wandered around, perhaps, 100 hot springs or mud holes. Fantastic slurping sounds as the mud bubbled up and we got some pretty good mud boiling pictures too!
At 5pm we were picked up from our campsite to go to a Mauri Hangi, a traditional earth oven (hot stones) meal like the Umu we had in Rapa Nui. It was a much less exclusive affair with over 100 guests, so for me it wasn't quite as good an experience as we never had perfect views of what was going on, but Celso and Tris loved it. We were met by Mauri warriors who assessed if we were friend or foe; then, after they had given the all clear we were sang an invitation song by the head Maori woman of the village. We all went into the village and were shown a building (however there wasn't enough time to see all the different buildings) and then rushed off to the meeting house where we were treated to traditional songs and dances. All the dances had some sort of training value; strengthening the upper body, the legs or wrists; and also a story to tell. Both the men and the women used large pom poms on strings which they waved around with great precision (not hitting their neighbours and very much in time with each other), short sticks which they bashed and tossed to each other, or long poles which they managed to manipulate into the most excruciating positions around their torsos!! The men had the lower halves of their faces tattood with intricate patterns (full facial is for chiefs only) and the women had their chins and lips tattood (to me it looked a bit like they had been sick!). The majority of the women are very chunky with square faces and tightly pulled back hair (they reminded me a bit of Sumo wrestlers!), but they were amazingly swift and delicate in their dance movements. It was not as sweaty and energetic a performance as the Rapa Nui one but more calming and mezmerising with beautiful harmonies in the songs. There were several occassions in the songs when they managed to widen their eyes so that the whites looked enormous, it looked quite intimidating but some were smiling at the same time so I'm not sure of its significance and there was no opportunity to ask. There were also a few occasions when the tongues were stuck out so that they touched the bottom of their chins, this is a challenge or initimidation pose.
The performance over we were rushed on again to a huge dining area and a buffet meal, good food, but we didn't see it coming out of the ground, though they showed us how it would have been cooked after the meal. The wood that is burnt, to get the volcanic rocks white hot at 900C, is Tea Tree as it is full of oil (Tea Tree oil) and burns very hot. Here they use flax, a waxy leafed sort of grassy plant (looked like a succulent cactus to me) instead of banana leaves to wrap up the food, but our meal was actually cooked in metal baskets and covered in sacking, before the earth was piled on top. Not very authentic!
I just felt rushed, pushed here and there, no time to explore the village or take photos.
The bus ride back to town was fun though, lots of singing including a rendition of 'She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes' whilst we drove round and round (and round) a roundabout - you had to be there, I suppose.
24th
It rained all day today, sometimes a shower and sometimes pelting down, until we returned a bit wet and uncomfortable to the campsite at 3.30pm. As soon as we arrived out came the sun (b*****d). Anyway we spent the time looking at Maori wood carvings and visiting a wildlife park (the ticket for which was free when we did the Maori Hangi yesterday). I find the carvings a little ugly, the wood is beautiful but it is shaped into these grotesque figures with large bottoms, a long penis and a protruding tongue, not really something I want to look at everyday! The masks are a little better with carved versions of the tattoos but still not aesthetically beautiful. All three of us had different ideas of what looked good, (me just the plain wood, Celso the masks, and Tris liked a sort of totum pole carving) we ended up getting nothing!!!
We wandered around the wildlife park in the rain, the best animal was an enormous male pig who came up to the fence and raised his head waiting for you to pour food into his open mouth, he was a really funny sight. The Keas were beautiful; the stream was packed with enormous trout (free to go down to the river and on to Lake Rotarua but chosing to stay and be fed by the visitors); there was a very randy male deer who was challenging a bull and a tree(!) in his paddock; loads of ducks, geese and swans; sheep, alpacas, donkeys and wallabies; a tree top walk; and at 2.30pm we went to watch the lion feeding. There is a very healthy and happy looking pride of 7, dominant male (10) and his 3 year old son who is now larger than his dad and vying for the top spot (both showed signs of a recent fight that they had had, one with a bloody lip, the other with a bloody leg). Then 7 females, the oldest at 21 years showing signs of her age with a droopy lip and bowed back legs. They were fed horse meat (the most like zebra that the park can find) by hurling it over the fence as we watched; there was lots of leaping and grasping at the air in order to claim their share; the dominant male put a few of the others in their place and then made lots of moaning roaring sounds when the supply of meat ran out. This is one of the main lion breeding prides in Australasia and they looked like a really well kept bunch. It was a great experience.
We drove south and west from Huntley towards Matamata where there is a farm that houses the only surviving evidence that the Lord of the Rings trilogy was ever filmed here. The Hobbit village of Hobbiton was made on a sheep farm in the area, when the filming was finished demolition of the whole set began but after a few days the rain came down and the demolition work had to be abandoned for safety reasons. The winter had set in and no more work could be done until spring. Over the winter flocks of people came to the farm asking to see the site and the owners realised what a money making venture they could have and so started negotiations to have the site left and to allow them to operate tours of the site. It took 2 years to finally get full agreement and so we went to see what remained. Incredibly most of the set was made of polystyrene, so none of that remains, but several of the hobbit house fronts are still in situ and the party tree and lake are original to the site (that is why the farm was chosen), our guide explained where everything was, how the sets were made etc.... it didn't mean much to me as I'm not a real fan, but Celso and Tris seemed to know what he was talking about!!! On our 2 hour tour we saw the first real rain that we have seen in months, I think since January!! Then we watched a strapping young Kiwi shearing a sheep explaining about how the wool industry works etc. Then Tris bottle fed a lamb before we set off again in our van.
Eastwards, to Rotarua where we are going to stay for a few days. We have found a fatastic little campsite on a river that flows down into the huge Rotarua lake. Celso immediately went off fishing and Tristan is amusing some ducks that come begging around the van. The laundry is in, the sun is out and we have time to relax.
23rd
By 10am we were at Rainbow Springs; a wildlife and Kiwi conservation park. They had all sorts of native birds on show set amongst fantastic native bush and a volcanic mineral spring stream that (apparently) is water that fell as rain about 50 years ago and has slowly been filtering through volcanic rock ever since until it emerges in the natural spring at the top of the park. We collected some of the water to taste later! We saw Kea (a large ground parrot endemic to NZ that is endangered like the Kiwi because it is flightless and therefore prey to the many introduced carnivourous species) and Kaka (that can fly short distances but still in peril), there were an enormous number of rainbow trout in the stream that were introduced from the US in the late 1800s, they are free to come and go as they please as the stream flows into the Rotaroa Lake (where Celso went fishing last night with no luck!). At 11am we went on our Kiwi experience tour where we went to see behind the scenes at the Kiwi conservation breeding program. We learnt all about the Kiwi, saw eggs being incubated, watched a sped up video of a hatching (they take about 3 days), saw a newly hatched chick and month old chicks that still hadn't regained their birth weight (they lose about half their birth weight as they use up their yolk sac) and then some that had regained their birthweight so were out in natural enclosures but in a darkened area so that we could see them out and about. We could have watched for hours, they are so endearing and completely odd (no other words for it!).
The eggs are taken from under the male (who does all the incubating) when they are about 40 days old, then incubated artificially for another 40 days or so until they hatch; this time is so exhausting for the chick that it then just lays around for about a week, living off the yolk sac. There first meal is then usually some sticks or stones to put in their crops and then they should start eating worms, insects, fruit and seeds. In about a month they should regain their birthweight and after 6 months they weigh about 1kg and are strong enough to defend themselves against predators; so they are released back out into the wild.
Monitoring has shown that only 5% of wild reared chicks survive to breeding age, but with the captive rearing program 75% survive - so it is really working.
Here are some interesting facts about Kiwis:-
They have the shortest beak of any bird even though they are really long!!! This is because officially a beak is measured from the nostrils to the tip of the beak but since the Kiwi is the only bird to have its nostrils at the end of its beak (rather than on its head) then this measurement is really tiny.
Kiwis are one of only a few types of bird that have a good sense of smell
The Kiwi has bone marrow whereas other birds have hollow bones to reduce weight and help with flying.
Kiwi feathers are practically like hair, they are so thin and fine.
Kiwis have whiskers at the base of their beak
Kiwis have huge ears and have excellent hearing
The Kiwis wings are tiny, they look like a little finger and only have a few feathers on the upper surface and a large claw at the end.
Kiwis hatch from the egg with adult feathers, they have no fluffy, downy chick stage.
Compared to its body size the Kiwi lays the largest eggs of any birds (up to 6 times a year), in human terms it would be like giving birth to a 4 year old!
Male Kiwis do the incubating of the egg as the mother recovers from the trauma of producing and laying the egg!
Kiwis don't have an egg tooth, that is why it takes them so long to hatch.
Kiwis have massive legs for their size, they use them for digging, defence and in the females case to carry around the huge eggs that can take up to 30 days to develop before they are laid.
We all fell in love with the Kiwis.
The park also had some Tuataras (the lizard that hasn't changed in over 200 million years), did you know that they can survive on two meals a year and can breathe as little as once an hour. Also geckos and skinks, parakeets, chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep, quail, pheasant, donkeys, possums and wallabies - a little haven for animal lovers like us... needless to say we spent a happy few hours there.
We then went into the centre of town to a park we had passed yesterday where we could see clouds of steam rising from fenced off areas - we had to investigate. The smell was sulphurous and not very pleasant but we wandered around, perhaps, 100 hot springs or mud holes. Fantastic slurping sounds as the mud bubbled up and we got some pretty good mud boiling pictures too!
At 5pm we were picked up from our campsite to go to a Mauri Hangi, a traditional earth oven (hot stones) meal like the Umu we had in Rapa Nui. It was a much less exclusive affair with over 100 guests, so for me it wasn't quite as good an experience as we never had perfect views of what was going on, but Celso and Tris loved it. We were met by Mauri warriors who assessed if we were friend or foe; then, after they had given the all clear we were sang an invitation song by the head Maori woman of the village. We all went into the village and were shown a building (however there wasn't enough time to see all the different buildings) and then rushed off to the meeting house where we were treated to traditional songs and dances. All the dances had some sort of training value; strengthening the upper body, the legs or wrists; and also a story to tell. Both the men and the women used large pom poms on strings which they waved around with great precision (not hitting their neighbours and very much in time with each other), short sticks which they bashed and tossed to each other, or long poles which they managed to manipulate into the most excruciating positions around their torsos!! The men had the lower halves of their faces tattood with intricate patterns (full facial is for chiefs only) and the women had their chins and lips tattood (to me it looked a bit like they had been sick!). The majority of the women are very chunky with square faces and tightly pulled back hair (they reminded me a bit of Sumo wrestlers!), but they were amazingly swift and delicate in their dance movements. It was not as sweaty and energetic a performance as the Rapa Nui one but more calming and mezmerising with beautiful harmonies in the songs. There were several occassions in the songs when they managed to widen their eyes so that the whites looked enormous, it looked quite intimidating but some were smiling at the same time so I'm not sure of its significance and there was no opportunity to ask. There were also a few occasions when the tongues were stuck out so that they touched the bottom of their chins, this is a challenge or initimidation pose.
The performance over we were rushed on again to a huge dining area and a buffet meal, good food, but we didn't see it coming out of the ground, though they showed us how it would have been cooked after the meal. The wood that is burnt, to get the volcanic rocks white hot at 900C, is Tea Tree as it is full of oil (Tea Tree oil) and burns very hot. Here they use flax, a waxy leafed sort of grassy plant (looked like a succulent cactus to me) instead of banana leaves to wrap up the food, but our meal was actually cooked in metal baskets and covered in sacking, before the earth was piled on top. Not very authentic!
I just felt rushed, pushed here and there, no time to explore the village or take photos.
The bus ride back to town was fun though, lots of singing including a rendition of 'She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes' whilst we drove round and round (and round) a roundabout - you had to be there, I suppose.
24th
It rained all day today, sometimes a shower and sometimes pelting down, until we returned a bit wet and uncomfortable to the campsite at 3.30pm. As soon as we arrived out came the sun (b*****d). Anyway we spent the time looking at Maori wood carvings and visiting a wildlife park (the ticket for which was free when we did the Maori Hangi yesterday). I find the carvings a little ugly, the wood is beautiful but it is shaped into these grotesque figures with large bottoms, a long penis and a protruding tongue, not really something I want to look at everyday! The masks are a little better with carved versions of the tattoos but still not aesthetically beautiful. All three of us had different ideas of what looked good, (me just the plain wood, Celso the masks, and Tris liked a sort of totum pole carving) we ended up getting nothing!!!
We wandered around the wildlife park in the rain, the best animal was an enormous male pig who came up to the fence and raised his head waiting for you to pour food into his open mouth, he was a really funny sight. The Keas were beautiful; the stream was packed with enormous trout (free to go down to the river and on to Lake Rotarua but chosing to stay and be fed by the visitors); there was a very randy male deer who was challenging a bull and a tree(!) in his paddock; loads of ducks, geese and swans; sheep, alpacas, donkeys and wallabies; a tree top walk; and at 2.30pm we went to watch the lion feeding. There is a very healthy and happy looking pride of 7, dominant male (10) and his 3 year old son who is now larger than his dad and vying for the top spot (both showed signs of a recent fight that they had had, one with a bloody lip, the other with a bloody leg). Then 7 females, the oldest at 21 years showing signs of her age with a droopy lip and bowed back legs. They were fed horse meat (the most like zebra that the park can find) by hurling it over the fence as we watched; there was lots of leaping and grasping at the air in order to claim their share; the dominant male put a few of the others in their place and then made lots of moaning roaring sounds when the supply of meat ran out. This is one of the main lion breeding prides in Australasia and they looked like a really well kept bunch. It was a great experience.
West Northland
21st
We took a beautiful hour walk through the Kauri tree woods where we had crept last night in the dark and then started the journey south again. For lunch we stopped at the Pirou falls outside Matakohe, we thought we were lost for a while as the signpost from the main road had said 6km to the falls and after 7.5 km down a dusty gravel road we had the feeling we were on the wrong track. It just turns out that the sinage was worng because we soon came across a small sign that pointed down the side of a gulley to the falls. Beautiful little secluded spot with the falls tumbling down into a pool at the base and then down again into a further pool and down again into a third and finally into the river at the base. The water level is really low at the moment (at the end of the summer) but you can see that at times the volume of water is immense - I'm glad we visited it now, it was calming, and we sat on the rocks next to the river and ate oranges in the sun. Our journey then took us on further south back through Auckland and on south to a little town called Huntley were we saw a sign to a campsite and decided to stop. We ended up on the banks of a lake which we walked around for about 40 mins as the sun went down. It was ringed by fantastic plant life, some huge moorhens with blue breasts and loads of bullrushes that were seeding. (The lake was affected by blue green algae from the dry summer that they have had but this affected us none, apart from the fact that Celso would have loved to do a spot of fishing!).
We took a beautiful hour walk through the Kauri tree woods where we had crept last night in the dark and then started the journey south again. For lunch we stopped at the Pirou falls outside Matakohe, we thought we were lost for a while as the signpost from the main road had said 6km to the falls and after 7.5 km down a dusty gravel road we had the feeling we were on the wrong track. It just turns out that the sinage was worng because we soon came across a small sign that pointed down the side of a gulley to the falls. Beautiful little secluded spot with the falls tumbling down into a pool at the base and then down again into a further pool and down again into a third and finally into the river at the base. The water level is really low at the moment (at the end of the summer) but you can see that at times the volume of water is immense - I'm glad we visited it now, it was calming, and we sat on the rocks next to the river and ate oranges in the sun. Our journey then took us on further south back through Auckland and on south to a little town called Huntley were we saw a sign to a campsite and decided to stop. We ended up on the banks of a lake which we walked around for about 40 mins as the sun went down. It was ringed by fantastic plant life, some huge moorhens with blue breasts and loads of bullrushes that were seeding. (The lake was affected by blue green algae from the dry summer that they have had but this affected us none, apart from the fact that Celso would have loved to do a spot of fishing!).
Sunday, 21 March 2010
East Northland
18th
We were picked up from our hotel at 11am and driven out near the airport to where we were to collect our camper van. On the way we also picked up a German family, a couple and their daughter, he was an interesting fellow with a nose ring and 'BAD BOYS NEVER SLEEP' tattood around his neck and a complete skeleton hand tatood on his right hand. She, and her daughter, looked quite 'normal'... relatively!
We were shown around our van which is similar in size to the one we had in the states, we could have had a much smaller one but then you have to undo the table each night in order to make the bed and, quite frankly, I have better things to be doing with my time! Formalities over, we drove our way (on the left of the road now) cautiously about a mile to the nearest supermarket to fill up with goodies, nice to have the gear stick back on the correct side! The only thing that really disappointed in the shops was the bacon, we have bought some but it just doesn't look right!!
Our fridge full we headed to the motorway to zip north through Auckland into Northland. We were heading for Whangarei (pronounced Fangarei, and mainly called Ferengi (star trek fans will know it) by us because we kept on forgetting the name, why is it so hard to remember names in a foreign language?) about 200km up the East coast. we arrived around 5:30pm and stopped to take a walk around its well known waterfall - absolutely stunning, surrounded by a mature forest of fern trees and other NZ specialities that we don't know the names of. Local children were playing in the waterhole above the falls and having a great time. Then we found a campsite just around the corner from the falls and settled down to sort out all our bags, the beds and supper.
We found out that the sink in the bathroom was not connected properly to the water outlet hose so that water went everywhere! Not too much of a problem as we have another sink in the kitchen, just a shock for Celso when all the water started to appear out of the wall!
As night fell we found that it was getting very cold, just as well that we had asked for an extra duvet in the van!
19th
By 10am, after a breakfast of cereal (nice... have been missing that!), we headed about 20 mins out to the coast to a little town called Tutukaka (so we've now been to Titicaca and Tutukaka!) where we had booked on a boat to go snorkeling out at Poor Knights Islands, rated as 1 of the top 10 dive sites in the world by Jacques Custeau. Our large boat with 36 passengers and 4 crew on board rocked and rolled its way out to the islands in about 40min, and then we were taken through the southern hemispheres largest rock arch (the Southern Arch) into a calm bay and then round some cliffs to our dive site. As we arrived the water was boiling with fish in a feeding frenzy on the surface, two kinds of fish were feasting on krill, Blue Mao Mao and silver coloured Trevally, I've never seen anything like it. We kitted out in wet suits, snorkels, masks and flippers and got into the freezing water (some people had not paid the $10 extra for a wet suit and I don't know how they managed to get in), apparently these islands are in the EAC (part of the same one that is in finding Nemo), the East Australian Current, which then becomes the East Auckland Current, which is a warm current; but it didn't feel warm to me!
However, the cold was soon forgotton as the amazing underwater scene was revealed to us. Fish everywhere; Yellow Banded Perch; Spotted Black Groupers; evil torpedo shaped Kingfish; big silver Snapper; Blue fish; 2 spotted Demoiselles and a host of other fish. Some just seemed to float on the spot while others darted here and there, some used their fins like wings to propell themselves and others waggled their tails lazily to cruise through the water. Everywhere were 5 to 15cm tubular jellyfish with spectacular irridescent light shows going on inside their transparent bodies, and below it all was the dancing seaweed, swaying with the rythm of the waves even though it was 15m deep. Tris and I spotted a small troop of 5cm long squid that seemed to be hanging in the water but were soon darting off when a large school of Snapper approached. It was simply amazing.
The Poor Knights islands were named by Captain Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand; the story goes (according to some historians) that he was having difficulty thinking up new names for all the new islands that he encountered; he approached these islands as he was eating french toast with jam on top for breakfast, a dish known as Poor Knights breakfast; and so he gave the islands the name 'Poor Knights'.
The islands were inhabited by a Maori tribe called the Nati Toki; they managed to acquire some pigs from the explorers and kept them on the island; it was a great trade item for their tribe and they had many visits from other tribes who would travel for up to 4 days to trade with the islanders. However, one trade visit turned out to be fateful. The chief of the Nati Toki did not like the trade and so refused to give the visiting cheif any pigs, this was a great offence and relations were bad between the tribes for years; however no attack could be made on the easily defended islands so nothing was done about the snub until 10 years later. At this time the Nati Toki chief had entered into an alliance with another tribe and he went with his warriors to help this other tribe defend its lands against invaders. Meanwhile a slave escaped from the Poor Knitghts Islands and went to the snubbed chief and told him that the islands lay undefended. The islands were attacked and all the Nati Toki (women, children and the elderly) were slaughtered, only six members of the tribe survived. When the Nati Toki cheif and his warriors returned they were so shocked and upset by what they found that they left again immediately and the islands were made Tabu, no one has lived there since. The year was 1823.
All this has meant that the islands are an example of what NZ may have looked like when the first people arrived, covered in thick forest. It is home to Tuataras, a kind of lizard that hasn't evolved (it just didn't need to) in over 220,000,000 years and has the honour of being the only 3 eyed animal! There are also giant Whettas, in the absence of predators and competition on the island they have become enormous, some weigh up to 100g, about the weight of three large mice! Apparently they prey on gheckos, whereas in other places it is the whettas and their cousins the crickets that are eaten by the lizards!
The area has been a national park for over 50 years; the pigs and all other non native species have been removed and it is now a federal offence, with a fine of up to $20000, to set foot on the island. The marine reserve is much more recent, it is only 20 years old, but the area has seen a steady increase in fish populations since the waters around the island were protected from fishing.
After we got too cold snorkeling we sat on the boat in the sun eating sandwiches, salads and fruit, and then we tried our hand at kayaking. After about 2.5 hours at the dive site the boat lifted its anchors and we went for a small explore around the island. First stop was in the Riko Riko cave, the largest sea cave in the world at 130 by 78m. Riko Riko means shimmering light as the water inside the cave is so clear that the sunlight reflects up off the water and into the cave allowing ferns to grow from the roof. This sparkling clear water is thanks to sponges and other filter feeders that live in the cave and give the area up to 70m of underwater visibility. There were amazing colours on the walls of the cave just around the water line and the acoustics were fabulous, echos went on and on and on. There have even been some concerts in here in the past, with the band on one boat and the audience in kayaks, canoes or just swimming around!
Next we skirted the island to see how fortresslike it was and we were told the story of the Nati Toki tribe, apparently they left in such a hurry that there is an amazing wealth of archeology just waiting to be discovered, but as yet noone has been given permission to go and find it!! The only people to set foot on the island were those sent to trap the non native species and they say that the Nati Toki irrigation system and wells are still fully functional - there is no fresh water on the island except for the rain so the water collection system had to be good.
We passed through a second arch which had its walls lined with sponges that were revealed in a gaudy strip of reds, yellows and oranges as the swell ebbed and flowed (photos not possible due to the shade inside the arch and the amount of swell moving the boat), then past another cave called the ray of light cave that has a beam of light shining down from the top of the island 55m above through a shaft that has opened up due to erosion. Then we whizzed, with huge spray as the boat leapt over the waves, out to the pinnacles, a series of 3 spikey rocks that have the largest gannet populations in Australasia; but I think they were all out fishing as we saw very few; then on back to shore.
A fabulous few hours, followed by a short hour drive north towards the Bay of Islands. We had a short stop of in Kawakawa to see the most famous toilets in the world, the Hundertwasser public toilets, with columns, bottle walls and amazing tiling, and then on to our camp site on the waterfront at Paihia.
20th
Our first stop today was to some glow worm caves just south of Kawakawa in some amazing limestone caves with huge formations of stalagmites and stalagtites that started forming over 2 million years ago. At the mouth of the cave where the water exited was a deep pool with a huge eel in it, in fact there are 3 eels that live there and they have been named by the guides, Elvis, Precilla and XXXXXXXX. We were lead into the cave by lantern light and then when the lights were turned out the glow worms could show their stuff. It was like looking up at the night sky with a mass of stars twinkling. The worms are actually the maggot of a fly that spends 9 months glowing and catching mosquitos to then spend a couple of weeks in a cacoon turning into its adult form, unfortunately the adult fly does not have a mouth so it mates and lays eggs and then dies of starvation! The glowing is a result of a chemical reaction between magnesium in the maggots diet and an enzyme. The worms compete for space and the damp spots within the cave; if one gets too close to another a battle ensues with the victor eating his defeated foe; and so the sparkles glisten in a spectacular way, each from its own space.
We exited the cave and then walked back over the hill top through lush forest (bush as it is called here) full of ferns and native trees and enormous rocks which were obviously once inside a cave as there were the remains of stalagtites (or stalagmites) on some but the rock that they were attached to had been turned vertical so that they now stuck out horizonatally. It was a beautiful walk, short, but taking a long time as we stopped to look at everything.
Then we started our drive across to the East coast through a landscape of rolling hills and sudden rocky outcrops. There were beautiful views across valleys and woods of mixed growth but with the tree ferns dominating. Our first view of the East coast was over a beautiful bay (Hokianga Harbour) with huge sand dunes on the far side, we stopped and ate lunch by the water and then walked along the shore picking up sea shells and fascinated by the bright blue jelly fish that were washed up everywhere. Then we continued up to the head of the bay and took a short walk up on the headland. We found a stick insect and loads of small butterflies and fantastic views back over the bay and out over the Tasman sea towards Australia.
We started to wind our way south down the East coast and shortly entered the Waipoua Forest full of tree ferns and enormous Kauri trees, it was a fantastic drive but very twisty! We stopped to visit the largest Kauri tree in NZ and also the second largest and a group called the 4 sisters, where all 4 trees seemed to share a root system. They are magnificent trees, really fat in the girth with light bark in a sort of scaley pattern that sheds to rid the trees of pests such as lichen and mosses. All the measurements here are metric whereas in the US they were imperial, so it will be interesting to convert the numbers and compare these trees to the giant redwoods and sequoia trees. The walks to and from these giant trees was through pristine forest with fantastic plants along the way - ferns galore and strange twisty trees that made spiral shapes, the fern trees (of course) and many other species completely unknown to me - fascinating.
Finally we made our way to a campsite on a conservation reserve next to another Kauri tree forest renowned for its Kiwi population. After dark we went out for a walk in the forest with our torches and were lucky enough to be only a few feet away from a screeching Kiwi that then ran across the path in front of us. Not a brilliant sighting in our torchlight but a sighting just the same.
We were picked up from our hotel at 11am and driven out near the airport to where we were to collect our camper van. On the way we also picked up a German family, a couple and their daughter, he was an interesting fellow with a nose ring and 'BAD BOYS NEVER SLEEP' tattood around his neck and a complete skeleton hand tatood on his right hand. She, and her daughter, looked quite 'normal'... relatively!
We were shown around our van which is similar in size to the one we had in the states, we could have had a much smaller one but then you have to undo the table each night in order to make the bed and, quite frankly, I have better things to be doing with my time! Formalities over, we drove our way (on the left of the road now) cautiously about a mile to the nearest supermarket to fill up with goodies, nice to have the gear stick back on the correct side! The only thing that really disappointed in the shops was the bacon, we have bought some but it just doesn't look right!!
Our fridge full we headed to the motorway to zip north through Auckland into Northland. We were heading for Whangarei (pronounced Fangarei, and mainly called Ferengi (star trek fans will know it) by us because we kept on forgetting the name, why is it so hard to remember names in a foreign language?) about 200km up the East coast. we arrived around 5:30pm and stopped to take a walk around its well known waterfall - absolutely stunning, surrounded by a mature forest of fern trees and other NZ specialities that we don't know the names of. Local children were playing in the waterhole above the falls and having a great time. Then we found a campsite just around the corner from the falls and settled down to sort out all our bags, the beds and supper.
We found out that the sink in the bathroom was not connected properly to the water outlet hose so that water went everywhere! Not too much of a problem as we have another sink in the kitchen, just a shock for Celso when all the water started to appear out of the wall!
As night fell we found that it was getting very cold, just as well that we had asked for an extra duvet in the van!
19th
By 10am, after a breakfast of cereal (nice... have been missing that!), we headed about 20 mins out to the coast to a little town called Tutukaka (so we've now been to Titicaca and Tutukaka!) where we had booked on a boat to go snorkeling out at Poor Knights Islands, rated as 1 of the top 10 dive sites in the world by Jacques Custeau. Our large boat with 36 passengers and 4 crew on board rocked and rolled its way out to the islands in about 40min, and then we were taken through the southern hemispheres largest rock arch (the Southern Arch) into a calm bay and then round some cliffs to our dive site. As we arrived the water was boiling with fish in a feeding frenzy on the surface, two kinds of fish were feasting on krill, Blue Mao Mao and silver coloured Trevally, I've never seen anything like it. We kitted out in wet suits, snorkels, masks and flippers and got into the freezing water (some people had not paid the $10 extra for a wet suit and I don't know how they managed to get in), apparently these islands are in the EAC (part of the same one that is in finding Nemo), the East Australian Current, which then becomes the East Auckland Current, which is a warm current; but it didn't feel warm to me!
However, the cold was soon forgotton as the amazing underwater scene was revealed to us. Fish everywhere; Yellow Banded Perch; Spotted Black Groupers; evil torpedo shaped Kingfish; big silver Snapper; Blue fish; 2 spotted Demoiselles and a host of other fish. Some just seemed to float on the spot while others darted here and there, some used their fins like wings to propell themselves and others waggled their tails lazily to cruise through the water. Everywhere were 5 to 15cm tubular jellyfish with spectacular irridescent light shows going on inside their transparent bodies, and below it all was the dancing seaweed, swaying with the rythm of the waves even though it was 15m deep. Tris and I spotted a small troop of 5cm long squid that seemed to be hanging in the water but were soon darting off when a large school of Snapper approached. It was simply amazing.
The Poor Knights islands were named by Captain Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand; the story goes (according to some historians) that he was having difficulty thinking up new names for all the new islands that he encountered; he approached these islands as he was eating french toast with jam on top for breakfast, a dish known as Poor Knights breakfast; and so he gave the islands the name 'Poor Knights'.
The islands were inhabited by a Maori tribe called the Nati Toki; they managed to acquire some pigs from the explorers and kept them on the island; it was a great trade item for their tribe and they had many visits from other tribes who would travel for up to 4 days to trade with the islanders. However, one trade visit turned out to be fateful. The chief of the Nati Toki did not like the trade and so refused to give the visiting cheif any pigs, this was a great offence and relations were bad between the tribes for years; however no attack could be made on the easily defended islands so nothing was done about the snub until 10 years later. At this time the Nati Toki chief had entered into an alliance with another tribe and he went with his warriors to help this other tribe defend its lands against invaders. Meanwhile a slave escaped from the Poor Knitghts Islands and went to the snubbed chief and told him that the islands lay undefended. The islands were attacked and all the Nati Toki (women, children and the elderly) were slaughtered, only six members of the tribe survived. When the Nati Toki cheif and his warriors returned they were so shocked and upset by what they found that they left again immediately and the islands were made Tabu, no one has lived there since. The year was 1823.
All this has meant that the islands are an example of what NZ may have looked like when the first people arrived, covered in thick forest. It is home to Tuataras, a kind of lizard that hasn't evolved (it just didn't need to) in over 220,000,000 years and has the honour of being the only 3 eyed animal! There are also giant Whettas, in the absence of predators and competition on the island they have become enormous, some weigh up to 100g, about the weight of three large mice! Apparently they prey on gheckos, whereas in other places it is the whettas and their cousins the crickets that are eaten by the lizards!
The area has been a national park for over 50 years; the pigs and all other non native species have been removed and it is now a federal offence, with a fine of up to $20000, to set foot on the island. The marine reserve is much more recent, it is only 20 years old, but the area has seen a steady increase in fish populations since the waters around the island were protected from fishing.
After we got too cold snorkeling we sat on the boat in the sun eating sandwiches, salads and fruit, and then we tried our hand at kayaking. After about 2.5 hours at the dive site the boat lifted its anchors and we went for a small explore around the island. First stop was in the Riko Riko cave, the largest sea cave in the world at 130 by 78m. Riko Riko means shimmering light as the water inside the cave is so clear that the sunlight reflects up off the water and into the cave allowing ferns to grow from the roof. This sparkling clear water is thanks to sponges and other filter feeders that live in the cave and give the area up to 70m of underwater visibility. There were amazing colours on the walls of the cave just around the water line and the acoustics were fabulous, echos went on and on and on. There have even been some concerts in here in the past, with the band on one boat and the audience in kayaks, canoes or just swimming around!
Next we skirted the island to see how fortresslike it was and we were told the story of the Nati Toki tribe, apparently they left in such a hurry that there is an amazing wealth of archeology just waiting to be discovered, but as yet noone has been given permission to go and find it!! The only people to set foot on the island were those sent to trap the non native species and they say that the Nati Toki irrigation system and wells are still fully functional - there is no fresh water on the island except for the rain so the water collection system had to be good.
We passed through a second arch which had its walls lined with sponges that were revealed in a gaudy strip of reds, yellows and oranges as the swell ebbed and flowed (photos not possible due to the shade inside the arch and the amount of swell moving the boat), then past another cave called the ray of light cave that has a beam of light shining down from the top of the island 55m above through a shaft that has opened up due to erosion. Then we whizzed, with huge spray as the boat leapt over the waves, out to the pinnacles, a series of 3 spikey rocks that have the largest gannet populations in Australasia; but I think they were all out fishing as we saw very few; then on back to shore.
A fabulous few hours, followed by a short hour drive north towards the Bay of Islands. We had a short stop of in Kawakawa to see the most famous toilets in the world, the Hundertwasser public toilets, with columns, bottle walls and amazing tiling, and then on to our camp site on the waterfront at Paihia.
20th
Our first stop today was to some glow worm caves just south of Kawakawa in some amazing limestone caves with huge formations of stalagmites and stalagtites that started forming over 2 million years ago. At the mouth of the cave where the water exited was a deep pool with a huge eel in it, in fact there are 3 eels that live there and they have been named by the guides, Elvis, Precilla and XXXXXXXX. We were lead into the cave by lantern light and then when the lights were turned out the glow worms could show their stuff. It was like looking up at the night sky with a mass of stars twinkling. The worms are actually the maggot of a fly that spends 9 months glowing and catching mosquitos to then spend a couple of weeks in a cacoon turning into its adult form, unfortunately the adult fly does not have a mouth so it mates and lays eggs and then dies of starvation! The glowing is a result of a chemical reaction between magnesium in the maggots diet and an enzyme. The worms compete for space and the damp spots within the cave; if one gets too close to another a battle ensues with the victor eating his defeated foe; and so the sparkles glisten in a spectacular way, each from its own space.
We exited the cave and then walked back over the hill top through lush forest (bush as it is called here) full of ferns and native trees and enormous rocks which were obviously once inside a cave as there were the remains of stalagtites (or stalagmites) on some but the rock that they were attached to had been turned vertical so that they now stuck out horizonatally. It was a beautiful walk, short, but taking a long time as we stopped to look at everything.
Then we started our drive across to the East coast through a landscape of rolling hills and sudden rocky outcrops. There were beautiful views across valleys and woods of mixed growth but with the tree ferns dominating. Our first view of the East coast was over a beautiful bay (Hokianga Harbour) with huge sand dunes on the far side, we stopped and ate lunch by the water and then walked along the shore picking up sea shells and fascinated by the bright blue jelly fish that were washed up everywhere. Then we continued up to the head of the bay and took a short walk up on the headland. We found a stick insect and loads of small butterflies and fantastic views back over the bay and out over the Tasman sea towards Australia.
We started to wind our way south down the East coast and shortly entered the Waipoua Forest full of tree ferns and enormous Kauri trees, it was a fantastic drive but very twisty! We stopped to visit the largest Kauri tree in NZ and also the second largest and a group called the 4 sisters, where all 4 trees seemed to share a root system. They are magnificent trees, really fat in the girth with light bark in a sort of scaley pattern that sheds to rid the trees of pests such as lichen and mosses. All the measurements here are metric whereas in the US they were imperial, so it will be interesting to convert the numbers and compare these trees to the giant redwoods and sequoia trees. The walks to and from these giant trees was through pristine forest with fantastic plants along the way - ferns galore and strange twisty trees that made spiral shapes, the fern trees (of course) and many other species completely unknown to me - fascinating.
Finally we made our way to a campsite on a conservation reserve next to another Kauri tree forest renowned for its Kiwi population. After dark we went out for a walk in the forest with our torches and were lucky enough to be only a few feet away from a screeching Kiwi that then ran across the path in front of us. Not a brilliant sighting in our torchlight but a sighting just the same.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Rangitoto island
Tues 16th
We finally managed to drag ourselves from our beds at around 11am and went out in search of breakfast. We found a little cafe that served all day full English breakfasts and feasted on toast, eggs, sausages, hash browns, mushrooms, tomatoes (Celso and Tris also had baked beans) and a ham like substance calling itself bacon, all washed down with a cup of tea. Fabulous! After we had finished we just had to sit for about half an hour and allow our swollen bellies to settle! Then out to explore again; we had decided to go and visit the volcano island, Rangitoto, that has ferns and birdlife unique to NZ, but by the time we made it to the ferry terminal at around 1pm we had missed the last ferry by over an hour! Just have to try again tomorrow. So it was another 4 hour stint looking through the shops, there are some fantastic metal work goats, Kiwis, Whetas (large crickets) and other creatures that have caught my eye and may just be the next souvenir that wings its way back to the UK! Celso has his eye on Tshirts that transalte the Haka and Tris just loves anything Kiwi (the bird, not the people!).
Not too impressed by Aukland the city, the architecture seems to lack character and I have found nothing to photograph at all - yet. But as the French couple we met on Easter Island told us, 'Don't bother with the cities, it is the countryside that is absolutely amazing.'
Wed 17th
After another 'full English' we made our way down to the ferry terminal and caught a very modern catamaran ferry at 10:30am to take us to Rangitoto. It was a short half hour journey (usually only 20 mins but there was some sailing competition going on so the speed limits had been reduced) with a full commentary on what we were passing, the wharves and jetties, the beaches, lighthouse and some other small islands in the natural harbour.
Then we spent 4 hours exploring Rangitoto, the youngest volcanic island in the region at only 600 years old. It still has parts where the Ah Ah lava (that is lava that cooled and solidified on the surface but molten lava underneath was still flowing and broke up the solidified crust leaving what looks like a dug up tarmac surface of jagged black rock - we learnt all about types of lava in the US!) is uninhabited except for a small scattering of lichen and moss; and then there are other regions of thick forest with towering fern trees and numerous other plants; Pohutawaka and Kowhai trees and over 40 species of ferns. We took a detour from the direct path to the summit which wound through Mr Wilson's garden, who in the 1920's attempted to make a botanical garden on the island, but is now very overgrown and apart from a couple of huge red flowers we saw little evidence of a garden at all!
It was a hot walk, difficult underfoot due to the loose rocky nature of the paths; but rewarded with spectacular views from the summit back over the harbour toward Auckland and also out to the other islands in the bay. Near the top we were fascinated by some tit like birds that flitted around us taking advantage of the fact that we disturbed insects as we walked. We were also entertained by a black bird with a white fluffy neck that warbled and trilled at us from high in the trees We found a shady spot under some trees and ate oranges before we headed back down to the wharf to get the last boat at 3:30pm. It was very windy when we got down to the sea shore and as we waited for the ferry we were entertained by a seagull that fluffed up his feathers and walked towards us begging to be given some food (we were eating bananas and chocolate!), we also took a look at the mangroves which, at low tide, were showing all the sprouting seedlings amongst their roots.
We finally managed to drag ourselves from our beds at around 11am and went out in search of breakfast. We found a little cafe that served all day full English breakfasts and feasted on toast, eggs, sausages, hash browns, mushrooms, tomatoes (Celso and Tris also had baked beans) and a ham like substance calling itself bacon, all washed down with a cup of tea. Fabulous! After we had finished we just had to sit for about half an hour and allow our swollen bellies to settle! Then out to explore again; we had decided to go and visit the volcano island, Rangitoto, that has ferns and birdlife unique to NZ, but by the time we made it to the ferry terminal at around 1pm we had missed the last ferry by over an hour! Just have to try again tomorrow. So it was another 4 hour stint looking through the shops, there are some fantastic metal work goats, Kiwis, Whetas (large crickets) and other creatures that have caught my eye and may just be the next souvenir that wings its way back to the UK! Celso has his eye on Tshirts that transalte the Haka and Tris just loves anything Kiwi (the bird, not the people!).
Not too impressed by Aukland the city, the architecture seems to lack character and I have found nothing to photograph at all - yet. But as the French couple we met on Easter Island told us, 'Don't bother with the cities, it is the countryside that is absolutely amazing.'
Wed 17th
After another 'full English' we made our way down to the ferry terminal and caught a very modern catamaran ferry at 10:30am to take us to Rangitoto. It was a short half hour journey (usually only 20 mins but there was some sailing competition going on so the speed limits had been reduced) with a full commentary on what we were passing, the wharves and jetties, the beaches, lighthouse and some other small islands in the natural harbour.
Then we spent 4 hours exploring Rangitoto, the youngest volcanic island in the region at only 600 years old. It still has parts where the Ah Ah lava (that is lava that cooled and solidified on the surface but molten lava underneath was still flowing and broke up the solidified crust leaving what looks like a dug up tarmac surface of jagged black rock - we learnt all about types of lava in the US!) is uninhabited except for a small scattering of lichen and moss; and then there are other regions of thick forest with towering fern trees and numerous other plants; Pohutawaka and Kowhai trees and over 40 species of ferns. We took a detour from the direct path to the summit which wound through Mr Wilson's garden, who in the 1920's attempted to make a botanical garden on the island, but is now very overgrown and apart from a couple of huge red flowers we saw little evidence of a garden at all!
It was a hot walk, difficult underfoot due to the loose rocky nature of the paths; but rewarded with spectacular views from the summit back over the harbour toward Auckland and also out to the other islands in the bay. Near the top we were fascinated by some tit like birds that flitted around us taking advantage of the fact that we disturbed insects as we walked. We were also entertained by a black bird with a white fluffy neck that warbled and trilled at us from high in the trees We found a shady spot under some trees and ate oranges before we headed back down to the wharf to get the last boat at 3:30pm. It was very windy when we got down to the sea shore and as we waited for the ferry we were entertained by a seagull that fluffed up his feathers and walked towards us begging to be given some food (we were eating bananas and chocolate!), we also took a look at the mangroves which, at low tide, were showing all the sprouting seedlings amongst their roots.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Rapa Nui - Easter Island
Wed 10th Up at 6am we were out of the hostel by 6.30. The bus service to the airport was on strike, something to do with bus driver pay, so we ended up taking the taxi to the airport and got there far too early. After battling with a luggage trolley with a wonkey wheel we finally reached a queue for check in situated in a tent on the tarmac. After waiting for about half an hour in the queue outside the tent, we were denied access to the tent interior with our trolley so had to lug our bags around one of those windy queues that go back and forth across the room and eventually we reached the desk and managed to unload. We then had over an hour to waste until we were allowed through another opening in the check-in tent to a further tent that was acting as security and departure gates. We sat in yet another tent and drank tea and ate croissants until we finally joined the queue for security and then onto the departure gate. More queueing and a 200m bus ride later and we were boarding our plane. I wasn't expecting it to be so big, it wasn't a 747 but very nearly that size, with 7 seats across in economy. We had 3 in the centre of the plane after negotiating a change since we hadn't been given seats all together. It was a very posh plane with personal TV sets, a remote control and a huge selection of films, TV programs, music albums and computer games to choose from; so the nearly 5 hour flight whizzed by as we each watched / listened to our own choices. The approach to Easter Island was a bit bumpy and we made a tight turn around the island at a really low level and then came into land with a volcanoe towering above us to the right, to us (from the centre of the plane) it looked like we were flying straight into a cliff! Tris, Celso and I were met with flower necklaces by the woman who runs the hostel we are staying in and we were taken by taxi to the hostel about a 3 minute drive away! We dumped our stuff and went out to explore. It's about a 10 minute walk down to the harbour past buildings and walls made of pumice! The blocks are fitted together quite neatly (not so very different to the early Inca style) and there are also many carved wooden oars and statues acting as pillars. Down at the harbour, under the gaze of a couple of Maoi statues, we sat and ate ice cream - it was very hot, there is a cool breeze off the sea but you can feel the sun burning you all the time. Tristan spotted a dark shape in the water of the harbour and we went to investigate to find that it was a large turtle, probably a Hawksbill. We learned that there are 5 that seem to live in and around the harbour; they don't seem at all bothered by the boats that go in and out and seem to come perilously close to the outboard motors. We wandered along the sea front and wondered at the carved stones and statues, we found a restaurant that served local lobster and reserved one for our evening meal and then sat in another cafe and watched the surfers and the amazingly blue sky. On our way back to the hotel we got some supplies at a supermarket to make sandwiches for tomorrow as we go out to explore the island (we have reserved a couple of quad bikes) and then went out to eat our lobster dinner - a bit disappointing as 1) they left in the intestines so there was a horrid black mush in the middle of the meat (apparently they think it really tasty!) and 2) we are used to the red lobsters with great big juicy claws, but the spiney lobster doesn't have as much meat! However... we are very exited about being here and what we have seen so far is just amazing, the plants are fantastic with huge gaudy coloured flowers everywhere... I'm not sure whether it is just the contrast with all the desert we have been seeing but it is just beautiful. Thurs 11th Wow - what a fantastic day. After a bit of a cautious start and a few bunny hops down the road until we got the hang of our quad bikes, we then whizzed off into the distance. We travelled up the West coast of the island on a dirt track road full of potholes (great fun swerving around them all) to visit all the sites where the Maoi sit facing inland from the sea, the sun from the East lit them up perfectly, it was simply stunning. The Maoi are the statues representing the ancestors; they have enormous heads with big noses, heavy brows, high cheekbones, pouting mouths, prominent chins, long ears and (originally) white and black staring eyes; most are male with bulging bellies, the hands clasping underneath and the belly button clearly showing. Some archeologists consider that the bulging bellies are simply to give the statues stability, but whatever, they are fantastic and all slightly different. The Maoi sit on Ahu, raised ceremonial platforms along the coast, all the statues face inland (as a Rapa Nui Islander told us, why would they face out to sea, there is nothing out there!), and in front of the platform is a plaza and around this there were the boat shaped village houses made from pumice and covered with grass rooves. The Maoi are carved from granite and there is a fantastic quarry at Rano Raraku where about 50 half finished and abandoned Maoi are found in various stages of completion; one hug3e one is still sitting / reclining on the cliff face, almost complete but still completely attached to the bedrock. Some are complete and detached from the rock but then were abandoned and now sit half protruding from the soil that has built up around them, others lie face up or face down in various stages of erosion. We went up and sat amongst these Maoi at 3pm looking out to sea as we had been warned of a potential tsunami wave due to an earlier aftershock on the mainland, however no big waves arrived. Earlier we had visited a lava tube that had been made into a defendable underground fortress, the opening had been narrowed and inside there were stone walls to lie / sit on. During the 16th century, when all the natural resources had gone, the tribes (villages) around the island turned on each other and some resorted to cannabalism (according to some accounts) and so these protected places were very precious. We also visited another cave system, partly collapsed in the centre leaving a gaping hole in the ground between two habitable caves. In this hollow it was very much cooler and a wealth of flowers and banana trees grew giving us some great shade to eat our picnic lunch. I ventured into the caves and found pools of water collected on the floor that has filtered down through the bed rock; this was surely a site worth fighting for! At the northern tip of the island there was an amazing 'typically tropical' beach with white sands and palm trees, but of course with the Rapa Nui twist of several Maoi staring down, fabulous. We sat in the shade eating some of the best apples since we left the UK and watched some hawk-like birds catching and eating beatles! But we couldn't stay too long as we had been warned about the Tsunami and it was approaching 2pm; we had to move on to find higher ground by 3pm. Then, after our visit to the quarry, we headed back down the East coast towards Hanga Roa (the only modern settlement) with the wind in our faces, pulling up our peaked helmets! Now fully confident on our quads we whizzed past the airport and up to the most Southern point on the island at Orongo, a volcanic crater with the most fantastically unique eco-system inside, a sort of marshland with reeds and water and loads of bird life, it looks like a huge witches cauldron. Perched on the crater rim was the ceremonial village of Orongo, quite a late village dating from the late 18th century and full of petroglyph drawings of the sacred birds (Matemate) and gods of the Rapa Nui. Even before the village was built it was from here that the birdman races started and finished, this was an annual event to decide which tribe would be able to elect the leader of the island. A representative from each tribe was chosen to compete; climb down the cliffs and then swim out to an island where Sooty Terns make their nests; the first to return with an unbroken egg to the top of the volcano was the winner. Below the volcano is the area where dead bodies were left in the sun to desicate lying on a wooden platform supported by Maoi like columns. Once dried they were buried though we have found no evidence that graves were marked nor cared for. By this time Tristan was a proficient driver of the quad bike, he had been doing all the turning round whenever we parked up to visit somewhere and had been driving on the remoter stretches of our journey. All good practice for our quadbiking when we get to Aus where we are going out into the desert from Alice! We returned to the hostel at around 6pm covered from head to toe in fine black dust and gratefully hid out of the sun and took cold showers. Celso cooked up a fantastic stew and then we hopped back onto the quad bikes to head down to a hotel that shows the film 'Rapa Nui', a tale that closely follows archeaological evidence and oral stories of what happened on the island when the society collapsed into chaos after all the trees had been cut down. It was a great ending to a great day. Fri 12th Woken fairly early (for holiday mode anyway) by the chickens outside our window, we first returned our quad bikes and then went to visit the LAN airlines office as we had heard that the aftershock earthquake yesterday had meant more flight cancellations and we wanted to make sure that we were unaffected - we were, thankfully. Then we went in search of souvenirs and spent several hours wandering the town and looking at all the shops. Having found our beautifully carved Maoi statues and some patches for our travel Tshirts we made our way down to the harbour to take another look at the turtles. The turtles were swimming and the sun was blazing; Tristan and I decided to venture into the water to see if we could get close up to a turtle; the sea was beautifully cool but the sharp spikes of volcanic rock protruding from the sand made our leaps over the waves an occasionally painful sport, and the turtles seemed to keep to the rocky areas as they grazed on the very sparce seaweed. Feeling that I was burning we emerged from the sea and returned to the hotel to avoid the sun at its zenith; the hottest part of the day here is about 2pm, this is when the sun is at its highest point (not 12 midday)... because they want to keep time as close to the mainland as possible they only have a one hour time difference from Chile mainland (or 2 hours in summer - they have some sort of reverse daylight savings mechanism where they change the clocks by an hour in the summer); this means that it doesn't get light in the mornings until about 8am and puts midday at around 2pm. Thankfully for us this late sunrise means that the cockerels didn't start crowing until about 7:30am! Around 4pm we went out to visit the museum. It was a very small affair with a lot of panels explaining the oral history of the island including how they lost the ability to read and write their written language when in the late 18th century Peruvian slavers stole many people off the island. After a lot of political negotiations lasting over 10 years they were allowed to return to the island. However about 2/3 of the people had died in the mines where they had been forced to work and those that returned brought diseases to the island that killed more than half of the remaining population. After all this there was noone who knew how to read and write the Rapa Nui language and so the only history that is known was passed orally or in the form of songs and legends told in dance. We were also able to confirm parts of the Rapa Nui film that we had questioned last night such as a cave where virgins were forced to live for months before they wed in order that their skin would turn pale and the format of the bird man competitions. We then returned to the hotel to pack up our bags for our flight tomorrow and then waited our pick up at 8pm to go to have our Umu supper, a traditional Rapa Nui feast where all the food is cooked wrapped in banana leaves on hot rocks in the ground. After having our faces painted in traditional patterns by 3 scantily clad (thongs only) Rapa Nui men we chanted some lines as the food was uncovered from the earth, fantastic smells and a lot of steam!! We feasted on tuna and other fish, sweet potatoes, pork and chicken, salads and rice and then were invited to watch traditional dances and songs that told the history of the island. We were also shown some dances from Tahiti (the nearest neighbouring Polynesian island) to show the differences and similarities. It was a very energetic performance with lots of scantily clad and very sweaty men, and 3 amazingly bum wiggling, hip swaying women!! A great evening topped off by emerging into the night air to see fantastic stars overhead and my first ever view of the milky way! Sat 13th Blast those cockerels, we nearly had a perfect lie in! Then we sat around having long conversations with a French couple traveling with their 3 daughters, 6, 8 and 10 on a 7 month trip. They have been through Asia and Australasia and are returning to France through South and North America, we were comparing notes on places to visit and home schooling! Then out to the airport and onto the flight to Santiago. When we arrived around 8pm I decided to have one more go at getting LAN to pay for our hotel stay since we had heard stories on the island of people being put up for 3 or 4 nights when their planes had been cancelled. Instead they said we could go to New Zealand on a flight leaving that night at around 11pm, so we waited around, our names having been put on the standby list... they were pretty sure we would get on the flight as it was another one that had been rescheduled and lots of people were not turning up at the right times for their rescheduled flights. Sure enough we got on and even had a spare seat beside us! Sun 14th As far as we are concerned this day never existed, we took off on Saturday and landed in the morning on Monday having crossed the international date line, so a 12 hour flight made us lose this whole day! Mon 15th We landed in Aukland at 4am so the airport was fairly empty but it still took us ages to get through passport control and then biohazard control where our Maoi, llama, vicuna and alpaca wooden carvings were scrutinized to make sure we weren't bringing any pests into the country. We rang the hotel that we had booked for the 16th and 17th and asked if they had a room we could have and fortunately they did; so we took the airport bus into the town and then dragged our bags the 1.5 blocks. The man at reception was very kind and allowed us into the room (even though check in time was after 2pm and really he should have charged us for the night of the 14th too) and we slept until midday. Then we went out to explore the local area, Queen Street (for those of you that know Aukland), in the centre of the city. It is an area full of Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants and then a mixture of very classy and extremely expensive clothes boutiques and a huge number of souvenir shops full of Kiwi inspired goods. We spent hours 'just looking'! After an early supper we had lovely long hot showers and fell to sleep (again).
Sunday, 7 March 2010
To Santiago de Chile
4th March
Today was a big, lazy, get your breath back day. Tristan and I caught up on a lot of maths that we haven't done for a while, we wandered around the town looking at information about how to get to Santiago (buses, planes etc) and spent some time writing the blog. We washed shoes and sorted through our luggage to get rid of some weight. It didn't matter when we had the car but from now on....
Friday 5th March
Up early, I left Celso and Tris sleeping and drove the car North to cross the border back into Peru. The border crossing wasn't as bad as when we had come in the other direction, for a start there were many fewer people so the queues were much shorter, secondly an elderly Brazilian couple were making the same crossing with their foreign vehicle and so we managed to follow each other around learning from each others mistakes and accomplishments!
I ended up with a document with my Nationality as British Indian Island Protecorate (where ever/ what ever that is) and the make of my car not exactly as it should be because 'he couldn't find it on the system'; but he wrote corrections by hand on the bottom and put several different official seals on it and so I went on my way. Since Peru is two hours behind Chile I found myself with rather a lot of time to spare in Tacna (the first town in Peru), and went in search of the transport police to find out what was necessary for a person, other than myself, to drive the car. Several police discussed my situation..... I arrived wearing Celso's knee brace with the impressive metal bars up the sides, and with a small limp... regarding how I had fallen off a horse and twisted my knee and now someone else was going to drive the car back to Ecuador for me whilst I flew back to get an operation! They said that I needed to get a document legalised that stated that the 'other person' had my full permission to be in possession of the car. This 'other person' is called Rodrigo and he was arriving in Tacna that afternoon on a flight from Ecuador, he is the husband of a colleague of Fabi (Celso's sister; who is going to have the car when it gets back to Ecuador), and he had agreed to drive the car with all expenses paid because he wanted to see a bit of Peru for himself and it is a cheap option for him to be able to do so!
Anyway... off I limped to find a Notaria, a kind of solicitors office where all documents get stamped and verified to say that they are legal. In the first office the Notary (the guy who does the signing) decided he didn't want to sign because he didn't like the look of the Ecuadorian Matricula (vehicle ownership document), but in the second one I went to, they charged me a lot more but, agreed to do the paperwork for me. Multiple photocopies, fingerprints and signatures later, I left clutching the documentation that will allow the car to be driven back to Ecuador. I drove to the airport and sat eating a sandwhich looking out of an open door onto the tarmac of the runway (not much security there then!).
I had made a little sign with Rodrigo's name on so that when his plane arrived we could meet without too much of a problem (I've never met him before) and then I handed over the keys to our little car, told him about all her querks, explained the route back and about the severe lack of petrol garages in some areas, told him about some of the best places to visit on the way, (Arequipa, Pisco, Nazca, Trujillo) and then had to say my goodbyes.
My journey back to Arica was by public transport, the bus left 5 mins after I arrived at the bus station, the buses were ushered through the frontier with very little fuss and then I caught a collectivo taxi (a shared taxi that goes round and round on a specific route picking up as many people as it can squash in) back to the hotel. Easy.... but tiring.
Meanwhile Celso had managed to find a pay for 3 plane tickets to Santiago that left the next morning at 8:30am, meaning that we could avoid the 29 hour bus journey that I had thought awaited us!
Sat 6th
The plane journey was easy. We had barely taken off when we landed again in Iquique, then 30 minutes later we were back in the air again for a 2 hour stint to Santiago. Desert.. desert.. desert. I don't think we missed too much not going by bus (going by car would have been a different matter, which is what we originally intended to do before the earthquake damaged many roads, we would have taken lots of detours to see the sights (e.g. the Atacama giant, a huge giant drawn in the desert some time around the time of Christ)). When we landed in Santiago we were taken to meet our luggage out on the tarmac! It soon became clear to us why internal flights had been so disrupted... none of the terminal buildings at the airport are being used due to damage from the earthquake, tents have been set up to act as departure lounges, customs and security checking areas, whilst arriving passengers get off the plane, get their luggage on the tarmac and then leave without setting foot in a building.
We took a bus to the centre of town and then a taxi to the hostel that I had booked. It turns out that the 2nd floor of the hostel cannot be used at the moment due to earthquake damage but, fortunately for us, there are hardly any tourists around since the tremors and so we have ended up in a 6 bed dorm all on our own. Apparently they will not be able to put anybody in with us anyway.. even if they do turn up.. because in Chile the law states that non family adults may not share a room with a minor, and since we booked online and there is no way of communicating the ages of the guests they have to honour our booking by giving us a room to ourselves... great!
We went out to take a walk around the centre of town and found some very proactive money collecting for the earthquake victims, street performers, stickers etc; much more than anything we saw in the north. We sat in a park under some trees to escape the intense dry heat and eventually Celso and Tris both fell asleep! We returned to the hostel via a supermarket where we bought some food to cook in the communal kitchen, a fine chicken stew - so great to be able to cook for ourselves.
Sun 7th
We slept in until after 10am in our spacious dorm room! The beds are really comfy and we are feeling rather pleased with our hostel ($7.80 each a night). Breakfast is included in the price so we had toast and tea and fruit. Then we set out to go to the metropolitan park, set on a hill in the middle of the city. First we took the metro and then wandered up a street lined with cafes and street vendors (including a guy who did exquisite carvings out of matchsticks) to the bottom of the hill (it is not quite a mountain as it is only 320m high!). We took the funicular railway (which proudly displayed signs stating that it had carried the Pope to the top when he visited Chile in 1987 and made an adress from the angel at the top) up to the zoo (about half way up the hill) and wend our way between the exhibits back down the hill to the bottom. The camel, hippo, emus, flamingos and aviary were the highlights for me but some of the big cat cages were far too small and the animals were pacing; really sad; however they are in the process of making new enclosures so hopefully things will improve.
After a snack at the bottom of the hill we got onto the funicular railway again, this time to the top and the views out over smoggy Santiago with mountains in the distance rising abruptly from the edge of the built up area. Then with a particularly useless map in hand we started the walk over the top of the hill and down the other side (usually you can do this part by cable car but it wasn't running after the quake!). The first part was down a road and we were getting a bit disapointed by the whole experience (having been told that this was one of the most beautiful places in the city), until we found a small path that lead off steeply to one side and soon we were away from the hustle and bustle and under the trees. The path was very damaged in places and trees had fallen, blocking the way (I assume from the quake), but we eventually managed to make our way down to the bottom and then walked a few blocks to get back to the metro and back to the hostel. It was a tiring 5 hour round trip but worth it!
Today was a big, lazy, get your breath back day. Tristan and I caught up on a lot of maths that we haven't done for a while, we wandered around the town looking at information about how to get to Santiago (buses, planes etc) and spent some time writing the blog. We washed shoes and sorted through our luggage to get rid of some weight. It didn't matter when we had the car but from now on....
Friday 5th March
Up early, I left Celso and Tris sleeping and drove the car North to cross the border back into Peru. The border crossing wasn't as bad as when we had come in the other direction, for a start there were many fewer people so the queues were much shorter, secondly an elderly Brazilian couple were making the same crossing with their foreign vehicle and so we managed to follow each other around learning from each others mistakes and accomplishments!
I ended up with a document with my Nationality as British Indian Island Protecorate (where ever/ what ever that is) and the make of my car not exactly as it should be because 'he couldn't find it on the system'; but he wrote corrections by hand on the bottom and put several different official seals on it and so I went on my way. Since Peru is two hours behind Chile I found myself with rather a lot of time to spare in Tacna (the first town in Peru), and went in search of the transport police to find out what was necessary for a person, other than myself, to drive the car. Several police discussed my situation..... I arrived wearing Celso's knee brace with the impressive metal bars up the sides, and with a small limp... regarding how I had fallen off a horse and twisted my knee and now someone else was going to drive the car back to Ecuador for me whilst I flew back to get an operation! They said that I needed to get a document legalised that stated that the 'other person' had my full permission to be in possession of the car. This 'other person' is called Rodrigo and he was arriving in Tacna that afternoon on a flight from Ecuador, he is the husband of a colleague of Fabi (Celso's sister; who is going to have the car when it gets back to Ecuador), and he had agreed to drive the car with all expenses paid because he wanted to see a bit of Peru for himself and it is a cheap option for him to be able to do so!
Anyway... off I limped to find a Notaria, a kind of solicitors office where all documents get stamped and verified to say that they are legal. In the first office the Notary (the guy who does the signing) decided he didn't want to sign because he didn't like the look of the Ecuadorian Matricula (vehicle ownership document), but in the second one I went to, they charged me a lot more but, agreed to do the paperwork for me. Multiple photocopies, fingerprints and signatures later, I left clutching the documentation that will allow the car to be driven back to Ecuador. I drove to the airport and sat eating a sandwhich looking out of an open door onto the tarmac of the runway (not much security there then!).
I had made a little sign with Rodrigo's name on so that when his plane arrived we could meet without too much of a problem (I've never met him before) and then I handed over the keys to our little car, told him about all her querks, explained the route back and about the severe lack of petrol garages in some areas, told him about some of the best places to visit on the way, (Arequipa, Pisco, Nazca, Trujillo) and then had to say my goodbyes.
My journey back to Arica was by public transport, the bus left 5 mins after I arrived at the bus station, the buses were ushered through the frontier with very little fuss and then I caught a collectivo taxi (a shared taxi that goes round and round on a specific route picking up as many people as it can squash in) back to the hotel. Easy.... but tiring.
Meanwhile Celso had managed to find a pay for 3 plane tickets to Santiago that left the next morning at 8:30am, meaning that we could avoid the 29 hour bus journey that I had thought awaited us!
Sat 6th
The plane journey was easy. We had barely taken off when we landed again in Iquique, then 30 minutes later we were back in the air again for a 2 hour stint to Santiago. Desert.. desert.. desert. I don't think we missed too much not going by bus (going by car would have been a different matter, which is what we originally intended to do before the earthquake damaged many roads, we would have taken lots of detours to see the sights (e.g. the Atacama giant, a huge giant drawn in the desert some time around the time of Christ)). When we landed in Santiago we were taken to meet our luggage out on the tarmac! It soon became clear to us why internal flights had been so disrupted... none of the terminal buildings at the airport are being used due to damage from the earthquake, tents have been set up to act as departure lounges, customs and security checking areas, whilst arriving passengers get off the plane, get their luggage on the tarmac and then leave without setting foot in a building.
We took a bus to the centre of town and then a taxi to the hostel that I had booked. It turns out that the 2nd floor of the hostel cannot be used at the moment due to earthquake damage but, fortunately for us, there are hardly any tourists around since the tremors and so we have ended up in a 6 bed dorm all on our own. Apparently they will not be able to put anybody in with us anyway.. even if they do turn up.. because in Chile the law states that non family adults may not share a room with a minor, and since we booked online and there is no way of communicating the ages of the guests they have to honour our booking by giving us a room to ourselves... great!
We went out to take a walk around the centre of town and found some very proactive money collecting for the earthquake victims, street performers, stickers etc; much more than anything we saw in the north. We sat in a park under some trees to escape the intense dry heat and eventually Celso and Tris both fell asleep! We returned to the hostel via a supermarket where we bought some food to cook in the communal kitchen, a fine chicken stew - so great to be able to cook for ourselves.
Sun 7th
We slept in until after 10am in our spacious dorm room! The beds are really comfy and we are feeling rather pleased with our hostel ($7.80 each a night). Breakfast is included in the price so we had toast and tea and fruit. Then we set out to go to the metropolitan park, set on a hill in the middle of the city. First we took the metro and then wandered up a street lined with cafes and street vendors (including a guy who did exquisite carvings out of matchsticks) to the bottom of the hill (it is not quite a mountain as it is only 320m high!). We took the funicular railway (which proudly displayed signs stating that it had carried the Pope to the top when he visited Chile in 1987 and made an adress from the angel at the top) up to the zoo (about half way up the hill) and wend our way between the exhibits back down the hill to the bottom. The camel, hippo, emus, flamingos and aviary were the highlights for me but some of the big cat cages were far too small and the animals were pacing; really sad; however they are in the process of making new enclosures so hopefully things will improve.
After a snack at the bottom of the hill we got onto the funicular railway again, this time to the top and the views out over smoggy Santiago with mountains in the distance rising abruptly from the edge of the built up area. Then with a particularly useless map in hand we started the walk over the top of the hill and down the other side (usually you can do this part by cable car but it wasn't running after the quake!). The first part was down a road and we were getting a bit disapointed by the whole experience (having been told that this was one of the most beautiful places in the city), until we found a small path that lead off steeply to one side and soon we were away from the hustle and bustle and under the trees. The path was very damaged in places and trees had fallen, blocking the way (I assume from the quake), but we eventually managed to make our way down to the bottom and then walked a few blocks to get back to the metro and back to the hostel. It was a tiring 5 hour round trip but worth it!
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
still in Arica 27 Feb -3 Mar
We are still here! The earthquake did not affect us directly, didn't feel a thing, and things just seem to be going on as normal in Arica. The only problem is that all the transport to anywhere further south is not working to schedule; there have been no internal flights at all since the earthquake and the buses are not running on timetable.
We have been waiting here because aftershocks have been shaking the area just south of Santiago (2 which measured 6 and above on the Richter scale just today) and we don't want to risk getting stuck with the car. A friend of Fabi (Celso's sister) should be meeting us on Friday and he will take the car back to Ecuador. We have been trying to find flights or a confirmed bus ride to Santiago.
Meanwhile we have been visiting all the sites that Arica has to offer.
The Azapa valley, an olive growing valley which boasts the oldest mummies in the world. Bodies were laid out straight and covered in clay around 3500BC (before the Egyptians), they later changed to burying in the foetal position and wrapping in grasses through the influence of the Tiwanaku (they seem to have been a huge influence throughout all of Peru, Bolivia and Northern Chile despite the huge areas of desert that they must have had to cross to venture to all these different parts).
We have explored the beaches around Arica, firstly the ones in walking distance of our hotel, some sandy stretches and then some filled with rock pools (the better kind as far as we are concerned), full of crabs, anenomes, lizards and birds. Secondly we spent an afternoon walking out to a sealion colony at a point beyond Corazones beach (where the sea front road ends, 7km south of Arica). There are enormous caves in the sandstone cliffs; they look just like sand dunes going straight down in to the sea; with hundreds of sea birds that have created huge stalagtites of guano down the walls below the ledges where they roost. The sealions are loud even though they are not that close to shore, a large male was loudly defending his top spot on the island from all challengers.
The beach was littered with carcasses of dead seals, pelicans and other sea birds as though some catastrophe had occurred and there were piles and piles and piles of sea shells with purple stains around them. We later found out that sea urchins are caught here and cut out of their shells (and spines) on the rocks and that their 'blood' is purple!
Today we ventured a little further afield and took a drive along the Lluta valley on the road that goes to La Paz in Bolivia. It is the ancient trade route between here and the Tiwanaku capital next to Lake Titicaca (that we visited when we were in Bolivia) and the sand dune vally sides are peppered with ancient grafitti - geoglyphs showing llama, birds, a frog and various humanlike figures. We passed through a region where the rare Cactus Candelabro grows, only between 2500 and 2800m above sea level; they have vicious spines growing up their 'trunk' which are spiral in form and on top have a peculiar arrangement of branches, they look like the tree had grown the other way up and then has been quickly turned upright so that the branches have not had time to settle and are still sticking straight up.
Beyond the 'candelabra region' we came upon a tiny green valley in the middle of the endless desert, it must have been a real oasis because it was defended by a huge fortress on the top of the hill built in the 12th century. Just piles of stones now but it was apparent how large it was due to the number of circular rooms that could still be made out.
Arica is not that big, I think we have eaten, or sat and looked disheartedly at the menu, in all of the restaurants in town...... we are looking forward to finding somewhere where we can cook for ourselves! Hopefully only 2 more days here and then we will be on our way again.
We have been waiting here because aftershocks have been shaking the area just south of Santiago (2 which measured 6 and above on the Richter scale just today) and we don't want to risk getting stuck with the car. A friend of Fabi (Celso's sister) should be meeting us on Friday and he will take the car back to Ecuador. We have been trying to find flights or a confirmed bus ride to Santiago.
Meanwhile we have been visiting all the sites that Arica has to offer.
The Azapa valley, an olive growing valley which boasts the oldest mummies in the world. Bodies were laid out straight and covered in clay around 3500BC (before the Egyptians), they later changed to burying in the foetal position and wrapping in grasses through the influence of the Tiwanaku (they seem to have been a huge influence throughout all of Peru, Bolivia and Northern Chile despite the huge areas of desert that they must have had to cross to venture to all these different parts).
We have explored the beaches around Arica, firstly the ones in walking distance of our hotel, some sandy stretches and then some filled with rock pools (the better kind as far as we are concerned), full of crabs, anenomes, lizards and birds. Secondly we spent an afternoon walking out to a sealion colony at a point beyond Corazones beach (where the sea front road ends, 7km south of Arica). There are enormous caves in the sandstone cliffs; they look just like sand dunes going straight down in to the sea; with hundreds of sea birds that have created huge stalagtites of guano down the walls below the ledges where they roost. The sealions are loud even though they are not that close to shore, a large male was loudly defending his top spot on the island from all challengers.
The beach was littered with carcasses of dead seals, pelicans and other sea birds as though some catastrophe had occurred and there were piles and piles and piles of sea shells with purple stains around them. We later found out that sea urchins are caught here and cut out of their shells (and spines) on the rocks and that their 'blood' is purple!
Today we ventured a little further afield and took a drive along the Lluta valley on the road that goes to La Paz in Bolivia. It is the ancient trade route between here and the Tiwanaku capital next to Lake Titicaca (that we visited when we were in Bolivia) and the sand dune vally sides are peppered with ancient grafitti - geoglyphs showing llama, birds, a frog and various humanlike figures. We passed through a region where the rare Cactus Candelabro grows, only between 2500 and 2800m above sea level; they have vicious spines growing up their 'trunk' which are spiral in form and on top have a peculiar arrangement of branches, they look like the tree had grown the other way up and then has been quickly turned upright so that the branches have not had time to settle and are still sticking straight up.
Beyond the 'candelabra region' we came upon a tiny green valley in the middle of the endless desert, it must have been a real oasis because it was defended by a huge fortress on the top of the hill built in the 12th century. Just piles of stones now but it was apparent how large it was due to the number of circular rooms that could still be made out.
Arica is not that big, I think we have eaten, or sat and looked disheartedly at the menu, in all of the restaurants in town...... we are looking forward to finding somewhere where we can cook for ourselves! Hopefully only 2 more days here and then we will be on our way again.
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