Mon
We drove South out of the Blue Mountains through a patchwork of native bush between large tracts of farmland. We saw more of the wonderful birdlife, the magpies, galahs, and, the most enormous eagle I have ever seen, sitting in a tree by the edge of the road, but it soared off magestically before we managed to extract the camera. We drove through tiny little towns full of arty farty craft shops and cafes, one of which served us a very good fry up brunch!
From Goulburn we turned East to the coast and we stopped outside Bateman's bay in a little town called Nelligen where there is a river meeting the Bateman's bay estuary and people catching loads of fish. We left Celso fishing and Tris and I drove up the coast a bit to Pebbly Beach where we were told the kangaroos lie around on the beach... and they did! We drove down to the beach on a winding gravel road through the bush and arrived in a car park that was filled with various parrots (or parrot like birds - Celso will kill me for being so inprecise about the species), Rosellas (the blue cheeked kind), King Parrots, a Wattle Bird, a crested bronzewings pigeon, Rainbow Lorikeet, and long billed cockatoos. Tris and I were overwhelmed by both the numbers and by their boldness, then we went down onto the beach and watched the kangaroos grazing at their leisure as the sun went down. When we returned we found Celso still fishing, he had caught a few but they were all below the legal keep length so he had released them (or that is his story for having nothing to show us!).
We stayed the night in the local pub, we were the only patrons and the bar was closed early as it had no customers - the whole place was like a ghost town after the buzz and hustle and bustle of the long weekend.
Tues
Having missed Pebbly beach and all the birds yesterday, we had to take Celso down to see. There weren't as many birds but the kangaroos were still laying about, they look like Roman emperors lazing around on recliners.
Then we drove south down the coast, taking loads of little side roads to drive through small towns and native bush, however sometimes we were taken through some horrid modern built up areas that went right down to the sea with tiny plots and evidence of more and more bush being chopped down. We stopped in a tiny town called Cobargo to look through the craft shops and eat a pie (the Aussies are huge on their meat pies). Then we turned in land to go to Bombala (the platypus capital of Australia) where, apparently, over 90% of the rivers and streams in the region have platypus residents. We arrived around 4:30pm and rushed out to the 'platypus reserve' but were not to be granted a sighting, apparently they don't come out if it is windy! We were treated to a great sunset over the river though!
Wed
Celso and I got up at the crack of dawn to go down to the river again, fabulous sunrise but no platypus - again. We returned to the hotel dejected, but decided that we wouldn't wait any more and we would continue our journey south. The road south took us for about an hour through pristine bush without any sign of settlement and we passed only about 3 cars on our way into. We stopped off in loads of places, first at the MacKenzie river to take a walk through the rainforest. The Eucalyptus forest with its hanging down leaves that let the sunlight dapple through onto the ground allowing ferns and other low shrubs to grow just suddenly gives way to another type of tree. These have horizontal leaves that block out much more of the light and the air was noticably more humid. Later we stopped at huge tree lined rivers where Celso would cast a line; to look at various parrots, birds or plants that took our fancy; to look out over the sand dunes and the beaches. We finally reached Lake Tyers, a tidal lake near Marlo on the South East Coast of Victoria (where the Snowy River meets the sea), but the tide was out so Celso's fishing ambitions were shot, and then went on to Lakes Entrance where after some more failed fishing attempts we found a cabin to stay in for the night.
Thurs
Today our journey took us West along the South Coast to go to Wilson's Promontory. We stopped to take a walk through a wetland reserve, but it was completely dry and we saw nothing save some magpies and we heard some baby birds from amongst the reeds. On a bit further we were shocked but delighted to see an Echidna on the side of the road and we stopped to take a look. He had his nose stuck in the sand with loads of ants fleeing for their lives, but he looked up as we approached and then decided it was best to bury himself until all we could see was the spines on his back, suprisingly he seemed to be very well camouflaged. We were also intrigued by some Emus just off the edge of the road that fled into a pine forest as we tried to sneak up on them. We had another day of driving and loads of small stops. We stopped quite early in a little town called Foster as the weather had taken a turn for the worse.
Friday 30th May
This was just a great day. We drove out to Wilson's Prom, slowly the farmland turned to native forest separated by strips of grassland; the common grass, filled with clumps of spikey waist high grasses; we went down to the end of the road at Tidal River to get some info having stopped along the way to photograph herds of wild emu. Then we went for a walk along the grasslands; there were enormous quantities of poo! We were trying to work out which went with which animal! There was sloppy, like a cow pat, we concluded that it was from the emus; huge, round, rabbit like droppings (just bigger), we think that was kangaroo; and then torpedo shaped grass eater - we thought that it was Wombat!!! There was also detective work to be done with loads of bleached bones, and then of course there were the kangaroos and emus to be avoided as they suddenly appeared amongst the tall grasses. So brilliant to see the kangaroos on their terms, jumping along, so graceful, so incredibly strong.
After lunch we drove across to Philip Island. We found a really dirty, manky, ill looking Wombat munching grass on the edge of the road, however we are not sure whether he really was ill as he ran off quickly enough as we approached. Then we went on our way to Philip Island to visit a Koala reserve where we actually managed to spot a few of the cuddly critters at last - absolutely gorgeous. We also spotted some Wallabies, I don't even know what the difference is between a Kanga and a Wallaby. I'll have to do some research.
At 5:15pm we made our way down to the beach to sit and watch the fairy penguins come in to their nests for the night. It was absolutely incredible as about 20 of them waddled right past us, about 2 feet away. They appeared out of the surf and then waited for reinforcements. When their numbers were sufficient they set off up the beach at a fast waddle to make it to the dunes. Sadly we weren't allowed to take cameras down onto the beach as the penguins are protected and get really frightened by flash photography. It was doubly sad not to have our camera as there was the most incredible moon rise, about a half hour after sunset there was a red glow in the Eastern sky and then the moon rose, really fast, huge and blood red. I suppose it may have been an eclipse of the moon (or if not a very nearly one) as I know the moon goes red due to refraction of sunlight through the earth's atmosphere when it is in the shadow of the earth. The little fairy penguins have a good pair of lungs on them, they screamed and gurgled when they got up into the sanddunes and near to their burrows; we think they were calling for their mates, and then, once together, they did some more load squawking as they rubbed around each other. It was a breathtakingly amazing experience.
Friday, 30 April 2010
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Blue Mountains 2
Fri 23
Last night we went to see the Three Sisters in the dark. These are some famous pointy rocks that form part of an aboriginal story. A father of three girls was the head of his tribe, another tribe was coming to attack them, so in order to protect his girls he turned them to stone; unfortunately the father was killed and noone else knew how to turn the girls back and so they are still rocks. They are lit up and look quite spectacular.
In the morning we went to visit 'Scenic World', this is a company that bought up the site of an old coal mine. When the mine was still in use people used to pay the miners to use their coal truck which pulled the coal up a 45 degree (average) slope to the top of the cliff on a railway track; this company bought up the mine area when it closed and updated the the railway carriages to transport people in a little more safety and comfort. The ride down is a little scary; the average slope is 45 degrees but it doesn't start out that steep and then you seem to drop over a vertical edge; the carriages are held by a single wire and even at the bottom you are still on a wooden, rickety platform still about 20ft above the fern forest below. In the valley a boardwalk has been built through the bush so that the numbers of people who visit do not damage the area, it also means that instead of walking at ground level you are walking up in the leafy area and it all looks so different from that height. We were lucky enough to spot a couple of Lyre birds scratching in the undergrowth below the boardwalk. At the end of the walk we went back up the cliff in a cable car which gave fantastic views across the valley below.
We then drove on a bit to the North West and stopped in the town of Blackheath. Here there is access to the North part of the Blue Mountains National Park and though it looks very similar to the Southern part the cliffs seem to have a different 'glow' in the sunshine! We took a small walk around the cliff top and then went to find a motel (we needed to find accomodation early as this weekend is Anzac weekend), we found one on the edge of town and unloaded our gear before driving the 50km to the Jenolan Caves. Fabulous limestone caves, the one we went through was the first in the world to ever be lit by electric light just a year after the electric light was invented. It also still has a working long life light bulb that was installed in 1953! Afterwards our guide told us that if we went down to the lake it was about the right time (5:30pm and light fading fast) to see a platypus (if we were lucky). Celso spotted the beak of one and we all saw lots of splashing but it disappeared under a rock and then up a drainage tunnel and we didn't get another glimpse. Now I really, really want to see one - we decided to return another day to try and get another look.
Sat 24
Tristan was given his longed for lie in (he's a real teenager now!) and we didn't leave the motel until after 11am. We made our way to Lithgow and then after a brief stop for directions and a map we made our way out to the Glowworm Tunnel. This involved a 30km drive along a graded dirt road through first gum trees, then harvested pine forest, then protected pine and then protected virgin bush to a part of an abandoned railway track that has been saved and now serves as a walking track. We decided to do a 3hr round trip that followed the railway through a tunnel now inhabited by glowworms (hence the name) and then down and round the edge of the mountain, returning back to near the tunnel via an old coach track. We had been told that we were likely to see Koalas out here but we didn't spot one. Probably they were out there but we just didn't spot them, in fact we saw very few signs of life at all. A male Lyre bird, a tiny skink, a blue tongued skink, some butterflies and, right near the end of our walk as the sky clouded over and it started to get quite dark, some black cockatoos and other birds.
As we returned to the car the skies opened and the rain pelted down. It meant that our drive back was less dusty but a little more hazardous on the dirt road as it makes the surface very slippy. We spotted 5 or 6 kangaroos on our journey; so different from seeing them in captivity because they were bounding along; so graceful, so easy.
We had a pub supper and then rented a video 'District 9' - violent but so original, about refugee aliens told in a documentary style, worth a watch.
Sun 25th (Anzac day)
Held up briefly by the marching veterans, we made our way to Oberon and found a motel, did laundry, wrote emails and then went back to Jenolan Caves. We went and toured a cave and then went to sit out by the platypus lake. Wrong day... too many people here making too much noise, so much for public holidays, we didn't see a thing in the 90 mins we waited about. Our only view of wildlife today was the sad sight of a dead Kangaroo and a dead Wombat on the road.
Last night we went to see the Three Sisters in the dark. These are some famous pointy rocks that form part of an aboriginal story. A father of three girls was the head of his tribe, another tribe was coming to attack them, so in order to protect his girls he turned them to stone; unfortunately the father was killed and noone else knew how to turn the girls back and so they are still rocks. They are lit up and look quite spectacular.
In the morning we went to visit 'Scenic World', this is a company that bought up the site of an old coal mine. When the mine was still in use people used to pay the miners to use their coal truck which pulled the coal up a 45 degree (average) slope to the top of the cliff on a railway track; this company bought up the mine area when it closed and updated the the railway carriages to transport people in a little more safety and comfort. The ride down is a little scary; the average slope is 45 degrees but it doesn't start out that steep and then you seem to drop over a vertical edge; the carriages are held by a single wire and even at the bottom you are still on a wooden, rickety platform still about 20ft above the fern forest below. In the valley a boardwalk has been built through the bush so that the numbers of people who visit do not damage the area, it also means that instead of walking at ground level you are walking up in the leafy area and it all looks so different from that height. We were lucky enough to spot a couple of Lyre birds scratching in the undergrowth below the boardwalk. At the end of the walk we went back up the cliff in a cable car which gave fantastic views across the valley below.
We then drove on a bit to the North West and stopped in the town of Blackheath. Here there is access to the North part of the Blue Mountains National Park and though it looks very similar to the Southern part the cliffs seem to have a different 'glow' in the sunshine! We took a small walk around the cliff top and then went to find a motel (we needed to find accomodation early as this weekend is Anzac weekend), we found one on the edge of town and unloaded our gear before driving the 50km to the Jenolan Caves. Fabulous limestone caves, the one we went through was the first in the world to ever be lit by electric light just a year after the electric light was invented. It also still has a working long life light bulb that was installed in 1953! Afterwards our guide told us that if we went down to the lake it was about the right time (5:30pm and light fading fast) to see a platypus (if we were lucky). Celso spotted the beak of one and we all saw lots of splashing but it disappeared under a rock and then up a drainage tunnel and we didn't get another glimpse. Now I really, really want to see one - we decided to return another day to try and get another look.
Sat 24
Tristan was given his longed for lie in (he's a real teenager now!) and we didn't leave the motel until after 11am. We made our way to Lithgow and then after a brief stop for directions and a map we made our way out to the Glowworm Tunnel. This involved a 30km drive along a graded dirt road through first gum trees, then harvested pine forest, then protected pine and then protected virgin bush to a part of an abandoned railway track that has been saved and now serves as a walking track. We decided to do a 3hr round trip that followed the railway through a tunnel now inhabited by glowworms (hence the name) and then down and round the edge of the mountain, returning back to near the tunnel via an old coach track. We had been told that we were likely to see Koalas out here but we didn't spot one. Probably they were out there but we just didn't spot them, in fact we saw very few signs of life at all. A male Lyre bird, a tiny skink, a blue tongued skink, some butterflies and, right near the end of our walk as the sky clouded over and it started to get quite dark, some black cockatoos and other birds.
As we returned to the car the skies opened and the rain pelted down. It meant that our drive back was less dusty but a little more hazardous on the dirt road as it makes the surface very slippy. We spotted 5 or 6 kangaroos on our journey; so different from seeing them in captivity because they were bounding along; so graceful, so easy.
We had a pub supper and then rented a video 'District 9' - violent but so original, about refugee aliens told in a documentary style, worth a watch.
Sun 25th (Anzac day)
Held up briefly by the marching veterans, we made our way to Oberon and found a motel, did laundry, wrote emails and then went back to Jenolan Caves. We went and toured a cave and then went to sit out by the platypus lake. Wrong day... too many people here making too much noise, so much for public holidays, we didn't see a thing in the 90 mins we waited about. Our only view of wildlife today was the sad sight of a dead Kangaroo and a dead Wombat on the road.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Blue Mountains
Wed 21
We took a walk with Jane and the dogs down to the local reserve (basically a park) with a beach on the harbour, a brief walk along the beach was followed by us standing in the shade whilst the dogs bolted around. 10am and already so hot.
By 11am all our farewells were said and we packed up the car and made our way (with some difficulty due to a complete lack of signage) out westwards to the Blue Mountains. We were suprised just how close they are and within 2 hours we had stopped at Glenbrook to visit the Information Centre.
We bought a couple of very large scale ordnance survey maps and then took our first trip into the Blue Mountains National Park. A half hour drive along a rough road took us into the bush and to a dead end at the start of the Red Hands Track. Here we took a circular path through the bush visiting a couple of aboriginal sites along the way. It was clear that we were the only people to have passed that way that day because we kept on walking into spider webs across the track, and for the whole hour and a half that we walked we only saw two other people.
The Red Hands Cave hand paintings are dated to be between 40,000 and 10,000 years old and the grooves in the rocks where axes were sharpened have a similar date though I don't know what techniques you can use to date grooves. Each hand painted represents a different person who visited the cave and there were clearly two different techniques used. The first was the spraying of the red ochre paint over the hand, the second was to paint the cave wall red first and then spray a white paint.
The bush was strangely silent except for the occasional screech of a bird, hardly any of which we saw; it was a very calming, peaceful, daydreamy sort of a walk with unusual and unfamiliar plants all around - beautiful.
On our way back towards the park entrance we took a small detour to a campsite known to often have kangaroo visitors but we didn't find any. Instead there were loads of birds, cockatoos, kookaburras, rosellas, ducks and magpies. The cockatoos came abegging when they saw we had apples and ripped our offerings apart to get at the seeds.
Finally, just before we left the park we took a short walk down to Jellybean Pool, a waterhole that is just as I imagine a waterhole to be; jagged sandstone cliffs with a waterfall and a pool surrounded by the scraggy native bush. A quintessential waterhole.
It starts to get dark early here now, around 5:30pm so we decided to go and find somewhere to stay and found a motel a few miles further up the road.
Thurs 22
We drove to Wentworth Falls and stopped to have a full fry up breakfast before heading out to do 'Darwin's walk' - the walk that Charles Darwin did when he visited here; unfortunately the path was closed due to landslides so we just had to go to the end of the walk in the car and be amazed by the views over a sheer drop to the forest below and the sandstone cliffs in the distance. The photos could never do the place justice - just magnificent. We walked for about an hour to get to the falls along a thin path that wound its way along the side of the cliffs (probably about 30m down from the top) and into cave areas. Once we had crossed the top of the falls it all got too scary for me as the path went out onto these really thin ledges, and, although there was a fence at the edge, my vertigo would not permit me to pass that way. Tristan said it made his knees a bit wobbly too and so we turned back!
On our return journey we saw some rarer black cockatoos but failed to get a photo of them, they are beautiful birds with red flashes on their wings.
We drove further West to visit Sublime Point Lookout past houses perched on the edge of the cliffs. The lookout had more fantastic views from a rock that just seemed perched out in the middle of it all. The was a fantastic large boulder with intricate weathering on it that I wouldn't have believed was natural unless I had seen it myself (see the photos); unfortunately some people have decided to carve their names in it (a modern form of the red hands?)
Next we took a walk down into Lyre Bird Dell and to visit the Pool of Siloam on a circuit through a gulley near Leura. More fantastic bush and rocks and waterfalls and bird screeching!
By 3pm we had checked into the local YHA hostel; we did some shopping; cooked an early supper and then made our way to the local cinema that shows a film about the area on an enormous IMAX type screen. Within the Blue Mountain park they have found 40 adult specimens of a tree thought to have been extinct for over 65 million years since the time of the dinosaurs. It is a type of pine but has fronds like a fern and its bark is made up of a sea of buds. The film was full of amazing images from helicopters and from a pair of canyoners, people that abseil down waterfalls and into cave systems in the park, fantastic places to go, just not the right method of getting there!
Celso and Tris then decided that they needed to stay at the cinema to watch 'Clash of the Titans', and so I was able to return to the YHA, write this and load my photos!
We took a walk with Jane and the dogs down to the local reserve (basically a park) with a beach on the harbour, a brief walk along the beach was followed by us standing in the shade whilst the dogs bolted around. 10am and already so hot.
By 11am all our farewells were said and we packed up the car and made our way (with some difficulty due to a complete lack of signage) out westwards to the Blue Mountains. We were suprised just how close they are and within 2 hours we had stopped at Glenbrook to visit the Information Centre.
We bought a couple of very large scale ordnance survey maps and then took our first trip into the Blue Mountains National Park. A half hour drive along a rough road took us into the bush and to a dead end at the start of the Red Hands Track. Here we took a circular path through the bush visiting a couple of aboriginal sites along the way. It was clear that we were the only people to have passed that way that day because we kept on walking into spider webs across the track, and for the whole hour and a half that we walked we only saw two other people.
The Red Hands Cave hand paintings are dated to be between 40,000 and 10,000 years old and the grooves in the rocks where axes were sharpened have a similar date though I don't know what techniques you can use to date grooves. Each hand painted represents a different person who visited the cave and there were clearly two different techniques used. The first was the spraying of the red ochre paint over the hand, the second was to paint the cave wall red first and then spray a white paint.
The bush was strangely silent except for the occasional screech of a bird, hardly any of which we saw; it was a very calming, peaceful, daydreamy sort of a walk with unusual and unfamiliar plants all around - beautiful.
On our way back towards the park entrance we took a small detour to a campsite known to often have kangaroo visitors but we didn't find any. Instead there were loads of birds, cockatoos, kookaburras, rosellas, ducks and magpies. The cockatoos came abegging when they saw we had apples and ripped our offerings apart to get at the seeds.
Finally, just before we left the park we took a short walk down to Jellybean Pool, a waterhole that is just as I imagine a waterhole to be; jagged sandstone cliffs with a waterfall and a pool surrounded by the scraggy native bush. A quintessential waterhole.
It starts to get dark early here now, around 5:30pm so we decided to go and find somewhere to stay and found a motel a few miles further up the road.
Thurs 22
We drove to Wentworth Falls and stopped to have a full fry up breakfast before heading out to do 'Darwin's walk' - the walk that Charles Darwin did when he visited here; unfortunately the path was closed due to landslides so we just had to go to the end of the walk in the car and be amazed by the views over a sheer drop to the forest below and the sandstone cliffs in the distance. The photos could never do the place justice - just magnificent. We walked for about an hour to get to the falls along a thin path that wound its way along the side of the cliffs (probably about 30m down from the top) and into cave areas. Once we had crossed the top of the falls it all got too scary for me as the path went out onto these really thin ledges, and, although there was a fence at the edge, my vertigo would not permit me to pass that way. Tristan said it made his knees a bit wobbly too and so we turned back!
On our return journey we saw some rarer black cockatoos but failed to get a photo of them, they are beautiful birds with red flashes on their wings.
We drove further West to visit Sublime Point Lookout past houses perched on the edge of the cliffs. The lookout had more fantastic views from a rock that just seemed perched out in the middle of it all. The was a fantastic large boulder with intricate weathering on it that I wouldn't have believed was natural unless I had seen it myself (see the photos); unfortunately some people have decided to carve their names in it (a modern form of the red hands?)
Next we took a walk down into Lyre Bird Dell and to visit the Pool of Siloam on a circuit through a gulley near Leura. More fantastic bush and rocks and waterfalls and bird screeching!
By 3pm we had checked into the local YHA hostel; we did some shopping; cooked an early supper and then made our way to the local cinema that shows a film about the area on an enormous IMAX type screen. Within the Blue Mountain park they have found 40 adult specimens of a tree thought to have been extinct for over 65 million years since the time of the dinosaurs. It is a type of pine but has fronds like a fern and its bark is made up of a sea of buds. The film was full of amazing images from helicopters and from a pair of canyoners, people that abseil down waterfalls and into cave systems in the park, fantastic places to go, just not the right method of getting there!
Celso and Tris then decided that they needed to stay at the cinema to watch 'Clash of the Titans', and so I was able to return to the YHA, write this and load my photos!
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Exploring Sydney
Sun 18 April
John, Jane, Wilf, Celso, Tristan and I, plus the two dogs (rescued from an aborigianl settlement in the North (with their blessing) where the dog situation was getting out of controll, neutered, chipped and then found homes via the internet) Spot and Mudflap all piled into the car to drive North up the coast to 'the Northern Beaches'. These include loads of small communities (still officially part of Sydney) along the coast with white sand beaches and native bush all around. Some of these areas are really posh, the houses are really expensive - film stars have places round here.
Unfortunately there are very few beaches on which dogs are allowed, but occassionaly they are allowed on grassy strips at the back of beaches and we eventually found one where we could let the dogs have a bit of a run. Wilf and John went swimming in the sea but it was too cold for the rest of us!
We had lunch under a shady tree at a boathouse cafe. The weather is strangely hot for the time of year, around 28 degrees, so it was great sitting around in the shade and having a good chat!
We were given a good tour of the area; there is so much native bush and it seems to be really unspoilt right up to the edge of residential roads; no wonder when there are bush fires so many houses are lost.
Mon 19th
Celso, Tris, Wilf and I went in to town; Wilf's school is having a teacher training day and Jane had to work; we visited Sydney Wildlife World in Darling Harbour which has all sorts of Aussie animals on show in fantastic large enclosures. There were loads of snakes and reptiles to keep Celso fascinated for hours, a huge croc, Koalas, Kangaroos, and all the nocturnal creatures. I think my favourite 'new' (to me) animal was the Bilby - a rabbit eared bandicoot, if I hadn't seen it myself I would have thought it made up! The Wombat and Kangaroo rats are pretty cool too.
After a bite to eat we went next door to the Aquarium; unfortunately the platypus did not make an appearance for us but the sharks, octupus, cuttlefish, sea dragon and dugongs were particularly fantastic.
Finally we finished our central Sydney tour by visiting the Sydney Tower; like the CN Tower in Toronto; Wilf was very nervous going up in the lift but the first to rush to the windows when we finally reached the top. We had fantastic views all around, we could see across to Manly where we had caught the ferry and down to Darling Harbour, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
When we returned to J,J & W's house we took the dogs for a walk in the dark. Here they use graveyards as dog walking places, there are loads of dogs there and the flower pots on the grave stones are filled everyday to give the dogs drinking water... it all seemed very odd to me, and, even stranger, there is also a childrens' playground inside the graveyard area
Tues 20th
Celso, Tris and I went in to town (again), had a look around the shops, went to a Mythical Creatures Exhibition at the Maritime Museum (strangely enough) which explored the basis for the creation of many different mythical creatures from various cultures around the world. Then we went to pick up our hire car and tried to find our way back to J,J & W's house in the north.
Tomorrow we head off out of Sydney.
John, Jane, Wilf, Celso, Tristan and I, plus the two dogs (rescued from an aborigianl settlement in the North (with their blessing) where the dog situation was getting out of controll, neutered, chipped and then found homes via the internet) Spot and Mudflap all piled into the car to drive North up the coast to 'the Northern Beaches'. These include loads of small communities (still officially part of Sydney) along the coast with white sand beaches and native bush all around. Some of these areas are really posh, the houses are really expensive - film stars have places round here.
Unfortunately there are very few beaches on which dogs are allowed, but occassionaly they are allowed on grassy strips at the back of beaches and we eventually found one where we could let the dogs have a bit of a run. Wilf and John went swimming in the sea but it was too cold for the rest of us!
We had lunch under a shady tree at a boathouse cafe. The weather is strangely hot for the time of year, around 28 degrees, so it was great sitting around in the shade and having a good chat!
We were given a good tour of the area; there is so much native bush and it seems to be really unspoilt right up to the edge of residential roads; no wonder when there are bush fires so many houses are lost.
Mon 19th
Celso, Tris, Wilf and I went in to town; Wilf's school is having a teacher training day and Jane had to work; we visited Sydney Wildlife World in Darling Harbour which has all sorts of Aussie animals on show in fantastic large enclosures. There were loads of snakes and reptiles to keep Celso fascinated for hours, a huge croc, Koalas, Kangaroos, and all the nocturnal creatures. I think my favourite 'new' (to me) animal was the Bilby - a rabbit eared bandicoot, if I hadn't seen it myself I would have thought it made up! The Wombat and Kangaroo rats are pretty cool too.
After a bite to eat we went next door to the Aquarium; unfortunately the platypus did not make an appearance for us but the sharks, octupus, cuttlefish, sea dragon and dugongs were particularly fantastic.
Finally we finished our central Sydney tour by visiting the Sydney Tower; like the CN Tower in Toronto; Wilf was very nervous going up in the lift but the first to rush to the windows when we finally reached the top. We had fantastic views all around, we could see across to Manly where we had caught the ferry and down to Darling Harbour, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.
When we returned to J,J & W's house we took the dogs for a walk in the dark. Here they use graveyards as dog walking places, there are loads of dogs there and the flower pots on the grave stones are filled everyday to give the dogs drinking water... it all seemed very odd to me, and, even stranger, there is also a childrens' playground inside the graveyard area
Tues 20th
Celso, Tris and I went in to town (again), had a look around the shops, went to a Mythical Creatures Exhibition at the Maritime Museum (strangely enough) which explored the basis for the creation of many different mythical creatures from various cultures around the world. Then we went to pick up our hire car and tried to find our way back to J,J & W's house in the north.
Tomorrow we head off out of Sydney.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
To Sydney, Australia
Friday 16th April
Our plane took off at 8.15am and we had beautiful views from the East across to the West Coast as we flew over the mountains. We had fantastic views of the glaciers and then said our farewells to NZ as we crossed over the West Coast to the Tasman sea that was covered in a blanket of fluffy white clouds, above which we could see miles through the clear blue. Different from what is going on in the UK with the Icelandic eruption!
We descended through cloud into a grey and misty Sydney but had great views of the harbour, the harbour bridge and the Opera House as we came in to land.
The airport exit was very long and tedious with each person having their bags checked and no proper queuing system which meant that people, frustratingly, pushed in ahead of others who had been waiting for ages.
Anyway... we eventually emerged to meet Jane and Wilf (8 yr old son) and then we were whisked through Sydney and over the Harbour Bridge up to the Northern Suburb of Balgowlah, just next to Manly on the Northern edge of Sydney harbour.
For those of you who don't know John, Jane and Wilf; I first met John about 25 years ago when he briefly dated my sister Katie at Uni, then later I rented a room in Brixton from John and his brother, and later Jane moved in; anyway we have been mates ever since. They have moved back here after 7 years in the UK; they lived here before when I lived in the 1990s, and they love it though they miss the UK too!
Our first iconic Aussie sighting was a Kookaburra on a neighbour's TV ariel, then
Jane took us on a tour of Manly, North Head and the beaches there; amazingly there are Water Dragons (a type of lizard) that live on the rocks which are separated from the sea by a walkway.
John got home from work around 6:30pm and we had a Pork Roast (something that Tris has had a craving for for months!), roast potatoes and all the trimmings. But the two hour time change and our early start to catch the flight soon caught up with us and we had to retire!
Sat 17th
Celso, Tris and I went to 'do' central Sydney. As we left the house we found a Blue Tongued Skink in the front garden and then took a 20 min walk along the waterfront down to Manly to catch the ferry. There were some amazing spiders, with very full larders, amazing views and exotic plants to grab the attention at every turn.
The ferry took us across the harbour past Sandy beaches, rocky peninsulas and virgin bush (reserves), then round a corner and views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
We wandered around Circular Quay for a while, there was an aboriginal group playing their music with a digeridoo, loads of people out and about (it is the last w/e of the holidays like in the UK), boats coming and going and views across the harbour. We took a look around the Sydney Opera House; I don't wish to spoil anybody's perception of the place but from close up; it looks a little grotty, rough cement surfaces and staining on the walls. However, from a distance it is a magnificent edifice and we took looks from all perspectives!
We found a free bus to take us along to Darling Harbour (who has ever heard of a free bus in the middle of a big city - but here there is one) and went to have some lunch overlooking more hustle and bustle and glistening, twinkling water. We pottered through the shops, watched a video about how one company makes hats from rabbit skin and found a shop selling English sweets and gladly tucked in to some Aniseed Balls that have been sorely missed!
As we returned to Manly on the ferry the sun was setting, casting a beautiful glow over the Opera House and the water - gorgeous.
In the evening a few of John and Jane's friends came round and we were treated to fab food and company and then we watched the footy; Man City v Man U, not that they are my team but I'd prefer the reds to win the title rather than those London Blues. Well done Tottenham!
Our plane took off at 8.15am and we had beautiful views from the East across to the West Coast as we flew over the mountains. We had fantastic views of the glaciers and then said our farewells to NZ as we crossed over the West Coast to the Tasman sea that was covered in a blanket of fluffy white clouds, above which we could see miles through the clear blue. Different from what is going on in the UK with the Icelandic eruption!
We descended through cloud into a grey and misty Sydney but had great views of the harbour, the harbour bridge and the Opera House as we came in to land.
The airport exit was very long and tedious with each person having their bags checked and no proper queuing system which meant that people, frustratingly, pushed in ahead of others who had been waiting for ages.
Anyway... we eventually emerged to meet Jane and Wilf (8 yr old son) and then we were whisked through Sydney and over the Harbour Bridge up to the Northern Suburb of Balgowlah, just next to Manly on the Northern edge of Sydney harbour.
For those of you who don't know John, Jane and Wilf; I first met John about 25 years ago when he briefly dated my sister Katie at Uni, then later I rented a room in Brixton from John and his brother, and later Jane moved in; anyway we have been mates ever since. They have moved back here after 7 years in the UK; they lived here before when I lived in the 1990s, and they love it though they miss the UK too!
Our first iconic Aussie sighting was a Kookaburra on a neighbour's TV ariel, then
Jane took us on a tour of Manly, North Head and the beaches there; amazingly there are Water Dragons (a type of lizard) that live on the rocks which are separated from the sea by a walkway.
John got home from work around 6:30pm and we had a Pork Roast (something that Tris has had a craving for for months!), roast potatoes and all the trimmings. But the two hour time change and our early start to catch the flight soon caught up with us and we had to retire!
Sat 17th
Celso, Tris and I went to 'do' central Sydney. As we left the house we found a Blue Tongued Skink in the front garden and then took a 20 min walk along the waterfront down to Manly to catch the ferry. There were some amazing spiders, with very full larders, amazing views and exotic plants to grab the attention at every turn.
The ferry took us across the harbour past Sandy beaches, rocky peninsulas and virgin bush (reserves), then round a corner and views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
We wandered around Circular Quay for a while, there was an aboriginal group playing their music with a digeridoo, loads of people out and about (it is the last w/e of the holidays like in the UK), boats coming and going and views across the harbour. We took a look around the Sydney Opera House; I don't wish to spoil anybody's perception of the place but from close up; it looks a little grotty, rough cement surfaces and staining on the walls. However, from a distance it is a magnificent edifice and we took looks from all perspectives!
We found a free bus to take us along to Darling Harbour (who has ever heard of a free bus in the middle of a big city - but here there is one) and went to have some lunch overlooking more hustle and bustle and glistening, twinkling water. We pottered through the shops, watched a video about how one company makes hats from rabbit skin and found a shop selling English sweets and gladly tucked in to some Aniseed Balls that have been sorely missed!
As we returned to Manly on the ferry the sun was setting, casting a beautiful glow over the Opera House and the water - gorgeous.
In the evening a few of John and Jane's friends came round and we were treated to fab food and company and then we watched the footy; Man City v Man U, not that they are my team but I'd prefer the reds to win the title rather than those London Blues. Well done Tottenham!
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Last week in NZ
Sat
We drove from Te Anau in the West all the way across to the East coast to the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin in order to take a look at an Albatros colony only to be foiled by the department of conservation who had closed the breeding colony for some reason. We managed to take a look around the information centre and were lucky enough to see a couple of birds flying past but we missed out on the up close encounter with birds on the nest or young ones strengthening their wings.
As we drove from West to East the natural NZ gave way to the agricultural NZ, fields and fields and fields, cows, sheep, cows and more sheep, occassionally a Llama or a filed of crops but mainly cows and sheep.
As we went North to Timaru from Dunedin we passed through some areas that could have been in the UK, except for a few NZ trees. We reached Timaru around 6pm and rang Rob and Alice (my uncle and aunt) and then found our way up to their house about 15mins out of town. We had a great evening, good food, good company and their team playing rugby on the TV!
On Sunday we helped look after Izzie, my cousin Harry's one year old daughter and then went round to Sam's farm (another cousin) to watch him weaning the cattle on horseback and meet his wife, son and daughter. Later in the early evening we had a big family meal with Harry, Tash and Izzie, Sam, Sarah, Cooper and Zoey and also Rob and Alice and us. We had a belated 1st birthday cake for Zoey, more good food, good company and fun.
On Monday Celso, Tris and I set off to 'do' the Mackenzie Basin, Mount Cook and the big Lakes in the region. The Mackenzie basin is so dry, everything is dusty and brown in colour but their are fantastic views, autumn colours, lakes and mountains to amaze all around. Lots of Lord of the Rings' middle earth scenes were filmed around here; it's the grandeaur and enormity of everything, big wide open spaces with mountains on all sides; incredible.
We drove up alongside Lake Pukaki to the base of Mount Cook and took a walk up to a spot that overlooks the glacier. At first I didn't even recognise the glacier, it is nothing like the glimmering white glaciers at Franz Joseph and Fox; this is a grey, stone covered glacier that just looks like a pile of rubble until you look closely. It has glimpses of white at the face and in the lake at the end there are enormous glaciers floating. We were planning to spend the night at the end of Lake Pukaki to see Mount Cook at the end of the lake at sunrise; but the wind came up the van started to rock and we decided to go and seek shelter in Twizle where we had a barbecue and finished off all our food.
On Tuesday we drove back to Timaru over loads of wooden tressel bridges crossing the rivers; most nearly dry but some with crystal clear waters. We also passed a series of dams. Aviemore dam is the one of the earliest ones built in NZ and it still produces nearly 1/5th of the electricity in the country. From Timaru we sent our largest parcel yet back to the UK; 7kg; full of goodies from our trip, and then we spent a few hours cleaning out the van, packing and getting ready to go to Christchurch tomorrow.
On Wednesday we drove up to Christchurch and returned the van, then went to our hotel and lazed around before going out to have a look around.
On Thursday we had an enormous lie in; I didn't realise we were all so tired, and then walked across Hagley Park into the town, stopped at a cafe next to the Avon river and watched the canoes and the gondolas travelling up and down. We wandered around the shops and then returned to our hotel to chill out before our early start to the airport and Australia tomorrow.
We drove from Te Anau in the West all the way across to the East coast to the Otago Peninsula near Dunedin in order to take a look at an Albatros colony only to be foiled by the department of conservation who had closed the breeding colony for some reason. We managed to take a look around the information centre and were lucky enough to see a couple of birds flying past but we missed out on the up close encounter with birds on the nest or young ones strengthening their wings.
As we drove from West to East the natural NZ gave way to the agricultural NZ, fields and fields and fields, cows, sheep, cows and more sheep, occassionally a Llama or a filed of crops but mainly cows and sheep.
As we went North to Timaru from Dunedin we passed through some areas that could have been in the UK, except for a few NZ trees. We reached Timaru around 6pm and rang Rob and Alice (my uncle and aunt) and then found our way up to their house about 15mins out of town. We had a great evening, good food, good company and their team playing rugby on the TV!
On Sunday we helped look after Izzie, my cousin Harry's one year old daughter and then went round to Sam's farm (another cousin) to watch him weaning the cattle on horseback and meet his wife, son and daughter. Later in the early evening we had a big family meal with Harry, Tash and Izzie, Sam, Sarah, Cooper and Zoey and also Rob and Alice and us. We had a belated 1st birthday cake for Zoey, more good food, good company and fun.
On Monday Celso, Tris and I set off to 'do' the Mackenzie Basin, Mount Cook and the big Lakes in the region. The Mackenzie basin is so dry, everything is dusty and brown in colour but their are fantastic views, autumn colours, lakes and mountains to amaze all around. Lots of Lord of the Rings' middle earth scenes were filmed around here; it's the grandeaur and enormity of everything, big wide open spaces with mountains on all sides; incredible.
We drove up alongside Lake Pukaki to the base of Mount Cook and took a walk up to a spot that overlooks the glacier. At first I didn't even recognise the glacier, it is nothing like the glimmering white glaciers at Franz Joseph and Fox; this is a grey, stone covered glacier that just looks like a pile of rubble until you look closely. It has glimpses of white at the face and in the lake at the end there are enormous glaciers floating. We were planning to spend the night at the end of Lake Pukaki to see Mount Cook at the end of the lake at sunrise; but the wind came up the van started to rock and we decided to go and seek shelter in Twizle where we had a barbecue and finished off all our food.
On Tuesday we drove back to Timaru over loads of wooden tressel bridges crossing the rivers; most nearly dry but some with crystal clear waters. We also passed a series of dams. Aviemore dam is the one of the earliest ones built in NZ and it still produces nearly 1/5th of the electricity in the country. From Timaru we sent our largest parcel yet back to the UK; 7kg; full of goodies from our trip, and then we spent a few hours cleaning out the van, packing and getting ready to go to Christchurch tomorrow.
On Wednesday we drove up to Christchurch and returned the van, then went to our hotel and lazed around before going out to have a look around.
On Thursday we had an enormous lie in; I didn't realise we were all so tired, and then walked across Hagley Park into the town, stopped at a cafe next to the Avon river and watched the canoes and the gondolas travelling up and down. We wandered around the shops and then returned to our hotel to chill out before our early start to the airport and Australia tomorrow.
Friday, 9 April 2010
Fjordlands
8th
We made an angry phone call (again) to our camper van hire company and then made our way back to the Firestone tyre company to see if the rim had arrived ... Hallelujah, thank the Lord, it had. So we now have a functioning spare and feel more reassured that we can avoid getting stuck somewhere for days if we should get a puncture. Then on South and then West out to Te Anau in Fjordlands, the second biggest World Heritage site in the world. We went to the visitor centre and watched a film about the Fjordlands; how they were discovered; their unique features and how they change through the seasons. Then we went for a walk along the Te Anau lake (the second largest in NZ after Taupo in the North Island) to visit a bird rescue centre where they rehabilitate injured birds until they can be released back into the wild (or forever if needs be). We were lucky enough to get a really good viewing of a bird called a Takahe; thought extinct at the start of the 19th century, a few were discovered in Fjordlands in the 1940s and there are now about 200 known birds. The problem with the conservation of this bird is that it only breeds once a season and 20-30% of the eggs are infertile; of those that survive the introduced predators as chicks, they need to survive three more years until they are ready to breed themselves. At the moment any that are found on the mainland are moved to 2 predator free islands in Fjordlands. Anyway, you can see in the photos how amazing they are, they are big, about 63cm tall, and weigh about 3 times as much as a chicken; their feathers glow - just fantastic.
Then we started the 120km journey north again to Milford Sound (named after Milford Haven in Wales because the first guy to arrive their was a Welsh guy on a whaling boat). The road takes you through amazing scenery; grasslands that look like the prairies in the US, it looked like they should have a Buffalo herd grazing; the huge mountains on either side that just seem to shoot up vertically out of the earth (glacier U shaped valleys); snow on some of the upper slopes; rain forest with huge fir like trees and fern trees; clear, clear, clear lakes and streams - the water was so transparent you could see the stones on the bottoms.
We passed through the most amazing tunnel that had taken 20 years to complete. We waited about 10 mins for the traffic lights to go green and then entered with noone else around, after about 10m the road just dropped away and we were going down in the tunnel at about a 30 degree angle, down and down. We couldn't believe that people had cut out this tunnel by hand, it was about 500m through solid rock; you can see in the photo how far down the cliff it is, it would just be impossible to get through to Milford without it. It was lucky that we had bothered to book a camping space because when we got to Dunedin the campsite was full! We hired the DVD 'Lord of the Rings' in the campsite so that we could check out Hobbiton that we had visited in the North Island - it was strange to watch it now that we know all the secrets!! We had to keep on winding it back so that we could check things out!
9th
We awoke to a cold but clear morning amongst the mountains. We were down at the dock by 9:30am to take a boat out onto Milford Sound (should be called a Fjord becuase it was cut by a glacier, sounds are cut by rivers). On our tour we saw waterfalls, fur seals, the dripping mosses on the near vertical rock walls, three dolphins, a couple of tiny fairy penguins (that shouldn't be around at this time of year so it was a bit of a bonus), cloud clad mountain tops, some with snow and the crystal clear waters where you could look down into the depths. The unique thing about this place is that after rain the tannins in the fresh water that flow down into the fjord can make a 10m layer of fresh water on top of the sea water below. Because the tannins can block out the sunlight many creatures are tricked into living at much higher levels than they would normally and therefore there is more opportunity to see them. We took the option to disembark and visit the underwater observatory, a room that has been built 10m down under the water with viewing windows out into the Sound waters. The perspex is really thick but doesn't magnify what you see and outside each window a little ledge has allowed corals, anemones, and tube worms, shell fish, sponges and lots more to take hold; in turn these have attracted loads of tiny fish and in turn the big fish come to prey on these. Some fantastic views included a brief visit by a 2m shark and visits from huge shoals of fish.
Once back at the dock we started the drive back to Te Anau, this time we stopped at all the points along the way; the Chasm, an amazing waterfall that has sculpted fantastic curves into the rock; mirror lakes, where you get to see the mirror image of the mountains towering above (but slightly wavy for us due to a few very active ducks), various rivers and streams with fantastic coloured stones and pebbles to investigate; the remains of last winters (last Sept) 12m snow fall in the shade of a mountain and still absolutely enormous and the huge number of awe inspiring views up and down the glacial valleys. Great drive, 120km that took us 4.5 hours to complete! Whilst we waited to go back through the amazing tunnel a Kea (ground parrot) came to visit us on the road - what a treat!
We made an angry phone call (again) to our camper van hire company and then made our way back to the Firestone tyre company to see if the rim had arrived ... Hallelujah, thank the Lord, it had. So we now have a functioning spare and feel more reassured that we can avoid getting stuck somewhere for days if we should get a puncture. Then on South and then West out to Te Anau in Fjordlands, the second biggest World Heritage site in the world. We went to the visitor centre and watched a film about the Fjordlands; how they were discovered; their unique features and how they change through the seasons. Then we went for a walk along the Te Anau lake (the second largest in NZ after Taupo in the North Island) to visit a bird rescue centre where they rehabilitate injured birds until they can be released back into the wild (or forever if needs be). We were lucky enough to get a really good viewing of a bird called a Takahe; thought extinct at the start of the 19th century, a few were discovered in Fjordlands in the 1940s and there are now about 200 known birds. The problem with the conservation of this bird is that it only breeds once a season and 20-30% of the eggs are infertile; of those that survive the introduced predators as chicks, they need to survive three more years until they are ready to breed themselves. At the moment any that are found on the mainland are moved to 2 predator free islands in Fjordlands. Anyway, you can see in the photos how amazing they are, they are big, about 63cm tall, and weigh about 3 times as much as a chicken; their feathers glow - just fantastic.
Then we started the 120km journey north again to Milford Sound (named after Milford Haven in Wales because the first guy to arrive their was a Welsh guy on a whaling boat). The road takes you through amazing scenery; grasslands that look like the prairies in the US, it looked like they should have a Buffalo herd grazing; the huge mountains on either side that just seem to shoot up vertically out of the earth (glacier U shaped valleys); snow on some of the upper slopes; rain forest with huge fir like trees and fern trees; clear, clear, clear lakes and streams - the water was so transparent you could see the stones on the bottoms.
We passed through the most amazing tunnel that had taken 20 years to complete. We waited about 10 mins for the traffic lights to go green and then entered with noone else around, after about 10m the road just dropped away and we were going down in the tunnel at about a 30 degree angle, down and down. We couldn't believe that people had cut out this tunnel by hand, it was about 500m through solid rock; you can see in the photo how far down the cliff it is, it would just be impossible to get through to Milford without it. It was lucky that we had bothered to book a camping space because when we got to Dunedin the campsite was full! We hired the DVD 'Lord of the Rings' in the campsite so that we could check out Hobbiton that we had visited in the North Island - it was strange to watch it now that we know all the secrets!! We had to keep on winding it back so that we could check things out!
9th
We awoke to a cold but clear morning amongst the mountains. We were down at the dock by 9:30am to take a boat out onto Milford Sound (should be called a Fjord becuase it was cut by a glacier, sounds are cut by rivers). On our tour we saw waterfalls, fur seals, the dripping mosses on the near vertical rock walls, three dolphins, a couple of tiny fairy penguins (that shouldn't be around at this time of year so it was a bit of a bonus), cloud clad mountain tops, some with snow and the crystal clear waters where you could look down into the depths. The unique thing about this place is that after rain the tannins in the fresh water that flow down into the fjord can make a 10m layer of fresh water on top of the sea water below. Because the tannins can block out the sunlight many creatures are tricked into living at much higher levels than they would normally and therefore there is more opportunity to see them. We took the option to disembark and visit the underwater observatory, a room that has been built 10m down under the water with viewing windows out into the Sound waters. The perspex is really thick but doesn't magnify what you see and outside each window a little ledge has allowed corals, anemones, and tube worms, shell fish, sponges and lots more to take hold; in turn these have attracted loads of tiny fish and in turn the big fish come to prey on these. Some fantastic views included a brief visit by a 2m shark and visits from huge shoals of fish.
Once back at the dock we started the drive back to Te Anau, this time we stopped at all the points along the way; the Chasm, an amazing waterfall that has sculpted fantastic curves into the rock; mirror lakes, where you get to see the mirror image of the mountains towering above (but slightly wavy for us due to a few very active ducks), various rivers and streams with fantastic coloured stones and pebbles to investigate; the remains of last winters (last Sept) 12m snow fall in the shade of a mountain and still absolutely enormous and the huge number of awe inspiring views up and down the glacial valleys. Great drive, 120km that took us 4.5 hours to complete! Whilst we waited to go back through the amazing tunnel a Kea (ground parrot) came to visit us on the road - what a treat!
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
South to Queenstown
Too many photos but we just can't decide which to delete!
4th April
We woke to rain and it rained on and off all day, this area has really high rainfall but also as many sunshine hours as the wine growing region around Blenheim; when it rains it really rains! We wanted to make sure we got to the National Kiwi centre in the centre of town by 10am for the Eel Feeding but when we arrived at about 9:30am the place was closed. It took us some time to realise that infact the clocks went back 1 hour last night - Daylight savings! Anyway, we got into the centre at the real 9am about half an hour later and wandered around seeing enormous eels, frogs, Tuatara, native birds and fish, and of course the Kiwi in the darkened pen doing his/her hunting poking his long beak and nostrils into the earth and rotten stumps. He/She seemed to be expending so much energy for no payback at all. At 10am Tristan and I took part in the eel feeding holding strips of Ox heart in tongs infront of the eels faces and they sucked it in like spaghetti! Then we headed south again through the rain towards the glacier region of Franz Joseph. We made one stop on the way at Pukepukara (or something lke that, I can't find it on any maps; maybe officialdom have decided to ignore it!), the smallest town in New Zealand with 2 inhabitants; a married couple who are not only the mayor and mayoress but also run the local cafe, shop and pub, as well as a small holding with deer and goats; a possum trapping business and the local bank. They have the honour of being the most politically incorrect place in New Zealand.
A sign displays the current exchange rates for foreign currencies. Britain has been having it too good for too long so they didn't want to offer a good rate, £3 for $1NZ, they wouldn't exchange Canadian dollars because 'one of us usedto be married to one of the buggers', Americans could get a 1:1 exchange and they would exchange Japanese Yen becuase their 'kids used the silly notes with too many 000s for monopoly money'!
The shop sold many locally crafted goods, many made from Possum fur, and there was a huge variety of cards on sale, each of which really made us giggle... they are difficult to describe but to give you an idea one of them is of an old couple sitting on a sofa, the man has his hand down the neck of the woman's shirt and she is saying 'Don't be daft Bill, they're not up there any more!' Near the cash register was a sign with the message 'Yes it is raining, this is a rain forest. You chose to take your holiday here. Don't ask us what the weather is going to do, you are on holiday and have time to read the weather reports and listen to the radio, we are working.' Another sign stated that 'Unattended children will be sold into slavery', and so the giggles continued. We donated $4 to a fund for stopping the use of poison in the area in return for a possum pie, they had had to stop selling the pies because the government told them they couldn't sell possum meat unless it was sourced from a government approved institution; since not one of these exists they were having to bend the rules a bit! (By the way possum tastes a bit like chicken to me but Celso disagrees and said it was just gamey!)
Then on down to Franz Joseph, a town with the same name as the local glacier, one of the most accessible glaciers in the world, its terminal face at only 250m above sea level and ends in rain forest. We went into town and booked a hike for tomorrow afternoon before finding a campsite and relaxing.
5th April.
We had a good long lie in in the morning and then drove up the valley a bit to the glacier terminal face car park and climbing up a hill to get a good look over the glacier. The Maori story is that there was an adventurous girl called Hine Hukatere who loved mountaineering but her lover, Tawe, was not so keen. Hine persuaded Hukatere to climb the mountain with her but he slipped and fell to his death. Hine's tears were so many that they flooded the valley and the Gods froze them as a memorial to her grief.
There were some great photos showing the glacier in the past. In the 1750s the glacier was about 300m higher at the face and the face was a further kilometre down the valley. So it has receded a massive amount; however, in the 1980's the glacier was even smaller and has been advancing ever since. At the moment it is pretty much stationary with as much melting each year from the face, for the last couple of years, as it gains in snow fall at the top. We returned to the town at 1:45pm for our hike to find that it had been cancelled due to cloud cover high in the valley. You see, we were going on a helihike and though the lower parts of the glacier looked quite clear the upper part where the helicopters land was covered in low cloud.
Nothing for it but to book for tomorrow and we went to have a long soak in the glacier hot pools. At this place they take the glacier melt water and heat it and put it into three shallow but fairly large pools set amongst rainforest. The first pool is 36, the second 38 and the third 40 degrees. We spent ages in the first two but the third was just too hot for me and Tris, Celso lasted a little bit longer. Anyway it was great and soothed away any aches that remained from our battles with the quadbikes a couple of days ago. We soaked until after dark and emerged pruny and sleepy.
6th April
We spent the morning looking round all the shops in town which are full of good NZ tourist fare -great fun. At 11:15am we were again informed that our hike had been cancelled but that we could book for 1:45pm. SO... we did (book for 1:45) and then went off back to the terminal face, this time to walk right up to the face through the valley filled with stones that have been dumped in the past and all the water flowing out from under the ice. The valley is really impressive and the terminal face completely awesome, you just can't imagine just how huge it is until you get up close to it and then look up and see the tiny specs of people up on the lower slopes (they were doing walking in hikes which were still going ahead). There are fantastic waterfalls down both edges of the valley and in some places the rocks at the edges are smooth and stripey since the sedimentary layers were turned through 90 degrees and now sit vertically. Back to town again to yet again be told that our trip was cancelled.... so that was it, we gave up on the helihike and decided to head south. 23km further south we arrived at Fox Glacier and just in case we went in to a hiking office to see if a helihike was available... and it was, one leaving in half an hour.
I can't explain what a thrilling 3 hours we had. First the helicopter ride, so much smoother than in a small plane except when the pilot decides to do a sharp turn and dive as he did over a waterfall at the edge of the glacier, that bit was a bit like a rollercoaster, stomach in mouth kind of feeling - what a rush (after a bit of a scream!). Then down onto the ice, and being the end of the day and only 6 people on our trip, we found that we were alone on the ice, not another person in sight - silence, except for the dripping of water and the tramping of our feet as crampons crushed ice. Spectacular scenery on all sides; the clouds hanging over the head of the valley; the sun setting between mountains out over the Tasman sea; the changing colours of the ice as the sun flickered in and out of the clouds; the formations in the ice, compression arches, fissures, holes filled with sparkling clear water. It was cold but it was fresh, it was just amazing. Our guide Geoff (from Texas) lead us over the ice, up the glacier. We were on a part of the glacier that was over 300m thick and it was a part that was inbetween a fast moving, steep, upper section and a practically stationary, horizontal lower section so the pressure of the ice coming down was forcing the lower ice up into these amazing arches and gulleys - compression arches. It had been hailing about an hour earlier and lots of hail was still lying around in the water pools, it looked like small polystyrene balls. Geoff set up a safety line and cut ice steps with his axe so that we could walk through a gulley of sculpted ice, with curvey sides, windows and a stream running through the centre. Just fantastic. As we walked back down to where the helicopter would come in to pick us up the sun was setting and the sky was going red, then back in the chopper and down over the lower end of the glacier and back into the valley over fern tree forests and a winding river.
Geoff had told us that if we drove West towards the beach we would have fantastic views of the glacier and the mountains in the morning, so we did... and we did (the next morning). Great views of the Fox Glacier,and to its right (south) the Tasman and Cook (tallest in NZ) mountain peaks.
Haven't been able to get the smile off my face, that Helihike was just incredible.
7th
After our fantastic sunrise we drove back into Fox and had a rather too large fry up breakfast in a cafe. Then a 350km drive south to Queenstown with just a few stops on the way. First Bruce bay where I built a stone pile amongst hundreds of others at the beaches edge. Then Knights point, looking out over the Tasman Sea over crashing rocks. A fantastic veiw up the Haast River valley to Mount Hooker, views across Lake Wanaka and then Lake Hawea (a lake in an old glacial valley). Then we stopped in Wanaka (the town) to go to Puzzle world with illusion rooms and a giant maze. Tris and I made it through the maze but Celso gave up and returned to eat pie and try one of the puzzle games that were all around the tables in the cafe. He then went to the toilet with several Romans, and even shared a sponge!
When we arrived in Quuenstown we made our way to the agreed pick up spot for our new wheel just before closing at 5pm. But ofcourse the wheel wasn't there and neither the guy working there nor his head office knew anything about the special delivery that should have been there waiting for us. So the saga of the wheel continues. But I'm still smiling about the Helihike!
4th April
We woke to rain and it rained on and off all day, this area has really high rainfall but also as many sunshine hours as the wine growing region around Blenheim; when it rains it really rains! We wanted to make sure we got to the National Kiwi centre in the centre of town by 10am for the Eel Feeding but when we arrived at about 9:30am the place was closed. It took us some time to realise that infact the clocks went back 1 hour last night - Daylight savings! Anyway, we got into the centre at the real 9am about half an hour later and wandered around seeing enormous eels, frogs, Tuatara, native birds and fish, and of course the Kiwi in the darkened pen doing his/her hunting poking his long beak and nostrils into the earth and rotten stumps. He/She seemed to be expending so much energy for no payback at all. At 10am Tristan and I took part in the eel feeding holding strips of Ox heart in tongs infront of the eels faces and they sucked it in like spaghetti! Then we headed south again through the rain towards the glacier region of Franz Joseph. We made one stop on the way at Pukepukara (or something lke that, I can't find it on any maps; maybe officialdom have decided to ignore it!), the smallest town in New Zealand with 2 inhabitants; a married couple who are not only the mayor and mayoress but also run the local cafe, shop and pub, as well as a small holding with deer and goats; a possum trapping business and the local bank. They have the honour of being the most politically incorrect place in New Zealand.
A sign displays the current exchange rates for foreign currencies. Britain has been having it too good for too long so they didn't want to offer a good rate, £3 for $1NZ, they wouldn't exchange Canadian dollars because 'one of us usedto be married to one of the buggers', Americans could get a 1:1 exchange and they would exchange Japanese Yen becuase their 'kids used the silly notes with too many 000s for monopoly money'!
The shop sold many locally crafted goods, many made from Possum fur, and there was a huge variety of cards on sale, each of which really made us giggle... they are difficult to describe but to give you an idea one of them is of an old couple sitting on a sofa, the man has his hand down the neck of the woman's shirt and she is saying 'Don't be daft Bill, they're not up there any more!' Near the cash register was a sign with the message 'Yes it is raining, this is a rain forest. You chose to take your holiday here. Don't ask us what the weather is going to do, you are on holiday and have time to read the weather reports and listen to the radio, we are working.' Another sign stated that 'Unattended children will be sold into slavery', and so the giggles continued. We donated $4 to a fund for stopping the use of poison in the area in return for a possum pie, they had had to stop selling the pies because the government told them they couldn't sell possum meat unless it was sourced from a government approved institution; since not one of these exists they were having to bend the rules a bit! (By the way possum tastes a bit like chicken to me but Celso disagrees and said it was just gamey!)
Then on down to Franz Joseph, a town with the same name as the local glacier, one of the most accessible glaciers in the world, its terminal face at only 250m above sea level and ends in rain forest. We went into town and booked a hike for tomorrow afternoon before finding a campsite and relaxing.
5th April.
We had a good long lie in in the morning and then drove up the valley a bit to the glacier terminal face car park and climbing up a hill to get a good look over the glacier. The Maori story is that there was an adventurous girl called Hine Hukatere who loved mountaineering but her lover, Tawe, was not so keen. Hine persuaded Hukatere to climb the mountain with her but he slipped and fell to his death. Hine's tears were so many that they flooded the valley and the Gods froze them as a memorial to her grief.
There were some great photos showing the glacier in the past. In the 1750s the glacier was about 300m higher at the face and the face was a further kilometre down the valley. So it has receded a massive amount; however, in the 1980's the glacier was even smaller and has been advancing ever since. At the moment it is pretty much stationary with as much melting each year from the face, for the last couple of years, as it gains in snow fall at the top. We returned to the town at 1:45pm for our hike to find that it had been cancelled due to cloud cover high in the valley. You see, we were going on a helihike and though the lower parts of the glacier looked quite clear the upper part where the helicopters land was covered in low cloud.
Nothing for it but to book for tomorrow and we went to have a long soak in the glacier hot pools. At this place they take the glacier melt water and heat it and put it into three shallow but fairly large pools set amongst rainforest. The first pool is 36, the second 38 and the third 40 degrees. We spent ages in the first two but the third was just too hot for me and Tris, Celso lasted a little bit longer. Anyway it was great and soothed away any aches that remained from our battles with the quadbikes a couple of days ago. We soaked until after dark and emerged pruny and sleepy.
6th April
We spent the morning looking round all the shops in town which are full of good NZ tourist fare -great fun. At 11:15am we were again informed that our hike had been cancelled but that we could book for 1:45pm. SO... we did (book for 1:45) and then went off back to the terminal face, this time to walk right up to the face through the valley filled with stones that have been dumped in the past and all the water flowing out from under the ice. The valley is really impressive and the terminal face completely awesome, you just can't imagine just how huge it is until you get up close to it and then look up and see the tiny specs of people up on the lower slopes (they were doing walking in hikes which were still going ahead). There are fantastic waterfalls down both edges of the valley and in some places the rocks at the edges are smooth and stripey since the sedimentary layers were turned through 90 degrees and now sit vertically. Back to town again to yet again be told that our trip was cancelled.... so that was it, we gave up on the helihike and decided to head south. 23km further south we arrived at Fox Glacier and just in case we went in to a hiking office to see if a helihike was available... and it was, one leaving in half an hour.
I can't explain what a thrilling 3 hours we had. First the helicopter ride, so much smoother than in a small plane except when the pilot decides to do a sharp turn and dive as he did over a waterfall at the edge of the glacier, that bit was a bit like a rollercoaster, stomach in mouth kind of feeling - what a rush (after a bit of a scream!). Then down onto the ice, and being the end of the day and only 6 people on our trip, we found that we were alone on the ice, not another person in sight - silence, except for the dripping of water and the tramping of our feet as crampons crushed ice. Spectacular scenery on all sides; the clouds hanging over the head of the valley; the sun setting between mountains out over the Tasman sea; the changing colours of the ice as the sun flickered in and out of the clouds; the formations in the ice, compression arches, fissures, holes filled with sparkling clear water. It was cold but it was fresh, it was just amazing. Our guide Geoff (from Texas) lead us over the ice, up the glacier. We were on a part of the glacier that was over 300m thick and it was a part that was inbetween a fast moving, steep, upper section and a practically stationary, horizontal lower section so the pressure of the ice coming down was forcing the lower ice up into these amazing arches and gulleys - compression arches. It had been hailing about an hour earlier and lots of hail was still lying around in the water pools, it looked like small polystyrene balls. Geoff set up a safety line and cut ice steps with his axe so that we could walk through a gulley of sculpted ice, with curvey sides, windows and a stream running through the centre. Just fantastic. As we walked back down to where the helicopter would come in to pick us up the sun was setting and the sky was going red, then back in the chopper and down over the lower end of the glacier and back into the valley over fern tree forests and a winding river.
Geoff had told us that if we drove West towards the beach we would have fantastic views of the glacier and the mountains in the morning, so we did... and we did (the next morning). Great views of the Fox Glacier,and to its right (south) the Tasman and Cook (tallest in NZ) mountain peaks.
Haven't been able to get the smile off my face, that Helihike was just incredible.
7th
After our fantastic sunrise we drove back into Fox and had a rather too large fry up breakfast in a cafe. Then a 350km drive south to Queenstown with just a few stops on the way. First Bruce bay where I built a stone pile amongst hundreds of others at the beaches edge. Then Knights point, looking out over the Tasman Sea over crashing rocks. A fantastic veiw up the Haast River valley to Mount Hooker, views across Lake Wanaka and then Lake Hawea (a lake in an old glacial valley). Then we stopped in Wanaka (the town) to go to Puzzle world with illusion rooms and a giant maze. Tris and I made it through the maze but Celso gave up and returned to eat pie and try one of the puzzle games that were all around the tables in the cafe. He then went to the toilet with several Romans, and even shared a sponge!
When we arrived in Quuenstown we made our way to the agreed pick up spot for our new wheel just before closing at 5pm. But ofcourse the wheel wasn't there and neither the guy working there nor his head office knew anything about the special delivery that should have been there waiting for us. So the saga of the wheel continues. But I'm still smiling about the Helihike!
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Going South to Hokitika
2nd April
We drove south from Karamea back to Westport and then finding that everything was closed because it was Good Friday we drove on south to Cape Foulwind; named by Captain Cook due to the gales he had to withstand here for 2 weeks but now also a bit stinky because of the sea lion colony. All the signs say that they are seals but what we saw were definately sea lions with the turned out feet that they walk on; seals just flobble around like a large maggot when they are on land! We stood and watched the young sea lions playing in the surf around the nursery rocks, many very young ones were just sitting alone on the rocks and one was nursing. As the wind blew in off the sea you got a whiff of their stinkiness!
On south again to Punakaiki where there are some amazing 'pancake rocks', they are very thinly layered sedimentary rocks which scientists can't explain; there are just too many layers to be formed in the normal way. There is also a blow hole amongst the rocks but the sea wasn't rough enough to make it blow!
Then on south again to Greymouth, the largest town on the west coast of the South Island, but still tiny!
3rd April
We had a fantastic two hour quad bike adventure through bush and water and dirt. Tris had a smaller bike which got caught a couple of times and the wheels span and the mud flew. We have photos on a CD which were taken by our guide as we went round but I will have to load them later as I don't have a CD reader on this little laptop. The whole trip just made me smile as I bumped up and down and skidded round corners. Tris ended up with mud absolutely everywhere!
We also went to try to buy our wheel rim (again) but noone stocks the right size so we have organised for one to be sent from Christchurch to Queenstown by Wednesday. Everything is going to be closed Sunday and Monday for Easter, just like everything was closed on Good Friday; so we spent the rest of the afternoon making sure we got everything organised - shopping, mending the tyre that keeps going flat (it turned out to be the valve) and getting further south to Hokitika.
We drove south from Karamea back to Westport and then finding that everything was closed because it was Good Friday we drove on south to Cape Foulwind; named by Captain Cook due to the gales he had to withstand here for 2 weeks but now also a bit stinky because of the sea lion colony. All the signs say that they are seals but what we saw were definately sea lions with the turned out feet that they walk on; seals just flobble around like a large maggot when they are on land! We stood and watched the young sea lions playing in the surf around the nursery rocks, many very young ones were just sitting alone on the rocks and one was nursing. As the wind blew in off the sea you got a whiff of their stinkiness!
On south again to Punakaiki where there are some amazing 'pancake rocks', they are very thinly layered sedimentary rocks which scientists can't explain; there are just too many layers to be formed in the normal way. There is also a blow hole amongst the rocks but the sea wasn't rough enough to make it blow!
Then on south again to Greymouth, the largest town on the west coast of the South Island, but still tiny!
3rd April
We had a fantastic two hour quad bike adventure through bush and water and dirt. Tris had a smaller bike which got caught a couple of times and the wheels span and the mud flew. We have photos on a CD which were taken by our guide as we went round but I will have to load them later as I don't have a CD reader on this little laptop. The whole trip just made me smile as I bumped up and down and skidded round corners. Tris ended up with mud absolutely everywhere!
We also went to try to buy our wheel rim (again) but noone stocks the right size so we have organised for one to be sent from Christchurch to Queenstown by Wednesday. Everything is going to be closed Sunday and Monday for Easter, just like everything was closed on Good Friday; so we spent the rest of the afternoon making sure we got everything organised - shopping, mending the tyre that keeps going flat (it turned out to be the valve) and getting further south to Hokitika.
Friday, 2 April 2010
Oparara Basin
1st April
We exchanged our van for a hire car and then drove 3/4 of an hour out of town on an old, twisty dirt track, logging road into the Oparara Basin until we could finally go no further. There we met our guide, Bill, who was going to take us into the Honeycomb Hill Caves, a protected area due to the amount of Moa bones that have been found in the area. We took a 40 minute walk through the bush as he explained to us the uses of the different trees, silver beech for cladding, red beech for floorboards, tea tree for the oil and for smoking fish and meats, Maori pepper tree (it also had another name) which has red spotty leaves and tastes a bit like peppery nasturshums (the flowers, phonetic spelling as I don't know how it is spelt!). Bill also showed us the empty shells of someNear the end of our walk we were in 'uncut' native bush, there were loads of large trees and not even a tiny spot of untouched real estate. There are mosses, lichens, ferns, fungi or some other type of greenery on every spot, all living symbiotically and looking fantastic! The rivers here are all an orange brown colour like tea without milk, this is due to the tannins that are washed out of the leaves when it rains, however they are crystal clear too so that we could see some fantastic reflections.
The Honeycomb caves are named due to the over 76 entrances that have so far been found in the hill, they have fantastic stalagtites and stalagmites and some soft limestone (I'd not heard of that before); you can press it and water comes out, I suppose it is like spongey chalk. There are some fantastic formations where the water has been dripping down but instead of forming a stalagmite they have formed a pool around which has grown up a retaining wall from the splashes - like a small raised swimming pool. Also some of the stalagtites don't hang straight down due to the constant breeze through the caves meaning that one side of the formation is bent and more detailed than the other. At one point we could clearly see where an elephant had crashed through the roof and then petrified; it's legs clearly dangling from the ceiling (see the photos). The cave also has a real collection of bones, there are modern ones like deer that have either fallen into a sink hole and died or the bones are washed in when the river floods; there was a kiwi skull; and then several different sets of Moa bones still in situ. There were several subspecies of Moa, the giant one was 6ft to its back and then there were other smaller varieties; we got to compare lots of the bones!
As we walked down the cave we could hear the sound of a waterfall getting slowly louder and louder; however when we finally reached the water, the flow was really quite small; it was just that the echo was incredible. In the pool were two good looking crayfish!
We left the cave through a different hole than we went in. The view up out of the cave was just amazing, up to the green of the ferns and the moss covered trees outside.
After a cup of tea and a cake, provided by Bill, we said goodbye to him and then went to explore the rest of the site that is not protected and therefore can be done without a guide. We walked on a loop track through thte bush past a perfect mirror like lake called Mirror Tarn and then on through fantastic woodland to Moira Arch, a huge limestone arch with full trees growing on the top and a beautiful tea river running through it. Having admired it from the far side of the river we walked over the arch and then descended down into the arch, just so beautiful.
After that we took another shorter walk to an enormous 2nd arch the Oparara Arch, about 40m high, 50m wide and 200m long, you can see in the photos how small and insignificant we are compared to this giant!
Finally we went to visit paving stones cave where the muddy floor has dried and cracked and looks just like paving stones. Inside there are cave whetas and a cave spider unique to this area. It lays its eggs in egg sacs that we could see hanging from the roof of the cave. It was great to be able to go into a cave with no lights, no guide and no huge safety notices. It was just us and our torches and the cold, quiet and dark of an unspoilt cave.
What a fab day!
We exchanged our van for a hire car and then drove 3/4 of an hour out of town on an old, twisty dirt track, logging road into the Oparara Basin until we could finally go no further. There we met our guide, Bill, who was going to take us into the Honeycomb Hill Caves, a protected area due to the amount of Moa bones that have been found in the area. We took a 40 minute walk through the bush as he explained to us the uses of the different trees, silver beech for cladding, red beech for floorboards, tea tree for the oil and for smoking fish and meats, Maori pepper tree (it also had another name) which has red spotty leaves and tastes a bit like peppery nasturshums (the flowers, phonetic spelling as I don't know how it is spelt!). Bill also showed us the empty shells of someNear the end of our walk we were in 'uncut' native bush, there were loads of large trees and not even a tiny spot of untouched real estate. There are mosses, lichens, ferns, fungi or some other type of greenery on every spot, all living symbiotically and looking fantastic! The rivers here are all an orange brown colour like tea without milk, this is due to the tannins that are washed out of the leaves when it rains, however they are crystal clear too so that we could see some fantastic reflections.
The Honeycomb caves are named due to the over 76 entrances that have so far been found in the hill, they have fantastic stalagtites and stalagmites and some soft limestone (I'd not heard of that before); you can press it and water comes out, I suppose it is like spongey chalk. There are some fantastic formations where the water has been dripping down but instead of forming a stalagmite they have formed a pool around which has grown up a retaining wall from the splashes - like a small raised swimming pool. Also some of the stalagtites don't hang straight down due to the constant breeze through the caves meaning that one side of the formation is bent and more detailed than the other. At one point we could clearly see where an elephant had crashed through the roof and then petrified; it's legs clearly dangling from the ceiling (see the photos). The cave also has a real collection of bones, there are modern ones like deer that have either fallen into a sink hole and died or the bones are washed in when the river floods; there was a kiwi skull; and then several different sets of Moa bones still in situ. There were several subspecies of Moa, the giant one was 6ft to its back and then there were other smaller varieties; we got to compare lots of the bones!
As we walked down the cave we could hear the sound of a waterfall getting slowly louder and louder; however when we finally reached the water, the flow was really quite small; it was just that the echo was incredible. In the pool were two good looking crayfish!
We left the cave through a different hole than we went in. The view up out of the cave was just amazing, up to the green of the ferns and the moss covered trees outside.
After a cup of tea and a cake, provided by Bill, we said goodbye to him and then went to explore the rest of the site that is not protected and therefore can be done without a guide. We walked on a loop track through thte bush past a perfect mirror like lake called Mirror Tarn and then on through fantastic woodland to Moira Arch, a huge limestone arch with full trees growing on the top and a beautiful tea river running through it. Having admired it from the far side of the river we walked over the arch and then descended down into the arch, just so beautiful.
After that we took another shorter walk to an enormous 2nd arch the Oparara Arch, about 40m high, 50m wide and 200m long, you can see in the photos how small and insignificant we are compared to this giant!
Finally we went to visit paving stones cave where the muddy floor has dried and cracked and looks just like paving stones. Inside there are cave whetas and a cave spider unique to this area. It lays its eggs in egg sacs that we could see hanging from the roof of the cave. It was great to be able to go into a cave with no lights, no guide and no huge safety notices. It was just us and our torches and the cold, quiet and dark of an unspoilt cave.
What a fab day!
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Murchison to Karamea
30th March
Murchison school was a small and very calm affair - not at all like an English school. We were visiting year 6, 20 or so kids who were all very keen, very polite and not one that fidgeted or tried to make clever comments. The school is both primary and secondary as the population here isn't huge, we didn't hear any shouting or rudeness, everybody seemed to want to learn - bliss!
Year 6 have been learning about American Indians and Brent Winters (our campsite host) was going in to tell them about the American Indian tribes and history that he knew about from his time living in the States and Canada. They brought us along so that the kids could meet a 'real' Indian - Celso - and ask him some questions about his childhood. We spent about 90 mins with them, our time finishing with all the class going outside to shoot a bow and arrow at a Buffalo!! Tris managed to get him in the foot, Celso in the leg and I completely missed!
On our way back to the campsite we found out that Brent and Lynn used to live just near Rob and Alice Dupont (my uncle and aunt that we will be staying with in a couple of weeks) over in Timaru and knew them quite well - what a small world!
We moved West down the Buller river Gorge about 15km to a place where there is a swing bridge across the river and a couple of 'activities' (like jet boating) and walks. We went for a bush walk, crossed the bridge (it wasn't as bad as I was expecting as the floor was a solid metal gridwork that didn't bow at all as you walked across it) and then for a short while followed the path of a fault line caused in a 1929 earthquake. A gap had opened up about 1.5 m wide and dropping at least 4m below the old ground level. On the other side of the river a creek now flows in the fault line and then tumbles into the Buller river as a small waterfall. This site was a gold rush centre in 1929 and a few people were killed in land slips, the area shows this past with several old pipes and heaps of tailings in the bush. More recently the land has been farmed and we found several old rusting vehicles on the site. As we returned Celso decided he didn't want to cross the bridge again so instead he did a superman impression and flew over the gorge (see photos)!
Further west we crossed over a tall single lane bridge over the gorge and had to turn back so that we could go and explore the big bend in the river below the bridge. Celso got out his fishing line and I tried my hand at panning for gold but the sandflies got the better of us and we returned to the van to eat sandwiches! Then further west along the river with fantastic views up and down the gorge until we reached the Tasman sea on the west coast at Westport. After another unsuccesful attempt to find a tyre rim we did some shopping and then found a campsite. The campground was full of Wekas (a ground dwelling bird a bit like a Kiwi but with a shorter beak and a stumpy little upturned tail), one pair under a bush had a big, black fluffy chick. They were very brave, chicken like birds; later we were told that they are very cheeky and will steal things that are left on the ground.
31st March
From Westport we drove north up the coast to Karamea at the end of the road. We stopped on the way to watch Hector's dolphins in the sea below and then wound our way around and through patches of pristine bush and farmland until we reached the tiny town at the end of the road. We have booked a guide to take us into some caves tomorrow and then we parked up near a tidal lake about 100m back from the beach. We walked along the deserted, sandy beach with not a piece of litter in sight, the sea was very cold and quite rough and did not tempt us in even though the sun was hot; instead we took shelter in a little shelter that someone had made out of driftwood and watched the waves crashing in. We returned by way of the lake which is full of black swans, long legged peterel type birds, ducks, herons, seagulls and shoals of fish. Having seen the fish Celso was keen to try his luck so when we returned to the van he set out again with his fishing rod, met up with another chap who knew where to go and then returned about 2 hours later with 5 large fish - Kawhai. We gave 3 to a woman who was in another camper van and then got chatting to her. She is called Moyra (the y is because when she had her name registered as a child that is how the registrar wrote it!), she is in her 60's and she has just started 'chopping'; that means she enters wood cutting competitions. She stands atop a large log and swings the axe at the wood between her feet; all competitors wear chain mail socks - just in case! She took up the sport because she was tired of watching her husband do it and wanted to give it a go herself!!! She was an interesting lady - but she kept on using NZ slang that had to be translated - so it was quite a drawn out conversation!
We were going to free camp by the beach but Celso decided that he was too fishy and wanted a good hot shower (the one in the van is a bit pathetic) so we had to leave and go to the campsite in town at the cricket ground. We had a good supper of fresh, fried fish and a long hot shower.
Murchison school was a small and very calm affair - not at all like an English school. We were visiting year 6, 20 or so kids who were all very keen, very polite and not one that fidgeted or tried to make clever comments. The school is both primary and secondary as the population here isn't huge, we didn't hear any shouting or rudeness, everybody seemed to want to learn - bliss!
Year 6 have been learning about American Indians and Brent Winters (our campsite host) was going in to tell them about the American Indian tribes and history that he knew about from his time living in the States and Canada. They brought us along so that the kids could meet a 'real' Indian - Celso - and ask him some questions about his childhood. We spent about 90 mins with them, our time finishing with all the class going outside to shoot a bow and arrow at a Buffalo!! Tris managed to get him in the foot, Celso in the leg and I completely missed!
On our way back to the campsite we found out that Brent and Lynn used to live just near Rob and Alice Dupont (my uncle and aunt that we will be staying with in a couple of weeks) over in Timaru and knew them quite well - what a small world!
We moved West down the Buller river Gorge about 15km to a place where there is a swing bridge across the river and a couple of 'activities' (like jet boating) and walks. We went for a bush walk, crossed the bridge (it wasn't as bad as I was expecting as the floor was a solid metal gridwork that didn't bow at all as you walked across it) and then for a short while followed the path of a fault line caused in a 1929 earthquake. A gap had opened up about 1.5 m wide and dropping at least 4m below the old ground level. On the other side of the river a creek now flows in the fault line and then tumbles into the Buller river as a small waterfall. This site was a gold rush centre in 1929 and a few people were killed in land slips, the area shows this past with several old pipes and heaps of tailings in the bush. More recently the land has been farmed and we found several old rusting vehicles on the site. As we returned Celso decided he didn't want to cross the bridge again so instead he did a superman impression and flew over the gorge (see photos)!
Further west we crossed over a tall single lane bridge over the gorge and had to turn back so that we could go and explore the big bend in the river below the bridge. Celso got out his fishing line and I tried my hand at panning for gold but the sandflies got the better of us and we returned to the van to eat sandwiches! Then further west along the river with fantastic views up and down the gorge until we reached the Tasman sea on the west coast at Westport. After another unsuccesful attempt to find a tyre rim we did some shopping and then found a campsite. The campground was full of Wekas (a ground dwelling bird a bit like a Kiwi but with a shorter beak and a stumpy little upturned tail), one pair under a bush had a big, black fluffy chick. They were very brave, chicken like birds; later we were told that they are very cheeky and will steal things that are left on the ground.
31st March
From Westport we drove north up the coast to Karamea at the end of the road. We stopped on the way to watch Hector's dolphins in the sea below and then wound our way around and through patches of pristine bush and farmland until we reached the tiny town at the end of the road. We have booked a guide to take us into some caves tomorrow and then we parked up near a tidal lake about 100m back from the beach. We walked along the deserted, sandy beach with not a piece of litter in sight, the sea was very cold and quite rough and did not tempt us in even though the sun was hot; instead we took shelter in a little shelter that someone had made out of driftwood and watched the waves crashing in. We returned by way of the lake which is full of black swans, long legged peterel type birds, ducks, herons, seagulls and shoals of fish. Having seen the fish Celso was keen to try his luck so when we returned to the van he set out again with his fishing rod, met up with another chap who knew where to go and then returned about 2 hours later with 5 large fish - Kawhai. We gave 3 to a woman who was in another camper van and then got chatting to her. She is called Moyra (the y is because when she had her name registered as a child that is how the registrar wrote it!), she is in her 60's and she has just started 'chopping'; that means she enters wood cutting competitions. She stands atop a large log and swings the axe at the wood between her feet; all competitors wear chain mail socks - just in case! She took up the sport because she was tired of watching her husband do it and wanted to give it a go herself!!! She was an interesting lady - but she kept on using NZ slang that had to be translated - so it was quite a drawn out conversation!
We were going to free camp by the beach but Celso decided that he was too fishy and wanted a good hot shower (the one in the van is a bit pathetic) so we had to leave and go to the campsite in town at the cricket ground. We had a good supper of fresh, fried fish and a long hot shower.
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