I’ve uploaded some pictures of swimming with dolphins at Kaikoura, and other wildlife, to my picture gallery (linked to on the right hand side). There is also a picture of my tent at the campsite 7km south of Kaikoura.
Archive for March, 2007
Swimming with dolphins at Kaikoura – pictures uploaded
Thursday, March 29th, 2007Cash blues, car blues and trip planning – Japan, and Wanaka
Thursday, March 29th, 2007Today I reached a point in my travels where I kinda thought I needed to stop for a while so I did some research into flying out of Japan and moving my dates back from New Zealand, skipping the side trip to South Korea and China – it’s hardly worth it for the time I’d have. I still wasn’t discounting a trip to Vanuatu, but then I checked my bank account! Yes, that put me on a downward spiral for the rest of the day I think. Every flight out of Japan to Bangkok I can book from here is around £600 plus, except one special I need to book by Saturday. My flight is ok to move though, with several dates out of New Zealand to Tokyo at the mid to end of May. I can’t seem to get access to any specials as I am not in Japan – sometimes I can’t understand the travel industry – surely a price available to one should be available to all! My last ditch is an email to an agency in Tokyo, otherwise I’ll be booking the special before I leave Christchurch I guess.
With this knowledge, I headed into town to get some extra pegs for my tent from R&R, check out car tyre prices, and pop into immigration to ask a few questions about their Skilled Migrant option. It wasn’t too helpful to go in there as there were no clear answers, but I found out the timescale after initial expression of interest is around two months to be invited to apply. If I walked in there with a job offer and all the paperwork it could, in theory, be sorted in a day!!!!! One day!!!! Anyway, that was just some information I gathered.
I then headed to R&R and blagged some new tent pegs. My mistake was not walking past everything looking at the carpet and walking straight back out again. I had already been hit knowing that I had to spend $180 on three new car tyres tomorrow. Then I saw my ticket to happieness!! As I walked past them, they stretched their polyester and lycra material out to me and grabbed me by the balls….
‘Try me on’ the squealed.
And so it was, before I knew it I was buying a really cool pair of Earth, Sea, Sky travel trousers. But they are so cool – just the kind of things I love buying – trousers that you never see any other places, and you can’t get back home, and comfy as ‘wear for anything’ trousers. Just they were $150 (but I got a discount from that…). The kind of trousers that just make you smile when you slip into them! And I bought them from a guy whose family runs it, and whose picture is in the brochure. What an outdoors gear sucker!
At the same time I got three day old voicemail messages from Tom, my mate who has my winter walking gear somewhere on the South Island. That explains the lack of contact – bloody Vodafone voicemail delays!!
Anyway, turns out Tom is in Wanaka, and gagging to get up the hills, so I’m going to stick around here until Saturday then drive over there, going heavily against my ‘plans’ made during bottle of wine#3 in the house last night, and maybe stop at Mount Cook village on the way. I’m just hoping my car doesn’t star burning oil again (‘Don’t worry about it’ the garage said).
Still, Richard helped me fix my windscreen washers that ‘didn’t work’ this morning. After using his Japanese language skills and deciphering the lingo on the fuse box (seriously, he does know the language after spending the best part of three years there), trying the fuses, he watched me try the wipers one last time.
He then pissed himself laughing, and ripped the piss out of me.
Turns out that you don’t pull the control stalk next to the steering wheel. If you push the end in, it squirts water. It worked all the time. Hey….how was I to know? Most of the marking on the stalks are worn out!!!! Oh how I laughed….
Anyway, it’s been great stopping here for several days just chilling out and generally doing very little. We’ve joked that when I move in, one of his housemates is already supplying the plasma TV so the hot tub is my purchase. We’re meeting another one of his housemates after her work tomorrow then I’m going to see what Christchurch nightlife has to offer before hitting the road on Saturday. I also got an email from another guy I met on the Anoconnda boat in the Whitsundays who is back home in Dunedin so that’s someone else for me to look up if I do make it down there!
Buying a new tent in Christchurch
Thursday, March 29th, 2007Like always, I entered the main outdoors shops in Christchurch like a kid in a candy store. As I discovered the tent given to me with the car was crap, and I couldn’t put it up myself, there was only one thing to do….buy a new one, yes my third tent in total if you count the two at home.
Richard bought a backpack and got a hefty ‘end of financial year’ discount without asking at R&R. The sales guy turned to me and said ‘So what can I do for you?’
‘I need you to convince me to buy this cheap tent for $69 rather than this sexy looking Marmot number you have with 60% off at three times the price’
(mistake #1)
‘Have you got kids?’
‘No.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘So what the f*** are you doing looking at that piece of crap when you can have this quality tent for 60% off? Are you crazy? The floor even detaches. It’s great! Easy to pitch, and that tent would just be embarrassing – I mean I’d have to buy the rest of the shop staff a beer if I sold you one of them!’
‘Yeh, but if I spent $69 I can leave it in the car when I punt it, this one I’d have to keep. I already have two tents in Scotland ‘
‘Exactly! You mean you are Scottish and you were STILL thinking of buying that piece of junk? Jeez man, get a grip of yourself. You don’t need the money if you don’t have a family, you know it makes sense’
‘But…’
‘Just imagine ski touring in Norway with this – pitch it, dig out a wee platform, seats up, having a brew, then just pick it up and move it and you can fall asleep’
‘Yeh but I don’t know if I’d ever…’
‘That’s no the point, you know it makes sense – you can have a ski touring tent too!’
‘But….’
‘Jesus, have you never washed that goretex jacket of yours? Do you not know how to look after your kit? Oh my….’
(then another shop assistant walked up the stairs)
‘Hey – this guy is talking about buying this piece of sh!t – help me out!’
(then a girl walked up the stairs)
‘Hey this Scottish guy is thinking of buying that tent – stop him now’
(Her : ) ‘But it’s a nice colour’
(Him : ) ‘Oh my god, this one is like a mango colour – that one is pissy coloured yellow like a kids just peed on it. Thats the kind of tent you buy for your kids, and you don’t have any!’
And so it went on.
I left the store with a new (but old ex demo) Marmot AT tent, heavily reduced, a pair of merino leggings (which I wanted anyway), a free gas canister, and a solo cooking pot incase I actually ever took the tent away from the car. I’ve never been so entertained by a shop assistant in my life.
Richard and I just thought we did well as we managed to avoid buying the $200 Jetboil he was avidly selling, AND a real coffee maker to insert into my pot.
My local beach’s webcam…and no mobile coverage
Monday, March 26th, 2007Here’s the webcam of my local beach for the next few days!
Also, I have no mobile phone coverage when I’m ‘at home’ if you have my number.
My new home in Christchurch
Monday, March 26th, 2007
I drove down from Hamner to Christchurch today and yet again have been a lucky bugger in the travel buddies, and accommodation stakes! This time, thanks to Richard whom I met in the Perhentian Islandsin October. He lives on the outskirts edges of Christchurch with a cracking view over a peninsula and beach. I’ll be shacked up in the spare room next to the dog’s kennel, sharing the house with a couple of housemates, including someone responsible for managing selling the tickets to all the snowsport club fields (those who know their wintersports in NZ will know it as the Chill Pass). I also joked they may be receiving a fourth rent in by the end of the week…. check the view out. I did hear of a working visa I can still get in NZ and Canada the other day…..and I even lowered myself to find a couple of IT jobs online in Christchurch today.
The Living room.
My wee room with my guardian pointer dog Megan.
To be honest, over the last while it’s made me realise some of the things you really miss out on living in a city, and the silly money you need to live in a fantastic place back home – all a bit disappointing really!
Encounter Kaikoura – swimming with dolphins (loads of ’em!)
Sunday, March 25th, 2007
Yesterday I went swimming with the dolphins in Kaikoura which was absolutely amazing. I was in the water around five times, and they reckoned the pod had around 400 dusky dolphins in it. Yes, 400, and all around us. Apparently if you make noises through your snorkel it attracts them so there was one in particular that decided to play to the humming of The Flower of Scotland. It swam circles around me several times, tiring me out by the time it left. It was a bizarre experience. One minute I was looking into the deep blue, then the next there would be tens of dolphins swimming past me in all directions. The experience was right up there with the Manta Ray dives!
I then went and stayed 7km south of Kaikoura on the beach with a Swiss girl (with a family home in Wengen no less!) who was in the hostel the previous night. I had another small world story when talking to her in the pub last night… she had been travelling for two weeks with the author of the Working Nomad website I’ve been following for the last 12 months or so. Anyway, it was time to try the tent I got with the car on a campsite. It is sh!t. It’s an old fashioned one with one pole at either end, and pretty impossible to put up on your own. Oh if there’s a country that makes you want to have your own outdoors gear it’s here!
(The view from Peketa Beach campground)
On the up side, there were a gazillion stars in the sky, a couple of shooting stars, and I saw the milky way, all accompanied by the noise of waves, wine and stinky garlic biscuits with cheese – all after a couple of Indian takeaway starters.
This morning I went for a swim in the baltic sea (not the Baltic sea, just that it was baltic – cold!), and almost swam out to a pod of dolphins that was playing at acrobatics in the bay. I reckoned I may have reached them, but would either be too tired, or die of hypothermia before I got back to the beach.
I’m now in Hamner Springs, having spent a couple of hours in the thermal pools today.
Tomorrow it’s off to Christchurch to stay with Richard I met in the Perhentian Islands 🙂
What a crap tent!
Kaikoura
Friday, March 23rd, 2007Had a chilled start to the day and then headed down the coastal drive to Kaikoura, taking in a fab stop at a cafe on the coast, and a stop at Ohau Point to watch the seals. There were loads of them and their wee ones chilling on the rocks just 20m from the layby on the main road.
Dolphin swimming tomorrow, and another fabulous day. I’ve broken the 1000km on the car, and it burns petrol and I haven’t even been hoofing it. Maybe it’s ok on the fuel I’m just not used to filling up cars!! More good tunes for the run down 🙂
B*ggered – first day on the hills in Picton. Mount Richmond Forest Park and Mount Fell
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
Having booked the dolphins on Saturday, after explaining my trip in the South Island, I asked the girl at the hostel’s reception how to kill a couple of days around Picton. After finding out I wasn’t going to do the Queen Charlotte Track in Malborough Sounds she said ‘Come running with me if you want, you’ll get to a place you wouldn’t normally.’ I looked a the map…..’it might be quite steep’. Just what I need I though – a good blow out of the fitness cobwebs, knowing that I could revert to walking, and even turn back to the car and read a book.
We got the park at the Mount Richmond Forest Park just as a Dept. Of Conservation guy was closing it due to the fire hazard, and for a logging company that wasn’t there yet. Luckily he said we ‘must have turned up before (he) arrived’. Nice. We then left him to work out how to put CLOSED up on a sign that was never intended to change from OPEN.
We started up the Timms Creek track to Mount Fell, and I didn’t end up turning back to the car. I kept going. When we got off the initial track, a brick wall of forest hit us, extremely limiting any chance to jog, never mind run. Let’s just say it was frickin’ steep! Hey, so what…last time I tried to run along the beach in Dunsborough I lasted ten minutes before taking in the scenery. Today I lasted about 85 minutes. We went to the oh bollocks I’ve forgotten the name of the park…but we went up to Mount Fell Hut, and it took ages to get there. We thought it would take 4hrs return, but we got there after 3hours. I then carried up towards the summit, despite feeling a bit pooped to say the least. My knees were starting to hurt.
We left to get back down (6 hours according to the notice – but not for us) knowing what lay ahead, and the pain my knees would go through. Needless to say there wasn’t much running, and when I tried I either looked like I was sh!tting myself at the same time, or like the people in mile 25 of a marathon.
But I made it. There were amazing crystal clear blue pools in the river at the bottom, but I headed back to hit the hot tub at the chalet…..I was so glad I had a motivator to get me out, despite most of the walk/run/jog being on my own. I resorted to the MP3 player on the way down, and a magic tube of Mentos sweets – they did the trick in Borneo in times of need. Just that I finished the whole pack. I then blasted along the gravel track in a way I wouldn’t have done in my car at home.
The day was so like Scottish scenery, just we never got a view until near the top as it is such dense forest here. After driving back through NZ wine country I decided tonight was to be spent in the hot tub after dinner, bottle of red, and cheese and biscuits. Pictures to follow when I get my laptop connected. Great day.
But my knees still hurt.
Long lie tomorrow, then a slow drive down along the east coast to Kaikoura.
Crossing the ditch
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007I crossed the ditch today (otherwise known as the Cook Strait) and landed in Picton. It was blowing a hoolie on the way across, but pretty straightforward and comfy crossing. I landed up at the Sequoia Backpackers here which is a really cool little hostel, although most folk end up in the tele room all evening (more space for the rest of us!). It’s also got a hot tub! I’ve book the dolphin swim at Kairkoura on Saturday which I’m trying not to have high hopes for, but it should be good.
One of the girls working here pointed me to a nighttime walk so I could see some glowworms, so I headed up there after dinner. It was pitch black and I shit myself before even leaving the housing area as something russled around in the bushes. I should remember I’m not in Borneo anymore. I head up anyway, along the pitch black narrow path (Essons Valley if you are ever here) and all of a sudden there were a shit load of glowworms along the side of the path. By this point all my worries of being in the middle of nowhere in the dark had subsided and I checked them out for ooooh, a good five minutes. I decided not to go on any further after hearing random noises and got back to civilisation in half the time. It was amazing though – wouldn’t mind heading back there again.
A day in Wellington
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007
It was another lazy start today, the way it tends to be when I’m staying at someone’s place. I was up at a decent time to get a car parking coupon, but spent quite a while looking up a few things online and trying to get some bearings on where things were in relation to each other. I never seemed to find time to have a look at the guidebooks properly though! I also transferred ownership of my turbo nutter Subaru Legacy and extended the registration.
Eventually I walked into town and was about to go the museum here which is meant to be great, but Jono finished up, and we went on a road trip around the back of Wellington bay, catching a few small beaches and a fantastic sandwich at the Chocolate fish Cafe in Scorching Bay. I guess this will sum up my time in New Zealand – I later found out that this cafe was where the deal was signed to film Lord of the Rings in New Zealand (see the link above). Having never seen any of the Lord of The Rings films, or read the books I have no fascination with the sights used, unless they are good for their own sake which I think is a good thing.
We ended up at Surfer’s Beach which I thought was hilarious. Five minutes earlier we had perched on a rock and waved hello to the planes approaching the airport, then we were watching the surfers in the water, less than 150m from the Royal New Zealand plane that had just landed. We then went to the outdoors shop and I ended up buying several things in the Kathmandu 50% sale – all of which I have back home…..sleeping mats, walking poles that are heavy and suck, and a new waterproof bag. I wanted to buy a sleeping bag but resisted as I have two at home, and it would be cheaper to send one over (sorry mum, that text WAS serious!). Guess that’s the problem with travelling to many destinations – you just can’t hang onto everything, and it’s very frustrating not having hands on everything you would back home. I have a great tent I’d love here, sleeping mat, poles, ice axes, climbing rack, and cooking stove. Arg! I need to have a bag and stove if I hike to some of the huts I hope to which is a bit of a nightmare.
I got a treat of visiting the supermarket and getting laughed at by Kirsty when I mentioned how many of the fruits I had never seen, never mind taste before! A quiet night in followed reminiscing about Whistler, me showing off Scotland in pictures (laughing back at Kirsty when I showed her Oldshoremore beach : ‘Is that in Australia?’…. ‘No, it’s the far north west of Scotland’), and seeing some pics of Jono and Kirsty’s recent boarding trip to Japan.
I did get round to booking a ferry for tomorrow afternoon so am off to the South Island with no set itinery, just hoping my mate comes off the Abel Tasman walk and calls me, otherwise I’ll be heading to Kaikoura to swim with the dolphins and head towards Christchurch to see a mate, despite the temptation to have a walk around the Marlborough Sound.
I keep leaving stuff for the way back up north so I hope I get the motivation to do stuff on my own down South!
Our quiet BBQ night in. Kirsty, Jono and the wandering scotsman.
Check the runway in the background, surfers in the foreground!
