In Devonport.
Bitter. Vile. Even with Marshmallows.
2/10.
But Paul, look! Even on the other side of the world you can get British Motorway Service Station Beverages...
13 August 2005
NZ +16: Grot Chocolate... but Great Coffee, Paul!
Mecca.
In Devonport.
Bitter. Vile. Even with Marshmallows.
2/10.
But Paul, look! Even on the other side of the world you can get British Motorway Service Station Beverages...
In Devonport.
Bitter. Vile. Even with Marshmallows.
2/10.
But Paul, look! Even on the other side of the world you can get British Motorway Service Station Beverages...
NZ +16: Auckland
Civilisation!
Shops!
Buildings!
People!
Motorways! (Well, nearly...)
Auckland is NZ's biggest city, despite not being the capital, and it's where everything is. Top of our list was the Sky Tower, completed in 1997 and having the highest observation deck in Southern Hemisphere. How could we not...
Scary glass floors are the big thing here. You get them in the lift...
...and around the observation deck...
...and the views are fantastic...
...especially when people jump off...
...I say "people" - it's not compulsory for all people to do it.
(And I didn't.)
We also went to Mount Eden, which is one of about 80 volcanoes in and around Auckland. We went to this one 'cos you can drive to the top of it (how lazy!) and it's also extinct, which I find helps...
More good views...
...and information...
And then we went off to Devonport, which as the UK version of the name might suggest is the home to the NZ Navy.
Here, you get the iconic view of the city...
...and a less iconic view of the NZ Navy, which seems to consist of two aging warships. Perhaps the rest are on manoeuvres. (Someone will tell me if I've spelt that wrongly.)
More of Auckland and its environs tomorrow...
Shops!
Buildings!
People!
Motorways! (Well, nearly...)
Auckland is NZ's biggest city, despite not being the capital, and it's where everything is. Top of our list was the Sky Tower, completed in 1997 and having the highest observation deck in Southern Hemisphere. How could we not...
Scary glass floors are the big thing here. You get them in the lift...
...and around the observation deck...
...and the views are fantastic...
...especially when people jump off...
...I say "people" - it's not compulsory for all people to do it.
(And I didn't.)
We also went to Mount Eden, which is one of about 80 volcanoes in and around Auckland. We went to this one 'cos you can drive to the top of it (how lazy!) and it's also extinct, which I find helps...
More good views...
...and information...
And then we went off to Devonport, which as the UK version of the name might suggest is the home to the NZ Navy.
Here, you get the iconic view of the city...
...and a less iconic view of the NZ Navy, which seems to consist of two aging warships. Perhaps the rest are on manoeuvres. (Someone will tell me if I've spelt that wrongly.)
More of Auckland and its environs tomorrow...
12 August 2005
NZ +15: Chaotic Hot Chocolate
Now, things are improving...
This was the hot chocolate I had with Gill and Andy in Chaos (a very nice cafe-cum-restaurant where I could have quite happily had everything on the menu)...
It was very creamy hot chocolate, with a bit of Kiwi-style Kit-Kat in it.
I'm giving it a 9.
This was the hot chocolate I had with Gill and Andy in Chaos (a very nice cafe-cum-restaurant where I could have quite happily had everything on the menu)...
It was very creamy hot chocolate, with a bit of Kiwi-style Kit-Kat in it.
I'm giving it a 9.
NZ +15: Waitomo Caves
We stopped here on the way to Auckland and there's not much I can show you really, because you can't take photos inside.
However, it was very commercial and touristy, and here's a photo from outside to prove it...
I can direct you to the website, but even there you will have difficulty finding a photo of one of the most amazing sights I have seen this holiday.
Tens of thousands of glowworms, casting their soft light from the cave roof as we floated past on a boat on the underground river.
Beautiful.
However, it was very commercial and touristy, and here's a photo from outside to prove it...
I can direct you to the website, but even there you will have difficulty finding a photo of one of the most amazing sights I have seen this holiday.
Tens of thousands of glowworms, casting their soft light from the cave roof as we floated past on a boat on the underground river.
Beautiful.
NZ +15: New Plymouth to Waitomo Caves
It's worth mentioning the journey from New Plymouth to Waitamo, because it was just amazing. I was driving and there was bucketloads of scenery.
Two things to mention in particular...
The climb up Mount Messenger, which is probably the most dangerous main road I have ever driven on...
Hairpin bends for about 10km, up and down the side of a mountain and through a short tunnel of solid rock at the summit.
And also the Awakino Gorge...
(not my photo, too dangerous to stop!)
...which is the kind of place which, if you tried to drive a main road through it in the UK, you would have Swampy and the bloody Dongas chanting, unwashed, in tents or up trees for ten years.
And yet here is State Highway 3, carving its way through.
Two things to mention in particular...
The climb up Mount Messenger, which is probably the most dangerous main road I have ever driven on...
Hairpin bends for about 10km, up and down the side of a mountain and through a short tunnel of solid rock at the summit.
And also the Awakino Gorge...
(not my photo, too dangerous to stop!)
...which is the kind of place which, if you tried to drive a main road through it in the UK, you would have Swampy and the bloody Dongas chanting, unwashed, in tents or up trees for ten years.
And yet here is State Highway 3, carving its way through.
11 August 2005
NZ +15: Better Plymouth
I am changing my mind about New Plymouth.
We got here at dusk last night and it was raining and a bit overcast. I went up to knock on the door of my friends, Gill and Andy, and it was their wedding anniversary and they weren't in. However, their babysitter gave me a mobile number and I called. Andy answered and said "Hello mate, at a concert, have to go!" and slammed the phone down. If you can slam a mobile down...
So all in all, last night, I didn't really like the place. On top of which, the main feature of the place is the view of Taranaki, which on a good day, looks like this...
...but yesterday, looked like this...
So, it seemed like I'd missed Gill and Taranaki and Andy completely.
However, a bit later on, I got a text message from Andy, apologising for slamming the phone down on me, but they were at a concert and the act had just come on and they had forgotten to turn the phone off and they were getting very disapproving looks from other members of the audience. In addition, they had just assumed I was another English friend of theirs called Ian who was just phoning them inconveniently at a concert and hadn't come 12,000 miles to see them.
So we arranged to meet for breakfast this morning, and I went to their house...
..and caught up with them and their two boys (Beck, 8 and Calum, 5), who are absolute stars!
However, Andy had to leave for work (New Plymouth Boys' High School) and so I only saw him for ten minutes.
But when he got to work, he was able to arrange to come into town for a while during a free period and so we all had coffee together in a place called Chaos (more about their hot chocolate elsewhere...) and generally caught up on all our news and, more importantly, made sure we had each other's contact details absolutely correct. And here we are...
(We were happier than we look!)
After this, New Plymouth took on a sunnier aspect, and even though we never saw the mountain, the town was a nicer place to be..
There is a very ornate clock tower...
...and even the bendy light thing (The Wind Wand) looked more interesting...
But it was time to say goodbye and press on North...
We got here at dusk last night and it was raining and a bit overcast. I went up to knock on the door of my friends, Gill and Andy, and it was their wedding anniversary and they weren't in. However, their babysitter gave me a mobile number and I called. Andy answered and said "Hello mate, at a concert, have to go!" and slammed the phone down. If you can slam a mobile down...
So all in all, last night, I didn't really like the place. On top of which, the main feature of the place is the view of Taranaki, which on a good day, looks like this...
...but yesterday, looked like this...
So, it seemed like I'd missed Gill and Taranaki and Andy completely.
However, a bit later on, I got a text message from Andy, apologising for slamming the phone down on me, but they were at a concert and the act had just come on and they had forgotten to turn the phone off and they were getting very disapproving looks from other members of the audience. In addition, they had just assumed I was another English friend of theirs called Ian who was just phoning them inconveniently at a concert and hadn't come 12,000 miles to see them.
So we arranged to meet for breakfast this morning, and I went to their house...
..and caught up with them and their two boys (Beck, 8 and Calum, 5), who are absolute stars!
However, Andy had to leave for work (New Plymouth Boys' High School) and so I only saw him for ten minutes.
But when he got to work, he was able to arrange to come into town for a while during a free period and so we all had coffee together in a place called Chaos (more about their hot chocolate elsewhere...) and generally caught up on all our news and, more importantly, made sure we had each other's contact details absolutely correct. And here we are...
(We were happier than we look!)
After this, New Plymouth took on a sunnier aspect, and even though we never saw the mountain, the town was a nicer place to be..
There is a very ornate clock tower...
...and even the bendy light thing (The Wind Wand) looked more interesting...
But it was time to say goodbye and press on North...
NZ +14: Ever Northwards
This morning, we were all woken shortly after 7.00! Admittedly with a cup of tea, but Robin and Maureen certainly had no intention of letting us miss any time in Pukerua Bay before we left for New Plymouth!
In fact, it was only about 8.30 when we were donning our walking shoes for a bracing walk down the hill to the beach. This, as it turned out, was down a sheer hill, the path twisting and hairpinning down at very precarious angles. It was only half way down, when were cursing the dangerous nature of the path and wondering what it must be like in icy conditions, that we met Maureen's friend, Sally, coming up the hill! Maureen's friend, Sally, and her guide dog, Vogue. It was then we stopped moaning about our totally sighted descent...
Anyway, I did take photos of the bay and the island out in the bay, but we're now in an internet cafe in New Plymouth, and I forgot to ask the techie guy to put those ones on the system from the card reader, so you'll have to get them another day.
In the meantime, you will have to make do with a couple of the town we're in now.
How can I describe New Plymouth? Well, it has rather too many branches of Cash Converters and not enough branches of Waitrose. That will have to suffice, as New Plymouthians may be looking over my shoulder, either technologically or actually, and I don't want to offend any of them.
Here are some highlights...
These are interesting rocks on the beach...
...and this is a very tall lamp post when bends in the winds haring in off the Tasman Sea...
...and this is the shopping centre...
I am probably making the whole place sound much more exciting than it actually is.
Anyway, there will be a possible excitement later, when we drive up to Wallath Road and see if my friends Gill and Andy are in. They don't know I might be turning up on their doorstep because I don't have their phone number, it's not in the book and I obviously have their email address wrong because everytime I try to send them one it bounces back. Maybe they are trying to tell me something...
Gill and Andy are friends from college who came out here a couple of years ago.
I met Gill in the first few weeks of college and we were the only people who seemed to think that Robin of Sherwood was any good and (I realise this will only make sense to college people) we used to get the key to Room 12 lecture theatre off Chris Rose at reception and watch it on the big screen in there, taking snacks with us as if it were the cinema. It was all filmed in the West Country, and that is where Gill is from, so when the outlaws were in a deep, dark bit of Sherwood Forest, she would say "Oh, that's near Farrington Gurney" and the whole illusion was spoilt...
And Andy, well Andy broke my leg in three places.
If they are in, the next post will have a picture.
Of them, not of my leg.
Oh, by the way, this is where we are staying:
PS. Well done to Paul for surviving another interminable Fantasy Football Evening! I had a very good excuse not to be at this one, although I did make my presence felt with a phone call!
In fact, it was only about 8.30 when we were donning our walking shoes for a bracing walk down the hill to the beach. This, as it turned out, was down a sheer hill, the path twisting and hairpinning down at very precarious angles. It was only half way down, when were cursing the dangerous nature of the path and wondering what it must be like in icy conditions, that we met Maureen's friend, Sally, coming up the hill! Maureen's friend, Sally, and her guide dog, Vogue. It was then we stopped moaning about our totally sighted descent...
Anyway, I did take photos of the bay and the island out in the bay, but we're now in an internet cafe in New Plymouth, and I forgot to ask the techie guy to put those ones on the system from the card reader, so you'll have to get them another day.
In the meantime, you will have to make do with a couple of the town we're in now.
How can I describe New Plymouth? Well, it has rather too many branches of Cash Converters and not enough branches of Waitrose. That will have to suffice, as New Plymouthians may be looking over my shoulder, either technologically or actually, and I don't want to offend any of them.
Here are some highlights...
These are interesting rocks on the beach...
...and this is a very tall lamp post when bends in the winds haring in off the Tasman Sea...
...and this is the shopping centre...
I am probably making the whole place sound much more exciting than it actually is.
Anyway, there will be a possible excitement later, when we drive up to Wallath Road and see if my friends Gill and Andy are in. They don't know I might be turning up on their doorstep because I don't have their phone number, it's not in the book and I obviously have their email address wrong because everytime I try to send them one it bounces back. Maybe they are trying to tell me something...
Gill and Andy are friends from college who came out here a couple of years ago.
I met Gill in the first few weeks of college and we were the only people who seemed to think that Robin of Sherwood was any good and (I realise this will only make sense to college people) we used to get the key to Room 12 lecture theatre off Chris Rose at reception and watch it on the big screen in there, taking snacks with us as if it were the cinema. It was all filmed in the West Country, and that is where Gill is from, so when the outlaws were in a deep, dark bit of Sherwood Forest, she would say "Oh, that's near Farrington Gurney" and the whole illusion was spoilt...
And Andy, well Andy broke my leg in three places.
If they are in, the next post will have a picture.
Of them, not of my leg.
Oh, by the way, this is where we are staying:
PS. Well done to Paul for surviving another interminable Fantasy Football Evening! I had a very good excuse not to be at this one, although I did make my presence felt with a phone call!
10 August 2005
NZ +13: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Just to keep you up to date with reading habits and offer recommendations...
I've just read this:
...which is a very quick read, but very good. Thought-provking, but a bit predictable in that I guessed who the fifth person he would meet would be shortly after he met the second. I know Cesia and Steve have both read it, so they may care to add their observations!
I then read...
...which is an even quicker read. The author used to be a script writer on Brookside and so he writes scally kids quite well. The movie was on the plane on the way here and if it's still showing on the way back, I'll watch it. Can't quite see James Nesbit playing the dad, which apparently he does.
Now reading...
...which is very funny, although it seems strange reading a travel book which basically goes round the British Isles when I'm on the other side of the world. Perhaps my strange way of feeling at home...
I've just read this:
...which is a very quick read, but very good. Thought-provking, but a bit predictable in that I guessed who the fifth person he would meet would be shortly after he met the second. I know Cesia and Steve have both read it, so they may care to add their observations!
I then read...
...which is an even quicker read. The author used to be a script writer on Brookside and so he writes scally kids quite well. The movie was on the plane on the way here and if it's still showing on the way back, I'll watch it. Can't quite see James Nesbit playing the dad, which apparently he does.
Now reading...
...which is very funny, although it seems strange reading a travel book which basically goes round the British Isles when I'm on the other side of the world. Perhaps my strange way of feeling at home...
NZ +13: Wellington
This is how you spell it...
...so I was right.
We left it on the 0955 train into Wellington, as the station is about 90 seconds walk from R&M's house and there seemed little point in arguing with traffic and trying to find a parking space in what is, after all, the capital city.
The first important building you see when you get off the train (apart from the station, of course, is/are (?) the Houses of Parliament. There seems to be very little security and you can just walk up to them and take photos. In London, you would be lucky to escape alive if you got that close, especially if you were carrying a rucksack and looked vaguely foreign.
It's separated into three distinct looking parts:
On the left as you look, The Beehive...
In the middle, the colonial looking bit...
And on the right, the bit that looks like some kind of cross between Trumpton Town Hall and a wedding cake...
I haven't looked at any government websites or leaflets, so don't know what function each bit performs... You'll either have to look it up yourselves, speculate or not care.
Reassuringly, they have this plaque outside saying, rightfully, who's still in charge!
God bless yer, ma'am!
We then walked the length of the waterfront to get to Te Papa, the National Museum of NZ.
Inside you can explore the history of the country, its predisposition to earthquakes (even standing in a simulation of one), explore the NZ rainforest (even standing on a rickety rope bridge...
...which isn't really rickety and isn't really made of rope), shear a sheep by barcode...
(which with me doing it is almost certainly less painful to the sheep than had it been a real one...), explore the history of the shawl as a garment, look at the development of the New Zealand Post Office and its stamps, learn about Maori art and have a cup of tea.
All of which we did.*
Now, out of Te Papa (Our Place), and past this building...
...which, unless there is more than one imposing looking KPMG building in Wellington, is where my sister worked when she lived here a few years back. She will no doubt be the first to correct me if I'm wrong!
Now from a distance...
...you can't see the wires and this piece of Minnellium art is a little more impressive than the chip cone in Christchurch. You either think it's going to fall on you at any minute, or you're going to trip up amusingly trying to take a photo of it. Whichever way, it's in the Civic Square and on the way to...
... the cable car which rises into the hills behind Wellington to the Botanical Gardens and the Observatory...
You get an excellent view over the city and the bay...
...from several angles...
...and you also get to see the Sundial of Human Endeavour. Or possibly the Sundial of Human Involvement. I can't quite remember. Anyway, what you had to do was stand on the day of the year, which was carved into the ground and point your hands above your head, and it told you the time. And this is me trying to do it and take a photo at the same time...
...so you can tell what time I took it!
Back on the train to Robin and Maureen's soon and then off north to New Plymouth tomorrow. Hoping to arrive in Auckland on Friday.
Keep commenting!
*except for the shawl thing, which we gave a miss...
...so I was right.
We left it on the 0955 train into Wellington, as the station is about 90 seconds walk from R&M's house and there seemed little point in arguing with traffic and trying to find a parking space in what is, after all, the capital city.
The first important building you see when you get off the train (apart from the station, of course, is/are (?) the Houses of Parliament. There seems to be very little security and you can just walk up to them and take photos. In London, you would be lucky to escape alive if you got that close, especially if you were carrying a rucksack and looked vaguely foreign.
It's separated into three distinct looking parts:
On the left as you look, The Beehive...
In the middle, the colonial looking bit...
And on the right, the bit that looks like some kind of cross between Trumpton Town Hall and a wedding cake...
I haven't looked at any government websites or leaflets, so don't know what function each bit performs... You'll either have to look it up yourselves, speculate or not care.
Reassuringly, they have this plaque outside saying, rightfully, who's still in charge!
God bless yer, ma'am!
We then walked the length of the waterfront to get to Te Papa, the National Museum of NZ.
Inside you can explore the history of the country, its predisposition to earthquakes (even standing in a simulation of one), explore the NZ rainforest (even standing on a rickety rope bridge...
...which isn't really rickety and isn't really made of rope), shear a sheep by barcode...
(which with me doing it is almost certainly less painful to the sheep than had it been a real one...), explore the history of the shawl as a garment, look at the development of the New Zealand Post Office and its stamps, learn about Maori art and have a cup of tea.
All of which we did.*
Now, out of Te Papa (Our Place), and past this building...
...which, unless there is more than one imposing looking KPMG building in Wellington, is where my sister worked when she lived here a few years back. She will no doubt be the first to correct me if I'm wrong!
Now from a distance...
...you can't see the wires and this piece of Minnellium art is a little more impressive than the chip cone in Christchurch. You either think it's going to fall on you at any minute, or you're going to trip up amusingly trying to take a photo of it. Whichever way, it's in the Civic Square and on the way to...
... the cable car which rises into the hills behind Wellington to the Botanical Gardens and the Observatory...
You get an excellent view over the city and the bay...
...from several angles...
...and you also get to see the Sundial of Human Endeavour. Or possibly the Sundial of Human Involvement. I can't quite remember. Anyway, what you had to do was stand on the day of the year, which was carved into the ground and point your hands above your head, and it told you the time. And this is me trying to do it and take a photo at the same time...
...so you can tell what time I took it!
Back on the train to Robin and Maureen's soon and then off north to New Plymouth tomorrow. Hoping to arrive in Auckland on Friday.
Keep commenting!
*except for the shawl thing, which we gave a miss...
NZ +12: Picton and the ferry to North Island
Despite not wanting to leave the relative luxury of the very posh and vry cheap aprtment, we did. We drove north to Picton along roads very similar to the ones I desribed yesterday - mountain, road, rail, sea - not much room between any of them.
The ferry terminal was not particularly busy...
...we boarded quickly onto a car deck which also takes trains, scarily...
..and we were soon on our way up Queen Charlotte Sound, which was beautiful...
...and out into Cook Strait, which although apparently notorious for rough crossings, was as calm as a millpond...
...and we arrived in Wellington about 4.30 in the afternoon...
From Wellington, we drove north for about half an hour to Robin and Maureen's house in Pukerua Bay. (I think that's how it's spelt, I think you have to be careful how you pronounce it...) And we were treated to a slap-up evening meal with chocolate pudding to follow.
They are lovely hosts, with hundreds of tales to tell of NZ, having lived in the village at the foot of Mount Cook for many years. Their house seems to be a vast library of second hand books on almost every subject and, despite being retired, they seem to have something to do and somewhere to be at every moment.
Maureen asked if any of us would like to accompany her on her 6am walk the following morning, and we all declined as politely as it was possible to do.
Tomorrow into Wellington...
The ferry terminal was not particularly busy...
...we boarded quickly onto a car deck which also takes trains, scarily...
..and we were soon on our way up Queen Charlotte Sound, which was beautiful...
...and out into Cook Strait, which although apparently notorious for rough crossings, was as calm as a millpond...
...and we arrived in Wellington about 4.30 in the afternoon...
From Wellington, we drove north for about half an hour to Robin and Maureen's house in Pukerua Bay. (I think that's how it's spelt, I think you have to be careful how you pronounce it...) And we were treated to a slap-up evening meal with chocolate pudding to follow.
They are lovely hosts, with hundreds of tales to tell of NZ, having lived in the village at the foot of Mount Cook for many years. Their house seems to be a vast library of second hand books on almost every subject and, despite being retired, they seem to have something to do and somewhere to be at every moment.
Maureen asked if any of us would like to accompany her on her 6am walk the following morning, and we all declined as politely as it was possible to do.
Tomorrow into Wellington...
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