Another side of the sky: NZ/Japan

I am sure that you have all been enjoying Christian’s excellent write up on our trip so far. I thought it was time I wrote a little : ) And for those of my family members who have been asking for my contribution I haven’t been completely lazy I have been writing in my own journal.

I know I have been to New Zealand a few times but the more I come the more I am fascinated by this country. Like Christian said it really does have it all. After reflecting on what we did last week I realised we had seen and climbed glaciers, enjoyed the beaches, driven through and over beautiful mountains and kayaked in the fiords and all in such a small space of time. All of which I am sure you will either read or hear about.

Our next stop after Nelson was Abel Tasman. This is a national park in the Northern part of the south Island. Like so many of New Zealand’s beautiful places to get to it we had to drive along windy country roads and through gorges. In our old campervan this does take a while but we have amazing views to keep us entertained. We arrive in Kaiteriteri a beautiful bay where a lot of Kiwis spend their holidays. The sand is golden and the sea is bright blue/green. We stop here for a walk along the beach but then continue to drive till we reach Marahau. This is the access point to Abel Tasman costal track. It is a beautiful spot but not much there apart from a campsite, shop and information point for the area. We spend two nights here and decide to save our pennies and walk around the coast rather than Kayak to find the idyllic beaches.

Christian and I set out for our day of walking, supplied with nuts, peanut butter sandwiches and bananas to give us energy for our long day. However 10 minutes into our walk Christian starts to complain about an itching sensation .......................... in-between his toes as he hadn’t changed his socks from our 26k walk we did a few days earlier. Anyway Christian struggles on for a while but we have to stop early. Luckily we found a secluded beach (perfect for Christian to bathe his sore feet) where we spend the day, swimming, sunbathing and reading. This is one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen, so we were both happy to abort our original plan.

After our day of relaxation we walk back to the campsite (Christian in his flip flops). Where we spent the evening talking about where to head next, reading our guide books and enjoying our favourite meal of the trip pasta and sauce. Decision made next stop Takaka ............................
Through another gorge, enjoying more beautiful sights and listening to a mixture of “Wilde Beasts” and “Simply Red” we head towards Golden bay. We finally reached the little hippy town Takaka. Straightaway we both love this place. As we enjoyed the laid back feel , the quirky shops and cafes. After struggling not to buy anything from the gift shops we enjoyed cup of New Zealand’s finest coffee which was of course organic and watched everyone walking around the town in bare feet, in multicoloured clothes and wearing t-shirts which say things like “Don’t make war, make love”.

We then headed further north along the coast to reach the most northern point of the South Island “Farewell spit”. This wasn’t exactly beautiful and we felt very remote amongst allot of Barron scenery, which gave it a spooky feel. We took some quick snaps and left. We continued our journey to see a much talked about beach. Once we walked through farmland to reach it we were greeted with amazing sand dunes, cliffs and crashing waves. We ran and skidded down the dunes and walked along the edge of the water in the evening sun. Then realised we hadn’t found anywhere to stay for the night. We desperately tried to fine somewhere free to camp. However it quickly became apparent this wasn’t going to happen so we settled for a campsite situated right on the beachfront. We had the view of waves from our van and were a mere 5 steps from the sand. We sampled some of the locally brewed beer (golden goose), ate more pasta with sauce and talked about our day before we fell asleep to the sound of the waves.

And so to the second part of the trip. I’m writing this now two weeks behind. So I’m going to try and write this is more of a traditional blogger style; a bit punchier!

Just to track back slightly, I feel as though I, we, should concede that we got the date of our flight to the south island wrong. I wasn’t going to mention it, but I think it was leaked on Facebook, so there’s no point in hiding! So we got a lift to Auckland airport on the Saturday morning, bright and early at 05:15, from Lucy and Fraser’s friends in the city. Fraser kindly got up and took us. We said out goodbyes, plodded into the airport and I grabbed the confirmation out of my pocket (which we had ‘checked’ and printed the day prior). I asked Em what day it was and she politely said “Saturday, why?”
“Our flight’s tomorrow.”

So we arrived in Christchurch the following day at around 08:30, having taken a 07:00 flight from Auckland. Big shock. It was freezing! We were dressed shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. We looked pretty stupid, but we trotted through the airport to try and find the rental place for our campervan. It was strange landing in Christchurch in the wake of what had happened only days prior to our arrival. As soon as you stepped off the plane you could almost feel that something bad had happened. Everything seemed quiet and there was a real temporary feeling; bollards here and there, bits of broken concrete covered with tarpaulin, etc, etc. Even when we picked up our campervan the girls behind the counter almost jumped out of their skin as the van was started up, just outside the open side door. Being a big diesel engine it was quite a rumble, but they’re almost suffering from shell-shock. We drove through part of Christchurch and quickly left. It really didn’t feel right being there and there was considerably more damage than either of us had imagined. I think this experience made the decision to avoid Japan and much easier one. As tourists you simply feel as though you don’t belong there.

So our journey had begun! We were so happy with the camper. Yes it is very basic, but there’s laods of room and so much fun to live in. So far... I must confess, having been in Beryl (I’ll explain the name in sec) for a couple of weeks now, the making of the bed every night can get tiresome, but are so glad we went for this particular model. The best thing is you can stand in it. We’ve seen others that we considered and they’re basically people carriers that fold into beds. If you want to cook or make a brew you have to do it through the open boot. We love it! So the name. We decided straight away she was a she. She’s also quite old, pretty butch a little rough around the edges. Beryl seemed a perfect fit.

We started our route by heading north to a little place called Kaikora. This was only a couple of hours north of Christchurch, so made an easy first day’s trip. The amazing thing about this stretch of coast was that the huge mountains meet the coastline, with only a road between them – which we were driving very carefully along! We found a campsite right on the water’s edge, made some dinner and looked out to sea. With the colder weather and being further south we had pretty much conceded that we’d seen the end of the NZ sunshine; thankfully we to be proved wrong. The highlight of the night for me was seeing a seal casually jump out of the water onto one of the rocks a mere 10 metres from us and just gaze at us for a while. I excitedly got out of the van with my camera, subsequently scaring him off, but I did get a picture of him just before he growled and plopped back into the sea!

The next day we spent on the Kaikoura peninsula. We found a marked two hour walk that took us the whole way around the edge of the peninsular and past a few seal colonies. I found them fascinating; they’re literally like amphibious dogs, and I do like dogs. They are however a little more hostile, even in comparison with my Dad’s rather feisty customer, Toby. The advice along the seal colonies is “to not get within 10 metres of them” and “to not get between them and the sea” (this is in their minds, their exit, if anything goes wrong.) What amused me was that people obeyed this rule, but not the former. I think this was because as humans, as long as we have land behind us, that is our exit! On our way back to the van we came across the apparently “world famous” seafood BBQ stand – I thought that was quite a sweeping statement. If any of you people on the other side of the world have heard of it, then I’ll eat my words, but it really was good. We shared some garlic prawns and a crayfish fritter with rice.

We then shifted ourselves further up the coast towards a town called Picton. Although this was an interesting little place, our business up the north east tip of the south island was the Queen Charlotte walking track. The track can be done between three and five days on foot, with various accommodations options along the way. As we are on a bit of a budget and have pure luxury and comfort on wheels, we opted to do two separate parts of the track on two separate days. The first was about a km trek on the afternoon we arrived in the area. The second was a lot longer. We worked out we did around 26 to 27 Km. We were absolutely knackered. But the views we had on the hike were out of this world. We wished so many times that day that we had better cameras that would give what we were looking at better justice through the lens, but the pictures were still cool. By the end of the day we felt we had definitely earned a few beers. Although they were the equivalent of buying Carling in the UK, they tasted pretty damn good after suck a long walk.

The next stop along the top of the north coast was the city of Nelson. Here we spend a couple of days and really got to know that place. I’ve really enjoyed it when we’ve had the opportunity to do this; you get a much better impression of a place even if it’s just two days rather than one. The only slight downer with our stay was the campsite. On first glance it seemed a lovely spot – annoyingly a few miles out of the city, but right alongside a river with plenty of shade. It turned out there were quite a few permanent residents there who didn’t care too much for the average 1-3 night stay tourist. Now, I have no problem with gypsies and hold no prejudice (I had to write that), but a few of these characters we just a little bit ... grim. What really gets me in campsite bathrooms is when fellas het their morning growling session going in front of the mirror. You know – gargling for ages, blowing air out of one nostril at a time at around 150mph, spitting extra loud and generally making a bit of a mess and a good racket. These boys were absolute pros at this. I honestly thought at one point they were having a laugh at the sheer collective volume they were creating. I glanced along the line of hair-infested blokes to share a smile – but they were not. No, this is a serious matter that takes concentration and focus. Who is that pasty twat smiling at us anyway?! And why can’t he clear his throat properly??!! SPIT!

Sorry, I’ve gone way off it here. Again. Anyway, Nelson was a great place other than our campsite. End.

After all the build up, finally came the day of the wedding. After we’d had a bit of breakfast myself, Em, Lucy and George went up to the marquee where the reception was being held to set up the tables. This reminded me very much of a former job I had, waiting tables at weddings and I slipped back into it rather easily...maybe I’ve found my employment for when I return.. nah. It took a good couple of hours to get it all ready, but once we were done it looked ace. We then popped into Raglan with Lucy to go and find a guest book for the wedding; which seemed a simple task until we realised Fraser was also in town, whom we had to avoid. I ended up having to go past the cafe he was in with his mates, pick up the car and swing by to where lucy and Em were waiting/hiding. I flung the doors open and we sped off back up to the house! I got quite excited by this.

After that, both Lucy and Fraser went to different houses at Whale Bay to get ready. My next task was probably the most important of the day; to chill the wine, beer and Champaign. Seems simple enough, but we didn’t have a fridge, so we had to do this the mobile way. On Lucy and Fraser’s piece of land there is a large, circular watering hole made from concrete, which is designed to keep the cows in the surrounding fields hydrated. This worked perfectly as a basin for chilling the booze. They had already bought and dropped off the 25 bags of ice when I got there, so all I had to do was open half the ice and cover the bottles. The picture should speak for its self. As this was only an hour and a half before the actual ceremony, I roped George in to help me. George had the rather important role of giving Lucy away, so we had to be a bit hasty. We took Fraser’s Subaru estate (Jonathan Richards) from Whale Bay to the reception spot, approximately a 15 minute drive. On the way back from the stag do Fraser had to pull over momentarily as the engine was getting a bit warm. I thought nothing of it until today.

On route to the reception we stopped every now and again to put balloons on various signs and fence posts, to lead people the right way after the ceremony. It was a pretty hot day so initially I put the strange melting smell down to overheating tarmac. At the foot of the steep driveway to their property and the wedding reception we stopped to put up the final balloons. As we were now on a white stone driveway I could no longer put the ever-growing smell down to tarmac. It must be the engine – crap. We got up the hill by which time smoke was coming out of the bonnet. George seemed pretty relaxed about it and just suggested we open the bonnet. We did that and smoke momentarily bellowed out. I couldn’t believe it. We checked the coolant tank and it was bone dry – that must be the answer! But the tank clearly read; ‘Refer to user manual before filling’. No user manual or engine coolant, so we got on with filled the watering hole with booze and kept the bonnet open for the duration.

By the time we were driving back it was about 3ish and myself and George we still in shorts and flip flops. I took the drive really steady on the way back in an attempt to stop the over-heating. As we pulled into the car park relief started to wash over me and I could no longer see any smoke – sweet! Not quite. I stopped the car to reverse it into a parking spot and the engine just cut out. WTF??!! I tried restarting the engine and it sounded a bit like trying to restart an old tractor beyond repair. We got out the car an annoyingly happy bloke waddled over to me and exclaimed; “It’s the cam belt mate! Heard it go myself. That ain’t going nowhere I’m afraid!” Thanks. Mate. I just nodded at him. What was I to do?! I couldn’t possibly tell Fraser minutes before his wedding that his car had died, but I wasn’t sure whether we would need it to ferry people from the ceremony to the reception! A few lads helped my push it into a parking spot and the consensus was to keep it quiet for the time being.

I ran into the house and the house to start getting ready and there was Fraser all suited and ready – he looked excellent and pretty relaxed. He nodded to me in greeting and said “All good?” I just smiled, glanced at my feet and said “er...yeah. All good! No worries.” I ran upstairs and got ready.

The rest of the day was brilliant. I haven’t been to many weddings (as a guest), so I haven’t got much to compare this too, but they did brilliantly to organise what was one big party. The ceremony was in a beautiful green spot, with a backdrop of waves crashing on the rocks. After the dos and don’ts I helped serve Pimms and there was some good food going round. After that people started disappearing to head up to the reception. To my delight I found out that Fraser’s Subaru was not needed for this. I must have asked about four different people before I believed it myself. When we finally got up to their property to the reception the party was in full swing; the champagne was chilled (as were the beers and wine), the buffet was set to go and it was just a great atmosphere. The food was epic. Loads of fresh sea food, bread, noodles and there was also roast beef with s mushroom jus. They chef they had in was Hawaiian; absolutely superb and a lovely chap.

Later came the speeches, which we absolutely excellent. This was Emily’s big moment as she was in the line-up. She was extremely nervous in the build up, but I was absolutely bowled over with what was a brilliant speech. She had everyone laughing and then crying. Lucy looked a very proud sister as she watched on and at some points a little concerned about exactly which details of her past were being revealed. Then the DJ kicked off – he was absolutely brilliant, avoiding the usual wedding shite for some pretty damn good tunes. For those of you who have had the pleasure of sharing a dance with me you don’t need an explanation as to the sort of moves that were on display. For everyone else, think... Will Smith.

After the stag and hens we all met back up in Raglan. We had a great night exchanging stories from the weekend and having a damn good BBQ. Lucy and Fraser had for this part of the trip hired a couple of houses right on the beach at a little cove called Whale Bay, where they were to get married the following weekend. This provided me and Em with a nice base for the week; however we spent our nights in a caravan which was on Lucy and Fraser’s property in Raglan, which was great fun. Well, once Em got over her fears that were going to get eaten by possums, which was the last night.

For the week leading up to the wedding we did a load of surfing, helped out with the preparations for the wedding and generally took it pretty easy. It was a great week looking back; we got to know Lucy’s friends from the UK pretty well so we had a good little crew and you could really feel the excitement building to the wedding as the week went on.

By Thursday, the day prior to the big day, more family and friends have flown in the from the UK so Em’s mum, Sue, put on a bit of a shindig at here place. We had a BBQ right in front of the beach with a few beers and got to know everyone. The stars that night were quite incredible. We were out of Raglan with no street lights and nowhere near any big towns or cities. There also wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so in every direction all you could see was thousands of stars and a long strip of galaxy along the middle. Amazing!

Okay, so for this part of the blog I can only account for myself. Em has said to me on a few occasions that she would like to write a piece, so maybe she can add something for the hen... let me ask.... the answer was yes! Watch this space..

It was funny in the lead-up to the stag as I felt as much in the dark about it as Fraser was himself, but probably not quite as worried. I’d seen an email on Facebook inviting me, duly accepted, then never read it again, or heard any further details. George (Emily’s brother) joined me on our trip to the East coast, back to a place called Tauranga, where Em and I had already been. From there we would spend the night and then head to Pier J where a chartered fishing boat would take us out at around 07:00am. The plan was to spend the day fishing, clay pigeon shooting and snorkelling from the boat, then jump off at an island called Motiti, (unfortunately it didn’t live up to its name) where we had a house booked for the night. I couldn’t wait! The night before we met up with three of Lucy’s friends that had flown in from the UK for the wedding and were also coming on the stag; Jim, Tom and Crazy Dave. We took it pretty easy the bight before (knowing we had a 06:00am start and a potentially heavy night to follow.) Steady away.

So we met at the harbour at 06:45, after a bit of a mission driving around Tauranga, bleary eyed, trying to find the right pier. Guys were coming in drabs, I shook a load of hands and instantly forgot all the names as soon as I was introduced. Then Fraser turned up in a vintage car that one of his mates had driven him in. He got out with a cautious, but amused smile on his face (still not knowing what the hell was going on), wearing a netball skirt and a pink ladies’ V-neck. He stumbled over to us and just stood there grinning, waiting for some information. None came his way! We then started loading the boat up with beer, tackle, bait, beer, surf boards, beer, food, all of our luggage and a few crates of beer. The ‘captain’ of the charter walked over looking at Fraser and shouted; “well I guess from this sorry mess you must be my group for today?!” We got on board, found a seat, or something to grab onto and we were off.

For me this was a brilliant part of the day; everyone was still waking up, so there was the odd murmur between us, but otherwise you could just hear the sounds of the seagulls and the early morning workers in the harbour. It was perfect weather, still a bit chilly, but bright sunshine. For those of you who have seen Perfect Storm, cheesy as it is, I think I got a similar feeling to Mr Clooney as we headed out to sea from the harbour!

Now I’ve spent some time on boats over the years as my Dad has had one for the last seven or so years in some form, ranging from an inflatable speed boat to a little sea fishing boat. So I would consider myself to have developed a decent pair of sea legs over the years. The majority of the 25 blokes on board, however, did not. Literally within 10 minutes of leaving the harbour we had the first lad to chunder. It was met with rib-splitting laughter and lengthy applauds. It’s the sort of situation where you stand there laughing and pointing, but on the inside you’re thinking “that could be me next!”... By lunchtime the sound of someone throwing up was about as common as the sound of the seagulls squawking, who were in pursuit of the boat throughout the day. Thankfully I survived it and ironically so did the stag; the guy that should have been suffering the most!

As we got into the area where we fished, one of the two guys running the charter started heartily chopping up squid and salmon as bait. For a profile of this bloke, I’m just going to say a stereotypical seasoned fisherman. Massive moustache, anchor tattoo up his arm, sausage sized fingers, the lot. Then he set us up with fishing rods and we plopped a line in. The depth was around 80 meters, so it took a fair while to hit the bottom. From there we reeled up a couple of meters and waited for a bite. Over the course of the day we pulled in a shed load of fish, but the guys were pretty strict about throwing the baby ones back in; fair enough. I managed to catch three red snapper, one of which was big enough to keep, the other two stuck their middle fins up at me and jumped back in.

After that we did some clay pigeon shooting – I’ve never shot a gun before, so for me this was pretty exciting and a little nerve racking. I had three shots and hit one (there’s a pattern emerging here).. but it was great. It really struck me how Kiwi blokes are so built for this sort of stuff. I guess it’s because of two things; a cultural difference, but also the fact that in NZ there isn’t a great deal else to do other than go outdoors and have some fun. But these guys, all buff as hell (made me look like a rake with bits of jelly stuck to it) and all excellent fishermen, surfers, divers, etc and they just take it in their stride. While you had us English lads in the corner with T-shirt tans, struggling politely with impossible knots we’d managed to create in our rods. From their perceptive I’m sure we provided some light entertainment throughout the voyage. I kept thinking to myself, “at least we can drink these lads under the table later...” Yeah right.

Right, I need to wrap this day up.. We basically got to our island about 04:00 in the afternoon, headed to our house.. no actually, house is a massive overstatement – the place was nothing more than a shack. But it had everything we needed – a fridge, kitchen and a huge terrace outside in which we spent the whole day and night. It also made me laugh that on arrival the bolke that owned the place came by, made sure we were all okay and then emptied a huge bag of sports equipment; football, rugby, cricket set, etc. And that was literally all we needed. As I knew what Em had been planning for the Hen I had to keep smiling to myself as I considered the huge difference in what the blokes and the girls were doing; both in terms of activities and general class. Anyway, you’ll have to wait for Em’s entry to make your own mind up which you would have preferred.

The morning came after a hilarious night and we slowly came around, ate some more brilliant food (we had a chef with us for the time we there) and made our way back to mainland via the same boat that had taken us over. You won’t be surprised that we didn’t hang around for any fishing or shooting on the way back.