Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu

dear diary,

 

porangahau's famous hill, taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is drawing increasing numbers of visitors to the area (but not us, coz we had tramping to do!  we just liked the name, so we thought we'd share it with you). it means 'the hilltop where tamatea, with big knees, conqueror of mountains, eater of land, traveller over land and sea, played his koauau (flute) to his beloved'. It's on the north island, but we're not...anymore.

 

so, where are we now?  in a bloody thunderstorm!  which has been going for what feels like days, but actually only started coday, when we were leaving arthur's pass with some new israeli friends, who nico has decided we should abandon already.  so we did.  but they were good for a ride!  if you know what i mean...no really, they had two cars between three people...they needed us - to pay their petrol!  so we let them make us coffee and drive us to franz josef village, where all we have done so far is eat, drink beer and have a spa!!!  bloody great!!!  we were going to do a short walk to the glacier, but we decided a full day ice hike tomorrow would be more in keeping with the ethos of 'trip danger'.  so today became a bludge day.  which is only fair considering we climbed a mountain on new year's day with hangovers!

 

yes, that was at arthur's pass.  an excellent detour from the main road down the west coast.  it's about a hundred Ks from greymouth of the south island, along a very windy and steep road.  we were trying to hitch from greymouth and it was absolutely PISSING down, and no bastard would stop and pick us up.  i was about to crack the sads if we waited in the rain much longer, but luckily, after only half an hour and when our jeans were still hanging on to our (skinny!  yes!  skinny!!) legs, a local dude took pity on us and stopped.  he wasn't going anywhere.  in fact, he lived right around the corner from where we were hitching.  but we were VERY wet.  and he was a nice, simple soul who decided a charitable act at 5pm on new year's eve was the right thing to do.  honestly, we couldn't believe the guy would take us 100km, completely out of his direction.  we sort of kind of tried to talk him out of it, but not very hard.  we just decided to give him plenty of drinking money instead.  WHICH he didn't want to take!  but we were insistent and i think he was happy.

 

we got out of his car outside arthur's, a bar/restaurant with accommodation.  we headed straight for their (fake) open fireplace and a nice big goblet of red wine.  then we decided not to venture back out into the driving rain, and instead we spent an exorbitant amount of money on a HOTEL room, yes, you read it right, a hotel room!!!  and oh what a nice luxury that was for new year's.  and actually, not a stupid amount of money.  only three times more than a hostel...eeeeeeeeek!  we made ourselves feel better though, by drinking our six-pack of VB and cooking up a feast in our hotel room - ssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh - well, when i say we, of course i mean NICO cooked up a feast and i kinda watched and vaguely assisted.  oh yes, VB.  please tell adrian.  it's even cheaper than in oz.  only cost us $9.90 (nz dollars!!!) for a six-pack.  woooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo!!  oh yeah, mmmhmmmm mmmhmmmm!!  and then there was the goon!!  oh yeah, and the pub and the pints and the shots and the band and walking home in the rain and....actually....i don't remember the rest.  bloody good new year's.  and we got to sleep in till eleven too - niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice.

 

and coz we were oh so fresh, we climbed a mountain (- It was Scott's track, Lou Lou!).  yup, and mum, if i haven't said this already, i'm telling you now, hitching is NOTHING compared to mountain climbing WITH a hangover.  it was only a five hour walk, but the winds were around 80ks and i honestly thought i would get blown off.  to the point that i was hanging on to nico and wishing i weighed about 120kg, just to hold myself down.  nico wasn't scared, of course, he did the chicken dance on the mountain top!!!  and yes, there's proof:


honestly though, the view from the top of avalanche peak was a-MAZ-ing!!!  and we left our hangovers at the top, hopefully they're still enjoying the view...but i think they would have got blown off too.  actually, it was the first time i was glad that meisie didn't come with us.  we would have had to hold her down.  oh yeah!  AND we saw our first glacier, up the top of avalanche peak, there was a glacier on the next mountain!!  it was just superb.

 

arthur's pass/avalanche peak was definitely the first cool thing we have done on the south island.  we'd left wellington on the 30th, got an early ferry in gorgeous weather across to picton, a bus through to richmond, actually through to Beverly Store and some damn fine ice cream.  and then it was hitching again for us.  with a friendly animation dude just back from LA, a bearded ex-melburnian in a beat up car (whose beard grew down to his belly button in just three years!), the nursing wife of a pig hunter and an awesome (and fucking huge) Maori truckie dude called Rima, who has had a burger named after him and loves his wife as much as....fried chicken.  no, i am deadly serious.  i think what he said after that was 'i wish it would rain chicken'.  what a dude.  but he dropped us in a fucking hole called springs junction, which was ridden with sand flied and NO DAMN GOOD for hitching out of.  took us near on an hour and a half.  grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

seeing as how we're going backwards, i'll tell you what we did before wellington.  wellington, btw, was a blink in the night.  we barely saw it.  we arrived on a bus around 9.30pm, after having spent three days canoeing on the whanganui river.  yeah!!  we started from ohakune (place to be careful, according to the bus driver with verbal diarrhoea who drove us from ohakune to whakahoro landing to start our journey) on the day after boxing day.  we weren't so very cheerful when we started coz we'd hiked a few K outta ohakune to stay at a nice free campground.  the hike itself wasn't so bad, except that we'd bought half a slab of beer just prior and had to carry the bastard.  but we made ourselves feel better by drinking it all when we got there!  oh yeah, and i was kinda nervous about the rapids on the whanganui river.  remember, i went canoeing not that long ago and managed to capsize the boat effortlessly.  didn't really wanna do that again.

 

but, master of the river, captain kuru, managed to guide us very safely through ALL the rapids, just by yelling at me lots - PADDLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!  it worked, surprisingly.  gee, who'd have thought paddling was all you needed to do!  oh yea, he (captain kuru) did get about oh....ten litres dumped on him each rapid.  ha, not me tho.  because i was in the back...yes, i'm clever sometimes.  anyway, weird trip, kinda, because the other canoeists and kayakers were carrying heaps of luxuries.  like eskies full of beer and snags.  and they were cooking up feasts.  and we were in tramping mode and trying to reduce our luggage so much that we ended up with bugger all, such as only one cup and only one fork.  kinda tricky when eating spaghetti.  or drinking coffee for that matter.  i'm pretty sure nico has learnt the word "share" now.  but purely for necessity. 

 

christmas we spent in whakapapa village (pron. "fuck a papa", and whilst being a useful expletive, actually means genealogy, or something like extended family - aunts, uncles and cuzzies - apparently).  well, half of it.  it was actually the day we finished the four-day tramp (41km) starred as mt doom in lord of the rings.  bitch of a climb.  but we did it!  along with a bunch of bloody yanks. it's an active volcano too, seriously, it was steaming at the top!  but i wasn't scared.  nope, not me.  scaredy cat?  don't know what you're talking about!  but seriously, there were SO many people up there i couldn't be scared.  plus, i was too busy trying to catch my breath.  nico didn't have the same problem, and certainly no fear, he RAN down the bloody thing.  took me a wee bit longer...

 

hard day's walk tho.  nine hours from start to finish and were we buggered?  oh yeah...just a bit.  we were certainly too buggered to bother talking to the five fucking thousand germans in the huts.  ok, so maybe there were only 15 of them.  but too many!  we were super happy to have our...errr...nico's fancy tent to retreat too.  even when it was raining, we preferred it.  didn't have to share our manuka honey vodka with anyone!!  oh yeah, the next day was hard too.  coz even tho it was only three hours, it was PISSING down.  so we got drenched.  wet weather gear?  nah, what for, we're HARDCORE.  and uh...wet.  but that was ok.  we had soup when we got there and that was the day that nico decided we should eat ALL of our hot chocolate powder, just like a fondue.  or a chocolate soup.  damn fine idea.  there were some jealous people there.  but we didn't share.  nuh-uh. 

 

the next day was christmas, also known as the day without food.  yeah, we kinda ate it all already.  and we had left some fucking crackers.  no cheese.  a few nuts.  and water, glorious water.  oh yeah, and we walked oh...about 16km.  piece of piss...not.  actually we nearly had our first fight.  because, we couldn't find the honey.  nico was getting a bit upset.  and pretty much tipped his entire bag out onto the track.  yeah.  hunger changes people.  but we found it.  and we sat and ate every single piece of food we had.  a guy came past and asked if we were opening a restaurant.  he suggested it might be byo - and we said yeah, and you have to feed us too while you're here.  no good.  bastard didn't.  so we kept walking.  when we saw the chateau (a la Shining) at whakapapa village we had to hug and jump around in circles.  then our "beer legs" propelled us the rest of the way - no probs, actually, suddenly we weren't tired anymore.  and the mac's great white tasted bloody fine when we got there - but not as good as the 500g of pasta with a bottle of cream and a hunk of blue cheese that we demolished in a very short period of time for dinner.  more high fives.  actually it was a cool christmas.  oh yeah, except we really missed our families heaps.  so much that we had to drink away our sorrows all night long.  and, good thing was, the fancy pants chateau that we were drinking at had heaps of delicious cakes on offer, for the guests, which didn't really include us, but we got our fair share anyway.

 

ok.  seriously outta time.  sorry!  can't tell you about art deco napier.  we did check out all the awesome art deco buildings.  there was an earthquake in napier in 1931, i think.  blah blah.  google it.  oh yeah.  huka falls were good too.  AND the hot springs on the way back into taupo.  good clean FREE fun.  yeah.  mhhhmmmmm!!

 

see ya!

 

oh and if there are any lp editors reading, there's a typo on pg 573 of the nz guide in the boxed text about the tasman glacier.

Day 5: Still Friends

Nico has made a discovery: there are no Orcs on the East Cape. Auckland was boring and expensive, so we booked a bus to Opotiki for early Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately in fact, there are no buses around the East Cape, only big stupid backpacker tours which cost a bomb and we don't have any bombs. But I REALLY wanted to go there! So, we had to hitch. Sorry Mum. But really, it was the easiest thing in the world and Nico has a wooden tennis racquet so we are safe. And it only took us 16 rides, to get from Opotiki to Napier (hitching along the shoreline the whole way), where we are now.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself! The East Cape is gorgeous; lush, green and isolated. And, unlike a drive along the Great Ocean Road, which flies by the car window fairly quickly, we were forced to keep stopping and waiting around for our next lift. So we really did get to see it. Our first ride was with a youngish Maori dude (maybe) in a flash ute. We sat on the tray of the ute and took photos of our success. He didn't take us very far, just to a tiny servo in Tirohanga. Where we thought our luck had run out already. So we started hassling random people at the servo. We'd coaxed a guy to give us a ride about 5km, when a nice, ice-cream eating grandma stopped and picked us up. I won that one (Nico and I have a slab riding on this competition!), coz she said she didn't mind picking up girls.

After telling us her life story, the grandma dropped us off in Hawai, where there was a ferocious looking beach and piles of driftwood. But before we had time to eat even one whole pack of crackers an awesome grandpa, Kuru Ned (Ned with a K, like knife) picked us up and took us ALL THE WAY to Te Kaha. Now, HE was an interesting bloke: 75yo, driving a shitty old pickup truck, who has lived in Toorak (of all places) and now lives on his son's Kiwi farm in Te Kaha. We liked him so much we gave him a nip of our Manuka Honey vodka from the hip flask.

Flushed with success, we thought we'd keep trying, hoping to get to Hicks Bay (another 80km), but it was already five o'clock, so THAT was a super dumb idea. But a nice Kiwi couple picked us up in their Tarago and took us not very bloody far. Then we made them feel guilty so they took us to a campground in Waikawa. Actually, not really a campground, just a private, sheltered grassy spot off the highway. Nobody there but us and nobody who seemed to want our money either. So we had a swim (slash wash) in the ocean, cooked up an instant feast and had our first night in the tent. Cosy, but FINE - and I have a new love in my life...my sleeping bag!

Next day a young stoner Maori dude in a car with no plates picked us up coz his grandpa had just died and he thought a good deed would make him feel better. That was kinda weird. Then he was telling us how much property he had. Even more weird. Anyway, dude dropped us off at a bend in the road and we waited and walked a bit till some foreigners in a campervan took pity on us, but not for very long. Actually, they took us further than they were going. A weird trend that saw at least two other cars doing u-turns and coming back to get us coz they felt guilty. Funny mob over here!!

A business man gave us a ride from Whanarua Bay to Waihau Bay, and informed us that there IS, in fact, a bus that goes along the East Cape (which turned out to not be a 'real' bus at ALL, and a mail van/courier thingo. So we went into the shop at Waihau Bay to enquire. The girl behind the counter was pretty nice, and she asked Juanita, who was eating her brekkie, about the bus. Juanita, didn't know, but she said if we waited till she finished her brekkie, she'd give us a ride as far as her kids' school, 20km before Hicks Bay - an offer we couldn't refuse!

And she was a CLASSIC. She had five kids, and must have been around 30 or so, and she was/is studying teaching. She had her first OE (overseas experience) last year, which involved visiting family in the amazing locales of Dandenong and Sunshine. She was the kind of person you couldn't imagine in a bad mood though, exclaiming 'choice' and 'nah, STOP it', when I told her of our plans to climb Mt Hikurangi, and she also told us a bit about the local Maori tribes in the area. Cool Maori chick.

After a few more rides, we made it to Ruatoria, where we had to book in to attempt climbing to our death...I mean, tramp up Mt Hikurangi. The guy at the info centre almost talked us out of it because although he could drive us out there (20km from town), he couldn't pick us up the next day. Bit rough, considering we had to hike 10km up to the hut and a further 2.5 to the summit, which I wouldn't even call hiking, I'd call scrambling!! Oh, Nico calls it fun, I think. Even though we started this crazy scramble to the summit at 4.30am, yes, in the dark with our nerd lights on. And he thinks I liked it too! Which may be true. Even though, when we got to the summit I felt as though I would either vomit or cry and I honestly wasn't sure which. Luckily, neither as it turned out. But really, it was fucking amazing. The view from the highest non-volcanic peak on the North Island (1754m), the first place to be touched by the sun each day, was nothing less than spectacular. Climbing down, scary, but we made it.

Anyway, we said we'd make our own way 20km back to town. And make it we did!! Seriously, best place for hitching ever. A civil engineer from Birmingham picked us up off the main road just outside Ruatoria and we tried to keep our eyes open all the way to Gizzie (Gisborne), another 128km, where we did not very much apart from pig out on fish n chips and $2 half-handles at Smash Palace (have you ever heard a better name for a bar?! It had a DC3 - that's a plane, for those who DON'T know -smashed into the roof, kinda, and heaps of signs, bikes, machinery and weird memorabilia hanging from the ceiling and all over the walls), oh yeah and the other thing we did in Gizzie was SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP, for 11hours, sweet as bru.

All our other drivers were interesting and weird in their own special ways, but probably the 2nd best (after KNed) was Rick1, who picked us up today from Muriwai, with a dead lamb on ice in the back of his station wagon. He was going as far as Palmerston North and said he'd take us all the way to Napier (nearly 200km), if we didn't mind listening to opera and going for a swim in Mahia on the way. Jeez, life's tough.

Covered in seaweed, we made it and we're staying at the Criterion Art Deco Hostel in Napier. It's cool, and reminds us of The Shining. We have done such exciting things as eating ice cream and clothes washing (Nico accidentally put all his clothes in the wash and then had no pants to wear, so had to wear mine!!). We went down the street and spent a packed at the supermarket and Nico cooked us up a FEAST! Probably the last feast we'll have in a while, as we're headed for Taupo tomorrow, to try and get ourselves onto the Tongariro Northern Circuit. But it's not definite yet, as bad weather has cancelled a lot of trips lately, and we won't find out till 2pm tomorrow if we can do it.

In terms of our itinerary, we've worked out and booked (don't worry Mum, no more hitching - on the Nth Island at least) everything up to Golden Bay for NYE. So we're off for 4days tramping in Tongariro National Park followed by three days on the Whanganui River Journey, by canoe (!) and then straight down to Wellington, across to the Sth Island on the ferry and then...nothing, sweet nothing for a couple of days.

Any questions, please direct them to my manager, Mei Keng Cheong at 1/35 Morrah Street Parkville.

Laters Xx