New Zealand

After a short and thankfully uneventful flight from Auckland we arrived in Christchurch ready to start the next section of our trip, the South Island. Having spent the last three weeks being sensible and trying to book our accommodation we had fallen into our natural way of doing things, arriving somewhere and seeing where you can get in for that night. Anyway, it was only 11.30am when we arrived, so still very early. We called a few places, but there were no spaces, so we called the Jailhouse, there were spaces available, so we went directly to jail, did not pass 'Go' and did not collect 200 pounds, although by this stage of our trip our budget could have done with it.

If you see this man, do not approach him, he is extremely dangerous

The Jailhouse is not actually a jail anymore, it's a backpackers hostel and a very good one as well. We had a fairly small cell with bunk beds, but the shared bathrooms and kitchen were clean and it was very friendly. Unfortunately they only had a room available for one night, so we had to make a quick decision on our plans for the next couple of weeks, so that we would have somewhere to go.

A key factor in our decision-making was when we would be able to see some rugby. I felt that if I was going to spend five weeks in a country that loves rugby as much as we do in Wales then I had to get to a match. Luckily Christchurch is the home of the Canterbury Crusaders, one of the most successful Super 14 clubs of all time, and they had a match against the Bulls in a week and a half's time, decision made! We decided to head straight down to Queenstown the following day, so that we could do a circuit of South Island and be back in Christchurch for the match.

We had to be up early the next morning to catch the Atomic Shuttle down to Queenstown. We were picked up outside jail at 6.50am by a very friendly lady who said that she would drive the bus out of Christchurch then swap with another driver who would carry on to Queenstown.

Our new driver was a bloke called Jim, who was, to be frank, a right grumpy git. He was only the second unpleasant person we had met in a country where the people are so unbelievably friendly and helpful, and where you don't have to explain to everyone where Wales is! On the journey we passed Lake Tekapo, a beautiful lake with stunning blue water. It's this colour due to the sediment that was left in the lake by a glacier moving down the valley which gouged out the lake's basin. However it happened, it looks amazing.

Lake Tekapo

We continued to drive through some stunning scenery and it was pretty comfortable until we got to the last section of the trip, about an hour from Queenstown. Something happened to Grumpy Jim and he turned into Colin Macrae, he seemed to think he was doing the rally of New Zealand.

Queenstown is the adventure sports capital of New Zealand, some would say of the world, and when you go there you are supposed to do something exciting, but to be honest Sarah and I just wanted to relax. We thought it might be fun to go whitewater rafting, but unfortunately they have had so little rain there this summer that the Shotover river, which is the exciting one, didn't have enough water in it to go rafting. Our other option was to go rafting on the Kawarau river, but apparently this is about as exciting as going whitewater rafting on a canal, so we gave it a miss.

Gareth makes himself at home

We did however decide to take the gondola ride to the top of the hill above Queenstown, so we could admire the view and take a few photos. It's quite a good gondola ride, it seems very steep, but apparently it's only at an angle of 35 degrees, it certainly felt a lot steeper when you looked down!

The Remarkables. Remarkable.

We discovered that Queenstown's Irish bar, Pog Mahoney's, was showing re-runs of all the Six Nations matches and that they were doing pints of Guinness for $4.50 during the games (that's cheap for here), so we decided that we should watch the Italy vs Wales match there. It was actually pretty quiet in there, four Welshmen, a Welshwoman (that's Sarah, in case you were wondering) a few assorted Irish, Scots and English and two guys sitting in front of us who never declared their support, so we guessed they were probably Italian. Every now and then an American or Japanese tourist would come in through the door, hear the shouting and barracking, then run back out again looking scared. It wasn't a happy result, but it made for an enjoyable afternoon.

That's BATHROOM for everyone else

We were up early again on Monday morning for the bus ride to Franz Josef. We had a much friendlier driver this time, who took us up over the Crown Pass, the highest road in New Zealand. It was slow going, but the views were magnificent over Lake Wakatipa and Queenstown.

Our driver did a bit of a commentary as we went along, most of it was informative, but some of it was just amusing. For example:

'Up there on top of that mountain there is what we call Indian Snow, do you know why? It's because there's apache here, apache there......'

This one was clearly his favourite, during a commentary on the trees of the area:

'In New Zealand we have four types of Beech; the Mountain Beech, the Silver Beech, the Red Beech and the much rarer, Son of a Beech.'

It was a long journey, but eventually we arrived in Franz Josef, where it was raining. We had been very lucky with the weather in New Zealand so far, but it seemed to be turning against us. We checked into our hostel just in time to avoid the heavy rain that then continued all afternoon and all night.

We'd booked ourselves onto a three-quarter day hike up on the Franz Josef Glacier the following day, so we were up early again to get kitted out and head up there. Thankfully the rain had eased a little, so we didn't get too wet on our walk up to the start of the glacier. There was a huge cave at the bottom of the glacier with a river running out of it, every so often bit of the cave would collapse into the river. When I say 'bit' I really mean a massive chunk of ice, which would make an almighty noise, like thunder. It was very impressive. The huge amount of rainfall the previous afternoon had actually caused the cave to get much bigger and our guide explained that it would eventually collapse in on itself. There are bright yellow signs all around telling you how dangerous it is there, that you should only go onto the glacier with an experienced guide and that you should not go past certain points. Three weeks ago two men had decided to ignore the warning signs and walked right up inside the cave, which is a really stupid thing to do. Unfortunately for them, part of the cave collapsed and they were very badly hurt, apparently one guy's leg came clean off at the knee, nasty!

It should be self explanatory

We put our crampons onto our boots and started up the glacier. Each morning a group of workers from the guiding company come out and cut a staircase out of the glacier with pickaxes, then they put a rope handrail into the sides with ice screws, to hold on to where it's steep. Its a little bit weird walking on a glacier - usually I would avoid ice wherever possible, but here you just stamp your foot down hard with each step and hope that the crampon grips. Sarah has got a bit of a history on ice having broken her arm after falling over trying to thaw her car's windows some years back, and I think walking on the glacier probably rated as highly on her 'Top 3 things you would rather not do' in the same way as having a Burmese Python draped around my neck did for me.

That is a full grown man up there!

In most places using the crampons was fine, but there were a few parts that were a little scary. The steps would be almost non-existent at times and I did wonder how you would be able to stop yourself if you fell on a slope. Would you just slide all the way back down to the bottom of the glacier?! By far the most worrying parts of the glacier were the merlons. These are holes in the glacier where rain and melt water find their way down through a weak point in the ice. The merlons grow slowly over time and get deeper and deeper. As our guide put it, 'If you fall down there, that's it, we'll see you come out of the front of the glacier in six or seven years'!

Don't look down

As you travel further up the glacier you start to see blue ice. It's blue because the ice is under such high pressure that when it refracts light, certain colours in the spectrum stand out much more than others, particularly blue. It was quite cool to look at.

'There was an Englishman, a Welshman and .......'

We managed to survive the rest of the hike without falling down any merlons and without losing our lunch to any of the cheeky Keas, birds that are obviously well-used to the hikers and the lunches they bring with them. We were back to our hostel by about 3pm and promptly fell asleep!

The next day we woke to find that it had snowed in the mountains around us overnight, so much for the traveller's endless summer! We were booked on the Atomic Shuttle again, to Greymouth, but it wasn't leaving until 3pm, so we had a bit of time to waste. Not that easy when it's raining torrentially. After spending some time in a red bus that had been converted into an internet cafe, we had a cup of tea, then decided to go for a walk, seeing as the rain had stopped at last!

We headed up a little track near our hostel, which was signposted for Matutu tunnels. The sign said that it was a one hour and forty minute return journey and we only had an hour and a half before we had to get the bus, so we thought we'd just have a wander. It was definitely a good idea, because after walking for about ten minutes, we saw what looked like a deer standing on the track ahead watching us.

'Does my bum look big in this?

It stood there for a little while, then wandered around in front of us, it obviously didn't think we were a threat. Sarah managed to get a few good photos and we realised that it wasn't actually a deer, it was a chamois. Yes, that is the same thing that people use to wipe the water off their car, they actually live wild in the mountains in New Zealand. Many years ago an Austrian named Haast explored New Zealand, naming the Franz Josef Glacier after the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As a reward for his work he was made 'von Haast' and awarded five Chamois, which he released in the foothills of Mt Cook and they have since thrived in the area. Sarah used to occassionally buy a chamois leather for her grandfather as a birthday or Christmas gift, but after seeing that they are so cute in the flesh (or fur), sorry Grampa, but I don't think that's going to happen again!

We arrived in Greymouth at about six o'clock and checked into the Global Village Hostel. This hostel comes highly recommended in the backpackers guides to New Zealand and for very good reason. Our room was really nice, with little tribal trinkets and things on the walls, a very comfy bed and it was lovely and warm. They had an excellent kitchen and there were free bikes and kayaks for the guests' use. Not that we bothered to use them of course.

Spot the deliberate mistake

We dropped our stuff off in the room and went for a walk along the floodwall down to the harbour entrance to have a look at the breakwater. It was pretty wild there, the hostel owner had told us that Greymouth is the most dangerous harbour in New Zealand and I can see why. The harbour entrance is where the fast flowing Grey River runs into the Tasman sea and when there is any kind of storm swell it must be pretty hairy trying to get in and out of the harbour entrance. There was quite a big swell running and some very big waves were crashing into the side of the breakwater, sensibly, all the fishing boats were safely moored in the harbour! I had read that the coast around Greymouth is unusual for surfers because you usually have to wait for the swell to drop to be able to go surfing!

The aptly named Grey River

Sadly, this is about as exciting as Greymouth gets and the following day we had a great deal of difficulty entertaining ourselves until we were due to go on our brewery tour in the evening. Greymouth is the home of Monteith's Brewery and they do a tour that is open to the public, which includes a tasting session at the end. Needless to say, Sarah was very keen on the second part of that sentence so we had booked ourselves onto it.

Shandy drinker

The tour was very good and the guide clearly knew her stuff. Monteith's is a small, batch brewery - they make about two million litres of beers every year. This might sound like a lot, but one of my customers in my last job made 64,000 litres every hour at full production. There are only ten staff there, so everybody does a bit of everything. The tasting was obviously the best bit, everybody was given a half pint glass and then given a quarter of a pint of each of their seven beers to try. Some of them were quite nice, particularly the Original Ale, the Pilsner and the Dark beer, but they had made one really strange beer. It was supposed to be similar to a German shandy, but rather than adding lemonade they had added a lemon and lime flavouring. It was probably the worst thing I've tried in a long time!

The reason why 90% of tourists are in Greymouth is because it is at one end of the TranzAlpine Railway, known for being one of the ten great railway journeys in the world. As we needed to get back to Christchurch, which is at the other end, we'd booked ourselves onto it too. It didn't get off to a great start, scheduled departure time was 1.45 pm, but at 1.46pm there was no sign of it. Sarah has dragged me onto enough different forms of public transport for me to be able to tell you that this is unusual outside of the UK. Thankfully a few minutes later it appeared and we prepared to board. Unfortunately when Greymouth station was built, nobody thought to check the length of the TranzAlpine train. Our seats were in carriage M, but carriage M was about twenty five yards beyond the end of the platform, so we all had to walk along the edge of the track and then climb up to the carriage (literally). The train itself is pretty good, there was plenty of leg room and an open viewing deck.

Arthur's Pass

We saw some great scenery (the train passes through the Southern Alps. Arthur's Pass and the Canterbury Plains) and got a few good photos, but to be honest it wasn't as amazing as I had expected it to be. Maybe I have particularly high expectations, but we saw views that were just as good when we were in Queenstown.

It was a very long train

On arrival in Christchurch we reported back to jail for another stretch, this time three nights, hopefully with a day release to go and watch some rugby!

Porridge

Saturday was very warm in Christchurch and a marked contrast to the West Coast, where it had rained nearly all the time. We wasted a bit of time walking around the city and I managed to get a much needed haircut in the smallest hairdressers that I have ever seen. My hair had been starting to get a bit out of control, and I had the beginnings of a mullet at the back, so it was nice to look a bit tidier again. I was particularly pleased that the weather was so good, because when we booked the rugby tickets we opted for the cheapest tickets we could (obviously) which were in an uncovered area. I really didn't want it to rain.

When we got to the Jade stadium to see the Canterbury Crusaders vs the Bulls, they were making a real show of it. There were cheerleaders, a giant sword in the middle of the pitch, a mock-up of a castle in the corner of the stadium and a team of men dressed as crusaders on horseback circling the pitch before the kick-off. All the razzmatazz couldn't take away from the fact that it was a pretty poor match - the Bulls seemed to be there in body, but not in spirit and never looked like threatening the Crusaders. There were lots of people there, but not much atmosphere, most people seemed more interested in the Mexican wave. Give me Stradey Park any day!

Wave your hands in the air like you just don't care!

Sunday dawned warm and sunny, but it didn't stay that way for very long, it soon changed to thunder and heavy rain. The thunder was deafening, it was just like being back in Sri Lanka! After about an hour it cleared, so we headed into town to see if we could find somewhere showing the rugby from the day before. We found 'The Holy Grail Bar', a sports bar near Cathedral Square and watched Wales beat England! Unfortunately the miserable git of a barman wouldn't put the match on the main screen because it wasn't live. They had the rugby league on instead so there was no sound for the Wales match, which made it lack a bit of atmosphere (I think he was English and just a little bitter that they had lost!). I still managed to enjoy it though!

That evening Sarah and I went to the cinema to see Hot Fuzz - it was hilarious. It was also completely stupid, but that didn't stop us enjoying it. It was quite a late showing, which meant that we didn't get much sleep that night, because we had to be up early and ready for the bus to Kaikoura at 6.50am!

The drive to Kaikoura was apparently like the second leg of the New Zealand rally, but I couldn't confirm that because I was asleep. Sarah wasn't too impressed though. We arrived safely in Kaikoura, a sleepy little town that seems to exist only so that people can do one of three things:

1) Swim with dolphins
2) Swim with seals
3) Go whale watching

Obviously we couldn't avoid all of these things, so we had signed up to go swimming with dolphins.

The reason that Kaikoura is such a great place to do all these things is because of the Kaikoura Canyon - a trench that drops 1200 metres deep. Cold and warm waters meet here and mix, causing the upwelling of deep-ocean nutrients that support marine life. Sarah had read this ranged from plankton and krill, to dolphins and whales. Sarah was thinking that somewhere in between there would be sharks too...

There were three start times for our trip, 5.30am, 9.30am and 2.30pm - so we'd obviously gone for the ridiculously early one. The girl who sold it to Sarah said that the advantage was that the early trip was at sunrise, which is beautiful on a clear day. Sadly, we can't show you any pictures of the sunrise because we were watching a safety video inside at the time!

We all hopped on the boat and before we knew it they had spotted a pod of dolphins - fantastic - they sounded the horn and everyone dived in. Nevermind the dolphins, could somebody help me with my breathing?! It was freezing and although a few dolphins came our way they didn't stick around long, so it was back in the boat to chase them down again.

'Nefoedd I'm cold!'

The second time was much better. There was a pod of around a hundred dolphins and they kept swimming past us and all around us, jumping out of the water right next to us - it was great. This lasted about ten minutes before they got bored and left us again, so we did another bit of chasing before a final swim with another pod of about a hundred. It was unbelievable - they were everywhere. Sarah started swimming around in circles (I think she had lost one flipper) and they seemed to really like this. One dolphin in particular was looking right into her eyes (look into her eyes, not around her eyes, but into her eyes.....3,2,1, you're back in the boat) and following her round and round.

Sarah: I can't tell you how amazing this was!

Big white finger-fish on the right of the picture

Much better when you move your finger

Lots more dolphin pics and videos above the water:

We celebrated that evening with a few drinks in the pub, then the following day took a walk over to the seal colony (a very long walk). You are supposed to be able to see hundreds but we saw ... one!

Billy no mates

After Kaikoura it was back to Christchurch and one last night in the Jailhouse before flying to Auckland and onto Samoa at some stupid hour of the morning. Bring on the sunshine...

March 1 marked St David's Day (with the Welsh Dragon proudly flying over Auckland Harbour Bridge as we crossed it) and also our departure from Auckland - this time not in the sad little Nissan Sunny but a Britz campervan. The campervan wasn't exactly sad but it was a bit basic and well worn - still, it would be our home for our last week together in North Island and we were all looking forward to it. We'd gone for a six-berth model to give us a bit of extra space and thank goodness we did, because even with the three of us travelling light there wasn't much room to move.

After a quick stop at the supermarket to fill the 'bijou' fridge and pack our belongings into the titchy overhead cupboards we took our positions for the drive up north. There were two seats in the front and then four seatbelts right at the back of the van. Mammy started off in the back - the best seat to see the wonderful scenery but the worst for comfort since everytime we went over a bump (and believe me, there are lots of bumps in the road in New Zealand, many of them dead possums ... I wonder if I will ever see a live possum here?), it sent a shockwave right up through the back of the van and into the person sitting in the back. Not comfy at all.

"Cabin crew - seats for take-off"

After all the racing around over the previous fortnight, we were all ready for a bit of a slow down so we'd decided to drive into Northland and spend some time around the Bay of Islands. Our first destination was Paihia (say 'Pie Here') and the Beachside Holiday Park - a bit of artistic licence used here since there was a beach, but one so small you wouldn't be able to spread a towel out to lie on - but the site did have a very cute and friendly family of ducks - who would follow you back from the shower block in the morning in the hope of being invited in for a bit of breakfast.

Mammy, can I bring some friends over for food?

While we were in the Bay of Islands, Gareth wanted to dive the Rainbow Warrior. This is the Greenpeace ship that was bombed by the French secret service in 1985 in Auckland Harbour. The Rainbow Warrior was preparing to set sail for Moruroa in the Pacific to protest against French nuclear testing when French agents blew it up, killing one man, Fernando Pereira. After the ship was refloated it was moved to the Cavalli Islands in the Bay of Islands to serve as a dive wreck and marine sanctuary.

While Gareth was off doing his dive Mammy and I decided to walk into Paihia town for a look around - so we asked at reception about the path that led away from the holiday park. 'Yep' they said ' the path will take about 45 minutes and it's easy, well-marked all the way into town - you can walk all the way around on the beach if you want to. Off we set...

It was quite a steep start, but nothing after the Tongariro Crossing, and we had beautiful views out over the bay. It all looked good, but twenty minutes later as we were trying to wade through rock pools and approaching a river that would stop us going any further we decided we must have missed the track - so we retraced our steps and went back around to the beach for a look around. Behind a shed on a path that really looked like it was taking you onto private land was an overgrown path - no wonder we'd missed it. New Zealanders really do have a very different idea of what the words 'well-marked' and 'easy' mean.

Still no sign of the track

Paihia was a busy little place, with plenty of shops and places to get a flat white. After lunch at a restaurant set right over the waterfront we settled down for a bit of sunbathing on the beach before meeting up with Gareth after his dive. He had dived twice - first at the Rainbow Warrior and then at a nearby reef. Being a bit 'trigger happy' with the underwater camera he'd used up all his film by the end of the first dive and had none left to snap the massive stingray and eagle ray he (says he) saw on the second dive. I think this will be a bit like the Maori Wrasse we saw in the Whitsundays - it gets bigger and bigger every time the story is told and no one can prove him wrong...

Next morning we packed up the camper again and set off to Matauri Bay, about an hour and half north of Paihia. This was where Gareth's dive boat had launched from the day before and the owner of the dive shop promised me this was a top spot for a bit of snorkelling.

We had a perfect spot - right on the white sand beach - and spent most of the next two days in the water. The bay around the corner was supposedly good for snorkelling but the current was so strong that even the fish were being whipped around by it - so we stuck to swimming - and in the absence of any surfable waves, Gareth tried to teach us to bodysurf. He failed.

Gareth teaches Sarah how to drown gracefully

'You said the water was warm!'

Up on the hill above Matauri Bay there is a memorial to the Rainbow Warrior, with the propellor from the boat and a stone map that shows you exactly where the ship now rests.

Matauri Bay was beautiful but our time in North Island together was running out and with only two nights left we had to think about making our way back to Auckland. We were still hoping for a bit of snorkelling as it had been so disappointing in Matauri Bay so we drove back down the coast to Goat Island. This is actually one of the Hauraki Gulf Islands and a marine sanctuary. It's so close to the mainland that you can swim over to it fairly easily.

We spent the day at the beach, which was very busy with busloads of children on school field trips or having kayaking lessons. We'd heard about the snapper at Goat Island - some more than sixty years old! Being a marine sanctuary, no one is allowed to fish there so I guess a lot of the fishes just die of old age (must be a bit chewy). There are so many there - when you stood on the rocks and looked over into the water you could see fishes of all colours swimming underneath you - silver, orange and bright blue. (I did have a leaflet with the proper names of these fishes but I seem to have misplaced it so colour descriptions will have to do, I don't know any marine biologists so I think I should get away with it). We got in for a snorkel but it was pretty choppy so we were being bashed against the rocks and the visibility was awful - it was more fun just to watch from above - and relax on the black sand beach of course!

There was nothing much else to amuse us around Goat Island - one of the fish and chips shops was closed and the other one was expecting a party of 60 children so it was only serving burgers and nothing fried (!) -so we headed to Waiwera for our last night before our flights out. By now we'd completely run out of food (but not vinegar!) so we stopped in a small town called Orewa before we settled into Waiwera Holiday Park. There was something we hadn't yet introduced Mammy to - meat pies. In Australia, the only thing I would say that comes close to being a national dish (apart from a BBQ) is the great Aussie pie. These pies are delicious - and they're not bad in NZ either - so we had a supper of pie and chips (with vinegar) - yum.

Next day when we woke up it was raining and grey - a sure sign that it was time to move on - so we drove back via Orewa - for another one of those lovely pies and three flat whites - then back to Auckland to get ready for the flight.

After three weeks in NZ Mammy's one bag had turned into two (with a little help from both of us, who'd managed to load her up with anything we didn't want to keep carrying around with us). After Mammy was checked-in we all went for one last flat white together - yes, they came to tin fity exactly! We waved her back through the doors towards home after a fab three weeks together ... then it was a few hours sleep for us before our flight to Christchurch, in the South island.

We arrived in the Tongariro National Park after a drive from Napier along the Thermal Explorer Highway, with only a short stop to stretch our legs at a 'scenic viewpoint'. These scenic viewpoints are not usually anything special, but this one was a nice surprise. What you couldn't see from the road was that the car park had a nice view of a lovely waterfall.

We upgraded the hire car

While we were there a British couple in a campervan pulled up and we got talking to them. When we mentioned that we were planning on walking the Tongariro Crossing the following day, they told us they'd started it, but had found it very hard going and had turned back. This was definitely not what we wanted the Mother Superior to hear, so Sarah and I bundled her back into the Rolls Canardley (because it rolls downhill, but can hardly get back up them) and got on our way to the Discovery Lodge. This was the place that we'd booked into for our two nights in Tongariro. We'd chosen them because they do a drop-off and collection service for walking the Tongariro Track. The room itself was a bit basic, and the kichen contained a tea towel that could have done with a good boil wash, but it would suffice, plus from the deck we had fantastic views of the sun going down on the three volcanoes, Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngaruhoe. Try saying that after a few drinks.

Next morning we were up at 5am to get ready for the walk, the bus was leaving at 5.45! It was interesting to see how all the different walkers were dressed and prepared for the track - some were dressed like ourselves with plenty of warm layers, long trousers and walking shoes, while others turned up in shorts, T-shirts and trainers, so we really weren't sure what to expect.

The Lonely Planet (and just about every other guidebook) says that the Tongariro Crossing - one-day walk from Mangetepopo Hut to Ketetahi Springs - is a fairly easy walk that can be attempted by most people. I would beg to differ. The first section of the walk from the car park to Mangetepopo Hut was pretty easy going. We actually started when it was still dark, but the track was very well formed with boardwalks in some sections. This led us to the last toilet for a (very) long time, so it gets used by almost everyone and to say it is a bit smelly would be an understatement. This was nothing for the Mother Superior though, who said that during her nursing career she'd smelt and seen a lot worse!

The next section was a real killer and I'm not surprised that the couple we met the day before turned back here - the track suddenly became very steep for the long haul up to South Crater. What had been a fairly wide, well made up track became more like a goat track that was so steep that in parts it was more like climbing than walking and you had to rely on using your hands to pull yourself up.

It was a long haul, but eventually we made it to the top of the section - and it was worth the effort because the landscape changed to something that I have never seen before. I can only describe it as being lunar - the South Crater was huge and the ground was a very hard baked earth. The sun had come out as we got to the rim of the crater and it really looked spectacular. We crossed South Crater and headed up the next section which was again hard going, this time not so much because of the steepness, but because of the amount of small volcanic scree that made up the path. It meant you slipped backwards a little bit every few steps which was very energy-sapping on your legs. Yet again the effort was worth it though as the ridge that you climbed up to gave a fantastic view over a landscape that could have been Mordor from Lord of the Rings - and as they filmed it around there, it probably was Mordor!

Behind those glasses, they're crying

We didn't have time to stand admiring the view because we had to keep going towards the highpoint of the track at Red Crater. This was another long slog, with a very long steep drop over one side, followed by an interesting descent down a long scree path that you could only really slide down. We all took a tumble a few times on the way down, but thankfully we managed to make it down unscathed.

All downhill from here

After a very quick lunch stop we continued on our way. It was pretty much all downhill from here and you would think that would be easy - but in fact it became just as hard going. The steps that were cut into the path in some places had a tendency to be the perfect size for somebody who is eight foot tall - in total there were 5kms of downhill steps and they really took their toll on your knees.

The sign was the only thing holding them up!

We eventually made it to the end at about 2.30pm, completely shattered but very pleased to have completed it. If any of us had been unable to finish the walk the only way off the mountain would have been on a big red helicopter!

We all slept very well that night and headed off to Lake Taupo the following day where we arranged to go on a Maori experience evening. We were picked up by bus to be taken to Wairakei Terraces - here they have recreated a Maori village and even recreated the terraced hot springs that existed a few kilometres away until they were destroyed to pipe the hot water out to a power station! On our way the bus driver gave us a bit of a spiel about how the evening would go, how we would be welcomed and so forth. Unfortunately he had a tendency to put the word 'there' (pronounced theer) into the sentence at random intervals. At first this was amusing and a little endearing, but unfortunately his spiel lasted about fifteen minutes and as he went along, the number of 'theers' in a sentence kept growing. By minute eight he was saying something like:

'When the chief theer welcomes you theer, to the village theer, he'll theer offer a gift theer and the person theer who is elected theer as your chief theer will accept the gift theer, without taking theer his theer eyes theer off the village chief theer'.

I'm not exaggerating, it was that bad and it made it almost impossible to work out what he was saying. If we had relied on his information alone we could have been killed by the village chief before we'd even sat down for dinner!

After a tour of the terraces and the Maori village (with a bit of history thrown in), there was a traditionally cooked Hangi meal, followed by Maori singing and dancing. As part of this, they decided to take a few volunteers out of the audience to teach them the Haka. Guess what, they chose Sarah! Well she made a good effort, and you can see it below (a bit fuzzy but Sarah is in the pink top on the right).

The next day we had more excitement planned for the Mother Superior - we were going jet-boating! The Mother Superior is not renowned for her love of boats, so it took a bit of guts to do the jet-boating - and we kept reassuring her that it would be OK - something along the lines of 'Don't worry, you won't have time to be sick'! Well we needn't have worried, because the Mother Superior thoroughly enjoyed - screaming 'I love it!' in our ears as our very entertaining driver whipped us up and down to Huka Falls. He had a special signal to let us know when he was going to spin the boat, however, he had a tendency to forget to signal sometimes and would signal afterwards, very amusing.

Scream if you wanna go faster

After the excitement of the jet-boat we made for Rotorua, the Hot Mineral Pool capital of New Zealand. Along the way there were a couple of quick stops - first at Aratiatia Rapids. These rapids are not very rapid these days apart from at 10, 12 and 2 o'clock everyday when they release the water from a dam above to show tourists what they looked like before the hydroelectric power station was built and they dried up. New Zealand uses a lot of hydroelectric power generation so there are these power stations everywhere. It was quite interesting to see a load of rocks on a dried up river bed turn into a raging torrent when they opened up the dam.

Next we also stopped at the Wairakei Thermal Village for lunch and a tour of their thermal pools. To say that they were disappointing would be an understatement, there was certainly an abundance of steam, but the boiling mud pools both seemed to have dried up and it was all a bit of a shambles. Time to move on.....

Steaming

Every motel that we looked at in Rotorua had it's own spa baths and hot pools, so we checked ourselves into the Boulevard Motel. On arrival we decided it was a bit grotty, so we gave their hot pools a miss and headed instead to the Polynesian Spa, in an attempt to soothe our muscles, still aching from the Tongariro Crossing. The Polynesian Spa is probably the best known spa in Rotorua and we made the mistake of arriving at the same time as several busloads of Japanese tourists. A very helpful lady on reception told us it tended to quieten down around 7.30pm, so we went for three flat whites (another tin fifty!) to wait a little while. It was worth waiting - it is very nice there, with one of the pools right on the edge of the lake - it was very relaxing.

Hiding in Government Gardens

The problem with Rotorua is that because it is a hive of hot pool activity there is a lot of sulphur in the air and it really stinks, so next day after lunch and a walk in the Government Gardens we decided to head to Waitomo. It was quite a drive and fast, comfortable journeys were not one of the Rolls' strong points.

Wishing Rock (Wishing we could find Rainbow Falls)

It was quite a pretty journey, with a few detours. Sarah was determined to find Rainbow Falls, which were on our roadmap, although the exact location was rather vague. After half an hour of searching around a lake and a dam we had to give up - we thought they'd be easy to find but all we found was yet another hydroelectric power station! All the way along the journey I kept thinking that the landscape reminded me of somewhere, but I couldn't work out what it was. There were lots of small green mounds in the fields, not quite hills, just mounds really. Then it occurred to me, we were driving through Teletubbyland. I'm not sure when I have seen Teletubbyland before, as I'm not an avid viewer of the show, but I must have seen it somewhere.

All the whole world loves a rainbow!

We made a stop in Otorohanga a little way before Waitomo, because we were all hungry and fancied fish and chips. We still had a gallon of vinegar to use up after all....

As it turned out, none of us actually had fish, because it didn't look very appealing, but the Mother Superior did have the weirdest hotdog ever. I think she was expecting a frankfurter type sausage in a roll, not a battered sausage on a stick!

Heart attack on a stick

As a special treat for my globetrotting mother-in-law I had secretly arranged some special accommodation for the night - a 1950s Fiat Train Carriage.

All aboard!

It had been turned into a motel, along with a Bristol Freighter Plane, but unfortunately there were no vacancies on the plane. The Mother Superior seemed quite pleased with my choice of accommodation although she did complain that she had been left in the second class carriage while Sarah and I were in First Class at the front of the carriage!

We were up early to get to Waitomo Glowworm Caves - it was a good job because they get up to 2000 visitors a day, whereas we had a small group of only ten people for our tour. We went into the Cathedral Cave first, which apparently has fantastic acoustics and has hosted concerts by Sting, Kiri Te Kanawa, Rod Stewart and the Vienna Boys Choir - up on the ceiling was the occasional glowworm. Then we got into a boat to go through the main caves, which are covered with glowworms - it looks like one of those images of the world taken from space where they show up all the lights from the cities - very impressive.

It was our first day since Raglan with rain and it belted down most of the way to Auckland. This was a bit of a pain because the roofrack straps we were using to carry my surfboard were letting water into the car at quite a rate. Sarah was getting wet in the backseat and was not amused!

On arrival in Auckland we checked into the apartment that Sarah had arranged, very nice it was too, the Oaks Apartments on Hobson Street, just a short walk from the Sky Tower, with air-conditioning, washing machine and dishwasher! That evening we consulted the Lonely Planet and went to the Cafe Midnight Express for dinner. It was a nice little Turkish restaurant and our meals were great but we made the mistake of ordering Turkish coffee after the meal, which spoiled my whole evening! I expected it to be strong, but in fact it was just plain awful, very thick with lots of coffee grounds in it, yuckkk!

It's not that funny!

It was in Auckland that we found a good use for the Mother Superior's gallon bottle of vinegar.....my shoes and socks. Some of you may recall from earlier blogs that Sarah has been complaining rather a lot about the smell emanating from my shoes and socks, well the Mother Superior had a remedy. Apparently putting newspaper soaked in vinegar into shoes kills the bacteria that cause the smell. While my shoes were being seen to, the Mother Superior decided to try pickling my socks too! Well, it seemed to work, because after pickling, then washing, there did seem to be a significant reduction in honkiness. Sarah was pleased.

It was a busy few days in Auckland - we had lunch at Orbit, the revolving restaurant in the Sky Tower, stopping along the way at the viewing deck, where we all had a go at standing on the glass floor panels that hang out over....well, nothing!

Nice shoes

The food in the Sky Tower was very nice - but it was weird because every few minutes somebody would go flying past the window in a downwards direction attached only to a couple of ropes - they have a strange bungee jump type thing from the Sky Tower and the jumping platform was just above the restaurant. We were all full from dinner, so we gave the bungee jump a miss.

Next day we caught the caught the courtesy bus to Kelly Tarltan's - it's difficult to miss because it has a giant shark on the roof! It was quite good fun there, they had a lot of penguins as well as some huge stingrays.

Happy Feet

For our last afternoon in Auckland we headed to Parnell to do a bit of shopping and flat white drinking. Parnell is a posh suburb of Auckland and we had high hopes, but to be honest there wasn't much there. The highlight, or actually lowlight was when we went into a specialist chocolate shop and cafe for a couple of hot chocolates and for the Mother Superior, a flat white. Here we met our first unpleasant New Zealander - the woman in the cafe really didn't want to serve us and seemed to think that she was doing us a favour! What made her stand out so much was the fact that everyone else you meet is so friendly and can't do enough for you, there's always one I suppose....

That evening Sarah and I told the Mother Superior that we would spend our last evening having dinner in a Belgian Bar - this was only half true, because we had something else planned. On the way there we stopped at the 'Minus 5 bar' - this bar is made completely of ice, even the glasses. You have to get dressed up to go in there, they give you a lovely warm Parka jacket with a hood, gloves and booties and then you go in for your drink. Sarah and the Mother Superior were very pleased to find that a cocktail was included in the admission price - so they sipped their drinks while sitting on an ice sofa covered with a deer fur blanket!

Can somebody turn the heating up?

After that we really did take the Mother Superior to 'The Occidental' - a very popular Belgian bar, famed for its mussels. Sarah and I both ordered the mussels, but we were a bit disappointed - they were big green lipped mussels and a bit chewy! We still managed to enjoy a few beers though, Sarah and the Mother Superior rekindled their love for Raspberry Beer, a Belgian speciality apparently. We didn't overdo it though - this was our last night in Auckland and next morning we would have to get up early and collect the campervan......

Well I won't bore you with the few days before Mammy's flight arrived in Auckland, except to say that my grand plans to continue improving my new diving skills were thwarted somewhat ...

Pool, check, white plastic deckchairs, check, potted plant, check, water ... ah

Anyway, we were there at the airport ready for her when she arrived very late on Valentine's day, with a poxy little sheet of A4 paper that said 'Kia Ora Mammy' (to help her identify us as it has been a little while since we last saw each other). There were a group of Finns there at the same time, also waiting for family, with an over-the-top, totally ostentatious sign decorated with flags and kiwis and sheep - and Gareth and I were truly jealous of it. The sign didn't help them when their family arrived though, because they still looked daft when they rugby tackled their family to the floor as they came through the arrival doors. Luckily they had all gone by the time Mammy came through the doors like a contestant from 'Stars in their Eyes' and she seemed quite happy with our more restrained, and very British, effort.

No sign of jetlag yet

We know Mammy loves shopping so first stop was the supermarket around the corner for a few supplies (always good after a 24 hour flight) then back to the airport hotel, where, after a quick catch up we put her to bed as soon as possible in the hope of fending off the jetlag.

Eggs Benedict, yum

Next morning over breakfast we ran through the plan for the next three weeks - a whistlestop tour around North Island taking in as much as possible and (hopefully) giving Mammy the trip of a lifetime. There were no arguments from Mammy - who was busy getting into her first flat white coffee - so it was agreed and off we set...

We'd hired a car for our first fortnight (a sad little Nissan Sunny whose best days were definitely behind it, and even those days weren't that great) and first stop was Raglan, on the West Coast, known for its world-class surfing at Manu Bay - and yes, you've guessed it, flat as a pancake when we arrived. (Incidentally, now that we've left Queensland, Dai has confirmed that the surf is back.) Raglan was pretty enough, with a row of shops along one main street but with no surf, and the arrival of rain the mext morning, we decided to move on to the town of New Plymouth, in the Taranaki region.

"Sarah, your mum will be fine travelling in here"

It was an epic drive - despite New Zealand being tiny compared with Australia, the scenic, winding roads here take a lot longer to navigate than the easy, straight roads we'd got so bored of in Queensland. Driving to New Plymouth took nearly all day - but when we arrived there was some surf!

Catch it while you can

I was more impressed by the sight of beautiful Mt Taranaki, the volcano that gives the region its name, visible from the car park above the surf beach.

Pretty spectacular

Now for some facts about the volcano - I can give you lots. First of all, at 2518m high, it is the most-climbed mountain in New Zealand and was the stand-in for Mt Fuji in Tom Cruise's film The Last Samurai. More interesting is the Maori legend that explains that Taranaki once stood with the other volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park area, until Taranaki and Tongariro himself had a bit of a bust-up over a girl volcano, Pihanga (isn't it always over a girl?) and Taranaki fled west, tearing up a wide scar across the country where the Whanganui River now flows. Now Taranaki hides his face behind a cloud of tears. Sad, isn't it?

Mt Taranaki is one of the wettest places in New Zealand and there is a saying:

If you can see Mt Taranaki it's going to rain and if you can't see Mt Taranaki it's already raining.

I could see that was true because by the time we came up from the beach the mountain had completely vanished from view. I guessed it had started raining over there...

While we were in New Plymouth, Mammy decided it was time for more flat whites. These are a really nice coffee that you can get here in New Zealand and in Oz. They're quite addictive and Mammy had got the bug. We went into a cafe and Mammy ordered one each for us, getting into a bit of bother with the New Zealand accent, which is a bit clipped and flat. The conversation went a bit like this:

Mammy: Three flat whites please
Waiter: Three flit whuyts. Thut'll be tin dollars fufty cints
Mammy: I'm sorry? How much?
Waiter: Tin fufty
Mammy: How much?

At this point Gareth stepped in to translate, ten dollars fifty cents please. Here started the running joke of the trip and we found many, many ways to use it.

What time do we have to check out tomorrow? Tin o'clock

How long until our washing is finished? Tin minutes

What are you doing in the water? I'm putting my tin toes in the Tasman Sea

...and so on.

From New Plymouth we headed south towards Wellington, where we'd run into a bit of a problem with our laid-back attitude to booking accommodation. That evening the Wellington Hurricanes were playing the Auckland Blues in the Super 14 rugby and the night before, New Zealand had whooped the Aussies' butts in the cricket, so there were no rooms in Wellington and we had to stay just outside in a place called Porirua. There was nothing much there except a fish and chip shop where we got our supper. Now the only thing I put on my chips is salt, but Mammy and Gareth love vinegar and in New Zealand they don't seem to understand that chips without vinegar is WRONG. Mammy obviously planned for us to eat chips a few more times over the holiday because at the next opportunity she bought a huge bottle of vinegar, possibly the biggest I've ever seen - certainly more than big enough for a three week trip where only two of you like vinegar.

Product shown actual size

Next day we made up for lost time in Wellington - first stop was the red cable car - running since 1902, which took us up to Kelburn. From here there were beautiful views over the city and also the Skyline restaurant, where we had lunch before wandering over to the Botanical Gardens. The gardens were a bit wild but they did have a few weird and wonderful things to look at, including a sundial where you used your body to tell the time (it worked!).

Sarah's true vocation was as an Army Physical Training Instructor

Later on we found a few exhibits that were supposedly something to do with light and sound but we never really worked them out.

Gareth would never make the mistake of trying to take an unpeeled banana off an elephant again...

After getting the cable car back down to the city, we wandered across the waterfront to Te Papa, the national museum. I'd heard rave reviews about this place and they weren't wrong. For starters, it was free! By the time we arrived, it was about 4pm and with the museum spread across five floors we were never going to see everything - but in two hours we managed to visit the museum's own Marae (Maori meeting place), find out a bit about Maori culture, see some of New Zealand's wildlife, get coffee and cake, experience an earthquake and learn about volcanoes and do a virtual bungee jump! Phew!

Mammy had completely forgotten the universal diving sign for shark

After dinner that evening in an Italian restaurant, where Gareth met someone he knew through work in Cardiff (he had come travelling himself but reached New Zealand and never left - small world!) we had another important place to visit - Wellington's Welsh pub, owned by my Auntie Margaret's cousin Michael. The Welsh Dragon is apparently the only Welsh pub in the Southern Hemisphere - it was weird, walking into a pub decorated with Welsh flags and photos, listening to Welsh music, and being served by a barman from Abergele.

Iechyd Da!

Despite Michael not being there, we had a good time, which got even better when a skinny South American in flip flops walked in and started playing Lionel Richie on the battered old piano. As you can imagine, being Lionel Richie's Number One fan, I was in my element. So was Gareth, and it took a few hours, several beers and a Black Russian (this is a drink, not a person) before we managed to get him back to the hotel.

Next morning, to clear the cobwebs and Gareth's hangover we drove to the top of Mount Victoria for fantastic views of Wellington harbour, the city, and its surrounds, followed by a quick stop at Wellington Cathedral before we headed to Napier, another epic drive away, on the East coast.

Mammy was made to stay behind after class

Napier is known for its Art Deco architecture, the result of rebuilding following the 1931 earthquake that virtually destroyed the city. Well, they call it a city, I think that Llanelli could easily claim city status if it was here in NZ. We'd booked into a motel right on the front and it was early to bed because next morning we had big plans, starting at about 5am when our alarm went off and I called Andrew at Early Morning Balloons to confirm that our hot-air balloon trip was still on - and it was!

The website said that with Early Morning Balloons we would be up in the air in time to see the sunrise - at 6am we were still faffing about in the car park trying to decide where to go and by 7am we had finally found somewhere to 'launch' from - if that's what they say. Getting the balloon ready to go took ages although it was quite cool to watch - and the sun was well risen by the time were ready to go. Thankfully they don't use a foot pump for the balloon, as it was absolutely huge and took about twenty minutes to inflate with an industrial size fan. There were six passengers plus Andrew and it was a bit of a squeeze in the basket. One of the other passengers was an ex-pat, originally from Chester, who was quite possibly the most boring man ever, with lots of little anecdotes to tell (many about tinned fruit), none of which were even remotely connected to the conversation going on. Fortunately for him (and us) he was wedged up the other end of the basket as otherwise I fear that Gareth might have thrown him over the side before the end of the trip.

The balloon ride lasted about an hour and with hardly any wind at all, the main issue wasn't keeping it up in the air but making sure we went far enough to avoid all the orchards in Hawkes Bay. It was a very smooth landing, with no bumps, then we were served a 'Ballooning Breakfast' which was lovely although somewhere along the line I foolishly agreed to drive so I had to do without most of my glass of fizz!

Gareth now realised why Sarah and Cheryl had been so quiet

Back in Napier that afternoon we relaxed a bit with a few more flat whites and a wander around the shops and the beach.

Undercover flat white drinker

Best to take it easy with what we had planned for the next week ...