Greymouth - Big Adventure Day 3

Day 3 of our holiday was pretty rubbish. We spent a good six hours driving from Kaikoura to Greymouth, and then Greymouth itself lived up to it's name - its pretty grey and boring. The reason we were going to Greymouth at all was because we had to cross the Southern Alps, a mountain range that runs from north to south, splitting the island in half. This meant lots of winding mountain roads.

The only highlight of the day was the hostel, which was decorated in a very nice African theme and had spacious rooms, sparkling bathrooms, and a well equipped kitchen. And The Return of the King on DVD.

Instead of a detailed break down of our day, I shall tell you about the experience of driving in the South Island.

Firstly, there are hardly any roads. It was pretty much one road to each place we went to. Most of the places we went through exist entirely on that one road, so peoples addresses are things such as 'The Farm, State Highway 6, New Zealand'. Can you imagine if your street address was 'M1 Northbound'?

Secondly, New Zealand have simply wonderful road safety posters. My favourites are:

1. A picture of a corpse's feet with a cardboard identification tag tied round the toe, and the tagline 'SPEEDING TICKET' written over the top.
2. 'Drink' on the first line and 'Drive' on the second line, but the 'r' and the 'v' were written really small, so it seemed to read 'DRINK DIE'.
3. Plain black background with a white crucifix, and 'SLOW DOWN' emblazoned underneath.

Thirdly, due to the large amounts of native bush, periodically we would drive past swingometer-style boards informing us of the fire risk for that day in that area. Most of the time it varied between low and moderate, due to the weather, but once it was on 'Extreme', which was quite worrying.

Lastly, due to the combined geology and weather in the South Island, there are literally thousands of rivers and streams. Every time the road crosses one there is a little sign telling you the name of the stream. New Zealanders are not very inventive, so a lot are called things such as 'Station Creek' (it ran past the railway station) or 'Rocky Creek' (it was full of rocks). Even more are named after people. However, we came across some absolute gems:

1. Random Creek
2. Dismal Creek
3. Imp Grotto
4. So Big Creek
5. The Trickle No.1
6. The Trickle No.2

It was very entertaining.

Dolphin Encounter - Big Adventure Day 2

Just off the Kaikoura peninsula is the Hikurangi Trench, a 1000m deep sea trench where warm and cold currents meet. This results in nutrient-rich water rising up from the trench, and this attracts abundant marine wildlife.

Which means several species of dolphin. And several species of whale. And seals, and penguins, and albatrosses (albatrossi?), and...you get the picture.

I felt pretty rotten that morning (did my usual trick of going a greenish tinge) but the task of putting on the wetsuit distracted me. We had sleeveless body suit, jacket with a delightful strap that went between the legs, hood and socks. The sizing was a little odd - I had to have a size 10 body suit and a size 16 jacket. Even the wetsuit man was confused.

After shoe-horning ourselves into our gear, we settled down in a room for an informative video. This told us about dolphin table manners and dating etiquette and things. And how to attract their attention and play with them.

Following the video we piled into a coach and headed off to the boat. There was a pod of about 400 dolphins in the bay, so we quickly located those and got ready for our swim. The pod was a mix of common dolphins and dusky dolphins, swimming and socialising together which is unusual. Putting on my flippers, goggles and snorkel I got ready to utilise my new dolphin speed-dating skills and got into the water.

Tip number 1: Sing to the dolphins to catch their attention.

Other people sang sensible things like 'Three Blind Mice', or hummed random notes (apart from one guy who seemed to speak fluent dolphin and just squawked a lot). I couldn't think of anything to hum, so I just said 'Helloooo dolphins' over and over again.

Unfortunately, sound travels quite well underwater, so everyone else could hear me. They all laughed. But I was surrounded by dolphins for the majority of the time, so they can all get lost.

Tip number 2: Play with the dolphins by spinning round in circles with them.

This was great fun. The dolphins would swim straight at you, in a bizarre underwater game of chicken, then at the last moment turn and swim round you. If you span round in the water in the same direction as them they would continue to swim round in circles - this was their way of playing with us. This could last for up to a couple of minutes if you managed to get a particularly playful dolphin.

Tip number 3: Don't touch the dolphins, as you will put them off coming near humans.

This was harder than expected, as the dolphins got so close I could easily have reached out and touched one. But dolphins are actually pretty massive and so strong and powerful that when you are confronted with one 15cm from your face the last thing you want to do is make it angry.

Tip number 4: Act as dolphin-like as possible.

I am not good at pretending to be a dolphin. Even with my long history of butterfly swimming. I mainly flail.

I know it is the cliche to say swimming with dolphins is 'the best thing I've ever done', but I'm just gunna have to be cliched and say it: this was the best experience of my life. I'm no word smith and can't come up with a poetic sentence to explain how amazing it was, so you'll all just have to enter the following words into a thesaurus and make your own up:

• Fantastic
• Awe-inspiring
• Humbling
• Beautiful

The dolphins were really friendly, inquisitive and playful, and I couldn't recommend the dolphin encounter at Kaikoura more.

We swam for about 40mins then clambered back into the boat to our towels and dry clothes. After that the boat followed the pod for a while, enabling us to get millions of photos to bore everyone back home. The dusky dolphins are the species that do the various acrobatic back flips and mid-air spins, and they love to show off:

At one point the skipper sped up and the dolphins raced the boat - they like doing this because the boat creates a wave in front of it that lets the dolphins swim even faster than they normally do. I videoed this, and it will be appearing on this blog shortly.

Eventually we had to leave the dolphins and head back to shore. After showering and getting lunch we ambled (no fast walking after expending all our energy in the sea) along the peninsula to the Point Kean Car Park. This may seem like an odd tourist attraction, but the car park is home to a fur seal colony. Apparently the males like the car park, and the females like the rocks nearby.

Here is one geezer hiding under a bush:

On the way back to town we stopped off at Kaikoura Seafood BBQ for a snack.

This looks like a burger van that you get at Bonfire Night and any other council-run events, but instead of selling hotdogs and cheeseburgers it sells super-fresh seafood platters, grilled crayfish, garlic prawns, scallops etc. We decided to try a paua fritter.

Paua, or Haliotis iris, is a sea snail unique to New Zealand waters. The shells are highly prized by the Maori (they are taonga - treasure) as they have whorls of irridescent blues, greens and silvers when polished. There are many laws governing the use of paua: for example, each diver is allowed to catch ten paua per day, and only by free diving - it is illegal to use scuba equipment. The Maori people own the right to harvest paua, and can grant permission to people. Also, you cannot take an unprocessed paua shell out of New Zealand - only the polished form of the shell.

After our snack we headed back to the hostel to psych ourselves up for the enormous meal that awaited us - we were going for crayfish at a restaurant, as it is the local delicacy. We decided to flash the banks our cash and get a seafood platter, which consisted of half a crayfish each, crumbed fish fillets, calamari, scallops, prawns, mussels, salad and garlic bread, for a mere £35 each. But it was so good, and I'm glad we spent the little bit extra to try the crayfish.

With (very) full tummies we went back to the hostel to sleep, as the days excursions had worn us out somewhat. To finish up, here are two more cloud+mountain+water pictures:

Kaikoura - Big Adventure Day 1

Last Friday I went on the first proper holiday I've been on since I was 16. Unfortunately, it began with a 5:25am wake up call, which was quite hard as the night before we'd been to a comedy show as part of the New Zealand Comedy Festival. But, we soldiered on, and went to the South Island.

The Maori name for NZ's South Island is 'Te Wai Pounamu', which means 'The Water of Greenstone'. This is because the West Coast of the South Island is the only place in the country that greenstone, or jade, can be found washed up on the shores and in rivers.

I have no idea what I was expecting a site of a recent natural disaster to look like, but when we flew into Christchurch it looked as if nothing had happened. Clearly we must not have been in the part of town that was badly affected, which was fortunate as it meant all the roads were open and we were able to get sushi for lunch. We didn't stay in Christchurch, as many places are closed, so we set off in our rented car for Kaikoura.

This is our rented car, in front of Lake Te Anau, which we visited later in the week. We named him Rory, because of the lovely noise he made when we forced him to go up hills.

Kaikoura is about 180km north of Christchurch, on the east coast of the island. Maori legend has it that Maui used the the area to stabilise his feet when he was hauling up the fish that made the North Island (I hope you remember your Maori legend lessons!). Kaikoura literally means 'food crayfish' in Maori, and gets its name from 'Te Ahi Kaikoura a Tami-ki-te-Rangi', which means 'the fire which cooked the crayfish of Tami-ki-te-Rangi'.

Tami-ki-te-Rangi was a most unfortunate fellow who returned home one day to find three of his wives had been stolen by Poutini, the guardian of the greenstone. He set off immediately to find them, and he stopped off in Kaikoura to have a meal of crayfish, hence the name. He did catch up to his wives eventually in Milford Sound, but found Poutini had turned them into greenstone. The three different types of greenstone found in NZ are named after his wives. One of the types is flecked with black, and these are said to be Tami-ki-te-Rangi's tears that he wept onto the statue of his wife, staining the stone forever.

More on greenstone and Milford Sound later.

Anyway, we arrived in Kaikoura late afternoon. Kaikoura is the kind of place where you can be gazing in wonder at a sea fret over a beautiful bay, and then drive round a corner and be confronted by the sight of snow-topped mountains, the low sun creating a spectrum of colours in the mist.

That night we ended up wandering round the Kaikoura bay watching the sun set, stopping every few minutes to take pictures.

Then we returned to our hostel and had our first experience of cooking in a kitchen overrun with young gap year backpackers. After that we set off to find a local uninhabited field (not difficult in the South Island at all!) to look at the stars, as it was such a clear night. None of us had seen so many stars before, and me and DrE spent the time educating the other two on astrophysics using knowledge imparted by Professor Brian Cox.

After that it was back to the hostel and to bed, as we had a big day the next day.

WORD OF WARNING:

At least half of my blogs from the South Island will involve pictures of cloud+mountain+body of water in various combinations. Try not to get too bored.

WORD OF WARNING No.2:

The cloud+mountain+body of water pics do not do NZ justice. I know I keep saying this, but if you want to fully appreciate NZ, you have to come here. Photos are nothing in comparison.

WORD OF WARNING No.3:

Due to the cloud+mountain+body of water combinations being so amazing in the second half of the trip, it is hard to be too enthusiastic about Kaikoura, even if when I was there I was convinced it was one of the most beautiful places I'd seen. Milford Sound has ruined my appreciation for other places.

3643km later...

...and we're safe back in Auckland. Blogs on South Island hijinks to follow shortly!

The Quest

Bright and early (6:30am) tomorrow morning we embark on The Quest.

This is what we are calling the road trip, as you guys failed to come up with useful and hilarious-in-a-British-humour-kind-of-way titles. No offence to those who submitted suggestions. So, 'The Quest' is it.

The capitalisation is compulsory.

This means no blogs for 10-12 days, unfortunately. I'm really sorry, please don't get too suicidally upset by the absence of my hysterical writings. I'll be too busy having Fun (also capitalised) to blog.

However, I will leave you with the Doctor Who plot my grandma helpfully compiled from the list of things involved in The Quest:

'In period dress, the Doctor and his companion travelers are captured by sea creatures who live under the polar icecap of a distant planet, where the only light is from the innumerable number of stars that shine constantly with light so powerful that it penetrates through the ice. The Doctor and etc eventually overcome the creatures by using a cunning plot and escape by using a boat made of ice, which eventually reaches the surface of the icecap and they return to the Tardis.'

Yep, Grandma Dragon, that's exactly what it's going to be like.

Freddy's Ice House

Tonight we went to an ice bar.

This is a bar made of ice.

The walls are ice.

The tables are ice.

The chairs are ice.

The glasses are ice.

You get the picture.

Pretty much the only things that aren't ice are the floor and the drinks. We turned into ice after an hour in the bar.

It was quite an odd place. First off, you weren't allowed to take pictures - instead they would take pics with their own cameras and then you had to buy the prints. Second, they gave you latex gloves to put inside the snow gloves. Lastly, it is basically just a walk-in freezer with house music blasting out the speakers.

After two cocktails we were pretty chilly, so we went to another bar to thaw. This was also odd - it was a typical sports cafe, but half the room was set up as a bookies and the other half was showing televised chariot racing.

Easter Film Review

Well, after failing to do sitting down things on Good Friday, I tried harder for the rest of the weekend. This time I succeeded! So here is a run down of the weekends films:

1) Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring : ****

Dumbledore and some fellas of varying heights roam the New Zealand countryside meeting elves, fighting orcs, and generally having a good time. Sure, there is some mean bloke trying to destroy their homes and enslave them, and the vertically challenged ones are permanently on the brink of tears, but overall it's a feel-good romcom. The best bit is when Dumbledore shouts 'YOU SHALL NOT PASS' and then 'dies'.

Morals of the story:

• Jewellery is evil (compare and contrast: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).
• Never toss a dwarf.

2) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers : ****

See above.

Morals of the story:

• Never enrage a giant tree.
• Tossing a dwarf is acceptable in the midst of battle.

3) I Love You, Man: ***

Man is getting married, but has no friends to be his best man (why he couldn't ask his brother I have not worked out. Probably because then there would be no film). Goes speed-dating and makes a friend, but the friend is a tad childish and causes friction between Man and his fiancée. There's a lot of air guitar, jokes about Lou Ferrigno, and an awful lot of swearing considering it was being broadcast at 2pm. In the end, it all works out fine: he gets the girl, he gets the friend, and even the dramatic gay man is happy.

Morals of the story:

• It's bad to laugh at people (read: Americans) who spell Zoe 'Zooey'.
• Don't name your dog after dead Egyptian presidents, as you will get sued.

4) The Matrix: **

Keanu Reeves takes a break from looking sad to discover the world is a computer program. Actually, this was before he was sad, but as this world is not real it doesn't matter what order I say things happen. Anyway, Keanu busts out of the program, where he had a nice cushy life, to the real world, where he is hunted and suffers a fair bit. Silly man.

Morals of the story:

• There is no spoon.

5) Public Enemies: ****

Man robs bank. Man gets sent to jail. Man escapes. Man robs bank. Man has intimate relations with Woman. Man dies and Woman gets sent to jail. The End.

Morals of the story:

• Just say no.

6) Shrek: ****

It had been so long since I'd seen the original Shrek that I'd forgotten a lot of the jokes, which was nice. Shrek is an ugly ogre, who goes to save a princess trapped in a castle. But, the princess has a secret *gasp* - she is also an ogre! Well, only at night time. Then she looks like half the drag queens down the gay village on a Friday night. She eventually comes to realise that Shrek is her true love, and they get rid of Lord Shortypants and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, there are no dragon-donkey-babies in this film *sad face*.

Morals of the story:

• Princesses can explode birds with the power of their voices. Beware.
• Inside every dragon is a beautiful woman just waiting to be loved.

7) Hot Fuzz: ***

Simon Pegg is a super duper policemanofficer who gets sent to a quiet country village when he gets promoted. He meets Nick Frost, who is another policemanofficer, and they become best buds. But then, Simon Pegg uncovers a dastardly ethnic cleansing programme going on in the village, and disagrees on moral grounds. So he shoots the lot.

Morals of the story:

• Chunky Monkey is the standard punishment for drink driving.
• You can take on most organised crime rings if you have aviators, ketchup and a sea mine.

8) Valentines Day: ***

Star-studded romcom (compare and contrast: Lord of the Rings Trilogy) full of heart-warming story arcs that go a bit like this: boy meets girl. Boy finds out girl is an Adult Phone Entertainer. Boy has a bit of a paddy, but the girl has fallen in love with him after like, two dates, so they are fated to be together for all eternity. It's a bit like a bad American version of 'Love Actually', but in this one the cute kid is in love with his teacher, which is a bit creepy.

Morals of the story:

• In fact, this whole film is one long moral. Think of all the morals you could fit into a film about love, and you've just about got it.

So, there you have what I got up to this Easter weekend.

And now, it's time for me to ask for a little help from you guys back home. On Friday me and three others are going off on a ten day trip. However, we want to call it 'A Quest For...' but have not come up with a good thing to be questing for. Any ideas? The trip will include:

• Ice.
• Sea Creatures.
• Boats.
• Stars.
• Period dress.

Answers on a postcard/email please!