New Zealand, North Island - 9-13 Nov, 2006
So, after six days of acting like a rabbit dazzled by the bright lights of a juggernaut that represents NZ's biggest city (about the size of Wigan), I got my act together and managed to leave Auckland. Maybe I'd over done it on the sushi. Maybe so.
I decided to avoid the GAPers' stalwarts of the Kiwi Experience, Stray or Magic buses, the equivalent of an 18-30 party bus where the fresh faced youths bump off each other and get a bleary & beery eyed view of some of the most dramatic and remote bars in NZ. These are sometimes referred to as Shag Wagons or perhaps more charmingly F*ck Trucks (apologies for the use of a swear word to Mrs Gorringe, my probation officer). I opted for InterCity, the equivalent of our National Express. The clientele is a more mature crowd that still gets dressed up in ill fitting sports jackets complete with knackered suitcases tied up with string. Other than showing myself up with my dress sense, I fitted in quite well.
My first planned stop was Waitomo down the west side of the north island. It's famous for its caves and the GAPers like to go tubing in the fast flowing rivers that run through the cave network. We'll never know whether I would have paid good money to do what as a kid I did with an old tractor inner tube down Harrold weir - the rain had been falling for the last three days meaning the water level was too high. Instead I found myself with a group of Japanese tourists ogling into the pitchy caves at glow worms - oooh. Outside the rain had really started to bucket down. I still hadn't found the reason I was in NZ.
I pulled the pin on an overnight stop in Waitomo and climbed back on the bus heading for Rotorua, famous for its volcanic activity: bubbling mud pools, geysers (jets of steamy water rather than Shoreditch-finned mockneys), steaming lakes and eggy odour. The whole place had the smell of brimstone and were it not for the lake view,collection of seventies cars and the fact it was coming down in stair rods, it could have been mistaken for hell-lite.
It was in the Rotorua hostel (closest to the bus depot on account of tipping rain) that I managed to lock myself out of my dorm room whilst taking a nocturnal leak. Things would have been better if I hadn't done a McCann and scampered to the bathroom in the buff. I don't know whether the unfortunate dorm mate that had to get up and open the door was more annoyed at being woken from his slumbers or more shocked at what presented itself in the unflattering neon light of the hallway. I didn't see him in the morning, he had left early, perhaps even before he had put his shoes on.
I have a smashing wee video clip of the bubbly mud but I haven't figure out how or indeed if I can upload vids onto the BigBlagBlog.
A'wight Geyser!
A strange coloured lake with steam and stinking of eggs.
A picture of my towel before I washed it. Only kidding, I haven't washed it yet.
A sort of rock ledge with funny coloured deposits cascading down it like some overspill of goo (but it was more crusty than gooey, how odd).
