As I left Wellington on the ferry to the south island the weather was rubbish, lots of wind. Initially I was worried that this would give me a rough ride. I had seriously underestimated the size of the ferry, it was a very smooth ride – and they had some films on a big screen in the passenger lounge so I was at least slightly entertained.
Strangely the crossing left me feeling a lot more isolated and alone than any other stage of my travelling. I have several possible explanations for this, firstly I had a pretty sociable time in Wellington, meeting up with Olivia again along with some of the people on her bus. It left me thinking that I’ll definitely get a bus of some kind in Australia.
Secondly it was a period of travelling, giving that feeling of distance but with no plans on arrival. No hostel booking, no WWOOF’ing farms (Willing Workers On Organic Farms), nothing.
Third possible is that I’d just reached that stage of travelling where one tends to feel a bit homesick – apparently it happens about 3 months in, on average.

I’ve jumped out of the timeline for my last few posts, but I’m sure you can keep up 🙂
I’m sure that you can imagine that travelling alone over the Christmas period is a very lonely experience. However it’s not quite as bad as you may think, before you get offended let me explain. Firstly it doesn’t feel like Christmas, it’s hot and bright, the sun sets late and rises early. Secondly I’ve stoically refused to fully acknowledge that it’s Christmas/New Year. My reasoning being that Christmas is a time to be with family and New Year is a time to be with friends. Seeing that family and friends are pretty much as far away as they can get without leaving the planet (other than the new friends here in NZ of course, but they’re all on the other island).
So, what did I do on Christmas? I went on a boat trip around Milford Sound and got an early night – essentially no change to my travelling. Unfortunately this did put me out of mobile range so I couldn’t talk to home.
On new years I had some sausages – proper meat is a rarity because I don’t have a fridge in the van. I did stay up until about 10:30 but that was it (second New Years in a row when I didn’t to anything, last year I had the flu!) As luck would have it I was in a skiing town and therefore was completely dead in summer. This meant that there was only myself and some guys in a tent at the campsite. Nice and quiet – just what I wanted.

When you find yourself thinking ‘I can’t drink any more water today, it’s too expensive’ you know that you’ve been too restrictive with you budget. Running out of money I’d decided that I should be able to live on about $100 a week (roughly 40 pounds a day). So I stopped driving around so much (diesel is expensive!) and tried to live in my van as much as possible. However I had to go to campsites every few days for a shower, to do laundry and to refil my drinking water bottles. Although this travel-less travel plan did result in some more photography action –



-it quickly became obvious that it was an unworkable plan. Initially I changed plan completely, travel a lot and get a job when the money runs out. This seemed like a good idea until it came to getting a job – I had no luck finding picking jobs for only two weeks (not too keen on other temp type jobs). Fortunately for me my Grandads unexpected Christmas generosity means that I don’t have to worry about money so much anymore. I still plan to try and get a picking job when I return to the north island. Either that or spend a few weeks working on a farm, it doesn’t pay but it doesn’t cost either 🙂

The day after falling from the sky (which is much better than having the sky fall on your head) I went to walk the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (to give it it’s full and proper name). This is a seven hour hike up and across the volcanic peaks just south of lake Taupo. I was prepared for this mission, I had a proper English lunch box with enough food for at least the entire day if not possibly some of the following day too. I intended to take a picture to share with you this great traditional symbol – but I forgot.
I also had the following: An extra jumper, a long sleave t-shirt, a tripod, poncho, first aid kit, biscuits, chocolate and a silver emergency heat blanket. I was taking the warnings that weather can change quickly quite seriously.
I had to get up at some ludicrous hour in the morning to catch a bus at 6:30 to get to the start of the walk. I was rather dismayed to find that even super early in the morning the sun was already in the sky. However when we arrived at the start point for the track the weather was not looking good.

Read the rest of this entry »

It is a generally acknowledged fact that facing your fears is a good thing to do, it can help you grow and become a better person. The same could be said for travelling, and in some cases travelling and facing your fears are one and the same thing. When facing your fears however it must be pointed out that some fears should not be faced these are rational fears and as long as they aren’t so extreme as to influence normal life then leave them well alone – for example falling from a great height. If this is a fear of yours then don’t go and jump off a cliff, it may cure your fear but it will also cure you of breathing and food addition.
Other fears are irrational fears, for example public speaking or cotton wool. Some people are afraid of public speaking (like me) but have no reason or desire to face that fear. You could say that in many ways there is no problem with this as you can leave a perfect normal life without ever having to get up and speak in public. I’m not afraid of cotton wool but I’d suggest that if you are you should try and sort it out.
Having said all this I have yet to drop in on a toastmasters meeting. Read the rest of this entry »

My next WWOOF’er hosts (still make it sound like I’m a parasite of some kind in my ears) were lovely too, they are in the middle of getting a sustainable tree wood type thing going. First day there had been an emergency, Clyde is a substitute teacher although in NZ it has a different name which I can’t remember. Anyway seeing as everyone was going to be out I spent the day in Hamilton I looked at Hamilton Gardens, which were ok, walked along the river for quite a way which was very nice. Then I spent the rest of the day in the cinema as it came on to rain. I watched Ghost Town and My best friends girl, both comedies and both hugely enjoyable.
In the evening I had the joy of being able to watch Clyde teaching some Aikido classes. It was quite interesting to compare this Japanese Martial Art with the things that I’d learnt (and I realised am forgetting at an alarming rate) in China. Then we went out for an Indian. The whole family – Mum Diane and the two teenagers Aaron and Rowan were vegetarians so I decided ‘when in Rome’ 🙂
I did feel a bit bad about having had some food and two nights board without actually having done anything so it was good to get on the next day and start planting trees and clearing weeds etc.
In all I stayed with the family for a week. I was even getting on pretty well with the boys by the time I left which was a surprised considering that my age is equal to theirs combined – just goes to show that it’s less important than I sometimes give it credit for. I also greatly enjoyed some of the more philosophical chats that I had with Clyde. He’d been in a family cult for quite a lot of his life – not sure about the specifics but still it gave him and interesting view on things. On leaving their house I went to the ‘famous’ Glow worm caves in Waitomo. It was very beautiful but didn’t last all that long as I chose a cheaper boat tour option as opposed to black water rafting – whatever that is. From their I went straight on to Taupo, another adrenaline fuelled city. And close to the Tongariro Crossing, a one day hike right across the volcano cones in the middle of the north island.

This WWOOF’ing is a pretty good lark, my second hosts run a full time business as well as working towards becoming self sufficient. I was still weeding and digging but it was a different atmosphere, and the home cooked lunches were pretty great. I had to cook for everyone – which was at first a bit daunting but in the end I just did a chilli. It was only OK, I’d forgotten some ingredients during the shopping stage. Being a business we (there was another WWOOF’er there) got to go on one of the visits – to a zoo after hours and we saw a newly born white-top monkey (literally that morning – not yet being shown to the masses). Very cute!
On the weekend I phone the zorbing place yet again and finally they were doing dry zorbing! The family had left to go water-skiing so I locked up the house and was off!!!
After quite a lot of faffing I was strapped in place and ready to off: Read the rest of this entry »

I arrived in Rotorua and checked into a campsite – nothing abnormal about that. The next day I prepared to leave for the zorbing rush I’d been assured was ‘kick-ass’ my van failed to start. In fact it failed to do anything – no dash light even. Complete power failure. I paid for another night at the camp and called the AA – yes I’m that prepared. They came out promptly and much to my relief the problem turned out to be a loose battery connection. One that had been fixed in the past by screwing a self-tapping screw right through the connector and into the terminal. The AA guy tutted and took it out, then tightened it properly with a spanner. It’s never been a problem since.
I was now ready for driving and Zorbing. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t. It was grey and drizzling and generally a bit dull. I decided that I didn’t want to have a ‘kick-ass’ experience without a bit of sunshine to brighten it up – just in case it wasn’t actually that great.
I ended up spending the entire day reading Judus Unchained. I actually got through over half the book. No small feat for a twelve hundred page epic. The following day (we’re talking 25th November here – a Tuesday) I had to leave anyway as I was off to another WWOOF’ing farm, on the way I’d stop in at the zorbing place I decided. So I did… no dry zorbing today.
Let me explain, there are two types of zorbing, the more popular one is where the ball you’re put into has a bit of water added supposedly this makes it more extreme but what it actually does is act as a lubricant so essentially you can sit fairly still as the ball rotates around you. However I didn’t fancy getting wet so I was after the second option where they strap you in and you go flinging all over the place in the same manner that the ball is. Without this option available I decided to go for a walk instead so I could arrive at the appropriate time at the farm.

Exploring the Coromandel Peninsular is something that I’d definitely recommend for photography and hiking fans alike. After my walking joy and hot water beach disappointment (link) I zipped across the country to Raglan, supposedly the surf capital of New Zealand and famous for it’s left hand breaks – whatever that means. Two very good reasons for this cross-country switch – one was that it was Ally’s birthday a room-mate from Auckland who also arrived via real-gap, and the other was to get a surf lesson.
We discovered that Raglan is not a party town, by any stretch of the imagination. Friday night – half ten, and almost everywhere was closed or emptying. We made the best of it though so it wasn’t too bad.
The surf lesson was quite an experience. Just getting to the sea was a mission, the beach had black sand and so got damn hot in the NZ sun! I mean to the point that you have to run to the sea. It’s like walking hot coals before you’ve started!!
Getting up onto the board and standing up was very easy – on dry land. On a wave however things were rather different. This is assuming that you’ve chosen a good wave, gotten onto the board (we didn’t go beyond feet on the bottom depth) before the wave was too close or passed and then actually roughly matched speed with the wave in time. After slightly more than two hours in the water I think I managed to try and stand up about four times, maybe more I wasn’t counting.
It was quite a cool experience if short lived. The very salty water being forced into every face hole did put a bit of a dampener on the whole thing and put me off jumping straight back on the following day – it was an option. I think I would try it again but only if I either earn some more money or can do it for free.
I left Raglan without saying goodbye properly to Ally, which was a shame, she was surfing and I had to get on to my next destination. Rotorua the place of all things adrenaline, the aim – Zorbing.