Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Home!








April 9 - We spent our last morning wandering around a market close to our hotel. It was mostly fish, stalls but also lots of vegetables and entire stalls with foodstuffs that I didn’t recognize at all. The market ran for what seemed like miles down little alleyways that often ended in a temple - quite fascinating! Many different sights and smells. A uniformed taxi driver came to our hotel at exactly the time he was supposed to, to take us to the airport, but we didn’t know how far it was and we drove for what seemed like hours. I was beginning to have visions of my children getting a phone call demanding ransom! We did see some signs to the airport, but then they would disappear again. Anyway, we were eventually (2 hours later) delivered safely and got on the plane. It was one of those weird experiences where you actually arrive before you leave with the international date line, so we settled in to zone out for about 24 hours. The flight to San Francisco was fine - lots of movies and food. San Francisco to Denver was a little less fine as we were getting pretty tired, so we were very happy to get into the Saskatoon-bound plane. We had been flying for about 1 ½ hours when the captain came on and told us that there was a really bad storm in Saskatoon and that we were turning round to go back to Denver. Apparently quite a few other flights had already been re-directed into Regina so they couldn‘t take us, so I’m actually typing this in the Denver Airport where John and I have spent an interesting night. We got back in around 10 pm local time and were told we could go to a hotel at our own expense and return by 7 am. Denver is a huge airport and our internal time clocks were completely out of whack so we decided not to bother with finding a cab and a hotel where we probably wouldn’t sleep anyway, and opted to spend a fun-filled night in the airport which apparently never sleeps. A lovely little cleaning man scrounged up a couple of foamies and a blanket for me and I had my earplugs and eye covers, so I settled in on the floor for a nap, However, they don’t turn off the PA system over night and every half hour, a lady would yell at me that the terrorist code was now orange and I was to report anything suspicious to an airport employee. At the moment, the only airport employee I can see is a cleaner who evidently uses this end of the airport as his hideaway during his night shift. He came roaring around the corner on a mechanical sweeper thing and set up shop a few benches away from me. He’s been there for ages, either texting or doing something with his i-pod! So our grand adventure has ended somewhat

Japan day 8





April 8 - We had the day to ourselves today so we had a late breakfast and started getting organized for tomorrow when we leave. The weather has perked up considerably - sunshine and much warmer than yesterday. Kyoto is much less of an international city than Tokyo e.g. no English language TV stations and almost no readily available tourist information in English. Since we were mainly on a tour here, I hadn’t done much homework and didn’t have a guidebook, but I had picked up a French brochure yesterday and was able to figure out that one of the Geisha schools puts on a music and dance recital every day in April. Since we are both completely museumed- and shrined-out, this sounded like a good thing to do. The theatre turned out to be in the Gion area which is within easy walking distance of our hotel, but Hartley was bound and determined that we were going to ride the subway in Kyoto, so off we went. In Tokyo, all the subway information was in Japanese and English, but not so here. We stood looking lost in front of the automatic ticket machine until a nice Japanese man came along to help. He didn’t speak any English but we showed him where we wanted to go and he helped us with the tickets. Then a nice train conductor told us which platform to go to, so we managed to arrive intact! A map has been our constant companion in Japan as Mabel won’t work here (our GPS lady) and we found our way to the Gion area which was quite fascinating. It’s one of the older parts of Kyoto with many old buildings and little alleyways that lead who knows where. It seems that almost every doorway leads to a restaurant! We found the theatre and bought our tickets for later in the afternoon and then we were stopped by a French family who had seen us looking at our map. They were looking for a very beautiful area where a little river runs through Gion and there are lots of tiny bridges and of course, cherry blossoms. So we poured over the map together and John and I decided that it sounded like a hopeful area for us to look at too, so off we went. It really was quite lovely and we found a nice little restaurant for lunch. We wandered back to the theatre again for an extraordinary experience. It was extremely professional with incredible costumes (all Geisha-type with incredibly rich fabrics and intricate head-dresses). The performance took an hour and there were 8 scenes which took us through the year from spring - spring. The music was provided by ladies playing drums, flutes and shamishens (the guitar-things which they play with huge picks) and singing. Of course the music is very strange to our western ears (Christie would be amazed at some of the things they can do with their voices!) And the dancing is all very ritualized. The dancers were amazing, completely in unison with their fans, stamping their feet and graceful movements. The scenery also was wonderful with parts of the stage popping up with dancers and scenery. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photographs inside the theatre - but there are some good pictures in the brochure I have.

Japan day 7








April 7 - If I thought yesterday was rush, rush, get on the bus, today was even more so. The temples/shrines tend to all mix together by the end of the day and I’m really glad that John took 625 photographs today (!) because when I went through them in chronological order, the day made more sense than it did at the time. I’m sure the tour is organized on some kind of principle, but it seems very confusing to the end-users. There were about 4 different groups on the tour bus today, some having lunch, some going on to the train station, some with the tour all day. The tour guides seem very harried (not surprisingly) as they have to try to keep track of all these different people who are all wearing different colored stickers - you feel a bit like a sale item in a store. Everywhere was very crowded because it’s peak cherry blossom time and everybody wants to see them, so I don’t envy the guides trying to chivvy about 40 tourists (not all of whom have English as their first language) through the crowds, explain what we are seeing and make sure we all arrive safely back on the bus at the right time. I don’t think we lost anyone today, but some idiot in our party decided to take a photo in a temple where we had expressly been told NOT to take photos, and he was seen by a monk. Silly idiot then denied that he had taken the photo, so I’m not sure what his excuse was when they took his camera and looked at the photographs. So we were delayed a bit while our guide went through all the motions to apologize to the monks for this guy (a) doing what he was told not to, and (b) then lying about it. Anyway, our first stop was the Nijo Castle which was built in 1603 (they love dates and numbers!) for the first Tokugawa Shogun. He was obviously a somewhat suspicious guy because all the floors have built-in squeaks, so you can’t move without a chorus of sound - this was to ensure that no “assassinators“ got to him. They are actually called nightingale floors which I thought was lovely - they do sound quite melodious! It was absolutely freezing today - I was very glad I had gloves and in desperation, I put the hood of my sweater up to keep my ears warm. We asked the guide how the Shogun had kept warm - charcoal braziers and lots of layers, apparently! The palace was huge and decorated with gorgeous paintings on the walls and lots of inlaid metal work. Next stop was the Golden Pavilion which really is covered in gold. It is set in a lovely garden (cherry blossoms, of course) and it is right on a pond so the famous photograph is the Pavilion with its reflection in the pond. We were all given lucky tokens which look like a large bookmark with Japanese writing and red stamps on them. Our guide (who was VERY sweet - a tiny little lady who wore a red hat and waved a sprig of cherry blossom to keep her retinue in line!) explained that when we got home, we were to “hoist” them to a high place in a living room and the gods would bring us good luck. However, we were NOT to stick them up with a pin because that will hurt the god (who is part of the token) and he will be angry and bring us bad luck. Then we were lucky enough to be able to go into the Kyoto Imperial Palace which is often closed to the public. I have run out of superlatives to describe these places (and to be honest, we have seen so many shrines and temples that they are all beginning to run together a bit) but the palace was amazing. They had opened up the doors to the throne room so we could see the two thrones (but we couldn’t actually go in.
And that was the morning’s tour! We had lunch at the Kyoto Handycraft Centre which was 7 stories of souvenirs!!! I had sworn that I wouldn’t buy another thing, but of course I did. They had some beautiful wood block pictures (and although there was a description of how they are made, it is still something of a mystery to me) so I had to buy a couple and some silk scarves.
Back on the bus in the afternoon together with a whole bunch of different people and off to the Heian Shrine. I don’t have a pamphlet on it, but I think this is where we saw the most amazing cherry blossoms of all. In the private garden (which somehow we had access to) there were trellises for the weeping cherry trees and they were quite spectacular. In a few days, all the blossoms will be gone, so we really did time the trip right on (pure luck as each year the season is slightly different). Then we went to Sajusangendo Temple where there are 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity Juichimen-senjusengen Kanzeon. They stand in ranks in front of an enormous Buddha. They are guarded by terrifying-looking guardian deities to scare people away. Last stop was the Kiyomuizu Temple where there is a 3 storey pagoda and (wait for it …..) more cherry blossoms! By this time, we were all lagging a bit, and our guide gave us about ½ hour to shop. John and I made straight for a little shop which had a delicious cinnamon smell coming from it which turned out to be cinnamon pastries stuffed with vanilla stuff. Topped off with a cup of tea, it was very welcome.
 

Japan day 6








April 6 - We rode the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto today. It goes at something over 200 km/hour, but doesn’t actually seem that fast when you’re in it. I was most impressed with the train staff - all the conductors and the lady with the food cart all stopped and bowed as they came into the carriage and then turned and bowed again before they left - quite extraordinary! You are supposed to be able to see Mount Fuji from the train in a couple of places, but it was still pretty cloudy and we couldn’t see any of him. We had a nice lunch at a hotel in Kyoto and then set off to Nara for the tourist-thing. First stop was the Todai-Ji Temple where the Great Buddha lives - and he is HUGE! His thumb is as tall as a man. Almost impossible to describe - this enormous, implacable statue surrounded by amazing carvings, colours and statues. It was very crowded when we were there and although our guide did have a microphone, it didn’t work that well and again, her English was heavily accented (we have had 3 different guides so far and they have all tried hard, but haven’t been easy to understand - there would be a roaring trade in accent reduction for retired speech therapists here!). The Temple is in the middle of the Deer Park where, surprise surprise, there are many deer! You can buy deer cookies to feed them, but of course the deer learned many years ago that tourists are food sources and they are not shy in coming to request goodies. They were actually quite a pest and get quite aggressive at times. We then went on to the Kasuga Shrine (Shinto) where there are many, many stone lanterns. Again, many people and hard to hear what the guide was saying. April is the height of the tourist season because of the cherry blossoms (and we have seen some amazing blossoms), but it does mean that the tour is very rush-rush, get on the bus, get off the bus. We are seeing the high spots, but don’t have time to poke around and enjoy.

Japan day 5





April 5 - Pouring rain! We were transferred from our hotel to our meeting point by taxi which was quite an experience. The cab drivers wear a uniform rather like an airplane pilot, complete with cap and white gloves. The cabs are absolutely immaculate with white antimacassars (something that my grandmother would have had over the backs of her chairs to protect the chairs from the hair cream that gentlemen wore back then!). I have got very good at bowing at everyone at every opportunity - people here are unfailingly polite. The tour appears to be rather fragmented - 22 of us started out, but we all seem to be going in different directions at the end of the day, some by train, some by bus and some staying here. We are quite a mixture of people and the tour guide is trying very hard to keep us all going in the same direction, but her English is heavily accented and she is easily flustered so understanding what she wants us to do is challenging! We transferred to a bus which drove us to see Mount Fuji but unfortunately he was not to be seen. The weather really is dreadful, fog and rain and wind so we couldn’t see a thing. One poor man from Finland on our tour had been to Japan 4 times to see Mount Fuji and hadn’t managed it yet. The tour company thoughtfully provided us with a postcard showing Fuji in the spring, something they do if he can’t be seen in reality! However, onwards and upwards to Lake Ashi where we went on a rather peculiar ride in a “pirate ship”. You can imagine John’s excitement at that! And of course, we couldn’t see anything because of the rain. But we met two really nice couples, one from Hawaii and one from Dallas, so the time passed quickly. Then another rather peculiar ride in a cable car (could we see anything?) and then on to our hotel. I had booked (or thought I had booked) us into a ryokan which is a traditional Japanese inn, but it turned out that we are staying in a western hotel which has some rooms in the Japanese style. So it’s a bit of a mixture. There is tatami matting on the floor, but we have a TV, hairdryer etc. and our dinner will be in the Japanese restaurant rather than being served to us in our room. Two lovely young men have just come in to make up our bed (I’m sure there is a proper name for it …..) so that will be another experience. There is a hot spring here so I have just come back from a traditional segregated soak in a lovely hot tub with a few other middle aged naked ladies! (Re-reading that, I realized I had better explain that although I had just come back from the hot tub, I WAS in a kimono-thing when the lovely young men came in!)
Later - Just came back from a wonderful 6 course Japanese meal, served by kimono-clad ladies. It was all beautifully presented (and they told us, in good English, what it all was!) Sometimes that was a good thing - sometimes not. When she put a bowl in front of me and told me it was baby squid (and I certainly would have recognized them on closer introduction), I nodded politely and passed it on to John at the first opportunity. Raw fish is fine because it doesn’t have a face, but those little guys lying there with all their tentacles drooping were just a bit much! I did eat the tofu which I normally detest, but it was OKish.
 

Japan day 4








April 4 - first day of our tour and it turned out to be interesting. We were taken to the main bus station along with hundreds of other tourists and told exactly which place to register, which bus to get on and which seat to sit in. Once we got started, something just didn’t feel right, and when we sailed past the Tokyo Tower, which was supposed to be our first stop, we knew we were on the wrong tour. However, it was a bit late to do anything about it and it turned out that the one we were actually on was much more to our liking than the one we were supposed to be on, so it was all good. We went to a Shinto shrine, the Meiji Jingu Shrine which was set in some spectacular gardens with hundreds of trees. At both ends of the roof, there are golden fish tails which are supposed to protect the shrine from fire (fish live in water ….) However, the shrine had apparently been burned down at least twice in its long life, so don’t place your faith in a fish tail. We were lucky enough to witness a traditional wedding - kimonos, head dresses etc. although we couldn’t stay long. Back on the bus, and then on to the east gardens of the Imperial Palace which were very formally laid out. Not much was flowering except the cherry trees, but I can imagine that in a few weeks it will be pretty amazing. Then on to the Sensoji Buddhist Temple which was very beautiful - highly decorated and ornamental inside and out. Again our timing was good - when we came out of the Temple, a group of traditional dancers, singers and musicians were just starting a performance. I find myself saying “That’s quite extraordinary” a lot - these kinds of things are so foreign and so interesting. The musicians were playing the guitar-looking things with big picks and there was a man playing a sort of flute. The dancers (men and women) were dressed in strange costumes with long dangly sleeves which were caught up between their legs in festoons. They all had red headbands on which were part of the dance - sometimes the bands were untied, sometimes put on like a babushka and sometimes tied on top with a bow. All the movements were ritualized and of course, the singing is atonal, so sounds very strange to western ears. It was quite extraordinary!! We decided to leave our tour at that point as they were going on to the Ginza where we had already been and it was quite cold, so we found a little hole-in-the-wall noodle place where once again we pantomimed what we wanted. John thought he had ordered shrimp for me, but I ended up with some very tasty noodles in broth with vegies and 3 pieces of quite unidentifiable meat. I did eat them, but I have no idea what kind of meat it was…... By that time I was tired with wandering, so we came back to the hotel where I had a lovely hot bath (real tub here!) and John went out in search of some item of electrical equipment that apparently we can’t do without.

Ja[pan day 3



April 3 - We met John’s friends, Tai and Kazue, their son and his wife and their two children for lunch today. As soon as I shook Kazue’s hand, she gave me a huge smile and presented me with an enormous carrier bag full of the most beautiful Japanese fabrics - lots of silk and gorgeous patterns. She knows I quilt! They took us to a beautiful hotel close to where we are staying where there was an amazing buffet - absolutely everything you can imagine - Japanese, Chinese, salad, roast beef, pizza - including tuna fish head (no, I didn’t!). It was a lovely sunny day after the wind and rain of yesterday and we had our coffee outside on the patio. Tai absolutely insisted on accompanying us sightseeing in the afternoon and he very kindly took us to Ueno where I had heard there is a beautiful garden and lots of cherry trees. I was right on both counts, but hadn’t taken into consideration that it’s Saturday so most people were not at work - and remember the cherry blossom parties I wrote about yesterday? - well, we witnessed them in all their glory. Actually it was all rather weird - there were literally thousands of people all having picnics under the trees. It was all extremely organized - each party had a cordoned off area and the gawkers (us) could walk down a long boulevard with these amazing cherry trees on each side with all these people eating, drinking, playing cards and generally just having a party on the ground underneath them! Those who couldn’t get a spot under the trees were camped out anywhere they could find a square inch to set their sheet on. It was quite the most extraordinary sight I’ve ever seen. Tai then took us to the Ginza which is the main, swish shopping area - Gucci, Armani, Dior etc. etc. etc. Since I’m not a shopper, it was interesting from a people-watching perspective! We dropped Tai off at his subway stop and then wandered some more. Hartley was fascinated with the Sony store which had all the latest gadgets e.g. 360 degree TV. All that wandering was getting to my knees (John’s seem to be fine) so we came back to the hotel for a “nanny nap” and then returned to the Ginza for supper (the trains are really easy once you get them figured out - all the stations are numbered and there are even really helpful station people who can rescue you if you look lost!) John had really wanted me to see al the lights at the Ginza at night and it really was quite a sight - something like Piccadilly Circus. We had no idea where to eat so we chose a hole in the wall that looked promising and it turned out to lead downstairs into quite a large, very traditional Japanese restaurant. The young waiter spoke a tiny bit of English and as the menu was all in Japanese, it was interesting trying to order. We ended up with potato salad (not sure what happened to the translation there!), really good bowls of noodles with all kinds of stuff in them, some amazing sushi and Japanese beer - total bill about $35 Canadian. So we got really lucky.
 

Japan day 2








April 2 - Japanese breakfast served by a lovely young lady in kimono. I recognized rice, beans and fish but not much else. It looked beautiful (yes, there is a photo!) - lots of little dishes with vegetables and other interesting looking things (one turned out to be seaweed), miso soup, green tea. It was quite an experience. The waitress (I’m sure that’s not what you call her but it’s all I know) recognized neophytes when she saw them, so kindly brought us written instructions on how to handle the dried seaweed - you dip it in soy sauce, then pick it up with your chopsticks and drop it into your rice bowl where you try and make it into a covering for a scoop of rice and then, as the instructions told us, “pick up and have it”!! I was the only female in the restaurant, everyone else (except John) was in a black business suit and white shirt. I loved the little notice on the tables - it looked like a No Smoking sign, but instead of the cigarette inside the red circle with the slash, there was a cell phone!!!! Most civilized. After breakfast we headed out into a very cold blustery, showery day. Just down the road was the Zojoji Temple which sounded promising, so off we went. There was a service going on (again, not sure of the terminology here) so we couldn’t go inside, but we wandered round the back and found a beautiful formal garden with lots of cherry trees in blossom! Since this was the reason we decided to finish our trip in Japan, I was thrilled to see that we had timed our arrival well to see the blossoms. Part of the garden was obviously dedicated to the departed, each one shown as an identical little stone figure of a person about 18” high, all of them with little knitted red scull caps on, some of them with ruffled red collars. Each little person had their own windmill (one of those little plastic ones I had as a child that you hold in your hand and it rotates in the wind). We weren’t sure of the significance of the windmills, but there were rows and rows of the little people with them and it was quite a sight. The we hopped on the train again (already getting blasé about which one to get on but we had a bit of a “moment” trying to pay for our tickets at a machine!) to head out to the Kodokan which is the Mecca of Judo. John was very keen that I visit the place that he and Jim had gone to a few years ago for the World Masters Judo Competition, so we went and had lunch and saw where all the action had been. John also bought up half the gift shop - not sure where we are going to put all the new loot as we are already over weight! We both decided that we have had our fill of museums for about the next 10 years so we opted to go to a beautiful garden near our hotel, the Hama-rikyu Gardens. It turned out that there were lots of lovely cherry trees in blossom, and all kinds of interesting shaped trees, ponds and even a field of daffodils, so I felt quite at home (thinking of England, not Canada). We were interested to see a sign that said that since the Hama-rikyu Garden is a public place, cherry blossom parties are not allowed. I later read in a tourist publication that these parties can get quite exciting! Apparently, large companies send out their lowly office boys early in the day to stake out a good place under blossoming trees. They lay out blankets and wait out the day until the big bosses arrive, complete with picnics and lots and lots of sake. It’s quite the thing to get thoroughly skunked at one of these parties - I’m sure it makes sense to someone somewhere! There was a traditional tea room in the gardens, so we went in for a cup of tea and a “Japanese confection”. We had to take our shoes off and sit on the floor, and they kindly gave us written instructions on how to eat the confection (which looked like a marzipan flower) and drink the tea (as I said to John, “I can’t quite put my finger on the taste”). The confection was OK, but I couldn’t finish my tea. The instructions had told me to try and finish “all the foam” - it really did look (and taste) rather like warm pond water, kind of thick and sickly. John gamely finished his off, but I had to leave some - just couldn’t quite make it. We went out to a sushi bar for supper (the one that John found last night). It was tiny by Canadian restaurant standards, but much bigger than some of the really tiny little holes-in-the wall that we passed on the way - some of them seating max. 8 people! And they were ALL full. The men who make the sushi stand in the middle of a circular bar and they load up a moving conveyor belt with little plates and you just take what you like the look of. Some things I definitely recognized (things with suckers on!) and some I didn’t. It was all good, but when you’ve had rice for breakfast, rice for lunch and then rice for supper, I was beginning to long for some variation! The sushi bar was certainly an experience though! On the way John took me into a pachinko parlour. Pachinko is a kind of pinball machine where you win little silver balls that you can exchange for cigarettes, food or other prizes. It’s incredibly popular here - we passed many parlours, all full. The one we went into was incredibly loud (they must need audiologists here in vast numbers!) and almost everyone was smoking, so we didn’t stay long. (Smoking is not allowed on the trains, but is not universally banned. When we had lunch today at the Kodokan, we were sitting next to a table of 4 young people who lit up at every opportunity. And we had hoped to go to a bar in our hotel tonight, but it was very smoky so we declined.) The other side of that coin is the number of people in the streets who wear surgical masks - hard to put a percentage on it, but enough that I am already used to it. Tokyo has certainly made me sneeze, but I’m not sure if it’s the spring blossom (welcome back hay fever) or pollution.

Going to Japan

March 31 - Not a good start to our trip to Japan. Luckily, we got to the airport in Auckland early (those of you who have traveled with me will understand!) We returned our hire car and went to the Qantas check-in. (Yes, of course I had gone on line yesterday to make sure the flight was still a go!) The pleasant young man swiped our passports and then looked perplexed and asked us when we had changed our flight. Since we hadn’t changed the flight, we looked equally perplexed, but after a long phone call to somebody high up, apparently somebody HAD changed our flight and we were now booked on an Air New Zealand flight that left 1 hour earlier than the Qantas flight. (Hurray for being anal-retentive and being early!) So we were in time for the NZ flight and arrived in Sydney in plenty of time to catch our connection to Tokyo (Zoe - they didn’t arrest me at the border for non-payment of my toll fine!) We dutifully got on the flight to Tokyo, along with about 100 Japanese school children (and this time I’m not exaggerating) plus a couple of hundred other assorted bodies. We sat - and we sat - and we sat some more, until the captain came on the intercom to tell us that a passenger had had a medical emergency just prior to boarding and they had to find his bag before we could take off. About ½ hour later, the captain came on the intercom again to say that now they had found the bag, but we were now into Sydney’s night flight curfew and they had to get permission from Canberra to take off after 11 pm. About ½ later, he came on AGAIN, and told us (but not exactly in these words) some yahoo in Canberra had decided that rather than upset a few Sydney people with the noise of our jet taking off at night, we all had to disembark, wait to pick up our bags, go through customs, be taken to a hotel and stay the night in Sydney. I can’t imagine what it cost the airline. So we ended up in an airport hotel in Sydney at about 1 a.m. being told that our wakeup call would be at 4:30 a.m. So up we get (we’re on the 7th floor) and take our bags to the elevator where about 1/7 of the 300+ people on the flight were waiting. After hanging around for 10 minutes or so, we decided to take the stairs (the bags were really heavy by the bottom!) and we eventually got to the airport where we went through the whole check-in procedure again, in the process of which Mr. Hartley lost his boarding card. We are now actually on our way to Japan (I’m typing in the aircraft) and should arrive late today, which basically means that we have lost a day in Tokyo. Hey ho - traveling joys. At least we haven’t missed our connection with our tour in Tokyo, but I will be most interested to find out who, in their wisdom, changed our flight but didn’t bother to let us know. It’s about a 9 ½ hour flight from Sydney to Tokyo and thank goodness for modern technology - the movies etc. are great - there is a huge choice and enough to keep you busy for the whole time if you want. I’ve already watched Men Who Stare at Goats (OK-ish) and Up (which was cute) plus lots of tennis on the sports channel.
Later - more time in airports. We stood in line for an hour to get through immigration (luckily there was a very pleasant American women next to us in line so we chatted our way through), got our bags and headed out into Narita Airport which is pretty much a city in its own right. We had planned to catch a train into Tokyo (a cab would have cost about $250 as it’s about 90km from the airport to the city). I couldn’t believe how helpful everyone was (and how good their English was). The lady at the information desk, the ticket seller, a “process the lost-looking tourists” lady and a lovely man on the train all went out of their way to make sure we knew which train to get on, when to get off and where to change platforms. We found the hotel after wandering in circles for a while - it’s very western except the toilets (Jan - NOW I understand why you wanted one!) which have all these amazing bells and whistles you can push to make exciting things happen after you’ve done what you need to do! The toilet in the airport even had one button with a musical note on it, but I didn’t quite dare to push it!!! Anyway, I was bushed and got straight into bed, but Hartley was hot to trot so he went out into the night and ended up in a sushi bar, drinking beer with a local!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Last Post!








March 28 - More boats and bikes! We drove to Westhaven Marina this morning. We had passed it a few times on our way to other places and there were MANY boats there. The boats were slightly less huge and opulent than the ones in the Viaduct Harbour, but there was obviously lots of money around judging by all the BMWs, Audis and Benzes in the parking lot. We tried to pay a courtesy visit to the Royal New Zealand Yachting Squadron, but the outer door was locked (although they did say they welcomed visitors) and a notice indicated that visitors should go to the west end of the building. So round we went, to find an identical notice encouraging visitors to enter through the east door! So our courtesy went unrewarded. I was amused at the name of one boat - Oliver Sudden (think about it!) and a licence plate on a car -
OFF 2C. We kept driving along the coast road and found a delightful little yacht club about 8 km out of town where we were welcomed with open arms! There were a lot of dads there with their small boys (aged about 10) who were all learning to sail in little tiny boats (P class) which are about 5’ long and are unsinkable. (I said “boys” because we didn’t see any girls - too bad.) The boats have one little sail and when there are a lot of them on the water, they look like a flock (flock?) of butterflies fluttering about. Karen and Pete had told us about a motor bike rally that was being held this afternoon along with R&B music so that’s where we headed next. Just like yesterday, there were lots of old bikes for John to get excited about and photograph. The one in the picture is a 1915 model with a cane sidecar which had a request attached to it, asking for a cane worker to spiff it up. Not often a cane worker would get to work on a motor bike attachment I would imagine! While John went on his photography spree, I sat in the shade and watched some guys (all over 20 and some much over 20) playing a REALLY bad game of soccer. But more exciting than the bikes …!!! The music wasn’t great either …
March 29 - Today we jumped on a ferry to go to Waiheke Island which is a 30 minute trip. Waiheke is famous for its vineyards and is a very sought after address. Because it’s quite close to Auckland by ferry, people can live there and commute to the city for work, but it is quite small and there is limited space for houses, so prices are high. Some of the houses we saw were amazing with fantastic views. We chose to be taken around the island on a coach with a most entertaining driver who told us about all the history, geology etc. We stopped at some gorgeous beaches (see picture) but it’s very definitely autumn now so sitting on the beach or swimming were not on the agenda. We had a really nice lunch in the main town, Oneroa. The restaurant was right on the ocean and the people at the next table were a very pleasant Australian couple, so we sampled some local wine, ate seafood and traded travel stories.
March 30 - Our last full day in New Zealand, so what better way to spend it than at a museum?! We chose the Museum of Transport and Technology over the Auckland Museum which sounded good, but probably has much the same kinds of exhibits as at Te Papa in Wellington. So MOTAT it was. The very first building we went into had a little sign outside saying “Telecom Workshop” so in we went. About 5 minutes later, I exited and about 1 ½ hours later, Mr. Hartley left the building with some persuasion from Mrs. Hartley! He had met an even older telephone man than himself (hard to believe, but true) so of course there were all kinds of stories to swap and modernities to bemoan (and photographs to take). He was very impressed with the scale of the exhibits they had. MOTAT covers all kinds of stuff (there’s that word again) - steam engines, cars, planes, old buildings with some craftsmen (John was NOT impressed with the blacksmith!) There are two MOTAT sites and you get from one to the other on an old electric street car. John got chatting to all kinds of people about military vehicles, planes and everything else! It was actually quite enjoyable but definitely a “guy” place. The exhibit I enjoyed the most was the one on Edmund Hillary’s trek to the South Pole. It was very well put together and extremely interesting, particularly since we knew a bit about it from visiting the Hillary museum at Mount Cook back on the South Island. We went out for supper with Karen and Pete, whose B&B we are staying in. They have been so welcoming and friendly and we’ve really enjoyed staying in their studio apartment. We’ll miss having breakfast delivered to our door, Karen!
So that’s it! We’re off to Japan this evening and I doubt I will be able to post blogs from there. I will continue to type away on our little computer and post when we get home. The blog has been a really good thing from our point of view and I want to thank Mark once again for gently (but firmly!) convincing me that it would be a good idea!

Monday, March 29, 2010

North Island Top Ten

North Island Top Ten
1. Te Papa Museum in Wellington. We’ve been to many museums in the last 6 months and Te Papa (translation = “our place”) was by far the best. It was really well laid out and although it was huge, easy to find your way around. There was enough information about everything but not too much and the sheer variety of artifacts was stunning.
2. The greenstone twist necklace that Jason made for me in Rotorua (my birthday present from John).
3. The hangi (Maori feast) we went to in Rotorua. They put on two feasts every night and manage to put through an enormous number of tourists, but they were enthusiastic, welcoming and quite scary (all those tongues sticking out and bulging eyes!) Oh yes, and the food was wonderful.
4. All the dolphins and gannets in a feeding frenzy off Tutukaka. That was a once in a lifetime experience.
5. Cruise on the tall ship R. Tucker Thompson, partly because the ship and the cruise were awesome, but also because of the three Englishwomen I met who had so many points of contact with me. It felt like a hand reaching out to me from my old life to allow me to re-connect for a while.
6. All the thermal pools! I haven’t been able to have a real bath for 6 months (showers only in hostels and campgrounds) so to be able to immerse myself in glorious, hot water was blissful.
7. Boogie boarding. We managed to find quite a few beaches where we could get boards and where the surf was just right.
8. Beaches! So many long stretches of golden sand with almost nobody on them except us.
9. The Bed and Breakfast in Auckland for two reasons. One was the contrast between the previous two months living cheek by jowl in a campervan where we had to “build” our bed every night and dash across the campground to the bathroom in the middle of the night, to a huge bed with soft sheets, tons of pillows and our very own bathroom! Reason #2 was our hosts, Karen and Pete, who went far out of their way to make our stay with them pleasant and easy. Karen kept appearing with fruit, chocolates and pastries, she did our laundry, answered all our questions and cooked us a wonderful New Zealand supper!
10. This one’s for John! Hundreds of boats and motor bikes. (Note to Merv - we didn’t see one Nonsuch!!!)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Auckland - City of Sails








March 24 - Our first breakfast at the B&B was amazing! Beautifully presented in a huge basket delivered to our door, with lots of fresh fruit, incredible yogurt (definitely NOT low fat!) and fantastic pastries. We have a little kitchen in our room with all kinds of goodies in the cupboards - super coffee, every tea you could think of, home made granola and on and on. So we can make tea or coffee whenever we want, and we have a fridge so we’ve got butter, milk and cheese so we can snack too. This will be our downfall! Karen (our hostess) also appears from time to time with more things to eat - the most decadent fudge, pastries - help! We spent today cleaning up the campervan and returning it to the airport which seemed to be about 500 miles south of the city (Andrew - I can now fully sympathize with you and the Edmonton Airport!) We picked up a little (“little” being the operative word) car to run around in while we’re in Auckland. We are staying in a suburb called Devonport which is across the bay from Auckland and the B&B is about a mile out of the town, so it will be handy to be able to get around independently. On our way home, we drove up one of Auckland’s volcanic lumps (the most recent erupted 600 years ago - not that long!) where you get an amazing view of the city and the harbour. We timed it beautifully as there was an international sailing race going on - we counted 61 boats battling it out in a really strong wind - some very exciting moments when seen from up above!
March 25 - We hopped on a ferry over to Auckland in the pouring rain. We have had amazing luck with the weather up until now, so we can certainly put up with a few drips, especially as they are very short of moisture here at the moment. We braved the showers and walked around the Viaduct Harbour where my guidebook told me all the millionaires keep their boats. This time, the guidebook was correct! John was ecstatic! There were some HUGE sailboats - one so big that he needed to use the panorama feature of his camera to fit it in! He reckoned it was about 200 feet long. The boom on the mainsail was probably longer than our boat! What I noticed was a car with “Boat Cleaning Services” on its side. This was not someone who would clean your deck - this was Molly Maid for your yacht! We saw the lady in one boat with her vacuum cleaner! I suppose if you can afford a boat that big, dusting the interior is not high on your priority list! The rain eventually got the better of us, so we took refuge in the Maritime Museum which was right next door. It was very good and we ended up spending 3 hours in there. I looked at my watch at 5:10, noticed that we were the only people around and realized that the museum had closed! Luckily we met a little man who was turning off all the video displays so he let us out! The museum covered a huge chunk of stuff (witness my word finding difficulties! There has to be a better way to say that but I can’t come up with it at the moment.) There was a complete display on the final days of sailing ships carrying grain around Cape Horn, a whole area on Maori boats and navigation, discovery and mapping of New Zealand, the arrival of new New Zealanders, tiny boats, huge boats, lighthouses and on and on. Once we got home, we borrowed some DVDs from Karen and decided to start watching the Lord of the Rings series. I read the books years and years ago but never saw the movies. On all our travels around New Zealand, we haven’t been able to avoid seeing books, post cards etc about hobbits, rings etc. etc. as lots of it was filmed here, so we thought we should see what it was all about. John was not impressed!
March 26 - Back to Auckland on the ferry again as some of John’s photographs from yesterday didn’t turn out to his satisfaction! We wandered around the down town area and managed to finish up our gift shopping. We are meeting some friends of John’s in Japan so need to take something to them and we are trying to bring something home for our kids (warning to kids: I’ve found some silly things as well as what I hope will be OK things!) We did go and look at the Sky Tower (at 328 meters high, it’s the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere) - notice I said “look“. You can go up in a lift and walk out on a glass floor to look down (no thank you), or walk around the outside of the tower at the top with no rails or balcony (they do give you a safety harness) or leap off the top attached to a harness (NO THANK YOU). So we can say that we were there. (You can see it on the horizon in the photo with some tiny little men playing cricket in the foreground!) Only 2 weeks now until we will be home which is hard to imagine. I’m packing up another big box of extra clothes etc. to send home so we won’t have too much stuff to schlep around Japan with us (there is a disturbing number of times I have used “stuff” in this blog …..)
March 27 - Mabel (our GPS computer lady) is wonderful, especially in big cities where they are doing lots of road work and everyone goes so fast. She tells you where to go in time for you to be in the right lane, and only occasionally does she have a bad hair day. So THANK YOU again to Andy and Zoe for sending her along with us - I honestly don’t know what we would have done without her (and she has undoubtedly been better for our relationship than me trying to read a map!!) Today she directed us to a suburb of Auckland called Parnell where I had read about a fair where there would be lots of old motor bikes, including one of Burt Munroe’s from Invercargill (remember him? The World’s Fastest Indian?). The “fair” turned out to be not at all what a British brain interprets as a fair. Basically, the main street of Parnell had roped off a small area for the bikes (about 40, John says some of them quite rare) and most of the restaurants had “offers” for meals, like $4 glass of wine to celebrate the fair. Oh yes, and there were 3 scantily dressed ladies with huge head-dresses who did some Brazilian hip shaking things!! So again, John took many photographs (not sure which got more attention - the bikes or the ladies). We found a really nice little place for lunch (Parnell is “the” place to go to eat), and then asked Mabel to take us to the Botanic Gardens. (I figured that the past couple of days had largely been filled with boats and bikes - now it was my turn!) I was driving, and I was feeling more and more uncomfortable with where Mabel was directing me. We decided to trust her for a while and see where we ended up, turned a corner and her next direction was “proceed to the ferry”! She had taken us right down town Auckland to the ferry terminal. The Botanic Gardens are the other side of the harbour, but there is no ferry that goes there and down town in a big city is not a great place to stop and figure out what’s going on. However, John managed to persuade her that there was a dry land way to get there, and once she agreed to do it our way, she was fine. However the Botanic Gardens were something of a disappointment (and it was quite a drive to get there - about 30 km from the city). We have been to quite a number of gardens as those of you who have been following the blog will know. Auckland’s just didn’t measure up to some of the others we have seen. To be fair, they have had a prolonged dry spell here (even though it has rained a fair bit since we’ve been here) so all the grass looked rather sad, but the whole place had an air of neglect about it. Signposts were not very good and it just didn’t seem to be very loved. They were building a couple of new areas so maybe all their efforts are directed there at present, but we weren’t impressed. Also to be fair it’s autumn here so a lot of the flowers are gone anyway, but comparing it to Christchurch, Brisbane and Sydney, it was at the bottom of the list. Karen and Pete had invited us for dinner, so we made our way home to a really good meal. They are a very welcoming couple and we really enjoyed their company - and a wonderful meal. They have really gone out of their way to make our stay a good one e.g. Karen went to about 3 different hardware stores for us to replace the microwave tray from the campervan that had got broken - well beyond the call of duty!
Only 3 more days in Auckland and then off to Japan. I’m not sure how easy it will be to blog from there. We are on a tour - one of those “You will get up at 6 and be on the bus at 6:30” things - so there may not be a lot of opportunity to blog. But I will keep typing and maybe post the last bit from home.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Bye Bye Campervan








March 21 - Things are really winding down now. The fridge in the campervan contains 2 yogurts, ½ bottle milk, some butter and cheese, 2 eggs and some rather geriatric bread. Oh yes, and some of the jam that we bought way back at the Agricultural and Pastoral Fair! We give the van back on Wednesday (today is Sunday) but we have decided to go to our B&B in Auckland a day early so we really only have 2 more nights in the van. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been living in it for 2 months. I’m so glad Mark persuaded me to keep this blog - things get hazy even a day or two after you’ve done them and this will be a wonderful reminder of the most amazing time we’ve had.
We left the Bay of Islands this morning and are heading back down south towards Auckland. We stopped today at a charmingly named place called Waipu which has a quaint little museum outlining how 940 intrepid Scots arrived here in 1851. They had left the Highlands in the early 19th century after the Clearances (once the landowners discovered that they could make money from sheep farming without all the nuisance crofters). So off they went to Nova Scotia, landing in Pictou where they discovered bars, brothels and other wicked things (still that way, eh Don?). Their leader was a religious zealot called Norman McLeod and he decided that they should build ships and set sail for Australia where life would undoubtedly be less wicked. They landed in Melbourne, right at the height of the gold rush, and discovered bars, brothels and other wicked things - again. So after some vicissitudes, off they went again to New Zealand, landing in Waipu where there was pretty much nothing. It actually was an amazing story and the museum has done a really good job of making the people and what happened to them come alive. We are staying at another lovely campground, right on the beach (see picture of G&J on an almost deserted stretch of white sand). The pleasant owner lent us boogie boards, so off we went into the surf again (sorry to rub salt in the wound, Gary). It was fun (see picture)!
March 22 - Closer and closer to Auckland. We landed in Takapuna today which is just north of the Big City. It was rather a dreary day, so we found a cinema and saw “Mao’s Last Dancer” which was really good (for those who don‘t know, it‘s the true story of a young Chinese boy who is trained to be a ballet dancer and eventually defects to the US). John was a bit wary, it being about a ballet dancer an’ all, but it was such a moving film and the fact that it was true made a big impact. We are both ready to say goodbye to the campervan - we go to our B&B tomorrow and have a day to clear out the van and get it reasonably clean before turning it in.
March 23 - we have arrived in heaven! The B&B is absolutely wonderful and we will be pampered to death in the next 8 days. Karen and Pete are our hosts and they have already gone out of their way to be helpful. We have our own little apartment with a fridge and microwave and Karen has supplied all kinds of wonderful goodies to keep us happy! There is a TV (which we haven’t watched for months) and OUR OWN BATHROOM!!! Devonport, where they live, is across the bay from Auckland City where it looks like there are lots of boats to keep John happy! We left our last campground this morning after passing the torch to some very pleasant Kiwis who were our neighbours. The “torch” was actually a bottle of whiskey which had been given to us by a lovely Dutch couple back in Rotorua. The husband had suddenly decided to stop drinking, so he passed on an almost full bottle of whiskey to us, which we accepted on the understanding that if we didn’t finish it (which we knew we wouldn’t) we would pass it along to some other travellers. So the Kiwis were happy and we were happy (and I remembered that I really don’t much like whiskey!) So tomorrow we clean up the van and take it back and pick up a car for our last week here.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Bay of Islands












March 18 - It was cold this morning! I guess it’s coming to their fall here and it certainly felt like it when I got up. But once the sun comes through all is good again. We drove up to the Bay of Islands today, ending up at the main tourist town of Paihia. John is not impressed! Not many boats to be seen and all the usual touristy stuff like gift shops and ice cream places. On the way here, we stopped at the Kawiti Glowworm caves. Thank goodness I can wipe that off the bucket list now! We have had many chances to see glowworms from day 1, but somehow we just haven’t quite made it and I was sure we would be leaving NZ without seeing them. But there they were as we drove by, so we swung in just in time for the tour. We went quite deep into a limestone cave with lots of stalactites and stalagmites and then the guide turned off her lantern and there they were! It took a while for our eyes to acclimatize to the darkness, but as we did, the little lights got brighter and brighter. They look just like stars on the roof of the cave - thousands and thousands of little bugs with glowing poop which attracts their prey onto their “fishing lines”! It was certainly worth the trip. We wandered around Paihia when we got here - had fish and chips while looking over the bay and I had a haircut (the first one for 3 months!!) We have landed in a very pleasant campground right on the water and we’ll stay here for a day or so before wandering off up the coast again. We’re not planning to go right up to the top of the north island, but will follow the highway around down to the west coast to see the huge kauri trees before heading back to Auckland. Less than a week to go …..
March 19 - Tall ship day today. I persuaded John that we were in the Bay of Islands, we’d better go see some islands! So we hopped on a gaff rigged topsail schooner with 9 other people (in the summer, they often get 35-40 people per cruise!) and off we went. There were 3 very pleasant young men sailing the R. Tucker Thompson (and it didn’t occur to me until now that I should have found out what the ‘R’ stood for). There wasn’t much wind in the morning, so we motored out to a lovely little island where we could swim or climb to the top of the island for amazing views (look very carefully behind us in the picture and you‘ll see the ship). There are 144 islands in the Bay, some of them very tiny, but it really was a wonderful sight. They cooked us a wonderful lunch and we had some wind in the afternoon, so we hoisted the sails and sailed home. I actually climbed up the rigging (not very far, but I did get up there!) just to prove to myself that I could do it. I didn’t actually DO anything while I was up there, but it was something that I can now say that I did. The other people on the boat were very pleasant and it turned out that I had a connection with 2 of them. There were a group of 3 women who had all been to boarding school together (Sherbourne) and when I said that I had been to boarding school in Bexhill, it turned out that someone I was at school with had been bridesmaid to one of the women on the cruise! Then it turned out that one of the other women had gone to school in Guildford (where I grew up) at the same school that my older sisters went to, although not at the same time. She had grown up in West Clandon, near Guildford, and we had some friends in common. She also played tennis at our local tennis club when she was younger. The similarities went on - her mother had been in the same nursing home as my mum, her name is Jill (like my sister) and she’s also a traveler (like my Jill!) and has just taken up golf and knows the women’s captain at sister Jill’s golf club - very weird!
March 20 - Hundertwasser’s loo (“toilet” for the un-English readers) in Kawakawa (note to Heather - I forgot to mention the tons of reduplicated words in Maori!!) was designed by an Austrian, Friedensreich H., who lived near the town in an isolated house without electricity from 1973 until his death in 2000. Are we surprised that he designed the most extraordinary public toilet building amongst other apparently famous structures? The building is covered in lots of wavy lines decorated with ceramic mosaics and brightly colored bottles, and there is grass and plants growing on the roof (see picture). Very strange but necessary to visit if you happen to be in the vicinity! Our target for today (other than Freidensreich’s masterpiece) was to go and see Tane Mahuta - the Lord of the Forest. He (or she) is the tallest tree in New Zealand, a kauri tree. He stands 51 meters high and has a nearly 14 meter diameter, so Mark - you can’t hug him! He’s about 2000 years old and is a really impressive sight. However it took us nearly 1 ½ hours to get there (those winding roads again ….) and when you’ve spent that amount of time in a vehicle, it seems kind of silly to take a photograph and turn around and go back again. But that’s pretty much what we did. We did stop off in a delightful little town called Rawene for lunch and to swap some of our miriad books. We went to a shop which indicated that we could trade our books and the slightly daffy lady owner absolutely insisted that we leave with at least one book even though we really didn’t want to! However, I think she actually has picked out a good one for both of us. We have been leaving a trail of finished books behind us and John is finding it hard to say goodbye to some of them.’ Just a few more days in the van (am I starting to sound desperate?) and then civilization in Auckland for a week. We abandoned our plans to drive north from the Bay of Islands and will head south towards Auckland tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Coromandel 2












March 14 - A somewhat eccentric gentleman named Barry Brickell bought 60 acres of scrubland just outside Coromandel Town southeast of Auckland back in 1973 after giving up being a teacher and deciding to become a potter. In order to get the clay down from the hilly parts of his land, he decided to build a narrow-gauge railway 2.6 km up the mountain using not much more than some homemade instruments and lots of hope. (The fact that he never married or had kids explains how he managed such a monumental task at all!) For years he would take visitors up on his train just to give them a ride, but about 15 years ago, his friends persuaded him to make it a commercial venture (he had incurred quite a sizeable debt to build the thing) and it has really taken off. There is now a shop that sells not only his pots, but also pottery done by many local artists including glassware and wood carving. My guide book told me that there were 2 train departures a day, but when we got there, there were about 8, so it is obviously a going concern. The little train weaves its way up the mountain, having to reverse 4 times to manage the tight corners and steep grade until it gets to the top where Barry has built an Eyefull Tower which has tremendous views (once you recover from the really bad pun). He is also a keen conservationist and has organized lots of tree planting on his land, which will revert to the National Trust when he dies so that it can never be sold. So that was an interesting morning! We drove down the coast road (incredibly wiggly and steep) and have landed in a tiny place called Miranda where there is a mineral hot spring which we have already made good use of (see picture).
Completely off topic, 3 things are in my head to write down:
1) It is very weird to see trees turning colour and losing their leaves in March!
2) I have just checked our itinerary for our tour of Japan and note with delight that we can look forward to “resplendent enjoyments” when we reach Hakone!
3) If only I could remember what it was …….Oh yes! Heather - you might be interested to know (and other people too if they’re interested in the sounds of language) that Maori appears to consist only of stops (mainly unvoiced), liquids and vowels. They have a kind of sibilant as they pronounce /wh/ almost like /f/, but when they are reduced to so few sounds, no wonder they make their vowels work hard!! (“New Zealand” = “Aotearoa” - each one pronounced individually).
March 15 - Onward and upward. We are now heading north of Auckland towards the Bay of Islands. We had quite a long drive today (I don’t think either of us will want to drive ever again after this!) along a beautiful coast line with almost deserted roads which was very pleasant. And then all of a sudden, we were on a Motorway going through Auckland with 4 lanes each way and everyone in a hurry, knowing exactly where they were going. We emerged unscathed and have landed at Goat Island Marine Reserve which my guide book told me (Warning: guidebooks sometimes lie!) had amazing marine life. So we duly rented snorkeling equipment and headed out to sea. We saw lots of seaweed and rocks, a few snapper and trumpet fish-like things but not much else. Maybe the fish were all away on vacation - but it was rather disappointing. We’re headed up the coast tomorrow to a place which my guidebook tells me (?!) is one of the world’s top 10 dive spots ………
March 17 - Hurray! At last a positive underwater experience! Our third attempt was a success. We went out with a very professional group on a snorkeling day trip out to Poor Knights Islands (no apostrophe!!) We are neither of us 100% sure what would happen to John’s pacemaker if we went on scuba, so we are playing it safe. The summer is almost at an end here and everyone is either back to school or back to work so the only people around are us foreign tourists. So on a boat which carries us to 70 people in high season, we set off with 14 other souls plus 3 crew. We moored in a nice protected bay, jumped over the side and THERE WERE FISH!!! Lots and lots of fish. Apparently this particular spot is unusual as it is bathed in a warm water current which brings all kinds of food along with it and of course that means lots of things to feed on the food. So even John was quite happy! He had rented an underwater camera and all the pictures are on a chip, so can’t put any on the blog, but fish life was prolific. The coast round the islands is volcanic and very spiky and full of caves and arches. The captain was very knowledgeable about the Maori stories and history and he took the boat through all kinds of interesting little nooks and crannies, including into the biggest marine cave in the world (by volume). It really was huge and the acoustics were amazing - he sounded the boat’s horn in there and the echo went on for ages. We had a really nice lunch, and on the way home, came across the most amazing sight. It was pretty windy so we were bumping along the waves when we saw this huge gathering of gannets on the water. Actually, some of them were on the water and some in the air, diving like arrows into the water. There were literally hundreds of birds dive bombing a school of fish, and then they were joined by an incredible number of dolphins. The captain said he had never seen so many all together - there were literally hundreds of them all around the boat, surfing down the waves and hunting the fish along with the gannets. We stopped to watch them for about 20 minutes and then either they ran out of fish or the fish moved on, but it was a wonderful way to end the day. And again the weather gods were very kind - it was a gorgeous day after rather an unpromising start.
We’re now headed for the Bay of Islands which we hear is quite beautiful - follow along!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Coromandel 1








March 10 - We’re on our way to the Coromandel Peninsula which we have been told is quite beautiful. The guide book told me that Tauranga was a boat lovers paradise, so we stopped to have a look at the boats, but decided not to stay. Tauranga is very big and touristy with lots of high-rises which set my nerves jangling, so on we went to Waihi Beach which could not have been more opposite! There was one shop in town and the beach was almost deserted. Miles and miles of the most gorgeous soft yellow sand and crashing waves onto the rocks - perfect! On the other side of the headland was a small bay which was shielded from the waves and we went there this afternoon to swim. It really hasn’t been warm enough to go in the ocean since Australia, so it was nice to get wet and salty again!
March 11 - Beach day. I went for a long walk along the deserted beach (see picture!) and John relaxed at the campground. We rented boogie boards this afternoon which was fun (these are short surf boards that you lie on in case you didn‘t know!). Pretty quiet day.
March 12 - Drove to Hot Water Beach where, I was told, you could rent a spade, dig a hole at the tide mark and sit in a hot pool of water as there are hot springs under the sand. Rip off! We rented our spade and went to the area on the beach where there were LOTS of other people all digging away. There were also quite a few deserted holes which we tested for toastiness, only to find that the water was only marginally warmer than the sea. When we stayed at Rotorua, the guy at the campground had warned us that Hot Water Beach should be called Tepid Water Beach - the lake beach at Rotorua provides HOT pool if you dig! So we took the obligatory photographs and headed on to Hahei, just up the coast. (We were later told that it depends where you are on Hot Water Beach as to how hot your hole gets. We were in the right general area, but a lady in our latest camp ground told us that you can actually get burned at Hot Water Beach because the water can get so hot - so I guess we just missed by a bit.)
March 13 - Hahei Beach was another wonderful long stretch of golden sand, gorgeous little islands poking out of the sea and blue, sparkly ocean! We really do feel like we are living in a postcard! Cathedral Cove is close by which is another must-see (so called because there is a gigantic archway in the rock which looks like the vault of a cathedral), so we walked there this morning, stopping at Gemstone Bay and Stingray Bay (yes, there were sting rays there). Unfortunately the tour guide (that would be me) didn’t realise that you could swim at Cathedral Cove, so we watched from the shore as everyone else tore their clothes off and jumped into the lovely clear water! Oh, well, the rock formations were amazing and it was a beautiful day, and we’ll be able to swim elsewhere I’m sure. We drove on to Whitianga where there was a little museum mostly about Captain Cook. He used the cove near here, Mercury Bay, to anchor in while observing the transit of Mercury that he needed to set his longitude and put New Zealand on the map. He was so accurate with his plotting of the coastline that most of his measurements are still in use. Then we took the very wiggly and steep coast road on to Coromandel Town where we had a lovely supper and had some nice neighbours who live in Auckland and were very helpful about how to get about there (we will be spending a week there at the end of our time i

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Bloop, gurgle, sploosh












With all the volcanic activity around, what else could I call this blog entry? The north island is very geothermally active - we’ve been to quite a few places where steam just rises out of the ground which is a little unnerving. There’s also quite often a sulphury smell which again reminds you that there is stuff going on down there ….. We drove past one neighborhood in Rotorua where 2 houses had been torn down because geysers had erupted in them! A somewhat volatile environment …
March 7 - We had a wonderful breakfast today at a restaurant just outside Taupo that we had been told not to miss. It was quite a way out of Taupo (but close to our campground which was handy). It’s run by an artist and her husband - she does a lot of mosaics and the whole place is full of them plus an outdoor garden with mosaic chairs and tables. We decided not to stay in Taupo as it’s pretty touristy and packed with triathletes this weekend (not that I have anything against them, but there are a lot of them!) On the way out of Taupo, we went to the Craters of the Moon which is a very active geothermal area, full of bubbling mud and smoking vents. It didn’t smell nearly as bad as I thought it might. There’s a walking track that you follow VERY CAREFULLY so that you don’t fall in! We also stopped at the Huka Falls which is where the most incredible volume of water is funneled out of Lake Taupo down a narrow gulley to become the Waikato River. I should have written down their example of the volume but it was something ridiculous like filling 4 Olympic-sized swimming pools every minute. The water was pretty impressive and the most beautiful turquoise colour. Then on towards Rotorua. We stopped about 20 km short to jump into the Waikite Valley Thermal Pools which was well worth it! John has been whimpering about hot pools and when are we going to do some for a while, so he was happy! They were lovely open air pools fed by a boiling spring which they obviously have to cool down considerably before the clients can sit it the water. There was hardly anyone there which was nice - I was worried that it was a Sunday and the day following an international triathlon, so I imagined the place would be full of stiff athletes, but
no ….. There were a number of different pools at different temperatures and we usually had them to ourselves. Besides being nice and warm, there are all these wonderful therapeutic minerals in the water, so you feel really healthy and your skin is amazingly soft when you get out. We stayed about an hour, hopping from hot to warm to cool to hot, and then we drove on to Rotorua where we have found a very nice campground where there are thermal/mineral pools for campers.
March 8 - There is lots of Maori stuff for tourists to do here, so we’re doing it! We went to watch jade carvers (jewelry) this morning as John wants to buy me a jade pendant for my birthday. Jade is typically called pounamu or greenstone here, but it’s all the same thing. Lots of the pendants for sale were really BIG and the one we saw a guy carving was little (and I’m not a big pendant person) so I got John to ask him if we could buy that one - it‘s called a “twist“ and looks like a figure 8. So he is going to polish it up for me today and we’ll pick it up tomorrow. Then we went to Whakarewarewa (thankfully shortened to Whaka) which is a “living thermal village” i.e. people actually live there. And it certainly is thermal! We ate sweet corn which had been cooked in a pool of boiling water (they drop it in in a bag and pull it out about 2 minutes later - see picture) and saw how they use the steam to cook meat etc. in boxes and funnel the heated water into catchment pools for communal bathing. (We are going to a feast tomorrow night [a hangi] where all the food will have been cooked in these ovens). We were shown round the village by a very knowledgeable guide who actually lives there. She explained the significance of all the carvings and rituals. The geyser conveniently decided to blow just as we got to the viewing platform (see picture) but the sky was much the same colour as the steam, so it’s not easy to see here. It apparently blows 20-30 times a day; there are twin geysers and one, the Prince of Wales feathers, always blows before the main one. The Prince of Wales reaches 30 metres - can‘t remember how high the other one goes but it was much higher. We noticed that there were times when the steaming holes got much steamier and the boiling water got even more agitated - quite an alive place! There were also bubbling mud pools. Then there was a cultural show - 3 men and 4 women who sang and danced - the songs sounded very Hawaiian (not surprisingly, since they have common ancestors) accompanied by bulging eyes and sticking out tongues to intimidate us! It was actually very moving and we really enjoyed it. We came back to our campground and have been soaking in the thermal pools for about the past hour, chatting to a very varied group of people who are also staying here!
March 9 - My birthday! We went to pick up my jade pendant and the story turned out to have a bit of a twist (the shape of the necklace and also what happened!) I had understood that I would be buying a pendant carved by one of the main carvers which would be “finished off” by one of the much younger men. When I went to pick it up, I was met by Jacob, a very young man, who was extremely enthusiastic about the very first twist pendant that he had ever made, which was apparently the one I was buying! I’m not sure where the misunderstanding came in (I thought I was buying from the main carver) but as it turns out, I was thrilled with the one that Jacob had carved for me and maybe one day he will be a very famous pounamu carver and I will have an heirloom around my neck! It really does make it special that it was carved specially for me and not just bought off the shelf. So that turned out OK. We wandered around Rotorua in the afternoon - went to the museum (I really should count up how many we have been to!) and the government gardens where lots of very earnest people dressed in white were playing bowls (yes Freda, we took photos!) The highlight of the day was the hangi (Maori feast) that we went to in the evening. We were picked up from our camp ground and taken about 15 km from Rotorua to the Tamaki Village where we were taken on a historical journey along with warriors who challenged us with a war dance, to dancing maidens with bulging eyes (again!) and the most amazing meal - chicken, lamb, fish, lots of vegetables and then fruit salad and steamed pudding for dessert. There was also Pavlova which I imagine wasn‘t a typical Maori dish “back in the day“ but was very good! We also were able to walk around their “village” where they were doing everyday things like peeling potatoes with sharpened stone as they would have done “back in the day”. They were all very pleasant and put up with all the tourists having their photos taken with them!