Resistance is futile

Things have taken a slightly alarming turn.

I arrived in Takaka on the back of a two week heatwave, but no sooner had I put my bags down (with a heartfelt cry of "fuuuuuuuuuuuck") than the rain set in, and it's been pretty relentless ever since. The Heaphy Track is a bitch to get to after heavy rain and quite frankly tramping in the wet is a bit too 'outdoors' for a wimp like me, so here I sit, awaiting a clear morning.

But here's where it gets a touch scary - after talking to other backpackers a pattern is starting to emerge. Lindsay has been here for 13 nights, having intended a 2 night stopover. Val has been here for 10 nights so far, and attempted to leave two days ago only to return when her car broke down just outside of town. Anna and Sita are stuck here for longer than they'd hoped after Anna twisted her knee on the first night. And I'm trapped by weather that appears to be in defiance of the reports on TV ("some scattered showers but mainly fine." Outside, a small house floats past the window). It's all very Blair Witch, and there's a growing suspicion at the hostel that if you started walking north along Commercial Street you'd end up back at the visitor's centre on the south side of town after a couple of hours.

Still, shadowy force intent on making us permanent residents aside (I have a theory that the entire population of the town is made up of backpackers that never escaped), it's a nice town to spend a quiet week in. There's a great restaurant called the Wholemeal Cafe, and the hostel - Annie's Nirvana Lodge - was seemingly designed with me in mind (a fact that's getting more and more suspicious with each passing day). It's quiet and friendly, and there's a faint undercurrent of alcoholism running through both the guests and the owners, manifested in frequent evenings on the porch sprawled on settees and armchairs, knocking back wine and beer from the all-too-convenient Liquorsave down the road.

In one final, probably hopeless, attempt to escape, I've booked my transport and hut pass for the Heaphy, starting tomorrow. The forecast is reasonable, and I'm starting early so as to leave plenty of time to recover from mishaps and press valiantly onwards. If all goes to plan, hurrah. If not, you guys will come and visit me from time to time, won't you? The address is 25 Motupipi Street, and I'll probably be out the back on my fourth beer. Just remember to tie up any loose ends at home before you set out.

The Breaking of the Fellowship

Come now, you surely didn't expect me to do a tour of New Zealand without using at least one nerdtastic Lord of the Rings title, did you? Count yourselves lucky I'm not writing this in Sindarin or from the point of view of a Hobbit.

With Melissa back in Nelson, that's the end of the original Magic Bus crew I've been knocking around with since Auckland. Some fell by the wayside in Taupo, others in Wellington (and one just vanished on the ferry crossing to Picton, hope she didn't fall over the side), and now Melissa is returning the tent and sleeping bag she borrowed from a hypnotised backpacker at the Paradiso hostel.

I'm now in Takaka, where I'm spending three nights instead of the originally intended one. The reason for the change is that on day 3 of the tramp, my previously trusty boots decided now would be a fine time to rebel, and to this end caused an almighty blister to form on my abnormally large small toe (the result of a drunken nighttime encounter with a radiator pipe, the swelling never subsided). This would've caused all kinds of day 4 shenanigans were it not for a kindly gent who had a pair of blue and yellow monstrosities called aqua shoes which didn't fit him. He donated them to the cause of getting me to the next campsite and thus the day was saved, but my feet resemble La Motta's face after his beating from Sugar Ray in Raging Bull, hence the prolonged stopover.

But enough tedious rambling about my foot-related woes! I know what you're all here for, you mucky pups - statistics!

The Official New Zealand Story Abel Tasman Roundup - In Numbers

Kilometres walked: 51
Kilometres walked in aqua shoe abominations: 9
Inches between tip of nose and ridiculously low tent ceiling: 1.7
Percentage of readers likely to crack a joke in the comments about my generously proportioned nose after reading that last stat: 94%
Sandflies: too many to count.
Old guys at Waiharakeke campsite that said "I'm not racially prejudiced but...": 1
Old guys at Waiharakeke campsite that proceeded to slate a breathtakingly wide selection of races in the course of one speech: 1
Old guys at Waiharakeke campsite that escaped a Guardian-reading liberal glare of disapproval because they'd just given said liberal a free pair of shoes (I'm not proud): 1

And go on then, one for the fans:

Number of times Melissa said or did something that caused me to trip, choke, hit my head on a branch or otherwise come a cropper through inattention: see Sandflies.

So it's examples you're after, is it?

• What amounted to nothing less than a compulsion to change into shorts or a bikini top in the middle of the trail, often waving cheerfully to passing hikers as she did so.
• Revealing that she worked as a skimpy at a bar in Australia (click the link, all will become clear)
• Saying things like "That guy at the last campsite gave me some pills, we can have some fun tonight".

I swear that last one tipped me up so much I didn't realise I'd drifted off the track and into the sea until the fish started nibbling my ears. Turned out she was talking about water purification tablets. If I ever knew true disappointment it was then. But she was right - the water was fantastic.

Nelson

Just a quick post to say I'll be miles away from a computer for the next five days at least, possibly ten or eleven. I'm starting on the Abel Tasman Coastal Track tomorrow, and after a night in Takaka, I'll be getting stuck into the Heaphy Track. Or getting stuck on the Heaphy Track, one or the other.

Wellington, or, A Slight Change of Plan

The entire Northern Circuit walk didn't go ahead, as I decided to go skydiving (which is totally f'kin awesome) and then do the most impressive part of the circuit, the Tongariro Crossing, as a day walk. On the way there, a lady who'd walked the whole thing assured me that the rest of it was pretty boring, so I didn't feel too bad about this shameful copout (and hey, I flung myself out of a plane instead). It's still 17km with a two hour slog up a goddamn steep mountain and would be fairly taxing in normal circumstances. Factor in a wretched hangover from a post-skydiving pub crawl and you've got yourself a whole barrel-load of fun.

Sadly, despite glorious weather on the lower levels of Tongariro Park, the alpine section of the crossing - where you can get the best views of Mount Ngauruhoe, aka *nerd hat on* Mount Doom from The Lord of the Rings *nerd hat off. Hmm. Appears to be stuck* - was wreathed in mist, and for two hours pretty much all I could see was the next pole 100 yards ahead, and occasionally the Canadian guy who seemed to think I was a tour guide ("Are those lakes geo-thermal? Is the water warm? What's that ridge over there called? What time does the bus leave the end of the trail?") For all I knew, he and I were the only ones on the crossing.

However, just as I was coming down the other side of the mountain - and landing on my arse every five minutes thanks to the loose volcanic gravel - a wonderful thing happened. I heard voices in the distance going "oooh!", "oh wow", and "hey, Joeline, get a picture of this here crater!" and then the mists cleared in seconds, revealing the Emerald Lakes and a line of awestruck, motionless hikers - at least fifty - all the way down the mountainside.

The rest of the hike was in bright sunshine and extremely impressive, but I missed the best bit, unfortunately. As Nick said in the comments to a previous post, things go so well in New Zealand that people only ever talk about the scenery. As the mist has robbed me of even that, I'll leave you with a tale from the pub crawl.

There was eight of us sat round a table - Adam, Leon, Sadia, two Annies, Janele, myself and a girl who we'll call Melissa. Sadia was talking about how bruised she got from the white-water rafting trip she did the other day and Melissa - a textbook example of Swedish genetic perfection, seemingly constructed entirely from blonde hair, golden skin and white teeth - mentioned the terrible bruising she had on her back, and promptly pulled up her top to show us all. The men at the table tightened the grip on their pints slightly.

"Blimey," said Leon, "how'd you do that?"
"Oh, I don't really want to say..."

Many eyebrows rose in interest. I could swear even the music on the jukebox got slightly quieter. Melissa blushed and continued, as she knew she must after saying something like that.

"I don't want people to think I am easy... but I did it having sex on a picnic table." Pause. Blush. "With a married man."

Have you ever heard seven people choke on their pint at the same time? Interesting noise. Melissa pressed on.

"I went out for a drink with him and his wife, and she got very drunk and had to be put to bed. And then I ended up having sex with her husband on the table in the hotel garden. It was not my fault, we were both drunk and he came on to me. And it was very embarrassing, because I had agreed to go sightseeing with them and had to spend all day with him and his wife."

She blushed again, smiled, and went off to get another drink. I looked at Leon.

"Best backpacker story ever," I said.
"Definitely."
"Think I need another beer."
"Me too."

And yet we sat there in silence for the next few minutes, lost in thought.

Rotorua

Howdy peeps. Sadly everything is still going swimmingly, although it's not for want of trying. Back in Auckland I decided to take a walk over to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World (not bad, bit limited, but it was the first marine centre to have the underwater walkthrough tunnels and it's got a marvellously cheesy Snow Cat ride complete with enormous plastic Orca that bursts from the water with a sea lion in its gob, and that's really all I look for in a tourist attraction), which on my map appeared to be about 3km away. After forty-five minutes of walking I thought I'd better check again and - proving that the word 'incompetent' up there in the description ain't just for show - realised that the map measured out the distance 2km at a time rather than 1, and the actual distance was near to 7km. I'm going to die once I get out of the cities, aren't I?

I'm now in Rotorua, and tonight a bunch of us are off to the Tamaki Maori village to be shouted and danced at by some Maoris and then stuff ourselves with steamed meat and veg prepared in a traditional hangi manner. Oh, and there's a fully licensed bar, too, just like when Cook first set foot on the North Island way back when.

One more night in Rotorua, one night in Taupo and then it's on to the Tongariro National Park to walk the Northern Circuit, which my map appears to show can be completed in an hour by an octogenarian in a wheelchair, so I shan't bother with a coat.

In praise of mishaps

When you're writing about your travels, everything going right is pretty much fatal. Last year I backpacked around Europe and got a fair bit of mileage in my emails home from language barriers, the Eurostar breaking down twenty miles from Paris, the night I got shitfaced with a lad from Manchester and realised the next morning that I'd spent a week's budget in one evening, the morning I was presented with a bread roll and assured that that was my lot as far as the "continental breakfast included" was concerned, and the downright horror of being caught on the Rome subway at rush hour with another night in the world's worst hostel to look forward to. See? I'm still getting mileage out of it now.

But I'm struggling with what to write here. The flight was fine - god help me I even enjoyed the food. The refuelling stop in LA was roughly 243% less painful than I was expecting it to be (although it was three in the morning back in England, and after ten hours on the plane I had one hell of a Kubrick stare going on - think Alex at the start of a Clockwork Orange, or Private Pile just before he quits the army: I was blinking only when I could feel my eyeballs shrivelling up from lack of moisture - so it's possible that the Immigration Officer was mildly alarmed and decided that waving me through to the transit lounge was the quickest way to get me out of the country without incident). Arrived in Auckland and checked into the hotel, all fine and dandy.What can I say? Hell, I even checked my tent to see if I'd forgotten the poles or something so I could give you all a giggle, but no dice. Sorry. Stay tuned though, because I never set up the afore-mentioned tent while I was back in England* so there will be much hilarity as fate decides to pitch a snowstorm at me on the first night I need to use it. And I'll find out that I've forgotten the poles after all. And then my map will blow away and my trousers will fall down, and the group of attractive girls that have gathered to watch my titantic struggle will giggle and whisper. It will happen, mark my words.

Anyway, tomorrow sees my first hike in New Zealand - Rangitoto Island, described in my guidebook as "a freakish land of fractured black lava". Sounds nice.

* I tried once, but I was hungover and just as I'd laid out the groundsheet and inner tent a great gust of wind blew them into the hedge, which was the cue for a heartfelt cry of "right, fuck it!", a violently quick repacking of the various bits and pieces and a moody retreat to my bed until I felt better.