New Zealand Story

It's all gone quiet over here

2005-05-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

Well, quiet isn't really the right word, but basically I've been drunk for the last two weeks and there hasn't really been any 'ooh, got to blog this beauty' moments to speak of (that I can remember, anyway, it's entirely possible I've left a trail of destruction stretching from Dunedin to Napier, blissfully unaware due to the miracle of booze), the Kepler Track being the last but one item on my 'Things to do in New Zealand' list.

The very last thing on the list was to swim with dolphins in Kaikoura (and that noise you hear is Docko's head exploding from potential joke overload) but thanks to beer, bad weather and bloody orcas it didn't happen. The one time the boat ran as scheduled I was still in bed, a haze of alcohol causing the air above my head to shimmer, and for the rest of my time in Kaikoura it was cancelled due to rough seas or the presence of killer whales.

But let's be reasonable, this blog can't be composed entirely of tales of illicit Scandanavian passion, Blair Witch-style nights in the forest and, um, blisters. There had to come a time when the most dangerous thing I'd done since last we spoke was beat Tom - who's played rugby for England's under-21 team - at pool.

I was going to inflict a selection of 'hilarious' hostel stories on you - wait, come back! - but I'm flying out of Auckland today, I've got a stinking cold and quite frankly I want to get this blogged and bugger off to have a coffee and perv at the girl behind the counter at Gloria Jean's Coffees on Queen's Street.

Instead, I'm going to finish as I started - with a recommendation. I've delayed bigging up Magic Bus until the end of my travels, because - let's face it - a glowing writeup halfway through the trip is just begging to be left behind/run over/kicked in the knackers by a disgruntled driver. We made it back to Auckland without falling out, though, and I can't fault them. Granted, it's not exactly hardcore backpacking to jump on a tour bus, but when you're like me and don't bother reading your guide book before you leave, thus having only the vaguest ideas of what you want to see (in my case, "mountains an' shit") it's spot on. There's a refreshing lack of the "dude, I totally barfed in your face!" gap year gits that are reputed to plague the Kiwi Experience buses, but neither is it an environmental beardfest like Stray or Flying Kiwi. The commentary is informative, the buses comfy, and if the on-board music occasionally lurched into madd techno beatz, all was forgiven when I heard Free Love on the Freelove Freeway on one driver's compliation tape, although this goodwill was tested to its limit by the mystifying Kiwi obsession with the Eagles' Hotel California.

And if anyone suspects that this shameless love-in has anything to do with the fact that they plied me with free beer and pizza at a post-tour focus group, well, shame on you.

*cough*

Anyway, it's been an awesome few months, and I'll see you peeps when I get back. For those that don't know me but were still kind enough to read this blog, normal wibblings - including thoughts on the Da Vinci Code and The Hitchhiker's film - will be resumed over at Insert Joke Here very soon. Probably.

Docko: This Bud Beard's For You

2005-04-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

Not only has word reached me that Docko is hankering after something to mock me about (and I've got one word for you, boy: receipt) but it strikes me that all the photos so far have been of the "pretty but dull" (or possibly "pretty dull") variety.

So, in an attempt to satisfy those with a preference for the kind of stories where I fall in a river and also provide some visual variation, I've pulled out all the stops, stayed up late into the night, cranked up the laugh-o-matic and produced the finest joke to appear on this blog - hell, any blog - so far. Click the text below and prepare yourself for something even funnier than Jim Davidson.*

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

Close to spectacular, I'm sure you'll agree. My nearest and dearest have no need to dread being seen with me in public however - no more than usual, anyway - as I shaved it off the other day (they were going to make me leave the country otherwise).

The Facts Behind the Beard:

1) It took a month to reach the state you see above.
2) No, seriously, a month.
3) Yes, there's a hint of ginger there, a fact that saw me briefly consider untying the bungy rope before I jumped.
4) I have no idea what the whole thing with the tongue is about. I could have sworn I had a decent picture of the damn thing but after I'd shaved I only had this one on there, which I couldn't even remember taking.
5) No trimming of any kind occured during the growth period - any bare patches are simply a testament to my lack of testosterone.
6) A girl in Queenstown said it suited me - conclusive proof that subtle humour in the younger generation didn't disappear with the rise of the chav (who would, no doubt, simply have described it as "well gay").

* Jim Davidson strapped to a pool table and having his bollocks used by John Virgo to practice a particularly complex trick shot, that is.

Hungover in Dunedin

2005-04-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

First things first: Happy Birthday to my bro Ceej (aka C*Bob), sister Paps, mum and granddad, on the 22nd, 29th, 25th and 28th April respectively - have a great day, I love you all and presents will be forthcoming once I get back to Blighty.

Right then. Click here and have a look at the picture. See the position she's holding? Replace the slinky, leather-clad kung-fu babe with a porky Englishman with a large backpack, a woolly hat and a manic expression and you've got a pretty fair idea of what I was doing every ten minutes on Wednesday.

Allow me to explain. I started the Kepler Track on Tuesday, for once lacking such distractions as crippling hangovers, busty Swedish sexbombs, spectacularly mangled feet or a gnawing sense of guilt. Unaccompanied even by my Official Great Walks co-hiker Danny - who'd moved on to Dunedin with Jane and Jill - I was looking forward to an uneventful walk, and so it proved. For the first day, anyway.

Day two was a touch more eventful. I'm not sure exactly when one of the Chuckle Brothers became a weather forecaster, but believe me, the words on the board in Luxmore Hut the next morning - "moderate winds, rain in the evening, otherwise fine" - could only have been part of Barry's latest crazy scheme. The second I left the hut I was being buffeted by gusts strong enough to knock me off the track a couple of times. Within fifteen minutes the mist closed in, and then it started to rain. Ahead of me lay 10km of exposed alpine trail. Bugger.

After a pretty miserable hour - including one memorable moment when a particularly strong gust combined with a turn in the track to give me a splendid if not entirely welcome view of the valley beyond the ridge - I arrived at the first emergency shelter and stumbled in gratefully. After a while I was joined by another couple, and ten minutes after that pretty much everyone that had left the hut that morning was crammed in there. Happily, that included two experienced hikers who said that they'd never walked in winds like that before, which went some way to allaying my fear that I was being a complete buttercup about the whole situation and there were more rugged types out there laughing manfully at the light breeze and feeble tourists. (To be fair, I was being a buttercup - this was the Kepler Track, not Mt. Cook - but humour me, ok?)

When we finally peered out of the shelter the sun was out, but the wind, if anything, had strengthened. The next section of the track ran along the top of a ridge with sharp drops either side, and it was here that often saw me adopting the Trinity pose. It was mind-buggeringly windy up there, and a backpack catches those gusts a treat, so every time a particularly strong one threatened to tip me over the side I had to drop to the ground, one foot planted against the wind, until it passed. Strangely enough I enjoyed myself immensely, and I had a big grin on my face along the entire ridge which only vanished when the descent to Iris Burn hut began and it started to absolutely chuck it down.

The next morning I sneered at Barry Chuckle's dire warning of heavy rain - and rightly so, it was glorious sunshine all day - and stuck to my really rather stupid plan to walk all the way back to Te Anau, about 37km away, and so it was that my last multi-day tramp in New Zealand ended once again with - you guessed it - blisters.

The next night in Queenstown a bunch of us went out for a couple of quiet drinks, which somehow stretched out to six hours and included a near-fight with two Irish guys over whose turn it was on the pool table (as I argued with one of them I was sidling over to the nearest cue, figuring that I probably wouldn't have time to take off a sock and pop the white ball in it), a load more drinks with the same guys after a fiercely contested game of doubles, and a pleasant incident for the lead singer of Busted (he introduced himself as Frederick from Switzerland but I wasn't fooled, the enormous eyebrows gave him away) when a Kiwi girl walked over, sat on his lap and started kissing him. After about five minutes they strolled off to the toilets - no doubt to discuss the pros and cons of the first-past-the-post electoral system - and I, not envying the young, handsome bastard in the slightest, had his drink away, chucked his passport in the fire and sat in the corner muttering darkly to myself. I arrived in Dunedin the next day with no new friends whatsoever, having spent the entire journey at the back of the bus reeking of ale, with my earphones in and my hood pulled over my eyes.

Right - we're up to date, time for some pictures.

Mounts Cook and Tasman reflected in Lake Matheson. Big version.

Somewhere along the Routeburn. Big version.

Lake Harris from the top of Conical Hill (worth mentioning cos it was a bugger of a climb). Big version.

Cruising on Milford Sound. Big version.

Mitre Peak at Milford Sound. Big version.

A purty rainbow on the Kepler track. Big version.

More of the Kepler, with the path not looking nearly as narrow as it did when I was on the fucker. Big version.

And yet more Kepler goodness. Big version.

"I'm telling you, the hut's just around the next bend"

2005-04-15T02:26:00.000-07:00

Howdy peeps. In the last few days I've completed the Routeburn Track (and half of the Greenstone, more of which later), and been out for a cruise on Milford Sound. Both were stunning - the weather as we crossed the Harris Saddle on the Routeburn was as clear as you could ask for - and at some point I'll post a few choice snaps of each. You lucky, lucky people.

For now, though, I want to tell a tale from the last day on the Routeburn.

At the start of the track I met Danny of Heaphy Track fame, and two girls that we'd met in Franz Josef. They'd not done any tramping in New Zealand, had heard of the fabled alpine scenery on this track and signed up. Danny - who seems to be on a mission to misinform as many people as possible in NZ, telling anyone who'll listen that only 6 people have ever climbed Mt. Cook - told them there were pots and pans in all of the track huts, and so they didn't have any of those. They didn't have their own stove. They didn't have quite enough food for what they wanted to do (a 5 day combination of the Routeburn and Greenstone) and they didn't - sweet fancy Moses - they didn't have sleeping bags. One had a 'snuggle sack' - ie, a sleeping bag liner - and the other had some blankets out of her car. For the first two days, we took it in turns to use my billy can to cook our oh-so-delightful noodles, and at nights Danny and I dug into our packs and produced Polartec sweaters for them to wear to bed.

On day three, Danny walked to the Divide at the end of the track, and hitched a ride to Te Anau. I had a very short day, having been grossly misinformed about the time required to get from Mackenzie Hut to the end and thinking I'd need a night at Howden Hut, one hour from the Divide, in order to make my 11 o'clock bus to Milford Sound. The girls - call them Jane and Jill - had decided to walk to the second hut on the Greenstone rather than the first, thanks to their food situation and the fact that the O.C. was on on Friday night.

We arrived at Howden Hut at 10.30, and Danny set off for the Divide. I dropped my pack off at the hut, had a muesli bar and then started walking the Greenstone with Jane and Jill, slightly concerned about the fact that they still had about 7 hours of walking ahead of them. To try and set a decent pace I helped with their packs, carrying one for an hour or so and then the other. This behaviour was not - honest guv'nor - due to any sleazy, sexist or even gallant motivation. The fact was that they were giving me a lift to Te Anau on Sunday, so I had a vested interest in getting them to the hut safely (transport to Te Anau is bloody pricey). At the first hut on the Greenstone, we spoke to a lady walking in the other direction who'd taken nine hours to reach it from the hut we were aiming for. Urk. We grabbed the bags and set off at a quicker pace.

I finally left them at around 2.30. We'd been walking for over four hours and I hadn't brought my torch and so needed to get back to my hut by sunset. By our calculations they had about three hours of walking left. I waved them off and started jogging back the way I'd come.

The first bit of guilt kicked in when I made it back to the Howden hut at five o'clock. I could've easily walked with them for another 45 minutes or so, giving one of them more time without a pack and getting them a bit nearer to the hut. Bugger. I spoke to a guy who had a Greenstone map, a proper map with distances on the tracks rather than estimated times - damn the DOC trackmaps - and realised that where I'd left them was still about 11km from the hut. I think I was slightly delirious from lack of food - nothing but an energy drink and that fucking muesli bar all day - but I started to panic then, convinced that they'd never make it to the hut in time, the sun was nearly down and they had 11km to walk (in my state I completely forgot the 2.5 hours it had taken me to get back, which of course they'd hopefully spent progressing along the track). It was only after I'd eaten my dinner that I calmed down. Of course they'd made it. Two and a half hours from when I left them, and another hour and half until the sun went down. No problem.

The next day I strolled over to the Divide, caught my bus and spent the day at Milford Sound. I got back to my hostel in Queenstown that evening and checked in. As the chap behind the counter swiped my credit card, I glanced at the visitor's book. The top two names on the latest page were Jane's and Jill's - hurrah, they made it! A knot in my stomach that I'd barely even noticed suddenly loosened. Then I looked at the last field in the book - 'What's the scariest thing ever?'

Jane had written 'tramping'. Jill had written 'sleeping out in the forest for a night'. Oh fuck. Surely not - had to be a joke.

"Excuse me, what room are these two in?"
"Number 26 mate, next door to you."

I dropped off my bag and went next door. Jill answered.

"You didn't, did you?" I asked.
"We're never going tramping ever again. Jane can't walk anymore from blisters, she had to borrow someone's sandals to get to the end of the track."
"Jesus Christ," I said, frantically checking my memory to see if I'd ever told them about the Heaphy shenanigans. "What happened?"
"We got to a junction at 5 o'clock that said the Greenstone hut was two hours away, but we took the wrong fork. We ended up wading through a river because we thought we saw a hut - the water was up to our waists - and then the sun went down and we were off the track in the middle of the forest."
"Fucking hell."
"We built a fire and put on every piece of clothing we had, and had to sleep in the woods for the night. We were both crying all the time and thank God we had yours and Danny's sweaters. We got to the hut in the morning and this woman gave us some of her food, and then we walked straight on to the end. We're never tramping again, we thought we were going to die."
"Holy shit."

Morals to draw from this story:

The Scouts are right.
Don't let helpful bag carriers leave you before they absolutely have to.
If you're feeling guilty about something, there's probably a bloody good reason.
The O.C. is not worth dying for.
Eat more than a muesli bar unless you want to stagger back to Howden hut in a slightly manic state, face muddied and clothes ripped from the occasional lurches into the bush that come from dramatically weakened legs.
You don't need to stay at Howden hut to get to the Divide before 11.

Slippin' and a-jumpin'

2005-04-10T14:08:00.000-07:00

Things you don't really need to hear, particularly in fairly quick succession:

1) "Yeah, I heard someone died on Fox Glacier about a month ago, just lost his grip and fell into a crevasse."
2) "Hi guys, I'm your guide on the ice today. We'll go round the group and introduce ourselves, ok? My name's Brendan, and I've been guiding people up the glacier for about a month now."

Eeep. By the time they got round to me, it was all I could do not to cry out "My name's Ben and damnit I want to live!" and fall to my knees, sobbing pitifully.

I wasn't convinced that the tale of glacier death was anything more than the backpacker version of an urban myth - see also the bungy jumper who lied about his weight, with spectacular results - but I restrained the urge to employ Google to find out, because Kiwi news reports can be a bit colourful and I didn't fancy reading something like:

"...witnesses say the guy fell for a fucking age, bouncing off razor sharp lumps of ice on the way down and giving the rest of the group an excellent idea of how deep the crevasse was with his agonised screams. Mary, 46, from Christchurch, said:
'What was left of him flowed out of the glacier terminal face like a strawberry slush puppy. I got a great photo of it - want to see?'"

The leaflets describing the Franz Josef glacier hiking experience proudly tell you about the patented Ice Talonz (the 'z' was somehow reassuring, as though if it had been spelled correctly it would have indicated some serious business ahead rather than a tourist attraction), with which you scamper up the ice like the proverbial mountain goat, spikes radiating from your foot at every conceivable angle. You could dance the bloody Charleston and not fall over, for God's sake.

Turns out that's not the case on Fox. I checked in, slightly nervous after reading the sign saying "a good level of fitness is required for the full day hike" as though the receptionist would eye up my beergut, cock an eyebrow, and pull a lever to send me sliding down to the 'Flabby Amateurs' section, and was presented with a gammy pair of leather boots and some ancient crampons that covered about two square inches of sole just before the heel. The next six hours promised to be entertaining.

Well, sorry to disappoint but I owned that ice like a latter-day Shackleton. I was used to walking on the flats of my feet after the mangling they took on the Heaphy, so the required trudging style came naturally to me. The only time I was close to a tumble was towards the end when the ground was more rock than ice and we were all getting a bit cocky, but even then it was a lad called Tim that came a cropper rather than me. Which is all rather boring, so lets move on to something I was far less confident about - bungy jumping!

First thing to be said is that a 43m bungy jump is about 194 times scarier than a 12,000 feet skydive. With the latter there's no moment of truth, no point where it relies on you having the guts to step up and step off. You're strapped to some gung-ho fella who just sees you as another pack fixed to his front, and frankly he doesn't give a toss if you're having second thoughts about something that seemed like a fine idea on the bus.

Bungy jumping though. Standing on a ledge, toes poking out over the end as a strangely familiar gung-ho fella tells you to smile for the camera - I even managed a thumbs up, probably on the basis that if I lost my balance and fell it would save a lot of hassle - counts down from five and then it's all up to you. I intended to shout "motherfucker!" as I jumped (there were lots of schoolkids on the viewing platform and I wanted to do my bit in making the world a slightly worse place) but as I leapt into the void my voice vanished. Nothing, not even a "meep", escaped my lips until the second bounce, at which point I managed a "yeeeeeeaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhwoooooohoooooofuckinyay!"

It's fantastic - shorter than a skydive, obviously, but infinitely better. A boat at the bottom hauled me in and unstrapped me, and I ran up to the girl on my bus who'd just jumped before me.

"I wanna do another one!" I said, "Sod it, I'm doing the Nevis jump, that's three times as high as this one!"

That might've been the adrenalin talking - I really should stick to my itinerary, which sees me starting the Routeburn track tomorrow - but by whatever fictional deity floats your boat, do a bungy when the opportunity arises, you won't regret it.

Oh, and I just searched for glacier deaths - turns out it was on Franz Josef. Those Ice Talonz, eh?

It has come to pass

2005-04-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

The planets have aligned, Saturn is in the twelfth house or some such bollocks, and I finally find myself at a decent computer with a fully charged camera, a USB cable and no new tales of woe and suffering to take up my time (watch this space though, because I've booked a six hour walk on Fox Glacier for Saturday. Six hours! Just imagine how many comedy falls I could fit into that timespan). Behold, then, the awesome glory of my holiday snaps thus far!

Oh, one quick point - some of the descriptions are a bit sketchy, because I can't remember exactly what the picture shows half the time. Whilst walking the Abel Tasman track, Melissa told me that she always takes a photo of a nearby signpost before getting a scenery shot, so she would know what it was. I laughed at the time, adding to the already vast list of reasons why I would never see her fully naked* (right underneath "the time I took off my t-shirt to go swimming in Bark Bay"), but damn me I think she might've been on to something.

Somewhere on the Abel Tasman Track. Click here for a bigger version.

The final day on the Heaphy. Big it up here.

Gouland Downs on the Heaphy. Bigness.

More Heaphy final day shenanigans. Big version (rapidly ran out of alternatives there, huh?)

The Pancake Rocks on the West Coast. Big version.

Peter's Pool in Franz Josef. Big version.

The Franz Josef glacier from Sentinel Rock. Big.

A fair bit closer to the glacier. Big version.

Really close. Just as we arrived at the foot of the glacier a whopping great chunk fell off, causing many a "woo-yay!" and leaving the above view. Big me up!

*semi-naked was apparently compulsory.

Learning is fun

2005-04-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

Well now, that was educational. That's why I travel, you see - to learn. A little about myself, a bit more about the country I'm in, and ooooooooh shedloads about common sense and not being a fuckwit.

About myself: sandflies love me. My boots hate me. Given a number of options, I will invariably pick the one most likely to end in humiliation.
About the country: the Heaphy Track is beautiful and incredibly diverse, taking in sub-alpine heights, ancient tussock downs and fantastic coastal scenery in the space of 82km. You can spot keas at Perry Saddle Hut (apparently they like to shred hikers' boots - if I'd known this before I'd've left mine outside overnight) and even kiwis if you venture out after dark and have a torch that emits red light (they scarper at the first sign of normal light).
Fuckwit etc: we're going to need a list for this one:

1) Don't get pissed the night before you start the track. No, not even if invited to do so by a couple of barely legal hot American teens (watch my Google hits go through the roof).
2) When Lonely Planet's Tramping in New Zealand describes the track as "easier than any other tramp in Kahurangi National Park" don't mistake easier for easy.
3) Merrily saying "yeah, 3 nights ought to be enough" in the Visitor's Centre when booking hut passes is rather silly.
4) So is saying, in an equally carefree manner, "I'll take all my gear with me, it'll save getting it shipped over to the other end of the track by bus."
5) So is walking 27km in one day on a foot that resembles a slab of raw meat.
6) For the love of God, take a decent blister dressing. Take two. Hell, take three, because if you somehow grow a third foot on the Heaphy the fucker'll blister quicker than you can say "I swear that wasn't there this morning."
7) Once blistered, don't attempt to spare your feet by fording a river rather than using the bridge 100m upstream. Trust me on this one.

I became something of a celebrity on the trail. Many was the time someone would limp into the hut at the end of a tiring day complaining about their boots only for someone to pipe up:

"You think you've got it bad mate? Check out the state this pom's feet are in! Ben, show 'em your heel!"

I'd duly stick my leg out for inspection.

"Christ, it looks like you're being swallowed from the bottom up by a fuckin' jellyfish! How'd that happen?"

And I'd launch into a well-honed speech about how it had flared up only two hours into the first day, didn't understand it, never had a problem like this before, and thus my legend grew with each passing day, until "least it's not as bad as Ben's" became the mantra for foot-weary trampers the whole length of the track.

Day 3 was when I learned lesson no. 7 from 'Fuckwit etc'. Having procured a stout stick to walk with (and, of course, deploy in self-defence should the occasion arise, although no ruffians needing a damn good thrashing presented themselves, more's the pity), I was hobbling along in a manner somewhat akin to Yoda. I was accompanied on the trail by a German lad called Danny, and upon reaching a river with a number of rocks jutting out that fairly begged to be hopped across in a sprightly fashion, I turned to him and spoke the fatal words:

"I'm not walking a fucking step further than I need to, I'm crossing here."
"You sure? The rocks look pretty jagged, and there's some big gaps. I'm going to take the bridge."
"Fair enough, mate, see you on the other side."

Off he went, and so did I, gingerly poking each rock with my stick to make sure it was stable. I swear to god I'd made it past the hard part. I only had four steps to go, evenly spaced but only big enough for one foot. It was a case of getting my balance, then one, two, three, four and done. I got my balance.

One,
two,
three,
f-
-uck.

On the last rock my foot slipped - bastard boots again - and suddenly I was on my hands and knees in two feet of water, with a fully loaded pack attempting - with some success - to push me under.

"Fuckbollockshittingbastardtwatcrackers!" I bellowed, followed by, "Arrrgh! Camera!"

My camera, you see, was in my daypack. My daypack was on my front. And therefore both were currently taking a bath. I couldn't have jumped out of that water faster if I'd noticed Danny taking a piss in it upstream.

Lesson learned.

That evening was the last night on the track, and everyone had a suggestion about how I could get to the end with the minimum of discomfort. One girl suggested the barefoot approach, and a Canadian guy - who probably wrestled bears in his spare time - favoured the strap-on-your-boots-and-charge method. For a while it was looking like time for the aqua shoes again, and to this end I set about - with great relish - carving out the backs with a penknife, but in the end I settled for plasters, lots of tape, two pairs of socks and my sandals. It worked a treat, and I sailed to the end along what was easily the most beautiful section of the Heaphy, a coastal walk by the fierce Tasman sea, shaded by nikau palms.

Once I got off the track things reverted to more typical NZ form - we were immediately offered a lift to Karamea, saving us $8 and a two hour wait, and checked into a painfully laidback hostel where I was offered a beer within five minutes of arrival.

The next day we hitchhiked down to Westport, and made an unpleasant discovery. Westport is dull. Really dull. So dull, in fact, that I'm ending this epic post right here.

Oh, except to say that the camera was ok. As Rory kindly suggested I have a career in horror writing ahead of me, I saved that news til the end in order to create tension. Piece of piss this writing lark, innit?

Resistance is futile

2005-03-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-23T14:43:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-17T15:56:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

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

2005-03-08T20:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Haloscan, we hardly knew ye

2005-02-28T06:16:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I swear these posts will get more interesting once I get over to New Zealand (if I ever fucking do - you have to bear in mind my ability to get lost on a trip to the bathroom, going halfway across the world is a right ask. Don't be surprised to find me ranting on about Richard Littlejohn and religious fundamentalists over at Insert Joke Here next Monday, having failed to understand just why a passport is so important in these situations).

Anyway. It's been brought to my attention by old workmate Max Hawksworth (hi Max!) that the shiny new surf control system his employer has implemented - which got me in trouble when the cricket was on - doesn't allow Haloscan, and so the comments link to every post doesn't appear. Since a hefty wedge of my audience (ie, 3) will be having a read of this blog at work, I've switched back to Blogger comments, which have had a recent revamp.

Quite why Haloscan is deemed a hotbed of obscenity that must be prevented from corrupting hundreds of employees and leaving them unable to reconcile the marketing budget is beyond me, mind you.

A recommendation

2005-02-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

I tend not to trust websites with names like "cheaptents.com", much as I often doubt - cynic that I am - the veracity of claims contained in unsolicited emails that someone can supply me with all-natural products that will "add innches to yourr pen1s!!!"

In the case of Cheap Tents, it was the site name that got me slightly edgy - it's a bit too good to be true, you'd imagine the scam artists would have blagged that name long before any genuine retailers got hold of it. I guess this theory applies more to drugs and porn than innocent activities like camping, but I was still a bit leery - and the somewhat rough design of the site didn't help either.

Anyway, I was after an MSR Microzoid tent for the times when the trail huts are full (or when I'm just feeling a bit macho/drunk) and these guys had one for sale at £110, so I ordered one up, my legendary tightness taking precedent over my equally excessive cautiousness.

And damn me but it turned up three days after ordering, and I even got an email from the store manager making sure everything had arrived as promised. The actual company behind the site is the Adventure Centre in Warrington, and I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Don't worry, the entries from New Zealand should be more interesting than this. God I hope so, anyway.

Snark!

2005-02-04T15:37:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with New Zealand or backpacking or any such wholesomeness. There are tossers in the world that need a Google-based slap, and by Christ they're going to get it!

Penta Water
Christian Voice
Mediawatch UK

Test Post

2005-01-20T13:20:00.000-08:00

Test posts are generally a) dull and b) content-free. This one is no different on point a), but I can at least direct you to Air New Zealand, who've very kindly agreed to ship me over to New Zealand on the 6th March 2005. And all I had to do was give them six hundred quid.

Oh, and the blog name is inspired by this legendary game, which boasted the fantastic cheat code "MOTHERFUCKENKIWIBASTARD".

And you thought I just couldn't think of anything else to call it, didn't you? For shame.