Rain Stops Play

So far on our trip in New Zealand we'd only spent one night in each place (apart from Christchurch.) In the North Island we decided to change that and to stay in fewer spots for longer. This meant that we'd not get to visit the Eastern Cape, but we were reconciled to that.

I'd pre-booked all of our accommodation with Hotels.com before we'd left for Hong Kong in February. I was able to change all but one of these bookings. We were bound for Ohiwa on the Bay of Plenty, near Whakatane (pronounced Fuk-a-tan-nee!) whether we liked it or not!

Whakatane is claimed to be the sunniest place in New Zealand. It is also the departure point for the boat trip out to White Island - an active volcano in the ocean. The trip costs NZ$199 each but we're such geo-nerds we decide to splash out - no pun intended!

The accommodation - the Ohiwa Beach Holiday Park was a little off the beaten track and on the opposite side of  a large lagoon from Whakantane.

The coastline had intrigued me when I was first researching this area as a stop-over. I've always  loved to pour over maps and try to imagine what the place looks like. It's even better when you can actually go there! Google maps has only served to fuel my obsession with travel.

The Holiday Park itself had very little going on. The sea was very rough - still roiling after that storm that had flooded Franz Josef the week before, and the beach was covered in a very high tide. There was nowhere to buy food. We had to go to the next town about 15 minutes drive away to find food to cook up in our self catering unit. While we were in good cellphone coverage territory we got a text message. Our trip the following day to White Island was cancelled because of bad weather. Ironic really since we'd been in New Zealand's rainiest place - Doubtful Sound and had had clear blue skies. Now in the sunniest place we had rain and storms!

We greeted this text with a mixture of disappointment - we may never have this opportunity again - and relief - it was stretching our budget a bit.

By the time we'd shopped for supplies,the sun had begun to slide toward the horizon. When we reached the lagoon the world was bathed in golden light and this was the sight that met us.

We pulled over and grabbed the cameras.

The protected lagoon belied the angry waters out to sea. We soaked in the peace.

Sure this stop had not worked out as we'd planned, and we'd resented the Holiday Park for not allowing us to cancel, but in this moment it all came together. We sat, just the two of us, drinking in the tranquility of this spot as if it were a fortifying tonic.

Suddenly a loud plop in the water, then another and another. Fish were jumping all over the lagoon. We even caught one in action - not an easy thing to do.

We must have spent an hour there watching the light show of the dying sun and listening to the lap of the water and the kerplick of landing fish. It was amazing, free and unexpected.

It made me realize, not for the first time, that there is magic in every moment, tucked away in every corner, if you just take the time to find it.

Jupiter and the moon

Byddi Lee

Playing on Super Volcanoes

Taupo Lake is the caldera of a super volcano. It has produced two of the world’s most violent eruptions in  recent times, geologically speaking. It tends to go off every 900 or so years, yet hasn't done so in 1700 years soooo ... yep .... looking a little overdue there buddy!

It may not be as big as Yellowstone. It's eruption would likely to be more of a national catastrophe as compared to the annihilatingly global cataclysm that Yellowstone would be, but still, I wouldn't want to be hanging around there when it blows!

However, now that we were here we were determined to make the best of things - not a hardship since we had a beautiful lake to play on and the locals were so friendly when we'd ask for directions!

We decided to go to see the Maori Rock carvings, only accessible by boat or air. 

We choose to sail out on the Barbary yacht. At $40 each for the afternoon it was the best value for money of any excursion we had in New Zealand and one of my favorites.

The weather was beautiful. The wind would take us straight to where we wanted to go. 

I was intrigued as to how we'd get back - it's not like the wind would conveniently change direction for us. Although I knew the physics of tacking and could draw out the vectors of the forces involved on a piece of graph paper, as I'd done for A-level maths and physics, I'd never seen it in practice and secretly didn't believe it would work! Sort of like how you can't believe you can make water boil in an paper envelope held over a candle until you actually do it!

Made in the 1970's, the Maori rock carvings aeren't ancient or anything (though my nephews would say that was ancient!) but they were big (10m high) and beautiful and that was good enough to attract tourists.

On our way back the wind didn't change direction and the tacking proved to be a very long winded (pun intended) way to travel back (and forth and back and forth) across the bay until the Skipper, a very witty and entertaining chap, decided we had enough of sailing and switched on the motor - Understandably, since he needed to get back by a certain time to take out the next tour. But a cocky little devil in the back of my head kicked back, folded its arms and said with a wink and a smug smile, "Told ya it wouldn't work!"

Byddi Lee

Does the Nocturnal Bird Catch the Glow Worm?

It's a one hour flight from Christchurch to Auckland in the North Island. Waitomo is only two hours south of Auckland by car so we were able to comfortably push on through to Waitamo without having to spend a night in Auckland.

We stayed in the delightful Waitomo Caves Hotel and soaked in the charm of the lavish yet somewhat jaded decor that spoke of an older era, whilst trying to push The Shining to the back of our minds!

No need to worry though.

The hotel had a warm, welcoming atmosphere, with friendly staff and a great restaurant.

The waitress took time out to chat with us. She was a local Maori woman and her insights to the area and local life were interesting and much appreciated.

Next morning, we spent some time at the Otorohanga Kiwi House.

They have more than just kiwis, such as this Kingfisher.

We were able to watch feeding time for this cute Kea.

These adorable parakeets, the Red-Crowned Kakariki, were so entertaining.

But my favorite was Kevin the Kiwi!

It's hard to determine if he's a Brown, Little Spotted or Great Spotted Kiwi from this photo. Trust me, he's there, but what do you expect what with trying to photograph a nocturnal bird in the dark?

The afternoon was spend below ground despite the gorgeous scenery above.

We were visiting glow worms caves. We'd seen glow worms already on our trip but years ago on my first visit I'd been blown away by these cave tours and I wanted to share that with My Husband.

There are many tours available. The cheapest tour is about NZ$50, but if you can budget for it, I highly recommend the trip run by Spellbound Tours for NZ$75. The groups are smaller, the tour is longer and you feel like you are having a private tour of the caves because they take you to a different, less busy section. Our tour guide was one of the cavers who had first explored the cave system. His stories about how he and his friends had set up the first tours and developed the pathways were great. He totally plugged into our geek-factor on the science and technology behind it all.

The tour begin with a walk through the caves. We were all given helmets and head lamps. At various points we were instructed to turn off the lights to feel the developing darkness that only underground caves can offer.

Then in one cave little pin-pricks of light showed up.

These were the start of the glow worms...just the start... Now, I know this is nearly as good as my "Kevin the Kiwi" picture but bear with me - it gets better!

Here's what they looked like with the lights on.

And from another angle you can see the sticky threads with which they capture their prey.

We then came to an underground river. We boarded the awaiting boat and were instructed to turn off our head lamps.

Photo courtesy of Spellbound Tours

Above us the ceiling twinkled with millions of tiny lights which were reflected in the water giving the impression that we were floating through stars.

Photo courtesy of Spellbound Tours

It was amazing. To complete the zen of the experience we were asked not to talk or use any photography at all. Free of charge, the company provided us with a set of stunning photographs of what we were seeing.

Photo courtesy of Spellbound Tours

They gave me permission to use them in the blog - good job too because I am running out of words like amazing, spectacular, magical, stunning... to describe what that experience was like. It was like being in another dimension, floating along in that boat, holding My Husbands hand and devouring this visual feast.

Photo courtesy of Spellbound Tours

When we were allowed to turn our camera on again, we did manage to snag a few nice shots ourselves.

We came across the remains of a goat. It may have stumbled in from outside to die.

Other strange bones were too far in for that to be the cause of death. This fatality may have been the result of the animal falling in through a pothole.

The picture above shows bones from a Moa - a giant flightless bird which is now extinct.

This toe is about six inches long.

The Spellbound tour truly lived up to its name. We had a great time with these guys and would urge fellow travelers to this area to look them up.

I've visited caves all over the world and these are the most unique, interesting and bewitching of them all.

Byddi Lee

Christchurch Five Years After the Quake

The road along the north east coast of the south Island runs most of the way right alongside the beach. We gazed for several hours at a palette of fresh blues and turquoises, each twist in the road bringing forth more exclamations of how gorgeous it was.

At one point we stopped to get out and take pictures. We were out of the car and overlooking a small cliff-like drop of about a dozen feet when I noticed fur seals on the rocks - a whole colony of them in their hundreds, stretching all along the coastline.

Even more exciting, they had babies and many were suckling.

It seems we had discovered the Kaikoura Seal Colony. After hanging out here for a while we set off again for Christchurch.

It was with some amusement that we ended up in Belfast first!

You can walk and cycle on the Belfast road (perhaps on your way to the cemete...ry? I guess...)

Belfast seems so out of place besides the exotic names of the South Pacific!

For our two night stop in Christchurch we stayed in a gorgeous one bed-roomed apartment in The West Fitzroy apartment complex on the Armagh Road! It really was a home from home.

Part of our motivation for staying in Christchurch was to find out how it was recovering after the big earthquake in February 2011 and to support the regrowth of the city.


I'd been hoping to write an uplifting post about how the people of Christchurch had inspired me with their fortitude. Sadly that wasn't the case. Instead, I only saw a sad city embroiled in petty politics and in-fighting that resulted in a stalemate, halting any progress beyond the "make-do" arrangements they'd put in place immediately after the quake. Insurance companies were refusing to pay out and people were understandably frustrated that their city was now suffocating in a quagmire of red tape and bureaucracy.

At least this was the impression we got when we took the city tour. The tour guide and a couple of locals on the tour (they were hoping to become guides) did nothing but bicker with each other about the decisions that had been made and sniped at the politics behind it. It created a nasty atmosphere in my opinion. Perhaps, we'd just been unlucky to have that perspective thrust upon us, but it certainly tainted my view of the city.

If this was how a "first world" country coped with the aftermath of such devastation, what hope was there for less wealthy places like Haiti, Mexico and Nepal? I have not visited any of these and so have nothing to compare it with. I wonder if perhaps not having insurance and red tape allows you to forge ahead and fix the place up.

They still had the Re:Start Container Mall in place. An ingenious use of cargo containers that was intended  to tide them over until the rebuild. They are all still there and threatening to become a permanent fixture.

The destruction of the Christchurch Cathedral seemed to really knock the city sideways. Especially tragic because the scaffolding that was shoring up the building after the earthquake in 2010, fell and took out so much of the building during the February 2011 quake.

 

Our tour guide made no secret of the fact she abhorred the Transition Cathedral.

 It's base was constructed from containers which were used as offices and meeting rooms.

The huge cylinders holding up the roof were made from huge rolls of cardboard, hence the nick name the "Cardboard Cathedral." We'd been really looking forward to seeing this, but our guide's obvious disgust at the building put us off asking our usual nerdy questions... it was a case of shut up and put up... a lesson I reckon our guide could have used.

Some buildings had been beautifully restored - like these university buildings.

However, it was more common to see many derelict and abandoned buildings.

 The graffiti added a dystopian feel to it all.

Some still needed structural support and weren't safe to enter.

One sector of town had been beautifully rebuilt, but I switched off as the guide began to recount some gripe with the developers "doing it wrong" - which was silly of me because now I can't present a measured discussion myself... But it's a picture of nice buildings in Christchurch.

By far the most poignant sight in Christchurch is the simple but effective White Chair Memorial.

185 white chairs sit on a lot in the city. Each chair represents a person who died in the earthquake. The variety of the chairs, some high chairs and baby seats, shows the uniqueness of each life lost - death is not choosy. The earthquake did not discriminate.

This haunting reminder put it all in perspective for me. The city will recover physically. People will get past their anger and frustration, but those who lost loved ones will never forget, and rightly so.

Byddi Lee