Posted by: jomorey | February 9, 2010

Baked Alaskas & Ghosts

Internet facilities being a little few and far between around these parts means we need to do another big ketchup. And more photos to come too.

Up the west coast of the south island, we successfully stalked a lovely couple from Buckinghamshire – Alison and Kevin. Having bumped into them in Bluff we ran into them again at the Blue Pools, and then again at another waterfall. By the time we ran into them again at Jackson Bay they decided it was about time we shared a couple of bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon over lunchtime chish and fips. We actually ate elephant fish, which was delicious. Not sure why elephant fish are called elephant fish – imagine they don’t have trunks. But maybe they do.

Franz Josef – Somehow we managed to goad Will’s mum into doing a full day ice hike with us up the glacier. Complete with pick axes, crampons and several peanut butter sandwiches to keep us going we staggered up this incredible giant baked alaska. The views were amazing. Lucy did really well following us up giant hills, through tight crevices and into giant ice caves. I especially loved the bit near the end when our guide Rob led us down a particularly hairy slope of ice and then announced “oh no, maybe not. It looks like this path leads us into sheer oblivion. Better go the other way…” All went well until the very end when we took our crampons off, and then on the gentle walk back to the car park Lucy fell over!! She was so relieved to have succeeded in the ice walk she relaxed too early and tripped up. But several glasses of Merlot and a few hot pools later all was well…

Lucy’s birthday – Had a lovely day of brekkie and pressies, horse riding (I got stuck with the temperamental ex racehorse Pistol Pete) where we all perfected our rising trots, cream teas in the afternoon at Franz Josef Glacier Country Retreat*, visited a Maori art gallery, then had dinner and had a delicious night’s sleep at Formerly The Blackball Hilton.

Formerly The Blackball Hilton – After huge recommendations from my brother Simon and his wife Clare, we were glad to finally pay it a visit. The hotel has since changed hands but retains a lot of its unique history and eccentricities. Founded in 1910, and originally opened as the Dominion Hotel in this old gold mining town. Later changed its name to The Blackball Hilton but in 1992 after a letter from The Hilton International’s lawyers, and after a long drawn out court battle, it was asked to change its name. What many people don’t know is that The Blackball actually won the case. But changed its name anyway. The current owners are planning on celebrating the 100th anniversary in July with a huge celebration, inviting back loads of old owners and previous guests, as well as planning a Paris lookalike competition. They thought about inviting Paris herself, but thought it might stir thins up again! View more of the history of this place here. Simon, I’m sure I remember you saying something about this place and cannabis or something. Did I make that up?

Also checked out the most haunted location in NZ, which is the Community Centre in Blackball. We took lots and lots of photos in the belief that the more we took the more likely it would be that some ghostlike figure might appear in the window of one of the frames… Still waiting. Ghosts must have been on holiday.

Now in Kaikoura again so Lucy can go whale watching (or ‘whale washing’ as she referred to it) and hopefully munch on a cray or two…

* This was an absolutely unbelievably good value cream tea. The three of us had a large round of delicious cheese and tomato sandwiches as well as 2 massive scones each with lashings of scrumptious whipped cream (NZ doesn’t do clotted – business opportunity #417) and two huge pots of jam, and endless pots of tea for the tidy sum of a mere $17 (that’s about 8 British pounds). Not each. For all of us. 8 quid for three cream teas and sandwiches. Incroyable. We checked twice that they hadn’t got the price wrong. This country retreat must be run as a charity for poor gypsy looking travelling folk.

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Posted by: jomorey | February 5, 2010

The Mother Has Landed…

We have now picked up Will’s mum in Queenstown (what a beautiful airport to fly into!!) and spent a couple of days fuelling her with NZ coffee, whisking her around the shops and helping her avoid bungy jumps. We went up in the skyline gondola thingy to look over the whole of Queenstown, the gorgeous mountains in the background. Stunningly lovely. And then Will and I kept our inner childs happy with a spot of luging down the hill. Lucy took the photos. I put my helmet on the wrong way round, which the supervisor girl took great pleasure in telling me, and Will took even more pleasure in taking photos and ripping the piss out of me. ‘Special’ does not even cover it.

Lunch in Arrowtown, and then spent a night in Wanaka. Touted as being like Queenstown used to be, it is lovely. Spent the afternoon by the lake sunbathing and reading, and generally doing lots of not very much. We’re very good at that now!!

Yesterday we started working our way towards the West Coast, and stopped in at the apparently legendary Blue Pools (although I’d never heard of them). Ridiculously crystal clear and still waters at the bottom of a waterfall, a scene where Daniel Craig would not look amiss. We all ripped off our clothes and jumped in for a swim. Except it was the absolute coldest water I have ever encountered. As she got in Lucy turned into Aunty Libby for four seconds and swore like a trooper.

Lucy is desperate to see a penguin, so that is now the order of the day. We will see what we can do…

I have now broken my second pair of flip flops. But there’s always a bright side – at least now I get to go shopping!!

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Posted by: jomorey | February 5, 2010

More or Less

NZ is great because it has:

More

wide open spaces, kiwi fruits, Maoris, good tattoos, funny road signs, possums, Gerwertz, hilarious local radio, eagles, old skool supermarkets, chish and fips, penguins, beautiful beaches with no-one on them, sheep

Less/Fewer

vandalism, rubbish, chavs, cars, people, stress, road rage, queues

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Posted by: jomorey | February 3, 2010

Queenstown

Gorgeous sunshine. Beautiful mountains. Luscious lake. All just lovely lovely lovely. But too many nice shops too. Oops. Poor budget.

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Posted by: jomorey | February 3, 2010

Speed Flirting

It’s kind of like speed dating, but with more fear of rejection.

And Will isn’t very good at it. At least not as good as me. As yesterday he failed dismally to flirt his way out of a $170 fine for speeding.

We are quite obviously driving too fast in NZ. Oops.

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Posted by: willmorey | February 2, 2010

Suidide Penguins and Seals Showing Off

It’s been another hectic few days in NZLand.  I think I am still recovering from the shock of nearly running over one of the world’s rarest penguins.  It was unfair for the penguin to include us in its suicide mission but you can’t trust a penguin can you.  Just ask Batman.

I am officially tired and hot.  We had to get up at 6am this morning to go kayaking.  After a huge bowl of porridge t0 set us up for the day we were soon on the water in Milford Sound and kayaking our little butts off.  Milford Sound is beautiful and I loved seeing it all from the kayak.  We made friends with a seal that swam with us and kept showing off doing jumps and swimming on its back then staying stationary with its tail in the air .  Showing off is definitely a positive trait in animals.  Later on we also saw a pod of dolphins who were equally entertaining.

After kayaking under Stirling Falls and managing a good 28km of paddling we ended up out in the Tasman Sea nearing the coast of Australia, well almost.  A good mornings exercise and definitely enough to earn a very large and delicious burger from Queenstown finest burger establishment without too much guilt.

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Posted by: jomorey | February 2, 2010

Burger Treatment

I am seriously hurting. Achy achy achy after kayakking some obscene distance through the entire Milford Sounds with a rather too kooky young Kiwi who declared everything to be “awesome” and couldn’t get through a whole sentence without throwing in “cool bananas” or “coolness”. I think I am starting to be an old, grumpy person. My shoulders have never ached so much in my life. I think we kayakked some 28km!!! Will really should start to develop arms like Biceps Steve’s some time around now.

Treated my pain with the meanest, finest burger from Fergburger in Queenstown. This is not only the best burger (officially – I say so) in NZ. It is the finest burger in the world. Will and I both had the Tropical Swine. But tomorrow I think I’m going to go back and try The Codfather (battered blue cod with tartare), or maybe The Bun Laden (falafel patties), or actually maybe the Little Lamby… Mmmmmm, tooooo good.

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Posted by: jomorey | January 31, 2010

Kiwi Ketchup (2)

    Yesterday/today we:

  • Stumbled across a gypsy curio van which, with our own gypsy tendencies, we of course had to see. Blair who originally comes from Auckland moved down to the Catlins years back to combine his love of physics and art to create weird and wonderful gadgets that Data Wang from The Goonies would be proud of. A spinning wheel which made your eyes see funny, a gurgling oyster machine, a hand-held gun that made a walnut fly like a helicopter, a nose-itcherer and much, much more. We had lots of fun being kids here.
  • Inputted our expenses into the computer. And ‘puter said naaaah.
  • Had the most delicious chish and fips at the end of Bluff, and marvelled (and sang) at how we’d ‘never been this far away from home’ (London – 18,958 km).
  • Hunted and hunted on Gemstone Beach for some beauties. Found some wonderful pebbles and stones. Later had a Pebble-Off Championship whereby we each put forward our ten best pebbles, one against one, to see who had pocketed the best. And I won!! Will was gutted and tried to accuse me of only putting forward spotty ones or stripy ones. But I still won.
  • Ended up in the weird and wonderful town (hamlet? cult?) of Manapouri. Driven away from first campsite we stopped at by menopausal and frightening woman owner who exclaimed “You cannot sleep here!!” several times without actually explaining why. Eventually managed to decipher it was because Samson is not self-contained (i.e. no ladies powder room on board) that he was not welcome in these parts.
  • Finally ended up in a wonderful campsite far, far nicer than Menopausal Land. This place is full of old Morris Minors parked up (some with Guy Fawkes’s stuffed cousins sitting in them), quaint little huts, soldiers uniforms adorning the office, old skool pinball machines from the early 80s, Monty Python cigarette cards in frames in the toilets, and lots of other beautiful eclectic eccentricities besides. Loving it.
  • Went for another long tramp up a ridiculously high hill (Tris, you would have been so proud of us), but had to boat across Waiau River to get there. Hired a rowing boat, which any normal couple would have mastered instantly and got across in 5 minutes. But not Will and me. Even with our recent Berlin rowing boat experiences, we were floating ducks. We were obviously given a rowing boat with a dire malfunction, in that it insisted on only going around in circles. Several brushes with the bank and close encounters with trees later, we hit our destination. I think it took half an hour. It felt like several. We even gained a laughing audience on the bank. The walk itself was wonderful. Saw the most beautiful moss I have ever seen (apart from Louisa Moss, of course!!!*) and at the top the views over Lake Manapouri were stunning.
  • Decided that South Islanders are not in fact that happy. We have had some upsetting incidents with ‘happy’ southerners, including aforementioned Menopausal Woman (Beast). But also, Will got shouted at by a barking mad young lady at the Shell garage in Dunedin for not pulling forward enough, even though there were free pumps either side for her. And, we experienced an incident of the most strange variety with a café owner when Will tried to purchase an omelette and salad. The menu stated $25 for omelette and chips and salad, $15 for omelette and toast, $11 for omelette alone and $8 for salad. Will asked how much for just an omelette and salad and was told it would still be $25!! So he happily in his Will-lie way (which is always happy, and always pleasant) mentioned that he could then just order an omelette on it’s own for $11, plus a salad for $8 and only pay $19. The young waitress laughed and agreed. The owner looked severely upset despite Will’s joking demeanour and just muttered under her breath “Whatever…” In the end he ordered a chicken wrap. Best left.

Off now to cheer up some more southerners, and to adopt a Scot for the night. We’re off to the local bar to catch the Australian Open final, and see Murray get whooped by Master Federer. xx

* And probably Kate Moss should get a mention. Although I’ve never actually seen her face-to-face, so maybe not.

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Posted by: jomorey | January 31, 2010

Kiwi Ketchup

My, my we have some catching up to do. It seems like an age since I was talking about boobies. So much to write about. Especially as a day here feels like five normal days packed into one.

Mount Cook Village was absolutely wonderful, mainly for the Hooker Lake Walk we did early evening. We tramped along stunning grey rivers, over Indiana Jones style rope bridges (well, technically I suppose they were actually properly designed suspension bridges made of iron or steel or whatever important save your life looking bridges are made of) and along bushy tracks to finally hit a lake of glaciers overlooked by the imposing and beautiful Mount Cook itself. Took several photos of Will standing on a rock looking like an Antarctic explorer.

The following day we drove further south through more of that beautiful NZ scenery (blah, blah… – it’s all just so normal now) to Dunedin. We decided to freedom camp for the night to save money, and so in order to pass the time until dark (less conspicuous finding somewhere to park up that way – we’ve learnt all the tricks!) we headed to the cinema and paid an astounding 32 dollars (which with our sorry exchange rate is about 18 of our measly pounds) to see Invictus. Which was actually well worth it. Wonderful film about Nelson Mandela’s support of rugby to bring white and black together in post-Apartheid South Africa. Finally a film about sport worth seeing*. Whilst trying to find somewhere to freedom camp we narrowly avoided some sort of gang party at the top of the highest hill in Dunedin, and also accidentally drove up the steepest residential street in the world (Samson the van was not best pleased with us). Finally found a spot to park up a little way out of town next to a miniature dam, and the SH1 (but we only heard the lorries, not the cars, so it was passable as a sleeping point. And to be frank, when you’re a gipsy anywhere is good so long as it’s free).

After scouring every single second hand bookshop in Dunedin (which is quite a few) we grabbed an amazing takeway sushi lunch for a beautiful 5 dollaroonies and hit the road. Drove south past Brighton – obviously had to stop to take photos of this Brighton (just as beautiful as our beloved back home, and with more sand…) before parking up the van for a long lunch and a sunbathe on the beach. Finally managed to topless sunbathe. The massive long beach stretched forever, but with not another person in sight I felt it was about time I let loose and support Shannon Claire wholeheartedly. After a spot of skinny dipping (well, we had to – such a beautiful beach, with no-one else around) where Will was also able to get in on the act we hit the road again in the gypsymobile.

Stopped at Nugget Point, which is apparently a wonderful place to spot the rarest of penguins in the whole wide world – the yellow-eyed variety. We came very, very close to making the breed a whole lot rarer. As we drove up the hill we chatted about how unlikely it would be to see said penguin, especially since it was not very late in the day*. And then, out of nowhere, as we wound round the bend, a little cheeky penguin fella shuffled out in front of us across the road. Literally 3 metres in front of Samson. We literally could have killed the little chappy. How terrible that would have been. Being responsible for killing off one of only 4,000 known yellow-eyed penguins in the world. What would we have done? We figured afterwards that if we had knocked him over we would have had to have bundled him in the back of the van and hidden the evidence, being too ashamed to go to the authorities about our hit and run incident. Maybe eaten a penguin burger or two for dinner. Thank goodness the little chap got away.

* Surf’s Up is also brilliant of course.
* In Jan/Feb, best time to view the yellow-eyed penguin is after 4pm, and the later the better…

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Posted by: jomorey | January 27, 2010

NZ Council Representative Makes A Boob

I had been thinking that since we have been in NZ, chilling out on the beaches, lazing on the rocks by the sea, hanging around the hot pools, that we had not seen any topless women. It was quite a realisation, since on the Med, in the UK in the summer, even in Asia you are often confronted with ladies with their boobies out. But in NZ, nada. Will in particular is devastated by this reality.

Apparently going topless in NZ is quite a statement, and one which seemingly has little support (haha). Whilst relaxing in our motel room the other night I saw on the national evening news that an Auckland lass was taking this issue to a whole new level. Shannon Claire has been going topless on the beach for some time, but many local people take offence and often come up to her and ask her to cover up. Of particular concern seems to be the long term effects on the fragile little minds of children. Hello, breastfeeding??!! At one point during the news filming, a council representative approached Shannon and asked her to please put her top back on since she was upsetting people. Polite Shannon did as she was told, but was later given an apology by a local councillor after they realised that she had not actually contravened any by-laws, topless sunbathing not in fact being illegal in NZ.

Shannon has started a Facebook group, “I Support Topless Sunbathing in NZ” to gain support for topless sunbathing in NZ. I have joined, myself wanting to go topless here from time to time, but not feeling quite like I can in such a conservative environment. But maybe now I will.

Isn’t it time NZ ladies got a bit bra-ve, and hit back with their boobies European styley???

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