City of sails

I was able to escape the travelling teenagers and head out onto the water for my last day in the Bay of Islands. Hanging around with this teenage crowd really isn’t for me and I’m going to have to do some serious thinking about how to spend the next nine months if it is going to be like this, but more of that later.

Again it was an early start (why don’t these tour operators take into account just how lazy I am in the mornings?!) to meet the motor launch and we cruised out of Paihia in the flat calm of the early morning to where the dolphins like to feed.

It took no time at all before we were surrounded by a couple of pods who began frolicking around the bow and leaping out of the water for what seemed like our entertainment, but must have been for their own.

There was no clicking or beeping from the dolphins, but they genuinely seemed to be pleased to see the boat and we motored around with various different pods for a good couple of hours.

It was delightful to see them playing like that, not quite as awe inspiring as the whales, but touching none the less. If nothing else, the two trips have moved me to swear never to visit an aquarium ever again - in Argentina the guides said that Orcas in the wild have a life expectancy of at least 25-30 years, but in captivity it is about seven. Similarly the dolphins, normally they can live for up to 40 years, but only five in an aquarium leaping through hoops.

I’m no great animal rights evangelist, but having seen these animals in the wild I can understand why a glorified swimming pool would hasten their ends. Very sad.

After playing around with the dolphins we transferred, at sea, to a sixty-foot catamaran for some lunch and sailing.

We had lunch on board and then sailed over to a beach on one of the islands where we did a bit of snorkelling, swimming, sunbathing and cold-beer drinking. It was all very stressful as you can imagine.

The clouds came in and the wind picked up as we weighed anchor after lunch, which was a huge relief as up until then it had been flat calm - if you’re going to spend the day on a 60-foot cat you want some wind!

The universe played ball though and we had a good couple of hours of 12-15kt sailing back to Paihia, and that was only in about 18-20 kts of wind. It was a fast boat (top speed 33kts across the Tasman Sea apparently) and great fun sitting on the netting as we roared over the water back to shore.

The final morning in the bay was spent sat by the beach with the girls listening to a young Canadian guy play guitar as we sat staring at the sea. Not normally my thing, but he could actually play - and he didn’t speak Swiss German.

A bus deposited me back in Auckland where I was planning on spending my last day in the City of Sails on another boat.

NZL41 is a 1995 Americas Cup yacht, which bar the additions of an engine, a hand rail and heavier duty sails is still in racing shape. There is nothing in the cockpit but a couple of wheels, giant winches and half a dozen “grinding pillars”.

Normally the boat requires 17 crew, but there were only five full-time crew and about 10 of us. So while the crew stood about we were set to work on the grinders. Although there were 12 on the grinders, winching the main sail up the 103-foot mast was not easy.

Once it was up though and we’d got out of the lee of the harbour headland we caught what little wind there was and were off out into the main bay.

The crew were pretty excited as today was one of the days that the two current Americas Cup boats were out practising, and in no time at all we were sailing perpendicular to them as they ran down to a mark with spinnakers flying.

Unfortunately for Oracle, and Kiwi sailing legend Russell Coutts, they dumped the spinnaker into the water and we could hear his infuriated shouts come across the water. Such is the speed of these boats that the BMW boat was five lengths ahead and the race was over by the time Oracle had retrieved the spinnaker.


Not to be outdone we hoisted our own spinnaker and raced down the bay with the crew keen not to be seen to be dumping theirs in front of their mates.

Three of us were sent into the “pit” in the bow to haul in the sail as we dropped it.

It was hard work hauling in such a huge amount of canvas in so short a time, and we lost one of the haulers under the sail as it came in, but we managed to keep it dry and turned back to Auckland.

The boat is just incredible, I had a go on the helm and the skipper kept telling me to come tighter to the wind - at one point the wind was only about 12 degrees off the bow and we were still doing 10 knots in 16kt breeze.

Apparently they perform so well close to the wind as they are designed for harbour racing not straight-line speed. Even so the attention to detail in their construction is incredible - everything is titanium or carbon fibre - and once you take the 20-tonne lead weight off the bottom of the keel the whole thing only weighs four tonnes. It moves through the water like a stealth yacht, barely causing a ripple, even at 12kts. No noise, no bounce, no fuss. Just beautiful.

It was only a two-hour trip, but it was magical. After so many years of taking my sailing heritage for granted almost, I really felt at home and happy. Beautiful waters, clear skies and an amazing boat. All that was missing was Dad at the wheel, Tom up the mast and Mum drinking G&T and it would have been perfect!

I got talking to one of the girls on the crew who was English (from Winchester) and it turns out she had left the UK about a year ago to go travelling around the world, and when she got to Australia she did an RYA Competent Crew qualification in Sydney before coming to NZ to work. Six hours a day sailing an Americas Cup boat around Auckland - beats picking fruit!

It got me thinking as well. I had planned on doing a PADI qualification, but that would have been just for fun, so I could spend the money on getting a sailing qualification instead. It would be a way of avoiding the travelling teenagers as I could stay put in one place for a few weeks, it would be a way of earning money either in Oz or in south east Asia, and it would be a good life skill to have when I get back to the UK. And spending two or three weeks sailing in the Australian summer is hardly a chore anyway!

They don’t do it in Wollongong where Susie is, but Frances and Carly are in Perth now and I have a few London buddies based in Sydney so I should be able to find somewhere to do it, as apparently you can do RYA qualifications all over Australia. It might mean I miss out on seeing a lot of Australia, but I’ve seen beautiful beaches before!

Hmmmm, will have to have a think about this.

Old friends and holes in the ground

Before leaving Christchurch, there was one more thing I had to do. And that was catch up with an old childhood playmate.

My folks and Simon's folks became friends when we all lived in Sardinia at some point in the late 1980s. As is often the way of these things, me and Tom and Simon and his sister Melly (though I understand she prefers Mel these days) knocked around together while our folks slowly pickled themselves in red wine on various verandas.

When we moved back to the UK, the parents stayed in touch and I would see Simon's mum and dad every now and again at family functions, but I hadn't actually seen Simon for 20 years. He moved to Christchurch three years ago, so it seemed only fair, as I was in the area, to look him up and go for a few bevvies.

As it turns out, the Friday evening was his birthday so I dragged Suzy along, as a break from picking up travellers' used condoms for a living, and met up with Simon and his missus Caryn for a few cocktails in Christchurch with his pals.

Both Caryn and Simon were really sweet, and while it was weird seeing someone after such a long time, we had a great time and they couldn't have been more hospitable.

In fact, in honour of our parents' red wine-fuelled friendship we decided to toast the old duffers with a shot of tequila. It was an expensive tequila so went down OK...

But tequila is tequila no matter how expensive and the after effects were predictably revolting.

Once I'd recovered from Friday night and said goodbye to Suzy, the lastof my campervan buddies, I jumped on the Tranzcoastal train from Christchurch up to Wellington on the first leg of my trip back to Auckland before heading off to Oz.

The train is designed for tourists and had a very cool open carriage that allows you to get within beach distance of the spectacular east coast of the South island.

New Zealand doesn't really have a rail network to speak of. The major cities have suburban lines, but there are only really three major intercity lines in the whole country. Fortunately one goes from Christchurch to Wellington and another from Wellington to Auckland.

It is not the fastest or cheapest way to get from the South Island to Auckland, but in keeping with my plan to avoid planes as far as I could, and to try and use as many different forms of transport as possible, I decided that in New Zealand, at least, it still is the age of the train.

The upside of having so few trains in the country is that Kiwis still get excited when they see one. Every farmer, householder, walker, child, and even one lunatic who we passed, gave us a hearty wave as we sped past.

Along one stretch we were running parallel to the road and this Dad kept his car at the same speed as the train so his kids could get a good view of us all. And when that wasn't enough, he sped ahead and parked up so his son could jump out and wave one final time just before we disappeared into a tunnel. It warmed the cockles of my cynical heart, I must say.

The final leg in the South Island took us through the same wine country that I'd driven through almost three weeks before.

The thing that strikes you most about New Zealand is how quickly the scenery changes. You can be driving through rugged, mountainous terrain and then you're plunged down into sea-level plains and gentle rolling hills. It means you can never take your eyes off what is going past your window.

At Picton I got back on the ferry to cross the Cook Sraits and arrived in Wellington. By the time I got to my hostel in windy Welly it was dark, wet and cold - hence my last little rant.

But once I'd got it out of my system and woke up the next day to a bright sunny day I saw that Wellington wasn't all bad. And my old mucker Gabe's mum Veronica came dashing to the rescue and offered me a bed for the night, a BBQ and some adult conversation. Much appreciated Vron, thank you!

Suitably refreshed and reinvigorated, I headed back on to the train for an eight-hour journey up the spine of the North Island to Otorohanga, the jumping off point for the Waitomo cave system.

This leg was everything you imagine a train trip through New Zealand's hinterland would be - ice-capped volcanoes, plummeting ravines, lush green vegetation and a distinct lack of humanity.

I jumped off at Otorohanga and was picked up by a lovely old Kiwi guy called Bill who'd been driving tourists from the station to the tiny outpost of Waitomo for 47 years, he proudly told me.
He managed to cram into the 15-minute journey a whole history of the region and some ideas for places to go and tours to sign up to. If only all bus drivers were like him, Lonely Planet would be out of business. Which would be no bad thing - travellers treat that bloody book like it's the word of God itself. And only God can help you if you are trying to run a hostel or budget tourist business and it's not in there.

The Waitomo Caves in King Country are a network of over 250 (discovered so far) different limestone caves, many of which are filled with glow-worms and underwater rivers. The main reason I'd come was for the glow-worms, but also because you can do a thing called black water rafting, which given my newly discovered love of rivers sounded like a good idea.

I had initally thought that black water rafting was white water rafting but underground. However, I was quickly disabused of this illusion as, probably quite rightly, a local said: "That'd be stupid man."

It turns out that black water rafting is alot tamer and involves floating in rubber rings down pretty tame underwater rivers in the dark while looking at the glow-worms - still a unique experience and not to be sniffed at, but not quite as up there in the adrenalin stakes as I'd been hoping for.

In an effort to inject a bit of adventure into my cave experience I opted for an all-day abseiling/caving/black water rafting/glow-worm spotting/climbing excursion into one of the bigger caves.

As a reward for my caving skills I decided to take the Curlys Bar Challenge with a trio of teenagers. The challenge basically involves drinking a pint of every beer they have on tap, and a cider, being given a stamp every time you drink one, and when you have all 11 you get a sticker.

It's not big, it's not clever and it's not funny.

OK, well it is funny.

As you can imagine I had a pretty sore head the morning after. Fortunately the hostel had some hammocks and I laid back and drank in the view. It's amazing, the restorative powers of sunshine, great views and a hammock. Beats Alka Selzer any day.

Bill picked me up from the hostel and treated me to the 'scenic' route back to Otorohanga - fortunately he factored in a couple of hours between picking me up and taking me back to the station. He used this time to drop me off at the Kiwi house - "You can't come to New Zealand and not see a Kiwi mate."

Unfortunately, you don't really "see" Kiwis as they're nocturnal, but this place had a couple in a dark room so I at least saw their outlines.

The Bill's journey took a bizarre twist. "You must come and meet these real characters. I know you're a journalist and you'll love these two."

I was hungover and hot and the last thing I wanted was to meet two "characters". Bah humbug.

The two characters turned out to be Lebanese shop owners, John and Karam Haddad. Apparently they're minor celebrities in NZ because of a stand they took against Harrods in the 1980s when the London store tried to sue them for using their name.
http://www.waitomonews.co.nz/cms/feature/front_page_feature/2006/12/art1000573.php

The whole of Otorohanga came out in support and every store in the town put up the Harrods sign and the place became known as Harrodsville - they even changed the town sign - and unable to sue everyone Al Fayed backed down. Well done them.

They were really chatty and we stood chewing the breeze for half an hour while they dug out all of their old paper cuttings and relived the glory days. It was a real slice of Kiwiana, and if it hadn't been for the delightful old Bill I never would have met them. What a people.

Despite Bill's best efforts to keep me amused for the time I was waiting for my train to come, the heat meant that the train was going to be two hours late.

I settled down on the deserted platform and waited. The train comes in so infrequently that it's not even a station anymore. There were no staff, no office and no phones. Not even a timetable. I lay back on a bench, rested my head on my rucksack, listened to my iPod and dozed in and out of sleep. I felt like a real nomad - just me and what possessions I could carry on the other side of the world waiting for a train that may or may not come.

The two hours felt like two minutes as I gazed down the tracks, such was my level of calm. There was no fretting about missed appointments, no worrying about time wasted and no nagging feeling that I needed to be up and moving. I saw the train's headlights appear and thought "Oh look, here's the train. Best get up." There was no feeling that I needed to write to someone and complain, I wasn't angry or frustrated, just kind of sad that I had to leave this little bubble of calm I was inhabiting.

The rest of the trip up to Auckland was pretty non-descript and I checked back into the hostel I'd first used when I arrived in New Zealand. Closing the circle I guess.

I still had one more bit of the country I wanted to look at though - the Northland and the Bay of Islands. An area north of Auckland that most Kiwis escape to for their summer holidays because of its beautiful beaches and inclement weather.

I had planned on getting a bus up there, but while in Waitomo I met a Swiss girl called Petra by the pool. The conversation went as follows:
"Hi, have you been into the caves," she asked.
"Yup, I did it yesterday. I'm just waiting for my bus back to Otorohanga," I replied.
"Oh me too. Are you going up to Auckland?"
"Yup, then I think I'm going to go to Northland."
"Yes, me too. I was going to hire a car."
"That sounds like a good idea, driving is the best way to see NZ."
"Want to come?"
"OK."

And just like that Petra and I had hired a car and were off to the Bay of Islands the next day. Weird.

For the first time I was able to be a passenger and takes some pics and try and capture what it's like driving around New Zealand. Sadly, Northland isn't quite as spectacular as the South Island, but you get the idea.

Petra is my age and was as averse to slumming it as I am, so our first night we splashed out on a motel room, a restaurant meal and a few beers from a proper pub. Still pretty basic, but we had our own bathroom, clean towels and our own fridge that we didn't need to label our beers in. Heaven.

And no, we didn't share a bed - she has a boyfriend. Perverts.

The Northland coastline just seems to be a succession of beautiful beaches. Each one more isolated and more picturesque than the last. Our plan had been to find a nice beach and just stop - something you can't do if you're on a tourist bus or train, for obvious reasons - away from other backpackers and off the tourist trail. The problem was actually which one to stop at, rather than finding one, as we'd imagined.

When we did find one at a place called Waipu, I managed to get sunburnt for the first time since leaving home. Bugger.

We hooked up with Petra's friend Kathrin and found some cool waterfalls. I say cool, I was actually in agonising pain and had to stay covered up all day.

Which, given some of the beaches we found, was really frustrating and I must confess to being a grumpy git all day. Sorry girls!

At a pretty little town called Russell (actually the first settlement in New Zealand) we caught the ferry over to (my) final destination Paihia. The girls are carrying on up to the tip of the North Island, but I'm stopping here.

It's not quite been the same as in the camper vans. They always say you shouldn't try and recreate a good experience, and while the beaches have been beautiful, the girls are more comfortable talking to each other in Swiss German and I feel a bit of a spare wheel.

Still, tomorrow we're swimming with dolphins and doing a bit of sailing around the Bay of Islands.

Oh, and I've discovered something else that travellers do. They s**t in spa pools. Nice.