Here comes the rain again

Some of my photos for this post are on a CD. You've guessed it, I'm on the last PC in the world without a CD player, so I'll have to insert later.

After the early start and the exertion of the Tongariro crossing I'd decided it would be a good plan to spend another day in Taupo before heading to Rotorua. I started by walking down to get the Lake views-I managed to see the clouds and floating pontoon for the hole-in-one contest, before it started raining stupidly hard. I hid from the rain in an internet café, then headed on the walk to the waterfall, which passed Taupo bungy. This was the most potent evocation of my previous visit-the first time I remembered being in the exact same spot as 15 years before.

PHOTO CD

In all honesty the walk was nothing too special, so I took my iPod out for some additional entertainment. I've not previously walked listening to my iPod, bar the odd jaunt in cities. I tried very hard not to bellow hello to the few people I met on the way. I took it off at the falls

PHOTO CD

which were quite impressive and had some fun looking rapids. Although few people bothered with the hour and a half walk from Taupo, the falls themselves were packed, as they were clearly popular with the coach tours. On the way back my iPod showed an unexpected sense of humour: when I crossed the bridge to head back to Taupo I had to wait and wade through a big posse of Japanese indulging in their national sport of taking photos. As soon as I put my iPod back on it mixed National Front Disco into Turning Japanese. When I emerged from the forest an hour later the pod was still on form-Annie Lennox warbled 'here comes the rain again' about 30 secs after I'd put my rain jacket back on and about 30 secs before it really threw it down.


I love the smell of eggs in the morning

Anyone who's ever been to Rotorua talks about the smell. Much as I yearn to be original, I'm just the same. It honks. Sometimes and someplaces more than others. The sulphur of the thermals has a definite eggy hint to it.

My first stop on reaching was to make the 40 minute walk to Te Puia, which is a combination of Maori cultural centre and thermal wonderland at the village of Te Whakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao-and I thought it was a pain getting people to spell van de Poll properly. Here I got a pronounciation lesson, sadly it's guyseer, not geezer. Either way, they've got Pohutu-the biggest in the southern hemisphere (that old chestnut).

PHOTO CD

And mud bubbling at 98 degrees-best not to fall in there. This was my favourite. Apparently, if you end up in it, it's like quicksand-except you cook on the way down. Imagine if we had it in Britain-it'd be full of binge drinkers and victims of tyrants from the middle ages. Henry VIII would have thrown you in the mud for looking at him funny; the church would have developped the foolproof Trial by Mud-prove your innocence by cooking as you drown.

As well as the thermal stuff, we got a Maori cultural experience-Rotorua's a centre for this, there are ads everywhere. Mostly they're at night and include a traditional meat feast dinner-hence my choice of the cheaper, afternoon fixture. The 'experience' takes place in a Marae, which I'd equate to a village hall. You're welcomed, which is very like a challenge as it also checks friend or foe, then there's 40 mins or so traditional dancing and singing; so there's nose touching (not rubbing), spear weilding, tongue poking and a Haka-they got me up on stage for this, but I forgot to ask someone to take a photo. Yeah, it's a bit touristy and I wonder how authentic it really is, but I did feel it gave a reasonable insight.

PHOTO CD

And I saw a couple of kiwis in one of those kiwi houses they're using to try and get the numbers back up-it's dark by day and light by night, so we get a gloomy peek at these nocturnal oddities. In 75 years the numbers have gone from millions to 75,000. Introduced species have more than decimated them.

With my camera full once more I headed to the internet café for some CD burning. I expect my voice was quite loud when I informed the internet café guy that charging $12 to put my photos on my CDs was extortion-it appears pressing copy and paste is a skilled task in Rotorua. I was loud enough for a lovely English couple to invite me back to their hostel to use their laptop to burn my CD. I had a sly smile as I left with them, my $12 safe in my pocket.


Eruptions and Confrontations

The focus of today was in the harrowing side: the volcanic eruption that took out a number of villages and dumped a metre and a half of mud on the Buried Village I'm visiting. At least 120 died, but they don't know exactly how many as entire communities ceased to exist. I picked up the car I've hired to explore the East Cape and drove the 20km to the buried village. I'd not met anyone else who'd been there, or was interested, but I thought it'd be really be interesting. I was half right: the village itself was either buried, or excavated to reveal the kind of mud damaged remnants that only excite archaeologists. Bearded archaeologists at that. There were lots of mud caked bottles and a petrified ham. The visitor centre was excellent and showed what was destroyed, the warning signs (including a freaky sighting of a phantom Maori warship) and the people. There was quite a meal made out of the 1 tourist who was in the hotel that night-he was an Englishman, who was killed when the hotel veranda fell on him and I thought that only happened in movies.

Back in town, the undoubted gem of Rotorua is the museum: they must have spent a packet on it. It's in the old bath house: there was quite an industry in the health benefits of the mud (charges increased the more of you was covered in mud) and there's a good exhibition on it, which involves pottering around the basement in a hard hat. I believe there are still places you can visit if you're feeling blue, where you wander round in a white dressing gown, while people in nursing fancy dress tell you how good you look, while emptying your wallet/purse.

{Our coach has just been pulled over by the police}. Anyway, you start with a film on the region, which includes one of those films that makes you feel like you're moving when it plunges through the earth's crust to explain thermal activity. {Driver's been breathalised and now he and the copper have disappeared}. Your seats also rock during the sequence on the 1886 eruption.

There was an excellent display and film on the Maori regiment in WWII. {And we're off again}. It was an especially potent reminder that every name on the WWII memorials that seem to be everywhere has a story of loss and grief. One of the guys spoke of his loneliness-so many of his generation didn't return from the war. I found the political motivation behind the Maori regiment unsettling: a Maori minister was behind the formation of the regiment. He felt Maori involvement would make them more part of modern NZ and provide a strongerr platform for Maori issues in parliament. Noble sentiments? At the price of hundreds of lives.

Still as this trip has taught me WWII, unlike WWI, was truly global: the Japanese attacked Australia as well as Pearl Harbour, while fighting in Burma, Singapore et al. The Maori themselves fought in Greece, Crete, Egypt, Italy and at El Alamein (dodgy spelling). Unlike the WWI Anzacs, who were protecting the 'mother country', those in WWII were threatened at home-though Churchill treated the Aussies as a resource, while failing to protect Australia. This led to the closer Oz ties to the US. Yanks were based in NZ as well as Oz-causing some full on scrapping in Wellington. Overall then, I guess the Maori regiment wasn't the victim of politics-they were all volunteers, many under age and there was never a shortage of volunteers. They certainly were well respected for their fighting-Hitler asked Rommel what he needed to win the war in Africa. 'A battalion of Maori' was the answer (I think it Rommel-I need to read some history when I get bacl). In the interviews in the film, there was still a lot of pride in the regiment, but this was tempered by the grief of those who'd stayed behind and the soldiers' trauma caused by what they'd had to do. The interviews were 60 years on-'some wounds never really heal'. I was left with a renewed sense of the lunacy of it all.

2 steps forward, 1 step back. I'm nearly there with South America. I've been toing and froing for a month now, but I've got the Galapagos booked, which is just a touch exciting, and I'll be in Rio in mid-October. Sadly there is no space for 'my class of ticket' on any flight back in October. What a surprise that I changed my Santiago flight 2 months in advance no prob, but when BA get involved 5 and a half months is insufficient. Anyone want a ticket from Rio to Heathrow on June 30?


East Cape

I was pleased to leave Rotorua-the worst hostel I've found in NZ had left me tired and ratty. So despite the low level of sights the East Cape has to offer, I started the car with a big smile. It was nice to have the car and my own space-both a pleasant change of gear. Mostly it was just a drive through lovely coastal geography.



I did get a cracking view of the volcanic White Island, but the photo didn't really work out. Raukokore Church, isolated by the sea like the church at Lake Tekapo was the definite highlight.



The church was clearly very loved by a small community-houses are quite spread out, so the churches appear to be at intervals so everyone can get to one. Of course, they may all have been different denominations. I tend to walk round the graveyards when I visit churches, I'm not sure why. I have some notion that it's nice to notice those that have left us; perhaps I'm just looking for a nice spot for myself. For years I have meant to visit Highgate and Pere Lachaise. Anyway, I found this graveyard very disturbing: I looked at all the 30 or so headstones, quite startled. A very significant portion had died younger than I am now. I reckon half were dead by 40. Look in your local church, you'll see the odd child death, usually from long ago-there were at least 4 here; although in the 1800s people didn't live as long on average, there's still a decent number of good innings-all of these were 20th century, yet only a couple had made 70. The Stirlings seemed especially short lived, taking about half the spots including 3 brothers between 19 and 27 'accidentally killed' on the same day 20 years ago. Life must be very tough out here. Despite the sun, I shuddered as I returned to the car. Beautiful as it is, I shan't be looking for a spot here-that would be tweaking fate's nose.

I checked into my hostel, which is really a couple's home with a campsite, double, twin, single and 'dorm'-my bed and 3 others, no bunks. It took 5 mins to reach the beach and remind myself about why I've come to the East Cape. There's no one here: no one on the beach, I didn't see a car for 2 hours and I seem to be the only punter in the campsite/b&b/hostel. There's a hint of pink in the clouds on the horizon as the sun sets behind me.

Tomorrow I shall get up at 5.40, drive then walk to the lighthouse that is NZ's most easterly point. There I'll hopefully watch the sun rise out of the Pacific and I'll be one of the first people on earth to see the sun rise on May 6th 2007. If they have a large Saturday night on the handful of islands East of here, I might actually be the first.

I guess it's gimmicky in a way-the positioning of the Greenwich meridian and International Date Line are as good as arbitrary, but I'm really looking forward to it-I think it'll be special. In a couple of weeks I'll be on Easter Island and I'll be one of the last people on earth to see the sun set. Pretty cool I reckon.

The East Cape is a beautiful and sparsely populated tucked away corner of NZ. There's not much to see, bar the countryside, which is a gorgeous backdrop. The one thing that bemused me was how skanky many of the residents were: in common with remote areas everywhere (and most Aussie backyards) there was a lot of junk and dead cars lying about. I stopped at one beach and there were just bags of rubbish lying around. Perhaps making a mess is a reaction to being surrounded by so much remote beauty. Made me want to get a stack of bin bags, I can tell you....


Maximum East

The 25km drive ended up being mostly on gravel roads, something I had stupidly failed to anticipate. Despite my good looks, I was pretty sure the sun wouldn't wait for me, so had to give it some Dukes of Hazard through the gravel, rabbits, sheep and cows on the road. When I parked the car, I got a bit confused and missed the path to the lighthouse and ending up taking the most direct route-up a big hill, over the barbed wire and through the trees. I was breathing a touch heavily when I stumbled into the clearing containing the lighthouse-it had been quite a steep 150m climb at 6.30 a.m.

The moon was still up,



then it was a lovely sunrise





The shadow of the car was moving, stretching and shrinking as I wound my way back-it was quite something and looked as if it was on stilts at one stage.

You know you're in the country when there's a yute on the roadside and its owner's stood on the verge blasting stuff with a shotgun. At 7.15. On a Sunday morning.


Every dog has his day

Since I left South Africa on December 5th, it's arguable that one man has shaped my trip more than anyone else. It's over 200 years since some Hawaiians mistook him for a Big Mac and ate him, but up till then there's a good argument for saying he was the greatest explorer of all time. He was certainly the daddy of the southern hemisphere. By the time he was done, the map of the world was largely complete. His discoveries in the south changed history, and although he missed Antarctica, he was the first in the Antarctic circle, finally disproving the theory of a vast and appealing southern continent.

Whether all this was necessarily a good thing is a very difficult question. There's no doubt in my mind that Oz and NZ would have been better off had they not been colonised. While you can't blame the man who made the discovery for the actions of those who exploited it, hundreds, probably thousands, of species have become extinct; environments have been lost forever. Is that the explorer's legacy?

Realistically, someone was going to colonise them-Europe had colony fever for 200 years or so. Who's to say the alternative to Britain wouldn't have been worse-although had that country left the rabbits at home......

One of the most extraordinary things to me in Oz and NZ is the amazing contrast in the treatment of the indigenous peoples. While acknowledging some key differences, it is hard to comprehend that the same country colonised both of these antipodean states. It's a difference that is still very pronounced. Somebody should (and probably has) written a book on this.

After sunrise and after filling up the car, which proved a heavy delay, this was Captain James Cook's day. For better or worse, he massively shaped the destinies of New Zealand and Australia. Without colonisation, I doubt I'd have been here for the last 5 months. Without British colonisation, I suspect both countries would be unrecognisable. I should make it very clear that I don't blame Cook one iota for the huge pile of shit the British went on to create.

Here on the Cape is where Cook first set foot in NZ. While he's feted and statued throughout both countries, this is Cook heaven-there's even a statue of Young Nick, the press ganged cabin boy who spotted kiwiland.



At Tolaga Bay I took the walk to Cook's Cove-up another big hill, across the rough ground and through the cows to the place where Cook landing after not liking Gisbourne and naming the area Poverty Bay.



At Gisbourne I found a Cook statue I did my best to stand by-you should all know where that photo is going to end up. Then in the gloom I visited the spot where Cook first stood on NZ-it's interesting how an innocuous piece of turf becomes significant through a totally abitrary involvement in a key moment in history. So much so, it has an obelisk



It was too dark to climb the hill to see the Cook statue that doesn't look like Cook-that'll have to wait for tomorrow.

My chill out in the cape managed to cover 900km in 3 days and I decided to make few stops on the 300km. The up and down, twist and turn of the Waioeka Gorge made it a fun drive.

Back in Rotorua I went for a walk and ended up in Kuirau Park (I'm back here to drop the car off and catch a bus tomorrow to the Waitomo glowworm caves). Anyway, you can read for yourself what happened here:



I must have walked past at least 20 steaming, bubbling, stinking pools-all fenced off to keep you raw. I could see from the steam there were more around the park. If this one isn't called Big Bastard, it should be.



There's a large lake there-honest.

The best bit? There's houses across the street! Imagine that lot kicking off under your house while you're munching on a Domino's, watching 24. Maybe, they've done surveys and all houses are on guaranteed safe ground. Maybe......

Reminds me: I got a large deep pan Domino's Vegoroma for $8.90 (about 3 quid). Do I hear the sound of Scat packing?

On the way back I passed a number of fine buildings and lake views, but the black swans and a marvellous Indiana Jones moment carried the day.



I think the season is coming to an end-the last 3 nights there's been only 1 other person in my dorms. It was weird being the only person in an 8 bed dorm in Gisbourne.

The bus to Waitomo chose an excellent moment to break its journey



First Big Thing in blummin' ages.

So, Waitomo. I'm not sure if I mentioned but Waitomo is cave city. Being Kiwiland, you can go through the cave river in a big rubber ring, abseil into them and so on. I find it all a little contrived and I don't think it's as mental and bonkers, as they'd have you think. Anyway, I've done all that kind of stuff before. So I'm going to the glowworm cave, which sounds magical, and another with lots of crazy formations.

As the bus timetable means I have to stay the night, I'm doing one this afternoon and one in the morning. I decided to visit the Aranui cave this afternoon, as it's about a 3km walk from the village and it's a cracking sunny day. The weather here has been either torrential or glorious, with the latter far more common. All this in the equivalent of November-I think the NZ weather gets a bad press.

Knowing very little about caves, I was surprised we hiked up as far as we did from the level of the river and were in openings 30+ metres high, with only 12 or so metres of hill above us. I was dripped on quite a lot by rain that had fallen 6-12 months ago and seeped its way through.

The formations that looked like bits of meat, vegetables, garden gnomes and old ladies lended proceedings a That's Life feel (tho thankfully there was no sign of Esther and the oddballs).





Truth be told, it looks amazing, but photographs badly. The place was covered in stalactites (roof) and stalagmites (floor), with 2 'close' to meeting. They develop agonisingly slowly and can even shrink, when muppet tourists break bits off.

The only other folk on my tour were a retired NZ couple, who were very nice and gave me a lift back to Waitomo. Tho in hingsight, I'd rather have been on the tour after with the Suzi Perry lookalike.


Food and Sex

Well now I've got your attention.......

You can argue that any animal is focussed on stuffing its face and reproducing-check out any urban kebab shop on a Friday night. I think the glowworm has distilled this and removed extraneous activity more completely than any other animal I can think of. Here's my version of the glowworm life cycle.

1. Egg-parent lays you with about 20 brothers and sisters.
2. Hatch first. Feel hungry. Eat surrounding eggs and unhatched glowworms-aka your siblings.
3. Fail to hatch first-see 2.
4. Spin silken line; light up; feel insect on line; reel in line; eat; repeat.
5. Feeding time is over-become chrysalis.
6. Emerge as fly type thing. You have no mouth, so your life expectancy isn't great.
7. Mate.
8. Lay eggs.
9. Die-either in a dark corner or caught on the silken thread of... a glowworm.
Never leave the cave your whole life. Like I say food and sex.

There were good omens in the mention of the greatest living Englishman on the caves' marketing material and getting the same guide as at Aranui yesterday. Ordinarily the first part of the trip, walking through the caves, would have been most impressive. There were many formations, a fused stalactite and stalagmite and the cathedral cave. Renowned for its acoustics, many have performed in the cathedral cave-including, you guessed it, Dame Kiri. However, this was all warm up for getting in the boat and floating on the river through the caves where the glowworms live.

The glowworms are on the cave roof, so it's a great way to stretch your neck. The only comparison I can make is say it's like a very densely starred night sky-the glowworm create patterns and swirls. It's very beautiful and involving. Almost the only light in the cave comes from the glowworms, so its impossible to see the cave roof. The roof's unevenness creates more variation in the grouping of glowworms and as the boat moves these change and grow and disappear. Glowworms use the light to attract insects (everyone's seen A Bug's Life?). They create the light as part of the digestion process and they have the ability to vary the intensity of the light and even shut it off. The effect is again like the night sky-it twinkles. The cave's atmosphere created a quiet in our boat, which was cathedral-like.

Afterwards I went to the shop to get some postcards-you're not allowed to take photos. As the boat had exited the caves, they took a tacky tourist photo, which was in the shop. I didn't buy it, but the huge grin on my face showed how good it had been.

Cretinously, the shop had missed a massive market-the glow in the dark glowworm t-shirts were only available in children's sizes! How I want one of those down the Zodiac.

Time for a spot of lunch, then the bus to Auckland, where I spend the night before heading to the Bay of Islands tomorrow morning.

And tonight I'm going to see Dylan Moran. Should be weird.