After Elaine's dive off a cliff in the Abel Tasman, she got the call from Sly to head back to Hollywood to star in a remake of the "classic" Cliffhanger. She's been working out because she is not ready. In 6 weeks she will be ready, but I will be BIGGER!
Cheers bro :)
You have to do some tramping in New Zealand, and being a bit of a tramp myself it felt really good to leave the bus behind and get back to nature. I was a bit worried about Elaine, but it turned out she was a tramp too. We spent four days walking the Abel Tasman Coastal Track and met some nice people on the way, including a Spanish guy who used to come over as a Spanish student to Ballybrack back in the day. The world is too small!
I found a great walking stick (which I called Whizzbat, Elaine called hers Slim) and it really helped going up over the ridges and headlands. Unfortunately it made me look like Moses, but it came in handy for parting the seas…
There were some great moments– sleeping in the giant hut bunks with 7 other people (keys in the bowl folks) and barely making a tidal crossing on the Awaroa Estuary and getting soaked.
Oh and Elaine fell off a cliff. She's ok though, Sylvester Stallone wants her for Cliffhanger II.
Photos on Flickr
Found this hidden gem on the Predator DVD special Edition. Apparently they shot a lot of it around the Abel Tasman Coastal Walk…
We finally made it to the end of the North Island, in Wellington. It's quite a nice town very chilled out and cool. The first night we were still wrecked after the Tongariro Crossing so we just went ot the pictures. We seen Slumdog Millionaire in the Embassy Theatre, which is where they held the premiere for The Return of the King. It's the most amazing cinema I've ever been in and we had basically the best seats in the house!
We also went to the amazing Te Papa museum and took the cable car to the Botanic Gardens (Elaine went a bit mad photographing flowers, but I liked the ducks) and we had a really nice time before heading to the crossing.
Photos on Flickr
After leaving smelly Rotorua we headed over to Taupo where we stayed for a couple of nights as we were going to do the Tongariro Crossing; a 19.4km, one day hike across an active volcano and then through some amazing scenery– craters, calderas, sulpher lakes, alpine ridges, thermal vents and sub-tropical rainforest. The Mount in some of the photos is Mount Ngauruhoe, which Peter Jackson used as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. Elaine was Frodo and I was Sam…
It was a really tough day but at the end of it we felt really good, and got to lounge on the beach at Lake Taupo watching the sunset behind the mountains we'ld just climbed. Sweet as!
Photos on Flickr
So the first bit of shite stuff happened. As a preface, just let me say it's actualy not that shit, but compared to the rest of the trip so far it's shite.
After gettign into Rotorua and getting used to the eggy-fart smell – there's lots of natural hot springs around the town which give off hydrogensulphide gas (H2S science geeks glayvin!) I thought it would be a cool idea to go up the nearby mountain on the gondala thing they have here and come down the mountain on these luge go-kart style yolks that go really fast! So I bundled E into a taxi and shot off for the $20 trip out to the mountain. ANd the fucker was closed… The return $20 taxi ride was not a happy one and to save money we actually hopped out before the place where we actually wanted to go.
But one door closes and another one opens, we stubmled upon a Belgian bar where there was some some mad jazz infused taiko drumming going on. These guys were savage and made a shit night turn ito a kick-ass one!
After leaving Paihia we headed back down to Auckland adn hopped on the Magic bus; sing it with me, Oh oh oh, it's Magic!
On the first leg between Auckland and Whiatanga we got a chance to do some sea kayaking around the Coromandel Peninsula. Elaine was really brave, and she did a good job in our double kayak as a front seat driver. After a hard few hours paddling around the Te-Whanganui-A-Hei marine reserve seeing amazing wildlife and volcanic islands we landed at Cathedral Cove. Our guide Nathan made us a massive cappuccino (yes a proper frothy cappuccino) and we got to explore the beach for a while. Then it was back to the main beach and dry land again.
Photos on Flickr
Elaine's Irish birthday we headed up to Cape Reinga via 90 Mile Beach (it's actually just over 55 miles ling, but it 55 Mile Beach doesn't have the same ring to it).
It was a great day, the drive up the beach was amazing (and fast), I got to go sandboarding down a giant dune (managed to scale the beast three times!) and we seen some massive kauri trees, some of which are over 2000 years old. We made it all the way up to Cape Reinga, which is the northern-most point of New Zealand, and the place from which Maori believe their spirits leave the earth. When they die their spirit goes on a journey up to Cape Reinga (or Te Rerenga Wairua in Māori, which means the jumping-off place of spirits) where their tears form a lake behind the main bluff. Then the spirit leaps of an ancient tree and return to the ancient ancestral home of Haiwiki.
It's really cool that the Māori have such tenable traditions, rituals and beliefs and stories, it makes you think about all the Irish legends and stories we learned in school and
Photos on Flickr
PS Apologies about the sound on the video…
Finally made it to New Zealnd!
Elaine had her birthday on the 30th, so we headed straight up from Auckland to the Bay of Islands so we had somewhere nice to celebrate. As her present I took her out on a boat around the Bay. Don't worry I wasn't sailing it myself, although I did get to drive (sail?) the boat for a bit. We had a great time on the boat, we also stopped off at a deserted island for a bit of snorkeling and had a massive lunch on board.
Back on dry land we went for a really nice dinner by the harbour where the boats come in. A marlin fishing boat pulled in and started weighing the fish caught on teh trip. A six year old kid had landed a nearly 200kg marlin and loads of people came down to see it which was cool.
I embarrassed Elaine by getting our waitress to put a candle in her desert and most of the restaurant sang "Happy Birthday" to her which was cool.
Photos on Flickr
