Kia Ora New Zealand

Arriving in Auckland was like planting a big smile and waiting to see how long it could stay in bloom. I’ve wanted to visit here for so long, but was too much of a wimp when I was in this part of the world last time, owing to being 20 years old and travelling alone and feeling like a year in Australia was a big enough achievement for the time being! Now, 13 years on I am far more confident and cannot wait to find out what goodies lay within the New Zealand store, country number 24 on this journeys list, last but not least as they say. While travelling nearly 40 years ago my parents made good friends and it’s their apartment I had to good fortune to stay in while I was in Auckland for 3 days. Right in the centre of town and with harbour views stretching out from their 11^th floor balcony, I could not believe my luck! Thank you so much! Such a beautiful city surrounding me, such an active harbour to observe and such a happy person you cannot imagine! I have arrived!

Walking around Auckland is easy and enjoyable; it’s a clean and inviting city which is easy enough for me to navigate. I took the ferry over to the other side of the harbour, to Devonport, a charming Georgian area with glorious old buildings and the southern hemisphere’s oldest remaining operating picture house. Here the houses are wooden, the streets quite open, it’s near the water and I can’t help comparing it to Halifax in Nova Scotia, my immediate thought is how similar I feel while walking around here.  Devonport is also home to 2 small volcanoes, the larger of which I climbed the towering heights of all 187 metres of it, to a lookout point at the top, complete with restored disappearing canon. The mechanism allowed soldiers to raise and lower the gun as and when it was needed. Imagine the stamina needed to keep turning those wheels to raise the weight of a canon! The weather had been drizzly but clear when I left Auckland, at the top of the hill there was absolutely nothing in view other than grey gloom, but it cleared up once I reached the bottom again! I wondered around the harbour of Auckland, in among all the posh yachts and the viaduct where all you can see are money signs all around you.

I also took a walk out to an old cemetery, situated near the city centre, named by a travel book as the forgotten place. It’s such a beautiful cemetery, I saw no stones dating later than the early 1900s and its full of old trees and greenery and it’s a bit crumbly, and some of the tree roots are knocking the stones over at angles, it’s a truly wonderful place, really enchanting and mysterious. However, for some reason Auckland City saw it fit to build a road through it! I was flabbergasted! Stones have been laid flat or moved to make room, under the road there are empty metal fence cages that once housed stones, and some of the stones are just propped up against the concrete supports. What an outrage, I wonder how this was ever passed off as a good idea in a board room, I hope they get haunted!

With nerves of steel (ahem) I went to collect my hire car, my luxury item for the next 12 days. I haven’t driven for months, I’ve been on mopeds in different countries all driving on different sides of the road, I didn’t have a clue what was normal anymore, and I was feeling a little apprehensive venturing out on my own. So, armed with my car, my tent and my brand new travel kettle I headed off into the North Island wilderness for my adventures. It was lovely to be back on the road, in charge of a vehicle, listening to the radio, with no plans beyond the next few hours. I headed north into the Northlands area and spent my first night in a riverside clearing with toilet facilities provided by the Department of Conservation who have named several camping areas throughout New Zealand at varied prices, mine was free. The following day I started with breakfast at Shipwreck Bay, the beginning of 90 Mile Beach. It’s funny, I’ve also been to 75 Mile Beach in Australia, and I think that’s actually longer because 90 Mile Beach is only 64 miles long!! Anyway, after a nice walk along 90 Mile Beach I was heading for Cape Reinga. This is the most northerly accessible point of New Zealand, only a couple of hundred feet short of one of the other peninsulas, it’s as far north as I will get in this country. It’s a beautiful site too; a lighthouse stands proud at the point, waiting for people to pose beside it, as it does not do a whole lot more these days. Here, is where the Tasmanian Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, it is also where the Maori spirits leave New Zealand to return to their  Polynesian homelands when someone dies.

The countryside of North Island is so green, it’s lovely and fresh and as its spring there is no shortage of lambs and calves, which is playing with my head because I know it’s November! Naturally the vast amount of greenery, along with both rolling hills and more rugged hills, takes me home to Scotland but I admit it’s not the first country that comes to mind, memories of Nova Scotia are all around me here and I am touched by the thought that Scottish clearances took people not only to Nova Scotia but to this country too, I’m delighted they had countries so like home to set up in. The birds are also those from home, petrels and gannets are out and about. I drove around the east of the peninsula to set up camp in the Bay of Islands, a paid site in Waitangi where I can have a warm shower in the morning, a good start to an amazing day.

I spent the morning cruising the Bay of Islands, we were fortunate on our boat and came across a large school of bottlenose dolphins that we sat watching for a while.  There must have been at least 40 dolphins or more, as there were about 5 in view at any given time. They were feeding along with some gannets that always seemed to be fighting over the same fish! They hung around long enough for us to get our fill of their antics, but were clearly more impressed by the yacht behind us, dolphins do love yachts! The next part of the trip involved the hole in the rock, a great big natural arch in one of the outer islands, blessed with good weather we were able to go through it which was fun. We then went ashore one of the islands, where an even better surprise awaited me, swimming along the shallow waters of the beach was a ray, I am delighted to add that to my list of animals sighted in natural habitat! At the start of the trip I hoped for an orca (as usual) but never dreamed that a ray was waiting to greet me, as yet the orcas continue to evade me! One of these days, I will find one! Back on the road I pulled off at the promise of a glow worm cave, the Kawiti caves were my next stop. Limestone caves, full of stalagmites and stalactites, we spent the best part of an hour meandering out way through some underground walkways seeing the rock formations of the past millennia! The treat comes when the guide turns off his torch and suddenly the ceiling is like the sky at night, tiny little lights are dotted about the whole place making one of the most magical scenes you could imagine. Interestingly, the glow worms turn their lights on when they are hungry in an effort to attract insects (like a moth to a flame) and apparently only cave worms in New Zealand have evolved in this manner as other caves have bats whose droppings attract the insects. A dark, damp, underground passage and this is where we find the most wonderful sky at night, how incredible! I was agog!

Back on the road I drove to Whangarei and visited their local waterfall, a 28m drop and a lovely big pool at the bottom, perfect for swimming in the summer time, but this is not summer time so onwards we go! My next stop was the Abbey Caves, free caves for anyone who’s brave enough to go exploring the natural rock formations and the promise of more glow worms.  I stopped and took the long walk down to the caves; I was keen to prove that I am not a wimp and that I can go into a big bad dark cave all on my own, me and my head torch. There were two caves, the first one was big and bad and dark and I had trouble getting into it so I headed to the next one... here I almost fell head first into it! It was at this point, realising that nobody knew where I was and that I am a calamity all to myself and likely to fall over all the rocks, and apart from anything else – I’m shit scared of being alone in the dark!! So I decided it was for the best that I maybe did not explore the caves alone, an adventure in the mind, and that’s where it shall stay! So I headed to my campsite for the night, another DoC site, this time on the beachside outside the village of Waipu. Strolling along the beach before sunset it dawns on me again how like Nova Scotia this place is, and how like Scotland they both are, and how glad I am that both times of travel the most Scottish places I have visited have been the last stop before going home!

I stopped at Waipu Cove to breakfast at the beach, though it’s chilly it’s very comforting to feel so close to home when you’re alone, and the beaches here are exactly like the ones in Barra, cold and wet, but you know you’d still jump in the water for a laugh! Waipu is a very Scottish town, they have a pipe band, they have a highland games every New Years Day and they have a museum dedicated to the people who left Scotland to live in Nova Scotia, then left Nova Scotia to move to New Zealand (via Australia) having not found it as good as they had hoped there. I wonder how it’s possible that a further 6 months at sea is preferable to living in Nova Scotia, times must have been very difficult. A very interesting museum, I’m glad I have already visited so many things in Nova Scotia to put these pieces of the puzzle together, although no Barrachs were listed there were Lewisaich and Harraich who were on board and moved here.

I drove back through Auckland and headed to the Coromandel Peninsula, a beautiful stretch of scenery with huge hills on one side and the sea on the other, everything you could hope for in a landscape in my mind. I stayed the night in Whitianga, another site near a beach allowing for a lovely evening stroll along the sea side. The next morning I was up and away early in search of a hill walk I was keen to do, 40km down the coast. Once I got there I realised I had read the map wrong and the walk was in fact in the very spot I had just left that morning, I hoped this wasn’t the start of a bad day, a day that would wipe the New Zealand smile from my face, so I continued on along the coast before cutting inland towards Matamata. While this wasn’t a very interesting place in its own right it is now home to ‘Hobbiton’ the hobbit village created for the Lord of the Rinds trilogy, and now being used for the Hobbit trilogy, how very exciting. Once I arrived I enquired as to the whereabouts of the village and how I might get to see it, well I’m afraid the only way to see it is by tour and that will cost way more than I am willing to pay! I was a little taken aback, are they not making enough money out of the films?!The tour is only the outside of the houses, and the lake and a tree, you don’t even get inside! I was quite annoyed at the price of that so got back in the car and headed towards Rotorua, the place on everyone’s lips, every single person I have ever met ensures me that Rotorua is the place to visit. Once I arrived I went in search of the obvious, a nice big geyser! At the entrance to this they told me it would set me back a ridiculous sum, to see a natural phenomenon!! I’d say the start of the day was quite correct; this was not going to be a good day! All was not lost though; I’d been advised to visit the local red woods and headed there to go for a walk. This was the best tonic I could have asked for, a wonderful walk through the dense forests, in complete silence except for the birds, and it was completely free! How divine! That night I camped at another DoC site next to one of the Rotorua lakes, a very pleasant place with black swans swimming around and utter peace and quiet to research the following day’s activities. I clearly needed to research this better than I had first assumed, I refuse to be held to ransom as a tourist, and I know that not everyone wants to rip us off, surely this country can cater for all different kinds of tourist? Let’s hope so!

The almost home straight - To Sydney

2 Oz weeks, Darwin to Sydney

My flight from Bali to Darwin was quite long as it included 13 hours in Singapore airport, but that was fine by me as it saved me around 120 GBP which is going to be put to good use in the real world where Asian prices no longer exist! We didn’t hang around in Darwin and I never saw any of it, we headed straight off to see some of Kakadu National Park. We drove out to Jabiru and visited a site of rocks and rock paintings with great views out over the plains of the Northern Territory, it was green and fresh looking though the temperature was hot. As some of the flights were a day later than originally planned we were running a little late on our itinerary and this meant that Kakadu was a short visit and we rushed through it to get back on the road and get some miles under our belt. I was really disappointed by our short time here as this was the only part of the Australian trip that I have not previously covered and really wanted a chance to explore it more, never mind, it wasn’t for me this time around. Katherine was our next stop and we visited the Katherine Gorge before continuing down through the Red Centre taking in the Devils Marbles, Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (the Olgas) and the lovely quirky town of Coober Pedy. This is a great town, I have fond memories of it from years ago, situated in the middle of Australian nowhere, Coober Pedy is an unusual place with a lot of character. Around 80% of the population live underground in dug out homes which keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The town makes it’s living from opal mining and you can visit the mines or buy some of their beautiful precious stones. One of the local caves was home to a well known character by the name of Crocodile Harry, possibly the original Crocodile Dundee. This man was full of stories and mischief and when I visited his home in 1999 he was still around greeting people and chattering away. Now Harry has passed on but his house is still open to the public as it is a cavern of goodies and interesting artefacts, home to one of Tina Turner’s bras for example as one of the Mad Max films had parts shot in this cave.  There are many other caves open to the public, private homes, public accommodation, restaurants or churches many of which are an absolute pleasure to visit. The surrounding area has little in the way of landscaping and has had pictures comparing it to the moon, making it an ideal place for other movies to be filmed.

The camping through this part of Australia had concerned me at first, as an arachnophobe I never really believed it was the right place for me to lay my head but once inside my tent I felt safe from the claws of the devil spiders. The first night of camping was at a creek with crocodile warnings around it, but none of us had any intention of going for a swim so we felt safe enough! It was here I encountered a spider which was to almost become a friend, we found her relatives all around us almost all the way through Australia, and she was a rather attractive white spider with a head torch! Her eyes reflected our head torches at night as a pale light surrounded by a gentle blue halo. She became known to us as Albino Annie and not a night went past that I didn’t see her creeping around the campsite. I liked her because she was easy to spot and that is essential when you have to leave your tent in the middle of the night to visit the open-air bathroom! Less welcome was the sight of burrows around the size of a small mouse but maybe more likely to be home to some very large spiders, I am delighted to have not encountered their residents as they were uncomfortably close to my tent. At night the skies were so clear, we had hours and hours of star gazing to keep us occupied, there was no shortage of shooting stars and with my outside door open I could lie in my bed and gaze for as long as I could keep my eyes open.  One night was wild and windy and wet but other than that the weather held out really well and allowed us to thoroughly enjoy our final two weeks camping, star gazing, sitting around camp fires, toasting marshmallows and reminiscing our months of travel and adventure and growing relationships. I can’t believe two weeks’ worth of nights can be summed up in that small paragraph, it was a magical time.

From day one we have been lucky to spot a variety of wildlife, the incredible birds here, ibis, lorikeets, cockatoos, galahs, emus, cockatiels. The bugs, stick insects, a praying mantis, grass hoppers, termites and their enormous mounds and a variety of spider which I have looked up in an effort to name them but failed miserably as soon as their pictures arrived on screen! There have also been many wallabies and kangaroos dotted around the landscape which are always fun to watch, such an oddity.

We travelled on to Port Augusta where we reached the opposite end of the country and a new sea, then on through Peterborough, Broken Hill, Nyngan, Dubbo, Bathurst and on to the final destination of Sydney. We got to walk around a dry salt plain of Lake Hart, we did a lap of the Bathurst race course, we had some wine tasting at the Highland Heritage Cellars of NSW, we had a lovely trip over to Sydney, the temperature becoming more and more comfortable, the land becoming more and more like that of home. The camping became cold, the long trousers and fleeces came back out of the bottom of the rucksack and everything appears to be returning to normal slowly wiping away the traces of Asia and the tropics. The spider hitchhiking in my bag in Indonesia hasn’t reappeared, I wonder where he came from, somewhere between China and Indonesia, now I can’t find him! The food is western again, some people are finding themselves feeling bloated or a little unwell from eating it again, and there’s not a grain of rice in sight at breakfast time! Our final night was spent in a campsite at Lake Lyell, a lovely serene place with hills and still water and a perfect place to spend our final night together as a group. The final day allowed us a visit to the stunning Blue Mountains where the blue haze hangs over the valley which is thick with trees below us. It’s a beautiful place and well worth more than a couple of hours, but that is all we have here, why delay the inevitable final farewell for the group, back in the bus and onwards to Sydney.

We drove in to Sydney with mixed emotions, out of the 24 people who began this adventure only 12 of us have completed the entire trip which makes the achievement all the greater as it clearly wasn’t as easy as we had thought when we originally signed up. It was a triumphant moment, standing at the harbour having our photo taken with the Harbour Bridge in the background, we did it!! 28 weeks living in the pockets of strangers, a social experiment of sorts that I am unlikely to experience again, it has been most interesting. I have camped more than I imagined I would ever enjoy, I have cooked on fire and eaten all manner of animals and animal parts I wouldn’t eat at home, I’ve seen sights I have often dreamed of and visited countries I thought might never be possible, I have visited 23 countries along the way. I have learned so much about the world and feel a richer person for it. I feel quite honoured to have been lucky enough to take on this trip, my life is so easy in comparison to thousands of those I’ve passed on the journey and I hope that I never take this for granted, having said that I have shared a smile with so many, and it’s a private moment like that that I take away and treasure. I live in a country with 4 seasons which is the only way I think I could ever live, I am blessed with an uncommon love of varied weather and I embrace days of rain and wind as much as I do the sun. I have the freedom and finances to travel the world and hopefully the good sense to appreciate the riches I have waiting for me at home. While the UK to OZ adventure is complete I have not finished my travels yet, I still have a relaxing week in Sydney to enjoy before heading off for a couple of months in New Zealand, this story is not yet over!

But for now.... I did it!!