Flying, The Biggest City and Spontaneity

Kia Ora!

Lots to cover as I’ve been pretty rubbish at getting going with this blog so I hope you’re sitting comfortably…

So it turns out that flying 11 hours with the turn of the Earth is as you’d expect, pretty long and boring, pretty trippy but also has moments of being pretty cool. For example it was about 2:30pm home time when we flew over Moscow in the dark with it all lit up like a spider wrapped in fairy lights reaching for miles. Also being able to whiteness night bleed into morning before its even 11pm back home was one of the more surreal moments.

Auckland itself is a really friendly place with lots of shops and restaurants. The harbour is probably the best bit, in my opinion, as you get chance to look out across the water or the city scape instead of being enclosed by tall buildings; because of this just nice but limited space, Saturday was probably one of the best days I’ve had for a number of reasons.

Emily and I had begun to feel pretty penned in by being in a big broad city and having only done practical and necessary things to help get us set up and done nothing which even whispered at adventure. The city itself is so big but actually with very few attractions and things to do unless you have money for the shops and bars. So we headed downstairs in our hostel to the booking tours and information centre to ask if there were any good day trips that we could just go off and do. The next minute before we had really registered what we were doing we’d booked to go on a day trip to see a few water falls, a stop off at our drivers house for a drink and to see the view and then go for a chilled out relaxed session on a beach down the road. This was leaving in 1 hour and was actually at a pretty good price. It worked out about £28 each for what was going to be an 8 hour day trip. We turned out to be a mini group of 6 and then our driver which was nice. The first place we stopped off at was actually the information centre for the area so we could learn about the culture and history of the land we were going to see and be driving though. Also this centre had a stupidly good view over the valley and out to sea.

We then took what can only be described as the curliest, winding, dramatic-drops-off-to-one-side-into-near-virtical-forest type roads known to mankind. These are the kind of roads which are as wide as Cornish country roads and also 10x as crazy. But we soon made a stop off at our first waterfall. It was like a mini rock pool hidden away between some twisted gnarly trees more than anything but was pretty. The second waterfall was just a smidge further down the track from where we were. This one was more of your stereotypical waterfall! Tucked away down a small track between the trees. We came to a clearing and the falls appeared just opposite with a shallow, wide pool which we went paddling in which was great as tit was about 25 degrees just before mid day.

After heading back to the car, we headed off to our driver’s house which was on the way to the last waterfall and the beach. His house doesn’t half have a view! The architecture is very basic, most of the houses in the area are all prefab design cubes which you can shuffle about. He and his girlfriend/wife had bought a small square of land on one of the highest parts of the hill over the bay and built this home. It was lush. He also brought us out a small cup of his home brew beer – best beer ever (for me anyway who doesn’t like it too bitter). Mega refreshing and made with a bit of lemon in it too. Super refreshing, light and scrummy.

Next stop was the biggest and last waterfall. We had a 25 min walk from where we got dropped off to the actual waterfall itself. Easily done it jandals (Kiwi word for flip flops and sandals) but kind oh hilly and a few things to scramble over. Well worth it though because this place was ace! A 3 tiered waterfall which we went swimming underneath. The water was absolutely freezing. Had to get my breath back after getting fully submerged before actually being able to swim about. We also had a gander at a couple of the pools just down stream. Emily managed to nearly stand on an eel whilst having her photo taken – made her jump so much she lost her flip flop in the process of getting out its way and the eel nearly claimed it for its own. We got it back.

After tramping back to the car park we were dropped off at, we had another 25 minute walk to the black sand beach. We stopped for food at the fish and chip shop on the beach car park for lunch first. We were recommended the fish burger by our driver. The best, most delicious thing ever I kid you not! Two Snapper fish fillets crossed over shredded lettuce and mayonnaise in a bun. So. Darn. Fresh. So. Darn. Tasty. Drools. At. Thought.

To round the day off, we spent about 3 hours on the beach. A fair chunk of that was spent in the sea itself. First time in the Pacific so that I was also exciting! We all waded out to where the surf was pretty lively but the water only came to no more than lower chest height, and we just jumped over the waves and body surfed with the current. It was fantastic. The sea was really quite warm, super mega clear and just a bit crazy with the big waves. We then got picked up about 6pm and driven back to the city.

All in all an incredible and much needed day. It helped us to feel more excited about our journey and just getting out and actually seeing things seemed to calm us down and chill us out. Highly recommend it to anyone who heads out there.

So the adventure begins…!

So, it’s the big count down with 17 days to go until we fly. We’re heading out from Heathrow Airport on the 6th January, transfer in Hong Kong for 10 hours (yep…10 hours) and then hop on over to Auckland arriving on the 8th January. Mega travel times *breaths deep*.

As we’re having 6, almost 7 months away – mainly working but also holidaying –  we’ve planned that the first half month we just get settled into Kiwi life, hopefully get over jet lag and get ourselves on the move. Therefore we’ve got 4 days in Auckland to start getting our heads around what we’ve just done. After that we fly all the way down to Invercarvgill on the south of the South Island and then sail across to Stewart Island for our first nature stop and enjoy ‘The Great Walk’ – the best place in the southern hemisphere to see the Southern Lights, Kiwi birds and just some beautiful nature reserve.

North Island, New Zealand

The next immediate stage is to get back to the mainland and buy ourselves a cheapish car. From here, we head to our mini WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) location in Riverton for a week to get us into the swing of it before driving over to The Catlins Conservation and Forest Parks to begin our first big volunteering session.

Invercargill, South Island

After this we plan to road trip it up the South Island over roughly the next three months. Using our location of work as a base for 3-4 weeks at a time and then using the remaining time for site seeing, leaving at least a week between places to just  to enjoy ourselves and chill out. Mount Cook and seeing and hiking up either Fox or Franz Josef Glaciers are a definite! There’s also some potential for some adrenalin sports when we hit Queestown – I’ve now been dared to do the world famous bungee jump – I’m terrified! Eventually we’ll end up in Picton at the top of the South Island and sail on over to Wellington for the next leg of the journey.

Once this is all done, we’ll come home. Probably sleep for a very long time and then spend the rest of the time sorting out the millions of photos that will have been taken. Then sleep some more.

Edited on 20th December 2014.

Start at the beginning

As far as travel goes, the furthest I have ever been is Florida in one direction and Cyprus in the other – all family beach (or Disney) holidays and a couple of school and university trips.

This is a google map I’ve doodled over. So yeah, I didn’t make it, neither do I own it.

This is a whole new venture altogether. No parents. No designated responsible grown up. Just myself and my friend Emily striding fourth across the plains and scrambling over the Misty Mountains.

We’re still in the planning stage, gathering accommodation information, flights, etc… We are hoping to get everything solidly set in stone by the end of October if possible. Then it’s just a case of preparing everything we need. Sun screen is a must and will be taking up most of my luggage space to help me avoid looking like a sun dried tomato. Apparently limited/no ozone coverage leaves you just 15 mins before you begin to sizzle (yikes).

My absurdly large NZ poster taking up most of my wall

Currently the basic plan is to arrive in Auckland in late December, stay there for couple of weeks to get our bearings, then jump on a plane and head on down to Invercargill, pick up a car after a couple days rest to get our bearings. From there we will zig and zag our way north, stopping off and staying at a variety of farms, conservation areas, vineyards and similar, following the NZ summer sun north as autumn sets in and then fly home at the end of July when winter approaches.

Of course we’ll be stopping off for a half pint in the Green Dragon along the way and visiting many of the locations and the sets for the filming of The Lord of the Rings and now The Hobbit. Lothlorien, Hobbiton, Minas Tirith, you know the route. I’m pretty darn excited about it all!

I hope to be able to keep updating this as everything progresses, ranting about the ins and outs of part spontaneous travel and planning along the way.

Wish us luck!

My kind-of-artsy photography attempts