Extras and keyrings

Addendum/Appendix/Extras

Not many people were previously allowed to know that I collect keyrings, but I think it may have slipped out once or twice during the previous few chapters of the New Zealand blog. Now the fact that I am a copoclephile is out in the open, I figured I might as well start showing them off.

Just for completeness, for those aspects of our holiday that didn't produce keyrings, I have added one or two pictures of tickets/brochures and so on which were kept as alternative souvenirs.

The Auckland Skytower keyring on the cover of the rather tacky photo-souvenir they sell you.

A lovely wooden Maori carving as a memento of our trip to the Auckland War Memorial museum and cultural show

This is unusual for me, I rarely buy keyrings that don't include the name of the place I want them to act as a reminder of. 

Sealife keyring

I made an effort to buy different styles of keyrings - there's nothing worse than a series of the same keyrings just with different place names on them!

Tickets and daily programme for the Auckland Museum

Ticket for Auckland Harbour cruise

Russell keyring and Dolphin Encounter brochure

Keyring from Paihia in Bay of Islands

Keyring and ticket from Te Puia at Rotorua

Keyring with a photo of the beautiful Champagne Pool at Wai-O-Tapu, Rotorua

A very badly taken photo of my glow-in-the-dark Waitomo Glowworm cave keyring

Hobbiton collection

OK, so sometimes there are really special places that deserve more than one memento, and Hobbiton was certainly such a place. The lovely fridge magnet hairy feet actually came from the Weta workshop. Appropriate that the Green Dragon keyring is a bottle opener, I think.

No keyrings for our Lake Taupo boat trip

Lovely Art Deco Napier

Zealandia

No keyrings with birds on that had the name Zealandia on, so I bought this one. I also had to buy one of this lovely swamphen as it was one of my favourite New Zealand birds.

Lovely cute swamphen

Wellington Cable car tickets

Tickets for the Thunderbirds tour at Weta workshop

Weta workshop postcards and keyrings

Te papa

The Te Papa museum building is beautiful and a fitting design for the keyring I chose to represent the 2 visits we made. They also had keyings for some of the specific exhibitions, but this was my favourite.

OK, even the InterIslander ferry has it's own keyring! 

Placed it on a map of the general area of the crossing route from Wellington to Picton.

Kahu kayaks in Abel Tasman National Park have no keyrings; I did get a T-shirt though!

Whale watching specific keyring bought in Kaikoura

The obligatory kiwi keyring from the Franz Josef wildlife centre with the fewest animals ever

The Milford Sound trip started and ended at a building surprisingly devoid of shopping opportunities. I've included the Go Orange tickets and 'fush & chups' voucher alongside a somewhat Kiwi-themed lanyard I also bought myself!

The Royal Albatross centre

Lovely blue penguin

Blue penguin, blue penguin, so cute I put it in twice

Obviously no opportunity on Mount Cook for a keyring, but I picked up a lovely brochure!

We didn't pick up any brochures in Hanmer Springs (home of this fantastic chiropractor - I especially love the ferny spine), so I had to photograph my lovely autumnal picture keyring on the Lonely Planet guidebook page for the town. You may notice the crazy golf score-cards, but as this as the one I lost, I've carefully hidden the score part!

Akaroa on the beautiful Banks peninsula

There a lovely dolphin swimming-specific keyring, but I also briought home a Hector's dolphin and my "I helped save the Hector's dolphin" wristband.

Of course airports have their own keyrings, why wouldn't they!

It's fair to say that my baggage was heavier on the way home than on the way there, and I have a nice bowlful of keyrings sitting in the dining room, waiting for a more permanent and creative home. More than likely, they'll end up hung on my cork board (like recent other additions to the collection), but at least they've had a limited public airing and their own 15 minutes of fame.  

PS I'm beginning to think perhaps I should be more, er, collectorly about this, and may even resort to counting them all one day soon lol 

It all went swimmingly

Sunday March 13th

We took the chance last night and this morning, to organise our luggage and clothes, including working out how and where we will do the final van clean before the handover. Luckily we'd only used about 3/4 of our weight allowance on the way here, and had no limit on the number of bags we checked, so managed to accommodate all our souvenirs and presents with the extra rucksack we'd bought in Auckland. We popped into the iSite early to get a Hanmer keyring and then made our way to the Banks Peninsula to spend our last full day in Akaroa.

This was not a memorable drive, especially compared with so many of the others we've had this trip - the ring-road does a great job of missing Christchurch completely though - until we reached the final 30 km which took us past the black swan-covered Lake Ellesmere and one of the amazing winding, up and over roads we have come to love. We did drive through a town called Little River, with an interesting take on accommodation - they had created or refurbished silos to make places for tourists to stay overnight. 

We stopped at the top of the hill with a great view down to the bay which Akaroa town sits in - truly photogenic even in poor light - and then up and over a couple more hills and into the French-inspired town. There's a Top10, of course, so we made our way up hill to it and booked in for a final time.

View from the road, as you come "over the top" into the peninsula

The town centre, from the Top 10 holiday park

We then took the stepped track down into the town and walked through the lovely roads of shops and cafés, and across to the wharf where tomorrow's dolphin swimming trip is due to start from. They confirmed it was likely to go ahead despite the days of cancellations following the recent storm, as today's swells are only two metres, and there's no significant wind.

We stopped for fish and chips and did a bit of shopping with Dave buying a lovely black shirt and me some more fudge. We had an ice-cream while sitting watching the gulls, but when we reached the local mini-golf course, found it had shut for the day. Luckily the pub hadn't, so we relaxed over a pint (or two) before attempting the big hill home.

We had an early night, having decided where we would park for our trip in the morning, and transferred our excess supplies to the campsite's kitchen and shower block for the use of fellow travellers.

Monday March 14th 

We packed up the van as far as possible and dressed in our swimming gear with easily removable clothes over the top and headed to Akaroa wharf for our date with dolphins. Once assembled, our group was spilt into two boats and we were all provided with a (surprisingly) comfortable and well-fitted wetsuit and waterproof shoes, and taken on board. Our boat was the bigger, but had a slightly smaller group, including just a couple of people not prepared to swim.

The crew was a captain and look-out, and a trainee who was very good at giving out the safety talk and necessary instructions about the trip. We headed out to sea, although not too far out, and the captain kept in touch with other craft to find the dolphins. 

We came across several small groups which were feeding or moving through the area, but didn't get the chance to get in the water for over an hour. We finally did, and (to no-one's surprise more than mine) I was just about first in the water. They gave us snorkels and masks but these weren't helpful and I abandoned mine quickly. Dave and I were quite far apart but both clearly saw the wonderful dolphins we'd come to see. These were the world's smallest and rarest ocean-going dolphins - Hector's dolphins, and they are barely a metre long and a range of greys and blacks. It seemed the two dolphins weren't impressed with us, so swam away. And then came back. And then swam away again.

We were brought back out of the water once the animals have left, and the captain moved us back towards the town as our time began to run out. We had another chance to get into the water but again the dolphins failed to interact with us in any way, so we were taken back to base. The crew cheered us up with hot chocolate and ginger biscuits, and gave us a refund of about a third of the cost as, although we'd swam where the dolphins were swimming, they had expected us to have a better experience.

Getting out of our wetsuits was more tricky than getting into them, and showering among the others was like being back at school. The shop had nice souvenirs, including the necessary keyring, and we left and went in search of lunch. We found Bully Hayes on the main street and enjoyed whitebait fritters and a pulled pork burger. 

We emptied all the required parts of the van, including the bin, and drove back along the fun road off the peninsula. At one point we crossed a deep ravine on which one of the areas famous bungee jump sites was situated on an iron bridge - not much chance we'll be stopping here at any point - no matter how many times we come back!

We struggled slightly to find the Maui site - the satnav and written directions didn't seem to match up - but got there with plenty of time to spare and sat and relaxed once we'd offloaded everything and while they went over the van to check we hadn't made too many new dents! Paperwork completed we accepted the offer of a taxi to our nearby hotel, but had to evacuate the building while we waited when a Fire alarm practice was held. I had firmly left my H&S hat back at work, but this was somewhat chaotic (it seemed to be a new drill and no-one knew quite what to do). It was over quickly, however, and our lovely driver picked us up and gave us the quick trip to the Sudima hotel. This was all on the bigger airport campus, so was chosen to give us a quick and easy taxi ride to the departure lounge the following morning.

Having both taken the chance to have a long soak in the bath, we sat in the hotel bar for a couple of hours enjoying a couple of beers and watching the Bangladesh versus Oman game in the Dharmasala T20 cricket. In order to prolong the holiday mood, we also ordered room service, rather than eating in the restaurant. 

Tuesday March 15th

We didn't have to be at Christchurch especially early, having a noon flight to Singapore, but having checked out (deciding that we would use the time we had to be at the airport to have breakfast rather than buying it at Sudima), we got an almost immediate chance of a minibus transfer, so were there a little before 9am.

We went though all the usual check-in procedures and then settled into a nice restaurant for a hearty meal and to pass the time. Our flight was on time and we sadly boarded and left New Zealand to head for home.

Link to Dave's New Zealand photo galleries (work in progress)

Some random farewell photos...

Obligatory amusing photo with the sculpture of an artist painting his masterwork, in Akoroa town. 

Jude and the Hector's Dolphin (approximately lifesize... and the dolphin!)

Very cool caravan/pickup combo. The rope swing is pretty special too. 

Farewell to our trusty home on wheels. 

Heading for the hills

Thursday March 10th

So we're getting to the part of the holiday when being back in the UK is in sight, but we've plenty of great things still planned.

Today we got up early and drove back south to see the Moeraki Boulders, which featured on my work calendar so I felt I had to check them out. We got there before the café opened at 08:30 so had a decent amount of time with not too many people around to get nice photos while there was a bit of sunrise colour left in the sky. Dave used the tripod, so will doubtless have some amazing stuff.

There are more boulders than I expected, probably 20-odd altogether, spread over a good 100m stretch of beach and some had split open to reveal gorgeous seams of quartz.The brochure says they are 60 million years old and presumably someone's checked, and we assume they are volcanic in origin though further details would require wild speculation.

After a quick breakfast (beating the rush of arriving coachloads of Chinese and American tourists) in the café, we headed back to Oamaru and had a lovely wander through the harbour area where the elegant Victorian buildings had been filled with artsy and second-hand shops, including book and clothes stores, and the SteamPunk museum which had a fantastical Mad Max-style steam engine outside.

Oamaru

We spent a good hour wandering round and snapping the various bits sculpted from old cars and machinery and the elegantly put together mechanical nonsense and creatures. There was a fancy old pipe organ connected to weird noises, and The Portal, which is a room you go into and mirrors and streams of coloured lights take you to another world....lol

The Matri... I mean, The Portal

Outside was an over-sized motorbike, railway carriage and other items. It was generally very cool, and should make for some cool pictures. Ben and Jackie had told us they'd preferred the Time-Travellers exhibition to the Steam Punk HQ. This was someone's Dr Who memorabilia opened up; we looked for it, but it seemed to have closed down, which was a shame. I bought a second-hand cricket book signed by the Crowe brothers which was marked as $30 but was $3 in the closing down sale.Quite a bargain, with the recent death of Martin Crowe. 

From Oamaru, we figured we could reach Twizel for lunch and then work out where to head next. Who wouldn't want to go to a place called Twizel?! On the way we stopped at two brown-signed spots; firstly some Maori rock paintings just outside Duntroon (one of many Scottish sounding place names in the area) which were pretty good but appear to be from the 19th century and many had been removed to museums. 

We then stooped off to look at the Waikati River dam and hydro-electric station which was impressive - the next one up the river was called the Aviemore Dam but we didn't go that way. The river water colour was stunning, a really vivid pale turquoise that has to be seen to be believed.

We reached Twizel at about 2.15 and chose The Musterer's Cafe for lunch - we both had crispy chicken wraps and enjoyed the eclectic decor.

From the local iSite, we picked up some brochures and decided to make our way to the White Horse Hill DOC campsite, which is very near Mount Cook (or Mount Aoraki as it's now known). At the petrol station, we were advised to take care as the high winds we'd run into around Oamaru were still bad and had caused two accidents nearby.

Despite the strong gusts and our high-sided van, the road we took was fabulous, flat and winding and alongside the stunning blue of Lake Pukaki and with great view over to Mount Aoraki along great stretches. Dave managed to find the right place to replicate his Facebook cover photo and we found our way to the campsite. 

There were lots of cars, campervans and people but its also the base for several walks up and around the National Park and we managed to find ourselves a camping space and paid over our $20 fee.

We took a walk towards the mountain and the lake, although it would have taken too long to complete the route to a really nice view, so we turned back and then found some really fabulous views from the Alpine Memorial Stone pinnacle which was about five minutes from the campsite. On the walk we crossed an amazing rushing river on a suspension bridge and scrambled amongst the rocks and alpine plants. We checked the maps and thought we might try and do the walk to Kea Point the following day. 

With no power, we were careful with our electric use, but had plenty of gas to cook and wash-up. One of the main reasons to come here, other than the chance to see a proper snow-capped mountain, is that the whole area is part of the Dark Sky Reserve, so Dave took his tripod and camera out and waited for the nearby van lights to be out and took some amazing photos of the stars.

Friday March 11th

The plan for the morning was to head to the Hermitage Hotel, where we'd been advised there was a marvellous view and an excellent breakfast to be had. I slept well, not even waking when Dave finally finished his star-gazing, but woke up cold and to mountains no longer visible due to low cloud. We waited a while to see if the cloud lifted and the sun appeared but no. We thought we'd head up to the Hermitage, have breakfast and then come back for our walk if it had cleared up at all, but between finding that the hotel café didn't serve breakfast, the Mountaineer's café didn't open until 10am, and the Sir Edmund Hillary museum wasn't open to pass the time, we struggled. In the end we just waited and had a lovely cooked breakfast in the Mountaineers café (deciding this may have been were our advisor - the guy who sold us our NZ phone back in Auckland - meant). The place was decorated with old climbing gear and skis as well as old maps and photos, and weirdly you had to ask the staff for a code to the toilets!

We drove off towards Lake Tekapo, the next big blue lake along, stopping for a few photos from a good hill alongside Lake Pukaki first and, as a brilliant first move, decided to go up to the Observatory on Mount John. In the relative warm of the Earth and Sky café, on top of the mountain, we had a quick snack while enjoying the amazing scenery and wide views from 1061 metres above sea level. We declined the chance of a day tour of the workings of the observatory but the drive back down the hill was like a fun-park ride and we took a great video. There is a $5 charge to use the road, which helps with its upkeep and security, and at six minutes to drive down (and more to go up) it was worth every cent.

Lake Pukaki

We drove into the village, though there wasn't much to see, and then down to the lakeside where, a few weeks earlier there would have been acres of glorious lupins as seen in all the publicity pictures of this area. We found about 4 odd stems which retained their pink or purple flowers, but at least the shoreline had cool rocks aplenty and was gorgeous in itself. Of course a little snow on the mountains in the background would have been the (literal) icing on the photographic cake.

This  was definitely one of my trip tick boxes ticked, but it didn't take long, so we opted to head to the campsite in Christchurch this evening, having managed to phone head and book ourselves a Jetboat ride for the morning. We almost forgot to take a picture of the "most photographed church in the world" the Church of the Good Shepherd on the Lake Tekapi shoreline (in fact Dave declined*), before getting back on the road.

*(I can neither confirm or deny the rumour that I feel a burning sensation in my feet when I approach holy buildings - Dave)

The drive to Christchurch was quick and easy and we settled in for the evening; had long luxurious showers, gorgeous chicken curry and a couple of beers, and then visited reception to book our final organised adventure. We thought it was time to try again to swim with dolphins, as time was running out, but they had already cancelled everything for the following day due to the high swell from the storm earlier in the week. We booked anyway, and kept our fingers firmly crossed. We were due to hand the van back on Monday by 4pm so settled on an 8:30 boat from Akaroa on the Banks' Peninsula, where we will camp tomorrow.

Before it got dark we ventured out and I managed to get photographic evidence of the existence of the Bouncy pillows which Ben and Jackie doubted.

Saturday March 12th

With only two days of living in the campervan left, we got up early on saturday, even though our Jetboating wasn't due to start until 10 o'clock. We drove around like idiots for an hour trying to find somewhere for a nice breakfast or at least a coffee, but everywhere we found was shut. We reached Hamilton Quay in Clarkville (which was literally 15 minute from the campsite) and waited for our ride. It turned out there were just the two of us booked on, so we got dressed up in windproof coats, life jackets, woolly hats and big thick gloves and clambered aboard - in the front row.

Our Jet Thrills driver was Paul and we set off for our 30 minute Braided Blast trip up the Waimakariri River, which has water and rocks brought all the way from the Southern Alps. Apparently the water only takes about 14 hours to reach here, while the stones take a year before they get dumped on the riverbed here, near the sea. They get scooped up regularly by various companies for construction uses including being smashed up to make concrete locally.

The river, like most of those we've seen, is channels of water among the banks of rocks and bits of trees dragged down from upstream. The ride up the river was amazing. The manoeuvrability of the boat and the fact that it could travel in incredibly shallow waters, along with Paul's obvious skills throwing it around corners, finding the channels and adding 360 degree spins for fun (about 7 or 8 in total), made it a great trip.

The rush and the spray were exciting - though I could probably have done without banging my arm onto the boat's edge at every left turn.

The way back down river was something else; we doubled the previous speed we'd done and got up to 55mph which was exhilarating. I kept thinking my hat was going to fly off during the twists and turns to get round the narrow corners and obstacles. Brilliant. Apparently when they race these beasts, they get up to 100mph - blimey!

Our driver and Dave had a lovely bloke-chat about loud engines, fast cars, and Guy Martin, and some girl who raced round the Nurburgring in a transit van.

('some girl' being Sabine Schmitz, and possibly one of the greatest demonstrations of controlled speed driving you'll see - but I digress, back to New Zealand). 

He also suggested a few places we should visit, so we headed off to Hanmer Springs. The original suggestion was Reefton, but as that is almost on the West Coast, we thought the shorter drive (at this late stage of the holiday) was preferable.

We reached Hanmer Springs (which has thermal pools and spa, hence the name) at about lunchtime, parked up and had a lovely and rather grand lunch at Fire and Ice  (seafood chowder for me and a beast of a burger for Dave). It had warmed up considerably from the morning, when the van registered 2 degrees and the Hanmer Springs holiday park manager said they'd had frost overnight. As it has become a tradition on our holidays, we finally had our first New Zealand game of crazy golf nearby the holiday park. They had a goldmine theme and it was a warm and sunny afternoon so we had fun. Dave won, as usual, based on holes won; this has a technical name among golfers I believe (I don't even....   - Dave).

Good fun, but over too quickly as always. We took a wander through the town which was nice, with plenty of interesting shops, cafés, bars, two hand-made fudge shops, a Clydesdale horse & carriage and you could hire a 4-wheel big bike-thing to ride round town on. They also had a second crazy golf course at the other end of the main street, so we decided on a re-match (a less energetic alternative to walking up Conical Hill). This place had much more fun and challenging holes and took quite a bit longer. Although it seemed busy when we started, there was no waiting or groups at our backs. We both managed some great hole-in-ones, and some crazy high scores where balls just kept heading back to the start, but I must be getting better with practice because I seemed to win by about 3 shots (Dave 54, Jude 51).

That meant that I'd earned some hand-made fudge for later, and that we felt we deserved a gelato and a sit in the sun before heading back. After our massive lunch, neither of us could face tea out, so we got the van chairs out (for the first time), and relaxed in the late afternoon warmth, reading and browsing the web.

Dave thought it would be nice to post the picture he took of me doing my impression of Chris Catalyst's guitar-wielding stage jump on the Bouncy Pillow (no beers required) - I looked forward to getting grief for that in the morning, but fortunately he seems to have since mislaid it. I took the chance to check that the lab is in one piece, by emailing Carina before her trip to Mexico - hopefully it'll stay that way until my return.

Link to Dave's New Zealand photo galleries (work in progress)