Diving day - Pahia

We decided to book a day's diving in the Bay of Islands.

"Discover Scuba"

On the day of the experience, it turns out that we had another guy with us, also anxious to "Discver Scuba". His name was Tommy and he was German. It would have been very confusing if he was around in the war. The German soldier would shout out "Look out here comes Tommy!". All the troops would look around anxiously expecting the British Army to be on their heels, only to discover it was in fact, Tommy the German.

We were taken behind this little back street shop and had to change into our wet suits.

Then we were taken on an extremely bumpy speed boat ride across the Bay of Islands.

We then were kitted out with our full diving gear. At this point Rita began to hyperventilate and had to be dragged from the ocean like a flipped over inflated black beetle. That was the end of the diving for her.

So now there was just Tommy and me. "How heavy are you?" asked the instructor, then took a summary glance at the two of us and said "Oh you're about the same - 90 kg". Fatboy Merricks took this as a compliment, failed to disclose his real weight and so ended up being given the same weighting as the much slimmer and streamlined Tommy.
Next we were in the water, Tommy near the bottom, me despite my deflating my buoyancy jacket, still bobbing about on the top. Next stage was for more weights to be added to my diving suit. In I went again. Up I bobbed once more. Eventually I was weighted down with various rocks, stuffed into the pockets of my diving jerkin and sure enough, I plummeted to the bottom.
The instructor (Manuel or Emanuel) kept beckoning us to swim with him, but all I could do was scud along the seabed. I was too heavily weighted now. I spent the whole of my "discover scuba" experience with my nose scraping along the coral reef and using my hands to give me some propulsion, beckoning terror and death imminent to be sure.Tommy was ok.

My mother always said it would be death by drowning, but I think she had beer in mind. If she'd seen me she would have no doubt observed that I was tanked up again!

After the diving experience we were hauled back into the boat and two of the guys then went diving for scallops, which we were forced to eat raw (tasted ok though).
Our boat driver, Timmy, an English lad just learning the ropes managed to crack the windscreen of the diving boat on the way back by slewing the boat at great speed across the wake of a passing much bigger vessel.The boat bellyflopped into the wake with an almighty whack.The owner, Trevor (Trivor), who was also on the boat was not best pleased.

Paihia, Dolphins & Leon's birthday..

This is our accommodation for the four nights in Paihia (bay of Islands)..



So here we were then at The Pickled Parrot. An unassuming little backpackers (i.e. dump) in the back streets of Pahia. We've booked in here for four nights, as we were informed that accommodation in general would become harder to find as the Christmas Hols approached. We are in Tui (as picture). It's miles from the toilets, but very close to a busy road. It's also close to all the tropical undergrowth, which harbours biting things.

Pahia is the main resort town in the Bay of Islands. It looks like there will be lots to do. There also seems to be lots of vacant accommodation.
I did an excellent walk to the Harura Falls today - highlights included the walk through the Mangrove swamp (over a walkway) and the nesting Pied Shags.



MANGROVE SWAMPS



PIED SHAGS NESTING

Rita didn't do the walk as she had an attack of the vapours and retired to her room. I came back from the walk with my hip aching, boiling hot and gagging for a beer.
We went out and had a few beers. Rita showed me her 'cluster' of five insect bites on her arm. It reminded me of her phantom snake bite, experienced in Saltburn on the Cleveland Way (many years ago). She recovered well from that and the prognosis here is good.

13/12/2006



Next day was my birthday. 55 and still in short pants.
The intention was to swim with the dolphins today. The dolphins hadn't been told.
We went out on the trip out of the bay and after about 2 hours we encountered a pod of the said mammals. They were quite happy to be swimming alongside our boat, but we were not allowed to swim with them as, we were told,some had calves with them. God knows how the calves got so far out into the water - maybe the farmer left the gate open.
Anyway, the dolphin swim was off. But, hey, never mind. In compensation for this we were offered the experience of being dragged along in a big net by the boat. I declined. Rita double declined. On watching some of the people who took up this 'challenge', I didn't feel I'd missed too much. Maybe when I'm really old, I will think "I wish I'd gone in the net that day". It must have been great in the British Navy in the eighteenth century when Keel Hauling was the 'must do adventure activity'. Oh well. we did get some snorkelling in though.
On arriving back on dry land, we decided to celebrate my birthday.
I'll let Rita tell you about the celebrations....

Happy Birthday Leigh! Or is it Leon? The birthday celebrations were going so well that I was seeing double by this time anyway, and didn't really mind which one I was with! But I am skipping a bit (better than staggering eh?). We started off by having a drink or a 'handle' as the Kiwi's call it, in a Mauri bar. We then scoured the town's menus on restaurant doors for a 'little of what you fancy'. We chose a good one 'cos we ended up with quite a lot of what we fancied, but I guess any of the restaurants would have been happy to serve us with a bottle of Marlborough Savignon Blanc each. Yup! Apiece! Even the waitress looked a little surprised at that request! Leigh had to order a beer though whilst he waited for a whole minute for the wine to arrive. Thinking about it they all arrived together in the end and it was such a small table there was hardly room for the plates which actually were the very last items on the table to arrive. Why the detail? Well, because, that is where the devil is, and besides as you are reading this at work, then I am helping you to pleasantly pass the time, n'est-ce pas? Well then. And so...we had a delicious meal of 'Fish of the Day' from the fragments of the meal that I can recall and then weaved our way back to our local, a Mauri bar. Therein we spied a juke box, so in no time at all we were equipped with more beer and were singing along to Eddie Grant's 'I don't wanna dance, dance with you Baby no more. Oh, the feeling is bad, the feeling is bad. I don't wanna dance...' ad infinitum well almost as neither of us knew anymore of the words than that, so there was some intermittent humming. We soon found that we had an accomplice, a drunken Mauri bloke. He had a lovely voice. And so there are the three of us holding up the bar and engaging in our own singalong. This Mauri chappie is joined by Lorna, a stunning Mauri woman in long gushing but tightly fitting red dress, who, bleary eyed Leon proceeds to hang on her every word, seemingly. Suddenly there is no music on the juke box and the Mauri guy has stopped singing too, but an altercation is emerging between our attractive Lorna in our midst and a 'Stark-raving-no-chance-red-head Kiwi bloke'. Next thing much to our consternation he shifts his angry attention to us. To US! Long hard stares and on and on he stared and next thing, I blinked and 3 or 4 blokes are on him, arms around his shoulders, pointing him in the opposite direction and talking in firm reassuring terms. They calmed him down. And she's gone. Drunken Mauri bloke moves away too. Just Leigh and me then. Next thing, Betty and her daughter arrive and start chatting to us. Betty is a 55 year old toothless Mauri Grandma and her daughter, Catherine, tells us she has 7 children - and Leigh plants a kiss on her cheek and says 'Bless you!'. He is clearly impressed by her having 7 children despite not wanting one of these things for himself! Later, I see him pat Grandma Betty affectionately on the back, like a long lost pal. Then Leigh is shoving money in the juke box and the dancing recommences - only this time we are a happy foursome and some members of the group have something in common. Grandma Betty and Grandma Rita are both 55, only I still have teeth. We are jiving and diving and swinging and the room is going round and round. Suddenly the bar is deserted and someone is hoovering up around us. Leigh badly misses a step down as we take our leave and he nearly falls down. Phew! Are we desperate for our buddies or what! Should have been a memorable birthday, but apart from the few aforementioned hightlights most of it was already obliterated by the morning!









BIG WIDE KAURI TREE

Dunedin - then arriving in Whangarei

Whangarei Falls


It's now Monday lunchtime - 11th December 2006.

We are in Whangarei. We will be leaving for the Bay of Islands tomorrow, probably staying around that area for 8 or 9 days before making our way back to Auckland and taking a flight to Wellington.

So how did we arrive here...

We arrived in Whangarei hot & flustered after changing planes in Auckland (on flight from Dunedin) and attempting to retrieve Rita's left luggage whilst at Auckland airport.
Our flight from Dunedin landed at Auckland at 11:55. We needed to be on our connecting flight to Whangerei (pronounced Fonga-Ray) at 12:35. We had a mission to complete within this 40 minute changeover time. That was to go to the lost baggage area at the International terminal and pick up the bag that was left on the plane on our Roratonga to Auckland flight (containing lots of pounds, US $ and NZ $, total was circa 600 pounds in sterling value - soz but no pound signs on this computer).
Trouble was the International Terminal is about one mile from the Domestic, so we had to run from Domestic to International - took about 12 minutes (WR: 3 min 45secs).
When we arrived at the Int. Terminal we had to locate the baggage desk. Eventually (time now about 12:20) we found the lost baggage office. Rita scurried up to the desk..."We've come to collect a bag - prop reference xxx, we need to be back at the Domestic terminal to board a flight in 10 minutes". Baggage attendant blinked at her. "Where are you going?" he asked . "Wangawee" Rita replied. "Sorry". "Wongaway". Eventually he established that we were bound for Whangarei. "I'll send it on there - now go and get your plane". We sprinted??? back to the domestic terminal only to find that our departure gate had disappeared. Rita pushed through into the security check area of another departure gate, much to the astonishment of one of the security gate guys. "Where's departure gate 34?". "Where are you going?". She shrieked "Wangawoo", the panic is obvious by now.
The security guy laughed then pointed us to where gate 34 was, which was in fact at the other end of the airport. Sweaty & hot we arrived and our plane (if you could call it that, for in truth it was no wider than a sewer pipe) was waiting paitiently on the runway. We caught it and sat like a couple of broiled birds for the next 30 minutes, which constituted the flight to Whangerei.
On arriving in Whangarei, we found that there was no car hire facility from the airport and we were about 10 miles from town, without transport.
Fortunately, help was at hand....
A couple of Kiwis were observing our movements and obviously took pity on us. They offered us a lift into the town. We gratefully accepted.
Turns out that this couple were looking to start a car hire business and run it from the airport. At least we could contribute something in payment for our lift as we had some tales to tell with regards to Car Hire. We were shown around Whangarei and taken to some very good accommodation, which they could reccommend. Their reccommendation was good.

Rita here. Hello everyone. Sorry about the disruption to the flow but I am going to tell you about our arrival at Whangerei, so will need to recap a bit on Leigh's introduction to it that he has just made above.

And so, here we are having just landed at this airport after only a 40 minute flight and we are still hot under the collar (& not only the collar!) after our frantic and quite useless antics at Auckland airport.

So, first things first, we need to assess our position. Now lets see. It is Saturday, (9.12.06) afternoon. We have no accommodation booked. We have no transport, and this airport is a bit out of the way. Aha, we spy a phonebox. Phone takes our money but does not connect. Several dollars later and lots of sudden disconnections at the point of hearing the receiving person say 'Hello' we attempt to hire a car from the airport so at least we can escape the airport and find accommodation. At the carhire desk we are told, 'No cars available - all out. No car until Monday'. Leigh who is quick to celebrate anything is likewise quick to become morose. Lots of self-flaggation for not pre-booking carhire going on when we are approached by a couple who are in their 40's (I guess) and asked us if we needed any help, and 'were we alright?'. As I say, Leigh's mood was glum and we must have looked desperate/pathetic (take your pick). We explained our predicament and next minute our enormous rucksacks were being hoisted into the boot of their car and we were happily sliding into the backseat. They drove us into the town centre and gave us a guided informative tour of the town as we sped by. His name was Tony and she was Michelle. They advised us where was good to eat, which places were expensive and pointed out the harbour and tourist information and suchlike. Not content with that, they insisted on pulling up outside various types of accommodation and seeing if it suited us or not. Eventually they recommended 'The Aaaron Court' aka 'the Quiet Motel'. They even waited until we were properly booked in to ensure that we were sorted, and then they proceeded to unload our rucksacks. We had to settle for offering them a mere 'thank you'but what we felt like doing was inviting them over for dinner and splashing out on some decent Pinor Noir. The Welcome to Whangerei could not have been warmer. We wish them really well with their airport taxi service but one word of advice to you Tony and Michelle, next time your passengers offer to pay; 'TAKE THE MONEY!" Bye for now. Rita. (Next 'voice' is Leons!)

Yes, Hello, Trotsky here.

10/12/2006

We took up a walk to Whangarei Falls today (see pic). Whilst we were there, some guy decided to jump off the top into the water. O.K. it's only 26 metres high, but Bungy Jumping without the rubber band looks a bit dangerous to me.
He survived unscathed, letting out whoops of triumph as he swam to the shore. Good to be alive.
We were talking to a Swedish couple who have moved to NZ and visit these falls and have a meal here each year on this day (as that's what they did when they first came to NZ). They said that a few people had died leaping from the falls. Apparently New Years Eve was a popuar time for such shenanigans.In true Kiwi style there are no barriers at the top of the falls to prevent anyone from getting to the jumping area.

11/12/2006

Still in Whangga. Managed to pick up a hire car today. Rent-a-Dent Datsun Sunny.
So, we've gone from posh RCI + sporty Toyota Camra to booking Pickled Parrot & Rent-a-Dent in about three weeks. What will become of us?
Guess what, we went to look at a house while we were here. It's amazing what you can get over here for about 130,000 pounds.
We're beginning to like the lifestyle over here and we are becoming drawn to Real Estate windows and looking at prices. Bit like when we go to Cornwall really.

Tomorrow - Pickled Parrot.

Central Otago Rail Trail bike ride

Whew - not been with you for a few days now as we've been doing the bike ride - 110 miles approx.(took us 3.5 days to do).

We're now in Dunedin, having taken the Taieri Gorge rail journey which we picked up from a place called Middlemarch at the end of the ride. Dunedin's a little bit of a culture shock after having spending several days out in remote wilderness. One day we didn't see anyone else all day on the trail. Did see lots of sheep though.

It's 17:40 on Friday here - you chaps won't even have started your Friday back home and here we are, the weekend's with us! Thank God it's Friday. What a week.

Actually we had a good bike ride. The weather held out (although it did rain heavily last night - thankfully we'd finished by then).

Tomorrow we're flying up to Whangerai, which is up near the Bay of Islands in North Island. We're hoping for warmer weather.

When we get chance to blog again we'll give details of bike ride and attach some photos. There's a particular good one of Rita and myself sat outside a shop in Ranfurly - I have my arm around her, and I must say she was looking exceeding attractive that day, so watch out for that one!

We'll update again as soon as poss - probably edit this post, rather than create a new one.

So now we're in Whangarei, about 1000 miles from Dunedin...but this post is all about the Otago rail trail bike ride.

3/12/2006

We stayed at a place called Clyde at The Hartley Arms Backpackers hostel, which turned out to be a little gem. The couple who ran the place were very friendly (as is the Kiwi wont, we are finding more & more). Bed & Breakfast for two (private room) came to $65, which equates to about #24 sterling. Puts our YHA prices in Blighty into perspective.

4/12/2006

Setting out from Hartley Arms - Day one.



Cycled from Clyde to Ophir today.

...stopping on the way at the local Post Office, with Strange Post mistress in attendance.....




30 miles today on our hybrid bikes on very gravelly surfaces, so it was actually a reasonably hard ride. The route is quite exposed in places, but we were fortunate it wasn't particularly windy today. En route we stopped at Chatto Creek (see PO above). there was a bar there ..and not much else.The proprieter did not stock mineral water on account of 'never having been asked for it before'. She also sold stamps, but only for internal post to NZ.
Ophir is a very small place, which apparently often experiences the highest & lowest annual temperatures in NZ (not in the same day). Temp range is from -20C to +40C. It was somewhere in between today. Today was our first encounter with a disparate group of Kiwis. A woman of about 65 years old, a man of about 35 years old, a very shrieky woman who was around 30 and a strange bloke of around 35 who didn't utter a word, but did a lot of staring.
After we'd been to the one and only pub in Ophir for our evening meal (fish,chips & beer), we came back to the backpackers accommodation common room and were immediately regaled with some remarkable shrieky tales of how today's cycling had gone, by the now recumbent Shrieky woman. She had flung her whole, not inconsiderable body across the only comfortable seating in the place. Suffice to say, we retired to bed early.

5/12/2006 Ophir to Wedderburn

Weather dry & cool today. Another 30 miler, but seemed a bit harder than yesterday, mainly because there were some quite monotous bits where we were ploughing throgh thick clinker (the sort of stuff that goes down before roads are surfaced).





When we arrived at Wedderburn, guess who was there - you've got it - Shrieker & entourage.
We stayed at the Wedderburn Tavern - a prize dump, I have to say.
The landlord was sociable enough though. Turned out he used to be a flight attendant with Air NZ and knew Derby as he used to stay there with his friend, Mr Alan Jarvis, who came from Derby. Mr Jarvis was also a flight attendant with Air NZ.
Shrieker's name is Pauline, we know now. She will continue to be known as Shrieker within this blog.

6/12/2006

Day Three - Wedderburn to Hyde (about 30 miles again)

Lovely sunny day today. Set off at 10:00 a.m. with spirits high & hearts aglow.
Arrived in interesting township of Ranfurly after about an hour. This town is famous for it's Art Deco architecture. When I say town, it actually only comprises about 4 streets, but it was a very good place to spend a couple of hours.
It was here Rita and I had our picture taken.


A great days cycling today, we arrived at Hyde and stayed at The Central Otago Hotel.
No sign of Shriker today, I think they'd gone Curling in Naseby. They ceratinly weren't staying where we were.
This hotal was like a palce. Beautiful rooms, wooden panelling all done up to the highest standard. Alas there were only three guests that night. Thos being ourselves and an English chap, Neil, who was frequenter visitor to New Zealand and did lots of walking whilst over here - he was actually walking the trail that we were cycling. The owners of the hotel were out when we arrived and so Neil had volunteered to show us around. We chose our room and then settled down to an evening meal which had been pre=prepared for us by the owners.
The main course was delicious - the dessert (homemade ice cream), the best we'd ever tasted. the teenage son of the owner was around, he told us her Ice cream recipe was a secret.

7/12/2006

Hyde to Middlemarch (20 miles)

Fairly short ride today, but it was very windy.




We arrived in Middlemarch by 12:30 a.m.
It was quite a desolate place, nothing like when Mr D'Arcy lived here (did he? I'm not too good on Jane Austen).
Were having lunch in the Kissing Gate cafe when who should appear, but Shrieker & Co.
We booked into Blind Billy's Holiday Camp - Billy really is blind - his car registration (I think it's only driven by his wife) is 'NO SEE'.



Blind Billy's is all a bit ramshackle, but we did manage to cook our tea in the old railway carriage that serves as the comman room on the site. Beans on Toast.

8/12/2006

Blind Billy booked our shuttle to the airport & a hotel in Dunedin for us. Very efficient.
In the afternoon we took the Taeri Gorge railway, which we had pre-booked. This is a scenic route which runs from Middlemarch to Dunedin. Shrieker & Co were in the same carriage. We kissed them all goodbye at Dunedin station (metaphorically). I had to bob back into the station though to get something from the Tourist Information. There was the silent bloke, again, on his own now. Leave me alone!

Doubtful Sound

On Friday morning we left Queenstown on a trip to Doubtful Sound.

Doubtful Sound is a remote fiord in the South West of South Island, strictly a fiord we are told, rather than a sound. It was originally named Doubtful Harbour by Captain Cook. He observed the steep sided granite rocks that bounded the inlet and doubted whether the boats would be able to get back out into the ocean under the power of their sails, should they venture further in.

Before we arrived at Doubtful Sound, we had the option of taking a steam train ride as part of the journey. We decided to do this and were mighty pleased that we did.
We rode on The Kingston Flyer - only on a ten mile trip, but what a superb old train this was.





So, on to Doubtful Sound.
A coach journey, a boat across Lake Manipouka and the anotherbus journey across gravel roads brought us to Deep Cove at the end of Doubtful Sound.
The Cruise was brilliant. Food excellent, crew first class.

We did some kayaking on the Fiord as part of the trip. That was a great experience. In the wonderful tranquillity of Doubtful Sound all we could hear were the birds and the lap of the water - really peaceful, beautiful scenery. we were dead lucky with the weather as well. It was bright warm and sunny and considering the area gets around 8 metres of rain a year, that was, as the Kiwis would say, good as gold.

We spotted some penguins - 3 or 4 anyway, but as ever wildlife proved quite elusive for me to photo (I'm sure Mr Lewis will remember the hedgehog incident!). However, look closely at this picture and you'll see a little feller in the middle. This is a very rare Fiordland Crested penguin.







Spot the penguin


One of the best bits of the trip was when the engines on the boat were killed and everybody just sat and absorbed the quiet. Nothing that man had had a hand in could be heard. We just sat on the deck of the boat and reflected on life. Sounds very mystical, doesn't it? It's a bit hard to describe really, but it was a unique experience, for which words cannot really do justice.

Suffice to say, we loved Doubtful Sound - anyone going to NZ, please try!

A few other Doubtful sound photies....