Colca Canyon, Peru

Friday to Sunday, 15-17 February 2008

We do a 3-day trek in the Colca Canyon. With a depth of 3191m, it is the world's second deepest canyon. Our guide from the Colca Trek company is Jenny, who is absolutely brilliant. We are lucky too with our travel companions - friendly fellows Hugo (from Strasbourg) and Sebastien (Montreal). The starting point of the trek is the village of Cabanaconde (a 6-hour bus journey from Arequipa). This is at an altitude of 3290 metres so after a few minutes and very little exertion, the lungs are heaving and heart thumping. Hugo supplies us with coca leaves, the traditional remedy for altitude sickness. He was told by the guy who sold it to him to eat the leaves whole. Hugo is outraged to hear from Jenny that the proper way of using the leaves is to roll up a thumb-sized amount and place it between your gums and the inside of your mouth. You can then suck on the sillage-flavoured juice for a good half hour then with the desired effect. Hugo admits, using alot of French expletives, to having eaten about a kilo of the stuff on the other guy's recommendation and not feeling well after it. We learn the meaning of the French word "putain". On the first day we trek downhill for about 4 hours. The scenery is breathtaking - vaulting mountains, drifting clouds at eye-level and steep drops into the canyon below. The path is wide enough for just one person, is not paved and so alot of the time is spent concentrating on the ground at your feet trying not to slip on shale or loose stones that litter the path. We have the trek pretty much to ourselves apart from the the local farmers who surge by with their donkeys carrying supplies to and from the villages that hug the sides of the canyon. (Apparently the trek that we are doing over 2 days can be done by the local champion in 2 hours.) The accommodation at the bottom of the canyon on the first night is basic but the location is idyllic. It's in a village of 40 inhabitants. The flower garden at the hostel is in full multicoloured bloom and we are woken the next morning by the low hum of bees. On this second day, we continue the trek, stopping along the way to have a snack of cactus fruit (hard to describe - semi-hard to chew on, very juicy, apparently not hallucinogenic). We also visit a museum in one of the villages. It's a small room but a local woman, dressed in the traditional kaleidoscope-coloured outfits of Peru, explains to us the various tools the villagers use and have used in the past to sow and harvest crops and the different types of foods they live off. The villages that line the canyon were badly damaged by an earthquake in 2001 so we see the rebuilding that has taken place in the meantime. Three hours later, after a few near-vertical climbs, we arrive at what the tourists call the "Oasis". Situated right at the bottom of the canyon, it's a lush green area where a hostel and swimming pool have been built by some enterprising folk. We have lunch here and steel ourselves for the ascent back up to Cabanaconde. It's a tough climb but we take plenty of breaks on the way up. Without looking around, Jenny just seems to know how far she can drag the group up the hill before we need a breather. It may be the alternate hyperventilating, death-rattles and cries of "putain" behind her that give the clue. We overnight in good lodgings in Cabanaconde. The next morning, on our way back to Arequipa, we stop off at Cruz del Condor, a viewing point for the condors that soar above the canyon. Much like our attempt at albatross-watching in Dunedin, plenty of patience is required, and we wait an hour before one of them shoots close overhead. Sebastien is the only one who is quick enough to capture it on camera. Resigned to having seen only one bird, we hop on the bus back to Arequipa. As we pull away a couple of condors come into view and hover above the viewing area. Talk about timing!

If you want to see photos, click here.

Arequipa, Peru

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Arequipa, Peru's second biggest city, is a nice spot. It's called the "White City" after the sillar rock used to make its older buildings. We stay in the Casa de Sillas. It's comfortable and the staff are very obliging. The Plaza de Armas is a good starting point for a walk of the city and has a couple of restaurants on balconies overlooking the main square. It's also a good vantage point for the Valentine's Day celebrations. There are musicians and mime artists and hundreds of people, carrying heart-shaped red balloons, fill the square.

We visit the Monasterio de Santa Catarina. Founded in 1580, at one time it was home to 400 nuns, alot of them daughters of well-to-do Spanish families. The convent is on a grand scale (20,000 sq mtrs), complete with streets named after Spanish cities. Alot has been invested in its restoration. The bright pastel exteriors and well preserved kitchens, sleeping quarters and reception rooms suggest that it was a pleasant enough place to be a nun. It turns out that the vow of poverty was interpreted fairly loosely here - each nun had up to 4 servants and would often have parties in the convent. The good times came to an end when the Pope of the time sent the hardline Sister Josefa Cadena to put an end to the silliness.

The Museo Santury is also worth a visit. Alot of the exhibits are to do with the child sacrifices offered up by the Inca people to appease their gods. Apparently the most beautiful girls would be chosen early in life and taken from their families to be prepared for their terrible destiny. A bit like Pop Idol really. If any of the local volcanies started spewing, this was the cue for a child sacrifice. The belief was that the girl would become a deity after being sacrificed so the girls must have been pretty chuffed. The main exhibit in the museum is Juanita, a child sacrifice who was found only a few years ago, preserved in the ice atop Nevado Amputo. Juanita is not on display between January and April but there is a substitute child sacrifice, Cerita, who stands in for her. If they are all Inca goddesses now, Cerita must be a bit peeved that she is only a second-choice sacrifice.

If you want to see photos click here.

Nazca, Peru

Wednesday, 13 February 2008

On arriving on Tuesday night in Nazca, we book tickets for a flight over the famous Nazca Lines the next morning (with the Alas Peruanas company) as well as a bus connection to Arequipa (with Cruz del Sur). The Lonely Planet repeats throughout its Peru guide, in very panicky tones, that hijackings and violent robberies have occured frequently on the overnight bus to Arequipa. It says: take the overnight bus at your own risk. The absurd thing is that there appear to be no daytime buses to Arequipa. What are we supposed to do? Rollerblade the 600 km down south? Fingers crossed that the hijackers are on a night off.

We get up early the next morning and board a Cessna aeroplane for the flight over the Nazca Lines. There is a fair bit of turbulence (and apparently this gets worse later in the day) and the pilot tilts the plane by 45 degrees to allow us to see the lines more closely. It's a sensation akin to the childhood experience of eating your bodyweight in candyfloss and then going on the worst ride at the funfair. The Lines are found on a 500 km sq arid plateau and were made by heaping stones in straight and curved lines over incredible distances. They are definitely worth the air sickness. Apart from weird geometrical shapes, there are huge drawings of monkeys, spiders, hummingbirds and, for the conspiracy theorists, an astronaut (see footage here). As these cannot be seen at ground level and assuming that the Nazca people had no way of viewing their handiwork from above, the purpose of the Lines is a real puzzle. Scholars and nutbags differ on this and the theories range from the Lines being landing sites for visiting aliens, running tracks, an astronomical calendar, sites for mountain worship and a fertility/water cult.

Before boarding the Bus of Doom to Arequipa, we while away a few hours at the local archeological museum, the Museo Didactico Antonini. We learn a bit about ancient Nazca culture and nearly pass out from the dead heat. Later in the evening, we stop at the Plaza Mayor and enjoy watching what seems like the whole town sitting around the park and chatting in the twilight.

Quelle surprise! Despite ideal bandit conditions - pitch darkness, desolate windy roads and steep overlooking hills from which to launch an ambush - the overnight bus to Arequipa is not attacked. We don' sleep much though.

If you want to see photos click here. Good luck trying to make out anything of the Nazca Lines. The photographer had a jittery hand.

Lima, Peru

Sunday to Tuesday, 10 - 12 February 2008

When originally booking this trip, we tried to get a flight to Santiago, the direct route into South America from New Zealand. However February is a busy travelling month in South America. It's Carnaval, the 4 day pre-Lenten celebrations, that start on a Saturday and end on Fat Tuesday (Mardi-Gras). We have no choice but to go the roundabout route to Lima via Los Angeles.

We arrive in LA a half hour late. We had only 2 hours to get on the onward LAN Peru flight to start with, so the already tight transfer begins to look tricky. With the Mission: Impossible score banging in our heads, we jog-walk through US immigration and customs and check our luggage onto the connecting flight. In fairness, we had expected Post-9/11 Fortress USA treatment from staff but there is none of it. Once we explain our situation in our least threatening "top of the morning to you and begorrah, sure aren't we only simple Irish folk" manner, they are very helpful and jump us quickly through the queues. Although we manage to get on to the plane by the skin of our teeth, we have our doubts about the luggage. These doubts are confirmed when we arrive in Lima at midnight. After waiting hopefully for an hour, we are two lone souls at the baggage carousel. The LAN Peru staff are friendly and tell us that the baggage will be on the flight from Los Angeles the next day.

Resigned to wearing the same clothes for another few days, we run the gauntlet of taxi drivers in the arrivals area and look for a sign with our names on it held by a driver from Hostal Iquique, where we have a booking for the night. No such luck. We call the hostel and an inconclusive 10 minute conversation (us in Spanglish, them in heavily accented, fast-forward Spanish) gave us the impression that that the driver may still be in the airport somewhere. We circle the melee a couple of times and finally find a sign saying "Senorita Arrington" in Times New Roman Font 1.5. Our man is not attached to it but we find him eventually and get into his battered taxi and head towards town. We are glad to reach our lodgings for the night although Hostal Iquique is not the quietest of places. A guy in the room beside us alternates between snoring at foghorn levels and then taking calls on his mobile with a ring tone like a sonic boom.

Suffering from a bit of jet lag, we start late the next day. We go for a walk to Plaza San Martin and Plaza de Armas, the two main squares in the city centre, which have a few impressive buildings. Everything that we have heard about Lima is negative, that it is a dangerous city and that we should spend as little time as possible here. A friend from Lima, Milagros, says that we would have been better getting a hostel in the more upmarket suburb of Miraflores. We try to be hyper-vigilant: walking in a two-person phalanx, keeping our bags close to us and only taking the camera out for quick snaps. Because of this paranoia, we don't really enjoy walking around. As gringos, we stick out and feel that we are being looked at constantly (as in Asia, Leahanne, with her "yellow" hair is stared at alot). We are happy to get back to the hostel before darkness falls. But maybe alot of this has to do with our perception of things, as we do not have a single moment where we are threatened or approached by scam merchants. Our impression of Peruvians is that they are a friendly people and are delighted when we try to use a few words of Spanish. The food in Lima is good, particularly for Leahanne, the world's biggest potato fan. Apparently all of today's potatoes can be traced back to a single spud from Peru. We have a patatas dinner in Azato on Arica St. At US$5 for two you can't go far wrong.

The next morning there is no sign of the missing backpacks but then we get a call from LAN Peru who say that the bags are on their way from the airport. The predicted arrival time is no more exact than "sometime this morning" which leaves us with an anxious wait as we have to head off to the bus station at 12.30. At 11 o'clock the bags arrive and we (and anybody who has come within 10 yards of our BO) are delighted to be able to put on a changes of clothes for the first time in 3 days and use deodourant. We get a taxi to the Cruz del Sur company's bus station at Avenida Javier Prado. This is a newly built station for its 1st class "Cruzero" service and has plenty of security guards around so we are a bit more at ease. We enjoy one of the most comfortable bus journeys ever - there is plenty of leg room; a main meal and snacks are served; and the in-bus entertainment includes bingo and Hollywood movies with Spanish subtitles, giving us a chance to increase our Spanish vocabulary. The outskirts of Lima, some of them slums, stretch out into a grey desert. There are not many large towns along the Pan-American Highway, which runs southwards parallel to the coast, before our stop at Nazca.

We arrive at Nazca late in the evening and check in to the Hotel Alegria, which turns out to be very swish by comparison with Hostal Iquique. It's too good to be true though - somewhere in the building they keep basic rooms for budget travellers for approximately US$7. However we booked the room by phone and were either accidentally or wilfully misunderstood and put in a comfy room for US$30 a night. Big difference and lesson learned.

For more photos click here.

Auckland, New Zealand

Friday to Sunday, 8 - 10 February 2008

This will probably upset the locals and Australians alike: Auckland looks a bit like Sydney. It lies around a large harbour and even has a bridge that looks like Sydney's "Coathanger". Claudine, a friend of Dara's from Macquarie, lives in Auckland so we meet up with her and her husband Dave who give us a few tips on the city.

We want to go to the top of the futuristic Sky Tower, which at 328 metres is the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. From there you can do the Sky Jump (a "controlled freefall" from the top of the tower). At ground level, there are a few dozen people gawking upwards for the next victim to jump. It's a suitably steep NZ$25 per person just to get to the top of the tower, not to mention doing the Sky Jump. High petrol prices and peak season rates have meant that campervan-ing in New Zealand has not been as cheap as expected. On top of this, we are suffering a few aches and pains from sleeping in the van for the last month, and Leahanne the Arch Financial Controller has allowed us to blow the budget by staying at a harbourfront hotel on our last night. So we give the Sky Tower a skip and use our last few Kiwi dollars on our last meal back in the hotel - a Burger King meal-deal!

Before we fly out, we meet Royden from Sunrise Holidays at Auckland Airport, to hand over the campervan. He has flown to Auckland from his home in Nelson. He will now drive back to the South Island overnight. After a few hours' sleep, he will get on a plane to Invercargill (the very bottom of the South Island) to collect a van, and do the 1000 km drive back up to Nelson. We tell him that he is a lunatic and he agrees cheerfully. We show him the dent to the van and tell him about the freak picnic table accident (see "Wanaka" and "Rotorua"). He is unperturbed and is more interested in hearing that we enjoyed our time in New Zealand. We said that we would plug his company so here goes: if you are ever planning to do a similar trip, and want to avoid using the higher-priced Maui, Britz, Apollo etc., Sunrise Holidays are a good bet.

If you want to see photos, click here.

P.s. A few days later, we get a disturbing email from Sunrise Holidays - the dent in the van is in a fairly awkward spot that will not be repaired by straightforward panel beating. We are kicking ourselves now for not paying an extra bit on the insurance to reduce our excess.

Waitomo Caves, New Zealand

Thursday, 7 February 2008

The Waitomo Caves are west of Rotorua and are our last real destination before Auckland. Originally we had hoped to fit in a trip to the Coromandel Peninsula or the Bay of Islands, to the north of Auckland, but we have run out of time.

In Waitomo, we go "blackwater rafting" with the ambitiously- named Legendary Blackwater Rafting Company. To call it "rafting" is slightly misleading as it actually involves tubing (i.e. sitting in something like a tractor tyre) through near darkness in the caves. It's not high octane stuff at all - to get up any momentum you have to hand-paddle through the icy cold murk although there is one jump over a small waterfall that is a bit of a challenge. Probably the most testing bit of the excursion is to find a tyre tube that fits your ass so that you don't pop out. That said, it may not be a fun experience for those who are afraid of the dark, water or tight spaces. Our guides, Chad and Hop, are nice fellows and the highpoint of the experience is when we are told to turn off the torches on our helmets to see a constellation of hundreds of glowworms above us on the cave's ceiling.

If you want to see photos click here.

Rotorua, New Zealand

Tuesday and Wednesday, 6 and 7 February 2008

Known as the "Sulphur City", Rotorua is another town popular for its geysers, hot springs, mud pools etc. We visit the Museum of Art & History, which is in a building that was once an internationally famous spa resort. The remnants of the original bath chambers are eerie, with instruments, wires and other contraptions that wouldn't look out of place in a torture chamber.

We go to a Maori concert at the Tamaki Maori Village. Before we enter the village, the tourists' chiefs (poor sods selected at random from our bus) must stand in front of their tribe, while the village's warriors do a ferocious dance in front of them, complete with eye-bulging, tongue-showing and guttural roaring (see here). The tourist chiefs are made of sterner stuff than that and don't flinch, so we are allowed into the village. Inside we learn about the story of the Maori people's first voyage in their canoe or "waka" from Tahiti to New Zealand and watch a concert. Afterwards we have a "hangi" - a dinner cooked in the traditional Maori style which involves digging a 1 metre deep hole in the ground and creating a natural pressure cooker using local volcanic rock. We are told that "you can do this at home kids" but are not sure how we are going to get a hold of the volcanic rock. It's tasty stuff and is alot like a Sunday roast, complete with spuds, carrots, stuffing and lamb. One of our table is a 70 year old Welsh lady who has been living in New Zealand for most of her life but hasn't lost her accent. She tells us that she has done 4 sky dives in New Zealand and loved them, except for the last one - which she had to do as a tandem jump with a guide - because of her advanced years. "Very boring" she says in her best lilting Welsh.

Although the tour was commercial - we were part of a group of nearly 100 people - it's well worth doing, just to learn something about the vibrant Maori culture and take a haka dance class. Our bus driver asks the group to reciprocate on the way home and each nationality has to sing a song. After Leahanne pushes hard for "Dungarvan My Home Town", we agree on singing "The Fields of Athenry". It doesn't sound like much of a war song by comparison with the haka. Doug Howlett must be finding it hard to get psyched up for Munster games listening to this lament.

Our exit from the campsite the next day is less than textbook. To power the microwave (which we barely use) and recharge the camera and laptop we plug in the campervan every time we arrive at the campsite. Each powered site has an electricity socket at about head height. Part of the ritual every morning before we drive off is to unplug the van. This is alot more pleasant than the smelly job of discharging "grey water" in the campsite's dump station. Anyway, for some reason, we forget to unplug the van this morning. It's hard to describe the freakish series of events that follows. The plug stays in the socket as we drive off and the electricity cable duly tautens. It manages to catch the underside of a wooden picnic table beside us, which in turn flips against a campervan in the neighbouring site. At this stage we notice that something is amiss. The collision wakes the occupants, a very nice Dutch couple who were very understanding about the whole incident (although we can't speak Dutch, from the body language and bemused looks, they can't understand how we managed to do this). No major damage was done to their van, apart from a bit of smudging from the wooden table but we exchange details in case there are any problems. Bloody Nora!

If you want to see photos click here.

Lake Taupo, New Zealand

Tuesday, 5 February 2008

We don't spend much time by Lake Taupo. This might be to do with us getting a raw deal in the campsite we chose, De Bretts, which had us plonked beside a main road for the night. The Top 10 campsite is not mentioned in the Lonely Planet but we passed by it the next day and it looked good. In any case, the 2 hour walk to Huka Falls (New Zealand's most visited tourist attraction) is well worth doing. The Falls don't look to us like a classic waterfall (eejit definition: water falling from a height). Instead huge volumes of water surge through a tight channel and then fall over a short drop.

If you want to see photos click here.

Napier, New Zealand

Monday, 4 February 2008

Napier was levelled by an earthquake in 1931 and alot of the town's sights relate to this event and the massive rebuilding that followed. At the time, Art Deco architecture was popular and represented the kind of new beginning Napier wanted. As a result, it is one of the world's best preserved Art Deco townscapes. We did a walking tour and the streets reminded us (sadly lacking superior cultural reference points) of Scarface's Miami Beach.

There is not alot else to report. Apart, that is, from the escalating tensions between us and New Zealand birdlife. Every time we park on the roadside to have a meal, we are quickly surrounded by dozens of edgy looking birds, waiting to pounce. Irrespective of size, they have no fear and it takes an amount of vigorous arm-waving and roars of "get out of it" before they retreat to a distance where you can have a bite of a sandwich in peace. The oversized alpha seagulls are particularly sinister looking when, in tourist intimidation mode, they hunch up their shoulders and screech. Until the relatively recent arrival of humans in New Zealand, the country was almost solely populated by birds and they had few natural predators. Perhaps they still don't want us here.

If you want to see photos click here.

Waipukurau, New Zealand

Saturday and Sunday, 1 and 2 February 2008

Poor Marian and John, our hosts at Wanaka, haven't managed to shake us! Their campervan stalkers strike again and they put up with us for one more night at their gorgeous home in Waipukurau. It's John's birthday and their friends Chris, Joy, Lincoln and Zoe (and baby Finn) are invited to dinner. As ever the food is fantastic (a respite for our tastebuds which have had to put up with some fairly atrocious attempts at pancakes and omelettes over the last week - our van has everything except a frying pan with teflon!). The evening's entertainment also includes an enchanting rendition of "Daisy" by Marian on the piano accordion. Next morning we get in a game of golf at the local course. Dara's game is obviously not up to much as Marian asks him, after one particularly limp shot, "does your husband play golf as well?" Afterwards we meet up in North Havelock with Marian's daughter Philippa for a tasty lunch at the Black Barn and a tour of the area. Hopefully we will get a chance to repay all of this hospitality some time when Marian and John visit Ireland.

Wellington, New Zealand

Thursday and Friday, 31 January and 1 February 2008

We take the ferry across the Cook Strait from Picton to Wellington. It's Rugby Sevens weekend in the capital city and, as tradition dictates, most of the locals are in fancy dress for the occasion. The streets are mobbed with Wellingtonians dressed as superheroes, nuns, priests, tigers, pirates etc. However, the predominant theme is ...you've guessed it...men in drag. In a Farmers shop (the NZ equivalent of Dunnes Stores) we spotted dozens of butch Kiwi men browsing the lingerie section for bras sized FF! Needless to say, the All Blacks win the competition, after a close run final against Western Samoa. Dara's friend Tom has returned from Dunedin so we park in his front yard for the night. He lives on a hill so it was a strange experience sleeping down a 45 degree gradient. This might have been made easier by the pint of saki Tom served us at a Japanese restaurant we went to on Courtenay Place. At least Tom's girlfriend, Karen, had some good tips about what to order. Afterwards we meet up with Tim and Chris, friends of Tom's, in the Hawthorne Lounge, a speakeasy-themed bar. After the serenity of the South Island, the crowds and fast-pace of Wellington is a bit of a shock to the system. The next day we visit the Botanical Gardens, getting to the top by cable car. Leahanne has to be restrained from pulling the emergency cord on the way up, when she thinks she sees the very muscular All Blacks Sevens team training on a pitch next to the track!

For more photos click here.

Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand

Monday and Tuesday, 28 and 29 January 2008

We head westward to Marahau, which is at the entrance to the Abel Tasman National Park. This is a popular tramping spot and there is a coastal track which goes through spectacular native bushland. Generally people trek for 3 days from here to Totararnui, overnighting in huts or camping. We don't have a tent, sleeping bags, a stove or 3 days. Despite what the guide books say, we reckon we can do a section of the track - Marahau to Bark Bay return, in 1 day. The estimated walking time, according to the Lonely Planet, is 14 hours but we will be trekking with small day-bags and plan a carb-loaded breakfast of Weet-Bix (the NZ relation of Weetabix) and bananas. Although rank amateurs in the tramping game, we decide that we will do it in half the time. The terrain is mostly flat and so we build up a head of steam in the morning, scoffing at the 3-dayers as we leave them in our wake. However we get badly lost while trying to beat an incoming tide in one inlet and have to squelch through a few hundred yards of sludge before we re-discover the track. To make up time, we try to cross a small stream (about 8 feet wide) but the stepping stones are slippery beyond belief so this turns in to a bit of a debacle, with a local family deciding to stop off on the opposite bank to chew their lunch and offer helpful pieces of advice to what they must assume are soft "city folk". Beaten by the stream, we retreat and go around the long way. We stop off at a beautiful beach in Torrent Bay for lunch. On the menu is the staple sandwich for the last three weeks - ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. Although having no basis for this, we still feel confident that we can reach Bark Bay and continue on the route only to meet a steep hill and the belated realisation that there is no way we are going to cover the remaining 4 kilometres in 30 minutes. We turn around and head back towards Marahau, this time meeting the 3-dayers, who rightly look down their noses at us! At this stage, chronic foot, calf, thigh, back, shoulder and neck pains kick in, along with mild long-walk-delirium. The return journey is nowhere near as pleasant as the outward one. We manage to crawl back to the van, just as darkness falls. A valuable lesson - don't mock the tramping gods!

To see photos click here.

Nelson, New Zealand

Saturday and Sunday, 26 and 27 January 2008

We've been looking forward to this - Feargal, Alison and Shane, friends from Sydney, are over in New Zealand on holidays. After meeting up with them in Kaikoura (about 2 hours north of Christchurch), we drive up the east coast to Nelson. It's not the easiest driving in convoy when you have our chitty-chitty-bang-bang campervan trying to keep up with the lads' zippy rental car but we just about manage it (a little too well at times, once nearly rear-ending the rental while a driver, who will remain unnamed, was taking a refresher course on how to use the clutch!). Highlights on the trip up the coast include a visit to Nim Bins, a roadside shack, selling the local speciality - crayfish. It was tasty but the visuals weren't great - the crayfish was served complete with beady eyes and claws. The hardest part of Cray's Anatomy (!) was avoiding the gut area and the half-digested last meal of the poor crayfish (known in the connoisseur's lexicon as the "mustard"). On the way up to Nelson, a game of "Tractor" - 2 points for spotting a tractor, 5 points for spotting a tractor dealership - nearly came to blows between the McKenna brothers over whether a largish seated lawnmower was a tractor. We have dinner that evening and a few beers afterwards in a couple of Nelson's nightspots. Our favourite was PHATS, a drum n' bass club that was pumping out dry ice like it was 1999. There was a slow start the next day but we made it out to the local beach for a swim, before we headed our separate ways - us to Abel Tasman National Park and Feargal, Ali and Shane to Picton for the ferry journey across to Wellington. It was good to see the lads again.

To see photos click here.

Hanmer Springs, New Zealand

Friday, 25 January 2008

On our way back to the east coast, we stop in Hanmer Springs. We have read about its thermal springs. However it doesn't turn out quite as expected. Instead of soaking our weary bones in something akin to a remote Icelandic geyser, we find that the springs are in the middle of town and are more a water park for kids. Huddled in a few sulphur-smelly mineral pools, the beleaguered adults look on anxiously as children hurtle around the place screaming and cannon-balling into the pools. We last for all of 45 minutes and leave in a huff on learning that to go on the water slide costed an extra $5 on top of the $12 entrance fee. This is not Shangri La.

Franz Josef Glacier, New Zealand

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

We do a half-day trek to the face of the glacier with the Franz Josef Glacier Guides. According to the Lonely Planet, this is outfit is "reader-recommended". We are not sure why, to be honest. It seems like the guides have recently graduated from the Basil Fawlty School of Tourism. They are a pretty disinterested bunch (adopting the "Whatever dude...only in this job to get a bit of cash together for the ski season in Whistler" pose) and volunteer zero information about the glacier. This differs from the true enthusiasm of the other guides we have met in New Zealand. Despite this, the glacier is impressive - particularly when you get above the fairly mucky terminal face. At this level - where the ice is really compacted - the blue-tinged ice pillars, crevices and caves are a great sight.

After a quick lunch, we get driving again, in the direction of Greymouth, northwards along the west coast. Along the way we have to get a phonecall out of the way. The campervan had a bit of a ding against a telegraph pole in Wanaka, causing a smallish dent on the side of the van. To avoid any hassle on the day we return it, we confess all to Roydon, at the rental company. We are relieved to find he is pretty relaxed about it. As long as the van is roadworthy he isn't too bothered - a few weeks ago, another customer totalled one of his vans. Confession over - the penance will be a few dollars for the panel beater but nothing major! Phew.

To see photos click here.