Picton, Wanganui & Tongariro - 28th March 2009
After leaving Abel Tasman, we decided to carry on west to see what we could see before we ran out of land. However, after several more kilometres of winding roads, we decided that we were just doing it for the sake of it, and that we'd be better off driving back east to Picton so that we could catch up on our blog and relax for a day before the ferry back to the North Island on 30th March.
The place where we planned to turn around was called Takaka, population 1,230, a very laid back town where we hopped out to stretch our legs and have a mooch up and down the high street - there were lots of whimsical art galleries and gift shops selling fair trade things alongside local crafts, and a very high proportion of cafes selling lentils. We popped in to the Golden Bay Museum, and after paying our donation entry fee were treated to a cornucopia of local history; it was only slightly above the high bar set at the Laos dinosaur museum, but still managed to somehow keep us occupied for a pleasant half an hour with creative dioramas of Maori battles, local history stories (mostly about the same family, I think they donated a job lot of stuff), and animal bits and pieces.
Our interest revived, we decided to check out the nearby Te Waikoropupu Springs (or 'Pupu' to the locals). We enjoyed a half an hour walk around the largest freshwater springs in New Zealand, and apparently the clearest water in the world - 14,000 litres per second wells up through several vents in the ground, which has the strange side-effect of making some of the sand 'dance' around as it is whirled upwards by the force of the water. I can confirm that the water was indeed very clear, sullied only by the assortment of ducks splashing around on the surface. There were numerous dire warning signs telling us not to even think about touching or swimming in the water (and it did look very tempting), since there is a big worry about introducing the extremely pesky and impossible to eradicate Didymo (or 'rock snot') into the waterways - if it gets in right at the beginning, the whole spring and river would be affected.
Sightseeing over, we rewound back along the same roads we had come along back towards Picton - not that we minded; we got to take in the beautiful views of Marborough Sounds all over again, as we had first done when we arrived in the South Island.
Upon arriving at Picton, we picked a campsite that had wireless internet at a good rate and didn't break the bank, and settled in. Having explored the site, we couldn't believe our luck - a large pitch, squeaky clean toilets and (free!) showers, cheap internet and a fully equipped kitchen, all for $24 a night... we soon found out the catch: every hour or so, a huge and incredibly noisy goods train rushed past right over the top of the campsite, on what we had thought was an attractive aquaduct! Not that Dave was too upset of course, having a closet love of trains - although once the first couple had gone past, it was just a case of trying to ignore the noise and getting on with pottering about and writing up some of our very out of date blogs for that evening and most of the next day.
The following morning, we had a very early get-up-and-go for our ferry back to the North Island. This time, we had chosen to try the other ferry company, Bluebridge (having travelled to the South Island on the Interislander)... we found that aside from doing everything they needed to, ie. Get us safely from Picton to Wellington; compared with the Interislander, Bluebridge were a very budget operation - narrow stairways and corridors, epidemic rust, lots of stinky cattle areas, very grumpy cashiers and broken or fading away television screens pretty much sums it up, although the best bit was when the public address system broke down and they had one girl scouting around the whole ferry telling everyone in small groups that it was time to get back to our cars... except she told everyone twenty minutes too early, resulting in mega queues in aforementioned narrow corridors. Ah well, we were there safely, and that was the main thing.
Arriving in Wellington, we had planned to do a Segway tour of the city. However, we had called them the day before, only to discover that they had finished doing the tours the week before, and were only letting people have a go now if they wanted to buy one. Looking down at our scruffy selves, we decided that we weren't going to convince anyone that we had enough cash to buy one of these, and that they'd soon bust us for being have-a-go tourists. We were kicking ourselves for not taking the opportunity to try one when we were in Wellington before, or even in Christchurch or Kaikoura where we'd also seen them. Ah well, we can always save up for one when we get home.
We drive on north, looking for somewhere to stop fairly early as we're so tired from our unusually early start. We only manage about 300kms, even on the relatively straight roads, before we arrive at Wanganui and crash out for the night - on a $30 campsite that comes with its own en-suite toilet and shower for each site, very posh!
The following morning, we decide to have a poke around town before heading on, conscious that we want to spend a few days in Taupo and Waitomo and make sure we're back in Auckland for 6th April to hand the Spaceship back.
We skip the pretty town centre, but head out to Virginia Lake Scenic Reserve, where we are intrigued at the guidebook's mention of a geyser that can be viewed at $1 a pop. Dollars at the ready, we trot down to the lake, only to find that the 'geyser' is in fact just a regular fountain in the middle of a duck filled pond (we've been tricked by the monkeys at the Lonely Planet!), with a sign that says "To activate this attractive fountain insert $1 in the slot for 10 minutes, $2 for 20 minutes. This fountain features coloured lights at night". It still being very much daylight, we chuck a dollar in just to see what happens, and are disappointed not to reap the benefits of the technicoloured show that would surely have presented itself, had it been darker. We're also a tiny bit disappointed that it doesn't even attempt to belt out some kind of digitally slaughtered Westlife or Ronan Keating tune while it sprays prettily away, in the style of the best Lao public waterworks.
This park needs to redeem itself, and fast. The cute and plentiful ducks don't quite swing it, but what we spot next does the job and more: it's a huge walk-through aviary, full of tens of different breeds and colours of exotic and local birds. There are baby ducks pecking at corn-on-the-cobs next to bright green and yellow budgies, doves, pheasants, parrots, parakeets, lorikeets, lovebirds, cockatoos, galahs, and lots of other strikingly coloured feathered friends in different shapes and sizes. The aviary is open plan once we've walked in, and they're not shy - they don't go as far as landing on our heads or anything, but they appear to be going about their business as if we weren't there, and swoop around right next to us without a care in the world. Cynically, we decide this is because the bird food machine is broken - they know they're not getting a feed from us, so we're not of interest! The aviary is free, pretty impressive and beautifully kept for a public and unsupervised installation.
We're back in the spaceship and back on the road, on the lookout for the nearby Kia Iwi Beach, that's meant to have lots of lovely rugged dark rocks, black sand, windswept coastline and hunks of driftwood to make for some cool photos. It does, and Dave is duly dispatched to snap away, but I have found a new purpose: there's a children's playground right next to the beach, home to a huge and battered looking wooden pirate ship, amongst other things. The pirate ship is fun in itself, but this is nothing compared with what it acts as a launchpad for: a flying fox.
Now, Dave has had a lovely and very active time while we've been in New Zealand; testing out Zorbing, bungeeing and scenic helicoptering (although he did fork out for me to do the fantastic heli-hike on the glacier). I couldn't do the Zorbing because of my grumpy shoulder, I was way too chicken to do the bungee, and too skint to do the helicoptering.
This was my version of extreme sports, and best of all, it was free. Dave actually videoed me having my first go (I thought he was just taking a photo), and I'm unbelievably excited and nervous... I reckon it's best to start small and work up... I'll be doing a skydive sometime in the 2050's...
Anyway, I sat myself in as ladylike a fashion as I could (not very), on the seat, jumped off the platform, and held on tight as I whizzed along the cable line and over the rest of the park... finishing up over a river...um... I had about half a second to get worried before the momentum carried me backwards and safely onto dry land.
Three goes later, I've had my fill of adrenaline sports (yeah, I know), and Dave has pretty much run out of breath from laughing at me so much, and we clamber back into Flap.
Our planned route north is via the scenic, incredibly wiggly and unsealed Whanganui River Road. As an aside, you may have noticed that this is spelt with an 'h' in it (or probably not. We didn't, we just thought they were rubbish at getting their spelling straight. If you did notice, you most likely thought that we were rubbish at getting our spelling straight, given our complete failure to spell most of the places in Thailand correctly in previous blogs). Anyway, this is the subject of some hot local debate, since no one can decide whether to keep the 'h' in Wanganui or lose it, since at the moment the town doesn't have it, but everything else locally does. The current opinion is to keep the 'h', but to keep the pronounciation as if it wasn't there, since technically in New Zealand, the 'wh' combination of letters is said aloud as an 'f'.
Anyway, we set off up the Whanganui River Road and take in miles and miles of scenic valleys and meandering river, being careful to stay on the gravelly and sometimes narrow road. What distracts us slightly from the lovely countryside are the forty or so classic cars that come towards us one and two at a time every few minutes for the length of the journey. Dave is driving, so I am tasked with photographically recording the spectacle... which I completely fail to do on about 90% of occasions (I don't press the button properly, apparently. I blame the camera.), and by the time I get the hang of it, we run out of cars. We do get a couple of good photos though. And lots of blurry photos of the inside of the windscreen and an empty road.
We survive the road, and make it the Ohakune, our chosen town of rest for the night, and pull up in a Department of Conservation site that only has toilets, but which costs us the bargain price of $8, without even an industrial railway to disturb the peace. There's only us and one other camper van, and aside from an unscheduled appearance from a slightly drunk local who arrives, passes the time over a cup of tea (us) and bottle of rose (him), and gifts us with the world's largest courgette (or zucchini, as they're known in this neck of the woods. It's as big as a prize marrow anyway), and then wobbles away, we're left in peace. The toilets are a bit spooky though, with no working lights, and graffiti of a woman's headless body on one wall, and the words "Be Gone" in another... Derek Acorah, get on over here!
The following morning, we soldier on - firstly to find the ranger's office to pay for our night's camp (I do like to follow the rules), and secondly to find the home of Gollum's pool from the Lord of the Rings films at Mangawhero Falls. Singing along to his song ("Rock and pool, nice and cool"), in our best Smeagol voices, we find three pools, all with the potential to be the one from the film (we can't clearly remember the exact scenery), and investigate them all.
We're in ski-field territory at the Tongariro National Park - also home to Mount Doom, and the scene of the flashback ring battle from the Fellowship of the Ring (sorry to be a bit vague, you'll have to collar Dave on this one if you want more details). The landscape is actively volcanic, with rugged, rocky, mostly barren, winding and steep vistas - all setting the perfect scene for acting as the evil heart of Mordor in the films. The dark volcanic soil is ominous, and we can see straight away why Peter Jackson used the area, although we suspect they make far more money here now from the ski season, which doesn't kick off for another couple of months, so it's quiet everywhere we go.
The main activity here off season is the gruelling Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It's one of the world's greatest walks, and we have the time to do it - it isn't even expensive. However, I'm worried that I'll lag behind on the many, many, very steep parts of the eight hour walk, and Dave isn't keen on going it alone, so we chicken out. Maybe another day.
We decide instead to have a good look around the various ski fields and mountain bases, checking out 'Mordor 'and Mount Ruapehu (2797 metres, last erupted September 2007), Mount Tongariro (1967 metres, last erupted 1926), and the newest but most famous kid on the block at only 2,500 years old Mount Ngauruhoe (2287 metres), which is better known to us as Mount Doom.
Having both ticked our usual tourist boxes (minus the obligatory long hike), and with the addition of indulging in several Lord of the Rings-themed locations, we're off to our next stop, Lake Taupo.