10- New Zealand: Finally looking in the neighbour’s house

We moved to Melbourne in August 2010. Since then, as well as enjoying the hospitality of our hosts we’ve looked longingly across the Tasman at the neighbours across the bay and wondered what their place was like. So in the last few years as we’ve slowly ticked through each of the Australian states, New Zealand has stood out as a glaring omission on our résumé. Now in 2015, we remedy that!

On planning our trip, one of the things we realized early on was that there was so much to do and see. All amazing things but it was often hard to figure out any hierarchy- in Australia you’d have Sydney harbour, Great Barrier Reef and Ayers Rock as probably the big three. In New Zealand, there seemed to be 25 things to see and do with some people doing some things, some doing others but with no real must see sights. We got sample itineraries from three friends- all did completely different things; all saw different sites and all had absolutely amazing times! We had given ourselves four weeks and planned on that basis splitting our time fairly evenly between north and south islands.

Our first stop was Auckland, the biggest city (but not the capital)- a nice place to walk around, most of the action as far as we could see was outside of the central area- Devonport, Mount Eden, Ponsonby. A nice stop, relaxing and perfect for getting over our terrible jetlag, we’d always heard it was worst going East to West but how we felt after our Hong Kong to Auckland flight put that one completely to bed- we felt like we’d just stumbled out of a tumble dryer! One afternoon to morning sleep thankfully got rid of most of it along with a dose of Auckland hospitality. After that it was time to pick up our rental car and hit the road- off to the Bay of Islands we go.

As the name helpfully suggests, Bay of Islands is a bay full of islands in the north of the north island- it’s a beautiful area of the country. As the name also suggests, a rental car will only get you so far around here! So, we traded in the rental car for a day and hopped on board a catamaran to see some more of these islands. Great way to spend a day and lovely way to sail through and around lots of the islands. Lots of other great things to see and do in this area (as there seems to be in every area of New Zealand) as we spent a day driving to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga, Ninety mile beach and going sandboarding down some huge sand dunes out there. Definitely a great way to start our time in New Zealand.

After that, we headed down to Rotorua and its surroundings- it’s definitely one of the craziest areas we’ve been in- huge amount of volcanic activity below the surface of the town- so much so that it seems that every person in the town has their own hot tub! You can walk down some streets and see steam pluming out of the open sewers. Walk through the parks and there are lots of similar activity as well as pools of bubbling mud and geysers. It’s the normality of it that just seems crazy. The locals just accept that they live on top of this endless natural supply of very hot water! They’ve also clearly become very accustomed to the smell generated by the sulphur that surrounds the entire town. I haven’t come across such a smell of rotten eggs since I shared a bedroom with three of my brothers. The place reeks! The big decision at night is whether to open the window to cool the room but at the same time let the smell in- tough call.

Just before we got to Rotorua we went to another place with a wonderfully self-explanatory name- Hot Water Beach. A tourism industry has been born there based on a 100m section of the local beach where at low tide if you dig down (you can rent shovels there!) hot water comes up and fills the pools. The temperature varies depending on where on the beach you are but the temperature can get to over 60 degrees- not boiling but you couldn’t put your foot into it, it’s so hot. Tourists get great satisfaction in building their own little hot tubs! Good fun.

The next big volcanic stop was to Wai-o-Tapu national park where you are able to see the full array of volcanic activity- geyser explosion, steaming pools of water, the lingering smell of sulphur, huge pools of bubbling mud, a lake of luminesce yellow water due to sulphur. I’ve never seen anything like it.

That night in Rotorua, we signed up to head to Tamaki for a Maori cultural experience. A great night, really good fun and well done. They have an old Maori village built where they show you a lot of the old traditions that they have- learning to do the haka being the main one! I can only say that my regular dance abilities are just as good as my traditional New Zealand dance abilities- you can interpret that whatever way you want! They teach you a little bit of Maori too, the only phrase that sticks with me as you see it written on posters around New Zealand also is “Kia Ora” which is basically hello/ goodbye/ good wishes/ good health”. Nice to know.

I must say I’m fascinated by Maori’s not just their history and the way they lived but also the place they hold in New Zealand society. The Maori culture is front and centre in not just New Zealand tourism but seems to held in quite high esteem by New Zealanders in general. It makes for such a huge contrast when you look across the Tasman at Australia’s relationship with the Aboriginals and how little they have integrated and how they are effectively swept under the carpet.  Even the fact that the All Blacks do the haka before matches is a sign of how integrated they are. The thought of an Australian national team doing a song and a dance from the aboriginals is just so far gone from reality its laughable. I am obviously simplifying it hugely and it’s a major thing that goes back hundreds of years- to think that the Maoris and “the Europeans” had a treaty signed in 1840, again contrasting that with Australia where Aboriginals had the same rights as flora and fauna up until 1967. Two countries so close to each other, both with indigenous populations, two completely different histories.

So I think it’s great that the New Zealanders are so open to their two groups of indigenous- Maoris and Hobbits! Hobbits are so integrated that they have their own town and tourist site for you to visit- Hobbiton. Driving around the country, on both islands, you’ll see huge advertising for sites which are featured in one of the six movies (three Lord of the Rings, three Hobbits). Such a massive way to show off your country. Must have generated a huge amount of tourism from it. They are very proud of it also and really embrace the whole thing which is great- from having a huge statue of a dwarf in Auckland airport welcoming you to Middle Earth to Air New Zealand running a video of their safety video featuring orcs, hobbits, elves, dwarfs and all sorts. It’s the first safety video I’ve watched on a flight in a long time- Must see TV!

Our final stop before the south island was Wellington- we were catching the ferry from here the following morning so took the afternoon and evening to look around. A very nice city, pretty quirky. Much more things to do in the city then Auckland, which seemed to have most things out in the various suburbs. A nice way to finish off the North island.

The north island is beautiful, we loved it. The highlights for us were the geysers and other volcanic related sites in Rotorua and the Maori experience. With regards to scenery, it’s a hugely impressive island, maybe the most beautiful we’ve seen……… until you get to the South island!

Our first indication that the South was a beautiful place was actually on the ferry crossing. With our car safely tucked away below deck, we had three hours to marvel at the views. This isn’t a regular ferry crossing as land is in sight the whole time and it spends at least half of the journey navigating down through a channel where you’re surrounded by rolling hills, beautiful blue water and loads of small islands. Photos, photos and more photos! It’s breathtaking, a highly recommended ferry crossing.

As you may have gathered, we’re not just about scenery and sites, we like to have fun too! And so we headed to Renwick which just happens to be in the middle of the Marlborough wine valley- who knew!? “When in Rome” they say! So the next morning we set out to explore some of the local sites, most of which reside inside nicely chilled bottles! Just to add another twist to the event, our tour was done on bikes. Unlike Yarra Valley which we were big fans of visiting when living in Melbourne, it is very flat which makes navigating between the wineries nice and easy. It’s a great way to spend a day and to confirm what we’d suspected for quite a while, New Zealand make some very good white wines!

And the next morning, fresh as daisies, we headed to Takaka, which was our base for the next few days for our hiking in Abel Tasman National Park. As you can imagine, the national park is absolutely massive so there’s a huge choice of things to do. We decided on a hike from Marahau to Totaranui, 42km long split over two days. To do this we needed to avail of some public transport which in this case was a boat to drop us into the middle of the park so we could walk back to the car park on the two days.  no cars allowed in the park so the boat is the only way to do it. A novel way to start the days walking. They are great walking trails there bringing you up through the forests, down through bays and beaches and various places in between. Spectacular scenery surrounded us, all helped by lovely blue skies. We try to say that we can’t let the weather affect our trip but having those blue skies sure helps the photos! So after two long days, we were tired but delighted with ourselves. The few days were definitely one of the highlights of our time in New Zealand.

Takaka (our base for the walk) is a funny little town, not much to it but the thing that you can’t miss about it is that it’s full of hippies!  As to why they were all there still isn’t very clear to us- presumably they were all trying to “find themselves”. The funny thing is that I’m pretty sure these are the people that my father in law thinks we’re hanging out with! Just to confirm Jimmy, these are not the people we have been spending our time with and have no current plans to go live on a commune and spend our days singing “kum by yah”! Our first night we were in the supermarket and the place was full of them, there must have been a sale on lentils, we could barely get down the aisles of the store. My wife observed that a certain aisle was very quiet with nobody there- what aisle you ask? Shampoo and washing products of course- not a sinner there, you couldn’t make it up!

They seem like an amiable enough bunch, just a wee bit weird for our tastes. But if any of those photographed are reading this blog then seriously I love your style!

Our next stop was a last minute decision for us to head West towards Glacier country and do a heli hike- for the uninitiated, that is a helicopter ride halfway up the glacier and then a hike around it to see the ice features such as caves, arches and to generally get a feel for the scale of the glacier. We initially hadn’t planned to go there and instead had penciled in to go see glaciers in Chilean Patagonia instead. However, after consulting a map and realising that Chile is over 4,300 km long, we decided to go with the more conveniently located New Zealand glaciers instead. Lo Siento, Chile. 

The day out was hugely impressive. The glaciers are amazing to see and definitely worth the trip. Amazing to see all the little features and to stand on them and get an idea of the pure scale of them. Epic. 

We’re told that a few years ago, a helicopter ride was unnecessary to see the glaciers but they have receded so much in that last few years that a regular hike at the bottom is distinctly unimpressive. Our guide told us that they have pretty much stopped those tours fully as interest as waned completely on them. The heli hike tours are still very much in demand but it will be interesting to see for how many more years. I say this as you can clearly see how much the glaciers have receded in the last few years, by the growth of vegetation on the mountain side and judging by the huge level of water pouring off them each day in the form of waterfalls, its very easy to see that they are only going one way. So to any shareholders in the Fox Glacier Heli Hike company I’d be trying to sell my shares in the next few years before you’re left giving tours over a former glacier valley that now has a lake at the bottom instead. And who says global warming doesn’t exist?!

Christchurch, our next port of call has only been reopened for business since June 2013. The city centre earthquake in 2011 that killed 185 people absolutely decimated the city- incredible to walk through the city and see so much empty space where buildings have been leveled and so many more are held up by steel supports or stacks of shipping containers. Christchurch life for the most part has migrated to the suburbs away from the city centre. The main shopping mall is now housed in a bunch of shipping containers and worst of all since the big earthquake in 2011, they’ve had over 13,000 earthquakes since- the majority being tiny or far below the surface of the city but it’s still an earthquake. Crazy to think they could rebuild everything and have it all ripped apart again without warning. Obviously that sort of positivity isn’t on the tourism material and certainly the locals seem to be just getting on with life and the task at hand of rebuilding the city. Great to see.

If planning a trip, it’s always nice to plan it so you’re getting to see better and better things along the way rather than seeing the highlight in the first few days and then pale imitations after that. By luck more then anything else, we went North to South which was great, by the same reasoning, it was lucky that we left Queenstown to last as it’s definitely the best of the cities in New Zealand. A great place to chill out, situated on the water surrounded by spectacular mountain ranges on all sides. If chilling out is not your thing and your funds allow it then the Kiwis will be only too eager to inject you with adrenaline in a myriad of different ways- bungee jumping, skydives, paragliding, speedboating, ziplining, luge racing. Anything you can think of, they do it here- the world leader for “Extreme” sports. We got our “fix” through zip lining and luge go-karting, less extreme then lots of activities but a lot of fun and much more economical! You can’t do everything.

All in all, our odometer ticked over 4,700 km in our rental car- thankfully we had selected unlimited km’s for the rental! A huge distance but spread over a month and split between two drivers was very doable. I have the trucker hat now, so I just need a singlet and I’ll be all set for a change in career. It’s a testament to how much there is to see here and what we really loved about it is that when travelling between two places oftentimes we found that the scenery on the drives was as jaw dropping as the actual end destination. It’s a stunning country, as beautiful a place as I’ve seen and with that recommendation it’s time to close another chapter, hop on a flight, brush up on our Spanish and head to South America. Next stop Santiago. See you there.

Click here to see a selection of photos from our New Zealand trip

Our route:

North Island- Fly to Auckland, drive to Paihia (day trip around Bay of Islands and to Cape Reinga), Hot water beach, Rotorua, Lake Taupo, Wellington, ferry to Picton

South Island- Arrive in Picton by ferry from Wellington, Renwick, Takaka (day trips to Abel Tasman national park and Golden Bay), Franz Josef (day trip to Fox Glacier), Christchurch, Wanaka, Queenstown, fly to Santiago

9- Hong Kong & Macau: A pricey pit stop

In a weird way, we found that in order to get to New Zealand, the flights actually worked out cheaper to go via Hong Kong then to fly direct due to the time of year, supply & demand and all that jazz. We’re not one’s to pass up an opportunity to tick off another two countries so we had a little detour to Hong Kong and Macau for ourselves. Bonus!

We didn’t know much about the place before we got here besides it formerly being controlled by the British but had recently been passed over to China/ gained independence. So we were expecting a melting pot of ex-pats, Chinese and locals and that is pretty much what you get. Local food stalls around the corner from Western restaurants, very ordered areas where ex-pats hang out right next to some random Chinese weirdness going on. A lovely contrast!

As much as we’re fans of all things Asia we can’t help but comment on the lack of manners on the Chinese- it’s especially clear where they’re surrounded by so many Westerners- they’re one part hilarious, one part disgusting! They have no concept of queuing, no concept of other people and man can they spit! Enough spit to fill a bowl, indoors, outdoors, who cares just get it out! Having said all that- they are people watching heaven- You just never know what they’ll do next!

One of the things that we always think about when we visit places is “what would the postcard be”? Every area has postcards of their main sites on them so we try to figure out what you’d put on the postcards for a place so we can be sure we haven’t missed out on anything- Paris = the Eiffel Tower, Rio De Janeiro = Christ the Redeemer, Cairo = the Pyramids etc. I reckon the postcard of Hong Kong is definitely a picture of its skyline- especially at night it’s a site to behold. Every night they do a light show from the top of lots of the skyscrapers which is well worth a view

From a tourist point of view, we were kept very occupied for our few days there- Victoria Peak is a lovely walk and provides a great view over the city although you have to be lucky to not get too smoggy a day. We also had a great day out visiting the Big Buddha, a large statue of a Buddha located up the mountains outside Hong Kong. The highlight of that day trip was the cable car journey of 30-40 minutes up and down the mountain. Phenomenal views of the airport, the mountains and the sea all around you.

Given we’re on a budget (apparently!), Hong Kong is not an ideal place to be- some things like public transport are very cheap ($5 to get from the airport to the city) but the majority of things are very expensive, food and drink being the main thing- you could easily spend $40 on two sandwiches and two coffees. So given that our budget was been slammed, it seemed like the perfect time to go to a casino for a bit of gambling to refill the coffers! So onto a boat and off to Macau we go.

Known as the Las Vegas of the Orient, in the last few years Macau has passed Vegas for the amount of gambling revenue each year. No easy feat. But much to our pleasant surprise, Macau wasn’t just casinos, it’s actually filled with lovely old colonial buildings from when it was controlled by the Portuguese. It makes for a very unusual contrast with the enormous and flashy casinos dotted around the city. All of the old buildings are now protected as they were granted UNESCO world heritage status which means that even as more and more casinos get built (which they will), the city will at least preserve a lot of its old world charm.

As it turned out, these two poor backpackers were too intimidated to do any gambling, it’s much more fun (and free!) to walk around and marvel at the insanity of the buildings. They are cities in their own right- the Venetian Hotel & Casino is absolutely huge and that’s just one. The mind boggles as to how it runs, the number of rooms it has not to mention the number of staff it takes to operate- madness. Thankfully that’s not my day job anymore so I can just walk around and enjoy it for what it is!

So our stopover is complete, time to get back on track and head for New Zealand.

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Hong Kong & Macau trip

Our route: Fly to Hong Kong, return boat to Macau, fly Hong Kong to Auckland

8- Philippines: Paradise Lost

How do you cover a country that consists of 7,102 islands in just seven days? Well, you don’t really. Due to our limited time, we picked a few spots and just did our best to do as much as we could. It was a short but sweet visit, beautiful place, lovely people. Pity we got to see so little of it but I’d reckon you could spend a couple of months here and still feel the same way.

So after such an introduction, we must have had quite the first impression of the place. Well, we definitely did but not in a good way!

For anyone travelling to Philippines be pre-warned, Manila airport is an absolute nightmare. People everywhere, no public transport, various coloured taxis around the place with no real sign of what’s what or how to get from the airport to the city. We had been told our hotel was a 15 minute drive away, on enquiring what the best approach was we were advised to join the queue for the metered taxis, these would get us to our destination for a bargain price of 300 pesos ($8). We were also advised to avoid the non-metered taxis as these would overcharge you and were unregulated- well, isn’t that great advice we thought, easy as. So, on we go to join the queue waiting for metered cabs. It was a long queue but what harm. The locals were happy queuing and so were we. Our happy feelings lasted maybe an hour when as far as we could tell our only progress up the still very long queue was due to people leaving the queue (mostly Westerners!) rather then any cabs actually turning up! As we got more and more antsy, one of us left the queue to try to decipher what the heck was going on. This involved queuing up to get back into the airport so we could ask someone else- slow progress all round!

The clock had ticked onto two hours of queuing and in our non-local eyes it appeared that the queue had another three hours to go, we took the chance and said we’d go with the un-metered cabs, life’s too short and so was our time in Manila. As soon as this decision was made we had a cab in two minutes at the price of 1,500 pesos ($40) or five times what the price should have been. To be fair to the cab drivers, I’d do the same, why would I run a metered cab when I can sit around for hours at the airport and then fleece the tourists who don’t like waiting around indefinitely! Of course the staff at the airport took their cut of the plunder as well. So all of the Filippinos involved were happy while all the tourists were exasperated and badly needed a drink! Welcome to Manila!

Philippines tip #1- arrange transport from the airport in advance!

The following morning, our return journey to the airport arranged by our hotel cost us 190 pesos ($5)- so that’s how the system is supposed to work. All adds to the charm of the place, sure what else would we have to talk about!?!

All in all, we had about twelve hours to see Manila- not much time when you’re including sleep. Hard to get a feel for the place. The one thing we wanted to tick off was to see some jeepneys. These are American army transport vehicles left in Philippines after World War II and have been used ever since as public transport vehicles. What makes them so famous is that the locals have painted them with all sorts of colours and designs. All very cool and funky looking although probably leave a lot to be desired in the comfort and environmentally friendly stakes, but they make up for it in personality and as we all know personality goes a long way!

After our very brief sojourn to Manila, it was island time. After all, the Philippines is famous for it’s islands and beaches, not for its cities. First stop was Carabao island which is an hour away from the much more famous Boracay island (our next stop). While Borocay is very tourist centric, on Carabao the locals don’t pay a blind bit of a notice to you- it’s great. Nobody repeatedly asking you to buy a hat, sunglasses or would you like a massaaaaaaaage! Here we had a beach to ourselves and had some lovely relaxation time- life has been very stressful as of late- we deserved it! Lovely few days in our island seclusion, eat, drink, swim, read, sunbathe, repeat.

On getting on and off the island, our guesthouse had it’s own boat from which they transport you across to Boracay. Best to predict these things ahead of time as a dress code of jeans, shoes and socks aren’t very conducive to jumping out of a boat into thigh high water at disembarkation time. Lucky for me there was “good drying weather” on the island!

Philippines tip #2- Best to wear shorts and flip flops when travelling between islands, just in case!

So after alone time on Carabao, we joined the masses and made for Boracay island- famous for white sand, beautiful blue water all surrounded by palm trees. Sometimes, these really popular places are over-run with tourists and over developed to the detriment of what made them famous in the first place. Borocay somehow manages to not cross that line. There are crowds but a quiet spot of beach is never too far away. Keeping the palm trees or at least a large amount of them blocks the developments behind quite nicely. You can go for some beautiful walks taking in not just the beaches but the rock formations that are along the way.

So this was where we spent Christmas, not a bad spot to enjoy our turkey and ham. Quite festive here in a hot, beachy kind of way. To add to our festive spirit, the locals have a thriving sandcastle building industry going on. They build these magnificent sculptures and then tourists come along and stand next to them for photos. Genius. If they’re lucky enough, the tourist’s friends and families will make the easy mistake of assuming that said tourist built the amazing sculptures. Win win! They build quite an array of them too from sandmen to life size Santa Clauses to bikini-clad babes to castles as fancy as you could imagine. After dark they insert night-lights in them. It’s all very clever. Then each night the tide washes them away and they start again the next morning. The circle of life!

Philippines tip #3- never take on a Filippino in a sand castle building competition!

So time to move onto our next stop and it seems only appropriate that I leave with another airport story. To leave Philippines, we were flying via Manila again. Wahoo! We had four hours between landing into Manila and flying out but as we were changing terminals and had experienced the general chaos that surrounds all Filipino airports, we were genuinely nervous as to whether we’d make it or not! I suppose if push came to shove we could find another non-metered taxi to get us between terminals!

As we arrived into the baggage collection area we saw our bags on the carousal up ahead but didn’t get there before they went back in behind. So we waited diligently for our bags to come out the other side again…. And we waited and we waited. The carousal wasn’t that long so someone had obviously taken our bags off the carousal. Just before my wife was going to stick her head out the back and find out who took our bags off the carousal, a local lady who recognized us from the queue (we do stand out I suppose!) came up to us to tell us that our bags were going round and round the priority carousal next door! So even when they’re trying to help us out, we ended up waiting longer! Well at least they tried I suppose.

Lovely people the Filipinos, we’d happily come back and visit many more of their islands and if we do, at least we’ll be pre-warned about the airports!

Click here to see a selection of photos from our Philippines trip

Our route: Fly to Manila, fly to Kalibo, boat to Carabao Island, boat to Boracay Island