Saturday, December 20, 2003
Kia Ora
I just got back from NZ equipped with sunkissed skin and excess baggage. Translated , it means I came back with a tan which rendered me a panda bear like appearance ( no thanx to my specs) and an extra layer of blubber on my hopelessly non-existant waist. Wanna see pix of our journey, just click on "photos" under " NZ1 and NZ2"
Day One
We were greeted in Auckland by a merciless downpour which drenched us thoroughly as we raced to our rented vehicle. I dozed all the way to the city, the result of having engaged in an inflight movie marathon. THe first thing that struck me about Auckland was how steeply inclined the streets were. If one wished to excercise, all you had to do was to go shopping. Didn't do much today, just went up the sky tower to stone at the view which was swathed in lots and lots of long white clouds.
Day 2
Started driving to the town of Rotoroa. Dad still refuses to let me practise driving. Pretty long ride. about 3 hours of bumping up and down in the car and watching endless blobs of wool runnin garound the sprawling fields. Perhaps it was the endless supply of sheep that I could count, I fell and stayed in a near comatose state till we reached rotoroa. THe horrible pong awoke me.
I was forced to plan the whole trip so i was incredibly stressed out that everything didn't run smoothly. Heck,i'm a super control freak by nature. Unfortunately, the first hiccup occured today, the motel I chose was AWFUL. It was seriously the worse, an old crumbling building with narry a toilet roll in the toilet and bed bugs which prowled my skin in the night.
Rotoroa was a queer town. It was perched on top a thermally active area. hence most of the houses had natural hot springs in their back yard. The foul smelling column of smoke was omnipresent. The other drawback, aside from the permeating smell of sulphur, was the the fact that the ground was extremely unstable. We found a park, which had been converted into a thermal zone when one fine day, the residents awoke to an eruption of hot mud and steam. Geez... wouldn't be pleasant if I was walking in my own house and the ground suddenly caved in on me.
We headed for Wharekewareka ( i think it's spelt like this), a thermal park near rotoroa. My parents happily passed me off as 14 year old to get a family package. Basically, it was a desolate park with many a crater in the ground which emitted a relentless stream of billowing steam. There was this geyser which shot a freaky 50 m high or smth called the pohutu geyser. Lotsa old Chinese tourist had plopped themselves on the hot rocks just a stone's throw away and were taking in the view when the geyser erupted, drenching everyone ( including my family) with a cooling spray. Never before have I witness an aged crowd move so rapidly. There was also this bubbling mud pool, which entertained us not only with exploding mud swirls but also with the much anticipated.. " PLOP! KER PLOP!" Our guide told us that the mud had therapeutic qualities..
" I"m actually 75 years old," he deadpanned. " A swipe a day, keeps the wrinkles away."
yeah, right. Then i'm the cryptkeeper.
But i discovered later that the mud was indeed bottled and sold at various souvenior shops. I dragged my family halfway round the park to look at a giant Lok Lok. Apparently they still used it to cook the traditional maori food. Incredible. but the pong of sulphur from the water held me back from dipping a satay stick in the water. We witnessed how the maori skirts of grass were made by our guide. Try as he might though, he couldn't withhold a well placed grimace as he rolled the leaves on his hairy thigh to get a long twisted strand. Sure beats waxing, he told us.
We went back after that to crash at the lousy motel. SPent a whole night at war with bed bugs. URGH.
DAy 3.
We woke up nice and early to go to the rainbow farm. Oh alright. We woke up groaning and sulking and were tossed into the car to go to the rainbow farm. There we caught a sheep shearing show. I utterly fell in love with the sheepdogs. We got to see the sheep getting their bi annual haircut, sheep herding ( not very successful ones tho') . Jo got called upon to ride a bull ala cameron diaz in Charlie's angels. And we fed the lambs. Oh .. mine. After they finish their milk they go for your pants. Sheesh.
I also fell head over heels over the adorable ILLAMA> ohhhhhhhhh.. willow... miss her so much. Daniel took much pleasure in chasing terrifed chickens round the farm.
Then we headed for rainbow springs, a natural spring with wildlife. And we saw, Trout.. trout and MORE TROUT. plus a handful of bird and the elusive KIWI.. it's pretty big yah know. Almost like a chicken. Too bad we weren't allowed to take photos coz it was a nocturnal animal and bright light / flashes frightened it.
And then.. OH YEAH. the fun part.
We rode the luge... it was fashioned like a go kart, minus the peddles.. and you hurtled down the steep hill side at neck breaking speeds of up to 150km/hr. We had to get up to the station via cable car or ski lift and it was a long 5 minute ride down to the bottom. Thrilling, but i wondered how people managed from hurtling out of the tracks and taking the short, uneventful way to the bottom of the hill.
Then we went horse riding. NOw, you might think, that is a romantic notion. HOrse riding through the idyllic green pastures and hills. Well, it might have been a romantic notion if not for the rain. My father scoffed when we suggested dorning the provided rain gear.
" the rain in NZ is rarely heavy," he said, wrinkling his nose at the foul, filthy rain coats available for loan. But when they brought the horses to us, the sky opened up , emptying what seemed like a week's worth of rain. And the downpour refused to abate even as we were hoisted up our saddles. I didn't even ask for my horses name. My father's horse reared up, nearly throwing him off. We were wet and miserable... horses included. My horse refused to obey my commands. I kicked it hesitantly, and it just hrrrrmph and continued stoning in the rain. my sister's horse kept wandering off course and my mom's horse kept eating the grass and ignoring the group. After half an hour of climbing up the terrifyingly steep hills ( and trying valiantly to make my lazy horse go faster), we finally arrived back at the farm. My mom was so freaked out she kept shrieking, and my sister was somewhere out there, her horse still feasting on the green grass. The guide brought her back five mintues later.
We hurried back, drenched to the bone, and changed our clothes to attend the maori cultural show. Well, it was held in a tiny hotel function room. But the performance made up for the dire surroundings. I loved the songs, so well brought out by rich voices. The boys even managed to put together a Haka or war dance. Too bad the audience looked more goofy than fierce when they stuck out their tongue.
Day 4.
We set out for Lake taupo. On the way I urged my family to drop by the Wai-o-tapu thermal park. We waited in the hot sun for the lady knox geyser, which apparently erupted at 10.15 am every day. OH my foot. The guide threw some soap in and hey presto, a geyser. Nah, the geysewr was natural, but the eruption could be induced by throwing soap in. hahaha.. my family refused to let me off the hook for dragging them out of bed so early to see the stupid geyser. But the park was gorgeous. There was this shallow spring, which had a floor bathed in lovely hues, coloured by the mineral deposition. We found another gigantic lok lok.. this time 10 times the size of the previous one. It was called the champagne pool and it emitted cloud after cloud of choking hot steam. There was also the devil's ink pot, an inky black crater which took the shape of the map of britain. and there was sickly green pool called the devil's bath. All in all, i found it more interesting than the previous thermal park.
We spent the rest of the day driving around trying to find a motel and we found a room for a real bargain price. It over looked the lake and we were treated to a gorgeous sunset ( see photos) .
The rest of the afternoon, we went to view the Huka Falls and the Huka rapids.
Day 5.
Lake taupo.. a crater lake formed after an eruption that dwarfed the catastrophic mountst. helen eruption. THe lake was apparently large enough to contain Singapore.. as so many inhabitants kept telling me. We headed for the volcano science center, the bee farm and had lunch at the prawn farm ( the first to harness geo thermal activity to farm the shrimps)
After lunch, we hired a guide and canoes and canoed down the Waikato river... We had to drag mom along ( she was still relieving her moments on the horse). My dad kept suggesting we go bungee.. With parents like that, you had an excuse to do or not do anything.
OUr guide was called Tam. I volunteered to take the single canoe.. It was Dad with Dan, Mom with Jo. 15 minutes after push off, I found myself alone with Tam on the river.. Mom and Jo had canoed right into a bunch of plants and my dad was trying to extract them. Tam warned us not to go near the willows and the brambles at the side or we would get trapped. I struggled to summon distant memories from my OBS canoeing expedition. But i was swept by the current right into a pile of willows. Tam was yelling something about paddling like shit while trying to help my mom and sis. Thankfully dad got me out of the fix before I was stuck in the willows growing on the bend of the meander. The current swept us along the cool, clear waters of the river. It was soooooo peaceful. We passed the bungee site and witness to people taking the leap of faith. My goodness... I was almost tempted to do it myself, but then again, the cliffs next to the bungee got me thinking otherwise.
We beached up at the hot water springs for a rest and Tam supplied us with some snacks. The spring was awfully crowded and i didn't feel like mingling with the crowd so we didn't take the plunge. We did, however, bath our feet in the hot spring ( much to the irritation of the bathers) .
Then we continued, Tam guided us to the various branches of the river. " You can't miss the beach up point, otherwise the huka falls ain't that far away" She yelled as she pointed to the place we would end out journey. I had exchanged my single for a double with my mom because she and my sister had an unfortunately attraction to bramble bushes.
After beaching safely, I caught sight of an unlikely procession waddling past our canoes. A mother duck and her ducklings had come to explore our canoes and our legs. Tam warned us not to touch the ducklings as their mother would reject her children if they bore the scent of man. We observed the inquisitive little ducklings with amusement.
Day 6, we headed for the waitomo caves... On the way we stopped by a rabbit shearing farm. The angora rabbits resembled big, balls of fur with a pair of ears. Adorable nontheless.
It was a long, perilious drive through winding hills. The glowworms were indeed a sight to behold. It was like entering another world. The tourist sank into an awed silence as our boat glided beneath the glow worms. I felt like belting out the Xmas song.. glow littl'e glowworm glow... apparently the acoustics in teh cave were one of the best in the world, and opera singers had actually sung there before.
We drove all the way back to Auckland.
DAy 7
We set out for the underwater world and artic world to see the cute king penguins waddling around. And oOMG.. 3m long stingrays.. bbq stingray anyone? I'm sure aia would love to see the stingray :) . I also petted this eels.. ewwwwww slimy.
We then visited two extinct volcanoes in the heart of auckland.. one tree hill and mt eden. The craters were ...awesome and so was the wind, which gave us all a bad hair day.
Day 8.
We took a drive to the hot water beach. I tot it would take 40 minutes tops but it turned into a terrible 4 hour drive to the coast.. we had to wind around endless mountain roads.. urgh. But the view was gorgeous. To our disappoitment low tide was at 8pm. and we didn't get to dig our own spa in the sand. but we got to feel the hot sand from a hole some determined tourist had dug. cool.. a hot spring actually flowed towards the sea, hence giving the beach it's unique quality.
Day 9..
We jetted of back to singapore..
I just got back from NZ equipped with sunkissed skin and excess baggage. Translated , it means I came back with a tan which rendered me a panda bear like appearance ( no thanx to my specs) and an extra layer of blubber on my hopelessly non-existant waist. Wanna see pix of our journey, just click on "photos" under " NZ1 and NZ2"
Day One
We were greeted in Auckland by a merciless downpour which drenched us thoroughly as we raced to our rented vehicle. I dozed all the way to the city, the result of having engaged in an inflight movie marathon. THe first thing that struck me about Auckland was how steeply inclined the streets were. If one wished to excercise, all you had to do was to go shopping. Didn't do much today, just went up the sky tower to stone at the view which was swathed in lots and lots of long white clouds.
Day 2
Started driving to the town of Rotoroa. Dad still refuses to let me practise driving. Pretty long ride. about 3 hours of bumping up and down in the car and watching endless blobs of wool runnin garound the sprawling fields. Perhaps it was the endless supply of sheep that I could count, I fell and stayed in a near comatose state till we reached rotoroa. THe horrible pong awoke me.
I was forced to plan the whole trip so i was incredibly stressed out that everything didn't run smoothly. Heck,i'm a super control freak by nature. Unfortunately, the first hiccup occured today, the motel I chose was AWFUL. It was seriously the worse, an old crumbling building with narry a toilet roll in the toilet and bed bugs which prowled my skin in the night.
Rotoroa was a queer town. It was perched on top a thermally active area. hence most of the houses had natural hot springs in their back yard. The foul smelling column of smoke was omnipresent. The other drawback, aside from the permeating smell of sulphur, was the the fact that the ground was extremely unstable. We found a park, which had been converted into a thermal zone when one fine day, the residents awoke to an eruption of hot mud and steam. Geez... wouldn't be pleasant if I was walking in my own house and the ground suddenly caved in on me.
We headed for Wharekewareka ( i think it's spelt like this), a thermal park near rotoroa. My parents happily passed me off as 14 year old to get a family package. Basically, it was a desolate park with many a crater in the ground which emitted a relentless stream of billowing steam. There was this geyser which shot a freaky 50 m high or smth called the pohutu geyser. Lotsa old Chinese tourist had plopped themselves on the hot rocks just a stone's throw away and were taking in the view when the geyser erupted, drenching everyone ( including my family) with a cooling spray. Never before have I witness an aged crowd move so rapidly. There was also this bubbling mud pool, which entertained us not only with exploding mud swirls but also with the much anticipated.. " PLOP! KER PLOP!" Our guide told us that the mud had therapeutic qualities..
" I"m actually 75 years old," he deadpanned. " A swipe a day, keeps the wrinkles away."
yeah, right. Then i'm the cryptkeeper.
But i discovered later that the mud was indeed bottled and sold at various souvenior shops. I dragged my family halfway round the park to look at a giant Lok Lok. Apparently they still used it to cook the traditional maori food. Incredible. but the pong of sulphur from the water held me back from dipping a satay stick in the water. We witnessed how the maori skirts of grass were made by our guide. Try as he might though, he couldn't withhold a well placed grimace as he rolled the leaves on his hairy thigh to get a long twisted strand. Sure beats waxing, he told us.
We went back after that to crash at the lousy motel. SPent a whole night at war with bed bugs. URGH.
DAy 3.
We woke up nice and early to go to the rainbow farm. Oh alright. We woke up groaning and sulking and were tossed into the car to go to the rainbow farm. There we caught a sheep shearing show. I utterly fell in love with the sheepdogs. We got to see the sheep getting their bi annual haircut, sheep herding ( not very successful ones tho') . Jo got called upon to ride a bull ala cameron diaz in Charlie's angels. And we fed the lambs. Oh .. mine. After they finish their milk they go for your pants. Sheesh.
I also fell head over heels over the adorable ILLAMA> ohhhhhhhhh.. willow... miss her so much. Daniel took much pleasure in chasing terrifed chickens round the farm.
Then we headed for rainbow springs, a natural spring with wildlife. And we saw, Trout.. trout and MORE TROUT. plus a handful of bird and the elusive KIWI.. it's pretty big yah know. Almost like a chicken. Too bad we weren't allowed to take photos coz it was a nocturnal animal and bright light / flashes frightened it.
And then.. OH YEAH. the fun part.
We rode the luge... it was fashioned like a go kart, minus the peddles.. and you hurtled down the steep hill side at neck breaking speeds of up to 150km/hr. We had to get up to the station via cable car or ski lift and it was a long 5 minute ride down to the bottom. Thrilling, but i wondered how people managed from hurtling out of the tracks and taking the short, uneventful way to the bottom of the hill.
Then we went horse riding. NOw, you might think, that is a romantic notion. HOrse riding through the idyllic green pastures and hills. Well, it might have been a romantic notion if not for the rain. My father scoffed when we suggested dorning the provided rain gear.
" the rain in NZ is rarely heavy," he said, wrinkling his nose at the foul, filthy rain coats available for loan. But when they brought the horses to us, the sky opened up , emptying what seemed like a week's worth of rain. And the downpour refused to abate even as we were hoisted up our saddles. I didn't even ask for my horses name. My father's horse reared up, nearly throwing him off. We were wet and miserable... horses included. My horse refused to obey my commands. I kicked it hesitantly, and it just hrrrrmph and continued stoning in the rain. my sister's horse kept wandering off course and my mom's horse kept eating the grass and ignoring the group. After half an hour of climbing up the terrifyingly steep hills ( and trying valiantly to make my lazy horse go faster), we finally arrived back at the farm. My mom was so freaked out she kept shrieking, and my sister was somewhere out there, her horse still feasting on the green grass. The guide brought her back five mintues later.
We hurried back, drenched to the bone, and changed our clothes to attend the maori cultural show. Well, it was held in a tiny hotel function room. But the performance made up for the dire surroundings. I loved the songs, so well brought out by rich voices. The boys even managed to put together a Haka or war dance. Too bad the audience looked more goofy than fierce when they stuck out their tongue.
Day 4.
We set out for Lake taupo. On the way I urged my family to drop by the Wai-o-tapu thermal park. We waited in the hot sun for the lady knox geyser, which apparently erupted at 10.15 am every day. OH my foot. The guide threw some soap in and hey presto, a geyser. Nah, the geysewr was natural, but the eruption could be induced by throwing soap in. hahaha.. my family refused to let me off the hook for dragging them out of bed so early to see the stupid geyser. But the park was gorgeous. There was this shallow spring, which had a floor bathed in lovely hues, coloured by the mineral deposition. We found another gigantic lok lok.. this time 10 times the size of the previous one. It was called the champagne pool and it emitted cloud after cloud of choking hot steam. There was also the devil's ink pot, an inky black crater which took the shape of the map of britain. and there was sickly green pool called the devil's bath. All in all, i found it more interesting than the previous thermal park.
We spent the rest of the day driving around trying to find a motel and we found a room for a real bargain price. It over looked the lake and we were treated to a gorgeous sunset ( see photos) .
The rest of the afternoon, we went to view the Huka Falls and the Huka rapids.
Day 5.
Lake taupo.. a crater lake formed after an eruption that dwarfed the catastrophic mountst. helen eruption. THe lake was apparently large enough to contain Singapore.. as so many inhabitants kept telling me. We headed for the volcano science center, the bee farm and had lunch at the prawn farm ( the first to harness geo thermal activity to farm the shrimps)
After lunch, we hired a guide and canoes and canoed down the Waikato river... We had to drag mom along ( she was still relieving her moments on the horse). My dad kept suggesting we go bungee.. With parents like that, you had an excuse to do or not do anything.
OUr guide was called Tam. I volunteered to take the single canoe.. It was Dad with Dan, Mom with Jo. 15 minutes after push off, I found myself alone with Tam on the river.. Mom and Jo had canoed right into a bunch of plants and my dad was trying to extract them. Tam warned us not to go near the willows and the brambles at the side or we would get trapped. I struggled to summon distant memories from my OBS canoeing expedition. But i was swept by the current right into a pile of willows. Tam was yelling something about paddling like shit while trying to help my mom and sis. Thankfully dad got me out of the fix before I was stuck in the willows growing on the bend of the meander. The current swept us along the cool, clear waters of the river. It was soooooo peaceful. We passed the bungee site and witness to people taking the leap of faith. My goodness... I was almost tempted to do it myself, but then again, the cliffs next to the bungee got me thinking otherwise.
We beached up at the hot water springs for a rest and Tam supplied us with some snacks. The spring was awfully crowded and i didn't feel like mingling with the crowd so we didn't take the plunge. We did, however, bath our feet in the hot spring ( much to the irritation of the bathers) .
Then we continued, Tam guided us to the various branches of the river. " You can't miss the beach up point, otherwise the huka falls ain't that far away" She yelled as she pointed to the place we would end out journey. I had exchanged my single for a double with my mom because she and my sister had an unfortunately attraction to bramble bushes.
After beaching safely, I caught sight of an unlikely procession waddling past our canoes. A mother duck and her ducklings had come to explore our canoes and our legs. Tam warned us not to touch the ducklings as their mother would reject her children if they bore the scent of man. We observed the inquisitive little ducklings with amusement.
Day 6, we headed for the waitomo caves... On the way we stopped by a rabbit shearing farm. The angora rabbits resembled big, balls of fur with a pair of ears. Adorable nontheless.
It was a long, perilious drive through winding hills. The glowworms were indeed a sight to behold. It was like entering another world. The tourist sank into an awed silence as our boat glided beneath the glow worms. I felt like belting out the Xmas song.. glow littl'e glowworm glow... apparently the acoustics in teh cave were one of the best in the world, and opera singers had actually sung there before.
We drove all the way back to Auckland.
DAy 7
We set out for the underwater world and artic world to see the cute king penguins waddling around. And oOMG.. 3m long stingrays.. bbq stingray anyone? I'm sure aia would love to see the stingray :) . I also petted this eels.. ewwwwww slimy.
We then visited two extinct volcanoes in the heart of auckland.. one tree hill and mt eden. The craters were ...awesome and so was the wind, which gave us all a bad hair day.
Day 8.
We took a drive to the hot water beach. I tot it would take 40 minutes tops but it turned into a terrible 4 hour drive to the coast.. we had to wind around endless mountain roads.. urgh. But the view was gorgeous. To our disappoitment low tide was at 8pm. and we didn't get to dig our own spa in the sand. but we got to feel the hot sand from a hole some determined tourist had dug. cool.. a hot spring actually flowed towards the sea, hence giving the beach it's unique quality.
Day 9..
We jetted of back to singapore..
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