Road Trip #3 - New Years 2007 (Part 1)

Yup I'm still playing my little game of catch up in cyberspace...

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but last year around August, one of my friends in South Africa gave me a call and said he was thinking of coming to New Zealand. I was ready with a few pointers of course and would you believe it, one week later he had bought his plane ticket! Now Pieter was scheduled to arrive in Auckland on 1 January, no jokes, he spent new years eve of 2007 crossing timezones at 35 000 feet!


I decided it a good excuse for another road trip so, 2 breaths after sparrow fart on 31 December 2006 I set off on the first leg of the journey. I planned to take a scenic route from wellington to Taupo, the halfway stop to Auckland, smack bang in the middle of the North Island.

I reached Taupo with daylight to spare. Here I had my first (and until now the last) bout of hayfever since being in New Zealand. After stopping at a pharmacy for a quick fix and treating myself to some 1st class curry for dinner I checked in at the backpackers. I've always known German people love beer and a good party but this new years eve I got first hand proof of it! I shared the backpackers with quite a few tourists being 1 American and like 15 Germans. Great people for sure! At 12am, 1 January was welcomed with fireworks and German drinking songs... Funny funny. Soon after 12 I retired to get ready for a early start...

Following my trusted and proven method of staying away of the beaten track, I found a few quaint sites and enjoyed serene scenes. Here are a few to share...

Leaving Wellington

Keeping under the speed limit

Little back-country church, pretty isn't it?

Hills in the country side

Windfarm outside Palmerston North

Desert Road - The eastern side of Mt Ruapehu

The Tui beer brewery - World famous in New Zealand :)

What the???

Lake Taupo just before sunset

Majestic Mt. Ruapehu behind lake taupo

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Snowboarding @ Mt. Ruapehu: Episode 1 & 2

15 October 2006

White, pure, feathersoft, bone-breaking hard, blinding, cold, wet, winter… All these nouns would do well do describe snow. A month ago 2 friends and I hit the snow-clad slopes of mt Ruapehu for the fist time and added “andrenalised, fun, laughter, joy and pain” to the list of nouns describing snow!

Our little troop of brave men included 3 South African Expats. Marchant “Marc” Jooste - previously of Pretoria, Pieter du Plessis – previously of Richards Bay, and yours truly - Superfly “boskind” of Pretoria. Marchant and his entire family have been residents of Aotearoa “Land of the long white cloud” for seven years. He’s employed at the infamous WETA-studios (King Kong, Lord of the Rings ring a bell?) and performs his wizardry as an animator. Pieter and I will be sharing a house soon :o)

So we organised half a day of from work hit the road at 13:00. The surrounding scenery changed so many times over the next 4 hours that it felt like it was over in an instant. The only common denominators were green fields covering rolling hills and basking under the sun which seemed suspended from a surreal blue sky. Oh yes, don’t forget the sheep, they’re everywhere! Grazing and sleeping on ridiculous gradients (I would not be able to climb up some of the places they were sleeping) like they were some cross-bred Merino-mountain-goat thing. To be quite honest, they’re actually quite cute….

WHAT!!!??? Did I just say that??? Nooooooooooooooo!!!! Hehehe You know I was just kidding right? RIGHT!?

Right, back on point… A few scenic tourist attractions on the main highway between Wellington and National Park Village are:

-The picturesque Hutt Valley

-Plimmerton – The home of wave sailing (just so you know, windsurfing rules)

-The awe inspiring Kapiti coast and Kapiti Island

-The Car museum that houses Adolf Hitlers’ car.

-The town of Bulls … hehe no really it’s called bulls. And the police officers are const-a-bulls… for real!

The closer you get to mt Ruapehu the more rugged the terrain becomes and ultra green pastures with natural patches of daffodils give way to rocks, shrubs and brownish things. Mt Ruapehu (Maori for "exploding pit") and it’s little brother – mt. Ngauruhoe (actually a secondary vent of mt Tongariro) are active volcanoes and as such have a massive influence on the surrounding area. By the way, mt Ngauruhoe was mt Doom in the “Lord of the Rings” film. Awesome…

We reached the mountains just as the sun bid us farewell and bathed the white slopes in fiery hues. Freezing yet beautiful! We booked into our lodge ($25 a night for BBH members – great!) and went to hire our gear. “Base Camp”, a very authentic pizzaria / pub in National Park Village provided some entertainment and grub before we retired for the evening. Dawn seemed to play hide and seek with pillowland. Daybreak finally came and we set off for the mountain!

Marc took us down to “Happy Valley”, the beginners area and gave us a few pointers. Within 20 minutes we were panting like dogs in summer and my ass reminded me it was not made to fall on! (Actually it continued reminding me of this for a few days to come!)

Pieter and I were first timers so we checked in for boarding-school at 9:30 (no not the one with bad food, the one with snowboards hehe) There were plenty of us that pitched for the first lesson so the group got split into 2 and off we went. Imagine my surprise as our snowboarding instructor, a very hip dude from Argentina, asked “who of you have done windsurfing before?” HA! I could not believe my luck! I promptly said “yea, I’ve done a bit of sailing” to which he coldly replied: “Snowboarding isn’t anything like that!” hehehe hook line and sinker! The lesson lasted 2 hours by the end of which our coach told me I’ve got the basics down well enough to go explore the lower mountain. Woohooo! After gleaning a few last words of wisdom from the dude we went to have some lunch after which we hit the “rock-garden trail on the lower mountain. I have to tell you it was freaking awesome. By 4pm I’ve had many really cool runs, managed to take a few skiers out (hehehe) and survived 3 hours of cramping legs. I thought that my legs could act up tomorrow, now was time for boarding, not cramping up like some freaking wiener. Anyway, we got loads of boarding done!

Some really heavy weather blew in over Saturday evening and consequently shut the snowfields on Sunday. We watched the last SA – NZ tri nations test and got to bed at 3:30 am… To tell you all the truth, I would not have made it up the mountain that Sunday anyway! I was knackered! We headed home and started planning the next trip…

Check the photo’s!

Not exactly an African sunset but pretty none the less. Anyone care to join me for a glass of Port???

Is this a full moon or what?!

Mt Doom doesn't look so threatening when cloaked in pure white now does it?

I'm enjoying this, could you tell??? In the background is Peter. These chairlifts were sooo much fun. This was taken in "HappyValley" aka - Beginners paradise, where many a man is broken, pride lost and fun gained.

And we played in the snow too... Jealous yet? hehe

Right – fast forward 4 weeks to 9 October…

I sold the idea of going snowboarding to half the North Island in the last few weeks :o) and in the end a small crowd got ready for the exodus from Wellington to mt Ruapehu at 3pm Friday afternoon… Then the rapture came and only a few of us were left here, so we went snow-boarding anyway. Hehe. 4 of our friends cancelled due to other commitments (nothing as dramatic as the rapture though…) so in the end, Marchant and I were joined by only one other couple, however the 2 of them are galaxies of fun so we had a blast! We were joined by Marc and Karen Honeychurch-originally from the UK. They are truly some of the wittiest, fun people I know! We arrived at National Park by 8pm and were welcomed by cloudless skies and a full moon lit up the mountains beautifully. So far so good.

Marchant joined us for a quick beer and then headed to another lodge where his family was staying for the weekend. His family currently lives in Auckland and as mt Ruapehu is halfway between Auckand and Wellington it makes for a good family weekend.

Morning came and the snow report was excellent, 20mm of fresh snow on the upper mountain and all lifts were open. Springtime has the best weather conditions for snow sports but dwindling amounts of snow proves summer is coming.

Saturday was just amazing. We boarded the entire length of trails on the upper, lower and western slopes. All I can really add to that is my BUTT was much happier this time around! The view from the upper and western slopes is just breathtaking. You can actually see mt Taranaki (mt Edgemond) on the far western coast! (Check a map, it really is quite remarkable!)

Saturday evening we had dinner with Marchant’s family. I have to tell you, absolutely nothing comes close to South African hospitality. We welcome from the first moment and had a roaring time. Great company, lovely food and good wine… what more could you possibly want! Thanks a mil to the Jooste family, you guys are great!

Sunday morning arrives, lo and behold, weather is BAD! Nooooo, the weather-man said it was going to be as sunny and perfect as Saturday, what the heck is going on!!!??? We headed up the mountain anyway. Only Happy Valley’s lifts were open so we had a play on the ice… That’s right… ICE. No fresh snow means that the slope is VERY icy until ski’s, snowboards and some morning sun softens it up… Miraculously the wind subsided and the lower mountain’s lifts were opened. Yea baby! We were up in a flash and got a many good runs in before we had to leave. What a rush, what an awesome weekend

I was amazed at how many childred were blasting around the slopes, some as young as 4 years old. One mum on a snowboard was teaching her daughter in tiny ski’s while the kid was in a brace with a leash… I laughed so much at seeing this kid-on-a-leash duo that I almost fell of a cliff… hehe

Anyhouw… Here are the photo’s for this trip… See if you can spot mt. Taranaki in the distance!

This was taken from the upper mountain... what a view!

On the western slopes, Marc strapping up in the foreground. Did I mention the views were awesome?

Another "non threatening" view of the infamous mt Doom!

While on the chairlift heading back from the west side - Mt Ngauruhoe...

The world through the eyes of a boarder...Anyone who's worn ski goggles before would recognise this!

The upper mountain trails... fun fun fun...

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Road Trip # 2 Part 2 - Mt Ruapehu, Palmerston Nth, Wellington!

5 July 2006

Whoa, I’ve been absent from the site for quite a while, sorry guys and gals… Today I’ll continue with the tale of our trip from Auckland to Wellington and hopefully get around to showing you some pics of Wellington and my flyfishing trip soon… hang in there, they’re on the way… promise! We set off from Waitomo’s rolling hills and small mountains and immediately found ourselves on another set of winding roads set in steep hills covered in sheep with crazy mountain climbing skills.

Our destination today was the National Park Village at the foot of Mt Ruapehu, the ski hub for New Zealand’s north island. The closer we got to the ACTIVE volcano the colder and cloudier it got. Unfortunately our timing for good weather was off by a few days… Weather forecast predicted heavy rain and gale force mountain winds for the area L We checked into our backpackers hostel and got the low-down on local attractions. Imagine my surprise when we found that the hostel had its own indoor climbing wall with 42 different courses… awesome…

I’m sure that you’ve seen by this time that we don’t like to waste too much time on a trip like this. We set off as soon as possible to explore the accessible slopes of Mt Ruapehu. Fist we had a look around the museum and learned some interesting facts of the seismic monitoring grid that covers the area and constantly monitors for earthquakes and seismic activity. Hereafter we headed up the mountain and stood mesmerized as scenes from the film “Lord of the Rings” unfolded right before us! Fist we visited the highest point accessible by car. (Ski season only started a week after we were there boohoo) We spent some time here to muck around in the snow on the only accesible slope and prove our prowess as snowboarders… only problem being that we did not have snowboards… None the less, looking like absolute idiots has never before been more fun! Liza enjoyed her first snow experience and hey lets face it… given a sled and the opportunity to slide down a snow covered hill, anyone would hop on and start yelling. We were all 6 years old and eventually found ourselves spent of energy and trudging back to the car park diner for a hamburger and the best coffee ever! Snow? COLD... Blue Snow Sled king and queen... :) We headed back down the mountain and passed the museum without stopping. Apparently there were many mesmerizing waterfalls in the area so we I meticulously researched the area and found the most popular trails. Ok, we didn’t plan it exactly that well… (sheepish grin) I saw the hiking trail on a map in the museum and wondered if it was any good (duhhh, one would think that by now I knew the answer to that question.) so when we passed the trails’ name board on our way down the mountain I casually stopped as if I’d been planning it all along. (another sheepish grin) Waterfalls rarely fail to inspire me and this one was no exception at all. It seemed vaguely familiar, as does most of the surrounding landscape. Then again, so many movies have been made in New Zealand that we’re bound to have seen it sometime or another. I’ll have to tell you though, any scene on the big screen, no matter how large, cinematic or impressive is totally obliterated by reality! Anyway’s I gave my camera some work and nearly fell of a rock into the FREEZING river while doing so… hehe all I got for it was a cold left foot and many excellent foto’s. While we were scouting around the mountain, playing in the snow and looking at waterfalls there was an excellent indoor climbing wall awaiting us at National Park Backpackers… and climb we did! (Over and over again until my hands were too tired to lift a glass) Tawai Falls

Liza "DAREDEVIL" Davidson

John "ARM OF STEEL" Davidson

Louis "SUPERFLY" van Zyl

I bought a book by Wilbur Smith (Warlock, the sequel to the Seventh Scroll) while waiting for the rental car at
Auckland airport and got caught in it’s intricate egyptian tale before leaving for this trip. On this night at the foot of mount
Ruapehu I listened to the wind howl and read… and read… and read… until 3AM… Mr Smith really is an excellent story teller. Anywhays, about the trip yea… We departed from National Park Village with rain in our faces, wind at our backs, and the mountain still shrouded in a mantle of grey… Our route stayed as picturesque as it had been so far. After many mountain passes, hairpin turns, bridges, rivers and awesome valleys dressed in autumn colors, we reached Palmerston Noth. We only stayed over for the night so didn’t see too much. Most of the area is known for Rugby, Sheep farming (Mostly wool) and well, sheep! The town is beautifull and feels strangely like home. To be honest, the further South we traveled the more “right” everything felt. We stayed at another BBH network affilliated backpackers lodge (discounts baby yea!) “Grandma’s place” is a former old age home restored for backpackers. It really feels like my grandma’s house. To tell you the truth I became very nostalgic when seeing the old wooden Sony television set like the one my Gran had and the furniture, carpets, everything really… I missed my Granma that night, and enjoyed fond memories of her kindess, untireable smile, love for God and her warmth. She was legendary for her good food (tamatiebredie uit die hemel uit, al julle plaasjapies wat dit kan wardeer!) and for the way she could tease my dad. Hehe, I believe I’ll see Granma Babsie again, but not yet, not yet. We had coffee in a Starbucks (Lekker koffie ouens, glo my vry! En chocolate muffins J ) and walked through a memorial square looking at statues of Maori chieftains that played pivotal roles in the healthy relationship with England and the crown. Like in many first world countries there was a huge momorial for the various wars that involved New Zealand. In all of those, New Zealand was lending a helping hand to some or other alliance. (It is so small and out of the way that having NZ involved in a war of it’s own volition is practically inconceivable, except of course if their rugby rivalry with Australia got out of hand hehe) I’ve seen similar memorials in many other places (Holland, UK, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, USA) and all of them testify to generations of hurt families, heroes fallen in defence of the innocent and freedom. For the record, war, however necessary due to circumstances, stinks. We shared Grandma’s place with 2 girls from Wales traveling through NZ on holiday and a Indian dude who was in Palmerston to visit his university for a correpondence course thing. We left them behind to travel onwards towards Wellington. Our room at "Grandma's Place" - no school like the old school! In this leg of the trip we made a beeline for the west coast. Yet again I passed an interresting looking sign board promising lakes in the forest… BAH! Think again tourist freaks hehe. We did take the turnoff and found a “pond amongst the trees”! Imagine my surprise… So I tried to make a u turn with a few horses staring on, anxiously awaiting the inevitable. I carefully reversed, making sure to keep the front wheels on the tarmac (surely the purple beast was front wheel drive) while the rear wheels went onto the slippery stuff. (This mud seriously resembles baby dog poop) And so it happened… The car was REAR wheel drive!!! Hahahahaha And so I managed to get myself covered in mud for the second time this trip, ahh bliss. Result of a stuck in the mud... The horses are still laughing at me... Eventually we managed to get our car free of the slimy clutches of immobility and shot down the coast yet again. After a quick look around the beaches close to Kapiti Island (Beautiful surf, awesome surroundings and massive beach) we headed on towards Wellington. The closer we got to our destination the more the surroundings became reminiscent of the southern parts of South Africa’s Cape peninsula. Not only was our car buffeted my the wind but the scrubs, hills and coastline reminded me of the road from Somerset west to Koegel bay. Beach and Sea! Kapiti Island in the background Finally we reached wellington. A breathtakingly beautifull city. It is large and yet feels remarkably small. Soon I’ll write about it’s people, malls, theatres and restaurants. Wellington is like a mixture between Capetown’s city and harbour, and Stellenbosch’s vibe surrounded by mountains, hills, awesome bays etc… Here are some pics of Wellington to give you a warm-up for the next post. These pics were all taken from our first appartment's living room window. We've moved to another appartment in meantime but sure enjoyed the view in the old one! :) Wellington Harbour on a windy day... When in blows... it BLOWS Another Rainbow! Weve seen more rainbows in the last week than in ten normal SA lifetimes Wellinton Harbour has this huge fountain that works when it's not blowing... In other words, if the fountain doesn't work - go windsurfing! Part of Wellington City Skyline... Checks the harbour and mountains in the background... (Yes you astute observer you... I am in fact trying to make you jealous... hehe)

Until next time then… Cheers,

The Superfly


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