David and Edel

New Zealand is one of our favourite places to travel, and the one place from the last trip we’re returning to this time. The last time we started on the North Island and worked our way south, feeling like we were running out of time for some of the things we wanted to see on the south end of the South Island – so this time we’ll go the other direction. After first spending a couple days in Auckland trying to convince Teresa to jump from the sky tower (there’s nothing high in New Zealand that someone hasn’t strung a bungee from) we flew down to Christchurch on the east coast of the South Island and picked up a rental car. Rental cars are, by some strange accident of economics, almost for free in New Zealand – we were surprised to get the same per-day price this time as we had on the last trip back in 2005 (that time for six weeks in mid-winter low-season, now for three weeks in spring). At 22 kiwi dollars per day it’s less than 4 euro per person splitting on three… Ended up with an automatic though, which I haven’t driven for a decade…worked it out except for the mysterious L mode (..turns out to be same as 1).

From Christchurch we headed up to Kaikoura to go whale watching the next morning. There’s a deep ocean trench called Hikurangi just off the coast by Kaikoura where the sea floor drops to a kilometer deep just the same distance out from the shore, and there’s sperm whales there year-round (and Humpback’s and Orca’s at different times a year). The crew on the boat used an underwater hydrophone to track a sperm whale as it was coming up to surface after a hunt, and we watched it at the surface for 5-10 minutes until it made a tail splash and dove down for more squid. After this we came across a large pond of Dusky dolphins which the boat continued to follow for a while (or was it the other way around?). It was nice to watch them from the boat this time – on the last trip we went out on a swim-with-dolphins tour in the depth of winter – we had booked it as a nice surprise for my brother Mikael who was joining us back then for a couple weeks..he’s as tall as me but 10 kilos lighter, and with no body fat whatsoever he actually sink by default in sea water, even with a full breath, and no full-body wet-suit could keep him warm…they had to put a hot-water hose inside the suit back on the boat to stop him from turning purple… It was pretty freezing, and all in all the dolphins are more peaceful to watch from the boat.

From Kaikoura back to Christchurch via Hanmer springs for some nice soaking in the hotsprings, then on to Dunedin the next day – stopping in Oamaru to have a look at the colonies of blue penguins there (the worlds smallest). In Dunedin we did a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory (complete with a “chocolate waterfall”!) and were showered with enough samples to keep us off healthier fruit and granola bars in the car for several days.. Dunedin to Invercargill the next day via the Southern Scenic Route, passing the Catlins coast with nice fern-filled forests and waterfalls. This is the south-east corner of the South Island, where like on much of the west coast you can drive for hours without seeing anyone (we’re still a few months away from high-season luckily).

From Invercargill we continued the Scenic Route until reaching Fiordland, with white-capped mountains starting to appear on the horizon, and spent a night in a countryside hostel by a deer farm. Next day we continued to Milford Sound, the one of the remote Fiordland fjords that is reachable by road, with plenty stunning short walks to do on the way – gorgeous mossy forests around lake Gunn, and a trek up the 950m Key Summit from the Divide pass for some fantastic 360 degree panoramas – we could spot the glacial lake Marian that we trekked to on the last trip in the distance. Many of the curious alpine Kea parrots were hanging around the stops along the way.

In Milford Sound we got ourselves on a cruise of the fiord for the morning; this is where the scenery really topples over to outdo itself…steep high peaks that run straight down into the water – what the Himalayas would look like with a 5000m higher sea-level – and tall waterfalls crashing straight down from the mountains into the fiord, the spray catching rainbows in the early morning sun… Really spectacular. A couple bottle-nose dolphins followed the boat as it set out into the fiord.

Milford Sound is one of the absolute rainiest places in the whole world – 8000mm per year – but it actually held up while we were out…however the captain did manoeuvre the ship right in underneath some of the waterfalls to compensate.

More nice stops on the way back from Milford, including the 200m Humboldt falls, then stayed in Te Anau which is the first town when driving back out from the fiord, and did a trip into a glow-worm cave in the morning. Glow-worms are insects that live in the cave ceiling and attract food to their sticky threads with a faint blue light, when the caves are really full of them like this one was it makes a pretty magical place – whole constellations and galaxies above as we moved around slowly in a small boat through the darkness and silence deep inside the cave. Before leaving Te Anau we also popped by a wildlife center, to see Takahe (flightless presumed-extinct-until-1950 bird) and more of the funny Kea and Kaka alpine parrots..spotted a spectacular mating dance in the Kea cage! (movie clip)

Drove to Queenstown next – the NZ adrenaline capital – for some relaxing…the first time we spent two nights at the same place and it was nice with a break from driving. Did a jetboat tour on a river though, to do at least one of the adrenaline activities (it’s a special type of boat that can do 360’s and go on water just decimeters deep..going crazy fast right next to the canyon walls is a local speciality). The road there was nearly as adrenaline-inducing though actually…a broken old gold-digger gravel-road leading in to a deep canyon with big drops on the side…almost in a poor enough state at times to give us India flashbacks.

On towards Fox Glacier next – more stunning scenery and waterfalls along the way out towards the coast, stopping by a long beach full of drift-wood and doing a walk through a swamp forest full of ancient podocarps. Got a motel in Fox for a night and went for a sky-dive in the morning. I’d done one with Mikael on the last trip (he’s a brave man..I’m surprised he was up for getting pushed out of a plane after we had just nearly tried to kill him with the icy dolphin swim the previous week..). Fox is an awesome spot for it, with stunning views over two long glaciers and towards New Zealand’s highest mountain Mt. Cook as you go up in the plane, but I still wasn’t completely sure I wanted to this time…while I’ve done bungee-jump/tandem skydives/hang gliding/paragliding as well as Indian public transport before, I do still have a dislike of heights. My brain was fumbling around for an excuse… “150 euros..imagine how much chocolate you could…” but didn’t come up with a good enough one so up we went me and Teresa, Edel stayed behind to watch the tiny plane take off into the sky with us packed like sardines inside. Once it climbed high enough – about level with the peak of Mt. Cook at 12,000 feet – the plane slowed down and the engine quietened…goggles and gloves on…heart-rate up! The door swung open and Teresa + tandem-buddy swung their legs out and dropped first, disappearing suddenly without a sound – then me and my co-faller Deano moved into position – concentrating on forcing a smile for the camera on the wing…did it take the photo yet?…and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Accelerating like a falling rock for a few seconds until the wind resistance match the gravity at around 200 km/h. Great buzz, and it amazed me how much control the jumpers can have even during the freefall – Deano made sure we rotated around slowly for a full 360 view before opening the parachute. Spotted the other pair in the air a little later, and both did a smooth landing..felt like jumping up and down afterwards with the adrenalin buzzing…and Edel had to put up with us harping on about how great it was for the next 24 hours.

We drove up to Fox glacier next (passing the “glacier was here in 1850” sign a few kilometers back…yes, we’re in trouble) and did a short walk, then headed on to Greymouth with another nice west-coast sunset on the drive north. Another long day of driving the next day – stopping by the odd pancake rocks by the coast on the way, and the Cape Foulwind seal colony (like Poverty Bay, Doubtful Harbour and Cape Kidnappers named on some of Captain Cook’s less fortunate days…). Took the ferry from Picton to Wellington on the north island the next day, and drove up to Turangi. Had planned to walk the Tongariro crossing trek the next day, but the weather was a bit unpredictable – heavy rain the whole day before with park access closed, and actually heavy enough snow just a day after we passed through that cars got stuck through the night on the road! It actually held up the day that we had in between though, but we settled for some shorter walks just in case. The Tongariro national park is quite barren, with a little bit Connemara-type landscapes.

Continued on to Rotorua for out last stop before Auckland. It’s one of those rare places that you can actually smell long before you see it…covered in sulphur smoke seeping out through the ground all over it’s a hotspring and geothermal adventure land. We stayed three nights in a motel in town, and it rained nearly non-stop. Went to a polynesian spa one evening, nice with the cool drops of rain on your face while you’re soaking in the hotsprings, and went zorbing another day for another activity where it doesn’t matter if you get wet. Zorbing is a typical New Zealand invention where you hop inside a big transparent plastic sphere suspended inside an even bigger transparent plastic sphere, then roll down a long hill. Comes with a bucket of hot water thrown in for good measure, and you usually laugh the whole way down as you tumble around inside like socks in a washing machine. Felt like a nice way to round up the New Zealand leg of the trip.

More New Zealand photos.

On returning from Japan we had another day to spend in Hong Kong before the flight to Sydney – used it to go and see the giant Buddha statue on a separate island and made fun of how cumbersome it seemed to travel anywhere else after being in Japan. In Sydney the next day we met up with Teresa (Edel’s sister) who’s joining the trip. Edel had been counting down the days until she would arrive since roughly the 1960’s, and it was great to see another face from home. The one day we had in Sydney we checked the obligatory opera house off the list and went for a walk around the harbour and to the aquarium to see the two dugongs which is the latest addition there.

Next – time for another island paradise breakaway! Arrived in Port Vila on Vanuatu (halfway between Fiji and Australia) and found a backpackers in the outskirts of town. Vanuatu is really nice and friendly – people say hello to you on the street and everywhere is extremely safe – our room didn’t even have a lock etc. The language spoken here is Bislama – a fantastic mix of mostly English vocabulary with an Austronesian grammar, and a very phonetic spelling. A “No-smoking” sign we saw was written as “Yu no makem faea”! This small group of islands is occasionally voted the happiest place to live on the planet actually. And like Fiji it’s a great dive-spot – we signed up for some dives as soon as we could, and were out three of the eight days we spent in Vila before heading on to another island.

It was about 24 degrees in the water – not quite as warm as when we were diving on Andaman last but still pretty nice. While Teresa was working on her open-water certificate me and Edel went out with the boat to the dive sites around the island. One of the nicest sites was called Cathedral – a long canyon which we swam into with the current working against us until it got dark all around, then turning around to let the current carry us out back out while looking into the bright blue opening full of the silhouettes of dozens of unicorn fish. We also did a couple wreck dives – the first one was called Kunanda and it was the first wreck we’ve dove where it was safe to enter parts of the wreck. We could swim through the captains bridge and other areas and look out the windows into all the blue and fish surrounding the wreck. Quite eerie and very atmospheric. To complete the picture there was a real sea-monster of a moray eel slithering around between the hidden areas inside the broken wreck.

Dove the Semle wreck on a different day – the deepest we’ve ever been. The ship had been sunk purposely to create a dive site, but then one of the frequent typhoons had dragged it out deeper in 1987 so it is now really on the limit for recreational diving. The divemaster took us probably a bit deeper than you’re really supposed – we spend one or two minutes at 45-46 meters depth swimming through the open hull of the wreck and felt nitrogen narcosis (Jacques Cousteau’s “rapture of the deep”) for the first time. It makes you feel a bit drunk & happy – Edel looked like she was laughing whenever I looked over at her… Luckily it wears off quickly as you go higher again – at 34 meters we swam in again through the captains bridge to look out through the windows..being careful to not stir up to much stilt to cloud the visibility of the way out. This wreck didn’t have as much coral and sponges growing on it being at this depth, but it was interesting and a bit spooky to be down so far – couldn’t even see the surface when looking up.

Above land activities – one day we went to see a very nice waterfall higher up on Efate island. The colours were oddly bright blue from minerals dissolved in the water, and it was possible to swim in the pools below the waterfall – even swim in behind the fall into a small hidden cave. Also went snorkelling a couple times by the Hideaway and Iririki small resort islands next to Port Vila, and had some fantastic lobster pizza in the harbour. One evening Lorenzo – the charismatic owner of the backpackers where we stayed – took us to a nakamal or kava drinking place. Kava is a mild narcotic that is drunk all over the South Pacific, it’s made from a root and taste incredibly “earthy” or dirt-like. We had tasted a few coconut shells of it on Fiji on the last trip, but the Vanuatu variant is stronger. It makes you feel slightly drunk/stoned, and makes your mouth go numb. The nakamal (the word means “place for peace”) was really nice – perfectly quiet and located right by the water, very dimly lit so you could sit there and look up at the perfect star-filled sky (think I’ve only seen more stars out in the Bolivian desert). Lorenzo was telling us about his adventures, and about how to make a fortune collecting ambergris (something sperm whales puke out which, after floating around for years to degrade further, is used in the most expensive perfumes…) – he showed us lumps of it back at the hostel later!

From Efate we headed for Moso island and the Tranquility dive resort there. Apart from a traditional village on the other corner of the island the dive resort is the only thing there – it felt very nice and undeveloped and the small collection of thatch-roof huts had been built without felling any trees so approaching the island from the water everything looks green and you can’t see the resort until you’re practically there. Peter, a nice Aussie with many stories of weathering cyclones welcomed us off the pier – we would be the only ones staying there at the moment (they mostly bring people on boat-daytrips from Port Vila), but a couple more people arrived some days later. The place sported superb snorkelling right off the beach and I wasted no time getting in the water. While I was out there looking at 10cm colourful fish I missed the big whale though…some of the other people on land saw one – swimming right past the island just about twice as far out as I was! I was completely oblivious.. Snorkelling there was great though, big fields of coral – an anemone full of clown fish just below the surface right on the jetty even. We were out for hours every day and I got in to practising free diving to try to get down to where the buoys were anchored – managed to reach 16-18 meter without fins after a couple days but decided to stop once it started giving me nose-bleeds… My favourite sight when snorkelling is when there is a school of tiny bright-blue fish hiding between the branches of a staghorn coral – they all move in quickly when they get frightened, then slowly move out to fill the water surrounding the coral when they think it’s safe – with all of them moving in perfect synchronisation it’s like a big sphere of fish morphing in size back and forth around the coral. Very trippy…

We spotted some pelagics as well, since the depth drops quickly to 140m just 50m or so out from the beach – schools of strange big fish swimming in circles (or even eight’s!) with their mouth open filtering the water. Didn’t see a single reef-shark though, on either any of our dives or when out snorkelling – neither here or on Andaman.. We saw tons of both white-tip and black-tip on the last trip, in Fiji, Indonesia, Thailand…they’re just gone everywhere now it seems ( – and we saw why in Hong Kong and Macau). We did three more dives on our second day on Moso – one of them had a bit of current and I used up my air very quickly (Edel always uses less than me) but it was an interesting site, with an underwater thermal vent. A big black/white lion fish was hiding in the hotspring when we got there. The last dive was a night dive – we’ve only done two before – like the last ones it was a bit disorienting and me and Edel held hands to keep track of eachother in the dark – we saw a big moray with a nice pattern, beautiful red/white shrimps and a fantastic spotted white and black Cowrie shell. It’s amazing how different the same site can look in the dark, most of the coral fish gone, the parrot fish sleeping in the strange cocoons they build at night, the usual reef-fish all replaced by red squirrel and bigeye fish and many more crustaceans are out.

One of the days we joined the daytrippers on the boat from Port Vila to the other side of the island, then hopped off on a deserted beach to walk back. The beach was really nice and there were some big caves to explore right nearby – by the time we were on our way back it was already getting dark and they had sent out one of the Vanuatuans as search party for us… Went sea kayaking one day as well, and stopped by a different beach to look for shells and compete who could find a piece of broken coral that looks the most like a Chinese pickled chicken foot. In the evenings we (or at least I) usually went on an expedition to look for big coconut crabs. It’s an endangered species that lives here – like a hermit crab but grows to weigh several kilos (at that stage they stop living in a shell for protection). Peter had showed us some juveniles the first day, and there was a really big one living somewhere in a cave up the rocky hill in the forest behind our huts…I’d do a walk after dark each night hoping to hear some rustling in the dry leaves somewhere but I never spotted it. They can drag a full coconut with husks along with them, and then crack it open with their big claw. Other odd animals – a 20cm stick insect fell on top of my head one evening when we were eating..also a juvenile – they can grow to a fore-arm length here apparently!

The dive resort runs a little hawksbill sea-turtle conservatory – raising them from hatchings until they’re about one year old and have a much better chance of survival. Like the other sea turtles the hawksbill is endangered because we like eating their eggs, making combs from their shell and throwing lots of plastic bags into the ocean which they mistake for jellyfish. The dive center had four tagged and ready for release at the moment so we sponsored one together and got to release it on the beach – when we went to the tank to pick one out there was one who seemed particularly eager for freedom, climbing on top of the others and trying to scale the walls so he pretty much picked himself, and was named Saoirse for freedom in Irish. Teresa let it go on the beach, and it first looked puzzled for a second about the size of its new tank…then made a run for it! We saw it come up twice for air before it disappeared out into the turquoise waves.

video of Teresa releasing the sea turtle

Asia Highs

Nepal: Annapurna Trek

What better is there to spend your birthday than 10 days of profuse sweating in the Himalayas? The scenery was breathtaking, the villages were picturesque and our guides Shiva and Deepak were two great lads who showed us a few Nepali card games and picked us wild strawberries on route. What are the advantages of climbing 1500 meters every day for 10 days I hear you ask? Guilt fee Mars-bar rolls that’s what 😀

India: Spiti Valley

Unpaved landslide covered roads, 1000 meter drops, sweaty palms, 2000 year old villages, chanting Buddhist monks who made us tea and adorable but hysterical kids stalking us in tiny remote mountain villages – this was Spiti Valley.

India: Andaman Islands

Even a heathen like David had to admit that diving with 5 meter Manta rays was a religious experience 🙂 When we weren’t under the water we spent the days on Beach number 7 which is still rimmed by pristine rainforest, and eating out at the aptly named World Class restaurant where the woman of the house cooked for all of the foreigners on the island on one gas ring…

India: Bandhavgarh National Park

We were rewarded for bearing the 50 degree heat and having to live in what can only be described as a bunker with close ups of wild tigers, which these days is a very rare experience.

Tibet: Everest Base Camp

With all the craziness and history that goes along with Everest you can’t help but be in awe when you do finally see the mountain.. Admittedly we arrived at EBC the lazy way – by jeep – but still to get there at all is an achievement, right? We spent the night in a tent at 5200 meters, David braved the yak butter tea and next day watched the sunrise over Everest. Good Times.

India: Dharamsala

After the initial slap in the face that was Delhi it was a great feeling to arrive in Dharamsala. Before I left for India I was a bit anxious about even bringing a mobile as the more stuff you generally bring the more stress you have trying to take care of it. I need not have worried, every single Buddhist monk we saw sipping cappuccino in Dharamshala had a newer phone that made mine look like a fossil. The village itself is a great mix of locals, Tibetan refugees and hippy dippy Westerners. A lot of people get so comfortable here that the end up spending 3 months and forgetting about the rest of India.. We got out after two weeks and luckily caught the man himself, the Dalai Lama at a public appearance before we left which was a great honour.

Japan madness with Avril

We arrived, we covered her apartment in volcanic ash from Mount Fuji and she made us proper tea with milk in it. 😀 More Japan under “culinary highlights” below. 😀

Tibet: Namtso Lake

Perched at 4720 meters Namtso is the highest salt-water lake in the world. It is also regarded as one of the most holy lakes in Tibet where many Buddhist pilgrims do a 16 day circuit of the lake prostrating every third step.. The lake itself has that straight-from-a-fairytale azure blue which along with the altitude left us breathless.

China: Longji Rice Terraces

Longji was a little gem of a village that we came across just before we left China. We spent 3 days here wandering through the amazingly complex rice terraces and seeing hardly any other people which is quite an amazing feat in China. Apart from the two old ladies from a neighbouring village who stalked us for a few hours and kept asking me if I was pregnant we were left in relative peace! This was the last stop we made in China so we were delighted to leave on such a high note.

India: Varanasi

The word “confronting” is the best I can come up with to describe Varanasi. We arrived late at night in the middle of one of the frequent power cuts which made negotiating the maze of tiny little alley ways to our Hostel very interesting indeed. When we eventually did arrive at the hostel after doing battle with several territorial sacred cows we discovered that the last time that it was cleaned was probably when the city was founded as a Hindu pilgrimage site some 2000 years ago… We spent the next days wandering by the banks of the Ganges in the 40 degree heat watching Holy Men zipping up and down in speed boats, people washing clothes, fathers teaching their kids how to swim, people being cremated, pilgrims cleansing themselves and gurus performing religious “puja” ceremonies. We too spent time praying – praying that the electricity would come back for just 5 minutes so we could cool down in front of the fan..

Asia Lows

Amoebic and Bacterial Dysentery

It is all fun and games until someone loses 5 kilos in 7 days … Thank you India 🙂

China in the high season

According to the July 2009 population statistics there are approximately 1,338,612,968 living in China. All of whom visited the Forbidden City the same day as us 🙂

Asia Culinary Highlights

Nepalese Dal Bhat

The “spuds and meat” of Nepal which basically consists of rice, lentil curry, vegetable curry and maybe some pickles on the side. Once you are finished the first portion the waiter will ask if you want more as is the custom which you will try to say no to but will give in in the end… Our guides on the Annapurna trek ate Dal Bhat twice a day every day and coined one of the best phrases we heard in Nepal “Dal Bhat – 24 hour power!”

All Chinese Food

Despite claims in certain rural towns in the West of Ireland I can confirm the Chinese people do not add Pedigree Chump to their food 🙂 In 2 months of eating out three times a day we had maybe two dodgy meals the rest were fresh and tasty (though quite possibly riddled in MSG). I would go back to China just for the food.

Macau

Asia is a bit slack on the old dessert options so we were delighted when we arrived in Macau and discovered that the Portuguese had left behind lots of tasty cakes especially the Pastel de Nata a little warm eggy/custardy tart.

Japan

We could probably have eaten supermarket sushi for the whole 10 days we were in Japan but thanks to Avril we discovered that there is more to Japanese cuisine 🙂 We tried Okonomiyaki (a kind of pancake with a bit of everything in it), takoyaki (fried octopus dumplings), curry udon noodles, skewered chicken hearts, Daifuku (soft bean curd cake) and green tea ice cream. Delish 🙂

And what have we learned from all this?

All beautiful sites are located at the top of a difficult climb.

Once you arrived to said beautiful site someone will have hung a powerline right in front of it. 😀