Star Jumping Over New Zealand Week Two.

Sunday 22nd

We finally arrived in Fox glacier after a day and a half of driving. The weather for the second full day of driving was absolutely atrocious. It did nothing but rain all day with low cloud, so we couldn’t see much scenery on our travels. There were plenty of impressive lakes and mountain edge driving though. We weren’t very optimistic for the Fox Glacier trip on Monday. I noticed that they run ice climbing day sessions at the glacier along with a tour, so I talked Steve into having a go, instead of just doing a boring day trip walking over the glacier.

We were very lucky again and the weather for Sunday was fantastic, such a contrast to the day before. So far when we’ve been travelling the weather has been bad and when we’ve been doing activities the weather has been sunny. Here you can see the intrepid adventurers part way though our climb to get to Fox Glacier. As well as Steve and myself there were two other plucky climbers, Stephanie and Adam, as well as our two guides Mike and Troy. You can see Mike on the left.

This is the head of the glacier. It was very impressive and one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world at about a metre a day at the bottom and up to ten metres a day at the top. It is 13,000 metres in length and contains roughly 25 billion litres of ice!

The strange thing was that around the glacier is tropical rainforest and bare rock. It felt very surreal to be on a giant lump of ice while surrounded by forest and mountains.


This is the view up the glacier from one of our climbing positions. It really looked like polystyrene foam or icing sugar to me, such a strange tint of blue all over the ice.

Can you guess who this is?

Any more of an idea? The persons back is very wet because at the bottom of the crevasse it is only just wide enough for the knees and back.

Yes, it’s only me, smiling and happy as usual when doing something dangerous. I really enjoyed the climbing, my last six months working out with Quentin really paid dividends, as my arms were well up to the task of pulling my body weight up. We did seven different climbs over the day and some of the more than once.

This is a photo of one of our last climbs. You can see Steve climbing up from a crevasse that we were initially lowered down to first. I’m at the top obviously doing some press-ups, as the climbing wasn’t enough to tire me out. :-)

Each time one of us was lowered down into the crevasse we wanted to be lowered a little bit further. I almost managed to get down to the bottom where there was some melted water, but I couldn't get any further down at because the gap near the bottom was too narrow. Less pies next time I think.



This is another picture of Mike who is looking rather cool for the camera while Steve is struggling to pull himself up at his feet.


Monday 24th

We drove from Fox Glacier to Picton on Monday. It’s around a six-hour drive for us so quite long, but the scenery was as stunning as ever. Unfortunately for me I was caught speeding along a very straight road. It was as straight as I could see, but I didn’t see the police car hidden in a ditch on the left of the road with a policeman measuring my speed. I was caught doing 116 kmph, when the speed limit along the road was 100 kmph. By the way that the police man was talking both Steve and I thought that he was going to let us off seeing as we were tourists and not going massively over the limit. However he did give me a ticket, fortunately it was only for $120 (£40). I have paid it off at a local Westpac bank and am annoyed about it but I was over the speed limit and at least the fine was only a small amount.

We stayed overnight at Picton, which really is a dead town with only the main ferry terminal to Wellington in the north island of any note. Our motel room was really horrible with grotty furnishings and bedding. The toilet was more like an out house with a window which wouldn’t close as well as ants in the kitchen. Well at least it was cheap at only £15pp and only for one night.

We caught the 10am ferry to Wellington the following morning, it was still raining and a little windy. The ferry trip turned out to be quite an adventure as it was really blowing a gale in the Cook Strait and there were four metre waves! This meant that the ferry which was quite large, was moving up and down like a roller coaster for over three hours, as the captain could only do ten knots in the rough seas. The usual three-hour crossing took four and a half hours.

Plenty of people were sick on the ferry as well. I felt a little queasy after a couple of hours, but closing my eyes and trying to sleep managed to get me through the trip. Steve was ok throughout the journey and took some cool video clips of the sea. He said that walking to the back end of the boat looked like a warship with people laying down over all the floors and being sick. Most of the sick people went there as it was meant to be less rough there than the front where we were. He also said that the men's toilet was a real mess of sick and one poor bloke lying on the floor being very ill.

The ferry people were saying that they only just decided to sail that morning and the ferries later on were cancelled. Wellington airport was also closed for the day due to string winds. We got off lightly though as the last ferry after ours took ten hours to cross!

We finally arrived at Whakapapa village late in the evening. After the Picton motel we decided to treat ourselves to a top hotel and booked ourselves in at the Grand Chateau Hotel for two nights. A five star hotel for only £30 a night pp, what a bargain.

Hopefully the weather would be better tomorrow four our day long walk along the Tongarrio Crossing in the Tongarrio National Park. It’s where Mount Doom was filmed for Lord of the Rings. The concierge said that he thought that there was a metre of snow along the walk though which doesn’t sound good.

Wednesday 25th

Unfortunately the guide at the tourist office didn’t recommend that we try the Tongarrio Crossing today as there was significant snowfall last night and the weather was going to be unpredictable today. Instead we were told that the Tama Lakes walk would be just as good and last around 4-5 hours as well.

This is about a quarter of the way around the walk at the Taranaki Falls. It was quite impressive as you can walk right up to where the water hits the stream if you want to get a little wet. This is about as far as I could get before getting significant spray from the water.


Here is the view of Mt Ruapehu which we had all along our walk and would be steadily heading towards all day.

Near the end of the walk we had a steep walk up the side of the mountain to get to see the edges of the craters. There were steep drops either side of the narrow path. Steve slipped a couple of times, but he was never really close to falling down the sides.

The wind was also blowing quite hard up here and you could almost lean into it and stay upright. My windbreaker was definitely very useful and was worth its weight in gold.




More views of the path along the ridgeline of the lakes. The lakes were created as a result of old explosion craters on the Tama Saddle between Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe mountains.














Me with my star jump on the top of the ridge.











Thursday 26th

This is a view of the hotel main ground floor parlour room. It was very stylish and a great place to just sit down and have a beer or play a few frames of snooker. It was built in the style of an English stately home and originally opened in 1929. The food was very tasty there too with some of the best room service that I've ever had.

There was enough snow left to do some snowboarding as well! We only found this out after chatting to some of the other hotel guests. I was gutted that I could have bought my snowboarding kit along and had some more fun on the slopes.

We left the lovely hotel early to head towards the Waitomo Caves because we were running out of holiday time so only had a few hours there before we wanted to get to Auckland and spend at least one day there.

The two-hour cave tour that we did was very impressive. Fortunately we only had a small tour group with five of us in all. Here is a view of some of the sea deposits that forms the stalactites and stalagmites.

If you’ve ever seen the horror film The Descent then you’ll appreciate how scary it could be to be down the caves in some cramp conditions. The tour route was very sparsely lit so you could barely find your way around the place. It was amazing to notice the difference in atmosphere inside the cave from the outside. There was a definite earthy smell in the caves and various sections of the caves were sealed off with automated airlock style doors. Very cool!

This is one of the smaller paths leading off the main path. One of the most famous things about the caves is the Glowworms. You have to see them in pitch blackness to really appreciate them. They look like very small and bright neon lights glowing in the cave walls. You can just see a few of them in the darkness of this image. The bright lights are used to attract insects to them which the glowworms can catch in sticky web lines try drop down from their bodies.

Here are some stranger stalagmite formations. They almost look like H.R. Geiger images, very creepy. I would have loved to have the time to go abseiling and black water rafting along these caves. Even better would be to go pot holing in the caves and have a chance to explore new areas of the caves. They are still finding new caverns to this day.









Friday 27th

For our final day and a half we went to Auckland to explore some city life in New Zealand. The South Island really is underpopulated and a bit too sparse for my liking. The North Island has more people but most of them live in Auckland.

I went to the Main and New Auckland Art galleries as part of my final day. The art was surprisingly good for such a small collection, almost as good as the collections that I've seen in Sydney.

We also went up to the top of the Sky Tower. It's very similar to the Sydney tower but a little bit taller, just to beat the Australians I bet. There were some great views around the city and we went up there just around sunset for a few beers and to reflect on our holiday here. Auckland is like Sydney but everything is a little bit smaller. It even has a harbour bridge which doesn't look a patch on Sydney's coat hanger.

I've had a really great time over the past two weeks and would love to repeat the skydiving and take up some climbing as well. I will probably get a chance to have a go at both activities in my remaining time in Australia.

Star Jumping Over New Zealand Week One.

Sunday 15th.

I have two weeks in New Zealand so there will be a long update for the next few entries.

The flight was ok, but I would only fly with Jetstar for a maximum three to four hour flight as it was a budget airline. Even the seat arm rests felt quite hard and weren’t padded. Having to pay for the food and drink wasn’t that nice either, even the water had a cost with it.

Christchurch was a nice place, only nice. It’s described as the most English city in New Zealand and I could see why. We didn’t arrive here till gone ten pm so got to the hotel at eleven. Asked around for a late night place to eat that wasn’t McDonalds or Burger King (yes they have Burger King here instead of Hungry Jacks in Australia). Finally found a place called the Honey Trap, which was a café restaurant. Had a quite tasty chicken salad and we then went for a walk around the city.

The city was quite open in layout and also surprisingly quite dirty as well. We felt quite safe enough at night, unfortunately everything was closed when we got here as it was a Sunday night.

Monday 16th

Managed to get up late today, as I had forgotten to change my mobile phone time so it was set for 7.30am, but wouldn’t have gone off till 10:30am! I woke up when I heard the cathedral church bells ring nine times.

We picked up our car hire and drove down to Queenstown. The scenery along the way was quite stunning. Here is a picture of the very turquoise Lake Pukaka, with Mount Cook in the distance. Well we would have been able to see Mount Cook if the cloud cover wasn’t so low. We decided not to drive up to the summit because we wouldn’t have been able to see anything anyhow.

The lake was just so calm with barely any ripples along the surface. We walked down to the edge of the lake along the rocky stones. The water felt quite icy cold, which doesn’t bode well for the planned white water rafting later on this week.

The third piture is me, catching up on some exercise seeing as I had to miss the gym on Saturday morning.

Steve took some more photos along the six-hour drive from Christchurch to Queenstown. This one is of Lindis Pass, the roads would have been fantastic to drive along if only we had a decent car to drive with instead of the obligatory white Toyota Corolla saloon car. Still I had fun driving along the roads anyhow.

Once we got to Queenstown we checked into our pre booked hotel. The hotel was the Thomas hotel, which was recommended by the Lonely Planet book. Unfortunately it was a guesthouse rather than a hotel. It was a quite grubby room and the shower didn’t work properly. When we complained about this and decided to tell them that we wanted to check out immediately, the receptionist then offered us a much better studio apartment that was in a separate part of town but was much cleaner and newer.

We have also booked a skydive for tomorrow morning at 10.30 because the weather is predicted to be much better then. Hopefully I’ll survive to update more on this blog tomorrow night. :-), But even if I die, don’t be too sad as it’ll be a good way for me to go.

Tuesday 17th

Sky diving, but only from 9,000ft!

I can only show you the pictures. It was amazing fun and I would love to do it again and again. I was surprised how calm I was on the way up while Steve was more than a little nervous. I just thought well I’m going up in this small plane and then would jump out when I was told to. The pre-briefing was just that very brief, and then we were put into the plane and ready to go. I was lucky enough to get a good window seat right by the exit and saw the great views as the plane took off and climbed. Then it was all go and I was jumping out of the plane. Fantastic, what fun!

Just take a look at the pictures.

I wonder how mad I must have been to remember to wave at the camera just before my jump. Steve said he was too busy not looking at the ground and trying not to think about what he was about to do.

Me just exiting the plane and enjoying the view down.

I did try to fly like superman, quite obviously the adrenaline had got to me by this point. The line coming out the back of my instructor is a small chute to stabilise us while falling.

Big thumbs up because I was having so much fun falling at 200kph towards the earth.

This is one of the funniest photos of me ‘whooping’ just as the main chute is deployed.

Me and my instructor Peter just after landing. It was quite good fun jumping and I would love to do it again and again. It wasn’t the adrenaline rush that I quite hoped for though as I did take it all in my stride and even felt quite calm afterwards. Maybe subsequent jumps will be more fun when I can take it all in.

This is a very good one as Steve was the second one out of the plane, you can see that the plane pilot was obviously a total nutter. Steve said that when he saw me jump out of the plane he though, shit, Will has just jumped out of the plane! He was quite thankful when his chute opened.

Later on we went to the gondola station in Queenstown after lunch. There were some great views of the surrounding lakes and mountains of Queenstown. The place would be a great snowboarding resort in the winter and I’d love to come back to do some boarding here as well as another jump. You can see that the views of the mountains were just breathtaking.



At the top of the gondola station there was a walk that you could follow that went further up the mountain. At times the path did get quite narrow with a lovely drop on one side but it was quite refreshing to climb up and walk along to enjoy the scenery. I could have been Julie Andrews in another life.



Wednesday 18th

We had a long lie in today and white water rafting wasn’t planned till just after lunch. We went for the more difficult course despite the fact that initially Steve was a little wary of going for it rather than the easier course. The guide at the shop said that we would enjoy the more difficult course more than the easier one.

The 45-minute drive along Skippers Canyon Road was quite spectacular. It is one of only two roads in New Zealand that people aren’t insured to drive along. The sign clearly stated that mini busses and trailers weren’t allowed along it. Of course we were in a mini bus and had a trailer with three rafts on it!

At times you could only look out and down one side of the bus to see a sheer drop to the river. Most people in the bus were trying not to look down as it was quite nerving to drive along the single-track road. Apparently you can mountain bike down the road as well which I thought would be an excellent adventure for a later date.

The rafting was quite good fun. Initially we had a few lessons and mainly what to do if we fell off the side of the raft. There were eight people to a raft and around five rafts going down the course all at the same time. It only took about 90 minutes to complete the Shotover river. There were around eight different rapids along the course ranging from three to four+ difficulty levels.

I almost fell out at one point when we went into the cliff edge when I didn’t expect it, but fortunately managed to stay in the raft. In the poor quality picture you can see me (or my teeth) looking directly at the camera. I saw the man filming us as we went past him and into the rapid so decided to not duck down and instead stay up to smile at the camera. I have quite good video footage of me going past the camera with a big smile on my face while everyone else around me is ducking down and getting submerged. You can just make out the top of Steve’s helmet to the left of my face.

We were drenched quite a few times along the river and that just made the ride even more fun for me. The water was quite cold at only 4 degrees but seeing as we were paddling as well, it helped keep us warm.

Thursday 19th

We headed down to Milford Sound for today and tomorrow. Unfortunately the weather was very wet and blowing a gale on the way down there. As can be seen from the photo it was very cloudy and there was very heavy rain as well. Milford Sound was quite impressive though the sheer scale of the place was breathtaking in itself.

The population of Milford Sound is only quoted at around 170 odd, so there wasn’t much happening in the place.

We stayed at the Milford Lodge, which I can only describe as basic YHA accommodation. It’s the last time I share bathroom facilities if I have a choice! The rooms were basic wooden huts that did make quite a noise in the strong winds. We jokingly said it was like a concentration camp because you could hear every footstep of people walking along the front of our room.

Fortunately for us the weather turned for the better the following morning as we were out sea kayaking. The weather couldn’t have been better as it was sunny with occasional clouds. We had a good time in the kayaks on the sound. The trip lasted around four hours and some of the close up views of the sides of the fiord were brilliant.



The above waterfall is apparently the fourth highest waterfall in the world at 150ft tall.

This final picture is of us returning home after a long mornings kayaking. The kayaks were two man kayaks and quite stable, however due to the sitting position in the kayak, the base of my spine hurt all the way through the trip. I’m thoroughly expecting it to hurt quite a bit tomorrow morning!

Virgin Surfer No More!

I finally managed to have a go surfing on Friday. My friend Steve arrived from the UK on Thursday and we had a chance to go surfing on Manly beach on Friday afternoon. Deirdre was going to go as part of a school trip for work and we could tag along with the class as well.

Unfortunately the tide was at its height on the beach which meant very difficult conditions for surfing. The weather was fantastic with hot temperatures well into the late 30's and a cool sea breeze. Because of the high tide it meant that paddling out to catch the waves in would be very difficult, as we would have to paddle out quite far and be well out of our depths in the sea.

There were around ten of us in our class and two instructors. After a brief lesson in paddling and jumping up on our boards. We were told to go ahead and try to paddle out to sea. I found it very difficult going trying to stay on my surf board against the waves. Several times I rolled over on my board and eventually just couldn't make it out past the waves. Steve and Allen managed to get out there but I just couldn't paddle hard enough into the waves.

Eventually I gave in and swam back to shore and waited for an instructor to help take me out. Near the end of the lesson an instructor did help take me out there and I caught a couple of waves on the way back, tried to stand up and quickly fell back down again!

Overall it was a difficult start to my surfing career. Maybe I shouldn't have given up my day job to be a surfing instructor quite yet. I won't be hanging ten in the green room quite yet either. But I certainly will give it another go in easier conditions. The instructors did say that it was very difficult conditions to start surfing in and everyone else was having problems as well, excuses, excuses. :-)

Lost in Sydney.

I started off this weekend going to a Sydney event called Night Noodles Market. It's basically a lot of asian and indian food stands in Hyde Park with some beer tents and music. It was a very pleasant way to spend an evening eating out in the park.

Here you can see Allen looking shocked at the number of stands of cheap food available. Even Wagamamas had a stand where you could buy their food. I ended up having some roast duck on rice with some salt and pepper chilli squid.

Allen had hired a car for the week so on Saturday morning Deirdre, Allen and I went to the Royal National Park just an hours drive south of Sydney.

We went there to do one of many planned bush and jungle walks. The one we chose was rated difficult in level and was about 10k long. We parked the car up at the beginning of the walk and then set off with plenty of water and Subway sandwiches.

The walk started of with a steep descent down to the beach. Allen just had to take a dip in the water when we got there while Deirdre and I watched. The sea was a little too rough for our liking. That and there wouldn't be a hunky lifeguard to save us. :-)

The first walk picture is of the view looking back at the beach where we just were. The landscape really reminded me of several scenes in the TV series Lost.

I really could imagine that we were the characters in the series just heading inland from the beach.

Here is Allen and Deirdre walking through some of the jungle. I'm not sure whether I was more worried about walking into a spider or a snake. I think the spider came top but I put it to the back of my head and carried on.

The walk was really good and not too difficult either. I was expecting something much more strenuous. The only thing that was annoying though were the flies that bothered all of us at the start of the walk.

Once we entered the jungle section of the walk which was quite shaded there were hardly any flies about at all. I suspect all the spiders had eaten them. Fortunately they were probably too full to manage to eat me for desert as well.

Here is the view from a lookout point ledge at the end of the jungle walk. Again you could walk right up to the edge of the ledge and look down into more jungle.

There were even some secluded houses by the beaches. We guessed that the only way they could receive supplies would either be the long walk or by the sea. They definitely didn't have connection to the mains or running water.

Below is a picture of a couple of waratah plants. The emblem of
New South Wales. They reminded me of sunflowers because of how high they grow.

Once we got back to the car we drove further south to Wollongong. Allen used to live here when he was a medical student and studying here for a few months.

We had his grand tour of where he used to live and also which hospital he worked at.

On Sunday we all met up at Manly beach for a swim and to also meet Roger's sister and her friend who had arrived in Sydders on their way to New Zealand. I decided to cycle down to Manly from the CBD as it would be quite good fun and there would be a welcome sea for me after the long cycle. It only took me an hour this time round as I went the direct main road route and only stopped a couple of times.

The swell at Manly was quite big and I distinctly remember watching Allen in the sea with a big wave behind him which was almost twice as tall as him! It was quite good fun for a while watching the waves come in and diving below them just before they hit you. You couldn't really swim much but just trying to stand in the waves was fun.

The day was finished off with another trip to the Orbit Bar and then we went to a 24 hour cafe/restaurant at Circular Quay for a late night dinner. Don't worry I made up for the late night dinner with an extra long 90 minute session with Quentin on Monday morning.

Rescued by a lifeguard... Check!

It's Labour Day here in Oz, so we have a long weekend and a Monday off work. Deirdre, Allen and I decided to go down to Manly to visit the beach and go to the jazz festival there.

We didn't really sit down and see much jazz being played though the place was busier than usual because of the festival and there were a few stages on with Jazz playing.

We all hired some body boards to go body boarding. It was the first time that I had ever been so didn't really know what I was doing. A few quick words of advice from Allen and I was ready.

Within a few minutes I had managed to paddle a little too far out and was out of my depth! The more I tried to paddle back towards the land the more I was being carried out to the sea!

At this point Allen had noticed me in trouble and shouted at me to try to paddle along the coast instead of directly towards it. I tried this and still was being carried outwards. Thankfully the local lifeguards were watching and noticed me and Allen waving for help.

One of them quickly stripped off and swam out towards me. He told me what to do to get back towards the beach. Basically I was still paddling against the swell and should have been padding the opposite direction down the beach to go with the break of the waves. The lifeguard was called Aran and was very friendly and gave me some more advice on what to do and where was best to go body boarding along the beach.

Allen managed to grab a few snaps of me coming into the beach with Aran, in between laughing that is. :-) Deirdre said that Aran was quite the part and she would have happily got into 'trouble' in the sea so he could come and rescue her. Well at least I can say that I've been rescued by a lifeguard now.

The rest of the day was much more uneventful and I eventually managed to get the hang of body boarding and 'caught' a few waves into the beach.

It was fun but not quite he buzz I was looking for when out having fun in the sea. Considering the amount of effort and amount of seawater you have to swallow to get a few seconds of wave pushing you along, I wouldn't say that it really put that smile on my face. Still it was fun and I would do it again. I just wouldn't paddle so far out to sea next time!

There were also a few beach volleyball games going on, on the beach. You can see why this particular match was attracting the male crowds.

Look out Wallingford, next year in the volleyball tournament Allen and I will be on the grass in our Speedos ready to play...