World Tour 2000 - 2002
On the 5th we had booked to go diving in Milford Sound. We got up at 5:30am to drive to the dive shop only to be told gale force winds had meant the dive was cancelled. So we went back to our hostel and crawled back into our sleeping bags. It was the same story on the 6th so we drove back up Queenstown to go for a ride on the Shotover Jet boat. These boats have about a 10cm draft and are powered through the canyons by huge Chrysler 6 litre engines, and man do they get close to the rock face. We then went back to Te Anau and amused ourselves for a few more days doing short walks to places like Lake Marian. We also took the 90 minute drive down to Milford only to miss the last cruise boat by 4 minutes -AAARGGH.
As we were not due to try and dive again until the 12th, we decided to walk the 39km Routeburn Track, so once again on the 8th we set off with backpacks full of provisions. The first day of this walk was brilliant, we had blue skies, lovely sunshine and once we got above the tree line awesome views of the surrounding snow capped mountains and valleys. We spent the first night in a hut on the shores of the stunning mirror Lake MacKenzie and the next day we set off just as the weather bagan to close in. By the time we reached the highest point of the walk at Harris Saddle it's was blowing a gale and pouring with rain (the story of our life in NZ!!), so we stopped to have lunch at the shelter on the saddle waiting for a break in the rain. Once it arrived we made a dash for the next hut at Routeburn Falls for the warmth of a fire and an evening playing cards. We completed the walk the next day and got the bus back to Te Anau and we spent the next day resting our increasingly weary legs.
On the 12th it was time to try our third attempt at diving in Milford Sound, again we were up at 5:30am, and again the weather was so pants the dive was cancelled. We decided that Milford Sound is just going to be one of those places we were fated not to enjoy, so we jumped in our hire car and headed north. The plan was to stay in the area of Mount Cook, but once we got there we found the mountain covered in rain cloud and all the hostels booked out. So we stopped breifly at Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaiki before caning it up to Christchurch (nothing goes like a rental car!!!)
On the 13th we took a drive out and around the Banks Peninsular - to sum this place up all we have to say is the only thing we did whilst we were there that was of interest was buy some lamb chops for our tea. So on the 14th we headed on north to Kiakoura where we hung out for a couple of days. On the first day we were there we got up at 5:30am (wot again????) this time to go snorkelling with dolphins and what an awesome trip this was. You kitted up in full 5mm wetsuits, took a boat ride out into the bay and once a suitable pod of Dusky dolphins was located you dived in. Wow was it cold (13 degrees C) , but once the dolphines arrived you soon forgot the cold. The dolphins were awesome and if you made a bit of an effort to dive down or sign through your snorkel they stayed interested in you and circled and jumped out of the water right in fron tof you. Sharon and I broke away from the main group of people and managed to keep about 4 - 5 dolphins interested in us for ages until exhaustion set in. On the way back to harbour a pod of dolphins that were swimming about 100m in front of the boat started jumping and doing flips in the air. The next day we were up early again this time to go diving. We had asked to dive near to a seal colony hoping one wanted to come and play but it was not to be and all we saw on the dive was kelp (a rather unattractive sea weed). The weather on this day was particularly nice so we walked to a nice pub and spent the afternoon in the sunshine have a jar or two.
After all that excitement we headed up to Picton to catch the ferry over to the North Island and after spending a night sleeping in the car and driving all day, we found ourselves driving into Auckland on the 19th. Went out that evening with Janesse to her leaving party as she was leaving NZ to return to the UK, it was in a champagne bar - and they sold TVR's - need I say more?. On the way back to the hostel in the very early hours Sharon wandered off and spent three hours wandering around looking for the hostel, this would not have been a problem for Gary (who knew where the hostel was) except Sharon had the key!!!! The next day we nursed our hangover before meeting up with the newly created Mr and Mrs Steve Carrad for an evening of fine food and some Chelsea conversation in the Skytower.
On the 21st it was time to feed our diving addiction some more so we headed up to Whangerei. We could not get out to dive until the Monday so we did a cruise around the Bay of Islands which was nice but we could not see what all the fuss with this place was about. We have since found out it is best to do the cruise in the sunshine as the beauty of the bay come out, well we did it in the cloud and rain and it looked OK but not spectacular. After that we spent the next two days diving out at the Poor Knights Islands - WOW WOW WOW WOW - what an awesome place this is, 60m drop off walls, huge caves and archways to swim through, , and all covered in fantastic blue/green/jellow/pink jewel anenomes. We saw heaps of fish life, like kingfish and snapper but no stingrays which the area is famous for as apparently a pod of Orca's had been through and eaten a lot and scared the rest off. After the Poor Knights we spent the next four days diving on ship wrecks, we did one dive on the ex-HMNZS Tui, three dives on the ex-HMZNS Waikato and one dive on the awesome Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior. Some of these dives were part of our Wreck diver specialty course. We finished our last dive on the 29th and drove back down to Auckland to meet Nick and Lucy who we had met in Syndey. Our night out turned into another beerfest this time at the casino where we managed to loose $60 before winning it all back again. Thankfully this time Sharon remembered the way back to the hostel!!.
On the 30th we again left Auckland (without having seen any sites except the inside of pubs, bars and restaurants) and headed to Rotorua. This town is bang in the middle of a very active and very interesting and colourful volcanic thermal area. Everywhere you went there was this pungent smell of sulphur in the air. We toured around some free springs in the town centre and went to the flicks. The next evening we went on a tour to a local Maori villiage for a traditional concert and Hangi meal.