Friday 30 May 2008
Administrivia
With the actual story ended, the blog will be updated with photos and links. I have already uploaded things to YouTube and will be putting photos on our Flickr accounts.
Day 31 - All Good Things...
And so to home. Bags packed, room checked out of, airport shuttle arranged. Time to fly back to the real world, beginning with a 4.30am start.
I was genuinely sad to leave Hong Kong, a place that I initially was apprehensive about yet had fallen completely for. Even to the last, when something went wrong, it was efficient beyond the call of duty.
Our flight was Air NZ to Heathrow. The flight itself is Auckland - Hong Kong - London, which must be a swine if you are going all 23 hours of the journey. The plane had been delayed in Auckland for a wheel change (while the passengers were on it) which meant that our onward connection to Manchester was in jeopardy.
We weren't to know this when we got to the Air NZ desk, yet when we did, the bloke behind the counter knew all about it. He had already reserved seats on the next available flight, checked our bags through and presented us with a voucher to give to BA to get our seats.
I was amazed - normally you are greeted at the other end and left to figure out how to get home. The rebooking had been arranged happened before we even got to the airport. Just amazing customer service.
The flight was uneventful for its 12 and a bit hours. We flew over the site of the recent earthquake in China and then Russia - if you ever want to understand just how big Russia is... it takes a 747 six hours to fly over it.
We landed at Heathrow. Instead of heading for Terminal 1 and BMI, it was time to face BA and Terminal 5. Onto the coach, no baggage claim and not a small amount of confusion as we made it across to the new terminal without having to clear UK immigration. We even changed some spare HK dollars into sterling at a Bureau de Change and he seemed mystified that we hadn't passed Customs.
Eventually we did find the Immigration desk, with no queues at all. I wandered up, passport in hand.
"Hello"
Silence. My passport was taken off me by a woman who seemed to take my very existence as a personal affront, scanned, then handed back.
"Thankyou"
Still silence. Same for Caroline.
Welcome home. Bloody welcome home. For Gods sake.
When we started out on our trip, T5 was in chaos, with baggage disappearing into the ether and cancelled flights aplenty. To be honest, it is easy to understand why - there just isn't any helpful signage. We eventually found our way to the BA checkin desk, explained the rearranged flight and despite noone being around, we were still asked to check in using the machine. Okayyy... over we go.
Booking number? Not got one of those.
Voucher code? Nope.
I find the option for surname. I type my surname. I scan my passport.
"No record found".
Oh for crying out loud. Back to the desk we were at five minutes ago. The woman sitting there was quite cheery but why she couldn't have checked us in in the first place, I'll never know.
A short meal then a wait for the plane. Eventually our gate appeared and we wandered over. Flight was due to take off at 7.40pm. At 7.30pm, the flight crew are still waiting to board. 7.40pm comes and goes. 7.45pm - "We regret to announce that your flight has been delayed". No shit, Sherlock.
We board sometime approaching 8pm and find ourselves right at the back on a packed plane. Beggars can't be choosers, but my tired mood wasn't helped by the constant wittering of the cabin staff behind us. An uneventful flight and we touch down at Manchester.
Bags made it through OK, although everyone crowded the carousel, to the extent that I was almost taking people out at the knees with our heavy luggage. I was tired and angry, angry at the reception from Immigration, angry at the lack of information at the delays, angry at stupid selfish people not considering others. Hong Kong, New Zealand really did seem half a world away.
It couldn't spoil our trip. Nothing could. We've seen things that we had wanted to see, experienced things that money can't buy. Every place that we have been, we have not wanted to leave. We could do it all again tomorrow.
We can't do it all again tomorrow though. But give us six months...
I was genuinely sad to leave Hong Kong, a place that I initially was apprehensive about yet had fallen completely for. Even to the last, when something went wrong, it was efficient beyond the call of duty.
Our flight was Air NZ to Heathrow. The flight itself is Auckland - Hong Kong - London, which must be a swine if you are going all 23 hours of the journey. The plane had been delayed in Auckland for a wheel change (while the passengers were on it) which meant that our onward connection to Manchester was in jeopardy.
We weren't to know this when we got to the Air NZ desk, yet when we did, the bloke behind the counter knew all about it. He had already reserved seats on the next available flight, checked our bags through and presented us with a voucher to give to BA to get our seats.
I was amazed - normally you are greeted at the other end and left to figure out how to get home. The rebooking had been arranged happened before we even got to the airport. Just amazing customer service.
The flight was uneventful for its 12 and a bit hours. We flew over the site of the recent earthquake in China and then Russia - if you ever want to understand just how big Russia is... it takes a 747 six hours to fly over it.
We landed at Heathrow. Instead of heading for Terminal 1 and BMI, it was time to face BA and Terminal 5. Onto the coach, no baggage claim and not a small amount of confusion as we made it across to the new terminal without having to clear UK immigration. We even changed some spare HK dollars into sterling at a Bureau de Change and he seemed mystified that we hadn't passed Customs.
Eventually we did find the Immigration desk, with no queues at all. I wandered up, passport in hand.
"Hello"
Silence. My passport was taken off me by a woman who seemed to take my very existence as a personal affront, scanned, then handed back.
"Thankyou"
Still silence. Same for Caroline.
Welcome home. Bloody welcome home. For Gods sake.
When we started out on our trip, T5 was in chaos, with baggage disappearing into the ether and cancelled flights aplenty. To be honest, it is easy to understand why - there just isn't any helpful signage. We eventually found our way to the BA checkin desk, explained the rearranged flight and despite noone being around, we were still asked to check in using the machine. Okayyy... over we go.
Booking number? Not got one of those.
Voucher code? Nope.
I find the option for surname. I type my surname. I scan my passport.
"No record found".
Oh for crying out loud. Back to the desk we were at five minutes ago. The woman sitting there was quite cheery but why she couldn't have checked us in in the first place, I'll never know.
A short meal then a wait for the plane. Eventually our gate appeared and we wandered over. Flight was due to take off at 7.40pm. At 7.30pm, the flight crew are still waiting to board. 7.40pm comes and goes. 7.45pm - "We regret to announce that your flight has been delayed". No shit, Sherlock.
We board sometime approaching 8pm and find ourselves right at the back on a packed plane. Beggars can't be choosers, but my tired mood wasn't helped by the constant wittering of the cabin staff behind us. An uneventful flight and we touch down at Manchester.
Bags made it through OK, although everyone crowded the carousel, to the extent that I was almost taking people out at the knees with our heavy luggage. I was tired and angry, angry at the reception from Immigration, angry at the lack of information at the delays, angry at stupid selfish people not considering others. Hong Kong, New Zealand really did seem half a world away.
It couldn't spoil our trip. Nothing could. We've seen things that we had wanted to see, experienced things that money can't buy. Every place that we have been, we have not wanted to leave. We could do it all again tomorrow.
We can't do it all again tomorrow though. But give us six months...
Thursday 29 May 2008
Day 30 - Lonely at the top
Our last full day of the trip and thanks to Carolines illness, I had ot spend a large part of it on my own. She was too tired, too ill to even attempt to go out so I was sent to explore HK with a small shopping list, the posh camera and orders to photograph something interesting. With the temperatures hitting 30oC, there was no way she would make it through the day.
First stop of the day, a short nip across the Harbour to Kowloon and the Hard Rock Cafe. We have an evergrowing collection of Hard Rock city t-shirts and make a point of getting each one that we can. The Kowloon ones were pretty awesome and at just £11 a heck of a bargain compared to some.
Speaking of clothing, one thing that did bug me was being approached by various people hawking a new suit. Now admittedly I'm going to look like a tourist, but if I wanted a suit, I'd bloomin' well go and get one. Thankfully the hawkers were just the right side of persistently annoying.
From the Hard Rock, a wander to find the Avenue of Stars - the Hong Kong equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. HK film is about much more than Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and I have long been a fan of the high octane stuff produced by John Woo, Tsui Hark, Samo Hung and the coolest guy ever to walk a cinema screen, Chow Yun Fat. The Avenue of Stars leads down the waterfront and even contains some spectacular cartoon vehicles. I'm not entirely sure what their purpose is - they quite clearly move around. Movable drinks selling?
Back to the Star Ferry and off to Central Pier. The one thing that all tourists do in Hong Kong is head for the Peak and the Peak Tram in particular. A short hop into the MTR network, then out again through Chater Square and a walk uphill. In the heat, the slope of the road made it tough going and I was slightly thankful that I didn't have to nurse Caroline through it.
It is easy to see why the Peak and the Peak Tram is so high on the list of Tourist Things to Do in Hong Kong. The Tram itself is a marvellous piece of engineering, hauling you almost 400m up the peak in a little less than 1.4km, an average gradient of 1 in 3.7. A return ticket, including a pass to the viewing levels of the Peak Tower is an astonishing HK$48 - about £3.50.
At the top, you exit the Tram into the Peak Tower, an iconic building shaped like an upturned wok. It is packed with shops as well as a Post Office and Madame Tussauds. If you make your way to the top (and buy the SkyPass) you can go outside onto the roof and see the most spectacular view of the Hong Kong skyline.
It really does look like the postcards, the photos. Just to see the sheer scale of the skyscrapers and towers below you (and given their size, not all that far below...) makes you marvel at the sheer industry of the place.
It is fair to say that I loved Hong Kong and the only downside of the magnificent view was the fact that my wife was somewhere down there, too ill to share the spectacle.
A long wander amid the magnificence of the Peak and I stumbled across... another Hard Rock. Not a cafe this time, just a shop, but joy of joys, it sold its own city t-shirt, distinct from the Kowloon one. Another £11 down.
Walking back through the skyscrapers, I stumbled across a small park. In the middle of such skyscrapers as the Bank of China, Citibank Plaza and the HSBC building, was a small piece of greenery. A plaque within the park said that the ground had been dedicated as a small piece of respite within the pressure coooker of high finance. There was certainly places to hide and get away from things, including a stone seat worn smooth by countless workers. It seemed odd, yet welcome to have such an oasis of calm and I snapped a couple of photos of a bird, wheeling its way skywards against the towers.
I eventually made it back to the hotel. Caroline was feeling up to a short journey out and I thought it would be worthwhile watching the Symphony of Lights skyscraper light show from one of the Star Ferry tour boats. As it was, the boat was full, so we had to dig deep for another 30p to head over to Kowloon and the viewing area near the Avenue of Stars.
Which, as it turned out, is the place to watch the light and music show. There are speakers embedded in the platform plus long benches to sit and watch. This gives you the best experience you can of the show, although inevitably you can't see everything. I stood, keeping a watchful eye on Caroline, just taking the sight in. Well, filming it really.
A final wander, a final ferry ride and it really was time to get ready to go home.
First stop of the day, a short nip across the Harbour to Kowloon and the Hard Rock Cafe. We have an evergrowing collection of Hard Rock city t-shirts and make a point of getting each one that we can. The Kowloon ones were pretty awesome and at just £11 a heck of a bargain compared to some.
Speaking of clothing, one thing that did bug me was being approached by various people hawking a new suit. Now admittedly I'm going to look like a tourist, but if I wanted a suit, I'd bloomin' well go and get one. Thankfully the hawkers were just the right side of persistently annoying.
From the Hard Rock, a wander to find the Avenue of Stars - the Hong Kong equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. HK film is about much more than Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and I have long been a fan of the high octane stuff produced by John Woo, Tsui Hark, Samo Hung and the coolest guy ever to walk a cinema screen, Chow Yun Fat. The Avenue of Stars leads down the waterfront and even contains some spectacular cartoon vehicles. I'm not entirely sure what their purpose is - they quite clearly move around. Movable drinks selling?
Back to the Star Ferry and off to Central Pier. The one thing that all tourists do in Hong Kong is head for the Peak and the Peak Tram in particular. A short hop into the MTR network, then out again through Chater Square and a walk uphill. In the heat, the slope of the road made it tough going and I was slightly thankful that I didn't have to nurse Caroline through it.
It is easy to see why the Peak and the Peak Tram is so high on the list of Tourist Things to Do in Hong Kong. The Tram itself is a marvellous piece of engineering, hauling you almost 400m up the peak in a little less than 1.4km, an average gradient of 1 in 3.7. A return ticket, including a pass to the viewing levels of the Peak Tower is an astonishing HK$48 - about £3.50.
At the top, you exit the Tram into the Peak Tower, an iconic building shaped like an upturned wok. It is packed with shops as well as a Post Office and Madame Tussauds. If you make your way to the top (and buy the SkyPass) you can go outside onto the roof and see the most spectacular view of the Hong Kong skyline.
It really does look like the postcards, the photos. Just to see the sheer scale of the skyscrapers and towers below you (and given their size, not all that far below...) makes you marvel at the sheer industry of the place.
It is fair to say that I loved Hong Kong and the only downside of the magnificent view was the fact that my wife was somewhere down there, too ill to share the spectacle.
A long wander amid the magnificence of the Peak and I stumbled across... another Hard Rock. Not a cafe this time, just a shop, but joy of joys, it sold its own city t-shirt, distinct from the Kowloon one. Another £11 down.
Walking back through the skyscrapers, I stumbled across a small park. In the middle of such skyscrapers as the Bank of China, Citibank Plaza and the HSBC building, was a small piece of greenery. A plaque within the park said that the ground had been dedicated as a small piece of respite within the pressure coooker of high finance. There was certainly places to hide and get away from things, including a stone seat worn smooth by countless workers. It seemed odd, yet welcome to have such an oasis of calm and I snapped a couple of photos of a bird, wheeling its way skywards against the towers.
I eventually made it back to the hotel. Caroline was feeling up to a short journey out and I thought it would be worthwhile watching the Symphony of Lights skyscraper light show from one of the Star Ferry tour boats. As it was, the boat was full, so we had to dig deep for another 30p to head over to Kowloon and the viewing area near the Avenue of Stars.
Which, as it turned out, is the place to watch the light and music show. There are speakers embedded in the platform plus long benches to sit and watch. This gives you the best experience you can of the show, although inevitably you can't see everything. I stood, keeping a watchful eye on Caroline, just taking the sight in. Well, filming it really.
A final wander, a final ferry ride and it really was time to get ready to go home.
Monday 26 May 2008
Day 28 - The Ngong Ping Express
Caroline was Not Well. Some kind of fluey thing that had started in New Zealand was beginning to take hold. With the prospect of making our way through the efficient chaos that is Hong Kong and the unfamiliar underground, it didn't seem a good omen.
The subway system, aka MTR is superb. Completely spotless and very simple to navigate, an all day unlimited ticket for all lines was $50, or just over three quid. The MTR is the very model of how to build a city transit system, with wide, brightly lit atriums and platforms. The interchanges between lines are generally on the same level meaning that the flow of people is easily managed.
Anyway, enough train talk - the plan for the day was to make it out to the Po Lin Monastery and Big Buddha on Lantau Island. We popped onto the MTR and headed for Tung Chung, out near the airport. There are two ways to get to Po Lin, either the hour long bus or the Ngong Ping 360 cable car.
The cable car ride takes about 25 minutes and costs about £6 for a return journey. The ride is 3.5 miles long and is absolutely spectacular if not a little bit tense for someone like myself. I'm not scared of heights but I do have a fear of falling and at a number of points, the car is a good couple of hundred feet above the ground. Most cable car rides have a good number of towers, yet there are a couple of stretches which must be at least 3/4 mile without any support whatsoever.
At the end of the ride, you make it to the Ngong Ping village. This is a bit of a themed shopping place, really. The object of the visit is the Tian Tan Buddha, which is an astonishing 34m high.
It looks absolutely spectacular from just about every angle except right next to it where the sheer size of it overwhelms. You have to climb 268 steps to get to the Buddha, no matter Caroline being too ill, even I struggled to make that climb in the near 30 degree heat.
You can walk around the base and inside the bottom level of the Buddha. To go higher, you must purchase a meal ticket (vegetarian of course, this is a Buddha after all) which also gets you up a couple of levels.
It is very odd wandering around a statue and pausing while people are praying to that very same icon. I'd liken it to being in a cemetary and next to you are a couple of burials taking place. You don't know whether you are intruding or not.
Back at the bottom, I had a look at the Po Lin monastery itself. You walk down a tree-lined avenue, past pots of burning incense until you reach a small temple known as the Welto Temple. Inside are four large statues (about 10 feet each) and a smiling Buddha. From there, you walk into the courtyard and then see the Hall of the Great Hero itself.
It was the same peaceful air as the Byodi-in Temple in Hawaii, yet the grandeur had been turned up to 11. Flowers, fruit, carvings, paintings, statues. Still serene despite the large numbers of people entering the hall. Caroline was really struggling and I had gone myself, but I went back and convinced her it was worth the effort to see.
The trip out from Victoria Harbour is so, so worth it. Po Lin is a small ocean of peace in the hubbub of Hong Kong.
I nursed Caroline back to the cable car and then onto the MTR and our hotel. Any plans we had for the evening went out of the window as she virtually collapsed into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
The subway system, aka MTR is superb. Completely spotless and very simple to navigate, an all day unlimited ticket for all lines was $50, or just over three quid. The MTR is the very model of how to build a city transit system, with wide, brightly lit atriums and platforms. The interchanges between lines are generally on the same level meaning that the flow of people is easily managed.
Anyway, enough train talk - the plan for the day was to make it out to the Po Lin Monastery and Big Buddha on Lantau Island. We popped onto the MTR and headed for Tung Chung, out near the airport. There are two ways to get to Po Lin, either the hour long bus or the Ngong Ping 360 cable car.
The cable car ride takes about 25 minutes and costs about £6 for a return journey. The ride is 3.5 miles long and is absolutely spectacular if not a little bit tense for someone like myself. I'm not scared of heights but I do have a fear of falling and at a number of points, the car is a good couple of hundred feet above the ground. Most cable car rides have a good number of towers, yet there are a couple of stretches which must be at least 3/4 mile without any support whatsoever.
At the end of the ride, you make it to the Ngong Ping village. This is a bit of a themed shopping place, really. The object of the visit is the Tian Tan Buddha, which is an astonishing 34m high.
It looks absolutely spectacular from just about every angle except right next to it where the sheer size of it overwhelms. You have to climb 268 steps to get to the Buddha, no matter Caroline being too ill, even I struggled to make that climb in the near 30 degree heat.
You can walk around the base and inside the bottom level of the Buddha. To go higher, you must purchase a meal ticket (vegetarian of course, this is a Buddha after all) which also gets you up a couple of levels.
It is very odd wandering around a statue and pausing while people are praying to that very same icon. I'd liken it to being in a cemetary and next to you are a couple of burials taking place. You don't know whether you are intruding or not.
Back at the bottom, I had a look at the Po Lin monastery itself. You walk down a tree-lined avenue, past pots of burning incense until you reach a small temple known as the Welto Temple. Inside are four large statues (about 10 feet each) and a smiling Buddha. From there, you walk into the courtyard and then see the Hall of the Great Hero itself.
It was the same peaceful air as the Byodi-in Temple in Hawaii, yet the grandeur had been turned up to 11. Flowers, fruit, carvings, paintings, statues. Still serene despite the large numbers of people entering the hall. Caroline was really struggling and I had gone myself, but I went back and convinced her it was worth the effort to see.
The trip out from Victoria Harbour is so, so worth it. Po Lin is a small ocean of peace in the hubbub of Hong Kong.
I nursed Caroline back to the cable car and then onto the MTR and our hotel. Any plans we had for the evening went out of the window as she virtually collapsed into bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
Friday 16 May 2008
Day 27 - A heck of a light show
6.30am arrival in Hong Kong and by 7.30am we are on a bus to downtown, having cleared customs, baggage and sort out a shuttle bus. How? Well, in the first case, the Chinese have kept customs queues low by the cunning tactic of having enough officers to handle the incoming traffic. Unlike, say, the US and the UK who believe that the appropriate response to a incoming 747 full of passengers is to all piss off on a coffee break.
Baggage was already waiting for us and then on to find a shuttle bus to our hotel. Another exhibition of efficiency - we were pondering the airport map to figure out where we needed to go when someone walked over, led us to their desk and produced a map and indicated the desk we need to get to. Having found that (only accosted twice by taxi drivers plying for trade) the man behind the desk phoned the hotel, confirmed the reservation, put the cost on the bill, gave us a sticker and led us to a waiting area. (Again, in the UK, he would have pointed out the waiting area rather than take us the twenty or so feet to it.)
From that area a guy in an orange t-shirt led us on a long walk through the airport to the shuttle bus terminus and then called out hotels. I was slightly wary beforehand of how we would find our way around Hong Kong, having truly stepped out of our comfort zone. However, it is impossible not to be impressed by the staggering level of organisation and efficiency involved.
Having said that, if everyone wasn't so organised I am convinced the place would grind to a halt. The place is quite, quite manic. The drive from the airport was pretty memorable, if only for the bus driver manouevring his vehicle through gaps that continually redefined the phrase "hairs breadth". Rule #1 of driving in Hong Kong - You Do Not Leave A Gap. Ever.
We are staying at the Renaissance Harbour View and have treated ourselves to the Club Level. For this, we get a special card to give us access to the top levels. (Top Travellers Tip: It costs more, but you get complimentary breakfast buffet, unlimited tea/coffee and in the afternoon, complimentary afternoon tea and complimentary early evening drinks. This would cost you in a normal room.)
The room is quite big by HK standard, though small by just about anywhere else but the bed is so amazingly comfortable. Paying top whack also gets you a level of service verging on obseqious - we even got a special honeymoon cake and bottle of wine. The views out over the harbour are amazing, especially at night.
We took a trip out to the Jade Market. We jumped on the MTR, which is spotless and smooth before popping out above ground nearby. I managed to head the wrong way which meant we discovered a shopping centre containing nothing by electronic stuff - it was an accident, honest! Several huge displays of laptops, huge plasma TVs... I daren't look too closely or else I would get dragged in. Prices ranged from the bargainous to the spectacularly bargainous as well.
I extricated myself from its clutches and we headed to the Jade Market. Basically a covered hall full of stalls, Caroline was in her element. The stall holders were slightly pushy, though not overbearingly so and Caroline spend a good time sitting and trying on a number of jade necklaces and bracelets. The wallet didn't get away without damage, but Caroline assures me that the equivalent in the UK would be at least double, if not more, so I defer to her expertise. Besides, the bracelet is really nice.
We wandered back to the ferry, experiencing the bustling streets of Kowloon. And I mean, bustling. A hive of activity whre the ground floor of every single building is shop of some sort. I'd love to bring a Health and Safety fanatic to Hong Kong and take them on a tour of the streets - their head would explode with indignation. (Same with a member of Greenpeace and come to think of it, I reckon just abut any do-gooder would have real problems with Hong Kong.)
This can-do, will-do attitude is what makes the place work. You just get on with it. Poultry might be hanging on a street corner, but it is fresh and if you cook it that night, you probably won't die. Same with fruit and just about any product you care to mention. Hong Kong is built upwards, huge clusters of massive 50-floor towers to house the populace, washing hanging out of windows above the shops. It is dizzying and fascinating at the same time.
We made it to the famous Star Ferry - now this really breaks the bank. Two adults on the upper deck from Kowloon to Wan Chai? That will be HK$4.40, sir. There are 15 Hong Kong dollars to the pound. 30 pence. For two.
Cracking view, too. The skyline of Victoria Harbour is spectacular during the day, then a hub of neon at night. HK has a trick up its sleeve - at 8pm every night, the buildings put on a light and laser show. About 20 skyscrapers on both sides of the harbour are synchronised to music (broadcast on FM) for about 10 minutes. The effect is very, very cool as the lights flash, pulse and dance. It is difficult to catch it on film, but the memory of it will stay for a long time.
Baggage was already waiting for us and then on to find a shuttle bus to our hotel. Another exhibition of efficiency - we were pondering the airport map to figure out where we needed to go when someone walked over, led us to their desk and produced a map and indicated the desk we need to get to. Having found that (only accosted twice by taxi drivers plying for trade) the man behind the desk phoned the hotel, confirmed the reservation, put the cost on the bill, gave us a sticker and led us to a waiting area. (Again, in the UK, he would have pointed out the waiting area rather than take us the twenty or so feet to it.)
From that area a guy in an orange t-shirt led us on a long walk through the airport to the shuttle bus terminus and then called out hotels. I was slightly wary beforehand of how we would find our way around Hong Kong, having truly stepped out of our comfort zone. However, it is impossible not to be impressed by the staggering level of organisation and efficiency involved.
Having said that, if everyone wasn't so organised I am convinced the place would grind to a halt. The place is quite, quite manic. The drive from the airport was pretty memorable, if only for the bus driver manouevring his vehicle through gaps that continually redefined the phrase "hairs breadth". Rule #1 of driving in Hong Kong - You Do Not Leave A Gap. Ever.
We are staying at the Renaissance Harbour View and have treated ourselves to the Club Level. For this, we get a special card to give us access to the top levels. (Top Travellers Tip: It costs more, but you get complimentary breakfast buffet, unlimited tea/coffee and in the afternoon, complimentary afternoon tea and complimentary early evening drinks. This would cost you in a normal room.)
The room is quite big by HK standard, though small by just about anywhere else but the bed is so amazingly comfortable. Paying top whack also gets you a level of service verging on obseqious - we even got a special honeymoon cake and bottle of wine. The views out over the harbour are amazing, especially at night.
We took a trip out to the Jade Market. We jumped on the MTR, which is spotless and smooth before popping out above ground nearby. I managed to head the wrong way which meant we discovered a shopping centre containing nothing by electronic stuff - it was an accident, honest! Several huge displays of laptops, huge plasma TVs... I daren't look too closely or else I would get dragged in. Prices ranged from the bargainous to the spectacularly bargainous as well.
I extricated myself from its clutches and we headed to the Jade Market. Basically a covered hall full of stalls, Caroline was in her element. The stall holders were slightly pushy, though not overbearingly so and Caroline spend a good time sitting and trying on a number of jade necklaces and bracelets. The wallet didn't get away without damage, but Caroline assures me that the equivalent in the UK would be at least double, if not more, so I defer to her expertise. Besides, the bracelet is really nice.
We wandered back to the ferry, experiencing the bustling streets of Kowloon. And I mean, bustling. A hive of activity whre the ground floor of every single building is shop of some sort. I'd love to bring a Health and Safety fanatic to Hong Kong and take them on a tour of the streets - their head would explode with indignation. (Same with a member of Greenpeace and come to think of it, I reckon just abut any do-gooder would have real problems with Hong Kong.)
This can-do, will-do attitude is what makes the place work. You just get on with it. Poultry might be hanging on a street corner, but it is fresh and if you cook it that night, you probably won't die. Same with fruit and just about any product you care to mention. Hong Kong is built upwards, huge clusters of massive 50-floor towers to house the populace, washing hanging out of windows above the shops. It is dizzying and fascinating at the same time.
We made it to the famous Star Ferry - now this really breaks the bank. Two adults on the upper deck from Kowloon to Wan Chai? That will be HK$4.40, sir. There are 15 Hong Kong dollars to the pound. 30 pence. For two.
Cracking view, too. The skyline of Victoria Harbour is spectacular during the day, then a hub of neon at night. HK has a trick up its sleeve - at 8pm every night, the buildings put on a light and laser show. About 20 skyscrapers on both sides of the harbour are synchronised to music (broadcast on FM) for about 10 minutes. The effect is very, very cool as the lights flash, pulse and dance. It is difficult to catch it on film, but the memory of it will stay for a long time.
Day 26 - P-p-p-pick up a p-p-penguin.
Twizel - Hong Kong (via Christchurch and Auckland)
(Ha! I bet you were thinking I would call this bit "Hong Kong Flew-y" or something. Tcha. I do have standards you know.)
Early start for the drive to Christchurch, via Mount Cook. Yet more gorgeous scenery, mirror lakes and so on. All I can say is that you should dig out the recent Lord of the Rings trilogy and look at the filming of it. Peter Jackson didn't need CGI trickery to convey how amazing New Zealand is - all he had to do was set a camera down somewhere and point it at a mountain, river, or plain.
We dropped the car off before the allocated time of 2pm, leaving us with several hours to kill before our connecting flight to Auckland and then onwards. On recommendation this was spent at the International Antarctic Centre.
Christchurch is the home for 70% of the flights and support bases for the various countries in the Antarctic and the IAC is the group of buildings next to the airport for all this sort of thing. They have opened a visitor centre to allow you to get a flavour of living in the Antarctic.
Oh, did I mention it has penguins? Little blue cuddly penguins? You can see why Caroline was desperate to go.
Into the IAC (so well thought out that they provide lockers for hand luggage if people are catching flights) just in time for penguin feeding. The blue penguin is the smallest penguin and the IAC is a sanctuary for injured examples. Now, a penguin is one of the cutest things I have ever seen. Imagine a small penguin - cute times ten. Now imagine an injured one getting fed. On a scale of things, I reckon feeding an injured blue penguin scores about a hundred Andrex puppies.
Also in the IAC is the Chill Room - you put on a thick overcoat and shoes and walk into a room that is kept at -8oC to simulate general conditions for the personnel at the bases. Every so often, they simulate a storm, switch on wind machines and drop the temperature so that it feels like -30oC or so. I thought it would be interesting to try this and you know what? Standing in an icy windy, -30-ish blast isn't as much fun as it sounds.
You can see equipment used at the bases and read some of the documentation they produce - trench humour is apparent, as at Scott Base they even have a golf club with its own rules. Monitors show pictures of the activities at the base, not only the science but also the way that people unwind.
Like the observatories at the summit of Mauna Kea, it takes a special kind of individual to survive the Antarctic. I'd love to see if I was one of them.
Alas, not this time. Time to catch our flights. The 747 from Auckland was full so an overwing seat and a companion on the row - boo! But a pleasant enough flight and I managed to grab four hours sleep before it was time for Hong Kong. Now here will be a culture shock.
(Ha! I bet you were thinking I would call this bit "Hong Kong Flew-y" or something. Tcha. I do have standards you know.)
Early start for the drive to Christchurch, via Mount Cook. Yet more gorgeous scenery, mirror lakes and so on. All I can say is that you should dig out the recent Lord of the Rings trilogy and look at the filming of it. Peter Jackson didn't need CGI trickery to convey how amazing New Zealand is - all he had to do was set a camera down somewhere and point it at a mountain, river, or plain.
We dropped the car off before the allocated time of 2pm, leaving us with several hours to kill before our connecting flight to Auckland and then onwards. On recommendation this was spent at the International Antarctic Centre.
Christchurch is the home for 70% of the flights and support bases for the various countries in the Antarctic and the IAC is the group of buildings next to the airport for all this sort of thing. They have opened a visitor centre to allow you to get a flavour of living in the Antarctic.
Oh, did I mention it has penguins? Little blue cuddly penguins? You can see why Caroline was desperate to go.
Into the IAC (so well thought out that they provide lockers for hand luggage if people are catching flights) just in time for penguin feeding. The blue penguin is the smallest penguin and the IAC is a sanctuary for injured examples. Now, a penguin is one of the cutest things I have ever seen. Imagine a small penguin - cute times ten. Now imagine an injured one getting fed. On a scale of things, I reckon feeding an injured blue penguin scores about a hundred Andrex puppies.
Also in the IAC is the Chill Room - you put on a thick overcoat and shoes and walk into a room that is kept at -8oC to simulate general conditions for the personnel at the bases. Every so often, they simulate a storm, switch on wind machines and drop the temperature so that it feels like -30oC or so. I thought it would be interesting to try this and you know what? Standing in an icy windy, -30-ish blast isn't as much fun as it sounds.
You can see equipment used at the bases and read some of the documentation they produce - trench humour is apparent, as at Scott Base they even have a golf club with its own rules. Monitors show pictures of the activities at the base, not only the science but also the way that people unwind.
Like the observatories at the summit of Mauna Kea, it takes a special kind of individual to survive the Antarctic. I'd love to see if I was one of them.
Alas, not this time. Time to catch our flights. The 747 from Auckland was full so an overwing seat and a companion on the row - boo! But a pleasant enough flight and I managed to grab four hours sleep before it was time for Hong Kong. Now here will be a culture shock.
Day 25 - Call me "dude" and I may have to kill you
Queenstown - Twizel
AJ Hackett invented bungy jumping outside Queenstown. It is a base for skiing, parasailing, speedboating, river rafting, white water speedboats. The town is surrounded by huge mountains, full of people walking up them with every intention of throwing themselves off the edges.
Odd that with such an excess of thrill-seeking that Caroline and I loved the place and didn't want to leave. On our tour of the South Island we have found many places that we wish we could have spent more time in but for me Queenstown was the first place that I wanted to stay for a lot longer.
First job of the day was to head up the Skyline Gondola. This is a 750m cable car that makes a pretty steep ascent up the side of one of the mountains overlooking the town. We had seen the top station, comprising restaurants and such like on our way in the night before. The utter lack of any light between it and the town at the bottom gave the top of the Skyline a curious feel, like it was simply suspended in midair.
If you get the chance, ride the Skyline Gondola to the top. The views are spectacular and that is before you get to the activities available. Queenstown is quite compact below you, but the view of the bay and Lake Wakitipu is unforgettable.
One of the activities is the Skyline Luge. You sit on a plastic tray and gravity takes you down a concrete track. Pull forward on the handlebars to release the brake, push forward to put it on. Harder than it looks and quite exhilarating, especially the Advanced track, which has some seriously cunning dips to increase the speed.
Due to budget constraints, we didn't do the tandem paragliding - one person is strapped to a pilot who simply lifts off and drifts to the bottom, turning and given an unparalleled view of the town.
Once back at the bottom, we ate at a studenty place called The Rock or something. To be fair, it was all a bit studenty. However the food was excellent, my burger was about a foot tall and all in all the atmosphere was just right.
We left Queenstown mid-afternoon, wishing we had several more days to really explore the place. It is a town that you can come to and do just about anything, ski, bungy or parachute in search of adrenaline or just walk and take photos for something more sedate. The activities aren't cheap (but not ripoff stupid either) but you could have a fantastic time there.
On the way out we found ourselves behind a van marked "AJ Hackett - Home of Bungy". I had an inkling that it was heading to a bridge over the Kawarau River, the place where the eponymous Mr Hackett invented bungy jumping. I was right and on a whim, we followed the intrepid jumpers in.
Viewing is free and there are several cameras to help you keep an eye on things. Despite the cold, there was a stream of people willing to trust in a rope made of latex and throw themselves into a river gorge. Personally, I might be stupid but I'm not an idiot. Although the idiot in me was a constant nag, I would estimate that it was 40% "oh, go on, it will be a rush" versus 60% "you have got to be frickin' kidding me". It is when the percentages are reversed that you have got to worry. Or rather, other people worry about me.
Anyway, we watched the jumpers - mainly going in pairs for some reason. I would guess that like misery, sheer abject terror loves company.
Twizel would be our stop for the night. A small town built originally in the late 60's to house the workers for a nearby hydro-electric plant. When the plant was completed, the now-locals campaigned to stay and keep their new home. The motel room was good but the food at the local country inn was sublime.
AJ Hackett invented bungy jumping outside Queenstown. It is a base for skiing, parasailing, speedboating, river rafting, white water speedboats. The town is surrounded by huge mountains, full of people walking up them with every intention of throwing themselves off the edges.
Odd that with such an excess of thrill-seeking that Caroline and I loved the place and didn't want to leave. On our tour of the South Island we have found many places that we wish we could have spent more time in but for me Queenstown was the first place that I wanted to stay for a lot longer.
First job of the day was to head up the Skyline Gondola. This is a 750m cable car that makes a pretty steep ascent up the side of one of the mountains overlooking the town. We had seen the top station, comprising restaurants and such like on our way in the night before. The utter lack of any light between it and the town at the bottom gave the top of the Skyline a curious feel, like it was simply suspended in midair.
If you get the chance, ride the Skyline Gondola to the top. The views are spectacular and that is before you get to the activities available. Queenstown is quite compact below you, but the view of the bay and Lake Wakitipu is unforgettable.
One of the activities is the Skyline Luge. You sit on a plastic tray and gravity takes you down a concrete track. Pull forward on the handlebars to release the brake, push forward to put it on. Harder than it looks and quite exhilarating, especially the Advanced track, which has some seriously cunning dips to increase the speed.
Due to budget constraints, we didn't do the tandem paragliding - one person is strapped to a pilot who simply lifts off and drifts to the bottom, turning and given an unparalleled view of the town.
Once back at the bottom, we ate at a studenty place called The Rock or something. To be fair, it was all a bit studenty. However the food was excellent, my burger was about a foot tall and all in all the atmosphere was just right.
We left Queenstown mid-afternoon, wishing we had several more days to really explore the place. It is a town that you can come to and do just about anything, ski, bungy or parachute in search of adrenaline or just walk and take photos for something more sedate. The activities aren't cheap (but not ripoff stupid either) but you could have a fantastic time there.
On the way out we found ourselves behind a van marked "AJ Hackett - Home of Bungy". I had an inkling that it was heading to a bridge over the Kawarau River, the place where the eponymous Mr Hackett invented bungy jumping. I was right and on a whim, we followed the intrepid jumpers in.
Viewing is free and there are several cameras to help you keep an eye on things. Despite the cold, there was a stream of people willing to trust in a rope made of latex and throw themselves into a river gorge. Personally, I might be stupid but I'm not an idiot. Although the idiot in me was a constant nag, I would estimate that it was 40% "oh, go on, it will be a rush" versus 60% "you have got to be frickin' kidding me". It is when the percentages are reversed that you have got to worry. Or rather, other people worry about me.
Anyway, we watched the jumpers - mainly going in pairs for some reason. I would guess that like misery, sheer abject terror loves company.
Twizel would be our stop for the night. A small town built originally in the late 60's to house the workers for a nearby hydro-electric plant. When the plant was completed, the now-locals campaigned to stay and keep their new home. The motel room was good but the food at the local country inn was sublime.
Day 24 - Wow! Eeeew! But Wow! again
Te Anau - Queenstown
There is a second, less famous sight to see at Te Anau. A short boat ride across the transparent water of Lake Te Anau links to the Glow worm Caves. This is a journey into a part of a long series of caves that have a rather interesting species of creature inside.
First, you enter the caves and up through a series of paths built over the rushing water. The noise of the water, even at a comparatively low water level is almost deafening as it echoes off the walls. There is an eye-popping cascade of water about halfway up and to be honest, I'm glad it hadn't rained too hard recently as the noise would have been overwhelming.
Eventually you reach a small boat and sit in it very, very quietly. As well as total silence, there is total darkness as the boat is slowly hauled into the cave complex.
The reason for the quiet and dark is that the caves are decorated with thousands of tiny dots of light. The light comes from glowworms, anchored to the cave roof. Together, it looked like a fibre optic Christmas tree. To my mind, it looked like the starriest, clearest night you can imagine, except by some trick of perspective, you can stick your hand out and literally touch the stars.
The lack of outside stimuli really messed with my spatial awareness. If you hold your fingers an inch from your eyes you cannot see them. I know, I tried. The boat we were in took a few bumps on the way around for which our guide apologised saying "the current pulled us into the other boat".
The other boat? Another boat of 14 people out there about two feet from my face and I genuinely couldn't tell they were there. As I climbed out into the light of the cave walkway, I felt slightly dizzy with the disorientation.
As we helped ourselves to tea at the Cavern House, a guide showed a film of what we had just seen. The light comes from thousands of inch-long maggots. They cling to the cave roof and create "fishing lines" of spit which is attached to the roof. These lines catch insects like moths and so on, a bit like a spiders web. The maggot them re-ingests the fishing line and eats the catch from the inside out. The maggots are quite territorial as well, and occasionally fight to dislodge each other from the roof to the water below.
Aren't I glad I watched the film after going into the caves?
On returning to Te Anau, it was time to move on. Our next stop would be Queenstown, centre of all things "adventure" and "extreme".
On arrival we sought out food, finding it at a place called Lucianos. One of those Italian Gangster themed places, though the food was much much better and less cliched than the setting. Possibly one of the best meals I have had in a number of years and preety reasonably priced, too. The table next to us did have a guy who complained about his steak though his attitude made me want to throttle him. One of those who said, and I'm only paraphrasing a bit, "I don't care if the head chef has been cooking this for 2 and a half years, I know what is right and what isn't." Gah.
On the way out, I told the staff how much we had enjoyed our meal. I also recommended that they follow through on the gangster setting and shoot anyone who complains.
There is a second, less famous sight to see at Te Anau. A short boat ride across the transparent water of Lake Te Anau links to the Glow worm Caves. This is a journey into a part of a long series of caves that have a rather interesting species of creature inside.
First, you enter the caves and up through a series of paths built over the rushing water. The noise of the water, even at a comparatively low water level is almost deafening as it echoes off the walls. There is an eye-popping cascade of water about halfway up and to be honest, I'm glad it hadn't rained too hard recently as the noise would have been overwhelming.
Eventually you reach a small boat and sit in it very, very quietly. As well as total silence, there is total darkness as the boat is slowly hauled into the cave complex.
The reason for the quiet and dark is that the caves are decorated with thousands of tiny dots of light. The light comes from glowworms, anchored to the cave roof. Together, it looked like a fibre optic Christmas tree. To my mind, it looked like the starriest, clearest night you can imagine, except by some trick of perspective, you can stick your hand out and literally touch the stars.
The lack of outside stimuli really messed with my spatial awareness. If you hold your fingers an inch from your eyes you cannot see them. I know, I tried. The boat we were in took a few bumps on the way around for which our guide apologised saying "the current pulled us into the other boat".
The other boat? Another boat of 14 people out there about two feet from my face and I genuinely couldn't tell they were there. As I climbed out into the light of the cave walkway, I felt slightly dizzy with the disorientation.
As we helped ourselves to tea at the Cavern House, a guide showed a film of what we had just seen. The light comes from thousands of inch-long maggots. They cling to the cave roof and create "fishing lines" of spit which is attached to the roof. These lines catch insects like moths and so on, a bit like a spiders web. The maggot them re-ingests the fishing line and eats the catch from the inside out. The maggots are quite territorial as well, and occasionally fight to dislodge each other from the roof to the water below.
Aren't I glad I watched the film after going into the caves?
On returning to Te Anau, it was time to move on. Our next stop would be Queenstown, centre of all things "adventure" and "extreme".
On arrival we sought out food, finding it at a place called Lucianos. One of those Italian Gangster themed places, though the food was much much better and less cliched than the setting. Possibly one of the best meals I have had in a number of years and preety reasonably priced, too. The table next to us did have a guy who complained about his steak though his attitude made me want to throttle him. One of those who said, and I'm only paraphrasing a bit, "I don't care if the head chef has been cooking this for 2 and a half years, I know what is right and what isn't." Gah.
On the way out, I told the staff how much we had enjoyed our meal. I also recommended that they follow through on the gangster setting and shoot anyone who complains.
Day 23 - Where is Roget when you need him?
Te Anau - Milford Sound and back (240 km)
There were two things I had been looking forward to on this trip, Mauna Kea and Milford Sound. The Sound is one of the most famous places in New Zealand and is always #1 on those Top Ten Things To Do list things. You know the lists, the sort used by tourists to tick off stuff to see and not experience.
Anyway, the drive from Te Anau to the Sound is 120km. Filling up at the last petrol stop, even though the road is 100kph limit all the way, every piece of advice says allow two hours for the journey. This is for two reasons - the Sound is a real mecca for tourists, professional travellers, backpackers, and so on. Even out of season, there were ten or so coaches in Te Anau filling up with people heading to Milford.
The second and most important reason is that the drive is so jaw-droppingly gorgeous that you want to stop every couple of miles to take it all in. You experience every possible bit of scenery you can think of, from mirror clear lakes to forest canopies to huge open plains. As you head further north, the mountains come into view, their snow-covered summits peeking above the clouds. I am no fan of camping, but by God I could spend a few weeks just walking through the many tracks and trails that criss-cross the landscape. It is impossible to tire of it.
We made a number of stops before the Sound, most notably just before the Homer Tunnel. As we pulled into the carpark, Caroline noticed another car with peole looking at it. Perched on top was a kea, a native NZ bird, green and about the size of a parrot. Despite being quite a rare species, keas are overpoweringly curious and this one was sat on the roof of a white Nissan. Seeing our car pull in, the kea immediately did a Starsky and Hutch style slide down the back window and bonnet and then hopped over to inspect our Toyota. Unfortunately for the kea, the taste of Mudflap au Corolla avec Jus de Rear Door wasn't to his liking.
Milford Sound isn't a town or even village, but merely the most spectacular part of an already beautiful country. 14 miles of fiord with 3,000 foot high cliffs carved by the ice adorned with waterfalls, this is Scenery on the grandest of scales. There are regular cruises up and down the fiord run by three or four companies fed by a regular stream of coaches up the Milford Road. There is also the 70km Milford Track for those who wish to experience the area by foot.
I couldn't describe Milford Sound. Just open a thesaurus and pick every superlative in the book. Scale has little meaning as the cruise takes in waterfalls almost 160 feet high, but the size of the cliffs they descend makes the fall seem like the drops from a tap. (For perspective, 160 feet is slightly less than the height of Niagara Falls - which are 167ft high). As a bonus, the boat is manouvered right underneath the spray of the falls and you get an unforgettable reminder of the power of the water. It is easy to see why people travel so far to spend two hours cruising up and down the Sound, even from Te Anau - the closest town to the Sound - it is a 240km round trip but by God it is worth it.
There were two things I had been looking forward to on this trip, Mauna Kea and Milford Sound. The Sound is one of the most famous places in New Zealand and is always #1 on those Top Ten Things To Do list things. You know the lists, the sort used by tourists to tick off stuff to see and not experience.
Anyway, the drive from Te Anau to the Sound is 120km. Filling up at the last petrol stop, even though the road is 100kph limit all the way, every piece of advice says allow two hours for the journey. This is for two reasons - the Sound is a real mecca for tourists, professional travellers, backpackers, and so on. Even out of season, there were ten or so coaches in Te Anau filling up with people heading to Milford.
The second and most important reason is that the drive is so jaw-droppingly gorgeous that you want to stop every couple of miles to take it all in. You experience every possible bit of scenery you can think of, from mirror clear lakes to forest canopies to huge open plains. As you head further north, the mountains come into view, their snow-covered summits peeking above the clouds. I am no fan of camping, but by God I could spend a few weeks just walking through the many tracks and trails that criss-cross the landscape. It is impossible to tire of it.
We made a number of stops before the Sound, most notably just before the Homer Tunnel. As we pulled into the carpark, Caroline noticed another car with peole looking at it. Perched on top was a kea, a native NZ bird, green and about the size of a parrot. Despite being quite a rare species, keas are overpoweringly curious and this one was sat on the roof of a white Nissan. Seeing our car pull in, the kea immediately did a Starsky and Hutch style slide down the back window and bonnet and then hopped over to inspect our Toyota. Unfortunately for the kea, the taste of Mudflap au Corolla avec Jus de Rear Door wasn't to his liking.
Milford Sound isn't a town or even village, but merely the most spectacular part of an already beautiful country. 14 miles of fiord with 3,000 foot high cliffs carved by the ice adorned with waterfalls, this is Scenery on the grandest of scales. There are regular cruises up and down the fiord run by three or four companies fed by a regular stream of coaches up the Milford Road. There is also the 70km Milford Track for those who wish to experience the area by foot.
I couldn't describe Milford Sound. Just open a thesaurus and pick every superlative in the book. Scale has little meaning as the cruise takes in waterfalls almost 160 feet high, but the size of the cliffs they descend makes the fall seem like the drops from a tap. (For perspective, 160 feet is slightly less than the height of Niagara Falls - which are 167ft high). As a bonus, the boat is manouvered right underneath the spray of the falls and you get an unforgettable reminder of the power of the water. It is easy to see why people travel so far to spend two hours cruising up and down the Sound, even from Te Anau - the closest town to the Sound - it is a 240km round trip but by God it is worth it.
Saturday 10 May 2008
Day 22 - Four directions on this map but you're only going one way
Invercargill to Te Anau
We stayed in Invercargill, the second southernmost city in the world. Another veritable architectural delight, lots of late 19th century buildings built by the Scots settlers that have been well maintained and looked after. The largest is the Water Tower which looks spectacular when lit up at night. The Scottishness of Invercargill isn't just reflected in the name but in the street names, Tay, Dee, Don and so on.
We stayed in the Tower Lodge Motel, the nicest place yet. Nice big living area, bedroom, spa bath and shower. Thankfully a lot warmer than the stop in Oamaru, although the weather had got considerably wetter.
Like Dunedin, Invercargill is the sort of place you can easily stay a day wandering around. We were up against a shortage of time, so after taking snaps of some of the interesting buildings we headed north. Or rather, firstly a bit south.
Bluff (as the sign said "Bluff est 1824" - or did it?) is the most southerly point of the South Island. From there, there is Stewart Island, a couple more rocks in the sea and then Antartica. Part fishing village, part port, part supply post for the aluminium smelter across the harbour, either way this place is the end of Southern Highway 1, there is no further to go South.
So we go north, to Te Anau. The Southern Scenic Route is well named, as it takes you through some gloriously pretty places on the way around the bottom of the South Island. Along the way are reminders of how recently the place was settled - we saw the Clifden Suspension Bridge, built in 1890 and in use up to about 30 years ago. For a gaming geek, I couldn't help but stop for a picture of the sign to Monkey Island.
As you head out of Southland (trans: The Land at the South) into Fiordland (trans: Land of Fiords - darned inventive this Victorian Scots) the scenery begins to get hillier. Fiordland contains the Southern Alps and New Zealands largest peak - Mount Cook. It also contains plenty of fiords (that is the with an "i", the correct spelling) and harbours - including a place called Pearl Harbour, which was just crying out for a picture.
Our destination for the night was Te Anau, a holiday stopoff sort of place as it is the last major town before the next place on our itinerary, the famous Milford Sound. Arriving after dark, the place is like a quieter, posher Blackpool with everywhere seeming to be a motel, hotel or backpacker place. After a little faffing, we did find some digs for just $60 per night. A hearty meal at The Moose and then a good nights sleep.
We stayed in Invercargill, the second southernmost city in the world. Another veritable architectural delight, lots of late 19th century buildings built by the Scots settlers that have been well maintained and looked after. The largest is the Water Tower which looks spectacular when lit up at night. The Scottishness of Invercargill isn't just reflected in the name but in the street names, Tay, Dee, Don and so on.
We stayed in the Tower Lodge Motel, the nicest place yet. Nice big living area, bedroom, spa bath and shower. Thankfully a lot warmer than the stop in Oamaru, although the weather had got considerably wetter.
Like Dunedin, Invercargill is the sort of place you can easily stay a day wandering around. We were up against a shortage of time, so after taking snaps of some of the interesting buildings we headed north. Or rather, firstly a bit south.
Bluff (as the sign said "Bluff est 1824" - or did it?) is the most southerly point of the South Island. From there, there is Stewart Island, a couple more rocks in the sea and then Antartica. Part fishing village, part port, part supply post for the aluminium smelter across the harbour, either way this place is the end of Southern Highway 1, there is no further to go South.
So we go north, to Te Anau. The Southern Scenic Route is well named, as it takes you through some gloriously pretty places on the way around the bottom of the South Island. Along the way are reminders of how recently the place was settled - we saw the Clifden Suspension Bridge, built in 1890 and in use up to about 30 years ago. For a gaming geek, I couldn't help but stop for a picture of the sign to Monkey Island.
As you head out of Southland (trans: The Land at the South) into Fiordland (trans: Land of Fiords - darned inventive this Victorian Scots) the scenery begins to get hillier. Fiordland contains the Southern Alps and New Zealands largest peak - Mount Cook. It also contains plenty of fiords (that is the with an "i", the correct spelling) and harbours - including a place called Pearl Harbour, which was just crying out for a picture.
Our destination for the night was Te Anau, a holiday stopoff sort of place as it is the last major town before the next place on our itinerary, the famous Milford Sound. Arriving after dark, the place is like a quieter, posher Blackpool with everywhere seeming to be a motel, hotel or backpacker place. After a little faffing, we did find some digs for just $60 per night. A hearty meal at The Moose and then a good nights sleep.
Day 21 - An unexpected privilege
Dunedin - Invercargill
We stayed in the Law Courts Hotel in central Dunedin. Once frequented by the Queen and Prince Phleep no less. However, that was in 1954 and the place is a bit more "faded glory" these days. Still, central location, clean room plus two breakfasts for 40 quid isn't to be turned down lightly. I've said it before and I'll say it again, NZ really is very good for decent accommodation.
The hotel was next to Cadbury World New Zealand and we had planned on nipping into the factory shop. We've been to its bigger brother in the UK more than once, so had no need of tours and things. We were disappointed to find that for some unfathomable reason, we had to buy a tour ticket to enter the shop. Cadburys NZ do a whole bunch of weird Dairy Milk flavours (Black Forest Gateau really works, mind) but paying $10 for the right to buy more seemed a bit off.
So we didn't and jumped into the car. A longer drive this time, and a bit disappointing for much of the way. We had hoped to go to the Cathedral Caves, huge holes in the cliff face near a beach but it seemed typical of the day that the caves were only accessible at low tide, and we arrived at the wrong time.
Final stop of the day, late afternoon, was the petrified forest at Curio Bay. Again, Carolines interest in geology for this one, a forest preserved in the rock and sand of the beach on the Bay. When we arrived and had a look, we saw a couple of people looking at something off to their left.
A penguin. Just climbed up from the sea and heading to its nest.
We quickly made our way down to the beach and took up a position far enough away not to disturb it. This wasn't a reserve or anything, just a normal beach and it was clear that this place was used as a nesting ground. Caroline was taking photos of this penguin from about hundred feet away and cursing for the thousandth time that she didn't have a big enough lens to get close-ups. That was when I pointed out a shape near us.
Bobbing in the ocean about twenty feet away was another Yellow-Eyed Penguin. Everything we had been told about them was that this species was rare and shy, yet to our eternal delight, this particular bird decided that we were no threat and hopped onto the rocks next to us. We both tried to stay absolutely still and silent - as usual, this is the time when all manner of itches, sneezes and so on try to make themselves known - and the penguin stood so close to us we could reach out and touch it.
After five minutes or so or hopping about, and a brief trip back into the sea, our new friend decided it was time to make his bed for the night. Out he came again, waddled past us, up the rocks and into the bushes.
To see something as rare and unexpected as that is an utter privilege. In everyday conditions, you don't choose to see wildlife, it chooses to tolerate you. These penguins could easily have scooted back into the ocean and back to safety, waiting for us to leave. Instead they trusted us and we were repaid with something neither of us will ever forget.
We stayed in the Law Courts Hotel in central Dunedin. Once frequented by the Queen and Prince Phleep no less. However, that was in 1954 and the place is a bit more "faded glory" these days. Still, central location, clean room plus two breakfasts for 40 quid isn't to be turned down lightly. I've said it before and I'll say it again, NZ really is very good for decent accommodation.
The hotel was next to Cadbury World New Zealand and we had planned on nipping into the factory shop. We've been to its bigger brother in the UK more than once, so had no need of tours and things. We were disappointed to find that for some unfathomable reason, we had to buy a tour ticket to enter the shop. Cadburys NZ do a whole bunch of weird Dairy Milk flavours (Black Forest Gateau really works, mind) but paying $10 for the right to buy more seemed a bit off.
So we didn't and jumped into the car. A longer drive this time, and a bit disappointing for much of the way. We had hoped to go to the Cathedral Caves, huge holes in the cliff face near a beach but it seemed typical of the day that the caves were only accessible at low tide, and we arrived at the wrong time.
Final stop of the day, late afternoon, was the petrified forest at Curio Bay. Again, Carolines interest in geology for this one, a forest preserved in the rock and sand of the beach on the Bay. When we arrived and had a look, we saw a couple of people looking at something off to their left.
A penguin. Just climbed up from the sea and heading to its nest.
We quickly made our way down to the beach and took up a position far enough away not to disturb it. This wasn't a reserve or anything, just a normal beach and it was clear that this place was used as a nesting ground. Caroline was taking photos of this penguin from about hundred feet away and cursing for the thousandth time that she didn't have a big enough lens to get close-ups. That was when I pointed out a shape near us.
Bobbing in the ocean about twenty feet away was another Yellow-Eyed Penguin. Everything we had been told about them was that this species was rare and shy, yet to our eternal delight, this particular bird decided that we were no threat and hopped onto the rocks next to us. We both tried to stay absolutely still and silent - as usual, this is the time when all manner of itches, sneezes and so on try to make themselves known - and the penguin stood so close to us we could reach out and touch it.
After five minutes or so or hopping about, and a brief trip back into the sea, our new friend decided it was time to make his bed for the night. Out he came again, waddled past us, up the rocks and into the bushes.
To see something as rare and unexpected as that is an utter privilege. In everyday conditions, you don't choose to see wildlife, it chooses to tolerate you. These penguins could easily have scooted back into the ocean and back to safety, waiting for us to leave. Instead they trusted us and we were repaid with something neither of us will ever forget.
Day 20 - What's that coming over the hill? Is it a penguin? Is it a penguin?
Oamaru - Dunedin
Attention New Zealand traffic. If you see a blue Toyota Corolla sitting at a junction with its wipers going, the driver wishes to turn left. Thankyou.
Yes, our little Corolla has one major flaw. The indicators and wipers are on the wrong side. Every car I have ever driven including the hire cars on this trip has the indicators on the left and the wipers on the right. Except this car. I am faced with breaking a 17 year habit. It isn't easy.
First stop of the day - the Moeraki Boulders. On Moeraki beach is a set of almost perfectly spherical rocks, many of them about five feet in diameter. Some appear buried in the sand like half-hidden mines, others look like they have been rolled into place. The appearance of the boulders is more than a little disconcerting, especially as some of them have a sort of slimy looking hexagonal glue (actually solid to the touch mineral) looking more than a little like a huge turtle shell. Some of the boulders have even split apart along these lines and opened up. The overall effect is something like the egg out of Alien and I couldn't help thinking that they would make a perfect hatching pod for some kind of creature in a Doctor Who episode.
Lunch in Dunedin, a very, very picturesque city. Lots of late 19th century Victorian architecture, including the amazing Railway Station.
Final stop of the day was out on the Otago Penisula. A slightly scary drive (the edge of the road had no barrier, simply dumping you in the sea) out to the Penguin Place Reserve. This was one of the few places where you could sit and watch the rare and quite shy Yellow Eyed Penguin. If you timed it right, which in our case was late afternoon, you could even watch them coming out of the sea and heading towards their nests.
I was a little reluctant to part with the $35 each given my misgivings with Rotorua. I was proved wrong, as we boarded a small bus to journey the 2km or so into the Pinguin Risirve.* The money has gone to build a veritable warren of tunnels and hides in which to view the penguins. You can get very close to some of the nesting boxes without being noticed.
*(Sorry, I am having real trouble with the Noo Zeelun accint. Among other things, 'E' is largely pronounced 'I'.)
Or indeed without noticing the penguins. The group was being led down a path past a couple of boxes when I suddenly caught something in the corner of my eye. Inside a nesting box, not three feet away, a pair of eyes was looking at me. It was a Blue Penguin, the smallest penguin in the wild. Obviously he had come home a little early and was just watching us walk by.
From our vantage point on the hill we began to see the penguins making their way out of the sea and towards the reserve. The main thing that hits you about them is their speed. They might look like they are clumsily waddling but in actuality, they are agile and fast moving. It isn't graceful by any means, but they can shift quite quickly and they moved over the hill into the sand dunes and the reserve area.
Our guide did an excellent job of leading us through the maze, trying to work out which penguin was heading where and going for the best viewing spot. There were plenty of good photo opportunities, although it did seem at times like a game of - pardon the pun - cat and mouse as a penguin would head for its nest, we would move to get there to see it and the bird would simply stop just out of full view for a good preen. No consideration, some creatures.
Being a fan of anything with feathers, Caroline was in her element and it was a very happy wife that I drove back to Dunedin.
Attention New Zealand traffic. If you see a blue Toyota Corolla sitting at a junction with its wipers going, the driver wishes to turn left. Thankyou.
Yes, our little Corolla has one major flaw. The indicators and wipers are on the wrong side. Every car I have ever driven including the hire cars on this trip has the indicators on the left and the wipers on the right. Except this car. I am faced with breaking a 17 year habit. It isn't easy.
First stop of the day - the Moeraki Boulders. On Moeraki beach is a set of almost perfectly spherical rocks, many of them about five feet in diameter. Some appear buried in the sand like half-hidden mines, others look like they have been rolled into place. The appearance of the boulders is more than a little disconcerting, especially as some of them have a sort of slimy looking hexagonal glue (actually solid to the touch mineral) looking more than a little like a huge turtle shell. Some of the boulders have even split apart along these lines and opened up. The overall effect is something like the egg out of Alien and I couldn't help thinking that they would make a perfect hatching pod for some kind of creature in a Doctor Who episode.
Lunch in Dunedin, a very, very picturesque city. Lots of late 19th century Victorian architecture, including the amazing Railway Station.
Final stop of the day was out on the Otago Penisula. A slightly scary drive (the edge of the road had no barrier, simply dumping you in the sea) out to the Penguin Place Reserve. This was one of the few places where you could sit and watch the rare and quite shy Yellow Eyed Penguin. If you timed it right, which in our case was late afternoon, you could even watch them coming out of the sea and heading towards their nests.
I was a little reluctant to part with the $35 each given my misgivings with Rotorua. I was proved wrong, as we boarded a small bus to journey the 2km or so into the Pinguin Risirve.* The money has gone to build a veritable warren of tunnels and hides in which to view the penguins. You can get very close to some of the nesting boxes without being noticed.
*(Sorry, I am having real trouble with the Noo Zeelun accint. Among other things, 'E' is largely pronounced 'I'.)
Or indeed without noticing the penguins. The group was being led down a path past a couple of boxes when I suddenly caught something in the corner of my eye. Inside a nesting box, not three feet away, a pair of eyes was looking at me. It was a Blue Penguin, the smallest penguin in the wild. Obviously he had come home a little early and was just watching us walk by.
From our vantage point on the hill we began to see the penguins making their way out of the sea and towards the reserve. The main thing that hits you about them is their speed. They might look like they are clumsily waddling but in actuality, they are agile and fast moving. It isn't graceful by any means, but they can shift quite quickly and they moved over the hill into the sand dunes and the reserve area.
Our guide did an excellent job of leading us through the maze, trying to work out which penguin was heading where and going for the best viewing spot. There were plenty of good photo opportunities, although it did seem at times like a game of - pardon the pun - cat and mouse as a penguin would head for its nest, we would move to get there to see it and the bird would simply stop just out of full view for a good preen. No consideration, some creatures.
Being a fan of anything with feathers, Caroline was in her element and it was a very happy wife that I drove back to Dunedin.
Day 19 - Crossroads Motel
Auckland - Christchurch (??? km)
Christchurch - Oamaru
Time to subject ourselves to the ravages of Air New Zealand once more and fly from Auckland down to Christchurch. I jest, as they really are quite superb. Express Check-in at the terminal even with all our heavy luggage. Bit of a cockup, mind, as the terminal spat out two tickets, one with Carolines name o it and one by the name of Bruce somebody. Turns out that the machine was a bit screwy and was keeping hold of the last ticket. No matter, quickly sorted and through security - six times so far and no beep.
The plan for the South Island is fluid. Basically, we want to get to Milford Sound and back before the 13th. This will involve driving the Southern Scenic Route around to Te Anau, but we aren't planning on staying anywhere in particular. This part of the honeymoon is Caroline's bit, as she gets to indulge her passion for geology and wildlife.
New Zealand is blessed with a surfeit of cheap motels. Basically small drive up studio flats, perfect for people journeying around the country. Our first stop was in Oamaru on the east coast. We found a small place out of town for just $65 and it was pretty much ideal, apart from one small factor - it was bloody freezing. I think the temparature was about 9oC but still being used to the 80oC plus of Hawaii, it was a shock to the system. Never mind, as we settled down for a cold night.
Christchurch - Oamaru
Time to subject ourselves to the ravages of Air New Zealand once more and fly from Auckland down to Christchurch. I jest, as they really are quite superb. Express Check-in at the terminal even with all our heavy luggage. Bit of a cockup, mind, as the terminal spat out two tickets, one with Carolines name o it and one by the name of Bruce somebody. Turns out that the machine was a bit screwy and was keeping hold of the last ticket. No matter, quickly sorted and through security - six times so far and no beep.
The plan for the South Island is fluid. Basically, we want to get to Milford Sound and back before the 13th. This will involve driving the Southern Scenic Route around to Te Anau, but we aren't planning on staying anywhere in particular. This part of the honeymoon is Caroline's bit, as she gets to indulge her passion for geology and wildlife.
New Zealand is blessed with a surfeit of cheap motels. Basically small drive up studio flats, perfect for people journeying around the country. Our first stop was in Oamaru on the east coast. We found a small place out of town for just $65 and it was pretty much ideal, apart from one small factor - it was bloody freezing. I think the temparature was about 9oC but still being used to the 80oC plus of Hawaii, it was a shock to the system. Never mind, as we settled down for a cold night.
Day 18 - Diamond Geysers
Up early to pick up a car for a day - Ford Focus and boy was it tricky to get used to right hand drive again. The plan was to drive south to Rotorua, an area of geothermal activity with mud, geysers, spas all that sort of thing.
First stop however were the Domains. These are remnants of volcano cones, long extinct and now turned into parks. The main Auckland Domain is the site of the New Zealand War Museum, housed in a magnificently imposing building. Although we didn't have time to go through the museum, it is a reminder than World Wars I and II had an effect even so far away.
The second Domain was the famous One Tree Hill, site of the peace treaty between the European settlers and the Maori. The cenotaph at the top commemorates this and offers stunning views of the city far below. The steep hills around it make the perfect spot for jogging, biking and general keeping fit - it would be impossible to stay inside if you had a wide open space like this nearby.
We headed south on Southern Highway 1. Driving in New Zealand is easy. Everyone largely obeys the speed limits, even on the wide open road. These limits are quite low, the maximum speed even on the motorway is 100kph, which translates to 62mph or so. The trickiest bit was remembering that New Zealand is a metric country - I was ready to say that the Focus accelerated like a rocket, until I noticed the speedo was reading in kph which was a bit more unimpressive.
Speaking of unimpressed, we were disappointed when we got to Rotorua. The geysers are also of intense Maori cultural significance, which means that Te Puri is a sort of Maori village-cum-theme park. In other words, to experience the geysers you have to pay. A lot. NZD$50 per adult, about 21 quid.
I don't particularly think this is right. In my opinion, if you build something, you have every right to charge an entry fee for it. However, if something just happens to be there, then sticking a whacking great fence around it and charging an entry fee is Simply Not On. I don't care how many guided tours, how many entries to cultural dances and so on are included, I feel I ought to be able to walk up to a hole in the ground. By all means build things around it and charge for them and maybe ask for a donation to upkeep of paths and stuff, but 42 quid for the privilege? Get stuffed.
We arrived at 5pm. The place shut at 6pm. I wouldn't have minded so much if they offered entry for a fiver or something as it was so late. To be fair, it was a similar story down the road at "Hells Gate", another geyser and mud bath complex.
(As an aside, never quite seen the point of covering yourself in mud to sort out the skin. After all, my mum used to go ape when I came home caked in mud after playing football.)
So my experience of Rotorua is confined to the smell. Which you can trust me, is enough of a memory to take away. Imagine a team of hockey players, post game, unshowered. They have been eating a combination of baked beans, figs and kebabs where the meat is of unknown origin. All washed down by several gallons of real ale.
The resulting stench is a decent approximation of the smell of Rotorua, but lacks a certain enveloping quality of the geysers. As a bloke who was described by Geoffers on my wedding day as "having a carbon footprint", I can only say "yeesh".
Of course, the next time Caroline complains if I guff, I can always say "yeah, but it isn't as bad as Rotorua".
First stop however were the Domains. These are remnants of volcano cones, long extinct and now turned into parks. The main Auckland Domain is the site of the New Zealand War Museum, housed in a magnificently imposing building. Although we didn't have time to go through the museum, it is a reminder than World Wars I and II had an effect even so far away.
The second Domain was the famous One Tree Hill, site of the peace treaty between the European settlers and the Maori. The cenotaph at the top commemorates this and offers stunning views of the city far below. The steep hills around it make the perfect spot for jogging, biking and general keeping fit - it would be impossible to stay inside if you had a wide open space like this nearby.
We headed south on Southern Highway 1. Driving in New Zealand is easy. Everyone largely obeys the speed limits, even on the wide open road. These limits are quite low, the maximum speed even on the motorway is 100kph, which translates to 62mph or so. The trickiest bit was remembering that New Zealand is a metric country - I was ready to say that the Focus accelerated like a rocket, until I noticed the speedo was reading in kph which was a bit more unimpressive.
Speaking of unimpressed, we were disappointed when we got to Rotorua. The geysers are also of intense Maori cultural significance, which means that Te Puri is a sort of Maori village-cum-theme park. In other words, to experience the geysers you have to pay. A lot. NZD$50 per adult, about 21 quid.
I don't particularly think this is right. In my opinion, if you build something, you have every right to charge an entry fee for it. However, if something just happens to be there, then sticking a whacking great fence around it and charging an entry fee is Simply Not On. I don't care how many guided tours, how many entries to cultural dances and so on are included, I feel I ought to be able to walk up to a hole in the ground. By all means build things around it and charge for them and maybe ask for a donation to upkeep of paths and stuff, but 42 quid for the privilege? Get stuffed.
We arrived at 5pm. The place shut at 6pm. I wouldn't have minded so much if they offered entry for a fiver or something as it was so late. To be fair, it was a similar story down the road at "Hells Gate", another geyser and mud bath complex.
(As an aside, never quite seen the point of covering yourself in mud to sort out the skin. After all, my mum used to go ape when I came home caked in mud after playing football.)
So my experience of Rotorua is confined to the smell. Which you can trust me, is enough of a memory to take away. Imagine a team of hockey players, post game, unshowered. They have been eating a combination of baked beans, figs and kebabs where the meat is of unknown origin. All washed down by several gallons of real ale.
The resulting stench is a decent approximation of the smell of Rotorua, but lacks a certain enveloping quality of the geysers. As a bloke who was described by Geoffers on my wedding day as "having a carbon footprint", I can only say "yeesh".
Of course, the next time Caroline complains if I guff, I can always say "yeah, but it isn't as bad as Rotorua".
Day 17 - City of Sails
Despite a decent-ish sleep on the flight, we were definitely feeling the effects when we got to Auckland. We needed our wits about us too, as New Zealand is very strict when it comes to biosecurity. We were given the entry form and even though we knew what we were letting ourselves in for, it was still a bit of a surprise to tick most of the boxes for bringing in stuff. Admittedly, the form says tick "Yes" if you are not sure, but we had wood carvings (a tiki from the North Shore), foodstuffs and had definitely been in a forest a few days earlier.
The officials were quite cheery and efficient and once we had explained why we were declaring everything, they seemed quite content to check things over and let us through. A short bus ride to the hotel and even though we were an hour early for the prearranged early checkin time of 10am, the room was all ready for us.
Good job too, as I immediately flaked out on the bed for a couple of hours. Could have gone on a lot longer as well but we both felt slightly guilty for doing nothing on one of our two and a bit days in the city. So we headed out into the rain and did a short bit of wandering around.
You know what? Auckland is boring.
There isn't that much to do. The SkyCity tower is not much cop on a rainy day like the one we were experiencing. It is a nice enough city, don't get me wrong, clean, not busy at all. But staying down near the harbour, there was sod all to see and do really.
Probably didn't help that we were so tired, so an early night.
The officials were quite cheery and efficient and once we had explained why we were declaring everything, they seemed quite content to check things over and let us through. A short bus ride to the hotel and even though we were an hour early for the prearranged early checkin time of 10am, the room was all ready for us.
Good job too, as I immediately flaked out on the bed for a couple of hours. Could have gone on a lot longer as well but we both felt slightly guilty for doing nothing on one of our two and a bit days in the city. So we headed out into the rain and did a short bit of wandering around.
You know what? Auckland is boring.
There isn't that much to do. The SkyCity tower is not much cop on a rainy day like the one we were experiencing. It is a nice enough city, don't get me wrong, clean, not busy at all. But staying down near the harbour, there was sod all to see and do really.
Probably didn't help that we were so tired, so an early night.
Day 16 - The Twilight Zone
We set off at 23.15 on Friday 2nd May. Having been 11 hours behind the UK, we crossed the Equator and then the International Date Line to land in Auckland at 6.30am, Sunday 4th May. Therefore this day doesn't exist and the entry for this day is a figment of your imagination.
Day 15 - Swimming with Turtles
With our planned day of doing sod all going out of the window yesterday, it was time to take advantage of the resorts facilities. We cleared out of the room and left the bags in storage for the day. Presumably because so many flights leave late, the resort also offers hospitality rooms for you to clean up before your flight - so we booked one for 5.30pm.
With all that sorted, it was time to mop up a couple of things and then hit the beach. We jumped in the Mustang and headed a couple of miles down the road to take a few photos of the tikis at the Polynesian Centre. On the way back, we decided to pull into eat at Giovannis Shrimp Truck.
The North Shore is dotted with shrimp trucks, serving jumbo sized prawns so fresh you can hear them asking each other "hang on, where has the ocean gone?" Giovannis is the most famous of these, their stock meal is twelve prawns and two scoops of rice for twelve dollars. Normally you would take the standard garlic option but to be honest, you could smell the garlic from several feet away. With a long flight that evening, if we had had the garlic prawns I would have understood it if the flight crew had asked us to move somewhere else to avoid offending the other passengers. Like outside the plane. So we settled for the very nice and much more socially responsible lemon and butter option.
Back at Turtle Bay, we pulled the beach towels out of the boot and settled down on the sand, I put on the shades and closed my eyes then.... "Turtle! Mike! There is a turtle!"
Two of them in fact, lazily swimming a few feet from the shorefront. Every so often one would poke its head above the water but between them they seemed completely oblivious to the humans happilly taking photos a couple of feet away. It seems kind of odd that they would be here in the middle of all this human activity, but I suppose that because people seem to instinctively keep a respectful distance, the turtles don't get frightened away.
It wasn't quite as warm as in Waikiki, the cloud cover keeping the temperatures down to the high 70s or so and as thoughts turned to getting a drink and cleaned up, it even managed to rain slightly. All that did was hasten our move to the bar as we sat with a pair of fruit smoothies to die for before making use of the hospitality room to shower and change.
A final farewell meal at the beach bar to say goodbye to Turtle Bay and then the issue of loading up the Mustang with our bags. Thankfully, it seemed a little easier than the outward journey, presumably squishing four three-quarters full bags was easier than handling three full ones, plus chucking hand luggage into any available nook or cranny.
Although I preferred the Explorer on the Big Island, the Mustang left an impression on me. Mainly because we caught the courtesy shuttle to the terminal and I still had the keys in my pocket.
Into the slowest check-in line in history - I swear there must have been 20 people ahead of us, yet it still took over an hour. Still, it killed a bit of time for the 23.15 departure time. A Boeing 767 this time, flying to Auckland and thankfully on Air New Zealand once more. We even managed to bag an exit row which meant lots and lots of lovely legroom for the nine hour flight.
With all that sorted, it was time to mop up a couple of things and then hit the beach. We jumped in the Mustang and headed a couple of miles down the road to take a few photos of the tikis at the Polynesian Centre. On the way back, we decided to pull into eat at Giovannis Shrimp Truck.
The North Shore is dotted with shrimp trucks, serving jumbo sized prawns so fresh you can hear them asking each other "hang on, where has the ocean gone?" Giovannis is the most famous of these, their stock meal is twelve prawns and two scoops of rice for twelve dollars. Normally you would take the standard garlic option but to be honest, you could smell the garlic from several feet away. With a long flight that evening, if we had had the garlic prawns I would have understood it if the flight crew had asked us to move somewhere else to avoid offending the other passengers. Like outside the plane. So we settled for the very nice and much more socially responsible lemon and butter option.
Back at Turtle Bay, we pulled the beach towels out of the boot and settled down on the sand, I put on the shades and closed my eyes then.... "Turtle! Mike! There is a turtle!"
Two of them in fact, lazily swimming a few feet from the shorefront. Every so often one would poke its head above the water but between them they seemed completely oblivious to the humans happilly taking photos a couple of feet away. It seems kind of odd that they would be here in the middle of all this human activity, but I suppose that because people seem to instinctively keep a respectful distance, the turtles don't get frightened away.
It wasn't quite as warm as in Waikiki, the cloud cover keeping the temperatures down to the high 70s or so and as thoughts turned to getting a drink and cleaned up, it even managed to rain slightly. All that did was hasten our move to the bar as we sat with a pair of fruit smoothies to die for before making use of the hospitality room to shower and change.
A final farewell meal at the beach bar to say goodbye to Turtle Bay and then the issue of loading up the Mustang with our bags. Thankfully, it seemed a little easier than the outward journey, presumably squishing four three-quarters full bags was easier than handling three full ones, plus chucking hand luggage into any available nook or cranny.
Although I preferred the Explorer on the Big Island, the Mustang left an impression on me. Mainly because we caught the courtesy shuttle to the terminal and I still had the keys in my pocket.
Into the slowest check-in line in history - I swear there must have been 20 people ahead of us, yet it still took over an hour. Still, it killed a bit of time for the 23.15 departure time. A Boeing 767 this time, flying to Auckland and thankfully on Air New Zealand once more. We even managed to bag an exit row which meant lots and lots of lovely legroom for the nine hour flight.
Day 14 - Temples
The Mustang wasn't particularly in the plan. Turtle Bay is a self-contained resort, with championship golf courses, restaurants, beaches, surf schools. The idea is that you turn up, get pampered something rotten and never, ever leave the confines of the resort until it is time to go home.
This is probably the very antithesis of how Caroline and I travel, we aren't tourists, we are professional travellers. But to be honest, after a couple of weeks of catering for ourselves, the idea of having someone on hand to sort out every whim was damned attractive and it is, after all, our honeymoon.
So to have to spend the day out of the resort was disappointing. Instead of lazing on the beach, we had to go back to Waikiki to pick up the now repaired bag. No choice but to jump in the Mustang and head south this time by the scenic route.
We are so glad we did, as we managed to see a wonderful little place that we would not have known about if it hadn't been for Kenn on the tour.
The Valley of the Temples is possibly the prettiest cemetary in the world. The area contains graves of all denominations, along with a Catholic Church and the astonishing Byodo-in Buddhist Temple. This temple celebrates 100 years of Japanese people in the Hawaiian islands. It was built in 1969 as a replica of a temple in Japan and despite its size was constructed of wood and entirely without nails.
It has to be the most serene and peaceful place I have ever been in. The quiet is only broken by the occasional tolling of a massive bell, rung by the visitors to announce their presence. From there, you walk slowly to the temple itself, removing your shoes at the entrance. Inside, there is a massive Buddha (the largest made in recent times apparently) to look at. Although I am not particularly religious - although with its "live and let live" philosophy Buddhism is as close to my own outlook on life as religion gets - it is impossible not to find an inner peace and reflection.
On exiting the temple, there is a small shop across a bridge. The bridge is crowded with birds above and huge koi carp in the lake below. The reason is quickly clear - the shop sells fish and bird food for $1 and they have learned to come down and eat directly from your hand. In fact, hold out a handful of food and they will land on your head, your arm or each other in order to get fed.
From there it was back to Waikiki to pick up the now repaired suitcase. It was nearly 5pm once we had got done so we thought we would try to grab a quick view of Diamond Head, the big crater at the end of Waikiki Beach. We drove through the tunnel into the crater, up to the entrance booth and got a very impolite "We're closed!". Despite the signs clearly showing closing at 6pm. Tcha. Still, this meant we could head towards Sandy Beach and watch the surfers and swimmers before heading back north.
This is probably the very antithesis of how Caroline and I travel, we aren't tourists, we are professional travellers. But to be honest, after a couple of weeks of catering for ourselves, the idea of having someone on hand to sort out every whim was damned attractive and it is, after all, our honeymoon.
So to have to spend the day out of the resort was disappointing. Instead of lazing on the beach, we had to go back to Waikiki to pick up the now repaired bag. No choice but to jump in the Mustang and head south this time by the scenic route.
We are so glad we did, as we managed to see a wonderful little place that we would not have known about if it hadn't been for Kenn on the tour.
The Valley of the Temples is possibly the prettiest cemetary in the world. The area contains graves of all denominations, along with a Catholic Church and the astonishing Byodo-in Buddhist Temple. This temple celebrates 100 years of Japanese people in the Hawaiian islands. It was built in 1969 as a replica of a temple in Japan and despite its size was constructed of wood and entirely without nails.
It has to be the most serene and peaceful place I have ever been in. The quiet is only broken by the occasional tolling of a massive bell, rung by the visitors to announce their presence. From there, you walk slowly to the temple itself, removing your shoes at the entrance. Inside, there is a massive Buddha (the largest made in recent times apparently) to look at. Although I am not particularly religious - although with its "live and let live" philosophy Buddhism is as close to my own outlook on life as religion gets - it is impossible not to find an inner peace and reflection.
On exiting the temple, there is a small shop across a bridge. The bridge is crowded with birds above and huge koi carp in the lake below. The reason is quickly clear - the shop sells fish and bird food for $1 and they have learned to come down and eat directly from your hand. In fact, hold out a handful of food and they will land on your head, your arm or each other in order to get fed.
From there it was back to Waikiki to pick up the now repaired suitcase. It was nearly 5pm once we had got done so we thought we would try to grab a quick view of Diamond Head, the big crater at the end of Waikiki Beach. We drove through the tunnel into the crater, up to the entrance booth and got a very impolite "We're closed!". Despite the signs clearly showing closing at 6pm. Tcha. Still, this meant we could head towards Sandy Beach and watch the surfers and swimmers before heading back north.
Tuesday 6 May 2008
Day 12 and 13 - You say Hilo, we say Goodbye
Combined these two as we spent a couple of days just chilling out and staying local. Yet more Scenery, as visited the Akaka Falls, a 200 foot waterfall. I love just standing and watching waterfalls, I find that the way the water splits and twists on a dramatic drop to the bottom completely mesmerising. Akaka Falls reminded me of one of my favourite spots in upstate New York - Taughannock Falls - in the way that you walk through the undergrowth until you make it to a clearing where the sight just takes the breath away.
Caroline was more than pleased with the walk, as she happily snapped photos of the rainforest. There was the largest bamboo tree I have ever seen - must have been a hundred feet high or so, and about forty feet wide at the base.
Downtown Hilo is an interesting place. Very 1930s, not quite Art Deco but lots of old wooden buildings. This is a little bit of a surprise, as the town was devastated by a tsunami but there still remains much of the character.
Hilo is also the stop off for cruise ships, which take tourists on trips out and past the town. Not quite sure why people would choose to get off a ship and go to a Macadamia Nut factory, but hey, different strokes. We just popped into the place on the way home to pick up some nutty goodness and coffee to send back home. Not that we were being tourists - we had just got a taste of macadamias on the tour a few days ago and this place did the best - Covered in Maui Onion, garlic, chocolate or coffee (no, not all at the same time) they are the sort of thing that you could eat a lot of, very quickly. Rather than take them with us to New Zealand, it is much better to send them home and savour the flavour.
Time to leave the Big Island, with a lot of memories and plenty of unfinished business which is how it should be. I left Caroline at the airport to check in the bags - this time we did get caught over our allowance as we were still down to three bags - and dropped the Explorer off.
I really rather liked that car/truck/SUV. It coped with everything we threw at it and was very, very comfortable in our long journeys. We covered about 900 miles and filled up twice, so despite being quite big and heavy, the slow speeds did help the fuel economy a bit. It is the perfect vehicle for the Big Island though if you buy one at home for the school run, you really do need shooting.
Shared the shuttle back to the airport with a bad tempered US couple, who managed to ask Caroline "So, Mrs Bus Lady Person, when are going to be driving us back to the airport?" which has made me snigger for days.
As is always the way, we had problems getting into Hilo but Go! Airlines were perfect when it comes to leave and we headed the 224 miles back to Honolulu with heavy hearts. We really did fall in love with the Big Island and it lived up to all our hopes and expectations.
Back on Oahu, we headed to the car rental agency. We were to stay at Turtle Bay Resort, the very northernmost point of the island. A taxi would probably be about $70 each way, buses wouldn't carry the heavy bags and we would have to get ourselves back to Waikiki to pick up the bag that was broken last week, so it made financial sense to hire a car. I booked a Focus or equivalent over the net the previous night and then turned up at the desk.
"You have booked a Class C car, we have a special offer on at the moment. For an extra $20 a day, you can upgrade to any of these."
The attendant waved over the list of cars. My eyes never wavered from one particular picture.
"Does that include one of them?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oooh... one of them, then."
"Red, white or blue?"
"Red, please."
And that is how Caroline and I spent a couple of days cruising around Oahu in a gorgeous convertible V8 Ford Mustang. It would have rude not to, really.
Not that practicality came into it - it was tricky to figure out how to pack the five bags we had with us, let alone the one we have to pick up but if I'm offered a V8 Mustang convertible, then I'm bloomin' well going to take it.
Caroline was more than pleased with the walk, as she happily snapped photos of the rainforest. There was the largest bamboo tree I have ever seen - must have been a hundred feet high or so, and about forty feet wide at the base.
Downtown Hilo is an interesting place. Very 1930s, not quite Art Deco but lots of old wooden buildings. This is a little bit of a surprise, as the town was devastated by a tsunami but there still remains much of the character.
Hilo is also the stop off for cruise ships, which take tourists on trips out and past the town. Not quite sure why people would choose to get off a ship and go to a Macadamia Nut factory, but hey, different strokes. We just popped into the place on the way home to pick up some nutty goodness and coffee to send back home. Not that we were being tourists - we had just got a taste of macadamias on the tour a few days ago and this place did the best - Covered in Maui Onion, garlic, chocolate or coffee (no, not all at the same time) they are the sort of thing that you could eat a lot of, very quickly. Rather than take them with us to New Zealand, it is much better to send them home and savour the flavour.
Time to leave the Big Island, with a lot of memories and plenty of unfinished business which is how it should be. I left Caroline at the airport to check in the bags - this time we did get caught over our allowance as we were still down to three bags - and dropped the Explorer off.
I really rather liked that car/truck/SUV. It coped with everything we threw at it and was very, very comfortable in our long journeys. We covered about 900 miles and filled up twice, so despite being quite big and heavy, the slow speeds did help the fuel economy a bit. It is the perfect vehicle for the Big Island though if you buy one at home for the school run, you really do need shooting.
Shared the shuttle back to the airport with a bad tempered US couple, who managed to ask Caroline "So, Mrs Bus Lady Person, when are going to be driving us back to the airport?" which has made me snigger for days.
As is always the way, we had problems getting into Hilo but Go! Airlines were perfect when it comes to leave and we headed the 224 miles back to Honolulu with heavy hearts. We really did fall in love with the Big Island and it lived up to all our hopes and expectations.
Back on Oahu, we headed to the car rental agency. We were to stay at Turtle Bay Resort, the very northernmost point of the island. A taxi would probably be about $70 each way, buses wouldn't carry the heavy bags and we would have to get ourselves back to Waikiki to pick up the bag that was broken last week, so it made financial sense to hire a car. I booked a Focus or equivalent over the net the previous night and then turned up at the desk.
"You have booked a Class C car, we have a special offer on at the moment. For an extra $20 a day, you can upgrade to any of these."
The attendant waved over the list of cars. My eyes never wavered from one particular picture.
"Does that include one of them?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oooh... one of them, then."
"Red, white or blue?"
"Red, please."
And that is how Caroline and I spent a couple of days cruising around Oahu in a gorgeous convertible V8 Ford Mustang. It would have rude not to, really.
Not that practicality came into it - it was tricky to figure out how to pack the five bags we had with us, let alone the one we have to pick up but if I'm offered a V8 Mustang convertible, then I'm bloomin' well going to take it.
Monday 5 May 2008
Day 11 - Island Drive
Early start after yesterdays volcano watching. The aim was to circle as much of the Big Island as we could, using the Hawaii Belt Road to go past the South Point and round to Kona. Driving in such an open place is a little odd - I've got a 4WD with a 4.6 litre V8 engine and the thing is forced to trundle around at a speed limit obeying 45mph and 35mph. It seemed to be a waste of time and incredibly frustrating, especialy when presented with a four or five mile pice of road so straight it would mae the Roman army proud.
South Point wasn't all that much, a twelve mile drive down a one lane paved road to the most southerly point in the US. The Point itself is a good, if very windy fishing spot. The only real thing there is the remnants of landing platforms for the loads of fish brought by the boats. Remarkable, as the platforms and ladders must have been 100 feet high given the height of the cliffs and the climb down in the gusting winds would have been interesting to say the least.
We also passed a decrepit, abandoned wind farm. I'm trying to find ot more about the place, as it had a large number of wind turbines seemingly left to just rust. A couple would still turn lazily, others were missing entire vanes. When was it built? Why was it just abandoned? Why not just demolish it properly?
Onward to Kona. The Big Island has a split personality. The side where we were staying is the "wet" side", Kona is on the dry side. This is because the sheer bulk of Mauna Loa and the height of Mauna Kea prevent much of the clouds from crossing to Kona and dump their water on Hilo. So the western side of Big Island is much more touristy.
Before you get to Kona you do pass through coffee country. I don't drink the stuff, but the sheer gorgeous smell of the coffee accompanied us on the drive to a small place called The Painted Church. This is a wooden church set on a hill above the sea, built and decorated in the late 1800s by just one man. When I say "decorated", the priest painted some stunning murals inside, depicting various stories in the Bible - the most impressive of which was one of Jesus rejecting the Devil. As a sheer labour of love, combined with an impressive work of art, The Painted Church deserves a visit. Reminded me greatly of the similar Italian Chapel on Orkney which is another triumph of the human spirit in adversity.
By the time we got to Kona, it was clear it was a bit too much on the commercial side. The views were excellent and we drove by the resort past all the beachfront hotels. Reminded me of Waikiki but without the designer labels. Quite thankful we chose Volcano and not Kona as our base for the Big Island - I got the impression that in Hilo and Volcano, they just quietly go about their business of everyday life and hope that the tourists in Kona don't notice them.
One thing we did like was on the drive out of Kona, past the airport. The road is long, straight and through a valley of black lava, dotted with small white rocks. The side of the road has become a sort of text message alley, where people arrange the rocks to leave a message which may brighten a commuters day. Some are declarations of love, some wishes for happy birthday or anniversaries, some a memorial to a friend. There must be hundreds or thousands of individual messages along this stretch of road and it must be a cheerful drive through every day.
South Point wasn't all that much, a twelve mile drive down a one lane paved road to the most southerly point in the US. The Point itself is a good, if very windy fishing spot. The only real thing there is the remnants of landing platforms for the loads of fish brought by the boats. Remarkable, as the platforms and ladders must have been 100 feet high given the height of the cliffs and the climb down in the gusting winds would have been interesting to say the least.
We also passed a decrepit, abandoned wind farm. I'm trying to find ot more about the place, as it had a large number of wind turbines seemingly left to just rust. A couple would still turn lazily, others were missing entire vanes. When was it built? Why was it just abandoned? Why not just demolish it properly?
Onward to Kona. The Big Island has a split personality. The side where we were staying is the "wet" side", Kona is on the dry side. This is because the sheer bulk of Mauna Loa and the height of Mauna Kea prevent much of the clouds from crossing to Kona and dump their water on Hilo. So the western side of Big Island is much more touristy.
Before you get to Kona you do pass through coffee country. I don't drink the stuff, but the sheer gorgeous smell of the coffee accompanied us on the drive to a small place called The Painted Church. This is a wooden church set on a hill above the sea, built and decorated in the late 1800s by just one man. When I say "decorated", the priest painted some stunning murals inside, depicting various stories in the Bible - the most impressive of which was one of Jesus rejecting the Devil. As a sheer labour of love, combined with an impressive work of art, The Painted Church deserves a visit. Reminded me greatly of the similar Italian Chapel on Orkney which is another triumph of the human spirit in adversity.
By the time we got to Kona, it was clear it was a bit too much on the commercial side. The views were excellent and we drove by the resort past all the beachfront hotels. Reminded me of Waikiki but without the designer labels. Quite thankful we chose Volcano and not Kona as our base for the Big Island - I got the impression that in Hilo and Volcano, they just quietly go about their business of everyday life and hope that the tourists in Kona don't notice them.
One thing we did like was on the drive out of Kona, past the airport. The road is long, straight and through a valley of black lava, dotted with small white rocks. The side of the road has become a sort of text message alley, where people arrange the rocks to leave a message which may brighten a commuters day. Some are declarations of love, some wishes for happy birthday or anniversaries, some a memorial to a friend. There must be hundreds or thousands of individual messages along this stretch of road and it must be a cheerful drive through every day.
Sunday 4 May 2008
Scream if you want to go faster
I mentioned California Screamin'. Well, here is the launch. 0-55mph in 4 seconds, fired 250 feet down the track and then up and over a 120 foot high hill.
Day 10 - "You've got to throw it in there, Mr Frodo!"
If yesterday was my specialist interest, then today was Carolines. We were staying in Volcano village, a mile or two outside the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The Park is home to several volcanoes, including Kilauea which has erupted continuously since the early 1980s.
The UK is quite lucky in that it really doesn't have weather or geology that the rest of the world has to deal with. We don't have extremes of cold or heat, high mountains or earthquakes. Therefore, when you get presented with some Real Live Geography, it can be difficult to comprehend or even describe.
We were lucky in our timing, as one of the craters that form Kilauea, the Halema'uma'u had started smoking quite actively. When I say Kilauea had been erupting, I don't mean firing great gobbets of lava a thousand feet into the sky, the lava is elsewhere. Instead, the crater has been emitting tons of volcanic gases into the sky. Normally it just smokes quietly to itself, throwing out gas, including about 20 tons of sulphur dioxide a day. When the wind blows this emission over the land, the locals called it volcanic smog or "vog". Now more active, Halema'uma'u was pouring over 1500 tons of SO2 into the atmosphere and if the wind was in the wrong direction, the vog would cover Volcano village. As we were in Waikiki, we saw reports that due to the northern tradewinds dying out before switching to a southerly direction for the next few months, the vog was settling over Volcano, the park was closed and residents advised to stay inside.
Thankfully the winds had picked up when we arrived and the gas was being blown SE, forcing the closure of a large part of the Crater Rim Drive but giving some perfect views of the crater from the Jagger Museum.
To witness the sheer pent up power of a volcano is an unforgettable sight. The hole blasted in the side of the crater is only 35 metres wide, yet it was pumping gas out at a huge rate and forming spectacular clouds. The trails leading across to the crater were closed, but the museum had provided several sets of telescopes for close up viewing. Inside, you could see the live readouts from the seismic monitors, measuring the contraction and expansion of the very ground beneath your feet - the overall effect was difficult to comprehend as the instruments indicated that the place you were standing on was actually rising. Although Halema'uma'u is not spitting out lava, it was only 2km below the surface.
That one volcano is just a small part of the park. Along with steam vents (where rainwater is pushed back above ground by the heat) and sulphur banks, there is the Thurston Lava Tube. A lava tube is a sort of tunnel through which the molten lava flows. The Lava Tube is about 300m long and lit so that you can walk through. You might think that an underground cave would be quite small, but in places the tube is 21ft high and never less than about 12ft. To stand in the tube and imagine the sheer amount of liquid rock that must have flowed through there is mind boggling.
You get to the Lava Tube down the Chain of Craters Road. This is the old Highway 130, passing the craters of many past volcanoes, leaving behind huge 600ft cliffs. Every so often, the road is just surrounded by black rock, the remnants of lava flows from the past 20 or 30 years. Again the sheer scale of the devastation has to be seen to be believed.
We didn't make it to the end of Highway 130 - because as darkness fell, we had to get to the other end of Highway 130. Which sounds confusing until I explain that in the 1980s, a particular eruption of Kilauea flowed right across Highway 130, splitting it into two. Repair was impossible as it wiped out about 10 miles of road, as well as an entire town called Kapalana.
I mentioned that Kilauea is still erupting - this is evidenced by the activity at Kalapana. Lava is flowing along lava tubes for about 10 miles or so until it hits, quite literally, the Pacific Ocean. At Kalapana you can walk across the old lava field until about two miles distance where at night, you can see the red hot glow and steam of lava meeting water.
One of the most explosive combinations possible is something super hot hitting water, especially if the water has nowhere to go. For example, when the Space Shuttle lifts off, there are huge plumes of smoke and steam. This is from the water below the launch pad - the rocket exhaust instantly turns the water to steam which then blasts outwards.
The Halema'uma'u crater is a creation of lava hitting water. The area was regularly a lake of molten lava that would rise and fall like the water level in a sink. Eventually the lava fell through the bottom of basin onto water collected below. The resulting explosion created the Halema'uma'u crater, some 200 feet deep and over a quarter of a mile across. Rocks were found four miles away. That is the sort of explosive power of a volcano, and Kilauea isn't even a big volcano.
The drive to Kalapana is much trickier than the Saddle Road and I was grateful to be in a 4WD. At the 22 mile marker, the road literally stops. The lava flowed directly across Highway 130, destroying everything, including the town. (There are stories of the residents throwing propane tanks in front of their houses. They were not insured for volcano damage, but they were insured for fire. If they could get the tanks to ignite the house before the lava took it, they could make a claim.)
The drive across the lava is at least two miles, before you get to a car park. The attendants check you have water, a flashlight and decent footwear for the mile walk to the viewing area. People without lights or wearing sandals are not allowed. The walk is comparatively tricky, stepping across cracks and around boulders and the absolute darkness doesn't help.
Eventually we reached the shoreline and turned off the lights. There is no mistaking where you are supposed to look - the only thing in the pitch black darkness is the red glow in the distance. As you get accustomed to the view, you pick out individual plumes of steam as three or four active tubes vent directly into the Pacific.
The sight is more spectacularly as the lava drops ten or more feet into the water. I could pick out not only the steam but occasionally lava itself, spat back by the reaction against the water. Given the distance from the site, I cannot begin to work out how big those chunks of rock must be in order for me to see them from two miles away.
This is the process of building land, as Kilueaa has created 200 acres of new land in 20 years. If you ever want to feel insignificant, to put the problems of the world into perspective, go watch a volcano busy creating an entire country.
The UK is quite lucky in that it really doesn't have weather or geology that the rest of the world has to deal with. We don't have extremes of cold or heat, high mountains or earthquakes. Therefore, when you get presented with some Real Live Geography, it can be difficult to comprehend or even describe.
We were lucky in our timing, as one of the craters that form Kilauea, the Halema'uma'u had started smoking quite actively. When I say Kilauea had been erupting, I don't mean firing great gobbets of lava a thousand feet into the sky, the lava is elsewhere. Instead, the crater has been emitting tons of volcanic gases into the sky. Normally it just smokes quietly to itself, throwing out gas, including about 20 tons of sulphur dioxide a day. When the wind blows this emission over the land, the locals called it volcanic smog or "vog". Now more active, Halema'uma'u was pouring over 1500 tons of SO2 into the atmosphere and if the wind was in the wrong direction, the vog would cover Volcano village. As we were in Waikiki, we saw reports that due to the northern tradewinds dying out before switching to a southerly direction for the next few months, the vog was settling over Volcano, the park was closed and residents advised to stay inside.
Thankfully the winds had picked up when we arrived and the gas was being blown SE, forcing the closure of a large part of the Crater Rim Drive but giving some perfect views of the crater from the Jagger Museum.
To witness the sheer pent up power of a volcano is an unforgettable sight. The hole blasted in the side of the crater is only 35 metres wide, yet it was pumping gas out at a huge rate and forming spectacular clouds. The trails leading across to the crater were closed, but the museum had provided several sets of telescopes for close up viewing. Inside, you could see the live readouts from the seismic monitors, measuring the contraction and expansion of the very ground beneath your feet - the overall effect was difficult to comprehend as the instruments indicated that the place you were standing on was actually rising. Although Halema'uma'u is not spitting out lava, it was only 2km below the surface.
That one volcano is just a small part of the park. Along with steam vents (where rainwater is pushed back above ground by the heat) and sulphur banks, there is the Thurston Lava Tube. A lava tube is a sort of tunnel through which the molten lava flows. The Lava Tube is about 300m long and lit so that you can walk through. You might think that an underground cave would be quite small, but in places the tube is 21ft high and never less than about 12ft. To stand in the tube and imagine the sheer amount of liquid rock that must have flowed through there is mind boggling.
You get to the Lava Tube down the Chain of Craters Road. This is the old Highway 130, passing the craters of many past volcanoes, leaving behind huge 600ft cliffs. Every so often, the road is just surrounded by black rock, the remnants of lava flows from the past 20 or 30 years. Again the sheer scale of the devastation has to be seen to be believed.
We didn't make it to the end of Highway 130 - because as darkness fell, we had to get to the other end of Highway 130. Which sounds confusing until I explain that in the 1980s, a particular eruption of Kilauea flowed right across Highway 130, splitting it into two. Repair was impossible as it wiped out about 10 miles of road, as well as an entire town called Kapalana.
I mentioned that Kilauea is still erupting - this is evidenced by the activity at Kalapana. Lava is flowing along lava tubes for about 10 miles or so until it hits, quite literally, the Pacific Ocean. At Kalapana you can walk across the old lava field until about two miles distance where at night, you can see the red hot glow and steam of lava meeting water.
One of the most explosive combinations possible is something super hot hitting water, especially if the water has nowhere to go. For example, when the Space Shuttle lifts off, there are huge plumes of smoke and steam. This is from the water below the launch pad - the rocket exhaust instantly turns the water to steam which then blasts outwards.
The Halema'uma'u crater is a creation of lava hitting water. The area was regularly a lake of molten lava that would rise and fall like the water level in a sink. Eventually the lava fell through the bottom of basin onto water collected below. The resulting explosion created the Halema'uma'u crater, some 200 feet deep and over a quarter of a mile across. Rocks were found four miles away. That is the sort of explosive power of a volcano, and Kilauea isn't even a big volcano.
The drive to Kalapana is much trickier than the Saddle Road and I was grateful to be in a 4WD. At the 22 mile marker, the road literally stops. The lava flowed directly across Highway 130, destroying everything, including the town. (There are stories of the residents throwing propane tanks in front of their houses. They were not insured for volcano damage, but they were insured for fire. If they could get the tanks to ignite the house before the lava took it, they could make a claim.)
The drive across the lava is at least two miles, before you get to a car park. The attendants check you have water, a flashlight and decent footwear for the mile walk to the viewing area. People without lights or wearing sandals are not allowed. The walk is comparatively tricky, stepping across cracks and around boulders and the absolute darkness doesn't help.
Eventually we reached the shoreline and turned off the lights. There is no mistaking where you are supposed to look - the only thing in the pitch black darkness is the red glow in the distance. As you get accustomed to the view, you pick out individual plumes of steam as three or four active tubes vent directly into the Pacific.
The sight is more spectacularly as the lava drops ten or more feet into the water. I could pick out not only the steam but occasionally lava itself, spat back by the reaction against the water. Given the distance from the site, I cannot begin to work out how big those chunks of rock must be in order for me to see them from two miles away.
This is the process of building land, as Kilueaa has created 200 acres of new land in 20 years. If you ever want to feel insignificant, to put the problems of the world into perspective, go watch a volcano busy creating an entire country.
Thursday 1 May 2008
Day 9 - Top of the World
I was 7 when I decided I wanted to go to Mauna Kea. I saw the place on an old TV show called Arthur C Clarkes Mysterious World, whch was about all the odd things like the Yeti, UFOs and all that sort of stuff that fascinates a young mind. This particular show was about this huge mountain that was quickly becoming home to all sort of neat telescopes, staring out and exploring the universe.
I mentioned the elevation at Volcano, 4000 feet above sea level. To get to the top of Mauna Kea, you must take the Saddle Road - a thin strip of tarmac that crosses the Big Island from East to North West, between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.
(Digression - Measured from its base, Mauna Loa is the tallest mountain on the planet. A total of about 32,000 feet tall (3,000 more than Everest) but with two-thirds of its massive bulk underwater. Mauna Loa is also still an active volcano, yet the sheer size of the thing means it is actually getting lower, collapsing under its own weight.)
The Saddle Road and the trip to the observatories was the reason we hired a 4WD. Only one car rental company allows its vehicles up the Saddle Road and off to the summit. In fact, most rental companies specifically ban the use of their cars on that road.
It is a 26 mile drive from Hilo to the observatory turnoff and to be honest, I couldn't see the need for a 4WD. Although the road continuously climbs to 6,600 feet, it was no more challenging than a drive through the Lake District. We kept up a speed of about 40mph, until hitting mile marker 19, where the road was undergoing nearly 20 miles of resurfacing and realignment. Even though it was unpaved, even then I would have been quite happy to put my little Skoda on the road.
Upon reaching the highest point of the Saddle Road, time to turn off. People are advised to make a stop en route, at the Ellison Onizuka Visitor Information Station. Six miles from the Saddle Road, but crucially, 9,000 feet elevation. So by the time you reach the VIS, you are two Ben Nevis' above sea level.
The VIS, named after a Hawaii astronaut who died in the Challenger disaster, is a stopoff for star gazing, information about Mauna Kea itself, a rest halt and a starting point for Summit Tours. Although it is possible to drive to the summit yourself, each day there is an organised Summit Tour, where an astronomer shows you a film about Mauna Kea and then a couple of Park Rangers lead a convoy to the summit.
The film is about an hour long and has a strong emphasis on the importance of Mauna Kea to the Hawaiians. Effectively, it is the Mount Olympus of their culture, the home of the Gods. There has been, and continues to be, much conflict between the Hawaiians and the astronomers - the latter have found the perfect place on the entire planet to peer out into the skies.
This is because of a combination of factors. The summit is easily accessible and there is very little light pollution from below. It is above a tropical inversion layer, above the clouds which means very little interference from the weather for 300 or so days each year. The islands position on the planet affords a great view of 70% of the sky.
There is a second reason for the film - it forces your body to acclimatise to the height. The VIS is at 9,000 feet but the summit is a further 6 miles and 4,700 feet, another Ben Nevis worth. At the full height of 13,776 feet, there is 40% less oxygen in the air than you are used to. At that height, your body is effectively starved of oxygen and water - technically, you are dying very slowly. It has some... interesting effects.
After watching the film and picking up some bits and pieces at the shop, it was time to join the convoy to the summit. The journey took about 25 minutes and yes, you do need a 4x4 to get to the top. Nt because the road is tricky - it is mostly gravel all the way - but mainly because at the altitude, a 4WD generally has an engine with enough grunt to make it up the steep inclines.
Caroline and I are travellers, we aren't tourists. There is a difference. Travellers, when faced with something like Mauna Kea, do their research. They find out about the restriction on hire cars, they realise that at 14,000 feet, it might be a bit nippy and plan accordingly.
Tourists take any old car to the VIS. They arrive in sandals and shorts. They grumble and then spend lots of money in the shop buying warm clothing. They grumble about having to sit through the film. They have to cadge a lift to the summit because their hire car is banned and uninsured anyway.
In this case, the tourist was from the UK and really, really pissed me off.
Anyway, unlike people who travel up on their own, as part of an organised tour by the park, we were allowed into the W.M Keck Observatory, the newest of the telescopes at the summit. The technology involved in all of the telescopes was quite mind boggling in places - some of them have mirrors almost 10 metres wide, but the Keck 'scopes (for there are two identical setups) are a group of hexagons, about 1 metre each which fit together to form one big mirror. The advantage to this is that if there is an imperfection then you don't have to fix the entire thing, you just remove a panel and replace it. A second benefit that even on an object so comparatively small, gravity bends the mirrors slightly, and the computers can adjust the segments twice a second.
Mind boggling number time. The mirrors are so perfectly smooth that if they were the size of the Earth, then the largest bump would be just two feet high. We're talking molecules of height imperfection. The mirror arrangement weighs 270 tons, yet is so perfectly balanced that if the drive motors were switched off, you could move the whole assembly around with just one hand.
I mentioned the side effects of the altitude - the summit isn't an easy place to be. The temperature is about freezing both outside and inside the domes (the air temperature is matched to reduce turbulence in front of the mirrors). The lack of oxygen makes you feel slightly woozy. You yawn a lot and are advised to bend your knees - you may suddenly keel over. Simple memory is difficult - our tour guide introduced himself as Don, when he was actually called Josh. Don was the Park Ranger in charge of the group, when asked how the astronomers coped with up to 14 hour shifts overnight, he simply said "natural selection - either you can handle it, or you can't. And you never know until you try."
Caroline was pretty badly affected by the altitude. I took some time, was pretty uncomfortable for about 15 minutes and then got my bearings a bit. Combined with this and the cloud rolling over the summit meant we weren't going to hang around for the sunset. Usually the sunset is pretty spectacular, with the clouds a thousand feet below you and only the stars above - my luck wasn't in, this was going to be a cloudy night. So we walked around the outside of the domes and had a look around.
Next to the Keck Observatory is the Subaru telescope. There is a very odd thing about this scope - I mentioned air turbulence before. The movement of air makes visibility quite difficult, it is moving air that makes stars twinkle when you look at them. Obviously when you are peering through the universe, this local blurring can be a problem. The computers recalibrate the images thousands of times per second to compensate. The way Subaru does this is to send an audible sonar whistle through the air - standing next to it you keep hearing pulses of beeps going up and down the scales. The computers measure the pulses and calculate the adjustments. A very neat solution to the problem but very eerie to stand there and listen to.
We began the journey back down while the light was half decent, stopping for Caroline to take photos which will hopefully turn out OK. The geology of Mauna Kea is as impressive as the science at the top - lots of snow tipped volcanic cinder cones, lava flows and odd plateaus. You can understand why NASA trained its astronauts for moon landings in such a landscape.
Night fell quickly as we hit the Saddle Road. A final number for you. On the journey down, admittedly in a big heavy 4x4, I decided to just use momentum and the brakes to keep the car going. It was a sort of game I occasionally do to keep myself alert on a tricky road - how far can you get without needing to accelerate.
From the start point to when I finally had to press the gas pedal to accelerate away from a set of traffic lights was eighteen miles.
I mentioned the elevation at Volcano, 4000 feet above sea level. To get to the top of Mauna Kea, you must take the Saddle Road - a thin strip of tarmac that crosses the Big Island from East to North West, between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.
(Digression - Measured from its base, Mauna Loa is the tallest mountain on the planet. A total of about 32,000 feet tall (3,000 more than Everest) but with two-thirds of its massive bulk underwater. Mauna Loa is also still an active volcano, yet the sheer size of the thing means it is actually getting lower, collapsing under its own weight.)
The Saddle Road and the trip to the observatories was the reason we hired a 4WD. Only one car rental company allows its vehicles up the Saddle Road and off to the summit. In fact, most rental companies specifically ban the use of their cars on that road.
It is a 26 mile drive from Hilo to the observatory turnoff and to be honest, I couldn't see the need for a 4WD. Although the road continuously climbs to 6,600 feet, it was no more challenging than a drive through the Lake District. We kept up a speed of about 40mph, until hitting mile marker 19, where the road was undergoing nearly 20 miles of resurfacing and realignment. Even though it was unpaved, even then I would have been quite happy to put my little Skoda on the road.
Upon reaching the highest point of the Saddle Road, time to turn off. People are advised to make a stop en route, at the Ellison Onizuka Visitor Information Station. Six miles from the Saddle Road, but crucially, 9,000 feet elevation. So by the time you reach the VIS, you are two Ben Nevis' above sea level.
The VIS, named after a Hawaii astronaut who died in the Challenger disaster, is a stopoff for star gazing, information about Mauna Kea itself, a rest halt and a starting point for Summit Tours. Although it is possible to drive to the summit yourself, each day there is an organised Summit Tour, where an astronomer shows you a film about Mauna Kea and then a couple of Park Rangers lead a convoy to the summit.
The film is about an hour long and has a strong emphasis on the importance of Mauna Kea to the Hawaiians. Effectively, it is the Mount Olympus of their culture, the home of the Gods. There has been, and continues to be, much conflict between the Hawaiians and the astronomers - the latter have found the perfect place on the entire planet to peer out into the skies.
This is because of a combination of factors. The summit is easily accessible and there is very little light pollution from below. It is above a tropical inversion layer, above the clouds which means very little interference from the weather for 300 or so days each year. The islands position on the planet affords a great view of 70% of the sky.
There is a second reason for the film - it forces your body to acclimatise to the height. The VIS is at 9,000 feet but the summit is a further 6 miles and 4,700 feet, another Ben Nevis worth. At the full height of 13,776 feet, there is 40% less oxygen in the air than you are used to. At that height, your body is effectively starved of oxygen and water - technically, you are dying very slowly. It has some... interesting effects.
After watching the film and picking up some bits and pieces at the shop, it was time to join the convoy to the summit. The journey took about 25 minutes and yes, you do need a 4x4 to get to the top. Nt because the road is tricky - it is mostly gravel all the way - but mainly because at the altitude, a 4WD generally has an engine with enough grunt to make it up the steep inclines.
Caroline and I are travellers, we aren't tourists. There is a difference. Travellers, when faced with something like Mauna Kea, do their research. They find out about the restriction on hire cars, they realise that at 14,000 feet, it might be a bit nippy and plan accordingly.
Tourists take any old car to the VIS. They arrive in sandals and shorts. They grumble and then spend lots of money in the shop buying warm clothing. They grumble about having to sit through the film. They have to cadge a lift to the summit because their hire car is banned and uninsured anyway.
In this case, the tourist was from the UK and really, really pissed me off.
Anyway, unlike people who travel up on their own, as part of an organised tour by the park, we were allowed into the W.M Keck Observatory, the newest of the telescopes at the summit. The technology involved in all of the telescopes was quite mind boggling in places - some of them have mirrors almost 10 metres wide, but the Keck 'scopes (for there are two identical setups) are a group of hexagons, about 1 metre each which fit together to form one big mirror. The advantage to this is that if there is an imperfection then you don't have to fix the entire thing, you just remove a panel and replace it. A second benefit that even on an object so comparatively small, gravity bends the mirrors slightly, and the computers can adjust the segments twice a second.
Mind boggling number time. The mirrors are so perfectly smooth that if they were the size of the Earth, then the largest bump would be just two feet high. We're talking molecules of height imperfection. The mirror arrangement weighs 270 tons, yet is so perfectly balanced that if the drive motors were switched off, you could move the whole assembly around with just one hand.
I mentioned the side effects of the altitude - the summit isn't an easy place to be. The temperature is about freezing both outside and inside the domes (the air temperature is matched to reduce turbulence in front of the mirrors). The lack of oxygen makes you feel slightly woozy. You yawn a lot and are advised to bend your knees - you may suddenly keel over. Simple memory is difficult - our tour guide introduced himself as Don, when he was actually called Josh. Don was the Park Ranger in charge of the group, when asked how the astronomers coped with up to 14 hour shifts overnight, he simply said "natural selection - either you can handle it, or you can't. And you never know until you try."
Caroline was pretty badly affected by the altitude. I took some time, was pretty uncomfortable for about 15 minutes and then got my bearings a bit. Combined with this and the cloud rolling over the summit meant we weren't going to hang around for the sunset. Usually the sunset is pretty spectacular, with the clouds a thousand feet below you and only the stars above - my luck wasn't in, this was going to be a cloudy night. So we walked around the outside of the domes and had a look around.
Next to the Keck Observatory is the Subaru telescope. There is a very odd thing about this scope - I mentioned air turbulence before. The movement of air makes visibility quite difficult, it is moving air that makes stars twinkle when you look at them. Obviously when you are peering through the universe, this local blurring can be a problem. The computers recalibrate the images thousands of times per second to compensate. The way Subaru does this is to send an audible sonar whistle through the air - standing next to it you keep hearing pulses of beeps going up and down the scales. The computers measure the pulses and calculate the adjustments. A very neat solution to the problem but very eerie to stand there and listen to.
We began the journey back down while the light was half decent, stopping for Caroline to take photos which will hopefully turn out OK. The geology of Mauna Kea is as impressive as the science at the top - lots of snow tipped volcanic cinder cones, lava flows and odd plateaus. You can understand why NASA trained its astronauts for moon landings in such a landscape.
Night fell quickly as we hit the Saddle Road. A final number for you. On the journey down, admittedly in a big heavy 4x4, I decided to just use momentum and the brakes to keep the car going. It was a sort of game I occasionally do to keep myself alert on a tricky road - how far can you get without needing to accelerate.
From the start point to when I finally had to press the gas pedal to accelerate away from a set of traffic lights was eighteen miles.
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