South Island Travels

I spent nearly a week down in the South Island catching up with friends after my first visit to Wellington.

 

Becca and Christian very kindly gave me an early morning lift to the Interisland Ferry terminal and at a cold but sunny lunchtime I arrived in Picton to see Patrick waiting, picnic basket and feijoas a-ready for our drive down to the East Coast to Kaikoura for a night and then on to Christchurch.

     

Kaikoura is absolutely stunning – amazing views of the mountains on one side, and pebble beaches, coastal
walks and seal colonies. Patrick knew of a little secret-ish spot up a river where he showed me THIS

                           

Aaaamaaaaazing number of baby seals playing in the waterfall pool. No mama seals anywhere - apparently the adults can't get up the river, but leave the kids to play while they go out to sea to find food.

 

We took an inland route down to Christchurch that the cute old couple who ran the ‘tourist flat’ we stayed in had recommended – stunning alpine scenery and lots of autumnal colours. We picnicked alongside a creek and arrived in Christchurch late afternoon.

I was pretty surprised by Christchurch – we drove straight into the city centre and to be honest, I hadn’t seen any pictures since the second big earthquake. The clean up process is well under way but the devastation the quakes have caused is awful. I have to really admire the Cantabrians who are just getting on with their everyday lives and working out how to deal with the problems that numerous aftershocks are contributing to.

We spent the night at one of Patrick’s friends who woke us up early to drive to the middle of nowhere and watch a rocket launch by Otago University. It was pretty cool, if not quite as planned (they lost the rocket somewhere.) Oh, and went to a great little bar called Darkroom that a friends of friends have set up near the CBD/stadium. They are nothing if not enthusiastic for a wide range of beers and spirits. That sounded dorkily like advertising, but they really are.

Second night we headed to the grand ol’ farming town of Ashburton to see the lovely Harriet, before an early-ish start to Nelson on the Sunday. This might be a journey I remember for a loooong time. Driving though Lewis Pass on the night of the super moon reflecting on the river and the snow-topped alps was breathtaking. Adding to this was the super awesome mist that rolled in somewhere near Springs Junction.


Then after three very relaxing days in Nelson with Pat and his family (hope your leg is doing ok Rosemary!) I flew off to Wellington to see everyone again.

Lazy Days

I’m sitting in the lounge, basking in the sunshine while Mama’s big dinner preparations are under way and Dad is wandering around making weird mumbling noises about chopping wood for the fire tonight. Bon Iver is playing on the stereo, and the mountain has come out from the clouds to show off it’s full snow-capped glory.

The week has gone by faster than I expected – pub quiz, lots of eating out, a trip out to Eltham with Papa to learn about seismic, movies, vintage shopping, running and saunas with Mum and even mani/pedicures! It’s nice to be spoilt rotten at home.

**EDIT – I didn’t actually press publish so here’s some extra photos of Dad kiting today down at back beach.

    

SNOW DAY!

Katie came over for dinner last night, bringing with her a heavy snowfall that covered Hampstead within a few hours. So of COURSE we had to go play.

  

I set up the camera to take a photo of us (on my new Christmas tripod – thanks mum and dad!) but hadn’t gotten round to installing the remote control software for it so Katie and I starjumped ourselves into giggles trying to get the timing right for a photo. If I was more patient I’d make a .gif but I’m not today so here are all the photos in a line :D

And then of course I got up nice and early this morning to take Alfie out – he went absolutely insane with excitement! My new favourite game is to throw snowballs at him and watch his confusion at the ‘balls’ disappearance when he catches them in his mouth.

    

If you click on the last photo you can see a mad man in his speedos climbing out of the pond where he’d been swimming. In the background you can see the pond frozen over.

I’m in love with Nepal all over again.

Trekking was AMAZING.

I realised I’ve run out of words to describe Nepal.

Breath-taking, stunning, spectacular, awe inspiring, fantastic, beautiful, wondrous…

I went with Kinnari on a organised trek for 5 days to Poon Hill at 3219m. We made it in 4 days, and went paragliding and stayed an extra night in Pokhara.

I almost died the first day (as you all should know, I am slightly adverse to exercise.) We walked in VERY hot weather, uphill for 5 hours, and then an extra hour to make it to the top of the steepest hill I’ve ever climbed. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT.

This was our morning cup of tea view from Ulleri -

We stayed in tea houses the whole way round, and this one was empty and had the best hot shower ever, and the cutest little family running it.

We got up early the next day and watched all the other trekkers who had stayed at the more touristy spot at the bottom of the hill struggle past. Then we set off up the hill, packs and all, and I discovered that there is a reason I lived in Wellington for 4 years – it was all building up to be able to climb massive hills for hours.

We walked through tiny little villages, and past farms and waterfalls. I took over 300 photos (managed to cull out about 100), I’ve managed to put them all online! It took all day to load them, but worth a wee look!

The second night we stayed in Gorepani, and got up at 5 to walk up to Poon Hill for the sunrise. It was beautiful, but crowded. There were about 150 people at the top of this blimmin hill. I hadn’t realised there were so many trekkers in the area!

  

These are the Annapurna ranges, in the most popular trekking area in Nepal. To be honest, I loved the trekking but I think if I did it again I would definitely do something a little less popular. I think I met about 10 New Zealanders over the 4 days!

The scenery is absolutely stunning, and the pictures don’t do it justice. On the third night we stayed in Tadapani, met some Americans and Australians and drank an Everest beer or two (which wiped everyone out, from the altitude I guess!) We trekked through the most gorgeous little village the next morning, and forest which was exactly like New Zealand and Taranaki bush. I got very nostalgic :)

It was lovely being away from Kathmandu and the dust, pollution, rubbish, crazy drivers and general chaos. Pokhara is great, I’d’ve liked to stay longer but Kinnari had to get back on Monday for her flight Tuesday morning back to the States. Maybe another time!

   

Above right: masala tea at 6am in Ulleri watching the sunrise

 

Kinnari and I at Poon Hill, very very cold.

        

Fishtail mountain on the right, millet seed drying in the sun on the left.

    

Full photo album here!

The final day was 8 hours walking downhill, and was the hardest exercise I’ve ever done. My knees and feet were killing me, as well as my calves, and then I rolled my ankle and had to carry on walking for 4 hours. We got back to Pokhara at about 7pm, I had a hot bath in the dirtiest little bathroom yet, and we had dinner at a great little Korean restaurant on the lakeside. It had New Zealand beef on the menu! (Beef not buff.) We went to bed early, got up for a great breakfast of banana pancakes, good coffee and fresh orange juice at a place called The Wooden Coffee House, a cafe run by SEWA, a Nepali-Dutch not-for-profit organisation that aims to keep families together by providing education and training for mothers of street children, and projects that provide income for them so kids can be kept in the home. They work from the street level up – find the kids, look after them while they get the mothers on their feet and slowly get them back into the family, while helping support with education and health.

We went boating on Phewa lake after that, which was great, saw tonnes of fish and also how dirty the water was, and we cracked ourselves up laughing at our guide who  was scared of the water but had a terrible ego and would take his life jacket off every time another boat came past and people were looking.

We went to Devis Fall for a look too, but I didn’t have my camera at either the lake or waterfall, so when I hear from Kinnari, will get one or two photos up! Also some from paragliding, which was FANTASTIC.  We followed eagles around, and there were about 25 paragliders in the air at the same time, and the sky was beautifully clear so we could see the ranges. I wasn’t scared at all, it was very relaxing, very easy, and made me want to learn how to do it myself. And bring on skydiving!!!

The big thing about the whole trip was that it was organised by a trekking company. I would never do it like this again. In terms of ease, it was great, and we had nothing to think about, but in terms of wanting to do our own thing, or making changes to our plans, it was not really a go-er. Our guide wasn’t great to start off with, and was very demanding. I don’t think this is typical, as the other guides of people we met while trekking seemed great, told them lots about the area and had good communication skills, as well as not needing attention all the time and knew when to leave their clients alone. Our guide had the habit of talking about how he wanted a foreigner (i.e. me or Kinnari) to pay for him to go overseas, wanting a photo to be taken of him at every stopping point and of walking half a metre behind you step for step, even when walking up and down hill. He tried to hit on Kinnari and by the end of the trek his English had degenerated so badly that we barely understood what he wanted us to do, our information about the area was limited to the name of the village plus a noun such as ‘mountain’, and we were instead ordered to ‘come’ every 3 or 4 minutes. This of course made these two strong willed gals VERY obstinate. Much to our relief he seemed to finally get that we didn’t want to be keeping him entertained, nor would we be bossed around, and left us alone. Not without many uncomfortable and awkward moments for a day.

I think for a small trek like this one, a guide isn’t necessary. It was convenient for getting food ordered and bedding for the cots, but he really didn’t go beyond that. Having a guide who doesn’t really like his job, and wants to be an actor, may have been our downfall, and having a guide that has a lot to tell you about the area, or if you were going off the beaten track and doing a trek which is quite challenging, it would be great.

We flew back to Kathmandu to avoid the 7 hours micro-bus ride we had endured on the way to Pokhara and met a nice Irish guy at the airport. We shared a taxi to Thamel and went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant called La Dolce Vita  which was FANTASTIC. Because I got to eat bruschetta and bacon and parmesan and pasta and drink wine, and then have tiramisu, and feel thoroughly sick. It was Kinnari’s last night so her orphanage guy Rajendra came for dinner too which was great, and then he went home and we went to a bar called Reggae Bar and listened to the live band (actually pretty good!) and met up with some New Zealanders (suprise suprise) and other volunteers from Nepal Volunteer something or other. Had a great night, stayed in Thamel at a hostel with two of my new friends then hung out all the next day before returning home to find a new girl at the orphanage! She is English, and lovely, and staying for a week after having trekked Everest.

Anyway, got to get up early, we’re visiting the montesorri in the morning, and then have a big job of cleaning out the room for the library!

Lots of love to you all

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