Hot Water beach. Dig your own spa

Finished off our NZ trip at the Coromadel, a fantastic stretch of coastline surrounded by a Forest park and mountains just east of Auckland, and a playground for Auckland's rich and famous (plus us in our camper van). Stayed for 3 days and 2 nights at a place called Tairua

Did 2 trips, the wonderful Hot Water Beach, where you dig down into the sand as the tide is going out and hot water gushes upwards, filling your new spa with very hot water. This is a real feel it to believe it thing.

LAstly, we played golf at Tairua golf club for the extoriionate price of 20 dollars, or less than 100 SEK: really tricky course with surprises on every turn, and surprisingly well-kept for a golf course with no one on it and a rediculous price tag.

Actually writing this blog after we have landed back in Sweden. Oh, how i long for...

Another day at the NZ office

Just coasting up the Pacific Highway to Mount Maunganui where we spent the evening. This is the place most Auckland Kiwis seem to spend their holiday.

We stopped off at a picnic place for me to catch up on some work while Pia fixed some food. The downside of freelancing is the inability to say No to work, and chase internet places all over New Zealand once you have something to deliver (all at different prices and levels of service, but almost always available somewhere). The upside is the office looks different every day.

Mount Manganui
Up early for a brisk walk up the mountain. Took a picture of the camper van down in the site. Pia’s offering a bottle of New Zealand wine to the first person to pot it.

Mountains of Mordor 1 – PaulandPia 1

Tongariro Crossing 23 January

The Tongariro Crossing is billed as New Zealand’s best one day walk. It’s a 17Km hike across volcano tops made famous as the Mountains of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. The track is fascinating as it tramps over, or passes near to 3 active volcanoes,
The first time we tried to “do” the crossing we were warned off because of bad weather. This time we were told that, OK, the forecast may not be good, but it’s bound to clear and you’ll see breathtaking views of the volcanoes. Yeah, right.
It started to rain as we got on the bus to take us to the walk, and it’s still raining as we write the blog. Hotels in Singapore have a certain allure.

THERE SHE BLOWS:
Mount Ruapehu, the highest and most active volcano in the area, last erupted in 1995. According to seismologists, it’s about time she blew again. Look out below!

Whale tails in Kaikoura

Had a serious once in a lifetime experience today (apart from getting up at 6.am). We took a whale watcher cruise to spot sperm whales, and went up close but not too personal with 4 of them. Enormous beasts.

After lunch we took a short 6 hour walk around the coastline and heard kids on the shore shouting "whale". Yeah, right, we thought, but sure enough a pod of 4 Orca (killer whales) had come really close to land. So, one day, two whale experiences.
Finished the day with a relaxing spa, then 14 kilos of fish and chips from the local shop. We love the healthy life.

DID YOU KNOW Sperm whales are called sperm whales because they have tons of white oily fluid in the heads. The old whalers really believed that this oil was sperm for sexual reproduction purposes. Talk about dick heads.

Akaroa swimming with dolphins

UP early for a quick dolphin dip (for Pia anyway) We took a boat out and waited for dolphins to turn up, which they did in fair numbers.
I stayed on board while pia played flipper to the chant of, "they're over there".
The whole experience, like the place, was absolutely marvellous. Akaroa is probably the most fabulous place we have ever seen, a natural inlet nestling in a bay about 90 kilometres south of Christchurch.
Now we know where we're going to live when we retire (and it's not Birmingham or Eslöv)

Climb every mountain…

Queenstown is a bit of a tourist trap as it’s the gateway to Fjordland, but that doesn’t make it any less charming. It’s a bit of a cross between some Alpine village (like, say Grindelwald, Chamonix, or even a large Åre.

Climbed Ben Lomond, the largest mountain in the area at 1745 meters (sometimes I think we’re too old for this stuff) then tramped back down in glorious weather for a rewarding gourmet-type meal (me lamb, Pia grouper – I think that’s Marulk in Swedish) with a couple of glasses of Otago’s finest Pinot Noirs to wash it down with. The weather, like the surroundings, is absolutely glorious. Luckily for us it was quite cool and breezy when we started our 8 hour tramp today.

Met a group of middle-aged women (our age) who were really struggling up the mountain as we were coming down. They’d signed up for 2 x long distance walks, around 7 days walking altogether. They found the hardest mountain in the area to climb for a practice run without knowing how hard it was (guidebook said only the very fit should attempt), then filled their rucksacks with books to get the feel of what it’s like to carry all their food. Hmm!

Wanaka, sun, lake and mountains

Wanaka is a lovely ski resort on the way to Queenstown. Surrounded by mountains and next to a 420 meter deep lake. (that's deep). HAd a civilised curry before attacking some serious outdoors again

Alp and Glacier day.

15 January
We checked out both the Franz Joseph and the Fox glaciers (you can get up close to Fox). What’s worrying is that they show you where the glacier came to in 1935, and it was more than 1 kilometer further forward than today.
Franz Joseph and Fox are real ski resort towns (Fox more so), but as this isn’t the season you can always treat yourself to a helicopter ride over the glaciers (as it was so foggy, we gave it a miss)

Heading for Queenstown, we drove on a stretch that was a single track road/bridge/railway line. Luckily no train, cars or cyclists were heading our way.We stopped at Wanaka, a ski/lake paradise in the south west. Sunny (at last) so we look forward to some ray catching and had a superb Indian, complete with beer.

Pancake rocks at Punakaiki

We stayed overnight in Punakaiki, a super resort next to crashing waves and the incredible ”Pancake rock” formations where water literally blows out through holes in the top of the rocks.
The weather is still shitty and Paul has to earn money for the trip, so we drove into a great camp at Franz Joseph Glacier for a sport of serious keyboard bashing.

The only problem was that the area was a sandfly invasion centre. We got seriously bombarded by millions of their kamikaze warriors. Pia looks like she’s got Chickenpox

Kiwis, caves and white water

13 Jan
Just off early in the morning and a Kiwi actually disappeared in front of our eyes. (It must have been coming home after night shift). On the road south we went to the seal colony at Cape Foul Wind (yes, it was blowing). Saw lots of pups and smelled the seals in a big way.
Went on to Charleston, an old gold mining town where we had one of our lives funniest adventures. “Blackwater rafting”.

We took a home-made train through a rainforest that was the background for BBC’s Lost World series. Then it was on with your wetsuit, stick your tractor inner tube into your arm, float across the river and venture into the cave.

We walked through many of the cave’s chambers, looking at fossils and formations on the way that were absolutely fascinating. Then we came to the water. We hopped into our inner tubes, linked feet, switched off our lamps (Pitch black in the cave) and gazed wondrously at the thousands of glow worms attached to the ceiling.
We rafted out then did the white water thing to the starting point on the river
Check out www.caverafting.com then go into the date and check out the PM photos.

Abel Tasman Track

12 JAN
Anoher early morning.
This time to catch the water taxi to drop us off on a beach (well, in the water next to it) so we could tramp 20 kilometers back along the Abel Tasman Track. To use the overused adjective, it was simply beautiful.
Interesting swing bridge we had to cross to get back. We were seriously tired when we got back to our van and started south-west. We stopped for the night at Murchison, where the camp owner gave us great tips for the following day. Plans changed again :)

UP 5.30 to catch the boat.

South Island here we come.
The problem is that the boat left at 8.00 and checkin, just like planes was one hour before.
The boat travels down a fjord on its journey into Picton. Even more beautiful scenery.
After a 31/2 hour boat trip, we took the Queen Charlotte Drive, with fantastic scenery down towards Motueka, starting point for the Abel Tasman Track. (Thanks Tony for such a great tip!)

Martinborough. Great wines, good golf

After trying to conquer Mordor, (the Tongariri Crossing) and getting forced back by the weather (couldn’t see a thing) We headed towards Wellington and the ferry along the west coast.
We bypassed via Martinborough. If paradise was half as nice as this, it would be perfect. We found a camp with WIFI, flanked by a vineyard on one side, horses on the other and walking distance away from a golf course. With so many of our favourite activities so close, we decided on staying for two days.
After hitting the local vineyards we heartily recommend MartinBorough Estate Pino Noir 2004 (available in Denmark).
Golf was good, 70 SEK(72 Euro) for two rounds, 2 x golf set and 2 x trolleys. Paul played from the white tee and Pia from yellow (there are no others)

Huka falls. A real gusher

Huka Falls are really awesome. We had the idea of walking up from Lake Taupo, but took the car as the weather was so bad. (weather also washed out our plan to do the Tongariro crossing, between 2 live volcanoes, we'll try on the way back

One ompany did a serious boat trip taking a speedboat right into the mouth of the falls. Not for the faint hearted!

Lake Taupo

This is a trendy town on the shores of New Zealand's largest lake. It's packed with trendy cafes and (finally) a WIFI place so we can send off bits of work. (phew).
As camper van parks go, Lake Taupo was really nice. (some are shitty)
What Pia liked was that all the men fixed the domestic chores (cooking, cleaning, etc) While the women did some serious talking.

We finally got the idea of how camper vans actually work. How to fix the electricity, where to plug the heater in (gets cold in the nights) and how to fix the bed properly.

As camper vans go we found out that we have done a good deal, both in terms of size and quality. (some are monsters with tilet, others are broken down old things from the 70s)

Heading south for the summer.

Crater of the Moon. Serious steam

Crater of the Moon is just outside Lake Taupo.It's a place with a small active volcano. Wherever you go, steam and smoke gushes out of the mountain. You feel that the ground could burst open at any time. (And they actually don't know when the next time will be.

Now we've done smoke. Time for a change

Fire, brimstone and Rotorua

6th January
Rotorua isn’t called Sulphur City for nothing. It bubbles, smells and hisses with the pungent stuff all over town. It’s almost like sticking a main shopping street on top of a live volcano. The problem with these geysers is that they are not just geothermal sources, they are also sources of income. They all cost money, but that money goes back into the land.
One really interesting place to see is Hells Gate. A Maori owned Geothermal park that spits and oozes boiling mud everywhere. It got its name from George Bernard Shaw who decided that this must be what hell really looks like. Pia treated herself to “rejuvenating, whitening face cream” so now she looks like Michael Jackson.
Dining out: Lattes (or Lahteys) are big, but the lunches are three times bigger. To say New Zealand is a growing population would be an understatement (Björn Hellberg fat people spotting paradise).
Food at the garages isn't the normal Swedish "cup of tea" You caneven buy the world famous battered MArs BArs here. Yum

Bay Of Islands.

We drove about 31/2 hours from Auckland to the Bay of Islands, a beautiful drive up. It’s unspoilt (so far) and really spectacular. One detour we took is the road to the waterfalls at Whangerai, then checked out the cove at Whale Bay. It’s a stunning walk down to the beach.
We went dolphin chasing. We got on a boat to look at something called “hole in the rock” which is errm a hole in a rock. It’s in the middle of the sea and is formed after millions of years of battering from the ocean.
Back to the dolphins. People say they have more intelligence than humans, and this proved to be true. We spent hours trying to find them and when we did, everyone shouted “Dolphins up ahead”. While everyone rushed to the front of the boat, the dolphins dived underneath it ten resurfaced to laugh at the idiots trying to find them.
STAYED AT: The Copthorne Waitangi. 4 star service at 2 star prices - and the only place with vacancies when we were there
ATE AT The Sugar Boat. Old clipper turned into new restaurant.
Waitangi is also the place where the Maoris agreed to be under “British Protectorate”. A bit like the protection afforded to locals in New York by Tony Soprano.
Waitangi is also a Kiwi reserve, but one single dog managed to ravage over 180 of the poor things.
If you’re a golfer, then Waitangi boasts one of the best golf courses in the world. We know. We were there.

We came back to Auckland down the north-west coast. Fantastic. Beautiful mountain scenery, no people, nowhere to eat or stay and no toilets. So make sure you stock up if you take that route. We didn’t.

Auckland, New Zealand. The Internet’s OK, but you can’t beat booking “on spec”.

First we had to get our boots cleaned on the way in. No foreign dirt here, thank you.

We arrived on 2 January to a city with one million inhabitants, yet it seemed someone had exploded a Neutron bomb before we got here, there was like NO ONE anywhere.
Our goal is to take NZ as it comes, at our own pace, and in a camper van, the “de regeur” way to see the country. We’d heard a horror story from a Danish guy who told us that he’d tried to book a van over the Internet, only to discover that everything from the South Island was booked, so all he could get was one week in the North Island, then hired a car for the South. Hmm. Should we be worried?
After turning the first corner in Auckland we found a place called “Escape rentals”, hiring out - camper vans. (sorry, can’t find the web address just now). This young guy was great. He fixed us up with a camper for half the going rate of the larger companies - just that there’s less advertising on the side of the van. He also fixed us a cheap car so we could head north to check out one of NZ’.s must sees, The Bay of Islands, in the north of the North Island. See next post…

Happy New Year Singapore style

New Year’s Eve is always different from one year to the next, but never more so than when you experience the traditions of different places and cultures. This one was really different. We had a very nice but very quiet poolside meal at the hotel (Goodwood Park off Orchard Road – more later) complete with four course dinner, wine and champagne. We could see, though, that the wild side of New Year was a non-starter with the controlled, reserved company we were keeping.
So at 11.30 we left our placid backwater for Orchard Road.
BANG. The place was full of partying, young people, mostly Indian, all of whom were in great spirits without resorting to any, if you get the drift. It was chaos. People were buying white spray by the bucketload, and the trick was to spray the opposite group and make them look like snowmen before they did the same to you. Polite, middle-aged people like ourselves were easy game. The Indians thought it was even better fun to “bomb” nubile Chinese girls with their sprays (strange pickup trick, must try it sometime).
We woke up to New Year’s day and it’s as if nothing had happened. The streets were clean, shops were open. It’s a bit of a pain shopping in the smaller shops in Spore as you get hassled a lot to buy, buy ,buy; bye bye! but you can really get bargains as long as you know what you want and know what it costs before you start to barter. You buy stuff up to half price if you do the “no, no, njaa, maybe, perhaps, can’t you do it cheaper, OK then” trick.
New year’s day was also our last day for now in Spore, so it was a tropical hike up and down their “mountain” (large hill with cable car and 48,000 people in the queue) while we whiled away the hours before our next port of call, Auckland and another flight of over 10 hours.
Goodwood Park Hotel, an Oasis off Orchard Road.
If you are heading to Spore for any reason and don’t have to go bargain basement for accommodation, we heartily recommend the GoodWood Park Hotel. It’s just a stone’s throw from Orchard Road and has a colonial luxury about it, with 2 pools, a gym and an arctic aircon system. (33 degrees outside, Pia wore her fleece inside). It really is a beautiful hotel with excellent service. We searched for the hotel on the Internet and got something like a 60% reduction on the room rate per day. Mind you, we booked well in advance.

Singapore's Little India - for a big curry

Our first stop in Singapore was to look at China town. Not as good as the ones in New York and San Francisco maybe, but all the same a great place for any bargain.
TIP – If you’ve just hopped off a transatlantic flight and your body is telling you it’s had better times, treat yourself to a relaxing foot massage, known as reflexology. Prices vary from 18 Singapore dollars (about 9 Euro) to over 70. You’ll find lots of places in the lower price bracket in Chinatown

And for dinner…
We ate at an Indian veg place called Gokul at Upper Dickens Road, a side street in Little India. Despite doing all they could to hide their guests so it looked empty, their soups, curries and Naans were excellent value for a mere 29 dollars, about 15 Euro for two. As they say, “it’s cool to GoKul. (sorry).

Slings at the Long Bar, steak on the stones.
Drinking Singapore Slings at the Long Bar in Raffles is a must. OK, it maybe cheesy touristy, but it gives you some inkling of what colonial life may have been like. The interior is a bit upmarket English pubby, but you soak in the past while you sip on your sling. By Singapore standards, it wasn’t the cut-your-arm-off-to-pay-for-it expensive. Two slings weighed in at a mere 41 dollars, around 20 Euro.

Sling it your self.
Here’s how to make a Singapore Sling:

Ingredients
30 ml gin
15 ml cherry brandy
120 ml pineapple juice or soda
15 ml lime juice
10 ml Cointreau
10 ml Benedictine
15 ml Angostura bitters

Mix with ice in cocktail shaker, Strain into glass, serve with cherry and slice of pineapple. Throw lots of peanut shells on the floor while you’re mixing to make things feel really authentic.

Singapore is restaurant city, and the Quay areas are real tourist traps á là Spain and Greece. Oned speciality among the Chinese, Thai, Malay and Indian eateries is to have “Steak on the Stone”. You get your steak served on a hot stone that keeps it cooking for as long as you want to. What happens in practice is that you start eating a rare steak, and finish eating something that’s cremated.

Get away with Singapore Airways

It’s pleasant flying with Singapore airlines on long haul. Even when you sit in tourist class you still feel just that bit more special than you do with other airlines, (especially the Scandinavian ones where the hostesses are so old that you have to help them and not the other way round)
You get decent legroom, good service, reasonable food served at reasonable times and just the 80 films to choose from . If there is a drawback it’s arriving at Singapore at 5.30 in the morning. At least there’s not problem in getting around

In the mornings young Chinese, Indian, Malay and the odd ex-pat all interact with each other in the most polite, yet distant of ways. Get to the evening and the place bustles. Gone are the drab, dreary faces and it’s on with the “Hi, I’m happy, healthy, young, free and don’t you wish you had my future?” Great to see. As of course is the hustle and bustle in and around Orchard Road, the Mecca of Gold card spending sprees.