Chapter 1 - June
This blog post has come a little later than I planned. The devil of procrastination has had me in a pretty relentless headlock for the last three weeks, leaving me to ponder a witty and insightful introduction into the world of my travels with a noggin full of out of date thoughts, trumped somewhat with a pretty snazzy view of New Zealand’s west coast. Swings and roundabouts, eh. Well, I’m not altogether sure what I’ve been doing that’s prevented me from even starting this. Story of my life, I guess. Subsequently, I’m not sure what it is that gives me the boot up the arse to keep writing my crescendo of bumbling nonsense and why I think that people might enjoy it. Perhaps it’s the symphony of Howard Shore mentally soothing me into thinking I am in fact the reincarnated JRR Tolkien - or probably the hope of a few thumbs up from my peers. Alas, I do - and I shall continue to do so.
Truth be told, it will be a divine miracle if this even hits your smartphones or computer screens. I have several documents of utter babble written about all sorts saved on my Macintosh, you know. All with the good intention of improving my quite dreadful writing skills and entertaining you, my delightful target audience of whom I’m so proud have read up to this point.
See, me and Amelia made the decision to box up our precious belongings, etch them into the tidiest corner we could find and backtrack to New Zealand, revisiting the country we spent a month and a half travelling around last January. It was a good laugh. Up’s and downs - all that jazz. But, much like other travellers who come and go to this God forsaken island, we were suckered in for good. Indeed, lured into thinking that we can bask in the countries beautiful tranquility while hop scotching the need to pay bills, make money and try not capitulate like we inevitable will all at the same time. Jesus Christ. Anyway, with nothing going on in sunny sunny England in the way of careers, we decided now would be the best time to give it a go. So, yes, with bags controversially packed to their fractional limitations, emotional goodbyes said and at the point of no return, the wheels of our rather underwhelming Cathay Pacific plane left the Heathrow tarmac and we were on our bloody way.
Our second taste of a long haul flight promised not to be as gruelling as it’s predecessor given that we were going to stay in Hong Kong for four nights in between arriving in Auckland - thus avoiding devastating arse pain. I know, clever, clever bastards. Neither of us had been to Hong Kong before (obviously) and hadn’t really looked that much into it. What did I say, right? Clever. The young lady from STA Travel basically calculated that it was to be a toss up between here and Singapore, which we heard was pretty dear, so we went with our gut feeling. Truth be told, it probably exceeded expectations overall. We were dealt a pretty good hand with our hotel and location, all pretty snazzy and clean. We were naturally pretty concerned about the degree of English spoke out there, despite knowing that they were under the British rule until like the late 90’s. Alright, Wells, enough with the damn history lesson, my sixth form teacher would be mortified. But, indeed, turns out they’re pretty adaptable whippersnappers, which was bloody ideal.
We were situated in Tung Chung on Lantau Island which proved to be nice but…probably just a little bit too close to the airport. Not that we were being ambushed with jet pollution or anything, but the district just seemed like a gateway to the touristy bit and the going home bit. But, you know what, all the public transport seemed pretty top notch. The taxis services were colour coded according to location to make life easy for moronic specimen like myself. The railway system seemed really concise and we got to Hong Kong Disney (God help me) without any hiccups.
I’m not going to bang on about Hong Kong much because, well, you probably started drifting off right about the time I started talking about trains. Trust me - it was boring writing it. Anyway, yes, I would probably recommend it as a place to go for any travel enthusiast. Not that I’m a travel enthusiast. There are sights and smells that will live with me whenever I’m forced to think about it - and that’s what travel is all about, isn’t it?
Anywho, after four days of complaining about the heat, three nights of mostly Subway and McDonalds, two hours of sleep a night and one big bloody headache trying to process the information the lovely Asian lady tried giving us upon boarding the famous gondola, we made our way to Auckland.
Disclaimer, I may write about Hong Kong in further depth some time in the future, it could get weird so if you see me trying to plug the article on social media for Christ sake don’t click on it.
Right. Well. Bearing down on Auckland with my tear ducts still fresh with the devastation that 500 Days of Summer offered as my inflight entertainment, we touched down some ten hours later. On the plane, there was a not-so-refreshing blend of bloody strange Chinese people and pompous, rich Brits on their way to cheer on the Lions. Quick to ditch that vibe, we shot off, got through all the airport necessities without being taken down by any strapping maori security guards and made for the exits. So, after hours of gruelling travel we made it, Kia bloody Ora. For those who aren’t aware, Kia Ora is a maori greeting. Check me out, rubbing shoulders with the locals.
We were anticipating a bone chilling frost that would render us coat bound for the entirety of the New Zealand winter which starts in June. Now, I don’t want to knock these Kiwis on their perception of basic seasons, but I’ve literally just come back from the beach in my shorts and continued writing this. Winter? Really? Suck it up, lads. It may well be that were not in the more southernly areas of the country, but still, I think I speak for me and Amelia when I say, I think we might see this through without any life threatening frost bite.
Right, where were we. Ah, yes. We got the shuttle to our hotel where we would be staying for a week. It was pretty central to Auckland and tragically the same hotel we spent our final few days in when we stayed here last time. It was pretty bog standard, pretty small and, you guessed it, pretty hideous. However, it was good enough. The immediate plan was to get everything sorted in the way of a bank account, IRD number and car in the week we had in the Big Kiwifruit. Ha! Get it? Big Apple. Kiwis. Classic.
Needless to say, we just about ticked off one third of this prestigious list. See, despite my stella preparations which saw me print off bank statements from home and such, I had it under good authority that you couldn't actually get away with using your home address when applying for a overseas bank account or insurance number anymore. Oh, bugger. Meh, makes sense I guess. My extensive (but seemingly out of date) research was thwarted at the first hurdle. I know that if you stay at a youth hostel they let you use their address to help you find your feet, which probably helps, A LOT. Given that we were alternatively staying at a hotel, they were too snooty and official for this. Actually, that’s an unjustified accusation. I’ll hold my hands up, I never asked them face to face. I emailed them though, too which I got no response. Damn my social anxiety and damn them kiwis. But, get this. The hotel charged their guests $20 a NIGHT to park. Is that normal for a city? Is it? I don’t know as I’m a cowardly country boy who has a bilious attack at the very thought of so driving into an over populated city. But I was wild I tell you, wild. Fortunately for us, we didn’t get a car until later in the week and despite the hotels best efforts to try and charge us for a weeks parking despite only using an allocated slot for three days, we (Amelia) haggled our way out of it.
Back to the bank account. I read up on numerous different branches we could pick from, pros, cons, all that boring stuff. Firmly believing I was all set to hit the ground running, there was genuinely nothing we could do without a residency address. Long story short, we’ve decided that we’re going to cross that rather important bridge when we come to it. So, we spent the first couple of days plodding along, wondering when it was going to get cold. It was around about the second night that we summoned the predesignated fan and walloped it on full blast. Earlier that day, we brought a cheap mobile phone that would give us a platform to drop Frodo Baggins a text whenever necessary. Living on the fully anticipated diet of noodles, crisps and with the occasional green apple thrown in there, we utilised the free hotel wifi to search the New Zealand web for a vehicle.
The main priority was to get some wheels. Four, preferable. Ones masculinity may well be measured on his knowledge of engines, exhausts and tires. You might not be surprised to known that I beg to differ and, more importantly, don’t fit this particular demographic of alpha male. This certainly didn’t prevent me from sussing out a good car from a bad one going off initial inspection.
We eyed up all backpackers websites and TradeMe top to tail, optimistic yet paranoid of all those no-good scallywags trying to rip off innocent travellers of our whopping $2000 budget. We were sort of holding our for the weekend as they host a weekly car fare every Saturday in Auckland with mechanics on site for pre-purchase car inspections. This was the logical path to take, but, you know what, we were in urgent need of a car and we couldn't afford to leave it to chance.
There were two budding factors which meant our departure from Auckland needed to be as swift and as fashionable as possible. The first; we had pre-arranged to do some house sitting for a lady in Kawhia and were eager to get there as soon as possible. The second; we detest Auckland on several levels. Probably an unfair assessment on a city that we’ve spent a spanned total of two weeks in, but it’s just boring and doesn't compete with the rest of the country. No different to any other city with a large population (well, large by New Zealand’s standards, 1.3 million or something) and infiltrated with damn cranes and sirens. Indeed, one big old pain in the cranium. Well, what a damning assessment that was. I forgot to mention the sheer number of Chinese and Indians, but let’s not start getting continental, shall we. I’ve lost my trail of thought. Oh yes - the car.
We settled on buying a Honda Odyssey off some German geezer. Negotiations moved pretty swiftly, he was pretty laid back and evidently had even less of a clue about it as myself. We (Amelia) did some wheeling and dealing and we ending up forking up just over $1500. Hardly the bargain of the century when the car had some pretty noticeable wheel alignment problems and someone thought it would be a laugh to dip their hand in a tin of silver paint and splurge it on the side of the car. I’m all for wanting to be like one of Saruman’s Uruk-hai orcs by baring the hand print of war and, you know me, I love a Lord of the Rings reference as much as the next nerd, but they might have gone a step too far on this one. This, twinned with a splatter of rust on the front, did little to detract our interest. It moved, it was quite cheap, done deal. We (I) did the appropriate paper work at the post office with the German fella and we swapped over the registration swimmingly.
I wasn't too keen on driving the car around Auckland much and was instead eager on staying put for the remaining few days. Amelia McWaterfalls begged to differ and I soon found myself in some of Auckland’s finest traffic congestion, seeking a tiny bit of mother nature. A couple of deflated efforts passed and the day of departure rolled around - fantastic.
Our time in Auckland was a crescendo of nothingness you might expect from a duo trying to conserve some dosh. The jet lag was borderline atrocious and the home sickness smacked us in the face. We had legitimate thoughts of turning around and heading straight home - like, legitimate. Three days in (well, a week including Hong Kong) and we could have quite easily thrown in the towel. To think, our potential year long expedition cut short after 72 hours. God save our bloody queen.
Low and behold, we’re still here. On our voyage southwards towards Kawhia, we stocked up on a bit more grub and some bedding for the car. Oh, yeah. Our car has a bed in the back. We haven’t actually crash tested it yet, but it looks snug enough if push comes to shove. Upon giving the sky tower our lacklustre farewells and potentially a middle finger or three, our trip down state highway one was soon greeted with the slightly more romantic ambiance of hills and, more importantly, a lack of people. The car was coping, but swapping a manual car for an automatic once again left me petrified at every clanging gear shift. We heeded Siri’s instructions when, in actual fact, I honestly think that you can navigate around New Zealand quite easily by simply going off road signs. I shall leave somebody else to be the guinea pig in that experiment however. The trip to the west coast took around two and a half hours and after conquering the dreaded local Raglan back road (the car took a bit of a battering) we made it to the reclusive town of Kawhia. With a current population of about 350 people, a measly 45 minute drive down winding roads to the nearest legit supermarket and a cafe or two, this lonely town on the north island is our current residence. It’s a nice little spot, somewhat eerily quiet but home to some nice people and a picturesque coastline. Not a great deal to do, admittedly, but it packs the odd hidden gem or two. We rolled up to the house in our dusty, dirty waggon to which Anne, the house owner, was probably tempted to close the curtains and run for hills. Fortunately, we swiftly dealt with the formalities, met all the animals we’d be tending too and got cosy. And thus we have it, here we are. Me, Amelia, three dogs, a few chickens and a couple of ducks. We’ll be tending to this pretty dandy bungalow for three weeks before motoring off elsewhere.
In spite of it’s isolation, we’ve done our upmost to take in the culture and surroundings while maintaining a money friendly stance. Theres a black sand beach, just a few minutes from where we’re based, where you can dig your own hot water spa. Most coaches and tourist flock to the more renown hot water beach on the opposite side of the country to do this but we have it on our doorstep. That being said, we did actually give it a go and couldn't find any hot water, you can’t knock our spirit though. Speaking of giving it a go, we got reeled into joining in the local pub quiz where we reluctantly joined two Australians in trying to overthrow the local OAP’s. We warmed up for this with a mid-season Christmas dinner which was…different. Nice, I suppose, but tinsel and LED lights in June isn’t really my thing. With our stomachs full and the English education system about to get well and truly exposed, we readied ourselves. Amelia kind of sat off to the side, leaving the three of us doomed to perish. The middle aged, bald bloke on our team was actually pretty switched on but resigned to defeat, just like the rest of us. The girl, about my age, knew a thing or two as well. I scored us a few points, most impressively on a Lord of the Rings question, thus fulfilling a lifelong aspiration. However, our pluckiness wasn't enough. We left the venue with a handful of sweets and a complimentary fidget spinner - I know who the real winners are.
Earlier that week, we took a trip down the western coast to Waitomo, a place infamous for its glowworm caves. We did actually go there last year for a couple of days to partake in Black Labyrinth cave exhibition which was well and truly unforgettable. Mind you, for the price we paid, I’d expect nothing less, God damn it. This time however, we delved into some of the free activities that Waitomo had to offer. After all, the best things in life are free, so i’ve heard.
There was a stark contrast from the buzzing summer seasons compared to, well, now. I know us Brits love a subtle acknowledgment about the weather so get ready for this - the torrential rain quite literally starts and stops whenever it feels like it. Nonetheless, we conquered the rain and basked in the shine all the way to Marokopa Falls (corr, blimey) and the Natural Bridge Walk which put a smile on our faces and pixels on our camera lens. There was hardly a soul in sight and to have that tranquility to ourselves was unusual given the hustle and bustle of Auckland just a few days prior. It did us a world of good.
Despite all the lovely backdrops, the sunrises and the sunsets, travelling around and basking in it all is not all it’s made out to be. Of course, it plonks memories in your brain and content on your Instagram. Speaking largely on behalf of myself though, I have found that home should be appreciated a lot more. Probably not so much home - perhaps, family. I probably sound like a home bird who has spent their adolescence being too nested but, having grown up a sibling in a family willing to rock bottom each other over the last slice of pizza, spending time apart, even at the ripe old age of 23, is challenging. The mentality has got stronger, mind you. To find home nowadays all I have to do is look in my rear view mirror and…there it is! Pots, pans and Sullivan the teddy bear. Fantastic company.
Anyway, that’s about it for June. Not much more can be said. I went from wincing at Korean squid being sold at the concession stand at Disney Hong Kong to mind boggling views of the New Zealand west coast in under a week. They speak English, drive on the same side of the road, nice enough bunch. We've tried our hand at a few jigsaw puzzles to moderate success. I tell you what, there McDonalds are a lot further down the line, it’s basically all self service which is an outstanding effort, good job. We managed to buy our own car and put a roof (albeit temporary) over our heads on the other side of the world. And, you know what, for that - we’re pretty proud.
It's currently chucking down, so here’s to July.
Samwise
