Chapter 3 - August (Part One)
- Samuel Wells
- Sep 21, 2017
- 15 min read
Well well well, chaps, we’re due a blog, aren’t we? Indeed we are - and get one you shall. This may well have a slightly different tone in comparison to the few that I have pumped out thus far. My general routine has been boring you to sleep with a chronological recap of mine and Amelia’s day to day routine in the merry land of New Zealand. Sure enough, that will continue to an extent but this might start getting a bit reflective, purely because our expedition is now over and I’m typing this from the comfort of England’s south coast or, as I like to call it, home.
All shall be revealed in good time but before I do, you get the privilege of hearing how things went down as we trickled from frosty July to slightly less frostier August.
I’ve been away from this writing game for a few weeks so you’ll have to bare with me as I skim read my notes and weep at the soul destroying memories. Nah, only kidding. In all seriousness though i’ve lost some basic concept of time, so let me take a second to recap.
Ah, yes. Here we go.
We were leaving Wanaka behind and thus wandering back into lonely isolation. Our plan was to bid farewell to the south and climb our way back up the country and return to the north. The backpackers and wanderlust dwellers were nowhere to be seen (thank God) on the four hour voyage through rainforest and down the west coast. We were taken back by this gloomy gateway which leads onto the coast called Haast on our last trip to New Zealand. We were low-key looking forward to it but fully aware it was going to be a smidgen uncomfortable, given the time of year n’all. Our final views as we crept away from Lake Wanaka were illustrious, tainted only by the coughing and spluttering of that God forsaken monstrosity we called a car. Amelia took some snaps whilst I spectacularly poured some power steering fluid into it’s gullet, hoping for the best. Sure enough it began behaving itself. It’s easy, this mechanic malarkey.
The road was a spiralling headache as the wind was fierce. We were amerced by mountains soon enough but they looked pretty gloomy as the rainforest loomed. You don't really notice much of a landscape transition to be honest, you just gradually become stranded in the mossy wilderness. Christ, I’m being a bit dramatic here. It’s not a fully fledged rainforest with toucan birds and that, however it is a rainforest nonetheless. Anyway, it took us a few hours to come out the other end. We pulled over a couple of times but it was a damp old experience, as you might expect. There were some glorious natural blue lagoons and rivers but it was brisk and neither one of us were overly up for putting up much of a fight with mother nature on this occasion.
We were almost mimicking the route we had previously taken down the west coast which would eventually take us inland and back to Picton. Having paced through the misty, dreary forest we were pleased to encounter some form of civilisation. We were deep into mountain and glacier country that consumed the small town of Franz Josef - our home for the night. The town is an infamous base for those desiring to take helicopter rides to and from the glacier but that certainly wasn't our cup of tea. Well, i’m probably not representing both of us there. I’m sure Amelia would do it. The bloody looney. Regardless, we only needed it for a place to put our head down and take shelter from the torrential rain.
We weren't hoping to get much from Franz Josef in the way of entertainment, to be honest. We were spoiled to an extent by Queenstown so we were adamant on resorting back to being cheap bastards. That lasted about 32 minutes and before we knew it we were heading down to the local hot pools which, as it happens, were cheap enough. The setting and ambiance was soothing although all the pompous, middle aged killjoys hogged the hottest pools - leaving me and Amelia to bath in lukewarm mediocrity. Can’t whinge too much I suppose.
We returned to the hotel with the encouraging news that they were dishing out free soup in the evening. I wasn’t expecting anything other than something bland, but it wasn't bad to be fair. Well done. The free breakfast the following morning was an sheepish clash of us and another couple weighing up whether jam or butter was the appropriate condiment to our wholegrain toast. That was about as exciting as it got before we made the voyage up the coastline to Greymouth.
If the colour grey represents sadness and boredom, then Greymouth is appropriately named. For what its worth, it’s probably not a bad place and my overreaction is typically pompous of an uncultured traveller. I mean, there’s shops and there’s trade, which is a one up on most towns throughout New Zealand’s south island. Oh, there’s a McDonalds too. Anyway, we ended up staying at the lodge that we stayed at when we were here last time. It wasn't the prettiest of places and it turns out that my opinion on the bloke who owns it still torn between genuine nice guy and psycho who preys on innocent travellers with a big old woodcutting axe. Perhaps the biggest lure of this particular place is Jack the dog who we prayed was not only still alive but happy and lovable. Long story short, he was fit as a fiddle and Amelia commandeered him for the night. Brill.
We left the next morning, saddened that we had to leave Jack alone. He was a very outdoors dog who was seemingly left on his own basically all the time. A bit sad, yes, but the owner left his lead outside for anybody who wanted to take him for a stroll. They’re a very trusting bunch these kiwis. Regardless, we packed away our stuff, turned out noses up at the bland, nothingness of Greymouth for one last time and made the day long trip to Picton.
There’s not a great deal that I can report apart from an underwhelming injustice to New Zealand’s mind boggling landscape. I’lll tell you what, actually. Theres a lot of traffic control (without a great deal of traffic) that is controlled by people and not actual traffic lights. People just swivelling a sign between stop and go with a walkie-talkie, all day. Not really worth mentioning, but there you go. We made it to Picton and our little lodge at the holiday park was cosy and at a level of satisfaction that we had come to expect. Crap. Nah, it was alright. Our ferry was early the next morning so we hit the hay.
We were openly unexcited about our return trip. The weather was treacherously wet and windy - not ideal for a couple of dingbats hoping for a smooth boat voyage. You know those scenes from films like Pirates of the Caribbean where the ship is being tossed around like a rag doll with the sea water spraying misty particles into the faces of the devoted sailors? Yeah, that didn't happen. Not even close. But it was a woozy experience. I wagered Amelia a hot chocolate as Liverpool were about to partake in a penalty shootout, a bet I was almost sure to lose. Inevitably I did lose and my trip from one island to the other was marred by slender grief and absolute disgust at the passengers gagging loudly opposite us.
I vaguely remember mentioning it on previous blogs but the sole of my foot was killing me and now I had a five hour drive ahead of me from Wellington to Taupo to endure. Whilst the country of New Zealand is consistently impressive to look at, the trip was painful in many senses of the word. Truth be told, I cant recollect much of it. I do remember driving past Tongario National Park to see its mountains caked in glorious snow whilst the sky was as clear as day. That was cool. Bloody distracting though. I swear to God, you don't want to be the designated driver in this country, it’s a dangerous business peeking out your window all the time. Sure enough I had escaped any potential fatal car accident and we made it to Taupo just as the sun was starting to creep under the hills. We pulled over just before entering the town and tried to score some dandy photos. You know, as a side note, it’s quite incredible how little mother nature does for your state of mind when you need a wee. Your bladder doesn't sit back and think, ‘Ah, the urination will have to go on hold, look at the colour of that sky’.
Right, well, we made it to our hostel and were glad to see it wasn't an absolute shed. In fact, it was pretty nice. The girl at the reception did her utmost to flog us some of the local activities, despite knowing full well we were checking out the next morning at 9am. We shunned her words of wisdom, whacked all of our electric appliances on charge and crashed out.
This might be a good point in the blog to tell you what our plans at that moment in time were. Well, the factuality was that we were simply going to knock it on the head. We struggled. We didn't have a calculated plan and we probably weren't ambitious enough. As a result, we returned to Kawhia, back on the coastline and back to having a base from where we could rethink and regroup. Like I said though, our heads were turned. There was no real alternative once we made up our minds as we knew that it wasn't for us. We disembarked early that next morning and ventured back to the small town that we were sure we’d never see or hear from again.
Oh, before we left Taupo we made sure to repay a visit to Huka Falls, the illustrious, weird waterfall/river thing that quite frankly tested my imagination. We thought that by going there on an early midweek morning during the winter that we would not face a great deal of competition for the sweetest views. I suppose that we forgot how tourist heavy this country is and sure enough the Chinese armada were out in force to claim the finest photo spots. Early bird gets the worm I suppose. Nonetheless, the falls were illustrious and as impressive as ever.
We returned to Annes house in Kawhia, reminiscent about our time in the south island. For all its natural beauty and purity it doesn't do much for a lonely English couple trying to find work. I can’t really stress how outstanding it is, but it’s lure lies lonely in the heart of freedom - freedom of which we lacked. I imagine that I shan't ever return there in my lifetime, which is an upsetting thought…
Anne was as nice as ever and the dogs all the more smouldering. We felt an air of discomfort and did what we could to make our hosts life as easy as possible. We slipped back into the routine of feeding the animals as we counted down the three or so weeks until our return flight was set to leave the tarmac at Auckland airport. We had one last day trip in us and this was to be the classic trip to Matamata to visit the Hobbiton movie set.
We had to leave Annes temporarily as another house sitter was due to arrive whilst Anne went away for a couple of days. We were offered the chance to stay at Anne’s partners, where he had a small pent house kind of thing that backed onto the back of a large barn and just off to the side of his rather nice house. Without gilding the lily too much, it was bare eery. The silence was as quiet as i’d ever heard before and the evening darkness saturated down to its lowest depths. Critters had evidently taken this pad for their own given that Annes partner had stressed he’d never really been in there before. Me, being the manly man that I am, was prepared to battle the winters night whereas Amelia instructed us to head for the hills with haste. We weren't turning our noses up at the gesture and were grateful that we were offered the chance to have a roof over our heads for a few days, but we were on edge.
We put our heads down to sleep but the discomfort ate away at us, leading to Amelia legitimately booking a hotel for us at 9pm that night in Hamilton, based the best part of nearly an hour away. We were ultimately unashamed and saw it as a stepping stone to get to Matamata. Bloody wimps we are, ay? I’ll answer that. Yes, yes we are.
We didn't burden ourselves with anything we didn't need, so packed our provisions and started our overnight quest. The road was conventionally winding but we made it there in one piece. Any old hotel room was going to look nice but this one was genuinely nice. It was a bit of a shame we were only going to see it for all of about 3 hours really. The following morning we made for Matamata where all our synthetic hobbit induced dreams were set to come true. Fabulous.
Our sheepish arrival in Matamata was met with dreary weather conditions. Aside from an excessive array of farmland and the obvious Lord of the Rings affiliation, this small town doesn't have a great deal to offer.
Now, I’m not going to bang on too much about the Hobbiton Set Tour as it may well have to be an entirely separate blog on its own. But yeah, it was really bloody good to be fair. We opted for the evening banquet tour which was as geeky and sad as it sounds. We got a guided trot around the set, had a few bevies and some grub at the Green Dragon then went for another lantern lit walk. Things probably got a little bit too geeky when the tour guides started signing songs from the film and skipping around, but I stomached it. In true dream crushing fashion, the other people from our tiny tour group did my head in. You had the photo hoggers, the Chinese who quite frankly did not have a clue where they were and then then know it all’s. Most of them were fine to be honest, i’m sure people looked at me like ‘ahh look at that lanky English bloke in the hat’ but whatever. Swings and roundabouts, eh. All in all it was a bloody good evening and if I was a bit more open minded I might have actually made a friend or two. The two tour guides were extremely enthusiastic and, contrary to my dressing down of their singing abilities, made the experience more rememberable as a whole. Big up Frodo Baggins.
We did actually return to the gift shop at the set the following morning. We tried to buy some cider from there on the day of the tour but we got shamefully denied by the merciless Think 25 system. I must be a bit of an awkward one to be fair, I got a bit of stubble and i’m the best part of six foot, but i’m a man trapped in a boys body so it’s a bit of a coin toss. Nah, i’m probably flattering myself there. The sky was grim and the rain imminent, we took our treasures and left the lonely town of Matamata for the even lonelier town of Kawhia.
We were a little bit beyond pulling over at every natural lookout spot by now which was a God forsaken realisation of how out of love we were falling with the country. This was the exact kind of situation that we wanted to avoid. We used to be in awe of almost everything but over time that just stopped. Twas unusual. Our journey home lasted the best part of almost two hours. The rain was lashing down quite appropriately, I heard news back home that one of the lads who I used to work with had passed away and I was in a strange frame of mind. We weren't particularly close with one another but it was just one of those eye openers that hit home a tad. Appreciate life and all that jazz.
Upon arriving back in Kawhia we made the cataclysmic realisation that we had left my laptop, all £1000 of it, in our hotel room in Matamata - or so we hoped. We paced and we panicked until we we were put at ease discovering that it was in fact at the hostel. A bittersweet feeling, I must say. If we didn't laugh then we’d cry, so in true sporting fashion I whacked the shit heap of a Honda into gear and we chugged our way back across the country. To be fair, i’m pretty grateful some backpacker didn't steal it and sell it. My faith in humanity lingers. We rewarded ourselves with our first and only New Zealand KFC, it was underwhelming - that is all.
The next few days were quiet. We didn't get up to a great deal for there wasn't a great deal to do. I read a fair few books to be fair, perhaps four or five. My books about pirates and life in 19th century America were swell and I didn't actually zone out reading them like I usually do with other literature. One evening though, we were offered the chance to look after a farm house just down the road in a district called Aotea for a week or so - naturally, we took it up despite not knowing a great deal about working on a bloody farm. How hard could it be, eh? To be fair, it wasn’t very hard. Saying that, it wasn't actually much of a farm either, I might have exaggerated a little bit. But they did have ducks, chickens and monstrous cows that we had to feed, so it kind of counts, right? Right.
We briefly got shown around the house by the owners who were really nice and…weirdly trusting of us. Not that we’re distrustful, although hearing about Amelia’s track record with tame theft, nobody is safe. The house was a wee bit dated and had that stench of dusty ornaments. Dusty ornaments, burnt kindling and cat food. Aside from that it was delightfully spacious, had an open fire and a television coupled with no WiFi. There were a lot of those sketchy pictures of old ancestors on the walls, you know, the ones whose eyes follow you around. So, alarm bells were immediately ringing. Sure enough, I didn’t get dragged out of bed by the phantom of our ancient New Zealand cousins and my fruitful imagination was once again exposed to be a trifle daft.
Our brief induction on how to tend to the animals was a bit of a whirlwind. Our immediate priorities switched from ensuring that the animals were in a happy environment to basically just making sure none of them died by the time the home owners returned. We set our aspirations high, as you can see. Tending to the ducks and chickens was easy enough, simple quantities of food at morning and at night. The bloody moo cows though, Jesus wept. We had to herd them throughout different sections of the land every couple of days to a different pen which was as exhausting as it was frightening. Amelia seems to think being scared of standing next to a fully grown cow is traditionally not something people are afraid of. But, that is a thing, isn’t it? The absolute structure of them was bad enough, but these ones were compulsive starers. Literally, following your every move. We didn't have any immediate success trying to shift them along and taking conventional animal taming methods such as putting on a high pitched voice or thudding a stick on a fence did little to intimidate them. Google was our best friend in this scenario and, you know what, it turns out that there’s a whole world of cow psychology out there. I was flustered, man. We settled on utilising the farm dog who was sure to have this kind of thing on his CV and, you know what, he smashed it. The cows were dead scared of him and before we knew it the cows were absolutely legging it in less the uniform formation towards the pre-designated pen. We pondered as to whether they were meant to be running full speed in as uncomfortable fashion as they were, but hey, we got the job done. The chap told us that the cows like being stroked and all that but, pfftt, as if that was happening. Stroking cows? Grow up, mate.
Our time at the house was actually a refreshing change of environment and having some form of responsibility was probably better for our sanity. Jet, the farm dog, made excellent company but was definitely more of a trained outdoorsy dog, much to Amelia’s dismay. This didn't stop her from disregarding basic instructions and luring the dirty hound into the lounge for her sheer joy.
The Premier League season was starting while we were there so I was pretty hyped for that - nothing quite like a little bit of Liverpool FC to put you in a bad mood. I followed the live match blog at 2am in the morning on the other side of the world through my Twitter feed - don’t say that I don’t do anything for you bloody scouser’s.
Now. What else happened? Oh yeah. I shaved my beard which I had left unpruned for about 3 months. Oh, and this lost puppy came running onto the premises from the road without any credentials. He was an excitable whippersnapper who we commandeered for a few hours before making a legitimate attempt to return him anywhere. We eventually tracked down his owner with the help of Anne and he was picked up much later that evening. By the sounds of things, his escape is a regular occurrence. We were upset by his exit and even more upset after discovering his real name was Charlie and not Benji, the name given to him by us. He made cheeky attempts to bite my fingers off but in the interest of me being a charming young Brit I let that slide.
Overwhelmed by our love and affection, toppled with a bit of questionable ownership, Charlie the dog returned to us the following day, still not bearing so much as a collar. The man kind of gave us a rough indication of where the dogs traditional escape route was so we forecast his potential home and left him outside of there. It pained us to do it but he seemed comfortable enough. Long live Charlie.
It had been a fun five days, windy nights and wet mornings full of duck eggs, angry cows and stray dogs. Our time was up however and we returned to Annes, ready to weigh up our options for our time remaining in New Zealand…
