jb/NZ/North Island/Auckland to Waikato
It's Hobbiton made real. This part of the north island is a relentlessly cute idealised, romanticised, supersized version of rural England with some dramatic bits just for effect. It's so effin' bucolic I can feel my nature allergies kicking in. There's not a blade of grass out of place anywhere. Everything is freshly painted, moved, trimmed, manicured and new, and you never, ever see the Tidy Pixies doing the cleanup work.
jb/NZ/North Island/Caving in Waitamo
We went to Waitomo to clamber about in the caves (usual up 'n down rock thingies, nice enough) and say hello to the glow worms (quite cool, even if they aren't actually worms). We ended up black water rafting, which we definitely hadn't planned to do.
Black Water-ing consists of dressing up in a ridiculous costume (wet suit, caving helmet with headlamp, huge baggy shorts and bright white mini wellies) and climbing down into a cave system 200ft underground with a large rubber ring (?!). The idea is to jump into a foaming, ice cold underground river and be carried through rapids, caverns and tight tunnels in pitch dark for a couple of hours while perched on your rubber ring. Chuck in a couple of waterfall jumps, record water levels, and Em and I both being a long way left of claustraphobic and I'm amazed we did it at all, let alone really, really enjoyed it. S'funny old world.
jb/NZ/North Island/Drinking and playgrounds?/On nature vs nurture
Are we born knowing to put our feet down at the end of a kiddie slide, or is it something we have to be taught? Answers on a postcard to: Em's Busted Tailbone, PO BOX One Sore Puppy, Waikato, NZ.
jb/NZ/North Island/Rotorua/Smelly
Rotorua really stinks. Great to photograph, worth seeing... but by the time the smell is etched into your clothes and even the food you eat, well, sulphuric-swamp-rot fish 'n chips is reason enough to move anyone on. Oh, there's a whole lot of trad Maori food and dance stuff there too, but we left it for the Saga coach parties.
jb/NZ/Driving all over
After Taupo we took a big loop round the visually rather awesome Tongariro national park over a few days days (very pictureskew, bleak and remote) because it was definitely not the time of year to do the trek across the peaks of the two big volcanos. I was so disappointed. I love walking, so much. Really.
The east coast leg didn't start so well as we searched unsuccesfully for the White Island – apparently “Nowhere in the Lonely Planet does it say anything about it only being accessible by boat”. Ah. From there we drove round the Coromandel Peninsula (pretty towns and lovely, long and utterly empty beaches), back past Auckland (stopping on the way at a Go-cart track because Em had never tried) through an nature reserve for average-ish trees (Canadians know how to do trees properly) and on to to Russell in the famous Bay of Islands. By this time we'd both exceeded our twee and cute tolerance threshold and decided to head for the more dramaric South Island.
jb/NZ/South Island/kaikoura
Hate to mention this Chrissy, but whale watching doesn't have to mean sub-zero trips to the antarctic on Russian trawlers. We had a great time in T-shirt weather just off the coast of Kaikoura, plenty of whales up close, plus dolphins and albatrosses for good measure. 130 bucks, free coffee and back in time for lunch. Lovely.
jb/NZ/Did we bungy?/ No we bloody didn't
Call me chicken all you like, there ain't enough peer pressure in the world to make me sign up for bungy jumping. It has all the appeal of genital warts.
JB/ Could you live in NZ?
I keep changing my mind about this. There are so many amzing things about this place. It's beautiful, varied and dramatic and ought to be the prefect place to live home. It's got surf and ski seasons, after all. But...
Every second home is a B&B, every third car is a camper van, and the overall feel is of a giant eco-retirement home for OCD gardeners, it's bloody expensive and way too remote. Anywhere that makes Sydney feel chic and cosmopolitan has some serious issues
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