And so it draws to a close: the great New Zealand tour of '07 comes to an end. We rise early on Saturday morning, begin our journey in Auckland airport and eventually arrive at Cork airport some 27 hours later, probably without any intervening sleep.
I dropped the rental car back to Hertz a couple of hours ago. We covered just over 3,000 km in about three weeks. Not bad going, considering the longish stop-overs in Wellington, Kaiteriteri and Franz-Joseph.
Another day spent looking at glaciers: this time it was the Fox glacier, which lies a number of kilometres south of Franz-Joseph. While Fox is the smaller of the two, it is far easier to walk to, and it has more character -- if a glacier can be said to have character. Dawdled there for a while, but not too long as the weather is rather variable at the moment, though the south island has not experienced any of the terrible flooding the north island has.
One of the great things about New Zealand is the wide diversity of landscapes that are dotted about the two islands, with often dipolar environments in relatively close proximity. That's why we were able to drive from the balmy beaches of Abel Tasman to the frosty heights of Franz-Joseph glacier in about seven hours; and that was at a leisurely pace.
With oceans, dolphins, seals, stingrays and kayaks behind us, we now find overselves in rainforests, keas (indigenous parrot), ice and snow. Swimming trunks swapped for winter coats.
The start of the week finds me now in a place called Kaiteriteri: a small seaside town just south of the Abel Tasman national park. It is a tiny place that comprises a small grocery store, a backpacker's hostel and a couple of eateries; that's about it. Oh, and several small kiosks where the water taxi and kayaking companies ply their services. Kaiteriteri's reason for being is to act as a gateway -- both by road and by water -- to the park.
I have never experienced a volcanic region before, and there are many parts of New Zealand that could be described as active. There have been major eruptions here as recent as the mid-ninties, and only a few days ago there was a serious lahar which served to emphasise that mother nature still has some real kick and bite in this modern age.
A slightly mis-quoted Blackadder reference there -- from memory it runs more like: When a man soils a Wellington, he really puts his foot in it, or something like that ...
We finally hit Wellington, and are taking a few days of rest and relaxation before gettiing the ferry to the south island. The past few days have been a hectic blur of sulphur springs, active volcano ranges, deep river valleys and geysers; not to mention the scrambling up rocky gorges and down scree slopes. I'm kept fit on this excursion, no doubt about that.
Another quick update on the whirlwind wind tour of New Zealand. We now have wheels; we rented a car in Auckland and took a hopelessly meandering path along some of the east coast of the north island, ending up in Rotorua. New Zealand is the best place for meandering travel; taking the direct route from point A to point B is often the most featureless, unless you're into straight freeway. Meandering affords a wonderful view of the sights, sounds and lifestyle of this beautiful country, and frequent photo opportunity stops.
A very short note here from cloudy, yet warm, Auckland.
It has been a busy few days: flight to Japan via Heathrow; three days of madly rushing around Tokyo taking in the sights, eating great food and immersing ourselves in Japanese culture; another day of flying to New Zealand via Brisbane, Australia; and then charging around Auckland for most of today. Tomorrow we rent a car and motor southwards. To where, we have no idea, and that's exactly the way it should be.
Preparations are almost complete for the month-long tour of New Zealand -- with a bit of Toyko thrown in for good measure. Let's see ... the checklist: yen, dollars, passport, tickets (well, one of the three of us going has them), driver's licence, obligatory guidebook(s), insurance, accomodation bookings. Check, check, check and check. And don't forget the camera and small pile of memory sticks! I sense a photographic frenzy looming on this trip ...
The Green Man has been online over a week now, but it'll be while before the next story, The Voyage, is available. When I first thought to create recordings of these tales, I wanted to release one roughly once a month. I figured that a month would give me enough time to write something -- if I had already worked my way through the back catalogue -- and for Regina to record it. Any stories that were long enough to justify splitting into multiple podcasts, then I'd release those parts weekly. But new stories: one a month.
