We had time for a bit of a sleep in today, though I didn’t really take advantage of it. I’m not one to sleep in anymore; even when hung over it just doesn’t happen. I was up at about 7am and decided to take a stroll down the road and maybe get a few pictures of mt doom! It was a beautiful day, sun was shinning and skies were blue. We’ve been pretty lucky with the weather so far on this tour. They forecasted shit weather and we’ve had the opposite – lucky us!
Tawhai Falls aka golums pool
Everyone started to show their faces in the dinning room around 9:30. We had to be out of the park lodge by 10 am, so a lot of the guys were waiting until the last moment to pull there asses out of bed. After everyone had a feed, we loaded back into the Spaceships and headed to Tangeriro National Park to check out Tawhai Falls, which was Golums pool in the Lord of the Rings. Pretty nice little spot; waterfalls, big rock, blue water… seems like NZ is filled with these kind of ‘nice’ spots! You could actually jump off the top of the water fall, but it was too cold for that.. well that was my excuse at least.
Hanging at the lodge
After exploring and taking photos we hit the road to Blue Duck Lodge. Blue Duck Lodge is in the Ruapehu District on the banks of the Whanganui and Retaruke Rivers, and surrounded by Whanganui National park. It is an outdoor enthusiasts dream! You take this long winding road country gravel road, with steep drops on your right hand side for about a ½ hour. There is no real signage and there were a couple of times when we all stopped and wonder ‘where the hell are we?’ We finally came up on the lodge and we all poured out of the spaceships, taking in the fresh air, blue skies and amazing scenery. Blue Duck Lodge is a group that is involved in several conservation projects. They are trying to save the blue duck; there are only 600 hundred in existence, restore historical homes, preserve the natural forests and have a million other things on the go!
We all met Dan, the owner and operator of the lodge. The man is passionate about conservation and what he is doing. At first he’s seems like your typical NZ country bloke; quiet, reserved, tough exterior, hard working and speaks his mind but chooses his words carefully, but if you get him talking about his projects, there is no shutting him up! He told us all to unload in the bunk house, grab some food and then he would be back in about a ½ hour to pick us up and take us for a tour of the property.
When Dan returned the group loaded into these 4×4 off-road vehicles that he uses to take people out in the bush. We headed up the road and came to a stop at the entrance to one of his pastures where he has sheep. He then had his dogs round up the sheep and put them through the gate at the top of the ridge line with a series of whistles. This was impressive! He had one dog chase the sheep from the corner, while the other one headed up the road and sat at a gate entrance barking, while the other 2 dogs had to wait at his side. I’ve seen videos of farmers working with their dogs but seeing it in person was pretty amazing. He had total control over each of those dogs! After the dogs moved all the sheep we headed into the field and made our way up the track to the top of the ridgeline. Once at the top we all got out and took pictures and asked Dan questions about his goals and conservations efforts. It seems that wild pig aka boar are a real problem here. One boar killed a matter of 16 sheep in 2 days, so the farmer can really take a financial hit when this happens. The boar will pin down the sheep and then use it’s tusks and hooves to gut the animal. It will eat everything leaving sheep skins to rot. Pretty crazy! Dan and his farm hand Simon hunt boar at least twice a week. The nice thing about it is they always have some fresh wild meat to eat. Another problem with the boars is the way they dig up the earth and kill all the vegetation – they are not native to NZ and are considered a pest. They also have problems with cats (you get $25/cat you kill), rabbits and goats. All of these animals endanger the native wildlife and fauna.
Dan and Simon of Blue Duck Lodge
After taking in the view Dan pointed to the trail and said from here we would walk down. It was steep, rocky and muddy! I wish I had my mountain bike! We crept down the hill, Im pretty confident on my feet so I didn’t really pose a problem for myself. There were a couple of close calls, but I remained on my feet and off my ass. That can’t be said for most of the group. All of the girls took a spill somewhere a long the line and one of them twisted their ankle. The funniest thing though had to be Anto, from Ski and Snow hostel, he had his boots on and he strolled down the center of this steep muddy track with no problem, almost like it was a walk in the park – hilarious! Anton was quite the character, fresh off the boat from Korea he had never had yogurt and musseli, goat, met a gay person, kayaked… pretty much everything was new – which was pretty cool! Dan caught up with us after we walked for about a ½ hour and offered to take us for a short kayak where we maybe able to see some blue ducks if we were lucky. Only about ½ of the group wanted to take a stab at kayaking, so we split up. The one half stayed up top checking out historical homes that Dan has rebuilt while the other half trudged down a steep hill side to a waterfall. At the waterfall there was an opening facing the opposite side, there you kayak under this fallen log and you will find yourself in between to flat steep rock walls, and very calm water. It’s green and luscious! Nobody saw a blue duck, but the small kayak ride was well worth the effort.
After climbing back up the hill, we checked out a historical building that was the home a depot spot for everyone that lived in the area. Back in the day after the war the government gave land plots to all of the returning soldiers. I’m not sure what they were thinking as this land is not really good for farming – steep, bush filled, rocky ect. Many soldiers came to the Ruapehu district to start a farm but once they saw what they were getting many turned around and headed home. Those who stuck around would meet at this depot to pick up supplies. Maybe you’ve the bridge to no where. It was built 1936 by the nz government so the soldiers could get to the farm land they were offering to them. It is a, an isolated 40 m road bridge over the Mangapurua Stream in Whanganui National Park. It was never used and does go to no where. If you wanted to see it, it will be a two day hike into the park. I am now thinking about doing the trek in the spring or summer.
The sun was now falling quickly so we all loaded back in to the 4×4 vehicles and headed back to the lodge. Once back at the lodge everyone headed for the showers. Thing is there were only 2 and we had 12 people. I opted not to take a shower, hell we are in the middle of the bush – fuck it. So I instead drank beer, tossed the axe, played with a bull whip and then drank some more beer – hells ya! I felt so at home here – made me feel like I at the cottage with my family. Once everyone was cleaned up it was time for dinner. The staff at blue duck, made up of an Irish couple and the Dan’s partners made Goat Curry and Goat Chow Maine – both were amazing. I’ve heard plenty of people complaining about goat, but I’ve never had a bad experience. At dinner Dan sat with our group and talked about his conservation plans and the lodge. The man is really passionate about saving the wildlife and ecosystems – it was actually kind of inspiring. The wine was flowing like water and as soon as you finished your glass Dan was pouring more – definitely a great host.
With dinner done half the group decided to head back up to the lodge to get a fire going. Now the fire was already going it just needed to be stoked. This is where you could really tell who has built a fire and who hasn’t. More wood does not make a better fire. Some of the guys just kept piling log after log on top, while the wood on the bottom hadn’t burnt. It was driving me nuts to be honest. Back home we always have a camp fire at the cottage and my bro usually takes care of this, I just kept thinking how pissed he would be if he saw this fire ahah. I let the boys add as much wood as they like and then when they weren’t looking I took it out and fixed it up – thanks bro! The rest of the group started to trickle back to the lodge and everyone was partying having a great time. They had a speaker and Ipod hook-up so we could have our music. Dan’s farmhand Simon and the Irish couple were gearing to go and wanted to party! Simon was pretty much already in the bag and the Irish couple wanted to dance, so we started busting moves on the outdoor dance floor they built – good times. By this time most of the group had gone off to bed so it was me and employees of the lodge. Simon then asked me ‘Led Zeppelin, Metallica or Sabbath’. I responded Zeppelin and he said ‘you loose’ and then the metallica started blaring. I don’t think they get to cut loose too often so I pretty much sat back and watched them go crazy. By 2am I was done, having to get up the next day at 6am it was time I shuffled off to bed, to the disappointment of Simon who still wanted to party!
Oh yah.. you may be wondering why Ive called this trip the “Good As Wood Tour”, well it was a term that Dan used all the time. After eating.. good as wood. After showing/telling us something… good as wood. Have a beer.. good as wood.
Friday we headed to Mt Raupheu to ski at whakapapa. This mountain has two ski hills on it; whakapapa and turoa. When I came to NZ I didn’t really bring any winter gear with me. I wasn’t really planning on skiing. Luckily enough the hill had gear to rent so I picked up some snow pants and skiis, boots and poles – all free of charge since it was a famil! The weather was absolutely amazing, blue skies, no wind and the night prior 6 cms of fresh snow had fallen at the top of the mountain. Sweet! I hadn’t been skiing in about 10 yrs, so I hit up the kiddie hill to brush up on the skills. It’s just like riding a bike – you pick up right where you left off! With my confidence on my skiing ability back I headed for the top of the mountain. You had to take 3 three chairlifts to get to the top of the ski runs. If you were to do a complete run it would take about 15 mins to get from top to bottom – but I usually stretched it out with a few stops for photos and few falls for fun! Hit one little kicker and landed pretty off balance, with one ski landing before the other. I pulled it out, but it was a sketch moment ahaha. Another time I was bombing a steep section as you need the speed to get up the next hilly bit and I started to speed wobble as I didn’t have balance when I crouched down ahaha. I was kind of sitting on the back of my skis, bouncing around and hoping to I could hold on. I did, but it was another sketch moment ahaha. I was actually pretty impressed with my knee, didn’t get sore and ddint feel weak so it must be getting better! I skied with Nemo for most of the morning and then we met everyone down at the café for lunch at 1pm. For a lot of the people on the famil this was the first tiem they ever skied or snowboarded, so there were a lot of sore asses at the end of the day. A couple people picked up a lesson, which was a great idea as it got them moving a lot faster than if they just tried to figure it out. Everyone was sharing there stories of making it down the hill in one piece while we refuled for the afternoon. At lunch the clouds rolled in and it got grey and rainy. I was thinking that the nice weather had come and come and now we will have an afternoon of wet skiing. I was wrong! When we got on the lift to go up, we went through the hazy of the grey clouds and came out the other side to blue skies and all sunshine! Amazing.
Dan and Lockie
In the afternoon I rode with Nemo and the snowboarders; Josh, Dan and Lockie. Dan and Lockie could ride pretty good and it was josh’s second time on a board and he was picking it up quite well until his binding fell off his board. He then had to ride his board down toboggan styles, taking out a skier and then dropping over a ridge – too funny! It was a great afternoon of snow! We rode some of the steeper terrain which was a hell of a lot of fun. I managed to not fall, so I was stoked! We got in about 5-6 hours on the hill – nice! By 4pm the mountain was shutting down so we returned our gear and headed back to our spaceships to drive back to the park lodge.
Top of Mt Ruapehu
At the park lodge we had an open bar tab, so we had a couple pints and swapped stories of all the knarlly moves we pulled on the hill ahaha. There are two hot tubs at the park lodge and our group piled into one! Must say the temperature was pretty weak, more like a warm tub! The tub was nice and relaxing and just what the doctor ordered after a long day of action on the hills.
After our hot tub we had dinner in the lodge, drank a few more beers and before I knew it was 1am. We had to be on the road by 8am and I was already knackered from the day on the hill. I called it quits and rolled off to bed. I think a few others stayed up to finish off another bottle of wine, but I was done!
Thursday evening was the start of my Spaceship tour. I met up with the group at the Fort St Spaceships office and we all loaded on too a Stray bus and then shuttled to the Spaceship van depot. In total we had 4 vans with 3 people in each van. There were people from Base, Friends Hostels, Nomads, I-Site, WorknHoliday and Spaceships. The weather forecast was not overally promising and the 5 hour drive to the Park Lodge, was completely wet. It rained and rained hard for the most of the drive. We had a dinner stop at Nemo’s parents place in Hamiton. After a good feed we loaded back into our Spaceships and headed off to his Nan’s place which is about an hour and half away for a bath room break and cup of tea. After a nice short visit with Nan we only had about 45 mins until we got to our accommodation for the evening. The Park Lodge was amazing. It had 80 rooms, really nice rooms, hot tubs, great shower facilitie, kitchen and lounge areas. A lot of the staff that work at Mt Ruapehu live at the Park Lodge. We rolled into the Park Lodge just after midnight, so we pretty much got our room keys and settled into bed.
Check out these crazy Canucks in NZ ripping down the Bombay Hills on SH (State Highway)1. I guess this group of long-boarders is on a world tour promoting long-board manufacturing company Landyachtz, based in Vancouver. These guys are nuts! One guy drafts a transport truck and trailer and then bombs past it, catching his buddy who is riding with no helmet or shoes ahah. If they were to crash, carnage would follow.
Dont worry mom, I will not be trying this. Im sticking with bikes!
The other night I went to the NZ International Film Festival. I ended up seeing The Misfortunates, which is a film from Belgium. It was pretty good and I would recommend checking it out if you see at your local video joint. It’s about a boy growing up in a dysfunctional, alcoholic household… there are some pretty sweet mullets as well! In one part his uncle created a drinking game on the tour de france. He took a map and highlighted the route – then for every pint, shot you had you would get some many km’s on the map.. the faster you drank the more you shot into the lead.. if you fell of your chair you are out ie falling off your bike… bloody genius! Of course they did it in stages, like the tour de france and the winner at the end of everyday would get the ‘yellow jersey’.
So scored another amazing work famil! Yes, I know I am lucky as hell! For this trip I will be touring the north island in a Spaceship Campervan for 3 days! Sweet as! Here is my itinerary for this trip:
Departure
Leave at 5:30pm from Auckland, heading north to The Park Station – I guess that is where you can park the van and it is equipped with all the amenities. We will be stopping at our tour guides Aunts place for dinner. Ahah So awesome! Kiwi hospitality!
Day 2 Ski all day at Mt Raupehu and then return to the park for food, drinks and hot tubbing. Ahah Fu*k ya!
Day 3
Go to Blue Duck Ecolodge, where they have activates planned for the day and then drinks and dinner around the brazier.
Day 4 Head to Waitomo Adventures to do some caving and after that head home.
Me = Lucky Bastard!
Yup, Im one lucky bastard! Im off touring this Thursday to Sunday and will update my blog with photos and hopefully some crazy stories of my time in a Spaceship!
On the weekend Michelle and I attended one of her aunts friends kids 1st birthday party, who happens to be moari. They held the party at a Maraei at mission beach in Auckland. It was a pretty big gathering! FYI: The marae is a communal ceremonial centre where meetings and ceremonies take place in accordance with traditional protocols. The marae symbolises group unity and generally consists of an open grassed area in front of a large carved meeting house, along with a dining hall and other facilities necessary to provide a comfortable stay for visiting groups. On the marae official functions take place including formal welcomes, celebrations, weddings, christenings, tribal reunions, and tangihanga (funerals). The older people have the authority on the marae, and they impart to the young people traditions and cultural practices including legends, songs or the arts of weaving or carving.
Detailed carvings on the marea
All of the carving that is done to a marea is done by someone in the family.
The birthday party wasn’t in the Maraie, but in a hall beside the Maraie. Like any birthday party there were heaps of kids running around, balloons, presents and generations of the family. I was lucky enough to be shown around by a family member of that explained the customs and beliefs. It was quiet interesting. There was a lot of food; steaks, sausage, salads, sweets, pasta and I could go on and on but you get the point. I found it really interesting how this culture takes care of itself. The provide housing for the elders, whose families have moved away so they don’t have to leave the community, housing is passed down from generation to generation and there is a real sense of what’s mine is yours. They are planning to build apartments so more locals can stay within the community and do not have to move away. The land settlement has been challenged, but it will remain in the hands of the maori people I believe. From what Ive read in the 80’s the maori people pretty much just took the land. One day they a staged a protest/sit in and never left, claiming it was there land. Hell, Im sure it was as they were here a long time before any white folk. It is an amazing piece of land they have – pretty stretches on to the ocean, lots of green space and you have to be a family member to live their. You can really see the similarities between the indigenous people of NZ and of Canada; they way the governments in the past have treated them is very similar and quiet sad/embarrassing also the struggles and sterotypes they face today.
On Thursday night Michelle’s work had a work dinner that I scored an invite too! They went to Daikoku, a Japanese Tappan-yaki restaurant along the viaduct in Auckland. We had our very own teppan-yaki chef cook our meal in front of us. Ive never been to this kind of restaurant, but it is a lot of fun dinning this way. It was definitely an unforgettable experience. You sit around this iron griddle while he chops, flips, set food on fire and fries your food. At one point you feel like an animal at the zoo as he flips egg at you that you have to catch with your mouth. My eye mouth coordination wasn’t the best; I missed the egg on the first go but managed to catch it on the second try. I had steak, while Michelle had scallops – which allowed us to share the best of both worlds – meat and seafood. It was really tasty and I would definitely go back with a group of friends. If you ever have the chance to go to a tappan-yaki restaurant, go for it – it is great food and great entertainment!
Michelle was working Sunday so I got a car and headed out to Woodhill Bike Park for some riding. It was another great day – blue skies with a bright sun! I got there about 9:30am, bought my day pass and just headed out into the trails and then I snapped my chain. Luckily enough I was not deep into the trail network so I just picked up my chain and walked back to the parking lot. Woodhill Bike Park has an on duty bike mechanic and shop, so I was able to buy and chain and have it installed in about 20 mins. I was pretty stoked that my day wasn’t ruined and I headed back out. While I was waiting I did have a chat with another mountain biker who said I have to ride Taupo. It is about an hour outside of Rotorua and supposedly has a great trail network – so it is now on the list.
On my ride up to the head of the trail network I start chatting with this other kiwi ride, Rod, who was there by alone as well so we decided to ride together for a while. It was a blast. Ripped some trails ive never been on – great day! He had to bail around 11am so I stuck around to ride for a couple more hours. By 2pm I was beat and headed back to the car park. I want to take another trip to Rotorua for some more riding soon. After riding there it kind of ruined Woodhill. It isn’t even close to as nice as the trails they have there – but it’s 30mins away – so you ride what is in your backyard. Rod was up for planning a trip to Rotorua as he has never been there. I am hoping to rent a vehicle and then split the costs with him and some of his buddies. Weekends are never long enough!
This past weekend Michelle and I headed to Waiheke Island. Waiheke Island is blend of farmland, forest, beaches, vineyards and olive groves. It is only about 35 mins outside of Auckland by ferry. It has a bunch of little artsy communities with interesting little shops, cafés, and restaurants. Some people commute by ferry to work in Auckland everyday. This island is pretty much paradise – it is littered with small batches and I heard that Tom Cruise, Shania Twain and other celebrities have houses here.
Michelle and I decided to do some hiking as the island has some great tracks! We did a couple of them and then headed down to the beach to eat lunch. I brought a couple of the left over beers from the night before and we had a nice picnic on the beach. It was a gorgeous day – all blue skies with no clouds to be seen! After chilling on the beach for a while we strolled into Onero and checked out the shops.
After that we decided to head back to catch the next ferry back to Auckland as the sun was soon to go down. We had about 45 mins to kill so I picked up a 6 pack of Macs Gold and we found a sunny spot on the side of hill to wait for the ferry. No better way to end a day of hiking then chilling with a couple of beers in the sun.
Once we got home we changed and then headed to the Fox’s Ale House, which is a sports bar on the viaduct. The All Blacks were playing South Africa so the place was packed. This was supposed to be one of the more competitive games, as lately it seems the All Blacks walk through their opponents. It was a pretty good game and was actually competitive. The atmosphere in the bar was intense as usual. Lots of high-fives being passed around on bone crushing hits and scores! The food was pretty blah.. but I guess you cant expect much from a pub. Another Saturday down!
