Before we leave...
Just to finish off the New Zealand leg of the trip, which we actually finished a little over two weeks ago now...
We headed up to see Mt. Taranaki on the west coast and for once got lucky with the weather. The local saying is 'If you can see the mountain it's going to rain and if you can't see the mountain it's already raining'. So we were quite happy with a couple of sunny days and had a quick fix of culture with a look around the restored pinoeer village...
Mt. Taranaki, which is also known as Mt. Egmont, is a dormant (I think) volcano which is most impressive because there are no other mountains around, just one big one all by itself.
We then drove over to Tongariro with the hope of doing the famed Tongariro Crossing - one of the better one day walks available in New Zealand. However, for a second time we weren't so lucky with the weather here. We were told that they were expecting five days varying between snow, storms, freezing temperatures and a mix of all three. Good for the upcoming ski season we were informed, but less than ideal for walking. So instead we took a drive up to the ski slopes in the hope of actually seeing the elusive mountains which had been covered in cloud on our visit. They were covered in cloud. At least we get to lower the tone briefly with this picture...
You see, the thing with New Zealand is that a lot of the town names are Maori words. Wh is pronounced F,so Wha would be closer to Fu (Mark T - not sure why I thought of you while taking this picture, must have been the Bromwell High influence).
Anyhow, our last stop in New Zealand was the famous Waitomo glow worm caves...
We took the gentle walk and boat ride option (rather than the other more hectic wetter options). The picture above shows the sticky threads that the glow worms hang down to catch their food. These are no relation to the european glow worms, they're the larva stage of some gnat or other (Arachnothingy Luminosa perhaps? - look, it was three weeks ago, I can't be expected to remember everything) - you can just make out a few of them in the picture, they look like long thin shadows. The caves were very dark with lots of glowing glow worms, but you'll have to use your imagination here because we weren't allowed to take pictures.
So that was New Zealand. All 9250 km in 60 days. A brief summary - it's like a cross between Cornwall and Wales, only more impressive and without the Welsh.
And how can you spot a Kiwi (not the bird or the fruit)? The easiest way to tell the difference between an Aussie and a Kiwi - your Kiwi tends to pronounce the letter e as an i, and the letter i as a u. This was confirmed for me by an email sent to me by Mark T (an Aussie) concerning a Kiwi and a Gorilla. I'll save you from the joke, but we found it quite funny how Kiwis say iggs instead of eggs and dicks instead of decks (although not when listening to announcements on the ferry about the children's play area on deck 2), and the classic is fish and chips, pronounced fush and chups.
Enough of this, it's about time I wrote about our adventures in Oz...
We headed up to see Mt. Taranaki on the west coast and for once got lucky with the weather. The local saying is 'If you can see the mountain it's going to rain and if you can't see the mountain it's already raining'. So we were quite happy with a couple of sunny days and had a quick fix of culture with a look around the restored pinoeer village...
Mt. Taranaki, which is also known as Mt. Egmont, is a dormant (I think) volcano which is most impressive because there are no other mountains around, just one big one all by itself.
We then drove over to Tongariro with the hope of doing the famed Tongariro Crossing - one of the better one day walks available in New Zealand. However, for a second time we weren't so lucky with the weather here. We were told that they were expecting five days varying between snow, storms, freezing temperatures and a mix of all three. Good for the upcoming ski season we were informed, but less than ideal for walking. So instead we took a drive up to the ski slopes in the hope of actually seeing the elusive mountains which had been covered in cloud on our visit. They were covered in cloud. At least we get to lower the tone briefly with this picture...
You see, the thing with New Zealand is that a lot of the town names are Maori words. Wh is pronounced F,so Wha would be closer to Fu (Mark T - not sure why I thought of you while taking this picture, must have been the Bromwell High influence).
Anyhow, our last stop in New Zealand was the famous Waitomo glow worm caves...
We took the gentle walk and boat ride option (rather than the other more hectic wetter options). The picture above shows the sticky threads that the glow worms hang down to catch their food. These are no relation to the european glow worms, they're the larva stage of some gnat or other (Arachnothingy Luminosa perhaps? - look, it was three weeks ago, I can't be expected to remember everything) - you can just make out a few of them in the picture, they look like long thin shadows. The caves were very dark with lots of glowing glow worms, but you'll have to use your imagination here because we weren't allowed to take pictures.
So that was New Zealand. All 9250 km in 60 days. A brief summary - it's like a cross between Cornwall and Wales, only more impressive and without the Welsh.
And how can you spot a Kiwi (not the bird or the fruit)? The easiest way to tell the difference between an Aussie and a Kiwi - your Kiwi tends to pronounce the letter e as an i, and the letter i as a u. This was confirmed for me by an email sent to me by Mark T (an Aussie) concerning a Kiwi and a Gorilla. I'll save you from the joke, but we found it quite funny how Kiwis say iggs instead of eggs and dicks instead of decks (although not when listening to announcements on the ferry about the children's play area on deck 2), and the classic is fish and chips, pronounced fush and chups.
Enough of this, it's about time I wrote about our adventures in Oz...
posted by Jen & Col at
4:00 pm
2 Comments:
Well, I've never been to NZ and I think you've saved me the trouble of a long flight. A mixture of Cornwall and Wales may not be worth my carbon emissions. Top Kiwi travelogue, though, and award-winning glow-worm photos.
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