05/12– 6 nights in Sydney

Having reached the furthest point of our travels in New Zealand, we are now slowly working our way back to our inevitable reunion with the UK and life back in the real world. We stopped over in Sydney for 6 nights and will then move on to Melbourne and Singapore before checking in with my family in Kuala Lumpur and our flight back to Blighty. This series of big cities signals our winding down, with nowt else to do but plenty of eating, shopping and the occasional bit of leisurely site seeing.

Sydney is famed for being one of the great world cities (whatever that’s supposed to mean) and I hoped it would do much to dispel the less than fond memories of my last visit to Australia. Thirteen years old at the time, I went on a road trip with my parents from Darwin down to Ayers Rock. Anyone familiar the northern territory will know that this was never a great idea, and all that I remember of this are endless miles of red dust, flies, blistering heat and even more blistering rows as we argued over directions (this was the pre tom-tom era) from the confines of our rented Ford Taurus.  In the end, we never made it to Ayers rock, aborting the road trip due to crack in the windscreen…though I think the cracks in everyone’s patience played just a big a part in the decision.

I had a pretty clear idea of what to expect from Sydney; a sunshine harbour city that is cosmopolitan yet sporty. I imagined it to be a place inhabited by the beautiful people, strapping surf dudes and leggy blondes. I obviously didn’t get the memo that Sydney had been annexed by China. Such is the proliferation of Chinese and Asians that there were times in downtown Sydney that it felt like we were back in Hong Kong again! This was no bad thing, however, as we were missing Asia and this halfway house offered more opportunities for some top notch Vietnamese and Chinese food.

Unfortunately, there’s not much else of interest to show or say about our stay in Sydney as it was all very pleasant but also terribly generic. We visited the Sydney Opera house, and caught a riveting performance by the Chinese Folk Orchestra, wet our feet on Manly beach, visited various museums, galleries and markets and ate some fantastic Vietnamese and Chinese food thanks to Leanne, Si Phong’s friend and our gracious local guide. It probably speaks volumes about what we’ve been getting out of our final fortnight that the highlight of our time in Sydney was the lobster noodles that we had on the last night…which easily knocked Bayswater’s Mandarin Kitchen in to a cocked hat.

We did manage a day trip to the Blue Mountains, another UNESCO World Heritage site. As you can see from the photographs, we didn’t get to see a heck of a lot on account of the heavy fog.

30/11–Leaving New Zealand

We’re back in Christchurch, having completed our loop of the Southern Isle. Given all that we’ve seen and done over the past three weeks, it was rather a strange feeling ending up right back where we’d started for our flight out to Sydney. But on the upside, after three weeks of eating in hostels and burger bars, it gave us the opportunity to unleash our pent up food cravings, embarking on a 24 hour orgy of asian food that will leave local restaurants depleted of sashimi and bibimbap for many months to come.

Being “the country after China”, New Zealand always had a very tough act to follow. Initially, it felt like something of a come down, coming from the crazy, epic and chaotic rush of China to the tranquil lushness of New Zealand’s south island, which at times felt eerily like the United Kingdom. However, to bang on too much about this would be to do New Zealand a massive disservice. Once we got in to our groove here, we found New Zealand’s south island to be a beautiful place that’s filled with friendly people and many unforgettable experiences.

Don’t even think about trying to do New Zealand in a fortnight, unless you’re prepared to make some big compromises. There’s no point having all of this stunning scenery if its just whizzing past you from a coach window. Best to take at least a month out so that you can spend some quality time in the nice spots, of which there are many.

There are some countries where one visit is enough, but the not so with New Zealand. There are so many things that we didn’t get to fully explore, such as the many 4-5 day walks and Fjiordland. It’d also be a fantastic place for a cycle tour and we met a Canadian guy in Tekapo who was doing just that. We’ll be back one day, I’m sure.

28/11–Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park

At over 3500 meters high, Mount Cook is New Zealand’s highest peak. It was used by the celebrated Kiwi, Sir Edmund Hillary, as a base for training while he prepared to become the first man to climb Everest. It is not a mountain to be trifled with and the remembrance books at the visitor centre document the many lives that the mountain claims each year.

As we had a couple of nights in nearby Lake Tekapo, we were able to take a day trip to the Mt Cook national park. Of course, we neither had the skills, the equipment or the bottle to get up the mountain itself, but there were plenty of walking trails at the base, where under Mt Cook’s baleful stare one could soak up the views without risking life and limb.

Having navigated around lakes Tekapo and Pukake, the remaining drive to Mt Cook is along a flat valley bordered by mountains. In previous weeks, we’d had glimpses of Mt Cook from the west coast on the Magic Bus, but it had always been from some distance away and partially obscured by the clouds and other closer peaks. Approaching the national park, Mt Cook was finally revealed to us in all of its glory, standing head and shoulders above its neighbours under a clear blue sky.

Despite my weasel words of assurance, Si Phong was quite rightly still not at ease with being out the wilds with me as her guide after the experience at Abel Tasman. We therefore opted for a nice, safe, four hour walk from the visitor centre over to the terminal end of the Hooker Glacier, at the foot of the mountain. Ever conscious of our 4pm pick up, any dallying or stopping for photographs was met with a deathly stare from my beloved, and a scathing reminder of the already costly compensation package that was owed to her upon our return to England.

So briskly we tramped along the valley floor, with nary a spare moment to take in the stunning views or rock, stream, flora and blue sky. When we reached our destination at the terminal end of the glacier, it was a quick 10 minutes to gulp down some sandwiches while small icebergs cracked and bobbed in the glacial lake in front of us, before a quick about turn and march back to the visitor centre.

I felt like a small dog on a leash, being dragged along by its impatient owner, when all I wanted to do was stop and have a good sniff around. But we got back with plenty of time to spare so it looks like it was a good call from the missus.

27/11–Dunedin and Lake Tekapo

We’d had a good long stay at Queenstown, but it was time to start working our way back to Christchurch for our flight to Sydney.

So back on the Magic Bus we got. Prior to Queenstown there’d been a fair few familiar faces each morning on the same itinerary, but our long stay in Queenstown meant that most people had already moved on and it was a fresh cast of characters on the bus.

Our next stop was Dunedin, a decent sized city (well, by South Island Standards) with a large student population. In fact, 40 odd years ago, Dunedin’s Otago University posed a dire threat to mine and my sister’s future existence…my Dad was due to move there from Malaysia to study his accountancy degree, but at the last minute changed his mind and went to England, where he met my mother. Out there somewhere, in a parallel universe, is a Chinese New Zealander, probably called Shane, who’s father is Sin Fook Chew and who has just gone travelling in the UK and blogged about how different life could have been if his father had studied in England!!!

Dunedin’s situated next to the Otago peninsular, a strip of land that juts out 30 kilometres in to the pacific ocean. The peninsular boasts a wealth of wildlife, including Albatross, Yellow Beaked Penguins, Fur Seals and Sea Lions, which we all got to see first hand on an evening wildlife tour. Unfortunately, I have no decent pictures to show as the little buggers were either too fast or too far away for my humble camera to deal with.

Moving on from the Dunedin, we spent our last two nights in New Zealand at Lake Tekapo. Just like Yangshuo in China, it was a perfect way to finish off our time in New Zealand.

There’s not of a heck of a lot to do in Tekapo, the town itself is tiny. In fact, it doesn’t even have a cashpoint, which necessitated some creative flexing of the credit cards in order to preserve enough cash in the wallet to pay for all the small stuff. However, that’s all good, as just walking the shores of the lake, smelling the pine cones and watching the Lupin and tall grass swaying in the breeze was pure food for the soul.

Lake Tekapo is a glacial fed lake and small particles of glacial silt suspended in the water lend it an icy light blue colour, quite spectacular when viewed against a backdrop of lush green hills and the purple and lilac Lupin flowers.

The McKenzie district, which Tekapo lies within, is named after an irrepressible Scot, who became infamous for rustling sheep from his neighbours and busting out of jail on numerous occasions. We heard numerous, slightly differing, stories of his various transgressions so he must have been quite the character.

This part of New Zealand has some of the clearest skies in the southern hemisphere and an observatory is situated at the top of Mount John, on the banks of Lake Tekapo. We’d already gotten wind from our fellow backpackers that an evening of star gazing on Mount John was not to be missed and duly signed up for an evening tour of the observatory.

Once again, we were very lucky with the weather, as we got up there on the first clear night in several days. It was a pure geek-out as the resident astronomers enthusiastically talked us through the night sky. Up there in the rarefied air, the night sky was revealed to us in all of its glory. We could see with the naked eye the international space station moving across the horizon, Jupiter, and also the stars of the milky way in such a proliferation that we thought they were clouds.

The astronomers told us of how the light from the stars were thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years old, owing to the vast distances being travelled, and that we were effectively looking back in time at the starlight. I felt once again, like a child, lost and wondering at the vastness of the universe, bittersweet in the knowledge that our own lives will be here and then gone in a blink of the eye and that of what little time we have, most of it will be spent twiddling with spreadsheets and writing yet more weekly frickin’ management reports.

25/11–Tramping up Ben Lomond

Here’s a few pictures from the hike (Kiwi’s call it Tramping) up Ben Lomond. The walk starts from Queenstown, so its a popular one for people staying in the area. Its not a long walk, maybe about 14kms to get up and back down, but there’s a fair bit of up hill to get to the 1700 metre summit.

This was another early morning raid, while Si Phong had lie in, so other than an other German walker, I pretty much had the place to myself again. The first third of the walk started in woodland, ascending up to the Skyline Gondola. This area is shared with Quad Bikers and MTB’s and I could see some fantastic looking trails running off the main access path.

Things opened up a bit once I got to the Gondola level, which is about 700m up. I now got on to the Ben Lomond track proper, which consists of two sections…a reasonably gentle climb on exposed grassland called the Ben Lomond saddle, followed by the steeper rockier ascent up to the peak.

Once I got past the saddle and on to the ascent, there were some great views of the Remarkables mountain ranges on the other side. Walking conditions were very good, but I couldn’t help feeling a little tightening of the chest, maybe because the climb felt surprisingly isolated considering that I could not have been more than 6kms from the town centre.

Being the highest peak near to Queenstown, the summit gave a 360 panorama of the whole area. Really, who needs to blow several hundred on a helicopter flight when you can be right up and in it with a good walk?

I got back down the mountain in double quick time. On the way down, I encountered many walkers heading up, in direct contrast to my solitary ascent. The walk took less than four hours as opposed to the 6-8 hours suggested in the visitor info, so I was able to meet Si Phong for lunch and a well earned reward of Queenstown’s famous Fergburger. A great walk with a nice, tasty end.

22/11– Moonlight track

Our six days in Queenstown gave Si Phong the chance for a bit of a lie in. Which of course gave me the option to get up at the crack of dawn to get stuck in to some quality bike time…oh yes!!!

Having chatted to the local bike shop, I decided on a 25 mile off road loop around Queenstown. This route took the road westwards out to the 7 mile bike park area, then headed north over a valley path along Lake Dispute and Moke Lake. The second half was along Moonlight track, which follows high along a steep gorge to Arthur’s point, from which a short road section takes you back to Queenstown.

Suffice to say that it was a great ride. The road section had some great views of Lake Wakatipu, I then jumped off on to some sweet singletrack at 7 Mile, though the big ride ahead meant I had to drag myself away after a bit of playtime to keep the miles ticking.

Below are Lake Dispute and Moke Lake. This was one of the best bits of the ride, with some good climbing and not another person in sight. Having been backpacking for the past 3 months, my bike fitness was a shadow of my Lands End 2 John’O Groats form, so I took things easy and even walked some of the steeper sections.

Things took a bit of a turn after the lakes, hitting a big flat plain where horses grazed among lemon (?) trees. The path that I was following slowly gained in height, while the plain narrowed in to a gully. It was not long before I was high up and looking down on to a steep river gorge…signalling the start of Moonlight track.

The guy from the bike shop had promised some tasty singletrack around here. However, you’d have to the bike skills and fitness of an XC world champ to be able to ride this section. The first third of Moonlight was a straightforward 4x4 track but it then narrowed in to very steep and rocky sheeptrack which was virtually unrideable.

I took the coward’s path. Crawling on all fours, pushing the bike along with my tongue, I began to realise why it was called the moonlight track. Because with a steep 100m drop on one side and more gnarl than you could shake a stick at, they’d probably still be looking for your dead body under the moonlight if you tried to cycle it.

The next six miles took about as long as the rest of the ride put together, as I pushed and carried the bike pretty much the whole way. At least I was not alone now as a number of walkers now joined the moonlight track from the Ben Lomond track.

After I reached Arthur’s point, I blasted the remainder of the loop back to Queenstown on tarmac. Great ride, despite the hike-a-bike antics of the last third.

The Top Animal Moments

We encountered many wild and interesting animals on our travels, and not all of them were in the youth hostels. Here are some of our top animal moments:

1) Watching a Panda piss like a horse in Chengdu. Its 7am and the forest is swathed in mist. Quietly, delicately, we approach the form of a sleeping animal. Its our first encounter with a giant panda. We watch in stunned silence for some time, then suddenly, it stirs! Yawning and stretching, it gets to its feet and ambles towards the assembled group. The whirring and clicking of cameras reaches a frenzy. What will it do next? The panda turns its back and squats down right in front of us. We gasp with delight. Oh but wait! What is it doing? Oh my god! We hear the sound of gushing water, steam rises from the grass, mingling with morning mist. The panda is having a piss. And not just a little tinkle, its a frickin’ fire hose! He’s putting on a real show now, but I know that this kind of flow is unsustainable. It won’t be long before panda boy has run out of juice and must bring his water show to an early end. Except that he doesn’t. He just keeps going and going….and going. The crowd don’t quite know how to react, At first there is an awkward silence, then nervous laughter…but by the time it is finished, we were all doing the crossword or phoning friends and family to pass the time. So, you may have achieved much with your life, and seen many things…but if you think you’re all that, then let me ask you this: Have you ever seen a Giant Panda piss like a horse? Pissing like a horse on a pile of its own fresh poo? Well, have you?

No. Didn’t think so.

2) The Wiggedy Worm. I made first contact with this crazy little critter at a toilet in Long Sheng rice terraces. This video footage is both rare and hard earned,  because lets be real, video cameras in public urinals are always going to get the other patron’s heckles up. It may be some undiscovered species, or possibly an alien from outer space. All I know is that its the Wiggedy Worm and its the craziest little thing that I’ve ever seen.

I played this video over and over many times during our trip. I began realise how the Wiggedy Worm’s travels parallels our own confused, post-modern existence. We too are just trying to feel our way through life, not knowing where we are coming or going. And just like the Wiggedy Worm, despite all of our hardships and the twists and turns, we often end up right back where we started.

3) Bug Bowling in Xian. This one may not please the tree huggers, but it sure as hell put a big smile on Si Phong’s face. We found a large beetle basking in the sun in Xian.  Just as I was getting in close to line up a macro shot, a small berry flew across and flipped it on its back. I only needed to hear the laughter to know who where the berry came from. It was a shot in a million, and thus bug bowling was born.

4) Seal and Penguin watching in the Otago Peninsula. We spent an unforgettable evening watching fur seals and yellow penguins at the Otago Peninsula in New Zealand. It was birthing time for the seals, so we were lucky enough to see the new born pups with their placentas still attached. We also caught a young sea lion….who’s face was so ugly that it took me a while to distinguish which end was its head and which was its arsehole.

More top animal moments to follow…

20/11–Moving on, Greymouth, Franz Josef and Milford Sound

We’ve been moving along at a fair old pace in the South Island. After the long march at Abel Tasman, we left Nelson and did an overnight at Greymouth. Little did we know that in little more than a week after our stay there, tragedy would strike the when 29 miners died in an underground explosion.

 

The next stop was Franz Josef, where we stayed another night. Just long enough to do the obligatory walk of the Franz Josef Glacier.

The drive up to Franz Josef was something of an event in its own right as we were greeted by some stunning scenery and winding alpine roads. For its size, New Zealand has some quite startling changes in climate and vegetation between regions, and the regions around Franz Josef were covered in rainforest, in stark contrast to the more temperate North and North East coast.

The Glacier itself in a magnificent thing. Its terminal end has been retreating over the past 15 years or so due to the earth’s warming, leaving behind a barren moonscape of broken rocks in its wake.

Having approached the glacier from this rubble strewn end, we were able put on our crampon’s and walk up on to the old boy, which gave us some more great views of the valley below. However, Si Phong seemed to be more interested in the great views of our guide’s behind. According to her and the other females on on the Magic Bus, “Callum” was a proper piece of eye candy. I guess the glacier probably retreated an extra couple of meters that day on account of all of extra heat coming from those ladies.

At this point, we’d been travelling for about a week through New Zealand with barely a day off the coach. We’d made a couple of friends on the way, such as Sao Mai from Quebec, who we were to spend plenty more time with down the line. Despite the good company and the beautiful scenery, it was starting to feel like a bit of a grind, so it was with much relief that we hit Queenstown, where we fully intended to slow things down a bit by staying seven nights before a more relaxed itinerary back up to Christchurch.

Queenstown is set in some fantastic scenery of its own, but most people will travel from there for a day trip in to the Fiordland National Park area in order to visit Milford Sound. This is not a short drive by any means. In fact, the Milford Sound excursion sounds positively insane at first glance…a ten hour return coach journey just to spend 2 hours on a cruise boat at Milford Sound. Say what?!?

However, we figured that the only way that such a ridiculous excursion could be so popular was if the 2 hours on the boat was absolutely knock out. And spectacular it was!

Things weren’t looking too hopeful on the way out from Queenstown to Te Anau, as the drive was shrouded in mist and freezing rain, prompting everyone to stop up on extra fleeces at the cafe stop. But as we progressed in to Milford, the clouds miraculously cleared. According to the driver, It was the first clear day in over a week.

Milford Sound is best viewed by boat, as it highlights the way that the mountains rise straight up from the sea. This was some proper Land that Time Forgot stuff right here, and the only thing missing was a flock of Pterodactyls plucking the odd unfortunate tourist in to the air.

Despite this, it was a slightly frustrating experience for me to be viewing Milford Sound from the top of a tour boat. I was fully aware that one of the reputed Finest Walks on Earth, the four day Milford Track, starts from lake Te Anau and crosses the mountains in to Milford Sound. This would have been a far more satisfactory way to get to and see Milford Sound, though our particular itinerary could never had accommodated this. Hmm…maybe there’s some unfinished business with this southern isle.

Navigation error leads to 35km death march in Abel Tasman

Having spent a couple of nights in Nelson, we used it as a springboard for a day trip to Abel Tasman. Abel Tasman…Abel Tasman...even the name has a slightly sinister ring to it, like a curse, or the unutterable name of a murderous pirate or evil shaman of olde.

In reality, Abel Tasman is a national park that is famed for its 51km coastal track, which skirts along fabulous unspoilt beaches and sandy coves. Abel Tasman has no road access, so visitors must either hike the coastal track or use the sea taxi service to get further in to the park.

Our plan for the day was to take the sea taxi 30kms along the coast and get dropped off at Tonga beach. We’d then backtrack, walking 16km along the coastal track to Anchorage beach, where we’d get the 5pm sea taxi back to the park entrance.

On the coach from Nelson, the bus driver had warned that parts of the track were tidal. This point was completely lost on us, as we are land lubbers and hell, we had 5 hours to walk a paltry 16kms, right?!?

We had an enjoyable stroll, reaching the estuary before Anchorage with a good hour to spare. However, one barrier lay between us and the last 1.5 km  to the pick up point. The tide had come up, meaning that we would have to wade across 100 odd meters of sea water to get to the other side. A quick look at the map (which later turned out not to be to scale) revealed that a soaking could be avoided by taking the non-tidal route around the banks of the estuary.

The sign for Anchorage indicated that the path would only take 30mins and so we cracked on. But as we progressed, we seemed to be walking further and further away from where we needed to be. The path went ever more inland with no sign of a bridge to the other side.Time was ticking down and we found ourselves anxious and walking ever faster until we were both flushed and dripping with sweat. Then, without warning the next sign for Anchorage jumped up to a 1 hr 30 mins walk time! Oh no!!! It dawned on us that the previous 30 min sign must have been for the tidal crossing and that we were now committed a much longer route which meant that we had no chance of making 5pm for the last sea taxi of the day!!!

When we eventually reached Anchorage beach, it was 5.30pm and the last boat had well and truly gone. I knew that this was not a good thing…there were no roads in to the park and the place was virtually deserted now. There was a good chance that we were stranded for the night. We had a frantic 30 minutes running up and down the length of the beach looking for help. Finding a ranger’s lodge gave us a brief moment of hope, but only confirmed that there would be no more sea taxi’s. We did find boat, but the skipper wasn’t up for taking a fare, though he did seem to take great pleasure in pointing out that it was a four hour walk and we’d finish in darkness.

So it boiled down to two options, an overnight stay in a beach hut or soldiering on and walking the remaining 13km out of the park, with no mobile reception and no guaranteed means of finding a ride back to Nelson. Staying overnight was not an option as we had a coach to catch at 8am the next day from Nelson. We resigned ourselves to walking, hopefully beating the 9pm sunset in the process. Si Phong had accepted her fate by now and had gone from being slightly tearful to silently determined…good girl.

So we trudged on, fuelled by our solitary remaining packet of chocolate digestives. We were making good progress under the still sweltering afternoon sun. About 5kms in, we began to hear strange noises from the jungle. “Its nothing, just bird calls”, I assured Si Phong. But the calls got louder and more regular until a human voice could be distinctly heard. Suddenly, a tall, muscular man emerged from the jungle behind us, he was running bare foot and his long, sun bleached hair rustled in the air. He looked magnificent.

TARZAN!!! YES!!! IT WAS TARZAN!!!

Not quite knowing what to make of it, I asked “Hello? Can I help you?”. Which was a silly thing to say, as it turned out that he wasn’t, in fact, Tarzan and had been summoned from quite some distance away to help us. We waited hopefully to see what assistance was on offer as he radio’d back to base. As far as Si Phong was concerned, she was now deeply embroiled in the Worse Crisis Ever and was fully expecting to be air lifted out of the park. Or at the very least, carried out by Tarzan. Unfortunately, this is New Zealand and the locals are a built bit tougher than that. Tarzan gave us a quick look over and politely suggested that we’d be good to finish the walk out of the park. I blame Si Phong and her sturdy looking legs for his assessment.

So, assured of our ability to finish, Tarzan disappeared just as rapidly as he’d appeared, leaving us to complete our death march . We thankfully got out at 8.30, just as dusk settled in. At this point, our escape from Abel Tasman was not yet in the bag, as we were still an hours drive from Nelson and a brief chat with the park ranger suggested that we’d be unlikely to find any transportation until the next day.

At this point, we were willing to pay any sum to get us back to a hot shower and our nice warm bed at our room in Nelson. We found a nearby cafe where the staff were great, and helped us to book a private minibus. The £100 fare hurt me far more than the 35kms of walking. How come all of my mistakes on holiday have been expensive ones?!?

While we waited, it seemed that the locals were taking an interest in our long march...the local crazy, a scruffy looking man with wild grey hair, undeterminable foreign accent and BO that could kill a possum from 50 yards, took great pleasure in castigating us loudly to the rest of the bar for our foolishness. As he blabbered on it became clear that he had an axe to grind with all the evil day trippers who were nowadays descending upon Abel Tasman by sea taxi.

It had been quite a taxing afternoon, but I restrained myself from chinning the crazy guy. It was a wise move, as he turned out to be the owner of the Cafe! Once he’d stopped foaming at the mouth, we were able to strike up some civilised conversation and his reasons became a little more clear. He was Czech, a traveller in a previous life, who’d settled in Abel Tasman over 20 years ago to start his Cafe. His beef was that back in the old days, backpackers would come from all around and spend several nights walking, camping and enjoying Abel Tasman. The advent of the boat tours had brought about a change, people were no longer willing to take their time getting in to Abel Tasman via the walking tracks, instead dropping in and out by in a single day via the boats.

Anyways, after the local Police popped in to check up on us (very embarrassing) the taxi arrived and we were finally on our way home.

In hindsight, things could have been much worse. Truth be told, we’re not really beach people and there’s something evil about these isolated beachy coves that drives people to madness and unspeakable acts of savagery…just read Lord of the Flies or The Beach if you don’t believe me!!! So we can consider ourselves lucky that the madness did not take us, though Si Phong probably did consider bashing my brains out with a rock when we first realised that we were going to miss the boat.

So what have I learnt from this experience? It’d be all to easy to blame it on my wanton disregard of tidal warnings or my route planning skills. But no, the real culprit is something much bigger. The fact is, we would NEVER have been stranded if this had happened in China. You can be your bottom dollar that we would have found an enterprising fisherman willing to moonlight as a boat taxi if the price was right. No, the real blame must lie with New Zealand and its people. Yes!!! Here is a country where people have gotten affluent that they actually believe they have the right stop working at 5.00pm and worse still, cannot be bribed in to action by our weakened British Pound. DISGRACEFUL!

14/11 - Touch down in NZ

We're now in NZ, its somewhat different to China, a bit like Scotland or Wales on steroids and without the rain (so far!).

 

We were looking forward to a more casual style of travelling, after the relentless march across China and SE Asia. Unfortunately it looks like this won't be the case as it turns out that New Zealand's South Island is the size of Great Britain and packed with things to see. The magic bus network goes in an anticlockwise loop, covering 3000km en route. We quickly realised that we'd need 3 weeks to do it justice and forked out for later flights.

 

Unfortunately NZ and OZ signal the start of UK like prices...a big shock to the system after China and even HK. This is great news for Si Phong as she will get to savour my gourmet like cooking as we cook our own meals in a bid to save money.

 

The hike in price means that we're also well and truly doing the backpacker thing now, staying in youth hostels and travelling on a tour bus. Based on Sheenie's tales from Lao, we were expecting to witness scenes of rampant debauchery as our fellow backpackers ran wild at night, but were rather suprised to find most folks tucked up in bed by 12. Tssk! The youth of today, no party in them!

 

More from NZ once we've figured out what the hell we're going to do here! It sure is purdy here though...missing China big time, but I think we're going to have a good time here.

10/11 - Goodbye China

So with a heavy heart and fond farewell, we bid goodbye to the People's Republic of China, flying out of Hong Kong on the 10th November. Or maybe we left 4 days earlier on the 7th of November, depending on how you view Hong Kong's level of independence from the PRC.

 

We almost didn't make it out at all, having had another dodgy moment at the check in counter where our booking did not show up. This time the mistake was ours, somehow we'd managed to get our dates mixed and should have flown the day before...doh!!! Fortunately Quantas were able to fix this for a painful-but-could-have-been-much-much-worse charge.

 

We both agreed that China's been an amazing experience, a dizzying kaleidescope of people, food & flavours and jaw dropping scenery. One of the biggest reveleations was the realisation that China is just not one nation of Han chinese, but a mix of many sub-cultures and ethnic groups, Xi'an had its Muslim Chinese and there was a strong Tibetan influence in parts of Sichuan and Yunnan. The diversity was certainly in evidence as I struggled to understand various local accents and dialects as we moved from province to province.

 

China remains one of the great untapped destinations for western travellers...it has so much going for it, delicious and varied cuisine, thousands of years of culture and history and some of the most unique and epic scenery imaginable. Best of all, even with China's growing economy, its still ridiculously affordable to live and travel out there. If it were not for one significant catch, I'd be urging everyone I know to get out there right now and experience China's wonders.

 

The catch is, of course, the language barrier. There are very few English speakers in China and unlike SE Asia, the tourism industry in China does not depend on foreign visitors as the chinese middle classes largely holiday within their own country. I grew up in a mandarin speaking household, which was about as usful as a chocolate teapot in the UK, where the BBC's are all cantonese speakers, it was therefore an extremely gratifying experience to have finally been able to make use of the language to unlock the treasure box that is China.

 

Things may change in the future, as the younger generation of classroom-educated Chinese take over maybe the proportion of English speakers shall increase, but so will the prices. So if you already know or have half a mind to learn mandarin, I'd urge you to get over there and experience China while its still relatively cheap and unvisited.

10/11 - Living in a Box in Hong Kong

I'm something of a freak among BBC's (British Born Chinese) having never visited Hong Kong before. I finally got to break the duck when we spent 3 nights visiting our friend Alison and transferring for our flight to New Zealand.

 

Highly developed and with a pace of life that rivals any of the world's great cities, Hong Kong was always going to be a rude shock to the system after our relaxing time in Yangshuo. What was an even bigger shock, however, was the quality/price of the accomodation!!! In china we'd been spoilt, staying in accomodation with hostel prices, but hotel quality.

 

Bolstered by our experiences in China, we felt confident going for the hostel option in HK. What a mistake! We arrived at Chung King mansions and were greeted by the sleazy looking manager, who proudly announced that he'd upgrade us to one of the big rooms for the first night. Bonus! However, far from being the palatial suite of our dreams, the big room turned out to be a shoebox, literally two single beds, four walls and a 3 foot gap between them and nothing else to spare. It was obviously a false promise to get us to sign up for three nights, as this was certainly not a "Big Room" and we couldn't imagine there could be anything smaller.

 

Except that this was Hong Kong and the rooms could always get smaller! The next day, we got back at night to find that our luggage had been transferred to a regular room and the world had closed in around us just that little bit more. The feeling of claustrophobia was further compounded by the lack of windows and stiffling heat (the aircon was busted), though if things got too much, we felt that help was never too far away as the hole in the wall plugged with rolls of newspaper and selotape meant that we had a direct line in to the room next door.

 

So constricting was our accomodation, that we took to wandering the streets at night, like destitutes, unwilling to return to our prison cell until the last possible moment before bedtime.

 

It was great to catch up with some dear old friends in HK, but big cities and small bedrooms are leaving us a little cold at the moment...New Zealand is calling.

04/11 - A perfect end

As promised, our five week tour of China came to a rather dreamy end at Yangshuo.

 

I'd taken a slightly alternative choice of accomodation, eschewing the hustle and bustle of the main strip to stay in a converted farmhouse 5km out of town. It was a potentially risky manouver as S-Lo, our resident diva, might not have taken kindly if it'd been all about water wells, brick outhouses and cows wandering through the bedroom in tut morn.

 

However, it turned out to be a masterstroke, The Giggling Tree turned out to be a slick operation, run by a dutch couple and their excellent team of staff, who catered for our every whim. Furthermore, it allowed us to be truly in and amongst Yangshuo's star attraction...the lucious, slow moving, picture postcard countryside!

 

None of my pictures can really do Yanshuo any justice, it may not have the epic scenery of Huang Shan or Jiuzhaigou, but the really great thing about Yangshuo is that there is no kodak moment or beauty spot as such, because the whole county is one big patchwork of golden crop fields, limestone peaks and waterways.

 

One could easily spend a fortnight just relaxing in Yangshuo. We unfortunately had only 5 days, so we did our best to ensure that every day was filled with good things, we had unforgettable moments cycling around the countryside in the sunset and hiking along the banks of the Li River. This place casts such a tranquil aura that even after a full day of activity, one finished the day feeling relaxed and glowing.

 

It was a lovely way to finish our time in China and ensures that we leave the motherland with a fond memories and a definite wish to return again in the future.

 

 

 

01/11 - A short stop in Guilin

Lying on her sick bed in Lijiang, Si Phong almost felt that she'd had her fill of China and of travelling. Fortunately, I knew that the perfect antidote was around the corner, which would ensure we finished our journey through the motherland on a high. We were flying to Guilin and had seven days of relaxation to look forward to, no planes or coaches to catch and all at sea level under an equitable climate.

 

Guilin lies in Southern China in the Guangxi province and is famous for its karst limestone peaks; strange lollypop/finger shaped mountains which rise up from the flat rice and wheat fields around them, giving the landscape an almost surreal look, a little bit like Marioworld made real. Its the quintessential image of China, captured over the years in countless paintings and images, recently the TV advert from HSBC.

 

However, those looking to have a defining China moment in Guilin City will be somewhat dissapointed. Its a pleasant enough place, but serves more as a base to the surrounding areas, with the very best of the countryside and scenery actually being located some 40km down the road in and around the town of Yangshuo.

 

We spent a couple of days in Guilin, with a visit to Longsheng rice terraces at the top of the to-do list. In order to give our travelling companion Sheenie the opportunity to meet more backpackers, we broke with our usual independant travel thing and signed up with a tour group. The plan backfired when we realised that our "English Speaking Tour" was a sham, and we'd been thrown in to a massive Chinese tour group.

 

As a result, rather than the idylic trek amongst the rice terraces and villages that we had envisaged, we found ourselves among the masses, following a tannoy wielding guide like sheep while we were funnelled in to various tourist processing spots where the "quaint" villagers proved to be just as adept at milking us for our dollars as they were at milking the cows.

 

Our dud day on the terraces was soon forgotten as we took a lovely cruise along the Li river the next day to travel from Guilin to Yangshuo. Yangshuo will be our home for the next 5 nights and will offer us the opportunity to experience a little bit of rural life in china.

01/11 - Lijiang

We've just bid a fond farewell to Lijiang, where we spent 3 nights in the lovely old town, which is a maze of old naxi buildings, now all converted in to souvenir shops, bars and hostels. Our stay was made all the more enjoyable because of our host, Mr Wang, an old timer from Beijing who spends his days drinking tea and sipping the odd Bai Jiu (chinese white spirit) or ten while tending to his guests like a kindly old father.

 

Si Phong had been suffering from a bad case of food poisoning which she'd had since Tiger Leaping Gorge and hadn't been able to hold down any food. Mr Wang steadfastly refused to indulge her requests for noodle soup and instead prescribed her the time honoured meal of Congee (rice porridge, absolutely no oil or meat) and pickle, which got her right in no time.

28/10 - Enter the Tiger

Wow! I mean WOW!!!

 

This place is just off the scale.

 

Today, we were treated to a five hour trek along Sean's secret trails. The trek was nominally to visit a waterfall in the upper reaches of the gorge, but given the epic surroundings, it was always going to be more about the journey than the destination.

 

Si Phong had been laid low with food poisoning, so it was just me and Sheenie following Sean that morning. Being a man with some meat to him, Sheenie was the Jabba the Hut to Sean's Yoda. He therefore did a manly job in keeping pace up some steep and rugged mountain paths. The flipside of course is that Sheenie sweats for ten men (make that 20 if the men are asian) and it wasn't long before steam could be seen rising from his black polo. At one point I heard Sean muttering to himself in the local dialect "Man, if this white boy sweats anymore, the villagers will have salty drinking water".

 

Tiger Leaping Gorge was a great antidote to some of the equally stunning, but sanitised spots that we have been to recently. There wasn't a camera toting tourist in sight (well, apart from us) and the paths were rough, bordering on dangerous in places. We only met a few people that day, and they were all villagers tending their crops. Sean has a few ideas to improve the local facilities for trekers, but you could tell that he didn't wish to make things too easy, lest the coaches, tannoys and paved walkways appear and turn the gorge in to another theme park.

 

Unfortunately, the gorge as it is faces an uncertain future. According to Sean, plans are afoot to dam the gorge, which will have a profound effect on the local economy and of course the gorge itself.