Antipodean antics

Needless to say, we were pretty pooped after our trans-Pacific flight to Auckland. We picked up the hire-car and Andy heroically drove us to Rotorua, where we found a place to sleep. The car is a 1997 Nissan Sunny 1.3L automatic, which we've wittily nick-named “Sunny Jim”. Our rough plan was to speed through the North Island – spending only 4 of our 17 days there – before crossing to the South Island, as we have been told that the South Island is where it's at. We will then fly out of Christchurch to be in Melbourne just in time for Christmas.

Our first stop of Rotorua is famed for its thermal features resulting from volcanic activity (just like Yellowstone). However it seems that we can't have been terribly impressed by the bubbling mud and steaming fumaroles, as we apparently took no photos! You know how it is – been there done that... Instead, it seems that we were rather taken with the Maori wood-carvings that were dotted about Rotorua (no, Andy hasn't had a growth spurt – it's a sculpture).

Heading south-east, we found ourselves in the jungle of Te Urewera National Park. Andy got his first taste of driving on New Zealand's impressively serpentine backcountry roads, and loved every minute. We also got the first of many soakings, courtesy of the kiwi weather, which has nearly as many turns as the roads.

The jungle itself is just magical. Tree-ferns and other utterly alien-looking shrubs jostle for ground-space, while dripping mosses blanket every surface.

We made our way down the east coast of the North Island fairly swiftly and uneventfully, arriving in Wellington on 9th December, ready to catch the early ferry from there the following morning. Having expected to merely pass through Wellington, we were pleasantly surprised to find that it is a thoroughly attractive city. A visit to the lovely botanical gardens situated atop one of the city's many hills was followed by a stroll through the compact downtown and a visit to the Te Papa museum.

To get from top to bottom of Wellington we took the historic cable car. Although less elaborate than San Francisco's cable car system (having just 1 line with 4 stops), it was equally fun and far less hair-raising!

While at Te Papa, Andy was very excited to spot this little gem – the legendary Daytona-winning bike that was built in a garden shed by kiwi motor-enthusiast John Britten.

The next morning we drove Sunny Jim to the ferry terminal where the three of us boarded a ferry for Picton on the South Island. Amusingly, “Portsmouth to Cherbourg” was still visible on the side of the boat, depite having been repainted to read “Wellington to Picton”.

When we arrived on the South Island, we started west on the road to Abel Tasman National Park. On the way to the park we stopped at one of NZ's excellent tourist information offices to inquire about campsites. Somehow while we were there, a casual enquiry about hang-gliding lead us to book a tandem flight starting in 45 minutes time! So off we went, a few kilometres up the road to the airfield at Motueka for a flight. We each had a turn riding tandem with the instructor, with me going first. First they zip you into a body sleeve cum harness getup.

Then you are clipped in so that you are suspended from the wing of the hang-glider, with the instructor suspended below.

Once strapped in, the hang-glider is towed into the air by a microlight (a similar contraption to the hang-glider, but with the addition of an engine). The photo shows the view from the hang-glider ahead to the microlight (below are fields of those yummy NZ Braeburn apples we all know and love!). Being towed up was exciting, but hardly a novel sensation – it was just like flying in a plane, but in the open air. However, at 2500 feet, when the towing line was disconnected, it instantly became another experience altogether. Instead of being noisily tugged along and buffeted by the wind, as soon as the tow-rope fell away, we were gliding silently and effortlessly; literally free as a bird. It was just mind-blowing. The instructor let us control the craft ourselves for a few minutes, and then he did some awesome swooping and circling to really get the adrenaline pumping, before taking us down for a gentle landing. We couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces for hours.

We spent the next day in Abel Tasman National Park. As it's inaccessible by road, we took an hour-long water-taxi ride up the coast, spotting seals and black shags along the way.

From the drop-off point we took a leisurely hike through the verdant jungle, crossing one of NZ's famous swing-bridges along the way.

We followed the coastline track past rugged headlands and idyllic sandy coves for around 10km to meet another water-taxi, which then returned us to camp.

From Abel Tasman, we headed south and west, cutting off the remote north-west corner of the South Island, to hit the west coast at Westport. Driving south along the coast, we were presented with a new wild seascape at every turn.

We stayed a night in Punakaiki in Paparoa National Park. Here, the jungle sits atop karst limestone that has eroded to form chasms and potholes galore. Particularly fine are the “Pancake Rocks” that are exposed where the land meets the sea. It is thought that the pancake effect is the result of stylobedding, a chemical process in which the pressure of overlying sediments creates alternating durable and weak bands. Crashing waves have forced large blowholes through the stratified limestone stacks, creating spectacular spumes at high tide.

Otherwise, our time along the west coast has largely been spent on the great kiwi tradition of “tramping” (hiking) in the lush forests that cling to the coastal hills.

In the next episode, we will be exploring glaciers and going for another adrenalin-pumping adventure...

A week before the flight back to New Jersey, the Patemans set up home in a shabby Travelodge near San Francisco Airport. Although our location, squeezed as it was between airport and interstate, did not provide the most picturesque (or quiet) base, it was cheap and convenient for the city (there was also a McDonalds next door...).

Staying in the motel allowed us to empty the G-dog of all our possessions and attempt to make our home of 5 months look (and smell) like a normal vehicle again. As you might imagine, during our time in the USA, we amassed a van full of gear. As it was not possible to carry it all to NZ, we packed a crate full of our most prized possessions (bicycles, tools and some camping gear) and bunged it on a ship to Australia. The rest of our stuff was either binned or donated to the local charity shop, depending on state of decay.

Within a couple of days of placing ad for Grayham on “Craig's list” (an internet based "for sale" site popular in the States) we received several responses. Two of the interested parties came to take a look at the G-Dog. The one who seemed most interested was a girl who wanted to buy the van for her dog-boarding business. Before doing anything else, she pulled open the side door and counted how many pooches she could cram in the back. The fact that she wasn't so fussed about the condition of the van's interior made us feel that we were onto a winner. Sure enough, she called us back to offer us $1700 cash (which was actually $25 more than we bought it for!) - needless to say, we bit her hand off.

We were very sad to see the back of the G-Dog. He had served us well for 12,000 miles. We couldn't even bring ourselves to remove the bumper stickers that told the story of our trip across the States.

Between chores, we did manage to squeeze in another day's sight-seeing in San Francisco, visiting Chinatown and the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. Unfortunately though, we managed to choose one of San Francisco's damper days.

Our return to New Jersey to see Grandma and Grandpa for Thanksgiving was a welcome rest after the frantic week of de-vanning in San Francisco. While we were there, we realised that we hadn't actually been to the East coast on our so-called “coast-to-coast” voyage. To amend this wrong, we belatedly dipped our toes in the Atlantic on a day-trip the beautiful beach at Belmar, New Jersey.

On returning to San Francisco, we spent one last night in the manky Travelodge, before boarding the the 13 hour flight to Auckland the next evening. Never have we had such a pleasant flight - thank you Air New Zealand. The flight took us over not only the equator, but also the international date line, which caused us to lose the 5th December entirely. (Where did it go, I wonder? Probably to the same place that those weekly departmental seminars went, along with the hours after my second beer.) So door number 5 on our advent calendar will remain forever closed.

And so, on to the Antipodes, where we have already found that free wifi is scarce...!

Adventures on Mammoth Mountain

After a few days of heading north from the Mojave Desert and J-Tree, we arrived back at Lone Pine - the first town you come to on the west side of Death Valley. Thus, we had completed a giant circuit around Southern California. We camped in the same spot at the base of Mount Whitney, as we had on the first time round. Lone Pine is such a pleasant and unassuming town, that rolling up there again almost felt like coming home! The only weird thing was that as close as 40 miles from Mammoth (where we were going skiing), temperatures were still in the 80s (above 30C).

Nonetheless, as we approached Mammoth (which appears to be in its own freaky micro-climate) the temperature dropped and snow appeared on the ground. During the night before our first day of skiing there was a dump of 12 inches of fresh powder, which made for an awesome debut on the slopes! This being only my second ski-outing, the first being to a small resort in Slovenia, I was awed by the scale of the aptly-named resort of Mammoth Mountain. Although only a fraction of the lifts were open - it's very early season - it was more terrain than I thought was possible to conquer in 5 days!

Our lift passes were in fact valid for 5 days out of 6 (i.e. you take any 1 day off in the 6 you're booked in for). By the end of day 1, we had recaptured the form we had had at the end of our previous ski trip.

On day 2, I fell over a lot (Andy irritatingly, did not), so day 3 became designated as our day off, allowing my aching body to recover! After a day's rehabilitation in the hotel, days 4, 5 and 6 saw steady improvement in our skills – we were even doing black runs by the end!

We were sorry to leave Mammoth at the end of the week (though I'm sure our bodies were thankful!). We headed north along the eastern side of the Sierras to beautiful Lake Tahoe and beyond.

Before dropping down into the Sacramento Valley, where we are now, we paid a visit to Lassen Volcanic National Park, the site of an eruption in 1914 and ongoing low-level volcanic activity. Although much of the park is currently inaccessible without snow-shoes or snowmobile, we were able to take a short (and slippery) hike to get some stunning views of the volcanoes.

And the egg-stink of belching fumaroles reminded us of our adventures way back in Yellowstone.

Now we are in the lowland warmth of Red Bluff, CA and have just listed Grayham for sale on the internet - sadly our time in the US is running short. However, as Grandma and Grandpa were unable to meet us in San Diego, we have decided we will take an internal flight back to New Jersey to stay with them around Thanksgiving, which we are really looking forward to. Then we begin a new adventure when we fly down under on Dec 4th.

California dreaming

I must start by apologising for the tardiness of this post - I see it has been more than a fortnight since the last. Our excuse is that we have been entertaining! We were joined by Jen's sister, Sarion and mum, Debbie for a week-long road-trip from San Francisco to San Diego. But let's not get ahead of ourselves - I'll pick up the story from where I left off, at Yosemite.






From Yosemite in Eastern California's Sierra Nevada mountains, our route to the coast wound like a rollercoaster along the serpentine roads of the Napa and Sonoma valleys. We didn't stop to sample the region's wine, but on reaching the Pacific at Stewarts Point, we celebrated with a beer or two.








Over the next few days we camped, walked and cycled on the coast, but never actually dipped more than our feet into the sea, as the water's actually pretty parky around that area! The hippies and surf-bums we met on the coast made us feel right at home - Grayham even made friends with the seagulls in Bodega Bay (where, scarily enough, the film "The Birds" was made).






We had arranged to meet up with Sarion and Mum in San Francisco on sunday 26th september. By a happy coincidence one of my former PhD buddies, Katie Gapper, happened to be near 'Frisco for work purposes at the time (applying biosystems or some such thing), so we met up on the friday night for a very pleasant dinner. Unfortunately neglected to commerate the occasion by taking a photograph. D'oh!






The next day we visited a NASA research base near Stanford University. We arrived just in time to see an airship coming in to land - it seems it's quite a palaver getting one of those things out of the air; it took about 25 ground crew half an hour to secure it well enough for the passengers to disembark.






The next morning, we met Sarion and Mum in their hotel near San Francisco Airport. They had had a bit of a nightmare flight with American Airlines the previous evening, but were nonetheless bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for a mosey around the city. After catching the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) train in, we found ourselves an excellent brunch in a hammed-up Americana-themed diner (bedecked in Halloween-alia of course).






A walk through town took us up the steep hills for which 'Frisco is so famed, giving us a splendid view from the top of the old prison on Alcatraz Island, eerily shrowded in mist.










After walking around Fisherman's Wharf, we decided to save our legs and ride back on one of the famous cable-cars.









Mum and I sat for the noisy and frankly hair-raising ride back to the BART station. However, Sarion and Andy seemed to think standing on the running boards all the way back, as we went up and down, up and down, up and down was a great laugh!










After a day in the city, we set off in Grayham down the coast towards San Diego. Each night Mum and Sarion stayed in Motels, while Andy and I kipped in the back of the G-dog. After a night in Monterey, we visited the truly awesome Hearst Castle.

Built by Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, between 1919 and 1947, and used to entertain members of the Hollywood elite, the sprawling complex houses an uncountable number of antiquities from Europe and the Middle East. Egyptian sphinxes recline in garden-beds, medieval French tapestries line the rooms and Roman columns surround the enormous pool.








Having read about the place in the guide-book, I had expected the place to be a vulgar jumble of ill-matched, conspicuously expensive plunder from the old world. However, I found that it all managed to hang together quite well, and I rather liked the effect produced. A testament to the skill of Hearst's long-suffering architect, Julia Morgan.










After a night further down the coast, in Santa Barbara, we left the sea to head inland and into the San Bernadino Mountains. Here we stayed in a lovely lodge on the shore of Big Bear Lake.









The next morning we had the best breakfast EVER, at the Grizzly Manor Cafe. The ladies had ma-hoosive pancakes, while Andy had something that was called, and I quote the menu here: "The Mess - don't ask".








As well as eating and visiting castles, we managed to spot a good assortment of wild critters along the way. Sarion expertly caught this shot of one of the hummingbirds we saw in the beautiful gardens of the Mission at Carmel-by-the-Sea. They move so quickly, I failed to get anything on film (or viewfinder, as it is these days!).








At San Simeon we saw an enormous colony of seals sprawled along the beach. They're not dead - just sleeping!










Having spent 5 nights on the road, we arrived in San Diego. The original plan was for us to meet my American Grandma and Grandpa here, but unfortunately they were unable to make it due to ill health (everything's fine now though, so fear not). Although we missed G & G, we enjoyed our 4 nights in San Diego immensely. The photo shows the view from Andy and my hotel window over La Jolla Cove.






While in San Diego, we spent some time in Balboa Park, which is a large complex of museum and gardens near the city centre. We went to galleries and gardens galore, but my personal fave was probably the botanic house, specialising in bromeliads and orchids.










Andy's favourite was definately the Air and Space Museum - we had to drag him away!








Sadly, the time came to take Sarion and Mum to San Diego airport, from whence they flew to New Jersey to visit G & G. After waving them off, we headed out of the city and east to Joshua Tree National Park. "J-tree", as it's known locally, straddles the boundary between the low, hot Colorado Desert and the high, cool Mojave desert. It's the Mojave desert that is home to the species of yucca know as the Joshua tree, so named because the Mormons thought that the limbs resembled the raised arms of Joshua.








The desert was delightfully cool, and home to a surprising variety of plant life, including these cholla cacti.








We camped among the giant granite boulders that litter much of the northern half of the park.









Although there are no bears in J-Tree, it seems there's always some form of animal-life out to get you in America (not to mention the plant-life - those cacti are mean!). We spotted this tarantula walking past our van - arrrghh! I suspect the situation won't improve in Australia.





Of course the other great excitement of the last few weeks has been the big election. We are delighted that Mr. Obama won the day as, I suspect, are 99% of Europeans. Until about a month ago, I honestly held out little hope for the blues (well, I guess we were in uber-conservative Utah til a month ago!). Speaking to scores of Americans from many walks of life over the last 4 months, I became rather depressed to realise that the battle between Democrats and Republicans really came down to a fight between the well educated and the poorly educated (- in the bible belt states, I would say between the educated and the indoctrinated). Happily though, the intelligence and common sense of the majority won over the anti-intellectualism of the conservative right minority.

We are now heading north with great excitement because we're going skiing!! Mammoth Lakes (where we got snowed in in the last blog entry) is now open for the ski-season. We're booked into a hotel for 5 nights from Sun 9th Nov and can hardly contain ourselves - I just can't wait! Tune in soon to find out how we get on...