I’ve just realised that I’ve had this waiting in my ‘drafts’ folder for the best part of 6 months. I attempted to write-up the last few weeks of my travels as soon as I got back home, but a combination of laziness, other distractions, and the daunting amount of writing to get through meant it never got completed. And so, for completeness of my own scrapbook, I’ve whipped together a pretty hefty account of my last few weeks. It’s most likely full of mistakes, repetitions and general sloppiness, but hay, the pictures are alright.

After my final day at work, we went for an all-you-can-eat meat feast at Wildfires in Takapuna. Goodness me, I consumed an unholy amount of meat, with just a few token veggies to give it some resemblance of a normal ‘meal’. After a final frenzied weekend of cleaning, sorting and selling, our house once again resembled the empty shell of a home that we had when we first moved in (minus the distinct smell of curry). And so with my all my possessions squeezed into my bags, I made my way to Auckland airport to catch my flight down to Earthquake city; Christchurch. I was given a pretty overwhelming reception by the 30 or so people at Jon’s leaving bash in a local Chinese restaurant. So many new people! Anyways, we made our way back to Jon’s fine abode and drank a hearty amount of his home-brew beverages. We also went on a 3am tour of Christchurch university. Having gone nearly 18 months without experience anything close to freezing, the weather in Christchurch was certainly a shock to the system! We awoke early the next morning for a ‘porridge party’, before picking up our rental car ($2 a day!) and beginning our journey north. There were 12 of us in total, in a three-car convoy. The drive was full of the usual sublime New Zealand scenery, particularly at our lunch stop-off at Kaikoura:

We saw many a seal at a nearby colony, and enjoyed some near-perfect chips whilst taking in the views. Lovely.

And so onwards we went towards Marlborough Sounds. Again, the drive in was pretty spectacular:

After a following a long and windy road for quite some time, we finally arrived at the ‘Eco Village’, where we had two luxury log cabins. For $10 each, it was an absolute bargain. We cooked up some dinner, and then settled in to a night of drinking. Good times. Jon and Patrick went for a midnight dip in the lake, but I decided to leave it to the morning when I’d be able to see what I was jumping into. We made plans to be up the next morning at 6.45am to watch the sunrise, and somehow managed to actually get up at that hour. However, it wasn’t until 10 am that the sun finally peeked over the surrounding mountains, which we had stupidly forgotten to take into account. Nonetheless, bacon butties and a dip in the lake made for a memorable morning.

After a lovely walk, we said farewell to Jon’s uni chums and then managed to acquire three kayaks, which we took for a rather splendid paddle onponst the Marlborough sounds.

EPIC! We were the only three people out in this spectacular area, which could have been plucked straight from a Lord of the Rings screenshot. We kayaked out to a deserted beach, and simply enjoyed the magnificence of the place.

We then jumped in our trusty rental car once more and made our way to Picton, to catch the evening ferry to New Zealand’s capital city. Oh, whilst taking in more delightful views of course.

Once the three hour ferry was dealt with, we settled in at Patrick’s house. It was pretty strange to be in a ‘family’ setting again, having not seen mine for what was approaching 12 months. The next morn’ we were up early in order to get through as many of Wellington’s attractions as possible. We spent the morning in Te Papa museum, probably the best museum I’ve ever visited, and one of those places you could easily devote an entire day to to simply explore. Then we hired some crocodile bikes and chased young felons up and down the sea front. After a hard shift on the beat, we had a refreshing pint on some bean bags outside the Mac’s brewery, before going for a quick dip in the sea:

Twas chilly. After a quick tour of some more of Welly’s famous buildings, we set out for a night in town. Unfortunately, Tuesday was Wellington’s ‘quiet night’. But still, we visited the Dragon bar, the only Welsh pub in the Southern Hemisphere, which made me very happy. There were Welsh flags adorning every possible surface, Stereophonics and Tom Jones on repeat in the stereo, and a group of elderly Welsh expats singing beautiful Welsh songs in the corner - - heaven!

We were up early the next morning to catch the sunrise from Mount Victoria. It was well worth the effort needed to prize my eyes open at that time in the morning: And soon after we had to say another farewell to Patrick as me and Jon continued North towards Auckland. Through more spectacular LOTR land, we made our way up to Hastings and Napier for lunch, with a quick stop at the Tui brewery on the way:

And then onwards to Lake Taupo. We made it with just enough sunlight left to find our way to the hot pools for a bath in its thermal loveliness, before grabbing a Burger Fuel (God, I’ll miss them!) and retiring to our hostel for a few brandies (ROCK N’ ROLL!). To be fair, the last few days of early mornings and long drives had caught up with us, and an early night with a belly full of Brandy was just what the Doctor ordered.

And so Thursday consisted of a brief dip in Taupo’s lake, and then a tour of the beautiful lakes of Rotorua.

After jumping in every bit of icy clear water we could find, we travelled once more onwards towards the Coromandel Peninsula. It was quite a lengthy drive, but we made it with a few hours of sun left to enjoy another hidden gem of a beach.

We lit a fire, and cooked our dinner Bear Grylls style whilst the sun set. Begrudgingly, we had to leave the idyllic setting and complete the final stage of our road-trip to Auckland. And so a few hours later, I had returned to the town I’ve called home for the last year, albeit at Master Daniel’s penthouse suite. We spent the Friday perusing Auckland’s parks. We had a lovely nap on One Tree Hill, which probably looked fairly queer for any passers by. And before we knew it, we were on our way to the airport for part two of our epic journey; Tonga.

We arrived in Tonga in the early hours of the morning, after one of the most uncomfortable flights I’ve ever had. All Tongans seem to weigh at least 20 stone and like to let their elbows roam, so space was severely limited in our plane seats. Still, we arrived to temperatures well into the 20’s, and were transported via minibus to our accommodation. The pot-hole ridden roads meant that no vehicles could go over 40 kph safely, but we did eventually make it to our beach-side resort. And this is where we stayed pretty much for the next 6 days. Our daily routine went along the lines of: Wake up at 10:30 for breakfast, hit the beach around 11:30, a spot of lunch (noodles) around 2:00, more lazing on the beach in the afternoon, perhaps with a spot of basketball or ping pong, before some evening food, cards and chat. A week of doing diddly-squat, which was exactly what we had hoped for.

We did venture out on one occasion to visit their ‘capital city’, but there’s more going on in Pontyclun than there was there. Overall though, lovely people, lovely weather, lovely beach…all we wanted really.

And so after another cramped flight we were back in Auckland. We had another 48 hours to kill before our final departure from New Zealand, and so were lucky enough to be put up by one of Jon’s Christchurch chums. We stayed at Lewis’s awesome house out in the countryside south of Auckland. His garden had it’s own 15 m waterfall! And so we spent two days chilling in Auckland, finishing up the last of our To-do’s before leaving the country for good. A pesky volcanic ash cloud had been causing problems for flights all week, so we were getting a wee bit worried that our flight would be cancelled. But, after a final NZ meal at Burger Fuel, we were back at the airport and ready to leave the country for the final time.

A good 15 hours later we arrived at Singapore’s rather swish airport. We managed to drag our bags across the city to our hostel, and then set out on a day of exploration. Singapore is a great city….you regularly cross from the Hindu areas to the Buddist areas to the Muslim areas, which means there’s plenty of culture to absorb. And then you get to the skyscraper-dominated city centre, easily the cleanest place I’ve ever visited. And of course, being so close to the equator means the temperature and humidity was off the charts. Jon and I took in all the sights, and then made our way to a harbour area for a much needed cold beer.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn to catch our train to Kuala Lumpur. The trains took air conditioning to the extreme, it was like an ice box in there. Apart from that the journey was pleasant enough. Shortly after our banana-bread lunch (which became a major part of our diet over the next few weeks), we had arrived in the capital of Malaysia. Another slap of heat and humidity hit us as we exited the station. KL was similar to Singapore in it’s swish newness and swanky skyscrapers. We had an afternoon to explore and take in the sights, including that well big building n’that:

And then it was back to the station to catch our sleeper train to Thailand. Again, the journey was incredibly pleasant. I popped into my compartment, closed the curtain, and when I awoke we were nearly at the Thailand border…lovely.

The Thailand border had some hilarious ‘No Hippy’s Allowed’ signs, presumably left over from the 60’s and no longer enforced, because Jon and I ticked most of the criteria (long unwashed hair, sandals, vest tops etc etc). We arrived in Hat Yai in Southern Thailand and were immediately shown how desperate the people are for tourist’s money. A young lad was on the train almost before it had stopped completely, and began to pinpoint those would would need a bus onwards. We were one of those people, and so were hastened outside and were handing over money for a bus to Phuket within 5 minutes.

Another 7-hours of traveling lay in store for us. When we eventually arrived in Phuket, we were once more overwhelmed with offers for transport and accommodation. The great thing about Asia is that the further north you head, the cheaper it gets. We managed to get two nights in a sweet hotel, with it’s own pool and a beach just meters away, for about £10 each. After checking into our room and washing, we headed out for a meal in Phuket town. A lovely Thai curry meal cost around £4, and the ‘Chang’ beer at 6% was pretty lethal. Before we knew it we were out on the town, which was one of the most surreal and crazy nights I’ve ever had. The sheer quantity of ‘ladies’ groping you in a desperate bid for your money was incredible. We stumbled from bar to bar, struggling to comprehend the mayhem that was Phuket town. We even played Connect-4 with some of the ladies, although I have literally no idea why or how that happened.

All in all, it was an awesome introduction to Thai night life. As soon as we arrived in Phuket I had been trying to get hold of Jessie and Jon, having made half-formed plans to meet up. Well, it turned out I had told them the wrong date of arrival and so they weren’t expecting us. But the next day they had received my messages and were frantically making there way to us on there scooters from the next town over. Yayyyy! And so by lunchtime we were in the company of Jessie and Jon for the first time in nearly a year. Words cannot describe how happy this made me!

We grabbed some lunch and then jumped on the back of their bikes to head over to a quieter beach near to where they were staying. The Thai roads are something to behold; there are no clear rules, you just keep going and hope for the best. And somehow, it seems to work. Nobody gets angry or irate, they just keep plodding on minding their own business.

We enjoyed another crazy night out in Phuket together, eventually crashing back at the hotel at 0630 in the morning, just in time to take the buffet breakfast for all it was worth. After filling out bags/pockets/hats with as much bacon and sausages as we could manage, we had to say our farewells to Jon and Jessie before setting off to catch our final train, to Bangkok. I suppose Bangkok gave us our first glimpse of the ‘real’ Asia - - the plush cities of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and tourist-heavy Phuket region formed a stark contrast to the sights and sounds of Bangkok.

We spent the day exploring it’s markets, visiting it’s temples, and eating a great selection of foods. We were planning on doing another all-nighter, a great final bender to end the trip on, and then getting to the airport for our 8 am flight. Unfortunately, we were in Bangkok on the one day that ALL the bars were closed (due to some election that was happening that day) - - SUCH bad luck! We did manage to find an Irish bar with an English manager who was happy to look the other way whilst his staff poured us drinks. It probably worked out for the best that at around 2 am we were on our way to the airport, ready to embark on the final leg of our journey - - home.

What a way to round off a truly incredible year. I recently stumbled across the quote: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”, and it really struck a chord with me. In my year of traveling I saw many scenes that will stay with me forever, and have made me really appreciate how mightily beautiful this little world we live upon can be. I’ve had experiences, such as bunjy jumping, that will continue to make me smile each time they slink into my mind. But also, I had the chance to see how other people cook, eat, smile, love and live, and those experiences are just as important. I most certainly hope to return to New Zealand at some point in the future. Right now, I would give anything to be back on that deserted beach, with a bottle of red, a roaring fire and good company:

I’m writing this whilst sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor, having sold my desk and chair a few days ago as part of the ‘moving out’ malarky. So this will be a brief one as my legs are getting numb. 

I spent my last full weekend in Auckland watching the Blues play at Eden park (they lost), planning my trip home, and lazing about. Ooo and it’s a bank holiday tomorrow as they celebrate the Queens birthday out here. Sweet as. 

So, THE PLAN:

Auckland > Christchurch

Christchurch > Nelson

Nelson > Wellington

Wellington > Hastings

Hastings > Taupo

Taupo > Coromandel/Hobbit Land

Coromandel/Hobbit Land > Auckland

Auckland > Tonga

*laze on beach for a week*

Tonga > Auckland

Auckland > Singapore

Singapore > Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur > Phuket

Phuket > Bangkok

Bangkok > London

London > Home

Three weeks, six countries, 26000 km. Let’s get it on.

Just got a week of wrapping things up and then I’ll be heading home, the long way round. I’ll do a final write-up of my trip when I’m home, with an actual chair to sit on. 

Peace. 

When I first considered coming to New Zealand, I had always assumed it was pretty close to Australia, something akin to the distance between Britain and Ireland. And so I had also assumed that there would be heaps of $10 flights between the two countries, allowing me to spend every other weekend over there. As we all know, to assume is to make an ‘ass out of you and me’…both the distance and prices of flights were a lot bigger than I had thought. Still, I was determined to see Australia while I’m on this side of the world….when else would I be this close to it, with a friend living there to show me around and give me a free place to stay? And so I eventually convinced myself, and fellow team ‘NAZ’ member Jon, to splash out and repay Emma for her visit to these shores a few months ago. And obviously, it was the right decision. 

I actually left my house around 10pm on Thursday night, with my flight at 5am on Friday morning. I’d never slept in an airport before……and I still haven’t, thanks to the piercingly bright lights that must be a part of the airport’s cunning plan to increase it’s sales of sleep blindfolds. I refused to shell out for one, and instead engaged in four hours of top-quality people watching whilst waiting for my plane.

A few hours later, I was stepping out into the noticeably warmer Sydney air. And withing a few minutes I was greeting Jon, who had flown in from Christchurch. LADS ON TOUR LOLOLOL. We found our way to Emma’s house using the timeless method of ‘follow the sun’, which somehow worked (kind of), and by 8.30am on Friday the three of us were in the same room for the first time in nearly a year(!!!). 

We spent most of Friday seeing the classic tourist spots, including the opera house, bridge, botanical gardens, and Manly beach:

Yeah.

We had planned to go out that night, but after a fine dinner of Kangaroo and roasted veggies out on Emma’s balcony (that’s just how she rolls), the lack of sleep caught up with Jon and I, and so instead we had a lovely evening full of vodka, snacks and reminiscing. 

The next day we went kayaking in a beautiful harbour, then sat in a park and chilled out, before purchasing 5L of wine for $15(!) and heading out to town for an amazing night out (what happens on tour, stays on tour :P). Saturday was a good day. 

On Sunday, we made pancakes for breakfast and ate them out on the balcony, before doing the two hour walk from Coogie to Bondi beach, which was just spendid. We then had a lovely Thai meal, before sipping more wine on Bondi beach at nightfall. It’s times like these that remind me why I chose to do a placement year abroad :).

Our final day in Sydney involved exploring Darling Harbour, racing each other through the water features, and eating pies in a park. 

The race course:

My my what a lovely weekend. In my short time in Oz land, I definitely picked up on the cool ‘vibe’ the place has, something which is quite hard to explain, but definitely something I’d want to go back for. 

I eventually made in back to my house at 4am on Tuesday morning, and was in work by 9.30am. I’m going into my last two weeks at AUT, so I need to tie up all my loose ends before I finish. This includes the write up of my gymnastics study, submission of another review to a journal, and finishing up all the stats on the Blues project. So it’s going to be a busy two weeks, but I’m looking forward to getting all the work done, and then meeting up with Jon once more for our final gallavant through New Zealand, Tonga, and Asia :D.

I’ll be home in 5 weeks….I have no idea where the time has gone! Our house will drop down to just the four of us tomorrow, as Emma is heading back to the UK. We’ve just been out for her last ‘NZ meal’; a Burger Fuel that we ate by a bridge with an epic view of the Auckland city skyline at night, which my camera just couldn’t do justice. Feels like the beginning of the end of my time out here, but I’m looking forward to what should be an amazing five weeks.

Till next time. 

It’s been a b-uuuusy weekend down yonder, but a splendidly enjoyable one. I have cuts, bruises, aches n’ pains all over after embarking on a truly epic walk, or ‘tramp’ as the kiwi’s wrongly call it, at a place called Karekare. Emma, Scott, Campbell and I set off on a lovely Autumnal Saturday morning, with the following thoroughly detailed directions:

Walk along the beach for about 1 km, follow path inland, follow stream to end, walk up lots of steps, walk along road for 10 minutes back to car park.

It sounded easy enough, and so I was fully expecting to be back home and in front of the television by early afternoon. How wrong I was. But my-oh-my, what an adventure we had. I eventually got home a good six hours after setting off, with sore legs, a huge appetite, and memories of one of the best experiences I’ve had during my time here.

It would be wrong to call it a ‘walk’ really, as we were only walking for a small percentage of the time. Most of the trek consisted of jumping, wading, climbing, swimming, slipping and sliding up through this valley. A valley that would not have looked out of place in the Amazonian jungle. The pictures don’t really do it justice, mainly because it was difficult to operate a camera whilst also doing most of the activities listed above. Still, posting pictures is easier than typing, so here we go:

The starting point:

The walk along the beach:

Heading inland:

Bit wet, hay?:

And so this essentially what we were faced with for most of the ‘walk’:

The path we were meant to be following appeared and then disappeared on a whim, and so for much of the time the only way to go was straight over whatever obstacle happened to be in our way:

Including the occasional waterfall:

At one point the ‘path’ lead us up into the dense forest bush, after which it seemed to disappear, leaving us pretty clueless as to which way to go. We’d been told to follow the river, so we headed on upwards and eventually found a track marked out by the occasional pink ribbon tied around a tree branch. We pretty much had to forge our own path through the trees and bushes, which goes some way to explaining the cuts and bruises on my legs and feet. Doing a good chunk of the trek with no shoes on probably wasn’t the best idea in hindsight. Still, the views were lovely:

Like I said, we may as well have been in the Amazon. 

It did get a wee bit sketchy at one point with the end nowhere in sight, the sun on it’s way down, no signal on our phones, and us stuck in the middle of jungle-land with the world’s most vague directions. Fortunately, after criss-crossing the river up through the valley for another hour or so, we eventually caught sight of the steps we had been looking for. All 350 of them. After dragging ourselves up them and finally rejoining the road, we had one last suprise as the ‘10 minute walk to the car park’ turned out to be a good 45 minute walk. Still, at least the views were alright:

And we FINALLY made it back to the start, in time to watch the sun drop over the horizon whilst we tucked into some much needed food.

As far as walks go, this was the best I’ve been on, and it’ll take quite something to beat it. There aren’t many places you can go from black sand beach, to sand dunes, to marsh land, to full-scale jungle and back within 5 hours. 

Sunday consisted of getting a hair cut, going to Long Bay for a quick coastal walk and coffee at the beach, nap, watching the rugby highlights (the Blues are still going strong…), gym session, dinner….and now here I am, all ready for bed after an exhausting weekend. 

Sweet as broooo. 

So I haven’t posted for a few weeks, mainly due to there being a lack of post-worthy happenings. There was my 21st birthday last week, although I don’t really remember much of that. The guys in my office put on a lovely party lunch for me, with some kiwi party food classics. This included ‘fairy bread’….hundreds n’ thousands on bread and butter. It sounds so so wrong, but tasted so so right. Oh, and they made me a cake, which was spiffing.

This last week I’ve had a truck-load of work to do in organizing the testing of the young gymnasts again. It’s pretty good to do the parts of research that you don’t really consider until it’s your job to do them…things like booking equipment, finding volunteers, organising times and dates…all the small things that just have to be done. It tests all the skills that can’t be taught to you in a lecture theatre. Yeah.

Anywoo, the testing went swimmingly. We now have all the data, and will spend the next few weeks sifting through it and writing up our project. Some more good work-related news came through this week…the review paper that I submitted to Sports Medicine has been accepted for publication….hooorah! I think it’ll still take a few months before it’s printed and published for real, but all being well I’ll be able to reference my own published work in a few months time. To have something published in a top-end journal, before I’ve even finished my degree, is massive. So yeah, I’m pretty chuffed that all those months of hard work have paid off!

On another work-related note, the Blues team doctor (who I’m working with on a rugby injury project) hooked me up with four tickets to the Blues vs Waratahs match on Saturday, by way of a ‘thank you’ for helping him out. The seats were awesome…we were in the ‘player’s families’ section, and I’m pretty certain I was sat next to a relation of the Blues captain Keven Mealamu. The game was similarly awesome…five Blues’ tries in the first half, with some frighteningly good rugby on show. The second half was pretty dull in comparison, but still, mustn’t grumble. 

The best was yet to come however, as the Doc had promised us a post-game meet n’ greet with the players. True to his word, we met him at Skycity about an hour after the game, and walked through to the team’s private post match function. There was free food, free booze, and a whole bunch of All Blacks players just wondering about in the same very room as me! I got to shake the rather giant hand of the Blues captain Mealamu, then sat down for some grub next to the All Black lock Antony Boric. I was expecting the usual rugby club scenes…lots of drinking and shouting and drinking. But no, the players just ate their steak, sipped a few ginger beers, and then most of them headed home not long after midnight. Perhaps thats part of the reason New Zealand’s players are so far ahead of ours? Anyways, all the players and staff were really friendly and seemed happy to chat with us. Eventually I mustered up the courage to ask for a picture momento…

We’re pretty much best friends now. 

So we took full advantage of the free food and beer on offer, and were the last ones to leave. We said bye, and lots of ‘thank you’s’, to the Doc and headed out to some bars. He’s hoping to get us some more tickets for the match next week, which would be super cool. Anyway, to sum up, the whole evening was awesome. 

Today, I’ve eaten curry, watched a film, and that’s about it. Lovely. 

Till next time.