(Michelle at The Hot Springs, Lake Taupo, February 2008)
Brett is waiting for us, which is very nice of him considering it’s nearly 10.00pm and a school day, and drives us through downtown Wellington back towards his house in New Town – ironically one of the first settlements in the city. We go via Mount Victoria and the climb up the hill has me immediately thinking of San Fransisco – the almost impossible twisty roads and turn of the century wooden weather boarded houses in the soft city glow all the way up to the top, where we get out and climb a further to the lookout.
Wellington stretches out in front of us, and we realise that this bit of New Zealand is serious. It’s a proper city, like all the ones we’re used to, and we have definitely left behind the quaint and calming South Island.
Brett and Lotty’s house is one of the lovely weather boarded places we had driven passed, and we hug Lotty and I’m a bit disappointed that Louis is asleep. We natter for a while before making up our bed for the next few days in the lounge.
The next morning we begin to realise why they normally go to bed so early. Lotty has been out running for 2 hours since 6.00am, and is back just in time to give Brett a lift to work. We get up and shower in time for Lotty to get back and we get to meet Louis properly, have breakfast and we all bundle into the car to check out Wellington. We park at Brett’s work place – one of the main fitness centres in NZ – and head for Dixon Street Deli, Lotty’s, and ours afterwards, favourite deli just down the road.
We walk through the city up to the cable car and take the short ride up to the top of the Botanical Gardens and take the steady walk back down, stopping for coffee and cake, before meeting Brett and heading back to their house via one of those cool farmer’s markets you only find in warehouse buildings in cities and getting things for tea. We chat, cook, meet the lodger, an Aussie called Keren who is very nice, play scrabble and go to bed. Phew!
It’s Brett who’s up very early the next morning – he’s an ex-personal trainer who has moved up the ranks but still has a few clients – and we join Lotty and Louis for a 45 minute vigorous walk into the city centre, and to the gym. Chelle and I have cobbled together some gym-kit with the help of our hosts (I have a pair of Brett’s trainers on) and we get an ‘introductory’ session in one of the myriad of different training spaces in this huge place. I’m stoked to find out that I have actually lost weight on this trip, after expecting to have put it on, so I’m keen to hit the deli again, which we do while Lotty takes Louis home for the afternoon.
We stay on in the city and walk along the waterfront to Oriental Bay and visit Te Papa, the national museum. We lose track of time and have to run to meet Brett from work and get a lift home. Tentative plans to go out on the town are blown out so we get a Friday night take out curry and watch trash TV before everyone falls asleep. This is the most active we’ve been, and it’s having the expected effect.
We’re all up early Saturday morning – Brett’s at work, Chelle joins Lotty for a run (halfway through Lotty’s run – she’s good, but not that good!) and me and Louis enjoy some quality time on our own with Baby Mozart and some crinkly fish. We all meet up at the Zoo café for breakfast and Chelle and I head off to Lotty’s friend Bernie’s. I have made a decision to have a haircut.
In the end, it’s a bit in-between. I’ve had too much off to call it a trim, but not enough to be happy with it, and it’s back to that ‘too curly for my liking’ phase. We walk back, which takes nearly 2 hours instead of the expected 1 because I read Brett’s map all wrong. We find an Italian store on the way back and have coffee and snacks, and wonder if this is essentially the same as Italians going into one of those ‘Brit’ stores in the states that we think are so tacky, and having a pot of tea…
Back at the house there is general cooking and tidying to be done because tomorrow is Louis’s welcome to the world party, conveniently planned for us to be able to attend along with 40 other guests, and we’re here to help. What actually happens is some cake making, a fantastic risotto and me, Brett and Louis watching the Rugby 14s – which is surprisingly good.
Sunday morning and both Lotty and Brett are out training, so we do some foody stuff and some polishing, before Brett cooks Brunch. Keren is icing cakes and we decide to get out of the way and walk down to the bay. It’s windy and rainy – much more like the weather we expected here, and we feel blasted but fresher when we get back. We have time to chop fruit and veggies before all the guests seem to arrive at the same time, and, just as efficiently seem to leave at the same time too. Louis seems to have had a blast, being handed around and cooed at for 3 hours, we got to meet a whole bunch of lovely people whose names I couldn’t remember while I was talking to them let alone while making notes a couple of days later, apart from Jason and Vanessa – Irish ex-pats and a funny man (incidentally two of very few people who, like myself, don’t indulge in the whole fitness thing) – and Blossom, one of Brett’s trainer colleagues, who hung around to help clear up and was a blast.
Another early bed night followed our first chance to watch Zoe Slater off of Eastenders being the Bionic Woman (I liked it, but no-one else seemed to).
Again, and for no apparent reason I can’t sleep, so take advantage of being in the lounge by watching premiership football all night. This morning is moving on day, and we have a house in Martinborough, a couple of hours away, which we will be staying in with Brett and Lotty. And Louis, of course. The reason for this is to give us the chance to see the chapel in which they got married, and spend a day out in the country with them. We go and pick up our next car, a shiny red Ford Focus, a take out coffee, and head out on the motorway, trying not to lose Brett – who actually knows where he’s going.
All of a sudden we’re back out in the kind of scenic beauty we got used to in the South Island, and after an hour we stop at the top of a mountain to look back across the city. Yes, it’s outstanding, and more than likely breath taking too.
As we pull up in Martinborough, formally a farmers town and now full of cafes, individual designer stores and real estate offices, all we can hear is sirens going. I suggest it might be a signal to store owners that more tourists are here to be fleeced, but it turns out to be for the volunteer fire fighters who are needed to put out a fire in a barn up the road. And the field it’s standing in.
We find the house, it’s brilliant – all modern and open plan – and then head out to see the chapel, which is an absolute joy. It’s the kind of thing that film makers see in their dreams, but mostly have to build on a back lot, but here it was. A perfect wooden Victorian chapel, one room big enough for about 40 people, about 20 feet from the side of the road and set in rolling green fields, literally as far as the eye could see. I got out the camera, planning all sorts of shots, to find that the battery was dead.
Back at the house Lotty and Brett had a nap, Chelle read, and I (the least active person in the house, except maybe Louis) went out for a ride on one of the thoughtfully provided push bikes in the shed. We have traditional Fush’n’Chups (go on, say it a New Zealand accent), play ‘Buzz’ on the playstation and Chelle and I watch a movie after L&B slope off to bed.
We sleep quite well, despite the fire siren going off twice, and wake to find that Lotty is out running with her friend who happens to be in town too, and Brett is running with Louis in the pushchair. Chelle tries out the hot-tub before we walk into town to check out our future bookings at the local info office, and the girl inside is very helpful, getting us the next three nights sorted quickly and efficiently.
We get back, meet up, have brekky together and say goodbye. We won’t see Brett and Lotty, and Louis, for a long while now – they have no plans to come back to the UK, and we won’t be back this way for a good few years – so it’s a goodbye tinged with sadness.
Chelle takes the wheel and we head north. We have a long drive today, and some of the towns we go through make it seem further – Dannevirke, for example has a lot of Danish shops, and a smattering of Danish Flags, and further down the road is Norsewood which has, well, you can guess, can’t you?
4 hours later we arrive in Napier, well known as ‘the Art Deco town’, because it was levelled by an earthquake in the thirties, so the whole town was rebuilt over a few years and the majority of buildings in the town centre have that unmistakable Miami feel about them. The suburbs just outside however are the spitting image of many California burbs – low, long, wooden houses, palm trees, and straight wide roads.
Our hostel is really quaint and quiet, but across the road from a black sand beach, and our walk takes us around the town and down the beach. We find another second hand book store and I can’t resist, we get take out food and sit on a bench at the beach as dusk turns to evening before walking back to the hostel, showering and reading, then sleeping.
One of the advantages of all these early nights we’ve been having is that we wake up much earlier, and the next morning we are both up and out by 7.30am – Chelle is running, and I’m in town looking for a cheap barber. The hair needs sorting, and I’ve decided it’s time it all came off. Greg is my barber’s name, and he chats pleasantly about growing up in Napier, how he’s travelled and come back, and how he’s encouraging his kids to do the same. By the time he’s finished, I have the shortest hair I’ve had for about 3 years, and I love it.
As I leave the barbers and walk to the café I keep catching myself in shop windows, and smiling. Chelle finds me in the café we had agreed to meet in and can’t stop staring at me. It’s a good move.
We take advantage of the café’s free wireless and start booking stuff for the last two weeks of the trip in California. We also book the last couple of places we’ll need for NZ. It’s all getting a bit close now.
Lake Taupo is only an hour or so up the road and we find our hostel, called The Berkenhoff. We’re just too late to see any bungy jumpers just up the road, so we drive round to Acacia Bay, in the middle of ‘rush hour’, and see the lake from the other side. Back to the town side we sit on the beach in the early evening warmth, watching fit people swimming in the lake and running around the roads – this coming weekend Lake Taupo hosts the National Ironman Championships, and of course we have conspired to completely miss it. By one day. In the town centre, every store has some kind of Ironman display in the window, even the ‘Adult’ store, and all the restaurants are offering ‘carbo-loading specials’.
We go to the movies to see ‘Jumper’ (alright, but essentially disappointing), and start to think about eating, but I come over all queasy, and need to skip food. We go back to the hostel, and I feel dreadful all night.
The next morning I don’t feel any better, and send Michelle out on her own. While I’m sleeping, she goes and visits a whole heap of tourist places, collects pamphlets and takes pictures. When she gets back I get a presentation on waterfalls, hotsprings and dams, and feel better. Not necessarily because of the lecture, but it helps.
We have some toast which seems to help even further, and we both drive down to one of the many Spas in the town. Chelle goes for a dip while I watch, based on the fact that there are signs which tell you not to duck your head under the water because it is untreated, and warmer than a hot bath. She gets out and has a cold shower (irony?) just in time to avoid a coach party of old Germans who flood the place. We call in to Pak’n’Save, the NZ equivalent of Aldi, cook bland stuff and have an evening of reading and watching Gordon Ramsey on the telly in the main room.
It’s the 29th February, a leap year, and we’re on the road early so we can see the Dam at The Hukka Falls opening. It’s an impressive sight, that amount of water gushing down a river, and it’s invigorating. Which is good, because we have a long drive today that is split up by a visit to Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Park – craters, mudpools, green lakes and a 3K walk around it all – before we arrive in Rotaurua late afternoon. We struggle to find the hostel and that’s because, when we finally find it, it’s the upstairs of a locals only bar on the outskirts of town. The smallest room that we’ve stayed in, our bags have to be stacked on top of each other and I need to duck under the sink to get out of bed, but it’s clean and only a short walk to the lake, which is not half as nice as Wanaka, and into town which is essentially one main street. We’ve read that this place is nick-named ‘Roto-vegas’, but we have no idea why. There are no casinos, no neon lights, no limos, in fact it has a small town feel, and we walk the length of town in 15 minutes.
We have dinner at The Fat Dog Café, which is easily our favourite place we’ve eaten in. So much choice, we could eat here for weeks and not have the same thing. Back to our cupboard, and we sleep after debating whether to do our washing in Auckland over the next couple of days, or when we get to LA!
