Stradbroke Island Christmas

For Christmas we were invited to come camping at my cousin’s, girlfriend’s, brother’s house on Straddie. I bought the cheapest tent in town ($24) and off we went. We had to wait a while at the ferry terminal as the boats did not follow the schedule published on their web site.

During the night the rain woke us up as the cheapest tent was really cheap for a clear reason. We fled our water drenched tent into the house and crashed on the floor. Now, whenever there’s 18 people in any house there’s always someone not sleeping, making noise. We slept about 3 hours that night.
We went diving on the 27th (my x-mas present to Emma) with Manta rays or so they promised us. Well, once we hit the water we got the grand show: I counted 4 giant mantas flying around us.

The mantas are about 4 to 5 meters across and fly around us for the length of the dive. We see turtles, a guitar shark, leopard sharks, stingrays and lots of fish. The second dive was uneventful and a bit boring. I amuse myself sprinkling some sand on an egg nest of a fish and watch the 2 parents being a bit angry clean it out again.

X-mas parties

Emma’s organized a Christmas party for the people she works with and I was invited. These guys are very young and can hold their liquor like a camel holds water. After 5 cocktails each we’re getting the Christmas feeling. A funny hat, a couple of bottles of wine later, we’re signing. One o’clock in the morning it’s time to go to the club… for the youngsters. Emma and I recognize our superiors and crawl back to our home.
As is custom here in Oz the boss invites people to a BBQ at his place. So Emma and I went with a colleague to eat at his place. The food was beautiful (his son is a chef) and I enjoyed myself very much.

Some more rafting and horseback riding

We decide we haven’t had enough and go rafting again on a short – one day rafting trip. The ride down to the starting point is probably the scariest I’ve ever been on. The guide is making jokes but looks worried. We pass a sign warning us: “This road is suitable for specially equipped off road vehicles only.” We’re attempting this with a 2 WD bus full of people, towing a heavy trailer. I’m fairly certain this bus doesn’t fall under the category ‘suitable vehicle’. The sides of the road are 200 meters straight up and straight down. When taking corners baptized “Bus Crash Corner” and “Long way down bend” one wheel of the front of the bus actually hangs in the air! Veeeery scary.
Once down at the river we get to raft on the famous Shotover River. This rafting river has 3 or 4 really big rapids and a tunnel of about 300 meters. The River is extremely rich in gold, and was mined for years. Today there’s still a couple of billion worth of gold here.
Where most people would be drinking beer the rest of the day talking about how extreme this rafting experience was, Emma and I dunk down a hamburger and run to the next pick up location to go horseback riding.
Last time I went riding I crashed my horse, so this time I’m going to take it easy. Moreover Emma crashed her horse too last time she rode so easy does it…The Horse I get is called Zodiac, it’s the biggest horse they have and it’s got a real foul temper. None of the other horses like him and whenever I come near another horse, they run away. You get a bit of a Lord of the Rings feeling riding in these rain forests. The views are splendid and we see some deer run in the bushes.

Milford sound vs Doubtful sound

The tourist folders will show pictures of smiling people in the sun, looking at beautiful scenery. The truth is that it rains here, and it rains a lot! The south western part of New Zealand is called Fjord Land. There are only a very few roads, and walking tracks, most of it is inaccessible.
So how much rain is there exactly? Well… close to 10 meters in some areas. How much? 10 meters, like in 10000 millimeters of rain per year! To give you a comparison: London, known for its rainy weather, gets about 1100 millimeters of rain annually.Doubtful sound was so called because Captain Cook was not sure he would be able to get out of the sound as the prevailing winds are from the West which would mean months of tacking. Milford sound was the last one discovered as it is impossible to see from the sea. Doubtful Sound is the more remote and much less touristic one. National Geographic magazine reporters were here last year to write about its remoteness and beauty. Milford sound is a small town with a very well oiled tourism machine. The boats navigating this fjord are floating observation platforms where tourist can order a double latte, decaf with a twist of lemon. The scenery is very dramatic and beautiful. The seals lay in the wind trying to avoid the sand flies, we see hundreds of larger and smaller waterfalls, the wind from the Tasmanian Sea is cold and clean. I’ve seen the fjords in Norway, but these to me are more dramatic.

Tattoo

I got my first tattoo in the old fashioned and proper 4-step way:
1. Get so plastered your hangover won’t be due till 3 years later.
2. Wobble into a tattoo shop and point at a drawing that looks nice.
3. Point to any part of your body where you want the tattoo.
4. Wobble out of the tattoo shop, back to the pub and show your mates your tattoo.

This helps to take the pain and gather the courage to get yourself a tattoo you might, or might not regret later in life. New Zealand is the country for tattoos so I went to get another one. On my right foot. It hurt like hell. The design is unique as the tattooist (his name is Matt) designed it on the fly. I just asked for a wave pattern somewhere in there as I like water and am an Aquarius.

5 star Rafting

So, off we go: one very lazy and hydrophobic journalist, 2 young millionaires, 2 elder people, Emmanuelle and I to go rafting 3 days on the Landsborough river, a class 3 to 4 rafting river, very beautiful and quite remote. Have you ever felt like you were being spoiled? Well I'll tell you what being spoiled is:
First you get a ride by bus to the take off site from where the helicopter takes you to the starting point. It's a 20 minute flight through the valley of the river. You arrive at camp where you're welcomed by 2 nice ladies serving cold beer, perfectly chilled wine and hors d'oeuvres. The tents are already standing so nothing to do but enjoy this beautiful place.
The next day, after a short explanation on the basics of not drowning we paddle down the rapids for a couple of hours. We enjoy fantastic panoramas, scrumptious food, marvelous desserts and palatable wines. The weather is very cooperative as the temperature is perfect, the sun doesn't show itself too much (remember the Ozone hole is above New Zealand and the sun kicks like a mule).
By the time we had arrived to the second camp, we all get a hot showers (we’re in the middle of nowhere!), do a bit of walking and are back just in time for a 4 course dinner.
The next day back on the river, we enjoy beautiful weather, fantastic views and good fishing. (I caught me a 3 pound trout!) It was quite difficult realizing we were in the middle of nowhere. There aren’t any roads nearby and the only way in is walking or by helicopter
Once back at the hotel where we left our car: a nasty surprise awaited us: somebody had run into our car leaving a nice dent.

Busy day in NZ

Today we're going swimming with the Dolphins again! We booked twice as the dolphins are wild and so you're never sure if you get to see them. So here we go again Yay!
We take the boat out and after 20 minutes we jump in the water in the midst of about 30 dolphins. Emmanuelle and I are again very fortunate to have the dolphins come see us more than the other swimmers. I dive down and swim as fast as I possibly can, I find myself in the middle of 6 dolphins testing me. They keep the same speed as I, which to a Dolphin must be somewhere between 'not moving' and 'freaking slow'. To get me to go faster they spin around me and flash left, right, above and below past me. I'm having so much fun that I forget to breathe, it takes me 5 minutes to recover. That, of course is waaay too long for a dolphin that wants to play, so they set course for Emmanuelle and swim around her. We repeat this until I'm really on the verge of passing out. This was fantastic. I really wish I could do this every day, nothing really compares to it.

Back in Kaikoura we decide to go fishing, a couple of phone calls later, we've got ourselves a charter. First we go and check the Crayfish Pods and Hey! Emmanuelle gets a carpet shark (why is it called a Carpet Shark? Well because it smells of old, wet carpet of course) and I get not one, not two but three crayfish! Who's the better fisherman now, hey? ey? ey? ey?...

"Man hunt and fish! Woman wash and cook!" I grunt in my primal voice.

But beginners luck is more powerful than any skill... Emmanuelle, after having caught 5 sea-perch, gets a serious nibble, she works hard to raise the sea-monster from the deep aaanddd... She catches two blue cods in one haul! Catch of the day! I try to regain my honor by catching 2 small sharks, but the double-cod wins! Emmanuelle lets me know that I'd better stick to pot and pans and let her take care of business from now on. So I make a fantastic dinner out of the crayfish sea perch and blue cod at the hostel. The tree hugging, vegetarian, noodle chewing hippies look jealous. Gni gni gni.
It seems the captain and his assistant like us, as they invite us to go paintballing that same evening; I got shot 10 times and now have 5 very nice bruises on my back.

Haka, Kiwi’s and Kea’s

The Haka is a New Zealand way of expressing feelings and communicating with people. It basically goes like this: a group of armed to the teeth man jump out of the forest and run at you, they stop just out of striking range (about 2 meters) from you and Yell something like: AAAAHH WAI HAKI YAAAAKAAAAH!! while aggressively handling their weapons. They stick out their tongues and open their eyes wide.
After having recovered from our heart attack, the guide tells us they say something like: “hey mate, wazzup?” Right, I can see why early explorers might have deemed the Maoris as hostile or… crazy. I personally would have shot first and asked questions later. I try the haka myself and fail miserably. Emmanuelle tries a more feminine tradition and is very graceful at it.

Kiwi’s are nocturnal and very dumb animals. If you see one, you almost instantly get the unstoppable desire to kick it. This urge is so strong that I couldn’t resist yelling “kiiick the kiwi!” in the kiwi house, followed by a strict “sssshhhhht” from other embarrassed visitors.
I reckon the kiwi is not going extinct because of introduced predators, but because the locals just kick the shit out of a kiwi whenever they see one. It’s just instinct; it’s just natural; it has a proportionally giant ass on two short legs on the perfect kicking height and it always bends over.

Kea’s are very, very intelligent parrots living in New Zealand, we were fortunate to see some on a parking spot. They are not nice animals, they amuse themselves ripping the plastic of screen wipers and destroying plastic cabriolet rooftops. The thoroughly hated parrot is also known for ripping the kidneys out of sheep thus killing them. In the winter when food is scarce they land on a sheep’s back and start digging into the sheep. The record stands at 65 sheep killed in a single sitting. No wonder there are only 3000 kea’s left in the world as they were intensely hunted.

Akaroa and the dumb dolphin

East of Christchurch lays the town of Akaroa. On Google earth you can clearly see it's a giant ancient volcano in the sea. That must have been a really rather large bang.
It’s a very green area with lots of hills, sheep, bays and coves. Akaroa is an old French settlement, street names and family names remind the visitor of its origins. (It is said that if the French settlers’ boat would have reached New Zealand just two weeks, just before James Cook, the Islands would have been under French influence).
We came here to swim with dolphins, the Hector dolphins to be exact.In the water I hold Emmanuelle and we turn round and round, she extends her arm and a dolphin follows her hand not further away than 10 cms. After spinning long enough to make us sick, we swim for about an hour with them. The captain sees us turn blue with hypothermia and decides to call it a day. Cruising back, we have a couple of dolphins riding the bow wave. Now, Now, the Hector dolphin, unlike the Dusky dolphin, is not known for its acrobatics but somehow they wanted us to have a show. They jump up in front of the boat, (the boat is doing about 30 kph) quite close actually… really close... too close. I see a Dolphin jumping out of the water just in from of the boat, Emmanuelle takes a picture and realizes the particular dolphin made a mistake and says: Uh-oh! The dolphin crashes against the boat and Emmanuelle’s foot with a loud bang. That stupid animal miscalculated its jump and must have hurt itself. The Hector dolphin is almost extinct and now we know why. We really enjoyed this day!

Hailstorms

I was not aware of this, but Brisbane gets quite heavy storms in November. To give you an idea: last week there were hailstones the size of Cricket balls falling from the sky. Let me repeat that: the size of cricket balls!A colleague of mine has a boat which was blown out of his garage. Another colleague lost part of the roof of his house. My boss' view from his living room was always obstructed by a small forest. That forest is now half gone. My boss was actually quite happy with the storms until a few days ago when his kitchen was flooded.