Seeking New Adventures

28th April - 8th May 2014

Finally leaving Franz Josef after a long hard but enjoyable summer with a sore head (alcohol related) and a painful foot (table related due to alcohol). I was heading north for an interview at Mt Ruapehu for a winter job and I was going to use that excuse to see a bit of the stuff I missed travelling around New Zealand the first time but being unable to walk was a bit restricting!

NELSON

After a long 9 hour bus journey I arrived in Nelson. This was somewhere I hadn't been before. We had driven through it on the Kiwi Bus but we didn't stop and I think I was sleeping. My foot was now quite large so I got a taxi to the hospital to get it checked out. Thankfully it wasn't that busy and I got seen quite quickly. The doctor told me it might be broken. This was after the X-Ray. He couldn't be sure so he gave me some painkillers, a moonboot and some crutches and sent me on my way.

I had been hopping all day because I couldn't put any pressure on my foot so having crutches made getting around so much easier even if they did hurt my arms after a while. The next day I nipped to the pharmacy. I say nipped because its only a 10 minute walk but it took me over 45 minutes! Nelson seemed like a nice place and as I would be coming back the next week for a check up on my foot I didn't feel too bad that I didn't see anything of it. I got the bus to Picton and caught the ferry over to Wellington

Goodbye South Island

WELLINGTON

I arrived in the evening and checked into Base then went immediately in search of KFC. It had been a while so I was looking forward to it but it was really crap. I was so disappointed!

Wellington came as a bit of shock when I got tangled up in to morning rush hour of people. SO MANY PEOPLE! A rush hour in Franz Josef might be seeing more than 1 car driving down the road or having more than 2 people in front of you in the queue at Foursquare. I had almost forgotten the real world and I decided then and there that I do not want to be a part of it!

Te Papa

I had an extra day in Wellington so as climbing to the top of Mount Victoria was out of the question and I thought I hobble myself around Te Papa Museum. I'd been there before but the place is so huge with so much to see that I got bored the first time I didn't see it all.

View from the terrace

I ended up looking at most of the stuff I saw the first time like the earthquake and volcano bit. I find all that geological history stuff quite interesting and it reminded me that I wish I didn't give up Geography so early.

I can't see it, its not big enough

I went and saw The Waitangi Treaty bit with the Maori version on one side, the English on the other and an enlarged version of the original in the middle. There's a bit in the middle with a more accurate translation of the English to Maori so you can see the differences in the text and why it was argued about after it was signed.

Inside the museum

Te Hono ki Hawaiki

There's a big modern day Maori meeting house called Te Hono ki Hawaiki which means the link with ancestral homelands. I had mostly ignored this the first time around because I was tired and couldn't be bothered reading all the stuff but this time I had a look at it properly and the detail that has gone into it is amazing. Each carving has its own story and meaning. For example, the thing in the middle is the sun that has been captured by the Maui and his brothers. Nothing in this temple is there just to look good. Even the wooden frame in the middle means something. I can't remember what but it did!

Junk shop video

There was another room that I had completely missed the first time which was called the Golden Years which is a montage of moments in New Zealand. I sat down in this room looking at all the random stuff in this 'junk shop' and when the film started the random stuff started moving. The cow made me jump!

Boat show

Next to this was a model of one of the first ships that came to New Zealand from 'Hawaiki'. You can sit in this booth where a short play by real people is projected on to a screen that makes it look like they are on the boat. It was really good how the got the detail right. Like they would go up the steps that were on the boat. It was really realistic.

Civic Square

After the museum I went down to the Civic Square which was kinda uneventful except for a large floating ball thing.

Mt Ruapehu

The next day was another long day on buses as I journeyed north so falling asleep was inevitable. On of these occasions I opened my eyes to see this whopping great mountain looking back at me. We had reached Tongariro National Park and I was looking at Mt Ruapehu (Rew-a-pay-who). Apparently they had had some bad weather in the area recently which resulted in an epic early snowfall on the mountain making it look mighty impressive. Right next to that was Mt Ngauruhoe otherwise known as Mt Doom! If your wondering I did just have to google how that was spelt and I have no idea how to say it!

Mt Doom!

OHAKUNE

This one I know to say (after I asked someone). Its Oh-a-coon-ne. I arrived here a few days before my interview so I could do the Tongariro Crossing which I didn't get to do the first time I travelled through here because of the weather. This time the weather was great but it was my foot holding me back. So instead I opted for a bit of a hobble around the small town of Ohakune.

River and stuff

Room for a cripple down there?

Ohakune seemed a bit like Franz Josef. A small town where everyone knows each other, dead when its not in season and I reckon it would be quite a cool place to be come winter. Despite the random enormous carrot!

Big carrot

Well I suppose it wasn't that random. The town owed its existence to the extensive farming in the area which carrots were a huge part of. As tourism became more of an income for the town then farming some of the local farmers got together to decide on some sort of monument to their industry. An enormous carrot was their solution!

I hadn't really considered working here having also applied to ski jobs in Wanaka and Queenstown but I got a really good vibe from the place. I even made a few friends who were also there to interview and after having a few drinks with them, and getting a little to excited at Taboo, I decided that I would really quite like to live and work there.

Ruapehu looking awesome!

For that to happen I had to beast the interview the next day. I spent the morning going over the information on the employment website and thinking up clever answers to questions they might ask me only to turn up to the interview having prepared completely for the wrong role. I had assumed, when I received the email, that I got an interview for the Food & Beverage but I had in fact got my second choice which was Customer Relations. That threw me a little but I seemed to wing it quite well. I even managed to milk the whole being-on-crutches thing for a bit of sympathy and so they remembered me. Obviously I left out the part that I was completely wasted! It was a successful interview I thought.

Mt Doom looking a little more doomy

I left the next day with fingers crossed and headed back down south. I was still hoping for interviews for the south island as well as my hospital appointment.

WELLINGTON

Now that my foot was a little better and I could put weight on it, if only a little, I decided I would finally go up Mt Victoria the day after I arrived back in Wellington. I was told it had some great views. To get to the top you had to go through the park where they filmed a couple of Lord of the Rings scenes including the 'get off the road' scene. I couldn't find the exact place they used but I thought it was cool all the same.

GET OFF THE ROAD!

Steep track!

The park was pretty cool with its tall spindly trees and I had a lot of time to look around as I was travelling really slowly on the steep track on my crutches. There are a load of off road biking tracks through the park which look pretty terrifying.

Scary off-roading

Wellington

By the time I got to the top the rain had set in but that wasn't going to stop me hanging out for a bit and taking a bunch of photos. Gotta get those panoramic shots in!

er car park

What time is it?

There was an interesting cannon there which wasn't used for any sort of city defence which you might assume. Way back when times were weird and people used grandfather clocks they had to wind them and set them daily and to do that they needed to know what the time was. To help with this they would fire this cannon at midday everyday. Sounds mental if you ask me!

Trees!

I went back down the hill and because I wasn't wet enough yet I thought I'd hobble over to the cable car, one of the must do's of Wellington I've been told. Along the way I stopped off at Wellington Museum to dry off a bit.

Hologram

They had another one of those hologram things telling the story of how a huge water serpent had forced its way out of a lake and into the sea to form the Wellington harbour. Sounds like a believable story!

Model of the Wahine

They had a large section including a short film on the Wahine disaster where 51 people died. One of the worst storms in New Zealand where winds were recorded at twice hurricane speed had caused the ship to be blown onto a reef. There were also series of other mistakes and failings that added to the disaster. Its New Zealand's worst modern maritime disaster.

Cable car

Back out in the rain I took a ride on the old cable car which was a novelty and nothing more. There was a nice little museum about the old carriage and history of the small railway line. I think its more of a sentimental thing than anything else.

Top of the hill

Botanic Gardens

I walked down through the botanic gardens and to the parliament buildings. By now it was really raining and people were running everywhere as they were leaving work. I took a few pictures of the Beehive and hobbled back to the hostel as fast as I could, drenched!

Government 'Beehive'

Parliament buildings

Rainbow!

As soon as I got somewhere dry it stopped raining and there was a huge rainbow outside my room. The wind picked up though and it was a very sleepless night with the wind absolutely howling. I seriously thought the windows were going to cave in!

Hello South Island

I managed to get a lift of Wozza, a Kiwi driver, to the ferry terminal to catch the ferry back over to the south island. It was another beautiful trip through the Marlborough Sounds. I said hello to Bridget, another Kiwi driver, and got the bus to Nelson.

Marlborough Sounds

NELSON

Back in Nelson I thought I would actually go out and explore before my hospital appointment the next day where I planned to hand in my crutches.

Centre of New Zealand

The geographical centre of New Zealand just happens to be at the exact summit of the biggest hill in the area. Unlikely. I googled this and the actual centre is somewhere to the south west but this point is supposedly the centre of the central region of New Zealand. I'm still sceptical. Still its a great view at the top.

can you spot my shadow?!

Nelson

Tree

I took this photo when I realised I hadn't seen autumn colours since the English autumn of 2011! I left home at the end of summer 2012 and northern Australia doesn't really have an autumn. That's two and a half years between autumns and it'll be just as long for Winter when that comes around. Mental!

Big church

Churchy

My hospital appointment went as expected. Nothing broken, just bruised, just rest it and all will be well. I handed in my crutches and hobbled back to town past the cathedral. I had a chilled evening before catching the epic 9 hour bus trip down to Franz Josef.

Impressive

There was a rest stop at Punakaiki (Pancake) Rocks and the blowholes were actually blowing this time. Before long I found myself back were I had said goodbye to just 10 days earlier, Franz Josef but I wasn't going to be there for too long.

Pancakes

Blowing away