After drinking the night away in the Red Rock for the black Friday party and taking a cross-country route back to my friends place I was feeling pretty shabby when I woke up. I said my goodbyes once we’d pieced the night before together and headed back to Queenstown airport along the Crown Range Road and through Cardrona.
I landed back in Auckland and telephoned the first airport hotel I found that had a free airport shuttle service. The timing was perfect as I just managed to check in, deposit my bags in my room, book a wake-up call and a seat on the 0630 shuttle before settling down to watch the new-look All Blacks cream England.
I’m now in Sydney where I’ll be for just over a week, catching up with friends and flatmates from university days and also some family who emigrated over 20 years ago. The weather is still pretty warm and there has been quite frequent rain showers since I landed but this is an improvement on the persistent (but welcome) rain from the previous fortnight. Another positive: I was treated to the sight of a rainbow above the clouds when approaching Sydney airport a couple of days ago.
After mastering clutch control once again in the motel car park, I left Queenstown - voted the friendliest place on the planet by Condé Nast. The drive up to Wanaka passed without incident. The scenery was gorgeous and very reminiscent of Scotland. It seems that everywhere I go there is something reminding me of home: places, street names, statues and even smells.
Wanaka is a beautiful little place. Every third car here appears to be some flavour of Subaru- usually a Legacy. It seems that the distinctive engine noise is almost permanently in the background.
I’ve finally figured out the proper day and date: it’s Friday the 13th. Although I’m not paraskavedekatriaphobic, I decided not to tempt fate and put a stop to the adrenaline activities for now. Besides, the revised ski resort opening dates are still a couple of weeks away. Instead I went for a gentle stroll alongside Lake Wanaka to Eery Point Reserve.
The past few weeks were designed to get me out of my comfort zone and they certainly succeeded. It’s nice to see some familiar faces again though. There’s less than a month to go before I’m back in the UK and still a lot to pack in1.
1 Speaking of packing, why did I not know about bundle packing before I left? Wrapping everything around a central core of Ninja folded T-shirts has revolutionised my travelling.
I left the vivid colours of Autumn behind me and headed for the distinctly chillier climes of the South Island. I did attempt to acclimatise myself beforehand though with a visit to Minus 5 Ice Bar in Auckland but there was no need to worry. The temperature had climbed to zero by the time we landed in Queenstown. I love being able to see the mountains so I was always going to love it here. Flying in this morning over the Southern Alps was really nice but I was stuck in an aisle seat with a snap-happy Japanese girl obstructing my view out of the window.
Once we landed at Queenstown I hired a car - smaller this time and manual transmission which took some getting used to. It’s no Zeus but maybe could be one of the lesser gods.
Having found a voucher in my welcome brochure for 30% off a massage I set off into town but somehow ended up in the parachute jump place to see if they had anything available for tomorrow. They did but the weather is supposed to be crappy for the next couple of days and it just so happened that they had a free space this afternoon.
Well that was it. The next thing I knew, I was in a jumpsuit with a man strapped to my back and sat in a small plane climbing to 15,000 feet above ground level (which is 16,020 feet above sea level here in Queenstown). Falling at 54 meters per second for just over a minute. Somewhat weirdly maybe but I was far more nervous doing the SkyJump. I’m pretty sure that stumbling across how to survive an unplanned freefall from 15,000 feet had nothing to do with my lack of nerves.
Once back on terra firma I made plans to meet up with a few of the other jumpers for some drinks and a bite to eat back in town.
I decided to head down to Rotorua, the cultural heartland of New Zealand today. I had a wander around the geothermal pools of Kuirau Park and gazed over to Mokoai Island. There is a strong smell of sulphur in the air because of the multitude of vents and also steam billowing out practically everywhere.
While I was there I had to try Zorbing. Specifically a Zydro experience where you aren’t harnessed in, but sit in the Zorb with a couple of buckets worth of (thankfully warm) water. I guess it was like being back in the womb. Actually, more like being in a washing machine once the thing got going down the zigzag path. I should have thought ahead and taken some socks and thrown them in there with me.
If I’m being honest (and I usually am), New Zealand was almost an afterthought. I’m glad I made the stop though and I would like to come back when it’s summer here and explore the islands and culture.
At least I’m used to the local time now. Adjusting for Australia and Japan will not be such a big deal anymore.
I am have wroting this a week last Monday1. I really don’t know what day it is anymore. The whole International Dateline thing has confused me. It’s supposed to be a leap year but I’ll still only have 365 days thanks to the 8th of June being taken away from me. I do feel like I’ve been short-changed if not downright robbed. What’s going to happen when SCRAM jet engines become commonplace and you can circumnavigate the globe in six hours?
Maybe it was the beers I had while watching repeats of the Euro 2008 matches so far but the bottle of 5 Hour Energy I brought over from the USA did diddley squat. I fell asleep for a couple of hours and I’m going to have to call it a night properly very shortly.
1 Present ultraconditional subinverted semi-active past subjunctive deponent aorist tense.
I checked out of the hotel and arrived at the airport in plenty of time to reserve an exit window seat. Passed through security and went looking for a beer. Stocks were seriously diminished for some reason so I sat down to finish my book and wrote a letter to my brother. Leaving the land of rollerblades and mobile phone hands free sets behind me.
This flight actually has a reliable trip distance thanks to the seatback screen information instead of having to rely on the web. I also got plied with lots of booze and sat next to a like-minded girl called Carly who was on her way back to Adelaide after her round-the-world trip.
I liked New Zealand immediately when I noticed the red line painted around the baggage reclaim carousel. It was quiet so things may be different at other times but in this case the protocol was impeccably observed. To pass some time while I waited for the Airbus Express service to start I spoke to the Air New Zealand desk about flights to Queenstown. It turns out that I could amend my existing itinery for £40. This tool my mileage up to 28,896 (or 99.6%) of the maximum 29,000 allowed on the Escapade ticket I hold.
I made my way into the city as the rain dried up and the sun rose. Checked into a hotel, had a quick shower to freshen up, skipped breakfast to offset the jetlag and went exploring. I gave myself an adrenalin shot by doing the SkyJump - twice. Jumping off the highest tower in the Southern hemisphere on a fan descender controlled free fall for 192 metres sure wakes you up quickly.
I went for a walk today to assure my legs that they are not redundant after yesterday’s Segway tour. I wandered through Soma and Mission, stopped for an ice cream at Mitchell’s and then climbed Twin Peaks before descending to stroll through Golden Gate Park. The walk up is pretty tiring but you can drive (or be driven) most of the way up.
I got all the way down to the beach and the Dutch Windwill but was exposed to the wind that almost blew me from the summit of Twin Peaks earlier. It felt like my legs were being sandblasted so I hightailed it back along Fulton to the Civic Center. All told I clocked up over 17 miles today.
I really like San Francisco but I don’t think that I could ever live here. Building a city on a major fault line just seems to be fundamentally flawed to me.
I planned on going up Coit Tower yesterday but I simply ran out of time. Accordingly, it was item number one on today’s agenda before going to look at San Francisco’s crookedest street: Lombard street. It reminded me of the start of Nacimiento road but in daylight and maybe only a couple of hundred yards long. I ended up in the Ghiradelli area and the Franklin Bowles galleries looking at Dali’s Alice in Wonderland suite, some Rembrandt etchings and a large collection of amazing work from LeRoy Neiman.
As I was in San Francisco I couldn’t just hire a bike for a quick whizz round. I simply had to try out a Segway tour. They are the weirdest thing at first but you soon get used to them (that is unless you are the woman who ran herself over with hers during the orientation and decided she didn’t want to go anymore). The tour lasted for a couple of hours, was good fun and quite informative but once I dismounted it was like I’d forgotten how to walk normally. I went for a sit down in the Boudin Bakery to recover and have something to eat before heading back to the hotel for the night.
“As a general rule, you will work eight hours a day, five days a week, with Saturdays, Sundays and holidays devoted to recreation.”
- Alcatraz regulation #20
To celebrate being free of the car I headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf and ended up in a bar called Jack’s at The Cannery. 68 beers on draft awaited me and it was Happy Hour. It turns out that most of the people in there were British. There were people from the Lake District, Manchester and Leeds. With the exchange rates as they are I think that this is going to be a common occurrence this Summer as tourists shun Europe.
I soon got talking to a family from Michigan. The son was interested in traveling after he’d finished his studies but was apprehensive at the same time. I told him that he should just go for it, it would be one of the best things that he could ever do and that I felt exactly the same way until days before I left.
After they left the bar my next conversation was with a big, bald, bearded biker from Alabama who was a really nice guy. We went on to drink a lot and I don’t have a clue what time I left. I’m fairly sure that I was way under the strictly enforced 40 drink limit though but I felt like I’d smashed clean through it this morning.
Once I was feeling vaguely human again I set off down Market Street to the wonderful shops in the Ferry building and then on to book myself on a boat for a tour of Alcatraz. It turns out that I’d picked a special day for a visit. Darwin Coon was incarcerated here and today was back for a signing of his book. It smacked a little of profiteering to me - akin to the recent glut of autobiographical books from reformed football hooligans of the 1980s. It really is quite an eerie place but outside the cells - thanks to the lack of predators - it has returned to be home to the birds that gave the island it’s modern-day name (derived from La Isla de los Alcatraces). I also learned the somewhat startling fact that 1% of the US population is in prison and of those, 40% are functionally illiterate.
Once back on the mainland I continued walking along the shoreline until I stumbled across the Sea Lions on K dock of Pier 39. There are hundreds of them, they’re noisy and they stink but they’ve been drawing a big crowd since 1990. I would say that they’re the best thing about Pier 39 which is mainly devoted to selling trinkets to tourists.
The day was pushing on so I queued for a ride over San Francisco’s hilly streets on one of the famous cable cars. I wasn’t expecting to have to wait in line for quite so long though. A good 30 minutes is apparently the norm for the Powell and Hyde route but it’s a damn sight easier than walking!
