Taranaki Photos & the Way to Wellington

The 1st 2 are from Saturday on the way up the road from Inglewood.

Shame about the clouds, but it got better :-))

The 3rd is a shot of the camphouse with Taranaki in the background. You may get an idea of how high up the volcano I was? I drove through about 7k of forest before I got to it.

It was taken while tea was brewing, the udon were on the stove, & before the door played silly buggers.

Number 4 was next morning about 6.20. Ngnaruhoe is just to the right of the sun, & Ruapehu is the bigger lump to the right of that.

I'm pretty pleased with it & looking forward to seeing if it'll blow up to a decent size.

5 is a shot from the camphouse car park, & the camphouse is off shot to the right
What a place to spend the night, eh? Even if it Was a tiny bit spooky being way up there on my ownio ;-p

The last one is from SH3, which goes near enough due south down the east side.

I got a bit arty farty & framed it with some flowering bushes. It's spring here!

Shortly after I took the last one, the mountain was covered in cloud.

It happened within about 5 min. I looked over my right shoulder, & bam, there was the cloud & all chances of any more pics was gone.

Just before the road turned SE I stopped for a couple of teenagers wanting to go to Hawea.

Not sure if they were grungy Goths, or gothy Grungies, but the lad had a guitar & said his band played psychedelic grunge. I didn't want to show my age & ask what that was - harharhar

I passed through Marton & Bulls, as I'd done in 2009, & stopped at the same place for a brew.

I texted Liz from there & gave her an ETA

This time I refrained from taking that great road I'd driven last time & went straight down the coast.

It seemed to take ages to finally reach parts of Wellington I recognised, but I pulled up outside Liz's at about 1.45. Although she said she'd be out riding until 3 I knocked anyway, & Elliot came to say hello - briefly.

I figured I had over an hour to try & get to Fayes. so I followed my nose to the coast, but unfortunately got stuck behind a Sunday driver on the coast road, & by the time I got to Faye's there was no time to stop & say Thank you for her kindness last time.

I hadn't bought any flowers anyway, so I'll need to revisit on my way back up north.

Back at Liz's, she was home & I knocked on the door & she guessed it was me.

I should explain:

We hadn't met before, but her Mum goes to St Anne's SCD & put me in touch. She's kindly let me crash out at her house on the way down & on the way back for the Argentina game.

Talking of games, as it's currently going up for 7 on Sat the 10th, & certain Scottish peeps are waiting for me to eat, & join them in a wee dram ( wee ? I don't think so, somehow. These are Scottish rugby peeps we're taking about & we got quite 'merry' last night!?!?)

So, it's goodnight from me

More soon when I'm on Stewart Island tomorrow, hopefully

OAO

The World's Forgotten Highway & Taranaki

So - I'm now on Sat Sept 3rd & I left Ohakune around 9, headed up SH4 to Taumarunui (where I'd been breathalised on Wed).

At National Park Village I picked up my 2nd hitcher - Cain, who worked at Whakapapa & was going home to Piriaki, just south of Taumarunui.

We had a great chat & discussed UFC Ju Jitsu as opposed to the Trad sort. I make it a point to tell anyone I pick up about doing MA - just in case ;-).

I left SH4 at Taumarunui & took the "World's Forgotten Highway", SH43. My G Map directions told me it would take just over 3 hours to get to Stratford from Ohakune, & having spent 50 min on the road, I figured that was another 2 hours drive.

Wrong!

While the speed limit most of the way along was 100k, the road went up hill, down dale, & along the side of a gorge, & there was no way of doing anything like 100k.

It was an awesome drive though, & I wished I could've had someone to drive then I could gawp properly.

In the 1st 45 min I only passed 1 car, & only 11 went by the other way. It got busier nearer Stratford, tho.

I stopped off at Stratford at about 1.50 & had a brew. I took a pic of the clock tower, too. That's it, looking all Tudor.

Then it was along the SH3 to Inglewood & left to Taranaki, where I was booked in at the camphouse. There were some great views of the volcano - which legend tells used to be on the central plateau, but moved west after an argument with Ngnaruhoe & Ruapehu about a woman.

I got the keys to the bunkhouse & discovered I'd be the only 1 there that night.

Golly gosh! 1/2 way up a volcano all night on my own. I kept nipping out to try & to get pics of the sunset, but I was too far on the north side.

Come tea time I realised I'd left the anti-cough pills in the car & went to get them - & locked myself out. Fun, with no shoes on & no coat. The lights were on, my wallet in full view & my pot of tea going cold :-(

I drove back down to the visitor centre & got Gary's emergency number, & because my mob was safely locked indoors, had to drive out of the park & find a farm with someone at home. I tried 2 with lights blazing before I found one with people in it.

Gary seemed unfazed & gave me the code for the spare. It must happen a lot?

No idea why the door suddenly decided to lock itself when I'd been in & out without a prob about 4 times? ? ?

Anyway, the rest of the night passed without incident & I woke at just after 6 to find dawn was on its way, so I got off the sofa (it'd been too cold to sleep in the bedroom, so I'd spent the night in the main room on a huge settee)

I've tried to load the Taranaki pics but keep deleting them trying to organise & label them - doh ;-p

I'll send them in a min in the next blog.

So TTFN for now

OAO

Whriday's Pics - remember the instructions??

You prob worked out this was the wooden Kiwi I mentioned?
The pic above the bird is the 1st waterfall & pool. It was too hot when I tried it, but Paddy & Tobi said it was OK. The next 1 is the second waterfall & pool, & there are a couple of me under it.

You prob also guessed the duo in the waterfall are paddy & Tobi. They weren't too keen about getting right under when I kept saying 'back a bit more' hehehe. Well, it Was very forceful - great for pumelling, as I said last time

As usual there's a weird zigzaggy thing going on. Anyone know how to stop it? ? ?

You can see the steam rising - it's not spray :-)

So here we are at Ngarauhoe again


A great blue sky :-))

And here's are the sunset ones

While I was doing them, a bloke came bay & peered through the lens - the camera was balanced on a couple of CD cases on the roof of the car

He walked a bit further on & got a massive camera out of his bag ;-)

This one's another from SH47 - NW of the mountain
The sunset ones are from the west -obviously hahaha ;-)

Well, I managed it before my money ran out on this go.

I'm starving now so off to do some tea. May get back later & tell you all about Saturday & my drive to Taranaki, another awesome volcano
TTFN again

OAO

Thursday's Pics, Then Friday & a Hot River

So these are pics after I went skiing on Whakapapa

BTW - WH is pronounced F - so it would be Farkarparpar (kinda) The pointy one is Ngarauhoe (Narra Who Ee ! )There are a lot, as I'm hoping for 1 for the wall

Shame you didn't get to read about the reverse kipper on the waterfall, the crashlanding, the disc of cloud over Ngarauhoe, or Mckenzie's Mistake, but blame my inevitable ability to make PCs go on strike (rather like Phlis hehe) So my first ski on a volcano remains unblogged :-(

The zig zag presentation is not my idea - it's how blogger does it ???

The shots are of Ngarauhoe from SH48 & Ruapehu in the twilight from SH49. Not at all in the right order, but I'm rushing to blog before my dosh runs out

And so to Friday's hot stuff . . . .

Well it was a stream, actually! But it was hot :-))

What happened was an Oz girl at the Y came in with tales of a hot stream & waterfalls at Taupo, so as the weather was looking murky for Turoa skiing, I decided to drive up there & take a look-see.

I reversed my route from Dec 9 - up SH1 to Taupo, but didn't go for a paddle this time ;-p

The site was dead easy to find - at a lovely park just outside of town

It was rather awesome with several pools of lovely warm water (actually 1 was too bloody hot to get in!), & several waterfalls to sit under.

One waterfall was so powerful I couldn't sit upright enough to take a pic, so when a couple of German lads happened by, I took one of them instead - I'll up load in a bit, or the photos'll end up at the beginning of this blog - grrr
After I'd had a lovely water massage for about 1/2 hr, I got out dried off & went back to the car so I could drive back in the daylight & try & get Nganaruhoe at sunset - I'd managed Ruapehu the day before. I stopped on the north side on SH47 several times (you'll be getting sick of the sight of Ngarauhoe haha), & then hung out at a bar at National Park Village until the sun got low enough to do interesting things to the volcano.

I took a photo of a wooden Kiwi too

Anyway - time's ticking on so I'll end this & get the Friday photos on. As usual, the order will be random, but the water stuff was before the volcano & the kiwi

Then, if there's time, I'll do Saturday - which was a mega day. Otherwise you'll have to wait

For now, then

OAO

Whakapapa

Well . . . . .
I tried to upload a load of stuff about last Thursday's ski etc when I was on Liz's laptop on Mon, but after trying 8 times :-O I gave up in disgust, & I've been too busy/knackered since
Anyway, I saved Some of the text, so I'll E it to you guys who're my followers
I hope to catch up with the tales over the next hr or so. . . . ?
OAO

The Journey, Quest, Thing *

OK. Off I go again on the train to Heathrow. It was uneventful.


However, come check-in, there was a bit of a kerfuffle as I had no visa for Oz, but once they'd got their heads round my transfer in Sydney it was all sorted.

Then I went to get the money I'd ordered from TravelEx, & because my passport was Campbell & my Amex was Clarke, the bloke got all flustered & asked me why. I explained & showed him copies of the birth & marriage certs, but he still ran it by his boss before he got me to sign 3x on the dotted line & gave me the dosh. That was the 2nd hiccup, & there had to be a 3rd. . .

And the next bit of fun was the security scanner which beeped. The bloke said "Please take everything out of your pockets"' & I said "I haven't got any pockets" (I was wearing my Budokan freestyle pants). They sent me back through twice, & I got frisked by hand & the machine thing, but I was still beeping & they couldn't work out why. It turned out it was the hip - well it's metal isn't it?!


Once aboard I was next to a chap from Strathaven (pronounced Straven) called Derek, & we had a chat about Mugenkyo being based nearby & me & Rob staying there a couple of times. It turned out Derek was very tall & the Witch King of Angmar sprang to mind again - see Dec 30th 2009!

I watched 3 movies & a documentary about the Awesome Pawsome at a Queensland zoo until gone 5am & slept until Singapore.

Once back in the air I managed a bit of Battle for Los Angeles until I fell asleep.

Transfering in Sydney was a bit weird & they put me on a later flight than I'd booked for :-(. Plus, you had to pay to watch a movie on NZ Air, so I watched TV clips instead, including a couple of Mirandas I'd seen, but they were still laugh out loud funny :-))

Getting through Bio Security was really quick this time & I was outside waiting for the transfer to the car within 1/2 hr !

I ended up with an auto, but apart from trying to change gear at the 1st roundabout - oops ;-) it's been fine.

My 1st night was booked in Owhango, about 300k from Auckland, & apart from driving past it in the dark, the trip down was fairly uneventful - unless you count getting breathalised in Taumarunui anyway!

The police were doing random breath tests & I was pulled over and asked to "breathe into this, Madam". That done, he asked my name & where I lived, so I said "Shirley Clarke, Blackpool, England". Give him his due, he didn't seem fazed & waved me on, hehe

When I got to the hotel, I found Grant, the proprietor, in the bar with a couple of mates, Kevin & Archie. They were on beers, but I had a cup of tea. We had a chat for a bit, mainly about rugby & then I hit the shower, closely followed by the sack.

So endeth the first bit of my 2nd New Zealand adventure

OAO

* Name that film ( sort of ;-) )

Lothlorien, Pillars & the Parting

Aparrently I never posted this in 2010 - oops
Anyway, it's some pictures from the ride in paradise. This one --->
is where they filmed Haldir & co meeting up with the remaining 8 in Lorien


This one --->

is where Aragon & Lurtz had their scrap at the end of the Fellowship

as is this one apparently

Sorry they're not more interesting. Must do better hehehe

OAO

S x