Earth 2010

Dogs, fishes and cucumbers in the Cook Islands

64 days until we come home, 344 days since selling up. Paul Twocock recording.

David’s busy playing scrabble so you have me reporting back today from Rarotonga, the main island in the Cook Islands. We’re in the middle of the South Pacific now and it’s just like you’d imagine it – or just the way they portray it in the movies… tall swaying palms leaning over empty white sand beaches; green jagged peaks rise up inland; and the whole island is encircled by a coral reef creating a shallow blue lagoon to wade and snorkel around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s all so languid and sleepy it’s difficult enough to rouse yourself to read a book or in my case try to edit my novel. Though we’ve got through quite a few books while we’ve been here: there’s no TV and we have to go to the store to get any wifi, it really is no news, no shoes.

The highlight of the day is the morning walk down to the beach (the house is only a couple of minutes away) and along the blue lagoon. We go down in our little reef booties and wade out to our favourite bit of reef and all the tropical fish descend on us from nowhere. They know these two pairs of funny legs means food. A few crumbs of bread and these fish are anyone’s! And what a great variety; it’s like you’re swimming in an aquarium. Our personal favourite is the Humuhumunukunukupua’a – the state fish of Hawaii, but here in Rarotonga in force. You know them from their lovely yellow and blue and chocolate and cappuccino and purple markings and the little haughty face they pull at you as they swim up to say hello. Here’s one now:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course when wading out to see the fish in the Rarotongan lagoon you have to tread carefully. Laying on the sandy bottom lurking at every corner are the Sea Cucumbers! Like big fat black slugs, the size of a cucumber, they send their black suckers out to feed from whatever’s in that sand. Apparently if you attack them (or stand on them no doubt) they send out loads of sticky wires to trap you. I expect we’d be able to set ourselves free, but we took no chances!

Back on dry land we attract more of Rarotonga’s wildlife – this time it’s all down to David. The dogs of Rarotonga seem magnetically attracted to him. Every day we go to the beach we find one, two or three prospecting for fish, and they happily follow him like he’s the Pied Piper or something (there’s a pic in the album when we upload it where you can see what I mean).

Often we pick them up on the road, and they happily plod down to the beach with us. One even followed us home one day, stayed for lunch (lucky for her I burnt the bacon, so she had a real treat) and didn’t go until late that afternoon. This all caused a bit of a kerfuffle though, because we already had a doggy friend back at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

M’Lady lives at the house next door. Not sure what her real name is, but the way she took up home on our deck for the duration of our stay, become totally attached and demanded to be fed breakfast, lunch and tea meant that for us she was definitely a right M’Lady.

Anyhoo, it’s all been very relaxing. It’s David’s birthday on Thursday. We’re going for lunch at Trader Jacks in the main town, overlooking the ocean, and then it’s off to the airport for our flight to Tahiti. Three weeks exploring the islands of French Polynesia. Ooh! La! La! Until the next time: au revoir…

 

Fiji

333 days since selling up, 75 days until the grand return. Paul Twocock and David Jones recording.

Fiji. Such an exotic sounding place: palm trees, white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons? Mmmn well there are palm trees, and white sand beaches on the outer islands apparently, but unfortunately our two week brush with Fiji has kind of broken our fantasy of these south pacific islands. In fairness, we'd just left New Zealand, which more than any country has echoes of England, and we arrived feeling a bit homesick. And what happened next just exacerbated that.

The journey to our first villa was long. Three hours of driving on a pot-holed and partly unmade road, only to get to the nearest town, Rakiraki, to find no decent supermarket. We back-tracked an hour to a town with a store and when we finally got back to the turn off to our villa things deteriorated. Well the road certainly did: up and down 1 in 4 hills on a rocky trail that almost marooned the car on an outcrop, and when we finally got the villa, it was dusk, a storm was blowing in and there were vampire bats flying overhead with two foot wing spans - and the villa was locked up.

It all got sorted quite quickly and actually (like often happens) things looked better in the morning: a sea view with some small islands dotted with palms, a pool and a hanging bed pitched in just the right spot to catch the refreshing breeze. But we still had to make the 7 hour round trip back to the airport to trade in the car with dodgy breaks for a 4x4 we hadn't budgeted for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end we settled into Fiji life. Catering for ourselves with limited supplies, we were as inventive as possible, but probably eat a few too many cans of baked beans. The weather was good and the sun strong. We read, Paul caught up on the re-write of his book, and we relaxed. Well admittedly we got a bit nervous at nights when the tremendous thunderstorms blew in. They sounded worse than they probably were on the tin roof, but the crack of lighting metres away that shakes the house is still pretty scary, particularly when you're marooned in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of a precipitous road. All part of the fun of the South Pacific!

The Fijians are a puzzle: really friendly at one moment (almost everyone stopped to wave to us as we passed on our three our drive to Rakiraki) and then suspicious at the next (the people in Tavua for the Saturday market couldn't stop staring at these two English guys trying to find their way around the grocery stores desperately looking for baked beans). The island itself looks a bit like rural India partly because of all the hindi, sikh and muslim temples, and even more so because of sacred bulls every 500m, drowsily grazing by the side of the road.

On the second week we changed villa. Based at the other side of the island, nearer the airport and the only decent supermarket, things got even better. Another lovely sea view and an infinity pool this time surrounded by a deck, has made relaxing easy. And after a few attempts we reconnected with the world via the villa's wifi - you don't realise just how much you rely on it!

No vampire bats here, but we do have a band of big yellow frogs that congregate on the deck in the evening under the veranda lights. They sit in a circle like a religious community and wait for the insects attracted by the lights to fly lazily toward their mouths. Somehow one got in the villa the other night and seemed reluctant to leave. Just like the cockroaches who appear in the dark. Eight dispatched and counting. There's a spooky pic of the frogs in the album.

Anyhoo, tomorrow we get back on Air New Zealand and fly onto Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. We're hoping that our next South Pacific adventure is a bit nearer the fantasy. White sand beaches and turquoise lagoons, here we come! Cin cin everyone.

From Kiki back to Auckland

Hi-de-hi campers! It's all over... we've returned Kiki to her owners and flown back to Auckland.

So, 318 days since selling up, just 90 days until the grand return. Paul Twocock recording.

It was sad to give Kiki back after two weeks together, though as we squeezed the last grey water out of her tanks it felt good that we wouldn't have to smell that stench from hell again. We took a flight from Christchurch airport, which was largely untouched by the earthquake. The guy who dropped us off said they were still getting after shocks though - three last night. So it was a relief to take off without a shake.

As we flew north we had a bird's eye view of the spectacular Taranaki volcano - a perfect cone and a sight we'd missed on our North Island tour - pic in the album.  

Back in Auckland we got a lovely warm welcome back at the Waldorf St Martin's apartments, where we had started our New Zealand adventure last month. This time though we got the best room in the house thanks to the fab guy on the front desk: 18th floor, right at the top, spectacular views of the city and the harbour, and to top it all Guy Pearce slept in our bed just two weeks before. If you don't know who he is - google him and shame on you! We were excited. What was he doing here? Is he in the new Hobbit film? Must get David to tweet Sir Ian again.

So we love our apartment. Hit the city today, first stop Auckland's iconic whore district K-Road for a haircut. Found the perfect place called Vada. All you Round the Horne fans out there will understand why we could resist. One hour later we came out with our new cuts, David sporting a new tin-tin quiff which looks oddly fetching.

It's Auckland's arts festival at the moment too, so we've just come back from a fringe performance at The Basement - all very Edinburgh or trying to be. And actually pretty good. 

It's nice to come back to a city a second time, you know where everything is and start to feel at home. So don't know what we'll be up to tomorrow, chill out by the harbour, go up the tower, who knows? But we'll have fun and get ready for our coming adventures in the South Pacific. Next stop Fiji...

I'll leave you with our view of the city as dusk draws in. Injoy! 

Campervan Day 13

Hi-de-hi campers!

This is the last night in the van, so we've had a quiet day today; just a short drive along the coast to Timaru. We completed our daily chores first thing this morning and arrived in Timaru early so we could have a lovely lunch at the Speight's Ale House down by the port - it's like the New Zealand version of Chef and Brewer.

Timaru boasts one of the few surviving examples of an original Victorian lighthouse, a smattering of Victorian and Edwardian buildings and a big, huge container port.

Tomorrow we drive Kiki to Christchurch Airport to give her back to her owners before we fly back to Auckland for a few days. Just think, full plumbing and no emptying the waste water in the morning, what will we do with ourselves?

Anyhoo, because we had a big lunch we have a sandwich tea tonight and the last episode of Doctor Who. Night, night.

 

Campervan Day 12

Hi-de-hi campers!

Wildlife watching today. Started off on the Otago peninsular near Dunedin. Saw a few Albatrosses, but declined the invitation to part with cash for a tour of Albatrosses (it's a large seagull, with a funny face - see the pic in the album).

There are penguins on the peninsular but they had already gone out to sea for the day, so we saved ourselves for later. Hair-raising ride back on very high hills and then off up the coast to the Moeraki Boulders, which David describes as 'big round balls on the beach'. Which I guess is fair - but they are odd, and diverting for about twenty minutes.

Our stay tonight is in Oamaru, famous for its grand Victorian buildings made out of white Oamaru stone (some pics are in the album) and home to two penguin colonies. We planned to be there when the penguins came back ashore before dusk. Being bold we decided to walk to the Yellow-Eyed Penguin colony, it didn't look far on the map. Weren't so happy with ourselves when confronted by San Francisco size hill. But we persevered, got there for 6pm, waited for an hour and half, and one lonely penguin came ashore. He seemed pretty pleased with himself, but who knows where all his buddies are. Feeling tired we decided to give the blue penguins a raincheck until we get to Australia in May. We had a date with some irish stew and crusty bread. 

Anyhoo, nighty, night. Here's our friend coming ashore.

Campervan Day 11

Hi-de-hi campers!

Today we walked all over Dunedin in search of the lost ancestors of the Twocock family. We were looking for the Browns of Dunedin, one of the first families to settle in the city in 1848; they were some of its founding fathers and mothers. Like most of the early setllers they came from Scotland and the town still has a very Scottish feel to it.

Of course we're not a 100 per cent sure of the link between the Twococks and the Browns, but let's just say the story has been passed through the generations (Paul here: the Twococks are 100 per cent sure!)

Unfortunately we were not able to spot any Twocock lookalikes in the crowds of Dunedin (Paul here again: but I have been mistaken all over New Zealand for other people, people seem to know my face!).

And nor did we discover any photos of the Browns because the Settlers Museum was being renovated and won't reopen until 2012, and we're not coming back - shut up Paul!

What we did discover is where they were buried, high on a hill overlooking the city. There's a pic in the album. We then searched all over Dunedin, walking up hills steeper than the ones in San Francisco, looking for their house and their place of business. They had gone. Shut up Paul!

Though we have got some pictures of where they used to stand, and some scenes of old Dunedin where you can just make out James Brown's shop front. He started off a draper then became a wool merchant. 

We did discover, however, the infamous Lady Brown whose past is very enigmatic but too scandalous to describe here. But we have uncovered a bona fide portrait. See the pic below.

Anyhoo, after a long day wandering around the city we returned back to the campervan for a long earned rest and a Chill con carne and champagne supper. Night, night.

Campervan Day 10

Hi-de-hi campers!

A short blog today, three things to report.

Number one: we've found out the secret to opening the fresh water tank cap. The secret is to unlock it! And that may sound silly, but for ten days when we thought it was locked it was unlocked (the cap was stationary) and when we thought it was unlocked it was in fact locked (the cap turned). It's an easy mistake to make. And even now we have discovered the secret it's still hard to get the cap off, but hopefully less of a trauma.

Number two: The road from Invercargill to Dunedin is as dull as it sounds. That is a little unfair, because some of the views are quite pretty, kind of English in a Scottish way, including, at one mad moment, a teapot - literally a house covered in teapots and the occasional gnome. 

Number three: when in Dunedin, go for the holiday park near the glow worm dell. The others are horrible (we checked and asked for our money back at both), and you also get a babbling brook out your back window. Lovely. It is called the Water of Leith, which is in Edinburgh. Dunedin is the gaelic word for Edinburgh and we expect more Scottish vibes when we hit the town tomorrow.

Night, night we'll leave you with the glow worms. They're behind us!

 

Campervan Day 9

 

 

Hi-de-hi campers! Wow, what an amazing day - but before we tell you all about it, we have a confession to make. Yesterday we told you about the three Ws to make you a happy camper - well, it's true it is good to be ship-shape, but sometimes it's even better to forget about the chores and drive straight out onto the open road before anyone else in the camp has stirred. We did it today and it makes you feel just a little bit naughty....

The reason for the early start was to get to Milford Sound before the coach loads descended, and it worked. It's a two hour drive from Te Anau to Milford Sound, the only NZ Fjord accessible by road. The drive is amazing: mountains, lakes, forests and having rained all night (again!) waterfalls cascading through the mists thousands of feet down the mountain faces. But the drive was nothing compared to the Fjord itself.

Huge, towering peaks lining a narrow passage to the sea. It was a fjord of a thousand and one waterfalls - but alas no Vikings (anyway the New Zealanders spell it differently - it's a Fiord). Everywhere you looked silver, misty lines of water tumbled down sheer cliffs thousands of feet tall. Larger waterfalls crashed loudly into the sound, and the boat nudged right into them so if you wanted to you could stand under thousands of gallons of water - neither of us did, although we got semi-drenched in the crashing mists.

Along the way we saw New Zealand fur seals - all posing for photos, have a look in the photo album. The whole two hour cruise was just stunning. And then we had the drive back to look forward to. By now the sun was shining through, and the sound had one more surprise for us. As we waited to go through the one lane, scary, rough hewn tunnel back to the main highway (still a windy two-lane road) a Kea jumped through the bush and started waddling down the road! It's a rare parrot, the only one in the world to live in an Alpine climate. It seemed very interested in all of us in the traffic queue - photo in the album.

The day was completed with a long, very scenic drive to Invercargill via a lovely picnic stop by a river. It was all fabulous.

Anyhoo, must dash episode of Doctor Who to watch before lights out. Night, night.

Campervan Day 8

Hi-de-hi campers!

I'm going to let you into the secret of good campervanning, you always must remember a happy camper achieves the three Ws everyday. Here they are: a full tank of fresh Water, all the Waste emptied and all the Wee gone.

Anyhow we achieved all three Ws this morning, hooray! So we set off relatively happy to travel from Wanaka to Te Anau the gateway to the Fjordland. But although the sun has shone brightly, it has been very breezy. And it has taken all the driver's skills to prevent us from toppling over in the gales.

We even found a lovely picnic stop by a lake, but the wind was so strong we couldn't even open the door. Today has been very much a transit and wash day. Once we got to our lake view holiday park in Te Anau (beware the term 'lake view' see the pic from our back window in the album) we spent a couple of hours running between laundry rooms to get our sheets, towels and clothes clean. All done and tonight is clean sheet night, hooray!

Anyhoo off to the great Milford Sound tomorrow and hopefully a boat trip if we survive the night, Kiki just swayed wildly in the wind - and we're on a hill. I've asked Paul to check the hand break three times.

Campervan Day 7

Hi-de-hi campers! 

Well we survived a windswept and rainy night at the rainforest retreat. Kiki shook like we were on the high seas. The good thing is we managed to successfully unscrew the fresh water cap and left the camp with a full load of water. And this time we also managed to completely empty the waste water tank for the first time, hoorah! 

Our first port of call this morning was the Franz Josef Glacier. We had to dodge the torrential showers to get there, and walked through a canyon of hundreds of waterfalls to the glacier's edge. The whole thing was jaw-dropping.

 

Next stop was Fox's Glacier, the home of the mints - but we saw no polar bears. After another tramp through a canyon to the edge of the glacier and back we set off on our four hour drive to Wanaka through some of the most beautiful scenery New Zealand has to offer. There were peaks covered in rainforests and waterfalls, raging rivers, windswept beaches and eventually we emerged alongside huge, bright blue lakes that made our eyes water. See the pic below and more in the album.

We finally got to Wanaka in the early evening, picked up some sausages and beans and had a lovely tea of bangers and mash. The stars are out and it looks like we'll have a quiet night not tossed and turned by the wind and the rain.

Anyhoo, more tomorrow. Sorry about the delay on uploading the full photo albums, but please keep checking we'll get them on as soon as we can. And have your twopenneth - let us know what you think. Night, night.