Chopper On Tour

Wellington... and onwards

Right.. one thing that I had to see in Wellington was The Beehive and the Parliament Building. These are 3 buildings that form New Zealand's parliamentary complex, the most striking of which is 'The Beehive', it gets its name from the fact that.... it looks like a beehive! It was actually designed by British architect Sir Basil Spence (also Coventry Cathedral) and while architecturally it's the equivalent of a steaming street turd, it is the architectural symbol of New Zealand. The Parliament House on the other hand is a neo-Gothic gem..

Next stop just had to be the Zoo, for those of you that haven't quite grasped this yet, I am a HUGE fan of Zoos, in short they always make my day. At Wellington Zoo there are all the old favourites... Chimps, naturally having a tea party of course, Lions, Tigers, Sun Bears and the star of the show, The Red Panda!
I decided to stick around in Wellington an extra day to see the rugby game at the mighty Westpac Stadium, Wellington Lions Vs Northland, which I am glad I did as it was a total try-fest..Wellington are currently leading the NPC in NZ and it's no wonder why. The side is a graceful blend of promising NZ talent and proven All Blacks performers (Tana Umaga, Jerry Collins, Ma'a Nonu to name but a few).. result 65-12.
On leaving Wellington I did force myself to address a number of questions, namely: How does a capital city like Wellington afford to have an airport only serving domestic flights? What are all the psychopaths that come out at night doing during the day? How can there be so many bars and they all be shite? Why are all the women so horrendously unattractive?.... I am still of course searching for the answers.

Sunday I headed off to Lake Taupo across the Great Desert Road, oddly named due to it being neither great nor desert in fact it is quite often closed due to high levels of snowfall, but that's a minor detail that we can ignore. I did however see the awesome Mt Ruapehu (2797m) home to the largest ski field in New Zealand. I did arrive safely in Taupo to be greeting by Dave from 'Rainbow Lodge backpackers' together with broad brummie accent, but nevertheless a bloody nice bloke.

Lake Taupo is New Zealand's largest lake and in the very heart of North Island (606sq km in area and 357m above sea level for the geographers amongst you) it was formed by one of the largest volcanic explosions of all time and the surounding area is still volcanically active (massive understatement) and there are a number of thermal areas. Taupo hails itself at the Trout fishing capital of the World, and who the hell am I to argue.... having seen some of the specimin's pulled out of there, they would look more at home in Chernobyl. I decided to hire a car for a few days and head off solo to do some exploring, and what a good call that was....

First stop was The Craters on the Moon, part of Wairakei, New Zealands largest geothermal field. If that wasn't rad enough I then headed to Wai-O-Tapu 'Thermal Wonderland'. Having expected everyone to be prancing about in their longjohns I was pleasantly surprised to find New Zealands most colourful and diverse volcanic area, full of pools, lakes, craters, steam vents, mineral terraces, hissing fumeroles, mud pools and sulphur caves. In short this was 'bad ass' and thoroughly enjoyable.

After all this walking I thought that I would treat myself to an afternoon at the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua. I went to the Lake Spa Retreat section where you are presented with 4 shallow rocks pools (hot mineral pools) of gradated temps from 36C to 43C, overlooking Rotorua Lake's Sulphur Bay.... and boy could you smell it, it was like being back at the Zoo again. This went rather swimmingly (errrr) and to top it off I opted to get a 30min Aix Therapy session. All robed up I went through to the waiting area to soon be greeted by my 'therapist' Sue. Now bear in mind that Sue was on the wrong side of 50, so there was nothing over-pleasurable about this therapy session! The famous Aix massage is described in the brochure as follows: "Aix Massage, The Aix massage therapy was introduced in Rotorua from France in the early 1900's and has been available at Polynesian Spa for over 30 years. Aix is a smooth flowing massage done under jets of warm water using coconut oil as a massage medium." Well that just about sums it up! Mainly enjoyable, besides when ageing Sue's flapping breasts rested on my head at one stage, oh yeah and the point where she moved onto my legs and asked me to pull my shorts up and 'show her a bit of thigh (retch) but hey you can't win em all can ya folks!
Last but not least in Taupo I visited the Prawn Farm the world's only goethermal heated Prawn Farm where as it says... you can 'meet em, greet em and eat em'.. I did the tour which was actually really good fun, this consisted of an introduction to "Grumpy" the largest Prawn in captivity and I also had the opportunity to hand feed the juvenile prawns, which was kinda weird. I never thought I'd say this but prawns are cool (errr).
I then headed back towards town stopping off at the spectacular Huka Falls.

So, Taupo turned out good in the end, except for one thing, I picked up an ear infection and had to fork out $130 for a doctors visit and anti-biotics, yeah thanks for that.

I am now in Rotorua where I have to spend the night so that I can get the bus first thing tomorrow (07/10/04) to Auckland via the Waitomo Glowworm Caves.

Today I did manage to walk to Rotorua's largest and best-know thermal reserve and a major Maori cultural area.. 'Te Whakarewarewa' pronounced, 'fa-ka-re-wa-re-wa'. This is home to the New Zealand Maori Arts & Crafts Institute, the most prestigious place in NZ to study for Maori wood sculptors. Also here is the an amazing geyser called 'Pohutu' (Maori for explosion), an active geyser that apparantly erupts between 10 and 20 times a day spurting water about 20m into the air. It was a very impressive performance today anyway! Also here I got to see working Maori craftspeople, an art gallery, a Maori village and some Kiwi birds (the feathered kind!), all very impressive.

So, off to Waitomo tomorrow, then Auckland for the night before I head to the Bay of Islands, then back to Auckland. After that folks it's gonna be goodbye Aotearoa and g'day Australia.

posted by Ed Beesley @ 4:24 AM