40. The Road from Hobbiton - Days 12 & 13

The last four days of my trip will be squeezed together into two blog posts. Not because I am now home and I need to catch up, but because a lack of significant events (some out of my control) occurred towards the end of my trip. I will, as always endeavour to report my travelings in suitable detail.

Day 12.

The day in numbers:

58 km driven.

Hours suffered from countryman-in-the-city-claustrophobia: 6

2 legs feeling achy from walking around on hard floors. 

Dead colossal squids seen: 1 

Map of Day 12:

I - Wellington. W - Paraparaumu

Waking up early in Wellington, I had to do the kind of annoying thing you only have to do in the city, and move my car before 9:00 am. Once up I had plenty of time to see more of the sights of New Zealand's capital, which this time was as windy as it was supposed to be. People walking to work looked like mime artists with scarves etc flying out horizontally behind them. 

Wellington plays host to the New Zealand leg of the rugby sevens world series on the 1st and 2nd of February. It is a party in the city like no other in this rugby mad country, and that is why I couldn't find book a bed for the following night (my whole schedule was changed because of this).

The streets were filling up with supporters from all corners of the rugby universe, mostly Samoans and Tongans though. I walked around looking for something to do and came across the huge museum that is Te Papa - The National Museum of NZ. Particularly pleased with the free entry, I went inside to check it out and was there all morning.

There was exhibits on many subjects including the geology behind the earthquakes and volcanoes of NZ, the flora and fauna of the country and Maori history. Below are a few pictures of some of my favourite bits.

 

 These trolls were not turned to stone like in The Hobbit, but turned into silicone and carbon fibre (made in the Weta Cave workshop I visited last time I was in Welly).

This ammonite fossil is one of the biggest in the world, I can't remember the exact measurement but it was a good three feet across. Considering that it was once a water snail/squid hybrid type creature, that is pretty big. 

 Speaking of water-bound giants, Te Papa museum is home to the only intact body of a Colossal Squid in the world. The way it was positioned meant I couldn't get a good angle of all of it so here is another picture showing a bit of tentacle:

These are the creature that fight Sperm whales and probably gave rise to the myths and legends of sea monsters like the Kraken. It was certainly an impressive beast. The accompanying video was all about how they managed to get it from the Antarctic water to Wellington. The general gist of it was you needed a peg on your nose all the time, if it wasn't the smell of rotting squid, it was the smell of formaldehyde that it is preserved in. Interestingly formaldehyde is pretty much the same as formalin used in livestock foot-baths. Useful knowledge for my plans for creating my own natural history museum (I have already bleached and displayed the intact skull of a polecat).

 This is a bull made out of corned beef tins. This is the kind of art I appreciate, I would have it in my house. It was only a little bit smaller than life size.

This is a very impressively carved wooden Maori meeting house or Wharenui. You had to take your shoes off to go inside, I am not sure whether that was to keep it clean / reduce damage or because it is seen as a sacred place.  

After a bite of lunch I wandered about wondering what else to do. Seeing as Wellington is fast becoming the second movie city of the world, I went to the cinema. I feel guilty about this and probably should have done something more cultural that I could only do in that particular city. I saw Gangster Squad, which I can highly recommend if you like 50's suits, Emma Stone and Tommy guns. 

Because of the Sevens (England won the tourney by the way), I had to stay out of town. My hostel for the night was just up the coast at Paraparaumu. I timed my exit from the city perfectly to coincide with Friday night rush hour. 

The hostel had a much too small kitchen, but otherwise wasn't too bad. On the TV that night was a NZ classic, Murray Ball's film A Dog's Tail Tale (the actual title has that crossed out pun). It is brilliant and I urge you all to watch it some time. 

I had to check in for my ferry back to the South Island at 7:25 am so I went to bed earlyish with local advice to leave at 6 o' clock in the morning. 

Day 13.

The day in numbers:

217 km driven.

1 world class idiot.

1 huge sigh of relief. 

Whales watched: 0

Day 13's map:

W - Paraparaumu. I - Wellington. H - Picton. X - Kaikoura.

I got up to my alarm with plenty of time to eat some breakfast and make sure I didn't leave anything behind. 

Eating my cornflakes somehow took longer than planned so I was maybe in a bit of a rush driving from the lawn where my car was parked. 

I did have a ferry to catch, and was still perhaps a bit blurry eyed from sleep. That however, is no excuse for my stupidity that followed. Looking back it is quite amusing. I can assure you that at the time it was in no way funny and I was starting to think about having a small panic. I have portrayed the scenes by means of a Microsoft Paint cartoon. The last one seemed to go down pretty well. 

Yes, I was very early for my ferry in the end. But if I had been one minute too late, the arseing around with a rope would have been a very annoying reason to miss the boat. 

It was a nice morning looking out over the water while I waited to embark. 

To the left of the cranes on the left of the ferry, you can just see the Westpac Stadium, where the rugby would be played later on that day.

That was my North Island experience. I prefer the South, it is less busy and has better scenery and better beer. There were many interesting things to see in the North though. I will summarise properly at the end of the roadtrip's blogs. 

Back on the proper island, my destination was Kaikoura and with a whale watch trip booked I was very excited to get there.

The drive first took me through the Marlborough region where there was lots of brown grass and lots of vineyards. 

 

And as you can see in that photo, there were no clouds. The back up air-con was deployed. 

The drive down the coast was breathtaking, the sea was a brilliant turquoise. I saw a few seals lounging about on the rocks too. There were a few corners and more than few police cars so there are no photos. 

At Kaikoura I splashed out on a 'warm lamb and kumara salad' (kumara is kiwi sweet potato). It was very nice and the perfect precursor to the highlight of my return journey - the whale watch. 

That didn't go quite to plan. The trip was canceled 'due to fog', I couldn't see any fog and it was a huge disappointment. I rescheduled for first thing the following morning and went for a drive up to the look-out (I was not going to be caught out by walking this time). The view of the town and the bay with the mountains behind was spectacular, but I would have rather viewed a whale. 

I also went down to the end of the Kaikoura peninsular where there is a resident seal colony on the rocks. There was a distinct lack of seals, except for one dead one. Someone had put a driftwood cross by his body, it felt a bit wrong taking a photo, but I didn't have much for the day. 

The area when the tide was out was actually a very interesting place. Lots of nooks and crannies where all manner of sea creatures could hide. At one point I got attacked by what I have just identified from my bird book as a Red-billed Gull. I think that it had a nest nearby.

There was a lot of huge seaweed about too, creating underwater forests which with the crystal clear water made some cool pictures. 

That night at the hostel I cooked some of my Dad's speciality, smoked salmon tagliatelle, to cheer me up. It was very good, but I was still a bit pissed off with the local marine mammals.

The story continues...

(Recipe for Lawder's Smoked Salmon Tagliatelle:

- Get some fresh tagliatelle on the boil, use salt or olive oil stop it sticking together.

- Gently heat some creme freche / sour cream to make it runny, add some chopped up smoke salmon.

- When pasta is cooked and the sauce has a saucy consistancy, mix them both together with a good squeeze of lemon juice and lots of cracked black pepper.

- Pile on plate and wolf down. )