Escaping the traffic in New Plymouth, I took the Surf Highway 45 along the Taranaki Coast for what would be a long day of driving and headed down south. I arrived in Levin and discovered it was just another shitty town to put a tent in. Just before Levin I saw a sign to Waitarere beach. Nothing special here to, except for the fact that you can drive with your car on the beach. In fact it is a proper road and you can follow the coast in both directions to the next town. I saw a lot of other cars and didn’t had to think long before I was chasing some seagulls with my shiny car. The only important thing was to stay on the wet sand, which is hard and safe to drive on. You don’t wanna get stuck a few kilometers from civilization, and so I decided not to sleep on the beach, partly because the battery isn’t always working in the morning and with no knowledge of the tides, me and my car could get wet in the middle of the night. The next morning on a parking lot next to the beach a local garbageman came to me to tell his whole life in his local alien dialect. I could understand 1 million dollars and cars and they always ring him when nobody else shows up, but that he has right on a free day to.
I was a bit unsure where to go next. Before going to Wellington I wanted to check the surrounding area, and on the map I discovered there was a seal colony near Cape Palliser, the most southern point of the Northern Island. This was a pretty long drive. From Martinborough it’s at least 50km to the cape and there’s virtually nobody living there. It seemed a quite popular spot for surfers and people with big boats, and with the last kilometers gravel roads, it was hard to see anything because of all the dust, and then suddenly cars from the other side show up out of nowhere. And then you arrive at the cape and there are groups of seals stinkin’(literally) around whole day in the sun and the water, just being lazy. But don’t think these guys are slowmos. They just climb rocks and get stuck under it.
On my way back I stopped at the Putangirua Pinnacles, and this is the place where the Paths of the Dead was filmed. You hike up a riverbed to these pretty unreal looking rock formations, which have been eroded by rainwater. It has the looks of really unstable conglomerate and when you walk through these pinnacles it seems the whole shit might come falling down, to louche to put bolts in here.
Back In civilization I was looking for a camping spot again, and saw a sign to Rivendell. There just can’t be too much LOTR in one day. In fact there are a whole bunch of small spots in the Lower and Upper Hutt where scenes were filmed. So you can order half day, full day and combo deluxe tours, all for the right price. This was filmed in the Kaitoke Regional Forest. Of course all the sets have long been removed, and there wasn’t much to see but a tiny area with map that showed some trees appearing in the movie and how all sets where organized. Quite impressive how they fit everything in this small area. The campsite in the park was full of crying babies, yelling children, noisy teenagers, bad loud music, bbq’s and so on, but I got a quiet spot on the other side, and the park ranger let me sleep for free.
Wellington. Although this is the capital, it’s 10 times smaller as Auckland but still a hell to drive through. Besides all the traffic and red traffic lights every five meters, you have to pay everywhere to park your car and on the street you’ve got as little as 2 hours. The only thing left to do is to put the car in a carpark. Ok no problem. My car was getting overheated again with all the stopping and accelerating and I went for the next carpark. Five dollars per hour, ok it’s four on the streets. After three hours I come back, ready to pay and what do I discover. This stupid machine asks for 35$. Shitsen!! This is what I call a real rip off. Motherfuckers. So if you think Belgium is expensive, come to the CBD of Wellington and you will get happy. To compensate for all this, I just don’t pay for their stupid backpackers. I just put my tent on Mount Victoria, a hill that forms the green belt in Wellington. Somewhere on this quite long hill, the scene where the Hobbit’s flee for the Nazgûls was filmed. And I discovered where. This really starts to look more like a diehard fan pilgrimage. Besides that there isn't so much to tell. You have a cable car to some botanic gardens. You walk through the botanic gardens. And you finish walking through the botanic gardens. And I had to wait one extra day to take the ferry because somebody booked the last place on the boat just 1 second earlier. Crap. Just went exploring the bays and suburbs, and going bezerk in the traffic.
There are no car fairs or markets in Wellington. So I took the (maybe) stupid decision to take the car to the south island. The next weeks could get pretty funny.
It's about 3h to the the south island. The first time I got on a real boat, and discovered they can drive a fucking train in there. On the way, me and 2 others saw some dolphins. Just a few moments, but still pretty awesome to see. The next thing I wanted to do was to walk the Abel Tasman Coast Track, another 50km Great Walk. It was 150km to Motueka, so I prepared for another boring drive, when suddenly a hitchhiker shows up a the edge of Picton, going to Motueka as well. I learned he, Peter, was from Grenoble and stayed for some months in Wellington (how do you do that??) playing some music in the streets, but now no more money and he went to Motueka to look for work. The trip was a real challenge for the car. With all the extra weight it went into a real hottie modus. I call it shit, he called it "original". Well that's an original way to look at it. I just felt like Han Solo in the Millenium Falcon with Chewbacca besides me, and we just couldn't get into hyperspace.
The Abel Tasman is probably the easiest walk you can find. The trail is so flat, it seems they used an excavator to literally carve the trail out of the hills, so that, again but this is just the way things work here, fatties and granny's who arrive per water taxi to one of the bays or beaches, can do a little bit of walking to. One time I saw an old man just strolling around in his suit. But luckily most people go for the beaches to kayak and come and go with the water taxi. Only a fraction is walking the track and most of them are day hikers. But besides all that, the trail and scenery is really nice. You walk in the shade for most of the time and above the beaches so you have really nice views on the blue bays and green forests, and start imagining there could be a Carribean pirate ship hidden around the next corner. Than you think about the brown grey Belgian Nordsea where everyone pisses and shits in the water. The fun thing here is that you sometimes have to cross estuaries. So there is a low and high tide. And the Swiss girl I met in Tongariro told me she ended up totally surrounded by water coming to her knees. But mister smart guy here checked the low tide tables.
Most of the time you walk alone, but at the campsites I met a whole bunch of new people. There was this awesome guy Kevin from Kansas City who just discovered climbing. According to him Kansas is just a fucking flat boring state and there is only grass. It's just a city full of douchebags. I didn't really understand the origin of the word, but the urban dictionary here says: "Someone who has surpassed the levels of jerk and asshole, however not yet reached fucker or motherfucker". Clear enough. And together with Thomas, a German guy (one of the thousands the German government sent out to colonize the world, whichmake you think if there are Germans left in Germany at all) we had a campsite for our own and built a campfire to counterstrike the sandfly kamikaze's. The second part of the trail was quite a bit harder, with some long ascents and decents, but people can take a rest at a bar and lodge that pops out in the middle of nowhere. Remember this is a national park, and you can order pizza and beer here. WTF! Another remarkable detail was the fact that there were no cooking fires provided in the huts and you had to bring your own. Normally this is not the case. Nothing ground shaking you would say, but what if I tell you that all the toilets along the trail had a flush. Jeezes, DOC logic I guess. I finshed with just enough food, but had to wait for more than 2h for the bus to arrive. But a guy from basque country wanted to get rid of his Numéro 1/Pouce quality Chocolate Honeycaramel bar and I didn't say no no. And if you wonder what about the dead pinguin in the title. Well I just saw a dead penguin.
I was a bit unsure where to go next. Before going to Wellington I wanted to check the surrounding area, and on the map I discovered there was a seal colony near Cape Palliser, the most southern point of the Northern Island. This was a pretty long drive. From Martinborough it’s at least 50km to the cape and there’s virtually nobody living there. It seemed a quite popular spot for surfers and people with big boats, and with the last kilometers gravel roads, it was hard to see anything because of all the dust, and then suddenly cars from the other side show up out of nowhere. And then you arrive at the cape and there are groups of seals stinkin’(literally) around whole day in the sun and the water, just being lazy. But don’t think these guys are slowmos. They just climb rocks and get stuck under it.
On my way back I stopped at the Putangirua Pinnacles, and this is the place where the Paths of the Dead was filmed. You hike up a riverbed to these pretty unreal looking rock formations, which have been eroded by rainwater. It has the looks of really unstable conglomerate and when you walk through these pinnacles it seems the whole shit might come falling down, to louche to put bolts in here.
Back In civilization I was looking for a camping spot again, and saw a sign to Rivendell. There just can’t be too much LOTR in one day. In fact there are a whole bunch of small spots in the Lower and Upper Hutt where scenes were filmed. So you can order half day, full day and combo deluxe tours, all for the right price. This was filmed in the Kaitoke Regional Forest. Of course all the sets have long been removed, and there wasn’t much to see but a tiny area with map that showed some trees appearing in the movie and how all sets where organized. Quite impressive how they fit everything in this small area. The campsite in the park was full of crying babies, yelling children, noisy teenagers, bad loud music, bbq’s and so on, but I got a quiet spot on the other side, and the park ranger let me sleep for free.
Wellington. Although this is the capital, it’s 10 times smaller as Auckland but still a hell to drive through. Besides all the traffic and red traffic lights every five meters, you have to pay everywhere to park your car and on the street you’ve got as little as 2 hours. The only thing left to do is to put the car in a carpark. Ok no problem. My car was getting overheated again with all the stopping and accelerating and I went for the next carpark. Five dollars per hour, ok it’s four on the streets. After three hours I come back, ready to pay and what do I discover. This stupid machine asks for 35$. Shitsen!! This is what I call a real rip off. Motherfuckers. So if you think Belgium is expensive, come to the CBD of Wellington and you will get happy. To compensate for all this, I just don’t pay for their stupid backpackers. I just put my tent on Mount Victoria, a hill that forms the green belt in Wellington. Somewhere on this quite long hill, the scene where the Hobbit’s flee for the Nazgûls was filmed. And I discovered where. This really starts to look more like a diehard fan pilgrimage. Besides that there isn't so much to tell. You have a cable car to some botanic gardens. You walk through the botanic gardens. And you finish walking through the botanic gardens. And I had to wait one extra day to take the ferry because somebody booked the last place on the boat just 1 second earlier. Crap. Just went exploring the bays and suburbs, and going bezerk in the traffic.
There are no car fairs or markets in Wellington. So I took the (maybe) stupid decision to take the car to the south island. The next weeks could get pretty funny.
It's about 3h to the the south island. The first time I got on a real boat, and discovered they can drive a fucking train in there. On the way, me and 2 others saw some dolphins. Just a few moments, but still pretty awesome to see. The next thing I wanted to do was to walk the Abel Tasman Coast Track, another 50km Great Walk. It was 150km to Motueka, so I prepared for another boring drive, when suddenly a hitchhiker shows up a the edge of Picton, going to Motueka as well. I learned he, Peter, was from Grenoble and stayed for some months in Wellington (how do you do that??) playing some music in the streets, but now no more money and he went to Motueka to look for work. The trip was a real challenge for the car. With all the extra weight it went into a real hottie modus. I call it shit, he called it "original". Well that's an original way to look at it. I just felt like Han Solo in the Millenium Falcon with Chewbacca besides me, and we just couldn't get into hyperspace.
The Abel Tasman is probably the easiest walk you can find. The trail is so flat, it seems they used an excavator to literally carve the trail out of the hills, so that, again but this is just the way things work here, fatties and granny's who arrive per water taxi to one of the bays or beaches, can do a little bit of walking to. One time I saw an old man just strolling around in his suit. But luckily most people go for the beaches to kayak and come and go with the water taxi. Only a fraction is walking the track and most of them are day hikers. But besides all that, the trail and scenery is really nice. You walk in the shade for most of the time and above the beaches so you have really nice views on the blue bays and green forests, and start imagining there could be a Carribean pirate ship hidden around the next corner. Than you think about the brown grey Belgian Nordsea where everyone pisses and shits in the water. The fun thing here is that you sometimes have to cross estuaries. So there is a low and high tide. And the Swiss girl I met in Tongariro told me she ended up totally surrounded by water coming to her knees. But mister smart guy here checked the low tide tables.
Most of the time you walk alone, but at the campsites I met a whole bunch of new people. There was this awesome guy Kevin from Kansas City who just discovered climbing. According to him Kansas is just a fucking flat boring state and there is only grass. It's just a city full of douchebags. I didn't really understand the origin of the word, but the urban dictionary here says: "Someone who has surpassed the levels of jerk and asshole, however not yet reached fucker or motherfucker". Clear enough. And together with Thomas, a German guy (one of the thousands the German government sent out to colonize the world, whichmake you think if there are Germans left in Germany at all) we had a campsite for our own and built a campfire to counterstrike the sandfly kamikaze's. The second part of the trail was quite a bit harder, with some long ascents and decents, but people can take a rest at a bar and lodge that pops out in the middle of nowhere. Remember this is a national park, and you can order pizza and beer here. WTF! Another remarkable detail was the fact that there were no cooking fires provided in the huts and you had to bring your own. Normally this is not the case. Nothing ground shaking you would say, but what if I tell you that all the toilets along the trail had a flush. Jeezes, DOC logic I guess. I finshed with just enough food, but had to wait for more than 2h for the bus to arrive. But a guy from basque country wanted to get rid of his Numéro 1/Pouce quality Chocolate Honeycaramel bar and I didn't say no no. And if you wonder what about the dead pinguin in the title. Well I just saw a dead penguin.
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