Rogerson's on the Road

As they say - all the best laid plans. I promised that I would update the website regularly and not get into the trap of having to update masses of it retrospectively - but here I am trying to rack my brains and think of all the adventures we have had in the past few weeks.

From Franz Joseph we had another amazingly spectacular drive to a small ski resort called Wanaka. The town had a very wealthy, apres ski kind of feel to it. Wanaka is on a lake and surrounded by mountains. We arrived in the afternoon, the skys were blue the air was still and the mountain and lakes stunning. Neil thinks that they view could well have ruined the Lake District for him forever. We stayed in a backpackers called The Purple Cow - by far the best view so far. As I mentioned before, Wanaka is a ski resort and as we arrived in summer and neither of us ski anyway, there was plenty of time for admiring the views. a few days rest is definately what we needed after the grueling time we had on the Franz Joseph. It took Neil a full 3 days to feel as if his legs were his again. I however, went out for a run the day after.....

From Wanaka we travelled on the Scenic Highway to Queenstown - party central of the South Island. The home of AJ Hackett of Bungy Jump fame. Nothing too extreme for us. No bunjyeeeeee, no paragliding, no sky diving, just the 780 metre climb up Queenstown Hill along the Ben Lomond Track to the adventure park at the top of the hill. There is a cable car that will take you to the top for the grand price of $25 each (round 10 pounds) but Neil and I had made a pact that if you could climb to a view point then we would do. So off we went, the climb was pretty difficult with no flat areas to catch your breathe! But 45 minutes later and twenty pounds richer we were rewarded with the most spectacular views of Queenstown and the Remarkables mountain range. Due to our triftiness we were able to do the luge ride!! The evening entertainment for the Rogersons is a very mature game of Scabble....yes I can hear you all laughing. Alison, who's spelling is so poor she did not want to change her name after she got married because Rogerson has quite a lot of letters in it and is quite hard to spell. And Neil, who's vocabulary and spelling is quite good but maturaty level is quite low went faced with letters he can made a rude word from, even if other letters are available. However, it has been entertaining - probably more for the other people in the hostels that have witnessed our games.

Onward from Queenstown we drove down to Te Anau, yes you have guessed it another beautiful small town on a lake! Te Anau is the gateway for the Kepler Track one of the Great Walks in New Zealand. The Keplaer track is a four day walk and as we have discussed aready we are not 4 day walk kind of people. We did do a full day on the track and walked a grand total of 26Km - I can hear the gasps from here!! Neil and I are turning into superhumans! We would be fit and slim by now if it wasn't for New Zealand dairy! The ice creams here are, quire frankly rude! For around $1 you can choose from about 30 different flavours, the kiwis have no idea of portion control and loads up those cones......delicious but deadly for the waistline.

I am going to try to up load some photos now - so until next time....

I have lost count of the number of times we have promised ourselves that one day we will go whale watching. It has been one of the things that Neil has wanted to do for as long as I have known him. After our encounter with these magical, wonderous and fantastically awesome creatures I would say it is a must, a got to see, an experience of a life time.

We drove from Picton to Kiakoura on the east cost of the South Island. Kiakoura is a tiny place that only exists due to the whales in the area. Kiakoura is one big whale batchlor pad, no female whales come to the area due to the vast depth of the ocean and freezing temperatures. Originally a whaling station hunting theses magificant creatures to near extingtion, only the sperm whale exisits in the area now. You are able to go whale watching in all manner of different vehicles from four wheel drives, to boats, to helicopters to planes.......

We chose the more conventional means of whale watching and went on a 3 hour boat trip in the most ultra modern vessel we have even been on. If only planes could be this comfortable. We had a beautifully calm day - which was very lucky (even though I am a daughter of a sailor I do not have the legs nor the stomach for the ocean, much like my sister we can get sea sick just swimming!!)

The crew of the boats are so familiar with the waters and where these whales feed, rest and hang out we were on the water for less than 20 minutes before we got our first whale sighting. It was, for want of a better word, awesome. It is the most breath taking and strangly emotional experience watching these huge creatures up close, just quitely breathing, floating, resting. And then after about 10 minutes of up close and personal whale time you get the amazing lurch forward, the arching of the back and that, never to be missed, tail as the whale dives for another deep sea feeding session.

We were lucky enough to get 3 whale sightings and as we were heading back to shore we encountered a school of dusky dolphins. These dolphins are quite small and are coloured black and white. They are the most playful of all dolphins and are the biggest show offs! It was brilliant, the dolphins appeared to be more excited than us. Performing all the usual dolphin tricks. They appeared to be trying to out do each other in a dolphin dance off!!! By the way, the dusky dolphin is the most premiscuous dolphin and will mate up to 9 times a day usually with different partners - so for all you who are believe if reincarnation, you should seroiusly start to consider coming back as a dusky dolphin.

Wellington - the capital of New Zealand and nicknamed Windy Welly.

What a fantastic city - we are staying just outside the city centre at a backpackers called Maple Lodge. For the first time in a while we feel that we are going to stay for a while. This place feels like home, mainly due to the fact that the lodge is full of people that are living and working for sometime in Wellington. A fantastic group of people, although we think that we are possibly the oldest in the place. Nevermind. Most of the folk are working in bars or resturants and Neil has become the unofficial lawyer and careers advisor for the lodge, checking contracts and scanning the job ads.....he has also managed to adopt a 6 foot, 19 year old female, German with pink hair. It must have happened one night when I drank too much box wine (it is so difficult to monitor how much you are drinking with that stuff).

So we have pretty much done all you can do here and have exhausted Windy Welly. We have walked to the top of Mount Victoria, visited the zoo (no kiwi's to be seen), taken the cable car to the Botanical Gardens, and walked the Red Rock coastal path to the seal colony (and saw real live seals in the wild - by the way they stink!). We will be spending my birthday here and then catching the ferry over to the South Island on Thursday 13th October, when we will be starting our journey again after a 9 day stop in Wellington.

Until then.....

Ok, so with this next statement I might be leaving myself open to ridicule but this would not be the first time nor I guess the last, but let me ask a question - New Zealand, hot or cold? My guess would be, it depends on the time of year. But being close to the South Pacific and neighbouring Oz, which we all asume to be hot, I would have said, "New Zealand - hot." Wrong! New Zealand is, for the most part cold and wet. We have arrived at the end of the winter and are heading into spring, in fact we changed the clocks the other day to Day light savings - we are now 12 hours ahead of the UK.

So on our next leg of the journey, armed with bed socks and thermal underwear - I am not kidding, we spent a fortune in Kathmandu (NZ's equivalent to Millets) and with our fantastic tans from Fiji a dim and distant memory, we head to the far west of NZ's North Island to New Plymouth. The drive from Napier is a bit of a mammoth effort so we stop in a small town called Whanganui (fang-ga-noo-e). We arrive on a cool sunny Saturday afternoon to Tamara lodge, a lovely colonial timber built lodge on the river. Our room has a massive bed and a beautiful high ceiling. The town closes on a Saturday (as do most small towns in NZ) at 2pm in the afternoon, so out come the walking shoes again and we head up to the highest point in the area via an evelator that goes up through the the hill. Great view of not a lot really.

The next day we head off to New Plymouth which is famed for Mount Egmont. It is the most perfectly shaped mountain. The drive from Whanganui to New Plymouth takes you on the Surf Highyway and the whole way round you are driving around the bottom of the mountain, almost like a mountain ring round. However, we saw neither the ocean nor the mountain. At one point we think that we saw the sea....it was the dark bit between the grey sky and the greyer land.....I think that we will just have to say that this part of our trip was a bit of a wash out. Our back up plan for a wet day came into action once again and we headed for the cinema. Cinderella Man was the chosen film - good film for a rainy day.

Sorry folks nothing to say here......

Off to Wellington!

Here we are again - we have done quite a lot in the last few weeks so you will have to bear with us if this gets a bit rabbling.

From Auckland we drove south down the Thermal Highway which takes you though the volcanic regions of the central Northlands. We arrrive in Rotarua (also known as Rota-Vagas.....). The first thing that hits you about this place is the smell....it sticks like rotten eggs, kind of strange and you never get used to it!! Rotarua is full of open, steaming pools of water and bubbling mud. A really interesting place to visit if you can stand the stink! It is famed for the thermal pools and as being the adventure capital of the World. Bungy jumping and zorbing were both invented here (for all fo those who dont know what zorbing is, look it up on google, but it involves a big inflatable ball and a hill...) The Rogerson's did not go in for any of the adventure sport stuff - more of a seen that, done that - but we did brave the weather and put in some fantastic walks along the river and into the native forest. Alison also braved it and had a much needed haircut - get this ladies, she went for a $9 doo at the local hairdressing college. It looks fine for a traveller......

Onto Taupo which is right in the heart of the North Island. The town surrounds a huge volcanic lake and is breath taking. We stayed at a great hostel called Rainbow Lodge run by a chap from Paisley - Neil felt he was at home! The weather in Taupo was pretty poor when we arrived but being really quite hardy now, we once again got into the waterproofs and headed out for a long walk. We walked along the river from Huka Falls (which are more like a set of massive rapids) to Articia Dam, which is a manmade dam for the hydro-elecrtic power station. I know it sounds dull but we were there at 2pm when they opened the dam and it really is very dramatic. You stand on a bridge with about 100 other travllers and watch this thing open - it really takes your breath away (sad the things that amuse you). Our second day on Taupo was the bluest brightest day we have had in NZ and we managed to do a fantastic walk around some on Lake Taupo. You pass some of the most stunning houses and some really strange beaches - due to the volcanic activity in the area some of the beaches have hot water and the sand steams......

From Taupo we headed to Napier in Hawkes Bay which is a famous wine region. The drive to Napier is like driving thought a Lord of the Rings film - breath taking. Napier is the most beautiful town and all the buildings are in the Art Deco style - here we got cultural and did a guided art deco walking tour - sounds very middle aged, I know......Neil is now a budding historian, specialising the Art Deco Architecture, what he cant tell you about post modenistic design is not worth knowing. Here we met Bertie - who is in the Lonely Planet - a guy from Yorkshire who lives in Napier and lives in the 1930's - you had to be there. With all this culture we had to bring ourselves back into our world and did a pub quiz. $3 double Jim Beams and $3 beers makes it all the more attractive (the deals you get being backpacker is like being back at uni). So the Rogerson's On Tour team came forth in a foreign pub quiz, not too shabby for a team of two ( missing out, however on the third prize $20 bar tab, with drinks only costing $3 a time, it was probably for the best). Just a short drive from Napier is the town of Hastings, not much of a town but it has Te Mata Peak. Take a look at the photos - words cant describe it.