Washington and the Oregon Coast

We got the train from Vancouver, BC to, confusingly, Vancouver, Washington. Great train ride but unbelievably slow - it averaged 30mph for 10 hours... Still managed to see a bald eagle as the line wound it's way along the coast.

Lisa, my cousin, picked us up at the station and took us for dinner at her beautiful home in the wooded countryside north of Vancouver, it was just wonderful to meet her and her family again. Lovely people, Levin, Brandon and Ashley.

Lisa, her son Brandon, and me.

 Later we went to stay with my Auntie Avril for a few days before returning to Lisa for the rest of the week. Aunty Avril was instrumental in bringing Capt Vancouver, an english explorer, to the forefront of Vancouvan civic pride, hence the statue.

The family spoilt us and we toured the area to see the sights. Lisa lent us her Jeep Wrangler for the true American experience and we tried to get ourselves lost.

The countryside around their place is beautiful with massive waterfalls. Bob and Jan's tenner loved it too, shame you can't see it in the picture...

Carole and Lisa are the tiny figures behind the waterfall.

We were very sad to leave, haven't laughed so much in ages.

We're now  heading to San Francisco by car along the Oregon coast road - simply stunning.

Time is moving on and we have to get to San Francisco to catch a flight to Las Vegas (Brandon has given is a sure fire system to win). We hadn't really any plans initially but we have a sort of plan now; to get to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, then fly to New York, pick up a car and tour the east coast a bit before returning to New York itself for a few days before flying back to the UK. We have a lunch planned with our Australian friends in New York who happen to be in the same area as us, visiting their son.

Auckland to Vancouver

Spent the day waiting to catch the flight to the northern Hemisphere by mouching around Auckland.  We caught a ferry to Devonport, as much to get a view of the harbour as anything - cup of tea and return.

Auckland is peppered with around 50 volcanoes, pretty much every hill you can see is an extinct volcano, they're all small, no more than a couple of hundred feet high at tops, but the ones we saw were perfectly formed with a crater you could walk around, sadly all are extinct and pretty much grassed over. As a piece of trivia, US's album cover The Joshua Tree photo was taken here of the "One Tree Hill" volcano.

Arrived in Vancouver after a 14 hour flight still wearing shorts and a tee shirt - rapidly changed in the airport!  It's cold and wet here.  The centre where we're stopping feels fairly small but the city itself extends for miles.  It has a small town feel and is the most "unbusy" of big cities we've been to so far.

Due to the wet we're a bit limited as to exploring, so we booked a seat on the float plane flight that does the mail run up the coast, stopping at various places dropping of posts and passengers.  Sadly high winds the next day cancelled the flight.

There is a huge chinese influence in the city, it has a long and sometimes traumatic relationship with chinese immigrants, but now it seems proud of its Pacific links to the East. This garden was created by traditional Chinese artisans using materials totally imported from China and gifted to the city. Apparently built very authentically to a Ming Dynasty design.

Don't think we've seen the best of Vancouver, need to visit with more time and better weather, its another city based aound a huge waterfront that obviously likes the outdoors. The surrounding mountains were just visible in breaks in the cloud and I'm sure would have been stunning.

 We've sorted out a train ride south to meet up with my relatives in Oregon, US, looking forward to meeting them, despite 0500 start for the train.

As a last meal in Vncouver we decided to have typical local food - Japanese seemed to fit the bill as we've struggled to work out a Canadian identity.

Bob and Jan's Tenner came for the beer, Carole prays for guidance on what to eat first. Great food.

How about this for a top taxi?  Sadly not for hire.

Vancouver seems to be swarming in Toyota Prius hybrid cars, apparently all new taxis have to be hybrid. Why don't more cities do that.

Coromandel

The Coromandel peninsular is a couple of hours drive north of Rotorua, it’s a beach and forest paradise with the added bonus of some great geothermal stuff.

We ended up at a place called Tairua and the chap at the hotel gave us a bit of a tourist itinerary which turned out great, he even lent us a spade for the beach but more of that later.

As normal the area was just million pound view after million pound view.

We found a small funky winery that uses the feijoa fruit to make cider – sadly I was driving but Carole wasn’t.  Bob and Jen’s tenner liked the brew too.

Great beaches which even got me in the water, swimming is a problem with the shoulder, I can really only manage a pretty pathetic side stroke, but messing about in the waves is still great fun. The rock arches are pretty impressive. One of the beaches ha a snorkel trail where you swim along from buoy to buoy peering at the fish, too far for me but Carole managed it - saw no fish though, just a sea urchin and rocks.

Whilst we were paddling a trip boat came into the bay and stopped to admire the rock arch - the skipper shouted "sting ray behind you" - thought he was joking until we both turned and saw it gliding through the water between us and the beach.

One of the more bizarre things we’ve done is go to Hot Water Beach – between the high and low water marks geothermal hot water bubbles under the sand and if you dig a hole you can make your own thermal pool – the sand does get everywhere though…

Currently in Auckland sorting ourselves out for the flight back to the northern hemisphere and the snows of Vancouver – just seen the news bout huge snowfalls just south of there in the US.  Unpacking the duvet jackets.

Rotorua

We travelled north towards Rotorua today stopping of at the "Thermal Wonderland" enroute.  A little touristy but what a place, it just fascinated Carole and I. The trip started with a geyser - this one reacts to soap, of all things, and so erupts on request so to speak. The tale is that there was a prison nearby and the prisoners wanted to use a hot water spring to wash their clothes. someone lobbed a load of saop into the spring and got a shock as the spring erupted, spewing the clothes skywards.

After the geyser we wandered around the many steaming pools, mineral baths and mud pools - more ploppers - the best we've seen.

The colours are due to arsenic, sulphur, iron, gold and silver traces that are leached out of the rocks by the super heated underground steam.

This was a large pond if boiling mud, the sound of all the plops was fantastic.

Later we got to Liz and John's, Lakeview, Hamurana, on the side of Lake Rotorua. They have a beautiful home and run what has got to be the best Bed and Breakfast in New Zealand, the views were just stunning.

We first met Liz and John when Carole and Liz were competing in endurance riding events and John and I were careering around the countryside crewing for them.

They spoilt us rotten, Carole and Liz went riding - the first time Carole has been on a horse since her back operation - (huge smiles!).

Later we all went for trip around the lakes on their sports boat, stopping at some thermal hot pools - (to ease Caroles muscles?) You can only get to these pools by boat, John's is the red one in the background.

We had a great time with them, true Cumbrian hospitality;

    Top time, top people!

Taupo

We've taken our time meandering up from Wellington to Lake Taupo over the last few days.  Wellington itself is a small city and we could have spent more time there but wanted to get to the geothermally active region of New Zealand - been reading too many brochures - On the way we passed a place called Bulls - a small town, but one with a sense of humour. All of the advertising slogan made some reference to the name, my favourite was "Bulls Dairy - Milk like no udder".
 

At the south end of Lake Tupo we spotted  small Maori run thermal pool site and stopped for a look - our first glimpse of "ploppers" where the mud boils and steam erupts from the ground - absolutely fascinating - we both have a bit of a bent for geography and we spent ages just wandering round. The water temperature in this pool is about 70 degrees.

 Hope to find bigger more dramatic sites over the next couple of days.

We ended up being flash-packers and stopped at a very nice motel in Taupo itself - the bedroom came complete with a double spa - luxury.

Found more thermal sites - this area is called the craters of the moon - not as dramatic for us as the first site, as you couldn't get close but still impressive.

Then off to Huka falls - trully awsome power of water in the confines of a 300 yards long gorge - the flow will fill five olympic swimming pools per minute!

Next was the Aratiatia falls - these are controlled by a dam, somewhat bizarrely they open the dam 4 times day in summer rather than a continual flow resulting in a steep gorge that goes from empty to a torrent in a matter of minutes and then 20 minutes later the flow is stopped and the gorge goes back to  a trickle.

Can only assume They do this for the tourists.  It drew a big crowd. The water rose about 15ft.

Off to Rotorua tomorrow to see some friends of ours, originally from Cumbria now living in NZ, Liz and John Dentice.

Picton

Picton is the gateway to the North Island, it sits at the heart of the fjords or sounds shown on the chart.  Think of the Clyde in Scotland and then expand it.  The area is just beautiful.

We've checked out the marinas and they are cheaper here than in Portugal - just  long way to sail! The marinas feel more like those in Scotland than those on the south coast, and the whole area has that sort of laid back feel of Scotland - jut a lot warmer.

We've just meandered around the area for the last few days eating local seafood, staying at backpacker hostels, although for the last couple of nights we've had a flat to ourselves - luxury - in the middle of Picton.

Took Bob and Jan's tenner for a walk, after mussel lunch along the coast to Bob's Bay - you kept this quiet Bob - owning a piece of idyll!

On the ferry to cross the Cook Straight, passing Endeaveaour Inlet on the way, full of pretty recent history this place.  The trip out of the sound on the ferry was fantastic, worth the price of the ticket alone. Narrow and winding and then you get a glimpse of the strait itself.

Sad to say goodbye to the South Island its been one of the many highlights of the trip.

Wellington lived up to its reputation as the windiest place in New Zealand on arrival - blowing that strongly it ws one of those times I was glad I wasn't one my boat, almost felt sorry for the skipper trying to berth in the winds and then I remembered he had 2000bhp to help him not the 27bhp I have.

Stopping at th YHA in Wellington and then going to cruise up to the geothermal region around Lake Taupo for a few days.

Back to Christchurch and then Northwards

We set off towards Christchurch today, over Arthurs Pass, an alpine pass that cuts due east across the south island and the best way back to Christchurch.  We have to go back so that Jen and Bobby can catch a flight back to Melbourne and work.

Empty roads and the Nissan Sunny Super Saloon lead me to “make progress” on some sections only to get pulled by a New Zealand traffic cop and given a ticket for 115 in a 100kmh zone – ah well first ticket in 32 years, can’t say too much really; except good job he didn’t catch me earlier…

Views on the way back were stunning as usual.

Christchurch. When we flew in before we didn’t go into the city but drove straight out from the airport.  This time we had a spare day so we wandered into the centre.  The effects of the earthquake are just devastating, the whole business district appears to be blocked off.  We found a temporary shopping area on the edge made up of shipping containers and tin buildings. A local chap we chatted to said they were expecting it to take two years just to demolish the centre before they can start rebuilding again.

We also went to the beach, the Rough Guide described the area as a thriving Victorian seaside area,  but most of it was closed and cliffs had collapsed leaving the remains of houses teetering on the edge, just waiting to fall.

The shipping continers are acting as a wall to protect the road from further slips.  Very sad, but the most uplifting part was the attitude of the locals. They had obviously been really shaken up but were carrying and getting on with life, even able to joke about it.  We suffered three small tremors in 24 hours, although that is unusual apparently.

We left Jen and Bobby to get their flights back and sadly left to head north.  We’ve had a truly wonderful time with them both.

 As we left Christchurch the weather deteriorated and we ended up keeping driving up to Picton.

Picton is the port where we catch the interisland ferry to the North Island. It’s at the end of Queen Charlottes Sound, one of a series of huge indentations in the NE coast of South Island. Fantastic sailing and boating country, looks like a bit of a yachtie paradise really.  We’re here for a  few days and then catch the ferry to North Island.

Whilst in Christchurch we took this photo, the original is below..