This Saturday we decided to join the tourists doing some of the more popular activities that Sydney has to offer.
First stop was breakfast at Bill's in Darlinghurst, which, best known for their ricotta hotcakes with banana and honeycomb butter, is somewhat of a Sydney institution - -http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/venue/restaurant/modernaustralian/bills.aspx. We, of course, just had to order these and they most definitely were not a let down - probably a days worth of calorie intake but absolutely delicious!
Next stop was the Opera House tour, which, helped by the fact that our tour guide was very passionate about the place, was really fascinating. It was a good chance to have a look at the main performing place - the Concert Hall - and learn about the history and workings of one of the most famous buildings of the 20th century.
Interestingly, Sydney Opera House, which is the youngest buildingo on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, is a very controversial place. The Danish architect who designed the building, Jorn Utzon, was one of 233 entries (and obviously the winner) of a competition to build a dedicated opera house in the city. Legend has it that his design was actually rescued from 30 "rejects" by Finnish architect Eero Saarinen. Utzon had never visited Australia and had never seen a picture of Bennelong Point, where the Opera House stands, an amazing feat considering how well the building is placed and uses it's beautiful surroundings and views.
Utzon moved to Sydney as the principal architect on the build. The initial time frame and cost of the build was 3 years and AUD7 million but due to the ground-breaking design, they were soon over this estimation (it ended up taking 16 years and cost AUD102 million, which is equivalent to AUD1.9 billion today). Differences with the newly elected Premier, Robert Askin ensued, and Utzon eventually resigned from the job and returned to Denmark. So, although the building itself is an Utzon design, all of the rooms inside were designed by Australian architects.
Utzon never returned to Sydney, and never saw the completed Opera House, which is incredibly sad considering how famous a building it is. But there is a slightly happy ending: he was actually commissioned in 1999 to redesign a room, now called the Utzon room (by this time, however, he was 83, and obviously too frail to make the long journey from Denmark to Australia). Nevertheless, it is very interesting to compare the Australian-designed rooms and the Utzon room - to me, the latter is very airy and clean, and the attention to detail is incredible, whereas the former seems to be more more oppressive and less detailed.
Enough of the history lesson....next stop was Centrepoint Tower, Sydney's tallest free-standing tower, and the second tallest building in Australia. Luckily, it was a clear day, so the views across the city were excellent.
Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo, where Russel Crowe owns a AUD14 million waterside property:
Darling Harbour:
Sydney Olympic Park:
The famous Coca Cola sign in Kings Cross, very near to where we live:
And, of course we couldn't leave this one out, American Express:
A day full of activities and walking was followed by a lovely relaxing evening of our favourite picnic-style dinner featuring yummy food from the David Jones Food Hall, and a film. Lovely!
We are lucky to live in a city where there are many diverse cultures from practically every continent of the world – ask someone where they are from and they are very rarely “Australian”, more likely Italian, Lebanese, Irish, Japanese, to name but a few. The most obvious way this has impacted Sydney is in its food culture – it is a foodie’s heaven and every conceivable kind of cuisine is available here; it’s something about Sydney that I am going to sorely miss once I’m back in England.
Much like London, Sydney has its own ChinaTown, where there are numerous Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malayasian, and Vietnamese restaurants. For me this is usually a place I avoid – it’s not my favourite place in the world for a few reasons, mostly because Asian people seem to walk really slowly.
My interest however has recently been piqued by a book I have read called Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat. Now, I’ve always loved sushi but to presume that Japanese cookery is just sushi is very narrow-minded. This book really inspired me to delve further into the world of Japanese cookery, which seems to be simple, with clean flavours, and above all, very, very nutritious.
A trip to ChinaTown it was then, accompanied by Dave, to stock up on all the essential ingredients I would need to start my Japanese cooking adventure.
Easing ourselves into this we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant called Mizuya – a delicious meal of grilled teriyaki vegetables and steak, with various side dishes, rice, miso soup and the essential green tea.
This was followed by a dessert of almond milk tea with tapioca pearls, a favourite of the Japanese in Sydney.
Next stop was an Asian supermarket in the heart of ChinaTown. This has to be one of the most daunting supermarket experiences of my life – I must have spent about an hour trying to find the ingredients I needed, during which I mostly stood in one aisle staring at the hundreds of varieties of soy sauce there were, wondering what the difference was and which was best to get.
Everything (unsurprisingly) was in Japanese, Chinese or Thai, and although with a short translation on the back, I was still pretty clueless as to what kombu, bonito flakes and dashi were, what they looked like, or how I was meant to use them for cooking.
Anyway, helped greatly by Dave’s patience (I almost left my basket and walked out), I managed to get everything I needed, including some little treats called mochi – glutinous rice cakes filled with red bean paste. Treat, in retrospect, is definitely not the right word for them; they were absolutely vile. I think the clue was in the fact that they were filled with red bean paste…errrr, yuck????
To cut a long story short, my Japanese cooking experience was quite disastrous. I attempted a beef and rice dish, which was basically beef with onion and leeks broiled in dashi, a Japanese broth made from water, kombu and bonito flakes, over brown rice.
Apparently you can buy dashi ready made, but I couldn’t for the life of me find it in the Asian supermarket so I made it myself – I think this is akin to making your own chicken stock as when Dave relayed this story to his Japanese colleague, she was rather impressed.
The beef turned out as tough as old boots, although the taste of the broth was quite nice. I attempted to save the dish by instead making it vegetarian - stir frying some vegetables and then pouring the broth over this. It was average. Understandably, my enthusiasm for
Japanese cookery has somewhat waned since – I think I might stick to letting the experts do it and just get my Japanese fix from the local takeaway.
Sydney weather seems to be quite clever – during the week, when Sydneysiders are at work, it usually rains, and at the weekends, the sun puts his hat on and comes out in all his glory. The last few weekends have been the equivalent of a beautiful English summer’s day so we have been making the most of this (before we come back home to, no doubt, rubbish weather) and spending lots of time outside.
One Saturday morning, after our usual breakfast of croissants and coffee, we decided a trip to Watsons Bay for their famed fish and chips was in order. Ask any Sydneysider what is worthwhile doing whilst here and this will usually be in their top ten – it’s been on our list of things to do since we arrived, and now 5 weeks before I leave, we finally get around to doing it! This particular day, everyone clearly had the same idea as us as the ferry was packed.
Arriving in Watsons Bay we headed straight for Doyles - http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/restaurants/sydneysbestfood/fish-and-chips.aspx - also known as Sydney’s best fish and chips. We joined the long, long queue, which luckily went quite quickly, and before we knew it we were sitting down at a table overlooking the bay with our food.
I’m not the biggest fan of battered fish so I ordered grilled Mirror Dory with chips and salad, whilst Dave had the battered Barramundi, also with chips and salad. And the review? Good, but definitely not as good as fish and chips you get in England.
Tummies stuffed, we went for a walk around the head of the bay. This is where the story gets interesting. Watsons Bay is home to the only nudist beach in Sydney – Lady Jane Beach. And oh were we witness to something spectacular this lovely, sunny Saturday afternoon – a naked man (apart from a hat) of about 60 playing with himself.
We were both rooted to the spot in complete dismay; I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And I’m still not sure what is more wrong – the fact that he was doing that in public, or the fact that we were watching him and carried on doing so for far too long!
After eventually dragging ourselves away from the scene, we managed to finish the walk and get the ferry back to Sydney, thankfully without any more disturbing incidents! A very interesting afternoon that’s for sure…
For those of you who do not have the time to read the last twenty-or-so blog entries, or who do not want to humour our self indulgence any more than is absolutely necessary, I am going to attempt to summarise the last fortnight in a page or two. After all, a quick word count indicates that there is well over half a full length dissertation to contend with, most of which is, admittedly, my own drivel.
New Zealand as a country masquerades under many different guises- Akoxxx, (the original Maori name meaning ‘land of the long white cloud), EnZed (Lucia’s favourite), and Godzone amongst others. Godzone comes from God’s Own, as in ‘this is God’s own country. If he were to live somewhere, it would be here. Though should God not be such an adrenaline junkie and so disdainful of the British weather he may well find much of new Zealand packed away in the secluded corners of Britain.
Certainly Ireland can provide the rolling hills and much of the scenery (though perhaps to a lesser extent), Scotland can provide the snow capped mountains and Wales can probably put forward the sheep- which outnumber the residents ten to one. And England? England can provide the populous, as it seems to have done. Every other person in New Zealand seems to be an expat, or more accurately a gap year student who has exchanged the proceeds of his return flight home for one last bungee jump and is still working in Queenstown to recoup the money. He has even sacrificed haircuts to do so.
New Zealand is not a big country and we managed to cover the South Island fairly comprehensively during our stay, but didn’t even touch on the north. That’s not to say we didn’t leave our mark on the place; I take personal responsibility for one decapitated turkey and a comatosed possum; Lucia for running dry New Zealand’s stock of Perky Nanas; and Skins has left a trail of emotionally scarred and, in some cases, broken hearted sheep in his path.
With a short and intense journey like this, personal learnings are often the greatest. So what have we learnt? Trying to squeeze three people into a two berth campervan to save money is not a good idea. My toes are now too well acquainted with Skins’ face and vice versa; and the only positive to come from the situation is that Lucia managed to stay quite toasty sandwiched between the pair of us.
Speaking of sandwiches, we have also learnt that a human can have cheese, tomato and avocado sandwiches for lunch every day for three weeks with no significant ill effects.
Finally, before I came to New Zealand I thought personal hygiene was an imperative. I’ve since learnt that it is optional, and you can put a price to personal hygiene- exactly $1. In one of our more regrettable moments we actually sacrificed our morning shower to save the $1. That’s 50 pence!
Oddly, New Zealand does not seem as rugby obsessed as people seem to think, even in the current build up the World Cup soon to be hosted in NZ. Sure it shows rugby on all the TVs in pubs and most of the restaurants, but you certainly don’t see groups of Maoris practicing line outs in their lunch breaks as the media would have you believe.
Also, don’t go to New Zealand expecting constant entertainment, of all the cities we visited, with the possible exception of Christchurch, they could be quite extensively explored within a few hours and the only place I would like to spend a prolonged period of time was Queenstown, which has everything; it’s a haven for food lovers, beer lovers, adrenaline junkies and spa goers. We spent three days there, and I could easily have spent more...going to FergBurger every night for dinner.
That said, all the cities, if small, are lovely, charming and friendly and the roads that join them offer some of the most staggering scenery imaginable- it’s no wonder Peter Jackson decided to film the Lord of The Rings trilogy here. The decision may also have been based on the residents’ natural resemblance to Orcs.
On reflection, the things that I would really recommend doing are as follows: The Milford Sound overnight cruise; a glacier walk on either the Franz Josef or Fox glacier; a trip to see Shireen in Akaroa; exploring the Fox River caves if you’re feeling frugal; and spending a fair bit of time around the Queenstown region- skiing on The Remarkables, if possible.
In the interests of being impartial I should also suggest some things not worth doing; the Cadbury factory tour in Dunedin is pretty terrible (only surpassed in terribleness by the chocolate it produces); Pancake Rocks aren’t really worth seeing (or at least don’t go out of your way to see them) and finally; don’t try to share a two person campervan between three people in the middle of Winter.
As today was our last full day in NZ we thought we would try to make the most of it and do some nice things. After getting up and packing our campervan away we drove down to the centre of Akaroa for about 9.30am and purchased one of the day kayaking tours from the tourist centre.
The tour operator was going to pick us up at noon, so we spent the next couple of hours walking around Akaroa and having breakfast at L'Escargot Rouge. Akaroa is famed for having a somewhat French feel- all the roads are called ‘Rue’, the police are known as the ‘Gendarmerie’ and the community gather together annually for the Race D’Escargot which is, as the name suggests, a snail race.
After our fill of pain au chocolat and croissants we went back to the visitor site where Shireen, our tour kayak guide operator, a middle-aged lady, was waiting for us. Today, Lucia and I were the tour, so we had some quality two-on-one time with Shireen, who is, quite probably, my favourite New Zealander to date.
She drove us across the isthmus of Banks peninsula to Flea Bay, or Pohatu as Shireen likes to call it. It’s called Flea Bay because of the huge number of penguins (which are rife with fleas) that live there. Pohatu is the original Maori name for Flea Bay, and is for obvious reasons a slightly more endearing name.
The drive over was about 20 minutes, which was for the most part Shireen’s personal driveway. They owned over 1,500 acres spread across two valleys encompassing a protected marine park and home to Shireen, her husband and son, a few feral peacocks, four chickens, six dogs, a couple of seal colonies, approximately 100 head of cattle, 200 sheep, 300 penguins, many possums and many times more fleas.
Shireen and her family live off the land and eco-tourism- a very wholesome life. One of my favourite quotes of the day was from Shireen- ‘Sometimes, when his sheep die, our neighbour will chuck his sheep from the top of that cliff into the sea...he’s naughty that way’, certainly something you don’t usually expect to hear on a tour.
The kayaking itself was nice and peaceful, there were plenty of seals and birdlife to be seen, though fairly uneventful. The sea was a bit too rough to go too far out of the bay and when Lucia started to feel queasy from the 2m swells we decided it was time to head back in for a tea and homemade muffins.
The table was piled high with ammunition; the dad had spent the day hunting wallabies for the family dinner and the son was about to go out hunting possums (both are considered pests in NZ) for the dog’s dinner. After stopping for a few photos on the way back we said our goodbyes to Shireen and jumped in the campervan en route to Christchurch.
At about 6pm we arrived at a campsite in the centre of the city, which was actually just an expensive parking lot for the hotel guests which they rent out to campervaners. We went out for dinner at a nice, if slightly pricey, Mexican before heading home to spend our last night in Billy.
Somehow in the excitement of our holiday, someone didn't blog about this (I blame Dave). My memory certainly isn't good enough to remember this far back so it's highly unlikely Dave would as it's fairly certain he probably can't even remember what country he was in at this point in time...
It’s surprising how much of a lie-in you can have in a campervan which is freezing cold and not particularly comfortable; again, neither of us woke up until about 9am. Our first port of call was the supermarket to stock up on food for the last few days of the holiday, and after this, we walked in to Kaikoura to see what the town had to offer.
During the summer months, it’s a haven of activity; you can swim with dolphins, whales, see the seal colonies, go kayaking, and various other adventurous activities. Today, however, it was raining so that ruined our initial plan of kayaking and whale-watching.
We attempted the Kaikoura Peninsula walk, which is two hour walk around the peninsula of the town (surprising) where you can spot lots of interesting wildlife and see the awesome views that Kaikoura has to offer.
We got about a third of the way, and promptly gave up because we were absolutely soaked and very, very miserable. We did get to see the seal colony though, which was quite cool – they were seals dotted around the place; some just chilling out by the roadside, others further out on the rocks...
Very wet, we tramped back to our campervan, stopping at the bakery on the way, where we bought some carrot cake, a sultana scone, and a custard slice to try and lift our mood. The only way to spend such a miserable day is snuggled up in a cosy van so we ate our cakes, watched a film, and before we knew it, it was time to go to the very art-deco-style cinema to watch Bounty Hunter and eat yet more sweets, ice-cream, and cakes.
Last night it rained all night, so, as you can imagine, neither of us had a very good night’s sleep because all we could hear was the pitter-patter of rain multiplied by a hundred on the tin roof of the campervan.
Luckily by the time we had woken up the rain had stopped and it was turning into a nice day. We had planned to get the 9am water taxi up the Abel Tasman coast to Bark Bay and then walk back to Marahau, about a six hour trek. Unfortunately, we slept in by accident and it turned out that the next water taxi wasn’t until 12:30pm. We decided instead to walk from Marahau to Torrent Bay, about a four hour trek, and then catch the water taxi back to Marahau at 3:30pm.
It was a really beautiful walk; the perfect temperature, and some gorgeous scenery too. All in all we must have walked around 22km – we were both very tired by the time we arrived at Torrent Bay – a rest on the swing was a must...
Our water taxi arrived half an hour early – lucky we were already there as it would have gone without us otherwise, as they were just about to leave when we rocked up. It was an interesting ride back to Marahau with two red-neck North Carolinians and two Asian girls, followed by being pulled out of the water by a sea-faring tractor, which then drove us to our final destination. It was quite surreal being pulled along in a boat, by a tractor, on the road.
The next leg of the trip was the four hour journey to Kaikoura on the west coast – we stopped along the way for some Thai food, and finally arrived at the campsite (having thought we were going to run out of petrol, as at least the last 40 minutes of the journey was spent on the red) at about 9pm.
Tired from walking and driving we were soon asleep...after the bed had been put up of course, which is always a half an hour effort with Anal Dave (my new nickname for him) as he has to get his ruler out and make sure everything is symmetrical, parallel, perpendicular, blah blah blah.
We woke up this morning to spitting rain, which as we had our breakfast, gradually got worse. The plan had been to drive up to Mount Arthur and do a three-hour hike but we soon cancelled that as the weather was too bad, and just getting up there in the campervan would have been impossible. Instead we decided to drive to Nelson, one of the larger towns in the north of the South Island, to have a look around the shops. They were all fairly uninspiring – cities in NZ seem comparable to small towns in the UK so, as you can imagine, it’s not really the country for a good old shopping spree.
An afternoon in a cafe it was; we found a lovely little place called Zatori, which was beautifully decorated and sold the most divine cakes. We settled down with the moistest and most delicious carrot cake I’ve ever eaten, chai lattes each and a book, and enjoyed the warmth for a couple of hours.
Next it was on to Marahau, the gateway to the Abel Tasman, as we wanted to do some more tramping. Turns out Marahau is yet another dead NZ town in the winter, so it was another night in our tin can with a lovely dinner of pasta, a book and a few films. Quite cosy really!
Our first full Skinsless day. While I won’t go so far as to say we had withdrawal symptoms; his farting, egoism and pissing outside of the campervan door was sorely missed.
After having a fairly expensive, yet inactive holiday so far we decided we’d do what we can to change it for the next week or so- New Zealand is a naturally beautiful place and is famed for it’s hikes and walks, or if you’re a Kiwi or Aussie its ‘tramps’.
We went up the coast past Greymouth to a place called Punakaiki famous for its pancake rocks and blowholes. Both of which were amusing and interesting, though not spectacular, and certainly nothing you can’t see to some extent on the south coast of Ireland.
We visited the tourist centre in Punakaiki to do a bit of research around the Fox River Caves, a cave system a couple of hours walk inland with a few unabridged river crossings en route. Possibly the only thing in NZ you do not have to pay for (I suspect because to police entry to the cave itself would be a fairly impossible task), or are not obliged to buy photos of yourself doing afterwards. The very helpful assistant lent us her head torch and told us that the track was very well signposted all the way to the caves.
We began our walk down some scrubby tracks, across rivers and up some very steep terrain following the illusive orange triangles dangling from trees. The walk itself was quite difficult, with some assents so steep it was more like climbing, and made even more difficult by the slippery moss on the rocks.
When we got to the cave, and Lucia had finally plucked up the courage to enter the pitch black whole we spent about 20 minutes walking to the end of the cave system which was also quite challenging in itself, mainly because of the single torch!
When we emerged again it had started raining, so all of a sudden the rocks were more slippery, and lots of mini streams had sprung up right across our track. We made it back to the van with one fairly minor fall, four fairly wet feet and two very hungry stomachs.
After lunch we headed for Lake Rotoroa, but for one reason or another decided to shoot straight past it and head for Tapawera, where we docked up for the night. The campsite itself was fairly cheap, but unlike the previous night we got what we paid for and stayed in a crap hole.
Today was quite an unspectacular day. Our main task was to deliver Skins to Greymouth in time for his 4-hour bus ride back to Christchurch. Being the organised people we are, we managed this without too much difficulty and, having said our (tearful) goodbyes we headed back on ourselves to Hokitika, the best place in New Zealand to buy jade (or pounamu in Maori ), which is a culturally invaluable raw material, and big business.
Initially, I had been the one who wanted to visit Hokitika as I had planned to design and have carved a piece of jade jewellery as a memento of my time in Enzed; turns out that I don’t actually like jade that much, and would rather stick to my favourite, turquoise. Still, we wandered around the many jade shops and factories in, the otherwise dead, Hokitika. We then did some food shopping. Doesn’t this blog just get more exciting as I write??
Having booked into our $15 (cheapest so far) campsite, we sat with a lovely dinner of vegetable Thai red curry and luxuriated in our now Skins-less and roomy campervan. A brief fling with the idea of going to the cinema followed, but it was soon quashed by the fact that we were quickly running out of money. Instead a night in, campervan style, watching Blood Diamond, blog writing, and planning the next few legs of our trip ensued.
We had a bit of a lay in today for a couple of reasons; firstly we didn’t have to meet for our glacier hike until noon, and secondly, I had been up during the night being sick, possibly as a result of the night before.
At noon we went to the meeting spot and got bussed up the valley to the drop off point to begin our 3km walk to the beginning of the Glacier itself. Sally, our tour guide, was very knowledgeable and filled us in with useless nuggets of knowledge on the trip to the ‘terminal’(or the front of the glacier to the layman).
From afar the glacier did not look too spectacular, but, like Milford Sound, that’s because we had no context to put it into. Once we were level with the terminal itself the sheer size of it really became apparent.
Once we reached the ice we all strapped on our crampons and after stumbling around for a short while we managed to walk quite competently, apart from Skins who walked as incompetently as usual, but we’re confident he’ll learn soon.
The walk itself was a lot of fun and, surprisingly (considering we were walking on ice), really quite warm. We saw lots of crevasses and (insert other GCSE geography buzz word) in action and had the opportunity to go down some of the deeper crevasses into the heart of the glacier.
When we reached the top of the glacier we were given another crash course in glacial formation while eating our picnic before descending along the same path and heading back to the car. Fun though the walk was, at times it did feel a little like we were being spoon fed...the guide was going in front of us with a pick-axe carving out staircases as we went.
To finish off the day we’d booked to spend the evening in the hot pools complex, a selection of outdoor spa pools at 36, 38 and 40 degrees. This was a very relaxing way to finish off a fairly active day, ending in a bite to eat at the Landing Bar on the way back to the campervan.
Today was a day mainly of driving as the trip from Wanaka to Franz Josef was around four and a half hours. Before setting off we stopped off at Puzzling World in Wanaka, which, as the name suggests, is a theme-style park full of puzzles!
There was the Illusion Room where water appears to drain backwards, balls on pool tables roll uphill and you stand upright at a 45 degree angle – all very disturbing and quite stomach-wrenching too.
Then there was the Ames Room where one person appears really big, and the other tiny – apparently an illusion they used in Lord of the Rings.
To finish the morning off we attempted the Great Maze, but got bored after about 15 minutes and used the emergency exit!
We had planned a supermarket stop but it turned out that between Wanaka and Franz Josef there was pretty much nothing – we managed to find a cafe for lunch, where Dave and Skins had school-style fish and chips (or fush and chups if you’re a Kiwi) and I had soup. We eventually arrived into Franz Josef at around 4pm. Having booked our half-day glacier walk, we went to the shops to stock up on food for dinner and the glacier walk the next day.
It turned out that the campsite we were staying on was a bit of a party-backpacker style campsite where the Kiwi Experience bus (a bit like the Greyhound I think) was stopping for the night. In the pub on the site, there was a traffic light party going on so we spent the night there with our new found friends Ben and Becky. After going back to their campervan (mainly to compare) for a glass of wine, we eventually fell into a very cold bed at 1am.
Everybody got up looking forward to the day’s events, and much less apprehensive than yesterday. We had arranged to all go for a game of crazy golf (somehow Lucia won!), a walk around the shops and lunch at Ferg again. After lunch we split up; Lucia went for an afternoon of spas, flotation tanks and massages while Skins and I had an afternoon on the Shotover river planned.
The Shotover Jet, something we’d heard lots about, involved a jetboat hurtling at stupid speeds up and down the Shotover River through a very tiny canyon narrowly missing the river banks and protruding rocks on many occasions. While this was fun, it was nowhere near as exhilarating as the day before and not really as good value for money. It probably speaks volumes when I say the highlight of this trip was probably that the boat had heated handrails- how novel.
Later in the afternoon we were bussed through the mountains to the start point of the white water rafting. The road we took was called Skippers Canyon Road which is world-renowned for being one of the most precarious roads in the world, and the guide at the front of the bus took great delight in reciting death statistics, pointing out the most accident prone corners, and generally making everyone feel uneasy throughout the duration of the trip.
When we arrived at the top of the Shotover we got unpacked and jumped in the dinghy. Not only was this my first experience of white water rafting, but we were also fortunate enough to be doing it in the snow! Needless to say, it was cold and wet. The Shotover white water rafting is the most challenging commercially guided rapids there are in NZ with a few instances of grade four rapids.
Much to our dismay, however, the river was quite tame on the day and neither of the three boats were flipped over or smashed against the rocks- all in all a bit tamer than we were hoping for but good fun nonetheless.
We came back to town to meet Lucia, who had been massaged, floated, spa-ed, and hit the road quickly on the way to Wanaka. We were hoping to get there in time to scoff a quick dinner down and go to a small boutique cinema. Unfortunately, the dinner took its time cooking and we missed the cinema, so went for a few drinks to plot the next couple of legs of our NZ adventure.
