Queenstown

What’s the secret to good comedy?

Timing.

Timing is everything. Nicola’s sister, Sacha, and husband Paul, are touring New Zealand in a camper van in April. They’d planned to visit us in Wellington on the weekend of 22/23 April. Unfortunately, Saturday 22nd April is also the date of the New Zealand Sweet Adelines Convention, to be held this year in Dunedin, which Nicola is committed to attend.

Not wanting to miss out on seeing her sister, therefore, we decided to head down to Queenstown at Easter and see them on their tours there. Serendipitously, niece Ishbel was also planning to be in New Zealand visiting other niece Eli, who is here for a year on a working visa. Hope you’re following this? Good. They also planned to be in Queenstown for Easter, so we could all meet up for a couple of days and do whatever there is to do in Queenstown.

We flew down on Maundy Thursday and arranged to meet up. We’d arrived first, so we had a quick lunch at Pier 19 and awaited their arrival. Once they were all ensconced in their camper van site, we met up and had a wander around town. Whilst the weather wasn’t the finest, the rain appeared to be holding off so we went for a walk through the Queenstown Gardens park, then headed back into town. We went to the Pub On Wharf – a Mac’s pub, unsurprisingly located on the wharf – for a pre-dinner drink before going to Jervois Steak House (“JSH”) for dinner.

JSH is a Nourish Group restaurant, and therefore we expected a high standard. Whilst primarily a steak house, it catered for all tastes, and everyone got what they wanted from salads to fish to steak. The waitress had explained in detail what steaks were on offer, from the marbled wagyu to the locally-produced grass-fed wakanui. After hearing her sales pitch,  I went for the wakanui sirloin rather than my usual choice of fillet. And it was great, as was everyone else’s dinners. So thumbs up to JSH from us.

After dinner we headed back to our vans and hotels, as we were up early the next morning to go white water rafting on the Shotover river.

We met up at the Queenstown Rafting shop on Shotover street at 8:00am, and were then driven the short distance out of town to the lower end of the Shotover river, i.e. the point at which we would end up. We were then equipped with wetsuit, surf boots, jacket, waterproof, life jacket and helmets, and boarded our bus to take us to the top of the river. The bus goes along Skippers Road, an ancient and treacherous way up the gorge, unsealed and narrow. Whilst towing a trailer loaded with inflatable boats. Presumably they must have some system of regulating the traffic along the road, as there’s no way to pass if you meet something head-on – one of you is going to have to reverse several miles until you get to a wide space on the road.

This portion of the drive lasted around 45 minutes, and took us to our jumping-off point. We were given another safety briefing, what to do if we exited the boat at any point, and what to do if the boat turned over on us. This is the last point at which you can back out of the tour…once you’re on the water there’s no turning back or saying “I want to get off”.

We were allocated a guide – in our case, Chief, who we’d had the privilege of rowing with when we went down the Kawarau four years ago. He didn’t recognise us. Ishbel and Eli went up the front, Paul and I took the middle, and Nicola and Sacha had the rear of the boat.

Last time when we'd done the Kawarau, Chief had berated us for "not being real kiwis" for not doing the Shotover. The river does have a higher grade - some of the rapids are graded 4/5, and 5 is where you really want to be experienced in doing this kind of stuff. But the conditions were OK for us - in fact, there'd been so little rain recently that the water flow was getting to dangerously slow levels and if it hadn't started raining a couple of days beforehand, they were seriously thinking about cancelling trips. Fortunately, the flow was back up after the rains, but the water was turbid due to the rainfall, instead of its normal crystal clarity.

Chief was clear in his instructions, rehearsing us on commands whilst we were in the calmer areas, and then we were doing it for real. After a couple of hair-raising rapids, we came over one particular fall, and then were caught in an eddy and couldn't escape! Eventually, we managed to get enough horsepower to break free and carry on down.

At the end, we went through the Oxenbridge Tunnel (literally - a 170 metre tunnel through the rock) and then down the final fall, the biggest of them all. Chief had forewarned us, though, and when he shouted "Get down!" we got as down as we possibly could into the boat. The force of the drop is such that the entire boat gets pushed underwater, and you along with it! However, we surfaced quickly and the boat drains itself, and we finished up on the shore.

Going under water!

After helping stack the boats back on the trailer, we went through the dressing process in reverse, rinsing our gear and then heading for a hot shower and a hot drink. The bus ride back into town was only 10 minutes, and we then queued for an hour or so to get a Fergburger.

Tongariro Rafting

Yesterday was a rest day in between strenuous activities. Today’s activity is white water rafting on the Tongariro River. Yes, proper white water rafting this time.

In the morning we went for a swim in the lake. Our host, Jan, had kindly pointed out the way to a secluded bay (not the main Acacia Bay where we were staying, which is swamped with tourists – there must be literally tens of people on the beach!) so we drove down there and took the plunge. It was chilly (reputed colder than at Scorching Bay, where I declined to get wet). I didn’t stay in long.

Afterwards we went to the opposite extreme – the thermal pools at Spa Park. Here, it is possible to mix water to your desired temperature by sitting in a pool fed by a hot spring, mixing with river water. Unfortunately this area was already heavily populated – there must have been at least a dozen people – so we headed upstream to a more secluded pool. As it happened, someone was just leaving it. This pool is fed fom the hot spring only, so there’s no cold tap. It was a bit warm – just at the edge of bearability, but, like getting into a hot bath, you soon get used to it. In the end we all got in, and even sat under the waterfall that fed the pool.

Well, that warmed us up a bit. We went back to the house for a quick lunch, and then drove out to Turangi (first negotiating Taupo’s notorious traffic system, which delayed us a bit) to do the white water rafting. We went through the usual drill – don’t take anything you can’t afford to lose, then changed into (mercifully dry) wetsuits, boots and helmets before boarding the bus. When we were all aboard the guide asked “is there anyone here who’s not done this before?” A few hands went up, and he then explained “this is called a bus ride, all you have to do is sit”. This set the tone for the rest of our trip.

We disembarked and were split up into groups of seven. We’d decided to stick to our car groups (me, Nicola, Eli and Ishbel in one group, and Ian, Lisa, Kate and Rowan in the other) as the raft holds eight people including the guide, so it wasn’t possible for us all to go together. We carried the raft down to the river and put Ishbel and Eli at the front. The rest of our boat were Auckklanders Wayne, Annie and AJ.

Our leader was Ben, who instructed us in the use of the paddle, what commands he would give and how we should respond to them. He also kept up a line of witty banter as well as giving us the geographic details of what we were passing through – evidence of an eruption 2,000 years ago that left a huge layer of pumice and ash.

There are around sixty rapids on this section of the Tongariro river, which is a grade 3 – about as high as you want to get without some expert training and experience. Some of them were pretty rocky, and we got stuck a couple of times on the lip of a fall, so had to rock the boat, or all pile onto one side or the front, to get it moving again. At one point we came off a fast rapid and went crashing into the side wall rock, almost upending the boat and definitely upending Ishbel in the front! No harm was done, and there were also quieter stretches where we could get out of the boat and swim, or indeed climb a rock on the bank and jump off. There weren’t any huge drops like we experienced on the Barron River in Queensland, but the some of the rapids required some tricky navigation (“forward HARD! STOP! Get DOWN!” shouted Ben from the back of the boat).

We negotiated the final set, and then drifted in to shore. The boat was loaded onto the trailers and we went back to the hut to change, and also eat our fill from a self-service sandwich station of cheese, ham, and salad, washed down with hot chocolate.

All good fun, and a bit more energetic than the previous two days’ activities. This was our last full day in Taupo, tomorrow…hobbittses!

Waitomo Caves

It’s Sunday, and Sunday means Black Water Rafting. This sounds a lot like white water rafting…but in the dark! How crazy is that? Actually, it’s nothing like white water rafting, and involves nothing more strenuous than gently bobbing through a cave in an inner tube. Phew!

On the way we stopped to see a tree. This is the largest totara tree in New Zealand, and therefore the world and, presumably, the universe (I'm prepared to believe there are larger ones in the multiple dimensions of the multiverse). This involved a short walk into the forest, until we reached a tree, surrounded by a fence, with a sign giving its dimensions. It looks like this:

The joy of this particular rafting experience is the glow-worms that live in the cave through which one “rafts” – especially when you turn out your helmet light to be in almost complete darkness.

We drove out early-ish to try and reach the caves in time for the 1:30pm tour that we’d booked with the Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. We’d packed a lunch, which helped with the speed as we only had around 15 minutes to spare, and needed to sign medical disclaimers before they’d let us continue. After that, it was the usual procedure of being given the safety talk, told what equipment and clothing we would be wearing, and getting us into said clothing, including some rather fetching white wellies for the ladies (Ian and I had rather more manly black boots). We then drove out to the start, and were issued with an inner tube commensurate to our size, to ensure that you’re not unstable when floating downstream. The final check was to practice our backwards jumping technique, as this is the way in which you enter the stream and leap over the waterfalls. This was done in the river in the light, so that we knew what we were doing when we came to do it in the dark.

We also practised the “river eel” position (feet up under the oxters of the person in front) so that we could do this when instructed by our guides.

A final walk down to the opening of the cave, where we posed for photos before going underground.

The water level was higher than last time when Nicola and I did this, which was at the end of a long dry summer. We didn’t have too much walking to do, but the guides did tell us that if we came in winter or spring then the water levels would be even higher. We’ll just have to come back again.

Down underground, we floated along, helping ourselves with hands on the walls or paddling to propel us, although there is a bit of a current as well. Along the way we learned about the formation of the caves, the glow-worms. (I switched off at this point, as there’s only so many times I can hear about the life cycle of the glow-worm, and that limit has been reached. Fortunately they kept it brief.) We also met Eric, one of the two resident eels in the river, but no cave wetas.

Towards the end, we were set free to find our own way out in the dark. This we achieved (frankly it would be difficult not to) and we emerged, blinking, into the sunshine.

On the bus on the way back, the guides said, “Hey that wasn’t bad for two guys on their first day!” Oh, how we laughed.

After a quick shower, we then had bagels and tomato soup to warm up, and then headed back to the bach for dinner – chicken and couscous this time, ably abetted by Ian on the barbie.

Black Water Rafting

We drove over to the Waitomo Caves on Sunday to explore the phenomenom that is blackwater rafting. It’s quite a drive from Taupo, so we set out with plenty of time to spare. We stopped off in a small place called Benneydale, which has the dubious distinction of having an English name in the heart of the King Country, where the place names are almost uniformly Maori. There is a reason for this, naturally, and it’s all explained here. We had coffee in an establishment run by a Frenchman of Senegalese extraction, and his Dutch wife. It was odd.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare so, having booked in and signed the statutory waiver that anything that happened to us would be our own stupid fault for indulging in such dangerous pastimes, we were at a bit of a loose end. The girl at the counter suggested we take a walk around the Ruakuri scenic reserve, which is an area of limestone caves and is in fact what sits above the cave that we would be exploring later. Along the way we found a difficult-to-photograph fantail:

After our walk we returned to the blackwater rafting site, where we were fitted out with wetsuits and white gumboots, and then driven to our jumping-off point. We grabbed an inner tube appropriate to our height and girth, and were then drilled in the correct way to enter the water: backwards and arse first, whilst holding one’s flotation device firmly over said arse. Any other method was likely to result in the loss of the inner tube, and as it’s pitch black in the cave, it may be swept away downstream not to be seen again until you reach the end.

Splashdown!

Faceful of water

We then entered the cave. First up we posed for photos with the cave wetas, and then began our journey through the cave system. Some of this was on foot, and some of it in our tubes, having launched ourselves over a waterfall. At one point we needed to form a train by putting our feet up on the ring in front, and being gripped under the armpits, whilst gripping the feet of the person behind us in similar fashion. We switched our head lights off to fully appreciate the glow of the glow worms, and our guides gave us the usual spiel about their life cycle. For the final part of the tour we were told to keep our lights off and find our way out to the daylight by ourselves…something we all managed without too much difficulty. The water level in the cave was quite low, due to the drought which has affected the country over the last month or so – our guide pointed out the level at which the water normally flows.

After climbing out we took the short trip back to the centre for a shower and a warming cup of soup, before heading back to Taupo for dinner at The Brantry. That pretty well ended our Taupo adventure – the next day we drove back to Wellington and what appears to be officially the End Of Summer.

Kawarau River Rafting

Back to Queenstown again on Friday - we're wearing a groove in the Gibbston Highway - we first headed to the Skyline gondola for a ride to the top. We were intending to have lunch there before the afternoon's activities, but it was fully booked, so we admired the scenery instead:

Overhead, tandem parachute jumps were being launched - think we'll give that a try next time we're in Queenstown:

After stopping in the café for a tea and coffee, we headed back down into town to find a bite to eat before setting out to find the Queenstown Rafting shop on Shotover Street, to begin our white-water adventure.

The bus drove us out of town to their centre, where we changed into wetsuits and were issued with hard hats and lifejackets. Properly attired, we then took another ½-hour bus ride to our starting point. We were then split into groups, largely based on linguistic ability of the guides - there were a fair few Asian groups travelling with us as well as a French family. Our guide, Chief, gave us the safety briefing and basics of rafting, then in we got and away we went! The Kawarau River is graded 2/3 - most of the rapids are grade 2 with one 3 at the end. One of the first things we did was take a dip in the river - after the bus ride in 26° heat in wetsuits, we wanted to cool down! The river is icy cold, being mainly meltwater from the snowfields above, but you soon get used to it in a wetsuit. The biggest challenge is getting back into the boat. We made out way down through the rapids, which were quite fierce in places, but without the big drops that we'd had when we went on the Barron River in Queensland - so us "old hands" felt quite blasé about it! the final stretch is a 400 metre grade 3, which was pretty cool! We were slightly hindered by one of our boatmates who didn't seem keen on getting his paddle wet, which meant we were a bit unbalanced on each sides' rowing strength.

After the final stretch we got our boats ashore and stacked them on the trailer, and were then bussed back to the centre where we showered and changed, before getting a ride back into town. I was talking to the driver who took us back into town about the Shotover River rafting, which I had deliberately not booked as it's graded 4/5, which can be pretty hairy stuff...but from what she was saying, it sounds like it's not as scary as we thought, and she reckoned that as long as we didn't go in Spring, when the meltwater is at its highest and the river is in full spate, we should be OK...so next time we're in Queenstown we'll give that a go as well.

White Water

Palm Cove is known, amongst other things, for its spas and therapy centres. We developed a cunning plan: to go white-water rafting in the morning, and then have a well-deserved (and probably needed) pampering session in the afternoon.

Alas, it was not to be, as the white-water rafters were only available in the afternoon on Friday. Well, what the hell, we went and booked ourselves into the spa in the morning anyway.  I had a massage, and Nicola went for a mud wrap. Mine was really good, and I’m assured that Nicola’s was also well worth it.

We had a fortifying lunch at one of the bars on the beach before heading back to our digs to be picked up at 2:00pm, dressed for action, and driven to the top of the rapids on the Barron River. On the way we were given a rather alarming disclaimer to fill in, complete with emergency contact information, for insurance and liability purposes. 

We arrived at the top of the river and were advised to leave behind anything that was not strapped on and that we didn’t want to lose – including glasses in my case – and also told to ditch any footwear that wasn’t firmly strapped in place. So it was away with the jandals (thongs/flipflops to all you furriners), and we were issued with a  pair of plastic boat shoes instead. We were also strapped into life jackets and yellow crash helmets.

The instructors divided us up into teams of six or seven each, keeping groups and couples together as much as possible. We were then allocated a guide, and a boat. Our guide was called Bill, and he was originally from California but had settled in Australia seven years ago. He arranged us around the boat, and we lifted it onto our heads and carried it down to the river. He arranged us in the boat, with me and another bloke taking the front two positions, presumably because he wanted a bit of power up front. Bill then instructed us in the art of white-water rafting, including how to paddle, the commands that he would give, and what to do if we fell out of the boat. The rapids are caused by the daily outflow of water from the invisible hydro-electric power station in the Barron Gorge further upstream.

And then we were off! It was a short while before we reached our first drop, and Bill ran us through some drills before we got to it so that everyone was working together and getting their timing right (at least I assume they were – I was looking out in front, not seeing what was going on behind me).

We got through the first rapids OK, then reached a fairly startling drop. On this one my oppo fell out of the boat, and Bill was up like a shot from his position at the back of the boat to haul him back in. “Blimey!” I thought – all this talk about falling out of the boat was no joke. At the next big drop, it was my turn – I could feel the boat turning and there was no way I could stay inside, and slipped gently out over the edge. Bill came charging to the rescue again, but I lost a shoe en route.

We went down some fairly tricky falls after that, but seemed to have got the hang of staying in by then, and we didn’t lose anyone else overboard. When we got down to a calmer stretch we recovered my shoe, which had floated on ahead of us.

This river is known as a grade 3. This is as high as a novice would tackle with a guide – after that you get onto grades where all the crew should be experienced. So it was no cake-walk, and I think we’ll stick to rivers of this difficulty for the time being.

At the bottom of the river we had a final row across the calm section of the lake, before disembarking and carrying our boat back to the road. We posed for a group photo – which I will post once I’ve received it from the company, in about 2 weeks’ time – and there will be photos from around the course as well. You’ll be able to spot me – I’m the one in the yellow helmet.