Taupo Bungy

I had no intention of doing a bungy jump. If I was going to do anything it would have been a parachute jump. But then I saw the Taupo Bungy location. It's a huge cantilevered platform that stretches 30 metres out, high above the blue-green Waikapo river. It looks like an enormous diving board - and I suppose that's exactly what it is. Hell - I can parachute back home.

I went through a phase of reading about capital punishment a few years back, and one of the titles was The Executioner's Protocol that details the routine followed on US death rows. Every detail of inmate preparation is codified in elaborate detail. Everyone in the execution team knows what they must do at every stage of the procedure. Giving every step a sense of quasi-religious ritual takes everyone's mind off the less palatable goal to which they are all working. As I watched Charlie and his assistant haul back up the bungy, fasten my leather ankle-straps (Velcro? you've got to be kidding!), check and cross-check the various carabiners, cords and catches that made up the bungy kit, I felt I was watching the Film of the Book. Was it possible that the only way these guys could bring themselves to chuck a perfectly polite and otherwise healthy customer off their lovely cantilevered platform, was by playing mind games with themselves? I thought that was MY job?

"Do you want to touch the water?"

I looked down the 47 meters (that's not much change from 150 feet folks) to the river.

That water down there? Em, OK. I'll dip my hands, I said, thinking that they could use a little rinse given how sweaty my palms had become. My nerves still were serviceable though. I was no more anxious than I might be before a speaking engagement (perhaps where the topic is freedom of conscience and the audience is a pickup full of Kalashnikov-wielding Taliban). I was invited to walk to the edge and toe the white line that marked the boundary between platform and void. I shuffled over. Dead Man Walking!

Here's are the rules for jumping off a high platform:
1) Fool yourself with steps: Driving there; Getting out of the car; Paying your money; Walking to the preparation area; Let them strap you in; Fall. Take these steps in perfect sequence, forgetting each one as it passes, only thinking about the one in hand.
2) Abstract the height (easy for Abstracto!) in a cartoon fashion. Think canyons, coyotes and delayed applications of the law of gravity.
3) Obey. Do not think. (There'll be plenty of time for logical regret later). When the man says stand on the white line, do it. When the man says wave at the camera, give a nice rigid-with-fear arm quiver. When the man says fall forward, remember that he might seem nice and calm now, but if you piss him off he will beat you to a pulp with that clipboard. And then he'll push you off anyway. Especially if you are the weeping Japanese girl that was up just before me.

So I obeyed. I really, really didn't want to do it. The moment I had toed the white line, the coyote disappeared and all I was left with was the canyon. I didn't have the will to take the step for myself, and so I entrusted myself to Taupo Bungy's fear of litigation, secure in the knowledge that if anything went wrong it would be ALL THEIR FAULT. So there! I leaned out.

My recollection of what happened next is fogged by physical violence and adrenalin. I was mugged. Gravity mugged me. It scooped me off that ledge with the tenderness of a metal claw, and dragged me towards the water. I didn't feel like I was falling 47 meters (well - what experience would I base it on?), just that I was travelling very very fast. I think I had the presence of mind to scream on the way down, something I'm obviously very proud of. And I remember reaching out with my hands to see if I would really touch the water as promised, only to get my head and shoulders completely ducked. I wouldn't like to guess how long I was submerged - it wasn't long enough to inhale, luckily. But it was long enough for me to form the classical facial expression of the slightly irked customer. Head cocked, one eyebrow raised, what part of 'dip my hands' do you not you understand? But the thought was immediately erased by the realisation that I was still alive and I couldn't fall any further. (Wrong again - there's quite a fall left in that second bounce).

"That was the stupidest thing I've done all day" I said to the boat crew who untied me and ferried me to the shore. In truth, it wasn't. I'm glad I did it. It was a blast. But it left no lasting effect, except for an ugly insight into the last moments of suicide jumpers (a decidedly terrible way to go).

If you are going to New Zealand, and you are thinking of a bungy jump, I can recommend Taupo Bungy to you as a good starter, better in my opinion than the better-known but over-trafficked A.J. Hackett jump in Queenstown. It's slightly higher, it offers the option of a dunk in the water, the setting is much more beautiful, you won't have to wait as long, and the crew there are terrific. It's right in the town of Taupo as well, so you can go have a beer or a bite to eat afterwards. Just don't do it before.











And the evidence (Mam, Dad - you might not want to watch this)...

Bubble Boy

Don't know what the guy on the left is so excited about - I was the one who rolled down the hill in the big plastic bubble.



It's called Zorbing. Extreme? Not really. Extremely silly for sure. And well worth the 44 bucks.

Walking on Water

We shouldn't be let mind a dog, never mind two children. The night before our planned excursion on Fox Glacier, Sara gave her unsolicited opinion on the food in Arthur's Pass in the direct and physical way that we are used to from the girl: she barfed it all back up before bedtime. It wasn't looking good for the hike. To make matters worse - much worse - the following morning as we got up early and started to prepare ourselves the same child pointed out, again in the most direct way possible, that her stomach was empty and her sugars were low, by fainting in the bathroom. She didn't black out, but she ended up on her arse, murmuring slowly to herself, until we set her on the bed and put her head between her knees. Really - if anyone feels like reporting us, I'd almost encourage them.

But it gets worse again. Sara recovered quickly, and protested our decision to call off the glacier trip. She insisted that she wanted to do the hike and that she was fine now. We weren't buying it but set off to Fox Glacier (half an hour's drive from Franz Josef) to see if we could get a refund of the $100 deposit. When we got there, and explained Sara's alternating puking and swooning, Malcolm our guide-to-be told us that she'd be fine (these Kiwis are as good as the Aussies at shrugging off illness, danger and common-sense).

So, responsible parents that we are, we continued to increase Sara's sugar levels using fruit sweets and juice, fitted herself and Nina out with boots, and got on the bus with the guides that led to the start of the trail.

What's a glacier anyway?, I hear you ask (admittedly over the noise of those baying for our children to be removed for their own safetly). It's a river, really, that moves 100,000 times slower than normal rivers. Instead of water, flows ice. Instead of a spring, there's a snow-collecting basin (called a neve) over 3000m up the mountain, where today's snow compacts yesterday's and eventually compresses it into ice. The ice flows downhill under its own weight, moving on a layer of water formed where the ice meets the underlying rock, but also moving internally, in a plastic flow. At the bottom of the glacier, the terminal, where the higher temperatures defeats the pressure, the ice finally melts and runs off as cloudy green streams.

The way you get up onto Fox Glacier is to start near the terminal of the glacier and hike for the best part of an hour along the mountainside - the bank of this river of ice - until you reach a point where it's safe (in the I-have-signed-a-waiver sense of the word) to move onto the glacier itself. To reach this point, we had to climb a fair bit, as well as move along a narrow trail at the edge of a bluff. This last fact might alarm American or Antipodean readers. That's because they know what the hell a bluff is. A bluff in European English is a clever card-playing pretence, and very little else. So when we were told in advance that we would be walking along a bluff, I thought it odd but not much odder than anything else I've been told by a guide in the last 5 months. Halfway along our hike to the edge of the ice, we found out what a New Zealander means by a bluff. A bluff, so far as I can now tell, is a f**king great cliff with a 100m drop. It has a path alongside whose width is very much economy class. And by way of support for those who might have fainted that morning there is a chain and a red-bearded, grinning guide. (Social services numbers are in the Government section of the phone book, if you haven't found it yet).

We survived, and not having been killed are of course stronger (big chunks of ice bring out the Nietzsche in me). Nina and Sara dealt with the heights like two little girls who know what it feels to zip along on a flying fox at 7 meters, and we all went on to have a surreal and rewarding experience walking on top of a glacier for 90 minutes or so.

When we got to the edge of the glacier, we were handed poles, and told to put on our instep crampons. And then we walked on water. We stepped onto 12km of frozen but moving water. The surface was broken in a thousand different ways. Where it met the mountainside, it thrust upwards, trying to burst its banks. The centre of the flow moves faster than the edges, creating crevasses whose depths are disguised by the pools of water that fill them. We were walking in the melt zone of the glacier, where the liquid flow created other perfect imperfections on the icescape - archways, circular pools and waterfalls. From the mountain, the uppermost surface of the glacier is undulating but looks smooth. Up close, it is anything but. The ice looks like a snapshot of the choppy surface of a lake on a windy day.

On any trip, there are inevitably things that you wish you had kept your wallet closed for. You're probably glad you did them but you wished you didn't have to pay so much for it. We spent less than 100 euro in the backpackers in Franz Josef, and a little over 100 euros for the half-day trip on the Fox glacier. It was one of the best value highs we've had on the trip so far. If you come here with kids, be aware that there is practically nothing else to do in either Franz Josef or Fox Glacier. The evening activity is limited to going to the pub, and apparently they get quite boisterous. Our irresponsibility as parents doesn't extend to finding out in person.

Honest!!

Snow and Steam in Hanmer Springs

Our group has been expanding ever more. As well as Giovanna, we were also joined by Duncan all the way from Sydney. We knew when we made our goodbyes in Sydney that we would see Duncan again - he promised to come and show us around NZ, as he used to live in Wellington. We complicated matters by choosing Hanmer Springs as our destination - somewhere Duncan has never been. All the better, perhaps.

We needed two cars to move around, and that qualifies as a convoy where I come from. We didn't have the CBs, and Kris Kristofferson was nowhere to be seen, but we did have a bad attitude and scant regard for the law. No, that's not true either. Damn. Well, Duncan got a speeding ticket towards the end - does that count? Look - we're hard, and you'll just have to take our word for it.

What does Hanmer Springs have to offer that Alice Springs didn't? Springs. Thermal ones, sulphuric ones. Hot ones, cold ones. And water slides too. And on the Christchurch side of Hanmer Springs theres a place called Thrillseekers Canyon, where among the many activities on offer is Whitewater Rafting. Yes! You the readers of this blog (or 22 of you the readers of this blog - or actually about 10 of you, plus Sam my godson who has probably voted 12 times by now) have put Whitewater Rafting as the top must-do experience of New Zealand. And do you know what? I'm never asking you anything else again!!



Oh it started well alright. We were given the briefing by a wild-eyed Graham who made Sara laugh from the get-go. His front teeth were missing (we were too polite to ask if he lost them rafting) as were some other items like fear and perhaps judgement. We got suited up and then carried our raft down to the Waiau river. The trip was a Grade 2 'scenic', which is probably just one step up from a punt on Christchurch's Avon river. It's the rafting equivalent of a busy shopping day on Patrick's Street, Cork - you'll get thrown around a bit but nobody will get hurt (as opposed to the same street at night, which would be more of a Grade 4). As ever, we were lucky with the weather. Our drive from Christchurch was pleasantly sunlit and by the time we reached Thrillseekers Canyon the conditions looked ideal. But by the time we reached the water's edge and looked up at the sky, we realised that we had already seen the best the day had to offer. From here on in it would all be downhill, downstream, but - and this is the crucial part - upwind.

Five minutes into our family rafting experience, it became clear to our guide that we were going to take twice as long as normal to reach the end, such was the headwind we were dealing with. Five minutes after that, it started to rain. The temperature wasn't forgiving either - Sara, from behind a blonde scowl and gritted teeth, offered the observation that 'the whole world is an icecube'. Another five minutes passed and we were now trying to row backwards to avoid being hit in the eyes with hailstones. Duncan pointed out that the only form of precipitation we had missed was snow, and sure enough it began to snow. Sara had retreated into her coat to an extent that would make a tortoise proud, and a quick look at her aunt Giovanna's face demonstrated to me that not only would we have to deal with difficult weather conditions, but we were also carrying an Italian Time Bomb on board. Never mind Kris Kristofferson - we were missing Sylvester Stallone on this trip. It didn't help that Duncan and I were pretty much enjoying ourselves, and Graham's manic laughter down the back was tipping towards the hysterical. If something didn't happen soon - by which I don't mean more weather - it was going to get very ugly.

That something was a jet boat operated by Thrillseekers Canyon. It roared around the corner and pulled up alongside. Graham didn't even finish the sentence that began with "Does anyone want to transfer" when Gio and Sara were already onboard the jetboat, their paddles still spinning like tops in the centre of the raft, cartoon-style. The remaining four of us, and Graham, continued to paddle against the wind, the odds, and the prevailing flow of logic. We had pretty much got to the end of the trip when the jetboat reappeared. Gio didn't look much happier, and Sara was nowhere to be seen (she was out of sight, tucked into the lap of her aunt). The rest of us got on board the jetboat, the Thrillseekers got the raft onboard too, and off we went back to the relative warmth of the boathouse. But not before Giovanna delivered, using the kind of facial and manual body-language that come so naturally to Italians, her feedback to the proprietors.



We shivered up the road to Hanmer Springs, in search of hot water. We couldn't have picked a better place. It's a weekend getaway for lots of Kiwis and the price of the motels shows. If you want to rent a house there for a few days (much better value) then you'll have to book well in advance if you have weekends or school holidays in mind. Right across the road from our motel was the Thermal Springs, a complex of 12 different baths or pools, with temperatures ranging from 20 to 43 degrees. We suffered one last indignity of walking out of the changing rooms in freezing conditions in our 'cozzies' before settling into the pools, looking up to the sky and seeing once more, snow falling. From the comfort of 38 degree geothermal water, this time the snow was welcome.



The rest of our stay in Hanmer Springs was taken up with a long hike (including the second snowfight of our trip so far), a long brunch and another long and relaxing evening in the springs. If you come to New Zealand, make some time for Hanmer Springs.

Queenstown Part II

What goes up, must come down. Newton's fictional apple did, and so did a whole bunch of very real people when they chucked themselves off a perfectly good, and very pretty, bridge just outside of Queenstown. People have been chucking themselves off Kawarau bridge now for quite some time all beccause about 20 years ago, a kiwi gentleman called AJ Hackett decided that he would replicate the Vanuatu ritual of throwing oneself from a tower, with each ankle tied by a vine rope. Using elastic 'bungy's instead of vines, he was able to make a potentially fatal but thrilling experience available to a paying public and he demonstrated its efficacy by doing an unapproved bungy jump from the Eiffel Tower in 1987. Since then, at least 18 people have been killed doing similar jumps, but none of them, as far as I can tell, with AJ Hackett.

I had no interest in doing a jump before coming to NZ (though I am partial to the idea of jumping out of an airplane). The bungy was Letizia's gig. To be more precise, it was Letizia and Simon's gig. We were supposed to meet Si and Leah in Queenstown, but unfortunately it wasn't to be. Little Caitlin discovered a 200km car journey limit, the outer bounds of which were defined by copious amounts of projectile vomit. The Pett family was staying in the North of the South Island, and Letizia was stranded in Queenstown without a jumping buddy.

I offered. I did really offer. And I meant it too. But the sudden change in circumstances rattled Letizia's resolve, and after watching a dozen or so people (all apparently part of the same Japanese family) demonstrate the various ways in which one should, and should not, fall from a height, she opted not to jump. But watch this space. I feel the story has still got legs.

With Christchurch behind us, the planned part of our journey was over. What lay ahead, we would make up as we went along.

Queenstown Part I

Our new dynamic is very interesting. Letizia and Giovanna take turns at sitting up front, and both of them have their guide books open. Letizia has the book of lies, Giovanna has a french guide. They cross-check accommodation, restaurants and activities for the next stop on the Magical Mystery Tour. Nina and Sara, as ever, divide their attention between books, Nintendo DSs and the scenery. My job, apart from driving and navigation, is to occasionally bore the crap out of everyone by delivering historical sermons based on whatever I've been reading recently on New Zealand. I take this job seriously, and so try to maintain a kind of plummy, condescending tone. Don't feel so smug - it'll be your turn next.

The stop-off in Lake Tekapo was just intended to break up the journey from Christchurch to Queenstown, but it was worth the trip. The lake view from our motel included a backdrop of mountain peaks, recently coated with light snowfall. Down the road from us was a tiny little stone chapel whose alter was backed by a large window that looked out onto the lake. Guidebooks informed us that the perspective on the lake from that window was unique, but the church was in use during our visit. So we, and all the other visitors to the lake that evening, had to make do with the infinity of other unique perspectives on the lake that were on offer. I found the fixation with the church quite odd. The was a concentration of tourist buses which parked outside this little chapel - which really was no bigger than a motel bedroom - so that visitors could pile into a little stone hut and look out on a lake which, if they would just come back out of the stone hut, they would see just as well and without any obstruction (other than that of the little stone hut itself).

We reached Queenstown on day 2, in the darkness, after a relaxed drive that included many stops for photo opportunities. It seemed that around every corner was a different country, and Letizia and Giovanna were kept busy. As ever, on Letizia's blog you'll see plenty of excellent photos of where we've been, and if you read italian (or indeed use Google's site translation service) you'll be able to follow here unique perspective on our trip (without having to file into a little stone church). At this point I have to confess, that whatever the results of the poll on Kiwi extreme activities might result in, we're likely to just go ahead and do (or not do) our own thing. So which Jet Boating is coming in last on the poll, that's what we did first. Not just Jet Boating, but a day trip that took us out to Glenorchy (West of Queenstown and on the same lake), included a 4wd drive to a nearby forest, a short guided walk through that forest, and then a jetboat run up and back down the Dart River. It was money very well spent. Apart from the fact that it was a group activity, we also learned a lot of interesting things as we went along.

The forest that we visited includes a tree called the Red Beech which has some interesting behaviour (if a tree can be said to exhibit behaviour). There's very little topsoil around Glenorchy, and competition between trees can be fierce. The forest has a high and full canopy so the only chance for young trees to stake their own claim is when an older tree falls and leaves a gap up there. The saplings then have to grow upwards like crazy, with no thought for stability, in order to be first to reach the sun. Only when they get there do they start to put on a bit of weight - new growth takes place around the thin girth of the successful sapling. Because it grows from the inside, it also dies from the inside. Old trees are completely hollow all the way up their lengths by the time they finally expire. A byproduct of this race is the saplings ability to stay young and small for years, keeping its powder dry until that vital gap opens up. There have been examples of little 'saplings' that are more than 50 years old.

Part of the bushwalk included a vist to a mocked up Maori encampment, where we were shown a thing or two about bushcraft. One thing that caught my attention was a trick for moving fire embers from one camp to another (saves on lighter fluid I guess). A kind of large fungus (about the same shape and dimensions as a casserole dish) that grows on the sides of trees was buried under the campfire. In the morning it was dug up and was cold enough to handle. But when making camp again that evening, the Maori would break open the fungus where the ember of the previous night's heat still glowed. Some clever bugger figured that one out a long time ago.

We left the forest and drove across the river bed to where the jetboat was waiting to knock all that education out of us. We were able to drive across, as the rivers in these parts are of a type known as braided river systems (only found in NZ, Australia and another country whose name got dislodged from my memory during the subsequent jetboat ride). Again, because of the poor topsoil, the rivers here spread themselves wide rather than digging in. They rise after rainfall, but when the levels fall away again, the river settles down each time into different channels through the mostly dry river bed. The name 'braided' is a good way to describe the visual effect: a stone and gravel strip with rivulets of water weaving back and forth across the its width. The water in places is only ankle deep - but that's all a jetboat needs. Invented in New Zealand not as an extreme sport but as a way for landowners to navigate otherwise unnavigable rivers, they are simple but clever machines. There are no outer propellers. The titanium hull has a water inlet facing forwards and a directable nozzle facing back. Water is sucked from one point to the other at a rate of hundreds of litres a second, creating an extremely directional propulsive force. A picture or two demonstrates the effect of being on board for an hour and a half.








We chilled out, and dined out, in Queenstown that evening, but only after an hour spent watching people throw themselves off a bridge just outside the town. Some decisions had to be made. Would Letizia jump?

More soon.

Birthdays on the road

We flew into Christchurch by night, declared the red Uluru dust still on our boots, and grabbed a taxi to our new home. We've swapped house for the next 4-6 weeks or so with Ray and Louise who are now settling in to our house back in Cork. The house here is terrific. It's 10 minutes easy drive from the centre of the city, and situated on the slopes to the south of Christchurch that mark the beginnings of the volcanic Banks Peninsula. The view from the window that first night was of a perfectly flat landscape below us, lit up into the distance.

When we woke the next morning to a clear blue sky, we could see the real view. That flat landscape we had seen is called the Canterbury Plains and it stretched in front of us, half way across the South Island, till it hit the Southern Alps. The contrast between the steady plains and the dramatic peaks gives a hint about what life is like here, especially for visitors. Christchurch is known as the most English of NZ cities. The beautifully laid out streets and the tranquility of the parklands give order to the meandering river that runs through it. The river is slow-moving and has been further tamed with the very reassuring name of Avon. But at the heart of the city, in the i-Site information office on Cathedral Square, you can book sky diving, white water rafting, zorbing (I'm particularly partial to this idea) , bungee jumping, ballooning, hang-gliding, skiing and other adrenalin-soaked activities that seem to have nothing to do with Christchurch's mellow setting.

It seems as though Kiwis are compensating for a lack of the lethal beasties and bities that Australia offered, by providing man-made routes to premature death or serious injury. Naturally we will be taking up New Zealand's offer on this. It would be rude not to really.

We have in fact already started. We started the days celebrations (Nina's 9th birthday) in a place called Adrenalin Forest. Here, for a very reasonable NZ$95 (47 euros) for the entire family, we strapped on some harnesses and spent 2 hours battling with our fears of height in an obstacle course that ran (for us) up to 6 metres from the forest floor, but could go to 17 meters for adults. The course included flying foxes where you clip yourself to a cable, leave go and think about how you're going to cope with the impact of the fast approaching tree. It wasn't easy for us, never mind the girls, and Nina and Sara had to really work through their fears (while Letizia and I tried unsuccessfully to mask ours) in order to complete the course. Let's just say that Nina had to prove today that she was a big 9-year-old. And she surely did.


Where are the brakes?!?


Trust me Sara - I'm an engineer!


After that heart-pounding start to the day we decided to try a more traditional route to cardiovascular trauma by having lunch in McDonalds. As with the Adrenalin Forest event, we were joined by Simon, Leah and Caitlin (yes - our Brisbane hosts. I really will have to explain in a post soon how it is that this long-suffering family managed to find themselves yet again surrounded by Lawlors). We had a quorum to convene a birthday party, complete with chocolate cake and candles, and of course pressies. Nina made her annual pronouncement that this was the best birthday like ever. We rounded off the day with was was supposed to be a nice quiet movie but as it turned out, The Spiderwick Chronicles probably bruised whatever heart muscle escaped the first two activities.



Over the next few weeks we'll have to make some decisions about what kind of activities we are most interested in. As ever, the budget is limited, and we have no desire to blow it out again like we did in Australia. So if anyone out there has any opinions on which extreme Kiwi adventures we should absolutely not miss out on, then please drop a comment and let us know. I feel another poll coming on...