Matchman's Grand (Old) Adventures

Once again I did very little homework before flying to Bali, in hindsight not a smart move. Upon arrival at the airport I was asked for a donation of 250,000 rupees, of which I had none, and in fact I didn't have any cash of any currency which caused a few problems. I had to queue up at one of the immigration counters behind the air crew, leave my passport with the guy, go through security and then get some money out at the ATM. The first one didn't work - oh dear - but the other one did and then I had to make the tricky decision of how many rupees to draw out - I hadn't even checked to see what the exchange rate was. I went for the max, one million rupees (sounds a lot), and then made my way back to join the longest queue in the world for a temporary visa. Eventually I got through, grabbed my bag, and then lost it again as a couple of guys at the security desk took it off me. But no, they weren't security at all, just randoms in shirts who carried my bag no further than 10 feet and then demanded payment. Jeez, Bali might be tough to take. I paid well over the odds for a taxi to my hotel - still no idea what the exchange rate was - but was glad to get there at just after midnight. The hotel looked okay, although my room had a funky smell to it, and after a quick stroll around the nearby main street and a trip to the supermarket I went to bed.

The weather in Bali was great for most of the time, I had about three off days and seven good ones. The rainy season starts near the end of September - during my stay - but it's a popular time at the moment and given how late I booked it I ended up in an average hotel paying a lot more than you would elsewhere. But I'm at the stage now where I don't really care and I've got a permanent eye on the trip back home, which I'm not looking forward to for more reasons than one. Anyway, in the morning I had a look on the internet and discovered that the exchange rate is about 19,000 rupees to the pound, which means that one million rupees is about £50. Ha. Therefore I paid £13 to enter the country and £5 for my taxi. For a ripoff, that's not bad.

Bali is, quite frankly, a nightmare, particularly if you're on your own. The main street runs from Kuta to Legian (I stayed in between the two) and further west, and is simply a massive run of stalls and shops with hawkers and money changers as far as the eye can see. There's no escape from them, even a simple walk to the shop over the road is like running the gauntlet and it really gets you down. Very quickly. If you look at them, you're theirs, if you don't they'll follow you down the street or grab you by the arm. And there's about three or four per stall so don't think you're getting away. If you show an interest in something then you'd probably like two of them. Or maybe ten for the price of nine? One day I was having lunch in a restaraunt and someone came up to my table, sat down next to me and started showing me some DVDs. When I ignored him he started tugging at my t-shirt. I can't explain how irritating that is, but rest assured it lasted the whole time in Bali.

The hotel seemed strange to me, not sure if it was empty but there was hardly ever anyone around and I spent most of my nights on my own, apart from a couple of nights with some Australians who were decent enough to invite me out. Not exactly an ideal way to spend the end of the trip but again I just didn't care and wanted to get the flight back (sorry, flights) out of the way. Unsurprisingly with so much time on my hands I read a lot of books and watched a lot of films in my time there, not great fun but the time went reasonably quickly and it's pretty cheap living there. The food is okay but very small portioned, you need at least three meals a day here to avoid extreme hunger (well, I do). Traffic on the main road is a problem, moped and scooter riders pay no attention to pedestrians and will often go hell-for-leather the wrong way down the street on the pathway, which can catch you out when you're innocently walking along. Oh, and the 'taksi' drivers beep at everybody to see if they want a lift 10 yards down the street. It's not for the faint-hearted.

I guess I should talk a bit about Bali and Indonesia in general. Bali is a small island resort that forms part of Indonesia, the world's biggest archipelago (collection of islands) and also home to the world's biggest muslim population - the total national population is about 260 million, of which about 220 million are muslims (Bali is a Hindhu island). It's a surprisingly big country. The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta, while the island of Java is the most populous island in the world with about 130 million people living on it. Famous Indonesians include...no-one. Unsurprisingly with so many different races and religions squeezed into lots of different islands Indonesia seems to lack a single identity and is also very dangerous in certain parts such as Sumatra. Bali is extremely popular as a holiday resort, particularly with the 'nearby' Australians, because it's cheap, sunny, most people speak English and the surf is apparently very good. You'll find Europeans here too but the Bali bombings of 2002 and 2005 were undoubtedly aimed at Australians. There's a memorial on the main Kuta-Legian street for the victims although I somehow couldn't find it on my walkabouts.

Well, apologies for the not-very-interesting finish, I am of course writing these musings retrospectively from Alton so my enthusiasm isn't as high as it once was. I might return in the future but for now this blog is closed and I've become one of them again...a normal person...like you.

Wow. September just so happens to be Singapore's hottest and most humid month, what a time to visit. The temperature and humidity don't actually vary that much - it's always hot and sticky here with a good chance of rain - but at least I know that I got it at its worst. I arrived at 5pm and after the usual faffing about at the airport I got to my hotel - a cheap little affair about 3 miles north of Orchard Road - at about 7pm and feeling pretty sleepy. My first excursion out of the hotel was to get some food, and I soon realised that my time in Singapore would be a pretty harrowing experience. I have a Lonely Planet guide and it recommended eating at Hawker Centres, big market places with lots of little stalls selling cheap food (it really is cheap - less than £2 for a meal). I ordered some beef with rice from one of the stalls, which also came with a side dish of chillies, a bowl of soup and a spoon, and of course some chopsticks.

Chopsticks really are a stupid invention. Culture? Tradition? Class? Eloquence? Forget it, they're stupid. I eat to live, not live to eat, and I just want to get it down my neck - even the best chopstick user in the world can't match me with a fork. I looked around on his stall. No forks. I asked him for a fork. Still no forks. So, I sat down, finished the soup with the spoon, uselessly pawed at my food with the chopsticks, and then grabbed the spoon and used that instead, to the horror of all the locals sat near me. Who cares - chopsticks are stupid. I usually deal with facts to back up my smugness so know this - China alone chops down 33 million trees every year for producing its chopsticks. Now try and tell me they're a great idea.

After a heavy, hot day and an early night I slept pretty well and left the hotel raring to go at 10am. Lots to do and see, my guidebook pointed out loads of things that I managed to plot in an orderly line on my map. I didn't have to wait long for a taxi - about half a nanosecond - and in no time at all I was standing outside Lucky Plaza on Orchard Road, just one of many centres in Singapore's famous shopping precinct. I had a quick look around, added an Australia-to-Singapore plug converter to bolster my impressive collection of wires and things, and then set off on my whistle-stop tour of Singapore city centre. And here's my Gordon Ramsay style description of 'Singapore in a day'...

T-shirt. Light trousers. Trainers. Backpack. Taxi. Orchard Road. Hot. Walk. Raffles Hotel. Unimpressed. Use the toilet. Leave. City Hall. St Andrew's Cathedral. Theatres on the Bay. Impressive. Merlion Statue. Weird. Sweating. Badly. Keep walking. Old Parliament House. Old Supreme Court. Grand Prix spectator stands. Fullerton Building. Grand Prix adverts. Lau Pa Sat Hawker Centre. Soup. Spoon. Done. Move. Thian Hock Keng Temple. Sri Mariamman Temple. Clarke Quay. Fort Canning Park. Dripping. Smelly. Disgusting. Keep going. National Museum. Orchard Road. Taxi. Shower. Hawker Centre. Food. Eat. Slowly. Watch football. Liverpool. Two. Man Utd. One. Bed. Done.

Sorry about that, I watched an episode of the F Word a little while ago and it was in my head. My flight to Bali was quite late in the afternoon the next day so I decided to entertain myself by visiting Little India and checking out some of the giant gold Buddha statues in the temples there. This turned out to be a very bad move as not only were the temples shut but I ended up incredibly sweaty again from all the walking. Oops. Anyway, I was fed up so I got a taxi back to my hotel, grabbed my suitcase and spent the rest of the day waiting in the air-conditioned airport, using their free wireless internet service. All in all, a much nicer experience than walking around Little India, and in fact a nicer experience than most of Singapore which I can't say really interested me very much. Plus it's far too hot and sticky. Next (and penultimate update) is from Bali...

Christchurch - Arrival

I set off from Dunedin at about 11am, once again with no idea of which way to go or indeed how long it would take; a sign saying that Christchurch was still 230km away, even after driving for quite a while, brought my spirits down a bit. I stopped for fuel in a city called Timaru, as always letting the assistant do all the work (they pretty much insist on it here, I don't know why), ate a crappy sausage roll and then began the final part of my journey. Well, I didn't make it very far - so close but no cigar, the van felt very sluggish and dark fumes were coming out of the exhaust. I decided to turn into the small town of Temuka and call the AA.

It didn't take long for him to arrive, and nor did it take him long to tell me there was petrol in the diesel tank. After towing me to a garage to get the tank drained he took his leave and I began the tricky process of working out who was going to pay for this. The garage in Timaru denied responsibility because I didn't tell the woman it needed diesel and I had parked with my cap next to the unleaded pump; my argument, which they weren't listening to, was that she didn't even ask and I couldn't have parked any further up as my van would have been blocking the exit. Well, after a lengthy moan to the rental company (Jucy - take note of that) I ended up not being refunded for the damage. So, another £100 down the drain (as if this trip hadn't been expensive enough).

To top it all off I then stayed the night in a campsite near Christchurch airport, which was by far the most expensive of the whole journey (including Australia), and had one final love-in with the van before dropping it off at the Jucy depot down the road. A quick spruce up after packing all my bits and bobs and then at the depot I anxiously waited for the guy to check the van and hoped that he wouldn't spot the dent on the driver's door that I noticed halfway through the trip and wasn't on the markings sheet. He didn't say anything about it, but in my panic I totally forgot to reclaim the £20 that I spent on the two fan heaters. Doh! And then, even more hilariously, when I arrived at my hostel I realised that I'd left my lavish £50 sleeping bag in the overhead compartment. What a plonker!

Well, all that's over now and after an insane but awesome six weeks I'm back to being a normal traveller again now, crappy hostels and public transport for me and hopefully I won't be spending quite as much money. On that note the first thing I did in my new hostel was book myself a trip to Kaikoura - whale watching, swimming with dolphins, one night's accomodation and a bus either way - which set me back another £140. The best things in life are free, eh?

I have a total of 7 nights in Christchurch, plus one in Kaikoura, so it needs to have lots to do in order to keep me entertained for all that time. Unfortunately that isn't the case and I realised before heading to Kaikoura that I'd pretty much already exhausted all that Christchurch has to offer; I was also going to miss Jamie, one of my old Oz buddies, by booking the trip when I did. On a plus note the girls from Orewa will be turning up before I fly out so they should keep me sane for a little while. Okay, roadtrip over, back to the wildlife.

Kaikoura

My bus, which was one of the least comfortable I've ever ridden on (lack of legroom isn't the word), left Christchurch at just after 7am and dropped me off in Kaikoura at 10am. After being sent in the wrong direction by the apparently friendly bus driver I eventually found my hostel - The Lazy Shag - and checked in. After a stroll through the little town and a low bite to eat at a cafe with just one member of staff doing everything it was already time for me to see some whales (fingers crossed).

Once again I'd failed to do any research and I didn't actually know what I'd be seeing, but I quickly found out that Kaikoura is home to lots of male giant sperm whales. A continental shelf has formed a very deep valley beneath the sea, creating an abundance of nutrients that rise to the surface and tempt in all manner of sea animals; the plankton and krill make it an ideal home for sperm whales.

Once again it was a choppy ride on the boat and several people were making use of the sick bags. After just five minutes of travelling out to sea one of the spotters on the top deck caught sight of something and less than a minute later we were parked up alongside our first sperm whale, admiring its...size. I was going to say beauty, but sperm whales aren't exactly the prettiest of things and are surely the ugliest of all the whales. They're the fourth largest in the whale family (the blue whale is the biggest) but are often depicted as the archetypal whale, as for example in Moby Dick, and as I'm sure you all know they have very big penises - up to an impressive 9 feet long.

We didn't get to see its member, nor its distinctively ugly head, but we did see it re-oxygenate for a few minutes (i.e. bob up and down in the water whilst periodically blowing air through its blowhole) before taking the final plunge into the sea for another hour or so. The record for these giants underwater is about two and a half hours in one breath; they are also the deepest known divers in the animal kingdom, reaching an incredible 2,500 metres below sea level. They can collapse their ribcages and their blubber keeps them warm even at those depths - apparently a human can't go any further than 150 metres without suffering massive & fatal internal injuries.

We had five whale viewings in total - three different whales as two of them resurfaced after an hour - which is a brucie bonus as most trips only get a couple of sightings, if that. But whales aren't the only creatures in the water; as well as lots of birds (seagulls, petrels and albatrosses) there are also quite a few fur seals and dolphins in the water at Kaikoura, the latter of which I'd be seeing close up in the morning (again, fingers crossed). So, fast-forward to the following day and by 9am I was sporting a fetchingly tight wet suit on a bus on the way to the boatyard. A few people at my backpackers had mentioned that there hadn't been any dolphins around for a while and that quite a few trips had been cancelled, but Encounter Kaikoura were hopeful enough to go ahead with the morning trip. It costs $130 (about £50) but you get $100 back if you don't swim with any dolphins, which seems reasonable to me.

The dolphins that you swim with are called dusky dolphins and are resident in the area all year around. It's worth remembering that these are wild animals that aren't fed or trained, hence you're in their habitat and you have to entertain them to get their attention, rather than the other way round that's usually the case when seeing dolphins. On that note we were given a briefing video before we left on how to entertain the dolphins - tricks include making noises and singing through your snorkel, swimming like a dolphin (i.e. with your arms by your side and feet together) and also diving down below the surface. The people on the demo video looked pretty stupid doing it but we were hoping to get a chance to do it anyway.

The trip started well - very well in fact, our first viewing (almost immediate) was of a shoal of Hector's dolphins, the rarest dolphin the world. Bingo! What a bonus that was, they swam about the boat for a little while and then someone realised that there were actually two shoals out there, one on either side of the boat. Apparently that's an extremely rare sighting in Kaikoura so I was happy already; we also saw several fur seals and wandering albatrosses scavenging for left-overs from the seals, and then after an hour's travelling around they announced that unless we spotted some on the way back, there'd be no dolphin swimming today. Booooo. And we didn't see any on the way back, although everyone else on the boat got a bonus by seeing a sperm whale (a bit old hat for this experienced whale watcher). So, I ended up paying $30 to cruise round on a boat for an hour and a half and see the rarest dolphins in the world, a sperm whale, fur seals and the biggest albatross of them all, the Wandering Albatross, swimming across the sea. Not bad at all when you think about it.

I still had a few hours to kill and in a small cafe I unexpectedly bumped into one of the Orewa/Whitsunday girls, Kerry, who had gone ahead of the pack with her boyfriend as he had an earlier flight than them. How random. And then on my bus back a guy to my right started talking to me and led the conversation into rugby; pretty soon I was being asked if I was an All Blacks fan, and then I realised who he was - this was the same guy who tried to sell me an All Blacks shirt way back in Auckland when I first arrived. How even more random. Remember the song 'How Bizarre' by OMC? They were from New Zealand, and of Maori descent, and the singer looked spookily similar to this guy. Crrraaaazy times.

Right, four days to waste in Christchurch before flying out - let's see if I can find anything to do.

Christchurch Reloaded

Well, I didn't find much to do in Christchurch (apart from a trip to the Banks Peninsula, above) when I got back so I'll just sum up my New Zealand experience here.

New Zealand is a country that has pretty much everything - amazing scenery, rare and accessible wildlife galore and all sorts of activities to keep everyone amused, from the most laid back of characters to extreme daredevils. If it wasn't for the harshness of the winter weather here I'd be looking to live here immediately; the standard of living here is much better than in the UK and some of the major cities have plenty going for them. It's a great place to be and well worth all the hype, whoever you are you'll love it here (if you like nice weather then you'd better come in the summertime).

I never finished my history lessons so allow me to summarise what's happened here over the centuries. Although not persecuted by Europeans in the way that Aborigines were in Australia, Maoris were generally ignored as the settlers came in and began to form townships and indeed governments. And the Maoris were happy with this until they realised that not only was their land being sucked away from them, but they as a people were also diminishing due to newfound diseases brought by the settlers. Eventually in the early 20th century a small group of Maoris started to do something about this; as more and more Maoris began to settle in the cities, away from their traditional secluded villages, they began to enter education and employment, and in some cases government. Better health awareness and cross-breeding with Europeans brought immunity to all those deadly diseases, and the Maori population finally started to rise again. And so began a new era in New Zealand with Europeans and Maori starting to form a collective society after over a century of avoiding and sometimes fighting each other - something that could never continue as Maoris owned most of the land and yet couldn't survive forever by their old methods with Pakeha dominating farming and fishing resources.

It's interesting to compare Australia and New Zealand today given the totally different methods used by the British Empire to colonise them. In Australia they sent the convicts over with some officials plus some sporadic settlers and in many cases simply murdered Aborigines on sight (and sometimes did even worse than that); in New Zealand the whole affair was, on the whole, diplomatic and land was bought from Maoris on a piece-by-piece basis. And yet the net result is two very similar nations, both now independent from Britain, speaking in similar accents with similar economies and playing pretty much the same sports. But the main difference is that Maoris are more prominent in New Zealand than Aborigines in Australia; perhaps this has something to do with the advancement of Maoris as a race at the time that colonisation occurred, or maybe it's just that they weren't victimised quite as much and were given a fairer (although not fair) crack of the whip in their own countries.

One thing that stood out for me was that in the late 19th century New Zealand sent troops for the first time to join the British Empire in the Boer War in Africa, and amazingly despite being totally ignored by the government on virtually all matters (and holding several grudges about dubiously sold land) a staggering number of Maoris volunteered for the war effort. They were rejected as apparently it would be 'unethical to pitch blacks against whites', but it says a lot about the Maoris as a race in those days - hence the justifiable name of the book and film 'Once Were Warriors'. Note that Maoris were involved in the subsequent world wars but were largely kept in their own Maori squadrons, and one Maori officer was given the Victoria Cross after standing alone with his Tommy Gun at his hip, firing at allcomers and killing many enemies, despite them hitting him with about twenty bullets, before eventually dying. Brave stuff indeed.

How about some famous New Zealanders? From the world of TV and film we have Russell Crowe, Lucy Lawless (Xena), Sam Neill and director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings of course). From the world of music we have Daniel and Natasha Bedingfield (born there), Crowded House, Bic Runga, Holly Valance (born there) and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. And finally from the world of sport and activities, non rugby playing sports people include Michael Campbell (golf), Sir Richard Hadlee (cricket, who I met in Sydney) and Sir Edmund Hillary of Everest fame (you could add lots of rugby players to this list of course). Not exactly a grand list is it - that has a lot to do with the relative age of the country and the opportunities for them to become rich or famous by staying in New Zealand (these days that's not quite so much of an issue).

And also a final word about sheep. It's not exactly a secret that New Zealand is full of them, but why? Well, the most obvious reason is that New Zealand lies on a massive fault line that pretty much runs straight up through the south and north islands - hence the southern alps, the mountainous landscapes that you see everywhere and also the amazing Taupo volcanic zone - and this renders much of the land unusable for farming and building, but ideal for grazing. But it's also got a lot to do with history; today sheep outnumber humans by a ratio of 10:1 but look back to the 19th century and you'll see that the same ratio existed (115,000 humans to 1.5 million sheep in 1858). When the settlers first came in there was no such thing as refridgeration so smaller animals were preferred for farming; wool was popular at the time and easy to export; and also cows eat about 10 times the amount of grass that sheep eat. So, a sheep culture was introduced and much of the native bush and forests were burnt down to make way for them (note that most of the grass was painstakingly hand-sewn from seed). So, that's why New Zealand has so many sheep.

And on that note, it's E Noho Ra from New Zealand...goodbye everyone.

The Catlins Forest Park

After faffing about in Invercargill for much longer than planned I eventually set off for the Catlins at about midday on Sunday and made my way along the highway, fairly uncertain of where I was actually going. You see, planning in advance hasn't been my greatest strength on this trip as I'm always either doing and seeing stuff, driving here and there or resting and sleeping. Well, a quick look at my Lonely Planet guide (whilst driving), followed by a look at the map (whilst driving), pointed me in the direction of two places - Slope Point and Curio Bay.

Slope Point is marked as the most southernly point on the south island of New Zealand - Stewart Island holds claim to the country's most southernly point - despite the intriguing shape of the map that suggests it isn't. It was a fairly long and very boggy walk through a sheep grazing field to get to it, and the little landmark lighthouse (and tacky signpost pointing to the Equator and South Pole) adds nicely to the remote feel of the place. Experience rating = adequate. Near to Slope Point is a lighthouse at Waipapa Point, built 3 years too late after New Zealand's second worst maritime disaster, the sinking of the SS Tararua in which 131 people died. Well, I was in the area so it would be rude not to have a look. But when I got there I was distracted by what I could see on the beach - closer inspection revealed three whacking great big Hooker's Sea Lions basking in the sun on the sandy beach. Jackpot!

These things are seriously impressive, no wonder they're called lions - big and intimidating with savage looking teeth. I'd read somewhere that you should keep your distance and never block their path to the sea, and standing in view of them I decided that was sage advice. I subsequently read on a sign that you should stay at least 30 metres away at all times - I was a lot closer than that but at least I tried to be careful. I moved round this way and that to get different angles of them on my camera, and then when I finally realised that they weren't about to move or do anything exciting I decided enough was enough and moved on to my next target - Curio Bay.

Curio Bay plays host to something very different - a 160 million year old fossil forest next to the sea that's only visible during low tide - and seemed well worth a visit. Some very clever people have worked out that the fossils of the logs, trees and plants date back to a time when most of the world, including New Zealand, was part of one big super continent called Gondwanaland. Amazing stuff, but as cool as that sounds it didn't really do it for me as an experience; I generally had no idea what I was standing on or looking at apart from a couple of obvious trees, the rest could have been a big pile of rocks for all I knew. I decided to take my leave, but then something unexpected happened. Again. I looked up to the top of the beach and there, staring back at me, was a penguin. And not just any penguin, as if that wouldn't be exciting enough - I could clearly make out a distinct, bright yellow band around its eyes and head. This, ladies and gentlemen, was a yellow-eyed penguin, the rarest and shyest penguin in the whole world, staring at me in the wild on a 160 million year old fossil forest with no-one else around. It's not every day that happens to you is it?

Apparently these penguins, of which just 3,000 exist, will do one of three things when faced with a perceived threat - run away or freeze on the spot. This one was obviously doing the latter so I grabbed my camera from my pocket, zoomed in as far as it would go (not very) and took a picture. I had a quick look and the picture looked okay on the screen, not blurred but pretty distant (it looks further away than it actually was), but when I looked up again I experienced the former too - it had scarpered. I've no idea where it went, presumably into the bushes at the top of the beach, but after a quick scout I decided I should leave it alone as these creatures can get very disturbed just from a long distance sighting of a living thing, let alone some nosey foreign tourist stumbling into its home.

Well, what a day it had been, I felt great and extremely smug - some great spots, lovely winter weather and then a free night's accomodation at the campsite as the office was closed when I got there. Honesty Boxes? Not in my dictionary I'm afraid. In the morning my luck didn't extend to seeing a rare Hector's Dolphin in nearby Porpoise Bay as they're only there in the summer, which is a shame; looks like dolphins will have to wait until Kaikoura. I also didn't get any luck at Cannibal Bay (no doubt named after Maoris) where I greedily went to see more sea lions, but my spirits were still high when I arrived a Nugget Point, home to all sorts of things.

At the end of Nugget Point sits a lighthouse and from there you can look down at the little nugget rocks on which many different animals live - fur seals, elephant seals and sea lions all co-exist here which is very rare; yellow-eyed and blue penguins, gannets and shags all breed there too, although I didn't see any of the aforementioned from my perch way up. Right, time to knuckle down and head off to Roaring Bay, a place dedicated to seeing wild yellow-eyed penguins.

I wanted more, more damn it, of these amazing little creatures than that one brief encounter and so I sat myself down in the lookout den - provided in an attempt to keep people hidden from the penguins so they'll actually stay in the area - and waited. And waited. I arrived at 3pm and after over an hour of excruciating boredom they began to arrive. They'd been out 'fishing' in the sea all day and seeing one finally arrive was a fantastic experience. A small black bird bodysurfing the waves straight into the centre of the beach; a bit of a delay and then up steps a beautiful little penguin. A quick shake of the body, legs and fins - and sometimes a repeat after being nailed by another wave - and then they make the long waddle up the sand to their little homes in the bushes of the hill.

I saw six in total, and they all walked back in pairs. The first one to arrive actually stood near the top of the beach waiting for the second one to arrive, and then after some comical hopping up some rocky steps they disappeared into the bush. When the next two arrived one went in the bush and the other waited outside, and a penguin log-jam began at the bush entrance. At this point I decided I'd probably seen enough - well not really but it was very cold and I'd been there for 2 hours - and so I went and stayed the night at Kaka Point, ready to move on to Dunedin the next day.

Dunedin

Much like Wellington, I really liked Dunedin due to its pleasing look and feel, laid back atmosphere and the compactness of its city centre. And there's lots to do here as well, which makes a change from most New Zealand cities - I ended up spending three nights there before heading up to Christchurch. But that's partly due to the fact that when I first arrived there in the afternoon I had a banging headache and felt terrible, totally exhausted, and ended up in a campsite having a nap. Well, that nap turned into a fairly solid sleep and I ended up very, very refreshed the next day and ready to have a really good explore.

Dunedin is gaelic for Edinburgh, so I couldn't resist checking out Lanarch Castle which was a pet hobby for one William Lanarch, a man of Scottish descent who spent most of his life in the British colonies of Australia and New Zealand in the late 19th century. He made his money through banking during the gold rush and, after checking out the views of Dunedin from the Otago Peninsula nearby, decided he wanted to live on the peninsula and build a castle to match his uncle's on the other side of the world. And so began a lavish and unnecessary project to build a castle, complete with a gun room and battlements at the top, in a quiet area of New Zealand in the peaceful year of 1871. Brilliant, I love it.

The castle was bought by the Barker family in 1967 for a low price - it was very run down by all accounts - and they set about restoring it whilst using it as their home (they're self made, they weren't rich when they bought it). And what a job they did, the gardens are spectacular and the inside is pretty much back to its original splendour. Marble sculptors from Italy, wood carvers from all over Europe and local Kauri tree carvers were all brought in by Lanarch to form the original interior, and most of it has been bought or loaned back. It really is a fascinating place, all done by a bank manager in an attempt to woo his wife-to-be and her family. Out of all the little facts about the place, I bring you this - all the family's and horse's excrement was piled up in a building at the back and converted into methane, which was then pumped through to the castle to light all the crystal chandeliers. Ingenious stuff, but I wonder what the castle smelled like inside?

In the city centre itself I went to the free art gallery, had a look at Cadbury World but didn't pay for the tour as it seems like a rip-off, and also took a look at Baldwin Street which is, according to the Guiness Book of Records, the steepest street in the world. I didn't walk up it, in fact the thought never even crossed my mind. Apparently the annual Gutbuster race sees the winner run up and down it in about 2 minutes - that's absolutely staggering, not because of the time but because there's actually people willing to do it.

Last on my list, but by no means least, was a trip to the very end of the Otago Peninsula to see a wildlife king - the Royal Albatross. Before I talk about that, allow me to point out that there are only 150 of these birds in New Zealand, it's the wrong time of the year to see them and also the wind needs to be very strong to actually see one of them in flight. So, my hopes weren't especially high, but I paid the 25 bucks for the tour anyway. Standing a metre tall with a wingspan of over 3 metres, these birds are the largest (but not heaviest) flighted birds in the animal kingdom. They can live their entire life at sea and only need land to lay their eggs, and as they're so large you tend to find their colonies on small oceanic islands such as the Falklands. And so it came to everyone's surpise when, in 1920, one of these birds flew to the Otago Peninsula and laid an egg at Tairoa Head, formerly home to a Maori village, and in the process created New Zealand's first Royal Albatross colony (and still the only accessible one on the planet). And it still baffles scientists today.

I find that fascinating - why on earth would it leave its colony and fly god knows how many miles to lay its egg somewhere completely new? Presumably its old home had been affected in some way but how would it know to come here? And that the land it chose was exposed to the 'Roaring Forties', a channel of high wind between 40 and 50 degrees south in latitude? Remarkable, they blatantly have some kind of inner GPS that we don't have. Speaking of GPS, all the albatrosses at the colony are tagged and monitored wherever they go. One was recently tracked all the way on an incredible journey to...Chile, over 6,000 miles away with nothing but water inbetween. And they've no idea why it went there. I never expected these birds to be so interesting - other facts include their triple-jointed wings (for easier folding up), their ability to dislocate their jaws like a snake and also their amazing weight - chicks weight more than adults and can reach the heady heights of almost 10 kilos, which is very heavy for a bird.

Most of the tour was spent at the top of the hill in the lookout room where they provide binoculars for everyone and also have live TV screens with those self-controlled cameras that are great fun to use. In view were two chicks that every now and again would flap their wings in an attempt to take off - as it happened, the wind was very strong that day. Once again my camera was utterly useless on the zoom front but fortunately some American guy had brought his own telescope and tripod and I didn't need a second invitation to take some pictures through it (it worked surprisingly well). He was hilarious, really getting into it and at one point I thought he was going to have an orgasm - 'Oh yeah...oh my god...oh, that's amazing' in a slow, whispered voice. I think he enjoyed the experience.

I enjoyed it too, another new thing ticked off the list (I don't actually have a list by the way) and some good luck in actually seeing the birds - an adult flew/glided into view at one point. My wildlife experience has certainly been much better than my weather experience here. Well, I'm pretty much done here but before I get to Christchurch I have to spruce up the van and give it back to Jucy. No rest for the wicked...

Invercargill

Okay, Fiordland is done with now and for those with no interest in that sort of thing I apologise and promise to tell a few smutty jokes later. But things aren't about to get any better for those people - the majority of the remainder of my trip is all about wildlife.

Although New Zealand has an incredible variety of animals to witness (kiwis, dolphins, seals, whales, sea lions, albatrosses, gannets, penguins and so on), it doesn't have that many indigenous species to boast of. Australia has all sorts of remarkable things like kangaroos, wombats and koalas, as well as all sorts of incredibly dangerous things, but New Zealand has...the kiwi, a virtually blind small chicken sized bird with a long beak that eats worms. For a national icon, it's a bit rubbish. But why?

Well, for once the Maoris are partly to blame for this. The Moa, at the time the biggest bird in the world (flightless of course), were hunted to extinction by Maoris, which isn't surprising seeing as they were usually about 3 metres high and would feed a small army. And seeing as Maoris didn't have the weapons to hunt quicker animals and birds that could fly, you can hardly blame them for going for the easy kill.

But the main problem for New Zealand's wildlife were of course the Pakeha when they started arriving. Not just Europeans though, Australians were guilty too. The introduction of new plants and animals such as rabbits, mice, rats, weasels, possums and stoats, as well as the destruction of habitat (such as burning down entire forests for sheep grazing) had a devastating effect. A classic example occurred on Stephens Island in 1894. The government built a lighthouse and employed a keeper; he in turn brought with him a cat to keep him company. In little more than a year that one cat single-handedly wiped out an entire species of bird called the Stephens Island Wren (this is disputed by some but it definitely killed most of them).

Stories like that can be found all over the country - not quite as good as some of the extraordinary tales from Australia, like the guy who bought the last two living specimens of a species (hamster or something like that) at an auction and then ate them when he got hungry later on - but damning all the same. Many of the animals in New Zealand now are good examples of two wrongs not making a right, such as possums and stoats being introduced to catch introduced rabbits and rats (swallowed a fly etc). But why would they bother hunting for fleet-footed animals like rabbits when they can just eat defenseless native animals with no natural predators? By the way I'm not ranting, just explaining.

Stewart Island is my next port of call - a spot of walking and bird-watching for this non-walker and non-bird-watcher. After that I'm going to check out the Catlins Forest Park to have a look at sea lions and rare yellow-eyed penguins (hopefully), then albatrosses near Dunedin and then with any luck whales and dolphins in Kaikoura.

Ah, but this entry is about Invercargill isn't it. Well, it's a nice place but really not worthy of more than a few sentences. It acts as a base for trips to Stewart Island, so let's get out of here and look at some birds.

Stewart Island

When Captain Cook found Stewart Island he sailed round most of it and somehow decided it was attached to the south island, naming it South Cape in the process. The fact that the ferry crossing takes an hour at a good pace tells you that it was a pretty big boo-boo for a great explorer; it was renamed when William Stewart, a fur sealer, sailed right round the island and mapped its coast and many small surrounding islands.

Stewart Island is well known, amongst New Zealanders anyway, as a bird sanctuary. An aggressive vermin control scheme is in place and on the small but beautiful Ulva Island nearby they've eradicated them completely. In fact, Ulva Island is one of the prime locations in the world for relocating endangered species of birds - they're introducing a rare type of parakeet there soon and people from the States and Japan have already booked themselves in a year in advance to go and have a look. The world of bird watching is very active it would seem. It's also reknowned as a walking and tramping haven, but don't worry I won't be doing much of that - I booked a ferry in the morning with one nights accomodation, followed by a ferry back the following afternoon. Just a whistle-stop visit.

My ferry was pretty much empty but naturally the only kid on it came and sat right behind me - they're drawn to me you see - and her mum played High School Musical 2 on a DVD player at an amazingly high volume, which annoyed me immensely. But it's for a kid so it's okay to irritate everyone on board, whereas if I had my iPod on, even at a quiet volume, I'd get warned and then thrown overboard. It was only for an hour though, a bit choppy in places even though it was a calm day. Stewart Island is quite large but the township in Halfmoon Bay is really quite small, so in no time at all I arrived at my backpackers to find my worst nightmare...a school trip from near Invercargill had come over and decided that out of all the accomodation options in Stewart Island, my backpackers was the best place for them to run amock. They were all in the kitchen - about 30 primary school kids and 10 adults. Give me a break! All the kitchen equipment was in use or piled up for washing up, and the kids were running around and screaming like mad while the adults just sat about and left them to it, all of which helped me make the decision to get out of there pronto and go and see some stuff. I quickly went down to the visitor information centre near the wharf and booked myself a water taxi to Ulva Island.

There are about 5 forest walking tracks on Ulva Island but they all join up and make a kind of figure of eight, so you can do them all without duplication in less than 3 hours. I randomly selected one to start with and in no time at all I found myself trying to tiptoe along the gravel track to get a decent picture of a rare bird - a South Island Saddleback according to my guide book - and quickly realised that this was going to be a frustrating day, for three reasons. Firstly, the birds in the forest can see you long before you see them and they'll fly away before you can get close. Secondly, the gravel track is very noisy to walk on so there's really no chance of sneaking up on one. And thirdly, my camera is in possession of surely the worst zoom in the digital camera world - it's fully encased (due to it being waterproof) and so the zoom can't come out of it, giving me a 3x optical zoom which is basically rubbish so I can't take pictures of things from a long way away.

As well as the Saddleback I also saw the following birds - Stewart Island Wekas, Tomtits, Oystercatchers, Kakas, New Zealand Parakeets and also a few New Zealand Wood Pigeons, the second largest pigeons in the world and boy are they noisy in flight, if one of them takes off nearby without you knowing they're there then you're in for a fright. I lost count of the number of times I'd hear a flapping noise behind me and turn round to see nothing there; despite having no predators and seeing human visitors regularly, these birds are extremely shy and retiring. Except for the singing of course, very soothing and according to my guide is mostly down to the Kakas and Parakeets.

The only bird that wasn't difficult to see was the Stewart Island Weka, which you can find in the forest and on the beaches. In fact I found one of them stalking me on one beach - I walked away from it, looked back and saw it running after me, but when it noticed me looking it stopped running and pretended that it wasn't following me by strolling off to the left. Then when I walked off again and looked back it was still running after me, and again it stopped when it saw me looking. Spooky.

Apparently there are roughly 40 Kiwis on Ulva Island (over 10,000 on Stewart Island as a whole) but these are rarely seen, and unsurprisingly me of little stealth when it comes to walking didn't spot one (I ended up on my backside quite a few times as parts of the track are very slippy). The Kiwis on Stewart Island are unusual in that they're often active in the day - usually they're purely nocturnal - which is why it's a good place to come to spot one. Despite being virtually blind they're masters at not being seen - they blend into the nearby shrubs quite nicely and also build their underground nests several weeks before entering them, to make sure they're camouflaged from day one. Apparently if you see a Kiwi scavenging for worms the best thing to do is stand completely still - it won't hear you and since it's eyesight is so bad it'll usually just walk straight into you.

I actually really enjoyed my time on Ulva Island, it was certainly something different and it's a shame that more people don't come here - the travel dude in Auckland didn't put it on his list (probably a standard backpacker's list). They're probably put off by the tag of 'bird-watching' which implies lots of anoraked people with binoculars, but you don't have to be into it to enjoy this place. To finish off my visit I took a stroll around Halfmoon Bay (after avoiding the school all night and watching South Park episodes with some very smelly Germans), and at 2pm jumped on my ferry. And guess who was on it? Yep, that's right, the school trip. No worries though, it was horribly rough and most of them were throwing up all over each other - true story - and I really enjoyed it. A word to people who don't like choppy boat journeys - don't go to Stewart Island, apparently it's like that most of the time.

I picked up my van from Bluff, which must be one of the windiest places on the planet (second only to the wind tunnel at the HBOS Aylesbury offices on the way into town), and headed back to Invercargill for the night, followed by a quiet day of strolling around in lovely blue skies (a bit cold though), window-shopping and some pretty lengthy internet time.