Dan's World Trip: February 2007

Yesterday at the Oscars, I spied with my little eye...

Will Smith and family
Eddie Murphy
Gwyneth Paltrow
Reece Witherspoon
Nicole Kidman
Jessica Biel
Penelope Cruz
Hugh Jackman
Tom Cruise
George Lucas
Kelly Osbourne
Cameron Diaz
Marie-Kate Olsen
Salma Hayek
J-Lo and Mark Anthony
Jodie Foster
Rinko Kikuchi
Mark Wahlberg

The Oscars

I'm going to the Oscars tomorrow! Pure coincedence it's on while I'm here, but how cool is that... As internet is so expensive here (and also was in Fiji) it hasn't been possible to update; I'm just going to do it when I get home so be sure to keep checking through March for this end part of my trip!

Tongariro crossing

NB: see new post below this one first!

From Taupo I did what I thought was a walk that turned out to be a trek through the Tongariro National Park. It was bound to be a disaster right from the start as I set out at 5.30 in the morning after just an hours sleep! After two hours of walking we reached the base of a volcano which is possible to climb, there were only two people doing it ahead of me - everyone else deemed it too hard. But I decided to give it a shot... I caught up with the two people by about half way where they decided it was too difficult and dangerous and turned back. This left me on my own, but I wasn't going to give up now - I was already half way, right! So I kept going, the conditions got worse, it started raining and the clouds got thicker and before I knew it I could only see 5m around me. on top of this my shoes definately weren't up to the job and were worsening in state by the minute. It got ridiculously steep, 60-70% in some parts near the top and I slipped down a couple of times. I also had to dodge a few falling rocks - I thought I was gonna die! It was much scarier than a skydive or bungy jump or anything like that because there's a real danger of falling. I eventually made it to the top, took in the smell of sulphur and made my descent back down, falling a couple of times. It took me an hour and seven minutes to get up and 25 back down and it's supposed to take 3 hours return so I was happy with that if nothing else, especially the fact that my shoes were now ripped to sheds and filled with ash and rocks and my feet covered in blisters! Pretty nackered by now I remembered the fact that I had another 15km to walk to the end of the track! It was cloudy and miserable pretty much the whole way which sucked because normally the views are some of the best in New Zealand... anyway, that was my Tongariro experience!

Queenstown to Wellington

After leaving Queenstown I made my way up to Christchurch, with a couple of stops on the way. I just stayed two nights, spending my one full day there by the river and watching buskers as part of the World Buskers Festival that was going on. Then I went up to Kaikora, a small fishing town from where I went dolphin swimming. It was the real deal, taking a boat out to sea and finding the dolphins ourselves in their natural habitat! 20 minutes or so later we spotted a pod of 40-50 dolphins, I was so excited to get to see them! But to my horror the boat didn't stop; the skipper explained that we were just passing into the beginning of a 1600m deep underwater canyon from which tons of nutrients float to the surface so we would be able to find a bigger pod. Another 5 minutes passed and sure enough we found a new pod, this time with 400-500 dusly dolphins! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. We had 5 swims with the dolphins, each time stopping the boat at the front of the pod and jumping in as they swam past. If you made noises they became curious and circled around you and swam past looking right at you. I kept diving a few metres down; when I did this the dolphins would be swimming over, under, left and right of me - it was incredible! They swim right up to you, skimming past your hands if you put them out, but generally my hands were holding down below as I was a bit concerned one of their fins might come into contact! Also one time I was taking a breather on the surface when one jumped right over me! A Japanese girl got too overwhelmed and ran out of energy and started drowning; the boat couldn't reach her in time so I had to rescue her; I kept her afloat and swam her back to the boat putting my lifeguard skills from when I was about 8 years old into practice! I'm yet to see how the underwater pictures are... After Kaikoura I went back up to Pram and stayed with my friend Tracey for another week, I spent my birthday there, we had a couple of nights out (including birthday and seeing two live Kiwi bands) and we did a whole lot of surfing :-) I'm pretty good now and can actually surf waves all the way in to the shore from out back! One of the highlights though was driving her 4x4 on the beach, reminiscent of Fraser Island! We then had the best idea ever in tying a body board to the back with a long piece of rope and driving right next to the water at 40kph while one person sat on the board and swimmed across the shallow water! It was soooo much fun and I got a nice big bruise on my bum from falling off at 45kph! After Wellington I cruised on up to Taupo from where I trekked the Tongariro National Park and went on the 'East As' bus around the East Cape...