Brief Post Kepler Tramp Blog

What is a tramp?? Good question.  Our definition; walking for more than one day carrying all eating, sleeping and bedding goods where at night time you stay in a 'hut' with a multitude of other people who cook their food the same time as yours and you sleep in bunks (one of a multitude as well)!!

It has been an experience.  One I will not write in great depths about but we have had a wonderful time but we've also had a wonderful time getting back, having our first shower in 3 days and not having to carry a pack.

I reveal to you some of the wonderful sights we have seen on this walk, most worthwhile!!!

Wonderful wildlife (including some strange Lichins that hang off trees)- here's a pretty Robin.

 Beautiful lakes surrounding the walk.

A lot of up hill walking....










The longest ridge in the world to walk along...

BIG mountains around us!!!

South of the south Island

It's a brief blog to keep you up to speed with our progress; it has been significant- here is a map to prove it.  Things have sped up since last dropping a line to you kind individuals who read our blog due to our realization of time; I want to do two 3-4 day walks out in the out back of the south country and we always planned to stay a week in the Fiordlands; basically 'Lord of the Rings Country', my sister Diana is due to arrive on the 30th therefore time is actually pretty tight so we've travelled some pretty long distances, seen some lovely things but moved pretty quickly.  We agreed today that we would actually spend some relaxed holiday time at some point.  In addition we can't live like kings and queens therefore have some pretty tight budget requirements to live to as well, which means time in the van and all food cooked there as well; we've managed it so far!

Saying all the negative stuff early is great because it allows only positive messages to follow...  Right, from our rainy but relaxing day in Hampden we headed further south through Dunedin where we have committed ourselves to a massive Tramp (New Zealand for long walk) over 4 days in which we'll carry all food stuffs, stay in cabins en route and cover around 60Km through some of the most breathtaking countryside of the Fiordlands, tomorrow we'll be setting off.  We're booked in with the DOC (department of conservation) but we're meant to let others know where we're going; basically reverse on the Kepler Track; day one at Moturua Hut, day two at the Iris Burn Hut and Day 3 at the Luxmore Hut, so if you don't hear from us soon after the 23rd/24th with some great news you may start to worry.  Don't worry we'll also let someone know here......

In between Dunedin and here we've explored the Catlins; a wonderful almost welsh looking landscape (with the sheep to match!) which had the coastline of an estuary rich Cornwall- here's a few photos.  We saw the most wonderful blow hole, a plethera of seals (I've been continuing my beach running in the morning and it's just fantastic to run past these beasts), a very disappointing fossilized forest on the waters edge and some fantastic boulders.  It is simply a wonderful landscape here.

After an evening of driving the rest of the coast and seeing probably one of the most beautiful bits of coastline I've ever seen we stayed in a free camp site next to a random lake in the forest.  Beautiful but breakfast was accompanied by a million sandflies (that do drink your blood!!!) and a quick journey out of there (it's funny but I'm definitely more sensitive to flies irritation than Cath, surprising I know!!)  Already after arriving in Te Anau we have been to the most spectacular cave you'll ever see filled full of glow worms (and yes it was dark so they were amazing!).  Now we are fully prepared for our long walk which is gonna be brill!!!

ps.  A picture of us enjoying St Patrick's day together in Fran the Van (named now!!!)

Crikey, what an Adventure- on to New Zealand now!

My word the Austalian zoo was an experience, but an expensive one (at $58 a ticket- 40 pound; probably making it one of the most expensive zoos in the world)!  A weird tribute to Steve Irwin and family which contained all the wildlife in Australia we hadn't seen in the bush; Koalas, Kangaroos, Echidnas, Snakes, Crocs, Emus, Casawaries, Camels, Wallabies, Wombats and tonnes of birds (including Zebra finches).

We saw one of the keepers feed a pig's head to one of the crocs- proper crunch, crunch under microphone!  We raced back for some Ozzy comedy at the Brisbane comedy festival which completed our punultimate day in Oz.  Our last day we spend the day at the Gold coast failing to swim against the strong currents, eating an Ozzy version of fish and chips (something which is meant to be one of their best food stuffs down there- thieving copy cats (justified by the fact they also have towns named Ipswich, Holland Park and Southport!)) and headed back for a BBQ at Ben's with all of his friends, it was a great last day and night.

I woke up early the next day with a feeling of incredible excitement about going to New Zealand; the land of 'Lord of the Rings' which is said to be the most beautiful country in the world with great people, I was very excited.  We'd made plans to stay in New Brighton on the outskirts of Christchurch and dropped a line to Christine and Paul (Cath's Mum and Dads' mates) that we'd try and see them in Christchurch in a few weeks on our return from the south of the south island.  We stopped by the 21st Century Art Exhibition before getting to the airport.

New Zealand wecomed us into the country with a complimentary opening of the bags and spraying of boots (to stop any nasties getting in) and a flight which didn't feed us anthing.  After being the last through customs (at 11:30pm) I walked through to see two people holding a sign 'Mr and Mrs Beckett', I thought to myself 'well that B & B is awfully nice coming to pick us up, transport can't be good in Christchurch' but when they started speaking in a Northern Irish accent I thought something was up.  Cath was quick to spot it was Christine and Paul; they'd come all the way to the airport to tell us New Brighton was one of the areas worst hit by the earthquake- OOOPS!!!!  As conscientious travellers we insisted on going there (even though accommodation was offered) and arrived to find an old gent who'd stayed up to welcome us in.  Well it turned out we had indeed come to one of the worst hit areas but the Pier Lodge was in good working order- and a great place it is too!!!

We headed into town as we had one day to kill before getting the camper and had a look at the devastation of the earthquakes.  Houses leaning, portaloos on every street, beaches unswimmable and a centre cordonned off by the army- nowhere to eat near the centre apart from MacDonalds.  There's 30 billion dollars (around 14 billion pounds) of work to do there.  That evening we spoke to Lyn and Venn, our hosts at the Pier Lodge, who told us their stories.  Venn had lost his house and was nearly crushed in a bus when the second earthquake hit!  Thoughout the day there were smaller earthquakes (around 20 recorded each day since) and we had the news reported to us of Japan's earthquake and tsunami.  Warnings were out about tidal waves hitting NZ, we thought best to avoid the coast on our next stop!!

We picked our camper up the next day- joy!!! We headed straight for Lake Tekapo (well recommended), a great glacial in-land lake.  I swam a little in the milky blue sedemented water (from the glacier) before we engaged in the delights of cooking and sleeping in the 'Green Beast' (still yet to be named!).  It's an absolute beauty- fridge, cooker, sink, two double beds, DVD player and great stereo (we have the right link up cables for ipods thanks to Ben!). 
We slept well and got up late before a 4 hour walk and subsequent journey to our next destination; lake Alexandrina (just around the corner).  Really peaceful place on a pristine national park lake.  We sat watching ducks for an hour before meeting a great couple; Helen and Brian.  Before long I was going out fishing with Brian that night and we coming around to their cabin for dinner; Wecome to New Zealand!!!  We caught nothing but there were great views of the sunset over the lake and I had great chats with Brian.  Supper was lovely and the next day started with an early wake up call from Brian beckoning me for more fishing; I thought 'why not, sunrise this time!!', we caught nothing but it was wonderful.  After catching a shower at theirs they insisted on giving us a Salmon (yum!) before we went on our way (Brian also continually invited me to come sea fishing at their other house; unfortunately not en route).

We've in awe of New Zealand and falling in love quickly; great people, beautiful scenery and manageable almost British weather; it's the end of summer here.  We currently reside in Hampden on the beach where we are sitting inside whilst it rains; it feels like home!!! 




PS - popped out to see yellow-eyed penguins (rarest penguin breed in the world apparently, only 500 pairs left...it's feather-shedding time of year), here's our best pic:

Aussie adventures

After leaving Perth last Monday we had an afternoon and evening in Darwin.  Sad to say we didn't think much of it -it reminded me of Gran Canaria, when i went there aged 18, just lots of tacky bars and nowhere nice to eat and no interesting sights (took ages to find the Darwin Cathedral as it turns out to be a tiny chapel... and we eventually found out that the town is named after Charles Darwin because it was 'discovered' by a chap called Wickham - I think - who once sailed with Darwin on an exploratory voyage).  You can't swim in the sea there because they have deadly box jellyfish so they have an artificial lagoon thingie instead.  It's very artificial though so not much fun.  On seeing a sign for the local deckchair cinema we thought a reprieve was on the cards, but it was closed for rainy season.  Typical.

Thankfully we only stayed overnight and headed off to the Ghan train in the morning which was 24 hours from Wed morning to Thurs morning (really good fun, although I suspect Poirot would have opted for the platinum service sleeper cabins, while we were in the cheapie red seated section!).  The train was massive, although not it's maximum size, and we had a few hours stop in Katherine, so we took a bus over to the Katherine gorge national park and walked up to the viewing point over the river - beautiful, despite the massively high humidity level!  


When the train arrived in Alice Springs we decided not to stay in the town itself - not a very inviting place, at the moment renowned for the antisocial behaviour of many of the local aboriginal people.  They have been given pots of money by the Australian government (who feel guilty about killing lots of their ancestors when they stole the country from them, so have given them back ownership of a lot of central Oz, and now re-lease bits back for towns, airports, etc.) but as a result they are rolling in it and many of them spend most of their time lounging around under trees getting drunk all day and vandalising shops and public spaces at night.  Not very nice.  The local community have brought in some strict alcohol sales controls and are trying to improve school attendance (since drunken parents don't really care whether their children bother to go) - all a bit of a mess and very sad.  


Anyway, we hired a car instead and some camping gear - it's over 400km from Alice to Ayers Rock, so not exactly an easy day-trip, so we went for a road trip instead.  After having to change the car because the first one stopped working almost immediately (the replacement was a big 4x4 which was pretty good for outback driving) we made it down to Yulara on Thursday night - it's the only authorised stopping place within the aboriginal-owned national park that Ayers Rock stands in.  The camping kit was swags instead of a tent - an interesting Australian idea, they are basically like have a Barbour jacket material sleeping bag with a little padded matress in it that you put your normal sleeping bag inside.  Trouble for me was that this lovely way of sleeping under the stars also means sleeping with the local rodents, spiders, insects, etc. free to run across you and try to share your bed.  I had a very sleepless night!  Woke Tom several times with my flailing around and yelling about the wildlife.  Shame.


On the upside, for once in my life I was happy to get up before sunrise, and we made the drive to Ayers Rock to watch the sunrise there.  It was beautiful.  Really amazing - I am so glad to have visited.  We walked all around the base of the rock (about 12km) before a picnic breakfast at the visitors centre (Nan would be proud - a very pretty backdrop!).  The downside was that they had swarms of flies there, constantly dive bombing our faces (weirdly even when eating they were more interested in our eyes and ears then our food) which was quite annoying.  


Next we wanted to head to King's Canyon (another 400km) so another day of driving to get to King's Canyon Resort before dark (again, the authorised staying place in the national park there - all of these places have cheap-ish camping spots, and really expensive hotels to choose from).  This site was nice and we fitted in a swim before making carbonara on our primus stove.  That night our camp was invaded by a dingo (wild dog) who eventually gave up when he couldn't get to our food.  I slept in the car, Tom was brave and stayed outside.  I had a much better sleep that night!  On Saturday we went for a walk around the rim of King's Canyon.  Having initially been not very impressed by its size our attitudes totally changed as we trekked around.  It was beautiful red rock again and a fabulous space, with a creek and plenty of vegetation in the bottom.  When we got all the way to the top end of the canyon we found the 'Garden of Eden' section which had a really gorgeous swimming hole, surrounded by huge rock walls and warmed by the sun, bliss (really glad i learned to swim!!).  


After the canyon walk we made our way back to Alice Springs via the Mereenie Loop (a 'road' which is not surfaced, so only passable because we had the 4x4 - a bumpy ride, but much shorter way back which was fab as the distances here are incredible, and very monotonous to drive, with the red dust everywhere and a surprising amount of greenish scrub vegetation around too, nice view though).  That night we retreated to a cabin at the local campsite.  Don't think we'll be rushing into another swag weekend!  

Sunday we flew out to Brisbane, which is back on the coast - hooray!  Ben, my friend from LMH days, came to meet us at the airport and brought us back to their flat in Taringa.  Sadly Tilly his wife isn't here as she is on a 3 month secondment with her engineering firm in Singapore.  But Ben's sister Hannah is here for a few months working during her own travels so it's nice to see her, and Hamish who is a fellow post-Oxford Chemist we met last time Ben and Tilly were home and visited us.  Ben made (from scratch) a fabulous ragu and fresh gnocchi for dinner, with apple crumble afters - wonderful to be back in a homely place, especially one with amazing food!  Yesterday Tom and I spent some time planning for New Zealand - altered our bookings so that we are not now spending time in Christchurch, which seems more sensible.  

In the afternoon yesterday we went exploring Brisbane, having a good walk around.  It's a really lovely city, and remarkably free of visible flood damage already, although the botanic gardens were only half open as they are fixing things up there, and a few other places by the river were the same.  It's really impressive though.  On recommendation from Hannah and Hamish we headed to the Modern Art Museum where they have all kinds of mad installations.  One of them is a huge table full of all shapes and sizes of white lego blocks.  There are a series of amazing buildings made from the white lego already there and the idea is that anyone can add another.  This distracted us for so long that the museum was then shutting so we missed loads of the rest of it (my contribution was a totally symmetrical cottage, apart from the chimney stack on the top, proving that nothing can be perfect, or somesuch, am thinking about Turner prize entry when we get home...Tom produced a rather impressive elephant, what a team!).  Last night we headed out for dinner - a steak place where the meat was fabulous.  


Anyway, must go as today we are picking up a car and heading up to the Australia Zoo - apparently a homage to Steve Erwin, ex-crocodile hunter extraordinaire.  Tonight we're thinking of heading to one of the Brisbane comedy festival shows in town.  Tomorrow it's the gold coast in search of a beach and maybe a water park, then Ben is hosting a big BBQ back here so will get back in time to contribute a sticky toffee pudding, and Tom is thinking maybe we should do some Pimms too.  All good.  

Bye bye Nepal, hello Australia (and India, and Singapore)

Dear Blog readers; we have moved on!!  We've been in Australia since Sunday and since we've been having such a great time we've neglected you, our dedicated followers.  Our hearts go out to you from this 35 degree climate next to the sea!!!

Leaving Nepal was sad.  After seeing Chitwan and travelling amongst these great people and even putting up again with the hustle and bustle of Kathmandu we were sad to leave.  I have felt such a great deal of respect for the Nepali people, as they say 'the people are great but the government is useless'- I entirely agree; they have been so warm to us, considerate, helpful, smiling, giving (when they have nothing) and demonstrate the strength and most positive aspects of human beings; something you don't see a great deal of in the west (apologies to anyone who feels they have much better people around them and therefore disagrees).

Our travel back to Kathmandu saw another monumental bus ride which took 7 hours.  Catherine turned to me at the end and said 'it look loads longer than they said'. I reckon we have been due for a long one as all the rest of the bus journeys turned out to be an hour or so shorter than publicised.  It was fairly pleasant in terms of the bumpiness of the road but there was the maddest driver who decided to overtake everything en route around hairpin and blind corners; it was pretty terrifying especially since we saw one 'tourist' bus crashed on the side of the road.  Unlike the UK this doesn't make drivers slow down...  Anyway, we got back in one peice and got the welcome to Kathmandu we could expect; loads of touts wanting money out of worn out tourists.  I am proud to say we were the only ones who resisted their efforts even though what they were offering, a taxi ride, was of great appeal.  Catherine got the bit between her teeth on this one and told them over and over again we didn't want what they wanted and were going to walk- that we did carrying 40Kgs between us in the heat.  I've done this before many a time whilst being in that position; the only thing you realise is, you don't know where you're going!!  I asked the taxi drivers which way Thamel was- the tourist area we were heading for; they gave us mixed answers showing they were lieing and therefore we headed off in one direction with one thing in mind; to avoid giving anymore touts what they wanted.  Well, we headed the wrong direction but finally got into Thamel- the main tourist area of Kathmandu.  With back packs on our back and sweat on our brow we were like an advert to locals - 'COME AND SELL US A HOTEL ROOM!!!', more touts later and a little bit more of a walk we got to 'The Sacred Valley Inn' Kathmandu.  I bartered hard and we got a discounted hotel room for a price I won't disclose as they had a good fellow on the front desk.

We had a very relaxed time in Kathmandu; two days of seeing friends we'd met on the way, eating nice food and generally organising ourself for leaving.  We went to the 'Garden of Dreams', the only chilled out spot in Kathmandu - highly recommended - the ancient Kathmandu Durbar Square, and caught up with Philip who arrived the day before we left.  We had a great dinner with Deborah and Philip and Luke (friend of theirs from Bangor who had come out to do electician work on a hospital Nepalis were building) as well as Deborah's brother Paul (their next visitor), on Friday night before our departure on Saturday.  We were given great advice by Philip and Deborah to get to the airport three hours before departure.  We were given a surprise lift from our relatives in the morning and broached Kathmandu airport.  7 scans, frisks, opening of bags, filling in of forms whilst going between one queue and another, three hours later we got to our final frisk which was actually just before we got on the plane- they were even opening up bags!  It was an experience of true disorganised, overly enthusiastic security which emphasised the ease of breaking through it by the ineptitude of the staff conducting searches.

Mumbai arrival was good and so was the flight- we are getting good at sitting on flights and watching films; 127 hours was pretty traumatic when you're sat on a plane eating a curry and watching a man cut his arm off!!!  Hit up Mumbai without a clue where we were staying, sorted quickly near the airport and headed in a taxi into Colaba- the tourist district.  It was clearly wedding season with overly decorated stainless steel horse drawn carriages adorning every corner with bright lights in central Mumbai.  Cath was quite taken with the place; a step back in terms of craziness and there was the Indian service to be experienced.  Both with slightly dodgy stomachs we dined in Leopolds- the infamous cafe from Shantaram - and relaxed by walking along Baju beach; it was a pretty idillic spot for the stop we had after the first of three flights each being 5 hours each.

Next day to Singapore; uneventful flight with another film covered and another curry served- Cath is now pretty tired of Curry!!!  We walked into the most civilised airport we've seen yet and had an $8 icecream each.  Short stop before hitting up our flight to Perth- our last push in terms of travel- we were knackered and less entertained by the 'Quantas experience'. 

  

On arrival in Perth we were welcomed by Drew (my mate from Uni who had holiday for a week to join us) and a dutiful cousin, Rachel, who welcomed us into the land of my relatives by picking us up at no less than 1:30am in the morning.  We were happily delivered to Julia Malet (my auntie)'s flat by Rachel who demonstrated a high level of tolerance for boys beating each other up in the back of the car whilst maintaining a conversation with Cath, a real skill I think that can only be demonstrated by a mother of 4!  We retired into the heat of Oz and Perth happily.

The next few days have been a combination of swimming and catching up with family.  We've seen Mary Jane Pickering (my other Aunt), CEM and Rachel as well as Tabitha, Matilda, Eloisa and Arabella (their children- who gave us a rendition of 'be my guest' from Beauty and the Beast when we went over for dinner) as well as Ben and Jen.  It's been a delightful chance to see our family in Perth whilst having the opportunity to swim in crystal clear water and enjoy pleasantly warm evenings.

After two nights in Perth we have come to see Harry and Julia in Gracetown (my uncle and aunt), a beautiful coastal town in Margaret River, famed for wine and surfing.  With a surf board attached to our roof (kindly lent by Ben) we arrived after stocking up with some beers and wine (one Perth evening saw Drew and I getting back after seeing relatives and going for a long walk looking for a bar but failing horribly!) 3 and a half hours later.  We settled in, went for a swim in this lovely bay and discussed our activities for the next few days; they included going out on the boat fishing, snorkelling and fishing for abalony, going to a Winery, playing bridge and having evenings in which we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.  Harry and Julia have looked after us very well indeed!!  We've done everything we wanted to in this fantastic climate of Gracetown; a gentle wind, clear skies, turquoise water, 30 degrees temperature and joyous company.

Our funniest moments have included: Trying to pull the plug out of the bottom of the sea (an anchor that looks like a plug under a pontoon) and getting a photo of it- although now unable to figure out why blog insists on showing it sideways and will not flip it round..  A wine tasting session that included 3 wineries in which we tried pretty much everything in the place but only walked away with 4 bottles.  Evenings of long walks and talking with Drew whilst looking at the stars.  Being taught to play bridge by a master (Julia) and delivering just about adequate ability.  Enjoying endless conversations with our Aunt and Uncle overlooking one of the most beautiful bays in the world I've/we've ever been to.  Eating fantastic seafood and simply enjoying life (oh, and Cath had her first ever swim in the sea!).

At the weekend we returned to Perth for a BBQ with the family there (special thanks to Ben and Jen for hosting a lovely evening) - we had a ball.  It was great to catch up with Sam and Cynthia as well on Monday before leaving Perth.  This morning we flew to Darwin and tomorrow are off to Alice Springs on the world-famous Ghan railway.  It's fair to say we've retired ourselves to the slow life of Oz which is a refreshing change to the hecticness and physical strain of Nepal!!!