Frozen Grass Blog 1

Thursday, January 3, 2008

New Zealand: Phase Ten - Welcome to Smelly Land

Our morning was a breakfast of shiny sunshine and icy wind, bodies all squashed into the side of the van like Alaskan Malamutes. After we had brekky we went and washed our plates in the common room. Not surprisingly those stupid idiots were still there staring. Weird. (I used much harder terms in my diary, so you have to be nice to me if you want to read it). Funnily enough - as I write this - I realise that in my previous post I wrote "While I was cooking two people..." HA HA HA! I was cooking them - no wonder they were staring...

Ahem.

Well.

Anyway, they were there again being weird in their inbred-ness. After another quick wander through town to soak in some more significant, stunning, synopses of striking structures we drove on up to the bluff above town. What is it with Kiwis cramming their houses onto cliffs? I have never seen such a wonderful, winding world of wonderous dWellings. Except for maybe in Wellington. Ok I'll stop now. Each street was tiny and curvy and each house was packed onto the next. I reckon if Tolkien went to New Zealand there would have been another race - the Wedgelings of Windycliff. They would have been responsible for thwarting the
sadly misled evil doings of the Howhards of Drylandmoresun.

After our little drive through the claustrophobic heights of Napier we headed off towards Lake 'bloody windy' Taupo. Driving there was a task as little GPS was a bit like a kite in the wind. As we are slowly drawing closer to the end of the journey I must comment on the patience, friendliness, and overall politeness of New Zealand's drivers. Australians, in particular, Canberrans, are the most obnoxious, aggressive and pathetically stupid drivers on the planet. Where is the sense in driving faster when it rains? Where is the sense in driving massively overpowered, overpriced machines around in a country where A is so far from B that it cries in loneliness and there are more ungraded, dodgey pock marked curves than Britney's backside?

Speaking of backsides, we made it to Rotorua after a quick stop at Lake Taupo (it was quick because the wind was decidedly unpleasant). Rather than going straight in to the van park we drove to the famous thermal springs. They were smelly and rather excellent. Much like Roquefort cheese, or a beer and pizza burp.

There is something about the sheer power and beauty of New Zealand. You feel like you are walking on Gaia's tickly bits - any wrong move and she will snap, bringing a fury of fire, crushing earth and death. On the left you can see one of Gaia's tickly bits.

As we walked around we kept on bumping into a lovely Pommy couple, and although their camera battery was running out they were still very happy. Good on them.

After the walk, and a number of happy, steamy snaps we drove off to one of the mud pits. It was like dinosaurs and cavemen with bubbling hot, sticky mud. I was waiting for Sam Neill to come out of nowhere. We ran into the Pommy couple again and they had managed to find a spare camera battery in their car. Good on them.

We drove onto the little van park after a brief wander around tourist town. I had a beer and we wandered down to the lake. It was steamy.

We finished our big day by doing one of those things you 'have to do' when in a tourist mecca like Rotorua; pay a fortune for an evening of entertainment and food. We both had a good time, although it was a bit quiet a tourist bus full of people failed to make it. Stupid bus. I wish I could kick its arse.

I managed to do the Haka and look like an idiot. Something I do most mornings. You will not see the video Stacey took.
This isn't me.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

New Zealand: Phase Nine - I am NOT Art Deco, so STOP LOOKING AT ME!

After a very lazy and luxurious wake up in our luxurious, plush hotel we had a luxurious shower and then lazed around in our luxurious bath robes until we went down and had a wonderfully luxurious breakfast. I have never seen such a magnificent collection of food stuffs laid out on a breakfast buffet ever. There were chocolate scrolls, luxurious cheeses, croissants, all of the bacon and eggs and stuff, weird shit that I have never seen before, and other stuff that looked impressive - like grapes. Did I mention breakfast potatoes? Yeah, I made an absolute pig of myself. Mmmmmm.

The waitresses fussed over us - they were like guardian breakfast angels. I sat down and realised there wasn't a fork on the table, and *poof* a waitress (not a poof) materialised out of thin air with a fork. I literally thought *coff* and a waitress materialised with a pot of coffee. I probably should have been more creative and thought things like *Wiggles on crack* or *Bindi Irwin in a blender*.

After our luxurious breakfast we left at a luxurious hour.

The road we took out of Wellington was a bit daunting, however thankfully it was windy but not windy. I mean the road wound its way up the range. The Minister for Road Fans must have been doing his or her job that day. The road after the mountain was typical New Zealand, lots of ovines and bovines, green and not too many fauvines (NZ isn't renowend for its art).
We stopped in at Schoc in Greytown for an incredible chocolate experience. I mean, look at those things mmmmmmmmmmm... Tequila and lime chocolate mmmmmmmm...

For lunch we stopped in at a little rest stop near Hamua, where we were kept entertained by a couple of naughty roosters. I didn't feed them anything but I did call them 'dickheads' a lot. After saying 'goodbye dickheads' to our feathered friends we drove onto the Tui brewery where I bought some merchandise.

We drove onto Dannevirke (which literally means Danes work). The town was established by the Danes because the Poms were too soft and squooshy (although they were smart because the Danes had to sort out the Maoris first). Then from Dannevirke we drove through Norsewood which literally means 'the trees are actually Norses'. Like Dannevirke the town was established by over pampered Poms and populated by Norsemen and Norsewomen. The town was filled with trolls.

We drove through Hastings, actually we made haste through there because I hate getting arrows in my eye. Get it? No? Well your knowledge of history is pretty useless then.

Finally we made it to Napier, the most Art Deco town in the world. Well probably anyway. The town was flattened on 3 February 1931 by an immense earthquake. Apparently at one point, when most of the town was on fire, the fire brigade drove to the beach to pump water in, only to find that the beach was 2 metres higher than they expected and the ocean was a good 100 metres further away than it was that morning. Walking on the beach gave me that weird 'insignificant' feeling again and I felt sick for the firemen that night. It must have been horrifying.

The upshot of all this death and destruction is the fact that the town was mostly rebuilt in the style of the day - art deco. This has to be one of my favourite arty things ever. The lines are strong and clean. Mmmmmm sexy.

We took a brief wander around the town in the darkening light and toddled off to our campsite.

Here we witnessed some unusual behaviour. Stacey and I were cooking dinner in the communal kitchen, there were a number of tables around and quite a bit of room. While I was cooking two people (clearly a couple because they were both so ugly they couldn't find anyone else) sat down opposite Stacey at our table. Fat Dickhead Number 1 (the husband) started cooking and cleaning stuff and Fat Dickhead Number 2 decided that sitting directly opposite Stacey and staring at her was the appropriate thing to do. I finished cooking, we ate. Fat Dickhead Number 2 introduced herself to us, we made small talk and then she went back to staring at us like a Fat Dickhead. WTF? Do we have two friggin heads or something? Thankfully we could eat quickly (pizza) and leave because I was very close to punching one of them in the knee...
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