EastAs - Blogabond

Tatapouri, New Zealand

Before I stopped my travels for a year in order to attempt a Normal Life in Auckland I decided I should probably get a backpacker bus to somewhere or other, just to say I'd done it. I'd been on the road for nearly three years and I'd never set foot on a Oz, FeeJee or Kiwi Experience bus, also known as the Big Green Fuck Bus. Um... on account of the fact backpackers get pissed and shag a lot... Clearly I'm doing something wrong.

Aaaanyway, I figured I'd get more out of the East Cape with someone to take me places and show me stuff so I booked Kiwi Experience's East As 4 day pass and duly rocked up to the iSite in Rotorua to wait for my bus and whilst its not actually overly big and there wouldn't be much fucking its most definately green. That'd do for me. I'm getting old now y'know.

The East As Bus

The coolest thing about these buses is that you can have everything planned for you if thats what you want and after a two month action packed tourist whirlwind it was exactly what I wanted, you're given a list of activites and accomodation and all you have to do it put a tick by what you want and the driver will book it all for you. A mate of mine had told me not to expect to much adventure round the East Cape either, I was looking forward to a relaxing, stress free little jaunt around the coast.

The first overnight stop was Tatapouri, not too far from Gisborne. On the way, Renz, our driver told us all about how this stretch of coastline was home to some of the best surfers around, she told us that around here they had some of the best breaks in the country as the waves lapped gently on the shore. Not the best example of extreme surfing action but hey, this was the east coast, its all about the chill out, right?

We stayed at a place whos name a forget but for a small fee they can keep you entertained by way of shark cage diving and stingray feeding and they'll arrange surfing or rock sliding trips for you. Shark cage diving was out on account of my dwindling budget but we donned some sexy waders and walked out onto the reef at low tide armed with buckets of fish to interfere with the natural order of things and feed us some stingrays.

Stingray Feeding

And Stingray Mauling

This is so fucking cool! Seriously, they come right up to you for a feed, you have to hold the fish down and kind of under them and they suck it up like a vacuum cleaner and some of these rays are huge. They come up for a pat as well, even if they don't want fish they'll still come up so you can stroke them and I now want one as a pet, I figure I could keep it in the shower. There was a large, pregnant one too, she was massive and she kept knocking into me and nearly taking my feet out from under me. I swear the bitch had it in for me.

Later on, after an awesome feed we chilled out and drank some wine and generally got to know each other. There were 8 of us plus the driver, just a small group which I like, not least coz I stand more of a chance remembering everyones names.

Tatapouri

No mean feat when there's a cask on wine on hand.

written by

Koala Bear on March 2, 2009 from Tatapouri, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt, NorthIsland and EastAs

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Rangitukia, New Zealand

The east cape of New Zealand is one of the first places in the world to see the sunrise so we dragged ourselves out of bed in the dark and shuffled (and shuffling is the only form of movement possible at that hour in the morning before you've had you tea) over to the beach to be some of the first to witness the new day. I've seen many sunrises but that's usually because I'm still up, not just up. It's not much of a different experience this way round, everyones just as bleary eyed and there's a similar amount of slurring and drooling as people fight to gain control of their basic motor funtions.

Here's the thing about watching the sunrise an all, it's really really pretty but you can't fucking look at it unless you want a series of half suns floating around your vision for 20 minutes.

Sunrise Over Tatapouri

Once the early morning Becoming Human process was complete we were picked up by a small Brazilian man called Leo who drove us out to a natural rockslide on the other side of Gisbourne. He'll kit you out in a wetsuit, hand you something vaguely resembling a body board with handles and you get to spend the morning throwing yourself down this slope covered in algae with water running down it. It's fucking awesome! You can steer it down by putting your hands in the water to keep it straight and when you hit the bottom you bounce but you really have to make sure your tongue is well out of the way of your teeth.

Rock Sliding

How Many Backpackers Does It Take To Start A Van?

We entertained ourselves with a few races watched by a rather bewildered looking sheep before heading back to the bus and spending half an hour trying to bump start it. Apparently this is a regular thing yet still it doesn't occur to him to invest in jump leads. Or, and here's a crazy idea, a new battery.

Once we were delivered safely back to Renz we meandered towards Rangitukia via the longest jetty in NZ. Yeah yeah, I took a photo but it's not as long as the one in Bussleton, WA, and to be fair, how many photos of jettys does one blog need?
There's a BBH backpackers in Rangitukia, its really nice and all, I totally recommend it and you can arrange a couple of activities from there such as horse trekking and bone carving, a traditional Maori artform. There was also an option for possum hunting but the guy who arranges that wasn't around so no novelty nipple warmers made from the skins of dead pests for me today.
About a 10 minute walk from here is another place you can watch the sunrise but getting up at that hour AND walking (or shuffling) for 10 minutes just didn't appeal to me and hey, you've seen one sunrise you've seen them all right?

However, the bone pendant carving I totally recommend. Its like $60 and they take you through the whole process so the finished product is something you could give to someone and they wouldn't have to find an excuse to store it in the bottom drawer and you ARE meant to give it to someone, bone carvings are meant to be gifts so I made one for Loody.

Traditionally the Maoris used whale bone but since whales became protected they're only allowed to use the bones of whales that die naturally. Fair enough. These days they use cattle bone and this is what we would be carving. There are heaps of different designs to chose from and they have different meanings. I chose a Hei-Matau for Loody which is basically a stylised fish hook, its meant to provide safety over water and represents a great respect for the sea. Loody's a diver (scuba, muff, you name it) and I used to call her half a fish because she's so at home in the water. I figured it'd be perfect for her.

Anyway, after we'd spent a while breathing in powdered cow and sanded our finished products until they were smooth we settled in for a hangi and made an early night of it on account of another early start the following day.

Hmm. This restful trip wasn't proving to be very restful now was it.

written by

Koala Bear on March 3, 2009 from Rangitukia, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt, NorthIsland and EastAs

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Te Kaha, New Zealand

Now I've been horse trekking before, I went twice with my parents when they came to visit me in Cairns and from what I remember they're a leisurely wander along with the horses nose-to-tail, breaking into an orderly trot if you fancied it but with the horse pretty much in complete control of what's happening. Nice, easy, nothing to worry about, right?

Right...?

Clearly I'd never been trekking on the east cape of NZ before, Reg who runs the horse trekking at Rangitukia has very different ideas, he "breaks all the rules of commercial horse trekking," there would be no nose-to-tail meandering, you would be in control of the horse and not the other way around and you were free to wander where ever you wanted at whatever pace you felt like.

I waved goodbye to my comfort zone and jumped onto my horse, Avante.

You get a really good trek for your money. Paul, one of our group, owns a horse back in Scotland and is very comfortable on horseback so him and Reg went galloping up the beach while the rest of us tried to work out where the Go Button was on our animal. I managed to get mine into something resembling a trot before I decided my arse couldn't take that kind of bouncing and slowed it back down to a pleasant meandering pace. We trekked through the fields to the beach then across a river and up to a hill where we chilled for a bit before heading back down to the backpackers. If you only do one horse trek in NZ, do this one.

Once we were loaded back onto the bus we were driven to the nearby Tikitiki historic church where we were taken inside and Renz told us a bit about the carvings and what they mean. Maori carvings are pretty grotesque because they believe if you create someones true likeness then their soul will be trapped in that likeness forever. Not good when you believe in life after death. She told us that the protruding tongue in a carving means something different according to which way it points. Straight down means the person was a straight talker, you can believe what they say. If the tongue is split the person was a liar and if it pokes to either side then you can't always believe what they say. If there's a shiny eye thing in the centre of the tongue Renz said it meant that that person was a great storyteller and could "paint picture with their words."
Before the missionaries rocked up the carvings were pretty much the written language of the Maori people but Christians being Christians and not open to new thoughts and ideas decided that they were worshipping false gods and banned the carvings. They also gave them a written language made out of letters and stuff. The art nearly died but for a fella who took a group of young people and made them into master carvers, these days every Marae will have a carved meeting house.

Totally East As

After a bit more driving and a quick stop to take a photo of the world's most easterly lighthouse we made it to Te Kaha, our last stop of the trip before we would be taken back to Rotorua or Taupo. It's a stunning place. We were taken out in a 6 person waka (canoe) to a beach for a snorkel before we headed back for a feed. We were meant to have written a song to sing at this stop but we'd discovered the hot tub by this time and after probably the most amazing sunset I've ever seen me, Chris, Gemma and Paul settled into the tub with a box of wine and remained there for the ensuing five hours until we resembled drunken prunes.

So much for my relaxing little cruise around the East Cape. The top half of me ached from rock sliding and the bottom half of me ached from horse trekking and my head ached from all the cask wine, I wanted another 4 day bus ride to recover from it, preferably somewhere flat with not much to do apart from knit and play bridge.

Nah, I jest, I recommend this trip to anyone, I really do and Te Kaha with its stunning sunsets, good hospitality and hot tub right next to the ocean is a perfect end to an awesome trip.

written by

Koala Bear on March 4, 2009 from Te Kaha, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt, NorthIsland and EastAs

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East As, Bro

Tatapouri, New Zealand

First To See The Sunrise

Rangitukia, New Zealand

Not Such A Relaxing Cruise Then Ay

Te Kaha, New Zealand

Heading South?