The North Island Chronicles.

I have begun to view my travels in segments. The first was with my family. Experiencing a very organised holiday, experiencing better getting to know my parents, my sister Jenna and perhaps more importantly getting to know myself and how I am around them all. Families are funny things. The past holds so many situations and learnt behaviours between families that quite often we work on auto pilot when interacting with each other. Especially with families as there is so much history. Something happens and we might immediately go on the defence, or the attack or perhaps simply just cannot fathom why or what another family member is doing. Now when the family are all adults it is further exacerbated by Strong identities we have forged for ourselves that have partly evolved through past conflict (and past good stuff too of course) and of course have our own way of doing things.


And families know how to push each others buttons. We're experts. We've had years of learning. Well, our whole lives for most of us. But what was interesting this holiday/travels was that I more and more managed to step outside of my own personal programming. My own auto pilot response to situations was really interesting to observe. Something might be said that I didn't really like (which is of course a combination of the words, the tonation of the voice and the body language and actually nothing to do with who ever said it but everything to do with my interpretation and consequential reaction) and initially I would respond in a manner that was part of the 'sparring' involved in whatever role that was written years ago.But by stepping back and watching myself do this I realised how ridiculous I was being and could quite simply, not do it. The knock on effect is that I furthered my ability to see my family more for who they are. Not 'my sister', 'my mum', 'my dad' (notice the word 'my' before each term - indicating that I have expectations of how each role should be fulfilled), but human beings, doing what all human beings do. Trying to be happy. Trying to make those around them happy in the way that their identity sees should work, even if I don't see it for myself all the time and get frustrated initially. But in short stepping back really allowed me to notice the love emanating from each of them. Quite differently shown for each, but strongly there none the less. Stepping back allowed me to stop being the pre-programmed child I have been for many years fulfilling my role as the youngest brother, the only boy (and all the pre-programmed ideals and workings that I used to solidify my identify). Stepping back allowed me to see my family properly, without a filter and with love and compassion. Of course I didn't do this all the time and sometimes I was the one being button pusher, being on auto pilot, but those brief moments of clarity were enough to teach me further to get over my self. Family is great. We are always there for each other. We always will be.


So the second segment has been hitching around the North Island. This is what I would like to tell you about now. After the Queenstown washout, I awoke the day I was leaving to glorious sunshine. Went for a cuppa with the family at a great organic vege shop and got driven to the airport. After saying goodbye to everyone I embarked upon a 1 1/2 hour flight that took me up over the west coast of the South Island to Wellington at the bottom of the North Island. As it was a glorious day the Southern Alps could be seen in all their majestic splendour. Half way up the island is Mount Cook. The captain actually took time to fly fully around this, the largest mountain in New Zealand (3754m) so we could all see it properly. That was a lovely touch I thought.

From Arrons Pictures

The flight over Mt Cook

Arriving in Wellington I had about 3 hours to 'do' the capital (this certainly is not about enjoying myself - its about seeing everything!!!! ;p) So I went up the cable car to the observatory. I went down the cable car to the town. I went to Te Papa, one of the few free things to do in NZ's capital. An incredible museum full of Maori stuff (yes the word stuff does apply here as I have no knowledge of the correct words - didn't have time to learn them. Only 40 minutes to see the whole museum - many people take a day) and all manner of other things. They love corrugated iron in this country, one guy loved it so much he built a car out of it (see photo). Oh and there was the media interactive exhibit. Really cool.

From Arrons Pictures

Windy Wellington´s cable car

From Arrons Pictures

One could rule the world with this car


A whole wall (about 20-30m long by 3m high) was filled with backs of screens. These two young lads were excitedly playing on there and pictures of themselves all over the wall. Now I consider myself pretty good with technology, but I couldn't work out what they were doing. So I asked one of them how they got their picture up on the wall. The one that must have been about 8 was very pleased to show this dinosaur of a man how to work this very simple technology. "Well, you go to this kiosk" he began happily leading me over to a booth. "Now stand in front of it and press either the picture or video button" (I am paraphrasing here - I may use words that 8 years wouldn't necessarily use, but work with me to get the gist) "once you have your image or video then press either the blue heart, diamond, club or spade, or you can put it in the yellow diamond, heart club or spade..." there were many other options and I began to feel as though there was a conspiracy here to make me feel foolish. "Now go to the big screen and use this torch looking thing, point it at the top of the screen and then from the pop up menu select the colour and shape of where you put you picture or video and then drag it onto the screen. See easy"... mmm this 8 year old certainly put me in my place..."oh yes easy" I exclaimed trying to sound as if I could easily have worked it out, but he shaved a couple of seconds off my day by showing me, he beamed with that smug kind of satisfaction only an 8 year old can have when showing an adult something so obviously easy. "haha, wow you're good at this" I said. He smiled and went back someone of his own age and abilities and to filling the whole wall with photos of him and his mate. Obviously far moreinteresting that talking to this guy who is obviously not on his level...

From Arrons Pictures

The kid looks evil. Thats how he knew!!!

That evening I was staying with my cousin Anna (okay not technically my cousin, but saying second cousin once removed every time takes too long (and I'm not even sure if this is our relation - perhaps someone can tell me - our parents are cousins...)). We went for a really nice drink and a chat before retiring for the evening as it was a work night for her (its funny how quickly I can dis-identify with work nights when travelling, well actually what day it is in general). The next morning I got on the road. Hitching for the next 4-5 days filled me with excitement and glee. So it took me a little while to get out of Wellington, but larger towns are notoriously difficult to hitch from. I was heading to Waiuro about 1/3rd of the way up the North Island. I met some really cool guys who picked me up and got to Waiuro with no issues.

I had recently heard about couch surfing, a website where you can find people who are offering their spare bed or couch and through emailing them you can get a free bed for the night. New Zealand accommodation costs are comparable to England so this was a great idea for me. I had no idea of places, just the rough areas I wanted to stop on my way North. Rik, a Maori guy, agreed that I could stay at his for this night. Waiuro is an army town. It's where the largest military camp in NZ is and incidentally is quite near Mt Doom (from Lord of the Rings (LOTR)- can never remember its proper name, and Mt Doom sounds better anyway). Rik showed me around the camp, something you cannot do unless you know someone there. He seemed to know everyone and was quite proud to show me around and explain the hierarchy or various ranks and how they interact... or don't interact and why. I found it really humbling and interesting having this glimpse into someone else's life, the world they live in so completely different to mine. I also learnt loads about the NZ military, which I certainly didn't expect to do prior to the holiday. Haha I didn't even know they had a military...)

From Arrons Pictures

Apparently many hundreds of soldiers were drafted in to do the fight scenes in part of LOTR. The only thing was was that they put the various squads in their squads (like the engineers with the engineers, the gunners with the gunners etc). In the military a competitive nature is encouraged between squads and thus each squad had to 'show' the other squads how to do it. I was told that there was loads of real casualties as people were properly fighting and beating the crap out of each other. Still, made for better fights scenes I guess (perhaps Peter Jackson knew this would happen...)

Rik and I had a great evening together over a few brews that he had kindly purchased for us. The next morning I was on the road again. Got picked up by a gunner (he taught cadets how to use firearms) and driven to Taupo in his V8 1973 Kingswood something or other, very nice sounding engine. Taupo is the largest lake in NZ and is actually a lake in the crater of a super volcano. It used to be a mountain apparently and has supposedly had some of the most violent eruptions of all volcano's in the world. In homage to this the lake is now used for water-sports and caravan holidays.

Which is nice.

I only had a couple of hours here and passed through with no really story to tell other than I had a good packed lunch. Keeping it cheap. Keeping it English. Keeping it real. On the way out of town a guy stopped on his bike to chat and told me all about the book he was reading called 1421. Apparently the Chinese had an emperor at this time who wanted to explore the unknown seas. He sent out his best ships on 5 year journeys, to boldly go where no ship has gone before, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go... (okay, I'm paraphrasing a little here). Trouble is when the ships returned the emperor had died and his successor wasn't interested that one of the ships had found New Zealand (of course it wasn't New Zealand in those days - it would have been Aotearoa (land of the long white cloud) and even then it wouldn't have been written in European letters.)

I digress.

Hitching out of town I got picked up along with another hitcher, all of us going to the World Heritage site Rotorua. The hour journey turned into a really interesting theological discussion. The nice lad that picked us up was a 22 year old Christian, it was certainly interesting to get his view on why blind unquestioned faith in a teaching that offers so many contradictions but gives him so much peace. Well, there is perhaps a limiting belief that I have. He advised that I read the bible. Interesting, but I still don't really 'get it'. Perhaps I will read it....
I had 2 hours to do Rotorua (man I am doing a lot of towns quickly here... must be some sort of record.) For those of you that don't know Rotorua it is NZ's thermal capital with loads of boiling mud, thermal springs, various natural chemical pools that arise from volcanic activity (such as arsenic pools) and of course the lovely earthy, eggy, old socks smell of sulphur everywhere. Actually as I know it comes from the earth and not a teenagers bedroom I actually quite like it. Funny how the psychology works on that one. So I went to the Polynesian Spa. A lovely spa with 7 hot pools overlooking a sulphuric lake that nothing can live in. Various steam columns rise in the distance blown sideways by the breeze. Seagulls live around the lake but have to leave to find food.

From Arrons Pictures

Rotorua, as painted by a seemingly naked man (he is wearing speedo´s!)

The hot pools were exactly what I needed to revitalise myself after the brews the night before. I happily slumbered in one for 20 minutes (well that kind of eye closing, head slowly falling down and then snapping up to keep yourself upright and then repeating the process over and over).
Then back on The Road!

I walked to the outskirts of Rotorua thumbing a ride, got one quickly and was on my way to the second couch surfing for the week in Tirau. NZ's corrugated iron capital... wow! actually to get there I had passed through NZ's (and perhps even the worlds) gumboot capital! The things these crazy Kiwis come up with... (: I arrived in Tirau to meet Katie; a woman that had only joined Couch Surfing 2 days before I emailed her. Funny how these things work out. She has a beautiful cat, an enviable vegetable garden and is vegetarian. It was great. We chatted for hours until retiring for an early night as I was so tired and she had work the next day. (its really is so easy to forget what day it is when work isn't involved). The nextmorning she drove me to Matamata where she works and where they filmed the Hobbit scenes in LOTR. They actually renamed Hobbiton for a while. I suppose with the upcoming Hobbit film they will once again reap the benefits. The information center has Hobbit holes to enter. Every town has a theme it seems.

From Arrons Pictures

Matamata, or Hobbiton.

Annoyingly I had forgotten some stuff and so Katie kindly told me where the spare key was and I hitched back to Tirau to get my stuff. On the way a guy handed me a NZ$1,000,000 bill. Wow I thought. Thats the kind of cool thing that I want to happen. but something wasn't right. It was toocool, to swift the way he handed it to me. "Wait" I thought, I turned it over and the fish I had smelt had been Christian. There was a load of writing on the back. Damn.
"Have asked yourself the million dollar question? Are you going to Heaven". Oh for God sake. To coin a phase... ummm.... yeah. It went on with the usual stuff about being a sinner or a winner. Repent! Repent! Repent!

So I got back on the road and hitched rides all the way to the Corromandal Peninsula. I had been recommend it by many people. To the East of Auckland, this Penninsula is where in NZ that Gold was discovered at some point in the 19th century. The Corromandel Town grew from around 1000 people to well over 30,000 in a matter of months. Funny what you learn talking to locals whilst hitching. They have a lot of forest here and absolutely stunning coastline. I hitched all the way round to a town called Whitianga (the Maori's pronounce 'wh' a 'f' so it is fit-i-ang-a. Actually it is hard to learn pronunciations of towns as if you ask white people they give you a different answer to the Maoris, if I was here longer I would learn both quite happily I'm sure by learning the lettering pronunciations)

I got dropped of about 4Km outside of town and was trying my luck thumbing a lift the last few k's into town whilst walking at the same time. A scooter pulls up next to me. "Hello" says a fairly nasally, high pitched middle aged Kiwi woman. I look at the bike complete with top box. There is no way I can fit on that with my snails shell of a rucksack, so what does she want? Funny how the mind is fairly suspicious sometimes.
"Do you believe in the power of prayer?".
Oh. My. God. Am I like a light for the Christian flies? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people or their religion, but I really don't care for it to be imposed upon me. If I want to I will find out myself, in my own time. Trouble is, if you believe in eternal damnation there is no time I guess."Do you believe in the power of prayer?" she furthered her resolve in her raspy accent"Mmm... yeah but I don't call it prayer" I replied"Well, what do you call it?""Cosmic ordering" I replied"oh dear"
She looked crest fallen, This heathen standing in front of her quite obviously without direction, without hope, thumbing a lift, needs a shave and now comes out with some obviously Pagan Voodoo Mumbo Jumbo calling it similar to her white knight in light that works for her; Prayer."Well, I like to give these to people" She handed me a small comic book with cartoons and blurb with extracts from the bible. Then she rev'ed up all 50cc's of her scooter and was off in a hail of a hair-dryer meets snail experience.

Okay. One in a day. Fine. But two. In one day??? What am I doing here. Perhaps it is a sign. Okay I get that to people who believe in this, they are actually doing me a favour from their point of view. They are trying to save my soul. Which if you think about it is a pretty cool thing. But on a deeper level I feel there is more at play here. Ive been thinking a lot about this recently. Lets hypothesise that someone, lets call them Jack, believes in God. Jack is bought up in a family that believes in God. His parents who teach him many intrinsic things when he is a child, essentially programming him believe in God themselves. Gods is number 1 in Jacks life. But Jack is not really aloud to question why. He is only allowed to agree. In his family, in his peer group, perhaps in his school. He grows up believing in something that he has never questioned. Has never proved for himself. Probably many of his friends are Christian as many of us move in circles that offer some kind of stability to what we believe. Now everyone knows him a Jack, who is strongly Christian. Jack knows this too. Being Christian is part of his identity. Is is intrinsically part of who he is. In short he derives a strong part of his identity from being Christian. If someone were to question his faith, they are not only questioning his faith, they are questioning his identity. They are questions against who he thinks he is. If he questions someone else's faith and can find a way to convert them to his faith, he can therefore assure himself that this path, this identity that he has chosen is correct and is therefore reinforced. He can put whatever reason he likes onto it (such as this is the will of God, God speaks through me etc), but in essence it is about fortifying his egoic identify. After all if that died. What would be left? Who would Jack be? Scary thought for Jack. Best not to question. Best to blindly believe.

Okay let move on.

I stayed in a hostel dormitory for the first time. It wasn't too bad actually. With Earplugs. I awoke to the sound of the sea and was excited to think that today I would not be on the road, I would only be chilling and enjoying the sights. I had met a nice Californian woman the evening before called Elaine. We had chatted most of the previous evening and had decided to spend the day together as both of us were travelling alone. We went to Cathedral Cove which took a short ferry ride, bus ride and and hours walk. It was busy, but well worth the walk. Beautiful beach. I played with the gigantic and powerful waves before exhausting myself and coming out for some leftover dinner packed lunch. We walked back to the bus and went to Hot Water Beach. A beach that has an area where you can dig a hole and the volcanic activity way beneath heats the sand. The area of sand was an obvious spot. There was a group of people so closely populated that I thought there might be a DJ performing in front of them at first. They were having a whale of a time, digging in the sand, panning for hot water. I really didn't care for the crowd and so sat back for a bit. I did go and put a toe in someones hole (hehe) for a few seconds. It was damn hot, nearly burnt my toe as I dug it down.

From Arrons Pictures

The walk to Cathedral Cove

From Arrons Pictures

Haha, umm yeah...

From Arrons Pictures

Chilling on the beach

Elaine and I chatted on the Beach for a couple of hours until it was time for the bus and made our way back to the YHA. Something told me to move on this evening. It was getting late and hitching in the dark is plain stupid. But i had another couple of hours of daylight and sayinggoodbye to Elaine I got back on the road. It walked to the State Highway (like an A road in the UK) as I walked up it, it began to dawn on me that this was pretty foolish. But I thought I would give it half an hour and then walk back into town if need be. That was when the hippie van pulled up.

Tim, Roe and Nik sat in the front seat, "jump in" Roe exclaimed, I slid back door open to reveal a cool looking sleeping van with loads of food and other provisions.
"where are you going?" asked Tim,
"anywhere South" I said.
"Well, we're going to commune if you want to join us."And there it was, the next part of my adventure set up, easily, randomly and excellently. We arrived at the commune fairly late in the evening, driving up a dirt track for quite a while, I began to get those negative thoughts such as "mmm... is this really a good idea Arron? okay this is going to be a long walk if this goes pear shaped". I needn't have worried though. We passed the sign for Wilderland and arrived. Wilderland is one of NZ's first Wwoofer communities. Wwoofer is "Workers Working On Organic Farms", not sure about the e and r at the end though. Does soundbetter to be a Wwooofer than just a Wwoof I guess. This place is around 700 Hectere of organic farming land. There are 3 resident families and and many other people from all walks of life. The workers work for 4 hours a day, 6 days a week, and then have free board and as much free organic food as they can eat. Sounds pretty cushty to me...

From Arrons Pictures

The Commune Kitchen

We got out of the van and the first thing Tim said was "Right! I'm off to ground some lentils". Okay, could you get any better a cliched line?? this is going to be a cool experience I thought. They offered me some dinner, I was a little hesitant to begin with, being vegetarian, but Roe simply said that she was Vegan, so I happily had some. We all chatted all evening, even after the electricity got turned off somewhere around 10pm.

I got to stay in the Shark House. A house on stilts with various circular saws in a woodwork shop beneath and loads ofseemingly random junk strewn about, but was probably for some purpose or other. I was boarding with Taichi. A really cool Japanese guy, wearing what I can only call traditional samurai chill-out wear (okay my fashion knowledge is very limited, but he looked like one of those guys from old Karate movies, you know the ones, where everyone is fighting and they just sit there watching. When they are ready to fight the camera goes in for an extreme close up with some really dodgily recorded brass fanfare over the top). I digress. Every now and then he would punctuate sentences with and deep guttural and punctual "Hm". He was one of those rare humans that could sit in an armchair and just stare into space, like a cat. Not stupid. Not by a long shot. Just simply being. One could learnt a lot from this guy. Kind of wish I had got his email...

The next morning I awoke in the Shark House to all the windows and doors still open. The humidity was lower than the night before and it was gloriously refreshing. I stood up and could see down over the estuary. I got my stuff together and headed down for breakfast. One of the girls there offered to take me kayaking. We walked down to the bottom of the ground by the estuary and got in our kayaks. hers had a hole, so I went out by myself for a while, enjoying the serenity of being alone on the peaceful still water. I left about mid day and walked the length of the track back to the road. I hitched out of there and decided to make my way toward Auckland as I would be staying the the following night.

From Arrons Pictures

A gorgeous sunset over the commune

From Arrons Pictures

Compost toilet, even worse than Glastonbury´s ones. There was a fearless little girl at the Commune, this was the only thing she was afraid of.

From Arrons Pictures

Wilderland.

The day was spent travelling and I arrived in Orewa, just North of Auckland. I treated myself to a double room en-suite. It was lovely tospend the time alone actually. The next day I went to Auckland and met with my parents and Jan. Jan is my mums NZ friend from back in the day (they lived near each other in South Harrow before Jan emigrated back to NZ in around 1983). We had a good game of scrabble after dinner and it was interesting to note my competitive nature after I was pipped at the post and lost. Haha I really don't like losing. Stupid really, we had a great game, great laughs and a great time, but it was slightly marred for me because I lost. Ah well something for me to observe in future.

The following day Mum and Dad were flying to Sydney, so we all went to the Butterfly Creek house near Auckland airport. We were just in timeto see the crocodile feeding time. Of course didn't you expect crocodiles in a butterfly house? We watched excitedly as the crocs did nothing. They were not in the mood apparently. We did get a bit of action as one of the keepers tried to run a cows hide over the mouth of one. It jaws opened and the snap shut was awe inspiring, the shear depth of sound and volume was enough to send shivers down my spine. No doubt originating from thousands of years of evolution of being rather weary of anything that has a downward thrust of around 2 tons in their jaw. Best to keep out of their way.
The butterfly's were beautiful too, offering quite a juxtaposition to the crocs. Mmm yeah, really interesting mix. I always love butterfly houses, they are always so magical and full of dancing, delicate creatures that look beautiful. Soon after, at the airport nearby, Jan and I said bye to my parents at the Jan drove me into Auckland to the Skycity Cinema. I needed a second fix of The Avatar, this time in 3D iMax. Wow. This time it seemed even shorter. The 2 hours 40 minutes just went. The film whilst lacking some of the magical nature of the first time around, offered more depth and time to associate with the characters.

From Arrons Pictures

Mum, Dad and Jan.

From Arrons Pictures

The croc that does little to nothing.

From Arrons Pictures

Nemo!!!

From Arrons Pictures

Dad and the Butterfly

Jan's daughter Amber and her fiance Pete came to pick me up in the morning and took me to Muriwai Beach on the West Coast. We hit it off immediately and chatted for the whole journey to the beach. Well perhaps I ranted stuff at them for 40 minutes and presumed that my monologue was actually a conversation. If it was they were too polite to mention it.
We arrived hoping it was not going to rain and I hired a surf board. I have never surfed. Happily Pete had and was more than happy to give me hints and tips on things like how and when to get onto the board as a wave is coming, when to start paddling (its the 3 strokes prior to the wave hitting you that are the most important to try and get you up to speed for the wave power to work its magic). Once I had got that it was about the popping up to one knee and then standing up. It took me about 30 minutes or so but then i was standing up for about 4-5 seconds, which is quite a long time when you're doing it. Of course I looked like a pro immediately. Smooth, suave, sophisticated. Like a dolphin probably.
Amber commenting on how wobbly I looked whilst standing. She even laughed. Damn. Not the James Bond of the sea I had envisaged. Still, had such a great day with Amber and Pete and I was so grateful for them taking time to take me out. They have such a great dynamic between them and surfing with them was definitely one of the highlights so far.

From Arrons Pictures

hehe

From Arrons Pictures

Okay, don´t I look pro?

From Arrons Pictures

Two surfing pro´s

From Arrons Pictures

Me on the right, about to stand up.

They dropped me back in Auckland and I went straight up the Sky Tower. This is another time of me rushing through a city in a couple of hours. My guide book describes the tower as looking a giant hypodermic syringe injecting Auckland into the sky. It is the highest man made structure in the Southern Hemisphere. The views were incredible.Of Course. I could see for miles around. On the main observation deck (at around 192m) they have 33mm thick glass (that is supposedly as strong as concrete) that you can step on and see the world below. Its interesting for me to note how my heart fluttered as I stepped on this platform. I know its safe. Its just some weird physiological reaction that seems to activate prior to the thinking mind. I continued to walk on each see-through platform until the flutter in my heart ceased. Not sure why, I think I needed to prove to my body how ridiculous it was. Coming down in the lift you can see through the glass panel in that floor also. Pretty cool actually going at 18km ph down seeing the floor rush up toward you.
I went out with Jan for a nice curry that evening, she was so fantastic to talk to, very open minded and fun. I turned in early to be refreshed for my flight to Santiago.

From Arrons Pictures

My Grubby Feet on ´The Platform´

From Arrons Pictures

The Sky Tower, where Sauron lives.


The end of my time in New Zealand has come around so quickly. But it was a fantastic time. I met so many cool people. So much kindness was bestowed upon me; people putting me up, offering lifts as I hitched, being there for me when I needed them. Family, friends and various men and women and children entering and exiting at their cues, to badly quote Shakespeare. I love this country. Its dramatic landscapes and wonderful people. The journey has inspired me and helped me toward my goal of furthering myself. Its a good time to be alive. (:

On to South America.