NZ: Eggs

On Crusties.

We’ve stayed in a lot of hostels by now and have seen many different forms of ‘traveller’. We have often felt a little old to be on the backpacker trail, but that’s okay – we expected that. What we didn’t quite expect was to be among a minority sub-group of similarly aged ‘normal couples’; outnumbered by the European oddballs, the drug-hungry raver morons, post-adolescent party-mongering shouty teens, the speedo-wearing wrinkled sex pervs in Thailand, silent Asian students in Singapore, hyperactive 19 year old tour bus maniac-children, and finally – outlasting them all – the universally found hardened traveller, the ‘Crusty’. Their portrait is described thus: Underfed, scrawny, sallow, they move slowly to conserve energy, legs are usually bare-footed with a pair of baggy, yellow, brown or purple balloon-bottomed linen trousers picked up somewhere in south east Asia, a ripped, filthy tie-dye T-shirt and finally (nearly always) a lice-ridden head of dredlocked hairmuff. They are only to be seen inside hostels, where they loaf about scrounging whatever scraps of food they can from the surrounding guests. They’re like ghosts, drifting across the continents, following the same paths, sitting on floors rolling cigarettes. I don’t understand what these people do. Their lives are more easily defined by what they don’t do. I mean what’s the point in coming half way around the world to sit in a dingy kitchen and eat supernoodles? I like to think I would do things differently if I ‘opted out’ for a while. To see the world living a simple life is a romantic idea, but after seeing these be-dredlocked folk, I wonder if there’s a price to pay. They don’t seem happy. They seem bored and self-absorbed and hungry. I should say that I haven’t spoken more than a few words to a couple of crusties, so my judgements are largely superficial, but I just know that we wouldn’t get on, I have nothing in common with them and, most importantantly, I really hate dredlocks. They make me feel a bit ill.

* * *

The North Island.

The ferry carried Siobhan, the little yellow Honda and I across the Cook Strait in a slow, deep swaying waltz of a motion that made first Siobhan, then myself feel thoroughly green. I stood on deck in the bitterly cold sea air, trying to find the perfect spot next to one of the engine exhaust vents, which gave out warm but undoubtedly toxic air. I stared at the horizon to ward off the sea sickness and tried not to inhale while the fumes warmed my body.

We drove off into Wellington, got lost for five minutes and found our road north.

Three major dramas since an $80 speeding ticket on the South Island:

The first was when (in a moment of desperation) we ordered a drive-thru Dominoes Pizza with a ‘thin crispy’ base instead of a ‘classic’ base. That was a disappointing meal I can tell you.
The second and third were two gigantic sandfly bites on the centre of Siobhan’s forehead. I found it hard not to look at them when talking to her, I felt like they were looking at me.

The day after the Pizza incident we drove through strangely jagged pastureland up onto the volcanic plateau of the Tongariro National Park – a place I had been looking forward to for months. The morning clouds blanketed the volcanoes but as we drove closer they parted, revealing bare rocky peaks. The landscape was awesome, especially the perfectly conical form of Mount Ngarohoe (possible spelling error) – the classic volcano, it starred as Mt Doom in the Lord of the Rings.

We walked a 4 hour section of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, over volcanic lava flows, a soda stream (not the fizzy beverage – this isn’t Willy Wonka Land!), up the steep but well trailed sides of the Volcanoes, and into the huge South Crater of Mt Tongariro (see photos at end of the South Island post). It was an incredible, intimidating, breathtaking place. All I was missing was a ring to cast into the crater of Mt Doom and… (Sorry, no more Middle Earth references).

The next leg of the journey north involved more volcanic tourism, as we followed the ‘Thermal Highway’ route via a surreal crater park of steaming heath, craters and bubbling mud pools. Then Rotorua: which stank (both literally and figuratively). This bleak and skanky town sits on more thermal springs, with stinking thermal pools dotted amidst the ugly buildings providing the entire neighbourhood with a constant odour of rank egg. We left after 1 night.

A perfect antidote to rotten Rotorua was the Coromandel Peninsula. The roads to it were extremely bendy – even by New Zealand standards, but we were rewarded with yet more beautiful unspoilt beaches, including Hot Water Beach, where a hot water spring (not so eggy this one) dribbles very hot water up through the sand. People were digging holes to make sandy spa pools or just, like us, shuffling their feet like crabs into the wet sand to burn their feet. We must have looked completely ridiculous. It was the first crowded beach we had been on since Thailand.

The best in Coromandel was Stingray Bay. We had it to ourselves and I couldn’t resist going for a swim in my shorts (not the swimming ones as I’d forgotten them)…but hey that’s just the kind of crazy, spontaneous kinda guy I am now you know! Our hostel in the extremely pleasant yachty town of Whitianga was good and well run by another outgoing, helpful Kiwi host. These people seem to have endless energy. We had a two bedroom apartment which we shared with two guys from Florida, they weren’t crusties I’m glad to say. They were a good laugh in fact… Thoroughly good eggs. Good American eggs.

A short drive west and north to Auckland, where we said a fond farewell to the little gay yellow Honda, who had done us proud on our 2500km motorized mince across NZ.

Auckland was a very nice city, with some very nice houses made of wood – the kind i’d like to build one day. Our hostel was a massive wooden thing which once belonged to a Tongan Queen. 35% of Auckland is populated by Pacific Islanders. On our second and only full day in town we were lucky enough to have met up with Jacqui, a friend of Siobhan’s Dad who not only drove us around the city’s sprawling suburbs and extinct volcano parks, but also bought us a delicious gourmet tapas lunch. The next night we would be in Santiago, probably glued to the Spanish phrase book. Adios amigos