Diving in the Poor Knights

 

The waters around the Poor Knights (PKs) are said to be amongst the Top 10 or Top 5 or Top “whatever number you choose” dive sites in the world. The Poor Knights islands are about 200 kms north of Auckland and conveniently on our route around North Island, so a days diving is fitted into the schedule (what a surprise I hear you say!)

The PKs are about 12 miles off the coast and so 0845 am on a Sunday morning sees us both embarked on a boat trip with “Dive Tutukaka” which we have warned will be a “little bit choppy” until we get to the islands.

The actual maritime weather forecast for today says: “Strong Wind Advisory: Southeast 25 knots gusting 35 knots easing to 15 knots this afternoon. Rough sea becoming slight this afternoon……” and by the time we have exited the harbour, we are both of the opinion that “a little bit choppy” is something of an understatement. The wind is blowing the sea diagonally across our bow and the seas seem somewhat more than choppy to us inexperienced nautical types in this small 30m boat. The

captain’s solution seems to be to put his foot down (or whatever the nautical equivalent is) and to hit the weather head on and get there as fast as possible.

We arrive without being sick - we are convinced this due to the combination of a miracle and the sea sickness tablets which we (with hindsight) were careful to take as soon as we heard about the weather. In fact, the captain announces that it is the first time in the marine history of New Zealand that he has taken a boat load of divers to the PKs without one of them being sick! He feels the reason is more because of his skills than our miracle.

Poor Knights education time:

1. why are they called the Poor Knights Islands?
   
   You have two answers. They were “discovered” by Captain Cook in the 1700s and although he charted and mapped them, he did not explain his choice of name.
   
   One theory relates to the silhouette of the island. Looking from the side, you could imagine that it looks rather like someone lying down (head on the right, chest in the middle, legs on the left).
   
    
   
   In olden times, a poor knight was buried on the surface rather than in a deep grave, creating such a silhouette. That some small pinnacle islands nearby are called “The Squires” is said to support this theory.
   
   Theory two is that when Captain Cook discovered the islands (let us ignore that native Maoris were living on the island at the time), the island was covered with Pohutukawa trees (locally called the New Zealand Christmas Tree) which were in blossom.
   
   
   
   You can see that they have red blossom and hence the whole of the top of the island was red in colour. He and his crew were eating mouldy bread lavishly covered with Red Jam as they sailed up to the islands (a dish known as a “Poor Knight”) hence….
   
2. What is so special about them?
   
   Because they are islands, they have been isolated from flora and fauna changes on the mainland, both natural and many man introduced. Hence the flora and fauna is quite pure when compared with that found elsewhere in New Zealand.
   
   In order to protect the environment, no one is allowed to land on the islands and any non-native species (such as pigs) have been eliminated. If you wanted to, it would be hard to land because much of the island is steep cliffs
   
   
   
   In order to protect the seas around the islands, A marine reserve exists to a distance of 800m from the islands. This means no fishing or water pollution (discharge of toilets, throwing food waste overboard, feeding fish etc).

3. The islands are in a warm current coming down from the North “The Eastern Australia Drift” but at certain times of the year, they are also in a current which brings up colder water loving animals – hence in the Autumn the waters can be home to both warm water fish thinking it is getting cold and cold water animals thinking it is still a bit warm (!) and vice versa in the Spring. Two categories of animals in the same place.

One of the largest sea entry caves in New Zealand exists in the island (there seem to be numerous “largest cave in the world / New Zealand / Southern Hemisphere”) – this one is

about 130m in length and has a unique diving ecology

If you really want to know more about the islands, their ecology and history then click here and here.

The Diving

Two dives were planned for today, both in a sheltered cove on the western side of Aorangi Island – the southern on the two main islands. Water temperature is about 19C so a minimum of a 7mm suit is required, for long dives, a dry suit would be better. Visibility was average at best at 30 metres, underwater surge can be quite strong.

Dive One was at Brady’s Cove this is essentially a kelp forest plus a long wall (known as the Meditation Wall) to one side proceeding South to North. Depths are down to 20m+.

Dive Two was at Trevor’s Rocks, a pinnacle out in the bay. The rocks got their name when Trevor discovered them by hitting them with his boat! Again the pinnacle is surrounded by kelp.

Kelp is a large leafed seaweed which generally grows in clumps or forests.

Its leaves are broad and quite tough.

When growing in a “forest”, the clumps are close together. Kelp has a long stem which bends easily in the current

and divers can easily swim through the less dense forests

beneath the canopy top by pushing the stems aside. The fish which live beneath and around the kelp forests make

 

use of the local ecology to hide / survive / hunt.

My summary of the dives was that it was really interesting diving through and around the kelp – a new experience for me. The fish were nothing special to anyone who has dived in the Red Sea and again, the Meditation Wall is fascinating if you have not seen some of the walls in the Red Sea. The caves are good, easy to get into and quite safe. The underwater surge makes the diving exciting in places and requires good depth control and slightly more weight when finning through shallow surge areas.

Moving into the Camper Van

We approach moving into our home for the next 55 days with a combination of experience, realism and some trepidation. Experience because we know we enjoyed three months living in a smaller van when we were in Australia, realism because we know we have to change the way we behave and manage our day-to-day lives in a small confined space (everything takes longer and has to be planned methodically for example) and trepidation because we know that not everything will go smoothly.

A taxi takes us back towards the airport where get there we see our names on the welcome board at Wilderness Motorhomes

On the other side of yard stands our home, cleaned and ready for the off. In Australia our van soon became known as Bruce (as did the satnav voice), here for obvious reasons, the van introduces herself as Eppie but one

suspects she does not know she is named after a character in Silas Marner whose particular phrase is “Eppie in the Toal Hole” (I provide this information having spoken to the educated source who is travelling with me)

Although the amount of paperwork is small, most of it having been completed over the internet before hand, the briefing requires us to take in and remember a lot of new things including how to operate the van, deal with emptying black waste (best not to wonder where that comes from just now), grey waste from the sinks and shower, refilling the water tanks, tuning the TV (yes we have a TV not that New Zealand TV seems to be worth watching), heating the water, heating the van etc etc etc.

Our bags get tossed into the back, we spend $240 in the supermarket buying everything we might need and probably something we do not and then programme our satnav with our destination  - Orewa which is about 40kms North.

Driving a van of this size is quite easy because it is of a similar size and power to a Transit and about one hour later, having crossed the Auckland Bridge

we arrive at our camp site.

January is of course towards the end of the summer holidays in New Zealand and the campsite we have chosen is only accepting people who have bookings – thankfully we ignored the advice we were given when we first started planning this trip “don’t worry, there will be plenty of places everywhere in New Zealand” and had booked ahead and for the sum of $36 we are able to manoeuvre Eppie into a very tightly packed campsite.

When we were in Australia, it took us about four days to work out where to put everything and where to stow the cases. We are determined here to do this immediately

because the psychological boost you get from having everything organised and put away is quite enormous. It was a surprisingly easy task, possibly because the van had all sorts of hidden storage spaces and a very large fridge. By the time everything is stored, we actually have

 

space to spare which is a bit of a shock.

The only downside we have discovered so far in the van is that unless you duck when walking from the back of the van into the driving area at the front, you hit your head very hard – three times today! Also, we cannot get the rear radio to work – not that we want to listen to the radio just now because the fifth test is over and England have soundly defeated Australia and the Ashes are secure – but there are further defeats for Australia scheduled for the next few weeks!

The last task of the day is to get a New Zealand mobile number courtesy of Vodafone – so if you want to call us on our NZ mobile, just dial 00 64 210 820 3123 but remember we are 13 hours ahead of you and therefore we might be in bed!

In contrast to our last van, we can cook inside Eppie on a four ring hob (plus grill); keep frozen food in the small ice box;

and store wine in the wine rack (empty when we picked the van up but we soon dealt with that)

Being able to cook real meals and use a sink with hot and cold running water is really quite a luxury.

Cheers!

Auckland and overcoming Jet Lag

At nearly 180 degrees east, New Zealand is almost on the International Date Line and therefore for someone living in England (on the Greenwich Meridian),  its time zone is about as far ahead of the UK as it is possible to get. If you want to experience the effects of 13 hours jet lag come here!

When we were in the USA last winter, we bought some Melatonin tablets because they are said to help regulate jet lagged sleep (they are not legally purchasable over the counter in the UK). Did they work? On the basis of one test night we would say yes. On the British Airways website is a “jet lag calculator” so we plugged in the numbers, followed the advice, added in melatonin and got quite a good nights sleep and felt only mildly phased out today (we will be repeating the advice tonight). We still get confused about days, when it is today here it is often still yesterday in the UK until 1 pm when it becomes today in both places!

Auckland is a surprising city. The centre is nothing to write home about and very little remains of what must have been a beautiful city. The remaining few rather nice old buildings are often surrounded by

or sandwiched in between skyscrapers

as in this case – a two storey shop with a seven storey block on one side and a fourteen storey on the other. Some larger buildings have survived, such as this pub

and the Ferry Building down near the Port

and an Art Deco Cinema which was used to represent a New York Theatre in the 2005 remake of King Kong

The city skyline is similar to that of Sydney and certainly,

Aucklanders could be accused of trying to copy Sydneysiders although their bridge is not quite as good

Last year when we were in Australia passing a top secret American managed radio aerial which was about 300m tall, we were told that the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere was the 328m Sky Tower in Auckland

from which you can do a controlled 192m Base Jump if you have a spare $200 – I prefer to spend my money

on diving into the sea, not the air!

We were beginning to feel most unimpressed with the city and glad that we were only staying a couple of days (most guide books recommend you spend most of your time elsewhere in NZ than in Auckland) until we went on a guided bus tour. As well as driving around the city centre, it went took us to some of the outlying districts where far more of the character of what must have been a beautiful city remains with striking views, old houses and shops that look as if they had been transplanted from the 1950’s.

Of particular note was the Auckland City Museum which has some wonderfully nostalgic examples of style

including these wonderful 1950’s Coronation period

 

or these Gollys

teddies and a now rather infamous book (click on the picture to enlarge it to read the title).

Some of the old Auckland buildings have been rebuilt in one large gallery including a Saddlers

and a Boarding House

There were also a series of brilliant galleries featuring Maori history, art and life

This is a Pataka (a raised storehouse) dating from 1825

this is the inside of a meeting house (the exhibit is about 40 m by 25 m and stands at least 10 m high.

There was also a lot about the wars between the Maori and the “Pakaha” (as foreigners were called by them) and also the inter-tribal wars of the late 1800’s. Being a warrior and fighting was regarded as an honourable profession.

This is “Te Taka a Tapiri”, the last of the great Maori war canoes.

It is 25m long and carved from a single trunk. It could carry 100 warriors and had quite a sophisticated internal decking

designed to keep the warriors dry.

Regrettably, the British arrogance towards indigenous people living in “its colonies” was once again well documented (as it was in Australia) but we sense here that New Zealand is a country which is more at ease with its past than was the case in Australia.

Tomorrow is van pick up day when we meet our home for the next 55 days. We are more than ready for the challenge!

Sam – we have sent you your first postcard which should be with you next week. It has a picture of one of the animals you wanted on it – which one do you think it will be?

Here is a picture of Nana Pat posting it to you.

The longest flight in the world without changing planes

And so we set out for two months touring New Zealand in a campervan. Every journey starts with a first step and having gone through the familiar packing routine and closed the house down into winter mode (the same as summer mode but you leave the heating on and turn the water off), our first step is into a taxi to the station and then the train and tube to Heathrow.

The by now standard (for us) photograph of the two happy travellers setting out on their trip is not quite so good as last time – blame it on the train wobbling!

Two weeks ago, Heathrow was at an embarrassing standstill because of a little snow and a lot of incompetence. Today it is operating efficiently and check-in proceeds quickly with our luggage being within weight limits (just), our pre-booked seats unchanged and our departure exactly on time.

Flying eastwards on a Boeing 777-200ER from London to Auckland via Hong Kong on Air New Zealand NZ38 is apparently the longest “same plane flight distance” in the world (i.e. a flight between two airports with a refuelling stop but without changing planes). According to Air New Zealand, the flight details are:

	Miles	Kms	Flight time
LHR-HKG	5994	9591	12 hrs 10 mins
HKG-AKL	5688	9101	10 hrs 55 mins
	11682	18692	23 hrs 5 mins

 

but because the distances shown above are great circle distances, our route with navigation wobbles is longer but the time shorter because of strong tail winds.

Like most major airlines, Air New Zealand publishes its in-flight entertainment listings online before the start of the month and so we already know which films we want to see – and on a 24 hour flight you can see quite a lot. Unlike other airlines however, the in-flight system is up and running from the moment you get on the plane and so that boring first hour whilst everyone else gets on the plane, it takes off and reaches cruising altitude and then the in-flight entertainment system starts is avoided. The offer includes “Made in Dagenham” (very good); “Wall Street” (poor), “The American” (average); “The Switch” (ok); and “Never let Me Go” (very good). You can watch a lot of films on a 24 hour flight!

Whilst the plane refuels in Hong Kong, there is a much

valued two hour stroll around the airport to stretch our legs plus use the free internet access (unlike Heathrow where you pay). Until a few years ago, when Hong Kong airport was at KaiTak, the approach was quite exciting with the landing path weaving through skyscrapers. Now it is a straight forward approach to a new airport carved out of an

island in the Bay which is much like any large new airport in the world. However we shall always remember it for the rather strange back-ground musak constantly playing whilst we were there which included “La Vie en Rose”; “O Sole Mio” and “Santa Lucia” all played with great enthusiasm by the Chinese State Accordion Band!

One of the numerous programmes (click here to access) available on the internet shows our route and progress – below is during the section from Hong Kong to Auckland.

As in all large planes, there is an in-flight map which finally confirms that we are close to arrival in Auckland. The

airport feels very quiet and un-hassled and it takes only 30

minutes from the plane landing to get through Immigration (no queues at all), collect our luggage (on the belt as we got to it) and present ourselves for Bio-security screening.

Border Patrol, a popular “fly on the wall” programme on one of the satellite channels in the UK is about the daily life of Customs and Immigration at Auckland airport. Anyone who has seen it will know that NZ takes the protection of its indigenous flora and fauna more seriously than practically any other country in the world – travellers are not allowed to import any food and have to declare anything which may have been in contact with their own flora and fauna. Hence our walking boots, diving equipment and other items were checked over on arrival. Knowing this would happen, meant that we had scrupulously cleaned everything and we passed through without trouble, the cleanliness of our boots even receiving praise from the Inspector who said we would have been awarded a clean boots smiley sticker if they had one. I doubt that they will be so clean on the way back! (ps – when we unpack in our hotel room, to our horror we find that we have accidently imported half a chocolate bar – the evidence of this crime has been eaten!)

Taking the 13 hour time difference into account, the 9 pm Monday departure from Heathrow arrives in Auckland at 11 am on Wednesday morning and so, 30 hours and 38 minutes after shutting the front door in England when our bodies think it is 11 pm on the 4th of January but here it is just after mid-day on the 5th of January, we open the door to our hotel room – feeling tired, grubby, jet lagged, and hungry but delighted to have got here without any mishaps.

Planning a trip to New Zealand

Part of the fun of travelling is planning the trip (although I would also have to say that some of the best trips are often arranged at the last minute and hardly planned at all). The Internet has revolutionised travel planning. In the old days you had to rely on whatever information you could glean from guide books and tourist offices and hence you often just set out and played it by ear as the trip went along. Whilst this always worked (there was no other option), you never knew what you missed and were perhaps less educated about your destination than is possible today.

The trick is to achieve a balance between sufficient planning to ensure the trip goes smoothly and you see all that you want to see and all that you should see and insufficient planning so that you have time to respond to the unexpected things that turn up - both good and bad.

Any trip can be broken down into the following elements:

• how to get there and back
• travelling  around – method and route
• deciding what is worth seeing (and what is not)
• what to pack

For our two month trip to New Zealand, consideration of Air Passenger Reviews led us to choose to fly there with Air New Zealand since not only did they offer the shortest duration direct flights with only one refuelling stop, they also got the best passenger reviews – if you are going to sit in economy on a plane for 24 hours, you want to be as comfortable as possible. They also offered the opportunity to fly around the world which is something that will be nice to remember (when we are old) that we did when we were young! They are not the cheapest airline but reviews of the cheaper airlines showed why they were cheap.

We have decided to travel in a slightly more comfortable campervan than we had in Australia last year – this time one with a toilet, shower and an indoor cooker! There are numerous campervan hire companies to choose from in most countries around the world. When we were in Australia, we chose Apollo – they were ok and the van was reliable but for a three month hire we expected a slightly newer van in better condition than we got. Also, even though we had made our booking months in advance, when we turned up at their office, the van had not been cleaned or serviced from its previous hire and we had to hang around all morning whilst they sorted it out (of course we got no reduction in the rental charge for this). Also mid trip, the van needed a routine service and although this was carried out by them, none of the minor but annoying faults which had developed in the van were dealt with. We expected better and felt somewhat let down.

Reading reviews and blogs led us towards Wilderness Motorhomes whose internet reviews are better than the other main players (Maui, Britz, Kea, Apollo  etc) – time will tell and will be detailed here. Within their website is all sorts of useful information and one has the feeling that they may be trying to give you a great holiday and that you are less of a number than you are with the larger companies. Certainly our dealings with them so far have been above average and when rental prices on their website reduced, twice they have had no hesitation in agreeing to pass on the reduction to us. Interestingly, this has had the effect of reducing their charges to below that of a number of their rivals. This is very welcome since when we started planning this trip, the exchange rate was $2.40 to the £ and it is now hovering around $2 i.e. costs for us have risen by 20%.

Everyone we have spoken to who has been to New Zealand advises more time on South Island than North. So we have determined a draft route and schedule which visits most of the main sites but leaves plenty of spare time to stay extra days somewhere or go to a place not on the route etc. The theory is that we will be on the North Island for 3 weeks and the South Island for 5 weeks

Our method of planning the route is to research routes other travellers have followed (Google Blog Search is very good for this); read some guide books and then create a rough route. We then note those places they enjoyed and those they did not; and add in those places we know we want to see. Then overnight stops are roughly chosen and researched on trip advisor – a few camp sites usually fall to the wayside when they get universally bad reviews. We always try to have spare days in the plan – so for South Island for example, we know we will be there 5 weeks but have only about 3 weeks travelling mapped out. Having spare days means you can change direction if you hear of a “must see” which is not on your route or stay over for a few more days if you like a place.

So the proposed route around the North Island is:

with particular highlights of diving just after we arrive, some walking through forests, Napier which is said to have some wonderful Art Deco buildings then through and down the centre.

And that for the South Island is:

 

with particular highlights of Farewell Spit; then the West Coast and Frans Josef Glacier; diving in Milford Sound, the Catlins in the deep south and then back up through the Centre.  Along the way there will be some wild camping in remote areas (we are hoping for as good a view of the Milky Way as we had last year in the Bungles) as well as some DOC campsites.

We also have a couple of optional “might like to see” route additions ready for close to the end of our trip at Christchurch in case we have a little time left over.  The total distance is a minimum of 6200 kms but we expect by the end, we will have covered around 9000 kms.

We find that this sort of planning – not rigid but not totally non existent enables us to see the best of a country without being driven by a schedule.

Packing is the easy bit, we have lists of clothes and gadgets, both essential and non-essential which can be adapted to suit any weight allowance, climate and trip duration. When packing, we try to divide similar items between the cases so that if a bag gets lost on the way out, we do not loose all our socks or shirts etc which would happen if they were in one bag. We also have lists of what is in each bag so if one gets lost or delayed (as has happened a few times) we know what we have to replace. Anything really essential (all medicines) or valuable (electronics, cameras, laptop etc) goes in hand luggage. New Zealand takes bio-security very seriously and this means that all of our outdoor and diving gear will need to be packed into one bag for examination as we go through Bio-Security Control at Auckland.

We also have a check list of those things we must do before we leave the house – perhaps a bit nerdish but if you are 10,000 miles from home and you suddenly remember that you did not turn the water off and it is freezing back home, there is not much you can do about it other than pray for no burst pipes.

All of our key documents (passports, insurance, prescriptions, dive cards, credit cards etc) have been scanned and are stored on the web so that we can access copies if needed.

So in theory, we depart with everything sorted out, the worst eventualities covered and the best encouraged!

Of all of the countries we have been to, New Zealand has perhaps the largest amount of information available on the web, most in high quality web sites. They are certainly making good use of technology to welcome visitors. We have also found that they will post local area guides to you free of charge – a most useful and welcoming service.