so, although it has only been a few days since the last entry it seems like now we are finally on ‘the trip’, and an awful lot has happened in a short period of time. if you readers are to get all the details of what we have been up to i fear i will need to be blogging every couple of days, and if i run out of time to do this then apologies for any gaps in the timeline. i’ll do my best to keep this making sense, and you’ll have to bear with me if there is the odd jump in time and location! think of it rather like falling asleep for a few minutes in the middle of a movie (which i did for all 3 movies i watched on the plane from LA to Auckland)- though it’s a bit irritating and confusing, you’ll soon get the gist of what has happened in the interim, and will be caught up with yourself in no time at all. this time however, i have several hours of a car journey to fill, so will aim to get in almost every gory detail of the past week.
when i last blogged we were just about to head out into big bad Hollywood, and it was raining in LA. and, i can report, though it continued to rain for most of the day, its not that big but it is quite bad!
we did the requisite stroll down the walk of stars, getting excited about seeing Bing Crosby’s stars (he had 3 separate stars I swear!), Elton John’s star, Joan Collin’s star, and also the ones belonging to Godzilla and The Munchkins. we put our feet and hands in the wet puddles of John Wayne’s, Russell Crowe’s and Matt Damon’s footprints outside the Chinese Theatre ( fyi, famous people all seem to have very small feet, apart from Matt Damon, whose feet are massive!), and we parked our car in the lot beneath the Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards). the whole experience was fun, but as suspected totally tacky, and we felt like we had the whole thing done and dusted in about 15 minutes. there was a brief hiatus, when we stumbled across Kitt, the Knightrider car, in amongst a display of tv and film cop cars that had sprung up around us and closed the street, but after that we hurried back to Jennifer’s dry 4x4 and headed off to continue our adventure.
we drove up through various suburban backstreets in an attempt to get close to the Hollywood sign, but the rain and clouds were so bad that it was impossible to even see a hint of the infamous sign on the hill. when we got to the top we found that our plans were thwarted anyway, because the walkway we had planned on heading through was all padlocked, and we later heard that the rain had been so heavy that there had possibly been some land slip and the hill was too dangerous to be walking on anyway. i expected to be very disappointed, but actually i felt totally fine about missing it- the earlier exploits in Hollywood had left me feeling cold (both literally and metaphorically!) and i realised that, as everyone says, the whole Hollywood experience is pretty superficial anyway, and not anything to get worked up over.
we then proceeded on to what we decided must have been the cheapest ever trip to Rodeo Drive. we did plentiful gawking through the shop windows from the rainy sidewalk outside, but didn’t dare put a toe of our soggy bodies through any of their ultra-glam doorways, and we didn’t even have to pay for parking because someone had left 30 minutes in the meter, so all in all a bargain of a trip.
Jennifer saved the day by insisting on taking us Downtown, which is inhabited by a large proportion of the city’s massive Mexican population. she took us to this old cobbled pedestrian roadway called Olvera Street, which is purportedly the oldest street in Los Angeles. there, whilst we were surrounded by the bright primary colours of the Mexican bric-a-brac on the street stalls, and the lurid plasticky fake flowers, the grey, heavy, laden skies somehow seemed less apparent and oppressive. we were taken to a rather lovely and quaint little taverna draped in vines which had a small sign reporting that it was the oldest brick building in Los Angeles, and margheritas were ordered all round. after re-fuelling on a platter of Mexican deliciousness (‘tacitos’, ‘sopas’, ‘quesadillas’, and an unidentified pork product which was a little bit like meaty crackling- all were deep fried, and all either smothered in cheese, sour cream or guacamole. all were devoured!), we crossed over the street to a local mission. this is just the name for the churches that were built by the missionaries to convert the Mexicans to catholicism, but the feel of them is totally different to a European catholic church. it was much plainer overall, and quite dark and narrow, but felt busier (even though we only popped our nose in during the middle of the afternoon, and there was no service happening, there were at least 10 or 12 patrons, all Mexican, peacefully dotted around the church.) and was obviously a hub for the local community. there was a large walled courtyard outside the mission building, containing a small stall selling refreshments and a ‘church shop’ for all your most important of church shopping needs- candles, sacrificial plastic flowers, crosses and statues of Mary i imagine- and the air was filled with the sounds of a Mexican pop tune blaring out of a fuzzy radio or cassette player hidden somewhere. it was all quite jolly, unlike the often sombre feel of catholic churches i’ve been to before, and i felt that if i was religious it would be a nice place to go and worship with my community.
we headed out of Downtown, over the superhighways and tangle of flyovers and through rush hour traffic (also an LA institution from what I understand!), and back to Hermosa Beach in time to scoop up our belongings, share a final glass of pinot and dinner with the family, before shuttling back to LAX. the next leg of the trip faced us- New Zealand- and though i was sad to be bidding farewell to the husband’s extended family (and by association mine now, i guess) who had been so welcoming, so warm and so much fun, it was exciting to be striking out on our own and it felt like only once we landed in Auckland were we able to become the true travellers we have been aspiring to be for so long.
we left LA on monday night, and landed in Auckland on wednesday morning. it was a very long and bumpy flight, and by the time we had negotiated our way out of the airport and on to a bus and walked the 15 minutes to our hostel with all of our bags, my body clock was so screwed i couldn’t really tell you which way was up or down let alone what time of day it was. we checked in to our room at the tiny ‘City Groove Backpackers’ in the university district, and i was thrilled to find that the past few years of staying in luxury and boutique hotels around the world has not totally beaten the backpacker out of me.
we were greeted by a fairly small room, with a faded duvet cover and mismatched stringy towels, a view of a wall, one or two lazily floating midges and a pretty strong musty and damp smell (if a smell can be musty and damp at the same time? this definitely was!). my private fear before we started this big adventure of ours was that i would find this kind of thing difficult to deal with. i’ve stayed in plenty of hostels before in my younger days, and been unfazed by the odd stained sheet, a cobweb or two in the corners of the ceilings and a carpet peeling up from the floor. but since my last big trip, aged 21, i’ve been rather spoiling myself on the holiday accommodation front. when you only have 1 or 2 weeks in the year to go away it seems only right to spend a bit of cash and stay somewhere lovely. i hope it doesn’t sound like bragging if i say that i’ve been to, amongst others, amazing 5 star lodges in Lombok, Livingstone and South Luangwa, stayed in beautiful boutique B&Bs in Bath, Didsbury and Padstow, and discovered a stunning little bolt hole in Granada. of course, there has been the odd shit-hole amongst the gems since i grew up and started holidaying rather than travelling! i’ve been working in TV for the past 7 years- the money isn’t good enough to always splash out! i remember clearly being too scared to turn the lights off in a hostel in Maputo in Mozambique because the cockroaches were so large and running up the walls next to my bunk bed. i’ve spent too long laying in a dormitory in Amsterdam desperate to fall asleep, but convinced that some drug crazed fellow ‘roomy’ was going to steal my bags. and in a homestay in Andalucia the bed was so uncomfortable and the mattress so thin, that i’ve actually removed it to sleep on the floor just to escape the pricking springs in my back.
nonetheless, it has been a while, and after a very extravagant honeymoon 18 months ago i worried that my standards would be such that our plans to budget backpack around New Zealand would be foiled, as at the first stop i would lose all self control and find myself unable to stop from throwing a spoilt strop and demanding a hotel, a bell hop to carry my bags and tiny little free soaps i could steal from the bathroom (i love doing this- i might splash out on smart hotels, but i’m still pikey enough to pocket the toiletries!) . but, no, though the room was anything but lovely, it didn’t bother me. rather like missing the Hollywood sign, i was expecting more of a reaction. as it was, the dampness and musty smell came from a teeny wet room behind a sliding door, so was actually well worth putting up with. the benefit of having an en suite bathroom that i wasn’t expecting far outweighed the room smelling a bit odd and housing a few lazy flies.
so, we showered and fighting the urge to crash and sleep we headed out to see what Auckland had to offer our jetlagged brains.and bodies. first stop was some food, for which we nipped into a hidden away asian food court that the husband remembered from a previous trip. having fed ourselves grandly and very cheaply on a delicious bento box from a Japanese stall we wandered down to the marina, and then up through the city centre to the Sky Tower, the highest structure in the southern hemisphere. we paid to go up to the viewing platform and spent a very enjoyable hour or so doing loops and taking in the view and then trying to pinpoint our hostel. after a prolonged discussion, in which the husband confirmed that women do indeed lack the necessary chromosome to understand perspective from a height (even with him repeatedly pointing and explaining i could not grasp where we had come from, and which park our hostel was hidden behind!) we headed on a scenic route back to the hostel, gathered our thoughts and a few minutes of shut eye and then back out to dinner. looking for cheap and easy comfort food we were thrilled to stumble across a pizza place called ‘La Porchetta’. just like our London favourite it was great value for money, the staff were friendly, and we got happily sloshed on a bottle of the house red. it felt wonderfully comforting to be somewhere so familiar, and despite the apparent jetlag we were still the last people out of the restaurant, as we so often were at the one we frequented in N4.
we woke up bright and early the following morning, feeling refreshed and ready for a challenge. we headed down to the marina again, picking up breakfast along the way, and caught a ferry out to a small island 30 minutes away from the Auckland city centre called Rangitoto. this was formed 700-800 years ago by an erupting volcano, and is now covered in greenery, pretty much totally un-populated (the guide book said there were 74 residents, but we saw no signs of habitation at all) and offers fantastic views of Auckland from it’s summit. the summit however is a pretty hardcore 1 hour climb from where the boat docks. we headed straight off, and initially found ourselves at the lead of the group of people who had been on the boat with us. thrilled at our athleticism we marched steadily on, but as the going got steeper we were swiftly lapped by more competent walkers, then younger and more enthusiastic teenagers, and shortly after middle aged couples, children and a pair of young girls, one in flimsy thong sandals the other in ankle high ugg boots. they carried handbags, listened to a shared i-pod, and were laughing and chatting as we sweated and struggled our way up the steep incline over the tumbling black volcanic rocks. we started to seriously doubt ourselves. thankfully, in the last 15 minutes before the top we found ourselves overtaking most of the overtakers, but the 2 inappropriately shod girls remained in front of us and a perplexing and irritating mystery. we decided they must either have been swiss or austrian and therefore used to the mountainous terrain- to them the ascent must have been akin to a walk in the park, because they certainly didn’t look like it was any effort! the views from the summit were stunning, and well worth the sweat, and indeed it was really good just to get some fresh air and exercise after so much time in the previous week spent cooped up in planes. after a much less tiring descent, and a walk through some lava caves we were pleased to hop back on the ferry, and back to the hostel.
on our return to City Groove, we found a man waiting to collect us and take us to collect the hire car we had booked the previous day. and so we were introduced to Grover.
our hire car is small, green and very dirty. as such, i decided that Grover was an appropriate name, after the character in Sesame Street that lived in a bin. Grover however, is a very miserable individual, constantly griping and complaining and whining about everything. it seemed that only time would tell as to whether this aspect of Grover’s personality suited our car also…..
we had a quiet final evening in Auckland, eating well in a steak restaurant, and falling asleep early after the rigours of Rangitoto. this morning we rose early, and checked out of the hostel at 7.45am and hit the road straight away to get to our next destination, Napier, home of a great old friend of mine from Dorset, Jim, who we are spending the weekend with.
once on the road with Grover i learned several things very quickly:
- it is as green and lush and empty as everyone says. and we are still in the North Island- it apparently only gets quiet when you go to the South Island!
- there is actually a surprisingly high ratio of cows to sheep, unlike the rumours there is as much cattle farming as sheep farming. and a similar number of dead squashed possums in the road.
- some kiwis have a great love of corrugated iron. we drove past a massive warehouse that had a sign declaring it the premier corrugated iron sculpture emporium in New Zealand. we then drove through a village full of corrugated iron sculptures, signs, buildings, etc. i have a photo of a building in the shape of a dog, made of corrugated iron. genius.
- the kiwi road signs are the best and wittiest i have ever seen. i’m not sure if they intend them that way, but i have actually laughed out loud at some road signs today. my personal favourite commands the driver to ‘Merge. Like a zip.’… there is then an illustration of a zip. just in case there are some kiwi’s who have never come across a zip before, and all their clothes are fastened with just buttons or velcro.
- Rotarua, home of the bubbling volcanic mud, does indeed smell of eggs, and is not worth hanging around long in. we stopped as we passed through just long enough to take a couple of pictures, and then left pretty sharpish before the permeating smell made us sick. it may be the most popular tourist spot in the North Island, but it did not hold a massive appeal for me i’m afraid. methane doesn’t do it for me.
- Grover was a worthy name. our car has some slightly fucked up suspension issues, and every time we go over the vaguest bump in the road we hear a noise akin to nails being run down a blackboard. he does indeed gripe and whine at the slightest thing! and when we moved all the bags around to try and sort it out, the boot smacked me in the head, as if to add insult to injury! we are going to call the AA on arrival at Jim’s house, and hope they can get it sorted before we have to head down to Wellington on Sunday.
that brings us up to present time and day. i’ve been typing and catching up with myself on the laptop as the husband drives, and i’m hoping to be able to download this blog when we arrive at Jim’s house, which is nearing rapidly. and hopefully, the photos at the top of the blog will be updated too, to show the first week of our travels. well done for reading to the end- it’s been a bit epic, but then it’s been a bit of an epic week!
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