Oli Reveals: XII (12)

Another installment of Oli’s round-the-world emails:

A late email again….

The last part of my New Zealand trip consisted of relaxing in Taupo before
meeting Ben’s family in Hamilton and finally having our own comfy beds at
their house, where no-one could disturb me!! Did some last-minute xmas
shopping on christmas eve (which is a rare thing for me) and settled down to
watch some christmas movies and ring around a few friends to wish them
“happy christmas”. Yep,a sedate affair, but the shopping raised my spirits
and gave me some small part of christmas spirit in my heart. Christmas day
was a BBQ with Ben’s family, who realised very quicky how much tea I could
polish…I got some stick for not having a beer….they just don’t
understand!! Met up with a couple of friends (Zeynep and Andrew) in a hostel
in town and spent the night there- it means so much to me to see a familiar
face.

Did a strange thing on boxing day- went to Waitomo caves again and decended
into a different cave system for 3 hours. SPent most of the time gently
floating on an underground river, laying back in my inner tube (just 3 of us
and the guide!!) and gazing at the beautiful familiar glow of 1000’s of glow
worms igniting the narrow cave with a blue haze. This caving experience was
not as active as the first time, but so much more enjoyable as the guide was
a local mauri who wasn’t a chatter box like all of the others, asking why we
weren’t shouting constantly. It was a very sedate beautiful ride,
punctuated with a couple of waterfalls to jump down and negotiating a very
low-ceiling part of the cave, where we drifted within cm’s of sticky glow
worm threads. Emerged to glorious sunshine and then drove to my favourite
spot on the north island- the coromandel pensinsula. Met up with ben’s
family at their beach house and spent 4 days or so just relaxing in the town
cafes, lazing on the beach polishing a loada wine in the night hours,
soaking up the sun and driving around the peninsula again to visit cathedral
cove, stingray bay, coromandel town and Thames. The weather treated us
really well, and gave me a chance to catch up on my fixation with beaches.

Finally said goodbye to my friends on the 29th and flew out of Auckland to
Melbourne to start my Ozzy adventure. Checked into an ex-nunnery in
Melbourne and grabbed some food in the district of Fitzroy, packed full of
bars and restaurants. That night, I was convinced my a girl working at the
hostel that I would only regret it if I didn’t spend new year’s in Sydney.
Being me, I suddenly arranged a surprise car journey with a very old friend
who is currently planning cricket in Melbourne (Aaron Williams), and was
picked up on the morning of the 30th with two of his other friends- road
trip!! We drove 6-7 hours north and spent the night in the strange city that
is Canberra. It felt so dead and artificial, who could guess it’s the
capital! Spent the night in a camp site there and then continued to Sydney
the following morning, completing a 950km journey. Managed to get into
downtown Sydney around dinner time and found some friends who had a great
plot to watch the firework displays…right on Sydney harbour, on the
northshore so that we could see habour bridge, the opera house and the
skyscrappers making up the Sydney skyline. The area was packe dout with
backpackers from different hostels, most of them completely pissed up by the
early evening, but adding to a great atmosphere. The 9pm and 12am firework
displays were INCREDIBLE to watch, millions of dollars of pyrotechnics to
achieve the most amazing display I’ve ever seen. To give you an idea of
magnitude, Sydney had 3 firework displays going off simultaneously, one at
Manly beach, one at Bondi beach and one at the harbour itself. The huge
array of colours reflected off the water, the whole experiece intensifying
as the skyscrappers and harbour bridge also detonated in the grande-finale
of the show, adding a mind-blowing carpet of colour across the night sky,
like a super nova in space. Unforgettable.

Hauled my ass back to Melbourne after spending new years day ambling around
downtown Sydney in the scorching heat, photographing anything that dare
stayed-still long enough. Nice 12 hr coach journey back to Melbourne that
evening to continue my adventures in the place I landed in and to sort out a
car for some (hopefully) crazy moments.

Happy new year everyone!!

Oli