A Very White Christmas in New Zealand

Once safely in Auckland we spent the next day doing some last minute Christmas shopping and enjoying the excellent restaurants of Parnell, a fancy suburb of Auckland, which having many similarities to Marylebone, made me feel very much at home.

Next day it was back to the airport to pick up my mum for the drive up to the Bay of Islands. After a quick detour back into Auckland to pick up Richie's jacket from the hotel, we had a pleasant drive up through the native bush of Northlands with tantalising glimpses of the coast. This was then ruined by a two hour manic dash around the supermarket, filling two trollies with food supplies for the five thousand. We caught up with the rest of the White party (Rich's mum, dad and brother) on the Russell car ferry.















Our rented house was utterly gorgeous, with floor to ceiling glass windows looking out over the bay and a large decking complete with spa pool. A perfect place to spend Christmas. We spent the next six days engaged in the normal festive actives of eating and drinking far to much, and arguing over the dining table. This was only interrupted by a visit to 90-mile beach, a picnic on the lovely Long Beach in Russell, a dolphin watching excursion and parasailing.















Ninety Mile Beach, as the name would suggest, is a 90 mile stretch of wind swept, desolate beach running almost straight up the west side of the extreme north peninsular. People drive the whole length in four-by-fours (it is advisable to check the tides), play around on sand yachts, or horse ride in the surf.














We picked up a dolphin pod soon into our dolphin watching trip. They played around the boat, even doing some jumps, unfortunately since they had a pup with them, we were forbidden from entering the water. Still the water was a bit nippy for free diving anyway.















After two fine days over Christmas and Boxing Day, the temperamental NZ weather turned for the worse, and we found ourselves parasailing in the pouring rain. Alas the huge canopy above you does not act like a big umbrella.














It was a massive wrench to leave the house. The burning question is; how can we live there and still get an income.

Bali - Part II

Safely installed in a hotel near Kota beach, it was high time we began the surfing lessons. After some practise standing up on the roof of the Mercure hotel, we headed into the surf with our big orange soft-top boards (these give you more grip, and hurt less when they hit you on the head). We both enjoyed a modicum of beginners luck, riding at least two waves in each.

















The constant hawking around the beach, does become tiring – people even try and flog you shit while you're crossing the road with a surfboard on the way to the sea. So after two nights in Kuta we took an overpriced taxi to Ubud; bali's arts and craft centre. There's very little green belt between Kuta, Denpasar (the capital) and Ubud, but you know you're getting close when the road becomes lined with large wood carvings and 2m high stone statues of Ganesha.















Apart from hotels, there are only three types of establishments in Ubud – shops selling arts and crafts, good restaurants and spas. The pace of life is slower, and people don't follow you down the street trying to sell you things (although you still hear 'taxi' wherever you go). We spent four nights there, filling lazy days with spa treatments, rafting, walking, and (for Kirsten as least) shopping.














I think Kirsten got more out of the spa than me – the massage was good, but frankly I could've left the manicure. Ubud has a monkey forest, a smallish wooded area where large numbers of macaques are fed. They also flog bananas at the entrance, for you to feed to the monkeys. The result is they are aggressive even for macaques, and will jump on your head if you stay still for too long.














We returned to Kuta for our last two days in Bali, keen to fit in some more surfing practise. Having rented a couple of boards on the beach, we were horrified to see the water. It's really not overstating the fact to say it was full of rubbish (apparently, at this time of year it can get washed over from Java). Kirsten only managed to get waist deep before declaring no way. I decided to grin and bear it – it was truly surfing in a landfill. After two hours of limited success, I emerged stinking of rotten fish. My shorts and tee-shirt still stunk of fish after hours soaking in the sink (they are currently double-bagged in my rucksack). The next day it had all changed, and the only rubbish in the water was my surfing.



















They wouldn't let me on the New Zealand flight in Bali. Apparently you need a return flight to enter NZ. The check-in bloke claimed that the Kiwis had deported a couple of Dutch guys back to Bali for not having a return flight. I carefully explained that New Zealand was a British colony, and we have the same Queen, so there was no way they'd deport me (I'd been drinking). After much arguing I was allowed to check in to the first leg to Sydney. We then had to dash to the Qantas desk and buy a flight out of NZ before being allowed to check in to Auckland. Of course immigration in NZ didn't ask for the flight details, but they seem to deal with it by putting harsh penalties on the airlines. Anyway we made it.

Bali and Komodo

The plan was to head straight over to Komodo to do some diving (and see dragons), but as it seemed impossible to buy the plane tickets before arriving in Indonesia, we decided to spend a couple of days in Bali first, so we could sort out the travel arrangements and also have some much needed R&R. We decided to stay in Seminyak, as the Lonely Planet describes this as being more 'sophisticated' than the backpacker hangouts of Kuta and Legian (Kuta is where the 2002 bombings were). It turned out to be pleasant enough with plenty of swanky looking boutiques, restaurant and bars. However, the beach was a big disappointment. Whilst it is a good wide expanse of sand, it is also strewn with rubbish and rotting dead fish cast aside by the fishermen – hardly the idillic scene painted by the LP.















Having orientated ourselves, and had a fantastic dinner in a beach side restaurant, we decided to sample Bali nightlife. I think we headed out too early as most of the bars were deserted – most places don't get going until after 11. The only lively looking place on the street was Mix Well, a glitzy looking gay bar. We settled in for the evening with our Pina Coladas.

After another day recovering from our hangovers we boarded our flight for Labuan Bajo on Flores island which is the gateway to Komodo. We had arranged for three days diving with ReefSeekers and we headed out the next day. It takes a couple of hours to get to the dive sights, but the boat was well equipped and extremely well run with coffee and tea delivered to you at regular intervals so trip wasn't too painful. And as for the diving itself – well to be honest I would have been prepared to go twice as far for diving this quality. On the first day we had around 10 Manta Ray encounters and the second day we saw a group of three dolphins, including a pup – awesome. Other notable sightings included a beautiful eagle ray, bump head parrot fish, a giant shoal of fusiliers being chased by a giant trevally, a grey reef shark, several white tip and black tip shark, turtles, and mandarin fish. In addition to all this, the coral and abundance of small fish was incredible. Unfortunately, although we rented a camera, the light on that day was poor, and it fogged up so the manta ray is more of a shadow.














Obviously, a trip to Komodo would not be complete without visit the infamous dragons, so on the fourth day we charted a boat to Rinca beach which we had been told was the best place to guarantee finding them. It was only a short work from the rangers office, when accompanied by a guide with a large stick, we found our first dragon. We trekked for around 2 hours seeing around 6 dragon of varying sizes. They were actually not as large as we were expecting (about 3m nose to tail), but this could have been because they were mostly laying down sleeping in the sweltering heat. Apparently, if they kill a buffalo they will not need to hunt for another week so they can spend their time sleeping.














Other than the diving and dragons, Labuan Bajo doesn't have much to offer travellers. Luckily for us there was one very good restaurant and bar, Lounge, which as well as great food offered live music and even impromptu dance classes which obviously I couldn't resist much to the amusement of the locals.

Kuala Lumpur

One airport train, five stops on the monorail (plus the walk to the station), one long walk past the 24 hour McDonald's, and we were at our KL hostel above an Iraqi restaurant. The presences of in-room air-con, Kirsten's continuing cold and the early morning start, meant we didn't leave again for some time.




The hostel was in the Golden Triangle – a business district east of the colonial centre and south of the Petronas Towers, where a lot of the big hotels are. We spent the afternoon shuffling between air-conditioned malls and enjoying the plentiful free WiFi that is available throughout the city. In the evening we dined at Blue Boy vegetarian cafe – as there didn't seem to be anything resembling a menu, the cheerful owner took one look at us a decided what we should have and soon we were tucking into a tasty array of tofu-masquerading-as-meat dishes. We ended the evening by walking to the Petronas towers which look pretty spectacular after dark.















Petronas generously give away 1400 free tickets to the Skybridge between the towers on the 41/42nd floor. The guide books recommend getting there before 0830 to avoid disappointment. We dutifully queued and were allocated a 0945 slot, but when we returned from breakfast the queue had vanished and they were still giving away tickets for the afternoon slots. Before getting in the lift, there's the inevitable promotional video from Petronas, which among other things claims the Skybridge to be the highest 2-story bridge in the world (see what they've done here - there are of course much higher single-story sky-bridges). The view is frankly a bit of a let down – at only 170m high it's far from breathtaking, and obviously you can't see the towers themselves, which are the most impressive piece of the KL skyline.

We spent the afternoon wondering round the Colonial Centre and Little India stopping at the Coliseum Cafe (which felt like neither the décor nor the menu had changed since it's hay day in the 1920s) then down to the central market – now a kind of arts and craft fair. We ended the day's sightseeing with a short walk through the forest reserve to the KL tower. This has an observation deck at 276m and provides a great view of the city including an, albeit side on, view of the Petronas towers.

On a more bizarre note, someone nicked Kirsten's sandals from the entrance to the hostel (they had a shoes off at the door policy). They were Prada, but at 5 years old and size 3, it seemed somewhat of an odd crime.

Diving Video

As we've become complete scuba junkies (45 dives in two months), we've put together a short dive video. The footage was taken over three days in Palau and Sipadan. Enjoy.

The video is on YouTube here, unfortunately they've removed the audio track (Porpoise Song by the Monkees), but the small embedded video below still has it.

Kuching and Bako National Park

Two short flights later we were in Kuching, the the capital of the state of Sarawak. We spent a lazy day in this relatively attractive and laid back city in preparation for heading out to another national park, namely Bako. This is an hour's bus ride towards the coast followed by a rather choppy 20 minute ride in a small motor boat to the Park HQ. After wading in from the boat to the beach and registering at the Park HQ, we installed ourselves in our basic and very musty smelling lodgings.















As lunch was well over due we headed straight for the canteen and soon discovered that the food is definitely not the highlight of a trip to Bako. In fact I would go as far as saying it was disgusting. All meals were self service from a barely warm serving station, complete with flies and ants. The only thing vaguely identifiable was the rice which was sure to be the perfect breading ground for bacteria. Needless to say the concept of vegetarianism has not made it this far so Richard resorted to supplementing his diet of rice with canned soya milk. Although pretty inedible for humans, the food is attractive to the pesky local macaques who lurk around the canteen waiting for the moment to pounce on some unguarded food. We witnessed several highly entertaining raids, one where the cunning monkey snatched a handful of chips and preceded to stuff them in his mouth with a very smug grin and a second incidence were a monkey snatched Richards bowl of muesli and tipped over his head whilst trying to guzzle down the contents. We never did manage to get the bowl back.















On a more positive not there a several very lovely treks in the park. On the first day as we didn't have much time we made the short walk through the jungle to Teluk Paku beach. Like the beach at Park HQ this is another wide sweeping cove of sand with a dramatic backdrop of jungle covered cliffs. The next day we did the 4km trek to the Tajor Waterfall and beach. This takes longer than you would think as the path, although very well marked is riddled with tree routes and includes a couple of relatively steep climbs. The waterfall is decidedly average, but the beach is really quite spectacular. Unfortunately you don't get much time to enjoy it before you have to start the walk back to try and avoid the enviable afternoon downpour (which by the way we didn't).















The main highlight for me of Bako was that it provides a chance to see the rare proboscis monkeys at close quarters. They really are quite ridiculously looking creatures with long floppy noises and pot bellies. They often hang out in the trees near the back at Park HQ were we found a large male. Unfortunately though I didn't have my camera with me at the time.















After two nights at the park (and really I wouldn't recommend more given the food) we are now back in Kuching for a night before our flight to KL and are intending to enjoy some much need food.

Mulu

After Uncle Tan's, we called in at Mount Kinabalu National Park for a night – not long enough to climb the summit, but long enough to walk some trials around the base and have a good look at the peak. Unfortunately the weather was against us, so there was little evidence of a mountain through the thick fog - the only view we got was from the plane on the flight down to Tawau.


















We flew from Kota Kinabalu to Mulu National Park in Sarawak, having cleared immigration in Miri (why you need to go through immigration flying from Sabah to Sarawak – part of the same country, is beyond me). Mount Mulu is a 2376m peak, which contains the world's largest limestone cave system, and is covered by an ancient rainforest. The park itself is incredibly well laid out, with dozens of miles of wooden walkways through the forest. There are four “show” caves, then three categories of “adventure” caves.















Arriving late afternoon we headed to Deer Cave (aka the Bat Cave) to see the twilight exodus of millions of bats. I wanted to record the bat sounds, which was impossible with the din of people chattering at the observation point, so we walked closer to Deer Cave. The smell of ammonia becomes quite unbearable, and really starts to sting your eyes and burn the back of your throat (all those millions of bats do leave their mark). The path just continues into the cave, which at 174m high and 122m wide is the largest cave entrance in the world, and there is plenty of natural light even a few hundred meters in. So after half-hour of filming and photographing in the peace and solitude, we were surprised to be approached by a slightly disgruntled guide – apparently even these very safe show caves are off limited without a guide.















Early next morning we set off on our first official cave visit to the Cave of the Winds and Clearwater, the latter being part of the largest cave system in the world. We saved the 60RM on the boat and took the 80 minute walk up-and-down over 400 steps and through a small cave (Moonmilk) to meet the guide at the Cave of the Wind. Neither of these caves has the majesty of Deer Cave, but they are extremely well lit, giving a highly atmospheric effect. Of course what follows a torturous 80 minute walk out to a cave, is a torturous 80 minute walk back.














After the first of many toasted cheese sandwiches (oh the joy of vegetarianism) we joined a group for Lang and Deer Caves. Lang is similar to the Cave of the Wind, while Deer Cave was equally as breathtaking the second time. Several hundred meters in it finally gets dark, before the light from the second entrance reaches in. With all the Bat droppings, there are of course plenty of cockroaches. Fortunately they stay down in the lower levels.















For our taste of adventure caving, we signed up for the intermediate level Racer Cave (you need to show membership of a caving club for the advanced caves). Armed with helmets, headlights and two guides, we set off in a long boat – Racer is out near Clearwater, and we weren't going to start the day with another killer walk. Things didn't start too well as the first rope section was quite tough; the wall was too slippery to get any foot grip, so I ended up just haling myself up on my arms. The guide helpfully created foot holes for Kirsten by cupping his hand, and we were through the first of five rope sections. Another hour of tight squeezes, waterfalls, accents, descents, a snake and several very large spiders (really needed to be careful where you put your hand), and we'd reached the large central chamber. The only thing left to do was the entire thing in reverse.















We took the afternoon off, which proved an inspired decision, as mid-afternoon saw the start of 15 hours of torrential rain. There's plenty of other things to do in the park, including the limestone pinnacles or the summit of Mount Mulu, but these take at least three days of hard hiking. So we finished off with a very gentle canopy walk – 500m of rope bridges strung between the trees.

Kinabatangan

We said a sad goodbye to Sipadan and the turtles and boarded a Fokker 50 for the hour flight north, over endless miles of Palm Oil plantations, to Sandakan. This was to be our base for a jungle adventure with Uncle Tan's. First though we paid a visit to the Sepilok Orang-Utan Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre. This is a reserve of 43 sq km of primary rainforest and mangrove which was established in the 1960s to protect orang-utan from extinction. The main draw is feeding time where you get to watch the orang-utan on the feeding platform from reasonably close quarters. It is pretty addictive watching their amazingly agile acrobatics dangling from their feet and hands and swinging wildly between the trees. As you are reasonably close, it is also a good opportunity to take photos and I certainly took hundreds, a small selection of which are shown here. The heat and humidity was however pretty overwhelming and after just half an hour the sweat is pouring off you.














After a glimpse of Bornean wildlife we were ready for the real thing and pilled into the Uncle Tan's mini van along with 10 or so other backpackers to head into the jungle in a remote area of Kinabatangan. Around an hour and half later, and as the rain really started to become torrential, we transferred into small uncovered motor boats. Surprisingly, this being a rainforest and all, rain was a bit of a theme to this trip.














We arrived at the camp, after about an hour, very wet and hoping the black plastic bin liners we had used to cover our rucksacks had been effective. The camp is about 500m from the river through the jungle. Our guide recommended that we borrowed some wellies for the walk as it can get very muddy. Unfortunately for Richard there were none he could actually get his feet into – this was soon to lead to some very muddy shoes.














The accommodation at Uncle Tan's is pretty basic – wooden huts with mattresses on the floor and the essential mosquito nets. It is all set on raised wooden walk ways to protect it from the mud and frequent flooding. After a cup of tea and a briefing describing the various types of primates, birds, crocodiles and deadly inspects that can be found in the area, we set off on our first night time river safari. Unfortunately we didn't have much luck and only saw a brief glimpse of a very small croc, a couple of owls and some macaques, which a pretty ubiquitous around here.














We had much better luck the next day when our 6:30am start was rewarded with finding an Orang-utan. Whilst it was high up in the trees so we didn't get as good a view as at the sanctuary, you still feel very privileged to be seeing one in the wild. We also saw several proboscis monkeys – they are the ones with the ridiculously long noses and fat bellies.














We managed to fit in a second boat safari and two jungle treks in during the rest of the day so I won't bore you with exactly what we saw on each but the highlight was probably the night trek. In this we focused on the small stuff, my particular favourite being the frogs and a sleeping kingfisher. I was less enamoured by the tarantula which was larger than a hand. Luckily it was high up in a tree, but still you couldn't help jumping sightly every time a twig brushed you unexpectedly. Given the lack of wellies in Richard's size he had to resort to fashioning some shoe coverings out of black bin liners. As we were knee deep in the muddy swamp, he commented that it felt like we had come full circle from the start of our trip, as the experience was very much like Glastonbury, but without the live music. The frogs, however, did provide all variety of strange noises.



The journey home was accompanied by some of the loudest thunder and heaviest rain I have every experienced. We were soaked to the bone, extremely muddy and feeling pretty sick - Richard had developed the cold that I had in Sipidan, but it had turned into a deadly case of man-flu. However, this was still a great experience and we would still highly recommend this trip to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of mud and and the odd poisonous spider.

Sipadan

Since Air Malaysia cancelled our direct flight from Manila to Kota Kinabalu, we had to go via Kuala Lumpur – the equivalent of going from London to Madrid via Athens. We overnighted in a functional hostel before taking the early flight across Sabah (north east Borneo) to Tawau. There was too much cloud cover to see the jungle from the plane, but when we descended into Tawau, we could see the rain forest was completely replaced by neat rows of Palm Oil plantations as far as the horizon (and presumably beyond). Also the hour long drive to Semporna (for the boat to Mabul) was entirely through plantation. Environmental groups are concerned about the destruction of wildlife habitation and loss of biodiversity, but Malaysia is the world's largest exporter of Palm Oil, so there are huge economic interests.















The oceanic island of Sipadan, sitting on top of a 600m limestone stack, is generally regarded as one of the world's top dive sites. After three days without diving, we were chomping on the regulator to get back in the water.

Sipadan itself no longer has any resorts on it, and the island is controlled by the Malaysian navy, complete with green speed boats and automatic weapons. I imagine the heavy military presences is party to do with the kidnap of 21 staff and guests from a Sipadan resort, by a Filipino islamist group in 2000. We stayed at Borneo Divers on nearby Mabul – a good midrange option. Other options include a converted oil rig which is parked about 200m off shore in front of Borneo Divers, and huts on stilts out from the beach. Given the limited permits for Sipadan (120 daily), our place managed to get enough for everyone to dive Sipadan everyday.















The diving schedule was 2 dives in the morning around Sipadan, then a afternoon dive somewhere around Mabul or Kapalai. After registering on Sipadan we started our first dive. As soon a we hit the water there was a turtle swimming round us. The turtles round here are quite used to divers, so don't swim off if you get too near, but rather just get on with their own thing (which is mainly sleeping). The sheer amount of marine life is staggering – on the second dive there was nowhere to look that you couldn't see turtles.





























So this brings me on to my first rant: We had 11 divers in the group (the dive master, camera man, and 9 guests), but normally people space themselves out, so it doesn't feel too crowded. Not this time – between inexperienced divers not being able to control their buoyancy (or their fins), and plain selfish ones who'd cut you up to get a shot, or swim in front of everyone else's shot for their own me-in-front-of-shark/turtle shot, the whole thing was rather stressful (I felt more relax in the pitch black inside a wreck in Coron). The worst offender I will call the Russian.















The boat group changed a bit for the second day, but still had the Russia, who insisted on completely ignoring the dive master and swimming off in random directions. When with the group, he assaulted several turtles – tried to pull one off a rock, knocked on the back of another's shell, and finally kicked one in the face – I've never seen someone getting so many underwater bollockings (and completely ignore them).















The second day was relatively cold, and the driving rain on the boat back to Mabul made the 20 minute journey seem like a hour. This didn't do anything to improve Kirsten's stinking cold so unfortunately she had to bow out of the afternoon dive – a muck dive beneath Seaventures' oil rig. Muck dives are so called because you look for critters that live around the relatively low visibility sandy bottom. My fish identification is pretty awful, but I think there was a crocodile fish, a stonefish, a Lionfish, a couple of Moray Eels, and a tiny sea horse (although I'm not convinced about this last one, frankly it could have been anything). I also did a sunset dive, and finally saw Mandarin fish. I think the problem is that I've been looking for something, well fish sized, when in fact they are about 1cm long.















Day three was back to warm sunny weather and a small group (including the Russian). This gave excellent light for photography, and the sea life was very cooperative with six turtles sitting below the boat on the second dive and the school of thousands of barracuda showing up bang on time at the end of the first dive.

We hired a camera for the second a third day; an ancient 3 megapixle Canon, but given the plethora of marine life, you'd have to be an imbecile to not come back with good photos. Anyway, I'll let the photos speak for themselves.