Category: 2006 Trip

My last full travel day was spent in Singapore. I arrived early in the morning and took Singapore Airlines up on their offer of free transit to the Little India area of the city. On the way, I met a girl from France who was travelling to New Zealand to study English. I was thrilled to meet someone I could practice speaking French with – I’ve had very little exposure to French over the past 8 weeks, and really wanted to speak and hear more of it before returning to Ottawa. And she was glad to find someone who spoke English and French (even if it may have been difficult for her to understand me at times). I think it really helped her out to have someone who could ask for directions and make sure we would get to where we wanted to go.

And we sort of got lost anyway. We spent a few hours doing the walking route around Little India, following a map and guide book. That was fine and I think we both enjoyed seeing this part of Singapore. Then we decided to try catching one of the tour buses to see more of the city. That’s when things got complicated. We probably just missed the bus we wanted and then tried to find a different stop to catch it or another bus – and we didn’t know where to go. The maps for these buses aren’t exactly precise, and the very friendly and helpful locals aren’t actually all that knowledgeable about the specifics of where and how to catch tourist buses.

Eventually, we got caught in a sudden rain storm and a young Singaporean who was waiting for his girlfriend to meet him offered to show us how to take the subway. This was so nice of him! The system was familiar, but it made things much easier to have someone to show us the steps and point us in the right direction. From the stop we got off at, we could walk underground past numerous stores to get back to the meeting spot for where the bus would bring us back to the airport.

So I helped Sofie get back there in time for her afternoon return to the airport. Since I still had hours before flying out, I decided to take the city bus tour (and the bus happened to pull up right in front of me, so I hopped on). It was still rainy, so I didn’t want to get out and explore at any of the stops. I had already done so much walking that day!

After the tour, I walked back to see the 16 storey high National Library. It’s a national library and also a public, lending library. Since it was Good Friday and a holiday in Singapore, the library was closed. Still, the outside of the building is impressive and the area surrounding the library is very inviting. I had to follow in my vacation tradition and photograph the library and its signage, of course.

I also stopped by the Raffles Hotel, famous for the creation of the Singapore Sling (and other things, I’m sure).

Eventually, I headed back to the airport where I was looking forward to taking Singapore Airlines up on its other offer of a free shower (offered to anyone who takes the shuttle bus into the city). After a walk in the hot Singapore morning and rainy Singapore afternoon I was really looking forward to this! Finding the Rainforest Spa shower area was more difficult than I had anticipated, though. I eventually found it, and just hoped that my fellow traveller from France had been able to find more easily!

At some point while we were in Rotorua, Julie, Raf, and I decided that we would go skydiving.

I’m not quite sure how this came about. I reckon it’s that I mentioned the next stop the group on the Stray bus was making was to Taupo and a lot of people were planning to skydive there. They had asked whether I would, and my answer had been: “Well, I’m not going there on this trip, but if I was, then I guess so…”

Somehow, this answer ended up convincing the three of us to call and book a jump for Sunday morning. After Julie made the call, we really weren’t sure what we had gotten into. Don’t people usually think about skydiving for months before deciding to go for it? Wasn’t I supposed to have weeks of sleepless nights as I prepared mentally for the experience?

Anyway, the call was made on the Saturday and we were scheduled to go up in the plane from the Taupo airport early Sunday morning – so long as the beautiful weather held out. I would then stay in Taupo and take a bus the following morning to attempt making the Tongariro Crossing (a very challenging 6-9 hour walk across the country round Mt Tongariro).

We spent Saturday afternoon enjoying many of the things the Rotorua area offers: Lady Knox Geyser’s eruption at Waiotapu; the splendors of a float in the naturally hot (and free!) Kerosene Creek; and, Zorbing! All of the above were wonderful, but we were so glad we went zorbing. I think we’d all first heard about this concept in an episode of the Amazing Race set in New Zealand. To zorb, you get zipped into a big plastic ball (filled with a bit of water if you like) and choose whether you want to roll down the hill in a straight line or a zigzag. We all opted for the zigzag route. It’s a lot of fun – you usually come out totally drenched and want to go down the hill again almost immediately!

We were back at the Crash Palace that evening and I think we slept surprisingly well considering that we were at least a bit anxious about the tandem skydiving awaiting us the next morning.

We woke to a sunny, clear morning. And Julie and I wondered again what we had gotten ourselves into. The skydiving company had told us to call that morning to confirm whether the jump was still on – sometimes the weather is different in Taupo, or the conditions could just be too windy for skydiving.

Turned out that the weather wasn’t looking so hot and sunny in Taupo – to our temporary relief, the skydiving was cancelled. We were told to call back 30 minutes before the scheduled jump time.

By the time we got to Taupo, it was raining quite steadily. And it was gray and miserable out. Julie and I didn’t mind, though. I think we were much happier to have a day wandering in the small, touristy town. It turns out that there is even a Scannell St. in Taupo! This was a first for me. It also turned out that the weather didn’t look promising for the Tongariro Crossing – being able to do the walk is an extremely weather-dependent activity, so I decided it was a better idea to drive back to Auckland with Julie and Raf and head up to the Bay of Islands instead.

The Stray group is always looking for new and worthwhile things to add to their travel itineraries to expose visitors to New Zealand culture. Rob was quite excited on our way into Rotorua – he had just found out that Slim, the person who offers Stray travellers a night of Maori culture in the form of dinner and a show, had arranged for us to see a Maori weapons demonstration before our dinner on the night we arrived in Rotorua.

Rob had never seen a performance like this, so he was thrilled that it worked out for us. On this particular night, the group of 5 students met for their regular training. Watching them practice was along the lines of watching a karate demonstration, or any other martial art for that matter. We got to handle some of the traditional weapons ourselves (including ones that were once used to rip off the scalps of enemies – ugh, don’t want to think too much about that). A few people even got up to learn a couple of moves themselves.

After this, we went for dinner and the men in the group learned to do the haka (the traditional Maori dance that most of us have seen before thanks to the popularity of New Zealand’s national rugby team, the All Blacks, who perform the haka before the start of each rugby match). On the way to the dinner, most of the guys had said they were shy about getting up in front of everyone to learn this. Once called up, however, they were eager and seemed to take learning the haka very seriously.

Later that evening, we got to see a play about a Maori legend. It was a good way for us to have an introduction to some Maori history (in an entertaining format). I must admit that the style of the play wasn’t entirely up my alley, but the actors really got the audience involved (and didn’t embarass me personally – others were pulled onto the stage to take part, and I was just relieved that it wasn’t me!).

This was my last stop on this trip with the Stray bus and I went to meet up with Julie and Raf at the sure to be lovely Crash Palace hostel in Rotorua.

Julie and Raf met me in Rotorua, where we stayed right in the heart of everything at a little hostel called Crash Palace. This was almost directly across from the Polynesian Spa, where we pool-hopped from waters ranging between 28 C and 34 C (it was very relaxing, even though we found an hour there to be enough time for us to enjoy it).

Julie and Raf only arrived in New Zealand a few months ago, so there were still many things on their list of sights to see. One of these was White Island, an active volcano in the Bay of Plenty region.

Since the Bay of Plenty is not far from Rotorua, we decided to head to White Island from there. We left Rotorua early in the morning, just hoping that the water wouldn’t be too rough for us to land on the shores of the island. Since there isn’t a full docking area (the boat pulls up close to the shore and passengers are transported to the small dock by way of dingy), the water and weather have to cooperate in order for a visit to the volcano to be possible. We knew ahead of time that the water would be rough. I had been on boats a lot over the course of my trip, and this was by far the roughest water I had seen. I think all three of us (and the rest of the passengers, probably) were struggling to keep our breakfasts from resurfacing. Unfortunately, one of us didn’t have much success…

We were relieved to finally reach solid ground again, even if solid ground in this case meant an active volcano. Just before we arrived, we each received a hard hat and gas mask – both mandatory for us to be allowed to step foot on the island. There is always volcanic activity of some sort on White Island, so you never really know whether rocks might go flying into the air suddenly or if there might be a flash flood. At first we didn’t think we would need the gas masks, but then the sulphur dioxide-scented steam really got to us and we were glad that we had them handy.

Although we didn’t have any life-or-death moments while visiting White Island, it turns out that our guide had worked for the tour company at the time of the last major eruption on White Island (which wasn’t all that long ago) and they had been doing tours of the island up until 4 weeks before the eruption. If the water hadn’t been so rough, they easily could have been on the island when the volcano erupted. There were signs that an eruption was on the way but it’s difficult to predict exactly when it’s going to happen. Within days after the eruption, they were back on the island again (once the waters were calm enough, that is).

There is a camera set up to monitor White Island, so you can follow the volcanic activity from a distance if you are interested: Volcano Camera, White Island crater. Apparently, traffic to the site increased dramatically after someone planted a small Dino figurine in front of the camera. Neat way to get people interested in science!

On our way back to Rotorua, we stopped in at Hell’s Gate for a quick tour of (much tamer!) hyrothermal activity. We were glad we didn’t have to brave a boat ride to see the bursts of steam, bubbling mud, and acidic pools of water this time.