The Rainbow Warrior

Hi all,

I went out diving today. The wreck of the Rainbow Warrior lies just off the coast from here (Paihia, at the very north of North Island). She was in port in Auckland at midnight almost exactly 22 years ago, ready to sail to the Pacific to protest French nuclear testing. The French decided they didn't like this idea, and plated two bombs on her hull. They sank the ship, and killed Fernando Pereira, a Spanish photojournalist who had escaped but then went back on board to get his equipment. The two French agents were swiftly captured by New Zealand, but this was the first time they'd had to deal with international terrorism (especially when it was sponsored and later publicly endorsed by a foreign state), and bowed to presure from the French government. The two agents were deported to a French Ponynesian island, where they kicked back for two years, before being free to return to France and make a whole load of money writing books about it.

Meanwhile, the boat was raised for forensic analysis, then laid ot rest off the coast, in a carefully chosen spot that has almost no current, and is just under 30 meters deep, allowing coral and underwater life to flourish, and making it a really, really good dive. It was my first wreck dive. It's pretty hairy - as well as exploring the hull, we went in through one of the doors into the cabin, down a coridor and out a side-door on the other side of the boat. It doesn't sound much, but when you're 25 meters under water, it's dark & murky and there's something solid between you and the surface it makes things a bit interesting. There's a plaque on the bow that's pretty covered in gunk, but is discernably a dove.

The second dive of the day didn't have quite as spectacular a historical background, but I did see a feckin' huuuuge stingray. It's difficult to work out sizes underwater, but Ty - the guy leading the dive - is about 6' tall, and he was only just longer than it was. After the whole Steve Erwin thing, I gave it a pretty wide bearth. I also *almost* caught a big crayfish, but the bugger got away. Damn.

Off back to Auckland tomorrow. I'm going to see the All-Blacks play Australia, in the final game of the 3 nations. It'll decide both that and the Bledisloe Cup - the kiwi-ozzie equivalent of the ashes, except it's rubgy. A Maori bloke on the dive today was explaining the story of the Haka. It's quite rude!


Ban the bomb,

Will.
(Paihia, New Zealand)

Will's ill on the West coast :(

Hi folks,

I was due to go ice-climbing today, but started feeling lame last night and had a rubbish nights sleep, so I got up this morning and cancelled before heading back to bed. Been up since lunch, eaten some food, been donated a kiwi by a generous fellow traveller (which, oddly enough, didn't really taste like a kiwi. Closer to a mandarin. I wonder if oranges in china taste like something different?...)

Ho hum. So I'm catching up on learning spanish today, and generally feeling sorry for myself. Luckily, I'm in quite a nice hostel, so it's not all bad, and I'm not in too much of a rush just now (I need to be in north island by monday, which is only a few days travel away). If I don't feel better by this evening I'll probably just cancel the ice-climbing altogether. There's a different glacier up the coast that you can go ice-climbing on as well, so maybe I'll fit it in there.

Now I think about it, apart from a minor bit of food poisoning in Laos, this is the first time I've got ill, so I'm not doing too badly :)


Back to bed for me,

Will.
(Fox Glacier, New Zealand)

All roads lead to Home

Hey folks,

Snow! Unfortunately not too much of it - one of the two resorts in queenstown was shut when I was there at the weekend, as was half of the other. Luckily there was plenty of nice snow on the half that was open, and (even more luckily) I blagged a spare pair of skis, a place to crash, and a free ski pass. Oh, and it's been snowing like crazy around queenstown all week, and I'm back this weekend. As they would say round these parts... Choice as, bro!

So on Sunday I hitched to Te Anau (for some reason there wasn't a bus), then went kayaking on Milford Sound on Monday. Stunning. Just stunning. Apparently, in summer, you get around 70 kayakers a day out there, but it being winter, our group of 6 had the whole fjord to ourselves. Also rather, erm, choice!

A lass in the hostel was driving south and wanted to split petrol, so I've been driving with her round the Catlans - a pretty remote area of the south coast. Lunch yesterday was at Slope Point - the most Southernly point of South Island. So far I've gone 100° East and 172° South of home, so I figure this is pretty much as far as I get before turning around.

The way out's been fun, all in all. Choice as.

Will.
(very much The Other Side Of The World)