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Published: January 26th 2010
North Island - Part 1 We kicked off to a less than perfect start in New Zealand. It's funny how Qantas can say your baggage has been “lost” even though they themselves knowingly left it on the tarmac at Sydney! During the 3 days we had to wait we hired a car and spent some time exploring the city. Auckland itself isn't all that stylish and there isn't an abundance of greenery or parks in the city centre, but it's a practical place, and good for shopping, rather than sight-seeing. The coastal scenery and islands around Auckland are beautiful.
Our 6 week camping adventure started east of Auckland in the Coromandel Peninsula. The peninsula has all the best bits of New Zealand rolled into a small area. It's got mountains and forests, surrounded by powder white beaches, clear waters and quaint towns. We camped at a DoC (Department of Conservation) site in the State Park near Whangamata, camping cheaply, albeit with limited facilities. We watched a guy collecting clams (pippies) from the shallow sea bed, so Dave gave it a try and managed to collect about 40 clams in 10 minutes! So, for dinner he cooked 'Porco Alentejana'
- a Portuguese dish with pork and clams in a tomato and garlic sauce, served on diced fried potatoes. It was a struggle with just one small camping stove, but he managed it, and it tasted great - we were the envy of the campsite.
From Coromandel we headed south through Rotorua and onto Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake at 606 sq km. Lake Taupo grew rapidly thanks to the mother of all explosions 26,000 years ago. Just try to imagine the power that blasted 750 cubic km of ash and pumice into the air. Incidentally, Krakatoa in Java was only 8 cubic km in comparison.
No trip to New Zealand is complete without some kind of adrenalin kick, so we took advantage of the fact that NZ is the sky diving capital of the world (in terms of numbers of jumps per year). So without even pitching our tent we drove straight to the airport to make some inquiries. Before we knew it, we were signing disclaimers and trying on jump suits! There were 4 of us on the plane, each with an experienced tandem partner and an individual cameraman (12 people in total). As the
plane climbed we were both feeling quite nervous - in fact, very nervous!! The plane took 30 minutes to reach 15,000 feet - there was no turning back now! With our tandem partners Mikey and Darcy, we gradually made our way to the front of the bench and hurled ourselves out of the plane. Strangely it was that simple. We had a 1 minute free-fall, dropping 10,000 feet at a rate of 220 km/h, after which the parachute was deployed as we glided gracefully back down to earth. The sky was blue and the late afternoon sun was gleaming off of the lake. We could see the snowcapped mountains in the distance. It was a perfect day. It was a complete mix of excitement, fear and adrenaline - something we'll never ever forget!
With Christmas only 3 days away, we drove non-stop from Lake Taupo down to the capital city, Wellington as we wanted to catch the boat to the South Island for the festivities. Before boarding the ferry we had a few hours in Wellington. Most of the city is banked along the harbour, with some nice architecture, court houses and government buildings. We walked along the cobbled
shopping streets, amid the restaurants, bars and cafés. It felt like a nice city, with lots of people, and a good atmosphere.
South Island The ferry took 3 ½ hours to cross the Cook Strait arriving in Picton in the Marlborough Sounds (South Island). Seeing as it was Christmas we decided to treat ourselves to a hostel, rather than a campsite. The Bay View Backpackers in Waikawa Bay, near Picton is a bit 80's but it's a really homely hostel. We bought a little Christmas tree, and decorated our room with tinsel and lights. After opening our presents and cards, we spent Christmas Day at a very swish restaurant, eating a 7 course lunch - a real luxury for a pair of backpackers!
The Marlborough Sounds were formed when the sea flooded into river valleys after the last ice age - they're a crazed area of mountains, headlands, beaches and inlets. The Sounds are incredibly beautiful, and a great place for walking and boating. However, as we found out, driving is not a good choice, as the roads are so windy. We slowly made our way to Portage, and set up our tent in the rain. Fortunately
the rain cleared, and the next day a couple of friendly but drunk Kiwi's invited us out fishing on their speed boat. It was slightly hair-raising, but a lot of fun, and Dave caught 5 sharks!
After a chilled out few days, we headed off via Nelson to Westport, where we planned on spending New Year's Eve. Westport definitely doesn't win any prizes for architecture and has lots of low-rise shops and bars. We pitched our tent in the garden of a hostel, so that we could use their cooking and washing facilities and shelter from the howling gale. Our first full day in Westport was surprisingly good - we headed to Cape Foulwind to see the seal colony, and then north to Granity to see the coal mines and 'alternative life stylers' (people that live in huge camper vans / converted buses, and spend their time touring the country). On New Year's Eve we listened to a fantastic band, and danced until gone 2am.
Driving south from Westport we continued to Okarito Lake (just north of Franz Josef). The scenery was fantastic- weaving between mountains and beaches, and trying to spot seals and penguins. We arrived at
a great DoC campsite, pitched our tent, and managed to cook dinner just before the rain arrived. That night we realised that our tent was not, in any way water-proof as it leaked at almost all of the seams! The rain cleared enough for us to briefly see the Franz Josef glacier, which is 15 km long and almost reaches sea level. Franz Josef glacier often moves 1 metre a day, which is grease lightning in glacial terms!
New Zealanders have a knack of creating tourist activities where seemingly there are none. It is undeniably a country of beautiful scenery but the almost mandatory jet boat rides, helicopter tours and bungee jumps offered in every town were starting to look a little clichéd. Many towns are built solely to provide a tourism hub for glaciers / lakes / mountains. Quite a few towns look like they've sprung up overnight, offering every high-octane activity available, but lacking atmosphere, character and in some cases charm.
After Australia, we were expecting New Zealanders to be as open, friendly, welcoming and confident. However, the ones that we'd met were far more quiet and reserved. We only got a “thank you” 50% of
the time that we bought a coffee, and they didn't seem to make the effort to talk too much either. We certainly didn't feel as welcome in NZ as we did in Australia. Perhaps it was the miserable weather? We hoped the people would cheer up as the sun started to shine.
From the glaciers we headed south, along some very wet and stormy roads to Queenstown. As we approached Queenstown the landscape started to change - there were lots of streams and bright flowers, and could be compared to a cross between Scotland and Switzerland in the Spring. Queenstown itself is a tourist mecca for all sorts of sporting activities. It's a nice town, with good architecture and a lovely lake, overlooked by huge snowcapped mountains. It's full of shops, restaurants and bars, and has a really buzzing atmosphere.
There are no cheap campsites in Queenstown so we decided to stay in Glenorchy, 45 minutes away at the end of Lake Wakatipu. It's a small, pretty town which is surrounded by mountains next to the pastel blue lake. Glenorchy is the jumping off point for lots of hikes (which the Kiwi's call 'tramps'). We pitched our tent
and spent a couple of days waiting for the weather to improve, so that we could go on the 3 day Reese/Dart walk. We relaxed around Glenorchy and Queenstown, and visited the very cute Arrowtown - once famous for its gold mining, and now a boutique place to walk around and visit art galleries and museums. While there we went panning for gold in the river. After an hour we grew impatient after not finding any million dollar nuggets!
The day of our hike arrived, and the weather had changed for the worse! In fact, the walking track had been closed, as it was deemed too dangerous to walk into the mountains and through the ever-rising streams. So, we headed out of Glenorchy and drove to Mount Cook instead. Unfortunately the weather had caught the Mount Cook area as well, and after 2 days we still couldn't see the tallest mountain in New Zealand. Although, we did manage to see an iceberg floating in a glacier lake, and we saw some beautifully coloured rainbows.
From Mount Cook we drove east to Christchurch, which is a big (by NZ standards!) fairly multi-cultural city. It has some nice older buildings,
but most of the town seems to have been built in the 1960's and 1970's, so the buildings aren't very attractive. Incidentally our campsite in Christchurch was full of “nutters” that had free roam from one of the nearby care homes. Together with the mass of serial killer literature in the camp TV lounge, we had a rather surreal but surprisingly good stay. One evening 'Bad Bob' showed up with beers, flowers and sparkling wine, and invited us to join him for an impromptu party in his caravan, as he'd just won some money on the horses. We had a bizarre and funny night.
Rather than spending too much time in the city centre, we drove to Akaroa, in the countryside on the Banks Peninsula to the east of Christchurch. Akaroa was once occupied by the French, which is evident from the street names and quantity of cafés. The town is on a bay and is filled with flowers and expensive looking restaurants. It's very cute and somewhat twee.
From Christchurch we drove north to Kaikoura - a small town on the beach, nestled behind mountains. They have a big seal colony there, and LOTS of dolphins. We
booked ourselves onto a tour boat and after 30 minutes at sea, we were suddenly surrounded by 300-400 Dusky dolphins!! They were jumping, playing and somersaulting in front of us. They raced up to our boat as soon as we arrived and glided along in the bow wave. There were lots of young dolphins swimming alongside their mothers, and we even saw some dolphins mating (which only takes a couple of seconds, and they can mate with several partners in only a few minutes!). We watched them for 2 ½ hours, and it was as if nature had put on a performance just for us. It was absolutely incredible.
Our last stop in the South Island was back in Picton. There we relaxed, went for bike rides and did a day walk on the Queen Charlotte Track (walking from Ship Cove to Ferneaux Lodge). The walk was beautiful - through the forest, hugging the hill, with sandy bays and turquoise waters just beneath us.
North Island - Part 2 Our ferry crossing back to the North Island was 'less than favourable' as the Captain put it! The weather in Wellington was so windy that young children had
been advised not to walk alone, for fear of being blown over! We made our way to Martinborough, a famous wine region, and 'freedom camped' by a river. The weather was too wet for a wine tour, so instead we headed north east to Napier - and hoped for some sunshine.
An earthquake devastated Napier in 1931. It was rebuilt between 1931 and 1933 and is now one of the most famous Art-Deco towns in the world. Most of the buildings are flat roofed, painted in pastel colours, with small but elaborate details of zig-zags and sunshines painted on the outside. It's a nice town, and has a real feel about it, with local people rather than just tourists. It is the centre of a big wine and fruit growing industry. In fact, Dave lived in Napier picking apples when he was in NZ 20 years ago. We went to visit the family that he stayed with (Marie and John). They were over the moon to see Dave again. So much so that they invited us to stay with them for a few days, and we had a great time - eating lots of home cooked food, including daily
baked muffins! After camping for so long we didn't want to leave. They were so lovely and welcoming.
After a fun and sunny time in Napier, we drove inland to the Lake Taupo region again and stopped at the “Craters of the Moon” to see volcanic activity and bubbling mud pools. Very interesting and very smelly! We then drove through Auckland and up to the Bay of Islands in the north of NZ. The Bay of Islands is literally a huge bay, filled with islands - it's extremely picturesque, with lots of coves and beaches, and turquoise blue waters. We managed to find an ideal spot to 'freedom camp' only a few feet from the beach. We spent our days relaxing and reading, and Dave found a great spot for fishing. In fact on his first cast he caught a snapper, which he made into fish chowder for dinner! We really got back to nature in NZ. It was good to feel as though you could live off the land if you really needed to, or wanted to!
Our final leg was right up to the far North to Cape Reinga. It's the northern most point in NZ and is where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. It really is quite beautiful and you get a real end of the world feel. The DoC campsite just down the road was set in a green valley leading to a sandy beach on the Pacific. It was all looking rosy until the camp caretaker said we were now in the mosquito capital of NZ! Once it got dark the mosquitoes descended in clouds impervious to the lotion on our exposed hands and faces. That said, snorkelling in the ocean watching blue cod and other huge fish was pretty exhilarating in the powerful swell.
It's fair to say it took us a while to find our feet in New Zealand. However as our NZ trip progressed so did our appreciation for the country and the generosity and friendliness of the ordinary local people. New Zealand is made for exploring the great outdoors. The far North and the far South were our favourite areas for sheer beauty. If you can get off the tourist route and meet the real locals then you'll have a warm welcome and a fantastic time.
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Andrew Poulton
non-member comment
Still no fashion sense
Flip-flops with brown socks - Nice! You are getting more like your Dad every day;-)