Part 12 - New Zealand East

Hi All,

Well, the tourist part of this blog is I'm afraid pretty much over as we settle down to the domestic tasks of finding a house to rent and car to buy. However, here's the final instalment in our journey round the North Island by campervan.

The last blog left us in Rotorua, which though lovely was a bit stinky.. The luge is great fun though hehe.... And we did spend one night out of the stink nr Lake Tarawera - beautiful volcanic lake scenery. We also visited the buried village (http://www.buriedvillage.co.nz/) which gives the history of a devastating eruption in 1886 - if you read a bit about it imagine us spending the night under the volcano afterwards... We really should have visited on our way back!

And finally off we went over to Lake Taupo, the weather was awful so I'm afraid there are no pictures of what is supposed to be a gorgeous lake, and we didn't get to see the snow capped mountains either. However, you don't need nice weather to see a feature called 'the craters of the moon'. When a geothermal power plant was built next to this area it became more active and is very bizarre, the vista looks like a clearing in a forest until you notice craters of various sizes and steam rising up all over the place. It's very odd but great to watch - particularly the ones with mud bubbling in the bottom. The noises are almost the best thing though with a general low bubbling noise (think making treacle toffee) and the noise of steam escaping at high pressure from some of the vents is dramatic.

By this time in the trip we both have really bad colds (all those ill people on the plane passed on their germs nicely...) which isn't helping top motivate us to do lots of daredevil things. To be honest with you we're a bit tired of moving around too - the nomad life sounds great but sometimes you just want your own bed... and your own mugs... and we were getting a bit thermalled out too - I don't think I've ever said "oh, another thermal bath/spring, great, hmm. Shall we give it a miss?" before... We decide that a change is needed and head back out to the coast - to the east this time.

But before we quite leave the Taupo area we decide to take a look at the Aratiatia rapids - since the damming of the river for hydro power these can only be seen at certain times of day when they're releasing water - see the before and after pics, it was great! And look, the weather was improving!!!

Our next location was Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, we didn't really know much about it but it wasn't too far away and was by the coast so we decided to take a look. It's ok, a nice town with a harbour, but the real gem was round the corner, Mount Maunganui. We decided to stay in the campsite at the bottom immediately! It's a hill/volcanic peak surrounded by flat land which makes it stunning to look at and the beaches around it are superb - if only there were more jobs here I'd have stayed! The hill only took about an hour and a half to walk up and lots of people were using it to exercise - particularly as the weather was suddenly wonderful and warm! That evening we continued our enthusiastic exercising with a swim in the hot saltwater pools - it's a bit strange swimming in something the temperature of a bath, and the water takes a bit of getting used to (no head dunking for me, yuck!) but it was nice, particularly as the heavens opened while we were in there! We'd have been soaked anywhere else!

We decided to stay by the sea and went up the coast in the Coromandel to a place called Hahei. The roads were a little more tortuous than they'd looked on the map but never mind - my arm muscles got a good workout!!! Again there were gorgeous beaches and we spent a very relaxed afternoon wandering on the beach and reading listening to the surf.

On our final day before travelling back we wandered across to Cathedral cove, it contains a natural arch through the volcanic ash/tuff/scoria stuff with superb views - the weather making it even more beautiful. There's another cove close by which we also visited called gemstone bay which has a snorkel trail to show you the different marine habitats around. It was very warm but having tried out the water paddling Ross' enthusiasm for a swim dwindled a bit - the water was freezing! I'm afraid i didn't even dip my toes... a hand in was enough for me! You can do sea kayak tours and glass bottom boat trips to it and I think either would be a great idea, especially in the summer. After a lovely meal out across in a place called Whitianga (you could get there by passenger ferry which saved a very long drive!) we were suitably still in awe of the lovely coastal scenery and determined to come back and do more exploring.

In the past 10 days we've just scratched the surface of all there is to be seen on the North Island - and of course the South island is supposed to be much more beautiful and we haven't even started there!!! So lots to keep us occupied, we'll have to send you further weekend away blogs so that you can see a bit more of the country from the comfort of your armchair!

Keep safe all of you and take care. And of course, keep in touch!

Lots of Love

Heather and Ross
xxxx

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