Blogs from Central Plateau, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

On my recent road trip to Auckland I stopped at the amazing Smash Palace. What is Smash Palace? And why does the name sound familiar to you? It is an auto repair business. It is a museum. It is a car graveyard. It is a place that has featured in New Zealand films: "Smash Palace" (I can hear it all falling into place for you now), the original "Goodbye Pork Pie" and "Hunt for the Wilderpeople". This is an absolute must see if you are travelling through the central North Island. It is north of Raetihi. Keep an eye out for the sign as you need to turn off SH4 and travel a few hundred metres to get to the entrance. The museum costs $10 for an adult and $5 for a child. I had my ... read more

Having explored the northern part of the North Island during the first week of our road-trip, then headed down the East Coast and back up the West Coast over the course of the following two weeks, it was naturally time for us to leave New Zealand's shapely coastline behind and head inland for week four – a course that would take us right through the country's geothermal heartland (on the aptly-named Thermal Explorer Highway). Anyone who knows anything about New Zealand knows that it is very much geologically active; not to mention geothermally active, hydrologically active, seizmologically active... basically it's just a really active country! Nowhere is this more apparent than in the central plateau, which is centred around Lake Taupo (the country's largest lake, and itself a spent volcano) and extends to the south to ... read more

Had a good nights sleep in New Zealands ‘most haunted’. Got up and went to the Waitomo Caves to do the ‘Haggas Honking Holes’ caving experience. Had a fantastic time abseiling down underground waterfalls, scrabbling through small crevice tunnels, climbing back up waterfalls and generally having fun. We saw lots of Glow Worms (up close too), which was amazing, and came out at the end utterly exhausted. Continued on to Lake Rotoaira, where we will be staying in a bach for the next 3 nights. We arrived at the bach to find all the doors and windows open, not entirely sure if it was the right place – but wandered in anyway. The place is nice, but needed a bit of a clean. The beds looked used which was a bit worrying so we wondered over ... read more

So finally Richard dropped us off at the climbing centre, we were both excited and relieved, he would not accept payment, he would only require a postcard at some point on our trip! We got to "Bryces Rockclimbing cafe" which states on a sign outside " Run by climbers for climbers " thank god! we thought to ourselves, well that was until we met Bryce, what a tit! His cafe/shop is located in the middle of nowhere, yet he has every conceivable object available to mankind in his shop for climbing, that includes guide books for the UK, and equipment used for big wall climbing in Yosemite valley USA. Not that useful on a 30metre high crag in NZ. First he tried to sell us everything instead of hiring, which we had agreed via email, wanted ... read more

Rejsen mod oest Vi drog afsted fra Blaabaerfarmen i Rotorua, med foerste maal at tage paa opdagelse sydpaa, nemlig omkring Taupo, der er en aelgammel vulkansoe. For 1000 aar siden (vidst nok) gik vulkanen i udbrud og det kaempe krater blev fyldt med vand, hvilket nu udgoer den her kaempe soe midt i landet. Paa vej mod soen tog vi forbi Huka Falls, et imponerende men ganske lille vandfald, dannet ved at Waikito floden snaevrer ind. Desuden tog vi forbi en af de mange varme kilder, der ligger i denne region samt Aratiatia daemningen, hvor vandet fra Lake Taupa et par gange om dagen lades loebe frit ud i Waikito floddalen. Et meget flot syn. Vejret var perfekt i en uge og vi besluttede, at vi ville udnytte det og tage paa vandretur paa en ... read more