Blogs from East Coast, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 9

Well, here we are in the middle of nowhere having spent the afternoon on a glorious deserted beach, trying to motivate myself to do my diary! Things are proving a bit different in New Zealand and one such thing is the lack of facilities to be able to put my photos on to disc myself or add them to the diary. There is no shortage of internet cafes but they are all kiosk type with no connections/printers etc, hence the reason there are no photos with this blog, but I will try at a later date to put some on! As i said, things are a little different here. We had to pay twice as much for the campervan as in Australia because it is more or less high season which takes a fair chunk from ... read more

Wednesday After a busy first week we decided to take life a bit easier, on both body and wallet and have spent our time on the road exploring beautiful coastal scenery (and dodgy roads!), walking on driftwood-covered beaches, watching stunning sunsets and the like. We ventured north to the Bay of Plenty coast and the small seaside town of Whakatane, which looks out towards the White Island, a large active volcano towards the edge of the Taupo volcanic plateau. Having had our fill of volcanic activity, we spent the afternoon doing some local trails and enjoying some sunshine as the weather has been extremely hit and miss recently. Ohope Beach was our rest point for the evening, just as it started raining. Thursday We were hoping to spend the morning relaxing on the beach, but as ... read more

I have been on the road, moving from hostel to hostel, now for five weeks and I’m getting grumpy. I didn’t really enjoy Napier that much, which is a pity because it’s a very pretty city filled with pastel hued Art-Deco buildings. There are so many of these “style-moderne” structures that Napier could be called the Art-Deco capitol of the world (though Miami also claims this crown). This was all down to the big quake in ’31 which at 7.9 on the Richter scale and lasting over two minutes, destroyed the town centre in conjunction with the fires that broke out immediately afterwards. The regeneration started immediately and was almost wholeheartedly constructed in the then popular Art-Deco style: all ziggurats, lightening bolts and sunbeams. It all makes for a beautiful city but somehow it didn’t lift ... read more

Hey, We visited Napier after Wellington, it is apparently the Art Deco Capital of the World. An Earthquake destroyed most of the place in 1931 and it was rebuilt with the help of some of the best contemporary architects of the period: basically they "pimped up" the place incorporating a lot of styles from Art Deco. On our first night we went to the Hot Spas in the city, everywhere in New Zealnd seems to have these outdoor hot pools and they are cheap as chips to use. The next day we done a self guided tour of the place stopping at various places to read out an explanation from the booklet about certain buildings and their "Art Deco feel", Was a really nice city. After touring Napier we bombed onto Gisborne, whilst Napier is famous ... read more

Arriving in Gisborne was like arriving in any other place, you just don’t know what to expect. When we arrived at the hostel we knew it was going to be one of those days. The hostel used to be an orphanage and looked like a very dated hospital. Long corridors and very dated furniture. Not to worry we said we will spend most of the time out of the hostel. That was until we realised that there was nothing to do in Gisborne. The town has three types of shops, charity shops, shops that are having closing down sales and then shops that are already closed. I counted 28 closed shops in the city centre alone. The whole place just needed to be nuked. Needless to say the very next morning we were on our way ... read more