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Published: August 26th 2008
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Worlds most colourful van
Small but perfectly formed (ish) - not up to the standards of Toddy & Lou, but at least it moves without a plume of smoke like theirs! Hello and welcome to New Zealand! First of all, an apology. This was meant to be one succinct page covering our time touring. Unfortunately, we took so many photos that we've had to split it into two. Yes, as you may have guessed, New Zealand is stunningly beautiful.
After nearly 24 hours travelling from Bali, we landed in Auckland in the early evening, and promptly realised that it was winter. It looked warm, with bright sunshine and tropical plants, but I can assure you, jumpers are required in winter. You probably knew that already, but it still felt like a shock after the constant mid 30 C we were used to! We collected our campervan (the best way to see New Zealand), and headed south. As you can see from the photo, it was designed by a lunatic with a paintbrush - but it made good camaflage among the trees.
Our first true port of call (well, the first port, anyway) was Raglan, famed for it's surfing and scenery. Everything was either vibrant green plant life or crazily coloured rocks (red soil and black beaches were particularly impressive). New Zealand manages to combine and improve on the best bits
Volcanic beach at Raglan
This area is renowned for surfing, and there are hot springs coming through a beach around the corner! of Scotland (without the midges), Wales (without the Welsh), and the Lake District (with more sun), so as you can imagine, we were rather enjoying ourselves. Even the towns had good points. OK, the architecture might leave something to be desired, but the people are really friendly. Mostly bemused that we'd want to live in Auckland, they all seem convinced that the traffic and urban sprawl are terrible. Let me reassure any visitors - if you've ever been to Manchester, or (God forbid) London, you'll find this talk of congestion in Auckland quite comical. We were only there for a day, but we got driven around at rush hour and saw a tailback of - get this - almost five cars! Shocking! Enough of Auckland though, I was supposed to be taking about the west coast.
After Raglan we decided to drive south to Kawhia. The distance was about 200km by main road, or 50km by local gravel roads, so the choice was easy. Or so we thought. After about 49km of gravel road, having passed numerous small landslides, we eventually got to one that was so big it almost completely blocked the road. We could have tried driving
Plant life
The biggest surprise is that it looks a lot more tropical than it really is. Feels like Wales! through, but in a small campervan we were highly likely to get stuck in the middle, perfectly positioned directly under a really unstable hill with large boulders. We chose to turn around. Unfortunately it was almost dark by this stage, and in an attempt to get back to 'real' roads before complete darkness (definately worth doing having seen the potholes earlier!), Heather took the budding rally driver option, and managed to halve the time suggested by the sat nav. By coincidence, this very same road will be used on (we think) the 27th during the NZ stage of the World Rally Championship, so check it out on the telly if you fancy. We arrived back in Raglan in one piece, and with my hand firmly welded to the door handle. The trauma was all well worth it though, because on the way south we stopped of at the Bridal Veil falls, which were absolutely stunning. They're about to be renamed as part of the move to return things to the Mauri version, but I can't pronounce (or remember how to spell) it.
A quick change of plan took us to Otorahanga, where we visited a local bird sanctuary to
Heather in the woods
Temperate rainforest. It rained. work out what all the local wildlife is called. We'd spent the last few days seeing and hearing all manner of outragous bird life, including some that seem to be able to make any sound imaginable. There seem to be millions of them everywhere (far more than in the UK), partly due to the vast amount of undeveloped land, and partly due to the relatively small number of predators. We were amazed to discover that until the arrival of man about 800 years ago, there were no mammals of any type on the island - which is why they have such a huge array of birds, including very silly ones like the Kiwi, which is much bigger and sillier looking than I expected. They are often over 40cm long, weigh 3kg, and definately can't fly.
A quick trip down the road took us to Rotorua, the smelliest town in the world. Sulphur everywhere, but it was fascinating. We camped on a site with steaming naturally heated pools, and even heated tent pitches (now that's original!). The bubbling mud pools across town were bizzare, but there's no way I'd stay for more than a couple of days. I don't think
Bridal Veil Falls
An amazing waterfall over columns of basalt. It would be a national treasure in the UK, just a minor sideshow here. my nose could take it!
Right, that's enough for now... for more on New Zealand, Heather will send an update in a few days.
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