North Island Saga begins

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24th March
First impressions of the North Island were not too favourable- we camped in an the nearest campsite to Wellington - but found we were paying top dollar to park in what was little more than a car park with very little in the way of usual facilities- and then it rained too!! However, Wellington is a lovely city and we enjoyed walking around the docks and downtown areas. We went into Te Papa - the most amazing museum. It’s very modern and beautifully set out. Really, really good, a ‘must do’ sight. We loved the Maori history floor - it’s really the first time we’ve seen Maori heritage acknowledged and explained. We had a tour of The Bays around Wellington, very pretty, even if our driver was attempting to emulate Stirling Moss!
We drove through one very windy day to get to Napier. This town was destroyed in an earthquake in 1931 and rebuilt immediately so the whole place is built in the style of Art Deco. In recent years it’s been restored very carefully and so looks lovely. Lots of pastel coloured buildings and Frank Lloyd Wright styling. We spent a lovely day wandering around. There was a parade, led by bagpipers , to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Napier Girl’s High School, which was fun. We reckoned that it must be one of the original schools set up in NZ, as the settlers weren’t arriving until 1850ish and this was 1884.
We spent some time in the Tongariro National Park. This area is home to three active volcanoes and is great walking country. We walked around Mount Ngauruhoe which is a classic cone shaped volcano and was used as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. We seemed to find lots of walks around lovely waterfalls. Fabulous sunset in that area - we could see Mount Egmont on the coast about 120k away. We were camping up in the mountain area at Whakapapa Village, but was it cold that night!!! We were camped on a slope so it made cuddling up close to keep warm easier!
We walked around the ski area at Mount Ruapehu, we had wanted to go up in the cable cars and walk down, but they were closed because it was too windy, 50k winds at the top they said. It was like a moonscape all rocks and no vegetation. It apparently gets 3 metres of snow in winter which covers all the rocks for the skiers.
Waitomo is the place to go and see the glow-worm caves. We had long discussions about Black Water rafting through the caves, but sense prevailed and we went on a more sedate trip in a rubber boat which didn’t involve wet-suits at all. The caves are pretty amazing -they shut all the lights out and the glow-worms can light up whole caverns.
The weather, in spite of some rain, mainly at night, has been lovely- warm sunny days. We even managed to have breakfast outside one morning, until a family of black swans decided to investigate and got a bit too close.
Tip-Top ice creams have become our measure of the sophistication of a town. These are the best bargain in NZ:-scoops of ice-cream as big as they can scoop for about $2 . We can tell lots about a town by the number of Tip-top shops, , and by the number of different flavour to choose from. These are David’s afternoon treats, he can spot a Tip-Top shop from a kilometre away!

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Photos

Wellington's Ball
David trying to balance on 1 finger

Te Marae
Maori meeting house in Te Papa museum

Mount of Doom
Volcano used in LOTR
Mt Ngauruhoe

Sunset from Mt Ruapehu
The pointy mountain in the distance is Mount Egmont 120k away

Mount Ruapehu
Moon scape

Comments

[jean]

North Island
That Frank Lloyd Wright guy got around a bit - we saw one of his buildings in Oklahoma!! You must have some Hokey Pokey (!) and Pineapple Lumps while you are there. J ;-)

[Alan]

Happy Birthday Lynne. Glad to see you are enjoying the trip.