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Published: April 20th 2008
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19/3 - So with Dinky (our little red van) we set sail across the Cook Straight for the North Island (notice how imaginative they were in naming the two islands)! Apparently it can get pretty rough on the crossing but we had blue skies and calm waters. We moored up in Wellington at 11am, a good time to do some exploration of the capital. Our first stop being the Te Papa museum/cultural/arts centre. It's an amazing and huge centre on the waterfront in Wellington in which we spent most of the day - it took that long to get around the exhibitions. It gave us the opportunity to learn about subjects from the early Europeans that arrived in NZ to Maori settlers and their culture. New Zealand has a major fault line running through it which means they also have several volcanoes and at times wild weather; therefore the centre had an area dedicated to the geography of the country, even an earthquake simulator (which, according to a local, was very lifelike). The centre was a great introduction to the North Island and it was free - generous of them (donations welcome)! Due to there being no camping facilities in the
vicinity of Wellington city we drove out to the Lower Hutt Valley in the evening 30km out of the city to a beautiful campsite that we practically had to ourselves.
The following day we headed back into the city, after catching up on the last published blog we set off on an exploration of the city doing a self guided tour of the best spots. The highlight of the walk were the botanical gardens which seemed endless - apart from that Wellington is just like any other city - pretty disappointing for the capital!
On the 22/3 we dusted off our walking shoes for a hike across lava land in the Tongariro National Park, so that we could do the walk aptly named the Tongariro crossing! The walk is across a volcanic region in NZ and climbs to a height of 1900m of which we had to ascend 750 very steep metres. After a brief warm up we headed up the devils staircase - so called for a reason, although the temptation to turn back was there we pulled each other though and made it to the top. Along the walk we were able to witness the past
volcanic activity (although the area is still active) of the area from the amazing Mt Ngauruhoe, estimated to be 2500 yrs old and 2287m in height - it looks like the traditional volcano and is an imposing sight! We walked to the summit of Mt Tongariro and were able to look into its red crater which was quite a sight and certainly like nothing we've seen before. After lunching on the summit, which had great views for miles, we took a steep and treacherous decent down the other side. The slope we had to descend was made up of ash and loose lava stone that was made worse with each passing - great fun mind! Upon getting to the bottom we were rewarded with some amazing emerald lakes - although it was tempting to go for a swim they contained a high amount of sulphur, so not wise! The remaining part of the walk was much of the same plus some forested areas - we were too determined to get to the finish by that point so did not take too much notice! 17km and 6 hours later we crawled onto the shuttle to take us back to our home!
Next stop sulphur land. Heading into a town called Rotorua we initially thought they had a problem with their sewage but we had actually entered New Zealand’s geothermal region, oddly they had thermal geysers all over the place - in gardens, middle of streets, parks, houses etc. Our first stop was to checkout the bubbling mud pools in a nearby park. They were large, steaming muddy ponds - no bathing allowed as 3rd degree burns would be guaranteed. We were allowed to dip our feet into some man made pools which were very relaxing and heated by the earth. We also took a walk around the town which wasn't as impressive as other towns we've been through. It had a really nice museum and floral gardens though.
On our second day in Rotorua we stopped by the local Maori cultural museum Te Papa - a guided tour took us on an educating journey of Maori history and culture. The highlight was the traditional Maori show - where they greeted us at the gate of their territory and did dances/songs and the famous Hakka.
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