Happy New Year

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The road from Franz Josef is less memorable than most. Yes you climb up and down mountain passes but nothing spectacular. I suppose if the road was in the UK it would be on everyone's tourist map, but not here in New Zealand. Through Greymouth and Westport, both on the coast but neither with beaches like European beaches, through Murchison an on to Nelson. We stopped at Nelson, mainly because we had been told it was very nice, and it was one of the better towns we'd been to. We decided to book the ferry across to the North Island for the next day, after coming to the conclusion that we had seen the best of South Island and didn't want to spoil our memories. We drove to Picton, the ferry terminal, and found a campsite, pitched our tent and, after walking around the town, settled in for the night. Next morning we caught the 9.50 am ferry. The crossing was just as enjoyable as when we came, and even had the added attraction of dolphins as we approaced Wellington. We got to a campsite, pitched the tent, and decided we may have done Wellington down with our first brief visit. We caught the bus into town and after walking around for a couple of hours we decided that our first impressions were indeed correct. We got the bus back, but got off at Petone, the nearest town to our campsite, and had a couple of beers. When we got back to the tent we discovered that a golf ball from the adjacent golf course had kindly smashed our car's windscreen! We turned in for the night, still on our very solid blow up bed, both just a little bogged off. After vainly tryng to get either the campsite or the golf club to accept liability, we set off next day for Napier on the east coast. The journey took us through rolling hills covered with vineyards and fruit farms. We passed through a dump of a place called Hastings, which makes our Hastings look very pleasant, through Havelock North (there is a Havelock on South Island also) and into Napier. We booked in at Toad Hall Backpacker for a couple of nights. Napier is trying to be a typical seaside resort, and doing it quite well except that the beach is volcanic gravel and the sea is unswimmable because of the currents. It is the school summer holidays here and the resort was full of families on holiday - very much like the UK. The following day we woke to pouring rain. It seems like you never have more than two days of the same weather. Everyone told us that this was the first rain for weeks, and you could see that all the grass and vegetation was brown and dry. Our debate on where next took account of New Year's Eve. We wanted to be somewhere that was likely to be buzzing, so decided to head towards Lake Taupo. Taupo is very similar in a lot of ways to Queenstown - inland, on a lake, alsorts of mad things like bungying and skydiving, and extremely picturesque. It has one thing that Queenstown doesn't and that is it is in the middle of a very volcanic area. There are steam clouds puffing out of the ground everywhere you look. New Year's Eve found us looking at the surrounding area. We visited the Huka Falls (New Zealand is full of waterfalls) on the Waikato River, the outlet from Lake Taupo, which is channelled down a narrow ravine. Next stop was a bee farm with hives inside glass boxes so you could see the bees at work, plus honey tasting and mead and wine tasting. As we continued on our drive along SH5 we noticed a sign for a 'Thermal Loop Trail' 30 minutes long, so we turned off along the track to it. The walk took us through dense undergrowth to an area resembling a distant planet with steam erupting everywhere and the smell of rotten eggs on the air. There was even mud bubbling up through the ground. Neither the Lonely Planet nor local information included this free exhibition. How glad we were to have spotted the sign! The Waikato River is New Zealand's longest river and is used for hydro-electricity generating. The first dam (not a massive one) is at Aratiatia. It is opened every couple of hours during the daytime. The resultant flood of water turns the trickling stream into a raging torrent of water in minutes. Quite spectacular. We had a New Year's Eve BBQ and drinks session at Blackcurrant Backpackers where we're staying. The evening was finished off with fireworks over the town. New Zealand is the first country to celebrate New Year, so we had celebrated, slept, breakfasted and lunched before you celebrated in the UK. Weird eh! We went for a New Year's Day drive round three of the highest peaks on North Island, Mount Ruapehu 2792 metres, Mount Tongariro 1967 metres and Mount Ngauruhoe 2287 metres, all volcanoes, the last eruptions taking place in 1995/96. Mount Ngauruhoe made a cameo appearance in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy as 'Mount Doom'. We carried on round Lake Taupo, which is the biggest freshwater lake in New Zealand, and is the size of Singapore. Everywhere in New Zealand towns claim to be the world capital for something. We passed through two such places today: Turangi - the world's trout fishing capital; and Ohakune - the world's carrot capital!! Have a very Happy New Year.

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[Michelle & Terry]

Golf
Michelle never did like golfers