Out and About on New Zealand's North Island: Dead possums of the world unite!

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Well after my blisters slowly began to heal (although I didn't wear closed toed shoes for almost 2 weeks) I made my way up to Auckland and my Aunty Betty's arrival on Feb 27. She arrived safely (albeit early...5:30am...ahem) and we took off on foot around Auckland for the day, walking our hinnie's off visiting the museum including a Maori (indigenous people) show which was good. We walked all over the city and were quite pooped, especially AB since she had been flying the days before. Although I didn't feel TOO sorry for her...I mean, she flew business class where she had her own bed, so ya....not too much sympathy. Day 2 we heading to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater Adventure to see the penguins, sharks, and giant sting rays at the aquarium which was great. We walked more to the markets (did I mention yet how many hills are in Auckland??? Auckland is formed by over 50 old volcanic cones so needless to say it is more than a little hilly). That evening we went to the Auckland Fringe Festival and saw a show and out for drinks and more chatting and catching up.

Sunday we picked up our rental car and were off up the coast. We stopped at a sunday market to pick up some lunch items and headed up the Kuari coast. The Kuari is a giant tree that once covered most of NZ before people came and logged it (of course) but there are still some really old (like 2000+ years) trees that weren't logged and so we went to see some. We saw the museum and some of the oldest trees in NZ (and likely the world) and they were MASSIVE! Check out the FB pics. We stayed at this great little campground cabin and it was oh so cute!

Soon we were headed up to the tip of New Zealand Cape Reinga were the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea unite and form a very distinctive line in the water. During a storm the waves from the 2 crashing together can be over 10m high!! For us it was a beautiful day! Enroute to Cape Reinga we saw a farmer mustering his sheep across the road. Everyone stopped and of course all of us silly tourists got out to take photos! Watching the herding dogs at work was so amazing and interesting.

Since this stretch of the road was mostly straight, I took a deep breath and allowed AB to take the wheel. Now as my third student of left-hand-side driving I must say she did exceedingly well for the most part. Naturally the windscreen was VERY clean every time we had to change lanes and only a few times did I raise my voice to tell her to get away from the cliff. But she was very good about getting in the correct side of the car, unlike my dad!! We made a stop at some fantastic sand dunes and took to acting like children and made sand angels (rather than the oh-so-canadian snowangels), rolling down the dunes, and simpy enjoying the great weather and massive warm sand dunes. We also stopped at a cute little beach but the rough surf and frigid water kept us on the beach!

We stopped next in the Bay of Islands town of Paihia and stayed in a nice little place that kinda smelled like an grandma's house (you know the old smell) but it was so great because AB gave me the queen sized bed in the bedroom and I was SO SO grateful! Although since my standards of accomodation have improved with my parents and aunts visits...going back to dorm life now is kinda depressing. But I relished it for every minute of sleep!!

We had booked in for a great-sounding sailing cruise to swim with dolphins but unfortunately the rain was coming down in sheets and so had to readjust our plans and went to Waitangi where the treaty between England and the natives was signed in 1840 which it was interesting to learn about. And then took a ferry to the sleepy town of Russel for a bit of a walk (although the rain continued) and so we went and got groceries and cooked ourselves a lovely meal. We were hoping the rain would've stopped the next day so we could go on the trip but the rain was there to stay so off we went again in the absolutey sheeting rain.

We stopped at a town where it is famous for some public toilets that were designed by some famous Austrian architect. We HAD to stop, not for ourselves but for my father and brother who have spent a fair amount of time in the loo and we thought if all were this pretty then I would too! I brought them back pamphlet about these famous shitters. HEHEHE!

We stopped again at a place called Sheepworld which was so interesting. We saw a mustering show and a shearing demo where I was asked to help which was really neat. Then we fed lambs and also a really cute brown and white fuzzy calf. This was also the only place AB saw a live possum. We sure saw hundreds of dead ones on the highways...really several hundreds. NZ has a very bad over-population of possums which were introduced from Australia. Although the rain continued to fall we enjoyed the stops we made. We continued on towards the Corromandel Pennisula and decided that our little car needed a name...so Pete was the decision. Pete had been doing so well for us but I suppose Pete did not like his name because that day he decided to blow a fan belt and thus caused the battery light to come on and he died in a town called Thames (yes very British) and luckily I got him over the side of the street seconds before he completly died. It was still raining and luckily my cell phone cooperated and we arranged to have Pete towed the next morning and we settled into a hostel...yes I got AB to try hostel life as well. Well unfortunately it wasn't the best of hostels and it was her last experience with hostel life but I give her props for giving it a go!! The next day Pete got towed first thing in the am and although took a while to fix was done by shortly after noon and we were off up the Coromandel Pennisula in the (you guessed it) sheeting rain. We had now realized that he rain storm that hit us in the Bay of Islands was following us down the coast...boo.

So now we figured maybe Pete didn't like his name, so we started to think of a new name for our little Bluebird (make of the car). We came up with Tui, a NZ bird and also a type of beer. Tui purred along through the rain and so we decided Tui was a more appropriate name for our Kiwi car. We enjoyed the drive around the pennisula but because of the rain were unable to stop to check too much out so we continued on to Rotorua. And like they say you smell it first. Home to the thermal pool areas of the north island Rotorua smells like eggs (sulphur), everywhere. But boy were there ever a ton of things to do.

The next day we booked ourselves into a bunch of activities and were ecstatic to see the rain drizzle to a stop. We started by hitting Hell's Gate thermal areas and it was so fascinating. So many different types of steam vents, mud pools, stinky smelly water, and gurgling bubbling pools. We spent a good few hours there before...dun dun dun....river sledging. So anyone who tells you that River sledging is a ride down a river on a boogy board is LYING. They asked if we were confident swimmers...yes I can swim confidently, HOWEVER, I haven't recently swam upstream on a raging rapid filled river for over an hour. No they didn't ask that, buggers. So ya they also did say that bailing off the boogy board thing is also common and you will drink up half the river in the said event. All in all it was....an experience shall we say, I don't think AB will ever ever do it again (yes I have pictures!!) but we both agreed it was great to say we did, although personally I will stick to white water rafting the future.

We were completely knackered from the sledging although we had a zorb booked for the late afternoon. What's a zorb? Well, a zorb is a massive (like 11 feet high) inflatable ball with an inner chamber where you sit, they put some water in it, and you go rolling down a hill, just like a hamster ball! Getting into the ball was kinda like being born but in reverse, you catapult yourself head first superman style! (sorry no pics of this event, but wish I had a video). It was nice and warm in there and once we started rolling down the hill, AB was giggling and laughing the whole time. It was a BLAST!! We wanted to go again but it was quite expensive. But SUCH a great time. Like a mixture of a waterslide and roller coaster. We also have pictures of this! We woke up after this and headed to the museum to learn about Rotorua's past of having a large bath house where doctors used the thermal waters for treatment of various ailments. That night we enjoyed our own personal spa pool and a bottle of wine.

Next day we were off to another thermal area to see the Lady Knox geyser which was actually induced by man with some kind of natural soap like substance but went off for over an hour! We also walked around they very colorful pools of more sulfury smelling water, and some so green it looked like Slimer had been there! Some of the pools bubbled away at temperatures between 60 and 105 degrees celcius!! There we felt a very curious sensation of the very hot humid (and stinky) air from the pools mixed with the misty cool air temperature on our faces. People pay big bucks for these type of steam treatments at spas!

Well we felt refreshed and headed off down towards Wellington and stayed at a cute B&B just north of town. Right near the B&B some of the scenes from Lord of the Rings had been filmed. The LOTR tours were quite pricey so we just went on our own the next morning and took some Galom photos in the rainforest and pics of where the Elfish area called "Rivendell" was filmed in one of the national parks. We headed on to the capital of Wellington and had a lovely picnic at the top of Mt Victoria looking over the city. We headed to Te Papa which is the national museum and it was fantastic! I had been there once already but loved it a second time. We walked around a bit then headed back up north. We made it to Waitomo Caves and booked in a trip for Black Water Rafting but ONLY after we were reassured that this was not another sledging expedition. Waitomo is famous for it's underground labyrinth of caves with underground rivers. Well we got suited up in some serious wetsuits and took inner tubes and jumped into the rather chilly underground river. This trip involved a bit of scaling over rocks and shallow parts but was great! We saw tons of glow worms and floated down the underground river.

We had left time to return to the Bay of Islands so that hopefully we would have a second chance to do the dolphin swimming. Luckily the weather cooperated this time and we enjoyed a fabulous day sailing, watching dolphins play and rub themselves up against the boat. Unfortunately there was babies in the water so we were unable to go swimming with them, but saw so many and they were huge compared to the ones we saw in Christchurch. These ones were like 400kg!! We even snorkelled a bit but the water was pretty cold as autumn is starting to settle in here.

Back to Auckland we went, bid farewell to Tui, and enjoyed our last day taking the ferry to the nearby suburb of Devonport where we rented bicycles and rode to the top of a volcanic cone. We headed to Rangitata Island which was created 600 years ago from a volcanic eruption and we hiked up to the crater and walked around the rim. It was great to get some good exercise in as well.

Well the next day we were off to the airport...Aunty Betty to return home, and me to take off for a vacation to Fiji! So we did so much in the 16 days that Aunty Betty spent here on the north island and we had SO much fun together! Thanks for sharing in my adventure, I loved it!!

Well here I am with only a few weeks remaining, and although I am so excited to go home, i am also quite nervous to go back to a regular life again. I have been living the dream, but I suppose all good things must come to an end. Off to Fiji!!!

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Photos

Penguins!!
King Penguins at the Auckland aquarium

Massive Kuari Trees
Can you see Aunty Betty?

Maori Waka
A very large war canoe

Topsy Turvy
Glad we weren't on the water that day!

Spa Time
Our own spa in Rotorua!

Carla interprets modern art
At Te Papa