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Published: March 7th 2009
Wellington- Taupo (Waitomo included)- Auckland
So we ventured from the south island, across the Interisland ferry to Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand. The ferry took about three hours and we arrived in Wellington by the early afternoon. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and has a very artsy, almost San Francisco, vibe to it. There are pieces of art everywhere and even a gay pride festival when we were there (hence why it is so similar to SF). Wellington is New Zealand's third most populous urban area.
We spent our first night in Wellington chilling out and walking the streets of the town, except that everything was closed. We still had fun window shopping and counting all the Starbucks we could find, but note to self: the Starbucks here are not part of Starbucks international so they DO NOT take Starbucks cards. It was quite a bummer! Although the town was pretty rowdy, it was a Saturday night, we decided to keep things quiet. Me and the Colorado girls went out for a girl’s night to the movies and saw "He's Just Not That Into You." Such an eventful night!
The next day we
woke up and met up with our friends Lynette and Reese. They are Kiwis that we met on our Mekong Delta trip from Vietnam to Cambodia and they ended up spending a few days with us in Cambodia. I immediately liked them, especially because Lynette used to work for Disney cruise lines, so I was pretty happy when we decided to meet up again in their hometown. We met them at the Te Papa National Museum and they took us on the locals’ tour of the city. "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land".
We went into the museum, which is free so I was happy! The big appeal of the museum is that it has a giant squid on display. A lot of Antarctic expeditions head out of New Zealand and on one particular Antarctic expedition, some fishermen found a pretty interesting animal attached to their fish. It was a giant squid that was feeding on the fish they had caught. Since the squid did not let go of the fish when it was pulled up to the surface, the squid did not have long to live. Therefore, the crew hoisted
it on board and donated it to science. The specimen weighs in at an estimated 990 pounds. The scientists studied the body and then put it on display at Te Papa. It was pretty big and very interesting to actually see in real life. We visited a couple other exhibits at the museum including a volcanic eruption and an earthquake house! It was pretty cool for a free museum. Then Lynette and Reese drove us to the Victoria lookout point high above Wellington. Along the drive we were able to see some of Peter Jackson's film studios where he does a lot of his movie making. For those of you who don't know, Peter Jackson is the Lord of the Rings director who is Kiwi and did all of his LOTR filming in New Zealand. You can literally take LOTR tours here where they take you to all the filming locations!
The lookout point was gorgeous and windy! Windy Wellington was living up to its nickname that day and I felt like I was going to get blown off the top of the hill. We were able to watch the planes landing at the airport, coming in almost sideways
because of the wind! After Victoria lookout, they took us to a little ice cream shop along the coast where we sat and enjoyed the sun.
After this, we headed back to their house in the suburbs of Wellington to relax, watch some TV, use their laundry and Internet and get a home cooked meal. Lynette went out of her way to make an amazing meal for us. She BBQ'ed steak, chicken and sausages and paired them with salad, potatoes and corn on the cob. It was the best meal we had eaten in a long time and I cannot thank her enough for taking such good care of us. It is really nice to meet such great people from all over the world. I have learned that the majority of people you meet while traveling are amazing people that will go out of their way to help you and make you feel at home wherever you may be!
After our night with Lynette and Reese, we woke up early the next morning to head to Taupo. Taupo is a town on the shore of Lake Taupo in the center of the North Island of New Zealand. The
name Taupo comes from Māori Taupō-nui-a-Tia. Literally translated, it means "The great cloak of Tia" where Tia is the name of the discoverer of the lake. Lake Taupo is the largest lake in New Zealand and makes for a dramatic backdrop in the city. The city itself is small and charming with lots of little shops and restaurants. We decided to use Taupo as our base for a few days of exploring on the North Island of New Zealand.
The next day was an early morning! We left the hostel at 5:40am to head to the Tongariro Crossing. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing in Tongariro National Park is one of New Zealand's most spectacular trek tracks, and the most famous one-day trek in New Zealand. Some say it is one of the best day hikes in the world. So of course, we couldn't miss it! The morning was cold! Very cold and I thankfully had put on some layers, but that was still not enough. I ended up renting another jacket from the bus company that took us out to the crossing. Although I only used it for the first 1/2 hour of the trek it was well worth it!
Standing on Wellington
Giant NZ map at Te PapaThe crossing passes over the volcanic terrain of the multi-cratered active volcano Mt Tongariro, passing near to the immediately neighboring Mt Ngauruhoe, more commonly referred to as Mt. Doom now because it was used as Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. The trek is 19.4 Km (12 miles) in total and took us about 8 hours to complete. The walk is renowned for its barren yet beautiful volcanic landscape, unusual geological features, visible volcanic activity and views of the surrounding countryside below.
The walk started out pretty easy, walking through fields and streams. Then you hit the area known as the "Devil's Staircase." I was pretty worried about this because I am not in very good shape anymore. The staircase is a bunch of stairs built into the rock and took us about 45 minutes of straight uphill to complete. I was definitely tired, especially because I had a pretty bad cold, but it was not as bad as I thought. After the 28 bends of Tiger Leaping Gorge in China, I think I can handle anything! I definitely did not feel like I wanted to die like I did on Tiger Leaping Gorge!
Views along the coast of Wellington
This is where we stopped to eat ice cream! From there we arrived at the base of Mt. Doom. It is an optional three hour hike to climb to the top of the volcano. I really wanted to do it, but it meant that we would be pressed for time getting back to the bus and since I was pretty sick, we decided against it. This part of the trek consisted of crossing over volcanic rock high on the ridges of the mountains. We did decide to do the optional 3km trek to the top of Mt. Tongariro and saw amazing views of the valleys below us from both sides of the crossing. We also got amazing views of Mt. Doom and the snow capped mountain behind it. Too bad it was extremely windy at the top and we didn't stay long. From there we headed down to the sulfur smelling emerald pools below. When I say sulfur smelling, I mean it smelled like rotten eggs everywhere and even if you just breathed out of your mouth, you could taste the smell! The walk to the emerald pools was quite interesting as well. It was straight down a hill with a bunch of loose gravel. You would literally slide
The boys at our feast
At Lynette and Reese's house down the gravel, trying to keep your balance. It looked like you were moon walking down hill. We had so much dirt and gravel in our shoes after this portion of the trek.
The emerald pools were gorgeous though and set against the volcanic backdrop made it even more special! After the pools, the trek evened out and the last hour and a half was actually pretty boring. You zig zagged down the trek and had the same scenery for quite some time. Walking consistently down hill for almost two hours killed my legs. The last half hour of the trek was through some forest and bush walks. It was great except I had to use the toilet really bad so I was running to get to the end. We got back to the buses about 2:30pm and were ready to sleep on the 1 1/2 hour drive back to Taupo. We hopped on the first bus and I fell asleep immediately.
I awoke to the sound of our bus stopped on the side of the highway. Uhhhhh.... what was going on? Our bus was broken! After our long day all we wanted was to get home and
here we were, with a broken bus on the side of the highway. The delay lasted about an hour while we waited for another bus to come rescue us. We finally hopped on the new bus and got back to Taupo. What a way to end a long day?!
You'd think we would give ourselves a day of rest after Tongariro, but that wasn't the case. The next morning a bus picked us up at 7:20am to take us out to Waitomo. The Waitomo Caves are the reason the little town of Waitomo even exists. The word Waitomo comes from the Māori language wai meaning water and tomo meaning sinkhole; it can thus be translated to be water passing through a hole. These Caves are believed to be over two million years old. They are noted for their stalactite and stalagmite displays, and for the presence of glowworms. The Waitomo caves are often referred to as the "glowworm caves." These glowworms are found exclusively in New Zealand and around the size of an average mosquito. And, they aren't actually worms at all, but maggots and the thing that is shining and glowing in the dark is actually the maggot
poop. But I guess it doesn't sound as nice if they say to visit the "maggot poop glowing caves." The last time I was here in New Zealand I did a three hour black water rafting trip through the caves, so this time we decided to step it up a bit and do a five hour abseiling and black water rafting trip. We began by getting all suited up in our wonderful outfits. Wetsuits and jackets, shorts and helmets with lights. I looked good....! From there we were driven out to the start of the caves where we practiced abseiling on the grass before getting into the caves.
Our first step was to abseil through a 130m cave to the bottom. I was super pumped and ready to go. I began heading down when all of a sudden I got a little stuck. The opening of the cave was so small, I had to wiggle and attempt to abseil at the same time just to get myself through the hole. From there the cave opened up, well... I think it opened up. See, the guide had forgotten to turn on my light to my helmet so I was heading
Long way ahead!
At 0KM- only 19 more to go! down in pitch black and couldn't see a thing. I had no idea where the face of the cave was or where I should put my feet. I just had to feel around until I found it. I managed to repel the whole way down in the dark having no idea how far I was to the bottom, well, until I heard the other guide telling me to turn my helmet light on. If only he yelled that to me earlier!
After the group of eight descended into the cave, we did some hiking in the cave and then one more rappel, except this rappel was more like a zipline. They hooked us up, everyone turned off their lights and sent us ziplining down the cave in the dark. There were glowworms everywhere around us and it looked like you were staring up at the night sky. It was definitely very Space Mountain! After this last rappel, we took off our repelling gear and hopped into some inner tubes to raft in the water. We had to jump in the water by tossing ourselves off a small cliff and landing butt in the tube in the water. The second
I hit the water, I lost my breath- the water was freezing! After about ten minutes and some body warming exercises, I got used to it, but the initial shock was just that- shocking!
We spent the next couple hours in the cave floating around in our tubes and looking at the glowworms. Our guides hooked all our tubes together at one point, served us some coffee and biscuits and pulled us through the water, completely in the dark so we could fully enjoy the glowworms. It was pretty awesome to be sipping some hot coffee, eating a yummy cookie and getting slowly pulled through the water so you could just sit back and relax and enjoy the ride.
After this little relaxing bit, we got rid of our tubes and continued on foot through the caves. We were early on time, so our guides had some fun messing with us. Making us squeeze through small holes in the caves instead of taking the easy way around. They also told us to turn our helmet lights off at one point and follow the glowworms. The problem was, the glowworms ended and we were tripping over each other in
the pitch black dark trying to figure our way out.
The last part of the trip was climbing two waterfalls. The guides would tell you where to grab hold of the rocks and where to put your feet and we climbed the face of two different waterfalls. I was first to go up the first and more challenging one. When I was almost finished the guide looked at me and said, "Ok- goodbye, finish it by yourself and we will meet you around the corner." Well, I finished it, but it was a while before everyone came after me, so there I sat, alone in a cave with just my helmet light, waiting for everyone to come join me. It was quite eerie for a while.
After we were finished, we enjoyed hot showers and hot soup compliments of the company and were relaxed and ready for our four hour bus back to Taupo. We slept well again that night and slept in for a little while the next morning. Then we checked out of our hostel and hopped a bus to Auckland. We were making great timing to Auckland until we hit traffic at 4:30pm. From there
it took us two hours to drive 15km and we arrived in Auckland late in the evening. We immediately headed to Mexicali- a restaurant recommended to us by Benny (my friend Matt's brother). It is a fresh Mexican restaurant and absolutely delicious- even by California standards. I met my friend Dean and his girlfriend, Rachel for dinner that night. Dean and I met in an Australian hostel when I studied in Oz. He ended up coming out to California about four and half years ago and stayed with my roommates and myself in San Diego. We have kept in touch since then and decided to meet up since I was in his town. It was great to see old friends and eat a great meal!
The next day we spent exploring Auckland. It is a big metropolitan city and apparently 1/3 the population of New Zealand lives here. The weather was not nice, but we still were able to walk to the wharf and see some of the America's cup Sailing boats that are at the harbour here. We got a short lived glimpse of the sky tower as well before it was quickly covered by the clouds. We
Tired and sick
and only about 1km into the hike! also did some shopping, which was not good for our budget, but with our dollar being so strong everything is soooo cheap! That night, Sunny and Marissa were coming back to Auckland and we had plans to meet up with them. They ended up showing up around 8:30pm and we headed to Mexicali again for good dinner. Then we met Dean and Rachel for a night out in Auckland. We bar hopped along the wharf and really enjoyed the vibe of the city. It was crowded with people and was really vibrant. We even managed to find a good ole cowboy bar that came complete with cowboy hats when you walked in. The Colorado girls got home just in time for couple hours sleep before having to get up at 4am for their flight back to Australia. We said our goodbyes and made promises to see each other when they come to California for the 4th of July. It has been really fun traveling with them and getting to know them. It's so great when you meet fun people on the road you really get along with.
The next two days were spent walking around Auckland and generally just
hanging out and fattening up on hamburgers before leaving for South America.
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Nins
non-member comment
WOOOOW
WWOWOWOWOOW what a trip!!!!!! and you were the only girl in that group? YOU GO!!