North Island - Wellington, East Cape and Rotorua

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Prepare to be drowning in blogs over the next few days as I have a lot to write about before we head to Fiji on Monday.

We had a normal ferry crossing to the North Island - a little rough in places. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be with all the bad weather we had been hearing about - we worried that the ferry would even go. The captain of the ferry came along to talk to some people and he said it was the first time he had seen snow on the mountains in the North Island for 25 years. We could see the mountains from the window. The ferry drops you off right in the heart of Wellington, we were excited to finally be in NZ's capital city. I really liked it, it wasn't to big or too small. It certainly lived up to its name of Windy Welly. Just as we got to the campervan after a walk around the heavens opened - it rained, then it hailed, then it sleeted, then it rained some more. We stocked up on food and headed somewhere for a much needed power night. We saw on the front of the newspapers the snowstorm Welly had had the day before - I'm glad we missed that. The next day it was still raining so we headed to a suburb to go and visit the WETA cave.

Weta Digital is a digital visual effects company. It was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures. In 2007 Weta Digital’s Senior Visual Effects Supervisor, Joe Letteri, was also appointed as a Director of the company. Weta Digital has won several Academy Awards and BAFTAs. Wellington has stamped its place firmly on the world map as the home of NZ's dynamic film industry and has earned the city the nickname Wellywood. Welly's reputation soaring of course because director Peter Jackson calls Wellington home. The success of the Lord of the Rings films have done wonders for Wellington as many of the film locations are in its backyard. We liked the WETA cave idea because it's free and quite unique.

Inside there was a huge orc statue that was actually quite scary to look at. The woman at the desk said that when things have calmed down from the Hobbit they are going to make the orc breathe so when unsuspecting people stand in front for a photo he'll breathe on their necks. There was also a life like statue of Gollum which was brilliant. I was really excited to see their extensive sword collection from the trilogy, including Frodo's Sting and Aragorn's sword. There was Gandalf's and Legolas' dagger too. There were mini statues of all the characters and lots of merchandise for sale. If you had $2,800 you could buy the 'one ring' engraved! There was also items from other films that WETA has worked on such as District 9, Avatar, and up and coming Tin Tin. We also watched a DVD all about the company and what goes on in the workshop that was really interesting.

Over the next couple of days we made our to the East Cape along the Pacific Coast Highway. The weather was still bad and it did dampen our spirits a bit. We had such gorgeous weather in the South Island and that was meant to be the coldest. The rain wasn't the only thing that disappointed us, it was the roads. They were in no way as exciting as the south island had been - we just felt like we were driving on a country road in England. There were more cars too - I know this island is more populated but we loved that feeling that you were the only ones on the road for miles. Still, we put it behind us and decided to wait and see what would happen.

We headed through towns and cities having a little nose along the way. Once place I quite liked was Napier. It's known for its architecture but Napier has quite a colourful history. On 3rd February 1931, the city was levelled by a catastrophic earthquake (7.9 on the rhicter scale) - fatalities were 258. Napier, surprisingly found itself 40 sq km larger, as the earthquake heaved sections of what was once a lagoon 2m above sea level and that area is now Napier Airport. After all of the re-building the city became one of the world's most uniformly Art-Deco cities.

The main aim to journey along the East Cape was not only for the lovely ocean drive but to reach the East Cape Lighthouse and watch the sunrise. Standing at that point is the most eastern easily accessible a human being can go and it means you will be the one of the first person in the world to see the sun rise that day. So on the 20th August 2011 we got up at 5am and made the hour long drive down a scary unsealed road. The road was creepy in the pitch black, there were scary drops off to the ocean on one side and cows and horses just wondering along the road - their eyes glowing in the headlights. When we reached the bottom of the hill we then had to climb 760 steps to the top all the while keeping an eye on the time. It was tough doing that at 6 in the morning and the steps were really slippy because of all the rain - I had to catch Andy as much as he had to catch me! The view at the top was beautiful, the moon was still glinting on the water. We waited about 20 minutes until the sun finally poked up. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy so we didn't see the full sun until 20 minutes after the sun rise but we still had a little peak at the start. It felt really special and I'm really pleased we made the effort.

From East Cape we headed onto Rotorua, famous for it's geothermal activity. We stopped in Whakatane, just before to recharge after the early start and found it to be a beautiful seaside town, lined with palm trees, cafes and huge mansions on the hills. Just off shore we could see steam rising high from Whakaari (White Island) - NZ only marine active volcano. The small was originally formed by 3 separate volcanic cones of different ages. The 2 oldest have eroded away but the youngest - MT Gisbourne is the highest point on the island - at 321m. Hot water hisses and steams from vents over most of the crater floor - temperatures of 600 - 800 degrees celcius have been recorded! It made us excited for Rotorua.

When we arrived in Rotorua we immediately booked some open dated tickets to some of the big attractions. The first on the list was Te Puia. We chose to go here because it had a bit of everything - a maori village, a cultural performance, a natural geyser and a kiwi house. It certainly didn't disappoint. The weather was beautiful with an occasional breeze of sulfur (mmm) as we made our way along the walkway, we viewed mud and boiling cooking pools before we reached the kiwi house. It was pitch black inside and we had to be really quiet and not take any photos. They prefer the cold, dark spaces and after an age of waiting for my eyes to adjust I finally saw a kiwi. They are amazing! First impression was we were both surprised how big it is and how quickly he moved poking his long beak in and out of the soil. It was just us in there for a while and it was great to watch them up close. I looked up some kiwi facts to share with you all.

1. The Kiwi cannot fly, and lives in burrows on the ground.

2. Its diet is mainly worms, spiders, bugs, grubs and fruit.

3. Kiwi's mate for life, some have been together for 30 years.

4. A Kiwi's egg is large compared with the size of its body (An egg averages 20% of the females weight, compared to 2% for an Ostrich).

5. The female is larger than the male. In some varieties the males are the ones that sit on the egg.

6. It is the only known bird to have external nostrils at the end of its beak, and one of the few birds to have a good sence of smell. At night a Kiwi can often be heard making snuffling noises, which is caused by the bird trying to clear dirt out of its nostrils when it is searching for food.

7. It has an average body temperature of 38 degrees C, which is 2 degrees lower than other birds and two degrees higher than humans.

Next we headed to the famous Pohutu Geyser and waited for it to erupt which it does so once or twice an hour. We were informed the way to know it was ready to blow was to watch the Prince of Wales Feathers Geyser because that one starts erupting just before. They call it the most famous geyser of the 65 geysers found in the Te Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley in Rotorua, the awe-inspiring Pohutu Geyser, means big splash or explosion. Pohutu erupts up to 30 metres (100 foot) high, depending on her mood, and is the largest active geyser in New Zealand and the southern hemisphere. In the past, Māori regarded geysers and thermal activitiy as gifts from the gods. According to local Māori, the Te Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley was one of the sites where Te Pupu and Te Hoata, the Goddesses of Fire, emerged from the earth’s core while trying to find their brother Ngatoroirangi, who was stranded on Mount Tongariro. As they rose to the surface looking for their brother, they left part of the fire they carried, creating geysers, hot springs and mud pools, leaving our Te Whakarewarewa valley with the geothermal activity that remains today. It's really fascinating stuff. We watched the geyser for ages and I literally took about a hundred photos because it kept getting higher and higher. Andy reckoned we saw it about 20 metres which is pretty cool.

We headed to The Marae for our Maori Culture performance. The marae is the meeting house/welcome house for the maori people where they gather for all sorts of occasions good or bad. It is the focal point of their community and normally in the centre of the area. It is decorated ornately on the outside and usually red and white. It was a lovely place to see. As guests to the house we had to be welcomed in the traditional way. A chap for Oz in our group had to pretend to be our chief for the duration of our stay. He was presented a leaf by a maori warrior on the grounds in front of the meeting house and then he had to pick it up as a sign of friendship. We were then allowed to continue inside. The performance was beautiful, they sang songs and danced and told us of maori love stories. My favourite bit was when the men performed the Haka which is a form of dance they use to intimidate the opposition. They also showed us what weapons they used and how to use them. We were really pleased we decided to pay the little extra to go to the show as it was really interesting. We continued on around Te Puia having a look at the wood carving school and the weaving school they have on site. Some of the woven handbags the women were making looked gorgeous.

Later that afternoon we had booked to stay at Waikite Valley Thermal Park as they have a camp area on site. It is the first place we have actually rang up and booked before we got there and it was a good job as we got the last power site available. The whole reason for staying there was because you got free use of their thermal pools which can only be summed up in one word - devine! Waikite Valley Thermal Pools is a unique place to come and experience the ‘Living Waters’ of the Te Manaroa Spring - the largest single source of 100% pure boiling water in New Zealand. There were so many pools to sit and soak in. There was a boiling one at about 42 degrees, then our favourite was a stone pool about 38 degrees that had plants and bush all around and an amazing view of NZ countryside. It was so nice and peaceful we even got up at 7am the next morning for another soak before carrying on our journey to Wai-O-Tapu.

Wai-O-Tapu is known as the geothermal wonderland and it was here that the smell of sulfur really hit me. I don't care what anyone says the smell is awful and apart from being a lovely city there is no way I could live there. Anyway, we went to see the Lady Knox Geyser erupt which happens at 10:15am every day! We were wondering for ages how does it erupt the same time everyday. All became clear when a man came and stood by the geyser shortly before eruption time and told us all about how the geyser used to be a hot spring. One day about a hundred years ago some prisoners came down to the spring to wash their clothes with some soap. Shortly after washing the geyser exploded 5 metres in the air and the prisoners ran butt naked into the forest! It's since then become a tourist attraction, they've built up the spring to make the hole narrower for the geyser to make more height for the eruption. So then bang on 10:15 this chap added soap and a few minutes later the geyser erupted. All in all one big chemical reaction. Andy and I just sat there watching and to be quite honest we felt quite cheated by the whole thing. We are glad we saw Pohutu all natural erupt the day before.

Carrying on from that we really enjoyed the 3km walk around Wai-O-Tapu which had amazing things to see including artists palette which was a lake with a mixture of colours from the sulfur. There was also the impressive Champagne Pool which looked like bubbling champagne (surprise). There were sulfur caves and sulfur holes and all sorts of smelly sulfur areas. My favourite was the Devil Lake right at the end of the walk, this lake was florescent green!! It was amazing to look at. Rotorua is a really special place and I'm really pleased we were able to see the things we did, it is an amazing phenomena of activity. The steam just rising up of front of you, the ground burning hot, and pools of water and mud just boiling away because the of the planet heating it up. It was a fascinating experience.

More blogs to follow soon so don't forget to check! Hope your all ok.

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Comments

[Chris]

wow green lake
cool blog looking forward to more blogs. Cool pics think we would love the thermal pools. Scary naked men in the pics. Love to see lord of the rings. Take care happy Christmas. Xxxxxxxxx