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Published: October 21st 2011
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Wellington was literally a wash out for us. It lashed the whole time we were there, which was less than 24 hours. We did manage to squeeze in the Te Papa museum which was fantastic and definitely deserved more than the hour and a half we gave it. It has many interactive exhibits including a simulated earthquake in a small house, a colossal squid and video of its capture and plenty on the indigenous Maori population and migration of the Pacific Islanders.
But the road called and so we hit it early in the afternoon so we could reach Napier by night, and we succeeded. It was a mission though in poor driving conditions. Napier is known for its Art Deco buildings which came about during the rebuild necessary after the 1931 earthquake which levelled most of the city. The style was clearly popular at the time. The region is also known for its wine, Hawkes Bay (Ash’s personal favourite is any Pinot Grigio from the area), but we didn’t stop to sample any as we’d already checked out the Marlborough and were on a tight schedule. We did stop long enough to use the coldest internet cafe on the
planet, Ash’s feet were numb by the time we left!
Next stop was Lake Taupo where on arrival we stopped off at the iSite. These are government run tourist information centres and we found very useful throughout the trip. Ade ended up booking a sky dive taking off in less than an hour! We drove to the airfield where he suited up and met his tandem master (Joel) and then they were off, with no time wasted. Up to 15,000 feet in a tiny plane before the tandem master jumped out with Ade attached. Awesome free-fall before gentle parachute down with all of Lake Taupo in view. From below, a pile of little dots could be seen in the sky circling slowly. Ade was the last to land and funniest to watch, because he was a good bit taller than his life support, he had to put his legs out straight and land on his bum!!! He thoroughly enjoyed it and is keen to repeat the experience, but somewhere warmer next time.
The following day we hired Marty and his 28ft boat Stratus for 3 hours out on Lake Taupo. We saw the Maori stone carvings but what
we were really there for was the trout fishing. The style here is called trolling and it’s not nearly as exciting as some types but we had a fabulous day with Marty and came home with 3 big rainbow trout for our trouble. There is a size minimum and all of Ash’s fishies were too small to be kept.
Our next stop was Rotorua, the town known as Rot-Vegas to some or ‘the place that reeks of eggs’ to others. We quite liked it and the smell of eggs is only very mild in some places and soon you get used to it. It is famous for its geothermal activity as well as its high Maori population. While in town we stayed at the Kiwi Paka hostel and campsite which was filled with teenagers competing in sporting competitions. Despite this, it was very nice and the staff were a great help in planning our time there. We visited the Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland to view the geysers, steam pools, oil pots and mud pools, volcanic gas billowing and different coloured craters and pools. It was all very surreal and like nothing else we saw in New Zealand. We took a
short stroll through the redwood forest which came about when the logging industry way back when decided to plant all sorts of varieties of tree to see which took best. Some type of pine was chosen but the redwood forest remains in Rotorua and is a fun place to take walks. After this we bombed down Mount Ngongotaha on luges for a few hours looking out over Lake Rotorua before heading out on a Maori cultural evening at the Tamaki Maori Village. Ade was chosen to be the chief of our tribe and led the bus on chants on the journey there as well as taking part in the show at various stages culminating in a haka at the end of dinner along with the chiefs from the other tribes (i.e. from the other buses – although waka actually means boat in Maori). It was a fun night out and the traditionally cooked hangi (cooked by hot stones buried in a pit) was delicious and plentiful. On the trip back our driver circled a roundabout close to 20 times while some cars beeped at us. Most passengers found it funny at the start but by the end there were few
smiling faces to be found.
After Rotorua we veered off track to visit Hobbiton Movie Set & Farms. We signed a disclaimer so can’t discuss what we saw there or put up photos but it was all set to go for the new shoot of The Hobbit and was really fun to see. We can definitely tell you we saw a sheep being shorn ;-)
Waitomo was our next destination for some black water rafting with The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company. They were really well organised and we had a fun group. Black water rafting is really just tubing in a cave; the cave we were in was Ruakuri. We had to walk over lots of rocks as the water wasn’t very high and even jump off some mini waterfalls backwards. The reason it’s so popular in this area is because the caves are inhabited by glow worms. A one point in the trip we turned off our head lamps, hooked our feet and arms in one big long line and got pulled through the cave looking up at the worms. It looked like the night sky.
There’s more to come but we’ll save it for
later so you don’t fall asleep!
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MD
non-member comment
Brilliant!
Great photos, text- thank you!