Starting South, back to Auckland and on to Rotorua

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Day 29 - Thurs March 4th

We had a short stroll on nearby Long Beach and then headed up a steep hill (in the van, not walking!) to check out the flagstaff. This is the site where the British flag had been raised and cut down many times during the 1800’s - sorry can’t remember the full story, but there was an amazing view from the top of the hill around all of the bay.

Next we hit the road again, this time heading back South. It was mainly a driving day, with a few refreshment stops along the way. Our campsite for the night was in a place called Orewa, which we stopped at because there were some thermal pools nearby. Unfortunately we went to the pools first, which were expensive and only ok (but very hot, so quite relaxing) and to the campsite after, where we discovered we could have got a discount of up to 60% on the thermal pools - aarrrgghh.

We had a very tasty dinner with some veggies we had picked up from a farm shop on the drive down and then tried to figure out the game cribbage. If anyone has any tips please let us know!

Day 30 - Fri March 5th

Today was another big driving day, but first we took a stroll along the beach which was 3km long. Next stop was back in Auckland where we stopped just to get Jake’s mobile unlocked and pick up a NZ sim, so we are now back on the grid. We hit the road again and arrived in our next destination of Rotorua at around 4.30pm.

We had trouble choosing a campsite as there were too many to choose from, but ended up in one which had free thermal pools. Rotorua is a dynamic thermal area and whilst driving back through town we stumbled across Kuirau park which is full of random bubbling mud pools and steaming rocks dotted around. We explored these for as long as we could stand the smell (sulphur - like rotten eggs) and then headed off to sort some bits for tomorrow before returning to the campsite to relax in the thermal pools.

Day 31 - Sat March 6th

We had to eat our breakfast in the safety of the van today as there were lots of crazy black birds pecking around looking for food, and they were quite scary, even chasing after the campsite cat.

We then had a wander around the Saturday market, but it was mostly selling either car boot sale type junk or hot food, which at 10am we didn’t fancy. So we headed on to Blue Lake where we did a walk around the outside and watched people doing jet skiing. We stopped off at a view point over Lake Tarawera and then went to change campsites before having a little rest until it was time to get ready and go out - yes folks a night out on the town! Well sort of. We had booked to go to a Maori show and so we saw some Maori’s rowing in a tribal canoe, some tribal dancing, singing, musical instruments and weapons. We were told about some of their history and about their facial tattoos. We then had a big buffet meal, which had been cooked traditionally over hot rocks in the ground. Once it had got dark we saw some glow worms and then had a tour of the nextdoor wildlife reserve. The tour was a bit slow as there was a big group of us and we had to keep stopping to be told about some bird or another. The highlight was seeing the native Kiwi bird, which is nocturnal, so we all entered the cage and stood in the dark peering into the bushes trying to spot the birds. No camera flashes were allowed so we didn’t really get any photos.

All in all it was a good night, but we didn’t really like the feeling of being herded around like sheep.

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Comments

[peter webster]

new zealand
Yet again this is very professional -maybe you are both latent travel writers-its better than most travel articles in times or telegraph dad