North Island in 5 days!

---

13th March

We had an approximate date when we wanted to cross over to the North island (which was about the 16th March). This would give us the same amount of time to do both islands. We left Nelson and decided to head West up to what the Lonely Planet book described as beautiful beaches - maybe we went to the wrong place (see pic). We spent a good two hours driving up the coast to Collingwood where we stopped to have a look at the amazing beaches which we had seen published in the book. It was awful - seriously, Skeggy beach was better than this one!! The weather really didnt help matters either - everything seems so much more murky when its peeing it down constantly. Apparently NZ has had some really bizarre weather this year (trust us to be here when it happens). It has apparently just been snowing in Queenstown and its only just coming into their Autumn!! We decided that we would leave the South island and make our way across to the North island by catching the car ferry which leaves from Picton - another 4 hours away from Collingwood. We spent most of that day driving. Our ferry left the port at 7pm and it took us about 3 hours to reach Wellington.

The ferry over to Wellington was okay - it had a nice little bar where we sat for the three hours and drank some vino whilst playing shithead! Unfortunately it got a little too rough for Kerry's stomach to bear and so she had to lay down for the last hour of the cruise looking a little paler than pale! We arrived in Wellington where it was still raining but we managed to find our way to the camp park which was just outside the city. The following day we decided to leave Wellington without even looking around. It was just another city and we figured that we would only end up spending money if we stayed so we bolted that morning - all the way up to Napier, which is half way up the North island! It seems to be our problem that we get on driving missions and end up fitting in what should be a few days journey into a day. Napier was okay, nothing special. I think we saw the best of NZ on the South island. Its fair to say that if we were to describe NZ - the South island is like Switzerland, beautiful within stunning scenery, whilst the North island is more like..........Derbyshire. Not that there is anything wrong with Derbyshire, its just strange to think that this is the same country. To say we are a little let down by the North island is a bit of an understatement. Nevermind. We stayed a couple of nights in Napier - it rained!! We left there and carried on up to Lake Taupo. Lake Taupo was alright - but again, nothing special and certainly not worth spending the night at. So we then carried on to the next possible stop off, a place called Rotorua, the North Island's "Sulphur City" but this was also nothing to write home about, plus it smelled of eggy trumps - worse than ever!! So we sacked that idea off and decided to head across to the Waitomo Caves. We had read that you could go to these amazing caves where you could see glow worms. There were a few trips you could go on but we could really only afford a couple of options and so decided to book ourselves on to the night abseil. We booked the trip as soon as we got there for that evening.

We were met at 7.10pm by the guide. He pulled up in his car and took us to the middle of nowhere. We were the only two on the abseil that evening so we got him all to ourselvs. We pulled up into the middle of a field with nothing around us whatsoever! It was just starting to get dark which made it seem a little unnerving. We were kitted out with all of our gear such as helmet, overalls, abseil equipment and boots and were shown down to the cave that we would be descending 50metres (approx 150ft) into. There was no time to be nervous! He attached us to the rope and gave us a quick lesson on what to do. We could just about see to the bottom of the cave from the top - it looked a long way down! The guide was harnessed in so he would climb down inbetween us just in case we had any difficulties. The harnesses that we were supplied with were somewhat uncomfortable - especially for Stu! We had to stop a couple of times on the way down so Stu could adjust himself but it only took a few minutes to reach the bottom. When we reached the bottom it was quite amazing! The whole cave was lit up with glow worms which were shining like little stars. We spent a few minutes at the bottom whilst the guide talked us through how glow worms live in the caves before we had to start climbing up several really long ladders in the dark until we reached the top. The only way we could see was to switch on the lamps on our helmets! We had yet another chance to abseil down the cave - this time was much better as we were a little more relaxed and it was also much darker so we could see loads more of the glow worms around us. Once we had made the bottom again the guide told us that we had to make our own way back up the cave as he was going to climb back up to the top using his ropes. He pretty much just left us down there to find our own way out!! We managed to get back up safely without any fatal accidents. But we ended up getting our right hands bitten to death, Kerry got bitten about 5 times and Stu's hand was munched 11 times by some hungry little bleeders!!! The whole tour took about 2 hours. It was fun and informative but definately not worth the money we paid for it.

We left Waitomo Caves the following day and drove all the way up to the Bay of Islands. This again was something that we had heard much about but seemed to us like it was really overrated. The beaches were no where near as nice as we had been lead to believe (maybe we are just not going to the right places or maybe we have been spoiled a little with Thailand beaches). We were going to stay in Whangerei for the night and go out for a few drinks for St Paddy's day but when we got there it was full to the brim of Mauri Chavs! It was a little unnerving to say the least - everyone who was around the town that day looked like they were getting ready to launch a few glasses in your face. Needless to say, we didnt stick around! We drove further up the coast to a place called Paihia which was soooo much nicer than anywhere we had seen so far in the north island. Unfortunately though there were no campsites near enough to town for us to go out and have a drink - SO - we then headed off a little further around the coast to a gorgeous little town called Russell. We caught a little car ferry over there as we would have had a considerable drive - god knows we had driven enough over the last couple of days! Thankfully Russell was just what we wanted. It was really pretty and there were a couple of bars where we could have a drink at. Stu always has a drink in memory of his friend Hal on Paddy's day so it was important that we carried on that tradition this year. We had a really nice evening and even treated ourselves to a nice meal. We ended up in a bar with a band in and played table tennis for at least 2 hours! We even stayed the following night in Russell as it was so nice.

We set off once again up the coast and visited Kerikeri where we stopped for a coffee. We then drove for the rest of the day around the Bay of Islands and around to the west side before settling down for the night in a camper park in the middle of nowhere! The following day we made our way back down to Auckland. We only have another two nights in our car and to be honest we cant wait to get out of it!! We will be leaving for Fiji on the 23rd March where we will stop for a couple of nights before heading off to LA!! We will try to fit in a couple of blogs before we get back in about 18 days but its going to be a very busy 18 days trying to fit in Fiji, LA, Grand Canyon, Vegas, San Francisco and Vancouver - so watch this space!!

---

Photos

Collingwood
We drove 4 hours to see this!