New Zealand Part #4

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Wellington was a lot busier that anywhere we'd been to on the South Island. They had motorways with flyovers and slip roads. Before now we had hardly driven on any dual carriageways let alone a motorway. Even for a busy city, though, nobody seemed hurried. Everyone seemed to be sitting in the cafes rather than troubling themselves with going to work.

We visited the Te Papa museum which explains a lot of the history between the colonial powers and the Maori people. The Waitangi treaty was signed by the British and many of the Maori tribes, giving Britain sovereign rule. The treaty is still used today to resolve land rights issues. It was interesting to see that the original Maori translation actually phrases things in a very different way to the English version. The museum was another great example of how New Zealand tries to teach a factual, unbiased and thought provoking view of their country's history.

North of Wellington we camped at Otaki Forks Forest Park, another long gravel track to a Department of Conservation campsite. From here we went north to the Tongariro National Park, New Zealand's oldest national park. Two active volcanoes are located in the park and it also has important religious significance for the Maori people. It is one of only 25 sites in the world to have UNESCO World Heritage Site listing under both natural and cultural criteria.

We did a few short walks here, but our main aim was to complete the Tongariro crossing - New Zealand's most popular one-day walk. The day we picked to do the walk couldn't have been better. We had clear skies all day. The walk took us past old lava flows and then up onto the saddle between the two volcanoes. The walk was breathtaking (both metaphorically and literally - it's quite steep). Vents in the side of the mountains release sulphurous gas and there are emerald lakes below. I keep saying that all the walks in New Zealand are great and this one, again, was one of the best.

From Tongaririo we moved north-west to Taupo, stopping at the Hukka Falls. Lake Taupo covers 616 square km and was formed when a supervolcano blasted out over 1,000 cubic kilometres of earth. The only river flowing out of this vast lake is the Waikato River and that river gets forced through the Huka falls, a 15 metre wide gap (the river is normally 100m wide) producing some pretty fierce rapids. The Waikato River has a series of hydroelectric dams built on it. One of these dams cut off the water supply to another set of rapids further downriver from Huka falls. Three times a day they reopen the floodgates for half an hour so tourists can see the rapids in action. It's quite bizarre watching a river fill up in about 30 seconds.

The area around Taupo and Rotorua is very geothermically active. We visited an area called Craters of the Moon which has steam vents and bubbling mud pools. There was nothing here until the government built a nearby geothermal power station, changing the local water table and thus shifting the areas of geothermal activity.

Our next stop was Rotorua. This is the adrenaline sport capital of the North Island. Whilst here Emma and I went Zorbing. This involved us both getting into a huge transparent inflatable ball and being rolled down a 300m hill. They also put a few gallons of water inside to add to the fun. More than being scary, it's actually quite funny as we were tossed around in the ball with no real chance of getting hurt. I had a go on a ride called the " Shweeb". It was really new with only a few thousand people having been on it so far. The ride is basically a recumbent bicycle that is suspended below a monorail track (click on the link above to see). Because there is hardly and friction riders can obtain speed of 65km/h. It's really good fun, but quite knackering.

As a much less adrenaline-fueled activity, we visited the Kiwi sanctuary. The Kiwi is a native bird of New Zealand. It is flightless which didn't present a problem for it until Europeans introduced animals such as dogs that decimated the population. Kiwis in the wild have about a 5%!c(MISSING)hance of making it through the first couple of years so the sanctuary takes eggs from the wild and raises the chicks for the first couple of years. Their eggs are enormous relative to the size of the bird. They are about the size of a chicken, but their eggs are six times the size of a chicken's egg.

The area around Rotorua is covered in thermal vents, hot springs, etc. The town itself smells permanently of sulphur and you can see steam rising from vents right in the middle of town. Our campsite here even had its own hot mineral baths filled from a spring under the campsite.

One of the most impressive geothermal areas here was Waitapo Thermal Wonderland. Pictures of this place are used in most of the local tourist brochures. It's most famous attractions are the Lady Knox Geyser and the Champagne Pool. The Geyser would normal erupt every 2-3 days, but the locals give it a helping hand by filling it with soap powder once a day, creating an hour-long eruption. The Champagne pool is a huge steaming pool edged with bright orange mineral deposits. They also have a massive bubbling mud pool which had a few pretty large eruptions when we were there.

Our last activity in Rotorua ended up being a rather bizarre (but very cool) experience. We had seen leaflets at various places advertising a lumberjack show. It looked like a bit of a laugh and was quite cheap so we went along. We arrived about 10 minutes before the show was due to start, got our tickets and went through into an empty auditorium. At this point the compare came out and explained to us that there was an additional show earlier in the day at 11am and so everyone who had purchased tickets went to that show. We had our tickets now so they had to put on the show. This meant that the show that was normally put on for a few hundred people was now going to take place for just Emma and I.

Lumberjack competitions are very popular in NZ, Australia and Canada. Bored lumberjacks used to compete against each other to determine who was the best. The format of the show went along the lines of two competing lumberjacks taking part in the various disciplines such as axe throwing. The routine was quite similar to pantomime, but also included some history. Like pantomime, the audience was split down the middle with each half of the audience cheering for their lumberjack. This meant Emma cheered for one guy and I cheered for the other. There was also a lot of audience participation (there was no getting out of this for us!). I tried my hand at axe throwing and we both used a two-man saw. The whole thing was really good fun and different to any other attractions in New Zealand.

At the end of the show we had a few pictures with the cast and found out that today was their work Christmas party. Because we had turned up, we had delayed the whole company's trip waterskiing. They didn't seem to mind, though. In fact, they pulled out a crate of beer from behind the stage and gave us one each. After a bit of a chat and a beer, one of them jokingly asked us if we wanted to use the big chainsaw that was used in the show. I replied with a witty comment about probably chopping my leg off if I tried to use it. This was the point when I realised they weren't joking. The day that started out with us just going to watch a show ended up with us drinking beer at a lumberjacks' Christmas party and chopping up wood with a very large chainsaw. Emma had a go too. We both still have all our limbs.

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