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Published: January 29th 2007
Leaving Wellington
Jan 10th: We were picked up by our rental car company and proceeded down to their office to fill out all the paper work. The car was costing us $39/day + fuel, with unlimited km’s which seemed like a decent deal to us, considering the bus tickets were in the same ballpark, and we would have so much more freedom with our little green Hyundai Accent! Cara and Scott were kind enough to let us borrow their tent and air mattress, as well as a friend’s cooler, so we were perfectly set up! After getting a little lost in Wellington with all the one way streets (ridiculous!), we were off on Hwy 2, towards Napier!
It was quite rainy for most of the drive but as we neared Napier, the sun came out in full force! The sun in New Zealand is incredible! It literally burns you as soon as it touches you! The UV index was 13.5 which is extreme! The weather changed so suddenly that there was a distinct line where the grey clouds met bright blue skies! It was a sight to behold. To the left we could see one of NZ’s wind farms - rows
and rows of windmills with their blades all spinning in unison! We came to learn that NZ has an anti-nuclear policy, and that the majority of their energy comes from Hydro, wind, and geo-thermal sources.
We set up camp under a big tree just incase the rain decided to pass our way again, at the Napier Top 10 Holiday Park. We had heard that the wine growing in this area was world famous, so decided to go for a bus tour the next day to see what all the fuss was about.
Hawkes Bay and the Grape Escape
Jan 11th: We scouted out Napier in the morning, going for a walk along the waterfront and peeking through a fence to see the seals in the aquatic centre. We then had a quick lunch back at the campsite and then it was time for our wine tour! We hopped on the Grape Escape tour bus and with a handful of other excited wine connoisseurs, we made our way to five estate wineries over the course of the afternoon, all in different areas of the district which provided distinctively different flavours to the grapes and accordingly to the wines. We attended
Kim Crawford, Askere, Mataraki, Trinity Hill, and Ngatarawa, and have since decided that are favourites are the Merlots, Cabernets, and Shiraz’s, with our least favourite being the Chardonnay’s. It seems Carolyn and I have quite similar tastes in our wines as there weren’t too many that we had a difference of opinion on. Only a few people elected to only wet the insides of their mouths with the wine and then dispose of it in a taster’s cask, but as this seemed like a bit of a waste, we both disposed of the wines properly to our pallets! Needless to say, by the end of our last stop, our taste buds were starting to mix together, and it all tasted much the same - all very good!
It was a very sunny afternoon, and the heat with the wine made us a little on the tired side. Upon returning to the campsite around 5:30pm, we decided to take a bit of a nap; a nap that turned into about 14 hours of sleep (with only a short break to make dinner!). It had started to rain in the early morning, and we were both rudely awakened from our sleep by
a thunderous limb cracking above us. As the tent had no structural integrity, I thought we were goners for sure! The sound to the limb hitting the ground was very relieving for sure, but I scrambled out of the tent to make sure another was not going to follow suit, and to inspect the damage as our rental car was also under the tree. As it turned out, we were extremely fortunate - the (40-50lb) limb had landed just in front of the car, narrowly missing both it and our tent! It seems it was unable to support the weight of the water confined in it’s leafy branches, and had fallen from a height of about 20’. Phewf, no more camping under trees! We packed up and were then on the road towards Gisborne….
Hot Springs in Morere
Jan 12th: We stopped at the tourist information centre in Wairoa, and learned of a thermal hot springs in Morere, with an admission price of only $5! We stopped here and after a 20min nature hike through dense vegetation, we relaxed, alternating between the three different pools. One was about 20, one 35, and the last 44 degrees Celsius. It would
just about stop your heart jumping in the cold pool after acclimatizing to the hottest one! And then we experienced a hot burning upon re-entering the hot one. We left here feeling very invigorated, as well as with very pink skin!
Gisborne and Poverty Bay
We got to Gisborne in the mid-afternoon, and only stayed long enough to check out a lookout of the town. At the look-out there was a statue of Captain Cook, which after reading a plaque below him, informed us that the statue was mistakenly of a French Lieutenant, and not of Captain Cook at all! Some historians had exposed this mistake after it was erected in Cook’s honour. The statue was on a pile about 7’ high; pretty high, but not high enough to keep me from putting it in a submission hold!
We set up camp in Anaura Bay, a DOC site north of Gisbourne. We had paid and set up the tent before we realized that this site had no toilets, and that all the people with what looked like shower tents, were actually toilet tents! Luckily someone had left early and left behind some hired porta-potties, which did serve us,
despite being quite full and distasteful. Here we were quite hospitably welcomed by being invited to have a cup of tea and some cookies with a family camped next to us. We ended up chatting with them for most of the evening while their three teenage boys darted in and out of the conversation. It seems a lot of New Zealander families go camping with their families for weeks on end, sometime several times a year. They also go very prepared with tents the size of small houses, with enough gear and accessories that it takes several days to set up and take down! Now that is camping!
We had planned to do one of the bush walks here in the morning, but foul weather again beset us, and it was all we could do to pack up the tent and eat our breakfast before the rain started pouring down! Not much to do, except keep driving….
Windy Roads and East Cape
Jan 13th: We wound our way around the coastal road, up around to the most Easterly point in NZ! The access road out to the East Cape Lighthouse proved to be a little lackluster, but our
small green rental did not falter. The hike to the top of the hill where the lighthouse was situated had us huffing and puffing, and quite sweaty as it was quite humid. The lighthouse was much like most lighthouses, white and red, so after reading about an island just out from the coast, we headed back to the town of Te Arorua. In Te Arorua there is a big Pohutukawa tree, believed to be 600 years old! The tree had many lowly grown branches that reached out to great distances, making it quite massive in dimension.
West to Bay of Plenty and Opotiki
Our next stop was in Opotiki at Hukutaia Domain Garden, a project to show what the vegetation in NZ was like hundreds of years ago before the arrival of the Europeans and the vast logging that ensued. In the middle of the garden was a massive Puriri tree, said to be 2000 years old! It is mind boggling to think a tree can survive to this length of time and to stand beside it make you think about all that this tree would have seen in it’s day! The number of storms it has weathered, changes
in climate, escapes from fires. The base of the tree was very hollow, and it is said to be the sacred burial place of Maori (NZ Natives) tribesman and chiefs.
We were going to stay at a DOC site south of Opotiki, but after driving down the park road we came across a sign that said these lands belong to the Maori people, and with a large bus and car’s parked on the sides of the road with signs saying not to proceed without permission - even through there was no one seemingly around. We weighed it and opted to not risk getting involved in any sort of dispute, and deemed it safer to camp elsewhere. We had heard that there are still many land disputes in progress between the Maoris and the government, not unlike back in Canada, and this seemed like a pretty good example of it. We headed back to the Bay of Plenty to a town called Whakatane. There are many towns having Maori names in the North Island, and I am pretty much useless with their pronunciation (Carolyn is better). We have learned that ‘wh’ is pronounced like an ‘f’, making it pronounced Fakatane. Carolyn
later had to turn off the radio because of how many times they said this town’s name on the station - about 3 times per sentence! We set up in the tent despite a forecast of 80-100m of rain and high winds, hoping for the best! Although it did rain quite heavily, I don’t think we got that much, although we had hardly any sleep due to the wind making the tent wall collapse against us, getting us quite wet! Luckily the rain stopped in the night allowing the tent to dry up before we packed up in the morning, and then we were off to Mt. Maunganui, where we were meeting up with friends we had met in Fiji, at the onset of our adventures!
Friends in Mount Maunganui
Jan 14th: Along the road to Mt. Maunganui, we stopped at the Big Kiwi, which was basically a museum dedicated to the tasty green fruit. We opted out of the $23 bus ride around the grounds, and satisfied ourselves with climbing to the top of the kiwi, and poking around the gift shop. Then we headed to The Mount after a quick lunch on the beach in Papamoa. We
were both very excited to meet up with Shane and Angela, as it had been 4 months since last seeing them on Bounty Island. The weather was still overcast, and it was great to be able to get indoors to the comfort of a home again! It turned out that we got to see the other two couples that had also been in Fiji - Barry and Jackie, and Phil and Natasha - both of which stopped by to say their hellos. It was great to be welcomed so heartily, and we were made to feel quite at home right away. We spend the remainder of the day recounting our memories of Fiji, and getting to know each other a little better. Everyone was keen to give us ideas on what else to see in the rest of the time in the North Island, and gave us some great ideas. It always helps to have local people give their opinions because they are usually the most accurate. After dinner and a few drinks, we made plans to meet up with Natasha for a walk around the mountain the next day (the must do in Mt. Maunganui we were told). After
everyone left, Carolyn and I retired, as we were both exhausted from our lack of sleep the night before.
Jan 15th: The walk around the Mount was really beautiful. It was the first nice day in a while, so there were many other people out enjoying the weather with us. We opted out of climbing to the top, as we were more in the mood for a relaxing walk then a climb. Natasha’s two children, Jordon and Brittany came with us, as did Shane and Angela’s son Dion, his cousin, and one of the neighbor’s sons. The four boys stayed to catch crabs in amongst the rocks while the rest of us completed the 40min circuit. From the pathway you can see the Tarangi harbour, as well as several of the islands. After lunch at a café in town, we went back to the house, grabbed our togs (swim suits), and headed for the beach in Papamoa. The water was a little too cold for Carolyn, but Brittany and I had a great time boogie boarding and rolling in the large waves that were breaking almost right on the shore! After dinner, we settled in and watched Pirates of
the Caribbean II, on Shane and Angela’s home projection theatre.
(Carolyn: devastation - I lost my beloved pink Nalgene bottle somewhere between the beach, Natasha & Phil’s place and Shane & Angie’s)
Jan 16th: Another rainy day - everyone keeps saying how bizarre the weather is! We passed the morning watching The Terminal (Tom Hanks), which we both found quite good, and then decided to go for a walk down to Leisure island with Phil and Ang. This island is connected to the shore, out from the beach (so I guess it is not really an island), so you can walk out to the end of it. It gives a good view of The Mount, and at the end of it there is a blowhole. This is where the water from the waves comes in and splashes way up in the air through the rock crevices! Phil and I ventured down to get a better look, while Carolyn and Ang stayed up top and warned us when big swells were coming in! The last one nearly took Phil and I away!
The evening was our favourite one in Mt Maunganui! We all (5 couples and kids) went down
to the beach to do some long line fishing! I had never seen anything like this - you attach a heavy fishing line to a torpedo (has small propeller) and send it out from the shore upwards of 1000m attaching a maximum of 25 fish hooks. Then after about an hour, you pull it in and see what you caught! It is sometimes difficult to get it out past the surf, as it can get spun around and head back for the shore which isn’t very useful. Phil managed to get it out on our second try. While we were waiting for all the fish to bite, we ordered and ate pizza and enjoyed a few beverages. Phil and Shane had brought their 4-wheelers (quads) down, and Dion his dirt bike, so we occupied ourselves ripping around on the beach! We attached a rope to the back of Phil’s quad and I did a bit of sand skiing, just in bare feet! It was great fun! The boys had trouble staying on their feet, but were more then happy to get dragged behind on their bottoms, bellies, backs, and any other way they could think of!
Jan 17th: We
decided we had to climb the mountain before we left Mt. Maunganui (we were starting to feel like we were staying for too long - time flies when you’re having fun!), so we did it in the morning with Ang and the kids. It was well worth it as the views offered at the top are spectacular! You can look down over the entire town, and see a great distance. We needed to get on the road again, so after showers and packing up the car, we said our farewells, and headed off to Waihou, near Te Aroha to visit my Aunt and Uncle who have been living here for over 20 years!
Visiting My Aunt Laurie and Uncle Graham
Laurie had given me direction on the phone, saying for us to just look for the Town hall, and their house was the one beside it with the red roof. These ended up being excellent directions, being very hard to miss with about 6 houses in the entire town! Aunt Laurie was out when we arrived, but Uncle Graham met us and we chatted with him until Laurie returned. It is very rewarding to get to know Graham, as
Look at those fish!
Unfortunately, they weren't really big enough to keep - we had to throw them back.I had never met him before and Aunt Laurie only once that I can remember. We went for a walk down to see her 20-year old pony, Honey, which she keeps tethered in a sub-station enclosure. It is the biggest pony I have ever seen - 14.1 hands. Apparently it becomes a horse at 14.2 hands. We chatted the afternoon away, talking about many things from family and happenings, to Nostrodamus and his prophecies, whom Laurie is an avid reader of. Graham is a bit of a movie buff, and has a very good collection of DVD’s. They wanted to show us a good kiwi movie, and so King Kong was put in later in the evening - keeping us up quite late with its very good, albeit lengthy plot.
Jan 18th: We went for another walk with Laurie down to move Honey, and then around the neighbourhood, looking at the church with the oldest stain glass window in New Zealand. Graham had gone to work early in the morning so we had said our goodbyes the night before, wanting to get up to Hot water beach in the Coromandel at low tide. We said our farewell and made
Leisure Island
Proof we made it to the top of Mount Maunganui! our way north as fast as we could to get to the beach in time.
Hot Water Beach and Coromandel Peninsula
There is a hot spring in one section of the beach, and at low tide you can hire a shovel to dig your own private spa in the sand! It was pretty busy when we got there, and took us a little while to figure out where we should be digging. Certain sections of the beach were so hot you couldn’t even stand in them; the steam literally burned your feet! We tried to build a bit of a wall around it to stop the waves from cooling it down as the tide came in, but it didn’t last long before we were swamped. It was a pretty fun afternoon, and was a gorgeous day to be on the beach. Carolyn unfortunately slipped on some wooden stairs going down on to the beach and scraped her arm up. It caused her a little grief over the next couple days before the tenderness eased up a little.
From Hot Water Beach, we drove to Coromandel Town and had a picnic lunch in one of the parks along the beach.
The landscape is really beautiful up here, with lush vegetation and rolling hills. We drove south along the West coast of the peninsula, overlooking the Firth of the Thames, (I am not sure the difference between a bay and a firth) until we reached the town of Thames. We drove a while out of town to the DOC site at Kauaeraga Vallley, and set up camp.
Jan 19th: We slept in a bit, then got on the road. We wanted to make some good distance today to make sure we weren’t struggling for time later towards the end of our trip. We drove to Auckland and kept on going, preferring to stop there on the way back through, heading south. We had another picnic lunch in Shakespeare Regional Park, which ended up being quite a bit off the highway, but very nice and relaxing. The weather was finally nice and sunny, and we were really appreciating the heat of the sun. We next stopped at a Honey Centre, then drove on to Warkworth where there is an 800 year old McKinney Kauri tree. It was massive! From here we headed up to Leigh and Goat Island Beach, a marine
reserve. There were many coloured fish swimming around and many snorkellers in the water around them. Too bad we had no gear. From here we drove to Whangarei (remember the pronunciation of ‘wh’) and out to Otamure Bay DOC site. It was very busy here, but we found a place to put up the tent and then laid out on a blanket, as the stars were incredible! We also saw the comet that has been gracing NZ skies - such a strong and bright tail!
Jan 20th: We woke up early for a quick swim in the ocean - still miss the warm waters of Australia, but it was manageable. On the way out, we stopped at the longest footbridge in the southern hemisphere at 395m. We tried to guess how many posts there were along by we were both pretty far off on our count! The drive up to Paiha was uneventful, but there is always the ever changing scenery.
Bay of Islands
There are a lot more trees in the north part of the island then in the rest of the country. The Bay of Islands has loads of tourist attractions and activities, unfortunately few are
cheap. We opted out of them as we have started to really have to pinch pennies. It will be good to get back to Australia working again! This is a very nice part of the country however, and the pace is very relaxed. We stopped at Haruru Falls and then drove to Kerikeri. Here is a very old stone building (1833) and the Kemp house, thought to be among the oldest in NZ. We walked over to where the fortress of Ngapuhi Chief HongiHika was located hundreds of years ago, and tried to visualize what life must have been like back then. We then drove out to Rainbow Falls, which we found to be the best in the North Island. There was a large cave under the 28m falls and because of its width and mist was very beautiful to behold.
Kauri Forests
From Kerikeri, we cut over to the west coast to the towns of Opononi and Omapere. Across the bay is a very large sand dune. We missed the last boat over for the day, so missed out on the chance to go sandboarding! It is supposed to be one of the best places to do this
McKinney Kauri Tree
Good thing I was wearing a pink shirt or you'd never see little ol' me! because you slide down the sand and skip right into the water at the bottom! We started the trek down the west coast and entered the Waipoua Kauri Forests! There are many of these massive trees and several walks that lead up to the most remarkable ones! One cluster of 4 together is known as the four sisters! The base of them all is so close together that it almost looks as though it is one tree with four limbs growing out from it! Then Te Matua Ngahere (Father of the Forest)! The trunk of this tree is 5 meters in diameter and a full 51m tall! It is also thought to be around 2000 years old! There was a section of one of these large trees on display earlier which was maybe 2m in diameter and I tried to count all of the rings! I lost count at about 350 - so I guess you have to take their word on the age of it! These trees are very extraordinary and well worth the trip to see! We headed all the way down to Paparo where we camped for the night. We were able to spot the Comet again
this night - very bright against the horizon.
Big City of Auckland!
Jan 21st: We drove back into Auckland via Helensville during the morning - again driving across the Harbour Bridge! We parked at went up the Skytower! It is not as impressive as the CN tower, but offers a nice view of the city and surrounding volcanoes. It is said that there are over 40 volcanoes in the Auckland area, although most are extinct. There is a Skyjump from the tower which although probably isn’t easy, did not look nearly as terrifying as the bungy jump in the Nevis Canyon. Nothing to conquer here. We then walked to the Auckland Museum, which has a vast collection of histories ranging from Polynesian Culture to World Wars to ancient animals. Carolyn even found E. Ogilvie (her brother’s name) on the list of soldiers who had died fighting for NZ (Eric, a past life?). We then drove around to three of the large extinct volcanoes scattered throughout the city; Mt Eden, Mt Victoria, and North Head. These were a sight to behold - with there large craters spiraling downwards! The parking lots at the tops of these were extremely tight, especially
with all the large tour buses trying to turn around. We were a little nervous about our rental car, especially after watching one of these buses take the corner off a parked car as it tried to squeeze by! Oh no! The top of North Head was turned into an army fortress at the turn of the 20th century amid fears of a Russian invasion. We completed our day in Auckland and drove south to Ramarama where we set up camp for the night. We joked about writing a book “How to do Aukland in a day” because we felt we’d done everything we wanted to do, and didn’t even need to stay over-night!
Waitomo Caves
Jan 22nd: We drove through Hamilton on our way to Waitomo, but didn’t hang around for long. The area around Waitomo is primarily situated upon layers and layers of limestone and thousands of years of corrosion has left an extensive array of underground passages and caves. We decided to do the Glow Worm Caves as we had both seen stalagmites and stalactites before. We had seen a few glow worms before - phosphorescent larva that use their lights to attract insects that they
catch up in sticky strings that they droop below them. The Waitomo ones were supposed to be quite striking with the sheer number of them all together! We were standing in line and the guy next to me says, “Joe?” I turn and there is Carl, a guy we had met in the Sydney Wake-Up Hostel, way back in September! We had known that he was here in New Zealand, but didn’t think we were going to be able to meet up! We entered into the cave where there is a large cavern called the Cathedral. Apparently it is very good for its resonating acoustics, and many famous singers have been known to sing a song in their. Unfortunately there were no singers in our group (Ben, we could have used you!) so we didn’t get to experience its wonder. We then walked back to where there was an underground river inside the cave and waited for a boat to take us farther into the cave where all the glow worms were. We loaded into the boat and our guide directed the boat soundlessly through the caves with no lights, as this allows the glow worms to be seen at
their brightest! The actual glow worm cave was incredible, and looking at the ceiling of the cave was like looking up into the starriest sky one has ever seen! There must have been millions of them! Unfortunately it only took a few minutes to get through the cave and we were then transported out of cave into the sunshine, still on the boat.
We ate a quick lunch and meandered through the Waitomo Caves Museum, we met up with Carl and Deb back at their Hostel. They were on their way to Taupo the next day, having purchased bus tickets to get around the country. We promised to meet up when we got to Taupo, as they expected to still be there. We then drove on to Rotorua - the heart of the thermal activity in NZ, and camped on the North side of the town at the Affordable Willowhaven Campground. We drove through Rotorua on the way and got a few whiffs of the infamous sulfur smells! Peeyewww!
Smelly Rotorua, Thermal Springs, and Maori Village
Jan 23rd: We went into town in the morning and booked a highly recommended Maori cultural show for the next day, and
with it received a ticket for admission to Hells Gate thermal park. We then walked through Kuirua Park in the middle of Rotorua, which is full of boiling mud pits and crater lakes where steam escapes from the ground and heats up the water. Some of the water was near 90 degrees Celsius! We then decided to redeem our Hells Gate tickets before our Maori show that evening. We drove around Lake Rotorua and walked around the Park. It was incredible, and looks like such a wasteland with white sulfur coated grounds, with dirty steam rising out of countless mud pits and holes as far as you can see. All the pools are different colours because of different chemical compositions, from black to fluorescent greens and yellows! At the park they have the highest hot waterfall in the southern hemisphere, with a temperature of about 60 degrees Celsius! At the end of the walk, we were able to do some free carving which was actually really cool! Free souvenirs!
(Joe’s getting uninspired after such a great job, so it’s Carolyn’s turn to write a bit!)
We got back to the campsite just in time to be picked up for
our Maori culture show. We got taken to a place in the town of Rotorua to see a short multi-media presentation about how the Maori people arrived in NZ, then were divided into our “tribes” and boarded our “canoes” (AKA busses) out to the re-constructed village. Our driver Darren was very fun, so the ride was quick! During the ride he elected a chief and once we arrived, the 3 chiefs took part in a greeting ceremony with the real Maori tribesmen. The ceremony is quite serious, so we were asked not to move, smile or laugh, but were allowed to take photos. After the greeting, we walked through the recreated village, then went into a small open auditorium to enjoy some songs and dancing. It was quite enjoyable to watch, the performers did very well! After our show, we headed to the dining hall to enjoy our Hangi Feast. Very similar to the Lovo Feast we had in Fiji, a large hole is dug in the ground and all the food is cooked on and underground fire/oven. We had fun meeting other travelers and Joe got to eat a lot! I enjoyed the Hangi more that the Lovo, from
our limited experience, the Hangi was much less smoky tasting that the Lovo. After having our fill, we were shuttled back to the caravan park by taxi. Our driver, Blue was an interesting man - he had 14 children from 2 wives (his first wife passed away) and already had 39 grandkids. We figured he was only around 60 years old! He told us all the different tribes and sub-tribes who live in the Rotorua area. We let our stomachs settle watching the stars again and had an early night.
Wai-o-tapo Thermal Wonderland
Jan 24th: (Joe again) We left early so that we could catch the Lady Knox Geyser, which erupts each day at 10:15am. It is located at Wai-o-tapo Thermal Wonderland, along with a variety of other thermal springs and sulfur craters. We got there with about 45mins to spare and were told that we could complete the first 30min walk to kill time before heading to see the geyser. As we were walking around, the battery light started to flash on the camera! Not good, as I wanted to try to take a video of the geyser! We hurried back to the main building and Carolyn plugged
the battery into a socket she found in the girl’s washroom. With about 5 mins to spare we hurried down to the geyser! We were surprised by the number of people there - I counted around 700, and we all waited patiently for this thing to erupt! Carolyn was afraid of missing it, and we all had a good laugh when a guy came out and said that he had to put a soapy chemical into the top for it to explode on time, and that it would run for upwards of an hour! It wasn’t quite what we were expecting, but cool just the same. We then finished our walk through the thermal park. It was quite similar to Hells Gates, but had a few other oddities like the champagne pools - a large crater lake that had a red rim around it with so much steam coming off, it was sometime difficult to see more than a few feet in front of you… and the smell! Some of these pools are hundreds of degrees down a few meters, and some as deep as 2km!
Mud Pools and Thermal River
We had heard of a free thermal river
that we could stop at and set off to find it. Along the way we saw a sign for mud pools, and even through it was raining, we are glad we didn’t miss it! Mud was spurting out of the ground all over this small pond, making terrible noises, throwing it as high as 6 or 8’ in the air! We then stopped at Kerosene Creek and after I put my hand in it (38 C), we for sure had to go in! This was probably the coolest thermal experience we had found here in NZ yet, and it was free! Because of the weather, there was only one other guy in the river, and he was a local. There was a waterfall that I enjoyed sitting on top of, while Carolyn preferred to sit up to her neck in the pool below the falls. She unfortunately slipped again on the rocks at the top and banged up her shin a bit. I had best keep my eye on her before she really hurts herself!
Taupo and Mt Tarangri
We drove the rest of the way down to Taupo with a couple of stops along the way. First
stop was at Butcher’s Pool (we stopped here in your honour, Corrie!). It was in the middle of a farmer’s field, and was again unattended and we were by our lonesome. It was the size of a standard motel pool and about the same depth, but was again the comfortable hot tub temperature of 38 or so degrees. We didn’t stay in long, as we feel like we are getting pretty wrinkly and soft with all of this hot water bathing! The next stop was at the Ariatatia Rapids which had a dam that opened and closed four times a day, changing the riverbed from a trickle to a raging torrent. Then on to Huka Falls which would be pretty amazing if you haven’t seen something like Niagara Falls. 25% of NZ’s hydro power is generated by the water passing through this falls, and it is complete with its own ‘maid of the mist’ type boat. The falls aren’t very high (10m) but have a large volume of water passing over it. We met up with Carl and Deb for a drink in Taupo by the river front, and looked at a couple of options for completing the Tongariro Hike,
voted one of the best day tramps in New Zealand. The forcast for the next day was overcast with drizzles, so we decided that we would do it if it ended up being nice, but not if it looked like it would be overcast as most of the views would be obscured because of this. We headed south to Whakapapa Village right at the base of the mountain, to enable us to get an early start, weather permitting. When we got down there, the DOC site we had planned to stay at was practically a swimming hole, so setting up the tent was a little out of the question. We decided to sleep in the car for the night, as we didn’t really want to drive too far. This ended up being very uncomfortable for Carolyn, and even worse for me with my knees tucked up to my chin in the backseat/trunk with the seats folded down! Turns out the Hyundai Accent doesn’t have a lot of truck space!
Dawson’s Falls
Jan 25th: We woke up to a very rainy morning and upon inquiring at the Whakapapa visitor center, we learned that none of the shuttle buses were even
running because the weather was so bad! We drove up the volcano as far as the road would allow us, and got to see where all the ski fields are during the winter months. There was a very good volcano and wildlife display at the visitor’s centre and we went through most of it. We then decided to head to the West Coast in hopes for better weather! After a very windy path along the ‘Forgotten Highway’ - kind of spooky, we made it to Stratford. The town is named after William Shakespeare, and most of the streets in the town are named from his plays. We decided to head south from here and to Camp in Hawera, but decided to drive in to check out Mt Taranaki first. We saw a little falls on our road map - Dawson’s Falls, and decided to check it out. We were very happy with this for when we got there, the sun was starting to break out of the clouds! We couldn’t get a great view of the mountain through because its top was well above the remaining cloud cover. It was a 40 minute hike around to see the falls, which we got to explore both from the bottom and the top! We then completed the drive to Hawera to get a good night’s sleep. We were getting a little sad realizing that this was the end of out NZ adventures, but are both really excited to get back to the ones we left behind in Australia!
Back to Welly
Jan 26th : We drove the four hours back into the windy city of Wellington. We dropped off the car, and got a ride back to Cara and Scott’s place. It felt good to unpack and shower and again make ourselves at home! That evening we went to listen to a band in the Botanic Gardens. It was quite fun, even though it started to absolutely pour rain as we started out walk home.
Jan 27th: We drove around to see some of the sights in Wellington, after a hearty breakfast cooked by Scott. We went up to the Windmill, the Mt Victoria Lookout, and followed the road along the waterfront.
Jan 28th: Scott and I played squash at the university, while Carolyn and Cara when to try on some wedding dresses for Carolyn. Of course she was extremely excited! We went to the Embassy and watched ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’, with Will Smith. This is the theatre that the Lord of the Rings premiered at, so it was probably more for this reason that we decided to watch the movie here, then for the movie itself. The theatre was pretty cool.
Jan 29th: Carolyn and I met up with Carl and Deb again, as they make their way to the South Island. We visited the Te Papa museum, but only made it through a couple of the floors because of its immense size! We updated this blog, and packed up our things, ready to get on our 7:15am plane tomorrow morning back to Cairns! We would like to thank Scott and Cara very much for all of their hospitality over the last month, it has helped us immensely! Thanks! For those of you who had it, our phone number will again be are old Australian as of tomorrow. I called the mechanic who is putting in the new engine, and he tells us that everything is all ready and that Betsy is running sweeter than a nut! Can’t wait to get back to the old girl! Bring on the Outback!
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Christine
non-member comment
Oh what memories
Hi Guys Great to read of your trip around NZ. Love the photos. They bring back memories and make me just a touch home sick as I sit here in Kitchener, Ontario watching the snow building up outside :-) Don't forget to try marmite on toast for breakfast before you leave there... or maybe that's just a Kiwi thing cause everyone here at the JHS office laughs at me eating my toast for breakfast in the morning. Looking forward to your next update Christine (A Kiwi in Canada)