Homeward Bound (the North Island)

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March 27th – April 3rd 2011

Cape Palliser

From Wellington we drove up the Hutt Valley, across the Rimutakas and back down to the coast. We were heading for Cape Palliser, the southernmost point in the North Island. We had done the most northerly and most southerly in the South Island, and figured we might as well do the North Island ones too. We'll have to leave North Cape for another trip though.

We were disappointed not to find a sign saying it was the southern most point with latitude and longitude, but maybe we were just not quite in the right place. We did climb the 250 steps up to the lighthouse, enjoy the amazing views, and climb back down the 250 steps.

All along the coast there were NZ Fur Seals, on the beach, in the water, on the grass by the road. We stopped at one place to wait out a passing shower and when we emerged from the van found “hundreds” of them.

We wandered back up the road to a small village called Ngawi. We'd read somewhere that we had to check out the tractors used to get the fishing boats in and out the water, so we did. Some were quite ordinary, some were huge, others had odd paint jobs or names. From there we went to the Putangirua Pinnacles. This is one of the LOTR sites, the scenes along the Dimholt Road were filmed here. The track went up a river bed through scrub and gorse to the pinnacles, towers of gravel carved by wind and rain, well, the towers are the cemented silts or rocks when the looser gravel was washed away. Impressive.

From the DOC website:

“Lord of the Rings filming location

The eerie scenes in The Return of the King as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli ride along the Dimholt Road to meet the Army of the Dead were filmed against the surreal backdrop of the Pinnacles.

Protecting the area during filming

Weed-free fodder was fed to horses used in the Lord of the Rings before they were filmed at the Putangirua Pinnacles. The risk of introducing weeds was addressed through a condition in filming consents required horses to be fed products that could not regrow and were free of seed. The production company also ensured the horses came from gorse and broom-free stables. After the horses had been walked through the reserve to be filmed from a helicopter, their hoof prints were raked over to avoid any impact on the ground.”

Cant be having weeds invading the gorse patch now can we?! Anyway, nothing eerie about our visit. We camped at the DOC site at the start of the walk. It mentioned in our DOC camp guide to tie down your tent in a southerly, but didn't mention that they can come up very quickly. We sat on the beach and watched the sun set, wandered back to the van in a slight breeze, went to bed and woke suddenly an hour or two later to the van rocking wildly and the roof about to take off. We quickly took everything out of the roof space and pulled it down as far as we could, holding on for dear life. The wind was much stronger than we had at Mt Cook, and that was 120-130kmh. As soon as we got the roof all the way down, Colin dashed round the outside pulling the clips down and trying to find his shoes he'd left under the van. (He found one a few metres away and I found the other the next morning wedged under a wheel.) We spent the next few hours lying awake listening to the wind and wondering how long before either the van tipped or the roof got ripped off. Luckily neither happened (we weren't likely to tip over really, we just kept rocking from side to side) and at some point we fell asleep. The other two groups at the campsite, one gave up on their tent and slept in their car and the other turned their big 6 berth motorhome facing into the wind rather than side on. Now that would have been scary rocking! We couldn’t decide whether moving the van to shelter by the trees would be a good idea or not, they would break the wind but what if they broke themselves? It turned out when we checked the trees in the morning, they were so small and flexible, they would have broken the wind but not themselves.

After a long night, we planned a more restful day, but it turned into a long one. It took us ages to find somewhere to camp in the evening, but when we did, its a place to remember for another time. We started off by heading into Martinborough for a look round town. The centre of town is a great plaza reminiscent of parts of Europe or South America, tree filled with streets radiating off a wide circular road round it. The area is known for its wines, so we had to stop at a vineyard to check them out. We ended up at the Martinborough Vineyard and tasted some really nice reds and whites, coming away with two bottles from their Burnt Spur range.
We had lunch in Carterton, another lovely little town with some nice antique shops. Colin found a fencing tool he fancied and ummed and aahed over whether to buy it, but the decision was made by the fact that we had no cash and the shop didn't take plastic. We did find a big bag of wooden blocks for Samara for the bargain price of $1.50 though. This we did have the cash for 😊
From Carterton, we headed north, by-passing Masterton, aiming to stop somewhere near the Manawatu Gorge for the night. The gorge was short but impressive, river, steep high rock walls either side, a little space for the road. There were a couple of rest areas marked on our map that we thought might be ok for the night. One was unsuitable, though it looked like others had used it before, the other we just couldn’t find. We kept driving, thinking we'd find something soon, but we didn't even pass a camp site. We stopped at this awesome view point above the Rangitikei River valley, we could even see Mt Ruapehu in the distance.

We finally found a campsite by accident. We were wondering where another rest area on the map was, it wasn't at the river / road junction as marked (does anyone check these maps? Is there a potential job for us to cruise the country making sure its all there in the right place?!) when we found a great little spot (which turned out to be better the next day, but more about that later) called Vinegar Hill camp site. Its part of the Putai Ngahere Reserve along the banks of the Rangitikei River and is either not marked on the map or is the rest area marked along the road slightly. For those wanting to find it, its near the junction of SH54 and SH1, on SH54. We drove down the one way system to a field at the end with a slightly run down toilet block, but as the place was free, we didn't complain. We found a few apple trees laden with fruit, but none of it was quite ripe yet. We had a lovely evening thinking we were the only ones there and how lucky we were to have found this site. The next morning though, driving the other side of the one way system back out to the road, we found a nicer 'field' with a nicer toilet block and a few other people camping. They'd obviously been there before and knew to keep going back out before stopping! Apparently the place is packed over the Christmas / New Year holidays with a huge gay and lesbian festival/camp is held, and has been since 1977.

We drove up State Highway 1 towards the mountains under a beautiful clear blue sky, the scenery magnificent, hills steep and rolling, cliffs, bush, fields...and steadily increasing traffic. What also increased steadily was our altitude as we slowly climbed up to Waiouru, a small town about 25km from Ruapehu (which by the way was looking great, less snow than three months ago, with a small puff of something hanging over the top). We stopped for what we thought would be a quick look round the Army Museum, but there was so much there that we had to break for lunch part way round and rush the last bit but by then we were all over it.

From Waiouru it was a quick drive along “the desert road” to Turangi and our couch surf for the night. We kept “meeting” Johanna on the NZ and Family Welcome groups on couch surfing, and when Samara was born she invited us to stay with her whenever we were passing. So we took her up on her offer, though it was a shame we could only stay one night. We had a great time, Johanna had made dinner for us and for Samara – her first taste of silverbeet, it seemed to go down well though it came out the other end looking much the same as it went in!

From Turangi the next morning we went to Taupo to find a dump station and a petrol station. Mission completed, we headed towards Te Awamutu, our next two nights would be couch surfing with a family in Kihikihi, just outside Te Awamutu. We stopped for lunch by the river at Mangakino, another place to remember for free camping, all legal and apparently quite popular, according to the people in the caravan near us. The town itself appears pretty run down, but this river/lake side area is nice, toilets, playground, boat ramp, a small cafe in an old bus. The weather was so nice it was tempting to stay, but we had other arrangements.

Alice and Marcus and their children Grace (3 yrs) and Samuel (8 mo) live in a lovely but very busy house on the edge of Kihikihi. They have views of fields much like ours, and we could just picture their trampoline and swing / slide / sand pit in our paddock...gave us a few ideas about what to do with our “spare time”. As we were spending two nights here, we took turns doing dinner. Marcus made a nice vege rice dish the first night then we did salad and steak the next, though we cheated slightly and took the venison steaks on offer and only did the salad. Colin is a big venison fan so we could hardly say no!

We had a full day to explore the area, but decided to take things easy. Or easy-ish. We thought about heading out to the beach, to Kawhia and waiting for the right tide to dig our hole on the beach and have a hot bath (much like at Hot Water Beach, but way less crowded), but in the end just went to Arapuni to look at the suspension bridge and power station and to Maungatautari, an ecological area surrounded by a predator fence.

The suspension bridge and hydro station were nice enough, there was a longer riverside walk we could have done if we had more time (or inclination) which is part of the Hamilton to Taupo riverside walk/cycle way according to Marcus. The whole way isn't finished yet, but will be a good ride when it is as its all off road (not off road as in you need a fancy mountain bike, but off road as in you don't ride on the road).

Maungatautari though was worth visiting. Not that we saw a lot as we went a bit late in the day but what the volunteers have done there is great. We went in the southern enclosure and did bits of most of the walks, including up the viewing tower and to the aviary. We didn't see anything in the aviary, and not much up the tower, just some fantails and tui. And lots of bees on the rata flowers.

We did see a couple of takahe right by the gate to the enclosure and a wood pigeon further in. The takahe had apparently followed the lady who fed them this morning to the gate and hadn't wandered back again. Whatever we did or didn't see, it was a very pleasant couple of hours. Maybe next time we'll go earlier and spend longer there.

Time was fast running out (as if we hadn't worked that out already) and our next stop was Auckland. We stopped Friday night with Colin's sister in Auckland before going into Mt Eden on Saturday morning to meet Jo, a fellow travel-blogger. Samara failed to live up to her good travel baby reputation and fussed a bit while we had lunch – until we strapped her into an over-sized high chair and plied her with bread and cheese. We've been going round trying out high chairs to help us decide what to get, and the one at De Post in Mt Eden failed all tests! We'll get one like we used in Kihikihi, its not the great plastic monstrosity we were thinking of, but a nice wooden one.

We were planning to camp out somewhere north of Auckland for our last night away, but we called in at friends in Whangaparoa on our way past and ended up sleeping in their driveway. It was good to see them, but not quite how I'd planned to spend the last night away. Still, dinner at a table, another high chair to test drive, a trip to the park and beach, a big bath-tub for Samara to soak in. Cant complain! There are plenty more opportunities to get away camping.

And that was that, the end of an amazing three months travelling round New Zealand as a family. May it be the first of many great trips with Samara.

One of the many things on our pile of mail when we got home was a New Zealand Geographic magazine. Flicking through I came across a good article on sand-flies. Heres an abridged version for those without access to the magazine.

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Photos

what we see in our rear view mirror each day
though frequently she's not asleep