Bob's in Hot Water: A final road trip around New Zealand's North Island

---

Escaping the wilds of Wanganui National Park, we headed north to the Bay of Plenty stopping for a few nights in Tauranga. In contrast to our time on the river, Tauranga is a sprawling port town with shops and a nightlife. We made the most of our return to civilisation, exploring the local sushi bars and pubs, and enjoyed a rare trip to the cinema. We also headed out to Mount Maunganui, a small extinct volcano on a nearby peninsula which we climbed for views of the surrounding bay, where a surf competition was in full swing. Following this, and inspite of the rather warm weather (and against Chris' better judgement), we visited some thermal saltwater pools where we bobbed around in the water and enjoyed the sunshine.

From Tauranga we drove to Thames at the base of the Coromandel Peninsula on the North Coast where we checked into a cabin. Later in the evening we went to Auckland airport to pick up Kayt (chief bridesmaid extraordinaire from Emma and Chris' wedding), who was visiting from Sydney for the weekend. We had a late night catching up in Thames before heading north to Coromandel Town the next day where we met another friend Sarah and then continued our roadtrip along unsealed road to the most northerly point of the peninsula that you could reach by car, stopping for a lovely picnic on the way. The following day we made our way down the east coast of the peninsula to Hot Water Beach where we joined a digging frenzy trying to locate some of the natural hot springs which were uncovered twice daily at low tide. It perhaps wasn't the most successful venture into building your own thermal pools since we invariably ended up in patches that were either scalding hot or else barely luke warm, but it was fun all the same. Once the tide had come in covering the hot springs, we went to sunbathe and Chris and Emma went for a dip in the sea, fortunately avoiding being swept out to sea by the rather powerful rips (unlike one other poor girl there who had to be dragged back by one of the many lifeguards patrolling the beach for good reason). After this, there was time for another icecream and picnic and a stroll along the coast to the huge archways and cliffs of Cathedral Cove before Sarah had to head back to Auckland, and Kayt, Chris, Emma and Bob went back to their cabin in Thames for an evening of burritos, before an early start to drop Kayt back at the airport in time for her to get back for work in Sydney on Monday morning.

From Coromandel we continued our journey south to Rotorua where, soon accustomed to the smelly sulphurous odour of the city, we enjoyed the various thermal bathing opportunities which ranged from a dunk in the shallow free pools in the local park, to a slightly more luxurious dip at the local Polynesian spa where we spent an evening under the starts testing out the many outdoor pools of varying size and temperature. The holiday park where we were staying also had spa baths that were free for guests to use and subsequently we spent much of our three days in Rotorua thoroughly pruned. Out of the water, Bob insisted on a trip to the locally famous 'Agrodome' where we watched an entertaining sheep show, learning about the different varieties of sheep and watching an unsual sheepdog performance. Unfortunately Bob started to misbehave when owners of the agrodome turned down his offer to appear in a later show as star ram, preferring to stick with their earlier choice of the Merino. Following this, Bob started to bother some ewes which upset management further and led to him being escorted from the premises with us close behind.

With the sheep appropriately berated and promising to behave, we visited the living village of Whakarewarewa where we watched the obligatory cultural show complete with haka and some maori myth and legend, before strolling around the village to see the many thermal pools, boiling mud puddles and erupting geysers scattered in amongst the houses there. Wanting to explore some of the local lakes and forests we also walked a 20 kilometres roundtrip around Lake Okataina visiting an ancient abandoned Maori pa (fortified settlement) on the way, where the only remains of any habitation were the many large holes under trees and in rocks which Maori used for storage.

Leaving behind the warm waters of Rotorua we continued on our journey, stopping for a short break in Taupo. We started the day with a trip to some beehives and honey producers where Chris and Bob tried a multitude of samples and Emma supped a little mead before heading into town, once more in the search for hot water, this time in the huge expanse of water that is Lake Taupo. Given that the lake is largely composed of ice melt and therefore freezing, finding anything even vaguely warm turned out to be quite a challenge, however we did manage to find some slightly less cold areas on one of the lakes beaches, but it certainly wasn't anything like the thermal delights we had found in Rotorua.

From Taupo, we made our way east to the coast and the art deco town of Napier. Earthquakes are a bit of a hazard in this part of the world and Napier was pretty much flattened by one in 1931. The only upside of this was that it allowed the town to reinvent itself and it subsequently became the Art Deco capital of New Zealand, with a significant smattering of the 1930's buildings remaining across the town. Aside from admiring the architecture of the town, we had a great day visiting the vineyards around the Hawke's Bay region. Unfortunately wine in this region appears to be a bit too spread out to enjoy by bike and so Chris subsequently became nominated driver, carrying out the important role of taxi service, whilst Emma and Bob had the hard task of testing the local wines (and oils, salad dressings and wine frappes).

We continued our journey northwards up the coast to the outskirts of Te Urewera National Park and the small town of Wairoa where we stopped the night before heading into the park, doing two day walk around Lake Waikareiti. On the first day, the weather was a bit damp and murky and we couldn't really make out the other side of the lake due to being surrounded by rather a lot of cloud, but it made for an atmospheric walk. We stayed at the beautifully sited, but slightly run down, Sandy Bay Hut on the shores of the lake. The intention had been to actually get some sleep at the hut, and with the woodburner lit, curry cooking and wine chilling in the lake, this looked like being fairly likely, particularly seeing as we were the only people sleeping there that night. Unfortunately the forests of Te Urewera National Park by night are pretty eerie, with noises all around including unidentiable bangs, creaking trees, possums on the roof and mice scrambling around inside our backpacks. As a result Emma didn't get much sleep, which had a knock-on effect on the amount of rest Chris got too!

The next day, a bit weary but enjoying some brighter weather, we walked back through the forest to our car and then got back on the road heading north. Due to being on winding, unsealed and largely single track roads for about 100 kilometres, the journey took us a bit longer than anticipated and so to break the journey up, we stopped a night in Rotorua before continuing on our way again the following day.

Having moved around a lot over the previous few weeks, and with only a few days left in New Zealand, we decided to spend our last few days relaxing and subsequently retraced our route back up to Hot Water Beach in Coromandel. Unfortunately, having stopped for a while in Rotorua and setting off late from there, we arrived in Coromandel rather late in the day and subsequently didn't have too much in the way of accommodation options on our first night there. We ended up spending the night in a grotty mouldy caravan in the town of Hahei, which wasn't the best start to the end of our time in New Zealand when we hoped we'd be relaxing, but fortunately, we had more luck finding a place to stay the next day and found a beautiful cabin a stones throw from Hot Water Beach. There we had a couple of days of peace, quiet, good wine and budget gourmet homecooking, not to mention some obligatory wave jumping on the beach with Emma frequently swept off her feet by the metre high waves, and more often than not, taking Chris out at the same time!

Relaxed and refreshed, we headed off to Auckland where we had a wander round town, sorted through our things, somehow worked out how to fit the contents of our hire car back into our backpacks, and had a final evening in New Zealand with a takeaway pizza before our flight to Chile the next day.

Things we have learned on our final road trip around the North Island

With the amount of geothermal activity in the central region, if you lived here, you'd probably never need to run a bath again.

Bob is now officially banned from Rotorua's Agrodome with a 2 kilometre exclusion zone.

Despite what the local tours tell you, you can visit 14 wineries in a day. So long as you're dedicated (and none are more dedicated than Emma and Bob)!

A good Hawke's Bay Viognier is actually a perfect accompaniment to 'baked-beans pasta'. Particularly when chilled and drunk from plastic beakers

---