New Zealand

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December 9th 2008

Published: December 22nd 2008

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Ludwig

Taupo - Skydiving

Proudly posing next to the Kiwi flag before the jump!

Kia ora tatou ("Hello everyone" in Maori language)!

After a couple of sunny days in Sydney, I flew over to Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city. An hour after having landed, I had booked myself into a 25-day trip through the country with Stray, a flexible bus network for backpackers with an hop-on hop-off facility. I left at 6.00am the next morning on my journey. I hadn't realized that New Zealand had such a stunningly diverse scenery, wild and remote beaches, volcanoes, glaciers, caves - absolutely everything that you can think of!

Hot Water Beach and Hahei
My first destination would be Hot Water Beach and Hahei. Hot Water Beach is pretty unique as an underground river of hot water, heated up by volcanic activity, flows to surface in the Pacific Ocean. Armed with spades, we dug into the sand allowing hot water to escape to the surface forming a pool and giving me the opportunity to relax a bit - this was my first hot water bath in 9 months! (To be very honest, the hot water pool in which I am posing on the picture had been dug by three Japanese tourists....much more hard working than me!)
After

Auckland - Stray briefing

Our driver, Seagull, doing the first briefing outside of Auckland

a short jump into the (very cold) Pacific Ocean to cool down a bit, we headed to Hahei for a couple of hours of trekking along the coastline towards Cathedral Cove. On day one of my journey across New Zealand I was already impressed by the country's beautiful scenery.

Raglan
One of the most renown beaches in the world for its quality surfing, Raglan was the perfect place for me to discover how bad I actually was at standing on a surf board. After a short introduction by Justin, our surf teacher, we headed towards the beach and on our surfboards...on our surfboards in theory, because I didn't really spend that long on it, rather much longer next to it in the water. However, something more memorable happened in Raglan. While I was swimming next to my board, I noticed two little girls struggling in a strong rip current (a strong surface flow of water returning seaward from near the shore) and headed towards them. By the time I had arrived there and had put them on my surf board, two of their friends had also come to their "rescue". Incapable of returning by themselves given the strong current,

Auckland

View on the biggest city in New Zealand (and probably least fun one)

I also put the two other girls on my board and I ended up pushing and pulling it for about 20 minutes across the current with four 7-8 year olds panicking and crying. Pretty much exhausted myself, I was glad that we got noticed by another surfer and Justin who, in addition to being our surf teacher, was a trained lifeguard. Where were the parents? Nobody knows. But I probably saved the life of a little girl and was a hero for one afternoon - an experience that I will probably not forget for a while.

Waitomo Caves and Rabbits
Above ground, Waitomo ("wai" meaning water and "tomo" hole) is a typical kiwi farmland with its green hills and thousands of cows and sheep but the region hides an underground wonder world of over 360 limestone caves, the longest being over 14km long. Fully clothed and briefed by our guide, I went on an exploration trip and abseiled 100m into, what is called, the "Lost World". After a 15 minutes descent we went on a remarkable journey through these cave formations, discovering glowworms on the way and ended the trip with a 30 meters ladder climb to the surface.

Hot Water Beach

One of the hot water pools that were dug into the sand

Pretty impressive adventure!
Before heading to Maketu where we would assist and participate in a Maori cultural show, we briefly stopped at a rabbit shaving farm - yes, such things exist in New Zealand and it appears that those angora rabbits are well trained and produce, every three months, nice little hats, socks, pullovers and all sorts of clothes.

Maketu
The Maori people are the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) and first arrived here in waka hourua (voyaging canoes) from their ancestral homeland of Hawaiki over 1,000 years ago. Their language and culture has a major impact on all facets of New Zealand life and the vast majority of place names are of Maori origin (as you might have already notice, or certainly will before the end of this blog). Contrary to Australia's Aboriginals, Maoris are also very well integrated into today's society.
In Maketu, we were greeted by a group of about 10 Maoris, who performed several traditional songs for us and invited us to join them in doing the Hakka - the famous dance of New Zealand's All Black's rugby team! An old Maori also provided us with all sorts of information about Maori culture. An

Haihei

First impressions of Hahei beach

interesting and pleasant evening.

Rotorua and Taupo
At a small distance from Maketu, lies Rotorua a town which is well-known for geothermal activity. There are a number of geysers and hot mud pools located in the city and some of the city's houses are even heated exclusively with geothermal heat.
I went Zorbing close to Rotorua. Based on Wikipedia's definition, Zorbing "is the practice of humans traveling in a sphere, generally made of transparent plastic, usually for fun" where "the sphere is a double-hulled sphere, with one ball inside the other with an air layer in between. This acts as a shock absorber for the rider, dampening bumps while traveling". Zorbing is fun and I rolled down a small hill, wearing my swimming suit (I was in a "wet zorb" - filled with hot water) and socks (very fashionable!).
Given that New Zealand is the country of adrenaline seeking beings, Zorbing was not the only activity that I performed that day: sky-diving would be next!

Taupo
Lake Taupo is the largest lake in New Zealand and was created following a huge volcanic explosion. The volcano's latest big eruption in 180 AD was one of the largest in recorded

Hahei

Nice view during our trekking along the coast

history. The skies and sunsets formed from this eruption were noted by Roman and Chinese observers. Lake Taupo is also renowned for being a perfect spot to do some sky-diving.
After a 20 minutes ride in a pink plane over the lake, some last instructions and motivating words from my skydiving instructor, I jumped out of the plane at 15.000 feet (about 5km). The first seconds were pretty scary, jumping out of the plane, falling backwards and seeing the plane disappearing with an astounding speed and then 60 seconds of free fall, screaming, doing all sorts of noises, feeling the wind and finally enjoying the view after the parachute opens. Absolutely amazing and adrenaline filled experience!

Tongariro Crossing
Tongariro National Park stretches around the massif of three volcanoes and is a great place for skiing during the winter. Together with 5 others, we went on an 7 hour trek on one of New Zealand's most spectacular tramping tracks, passing over the volcanic terrain of the multi-cratered active volcano Mt Tongariro, walking through plains of snow, sitting next to green lakes (strongly smelling like sulfate) and enjoying astounding views of the surrounding countryside below. It was a nice trek!

Hahei

Posing on the beach

Wellington
The farming town of Taihape on the way down to Wellington proclaims itself "Gumboot capital of the World" and has annual competitions and events such as Gumboot Day where gumboots are thrown. So, we stopped in Taihape and threw gumboots and guess who won...yeps, I did - though we were only half a dozen of guys in the bus. I stayed only one day in Wellington and visited the more than excellent Te Papa museum about New Zealand's history, fauna and flora and Maori culture. One more time I experienced how small the world is by meeting up Rob, an Irish guy I met 5 months earlier in China and who appeared to be the best friend of Brian, another great guy on the bus.

Abel Tasman
Abel Tasman was a little disappointment for me. I had planned to stay a bit longer at Abel Tasman National park as I had heard that it is one of the most beautiful places in New Zealand. So I stayed there during four days, waiting that the biggest storm in several decades would pass and would allow me to trek along the coast...the sun only came out on the morning while

Hahei

Cathedral Cove - a very scenic spot. Used in several movies...

I was heading back onto the bus. That's part of the trip and I had great fun with other bus passengers.

Barrytown
A small village (a couple of houses) and a bar - that's it. But a fancy dress party that was very memorable and Baz Vegas beer for the night! On the next morning, with a slight headache, I went on a pretty strange activity: cow bone carving. Helped by two professionals, I carved a Maori hook (that I am currently wearing as a necklace) which represents: "strengths and determination, and brings peace, prosperity and good health and also provides a safe journey over water". It seems that nothing can go wrong anymore for me!

Franz Josef Glacier
The Franz Josef Glacier is a 12 km long glacier which is unique in the fact that it descends from the Southern Alps to less than 300 meters above sea level amidst the greenery and lushness of a temperate rain forest while ending just a couple of kilometers from the coast. It is also a very fast moving glacier, several dozens of centimeters per day!
I flew by helicopter in about 20 minutes to the top of the glacier.

Raglan

Our surf instructor Justin during the theoretical part

After getting dropped on the ice and given all the necessary equipment, we trekked on the glacier for about two hours amidst strange white and blue ice formations, tunnels, melting water rivers and an absolutely impressive view!
After the Heli hike, we continued our journey southwards and arrived in Makarora on the next day.

Makarora
I went on a Jet Boating trip on the Makarora river. Cruising at 85km/hour on the river (with sometimes less than 10cm water), spinning and making 360 degrees is pretty exciting...not to mention that the scenery there was, one more time, sublime!
After a night of Karaoke singing in Makarora´s only bar, we left for Queenstown, the World Capital of Extreme Sports and Adrenaline!

Queenstown
Queenstown is a pretty relaxed town, built next to Lake Wakatipu and surrounded by mountains. The Karawau bridge close to Queenstown is renown for being the first permanent commercial bungee site in the world. Even if "only" 43m high, jumping from the bridge with an elastic cord attached around your ankles is a pretty scary prospect! My head and arms touched the water and then I rebounded a couple of times before being picked up by a boat.

Raglan - surfing

These surfboards are huge!

The hardest part is standing on the edge, looking downwards and then taking the decision to jump..but what a great experience!
I also did some trekking and luging in Queenstown and ate hamburgers at Fergburger, apparently one of the best burger joints in the Southern Hemisphere!

Kaikoura
We traveled up from Queenstown to Christchurch and then up to beautiful Kaikoura. I absolutely love fishing and went on a deep sea fishing trip on my first day in Kaikoura. After collecting some trapped crayfish, I caught a fish after 35 seconds and then the next one a couple of minutes later - great fishing spot! I borrowed a fishing rod for two more days for some coast fishing (but, strangely enough, did not catch anything anymore).
In addition to seal watching, another memorable activity in Kaikoura was swimming with dolphins. Instead of seeing a dozen dolphins as I expected, we ended up being followed by several hundreds of dolphins. You have to sing to attract them (tip: Love Me Tender from Elvis Presley worked better than the German National hymn), and then they start swimming around you, jumping close to you and after a couple of seconds, disappear again -

Waitomo caves

The crew for the trip

swimming amongst dolphins is pretty fun!

Back to Auckland
I had a long day by bus up to Auckland and a couple of days of relaxation (and some non successful fishing) and started to prepare the last leg of my travels: South and Central America!

New Zealand was full of new and great experiences for me and I was really impressed by the country´s beauty! I´ll be back in a couple of years!

E noho rā'

Ludwig

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