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Published: April 30th 2007
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Wika
Naughty little bird that tried to get in our van and liked to drink our waste water... it's probably dead now. We saw a stuffed one in a museum with a spoon in its mouth! Ok, Ok we admit it, we have fallen hopelessly behind with our blog, so prepare for a whistlestop tour of the end of the South Island travels and our recent zoom around the North Island. Seatbelts on...
After Fox glacier, and a glance at the Franz Josef glacier through torrential rain and clouds of descending mist, we headed across the top on the South Island to Kaikoura - famous for it's marine life, whales etc. Unfortunately we have managed to miss whale season EVERY single place on our world trip, and so true to form, we had to settle for a seal colony. As you can see from the pictures, they weren't shy, but were a little grumpy and stinky, having just spent the night sleeping in the bushes in the middle of the carpark and woken up with us staring at them! Next stop Picton (plus a hitchhiker pciked up on route), a little town with not much but a giant port where we made a very early morning crossing by ferry to Wellington on the North Island. The crossing was beautiful, with calm serene waters as we glided through the Queen Charlotte Sound, before hitting the open
Lookout Mountain
The road from Hamner Springs sea in the rough Cook Strait. Joanna spent the whole time lying below deck trying to sleep through the waves, while James bravely stayed on deck taking the photos and trying not to be sick over the side!
Wellington, NZ's capital city, wasn't quite as smart as one might expect, but its National Museum was amazing, as were the fish and chips that evening! From Wellington we headed North towards Tongariro National Park, home of Lord of Ring's 'Mount Doom', and also the Tongariro Crossing, NZ's most famous and impressive, volcanic valley one-day walk. Finding ourselves woefully ill-equipped for the challenge, in mere trainers and macs, we had to give this one a miss, although we did fit in two good hikes to local waterfalls and some silica rapids, which were creamy white and very unusual.
The road upwards to Roturua brought more suprises, with us constantly screeching to a halt to photograph plumes of steam billowing out of the ground, bubbling mud pools, and all manner of steaming and hissing landscapes. At one point we shunned the numerous posh spas, instead leaping into Kerosene Creek, a brown, muddy looking stream which was actually 40c and a delight
Seal's morning yoga
Yup, he'd just woken up and was a bit grumpy, snarling at Joanna, before heading for a stretch on the beach! to sit in steaming our aching legs. James declined, and took photos instead!
Roturua itself stank!! No literally, the whole place hummed like a hive of bees. Seriously, this town has a sulphur problem - it leaks up from the ground, and in the morning the whole town is covered by a big mist of fumes, which steadily clears but then proceeds to stink as the sun comes out! Our campsite, like most we stayed at in the area, had some free hot pools, and our swimming cossies have yet to regain their natural odour - eggs anyone? That said, the steam came in very useful in cooking our tea while we bathed. Using the sites Hangi cooker, which was literally a bunch of bricks over a steam vent in the ground, we roasted our tatties and carrots, barbecued some lamb and had the best dinner seen on our travels. Yum yum!
With our tummies full we set off for Hahei and the Coromandel Peninsula, stopping for one night at a strange place called Wahei, where the public toilet were more like a local disco - all flashy lights and playing music to you when you locked the
door. Somehow the lyrics 'The world needs love, Love sweet love...' don't seem appropriate when you're sat on the loo! Hahei itself was a little beach town with bright white sand, azure sea, and a great coastal walk to Cathedral Cove on a gorgoeus sunny day. More South Pacific than NZ. The other feature of the area was the unusual and famous 'Hot Water Beach', called such because at low tide every day a hot spring runs down into the sea, through the sand. Every night is witness to several dozen people stealthily digging themselves a hole in sand to wallow in the precious hot water. Of course you have to prospect for hot water as the spring only has a few outlets, some people finding themslves sitting in ice-cold sea water. Being as we are, we prospected the hottest area on the beach and as a consequence proceeded to scold ourslves and actually have to source some cold water to cool our pool down, which was too hot to sit in at all - not quite the soothing spa we were promised! Bloody hard work, but fun nonetheless!
Having had a fab time travelling with Joanna's parents in
Queen Charlotte Sound
A beautiful ferry crossing... until we reached the Cook Strait their campervan (who's tales we will tell at a later date) we were treated to a fantastic last night in Miranda before heading to Auckland, a great end to a great trip. Our last campsite hosted a Rowell on Thorpe tennis tournament and also the best open air hot pool of our travels! Sadly we're about to leave New Zealand, it's been one of the best countries we've visited on our trip - definitely in the top three! We're off to the Cook Islands now, which will be a totally different pace of life, but e-mail is hard to come by - so if things go quiet, don't panic, we'll catch up with you when we reach San Francisco.
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non-member comment
Sounds great!
You write a good crack. BUT it's all true and the pics don't lie. Hope you "cook' up something worthwhile in The Cooks.