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Published: January 29th 2010
Poor Knights Islands
Us after an amazing second diveWelcome to our penultimate blog! New Zealand has proven to be a country of many adventures; we’ve trekked over a glacier, jumped out of a plane, completed the Tongariro Crossing, spent the evening with a Maori tribe, dived the Poor Knights Islands and viewed some of the best and most diverse scenery any country in the world has to offer. Everyone we spoke to before we arrived raved about New Zealand and we certainly will now as well. We’ve had an amazing eighteen days and after only really scraping the surface in the North Island we wish we’d had longer.
The last few days we have spent in and around Auckland and were lucky enough to stay with the Dunning Family who used to live round the corner from us. Five or six years ago Beccy used to babysit the four girls, Ariella, Casia, Robyn & Maisie, but this time it was their turn to look after us with home baking, cooked breakfasts and pancakes. Buzz taught me how to barbecue a whole chicken on a beer can Kiwi style (see photo) and Wendy was the perfect hostess. Between dinner courses we even had time to go for a stroll
Auckland
Buzz showing us how to cook a chicken Kiwi style on one of the local beaches (Muriwai) which had breathtaking sunset views and definitely felt a million miles away from the old family home in East London.
Tutukaka, a couple of hours drive North of Auckland, is where we caught our dive boat, Calypso, to the Poor Knights Islands. Discovered by Captain Cook in 1769 the Islands are now a marine and wildlife reserve with a unique climate. The diving there is nothing short of spectacular and the temperate (flippin’ freezing!) waters meant it was a great contrast to the Great Barrier Reef as there is no coral or reef. Instead the sea is inhabited by eagle, sting and manta rays, moray eels, hundreds of fish (including tropical washed in by the Eastern Australian Current) and home to some amazing underwater coves and a forest of sea kelp. We sailed through the Southern Hemisphere’s largest sea arch and also into the largest sea cave in the world which had such good acoustics they’ve actually held boat based music concerts and opera there.
Before arriving in Auckland we drove from Wellington via Turangi and Rotorua. Rotorua is famous for the thermal mud baths, the smell of sulphur, and its
Rotorua
Beccy and a 'Maori Warrior' fantastic landscape shaped by past (and present!) volcanic activity. We spent an evening with a local Maori tribe that put on a fantastic nights entertainment with demonstrations of Maori traditions and a hangi (cooked in an underground earth over) dinner. Their performance of the Hakka was fairly intimidating and I can see why they use it to scare the opposition at the start of a rugby match.
Turangi is a small town located close to the starting point of the Tongariro Crossing, a 20km trek across spectacular scenery ranging from beautiful blue lakes to dormant volcanoes (as well as being the home of Peter Jackson’s Mount Doom). Unfortunately the weather let us down and at one point we thought we were either going to be blown into a crater of a volcano (no joke: there were gale force winds) or catch pneumonia from the ice cold rain. It’s fair to say we weren’t really in the right attire which didn’t help matters, but luckily as we made our way down from the peak the weather improved enough for us to make it back in one piece. Beccy did describe it as the worst thing she has ever done which
Auckland
Sunset at Muriwai Beach is probably a good description!
One place we know the weather will be good is Fiji as the captain (we are on plane) just announced it is currently 31 degrees...
Back in six days!
Andy & Beccy
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alan
non-member comment
fun
You certainly are having a fun time. I just love watching the Hakka and you are right those Maori Warrior tongues are pretty intimidating!