Wow New Zealand is AWESOME. It also looks very familiar and from the moment our flight descended into Auckland we started to understand what people mean when they describe NZ as Scotland on steroids!
Our first stop was in Auckland to see Graham, our friend from Uni. It was great to see another friendly face and meet his Kiwi flat mates. It also gave us an opportunity to perfect our Kiwi accents and practice pronouncing the Maori place names. The fact that they say 'ee' for 'e' so 'ten' is 'teen' has provided us with endless amusement.
After a night in Auckland and attending a pub quiz, where we got 'teen out of teen' for the geography round, we borrowed Graham's car (thanks Graham) and headed a few hours south to Lake Taupo to walk the Tongariro crossing. The Tongariro crossing is part of one of the nine 'great walks' of NZ and takes you up and over an active volcano. It was also the setting for Mount Doom and being a huge Lord of the Rings fan I was uber excited. However, NZ weather decided not to play nice and for the first half of the walk, and to the top of the pass, we could literally only see each other! (Which was nice as we haven't seen much of each for the last five months). Thankfully the weather did clear however and the views of the red volcano were epic. We also caught a glimpse of 'Mt Doom' which you can see below! Yippee!
On route down there were various points where steam was billowing out the side of the mountain to make giant cloud of its own. The sulphur smell was pretty disgusting!
We said bye to Lake Taupo and headed east to Lake Waikaremona for some more walking (See how we are struggling with pronunciation)?! But before we were to reach our destination we were giving a class A lesson in NZ's road surfaces. Like us, I'm sure one would assume that when you look at a map and see a major road in a developed country, it would be fully paved and that 100km of distance wouldn't take that long. How wrong could we be! The road was in fact gravel for 80km, took us 2 hours to drive, was ridiculously windy, and we only passed 3 other cars along the way. It was safe to say after about 60mins of this and convincing ourselves we should keep going as it must stop soon, we were starting to s**t ourselves! However, eventually we did see a sign pointing us in the right direction and when we arrived we were rewarded with a fantastic walk and glorious views.
Next we headed off to the town of Rotorua, famous for its geothermal sites and Maori culture. We had read the town smelled, but were still shocked at how much it stank, like stink bombs, by the lake where natural vents in the regions thin crust allow hydrogen sulphide to drift into the air. Apparently you get used to the stench but I'm not sure I could live there!
Despite the smell, the lake in the town was spectacular and along parts of the shore there are lots of areas with bubbling water from the hot rocks below. Of course Beeds and I went straight to start exploring, hopping the fence and duely touching the ground and some of the pools to test the heat. After about ten mins of this and some nearly scalding pools we realised this probably wasn't encouraged and saw the sign saying so when we went back onto the path- woops. Luckily we weren't stupid enough to put our hands in the bubbling ones!
(I'm holding my nose)!
We visited a geothermal site near the town. Now, we are no geologists but it was very cool! We first watched a geezer explode, something which happens daily but the time artificially done adding soap.
A bit like the leaning tower of Piza, tourists got themselves into various positions to make it look like it was coming out their mouths.
Beeds of course took it one step further....
The rest of the geothermal site was cool albeit a little smelly!
Something which was on my to do list for New Zealand was to visit Hobbiton, also known as the Shire in Lord of the Rings. Initially beeds wasn't too excited but seeing my enthusiasm for the slightly overpriced attraction and it being my birthday treat from my Dad he couldn't say no. And thank goodness as we loved it! The tour was awesome taking us round the beautiful rolling hills, hobbit doors, listening to how they made the hobbits look so small and enjoying a drink in The Green Dragon!
We also learned that the farmers who own the land and now tourist attraction, welcome 200 000 visitors a year. They must make a fortune and I bet their neighbours must be more than slightly gutted their farm was chosen as a sight for the film when the surrounding landscape all looks the same!
We headed back to Auckland to join Graham and his house mates for the Labour weekend. This included a beautiful day out to Waiheke island to partake in some wine tasting. The tour of the vineyards was short but sweet. The lure of chilling on a hammock looking out over the sea with Auckland in the distance and a nice bottle of wine stopped us after two! Getting a bit chillier we moved inside where the boys spotted Mils Muliaina. I had no idea who he was, so for those of you who don't know I'll explain he has had 100 caps for the All Blacks, and here in New Zealand would be the equivalent of our Sir Chris Hoy. Mickey and Beeds quickly worked up the courage to ask for a photo with him, but I will fully take credit that our girls innocence of not knowing who he was resulted in him and his lady hanging out with us for the rest of the day and coming back to our BBQ! To much amusement of the boys I asked him what I thought where acceptable questions like 'do you play rugby for New Zealand, do you wear a scrum cap and what position do you play'. In all serious though he was actually a really nice guy and didn't mind one bit when the boys sang 'he scores on the left, he scores on the right, Mils Muliaina scores all through the night'....
After a very hung over Sunday, some frisbee golf in the local park (Beeds threw the longest frisbee EVER) and Beeds testing his hand at spear fishing with Graham and Tim we headed over to Mt. Manganui to visit our friend Karen and the stunning scenery there. We enjoyed a couple of days of walking along the beautiful beach, up the Mt and through an old mining gorge which was just beautiful.
Randomly we also enjoyed a game of lawn bowls. The particular highlight for Fraser here were the sausages, a chat with an old Scottish man and that they give out meat packs as prizes! Shockingly our bowling skills didn't get us any!
After a great 9 days in the north island of NZ we flew to Nelson in the north of the South Island. Our mission for the day was to first pick up our rental car 'Sunny' (Nissan Sunny), celebrate my birthday by treating ourselves to a nice cooked breakfast and then scour the charity shops and NZ's answer to Decathlon to pick up a cheap tent.
Most people camper van it round NZ but being on a seven month budget and deciding we would kill each other in a tiny people carrier converted camper van, we decided camping was the best solution all round. $500 later we were kitted out with our gear and upon erecting our tent that night in a spot of rain, quickly realised that our £50 tent was not in fact a three man, could hardly fit our luxury queen sized air mattress and leaked! However, as we had driven quite far north towards the Abel Tailsman National Park by this point and spent far too long enjoying a birthday cider by the beach, we discovered this far too late and had no other option than to hope the rain stopped and snuggle into our tiny tent for the night. Thankfully it did stop raining, the stars were immense and we slept surprisingly well!
The next day we set off for a fantastic two day walk in the Abel Tailsman National Park and one of the most beautiful coast lines I have ever experienced. The trip started with a two hour water taxi journey up the coast, transporting us and our gear to our starting point. We were very lucky to spot dolphins, seals, blue penguins and various species of birds along the way.
To do the full walk you have to spend at least one night in a cabin half way and be self sufficient. As I'm still nursing my neck and lower back 'back to health' Beedie had the job of carrying the large bulk of our kit and was a bit of a pack yak for the two days! The walk itself was just stunning with the most beautiful golden beaches. We had to time the crossing of certain beaches to the tide being out resulting in us crossing vast areas of tidal sand flats. With perfect weather and some good company along the way we both agreed it was one of the most beautiful places we have ever been.
Upon finishing the walk we decided we needed to sort our tent situation out and dashed down the road to the local Warehouse to return our leaky tent in the realisation we better spend a bit more money on our home for the next three weeks. However, being 6pm on a Saturday, the only other camping gear shop being closed then and the following day, and a schedule to travel down the remote west coast imminent, we actually ended up with a bigger version of our original! However, the one thing I do remember from my years of camping as a child is that the inside of tent cannot push up against the outside, so I suppose at least our air bed isn't pushing up against the outside now! Possibly this will save us from any flooding.
Aught well, it's all part of the adventure isn't it?!
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Location:New Zealand
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