Given that we've had a bit of a hiatus from blogging we'll do an overview of the first week & a half that we've spent in NZ so far & hopefully we can keep a big more on top of it after this.
The Forest Gump inspired title perfectly describes NZ I think as you never know what you're going to get, in terms of both landscape & weather.
So we arrived in Auckland & despite it being Gary's job the night before to find out the location of our hotel & how to get there from the airport we ended up at the opposite side of town! We didn't do an awful lot on arrival except start to sort out our campervan (which yes I know several of you advised us to do beforehand but we were enjoying Oz too much & their internet was generally rubbish). That night we met up with one of Gary's friends Lee who took us to the nice harbour area where we had dinner & discovered for the first time that NZ is a lot colder than Oz! Morning of day 2 was more campervan fun until we secured Dappy, who we picked up that afternoon to set off on our 5 week touring adventure.
Perhaps I should have been asking more questions about why this company had vans available when no-one else did & also why it was so cheap compared to others but the excitement at securing a van silenced these doubts. On meeting Dappy I understood the answers to these questions a little more! He's basically a little white van that an odd job man would use with a mattress & 2 ring gas hob in the back. However, I have learned to love him & he's provided a pretty good home this past week & a half so fingers crossed that continues. He's not a huge fan of hills, rain or sharp bends in the road (and NZ has an abundance of all 3) but he muddles through every time & even withstood an earthquake - more of that later.
Night one was spent in Muriwai Beach just west of Auckland as we picked the van up late so didn't have chance to go much further. We then moved on to Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel Peninsular. You can dig your own little hot tubs on the beach two hours either side of low tide due to hot water seeping up from the earth's core. Annoyingly we were too late to do this when we arrived so we got up at 4.15am the next day. It was 100% worth it though as the beach was deserted, whereas it had been heaving the day before & we got to watch the sunrise whilst reclining in our pools. The water is actually boiling though so there's a bit of an art to digging them, which Gary mastered after we'd both burnt our feet! We also walked around a place called Cathedral Cove whilst in this area, which is a stunning beach. There was a lovely older guy called Tony who we got chatting to at our campsite (he had rented the same van as us & was from the Isle of Wight weirdly) & he gave us some great travelling tips for our time here. He lives a proper cool life including volunteering at a whale watching base in Antarctica.
Next stop Rotorua. The main highlight here was a place called wai-o-tapu, which is this crazy natural geothermal place with geysers, bubbling mud, massive lakes of random colours & waterfalls. You'll have to see the pics to get what I mean & even they probably don't do it justice. It's all a result of NZ's location on several faultlines. We also stayed in an amazing campsite here with our van overlooking the lake.
It was then on to Taupo. On the way we stopped at Huka Falls, which are pretty incredible. We saw 2 people who had somehow made their way right next to the falls, crazy fools! I was quite happy with my vantage point way up on the bridge. Weirdly we also bumped into a girl that we'd met on NYE in Brisbane & again in Sydney. She was about to do a skydive so was feeling pretty sick. At Taupo we chilled by the lake enjoying the sun which had made a welcome appearance. We were going to try paddle boarding here but the water was freezing & I knew I'd spend more time in it than on the board so I gave it a miss until I could find somewhere that did it with a wetsuit.
The next day we headed to Turangi as we wanted to walk some of the Tongariro National Park, where you get to head up volcanoes but the weather was set to be rubbish for a few days so we were advised against it as you wouldn't get to see anything & you might have to head back part way through. Our backpacks of mainly shorts & t-shirts also aren't really ideal for this weather!
With this postponed until our return journey through the North Island we headed down to Wellington. As this is a mammoth journey we stopped overnight in a place called Levin en route. On arrival we got told the evacuation procedure that evening for if they had any further earthquakes. It turns out there had been one that afternoon measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale. Whilst the epicentre hadn't been in that town (it was about 50km away) they'd still felt it & had been having aftershocks ever since. We had seen a lot of police on our journey, which now made sense (you might wonder why we didn't hear anything on the radio but that's because surprisingly the radio doesn't really work!) We must have experienced some on our way through but as Dappy is a pretty bumpy ride anyway I didn't notice any difference! Gary was desperate for there to be further earthquake fall out but I was scared this might finish the van off. There were more minor aftershocks overnight & Gary woke up during one but I slept through oblivious (the wine over here is great!)
We made it on to Wellington unscathed but it was pouring with rain & had gale force winds so any nice outdoors activities were ruled out. Instead we went to the cinema to watch The Wolf on Wall Street, which we both thought was really good. The cinema is much cheaper than home, at £11 for both of us, which was a bonus but they don't do sweet popcorn, only buttered, which in itself is a reason I could never live here! The weather had improved the next day so we caught the cable car to Kelburn where you can get a good view of the city. Up here we also went to the Carter Observatory, which has some mess with your mind stuff about planets, stars, the creation of the universe etc.
That evening we caught the ferry to the South Island, which, as people had told us, was really scenic. After a night in Picton, where the ferry arrives, we headed towards Able Tasman National Park (we left early Mich so I didn't get to sample the famous Picton Pies but I will on the way back through!) We stayed near Able Tasman in a place called Motueka. Our campsite backed on to a vineyard, which was pretty cool. We hired bikes to ride along the beach tracks in the sun that afternoon. The next day was a highlight of my trip so far, a kayaking trip around Able Tasman. We had amazing weather for it & the park is stunning - white sand beaches, crystal clear water, lush forest etc. It didn't hurt that our guide was pretty attractive either! Although I had thought it would be a pretty relaxed activity at a gentle pace but it was hardcore & I have the blisters on my hands to prove it! It was about 4 hours of kayaking & when the current is against you it's a proper workout ( you'd have loved it Lara G!) You could have done a combined kayaking & walking tour which I wanted to do but Gary wasn't keen on the walking element, although after 2 hours of kayaking he was slightly regretting writing off this idea. We chose the trip which went to Tonga Island as this is a seal colony. Unfortunately the seals seemed a little shy but we did see a little baby one (the guide said he'd be about 4-5 weeks old) & a massive male (we were the only people to see this one as we were at the back - sometimes it pays to be slow!)
After an overnight stop in Murchison surrounded by gorgeous mountains we explored some of Buller Gorge, including the longest swing bridge in NZ. Whilst this was no doubt beautiful I also found it slightly terrifying given how much it moves whilst you're suspended miles above a rushing river (Della - I was only slightly less pathetic than on that floating jetty thing in Zante!) Next up was a stop at Tauranga Bay in Westport, which is also a seal colony. Luckily the seals were up for an audience here & we saw quite a few including about 5 baby ones & several adults. Watching the little ones play and try to clamber over rocks was so cute. We took loads of pics but where the seals are the same colour as the rocks it's pretty hard to capture them, on camera it just looks like we've taken lots of photos of boulders! Next up was the pancake rocks in Punakaiki. These are basically layered rocks in the sea that get beaten by the waves. Geologists aren't sure why they have their layered appearance. These were ok but we didn't think they were anything amazing. It wasn't fully high tide, which is the best time to see the blowholes, so maybe they would have been cooler. We stayed overnight in Greymouth & have headed on to Jackson today so that we're close to Arthur's Pass to do some of the walks there tomorrow (Mich we went over that crazy one way bridge that you share with trains, what the hell is that about?!) The weather today is horrific so we're having a chilled one, although it has allowed Gary to capture some arty shots of the mountains in the mist with raging waterfalls, which he's been pleased with (every cloud has a silver lining!) In slightly less positive news we did almost kill a cyclist on a bridge (Gary blames her for not wearing high vis clothing!) & our van door broke but luckily we've now fixed this. On Tuesday we've booked a heli-hike to the Franz Josef glacier, exciting times.
Hope all is well with you. Keep in touch & speak soon.
G & C x
