North Island
- Auckland & Coromandel Peninsula:
-Our flight got in late so we spent our first night at a hotel in Auckland near the Airport. Picked up our campervan the next morning and stayed in Auckland for lunch (downtown). Auckland reminds me of a bigger version of St. John’s but less hilly and with more sailboats. We ate lunch at a place called Ronnie’s that reminded me of the The Rocket in downtown St. John’s. I feel like we are back home?!
-The Coromandel is located in Central Eastern part of the North Island, just east of Auckland.
-Beautiful coastline and ocean views
-Worth a visit when there is nice weather. It was stormy, windy, rainy, and murky when we were there so not much to work with. An uncomfortable first night of sleep in the campervan with weather like that (and the fear of getting in trouble for not camping in a designated camping spot)!
2. Rotorua:
- considered the cultural capital of New Zealand. It is where the most amount of Maori culture based shows/day tours etc. are located (but they are expensive).
-also located in the Thermal volcanic zone of New Zealand near the active volcanoes and there are cool Thermal parks to check out. We went to the Thermal wonderland where there are plenty of thermal lakes and rivers around 100 degrees Celsius, hot mud pools, brilliant colours from all the elements being formed in these pools, pretty views, and steam that rises from the forest. Quite amazing, I have never seen anything like it. Also the closest I have ever been to a volcano!
-camped at a DOC campground (Dept. of Conservation) that night. Weather was good, and it was a pretty, scenic spot near a lake for $6/person.
-the town is dead at night, there are only a few places to eat and have a drink. We didn’t feel like paying for a cultural Maori experience, but maybe we should have considered it because we later learned that there are actually few places in the country where you can do stuff like that (Rotorua is by far the best place). I was surprised by this because, unlike in Australia, the indigenous Maori are quite active and vocal in New Zealand, so I assumed that you could see cultural based stuff all over the country.
3. Lake Taupo + Napier + Palmerston North:
- did this in a day trip coming down from Rotorua
- Lake Taupo was uniquely beautiful. A small town based at the edge of the largest lake in New Zealand, overlooking the 2 largest active volcanoes, with Tongariro National Park close by. From the base of the lake you see the tips of the snow capped volcanoes. The lake is massive, and is actually the crater of a much larger, now extinct volcano covering the landscape of the North Island. I cannot imagine how big this volcano was/is if the crater of it is Lake Taupo!!
- Tried my first meat pie. Meant to try it in Australia but never got to it. It was mince meat + cheese mmmmmmmm good!
-From Lake Taupo it was about a 2 hour drive to Napier on the Southeastern corner of the North Island. It is a small town, known for its art deco style. We were heading to Palmerston North for the night so we just thought it would be a cute place to stop by for a few hours. It felt like we stepped into the Roaring ‘20s—cute art galleries and antique shops on every corner and architecture that lets you step back in time.
- Palmerston North has little to offer, it is basically a college town (the biggest one after Wellington and has more of the Sciences). Tom’s friend lives there so we were planning a stop over. Highlights include some walking around the Gorge that surrounds the town, and thrift store shopping for warmer articles of clothing.
4. Wellington:
-Easily my favourite part of the North Island. Artsy, eclectic, has a great feel to it. Beautiful surroundings and views.
- Arrived on a Saturday night with Tom’s friend Iain & his girlfriend Pree. We went to a jazz show in the downtown area, at a popular jazz club called Meow. The band was called ‘The Dilworths’ and they were fantastic!!! It was a great atmosphere- most of the time they were just free styling it and playing at random, but they were so good!!! I am not a huge jazz fan, and we decided on this sporadically but I was so happy we went!! A special night I must say…
- The ending to the night was eventful: 4 of us sleeping in a small campervan in a downtown parking lot in Wellington. We are crazy but it somehow worked and wasn’t as uncomfortable as I expected….& saved everyone a hefty penny! Every hotel room in this country is easily over $100/night for a 2 person room……….a little rough on our budget. It was a night for the memory books that’s for sure!
- Surprisingly, feeling great the next morning, we had the whole day to explore Wellington (AKA Welly). Iaian & Pree left back to Palmerston North (AKA Palmy) in the morning (because Pree had a veterinary exam the next day) so Tom & I started our day early, starting with a visit to the Mt. Victoria lookout (with flat whites in hand ofcourse!). It was a cold morning but a beautiful clear day! The lookout was stunning—the pretty city of Welly, the Pacific Ocean surrounding it.
- We were in Wellington on a lucky day. Turned out it was ‘gold coin’ day and you could check out every attraction for a dollar or two (most attractions cost roughly $20/person so this was a GOOD deal)! We started at the Te Papa museum which is supposed to be fantastic. However, Te Papa is free so after roaming it for about an hour we decided it would be smarter to go check out other places that cost money in order to take advantage of gold coin day. We could return to Te Papa later in the day or the next morning, it is always free.
- We went to the planetarium after that –usually $18.50 to get in but it cost us $1 each! I am a bit of a space nerd, so this was a must do for me. As a child, I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. Funny enough, I still think of that as a career I would like (if only I was better at physics!). So, not surprisingly, I love all the dorky planetary displays! And, we saw a show in the planetarium. It was very informative—fun facts: New Zealand is designated as an International ‘Dark Sky’ zone, which means that it is one of the best places in the world to see stars. This is because it is one of the darkest skies in the world, with virtually no light pollution. So the stars at night are BRILLIANT! We noticed this our first few nights…..the skies were absolutely twinkling! Even with moderate cloud cover the sky was still amazing. Now we had an explanation! This is definitely one of the highlights for me—being able to see that sky every night! In fact, in the centre of the South Island, in a place called the Mackenzie Region, just west of Christchurch, is apparently the best night sky. We plan to make a stopover there on our way over to Christchurch (which is where we fly out of). ….
- after the awesome planetarium and marveling at the stars, we went to Zealandia, another attraction that we would not do on any other day, but thought ‘why not?’ on gold coin day. Zealandia is a natural habitat reserve, a fenced in area of native forest & lake where they are trying to cultivate some New Zealand wildlife that is threatened. This includes plentiful bird species, insects, and mammals. We didn’t spend much time there, but one of the coolest birds we saw was a large, colourful, flightless bird called the (?????). It had a bright red beak, purple and blue feathers, and large, red/orange feet. Apparently, they are prehistoric birds indigenous to New Zealand (especially the South Island). Anyways, worth the dollar!!! :P
- we went back to Te Papa museum after that. It is such a cool museum, really interactive and fun. It reminded me of the Natural History museum in New York City. All of the Kiwis rave about it, and its free! It is packed with history (my FAVOURITE!) and includes everything from Immigration to Maori culture to geology to geography to Marine Biology!!! An excellent use of our free time! They also had some silly rides you could go on like “The High Ride” (basically an adrenaline junky simulator) & the Deep Ride (takes you to the depths of the Ocean). It was meant for kids but for a dollar we couldn’t resist! We didn’t cover everything in the museum that afternoon so we actually returned for a few hours the next morning…..!
- we met up with another one of Tom’s friends for dinner. He knew them from Halifax, but they were actually an Ozzie couple based out of Sydney who had lived in Canada for a while and then decided to move to Wellington. They love it here and rave about Welly. They are actually hypnotherapists here (weird and different, will definitely read up on it…). We enjoyed a nice dinner with them at a great Thai place.
- we slept in our campervan that night right on the ocean at a nice park. The weather was reasonable and the views were beautiful!
- we booked our ferry for the next day to the South Island. There are 2 companies that do the run, both VERY expensive. It is roughly $50/person and about $150/car!!! Folks, we are definitely no longer in Southeast Asia!!! The ride takes roughly 3 hours and most of it is through open ocean. The boat is nice and modern, big and has free WIFI! It is considered one of the most beautiful ferry rides in the world--- definitely! We found out the day we were leaving that we were lucky and caught one of the last boats out for the next few days. The boats were not running for up to a week due to poor weather conditions, so we just made the cut! That could have altered our trip significantly!
***One thing I have noticed about New Zealand…they are very nature and weather dependent. Too windy, too cold, too difficult, too bad!!! I realize it is a safety concern but you can still be safe and efficient….they do it in Canada so why can’t they do it here??? A trip here can easily be ruined just by small weather delays or cancellations that would not occur in other parts of the world:
Examples:
--Ferry crossing closures for up to one week due to weather (does a little rain really cause a potential week long ferry closure?!)
--Random maintenance closures: The gondola and Maori cultural show was closed on a random Friday night due to scheduled maintenance. Who schedules regular maintenance on a Friday night of a long weekend (it is the Queens Long weekend that they did this)?!?!?
--The tunnel on the way to Milford Sound is closed for 10 days due to a large boulder blocking one of the entrances to the tunnel. It takes you 10 days to get rid of a boulder blocking a tunnel??? Conveniently, the only other way to get into Milford Sound while we are here is via plane which costs upward of $300-400!! Hmmmm I wonder if the Flight companies are delaying the progress of the road fixing…..?? That is pretty ridiculous to me to have a road closed for almost 2 weeks to THE MOST POPULAR attraction in your country ?!?! …
- The only spot in the country to really see cultural Maori performances are in Rotorua. In the whole country?? I don’t think that is the only place that Maoris are from or that Maori’s live, so why have they focused only one city to do these?? Frustrating for travelers, and more expensive by doing it this way…
--I think the rant is over………??
-- we made it to the South Island with no problems. The ferry arrives at a small town called Picton. The plan was to stay in Picton that night but we got in refreshed and decided to continue the drive to the Northwest Coast….
