Our Travel Blog

After the fireworks finished last night a cold front must have snuck through as we woke up to a sunny but cooler day.

We set off north to Kaitaia which is on the southern end of the northern most peninsular in New Zealand. Originally we had hoped to all the way up to the northern tip, but we were a day too short to do it comfortably.

The roads were a lot smoother today making for a more relaxing drive, unfortunately there were very few sheep around, so I wasn’t able to create any sheep races by honking the horn. Although there were plenty of cattle they don’t like to play that game. We encountered   different scenery over fairly small distances. We went from rolling green hills to rugged cliffs, to quiet waterfalls and also beaches.

View From the Passenger Seat

Our first stop Kawakawa to see the “artistic” toilets designed by Herr Hundertwasser, an Austrian painter, architect philosopher and ecologist. I wasn’t too taken by his toilet design in the town, hopefully he was better at his other trades.

Crazy Toilets – Outside

Crazy Toilets – Inside

Seems the whole town got in on the act of using ceramic tiles as there were many designs and murals throughout the town done in ceramic, and even a sofa.

Tiled Sofa

We continued through the changing scenery until we came to a suitable place for lunch. We have been making our own lunches for most of the trip to prevent us (me?) having home made pie and chips every day. We found a nice peaceful waterfall today for our lunch venue.

Tranquil Waterfalls

Today, being Sunday, saw many older cars on the road. There were quite a few from the 1920-30’s as well as the 1970’s. It was probably largest number of older cars that we had seen that weren’t associated with a gathering.

Mid afternoon we came down a long hill overlooking a beach, so we stopped off for our afternoon exercise.

Beach

Tomorrow, if the weather is good, and time allows, we will go a litle way up the peninsular before heading south back to Auckland.

After yesterday’s marathon entry today’s will be very short, as today was just a “positioning” day to get up north of Auckland. We woke up to grey overcast skies and headed out after breakfast. We decided to go the back roads, as we usually do and yet again came upon a gravel road, this one was nowhere near as bad as the one we travelled the other day.

For a long part of the trip we followed a hilly, twisty coastal road which was fun to drive and picturesque.

Coastal Road View

From the Passenger Seat

After this the drizzle set in, and then the rains came. At least the car got a good wash as it was pretty dirty from our last gravel road trip.

Approaching Auckland we joined the motorway pretty much to destination. The rain had let up, and we only had light drizzle. Can’t really complain, there has been much less rain than we expected, and it really hasn’t interfered too much with the trip.

Time to head out and see how they celebrate Guy Fawkes down-under.

Just got back from our first Guy Fawkes on the beach. It was pretty good, as we walked down the beach we could see numerous displays going off around the bay. The town display lasted about 15 minutes, but there numerous “pre-show” displays courtesy of well lubricated youngsters!

After an evening at the pub with friends, we came back to the hotel and hit the sack. The next morning dawned bright and warm, almost shorts weather but not quite. After we had breakfast we set out to explore Rotorua. This town is famous for its thermal activity, there are many spas charging an arm and a leg just to walk around them and see the steam vents and pools (it cost two arms, two legs and an eye to actually use the spa). A quick search on the internet showed that there is a park downtown that has many mud pools, steam vents and hot pools all free to view, so that’s where we went.

Mud Pool

Dried Mud

The picture above, in my mind, looks very much like a black and white picture taken from an aeroplane flying over fields and a lake. In fact it is just the way the mud from small eruptions has dried.

In fact just driving around there was evidence of steam along the road and in people’s back yard.

Steam

Steam

Also in the park was a great climbing structure for kids, a lawyers dream given the lack of protection!

Play Structure aka Lawyers Dream

Many businesses now tap into the abundance of hot water below the surface. The water is not used directly, but it is used to heat regular water via a heat exchanger. The motel we are staying at was a pioneer in this field, and today it keeps a hot tub at 50C, a pool at 36C and each room has a private outdoor plunge pool (think small hot tub without the jets) that can be filled with hot water, all incurring no heating charges.

With all this activity comes a down side, smell! There is a background smell of sulphur throughout the town, which intensifies closer to the source of the thermal activity, it didn’t seem to be too bad, but after an hour or two I did begin to feel a little unwell!

Next stop was a Maori village, this was an area where Maoris still lived, but they mostly live in modern houses now. There were some traditional Mari houses there, together with an old church that had been built in the Maori way. The parking lot was interlocking paving, and there was evidence of hot water and steam coming through the cracks. At one point there was some surface water and I decided to test the temperature, it was HOT to the point of scalding the finger.

Maori War Canoe

Although we had not planned to be with our friends during the day, we met up with them at both of the above locations!

After the village it was onto Government gardens. This was an area of land signed over to the Government, by the Maoris some years ago as a present. The original swamp land was turned into some very picturesque gardens and lawn bowling greens. There is also a large mansion there built in the Tudor style.

We went back to the motel for a quick dip in the hot tub and a swim in the pool before heading over to our friends motel for a quick beer  visit. By now it was officially shorts weather with temperature at 24C

In the evening we met up with them (planned this time) to go to a Hangi, this is a traditional Maori meal, together with a tour of a rebuilt Maori settlement. We started off in the main dining area where the MC for the evening was identifying all the groups present by nationality. There were 20 different countries present and he greeted each one in their native language. Not just a quick hello, but a quick conversation! It was really impressive that he could do this, I was even more impressed when someone identified themselves as Welsh, I thought this would stump him, but no, he had a quick conversation with them. After the introductions, we headed off to an area where parts of the village had been reconstructed, and we were given a show of local traditions, singing, dancing and fighting.

The pictures didn’t come out as well as expected due the lighting conditions. Time for a new camera (PLEASE don’t tell Lyn).

Maori Singer

Maori Warrior

Maori Dance

The show was excellent, we then returned for food, which had been cooked in the traditional manner; over hot rocks buried in the ground. The hot food consisted of lamb, chicken, potatoes, sweet potatoes and as a concession to the Brits, stuffing to go with the chicken. The food was great.

After dinner we headed off down to the river valley to see glow worms. So far we had missed out on these at other places, but tonight we saw them in the forest. They are very similar to fireflies, but they don’t move!

This was the end of a very worthwhile tour

November 2^nd

OK, finished playing catch up. This morning it was a little cooler and overcast. We left Rotorua and the sulfurous fumes behind us en-route to Whitianga  (pronounced Fitianga, in Maori wh…  is pronounced similar to ph…, amazingly the TomTom GPS knows this and pronounces places correctly).

We seem to have moved from the land of sheep to the land of cows, but they still present a road hazard.

Road Hazard

We passed through the town of KatiKati, which is renowned for the murals painted on the sides of buildings. As of today it is also in my good books for the apple cinnamon fresh cream donuts they make. I hope the scales are broken when we get home.

Mural

As we got closer to destination we noticed an increase in old cars as well as modified street cars. Meeting with “different” seems to be getting a habit. As we entered the town we saw that there was a hot rod car meeting on this week-end. That also explains why there was a shortage of rooms, the prices were higher and the fact we finished up in a disabled room. Apart from the kitchen counters being lower the room is great, and as tonight is Friday / Fish and Chip night it makes no difference.

With over a thousand words this is probably the longest single post yet. There are bound to be spelling and grammatical errors! That’s Life!!!!

Wednesday Oct 31st

Another bright blue sky and clear day. First item on the agenda was a visit to the aquarium where we saw a variety of sea life (surprise) much of it native to the New Zealand coast line.

We then headed north towards Rotorua.

View From the Passenger Seat

We stopped at the Hukka Falls. Although the falls only had a 9 metre drop, the flow of water over them was impressive (200, 000 litres /second or 9 Olympic size pools per minute). The falls were more horizontal than vertical having carved out a 15m wide gorge between two lakes.

Gorge before Hukka Falls

On the way north we passed through a very scenic area around Lake Taupo, here we once again saw the snow covered mountains.

View Across Lake Taupo

After the falls we headed off in search of thermal activity, we were entering a region where hat gasses and water rise up through the earth’s crust, leading to warm / hot ponds, boiling mud holes and other instruments of torture. Today we first found the boiling mud holes.

Mud Pond

Mud Pond

After the mud holes it was off to Kerosene Creek (I have no idea where the name came from) where there was a running warm water stream feeding into a large pond. The water was around 40-45C.

We then headed into Rotorua to check into the hotel. We met up with friends from home and hit the Pub!

Due to meeting up with friends and dining with them at the local pub, today’s blog will be a little late in coming. In fact as we are going out with them again tomorrow night there may be a further delay!

Woke up to perfectly clear skies! The further North we go the better it gets. We were slow to start as we wanted to go to a museum in town that didn’t open until 10:00. On the way out we dropped into a store called the warehouse. We had seen them all over the place but weren’t sure what they sold. Turns out it is the NZ equivalent of a small Wal-Mart.

Next stop was a museum dedicated to sheep shearing and the NZ wool industry in general. There were movies showing the shearing process as well as replicas of sheep shearing sheds. Amazingly a good shearer could shear over 300 sheep in an 8 hour day, using only a set of power clippers. The museum was well worth the visit.

Next we started a slow trek north to the town of Napier, tonight’s destination. Unfortunately, the east coast has far less (for us) to see than the West coast, so again there were no planned stops on the way. In reality there really was nowhere worth stopping at.

Again the scenery was mixed; we went inland and climbed gently to around 1000’ and then cruised along straight and level roads for a while.  The Ruahine mountain range was visble on the left, and we got , hopefully, our last glimpse of snow. We descended more raoidly than we climbed, with a few hair pin bends to keep me awake.

We entered Napier via a palm lined street, very reminiscent of some California towns.

View from the Passenger Seat – Entering Napier

Napier is billed as a town with plenty of Art-Deco. The original town was destroyed by an earthquake in 1931, and was rebuilt copying the style used in Santa Barbara California following that cities earthquake in 1925.

Napier

Napier

Napier

Napier

How any Motels make a profit when we stay, I don’t know. We (I) must burn up all the cost in electricity

Tapping into the Grid

We had our first problem with hotel bookings today, when we went to check-in there was no record of our booking. Unfortunately there were no more rooms left at the rate we had paid. The guy was good though, we got a 2 bedroom apartment with Jacuzzi for the same price.

We headed over to the ferry terminal about an hour ahead of our 1030 departure time. The morning was overcast and cooler again.

Waiting in line for the ferry two old cars pulled up behind us. Talking to the drivers I found out that the cars were made by Essex Motors in Detroit, one in 1918 and the other in 1928. Both cars were in absolutely fantastic condition and, as we found out later on, can easily cruise ay 100kmh in almost total silence. Evidently there are a number of these cars in New Zealand as the drivers were just returning from the annual Essex owners get together.

1918 Essex

1928 Essex

The ferry crossing had a little life in it with a moderate sea and some pitching and rolling, unfortunately not enough movement for my liking.

Across on the North Island, the sun started to break through and the temperature was around 18C. The scenery was less harsh than the South Island, with green wooded hills rather than the rock topped mountains.

View From the Passenger Seat

Friends of ours are at the other end of the Island, and the temperatures there are in the mid 20’s. Seems odd that it is getting warmer the further North you go!!

The last couple of days have involved more travelling than sightseeing; that will hopefully change tomorrow.

More of an overcast and cooler morning, after yesterday’s high of 24, we were back down to 13. Today’s trip was purely to get from A to B a distance of around 300kms up to the ferry terminal at Picton.

As usual we managed many changes of scenery, from long straight stretches of road, to tight hairpin hill roads and cliff roads along the coast.

Rolling Hills

For one stretch the hills were covered, as far as the eye could see with yellow gorse.

Gorse

About half way along the trip we stopped at a lookout over a seal colony. Previously we had seen the occasional seal on a rock, but here we found well over a hundred of them.

Seals

Seals

 We returned to the hotel we stayed at when we first arrived on the South Island, this time the weather was a little brighter.

Hotel View

Tomorrow we catch the ferry to Wellington.

Another sunny morning, and this time much warmer than we have had since the Cooks. After breakfast we were at 18C. We headed into downtown Christchurch to see what was open and what was not due to the earthquake damage. On the drive in there was little to no indication of any damage. It wasn’t until we got to the centre of the city that there was any problems. There are still large parts of the city centre that are closed due to unstable buildings and rebuilding work.

The city have made great use of transport containers, both for housing cafes and shops as well as using them as barriers to protect streets from further building collapse.

Containers as Stores

For those of you that have been to Christchurch, this map shows the remaining “red zone” the area that is still considered unsafe.

Red Zone

From downtown we headed out to the Willowbank wildlife reserve which housed a number of New Zealand wildlife species, plus the occasional foreign animal thrown in for good measure. It was here that we finally saw the elusive kiwi. It was in a darkened out enclosure, with very low level lighting as the birds are nocturnal. We were just about to leave when we saw one foraging around. After watching it for a few minutes it came towards us, it was then that we found that a second kiwi had been sitting less than 2ft from us!

As it was spring time, the animals were a little “frisky”, this was particularly true for one of the peacocks.

From this…….

….To This

Close Up

There was a female relentlessly teasing the male by walking back and forth in front of him. As this happened, the male would shake the “fan” making it vibrate very quickly with a rattling noise.

From the wildlife park we headed out to an old Air Force station at Wigram to visit the Aviation Museum. This has a small collection of aircraft from the WW1 through to the late 20^th century. There is a new hangar being built to expand number of exhibits.

Today was an earlier wakeup (7AM) for us. We headed out to the train station 5 minutes down the road to catch the Trans-Alpine train from Christchurch on the Pacific Coast to Greymouth on the Tasman Sea Coast. Not too much to say other than this was a very worthwhile trip, we passed over some flat-lands,  then climbed into the Southern Alps and then went through an 8½km tunnel to emerge on the West side of the Alps. The scenery was nothing new from what we had already seen, but it was great to see it with someone else driving

Going into the tunnel the weather was bright and sunny, coming out the other side it was dull and low cloud. We were delayed about thirty minutes arriving into Greymouth as the local thieves had been at work during the night stealing the copper wire that controlled the signalling! Below are some of the many photos we took.

PICTURES

View

View

Too Much Excitement for Lyn

`

The Train

From the Viaduct

The “Fence” on the last picture is actually a wind deflector, these are fitted to all the viaducts as the winds comingdown the valley’s are a danger to the trains crossing them

It was great to be able to sit back and spend all my time observing rather than partly observing and mostly driving.

On our return we decided to follow our new Friday night tradition of fish & chips with a beer. Disaster struck when we opened the fridge and found we were out of beer! Fish and chip is not the same with G&T; or should that be G&T is not the same with fish & chips!