It had been our plan to hire a camper van to tour New Zealand. It's touted as the best way to get around and apparently the camp sites are excellent for this. Plus, we'd met people who said it was a great way to travel. But it turned out to be extremely expensive as we were coming into the peak season [Nov -> Mar] and there weren't any vans available anyway. We calculated that we could hire a normal car and stay in basic backpacker accommodation for around half the cost of a campervan. So, we picked up a car for NZ$28 (about £8.50) per day - not bad for a 5 door hatch in fetching hire-car white. Petrol's cheap too (about 30p a litre) although diesel is even less so it would have been cheap to run a van too.
Most people know that New Zealand is made up of two main islands, but there's a part of the North Island North of Aukland which not so many people visit. It's already Spring in NZ but we still figured that heading up to the Northland first would give us the best of the weather - they're still skiing on the South island!
Northland is documented as being depressed and with no industry. This means it's sparsely populated, but well preserved and extremely scenic. There's lush, rolling hills supporting dairy farming and the famous NZ sheep (there's 40 odd million sheep and only 4 million people in NZ). The roads are pretty poor, but the distances are so short compared with Aus it hardly matters. At one point we came upon a road rally. We were diverted off down a gravel detour so that the rally cars could use the main highway - something a bit strange there
Fresh from the Blue Mountains, we were keen to do some more walking. NZ is different from Aus as there's a whole bunch of hardcore tramps each lasting about a week. It's become apparent that we haven't allowed ourselves enough time [or sleeping bags] for this so it'll be day walks for us. On our first walk, we bumped into the local farmer who had lost all his sheep to pig hunting dogs. He didn't seem bothered, which was odd. Mind, he'd lost his cattle 5 years previously - they had wandered off as there's no fencing. Some of the cattle did wander back after about 4 years so that was a bonus, but it does seem like a relaxed form of farming. Needless to say he wasn't too bothered that we were traipsing all over his land without asking!
We visited Waitangi where a treaty was signed between the British and the Maoris. It's interesting to see the differences between the way the Maori were treated compared with the Aboriginals. In Aus, the Aboriginals just sat around painting pictures of fish and taking psychedelic drugs. Needless to say when the Westerners arrived, we simply slaughtered them! The Maori however were fighting each other before the Brits arrived. So we simply sold half of them guns and waited. Consequently, there's no real hard feelings between remaining Maori and European and they seem to live in peaceful coexistence and co-operation now. We saw the largest fighting canoe in the World. Not really sure how big we expected this to be but it carried about 80 men.
Megan wanted to find some Kauri gum, which is resin from 50,000 year old Kauri trees; it can be polished to look like amber. So off we went to Kaitaia where we were given rather vague directions about following a stream through the bush to a sand dune. 90 mins later and we're still clambering through increasingly dense vegetation, clambering up waterfalls and trudging through muddy bogs before we finally conclude we took a wrong turning somewhere. We return empty handed but scratched, pricked and bitten to death. One of those unique experiences many don't ever have! The woman at the hostel who gave us the directions took pity and gave Megan some Kauri gum. Much trouble could have been avoided had she done that to begin with!
Still on the same island as Northland but now South of Aukland, this is where most people spend much of their time. It's also where the hobbits lived! There's heaps to see and no way we'll be able to "do" everything.
We went to Whakatane and took a boat out to White Island which is NZ's only active marine volcano. That's right, it was puffing and blowing as we stood and peered down into the crater! White Island is about 30 miles off shore and looks impressively like a textbook volcano with sharp ridges around the massive central crater with an emerald lake bubbling merrily away. The whole island is covered with ash and sulphurous deposits. It smells none too good too. Upon landing you're issued with a hard hat and gas mask. See White Island for more info.
Due to the dust we picked up on clothes and shoes, we had to wash everything and the inside of the hire car stinks of hydrogen sulphide! However, this is a not to be missed trip.
Another place which doesn't smell very nice is Rotorua. Hardly surprising as it is situated on a very geothermally active area. What this means is there's steam coming out of the drains, the local park is full of bubbling mud pools and the whole town stinks of sulphur compounds (bad eggs mainly). The Pohutu geyser is here. Its 25m jets of boiling water erupt about once an hour. It's in a thermal park called Te Whakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao meaning The gathering together of the war party of Wahiao and there's a reconstructed Maori village there. We also saw a performance of Maori song and dance which was actually pretty entertaining especially the haka. This is the fearsome war dance that you may have seen the All Blacks performing before a game to psych out their opponents. Pretty effective it is too.
We were travelling the Thermal Discovery Highway - little brown road signs with a picture of a geyser told us so. It didn't take long to get used to seeing clouds of... well, clouds, coming out of the ground. Road signs reading Caution! Steam are commonplace. There's an area called "Craters of the Moon" which is odd as it's the cloudiest place we've ever seen - not at all lunar! NZ is big on geothermal power so Steve wanted to visit a power station. It's all rather strange as they just drill about 600m down into the already unstable crust and put a turbine on top! There's machinery and pipes running everywhere and with the steam issuing all over the place, it looks for all the world like a huge cloud generating machine. More so as we visited on a day thick with low cloud and rain! NZ must lead the way with geothermal and hydroelectric power. No wonder they felt able to take such a stance against nuclear power.
Visiting a geothermal power station is one thing but Zorbing is something entirely different. Never heard of it? It's one of those New Zealand "adrenalin" activities. In this one, you strap yourself inside a large sphere and get pushed off the top of a large, steep hill. What happens? Well, what do you think? You roll and bounce down the hill in some vomit inducing manner. At the bottom, you hit the fence and bob and bounce; rolling aimlessly around until someone comes to rescue you. You like the sound of this - get more details from Megan, zorb-meister extraordinaire.
Lake Taupo is just South of Rotorua. We drove there in glorious weather but soon realised it was destined to be horrible the whole time we were there. We did manage to go sailing on the lake one evening to see some "ancient" 1970 Maori rock carvings. The sailing was good, the rock carvings weren't.
We headed further South aiming to pick up the Interislander ferry to the South Island. The company which runs it has a monopoly, which means it's excruciatingly expensive - about £180 each way and you have to book way in advance to avoid the "peak" fares which are even more criminal. Thus, thanks to the money grabbing Interisland Line, we had no flexibility on how long we spent on the North Island. This meant we missed one or two things on the way down and would have to "do" them on our return North.
On the way to Wellington, we stopped in Napier, a coastal town ruined in 1931 by an huge earthquake and subsequent horrific fire. Apparently, the fire brigade would have been more successful had they had any water - the quake had damaged the mains! After the devastation, Napier was rebuilt and since art deco was all the rage... There's nothing to actually do here other than wander around looking at ludicrously over-engineered street furniture and round pastel pink buildings whilst being assaulted aurally by piped Charleston music. Oddly, it's quite interesting even if you're not a great fan of elongated cigarette holders and fur stoles. Also oddly,it wasn't raining, so it made for a very pleasant visit. We lodged at The Criterion, which was the first hotel to be reconstructed after the quake and fire and is a really grand old building.
Definitely not grand, but certainly right up there with the best of them in the old stakes is Rowena's Hostel in Wellington, which is shabby and filthy! Lonely Planet's New Zealand guide book has just been "updated" and it still claims that this is a nice hostel. Don't go there, it's terrible! Ha! Feel better now
We spent a day checking out Wellington, which is the capital of NZ (but you knew that didn't you?). Rode the tram up to the botanic gardens, and checked out the old tram museum which was surprisingly interesting and very well done. Visited Te Papa, which is the National Museum. This museum is an huge place with masses of stuff to see. It's free to enter and must receive tonnes of sponsorship money judging by the standard of the exhibits (and the all pervasive mobile phone propaganda). However, it still manages to be strangely boring. Marvelled at the government building shaped like a beehive and referred to imaginatively by the locals as "The Beehive"! Clever eh?
As mentioned, we'd been gradually heading South so as to catch the ferry to the South Island and now we were here. The forecast had not been promising and in the end, we left Wellington in 80km/h winds and with gale force storms forecast for the Cook Strait. Gulp!
Read about our South Island Trip.
Back on the North Island, we now had to wend our way back up towards Aukland as South America was looming. However, we still had a few days to do some stuff we'd missed out on when travelling South. We'd wanted to walk in the Tongariro National Park whilst in Taupo but the weather had been uncooperative. The Tongariro Crossing is billed as the best one day walk in NZ. In fact, One of the best walks in the World according to the barmaid at the motel we stayed in. She'd not actually done the walk you understand but felt qualified to opine. Anyway, we drove up in glorious weather... and walked in fog and tipping down rain the next day. Pretty common for NZ. The actual walk climbs up between Mt Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom in Lord of The Rings) and Mt Tongariro, and skirts around rims of sulphurous craters. At times it's difficult to know whether we were enveloped in cloud or volcanic steam. Strange to have to check the eruption risk as well as the weather forecast before setting out. The views could have been spectacular... but weren't. Torrential, rain, high winds on the ridges, thick cloud. It's a good walk and, with a bit of imagination regarding the views, it could be a great walk. The best in NZ? Maybe. One of the best in the World - nah! Unless you're a hardened, masochistic walker, this track needs good weather to be fun and that's not a frequent enough occurrence. We thought it was good, but saw many unprepared people en route who were seriously cold and wet - dangerously so in some cases. Megan pointed out that the only people who stayed dry were us and two other Brits. 18 year old German backpackers you expect to have jeans and trainers, but even the Kiwis were unprepared and soaked!
Actually, we'd made a good decision to walk in the rain as afterwards, it started to snow. By the next morning there was plenty of snow on the tops and gale force winds forecast. It wouldn't have been pleasant up there! Of course, the Kiwis tried to tell us that snow at this time of year is extremely unusual. Honest!
Travelling from Tongariro to Waitomo takes you through Hobbit country. The Hobbiton scene at the start of Lord of The Rings was filmed around here somewhere and we were planning to find the film set. In the end we didn't bother as the whole area is equally spectacular. Rolling, lush, green hills go on for miles. It's unsurprising they're lush, as it seems to pour down continuously! Don't remember that from the film.
The real reason for visiting Waitomo was to explore the local caves. This is a limestone area so there's heaps of caving to be found here. According to a local guide, new caves are found here quite regularly. Apparently Kiwis don't make avid cavers like the Brits do. We know some people who would love it here. Not being hardcore cavers ourselves, we booked on a so called Black Water Rafting trip. Eight of us abseiled down a 35m hole in the ground wearing wetsuits, harnesses, helmets, before stomping off down water filled passages somewhere beneath Waitomo. At one stage, we were given inflated inner tubes and had to jump into icy, cold water where we floated serenely [and shivering] down pitch black passageways illuminated by the eerie glow of the ubiquitous glowworms. Exiting from the cave involved some interesting squeezes and climbs up small, vertical, rocky tubes [Tomo in Maori], whilst water thundered down on top of us [did we mention it had been raining?]. Excellent fun! Only in New Zealand eh?
Now, at the end of our New Zealand visit and, having a full appreciation of the beauty and majesty of the landscape, we thought it fitting that we tear up the scenery on some 4WD vehicles. "Big Red" is the local company in Waitomo that hires out 300cc Honda quad-bikes. For NZ$70 (£21) each, we got our own 4x4 and local dude Bill to guide us over the local farm land. Megan ended up going sideways down a hill - apparently opposite lock proved futile. Strangely, quad-biking proved even more fun than the caving adventure of the day before. Megan says it was much more scary than climbing up some waterfall inside a mountain - go figure! Of course, the heavens opened as we started up our 4WD monsters but, for once, the rain was welcome; it made the whole trip much more slippery and muddy - great!.
So, that's New Zealand. A small country, stuck on to the globe somewhere round the back where nobody looks normally. A great place, loads to do, fantastic scenery, dreadful weather. We've written more words about this place than any other country on our trip so far. No matter how bad the weather, there's no denying that there's a bunch of stuff to see and do here. It's definitely more like Britain than anywhere else we've been so far which is interesting. At home (UK), there is not the entrepreneurial attitude you find here.
For the last 16 weeks we've been travelling in places where everyone speaks roughly the same lingo. South America should be rather more challenging - we're looking forward to it! See you there.
There seems to be a real crime problem in NZ. There are notices everywhere about cars being broken into and it's the only place so far where we've had food nicked in a hostel. It's entirely unexpected and a real disappointment. And we thought Aus was full of criminals! Perhaps the car crime has sprung up from the habit of parking cars and going off on long tramps. There's so much to see and do here there's cars parked all over the place. Tempting for low-life no doubt. Interestingly, it only seems to be a problem on the North Island.
Talking of cars being left all over the place, Northland hasn't discovered the scrap yard yet. There are rusting vehicles all over the place. So far, it's so sparsely populated, there's no real impact, but they'd better start thinking about the problem soon!
Yet again, on the subject of cars, the locals drive like lunatics. It's a simple kind of lunacy - nothing sophisticated like road rage. Just aggressive tailgating and pretending the overtaking lane goes on longer than it really does. It's quite easy to deal with but, coupled with the crime everywhere, puts a slant on the place which you don't normally hear about.
Finding accommodation is more problematic here than anywhere else. NZ seems to be a favourite destination for the backpacker. Also, the locals come out to play at weekends so it can be even more difficult to find a bed then. This means we have to book in advance which means we can't be very spontaneous about where and when we go. Quite a shame when there's so much to see and do. Again, a camper van would have alleviated much of this problem. You also seem to get the "working traveller" here as in Aus. They seem to live in the hostels and pretty much take them over. As they're all 18 and from the UK and mummy is not there with them, they are very messy and dirty. When you come into town for only one or two nights and have to live in their detritus it's not so pleasant. They are also the ones who feel they have the right to steal your food.
The hostels is NZ seem to be generally of a lower standard than in Aus. Megan reckons it's because the locals think of themselves as rufty-tufty, outdoors types who don't care about comfort. More likely they've been doing the hostel thing much longer and they [the hostels] are just worn out and shabby. Never the less, there's shameless cost cutting everywhere - no heating in many places and only cold water washing machines. Cynical? Definitely!
Now don't get the idea we didn't like the place! NZ is a great country; there's heaps to see and do. For the self-styled outdoor activity capital of the World though, NZ certainly has its share of poor weather. The Kiwis tell us Autumn is the best time to come but we suspect it's always pretty dodgy. To do any outdoor activities and have good weather for it, you need to sit around for a few days waiting for the sun. Difficult when accommodation is hard to find. Even more difficult in high season we suspect. Also means you can't be spontaneous about where and when you go.
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The longest place name in the World is not
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwll llantysiliogogogoch in Wales, but Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturi pukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwh enuaktanatahu in New Zealand, and it means The brow of a hill where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as Land Eater, played his flute to his lover. So there! |