Tuesday, January 18, 2005
The North Island eh? Sweet as bro!
Greetings from NZ - a little overdue on the old blogging this time as we currently reside in the South Island but first things first.
We started our Kiwi adventure in Auckland - arriving to a beautiful New Zealand summer of torrential hail and galeforce winds. This was a little shock and I immediately regretted sending home some of my cold weather gear. One Kiwi girl working in our hostel told us they haven't had a summer for 2 years - and we thought our summers were bad!
Auckland is not a particularly attractive city but it does have a superb location on the harbour with great views from some of the extinct volcanoes around and about that you can climb up.
From Auckland we headed north to the imaginatively named Northland and based ourselves in the Bay of Islands for a few days around Christmas. The Bay of Islands, again, is exactly what is says on the tin and is a pretty nice place to spend a few days with little green wooded islands circled by sandy bays and clear water. We dived in the Poor Knight's Islands which is perportedly one of the world's top 10 dive sights. For us it was very different as most of our diving has been in tropical locations. The scenery was very new - a lot of long ribbon seaweed, colourful corals, caves and many new fish species. The water was bloomin' freezing though and the hot shower on board our boat was very welcome. Unfortunately - I thought this might be my last dive trip ever as I was monumentaly ill on the way out through the rough seas. It was like a scene form the exorcist with me in full seizure being sick everywhere. Absolutely revolting and totally puts me off diving unless I can guarantee calmer seas.
We also took a boat trip out through the islands and saw dolphins playing in our wake.
Christmas was slightly odd - we woke up and dashed down to the beach for a swim in the chilly sea - I have never swam in the sea on Christmas day so it had to be done. We then had a big cooked brekkie in our hostel with our hosts providing all the BBQ brekkie stuff and us providing the champagne - a good start to the day. Nick and I went out for a posh lunch leaving al the skanky backpackers behind! I tucked into my oysters with glee - only for them to come back to haunt me as I spent the entire afternoon vomiting my way back to the hostel. So - not the best Christmas Day ever, but there we go.
From the Bay of Islands we headed to Rotarua for the thermal landscapes of the North Island - with a lot of sulphurous steam being released all over the town itself and the surrounding area. There are some superb parks nearby to get a good look at sulphur caves, bubbling mud, champagne pools lined with red bubbling rocks and geysers.
We also tried zorbing here which is basically climbing inside a big plastic ball and throwing in a couple of buckets of water then being pushed down a hill - hilarious experience and so much fun that I had to do it again.
Rotarua is also the Maori centre of NZ and a good opportunity to take in a Maori show which was interesting. Seems to be a big push to keep the Maori launguage and culture going in some parts of NZ which is great.
Waitomo was the next stop and the only reason to go here is from gloworm caves and a spot of caving. Once our wetsuits were donned we headed down into a cave to tube and walk and swim through a cave network. The rain was coming down so hard that the water levels in the cave were about to reach the roof so we had to turn back. But an unforgetable experience to drift though a pitch black cave lit on the roof with tiny pins of light from the gloworms making it look like a starry night.
Time for our first NZ Great Walk of this trip - Tongariro Crossing - the weather was so bad one day that we had to postpone the trek, but after a day of waiting we managed to get out there - there a a couple of steep bits up to volcanic craters, but other than that it is pretty smooth. Lots of Martian lanscapes and more sulphur, red craters, white craters, emerald lakes and blue lakes and good views once the clouds lifted.
Our second NZ Great Walk was a kayak trip - 3 days on the Whanganui river. A bit nerve wracking to begin with as the 2-man kayak seemed remarkably unstable and I was convinced we were going to capsize through soem of the grade1 rapids. The second day was a lot more enjoyable once we had mastered the kayak (and Nick had taken over the steering - somehow I could not get it to go quite where I wanted!). The scenery is very lovely - steep gorges rise out of the river, a lot of trees and birdlife along the banks and just the peace and tranquility of getting away from everything for a while. Some of the campsite where really good and we had a great last night camping over looking the river with a little log fire going as the sun went down - perfect!
Had to try a drop or two of the famous NZ wines so we nipped over to the east of the island to Hawkes Bay - NZ's second biggest wine area. We spent a day trying various wines in 4 vineyards and also found time for a delicious long lunch in one looking over the valley and the vines. We also finally found some quality summer weather - this was soon to change.
Our last stop on the North Island was Wellington - a small city with more of town feel to it than a city. Difficult to get a real feel for the place as we were only there for a couple of days, but it seemed pretty nice. Some good museums, nice cafes and bars but not a whole heap going on. Not sure about the weather though - seems like October in England when it is supposed to be the height of summer.
We started our Kiwi adventure in Auckland - arriving to a beautiful New Zealand summer of torrential hail and galeforce winds. This was a little shock and I immediately regretted sending home some of my cold weather gear. One Kiwi girl working in our hostel told us they haven't had a summer for 2 years - and we thought our summers were bad!
Auckland is not a particularly attractive city but it does have a superb location on the harbour with great views from some of the extinct volcanoes around and about that you can climb up.
From Auckland we headed north to the imaginatively named Northland and based ourselves in the Bay of Islands for a few days around Christmas. The Bay of Islands, again, is exactly what is says on the tin and is a pretty nice place to spend a few days with little green wooded islands circled by sandy bays and clear water. We dived in the Poor Knight's Islands which is perportedly one of the world's top 10 dive sights. For us it was very different as most of our diving has been in tropical locations. The scenery was very new - a lot of long ribbon seaweed, colourful corals, caves and many new fish species. The water was bloomin' freezing though and the hot shower on board our boat was very welcome. Unfortunately - I thought this might be my last dive trip ever as I was monumentaly ill on the way out through the rough seas. It was like a scene form the exorcist with me in full seizure being sick everywhere. Absolutely revolting and totally puts me off diving unless I can guarantee calmer seas.
We also took a boat trip out through the islands and saw dolphins playing in our wake.
Christmas was slightly odd - we woke up and dashed down to the beach for a swim in the chilly sea - I have never swam in the sea on Christmas day so it had to be done. We then had a big cooked brekkie in our hostel with our hosts providing all the BBQ brekkie stuff and us providing the champagne - a good start to the day. Nick and I went out for a posh lunch leaving al the skanky backpackers behind! I tucked into my oysters with glee - only for them to come back to haunt me as I spent the entire afternoon vomiting my way back to the hostel. So - not the best Christmas Day ever, but there we go.
From the Bay of Islands we headed to Rotarua for the thermal landscapes of the North Island - with a lot of sulphurous steam being released all over the town itself and the surrounding area. There are some superb parks nearby to get a good look at sulphur caves, bubbling mud, champagne pools lined with red bubbling rocks and geysers.
We also tried zorbing here which is basically climbing inside a big plastic ball and throwing in a couple of buckets of water then being pushed down a hill - hilarious experience and so much fun that I had to do it again.
Rotarua is also the Maori centre of NZ and a good opportunity to take in a Maori show which was interesting. Seems to be a big push to keep the Maori launguage and culture going in some parts of NZ which is great.
Waitomo was the next stop and the only reason to go here is from gloworm caves and a spot of caving. Once our wetsuits were donned we headed down into a cave to tube and walk and swim through a cave network. The rain was coming down so hard that the water levels in the cave were about to reach the roof so we had to turn back. But an unforgetable experience to drift though a pitch black cave lit on the roof with tiny pins of light from the gloworms making it look like a starry night.
Time for our first NZ Great Walk of this trip - Tongariro Crossing - the weather was so bad one day that we had to postpone the trek, but after a day of waiting we managed to get out there - there a a couple of steep bits up to volcanic craters, but other than that it is pretty smooth. Lots of Martian lanscapes and more sulphur, red craters, white craters, emerald lakes and blue lakes and good views once the clouds lifted.
Our second NZ Great Walk was a kayak trip - 3 days on the Whanganui river. A bit nerve wracking to begin with as the 2-man kayak seemed remarkably unstable and I was convinced we were going to capsize through soem of the grade1 rapids. The second day was a lot more enjoyable once we had mastered the kayak (and Nick had taken over the steering - somehow I could not get it to go quite where I wanted!). The scenery is very lovely - steep gorges rise out of the river, a lot of trees and birdlife along the banks and just the peace and tranquility of getting away from everything for a while. Some of the campsite where really good and we had a great last night camping over looking the river with a little log fire going as the sun went down - perfect!
Had to try a drop or two of the famous NZ wines so we nipped over to the east of the island to Hawkes Bay - NZ's second biggest wine area. We spent a day trying various wines in 4 vineyards and also found time for a delicious long lunch in one looking over the valley and the vines. We also finally found some quality summer weather - this was soon to change.
Our last stop on the North Island was Wellington - a small city with more of town feel to it than a city. Difficult to get a real feel for the place as we were only there for a couple of days, but it seemed pretty nice. Some good museums, nice cafes and bars but not a whole heap going on. Not sure about the weather though - seems like October in England when it is supposed to be the height of summer.
