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Well Beth, Susy and I have been in new Zealand for 2 months now, and I'm thinking I should maybe get writing this blog! It all starts with Beth, Susy and I purchasing a camper van in Auckland, with big dreams of us sleeping in it and mom and dad driving their rented car and sleeping in motels. Those dreams came to a crashing halt (well actually a smoking then crashing halt) 122km outside of Auckland. Sylvia (our van) committed suicide, but luckily for us we still had the rental car and the nicest tow truck driver came to our rescue(Mike, or was it Wayne? ) after fighting with the guy who sold us the van for a couple hours, we headed back on the road, to return to the van on Monday to take it back into Auckland and get our money back! We were trying to decide where to sleep for the night when Mike gave us a call to go stay out at his Bach in whangamata for the weekend. After much confusion over where whangamata (it was our first few days and we couldnt understand the accents yet) was and what in the world a Bach was, it was decided that we would take him up on the offer. (a Bach is a cabin)
Whangamata is on the coromandel peninsula, an absolutely gorgeous place with awesome beaches! We hit up the cathedral cove and tried to go swimming but decided the water was a bit too chilly for us, and later at low tide we built sand hot tubs at hot water beach. We made sure to enjoy a couple of ginger beers, with alcohol in them for Justine and Kevin!
After our wonderful weekend at the coromandel peninsula and taking the van in, getting the money back, and getting a rental van so we weren't quite as squished (keep in mind five adults, five pieces of large luggage etc etc), we headed off towards the land of fart smells (rotorua). Once there we hit up a Maori village that had geysers and hot mud pools, and we watched a huka ( what the all blacks do before a match) and had the most amazing meal ever, they cooked the food on hot rocks underneath the ground and it was absolutely delicious. We also ventured out to matamata where I got to explain to dad everything about the lord of the rings, while getting a tour in hobbiton (whose hole was this? If you can imagine dad asks more questions than i do) It was so cool! And dad and I loved it. At our tour we got told that out at hobbiton they get two types of people, fans and fanatics. One recent fanatic they had took a tour of hobbiton, bought the $800 gold ring, and once down in Wellington hired a helicopter to fly over mount doom, where she proceeded to throw her gold ring into it....... I wish I was making that up!!
After rotorua we proceeded on down to taupo, trying to escape the fart smell! On our way we stopped at a hot water stream with a little waterfall so it felt like jets were in the stream, we also stopped at some more mud pools and hiked through a red wood forest. We were quite disappointed when we arrived at the huka falls and found out no, you can't go swimming in them :(. After taupo we headed to the national park, whakapapa (pronounced fukapapa, please giggle, cuz I know we sure did when we first read it, poor dad), there are lots of cool hikes you can do around here, so we just had to do one (hey hiking is free) and continued along our merry way to feilding. You will never find feilding on a map of must sees in new Zealand, but lucky for us dad found out from a rancher while staying in taupo that feilding has the largest livestock auction in all of NZ and that you can get tours of it, so we went to feilding. Dad got a tour of the livestock auction and watched one, thankfully he never purchased anything because we really don't have any room in the van, and us girls went on a hike through a gorge, super awesome views!
After we found dad in Palmerston north and him getting to go in the rugby museum, we headed down to Wellington to sleep and catch the early ferry across to the south island. Once on the ferry Beth, Susy and I decided to hit up the I-site. I sites are the bomb! You can find everything you need to know about the area at them, and at this particular one we met marky mark, who proceeded to plan out our entire south island trip, including driving times, and places to stay. It was absolutely perfect and everything he told us to do was absolutely awesome, starting out with the winery to eat our lunch at across the ferry and what museum to drop dad off at so we could continue our wine tour (hey it was Australia day after all and we had to keep our Aussie happy with doing her favorite activity). After some delicious wine we continued on our way towards Abel Tasman. Oh wow, this place was gorgeous! We did a boat tour where we saw penguins, then got dropped off at one of the bays to do a hike to the next bay, where we got to go swimming before being picked up by the boat. The sand was a goldy color and the water was a perfect temperature for swimming around, and Beth and I sure do enjoy playing in the waves!
The next day we headed to charleston to do an underworld cave exploring! We took tubes and hiked throughout the caves seeing stalagmites and stalactites all over. Then we got into the water, shut off our head lamps and laid back looking up at the glow worms! It was like looking up at stars that were literally right above our heads! After floating along the river inside the cave we eventually made it outside. We got to float along here until we reached the little train that'd take us back to the bus. Along this river there was a set of mini rapids that we went down, both Beth and dad flipped their tube going down these, so we all got a good laugh at that ;)
They took pictures of us along the way which were included with our tour which was another super awesome thing! Also we were decked out in wet suits, etc the whole time. Charleston was an old mining town, they took out millions of dollars of gold in its time. After this we went on our way to stay at punakaki. At punakaki we did a hike that was gorgeous! We also checked out the pancake rocks here which look like, you guessed it, pancakes. We headed along our merry way, but of course we hadn't had a vehicle break down on us in awhile, so our van decided to break down, don't worry just the shocks this time. Lucky Beth, Susy, and I because the van broke down right outside monteiths brewery, where we got to enjoy a lovely tasting plate of beers while the van got fixed. Once the van got fixed, dad got to test out his driving skills in new Zealand. There was a bit of white knuckling but we survived! We stayed in Franz Josef that night with us girls staying at a doc site (cheap camping) right on a lake. It was so crazy to watch three guys water skiing at nine at night with snow capped mountains in the back ground.
The next day we hiked Up to fox glacier, Which was super cool to see! We made sure not to cross the boundary with all the warnings that we will die if we do, and headed on our way to wanaka. On the way to wanaka we stopped along haast pass at a place that sells whitebait patties. They were really good, after you got over the fact that you were eating tiny fish that look like minnows!
After our delicious lunch of white bait we continued on our way to wanaka and queenstown where Susy got a full time job as a physiotherapist! We hiked up the gondola( no way would we pay 20 bucks when you could do the hike for free) and acted like little kids riding down on the luge carts :). We were in Queenstown all of 28 hours, and in that 28 hours we managed to eat at fergburger twice, and boy oh boy were you right Justine, it is the best looking and tasting burger I have ever had!!
Then we headed to te anau where we experienced our first rain of the trip! We drove the crazy road to milford sound( and picked up our first hitchikers) and made it back to head to doubtful sound the next day. Luckily it stopped raining on us right as we were stepping on the boat to take us on our overnight cruise on doubtful sound. The road we drove on to get from the first lake to doubtful sound cost $2 per centimeter to build! And its just a gravel road! They first built it for a hydro station out there which is still running. Wow, our doubtful sound tour was absolutely amazing! The views and the boat were awesome! We saw dolphins, fur seals, fish, birds, etc sweet as, mate! And we also got to go kayaking and since it rained the waterfalls were running which was so gorgeous to see! One of the best tours we have done in new Zealand for sure! They warned us that the boats engines will wake you up at 6:15 am and they were not kidding, it was a rough wake up call especially after drinking bottles of wine and playing trivial pursuit (Australia edition so Susy cleaned up) till late the night before.
After the doubtful sound excursion, we left Susy since she had to go start her new job and we headed down the road to Dunedin, but not before having one of the best pies in new Zealand! In Dunedin we headed to a beach at dusk to see penguins coming in for the night.
The next day we headed to larnach castle which had gorgeous gardens and was really nice inside.fun fact, the original owner first was married and had all his kids, then his wife died suddenly and he married his wife's sister who always lived with them. None of the kids liked the sister Mary because they thought she'd take their inheritance ( spoiled much?). She was always alone and none of the servants liked her either. She ended up dying and since william ( the dad) put everything in her name so that if he went bankrupt they wouldn't have to give up their stuff, she dispersed everything to the kids in her will. William didn't like this and tricked all of his kids to sign the house etc back over to him. He then married a woman (constance) who was 33 and he was 57. It was rumored that one of his sons was having an affair with her, and William killed himself. Since he died without a will, everything went to Constance, the kids didn't like this, except for the one banging her, they took it to court saying their father forced them to sign a document they didn't know what it was. Constance and th son with her wanted to live and maintain the house their, but all of the kids won their case and no one lived there. They eventually sold it. The people who own it now found it in near ruins and fixed it up and Now you can stay over night in the stables. We also hit up the Cadbury factory there (how could we not?). At this point, the weeks with women only was really getting to dad, it was especially evident after beth heard him having an argument with himself on the street. ( i think he was just missing mom for the 30 min we were apart). After this we headed towards Christchurch stopping in omaru where we happened upon a fair that was going on. It was pretty cool! They even had a new Zealand navy boat where you could take a little boat out to take a tour of it, but sadly we were too late to do it!
We stayed at a place outside of Christchurch and the next day all we had time for was to go to the arctic centre before we had to rush to catch our ferry. At the arctic centre for some reason I was the only one who wanted to experience the "real" blizzard like conditions. Well basically they put you in this room that has snow, they give you a jacket and little booties to go over your sandals. I was in shorts, so it's -8 and they increased the wind chill to -18.8 Celsius, I was kind of laughing while all the other tourists in the room were shivering.
After this we rushed to picton to catch the night ferry back to Wellington on the north island. In Wellington we hit up weta cave which was a pretty cool place to go. They do lots of props, etc for a lot of big name movies like lord of the rings, avatar, etc. after this we got lost driving around downtown Wellington, eventually we just parked and walked around the awesome Cuban district, shopping and the te papa museum. On our way back up to Auckland we stopped in taupo again (2nd time of 4 total) and relaxed on the beach. We eventually made it back to Auckland, but not before stopping in to see dads new best friend, mike ( guy who saved us after we broke down with our first camper van).
Well I think I've rambled on for long enough and I'm needing a break so Beth and my adventures in the northland and with Ben will have to wait for another post. Cheers!
Fun facts about NZ:
A good majority of the bridges over creeks, streams, rivers, etc are one way bridges where one side has to yield to the other, this novelty got old really fast
Sweet as, everyone says it, basically means awesome, add 'as' behind anything and you'll fit right in
Kia Ora : greeting in Maori ( the native people here)
A lot of people walk around barefoot, it's not something we have embraced yet, oh never mind I did on Sunday night (damn broken flip flops)
Oh and don't have to watch out for deer or any large wildlife on the road (just possums)
- comments
Andrea C. Awesome post stephy , I loved hearing about your adventures ! Have fun , stay safe and hello to everyone !
Jennifer V Nice to hear about your adventures everyone! Will Susy do a guest blog post next? Take care :)
Taylor Very interesting Steph!!! Can't wait to hear more!!
Justine Loved reading this, Stephy! Can't wait to hear more :)
Renee Good work Steph!! Keep'em coming ;) Love hearing what you're up to, while Mat and I slave away renovating our house, we'll picture you guys on the beach! Be Safe, Have Fun, xoxo