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A very Happy New Year to everyone and hope 2013 is off to a blinding start! So far 2013 for us has been a blast, staying with fantastic friends who have kindly shown us around, taken us out then let us lounge around, watch tv and do laundry - bliss! I think as we've said before this trip has been amazing but what has made it exceptional is both old and new friends - but before I get to into my winding up speech let me mention the rest of our travels since we left Awesome Australia..............
So, going back what seems forever ago now we landed in Auckland, New Zealand on the 3rd November once again a tad dazed and sleep deprived due to time zones and cheap flights! However we were luckily enough to be met and housed by lovely friends for a few days. So our first few days in New Zealand we were luckily enough to be able to quiz the natives for travel ideas and locations. Vance and Donna showed us round their lovely town and also took us to their lovely summer spot where they have a carahome and our first experience of New Zealand was - wow this is going to be a great trip! After transferring back from air travel zombies to somewhat normal again (thanks to the lovely welcome) we headed off to Auckland city for the day and night before picking up our camper van the following day. Auckland has a fantastic museum (conveniently called Auckland Museum) where we spent most of our day. Favourite part was probably finding out more about how New Zealand was formed and the volcanic and thermo activity - which of course is great to know when you're spending 6 weeks around active volcanoes and earthquake zones.
So after a lovely day in Auckland we got up the next morning and went to pick up our 4 wheel home for the next 5 and a bit weeks - FEP'e1 was a quaint white Mitsubishi work van modified into a somewhat (depending on outside temperature) cosy home on wheels. So stuff packed in off we set for our first visit on the North Island - heading to Coronadel. After travelling by car in Australia, New Zealand initially seemed tiny and we wondered if maybe we have time to spare ...... we hadn't anticipated though how much fantastic stuff is crammed in to these two islands! So we arrived in a lovely town called HuaHin, HaHi Beach where we stayed for 2 nights and took a great hike over to Cathedral Cove for some fantastic pictures on the hike back we stopped for ice cream - nice way to start the trip. The morning we left HuaHin we stopped at hot spring beach where we got our first experience of thermo - as you walk along the beach you can see what initially looks like mist rising off of the sand on closer inspection you find its actually steam and if you then dig down into the sand you can stand, sit or as some do, make a bath for yourself in hot thermal water - need to cool off - easy just dig your hole near the sea line and let the sea wash into the hole and mix with the water - it's weird!
So after being amazed by this and having lovely toasty clean feet we headed off to our next stop .......... Hobbiton! We couldn't help ourselves, we took the tour and it was fantastic - pics to follow. As we made good time with the driving we continued on after the tour to Rotorua a town which quite frankly - stank of rotten eggs! Rotorua is quite rightly nicknamed Sulphur City a smelly reminder that you are in a beautiful place with geothermal activity - some say you get used to the smell - we said lets look and leave! From Rotorua we headed to Taupo - which is a big playground for anyone that has a boat or is water activity minded. We stayed in a lovely campsite out of town that had its own thermal walk in its back garden - the guy gave us a temperature gun to point at the ground as we walked round to see the extreme differences in temperature - it's pretty crazy how much it changes (pics to follow). As it was on our way we decided to stop at Napier for some wine tasting where we came across a new favourite wine with the Gewuerztraminer grape - yum! From here we drove down to NZ's capital Wellington where we stayed for 2 nights before getting the ferry across to the South Island. One of the greatest things about NZ is that is doesn't really seem to matter where you go, everywhere is pretty amazing. Wellington was a lovely city to wander round, however we did notice it was a tad chillier and we were heading south to even more cooler places so a couple of extra hat and glove purchases were made in preparation.
On the morning on the 14th November we caught the ferry across from the North to the South Island - the crossing itself is a fantastic trip, as you head into the South Island you go through Marlborough sounds which gives you a taster of the beautiful scenery to come. We were also treated to a viewing (with the special glasses) of a partial eclipse as we made the crossing - not a bad way to start the day. Once we arrived it was back into FEP'e1 and off to Blenheim yet another wine region. We found a lovely motor park in a town called Renwick who supplied bikes and a map for local wine tour - well what else could we do......... So after a good nights sleep it was up early, fitted out with bikes that conveniently had saddle bags perfectly sized for bottles of wine and were off cycling to our first vineyard and wine tasting - 5 vineyards, lunch, and saddle bags almost full later we were wobbling back to FEP'e1 - something we've always wanted to do and weren't disappointed at all - food, wine, exercise (well if the slow wobble of a cycle could be described as that!) and lovely weather - what a perfect day!
After an extra days rest or recovering from too much wine we headed off again towards Christchurch along the way we had been told to look out for a certain waterfall walk where there were seals also. We stopped where seemed like the location, and you know when you start doing something on the advice of someone else and you're not quite sure what to exactly expect (or maybe just weren't listening properly) - well i don't think you could have described the awesomeness of this stop but i'll give it a go...... When we first stopped we parked on the beach side of the road and could see some seals just hanging out on the rocks which was pretty cool - we then crossed over the road and began a short walk following a stream which worked its way inland. As we walked along we spotted a younger seal just sleeping on one of the rocks just off the stream - cute - continuing walking we eventually came across a small pool with a tall but small waterfall into it - then we noticed that there was also 5-6 baby seals in the pool playing - it was amazing. Apparently the mothers come up the stream to have the babies then leave them there to grow until they are ready to come down to the beach - it really was an amazing natural sight - as always pictures to follow but again with NZ you just see amazing things and they are just the planet at work and totally natural (except for the Hobbits - sorry).
We moved on to Christchurch, as always i feel somewhat uncomfortable visiting areas that have had such misfortune but what we saw was not what we expected. The centre of Christchurch is closed - and that means closed, fenced off, can't walk though it just around it. There are so many empty buildings just waiting to be knocked down and rebuilt but due to the scale of it nothing is happening that quickly which is such a shame. In the meantime whilst they wait for a centre once again they have built a shopping centre out of brightly coloured shipping creates.
From Christchurch we made our way Dunedin for a stop in at the Cadbury factory - it was great fun and we got lots of chocolate to keep us going on our trip - we decided to head to Otago peninsula where we could see Albatross - very large prehistoric looking seagulls! This was our last stop on the east coast and the next morning we set off along the south coast for the Catlins Coast drive. Along this drive there is some amazing coastline we stopped overnight in a motorpark in Curio Bay where there is a Petrified Forest (a fossilised forrest from Jurassic times - amazing) and also got to see some rare yellow eyed penguins just waddling around on the rocks.
After Catlins we headed to up to Te Anau - a small town that is a great entry point for the sounds. We decided to book a kayak tour of Milford Sound the next day and headed off early to Milford with our group. The trip to Milford is amazing in itself and i'll let Marks photos show that bit. The kayaking was fun but unfortunately the waters were pretty rough so we didn't get to go out and round the sound as much as we'd hoped but was a thoroughly enjoyable day all the same. From Te Anau we headed to the playground that is Queenstown - its a busy fun town and to be honest i don't think we met that many New Zealanders there just lots of people travelling and enjoying the extreme sports, oh and also home to the Fergburger a totally tasty burger anytime of day. We stayed a couple of days in Queenstown then headed out to a small town called Glenorchy - amazing scenery which we decided to explore by horseback - it turns out that Mark was riding one of the horses that had been used in the Lord of the Rings - a horse of Rohan called Oscar - most happy.
Next stop was our much anticipated trip onto the Fox Glacier, we'd booked a helihike so we got a helicopter ride up onto the Glacier then hiked around for a few hours then a helicopter ride back down - totally amazing, breathtaking - this was possibly my favourite part of the trip - just amazing - photos will show better. After the thrill of the Glaciers we started our trip back up to Picton to get the ferry back across to the North island for our final week. On the way up we stopped at the pancake rocks and blowholes along the coast - yet another natural phenomenom and once again amazing to see.
We took the ferry back across to the North Island on the 6th December and stayed in Wellington for a night again - this time we went to Weta Cave which is the workshop used most notably for Avatar and Lord of the Rings. It is just a small museum to let you know what they've done, how they were formed etc but when you step back you can see how enormous the whole set up is and it all started from a couple that liked modelling and doing scary makeup!
From Wellington we drove on to Tongariro National Park where we initially had planned to hike the Tongariro crossing however in recent weeks there had been volcanic activity so the second part of the crossing was closed. We still got a fantastic hike in (you could still hike half way then turn around and come back) - the pictures are amazing and needlessly to say we were totally knackered at the end of the day - but such breathtaking views were worth the slog!
After a days rest from the hike we started off to our last planned trip of Waitomo Caves - unfortunately this was the day that our beloved FEP'e1 could do no more - he'd taken us nearly 5,000 miles around New Zealand but his cam belt said no more - luckily this happened near someones house so we called our rental who were great and had a replacement out to us - we spent the day in a garage car park waiting for FEP'e2 who arrived to us at 7pm. We quickly moved our stuff across, said a sad farewell to FEP'e1 and headed off to Waitomo to camp and get some sleep before our Jurassic caving adventure the next day. Good time made and a good sleep later we were up and hiking towards our caving experience. And in true repeating style - what a fantastic day! We did the lost world tour which entailed a 100 meter abseil into a void of beauty and then hiking/climbing/sliding through the caves finishing off with a 30 meter ladder climb out of the cave - a thrilling experience.
After Waitomo we were heading back to the Auckland area - we stopped to see more friends that lived out near Bethels Beach area. They had a lovely spot of land and brewed their own beer - great way to finish off our tip........ well that and a visit to the cinema to see the Hobbit whilst we were in NZ!
This is a long blog and to be honest i've only touched on the trip - Mark will upload photos that as always will give you a better view of the trip - I still have to write about Rarotonga, Vancouver and Toronto but your eyes must be closing by now so i'll post again soon with the final weeks of our trip! Z&Mx
- comments
Jasper Loving the blog. My friends and I are heading to New Zealand in a couple of months to shoot virtual tours and were looking for some great spots. Our website is Virtual Tours by Lion Tree. Luxury 360 virtual tours We especially like the sound of the South Island and Hobbiton. Thanks for the great insite. Please keep up the blog. Cheers