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Hello!
It seems very strange to be finally getting around to writing about our time in the North Island of NZ when we are melting in the heat of the USA... but we are very behind.....This is when Holly's little diary comes handy!
So, heading north we hopped on the early ferry across to the North Island and Wellington. Despite being ridiculously expensive to take a campervan across ($200!) it was a beautiful journey as we left Picton and travelled through Marlborough Sound. Following us as we left port was a pod of dolphins who raced the ferry until we had reached open water.
In Wellington we met up and stayed with another pair of travellers. Charlotte and Craig, who we visited in KL at the start of our travels, had relocated back to Craig's hometown and had just finished renovating their beautiful house. It was lovely to see them again and catch up on all the changes that had happened in our lives since last August but this time in the rather chillier city of Wellington.
Being the capital city, Wellington holds the nation's parliament which we visited. As with Australia, the building and structure of parliament is modelled very much on the UK system but this time only has one house and doesn't feature an equivalent of our House of Lords. We visited just as the budget had been announced and in the chamber there was some hilarious heckling going on! Touring the beautiful building, you could see the amazing earthquake proof foundations that had been installed by cutting away the existing foundations one section at a time and replacing them with base isolators. Seeing as the fault line is only 400m away, this was pretty essential!
Wellington has recently become renowned in the movie world for being home to the Weta movie studios which now stands as the 2nd largest digital studios in the world behind Pixar. This is mostly due to the success of Lord of the Rings and the Peter Jackson effect who continues to live in the city. Before leaving the city, we visited the Weta Cave and saw some of the awesome costumes and props on display in the tiny museum and shop.
Driving north, we headed to Tongariro national park to view the two main volcanoes called Ruapehu and Ngarmrihoe (Mt Doom to you Lord of the Rings fans). On the way whilst we were looking for a caravan park, we had a little run in with the police earning Tom a hefty fine! Oops!!
The next day we did a long walk to see both volcanoes at close hand. Although both are currently inactive, it is only 20 odd years since one erupted and you can see the remains of some of the lava on the walk.
Our next stop was Rotorua and the beautiful eggy and sulphur smells which for 2 days surrounded us. Rotorua is known for it's amazing geysers and hot springs caused by the geothermal activity which lies so close to the surface. As you walk through parts of the town, you can see hot water bubbling up through the pavement.
That evening we attended one of the cultural performances at Te Puia, which was one of the highlights of our time in NZ. From the start, the group you are in are treated as a group of travellers and given the traditional Maori welcome where your leader is challenged and offered a feather which he can accept or decline. If he accepts, you are welcomed in to join them for dinner.... If not, well, you aren't and go hungry! Fortunately he accepted the feather. The traditional hangi dinner was amazing and cooked underground pit filled with hot coals and was accompanied by lots of music and dancing performed by the tribe. Tom even got involved in part of the haka! The evening ended with us heading down to the geyser and trying to catch it erupting. This occurs naturally and so can be quite sporadic, but thankfully we caught it at the right time and it was quite spectacular! Due to the geothermal activity, you could sit on the rocks which were naturally heated from underneath - natures own seat warmers!
The next day we went to the Lady Knox geyser at Wai-o-Tapu. Unlike the geyser from the previous night, it was given a little help from man in erupting for the tourists through the use of soap! Apparently, so the story goes, a prisoner was washing his clothes back in the 1800's in the hot springs and the soap caused an eruption in the highly sulphured water.
On our last couple of days before returning the camper van, we drove north of Rotorua to Mattamatta. This might not mean much to you but it's the home of Hobbiton, where much of the Lord the Rings and the Hobbit was filmed. The next day we drove onto Waitomo where we took a tour of the Footwhistle cave, which contained thousands of tiny glowworms for which the area is so well know.
Looking back now from the baking heat of southern USA, the weather could not have been more different. For the last few days in the north island it seemed to rain constantly - what Texas would do for just one day of that!
We then headed onto Auckland where we were meeting and staying with a friend of ours from Parliament. Sarah had moved back to NZ before we married and it was lovely to see her and her family. We also got the chance to meet with Michelle who is an old colleague of Hollys from Heronsgate and has now returned to NZ.
With the flight changes that were forced on us by Qantas, we managed to move our flight from
NZ by a day, which meant we could go and watch the All Blacks v Ireland at Eden Park with another friend Sammi and her friends. This was a great way to end our time in NZ.
Sadly, the next day meant a 3am wake up call for a flight not to America.... No, we had to fly back to Brisbane to fly onto LA as Qantas decided to cancel the direct route we were due to take from Auckland. Because of the crossing of the international date line, it meant leaving Auckland at 6am and arriving 16hrs of flying later at 6.30am the same day! Argh!!!! The body clock was completely out of sync for a good few days but we'll pick up on that and our time in the States next time....
T&H x
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