The North Island of New Zealand

So since my last journal entry, I have switched countries, currencies, and have added a travel partner. My last night in Sydney included spending some time with some fresh arrivals to Australia from Edmonton Alberta. Two gents and a gal, three friends from high school were on a 20-day trip to Australia. For one of the guys, this was his first trip outside of Alberta! So he had plenty of discoveries during the trip. Using different currency, using his passport, and seeing the ocean for the first time. But I caught these guys in the room later into the evening, so we pretty much hung out and had a few drinks and talked about what its like to be a Canadian. The guys got pretty involved with a political discussion while the girl didn’t’ seem to interested. It was one of the guy’s 21st birthday, so we were helping him along with plenty of drinks before they were going to go out on the town. I had already gotten myself ready for a night of rest, so I wouldn’t be joining them. However, I had plenty of things to be excited about since I’d be leaving Australia for New Zealand and joining Catherine after not seeing her for the last two months.

I woke up around 4:30am the next morning, probably around 15 minutes after the boys got back in from their late night… regardess, I tried to be up and out of the room as soon as possible to avoid disturbing their first half hour of sleep. I made my way out of the hostel, grabbed a bowl of cereal and made my way down to the railway station, which was 1 minute out the door. Surprisingly, there were quite a few people up and stirring at this point in the morning. Approximately, half of which were struggling to get home from the night before, and another half who were slamming their coffee in preperation for their day of work ahead.

Sydney’s Kingford Smith Airport is quite a sight, really well done and clean. And if you think planes are cool, you pretty much have your pick from a good handful of massive passenger aircraft from all over the world. I watched flights arrive from the US, Asia, and Europe. I had a relatively short flight from Sydney to Auckland next to a women who was on her 4th leg of 5 flights back from Ireland. Upon arrival to Auckland, things went fine, I had to have my soccer boots inspected since they had some dirt on them, which apparently is bad for customs, but on the up side, they cleaned my shoes for me, and returned them with a smile on their faces.

Catherine met me just on the other side of security and we fumbled around getting oriented and made our way out to our champaign (pink) colored rental car that slightly resembled an ugly egg. In terms of our needs and what we would be using the car for, it was a perfect fit. In terms of being socially acceptable and trendy, it was a total failure. It wasn’t exactly a perfect vehicle ether, the passenger side door lock was pushed into the body frame, all of the warning labels were written in Japanese (with no English translations), this is in addition to our less than perfect driving habits while on the left side of the road, but we made it ok.

We spent the first portion of the day touring around Auckland and some of the beach areas outside of the city, but since it is winter, our daylight hours were cut short. We had booked a bed and brekkie place right outside of the city so we wanted to make it there before it got too late. We arrived to our B&B which was called “Fringe of Heaven”, cheesy name right?, but the place is ridiculously nice. A Frank Lloyd Wright inspired home which sat on a tall hill with wide landscaping windows that look over into the bay. The home was almost entirely custom and had very nice touches in all places. Our hosts were a couple by the name of Bev and Julian, who were a very hospitiable couple. They offered us some wine and suggestions for places for dinner in the area.

The next day, we would start off with a full and massive breakfast consisting of bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast, cereal, fruit, and juice…. All with the expansive view of the bay in front of us. Unfortunately, our trip in heaven had to end and we made our way back to the road. Our first day would be some driving and a trip the Waitomo Caves for a “Black Abyss” tour… So to be honest, I didn’t really know what Cat had in store for me, I was merely a bystander in her planning of a hit-and-run New Zealand Trip in 10 days. But, I had good faith in her, as she is a very good planner. So when she had mentioned to me, that we would be going to see glow worms in underground caves, I imagined a nice cozy tour with hot chocolate and maybe a helment. I didn’t realize that I would be wearing a wetsuit, helmet, headlamp and climbing harness, all at the same time. To give a quick runthrough, we did in fact watch glowworms, but it was after we rappelled 60 feet down into a hole in the ground, jumped 15 feet into an underground river, floated around in that underground river (mind you the water was probably 55 degrees), climbed up over, around, and through multiple strong waterfalls, and then climbed out against the current. It was quite a surprise, but has probably been the most fun adventure so far on the trip! I’d really really recommend it to anyone heading down to that area because I had such a great time. That night, we trekked our way down to Rotarua, a provincial town that has quite a bit to offer.

When we arrived, it seemed a bit of an industrial and grungy place, with steam rising from all over. Little did I realize that this steam was rising from the many hot springs in the area. We spent the night in a small hostel called Funky Green Backpackers. The double room that we stayed actually was a separate unit from the main hostel, and was similar to a 3 bedroom apartment. We cooked a nice pasta dinner and prepared our belongings for the next few days.

The next day, we woke at a reasonable time and took a tour around Rotarua before continuning our journey south towards Wellington. We stopped in a place called the something-wonderland, which consisted of many hot springs and geyer type of formations. The formations were not the most impressive, but the colors of the waters we saw were quite amazing. We saw some bodies of water which were entirely neon green and bubling like they were from a witches cauldron. After that short trip, we went southward towards Taupo, a bustling backpacker town on the tip of Lake Taupo. We stayed at Tiki Backpackers, which was a tidy place with grand windows overlooking the lake and the snow-capped peaks beyond. As an aside, this time of year is an awesome time to see NZ because it’s so quiet, and places are not overcrowded. It’s a bit chilly, but not cold enough where you wouldn’t enjoy yourself.

We trekked around Taupo and did the usual essentials, groceries, internet, and a guilty pleasure trip to the local fast-food joint for some fries. We prided ourselves on cooking yet another good meal, which for us is quite the achievement. We woke up the next morning for a long trek southward to end up in Wellington.

Before making it to Wellington, we had plenty of scenery to greet us along the way. We stopped at a national park, which it’s name is eluding me at the moment, but it is where Mt. Doom was filmed for the Lord of the Rings movies. Which also means nothing to me since I don’t’ follow any of that. However, it was the most volcanic thing I’d ever seen in my life. Capped with snow, it was a gorgeous site. We stopped in the small basecamp for the three mountains in the area and took a short 2-hour hike to a small falls in the area. Had we stayed longer, I would have very much like to take a trip to the summit or hire a bike and do some mtn. biking in the area. However, that would have to wait for a later date. After our stop there, we drove south for another 5 hours or so passing some of my favorite landscape and thousands of sheep before making it to Wellington.

Wellington is quite a grungy city, having a feeling of Portland, OR but with a landscape of San Francisco bent in a circle. We didn’t get to see much of it last night, but we did manage to go out for a quite run of Thai food and a bar of ice cream. We went back to our hostel (Rosemere Backpackers), to plan for our next few days. This hostel was pretty unique and homly feeling, I’d definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a bit of a funky but friendly place.

Today, we woke up a bit earlier (like 20 minutes earlier) so we could get a quick glimpse of Wellington. Lucky for us, the sun was actually out, which is quite rare for this city. We drove up to the viewpoint near the top of the cable car and got some grand views of the city. Next, we had to catch the ferry over to the south island. But only after a short hike down the hill to locate the nearest Starbucks so catch some internet and for Cat to get a quick bit of coffee.

So now, 1700 words, and about 20 miles later, I’m on a ferry headed towards Picton on the south island of New Zealand, we have a little less than a week on our trip before life picks up again like a whirlwind back for me in Berkeley, and for Catherine in Atlanta. We have some pretty awesome trips planned still. Sea Kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park, Glacier Hiking at Franz Josef Glacier, some bungee jumping in Queenstown, and whatever else we find to fill the time between now and then. So I hope to have some pretty exciting things to report on in the next few days. But until then, I hope you all are doing well at home, and thanks for continuning to read these long and grammatically incorrect blogs!

Paul