Last Post!

March 28 - More boats and bikes! We drove to Westhaven Marina this morning. We had passed it a few times on our way to other places and there were MANY boats there. The boats were slightly less huge and opulent than the ones in the Viaduct Harbour, but there was obviously lots of money around judging by all the BMWs, Audis and Benzes in the parking lot. We tried to pay a courtesy visit to the Royal New Zealand Yachting Squadron, but the outer door was locked (although they did say they welcomed visitors) and a notice indicated that visitors should go to the west end of the building. So round we went, to find an identical notice encouraging visitors to enter through the east door! So our courtesy went unrewarded. I was amused at the name of one boat - Oliver Sudden (think about it!) and a licence plate on a car -
OFF 2C. We kept driving along the coast road and found a delightful little yacht club about 8 km out of town where we were welcomed with open arms! There were a lot of dads there with their small boys (aged about 10) who were all learning to sail in little tiny boats (P class) which are about 5’ long and are unsinkable. (I said “boys” because we didn’t see any girls - too bad.) The boats have one little sail and when there are a lot of them on the water, they look like a flock (flock?) of butterflies fluttering about. Karen and Pete had told us about a motor bike rally that was being held this afternoon along with R&B music so that’s where we headed next. Just like yesterday, there were lots of old bikes for John to get excited about and photograph. The one in the picture is a 1915 model with a cane sidecar which had a request attached to it, asking for a cane worker to spiff it up. Not often a cane worker would get to work on a motor bike attachment I would imagine! While John went on his photography spree, I sat in the shade and watched some guys (all over 20 and some much over 20) playing a REALLY bad game of soccer. But more exciting than the bikes …!!! The music wasn’t great either …
March 29 - Today we jumped on a ferry to go to Waiheke Island which is a 30 minute trip. Waiheke is famous for its vineyards and is a very sought after address. Because it’s quite close to Auckland by ferry, people can live there and commute to the city for work, but it is quite small and there is limited space for houses, so prices are high. Some of the houses we saw were amazing with fantastic views. We chose to be taken around the island on a coach with a most entertaining driver who told us about all the history, geology etc. We stopped at some gorgeous beaches (see picture) but it’s very definitely autumn now so sitting on the beach or swimming were not on the agenda. We had a really nice lunch in the main town, Oneroa. The restaurant was right on the ocean and the people at the next table were a very pleasant Australian couple, so we sampled some local wine, ate seafood and traded travel stories.
March 30 - Our last full day in New Zealand, so what better way to spend it than at a museum?! We chose the Museum of Transport and Technology over the Auckland Museum which sounded good, but probably has much the same kinds of exhibits as at Te Papa in Wellington. So MOTAT it was. The very first building we went into had a little sign outside saying “Telecom Workshop” so in we went. About 5 minutes later, I exited and about 1 ½ hours later, Mr. Hartley left the building with some persuasion from Mrs. Hartley! He had met an even older telephone man than himself (hard to believe, but true) so of course there were all kinds of stories to swap and modernities to bemoan (and photographs to take). He was very impressed with the scale of the exhibits they had. MOTAT covers all kinds of stuff (there’s that word again) - steam engines, cars, planes, old buildings with some craftsmen (John was NOT impressed with the blacksmith!) There are two MOTAT sites and you get from one to the other on an old electric street car. John got chatting to all kinds of people about military vehicles, planes and everything else! It was actually quite enjoyable but definitely a “guy” place. The exhibit I enjoyed the most was the one on Edmund Hillary’s trek to the South Pole. It was very well put together and extremely interesting, particularly since we knew a bit about it from visiting the Hillary museum at Mount Cook back on the South Island. We went out for supper with Karen and Pete, whose B&B we are staying in. They have been so welcoming and friendly and we’ve really enjoyed staying in their studio apartment. We’ll miss having breakfast delivered to our door, Karen!
So that’s it! We’re off to Japan this evening and I doubt I will be able to post blogs from there. I will continue to type away on our little computer and post when we get home. The blog has been a really good thing from our point of view and I want to thank Mark once again for gently (but firmly!) convincing me that it would be a good idea!

North Island Top Ten

North Island Top Ten
1. Te Papa Museum in Wellington. We’ve been to many museums in the last 6 months and Te Papa (translation = “our place”) was by far the best. It was really well laid out and although it was huge, easy to find your way around. There was enough information about everything but not too much and the sheer variety of artifacts was stunning.
2. The greenstone twist necklace that Jason made for me in Rotorua (my birthday present from John).
3. The hangi (Maori feast) we went to in Rotorua. They put on two feasts every night and manage to put through an enormous number of tourists, but they were enthusiastic, welcoming and quite scary (all those tongues sticking out and bulging eyes!) Oh yes, and the food was wonderful.
4. All the dolphins and gannets in a feeding frenzy off Tutukaka. That was a once in a lifetime experience.
5. Cruise on the tall ship R. Tucker Thompson, partly because the ship and the cruise were awesome, but also because of the three Englishwomen I met who had so many points of contact with me. It felt like a hand reaching out to me from my old life to allow me to re-connect for a while.
6. All the thermal pools! I haven’t been able to have a real bath for 6 months (showers only in hostels and campgrounds) so to be able to immerse myself in glorious, hot water was blissful.
7. Boogie boarding. We managed to find quite a few beaches where we could get boards and where the surf was just right.
8. Beaches! So many long stretches of golden sand with almost nobody on them except us.
9. The Bed and Breakfast in Auckland for two reasons. One was the contrast between the previous two months living cheek by jowl in a campervan where we had to “build” our bed every night and dash across the campground to the bathroom in the middle of the night, to a huge bed with soft sheets, tons of pillows and our very own bathroom! Reason #2 was our hosts, Karen and Pete, who went far out of their way to make our stay with them pleasant and easy. Karen kept appearing with fruit, chocolates and pastries, she did our laundry, answered all our questions and cooked us a wonderful New Zealand supper!
10. This one’s for John! Hundreds of boats and motor bikes. (Note to Merv - we didn’t see one Nonsuch!!!)

Auckland - City of Sails

March 24 - Our first breakfast at the B&B was amazing! Beautifully presented in a huge basket delivered to our door, with lots of fresh fruit, incredible yogurt (definitely NOT low fat!) and fantastic pastries. We have a little kitchen in our room with all kinds of goodies in the cupboards - super coffee, every tea you could think of, home made granola and on and on. So we can make tea or coffee whenever we want, and we have a fridge so we’ve got butter, milk and cheese so we can snack too. This will be our downfall! Karen (our hostess) also appears from time to time with more things to eat - the most decadent fudge, pastries - help! We spent today cleaning up the campervan and returning it to the airport which seemed to be about 500 miles south of the city (Andrew - I can now fully sympathize with you and the Edmonton Airport!) We picked up a little (“little” being the operative word) car to run around in while we’re in Auckland. We are staying in a suburb called Devonport which is across the bay from Auckland and the B&B is about a mile out of the town, so it will be handy to be able to get around independently. On our way home, we drove up one of Auckland’s volcanic lumps (the most recent erupted 600 years ago - not that long!) where you get an amazing view of the city and the harbour. We timed it beautifully as there was an international sailing race going on - we counted 61 boats battling it out in a really strong wind - some very exciting moments when seen from up above!
March 25 - We hopped on a ferry over to Auckland in the pouring rain. We have had amazing luck with the weather up until now, so we can certainly put up with a few drips, especially as they are very short of moisture here at the moment. We braved the showers and walked around the Viaduct Harbour where my guidebook told me all the millionaires keep their boats. This time, the guidebook was correct! John was ecstatic! There were some HUGE sailboats - one so big that he needed to use the panorama feature of his camera to fit it in! He reckoned it was about 200 feet long. The boom on the mainsail was probably longer than our boat! What I noticed was a car with “Boat Cleaning Services” on its side. This was not someone who would clean your deck - this was Molly Maid for your yacht! We saw the lady in one boat with her vacuum cleaner! I suppose if you can afford a boat that big, dusting the interior is not high on your priority list! The rain eventually got the better of us, so we took refuge in the Maritime Museum which was right next door. It was very good and we ended up spending 3 hours in there. I looked at my watch at 5:10, noticed that we were the only people around and realized that the museum had closed! Luckily we met a little man who was turning off all the video displays so he let us out! The museum covered a huge chunk of stuff (witness my word finding difficulties! There has to be a better way to say that but I can’t come up with it at the moment.) There was a complete display on the final days of sailing ships carrying grain around Cape Horn, a whole area on Maori boats and navigation, discovery and mapping of New Zealand, the arrival of new New Zealanders, tiny boats, huge boats, lighthouses and on and on. Once we got home, we borrowed some DVDs from Karen and decided to start watching the Lord of the Rings series. I read the books years and years ago but never saw the movies. On all our travels around New Zealand, we haven’t been able to avoid seeing books, post cards etc about hobbits, rings etc. etc. as lots of it was filmed here, so we thought we should see what it was all about. John was not impressed!
March 26 - Back to Auckland on the ferry again as some of John’s photographs from yesterday didn’t turn out to his satisfaction! We wandered around the down town area and managed to finish up our gift shopping. We are meeting some friends of John’s in Japan so need to take something to them and we are trying to bring something home for our kids (warning to kids: I’ve found some silly things as well as what I hope will be OK things!) We did go and look at the Sky Tower (at 328 meters high, it’s the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere) - notice I said “look“. You can go up in a lift and walk out on a glass floor to look down (no thank you), or walk around the outside of the tower at the top with no rails or balcony (they do give you a safety harness) or leap off the top attached to a harness (NO THANK YOU). So we can say that we were there. (You can see it on the horizon in the photo with some tiny little men playing cricket in the foreground!) Only 2 weeks now until we will be home which is hard to imagine. I’m packing up another big box of extra clothes etc. to send home so we won’t have too much stuff to schlep around Japan with us (there is a disturbing number of times I have used “stuff” in this blog …..)
March 27 - Mabel (our GPS computer lady) is wonderful, especially in big cities where they are doing lots of road work and everyone goes so fast. She tells you where to go in time for you to be in the right lane, and only occasionally does she have a bad hair day. So THANK YOU again to Andy and Zoe for sending her along with us - I honestly don’t know what we would have done without her (and she has undoubtedly been better for our relationship than me trying to read a map!!) Today she directed us to a suburb of Auckland called Parnell where I had read about a fair where there would be lots of old motor bikes, including one of Burt Munroe’s from Invercargill (remember him? The World’s Fastest Indian?). The “fair” turned out to be not at all what a British brain interprets as a fair. Basically, the main street of Parnell had roped off a small area for the bikes (about 40, John says some of them quite rare) and most of the restaurants had “offers” for meals, like $4 glass of wine to celebrate the fair. Oh yes, and there were 3 scantily dressed ladies with huge head-dresses who did some Brazilian hip shaking things!! So again, John took many photographs (not sure which got more attention - the bikes or the ladies). We found a really nice little place for lunch (Parnell is “the” place to go to eat), and then asked Mabel to take us to the Botanic Gardens. (I figured that the past couple of days had largely been filled with boats and bikes - now it was my turn!) I was driving, and I was feeling more and more uncomfortable with where Mabel was directing me. We decided to trust her for a while and see where we ended up, turned a corner and her next direction was “proceed to the ferry”! She had taken us right down town Auckland to the ferry terminal. The Botanic Gardens are the other side of the harbour, but there is no ferry that goes there and down town in a big city is not a great place to stop and figure out what’s going on. However, John managed to persuade her that there was a dry land way to get there, and once she agreed to do it our way, she was fine. However the Botanic Gardens were something of a disappointment (and it was quite a drive to get there - about 30 km from the city). We have been to quite a number of gardens as those of you who have been following the blog will know. Auckland’s just didn’t measure up to some of the others we have seen. To be fair, they have had a prolonged dry spell here (even though it has rained a fair bit since we’ve been here) so all the grass looked rather sad, but the whole place had an air of neglect about it. Signposts were not very good and it just didn’t seem to be very loved. They were building a couple of new areas so maybe all their efforts are directed there at present, but we weren’t impressed. Also to be fair it’s autumn here so a lot of the flowers are gone anyway, but comparing it to Christchurch, Brisbane and Sydney, it was at the bottom of the list. Karen and Pete had invited us for dinner, so we made our way home to a really good meal. They are a very welcoming couple and we really enjoyed their company - and a wonderful meal. They have really gone out of their way to make our stay a good one e.g. Karen went to about 3 different hardware stores for us to replace the microwave tray from the campervan that had got broken - well beyond the call of duty!
Only 3 more days in Auckland and then off to Japan. I’m not sure how easy it will be to blog from there. We are on a tour - one of those “You will get up at 6 and be on the bus at 6:30” things - so there may not be a lot of opportunity to blog. But I will keep typing and maybe post the last bit from home.

Bye Bye Campervan

March 21 - Things are really winding down now. The fridge in the campervan contains 2 yogurts, ½ bottle milk, some butter and cheese, 2 eggs and some rather geriatric bread. Oh yes, and some of the jam that we bought way back at the Agricultural and Pastoral Fair! We give the van back on Wednesday (today is Sunday) but we have decided to go to our B&B in Auckland a day early so we really only have 2 more nights in the van. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been living in it for 2 months. I’m so glad Mark persuaded me to keep this blog - things get hazy even a day or two after you’ve done them and this will be a wonderful reminder of the most amazing time we’ve had.
We left the Bay of Islands this morning and are heading back down south towards Auckland. We stopped today at a charmingly named place called Waipu which has a quaint little museum outlining how 940 intrepid Scots arrived here in 1851. They had left the Highlands in the early 19th century after the Clearances (once the landowners discovered that they could make money from sheep farming without all the nuisance crofters). So off they went to Nova Scotia, landing in Pictou where they discovered bars, brothels and other wicked things (still that way, eh Don?). Their leader was a religious zealot called Norman McLeod and he decided that they should build ships and set sail for Australia where life would undoubtedly be less wicked. They landed in Melbourne, right at the height of the gold rush, and discovered bars, brothels and other wicked things - again. So after some vicissitudes, off they went again to New Zealand, landing in Waipu where there was pretty much nothing. It actually was an amazing story and the museum has done a really good job of making the people and what happened to them come alive. We are staying at another lovely campground, right on the beach (see picture of G&J on an almost deserted stretch of white sand). The pleasant owner lent us boogie boards, so off we went into the surf again (sorry to rub salt in the wound, Gary). It was fun (see picture)!
March 22 - Closer and closer to Auckland. We landed in Takapuna today which is just north of the Big City. It was rather a dreary day, so we found a cinema and saw “Mao’s Last Dancer” which was really good (for those who don‘t know, it‘s the true story of a young Chinese boy who is trained to be a ballet dancer and eventually defects to the US). John was a bit wary, it being about a ballet dancer an’ all, but it was such a moving film and the fact that it was true made a big impact. We are both ready to say goodbye to the campervan - we go to our B&B tomorrow and have a day to clear out the van and get it reasonably clean before turning it in.
March 23 - we have arrived in heaven! The B&B is absolutely wonderful and we will be pampered to death in the next 8 days. Karen and Pete are our hosts and they have already gone out of their way to be helpful. We have our own little apartment with a fridge and microwave and Karen has supplied all kinds of wonderful goodies to keep us happy! There is a TV (which we haven’t watched for months) and OUR OWN BATHROOM!!! Devonport, where they live, is across the bay from Auckland City where it looks like there are lots of boats to keep John happy! We left our last campground this morning after passing the torch to some very pleasant Kiwis who were our neighbours. The “torch” was actually a bottle of whiskey which had been given to us by a lovely Dutch couple back in Rotorua. The husband had suddenly decided to stop drinking, so he passed on an almost full bottle of whiskey to us, which we accepted on the understanding that if we didn’t finish it (which we knew we wouldn’t) we would pass it along to some other travellers. So the Kiwis were happy and we were happy (and I remembered that I really don’t much like whiskey!) So tomorrow we clean up the van and take it back and pick up a car for our last week here.

Bay of Islands

March 18 - It was cold this morning! I guess it’s coming to their fall here and it certainly felt like it when I got up. But once the sun comes through all is good again. We drove up to the Bay of Islands today, ending up at the main tourist town of Paihia. John is not impressed! Not many boats to be seen and all the usual touristy stuff like gift shops and ice cream places. On the way here, we stopped at the Kawiti Glowworm caves. Thank goodness I can wipe that off the bucket list now! We have had many chances to see glowworms from day 1, but somehow we just haven’t quite made it and I was sure we would be leaving NZ without seeing them. But there they were as we drove by, so we swung in just in time for the tour. We went quite deep into a limestone cave with lots of stalactites and stalagmites and then the guide turned off her lantern and there they were! It took a while for our eyes to acclimatize to the darkness, but as we did, the little lights got brighter and brighter. They look just like stars on the roof of the cave - thousands and thousands of little bugs with glowing poop which attracts their prey onto their “fishing lines”! It was certainly worth the trip. We wandered around Paihia when we got here - had fish and chips while looking over the bay and I had a haircut (the first one for 3 months!!) We have landed in a very pleasant campground right on the water and we’ll stay here for a day or so before wandering off up the coast again. We’re not planning to go right up to the top of the north island, but will follow the highway around down to the west coast to see the huge kauri trees before heading back to Auckland. Less than a week to go …..
March 19 - Tall ship day today. I persuaded John that we were in the Bay of Islands, we’d better go see some islands! So we hopped on a gaff rigged topsail schooner with 9 other people (in the summer, they often get 35-40 people per cruise!) and off we went. There were 3 very pleasant young men sailing the R. Tucker Thompson (and it didn’t occur to me until now that I should have found out what the ‘R’ stood for). There wasn’t much wind in the morning, so we motored out to a lovely little island where we could swim or climb to the top of the island for amazing views (look very carefully behind us in the picture and you‘ll see the ship). There are 144 islands in the Bay, some of them very tiny, but it really was a wonderful sight. They cooked us a wonderful lunch and we had some wind in the afternoon, so we hoisted the sails and sailed home. I actually climbed up the rigging (not very far, but I did get up there!) just to prove to myself that I could do it. I didn’t actually DO anything while I was up there, but it was something that I can now say that I did. The other people on the boat were very pleasant and it turned out that I had a connection with 2 of them. There were a group of 3 women who had all been to boarding school together (Sherbourne) and when I said that I had been to boarding school in Bexhill, it turned out that someone I was at school with had been bridesmaid to one of the women on the cruise! Then it turned out that one of the other women had gone to school in Guildford (where I grew up) at the same school that my older sisters went to, although not at the same time. She had grown up in West Clandon, near Guildford, and we had some friends in common. She also played tennis at our local tennis club when she was younger. The similarities went on - her mother had been in the same nursing home as my mum, her name is Jill (like my sister) and she’s also a traveler (like my Jill!) and has just taken up golf and knows the women’s captain at sister Jill’s golf club - very weird!
March 20 - Hundertwasser’s loo (“toilet” for the un-English readers) in Kawakawa (note to Heather - I forgot to mention the tons of reduplicated words in Maori!!) was designed by an Austrian, Friedensreich H., who lived near the town in an isolated house without electricity from 1973 until his death in 2000. Are we surprised that he designed the most extraordinary public toilet building amongst other apparently famous structures? The building is covered in lots of wavy lines decorated with ceramic mosaics and brightly colored bottles, and there is grass and plants growing on the roof (see picture). Very strange but necessary to visit if you happen to be in the vicinity! Our target for today (other than Freidensreich’s masterpiece) was to go and see Tane Mahuta - the Lord of the Forest. He (or she) is the tallest tree in New Zealand, a kauri tree. He stands 51 meters high and has a nearly 14 meter diameter, so Mark - you can’t hug him! He’s about 2000 years old and is a really impressive sight. However it took us nearly 1 ½ hours to get there (those winding roads again ….) and when you’ve spent that amount of time in a vehicle, it seems kind of silly to take a photograph and turn around and go back again. But that’s pretty much what we did. We did stop off in a delightful little town called Rawene for lunch and to swap some of our miriad books. We went to a shop which indicated that we could trade our books and the slightly daffy lady owner absolutely insisted that we leave with at least one book even though we really didn’t want to! However, I think she actually has picked out a good one for both of us. We have been leaving a trail of finished books behind us and John is finding it hard to say goodbye to some of them.’ Just a few more days in the van (am I starting to sound desperate?) and then civilization in Auckland for a week. We abandoned our plans to drive north from the Bay of Islands and will head south towards Auckland tomorrow.

Coromandel 2

March 14 - A somewhat eccentric gentleman named Barry Brickell bought 60 acres of scrubland just outside Coromandel Town southeast of Auckland back in 1973 after giving up being a teacher and deciding to become a potter. In order to get the clay down from the hilly parts of his land, he decided to build a narrow-gauge railway 2.6 km up the mountain using not much more than some homemade instruments and lots of hope. (The fact that he never married or had kids explains how he managed such a monumental task at all!) For years he would take visitors up on his train just to give them a ride, but about 15 years ago, his friends persuaded him to make it a commercial venture (he had incurred quite a sizeable debt to build the thing) and it has really taken off. There is now a shop that sells not only his pots, but also pottery done by many local artists including glassware and wood carving. My guide book told me that there were 2 train departures a day, but when we got there, there were about 8, so it is obviously a going concern. The little train weaves its way up the mountain, having to reverse 4 times to manage the tight corners and steep grade until it gets to the top where Barry has built an Eyefull Tower which has tremendous views (once you recover from the really bad pun). He is also a keen conservationist and has organized lots of tree planting on his land, which will revert to the National Trust when he dies so that it can never be sold. So that was an interesting morning! We drove down the coast road (incredibly wiggly and steep) and have landed in a tiny place called Miranda where there is a mineral hot spring which we have already made good use of (see picture).
Completely off topic, 3 things are in my head to write down:
1) It is very weird to see trees turning colour and losing their leaves in March!
2) I have just checked our itinerary for our tour of Japan and note with delight that we can look forward to “resplendent enjoyments” when we reach Hakone!
3) If only I could remember what it was …….Oh yes! Heather - you might be interested to know (and other people too if they’re interested in the sounds of language) that Maori appears to consist only of stops (mainly unvoiced), liquids and vowels. They have a kind of sibilant as they pronounce /wh/ almost like /f/, but when they are reduced to so few sounds, no wonder they make their vowels work hard!! (“New Zealand” = “Aotearoa” - each one pronounced individually).
March 15 - Onward and upward. We are now heading north of Auckland towards the Bay of Islands. We had quite a long drive today (I don’t think either of us will want to drive ever again after this!) along a beautiful coast line with almost deserted roads which was very pleasant. And then all of a sudden, we were on a Motorway going through Auckland with 4 lanes each way and everyone in a hurry, knowing exactly where they were going. We emerged unscathed and have landed at Goat Island Marine Reserve which my guide book told me (Warning: guidebooks sometimes lie!) had amazing marine life. So we duly rented snorkeling equipment and headed out to sea. We saw lots of seaweed and rocks, a few snapper and trumpet fish-like things but not much else. Maybe the fish were all away on vacation - but it was rather disappointing. We’re headed up the coast tomorrow to a place which my guidebook tells me (?!) is one of the world’s top 10 dive spots ………
March 17 - Hurray! At last a positive underwater experience! Our third attempt was a success. We went out with a very professional group on a snorkeling day trip out to Poor Knights Islands (no apostrophe!!) We are neither of us 100% sure what would happen to John’s pacemaker if we went on scuba, so we are playing it safe. The summer is almost at an end here and everyone is either back to school or back to work so the only people around are us foreign tourists. So on a boat which carries us to 70 people in high season, we set off with 14 other souls plus 3 crew. We moored in a nice protected bay, jumped over the side and THERE WERE FISH!!! Lots and lots of fish. Apparently this particular spot is unusual as it is bathed in a warm water current which brings all kinds of food along with it and of course that means lots of things to feed on the food. So even John was quite happy! He had rented an underwater camera and all the pictures are on a chip, so can’t put any on the blog, but fish life was prolific. The coast round the islands is volcanic and very spiky and full of caves and arches. The captain was very knowledgeable about the Maori stories and history and he took the boat through all kinds of interesting little nooks and crannies, including into the biggest marine cave in the world (by volume). It really was huge and the acoustics were amazing - he sounded the boat’s horn in there and the echo went on for ages. We had a really nice lunch, and on the way home, came across the most amazing sight. It was pretty windy so we were bumping along the waves when we saw this huge gathering of gannets on the water. Actually, some of them were on the water and some in the air, diving like arrows into the water. There were literally hundreds of birds dive bombing a school of fish, and then they were joined by an incredible number of dolphins. The captain said he had never seen so many all together - there were literally hundreds of them all around the boat, surfing down the waves and hunting the fish along with the gannets. We stopped to watch them for about 20 minutes and then either they ran out of fish or the fish moved on, but it was a wonderful way to end the day. And again the weather gods were very kind - it was a gorgeous day after rather an unpromising start.
We’re now headed for the Bay of Islands which we hear is quite beautiful - follow along!

Coromandel 1

March 10 - We’re on our way to the Coromandel Peninsula which we have been told is quite beautiful. The guide book told me that Tauranga was a boat lovers paradise, so we stopped to have a look at the boats, but decided not to stay. Tauranga is very big and touristy with lots of high-rises which set my nerves jangling, so on we went to Waihi Beach which could not have been more opposite! There was one shop in town and the beach was almost deserted. Miles and miles of the most gorgeous soft yellow sand and crashing waves onto the rocks - perfect! On the other side of the headland was a small bay which was shielded from the waves and we went there this afternoon to swim. It really hasn’t been warm enough to go in the ocean since Australia, so it was nice to get wet and salty again!
March 11 - Beach day. I went for a long walk along the deserted beach (see picture!) and John relaxed at the campground. We rented boogie boards this afternoon which was fun (these are short surf boards that you lie on in case you didn‘t know!). Pretty quiet day.
March 12 - Drove to Hot Water Beach where, I was told, you could rent a spade, dig a hole at the tide mark and sit in a hot pool of water as there are hot springs under the sand. Rip off! We rented our spade and went to the area on the beach where there were LOTS of other people all digging away. There were also quite a few deserted holes which we tested for toastiness, only to find that the water was only marginally warmer than the sea. When we stayed at Rotorua, the guy at the campground had warned us that Hot Water Beach should be called Tepid Water Beach - the lake beach at Rotorua provides HOT pool if you dig! So we took the obligatory photographs and headed on to Hahei, just up the coast. (We were later told that it depends where you are on Hot Water Beach as to how hot your hole gets. We were in the right general area, but a lady in our latest camp ground told us that you can actually get burned at Hot Water Beach because the water can get so hot - so I guess we just missed by a bit.)
March 13 - Hahei Beach was another wonderful long stretch of golden sand, gorgeous little islands poking out of the sea and blue, sparkly ocean! We really do feel like we are living in a postcard! Cathedral Cove is close by which is another must-see (so called because there is a gigantic archway in the rock which looks like the vault of a cathedral), so we walked there this morning, stopping at Gemstone Bay and Stingray Bay (yes, there were sting rays there). Unfortunately the tour guide (that would be me) didn’t realise that you could swim at Cathedral Cove, so we watched from the shore as everyone else tore their clothes off and jumped into the lovely clear water! Oh, well, the rock formations were amazing and it was a beautiful day, and we’ll be able to swim elsewhere I’m sure. We drove on to Whitianga where there was a little museum mostly about Captain Cook. He used the cove near here, Mercury Bay, to anchor in while observing the transit of Mercury that he needed to set his longitude and put New Zealand on the map. He was so accurate with his plotting of the coastline that most of his measurements are still in use. Then we took the very wiggly and steep coast road on to Coromandel Town where we had a lovely supper and had some nice neighbours who live in Auckland and were very helpful about how to get about there (we will be spending a week there at the end of our time i

Bloop, gurgle, sploosh

With all the volcanic activity around, what else could I call this blog entry? The north island is very geothermally active - we’ve been to quite a few places where steam just rises out of the ground which is a little unnerving. There’s also quite often a sulphury smell which again reminds you that there is stuff going on down there ….. We drove past one neighborhood in Rotorua where 2 houses had been torn down because geysers had erupted in them! A somewhat volatile environment …
March 7 - We had a wonderful breakfast today at a restaurant just outside Taupo that we had been told not to miss. It was quite a way out of Taupo (but close to our campground which was handy). It’s run by an artist and her husband - she does a lot of mosaics and the whole place is full of them plus an outdoor garden with mosaic chairs and tables. We decided not to stay in Taupo as it’s pretty touristy and packed with triathletes this weekend (not that I have anything against them, but there are a lot of them!) On the way out of Taupo, we went to the Craters of the Moon which is a very active geothermal area, full of bubbling mud and smoking vents. It didn’t smell nearly as bad as I thought it might. There’s a walking track that you follow VERY CAREFULLY so that you don’t fall in! We also stopped at the Huka Falls which is where the most incredible volume of water is funneled out of Lake Taupo down a narrow gulley to become the Waikato River. I should have written down their example of the volume but it was something ridiculous like filling 4 Olympic-sized swimming pools every minute. The water was pretty impressive and the most beautiful turquoise colour. Then on towards Rotorua. We stopped about 20 km short to jump into the Waikite Valley Thermal Pools which was well worth it! John has been whimpering about hot pools and when are we going to do some for a while, so he was happy! They were lovely open air pools fed by a boiling spring which they obviously have to cool down considerably before the clients can sit it the water. There was hardly anyone there which was nice - I was worried that it was a Sunday and the day following an international triathlon, so I imagined the place would be full of stiff athletes, but
no ….. There were a number of different pools at different temperatures and we usually had them to ourselves. Besides being nice and warm, there are all these wonderful therapeutic minerals in the water, so you feel really healthy and your skin is amazingly soft when you get out. We stayed about an hour, hopping from hot to warm to cool to hot, and then we drove on to Rotorua where we have found a very nice campground where there are thermal/mineral pools for campers.
March 8 - There is lots of Maori stuff for tourists to do here, so we’re doing it! We went to watch jade carvers (jewelry) this morning as John wants to buy me a jade pendant for my birthday. Jade is typically called pounamu or greenstone here, but it’s all the same thing. Lots of the pendants for sale were really BIG and the one we saw a guy carving was little (and I’m not a big pendant person) so I got John to ask him if we could buy that one - it‘s called a “twist“ and looks like a figure 8. So he is going to polish it up for me today and we’ll pick it up tomorrow. Then we went to Whakarewarewa (thankfully shortened to Whaka) which is a “living thermal village” i.e. people actually live there. And it certainly is thermal! We ate sweet corn which had been cooked in a pool of boiling water (they drop it in in a bag and pull it out about 2 minutes later - see picture) and saw how they use the steam to cook meat etc. in boxes and funnel the heated water into catchment pools for communal bathing. (We are going to a feast tomorrow night [a hangi] where all the food will have been cooked in these ovens). We were shown round the village by a very knowledgeable guide who actually lives there. She explained the significance of all the carvings and rituals. The geyser conveniently decided to blow just as we got to the viewing platform (see picture) but the sky was much the same colour as the steam, so it’s not easy to see here. It apparently blows 20-30 times a day; there are twin geysers and one, the Prince of Wales feathers, always blows before the main one. The Prince of Wales reaches 30 metres - can‘t remember how high the other one goes but it was much higher. We noticed that there were times when the steaming holes got much steamier and the boiling water got even more agitated - quite an alive place! There were also bubbling mud pools. Then there was a cultural show - 3 men and 4 women who sang and danced - the songs sounded very Hawaiian (not surprisingly, since they have common ancestors) accompanied by bulging eyes and sticking out tongues to intimidate us! It was actually very moving and we really enjoyed it. We came back to our campground and have been soaking in the thermal pools for about the past hour, chatting to a very varied group of people who are also staying here!
March 9 - My birthday! We went to pick up my jade pendant and the story turned out to have a bit of a twist (the shape of the necklace and also what happened!) I had understood that I would be buying a pendant carved by one of the main carvers which would be “finished off” by one of the much younger men. When I went to pick it up, I was met by Jacob, a very young man, who was extremely enthusiastic about the very first twist pendant that he had ever made, which was apparently the one I was buying! I’m not sure where the misunderstanding came in (I thought I was buying from the main carver) but as it turns out, I was thrilled with the one that Jacob had carved for me and maybe one day he will be a very famous pounamu carver and I will have an heirloom around my neck! It really does make it special that it was carved specially for me and not just bought off the shelf. So that turned out OK. We wandered around Rotorua in the afternoon - went to the museum (I really should count up how many we have been to!) and the government gardens where lots of very earnest people dressed in white were playing bowls (yes Freda, we took photos!) The highlight of the day was the hangi (Maori feast) that we went to in the evening. We were picked up from our camp ground and taken about 15 km from Rotorua to the Tamaki Village where we were taken on a historical journey along with warriors who challenged us with a war dance, to dancing maidens with bulging eyes (again!) and the most amazing meal - chicken, lamb, fish, lots of vegetables and then fruit salad and steamed pudding for dessert. There was also Pavlova which I imagine wasn‘t a typical Maori dish “back in the day“ but was very good! We also were able to walk around their “village” where they were doing everyday things like peeling potatoes with sharpened stone as they would have done “back in the day”. They were all very pleasant and put up with all the tourists having their photos taken with them!

Wellington and northwards

March 3 - We moved to a much nicer campground a few miles north of Wellington today. There is a bus which runs very close to the gate, so we hopped on that and went to the city to see the Te Papa Museum (rough translation = Our Place) which we had been told not to miss. It’s basically THE museum for New Zealand and we were pretty impressed. It’s on 5 floors, each floor having a theme. They had a special exhibit on Pompeii while we were here, so we took that in as well as all the more local stuff - geology, anthropology, natural history, sociology, art etc. etc. etc. I was particularly taken with all the information about Maori history and art - they have some beautiful examples of carving and jade work. The photograph is of a tiny part of a huge canoe. We spent about 6 hours there today and, starting at the top, had only worked our way down to Level 4 by the time we had had enough! We walked back to the bus stop along the sea front, but it was not very inspiring. We met a lovely English lady from our camp site on the bus home and invited her back for a cider with us - and it turned out that our next door neighbours for the night were a very pleasant couple from Glasgow, so we had a bit of a party!
March 4 - Back to Te Papa again today to meet our friends from Adelaide, Reg and Ruby, who are doing our NZ trip in reverse! We had lunch with them and then split up to go round different parts of the museum and then met up again for coffee. It was lovely to see them again - too bad it was for such a short time.
We’re not staying any longer in Wellington - we have the campervan for another 3 weeks and we want to head north and not be in too much of a rush. There isn’t anything here that particularly caught our fancy, so we’ll be off in the morning for pastures new!
March 5 - The pastures new involved driving through Masterton where I had read that the Golden Shears (sheep shearing) event was happening and we thought we couldn’t pass that up. Masterton turned out to be a quaint little place with the main event happening in the Recreation Centre. We arrived just in time for the quarter finals of the wool handlers event (lucky thing we didn‘t miss it, eh?!) . I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a wool handler, so it was something of an education besides being very entertaining (people-watching at this kind of event is half the fun for me!) A wool handler is someone (usually female) who picks up the fleece as the shearer takes it off the poor unsuspecting sheep and then sorts it. There are lots of different grades of wool - the belly fleece goes one way, the main fleece gets thrown on a table (we figured out pretty quickly that you get maximum points if you throw your fleece so that it doesn’t hang over the edge of the table) and the “locks and socks” go in a different pile. (In the photo, note the guy in the bottom right corner and his facial hair - we used to call those tufts “mutton chops” which I thought was rather apropos!!) The handlers have to work incredibly quickly to keep up with the shearers. Once it’s sorted, they have to roll the main fleece up and put it in a basket. There were a couple of men doing running commentary - it sounded like a horse race as they spoke faster and faster as the time ran out (each handler had to sort 4 fleeces each). And of course the pitch of their voice goes up with the excitement and we found ourselves on the edge of our seats, watching to see who would pick up the last piece of fluff first!!! Excellent entertainment. The afternoon was to be the quarter finals of the next stage of the game which is baling the fleeces into huge blocks measuring about 4’ x 4’ (we can’t remember the technical term!) but we decided to pass that up. Then we drove north to Napier where there are apparently lots of Art Deco buildings. There was a huge earthquake here in the 1930s and when the city was rebuilt, the new buildings were all in that style. Barring further earthquakes, tomorrow we’ll do a walk around the central area where most of the buildings are and then head west to Lake Taupo for a day or so.
March 6 - Walked round Napier on a very blustery day and John took many pictures of the lovely Art Deco buildings. Guy - if you’re reading this, you would love it here! So many different colours and shapes, with all kinds of decoration, stained glass and tiling. It turned out that the local Chinese Society was putting on a dragon dance so we got bit caught up in that on our way! We then drove to Lake Taupo and as we got closer to town, there were more and more “delay” signs. It turns out that New Zealand’s biggest international event was going on today - an Ironman competition, so of course I was thinking about Andy and my nephew, Mark who are both triathletes (it was windy as hell, guys!) The town is completely taken over by people in spandex and you can’t move in inch without getting run over by a bicycle. So we retreated to our campground and will drive on tomorrow to Rotorua where we hope we can sit for a few days.
Just to fill in the few gaps that you may have noticed in the dates as we’ve been going along, if nothing is written for a particular day, it’s probably because it’s been one of our “down” days. Being a tourist is lovely, but tiring! So quite often we take a day off and just do nothing or catch up on boring stuff like laundry, grocery shopping, hair cuts, etc. If we’re by a beach, we’ll go for a walk, read and relax and/or John beats me at cards. We’ve got into a pretty good rhythm for our days which usually involves getting up when we wake up, (which is often not until 7:30 or 8 a.m. - how will I manage to get up at 6 when I have to go back to work?!), having a shower, breakfast and then either getting on the road, doing something touristy or having a nothing day. We usually have supper around 7 and by the time it’s cooked and cleared away, it’s getting dark and we play that dreadful card game that Zoe taught me (Pigs in a Blanket or some such name). It’s a game which demands a certain amount of skill and a large amount of luck and John has the most uncanny knack of turning up exactly the cards he wants at the right moment which is incredibly annoying! Every day I think my luck must change, but I’ve been on a bad losing streak lately and have practically given up playing altogether! And of course we read - probably more than either of us have for a long time. I’m having trouble persuading John that we have to leave most of the books behind - he keeps finding stuff that he absolutely positively can’t live without! We keep going to second hand book stores and swapping our treasures and we’ve read some pretty odd things, but it’s been fun!

Goodbye South Island

March 1 - A somewhat gloomy day in Picton with not a lot to do! I managed to manacle John to the computer this morning so he could write on the blog about the cars. He wanted me to do it, but I figured “John saw lots of cars” wouldn’t really tell the whole story. We went to see the Edwin Fox this afternoon - apparently the 9th oldest wooden sailing ship still around (as Lonely Planet says, “Who COUNTS these things”!) Anyway, she was a rather sad looking old hulk that had been around the world quite a few times with assorted cargoes. One of her jaunts was transporting convicts from England to Australia, and on the convict list was a J. Hartley, sent away for passing bad cheques! The fact that his name was Joseph takes a bit away from the story, but there we go. One poor guy had been sent to the colonies for stealing trousers and another for being sacrilegious! They had done a nice job of the museum and it was a good way to spend an hour or so. We then went to one of the strangest cinemas I think I have ever been to. It was housed behind the seahorse display in the aquarium and you had to wait inside the aquarium building to see your movie! John and me and a couple of elderly ladies trouped in to a tiny auditorium to see “Mid-August Lunch” which was billed as a gentle Italian comedy. It certainly was gentle - we nearly went to sleep waiting for something to happen! But again, not a bad way to while away a rainy afternoon. We headed out to supper at Seamus’ Irish Pub and had Guiness pot pie which was very good and then there was a jam session which was not bad; a 60ish woman on the fiddle, 70ish man on guitar and a young guy on the boron (sp?). They were actually pretty good and the boron player was excellent. There was also a rather interesting lady (50ish) in a red dress who rather unexpectedly got up in the middle of a jig and started doing something that I think she thought was step dancing. She wasn’t part of the group but was certainly part of the entertainment!
March 2 - Ferry across the Cook Strait to Wellington. We had been warned that this can sometimes be quite a choppy crossing, but even though the weather wasn’t great (rainy and grey) we had a very smooth ride. We emerged from the ferry and headed for the campground that I had booked ahead to ensure that we had a place for the night. It’s turned out to be a parking lot behind a motel where they have crammed 28 spaces for camper vans. We will be leaving first thing in the morning to head for pastures new!