New Zealand 2022
0
0
After a long journey starting at Gatwick and continuing via Dohar and Adelaide, during which time we lost track of time, time zones and meal breaks (six that we can remember), we finally arrived at Auckland airport a little earlier than the scheduled 4.15 am arrival and excited to meet up with Amy who had planned to spend a few weeks with us after her Australia trip.
Unfortunately at this point things ground to a halt – because we were early landing, the ground crew were not ready for us and we had wait almost an hour to disembark onto buses to the terminal. This was then compounded with a problem getting the luggage off the plane resulting in an additional two hour wait to collect our cases, and by then several more flights had subsequently arrived with a knock-on effect of massive queues for customs, and a further two hours of delays.
Poor Amy, she had arrived four hours before us, expecting to wait a couple of hours before we could greet one another, but all of that phaffing around for us added another four hours àt a point when she was already tired and exhausted from her own flight. Eventually though, we made it through passport control and were all reunited, and quickly set off to collect our hire car and to begin our adventures.
Our first few nights were in a holiday park home in Ahipara (at the bottom end of the Ninety Mile Beach, about 9 hours drive away from Auckland) somewhere where we could all have a chance to get over our long flights. Despite the potential jetlag, we started touring and exploring almost immediately and over the next couple of days we drove to Cape Reigna (at the northwesternmost point of the North Island. Apparently it’s not quite the most northern point of New Zealand – North Cape is further north, but it’s a scientific reserve and not open to the public.). The Tasman sea meets the Pacific ocean at that point and is overlooked by a working 1941 lighthouse, and just a short walk nearby is a ‘pohutukawa’ tree, which is believed to be over 800 years old and, according to Maori oral history, the spirits of deceased Maori leap from this tree into the ocean to return to their ancestral homeland of Hawaiki.
Our next visit was to the Giant Sand Dunes (Te Paki Sand Dunes) which are a collection of sand dunes on the Northland Peninsula of New Zealand, on the Tasman Sea side of the Aupouri Peninsula and are southeast of Cape Reinga Lighthouse and close to the Ninety Mile Beach. We parked up and went for a walk up the dunes as far as we could, but it was a hard slog through the fine sand – some of the dunes are as high as 150 metres, although we never went up that high ourselves, nor did we try out the sandboarding that went on along the dunes!
We were very lucky in that our accommodation was close enough to the Ninety Mile Beach on the western coast – it’s actually only 88 kilometre (or 55 miles) long – so we took a stroll to the beach and we’re able to walk along the coast for a while. It was very secluded and we only saw a few people out and about, as well as a dead penguin, a dead seagull, lots of (dead) jellyfish and a couple of dead pufferfish! Not a good start to our wildlife spotting. On our way back Amy and Nicki decided to give the dead penguin a burial, as it felt wrong to leave this lovely bird lying on the beach – sadly it seemed the other creatures didn’t warrant this bit of final tlc.
After just a couple of days at Ahipara we headed off to the Bay of Islands, stopping on the way to take a look at the pretty horseshoe shaped Haruru Falls.
On reaching the small town of Paihaia we booked into a nice little motel, and despite the very rainy day we decided to explore a little and took a walk into the shopping area and along the señafront. The next morning (in much better weather) we caught a ferry across the bay to visit Russell, a delightful little town which was the country’s first sea port, first European settlement and New Zealand’s first capital in nearby Okiato, as well as New Zealand’s first licensed hotel, bar and restaurant (The Duke of Marlborough).
After docking at the jetty we headed off to Flagstaff Hill, about a 2 kilometre walk up a steep road, to see the views from the highest point on this island, which were awesome. On the way back down Amy spotted what we thought was a kiwi with it’s baby tucked under some bushes, and we spent some time watching it foraging for food – sadly we were told by a local that it was in fact a Weka, a flightless bird also known as a Maori hen (fun fact from Google – a Weka poops it’s body weight daily!). After all that excitement we retraced our steps into the town where we stopped for a coffee before making our way back to the motel and collecting our car.
Next stop on our agenda was the Otuihau Whangarei Falls, a 26+ metres high curtain waterfall which we reached by following a short circular walk.
From there we drove on to the Whangarei Quarry Gardens, which was once a working quarry until finally closing. The abandoned quarry was eventually taken over by local volunteers who turned it into lovely, surprisingly picturesque garden of native forest, subtropical gardens, quarry ruins, a lake and streams. Definitely worth the detour.
Continuing on, we made our way to Auckland, arriving at a very plush Airbnb right next to the waterfront – it took us some time to find our way into the parking garage and then to the apartment itself, but it was well worth the effort. We booked onto a guided walking tour for the next day, which over a couple of hours took us around the main points of interest in the town, and gave us the idea of heading off to Mount Eden just outside of Auckland where (for free) we could walk to the top of an extinct volcano and get 360 degree views over the city.
Leaving Auckland we headed out to Mount Eden, a former volcano cone with surrounding terraces and storage pits, and encircled with a boardwalk around its rim from where we could see stunning views of the city in all directions. The day was hot and dry and perfect for the hilly climb.
On our way back from Mount Eden we spotted an interesting-looking cafe – Circus Circus – so naturally we had to make a stop. As the name sugggests, it has a heavy circus theme with a bright red front to catch your eye and plenty of quirky decorations, not to mention the musical accompaniment in the toilets!
From the really luxurious apartment in Auckland we drove to our next nights accommodation, a somewhat rundown lodge at Waitomo with just the one room for the three of us – at least it meant that we could be nearby for our pre-booked guided tour to the underground caves, which due to our own time constraints was the first tour of the day, hence the need to be close. The guide was interesting and gave us some detail about the caves and their history, and the journey ended with a short boat ride passing under what seemed like hundreds of tiny glowing ‘worms’.
This was followed by a drive to a nearby Kiwi Sanctuary, and this time we actually did see the real thing, albeit in a darkened room inside of a building. After seeing these cute long beaked birds and hearing a little about them from one of the staff, we carried on wandering around the sanctuary and were able to see lots of other native birdlife, some of which were quite beautiful.
After these two visits, we continued on our travels to arrive in Rotorua for a the night stay. We travelled on to Rotorua, this time for a three night stay. And again, in a pretty run down lodge – we even had to get the handles/locks changed so that we could shut doors and lock the back door! Having bedded in though, we took a walk down to the town, visiting the park and lake, and despite the rain and overcast skies, explored the area.
On our way to our accommodation we passed a Zorbing site, so Nicki and I decided to try it out. Amy declined and watched from the sidelines and photographed our madness. It was such good fun that we even did it twice.
Later on we took a drive to a lovely wooded nature area, and spent some time slowly following the trails in this Redwood Forest.
Next on our itinerary was a visit to a small 3D art exhibition. Some of it was very clever, and each picture had a designated point to stand and take the best ‘interactive’ scene.
One of Nick’s big attractions was to visit a living Maori village, and today was the big day. There was a big crowd of visitors, and we were split into two sizeable groups with a guide per group. Ours explained some of the history and culture of the Maori people and the significance of certain areas within the village, plus we got to taste a small sample of sweetcorn that has been cooked by steam in an underground oven. Delicious.
Leaving Rotorua we made our way to the infamous Hobbiton village, built purely so that the outdoor scenes for the Hobbit could be realistically filmed but which became a permanent tourist attraction once filming had finished.
Lake Taupo was the next stop on our agenda, and it turned out to be a very pretty place, and we took the chance to sit and look out at the scenery, eating ice-cream waffle cones, very nice. Then we had a look round the town to search out some of the documented street art remaining from a previous Graffiato festival. A little later we drove out of the town to see the Huka Falls, an awesomely beautiful waterfall with fantastic crystal blue, fast flowing water surging over the rocks – the noise was phenomenal too.
Now on the last few days in the North Island, we continued onto Napier (another favourite of ours) to take a look at some of the lovely art deco buildings and to stroll along the esplanade. We managed a stop at Bluff Hill Lookout with its viewpoint of Hawkes Bay and the commercial port below, and after a short stroll we had off to find the now defunct Napier Prison, closed since 1993 but still the oldest prison building in New Zealand. We took a self-guided tour around the old buildings to learn some of its past, which included the fact that for a short period of time it was used as a backpackers hostel. To the rear of the buildings was an old hanging yard and a prisoner graveyard.
Moving on from Napier, we spent a night in the town of Paraparaumu on the Kapiti coast before driving into Wellington, our last stop on the North Island.
Once in Wellington our first target was Zealandia, a 500+ acre eco-sanctuary, completely enclosed by a high fence to stop predators from entering and so protect the native birdlife within!
Leaving the eco-sanctuary we drove into the suburb of Kelburn to ride the funicular cable car railway down into the main shopping district. We sought out Hannah’s Laneway, and made a visit to the museum (where Amy and Nicki experienced a simulated earthquake), after which we headed back up the funicular railway to see the Space Place planetarium show. And that was our last day/night in the North Island.
The morning of 3rd December saw us take the ferry from the North to the South Island, and then drive on to Christchurch to meet up with Lucy, who was flying in later that day. (Amazingly and by sheer chance, we spotted a colony of seals basking in the sun on rocks very close to the road, so we absolutely had to stop and take photos.). We found our nights accommodation on the outskirts of Christchurch, and had time to take a brief look around a very small bit of Christchurch before driving to the airport and collecting Lucy after her very long 35+ hour journey.
Waking the next day, we quickly packed up and headed off to visit Gaelle, Russell, Seanne and Maeliss in their NZ home – a lovely place out in the countryside with a couple of cows, bees and sheep. They made us all very welcome, even throwing a little pre-birthday birthday party for Amy with balloons, cakes and presents. Amy, Lucy and I had a swim with their two girls in their lovely warm outdoor pool, while Nicki and Gaelle sat, dream and chattered. Finally it was time to leave as we were on a schedule to meet up with Alec in the evening at Twizel in preparation for the next set of adventures.
Leaving Gaelle and family we headed off to meet up with Alec in Twizel at a nice little holiday park. Unfortunately on our way to him we had a puncture, so that slowed us up a bit. Still, once sorted out and arriving at Twizel, Alec took us to some nearby green areas where he introduced us to Disc Golf – basically throwing a frisbee into a basket lined with vertical chains, around a marked-out course. It sounds strange but it was good fun.
The following day we started our trip to Invercargill, calling into Wanaka, a beautiful town next to a lovely blue lake. We found a nice walk along the river, and places to play disc golf again with Amy and Lucy running around chaotically. Next stop was Puzzling World, a confusing tilted house with lots of odd features, including a room with an awesome sloping floor and an outdoor maze (fenced, not hedges) that we eventually gave up on. ! We had booked a nice Airbnb house for that night in Wanaka as we had a very early start the next day, so we were able to relax in comfort before setting off on Alec’s planned island hop at an ungodly hour of the next morning, which also happened to be Amy’s 30th birthday.
On our way again we pulled into a carpark area at a tourist stop to see the Cardronabra fence, which was quite literally a fence covered in bras that people had donated/left behind as they passed by – all in aid of breast cancer research. Not something you come across too often
7th December – Happy Birthday Amy – saw us all getting up at 5.30 am to get to the local airport and board our 7.30 am flight across the Foveaux Strait to Mason Bay on the East coast of Stewart Island at the very bottom of New Zealand ‘s South Island. The plane only sat six people plus the pilot, and the journey across was very noisy and bumpy, but also incredibly exciting with beautiful views.
Arriving there twenty minutes or so later, we landed on a long sandy beach which was quite disconcerting, but as it turned out, quite a smooth landing.
As we left the plane we were buffeted by very cold winds together with the news that we now to hike across the dunes and some first to get to a wooden ‘hut’ that was to be our first nights accommodation. The hut was very basic, with shared sleeping areas, a communal cooking and eating area, a wood fired stove and an outdoor ‘long drop’ toilet.
Later in the day we all took a walk into the woodland area to look for kiwi (none) and on our return we collected lots of wood for the stove to keep us warm for the night. Alec wanted to take us on a walk to a nearby beach to watch the sunset, so in the evening he, Amy, Nicki and I made an hour’s walk across to the nearest beach (Lucy decided to get an early night so stayed behind), but sadly after sitting around on the sand admiring the view it became too cloudy and we decided to call it a day.
A bit disappointing, but Alec made the most of the occasion by stripping off and racing into the sea – Amy’s tongue in cheek response went something like ” just what I wanted on my 30th birthday, to see my brother strip off completely naked and run into the water”.
After a much-needed nights sleep, we set off again the next morning on a 15 km hike across the island to Freshwater Landing from where Alec had arranged for us to get picked up by a water taxi and then be taken back to the main town of Oban on Stewart Island.
I had booked us into a ‘bach’ in Oban for a few nights, so we started walking towards it until the owner arrived to take us the rest of the way. Once there we had the use of her car, which was great as it was quite some distance from anything or anywhere else. Alec had decided that he would run the Rakiura Track around the island the next day, a 32 km track that people normally walked over the course of three days. It took him several hours but he made it, even running an additional 2 km after the end of the trail.
In the evening Alec, Nicki and I went out after dark looking for kiwis along the forest and tracks but didn’t manage to see any.
The next day we took a water taxi again across to another Island – Ulva Island, a nature sanctuary which was a fabulous, peaceful and interesting experience.
The place teemed with birdlife and we were able to get up quite close and personal with a few of the birds, which included Stewart Island Weka, Ka-ka, Saddlebacks, Fantails, Tui, Bellbirds, Tom Tits, NZ Pigeons, Parakeets, a Stewart Island Robin. Nicki and I left the others to get back for the water taxi for our return to Oban, and for a brief time it looked as though Lucy, Amy and Alec might miss the crossing, but they made it just as the super was about to go! They had carried on along a bit of the coastline when we left them, and came across a sealion who, it turned out, was not happy to see them and aggressively lunged at them as they tried to take photos!
We had decided to look for kiwi again this evening, and as we set off one was spotted in our back garden – that was amazing and we were just so lucky. All of us were creeping around the garden for over half an hour stalking this shy, nocturnal bird and we must have looked an odd sight with our red tinted torchlights and manic whispering.
On a real high the next day, we said goodbye to the Island and set off to the town to catch the ferry back to the mainland, where Amy and Lucy were leaving us to continue on their own for a week or so, borrowing Alec’s car for the duration. Alec, Nicki and I picked up our rental car and headed off to Timaru where we were staying with Alec for the night. That evening we met up with Alec’s friend, Bethan, and all ate together before she had to get off to work, and Alec then took us down to the harbour where we saw lots of cute ‘Little Blue Penguins’ along the water’s edge at sunset. That was our last evening with Alec in New Zealand, so we sadly had to say goodbye to him as he was working early the next day and we wouldn’t be up when he left.
Back to just Nicki and I, we returned to Christchurch to take a leisurely wander round some of the sites that we hadn’t managed in our previous quick visit with Amy, and found our blue ballerina, now hidden behind a large office block – the city had changed so much since our first visit in 2015 (and rightly so) but it was a shame that some things had been hidden or knocked down in the process of rebuilding from the 2011 earthquake. We also visited Earthquake City, an exhibition and explanation of the devastation that occurred in 2011 along with film of eyewitness accounts from people living in Christchurch at that time.
Worryingly when we needed to leave the city we couldn’t find the car and it took us over an hour to eventually work out where it was but luckily we didn’t get charged for overstaying our parking time.
From Christchurch we again made our way to Ohaka just outside of the town, to stay with Gaelle and family for a couple of nights, this time as the very first guests in their newly extended and redecorated home. The girls had made us a welcome card, set up our bedroom beautifully and showed us where everything was, and that evening we had a lovely barbeque by the pool.
City renovation. There were lots of interesting buildings throughout the city, some newly built after the earthquake, some still in the process of deconstruction and/or reconstruction. Odd as it seemed, it felt sad that some of the temporary accommodations had more disappeared – the Re:Start programme had re-purposed hundreds, if not thousands, of shipping containers as accommodation for businesses, churches, possibly even housing, and it had given the place a unique style and energy. Some of the old art installations had been in place with tragic meaning (the one that springs to mind particularly is all the white chairs and baby seats set in rows to signify every child and adult who died in the earthquake) and were now dismantled in the name of progress.
Scenes from Riverside Market – a large indoor local market with lots of small pop-up boutique stores, cafes, restaurants and bars, built as part of the regeneration of Christchurch after the earthquake.
Various artworks and graffiti art can be seen all around the city.
Samples of the Christchurch Botanical Gardens
The next day we were back in Christchurch, and made a second visit to Earthquake City to continue and complete this fascinating exhibition our tour, and then carried on exploring the city by a hop-on/hop-off tram which took us past lots of places that we felt we recognised.
Just a few of the working trams that can be seen around the city.
When we’d finally exhausted ourselves we found the car (easily this time) and returned to Gaelle’s place, where we were shown their three cows (for future meals!) and also treated to a bee-keeping experience when it was time to feed their bees. All exciting stuff. Plus I had a look round at Russell’s collection of vintage cars whilst Nicki had a look around their large vegetable garden.
After saying our goodbyes to the Sherwin family, we had just three more nights remaining in New Zealand after an epic month of travelling, sightseeing, meeting up with Alec, Amy and Lucy and seeing Gaelle and Russell, Seanne and Maeliss again, and enjoying everything New Zealand had to offer. Our first night was spent in a lovely little Airbnb tucked away on a hillside on the outskirts of Wellington, and this was followed the next night at another Airbnb in Kuratau, Waikato, with stunning views overlooking Taupo – our host on that occasion spent the evening chatting with us, and it turned out that he and his brother ran a Gin Distillery and produced award-winning gins, which Nicki was more than happy to sample.
Finally though it was our last full day in New Zealand, and we drove into Auckland to book into our airport hotel, after which I dropped off the rental car whilst Nicki sorted out our room and bags ready for early departure (7.30) with the shuttle bus in the morning. And that was that, UK here we come.
airport hotel
Auckland airport, drop off car 7.30 shuttle
